Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS

GRENVILLE KLEISER

Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak in
Public," Etc.

With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other
Theologians

INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.

Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University

VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE

1908

CONTENTS

VOLUME VIII.

TALMAGE (1832-1901).
A Bloody Monster

SPURGEON (1834-1892).
Songs in the Night

POTTER (1834-1908)
Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks

ABBOTT (Born in 1835).
The Divinity in Humanity

BROOKS (1835-1893).
The Pride of Life

GLADDEST (Born in 1836).
The Prince of Life

CLIFFORD (Born in 1836).
The Forgiveness of Sins

MOODY (1837-1899).
What Think Ye of Christ?

FOWLER (1837-1908).
The Spirit of Christ

WHYTE (Born in 1837).
Experience

WATKINSON (Born in 1838).
The Transfigured Sackcloth

LORIMER (1838-1904).
The Fall of Satan

LITTLE (Born in 1839).
Thirst Satisfied

TALMAGE

A BLOODY MONSTER

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For many years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly printed his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by nature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice was rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and earnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit oratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and sensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people spellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.

TALMAGE

1832—1901

A BLOODY MONSTER[1]

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by permission.]

It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him.—Gen. xxxvii., 33.

Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African thicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole generations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully exclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him." There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use of stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their seats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are opium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which has specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo, an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow. Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England, and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital? Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to dissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Who will gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale this mountain of the dead—going up miles high on human carcasses to find still other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with the bleached bones of drunkards?

The Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of our people, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their shops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of bread going out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty will attack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with the window-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particular honor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside for these. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in clothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their hats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for any other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But swing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in the peace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks fly and the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat of the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come! Will it?

It may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and the husbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by this vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up and demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way of driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. We have, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evil by a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic cholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are, for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more inducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying to restrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whisky made—if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand dollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from the eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed on the Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it has destroyed for ever.

I sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be.
The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.
Bountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Music
in the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!
Well-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!

House the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs at pawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour! Carpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses! Wife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on her face, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in every room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale! Wife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend, brandishing his fist, cries, "Out! out! What are you doing here?" Did I call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformed it. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets. Rum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed that paradise into a hell.

I sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from one of our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisters were present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thunders that greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet. They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never looked so well. Everybody said, "What a noble brow! What a fine eye! What graceful manners! What brilliant prospects!"

Man the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just been sent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is matted and makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Who is this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police and carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man the second? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed his prospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered those garlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out his manhood. Rum, accurst rum!

This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants fall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves. Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into suffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swings its scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of Zion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your own households have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it; but where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Where was he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night? Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this habit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go on a little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of you should try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist, and one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left. This serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and 'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until the bones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from their sockets, and the mangled wretch cries. "O God! O God! help! help!" But it is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain when once it is fully fastened.

I have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt him down, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting our children right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utter aversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even as medicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have a natural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horrid stuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully as you do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to the almshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with them into the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hath fallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face, bruised, savage, and swollen, and say, "Look, my son. Rum did that!" Looking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness, goes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, a howling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, say to your son, "Look; that man was once a child like you." As you go by the grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slain and their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out to your children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdays they break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at my father for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: "I am more liberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glass after we have been taking a drink." Three of his sons have died drunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits.

Again, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. How many men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship, and demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that the question of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; and that, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits of intoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christian people. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend a few days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will find out why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteous enactments.

Again, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friends of the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue their circulars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests; and by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance public morals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret, and, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain our position. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell all their plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying on of this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks a train which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion of this monstrous iniquity!

Again, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of men who have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I know it is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised a thing, do it. "Some have broken the pledge." Yes; they were liars. But all men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all persons to make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvation of many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never be estimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, and multitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have kept it till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands the proclamation of emancipation.

Again, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They have already done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last to treat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awful disease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Once fastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectures will not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospel of Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awful thirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were on the other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires of hell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst for intoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, called for a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wrist into the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirst is on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Away with the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife! he would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down. Away with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away with heaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. "Give me the drink! Give it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soul trembles over the pit—the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale with tears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam—give it to me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternal banishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"

Again, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade the respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic beverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you who drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose your balance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. You have, under God, in your power the redemption of this land from drunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, and then come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, your sympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that you will find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly, you will probably save somebody—perhaps your own child; thirdly, you will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you made the sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinking respectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare of death, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this whole continent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow of drunkards' graves.

This rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your beautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you would see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would see it hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would find it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would feel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart. There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful curse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it that silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the golden scepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite turned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? What was it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the last war, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western steamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved to hear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. People wondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should have such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a sot.

I call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the path of death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see how everything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring back joy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet you with as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like to rekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not too late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the memory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from your anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not call back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in those awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memory the bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is not too late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family the remainder of your fast-going life.

But perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one who may not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out. You take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you the courage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions and friends, "I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; nor will I countenance the habit in others"? Have nothing to do with strong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and has stood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; until now the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night, stands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men.

Do I address one whose regular work in life is to administer to this appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we be pronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woes must be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour of the day!

Do not think that because human government may license you that therefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that they respect the "original package" decision by which the Supreme Court of the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas, which decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect for a wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of the Supreme Court who gave minority report against that decision were right, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defend itself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the Supreme Court notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington is the throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, or municipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effect is destruction.

God knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you have poured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been kept than yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sour mash, or beer. God calls it "strong-drink." Whether you sell it in low oyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel, the divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meet your customers one day when there will be no counter between you. When your work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business, all the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd around you, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you their wounds and say, "You made them"; and point to their unquenchable thirst and say, "You kindled it"; and rattle their chain and say, "You forged it." Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with the hands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes they will push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up from beneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, "Wo to him that giveth his neighbor drink!"

SPURGEON

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834. He was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time, and his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasm attracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity, intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbon from a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptied itself." Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in his lifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicoll says: "Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; and as I get older I read them more and more." He died in 1892.

SPURGEON

1834—1892

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?—Job xxxv., 10.

Elihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wise Jehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion; hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, cast about him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of the most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right one in Job's case. He said within himself—"Surely, if men be tried and troubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say, 'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu's reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the Christian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which many believers are plunged, is this—that while they are looking about, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape their troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real help cometh; they do not say, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell upon those sweet words, "God my maker, who giveth songs in the night."

The world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should have one. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; but they grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon from heaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light, which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm stillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, and there forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, and an angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again, touches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors of the day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we have many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy season. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; there is "the terror by night"; there is the dread of robbers and of fell disease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have no light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancy that spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly, they would find it to be true, that

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,
Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake,"

and that at all times they are round about us—not more by night than by day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even night hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night, and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have you never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of your chamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence—save now and then a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you not fancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you not conceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you, were also mouths of song—that every star was singing God's glory, singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deserved praise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit, to catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praises which are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear—the praises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven, and moves the stars in their courses….

If we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin with what God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will find it a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electing love and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well to sing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thou wast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook thy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which, ere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills were children, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved thee well, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst go back to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run back to that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or the fountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thy God inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in His loving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this a charming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like those which come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictated by meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing of election: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there are that are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who are afraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in His Bible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:

"Sons we are through God's election,
Who in Jesus Christ believe;
By eternal destination,
Sovereign grace we now receive.
Lord, thy favor,
Shall both grace and glory give."

Think, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a song in the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key as that, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and they are the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not sing a little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave, thou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: "Come, poor slave, come with me"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous moment when He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said: "I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free"? What tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happy morning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as a seraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: "I am forgiven; I am forgiven":

"A monument of grace,
A sinner saved by blood."

Go back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song in the night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hast some precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grown over with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of His mercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like that which thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that? Wast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wast thou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man! I beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a few bulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith may float safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done. What! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn over the book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar? Canst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee at Hermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thou never been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped the jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast; go back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; and tho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shall glitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath given thee a song in the night.

But I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there is something to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is one thing I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, and that is, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and because His compassions fail not." If we cannot sing very loud, yet we can sing a little low tune, something like this—"He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."

"Oh!" says one, "I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow. I am a poor wretch." So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not so poor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; if you are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledges that he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they come through the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, I have no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no right to complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creature deserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur; we can lift up our hands, and say, "Night! thou art dark, but thou mightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have been poorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick—well, I have some friend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse." And therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to sing about—"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!" Besides, Christian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon. There is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one or two little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think you may find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left, and some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not put out, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; but methinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a song in the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one, perhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, bless God for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then, if thou canst not find a song in the night.

But, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet more sweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I am preaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps there are not to be found a class of men in London who are suffering a darker night than they are; for while many classes have been befriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (if I am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inch of their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their bread shall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, the sweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grass so near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry by the House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that their average wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and that they have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensive articles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which they buy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they are made with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers, who, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsist upon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedingly pleased with one of them. He said, "Well, sir, it is very hard, but I hope there is better times coming for us." "Well, my friend," I said, "I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes a second time." "That is just what we hope for," said he. "We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; and then He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieces with an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." I was glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing about the morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thought of the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with little success; "the kingdoms of this world" are not "become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ"; we send out missionaries; they are for the most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see the fruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shall not always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is coming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with unction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and when colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds. The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of that second coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that the sweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings, that the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down, that liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting, and that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extended throughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, think of the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of thy Lord.

There is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in the night. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and we shall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shall get it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed of an apparently dying saint, last night, I said, "Well, sister, He has been precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and His past loving-kindnesses." She put out her hand, and said, "Ah! sir, do not talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now as ever; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior that I am in need of, for I am a sinner still." I found that I could not comfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, of the gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, of the songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, "Yes, I shall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;" and then she seemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with that thought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it shall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled with cares—it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garments may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a little longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trials will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then,

"With transporting joys recount
The labors of our feet."

Our trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to one another about them in heaven, and find all the more to converse about, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on, therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a night that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by and by.

And now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences of songs in the night above all other songs.

In the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night—I mean in the night of trouble—you may be quite sure it is a hearty one. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonder whether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two in Smithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under pain and penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can all sing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiest thing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; but when the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Can you say, "Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him"? That is hearty singing; that is real song that springs up in the night. The nightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. We know a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought to sing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the night that makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweet and hearty, because it is in the night.

Again: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs we hear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to sing by-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. They can sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will not sing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs with which to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of those light songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not do to enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; but the Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave off his song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot in Jordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, and keep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he is there, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter strain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a great many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable set, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song." Ay, but, my dear friends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your songs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will soon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me one that will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards it up, and says, "I'm rich"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. But give me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever.

Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have real faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as far as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see providence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessors cannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him.

Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by day who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers; but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a courageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's sonnets in the darkness.

He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else praises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on His head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is something. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to stick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and forsake Him—that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from the heart.

I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the excellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you their use.

It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because it will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and had some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you whistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the natural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like singing to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble, we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with difficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song." We have begun to sing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing." That is about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song—surely he can sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to purge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and you will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as long as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your fears.

Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your companions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with you, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us, that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful dark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, and poor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when his doubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it, and he heard a man in front of him saying, "Yea, when I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Now, that man did not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheer a man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do not know who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it. Sing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. There is some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by your sonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut up in the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your song inside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means of getting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if you can, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you go down from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have first looked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come down with a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer up many a poor way-worn pilgrim by it.

One more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try and sing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in all the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend a great deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who disbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the sorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said, "Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" That is about the politeness such men ought to have who deny God's truth. "We start with this assumption: we will prove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to prove God's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and bid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained little by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has been to send a man round the country, to follow another up who has been lecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious.

Why, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should we follow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need not wish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but that is not God's way.

God's direction is, "Preach, teach, dogmatize." Do not stand disputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and there leave it. Say to them, "He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned"; and when you have done that, you have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries stand disputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their time by attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, of heathenism? Why not just go and say, "The God whom ye ignorantly worship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved; believe me not, and the Bible says you are lost." And then, having thus asserted God's word, say, "I leave it, I declare it unto you; it is a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about."

Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove your own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that demands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if you do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there be such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done my duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave it. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove your religion. Live it out!

Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give the external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your neighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When he was sick, he said, "Oh, send for the doctor"; and there he was fretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises. When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the Lord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take the cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.

You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its power; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will say, "There is something in that." And when you come to the borders of the grave—he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how frightened he was—give him your hand, and say to him, "Ah! I have a Christ that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me sing in the night." Let me hear how you can sing, "Victory, victory, victory!" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half so well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful frame; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up, and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them, the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will give the best possible proof of Christianity.

POTTER

MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Henry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, in 1834, and was graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1857. He was appointed rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, in 1868, and was coadjutor to his uncle, Horatio Potter, from 1883 to 1887, when he was made Bishop of the Diocese of New York. He won considerable distinction as a clear-cut and eloquent speaker. He dealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such as temperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifying of East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariably spoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinner speaker. He died in 1908.

POTTER

1834—1908

MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Bishop Henry C. Potter and The
Century Company, publishers of "The Scholar and the State.">[

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.—John vi., 63.

He who stops over-long in the mere mechanism of religion is verily missing that for which religion stands. Here, indeed, it must be owned is, if not our greatest danger, one of the greatest. All life is full of that strange want of intellectual and moral perspective which fails to see how secondary, after all, are means to ends; and how he only has truly apprehended the office of religion who has learned, when undertaking in any wise to present it or represent it, to hold fast to that which is the one central thought and fact of all: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."

And this brings me—in how real and vivid a way I am sure you must feel as keenly as I—face to face with him of whom I am set to speak to-day.

Never before in the history, not only of our communion, but of any or all communions, has the departure of a religious teacher been more widely noted and deplored than in the case of him of whom this Commonwealth and this diocese have been bereaved. Never before, surely, in case of any man whom we can recall, has the sense of loss and bereavement been more distinctly a personal one,—extending to multitudes in two hemispheres who did not know him, who had never seen or heard him, and yet to whom he had revealed himself in such real and helpful ways.

It has followed, inevitably, from this, that that strong tide of profound feeling has found expression in many and most unusual forms, and it will be among the most interesting tasks of the future biographer of the late Bishop of Massachusetts to take note of these various memorials and to trace in them the secret of his unique power and influence.

But just because they have, so many of them, in such remarkable variety and from sources so diverse, been written or spoken, and no less because a memoir of Phillips Brooks is already undertaken by hands preeminently designated for that purpose, I may wisely here confine myself to another and very different task. I shall not attempt, therefore, even the merest outline of a biographical review. I shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even to refer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mind and upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still less attempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and attractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast the place which history will give to him among the leaders and builders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office, and to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of him as a bishop,—of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a place in the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive and incomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office.

And first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which he came to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your late bishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined the office. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he had viewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for which he had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he had understood them, its opportunities.

But the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified his earlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think, when he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office he might find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies and for estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believed himself to have little in common.

It was the inevitable condition of his strong and deep convictions that he should not always or easily understand or make due allowance for men of different opinions. It was—God and you will bear me witness that this is true!—one of the noblest characteristics of his fifteen months' episcopate that, as a bishop, men's rightful liberty of opinion found in him not only a large and generous tolerance, but a most beautiful and gracious acceptance. He seized, instantly and easily, that which will be forever the highest conception of the episcopate in its relations whether to the clergy or the laity, its paternal and fraternal character; and his "sweet reasonableness," both as a father and as a brother, shone through all that he was and did.

For one, I greatly love to remember this,—that when the time came he himself, with the simple naturalness which marked all that he did, was brought to reconsider his earlier attitude toward the episcopal office, and to express with characteristic candor his readiness to take up its work if he should be chosen to it; he turned to his new, and to him most strange, task with a supreme desire to do it in a loving and whole-hearted way, and to make it helpful to every man, woman, and child with whom he came in contact. What could have been more like him than that, in that last address which he delivered to the choir-boys at Newton, he should have said to them, "When you meet me let me know that you know me." Another might easily have been misunderstood in asking those whom he might by chance encounter to salute him; but he knew, and the boys knew, what he had in mind,—how he and they were all striving to serve one Master, and how each—he most surely as much as they—was to gain strength and cheer from mutual recognition in the spirit of a common brotherhood.

And thus it was always; and this it was that allied itself so naturally to that which was his never-ceasing endeavor—to lift all men everywhere to that which was, with him, the highest conception of his office, whether as a preacher or as a bishop,—the conception of God as a Father, and of the brotherhood of all men as mutually related in Him.

In an address which he delivered during the last General Convention in Baltimore to the students of Johns Hopkins University, he spoke substantially these words:

"In trying to win a man to a better life, show him not the evil but the nobleness of his nature. Lead him to enthusiastic contemplations of humanity;"

in its perfection, and when he asks, 'Why, if this is so, do not I have this life?'—then project on the background of his enthusiasm his own life; say to him, 'Because you are a liar, because you blind your soul with licentiousness, shame is born,—but not a shame of despair. It is soon changed to joy. Christianity becomes an opportunity, a high privilege, the means of attaining to the most exalted ideal—and the only means.'

"Herein must lie all real power; herein lay Christ's power, that he appreciated the beauty and richness of humanity, that it is very near the Infinite, very near to God. These two facts—we are the children of God, and God is our Father—make us look very differently at ourselves, very differently at our neighbors, very differently at God. We should be surprized, not at our good deeds, but at our bad ones. We should expect good as more likely to occur than evil; we should believe that our best moments are our truest. I was once talking with an acquaintance about whose religious position I knew nothing, and he exprest a very hopeful opinion in regard to a matter about which I was myself very doubtful.

"'Why, I said to him, 'You are an optimist.'

"'Of course I am an optimist,' he replied, because I am a Christian.'

"I felt that as a reproof. The Christian must be an optimist."

Men and brethren, I set these words over against those of his Master with which I began, and the two in essence are one. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." There is a life nobler and diviner than any that we have dreamed of. To the poorest and meanest of us, as to the best and most richly-dowered, it is alike open. To turn toward it, to reach up after it, to believe in its ever-recurring nearness, and to glorify God in attaining to it, this is the calling of a human soul.

Now then, what, I ask you, is all the rest of religion worth in comparison with this?—not what is it worth in itself, but what is its place relatively to this? This, I maintain, is the supreme question for the episcopate, as it ought to be the supreme question with the ministry of any and every order. And therefore it is, I affirm, that, in bringing into the episcopate with such unique vividness and power this conception of his office, your bishop rendered to his order and to the Church of God everywhere a service so transcendent. A most gifted and sympathetic observer of our departed brother's character and influence has said of him, contrasting him with the power of institution, "His life will always suggest the importance of the influence of the individual man as compared with institutional Christianity."

In one sense, undoubtedly, this is true; but I should prefer to say that his life-work will always show the large and helpful influence of a great soul upon institutional Christianity. It is a superficial and unphilosophical temperament that disparages institutions; for institutions are only another name for that organized force and life by which God rules the world. But it is undoubtedly and profoundly true that you no sooner have an institution, whether in society, in politics, or in religion, than you are threatened with the danger that the institution may first exaggerate itself and then harden and stiffen into a machine; and that in the realm of religion, preeminently, those whose office it should be to quicken and infuse it with new life should themselves come at last to "worship the net and the drag." And just here you find in the history of religion in all ages the place of the prophet and the seer. He is to pierce through the fabric of the visible structure to that soul of things for which it stands. When, in Isaiah, the Holy Ghost commands the prophet, "Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!" it is not alone, you see, his voice that lie is to lift up. No, no! It is the vision of the unseen and divine. "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"

Over and over again that voice breaks in upon the slumbrous torpor of Israel and smites the dead souls of priests and people alike. Now it is a Balaam, now it is an Elijah, a David, an Isaiah, a John the Baptist, a Paul the Apostle, a Peter the Hermit, a Savonarola, a Huss, a Whitefield, a Wesley, a Frederick Maurice, a Frederick Robertson, a Phillips Brooks.

Do not mistake me. I do not say that there were not many others. But these names are typical, and that for which they stand cannot easily be mistaken. I affirm without qualification that, in that gift of vision and of exaltation for which they stand, they stand for the highest and the best,—that one thing for which the Church of God most of all stands, and of which so long as it is the Church Militant it will most of all stand in need: to know that the end of all its mechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing which obscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerate or quicken;—to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, "Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquiet until its rests in Thee,—this however, as any one may be tempted to fence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all the rest depends.

Unfortunately it is a truth which there is much in the tasks and engagements of the episcopate to obscure. A bishop is preeminently, at any rate in the popular conception of him, an administrator; and howsoever wide of the mark this popular conception may be from the essential idea of the office, it must be owned that there is much in a bishop's work in our day to limit his activities, and therefore his influence, within such a sphere.

To recognize his prophetic office as giving expression to that mission of the Holy Ghost of which he is preeminently the representative, to illustrate it upon a wider instead of a narrower field, to recognize and seize the greater opportunities for its exercise, to be indeed "a leader and commander" to the people, not by means of the petty mechanisms of officialism, but by the strong, strenuous, and unwearied proclamation of the truth; under all conditions to make the occasion somehow a stepping-stone to that mount of vision from which men may see God and righteousness and become sensible of the nearness of both to themselves,—this, I think you will agree with me, is no unworthy use of the loftiest calling and the loftiest gifts.

And such a use was his. A bishop-elect, walking with him one day in the country, was speaking, with not unnatural shrinking and hesitancy, of the new work toward which he was soon to turn his face, and said among other things, "I have a great dread, in the Episcopate, of perfunctoriness. In the administration, especially, of confirmation, it seems almost impossible, in connection with its constant repetition, to avoid it."

He was silent a moment, and then said, "I do not think that it need be so. The office indeed is the same. But every class is different; and then—think what it is to them! It seems to me that that thought can never cease to move one."

What a clear insight the answer gave to his own ministry. One turns back to his first sermon, that evening when, with his fellow-student in Virginia, he walked across the fields to the log-cabin where, not yet in holy orders, he preached it, and where afterward he ministered with such swiftly increasing power to a handful of negro servants. "It was an utter failure," he said afterward. Yes, perhaps; but all through the failure he struggled to give expression to that of which his soul was full; and I do not doubt that even then they who heard him somehow understood him. We pass from those first words to the last,—those of which I spoke a moment ago,—the address to the choir-boys at Newton,—was there ever such, an address to choir-boys before? He knew little or nothing about the science of music, and with characteristic candor he at once said so. But he passed quickly from the music to those incomparable words of which the music was the mere vehicle and vesture. He bade the lads to whom he spoke think of those who, long ago and all the ages down, had sung that matchless Psalter,—of the boys and men of other times, and what it had meant to them. And then, as he looked into their fresh young faces and saw the long vista of life stretching out before them, he bade them think of that larger and fuller meaning which was to come into those Psalms of David, when he,—was there some prophetic sense of how soon with him the end would be?—when he and such as he had passed away,—what new doors were to open, what deeper meanings were to be discerned, what nobler opportunities were to dawn, as the years hastened swiftly on toward their august and glorious consummation! How it all lifts us up as we read it, and how like it was to that "one sermon" which he forever preached!

And in saying so I do not forget what that was which some men said was missing in it. His, they tell us—who hold some dry and formalized statement of the truth so close to the eye that it obscures all larger vision of it,—his, they tell us, was an "invertebrate theology." Of what he was and spoke, such a criticism is as if one said of the wind, that divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Ghost, "it has no spine nor ribs."

A spine and ribs are very necessary things; but we bury them as so much chalk and lime when once the breath has gone out of them! In the beginning we read, "And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

And all along since then there have been messengers of God into whom the same divine breath has been, as it were, without measure breathed, and who have been the quickeners and inspirers of their fellows. Nothing less than this can explain that wholly exceptional and yet consistent influence which he whom we mourn gave forth. It was not confined or limited by merely personal or physical conditions, but breathed with equal and quickening power through all that he taught and wrote. There were multitudes who never saw or heard him, but by whom nevertheless he was as intimately known and understood as if he had been their daily companion.

Never was there an instance which more truly fulfilled the saying, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." They reached down to the inmost need of empty and aching hearts and answered it. They spoke to that in the most sin-stained and wayward soul which is, after all, the image of the invisible God,—spoke to it, touched it, constrained it. "What has this fine-bred Boston scholar," plain men asked, when he bade him come to us and preach in our Trinity—"what has such an one to say to the business men of Wall Street?" But when he came, straightway every man found out that he had indeed something to say to him,—a word of power, a word of hope, a word of enduring joy and strength!

A kindred thinker of large vision and rare insight, New England born and nurtured like himself, speaking of him not long after his death, said:

"There are three forms pertaining to the Christian truths: they are true as facts, they are true as doctrines intellectually apprehended, they are true as spiritual experiences to be realized. Bishop Brooks struck directly for the last. In the spirit he found the truth; and only as he could get it into a spiritual form did he conceive it to have power.

"It was because he assumed the facts as true in the main, refusing to insist on petty accuracy, and passed by doctrinal forms concerning which there might be great divergence of opinion, and carried his thought on into the world of spirit, that he won so great a hearing and such conviction of belief. For it is the spirit that gives common standing-ground; it says substantially the same thing in all men. Speak as a spirit to the spiritual nature of men, and they will respond, because in the spirit they draw near to their common source and to the world to which all belong.

"It was because he dealt with this common factor of the human and the divine nature that he was too positive and practical. In the spirit it is all yea and amen; there is no negative; in the New Jerusalem there is no night. We can describe this feature of his ministry by words from, one of his own sermons: 'It has always been through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from God has poured into man. It is not the discriminating critic, but he whose beating, throbbing life offers itself a channel for the divine force,—he is the man through, whom the world grows rich, and whom it remembers, remembers with perpetual thanksgiving.'"

And shall not you who are here to-day thank God that such a man was, tho for so brief a space, your bishop? Some there were, you remember, who thought that those greater spiritual gifts of his would unfit him for the business of practical affairs. "A bishop's daily round," they said, "his endless correspondence, his hurried journeyings, his weight of anxious cares, the misadventures of other men, ever returning to plague him,—how can he bring himself to stoop and deal with these?"

But as in so much else that was transcendent in him, how little here, too, his critics understood him! No more pathetic proof of this has come to light than in that testimony of one among you who, as his private secretary, stood in closest and most intimate relations to him. What a story that is which he has given to us of a great soul—faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful in the least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility in the thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as "a stickler for the canons."

But we look a little deeper than the surface, and all that is incongruous straightway disappears. His was the realm of a divine order,—his was the office of his Lord's servant. God had called him. He had put him where he was. He had set his Church to be His witness in the world, and in it, all His children, the greatest with the least, to walk in ways of reverent appointment. Those ways might irk and cramp him sometimes. They did: he might speak of them with sharp impatience and seeming disesteem sometimes. He did that too, now and then,—for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, my brothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another, whether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of much self-will,—we shall do well to remember it,—his was a life of orderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church's plain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too.

But all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of his Lord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know or could not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescending compassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vain they strove to persuade him to complain,—up out of the narrower round in which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, and came back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenly fire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. "The flesh profiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."

And so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was given to him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God that in a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our Te Deum teaches us, "Govern us and lift us up!" he was given to the Church not alone to rule but to uplift.

What bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawing forever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame? Nay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek to ascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whose mighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living God we yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all His saints who have been the chosen vessels of His grace and the lights of the world in their several generations; but here and to-day especially for his servant, Phillips Brooks, some time of this Commonwealth and this diocese, true prophet, true priest, true bishop, to the glory of God the Father.

ABBOTT

THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Mass., in 1835. As successor to Henry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he ministered with great spiritual power until 1898, when he resigned his pastorate to devote his entire time to The Outlook, of which he was, and still is, the editor. Dr. Abbott's conception of the minister's work is briefly summed up in his own words:

"Whenever a minister forgets the splendid message of pardon, peace and power based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, whenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical essays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or even ethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, in other words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceum or seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages of the world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will be its power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to conquer, and sorrows to be assuaged."

ABBOTT

BORN IN 1835

THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?—John X., 34-36.

The context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that He will give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck them out of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Father who gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all the forces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stones against Him, saying: "Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God." And Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the Old Testament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of the men to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. "Why, then," He says, "do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claim divinity?" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon the word; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraph and in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It is impossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; the argument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testament scripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom the power and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakers of the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the olden times, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature was manifested—if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy because I claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand, Christ claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole of humanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of the Old Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity and of Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly a religion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a child of God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other. For faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith in man as the child of God.

And in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress. Faith in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does not see. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faith is not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyond that which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hope and with a great expectation, either with a hope because it sees something which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because it sees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a man is not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it is a perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobility which time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in man who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all true human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait is this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there; and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our picture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the man, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the soul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something which the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on the canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and interprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man. Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society as any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and Tiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no such boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every street Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the possible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street Arab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all progress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion of an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than English coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is in the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road. The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up our hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin does it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always experimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will be more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in civilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being that has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet comprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.

Now, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we a right to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can see him in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutions and fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man can govern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskin and Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to govern themselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right to believe that all the progress that has thus far been made in science is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into the illimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible humanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man and woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in the actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simply phantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? The Bible makes answer to that question,—the Bible preeminently, but the great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible, because the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poets and the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is that man is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man and is coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing, redeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that God made man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tells us in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the blue sky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that the child's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; and the author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his own breath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. All fancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancy as well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration that shows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glory that he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need not think that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes of the babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man was a clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animating him. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God in man; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God; man coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal.

This is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goes on with declaration after declaration based on this fundamental doctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have the same nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divine experience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men through movements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through even entrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise men followed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity. In the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through human experience, about human experience, to typify and interpret and explain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock. God is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father that provides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts the weeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn and attributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, the very things which we call faults in men—so strong and courageous are the old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God are alike—the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the Almighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be jealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and the very faults of men have in them something that interprets the power and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the virtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests Himself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He dwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through the life of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has a genius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is no danger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become a mere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is no danger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world—God manifests Himself in human life.

Who, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world was puzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief, a good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore, there have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods, until at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And the world was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly by a bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of the perfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light, another was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Oriental philosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order that he might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." God never was an abstraction; from the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, a manifesting God, a forth-putting God. "The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." Let me put this into modern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been a manifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He might manifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dwelt in a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, there through another prophet; He that had sent one message in this direction and another in that; He that had spoken through signs and tokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in divers manners and in fragmentary utterances—when the fulness of time had come, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession of it and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms of human experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you this declaration; "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." What is this, again, but the same declaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered into one human life, became subject to human conditions, shared the weakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and was identified with one human life.

Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I do say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical, and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He is. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that other men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand and a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower with all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the sun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs, subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like this flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man that is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural depravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural. Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's being. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the nature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be ravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for man to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature that God has put in man. He made man for better things.

God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages, manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human experience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless, typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and what God is—and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning, only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show Himself? Here is a hospital—all manner of sick; the paralytic, the fever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital bedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his muscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and then goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you will follow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the strength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity of my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle I possess—you can become like me," then there is good news in the message. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and what the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message that could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add gloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains, despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to impart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He first implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter into me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient; as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become pure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore His message is the gospel that it is.

Christ is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of Jesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces! There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his iniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards—go where I will, in the biography of all the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of repentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle after God. "My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after water-brooks." "I count not myself to have attained, but, forgetting those things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark." Never in the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration after something not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a great possession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to give life. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that which He Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives and sorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great, great peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much, Lord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and Master? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give a little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one will take.

I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and manifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal humanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself? I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send you into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me. You shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall take up My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My life shall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide with you. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the same life as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, so I and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon the disciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and in His last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they may be one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes up the same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness in man is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming out of God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divine nature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheriting all that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the same spirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhausted in the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christ is the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son of God. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We are the lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priests perpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead. We are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Already we sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed from glory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed to that image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded in Christ, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness of God.

Do I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever become equal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, and then the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He is a great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is a great philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstone and Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one. And he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is a general, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and this boy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was in his father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all the boys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never be equal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity, I may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be really Christ-like.

Christ is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish to follow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I have no other ambition—oh, I wish it were true that I never had any other ambition!—than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids me follow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because He promised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the center and source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formula that Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, because to believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of man which I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which I might cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheist went to them and said to one of them, "Your Christ said, 'Forgive all your enemies and love one another.'" "Yes," he said, "Christ was divine. He could. I cannot." But there was nothing of moral virtue that God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if we give Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of "God" and "man" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man. Jesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony in Gethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was the manifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times, No! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God which wants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the mother wants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Only we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." There are two things we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual genius the greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery of all. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never had seen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring had finished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there are two things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him, we shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, no deteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to see Him in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, all the justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbrated and shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and still live—when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divine character, we shall be like Him—we shall be like Him.

BROOKS

THE PRIDE OF LIFE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Phillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass., in 1835, graduated at Harvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P.E. Seminary, Alexandria, Va. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia, in 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the same city. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and was consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He was in every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large in spiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke of the preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the making of a man. Said he:

"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be even the furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less than the kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes of such a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. This is the largeness of the preacher's culture." Doctor Brastow describes him thus: "The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and the rush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritual energies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream of fiery intensity."

BROOKS

1835—1893

THE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]

[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission of
William G. Brooks.]

The pride of life.—1 John ii., 16.

John is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world, that world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and ears and hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world…. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."

What is the pride of life? Pride is one of those words which hover in the middle region between virtue and vice. The materials which under one set of circumstances and in one kind of character make up an honorable self-respect, seem so often to be precisely the same as those which under another set of circumstances and in another kind of character make up arrogance and self-conceit. This last is the tone evidently in which John speaks. So it is with most moral minglings. All character is personal, determined by some force that blends the qualities into a special personality. The same apparent qualities unite into the most various results. It is like the delicate manufacture of mosaics. The skilful workers of Rome or Venice put in the same ingredients in nature and amount, and the composition comes out at one time dull and muddy and at another time perfectly clear and lustrous. Some subtle difference in the mixture of the constituents or in the condition of the atmosphere or in the heat of the furnace alters the whole result. So out of life we may say in its various minglings there come various products in character, either humility or thankfulness or contentment or self-respect, from some failure of the qualities to meet in perfect union, from some fault in the shape or misregulation of the temperature of the human furnace in which they are fused, this degenerate and confused result of pride which yet is often so near to, that we can see how it was only some slightest cause, some stray and unguarded draft across the surface that hindered it from being, one of the clear and lustrous combinations of the same material. But that fact makes it no better. The muddy glass is no more useful because it is made of the same components as the clear glass. There is nothing still to be done with it but to throw it away.

What then is the pride of life which is bad, which "is not of the Father, but is of the world"? Life itself we know is of the Father. In whatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. The mere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mighty word. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, if that be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. The surrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that be life, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higher powers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if they be life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtle cords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. It is not of the world. In no sense does any creative power of being issue either from the material earth, or from the social system, or from the mass of conventional laws and standards, each of which is sometimes, in different uses of the word, characterized as "the world." They may all influence and change and give character to life, but none of them can create it.

And perhaps this brings us to what we want. The world may give a certain character or shape to life, even altho it cannot create it. Now pride is a certain character or shape of life. It is a term of description not of the material of life but of a particular result of that material fused into a particular furnace. In general the shape of life which pride describes may be otherwise characterized as arrogant self-reliance or self-sufficiency. We may reach more minute definitions of it before we are done, but this seems to make the meaning plain when it is said that the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world. Life comes from God. It is the world's influence that shapes that life, which has no moral character in itself, into arrogance and self-sufficiency, makes it up into pride instead of into humility, and so leaves as the result the pride of life. The pride of life, then, is God's gift which means dependence changed and distorted into independence, revolt and disobedience.

Most necessary is it that in all we say we should keep clear in mind that the first gift is God's. The substance of life is His. All evil is misuse, otherwise repentance must be cursed with misanthropy and hopelessness instead of being as it always ought to be, the very birthplace of hope, the spring of a new life from the worn-out failure of an old, back into the possibility of life that is older still, as old as man's first creation.

Let us see where the pride of life shows itself. First of all doubtless in the mere exuberance of animal strength. To be well and strong, full of spirit and physical vitality, this is beyond all doubt one of the most precious gifts of God. We never can forget the large strong physical strain with which our Bible opens, the torrent of health and full life that seems to pour down to us out of those early days when the world was young, when the giants made the earth shake under their mighty tread and the patriarchs outlived the forests with their green old years. The fulness of physical vitality is of God, to be accepted as His benefaction, to be cultivated and cared for with the reverence that His gifts demand. And round the mere physical life group a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises which belong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral part of us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness of physical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort, the delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of all these is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth its most generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggested powers and unaccomplished possibilities.

But yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Mere health is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathy in it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of suffering in others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full blood sings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is careless of God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfish with a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in its forms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God. Who of us does not know, and who of us, wavering between his standards and his feelings, has not very often found it hard to tell just how he ought to value the enthusiastic and arrogant self-sufficiency of healthy youth?

It is this, I take it, that is described here as "the pride of life." Wherever there is eager and full-blooded youth there it appears. It breaks out in the wild and purposeless mob of lower city life, in the impatience and insubordination of the country boy who longs to be free from his father's farm, in the crude skepticism of college students' first discussions of religion. It is jealous of slight, of insult, of the least suspicion of restraint or leading. It belongs to strong young nations as well as to strong young men. By it they flaunt defiance in the face of the world and are afraid of the imputation of prudence. It is what you can see in the faces of any group of eager young men as you pass them on the street. Sometimes it makes them attractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the noble youth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature it leads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art and music. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice. In good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In bad fortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these very different effects but is always the one same spirit still,—the pride of life. The gift of life which came from God, taken possession of by the world and tamed into self-sufficiency, a thing not of the Father, but of the world, who does not know in himself, or see in somebody he watches, something of this pure pride in life? Just to live is so attractive that the higher ends and responsibilities of living drift away out of sight. This instinctive almost physical selfishness is the philosophy of more than we think both of the good and of the bad that is in young people.

I have seen too much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety of old age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness and tenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolder glories of the east where the morning breaks never can attain. Many and many of the best men we have known have been old men, but no one looks at men's progress without feeling that a great deal of what passes for growth in goodness as men grow old is in reality only the deadening of the pride of life from the dying-down of the life itself. Many and many a man who passes for a sober, conscientious, religious sort of man at fifty, if you put back into his cooled blood the hot life he had at twenty-five would be the same reckless, profligate, arrogant sinner that he was then. It is the life, not the pride, that he has lost. Many and many a man thinks that he has saved his house from conflagration because he, sees no flame, when really the flame is hidden only because the house is burnt down and the fire is still lurking among the ashes, hunting out any little prey that is left and hungrily waiting for more fuel to light up the darkness again. One thing at least is true, that the goodness of old age in what we may call its passive forms, humility, submission, patience, faith, is necessarily far more hard to recognize and be sure of than the same goodness in a younger man. What you call piety may be only deadness.

And young men are often pointed just to this old age as the golden time when they will be religious as they cannot be now. They look to it themselves. "You are full of the pride of life," men say to them; "Ah, wait! By and by the life will flag. The senses will grow dull, the tastes will stupefy, the enterprise will flicker out, and the days come in which your soul will say 'I have no pleasure in them.' Just wait for that! Then your pride will go too, and then you will need and seek your God." It is a poor taunt and a poorer warning. If you have nothing better to say to make men use their powers rightly than to tell them that they will lose their powers some day, the answer will always be, "Well, I will wait until that losing day comes before I worry." If you tell a young man that his life is short, the old bacchanalian answer is the first one, "Live while we live." You must somehow get hold of that, you must persuade him that the true life now is the holy life, that life, this same life that he prizes, ought to breed humility and faith, not arrogance and pride, or else you must expect to talk to the winds. It surely is important that the conversion of the pride of life must come not by the putting-out of life but by making it a source of humility instead of pride. The humbleness of life. How can it come? By clearer and deeper truthfulness to let us see what the real facts of the case are, that is all; but that is very hard, so hard that it can be brought about by no other than the Almighty Holy Ghost. Let me see that this physical life of mine, having no true character of its own, is made to be a great machinery for simply conducting the knowledge and the love of God into my life; let all my study of the exquisite adaptations of the physical organs for their work be sanctified with this idea, this ever-pervading consciousness that eye and ear and hand are doors for the knowledge and the love of Him to enter by, and that all their marvelous mechanism is only the perfecting of hinges and bolt that He may enter more impressively and lovingly and entirely; let me learn that every bright taste or fine instinct or noble appetite is a ray of sunlight, not the sun, is the projection into my life of some force above, outside of me, which I can find only by climbing back along the ray that is projected, up to it; let me see all animal life a study and preparation for this final life of man, sensations and perceptions, growing clearer and clearer as we rise in the scale until in man they are fit to convey this knowledge which man alone can have, the knowledge of God; let me see this, and I must be ashamed to make that life a thing of pride which might be the seat of such an exalted and exalting dependence and humility. I am unwilling that those well-built cisterns which ought to be so full of God should hold nothing but myself, as if one crept into his aqueduct and closed it up where the water came into it from the fountain and lived in it for a house and found it very dry.

We see clearly enough what the change is that is needed. It is to substitute for self-consciousness as the result of life the ever-abiding consciousness of God. Do you ask how it shall be done? Ah, my dear friends, that is the very miracle of the gospel. I can tell you only this about it, which the Lord has told us all before: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The kingdom of God, that region of life in which God is the life's King. And again: "If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." "We will come to him!" That is what we want, for that is the source of all humility, the coming of God into us, and the condition is love and obedience, the spiritual and the active forms of faith. That is all we can say. And that is enough, for in that this at least is clear, that such a conversion is a work that God has undertaken to do for us, that He asks of us nothing but submission to His willing helpfulness, and that being a transformation of life, it may, nay it must, be done while life is in possession, it can be done best when life is in its fullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first condition is the presence of God in the soul that He built for His own inhabiting.

There is a condition possible where the life shall flow with God as fully and freely as it ordinarily flows with self, where the greater volume it acquires, it only bears the more of Him; where every joy delights in Him, and every power depends on Him, and the whole man lives in Him and knows it. It is not a constant effort. It is the spontaneous direction of the whole nature. It is the new condition of the Christian who has been exalted from the human pride into the divine humility of life, out of self to God.

But I suggested at the outset that the word life was used in various meanings, and in connection with one or two of them I should like to develop a little what is meant by this phrase the "pride of life." Life sometimes familiarly signifies what we otherwise call circumstances. A man is said to "get on in life," not with reference to his growing older or growing healthier, but as he grows more rich, more prosperous. The pride of life in this sense would be the pride of success, which we see wherever men are struggling in this world of competition. Look at the young merchant who is making a living. Things go well with him. He rises from stratum to stratum of that commercial system whose geology is the ever-eluding study of the toilers of the street. He grows rich. His store begins to spread with the pressure of new enterprises. His house begins to blossom into the rich bloom of luxury. He is greeted with a new respect. He is courted with an eagerness he never knew before. Friends gather about him. His word has weight. His name means money. He is successful. What is the result? Those facts in themselves signify nothing, let us remember, but material capable of being made into one thing or another wholly its opposite. These are the gift of the Father, every one of them, all that profusion of life. But there is a possible effect of them all in character, a pride, which is not of the Father, but of the world. With a morbid sympathy the man assimilates all that is poor and mean and worldly out of his prosperity, and rejects, because he has no affinity for it, all that is good and sweet and heavenly. He is chilled and narrowed and embittered. All the old sweetness and humility fade out of his nature. Need I tell you of it? Our streets are full of the pride of life. Its types only, its outer types flash in the splendid carriages and blaze in the fronts of gaudy houses and sweep the floors of drawing-rooms and the aisles of churches. Those types, the mere outward trappings of success, are not wherein the badness lies. The reality is in the hard hearts and selfish tempers and undocile minds which, in the splendor or the squalidness of wealth, show the sad ruin of self-sufficient success, the pride of life.

The pride of life kills out the life itself. Is there a sadder picture than you have in the life of a man, old or young, to whom God has sent prosperity, who by his own act then turns that prosperity into a failure by being proud of it? Christ Himself has told us how it is. The life is more than meat. He has no tolerance for this little meaning of a word that He made so large. The life is more than meat. Yes, life is meat and man, and to lose the best manhood to get the meat, to lose the soul to save the body, to fail of heaven above you and before you that you may own the ground under your feet, that is not success but failure. "In all time of our prosperity, Good Lord deliver us!" May God help you who are prosperous.

I would speak again of what is called intellectual life, the life of thought. It is "of the Father," indeed. We picture to ourselves the pure joy of God in thought. Free from so many of our cumbrous processes, free from the limitations of slow-moving time, free from all imperfection, with an instantaneous thought as is His being, the intellect that is the center of all reason revolves in its unfathomed majesty. And man thinks too. God makes him think. God gives him powers to think with, and then, as when you pour for your child a stream of water out of your cisterns upon the wheels of the machinery that you have first built for him, God gives man thoughts to exercise his power of thinking upon. Can anything be more humble? The power was from God, the thoughts by which the power moves were God's thoughts first. "Oh, God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee," cried John Kepler, when he caught sight of the great law of planetary motion. But mere thought, self-satisfied, seeking no unity in God, owning no dependence, boasting of itself, counting it hardship that it cannot know all where it knows so much, this is the pride of thought, and this is not of the Father, but is of the world. How arrogant it is! How it is jealous of dictation, how it chafes under a hand that presses it down and a voice that says to it, "Wait! what thou knowest not now thou shall; know hereafter." How carefully it limits its kind of evidence, shutting out everything that sounds like personal communication, revelation, in its impatient independence; how studiously it orphans itself. And then how, in some moods, orphaned by its arrogance, it suddenly becomes intensely cognizant of its orphanage, and the child's hunger for a Father takes possession of its heart and it is dreary and miserable!

I always know, when I speak thus of types of men, that you will think that I am talking of those types in their extreme specimens. I am not speaking to-day of the miracles of physical vitality, nor of the over-successful men with their colossal fortunes, nor of the mighty thinkers only. We all have our certain share in these various kinds of life, and each of us may make his little share a seed of pride. We are strangely ingenious here. We have an easy faculty of persuading ourselves that ours is best of everything and growing arrogant, unfilial and worldly over it. I speak to the men confident in their youth and health, to the merchants strong in their business credit, to the thoughtful brains at work over their problems of settling the universe for themselves. I warn them all against the pride of life. I would try to show them all that the same material which is capable of being made into pride is capable also of being made into humility. I would tell them therefore that they have not to be made old or sick or poor or stupid before they can be made humble, that the best humility, as well as the hardest, is that which can come to them here, right in the midst of their strength and wealth and study!

Do you ask how that can be? It is time that I tried to tell you, tried to tell how one may be full of life and yet be free from the pride of life. That question must somehow be answered, or else the world will be condemned to choose forever between an arrogant prosperity and a salvation by misery, distress and disaster, by death. What do we need for the salvation of a prosperous life? The answer in one word is consecration. Consecration, that is what we need. There have been men in whom life seemed complete who have yet walked very humbly. They had no pride of life. And why? Because always before them and above them there stood some great principle, some idea, some duty to which their life belonged, not to themselves. All work is modest, all idle self-contemplation is vain. And what the young man needs with his vague aspirations and conceits is to make himself the servant of some worthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing business is to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what the student needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of the God of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer to Him, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We are proud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearer of dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box in which they had been given to him, and never bore them to their destination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to a purpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, it corrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose and cherished only for itself.

We can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see true lives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in common life. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copies when in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed in the wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! and yet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makes our poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cut Himself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up house and home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of the people, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of great work and influence, the very things that have always seduced the best men most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He was divine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly human also, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace not unworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one thing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all given to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save his people from their sins." "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be betrayed." "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Everywhere the consecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem, the hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullest life, but lived so high that the "pride of life" lay all below under His feet and out of sight.

And our life must be consecrated even as His was. What shall the consecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into humility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great and noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride when he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men, to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above himself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving than any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there for us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows its full salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that Redeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself to the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of anything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that Christ, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is the one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that consecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the "pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then, but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the world. The soul is saved!

The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins which the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the lifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the profoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us from sins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What unworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!

My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved from yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that you may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth live to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior. If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied with his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If any man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be ye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest because life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.

GLADDEN

THE PRINCE OF LIFE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove, Pa., in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordained pastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N.Y., and Springfield, Mass., until 1882, when he assumed charge of the First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupied editorial positions, and has published many books on social and civil reform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular and common life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combines vigor with grace.

GLADDEN

BORN IN 1836

THE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's "The New Idolatry." By permission of
The McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]

And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead.—Acts iii., 15.

This is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the temple porch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years, whose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection from the dead he is now bearing witness. "The prince of life!" It is one of the many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him. Reverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences whenever they spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words with which they loved to deck His memory. He was "the Prophet of the Highest"; He was "the Great High Priest"; He was "the Shepherd of the Sheep"; He was "the Captain of Salvation"; He was "the First Born of Many Brethren"; He was "Redeemer," "Reconciler," "Savior." Gratitude and affection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, but there is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than this with which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death, gave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the word of Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described His mission: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it abundantly." Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gave with princely munificence—freely, unstintedly.

The phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, since the day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day of the week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Him the Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, in the other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in the impassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and the Living One.

Those who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need to have their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son of Man to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems to have been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by the multitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that He possest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribed to Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, the cleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of the vital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, new life seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some who seemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It is a physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughly healthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciated or exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to the dying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as through the veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and that those who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may have the power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. The miracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in the literal sense; they were wonders, marvels—for that is what the word miracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of natural law is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purely natural occurrences, taking place under the operation of natural laws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all the secrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these words of Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: "If ye abide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father."

The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was brought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation of His Life to them. "Of His fulness," said John, "we all received, and grace for grace." There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of vitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those who came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any mere physical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physical endowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influence oftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as the result of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through the soul. The order was, first, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; then, "Arise and walk." If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quickly recovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubled consciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those who received Him the great boon of life.

Thus Jesus proved Himself "the Prince of Life." In the early ages of the Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as "the Lord and Giver of Life"; but that was because He was believed to be the Continuator of the work of Jesus—the spiritual Christ.

There seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelation of the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways of conceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is more significant than that which we are now considering. Those words of Jesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we come to think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describes Himself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with the thieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. "The thief cometh not," He says, "but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly," Have we not here the great fundamental distinction between men—the line that separates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheep from the goats—that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in His parable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations or philosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some are life-destroyers. "The thief cometh not but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."

I do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is a large class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and kill and destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do not cherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is a distinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character, that He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; but He expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact to which He guides our thought is this—that there are ways of living, forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and other ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus contrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it abundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must interpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of life—as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep and awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of these directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and central good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body; the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can rightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by determining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body and spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men are adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men are debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have to do.

Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life. The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of industry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the life of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and weaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be judged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain—life of the body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the everlasting truth:

"There is no wealth but life—life including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others,"

We have here, as you see, the Christian conception—the very word of the Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that we might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will be the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.

It is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life; so that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargement and enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employs shall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; so that all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall be favorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spiritual life, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiring them with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man which helps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth is perhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of the Christian religion which it is possible to bear in this day and generation. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can do more to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any minister or missionary can do.

But it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shall be destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage his industry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be taken from wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of his employees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and their hope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardly religious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But such a handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any heretical teacher or lecturer ever did or can do.

The fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by which capital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and the community is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of the people. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. They increase the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessaries of life. They extort from the people contributions for which no equivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden of toil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all who work; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed, and the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every one of those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are reading in these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minute tentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do the world's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of his life for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemes flourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormous proportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always the final payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who are producing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletion of the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces of the underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat a little less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey to the tomb—all because of those who come to steal and to kill and to destroy.

Such is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficent business. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them, shelters them, generously distributes among them the goods that nourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on the resources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thus enriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude.

And I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in what is called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the way in which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tending either to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whom we have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life; and that this is the final test by which we must be judged—are we producers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in the world—more of physical and spiritual life—because of what we are and what we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessened by what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger and sounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are we making them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?

When Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing—if such it could be called—was under the dominion of those who came to steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and the civilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatory civilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate and despoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in which the enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class was fed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Of course, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fall which Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst of this awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyone doubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who were trampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for those whose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows? What did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagog where He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of the prophet Isaiah and read therefrom: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord"—adding as He sat down, under the gaze of the congregation, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission to change the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end to the plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in human hearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; to inspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to give it abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of His fulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit, they do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and souls of their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And is not this included in His meaning when He says: "I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly"?

To-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to men of the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving is not hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts the flame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings the soul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, and obedience to its law brings to any organism life and health and peace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of our conduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knows no term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has entered into our lives, then in all our relations with others life is increased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives are forever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and when all the members of the society in which we move have received this spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to hurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages, and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came to bring.

We hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire to share with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may, with all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we would freely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life, fuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up the means of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted, our health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affections are withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to that which is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could only understand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly and freely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!

Shall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the gift that He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We are reading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is it but the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Master upon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that this little book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands and littering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many minds and in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to the simplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again the Sermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus brought down to this day and applied to the conditions of our complex civilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And I wish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose to put ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know that we should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that there would be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us. We should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; and we should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we were doing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers and the devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace.

Is not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that is deepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into which Jesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, the blessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition, and walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed.

CLIFFORD

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

John Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire, in 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, and University College, London. He has had much editorial as well as ministerial experience and has published a number of works upon religious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban, the editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the Homiletic Review, styles him "the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly the most conspicuous figure in his own denomination." He speaks of "the profundity of thought," "simplicity and beauty of diction," the "compactness of argument" and "instructive expository character" of this preacher's discourses.

CLIFFORD

BORN IN 1836

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.—Apostles' Creed.

This is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed. We here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go with them through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough of Despond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length the cross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him who died for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the River of Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all, and that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting.

It is a new note, and it is a little surprizing—is it not?—to most students of this creed that we should have to travel through so many clauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping with the spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we should have all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts of Christian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the Holy Spirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith by which the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which there has been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints.

I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed does touch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central—to that which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world; but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man, you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the conquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of humanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.

A note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical, harmonious and gladdening. In the ancient Psalms we hear it oft—"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases." It recurs in the prophets: "I, the Lord, am he that blotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blot them out." It is the highest note reached by the singers of the Old Testament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetness from the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of Jesus Christ, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of their fellows: "Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freed by the law of Moses." With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness of conviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faith in the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travels slowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds out a note of triumph: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting."

It is the crown of the whole Creed. It is the flowering of the truths that are contained in the Creed. Let a man understand God, and let him have such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained to say, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." He desires first and chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spirit and God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged, and that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul's converse with a holy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with the divine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness. For, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man's past; that cannot be done. What has been done by us of good or evil abides, it endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past. What forgiveness does is this: it rearranges the relations between the spirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are no longer an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him—our using the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes. It is the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God. Forgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a right life. It is the beginning. All else in the spiritual life succeeds upon this.

I know there is a theory among us, and I am prepared to endorse it, that, if we are trained by godly parents in godly homes, we may grow into the spiritual life, pass into it, as it were, by stages which it is impossible for us to register. We are largely unconscious of these spiritual ascents; they are being made by the gracious use of influences that are in our environment, that reach us through sanctified folk, and we travel on from strength to strength, and, then, perchance, in our young manhood or womanhood, there comes a crisis of revelation, and we discover that we are in such relations with God our Father, Redeemer, and Renewer as fill us with peace, create hope and conscious strength. But I assure you that in addition to this experience there will come, it may be early, it may be late, some moment in the life when there is discovered to the individual spirit making that ascent a sense of the awful heinousness of sin; and tho we may not have such a unique experience of evil as the Apostle Paul had, and become so conscious of it as to feel, as it were, that it is a dead body that we have to carry about with us as we go through life, interfering with the very motions of our spirit; yet we do approximate to it, and it is through these approximations to the Apostle Paul that we are lifted to the heights of spiritual achievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world, and inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve that world by bringing it into right relations with God.

When, therefore, a man says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth," he is asserting that which, being turned to its full and true use, carries him to this goal, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins." For a full and true doctrine of God can only be heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of the forgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power may start in us the cry of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who died on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the great purpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin of the world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlasting righteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the response which the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost within him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what God has been to him, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins."

Friends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds of times. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it? What exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed over your lips, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins"? Was it simply the recognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was it merely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of God irrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours, did it mean that you were able to say, "My sins, which were many, are all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be—that pardon is a glorious possibility only—but are forgiven, not will be forgiven at some future time. I am now at peace with God through faith, in our Lord Jesus Christ"? Could you say that? Was that what it meant; or was it simply the repetition of a phrase which has been handed down to you by your predecessors, and which you took up as part of an ordered service, without putting the slightest fiber of your soul into it?

Depend upon it, the mere recitation of a creed will not bring you God's peace, it will not open your heart to the access of His infinite calm. It will not secure you that emancipation from evil which will mean immediate dedication of yourself to work for the emancipation of the world. You must know of yourself, of your own heart and consciousness, that God has forgiven you. And if you do get that consciousness, that moment of your life will be marked indelibly upon the tablet of your memory. The dint will go so deeply into your nature that it will be impossible for you to forget it. Speaking for myself, I can at this moment see the whole surroundings of the place and time when to me there came the glad tidings, "God has forgiven you." "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto men their trespasses."

Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then preach it. Tell it to other people. Let your neighbors know about it. I do not mean by preaching at the street corners, but by getting into such close affectionate touch, with your friends as that you shall be able to persuade them to disinter the thoughts of their own hearts, and show the sorrows that are there—sorrows produced by sin. For, believe me, behind all the bright seeming of human countenances there is a subtle bitterness gnawing constantly at the heart, consequent upon the consciousness of failure—the sense of having broken the law of God. I know that hundreds of people go into the church and tell God that they are miserable sinners. They do that in a crowd; it is saying nothing. They no more think of saying it in such a way as to place themselves apart from their fellows than they would of saying: "I am a thief!"

Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? What, then, are you going to do with your faith?

Prove your faith by your works. Every time you ask God for forgiveness you should feel yourself pledged to a most strenuous and resolute fight with the sin you ask God to forgive. The acceptance of pardon pledges you to the pursuit of holiness, and yet we have to keep on with this doctrine, because it is not only the very beginning of the Christian life, but also the continuous need of that life.

We have to say night by night, "Forgive the ill that I this day have done." And if we say it as we ought, as really believing that God forgives us, so that we may not lose heart, may never encourage despair of final victory, we shall get up next morning resolved to make a fiercer fight than ever with the evil that sent us on our knees last night. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Let the joy of it come to you, and as your own heart overflows with the fulness of that joy, declare unto others God's salvation, and teach transgressors His way. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then find in that faith an impact to obedience to the law of Jesus: "Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect"; and do not forget that He who begins the good work in you with His pardon will carry it on to the day of Jesus Christ; so that you may add the last words of the Creed: "I believe in the resurrection from the dead and in the life everlasting."

It is not altogether a good sign that we have pushed eternity out of our modern thought. Confronted as man is every moment by a sense of the fragility and the brevity of human life, it is not surprizing that we should welcome everybody who comes with a message concerning eternity.

Is there not, in truth, beauty in the old Anglo-Saxon story of the bird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall and out at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanes and vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to them concerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding rose and said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side of the hall, "Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anything concerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up and be heard." Brothers, a few days may carry us into eternity. "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Strong, hopeful, rich in promise of service is to-day; to-morrow friends may be weeping, kith and kin full of sorrow for our departure. This life does not end all; we are going to an eternity of blessedness, to progress without limit, to an assimilation with God that shall know no sudden break or failure, but shall be perfect, even as He is perfect.

MOODY

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dwight Lyman Moody, the evangelist, was born at Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1837, and died in 1899. As a business man he brought to his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executive ability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of the Bible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregarded form, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelming and undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was in a kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to be effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking, so that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature is spoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:

"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not by its balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquence of the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals, and rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos of a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealing tenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, not unseldom, almost to sublimity."

MOODY

1837—1899

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?[1]

[Footnote 1: By permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company, owners of copyright.]

What think ye of Christ?—Matt, xxii., 42.

I suppose there is no one here who has not thought more or less about Christ. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, and heard men preach about Him. For eighteen hundred years men have been talking about Him and thinking about Him; and some have their minds made up about who He is, and doubtless some have not. And altho all these years have rolled away, this question comes up, addresst to each of us, to-day, "What think ye of Christ?"

I do not know why it should not be thought a proper question for one man to put to another. If I were to ask you what you think of any of your prominent men, you would already have your mind made up about him. If I were to ask you what you thought of your noble queen, you would speak right out and tell me your opinion in a minute.

If I were to ask about your prime minister, you would tell me freely what you had for or against him. And why should not people make up their minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, and take their stand for or against Him? If you think well of Him, why not speak well of Him and range yourselves on His side? And if you think ill of Him, and believe Him to be an impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, why not lift up your voice and say you are against Him? It would be a happy day for Christianity if men would just take sides—if we could know positively who is really for Him and who is against Him.

It is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one else. The queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes, must soon be gone. Yes; it matters little, comparatively, what we think of them. Their lives can only interest a few; but every living soul on the face of the earth is concerned with this Man. The question for the world is, "What think ye of Christ?"

I do not ask you what you think of the Established Church, or of the Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics; I do not ask you what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or that; but I want to ask you what you think of the living person of Christ?

I should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God—the great God-Man? Did He leave heaven and come down to this world for a purpose? Was it really to seek and to save? I should like to begin with the manger, and to follow Him up through the thirty-three years He was here upon earth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this world and being born in a manger when it might have been a palace; why He left the grandeur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of angels; why He passed by palaces and crowns and dominion and came down here alone.

I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spake as never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. I should like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listen to the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about the preachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand times be five minutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise men in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder is a sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, so that you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking what Jesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it without thinking of His words, "They toil not, neither do they spin."

He makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How fresh those wonderful sermons are, how they live to-day! How we love to tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! "Tell me a story about Jesus," how often we hear it; how the little ones love His sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them like the stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzled the wise men; how the scribes and the Pharisees would never fathom Him! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher?

I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. A man would soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christ did. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. He had but to speak the word, and disease fled before Him. Here comes a man covered with leprosy.

"Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean," he cried.

"I will," says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is gone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there were no incurable diseases with Him.

Now, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the wounded hearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him as a comforter. He is a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon that breast, and the friendless may reckon Him their friend. He never varies. He never fails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh, His love is ever free. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrowing and mourning, will you not thank God for Christ the comforter?

But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those who knew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find out what a man is nowadays, you inquire about him from those who know him best. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and to His friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will ask His friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him, you would say:

"Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can't see His faults. You can't get anything out of him unless it be in His favor; it is a one-sided affair altogether."

So we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hated Him, persecuted Him, curst and slew Him. I shall put you in the jury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him.

First, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. We know how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. "Come, Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do you think of Christ?" Hear what they say! "This man receiveth sinners." What an argument to bring against Him! Why, it is the very thing that makes us love Him. It is the glory of the gospel. He receives sinners. If He had not, what would have become of us? Have you nothing more to bring against Him than this? Why, it is one of the greatest compliments that was ever paid Him. Once more: when He was hanging on the tree, you had this to say to Him, "He saved others, but He could not save Himself and save us too." So He laid down His own life for yours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once in your lives! He saved others. He died for others. He was a ransom for many; so it is quite true what you think of Him—He saved others, Himself He cannot save.

Now, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his flowing robes; let us ask him for his evidence. "Caiaphas, you were chief priest when Christ was tried; you were president of the Sanhedrin; you were in the council-chamber when they found Him guilty; you yourself condemned Him. Tell us; what did the witnesses say? On what grounds did you judge Him? What testimony was brought against Him?" "He hath spoken blasphemy," says Caiaphas. "He said, 'Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' When I heard that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy; I rent my mantle and condemned Him to death." Yes, all that they had against Him was that He was the Son of God; and they slew Him for the promise of His coming for His bride!

Now let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box.

"Pilate, this man was brought before you; you examined Him; you talked with Him face to face; what think you of Christ?"

"I find no fault in him," says Pilate. "He said he was the King of the Jews [just as He wrote it over the cross]; but I find no fault in him." Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him! And, as He stands there, the center of a Jewish mob, there comes along a man elbowing his way in haste. He rushes up to Pilate, and, thrusting out his hand, gives him a message. He tears it open; his face turns pale as he reads—"Have thou nothing to do with this just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." It is from Pilate's wife—her testimony to Christ. You want to know what His enemies thought of Him? You want to know what a heathen, thought? Well, here it is, "no fault in him"; and the wife of a heathen, "this just man."

And now, look—in comes Judas. He ought to make a good witness. Let us address him. "Come, tell us, Judas, what think ye of Christ? You knew the Master well; you sold Him for thirty pieces of silver; you betrayed Him with a kiss; you saw Him perform those miracles; you were with Him in Jerusalem. In Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, you were there. What think you of Him?" I can see him as he comes into the presence of the chief priests; I can hear the money ring as he dashes it upon the table, "I have betrayed innocent blood!" Here is the man who betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him! Yes, those who were guilty of His death put their testimony on record that He was an innocent man.

Let us take the centurion who was present at the execution. He had charge of the Roman soldiers. He told them to make Him carry His cross; he had given orders for the nails to be driven into His feet and hands, for the spear to be thrust in His side. Let the centurion come forward. "Centurion, you had charge of the executioners; you saw that the order for His death was carried out; you saw Him die; you heard Him speak upon the cross. Tell us, what think you of Christ?" Hark! Look at him; he is smiting his breast as he cries, "Truly, this was the son of God!"

I might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought of Him. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But then he thought better of it: "This man hath done nothing amiss," he says.

I might go further. I might summon the very devils themselves and ask them for their testimony. Have they anything to say of Him? Why, the very devils called Him the Son of God! In Mark we have the unclean spirit crying, "Jesus, thou Son of the most high God." Men say, "Oh, I believe Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe it intellectually I shall be saved." I tell you the devils did that. And they did more than that, they trembled.

Let us bring in His friends. We want you to hear their evidence. Let us call that prince of preachers. Let us hear the forerunner; none ever preached like this man—this man who drew all Jerusalem and all Judea into the wilderness to hear him; this man who burst upon the nations like the flash of a meteor. Let John the Baptist come with his leathern girdle and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinks of Christ. His words, tho they were echoed in the wilderness of Palestine, are written in the Book forever, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!" This is what John the Baptist thought of him. "I bear record that He is the Son of God." No wonder he drew all Jerusalem and Judea to him, because he preached Christ. And whenever men preach Christ, they are sure to have plenty of followers.

Let us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount of transfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. Come, Peter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in this witness-box and testify of Him. You denied Him once. You said, with a curse, you did not know Him. Was it true, Peter? Don't you know Him? "Know Him!" I can imagine Peter saying: "It was a lie I told then. I did know Him." Afterward I can hear him charging home their guilt upon these Jerusalem sinners. He calls Him "both Lord and Christ." Such was the testimony on the day of Pentecost. "God had made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ." And tradition tells us that when they came to execute Peter he felt he was not worthy to die in the way his Master died, and he requested to be crucified with the head downward. So much did Peter think of Him!

Now let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew more about
Christ than any other man. He had laid his head on his Savior's bosom.
He had heard the throbbing of that loving heart. Look into his Gospel
if you wish to know what he thought of Him.

Matthew writes of Him as the royal king come from His throne. Mark writes of Him as the servant, and Luke of the Son of Man. John takes up his pen, and, with one stroke, forever settles the question of Unitarianism. He goes right back before the time of Adam. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Look into Revelation. He calls him "the bright and the morning star." So John thought well of Him—because he knew Him well.

We might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. You doubted Him, Thomas? You would not believe He had risen, and you put your fingers into the wound in His side. What do you think of Him?

"My Lord and my God!" says Thomas.

Then go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been there casting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and ask what they think of Him. "He hath done all things well," they say.

But we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the persecuting Saul, once one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing out threatenings he meets Him. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" says Christ. He might have added, "What have I done to you? Have I injured you in any way? Did I not come to bless you? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul?" And then Saul asks, "Who art thou, Lord?"

"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." You see, He was not ashamed of His name, altho He had been in heaven; "I am Jesus of Nazareth." What a change did that one interview make to Saul! A few years afterward we hear him say, "I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ." Such a testimony to the Savior!

But I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into the other world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they think of Christ. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father before the world was. Before the dawn of creation, before the morning stars sang together, He was there. They saw Him leave the throne and come down to the manger. What a scene for them to witness! Ask these heavenly beings what they thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak; for once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on the plains of Bethlehem, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." He leaves the throne to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought well of Him?

Then there are the redeemed saints—they that see Him face to face. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really to be acquainted with Him; but He was known in that world where He had been from the foundation. What do they think of Him there? If we could hear from heaven we should hear a shout which would glorify and magnify His name. We are told that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and being caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" Yes, He is worthy of all this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, that earth would take up the echo and join with heaven in singing, "Worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!"

But there is still another witness, a higher still. Some think that the God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. But when Jesus came out to Jordan, baptized by John, there came a voice from heaven. God the Father spoke. It was His testimony to Christ: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Ah, yes! God the Father thinks well of the Son. And if God is well pleased with Him, so ought we to be. If the sinner and God are well pleased with Christ, then the sinner and God can meet. The moment you say, as the Father said, "I am well pleased with Him," and accept Him, you are wedded to God. Will you not believe the testimony? Will you not believe this witness, this last of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings himself? Once more he repeats it, so that all may know it. With Peter and James and John, on the mount of transfiguration, He cries again, "This is my beloved Son; hear him." And that voice went echoing and reechoing through Palestine, through all the earth from sea to sea; yes, that voice is echoing still, Hear Him! Hear Him!

My friend will you hear Him to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you? "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; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Will you not think well of such a Savior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him with all your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid down His life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for Him? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not to be willing to take it up for Him? Oh, have we not reason to think well of Him? Do you think it is right and noble to lift up your voice against such a Savior? Do you think it is just to cry, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Oh, may God help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinking well of His only-begotten Son.

FOWLER

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Charles H. Fowler, Methodist Episcopal divine, was born 1837 in Burford, Ontario, Canada, was educated at Syracuse University and the Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. He was ordained in 1861 and after filling pastorates in many places was made president of the Northwestern University in 1872, but vacated this post to become editor of the Christian Advocate; four years later he was appointed missionary secretary and in 1884 was elected bishop. He was well-known as an able preacher and administrator. He died in 1908.

FOWLER

1837—1908

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.—Rom. viii., 9.

I read that with the conviction that it is one of the most searching passages that can be found in the Book of God. It takes hold of the question of our salvation as a very substantial and thorough question. It removes indefinitely, almost infinitely, from this problem of our destiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarely to the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we are borne up on to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered and naked before the eye of God.