The God JVIan. 7^v fl. C. Dixon Mpr27 *_! -*•*£_*! %_£ ra Hi n v_; f 'V5$<%^ i oncm IKm if y__T§Tv|__S^ YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1942 THE GOD MAN. BY A. C. DIXON, PASTOR OF THE HANSON PLACE BAPTIST CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y.; AUTHOR OF "THE TRUE AND THE FALSE," "THE PERSON AND MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT," ETC. PUBLISHED BY WHARTON, BARRON & COMPANY, io E. Fayette Street, Baltimore. Copyright 1891, By WHARTON, BARRON & CO. PRESS OP THE JAS. B. RODQERS PRINTINO CO.- 63 * 64 NORTH SIXTH fiT., PHILADELPHIA, I. JESUS AS A WITNESS. "Jesus Christ who is the faithful Witness." — Rev. 1 : 5. The two-fold proposition which we offer for your acceptance is this : Jesus Chbist was not a product of the age in WHICH HE LIVED, BUT A NATIVE OP ANOTHER WORLD WHO CAME TO THIS WORLD FOR A PURPOSE ; THAT HE WAS GOD and man in one. The geologist, finding a stone where there are uo other stones like it, reasonably concludes that it was im ported. The botanist, finding a flower where there are no flowers like it, concludes that its seed was brought from_another place. A Chinaman, walking down a street of Shanghai, meets an American missionary. The missionary is a man like himself, but in all other respects totally different. His dress, his lan guage, his religion, his thoughts are different from his. A foolish man that Chinaman, if he does not conclude that he has met a foreigner. Now, Jesus Christ was a man like other men, and yet, so different from all other men, that we are justified in believing he was more than man ; so different as to warrant the conclusion that he was not a native of this world at all. Our first proof of this proposition is Jesus Christ himself in his claims, his character,and his work. I. His Claims. 1. Jesus claimed that he was "the Son of Man."— -There had never been before him in the world such a Son of Man. His claim was not that he was a son of man, nor the son of a man, but the Son of Man, of all men, of the human race, of humanity. "There is something,' says F. W. 4 JESUS AS A WITNESS. Robertson, " exceedingly emphatic in that expression, Son of Man. Our master is not called the Son of Mary, but as if the blood of the whole human race were in his veins, he calls him self the Son of Man. There is a universality in the character of Christ which you find in no other man. Translate the words of Christ into what country's language you will, he might have been the offspring of that country. Date them by what century of the world you will, they belong to that century as much as to any other. There is nothing of nationality about Christ. There is nothing of that personal peculiarity which we call idiosyncrasy. There is nothing peculiar to any particular age of the world. He was not the Asiatic. He was not the European. He was not the Jew. He was not the type of that century, stamped with its peculiarities. He was not the mechanic. He was not the aristocrat. But he was the man. He was the child of every age and every nation. His was a life world-wide. His was a heart pulsating with the blood of the human race. He reckoned for his ancestry the collective myriads of mankind. Emphati cally, He was the Son of Man." Now was there anything in the environment of Christ to make out of him such a world-wide Son of Man? Just the con trary. He was raised in a mountain village, and village life tends to make men narrow. Travel may correct this tendency, but Jesus did not travel out of Palestine. Born of the tribe of Judah, and, having a legal right to the throne of David, we would naturally expect him to share the narrow bitter feelings of his Jewish kindred, and like them chafe under the loss of national glory. On the other hand he shares none of their narrow feelings. He teaches them a lesson in brotherly love by condemning their priest and levite for passing by on the other side, while he praises the hated Samaritan who stops and helps the wounded man. All through his life there was a conflict be tween his universal sympathy and the narrow bigotry of his people. When Demosthenes thanked the gods that he was a man and not a beast, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a Barbarian, he expressed the sentiments of all mankind till Jesus came with the thought of universal brotherhood. The JESUS AS A WITNESS. 5 Jew thanked God that he was a Jew,and not a Gentile. The Roman thanked his gods that he was neither Jew nor Greek, while the Greek was just as thankful that he was neither Jew nor Roman. Every nation on earth thought that it was the nation, and every man in it thought that he was the man, be cause he was better than his neighbors. Jesus was not Jew enough for the Jew, nor Roman enough for the Roman, nor Grecian enough for the Greek. They all rejected him, because he belonged to all alike, and refused to belong to either exclu sively. The forces at work in the world at that time did not produce such a man. He evidently brought into the world this new idea, which we find through revelation to be native to the world from which he came. 2. Jesus claimed that he was the Son of Ood. — The high priest said to him on his trial " I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, thou hast said." (Matt. 26:63.) The high priest understood this answer as decidedly affirmative, for he at once rends his clothes, exclaiming "He hath spoken blas phemy ; what further need have we of witnesses ? ' ' When Pilate wanted to let him go, the Jews cried out, " We have a law and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." (John 19:7.) One of the charges flung into his face on the cross was that he said " I am the Son of God." (Matt. 27:43.) Thus the enemies of Jesus testify that he claimed to be the Son of God. And his friends who were closest to him and best knew his mind admit the claim. ' ' I saw and bare record, ' ' says John, " that this is the Son of God." (John 1:34.) Paul preached "Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God," (Acts 9 :20.) When the centurion, beholding the wonders of the crucifixion said, "Truly this was a son of God," he simply echoed the claim of Christ and his friends, and the charge of his enemies. 3. Jesus claimed that fie was God.— As the Son of Man, he was truly man ; and as the Son of God, he was truly God. He was not A but the Son of God. It is evident that his friends and enemies understood him as claiming that in being the Son 6 JESUS AS A WITNESS. of God he was God. Jesus makes the claim so clear that it seems to me no candid mind can doubt it. Listen to these words : " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." (John 14:9.) Again : " He that seeth me seeth him that sent me." (John 12:45.) Many men before and after Christ have tried to demonstrate the existence of God. Jesus made no such attempt. His mission was to manifest God in his own person. His claim confirms the message of the angel, "They shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us ;" and Paul shows that he had caught his true meaning when he wrote " God was manifest in the flesh." (1 Tim. 3:16.) Jesus was an agnostic to the extent that he taught the impossibility of knowing God the Father, except through himself. "No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he, to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." (Matt. 11:27.) He claims identity of divine nature with the Father in the words "I and my Father are one." (John 10:30) In many places he calmly claims attributes which none but God can possess. He declares that he is eternal. To the cavilling Pharisees he said "Before Abraham was I am." (John 8:58.) As a man he prays, but in one of his prayers we see a flash of his divinity. " And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John 17:5.) And, with this eternity of nature, he de clares that he has equal honor with the Father. "The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father that sent Him." (John 5: 22-23.) He claims to be omnipresent as to place and time. " Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20.) "Lp, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matt. 28:20.) He claimed that he had power to forgive sins. (Matt. 9:5-6.) And his enemies were right in their question, " Who can forgive sins save God only?" He claimed to be able to work miracles, even to the raising of the dead. "As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." (John 5:21.) To an unprejudiced mind, there can be no JESUS AS A WITNESS. 7 shadow of doubt as to the fact that Jesus claimed to be God. And those nearest to him who knew him best admit and press this claim. John crowns him Creator of the Universe, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:3.) " We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:20.) Those who were with him for three years be lieved that he knew all things. "Now we are sure that thou knowest all things, and by this we believe that thou comest forth from God." (John 16:30.) Peter said: "Lord, thou knowest all things : thou knowest that I love thee." (John 21: 17.) After Jesus had stilled the tempest on the sea of Gallilee " they that were in the ship came and worshipped him saying, of a truth thou art the Son of God." (Matt. 14:33.) His receiv ing their worship proves that he claimed to be God ; their giving then- worship proves that they gladly admitted his claim. Paul's " Christ who is over all God blessed forever" (Rom. 9:5) was the true Christ. So that all who to-day deny his divinity are out of harmony with Christ himself and the early church. 4. Jesus claimed that he was himself the antidote for all evil. — Men have presented their plans and philosophies for the remedying of earth's ills, but Jesus stands alone in presenting not a system, but his own personality as capable of supplying the need of the soul. To the hungry soul he says, " I am the bread of life." To men who stand perplexed about the way from earth to heaven he says, "I am the way." To Pilate's question: " What is truth ?" which is but the echo or the ques tion of all the ages, he replies, " I am the truth." To the seeker after the secrets of life he boldly says, " I am the life." To those who are groping in the dark he says, " I am the light of the world ; he that follow eth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." To a world crushed beneath burdens of guilt, superstition and ignorance he says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is 8 JESUS AS A WITNESS. light." Instead of systems of philosophy or plans of relief, he presents himself. This idea is not of the earth. It was not man's way of doing before or since Jesus came. He stands alone as the one who offers himself as the remedy for all evil. There was nothing in the thought of his age to suggest this ; nothing in his environment to foster it. The idea bears the superscription of another world, whose way of doing things is different from ours. II. His Character. To us who have accepted Christ as our teacher his claim is proof enough. The fact that he claims to be God with us settles the question. The fact that he offers himself a remedy for all evil sends us forth proclaiming him as such. The man who pretends to accept Christ as his teacher, and yet refuses to accept his claim to divinity, is grossly incon sistent. There are some, however, who demand more evidence than a mere claim. They wish to know the basis upon which the claim rests. We have a word for them. Indeed, it is for them that we feel most concern. Let me say to such in the outset, there are but three positions we can hold with reference to Christ. "Some said, He is a good man, others said, nay; but he deceiveth the people." (John 7:12.) Jesus Christ was either a madman, a bad man, or a God. None but a God, or a madman, or a deceiver/ could have made the claims that he did. The strongest minds on earth stand with uncovered heads in the presence of his teaching. The sermon on the Mount, even in fidelity is willing to admit, was the utterance of a clear head and a pure heart. The whole trend of his life indicates the soundest mind, filled with the healthy enthusiasm which a great mission inspires. The charge that he was a madman no one is foolish enough to defend. Then we are driven to one of two other positions. He was either God, or the worst of men. We have just seen that he claimed the attributes of divinity. A good man cannot claim to be what he knows he is not. A good man cannot be a hypocrite. Now, does anyone in this day con tend that Jesus was a deceiver ? I have yet to hear of such an one. A candid Jewish Rabbi of this city admitted in a sermon JESUS AS A WITNESS. 9 a few weeks ago that Jesus was a good man, whose object was to do good,and died a martyr to his mission. Such an admission puts a man who rejects the divinity of Christ in an embarrassing position, for now he must prove that a good man can be a hypo crite ; that a good man can be the worst of men. There is no middle ground. Jesus pressed this fact home upon the young man who came to him saying " Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life ?" when he replied, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God?" (Mark 10:17-18.) " To say that I am good is equal to saying that I am God, and if you admit that I am good, your place is at my feet as a worshiper,and the place for your money is on the altar of my service." The question of Jesus, "Which of you con- vinceth me of sin?" challenges not only his hearers, but all the ages ; and their verdict has echoed the words of Pilate, " I find no fault in this man." Friends and foes who lived close to him and inspected his words and actions confirm the claim that he was good. Peter says, " He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." (1 Peter 2:22.) " Ye know," says John, "that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him was no sin." (1 John 3:5.) We believe that no man lives to-day bad enough to deny this claim, and assert that Jesus was a deceiver. If we could bring from the bottomless pit a man who had been there five thousand years and growing worse every year during that time,and lay before him the facts, I don't believe that even he would be bad enough to claim that Jesus was a bad man. The very thought shocks the consciousness of one who is at all familiar with his character. If, then, no one can be found foolish enough to claim that he was a madman, or bad enough to assert that he was a bad man, surely the verdict that he was good is universal. And if good, He was God. III. His work. His work was to establish a kingdom not of this world. (John 18:36.) Such a thought was not of this world. The Jews were looking for a temporal king, to de liver them from Roman rule. If Christ had taken hold of their idea and used it for his own advancement, he would have acted 10 JESUS AS A WITNESS. like a man, and his success could have been explained as the suc cess of Napoleon and Washington can be explained. On the contrarj', he opposed the leaders of public opinion, and began the establishment of a kingdom which lives to-day after the king doms of Greece, Rome and Egypt have ceased to exist, except in memory. A young man, a poor mechanic, from a mountain village, with no rich, powerful allies, does this in three years ! And he does it by the deliberate sacrifice of himself. Men have died martyrs to their mission. But man has never yet planned martyrdom as a part of his mission. Jesus told his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. (Matt. 16:21.) He provides before his death for a memorial of that death. Men do not build monuments to thefr defeats. The French have no monument to call Waterloo to mind. But Jesus would have his followers remember not the Mount of Transfiguration, but Calvary ; not his glory, but his shame. Indeed, He makes his shame the test of discipleship. He tells his followers that they must expect to be hated, perse cuted, killed. Men do not try to establish kingdoms in this way. All these things go to prove that Jesus was not native to this world. He was more than man , and, as I see him standing out distinct from and above all others, I cannot resist the impulse to fall at his feet and say with Thomas "My Lord and my God." II. HISTORY AS A WITNESS. " To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs." — Acts 1:3. Gilbert West and Lord Littleton agreed to overthrow Christianity by proving that the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the conversion of Paul were fictions. Mr. West chose the resurrection of Christ, and Lord Littleton the conversion of Paul. The result was that Mr. West in his effort to keep Christ in the grave was himself raised from the dead, and Lord Littleton in his attempt to prove that Paul's vision was a myth, had a vision of himself as a sinner, and Jesus Christ a Saviour. The two friends, after their honest investigations, met to worship Him whose religion they had thought to destroy. Christianity is a religion of facts ; and those who will honestly investigate its facts must, like West and Littleton, be convinced that our pro position is true : Jesus Christ was not a product of the age in which he lived; but a native of another world who came to this world for a purpose ; that he was God and man in one. We will study this morning two facts, the existence of which none will doubt ; Christian ity and the Bible. Christianity has been a fact for more than eighteen centuries, and it is such a fact as cannot be accounted for, except on the ground that its founder went along with it, and by his more than human power gave it success. Success in gathering followers is not of itself proof that a religion is of God. Confucius, Mohammed, and Sin have suc ceeded in that way. Confucius adapted his teachings to Chinese 11 13 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. prejudice. Mohammed offered the sensual, bloodthirsty Turk a harem for a heaven, and, putting a sword in his hand, bade him fight for it. Sin succeeds because men love sin. A dead fish can swim with the current. Christianity, on the other hand, opposed the currents of men's thoughts, appetites and prejudices. In an age when there was no word for humility, Christ com mends the poor in spirit. In an age when everybody's idea of greatness was in rising above others, He teaches that true greatness is child-likeness, (Luke 9:48,) and that the measure of every man's greatness is the amount of humble service he performs for the good of others. In an age when to kill an enemy was counted a great virtue, he taught men to love their enemies. He came not adapting his teachings to the spirit of the age, but calling upon men to change their minds and their characters. Opposed to one man and a few poor followers stood Judaism, Paganism, philosophy, and the natural heart. And yet in spite of these He succeeds. He founds no college, has no stated place of meeting around which to rally his supporters, puts no dependence in organization and writes not a word, so far as we know, except one sentence on the sand. "Lo, I am with you alway," He says, and thero is no satisfactory account ing for the success of his religion, except upon the ground that after his death he continued to live and do his mighty work. As Columbus sailed into the mouth of the Orinoco river some one suggested that it must flow from an island. "No," said Columbus, "such a river as this must drain a continent." And, as we look at this river of Christianity flowing down the ages, we are convinced that it flows from no little island of man's thought and strength, but from the continent of God's wisdom and omnipotence. "Do you believe in a God?" asked a traveller of his devout Arab guide. " Did you see that track in front of our tent this morning?" replied the guide. "Yes." " Well, what sort of a track was it?" "A camel's." " Do you see that sunset?" continued the Arab, "None but God could leave such a track as that." And as we trace the tracks of Christ on earth and down the ages, we believe that none but God could leave such tracks as His. If he had been a meie HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 13 man,his religion would have perished soon after his death and burial. Leave out his resurrection and there is no accounting satisfactorily for Pentecost and other scenes that followed. Accept the resurrection, and all is plain enough. Another fact open before us is the Bible. It is such a Book that we cannot account for it, except on the ground that God was its author. Christianity is a Book religion. Jesus appealed frequently to the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The main object of Matthew's gospel is to prove from the Scriptures that Christ is the promised Messiah. The sermons of the Apostles are made up largely of Scripture quotations. The trite saying "Christianity is Christ," is no more true than that " Christianity is the Bible." Those who oppose Christi anity, and those who would substitute something else than personal faith in Christ as the conditions of salvation, must get rid of the Bible. Infidelity and Churchism agree in setting it aside. An article of Cardinal Manning a few months ago in the North American Review abuses the Bible and appeals from it to the Church ; an article in the same magazine by a champion infidel blasphemer joins the Cardinal in abusing the Bible, and appeals from it to reason. Herod and Pilate are friends in their opposition to the Bible, though they disagree as to the standard of appeal. I am not here as a champion of the Bible. It needs none. It is its own best champion, and has a way of taking care of itself. But I am here to say that it is a Book of which God is the author, and like the Christ it reveals, perfectly human and perfectly divine. And I am no Book-worshipper. I love to see the Old Book tried by all the tests of criticism. There have crept into it some spurious sentences and mistranslations though not one that effects a single doctrine. There have crept into St. Peter's Cathedral some cobwebs on its arches and around its pillars, but they do not detract from the perfection of the building. It still stands there a monument to the genius of Michael Angelo. The sexton who brushes away the cobwebs simply reveals the beauty of the structure. Honest critics are the sextons who brush away the cobwebs from this grand old Cathedral of truth, and we have no fear that their little brooms will mar its granite walls and pillars. 14 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. Let us look now at some reasons for believing that the Bible , is of Divine origin. I. Its Claims. It claims to be inspired. " Thus saith the Lord" rings all through it, clear as a clarion. "Hear the word of the Lord," says Isaiah. (Is. 1:10.) "The Lord said unto me " claimed Jeremiah. (Jer. 1:7.) "The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel." (Ezek. 1:3.) The New Testament puts the seal of inspiration upon the Old Testament. "The Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David." (Acts 1:16.) " The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:21.) " All scripture given by inspiration of God." (2 Tim. 3:16.) If the men who wrote this book were not inspired, they were liars, and we have to explain how the Book which contains the highest morality ever given to earth could be written by a set of liars. And these bad men at the same time wrote their own doom, for there is no vice more severely condemned in the Bible than deception. To claim that good men wrote the Bible and deny its inspiration is on a par with the claim that Christ was a good man, while he pretended to be what he was not. Either horn of the dilemma pierces through the opponents of inspiration . If good men wrote it, we must explain how good men can be hypocrites. If bad men wrote it, we have the spectacle of the best book in the world being written by bad men, who at the same time denounce themselves most unmercifully. To say that, if it is true, it does not need to be inspired is to talk nonsense, for every one knows the extreme difficulty of ascertaining the truth about anything in history or science. We must accept most statements on the authority of others ; and it is very necessary in so important a matter as the relation of men to God that we should have an in fallible authority. God the author of the Bible is such an authority. « ' To err is human . " God therefore speaks for him self through men whom he moves to write. The purpose of the Bible is not to speculate or argue, but to reveal. It gives many facts that man cannot learn without a revelation. Men, to re- . HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 15 veal such facts, must, therefore, be inspired of God. No other ancient sacred book claims to be a revelation from God. The Bible is often compared with the Vedas of India and the Zend- avesta of Persia. The Vedas, a collection of poems addressed to mythical deities, make no claim to revelation. The Zend- avesta, a mass of speculations into the origin of things, makes no such claim. The Koran, and a few other poor imitations of the Bible, would hardly have thought of counterfeiting, if they had not had the genuine coin before them. II. Its Make-up. I go into a field where the trees are planted in straight rows, the flowers in regular beds, and the streams flow in straight lines. I say at once : "Man has been here. This is man's way of doing." But I go into a forest where the trees are scattered here and there, all alike, and yet each different from the others ; the flowers distributed in the meadow and on the hill-side; the streams flowing around grace ful curves and sharp bends, obeying the law of gravitation, and yet free in their movements. I say at once: "This is God's way of doing. Man did not plant this forest, nor arrange these flowers, nor make this stream." I open a book and I see pre face, introduction, everything arranged according to definite plan. And I have no doubt that man wrote it. But I open this Book and a glance reminds me of the God who made the forest, scattered the flowers, and formed the starry heavens. There is beauty and sublimity everywhere, but no garden-like conformity to rule. To the student of nature's works the make-up of the Bible is a presumption that the God of nature is its author. III. Its Unity. The Bible grew. It was 1500 years in reaching maturity. It is made up of sixty-six books, written by at least forty different men. They differed in language, in nationality, in tastes, in surroundings. Among them were shepherds, kings", fishermen, priests, mechanics, physicians, theologians and law-makers. Some were learned, others un lettered. A book, written in different centuries by men so radically different, would inevitablv contain contradictory state- 16 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. ments, and would indicate as many purposes as there were authors. Suppose we should select a physician from New York, three preachers of different denominations from Boston, a fisherman from Maine, an office-holder and a Senator from Wash ington; shut them up in different rooms, and tell each to write a chapter for a religious book we are going to publish. Would not that be a mess of a book? It would take an iron binding to hold it together. Now how is it with the Bible? I am aware that there are some who think they see irreconcilable contra dictions in it, but I have been hunting for them more than fifteen years without finding them. There is great variety, which students of nature would expect. But there is a marvelous unity. From beginning to end the doctrine of one God is taught. Where did these writers get the idea of one God ? Certainly not from the cultured nations about them. Herodotus, who visited Egypt about five hundred years before Christ, said that gods were more plentiful there than men. In India there were 300,000,000 gods. The Persians worshipped well-nigh every thing that they could associate with fire or light. The cities, fields, and groves of Greece were full of imaginary deities, all of whom Rome borrowed and worshipped. And yet all of these writers for 1500 years taught that there was only one God. Contrast the character of the Jehovah of the Bible with any of the gods of the nations. Jehovah is pure, merciful and just. Saturn, the son of Time, among the Greeks, ate his own children, and, when Jupiter was born, his mother Rhea gave the hungry old father a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. While he was knawing on that, she succeeded in getting her child out of his reach. Jupiter was a licentious, vindictive, quarrelsome wretch. He flung poor Vulcan out of heaven and maimed him for life, because he took his mother's part in a family fracas. It was no uncommon thing for Jupiter and all his train to get drunk and make the top of Olympus hideous with their orgies. The scenes enacted in the worship of Baal who kept thrusting his filthy presence upon the Israelites through the surrounding nations, and whom they were at times base enough to worship, ought not to be described before you. How different from these wicked, sensual gods is the God of the Bible who "dwells in the HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 17 high and holy place," and "is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." There is also a unity of purpose running through the whole Bible. We see it for the first time in the curse upon the serpent in Genesis, and for the last time in the "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly" of the last chapter of Revelation. Its purpose is to reveal God in Jesus Christ. This thought, like the rising sun, grows brighter and brighter until the perfect day of the gospels. Side by side with this revelation of Jesus the Saviour, we have, in the Old Testament, a dark revelation of man as a sinner. This unity of teaching as to the one God, and the holiness of that God, and the coming of Christ, running through so many minds and so many ages cannot be accounted for, ex cept on the ground that the Book has but one author who moved men to write his thoughts, and kept them from falling into the errors of the times in which they lived. Stand by the foundation of Solomon's temple, while it is building. Here comes a stone brought from a distant quarry, and it finds its place in the building without the touch of chisel. A second stone from another quarry fits exactly into its place. This con tinues day after day till every stone is in place, and the glorious temple stands there complete. Do you suppose for a moment that these stones have somehow by chance been prepared for their places, and that such a magnificent building had no mind^ to plan it and superintend its erection? Such a thought would mark you an idiot or a lunatic. Now here is a temple of truth with stones quarried from different ages and different minds without any possibility of consultation ; and it has been 1500 years in building. I examine it and I find a wonderful unity ol purpose and of teaching. Am I to conclude that all this came of chance? Please do not tempt me to convict myself of fitness for an idiot's home or a lunatic asylum. Dryden was right when he wrote : *' Whence but from heaven could men unskilled In arts In several ages, born In several pans Weave such agreeing truths? Or how or why Should all conspire to cheat us wi th a lie ? Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice, _ Starving their gains, and martyrdom their price." 18 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. IV. Its Omissions. What the Bible does not say is a presumption in favor of its inspiration. It never stops to gratify curiosity. When men write biographies, they are careful to give details of boyhood and youth. We have but one incident in the boyhood of Jesus. He appears at twelve years of age, and then suddenly disappears. The Apochryphal writers, manlike* have filled the vacancy with marvelous stories of his childish pranks of power and wisdom. There is no attempt in the Bible at the marvelous. Its simple straight-forward tone in narrating the most wonderful things is a little more than cculd be expected of men trying to establish a false claim to the miraculous. The miraculous atmosphere about it seems to be its native air, Some one has truly said that Mohammed, Swedenborg, and Joseph Smith knew altogether too much. In their straining after the wonderful and miraculous, they show the unreality of their claims. They overshoot the mark. The dignified silence of the Bible about many things speaks for its truth. V. Its Faithfulness. When men write the biographies of friends, they- usually magnify their virtues, and minify, if they do not overlook, their faults. Those who belong to a party are careful to keep from the public such actions of their prom inent leaders as they think might injure the party. Even the newspapers refuse to uncover the sins of men in high position. A poor hod-carrier gets into a brawl on a back alley, and every paper prints his name the next morning; and, if he has com panions in sin, they are at once introduced to the public. But when there is a murder in a suspicious place on a prominent street, and the names of prominent men are in some way con nected with the place, all we see is a few dark intimations. Their respectability covers their sins. The Bible on the other hand records, without apology, the sins of its most prominent men. Abraham, the father of the faithful, lies, and his lie is recorded. David commits adultery, and, though he is king, his foul deed is put down in black and white. Peter curses at the trial of Christ, and, though he went out and wept over it, the record is there to recall his sin. Paul and Barnabas, apostles HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 19 of good-will, quarrel and separate. Chmxhes to-day try to keep such quarrels out of print, and if we had been called upon to edit the New Testament, and left to our own judgment, we should have decided that it was best for the infant cause to pass over such a family affair in silence. But no. God's ways are not our ways. He is true, not politic, and the facts, as they are, must be recorded. The names of obscure sinners are not mentioned. No one knows the name of the poor thief on the cross or of the woman who was brought to Jesus for punishment. Man would have recorded them and left out Abraham, David, Peter and Paul. Now and then a man like Thomas Carlyle admires this divine way of doing things, and decides that he would like to have his own biography written after the same fashion. Mr. Froude attempts it with the result that no other man will make another such request for the next century ; and Mr. Froude would not have done it, if he and Carlyle had been intimately associated in the establishment of an institution, whose very existence was to depend largely upon the character of its supporters. A lady friend of mine, a constant Bible reader, handed me a list of prominent Bible characters who had committed some great sin, and asked me to explain how the Bible could be in spired withits best characters guiltyof such things. " I certainly should not have put them in, if I had written it," she said. Neither would I, nor you. None but God would have done it, for no one else would have felt that he could afford it. The fact that there are some things in the Bible which do not seem to be appropriate for reading in public shocks some people, especially those who would not for the world turn their own hearts inside out for the inspection of the public. If the whole truth where known about the best of us, it might be too bad for the public gaze. God tells the whole truth about men. His object is to reveal man to himself, that he may see the need of a Saviour. The Old Testament is largely a revelation of man. God is re vealed more fully in the New. If a good mirror reveals to us a dirty face, we need not smash the mirror to pieces. Better ac cept the revelation and go wash our face. The Bible is a book 20 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. not so much for the public as for the individual. Like a mother, it has something to say to girls and young women, which no one else can tell them. Like a father it has something to say to boys and young men, and it says it in such a way that every one is made better by listening. The Old Book has no prudery. It speaks right out. It tells to all the things they most need to know. Its straightforward honest tone is what one would ex pect from its author, the God of truth. VI. Its Incidentals. The Bible is not intended to teach science, but we do not say this to apologize for its mistakes. I believe in its scientific accuracy. Thomas Paine used to shake his sides with laughter over the ridiculous mistake of Moses in putting light before the sun in his account of creation . But now the ten-year-old school boy joins with the day-laborer in laugh ing at Mi\ Paine's ignorance, as they walk the streets in the almost noon-day glare of the electric light. Any tyro knows now that there cottld have been light before the sun. At least three thousand years before Geology was thought of as a science, Moses gave what the best geologists tell us was the order of creation and development. Long before Maury was born Solo mon gave an accurate description of the trade winds. Thousands of years before the world ever heard of Copernicus and Newton, Isaiah wrote of ' ' the circle of the heavens , ' ' and Job said , ' ' He stretcheth out the north over empty space and hangeth the world upon nothing." Even so marvelous an event as the sun stand ing still at the command of Joshua some scholars think is confirmed by Ovid's reference to a lost day. The pick and shovel of the modern explorer, laying bare tablet and corner stone with their inscriptions, have given confirmation to the Scripture narratives. Dates and names that scholars could not reconcile have become plain enough seen under this new light. Now and then some new theory is announced which overthrows the Bible. The Bible simply waits in a dignified manner until some other theory overthrows this new enemy. The Bible has been overthrown so many times that its friends begin to think it is like a marble cube ; turn it over as often as you please, it is HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 21 always right side up. Overthrowing the Bible by putting the lever of criticism into these apparent discrepancies reminds one of an attempt to upturn Mount Blanc by inserting a pipe- stem into oneof the little crevices on its side. The old mountain continues to stand, while the guide who knows its massive weight, and the weakness of his pipe-stem laughs at the folly of the attempt, if he is not made too sad to laugh by the thought that the traveller he has in charge ought to be in a mad house. VII. Its Prophecies. I find in this Book the biography of a person written hundreds of years before he was born. His name and the place of his birth over which he could have no control are named. His character and his reception by the people are so accurately given by one of the prophets that his enemies, in their dispair, have claimed that this chapter was in serted after his birth, though it is found in a translation of the Scriptures made over three hundred years before he was born. The manner of his death even to the dividing of his garments among the soldiers, the piercing of his body, the kind of persons he would have as his companions in death, all this and more are given without any attempt at double meaning. The prophecies of the Delphic oracle could be interpreted in either of two ways. Not so the Bible. It speaks definitely and these definite pro phecies were all fulfilled. How can we account for it? By simply accepting the claim that the God who moved men to write the book could see aheadandtell what was coming to pass, and that he moved them to write what they as men could not possibly have known. This Jesus, whose biography was thus written by the prophets, is himself a prophet, and tells his dis ciples that certain things would come to pass, while they could see no indications of their approach. He said of Jerusalem: " The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone above another; because thou knowest not the time of thy 22 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. visitation." (Luke 19:43-44.) Now has this been fulfilled ? You have but to read Josephus and you will see that it was literally fulfilled, when Titus, the Roman General, laid seige to the city and utterly destroyed it. I might quote from Josephus and show how every clause of Christ's prophecy was fulfilled. A writer in Johnson's Cyclopaedia sums it up in these words: "The terrible dissensions among the Jews, the unspeakable sufferings of the besieged, the agonies of the nation shut up in the walls of Jerusalem, the destruction of more than 1,000,000 Jews, the enslaving of all the youth, the entire demolition of the city, so as to leave no sign of its former occupancy — all this forms one of the gloomiest pages in the annals of man." Was not Christ a prophet, when he said, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate?" And his prophecy, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the gentiles," was and is still fulfilled. The prophets who wrote hundreds of years before Christ foretold tlie doom of their beloved city. Jeremiah had said "Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps." (Jer. 26:18.) And the name of the Roman who ran his plowshare over the site of the temple is preserved — Terentius Rufus. Julian the Apostate determined to make it appear that the prophecy of Christ was false. He proclaimed his purpose to- restore the temple, and it is said that the Jewish women assisted in carry ing away in their aprons the dust and debris from the place of the old temple's foundation, weeping tears of joy as they worked. But there came such terrific lightning that the workmen were frightened off, and the impious project failed. While ancient Babylon was in her glory, a prophet wrote her doom in these words: "Babylon, the glory of the king doms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be in habited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation ; neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there; neither shall the shepherd make his fold there; but the wild beasts of the desert shall be there." (Ia. 13 : 19-21.) " I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water." (Is. 14 : 23.) We have but to turn to any authentic book of travels to read the fulfilment of this HISTORY AS A WITNESS. 23 prophecy. The place is a desolation, shunned even by the wander ing Bedouin. Owls hoot and wild beasts prowl among its ruins. The marshy pools of water and the bittern are there. It is with out inhabitant, and will remain so. Nahum prophesied that Nineveh, then in her glory, should be destroyed by water and fire. History confirms it by stating that, after the swollen river had washed away a part of the wall, the besiegers rushed through the breach and set the city on fire. Tyre, the queen of the seas, the Liverpool of ancient times, had her doom written for her, while there were no signs of weakness or decay. God said, through Ezekiel, "I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.'' (Ezek. 26 : 4.) We all know that Alexander the Great demolished old Tyre, and with its ruins built a causeway half a mile long on which his soldiers might pass to new Tyre on the island, and from that day to this her site has been like the top of a rock. Of Tyre Ezekiel says again, " Thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon ; thou shalt be built no more." (Ezek. 26 : 14.) That is the prophecy. Here is the history written by the infidel Volney : "The whole village of Tyre contains only fifty or sixty poor families, who live ob scurely on the produce of their little ground and a trifling fishery." Bruce, the traveller, says that Tyre is a " rock, whereon fishers dry their nets." Of Egypt Ezekiel wrote : " It shall be the basest of kingdoms." (Ezek. 29: 15.) And no one who knows Egypt to-day will be in clined to deny the fulfilment of that prophecy. It was written when Egypt was at the climax of her glory; as if some one should predict of England to-day that she is destined to become the basest of kingdoms. Of the Jews it was prophecied by Moses and Ezekiel that they should be scattered among the nations, despised, and per secuted, and yet remain distinct, (Deut. 28 : 64 ; Ezek. 6 : 8, 36 : 19.) We need not be told that this prophecy has been fulfilled, for we have the proof of it every day before us. When you meet a Jew, you know him. They are a distinct nation without nationality. The children of the Germans, English and French, 24 HISTORY AS A WITNESS. who came to this country a century ago have become Americans. No one can tell by looking into your face whether your great grandfather was from England, Germany or France. But a Jew remains a Jew, wherever he may go, and whatever language he may speak. There is something about him which tells you that he is a Jew. In China he has tried to become a Chinaman by adopting the Chinese customs, but the Jew with a pig-tail is still a Jew. No one would mistake him for a Chinaman. Men like Baron Hircsh have advocated their mingling with the gen tiles, but all the millions they may spend to bring it about only make the average Jew more determined to remain distinct. The Jew of to-day is a standing miracle in proof of the inspir ation of the Bible and the divinity of Christ. Frederick the Great asked a learned man to give him in one sentence a good reason in favor of Christianity, and his reply was, "The Jews, your Majesty." No candid man, it seems to me, can read what the Bible says about these people, and then trace its fulfilment in then- history without being convinced that a foresight more than human wrote the book, and a providence more than human has preserved them a distinct people. I close with a quotation from a recent address by Mr. Spurgeon : "There was a man in Scotland who had a piece of cloth stolen. The thief was found with the piece of cloth in his house. The maker and owner of the cloth swore to it. The judge at the trial said, there are hundreds of such pieces of cloth made in this district and put out in the fields to dry . How can you swear to it as your piece? Well, said the man, 'I can swear to it by this : I have a number of tenter hooks upon which I hang my cloth, and there are holes in this piece which are exactly at the same distance from one another as my tenter hooks. There are two hooks in a certain place and three hooks in another, close together, and the holes in the cloth axactly fit to these tenter hooks, therefore I can swear it is mine.' So we also can swear that this is none other than the word of God, because we find that every historical statement given in the book fits in the tenter hook of absolute fact, which even pro fane writers do not venture to doubt." III. EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. " Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God." — Is. 43 : 12. This is an age of experiment. Christianity is challenged to enter the labaratory and prove its claims. We accept the chal lenge, and this morning enter the laboratory of experience. If Christianity fails to do what it claims, then reject it; and, if it proves its claims by tests of experience, you of the scientific mind must be honest enough to accept it. Bear in mind that some people cannot understand certain experiments. Let a painter illustrate ever so faithfully before an audience of blind people, or a musician before an audience of deaf people, and they will be none the wiser. We are at the same disadvantage in illustrating the workings of spiritual forces before any part of an audience who have no spiritual dis cernment. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:14.) A worldly man on reading a page of Whitfield's diary pro nounced it all cant. A convention of moles who had met to discuss the experiences of eagles would naturally make some mistakes, while eagles discussing the experiences of moles would doubtless talk wide of the mark. A man, to appreciate the ex perience of another, must have a similar experience. We are all in danger of supposing that what we have not experienced has never been experienced. A man near the equator would not believe a missionary who told him that he lived in a country where, in cold weather, the water became hard enough to hold 25 26 EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. up the weight of his elephant. An artic explorer tells us that, after two years of life amid the northern ice, he found it difficult to conceive that there was any open water or land in the world. Such is the power of experience to unfit us to judge of experiences with which we are not familiar.. And yet the facts of Christian experience are so evident that we have hope of at least gaining a hearing from those whose lives do not verify them, and our prayer is that they may be led to desire such an experience and to seek it, for, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." (John 7:17.) And now to the tests : I. Does God answer prayer in the name of Christ? A few years ago, Mr. Huxley challenged the Christian world to produce a single unmistakable answer to prayer. George Muller accepted the challenge, not by parading himself before the world as a man of great virtue and faith, but by quietly praying and trusting God to supply the needs of a large orphan asylum at Bristol, England. There it stands to-day with its hundreds of orphans fed and clothed, and no one solicited to do it but God. J. Hudson Taylor sees the need of missionary work in the interior of China, and prays to God for men and money. At this moment there are in the China Inland mission more than three hundred and fifty missionaries, all supported without soliciting a dollar from any one but God. And, in order that we, as a church, may not have a shadow of doubt on this subject, two men known to us all, one of them a member of this church, are now in North Africa with their families working for the salvation of the Mohammedans, dependent on no Board or convention for supplies, but trusting God for daily bread. What better answer could be given to the challenge? But those of us who have been praying and receiving answers from God for many years need not be referred to these world-wide demonstrations. We have enough in our own ex-. periences to satisfy us. I could prove by one-half of this congregation that they have asked of God and received just what they asked, in ways which left it beyond doubt that God EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. 27 had answered their prayers. Excuse me for referring to just one instance in my own experience. In my first pastorate I preached on alternate Sundays to two small churches. I was to remain nine months, and then go to the Seminary. After the first three or four weeks I found myself praying daily that I might be permitted to baptize one hundred people before leaving the field. The burden of desire grew, and the prayer in hours of rest or devotion became almost as constant as my breathing. It at last took the form of Gideon's prayer that, if God would give me just one hundred, I would have a proof never to be doubted that he answers prayer. To make a long story short, persons were converted and baptized from time to time, till on the last Sun day of my pastorate the number had reached ninety-four. As I rode to the country church to preach my last sermon, I was full of praise, and more than once told God that I accepted the prayer as answered, for more than one hundred had professed conversion, though only ninety-four had been baptized. At the close of the sermon five more presented themselves for baptism, with the re quest that I baptize them that afternoon. Imagine, if you can, my feelings, as I rode to the mill-pond, three miles distant, to see my prayer answered within one. And I praised God as if not one were lacking, having accepted his answer as already given. While we were singing and praying by the side of the mill-pond, a man touched me on the shoulder and said: "Mr. D., you know I have been a believer for several months, and I must follow Jesus, if you will baptize me." " Are you ready with a change of clothing,?" I replied. "No matter about that," was the ready response. I baptized him, and he went home three miles in his wet clothes. Just one hundred, not one more nor less. No theory of accidental circumstances can explain this, as you would see more clearly, had I time to trace the chains of provi dence which during those nine months led up to it. Within the past two months there have been many answers to prayer in connection with our work here. The sceptic need not tell us that God does not answer the cries of his people. We have made the scientific test, for we have been in the laboratory of experi ence, and what we have learned by such experience it is very 28 EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. unscientific to doubt. The Bible is full of answers to prayer, and the lives of God's people are just as full as the Bible. Our text-book and our experiments agree. And for men to doubt the Book and the experiments who know little of the former and absolutely nothing, as they confess, of the latter, marks them as unscientific and unworthy of respect. If they would know for themselves, let them come into the Christian laboratory of experience by trusting God and living for him. Those who really do that never doubt that God answers prayer. II. Does God regenerate men through faith in Christ? If we can produce a man or woman who has been not only reformed in life but renewed in nature so thoroughly as to have received anew character, the question is answered, for this scientific age clamoring for facts cannot afford to set aside the facts when they are presented. Thousands of the best men and women in Baltimore claim that by faith in Jesus Christ they have been made to hate what they once loved and love what they once hated; and that not by a gradual process, but suddenly. A gentleman of this city, whom many of you know, went into the Reformed church, on Fayette street, to hear Mr. Moody. He was at the time a drunkard. Mr. Moody held forth Jesus Christ as the only Saviour from sin and habit. The man believed, and has told me that from that day to this he has had no thirst for strong drink.* His life has been a continual consecration to Christ who delivered him. I look now into the face of a man who fourteen months ago was delivered from the clutches of the demon of drink, after everything else had failed, by simply committing himself to, Jesus Christ. Paul was not more suddenly converted than hundreds of men have been in this city, and changed from bold persecutors to bold defenders. Do you doubt the facts? Then you can doubt the testimony of men whose word you would take on any other subject. A lawyer attended an experience meet ing in which he heard sixty men tell what Christ had done for them. At the close he arose and said : " I entered this house a sceptic, but I am used to weighing testimony, and I have heard men whom I know to be truthful testify to-day to the fact that EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. 29 they have been saved and given new experiences. I would not dare to impeach their testimony in court, and shall I do it here? I will not. I believe that they tell the truth, and if their experience is for me, I want it." A Christian need not be told that he soon had what he wanted, and himself became a witness to the facts he had called in question. A man in the village of my boyhood had to be kept in jail as a protection to the people. I have used him as an illustration of a lost soul, when all the the good is removed and nothing but evil remains. He had killed several men, and, when under the influence of drink, had no regard for human life or property. During a service of an hour and a half in a country church in which the gospel was preached, and Christians joined in prayer for his salvation, that man of sin was so changed that he became not only a good citizen but a meek, quiet worker for the good of others. When I heard from him last, he was still an earnest Christian. Thomas Bilney confessed to Hugh Latimer, the priest, and Latimer per ceived that the humble Thomas had something in his heart which he did not possess. Soon Latimer was confessing to Bilney that he wanted such an experience of grace, and the result is known to history. When the priest learned that he was completely saved by the merit of Christ, he ceased to urge the people to do penance, left the confessional, and joyfully went to the stake, supported by the new experience he had first heard of from Thomas Bilney. The sceptics had much to say against the doctrines of Peter and John, but there was one argument they could not answer. The blind man at the gate of the temple had certainly been healed, "and beholding the man healed standing among them, they could say nothing against it." (Acts 4:14.) And Christianity continues to present the same unanswerable argument. Here are the men who have been healed standing among you. A live Lazarus, who was once dead, is our test of the power of Christ. The men whose eyes have been opened are of age, ask them, and they will testify that once they were spiritually blind; faith in Christ gave them a new soul-sight, and they have seen things of which they had never dreamed. "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God." 30 EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. III. In this laboratory of experience do we find that Christ and the Bible meet the needs of oub being? Let us see. We have bodies. Is the health of the body promoted by faith in Christ and his Book? The best code of sanitary laws ever given to the world was written by Moses, and the Jevvs, who even partially keep those laws, are to-day the longest-lived people in the world. Faith in Christ makes men hopeful, cheerful, happy, and such a state of mind promotes health. The lack of faith gives gloom and melancholy. It is a sad perversion of Christianity, that associates faith with penance and self-torture. We are commanded to "rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice."" (Phil. 4:4.) We have minds. Does the Bible give us sufficient food for thought ? Dou you want history ? It is the best history ever written, and contains much that can be found nowhere else. Do you like poetry? The Psalms and the prophets have never been excelled. Are you fond of law? Here you can find the foundation of all civil and moral law. Have you a mind for logic ? A finer specimen of reasoning than Paul's letters we have never seen. As two infidels were sailing past a lonely island, one asked the other what book he would choose if he had to live alone on that island with only one book. " Shakespere," he replied. "Well, I should select the Bible" said the other, "for its resources are inexhaustible." Whatever else the second infidel lacked, he had a mind. Men of mind prize the Bible. Even Shakespere borrowed from it so largely that to rob his works of biblical thought would well nigh pauperize them. Take the Bible out of literature, and you have removed the sun from the heavens. Need we stop to prove that Christianity makes the highest manhood and womanhood known to the world ? Just in pro portion as men and nations follow the precepts of Christ they are strong in character. When an Indian prince asked Queen Victoria the secret of England's greatness, she handed him a Bible. It is no accident that the nations who honor the Bible are to-day foremost in the march of civilization. A legend says that Chiron, the centaur, who had charge of Achilles, fed him on the marrow of lions. God's word is, indeed, the marrow of EXPERIENCE AS A WITNESS. 31 lions to the men or nations who feed upon it. But for the in dividual Christ has done more than for the nation. He satisfies the soul. He gives peace of heart. His cross is the cyclone's centre where there is perfect rest. He has answered Job's question, " Can a man be justified before God? " Through him we get rid of our sins. He has taught us to look up and wor ship. The man who is content with merely a moral life is to be pitied. He sees flowers about his feet and beauties in a narrow range, but he has never seen the stars. Christ bids him look up into a heaven of constellations. Sin has not only separated us from God, but from one another. Christ binds us together again. Even the revenge of an Indian's nature has been conquered by His love. He leads us to help the helpless. Christianity builds asylums and homes for the friendless. Paganism and infidelity never did either. In building the Hoosac tunnel two gangs of men started to work at the same time on opposite sides of the mountain. The sur vey was so accurate, and the work so well done, that when they met the sides of their tunnels came within an inch of tallying. So man's need is exactly met by God's provision in Christ and the Bible. Prayer is answered, men are regenerated, and all the needs of our bodies, minds and morals are met by Christianity. Surely it has stood the test of ex periment. IV. THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. " Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being Judges." -Deut. 32 : 31. No testimony can be stronger than the favorable testimony of an enemy. It is expected that he will speak against us, and, when he speaks in our favor, it is certain that he has been com pelled by the facts in the case to do so. But who are the enemies of Christianity? Jesus said " He that is not with me is against me," and on this principle we must group all who have lived and died without confessing Christ before men as his enemies, though they are not to be classed with open infidels and atheists. Benjamin Franklin was such a man. Shrewd, calculating, stingy, he gained a wide reputation for common sense, and, though his " Poor Richard's Almanac " has done more to make close-fisted Baptists than almost any other force, we are inclined to forgive him after reading what he had to say of the Book we love and the god-man we worship. "Young man," he says, "my advice to you is that you cultivate an acquaintance with and firm belief in the Holy Scriptures, for this is your certain interest. I think Christ's system of morals and religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see." Thomas Jefferson is claimed by some infidels as on their side, but the following words do not indicate it: "I have said and always will say that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands." Daniel Webster cannot be accused of weakness of mind. 32 THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. 33 He was not a man to.be carried away with what is "suited only for children and weak-minded women." He could sift evidence, weigh arguments and discover fallacies as well as any man whom American history has produced. Here is his tribute to the Bible and the Christ it reveals : "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but, if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a cat astrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity. The Bible is the book of all others for lawyers as well as divines, and I pity the man who cannot find iu it a rich supply of thought and rule of conduct. I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. The miracles which he wrought establish in my mind his personal authority and render it proper for me to believe what he asserts." Daniel Webster was acquainted with the objections urged against miracles, now so adroitly woven into popular novels. They are not new. For centuries they have been marshaled out in one form or another to do their work of darkness. But they had little weight with a mind like his, that knew how to distinguish between the spurious and the false, and was willing to accept facts when clearly proved, whether they Were in harmony or conflict with preconceived notions. To say that miracles cannot be performed ; therefore, the miracles recorded in the New Testament are not to be believed was a species of sophistry which his great mind could not endure, for he had before him the clearest and most unim peachable evidence that miracles were performed by Jesus Christ, and no bare assertion to the contrary had any weight with him. ? Ralph Waldo Emerson said : "Jesus is the most perfect of all men that have yet appeared." Charles Sumner wrote to Rev. Jonathan Stearns : "I believe that Christ lived when and as the Gospel says; that he was more than man — namely, above all men who had as yet lived, and yet less than God. I pray you not to believe that I am insensible to the greatness and goodness of his character. My idea of human nature is ex alted, when I think that such a being lived and went as a man 34 THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. among men." Emerson and Sumner did not see, as Daniel Webster saw, the impossibility of maintaining that Jesus was a great and good man without admitting that he was God, for, as we have seen in a former sermon, he claimed that he was God, and no good man could be a hypocrite, claiming to be what he was not. The admission made by all that he was good carries with it irresistibly the conclusion that he was God. Napoleon Bonaparte, with a mind as discriminating and logical as Webster's, held the same view. "I know men," said Napoleon, "and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Super ficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other re ligions the distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius ? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love ; and at this hour millions of men will die for him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections. From the first day to the last he is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and infinitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mysteries and com mands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, I am God' " On one occasion General Bertrand expressed to Napoleon his doubt as to the divinity of Christ. "If you do not believe that Jesus Christ was divine," replied Napoleon, "I did wrong to appoint you general." He meant to imply that the man who, with all the evidences before him could not be convinced of the divinity of Christ, would not do to trust with important conclusions on any matter. If such facts will not convince, then no array of facts on other subjects will convince, and in great crises generals should know how to draw correct conclusions from facts before them. The difference between Napoleon and General Bertrand was doubtless the difference between believers and most un believers of to-day. Napoleon had taken the pains to investigate thesubject; General Bertrandhad not. "The Bible," continues Napoleon, " contains a complete series of acts and of historical THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. 35 men to explain time and eternity, such as no other religion has to offer. If it is not the true religion, one is very excusable in being deceived ; for everything in it is grand and worthy of God. The more I consider the Gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing there which is not beyond the march of events and above the human mind. Even the impious themselves have never dared to deny the sublimity of the Gospel, which inspires them with a sort of compulsory veneration. What happiness that Book procures for those who believe it." Goethe, the brilliant German poet, did not model his character according to Bible teaching, else he would have been a Christian and a better man, but this fact, much as we may lament it, makes all the stronger the tribute he pays to the literary excellence of the Book. "It is a belief in the Bible," he says, "which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. No criticism will be able to perplex the confidence which we have entertained of a writing whose contents have stirred up and given life to our vital energy by its own. The farther the ages advance in civilization the more will the Bible be used. ' ' And Goethe might have said with equal truth, ' ' The more the Bible is used the farther the ages will, advance iu civilization." Witness England, Scotland and the United States with the Bible, in contrast with Spain, Italy, Mexico, and pagan countries without the Bible. Thomas Carlyle. "rough, tough and gruff," but true, called Jesus "our divinest symbol. Higher has the human thought not yetreached. A symbol of quite perennial, infinite character : whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into and anew made manifest." James Anthony Froude, the his torian, expressed what all honest inquiry must lead to, when he said : " The most perfect being who has ever trod the soil of this planet was called the man of sorrows." Charles Dickens is classed by some among the distinguised unbelievers. The following clause in his will shows what became of his unbelief when he came to think of going out of the world : "I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and exhort my clear children humbly to try to guide 36 THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. themselves by the teachings of the New Testament." This suggests the words of Shakespere, which you can find in the in troduction of any good copy of his works : " I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly be lieving, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." Is there an infidel in the land with brass enough in his composition to class Dickens and Shakespere with shallow-brained fanatics who are to be pitied because they do not know any better, or to accuse them of ac cepting without investigation what a more thorough search would have led them to reject. Even Byron, dissolute as he was, was compelled by his study of Christ's words, works and character, to exclaim, "If ever man was God, or God-man, Jesus Christ was both." We will now take a step farther and consider the admissions of men who have openly opposed the claims of Christ and the Bible, some of whom have spent their lives in trying to destroy Christianity. A church-house in Japan was built partly of stones which were once cast at some missionaries by an infuri ated mob. The missionaries preserved these missiles of destruction, and used them in constructing a house to the glory of God. It is our purpose now to gather from the writings of men whose personalities have been as so many missiles hurled against Christianity some stones, that we may work them into the walls of the temple of truth. It has been said that God can use the very devils as a chain-gang to work the Christian's road to heaven. Certain it is that he "makes the wrath of man to praise him." Let us begin with Matthew Arnold, the modern "apostle' of sweetness and light." We are glad to find that he has a few sweet things to say about the sweetest of all Books and its author: "To the Bible" says Mr. Arnold, "men will return because they cannot do without it. The true God is and must be pre-eminently the God of the Bible, the eternal who makes for righteousness, from whom Jesus came forth, and whose spirit governs the course of humanity." Diderot, a French infidel, made this confession : "No better lessons can I teach mv child THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. 37 than those of the Bible." Professor Huxley no one will accuse of having any partiality for the old Book, and yet he is com pelled to admit that he does not see how we can get along without it. "I have always been strongly in favor of secular education. without theology," he says, "but I must confess that I have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of moral conduct, is to be kept up in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters without the use of the Bible." John Stuart Mill, the born sceptic, whose writings have done more perhaps than any other man's of this age to unsettle belief, yet gives us a foundation stone for the temple of Christ's; divinity. "Who among his disciples," he asks, " or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings of Jesus, or imagining the life and character ascribed to him? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly not Saint Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different sort; and still less the early Christian writers. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer and martyr to his mission who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbe liever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve his life." Another admission that he was good, indeed the best, which is equal to saying that he was God. Rousseau, whose writings did so much to bring on the French revolution, was an infidel, and yet he says of Christ: " Can it be possible that the sacred personage whose history the Scriptures contain should be a mere man? Where is thfe man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he exactly describes the character of Jesus Christ. What an infinite disproportion be-; 38 THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS, tween the son of Sophroniscus and the Son of Mary. Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tender words — the easiest death that one could wish to die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing — the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without tears ; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for his most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a God." Poor Rousseau and poor France ! How much happier both would have been, if they had worshipped and served this Son of God and Son of Man. The world might then have been spared the pain of reading the blackest page in modern history. Of the Bible Rousseau writes: "Peruse the books of philosophers with all their pomp of diction. How meagre, how contemptible are they when compared with the Scriptures. The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration." Rousseau spoke thus because he had read the Bible. Some other men who have written against the Bible confessed that they were ignorant of it. Thomas Paine looked into it long enough to catch a glimpse of Christ, and, in one of his better moments, he said: "The morality that Christ preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind." But Thomas Paine's opinion of the Bible should have little weight, for he virtually confesses his ignorance of it when he wrote of a Sripture quotation : "I know not how this passage is pointed, for I keep no Bible." He wrote his bitterest denunciations of the Book in a house where there was no Bible. David Hume, who wrote against the credibility of miracles, confessed that he had never " read the New Testament with attention." Edward Gibbon, who made some flings at the Old Book, confessed that he had read only the Gospel of John, and the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Men who do not like the light of the sun are those who have never seen the sun. Pecaut, another French infidel of note, as he looks at the character of Christ, is constrained to put this wreath of praise upon His head : " Christ's moral character rose beyond com- THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. 39 parison above that of any other great man of antiquity. No one was ever so gentle, so humble, so kind as he. In his spirit he lived ia the house of his heavenly father. His moral life is wholly penetrated by God. He was the master of all, because he was really their brother." It is difficult to believe that Ernest Renan was not an earnest believer, after we have read what he says of Jesus Christ, and yet we know that he lost his professorship in the University of Paris on account of his infidelity. While study ing the character of Jesus, he can hardly refrain from falling at his feet and worshipping him as he deserves. "All history," he says, "is incomprehensible without him. He created the object and fixed the starting point of the future faith of humanity. He is the incomparable man to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title of Son of God, and that with justice. In the first rank of this grand family of the true sons of God we must place Jesus. The highest consciousness of God which ever existed in the breastof humanity was that of Jesus. Repose now in thy glory, noble founder ! Thy work is finished. Thy divinity is established. Thou shalt become the corner-stone of humanity so entirely that to tear thy name from this world would rend it to its foundations. Between thee and God there will no longer be any distinction. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road which thou hast traced, ages of adoring wor shippers. Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his suffer ings will melt the noblest hearts ; and all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus. Even Paul is not Jesus. How far removed are we all from thee, dear master. Where is thy mildness, thy poetry? Thou to whom a flower didst bring pleasure and ecstacy, dost thou recognize as thy disciples these wranglers, these men furious over their prerogatives, and desiring that everything should be given to them? They are men ; thou art a God." In harmony with this are the words of England's great statesman, politician, and author, Benjamin Disraeli : "The 40 THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. wildest dreams of their rabbis have beefi far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name to Christen dom? All countries that refuse the cross wither, and the time will come, when the vast communities and countless myriads of America and Australia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon Greece, and wondering how so small a space could have achieved such great deeds, will find music in the songs of Zion and solace in the parables of Galilee." Mr. Charles Darwin, who declared that the natives of Terra del Fuego were too low to be improved, sent to a missionary society a contribution of twenty-five, pounds after he had visited the island and had seen what Christianity was doing for them. Now why is it that men who are known to the W orld as infidels make such concessions? Simply because infidels are not made by studying the Bible and the character of Christ. They are infidels while, as in the case of Ernest Renan, they look at the caricatures of Christianif y seen in its representatives, or while they puzzle their brains over mysteries which cannot be solved any more than othor mysteries in nature. When they turn from these things to Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, their respect is won, their admiration, and sometimes adoration, is called forth. Another explanation may be found in the experience of Mr. Hegard, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Copenhagen, and until recently the champion of atheism in his country. He has just published a revised edition of his works, and here is an extract from its introduction : ' ' The experiences of life, its sufferings and grief, have shaken my soul and have broken the foundation upon which I formerly thought I could build. Full of faith in the sufficiency of science, I thought to have found in it a sure refuge from all the contingencies of life. This illusion is vanished ; when the tempest came, which plunged me in sorrow, the moorings, the cable of science, broke like thread. Then I seized upon that help which many before me have laid hold of. I sought and found peace in God. Since then I have certainly not abandoned science, but I have as signed to it another place in my life." Such experiences make THE ENEMY AS A WITNESS. 41 men revise their books and their ways of living. May we not hope for such a revision of some books published in America? I have the authority of a man of integrity and wide learning in New York city for saying that "of twenty infidels, lecturers and writers, who have been prominent in the last thirty years, sixteen have abandoned their infidelity and openly professed faith in Christ and joy in his salvation." Truly "The morning light is breaking." M. Renan sums up his infidelity in these words: "We are living on the perfume of an empty vase. Our children will have to live on the shadow of a shadow. Their children, I fear, will have to live on something less." To be sure, the assets of infidelity have run low. It is bankrupt, and can't pay half a cent on the dollar. Compare with this Paul's assets of Christianity. "I have fought the good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." Poor infidelity has no "henceforth." If it has, it is like going into an unexplored cavern in Mammoth Cave, not knowing but that you may fall down a precipice a thousand feet. Christianity is following the guide who throws his light upon our way, till we come into the dayofaglorious "henceforth." The death-scene of Thomas Paine, now well authenticated, and the words of Ethan Allen to his dying daughter, tell us plainly that infidelily has little stock in trade upon which its followers may draw in emergencies. Belter be wise like Professor Hegard and give up "the perfume of an empty vase," for the vase full of richest treasures, "shadow of a shadow " for the eternal substance ; for truly "Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges." V. REASON AS A WITNESS. "Gome now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord!' — Is. 1 : 18. Reason is a witness easily influenced. Prejudice is often its master. No argument can prevail against prejudice. It is blind, and will not see, though you pour a flood of light in its eyes. The Pharisees had prejudged Christ, and made up their minds that he was only a man; and when they heard him say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," they "began to reason, saying, who is this that speaketh blasphemies? " Their prejudice kept them from drawing the right conclusion. Their reason, unin fluenced by prejudice, would have said that He who could work such miracles was God, and therefore had the right to forgive sins. Under the control of prejudice these Pharisees were care ful to strain out little gnats of difficulty, while they swallowed whole camels of absurdity, hair, hump, hoofs and all. Galileo proved to the Inquisitors that the earth was round, and revolved upon its axis, while the sun remained stationary, but they laughed at his reasons. Prejudice had put out their eyes. The weather-vane on the top of a steeple in New York became fixed, so that those who observed it were misled as to the direction of the wind. Reason is a weather-vane easily fixed by prejudice, so that no wind of argument can move it. Self-interest is another influence very powerful with our witness. It is hard for a man to see a good reason for what he knows to be against his interest. A mere excuse in the scale with self is heavier than the strongest reason. Read the parable of the Husbandmen in Luke 20, and you will see how forcibly 42 REASON AS A WITNESS. 43 Jesus shows this weakness of reason when under the control of self-interest. " When the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned one with another, saying, This is the heir : let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." If they had been unselfish and loyal to their master, their reason would have said : " This is the heir ; let us pay our rent or give up the vineyard to him, if he wishes it. He is here now to look after his own, and it is reasonable that we should let him do it." Their reason did the bidding of selfishness, and led them to murder. And reason is still the slave of self-interest. Desire, appetite and passion, fickle as they are. often rule reason with an iron rod. What we desire is apt to appear reasonable. The child wants the razor or poisonous flower, and no amount of reasoning will convince it that it is not best for it to handle such dangerous things. Men are children grown up, and just as unreasonable when strong desire takes hold of them. The appetites make reason their abject slave. I talked with a man the other day who had been wrecked by strong drink. He admitted that he ought not to drink. He abused himself for dragging into such depths his wife and children. He de clared that he knew whiskey did him only harm in body and mind. And yet he was doubtless drunk again before night. Reason was in chains. Appetite had bound it, and was com pelling it, either to stand aside and not interfere, or else serve like one of a chain-gang. It reminded me of a boy seen in front of a window, where was kept a large snake. The shop-keeper wondered that the boy should remain still so long, until he noticed that his eyes were fixed with a wild stare upon the snake. He answered no call, and noticed nothing about him, till he was dragged away from the fatal charmer. The boy seemed to have no reason while under the strange power of the snake's piercing stare. And there are in this city to-day not less than a thousand men, who are no more influenced by reason than was that poor boy. Their passions have transfixed them to some sin and they are held to it by a power over which reason has no control.' France once decided to displace the Bible and worship reason, and selected as the goddess of reason a dissolute woman. They 44 REASON AS A WITNESS. acted more wisely than they knew, for a more appropriate object could not have been selected. Men who boast that they are ruled by reason are nearly always the slaves of passion ; certainly these frenzied Frenchmen were. The free-thinkers who boast that reason is their God are nearly all of dissolute lives. Their passions scourge their reason into subjection. A dissolute woman would still be an appropriate goddess for them. Reason is controlled largely by the affections. The Pharisees "reasoned in their hearts." Love is proverbially blind, and to nothing is it blinder than to argument. It leaps to conclusions. No argument prevails with us against those we love. A good deacou in a church of which I was pastor, was called in by a suffering wife to protect her against a brutal husband. Reason was altogether on the wife's side, and the deacon took advantage of it to shame the brute into better manners, but he had not proceeded far before the wife took sides with the husband and insinuated to the deacon that his room was more desirable than his company. Even imagination can influence our witness. Indeed, imagination is one of the greatest foes to reason. When it gets full control of a man, he must be sent to an asylum for the in sane. And in sane people it may get such control that reason rarely has a chance to speak. Poets are not apt to be good logicians. There is a poetry of science which influences some scientists more than reason. The theory of evolution appeals strongly to the imagination, and with some there is no difficulty about filling all the gaps which the facts in the case leave open. And in the case of spontaneous generation imagination has led some to affirm what facts and reason both deny. Some promi nent scientists talk about the primal germ of life coming into existence without a creator as glibly as if it had been settled by experiment that spontaneous generation is possible. On the other hand, it has been sett'ed that, in the present state of knowledge, it is impossible. Imagination has usurped the place of experiment and reason. This imaginary science is the kind that so often contradicts the Bible. Ignorance is another enemy to be watched. People used to be frightened by comets, and reason was as much to blame REASON AS A WITNESS. 45 for it as anything else. They were taught that such extraordinary appearances were harbingers of evil; and, when a comet ap peared, it was reasonable for them to suppose that some calamity was at hand. When it was learned that comets were sub ject to law and their appearance could be accounted for, their reason drew a different conclusion and appeased their fears. Reason controlled by ignorance and imagination has been the enemy of progress in all ages. When Stevenson announced that he could draw with his engine a train of cars at the rate of twenty miles an hour, it appeared unreasonable to not a few members of parliament, and their reason, shocked by the as sertion, hastened to oppose the fanatical scheme. The speeches made in opposition to it appealed to reason to show the absurdity of the measure. They were ignorant, and poor reason could do no better than serve their ignorance. We have heard of the six blind men of Hindoostan, whom the king led into a room, where there was a large elephant, and commanded each one to touch the beast in but one place, and then tell him what it was like. The first touched its side and decided that it was like the side of a house covered with hair. The second touched his tusk and decided that it was made of ivory. The third took it by the tail, and declared that it was like a snake. Each one reasoned well with the light before him, and yet all were wrong. This re minds us of the reasoning of some people against Christianity and the Bible. Thomas Paine admits that he kept no Bible. Gibbon declared that he never read the New Testament with attention. David Hume confessed that he had read only the Gospel of John and one chapter in Luke. Is it any wonder that men should write wildly about a thing of which they know so little? Here is an illustration for the children. I have heard of a farmer's wife whose hen, eating a certain amount of bar ley, laid one egg a day. She concluded to double the amount of barley, hoping that with twice the amount of food her hen would lay two eggs a day. The result was the hen grew fat, and did not lay at all. Her reasoning was very correct. It only lacked the element of knowledge. She did not know the na ture of hens. iEsop's man who killed the goose that laid the 46 REASON AS A WITNESS. golden egg made the same mistake. No man should claim in fallibility for his reason, unless he knows everything. If he can establish the fact that he knows all things, then we may fol low without questioning the deductions of his reason. But ignorance as to one point may cause him to lead us into error. When Job said "I will reason with God," he spoke very fool ishly, as he afterward acknowledged. Paul advises us to "cast down reasonings and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God." — 2 Cor. 10:5. We who know so little should not put our reason up against Him who knows every thing. We have spent so much time proving the character of our witness that we have little time left to hear his testimony. But such character-proving is very important with a witness so much quoted in this age. That reason is influenced by so many things is not altogether to its discredit. If you could find a man who is influenced only by reason, whose affections, imagi nation, desire and passion, did not move him to anything, but who decided everything in the cold light of reason, you would have the devil incarnate. Such a man no one would wish for a friend. The Lord pity the woman who might marry him. There is something in us besides reason, unless we are the chil dren of the Devil without any mixture of other blood. There is something in God higher than reason, else we had never been redeemed. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." Rationalism would turn men into devils of cold calculation. God would use their reason under the control of truth and love. "Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord." He can furnish the knowledge necessary to right con clusions. Such is the object of revelation, and all who are following reason without a revelation are misled. Agnosticism is the world's latest admission that man cannot by searching find out God. God must reveal himself. In the Bible he has done so, and for you to think that without the help of such a rev elation you can be guided by fickle and fallible reason is a mistake which every reasonable man ought to have sense enough not to make. Indeed we can explain such mistakes only on the ground REASON AS A WITNESS. 47 of some hallucination that hushes the voice of reason altogether. Christianity deals in facts. The birth, life, death and res urrection of Christ are facts. There is no fact in history better established than his resurrection: and when that is once ac cepted, there is no difficulty in accepting his other miracles as facts. The Sophists of Athens claimed that they could prove anything by a course of reasoning. Socrates rebuked their folly and called attention to the facts. Scientists at one time tried to establish their pet theories by an appeal to reason. Bacon did the world a service by magnifying facts, and puting reason in its proper place. First ascertain the facts, and then draw your inferences from them. Benjamin Franklin once came upon a company of philosophers, who were discussing the reason why a bucket of water will weigh no more after a fish is put in it than it did before. Some of them gave very plausible explana tions of it. " Well, gentlemen," asked Franklin, ever noted for his common sense , " Is it true ? Let us get a bucket of water and a fish, and test it." The test was made,and it was found to be utterly false. When the fish was added, down went the scales. Let us first get at facts. Is sin a fact? Is it a fact that sin pol lutes, degrades, and causes suffering and death ? Is it a fact that we may get rid of sin ? Then let our reason prompt us to do so. Such is the reasoning of the text, "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." God has provided a way by which we may get rid of sin, and it is the only way. "The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin." Reason uninfluenced by prejudice and evil passion, must impel you to accept God's way, and be rid of what you know brings ruin. Reason emphasizes the necessity of the new birth. As to how the new birth takes place reason has nothing to do. There is no such thing as the reason how. The how has to do only with the realm of observation. No one can tell how food keeps up the mysterious union between matter and spirit. But any one can think of reasons why it does this. The wisest cannot explain just how I move my hand, but the most simple may be able to tell why I do it. The " why " and the "how " belong to two 48 REASON AS A WITNESS. widely different realms ; and yet there has been a modern at tempt to confound them. The man, who rejects the new birth because he cannot understand how it takes place, calls himself a rationalist. His senses are so coarse that he cannot perceive how it is done ; and though he gets on no better trying to ex plain the mysteries of the natural birth, he declares it irrational in men to accept what they cannot understand. It is rational in men to accept what facts demonstrate, though they cannot understand it. For a man to refuse to accept what he cannot understand would put him in his grave in less than a month, for- he would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. The fact that eating, drinking, and sleeping are just what he needs is plain enough ; but, if he were called upon to explain all about the process of each and their relation to life, he could not do it. I knew a learned scientist who was sent to a lunatic asylum because he refused to do anything he could not understand, and would not, therefore, eat until some one would explain to him just how food sup ported the mysterious thing called life. He was irrational. And rationalism is irrationalism pure and simple. It is an attempt to push reason out of her realm and make her do service for which she has no capacity. There are many reasons why a man must be born again. God says that he must, and he knows. Without the new birth he could not enjoy heaven, etc. But there are no reasons how we may be born again. Reason, we repeat, has nothing to do with the how. Reason deals with the fitness of things. " It is not rea son," said the Apostles, "that we should leave the word of the Lord and serve tables." The rich man of the parable was a fool, in that he did not see the suitableness of thing. He laid up in barns food for his soul, and said : " Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease eat, drink, and be merry." He was like a man who would lay up for his family a winter's supply of earth, stones and stubble, things that they could not eat. God demands of us nothing unreasonable. It is fitting that we should love with our whole hearts one who loves us so deeply. It is fitting that we should give all we have and are to Him who gave his only begotten Son for us. When we think of Calvary REASON AS A WITNESS. 49 with its love and suffering, all for us, no sacrifice we can make ought to be considered great. Annie Askew, when she let her tormentors rack her on the wheel till her bones were broken, rather than deny her Lord, did no unreasonable thing. The heroism of the martyrs which led them through fire and flood was no fanaticism, but the most reasonable return to God for what he had done for them. Reason deals with the value of things. I know two men, one of whom values his head of hah more than all the gold of earth. The other values some buttons and beads he carries with him more than the silver of all the mines. These men live together in an asylum for the insane. The lack of reason shows itself in their inability to set true values upon things. It was an ancient custom to try the sanity of men by putting be fore them an apple and a ball of gold of the same size and shape. If they, moved by appetite, chose the apple rather than the gold, they were declared to'be in need of a guardian. Now. when God puts before us eternal life with self-denial, it is an ap peal to our reason. When Jesus asked " What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? " He appealed to men as rational beings to choose the truly valuable rather than the worthless. Be rational, I beg of you, and choose Christ with holiness and heaven, rather than the world with sin and hell. VI. CHRIST THE LIFE. "Iam the life."— John 14 : 6. Life begins small and develops gradually. There is in the acorn an embryo tree. After it is planted, it grows so little each day that you can hardly perceive it; but, in process of time, it becomes a giant oak. Such is the law of nature and of grace. Minerva, springing full-armed from the brain of Jupiter, is a myth ; nothing like it in fact. That wbich reaches maturity soon is usually not worth much. A mushroom springs up in a night and the ephemera grows old in a day ; one is a well-nigh worthless plant, the other a worthless animal. There are plants called annuals, which ma ture in a year and die; others called biennials, which mature in two years. Man is an eternal, and, for his full and complete development, time and eternity may be required. As Christ grew from an infant, so, as Christians, we must begin as babes, and grow in grace and knowledge. The kingdom of heaven is as a grain of mustard seed, and not a keg of powder. Christianity it self began small and gradually permeated society and the world. Let us not despise the day of small things. Small things are pro phetic of great things. Little grace predicts great glory ; a little faith and love is an earnest of mountain-moving faith and all- consuming affection. One kind of life, however, never develops into another kind. We hear much of lower animal life developing into higher life. It is a myth. The lower life in plant and animal remains the lower life, and most especially is that true of spiritual life. You need not expect that this sinful nature, earthly and corrupt, will 50 CHRIST THE LIFE. 51 be, by a process of training, developed into a higher spiritual being. " Ye must be born again." " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Life moves. Machinery is moved. Life has that within itself which causes motion. Too many professing Christians are mere machines; they are moved upon. External forces of example and urging impel them to actions which resemble Christian living. I have seen a miniature clock of Strasburg, from the top of which the Apostles in wood or wax walked out one by one as the clock struck twelve. They looked like real men ; they moved like men. Their movement was caused by. external forces. There are so many who look like Christians ; they act somewhat like Chris tians ; but examine them closely, and you find that the move ment does not proceed from the inward life. If we are filled with Christ, we have a life that moves; we are active amid lethargy ; we are self-denying amid luxury ; we are bold and spiritual amid worldly taunts and worldly pleasures. Little life will cause little movement. We measure life by movement. The oyster has a little life, but so much encumbrance of shell that he cannot move, except as drifted by the wave. Some Christians, with their little life, have so much encumbrance of worldly cares, worldly associations and worldly plans, that their little life fails to move them to activity. Everything moves along the line of its own individuality. The life of the bird moves in flying ; of the fish in swimming ; of the horse in walking or racing ; of man in the erect posture. Christ, the life within us, moves us along the line of each individual ca pacity. Can you teach ? This life may move yon to that. Have you special capacity for money-making? Let the life of Christ in you move you in that direction. Make money for him. What ever your capacity, mental, spiritual or physical, Christ will move you in some direction to work for him. Life is an absorbent. Living things are sure to appropriate much of that by which they are surrounded. The tree drinks in the gases ; our bodies appropriate the air ; trees and bodies take in the light, the heat, the moisture, and make them a part of themselves. The quality of that which is appropriated depends upon the kind of life which appropriates it. Vegetables absorb what would kill men. Man selects the best food. Now, as we go still higher and reach the spiritual life, we expect that it 52 CHRIST THE LIFE. will demand a purer food still. Yes ! Nothing short of heaven's manna can satisfy the soul. The man who, like the rich fool in the parable, would lay up food for his soul in earthly barns, is demented ; our souls cannot live upon food which supports the body. Christ is the life of the soul. His is the highest and purest life in earth or heaven. If then we would absorb only what is good and pure and lovely, let us be filled with this Christ-life. But life is also expulsive. Some men can live in malarial dis tricts, even breathe the coal gases of underground mines, and yet have good health. Their vitality is so great that they repel the poisonous influences about them. The way to keep out the bad is to fill ourselves with the good. The evil spirit, which departed out of the man, returned and found the house swept and garnished; no wonder he took in seven spirits worse than himself and revelled. Empty lives and empty hearts are inviting places for devils to enter. The man who merely casts the bad from his outward life is sweeping his house and garnishing it for the reception of devils. Now if he would have a strong expulsive life ; that which can be in the world and not of it ; that which can live by the bogs and morasses of sin ; that which can come in contact with all kinds of evil with out absorbing it ; let him keep full of Christ. He moved amid the worst of men, but his vitality cast off their sins; his goodness flowed to them without receiving in return any ot their badness. Let me warn you, however, against presumption. Do not im agine that your spiritual life is so strong that you have no cause for fear ; that you can move in worldly circles, be companions with the bad, frequent places where there is only evil, and yet repel their influence and be unhurt? Beware! presumption goeth be fore a fall. The secret of your strength is in the realization of your weakness. The strength of the life within you is the con sciousness that you have no strength except in Christ ; and even if your spiritual vitality is strong enough to thus expose yourself without harm, your influence may lead the weaker to certain ruin. The moderate drinking of John B. Gough's father made his son a drunkard. Your body may not be hurt by sitting in a draught ; but your child may do the same and die of pneumonia. " If eat ing meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no more flesh while the world stands." CHRIST THE LIFE. 53 Life beautifies. The Desert of Sahara is unattractive, because it lacks life. In what striking contrast is the oasis, where are trees, flowers, verdure and men ; and as this unseen, subtle thing called life in the physical world beautifies it, paints its flowers, clothes its landscapes, so Christ, the life of the soul, gives it moral beauty. True, in autumn, the forest leaves are most beautiful in decay; but it is the life in them that paints their beauty; take away all life, and you have the sear, unsightly leaf; and the beauty of the Christian character in the decline of life, when the spring and the summer have passed, and the autumn is come, and the winter is near, is the beauty of a living faith and hope and love. Christ within us insures this moral beauty through all seasons. Life gravitates upward. The very mole and worm must come up occasionally to the light. The plant in the cellar struggles toward the sun. Though lower life does not develop into higher, yet all life reaches up, and the higher the life the greater this up ward tendency. This highest of all life, which we have in Christ Jesus, 'gravitates toward heaven. The boy may not see his kite in the distance, but he knows it is there, because he can feel the pull of the string. The astronomer knows that a heavenly body is ap proaching, because he sees that other bodies are attracted by it, though it be out of sight. There is in the City of Dresden a picture of the Madonna. It is placed in the Cathedral before an altar of incense. Every face in the picture is looking outward and upward, as if toward some invisible object where the incense is ascending. The poet's fancy was to make it picture worshipping souls — their gratitude, their faith, their praises ascending with the incense up to the invisi ble Father. This life, Christ Jesus within us, is like that pic ture ; it gazes upward ; it looks beyond anything within our selves; it sees the invisible VII. CHRIST, THE LIGHT. " I am the light of the world; he that foUoweth me shall not walk in dark ness, hit shall have the light of life." — John 8 : 12. We are told in the first chapter of Genesis that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. God said, Let there be light and there was light. The moral and spiritual darkness which followed the sin of our first parents wa3 denser than the physical darkness of chaos. Into this spiritual darkness the light began at once to shine. The curse upon Satan, if Eve heard it, was to her the first beam of the coming day. The dawn grows brighter, until, in the 53d chapter of Isaiah, it is almost daylight. John the Baptist, though a bright and shining light, was but as the morning star to announce the rising of the sun. Now the sun is up, and we have the noon-tide of its glory in the text : "Iam the Light of the World." A light to work by. The moon and stars give a beautiful light, but theirs is a light to sleep by. Walk down the streets of Baltimore at midnight, and you are not surprised to find the stores closed and the houses dark. The people are asleep. Walk down the streets at noonday, and if the stores should be closed, you would feel like crying fire to wake the people from their leth argy. Daylight is the time for work. Jesus Christ went about doing good. His life was one of incessant toil ; and those of us who walk in that light must be active like him. If we sleep now, it is with the sun shining in our faces. A light which directs. " He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." Many false tapers will be seen along the way. 54 CHRIST THE LIGHT. 55 Men, with powerful intellects, kindle other lights; and they are the Will-o'-the- Wisps that lead into the quagmires of sin and death. Christ is the only true light. The " Great Britain," a ship which cost a million dollars, left port with a valuable cargo and three hundred souls aboard. During a storm the captain mistook a wrecker's light for a light-house and the ship was wrecked, the cargo lost, and many passengers drowned; and so those who turn from the true light to guide their vessels of life by these wreckers' lights which appear may expect a like disastrous result. This Christ-light, to us, may not be very bright, on account of our lack of clearness of vision. The sun may be shining in all its splen dor, and yet the diseased eye may see little of its light ; but it is all that we have, and whatever Christ is to us we should follow. A party of us went down three hundred steps into the gold mine at Kings Mountain. The guide carried before us a little tallow candle ; it was all we had, and we followed that flickering taper until it brought us out into the brightness of the sun. And the conviction you now have may be but as the flickering taper. Follow it out, and you will soon be rejoicing in noonday glory. A light which protects. Daylight is a better safeguard than a hundred soldiers. The assassin sneaks in the dark. If I were compelled to pass through the dangerous streets of a great city, I would prefer to go alone in the daytime, rather than with ten thousand men in the dark. The murderer may creep through the ranks in the dark and plunge his dagger into my heart. Jesus Christ, the light, is the soul's protection. "They that fol low me shall not walk in darkness." His light is our shield, against which the fiery darts of the wicked fall harmless. A hunter once found himself near a wounded tiger. He heard its growl and the rustle of the leaves under its feet, and he remained crouching in a painful position holding his empty gun one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, fearing lest the breaking of a stick might cause the hungry beast to spring upon him. By and by the sunlight from the East began to tip the tree-tops and to fling its bright javelins down through the boughs. Then the tiger hied away to its den. The coming light was the hunter's safety. And our sins were like hungry tigers, ever' ready to de vour us. It was the light from heaven which saved us,. The light, Christ Jesus it was which came by faith and drove away 56 CHRIST THE LIGHT. the sins that threatened our destruction. And none are safe, ex cept those who walk in this light. A light which beautifies. There is something in man which distinguishes him from the beast. He is a ruin, but like the ruins of Thebes he is noble. He has an imagination, a con science, a reason, a judgment and a memory ; and he has these, before conversion, as well as after. Paul, before he was saved, reasoned before the Jewish Sanhedrin, to convince them that he ought to persecute Christians. The difference between Paul be fore conversion and Paul after conversion was that this light from Heaven had beautified his entire being. A party of us ascend King's Mountain before day. As we painfully climb the steep side, our first view is upon a valley of blackness. As we ascend the darkness appears only more distinct. By and by the sun is rising; the light is shining from the East, and when we reached the summit, we find ourselves standing in the centre of a great circular room, carpeted with green and hung about with curtains of crimson and gold. What made the difference? What magic power changed the valley of darkness into the valley of beauty ? It was the touch of God's artist, the light. The Apostle Paul, as the persecutor, was in his massive proportions just as majestic as the mountain, but covered with clouds and darkness. The Apostle Paul with Christ filling his soul was like that moun tain, lighted up by the glory of heaven. Whatever there is beau tiful in you will be made more beautiful by the light. And this light adds new beauties. The beauty of unselfish love, of minis tering to others, of humility, of hope and of holiness is added by the light, Christ Jesus. No skill of ancient master, seen in paint ing or sculpture, can compare with the moral beauty of the char acter made by Jesus Christ. A light which reveals. Christ on the cross reveals to us our condition as sinners. No where else can we see what sin is ; how God hates it. And through Christ on Calvary shines mercy. It is the only place in all God's universe, of which I know, where mercy shines at all. Nature is the administrator of justice ; keep her laws, and you are rewarded. Break her laws, and you are punished. He reveals to us our own character. Comparing ourselves with ourselves, we may be easily satisfied ; but, when we compare ourselves with Christ, we see how far short we have come. CHRIST THE LIGHT. 57 Our pollution is thus made manifest, as we bring it into the light. The housemaid may complain of the sun shining into the room, because it reveals the dust on the carpet, and the mistress may prefer that the sun shall not fill the parlor, lest the shoddiness of the furniture be seen ; but it is not the sun's fault ; it is the fault of the housemaid and the furniture. Let the sun reveal the dust, that we may get rid of it. Let it show our shoddiness, that we may cast out all sham and take in only the real. A Light which Gives Life. " He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Darkness and death are twin sisters. I have read of a cruel experiment made by some German philosophers, who put a poor child into a dark room and kept it there for twenty years, giving it food and water and clothing, but keeping out the light, to see what effect darkness would have upon the body. The child came out blind, tremulous and idiotic. Whether this is true or not, it might be true. Darkness withers. The "bottomless pit" of the Bible, a place in which there is eternal withering, falling, degeneration, without ever touching bottom. You have read of Dr. Kane's ex perience in the long Arctic night, when his crew went blind, his dogs died, and he and they suffered such depression as he could not describe. A world without Christ is, indeed, "A dungeon horrible on all Bides round Ae one great furnace flamed, Vet from those flames no light, But rather darkness visible." The presence of Christ accepted and loved can change this hell of death into a heaven of life. A Light which Nothing can Put Out. A taper of money you may follow very well for a while. Culture will light a man when there are no intricacies and little danger of losing his way. Friendship may satisfy, while friends are true. Almost anyihing can help us through a bright experience, but to everyone there will come a time of darkness and dampness when the taper of money and friendship and culture will flicker out, and it is then that the light, Christ Jesus, shines the brightest. The last words of Rutherford, as he passed through the valley of the shadow of death, were : "I feed on manna; Oh, for arms to embrace him; 58 CHRIST THE LIGHT. Oh, for a well-tuned harp." Dr. Payson 's shout of victory in this hour of trial was : " The battle is fought, the victory is won ; I am going to bathe in an ocean of purity and benevolence and happiness through all eternity." Richard Baxter, when dying, said to his friends : " I have pain ; there is no arguing against sense, but I have peace, I have peace." Robert Bruce, taken suddenly ill at the breakfast table, a few hours afterwards called his children to him and calmly said : " Now God be with you, my dear children ; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus this night." An old Christian man in the South was told by his physician that he would soon die. "You are mistaken," said the Christian, " I am not dying." The next day the doctor insisted that he would live but a few hours. " You are mistaken," replied the Christian, with a smile, "I do not intend to die." He came back to see him in the evening, when the death-rattle was in his throat and the death-stare in his eye, and he said: "I told you the truth; I was faithful to you; you are dying this moment." " Ob, no," replied the man of God, the light gleaming for a moment through his eye of death,' "I am almost well ; a few more breaths and I shall be perfectly well." And that old dying Christian told the truth. He was getting well while dying; he was passing through the darkness of suffering and sin and struggle into the light of perfect health and righteousness and rest. The heathen priest used to light his lamp and leave it float out upon the Ganges; if it buffeted the waves and continued to flicker, it was an evidence that the departed soul had gone safely over. We put out all flickering lamps and candles, in the pres ence of death, because we walk in the sunlight along the path which shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. How different the experience of those who will not open their minds and hearts to the light! Hobbes, the Infidel, who spent his life following the light of reason, had to say, as he came to death, "I am taking a fearful leap in the dark." Goethe, the poet, whose praises have been upon the lips of all lovers of good literature, as his eyes grew misty, reached out his hand and said : " Open the shutter, and let in the light." The men of unbelief are the men about whom the darkness thickens as age comes and death threatens. The men of faith are the men about whom the light brightens as age comes and death promises relief. CHRIST THE LIGHT. 59 Reflections. What is the use of light without eyes ? Men are blind in sin, and though Christ, the light, has flooded all his tory and shines with noonday splendor at this moment, they do not see it. He not only gives light, but sight. He opened the eyes of the blind, and he has power to-day to give all who wish it that spiritual discernment which will enable them to behold him. Do you fail to enjoy the light from a lack of vision ? Come to the great physician, and have the eye salve of truth applied, and then you will see clearly. What a little thing can keep out the light. With my little finger I can shut out from my eye all the sun. And so little sins may shut out forever the light of life from our souls. Let us ab sorb and conserve this light. We are not to be simply reflectors. Reflection is a cold process. Better reflect light than not shine at all, but we are to be ourselves the light of the world. Our streets are lighted by the gas which was made from the coal that had been buried for centuries beneath the surface ; the coal that had gathered up in the growing vegetation the beams of the sun and locked them in its prison house. And now that light, so long locked up, is let loose upon our streets, and we walk in its rays. We should absorb the very nature of Christ. As we study his words, as we worship him, striving to be like him day by day, we absorb the light, then by a process of combustion, self-sacri fice, the zeal of God's house consuming us, may we be enabled to give forth this light unto the world, so that, as they walk in the light that we make, they shall be walking toward the light eternal ; and bye and bye, you and I having been buried, and our lives for gotten, yet all that light that we have made will be conserved in the work of our lives, and when he shall come the second time without sin unto salvation, the light from heaven will be met by the light from earth, and that united light will be the glory of the throne. VIII. CHRIST THE WAY. "I am the way." — John 14: 6. We are all on a journey, not so much responsible for the man ner in which we started, as for our destination. Where are you going ? Is it the part of the wise man to say, " I don't know ? " Decide at once as to which road you are traveling toward eter nity. 1. A PLAIN WAY. There is much mystery about Christ. So is there about your self. We are all '' fearfully and wonderfully made." But, as the Way of Life, Christ is not mysterious. The child can have faith ; the philosopher can do more. If salvation depended upon feats of memory, upon mathematical talent, -upon imagination, many could not be saved ; but faith is co-extensive with humanity. The ignorant and the weak-minded can have faith. We have it at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of life. While memory grows weaker, faith may grow stronger ; while the j udgment be come unreliable, faith may become more steady; while imagina tion grows dim and confused, faith may be brighter and clearer. We do almost everything by faith. It is faith in the ticket which represents the Railroad Corporation, that induces us to take the train. It is faith in the cars, in the conductor, in the engineer, in the track, that leads us to continue our journey. God has taken this common possession of all human beings and made it the means by which we are to walk in the way to Heaven. "The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein." II. A PUBLIC WAY. There are many who seem to desire a back-door into the king- 60 CHRIST THE WAY. 61 dom ; who admire Christ, his doctrines, believe in him, and yet do not wish to confess him before men. " If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." " Come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord." Christ was a public man. He did not parade his good deeds before the public, but he suffered publicly. That crown of thorns, that mocking purple, that reed sceptre, that scorning and buffeting and spitting were under the vulgar eye. Now is it just that Christ should suffer shame for us publicly, and we should go to heaven privately ? He bore our sins, a spectacle for men and angels. Shall we accept his righteousness without acknowledg ing him before his enemies? Do you love the Saviour? Your next duty is to confess him. I say emphatically, your salvation depends upon it. '¦' If we confess him not before men, he will not confess us before his Father and the holy angels." III. A highway. " A highway Bhall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness, and the unclean shall not pass over it.'' Not a way for the high people, but a highway for the lowly. A way lifted up above the world. And who dare say that Christ, in char acter, in aim, in aspiration, was not the highest and best of men ? There are swine wallowing in the mud alongside this way, but on the way are no swine. God proposes to lift us up in character, that we may willingly walk the highway of purity. Christ was high in doctrine. Some have complained that we preach too high a standard. The standard of Jesus was perfection. '' Be ye perfect, as I am perfect." He was high, too, in practice. High doctrine and low life do not go well together. Let your standard be high, and let your life be always rising towards it. Low doc trine insures low living. A high standard inspires. There is something in it which lifts one up and urges farward to deeds of self-sacrifice. IV. A PLEASANT WAY. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." The goal to be reached is enough to make us willing to go through rough paths. The darkness of the night makes the following day the brighter, and we may well pass through the 62 CHRIST THE WAY. darkness that we may behold the glory of the rising sun ; but all along the way there is pleasantness and peace. Some ways are pleasant from association. The traveler de lights to pass through the village or the farm-yard, consecrated by the birth or the life of one of earth's heroes. He stands amid the ruins of ancient castles and cathedrals hallowed by associations. On the battle-field he calls up the clash of arms, the smoke and din and turmoil, and at last victory on the side of truth and liberty. Along this way to heaven there are delightful associations. We stand amid the ruins of castles of sin, taken and demolished by our victorious commander. Many battle-fields are hallowed by a thousand spiritual victories. On them Paul fought and con quered; on them the martyrs fell. We see the foot-prints of the great, the brave and the good. What way through earth is so hallowed by pleasant associations as this way to heaven? Another attraction of the way is its scenery. We change our routes of travel, that we may behold the beautiful landscapes, the sparkling fountains, the grand cataracts along the road. Moral beauty is higher and better than physical. Beauty of character excels all beauty of flower, of leaf, of running stream and forest; and just in so far as this moral beauty excels all physical beauty, this way to heaven is the most beautiful for its scenery. Along it there are fruit trees laden with deeds of sacrifice and love; along it are fountains of joy and peace "'springing up into ever lasting life ; '' along it, too, are some glorious sunsets. Not long ago I saw in Asheville, N. C, one of God's afflicted children going down amid clouds of affliction, of physical agony ; but those clouds were like the clouds of evening about the setting sun. " He maketh the clouds his chariots." Along this way is the most pleasant company. Do you love the good? Then, here are the best of all ages. The infidel charges Christianity with offering heaven to the thief and mur derer, and such is the boast of our religion ; but it comes to change the thief into an honest man, the murderer into a peaceful citizen. Along the " broad way " there is not the best of company. Our jail convicts, our free-'thought sensualists, earth's debauchees crowd that way. A few months ago in Chicago a modern free-thought apostle died. His boast was that he worshipped no god but rea son and philosophy. His companions, kindred spirits, followed CHRIST THE WAY. 63 him to the grave, and there over his corpse, instead of prayer and requiem, they drank his health and threw the bottles into the grave. I am sure you are not sorry that their way is different from yours. It is pleasant to notice the provision for our wants. The manna of heaven is scattered along this way. Daily supplies come from him who meets all the demands of our higher nature. V. AN UPWARD WAY. We do not with a leap and a bound go to heaven, but step by step, day by day, we climb in the Divine life higher and higher, until, after while, we shall step into the heights, the perfect like ness of our Master. Jesus was developed gradually. He was a babe, then a child, then a youth, then a man of sturdy vigor : " He grew in stature and in wisdom." Babes at first, we are to grow stronger by feeding upon the word. As we go westward from Salisbury to Asheville, we come sud denly to the Blue Ridge chain. The traveler wonders, as he looks upon the pile of granite, how he is to cross it; but if he will fol low the railroad track he will see that it is done by constant wind ings and gradual risings. He goes first about a mile and a half circling around the mountain peak, and comes suddenly near the track beneath him over which he has passed. He can look down and measure the height which he has attained, and then looking up at the road above him can see the point to be reached by this gradual rising. Now into a deep cut, where he can see the light only by looking upward ; out from this cut into a beautiful land scape, and suddenly from this into a dark tunnel, and just as sud denly out of the tunnel into another beautiful prospect ; now into the cloud that hovers over the mountain, then into the sunlight that has broken through it, into the tunnel again, and finally near the top into the last dark damp tunnel of 1800 feet, and he is out into the beauties of the regions beyond. This fittingly represents the Christian walk, as he follows the line that Christ, the great Spirital Engineer, has marked out in his own person and charac ter; at one time looking down upon his past experience and see ing the progress made ; at another looking up at the high perfect model to which he is to attain ; to-day passing through the deep cut of financial embarrassment, of trouble, of pressure, and only 64 CHRIST THE WAY. seeing the light by looking upward to God, and just as suddenly out of this into the beautiful landscape of promise and hope ; then into the dark tunnel of affliction and sore bereavement and sud denly out of that into the sunlight; higher and higher into the likeness of Christ, nearer and nearer to the Divine model, until, after a while, the last tunnel of death is reached, and he passes through into the paradise of God. " Forgetting the things which are behind," let us press forward and upward. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 08540 0068