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THE CHURCH YEAR 
 
 A SERIES OF SERMONS 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 SACRED SEASONS 
 
 BY 
 
 VERY REV. JAS. CARMICHAEL, M.A., D.C.L., 
 
 DEAN OF MONTREAL. 
 
 MONTREAL 
 
 W. FOSTER BROWN & CO. 
 
 \ 
 
 1893 
 
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one 
 thousand eight hundred and ninety-three* by W. Foster Brown & Co., 
 at the Department of Agriculture. 
 
 PRINTED BY THE GAZETTE PRINTING CO., MONTREAL. 
 
yvaywi+jiL. iioicr/? 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 
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 37 . 
 
 Advent The Welcome Christ. 
 
 “ Christ the Victor. 
 
 “ Faith and Hope. 
 
 “ Antichrist. 
 
 “ Preparedness for Christ's Coming. 
 
 “ Obedience. 
 
 Sunday before Christ- 
 
 mas The Eternal Sacrament. 
 
 Christmas The Visible and Invisible World. 
 
 “ The Virgin Mother’s Musings. 
 
 “ The Child Christ. 
 
 Epiphany The Original Revelation. 
 
 “ Vengeance left with God. 
 
 “ Praise. 
 
 Lent The Great Temptation. 
 
 “ Present Retribution. 
 
 “ Future Retribution. 
 
 “ Sifting by Satan. 
 
 Good Friday The Great Substitute. 
 
 “ The Wide Nature of Divine Forgiveness. 
 
 “ Darkness Over the Whole Land. 
 
 Sunday be fore Easter. The Real Man. 
 
 Easter The Awakening Touch of Christ. 
 
 The Reality of the Resurrection. 
 
 The J oy of Resurrection. 
 
 The First Fruits of the Harvest. 
 
 The First Resurrection Thought of Christ 
 The Reality of Heaven. 
 
 The Blind Faith of Scepticism. 
 
 Whitsunday The Holy Ghost. 
 
 Trinity Sunday The Necessity of Mystery. 
 
 General Subjects . . . .The Family that Jesus Loved. 
 
 “ The Elder Brother. 
 
 “ — Jacob at Jabbok. 
 
 “ Ministerial Responsibility. 
 
 “ ... Agnosticism. 
 
 “ Church Re- Union. 
 
 Perfect Through Suffering. 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 “ His Name shall endure for ever; His Name shall be 
 continued as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed 
 in Him. All nations shall call Him blessed.” 
 
 — Psalm lxxii: 17. 
 
 In the onward progress of the great stream 
 of this world’s life, it is wonderful how it 
 carries with it, cleansed and purified, our 
 conceptions and thoughts as to those passed 
 out of our social life into the great unex- 
 plored world beyond. Time, moulded by 
 Christianity, is one of the most charitable 
 forces on the earth ; so much so, that a man 
 must have been wholly bad to have avoided 
 its regenerative benedictions — a Nero, or a 
 Caligula. 
 
 And this is true also of the lasting appre- 
 ciation that time exhibits towards the intel- 
 lectual power of past heroes. All the really 
 
6 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 great, the giants of past thought and science, 
 are greater to-day than they were in their 
 living prime. They have grown with the 
 growth of the world, their dross is flung 
 aside, and the fine gold that was part and 
 parcel of them has not only been retained, 
 but has been polished and burnished. Others 
 have followed in their track of thought — 
 have manufactured beautiful things out of 
 their old rough ideas ; but as the modern 
 disciple has been earning trophies for him- 
 self, he has brought to the front the old 
 hoary teacher, and the dead and dumb and 
 forgotten have shared the glories of the 
 living voice. Thus, on the whole, it may be 
 said that all that is great grows greater, all 
 that is true grows truer, all that is pure 
 grows purer, in any one great individual 
 teacher as time rolls on ; and the dead who 
 have done good — public good — are often 
 greater to-day than when they lived and 
 taught. 
 
 Examples of this are neither few nor far 
 between. In a great wave of commemora- 
 tive excitement that rolled over the world of 
 letters some years ago, commemorating the 
 
THE WELCOME CHRIST. 
 
 1 
 
 introduction of printing, men, you remem- 
 ber, did not glory in modern printing, but 
 the press teemed with laudations of Guten- 
 berg, Coster and Caxton. These shadows 
 unconsciously had grown with the growth 
 of the art of printing ; every improvement, 
 every new piece of mechanism, everything 
 that tended to elevate and develop that art, 
 grouped themselves around these old shadows 
 of the past, and when the commemorative 
 hour struck, the skilled mechanics of the pre- 
 sent day, the inventors of minute and elabor- 
 ate improvements, were positively now T here 
 — no one gave them a thought ; the Great 
 Dead filled the stage; the eyes of the audi- 
 ence were fixed on them, although it is 
 questionable whether, if it w T ere possible, 
 any printer of the day would employ any one 
 of the three great primitive men as a practi- 
 cal press hand. But they had grown with 
 the growth of the art that they had invented 
 or introduced. The roughness and coarse- 
 ness of their work and the imperfections of 
 their machines were forgotten. They stood 
 before the public with five centuries of pro- 
 gressive triumphs as a background, and they 
 
8 
 
 THE CHURCH TEAR. 
 
 were tenfold greater men in the nineteenth 
 century than when they struck out or 
 developed the magnificent idea of printing 
 by separate type in the fifteenth. 
 
 And so with the Luther commemoration 
 held some years ago. Time has taught 
 Protestantism to gather up and prize the fine 
 gold of the man and to forget what from an 
 Anglican, a Presbyterian, a Congregational 
 standpoint, is open to stricture at this 
 moment in his views, and to regard such 
 things as motes in a brilliant sunbeam. 
 Luther opened a sealed Bible and struck 
 the chains from enslaved personal judgment 
 of holy things, and he stands to-day with 
 three centuries of emancipated religious 
 thought behind him — a giant. He has 
 grown with the growth of his own work, 
 and must grow as it grows. 
 
 Now, exactly the same thought applies to 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, although in a far 
 grander and nobler sense. 
 
 In the first place, it would be impossible 
 that Christ could ever come again as first He 
 came. I mean He could never come as the 
 despised Christ. For Christ could not come 
 
THE WELCOME CHRIST. 
 
 9 
 
 again to you, to me, apart from the nineteen 
 centuries of experience that the world has 
 had of Christ, and those nineteen centuries 
 of experience would be added to my own in 
 the Christ that would come. If Luther came 
 again you could not think of him as the 
 “solitary monk”; you would be forced to 
 think of him as “the solitary monk that 
 shook the world,” and that shaking of the 
 world has taken the solitary aspect from the 
 monk, and has made him a perfectly new 
 character. The solitary monk nailed his 
 ninety-five theses on the gate of the Church 
 at Wittenberg ; but can you call him solitary 
 to-day, when you remember emperors and 
 the great of the earth assembled some years 
 ago to do honour to his name — that poets and 
 orators and preachers combined to laud and 
 praise his memory, and when that memory 
 could gather on religious platforms men of 
 antagonistic views, singing in harmony at 
 least his intellectual praises. 
 
 Well, so it is with the Lord Jesus. Never 
 again can we have the Jesus of Nazareth, of 
 Capernaum, of the deep blue lake, or the 
 
10 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 hill-side covered with scarlet flowers. All 
 that was real — it can never be so again. 
 
 In one sense this was the solitary Jesus; 
 but the Jesus of to-day is pre-eminently He 
 who has shaken the world, whose name is 
 above every name, whose laws and words 
 lie at the base of all civilized society, and 
 w r hose influence is ceaselessly fresh in its re- 
 vivifying and enlightening power. The 
 Jesus of to-day is a conqueror, with an army 
 at his back that counts its hosts by millions ; 
 an army drawn from every country, that 
 speaks every language, that is recruited from 
 all grades of civilization, and that numbers 
 in its ranks kings of the earth and the 
 lowliest of their servants. The Jesus of to- 
 day is a conqueror w T ho has survived battle- 
 fields on which his foes lie forgotten; who 
 has beaten rebels that He might pardon 
 them, and possessed countries solely that He 
 might bless them. The Jesus of to-day is 
 the hidden soul and spring of every work of 
 mercy and goodness and purity, that lifts 
 civilization above barbarism He stands 
 alone and matchless, with nineteen centuries 
 
THE WELCOME CHRIST. 
 
 11 
 
 of all that is good and true and god-like and 
 powerful behind him — “ Head of the Church 
 triumphant.” 
 
 Well, if He came again — what then ? Just 
 what the Bible tells you. Mark you, He 
 could not come as once He was; He must come 
 in power, if nothing more than the accumu- 
 lated power of the centuries behind him ; 
 and that coming again, I hold, would not 
 produce in a startled world a duplicate rejec- 
 tion of the past, but it vcould be hailed with 
 a shout of triumph by the holy and the pure, 
 and with fear and trembling by the ungodly 
 and unjust. 
 
 Some modern waiters, whose apparent 
 candour is alone excelled by their casuistry, 
 fling before the Christian Church the ques- 
 tion, “If Christ came again, the Son of Mary, 
 how would you receive Him ? What would 
 you do with Him? You would put Him out 
 of your synagogues and refuse to hear Him.” 
 The answer, of course, boldly takes for 
 granted what the writers apparently desire 
 should take place ; but I hold that all experi- 
 ence teaches that such an answer is outside 
 of all probability. 
 
12 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 I speak with all reverence when I say that 
 I earnestly believe that if the Lord Jesns 
 who lived for us and died for us, the Lord 
 Jesus who for nineteen centuries has been 
 fostering and developing all that is good and 
 holy and pure in man, He whose mere name 
 has made death-beds by the millions happy, 
 He whose promises have comforted broken 
 hearts beyond all count, and dried the cease- 
 less tears of an ever suffering world, and 
 lifted our hearts and hopes above ourselves, 
 out into the land of God — I say it with all 
 reverence, that if the Lord Jesus stood sud- 
 denly in our streets, in the unimpeachable 
 splendour of his divine nature, the whole 
 world would turn its eyes towards the New 
 Jerusalem of the West, and by millions they 
 would come — the noblest men, the purest 
 women, from the east and west and north 
 and south, to bend the knee and kiss the 
 hem of the garment and worship the King 
 in the beauty of holiness. Yes, for there 
 is a depth of religion and devotion in 
 the world beyond our 'realization. I believe 
 the Lord would be hailed with shouts of joy, 
 that strong men w 7 ho have prayed to Him in 
 
THE WELCOME CHRIST. 
 
 13 
 
 whispers would weep from the happiness of 
 merely looking at Him, and that one great 
 throb of devoted love, beginning with child- 
 hood and running up to old age, would 
 shake the moral world to its very centre. 
 Then would be seen what some men doubt 
 exists, the real spiritual force of personal 
 faith and trust — faith wide as the ocean, 
 deep as its depths ; and love— love that we 
 have never dreamed of in our wildest dreams. 
 
 But should we not have our Sadducees 
 doubting and asking questions — “ Art thou 
 the Christ ? Who art thou ? ” 
 
 It may be so, but be sure of this, it would 
 not be a day of lengthened, captious ques- 
 tionings. For one that would ask “ Art thou 
 Christ ? ” thousands would bend their heads 
 terror-stricken and ashamed and say, “It is 
 Christ!” Men would wake up to the fact 
 that He had come, that He had come in 
 power ; that the Christ whom nineteen cen- 
 turies had worshipped was a living reality ; 
 that He was not only living, but that He 
 was here. And hence, with some — with 
 some who through life had not only rejected 
 Him, but had mocked and scoffed at his 
 
14 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 being, had ridiculed his words, had jested 
 over his commandments, had used his name 
 purposely in awful blasphemies, had libelled 
 his life and denied his godliness — from such 
 the very words of Scripture itself might ring 
 forth, “ Rocks fall on us. Hills cover us. 
 For the great day of His wrath is come, and 
 who shall be able to stand V ” 
 
 Brethren, if Grod’s word be true, all this 
 will be. Christ will come again. Now He 
 is to us by faith a living Christ, though un- 
 seen. Some time He will be to us a living 
 Christ, seen through eye, heard by ear, and 
 touched, maybe, by hand. As once He lived 
 on earth, so will He live again. Not the 
 Christ of humiliation, but the Christ of glory, 
 of triumph, of victory. G-od alone knows 
 when He will come, but of this be sure, the 
 longer He delays his coming, the deeper, 
 nobler, grander will be the love of him in 
 the hearts of those who really and truly long 
 for his appearance. For time will do for 
 Jesus what it does for all the great, it will 
 make his loveliness more lovely to those 
 who value love, his purity more dazzling to 
 those who value purity, his truth more spot- 
 
THE WELCOME CHRIST. 
 
 15 
 
 less to those who value truth ; and though 
 the last days may be days of doubt and un- 
 belief, be assured of it, never will Christ be 
 more valued by those who really love Him 
 than in that day when the sun will rise to 
 welcome his approach, and the sign of the 
 Son of Man will be seen in the Heavens. 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 “ And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city 
 was stirred, saying, Who is this?” 
 
 — Matt, xxi : 10. 
 
 Outside of one of the gates of Jerusalem 
 there is an excited, joyous, ever increasing 
 crowd of pilgrims, shouting praises loud 
 and long to the Lord Jesus, who, seated 
 on an ass, is journeying on towards death 
 and judgment, yet for a few short moments 
 riding like a kiug in triumph. “ Master,'’ 
 said some Pharisees near to Jesus, “rebuke 
 thy disciples, order quietness, all this noise 
 and shouting are unseemly and offensive.” 
 “ Nay,” says Christ, “ I will not. A faint glim- 
 mer of the truth is forcing itself through the 
 dull brains of these people. I tell you that if 
 they held their peace the very stones would 
 cry out in shame to welcome me.” On he rides, 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 17 
 
 midst the shouting crowd ; a crowd ever grow- 
 ing denser and denser, till as it pours through 
 the city gate the cry goes up from street and 
 roofs and crowded windows : “ Who is this ? 
 Who is he? Where does he come from? 
 What does he come for ?” This, of course, 
 from the crowd inside the city — the jostling, 
 prying, inquisitive crowd, wanting to know 
 everything and ready to accept for the 
 moment as true anything, whilst He rides on, 
 the only calm being in the midst of all the 
 turmoil, on to certain betrayal and death. 
 About him, hemming him in, running before 
 him, pressing him from behind, the crowd, 
 now grown into a multitude, shouts in 
 wilder excitement than ever, “ Hosanna to 
 the Son of David : Hosanna in the high- 
 est : Blessed is He that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord,” whilst still the enquiry ever 
 growing rolls on, “ Who is he? What is he ? ” 
 and He rides on as if the streets were empty, 
 on to judgment and death, on to the cry to- 
 wards which his whole life had been mak- 
 ing, “ It is finished.” 
 
 The scene is but a picture of a living reality 
 that has been ever since those streets were 
 
18 
 
 CHRIST THE VICTOR. 
 
 crowded, and ever will be, on to the awful 
 end of present earthly things. There ever 
 has been, and ever will be, the noisy, tumult- 
 uous crowd crying “ Hosanna ” to-day, and 
 “ Crucify him ” to-morrow.” There ever has 
 been, and ever will be, the jostling, swaying, 
 inquisitive crowd, treading on each other, 
 thrusting out their crane-like necks and 
 straining their wondering eyes and shouting 
 or whispering the questions : “ Who is this? 
 What is he ? Where does he come from ? 
 What is he doing ? ” and there ever has been, 
 and ever will be, till the heavens are opened 
 and the armies of the living G-od pour forth, 
 the calm, undismayed, undaunted Jesus, ' 
 holding on his way, undeterred by tumult or 
 questionings, riding on, as if in the empti- 
 ness of space and silence of night, as if no 
 power opposed, as if his way were always 
 open — on, on to the final and irresistible vic- 
 tory when “ the kingdoms of this world shall 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and his 
 Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.” 
 The marvel of our Lord’s progression 
 through time as the risen Saviour is his 
 ignoring of obstacles : nothing has ever daunt- 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 19 
 
 ed him — He simply rides on. He has ever 
 been greater than the Church that He founded, 
 greater than the greatest movement within 
 that Church, greater than the greatest agents 
 He ever called into being, for each and all of 
 these at times have swayed to either side of 
 obstacles, or fallen fainting in their presence. 
 But nothing has dimmed or daunted Christ. 
 Through the long history of his Church, 
 through its fevers, and faintings and failures 
 He has remained the same ; the one point to- 
 wards which the Church in its dismember- 
 ment has ever rallied ; the uncaptured and 
 uncapturable standard of eternal rectitude 
 and purity ; the personal, living, risen Jesus, 
 the same “ yesterday, to-day and forever,” 
 the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
 ending of all Grod’s purposes for good toman 
 — on, on, He has ever ridden and rides to last- 
 ing and eternal victory, the unconquered and 
 unconquerable Christ. 
 
 Think of the obstacles that lay in his path. 
 
 First, the great human heart with some 
 good in it, no doubt, the last lingering rem- 
 nants of the divine image, but with a tide of 
 power, throbbing and beating in natural re- 
 
20 
 
 CHRIST THE VICTOR. 
 
 jection of every doctrine that the Lord Jesns 
 ever preached and taught. The lust of the 
 eye and the pride of life, the selfishness of 
 every born soul, the love of riches for one’s 
 own pleasure, the love of ambition for one’s 
 own glory, the tendency to use life for one’s 
 own individual enjoyment, the hatred of re- 
 sponsible thought as to what shall be here- 
 after, and above all the gaining of our own 
 ends at any cost, however dreadful, — every 
 one of these feelings natural to man in some 
 shape or form, rallied against Christ and bar- 
 red and blocked his way and cried “ Halt !” 
 with pointed spear to check his progress ; but 
 on He rode, rides and will ride till the great 
 human heart, chastened for its sin, confesses 
 him as Lord. 
 
 Think again of the opposition from fickle- 
 ness and falseness. The crowd shouting 
 “ Hosanna ” to-day, and “Crucify him,” to- 
 morrow, has never wholly dispersed through 
 the long ages. Again and again has the Lord 
 been wounded afresh in the house of his own 
 friends, crucified afresh by “ Hosanna”-shout- 
 ers, betrayed by generations of J udases, denied 
 by generations of Peters, and deserted by 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 21 
 
 generations of disciples. Again and again 
 have the world, the flesh and the devil, invaded 
 the holy of holies, and captured young life 
 and old as it knelt at the very foot of the 
 cross itself, and again and again has the Lord 
 been sold for far less and far baser coin than 
 thirty pieces of silver, and still He rides on and 
 will ride on conquering and to conquer till 
 the end comes. 
 
 Think of the opposition from mockers and 
 blasphemers, from unwilling and willing 
 doubters, from half-hearted followers who 
 shrink into their shell at every blow aimed 
 at their Lord’s position as prophet, priest and 
 king ; the vast crowd, through all the ages, of 
 doubters, sceptics, cowards or foes, who never 
 cease to ask in blasphemy, mockery or honest 
 doubt: “ Who is this ? Why should we be 
 called upon to give him our allegiance ? ” 
 Again and again the Church has reeled under 
 such questionings ; again and again every 
 claim to divinity our Lord has made has been 
 criticized and sifted, tossed here and there, 
 with wildest freedom in the fervor of pole- 
 mical debate ; his miracles denied or watered 
 down into nothing, his wisdom as a teacher 
 
22 
 
 CHRIST THE VICTOR. 
 
 attacked, the awful value of his death, and 
 cross and passion brought down to mere 
 example or w T holly denied, and his resurrec- 
 tion from the dead spoken of as a dream of 
 hysterical enthusiasm ; and yet, on He rides 
 calm, undaunted, irresistible, through the 
 power of his own divinity and the righteous- 
 ness of his own cause ; on He rides with face 
 turned towards that supreme moment yet to 
 come when “the mystery of G-od will be 
 finished.” 
 
 To me the history of Christ himself, and 
 Christ in his Church, so far from weakening 
 my faith, strengthens it as every fresh page 
 is turned. There is not a stronghold of Christ 
 faith, and Christ life in the world that has 
 not been won in the face of the most tremen- 
 dous opposition, if nothing else ; the opposi- 
 tion of the unbaptized, unregenerated heart 
 of human nature everywhere. I bend before 
 this divine force, which, facing an antagonistic 
 world, slowly it may be, but surely, captures 
 its enemies, host by host, and builds up its 
 power from the ranks of its foes. I tremble 
 not with others at the breaking down in the 
 present day of the ancient barriers erected 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 23 
 
 against ungodliness, and the outrush of 
 waters of strife and unbelief and doubt ; for 
 I know that all this is an old story worn 
 threadbare in the telling ; a phase of opposi- 
 tion that in varied shape has occurred again 
 and again, and will occur on to the very end. 
 But this I also know, that no antagonism, 
 however fierce or fatal, can crush out Christ. 
 The fire of man’s hatred cannot burn him, 
 the waters of man’s strife cannot drown him, 
 the sword of man’s wrath cannot pierce him, 
 the bitterness of man’s tongue cannot injure 
 him, the wild vagaries of man’s brain cannot 
 weaken him, simply because He is the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God, the incarnate 
 Deity, the Creator and Maker who was, and is, 
 and is to come, the Almighty. Against him 
 from the very foundation of his Church the 
 ocean of evil in savage tides has flung its 
 angry and corrosive waters ; but not one 
 hair’s breadth of the wave-beaten rock has 
 fallen into the depths beneath, because “ that 
 rock is Christ,” the great, immovable divine 
 rock, that casts its shadow over weary lands. 
 On, on, He rides through crowds and question- 
 ings, millenniums fall behind him, old foes 
 
24 
 
 CHRIST THE VICTOR. 
 
 with new faces spring up to stay him ; Satan 
 himself will rise to check him at the last, but 
 on He rides, till the only conqueror is Jesus 
 who lived and died and rose, and is come again 
 to claim his own and reign for ever and ever. 
 In this high hope let. Advent dawn on us. 
 Conscious of our own sins and weaknesses, 
 let us strike the note of victory not through 
 ourselves, but through the Yictor, who never 
 yet has been vanquished. “ He that is for 
 us is greater than all against us.” "We can 
 never wholly be conquered if we keep close 
 to Him ; for although all around him is noise 
 of battle and shock of conflict, behind him is 
 victory, and before him is victory, and they 
 who fight with him and for him will not be 
 forgotten when the spoil is divided. 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were 
 written for our learning, that we through patience and 
 comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. 
 
 Romans, xv : 4. 
 
 The Holy Scriptures are the sole and only 
 revelation we possess, which tells us of the 
 being, the person, the life, the mission of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from Scripture, 
 the direct written evidence for his existence 
 is very slight, and there is no direct evidence 
 as to his acts and sayings. Hence the 
 supreme value of the Holy Scriptures, and 
 the necessity for a Christian knowledge of 
 what they teach. If, as we believe, all 
 salvation is centred in and goes forth from 
 Jesus Christ, and the Holy Scriptures 
 are the only documents that testify of him, 
 then, just in proportion as we value the gift 
 
26 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 of salvation, so will we value the documents 
 that testify of that gift. 
 
 Now, out of the many objections raised 
 against the Scriptures in past and present 
 times, there is none more unjust than that 
 which asserts that they are palpably defi- 
 cient in those forms of instruction which 
 would naturally beget, in the human mind, 
 positive and undoubted certainty. If there 
 be a hell, it is said, why should room be left 
 for the creation of a doubt in connection with 
 it ? If there be a heaven, why has it not been 
 described in such a way as to prevent men 
 rejecting or theorizing about it ? If there be 
 one divine Church — God’s ordained machin- 
 ery for carrying out his will, why were rules 
 not laid down for the life of that Church 
 which would write blasphemy on every 
 act of schism ; and make disloyalty to it un- 
 mistakably criminal ? Then why was not 
 the origin of evil clearly explained ? Why 
 was not the account of creation written in 
 such a way that no loop-hole could exist for 
 scientific or other objections ? Why was 
 not this done, and that done, in just the 
 w r ay that we would have done it, if affairs had 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 27 
 
 originally lain in our hands ? This style 
 of objection, I say, is manifestly unjust 
 because it ignores the whole underlying 
 object of the Holy Scriptures as a series of 
 closely connected volumes, namely, the culti- 
 vation in man of a vigorous faith in God, and 
 of a lasting hope that reaches into eternity, 
 springing out of this faith. Man is naturally 
 a being formed to believe something, but he 
 is also naturally a desponding being, a 
 strange mixture of faith and doubt ; and 
 Scripture is meant by God to be the great 
 human tonic, building up faith and hope, 
 and through these the whole man himself. 
 Let weak man take the tonic and it will 
 develop a faith and hope that will make him 
 strong and healthy. 
 
 And yet this fundamental object of Scrip- 
 ture is constantly ignored, for out of all my 
 reading I have never yet come across a 
 volume written by any man of note, or in- 
 deed by any one, that assailed the principle 
 of drawing out the faith and hope of man in 
 connection with religion, and yet this is 
 the one and only principle that runs through 
 and permeates every page of Scripture. 
 
28 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 “ The seed of the woman shall bruise the 
 serpent’s head.” What did that draw out? 
 Faith and hope. “ Make thee an ark of 
 “ gopher wood, and I will make a covenant 
 “ with thee, and thou and thy family shall be 
 “ saved.” What did that draw out ? Faith 
 and hope. “ And the Lord said unto 
 Abraham, G-et thee out of thy country, and I 
 will make of thee a great nation.” What did 
 that draw out ? Faith and hope. As Israel 
 entered into the waters of the Red Sea, 
 nothing but faith and hope gave them courage 
 to march through. As they willingly obeyed 
 the ceremonial law of Moses, faith and hope 
 alone made that law of value. As in after 
 days they bent in obedience under the ring- 
 ing eloquence of prophets, or as captives, 
 looked forward to re-settlement in their land, 
 faith and hope again asserted their powers. 
 As the Virgin Mother received her doom-like 
 message, as the wise men came travelling 
 over desert sands, as the aged Simeon blessed 
 the Child, as the holy Master called his 
 disciples to him ; as his bitter cry went up 
 from the cross, and above all, as He gave to 
 his regathered friends the great commission, 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 29 
 
 “ Gro ye forth into all the world and preach 
 the Gospel to every creature, and lo, I am 
 with you always to the end of the world,” 
 what were the powers that gave life to these 
 things ? Surely faith and hope, and nothing 
 else. I look in vain for certainty in any one of 
 them, save Christ. What certainty had Adam, 
 Noah, Abraham or Israel? What certainty 
 had the Virgin Mary that shame would not 
 follow her unique and miraculous mother- 
 hood ? What certainty had the disciples as 
 they scattered themselves over the then 
 known world to win it for Christ? None ; 
 but all had lasting and abiding faith in G-od 
 and hope in G-od ; faith that, no matter what 
 obstacle presented itself, Grod’s purpose would 
 finally prevail, and hope that it would pre- 
 vail gloriously, brilliantly, in a Grod-like 
 manner. Abraham, what madness causes 
 you to leave your gods and land ? What 
 are your reasons ? I have no reasons : “ Grod 
 tells me to go (faith wonderful !) and I can 
 feel that the destiny that awaits me beyond 
 will prove in every way a blessing ” (hope, 
 marvellous hope but not one thread, 
 humanly speaking, of actual positive cer- 
 
30 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 tainty !) Blind faith, with hope as a light to 
 lighten the darkness ; for if faith is the lamp, 
 hope is the flame. 
 
 Now, no reader of the Holy Scriptures can 
 deny that these principles form the founda- 
 tion teaching of each divine volume. There 
 must have been a divine object in this : what 
 was that object ? Surely to teach mankind 
 the doctrine, that Hod rules ; that his will is 
 supreme, that no voice is higher than his, 
 and that, as the creatures of his creation, our 
 duty is simply to know his will and obey it, 
 leaving it to Him as “ G-od over all, blessed 
 forever,” to bring about his will in his own 
 way, in his own time, and as ever to Him 
 seems best. And hence, God has always 
 trained man to this passive obedience, never 
 wholly explaining anything, never arguing, 
 never laying the whole plan of his dealings 
 in strict detail before us, but saying, “ This I 
 “ tell you is a truth ; accept that truth ; follow 
 “ it wherever it leads you, into temporary 
 “ darkness, into sorrow, into earthly or mental 
 “ difficulty ; never mind, follow it on. Have 
 “ faith, for I am your Glod ; have hope, for all 
 “ will be brightness yet, to them that trust 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 31 
 
 me.” Hence, Abraham asks no title deeds of 
 Canaan from God ; he trusts Him, and if he 
 had asked them, never would Israel have 
 been God’s chosen people. 
 
 Now, why is not this principle pursued by 
 God towards man assailed ? The Book that 
 works out the principle is assailed : the 
 principle is either ignored or forgotten in the 
 battle of words? I will tell you. No man 
 dare assail it, for the principle is rooted in the 
 soil of justice and judgment. It is the most 
 correct and workable principle known to 
 man. Where are the heads of families that 
 would train their children without faith in 
 themselves, as heads and rulers and guides of 
 youth ? And where are the fathers and 
 mothers that would tear hope out of their 
 own hearts with regard to their own children? 
 Faith and hope work with you, work in your 
 own houses. You cannot have certainty, 
 you live by faith and are thankful for hope. 
 Hence if faith and hope support your home, 
 why may not faith and hope support your 
 religion ? I dread the consequences for the 
 man, who by word or example would warn 
 his children against faith and hope, and 
 
32 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 teach them only to trust in certainty. Cer- 
 tainty ! Take your own temper in presence of 
 your children, uncertain-tempered man — 
 man of gladsome eyes and laughing mouth 
 to-day, and raging passion to-morrow ! The 
 principles you instil into your children teach 
 them not to believe in you, not to trust you, 
 and worse still, never to hope that they can 
 believe in you. No, you can never assail 
 faith and hope within your own homes and 
 yet have them happy. 
 
 But why does not science assail the prin- 
 ciple of G-od’s method of teaching man ? 
 Well, first, because it is outside of its field ; 
 and secondly, it could not do so consistently, 
 for as science in every direction works out 
 its discoveries, it does so solely on the 
 lines of faith and hope. Mr Darwin, for in- 
 stance, gathered a mass of facts together, and 
 then said, “ What shall I do with them ?” 
 His common sense said, “ Group them to- 
 gether in the shape of a reasonable hypo- 
 thesis.” What is an hypothesis ? Some line 
 of argument, in which a person has faith and 
 which, he hopes, will ultimately be proved 
 true. Mr. Darwin lived long enough to feel 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 33 
 
 that his hypothesis did not work exactly 
 right, and his friend and successor, Mr. 
 Wallace, feels the same ; for someway the 
 scum of society, world over, is working its 
 way to the top. But Darwin died in the faith 
 and hope that natural selection would yet 
 right itself; and Mr. Wallace thinks that if 
 society could only be persuaded to adopt the 
 principles of socialism, laid down by Mr. 
 Bellamy in his strange book entitled “ Look- 
 ing Backward,” it could help a law 
 of nature to do its work better than nature 
 itself — an exercise of faith and hope equal to 
 St. Paul’s. No, science cannot assail faith 
 and hope, for both are doors into whatever 
 scientific certainty positively exists. 
 
 Hence with St. Paul, we may fall back on 
 the Holy Scriptures of the living G-od, and 
 feel that what they demand from us is 
 nothing strange. “ For whatsoever things 
 were written afore-time were written for 
 our learning that we, through patience 
 (which is faith tested and tried) and through 
 comfort of the Holy Scriptures, might have 
 hope” — not doubt, nor misgivings, nor 
 debatings — but strong and vigorous hope ; 
 
34 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 hope, that all the sorrows and contrarieties 
 and mysteries of life would in time right 
 themselves ; and that Giod’s hidden plan 
 in all its magnificence of detail, would 
 lie out clear before our minds, and that 
 in everything Glod would finally be 
 justified ; hope, that in the day so dimly 
 revealed ; when He who came to die for the 
 world, shall come again to claim his own, 
 we shall see him as he is, and “ be forever 
 with the Lord ; ” hope, that even before that 
 day , when we draw near death, our closing 
 words below may be, EA^en so Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly. 
 
ADVENT, 
 
 He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 
 
 1 John, ii : 22. 
 
 In connection with the second coming of 
 our Lord, a character is introduced into Holy 
 Scripture called Antichrist, implying an 
 opponent of Christ. The actual name is only 
 used by St. John, and is only used by him 
 from a doctrinal standpoint. “ He is Anti- 
 christ,’' writes John, “ that denieth the Father 
 and the Son, and who also denies that Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God came in the flesh.” 
 
 The same character, however, is plainly 
 pictured by such Old Testament prophets as 
 Ezekiel and Daniel, and is drawn in vivid 
 colours by St. Paul, who pictures him as “ one 
 whose coming is after the working of Satan;” 
 he calls him “the wicked one,” who shall 
 put himself “ in the place of God,” and as 
 
36 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 such seek to crush Christianity to the earth. 
 
 Associated with this being, and as the 
 result of his wide-spread power, Scripture 
 represents a time of terrible persecution, 
 misery and woe, a culmination of all miseries 
 that the world has ever suffered from, war, 
 famine, pestilence, outrageous cruelty, and 
 the most audacious reign of blasphemy that 
 this world has ever witnessed St. John, in 
 the Book of the Revelation, describes this 
 being as making war with the saints, as 
 murdering all who would not acknowledge 
 him. He pictures the city or seat of his 
 power as being drunken with the blood of 
 the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of 
 Jesus, as the vile, abominable city of the 
 latter days, whose sins and iniquities heaped 
 together seem to reach to Heaven — the cruel, 
 hateful reservoir of concentrated wickedness, 
 into which was poured the blood of prophets, 
 and of the saints, and of all that were slain 
 upon the earth. And this season of world- 
 wide misery — this time of antichristian 
 power is also pictured by our Lord himself 
 as the “ great tribulation,” the like of which 
 w r as not from the beginning of the world nor 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 37 
 
 ever shall be ; when the people of Christ 
 shall be hated for the sake of Christ ; when 
 iniquity shall abound, when brother shall 
 betray brother unto death, when licentious- 
 ness and luxury shall rule in homes, when 
 even amongst Christians dulness, deadness, 
 sleepiness shall reign, and the general tend- 
 ency of religious life shall be so lax and 
 loose that even Christ prospectively asked, 
 “When the Son of Man cometh shall He find 
 faith on the earth ? ” 
 
 Such an awful pictured panorama of dark- 
 ness and desolation, of blasphemy and moral 
 and spiritual bankruptcy, all culminating 
 either in one being, or in a system, or in the 
 spirit of the age — it matters not which, so 
 long as it is there — seems to be the utter 
 annihilation of all that Christ has ever 
 accomplished through his death, and cross, 
 and passion, and blessed intercession. Where 
 is Christ ? one may ask. Is Christ dead, or 
 if living and conscious of these horrors, why 
 does He so strain the faith of the saints that 
 have kept the commandments of Grod and 
 the faith of Jesus ? Why is He so careless 
 of his Church’s sorrows that the very saints 
 
38 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 in Paradise might well cry out, as the 
 martyred dead pour in in crowds from earth 
 below to join them, “ How long, 0 Lord, 
 holy and true, dost Thou not judge and 
 avenge our blood on them that dwell on the 
 earth ?” or that the living themselves, doomed 
 to the awful choice of denying Christ or 
 losing life, should not appeal to Him almost 
 in words of rebuke, “ For Thy sake we are 
 killed all the day long. We are counted as 
 sheep for the slaughter. Awake, awake, put 
 on Thy strength, 0 arm of the Lord ; awake, 
 why sleepest Thou ? 0, Lord, cast us not off 
 
 forever.” It is the patient waiting — the 
 strained waiting of the saints that has given 
 us such cries as these ; and as one thinks of 
 the darkness and desolation yet to come, one 
 sees easily how such cries, born of aching 
 hearts and not of audacity, might ring up 
 from earth to Heaven and storm the very 
 throne of Gfod. 
 
 There w T as a moment in the long ages of 
 progressive creation wdien Gfod said, “ Let 
 there be light, and there was light,” — the 
 moment of his will ; before it all was dark- 
 ness ; after it, in the very next moment, light 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 39 
 
 was everywhere. Again, there was a 
 moment when a young mother in Bethlehem 
 held out her weak hands to hold her new- 
 born Infant. The motherhood of the world 
 had borne children and hugged them to its 
 breast since Eve first looked on Cain ; but 
 out of the millions of mothers this was the 
 Mother who was fore-ordained by God from 
 all eternity to look upon that very Child, at 
 that very moment, and in that very place. 
 God has his moments for doing things ; “hath 
 He not said and shall he not do it ? hath 
 He not spoken and shall He not make it 
 good ? ” 
 
 And here in this scene of culminating 
 misery God has his great moment to strike 
 in with terrible and irresistible effect, and in 
 doing so to let loose on the giant power of 
 evil, which like a wild beast harries and 
 worries and tears the Church of God, a far 
 greater power than evil in its most triumph- 
 ant days has ever realized. Whether St. John 
 meant his Apocalyptic pictures to be accepted 
 as literal facts, or to be taken figuratively, 
 matters but little, as long as we realize that 
 there will be a moment of God, when the 
 
40 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 power of all Heaven will pour forth to the 
 rescue of God’s saints ; when, like the bursting- 
 forth of stored-up oceans, the barriers of 
 divine forbearance will be overleaped, and 
 this whole earth will be flooded with a 
 vindication of the honour, the devotion, the 
 power of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As 
 sure as ever Antichrist is coming, so surely 
 Jesus Christ is coming, and in the coming of 
 
 Jesus Christ is total, overwhelming and 
 
 - 
 
 eternal victory. 
 
 Every prophet that has written on this 
 moment of God has caught the fire of the 
 same inspired idea. The Heavens are opened 
 and the armies of the living G-od pour forth, 
 army on army, host on host, following in 
 brilliant myriads the lead of Him who, seated 
 on the white horse, goes forth to battle, con- 
 quering and to conquer. And when we ask 
 the name of Him who leads, clothed in a 
 vesture dipped in blood, the answer rolls 
 back, “ He is the Word of God. He is the 
 King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” Then 
 comes, not warfare, but overwhelming, 
 irresistible destruction. Antichrist is de- 
 stroyed ; the great seat of his earthly power 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 41 
 
 — the city which reigned over the kings of 
 the earth — meets its judgment in one hour; 
 the battle of the great day of G-od Almighty 
 bursts like a thunder-clap on the great 
 earth powers of allied evil, and their king- 
 dom and dominion and the greatness of 
 their power under the whole heaven are 
 consumed and destroyed, whilst the armies 
 of the living God follow Him whose look 
 is judgment, whose progress is one con- 
 tinuous victory, and whose voice rolls forth 
 the death doom of every foe as He tells 
 the world that ‘ the day of vengeance is 
 in My heart, and the year of My redeemed 
 has come.” No longer need the Church cry 
 out, “ Awake, aw^ake, 0 arm of the Lord,” for 
 the Lord is everywhere — the one only power 
 before whom all men bow, and who once, 
 and only once, in the whole ministry of his 
 incarnate being, treads the wine-press of the 
 fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God. 
 
 Now, as I said, it matters little whether 
 these descriptive scenes are figurative, or 
 literal and realistic. If figurative, Scripture 
 means them to be figurative of facts, facts that 
 will form part of the history of this world. 
 
42 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 It may be that Antichrist is the full force of 
 concentrated evil bursting out into open 
 flower; that these armies and hosts and this 
 giant city are but figures of the tremendous 
 power of united evil in the latter days — 
 but what matters, so long as the great 
 fact remains that denial of G-od, and hatred 
 of Christ, and crowned sin, and the sword 
 dipped with the blood of the saints of Grod, 
 will mark the dreadful hours of darkness 
 that precede the dawn of the judgment of 
 Antichrist ? Again, it may be that our eyes 
 may not see the armies of Heaven pouring 
 forth in their brilliant millions, or Him who 
 leads them — what matters it, so long as the 
 great scriptural fact remains, that the power 
 of the living and glorified Jesus will beat 
 down Satan under his feet, will strike the 
 
 I 
 
 chains of sin from captive prisoners, will 
 flood this purified and regenerated world 
 with light and brightness, will cripple death 
 and wipe away tears and bind up broken 
 hearts ; will glorify goodness, and honour 
 honesty, and crown the consciousness of 
 right, and fill this world with the knowledge 
 of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 43 
 
 For this coming of Christ, mark you, is 
 not the coming which calls to final judg- 
 ment and the great white throne, but Christ 
 coming to claim the world he purchased with 
 his own blood, to inaugurate the time when 
 Christ the king will rule in righteousness, 
 and the keynote of his rule shall be “ Comfort 
 ye, comfort ye my people saith your God. 
 Your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity 
 is pardoned.” 
 
 There is something grand and God-like 
 here. This earth that God pronounced “ very 
 good” will not be left to Satan to wreck and 
 ruin. Our manhood made “ in God’s own 
 image” will not forever be defiled. This 
 earth will yet be Christ’s before the judg- 
 ment, and the great white throne. I love to 
 think of it, and I thank God for the reality of 
 the thought. This world is a glorious world 
 as God made it, and to have it brought back 
 to what he meant it to be, is one of the hap- 
 piest thoughts in scripture. I love to think 
 that the great evening of its life will be one 
 of placid undist urbed beauty, of freedom from 
 the awful evils that now rend and tear it and 
 make it wretched and miserable, of joy and 
 
44 
 
 ANTICHRIST. 
 
 gladness. As one’s heart grows sick and 
 heavy and the lamps of faith grow dim, I 
 love to fall back in thought on words like 
 these, and to conjure up before me the calm, 
 restful picture that such words call into 
 being. “ My people shall dwell in peaceable 
 habitations, and in sure dwellings, and in 
 quiet resting places. And the work of 
 righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of 
 righteousness quietness and assurance for 
 ever.” 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 But of that day and hour knoweth no one. Watch 
 therefore for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. 
 
 Matt., xxiv : 36. 
 
 This command is not only to be regarded as 
 a great world- wide one. We miss its power 
 wholly if we do not realize its personal char- 
 acter. We are to be ready trusting in Jesus, 
 doing our duty, found at our posts, waiting 
 dutifully, watching dutifully. We may be 
 ready, sleeping peacefully, for the wise vir- 
 gins were ready although they slept. There 
 is no divine law against watching and resting 
 so long as “ our lights are burning.” But I am 
 to be ready, you are to be ready, for at such an 
 hour as I think not, at such an hour as you 
 think not, the Son of Man may come to you, 
 the Son of Man may come to me. Now how 
 is this ? How can Christ come to the individ- 
 
46 
 
 Christ’s coming. 
 
 ual apart from coming in open judgment 
 of the world ? The answer to this question 
 is to be found in the great words of comfort 
 recorded in the 14th chapter of St. John’s 
 G-ospel, where our Saviour says, “If I go to my 
 Father, I will come again, and receive you 
 unto myself, that where I am, there ye may 
 be also.” This coming, this taking of Peter 
 to himself, and John to himself, and Mat- 
 thew to himself — what did it mean ? It meant 
 that the death of Peter was the coming of 
 Christ to Peter; it meant that when the 
 brutal mob stoned Stephen to death, and the 
 martyr, looking through a mist of blood, saw 
 Jesus standing at G-od’s right hand, that 
 sight, seen through a rift in the closing 
 death pang — that sight was the coming of 
 Christ to Stephen. 
 
 And your death will be the coming of Christ 
 to you; my death the coming of Christ to me, 
 if only we are faithful and dutiful. Yet even 
 here, as in judgment, there is still G-od’s 
 great secret ; for who can tell the day and 
 hour of his death ? 
 
 Now look at this practically and physic- 
 ally. 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 47 
 
 It is a physical fact that we all must die. 
 Fortunately, providentially in one sense, we 
 are not always thinking of this startling fact. 
 Life rushing on through us like a river, carries 
 us with it beyond the thought, and life with 
 its systematic duties keeps it from monopoliz- 
 ing the fore-ground of our anxieties ; but the 
 fact remains nevertheless, and a time will 
 come when not one being in this congregation 
 will be alive. We shall be wiped out of life as 
 if we never existed — one by one, we shall drop 
 off, old, middle-aged, young, until at last, all 
 will be gone, not one solitary representative 
 will remain. “ A truism,” you say ; yes, but 
 sometimes these “truisms” are terrible things, 
 as this one certainly is. Not one will at last 
 be left. The river dries up for all, the clock 
 stops its beat and there is no key to wind it ; 
 Death rides over us rough-shod, and there 
 is no pity in the rider — he is inexorable, 
 remorseless. 
 
 Look at another physical fact. Although 
 we all must die, death seems to strike under 
 a general law of death. Thus death in well 
 regulated communities is in one sense so 
 regular that it is possible to ascertain with 
 
48 
 
 CHRIST’S COMING. 
 
 reasonable accuracy how many of a multitude 
 of persons of a particular age, will die within 
 next year, how many in the second year, 
 how many in the third and so on. Thus 
 death, rampant amongst infants, declines in 
 power -when faced by boyhood and girlhood, 
 re-asserts its power steadily through mature 
 manhood and when the border line of fifty- 
 five is passed, then the old malignity that 
 decimated infant life revives again ; and the 
 rider on the pale horse rides on in triumph. 
 Thus there seems to be a law of dying for the 
 multitude, as well as a law of living for the 
 multitude. 
 
 But, mark you, there may be the outlining 
 of the great law, the assertion of a great 
 general principle ; yet when we endeavour 
 to reduce the principle to individuals, then 
 there looms up the truth of the divine asser- 
 tion that ‘ of that day and that hour knoweth 
 no man.” Why men are living to-day, strong, 
 healthy and vigorous, that were given up by 
 almost a faculty, while others have died, that 
 have been promised life, and others with 
 signs of rudest health written all over them, 
 have passed away; at the bright fire side 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR 
 
 49 
 
 with the family all about them, or lying down 
 to sleep at night, have slept on, until the 
 morning that knows no ordinary waking, — 
 and this may be your lot or mine — G-od alone 
 knows. Averages and laws of mortality are 
 all useful in their way, but for the individual 
 there is no resting place on them for sole of 
 foot. Of my hour, and of yours knoweth no 
 man. 
 
 Now midst this awful uncertainty in which 
 we live and move, have we no message of 
 comfort or promise of blessing ? The world 
 has no message. It practically says, “ I can 
 do nothing for you in the premises. When 
 death comes I will follow you; I will send 
 my wreath to rest on your coffin’s lid ; I will 
 observe the proprieties.” 
 
 Science and earthly skill of grandest pro- 
 fession can do nothing for you. “We try 
 “ to prevent the presence of death, ” it says, 
 “ but once it enters we cannot eject it ; when 
 “ it appears our work is done.” 
 
 Then wealth and position and earthly 
 influence have no message. All you ever 
 were, all you ever made, withers for you, as 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 Christ’s coming. 
 
 if struck by lightning, when you give or feel 
 the last sad words, “ It is finished.” 
 
 Even earthly love has no message for you 
 beyond the assurances that may ring about 
 your fast deafening ears “that you will live in 
 the memory of the survivors — survivors ! how 
 long are they going to survive ? 0 God help 
 us ! Is there no message ? Yes, the message 
 of Christ. At that very moment when all 
 seems lost, and wisdom and wealth, and even 
 earthly love can do nothing to keep us, he 
 speaks, and his words are these : “1 have 
 come again to receive you unto myself, that 
 where I am, ye may be also.” 
 
 Now, my friends, if this, this presence of ' 
 Christ in death to lighten our darkness, to 
 lead us, with the blindness of death on us, 
 through the Dark Yalley — if this be true, — if 
 it be a fact that at such a moment He can 
 comfort us, and make us happy, and prepare 
 us for the new state into which death ushers 
 us, — if all this be true, is it any wonder that 
 the preacher should ring on, whilst preach- 
 ing power lasts, “Believe in Christ, depend 
 on Christ, love Christ.” 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 51 
 
 For this message of love, mind you, is for 
 the disciple. I do not say that the Divine 
 Saviour may not flash suddenly into the 
 darkness of the sudden death of the godless 
 unbeliever, and that He may not have a 
 message even for him. But here we have 
 the actual message for the disciple : “ I have 
 come again to take you unto myself. If death 
 is not sudden, if we know that it is coming, 
 if we are watching for it, we can feed on this 
 promise like food to strengthen us and say, 
 “ If death is coming, thank G-od, He also is 
 coming, to take me to himself.” Men and 
 women have died, as disciples who have had 
 the darkness of physical death driven out 
 clear before them by the glory of the heavenly 
 vision. Their prayer became an address to 
 the Saviour whom surely they saw, though 
 we about the bed could see nothing. Like 
 Stephen, they seemed to say, “ I see him, I see 
 him,” and then, like Stephen, they fell asleep 
 to awake with Christ in Paradise. 
 
 But this is the blessing of discipleship ; 
 which discipleship is ours — is yours to-day, 
 and mine, — when we trust in Christ for 
 everything, and through evil report and good, 
 
52 
 
 Christ’s coming. 
 
 through darkness and sunshine, push on, and 
 do our duty. Trust him for everything. Have 
 Him behind everything of your life, as the 
 pure white screen on which your poor 
 blurred but well meant actions fall in sha- 
 dow, and all will be well for time and for 
 eternity. 
 
 "Well, for time ; you will be the better man, 
 the better woman, for having Christ with 
 you in your daily life. And well for eternity, 
 when the deafness of death steals over you, 
 and the new-found hearing of heavenly things 
 bursts on you in the words “ I have come 
 again to take you to myself.” 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the 
 teaching. 
 
 John vii : 17. 
 
 First, I would have you to notice that these 
 words are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 himself regarding the way in which we may 
 gain a personal knowledge of the teaching of 
 God ; get comfort, and strength, and power 
 out of it, for our own religious good, and the 
 growth of our Christian life. 
 
 “ If any man,” says Christ, “ willeth to do 
 God’s will,” makes up his mind to do it, just 
 as he makes up his mind to do anything else, 
 he shall find out practically and personally 
 whether the teaching under which he is 
 acting is of God or of man. If he wishes to 
 know whether the Bible is a revelation from 
 God, and is essentially an inspired book, let 
 
54 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 him submit himself, his will, his intelligence, 
 his daily life, habits, mode of doing business, 
 to the Bible ; put himself in harmony with 
 God, as God is revealed in the Bible, and in 
 due time he will learn irresistibly that the 
 Bible is an inspired revelation from God. 
 
 What I mean by the expression “getting into 
 harmony” with God is this : Take the case of a 
 student beginning what to him is a perfectly 
 new study. He gets about him his books and 
 instruments, and as he looks at the instru- 
 ments and runs his eyes over the books, 
 seeing words he never saw before, and plates 
 and pictures to him at first sight wholly 
 incomprehensible, he realizes to the full that 
 he has not the faintest idea of the study he is 
 about to strive and master. But starting on 
 this knowledge of his own ignorance, and 
 submitting himself wholly to his teachers, 
 and accepting wholesale their teaching, 
 before long he discovers that he is actually 
 groping out of his ignorance, and that what 
 at first appeared to him an almost hopeless 
 puzzle is fast becoming, not only full of 
 interest, but it is moulding and fashioning to 
 a large extent his daily life, so that his study 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 55 
 
 absorbs his whole mental force and power, 
 and that, pleasurably, for he is now in full 
 mental harmony with the various branches 
 of its teaching. 
 
 Indeed this law of harmonious relations 
 obtains almost everywhere. One can of course 
 fancy a dead dull-minded man, passing 
 through life without the faintest idea that 
 there was anything wonderful or striking in 
 the various works of nature that surrounded 
 him. But submit yourself to nature, become 
 her willing pupil, give eye and ear and mind 
 to her service and direction, and before long 
 you will get in harmony with nature, and 
 she will disclose to you secret after secret, 
 each one more beautiful and captivating 
 than the other. On the other hand, go forth 
 finding fault with rain and shine, and heat 
 and cold, with rush of river and dryness of 
 brook, and nature will remain as dumb and 
 blind and deaf to you, as you are blind and 
 deaf and dumb to nature. In short, to know 
 any teaching we must submit to the teacher; 
 and the more perfect the submission the 
 more perfect the learning. 
 
 Now it is just the same with man and Gtod. 
 
56 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 To get to know God, to get at his teaching, 
 the first thing we must do is to place our- 
 selves in harmony with God, and this we can 
 only do by striving and battling or fighting 
 to become pure, or clean, or holy, to drag our- 
 selves out of the evil into which He can 
 never go, and to come into his presence 
 washed and cleansed in some way acceptable 
 to Him. For uncleanliness and cleanliness can 
 never harmonize. However God may pity 
 and even love him who is unclean, he can 
 never love his uncleanliness ; for, as St. Augus- 
 tin wrote, “ He loved us filthy that he might 
 make us fair.” The cleanliness creates the har- 
 mony, our cleanliness harmonizing in some 
 way with God’s purity. 
 
 Hence the folly of the drunkard saying, “ I 
 will go on drinking till God stops me ; ” or 
 the unbeliever, “ I will go on in my unbelief;” 
 or the troubled person, “ I will go on with 
 my tears.” Do you suppose that God will 
 force his revelation on you whilst you are 
 fighting against him ? Is God going to rob 
 you of your manhood, your free will, that 
 which ennobles and distinguishes you from 
 the creatures beneath you ? Is God going to 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 57 
 
 paralyse or ignore that will, and drive you 
 into Heaven as a shepherd’s dog drives sheep 
 into a fold ? Nay; God has respect to our 
 free, moral agency, to our power of choice. 
 He respects in us what He himself has given 
 us, and He will seldom drive us into harmo- 
 nious relations with Himself, if the effort 
 after harmony be wholly absent from us. W e 
 must first do His will, and then we shall gain 
 a practical knowledge of His teaching. 
 
 It is God’s will that we should “believe on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ,” because “ his blood 
 cleanses us from all sin,” because “ we are 
 made nigh to God, by the blood of Christ,” 
 because “ the blood of Christ redeems us.” It 
 is God’s will that we should know this, and 
 feel it, and trust in it. Well, if we desire to 
 know and feel the value of this teaching, we 
 must will to obey his will here, and believe 
 in Christ, and trust in Christ. We are not to 
 go on waiting and sinning, and sinning and 
 waiting until God, in some wonderful way, 
 wakes us up to the value of Christ; but at 
 once, wuthout reserve or doubt or fear, we are 
 to bring our sins to God and say : “ Lord, 
 here are my sins, wipe out their remembrance 
 
58 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 through the blood of Christ, and help me that 
 I may never sin them more.” That is what 
 at once brings us into harmony with Gfod, 
 for the whole plan of his salvation is meant 
 to bring us to these very thoughts and very 
 words. 
 
 But you ask, how can I know Christ until 
 I understand his teaching ? I cannot say. I 
 only know that your plan is not the divine 
 plan. The divine recipe is — to obey, to give 
 up your mind, and will, and hope, and trust, 
 wholly and unreservedly to Christ. There 
 must be no doubt or scepticism or reservation, 
 but wholesale obedience to the command, 
 “Believe in Christ and trust Him,” and if 
 there is this honest obedience, then the whole 
 doctrine of the value and power of the blood 
 of Christ will in time become a living reality 
 to you, a vital necessity of your faith. Not, 
 first the doctrine appreciated, digested and 
 assimilated — and, then, the resignation of 
 your will and the effort of faith ; but first, 
 the resignation of your will and your obedi- 
 ence and faith, and then the doctrine, clear, 
 distinct, beautiful to mind and soul, alive 
 and sparkling with comfort and joy, and 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 59 
 
 with great depths of strength and power to 
 bathe in and come out of fresh and strong 
 for the fight of faith, and the daily measure 
 of happy victory. 
 
 Again it is Gfod’s will that we should study 
 the Scriptures as a guide. But how can I 
 accept Scripture as a guide until I have 
 proved its power to guide ? Surely first I 
 must prove, then I must accept. Well, that 
 seems rational, but we do not apply the rule 
 to other guides. The schoolboy does not 
 examine his schoolmaster as to whether he is 
 fit to teach, nor does the medical or legal 
 student receive the instruction of his profes- 
 sors tentatively and subject to his own revi- 
 sion. Nay, in all instruction of school, college, 
 or profession, faith in the teacher and accept- 
 ance of his views lie at the very root of suc- 
 cessful examination. 
 
 And so it is here. Christ does not say, first 
 prove the Scriptures and then accept them, 
 but, first accept them, and the fruit of the 
 acceptance will give the needed proof, both 
 to mind and spirit. Here again the divine 
 recipe is obedience, — tacit, whiling obedience. 
 Read, study, and, above all, commence to put 
 
60 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 in practice the Word of God, make it the rule 
 of your life, the guide of your actions. Begin : 
 do not wait till you are sure of the worth of 
 every command. Show your faith, obey, read 
 honestly, candidly, thoroughly, throwing the 
 mind open to the reception of all divine 
 truth, and if you do this, the Book will prove 
 to be the Voice of God. In time you will be 
 able to say out of your own personal and 
 spiritual experience: “This is the Voice of 
 Grod,” for you have willed to do G-od’s will, 
 and as a natural and consistent consequence 
 you have learnt that the teaching is of God. 
 
 And so with prayer. “ If any one lack 
 wisdom let him ask of God.” “ What,” you 
 say, “ before I know that prayer is a reality, 
 that it can influence God’s decisions and tell 
 on his providences?” Yes; obey, do what 
 you are told and leave results with God. Pray, 
 and prayer will prove itself. No amount of 
 argument or study can advance you one whit 
 in reducing a divine power like prayer to the 
 level of your comprehension. Obey, and 
 then the worth and power and value of 
 prayer will grow on you through personal 
 experience. 
 
THE CHUECH YEAE. 
 
 61 
 
 Again, it is God’s will that through our 
 reception of the Holy Communion we should 
 show forth our Lord’s death till his second 
 Advent, — that we should “ show forth his 
 death till He come.” But you say, surely I 
 should not commune until I am good enough, 
 or until I understand the mystery as to how 
 partaking of bread and wine can help me in 
 my Christian course. Nay ; for Christ said to 
 the representatives of every possible phase of 
 Christian life, to whom he first administered 
 it : “ Take ye all of this, — all take it, weak, 
 erring, faulty though ye be.” In this, as in 
 everything else, you must submit your will 
 to His. You must obey, and in time your 
 own experience will teach you how wise, 
 and good, and loving He was when he told 
 you to obey. Time will teach you that not 
 in the unveiling of the Mystery was the 
 blessing hidden for you, but in the calm, 
 quiet, consistent act of willing and faithful 
 obedience. 
 
 Take then as a great Advent lesson, un- 
 swerving, unchanging obedience to God ; 
 the resignation of will and mind and powers 
 to His will ; the giving up of much, that we 
 
62 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 may gain more. And think not that in doing 
 this we stand alone. Nay, Christ did it. 
 
 “ Lo I come to do Thy will, O G-od. I de- 
 light to do Thy will ; yea, Thy law is within 
 my heart.” 
 
BEFORE CHRISTMAS. 
 
 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this 
 fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with 
 you in my father’s kingdom. 
 
 St. Matt., xx vi : 29. 
 
 What can these words mean? Our Lord 
 was founding the great sacramental feast of 
 his love ; He had given the bread and wine 
 to his disciples — the bread figuring his body, 
 the wine his blood ; He had told them to eat 
 the bread and drink the wine, “ in remem- 
 brance of Him and then He utters the 
 words of the text, “ I will not drink hence- 
 forth of the fruit of this vine. You will 
 drink it, but I will not, until that day when 
 1 with yon will drink it new in my Father’s 
 kingdom.” “ The fruit of the vine” was the 
 wine on the table used now sacramentally 
 for the first time, and our Lord whilst leav- 
 
64 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 ing it to be used by his Church on earth, 
 without his bodily presence at the table, 
 points to a time yet to come when in “ the 
 kingdom of G-od, in the kingdom of his 
 Father,” in Heaven, he would sit, as then he 
 sat ; and in some sense yet to be made known 
 and appreciated that sacramental feast would 
 be repeated. “I will drink it ‘ new’ with you,” 
 he says, “ new” in the sense that the general 
 resurrection was to“ make all things ‘ new.’ ” 
 He that sat on the throne said, “ Behold, I 
 make all things new.” A new body for those 
 raised, but a body ; a new heaven, but a 
 heaven ; a new earth, and new wine, a new 
 feast, but a feast, that in some sense would 
 perpetuate the great remembering thought 
 of how the world was saved through Jesus 
 Christ. He places the eternal stamp on this 
 great Sacrament ; it was to survive the crash, 
 and wreck and desolation of judgment, and 
 the doom of the world ; it was to be swept 
 by the last wave ebbing from the shores of 
 time, and carried high up on the shores of 
 eternity ; it was never to cease. In some 
 sense, throughout the eternal ages, life and 
 immortality would rest on the divine words, 
 
THE ETERNAL SACRAMENT. 65 
 
 “ Take eat, this is my body ; drink, this is my 
 blood.” 
 
 I have always thought that this fact casts 
 a peculiar halo of sacred power about the 
 feast of the Lord’s Supper. To me all contro- 
 versies about it, turning on definitions and 
 words, are as the veriest jangling of the most 
 horrible discordancies. For us, what is needed 
 is faith, not argument ; I am told to eat and 
 drink, to do so in remembrance of Christ who 
 died to save my soul — let me do it. And 
 whatever Christ wills to do for me through 
 that feast, let Him do it ; for the gift, the 
 grace, the blessing, is not born of my act ; but 
 flows forth from Him, as his blessing on my 
 act of simple faith. And if, at times, my faith 
 is staggered at the simplicity of the act, at 
 the simplicity of the institution which calls 
 forth the act, let me look : first, at Gfod him- 
 self instituting it, then at its undying life 
 from Christ till now, then at its lasting vital- 
 ity from now, onward to the great white 
 throne, and then from the great white throne 
 into eternity itself ; and as that vision of 
 divinely perpetuated life passes before me — 
 hushed be every controversy, crushed out be 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 every doubt, whilst my prayer goes up to 
 God as I hold out my hands to partake, — 
 “ Lord, increase my faith.” 
 
 Now, who is called to partake of this un- 
 dying feast ? 
 
 Let me fancy this Church, as it is filled 
 now, let me fancy it the upper room in which 
 the feast was instituted. "We, we are in the 
 upper room, and Christ is seated at his table. 
 All the feelings that are now in your hearts, 
 all the lives that you are now living are in 
 that upper room ; for we fancy ourselves 
 there, as this moment we are here, and Christ 
 knows every feeling and knows every life. 
 The wine is on the table, the bread is on the 
 table, and He who dies for us, blesses and 
 breaks ; and as he does so, in our sight, we 
 feel that strange, mystic thrill of isolating 
 personality which drives, straight from heart 
 to lip, the almost sobbing question, “ 0 my 
 God., will he ask me? Will he ask me ?” For 
 not one soul present can feel that it is worthy 
 to kneel there ; not one soul dare rise and say 
 “ Lord here am I, call me.” Oh ! whom will he 
 call ? How many shall he call ? Shall I be 
 left, shall you, and you be left, to see others 
 
THE ETERNAL SACRAMENT. 67 
 
 blessed whilst you are banned ? Will He 
 write “elect” on the child’s head and pass 
 the father, or call the father and leave the 
 child alone ? Oh ! whom will He call ? How 
 many will He call? 
 
 Watch ! He has blessed, and he has broken, 
 and now rising and looking as it were into 
 every face and speaking as it were to every 
 soul, He holds out his arms as if to draw us 
 magnetically to his heart of love and says, 
 “ Take ye all of it ; all take it. Eat, this is 
 my body ; drink, this is my blood” There 
 is not an eye that is not met by His ; there is 
 not a soul to whom the invitation is not given, 
 because G-od invites to the feast, and Christ 
 has died for every soul, for every soul the 
 cross was borne, for every soul the blood was 
 shed, and to every soul Christ says, “ Take 
 eat, this is my body ; drink, this is my blood.” 
 
 But is it possible, you ask, that Christ could 
 invite me? Why not? Why, man or woman, 
 He died that he might save you ; ought not 
 that to be enough ? But, says one, u 0 sir, I 
 have a secret sin that wears me to my soul.” 
 Thank Grod that it wears you to your soul ! 
 May it keep on wearing you until your sin 
 
68 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 itself is emaciated and worn. Come, because 
 it wears you to your soul ! "Who can tell 
 that this very act of penitent faith may not 
 kindle a fire of holy and forcible resistance in 
 your breast that may lead you to fight your 
 sin to the death, and make you more than 
 conqueror. Judas had a secret sin that did 
 not wear him to his soul, and Christ knew it 
 did not wear him, and yet Christ invited 
 Judas. 
 
 But, says another, “ 0 sir, I am full of 
 doubts, I hardly know what I believe.” Ah ! 
 that was the way with Thomas, and Christ 
 knew 7 that it was the way w 7 ith Thomas, and 
 yet Christ called him to I he feast. The surest 
 recipe for doubt is obedience, loving, grateful 
 obedience ; obedience springing from the 
 thought, “ He knows me and yet he calls me.” 
 All that we need is the wish to obey, the de- 
 sire to be better, the hope and the prayer to 
 be better. If the wish is there and the desire 
 there, His call is there, for this feast is no re- 
 ligious form, it is a life-sustaining and magni- 
 ficent spiritual reality. 
 
 O my friends, what I long that you should 
 feel is the leality of the gift. The cross of 
 
THE ETERNAL SACRAMENT. 
 
 69 
 
 Christ was raised on high for all, and this feast 
 is the visible outcome of the cross, as if Christ 
 said : “ The cross must crumble into dust, but 
 the power of the cross will live on in count- 
 less ways, and chief among them in this way.” 
 For, as St. Paul says, “ The cup of blessing 
 which we bless is it not a communion of the 
 blood of Christ,” — a communion to me, a 
 communion to you; “the bread which we 
 break is it not a communion of the body of 
 Christ,” — a communion to you, a communion 
 to me ? It is a real blessing, a help, a divine 
 strength, meant by Christ for poor, weak 
 erring souls, — like Peter w 7 ho denied Christ, 
 like Thomas who doubted him, like all the 
 apostles who forsook him and fled. The strong 
 may partake and be the better for the partak- 
 ing ; but your weakness, your sin-struggles, 
 your desire to be better, give force and power 
 to the call, so that the voice of Christ seems 
 to sound specially for you: “You, w T ho are 
 weakest, come, for this my blood was shed for 
 you, this my body was broken for you.” You 
 are the traveller bruised by sin and bleeding, 
 and Christ through cross and feast is the good 
 Samaritan who pours in the oil and wine, — 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 70 
 
 the deeper your bruising the deeper his pity. 
 
 Now, Christmas has once more come round 
 to us, and though this feast is ever open to 
 you all, yet for all who value Christ as Christ 
 should be valued, surely Christmas without 
 kneeling there would scarce seem Christmas 
 to us at all. As the angels bring to each of 
 us, young and old, the message, “ Unto you 
 is born this day a Saviour,” oh ! how natural 
 ought it to be for us to kneel there, with the 
 sacred anthem from on high ringing in our 
 ears. Not that the feast has more power on 
 Christmas day than on any other day, but 
 that the call thither sounds louder, sweeter, as 
 the Saviour is born, as the old year is dying, 
 as the scattered family gathers, as memory 
 wakes us up to thoughts forgotten, as all that 
 is good in us, seems to receive a fresh im- 
 pulse, as the spirit of Christmas enters into 
 our hearts, and homes and feelings. As all 
 these things combine to cast a sacred halo 
 about the day, the voice of Jesus seems to 
 speak with special purpose to every soul and 
 say, “ Do this in remembrance of me.” 
 
 May Gfod through his Holy Spirit bring 
 you in crowds to His holy table on next 
 
the eternal sacrament. 
 
 71 
 
 Christmas day. Fathers, and mothers, and 
 children, whole families, young and old, 
 rich and poor, strong in the faith and weak 
 in the faith ; saints willing to confess them- 
 selves sinners, and sinners wishing that in 
 some sense they might grow to be God’s 
 saints, oh, may God lead you all to think 
 over it, pray over it ! Remember if you keep 
 back it is you that keep back, not Christ that 
 warns you back, for He calls all, calls you ; 
 you who hardly dare to come, you he calls 
 especially for He knows you need him most. 
 From pew to pew, from heart to heart, He goes 
 to-day and says, “ Come, all things are ready 
 for you.” Come to the feast which, partaken 
 of here, will in some sense be, to me and you, 
 a binding link of holy love throughout 
 eternity. 
 
CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and 
 the glory of the Lord shone round about them. 
 
 St. Luke ii : 9. 
 
 Outside of the world of nature all our con- 
 sciousness predicates something as existing, 
 and the consciousness of man for all time 
 has, as far as we know, done the same. 
 Given a universe filled with heavenly bodies 
 of glowing splendour for man to gaze on and 
 speculate about, all such gazing and specula- 
 tion have resulted in imaging a state of life 
 outside our own that we call “ the super- 
 natural,” because it seems to be above our 
 natural life ; like it in some ways, though dis- 
 tinct from it in many, and possessed of the 
 power of entering into our lives, or touching 
 them, not only by guiding influences, whether 
 for good or evil, but by appearances, voices, 
 
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE WOULD. *73 
 
 visions, and so on. Thus man has worked 
 out for himself two distinct worlds — the 
 visible and the invisible, the latter as real as 
 the former, if only our eyes were gifted with 
 that piercing power which could look 
 through whatever it is that divides one 
 world from the other. 
 
 And this reasoning of man, corrected and 
 guided into proper channels, is in every way 
 endorsed by the Word of God, as in accord- 
 ance with the truth of things as they really 
 exist. Out in this world invisible to us is 
 God — Father, Son and Holy Ghost, — is the 
 paradise of blessed souls, is the waiting-place 
 of all departed spirits, is the home of angel 
 and archangel, is the fortress of all the evil 
 that besets, and the greater stronghold of all 
 the good that sweetens our lives and makes 
 eternal happiness possible. How marvellous 
 to think of it ! How the brightest and most 
 beautiful object that earth could fill our 
 sense of sight with would pale and grow 
 dim, if only our eyes could be opened for a 
 moment to the glory and splendour that, as 
 Scripture teaches us, is all about us and 
 around us, as truly as the sunlight itself 
 
>74 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 when, piercing the clouds, it reigns as king. 
 The great eternal things, and the first of 
 all created things, and the splendour of all 
 divine things — Oh ! if for one moment we 
 could see them, what a sense of G-od we 
 should have ! how real countless things 
 would become that now are swathed in 
 mystery ! 
 
 Now, one of the charms of Christmas is, 
 that for a moment it draws aside the veil, 
 pulls back the curtain, and we catch 
 glimpses of things that at other times are to 
 us invisible. Everything about Christmas 
 comes from beyond ; the springs of it burst 
 forth in the invisible world ; mother and 
 earthly father each are touched with its 
 mysterious power ; even the rough shep- 
 herds seem to glow in a light that shines 
 from above, and the mystic star that guides 
 the travellers from the distant East gleams 
 and glistens with a light divine. As one 
 reads the whole story in quietness, the con- 
 viction seems forced in on one that, after all, 
 the most real world of power, majesty, 
 beauty, glory, is not that which is visible, 
 but that which lies out beyond, and of 
 
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE WORLD. 
 
 15 
 
 which Christmas gives us a passing glimpse. 
 
 These Christmas angels, how beautiful 
 they are, as Heaven seems to open and they 
 pour forth on rushing wing and fill the mid- 
 night sky with human-like forms, bright and 
 beautiful, whilst the whole air thrills and 
 reverberates with the sound of human words 
 uttered by thousands of angelic lips, and 
 borne aloft on harmonies of voice that rise 
 and swell and fade away in the beauties of 
 celestial music. Oh ! what a world that must 
 be, where such as these are the common 
 messengers of God to do his bidding ! 
 
 Then linked with Christmas, though 
 strictly not a part of it, how magnificent is 
 Gabriel, standing at the right side of the 
 altar of incense, a form of unearthly splen- 
 dour and beauty, yet using human language 
 as he says, “ I am Grabriel, that stand in the 
 presence of God ! ” Apart from all doubt, 
 well might the eyes of Zacharias have been 
 blinded as he looked on him whose place 
 was in the very centre of all the glories that 
 are divine. 
 
 Then the infant Child itself — true child, 
 yet heralded as never was child before : 
 
16 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 “ Thou shalt call his name Emmanuel — God 
 with us,” and “ Jesus, for He shall save his 
 people from their sins,” and “ the Son of the 
 Highest,” and “the Son of God.” That 
 wondrous Child, whose own mother called it 
 “ God, my Saviour,” and whom the aged 
 Simeon, as he looked on it, called “ My Salva- 
 tion.” Wonderful are the hosts of angels 
 that fill the heavens with their glory ; 
 wonderful, Gabriel the messenger of the 
 Highest ; but mere motes in sunbeams these, 
 as compared with the wonder of all wonders, 
 the mystery of all mysteries, a feeble child, 
 and that child “ God with us.” “They shall 
 call his name Emmanuel — God with us.” 
 
 As the shepherds look they see more than 
 an infant. Out from the glory of the Heaven 
 that shone all about them they still hear the 
 single voice of the angel teacher, “ Seek out 
 the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, 
 lying in a manger ; for that child is born for 
 you to-day — your Saviour, Christ the Lord.” 
 As Mary looks upon her child she sees 
 more than an infant. “ If angels’ word be 
 true, (and who dare doubt it ?), “ that Holy 
 thing born of me is the Son of God.” 
 
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE WOULD. 
 
 77 
 
 As wise men from the distant East look, 
 they see more than an infant, they see a Grod, 
 for they fall down and worship Him. 
 
 How wonderful, and yet how real ! There 
 is reality in the cool, clear midnight air, the 
 solemn silence of night, the brilliant stars, 
 the sleeping sheep, the watching shepherds, 
 the earthly city close at hand hushed and 
 silent. But not less real are the gates of 
 Heaven flung open wide, whilst hosts of 
 angels, whose brilliancy dims the stars them- 
 selves, sweep down on earth like marshalled 
 armies, filling the midnight air with the 
 melody of Heaven and the words of earth 
 combined. Each angel is as real as each 
 shepherd ; He who in solitary grandeur spoke 
 the words that awoke the heavenly anthem 
 as real as that shepherd who first said, “ Let 
 us go into Bethlehem,” and the outburst of 
 heavenly music as real as that with which 
 in centuries long after man sought to lift up 
 the words. It is all real — angels and shep- 
 herds, mother and sleeping child — the two 
 worlds, visible and invisible, meeting to- 
 gether on that Christmas morning and 
 blending into one. 
 
1 8 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 And so to-day Christmas calls us through 
 Jesus Christ, who lived and died to save our 
 souls, to look out beyond Bethlehem, beyond 
 the calm of earthly resting, beyond the stars 
 themselves, to that real world of teeming 
 life, where Gtod is, and whence Christ Jesus 
 came. To one He said when death drew 
 near, “This day thou shalt be with Me in 
 Paradise.” Paradise — let the Christmas Child 
 teach us to lift up our eyes there. To others 
 He will say when all things earthly are 
 ended, “ Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord 
 let the Christmas Child teach us to lift up 
 our eyes there. To others He has promised, 
 “ He that overcometh shall inherit all things, 
 and I shall be his G-od and he shall be my 
 son ; ” let the Christmas Child lead us to lift 
 up our eyes to that inheritance, for these are 
 the real yet invisible things which lie out 
 beyond us — the “ blessed country,” the 
 “ Heavenly Jerusalem,” the “ city of Grod.” 
 As real yet for us, if only we are faithful, as 
 the stairway of our life fast wearing beneath 
 our feet, or the bright ringing laughter of 
 many a child this morning, as it stands on 
 the lower steps of the same stairway, weighed 
 
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE WORLD. 79 
 
 down with Christmas gifts. The visible and 
 the invisible, this country stretching on and 
 on and on, till it meets “the blessed country,” 
 out of which the angels came to break the 
 silence of Christmas morning. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 
 
 She wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him 
 in a manger. 
 
 St. Luke ii : 7. 
 
 It is a hard thing, and I doubt if it would 
 be a wise thing, to strive and vary what a 
 teacher should say to his people on Christmas 
 Day. For the charm of Christmas is not the 
 novelty that you may introduce into its 
 observance ; rather is it found in the care 
 you display in presenting the old, time-worn 
 thoughts that have clustered round the season 
 since first it touched the hearts of men. We 
 have the manger gnawed by teeth of fretful 
 beasts, licked by tongues of wearied cattle, a 
 covering or shelter for panting, quivering, 
 over-driven sheep resting beneath. Then we 
 have the long file over yellow desert of 
 priest, philosopher, wise men, following the 
 
THE VIRGIN MOTHER’S MUSINGS. 
 
 81 
 
 mystic star that leads them to the new-born 
 infant. And then we have the shepherds, 
 human watch-dogs over marketable sheep, 
 listeners to the divine music, beholders of 
 the heavenly angels that fill the midnight 
 air with their celestial forms and tell a sleep- 
 ing world that Christ is born. And then 
 we have the Child itself — new-born always — 
 with the rosy blush of dawn ever about it. 
 Why, one can fancy the young face looking 
 at our children’s children as they grow old, 
 and their children’s children, and on to the 
 very end of time — a new-born infant still, 
 with the old Christmas message ringing like 
 sweetest bells all about it, “Glory to God in 
 the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill 
 towards men.” 
 
 Now, if in this way the Christmas infant 
 never grows old, if infant ever, “ It lies like 
 waking sunlight on the stream of time,” then 
 your Christmas doctrine, and your Christmas 
 sermon, and your Christmas thoughts can 
 never grow old. You may re-set the 
 thoughts, as jeweller the costly gem, but the 
 setting is nothing, save to the vulgar mind 
 that prizes glitter, the gem is the same, 
 always the same — unchanged. 6 
 
82 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 An infant lying in a manger. It tells us 
 of weakness, poverty, helplessness, of tiny 
 hands and arms stretched out aimlessly, of 
 something to be nursed and sheltered from 
 danger and cold, something to be fed, or it 
 will starve — dependent. Not a babe in costly 
 cot hemmed in with down, in room heated 
 with care of wisest skill, but a babe in a 
 rude, rough manger, the hot breath of cattle 
 going up like smoke in the clear, cold air, 
 that enters in through every chink and 
 gaping crack of the rough, rude building. If 
 born but a few hours earlier it might have 
 been a babe by roadside, or babe in ditch. 
 
 Well, Christmas has seized the thought 
 and from it, spider-like, has spun its sermon, 
 with threads running from heart to heart, 
 which join whole Christian congregations 
 into one mesh or web of love. Remember 
 the poor, who are like the infant Christ. 
 Out of the fulness of your store give to them, 
 out of your vocabulary select kind words ; 
 think the best of them, review them in the 
 light of your own blessings. 
 
 And for this reason, and surely for none 
 other, was the Lord of all born as He was ; 
 
THE VIRGIN MOTHER’S MUSINGS. 83 
 
 not as a slight on what was higher and 
 loftier and wealthier, but to bring the high 
 and lofty into the stable and round about the 
 manger, that they might learn lessons seldom 
 dreamed of in their sleeping. Lessons as to 
 how thousands and tens of thousands are in 
 a ceaseless state of moving, shifting and 
 flying, knowing not where to sleep, or where 
 a journey begins or ends. How women, as 
 the sorest hour of their womanly life draws 
 near, drag out their weary journey till the 
 old sorrow of womanhood meets them. How 
 tiny infants just like the Christ are born 
 anywhere, anyhow, in cold and poverty and 
 cruel biting want ; how sometimes the very 
 cattle in the stalls seem like luxurious lords 
 compared with the new-born child, born into 
 the world with a sad, wan face, pinched 
 already — the poverty of the parents visited 
 on the children. 
 
 No, it was not to censure the wealthy that 
 Christ was born poor, but that He might 
 soften their hearts and melt them into 
 tenderness, as they think, not of their own 
 children nestling in comfort, but of the new- 
 born picture of the child Christ, born in a 
 garret and wrapped in a worn blanket. 
 
84 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 And so the Christmas message comes to 
 you to-day. “ I come to soften your heart,” 
 it says, “ and loose your purse, and lead you 
 to think of those iron hours of biting penury, 
 when the whip of poverty flies fast and sears 
 the backs of poor men and poor women and 
 poor children — children just like the child 
 Christ. Be merciful,” it says, “ be generous, 
 give and it shall be given by Grod to you ; 
 remember the poor, and remember them 
 to-day.” So preaches Christmas, and so it 
 would ever preach of its own inherent force 
 if every preacher were struck dumb. 
 
 Not only an infant lying in a manger, but 
 a father and mother looking at it. What 
 were their thoughts? We know that the 
 mother had thoughts beyond all mothers — 
 thoughts sown in her heart by angel visits 
 and angel songs, thoughts born of a magnifi- 
 cent faith reaching out into darkness and 
 contending with it bravely. But the father’s 
 faith seems to have been of a lower kind. I 
 doubt if it rose beyond a destiny for his child 
 like that of Gfideon, of whom an angel spake 
 before the child was born. 
 
 But the noblest stretch of the mother’s 
 
THE VIRGIN MOTHER’S MTJSINGS. 
 
 85 
 
 faith could scarcely have reached to that 
 which if she were living now — revived, 
 brought back — she would see or hear. Dare 
 she believe as she looks"on her child that the 
 
 db 
 
 time would come when the eyes of millions 
 would be turned towards that same manger, 
 as on to-day, and that in almost every 
 language, here spoken boldly, there timidly, 
 elsewhere in whispers, the same words would 
 be uttered by countless lips, “ 0 Lamb of 
 God, that takest away the sin of the world, 
 have mercy upon us.” Or as the wondering 
 shepherds flocked into the stable, repeating 
 the wondrous song brought down from 
 Heaven to earth, did Mary realize that the 
 time would come when that Advent song 
 would ring throughout a world, not in Judea 
 alone, but in giant cities, in quiet villages, in 
 busy marts of commerce, by camp fires in 
 prairie and in forest, on shipboard in far 
 distant seas, by the poor in their poverty, and 
 the rich in their wealth, and the sick in their 
 sorrow, and the strong in their joy, and by 
 children voices everywhere, all uniting in 
 the one heaven-born song, caught up from 
 angels to be sung by men till time shall be 
 
86 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 no more, “ G-lory to G-od in the highest, and 
 on earth peace.” Or, as she fondled her child, 
 as mothers will, now stroking its velvet 
 flesh, now lifting it out before her as if in 
 jest, and now madly kissing it on mouth and 
 eyes and hands and feet — that wild idolatry 
 of motherhood, smiled on, no doubt, by Grod — 
 did she believe the time would come when 
 death itself would stand dumb before her 
 Child, made happy by its brightness ? Could 
 she see young life, young children, fading 
 out like spring flowers touched by frost, 
 telling those about them that “Jesus was 
 waiting to take them home, that they saw 
 Him, that He stood near them ? ” Could 
 she see old life, aged men and women, strong 
 to the last through faith, facing the dark 
 valley without fear? “For thou art with 
 me,” they say, “ thy rod and thy staff they 
 comfort me.” Or, outside of death, though 
 often near it, penitent prodigals, women lost 
 to the world, though not to G-od, hardened 
 rebels, hardened for years, yet softened at the 
 last, kneeling at the foot of the cross and 
 sobbing out their grief in penitential litany ? 
 “ 0 lamb of Glob, that takest away the sin of 
 the world, take away my sin.” 
 
THE VIRGIN MOTHER’S MUSINGS. 8? 
 
 Now, one wonders could Mary see all this 
 through faith ? I doubt it, but we can see 
 and feel it all on this blessed Christmas 
 morning, when we kneel at the feet of the 
 Christmas Child and feel that we kneel at the 
 feet of our God. 
 
 Mary might well have asked, “ How can 
 this infant ever do the wonders of the Christ ? 
 How can it live as God and man, and die as 
 man, and rise as man, and enter Heaven as 
 God to plead for us and hold his cross before 
 the throne, and come again as God to judge 
 the world and bring in everlasting righteous- 
 ness, and gather his own together and save 
 the lost ? How can these things be? ” And 
 yet they were and are and will be. 
 
 The greatest fact that stands out on the 
 history of close on nineteen hundred years is 
 this same infant, Jesus Christ. As one has 
 said, “ He has communed with all the cen- 
 turies since his advent, and has penetrated 
 them with a purer, loftier and more God-like 
 spirit. All that is of highest good in the 
 world is his, for He has made the upper 
 purity and lower sin to meet together at the 
 foot of the cross, and given to man not only 
 
88 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 an ideal of righteousness, but righteousness 
 itself.” 
 
 Nay, the only peaceful hope of happiness 
 after death is His, something won for us by 
 Him, our peace purchased by his death, our 
 peace his gift, a gift that in those long cen- 
 turies millions have held out their hands for, 
 as faint and weary, with the death chill 
 stealing over them, they closed their earthly 
 speech with the glowing words, “ Lord 
 Jesus receive my spirit.” 
 
 Yes, one wonders how far the thoughts of 
 the mother went as she gazed on her child. 
 Yet, could she have seen what we see, there 
 should have been no limit to her vision. All 
 that is of the best in the world to-day looks 
 on the infant Christ, and looks to adore. In 
 the infant we see our Gfod, the manger to us 
 becomes Heaven, it contains Gfod, and Heaven 
 comes near to us in angels’ songs of it, and 
 man, poor poverty-stricken man, is there to 
 gaze and look — Gfod and man brought 
 together by the Christmas child. 
 
 So may God bless you all this Christmas. 
 May Christ be in your homes and in your 
 hearts. May his name, his grace, his love 
 
THE VIRGIN MOTHER’S MUSINGS. 89 
 
 give force and power to your lives, and as 
 you leave this church to-day may you feel 
 that the noblest gift that God has given you 
 is Jesus Christ. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 
 
 The young child. Matt, ii : 14. 
 
 It is a wonderful thought that when the 
 Lord Jesus came into the world He came as 
 an infant, and passed through all stages of 
 human life up to perfect manhood. Apart 
 from his peculiar holiness and beauty of 
 character, I fancy there was nothing at first 
 outwardly that marked him off from the 
 companions of his childhood, youth and man- 
 hood, until He began to teach, and supple- 
 mented his teaching by miraculous actions, 
 for of course his teaching and miracles con- 
 stituted him at once a unique and unusual 
 being. Gfreat teachers had taught before, but 
 none taught as He taught, none claimed to 
 speak as G-od. Great prophets had prayed to 
 God and raised the dead by prayer, but none 
 
THE CHILD CHRIST. 
 
 91 
 
 had ever stood beside a dead body and said, 
 “ Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” The 
 teaching and miracles of Christ burst forth 
 from a spring of power within himself, and 
 hence the public verdict ran, “ Never spoke 
 man like this man,” or, “ See how through his 
 miracles He manifests his own glory.” But 
 up to this bursting forth of divine and indi- 
 vidual power, the infant slept in its mother’s 
 arms as infants sleep ; the child acted as a 
 child, the boy as a boy, coupled, however, 
 with certain peculiarities that in the very 
 nature of things gathered about both Child 
 and Mother, and that set them apart outside 
 the common lot. 
 
 He was a real infant resting in a real 
 mother’s arms (born midst a mother’s pains), 
 and yet no mother could ever have looked on 
 child as she looked, for no child had ever 
 come into a mother’s arms as this child came. 
 What child had ever such a storv of its com- 
 
 J 
 
 ing told ? What child had ever such a birth- 
 night, or such visitors around its cradle? 
 What birth in Judse had ever influenced 
 wise men of the East and drawn them towards 
 a lowly infant as foreign embassies are drawn 
 
92 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 towards kings ? Above all, what meant those 
 wondrous words, spoken of the infant yet to 
 come : “ He shall be great, and he shall be 
 
 called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord 
 God shall give unto him the throne of his 
 father David, and he shall reign over the 
 house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom 
 there shall be no end,” and “ That holy thing 
 which shall be called ‘ the Son of God ? ’ ” As 
 strains of music linger in the mind, as dreams 
 seem at times to change into living realities, 
 and move in the foreground of our thoughts, 
 so these wondrous words and scenes that 
 clustered round the infant’s birth must have 
 lifted the virgin mother’s thoughts into a 
 field that no mother who ever looked on 
 child could think of. She looks on her child, 
 it is her child, and yet the wondrous fore- 
 cast of its being rings out clear and dis- 
 tinct, “ The holy thing which shall be born 
 of thee shall be called the Son of God.” She 
 is a real mother, her child cries, she flies to 
 it and calms it, and as she does so she may 
 never think it aught but a child that needs a 
 mother’s soothing ; but as in quiet hours of 
 day she looks on it, or waking up at dawn 
 
THE CHILD CHRIST. 
 
 93 
 
 sees it sleeping on her outstretched arm, the 
 angel seems again to speak to her : “0 woman 
 highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, thy 
 sleeping child is the child of God, for with 
 God nothing is impossible.” Now just as 
 a child’s life is interlocked with its mother’s, 
 and the mother’s with that of her child, so 
 from the very first consciousness, at least of 
 boyhood, there must have gone forth from the 
 mother an influence, that entering into the 
 boy’s life made it at least peculiar. For what 
 mother was ever placed in such a position?” 
 To look into her child’s eyes as standing by 
 her knee it looked upward and called for 
 kisses, and to feel as she kissed, — I kiss my 
 child, I kiss my God. 
 
 And as the child advanced in years, fancy 
 the atmosphere of motherly teaching in which 
 the growing child lived. Could Mary have 
 kept these marvels wholly hidden in her 
 heart, and never raised the curtain that her 
 boy might learn somewhat of the wonders of 
 the past? It seems impossible. One can 
 fancy the holy mother with cautious wisdom 
 telling the story of the Christmas angels, of 
 sun-burnt white-haired strangers from the 
 
4 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 East, of the wondrous star that did every- 
 thing but speak, of the aged saint who lived 
 on that he might bless and who died when 
 he had blessed, and how she clasped her 
 Jesus to her breast and fled trembling at 
 every sound lest Herod’s sword should reach 
 him. Yes, and she had tales not only for his 
 ear but for his eye. Cannot you fancy her at 
 stated times (just as mothers now show bright 
 things to their children) lifting up the golden 
 earring or the bright-shining bracelet, and 
 telling as she did so the oft-repeated story, 
 always fresh, of how the camels, with noise- 
 less tread on desert sand, bore the givers from 
 the distant east where the great sun rises 
 in brilliant light hedged round with gold- 
 tipped clouds. No doubt there was much 
 she never told or hinted at, things that she 
 pondered over and kept deep in her godly 
 heart. What would it all lead to ? Where 
 would it all end ? How reconcile the angel’s 
 message and the magi’s gifts with the awful 
 words, “ Yea, a sword shall pierce through 
 thine own soul also ?” What was that sword, 
 that awful spectral terror that came between 
 God’s angels and her child ? These were the 
 
THE CHILD CHRIST. 
 
 leading thoughts, be sure, that Mary pondered 
 in her heart ; but do not tell me that the boy 
 never heard of the angels, or the wondrous 
 birth-night or his marvellous yet unshaped 
 destiny, or that the magi’s gifts were hidden 
 from his sight, and that he never heard of 
 them or saw them. Let us rather believe, 
 what human nature would have us believe 
 that the child was given the dim outline of 
 his divine destiny from his mother’s lips, and 
 that God filled in the sacred tinting. 
 
 Yet He knew it in all its wonders before 
 she did, although He, boy-like, fancied that 
 she knew it all. It was in the temple appa- 
 rently that the fact of his person and his 
 mission burst on him in all its fulness, and 
 that the son of Mary realized that in the 
 highest sense He was the Son of the living 
 God. Mary lays her motherly hand on the 
 boy, and half rebuking says, “ Thy father and 
 I have sought thee sorrowing.” He turns on 
 her, and in effect says, “ What, do you mean 
 to say that you did not know it ? Has it 
 been a secret from you as it has been a secret 
 from me ?” A great painter has pictured the 
 scene with the genius of a high-born artist. 
 
96 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 The boy is listening to his mother, and reply- 
 ing with his lips, but look at his eyes, those 
 marvellous, speaking eyes, full orbed and 
 beautiful, looking beyond his mother, beyond 
 the Jewish court, beyond the distant moun- 
 tain, out into the illimitable future, whilst 
 mind is striving to grasp at awakening 
 memories of a past existence ; startled, dazed, 
 confounded, the Son of Mary, realizing that 
 he is the son of G-od. 
 
 From this time forth we know nothing of 
 Jesus till the cousin from the south points to 
 the cousin from the north and says, “Behold 
 the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of 
 the world.” Scripture tells us nothing. It 
 simply takes childhood, consecrates it, honours 
 it, leaves us with the child and boy. No other 
 Jesus for us till we see the man Christ. 
 
 No child can ever be as Jesus, for none 
 could ever be born or none could ever live in 
 such environments. But no father or mother, 
 true to God, can look on their child and forget 
 that Jesus was a child, that childhood is God, 
 as well as manhood, that children are not 
 spectral forms that flit through the life of 
 childhood unthoughtof by their loving Father, 
 
THE CHILD CHRIST. 
 
 97 
 
 but that God loves them, and that they, faith- 
 ful often above all others, can in their childish 
 way love God. There is a child Christ and 
 a man Christ ; the one melts into the other, 
 and the child Christ may be as dear to 
 children as the man Christ is to manhood. It 
 is the same Christ, as that mother is the same 
 who sings meaningless lullabies by the cradle 
 upstairs, and then goes downstairs to her 
 grown-up children and talks of deeper things 
 in words of wisdom. It is the same Christ. 
 
 Let us thank God for this wide-spread love, 
 of his. God be praised for the Jesus that 
 thinks of the nursery and school-room as well 
 as of the great world outside, that blesses 
 men, but forgot not to take up “ little children 
 in his arms and bless them.” God be 
 praised that a child life went before the 
 sterner life of Him who died for men — a 
 child life that surely lives in his memory as 
 He receives the prayer of the little one below, 
 “ God bless father and mother, and God bless 
 brother this and brother that for Jesus 
 Christ’s sake, Amen,” and then up with lap- 
 tossed head, and the laugh and kiss, in no 
 way out of place with the sacred jwords. 
 
98 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Yes, Christmas comes and Christmas passes 
 away from us like a setting sun, but like sun- 
 set it has its rich glowing light and all that 
 glow and light it concentrates on childhood. 
 Let us learn, in the clearness of the vision, to 
 see our duty towards the children of our 
 homes, and by w r ord and caution, and, best of 
 all, by daily example to guide childhood on 
 towards manhood, leaving it to Gtod and Man 
 to guide manhood into glory. 
 
EPIPHANY. 
 
 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in 
 the days of Herod the king ; behold, there came wise 
 men from the East to Jerusalem, saying, where is He 
 that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star 
 in the East and are come to worship Him. 
 
 Matt, ii : 1-2. 
 
 Who were these wise men ? whence came 
 they from the East to Jerusalem? They are 
 called in St. Matthew’s Gospel “ wise men”, — 
 that is, Sages. — and this title, coupled with 
 their home — east of Jerusalem — is about 
 the only Biblical track we possess worth 
 following in our efforts to gain some know- 
 ledge with regard to them. That they 
 were kings, is a very beautiful poetic idea, 
 once no doubt firmly believed, as the great 
 tomb in the cathedral of Cologne testifies ; 
 but there is no more proof to favour such 
 
100 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 an idea than there is proof that they were 
 sailors or soldiers. 
 
 Bear in mind that they were called “ wise 
 men ; ” then travel from Jerusalem eastward 
 and seek for a country wffiere such a title 
 was officially recognized, and in due time 
 you strike on Persia, where in ancient days 
 anyone would have told you that the Magi 
 or “ wise men ” were a religious caste — 
 astrologers, diviners, astronomers, prophets, — 
 men of science as well as religion. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar conquers the Medes, the 
 sister race of the Persians, but he does not 
 destroy the great religious caste of the Magi 
 included amongst his captives. It not only 
 holds its own as part of a conquered nation, 
 but it influences the people of Babylonia ; it 
 influences the great King, it becomes a power 
 in the royal court, and at one time the 
 Je wish-born prophet Daniel is made head of 
 the caste — master of the magicians, astrolog- 
 ers, Chaldeans and soothsayers, because wiser 
 than they all. Thus, long before Gfod’s 
 angels, bright and beautiful, made midnight 
 vocal with Christmas melody, or the infant 
 Child lay calmly sleeping in its mother’s 
 
THE ORIGINAL REVELATION. 
 
 101 
 
 arms ; or the mystic star led company of wise 
 men across the desert, — long before all these 
 wondrous scenes which, clustering round the 
 Christmas thought, have made it beautiful, — 
 the Magi of old had come in contact with the 
 great Jewish race, — nay more, had acknowl- 
 edged as its head and leader in a foreign 
 court, — that great Jewish prophet whose life, 
 it is supposed, covered the whole period of 
 the captivity, and whose power of prophetic 
 vision reached on to “ the restitution of all 
 things,” to the vision of “ the Ancient of 
 Days,” and the “ Son of Man standing before 
 the throne.” 
 
 We read the Book of Daniel, — a book that 
 stands alone in magnificent picturings that 
 figure forth the future not of one nation but 
 of the world, — we read the book ; but fancy 
 what it must have been to have lived with 
 the man who wrote it, to have sat at his feet 
 as an humble servant and scholar ; to have 
 treasured his teaching words as one of a sacred 
 caste bound to treasure and transmit the teach- 
 ing of Him whose words taught, and whose 
 will ruled the caste itself. If you wish toguage 
 the power of this kind of traditional teaching, 
 
102 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 to judge the effects of oral transmission, go to 
 the East, where wise sayings and solemn 
 thoughts are passed on from generation to 
 generation, from age to age — like costliest 
 jewels — , where transmitted words and 
 thoughts seem to look down on our boasted 
 printing with a scorn that arises from an 
 innate sense of the power of sacred and irre- 
 sistible oral perpetuation. Shall Daniel then 
 have his wondrous visions of Christ and his 
 stored-up knowledge won from Jacob and 
 Moses and Balaam and David and Isaiah, 
 knowledge of the “ star that should come out ' 
 Jacob,” of “ the rod out of the stem of Jesse,” 
 of “ the Virgin that shall conceive and bear 
 a Son,” of “ the King that shall reign in right- 
 eousness,” of Him who “ was wounded for 
 our transgressions and bruised for our iniqui- 
 ties,” — and shall not the Master of the caste 
 teach these things of Glod to the members of 
 the caste ? And shall the caste know these 
 sacred thiugs, these visions of Glod, in the days 
 of Nebuchadnezzar and all be forgotten in the 
 days of Herod the king ? Nay, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and Cyrus and Darius and Xerxes, 
 and a long line of Persian kings pass out into 
 
THE ORIGINAL REVELATION. 
 
 103 
 
 darkness ; but the sacred caste remains, lives 
 on with its accumulated treasures of science, 
 literature and religion, until one day its cho- 
 sen representatives stand in the presence of 
 the crafty and cruel Herod and ask in perfect 
 innocence and faith : “ Where is He that is 
 born King of the Jews, for we have seen his 
 star in the East and are come to worship 
 Him.” 
 
 As these men cross the desert led by the 
 mystic star, the long procession, journeying 
 slowly on to Christ, seems to me full of teach- 
 ing that cannot be conlined to the country 
 they came from or the country they were 
 making towards. These men are unconscious 
 representatives and types of teeming millions 
 whom we call “heathen,” of those swarming 
 multitudes in ages past, and now, whose 
 religious faith, all warped and twisted, never- 
 theless contains within it lingering remnants 
 of purest teaching ; for, surely it may be said 
 that there is no mud and mire of degraded 
 thought in which some lost jewel lies not 
 hid ; no portion of the broken mirror which 
 does not reflect the face of God. 
 
 Modern investigation has discovered what 
 
104 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the religious views of these distant travellers 
 to the cradle of our Lord were, and one 
 cannot read them without feeling that apart 
 from the teaching of Daniel, these Magi must 
 have held a stronger religious grip of the 
 original revelation given by God to early man 
 than other religious teachers. For, though 
 there might be many inferior divine beings 
 recognized by these Magi, — yet, above all, and 
 Ruler of all, — thoughtful of man’s interests, 
 and loving what He thought of, was the One 
 Great God, the principle of spotless good, 
 who fought the Evil One for good of man and 
 helped mankind in its daily conflict between 
 good and evil. The history of the world of 
 these Magi was the history of this conflict, 
 wdiich conflict would last until a Child 
 should be born, destined by God to conquer 
 evil and crush out hell, and wake the dead 
 in universal resurrection and bring in ever- 
 lasting happiness for a sin-seared world. 
 This was the religion that crossed the desert 
 with the Magi, that lived within the hearts 
 of those that brought their gifts to Christ, 
 and who can read it without feeling that 
 here as elsewhere, God had not left himself 
 
THE ORIGINAL REVELATION. 
 
 105 
 
 without a witness? Voice of Daniel no 
 doubt is here, but voice of primitive and 
 original tradition must also be here, — here 
 as light in darkness — and a clearer light 
 than the most hopeful could look for. 
 
 And, in truth, much the same may be fairly 
 said of all forms of heathen faith — no matter 
 how degraded. There seems none wholly bad, 
 none without some lingering remnant or 
 intuition of that which in Christian lands is 
 regarded as true. It is the fashion of the day 
 with some to ignore the idea of divine reve- 
 lation and to regard religion as a state of 
 moral and spiritual feeling which has reached 
 Christianity under the laws of mental evolu- 
 tion, and which, in time, will leave Christ- 
 ianity behind as the development of thought 
 evolves still higher conceptions. But such 
 an idea seems strangely contradicted when 
 in degraded tribes, where the evolution of 
 mind and morality seems at a perfect stand- 
 still, we nevertheless find religious concep- 
 tions that we ourselves reverence as amongst 
 our holiest and most sacred. Where did such 
 thoughts come from ? How, midst the wreck 
 and ruin of thought in which we find them, 
 
106 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 did they retain ail independent grasp of their 
 own, unless originally man as man knew 
 what was good and pure and beautiful, un- 
 less these glimpses of truth are relics — abid- 
 ing relics — of a once pure creed held by man 
 in the earliest hours of his new-born life, and 
 never lost through all the horrors of the most 
 degraded decline in moral and religious spe- 
 culation ? 
 
 And this thought is surely borne out by 
 Scripture. In no sense does Genesis attempt 
 to describe all that God taught early man. 
 It simply asserts direct intercourse and com- 
 munion between God and man, and leaves 
 the extent of divine teaching wholly unde- 
 scribed. There is no account given of a revela- 
 tion touching sacrifice ; the rite, or sacrament 
 simply appears — surely divinely authorized. 
 We might think that Abraham was a pure 
 monotheist, knowing nothing of Christ, 
 save for our Saviour’s own words : “ Your 
 Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, — he 
 saw it and was glad.” Be assured of it, as 
 investigation into the religious teaching of 
 ancient countries and existing heathen na- 
 tions proceeds, this fact will become more 
 
THE ORIGINAL REVELATION. 107 
 
 apparent to all unprejudiced minds, that 
 heathenism — ancient and modern — is a fall 
 from light to darkness, and that the lingering 
 light is the remnant of the once pure revela- 
 tion which, bright and beautiful, and direct 
 from God, made Christ the Saviour to whom 
 the earliest men looked forward. 
 
 As one follows these Magi seeking Christ, 
 one feels a thrill of hope in the thought that 
 so, in the days yet to dawn, the heathen may 
 seek the light ; that the great regeneration 
 will come, not only from Christ seeking the 
 lost sheep, but the lost sheep themselves 
 bleating for the Shepherd. And one surely 
 learns that, as the Church advances, preaching 
 Christ in heathen wilds, its truest wisdom is to 
 seek in error whatever may be good, and use 
 that as the stepping-stone io destroy evil — 
 use it as St. Paul used it, when standing 
 before the altar raised “to the unknown God,” 
 he reviled not the inscription but used it as 
 a sacred text and “ preached Christ ” from the 
 sad, the gloomy, the melancholy words. 
 
 The procession of these wise men crossing 
 the desert may thus be regarded as a picture 
 of the heathen world hastening to the Christ. 
 
108 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 The great prophet saw the vision and pic- 
 tured it. He saw the earth swathed in 
 heathen darkness and the people covered 
 with gross darkness. Then the glory of the 
 Christ shines into the darkness, as in earliest 
 days, the dull deep waters moved and 
 sparkled in the new born light, and then the 
 heathen come to the light. They gather 
 themselves together, they come to Christ, 
 they come from afar — of themselves they 
 come. Come in thousands and millions seek- 
 ing the Christ. 0 Church of God, at times so 
 dead and dull to the glorious mission God 
 hath given thee, so prone to hide thy talent in 
 a napkin, so slow to go, lift up thy sleepy eyes, 
 and see, the heathen will come to thee, if thou 
 dost not go to them ! They will storm thy 
 walls if thou dost not storm theirs. 0 awful 
 irony, unmeant as such, but real in its sting ! 
 Heathendom storming Christianity with the 
 cry upon its lips, “Awake, awake ; put on 
 thy strength : O Zion, shake thyself from the 
 dust ; 0 captive daughter of Zion : Awake, 
 awake, awake, for we are here.” 
 
AFTER EPIPHANY. 
 
 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give 
 place unto wrath; for it is written, vengeance is mine, I 
 will repay, saith the Lord. 
 
 Romans xii : 19. 
 
 This is really a terrible verse, if you regard 
 it as teaching that God will take the work 
 of personal vengeance out of your hands or 
 mine and carry it on himself. As if God 
 said, “ You go on and act as a Christian 
 towards your enemy — feed him when hun- 
 gry, give him drink when thirsty, repay his 
 cruelty with kindness, remembering all the 
 time that I hold the rods of punishment in 
 my hands, and that I will repay. Leave it 
 to me and you will not be unavenged.” 
 Whatever the verse means it could not have 
 embodied such a terrible thought as this, and 
 yet not a few read it in this spirit. What, 
 then, does it mean ? 
 
110 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAH. 
 
 Vengeance means personal retaliation for 
 wrong done, and there are two methods of 
 obtaining vengeance. There is the savage 
 method, with its civilized imitations and the 
 vengeance of Law and Order. On an Indian 
 reserve in this country two Indians, for 
 years fast friends, quarrelled in a wig- 
 wam, fought, the result being that one was 
 found dead with his friend’s knife in his 
 heart. The brother of the murdered man got 
 on the track ot the murderer, dogged his 
 footsteps for weeks, and at last ran him 
 down sitting over a fire he had kindled in 
 the very wigwam where the murder had 
 been committed. The avenger of blood laid 
 his hand on the murderer and said, “ You 
 lent my brother a knife, here it is,” and 
 stabbed him to the heart. That is the ven- 
 geance of savagery. Blood for blood, no 
 questions asked, no enquiry made, no ex- 
 tenuating circumstances sought for, but 
 vengeance carried out to the death, and with 
 the very same weapon that did the deed ! 
 In such a case the savage is for the moment 
 the law, the magistrate, the jury, the judge, 
 the executioner, and it may be he is all these 
 
VENGEANCE LEFT WITH GOD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 apart from real justice, for in the case quoted 
 he who first shed blood may have done so in 
 self-defence. 
 
 And in civilized life, where at times 
 educated people conceive a positive hatred 
 for others — live to thwart, injure, ruin them, 
 and rejoice and gloat over their ruin — dress 
 such avengers as you will, rank them high 
 socially and otherwise, wherever they are, 
 whoever they are, they are simply well 
 dressed, educated savages. If they dared, if 
 they had the courage of the uncivilized 
 savage, they would become law, and judge, 
 and jury, and executioner; their stock of 
 hatred would nerve the arm and sharpen any 
 knife, if only they dared, as the Indian dared. 
 
 But there is another method of vengeance — 
 the vengeance of law and order. It seems a 
 fundamental law of nature that crime, how- 
 ever realized as such, must not go unpunished, 
 and this law in civilized life holds the frame- 
 work of society together. If it did not exist 
 social order could not exist, for brute strength, 
 with its giant powers for evil unrestrained, 
 would scatter desolation everywhere. Your 
 savage Indian says, “ I am the law,” and he 
 
112 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 repays murder with murder. Civilization 
 says, “ Crime must be punished, but the ven- 
 geance of crime must spring from fair, 
 impartial enquiry, from calm, deliberate 
 investigation, that keeps possible innocence 
 always before it,” and hence civilization takes 
 my place as my own avenger by giving us 
 courts of justice, where even the supposed 
 murdei’er is counted innocent and protected 
 from mob law and injury until he be found 
 guilty, and every possible opportunity is 
 afforded him of substantiating his innocence, 
 if such be possible. In other words, as 
 civilized legal procedure stands over a 
 murdered body, it thrusts back the savage 
 thirst of individual vengeance that may fill 
 my angry heart and practically says the very 
 same words that form my text, “ vengeance 
 is mine, it is not yours — vengeance is mine, 
 I will repay, saith the law.” And the law 
 does repay when, having exhausted enquiry, 
 it deals out justice without fear, favour or 
 affection, it may be through death itself. 
 
 Now, when Glod says, “Vengeance is 
 mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord,” it is 
 this spirit of orderly punishment, not of 
 
VENGEANCE LEFT WITH GOD. 
 
 113 
 
 deliberate revenge, to which He refers. 
 “I will repay,” He says, “not you. If you 
 undertake to deal out personal vengeance 
 the old savage thirst for immediate settle- 
 ment will rise up in your heart, the old 
 savage blindness that refuses to see any 
 possible palliation or extenuation will darken 
 your eyes, the blood-hound instinct will 
 nerve your deliberate purpose to run down 
 at any cost or labor him, whose wrong done 
 you, burns like a coal of fire in your breast. 
 Leave him to me, as the great sovereign, the 
 calm, impartial judge ; leave him to me and 
 I will repay,” saith the Lord. 
 
 Now, mark you, God does not say how He 
 will repay, but He seems to figure forth his 
 possible course in the method of action that 
 He places before you as the injured party, 
 for whilst He claims that vengeance is to be 
 left to Him, He does not leave you purpose- 
 less in the matter. One cannot easily blot 
 out the sense of wrong done as if it never 
 had been done ; the wound will leave a scar 
 even though the wound itself be healed. 
 God may take the knife out of our hands, or 
 
 the blood-hound instinct out of our hearts, 
 
 s 
 
114 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 but He does not wipe out the past, nor would 
 it be well for us He should do so, for our 
 dealing with wrongs done us are elements 
 in forming our own Christian life. Nay, 
 G-od says “ Leave him to Me, and then your 
 course as a Christian man is clear and dis- 
 tinct,” and then God gives us one of those 
 powerful words of tonic that brace up our 
 nerves to an unexpected and reactionary effort. 
 “ Kill your enemy, not with knife, but with 
 kindness ; stretch out his hatred for you like 
 a corpse under acts of mercy and love ; stand 
 in the path of his misery as a friend and help 
 him. If he be hungry feed him, if he thirst 
 give him drink, for in so doing, in so per- 
 severing, you will melt his hatreds as coals 
 of fire melt ice, you will drive out the devils 
 that possess him through love, you will heap 
 coals of fire on his head.” 
 
 Now, this is God’s rule of conduct for us — 
 hard, singularly hard, I admit, to be obeyed 
 in consistent practice, but a giant power, 
 where obeyed, to build up Christian charac- 
 ter and to develop Christian graces. "When 
 I humble myself to really benefit one who 
 has wronged me, to do him good, to return 
 
VENGEANCE LEFT WITH GOD. 
 
 115 
 
 blessing for cursing, to watch where I can 
 befriend him or his, I am as close to the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in spirit as ever I am likely to 
 be on earth. 
 
 But where, then, is my vengeance? you 
 ask. It was never yours, if you are a Chris- 
 tian, it was always God’s. “Vengeance is 
 mine, saith the Lord.” But how will God 
 pay it out, how will He exercise it ? Wisely, 
 you may be sure, and better still, lovingly. 
 Think of it. Is God likely to give vou a 
 rule of conduct towards your enemy full of 
 generosity and not without a good influence 
 on yourself, and yet shall God act towards 
 him who was your enemy without generosity 
 and apart from any influence of good upon 
 his erring soul ? The thought is shocking. 
 Nay, God takes your vengeance and makes 
 it his, to deal with it as you could never deal 
 with it, he takes it as one who naturally can 
 mingle mercy with judgment, and he takes it 
 from you for the good of your past enemy as 
 well as for the good of yourself. Be 
 assured of it, when vengeance reaches God’s 
 hands, when He holds it, it will be for your 
 enemy’s good as well as your own. There 
 
116 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 is a limit to mercy combined with judgment ; 
 there is a limit to the filling of the cup ; the 
 hard-hearted, defiant sinner can, and often 
 does, defy God to the last, and then the 
 retribution comes, the retribution that God 
 mercifully has taken out of your hands, and 
 that He has held back in love as long as He 
 could hold it. But if, like David, your enemy 
 sees his sin in the sight of God more even 
 than in yours, and if his cry goes up “Father 
 I have sinned,” the stored-up vengeance falls 
 in showers of mercy from God, even as long 
 ago, under God’s direction, you have merci- 
 fully forgiven. 
 
 Yes, God has taken your vengeance ; He 
 has made it his own, it tempts you no longer. 
 He does not tell you how long He will hold 
 it, or how He will repay it ; He simply says, 
 “It is now mine, it is no longer yours.” And 
 we can leave it calmly with Him, feeling 
 sure that if out of vengeance He can bring a 
 victory for good, He will bring it. 
 
AFTER EPIPHANAL 
 
 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wis- 
 dom ; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms 
 and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in 
 your hearts to the Lord. 
 
 Col. iii : 16 . 
 
 The question as to the place that music 
 should hold in the services and worship of 
 the Church of God, is one that has come 
 largely before the Christian public within 
 the last thirty years. Let us this morning 
 think over the general question. 
 
 Music, of course, is an art, but an art that 
 God originally prepared for by creating 
 instruments or organs to produce it. God 
 made the vocal chords, gave them their vibrat- 
 ory powers, resulting in the register or indi- 
 vidual iones of the human voice. Hence it 
 may truly be said that man was formed to 
 sing. And the same may be said of singing 
 
118 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 birds, whose vocal organs, differing from 
 man’s, produce that liquidity of tone and trill 
 of sound which form the chief beauty of 
 bird life. Birds, as well as man, were made 
 to sing. Now, these human organs of vocal- 
 ization, joined with human intellect, were 
 left by God to work out their own destiny. 
 
 In the eighth generation man had invented 
 musical instruments — stringed and piped, — 
 and these instruments seemed to have been 
 in common use, as the Sacred Volume speaks 
 of “ all those who handle the harp and pipe.” 
 Apart from Scripture, the oldest evidence of 
 music is so far confined to the Egyptians, 
 whose brilliantly coloured relics in the great 
 Temple of Ammon and the Tomb of the kings, 
 prove clearly that music entered into early 
 religious and social Egyptian life as one of 
 its choicest pleasures. The actual history of 
 music, however, begins much later, — begins 
 with the Greek fable which pictures music 
 as the gift of the G-ods, but associates it with 
 the Athenian Hermes, the God of social life 
 and intercourse in general, the God of streets, 
 and doorways, and public games, as if music 
 
PRAISE. 
 
 119 
 
 were the gift of all whose hearts were happy 
 or, it may be, — sad. 
 
 The Bible, however, leads us far behind 
 these G-reeks in connection with music as an 
 art. We see Laban complaining that Jacob 
 stole away without “ sound of songs or tabret 
 or harp ” to speed him on his journey ; Job 
 complaining that the timbrel and harp and 
 pipe are in the homes of the wicked ; Miriam, 
 wild with victorious excitement, heading a 
 procession of women who play on instru- 
 ments and move in dances, whilst the weird 
 song of triumph is sung antiphonally or in 
 single voice and chorus. As tumultuous 
 crowds gather round the Golden Calf, as the 
 priestly procession moves round the walls of 
 the doomed Jericho, as the chosen three hun- 
 dred, led by Gideon, swoop down on the ter- 
 rified Midianites, as Jephthah’s only child 
 comes forth to meet her fate midst timbrels 
 and dances, — music is everywhere. 
 
 When we come to David we find music 
 and melody not only consecrated to religion, 
 but breathed on by God himself in the w r ords 
 and use of those deathless productions that 
 re-echo every joy and sorrow 7 the human 
 
120 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 heart can feel, — the Psalms of David. The 
 psalms, of course, are poetry, but they are 
 more. The book is termed in Hebrew “ the 
 Book of Hymns or Praises,” and as they were 
 not only to be sung by voice, but accompanied 
 with musical instruments, they are called in 
 the Septuagint the Psalter, a termed derived 
 from the w T ell-known Jewish instrument, the 
 Psaltery. Music is positively demanded for 
 some of them. The very name of the instru- 
 ment to be used in rendering the words is 
 sometimes mentioned as in the eighth Psalm ; 
 others, we are told, were sung by David ; 
 others are called “songs others are dedicated 
 to the Sons of Korah — a family or branch of the 
 Levites, whose duties were musical ; others 
 are dedicated to the Chief Musician ; others 
 are written as songs for Asaph, one of the 
 leaders of David’s choir, and others are called 
 “ songs of degrees,” used, probably, by the 
 people, as three times in the year they went 
 up to Jerusalem to attend the sacred feasts. 
 But throughout the whole of this wondrous 
 book, music is not only honoured, but de- 
 manded. “ I will sing praise to Thy Name 
 “ I will sing unto the Lord because He hath 
 
PRAISE. 
 
 121 
 
 dealt bountifully with me “ Sing unto the 
 Lord, 0 ye saints, and give thanks at the 
 remembrance of His holiness “ Praise the 
 Lord with the harp, sing unto Him with a 
 new song, play skilfully with a loud noise 
 u All the earth shall worship Thee and shall 
 sing to Thy Name “ 0, Come ; let us sing 
 unto the Lord and make a joyful noise to the 
 God of our Salvation ; ” “ 0 sing unto the 
 Lord a new song, sing unto the Lord, bless 
 His name and show forth His Salvation from 
 day to day.” 
 
 But David did more than write psalms and 
 offer them as praise ; he struck the key-note 
 of all future worhip by declaring praise one 
 of the grandest offerings man could give to 
 God. 
 
 The first great choir is David’s 288 trained 
 voices and instrumentalists, leaders and 
 teachers of 4000 singers and players, who 
 officiated by courses in the tabernacle service, 
 and, in the days of Solomon, made the Temple 
 services perhaps the stateliest and grandest 
 ever offered to Almighty God. And that such 
 an offering of praise by voice and instrument, 
 was not a merely human hunger after music 
 
122 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 and melody but was positively pleasing to 
 God, to whom it was offered, is plain, from 
 the sacred account of the induction of the ark 
 into the most holy place in the temple. 
 
 Solomon had brought the silver, and the 
 gold, and the treasures, and laid them in the 
 house of Grod. The elders of the people, the 
 priests and Levites, in solemn procession, had 
 carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord 
 and had left it in the awful silence of the 
 Holy of Holies, — and, yet, Grod gave no direct 
 and visible sign of divine approval. But 
 when the magnificent choir of the Levites, 
 clothed in white robes, raised their voices as 
 one voice, mingling with sound of cymbals 
 and psalteries and harps, and praised the 
 Lord, saying: “For He is Good and His 
 
 mercy endurelh for ever ”, — then the house 
 was filled with the cloud and the Lord was 
 present with his people, — so present “ that 
 the priests could not minister by reason of 
 the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled 
 the house of God.” It is easy to say : Ah, this 
 was temple worship, this was the childhood 
 of public adoration, all such pomp and page- 
 antry is gone, — that, largely true, is not the 
 
PRAISE. 
 
 123 
 
 point, — the point is that out of moments, 
 clustering round separate and distinct acts, 
 all of them meant to glorify Gfod’s name, He 
 selected that moment when the great build- 
 ing 1 thrilled and reverberated with music and 
 melody and the voice of praise, to reveal 
 Himself to his waiting and expectant people. 
 
 From that hour onward, music in worship 
 and adoration has held its place in public 
 acts, held it in spirit if not in sound, even in 
 drearest moments of a nation’s misery. When 
 Israel was captive in Assyria, and its 
 good-humoured conquerors sought, at times, 
 to draw out some faint reflection of the sacred 
 music of a ruined temple of which they had 
 heard so much, and said, half coaxingly and 
 half commanding : “ Sing us one of the songs 
 of Zion,’’ the mere request was like a dagger 
 to the heart. “ Ask us anything but that,” 
 they said, “ anything but that ; how can we 
 sing the Lord’s Song in a strange land ?” — 
 Why not ? Because there is nothing that 
 revives memory with all its sadnesses thick 
 upon its waking life like a strain of well- 
 known music, and no music clings so ten- 
 derly to the soul, and gathers round its warmer 
 
124 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 memories, as music which is sacred. Any 
 well-known song in a strange land where, 
 even in spirit, we are captive and lonely above 
 all expression, at times is sad, — but the 
 Lord’s Song, Ah ! that is often the saddest of 
 all. 
 
 As for the worship of the Christian Church, 
 music has not alone been characteristic of its 
 whole history, but midst the disruption of the 
 sublime idea which the word “ Church ” pre- 
 sents to us, music, in its influence and use, 
 has done more to foster unity than any other 
 form of worship we know of ; for no strain of 
 real soul music, however born, can ever re- 
 main sectarian, or no words of worshipping 
 praise, coupled with music that speaks to the 
 heart, can ever find its real destiny apart 
 from universal life. 
 
 “ After they had sung an hymn, they w r ent 
 out to the Mount of Olives,” — Christ to death 
 and our Salvation, — and never has the Church 
 let slip the thought that in face of death or 
 brightness of life, Gfod shall be praised as 
 Christ praised Him with the shadow of the 
 Cross darkening the very next step of His lov- 
 ing life. Hence Paul and Silas sing praises 
 
PRAISE. 
 
 125 
 
 in their prison ; hence St. James differentiates 
 worship and says : “ Is any afflicted, let him 
 pray ; Is any merry, let him sing praise.” 
 Hence St. Paul tells us “ to sing with the 
 spirit and understanding, to teach and ad- 
 monish one another in psalms, and hymns, 
 and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our 
 hearts to the Lord.” And, surely, there must 
 have been musical unison of some kind in 
 the prayer uttered by the whole company of 
 believers and endorsed by visible outpouring 
 of the Holy Spirit, — “ the kings of the earth 
 stand up against us ; behold, 0 Lord, their 
 threatenings, and grant that with all boldness 
 we may speak Thy word.” 
 
 And so the great power of music as con- 
 nected with sacred things has swept on its 
 course — conquering always — and will sweep 
 on into eternity itself, — conquering ever. We 
 may know little of the heavenly state that 
 God calls us to through Jesus Christ, but 
 we know that midst the sound of harpers 
 harping with their harps the ten thousand 
 times ten thousand and thousands of thou- 
 sands, the great host of the redeemed of God, 
 and Christ and Cross and Spirit, with voice 
 
126 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 as of many waters and of great thunders, will 
 sing the new song that no living man could 
 learn, and whose echoes will reverberate 
 through eternity itself. 
 
 Strange, is it not, how natural it comes to us 
 to sing our prayers ! how this habit survives 
 the wreck of the most ruthless reform and 
 holds hard grasp of the most bitter iconoclast ! 
 I may reject liturgies, and prayer-books, 
 and antiphonal utterances, and glory in the 
 fact that I have reduced public worship 
 to whispered articulation or even to dumb 
 thought, — but, be I Methodist, Presbyterian, 
 Congregationalist, Baptist, my soul, at times, 
 will burst the bands of my captivity, and, 
 like Levite of Old, or David or Asaph, I will 
 sing my petitions and join in loud united 
 common prayer. For all hymns are not 
 praises, the most beautiful of them are pray- 
 ers, — direct, positive, pleading prayers ut- 
 tered to Almighty God. 
 
 11 Kock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 
 Let me hide myself in Thee. 
 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 
 From Thy riven side which flowed, 
 
 Be of sin the double cure : 
 
 Cleanse me from its guilt and power.” 
 
PRAISE. 
 
 127 
 
 If ever there was prayer — personal, beau- 
 tiful, touching — it is here. 
 
 Or again : 
 
 “ Jesu, lover of my soul, 
 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
 
 AVhile the nearer waters roll, 
 
 While the tempest still is high. 
 
 Hide me, 0 my Saviour, hide 
 Till the storm of life be past, 
 
 Safe into the haven guide ; 
 
 0 receive my soul at last.” 
 
 What is this ? Surely prayer ; and this : 
 
 “ Renew my will from day to day, 
 
 Blend it with Thine, and take away 
 
 i 
 
 All that now makes it hard to say, 
 
 Thy will be done.” 
 
 And this, sung often through rain of blind- 
 ing tears : 
 
 “ When our heads are bowed with woe, 
 
 When our bitter tears o’er-flow, 
 
 When we mourn the lost, the dear, 
 
 Jesus, born of woman, hear.” 
 
 Yes, we all sing our prayers at times, and 
 there are times when words borne aloft to 
 Grod on wings of music seem wholly different 
 from the same words spoken ; dead hearts 
 wake up, a thrill of reality runs through us 
 and we feel ; music has been made a positive 
 channel of personal and abiding blessing. 
 
128 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Let ns remember that the spirit of music is 
 a gift of God, and that its sacred use has had 
 His seal of divine approval again and again 
 placed on it. Let us remember that it is a 
 gift bestowed on higher beings than man ; 
 that the angels sang with joy as the glories 
 of creation lay beneath them ; that as heralds, 
 all bright and beautiful, they made all heaven 
 ring with song when Christ was born. On 
 angels and man alike God has bestowed the 
 precious gift, that whilst they use it to glorify 
 Him above, we should use it in prayer and 
 praise below, to swell His glory on earth as 
 well as in the courts of heaven. 
 
LENT. 
 
 Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness 
 to be tempted of the devil. 
 
 Matt., iv : 1 
 
 One can only fancy that our Lord was 
 placed in a position of temptation in order 
 (as he expressed it elsewhere) to fulhl all 
 righteousness. It was more for our sake than 
 for his own he was tempted. But it should 
 also be remembered that he was really 
 tempted. We fail wholly to grasp both the 
 object and result of the temptation, if we re- 
 gard it as a kind of spiritual tableaux, where 
 tears were shed without feeling, and cries 
 were uttered without pain. According to St. 
 Paul he actually suffered from temptation, 
 “ for in that he himself hath sutfered being 
 tempted, he is able to succour them that are 
 tempted.” Of course the whole subject is so 
 9 
 
130 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 intensely mysterious, and beyond the range 
 of our spiritual vision that we naturally 
 shrink from audacious speculations in con- 
 nection with it ; but these three facts that 
 spring out of the record cannot be regarded 
 as speculative. First, he really suffered from 
 temptation. Second, he was sinlessly vic- 
 torious over temptation, his victory was with- 
 out spot or taint of defilement. Third, he 
 was tempted, that he might throughout all 
 time be touched with a fellow-feeling for our 
 infirmities when we are tempted, for “ he was 
 tempted in all points like as we are, yet with- 
 out sin.” 
 
 Now' the order of our Lord’s temptation is 
 not without its strong lessons, and it seems 
 to have been something like this. For forty 
 long days he was tempted of the devil, that 
 is, varied temptations were kept ceaselessly 
 before his mind. Of these temptations we are 
 told nothing definite ; but one feels startled, 
 and shamed, and horrified to think that these 
 forty days may have brought all hell on earth, 
 before the soul and mind of him who came to 
 save from hell. Remember what we are told, 
 that “ He was tempted in all points as we are.” 
 
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 
 
 131 
 
 Even as he came to crush out all sin, so all 
 sin arrayed itself to crush out him, and that 
 for forty long days without let, or hindrance, 
 or intermission ; an experience impossible for 
 us to realize, for no one soul, save his, has 
 ever passed through such a burning fiery 
 furnace of devilish trial. 
 
 Well, whatever these temptations were, 
 however varied the forms they took, there is 
 no question of it that everyone of them failed, 
 and then, as a final effort, the Tempter ap- 
 peared to him in person I cling, you notice, 
 to the narrative, for never could I see in the 
 record where the line could be drawn between 
 figure and fact — in person, I say. But how 
 did he appear ? None can say for certain, but 
 here we may fairly speculate. It may have 
 been in the grey darkness of the morning 1 , or 
 in the deeper darkness of night that the 
 wearied eyes of the worn Saviour were 
 blinded with a light of dazzling splendour, 
 and forth from it stepped an angel form as 
 near to G-od in beauty as angel form could be. 
 for Satan, we are told, can transform himself 
 into an “ angel of light.” There on the ground 
 hunger-smitten, with restless mind and un- 
 
132 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 strung nerves, and worn, wasted body, lies 
 the Tempted One, and there, as if just come 
 from the very presence of God in Heaven, 
 bending over him, with eyes ot matchless 
 sympathy gazing into his, with face of sur- 
 passing loveliness close to his, with voice of 
 softest music falling on his ear — there is the 
 tempter : 
 
 “ Come unto me and rest,” 
 he seems to say, 
 
 “ Lay down thy head, thou weary one, 
 
 Lay down upon my breast.” 
 
 “ Command that these stones be made 
 bread.” 
 
 Now, does it not seem natural that it may 
 have been thus ? Does it not seem natural 
 that a pure being like Christ could only be 
 tempted by some form of celestial purity, and 
 that the highest art of Satan in tempting the 
 son of God would show itself in something 
 godlike. That the final struggle between 
 good and evil in that weird wilderness would 
 not be between purest good and deadliest 
 evil in its most revolting form, but evil 
 draped in such apparent godlikeness that the 
 good would be lured to love it, and bless it, 
 
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 
 
 133 
 
 and thank it, and look up to it as a help, — a 
 messenger of mercy. 
 
 The greater temptation failed, as well as 
 all others, but those forty days and nights 
 were not in vain. For good and blessing, 
 they speak straight home, and trumpet — 
 tongued to us with our own wildernesses, and 
 lenten days, and sore temptations, and devils 
 on our track. 
 
 Putting the personal appearance of Satan 
 to our Lord out of question, it has ever seemed 
 to me, that the general system of temptation 
 pursued towards Him, is as a rule, the system 
 of temptation pursued towards us. First, the 
 days of mental evil — the testing, trying, wear- 
 ing days of deadly strife or self deception, — 
 and then in an instant, just at the moment 
 that we are weakest, the flashing forth of the 
 terrible temptation, the point towards which 
 all past temptation aimed, the one great 
 temptation on which the die of victory or 
 ruin is ever cast. First, the storm that deafens, 
 as wind and rain and tempest beat from every 
 quarter upon our heads, then the silence, and 
 then the whole heavens seeming to burst 
 above us, and the one deadly flash making 
 
134 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 straight from the darkest spot to rive, to rend 
 and tear us, and leave us a black and wither- 
 ed thing. But the storm is the forerunner of 
 the flash, the flash the fruit of the storm. 
 
 Is it not awful, my friends, to think what 
 child-like deceivers we are, not so much 
 hypocrites as self-deceivers. How sometimes 
 we positively lie to ourselves ; how we allow 
 evil to grow up in us, and w r ind its deadly 
 arms around us, whilst we either ignore its 
 existence or explain away its power. 
 
 "We are in the wdlderness for our forty days ? 
 temptation. I need not describe them to you. 
 No crime is committed, no law of Glod or man 
 is broken according to the letter of the law, 
 but oh ! G-od help us ! we know we are going 
 wrong, and yet we lie to ourselves, and say 
 that we are free from guilt or danger of it. 
 
 It needs knife, or poison, or dagger to com- 
 mit murder ; it needs no instrument to think 
 of murder. We can think of it in a pew 
 with our Bible or prayer-book open before us, 
 it can poison our sleep with deadly dreams, 
 and as we think, or dream, the crime that all 
 temptation tends towards seems less awful, 
 and the penalty less dangerous. I say mur- 
 
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 
 
 135 
 
 der, but I mean anything that step by step, 
 and day by day, breaks down the moral feel- 
 ing, and drags the man or woman down. 0 
 terrible mind, which can play and toy w r ith 
 sins of the deadliest power and leave no out- 
 ward stain on a man’s reputation. 0 awful 
 land of vision, in which the trader, step by 
 step pictures and weighs a possible fraud, the 
 forger scribbles on trial the needed name, the 
 profligate lingers in pleasing visions over his 
 mental crime, the faithless wife pictures a pos- 
 sible flight, the youthful mind harbours sins 
 that it dreads to give expression to ! Yet sure 
 as the dropping water wears the stone, so sure 
 these days of mental libertinism undermine 
 and sap the fortresses of truth. Go on and it 
 will come (some day it must come) swift as 
 the lightning flung from heaven, deadly as 
 the thrust of poisoned dagger it will come ; 
 the one great, terrible temptation of a life- 
 time, and in that temptation the trader does 
 the dishonest deed, the forger at long last 
 writes the name, the profligate lets loose the 
 reins of passion, the faithless w 7 ife is gone, 
 and the young man is a prodigal and lost. 
 “ 0 aw T ful wilderness,” and yet we lie to our- 
 
136 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 selves and call it a garden. We point to the 
 parched grass as if it were brilliant flowers ; 
 we look at the dark clouds overhead and 
 speak of the glorious sunlight, the screaming 
 eagle seems a cooing dove, the barren rocks 
 seem clothed with verdure, and then, one day 
 the flowers fade, the rocks fall down and 
 crush us, and the eagle tears the flesh from 
 the outstretched arm of the body, that lies 
 a bruised and bleeding thing beneath the 
 fallen stone. First, the forty days of mental 
 danger, and then the terrible temptation, the 
 crowning act of Satan. 
 
 Brethren, the thing is real. You cannot 
 hide it from yourselves. In some shape or 
 form outside of us, around us and in us, is 
 that which -would appear in living form if it 
 could, but which for us is all the more ter- 
 rible, because we cannot see it, or touch it, or 
 speak to it. But it is all around us, in youth 
 and age, and weakness ; in home, in solitude, 
 in turmoil, in business and work and labour — 
 some present, ever terrible voice which seeks 
 to lure us to do wrong and pictures the wrong 
 as happiness. It need not matter to you or 
 to me whether all this wretchedness comes 
 
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 
 
 137 
 
 from a personal devil, or from some inexpli- 
 cable influence of evil, no more than it mat- 
 ters to the wreck, flung up on barren shores 
 whether it were built by human hands or by 
 magical machinery. The wreck is enough 
 for me. There with rough, bare, jagged ribs, 
 with rotting sea-weed round its keel, a 
 wrecked, and lost, and ruined thing it lies ; 
 and so with souls innumerable dragged, down 
 in the hurricane of forty days, and flung forth 
 to rot on the bitter shores of one terrible 
 temptation. Devil or no devil, there is the 
 wreck, and it remains for the doubter to ex- 
 plain the secret of its ruin better, if he can, 
 than Grod himself has done. 
 
 Is there then no refuge for you, for me — no 
 safety for us ? Yes, the safety that Christ 
 had, the safety of Scripture teaching, Christ 
 and the Christ life. The Christ dying for me, 
 dead for me, trusted in by me, as drowning 
 sailor trusts to rope, resting all on Christ for 
 atonement, for pardon, for remission of sin, for 
 the past, for perfect forgiveness — Christ and 
 the Christ life-here is my safety. My 
 willing in the strength of Christ, that evil 
 shall not be my good, and my determination 
 
138 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 to carry out that will if I starve for it, if I 
 die for it. The Christ life, lived if needs be 
 at the loss of everything that would seem 
 at times to make life worth the living ; the 
 calm, quiet, unobtrusive, Christian life, but 
 worth all lives because free from conscious, 
 willing wrong-doing, and the curse and 
 blight that follows that consciousness. The 
 life is mine, if through Christ I will to live 
 it, and yours, and the victory ours, if we 
 will it, through Christ who died. 
 
LENT. 
 
 The pains of hell gat hold upon me. 
 
 Psalm 116 : 3. 
 
 Our text teaches us how one may wake up 
 here on the earth, on the earth where he has 
 sinned, with the foretaste of eternal misery 
 gripping him and stinging him, and with the 
 awful knowledge in his heart and head, that 
 as it is now, so it may be forever, and de- 
 servedly forever — and the sting and the tor- 
 ture is there — in the admitted fact that the 
 misery is deserved ; that this awful reaping 
 of the whirlwind is the natural consequence 
 of all the seed of sin that we have sown with 
 our own hands. 
 
 The fact is that men themselves testify to 
 a hell, and thus, in one sense it needs no re- 
 velation. They testify by their own actions ; 
 at times, by their utter inability to meet 
 
140 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 bravely the natural consequences of their own 
 sin, or by the deadly way in which they pur- 
 chase escape from facing temporary disgrace 
 or temporary punishment at the risk of all 
 the terrible possibilities of the future. The 
 “ just reward” of their own deeds, admittedly 
 the just reward, seems all at once to gather 
 like a great bank of terrible storm-clouds 
 above their heads, and they know that at a 
 given time it will burst asunder, and they 
 cannot dare to wait and face the storm. Any- 
 thing, they say, but the waiting, anything 
 but the exposure, anything but the degrada- 
 tion. The pains of hell, in advance of hell 
 itself, seem to get hold of them, there is no 
 escape open east or west, or north or south, 
 from the just reward of their deeds. On it 
 comes like steady tramp of marching men, or 
 like crouching tiger on velvet paw, noiseless 
 as death, “ the just reward” of evil done ; the 
 reaping in cold and dark, and sleet, and hail, 
 the reaping of a life’s dread harvest. And so, 
 ere the thunderclap bursts the man thinks, 
 “ If I am only silent and dead when it bursts 
 it can do me no harm here, and I will run 
 the risk or bear the pains of the harm it can 
 
PRESENT RETRIBUTION. 
 
 141 
 
 do me there, for anyway or anyhow the pains 
 of hell have already got hold upon me.” 
 
 So, I think, to some extent, thought Cain, 
 when his crime seemed to him as if it had 
 written itself all over him in blazing letters. 
 When he seemed to take in literal earnest the 
 divine prediction that his brother’s blood 
 would cry “ murder” after him to the day of 
 his death. “ 0 God” (he prayed) “ in mercy 
 hush that voice, that only I myself may hear 
 it. If future men should hear that awful 
 truth, if they came to know what I did, if 
 they knew who and what I was, why, God, 
 they would rise up in righteous fury and 
 murder me.” 
 
 Just fancy a man in a state of mind like 
 that, full of haunting fears and dread, hating 
 to meet the keen, shrewd eye of his fellow- 
 man, looking at every hand to speculate 
 whether it holds a knife up the sleeve, dread- 
 ing footsteps behind him, voices in front of 
 him, and shrinking as from burning coal 
 when hand of fellow-man laid lightly on his 
 shoulder, sends thrill and throb through every 
 nerve of body. Like Satan, he says “ Where 
 ere I go is hell, myself am hell.” 
 
142 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Or fancy King Saul, in one sense magnifi- 
 cent Sanl, with all his sins upon his head, 
 lost in the bitterness of despair, — walking, 
 riding, eating, sleeping, as it would seem to 
 mortal eye, under the curse of Gfod. Oh ! what 
 an awful failure of a life full of magnificent 
 possibilities ! As those wild eyes of his flung 
 themselves back on his wasted years, and he 
 saw nothing but great things that might have 
 been accomplished, all wrecked and ruined ; 
 what pains of hell must have been there ! 
 And then how awfully tragic the bitter, bit- 
 ter end. His sins crushing him to the earth 
 in deadly retribution, his last great battle 
 gone against him, his three sons dead on the 
 field, his enemies on his own track to tear the 
 crown from his head and brand the “ once 
 anointed of the living God, as the rejected of 
 the living God does not all hell appear to 
 rise up and claim him as he refuses to face 
 the disgrace that must come upon him and 
 flings his giant body on his giant sword and 
 dies — the suicide. “The pains of hell,” he 
 might have cried, “ have already got hold of 
 me, why should I delay ?” “ Lost, everything 
 lost, and justly lost,” — oh, there’s the sting, 
 
PRESENT RETRIBUION. 
 
 143 
 
 justly lost — “ why should I wait for full dis- 
 grace on earth ? ’ 
 
 Or fancy Judas carrying his hell about with 
 him. Fancy his wretched eyes at long last, 
 opened to the way in which step by step, 
 from honour to dishonour, he was led to betray 
 “ the innocent blood.” There must have been 
 an awful retrospect opened to that man’s 
 eyes, for apart from shame and retribution of 
 God, there was no solid earthly reason why 
 he should have died as he did. Judaism 
 would never have punished him, Rome 
 would never have punished him, and there 
 was no apostle under deadly vendetta pledged 
 to take away his wretched life. But the man, 
 you see, for at least three years had been toy- 
 ing with hell, for he who could live with 
 Jesus, and in the end sell Jesus, must have 
 been far gone in way of wickedness. I do 
 not think he sold him intentionally to death, 
 but he sold him. He sold his best and noblest 
 friend if he did not know he sold his God. 
 Time and sin and crime, had all combined 
 to harden him, up to that state that he could 
 do that deed,— sell his friend, or sell his God. 
 
 And then, all at once, all hell seemed to 
 
344 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 burst open before the man’s mind, and G-od 
 through conscience rang out of it, “You Jrare 
 sold the innocent blood.” 
 
 0 deadly mockery of sin ! 0 cursed vil- 
 
 lainy of sin, to lead us on step by step to do 
 the deed and then to scourge us, and lash us, 
 and mock us, through the deed we have 
 done. And so those awful words chased 
 that wretched man to his death. Chased him 
 into the holy place of the temple where the 
 priests sat. Chased him out of their mocking 
 presence after he had flung the cursed coin 
 at their feet. Chased him out into the dark- 
 ness, a lonely, self-accused murderer, with 
 every breath of air becoming a voice to ring- 
 out the accusation, “ You have shed the inno- 
 cent blood, you have shed the innocent 
 blood.” Chased him till the very prospect of 
 death itself became to him a glowing mercy, 
 till he grasped it as a gift, and hanged him- 
 self. 
 
 Now there arc some striking and awful 
 lessons in these terrible life records of by- 
 gone men. 
 
 How is it we get these feelings of shame 
 and dread, or, as in the case of Judas, of re- 
 
PRESENT RETRIBUTION. 
 
 145 
 
 morse and misery arising from an overwhelm- 
 ing consciousness of ungrateful wrong- 
 doing? The feeling must come solely from 
 our sense of personal responsibility. But re- 
 sponsibility to whom ? To outraged law and 
 and an outraged God behind law, to that 
 
 sense of right and wrong in us which makes 
 man different from all other created things. 
 Oh ! it is so easy to sin against God, but the 
 hardest thing in life to get rid of and shuf- 
 fle off is God himself. We may mock at 
 wrong-doing, but we are forced through our 
 own God-endowed senses in countless cases, 
 to curse it at the last as the bane, and blight, 
 and misery of our wretched and degraded 
 lives. Learn then your responsibility, not 
 alone to yourself and your fellow-man, but 
 to your God. 
 
 And we well may learn it, we who at 
 times may think that we can play and tamper 
 with sin, or we, w 7 ho are tempted by the 
 spirit of the age, to think, that “accident” is 
 God, that there is no plan in the universe, 
 that there is no providence, no retribution, no 
 sting or lash for sin. These terrible spectres 
 
 of the past start up out of their mournful 
 10 
 
146 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 graves and hold out imploring hands to warn 
 us not to come into the place of torment that 
 they made for themselves “ For Grod’s sake 
 keep back,” they say. “You little know 
 what you are doing when day by day you 
 break down your moral sense, when hour by 
 hour you ignore Grod, then cease to reverence 
 Him, then mock Him, and then blaspheme 
 Him. One day all hell will rise up to meet 
 you, and in that awful hour you may find 
 yourself alone as we did — Cain, and Saul, and 
 Judas.” 
 
 And there is an awful lesson for the man 
 or the woman who feels the decay of the god- 
 like in them, and the strong growth of the 
 devilish. Sunlight on the face, deadly pro- 
 gressive wickedness in the heart, the inward 
 going down the twisting, slimy steps that 
 lead to the awful door that opens to a touch 
 and above which is written, “ Abandon hope, 
 abandon it, all ye that enter here.” 
 
 Grod save us from that, in life or death, as, 
 (thank Grod !) he can save the vilest “if we 
 submit ourselves unto Him, if we take His 
 easy yoke and light burden upon us, if we will 
 confess our sins and plant our feet steadfastly 
 
PRESENT RETRIBUTION. 
 
 147 
 
 upon the holy road. This if we do, Christ 
 will deliver us,” and the pains of hell will get 
 no hold upon us here or, better still, here- 
 after. 
 
LENT. 
 
 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer dark- 
 ness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 Matt, xxv : 30. 
 
 There has been a good deal written in the 
 public press of late, with regard to the ques- 
 tion of future life, the darker side of it ; cer- 
 tain ecclesiastical trials, acquittals or con- 
 demnations, blowing into flame the sleeping 
 embers of old and off-repeated arguments. 
 As one mummy is very like another mummy, 
 so one series of letters or articles on this ques- 
 tion is little more than a re-arrangement of 
 thoughts that have been repeated on every 
 occasion the controversy has come up. There 
 is nothing new, there can be nothing new in 
 connection with the subject ; it has passed 
 through every form that the chemical changes 
 
FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 149 
 
 of an argument are capable of being sub- 
 jected to. 
 
 Years ago I gave this subject the closest 
 personal study, and I have never seen any 
 occasion to change the conclusion I then ar- 
 rived at, which may be summed up in one 
 thought ; that it is waste of time to be argu- 
 ing about shallows and margins, and foot 
 depths, the meaning of this word, the mean- 
 ing of that, whilst the great ocean itself, 
 with its awful depths, is practically left un- 
 thought of. 
 
 Grod has given us a Book which Christian 
 people believe, and have ever believed to be 
 a revelation from him. This Book describes 
 not only time, but all time, and it also under- 
 takes to give us an insight into eternity. It 
 deals with man as an immortal being, de- 
 scribing his life both here and hereafter as 
 one life. What it says of life here is true to 
 the letter. Whether speaking of joy or sor- 
 row, sickness or health, sin or goodness, 
 temptation or triumph, it speaks truth ; what 
 we positively know to be the truth because 
 the experience of our daily lives confirms it. 
 What it says of life hereafter we have every 
 
150 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 reason to believe is equally true, for although 
 we do not possess the confirmation of per- 
 sonal experience, we have no fair reason to 
 believe that the description of life hereafter 
 is incorrect ; and, admitting the immortality 
 of man, our experience here would teach us 
 that good will ever call for reward and evil 
 will ever call for punishment. 
 
 Well, this Revelation from Grod, as I said, 
 describes the life of man in its present and 
 future aspects, and no student of it as it deals 
 with the future aspect can deny, that it dis- 
 tinctly teaches happiness and punishment 
 beyond the grave, a state of conscious exist- 
 ence in which good meets its reward and sin 
 meets its penalty. I need not quote beyond 
 my text to prove this. Every student knows 
 that it forms part of the plan of the revela- 
 tion itself ; the whole Book tends towards it 
 as the closing act of divine interference with 
 the life of man. Beyond death sin is punished, 
 beyond death holiness, faith, purity, reap 
 eternal harvests. If to us the Bible is G-od’s 
 revelation and our guide, then for us these 
 two facts should stand out so clear and dis- 
 tinct that nothing but love of useless contro- 
 
FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 151 
 
 versy, or love of wasting time in worthless 
 argument could lead us to deny them. 
 
 And indeed three parts of the arguments 
 that are most popular in connection with this 
 awful subject are really worthless as far as 
 the main point of the revelation is concerned 
 and are of such a nature that they would 
 never be seriously thought of as connected 
 with that portion of the revelation which 
 speaks of present life. When Jeremiah says 
 “ Rivers of waters run down mine eyes for 
 the destruction of my people, ” we do not 
 begin arguing about the depth of such rivers 
 and the duration of their flow, but we natur- 
 ally realize that the sorrows of his country 
 caused the prophet great and poignant grief, 
 and that, after all, is what the prophet meant 
 us to know. So, when the Lord through 
 Isaiah tells Israel, “ When thou walkest 
 through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, 
 neither shall the flame kindle upon thee,” 
 we do not realize that the prophet meant that 
 the whole nation was to pass through living 
 fire, but that the good providence of Grod 
 would be over it in great national crises, and 
 that in spite of awful perils, it would come 
 
152 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 out of them unharmed. It would never enter 
 into our mind to make such figures of speech 
 in connection with this life, subject of debate ; 
 we would never dream of it, and yet when 
 we come to talk over future life, like forms of 
 speech at once assume doctrinal importance, 
 and the wordy warfare wages about them 
 rather than about the awful topic itself which 
 they are simply used to give pictorial expres- 
 sion to. 
 
 For just as a person going through a forest 
 may miss the main foot-track and become en- 
 tangled in a maze of by-paths, so there is 
 very great danger of controversially inclined 
 minds, embarking on this subject, becoming 
 so immersed in arguing about words, and 
 phrases and expressions as to lead them to 
 forget altogether the tremendous fact that 
 whatever the Bible does not teach on this 
 subject, there is one thing it certainly does 
 teach as plainly as it teaches that “ Gfodmade 
 the heavens and the earth and that is that 
 in future life there is lasting punishment for 
 the impenitent soul that dies in open rebel- 
 lion against a G-od, whose existence, power 
 and love that soul could realize if it only 
 
FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 153 
 
 willed to do so. No amount of argument 
 which retains the Bible as a divinely reliable 
 guide can ever shake this fact ; the fact that 
 there is punishment for impenitent souls that 
 know what is right in God’s eyes. 
 
 And this, after all, for you, for me, is the 
 main fact to think about and to fashion our 
 faith and lives in the light of. Suppose, after 
 spending time and study on classifying all 
 the scriptural and classical uses of the w T ords 
 “ eternal,” “ everlasting,” or such phrases as 
 “ for ever and ever,” I come to the conclusion 
 that they do not mean what in ordinary lan- 
 guage they imply, w 7 hat have I gained ? I 
 may be right, or I may be w 7 rong, but what 
 have I gained ? I have not touched, nor 
 would my studies in this direction lead me 
 to touch, the question of future suffering for 
 sin past and unrepented-of. That remains, as 
 ever it has been, a great scriptural reality. I 
 may place a limit of eternal remoteness to 
 the word eternal as applied to punishment ; 
 in a spirit of hope I may see in eternal dis- 
 tances some ending to it, and some ending 
 w 7 ith light about it, and my speculations may 
 bring with them a certain calm and ease of 
 
154 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 mind ; but my remote relief does not touch the 
 fact of punishment itself, and my eternal 
 limits are so distant and undefined that past 
 geologic ages seem near at hand as compared 
 with them. The fact, the awful fact of 
 necessary retribution remains, regard it as 
 penal, regard it as remedial, what you will, 
 and that after all is what you have to face as 
 plain, practical, common-sense Bible-readers 
 with souls to save. Your life here follows you 
 into life beyond, over which Christ has cast the 
 spell of pardon, as far as we know for none 
 but the holy, — that is what we have to face. 
 
 Such controversies as I have spoken of 
 seem to me like “ Nero fiddling whilst Borne 
 was burning” — he may have made fine music, 
 but the grandest city in the world was burn- 
 ing all the time. And so I may argue and 
 argue, and gain converts to my view that 
 punishment is not eternal, cannot be eternal, 
 and I may die in the midst of a most victori- 
 ous argument, and wake up on the other side 
 to the sure and certain knowledge of the fact 
 that what presses on me is not desires as to 
 remote contingencies, but the terrible solemn- 
 ities of present condemnation. For certainly 
 
FUTURE RETRIBUTION. 
 
 155 
 
 the Bible teaches that as clearly as, on the 
 other hand, it teaches “ that there is no con- 
 demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” 
 Whatever that condemnation is, the whole 
 love of Gfod in Jesus Christ has been poured 
 forth to save us from it. For this He sent his 
 own Son, for this Calvary will ever sound on 
 human ears in tones of mingled shame and 
 glory, for this Christ Jesus died. I judge of 
 the misery of the condemnation by the price 
 paid to save us from it. In the life of Christ 
 I see everything that is purely human and 
 gloriously divine concentrated, and I see this 
 life of love, mercy and goodness sacrificed — 
 for what? — ultimately for what? To save 
 me from this condemnation. That is enough 
 for me. The greatest sermon, the greatest ar- 
 gument, the most striking revelation con- 
 nected with this condemnation is — the Cross 
 of Christ. Why is He led forth as a lamb to the 
 slaughter? Why is his soul poured forth 
 unto death? Why do the olive trees of Gfeth- 
 semane witness his misery, and the bare skull 
 of Calvary send forth his death-cry in awful 
 echoings ? Why ? To save me from this 
 condemnation. Should not that be enough ? 
 “ By Thy baptism, fasting and temptation, by 
 
156 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Thine agony and bloody sweat, by Thy cross 
 and passion,” — 0 Lord, I guage the deplh of 
 my awful condemnation. 
 
 My present leads out into my future. I can 
 see to-day, feel its sunshine, enjoy its passing 
 beauty, — but to-morrow ! O that terrible to- 
 morrow ? Egypt in its aw T ful hour of blinding 
 blackness was not darker than that to-morrow 
 is to many. What fools we are to plunge into 
 it with the wild, delusive infatuation ruling 
 us, that because the darkness ultimately may 
 lead out into light, we need not trouble 
 ourselves about the darkness itself. — above all, 
 when our “ ultimately ” is open to question, 
 and the whole voice of the great spiritual past 
 ranges itself against it. When Stanley plunged 
 into the giant forest of Africa, he knew that 
 if he only lived to push on he must come out 
 into the sunlight, lor Africa east and west is 
 washed by an ocean. But of this darkness, 
 “ the blackness of darkness forever.” — ah ! 
 where is the wisdom of speculating about it ? 
 Better accept it as an awful reality looming 
 ahead of every one of us, and which alone can 
 be escaped by our placing our hand in His, 
 w 7 ho is the “ Light of the world,” and saying 
 “I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” 
 
LENT. 
 
 Simon, Simon, behold Satan asked to have you, that he 
 might sift you as wheat ; but I made supplication for thee, 
 that thy faith fail not. 
 
 Luke xxii : 31. 
 
 What a strange thing human nature is, 
 even when the affections are deeply centred 
 on any one being, and sympathy aroused on 
 his behalf. Here, midst the shade and gloom 
 cast by the coming death of Christ on bis dis- 
 ciples, these very same men sit in the shadow 
 speculating, calculating, arguing, as to which 
 of them would be the greatest when the 
 troubles in some strange way would be over, 
 and the kingdom of Christ would be revealed. 
 Possibly Peter may have laid claim to the 
 primacy, for our Lord seems to have singled 
 him out from amongst the disputants as wor- 
 thy of special warning. “Simon! Simon! 
 
158 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 take care. Stop ! If ever a man was in peril 
 you are in peril. I know that Satan has 
 asked to have you all as once he had Job, 
 that he might sift you all, even as wheat is 
 sifted. The question is not who shall be 
 greatest, but who shall stand the sifting, and, 
 Simon, you are in greatest peril from that 
 sifting, but I have prayed for you that your 
 faith fail not. For, O loving man, brave man, 
 yet, O weak and unstable man, there is good 
 in you. Your courage may leave you in that 
 sifting, your vows and promises may be scat- 
 tered as chaff is scattered ; but I have made 
 supplication for thee, that that which is thy 
 leading characteristic may not fail thee — thy 
 faith.” 
 
 You all know how the satanic sifting came, 
 how in the moment of our Lord’s sorest need, 
 “ they all forsook him and fled.” You know 
 how the sifting came to Peter, how as the 
 awful sieve of testing did its work in Pilate’s 
 judgment hall, but one grain of real wheat 
 was left behind, and that was his faith, that 
 clinging to Jesus, which would not allow 
 that wretched man to go on blaspheming, 
 denying, but which almost burst his heart, 
 
SIFTING BY SATAN. 
 
 159 
 
 and loosed the torrent of his tears and broke 
 him down into abject penitence. “ Sifted, 
 sifted, you will be to the last grain, but I 
 have made supplication for thee, that thy 
 faith fail not, whatever else fails. I have 
 prayed that that might stand.” 
 
 What doors of mystery all this opens into 
 things invisible. Satan had asked to have 
 Simon, John, Judas, Thomas, but what if 
 Satan is asking to have me, if Satan is ask- 
 ing to have you? It is an old affair all this 
 about Peter, but one soul is as well worth 
 destruction as another, and who can tell, en- 
 veloped in mystery as w r e are, that Satan is not 
 asking to have me or you or to have the 
 noblest and best amongst us. 0 placid men 
 and placid women, easy-going men and easy- 
 going women, what an awful thought if one 
 can but realize it ! To think that the unseen 
 power of evil that had his eyes fixed on Peter 
 to keep him ever in view, that he might fin- 
 ally run him down and tear and trample on 
 him, leaving him a mass of misery and muti- 
 lation, that those same eyes may now be fixed 
 on you, on me, and with the same object in 
 view, our remorseless and final degradation. 
 
160 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Have we not here some explanation of those 
 awful and sudden lapses into sin by good 
 and holy people, where the light of a life- 
 time is quenched in a moment, and brilliant 
 stars fall from the clear vault of heaven into 
 the blackness of darkness ? “ Satan has asked 
 to have you that he may sift you, sift you as 
 wheat is sifted.” Or an explanation of those 
 wild mad plunges into sin, where conscience 
 and love and hope, are one and all flung 
 aside as worthless, and the soul, like travel- 
 lers mad with thirst in the desert, drinks 
 anything, however foul, that it may meet the 
 awful craving ? To-day David, to-morrow 
 Judas, the next day myself, yourself. 0 placid 
 men and placid women, are these things true ? 
 Is it possible that the old words once uttered 
 in the birth-room of the Blessed Sacrament, 
 have run their course through hoary centuries, 
 and to-day strike on my ears and yours, 
 “ Satan has asked to have you that he may 
 sift you, sift you as wheat is sifted ? ” 
 
 “ But I have made supplication for you that 
 your faith fail not.” Peter after all had afar 
 greater power on his side than all the powers 
 of hell arrayed against him ; he had the Lord 
 
SIFTING BY SATAN. 
 
 161 
 
 Jesus Christ. Beautiful, beautiful is this 
 undesigned evidence of the hidden life of 
 Christ that none but God the Father knew. 
 Peter, did you ever know that your master 
 prayed for you, singled you out, thought over 
 your dangers, realized your weakness, and 
 somewhere, perhaps in the mountain, “ a 
 great while before day, went down on his 
 knees and prayed.” 0 my Father, the time is 
 coming when Peter will be sifted, grant that 
 whatever fails him, his faith in thee may 
 last? Did you ever know that, Peter? Nay, 
 I fancy he never knew it till Christ told him. 
 He knew that his Master prayed often and 
 long, he knew that He had taught him how 
 to pray, but he never knew till now, how his 
 Lord had held him on his heart, thought of 
 him when he was thoughtless, and followed 
 him through trials yet to come that He might 
 guard him in the midst of dangers. 0 what 
 music there was in the words “ I have made 
 supplication for thee that thy faith fail not ! ” 
 How far Peter realized their power then, it is 
 not easy to say, but oh ! how like Heaven 
 opened, their loving tenderness must have 
 
 broken in on his soul in the hour of his bitter, 
 ll 
 
162 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 tearful humiliation, and in hours oft-repeated 
 in his after-life of glorious labour, how like 
 sunlight they must have brightened many a 
 scene of darkness ! “ I have made supplica- 
 
 cation for thee that thy faith fail not. O 
 Father, his courage may fail, his consistency 
 may be blotted, his boldness in confession 
 may weaken, but whatever fails, let not his 
 faith fail.” 
 
 If the mystery of evil and wrong is power- 
 ful for our undoing, here is a Power on our 
 side, as well as Peter’s, far greater for our 
 good. Oh ! who amongst us can tell how often 
 this “ blessed help” of ours has “ made sup- 
 plication,” has used that wondrous power 
 (which is His, whereby He reads us through 
 and through) to inspire his prayer, to plead 
 for us by name, to help us in our quest after 
 goodness, and to save us from many a mortal 
 and deadly sin ? As standing on the very 
 verge of unmistakable wrong-doing, w T hat at 
 times has mysteriously held us back, and 
 given us a strong foothold on the solid earth 
 behind us ? May it not have been the power 
 of the act expressed in the words, “ I have 
 made supplication for thee that thy faith fail 
 not.” 
 
SIFTING BY SATAN. 
 
 163 
 
 What we all need in this world of sin and 
 dark temptation is Christ. To trust him, to 
 know him, to lean on him, depend for every- 
 thing on him, that is what we want. To go 
 out into this world of sin and controversy 
 and wranglings, and doubt, and discord and 
 disorder, and as all about us at times seems 
 chaos and confusion, so that one scarce knows 
 what to think or where to look, to feel that 
 there is Christ, and to rest everything on that 
 rock which never can be shaken. The “sift- 
 ing” is my destiny and yours. I cannot 
 avoid it, come when it will, but if Christ be 
 on my side, if He owns me, weak though I 
 be, the victory in some shape will be mine. 
 The vessel of my life, storm-torn and rent, 
 may bear on it the marks of terrible disaster ; 
 but it will not strike the rocks and sink. Its 
 safety lies in the words of Him on whom I 
 lean for everything, “ I have made supplica- 
 tion for thee that thy faith fail not.” 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 He was wounded for our transgressions ; He was bruised 
 for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was 
 upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 
 
 Isaiah, liii : 5. 
 
 The Jewish translation of the old Maso- 
 retic text renders this wonderful passage as 
 follows : “ Yet He was wounded for our trans- 
 gressions, He was bruised for our iniquities ; 
 the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, 
 and through his bruises was healing granted 
 to us.” The application of the passage is 
 made to the Messiah. 
 
 You notice that the Jewish and English 
 translations are almost identical, and that any 
 slight verbal difference in the Jewish render- 
 ing heightens, if possible, the idea on which 
 all Christianity is based, “ that Christ suffered 
 — the just One for us unjust — to bring us to 
 
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 165 
 
 G-od, and that the blood of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth from all sin. 
 
 In speaking however of the substitutionary 
 sufferings of Christ, it is frequently objected 
 that the whole idea of substitution is an old 
 Jewish or heathenish idea, and that it really 
 forms no necessary part of the Christian mode 
 of salvation. That it is a Jewish idea is 
 apparent, but that it is not a Christian one is 
 by no means so clear. Indeed, it is hard to 
 find anything of Christianity which has not 
 some remnant of the blood of Judaism cours- 
 ing through its veins ; for Christianity is but 
 a divine development of the older creed, and 
 nowhere have we a stronger infusion of 
 Jewish doctrine than in the Christian idea of 
 the substitutionary character of our Lord’s 
 atonement. Because, on this point, Christ- 
 ianity had nothing novel about it ; it simply 
 transferred the sacrificial idea from the goat, 
 or pigeon or dove of Judaism to the personal 
 Christ of Christianity. 
 
 See the proof of this. The Lord’s Supper, 
 instituted by Christ immediately before 
 his death, was based wholly and in the 
 clearest possible manner on the foundation 
 
166 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 of personal substitution. St. Luke tells rrs 
 that during the feast Our Lord took the bread 
 and said : “ This is my body which is given 
 for you,” — and, likewise, the cup, saying, 
 “ This is my blood which is shed for you ; ” 
 or, as St. Matthew renders it, “ which is shed 
 for many for the remission of sins.” Here 
 the substitutionary idea is so strong, that if 
 we abstracted it from the Feast, we would 
 commit a spiritual murder, that is, we would 
 be taking the life of the thought. 
 
 Not less clear is the direct scriptural teach- 
 ing which tells us that “ the Son of Man came 
 to give his life a ransom for many,” that 
 “Christ died for the ungodly,” that “ whilst 
 we were sinners Christ died for us,” that He 
 was made sin for us,” that “ He, in his own 
 person, bore our sin s in his body upon the 
 tree,” that “He who knew no sin was made 
 sin for us, that we might be made the right- 
 eousness of God in him.” Now, if you take 
 the substitutionary idea from these and 
 countless verses of a like nature, you again 
 palpably and openly commit a spiritual 
 murder. 
 
 Take for instance the text, “ Christ died for 
 
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 167 
 
 the ungodly,” blot out the words which 
 convey the substitutionary idea, and there 
 remains nothing beyond the bald obituary 
 record, “ Christ died.” But that statement is 
 of no religious value. Pontius Pilate died, 
 Herod died. Leave in the words “ for the 
 ungodly,” and you then possess a statement 
 that you could never apply in its literal sense 
 to any man. Christ died ; but if he died, he 
 did so for the ungodly. 
 
 Why there should be Christly substitution 
 for our personal sins, neither I, nor any one 
 receiving the Word of God as an inspired 
 revelation, have any right to surmise. It is 
 not revealed. It is one of those awful mys- 
 teries connected with spiritual things which 
 God brings out of the darkness of eternity and 
 handing to us, says : “ You are saved by faith ; 
 believethis, and this, and this, and show your 
 faith.” The doctrine is presented to me as a 
 divine fact to be realized by faith, just as I 
 am told that “ in the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth.” Why He created 
 them I am not told, beyond the fact that they 
 “ declare His glory,” and behind that it is 
 utterly useless for me to go. Behind that is 
 
168 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 God with his great unrevealed secrets, one 
 of which is the necessity of a substitutionary 
 Saviour. 
 
 But it is said that it seems hard, if not 
 positively unjust, that the pure and spotless 
 Jesus should suffer in the place of impure 
 and tainted men, — that the innocent should 
 suffer for the guilty. "Well, I admit it does 
 seem hard, but things are not always what 
 they seem. 
 
 In the first place the mystery springs out 
 of the noblest aspect of love ; and who can 
 sound the depths of love’s power ? Love 
 planned the atonement, and there is no fear 
 or harshness in love. It was because God 
 loved the world that he sent His only Son to 
 die, and it was because Christ loved his own, 
 and loved them to the end, that He came to 
 die. We may picture the road back from the 
 cross to the door of the great eternal secret as 
 one of harshness, injustice, and even cruelty; 
 but when the door opens, Love opens it, and 
 the light from its face shines down the whole 
 dark way, till it strikes on the cross itself 
 and makes it brilliant. 
 
 Again, hard and harsh as the demand for 
 
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 169 
 
 atonement seems to us, it was not so to Christ, 
 for that atonement was made of his own free 
 will and accord. “ Greater love (He saith to 
 his disciples) hath no man than this, — that 
 a man lay down his life for his friends. I 
 have power to lay it down and I have power 
 to take it again.” Here there is not a whisper 
 of injustice or harshness or even dissatisfac- 
 tion, but a loving announcement of a generous 
 sacrifice, an answer from Christ’s own lips to 
 all objections. 
 
 But, putting all this aside, I ask : Why 
 
 should we arraign and find fault with the 
 fact of the innocent Christ, willingly and 
 lovingly surrendering life to save a guilty 
 world, when the harsh principle without, 
 often, the actual willingness, surrounds and 
 hems us in on all sides in every position of 
 
 4 
 
 life, and that, not only without arraignment 
 on our part, but often creating a spirit of 
 lofty praise and laudation ? 
 
 For, what is life, but a long record of the 
 innocent suffering for the guilty ? 
 
 Look at it where it touches us most. Why 
 are godly and consistent parents forced at 
 times to shed bitter tears over lost and out* 
 
170 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 cast children ? Why are sober, steady wives 
 or mothers who, if widowed or alone to-mor- 
 row, would gain an ample livelihood, — why 
 are they forced to drag out a life of wretched 
 misery, chained to drunken, degraded hus- 
 bands, or selfish, abandoned sons ? Just 
 because they are irresistibly obeying the law 
 incomprehensible, yet apparently inevitable, 
 — they, the innocent, are unquestionably, 
 and often willingly, suffering for the guilty. 
 
 Look at it in the highest spiritual light. 
 Christianity claims to be a cure for sin ; great 
 preachers and teachers of the Gospel are, as 
 great spiritual doctors, meant to minister for 
 good to guilt and shame and wickedness. 
 Now, it is an undoubted fact that Christianity 
 never was nobler, grander and more power- 
 ful for good than at those periods of time 
 when martyrdom was common. If you divide 
 the history of the Church into epochs you 
 will find three remarkable ones: the Apostolic, 
 the early Christian, and the Reformation 
 epochs. All these were times when the 
 doctors of Christ went forth with divine 
 courage, fought spiritual disease and sin with 
 the truest bravery, did marvels for the cause 
 
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTE, 
 
 171 
 
 of Christ in saying souls, but died themselves 
 the cruelest of deaths for the sake of those 
 amongst whom they laboured. The apostles 
 died as martyrs, the early Christians died as 
 martyrs, the reformers died as martyrs, — 
 heroes of innocence, they died for the guilty. 
 
 And, even in our own day, who are the 
 heroes that gain the world’s highest praise ? 
 Surely substitutionary heroes : Livingstone 
 and Bishop Hannington in Africa, Bishop 
 Patteson in Melanesia, Gordon at Kartoum ; 
 such men need no earthly titles or dignities 
 to mark them off from the common herd. 
 Here is the true nobility of Christian heroism 
 before which the world stands with uncov- 
 ered head — mute and awestruck — the inno- 
 cent who go to death to save the guilty or to 
 seek the lost. 
 
 But “ it is not right,” you say. Men like 
 Livingstone should never have died such 
 deaths ; good wives should never suffer at the 
 hands of bad husbands ; doctors and clergy- 
 men should never perish through drawing 
 in the infectious breath of poverty-stricken 
 patients who can never repay them for the 
 risk. If God is the God you claim him to be, 
 he should never allow such things. 
 
 o 
 
172 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Ah ! my friends, do you not see that G-od’s 
 plan is : First, to show his love to us, and, 
 secondly, to teach us how to love, and that 
 you cannot have love without loss, and, some- 
 times, without suffering, — that humanity 
 rises into magnificence just in proportion as 
 it suffers for others. Carry out your policy, 
 and where do you leave room for love and 
 hope and forgiveness and charity and self- 
 
 t 
 
 denial, and unselfishness to work in ? You 
 simply murder them in cold blood, you kill 
 out all my chances of cultivating and prac- 
 tising such divine characteristics the moment 
 that you bring me to believe that it is unfair, 
 unjust, and cruel, to ask me to bend my back 
 to bear a brother’s share of a brother’s suffer- 
 ings, and often a brother’s guilt. 
 
 What is the truest love ? That which ceases 
 not to say, “ I love you,” or that which is 
 ready to bear anything that the object loved 
 may be benefited and blessed ? Surely the 
 latter. True love proves itself best, not by 
 its gratification, but by its patient unselfish- 
 ness, by its surrender of what often it longs 
 and thirsts for, by its dogged determination 
 to show its depth and power through its self- 
 
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 173 
 
 denial and ceaseless surrender of what it 
 would have otherwise. This is the highest 
 love, and, as such, the truest. 
 
 Away from such thoughts, and back to the 
 awful cross, with our lessons from life ; and 
 though we may not be able to fathom all its 
 mysteries, surely we can learn something of 
 its object. Through Christ it was meant to 
 teach us “ God’s love.” He so loved us that 
 He sent his Son. Through Christ it was 
 meant to bring us back to the God that loved 
 us ; that by his cross and passion, by his 
 cruel death and burial, the outcast prodigal 
 might rest his head upon his Father’s breast. 
 
 I raise my eyes in loving gratitude to the 
 bleeding form, and all that I have ever learned 
 of its meaning leads me to say : 0 God ! the 
 greatest evidence of Thy love was bringing 
 Christ to the cross ; and, 0 Christ ! the greatest 
 evidence of Thy love was in dying on it, for 
 on that cross Thou wert wounded for my 
 transgressions, Thou wert bruised for my 
 iniquities ; the chastisement of my peace was 
 upon Thee, and by thy stripes I am healed. 
 “Thine” and “ Mine.” Thy love, my sins ; 
 Thy devotion to death, my devotion to evil. 
 
174 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Surely, Lord, it is true of Thee, “ that greater 
 love hath no man than this that he lay down 
 his life for sinners.” 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 And Je c u8 said : 
 not what they do.” 
 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 
 St. Luke xxiii : 34. 
 
 These words were spoken from the cross of 
 Christ. The death spell is on them, for the 
 Cross has its message to the world as well as 
 the life of Him who lay on it. He speaks 
 through his life, He speaks through his cross, 
 it become vocal with his love. 
 
 The most awful day that the world has 
 ever seen has dawned, and the Son of Gtod is 
 crucified between two thieves. He came 
 unto his own, and his own crucified him ; 
 He came as the final fruit of all G-od’s merci- 
 ful dealings with the sins of men, and man 
 murdered him. The whole scene, view it 
 how you will, is simply awful ; there is 
 only one thing that redeems it, — the Lord 
 
176 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 himself, his own blessed words that turned 
 the tree of shame into a symbol of divine 
 glory, and foremost among them the pitiful, 
 loving, generous words : “ Father, forgive 
 
 them, they know not what they do.” 
 
 Now, what do these words mean ? They 
 mean : “ Father, I ask forgiveness for these 
 people, for they have not the faintest concep- 
 tion of the crime they are committing. They 
 think that they are crucifying the Son of 
 Joseph and Mary. That I am the Messiah, 
 the summing-up of every prophet’s voice, the 
 fulfilment of every divine promise, — above 
 all, that I am “Gfod incarnate in the flesh,” — 
 0 Father, they have never once thought of 
 such things. Forgive them, forgive their 
 sins and crime of ignorance ; they are like 
 children, — they do, and know not what they 
 are doing ; Father, forgive them.” 
 
 But can men crucify the Son of G-od ignor- 
 antly ? Our answer is the plea of Christ’s own 
 prayer, “They know not what they are doing,” 
 — words endorsed by St. Peter when plead- 
 ing with the Jews : “ I wot through ignor- 
 
 ance ye did it,” — words repeated by St. Paul : 
 “ Had they known they would not have cru- 
 
DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 177 
 
 cified the Lord of Glory,” — words that dis- 
 close a field of divine mercy that people think 
 but little of, but that St. Paul clung to as one 
 secret of his own forgiveness as a persecutor 
 of God’s Church : “ I obtained mercy because 
 I did it ignorantly and in unbelief.” 
 
 Look up at the Cross, and see how its sha- 
 dow falls to shade the very people that Christ 
 prayed for. What was Pentecost ? It was the 
 supplement of the Cross on Calvary. Who 
 are these that throng round Peter and on 
 whose heads the divine light is playing ? 
 Who are these three thousand that throng 
 round the blessed Feast of love, and cry to 
 their God in the name of Jesus ? Who are 
 these five thousand who in one day find 
 within the Jewish temple itself a new altar 
 bearing for their sins a new and an everlast- 
 ing Sacrifice ? Who are these that on the per- 
 secution that followed the death of Stephen, 
 scattered themselves as u Christ-bearers ” and 
 erected a spiritual Calvary in the hearts of 
 the multitudes of Samaria ? Every one of 
 them is of the nation that murdered Christ. 
 It may be that there were thousands amongst 
 them who, if they did not cry, “ Crucify 
 
178 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 him,” would have cried it if they had 
 the opportunity. Yes, Pentecost was the 
 supplement of Calvary. Out of His side 
 “ came blood and water,” and out of heaven, 
 straight from the heart of God, a storm of 
 divine blessing and benediction that tore and 
 rent the hardest hearts, that scattered the 
 darkness, that dimmed the blindest eyes, and 
 that formed the grandest answer that could 
 be given to the Prayer : “ Father, forgive 
 
 them.” 
 
 "Who dare place bounds to the power of 
 that answer ? Why every blessing we possess 
 is due to these pardoned men ? The Gospel 
 we talk of and trust in, the Church of God, 
 the victories of the Cross, the glorious army 
 of martyrs and confessors, the loud shout of 
 millions who proclaim : “ Thou art the King 
 of Glory, O Christ, Thou art the everlasting 
 Son of the Father ; ” — to whom do we owe 
 these blessings and Inspirations ? To that 
 strange, mysterious nation, blinded, ignorant, 
 and in unbelief, for whom the Master prayed 
 in his agony of death : “ Father, forgive them, 
 they know not what they do.” 
 
 And who dare limit the spirit of the prayer ? 
 
DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 
 
 119 
 
 Who dare use it as mercy for the ignorant 
 Jew and withhold it from the ignorant Gen- 
 tile ? Oh ! this Cross does more for the world 
 than we in our petty thinking give it credit 
 for. 
 
 It is one of the horrors of modern civiliza- 
 tion, that as yet you cannot have it without 
 its deadly fringe of darkest ignorance. In all 
 great centres of seething life, where highest 
 art and culture . reign ; as if to humble and 
 correct the haughty, the savagery of Africa 
 seems to nestle in the bosom of Europe. Un- 
 derneath the glory and the education and 
 the wealth, is a, putrid mass of ignorance, 
 degradation and misery, so awful and over- 
 whelming, that the noblest and the best of 
 Christians stand dazed before it. 0 God, help 
 us ! is there nothing but hell for these out- 
 cast, blinded, ignorant poor, darker some- 
 times than the fetich- worshippers, — for these, 
 at least, worship a fetich ? — Is there no balm 
 in Gilead for such as these ! I trust the cross 
 of Christ ; some way good must come out of 
 it for them ; there must be mercy mingled in 
 its blood, though my doctrinal chemistry 
 may not have the power of analysing it. I 
 
180 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 trust the cross of Christ. If I am beaten with 
 many stripes, surely they with few. I trust 
 the cross, if or nothing more than the ringing 
 glorious prayer of divine and noblest pity : 
 “ Father, forgive them, they know not what 
 they do.” 
 
 Who dare limit its power for mercy ? For, 
 what are these masses of civilized misery of 
 which I have been speaking, as compared 
 with the millions of heathen that have never 
 heard the name of “Jesus,” — who could not 
 hear it, — foi, how can they hear without a 
 preacher? I do not believe that there is one 
 tribe on earth without some religion. As 
 hunted African hides from slave-hunter in 
 swamp and forest ; as, torn and bleeding, he 
 drags his wearied frame into deeper depths 
 of hidden darkness, so these wretched beings 
 outside of the Gfospel seem in their unaided 
 searches after Gfod, to get deeper and deeper 
 into the depths of spiritual degradation. 0 
 God, help them ! Must all their bitter jour- 
 neyings end in blackest hell ? Again I trust 
 the cross of Christ — how, I know not, but I 
 trust it, — He died for all. Surely the Cross 
 must have pity for those who, seeking for the 
 
DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 
 
 181 
 
 light, wander farther from it the more they 
 seek, and surely it has. — “ Father, he cries, 
 forgive them, forgive them, they know not 
 what they do.” 
 
 Then you say : better the heathen than the 
 Christian, mercy without responsibility. Be 
 fair. Would you strip you, and make you 
 bare, and change places with the heathen to 
 buy your mercy at the hands of God cheaply ? 
 You would never do it. Then make not the 
 hidden mercy that the Cross may secrete for 
 the heathen, the paltry excuse for your rejec- 
 tion of its poured-out blessings. If you have 
 responsibility, your blessings go to make up 
 the sum total of all your earthly happiness. 
 
 Now, have we, we who worship here to- 
 day, sins of ignorance that will fall under the 
 influence of this wondrous prayer ? I guage 
 not, — God forbid I should, — the power of 
 God’s eyesight, as it pierces into the hidden 
 depths of human motives and, separating 
 them, says, — this was born of ignorance, this 
 of keenest knowledge. I believe the young 
 often sin through ignorance, and God knows 
 it, and unknown it may be to them the Cross 
 pardons them freely ; but I can tell you that 
 
182 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 our sins of ignorance must, in the nature of 
 things, be few and far between. Since you 
 have entered into years of active life, dealing 
 with men, have you often done wrong when 
 you did not know you were doing wrong ? 
 Oh, no ; this prayer has little to say to us, 
 we have little to say to it ; nine-tenths of us 
 stand outside its influence. 
 
 And yet, thank God, the Cross has its cry 
 for us : “ It is finished.” What is finished ? 
 The great act of solitary and irresistible 
 atonement which covers every phase and 
 form of guilt, — my guilt, your guilt. God’s 
 love poured out through the blood of Christ, 
 if I will but take it to my heart and give 
 myself to Christ. Christ said : “ Forgive thy 
 brother, not seven times, but seventy times 
 seven ; ” and as on this day He lies on the 
 cross to which I should have been nailed, — 
 “ my Saviour, my substitute,” He speaks to 
 me in love and says, — not seventy times 
 seven will I forgive, but day by day, hour by 
 hour, at any time, at any moment that your 
 heart cries out in penitence : “Turn Thy face 
 from my sins and blot out all my misdeeds.” 
 
 That cross of Christ is to me the most won- 
 
DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 
 
 183 
 
 derful thought connected with my life, for 
 live how I will, speak how I will, teach how 
 I will, I cannot plunge my hand into my 
 heart and tear out the strange mystic threads 
 that link that cross with my own individual 
 being. What is the strangest fact connected 
 with individual life and that people notice 
 least ? Not the fact that I am a great soldier, 
 or a great poet, or a great philosopher, or a 
 great politician ; these are small things as far 
 as strangeness is concerned, for the strangest 
 thing that could be said of me is the truest — 
 u There goes a man for whom God died.” 0 ! 
 think of it when sins beset you, and grief 
 wears you, and age steals in on you, and 
 sickness weakens you ; think of it when 
 pride possesses you, and self-love poisons 
 your blood, and the avenging of wrong-doing 
 is haunting you like a shadow. Stop ! Think ! 
 All is not lost as long as your mind and soul 
 grasp the wondrous revelation, — “ I am a man 
 for whom God died.” 
 
 Of all strange things woven into the warp 
 and woof of your being, this is the strangest ; 
 and, surely, I am not wrong when I say, the 
 best. 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 There was darkness over all the land. 
 
 Matt, xxvii : 45. 
 
 The awful earthly tragedy which, with 
 solemn worship we meet to commemorate 
 this day, stands out alone and unique in the 
 record of all tragedies ; there is nothing like it 
 in the history or traditions of man. Amongst 
 its startling characteristics we are told that 
 as the hours of that awful day followed each 
 other, there was darkness oyer the whole 
 land from the sixth to the ninth hour, as if 
 nature, less insensible than man, refused to 
 look on such a spectacle. “ Darkness over 
 the whole laud.” Instead of the fierce heat 
 of a Syrian sun beating down in mid-day 
 fury on stream and field, on narrow streets 
 of town or village, on crowded thoroughfares 
 of the great city, — dense terrifying darkness 
 
DARKNESS OYER THE WHOLE LAND. 185 
 
 was everywhere throughout the land, whe- 
 ther it stole quietly into weary rooms of sick- 
 ness and round dying beds, or broke up 
 childish games in Jewish streets, and slowly 
 filled the temple with its awful gloom ; or 
 whether in one moment it spread itself like 
 a gigantic pall over the doomed city, we are 
 not told, — but darkness was everywhere. 
 And with darkness came, you may be sure, 
 that silence which darkness ever brings. Fan- 
 cy the crowded city with its millions steeped 
 in blindness whilst a deep “ hush ” brooded 
 over throbbing hearts that beat irregularly 
 in nervous expectancy ; for who could tell, 
 what next ? what next ? And there, in the 
 darkness, Jesus dies ; a mother’s eyes can 
 scarcely see Him, or He the mother to whom 
 he speaks, or the beloved disciple to whom 
 He gives his sacred charge. There, in the 
 darkness, Jesus dies ; a great and terrible cry, 
 as of mortal agony, breaks the awful silence, 
 — the head falls, the Lord of light and life is 
 dead, — and darkness is over the whole land. 
 
 There were other awful voices and portents 
 that followed and spoke to the doomed city. 
 The great temple, save for the holy lights, is 
 
186 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 in darkness, and thousands of beating hearts 
 within its walls surely ask, — What next ? 
 what next ? Aye, what next ? There is the 
 cry from the green hill outside the city wall, 
 and at that very moment the crowds within 
 the temple see in the dim distance the giant 
 curtain of gold and purple rend itself from 
 top to bottom, and there, behind its falling 
 folds, lies open to the common gaze, the place 
 of God, the sacred room, — the holiest place 
 of all. No human eyes ever dared to look 
 within that curtain, save those of the great 
 high priest once in every year ; no human 
 foot impressed itself on its dusty floor save 
 his ; and yet, 0 horror of horrors to every 
 pious mind ! just as the death cry rang out 
 from the cross on Calvary, at that very mo- 
 ment, Jehovah seemed to rend and tear his 
 own temple to pieces, and to abandon, as if 
 in righteous anger, the holy place where His 
 honour dwelleth. Not only is the curtain 
 severed, but the temple shakes, and the rocks 
 are rent, and in long hours after the graves are 
 flung wide open in the homes of death, and 
 frightened men, and trembling women tell 
 how in that awful week, when Jehovah 
 
DARKNESS OYER THE WHOLE LAND. 187 
 
 stripped his temple and made it bare, they 
 saw their dead, they saw their dead alive 
 “Darkness over the whole land,” and Jesns 
 dying in the midst of it to save the souls of 
 men. The cross all full of power and eternal 
 force, the Saviour all full of undying, un- 
 quenchable love, in the midst of the darkness. 
 When the darkness was deepest, one standing 
 on the summit of the skull-shaped hill might 
 easily have fancied that no cross was there, 
 no Christ. Yet, if such an one had blindly 
 groped his way, with outstretched hand, ere- 
 long he might have touched the bleeding feet 
 of Christ himself. Groping in the darkness 
 my hand might have touched my Lord. 
 “ Darkness over the whole land ; ” yet love, 
 and strength, and pardon, and forgiveness in 
 the midst of the darkness. It is there, close 
 to me, though I see it not. It is so dark I can 
 see nothing ; but if I wait till the ninth hour 
 is passed, there, on the crest of the hill, dim, 
 misty, forcing its way upward, is something, 
 and yet, a little longer — and very close to 
 me — is a cross, and on the cross Jesus Christ 
 who died to save me from my sins. In deepest 
 darkness the cross of Christ is there, — and 
 
188 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Christ ; and when the darkness passes, there 
 is Christ and there is the cross. 
 
 There is a darkness, mental, spiritual, that 
 ometimes settles down upon the soul. We 
 believe nothing in the past, doubt most things 
 in the present, have no hope of anything in 
 the future. God and Christ, and faith in life 
 to come, are names and phrases used by other 
 men, but to us mere words, — our faith is 
 going fast, or it is well nigh gone or dead. 
 “There is darkness over the whole land,” far 
 as the land reaches. “ Light, all thy comforts 
 once I had ; but here am I this death-dark 
 night, not mad, not mad,” — only faithless 
 and unbelieving. Well, Christ is in that 
 darkness ; if you grope with outstretched 
 hand you will find him, and finding him 
 find the source of all the light your soul 
 craves for. For he died in the darkness, that 
 he might be with you in your darkness, him- 
 self, his cross, near to you, close to you, 
 though you see him no . 
 
 There is a darkness that sweeps in on us as 
 the penalty of our own sin, — the darkness of 
 remorse, the 'whip of conscience, the fear of 
 judgment, here or elsewhere. “ There is dark- 
 
DARKNESS OVER THE WHOLE LAND. 189 
 
 ness over the whole land.” We not only feel 
 it all about us, but our heart tells us it is the 
 “ due reward of our deeds ; ” for, neither 
 blindfolded or dragged have we entered into 
 it, but of our own free w 7 ill, and we have lived 
 in it, and almost learned to love it, save when 
 the whip of conscience fell and ate into our 
 shrinking flesh. “Darkness over the whole 
 land.” Who or what are we that we should 
 ever claim the pity of our insulted God ? Yet 
 Christ is in that darkness, and there to atone, 
 to pardon, to pity and forgive ; there for you, 
 for me, in the lowest depths, for out of the 
 darkness comes the pleading voice : “Father,” 
 it cries, “forgive them.” We cannot see Him, 
 we hear the cry and know He is there. 
 
 There is a darkness that sweeps in on us at 
 the last ; it may be for a moment or it may 
 keep stealing in on us for days, — the dark- 
 ness of death. God alone can tell how soon 
 the best of us may feel it. It has been called 
 the valley of the shadows, and the shadows 
 deepen as we pass onward. But here for all 
 the good and true, the faithful yet stumbling, 
 the weak yet loving, — even here, in the dark- 
 ness of death itself, is Christ and the cross. 
 
190 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 We may not see him, for, oh ! the darkness is 
 dense and our eyes are blinded, but out of the 
 darkness we hear His voice bearing the mes- 
 sage that our soul pants to hear: “Verily I 
 say unto you, this day thou shalt be with me 
 in Paradise.” “ Darkness over the whole 
 land,” but Christ and the Cross in it all the 
 time, and nothing coming forth from it for 
 you, for me, but messages of the divinest 
 love. 
 
SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 
 
 Love never faileth. 
 
 1 Cor. xiii : 8. 
 
 The great, though oftentimes unuttered 
 question of the day with many is, whether 
 after death we shall exist or not ? We 
 trace the earthly record of one we love from 
 the cradle to the grave, and then, that which 
 we knew so well and valued disappears, is 
 gone. It is not that his outline has become 
 dim and blurred, but that he is so gone as to 
 leave a vacant place that in one sense to us 
 can never be filled. Our hand is stretched 
 out to touch, and there is nothing to touch. 
 The friend, the foe, the companion or the 
 counsellor, is gone. 
 
 Now, the widespread though often un- 
 uttered question is : does he exist elsewhere, 
 and will he continue to exist ? Is he who is 
 

 192 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 gone, a conscious, personal, reflecting being 
 elsewhere even as he was here, or is he 
 so gone as to be lost to recovery ; is he wiped 
 out of being as the flame of a candle is 
 blown out. 
 
 Christianity developing the universal 
 thought of widespread humanity claims that 
 he lives. It argues that the soul — that which 
 animates the body and is the real life — is 
 immortal, and it argues this, first, from the 
 natural thirst for immortality characteristic 
 of human nature ; then from the universal 
 belief in immortality, and, finally, from the 
 direct revelation of G-od which quenches the 
 thirst and meets the universal belief. In fact, 
 the immortality of the soul is the root idea oi 
 Christianity, its whole object being that oi 
 showing how the soul can be prepared in its 
 mortal state lor a happy immortality. 
 
 It is objected, however, that the presump 
 tive argument of the Christian in favour o: 
 immortality is largely connected with th< 
 feelings and affections of mankind, and thai 
 his hopes are based on sentiment and car 
 never stand the test of calm, keen, judicia 
 investigation. 
 
THE REAL MAN. 
 
 193 
 
 Your judicial materialist rules out senti- 
 ment. He places a stone before you. He tells 
 you that it is composed of silica, and lime, 
 and other mineral substances. Then he lec- 
 tures you on Man and shows you how man 
 is made up of material of a like nature, how 
 he is an animated collection of lime, and 
 phosphorus, and water, and so on, and how, 
 when he ceases to be animate, he consumes 
 away into a few ounces of mineral matter. 
 Then he places the mineral outcome of a 
 Shakespeare, a Livingstone, an Alexander, 
 side by side with the stone, and says : “ Be 
 sensible, use your calm judicial reason, you do 
 not claim personal immortality for the stone, 
 why claim it for the man ?” 
 
 I reply : Largely on account of the very 
 affections and the sentiment which you make 
 so little of, and practically refuse to allow to 
 enter into the subject. For, man, although 
 admitted to be bodily a chemical combin- 
 ation, is possessed of affections, and intel- 
 lect, and will ; and it is manifestly unfair to 
 leave these, or what is the natural offspring 
 of these, out of your comparison between a 
 stone and a man. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 There are, you know, certain circumstances 
 of distorted and diseased life which practi- 
 cally reduce the body of man almost to a 
 state of stone ; and one of the greatest of past 
 French writers has pictured such a state in one 
 of his most marvellously drawn characters. 
 It is that of an old man of clear intellect, and 
 strong affections and dislikes, so wholly para- 
 lysed that his only means of communicating 
 with the world of life about him is through 
 the movement of his eyes, responding nega- 
 tively or affirmatively to an alphabet held up 
 before him, until words and sentences were 
 spelled out as expressive of his thoughts. 
 And yet this man of stone sits like a mighty 
 fate or providence in the midst of a perfect 
 web of complicated and slowly developing 
 crime, shielding and guarding those he 
 loved from plots of which they had not the 
 faintest idea, and steadily, day by day, hem- 
 ming in the plotter until he brings her face 
 to face with her judgment and crushes her to 
 the very death. And that, without movement 
 of hand, or sound of voice, or following foot- 
 step. All done midst the silence of death 
 itself, all done by a man of stone. 
 
THE REAL MAN. 
 
 195 
 
 Such a case is by no means impossible ; it 
 simply postulates what, at any time might ex- 
 ist, a paralysed body, utterly worthless, yet 
 holding within it — as broken case might hold 
 a costly jewel — a magnificent mind, brilliant 
 with undimmed intelligence, and using that 
 intelligence to shield the pure and innocent 
 through the channels of the old man’s undy- 
 ing affections. 
 
 Now, in such a possible case, where, I ask, 
 is your real man ? In the arm and hand 
 lifted up by another only to fall back as a dead 
 thing, — is he there ? In the tongue useless 
 alike to bless or curse, — is he there ? In the 
 total weight of the dead body as he sits in 
 the chair, — is he there ? Are these the things 
 that made the man ? If so, your man and the 
 stone may be placed side by side, and your 
 materialist may well ask : Where is the dif- 
 ference ? 
 
 But, mark you, this dead mass is loved ; 
 what is it that is loved, — the dead paralysed 
 matter ? No. What is loved is all that that 
 man ever did when he was able to do it to 
 those who love him, and the man to them is 
 that still living affection that looks out at 
 
196 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 them through the moving eyes and says : 
 “I — I, that nursed you as a child ; I, that 
 taught you ; I, that loved you as the dearest 
 object of my life, I am alive still. I, the liv- 
 ing I, that did these things through hands 
 and -voice and other instruments — now all 
 useless — I am alive.” That’s what they love, 
 and it is that which makes the real man. 
 
 Now, my friends, if this could be, — as 
 indeed it could with you to-morrow, —do you 
 not see the palpable injustice, if not the utter 
 folly, of ruling out the affections and mind 
 in our thoughts of man, and then proceeding 
 chemically to show that there is really no 
 difference between man and the stone when 
 we reach the ultimatum of his earthly being. 
 That which is loved is what the stone can 
 never have, and what you cannot fairly think 
 of the man without, the affection or the pas- 
 sion which speaks for good or evil through 
 hand, and eye, and foot, which moulds the man 
 and creates his character apart from every cell 
 and fibre and nerve of his body. The man 
 Caesar Borgia, for instance, was not the lovely 
 face that lied in every look, but that which 
 looked out through the face and planned a 
 
THE REAL MAN. 
 
 191 
 
 death whilst wishing long life. The man 
 Stephen was not the mass of bloody flesh 
 which men carried to the burial, but that 
 glorious thing that lived and moved in works 
 for Grod and leaped upwards and outwards 
 as the flesh cried out : “ Lord Jesus, receive 
 
 my spirit.” 
 
 And so it is wherever death strikes the 
 loveable. If we could even preserve in per- 
 fection of beauty and sweetness the body of 
 one whose life had become part of ours, Oh ! 
 cannot you fancy how that ever mute cold, 
 yet lovely object would become to us, just in 
 proportion to the depth of our love, a horror 
 rather than a help ? It is said of Herod that 
 he preserved for years the body of the mur- 
 dered Mariamne whom, spite of his wild jea- 
 lousy, he passionately loved. If so, he pos- 
 sessed her still. He had all of Mariamne that 
 your materialist thinks worthy of notice, and 
 yet the cry of that wretched man was : “ 0 
 
 Mariamne, Mariamne, come back to me.” If 
 the story be true, Mariamne was materially 
 with Herod, but her voice and look and 
 touch of love were gone, nothing could revive 
 that for Herod, and that was the real Ma- 
 
198 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 riamne — not the features however lovely or 
 the stately form so cold and still. 
 
 And that is ever the real man or woman. 
 It is the love and work and ceaseless good- 
 ness of the mother, the wife or friend that we 
 mourn the loss of when death touches either. 
 It is the giant intellect and noble impulses 
 bursting forth into magnificent regenerative 
 plans, that make a nation mourn when a 
 statesman dies. Not your lime and your 
 phosphorus and your this and your that ; 
 but great deeds, great thoughts, great love, 
 deathless unselfishness, — these are the things 
 that make your real man. 
 
 Now, where you have these things, the 
 question will arise : Were they all meant to 
 come to nothing ? Is it reasonable to suppose 
 that the look of a mother containing within 
 it the love and work and devotion of a life- 
 time, is all summed up into a closing earthly 
 glance ; is it reasonable to suppose that there 
 is the glance, brilliant with the light of intel- 
 ligence and love, and then the fate of the 
 stone that never thought, that never loved, 
 that never lived to mould and help and 
 bless others ? Is it reasonable to suppose a 
 
THE REAL MAN. 
 
 199 
 
 magnificent being like Monica, the mother of 
 St. Augustine, as intellectual as she was holy, 
 should give that look to her son as she did, and 
 then all her beauty of life and beauty of soul 
 and beauty of mind, was crushed into nothing- 
 ness in an instant, as a giant would crush a 
 flower in his hand ? Is it reasonable ? “ Is 
 
 “ the structure built with such pains only 
 “ built in order that it may be annihilated ? 
 “ Are the parts elaborately and delicately put 
 “together in order that one rude moment 
 “ may shatter the work in pieces ? ” and, 
 above all, is the hand of the desolater to strike 
 just at the moment when (as sometimes hap- 
 pens) the life is most perfect and its blos- 
 soms are the purest ? 
 
 Hence I hold that the great foundation 
 presumption for a future state of existence 
 may be found in these qualities and affections 
 which go to make up the character of him 
 who possesses them, and, therefore, the action 
 of materialism in dismissing them rudely 
 from the field of thought is as heartless as it is 
 unreasonable. For man can never be as the 
 stone till love and bravery, till holy zeal and 
 deathless devotion to things that make for 
 
200 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 good, be wiped out as clean as if they never 
 were. And, even then, affections and quali- 
 ties for evil would still remain gigantic intel- 
 lectual forces, widespread social forces, great 
 in wickedness and sin and shame, but great, 
 intellectually great, great enough to lead men 
 to ask whether even they can wholly die 
 through death. 
 
 Brethren, the fair presumption is that we 
 are immortal ; but beyond that presumption, 
 nature can teach us nothing. As the heart 
 beats through the affections, it beats through 
 immortality; as the mind thinks, the thoughts 
 run outward, not to shatter themselves 
 against barriers of stone, but to spread them- 
 selves on oceans that know no shore, on 
 scenes that know no horizon, and hence 
 nature can give but little comfort ; she 
 breathes on us a breath that has the perfume 
 of immortality, but nothing more. The only 
 lasting comfort is in Christ, who, entering 
 the darkness, gives us light through the 
 magic words : “ I am the resurrection and the 
 life ; he that believeth on Me, though he be 
 dead, yet shall live.” May this coming Easter 
 give us the full light that nature alone could 
 never give us. 
 
EASTER. 
 
 Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall shine upon thee. 
 
 Ephes., v: 14. 
 
 The idea of sleep is used in three main 
 senses in Scripture. First, the natural rest of 
 the body ; second, the sleep of spiritual sloth 
 or sinful security, freedom from sense of dan- 
 ger ; third, the sleep of death. The first is 
 God’s sweet gift to man ; the third is inevit- 
 able, it waits us all ; the second is our own, 
 we make it, we foster it, we mix the poison 
 with our hands. 
 
 Now, it is to this second idea of sleep that 
 our text refers. Darkness holds the heavy 
 sleeper, it conduces to, and maintains sleep. 
 What wakes us, as a rule, is the silent opera- 
 tion of growing light, and the wakeful state 
 is largely maintained by the steady shining 
 
202 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 of the light. Hence dark, gloomy days are, 
 with many, drowsy days, whilst the bright 
 pouring in of steady sunlight, free from burn- 
 ing heat, conduces to and maintains vigor, 
 wakefulness, brightness. 
 
 All this the apostle lays hold of when 
 speaking to you, to me, of our senseless secur- 
 ity, as we exist between the two eternities, — 
 the eternity of the past out of which we have 
 come, the eternity of the future into which 
 we are going. Between the two, and as if 
 neither concerned us, we are as if in a deep 
 sleep, the darkness of security, or the dark- 
 ness of positive sin, or the darkness of selfish 
 sloth and worldly laziness holds us, and on, 
 on we sleep, every hour bringing us nearer 
 the eternity that lies before us, for there is no 
 wakefulness in the darkness. 
 
 If it be true that what we understand by 
 the world, — the principle of ignoring Grod, 
 that self may be foremost, — if it be true that 
 that is an element of darkness, we need not 
 expect that ever to wake us ; why should it ? 
 This power, when active, exists to keep us 
 away from G-od, away from all thoughts of 
 eternity. The leading article of its creed is, 
 
THE AWAKENING TOUCH OF CHRIST. 203 
 
 — “ Live for yourself, get all the pleasure, the 
 happiness, the enjoyment you can out of 
 your own life, never mind anybody else’s ; 
 get it out of money, out of pleasure, out of 
 open flagrant sin, if needs be, but get it, and 
 get it for yourself.” In the fashionable aspect 
 of the world, it is regarded as “ bad taste ” to 
 allow the religious idea in its spiritual aspect 
 to come to the front at all. The fires may be 
 beneath Herculaneum, but the fact should 
 never be referred to. Be charitably silent to 
 anything however wrong, so long as it does 
 not come in collision with the recognized 
 rules of society ; speak courteously even of 
 those you hate — even of Satan, if such a 
 name should ever be uttered. For, to be 
 agreeable to all, and to notice nothing till 
 driven to do so is to make things agreeable 
 for yourself, and, to live for self is the alpha 
 and omega of existence. Now, it is not likely 
 that such a state of being is ever going to 
 arouse anyone to the eternal aspect of our 
 existence. The world is not going to make 
 things uncomfortable for itself, which it 
 certainly would do if it shook you roughly 
 and said : “ Awake, thou that sleepest,” for 
 
204 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 your startled waking would be a condemna- 
 tion of itself, — your opiate condemning the 
 use of opiates. 
 
 And the same may be said of those grosser 
 sins which are summed up under the general 
 title “the flesh.” As well expect the fire that 
 smoulders and burns, and smoulders to hurst 
 out afresh ; as well expect that to find voice 
 and cry out to itself, “ cease burning,” as to 
 expect these grosser sins to wake us to the 
 evil they are working in us and the terrors 
 they are moulding for us. Nay, the fire will 
 burn, and eat out its way, and consume until 
 it has burnt out all, and so these deadly sins 
 left unrestrained, unfought against, will first 
 lure, and then drive us like weary cattle to 
 our death. Never need we hope that they 
 will cease their furious onslaught, that they 
 may wake us up to better things. Why 
 should they ? They exist to curse, not to 
 bless. How ? or why ? would sin give bene- 
 dictions V Nay, if the world would never 
 wake us, tenfold surer is it that the flesh 
 would never do so. 
 
 And is it likely the devil ever will? If 
 ever pity or good feeling could have waked 
 
THE AWAKENING TOUCH OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 for a passing moment in that awful being’s 
 breast, surely it would have been in “ the 
 savage wilderness,” where the Lord of life 
 and goodness met the tempter face to face. I 
 doubt not that he simulated pity and that he 
 stood before our Lord as a radiant angel of 
 sweeiest mercy, a divine messenger of help 
 and strengthening, with heaven’s light all 
 about him, with music in his step and voice ; 
 but he was there to wreck the Grodhead if he 
 could. Oh ! have you ever thought that if one 
 spark of goodness lingered in that awful 
 being’s heart, it would have showed itself 
 here, for here Satan himself might well have 
 been tempted, — tempted not to tempt — 
 tempted to fling himself and all his fallen 
 beauty at his Saviour’s feet and cry : “ My 
 Lord and my God.” Do you think that that 
 awful power that dared to face our Lord that 
 he might lead him into sin, is going to rouse 
 you out of the sleep of death in pity for your 
 lost estate, and cry : Awake, thou that 
 
 sleepest ? Never. He who had the courage 
 of his badness to tempt Christ, will never, 
 never show you pity. 
 
 Hard lines these, you say, — the world, the 
 
206 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 flesh and the devil banded to blight us ; is it 
 any wonder that from sheer despair of ever 
 effecting anything, we should let sleep run 
 its course and rest content with changeless 
 darkness ? Nay ! the wonder is that so many 
 of us are blind to what God has done for us 
 to wake us, for the waking power is all about 
 us, if we will but submit to it. Christ has 
 come to wake us, and he will wake us if we 
 will. We are not alone, nor are we by any 
 means helpless. It is all folly and idle ex- 
 cusing to plead our weakness to contend 
 and to resist to victory. Christ can pardon 
 if we pray for pardon ; he can start us on our 
 new and better life ; he can till us with the 
 Holy Spirit, making us quick to see sin and 
 strong to resist it ; he can open our eyes to 
 see that our deadliest enemies are themselves 
 vulnerable, if only we have Christ with us 
 to fire our hearts and nerve our arm to resist 
 them. There is no foe that seeks to destroy 
 us that is greater in power than Christ, our 
 friend, our Lord, our Saviour, who is with us, 
 on our side, and ever near us. The world, 
 the flesh and the devil is an awful trinity of 
 evil ; but there is a far greater Trinity of Good 
 
THE AWAKENING TOUCH OF CHRIST. 20 Y 
 
 on our side : Father, Son and Holy Ghost, — 
 and even as in the end that blessed Trinity 
 will subdue all things under its feet, so now 
 it is able and willing to subdue all evil 
 things within you, if you will these things 
 to be subdued. But you must work with 
 Christ, you must not awake when he wakes 
 you, to steal back to sleep again, or strive 
 and take secretly the old opiate that has been 
 your curse and ruin. God demands hon- 
 esty in those he seeks to help, and faith that 
 will trust him and depend on his power. 
 Give yourself with all your sins and your 
 desires for a better life to God, and Christ 
 will not only awake you for good, but he 
 will shine steadily upon you : “ Awake, 
 
 thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
 and Christ shall shine upon thee.” 
 
 Those that sleep are for the time blind, and 
 some of you are blind to Christ. You can see 
 everything in your fevered dreams except 
 Christ. Awake, put away your dreams, and 
 fix your eyes and rest your hopes on Christ. 
 If you desire to be what God would have 
 you be, get Jesus Christ into your heart, your 
 life, your hopes, and trust him and obey him, 
 
208 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 and, before long, you will realize what our 
 text means when it says, “ Christ will shine 
 upon thee.” 
 
EASTER. 
 
 Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, 
 that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, accord- 
 ing to the working, whereby he is able even to subject all 
 things to himself. 
 
 Phil, iii : 21. 
 
 What will we be hereafter ? — a tremendous 
 question that no one who has embraced 
 Christianity as a living faith can well refrain 
 from asking. For Christianity does not alone 
 teach the immortality or deathlessness of the 
 soul, thereby lifting man above all other 
 creatures on the earth, but it claims an im- 
 mortality of humanity ; it never speaks of us 
 as immortal angels, but as immortal men and 
 women, — the outcome of death being an 
 immortal soul associated with an immortal 
 body. 
 
 Now, in our text, I think we have a very 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 beautiful light thrown on this subject, and I 
 would ask your attention to its teaching. 
 
 First, St. Paul describes our position here, 
 at this present moment, as Christians. “ You, 
 Philippians,” he writes, “ you glory in your 
 Roman citizenship, in the fact that you cannot 
 be imprisoned without a trial, or scourged, 
 and that you have a personal right of appeal 
 from any provincial tribunal to the Emperor 
 himself at Rome. "Well, we, Christians, have 
 our citizenship too ; a long way from us as 
 Rome is a long way from you, ‘ our citizen- 
 ship is in Heaven,’ from whence we wait for 
 our emperor, — nay, more than emperor, — our 
 Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Now, this I take to be the position of all 
 really Christian people. Our Divine Head has 
 gone into heaven, and has carried our hu- 
 manity thither, and has given us the freedom 
 of the “ City of God,” and prepared a place 
 for us there. Hence, in all my life here, I 
 have a right to appeal straight to heaven, for, 
 though not as yet within my city, I am of it, 
 and I abide here, outside of it, using its pri- 
 vileges, until He who gave me my citizen 
 ship calls me within the city itself. And, for 
 
REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 21 1 
 
 this call, I wait, patiently, dutifully, until 
 Christ, my Saviour, calls, and I come. 
 
 As Christians we all believe this, we drink 
 it all in ; it presents no stumbling block in the 
 way of our faith, and yet what does it teach us? 
 It teaches us what I think, as a rule, we 
 almost systematically forget, — that whatever 
 heaven is, or wherever heaven is, there is and 
 has been for close on two thousand years, a 
 Man, a human being, living and existing in 
 it, — the risen Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 He has brought humanity into heaven, and 
 hence my citizenship ; for He is the head of 
 that vast body, the human host that no man 
 can number and for whom the city is pre- 
 pared. Hence, even as I live out my life here, 
 claiming my citizenship, I stumble not at 
 what may be done for me, because the thing 
 is already done, — there is at this moment a 
 Man in heaven. 
 
 Lest in any way you should doubt this ) 
 read the record of the days that followed the 
 resurrection of our Lord. Remember how 
 Jesus spoke to Mary, met the women, taught 
 and explained Scripture on a country road- 
 way, held out his hands to be handled, ate 
 
212 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the broiled fish and honeycomb, stood on the 
 shore and told his disciples where to cast the 
 net, rebuked and forgave Peter for his disloy- 
 alty, gave the great commission to his apostles, 
 then led them out as far as Bethany and lifted 
 up his hands to bless them, and as he blessed 
 them ascended, — the risen Man, Christ, into 
 heaven. Whatever He was, who, as man, 
 did all these things, He is now in heaven as 
 He was then on earth. He who ate the broiled 
 fish and honeycomb, who looked with human 
 eyes into Mary’s eyes, who held out human 
 hands to bless is in heaven. The thing is 
 done ; whatever barriers of apparent impos- 
 sibilities had to be overleaped have been 
 overleaped nearly two thousand years ago. 
 
 Notice what our text tells us as to our here- 
 after. “ Christ,” it says, “ shall fashion anew 
 “ the body of our humiliation, that it may be 
 “ conformed to the body of his glory.” This 
 “ body of our humiliation ” is our present 
 existing body, — that which to the human eye 
 gives us individual personality. This body 
 is to be fashioned anew, that is, the bodily 
 form will be a new body ; yet a new body 
 that preserves my identity and individuality, 
 
REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 213 
 
 for it is to be conformed (that is, made like or 
 similar) to the body of Christ’s glory. Whilst 
 our Lord, after his resurrection, was unques- 
 tionably the same Christ that died, so much 
 so that Mary at once knew Him and others 
 cried out, “ it is the Lord,” yet, it is plain that, 
 physically, his body possessed powers which 
 it never possessed before. The very act of 
 his Ascension into heaven proves this, as well 
 as his power of veiling for a time his personal 
 identity, and appearing and disappearing. 
 Well, as his body was, so is ours to be ; it is 
 to be made similar to His, “ conformed ” to His. 
 
 But more, it is to be made similar to that 
 body glorified, to its state of glorified human- 
 ity. This, I think, is explained in that won- 
 drous scene on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
 where the form of our Lord was transfigured 
 and glorified in the presence of his disciples. 
 
 But all the glory was not concentrated in 
 Him. He was indeed at that moment a glo- 
 rified man, but we must not forget the two 
 men that talked with Jesus, — Moses and 
 Elias. They also were glorified. They had 
 long passed out of earthly life, but now bril- 
 liant and glorious even as He was, yet none 
 
214 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the less men, human beings glorified, for 
 they spoke with Him of his decease which 
 He should accomplish at Jerusalem. These 
 were glorified men, men whose bodies of 
 humiliation had been fashioned anew and 
 conformed to the body of Christ’s glory. 
 
 Again, notice what our text tells us as to 
 how all this shall be brought about. “ Our 
 Lord himself shall fashion anew the body of 
 our humiliation, shall make it similar to his 
 glorified body, — how ? according to the 
 working,” the pow T er, the divine force and 
 energy, “ whereby He is able to subject all 
 things to himself.” Not one word as to the 
 process, but the flinging us back on our faith 
 in Christ’s power. “Why should it be thought 
 a thing incredible to us that God should raise 
 the dead ? ” For man to do it of his own 
 power, — impossible ; for angel to do it, — 
 impossible ; but for God to do it, with whom 
 “ all things are possible,” why should it be 
 impossible ? 
 
 But mark how the apostle looks at this 
 power of Christ. He sees Satan surely bound, 
 sin wiped out, the world regenerated, the 
 curse removed, and all through Christ. He 
 
REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 215 
 
 sees the time when, from king on throne to 
 the humblest child of God, holiness and pur- 
 ity, truth and justice shall live and rule, and 
 all through Christ. He sees the Tabernacle 
 of God with men, no more mourning, or trial, 
 or pain, or tears, and no more death, and all 
 through Christ. In a word, he sees every- 
 thing brought into subjection through the 
 power of Christ, under the rule of Christ, and 
 as he sees this power working everywhere, 
 and working triumphantly, he says : “ In that 
 “ power which sweeps all before it that it 
 “ may establish all, lies the secret whereby 
 “ the body of our humiliation shall be fash- 
 “ ioned anew and made like unto Christ’s 
 “ glorious body.” 
 
 So, as all rivers run into the sea, here all 
 perplexities, doubts, questionings, problems, 
 apparent impossibilities run back into Christ. 
 As our faith is strong and rooted in Him, 
 so impossibilities become possible, tangled 
 meshes of doubts and perplexities arrange 
 themselves, the dark glass lights up with 
 divine brilliancy, and as we look, we believe 
 that “ with God, with Christ, nothing is im- 
 possible.” 
 
I 
 
 216 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 I know not how this thought of perpetu- 
 ated and glorified humanity strikes you, but 
 to me it is a thought of inexpressible sweet- 
 ness. To me there would be a living hell in 
 the thought : 
 
 te To thy dark chamber, mother earth, I come. 
 Prepare my dreamless bed for my last home ; 
 
 Shut down the marble door, 
 
 And leave me, let me sleep 
 In death’s eternal deep, 
 
 Never to waken more. 5 ’ 
 
 No, not for me, thank God, nor for you, 
 surely, can there can be joy in that. Life 
 with all its ills is far too precious to come to 
 that. I cling to a nobler poet, I draw sweet- 
 ness out of grander words, and I rest all my 
 hope on them. 
 
 “ I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
 he shall stand up at the last upon the earth. 
 And though after my skin worms destroy 
 this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” 
 
EASTER. 
 
 He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be 
 satisfied . 
 
 Isaiah liii : 11. 
 
 This chapter is, I think, the most wonder- 
 ful prophecy in the word of God, spoken at 
 least seven hundred years before the death 
 and resurrection of our Lord. 
 
 Its characteristic is photographic accuracy, 
 tracking our Lord prospectively from birth to 
 death, and making, as it were, a specialty of 
 bringing out clearly the minutest points con- 
 nected with the record of his earthly being. 
 Step by step it follows Him to death and 
 the grave. “ He was cut off out of the land 
 of the living,” “He made his grave with the 
 wicked and with the rich in his death.” 
 We see in the light of after history the 
 body taken down from the cross — dead. We 
 
218 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 see this lifeless body carried by faithful 
 friends to the grave. W e see it placed in the 
 grave — the dead Christ. ¥e see the great 
 stone rolled to the grave’s mouth, the seal of 
 official authority placed on it ; the guard 
 of official authority set to watch the rock- 
 hewn chamber and its dead, its silent tenant, 
 and we go back to the old prophet and say, 
 what is this ? “ He was cut off out of the 
 
 land of the living,” he replies, “ He made his 
 grave with the wicked and with the rich 
 in his death.” “ Christ,” he says, “ is dead,” 
 and then with kindling eye, and voice full of 
 magnificent triumph — clear as the trumpet 
 note of advancing victory — he pours out his 
 prophecy on dead man and on grave. “ He 
 is dead,” he says, but death can never have 
 dominion over Him. As a living mother sees 
 her children’s children round about her, so 
 this dead man shall “see his seed.” Nay, 
 more — filled with the freshness of an immortal 
 life, “ He shall prolong his days, and in that 
 new-born life He shall gather unto himself 
 the threads of all Grod’s providences for time 
 and for eternity, “ and the pleasure of the 
 “ Lord shall prosper in his hand.” As a 
 
THE JOY OF RESURRECTION. 
 
 219 
 
 mother coming back to conscious life finds 
 new-born lips on which to print her kisses, 
 so this dead man shall “see of the travail of 
 his own soul, ” and “ shall be satisfied. ” 
 Nay, more, He shall justify you, He shall 
 justify me, because He hath borne our iniqui- 
 ties. But never think that death has con- 
 quered the dead Christ. “He shall see his 
 “ seed, I tell you, He shall prolong his days, I 
 “ warn you, and the pleasure of the Lord shall 
 “ yet prosper in his hand.” 
 
 Seven hundred years roll on and then 
 come the life, and positive, actual death of 
 Christ. If we had followed him, if we had 
 hung round him like children, to meet our 
 daily wants and guide us in our acts ; if, above 
 all, we had not only learned to love Him, but 
 that there had been steadily dawning on our 
 minds the truth : “ Thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of God” ; if side by side with this there 
 had risen in our hearts the trust that He was 
 destined “ to redeem Israel,” and that all these 
 hopes, and trusts, and faiths ended in the 
 dead Christ,” I wonder would we have 
 borne it as lovingly as these simple-hearted 
 men and women ? 
 
220 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Just fancy — to give up all to follow him 
 who could no longer lead ; to feel that he 
 who raised Lazarus from the dead, was dead ; 
 to watch this “ dawning G-od” lifted down 
 from the cross — dead, as any common man 
 might die ; to feel as the dark night set in, that 
 that which had been Christ was all alone in 
 the silence of the new-made grave ; to bear all 
 this until the third day, and yet, to be able to 
 talk of him w T ith love and with some faint 
 lingering hope that some way they might see 
 him yet again. I wonder would we have 
 borne all this ? 
 
 “ He shall see of the travail of his soul and 
 shall be satisfied.” "When did He see it first 
 in its new-born happiness? When Mary, 
 quivering with joy, whilst tears ran down 
 her face, bent before him in loving adoration 
 and said “ Rabboni.” When, wooed and won 
 by his loving teaching, the wayside travellers 
 said : “ Abide with us, for it is towards even- 
 ing and the day is far spent,” when their 
 eyes w'ere opened and they knew him, and 
 He vanished out of their sight ! When He 
 stood in their midst and showed them his 
 hands and feet, and their joy was so full that 
 
THE JOY OF RESURRECTION. 
 
 221 
 
 they could scarce believe it true ; when 
 Thomas flung from him his gloomy doubts, 
 and cast himself at his Saviour’s feet and 
 cried out in penitence, “ My Lord and my 
 G-od,” and when the great pardoning words 
 came to Peter, and the commission of his 
 awful sin was blotted out, by the commission 
 given him to preach salvation through that 
 very Saviour whom three times he denied. 
 He shall be “ satisfied.” Surely he found it 
 here ? 
 
 And when He gathered all his own about 
 him, and for forty days rolled back the clouds 
 of past and future, and pictured to them, no 
 doubt, the Church of Christ, the ever grow- 
 ing, ever ripening, fruit of his sacred ministry, 
 and when He led them out to Bethany, and 
 fading from their vision in the clouds of 
 heaven, saw every eye resting on Him, and 
 every heart believing in Him and trusting in 
 Him, and every soul burning with an un- 
 quenchable love that even death itself could 
 not kill ; and above all as He looked on a 
 world placed in a position that it could be 
 saved, every sin atoned for, if only every 
 heart would believe it, surely He must then 
 
222 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 have seen the travail of his soul, and have 
 been satisfied. 
 
 Yes, for the time, but not the full satisfac- 
 tion that has yet to come. To see a world 
 made saveable must have brought joy, but to 
 see a world saved, that is the fulness of joy. 
 
 One stands awed and stricken at the thought 
 of what the death and resurrection of Christ 
 will end in, at the consummation of all things. 
 For, mark you, this cross of Christ and open 
 grave is to tell on the whole world from its 
 dawn to its sunset. The time will come 
 when for every soul the one thought will be 
 “ Christ !” An awful “ hush” will fall on 
 every other thought of human mind, and 
 Christ, and Christ alone, will be exalted 
 in that day. It will come, sure as my 
 death and your death will come, this beat- 
 ing of the Christly tide on every shore, this 
 feeling of the Christly power for weal or woe 
 in every heart. Kings on thrones shall bend 
 before it, the stout-hearted and proud shall 
 tremble under it, “ the lofty looks of man 
 shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of 
 man shall be bowed dowD, and Christ alone 
 shall be exalted in that day.” The message 
 
THE JOY OF RESURRECTION. 
 
 223 
 
 scoffed at for millenniums will pass from lip 
 to lip, and heart to heart. “ Cease ye from man 
 whose breath is in his nostrils,” for the day of 
 man is over and the day of Christ is come. 
 
 The world full of terror at the feet of Christ ; 
 and He the judge, just yet pitiful, ready to 
 save my soul if I have given a cup of cold 
 water in His name to the thirsty, ready to 
 save me then if I cry unto Him and not unto 
 the rocks, if I confess my sin, instead of my 
 worldly blindness. 
 
 But the world for joy at the feet of Christ, 
 real — unbounded, eternal joy — joy, like the 
 joy of a giant harvest, the great Master com- 
 ing home “ bringing his sheaves with him,” 
 piled up, overflowing in his G-od-like arm. 
 Or the joy of victory, the tramp of millions of 
 millions ; the song and shout of the redeemed 
 as they press towards Him who saved them. 
 Read this. Read it in the light of the life 
 that you live. Read it in the light of your 
 sorrows and cares, read it as you think of 
 your dead and your loneliness. Above all 
 read it when you think of the dead Christ, 
 now, thank G-od, risen, never to die again : 
 
 “ After this I beheld, and lo, a great multi- 
 
224 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 tude which no man could number, of all na- 
 tions and kindreds and peoples and tongues, 
 stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, 
 clothed with white robes and palms in their 
 hands ; and cried with a loud voice, saying, 
 1 Salvation to our G-od which sitteth upon 
 the throne, and unto the Lamb.’ And all 
 the angels stood round about the throne, and 
 about the elders, and the four beasts, and fell 
 before the throne on their faces and wor- 
 shipped God, saying, ‘ Amen ; blessing and 
 glory and wisdom, and thanksgiving and 
 honor and power and might, be unto our 
 God for ever and ever. Amen.’ ” 
 
 Have we faith to believe all this, this 
 Easter morning ? Is it as real to us as to the 
 old Hebrew prophet or the aged apostle 
 blinded with the glory of the heavenly vi- 
 sion ? Well may we pray “ G-od make these 
 things real to us ” for not here, where travail 
 and sorrow, are our lot, is satisfaction, but 
 beyond, where Christ looks down on all that 
 He has done, and as He looks, is satisfied. 
 
EASTER, 
 
 Christ the first fruits. 
 
 Christ in you the hope of glory. 
 
 I Cor. xv : 23. 
 Col. i : 27. 
 
 It is freely acknowledged, I think, by all 
 thoughtful persons that “ no man liveth unto 
 himself,” that by word and example we each 
 in some way are moulding others. Nay, that 
 people cannot come into daily contact with- 
 out exercising a subtle influence on each other 
 tending towards either good or evil. Hence 
 the somewhat modern, yet forcible expression 
 which speaks of people “ entering into our 
 lices,” it may be unconsciously, for this often 
 takes place through the medium of a printed 
 book, the author of w^hich we have never 
 spoken to or even seen. 
 
 Now there never has existed on earth a 
 being that has so thoroughly entered into the 
 lives of men as the Lord Jesus Christ. Not 
 
226 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 merely into the lives of highly spiritual and 
 godly persons, but positively into the lives 
 of the utterly thoughtless, if not the fla- 
 grantly sinning. For our Lord has not only 
 given his followers a life to live, but the de- 
 mands of that life are so powerful that they 
 exercise an influence on those who positively 
 refuse to be his disciples. What is it that 
 gives the irreligious wife, living in most 
 Christian countries, perfect calmness of mind 
 with regard to the perpetuity and sacredness 
 of the marriage vow ? Christ. What is that 
 wide-spread influence, which, underlying all 
 civilization, says to you and to me, as we tend 
 towards crime, “ Thus far thou shalt go and 
 no farther? ” Surely the influence of Christ. 
 Whence comes that spirit of justice, which 
 like a shield held over a defenceless form, 
 claims that every one should be ac- 
 counted innocent until proved to be guilty ? 
 Surely from Christ, whose imperishable 
 words have floated down the centuries to 
 mould the civilized teaching of all time, 
 “ If I have spoken evil bear witness of the 
 evil; if well why smitest thou me.?” Ah, 
 my friends, you may refuse to follow 
 
FIRST FRUITS OF THE HARVEST. 22^7 
 
 Christ, you may fancy that you are fashion- 
 ing your life altogether on your own lines, 
 you may even take your defiant stand on the 
 bare, bald platform of practical atheism, and 
 yet at every crucial turning-point of your 
 home, your social, and your concentrated life, 
 you owe a debt of gratitude to Jesus Christ. 
 Every permanent public or social blessing 
 you enjoy, has, in some sense, His stamp upon 
 it, and hence, if for none other reason than 
 this, one should consider whether in degrad- 
 ing Christ he is not laying the axe at the 
 root of his own liberties. 
 
 But Christ has done more than enter into 
 our lives, He has revolutionized our ideas of 
 life. Before Christ, it is true, widespread 
 man had a vague, misty yet real idea of the 
 perpetuation of the life beyond death, but its 
 very vagueness in countless cases only added 
 sorrow to tears. There was nothing so in- 
 tensely real as the awful grave, or funeral 
 fires — no vagueness about them. “ To them,” 
 the ancients cried, “ we bring our dead, to 
 them we give them, with them we leave 
 them ; out beyond is all cloudland, darkness, 
 uncertainty — something is there ; yet, ah, 
 
228 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 who can tell V” This was the popular belief 
 of the millions ; oh, think of hearts all full 
 of affection feeding on food like this, and 
 even this, vague, yet not hopeless belief eaten 
 into, undermined by scoff of polished orator, 
 and sneer of caustic philosopher, who caught 
 the public ear through poetry, and laughed 
 belief out of the minds of the masses through 
 catching lines like these : 
 
 li The silent realms of disembodied ghosts, 
 
 The frogs that croak along the Stygian coasts, 
 
 The thousand souls in one crazed vessel steered, 
 
 No boy believes, save boy without a beard.” 
 
 It was in a world like this, in the face of 
 gloom and unbelief like this that Jesus Christ 
 rose from the dead, without taint of death, or 
 poison of corruption ; without change of form 
 or change of voice ; wdthout loss of memory 
 or weakening of love, and facing the world 
 steeped in darkness, doubt or despair pro- 
 claimed to the sons of men, that greater than 
 any earthly power was the power of resurrec- 
 tion, and stronger than any form of death was 
 life eternal. It was a practical revolution 
 changing everything. It was as if vast 
 stretches of Arctic regions locked up in 
 
FIRST FRUITS OF THE HARVEST. 229 
 
 eternal snows and ice, suddenly blossomed 
 and bloomed into the flowers and verdure of 
 an eternal spring. Man no longer groped for 
 the light, for that shone in on him with such 
 lavish bounty that it seemed to blind him as 
 he gazed. It was not that Christ rose from 
 the dead, and that there was hope that others 
 would rise, but it was the certainty that as 
 Christ rose, so would all rise. That there was 
 no power in death to wither identity, to para- 
 lyse love forever, to seal up lips eternally, to 
 blind eyes in whose light of love we had 
 lived from childhood, and to wipeout all that 
 makes me myself, or you to me, living, and 
 each one to his own, loving personalities. It 
 was this that made the resurrection the tre- 
 mendous power it was, in a world where 
 death had literally reigned, where the highest 
 conception beyond the grave of the dearest 
 one ever loved would have been that of 
 a mist-like spirit that might remind meofthe 
 past, but that shrank from my touch and 
 faded from my sight, as memory grew 
 stronger and my love revived. Such a 
 vision might not be death, but it would be a 
 vision all stained by death, all tainted by its 
 
THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 230 
 
 reality, a vision of what once was the dearest 
 thing to me, bnt with all that made it dear, 
 forever dead. And hence it came to pass that 
 of all the joyful surprises that man has ever 
 passed through, of all that ever he grasped 
 at with grateful heart, there never was a sur- 
 prise of joy, like the surprise of the resurrec- 
 tion. And as the risen form of the dear mas- 
 ter entered into the room where the disci- 
 ples were sitting, and moved amongst them, 
 the same Jesus that had died, the whole 
 world seemed to spring into a new life, be- 
 cause the sting was taken out of death, and 
 that awful grave that for millenniums had 
 seemed a pit of degradation, became a garden 
 in which the grateful living planted flowers 
 of spring, in sure and certain hope of the 
 resurrection to eternal life. One has to 
 realize this as St. Paul stood with his back 
 turned on the blackness and darkness of the 
 old heathen horrors of the past, and the joy- 
 ful light of the resurrection shining on his 
 face, and as we listen to his shout of Christly 
 triumph, “ Oh, death ! where is thy sting ; 
 Oh, grave where is thy victory ?” Death is 
 there, but its sting is gone ; the grave is there, 
 
FIRST FRUITS OF THE HARVEST. 231 
 
 but thanks be to G-od, even for the body, 
 each grave will become the cradle of a new- 
 born and unending life. 
 
 To prove to you the power with which 
 Christ in resurrection has entered into our 
 lives, fancy our leaving this church to-day 
 with the unshaken certainty that our dead 
 are and forever will be dead and that the 
 resurrection was a lovely dream. To watch 
 and tend and wait and pray ; to count, the last, 
 by weeks, by days, by hours, till finally, the 
 last itselfhas come, and never again will that 
 eye meet my own, or that hand press my own, 
 or that voice which at the very last told me of 
 its love, be heard again forever. Never, never 
 forever. I know a more happy picture far 
 than this. There is a garden and within the 
 garden a sepulchre, and there standing in 
 the grey dawn of morning, full of manly 
 strength and beauty is Jesus who was cruci- 
 fied on Calvary ; the same Jesus, who now 
 bending over Mary calls her by her name, and 
 says, “ Gro tell my disciples that I am risen 
 from the dead.” 
 
EASTER. 
 
 Now when Jesus was risen early on the first day of the 
 week. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom 
 He had cast out seven devils. 
 
 Mark xvi. : 9. 
 
 The “ Mary” mentioned in our text fur- 
 nishes one of the clearest evidences we could 
 ask for as to the will and power of Christ 
 to forgive sin. If the evidence of sin for- 
 given is a life clinging to Christ, a gradual 
 new creation of character that advancing in 
 growth may be plainly seen through all its 
 stragglings, then Mary Magdalene is one of 
 the clearest cases of such forgiveness that we 
 have in the Word of God. 
 
 •We possess two sources of information con- 
 cerning her — one inspired, the other tradi- 
 tional — possibly malignantly so. 
 
 The inspired record brings her before us, 
 leaving much to the natural imagination of 
 
RESURRECTION THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 233 
 
 the mind. She may, or she may not have 
 been that lonely outcast, who, filled w r ith 
 womanly remorse, for womanly loss, entered 
 the house of the scrupulous Simon, and bend- 
 in gin a paroxysm of penitence at our Saviour’s 
 feet, washed them with her tears and wiped 
 them with the hairs of her head. The weight 
 of Scriptural evidence, would I think, favour 
 this view, but the point is reasonably debate- 
 able. There is no debate, however, about the 
 horrifying fact that she had been, before 
 Jesus healed her, a devil-possessed woman. 
 G-od knows it is awful enough to read the 
 record of the devil-possessed men of Gradara — 
 raging terrors, feared and hated by men, as 
 Mary, no doubt was feared and hated by 
 women. 
 
 The second source of information is that 
 strange and giant mass of literature known 
 as the Jewish Talmud which speaks of a 
 Mary of Magdala, exquisite in form and be- 
 witching beauty, who, careless of every 
 womanly instinct, lived such a life of w T ild 
 recklessness as to gain her name a place in 
 that volume of Jewish writings. There is no 
 doubt that some have used this Mary to 
 
234 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 fling scorn on Christianity, just as the Scribes 
 assailed the purity of Christ himself on the 
 plea that, “ he receiveth sinners and eateth 
 with them. Whatever the circumstances 
 were, however, one thing is certain, that 
 Mary was spiritually lost till Jesus met her. 
 Sinful, outcast, hopeless, degraded, no help 
 for her but in the God of whom she knew 
 nothing. So the unknown, unsought for God 
 came to her, and God saved her. 
 
 Her after history is one of ceaseless attend- 
 ance on the ministry of Jesus, of clinging 
 close to the little band who clung to Him, of 
 cleaving to the side of a purer Mary — our 
 Lord’s dear mother — who seems to have taken 
 her as a sister or daughter to her heart. But 
 the stain of shame, though taken off her soul, 
 seems to have lingered round her name to 
 the last. She was Mary out of whom went 
 seven devils,” or it may be “ Mary the Mag- 
 dalene,” if so, the saddest name of all. 
 
 The very sunshine brings the shadow, and 
 so the very joy of Jesus brings at times its 
 gloom. As for poor Mary with her awful 
 record behind her, what if He who held her 
 fast to good should leave her ? What if her 
 
RESURRECTION THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 235 
 
 stay and prop on whom she trusted should be 
 taken ? What power then could keep her 
 from going down the old dark road of the 
 dreadful past, from that awful “ empty room,” 
 so easily “ swept and garnished.” Is it any 
 wonder that Mary clung to Christ, and that 
 the one misery of that woman’s life was, the 
 thought that Christ would leave her. As 
 long as He was near, she was safe, she feared 
 nothing, but, Oh ! God help her if Jesus left 
 her ! 
 
 Well, Jesus dies ; Jesus is buried, and Mary 
 has no hope of his resurrection. True to the 
 last, she had kept close to the cross, through 
 all his agony of dying ; and foremost amongst 
 the women she had entered the garden, and 
 watched all that had saved her, all that had 
 brought light into her darkness, placed in 
 the tomb. Far worse in misery often, than 
 even the day of death, are those hours of the 
 day that follow burial, those awful objectless 
 hours ; before the foot has wholly lost the 
 muffled step of death, or the voice regained 
 its tones and flung off its hush. When the 
 living seem to have no joy for us and w T e care 
 not to speak of the dead, and welcome night 
 
236 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 that we may be alone. Those hours scattered 
 the band. Some are walking in gloomy 
 knots ; Thomas has started out alone, whilst 
 others, like frightened cattle in a storm, herd 
 within the upper room, for not one is really 
 sure that Christ will rise. 
 
 Even Mary — grand heart of faith and love 
 — even Mary did not believe it. Mary, one 
 might ask, what are you carrying to the grave 
 on the Easter morning ? Spices. What for, 
 Mary ? To embalm the dead body of my 
 Lord ; He cast seven devils out of me ; He 
 saved me ; He made me what I am, “ and 
 now, he is dead.” That was unbelief you 
 say, yes, the unbelief of love. Such unbelief, 
 believe me, as God smiles on. A lesson to 
 the stern and hard-judging, prepared always 
 with their verdict of guilty, who, if they had 
 their way, would hound down Mary as a 
 sceptic, and Thomas as something worse. 
 
 And now the grave is rent, Easter has 
 dawned on Calvary, the Spirit of the Lord 
 with the fragrance of Paradise on it, has re- 
 turned to the silent body, and Jesus wakes 
 to earthly life again. To whom shall He seek 
 to reveal himself first ? 0 brethren, the 
 
RESURRECTION THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 237 
 
 whole story of the Gospel is crowned and 
 glorified with the sacred words, “He ap- 
 peared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom 
 he cast seven devils.” That is, the desire and 
 will of his returning soul was to seek her 
 first ; others met Him, but He rose and left 
 the grave to seek her. 
 
 Why to Mary ? Because she needed Him 
 most. In one sense, she was the weakest ; 
 in one sense she was the most dependent on 
 Him ; in one sense the memory of the past 
 was more likely to crush her than others. 
 Therefore, He would not suffer her to mourn 
 one moment longer than was needed. Her 
 ear should catch the first sound of his Easter 
 voice, for she was amongst the very worst He 
 ever saved, and never could He speak too 
 soon to lift the clouds, and fill her faithful 
 heart with joy. 
 
 It would have been an exquisite act of lov- 
 ing manhood, if Jesus had appeared first to 
 his mother, and had said, “ Mother, behold 
 thy son.” But such an appearance would 
 have been as nothing compared to this act of 
 divinely instinctive thoughtfulness. Christ 
 came to save sinners, He was born for that, 
 
238 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 and here was, perhaps, the worst sinner He 
 ever saved. If a Mary has to be spoken to, 
 the claims of the once outcast Mary outweigh 
 the claims of the Holy Mary, for “ Christ came 
 not to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
 pentance.” And so Christ seeks her first be- 
 fore mother, or Peter, or John, or James, that 
 to her dying hour she might remember, “ He 
 died to save me ; and rising, sought me to 
 strengthen me.” 
 
 And this is the happy Easter message 
 that I would wish to leave upon our souls 
 to-day. I would say to the weakest, take 
 heart, be of good courage, Christ is on your 
 side, He seeks you out first that He may 
 bless you. The very sins and wasted hours 
 that you mourn over, the very dread you 
 have lest you should fall or wander back- 
 ward, your very weakness and fear of self 
 — these are the very reasons why, through 
 the pleadings of his spirit, He seeks you out 
 first, to build you up and strengthen you. 
 He does not come with angry voice to lay 
 your weakness bare. He did not ask Mary 
 why she brought the spices — 0 wondrous 
 touch of Gfod-like love — he seemed as though 
 
RESURRECTION THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 239 
 
 he saw them not or knew that they were, 
 he only called her by the old, loved name, 
 “Mary,” associated with the gentlest and 
 holiest memories of the past. And so this 
 very Easter day, he desires to seek you out 
 and find you, as if he knew your very name, 
 as he surely does ; speaking as a dear friend 
 rather than your risen G-od, that he might 
 build you up and strengthen you. 
 
 And what a lesson this first appearance 
 teaches us as to our judgment of others ! 
 Mary was caught, as it were, red-handed, in 
 the very act of unbelief, the evidence of her 
 faithlessness scented the clear air of the Easter 
 morning — those awful accusing spices, testi- 
 fying to the full that she believed that death 
 had conquered. Here was a pure, holy, 
 Christ-devoted life, when suddenly this one 
 blot appears upon it — one branch of the tree 
 seared as if by lightnings and all else fruit- 
 ful. Why not cut it down ? Better to leave 
 it to Christ : He knows how to deal with it. 
 Hushed be your judgment ; listen to Him. 
 All that he does to the criminal is, to call her 
 by her name, Mary. For this is Easter 
 morning and the very air is full of love. 
 
EASTER 
 
 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, ye 
 may be also. 
 
 St. John xiv : 3. 
 
 The whole religious question between 
 materialism and Christianity, resolves itself 
 into the all important one, as to whether man 
 after death, will have a fresh start in life, or 
 not ? Materialism definitely and distinctly 
 says “ No.” Christianity definitely and dis- 
 tinctly says, “ Yes ; ” and the conflict of 
 opinion is so marked and decisive, that com- 
 promise of any shape or form is an utter im- 
 possibility. The fact is that each system re- 
 gards man, not only from different stand- 
 points, but as a different kind of being. 
 
 Materialism regards man as essentially of 
 the earth, earthy ; there is nothing in him 
 that chemistry and other sciences cannot 
 
THE REALITY OF HEAVEN. 
 
 241 
 
 reasonably account for. One thing is certain, 
 he is a chemical compound acted on by forces 
 outside of himself ; and when he dies the 
 machine is irreparably broken, the clock 
 stops and the key is lost ; the stream dries up, 
 never to run again. As to his virtues and 
 vices, his loves and affections, his laughter 
 and tears, his contraction and sweep of in- 
 intellect, — well, all these things can be chemi- 
 cally, physiologically, or otherwise accounted 
 for. In any case, they all stop — stop once and 
 forever , and all that remains of the fondest 
 father, the truest husband, the noblest states- 
 man, the most brilliant scholar ; of the 
 apostle who died for Christ, nay, of Christ 
 himself, is some lime and phosphorus, some 
 iron, sulphur and magnesia ; and then in 
 course of time discernible as individual not 
 one single thing; the whole man, bodily, 
 spiritually, mentally, is as clean wiped out 
 as if he never existed. Hence, materialism, 
 in whose eyes affection is of little worth, 
 would treat all human bodies as of a fixed, 
 marketable value, and I must say does so 
 consistently. For if in life, man is but a 
 
 machine, and if after death his cremated ashes 
 16 
 
242 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 are positively worth money, the total out- 
 come of death worth, we are told, millions 
 of money, why should not man’s remains be 
 used to enrich the soil as phosphates are used, 
 and thus give back large returns at com- 
 pound interest for the deposit made. God 
 help us, a more dark, revolting and hopeless 
 creed could never, under any possibility, have 
 emanated from the mind of man. 
 
 Now, Christianity, or Christ, regards man 
 as a totally different kind of being. There is 
 no common ground between Christ and the 
 materialist, they are hopelessly at variance. 
 
 Christ regards man as a being possessed of 
 a body, phosphorus, lime, &c., no doubt, 
 but within there is a deathless or immortal 
 soul, something beyond all chemical analysis, 
 and that soul is the man ; his individuality 
 and personality are centred there, not in the 
 body, and hence man is an immortal, death- 
 less being, clothed upon with a human body. 
 
 The body is not immortal, nay, it is formed 
 to undergo physical changes that finally end 
 in death, but according to Christ, when 
 death strikes, its blow is confined to the body, 
 and with the death of the body, as a like- 
 
THE REALITY OF HEAVEN. 
 
 243 
 
 timed act, comes the positive release of the 
 soul, which leaves the body, under the law 
 of immortality, just as a man may in the 
 morning leave his house. 
 
 Nay, more ; so hopelessly is Christ at 
 variance with the materialist, that He fol- 
 lows the flight of the soul out of the body, 
 follows it as an individual personality, in 
 one well-known case follows the individual 
 soul by its earthly name, whilst the dead 
 body which lately held it lay cold and 
 swathed within a tomb at whose door our 
 Lord was standing. The body was not 
 Lazarus -Lazarus was gone to another place 
 — into which Christ called. Admitting the 
 truth of the record, is there not wondrous 
 teaching in the dead body, in the living 
 Christ standing near it, and in His voice, 
 ringing out from the earth into the unseen 
 world, where the soul of Lazarus was, the 
 words “ Lazarus, come forth.” It means, 
 Soul of Lazarus come back into your dead 
 body ; leave where you are and return to 
 earth. And then, the awful silence of expec- 
 tation ; and theu, the movement in the tomb ; 
 and then, the living Lazarus groping his way 
 
244 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 towards Him who called him back to life. 
 If this be true, compromise between Christ 
 and materialism is as impossible as union be- 
 tween fire and water. 
 
 But more. Christ not only teaches that 
 the soul of man is a distinct entity, capable of 
 living apart from the body ; but that in due 
 time it will be clothed upon again with a 
 body ; and that the whole man, having passed 
 the bounds of death, will obtain a fresh start 
 in bodily life — which life will be immortal? 
 deathless and unending, in other words, the 
 new body will be deathless. 
 
 And this fresh start, according to Christ, is 
 connected with the individual soul that once 
 inhabited the old earth and death-stticken 
 body. Whatever the greater gifts of the 
 immortal body may be, whatever the enlarge- 
 ment of its powers, however elevated and re- 
 fined its intellectual and spiritual percep- 
 tions, none of these things will interfere with 
 the personality and sharp cut definition of 
 of the original individual that “ was bodily 
 dead” ; and like his Master is alive again. 
 According to Christ, I will die bodily, I 
 will live again bodily ; not something 
 
THE REALITY OF HEAVEN. 
 
 245 
 
 like that which was “ myself,” but “ I my- 
 self” will live again, and this I know on the 
 practical testimony of the Lord, who died as 
 the man Jesus, and who was the first fruits 
 of our resurrection, “ the first fruits of them 
 that sleep.” 
 
 Such is the radical difference between 
 materialism and Christ, a void that nothing 
 can fill save the utter destruction and burial 
 of one of the contending parties. One, cold, 
 icy hopelessness ; the other, for those fitted to 
 absorb it, joy, and brightness, and gladness — 
 the glorious joy of deathless, unending life, 
 victory and triumph everywhere ; as the 
 glad cry of gratitude goes up to God, “ 0 
 Death, where is thy sting? 0 grave where 
 is thy victory ?” 
 
 Now look at direct Christly teaching on 
 this subject. He has come up to death ; He 
 feels its chill before it strikes, as we so often 
 feel it ; and he suffers what the best and 
 purest of us suffer from, the sorrow and sad- 
 ness of prospective parting. For realize that, 
 though God, He was perfect man, and just as 
 when death slowly yet sensibly draws near 
 to us, and that dear ones and things seem 
 nearer to us than ever, so it was with Him. 
 
246 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 But He had what we find it so hard to 
 grasp wfith realistic certainty — He had clear, 
 unblemished views with regard to the reality 
 of that life which lies out beyond death. 
 Here, everything was as clear, as the fact of 
 coming death was clear ; one was just as sure 
 and certain as the other. He would die 
 bodily, that was sure, and He would live 
 again bodily, that was sure ; and the fresh 
 start in bodily life to Him would open out 
 before him, joy unspeakable. In the new- 
 born future, that death could never touch, 
 was his harvest, the harvest of his present 
 life so soon to be ended ; the gathering-in to 
 himself of all he lived for, of all he was about 
 to die for. Outside of this life, outside of 
 death, the great joyous satisfaction that would 
 atone for the travail of his soul and give 
 “ the Man of Sorrows” eternal happiness. 
 
 See how real to Him the future life was, 
 and how real to Him for those from whom 
 He was about to be parted. 
 
 You need nothing more than to realize that 
 in speaking, He was speaking of his death, 
 and then to take the bare words just as He 
 spoke them and let them speak for themselves. 
 
THE REALITY OF HEAVEN. 
 
 24 1 
 
 “ And if I die, I will come again, and take 
 you to myself, that where I am ye may be 
 also.” 
 
 First, the individuality is perfect. Death 
 will not kill the Christ, “ I will come again.” 
 Neither will death annihilate the disciples ; 
 I will come for you, one by one I will come 
 for you. As death is sure, so will I be sure, 
 He will never come to you alone, I will come 
 with him. 
 
 Then see the certainty of re-union for the 
 blessed dead. I will come again and take 
 you unto myself, we will be together again, 
 Saviour and disciples. All that is now so 
 horrible in prospect, will lie behind us, we 
 will walk in the light together. And notice 
 the joy and glory. Whatever his glory and 
 joy will, in a measure, be ours, for He will 
 come not only to take us unto Himself, but 
 to keep us to Himself, so that wherever He 
 is there will w^e be. “ I will not leave you 
 orphans,” he says, “ I will come to you,” 
 come to renew, to bind closer together all our 
 old loves and affections ; and to keep them 
 together in the eternities — throughout the 
 eternities — never to be separated. 
 
248 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Now this is Christianity, Christly teaching. 
 Its marvel is, the exalted view it gives me of 
 my own being, how it enlarges the scope of 
 my individuality, and makes one feel in his 
 better and more spiritual moments the rush 
 of eternal blood, and the beatings of an im- 
 mortal life. 
 
 And marvellous is it, how it reduces in 
 terror and power, the one terror and one 
 power that hangs over the mind of many, 
 the power of death. There may be a gospel 
 in materialism for the had, vile man — heart- 
 less and cruel, who has made his life a curse 
 to himself, a gospel in the thought that with 
 death ends his hated life, and the memories 
 and miseries that he himself has created. 
 But for the pure and holy, even for the weak 
 and tempted, yet battling, there is something 
 abhorrent in the thought that death ends 
 everything. Why, the mere loves of our life 
 shriek out against it as positively infamous. 
 Made to love, made to die ; that in our death 
 loves may be quenched in a torrent of tears, 
 or dragged to pieces day by day, month by 
 month, with a refinement of cruelty that 
 amounts to torture, Oh! God help us, what 
 
THE REALITY OF HEAVEN. 
 
 249 
 
 could be more awful than this ? This weight 
 of woe, and then — nothing. 
 
 Nay, says Christ, all that is as abhorrent to 
 God as it is to you, Death to the holy is not 
 destruction, but a door — a door out of dark- 
 ness into daylight, out of the childhood of life 
 into its full eternal activities. “ You will 
 never know w r hat life is, never realize its 
 powers and possibilities, never taste of the 
 fullness of its joys, till you lie down to sleep 
 with me in death, and awake w r ith me in 
 Paradise.” 
 
 Now we can understand what Christ 
 meant, when he said, “ follow me.” He, 
 immortal, came to us immortal, to make our 
 immortality a blessed thing. He died to 
 save us, He lives to help, and He will come 
 again to take us to himself if only we are faith- 
 ful. Believe in Him, love Him, trust Him, 
 cast all on Him, and the time will come — God 
 only knows how soon for some of us — when 
 our eyes will open on a glorious life that 
 knows no death and we will be wdth Christ 
 forever. 
 
EASTER. 
 
 And Thomas said unto them, “ Except I shall see in his 
 hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
 print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will 
 not believe.” 
 
 St. John xx : 25. 
 
 The position taken by St. Thomas with re- 
 gard to the resurrection of our Lord is by no 
 means an uncommon one in the present day, 
 with reference to other questions. He was 
 asked to believe a fact having a strong bearing 
 on the religious side of life, and he refused to 
 believe it apart from demonstrative evidence 
 of the plainest kind. “ Seeing,” he argued, 
 “ tends towards believing, but short of touch, 
 even seeing is untrustworthy. The most 
 perfect circumstantial evidence, nay, for the 
 matter of that, direct evidence, is liable to 
 deceive, intentionally or unintentionally ; 
 
THE BLIND FAITH OF SCEPTICISM. 251 
 
 but when with clear, cool, cautious brain at 
 work, I see a dead man walk, and touch what 
 I see, I cannot possibly be deceived. There- 
 fore, I must not only see my Lord, but I must 
 touch my Lord, before I can believe that he 
 is risen from the dead.” 
 
 Now, this position taken by St. Thomas 
 arose, I have no doubt, from the strong be- 
 lief in ghosts or spirits prevalent at that time, 
 and held by the disciples, as well as the pub- 
 lic generally. Thus when our Lord walked on 
 the water his disciples thought “ they saw a 
 spirit,” and when St. Peter was released from 
 prison they at once jumped at the conclusion 
 that his “ supposed bodily presence” was 
 nothing more than a spectral appearance. 
 Indeed, the majority of them, if not all, ap- 
 peared to believe in the “ ghost theory” as 
 explanatory of our Lord’s resurrection, for St. 
 Luke tells us that when our Lord appeared to 
 them “ they were terrified and supposed they 
 had seen a spirit,” until our Lord, unasked, 
 gave them the very proof that St. Thomas 
 demanded, namely, “ touch” as well as sight. 
 
 Now, if this be the method whereby St. 
 Thomas accounted for the appearance of our 
 
252 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Lord after death, then we are brought face to 
 face with a strange, yet at the same time very 
 common fact in connection with almost all 
 forms of scepticism. St. Thomas will not 
 believe that Christ could be raised from the 
 dead, but he will believe, and argue on his 
 belief, that the ghost of Christ could appear. 
 He will not believe in Christ with real eyes 
 full of the old earth love, and real hands 
 capable of magnetic touches that seem to en- 
 dow the touch with speech, — he will not be- 
 lieve that, but he will believe in a seeming 
 hand, in apparent eyes that are delusions, in 
 a voice thatfcomes, apart from any organization 
 formed to create and give effect to articulated 
 sound. He said, “ 1 have no doubt you saw, 
 what seemed to be the risen Lord, but you 
 did not touch what you saw and the test lies 
 in touch. Now, if I ever see what you saw, 
 I w T ill touch and that not gently, but roughly ; 
 I will thrust my hand into the side, and if 
 the side resists, then certainly it is my risen 
 Lord, if not, then it is his ghost.” Now the 
 stranere thing here is that St. Thomas would 
 not believe in the resurrection of our Lord, 
 no doubt on account of the apparent physical 
 
THE BLIND FAITH OF SCEPTICISM. 253 
 
 difficulties that lay in its way, but he would 
 admit the existence of a ghostly appearance, 
 although he had never seen a ghost, or any of 
 the disciples, and spite of the countless phy- 
 sical difficulties that appear to invest the 
 whole field of such mysterious appearances. 
 
 Well, this strange, paradoxical aspect of 
 mind is by no means exceptional ; in fact it 
 is a very common thing for people to refuse 
 to believe in any “ one thing,” because it is 
 unlikely, improbable, or impossible, and yet, 
 to explain “ the thing” by a method of their 
 own, which involves just as great an amount 
 of improbability. 
 
 Up to, say, thirty years ago, it was generally 
 conceded that the heavenly bodies, sun, moon 
 and stars ; the organs of the human body, 
 eyes, hands and feet, the mind of man, or the 
 brain, the organ of the mind, were designed 
 by God to be what they are. Now, it is 
 largely the fashion amongst a very influen- 
 tial school of thinkers to assert that nothing 
 that is was ever intended to be exactly what 
 it is. Laws either always were, or came into 
 action (how they say not), and these laws 
 without guidance or object, gave us the 
 world of beauty and order that we exist in. 
 
254 
 
 THE CHUECH YEAE. 
 
 Now such a mind rejects the idea of God’s 
 design and purpose, either on account of its 
 supernatural aspect or on account of the in- 
 dignity done to God by supposing that He 
 would condescend to frame and fashion any- 
 thing, and yet that same mind can believe 
 that “ endless forms most beautiful and 
 most wonderful,” and countless systems of 
 suns and stars and planets, have all arrived 
 at their respective standards of w'ell-balanced 
 order, apart from mind and intention, and 
 purpose altogether. That the eye was not 
 intended or made to see, or hand made to 
 grasp, or foot made to support, or brain 
 formed to think. That it might have hap- 
 pened altogether otherwise, that very slight 
 accidental variations in the dim distant ages 
 behind man might have peopled this world 
 with a race of blind, speechless and deformed 
 idiots. Now surely here you have St. Thomas 
 repeated. Your modern Thomas will not be- 
 lieve in a Creator working with a plan or 
 object ; but he will believe in a succession of 
 unforeseen, unplanned contingencies, result- 
 ing in all the beauty and symmetry and 
 perfection and method that the noblest de- 
 
THE BLIND FAITH OF SCEPTICISM. 255 
 
 signer might well rejoice in, as the fruit and 
 outcome of his labours. 
 
 Or take another case very common. 
 
 Christianity is more than a religious organi- 
 zation. It is a spiritual life, a mysterious 
 union between God and man, in which the 
 unseen part of the union — the God — operates 
 on the life and hopes of the seen part — the 
 man. Now there are many who believe in 
 the organization and identify themselves 
 with it, who personally shrink back from a 
 free and open confession of their belief and 
 trust in the personal divine life of the insti- 
 tution. “ It is so mysterious,” they say, “ so 
 past comprehension,” “ so altogether outside 
 of the powers of our mind,” &c. And yet 
 such people are willing to admit that Chris- 
 tianity which is in its nature wholly opposed 
 to the natural tastes and desires of man, has 
 been and is, the greatest moral force on the 
 face of the earth. What nauseous medicine 
 is to the child, what salt is to the thirsty, 
 what purity is to the sensualist, this Chris- 
 tianity is naturally to every soul born into 
 the world, and yet it sweeps the world, its 
 net is always well filled. How like St. 
 
256 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Thomas ! I cannot believe that God, the 
 Holy Ghost, directs, warns and strengthens 
 me individually, but I can, I do believe, that 
 a religious system, wholly opposed to my 
 nature, governs and rules by the inherent 
 power of its organized force, the very nature 
 of godless man ! 
 
 Again, there are not a few who shrink 
 from wiping the Lord Jesus out of their 
 minds as an object of veneration, yet who 
 cannot regard him as God. They would strip 
 him of miracles, mystery, atoning death on 
 the cross, resurrection from the grave and 
 ascension into heaven. They cannot believe 
 in a Christ who proved his divine mission 
 by these things, but they can believe in a 
 Christ who revolutionized the world for good 
 without them. They can make Christ a good, 
 holy, yet uneducated and common man, and 
 yet believe that this holy yet weak being 
 not only wiped out the rooted heathenism of 
 Greece and Rome, but erected on its ashes a 
 Christian system, based on the belief that 
 thislonely man (who according to them never 
 did anything wonderful) was God. 
 
 Brethren, there is no question that the great 
 
THE BLIND FAITH OF SCEPTICISM. 25*7 
 
 characteristic of modern scepticism is an un- 
 limited capacity for the reception of the mar- 
 vellous. For scepticism is, as a rule, a revolt 
 against the supernatural, but the revolutionist 
 moving in a circle, comes back to the spot from 
 whence he started, a supernaturalist still. 
 He rejects a Grod Christ, but believes in a man 
 Christ, with the power of a Grod. He rejects 
 a world intentionally perfected, but believes 
 in a world magnificently perfected through 
 accident. In a word, like St. Thomas, he re- 
 jects the resurrection from the dead but firmly 
 believes in ghosts. 
 
 Well, it is a happy thought that the degra- 
 dation of the risen Christ does not interfere 
 with the loving Christ. Spite of St. Thomas’s 
 doubt, St. Thomas was loved, and if tradition 
 be true, he died as a martyr preaching the 
 resurrection which once he doubted. And so 
 for every doubting one the Lord Jesus is ever 
 speaking in some way, “ Feel me, touch me, 
 know that I am He.” O happy he, who like 
 St. Thomas touches not, though lured to do 
 so, but bends in holy adoration at the feet of 
 Him who gives the test and says, “My Lord 
 and my Grod.” 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Again, do not think to get rid of the super- 
 natural ; if you do not receive it in one shape 
 you must in another. In the great desert 
 world of Africa, you may foolishly go on 
 covering up the tracks of the lion, wiping 
 them out in the yellow sand, but clearing 
 away the tracks does not kill the lion ever ca- 
 pable of leaving footprints quicker than you 
 can wipe them out. So the great philosopher 
 of the present has done his best to wipe out 
 all tracks of a personal God in creation, in 
 morality, in life, in death; but even he is 
 forced at last to lead the enquirer up to a 
 curtain beyond which his reason cannot 
 penetrate, and to say, “ Behind that is the 
 unknowable.” Just as I say of prayer, or 
 word, or holy feast, or baptism, “ Behind that 
 is God.” No, the hardest thing to escape 
 from is the presence of God. u Whither shall 
 I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee 
 from Thy presence.” 
 
WHITSUNDAY. 
 
 The Holy Ghost. 
 
 Acts ii : 4. 
 
 There are four great events that have left 
 their broad marks upon the commemorating 
 instinct of the older churches ; the birth of 
 Christ, Christmas; the death of Christ, Grood- 
 Friday ; the resurrection of Christ, Easter, 
 and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the 
 Pentecostal church, Whit-Sunday. As all 
 these events are equally important in con- 
 nection with the divine plan of man’s re- 
 demption the church has treated each with 
 like reverence ; in its eyes Whit-Sunday be- 
 ing just as important a commemoration as 
 Christmas, Grood-Friday or Easter. 
 
 Yet strange to say the church as a wor- 
 shipping body — certainly in the present age — 
 in no sense regards Whit-Sunday with the 
 
260 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 same spirit of chastened devotion, of earnest 
 attention, which it naturally renders to 
 Christmas or Easter. This may in part be 
 accounted for by the singularly sweet and 
 touching earthly associations which long cen- 
 turies of time have evolved out of the divine 
 facts which Christmas and Easter commem- 
 orate. Christ was born to save the family of 
 man, young and old, rich and poor, and 
 hence, the family thought which makes 
 Christmas so beautiful, the gathering to- 
 gether of parents and parted children, the joy 
 of childhood, and so on, and, hence also, the 
 spirit of Christmas generosity and benevo- 
 lence, which fills the empty pocket and 
 spreads the empty table of the poor house- 
 hold whom Christ Jesus came to save. And 
 in the same way Easter touches the human 
 heart, where, as a rule, its tenderest mem- 
 ories and softest feelings are lodged. It makes 
 even death beautiful, it flings a light from 
 beyond down the death valley that our dear- 
 est and best loved have passed through and 
 it tells us that the light will be there when 
 we are called to follow in their footsteps. 
 
 And in connection with Good-Friday the 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 261 
 
 same personal kind of influence is present. 
 We may not enter mentally or spiritually in- 
 to the deep mysteries of the death of Christ, 
 but we grasp with joy the powerful thought, 
 “ He died for me to save me from my sins, He 
 “ died for mine.” It is my cross, my children’s 
 cross, and He who lies on it is my Saviour 
 and theirs. 
 
 But the evolution of public thought in con- 
 nection with the Holy Spirit and Whit 
 Sunday has taken a somewhat different form, 
 and naturally so. We have no human per- 
 sonality all full of human love and human 
 life present with us, one who speaks, who 
 pities, who with a touch heals the sick, and 
 with a word calls back the dead. Nothing 
 of this nature, but tongue-like flames of fire, 
 mystic gifts of speech, a crowd of strangely 
 influenced people, and then an unseen, yet 
 all powerful influence softening hearts, re- 
 straining wayward wills, setting in motion 
 new-born desires of purity and holiness, and 
 changing lives from evil to good as if G-od 
 himself had entered into them. All this is as 
 truly personal to us as the cross of Christ or 
 the cradle at Bethlehem ; but then, there is no 
 
262 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 cradle, no infant, no rugged cross with bleed- 
 ing form, and “face marred more than any 
 man’s,” lying on it. It is all divine, all super- 
 natural — all outside of our reasoning and in- 
 tellect, even as G-od himself is; there is noth- 
 ing human in it, save where the divine 
 operates on the human, on a crowd at Pente- 
 cost, on Saul as he journies to Damascus, on 
 you, on me, as we journey hither and thither 
 as life leads us. No voice, no form to meet 
 or follow with eye, but the divine influence 
 of an unseen being as truly divine as He who 
 sent the Son to die, or as the Son himself who 
 came. 
 
 Ind yet the Spirit’s work is as needed as that 
 of the Lord Jesus when he lay on the cross, 
 and is as personal as that of the Lord Jesus 
 when He raised the daughter of Jairus from 
 the dead. It seems a strange thing to say, 
 but it is a strictly scriptural deduction, that 
 lack of the Spirit’s work would neutralize the 
 power of the cross, even as lack of the cross 
 would neutralize the work of the Spirit, for 
 if the former places us in a position of Salva- 
 tion — makes salvation possible for us — the 
 latter is the power, the agency, the divine in- 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 263 
 
 fluence which brings Christ into our lives, 
 and develops that “ holiness without which 
 ‘‘no man can see the Lord.” All that we 
 naturally group together under the words 
 “ goodness,” “ holiness,” “ piety ; ” all that we 
 understand by such words and terms as 
 “ virtue,” “ victory over sin,” “ contest with 
 sin ; ” all that we mean when we speak of 
 “ faith,” “ hope,” “ love ; ” all these things as 
 characteristic in any shape or any form of our 
 lives are the direct result of God’s holy spirit 
 working in us to will and to do the good 
 pleasure of God. And that divine work is 
 as personal toward me as if the Holy Spirit in 
 human form said “ do this,” or with voice of 
 power commanded me to refrain from doing 
 it. 
 
 For ©very virtue we possess, 
 
 And every victory won, 
 
 And every thought of holiness, 
 
 Are His alone. 
 
 "We only fail to localize the distinct acts of 
 the Holy Spirit through looking in the wrong 
 place for them. In the life of our blessed 
 Lord the human character of his actions 
 made everything for us personally real, even 
 places and things. We can call up before us, 
 
264 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 mentally, the bine waters of the lake, the 
 storm sweeping down through the mountain 
 ravines, the boat in danger, the cry of the 
 disciples, and the solemn figure of Him who 
 rules the storm and speaks the ruling words. 
 We seem to see it all, and above all Him, as 
 indeed we could have seen Him if our day 
 had run side by side with his. Thus we 
 know the lake, and we seem to know as 
 surely the well of Jacob, or the pool of 
 Bethesda, or the awful garden with its dark 
 shades, within which he in sorrow prayed. 
 He in the reality of his personal humanity 
 has made these things to us as household 
 scenes ; but all this, as I said is lacking in 
 connection with the Holy Spirit save where, 
 as a dove, he lighted on our Saviour’s head ; 
 or as tongues of fire made Pentecost for ever 
 immortal. 
 
 Now, thoughts such as these are all wrong, 
 because you look in the wrong place for evi- 
 dences of the Spirit’s power and being. He 
 works not as the Saviour, a living form 
 amongst living men ; He w T orks on hearts, 
 on feelings and passions, on tastes and desires, 
 on hopes and fears — on those hidden elements 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 265 
 
 which, taken together, make what we call 
 the “ soul ” — that which in the highest sense 
 is “ me.” The difference between the earth 
 work of Christ and the earth work of the 
 Spirit, is that in the case of Christ we seethe 
 Workman ; whereas in the case of the Spirit 
 we possess the work. All that is permanently 
 good in me is the Spirit’s influence for good. 
 We have not far to go to look for Him if we 
 love and trust the Saviour, if we seek to lead 
 a life pleasing to Him, if we value prayer, 
 and feel in any sense which is real Christ 
 in us the hope of glory.” We have not to go 
 outside of ourselves, for every one of these 
 faiths and feelings and emotions are as 
 directly the work of God the Holy Spirit on 
 ourselves, as the great act of atonement was 
 the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross. In- 
 deed, there is never a moment of decision be- 
 tween good and evil in my life — a decisive 
 moment in which from love of Christ and 
 good I select the good, that such a decision 
 in the strife which ever exists between 
 human and divine wills — is not a victory 
 won in me and preserved for me by God the 
 Holy Spirit, for never would I have made the 
 
266 
 
 THE CHURCH YEA.R. 
 
 choice of good, if the Spirit had not helped 
 me in the strife of choosing. 
 
 There is more for you. for me, in the great 
 gifts that Heaven has poured down on us 
 than even the love of God, or the cross of 
 Christ— more. Great as is the mystery of that 
 divine and unequalled love which gave me 
 a Saviour to die for my sins, it is not greater 
 than that love which is ever with me in the 
 strife of my soul, in the trials of my life ; in 
 the tears of my journey as well as in the joys 
 of my existence ; that which is ever with 
 me for good, which like my shadow is now 
 before me, now behind me, but alway close to 
 me ; that which if I only follow as it leads, 
 
 or answer as it calls, will ever lead me into 
 
 • 
 
 truth ; and that which guides my steps, 
 and blesses my existence for grace and good, 
 and never leaves me whilst hope of good 
 remains ; that power is God the Holy Ghost. 
 
TRINITY SUNDAY. 
 
 How can the^e things be? 
 
 St. John iii : 9. 
 
 The tendency of the present age is largely 
 to prize human knowledge above personal 
 holiness and goodness, and to place outside 
 the bounds of usefulness or worth all that 
 does not come within the power of man’s 
 intellect and understanding. Of course, this 
 has always been so in varying degrees, and 
 hence there have always existed two schools 
 of thought in the world ; one school investi- 
 gating, analysing, searching and seeking to 
 arrive at the causes of things, and the other, 
 believing as acts of faith in many things, 
 which it claims pass human understanding 
 altogether. The former school has ever given 
 a strong and powerful impetus to all kinds of 
 “ investigation,” has laid open long locked 
 
268 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 secrets of nature, and has done much for the 
 intellectual education of man ; the second 
 school has been the outcome and the fosterer 
 of all forms of religious belief; and has de- 
 veloped the spiritual side of man’s being. 
 Really, there is no necessary antagonism be- 
 tween these schools of thought. The In- 
 vestigator is perfectly justified in seeking 
 the reasons which underlie natural pheno- 
 mena, and the religious student perfectly 
 justified in believing that there are many 
 things connected with man and life the 
 world and the universe, wholly beyond his 
 intellectual grasp. The antagonism comes in 
 where one school tries to crush out the life of 
 the other — a perfectly unjustifiable position 
 — for the simple reason that the desire to 
 know what can be known, and the desire to 
 believe and show faith and trust in a super- 
 natural power are each alike, part and parcel 
 of the nature of man. One of these days 
 some great mind will define the limits of 
 both schools, and preach a new gospel of 
 friendship and alliance between them. 
 
 Now, it has ever seemed to me that reli- 
 gion must always be connected with mys- 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MYSTERY. 
 
 269 
 
 teries that lie beyond our highest knowledge. 
 The adoration, reverence, homage, veneration 
 due to a Divine Being, arises largely in our 
 present state from imperfect knowledge; here- 
 after, no doubt, it will arise from the perfec- 
 tion of knowledge. The more we know, the 
 more we will adore. But constituted as we 
 are, we could never bow downwind adore the 
 total of a column of figures, or the engines 
 that move a gigantic system of machinery, or 
 the telescope that sweeps vast areas of the 
 heavens, or the microscope that discloses the 
 hidden beauty of things infinitesimal. Why 
 not ? Because we are master of the column 
 of figures, we are more than its equal. We 
 understand perfectly the engines and ma- 
 chinery combined, and we can take the tele- 
 scope or microscope to pieces, and put them 
 together again. We admire these things, but 
 we would never go down on our knees and 
 adore them 
 
 Now, my friends, if you and I knew every- 
 thing about G-od ; if we could understand his 
 providences as w T e do a column of figures ; if 
 we could know the ins and outs of his deal- 
 ings with the children of men, as we know 
 
210 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the workings of machinery ; if we could take 
 his work to pieces and put it together again — 
 well, we would admire God, and possibly hon- 
 our Him, but we would never adore Him, wor- 
 ship Him with prayer and praise and thanks- 
 giving, and depend on Him for every bless- 
 ing that we need as his children. The fact 
 is, that under such conditions we would be 
 equal with Gfod, and in some cases more 
 than his equal. And yet this is what so 
 many crave and thirst for, regarding mys- 
 teries and lack of knowledge as inconsistent 
 with the light of the Gospel, and demanding 
 that no doctrine of scripture should go below 
 the water-mark of human reason, but that all 
 should be as simple as the alphabet or a com- 
 mon rule of grammar. Of course the ultimate 
 result of such simplicity would be, that God 
 would become simply unnatural, and that 
 the idea of a Divine Being, the creator and 
 sustainer of all things would perish. 
 
 Now, apply these thoughts to a doctrine 
 naturally before us at this season of the 
 Christian year — the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity. 
 
 Men often speak of this as an incompre- 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MYSTERY. 271 
 
 hensible doctrine? Well, what else could 
 they expect? If there be a G-od, maker and 
 ruler of all things, and that He is for us an 
 object of adoration, is it reasonable to suppose 
 that his Being and Person, could be ought else 
 to us, but incomprehensible. Make that Person 
 comprehensible, and the objects for which He 
 revealed himself — namely, our adoration and 
 obedience — those objects are gone. We will 
 not adore what we can perfectly and natur- 
 ally understand. 
 
 Well, but it is said, “ Is it fair to assert that 
 the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed ? 
 Why, the word “ Trinity” cannot be found 
 within the covers of the Bible.” That is quite 
 true — but then the revelation is not in the 
 name ; the name simply describes a revelation 
 which was made in the beginning. The 
 word “ diphtheria,” as descriptive of a very 
 awful disease was not coined until about sixty- 
 nine years ago, but there is full reason for be- 
 lieving that the disease was minutely de- 
 scribed in the second century and that it was 
 epidemic in the sixteenth, seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. The name is not in- 
 fectious and contagious — the name does not 
 
212 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 kill, but it aptly and correctly describes a 
 disease that spreads terror everywhere. A 
 synod of “ the universal church” if it could 
 only be assembled to-morrow, might invent 
 a new name for the doctrine of the person of 
 
 % 
 
 Gfod, but if it held to revelation the doctrine 
 would remain exactly the same — just as you 
 might give a new name to diphtheria, but the 
 novel title would neither retard, nor expedite 
 the disease, or justify a change in the treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, how did this doctrine of the Trinity 
 gain its name? First, “ the word” came into 
 use in the second century, coined most likely 
 by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, to express 
 the idea of three persons in one Godhead ; 
 just as the word “ diphtheria” was coined by 
 a renowned Frenchman to express a mem- 
 branous exudation on the tonsils and back of 
 the throat. Both words in their respective 
 fields justify their own existence. They are 
 useful, expressive words. 
 
 "Why was the word invented ? The early 
 Christians, as is plain from their writings, 
 believed in but one Gfod — but they also re- 
 garded the Father as God, the Son as Gfod, 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MYSTERY. 273 
 
 the Holy Ghost as God. They made no 
 attempt to define the mystery, but were 
 content to use the divine terms just as they 
 were used in Scripture. Any student of 
 “ The Apostolic Fathers,” can see this with- 
 out being a close student— it is palpable on 
 the face of their writings. This was all 
 very well until on the one hand, some began 
 to teach that Christ was inferior to the Father, 
 and others that it was the Father who as- 
 sumed the form of the man Christ and was 
 crucified. Such views, of course, led to an 
 investigation into the person of the Divine 
 Being of God as revealed in Scripture and 
 brought it to the front as the all important 
 question of the hour. 
 
 Now, where was the field of investigation ? 
 In one sense it was a comparatively small 
 on one, for the Church fashioned its faith 
 on the teaching of Scripture. There was but 
 one God, that was clear ; but Christ was God, 
 that was clear ; and the Holy Spirit was God, 
 that was clear. How could such an incom- 
 prehensible doctrine be made plain and ex- 
 plainable to men ? The Church replied : 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Do not attempt to explain it ; do not strive 
 to make it plain ; publish to the world 
 exactly what the Scriptures teach, and leave 
 that simple scriptural announcement as the 
 faith of the Church, to be received unques- 
 tioned by her children, as a concise outline 
 of God’s revelation of himself.” Thus was 
 given to the Church “ the Nicene Creed,’’ 
 a creed which never professed to be anything 
 more or anything else than the Church’s 
 announcement of what the “ Holy Scriptures” 
 taught with regard to the person of God. 
 
 As to the mystery of the Trinity — well, 
 you cannot seek to realize any idea of God 
 apart from mystery of some kind. Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer in his philosophy aims at 
 “ elucidating or making clear the funda- 
 mental and the universal principles which 
 science has established within the sphere of 
 rational investigation.” His philosophy is 
 meant to make “ great principles ” clear. 
 Well, how does he clear up the idea of God ? 
 
 Here are his words : “ But one truth must 
 grow ever clearer — the truth that there is an 
 inscrutable existence everywhere manifested, 
 to which the man of science can conceive 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MYSTERY. 275 
 
 neither beginning nor end. Among the mys- 
 teries which become more mysterious the 
 more they are thought about, there will re- 
 main the one absolute certainty that the man 
 of science is ever in the presence of an infi- 
 nite and eternal energy from which all things 
 proceed.” 
 
 Now, I place this elucidating idea side by 
 side with the doctrine of the Trinity, and one 
 seems just as mysterious to me as the other. 
 I ask Mr. Spencer what is your idea of what 
 we Christians understand by the word God ; 
 and he answers, “ What you call God is “ an 
 inscrutable existence,” “an infinite and eter- 
 nal energy,” as far as I know, “without be- 
 ginning or end” and “ from which all things 
 proceed.” I admire the rythmic roll of the 
 words, and I endorse them as far as they go ; 
 but I have received no more light as to the 
 person of God under the new philosophy, 
 than I had under the old creed. So much 
 for the mystery connected with the Trinity 
 as revealed in the Gospel. I need look for 
 nothing but mystery — that is plain. 
 
 But out of the mystery comes a scriptural 
 message that appeals straight to my under- 
 
276 
 
 THE CHUECH YEAE. 
 
 standing. This God whom I cannot define, 
 analyze or understand, loves me ; loves me 
 even in my sin, and has left nothing undone 
 on his part to prove his love. The Father 
 loves me, the Son loves me, the Holy Ghost 
 loves me, and combined in one love, is my 
 eternal salvation if I will only give my heart 
 and sins to God, through Jesus Christ. All 
 that, as connected with my individual being, 
 I can understand, because it appeals to my 
 heart and my life and my conscience, and 
 brings God down to the level of my exis- 
 tence. The “ mystery,” I thankfully and 
 willingly leave until God wills it should 
 be a mystery no longer, but the “ message” 
 out of the mystery, I grasp, as a drowning 
 man, the friendly rope, and trust it to death, 
 as the one only hope of my salvation. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 
 
 Luke xi : 5. 
 
 It is claimed by some, whose intellectual 
 superiority and scientific knowledge is freely 
 admitted, that we must look for the perfect, 
 earth-born man, in front of us, not behind us. 
 This statement is the natural outcome of a 
 system of popular philosophy, which regards 
 everything as being under the law of univer- 
 sal advancement whereby the “ fittest ” must 
 survive ; a consolatory law, no doubt, for the 
 “fittest,” and naturally a popular law, for 
 whatever may be lacking in the man of the 
 nineteenth century, personal conceit cannot 
 fairly be placed on the list. 
 
 Now, whatever views persons may take as 
 to the revealed character and inspiration of 
 the Bible, one thing is certain, that it is a very 
 
218 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 old record ; as far as its delineations of life are 
 concerned, it reaches back a long way. And 
 not only is it an old record, but it appears to 
 be a singularly faithful record. For to-day, 
 in the east, in migratory tribes you meet twin- 
 like representatives of Abraham ; in business, 
 world over, who does not meet unregenerate 
 Jacobs? in politics, double-minded Balaams ; 
 in friendship, excitable Peters and traitor 
 Judases, and in the world at large, Eves led 
 astray through lies and stirred-up vanity, and 
 Adams led astray through straying Eves ? 
 Here and there the murder of to-day may 
 be more cunningly worked out than the 
 murder of Abel, but it is none the less deadly ; 
 the mob that shouted the Lord Jesus to death, 
 or stoned Stephen is, as a rule, just like our 
 modern mobs, and mothers of to-day spoil 
 children as Rachel did, and fathers as Eli. 
 Hence, if this “ perfect man ” is before us phy- 
 sically, intellectually, ethically, he must be 
 an unthinkable distance ahead of us, with 
 these Abrahams and Jacobs and Peters and 
 Judases walking about our streets, fresh as 
 ever, and apparently with as strong a grip of 
 life as their first known representatives had 
 
THE FAMILY THAT JESUS LOVED. 279 
 
 in their day and generation. The fact is, de- 
 ducting the veneer and polish of education 
 and civilization, we are pleasantly, or most 
 unpleasantly like our earliest forefathers, 
 Aryan, Semitic, Turanian, whatever they 
 may have been. 
 
 Now, as an evidence of this world-wide 
 persistency of type, what a beautiful picture 
 of Christ-loved life our text brings before us, 
 eighteen hundred years old, and yet a pho- 
 tograph of what may be seen in the church of 
 God to-day ! This family of Bethany lived 
 out its short span of life, the tide of time 
 rose, swept over it and wiped it out, and yet 
 the family type has never been so improved 
 on as to be lost in the waters of the high 
 tide of progression. All Marthas were not 
 wiped out when Martha was buried, or no 
 Martha has much improved since the Martha 
 of Bethany died. The Mary who sat at the 
 feet of Jesus, the unobtrusive Lazarus who 
 died and rose again ; these have faded out 
 centuries ago into “ the land of the leal,” but 
 there are Marys many, and Lazaruses not a 
 few, and Marthas, thank God, within the 
 fold of God’s wide church t( -day ; and hence, 
 
280 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the lesson I would have you to learn from 
 the family of Bethany is not alone the fixed- 
 ness of humanity, but also the wide variety 
 of character, disposition and feeling, that God 
 plainly allows within his church, to learn it 
 as a comfort and encouragement in all your 
 efforts after higher things. 
 
 Notice the plain statement made as to this 
 family. We are told distinctly that as a 
 family the Lord Jesus loved it — “ now Jesus 
 loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ” — 
 a cataloguing of love that appears to have a 
 meaning in it, as if it said “ Take Lazarus at 
 his best or worst Jesus loved him,” and so 
 loved He Mary, and so loved He Martha, He 
 loved them all, He loved them each.” 
 
 Let all quiet, unobtrusive, self-hiding 
 Christian people take heart as they realize 
 that Jesus loved Lazarus. For there was 
 nothing great or wonderful about this man ; 
 he was essentially one who gained a public 
 recognition through his connection with 
 others. We know nothing personal about 
 him at all, save that he was “ the brother of 
 Mary and Martha,” and that our Lord raised 
 him from the dead. He was one of the 
 
THE FAMILY THAT JESUS LOVED. 281 
 
 “ overshadowed ones,” overshadowed by the 
 strong character and force of will of Martha, 
 and by the exalted pietism of Mary — a good 
 brother you may be sure, a respected fellow 
 villager, it is plain — but one of these quiet, 
 self-hidden men, who was generally spoken 
 of as the brother of two well known women, 
 and yet Jesus most unquestionably loved 
 Lazarus. 
 
 Now, if our perfect man is yet before us, 
 we have gained little since the days of 
 Lazarus, and I say “ thank Gfod,” for I would 
 not miss Lazarus round the King’s board for 
 a good deal. People who live the calm, quiet 
 life of unobtrusive daily duty, who go in and 
 out of duty’s door with muffled steps ; noise- 
 less Christian souls who live perhaps a rou- 
 tine life, yet live it well, and purely, and 
 honestly. They gaze sometimes amazed at the 
 restless energy of Martha and feel very weak 
 religiously as they notice the exalted piety of 
 Mary. “ I could never accomplish or even 
 “ aim at a tithe of what Martha does,” they 
 say ; “ I could, certainly, never feel as Mary,” 
 and yet, every day is a quiet, wfflole^ome day 
 lived out on lines of honest duty ; the father 
 
282 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 in his office or workshop, the mother in her 
 nursery or household, the mechanic at his 
 worn work-table, “ the daily round, the com- 
 mon task,” with Christ looking on, because, 
 remember, He loved Lazarus, and saying, 
 though Lazarus may hear Him not, “ Servant 
 of God, well done.” From time immemorial 
 it has been so ; from Jesus until now it has 
 been so. A step is heard outside ; the busy 
 bustling Martha asking somewhat sharply, 
 because, when busy, she does not care to be 
 interrupted, “Who is that ?” and the quiet 
 Mary replying, “Oh ! its only Lazarus ! ” only ! 
 yet remember, and take heart at it, quiet, 
 gentle people, that Jesus loved Lazarus. 
 
 And He loved Martha. Martha with push 
 and energy enough in her to accomplish any 
 clearly defined duty within her womanly 
 reach. Martha who could never be anywhere 
 without all near her knowing it ; Martha at 
 times rebuking, at times argumentative, with- 
 out a grain of poetry in her ; common sense, 
 literal almost to rudeness ; but, then, the 
 type of women that, married and motherly, 
 would give birth to great men, children like 
 the Maccabees, or, in other lands and climes, 
 
THE FAMILY THAT JESUS LOVED. 283 
 
 to the restless Norseman — “ venturesome, 
 “ self-reliant, proud, with a dash of hardness 
 “ running through his virtues.” 
 
 A great, deep love, you may be sure, lay in 
 this strong woman’s heart for her quiet plod- 
 ding brother, and her high-strung and 
 spiritually minded sister, but both, no doubt, 
 at times seemed to her to fall “far short ” of 
 her ideal standard. For Martha’s standard 
 was clearly, hard, plain, common-sense use- 
 fulness, and great open-handed acceptance of 
 rational responsibility, ready to shoulder any 
 duty and shoulder it without fear of fail- 
 ure. Duty, common duty — faced and fin- 
 ished — everything done, and done well ; the 
 room cleaned up, and the strong voice say- 
 ing — not so much thankfully, as like a clerk 
 checking off work — “Well! thank G-od, 
 that’s done.” Not an irreligious or worldly- 
 minded woman by any means, but one whose 
 prayers and alms, and personal hopes, and 
 judgment of others, were all bound up in a 
 deep overwhelming sense of personal respon- 
 sibility to the day and hour, to the hearth 
 and home. 
 
 Well, it ought to be a comfort to thousands 
 
284 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 of Martha-like women within the church 
 that Jesus loved this woman for her worth’s 
 sake, that is, He saw worth in her. Behind 
 and beneath this seeming worldliness and 
 the noise and the bustle of her life lay, or 
 stood, this grand sense of certainty as to the 
 fulfilment of responsible duty towards the 
 common things of common life, and Christ 
 saw what lay beneath and valued it. A 
 blessed thought for Martha-like representa- 
 tives of to-day, hard-run, hard-wrought men 
 and women, who rise early and rest late, who 
 finish the tale of bricks that every day de- 
 mands ; women who find a ceaseless Dorcas 
 in their own households, a never ending 
 school with their own children, or men with 
 duty swallowing ever moment in office, store 
 or business, to make both ends meet, and yet 
 Jesus valuing them, and putting a high price 
 on them, loving them for their worth’s sake 
 and saying of them wherever they are honest 
 and no excusing, “Servants of G-od, well 
 done.” 
 
 But Jesus also, we are told, loved Mary, 
 and this no one wonders at ; for her whole 
 heart, and soul, and being seems to have been 
 
THE FAMILY THAT JESUS LOVED. 285 
 
 alive with devotion to a personal and living 
 Christ — a pure, devout, contemplative soul ; 
 one so full of an exquisite and all absorb- 
 ing faith in word and look of her master, 
 that scepticism or doubt would be as foreign 
 to her nature as impurity of thought, and 
 worldliness as open sin. A woman that 
 would lose herself in contemplation, “ bring- 
 ing all heaven before her eyes” ; one that 
 would die for Christ as willingly as live for 
 him — possibly at times would sooner die. 
 One who lived to feel in her deepest heart, 
 what we so often willingly sing, yet so 
 slightly feel : 
 
 “ Jesu, my God, I thee adore 
 
 “ 0 make me love thee more and more.” 
 
 Well, Jesus loved Mary, and all like Mary, 
 pure of heart — the ideal race of high sanctity 
 through the long ages of the Church’s life. 
 A Mary, such as Monica, the mother of 
 Augustine — the first pure Mary-like women 
 who fled the world to find a higher spiritu- 
 ality and purity of soul within secluded 
 walls ; the pietists of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, well called the monks and nuns of high- 
 strung Protestantism ; the early Methodist 
 
286 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 women testifying for Christ, and singing his 
 praises in the midst of brutal mobs ; Ply- 
 mouthism in its earliest and only practical 
 stage ere vulgar conceit and rabid bigotry 
 blighted its beauty — these all, surely, of Ma- 
 ry, Mary-like, came within the sphere of the 
 Master’s love, as all will ever come, who, 
 sitting before the glass in which men see 
 darkly, gaze, and gaze on, and yet gaze and 
 pray like the martyrs, “ Lord, how long ? ” 
 
 What lessons may we learn from all this ! 
 
 First, that from Adam down to the present 
 hour human nature, rough-hewn and God- 
 less, or God-hew r n and holy, has passed 
 through little change ; that the bad-living are 
 as bad as ever with the venue of badness pos- 
 sibly changed ; that the good are as good as 
 ever neither better nor worse, but good enough 
 after an old type or fashion for God to love. 
 If we have Adams and Eves, and Cains, and 
 Balaams, and Judases and Pilates, thank God 
 we have Abels, and Enochs, and Abrahams, 
 Marys and Marthas, and Lazuruses, Monicas, 
 and Melancthons, Frys, Carpenters and 
 Nightingales — old gems, brilliant in a new 
 setting and all running backward in type to 
 
THE FAMILY THAT JESUS LOVED. 287 
 
 the original of the species — God in Christ. 
 
 And another lesson, abides hard to learn, 
 yet strong and forcible. Beware of that 
 narrow-minded bigotry that, canonizing 
 Mary, and all like her as saints, would rule 
 out Martha, and possibly Lazarus from the 
 Church of God, and warn poor Martha back 
 from the table of the Lord. For Martha w 7 as 
 not what one would call exactly a spiritually 
 minded woman — but then she was an 
 honest, blunt, and dutiful woman, loving 
 Christ in her own way, and Jesus loved her. 
 But you know there are some that think, un- 
 less we are all like Mary we are in the gall of 
 bitterness and bonds of iniquity. Do not fall 
 into that unscriptural mistake. 
 
 Then again beware of that worship of com- 
 mon sense, of recognized rules and orders, 
 and fashion of thinking and doing things, 
 that would wipe out Mary as a useless star- 
 gazing enthusiast ; that would say, “ The less 
 we have of that element amongst us, the 
 better ” Remember that “ that element ” 
 existed strongly in the family that Jesus 
 loved ; that that element had in it what he 
 called the “better part,” and be not rash in 
 
288 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 your criticism of Christian character. There 
 is room for Mary as well as Martha in the 
 Church of God. Both are useful in their 
 places if in their hearts the love of Jesus is a 
 reality. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 And he was angry, and would not go in. 
 
 St. Luke xy : 28. 
 
 This well-known parable, when spoken, 
 had plainly a primary and a secondary mean- 
 ing. 
 
 In the primary sense the prodigal repre- 
 sents the Jewish publicans, who having fallen 
 from national grace by selling themselves as 
 willing instruments of Roman tryanny, be- 
 came, not unnaturally, the scorned outcasts 
 of the whole Jewish nation. In the eyes of 
 patriotism they had left their father’s house, 
 they had sold everything connected with it, 
 honor, nationality, decency, and they had 
 gone down into the filth and mire and degra- 
 dation that ever seem the ultimate lot of 
 all spies and informers and tools of tyranny. 
 
 The elder brother, judging by the context, 
 19 
 
290 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 is the faithful and patriotic Jew ; the Phar- 
 isee, he who would perish rather than resign 
 one national tradition, change one national 
 custom, or copy or patronize one foreign 
 fashion. He is the lineal descendent of the 
 stout-hearted, stiff-necked Mordecai, loving 
 his country next to God, if not, as God. 
 
 The father in the parable is God ; God 
 speaking to the whole Jewish nation through 
 Christ, who calls all ; and these outcast 
 publicans listen to the call, are heart pierced 
 by it, repent and weep. Some fling up their 
 hated offices, believe in Him, follow Him, 
 love Him, and He receives them all. 
 
 Then the parable shows how the conser- 
 vative Jew turns on Christ, and through 
 Christ on God, arraigns His mercy, gives it 
 short trial and short shrift, and condemns it 
 root and branch. All the unsanctified bile 
 within the man rises and almost chokes him. 
 “ Is he , he asks, the faithful, loyal, devoted, 
 hard-working son — is he to be placed on a 
 level with the mire-daubed outcast, fellow- 
 countryman though he be ? Is he to be ex- 
 pected to blot out all the past, almost do 
 homage to the prodigal, feast with him, sit 
 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 291 
 
 down with him, welcome him?” Never! 
 And so, spite of fatherly explanation and 
 entreaty, he puts on the mailed armour of his 
 insulted purity, and, holier than the God of 
 holiness, he stands out in the wide field of 
 his own cultivated unforgiveness, alone, and 
 proud in his loneliness. 
 
 The secondary application shifts the field 
 from the narrow limits of Judaea, and applies 
 it to the world. The father is God ; the 
 prodigal, his baptized child who defiles and 
 breaks his covenant, flings off all religious 
 restraint, courts, rather than fights, the world, 
 the flesh and the devil, sinks down as low 
 in sin, and shame and lust and folly as man 
 can sink, then rises from the mire of his 
 guilt, sin-daubed and foul, cries out for par- 
 don, receives it bountifully and is reinstated 
 in the old home. In this sense the parable 
 is an outline of the whole scheme of redemp- 
 tion which provides pardon for the vilest, 
 through the love and mercy of God, the 
 Father of us all. 
 
 But in the secondary sense, who, or 
 what, is this strange mortal, the elder 
 brother ? He cannot certainly be a wholly 
 
292 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 bad man, for he is described as the trustwor- 
 thy and trusted son. “ Son,” says God, “Son, 
 thou art ever with me.” Nor is he one of 
 those miserable toadying abortions of re- 
 ligious life, trading on religion for his own 
 advancement ; because he is described as 
 being positively entitled to the blessings of 
 religion an an heir of God. “ Son,” says 
 God, “ all that I have is thine.” Hence if the 
 prodigal son is a pardoned sinner, then 
 certainly this elder son is in some sense a 
 well established saint. 
 
 And yet one cannot look at him without 
 feeling that he is mournfully unlovely. 
 Orthodoxy is a very necessary thing, but to 
 be more orthodox than God is, to say the 
 least of it, presumptuous. Then rigid purity 
 and uprightness are, of course, necessary, 
 commendable and proper ; but when such 
 graces lead to a positive disregard of all ten- 
 derness and pity towards others, to stamping 
 out sympathy in toto, they become blots and 
 stains rather than virtues and graces. He is 
 altogether unlovely, although he may be very 
 good. Look at him. 
 
 There is music and dancing and feasting 
 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 293 
 
 in the house, and God approves of it all. 
 Who ordered the feast? God. Who said 
 that the dresses and jewellery were to be 
 produced, and everything made bright and 
 pleasing to the eye? God. Who evidently 
 gave the command, “ Be ye happy ; let mirth 
 and laughter ring through the house, forget 
 the past, be joyful in the present, and hope 
 for the best in the future ? ” God. 
 
 But here is one out in the field alone who 
 does not believe in God’s policy. There he 
 is, looking at the lights and shadows as they 
 cross the windows, listening to the sounds 
 of mirth and music, and that man is as sad 
 and wretched and miserable through his own 
 distorted goodness as any living man can 
 well be. He is positively jealous of God’s 
 distributed love, because he feels it ought all 
 to be his ; lights, and music and laughter are 
 tokens of so much stolen love, stolen from him. 
 He should own the father and all contained 
 in the father ; that whole scene is a violation 
 of the sanctity of well earned affection that 
 should find no resting-place but on his own 
 bosom. It would be an insult to self for him 
 to re-echo a laugh or do ought else than 
 
294 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 frown down the whole thing. He cannot 
 stop it, but he can refrain from taking part 
 in it. Better the lone field and consistency, 
 than the bright room full of happy faces 
 turned towards G-od. 
 
 Now, are there such people in the home of 
 God, Christians ? Yes. There are elder 
 brothers to be found in the purest lives. 
 Those who fortunately have from childhood 
 kept their purity, those who were born again 
 of God, almost in human birth, those whose 
 blessings have been great, and temptations 
 few, and whose lives have been unpolluted 
 by any one gross sin or failure. Yet these 
 are the very persons who often are naturally 
 tempted to be hard and harsh, unsympathis- 
 ing, and unforgiving. They ask none to 
 make allowances for them, and they make 
 none for others. They ask no sympathy and 
 give none ; or, if willing to forgive, they 
 cannot forget. This is their temptation. God 
 help them, they are the purest, cleanest, 
 holiest, yet most unlovely characters on earth. 
 
 Then there is the doctrinal elder brother. 
 Men who measure the Bible itself by their 
 ideas of the Bible. Men who fashion the 
 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 295 
 
 love of God according to their ideas of what 
 the love of God ought to be. Men who view 
 God through a diminishing glass, his image 
 perfect, but so small as to dwarf divinity it- 
 self and make it as small as themselves. 
 
 God says that “ Christ died for all.” They 
 say, “ Yes, all for whom he died.” God says 
 he is a father to prodigals and swine-feeders, 
 and husk-eaters. They say that he is a 
 father only to those who can call him father, 
 in a loud clear voice, without tremor, or 
 nervousness, or whisper. God says there is 
 healing for those who barely touch his gar- 
 ment’s hem ; who hide the touch itself, or 
 touch as if they touch not. They say the 
 crowd must be broken through, and thrust 
 aside, whilst the sinner grasps the Saviour 
 and holding fast cries out, “ I will not let thee 
 go except thou bless me.” 
 
 Now the horror of all this lies in its un- 
 holiness. There is nothing in this stern, 
 dogmatic, and often jealous-minded Christian, 
 that provides for the tears of a growing or 
 hidden penitence, or the growing intentions 
 of a sin awakened life. He might forgive 
 the sinner for the mire that once daubed his 
 
296 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 character, but he could never forget that once 
 he had been mired. Such a man is unfit to 
 judge of a sinner struggling homeward, and 
 battling upwards. He can never forget that 
 he who struggles is tainted. The skin may- 
 look like alabaster, but underneath is the 
 impure taint that is only waiting to break 
 out, and disfigure all. “What could you 
 expect?” he asks. “What could you hope 
 for ? He fed swine, he ate husks.” 
 
 Now what are the dangers here ? 
 
 God’s will, is not only that the son should 
 come home, but that he should stay at home. 
 “ My Son,” He calls him, “ thy brother.” But 
 God’s will may be frustrated by man, and 
 there are few who frustrate it more than 
 your hard, jealous-minded, fault-hunting, 
 and fault-following Christian. 
 
 I am the last to claim for penitents that 
 paltry spirit of sentimentality which posi- 
 tively puts a premium on sin by petting and 
 lauding the sinner. But I say it is enough 
 to drive out all good intention — to ruin a 
 man, if every effort and strain he makes 
 after goodness, is not only criticised harshly, 
 hut imputed to evil. If after, it may be, years 
 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 29 1 
 
 of hard effort to improve — after prayers and 
 stragglings and victories, deep down in the 
 heart of the criticiser lies the thought, “ I do 
 not believe in him. I do not trust him. I 
 may forgive, but I can never forget. He fed 
 swine. He ate husks.” 
 
 It is enough to ruin any man, but it is al- 
 most certain death to a young man. Starved, 
 hungry, outcast, penitent, he asks for bread, 
 and Christians, holy people, hand him a lump 
 of ice, and say, “revive on that.” That is 
 bad enough, but what if he has courage to 
 take even that, and then seek his own bread, 
 and gain it, and make it honestly, by beating 
 down, through grace of God, old habits, by 
 watchfulness and prayer and fasting, and 
 that he is a new man, and that he says to his 
 elder brother, w r ho was always pure, “ love 
 me now, trust me now,” and that the hard, 
 harsh reply comes, “ I forgive you but I 
 cannot forget, you fed swine, you ate husks.” 
 I tell you the utter ruin of such a younger 
 brother, soul and body, may rest on the other 
 man. 
 
 But there is danger, and terrible danger 
 for the elder brother as well. The father is 
 
298 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 in the house happy with the prodigal, and 
 God is in heaven joyful in the thought, that 
 a lost soul is returning, and the smile on God’s 
 face is reflected on the faces of his angels. 
 "What is the danger then to the elder bro- 
 ther ? Surely of becoming unlike God. God 
 is love and this man, — this man is jealousy, 
 or hardness, or narrow-mindedness. The smile 
 is on God’s face, the frown on his ; God’s heart 
 is warm and full of love, his is cold as ice ; 
 God hopes the best for the penitent, and is 
 ready to help and encourage him ; this man 
 thinks the worst — augurs evil rather than 
 good, and is an obstacle to success instead of 
 an aid ; God not only forgives but forgets and 
 hopes out into the future ; this elder brother 
 ■will not forget, but lives in the past and prac- 
 tically treats the penitent as a fraud and 
 hypocrite. Oh ! do you not see how r such a life 
 steadily moves a man back into the lonely 
 field farther away from God, and that the 
 longer he thus lives and feels, the greater the 
 distance ? 
 
 Brethren, is it not w 7 ell that those of us 
 who profess to love God should review our 
 lives, and see whether this evil spirit that 
 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 299 
 
 enters into the higher life to blast it, may not 
 be tampering with ourselves? “ He fed swine, 
 he ate husks,” does the saying of that come 
 easy to us, and have we, behind the words the 
 feeling that gives them strength and vigor. 
 If so, believe me, the sooner we leave the 
 lonely field and enter the house, and push 
 through the crowd of happy guests, and seek 
 out the Father, and go down on our knees 
 before Him, and say, “Father I have sinned,” 
 the better for our souls. For in such a case 
 we are the prodigal. We have left our father’s 
 house. If we have not gone into a distant 
 country, we have gone into a lonely field, 
 and if we have not wasted our substance on 
 riotous living, w T e are fast wasting it on 
 jealousy and pride. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 And he said, let me go for the day breaketh. And he 
 said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 
 
 Genesis xxxii : 26 . 
 
 What was it that in a religious sense was 
 so plainly lacking in the character of Jacob ? 
 Again and again you think you are on the 
 track of a godly man, when suddenly he 
 does something, says something that shows 
 you that you are altogether astray. He irri- 
 tates you. You feel that you wish to like 
 him, desire to make the best of him, but he 
 will not let you. He appears to thwart you 
 at every turn, and just as you think you 
 have caught at something permanently good, 
 with his own hands he pulls down the 
 character that you are doing your best to 
 build up out of the scanty materials at your 
 disposal. 
 
JACOB AT JABBOK. 
 
 301 
 
 That in one sense he was a religious man 
 all through his record, you can have no 
 doubt. He avails himself of Esau’s hunger 
 to lead him to barter his birthright, but he 
 will not close the bargain until Esau swears 
 in God’s name that he will keep his side of 
 it. He goes through the shameful scene of 
 cunningly devised deception with his poor 
 old father. What for ? That Isaac may give 
 him the divine blessing before death seals 
 the old man’s prophet voice. As he sleeps 
 in Haran and sees the vision of angels, and 
 wakes up out of his sleep ; his awakening 
 words are magnificently — almost dramati- 
 cally religious, — “ Surely the Lord is in this 
 place and I knew it not. How dreadful is 
 this place — this is none other but the house 
 of God, and this is the gate of heaven ; ” but 
 then the whole soul is taken out of his 
 words by the bargain of reciprocity that he 
 seeks to drive with God: “0 God, if you 
 
 protect me, if you feed me, if you clothe me 
 and bring me back in peace, then I will 
 give my whole heart to you, and more than 
 that, then I will give you a tenth of all my 
 profits.” What an extraordinary chaos of 
 
302 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 religious ideas ! For surely religiousness in 
 some shape is there. 
 
 Yes, he clings to his chaotic idea of God all 
 through. “Am I God,” he says to Rachel, “ that 
 I can make you a mother.” When consulting 
 in secret with his wives about leaving Laban, 
 he tells them that “ the God of his father had 
 been with him,” that “ God did not allow 
 Laban to hurt him,” that “ God had given him 
 Laban’s cattle” — not Jacob’s trick, but God, 
 — and there is a grand solemnity about the 
 parting scene between Laban and Jacob, the 
 interchange of solemn vows and words, all 
 religious. “ God is witness betwixt thee 
 and me, the God of Abraham, the God of 
 Nahor, the God of their fathers judge be- 
 tween us.” 
 
 Now was this all hypocrisy ? I certainly 
 would not like to say so. I can well fancy 
 the state of mind that Jacob typifies — nay 
 more, I think it is a very common state of 
 mind, and that our nineteenth-century Jacobs 
 are many, commoner, perhaps, than nine- 
 teenth-century Esaus. 
 
 Surely there are thousands whose whole 
 belief, and that sometimes a very strong 
 
JACOB AT JABBOK. 
 
 303 
 
 belief, may be summed up in these words, 
 “ I believe in the God of my fathers.” Why, 
 the bitterest religious warfares that have ever 
 been waged have been fought out under the 
 power of these words, and the amount of 
 traditional religion that exists in the minds 
 of men, sometimes their sole and only reli- 
 gion is far greater than many thoughtless 
 people would imagine. Well, Jacob was 
 plainly one of these. There is nothing 
 wrong in the principle of this traditional 
 religion, for God himself said to Jacob, “ I 
 am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, 
 and the God of Isaac ; ” the wrong comes 
 in where we keep on saying that, and 
 in a way feeling that, yet at the same 
 time trading on a man’s hunger to get his 
 birthright, and trading on a father’s blind- 
 ness to get his blessing, and using our rough 
 scientific knowledge so as to add to our 
 flocks and herds at the expense of our neigh- 
 bour, even though our neighbour would 
 do the same to us if he had the knowledge. 
 But is not this hypocrisy ? In one sense, 
 yes ; but it may be gross religious ignorance, 
 lack of God’s spirit in our hearts, a wrong 
 
304 
 
 THE CHUECH YEAE. 
 
 idea of what religion really is. A sense that 
 we are all right as long as we walk on the 
 paths our fathers w T alked on, never taking 
 into consideration the short cuts and by 
 paths that we have made for ourselves, and 
 that our fathers would have scorned to walk 
 on. In short, traditional religion is, as a 
 rule, an utterly worthless power for good if 
 the soul, the heart, the spirit of a man is not 
 in it. It is “ the shadow of a shade, the base- 
 less fabric of a vision.” 
 
 Then there are many who live wholly on 
 what I might theologically call “ natural 
 religion” clothed in the garments of revela- 
 tion. They believe in G-od, you would shock 
 them if you imputed to them non-belief on 
 this point ; nay, they believe in “ a hand 
 that moves the world,” in a general kind of 
 way ; they believe in a Christ that died in a 
 general kind of way ; they believe in worship 
 and service in a general kind of way, but they 
 draw a clear marked, distinct line between 
 their actions in the world and the great Grod 
 above. For them there is the sphere of reli- 
 gion, and the sphere of business, and the 
 sphere of pleasure, and each sphere has its 
 
JACOB AT JABBOK. 
 
 305 
 
 own orbit, and should keep within it. Well, 
 do you know I think that entered into 
 Jacob’s creed for three parts of his life. You 
 might sum up his creed now in two clauses. 
 “ I believe in the God of my fathers and I 
 believe that each sphere should move in its 
 own orbit.” Poor, paltry creed, leaving a 
 man as bare of soul life, and spirit growth, 
 as if his “ fathers” never had a God, as if no 
 such thing as practical, personal, day of 
 judgment religion ever existed. For in truth, 
 for fathers, for Jacob, for you, for me, there 
 is but one sphere, my rounded life, contain- 
 ing within it, religion, business, pleasure, 
 everything, and that life is all due to God. 
 
 What did Jacob make out of his various 
 orbits. Oh, he did well ; he went out a 
 pauper and came back in a cloud of dust that 
 you could see miles away. But what about 
 his shaking misery when he realized, like a 
 flash of lightning, that he had worked and 
 slaved and gathered his flocks and herds and 
 droves, only that Esau might swoop down 
 on them in common justice, strip him bare 
 and naked of everything that he had (as you 
 and I will be stripped naked on the day of 
 20 
 
306 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 judgment) and turn him back on the desert 
 a pauper ; taught the awful lesson that my 
 faith, not my father’s, saves me, and that my 
 life is one rounded whole, due to God, in 
 religion, in business, in everything ? I tell 
 you, as a raft of timber may go for hundreds 
 of miles in safety down a river and yet break 
 up into pieces at a given point, never to be for- 
 gotten by him accountable for its safety, so 
 Jacob’s creed just went to pieces and floated 
 here and there and everywhere as he stood 
 close to the brook of Jabbok and shook from 
 head to foot as the thought of Esau’s terrible 
 retribution flashed upon him. 
 
 Oh ! how God works ! “ The mills of the 
 
 gods grind slowly but sure,” and sure often 
 in mercy and in love. If ever man might 
 have blest a spot on earth, Jacob might have 
 blest Jabbok, as he did, for there he saw not 
 angels ascending and descending on the 
 heavenly ladder, but God coming down to 
 him. For the first time possibly in his life, 
 Jacob flings himself on God. “ O, God,” he 
 says, “ how blind I have been, blind, blind 
 to thy truth which thou hast showed unto 
 me ; I am not worthy — I am not worthy of 
 
JACOB AT JABBOK. 
 
 30 1 
 
 the least of thy mercies poured out on me 
 like water. Save me from Esau, save me 
 from the hand of my brother for I fear him.” 
 Ah ! there is something real here. Here is a 
 new kind of Jacob that we have not seen 
 before or heard. This man is seeking after 
 God as a real personal power, able to enter 
 into his life and fashion and mould it. This 
 man stakes all safely on God. “ You save me, 
 you save,” — the cry is intense, unmistakable, 
 God-reaching as well as real, just as the 
 apostle once cried, “ Save Lord, we perish.” 
 And then came that wondrous night of 
 struggling, w T ith whom or how, none can 
 tell, but it seemed to Jacob as if he struggled 
 with One who held his blessing for time and 
 eternity, who held it strongly and would not 
 let it go. On through the darkness of the 
 night the struggle lasted ; ’twas life or death 
 for Jacob. And then when morning dawned, 
 and the stranger still holding to the blessing 
 cried out to Jacob to cease the struggle and 
 let him go, back came the magnificent words 
 of a faith born in one night, strong as the 
 faith of Stephen, “ I will not let thee go. 
 You need not think it. I will hold on till I 
 
308 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 wring the blessing out of thee. I will not 
 let thee go except thou bless me.” And then 
 came the blessing, and with the blessing 
 came the real Jacob, the converted, turned, 
 changed Jacob, the Jacob who had found 
 God for himself, who had brought God into 
 his own life, who had given his life to God. 
 His creed no longer is merely “ I believe in 
 the God of my fathers,” nor is it a creed based 
 on the deadly error that “ life and religion 
 are distinct things,” but the magnificent per- 
 sonal living creed, “ I believe in God for I 
 have seen God face to face, and my life is 
 preserved.” 
 
 You explain all the difficulties in connec- 
 tion with Jacob’s life when you realize the 
 difference between nominal, traditional reli- 
 gion and a personal, living, vital faith. What 
 he needed, what we all need in our lives, 
 is our own, not any one else’s religion, and 
 our own religion permeating our life as one 
 life, due to God, and if Haran with its vision 
 of angels, its mercies and brightness fails to 
 bring us this, then God may lead us down to 
 Jabbok and the struggle for life in the dark ; 
 but if the blessing comes out of it, and that I 
 
JACOB AT JABBOK. 
 
 309 
 
 see God face to face in rosy day dawn, what 
 care I for the darkness ! To get Christ, to have 
 Christ, to feel him in my life and keep him 
 there, to go into any darkness that I may 
 come out of it ready to live for Christ, this is 
 real religion, and hence if Haran brings it not 
 to me thank God for Jabbok. For there is no 
 love or passion, there is no gain that man can 
 compass on earth, there is no pleasure that for 
 a time can light up life, that is not worth 
 surrendering and beating under foot to gain 
 Christ. W e have reached the highest summi t 
 of man’s happiness when we can say, “ To 
 me to live is Christ.” 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 And Samson called unto the Lord and said : 0 Lord 
 God remember me, I pray thee, only this once, 0 God, 
 that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my 
 two eyes. 
 
 Judges xvi: 28. 
 
 The story of Samson is one of those scrip- 
 tural records as to which one sometimes asks, 
 "Why was it preserved and sent down on the 
 pages of inspiration for your reading and 
 mine ? Because there is nothing of a noble 
 or lofty nature in the man’s life at all ; there 
 is not a shadow of a shade of spirituality, 
 and his reported words — many of them — 
 seem more suited for a jest-book than a Bible. 
 And although his story kindles in one’s 
 mind an admiration for the rough rude giant, 
 such as one might possess for a huge dog, 
 still the question remains, Why did such a 
 life ever get a place on the pages of Scripture ? 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 311 
 
 Well, I think God gave it place mainly as 
 a standing lesson and warning against 
 “ waste.” — waste of life and gifts and oppor- 
 tunities, and as a fearful lesson how a des- 
 tiny may be distorted and wrecked through 
 the ungoverned passions of the gifted pos- 
 sessor. For in the case of Samson, God plain- 
 ly meant the man to be one thing, and the 
 man exercising his free will made himself 
 another thing. 
 
 God meant him to be a Nazarite, not only 
 in profession but in spirit, that strange office 
 which gave the holder of it something of a 
 priestly character and a dignity in regard to 
 sanctity equal to that of a high priest. God 
 meant him to be separated by sanctity and 
 consecration of life from others, to be a living 
 evidence of the purified will, that can rule 
 as monarch over the baser passions, and to set 
 an example to the common herd of that 
 “ higher life ” which finds no repose outside 
 of God. For this office, and in an age when 
 the Nation was the Church, and the Church 
 was not only militant but military, God en- 
 dowed Samson with great bodily strength, 
 and this strength in its genesis and righteous 
 
312 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 exercise was justly called “ the Spirit of the 
 Lord,” because it was unquestionably Glod’s 
 special gift. 
 
 But although Samson recognized to the 
 fullest extent the Divine source of this phy- 
 sical power, he never seemed to have realized 
 that his sacred office and gifts suited to office, 
 both alike, brought with them special re- 
 sponsibilities, and that he was accountable 
 to the giver for the manner in which he 
 exercised his office and used his gift. “Am 
 I fulfilling my office and am I using my gift 
 to bring glory to G-od through the channel 
 of my vow ? ” was a question that he seems 
 never to have asked himself. He simply 
 dishonored his office and wasted his gift ; 
 poured out the latter like water on the 
 ground, used it to gratify his own mad pas- 
 sions or his fickle humours, in short, lived the 
 life of an irresponsible worldling, driven as 
 a leaf here and there and everywhere by the 
 uncurbed desires of his untrained and restless 
 mind. He seemed to have retained but one 
 solitary article of religious belief, and he 
 held to that with grip of iron — belief in a 
 living, personal, powerful G-od. His faith 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 313 
 
 here was supreme, at the back of all his wild, 
 abandoned recklessness loomed out in terrific 
 grandeur — GTod. 
 
 If you desire to see how Samson the 
 Nazarite failed to fulfil his office, and 
 wasted his gifts, place him side by side with 
 Samuel the Nazarite, standing before a whole 
 nation and closing up his consecrated life of 
 responsible service with the magnificent 
 words : “ Bring your accusation against me 
 if you can ; weigh my public life, sift my reli- 
 gious motives and give your verdict / 1 What 
 a splendid picture of responsible service, 
 and how the giant Samson with frame of 
 iron and voice of thunder, withers and wilts 
 into nothing in the presence of his great 
 successor. 
 
 Or fancy John the Nazarite acting as Sam- 
 son did. Fancy John, no longer the God-in- 
 spired preacher, whose words of awful re- 
 sponsibility rolled through the desert as if 
 they rang the knell of sin, but the loud, 
 noisy jester of the wilderness whose laughter 
 rang through the desert, and whose bloody 
 vengeful jokes, so full of cruelty, formed the 
 talk of street corners in Jerusalem. Fancy 
 
314 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 John, the chairman of the riotous feast ; John, 
 the riddle-maker ; John, betting thirty suits 
 of clothing that the riddle would not be 
 found out, and when it was discovered — 
 through fraud — going down to the village 
 of the winner, killing thirty of his fellow 
 villagers, stripping their dead bodies of their 
 suits, bringing the clothing back to the feast 
 and flinging the bloody pile down on the 
 board and saying, “There is your payment.” 
 Fancy John, through mad revenge, dressed 
 up as joking ; fancy John, I say, destroying 
 a whole harvest of Grod in the fields of his 
 enemies, sending the crafty jackals, with 
 blazing tails into the standing corn of his 
 crafty foes. “Jackal against jackal” he 
 cries, as he smites his thigh with his open 
 hand, and laughs loud and long to see the 
 lines of fire spread rapidly through the gold- 
 en grain. Above all, fancy John, who lost 
 his life through a woman’s hate because 
 from a sense of overwhelming responsibility 
 he rebuked a woman’s crime ; fancy John, 
 himself tainted, unclean, impure, joking and 
 fooling an impure woman about his gift 
 from G-od, and at last, snared by her, stagger- 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 315 
 
 ing blinded in an open courtyard, acting the 
 fool before his brutal enemies, that he might 
 fool them and through his folly wipe them 
 out of life, even though their deaths could 
 only be brought about by his. Fancy all 
 this, and where is your grand, noble God 
 consecrated John the Nazarite ? Thank God, 
 not here; but Samson the Nazarite is here, 
 the giant who wasted his giant gifts, the 
 magnificent man who distorted and wrecked 
 his own sacred destiny. 
 
 It is a sad story, because though always 
 lost to a sense of responsibility, the man, as 
 I said, was not wholly bad. A rough, rude 
 kind of dogged, persistent faith in God was 
 always present in him, and sometimes it 
 burst out brightly in his prayers and vows. 
 Even his last recorded prayer — bitter as vine- 
 gar, corrosive as vitriol — shows an unshaken 
 trust in God, though what a God ! “ 0 God 
 
 be on my side now, for this once give me 
 everything I ask : Vengeance ! Vengeance on 
 the cowards that put out my two eyes.” An 
 awful prayer, but still a prayer, and one of 
 savage, brutal faith — but faith. 
 
 Now where are the lessons from this 
 
316 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 strange life ? First, a lesson for those whose 
 office in many ways may furnish points of 
 contact with that of the Nazarite, the minis- 
 ters and stewards of God, those who like 
 him are separated for holy duties ; those like 
 him, gifted, if they will but claim their gifts ; 
 those like him, accountable to the living 
 God, as no other man can be accountable, 
 doubly accountable in light of jud gment, for 
 themselves and others. 
 
 To all such it seems to me, Samson speaks 
 with tremendous power. He tells us 1 hat no 
 mental or physical gifts, or both combined, 
 can make up for the loss of that awful sense 
 of official responsibility which made Samuel 
 and John what they w r ere, and w T hich let 
 men say what they will, is the real secret of 
 a God-born, God-directed ministry. Samuel 
 could rebuke King Saul, and John could re- 
 buke King Herod, because each man felt 
 that he was accountable to the living God 
 for his message ; that he must speak not as 
 the individual but as the authorized messen- 
 ger of God ; that once the message burned in 
 his soul, it should come forth, though the 
 message should ring the dead knell of the 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 317 
 
 speaker ; that duty to them was greater than 
 the greatest monarch that ever lived, be- 
 cause by duty they would be condemned, 
 and by duty they would be justified. “ For 
 God’s sake,” Samson seems to say, “ take 
 warning by me, I never realized my respon- 
 sibility. It never once rose above the hori- 
 zon of my life to light me to my duty. I 
 walked in the starlight, in the moonlight, 
 but never in the sunlight, and I survived as 
 a warning, instead of living as a guide.” 
 
 But is this responsibility a real thing ? Is 
 it ? God help the man that doubts it and 
 yet lives within the shadow of the altar. 
 For what is the minister of God set apart 
 for ? “ To feed the Church of God which He 
 hath purchased with his own blood ” and to 
 feed it, by “ declaring to it the whole council 
 of God.” To serve the Lord with all lowli- 
 ness of mind, if needs be, with tears and 
 trials ; to shrink not from declaring to the 
 lofty and lowly whatever is profitable, to 
 watch himself and watch his flock, to live 
 the life which covets no man’s gold or silver, 
 to hold not his own life as selfishly dear un- 
 to himself, but to pour it out on his ministry 
 
318 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 without stint ; nay, with St. Paul to cry “ To 
 me to live is Christ to spend and be spent 
 for souls, though the more he loves the souls 
 the less the souls love him ; and to do all this 
 in the light of the judgment of God, and 
 the great White Throne "when he will stand 
 as the messenger before him who gave the 
 message, and claim what none but the re- 
 sponsible and faithful minister can claim, 
 that he is “free from the blood of all.” 
 
 “ Free from the blood,” so Pilate madly 
 thought, because pure water washed his 
 trembling hands ; but no water that ever 
 flowed, no spring that ever burst from rocky 
 bed in that dread day, can justify the blight 
 and wreck and ruin of an unrepented, wasted 
 ministry of God. For what is wasted? 
 God, His mercy, His love, His death, His 
 cross, His passion ; souls famished through 
 lack of fidelity ; destinies wrecked through 
 lack of watchfulness ; God wasted, and 
 wasted through those who should have 
 watched. 
 
 Oh ! if I speak to-day, to those who are 
 thinking of entering the sacred ministry, 
 I say to them, “ For God’s sake touch it not, 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 319 
 
 add not to your personal responsibility this 
 awful charge, unless you feel that God has 
 called you with a voice that you dare not 
 disobey.” For this ministry is a real thing, 
 it is a G-od-ordained, distinctive institution, 
 weighed down with God-made responsibili- 
 ties ; to become God’s minister is to bring 
 the day of judgment into your daily lives, 
 with tenfold the pow r er that it can ever wield 
 over those who stand without the priesthood, 
 and therefore I say, and say it with the ex- 
 perience of close on thirty years of service, 
 “ For God sake touch it not if your heart be 
 filled not with the conviction that, “to me 
 to live is Christ.” 
 
 Now secondly and lastly, this distinctive 
 weight of responsibility, resting on God’s 
 ministers, should teach its lessons to the 
 laity of God’s Church. 
 
 Do you know what I feel to be our defect 
 in the present day, and the root-secret of 
 much of our non-success in working ? Want 
 of a due appreciation of the responsibility of 
 the ministry. I am a minister and steward 
 of the Church of God. I claim nothing mi- 
 raculous for my priesthood beyond the mi- 
 
320 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 racle that God ever allowed me to preach, 
 and that if I seek His divine aid He will fit 
 my back for my burden, as He fits the lay- 
 man’s back for his. But I hold that I am 
 tenfold more responsible to God than any 
 layman, that of my own free will, I have 
 assumed responsibilities that no layman 
 could be liable for, that my account before the 
 great White Throne must in its nature be 
 different from his, and hence I claim justice 
 at his hands, justice to lead and not be lead, 
 justice to teach and not be taught, justice to 
 rebuke and not to suffer for duty done, jus- 
 tice that will honestly and fairly allow me 
 to prepare for my judgment when I stand 
 before the great White Throne of God. If I 
 have to bear the tremendous responsibility, 
 at least award me a recognition of my birth- 
 right in God, at least leave me the only secret 
 of true success, a sense of a God-guided, God- 
 sought responsibility. 
 
 And hence no greater error can the laity 
 of God’s Church fall into than that of making 
 little of the ministerial office and talking 
 slightly of its responsibilities ; making your 
 priest a mere preacher, one whose mission is 
 
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 321 
 
 to please and who fulfils his mission best 
 when he pleases most. Make little of the 
 office and you degrade the man, divest him 
 of his responsibility to God and he becomes 
 your irresponsible leader. Rob him of his 
 sense of responsibility, not to you, but to God, 
 and the esprit of the man’s whole work is 
 gone. You become your leader’s Delilah, 
 you shear his locks, you steal his strength, 
 and then you wonder where are the men, 
 children of the Church, like the men of old, 
 the giants of the past. 
 
 I tell yon these men were giants because 
 they believed in the office of giants, as Atha- 
 nasius believed in his office, as Ambrose, and 
 in the great White Throne, and in the doc- 
 trine of the blood of souls, from which St. 
 Paul thanked God he was free, and from 
 which God free weak me and all like me, 
 when the books are opened and the judg- 
 ment set. 
 
 So Samson preaches to him who speaks 
 as well as to you who hear. “For God sake,” 
 he says, “ realize responsibility.” As he lay 
 crushed beneath the mighty pillars that in 
 his new-born strength he drew about him 
 21 
 
322 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 like a deadly garment, God alone can tell 
 what prayers he may have 6aid, what 
 thoughts he may have felt and what Pre- 
 sence seemed near him at the last. Where 
 is he now? Where will he be when the 
 throne is set and the books are opened ? We 
 leave him with God, and with the awful 
 silence of death, and with the hope that 
 springs to life at the thought that, some- 
 times, even wrecks are saved. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, 
 
 For we know in part. 
 
 1 Cor. xiii : 9. 
 
 As the Jew Paul stood in the crowded 
 streets of Athens, out of all the sights of the 
 city that which struck him most forcibly was 
 an altar on which was written an inscription 
 which ran thus : “ To the Unknown God.” 
 AVhat the original intention of the inscription 
 w^as is not easy to say, but as St. Paul realized 
 the sense of spiritual indefiniteness conveyed 
 in its words and contrasted it with his own 
 “sure and certain hope,” he grasped the 
 words as a striking text, and on them based 
 his first appeal to the half enquiring, half 
 mocking crowd on Mars’ Hill. Strange 
 to say if the apostle were on earth to- 
 day, he would find not an altar erected to 
 the “ Unknown God,” but intelligent, educa- 
 
324 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 ted people whose religion consisted of belief 
 in an “ Unknown God,” of a belief that there 
 can be no definite belief, of a chronic state 
 of positive uncertainty on all points con- 
 nected with the divine idea. And he would 
 find that this belief took with some the 
 shape of a philosophy ; whilst with others 
 it was a somewhat fashionable and easy- 
 going avowal of principles which, without 
 wholly ignoring the religious idea, left it so 
 indefinite as to be practically useless. Let 
 us to-day look into this strange and danger- 
 ous phase of religious thought. 
 
 Now it is perfectly clear that to a certain 
 extent God must be unknowable. God deals 
 with infinite things ; man with finite, and if 
 man’s mind is unable to grasp infinite works, 
 beyond broadly realizing them, how much 
 more must he be unable to know to the 
 full, the divine power whence such w r orks 
 proceed. But this is very different from 
 putting all thoughts of the Divine Being 
 aside as wholly “ waste thoughts,” from 
 resting in the belief that we can know noth- 
 ing whatever about God ; that it is our 
 proper destiny to seek to know every thing 
 
AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 325 
 
 except G-od. Indeed such a position would 
 not stand for a moment in connection with 
 what are called the works of nature ; for I 
 doubt if there be one single work of nature 
 with regard to which we can say we know 
 everything,” although we could say of that 
 same work that our knowledge connected 
 with it is very large, and possibly increas- 
 ingly so. We know a great deal about the 
 force of electricity, but there is a great deal 
 we do not know, and likely will never 
 know ; yet who would dream of ceasing to 
 strive to know about it, because much con- 
 nected with that force must remain for ever 
 beyond the grasp of human intelligence ? 
 Indeed it may fairly be said with regard to 
 all natural forces, that man is capable of 
 knowing a great deal about them, but that in 
 the case of every one of them, there is a limit 
 to his knowledge. Yet such limits never 
 paralyze investigation, or no great mind 
 would ever seek to maintain the position 
 that because he could not understand every- 
 thing in connection with a given subject, he 
 would rest content with ignorance of the 
 subject itself, and relegate it into the region 
 of things unknowable or unthinkable. 
 
326 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 Now this position of partial knowledge of 
 God is exactly the position taken by the 
 Bible from Genesis to the Revelation of St. 
 John. St. Panl sums up the whole drift of 
 Biblical teaching in the simple sentence, 
 “ We know in part,” and all experience aris- 
 ing from the noblest fields of investigation 
 and all unwarped rational intelligence en- 
 dorses the statement of the great Apostle as 
 correct “ In part,” but still sufficiently for 
 all our needs. We know enough of God 
 to lead us to God, and to lead us finally into 
 the great vestibule within which all of us 
 must at some time enter, the ante-room to 
 that state, within which, we are told in 
 another pregnant sentence, “We shall know, 
 even as we are known.” 
 
 Further, this contentedness with refrain- 
 ing from seeking to know God, is strongly 
 alien to what seems a natural instinct im- 
 planted in the very being and constitution 
 of man. Ceasing to strive to know God, 
 contentedness with positive and ever-abid- 
 ing ignorance as to His being, is wholly an 
 abnormal position. Far back as ever we can 
 go in connection with man, we find him 
 
AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 327 
 
 associated with the Divine idea, resting on it, 
 or seeking after it, or clearer still, bringing it 
 into his life in some shape, as its ruling 
 power, and submitting himself to laws 
 coercive or guiding, which were often an- 
 tagonistic to the lower feelings of his nature. 
 Out of all colours, races, degrees of intelli- 
 gence, there has come forth religion in some 
 shape ; no one thing human is more universal, 
 and hence it may fairly be claimed that this 
 “ seeking after God, if haply we may find 
 him,” is a natural and instinctive search. 
 And yet the “ haply” is ever in the search. 
 No religion that ever existed on this earth 
 has ever claimed to know God wholly, to 
 have exhausted search. In all religions, 
 whether of God, or gods, or divine spirits, 
 man has been instinctively content with 
 partial knowledge. He has sought to know 
 more, he has never claimed to know all, and 
 he has shrunk back instinctively from the 
 position of knowing nothing. “ Jehovah, 
 Jove or Lord,” whatever the name, there was 
 a claimed knowledge and total ignorance 
 was a crime. 
 
 Indeed this instinct is so strong that the 
 
328 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 great apostle of “ agnosticism,” as this school 
 of thought is called, cannot himself refrain 
 from admitting that religion can never wholly 
 lose its influence over the human mind. As 
 he looks forward prophetically into the ages 
 yet to come of the world’s highest culture, 
 when every form of what he calls supersti- 
 tion, including Christianity, will be thrown 
 aside, he can never see the day when religion 
 of some kind will not hold its own ; when 
 a pulpit of some kind will not he a power, 
 and when preachers of some kind will not 
 exhort and teach in the name and interest of 
 an indefinite something that will take the 
 place of our conception of God. And this 
 prophetic vision alone arises in the mind of 
 this great modern philosopher, from the fact 
 that all his great and far-reaching investi- 
 gations have fixed indelibly on his mind 
 the conclusion that man is instinctively a 
 religious being, and that he is a worshipping 
 being, whether he worship a dead forefather, 
 or gods, or one God, or as he believes the 
 coming man will, ‘ a great unknowable some- 
 thing from which all things proceed.” 
 
 A stranger position than this could not be 
 
AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 329 
 
 imagined. For if God is to fade out into an 
 unknowable, incomprehensible being, past 
 all hope of human search, and wholly out- 
 side of all human contact — why any wor- 
 ship ? Why any pulpit ? Why any preacher ? 
 As well worship the idea of “ perpetual 
 motion” or preach of its beneficence, as to 
 strive to concentrate the lingering embers 
 of a world’s religious fervour around an 
 abstract thought of a being or power whose 
 nature, influence and connection with man 
 are wholly unintelligible and past all finding 
 out. 
 
 It is, of course, comparatively easy to think 
 out novel views such as these, and even 
 honestly to propagate them, but it is not 
 always the gift of one who fashions a new 
 faith to see with clearness the practical 
 results that may ensue from his teaching. I 
 have no doubt that a very deep feeling of 
 undefined, yet real reverence, may, in some 
 minds, be associated with what is called 
 “ agnosticism that with some it is a refuge 
 from open, avowed and dogmatic denial of 
 God ; but I am equally sure that many who 
 seek it as a permanent refuge, find in due 
 
330 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 time that it is but a halting-place, a half- 
 way house, to practical avowed atheism. 
 
 No amount of theorizing can change the 
 nature of man, and if it be part of that 
 nature to give and take, to bestow and 
 receive, to look in some shape for an equiva- 
 lent, it is merely a question of time how 
 long an individual will continue to rever- 
 ence a being or power who never touches, 
 never influences, or in any shape or form, 
 recognizes the individual who gives such a 
 power reverence. 
 
 For in the nature of things the question 
 will in time arise, “ What is there to rever- 
 ence ?” If I strike a gong it gives forth a 
 sound ; but in reverence I lift up my eyes 
 to this unknowable Being, I lift them up 
 and that is all ; I lift them up for years and 
 that is all ; and that is all there ever can be 
 for me, for any one If I lift up my eyes to 
 the mountains, shadows steal across them in 
 varied beauty ; if I lift up my eyes to the 
 heavens, clouds fleck them, there is some- 
 thing to respond to look, but here, there is 
 nothing, nothing but a dead, dull, irresponsi- 
 ble idea. Why should I reverence it ? Why 
 
AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 331 
 
 play the hypocrite here ? Why, having gone 
 so far, should I not go one step further and 
 say positively, “ There is no God.” And thus 
 the house of refuge crumbles to the dust, 
 and the individual stands alone, on the bare, 
 barren heath of isolated atheism. 
 
 “We know in part,” says the Apostle, “be 
 content with it ; hereafter we will know 
 more, perhaps all.” Why not rest there ? 
 Man has but a limited life, and even if 
 every hour of that life brought in its harvest 
 of knowledge, it would find him at the last, 
 far more conscious of his ignorance than of 
 ought else. Seek then to know God, seek 
 to know him as He reveals himself in Christ 
 Jesus ; let every year of life’s experience bring 
 in its harvest of deeper knowledge. But 
 think not to exhaust God, to analyze Him 
 down to his elements, and then proceed to 
 analyze the elements, for your failure may 
 lead you on to take refuge in what is wholly 
 indefinite, and what is wholly indefinite 
 may leave you “ without God and without 
 hope in the world.” 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 That they all may be one. 
 
 St. John xvii : 21. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, how constantly St. 
 Paul compared the organized, visible Church 
 of God, to the human body, and the work of 
 the visible church to the exercise or action of 
 our bodily members. “The Church” to St. 
 Paul was what the physical frame of man is 
 to the countless nerves and sinews and cells 
 which go to form it ; a summing-up of the 
 great burning love of the Father ; the work 
 of Christ, the success of the G-ospel ; the 
 hope of Christians. You do not hear St. Paul 
 speaking of “ the Gospel ” as something 
 wholly distinct from the Church, or from 
 “ Christianity, ” as if it were something 
 outside of, and apart from organized church 
 life- St. Paul did not write to “ Christians ” 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 333 
 
 at Corinth, or to “ brethren ” in Galatia, or 
 to “ disciples ” at Thessalonica, but to “ the 
 Church at Corinth,” the Church in Galatia, 
 the Church at Thessalonica. That wondrous 
 offspring of Jesus Christ, called elsewhere in 
 holy Scripture, “the Church,” “the Household 
 of God ; ” “ the Church of the living God ; 
 “ the pillar and ground of the truth,” and 
 called in after years, as it spread itself over 
 the known world, by that magnificent title 
 that in ages of future unity will be realized 
 in all its beauty “the One, Holy Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church.” 
 
 Hence there is nothing sadder, I think, to 
 the true-hearted Christian than to stand 
 midst the confusion and chaos of church 
 life to-day ; and look back to the early 
 hours of the Church’s history, when the 
 children of the household sat round one com- 
 mon hearth aud were sheltered in a common 
 fold. What a glorious creation of God that 
 undivided Church was ! what a power for 
 wondrous work, for burning zeal ! for success, 
 dispirited by no defeat ! and for hope, de- 
 praved by no despondency ! And what a 
 miserable, pitiable wreck are we ! Armies 
 
334 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 going forth to fight a common enemy instead 
 of one army, “the army of the living God.” 
 Armies that in the day of battle are without 
 a unified plan — or worse still, armies that 
 at times cease the fight against the common 
 foe, to raise the shout of battle and draw the 
 sword against each other ; w’hilst Turk and 
 Jew and heretic and infidel look on and say, 
 sneeringly, “ See how these Christians hate 
 one another! ’’And yet Christ has prayed 
 “ that we may all be one.” 
 
 Now, my friends, is there any hope of 
 this prayer’s fulfilment ? Out through this 
 night of churchly darkness are there any 
 signs of the day-dawn of a better time ? Are 
 these armies drawing nearer to each other 
 on peace intent, nearer than our fathers 
 drew ? Is the hope of brotherhood and union 
 clearer ? What are our hopes ? 
 
 Has it ever struck you in the tremendous- 
 ness of its power — that the fundamental 
 doctrine of the old, undivided church body 
 is alike common to every rent, torn-off or 
 flung-off fiery ring. In some sense we 
 all preach Christ. We can all still, thank 
 God, stand on the common platform of the 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 335 
 
 Apostles’ creed ; and with united voice pro- 
 claim its teaching ; as a faithful echo of 
 the Holy Scriptures, which every form of 
 of Christian faith believes in some way to 
 have been inspired of God. We are not 
 wholly sundered. Christ — a living personal 
 Christ — is one strong strand in the frayed 
 and torn rope that, mangled though it be, still 
 links us all together. 
 
 Again, have you ever noticed how each 
 sundered portion, revolving in its own newly 
 found orbit, clings with iron grip to the old 
 churchly idea, and proclaims with loud de- 
 termined voice its apostolic and primitive 
 character in some points. It is not the Greek, 
 the Roman, or our own mother Church and 
 her widespread children alone, that claim 
 to be apostolic ; the fact is that there is a 
 certain light that you can hang every Chris- 
 tian body in : and if you view it in that light 
 it stands out, judged by its claims, in what 
 we might call clear, distinct, sharp-cut, 
 formal churchism. 
 
 Thus the Baptist and the Plymouth bro- 
 ther are severe churchmen on the question of 
 Baptism — severe as Rome is severe, re-bap- 
 
336 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 tizing the already baptized and thus exalting 
 the outward symbol to the highest possible 
 position it could be exalted to, for with them 
 the grace of baptism is little or nothing, the 
 form consequently is everything. 
 
 In the same way the loyal old-fashioned 
 Presbyterian is equally rigid on the divine 
 and apostolic organization of presbyters ; the 
 Congregationalist on the apostolic character 
 of Congregationalism, and the Plymouth 
 brother — that Ishmael of Christianity — high- 
 est of all high churchmen, more papal even 
 than the papacy in principle, believing in a 
 divinely guided ministry, or in the divine 
 illumination of the church body — no matter 
 how small it may be — assembled together in 
 any one place. We are not wholly sundered 
 when you come to think of it. That great 
 G-od-given churchly idea — that clinging to 
 apostolicity and divine guidance — mangled 
 though it may be, still abides in some shape, 
 and forms another strong strand in the jagged 
 rope that binds us yet together. 
 
 Again, have you ever noticed that, al- 
 though the once united body has been torn, 
 division has not brought about complete 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 33J 
 
 paralysis of any one sundered portion. I 
 know of no portion that has not at least the 
 remnant of some old apostolic gift; I know 
 of some, that have many, I do not know of 
 one worth speaking of that is wholly bank- 
 rupt. And hence the utter folly of those 
 Churches which justly claim historical suc- 
 cession, shutting their eyes to the fact that 
 there are great, marvellous and wondrous 
 gifts of G-od moving on the face of the mighty 
 waters that roll outside their own orbits. 
 We know it. We know that others have gifts 
 that we pray for, and that we ourselves are 
 wisely seeking to cultivate, and appropriate 
 to ourselves. We are not wholly sundered. 
 Lingering gifts, isolated, scattered, testify 
 that w~e have not absorbed all that is apostolic 
 and divine, 
 
 Now bearing these facts in mind, have 
 you noticed how this century has seen a 
 strange and wonderful cultivation and ap- 
 propriation of gifts between divided brethren, 
 how it has been a century of silent wonders. 
 
 It has seen the hoary Church of the East, 
 cradled in Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria 
 strike, at least outwardly, friendly hands with 
 22 
 
338 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 the Church of England and her children ; 
 and, in the language of the church’s earliest 
 hours, pray a benediction on her labours. 
 
 It has seen Rome, tenacious as ever of 
 spiritual imperialism, unable to retain, with- 
 in her mighty grasp, the very flower of her 
 cultivated intellect and no mean portion of 
 her piety. Children that have risen with 
 stately dignity from her feet and walked with 
 steady step out of her fold, pitching their 
 tents on some of the old lines of a primitive 
 and undivided Church. 
 
 And when we come nearer home, is there 
 nothing there worth noticing? What of 
 Presbyterianism absorbing largely the spirit, 
 if not the words, of the oldest liturgies; 
 taking on its lips hymns consecrated by usage 
 to what for centuries had been regarded as 
 papal-like churches ; and bearing those hymns 
 aloft to God on the swell and harmonies 
 of what was once considered an insult to holy 
 worship ? 
 
 What of the same mighty mass of religious 
 life in places where its hold is strongest, 
 leaving every granite block of its old doc- 
 trinal fortresses untouched, yet under the 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 339 
 
 shadow of their frowning walls ; practically 
 teaching a loving, tender, gentle gospel that 
 I might preach to-morrow in my pulpit and 
 be but a faithful exponent of Anglican 
 doctrines. 
 
 What is he, elevated for a time above his 
 brother presbyters ; ruling vast legislative 
 assemblies, called by a special name of dig- 
 nity, signing documents to give them au- 
 thority ? He, without whom no ordination 
 is aesthetically complete — a Bishop ? No. 
 But as these wondrous scientists, who live 
 in the cloudland of hypotheses say, it might 
 not be hard to predict what time, and de- 
 velopment, and natural selection might make 
 him. It has been said by some that the 
 episcopate, which largely divides us, sprang 
 from a like state of things in older days. 
 
 Again has there not been a cultivation and 
 appropriation of gifts elsewhere and nearer. 
 
 What of the Church of England and her 
 children appropriating to themselves and 
 ever increasingly so, the bold enthusiasm, the 
 earnest self-sacrifice, the devoted burning 
 missionary zeal, and largely the simplicity 
 of the early Methodists, whilst they freely 
 
340 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 acknowledge that “they have no longer a 
 monopoly of zealousness, and there has sel- 
 dom been such a revival as that which has 
 sw T ept over the Church of England during 
 the last half century.” "What of this same 
 great religious power absorbing to itself, at 
 least in large centres of population, the calm- 
 er spirit of Anglican worship, the gentler 
 tone of public preaching, the architecture, 
 largely the music of the old Mother that 
 gave it birth, and that in a moment of puer- 
 peral madness flung it forth from her bosom 
 instead of pressing it to her heart. 
 
 Now like all great changes, which ultimate- 
 ly result in permanency this absorption, 
 assimilation, and capture of outside gifts, each 
 from the other, has been carried on silently. 
 Before this mighty American continent raised 
 its giant outline above the gloomy waters, 
 America was forming. For ages it grew on 
 in ocean depths grain by grain, sand by sand, 
 silently. Silent force, assimilation, combina- 
 tion, without noise of hammer, axe, or nail — 
 thus G-od effects his mightiest and most 
 enduring works and thus he may effect re- 
 
 union. 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 341 
 
 Now comes the great question. "What 
 portion of the once united church will be 
 foremost in calling together the isolated 
 forces of God’s elect that thus appear to be 
 waiting for the summons ? Surely the most 
 gifted, and those who use their gifts the best. 
 
 We are gifted. Ours is the glory of lineage ; 
 ours is the boast of apostolicity and succes- 
 sion ; ours are the growing fire and undying 
 youth of age and years, that seems to know 
 no lasting weakness. We are called by the 
 name of no man however good or great, and 
 we rest on creeds that were uttered by the 
 parent Church before Ephraim flung himself 
 off from Judah, and Judah turned his back 
 on Ephraim. 
 
 Now let us stand on the eminence of these 
 glorious gifts, and look on others who either 
 have doubts as to the reality of them, or be- 
 little their possession, and what do we see ? 
 Surely enough to teach us that we have not 
 a monopoly of all gifts. 
 
 We see them toiling for Jesus, and vic- 
 torious for Jesus. We see them side by side 
 with us in distant lands, blessed and honoured 
 by God as we are blessed. We dare not deny 
 
342 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 their bravery, zeal, and devotion in the 
 highest fields of Christian labour, for denial of 
 their success, would be a stigma cast on the 
 value of our own. Everywhere — in every 
 branch of the great mission-field of God, 
 through the darkness and the gloom that 
 separates us, we hear voices like the voices 
 of parted brothers, telling the same story 
 that we are telling — preaching the same 
 Jesus that we preach — whilst through the 
 dark clouds, for the moment lifted, we see a 
 cross upheld by other hands, and it is the 
 duplicate of the cross that we are holding ; 
 and round that cross, which is not ours, we 
 hear the tramp of thousands of human 
 souls, just the same as the noise of life around 
 our own. 
 
 Now it is madness — positive madness — to 
 deny the existence of these gifts, to shut our 
 eyes to the tremendous fact, once so hard to 
 believe, but that every year makes more 
 apparent, that outside of apostolic order there 
 may be apostolic blessings ; if only there be 
 apostolic zeal and apostolic work. God’s 
 glorious promise to his holy church, “ Lo, I 
 am with you always to the end of the world,” 
 
CHURCH RE-UNION. 
 
 343 
 
 is not a promise to be read solely in the light 
 of locality. ‘Where are the apostolic churches 
 of Laodicea, Ephesus, and Sardis ? where are 
 the four hundred and forty six bishoprics 
 that once cast light on the darkness of Africa ? 
 What of the message to one of the first- 
 born churches of apostolic labours ? “ Hold 
 
 that fast which thou hast that no man take 
 thy crown ? ” 
 
 0 my brethren, our most striking gifts 
 are great, magnificent and glorious, but there 
 is not one of them — apostolicity, order, succes- 
 sion — that is not locally contingent on work 
 and zeal and earnestness and devotion to our 
 risen Lord. Work like that of the great 
 apostle which leaves its mark on the body — 
 the zeal that furnishes martyrs —the lavish 
 outpouring of earth’s treasures in obedience 
 to the command “ Go, preach the gospel to 
 every creature,” these are the gifts that never 
 die, and these are gifts that no sane child of 
 an historic Church would dare to say be- 
 longed solely and alone to him. 
 
 The most gifted, who use gifts to the best 
 advantage, will in the nature of things raise 
 the standard of unity and we are not alone 
 
844 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 in the field of gifts. But we are in a mag- 
 nificent position in that field if we are only 
 true to our God. Our colours, ragged and 
 torn, have been seen distinct and plain 
 through all the Christian centuries. We have 
 stood first amongst the cleansers of the de- 
 filed temple — and our power is felt — now, 
 through a heroic Selwyn ; again, through a 
 martyred Patteson, and yet again through a 
 martyr Hannington, and our voices are heard 
 “ in the fields that are white to harvest.” 
 But this whole world has to be conquered for 
 Jesus — dare we say that we are doing it 
 alone ? Let us not boast of apostolicity and 
 succession from the apostles, just though 
 the boast may be, hut down in the dust and 
 thick of battle let us so follow the White 
 Horse, and its heavenly Rider ; that those 
 who see not with us now may be forced to 
 cry, “ These are the apostles of the closing 
 ages, follow them.” Let us not glory in 
 words of order and records of history, how- 
 ever noble, but let us storm idolatry and 
 stand before kings, and go down the dark 
 valley, if needs be, with the step of a St. Paxxl 
 and the love of a St. John. Let us live to 
 
CHURCH RE -UNION. 
 
 345 
 
 make history, not to rest on history that 
 others may have made for us. 
 
 And, believe me, ours is the opportunity. 
 Faces once turned from us with disdain are 
 looking towards us ; hands once mailed as if 
 in iron glove are loosening, slowly it may 
 be, but surely ; hearts once hardened with 
 hereditary hate are growing softer; whilst 
 over all this strange, mysterious change, con- 
 secrating it, baptizing it, brooding over it, 
 surely is the Spirit of God, and the echo of 
 the prayer that must — in time — be answered, 
 “that we all may be one.” 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 Perfect through sufferings. 
 
 Hebrews ii : 10. 
 
 Amongst the many mysteries that enter 
 into onr daily existence and seem literally to 
 hem ns in as human beings, there are few 
 greater than the mysteries of human suffer- 
 ing, of physical pain, of bodily disease. The 
 mystery makes itself apparent to our senses 
 by the somewhat appalling fact that pain 
 and suffering seem to make no discrimina- 
 tion between the subjects on which they 
 operate. The best and purest, the holiest 
 and noblest, the most saint-like and Christ- 
 like constantly suffer years of pain as well as 
 the flagrantly wicked, the immoral and de- 
 praved. In the case of the latter one can see 
 a reason for pain and consequent suffering. 
 In such cases patients constantly create 
 
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 34 1 
 
 their own bodily sufferings, they sin against 
 their own bodies, and their bodies rise up 
 against them in a spirit of terrible vengeance 
 and seem to say, “ You have desecrated us 
 and now we will scourge you.” If in such 
 cases the effect is terrible, the cause is equal- 
 ly apparent. 
 
 But in the other cases although the suffer- 
 ing is as palpable the cause seems wholly 
 hidden. Here is one whose life has 
 been essentially a good life, though per- 
 haps not a faultless one. In the relationships 
 of husband and father, of friend and master 
 he has been all that love and friendship and 
 service could well ask for, and religiously he 
 has done his best, quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously to believe and live as Christ would 
 have him live and believe. Now why should 
 such a man, such a woman, suffer as much 
 as the depraved and godless ? Why should 
 each fathom depths of suffering at times, 
 that wring and wrench the hearts of those 
 who love them as they stand round the bed, 
 all eyes, all bleeding hearts, all useless. If 
 God is a God of love, why does He allow it ? 
 If God knows the difference between good 
 
348 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 and evil, why does He permit the good, as far 
 as pain is concerned, to come down to the 
 level of the evil man, so that if both were 
 lying in beds beside each other in the ward 
 of a hospital, it would be hard for a skilled 
 nurse to say which was the greater sufferer. 
 This apparent lack of discrimination is so 
 palpable that mourners all full of love and 
 pity themselves, have been often led to say 
 “ if that is an evidence of God’s love, if that 
 is the result of G-od’s will and the reward 
 of a good life, I will have nothing to say to 
 God or good, I will eat, drink and be merry, 
 for to-morrow I die.” 
 
 Now it is one of the peculiarities of the 
 Bible, as expressive of the will of God, that 
 it never seeks to solve problems or explain 
 mysteries — probably because we would not 
 be in any way the better if the problem were 
 solved and the mystery unfolded. The Bible 
 accepts mysteries as facts, it never explains 
 them. It takes sin for granted as an awful 
 fact and proceeds, not to explain the mystery 
 of sin, but to show how God’s love for us led 
 to his providing a means whereby we can 
 escape finally the victorious influence of sin. 
 
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 349 
 
 It takes bodily pain and suffering for granted 
 and proceeds to show “ how all things work 
 together for good to them that love God,” 
 and how “ our light affliction, which (as com- 
 pared with an eternity of happiness) is but 
 for a moment, worketh for us more and more 
 exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.” In 
 short the Bible explains no problem, lifts no 
 mystery, but meets both for our happiness 
 here and our eternity hereafter. 
 
 How does it meet the mystery of the suffer- 
 ing of the holy ? How does it answer the 
 natural yet petulant cry of those w^ho would 
 arraign God for injustice and cruelty? 
 
 First, It teaches those who look on as the 
 godly suffer, that the life of the sufferer is 
 not confined to the four walls of a sick room 
 or to the bed on which he dies. It definitely, 
 distinctly, unmistakably teaches that death 
 for the godly sufferer is but the door into 
 that real life beyond in the presence of God 
 which God’s love has prepared for us. That 
 life in which there shall be “no more pain,” 
 nor mourning, nor crying ; that life to which 
 pur Saviour referred when he said to the 
 thief as death was stealing over them, “ to- 
 
350 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 day thou shalt be with me in Paradise,” “ in 
 the Paradise of God ” ; that life of which St. 
 Stephen had a foretaste as with “face like 
 that of an angel he looked up into heaven 
 and saw” — yes, “ saw,” — “ the glory of God, 
 and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 
 to whom he cried, “Lord Jesus, receive my 
 Spirit ; ” that life which is not confined to 
 months of suffering within the four walls 
 of a room, and that life the Bible reveals to us 
 with certainty. 
 
 Again the Bible plainly teaches that as a 
 child is educated, fitted for future life by 
 books, so I may be fitted, you fitted for the 
 paradise of God by suffering. Whilst there 
 is but one road to glory, there are many ways 
 of fitting people for the ultimate glory itself, 
 and sufferingandpain are unquestionably one 
 way. As the man Christ, our Lord, we are 
 told “ was made perfect through suffering, ” 
 and because of “ suffering crowned with 
 glory,” the wretchedness of Calvary was a 
 step towards perfection, and the bitterness of 
 death nobly borne was “ perfection’s crown.” 
 And as with the master so with the servant. 
 
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 351 
 
 The best type of Christian comes out of the 
 furnace of affliction ; the grandest because the 
 most peaceful death-beds are often those 
 where he who dies has suffered patiently 
 and suffered long. His very suffering that 
 no human art could lighten has flung the 
 sick man back on God, has opened his heart 
 in prayer, has developed his faith and trust, 
 has day by day w 7 eaned him from this world 
 and made the world beyond, to him, a world 
 of reality. His suffering has made him 
 gentle and patient and singularly submissive 
 to the will of God, calm where all else are 
 troubled, the one tearless being in a room of 
 tears. If he could speak to us from the 
 world of painlessness, we may feel sure that 
 he would say, as David once said, “ It was 
 well for me that I was afflicted ; I know, 0 
 Lord, that thy judgments are righteous and 
 that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me ; ” 
 or with his Master say, “I have learned obe- 
 dience by the things I have suffered, I have 
 seen the travail of my soul, the painful road 
 I have journeyed, and as I look back I am satis- 
 fied.” 
 
 Yes, we are “made perfect through suffer- 
 
352 
 
 THE CHURCH YEAR. 
 
 ing.” Why ? I know not, hut God knows 
 — “ the sowing may he in tears but the har- 
 vest is one of joy.” “ If any man suffer as 
 a Christian let him not be ashamed.” “ If 
 we suffer, we will also reign with Him.” 
 Our “ light affliction which is but for a mo- 
 ment worketh for us more and more exceed- 
 ingly an eternal weight of glory.” 
 
 So teaches the Word of God, and hence 
 when at times in our grief we think hard 
 things of God and say hard things, let us 
 stop and strive to think of what is 
 seldom and sometimes never thought of in 
 connection with the death of one who has 
 suffered awfully yet died peacefully. 
 
 First, that pain and suffering are never the 
 reward of a good life, and that it is unjust to 
 say “ If that be the reward of a good life I 
 will have none of it.” That is not the re- 
 ward ; the reward is in our Saviour’s words, 
 “ To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” 
 The reward is not in God letting his “ Holy 
 one see corruption,” but in the thought that 
 cheers the dying as they look into death, 
 “Thou wilt show me the path of life ; in thy 
 presence is fulness of joy ; in thy right hand 
 
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 353 
 
 there are pleasures for evermore.” That is 
 the reward. 
 
 Again, when you think hardly of what to 
 you seems “ the cruelty” of suffering and the 
 “ bitterness ” of death — realize that, as a rule, 
 he, or she who bore the suffering and tasted 
 the bitterness did not complain. Nay, as you 
 look back at such a death-bed, what strikes 
 you as the strangest fact in connection with 
 it, is, that the sufferer never complained. 
 "Why did not he, she, cry out : “ Ah ! if this be 
 my reward, I will have none of it ?” Because 
 the sufferer knew it was not his reward, 
 because he felt, what God grant we all may 
 feel as the hand of death rudely or gently 
 touches us, “I am falling asleep with Christ 
 on earth, to awake with Christ in paradise.” 
 
 23 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBAN A 
 
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