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           Title: The Ideal Life
      Creator(s): Drummond, Henry
     Print Basis: 1897
          Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All;
      LC Call no: BR85.D7
     LC Subjects:

                  Christianity
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                                 THE IDEAL LIFE

The Ideal Life and other Unpublished Addresses by HENRY DRUMMOND F.R.S.E. with
Memorial Sketches by W. Robertson Nicoll and Ian Maclaren

  LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

  27 PATERNOSTER ROW 1897
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  INTRODUCTORY NOTE

   The addresses which make up this volume were written by Professor
   Drummond between the years 1876 and 1881, and are now published to meet
   the wishes of those who heard some of them delivered, and in the hope
   that they may continue his work.

   They were never prepared for publication, and have been printed from
   his manuscripts with a few obvious verbal corrections. A few paragraphs
   used in later publications have been retained.

   Of the memorial sketches the first was originally published in the
   Contemporary Review, and the second in the North American Review.

   December, 1897.
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  A MEMORIAL SKETCH BY W. ROBERTSON NICOLL

  Henry Drummond

   PROFESSOR DRUMMOND'S influence on his contemporaries is not to be
   measured by the sale of his books, great as that has been. It may be
   doubted whether any living novelist has had so many readers, and
   perhaps no living writer has been so eagerly followed and so keenly
   discussed on the Continent and in America. For some reason, which it is
   difficult to assign, many who exercise great influence at home are not
   appreciated elsewhere. It has been said, for example, that no book of
   Ruskin's has ever been translated into a Continental language, and
   though such a negative is obviously dangerous, it is true that Ruskin
   has not been to Europe what he has been to England. But Professor
   Drummond had the widest vogue from Norway to Germany. There was a time
   when scarcely a week passed in Germany without the publication of a
   book or pamphlet in which his views were canvassed. In Scandinavia,
   perhaps, no other living Englishman was so widely known. In every part
   of America his books had an extraordinary circulation. This influence
   reached all classes. It was strong among scientific men, whatever may
   be said to the contrary. Among such men as Von Moltke, Mr Arthur
   Balfour, and others belonging to the governing class, it was stronger
   still. It penetrated to every section of the Christian Church, and far
   beyond these limits. Still, when this is said, it remains true that his
   deepest influence was personal and hidden. In the long series of
   addresses he delivered all over the world he brought about what may at
   least be called a crisis in the lives of in numerable hearers. He
   received, I venture to say, more of the confidences of people untouched
   by the ordinary work of the Church than any other man of his time. Men
   and women came to him in their deepest and bitterest perplexities. To
   such he was accessible, and both by personal interviews and by
   correspondence, gave such help as he could. He was an ideal confessor.
   No story of failure daunted or surprised him. For every one he had a
   message of hope, and, while the warm friend of a chosen circle and
   acutely responsive to their kindness, he did not seem to lean upon his
   friends. He himself did not ask for sympathy, and did not seem to need
   it. The innermost secrets of his life were between himself and his
   Saviour. While frank and at times even communicative, he had nothing to
   say about himself or about those who had trusted him. There are
   multitudes who owed to Henry Drummond all that one man can owe to
   another, and who felt such a thrill pass through them at the news of
   his death as they can never experience again.

   Henry Drummond was born at Stirling in 1851. He was surrounded from the
   first by powerful religious influences of the evangelistic kind. His
   uncle Mr Peter Drummond, was the founder of what is known as the
   Stirling Tract enterprise, through which many millions of small
   religious publications have been circulated through the world. As a
   child he was remarkable for his sunny disposition and his sweet temper,
   while the religiousness of his nature made itself manifest at an early
   period. I do not gather, however, that there were many auguries of his
   future distinction. He was thought to be somewhat desultory and
   independent in his work. In due course he proceeded to the University
   of Edinburgh, where he distinguished himself in science, but in nothing
   else. He gained, I believe, the medal in the geology class. But, like
   many students who do not go in for honours, he was anything but idle.
   He tells us himself that he began to form a library, his first purchase
   being a volume of extracts from Ruskin's works. Ruskin taught him to
   see the world as it is, and it soon became a new world to him, full of
   charm and loveliness. He learned to linger beside the ploughed field,
   and revel in the affluence of colour and shade which were to be seen in
   the newly-turned furrows, and to gaze in wonder at the liquid amber of
   the two feet of air above the brown earth. Next to Ruskin he put
   Emerson, who all his life powerfully affected both his teaching and his
   style. Differing as they did in many ways, they were alike in being
   optimists with a high and noble conception of good, but with no
   correspondingly definite conception of evil. Mr. Henry James says that
   Emerson's genius had a singular thinness, an almost touching lightness,
   sparseness, and transparency about it. And the same was true, in a
   measure, of Drummond's. The religious writers who attracted him were
   Channing and F. W. Robertson. Channing taught him to believe in God,
   the good and gracious Sovereign of all things. From Robertson he
   learned that God is human, and that we may have fellowship with Him
   because He sympathises with us. It is well known that Robertson himself
   was a warm admirer of Channing. The parallels between Robertson and
   Channing in thought, and even in words, have never been properly drawn
   out. It would be a gross exaggeration to say that the contact with
   Robertson and Channing was the beginning of Drummond's religious life.
   But it was through them, and it was at that period of his studentship
   that he began to take possession for himself of Christian truth. And it
   was a great secret of his power that he preached nothing except what
   had personally come home to him and had entered into his heart of
   hearts. His attitude to much of the theology in which he was taught was
   that not of denial, but of respectful distance. He might have come
   later on to appropriate it and preach it, but the appropriation would
   have been the condition of the preaching. His mind was always
   receptive. Like Emerson, he was an excellent listener. He stood always
   in a position of hopeful expectancy, and regarded each delivery of a
   personal view as a new fact to be estimated on its merits. I may add
   that he was a warm admirer of Mr R. H. Hutton, and thought his essay on
   Goethe the best critical piece of the century. He used to say that,
   like Mr Hutton, he could sympathise with every Church but the Hard
   Church.

   After completing his University course he went to the New College,
   Edinburgh, to be trained for the ministry of the Free Church. The time
   was critical. The Free Church had been founded in a time of intense
   Evangelical faith and passion. It was a visible sign of the reaction
   against Moderatism. The Moderates had done great service to literature,
   but their sermons were favourably represented by the solemn fudge of
   Blair. James Macdonell, the brilliant Times leader-writer, who
   carefully observed from the position of an outsider the ecclesiastical
   life of his countrymen, said that the Moderate leaders deliberately set
   themselves to the task of stripping Scotch Presbyterianism free from
   provincialism, and so triumphant were they that most of their sermons
   might have been preached in a heathen temple as fitly as in St. Giles.
   They taught the moral law with politeness; they made philosophy the
   handmaid of Christianity with well-bred moderation, and they so handled
   the grimmer tenets of Calvinism as to hurt no susceptibilities. The
   storm of the Disruption blew away the old Moderates from their place of
   power, and men like Chalmers, Cunningham, Candlish, Welsh, Guthrie,
   Begg, and the other leaders of the Evangelicals, more than filled their
   place. The obvious danger was that the Free Church should become the
   home of bigotry and obscurantism. This danger was not so great at
   first. There was a lull in critical and theological discussion, and men
   were sure of their ground. The large and generous spirit of Chalmers
   impressed itself on the Church of which he was the main founder, and
   the desire to assert the influence of religion in science and
   literature in all the field of knowledge was shown from the beginning.
   For example, the North British Review was the organ of the Free Church,
   and did not stand much behind the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, either
   in the ability of its articles or in the distinction of many of its
   contributors. But especially the Free Church showed its wisdom by
   founding theological seminaries, and filling their chairs with its best
   men. A Professorship of Divinity was held to be a higher position than
   the pastorate of any pulpit. As time went on, however, and as the
   tenets of the Westminster Evangelicalism were more and more formidably
   assailed, the Free Church came in danger of surrendering its
   intellectual life. The whisper of heresy would have damaged a minister
   as effectually as a grave moral charge. Independent thought was
   impatiently and angrily suppressed. Macdonell said, writing in the
   Spectator in 1874, that the Free Church was being intellectually
   starved, and he pointed out that the Established Church was gaining
   ground under the leadership of such men as Principal Tulloch and Dr.
   Wallace, who in a sense represented the old Moderates, though they were
   as different from them as this age is from the last. The Free Church
   was apparently refusing to shape the dogmas of traditional Christianity
   in such a way as to meet the subtle intellectual and moral demands of
   an essentially scientific age. There was an apparent unanimity in the
   Free Church, but it was much more apparent than real. For one thing,
   the teaching of some of the professors had been producing its
   influence. Dr. A. B. Davidson, the recognised master of Old Testament
   learning in this country, a man who joins to his knowledge imagination,
   subtlety, fervour, and a rare power of style, had been quietly teaching
   the best men amongst his students that the old views of revelation
   would have to be seriously altered. He did not do this so much directly
   as indirectly, and I think there was a period when any Free Church
   minister who asserted the existence of errors in the Bible would have
   been summarily deposed. The abler students had been taking sessions at
   Germany, and had thus escaped from the narrowness of the provincial
   coterie. They were interested, some of them in literature, some in
   science, some in philosophy. At the New College they discussed in their
   theological society with daring and freedom the problems of the time. A
   crisis was sure to come, and it might very well have been a crisis
   which would have broken the Church in pieces. That it did not was due
   largely to the influence of one man--the American Evangelist, Mr.
   Moody.

   In 1873 Mr. Moody commenced his campaign in the Barclay Free Church,
   Edinburgh. A few days before, Drummond had read a paper to the
   Theological Society of his college on Spiritual Diagnosis, in which he
   maintained that preaching was not the most important thing, but that
   personal dealing with those in anxiety would yield better results. In
   other words, he thought that practical religion might be treated as an
   exact science. He had given himself to scientific study with a view of
   standing for the degree of Doctor of Science. Moody at once made a deep
   impression on Edinburgh, and attracted the ablest students. He missed
   in this country a sufficient religious provision for young men, and he
   thought that young men could best be moulded by young men. With his
   keen American eye he perceived that Drummond was his best instrument,
   and he immediately associated him in the work. It had almost magical
   results. From the very first Drummond attracted and deeply moved
   crowds, and the issue was that for two years he gave himself to this
   work of evangelism in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland. During this
   period he came to know the life histories of young men in all classes.
   He made himself a great speaker; he knew how to seize the critical
   moment, and his modesty, his refinement, his gentle and generous
   nature, his manliness, and, above all, his profound conviction, won for
   him disciples in every place he visited. His companions were equally
   busy in their own lines, and in this way the Free Church was saved. A
   development on the lines of Tulloch and Wallace was impossible for the
   Free Church. Any change that might take place must conserve the
   vigorous evangelical life of which it had been the home. The change did
   take place. Robertson Smith, who was by far the first man of the
   circle, won, at the sacrifice of his own position, toleration for
   Biblical criticism, and proved that an advanced critic might be a
   convinced and fervent evangelical. Others did something, each in his
   own sphere, and it is not too much to say that the effects have been
   world-wide. The recent writers of Scottish fiction--Barrie Crockett,
   and Ian Maclaren, were all children of the Free Church, two of them
   being ministers. In almost every department of theological science,
   with perhaps the exception of Church history, Free Churchmen have made
   contributions which rank with the most important of the day. It is but
   bare justice to say that the younger generation of Free Churchmen have
   done their share in claiming that Christianity should rule in all the
   fields of culture, that the Incarnation hallows every department of
   human thought and activity. No doubt the claim has excited some
   hostility; at the same time the general public has rallied in
   overwhelming numbers to its support, and any book of real power written
   in a Christian spirit has now an audience compared with which that of
   most secular writers is small.

   Even at that time Drummond's evangelism was not of the ordinary type.
   When he had completed his studies, after brief intervals of work
   elsewhere, he found his professional sphere as lecturer on Natural
   Science in the Free Church College at Glasgow. There he came under the
   spell of Dr. Marcus Dods, to whom, as he always testified, he owed more
   than to any other man. He worked in a mission connected with Dr. Dods'
   congregation, and there preached the remarkable series of addresses
   which were afterwards published as Natural Law in the Spiritual World.
   The book appeared in 1883, and the author would have been quite
   satisfied with a circulation of l ,000 copies. In England alone it has
   sold about 120,000 copies, while the American and foreign editions are
   beyond count. There is a natural prejudice against premature
   reconciliations between science and religion. Many would say with
   Schiller: "Feindschaft sei zwischen euch, noch kommt ein Bundniss zu
   fruhe: Forschet beide getrennt, so wird die Wahrheit erkannt." In order
   to reconcile science and religion finally you must be prepared to say
   what is science and what is religion. Till that is done any synthesis
   must be premature. and any book containing it must in due time be
   superseded. Drummond was not blind to this, and yet he saw that
   something had to be done. Evolution was becoming more than a theory--it
   was an atmosphere. Through the teaching of evolutionists a subtle
   change was passing over morals, politics, and religion. Compromises had
   been tried and failed. The division of territory desired by some was
   found to be impossible. Drummond did not begin with doctrine and work
   downwards to nature. He ran up natural law as far as it would go, and
   then the doctrine burst into view. It was contended by the lamented
   Aubrey Moore that the proper thing is to begin with doctrine. While
   Moore would have admitted that science cannot be defined, that even the
   problem of evolution is one of which as yet we hardly know the
   outlines, he maintained that the first step was to begin with the
   theology of the Catholic Church, and that it was impossible to defend
   Christianity on the basis of anything less than the whole of the
   Church's creed. Drummond did not attempt this. He declined, for
   example, to consider the relation of evolution to the Fall and to the
   Pauline doctrine of redemption. What he maintained was that, if you
   begin at the natural laws, you end in the spiritual laws; and in a
   series of impressive illustrations he brought out his facts of science,
   some of the characteristic doctrines of Calvinism--brought them out
   sternly and undisguisedly. By many of the orthodox he was welcomed as a
   champion, but others could not acquiesce in his assumption of
   evolution, and regarded him as more dangerous than an open foe. The
   book was riddled with criticisms from every side. Drummond himself
   never replied to these, but he gave his approval to an anonymous
   defence which appeared in the Expositor,^1 and it is worth while
   recalling briefly the main points. (I) His critics rejected his main
   position, which was not that the spiritual laws are analogous to the
   natural laws, but that they are the same laws. To this he replied that
   if he had not shown identity, he had done nothing, but he admitted that
   the application of natural law to the spiritual world had decided and
   necessary limits, the principle not applying to those provinces of the
   spiritual world most remote from human experience. He adhered to the
   distinction between nature and grace, but he thought of grace also as
   forming part of the divine whole of nature, which is an emanation from
   the recesses of the divine wisdom, power and love. (2) His use of the
   law of biogenesis was severely attacked alike from the scientific and
   the religious side. Even Christian men of science thought he had laid
   dangerous stress on the principle omne vivum ex vivo, and declined to
   say that biogenesis was as certain as gravitation. They further
   affirmed, and surely with reason, that the principle is not essential
   to faith. From the religious side it was urged that he had grossly
   exaggerated the distinction between the spiritual man and the natural
   man, and that he ignored the susceptibilities or affinities of the
   natural man for spiritual influence. The reply was that he had asserted
   the capacity for God very strongly. "The chamber is not only ready to
   receive the new life, but the Guest is expected, and till He comes is
   missed. Till then the soul longs and yearns, wastes and pines, waving
   its tentacles piteously in the empty air, or feeling after God if so be
   that it may find Him." (3) As for the charge that he could not
   reconcile his own statements as to divine efficiency and human
   responsibility, it was pointed out that this was only a phase of the
   larger difficulty of reconciling the exercise of the divine will with
   the freedom of the human will. What he maintained, in common with
   Augustinian and Puritan theology, was that in every case of
   regeneration there is an original intervention of God. (4) The absence
   of reference to the Atonement was due to the fact that the doctrine
   belonged to a region inaccessible to the new method, lying in the
   depths of the Divine Mind, and only to be made known by revelation. (5)
   The charge that he taught the annihilation of the unregenerate was
   repudiated. The unregenerate had not fulfilled the conditions of
   eternal life; but that does not show that they may not exist through
   eternity, for they exist at present, although in Mr. Drummond's sense
   they do not live. There is no doubt that many of the objections
   directed against his book applied equally to every form of what may be
   called evangelical Calvinism. But I think that the main impression
   produced on competent judges was that the volume, though written with
   brilliant clearness of thought and imagination, and full of the
   Christian spirit, did not give their true place to personality,
   freedom, and conscience, terms against which physical science may even
   be said to direct its whole artillery, so far as it tries to
   depersonalise man, but terms in which the very life of morality and
   religion is bound up. Perhaps Drummond himself came ultimately to take
   this view. In any case, Matthew Arnold's verdict will stand: "What is
   certain is that the author of the book has a genuine love of religion
   and genuine religious experience."

   His lectureship in Glasgow was constituted into a professor's chair,
   and he occupied it for the rest of his life. His work gave him
   considerable freedom. During a few months of the year he lectured on
   geology and botany, giving also scattered discourses on biological
   problems and the study of evolution. He had two examinations in the
   year, the first, which he called the "stupidity" examination, to test
   the men's knowledge of common things, asking such questions as, "Why is
   grass green?" "Why is the sea salt?" "Why is the heaven blue?" "What is
   a leaf?" etc., etc. After this Socratic inquiry he began his teaching,
   and examined his students at the end. He taught in a classroom that was
   also a museum, always had specimens before him while lecturing, and
   introduced his students to the use of scientific instruments, besides
   taking them for geological excursions. In his time of leisure he
   travelled very widely. He paid three visits to America, and one to
   Australia. He also took the journey to Africa commemorated in his
   brilliant little book, "Tropical Africa," a work in which his insight,
   his power of selection, his keen observation, his fresh style, and his
   charming personality appear to the utmost advantage. It was praised on
   every side, though Mr. Stanley made a criticism to which Drummond gave
   an effective and good-humoured retort. During these journeys and on
   other occasions at home he continued his work of evangelism. He
   addressed himself mainly to students, on whom he had a great influence,
   and for years went every week to Edinburgh for the purpose of
   delivering Sunday evening religious addresses to University men. He was
   invariably followed by crowds, the majority of whom were medical
   students. He also, on several occasions, delivered addresses in London
   to social and political leaders, the audience including many of the
   most eminent men of the time. The substance of these addresses appeared
   in his famous booklets, beginning with the "Greatest Thing in the
   World," and it may be worth while to say something of their teaching.
   Mr. Drummond did not begin in the conventional way. He seemed to do
   without all that, to common Christianity, is indispensable. He
   approached the subject so disinterestedly, with such an entire
   disregard of its one presupposition, sin, that many could never get on
   common ground with him. He entirely omitted that theology of the Cross
   which had been the substance hitherto of evangelistic addresses. Nobody
   could say that his gospel was "arterial" or "ensanguined." In the first
   place, he had, like Emerson, a profound belief in the powers of the
   human will. That word of Spinoza which has been called a text in the
   scriptures of humanity might have been his motto. "He who desires to
   assist other people . . . . in common conversations will avoid
   referring to the vices of men, and will take care only sparingly to
   speak of human impotence, while he will talk largely of human virtue or
   power, and of the way by which it may be made perfect, so that men
   being moved, not by fear or aversion, but by the effect of joy, may
   endeavour, as much as they can, to live under the rule of reason." With
   this sentence may be coupled its echo in the "Confessions of a
   Beautiful Soul": "It is so much the more our duty, not, like the
   advocate of the evil spirit, always to keep our eyes fixed upon the
   nakedness and weakness of our nature, but rather to seek out all those
   perfections through which we can make good our claims to a likeness to
   God." But along with this went a passionate devotion to Jesus Christ.
   Emerson said "The man has never lived who can feed us ever." Drummond
   maintained with absolute conviction that Christ could for ever and ever
   meet all the needs of the soul. In his criticism of "Ecce Homo," Mr.
   Gladstone answered the question whether the Christian preacher is ever
   justified in delivering less than a full Gospel. He argued that to go
   back to the very beginning of Christianity might be a method eminently
   suited to the needs of the present generation. The ship of Christianity
   was overloaded, not perhaps for fair weather, but when a gale came the
   mass strained over to the leeward. Drummond asked his hearers to go
   straight into the presence of Christ, not as He now presents Himself to
   us bearing in His hand the long roll of His conquests, but as He
   offered Himself to the Jew by the Sea of Galilee, or in the synagogue
   of Capernaum, or in the temple of Jerusalem. He declined to take every
   detail of the Christianity in possession as part of the whole. He
   denied that the rejection of the nonessential involved parting with the
   essential, and he strove to go straight to the fountain-head itself.
   Whatever criticisms may be passed, it will be allowed that few men in
   the century have done so much to bring their hearers and readers to the
   feet of Jesus Christ. It has been said of Carlyle that the one living
   ember of the old Puritanism that still burned vividly in his mind was
   the belief that honest and true men might find power in God to alter
   things for the better. Drummond believed with his whole heart that men
   might find power in Christ to change their lives.

   He had seven or eight months of the year at his disposal, and spent
   very little of them in his beautiful home at Glasgow. He wandered all
   over the world, and in genial human intercourse made his way to the
   hearts of rich and poor. He was as much at home in addressing a meeting
   of working men as in speaking at Grosvenor House. He had fastidious
   tastes, was always faultlessly dressed, and could appreciate the
   surroundings of civilization. But he could at a moment's notice throw
   them all off and be perfectly happy. As a traveller in Africa he
   cheerfully endured much privation. He excelled in many sports and was a
   good shot. In some ways he was like Lavengro, and I will say that some
   parts of "Lavengro" would be unintelligible to me unless I had known
   Drummond. Although he refused to quarrel, and had a thoroughly loyal
   and deeply affectionate nature, he was yet independent of others. He
   never married. He never undertook any work to which he did not feel
   himself called. Although he had the most tempting offers from editors
   nothing would induce him to write unless the subject attracted him, and
   even then he was unwilling. Although he had great facility he never
   presumed upon it. He wrote brightly and swiftly, and would have made an
   excellent journalist. But everything he published was elaborated with
   the most scrupulous care. I have never seen manuscripts so carefully
   revised as his. All he did was apparently done with ease, but there was
   immense labour behind it. Although in orders he neither used the title
   nor the dress that go with them, but preferred to regard himself as a
   layman. He had a deep sense of the value of the Church and its work,
   but I think was not himself connected with any Church, and never
   attended public worship unless he thought the preacher had some message
   for him. He seemed to be invariably in good spirits, and invariably
   disengaged. He was always ready for any and every office of friendship.
   It should be said that, though few men were more criticised or
   misconceived, he himself never wrote an unkind word about any one,
   never retaliated, never bore malice, and could do full justice to the
   abilities and character of his opponents. I have just heard that he
   exerted himself privately to secure an important appointment for one of
   his most trenchant critics, and was successful.

   For years he had been working quietly at his last and greatest book,
   "The Ascent of Man." The chapters were first delivered as the Lowell
   Lectures in Boston, where they attracted great crowds. The volume was
   published in 1894, and though its sale was large, exceeding 20,000
   copies, it did not command his old public. This was due very much to
   the obstinacy with which he persisted in selling it at a net price, a
   proceeding which offended the booksellers, who had hoped to profit much
   from its sale. The work is much the most important he has left us. It
   was an endeavour, as has been said, to engraft an evolutionary
   sociology and ethic upon a biological basis. The fundamental doctrine
   of the struggle of life leads to an individualistic system in which the
   moral side of nature has no place. Professor Drummond contended that
   the currently accepted theory, being based on an exclusive study of the
   conditions of nutrition, took account of only half the truth. With
   nutrition he associated, as a second factor, the function of
   reproduction, the struggle for the life of others, and maintained that
   this was of co-ordinate rank as a force in cosmic evolution. Though
   others had recognised altruism as modifying the operation of egoism,
   Mr. Drummond did more. He tried to indicate the place of altruism as
   the outcome of those processes whereby the species is multiplied, and
   its bearing on the evolution of ethics. He desired, in other words, a
   unification of concept, the filling up of great gulfs that had seemed
   to be fixed. "If nature be the garment of God, it is woven without seam
   throughout; if a revelation of God, it is the same yesterday, to-day,
   and for ever; if the expression of His will, there is in it no
   variableness nor shadow of turning." After sketching the stages of the
   process of evolution, physical and ethical, he develops his central
   idea in the chapter on the struggle for the life of others, and then
   deals with the higher stages of the development of altruism as a
   modifying factor. The book was mercilessly criticised, but I believe
   that no one has attempted to deny the accuracy and the beauty of his
   scientific descriptions. Further, not a few eminent scientific men,
   like Professor Gairdner and Professor Macalister, have seen in it at
   least the germ out of which much may come. One of its severest critics,
   Dr. Dallinger, considers that nature is non-moral, and that religion
   begins with Christ. No man hath seen God at any time--this is what
   nature certifies. The only begotten Son of the Father, He hath declared
   Him--this is the message of Christianity. But there are many religious
   minds, and some scientific minds, convinced, in spite of all the
   difficulties, that natural law must be moral, and very loth to admit a
   hopeless dualism between the physical and the moral order of the world.
   They say that the whole force of evolution directs our glance forward,
   and that its motto is ______ oran.

   With the publication of this book Drummond's career as a public teacher
   virtually ended. He who had never known an illness, who apparently had
   been exempted from care and sorrow, was prostrated by a painful and
   mysterious malady. One of his kind physicians, Dr. Freeland Barbour,
   informs me that Mr. Drummond suffered from a chronic affection of the
   bones. It maimed him greatly. He was laid on his back for more than a
   year, and had both arms crippled, so that reading was not a pleasure
   and writing almost impossible. For a long time he suffered acute pain.
   It was then that some who had greatly misconceived him came to a truer
   judgement of the man. Those who had often found the road rough had
   looked askance at Drummond as a spoiled child of fortune, ignorant of
   life's real meaning. But when he was struck down in his prime, at the
   very height of his happiness, when there was appointed for him, to use
   his own words, "a waste of storm and tumult before he reached the
   shore," it seemed as if his sufferings liberated and revealed the
   forces of his soul. The spectacle of his long struggle with a mortal
   disease was something more than impressive. Those who saw him in his
   illness saw that, as the physical life flickered low, the spiritual
   energy grew. Always gentle and considerate, he became even more
   careful, more tender, more thoughtful, more unselfish. He never in any
   way complained. His doctors found it very difficult to get him to talk
   of his illness. It was strange and painful, but inspiring, to see his
   keenness, his mental elasticity, his universal interest. Dr. Barbour
   says: "I have never seen pain or weariness, or the being obliged to do
   nothing more entirely overcome, treated, in fact, as if they were not.
   The end came suddenly from a failure of the heart. Those with him
   received only a few hours' warning of his critical condition." It was
   not like death. He lay on his couch in the drawing-room, and passed
   away in his sleep, with the sun shining in and the birds singing at the
   open window. There was no sadness nor farewell. It recalled what he
   himself said of a friend's death--"putting by the well-worn tools
   without a sigh, and expecting elsewhere better work to do."
     __________________________________________________________________

  A MEMORIAL SKETCH BY JOHN WATSON (IAN MACLAREN)

  Henry Drummond

   HE had been in many places over the world and seen strange sights, and
   taken his share in various works, and, being the man he was, it came to
   pass of necessity that he had many friends. Some of them were street
   arabs, some were negroes, some were medicals, some were evangelists,
   some were scientists, some were theologians, some were nobles. Between
   each one and Drummond there was some affinity, and each could tell his
   own story about his friend. It will be interesting to hear what
   Professor Greenfield or Mr. Moody may have to say; but one man, with
   profound respect for such eminent persons, would prefer to have a study
   of Drummond by Moolu his African retainer. Drummond believed in Moolu,
   not because he was "pious"--which he was not--but because "he did his
   duty and never told a lie." From the chief's point of view, Moolu had
   the final virtue of a clansman--he was loyal and faithful: his chief,
   for that expedition, had beyond most men the necessary endowment of a
   leader--a magnetic personality. It is understood that Drummond's life
   is to be written at large by a friend, in whose capable and wise hands
   it will receive full justice; but in the meantime it may not be
   unbecoming that one should pay his tribute who has his own
   qualification for this work of love. It is not that he is able to
   appreciate to the full the man's wonderful genius, or accurately to
   estimate his contributions to scientific and religious thought--this
   will be done by more distinguished friends--but that he knew Drummond
   constantly and intimately from boyhood to his death. If one has known
   any friend at school and college, and in the greater affairs of life
   has lived with him, argued with him, prayed with him, had his sympathy
   in the supreme moments of joy and sorrow, has had every experience of
   friendship except one--it was not possible to quarrel with Drummond,
   although you might be the hottest-tempered Celt on the face of the
   earth--then he may not understand the value of his friend's work, but
   at any rate he understands his friend. As one who knew Henry Drummond
   at first hand, my desire is to tell what manner of man he was, in all
   honesty and without eulogy. If any one be offended then, let him
   believe that I wrote what I have seen, and if any one be incredulous,
   then I can only say that he did not know Drummond.

   His body was laid to rest a few weeks ago, on a wet and windy March
   day, in the most romantic of Scottish cemeteries, and the funeral, on
   its way from the home of his boyhood to the Castle Rock of Stirling,
   passed the King's Park. It was in that park more than thirty years ago
   that I first saw Drummond, and on our first meeting he produced the
   same effect as he did all his after-life. The sun was going down behind
   Ben Lomond, in the happy summer time, touching with gold the grey old
   castle, deepening the green upon the belt of trees which fringed the
   eastern side of the park, and filling the park itself with soft, mellow
   light. A cricket match between two schools had been going on all day
   and was coming to an end, and I had gone out to see the result--being a
   new arrival in Stirling, and full of curiosity. The two lads at the
   wickets were in striking contrast--one heavy, stockish, and determined,
   who slogged powerfully and had scored well for his side; the other
   nimble, alert, graceful, who had a pretty but uncertain play. The
   slogger was forcing the running in order to make up a heavy leeway, and
   compelled his partner to run once too often. "It's all right, and you
   fellows are not to cry shame"--this was what he said as he joined his
   friends--"Buchanan is playing A1, and that hit ought to have been a
   four; I messed the running." It was good form, of course, and what any
   decent lad would want to say, but there was an accent of gaiety and a
   certain air which was very taking. Against that group of clumsy,
   unformed, awkward Scots lads this bright, straight, living figure stood
   in relief, and as he moved about the field my eyes followed him, and in
   my boyish and dull mind I had a sense that he was a type by himself, a
   visitor of finer breed than those among whom he moved. By-and-by he
   mounted a friend's pony and galloped along the racecourse in the park
   till one only saw a speck of white in the sunlight, and still I watched
   in wonder and fascination--only a boy of thirteen or so, and dull--till
   he came back, in time to cheer the slogger who had pulled off the
   match--with three runs to spare--and carried his bat.

   "Well played, old chap!" the pure, clear, joyous note rang out on the
   evening air; "finest thing you've ever done," while the strong-armed,
   heavy faced slogger stood still and looked at him in admiration, and
   made amends. "I say, Drummond, it was my blame you were run out
   . . . ." Drummond was his name, and some one said "Henry." So I first
   saw my friend.

   What impressed me that pleasant evening in the days of long ago I can
   now identify. It was the lad's distinction, an inherent quality of
   appearance and manner of character and soul which marked him and made
   him solitary. What happened with one strange lad that evening befell
   all kinds of people who met Drummond in later years. They were at once
   arrested, interested, fascinated by the very sight of the man, and
   could not take their eyes off him. Like a picture of the first order
   among ordinary portraits he unconsciously put his neighbours at a
   disadvantage. One did not realize how commonplace and colourless other
   men were till they stood side by side with Drummond. Upon a platform of
   evangelists, or sitting among divinity students in a dingy classroom,
   or cabined in the wooden respectability of an ecclesiastical court, or
   standing in a crowd of passengers at a railway station, he suggested
   golden embroidery upon hodden grey. It was as if the prince of one's
   imagination had dropped in among common folk. He reduced us all to the
   peasantry.

   Drummond was a handsome man, such as you could not match in ten days'
   journey, with delicately cut features, rich auburn hair, and a certain
   carriage of nobility, but the distinctive and commanding feature of his
   face was his eye. No photograph could do it justice, and very often
   photographs have done it injustice, by giving the idea of staringness.
   His eye was not bold or fierce; it was tender and merciful. But it had
   a power and hold which were little else than irresistible and almost
   supernatural. When you talked with Drummond, he did not look at you and
   out of the window alternately, as is the usual manner; he never moved
   his eyes, and gradually their penetrating gaze seemed to reach and
   encompass your soul. It was as Plato imagined it would be in the
   judgment; one soul was in contact with another--nothing between. No man
   could be double, or base, or mean, or impure before that eye. His
   influence, more than that of any man I have ever met, was
   mesmeric--which means that while other men affect their fellows by
   speech and example, he seized one directly by his living personality.
   As a matter of fact, he had given much attention to the occult arts,
   and was at one time a very successful mesmerist. It will still be
   remembered by some college companions how he had one student so
   entirely under his power that the man would obey him on the street, and
   surrender his watch without hesitation; and it was told how Drummond
   laid a useful injunction on a boy in a house where he was staying, and
   the boy obeyed it so persistently afterwards that Drummond had to write
   and set him free. Quite sensible and unromantic people grew uneasy in
   his presence, and roused themselves to resistance--as one might do who
   recognised a magician and feared his spell.

   One sometimes imagines life as a kind of gas of which our bodies are
   the vessels, and it is evident that a few are much more richly charged
   than their fellows. Most people simply exist completing their tale of
   work--not a grain over; doing their measured mile--not an inch beyond;
   thinking along the beaten track--never tempted to excursions. Here and
   there in the world you come across a person in whom life is exuberant
   and overflowing, a force which cannot be tamed or quenched. Drummond
   was such a one, the most vital man I ever saw, who never loitered,
   never wearied, never was conventional, pedantic, formal, who simply
   revelled in the fulness of life. He was so radiant with life that
   ordinary people showed pallid beside him, and shrank from him or were
   attracted and received virtue out of him. Like one coming in from the
   light and open air into a stuffy room where a company had been sitting
   with closed windows, Drummond burst into bloodless and unhealthy
   coteries, bringing with him the very breath of heaven.

   He was the evangelist to thoughtful men--over women he had far less
   power--and his strength lay in his personality. Without anecdotes or
   jokes or sensationalism of doctrine, without eloquence or passion, he
   moved young men at his will because his message was life, and he was
   its illustration. His words fell one by one with an indescribable awe
   and solemnity, in the style of the Gospels, and reached the secret
   place of the soul. Nothing more unlike the ordinary evangelistic
   address could be imagined: it was so sane, so persuasive, so mystical,
   so final. It almost followed, therefore, that he was not the ideal of a
   popular evangelist who has to address the multitude, and produce his
   effect on those who do not think. For his work, it is
   necessary--besides earnestness, which is taken for granted --to have a
   loud voice, a broad humour, a stout body, a flow of racy anecdote, an
   easy negligence of connection, a spice of contempt for culture, and
   pledges of identification with the street in dress and accent. His
   hearers feel that such a man is homely and is one of themselves, and,
   amid laughter and tears of simple human emotion, they are moved by his
   speech to higher things. This kind of audience might regard Drummond
   with respectful admiration, but he was too fine a gentleman, they would
   consider, for their homespun. Place him, as he used to stand and speak,
   most perfectly dressed both as to body and soul, before five hundred
   men of good taste and fine sensibilities, or the same number of young
   men not yet cultured but full of intellectual ambitions and fresh
   enthusiasm, and no man could state the case for Christ and the soul
   after a more spiritual and winsome fashion. Religion is without doubt
   the better for the popular evangelist, although there be times when
   quiet folk think that he needs chastening; religion also requires in
   every generation one representative at least of the higher evangelism,
   and if any one should ask what manner of man he ought to be, the answer
   is to his hand--Henry Drummond.

   When one admits, without reserve, that his friend was not made by
   nature to be a successful officer of the Salvation Army, it must not be
   understood that Drummond was in any sense a superior person, or that he
   sniffed in his daintiness at ordinary humanity--a spiritual Matthew
   Arnold. It would strain my conscience to bear witness that working
   people, say, however much they loved him, were perfectly at home with
   him, and it is my conviction, from observation of life, that this is an
   inevitable disability of distinction. One may be so well dressed, so
   good looking, so well mannered, so spiritually refined that men with
   soiled clothes and women cleaning the house may realize their low
   estate, and miss that freemasonry which at once by a hundred signs
   unites them in five minutes with a plainer man. While this may have
   been true, the blame was not his, and no man lived who had a more
   unaffected interest and keener joy in human life in the home or on the
   street. No power could drag him past a Punch-and-Judy show--the
   ancient, perennial, ever-delightful theatre of the people--in which,
   each time of attendance, he detected new points of interest. He would,
   in early days, if you please, gaze steadfastly into a window, in the
   High Street of Edinburgh, till a little crowd of men, women, children,
   and workmen, loafers soldiers, had collected, and join with much zest
   in the excited speculations regarding the man--unanimously and suddenly
   imagined to have been carried in helpless--how he met with his
   accident, where he was hurt, and whether he would recover, listening
   eagerly to the explanation of the gathering given by some officious
   person to the policeman, and joining heartily in the reproaches
   levelled at some unknown deceiver! One of his chosen subjects of
   investigation, which he pursued with the zeal and patience of a
   naturalist, was that ever-interesting species--the Boy, whom he studied
   in his various forms and haunts: at home for the holidays, on the
   cricket field, playing marbles on the street with a chance acquaintance
   while two families wait for their food, or living with many resources
   and high enjoyment in a barrel. There was nothing in a boy he did not
   know, could not explain, did not sympathize with, and so long as it
   lasts his name will be associated with the Boys' Brigade. While any
   other would only have seen two revellers in a man and woman singing
   their devious way along the street at night, Drummond detected that a
   wife, who had not been drinking, was luring her husband home by falling
   in with his mood and that before it was reached she might need a
   friendly hand. His sense of humour was unerring, swift and masterful.
   If he came upon a good thing in his reading he would walk a mile to
   share it with a friend, and afterwards depart in the strength thereof,
   and he has been found in his room exhausted with delight with nothing
   before him but one of those Parisian plaster caricatures of a vagabond.
   Lying on his back in the pitiable helplessness and constant pain of
   those last two years, he was still the same man.

   "Don't touch me, please--I can't shake hands, but I've saved up a
   first-rate story for you," and his palate was too delicate to pass
   anything second-rate. Partly this was his human joyousness to whom the
   absurdities of life were ever dear; partly it was his bravery, who knew
   that the sight of him brought so low might be too much for a friend.
   His patience and sweetness continued to the end, and he died as one who
   had tasted the joy of living and was satisfied.

   His nature had, at the same time, a curious aloofness and separateness
   from human life, which one felt, but can hardly describe. He could be
   severe in speaking about a mean act or one who had done wickedly, but
   in my recollection he was never angry, and it was impossible to imagine
   him in a towering passion. He was profoundly interested in several
   causes, but there was not in him the making of a fanatical or headlong
   supporter. None could be more loyal in the private offices of
   friendship, but he would not have flung himself into his friend's
   public quarrel. In no circumstances would he be carried off his feet by
   emotion or be consumed by a white heat of enthusiasm. He was ever calm,
   cool, self-possessed, master of himself, passionless in thought, in
   speech, in action, in soul. Were you in trouble, he had helped you to
   his last resource, and concealed, if possible, his service; but of you,
   in his sore straits, he would have neither asked nor wished for aid.
   Many confidences he must have received; he gave none; many people must
   have been succoured by him; none succoured him till his last illness.

   This is at least perfectly certain, that from his youth he refused to
   have his life arranged for him, but jealously and fearlessly directed
   it by his own instincts, refusing the brown, beaten paths wherein each
   man, according to his profession, was content to walk and starting
   across the moor on his own way. Nothing can be more conventional than
   the career of the average Presbyterian minister who comes from a
   respectable religious family, and has the pulpit held up before him as
   the ambition of a good Scots lad; who is held in the way thereto by
   various traditional and prudential considerations, and better still--as
   is the case with most honest lads--by his mother's wishes; who works
   his laborious, enduring way through the Divinity Hall, and is yearly
   examined by the local Presbytery; who at last emerges into the
   butterfly life of a Probationer, and is freely mentioned, to his
   mother's anxious delight, in connection with "vacancies"; who is at
   last chosen by a majority to a pastorate--his mother being amazed at
   the blindness of the minority--and settles down to the routine of the
   ministry in some Scotch parish with the hope of Glasgow before him as a
   land of promise. His only variations in the harmless years might be an
   outburst on the historical reality of the Book of Jonah--ah me! Did
   that stout, middle-aged gentleman ever hint that Jonah was a
   drama?--which would be much talked of in the common room, and, it was
   whispered, reached the Professor's ears; and afterwards he might
   propose a revolutionary motion on the distribution of the Sustentation
   Fund. Add a handbook for Bible-classes on the Prophecy of Malachi, and
   you have summed up the adventures of his life. This was the life before
   Drummond when he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1866, and it
   ought to be recorded that he died an ordained minister and Professor of
   the Kirk, so that he did not disappoint his home, nor become an
   ecclesiastical prodigal, but with what amazing variations did he invest
   the years between! What order he took his classes in no one knew, but
   he found his feet in natural philosophy and made a name in geology. His
   course at the New College he completed in three years and one year,
   with two years' evangelistic touring between; and he once electrified
   the students by a paper--it seems yesterday, and I know where he
   stood--which owed much to Holmes and Emerson, but revealed his
   characteristic spiritual genius. His vacations he spent sometimes in
   tutorships, which yielded wonderful adventures, or at Tubingen, where
   his name was long remembered. As soon as Moody came to Edinburgh,
   Drummond allied himself with the most capable, honest, and unselfish
   evangelist of our day, and saw strange chapters in religious life
   through the United Kingdom. This was the infirmary in which he learned
   spiritual diagnosis. For one summer he was chaplain at Malta, in
   another he explored the Rockies; he lived five months among the
   Tanganyika forests, whence he sent me a letter dated Central Africa,
   and mentioning, among other details, that he had nothing on but a
   helmet and three mosquitoes. He was for a time assistant in an
   Edinburgh church, and readers of the illustrated papers used to
   recognise him in the viceregal group at Dublin Castle. His people at
   home--one could trace some of his genius and much of his goodness to
   his father and mother--grew anxious and perplexed; for this was a
   meteoric course for a Free Kirk minister, and stolid acquaintances--the
   delicious absurdity of it--remonstrated with him as one who was
   allowing the chances of life to pass him, and urged him to settle. His
   friends had already concluded that he must be left free to fulfil
   himself, but knew not what to expect, when he suddenly appeared as a
   lecturer on Natural Science in the Free Church College of Glasgow, and
   promptly annexed a working-men's church. Afterwards his lectureship
   became a chair, and he held it to the end, although threatened with
   charges of heresy and such like absurdities. You might as well have
   beaten a spirit with a stick as prosecuted Drummond for heresy. The
   chair itself was a standing absurdity, being founded in popular idea to
   beat back evolution and to reconcile religion and science; but it gave
   Drummond an opportunity of widening the horizon of the future ministry
   and infusing sweetness into the students' minds. He may have worn a
   white tie on Sunday duty at his church, but memory fails to recall this
   spectacle, and he consistently refused to be called Reverend
   --declaring (this was his fun) that he had no recollection of being
   ordained, and that he would never dare to baptize a child. The last
   time he preached was about 1882, in my own church, and the outside
   world did not know that he was a clergyman. From first to last he was
   guided by an inner light which never led him astray, and in the
   afterglow his whole life is a simple and perfect harmony.

   Were one asked to select Drummond's finest achievement, he might safely
   mention the cleansing of student life at Edinburgh University. When he
   was an Arts student, life in all the faculties, but especially the
   medical, was reckless, coarse, boisterous, and no one was doing
   anything to raise its tone. The only visible sign of religion in my
   remembrance was a prayer meeting attended by a dozen men--one of whom
   was a canting rascal--and countenance from a professor would have given
   a shock to the university. Twenty years afterwards six hundred men,
   largely medicals, met every Sunday evening for worship and conference
   under Drummond's presidency, and every evening the meeting was
   addressed by tutors and fellows and other dignitaries. There was a new
   breath in academic life--men were now reverent, earnest, clean living
   and clean thinking, and the reformer who wrought this change was
   Drummond. This land, and for that matter the United States, has hardly
   a town where men are not doing good work for God and man to-day who
   have owed their lives to the Evangel and influence of Henry Drummond.

   When one saw the unique and priceless work which he did, it was
   inexplicable and very provoking that the religious world should have
   cast this man, of all others, out, and have lifted up its voice against
   him. Had religion so many men of beautiful and winning life, so many
   thinkers of wide range and genuine culture, so many speakers able to
   move young men by hundreds towards the Kingdom of God, that she could
   afford or have the heart to withdraw her confidence from Drummond? Was
   there ever such madness and irony before Heaven as good people lifting
   up their testimony and writing articles against this most gracious
   disciple of the Master, because they did not agree with him about
   certain things he said, or some theory he did not teach, while the
   world lay round them in unbelief and selfishness, and sorrow and pain?
   "What can be done," an eminent evangelist once did me the honour to
   ask, "to heal the breach between the religious world and Drummond?" And
   I dared to reply that in my poor judgment the first step ought to be
   for the religious world to repent of its sins, and make amends to
   Drummond for its bitterness.

   One, of course, remembers that Drummond's critics had their reasons,
   and those reasons cast interesting light on his theological standpoint.
   For one thing, unlike most evangelists, it was perfectly alien to this
   man to insist on repentance, simply because he had not the painful and
   overmastering sense of sin which afflicts most religious minds, and
   gives a strenuous turn to all their thinking. Each thinker conceives
   religion according to his cast of mind and trend of experience, and
   Christianity to Drummond was not so much a way of escape from the grip
   of sin, with its burden of guilt and loathsome contact, as a way of
   ethical and spiritual attainment. The question he was ever answering in
   his writing and speaking was not how can a man save his soul, but how
   can a man save his life. His idea of salvation was rising to the
   stature of Christ and sharing His simple, lowly, peaceful life. This
   was the text of his brochures on religion, which charmed the world,
   from "The Greatest Thing in The World" to "The City Without a Church".
   It is said even they gave offence to some ultra-theological
   minds--although one would fain have believed that such persuasive pleas
   had won all hearts--and I have some faint remembrance, perhaps a
   nightmare, that people published replies to the eulogy of Love. It was
   quite beside the mark to find fault with the theology in the little
   books, because there was none and could be none, since there was none
   in the author. Just as there are periods in the development of
   Christianity, there are men in every age corresponding to each of the
   periods--modern, Reformation, and Mediaeval minds--and what charmed
   many in Drummond was this, that he belonged by nature to the
   pre-theological age. He was in his habit and thought a Christian of the
   Gospels, rather than of the Epistles, and preferred to walk with Jesus
   in Galilee rather than argue with Judaizers and Gnostics. It would be a
   gross injustice to say that he was anti-theological: it would be
   correct to say that he was non-theological. Jesus was not to him an
   official Redeemer discharging certain obligations: He was his unseen
   Friend with Whom he walked in life, by Whose fellowship he was changed,
   to Whom he prayed. The effort of life should be to do the Will of God,
   the strength of life was Peace, the reward of life was to be like
   Jesus. Perfect Christianity was to be as St. John was with Jesus. It
   was the Idyll of Religion.

   Perhaps his two famous books, "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," and
   "The Ascent of Man," ought to be judged as larger Idylls. A writer
   often fails when he has counted himself strong, and succeeds in that
   which he has himself belittled. It was at one time Drummond s opinion
   that he had made a discovery in that fascinating debatable land between
   nature and religion, and that he was able to prove that the laws which
   govern the growth of a plant are the same in essence as those which
   regulate the culture of a soul. It appeared to some of us that the same
   laws could not and did not run through both provinces, but that on the
   frontier of the spiritual world other laws came into operation, and
   that "Natural Law" set forth with much grace and ingenuity a number of
   instructive analogies, and sometimes only suggestive illustrations. Had
   Drummond believed this was its furthest scope, he would never have
   published the book, and it was an open secret that in later years he
   lost all interest in "Natural Law". My own idea is that he had
   abandoned its main contention and much of its teaching, and would have
   been quite willing to see it withdrawn from the public. While that book
   was an attempt to identify the laws of two worlds which, under one
   suzerain, are really each autonomous, the "Ascent of Man" was a most
   successful effort to prove that the spirit of Religion, which is
   Altruism, pervades the processes of nature. It is the Poem of
   Evolution, and is from beginning to end a fascinating combination of
   scientific detail and spiritual imagination. Both books, but especially
   the "Ascent," were severely criticised from opposite quarters--by
   theologians because the theology was not sound, by men of science
   because the science was loose, and Drummond had the misfortune of being
   a heretic in two provinces. But he had his reward in the gratitude of
   thousands neither dogmatic nor partisan, to whom he has given a new
   vision of the beauty of life and the graciousness of law.

   His books will do good for years, as they have done in the past, and
   his tract on "Charity" will long be read, but the man was greater than
   all his writings. While he was competent in science, in religion he was
   a master, and if in this sphere he failed anywhere in his thinking, it
   was in his treatment of sin. This was the defect of his qualities, for
   of him, more than of any man known to me, it could be affirmed he did
   not know sin. As Fra Angelico could paint the Holy Angels because he
   had seen them, but made poor work of the devils because to him they
   were strange creatures, so this man could make holiness so lovely that
   all men wished to be Christians; but his hand lost its cunning at the
   mention of sin, for he had never played the fool. From his youth up he
   had kept the commandments, and was such a man as the Master would have
   loved. One takes for granted that each man has his besetting sin, and
   we could name that of our friends, but Drummond was an exception to
   this rule. After a lifetime s intimacy I do not remember my friend's
   failing. Without pride, without envy, without selfishness, without
   vanity, moved only by goodwill and spiritual ambitions, responsive ever
   to the touch of God and every noble impulse, faithful, fearless,
   magnanimous, Henry Drummond was the most perfect Christian I have known
   or expect to see this side the grave.

   JOHN WATSON (IAN MACLAREN)
     __________________________________________________________________

ILL-TEMPER

   "He was angry, and would not go in."--LUKE xv. 28.

  THE ELDER BROTHER

   THOSE who have studied the paintings of Sir Noel Paton must have
   observed that part of their peculiar beauty lies, by a trick of art, in
   their partial ugliness. There are flowers and birds, knights and
   ladies, gossamer-winged fairies and children of seraphic beauty; but in
   the corner of the canvas, or just at their feet, some uncouth and
   loathsome form--a toad, a lizard, a slimy snail--to lend, by contrast
   with its repulsiveness, a lovelier beauty to the rest. So in ancient
   sculpture the griffin and the dragon grin among the angel faces on the
   cathedral front, heightening the surrounding beauty by their deformity.

   Many of the literary situations of the New Testament powerfully exhibit
   this species of contrast. The twelve disciples--one of them is a devil.
   Jesus upon the Cross, pure and regal--on either side a thief. And here,
   as conspicuously, in this fifteenth chapter of Luke, the most exquisite
   painting in the Bible touched off at the foot with the black
   thundercloud of the elder brother--perfect, as a mere dramatic
   situation.

   But this conjunction, of course, is more than artistic. Apart from its
   reference to the Pharisees, the association of these two
   characters--the prodigal and his brother--side by side has a deep moral
   significance.

   When we look into Sin, not in its theological aspects, but in its
   everyday clothes, we find that it divides itself into two kinds. We
   find that there are sins of the body and sins of the disposition. Or
   more narrowly, sins of the passions, including all forms of lust and
   selfishness, and sins of the temper. The prodigal is the instance in
   the New Testament of sins of passion; the elder brother, of sins of
   temper.

   One would say, at a first glance, that it was the younger brother in
   this picture who was the thundercloud. It was he who had dimmed all the
   virtues, and covered himself and his home with shame. And men have
   always pointed to the runaway son in contrast with his domestic
   brother, as the type of all that is worst in human character. Possibly
   the estimate is wrong. Possibly the elder brother is the worse. We
   judge of sins, as we judge of most things, by their outward form. We
   arrange the vices of our neighbours according to a scale which society
   has tacitly adopted, placing the more gross and public at the foot, the
   slightly less gross higher up, and then by some strange process the
   scale becomes obliterated. Finally it vanishes into space, leaving
   lengths of itself unexplored, its sins unnamed, unheeded, and
   unshunned. But we have no balance to weigh sins. Coarser and finer are
   but words of our own. The chances are, if anything, that the finer are
   the lower. The very fact that the world sees the coarser sins so well
   is against the belief that they are the worst. The subtle and unseen
   sin, that sin in the part of the nature most near to the spiritual,
   ought to be more degrading than any other. Yet for many of the finer
   forms of sin society has yet no brand. This sin of the elder brother is
   a mere trifle, only a little bit of temper, and scarcely worthy the
   recording.

   Now what was this little bit of temper? For Christ saw fit to record
   it. The elder brother, hard-working, patient, dutiful--let him get full
   credit for his virtues--comes in from his long day's work in the
   fields. Every night for years he has plodded home like this,
   heavy-limbed but light-hearted, for he has done his duty and honest
   sweat is on his brow. But a man's sense of responsibility for his
   character ends too often with the day's work. And we always meet the
   temptation which is to expose us when we least expect it. To-night, as
   he nears the old homestead, he hears the noise of mirth and music. He
   makes out the strain of a dancing measure--a novel sound, surely, for
   the dull farm. "Thy brother is come," the servant says, "and they have
   killed the fatted calf." His brother! Happy hour! how long they mourned
   for him! How glad the old man would be! How the family prayer has found
   him out at last and brought the erring boy to his parents' roof! But
   no--there is no joy on that face, it is the thundercloud. "Brother,
   indeed," he mutters; "the scapegrace! Killed the fatted calf, have
   they? More than they ever did for me. I can teach them what I think of
   their merry-making. And talk of the reward of virtue! Here have I been
   all these years unhonoured and ignored, and this young roue from the
   swine-troughs assembles the whole country-side to do him homage." "And
   he was angry, and would not go in."

   "Oh, the baby!" one inclines to say at first; but it is more than this.
   It is the thundercloud, a thundercloud which has been brewing under all
   his virtues all his life. It is the thundercloud. The subtle fluids
   from a dozen sins have come together for once, and now they are
   scorching his soul. Jealousy, anger pride, uncharity, cruelty,
   self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness, all mixed up
   together into one--Ill-Temper. This is a fair analysis. Jealousy,
   anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness,
   touchiness, doggedness,--these are the staple ingredients of
   Ill-Temper. And yet, men laugh over it. "Only temper," they call it: a
   little hot-headedness, a momentary ruffling of the surface, a mere
   passing cloud. But the passing cloud is composed of drops, and the
   drops here betoken an ocean, foul and rancorous, seething somewhere
   within the life--an ocean made up of jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity,
   cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness, lashed
   into a raging storm.

   This is why temper is significant. It is not in what it is that its
   significance lies, but in what it reveals. But for this it were not
   worth notice. It is the intermittent fever which tells of
   unintermittent disease; the occasional bubble escaping to the surface,
   betraying the rottenness underneath; a hastily prepared specimen of the
   hidden products of the soul, dropped involuntarily when you are off
   your guard. In one word, it is the lightning-form of a dozen hideous
   and unchristian sins.

   One of the first things to startle us--leaving now mere
   definition--about sins of temper, is their strange compatibility with
   high moral character. The elder brother, without doubt, was a man of
   high principle. Years ago, when his father divided unto them his
   living, he had the chance to sow his wild oats if he liked. As the
   elder brother, there fell to him the larger portion. Now was his time
   to see the world, to enjoy life, and break with the monotony of home.
   Like a dutiful son he chose his career. The old home should be his
   world, the old people his society. He would be his father's right hand,
   and cheer and comfort his declining years. So to the servants he became
   a pattern of industry; to the neighbours an example of thrift and
   faithfulness; a model young man to all the country, and the more so by
   contrast with his vagabond brother. For association with lofty
   character is a painful circumstance of this deformity. And it suggests
   strange doubts as to the real virtue of much that is reckoned virtue
   and gets credit for the name. In reality we have no criterion for
   estimating at their true worth men who figure as models of all the
   virtues. Everything depends on motive. The virtues may be real or only
   apparent, even as the vices may be real though not apparent. Some men,
   for instance, are kept from going astray by mere cowardice. They have
   not character enough to lose their character. For it often requires a
   strong character to go wrong. It demands a certain originality and
   courage, a pocketing of pride of which all are not capable, before a
   man can make up his mind to fall out of step with Society and scatter
   his reputation to the winds. So it comes to pass that many very mean
   men retain their outward virtue. Conversely among the prodigal sons of
   the world are often found characters of singular beauty. The prodigal,
   no doubt, was a better man to meet and spend an hour with than his
   immaculate brother. A wealth of tenderness and generosity, truly sweet
   and noble dispositions, constantly surprise us in characters hopelessly
   under the ban of men. But it is an instance of misconception as to the
   nature of sin that with most men this counts for nothing; although in
   those whose defalcation is in the lower region it counts, and counts
   almost for everything. Many of those who sow to the flesh regard their
   form of sin as trifling compared with the inconsistent and unchristian
   graces of those who profess to sow to the spirit. Many a man, for
   example, who thinks nothing of getting drunk would scorn to do an
   ungenerous deed or speak a withering word. And, as already said, it is
   really a question whether he is not right. One man sins high up in his
   nature, the other low down; and the vinous spendthrift, on the whole
   may be a better man than the acid Christian. "Verily, I say unto you,"
   said Jesus to the priests, "the publicans and the harlots go into the
   kingdom of God before you."

   The fact, then, that there are these two distinct sets of sins, and
   that few of us indulge both, but most of us indulge the one or the
   other, explains the compatibility of virtuous conduct with much
   unloveliness of disposition. Now it is this very association which
   makes sins of temper appear so harmless. There cannot be much wrong, we
   fancy, where there is so much general good. How often it is urged as an
   apology for garrulous people, that they are the soul of kindness if we
   only knew them better. And how often it is maintained, as a set-off
   against crossness and pitiable explosions of small distempers, that
   those who exhibit them are, in their normal mood, above the average in
   demonstrative tenderness. And it is this which makes the cure so hard.
   We excuse the partial failure of our characters on the ground of their
   general success. We can afford to be a little bad who are so good. A
   true logic would say we can only afford to be a little better. If the
   fly in the ointment is a very small fly, why have a very small fly?
   Temper is the vice of the virtuous. Christ's sermon on the "Elder
   brother" is evidently a sermon pointedly to the virtuous--not to make
   bad people good but to make good people perfect.

   Passing now from the nature and relations of sins of this peculiar
   class, we come briefly to look at their effects. And these are of two
   kinds--the influence of temper on the intellect, and on the moral and
   religious nature.

   With reference to the first, it has sometimes been taken for granted
   that a bad temper is a positive acquisition to the intellect. Its
   fieriness is supposed to communicate combustion to surrounding
   faculties, and to kindle the system into intense and vigorous life. "A
   man, when excessively jaded," says Darwin, "will sometimes invent
   imaginary offences, and put himself into a passion unconsciously, for
   the sake of re-invigorating himself." Now, of course, passion has its
   legitimate place in human nature, and when really controlled instead of
   controlling, becomes the most powerful stimulus to the intellectual
   faculties. Thus it is this to which Luther refers when he says, "I
   never work better than when I am inspired by anger. When I am angry, I
   can write, pray, and preach well; for then my whole temperament is
   quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and
   temptations depart."

   The point, however, at which temper interferes with the intellect is in
   all matters of judgment. A quick temper really incapacitates for sound
   judgment. Decisions are struck off at a white heat, without time to
   collect grounds or hear explanations. Then it takes a humbler spirit
   than most of us possess to reverse them when once they are made. We
   ourselves are prejudiced in their favour simply because we have made
   them, and subsequent courses must generally do homage to our first
   precipitancy. No doubt the elder brother secretly confessed himself a
   fool the moment after his back was turned on the door. But he had taken
   his stand; he had said "I will not go in," and neither his father's
   entreaties nor his own sense of the growing absurdity of the
   situation--think of the man standing outside his own door--were able to
   shake him. Temptation betraying a man into an immature judgment, that
   quickly followed by an irrelevant action, and the whole having to be
   defended by subsequent conduct, after making such a fuss about it--such
   is the natural history on the side of intellect of a sin of temper.

   Amongst the scum left behind by such an action, apart from the
   consequences to the individual, are results always disastrous to
   others. For this is another peculiarity of sins of temper, that their
   worst influence is upon others. It is generally, too, the weak who are
   the sufferers; for temper is the prerogative of superiors and
   inferiors, down to the bottom of the scale, have not only to bear the
   brunt of the storm, but to sink their own judgment and spend their
   lives in ministering to what they know to be caprice. So their whole
   training is systematically false, and their own mental habits become
   disorganised and ruined. When the young, again, are disciplined by the
   iron instead of by the golden rule, the consequences are still more
   fatal. They feel that they do not get a fair hearing. Their case is
   summarily dismissed untried; and that sort of nursery lynch law to
   which they are constantly subjected carries with it no explanation of
   moral principles, muzzles legitimate feelings, and really inflicts a
   punishment infinitely more serious than is intended, in crushing out
   all sense of justice.

   But it is in their moral and social effects that the chief evil lies.
   It is astonishing how large a part of Christ's precepts is devoted
   solely to the inculcation of happiness. How much of His life, too, was
   spent simply in making people happy! There was no word more often on
   His lips than "blessed," and it is recognised by Him as a distinct end
   in life, the end for this life, to secure the happiness of others. This
   simple grace, too, needs little equipment. Christ had little. One need
   scarcely even be happy one's self. Holiness, of course, is a greater
   word, but we cannot produce that in others. That is reserved for God
   Himself, but what is put in our power is happiness, and for that each
   man is his brother's keeper. Now society is an arrangement for
   producing and sustaining human happiness, and temper is an agent for
   thwarting and destroying it. Look at the parable for a moment, and see
   how the elder brother's wretched pettishness, explosion of temper,
   churlishness, spoiled the happiness of a whole circle. First, it
   certainly spoiled his own. How ashamed of himself he must have been
   when the fit was over, one can well guess. Yet these things are never
   so quickly over as they seem. Self-disgust and humiliation may come at
   once, but a good deal else within has to wait till the spirit is tuned
   again. For instance, prayer must wait. A man cannot pray till the
   sourness is out of his soul. He must first forgive his brother who
   trespassed against him before he can go to God to have his own
   trespasses forgiven.

   Then look at the effect on the father, or on the guests, or even on the
   servants--that scene outside had cast its miserable gloom on the entire
   company. But there was one other who felt it with a tenfold
   keenness--the prodigal son. We can imagine the effect on him. This was
   home, was it? Then, it was a pity he ever came. If this was to be the
   sort of thing, he had better go. Happier a thousand times among the
   swine than to endure the boorishness of his self-contained,
   self-righteous brother. Yes, we drive men from Christ's door many a
   time by our sorry entertainment. The Church is not spiritualized enough
   yet to entertain the world. We have no spiritual courtesies. We
   cultivate our faith and proclaim our hope, but forget that a greater
   than these is charity. Till men can say of us, "They suffer long and
   are kind, they are not easily provoked, do not behave themselves
   unseemly, bear all things, think no evil," we have no chance against
   the world. One repulsive Christian will drive away a score of
   prodigals. God's love for poor sinners is very wonderful, but God's
   patience with ill-natured saints is a deeper mystery.

   The worst of the misery caused by ill-temper is that it does no good.
   Some misery is beneficial, but this is gratuitous woe. Nothing in the
   world causes such rankling, abiding, unnecessary and unblessed pain.
   And Christ's words, therefore, when He refers to the breach of the law
   of love, are most severe; "If any man offend one of these little ones,"
   He says, "it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his
   neck, and that he were cast into the depths of the sea." That is to
   say, it is Christ's deliberate verdict that it is better not to live
   than not to love.

   In its ultimate nature Distemper is a sin against love. And however
   impossible it may be to realize that now, however we may condone it as
   a pardonable weakness or small infirmity, there is no greater sin. A
   sin against love is a sin against God, for God is love. He that sinneth
   against love, sinneth against God.

   This tracing of the sin to its root now suggests this further
   topic--its cure. Christianity professes to cure anything. The process
   may be slow, the discipline may be severe, but it can be done. But is
   not temper a constitutional thing? Is it not hereditary, a family
   failing, a matter of temperament, and can that be cured? Yes, if there
   is anything in Christianity. If there is no provision for that, then
   Christianity stands convicted of being unequal to human need. What
   course then did the father take, in the case before us, to pacify the
   angry passions of his ill-natured son? Mark that he made no attempt in
   the first instance to reason with him To do so is a common mistake, and
   utterly useless both with ourselves and others. We are perfectly
   convinced of the puerility of it all, but that does not help us in the
   least to mend it. The malady has its seat in the affections, and
   therefore the father went there at once. Reason came in its place, and
   the son was supplied with valid arguments --stated in the last verse of
   the chapter--against his conduct, but he was first plied with love.

   "Son," said the father, "thou art ever with me, and all that I have is
   thine." Analyse these words, and underneath them you will find the
   rallying cries of all great communities. There lie Liberty, Equality,
   and Fraternity--the happy symbols with which men have sought to
   maintain governments and establish kingdoms. "Son"--there is Liberty.
   "Thou art ever with me"--there is Unity, Fraternity. "All that I have
   is thine"--there is Equality. If any appeal could rouse a man to give
   up himself, to abandon selfish ends, under the strong throb of a common
   sympathy, it is this formula of the Christian Republic. Take the last,
   Equality, alone--"All that I have is thine." It is absurd to talk of
   your rights here and your rights there. You have all rights. "All that
   I have is thine." There is no room for selfishness if there is nothing
   more that one can possess. And God has made the Equality. God has given
   us all, and if the memory of His great kindness, His particular
   kindness to us, be once moved within, the heart must melt to Him, and
   flow out to all mankind as brothers.

   It is quite idle, by force of will, to seek to empty the angry passions
   out of our life. Who has not made a thousand resolutions in this
   direction, only and with unutterable mortification to behold them
   dashed to pieces with the first temptation? The soul is to be made
   sweet not by taking the acidulous fluids out, but by putting something
   in--a great love, God's great love. This is to work a chemical change
   upon them, to renovate and regenerate them, to dissolve them in its own
   rich fragrant substance. If a man let this into his life, his cure is
   complete; if not, it is hopeless.

   The character most hard to comprehend in the New Testament is the
   unmerciful servant. For his base extravagance his wife and children
   were to be sold, and himself imprisoned. He cries for mercy on his
   knees, and the 10,000 talents, hopeless and enormous debt, is freely
   cancelled. He goes straight from the kind presence of his lord, and,
   meeting some poor wretch who owes him a hundred pence, seizes him by
   the throat and hales him to the prison-cell, from which he himself had
   just escaped. How a man can rise from his knees, where, forgiven much
   already, he has just been forgiven more, and go straight from the
   audience chamber of his God to speak hard words and do hard things, is
   all but incredible. This servant truly in wasting his master's money
   must have wasted away his own soul. But grant a man any soul at all,
   love must follow forgiveness.

   Being forgiven much, he must love much, not as a duty, but as a
   necessary consequence; he must become a humbler, tenderer man, generous
   and brotherly. Rooted and grounded in love, his love will grow till it
   embraces the earth. Then only he dimly begins to understand his
   father's gift--"All that I have is thine." The world is his: he cannot
   injure his own. The ground of benevolence is proprietorship. And all
   who love God are the proprietors of the world. The meek inherit the
   earth--all that He has is theirs. All that God has--what is that?
   Mountain and field, tree and sky, castle and cottage, white man, black
   man, genius and dullard, prisoner and pauper, sick and aged--all these
   are mine. If noble and happy, I must enjoy them; if great and
   beautiful, I must delight in them; if poor and hungry, I must clothe
   them; if sick and in prison, I must visit them. For they are all mine,
   all these, and all that God has beside, and I must love all and give
   myself for all.

   Here the theme widens. From Plato to Herbert Spencer reformers have
   toiled to frame new schemes of Sociology. There is none so grand as the
   Sociology of Jesus. But we have not found out the New Testament
   Sociology yet; we have spent the centuries over its theology. Surely
   man's relation to God may be held as settled now. It is time to take up
   the other problem, man's relation to man. With a former theology, man
   as man, as a human being, was of no account. He was a mere theological
   unit, the x of doctrine, an unknown quantity. He was taught to believe,
   therefore, not to love. Now we are learning slowly that to believe is
   to love; that the first commandment is to love God, and the second like
   unto it--another version of it--is to love man. Not only the happiness
   but the efficiency of the passive virtues, love as a power, as a
   practical success in the world, is coming to be recognised. The fact
   that Christ led no army, that He wrote no book, built no church, spent
   no money, but that He loved, and so conquered, this is beginning to
   strike men. And Paul's argument is gaining adherents that when all
   prophecies are fulfilled, and all our knowledge becomes obsolete, and
   all tongues grow unintelligible, this thing, Love, will abide and see
   them all out one by one into the oblivious past. This is the hope for
   the world, that we shall learn to love, and in learning that, unlearn
   all anger and wrath and evil-speaking and malice and bitterness.

   And this will indeed be the world's future. This is heaven. The curtain
   drops on the story of the prodigal, leaving him in, but the elder
   brother out. And why is obvious. It is impossible for such a man to be
   in heaven. He would spoil heaven for all who were there. Except such a
   man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God. To get to heaven
   we must take it in with us.

   There are many heavens in the world even now from which we all shut
   ourselves out by our own exclusiveness--heavens of friendship, of
   family life, of Christian work, of benevolent ministrations to the poor
   and ignorant and distressed. Because of some personal pique, some
   disapproval of methods, because the lines of work or some of the
   workers are not exactly to our taste, we play the elder brother, we are
   angry and will not go in. This is the naked truth of it, we are simply
   angry and will not go in. And this bears, if we could see it, its own
   worst penalty; for there is no severer punishment than just to be left
   outside, perhaps, to grow old alone, unripe, loveless and unloved. We
   are angry and will not go in. All sins mar God's image, but sins of
   temper mar God's image and God's work and man's happiness.
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WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

   "It is expedient for you that I go away."--JOHN xvi. 7.

  A SERMON BEFORE COMMUNION

   IT was on a communion night like this that the words were spoken. They
   fell upon the disciples like a thunderbolt startling a summer sky.
   Three and thirty years He had lived among them. They had lately learned
   to love Him. Day after day they had shared together the sunshine and
   the storm, and their hearts clung to Him with a strange tenderness. And
   just when everything was at its height, when their friendship was now
   pledged indissolubly in the first most solemn sacrament, the unexpected
   words come, "I must say goodbye; it is expedient for you that I go
   away." It was a crushing blow to the little band. They had staked their
   all upon that love. They had given up home, business, friends, and
   promised to follow Him. And now He says, "I must go!"

   Let us see what He means by it. The words may help us to understand
   more fully our own relations with Him now that He is gone.

   I. The first thing to strike one is the way Jesus took to break the
   news. It was characteristic. His sayings and doings always came about
   in the most natural way. Even His profoundest statements of doctrine
   were invariably apropos of some often trivial circumstance happening in
   the day's round. So now He did not suddenly deliver Himself of the
   doctrine of the Ascension. It leaked out as it were in the ordinary
   course of things.

   The supper was over; but the friends had much to say to one another
   that night, and they lingered long around the table. They did not know
   it was the last supper, never dreamed of it, but there had been an
   unusual sweetness in their intercourse and they talked on and on. The
   hour grew late, but John still leaned on his Master's breast, and the
   others, grouped round in the twilight, drank in the solemn gladness of
   the communion evening. Suddenly a shadow falls over this scene. A
   sinister figure rises stealthily, takes the bag, and makes for the door
   unobserved. Jesus calls him: hands him the sop. The spell is broken. A
   terrible revulsion of feeling comes over Him--as if a stab in the dark
   had struck into His heart. He cannot go on now. It is useless to try.
   He cannot keep up the perhaps forced spirits.

   "Little children," He says very solemnly, His voice choking, "yet a
   little while I am with you." And "Whither I go ye cannot come."

   The hour is late. They think He is getting tired, He means to retire to
   rest. But Peter asks straight out, "Lord, whither goest Thou?" Into the
   garden? Back to Galilee? It never occurred to one of them that He meant
   the Unknown Land.

   "Whither I go," He replies a second time, "Ye cannot follow Me now, but
   ye shall follow Me afterward." Afterward! The blow slowly falls. In a
   dim, bewildering way it begins to dawn upon them. It is separation.

   We can judge of the effect from the next sentence. "Let not your heart
   be troubled," He says. He sees their panic and consternation, and
   doctrine has to stand aside till experimental religion has ministered.
   And then, it is only at intervals that He gets back to it; every
   sentence almost is interrupted. Questionings and misgivings are
   started, explanations are insisted on, but the terrible truth will not
   hide. He always comes back to that--He will not temper its meaning, He
   still insists that it is absolute, literal; and finally He states it in
   its most bare and naked form, "It is expedient for you that I go away."

   II. Notice His reasons for going away. Why did Jesus go away? We all
   remember a time when we could not answer that question. We wished He
   had stayed, and had been here now. The children's hymn expresses a real
   human feeling, and our hearts burn still as we read it:--


   "I think, when I read that sweet story of old,

   How Jesus was here among men,

   How He called little children as lambs to His fold,

   I should like to have been with them then.

   I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,

   That His arms had been thrown around me,

   And that I might have seen His kind look as He said,

   Let the little ones come unto Me.'"

   Jesus must have had reasons for disappointing a human feeling so deep,
   so universal, and so sacred. We may be sure, too, that these reasons
   intimately concern us. He did not go away because He was tired. It was
   quite true that He was despised and rejected of men; it was quite true
   that the pitiless world hated and spurned and trod on Him. But that did
   not drive Him away. It was quite true that He longed for His Father's
   house and pined and yearned for His love. But that did not draw Him
   away. No. He never thought of Himself. It is expedient for you, He
   says, not for Me, that I go.

   1. The first reason is one of His own stating. "I go away to prepare a
   place for you." And the very naming of this is a proof of Christ's
   considerateness. The burning question with every man who thought about
   his life in those days was Whither is this life leading? The present,
   alas! was dim and inscrutable enough, but the future was a fearful and
   unsolved mystery. So Christ put that right before He went away. He gave
   this unknown future form and colour. He told us--and it is only because
   we are so accustomed to it that we do not wonder more at the
   magnificence of the conception--that when our place in this world
   should know us no more there would be another place ready for us. We do
   not know much about that place, but the best thing we do know, that He
   prepares it. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into
   the heart of man what the Lord went away to prepare for them that love
   Him. It is better to think of this, to let our thoughts rest on this,
   that He prepares it, than to fancy details of our own.

   But that does not exhaust the matter. Consider the alternative. If
   Christ had not gone away, what then? We should not either. The
   circumstances of our future life depended upon Christ's going away to
   prepare them; but the fact of our going away at all depended on His
   going away. We could not follow Him hereafter, as He said we should,
   unless He led first. He had to be the Resurrection and the Life.

   And this was part of the preparing a place for us--the preparing a way
   for us. He prepared a place for us by the way He took to prepare a
   place. It was a very wonderful way.

   In a lonely valley in Switzerland a small band of patriots once marched
   against an invading force ten times their strength. They found
   themselves one day at the head of a narrow pass, confronted by a solid
   wall of spears. They made assault after assault, but that bristling
   line remained unbroken. Time after time they were driven back decimated
   with hopeless slaughter. The forlorn hope rallied for the last time. As
   they charged, their leader suddenly advanced before them with
   outstretched arms, and every spear for three or four yards of the line
   was buried in his body. He fell dead. But he prepared a place for his
   followers. Through the open breach, over his dead body, they rushed to
   victory and won the freedom of their country.

   So the Lord Jesus went before His people, the Captain of our salvation,
   sheathing the weapons of death and judgment in Himself, and preparing a
   place for us with His dead body. Well for us not only that He went
   away, but that He went by way of the Cross.

   2. Another reason why He went away was to be very near. It seems a
   paradox, but He went away really in order to be near. Suppose, again,
   He had not gone away; suppose He were here now. Suppose He were still
   in the Holy Land, at Jerusalem. Every ship that started for the East
   would be crowded with Christian pilgrims. Every train flying through
   Europe would be thronged with people going to see Jesus. Every mail-bag
   would be full of letters from those in difficulty and trial, and gifts
   of homage to manifest men's gratitude and love. You yourself, let us
   say, are in one of those ships. The port, when you arrive after the
   long voyage, is blocked with vessels of every flag. With much
   difficulty you land, and join one of the long trains starting for
   Jerusalem. Far as the eye can reach, the caravans move over the desert
   in an endless stream. You do not mind the scorching sun, the choking
   dust, the elbowing crowds, the burning sands. You are in the Holy Land,
   and you will see Jesus! Yonder, at last, in the far distance, are the
   glittering spires of the Holy Hill, above all the burnished temple dome
   beneath which He sits. But what is that dark seething mass stretching
   for leagues and leagues between you and the Holy City? They have come
   from the north and from the south, and from the east and from the west,
   as you have, to look upon their Lord. They wish


   "That His hands might be placed on their head;

   That His arms might be thrown around them."

   But it cannot be. You have come to see Jesus, but you will not see Him.
   They have been there weeks, months, years, and have not seen Him. They
   are a yard or two nearer, and that is all. The thing is impossible. It
   is an anti-climax, an absurdity. It would be a social outrage; it would
   be a physical impossibility.

   Now Christ foresaw all this when He said it was expedient that He
   should go away. Observe, He did not say it was necessary--it was
   expedient. The objection to the opposite plan was simply that it would
   not have worked. So He says to you, "It is very kind and earnest of you
   to come so far, but you mistake. Go away back from the walls of the
   Holy City, over the sea, and you will find Me in your own home. You
   will find Me where the shepherds found Me, doing their ordinary work;
   where the woman of Samaria found Me, drawing the water for the forenoon
   meal; where the disciples found Me mending nets in their working
   clothes; where Mary found Me, among the commonplace household duties of
   a country village." What would religion be, indeed, if the soul-sick
   had to take their turn like the out-patients waiting at the poor-hour
   outside the infirmary? How would it be with the old who were too frail
   to travel to Him, or the poor who could not afford it? How would it be
   with the blind, who could not see Him, or the deaf, who could not hear
   Him? It would be physically impossible for millions to obey the Lord's
   command, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."

   For their sakes it was expedient that He should go away. It was a great
   blessing for the world that He went. Access to Him is universally
   complete from every corner of every home in every part of the world.
   For the poor can have Him always with them. The soul-sick cannot be out
   of reach of the Physician. The blind can see His beauty now that He has
   gone away. The deaf hear His voice when all others are silent, and the
   dumb can pray when they cannot speak.

   Yes the visible Incarnation must of necessity be brief. Only a small
   circle could enjoy His actual presence, but a kingdom like Christianity
   needed a risen Lord. It was expedient for the whole body of its
   subjects that He went away. He would be nearer man by being apparently
   further. The limitations of sense subjected Him while He stayed. He was
   subject to geography, locality, space, and time. But by going away He
   was in a spaceless land, in a timeless eternity, able to be with all
   men always even unto the end of the world.

   3. Another reason why He went away--although this is also a
   paradox--was that we might see Him better. When a friend is with us we
   do not really see him so well as when he is away. We only see points,
   details. It is like looking at a great mountain: you see it best a
   little way off. Clamber up the flanks of Mont Blanc, you see very
   little--a few rocks, a pine or two, a blinding waste of snow; but come
   down into the Valley of Chamounix and there the monarch dawns upon you
   in all his majesty.

   Christ is the most gigantic figure of history. To take in His full
   proportions one must be both near and away. The same is true of all
   greatness. Of all great poets, philosophers, politicians, men of
   science, it is said that their generation never knew them. They dawn
   upon us as time rolls past. Then their life comes out in its true
   perspective, and the symmetry of their work is revealed. We never know
   our friends, likewise, till we lose them We often never know the beauty
   of a life which is lived very near our own till the hand of death has
   taken it away. It was expedient for us, therefore, that He should
   go--that we might see the colossal greatness of His stature, appreciate
   the loftiness and massiveness of His whole character, and feel the
   perfect beauty and oneness of His life and work.

   4. Still another reason. He went away that we might walk by faith.
   After all, if He had stayed, with all its inconveniences, we should
   have been walking by sight. And this is the very thing religion is
   continually trying to undo. The strongest temptation to every man is to
   guide himself by what he can see, and feel, and handle. This is the
   core of Ritualism, the foundation of Roman Catholicism, the essence of
   idolatry. Men want to see God, therefore they make images of Him. We do
   not laugh at Ritualism; it is intensely human. It is not so much a sin
   of presumption; it is a sin of mistake. It is a trying to undo the
   going away of Christ. It is a trying to make believe that He is still
   here. And the fatal fallacy of it is that it defeats its own end. He
   who seeks God in tangible form misses the very thing he is seeking, for
   God is a Spirit. The desire burns within him to see God; the desire is
   given him to make him spiritual, by giving him a spiritual exercise to
   do; and he cheats himself by exercising the flesh instead of the
   spirit. Hunger and thirst after God are an endowment to raise us out of
   the seen and temporal. But instead of letting the spiritual appetite
   elevate us into the spirit, we are apt to degrade the very instrument
   of our spiritualisation and make it minister to the flesh.

   It was expedient in order that the disciples should be spiritualized
   that Jesus should become a Spirit. Life in the body to all men is
   short. The mortal dies and puts on immortality. So Christ's great aim
   is to strengthen the after-life. Therefore He gave exercises in faith
   to be the education for immortality. Therefore Jesus went away to
   strengthen the spirit for eternity.

   It is not because there is any deep mysterious value in faith itself
   that it plays so great a part in religion. It is not because God
   arbitrarily chooses that we should walk by faith rather than by sight.
   It is because it is essential to our future; it is because this is the
   faculty which of all others is absolutely necessary to life in the
   spirit

   For our true life will be lived in the spirit. In the hereafter there
   will be nothing carnal. Christ is therefore solicitous to educate our
   faith, for sight will be useless. There will be no eye, no pupil, no
   retina, no optic nerve in the hereafter, so faith is the spiritual
   substitute for them which Christ would develop in us by going away.

   5. But the great reason has yet to be mentioned. He went away that the
   Comforter might come.

   We have seen how His going away was a provision for the future life.
   The absent Lord prepares a place there; the absent Object of faith
   educates the souls of the faithful to possess and enjoy it. But He
   provides for the life that now is. And His going away has to do with
   the present as much as with the life to come. One day when Jesus was in
   Peroea, a message came to Him that a very dear friend was sick. He
   lived in a distant village with his two sisters. They were greatly
   concerned about their brother's illness, and had sent in haste for
   Jesus. Now Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus their brother; but
   He was so situated at the time that He could not go. Perhaps He was too
   busy, perhaps He had other similar cases on hand; at all events He
   could not go. When He went ultimately, it was too late. Hour after hour
   the sisters waited for Him. They could not believe He would not come;
   but the slow hours dragged themselves along by the dying man's couch,
   and he was dead and laid in the grave before Jesus arrived. You can
   imagine one of His thoughts, at least, as He stands and weeps by that
   grave with the inconsolable sisters,--"It is expedient that I go away.
   I should have been present at his death-bed scene if I had been away. I
   will depart and send the Comforter. There will be no summons of sorrow
   which He will not be able to answer. He will abide with men for ever.
   Everywhere He will come and go. He will be like the noiseless invisible
   wind, blowing all over the world wheresoever He listeth."

   The doctrine of the Holy Ghost is very simple. Men stumble over it
   because they imagine it to be something very mysterious and
   unintelligible. But the whole matter lies here. Our text is the key to
   it. The Holy Spirit is just what Christ would have been had He been
   here. He ministers comfort just as Christ would have done--only without
   the inconveniences of circumstance, without the restriction of space,
   without the limitations of time. More: we need a personal Christ, but
   we cannot get Him, at least we cannot each get Him. So the only
   alternative is a spiritual Christ,--a Holy Spirit, and then we can all
   get Him. He reproves the world of sin, of righteousness, and of
   judgment. Christ had to go away to make room for a Person of the
   Trinity who could deal with the world. He Himself could only reprove
   the individual of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. But work on a
   larger scale is done now that He is gone. This is what He refers to
   when He said, "Greater works than these shall ye do."

   And yet Christ did not go away that the Spirit might take His place.
   Christ is with us Himself. He is with us and yet He is not with us,
   that is, He is with us by His Spirit. The Spirit does not reveal the
   Spirit. He speaks not of Himself, He reveals Christ. He is the nexus,
   the connection between the absent Christ and the world--a spiritual
   presence which can penetrate where the present Christ could not go. It
   was expedient for the present Christ to go away that the universal
   Christ might come to all.

   Finally, if all this was expedient for us, this strange relation of
   Jesus to His people ought to have a startling influence upon our life.
   Expediency is a practical thing. It was a terrible risk going away. Has
   the expedient which Christ adopted been worth while to you and me?
   These three great practical effects at least are obvious.

   (1) Christ ought to be as near to us as if He were still here. Nothing
   so simplifies the whole religious life as this thought. A present,
   personal Christ solves every difficulty, and meets every requirement of
   Christian experience. There is a historical Christ, a national Christ,
   a theological Christ--we each want Christ. So we have Him. For purposes
   of expediency, for a little while, He has become invisible. It is our
   part to have Him


   "More present to Faith's vision keen;

   Than any other vision seen;

   More near, more intimately nigh

   Than any other earthly tie."

   (2) Then consider what an incentive to honest faithfulness this is. The
   kingdom of Heaven is like a man travelling into a far country. And
   before he went he called his servants and gave to every man his work.

   Are we doing it faithfully? Are we doing it at all? The visible eye of
   the Master is off us. No one inspects our work. Wood, hay, stubble, no
   man knows. It is the test of the absent Christ. He is training us to a
   kind of faithfulness whose high quality is unattained by any other
   earthly means. It was after the Lord was gone that the disciples
   worked. They grew fast after this--in vigour, in usefulness, in
   reliance, in strength of character. Hitherto they had rested in His
   love. Did you ever think what a risk it was for Him to go away? It was
   a terrible risk--to leave us here all by ourselves. And yet this was
   one of His ways of elevating us. There is nothing exalts a man like
   confidence put in him. So He went away and let us try ourselves.

   We cannot always sit at the communion table. We partake of the feast
   not so much as a luxury, though it is that, but to give us strength to
   work. We think our Sabbath services, our prayers, our Bible reading are
   our religion. It is not so. We do these things to help us to be
   religious in other things. These are the mere meals, and a workman gets
   no wages for his meals. It is for the work he does. The value of this
   communion is not estimated yet. It will take the coming week to put the
   value upon it. In itself it counts little; we shall see what it is, by
   what we shall be.

   Every communicant is left by Christ with a solemn responsibility.
   Christ's confidence in us is unspeakably touching. Christ was sure of
   us: He felt the world was safe in our hands. He was away, but we would
   be Christ's to it; the Light of the World was gone, but He would light
   a thousand lights, and leave each of us as one to illuminate one corner
   of its gloom.

   (3) Lastly, He has only gone for a little while. "Behold, I come
   quickly." The probation will soon be past. "Be good children till I
   come back," He has said, like a mother leaving her little ones, "and I
   will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, ye may
   be also." So we wait till He come again--we wait till it is expedient
   for Him to come back.


   "So I am watching quietly

   Every day.

   Whenever the sun shines brightly,

   I rise and say;

   Surely it is the shining of His face!'

   And when a shadow falls across the window

   Of my room

   Where I am working my appointed task,

   I lift my head to watch the door, and ask

   If He is come."
     __________________________________________________________________

GOING TO THE FATHER

   "I go to my Father."--JOHN xiv. 12.

  WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF A FRIEND

   You can unlock a man's whole life if you watch what words he uses most.
   We have each a small set of words, which, though we are scarce aware of
   it, we always work with, and which really express all that we mean by
   life, or have found out of it. For such words embalm the past for us.
   They have become ours by a natural selection throughout our career of
   all that is richest and deepest in our experience. So our vocabulary is
   our history, and our favourite words are ourselves.

   Did you ever notice Christ's favourite words? If you have you must have
   been struck by two things--their simplicity and their fewness. Some
   half-dozen words embalm all his theology and these are, without
   exception, humble, elementary, simple monosyllables. They are such
   words as these--world, life, trust, love.

   But none of these was the greatest word of Christ. His great word was
   new to religion. There was no word there, when He came, rich enough to
   carry the new truth He was bringing to men. So He imported into
   religion one of the grandest words of human language, and transfigured
   it, and gave it back to the world illuminated and transformed, as the
   watchword of the new religion. That word was Father.

   The world's obligation to the Lord Jesus is that He gave us that word.
   We should never have thought of it--if we had, we should never have
   dared to say it. It is a pure revelation. Surely it is the most
   touching sight of the world's past to see God's only begotten Son
   coming down from heaven to try to teach the stammering dumb inhabitants
   of this poor planet to say, "Our Father."

   It is that word which has gathered the great family of God together;
   and when we come face to face with the real, the solid, and the moving
   in our religion, it is to find all its complexity resolvable into this
   simplicity, that God, whom others call King Eternal, Infinite Jehovah,
   is, after all, our Father, and we are His children.

   This, after all, is religion. And to live daily in this simplicity, is
   to live like Christ.

   It takes a great deal to succeed as a Christian--such a great deal,
   that not many do succeed. And the great reason for want of success is
   the want of a central word. Men will copy anything rather than a
   principle. A relationship is always harder to follow than a fact. We
   study the details of Christ's actions, the point of this miracle and of
   that, the circumferential truth of this parable and of that, but to
   copy details is not to copy Christ. To live greatly like Christ is not
   to agonize daily over details, to make anxious comparisons with what we
   do and what He did, but a much more simple thing. It is to re-echo
   Christ's word. It is to have that calm, patient, assured spirit, which
   reduces life simply to this--a going to the Father.

   Not one man in a hundred, probably, has a central word in his Christian
   life; and the consequence is this, that there is probably nothing in
   the world so disorderly and slipshod as personal spiritual experience.
   With most of us it is a thing without stability or permanence, it is
   changed by every trifle we meet, by each new mood or thought. It is a
   series of disconnected approaches to God, a disorderly succession of
   religious impulses, an irregulation of conduct, now on this principle,
   now on that, one day because we read something in a book, the next
   because it was contradicted in another. And when circumstances lead us
   really to examine ourselves, everything is indefinite, hazy,
   unsatisfactory, and all that we have for the Christian life are the
   shreds perhaps of the last few Sabbaths' sermons and a few borrowed
   patches from other people's experience. So we live in perpetual
   spiritual oscillation and confusion, and we are almost glad to let any
   friend or any book upset the most cherished thought we have.

   Now the thing which steadied Christ's life was the thought that He was
   going to His Father. This one thing gave it unity, and harmony, and
   success. During His whole life He never forgot His Word for a moment.
   There is no sermon of His where it does not occur; there is no prayer,
   however brief, where it is missed. In that first memorable sentence of
   His, which breaks the solemn spell of history and makes one word
   resound through thirty silent years, the one word is this; and all
   through the after years of toil and travail "the Great Name" was always
   hovering on His lips, or bursting out of His heart. In its beginning
   and in its end, from the early time when He spoke of His Father's
   business till He finished the work that was given Him to do, His life,
   disrobed of all circumstance, was simply this, "I go to My Father."

   If we take this principle into our own lives, we shall find its
   influence tell upon us in three ways:

   I. It explains Life.

   II. It sustains Life.

   III. It completes Life.

   I. It explains Life. Few men, I suppose, do not feel that life needs
   explaining. We think we see through some things in it--partially; but
   most of it, even to the wisest mind, is enigmatic. Those who know it
   best are the most bewildered by it, and they who stand upon the mere
   rim of the vortex confess that even for them it is overspread with
   cloud and shadow. What is my life? whither do I go? whence do I come?
   these are the questions which are not worn down yet, although the whole
   world has handled them.

   To these questions there are but three answers--one by the poet, the
   other by the atheist, the third by the Christian.

   (a) The poet tells us, and philosophy says the same, only less
   intelligibly, that life is a sleep, a dream, a shadow. It is a vapour
   that appeareth for a little and vanisheth away; a meteor hovering for a
   moment between two unknown eternities; bubbles, which form and burst
   upon the river of time. This philosophy explains nothing. It is a
   taking refuge in mystery. Whither am I going? Virtually the poet
   answers, "I am going to the Unknown."

   (b) The atheist's answer is just the opposite. He knows no unknown. He
   understands all, for there is nothing more than we can see or feel.
   Life is what matter is, the soul is phosphorus. Whither am I going? "I
   go to dust," he says; "death ends all." And this explains nothing. It
   is worse than mystery. It is contradiction. It is utter darkness.

   (c) But the Christian's answer explains something. Where is he going?
   "I go to my Father." This is not a definition of his death--there is no
   death in Christianity; it is a definition of the Christian life. All
   the time it is a going to the Father. Some travel swiftly, some are
   long upon the road, some meet many pleasant adventures by the way,
   others pass through fire and peril; but though the path be short or
   winding, and though the pace be quick or slow, it is a going to the
   Father.

   Now this explains life. It explains the two things in life which are
   most inexplicable. For one thing, it explains why there is more pain in
   the world than pleasure. God knows, although we scarce do, there is
   something better than pleasure--progress. Pleasure, mere pleasure, is
   animal. He gives that to the butterfly. But progress is the law of life
   to the immortal. So God has arranged our life as progress, and its
   working principle is evolution. Not that there is no pleasure in it.
   The Father is too good to His children for that. But the shadows are
   all shot through it, for He fears lest we should forget there is
   anything more. Yes, God is too good to leave His children without
   indulgences, without far more than we deserve; but He is too good to
   let them spoil us. Our pleasures therefore are mere entertainments. We
   are entertained like passing guests at the inns on the roadside. Yet
   after even the choicest meals we dare not linger. We must take the
   pilgrim's staff again and go on our way to the Father.

   Sooner or later we find out that life is not a holiday, but a
   discipline. Earlier or later we all discover that the world is not a
   playground. It is quite clear God means it for a school. The moment we
   forget that, the puzzle of life begins. We try to play in school; the
   Master does not mind that so much for its own sake, for He likes to see
   His children happy, but in our playing we neglect our lessons. We do
   not see how much there is to learn, and we do not care. But our Master
   cares. He has a perfectly overpowering and inexplicable solicitude for
   our education; and because He loves us, He comes into the school
   sometimes and speaks to us. He may speak very softly and gently, or
   very loudly. Sometimes a look is enough, and we understand it, like
   Peter, and go out at once and weep bitterly. Sometimes the voice is
   like a thunderclap startling a summer night. But one thing we may be
   sure of: the task He sets us to is never measured by our delinquency.
   The discipline may seem far less than our desert, or even to our eye
   ten times more. But it is not measured by these--it is measured by
   God's solicitude for our progress; measured solely by God's love;
   measured solely that the scholar may be better educated when he arrives
   at his Father. The discipline of life is a preparation for meeting the
   Father. When we arrive there to behold His beauty, we must have the
   educated eye; and that must be trained here. We must become so pure in
   heart--and it needs much practice--that we shall see God. That explains
   life--why God puts man in the crucible and makes him pure by fire.

   When we see Him, we must speak to Him. We have that language to learn.
   And that is perhaps why God makes us pray so much. Then we are to walk
   with Him in white. Our sanctification is a putting on this white. But
   there has to be much disrobing first; much putting off of filthy rags.
   This is why God makes man's beauty to consume away like the moth. He
   takes away the moth's wings, and gives the angel's, and man goes the
   quicker and the lovelier to the Father.

   It is quite true, indeed, besides all this, that sometimes shadow falls
   more directly from definite sin. But even then its explanation is the
   same. We lose our way, perhaps, on the way to the Father. The road is
   rough, and we choose the way with the flowers beside it, instead of the
   path of thorns. Often and often thus, purposely or carelessly, we lose
   the way. So the Lord Jesus has to come and look for us. And He may have
   to lead us through desert and danger, before we regain the road
   --before we are as we were--and the voice says to us sadly once more,
   "This is the way to the Father."

   The other thing which this truth explains is, why there is so much that
   is unexplained. After we have explained all, there is much left. All
   our knowledge, it is said, is but different degrees of darkness. But we
   know why we do not know why. It is because we are going to our Father.
   We are only going: we are not there yet. Therefore patience. "What I do
   thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know. Hereafter, thou shalt know."
   Hereafter, because the chief joy of life is to have something to look
   forward to. But, hereafter, for a deeper reason. Knowledge is only
   given for action. Knowing only exists for doing: and already nearly all
   men know to do more than they do do. So, till we do all that we know,
   God retains the balance till we can use it. In the larger life of the
   hereafter, more shall be given, proportionate to the vaster sphere and
   the more ardent energies.

   Necessarily, therefore, much of life is still twilight. But our perfect
   refuge is to anticipate a little and go in thought to our Father, and,
   like children tired out with efforts to put together the disturbed
   pieces of a puzzle, wait to take the fragments to our Father.

   And yet, even that fails sometimes. He seems to hide from us and the
   way is lost indeed. The footsteps which went before us up till then
   cease, and we are left in the chill, dark night alone. If we could only
   see the road, we should know it went to the Father. But we cannot say
   we are going to the Father; we can only say we would like to go.
   "Lord," we cry, "we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know
   the way?" "Whither I go," is the inexplicable answer, "ye know not
   now." Well is it for those who at such times are near enough to catch
   the rest: "But ye shall know hereafter."

   II. Secondly, and in a few words, this sustains Life.

   A year or two ago some of the greatest and choicest minds of this
   country laboured, in the pages of one of our magazines, to answer the
   question, "Is Life worth living?" It was a triumph for religion, some
   thought, that the keenest intellects of the nineteenth century should
   be stirred with themes like this. It was not so; it was the surest
   proof of the utter heathenism of our age. Is Life worth living? As well
   ask, Is air worth breathing? The real question is this--taking the
   definition of life here suggested--Is it worth while going to the
   Father?

   Yet we can understand the question. On any other definition we can
   understand it. On any other definition life is very far from being
   worth living. Without that, life is worse than an enigma; it is an
   inquisition. Life is either a discipline, or a most horrid cruelty.
   Man's best aims here are persistently thwarted, his purest aspirations
   degraded, his intellect systematically insulted, his spirit of inquiry
   is crushed, his love mocked, and his hope stultified. There is no
   solution whatever to life without this; there is nothing to sustain
   either mind or soul amid its terrible mystery but this; there is
   nothing even to account for mind and soul. And it will always be a
   standing miracle that men of powerful intellect who survey life, who
   feel its pathos and bitterness, and are shut up all the time by their
   beliefs to impenetrable darkness--I say it will always be a standing
   miracle how such men, with the terrible unsolved problems all around
   them, can keep reason from reeling and tottering from its throne. If
   life is not a going to the Father, it is not only not worth living, it
   is an insult to the living; and it is one of the strangest mysteries
   how men who are large enough in one direction to ask that question, and
   too limited in another to answer it, should voluntarily continue to
   live at all.

   There is nothing to sustain life but this thought. And it does sustain
   life. Take even an extreme case, and you will see how. Take the
   darkest, saddest, most pathetic life of the world's history. That was
   Jesus Christ's. See what this truth practically was to Him. It gave Him
   a life of absolute composure in a career of most tragic trials.

   You have noticed often, and it is inexpressibly touching, how as His
   life narrows, and troubles thicken around Him, He leans more and more
   upon this. And when the last days draw near --as the memorable chapters
   in John reveal them to us--with what clinging tenderness He alludes in
   almost every second sentence to "My Father." There is a wistful
   eagerness in these closing words which is strangely melting--like one
   ending a letter at sea when land is coming into sight.

   This is the Christian's only stay in life. It provides rest for his
   soul, work for his character, an object, an inconceivably sublime
   object, for his ambition. It does not stagger him to be a stranger
   here, to feel the world passing away. The Christian is like the
   pearl-diver, who is out of the sunshine for a little, spending his
   short day amid rocks and weeds and dangers at the bottom of the ocean.
   Does he desire to spend his life there? No, but his Master does. Is his
   life there? No, his life is up above. A communication is open to the
   surface, and the fresh pure life comes down to him from God. Is he not
   wasting time there? He is gathering pearls for his Master's crown. Will
   he always stay there? When the last pearl is gathered, the "Come up
   higher" will beckon him away, and the weights which kept him down will
   become an exceeding weight of glory, and he will go, he and those he
   brings with him, to his Father.

   He feels, to change the metaphor, like a man in training for a race. It
   is months off still, but it is nearer him than to-morrow, nearer than
   anything else. Great things are always near things. So he lives in his
   future. Ask him why this deliberate abstinence from luxury in eating
   and drinking. "He is keeping his life," he says. Why this self-denial,
   this separation from worldliness, this change to a quiet life from
   revelries far into the night? "He is keeping his life." He cannot have
   both the future and the present; and he knows that every regulated
   hour, and every temptation scorned and set aside, is adding a nobler
   tissue to his frame and keeping his life for the prize that is to come.

   Trial to the Christian is training for eternity, and he is perfectly
   contented; for he knows that "he who loveth his life in this world
   shall lose it--but he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it
   unto life eternal." He is keeping his life till he gets to the Father.

   III. Lastly, in a word, this completes life.

   Life has been defined as a going to the Father. It is quite clear that
   there must come a time in the history of all those who live this life
   when they reach the Father. This is the most glorious moment of life.
   Angels attend at it. Those on the other side must hail the completing
   of another soul with ineffable rapture. When they are yet a great way
   off, the Father runs and falls on their neck and kisses them.

   On this side we call that Death. It means reaching the Father. It is
   not departure, it is arrival; not sleep, but waking. For life to those
   who live like Christ is not a funeral procession. It is a triumphal
   march to the Father. And the entry at the last in God's own chariot is
   the best hour of all. No, as we watch a life which is going to the
   Father, we cannot think of night, of gloom, of dusk and sunset. It is
   life which is the night, and Death is sunrise.

   "Pray moderately," says an old saint, "for the lives of Christ's
   people." Pray moderately. We may want them on our side, he means. but
   Christ may need them on His. He has seen them a great way off, and set
   His heart upon them, and asked the Father to make them come quickly. "I
   will," He says, "that such an one should be with Me where I am." So it
   is better that they should go to the Father.

   These words have a different emphasis to different persons. There are
   three classes to whom they come home with a peculiar emphasis:--

   1. They speak to those who are staying away from God. "I do not wonder
   at what men suffer," says Ruskin, "I wonder often at what they lose."
   My fellow pilgrim, you do not know what you are losing by not going to
   the Father. You live in an appalling mystery. You have nothing to
   explain your life, nor to sustain it; no boundary line on the dim
   horizon to complete it. When life is done you are going to leap into
   the dark. You will cross the dark river and land on the further shore
   alone. No one will greet you. You and the Inhabitant of Eternity will
   be strangers. Will you not to-day arise and go to your Father?

   2. They speak, next, to all God's people. Let us remember that we are
   going to the Father. Even now are we the sons of God. Oh, let us live
   like it--more simple, uncomplaining, useful, separate--joyful as those
   who march with music, yet sober as those who are to company with
   Christ. The road is heavy, high road and low road, but we shall soon be
   home. God grant us a sure arrival in our Father's house.

   3. And this voice whispers yet one more message to the mourning. Did
   Death end all? Is it well with the child? It is well. The last inn by
   the roadside has been passed--that is all, and a voice called to us.
   "Good-bye! I go to my Father."
     __________________________________________________________________

THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

   "They said, He is beside Himself,"--MARK iii. 21.

   THE most pathetic life in the history of the world is the life of the
   Lord Jesus. Those who study it find out, every day, a fresh sorrow.
   Before He came it was already foretold that He would be acquainted with
   grief, but no imagination has ever conceived the darkness of the
   reality.

   It began with one of the bitterest kinds of sorrow--the sorrow of an
   enforced silence. For thirty years He saw, but dared not act. The
   wrongs He came to redress were there. The hollowest religion ever
   known--a mere piece of acting--was being palmed off around Him on every
   side as the religion of the living God. He saw the poor trodden upon,
   the sick untended, the widow unavenged, His Father's people scattered,
   His truth misrepresented, and the whole earth filled with hypocrisy and
   violence. He saw this, grew up amongst it, knew how to cure it. Yet He
   was dumb, He opened not His mouth. How He held in His breaking spirit,
   till the slow years dragged themselves done, it is impossible to
   comprehend.

   Then came the public life, the necessity to breathe its atmosphere: the
   temptation, the contradiction of sinners, the insults of the Pharisees,
   the attempts on his life, the dulness of His disciples, the Jews'
   rejection of Him, the apparent failure of His cause, Gethsemane,
   Calvary. Yet these were but the more marked shades in the darkness
   which blackened the whole path of the Man of Sorrows.

   But we are confronted here with an episode in His life which is not
   included in any of these--an episode which had a bitterness all its
   own, and such as has fallen to the lot of few to know. It was not the
   way the world treated Him; it was not the Pharisees; it was not
   something which came from His enemies; it was something His friends
   did. When He left the carpenter's shop and went out into the wider
   life, His friends were watching Him. For some time back they had
   remarked a certain strangeness in His manner. He had always been
   strange among His brothers, but now this was growing upon Him. He had
   said much stranger things of late, made many strange plans, gone away
   on curious errands to strange places. What did it mean? Where was it to
   end? Were the family to be responsible for all this eccentricity? One
   sad day it culminated. It was quite clear to them now. He was not
   responsible for what He was doing. It was His mind, alas! that had
   become affected. He was beside Himself. In plain English, He was mad!

   An awful thing to say when it is true, a more awful thing when it is
   not; a more awful thing still when the accusation comes from those we
   love, from those who know us best. It was the voice of no enemy, it
   came from His own home. It was His own mother, perhaps, and His
   brethren, who pointed this terrible finger at Him; apologising for Him,
   entreating the people never to mind Him, He was beside Himself--He was
   mad.

   There should have been one spot surely upon God's earth for the Son of
   Man to lay His head--one roof, at least, in Nazareth, with mother's
   ministering hand and sister's love for the weary Worker. But His very
   home is closed to Him. He has to endure the furtive glances of eyes
   which once loved Him, the household watching Him and whispering one to
   another, the cruel suspicion, the laying hands upon Him, hands which
   were once kind to Him, and finally, the overwhelming announcement of
   the verdict of His family, "He is beside Himself." Truly He came to His
   own, and His own received Him not.

   What makes it seemly to dig up this harrowing memory today, and
   emphasize a thought which we cannot but feel lies on the borderland of
   blasphemy? Because the significance of that scene is still intense. It
   has a peculiar lesson for us who are to profess ourselves followers of
   Christ--a lesson in the counting of the cost. Christ's life, from first
   to last, was a dramatized parable--too short and too significant to
   allow even a scene which well might rest in solemn shadow to pass by
   unimproved.

   I. Observe, from the world's standpoint, the charge is true. It is
   useless to denounce this as a libel, a bitter, blasphemous calumny. It
   is not so--it is true. There was no alternative. Either He was the
   Christ, the Son of the living God, or He was beside Himself. A holy
   life is always a phenomenon. The world knoweth it not. It is either
   supernatural or morbid.

   For what is being beside oneself? What is madness? It is
   eccentricity--ec-centr-icity--having a different centre from other
   people. Here is a man, for instance, who devotes his life to collecting
   objects of antiquarian interest, old coins perhaps, or old editions of
   books. His centre is odd, his life revolves in an orbit of his own.
   Therefore, his friends say, he is eccentric. Or here is an engine with
   many moving wheels, large and small, cogged and plain, but each
   revolving upon a central axis, and describing a perfect circle. But at
   one side there is one small wheel which does not turn in a circle. Its
   motion is different from all the rest, and the changing curve it
   describes is unlike any ordinary line of the mathematician. The
   engineer tells you that this is the eccentric, because it has a
   peculiar centre.

   Now when Jesus Christ came among men He found them nearly all revolving
   in one circle. There was but one centre to human life--self. Man's
   chief end was to glorify himself and enjoy himself for ever. Then, as
   now, by the all but unanimous concensus of the people, this present
   world was sanctioned as the legitimate object of all human interest and
   enterprise. By the whole gravitation of society, Jesus--as a man--must
   have been drawn to the very verge of this vast vortex of
   self-indulgence, personal ease and pleasure, which had sucked in the
   populations of the world since time began. But He stepped back. He
   refused absolutely to be attracted. He put everything out of His life
   that had even a temptation in it to the world's centre. He humbled
   Himself--there is no place in the world's vortex for humbleness; He
   became of no reputation--nor for namelessness. He emptied
   Himself--gravitation cannot act on emptiness. So the prince of this
   world came, but found nothing in Him. He found nothing, because the
   true centre of that life was not to be seen. It was with God. The
   unseen and the eternal moved Him. He did not seek His own happiness,
   but that of others. He went about doing good. His object in going about
   was not gain, but to do good.

   Now all this was very eccentric. It was living on new lines altogether.
   He did God's will. He pleased not Himself. His centre was to one side
   of self. He was beside Himself. From the world's view-point it was
   simply madness.

   Think of this idea of His, for instance, of starting out into life with
   so quixotic an idea as that of doing good; the simplicity of the
   expectation that the world ever would become good; this irrational talk
   about meat to eat that they knew not of, about living water; these
   extraordinary beatitudes predicating sources of happiness which had
   never been heard of; these paradoxical utterances of which He was so
   fond, such as that the way to find life was to lose it, and to lose
   life in this world was to keep it to life eternal. What could these be
   but mere hallucination and dreaming! It was inevitable that men should
   laugh and sneer at Him. He was unusual. He would not go with the
   multitude. And men were expected to go with the multitude. What the
   multitude thought, said, and did, were the right things to have
   thought, said, and done. And if any One thought, said, or did
   differently, his folly be on his own head, he was beside himself, he
   was mad.

   II. Every man who lives like Christ produces the same reaction upon the
   world. This is an inevitable consequence. What men said of Him, if we
   are true to Him, they will say of you and me. The servant is not above
   his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. A
   Christian must be different from other people. Time has not changed the
   essential difference between the spirit of the world and the spirit of
   Christ. They are radically and eternally different. And from the
   world's standpoint still Christianity is eccentricity. For what, again,
   is Christianity? It is the projection into the world of these lines
   along which Christ lived. It is a duplicating in modern life of the
   spirit, the method, and the aims of Jesus, a following through the
   world the very footprints He left behind. And if these footprints were
   at right angles to the broad beaten track the world went along in His
   day, they will be so still. It is useless to say the distinction has
   broken down. These two roads are still at right angles. The day may be,
   when the path of righteousness shall be the glorious highway for all
   the earth. But it is not now. Christ did not expect it would be so. He
   made provision for the very opposite. He prepared His Church beforehand
   for the reception it would get in the world. He gave no hope that it
   would be an agreeable one. Light must conflict with darkness, truth
   with error. There is no sanctioned place in the world as yet for a life
   with God as its goal, and self-denial as its principle. Meekness must
   be victimized; spirituality must be misunderstood; true religion must
   be burlesqued. Holiness must make a strong ferment and reaction in
   family or community, office or workshop, wherever it is introduced.
   "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send
   peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his
   father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
   against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes (He might well say it)
   shall be they of his own household."

   True religion is no milk-and-water experience. It is a fire. It is a
   sword. It is a burning, consuming heat, which must radiate upon
   everything around. The change to the Christlike Life is so remarkable
   that when one really undergoes it, he cannot find words in common use
   by which he can describe its revolutionary character. He has to recall
   the very striking phrases of the New Testament, which once seemed such
   exaggerations:--"A new man, a new creature; a new heart; a new birth."
   His very life has been taken down and re-crystallised round the new
   centre. He has been born again.

   The impression his friends receive from him now is the impression of
   eccentricity. The change is bound to strike them, for it is radical,
   central. They will call in unworthy motives to account for the
   difference. They will say it is a mere temporary fit, and will pass
   away. They will say he has shown a weakness which they did not expect
   from him, and try to banter him out of his novel views and stricter
   life. This, in its mildest form, is the modern equivalent of "He is
   beside himself." And it cannot be helped. It is the legitimate reproach
   of the Cross. The words are hard, but not new. Has it not come down
   that long line of whom the world was not worthy? Its history, alas! is
   well known. It fell on the first Christians in a painful and even
   vulgar form.

   The little Church had just begun to live. The disciples stood after the
   great day of Pentecost contemplating that first triumph of Christ's
   cause with unbounded joy. At last an impression had been made upon the
   world. The enterprise was going to succeed, and the whole earth would
   fill with God's glory. They little calculated that the impression they
   made on the world was the impression of their own ridiculousness. "What
   meaneth this?" the people asked. "It means," the disciples would have
   said, "that the Holy Ghost, who was to come in His name, is here, that
   God's grace is stirring the hearts of men and moving them to repent."
   The people had a different answer. "These men," was the coarse reply,
   "are full of new wine." Not mad this time--they are intoxicated!

   Time passed, and Paul tells us the charge was laid at his door. He had
   made that great speech in the hall of the Caesarean palace before
   Agrippa and Festus. He told them of the grace of God in his conversion,
   and closed with an eloquent confession of his Lord. What impression had
   he made upon his audience? The impression of a madman. "As he thus
   spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside
   thyself, much learning hath made thee mad.'" Poor Paul! How you feel
   for him when the cruel blow was struck. But there was no answer to it.
   From their view-point it was perfectly true. And so it has been with
   all saints to the present hour. It matters not if they speak like Paul
   the words of soberness. It matters not if they are men of burning zeal
   like Xavier and Whitfield, men of calm spirit like Tersteegen and a
   Kempis, men of learning like Augustine, or of ordinary gifts like
   Wesley--the effect of all saintly lives upon the world is the same.
   They are to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.

   It is not simply working Christianity that is an offence. The whole
   spiritual life, to the natural man, is an eccentric thing. Take such a
   manifestation, for instance, as Prayer. The scientific men of the day
   have examined it and pronounced it hallucination. Or take Public
   Prayer. A congregation of people with bowed heads, shut eyes, hushed
   voices, invoking, confessing, pleading, entreating One who, though not
   seen, is said to see, who, speaking not, is said to answer. There is no
   other name for this incantation from the world's standpoint than
   eccentricity, delusion, madness. We are not ashamed of the terms. They
   are the guarantee of quality. And all high quality in the world is
   subject to the same reproach. For we are discussing a universal
   principle. It applies to inventors, to discoverers, to philosophers, to
   poets, to all men who have been better or higher than their time. These
   men are never understood by their contemporaries. And if there are
   martyrs of science, the centres of science being in this world, seen,
   demonstrated, known, how much more must there be martyrs for religion
   whose centre is beyond the reach of earthly eye?

   III. It follows from this, that the more active religion is, the more
   unpopular it must be.

   Christ's religion did not trouble His friends at first. For thirty
   years, at all events, they were content to put up with it. But as it
   grew in intensity they lost patience. When He called the twelve
   disciples, they gave Him up. His work went on, the world said nothing
   for some time. But as His career became aberrant more and more, the
   family feeling spread, gained universal ground. Even the most beautiful
   and tender words He uttered were quoted in evidence of His state. For
   John tells us that after that exquisite discourse in the tenth chapter
   about the Good Shepherd, there was a division among the Jews for these
   sayings: "And many of them said, He hath a devil and is mad. Why hear
   ye Him?" It seemed utter raving.

   Have you ever noticed--and there is nothing more touching in
   history--how Christ's path narrowed?

   The first great active period is called in books The year of public
   favour. On the whole it was a year of triumph. The world received Him
   for a time. Vast crowds followed Him. The Baptist's audience left him
   and gathered round the new voice. Palestine rang with the name of
   Jesus. Noblemen, rulers, rabbis, vied with one another in entertaining
   Him. But the excitement died down suddenly and soon.

   The next year is called The year of opposition. The applause was over.
   The crowds thinned. On every hand He was obstructed. The Sadducees left
   Him. The Pharisees left Him. The political party were roused into
   opposition. The Jews, the great mass of the people, gave Him up. His
   path was narrowing.

   With the third period came the end. The path was very narrow now There
   were but twelve left to Him when the last act of the drama opens. They
   are gathered on the stage together for the last time. But it must
   narrow still. One of the disciples. after receiving the sop, goes out.
   Eleven are left Him. Peter soon follows. There are but ten. One by one
   they leave the stage, till all forsook Him and fled, and He is left to
   die alone. Well might He cry, as He hung there in this awful
   solitude--as if even God had forgotten Him, "My God, my God, why hast
   Thou forsaken Me?"

   But this is not peculiar to Jesus. It is typical of the life of every
   Christian. His path. too, must narrow. As he grows in grace, he grows
   in isolation. He feels that God is detaching his life from all around
   it and drawing him to Himself for a more intimate fellowship. But as
   the communion is nearer, the chasm which separates him from his fellow
   man must widen. The degree of a man's religion, indeed, is to be gauged
   by the degree of his rejection by the world. With the early Christians
   was not this the commonest axiom, "We told you before," did not Paul
   warn them, "that we should suffer?" "Unto some it was given in the
   behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His
   sake." It was the position of honour, as it were, in the family of God
   to be counted worthy of being persecuted for the sake of Christ.

   It is a sad reflection that, as in the case of Christ, the keenest
   suffering may come sometimes still from one's own family circle. Among
   our friends there may be one on whom we all look askance--one who is
   growing up in the beauty of holiness, and we not knowing what it is
   that makes him strange. It often needs Death to teach us the beauty of
   a life which has been lived beside our own; and we only know the worth
   of it when God proves it by taking it to Himself.

   Finally, it may be objected to all this that if eccentricity is a
   virtue, it is easily purchased. Any one can set up for an eccentric
   character. And if that is the desideratum of religion we shall have
   candidates enough for the office. But it remains to define the terms on
   which a Christian should be eccentric--Christ's own terms. And let them
   be guides to us in our eccentricity, for without them we shall be not
   Christians, but fanatics.

   The qualities which distinguish the eccentricity of godliness from all
   other eccentricities are three; and we gather them all from the life of
   Christ.

   (1) Notice, His eccentricity was not destructive. Christ took the world
   as He found it, He left it as it was. He had no quarrel with existing
   institutions. He did not overthrow the church--He went to church. He
   said nothing against politics --He supported the government of the
   country. He did not denounce society--His first public action was to go
   to a marriage. His great aim, in fact, outwardly, and all along, was to
   be as normal, as little eccentric as possible. The true fanatic always
   tries the opposite. The spirit alone was singular in Jesus; a fanatic
   always spoils his cause by extending it to the letter. Christ came not
   to destroy, but to fulfil. A fanatic comes not to fulfil, but to
   destroy. If we would follow the eccentricity of our Master, let it not
   be in asceticism, in denunciation, in punctiliousness, and scruples
   about trifles, but in largeness of heart, singleness of eye, true
   breadth of character, true love to men, and heroism for Christ.

   (2) It was perfectly composed. We think of eccentricity as associated
   with frenzy, nervousness, excitableness, ungovernable enthusiasm. But
   the life of Jesus was a calm. It was a life of marvellous composure.
   The storms were all about it, tumult and tempest, tempest and tumult,
   waves breaking over Him all the time till the worn body was laid in the
   grave. But the inner life was as a sea of glass. It was a life of
   perfect composure. To come near it even now is to be calmed and
   soothed. Go to it at any moment, the great calm is there. The request
   to "come" at any moment was a standing invitation all through His life.
   Come unto Me at My darkest hour, in My heaviest trial, on My busiest
   day, and I will give you Rest. And when the very bloodhounds were
   gathering in the streets of Jerusalem to hunt Him down, did He not turn
   to the quaking group around Him and bequeath to them--a last
   legacy--"My Peace"?

   There was no frenzy about His life, no excitement. In quietness and
   confidence the most terrible days sped past. In patience and composure
   the most thrilling miracles were wrought. Men came unto Him, and they
   found not restlessness, but Rest. Composure is to be had for faith. We
   shall be worse than fanatics if we attempt to go along the lonely path
   with Christ without this spirit. We shall do harm, not good. We shall
   leave half-done work. We shall wear out before our time. Do not say,
   "Life is short." Christ's life was short; yet He finished the work that
   was given Him to do. He was never in a hurry. And if God has given us
   anything to do for Him, He will give time enough to finish it with a
   repose like Christ's.

   (3) This life was consistent.

   From the Christian standpoint a consistent life is the only sane life.
   It is not worth while being religious without being thorough. An
   inconsistent Christian is the true eccentric. He is the true phenomenon
   in the religious world; to his brother Christian the only madman. For
   madness, in a sense, is inconsistency; madness is incoherency,
   irrelevancy, disconnectedness; and surely there is nothing more
   disconnected than a belief in God and Eternity and no corresponding
   life. And that man is surely beside himself who assumes the name of
   Christ, pledges perhaps in sacramental wine to be faithful to His name
   and cause, and who from one year to another never lifts a finger to
   help it. The man who is really under a delusion, is he who bears
   Christ's name, who has no uneasiness about the quality of his life, nor
   any fear for the future, and whose true creed is that


   He lives for himself, he thinks for himself,

   For himself, and none beside;

   Just as if Jesus had never lived,

   As if He had never died.

   Yes, a consistent eccentricity is the only sane life. "An enthusiastic
   religion is the perfection of common sense." And to be beside oneself
   for Christ's sake is to be beside Christ, which is man's chief end for
   time and eternity.
     __________________________________________________________________

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

   PHILIPPIANS i. 21. In connection with ACTS ix. 1--18.

   THERE is no more significant sign of the days in which we live than the
   interest society seems to be taking in the biographies of great men.
   Almost all the more popular recent books, for instance--the books which
   every one is reading and has to read--come under the category of
   biography; and, to meet the demand, two or three times in each season
   the market has to be supplied with the lives, in minute detail, of men
   who but for this would perhaps have lain in unnoticed graves.

   This thirst for memoirs and lives and letters is not all to be put down
   to the hero worship which is natural to every heart. It means, perhaps,
   a higher thing than that. It means, in the first place, that great
   living is being appreciated for its own sake; and, in the second, that
   great living is being imitated. If it is true that any of us are
   beginning to appreciate greatness for its own sake--greatness, that is
   to say, in the sense of great and true living--it is one of the most
   hopeful symptoms of our history. And, further, if we are going on from
   the mere admiration of great men to try and live like them, we are
   obeying one of the happiest impulses of our being. There is indeed no
   finer influence abroad than the influence of great men in great books,
   and all that literature can do in supplying the deformed world with
   worthy and shapely models is entitled to gratitude and respect.

   But a shadow sometimes comes over this thought of the magnetic
   attraction which greatness is having upon our age--the further thought
   how hard it is to get our greatness pure. The well is deep, may be, and
   the fountain sparkles to the eye; but we ask perhaps in vain for a
   guarantee of quality. Each new ideal we adjust our life to copy turns
   out to have its adulteration of selfishness or pride, like the one we
   studied last, till the pattern we sought to follow surprises us by
   becoming a beacon for us to shun.

   There are a few biographies, however, where men may find their
   greatness pure; and amongst them is one familiar writing which, though
   seldom looked at as biographical in this sense, really contains the
   life and letters of the greatest man probably of human history. That
   man was Paul. The life of Paul the man, apart from the theology of Paul
   the Apostle, is a legitimate and fruitful study from the mere
   standpoint of the biography of a great and successful life. Judged by
   his influence on human history, no single life is entitled to more
   admiration for what it has done, or is indeed more worthy of imitation
   for what it was. And in our quest after a true life, a worthy and
   satisfying life, there may be some light for us in this old biography
   which we have missed perhaps in the lives of later men.

   If we were to begin by seeking an appropriate motto for Paul's life, we
   should not need to go further than the quotation which forms our text.
   This fragment from one of his own letters lets us in at once to his
   whole secret. The true discovery of a character is the discovery of its
   ideals. Paul spares us any speculation in his case. "To me to live," he
   says, "is Christ." This is the motto of his life, the ruling passion of
   it, which at once explains the nature of his success and accounts for
   it. He lives for Christ. "To me to live is Christ."

   Now here at the outset is a valuable practical point settled in this
   biography. When we turn to the biographies of most great men, we find
   either no key or a very complex one; and we rise from the perusal with
   nothing more than a vague desire to do better, but with no discovery
   how. We gain stimulus, indeed, but no knowledge and this is simply
   injurious. We are braced up enthusiastically for a little, and then do
   nothing. At the end of it all we are not better, we are only exhausted.
   This is the reason why biography-hunters often, after long dogging the
   footsteps of greatness, find that they are perhaps no further on the
   road to it themselves, but rather more inclined than before to lie down
   where they were.

   But Paul explicitly announces to us the working principle of his life.
   If the lines are great lines, there is nothing mysterious about them.
   If we want to live like Paul, we have simply to live for Christ; Christ
   our life on one side, our life for Christ on the other, and both summed
   up together in Paul's epitome: "To me to live is Christ."

   This being the clue to Paul's life, the instructive question next
   arises, What exactly did Paul mean by this principle, and how did he
   come to find it out? But the question, "What is this object of life?"
   is so closely bound up with how Paul came to have this object of life,
   that the answer to the last question will form at once an explanation
   and an illustration of the first.

   Therefore let us go at once for the answer to the life itself. Great
   principles are always best and freshest when studied from the life, and
   it so happens that a circumstance in Paul's life makes it peculiarly
   easy to act on this rule here.

   That circumstance was that Paul had two lives. Many men besides Paul
   have had two lives, but the line is cleaner cut in Paul's case than in
   almost any other biography. Both lives were somewhere about the same
   length, so far as we know, but so distinct in their general features
   and details that Paul had not only two lives, but, as if to mark the
   distinction more strikingly, two names. Let us look for a moment at the
   first of these lives--the reason will appear presently.

   Paul's first life, as we all know, was spent under the most auspicious
   circumstances, and it will be worth while running over it. Born of a
   family which belonged to the most select theological school of that
   day, the son was early looked upon as at once the promise of his
   parents and the hope of their religion. They sent him when a mere lad
   to Jerusalem, and enrolled him as a student in the most distinguished
   college of the time. After running a brilliant college career, and
   sitting for many years at the feet of the greatest learning the Jewish
   capital could boast, we find him bursting upon the world with his
   splendid talents, and taking a place at once in the troubled political
   movements of the day. It was impossible for such a character with his
   youth's enthusiasm and his Pharisee's pride to submit to the tame life
   of a temple Rabbi, and he sees his opportunity in the rise of the
   Christian sect. Here, at last, he would match his abilities in a
   contest which would gain him at once a field of exercise and a name. So
   far, doubtless, he thought his first life great.

   Into his work of persecution he seems now to have entered with all an
   inquisitor's zest. His conspicuous place among the murderers of the
   first martyr stamped him forthwith as a leader, and gave him the
   foretaste of a popularity which, but for the interruption of the hand
   of God, might have ended disastrously to the struggling Christian
   Church. His success as an inquisitor is recognised in the highest
   quarters of the land; and the young man's fortune is made. Perhaps no
   Rabbi of that time had such prospects now as Saul. "He is a man raised
   up for the emergency," said all Jerusalem, and henceforth the Jewish
   world was at his feet. Courted as the rising man of his day and flushed
   with success, he left no stone unturned to find fresh opportunities of
   adding to his influence and power. And as he climbed each rung of the
   ladder of fame, we can imagine, as a great student of Paul has said,
   how his heart swelled within him when he read these words at night from
   the Book of Wisdom: "I shall have estimation among the multitude, and
   honour with the elders, though I be young. I shall be found of a quick
   conceit in judgment, and shall be admired in the sight of great men.
   When I hold my tongue they shall abide my leisure, and when I speak
   they shall give good ear unto me." Such was the man who afterwards
   said, "To me to live is Christ."

   Upon the little Church at Jerusalem he has already wreaked his
   vengeance to the full. The town and neighbourhood at last are well nigh
   ridded of the pest; and--unlooked-for calamity--in the height of his
   triumph Saul finds his occupation gone. Dispersed in all directions,
   members of the little band have made their way in secret through Judaea
   and Samaria, through Syria and Phoenicia, even into strange cities. And
   Saul finds round about Jerusalem no fuel to feed the martyrs' fire, and
   thus to add more lustre to his own name.

   But there is no pause in the pursuit of human fame. The young lawyer's
   reputation can never end in an anti-climax like this. And with the
   ambition which knows not how to rest, and in the pride of his
   Pharisee's heart, he strikes out the idea to reverse the maxim of the
   crucified Leader of the hated sect and to go into all the world and
   suppress the gospel in every creature. He applies to the high-priest
   for commission and authority, and, breathing out threatenings and
   slaughter, the man who is going to live for Christ starts out on his
   Christless mission to make havoc of the Church.

   This is the last act of Paul's first life. Let us note it carefully. We
   are on the bridge which separates Paul's two lives. What marks the
   transition is this: hitherto his life has been spent in public. It has
   been one prolonged whirl of excitement and applause. But no sooner have
   the gates of Jerusalem closed upon him than Saul begins to think. The
   echoes of the people's praises have died away one by one. He has gone
   out into the great desert. It is strangely silent and soothing, and the
   lull has come at last upon his soul. It is a long while, perhaps, since
   he has had time to think; but Saul was far too great a man to live long
   an unthinking life. His time for reflection has come. And as he wanders
   with his small escort along the banks of the Jordan or across the
   solitary hills of Samaria, his thoughts are busy with the past. And if
   Saul was far too great a man to live an unthinking life, he was also
   too great a man to think well of his life when he did think. Each new
   day as he journeyed away from the scene of his triumph, and looked back
   upon it all from that distance--which always gives the true perspective
   to man's life--his mind must have filled with many a sad reproach. And
   as he lay down at night in the quiet wilderness his thoughts must often
   have turned on the true quality of the life to which he was sacrificing
   his talents and his youth. With his quick perception, with his keen
   trained intellect, with his penetration, he must have seen that after
   all this life was a mistake. Minds of lesser calibre in the applauding
   world which he had left had told him he was great. Now, in his calmer
   moments, he knew he was not great. The eternal heavens stretching above
   him pointed to an infinity which lay behind them all; and the stars and
   the silence spoke to him of God. He felt that his life was miserably
   small. Saul's thoughts were greater than Saul's life. How he had been
   living beneath himself--how he had wasted the precious years of his
   youth--how he had sold his life for honour and reputation, and bartered
   the talents God had given him for a name, he must have seen. He had
   been dazzled, and that was all. He had nothing really to show for his
   life, nothing that would stand the test of solid thought. It was all
   done for himself. He, Saul of Tarsus, the rising man of his time, was
   the sole centre of it. "After all," perhaps he cried in agony, "To me
   to live is Saul," "To me to live is Saul."

   Paul's first great discovery, as we have seen--and it is the discovery
   which precedes every true reformation of life--was the discovery of
   himself. When Paul said, "To me to live is myself," his conversion was
   begun. There was no retreat then for a man like him. He was too great
   to have such a little centre to his life; or rather, he felt life too
   great to be absorbed with even such a personality as his.

   But the next element in the case was not so easily discovered, and it
   is of much more importance than the first. His first achievement was
   only to discover himself. His second was to discover some one better
   than himself. He wanted a new centre to his life--where was he to find
   it? The unseen hand which painted his own portrait in its true colours
   on the dark background of his mind had painted every other life the
   same. The high priests at Jerusalem, the members of the Sanhedrim, his
   own father at Tarsus--all the men he knew were living lives like
   himself: They were no better--most of them worse. Must the old centre
   of Paul's life remain there still? Is there nothing better in all the
   world than himself?

   It may be conjecture, or it may be nearer truth, that while such
   questionings passed through the mind of Paul, there came into his
   thoughts as he journeyed some influences from another life--a life like
   that for which his thoughts had longed. Paul's best known journeys are
   his missionary tours, and we generally associate him in our thoughts
   with the countries of Asia and Italy and Greece. But this time his way
   leads through the Holy Land. He has entered the country of Christ. He
   is crossing the very footsteps of Jesus. The villages along his route
   are fragrant still with what Jesus said and did--not the bitter things
   that Saul had heard before. Kind words are repeated to him, and tender
   acts which Jesus did are told. The peasants by the way-side and the
   shepherds on the hills are full of stories of a self-denying life which
   used to pass that way a year or two ago, but now will come no more. And
   the mothers at the cottage doors remember the Stranger who suffered
   their little children to come unto Him, and get them to repeat to Saul,
   perhaps, the children's blessing which He left behind. Perhaps, in
   passing through Samaria, the traveller meets a woman at a well, who
   tells her strange tale for the thousandth time, of a weary Man who had
   sat there once and said He was the Christ. And Galilee and Capernaum,
   and Bethsaida, and the lake shore at Gennesaret, are full of memories
   of the one true life which surely even then had begun to cast a sacred
   influence over Saul. At all events, there seems a strange preparedness
   in his mind for the meeting on the Damascus road, as if the interview
   with Jesus then were not so much the first of his friendship as the
   natural outcome of something that had gone before. And no doubt the
   Spirit's silent working had been telling on his mind during all these
   quiet days, leading up his thoughts to the revelation that was to come
   and preparing a pathos for the memorable question, with its otherwise
   unaccountable emphasis, "Why persecutest thou Me?"

   What went on between Paul's heart and God we do not know. We do not
   know how deep repentance ran, nor where nor how the justifying grace
   came down from heaven to his soul. Whether just then he went through
   our formula of conversion--the process which we like to watch and
   describe in technical words--we do not know. But we know this--there
   came a difference into his life. His life was changed. It was changed
   at its most radical part. He had changed centres. During the process,
   whatever it was, this great transfer was effected. Paul deliberately
   removed the old centre from his life, and put a new one in its place.
   Instead of "to me to live is Saul." it was now, "to me to live is
   Christ."

   Of course, when the centre of Paul's life was changed, he had to take
   his whole life to pieces and build it up again on a totally different
   plan. This change, therefore, is not a mere incident in a man's life.
   It is a revolution, a revolution of the most sweeping sort. There never
   was a life so filled up with anti-Christian thoughts and impulses,
   brought so completely to a halt. There never was such a total eclipse
   of the most brilliant worldly prospects, nor such an abrupt transition
   from a career of dazzling greatness to humble and obscure ignominy.

   Let those who define conversion as a certain colourless experience
   supposed to go on in the feelings, blind themselves to the real
   transition in this life if they will. Let them ask themselves if there
   ever was a more sweeping revolution in any life, for any cause, than in
   Paul's, when he abandoned himself, literally abandoned himself, and
   subordinated everything, evermore, to this one supreme passion--"to
   live for Christ."

   The stages by which this transcendent standpoint is to be reached are
   now plainly before us. They are, the discovery of self and the
   discovery of Christ. These two discoveries between them exhaust the
   whole of life. No man truly lives till both these discoveries are
   made--for many discover themselves who have not yet discovered Christ.
   But he that hath not the Son hath not life. Whatever he has, existence,
   continuity, he has not life. The condition of living at all is to live
   for Christ. "He that hath the Son," and he alone, and no one else,
   "hath life."

   1. Paul takes special care indeed that we should fully understand the
   altogether different quality of the two lives which a man may live. In
   his view, the first life, the ordinary life of men, was altogether a
   mistake. "What things were gain to me" he tells us, "I counted loss for
   Christ." That brilliant career of his was loss; that mission, noble and
   absorbing once, was mere waste energy and mis-spent time. And he goes
   further still. His life was death. It was selfishness pure and simple;
   it was the carnal mind pure and simple; and to be carnally minded is
   death. We shall understand the theology of these letters better if we
   think of the writer as a man escaping death. And with this horrible
   background to his life we can see the fuller significance of his words,
   that for him to live was Christ.

   Another thing is also made plain to us.

   The ceaseless demand of the New Testament for regeneration is plain to
   us when we study the doctrine in such a life as this. It was not Saul
   who wrote the letters; it was a different man altogether--Paul. It was
   one who was in a totally different world from the other. If it were
   Saul, he must have been born again before he could have done it.
   Nothing less could account for it. His interests were new, his
   standpoint, his resources, his friendships. All old things, in fact,
   had passed away. All things had become new. In a word, he was a new
   creature. The pool, polluted and stagnant, has found its way at last
   into the wide, pure sea; the spirit, tired of its narrow prison,
   disgusted with ambition which ended with itself, reaches out to the
   eternal freedom, and finds a worthy field of exercise in the great
   enterprise of Christ.

   There is one class to whom this biography of Paul has a special
   message. The people who need Paul's change most are not those, always,
   who are most thought to need it. The really difficult cases--to others,
   but especially to themselves--are the people who fail to see really
   that their life could be much better. There are thousands who do not
   see exactly what conversion could do to them. And their great
   difficulty in changing their life has just been this: "What, after all,
   should we really have to change? Our lives at present can scarcely be
   distinguished from the real Christians around us. Had we been
   irreligious, or profane, or undutiful, or immoral, conversion might do
   something for us; but we belong to the class who feel how well we have
   been brought up, how much our interests are gathered round religion,
   and, generally, how circumspect and proper our entire outward life has
   been. We do not really see, indeed, what change conversion could make."
   Now this is a class who seldom get any sympathy, and none deserve it
   more. Religious people and religious books are always saying hard
   things of the "religiously brought up"--bitterly hard and undeserved
   things--until they almost come to feel as if their goodness were a
   crime. But there are secret rendings of the heart within these
   ranks--longings after God perhaps purer than anywhere else outside
   God's true family. And there are those who feel the difficulty of
   changing amid surroundings so Christian-like as theirs; who feel it so
   keenly that despair sometimes leads them to the dark thought of almost
   envying the prodigal and the open sinner, who seem to have more chance
   of finding the kingdom than they.

   Now the change in Paul's life is exactly the case in point for them.
   Paul himself was one of these characters who wonder what use conversion
   could ever be to them. He was one of the "religiously brought up."
   Touching the law he was blameless. There was no man stricter with his
   religion in all Jerusalem than Saul, no man took his place more
   regularly in the temple, or kept the Sabbath with more scrupulous care.
   Touching the law he was blameless--just the man you would have said who
   never would be changed, who was far too good to be susceptible of a
   change. But this is the man--not far from the kingdom of God, as every
   one thought him to be--who found room in his most religious heart for
   the most sweeping reform that ever occurred in a life.

   Let those who really do not know very well what religion could do for
   them take a little quiet thought like Paul. Let them look once more,
   not at the circumference, but at the centre of their life. Let them ask
   one question about it: "Is it Christ?" There is no middle way in
   religion--self or Christ. The quality of the selfishness--intellectual,
   literary, artistic--the fact that our self s centre may be of a
   superior order of self, does nothing to destroy this grave distinction.
   It lies between all self and Christ. For the matter of that no centre
   could have been more disciplined or cultured than Paul's. In its place
   it was truly great and worthy, but its place was anywhere else than
   where Paul had it for the full half of his life. This question, then,
   of centres is the vital question. "To me to live is"--what? "To me to
   live is myself!" Suppose that it is so. What kind of an aim for a life
   is this? How much nobler a centre our life is worthy of--our one life,
   which is to live for evermore; which is to live with a great centre or
   a mean one--meanly or greatly for evermore! Think of living with
   oneself for ever and for ever. Think of having lived, living now, and
   evermore living only for this. Consider Him who endured such
   contradiction of sinners for our sake, who made Himself of no
   reputation, who gave up form and comeliness; who humbled Himself and
   emptied Himself for us. Then look, if we can, with complacency on such
   a life--


   "I lived for myself, I thought for myself,

   For myself, and none beside,

   Just as if Jesus had never lived,

   As if He had never died.

   2. This leads naturally to the other point--the discovery of Christ.
   And here once more we draw abundant encouragement from our biography of
   Paul. And it brings us not only to a hopeful thought, but to a very
   solemn thought. We have all in some way made the discovery of Christ;
   we know more about Christ than Paul did when he became a Christian.
   When he made Him the centre of his life, he knew less of Him perhaps
   than most of us. It is a startling truth, at all events, that we are as
   near the centre of life--the centre of the universe--as Paul. We have
   heard of Him from our infancy; the features of His life are as familiar
   as our own; we have no hatred to Him as Paul had once. And if the few
   days' quietness in the Holy Land, which Paul had on the threshold of
   his change, were in any way a preparation for the crisis of his life,
   how much more has our past life been a preparation for a change in
   ours! We call Paul's change a sudden conversion--we do not know how
   sudden it was. But if our life were changed to-day, it would be no
   sudden conversion. Our whole past has been leading up to these two
   discoveries of life. Our preparation, so far as knowledge of the new
   centre goes, is complete. The change, so far as that is concerned,
   might happen now. We have the responsibility of being so near eternal
   life as that.

   The question comes to be then, finally, a simple question of transfer.
   To me to live is myself, or to me to live is Christ. To live for Christ
   is not simply the sublime doctrine which it includes of Christ our
   life. It is not so much Christ our life, but rather our life for
   Christ.

   Shall it be, then, our life for Christ? "To me to live is Christ."
   Contrast it with all the other objects of life; take all the centres
   out of all the great lives, and compare them one by one. Can you match
   the life-creed of Paul--"to me to live is Christ"?

   "To me to live is--business"; "to me to live is--pleasure," "to me to
   live is--myself." We can all tell in a moment what our religion is
   really worth. "To me to live is"--what? What are we living for? What
   rises naturally in our heart when we press it with a test like this:
   "to me to live is"--what? First thoughts, it is said, are best in
   matters of conscience. What was the first thought that came into our
   heart just then? What word trembled first on our lips just now--"to me
   to live is"--was it business, was it money, was it myself, was it
   Christ?

   The time will come when we shall ask ourselves why we ever crushed this
   infinite substance of our life within these narrow bounds, and centred
   that which lasts for ever on what must pass away. In the perspective of
   Eternity all lives will seem poor, and small, and lost, and
   self-condemned beside a life for Christ. There will be plenty then to
   gather round the Cross. But who will do it now? Who will do it now?
   There are plenty of men to die for Him, there are plenty to spend
   Eternity with Christ; but where is the man who will live for Christ?
   Death and Eternity come in their place. Christ wants lives. There is no
   fear about death being gain if we have lived for Christ. So, let it be:
   "To me to live is Christ."

   There is but one alternative--Paul's alternative, the discovery of
   Christ. We have all in some sense, indeed, already made that discovery.
   We may be as near it now as Paul when he left Jerusalem. There was no
   notice given that he was to change masters. The new Master simply
   crossed his path one day, and the great change was come. How often has
   He crossed our path? We know what to do the next time: we know how our
   life can be made worthy and great--how only; we know how death can
   become gain--how only. Many, indeed, tell us death must be gain. Many
   long for life to be done that they may rest, as they say, in the quiet
   grave. Let no cheap sentimentalism deceive us. Death can only be gain
   when to have lived was Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

CLAIRVOYANCE

   "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are
   not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal;
   but the things which are not seen are eternal."--2 COR. iv. 18.

   "Everything that is, is double."--Hermes Trismegistus.

   "LOOK not at the things which are seen." How can we look not at the
   things which are seen? If they are seen, how can we help looking at
   them? "Look at the things which are not seen." How can we look at
   things which are not seen? Has religion some magic wishing-cap, making
   the solid world invisible, or does it supply some strange clairvoyance
   power to see that which is unseen?

   This is one of those alluring paradoxes which all great books delight
   in, which baffle thought while courting it, but which disclose to
   whoever picks the lock the rarest and profoundest truth. The surface
   meaning of a paradox is either nonsense, or it is false. In this case
   it is false. One would gather, at first sight, that we had here another
   of those attacks upon the world, of which the Bible is supposed to be
   so fond. It reads as a withering contrast between the things of time
   and the things of eternity--as an unqualified disparagement of this
   present world. The things which are seen are temporal--not worth a
   moment's thought, not even to be looked at.

   In reality, this is neither the judgment of the Bible nor of reason.

   There are four reasons why we should look at the things which are
   seen--

   1. First, because God made them. Anything that God makes is worth
   looking at. We live in no chance world. It has been all thought out.
   Everywhere work has been spent on it lavishly --thought and
   work--loving thought and exquisite work. All its parts together, and
   every part separately, are stamped with skill, beauty, and purpose. As
   the mere work of a Great Master we are driven to look--deliberately and
   long--at the things which are seen.

   2. But, second, God made us to look at them. He who made light made the
   eye. It is a gift of the Creator on purpose that we may look at the
   things which are seen. The whole mechanism of man is made with
   reference to the temporal world--the eye for seeing it, the ear for
   hearing it, the nerve for feeling it, the muscle for moving about on it
   and getting more of it. He acts contrary to his own nature who harbours
   even a suspicion of the things that are seen.

   3. But again, thirdly, God has not merely made the world, but He has
   made it conspicuous. So far from lying in the shade, so far from being
   constituted to escape observation, the whole temporal world clamours
   for it. Nature is never and nowhere silent. If you are apathetic, if
   you will not look at the things which are seen, they will summon you.
   The bird will call to you from the tree-top, the sea will change her
   mood for you, the flower looks up appealingly from the wayside, and the
   sun, before he sets with irresistible colouring, will startle you into
   attention. The Creator has determined that, whether He be seen or no,
   no living soul shall tread His earth without being spoken to by these
   works of His hands. God has secured that. And even those things which
   have no speech nor language, whose voice is not heard, have their
   appeal going out to all the world, and their word to the end of the
   earth. Had God feared that the visible world had been a mere temptation
   to us, He would have made it less conspicuous. Certainly He has warned
   us not to love it, but nowhere not to look at it.

   4. The last reason, fourthly, is the greatest of all. Hitherto we have
   been simply dealing with facts. Now we come to a principle. Look at the
   things that are seen, because it is only by looking at the things that
   are seen that we can have any idea of the things that are unseen. Our
   whole conception of the eternal is derived from the temporal.

   Take any unseen truth, or fact, or law. The proposition is that it can
   be apprehended by us only by means of the seen and temporal. Take the
   word eternal itself. What do we know of Eternity? Nothing that we have
   not learned from the temporal. When we try to realize that word there
   rises up before us the spaceless sea. We glide swiftly over it day
   after day, but the illimitable waste recedes before us, knowing no end.
   On and on, week and month, and there stretches the same horizon vague
   and infinite, the far-off circle we can never reach. We stop. We are
   far enough. This is Eternity!

   In reality, this is not Eternity; it is mere water, the temporal,
   liquid and tangible. But by looking at this thing which is seen we have
   beheld the unseen. Here is a river. It is also water. But its different
   shape mirrors a different truth. As we look, the opposite of Eternity
   rises up before us. There is Time, swift and silent; or Life, fleeting
   and irrevocable. So one might run over all the material of his
   thoughts, all the groundwork of his ideas, and trace them back to
   things that are temporal. They are really material, made up of matter,
   and in order to think at all, one must first of all see.

   Nothing could illustrate this better, perhaps, than the literary form
   of our English Bible. Leaving out for the present the language of
   symbol and illustration which Christ spoke, there is no great eternal
   truth that is not borne to us upon some material image. Look, for
   instance, at its teaching about human life. To describe that, it does
   not even use the words derived from the temporal world. It brings us
   face to face with the temporal world, and lets us abstract them for
   ourselves. It never uses the word "fleeting" or "transitory." It says
   life is a vapour that appeareth for a little and vanisheth away. It
   likens it to a swift post, a swift ship, a tale that is told.

   It never uses the word "irrevocable." It speaks of water spilt on the
   ground that cannot be gathered up again--a thread cut by the weaver.
   Nor does it tell us that life is "evanescent." It suggests evanescent
   things--a dream, a sleep, a shadow, a shepherd's tent removed. And even
   to convey the simpler truth that life is short, we find only references
   to short things that are seen--a handbreadth, a pilgrimage, a flower, a
   weaver's shuttle. The Bible in these instances is not trying to be
   poetical: it is simply trying to be true. And it distinctly,
   unconsciously, recognises the fact that truth can be borne into the
   soul only through the medium of things. We must refuse to believe,
   therefore, that we are not to look at the things which are seen. It is
   a necessity; for the temporal is the husk and framework of the eternal.
   And the things which are not seen are made of the things which do
   appear. "All visible things," said Carlyle, "are emblems. What thou
   seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking, is not there
   at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea and
   body it forth." And so John Ruskin:--"The more I think of it, I find
   this conclusion more impressed upon me--that the greatest thing a human
   soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw
   in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; but
   thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry,
   prophecy, and religion --all in one."

   From this point we can now go on from the negative of the paradox to
   the second and positive term--"Look at the things which are not seen."
   We now understand how to do this. Where is the eternal? Where are the
   unseen things, that we may look at them? And the answer is--in the
   temporal. Look then at the temporal, but do not pause there. You must
   penetrate it. Go through it, and see its shadow, its spiritual shadow,
   on the further side. Look upon this shadow long and earnestly, till
   that which you look through becomes the shadow, and the shadow merges
   into the reality. Look through till the thing you look through becomes
   dim, then transparent, and then invisible, and the unseen beyond grows
   into form and strength. For, truly, the first thing seen is the shadow,
   the thing on the other side the reality. The thing you see is only a
   solid, and men mistake solidity for reality. But that alone is the
   reality--the eternal which lies behind. Look, then, not at the things
   which are seen, but look through them to the things that are unseen.

   The great lesson which emerges from all this is as to the religious use
   of the temporal world. Heaven lies behind earth. This earth is not
   merely a place to live in, but to see in. We are to pass through it as
   clairvoyants, holding the whole temporal world as a vast transparency,
   through which the eternal shines.

   Let us now apply this principle briefly to daily life. To most of us,
   the most practical division of life is threefold: the Working life, the
   Home life, and the Religious life. What do these yield us of the
   eternal, and how?

   1. The Working Life. To most men, work is just work--manual work,
   professional work, office work, household work, public work,
   intellectual work. A yellow primrose is just a yellow primrose; a spade
   is a spade; a ledger is a ledger; a lexicon is a lexicon. To a worker
   with this mind, so far as spiritual uses are concerned therefore, work
   is vanity--an unaccountable squandering of precious time. He must earn
   his success by the sweat of his brow; that is all he knows about it. It
   is a curse, lying from the beginning upon man as man. So, six days each
   week, he bends his neck to it doggedly; the seventh God allows him to
   think about the unseen and eternal.

   Now God would never unspiritualise three-fourths of man's active life
   by work, if work were work, and nothing more.

   A second workman sees a little further. His work is not a curse
   exactly; it is his appointed life, his destiny. It is God's will for
   him, and he must go through with it. No doubt its trials are good for
   him; at all events, God has appointed him this sphere, and he must
   accept it with Christian resignation.

   It is a poor compliment to the Divine arrangements if they are simply
   to be acquiesced in. The all-wise God surely intends some higher
   outcome from three-fourths of life than bread and butter and
   resignation.

   To the spiritual man, next, there lies behind this temporal a something
   which explains all. He sees more to come out of it than the year's
   income, or the employment of his allotted time, or the benefiting of
   his species. If violins were to be the only product, there is no reason
   why Stradivarius should spend his life in making them. But work is an
   incarnation of the unseen. In this loom man's soul is made. There is a
   subtle machinery behind it all, working while he is working, making or
   unmaking the unseen in him. Integrity, thoroughness, honesty, accuracy,
   conscientiousness, faithfulness, patience--these unseen things which
   complete a soul are woven into it in work. Apart from work, these
   things are not. As the conductor leads into our nerves the invisible
   electric force, so work conducts into our spirit all high forces of
   character, all essential qualities of life, truth in the inward parts.
   Ledgers and lexicons, business letters, domestic duties, striking of
   bargains, writing of examinations, handling of tools--these are the
   conductors of the eternal. So much the conductors of the eternal, that
   without them there is no eternal. No man dreams integrity, accuracy,
   and so on. He cannot learn them by reading about them. These things
   require their wire as much as electricity. The spiritual fluids and the
   electric fluids are under the same law; and messages of grace come
   along the lines of honest work to the soul like the invisible message
   along the telegraph wires. Patience, spiritually, will travel along a
   conductor as really as electricity.

   A workshop, therefore, or an office, or a school of learning, is a
   gigantic conductor. An office is not a place for making money--it is a
   place for making character. A workshop is not a place for making
   machinery--it is a place for making men: not for turning wood, for
   fitting engines, for founding cylinders --to God's eye, it is a place
   for founding character; it is a place for fitting in the virtues to
   one's life, for turning out honest, modest-tempered God-fearing men. A
   school of learning is not so much a place for making scholars, as a
   place for making souls. And he who would ripen and perfect the eternal
   element in his being will do this by attending to the religious uses of
   his daily task, recognising the unseen in its seen, and so turning
   three-fourths of each day's life into an ever-acting means of grace.

   We say some kinds of work are immoral. A man who is turning out
   careless, imperfect work, is turning out a careless imperfect character
   for himself. He is touching deceit every moment; and this unseen thing
   rises up from his work like a subtle essence, and enters and poisons
   his soul. We say piece-work is immoral--it makes a man only a piece of
   a man, shuts him out from variety, and originality, and adaptation,
   narrowing and belittling his soul. But we forget the counter-truth,
   that honest and good work makes honesty and goodness, integrity and
   thoroughness--nay that it alone makes them. And the man who would ripen
   and perfect his soul must attend to the religious uses of his daily
   work--seeing the unseen in its seen--heeding it, not with a dry
   punctiliousness, but lovingly, recognising its dignity, not as a mere
   making of money, but as an elaborate means of grace, occupying
   three-fourths of life.

   2. The Family Life. Next, life is so ordered that another large part of
   it is spent in the family. This also, therefore, has its part to play
   in the completing of the soul. The working life could never teach a man
   all the lessons of the unseen. A whole set of additional messages from
   the eternal have to be conducted into his soul at home. This is why it
   is not good for a man to be alone. A lonely man is insulated from the
   eternal--inaccessible to the subtle currents which ought to be flowing
   hourly into his soul.

   Here, too, is a higher source of spirituality than work. It is here
   that life dawns, and the first mould is given to the plastic substance.
   Home is the cradle of Eternity. It has been secured, therefore, that
   the first laws stamped here, the first lines laid down, the permanent
   way for the future soul, should be at once the lines of the eternal.
   Why do all men say that the family is a divine institution? Because God
   instituted it? But what guided Him in constituting it as it is?
   Eternity. Home is a preliminary Heaven. Its arrangements are purely the
   arrangements of Heaven. Heaven is a Father with His children. The parts
   we shall play in that great home are just the parts we have learned in
   the family here. We shall go through the same life there--only without
   the matter. This matter is a mere temporary quality to practise the
   eternal on--as wooden balls are hung up in a schoolroom to teach the
   children numbers till they can think them for themselves.

   When a parent wishes to teach his child form and harmony, the
   properties of matter, beauty, and symmetry--all these unseen
   things--what does he do but give his child things that are seen,
   through which he can see them? He gives him a box of matter, bricks of
   wood, as playthings, and the child, in forming and transforming these,
   in building with them lines and squares, arches and pillars, has borne
   into his soul regularity and stability, form and symmetry. So God deals
   with us. The material universe is a mere box of bricks. We exercise our
   growing minds upon it for a space, till in the hereafter we become men,
   and childish things are put away. The temporal is but the scaffolding
   of the eternal; and when the last immaterial souls have climbed through
   this material to God, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and the
   earth dissolved with fervent heat--not because it is evil, but because
   its work is done.

   The mind of Christ is to be learned in the family. Strength of
   character may be acquired at work, but beauty of character is learned
   at home. There the affections are trained--that love especially which
   is to abide when tongues have ceased and knowledge fails. There the
   gentle life reaches us, the true heaven-life. In one word, the family
   circle is the supreme conductor of Christianity. Tenderness,
   humbleness, courtesy, self-forgetfulness, faith, sympathy; these
   ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit are learned at the fireside, round
   the table, in common-place houses, in city streets. We are each of us
   daily embodying these principles in our soul, or trampling them out of
   it, in the ordinary intercourse of life. As actors in a charade, each
   member of the house each day, consciously or unconsciously, acts a
   word. The character is the seen, the word the unseen, and whether he
   thinks of the word at night or not, the souls of all around have
   guessed it silently; and when the material mask and costume are put
   away, and their circumstances long years forgotten, that word of
   eternity lives on to make or mar the player, and all the players with
   him, in that day's game of life.

   To waken a man to all that is involved in each day's life, in even its
   insignificant circumstance and casual word and look, surely you have
   but to tell him all this--that in these temporals lie eternals; that in
   life, not in church, lies religion; that all that is done or undone,
   said or unsaid, of right or wrong, has its part, by an unalterable law,
   in the eternal life of all.

   3. We now come to Religion. And we shall see further how God has put
   even that for us into the temporal. Reflect for a moment upon the
   teaching of Christ. All that He had to say of the eternal He put up in
   images of the temporal world. What are all His parables, His allusions
   to nature, His illustrations from real life, His metaphors and similes,
   but disclosures to our blind eyes of the unseen in the seen? In
   reality, the eternal is never nearer us than in a material image.
   Reason cannot bring religion near us, only things can. So Christ never
   demonstrated anything. He did not appeal to the reasoning power in man,
   but to the seeing power--that power of imagination which deals with
   images of things.

   That is the key to all Christ's teaching--that He spoke not to the
   reason but to the imagination. Incessantly he held up things before our
   eyes--things which in a few days or years would moulder into dust--and
   told us to look there at the eternal. He held up bread. "I am the
   bread," He said. And if you think over that for a lifetime, you will
   never get nearer to the truth than through that thing, bread. That
   temporal is so perfect an image of the eternal, that no reading, or
   thinking, or arguing, or sermonizing, can get us closer to Christ.

   Hence the triumphant way in which he ransacked the temporal world,
   and--what we, with our false views of spirituality, had never
   dared--marked off for us all its common and familiar things as mirrors
   of the eternal. So light, life, vine, bread, water, physician,
   shepherd, and a hundred others, have all become transformed with a
   light from the other world. Observe, Christ doe not say he is like
   these things, He is these things. Look through these things, right
   through, and you will see Him. We disappoint our souls continually in
   trying, by some other way than through these homely temporals, to learn
   the spiritual life.

   It is the danger of those who pursue the intellectual life as a
   specialty to miss this tender and gracious influence. The student of
   the family, by a generous though perilous homage paid to learning is
   allowed to be an exception to family life. He dwells apart, goes his
   own way, lives his own life; and unconsciously, and to his pain, he
   finds himself, perhaps, gradually looking down on its homelier tasks
   and less transcendent interests. In society, it is for the scholar we
   make allowances; but the eccentricities which we condone on account of
   their high compensations often mark an arrested development of what is
   really higher. And there is nothing so much to fear in oneself, and to
   check with more resolute will, than the unconscious tendency in all who
   pursue culture to get out of step with humanity, and be not at home at
   home.

   A very remarkable instance of Christ's use of this principle is the
   Sacraments. His design there was to perpetuate in the most luminous and
   arresting way, the two grandest facts of the spiritual world. How did
   He proceed? He made them visible. He associated these facts with the
   two commonest things in the world, water and bread and wine--the
   every-day diet at every peasant's board. By these Sacraments, the souls
   of men are tied down at the most sacred moments of life to the
   homeliest temporal things; so that the highest spirituality, by
   Christ's own showing, comes to God's children through lowly forms of
   the material world. Transcendentalism in religion is a real mistake.
   True spirituality is to see the divinity in common things.

   But, yet again, there is a more wonderful exhibition of this law than
   the Sacraments. God furnished the world with a temporal thing for every
   eternal thing save one. Every eternal truth had its material image in
   the world, every eternal law had its working-model among the laws of
   nature. But there was one thing wanting. There was no temporal for the
   Eternal God Himself. And man missed it. He wished to see even this
   unseen in something seen. In the sea, he saw eternity; in space,
   infinity; in the hills, sublimity; in the family, love; in the state,
   law. But there was no image of God. One speaks of what follows with
   bated breath. God gave it! God actually gave it! God made a seen image
   of Himself--not a vision, not a metaphor--an express image of His
   person. He laid aside His invisibility, He clothed Himself with the
   temporal, He took flesh and dwelt among us. The Incarnation was the
   eternal become temporal for a little time, that we might look at it.

   It was our only way of beholding it, for we can only see the unseen in
   the seen. The word "God" conveyed no meaning; there was no seen thing
   to correspond to that word, and no word is intelligible till there is
   an image for it. So God gave religion its new word in the intelligible
   form--a Word in flesh --that, henceforth, all men might behold God's
   glory, not in itself, for that is impossible, but in the face of Jesus.
   This is the crowning proof of the religious use of the temporal world.

   Three classes of men, finally, have taken up their position in recent
   years with reference to this principle of the eternal uses of the
   temporal world.

   One will not look at the unseen at all--the materialist. He is utterly
   blind to the eternal. The second is utterly blind to the temporal--the
   mystic. He does not look for the unseen in the seen, but apart from the
   seen. He works, or tries to work, by direct vision. The third is
   neither blind to the unseen nor to the seen, but short-sighted to both.
   The ritualist selects some half-dozen things from the temporal world,
   and tries to see the unseen in them. As if there were only some
   half-dozen things--crosses and vestments, music and stained
   glass--through which the eternal shone! The whole world is a
   ritual--that is the answer. If a man means to evade God, let him look
   for Him in some half-dozen forms; he will evade Him, he will not see
   Him anywhere else. But let him who wishes to get near God, and be with
   God always, move in a religious atmosphere always; let him take up his
   position beside this truth. Worldliness has been defined as a looking
   at the things that are seen, but only closely enough to see their
   market value. Spirituality is that further look which sees their
   eternal value, which realizes that


   "Earth's crammed with Heaven,

   And every common bush afire with God."
     __________________________________________________________________

THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

   "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

   Who healeth all thy diseases;

   Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."--Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

   THERE is one theological word which has found its way lately into
   nearly all the newer and finer literature of our country. It is not
   only one of the words of the literary world at present, it is perhaps
   the word. Its reality, its certain influence, its universality, have at
   last been recognised, and in spite of its theological name have forced
   it into a place which nothing but its felt relation to the wider
   theology of human life could ever have earned for a religious word.
   That word, it need scarcely be said, is Sin.

   Even in the lighter literature of our country, and this is altogether
   remarkable, the ruling word just now is Sin. Years ago it was the gay
   term Chivalry which held the foreground in poem and ballad and song.
   Later still, the word which held court, in novel and romance, was Love.
   But now a deeper word heads the chapters and begins the cantos. A more
   exciting thing than chivalry is descried in the arena, and love itself
   fades in interest before this small word, which has wandered out of
   theology, and changed the face of literature, and made many a new book
   preach.

   It is not for religion to complain that her vocabulary is being
   borrowed by the world. There may be pulpits where there are not
   churches; and it is a valuable discovery for religion that the world
   has not only a mind to be amused but a conscience to be satisfied. But
   religion has one duty in the matter--when her words are borrowed, to
   see that they are borrowed whole. Truth which is to pass into such
   common circulation must not be mutilated truth; it must be strong,
   ringing, decided, whole; it must be standard truth; in a word. it must
   be Bible truth.

   Now the Bible truth about this word is in itself interesting and very
   striking. In David especially, where the delineations are most perfect
   and masterly, the reiteration and classification of the great facts and
   varieties of sin form one of the most instructive and impressive
   features of the sacred writings. The Psalms will ever be the standard
   work on Sin--the most ample analysis of its nature, its effects, its
   shades of difference, and its cure.

   And yet, though it is such a common thing, I daresay many of us,
   perhaps, do not know anything about it. Somehow, it is just the common
   things we are apt not to think about. Take the commonest of all
   things--air. What do we know about it? What do we know about
   water?--that great mysterious sea, on which some of you spend your
   lives, which moans all the long winter at your very doors. Sin is a
   commoner thing than them all; deeper than the sea, more subtle than the
   air; mysterious indeed, moaning in all our lives, through all the
   winter and summer of our past--that shall last, in the undying soul of
   man, when there shall be no more sea. To say the least of it, it is
   unreasonable that a man should live in sin all his life without knowing
   in some measure what he is about.

   And as regards the higher bearings of the case, it is clear that
   without the fullest information about sin no man can ever have the
   fullest information about himself, which he ought to have; and what is
   of more importance, without understanding sin no man can ever
   understand God. Even the Christian who has only the ordinary notions of
   sin in the general, can neither be making very much of himself nor of
   his theology; for as a rule, a man's experience of religion and of
   grace is in pretty exact proportion to his experience of sin.

   No doubt, the intimate knowledge of themselves which the Old Testament
   writers possessed, had everything to do with their intimate knowledge
   of God. David, for instance, who had the deepest knowledge of God, had
   also the deepest knowledge of his own heart; and if there is one thing
   more conspicuous than another in the writings he has left us, it is the
   ceaseless reiteration of the outstanding facts of Sin--the cause, the
   effects, the shades of difference, and the cure of Sin.

   In the clause which forms our text to-day, David has given us in a
   nutshell the whole of the main facts of Sin. And for any one who wishes
   to become acquainted with the great pivots on which human life turns,
   and on which his own life turns; for any one who wishes to understand
   the working of God's grace; for any one who wishes to examine himself
   on the great facts of human Sin; there is no more admirable summary
   than these words:

   "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who
   redeemeth thy life from destruction."

   These facts of Sin, when we pass it through the prism of the text, may
   be said to be three in number: the Guilt of Sin, the Stain of Sin, the
   Power of Sin.

   And these three correspond roughly with the natural divisions of the
   text:

   Who forgiveth all thine iniquities = the Guilt of Sin.

   Who healeth all thy diseases = the Stain of Sin.

   Who redeemeth thy life from destruction = the Power of Sin.

   The best fact to start with will perhaps be the last of these; and for
   this reason the word Life is in it. "Who redeemeth thy Life from
   destruction." We have all a personal interest in anything that concerns
   life. We can understand things--even things in theology--if they will
   only bear upon our life. And to anything which in any way comes home to
   life, in influencing it, or bettering it, or telling upon it in any way
   whatever, we are always ready, for our life's sake, to give a patient
   hearing. We feel prepared to take kindly to almost any doctrine if it
   will only bear upon our life. And surely in the whole range of truth
   none has more points of contact with the heart of man than the doctrine
   of the Power of Sin.

   (1) In the first place, then, let us notice that Sin is a Power, and a
   power which concerns Life.

   There is an old poem which bears the curious title of "Strife in
   Heaven," the idea of which is something like this. The poet supposes
   himself to be walking in the streets of the New Jerusalem, when he
   comes to a crowd of saints engaged in a very earnest discussion. He
   draws near, and listens. The question they are discussing is, Which of
   them is the greatest monument of God's saving grace. After a long
   debate, in which each states his case separately, and each claims to
   have been by far the most wonderful trophy of God's love in all the
   multitude of the redeemed, it is finally agreed to settle the matter by
   a vote. Vote after vote is taken, and the list of competition is
   gradually reduced until only two remain. These are allowed to state
   their case again, and the company stand ready to join in the final
   vote. The first to speak is a very old man. He begins by saying that it
   is a mere waste of time to go any further; it is absolutely impossible
   that God's grace could have done more for any man in heaven than for
   him. He tells again how he had led a most wicked and vicious life--a
   life filled up with every conceivable indulgence, and marred with every
   crime. He has been a thief, a liar, a blasphemer, a drunkard, and a
   murderer. On his deathbed, at the eleventh hour, Christ came to him and
   he was forgiven. The other is also an old man who says, in a few words,
   that he was brought to Christ when he was a boy. He had led a quiet and
   uneventful life, and had looked forward to heaven as long as he could
   remember.

   The vote is taken; and, of course, you would say it results in favour
   of the first. But no, the votes are all given to the last. We might
   have thought, perhaps, that the one who led the reckless, godless
   life--he who had lied, thieved, blasphemed, murdered; he who was saved
   by the skin of his teeth, just a moment before it might have been too
   late--had the most to thank God for. But the old poet knew the deeper
   truth. It required great grace verily to pluck that withered brand from
   the burning. It required depths, absolutely fathomless depths, of mercy
   to forgive that veteran in sin at the close of all those guilty years.
   But it required more grace to keep that other life from guilt through
   all those tempted years. It required more grace to save him from the
   sins of his youth, and keep his Christian boyhood pure, to steer him
   scathless through the tempted years of riper manhood, to crown his days
   with usefulness and his old age with patience and hope. Both started in
   life together; to one grace came at the end, to the other at the
   beginning. The first was saved from the guilt of sin, the second from
   the power of sin as well. The first was saved from dying in sin. But he
   who became a Christian in his boyhood was saved from living in sin. The
   one required just one great act of love at the close of life; the other
   had a life full of love,--it was a greater salvation by far. His soul
   was forgiven like the other, but his life was redeemed from
   destruction.

   The lesson to be gathered from the old poet's parable is that sin is a
   question of power as much as a question of guilt,--that salvation is a
   question of Life perhaps far more than a question of Death. There is
   something in every man's life which he needs saving from, something
   which would spoil his life and run off with it into destruction if let
   alone. This principle of destruction is the first great fact of
   Sin--its power.

   Now any man who watches his life from day to day, and especially if he
   is trying to steer it towards a certain moral mark which he has made in
   his mind, has abundant and humiliating evidence that this Power is
   busily working in his life. He finds that this Power is working against
   him in his life, defeating him at every turn, and persistently opposing
   all the good he tries to do. He finds that his natural bias is to break
   away from God and good. Then he is clearly conscious that there is an
   acting ingredient in his soul which not only neutralizes the
   inclination to follow the path which he knows to be straightest and
   best, but works continually and consistently against his better self,
   and urges his life onwards towards a broader path which leads to
   destruction.

   Now it was this road which David had in his mind when he thanked God
   that his life had been redeemed, or kept back from destruction. It was
   a beaten track we may be sure in those times, as it is to-day, and
   David knew perfectly well when he penned these words that God's hand
   had veritably saved him from ending his life along that road. It was
   not enough in summing up his life in his old age, and calling upon his
   soul to bless the Lord for all His benefits, to thank Him simply for
   the forgiveness of his sins. God has done far more for him than forgive
   him his sins. He has redeemed his life from destruction. He has saved
   him from the all but omnipotent power of Sin. What that power was, what
   that power might have become, how it might have broken loose and
   wrecked his life a thousand times, let those who remember the times
   when it did break loose in David's life, recall. How little might we
   have guessed that there was anything in the psalmist's life to make him
   thank God at its close for keeping it back from destruction. Brought up
   in the secluded plains of Bethlehem, and reared in the pure atmosphere
   of country innocence, where could the shepherd lad get any taint of sin
   which could develop in after years to a great destroying power? And yet
   he got it--somehow, he got it. And even in his innocent boyhood, the
   fatal power lurked there, able enough, willing enough, vicious enough,
   to burst through the boundaries of his life and wreck it ere it reached
   its prime. All the time he was walking with God; all the time he was
   planning God's temple; all the time he was writing his holy
   Psalms--which make all men wonder at the psalmist's grace; while he was
   playing their grave sweet melody upon his harp in the ear of God, the
   power of sin was seething and raging in his breast, ready to quench the
   very inspiration God was giving him, and ruin his religion and his soul
   for evermore. God kept His hand, we may be sure, through David's life,
   on the springs of David's sin; and there was nothing so much to thank
   God for, in taking the retrospect of his eventful course, than that his
   life had been redeemed from this first great fact of Sin.

   David's salvation, to round off the point with an analogy from the old
   poet, was a much more wonderful thing than, say, the dying thief's
   salvation. David cost grace far more than the dying thief. The dying
   thief only needed dying grace. David needed living grace. The thief
   only needed forgiving grace; David needed forgiving grace and
   restraining grace. He needed grace to keep in his life, to keep it from
   running away. But the thief needed no restraining grace. The time for
   that was past. His life had run away. His wild oats were sown, and the
   harvest was heavy and bitter. Destruction had come upon him already in
   a hundred forms. He had had no antidote to the power of sin, which runs
   so fiercely in every vein of every man, and he had destroyed himself.
   His character was ruined, his soul was honey-combed through and through
   with sin. He could not have joined in David's psalm that his life was
   saved from destruction. His death was, and the wreck of his soul was,
   but his life was lost to God, to the world, and to himself. His life
   had never been redeemed as David's was; so David was the greater debtor
   to God's grace, and few men have had greater reason than he to praise
   God in old age for redeeming their life from destruction.

   Yes, there is more in salvation than forgiveness. And why? Because
   there is more in sin than guilt. "If I were to be forgiven to-day," men
   who do not know this say, "I should be as bad as ever to-morrow." No,
   that is based on the fallacy, it is based on the heresy, that there is
   no more for a man in religion than forgiveness of sins. If there were
   not, I say it with all solemnity, it would be very little use to me. It
   would have been little use to a man like David. And David's life would
   have been incomplete, and David's psalm would have been impossible, had
   he not been able to add to the record of God's pardon the record of
   God's power in redeeming his life from destruction. We have all thanked
   God for the dying thief--have we ever thanked God for redeeming our
   life from destruction? Destruction is the natural destination of every
   human soul. It is as natural for our soul to go downward as for a stone
   to fall to the ground. Do we ever thank God for redeeming our soul from
   that? And when we thank God we are saved, do we mean we are saved from
   hell, or do we think sometimes how He has rescued our life from the
   destroying power of sin?

   (2) The Stain of Sin.

   The power of sin could never run through a man's life without leaving
   its mark behind. Nothing in the world ever works without friction. A
   mountain torrent digs a glen in the mountain side; the sea cuts a beach
   along the shore; the hurricane leaves a thousand fallen witnesses
   behind to mark its track. And the great river of sin, as it rolls
   through a human life, leaves a pile of ruins here and there as
   melancholy monuments to show where it has been. Nature, with all its
   strength, is a wonderfully delicate machine, and everything has its
   reaction somewhere and some time. Nothing is allowed to pass, and
   nothing has so appalling a reaction upon every one and everything as
   sin.

   History is an undying monument of human sin. The most prominent thing
   on its pages are the stains--the stains of sin which time has not
   rubbed out. The history of the world, for the most part, has been
   written in the world's blood; and all the reigns of all its emperors
   and kings will one day be lost in one absorbing record of one great
   reign--the one long reign of sin. As it has been with history so it is
   in the world to-day. The surface of society is white with leprosy. Take
   away the power of sin to-morrow, the stain of sin remains. Whatever the
   world may suffer from want of conviction of the guilt of sin, it will
   never be without conviction of its stain. We see it in one another's
   lives. We see it in one another's faces. It is the stain of the world's
   sin that troubles the world's conscience. It is the stain of the
   world's sin that troubles philanthropy; that troubles the Parliament of
   the country; that troubles the Press of the country. It is the stain of
   the world's sin especially that is making a place in literature for
   this word sin. It is this side of sin that is absorbing the finest
   writing of the day; that is filling our modern poetry; that is making a
   thousand modern books preach the doctrine of Retribution, which simply
   means the doctrine of the stain of sin. Society is not wise enough to
   see the power of sin, or religious enough to see the guilt of sin; but
   it cannot fail to see the stain of sin. It does not care for the power
   or the guilt of sin; it cares for the stain of sin, because it must.
   That troubles society. That lies down at its doors, and is an eyesore
   to it. It is a loathsome thing to be lying there, and society must do
   something. So this is what it does with it: on one corner it builds a
   prison--this will rid the world of its annoyance. In another corner it
   plants a madhouse--the sore may fester there unseen. In another it
   raises an hospital; in a fourth it lays out a grave-yard. Prisons,
   mad-houses, hospitals --these are just so much roofing which society
   has put on to hide the stain of sin. It is a good thing in some ways
   that sin has always its stain. Just as pain is a good thing to tell
   that something is wrong, so the stain of sin may be a good thing to
   tell that the power has broken loose. Society might never trouble
   itself if it were not for the stain. And in dealing with the stain of
   sin it sometimes may do a very little to maim its power. But it is a
   poor, poor remedy. If it could only see the power and try to deal with
   that--try to get God's grace to act on that, the world might be
   redeemed from destruction after all. But it only sees the stain when it
   is too late--the stain which has dropped from the wound after the
   throat of virtue has been cut. Surely, when the deed is done, it is the
   least it can do to remove the traces of the crime.

   But one need not go to society or history to see the stains of sin. We
   see it in one another's lives and in our own lives. Our conscience, for
   instance, is not so quick as it might have been--the stains of sin are
   there, between us and the light. We have ignored conscience many a time
   when it spoke, and its voice has grown husky and indistinct. Our
   intellectual life is not so true as it might have been--our
   intellectual sins have stained it and spoilt our memory, and taken the
   edge off our sympathy, and filled us with suspicion and one-sided
   truths, and destroyed the delicate power of faith.

   There are few more touching sights than to see a man in mature life
   trying to recover himself from the stains of a neglected past. The past
   itself is gone; but it remains in dark accumulated stains upon his
   life, and he tries to take them off in vain. There was a time once,
   when his robe was white and clean. "Keep your garment unspotted from
   the world," they said to him, the kind home-voices, as he went out into
   life. He remembers well the first spot on that robe. Even the laden
   years that lie between have no day so dark--no spot now lies so lurid
   red upon his soul as that first sin. Then the companion stain came, for
   sins are mostly twins. Then another, and another, and many more, till
   count was lost, and the whole robe was patterned over with sin-stains.
   The power of God has come to make a new man of him, but the stains are
   sunk so deeply in his soul that they are living parts of him still. It
   is hard for him to give up the world. It is hard for him to be pure. It
   is hard for him to forget the pictures which have been hanging in the
   galleries of his imagination all his life--to forget them when he comes
   to think of God; to forget them when he kneels down to pray; to forget
   them even when he comes to sit in church. The past of his life has been
   all against him; and even if his future is religious, it can never be
   altogether unaffected by the stain of what has been. It is the stain of
   sin which makes repentance so hard in adult life, which yields the most
   impressive argument to the young to remember their Creator in their
   youth. For even "the angels," says Ruskin, "who rejoice over
   repentance, cannot but feel an uncomprehended pain as they try and try
   again in vain whether they may not warm hard hearts with the brooding
   of their kind wings."

   But if the stain of sin is invisible in moral and intellectual life, no
   one can possibly be blind to it in bodily life. We see it in one
   another's lives, but more than that, we see it in one another's faces.
   Vice writes in plain characters, and all the world is its copybook. We
   can read it everywhere and on everything around, from pole to pole. The
   drunkard, to take the conspicuous example, so stains his bodily life
   with his sin that the seeds of disease are sown which, long after he
   has reformed, will germinate in his death. If all the drunkards in the
   world were to be changed to-morrow, the stains of sin in their bodies
   even would doubtless bring a large majority--in a few years, less or
   more--to what was after all really a drunkard's grave.

   There is a physical demonstration of sin as well as a religious; and no
   sin can come in among the delicate faculties of the mind, or among the
   coarser fibres of the body, without leaving a stain, either as a
   positive injury to the life, or, what is equally fatal, as a
   predisposition to commit the same sin again. This predisposition is
   always one of the most real and appalling accompaniments of the stain
   of sin. There is scarcely such a thing as an isolated sin in a man's
   life. Most sins can be accounted for by what has gone before. Every
   sin, so to speak, has its own pedigree, and is the result of the
   accumulated force, which means the accumulated stain of many a
   preparatory sin.

   Thus when Peter began to swear in the High Priest's palace it was
   probably not the first time Peter swore. A man does not suddenly
   acquire the habit of uttering oaths; and when it is said of Peter,
   "Then began he to curse and to swear, it does not at all mean by "then"
   and "began" that he had not begun it long ago. The legitimate inference
   is, that in the rough days of his fisherman's life, when the nets got
   entangled perhaps, or the right wind would not blow, Peter had come out
   many a time with an oath to keep his passion cool. And now, after years
   of devoted fellowship with Christ, the stain is still so black upon his
   soul that he curses in the very presence of his Lord. An outbreak which
   meets the public eye is generally the climax of a series of sins, which
   discretion has been able, till then, to keep out of sight. The doctrine
   of the stain of sin, has no exceptions; and few men, we may be sure,
   can do a suddenly notorious wrong without knowing something in private
   of the series to which it belongs.

   But the most solemn fact about this stain of sin is that so little can
   be done for it. It is almost indelible. There is a very solemn fact
   about this stain of sin--it can never be altogether blotted out. The
   guilt of sin may be forgiven, the power of sin may be broken, but the
   stains of sin abide. When it is said, "He healeth our diseases," it
   means indeed that we may be healed; but the ravages which sin has left
   must still remain. Small-pox may be healed, but it leaves its mark
   behind. A cut limb may be cured, but the scar remains for ever. An
   earthquake is over in three minutes, but centuries after the ground is
   still rent into gulfs and chasms which ages will never close. So the
   scars of sin on body and mind and soul live with us in silent
   retribution upon our past, and go with us to our graves.

   And the stain does not stop with our lives. Every action of every man
   has an ancestry and a posterity in other lives. The stains of life have
   power to spread. The stains of other lives have crossed over into our
   lives, stains from our lives into theirs. "I am a part," says Tennyson,
   "of all that I have met." A hundred years hence we all must live
   again--in thoughts, in tendencies, in influences, perhaps in sins and
   stains in other lives. The sins of the father shall be visited on the
   children. The blight on the vicious parent shall be visited on the
   insane offspring. The stain on the intemperate mother shall reappear in
   the blasted lives of her drunken family. Finer forms of sin reappear in
   the same way--of companion on companion, of brother on sister, of
   teacher on pupil. For God Himself has made the law, that the curse must
   follow the breach; and even He who healeth our diseases may never
   interfere with the necessary stain of a sinful life.

   "Take my influence," cried a sinful man, who was dying; "take my
   influence, and bury it with me." He was going to be with Christ, his
   influence had been against Him; he was leaving it behind. As a
   conspirator called by some act of grace to his sovereign's table
   remembers with unspeakable remorse the assassin whom he left in
   ambuscade at his king's palace gate, so he recalls the traitorous years
   and the influences which will plot against his Lord when he is in
   eternity. Oh, it were worth being washed from sin, were it only to
   escape the possibility of a treachery like that. It were worth living a
   holy and self-denying life, were it only to "join the choir invisible
   of those immortal dead who live again in lives made better by their
   presence."

   (3) But now, lastly, we come to the third great fact of Sin, its Guilt.
   And we find ourselves face to face with the greatest question of all,
   "What has God to say to all this mass of Sin?"

   Probably every one will acknowledge that his life bears witness to the
   two first facts of Sin. Starting with this admission, a moment's
   thought lands us in a greater admission. We all acknowledge sin.
   Therefore we must all acknowledge ourselves to be guilty. Whether we
   feel it or no, Guilt is inseparable from Sin. Physical evil may make a
   man sorry, but moral evil makes him guilty. It may not make him feel
   guilty --we are speaking of facts--he is guilty. So we are guilty for
   our past lives. We may be sorry for the past. But it is not enough that
   we are sorry, we are guilty for the past. We are more than sinners, we
   are criminals. This is where the literary conception of Sin is
   altogether defective and must be supplemented. It knows nothing, and
   can teach nothing, of the guilt of a sinner's soul. It is when we come
   to God that we learn this. God is our Father, but God is our Judge. And
   when we know that, our sin takes on a darker colouring. It grows larger
   than our life, and suddenly seems to be infinite. The whole world, the
   whole universe, is concerned in it. Sin only made us recoil from
   ourselves before; now it makes God recoil from us. We are out of
   harmony with God. Our iniquities have separated us from God, and in
   some mysterious way we have come to be answerable to Him. We feel that
   the Lord has turned and looked upon us as He looked at Peter, and we
   can only go out and weep bitterly.

   If these experiences are foreign to our souls, we must feel our sense
   of guilt when we come to look at Christ. Christ could not move through
   the world without the mere spectacle of His life stirring to their very
   depths the hearts of every one whose path He crossed. And Christ cannot
   move through the chambers of our thoughts without the dazzling contrast
   to ourselves startling into motion the sense of burning shame and sin.
   But, above all, Christ could not die upon the cross without witnessing
   to all eternity of the appalling greatness of human guilt. And it is
   the true climax of conviction which the prophet speaks of: "They shall
   look on Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn."

   This conviction of Sin, in this the deepest sense, is not a thing to
   talk about, but to feel. And when it is felt, it cannot be talked
   about. It is too deep for words. It comes as an unutterable woe upon
   the life, and rests there, in dark sorrow and heaviness, till Christ
   speaks Peace.

   Such, in outline, are the three facts of Sin. They are useful in two
   ways: they teach us ourselves, and they teach us God. It is along these
   three lines that you will find salvation. Run your eye along the
   first--the power of Sin--and you will understand Jesus. "Thou shalt
   call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."
   Look at the second--the stain of Sin--and you will understand the
   righteousness of Christ. You will see the need of the One pure life.
   You will be glad that there has been One who has kept His garment
   unspotted from the world.

   Look at the third, and you will see the Lamb of God taking away the Sin
   of the world. You will understand the Atonement. You will pray:--


   Let the water and the blood,

   From Thy riven side which flowed,

   Be of sin the double cure,

   Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
     __________________________________________________________________

THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

   "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

   Who healeth all thy diseases;

   Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."--Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

  SUPPLEMENT TO "THE THREE FACTS OF SIN"

   LAST Sabbath we were engaged with the three facts of Sin. To-day we
   come to the three facts of Salvation.

   The three facts of Sin were:--

   1. The Guilt of Sin--"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities."

   2. The Stain of Sin--"Who healeth all thy diseases."

   3. The Power of Sin--"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."

   And now we come to the three facts of Salvation--the emphasis on the
   first words of each clause instead of the last.

   1. He forgiveth. 2. He healeth. 3. He redeemeth.

   Every one who comes into the world experiences less or more of the
   three facts of Sin; and every one is allowed to live on in the world
   mainly that he may also experience the three great facts of Salvation.
   God keeps the most of us alive from day to day with this one object.
   Sin has got hold of us, and He is giving us time--time for grace to get
   the upper hand of it, time to work out the three facts of Salvation in
   our lives with fear and trembling against the three facts of sin. Our
   being, therefore, lies between these two great sets of facts, the dark
   set and the bright: and life is just the battlefield on which they
   fight it out. If the bright side win, it is a bright life--saved. If
   the dark side, it is a dark life--lost.

   We have seen how the three dark facts have already begun to work upon
   our life; and that they are not only working at our life, but sapping
   it, and preying upon it every hour of the day. And now we stand face to
   face with the question which is wrung out from our life by the very sin
   which is destroying it, "What must I do to be saved?"

   The first fact about which we ask this question--to begin once more
   with the fact which most conspicuously concerns life--is the fact of
   the power of Sin. What must I do to be saved from the Power of Sin?
   What most of us feel we really want religion to do for us, though it is
   not the deepest experience, is to save us from something which we feel
   in our life--a very terrible something which is slowly dragging our
   life downward to destruction. This something has gained an
   unaccountable hold upon us; it seems to make us go wrong whether we
   will or no, and instead of exhausting itself with all the attempts it
   has made upon our life in the past, it seems to get stronger and
   stronger every day. Even the Christian knows that this strange wild
   force is just at his very door, and if he does not pray tomorrow
   morning, for instance, before the day is out it will have wrought some
   mischief in his life. If he does not pray, in the most natural way in
   the world, without any effort of his own, without even thinking about
   it, this will necessarily come to the front and make his life go wrong.
   Now, wherever this comes from, or whatever it is, it is a great fact,
   and the first practical question in religion that rises to many a mind
   is this, "What must I do to be saved from this inevitable, and
   universal, and terrible fact of Sin?"

   We have probably all made certain experiments upon this fact already,
   and we could all give some explanation, at least, of what we are doing
   to be saved.

   If some of us were asked, for instance, what was our favourite fact of
   Salvation for resisting the Power of Sin, we might say the fact that we
   were doing our best. Well, it is a great thing for any man to be doing
   his best. But two questions will test the value of this method of
   resisting the power of sin. In the first place, How is your best doing?
   In the second place, Do you think you could not do better? As to how
   your best is doing, you would probably admit that, in fact, if you were
   to be candid, has not been much to boast of after all. And as regards
   your not doing better you might also admit that in some ways, perhaps,
   you could. The fact of Salvation then is evidently a poor one, as far
   as results are concerned, and may be judiciously laid aside.

   Then another experiment people try to break the power of sin is to get
   thoroughly absorbed in something else--business, or literature, or some
   favourite pursuit. It is in our spare hours sin comes to us, and we try
   to have no sin by having no spare hours. But our very preoccupation may
   then be one continuous sin. And besides, if a man have no spare hours,
   he will have spare minutes, and sin comes generally in a minute. Most
   sins, indeed, are done in minutes. They take hours to execute, it may
   be; but in a moment the plot is hatched, the will consents, and the
   deed is done. Preoccupation then is clearly no saviour.

   Then there are others who withdraw from the world altogether, to break
   with sin, and life the solitary life of the recluse. But they forget
   that sin is not in the sinful world without, but in the sinful heart
   within, and that it enters the hermit's solitary cell as persistently
   as the wicked world around. So solitude comes to be no saviour.

   And there are still others who take refuge in religiousness--in going
   to church, for instance, and in religious society and books. But there
   is not necessarily any more power to resist sin within the four walls
   of a church or the pages of a religious book, than between the walls of
   a theatre or the covers of a novel. There may be less temptation there,
   not necessarily more power. For there is no strength in mere religious
   ceremonies to cancel the power of sin, and many a man proves this,
   after years and years of church, by wakening to find the power of sin
   in his breast unchanged, and breaking out, perhaps, in every form of
   vice. Neither is religiousness, therefore, any escape from the dominion
   of Sin.

   And lastly, some of us have resort to doctrines. We have got the
   leading points of certain doctrines worn into our minds, and because
   these have a religious name we are apt to think they have also a
   religious power. In reality, while dealing with the theory of Sin, we
   may leave the power to resist it untouched. And many a pen has been
   busy with a book on the doctrine of Sin while the life which employed
   it was going to destruction for want of salvation from its power.

   There is one doctrine especially with which the word salvation is most
   often connected and to which many look for their deliverance from the
   power of indwelling Sin. And it may seem a startling statement to make,
   but it will emphasize a distinction which cannot be too clearly drawn,
   that even the Atonement itself is not the answer to the question, "What
   must I do to be saved from the power of Sin?" The answer entirely
   depends on the Atonement, but it is not the Atonement. The Atonement is
   not the fact of salvation which saves the sinner from the power of Sin.
   If you believed in the Atonement to-day, if you were absolutely assured
   that your past sins were all forgiven, that would be no criterion that
   you would not be as bad as ever again to-morrow. The Atonement,
   therefore, is not the fact which deals with the power of sin. The
   Atonement deals with a point. We are coming to that. Just now we are
   talking of a life. We are looking out for something which will deal
   with something in our life--something which will redeem our life from
   destruction. And a man may believe the Atonement whose life is not
   redeemed from destruction.

   You have gone out into the country on a summer morning, and as you
   passed some little rustic mill, you saw the miller come out to set his
   simple machinery agoing for the day. He turned on the sluice, but the
   water-wheel would not move. Then, with his strong arm, he turned it
   once or twice, then left it to itself to turn busily all the day. It is
   a sorry illustration in detail, but its principle means this, that the
   Atonement is the first great turn as it were which God gives in the
   morning of conversion to the wheel of the Christian's life. Without it
   nothing more would be possible: alone it would not be enough. The water
   of life must flow in a living stream all through the working day and
   keep pouring its power into it ceaselessly till the life and the work
   are done.

   Now, practically everything in salvation depends upon the clearness
   with which this great truth is recognized. Sin is a power in our life:
   let us fairly understand that it can only be met by another power. The
   fact of Sin works all through our life: the fact of Salvation which is
   to counteract it, must act all through life. The death of Christ, which
   is the Atonement, reconciles us to God, makes our religion possible,
   puts us in the way of the power which is to come against our Sin and
   deliver our life from destruction. But the Water of Life, which flows
   from the life of Christ, is the power itself. He redeemeth my life, by
   His life, from destruction. This is the power, Paul says, which
   redeemed his life from destruction. Christ's life, not His death,
   living in his life, absorbing it, impregnating it, transforming it:
   "Christ," as he confessed, "in me." And this, therefore, is the meaning
   of a profound sentence in which Paul states the true answer to the
   question, What must I do to be saved? records this first great fact of
   salvation and pointedly distinguishes it from the other. "If when we
   were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much
   more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. v. 10).

   "We shall be saved by His life," says Paul. Paul meant no disrespect to
   the Atonement when he said, "We shall be saved by His life." He was
   bringing out in relief one of the great facts of Salvation. If God
   gives atoning power with one hand, and power to save the life from
   destruction with the other, there is no jealousy between. Both are from
   God. If you call the one justification and the other sanctification,
   God is the author of them both. If Paul seems to take something from
   the one doctrine and add it to the other, he takes nothing from God.
   Atonement is from God. Power to resist Sin is from God. When we say we
   shall be saved by the death of Christ, it is true. When Paul says, "We
   shall be saved by His life," it is true. Christ is all and in all, the
   beginning and the end. Only when we are speaking of one fact of Sin,
   let us speak of the corresponding fact of grace. When the thing we want
   is power to redeem our life from destruction, let us apply the gift
   which God has given us for our life, and for guilt the gift for guilt.
   When an Israelite was bitten in the wilderness, he never thought of
   applying manna to the wound. The manna was for his life. But he did
   think of applying the brazen serpent. The manna would never have cured
   his sin; nor would the brazen serpent have kept him from starving.
   Suppose he had said, "Now I am healed by this serpent, I feel cured,
   and I need not eat this manna any more. The serpent has done it all,
   and I am well." The result would have been, of course, that he would
   have died. The man to be sure was cured, but he has to live, and if he
   eats no manna his life must languish, go to destruction, die. Without
   taking any trouble about it, simply by the inevitable processes of
   nature, he would have died. The manna was God's provision to redeem his
   life from destruction, after the serpent had redeemed it from death.
   And if he did nothing to stop the natural progress of destruction, in
   the natural course of things, he must die. Now there is no jealousy
   between these two things--the manna is from God and the serpent is from
   God. But they are different gifts for different things. The serpent
   gave life, but could not keep life; the manna kept life, but could not
   give life. Therefore, the Israelites were saved by the serpent, but
   they did not try to eat the serpent.

   To apply this to the case in hand. The Atonement of Christ is the
   brazen serpent. Christ's life is the manna--the bread of life. Our sins
   are not forgiven by bread, nor are our lives supported by death. Our
   life is not redeemed from destruction by the Atonement, nor kept from
   day to day from the power of Sin by the Atonement. Our life is not
   redeemed from destruction by the death of Christ, nor kept from day to
   day by the death of Christ. But we are saved, as Paul says, by His
   life. We cannot live upon death. Mors janua vitae--death is the gate of
   life. And after we have entered the gateway by the death of Christ, we
   shall be saved by His life.

   It is one thing, therefore, to be saved by the death of Christ, and
   another to be saved by His life; and while both expressions are
   correct, to talk of being saved by the death of Christ is not so
   scriptural as to talk of being saved by the life of Christ; and Paul,
   with his invariable conciseness on important points, has brought out
   the facts of salvation with profound insight in the pregnant antithesis
   already quoted, "When we were enemies we were reconciled by the death
   of Christ, now we shall be saved by His life."

   The first fact of Salvation, therefore, which is to be brought to bear
   upon the first great fact of Sin, is not our own efforts, our own
   religiousness, our own doctrine, the Atonement, or the death of Christ,
   but the power of the life of Christ. He redeemeth my life from
   destruction. How? By His life. This is the fact of Salvation. It takes
   life to redeem life--power to resist power. Sin is a ceaseless, undying
   power in our life. A ceaseless, undying power must come against it. And
   there is only one such power in the universe--only one, which has a
   chance against Sin: the power of the living Christ. God knew the power
   of Sin in a human soul when He made so great provision. He knew how
   great it was; He calculated it. Then He sent the living Christ against
   it. It is the careful and awful estimate of the power of Sin. God saw
   that nothing else would do. It would not do to start our religion, and
   then leave us to ourselves. It would not do with hearts like ours,
   yearning to sin, to leave us with religiousness or moral philosophy or
   doctrine. Christ must come Himself, and live with us. He must come and
   make His abode with us. So that when we live it shall be not we that
   live, but Christ living in us, and the life which we are now living in
   the flesh must be lived by the power of the Son of God.

   What, then, must I do to be saved? Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and
   thou shalt be saved. Slave of a thousand sins, receive the Lord Jesus
   Christ into thy life, and thy life, thy far-spent life, shall yet be
   redeemed from destruction. Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou who
   hast lived in the far famine land shalt return and live once more by
   thy Father's side. Thou seekest not a welcome to thy Father's house--of
   thy welcome thou hast never been afraid. But thou seekest a livelihood;
   thou seekest power. Thou seekest power to be pure, to be true, to be
   free from the power of Sin. "What must I do to be saved from that? What
   power will free me from that?" The power of the living Christ. "As many
   as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God."
   "Power to become the sons of God"--the great fact of salvation. Receive
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

   Christ, therefore, is the Power of God unto salvation--the counter-fact
   to the Power of Sin unto destruction. Christ is the Way--He is also the
   Truth and the Life. This power, this life, is within our reach each
   moment of our life; as near, as free, as abundant as the air we
   breathe. A breath of prayer in the morning, and the morning life is
   sure. A breath of prayer in the evening, and the evening blessing
   comes. So our life is redeemed from destruction. Breath by breath our
   life comes into us. Inch by inch it is redeemed. So much prayer
   to-day--so many inches redeemed to-day. So much water of life to-day
   --so many turns of the great wheel of life to-day. Therefore, if we
   want to be saved--whosoever will, let him take of the water of life
   freely. If you want to be saved, breathe the breath of life. And if you
   cannot breathe, let the groans which cannot be uttered go up to God,
   and the power will come. To all of us alike, if we but ask we shall
   receive. For God makes surpassing allowances, and He will do unto the
   least of us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

   Secondly, and more briefly, the second fact of Sin is the Stain of Sin,
   the second fact of Salvation, "He healeth all thy diseases." The stain
   of Sin is a very much more complicated thing even than the power of
   Sin; and that for this reason--that most of it lies outside our own
   life. If it only lay in dark blotches upon our own life, we might set
   to work to rub it out. But it has crossed over into other lives all
   through the years that have gone, and left its awful mark --our mark,
   on every soul we touched since the most distant past.

   A young man once lay upon his deathbed. He was a Christian, but for
   many days a black cloud had gathered upon his brow. Just before his
   last breath, he beckoned to the friends around his bed. "Take my
   influence," he said, "and bury it with me." He stood on the very
   threshold of glory. But the stain of sin was burning hot upon his past.
   Bury his influence with him! No, his influence will remain. His life
   has gone to be with God, who gave it; but his influence--he has left no
   influence for Christ. His future will be for ever with the Lord. The
   unburied past remains behind, perhaps, for ever to be against him. The
   black cloud which hangs over many a dying brow means the stain of an
   influence lost for Christ--means with many a man who dies a Christian,
   that though his guilt has been removed and his life redeemed from
   destruction, the infection of his past lurks in the world still, and
   his diseases fester in open sore among all the companions of his life.

   What must I do to be saved from the stain of Sin? Gather up your
   influence, and see how much has been for Christ. Then undo all that has
   been against Him. It will never be healed till then. This is the
   darkest stain upon your life. The stain of Sin concerns your own soul,
   but that is a smaller matter. That can be undone--in part. There are
   open sores enough in our past life to make even heaven terrible. But
   God is healing them. He is blotting them from His own memory and from
   ours. If the stains that were there had lingered, life would have been
   a long sigh of agony. But salvation has come to your soul. God is
   helping you to use the means for repairing a broken life. He restoreth
   thy soul, He healeth all thy diseases. But thy brother's soul, and thy
   brother's diseases? The worst of thy stains have spread far and wide
   without thyself; and God will only heal them, perhaps, by giving you
   grace to deal with them. You must retrace your steps over that unburied
   past, and undo what you have done. You must go to the other lives which
   are stained with your blood-red stains and rub them out. Perhaps you
   did not lead them into their sin; but you did not lead them out of it.
   You did not show them you were a Christian. You left a worse memory
   with them than your real one. You pretended you were just like
   them--that your sources of happiness were just the same. You did not
   tell them you had a power which kept your life from Sin. You did not
   take them to the closet you had at home, and let them see you on your
   knees, nor tell them of your Bible which was open twice a day. And all
   these negatives were stains and sins. It is a great injustice to do to
   any one we know--the worst turn we could do a friend, to keep the best
   secret back, and let him go as calmly to hell as we are going to
   heaven.

   If we cannot bury our influence, thank God if here and there we can
   undo it still. The other servant in the kitchen, the clerk on the next
   stool, the lady who once lived in the next house, we must go to them,
   by the grace of God, and take the stain away. And let the thought that
   much that we have done can never be undone, that many whose lives have
   suffered from our sins have gone away into eternity with the stains
   still unremoved that when we all stand round the throne together, even
   from the right hand of the judgment seat of Christ, we may behold on
   the left among the lost the stains of our own sin, still livid on some
   soul--let this quicken our steps as we go to obliterate the influence
   of our past, and turn our fear into a safeguard as we try to keep our
   future life for Christ.

   The second fact of salvation, therefore, is to be effected by God in
   part and by ourselves in part. By God as regards ourselves; by God and
   ourselves as regards others. He is to heal our diseases, and we are to
   spread the balm He gives us wherever we have spread our Sin.

   Lastly, the third great fact of Sin is Guilt--the third fact of
   Salvation is Forgiveness. "He forgiveth all thine iniquities." The
   first question we asked came out of our life; the second mostly from
   our memory; but the third rises up out of conscience.

   Our first cry, as we looked at our future, was, "Where can I get
   power?" Now we are looking at our past, and the question is, "Where can
   I get pardon?" The questions which conscience sends up to us are always
   the deepest questions. And the man who has never sent up the question;
   "Where can I get pardon?" has never been into his conscience to find
   out the deepest want he has. It is not enough for him to look lifeward;
   he must also look Godward. And it is not enough to discover the stain
   of his past, and cry out, "I have sinned." But he must see the guilt of
   his life and cry, "I have sinned against God." The fact of salvation
   which God has provided to meet the fact of guilt, although it is the
   most stupendous fact of all, only comes home to man when he feels a
   criminal and stands, like a guilty sinner, for pardon at God's bar.

   It is enough for him then to invoke God's strength against the power of
   Sin. Just as the fact which meets the guilt of Sin, as we have seen,
   can never meet the power of Sin, so the fact which meets the power of
   Sin can never meet the fact of guilt: manna was what was required for a
   man's life; but it was no use against his guilt. It is nothing that he
   makes a good resolution not to do wrong any more, that he asks Christ
   to come and live with him and break the power of Sin, and redeem his
   life from destruction. God has something to say to him before that.
   Something must happen to him before that. He must come and give an
   account of himself before that. The good resolution is all very
   laudable for the days to come, but what about the past? God wants to
   know about the past. It maybe convenient for us to forget the past, but
   God cannot forget it. We have done wrong, and wrong-doing must be
   punished. Wrong-doing must be punished--must; this is involved in one
   of the facts of Sin. Therefore the punishment of wrong-doing must be
   involved in one of the facts of salvation. It is not in the first two.
   It must be somewhere in this.

   Now the punishment of Sin is death. "In the day that thou eatest
   thereof thou shalt surely die." Therefore death is the punishment which
   must be in one of the facts of salvation. It was not in the other two.
   It must be somewhere in this. It will not meet the case if the sinner
   professes his penitence and promises humbly never to do the like again.
   It will not meet the case if he comes on his knees to apologise to God,
   and ask Him simply to forget that he has sinned, or beg Him to have
   pity on the misfortunes of his past. God did not say, "In the day thou
   eatest thereof I will pity thy misfortunes. In the day thou eatest
   thereof thou shalt surely apologise, or thou shalt surely repent." But
   "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." So death, and
   nothing less than death, must be in the fact of salvation from the
   guilt of sin, if such salvation is to be.

   This fact, this most solemn necessity understood and felt, the rest is
   plain. We all know who deserved to die. We all know Who did die. We
   know we were not wounded for our transgressions, we were not bruised
   for our iniquities. But we know Who was. The Lord hath not dealt with
   us according to our iniquities; but we know with Whom He has. We know
   Who bare our sins in His own body on the tree--One who had no sins of
   His own. We know Who was lifted up like the serpent in the
   wilderness--He who died, the just for the unjust. If we know this, we
   know the great fact of Salvation, for it is here.

   It only remains to answer one question more. How is a poor sinner to
   make this great fact his? And the answer is, by trusting Christ. He has
   nothing else wherewith to make it his. The Atonement is a fact.
   Forgiveness is a fact. Let him believe it. He does not understand it.
   He is not asked to understand it. The proper way to accept a fact is to
   believe it; and Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have
   everlasting life. It is well to understand it, and you may try to
   understand it, if you can, but till then you must believe it. For it is
   a fact, and your understanding it will not make it less or more a fact.
   The death of Christ will always be a fact. Forgiveness of sins will
   always be a fact. You accept the facts of sin: accept the facts of
   grace. The Atonement, you say, confuses you. You do not understand its
   bearings; the more you think and hear and read, the more mysterious it
   becomes. And well it may, well it may!

   A student went to a professor of theology not long ago, and asked him
   how long it took him to understand the Atonement. He answered, all his
   life. Thinking perhaps there might be some mistake, the young man went
   to another professor, who taught the very doctrine in his class. "How
   long did it take you, sir," he asked, "to understand the Atonement?"
   The professor thought a moment, and looked him in the face. "Eternity,"
   he said, "Eternity; and I shall not understand it then."

   We have been dealing to-day with facts; we need not be distressed if we
   do not understand them. God's love--how could we? God's
   forgiveness--how could we? "He forgiveth all mine iniquities." It is a
   fact. What proof could commend itself if God's fact will not do? Verify
   the fact as you may, find out as much about it as you may; only accept
   it--accept it first. You are keeping your life waiting while you are
   finding out about it. You are keeping your salvation waiting. And it is
   better to spend a year in ignorance than live a day unpardoned. You are
   staining other lives while you are waiting: your influence is against
   Christ while you are waiting, and it is better to spend your life in
   ignorance than let your influence be against Christ. Most things in
   religion are matters of simple faith. But when we come to the
   Atonement, somehow we all become rationalists. We want to see through
   it and understand it--as if it were finite like ourselves, as if it
   could ever be compassed by our narrow minds--as if God did not know
   that we never could fathom it when He said, "Believe it," instead of
   "Understand it." We are not rationalists when we come to the love of
   God, or to faith, or to prayer. We do not ask for a theory of love
   before we begin to love, or a theory of prayer before we begin to pray.
   We just begin. Well, just begin to believe in forgiveness. When they
   brought the sick man once to Jesus, He just said, "Man, thy sins are
   forgiven thee," and the man just believed it. He did not ask, "But why
   should you forgive me, and how do you mean forgive me? and I don't see
   any connection between your forgiveness and my sin." No; he took the
   fact. "Immediately he rose up, and departed to his own house,
   glorifying God." The fact is, if we would come to Christ just now, we
   should never ask any questions. Our minds would be full of Him. We
   should be in the region of eternal facts, and we should just believe
   them. At least, we should believe Him; and He is the Saviour, the sum
   of all the facts of Salvation--the one Saviour from all the facts of
   Sin. If you will not receive Salvation as a fact, receive the Lord
   Jesus Christ as a gift--we ask no questions about a gift. Receive the
   Lord Jesus Christ as a gift, and thou shalt be saved from the power and
   the stain and the guilt of Sin, for His is the power and the glory.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

MARVEL NOT

   "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."--JOHN iii.
   7.

   EVERY man comes into the world wrapped in an atmosphere of wonder--an
   atmosphere from which his whole after-life is a prolonged effort to
   escape. The moment he opens his eyes this sense of wonder is upon him,
   and it never leaves him till he closes them on the greatest
   wonder--Death. Between these wonders, the first awaking and the last
   sleep, his life is spent--a long-drawn breath of mystery.

   This sense of wonder is not an evil thing, although it is a thing to
   escape from. It is one of God's earliest gifts, and one of God's best
   gifts; but its usefulness to childhood or to manhood depends on the
   mind escaping from wonder into something else--on its passing out from
   wonder into knowledge. Hence God has made the desire to escape as
   natural to us as the desire to wonder.

   Every one has been struck with the wonderment of a little child; but
   its desire to escape out of wonderment is a more marvellous thing. Its
   wonder becomes to it a constant craving for an entrance into the rest
   of information and fact. Its eager questionings, its impatience of its
   own ignorance, its insatiable requests for knowledge, these are alike
   the symptoms of its wonder and the evidences of its efforts to escape.
   And although, in adult life, the developed man is too cautious or too
   proud to display his wonder like the child, it is there in its thin
   disguise as inquiry, or investigation, or doubt. And there is no more
   exuberant moment in a man's life than when this wonder works until it
   passes into truth, when reason flashes a sudden light into a groping
   mind, and knowledge whispers, "Marvel not!"

   There are three possible ways in which different minds attempt to
   escape from this sense of wonder. They take refuge in knowledge, or in
   mystery, or in ignorance. The first of these, knowledge, satisfies the
   sense of wonder. The second, mystery, deepens it. The third, ignorance,
   crushes it. Marvel not at all, says ignorance, because you cannot know
   at all. Marvel more, says mystery, because you cannot know more. Marvel
   not, says knowledge, because you know enough. Christ in our text says,
   "Marvel not."

   It is the custom with most people, on every subject except one, to let
   their wonder escape in the last and only reasonable way--knowledge. The
   exception is Religion. Men will not trouble themselves with thorough
   knowledge about it. They protest it is too marvellous. When a man
   wonders at anything secular, he proceeds to inquire about it, and takes
   refuge in information. But when he wonders at anything sacred, he is
   wont to take refuge in mystery which is just his wonder deepened, or in
   ignorance, which is just his wonder neglected. Religion has been always
   treated by the world as if it contained no human, commonsense
   principles; and however right it may be to rank it on a platform by
   itself, it has probably suffered as much from having been regarded as
   too exclusively supernatural, as too exclusively natural. Men who would
   be very much ashamed to confess ignorance in secular things, have no
   scruples in saying, "I do not know" in religious things. Men who would
   consider it intellectual treason to permit their minds to be put off
   with inexactness or evasion in an intellectual question, feel it no
   disloyalty, on encountering a religious difficulty, to pass it by on
   the other side. The inscrutableness of God is made a veil for the
   neglect of God, the divine infinity becomes a plea for human ignorance,
   and the spirituality of the laws of heaven an excuse for failure and
   irresponsibility on earth. So there are times when Christ has to put
   His finger on this wonder, and tell us to wonder not.

   Of all the subjects which men have found it convenient to banish into
   these regions of the unknowable, none suffer so frequently as this
   question of the being born again. The elements of mystery which are
   supposed to cluster about it are reckoned an ample excuse for even the
   most intelligent minds not trying to understand it, and more than a
   justification of any one who makes the attempt and fails.

   The famous Rabbi, indeed, who was honoured with all this immortal
   discourse on Regeneration is a case in point. He was just on the verge
   of losing himself in this most treasonable despair. Never was man more
   puzzled than Nicodemus at the initial statement of this truth. Never
   was man's sense of wonder more profoundly excited, never more in danger
   of losing itself in the mazes of mystery, never nearer taking the easy
   escape of drowning itself in ignorance, than when Jesus rallied the
   escaping faculties of the Jewish ruler by the message, "Marvel not."
   The background working of that mind during its strange night-interview
   with Christ is full of suggestion and meaning. Twice already during the
   conversation had the great Teacher said in substance, "Ye must be born
   again." And one of the strongest intellects of its time stood literally
   petrified before the words. Nicodemus first tries to summon courage and
   frame a wondering question in reply: "How can a man be born when he is
   old?"--less a question, perhaps, than a soliloquy of his own. He has
   heard the great Teacher's statement, and he thinks upon it aloud,
   turning it over in his calm Hebrew mind till his very question returns
   upon himself and plunges him in deeper wonderment than before: "How can
   a man be born again when he is old?"

   Next time he will venture no remark, and the Teacher's words fall
   uninterrupted on the puzzled scholar's ear: "Except a man be born
   again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He has given him the key to
   it. But Nicodemus sees it not. He seems to have plunged into a dream.
   His reverie has deepened till he stands absorbed in thought, with
   down-turned eyes, before his Master. Jesus stands by in silence, and
   reads the wonder and perplexity in the gathering blackness of his brow.
   Nicodemus is despairing, perhaps. He is going to give it up. He is
   utterly baffled with the strange turn the conversation has taken. There
   is no satisfaction to be got from this clandestine meeting after all,
   and puzzled, and beaten, and crestfallen, he prepares to take his
   leave. But Jesus will not let the divine sense of wonder be aroused to
   end like this. It must end in knowledge, not in ignominy. It must
   escape into spiritual truth, not into intellectual mystery. So He says,
   "Wonder not; Marvel not. Here is nothing so very mysterious that I
   cannot make you know. You will understand it all if you come and think
   of it. You need not marvel that I said, Ye must be born again.' "

   Thus Jesus saved Nicodemus from relapsing into ignorance of the
   greatest truth the world had known till then, or lulling his wonder to
   sleep for ever in mystery or despair.

   Now for the sake of those of us who have been tempted to pause--where
   Nicodemus so nearly lost himself--on the threshold of this truth: for
   the sake of those of us who have almost felt drawn into the
   intellectual sin of drowning our wonder at this truth in despair of it,
   let us ask ourselves very shortly why Christ said, "Marvel not." And it
   may be convenient in following up the subject from this side in a few
   words, to divide the answer into three short heads.

   I. "Marvel not"--as if it were unintelligible.

   II. "Marvel not"--as if it were impossible.

   III. "Marvel not"--as if it were unnecessary.

   To begin with the first of these:--

   I. Marvel not--as if it were unintelligible. There is nothing more
   unintelligible in the world than how a soul is born again. There is
   nothing more intelligible than that it is. We can understand the fact,
   however, without necessarily understanding the act. The act of being
   born again is as mysterious as God. All the complaints which have been
   showered upon this doctrine have referred to the act--the act with
   which we have really nothing to do, which is a process of God, the
   agency of the unseen wind of the Spirit, and which Jesus Himself has
   expressly warned us not to expect to understand. "Thou canst not tell,"
   He said, "whence it cometh or whither it goeth."

   But there is nothing to frighten search in this. For precisely the same
   kind of mystery hangs over every process of nature and life. We do not
   understand the influence of sunshine on the leaves of a flower at this
   spring-time, any more than we do the mysterious budding of spiritual
   life within the soul; but botany is a science for all that.

   We do not give up the study of chemistry as hopeless because we fail to
   comprehend the unseen laws which guide the delicate actions and
   reactions of matter. Nor do we disbelieve in the influence of food on
   the vital frame because no man has found the point exactly at which it
   passes from dead nourishment into life. We do not avoid the subject of
   electricity because electricity is a mystery, or heat because we cannot
   see heat, or meteorology because we cannot see the wind. Marvel not
   then, from the analogy of physical nature, if, concerning this Spirit
   of Regeneration, we cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
   It is not on that account unintelligible that a man should be born
   again.

   If we care again to take the analogy from the moral and intellectual
   nature, the same may be said with even greater emphasis. The essence of
   Regeneration is a change from one state to another--from an old life to
   a new one. Spiritually, its manifestation is in hating things once
   loved, or loving things once hated. God is no longer avoided, but
   worshipped; Christ no longer despised, but trusted.

   Now, intellectually, changes at least in some way similar are happening
   every day. You rose up yesterday, bitterly opposed, let us say, to such
   and such a scheme. You were so strong in your opinion that nothing
   would ever shake you. You would never change, you said--you never
   could. But you met a friend, who began to talk about it. You listened,
   then wavered, then capitulated. You allowed yourself to be talked
   round, as you expressed it. You were converted to the other side. And
   in the evening your change of mind was so complete that you were
   literally born again--you were literally another man; you were in a new
   world of ideas, of interests, of hopes, with all the old dislikes in
   that special connection reversed, and the old loves turned into hates.

   Something like this goes on, only with a higher agency, in the
   Regeneration of the soul. Hence it is called by similar names--a change
   of heart, or a turning round or a conversion to the other side. And
   just as talking round will change a man's opinion or convert him
   intellectually, so turning round by the Spirit of God will change his
   heart or convert him spiritually. When you are told, therefore, that
   your heart may be changed by the Spirit, even as your mind was changed
   by your friend, marvel not, as if it were unintelligible. What a few
   hours' conversation could do in making you love the side you hated, and
   hate the side you loved, marvel not at what more the power of God could
   do in turning round your being from the old life to the new. And one
   might even press the analogy a little further, and add, if a few
   minutes' conversation with a fellowman overturned the stubborn mountain
   of your mind, how much more should a few minutes' conversation with
   Christ--such as Nicodemus had, and which overthrew his strongest
   Messianic views, and changed the current of his life for ever from that
   hour--change your life the moment it touched you?

   To Nicodemus, indeed, even the conception itself of being born again
   should have seemed no mystery. It was already a familiar thought in
   another sense to every Jewish heart--nothing more or less, indeed, than
   one of the common political phrases of the day. The custom in these
   times was to regard as unclean the foreigner who came to reside in a
   Jewish town. He was held at arm's length; he was a man of different
   caste, the Jew had no dealings with the Samaritan. But if he wished to
   leave his gods and share the religious hopes and civil privileges of
   the Jews, there was one way out of the old state into the new--just one
   way--he must be born again. He was baptized with water, and passed
   through certain other rites, till finally reckoned clean, when he
   became as truly one of the chosen people as if he had been the lineal
   son of Abraham. And the process of initiation from the Gentile world
   into the kingdom of the Jew was called a Regeneration, or a being born
   again. There was nothing, therefore, in the thoughtful consideration of
   the New Birth for the Jew to marvel at. "Art thou a Master in Israel,"
   Jesus might well ask, "and understandest not these things?" A Master in
   Israel stumbling at an every-day illustration, marvelling as if it were
   unintelligible! "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born
   again."

   What the Jews did to a stranger in admitting him to their kingdom
   corresponds exactly with what we do in our process of naturalization.
   Naturalization--spiritualisation if we would be exactly accurate--is
   the idea, then, expressed in the "born again" of Christ: and when we
   trace the expression back to its setting in Jewish politics, it yields
   the beautiful conception that God calls man--the foreigner, the
   stranger, the wanderer--to forsake the far country, and having been
   purified by initiatory rites from all uncleanness, to be translated
   into the kingdom of His dear Son. And though there may be, indeed,
   reasons why we should be so slow to understand it, and regions of
   rightful wonder in the deeper workings of the thought which we have not
   yet explored, there is at least this much clear, that we need not
   marvel as if it were unintelligible.

   II. Marvel not--as if it were impossible. There is a name for God which
   men, in these days, have many temptations to forget--God the Creator of
   heaven and earth. It was the name, perhaps, by which we first knew
   God--God had made our earth, our house; God had made us. He was our
   Creator--God. We thought God could make anything then, or do anything,
   or do everything. But we lost our happy childhood's faith; and now we
   wonder what things God can do, as if there were many things He could
   not.

   But there is one thing we have little difficulty in always referring to
   the creating hand of God--life. No one has ever made life but God. We
   call Him the Author of life, and the Author of life is a wondrously
   fertile author. He makes much life--life in vast abundance. There is
   nothing so striking in nature as the prodigality--the almost reckless
   prodigality--of life. It seems as if God delighted Himself in life. So
   the world is filled with it. In the woods, in the air, in the
   ocean-bed, everywhere teeming life, superabundance of life, which God
   has made.

   Well, if God can give life, He can surely add life. Regeneration is
   nothing in principle but the adding of more life. It is God adding life
   to life--more life to a man who has some life. The man has life which
   God gave him once; but part of him --the best part of him--is dead. His
   soul is dead in trespasses and sins. God touches this, and it lives.
   Even as the body was dead and God breathed upon it till it lived, so
   God will breathe upon the soul, and more life and better life will
   come.

   So there is nothing impossible in being born again, any more than there
   is the impossible in being born at all. What did Christ come into the
   world for? To give life, He said, even more abundant life. And Christ
   giving life--that is Regeneration. It was not more knowledge Nicodemus
   wanted, though he thought so, but more life; and the best proof that
   life was possible was that life was granted. So the best proof of the
   Christianity is a Christian; the best proof of Regeneration is a man
   who has been regenerated. Can a man be born again when he is old?
   Certainly. For it has been done. Think of Bunyan the sinner and Bunyan
   the saint; think of Newton the miscreant and Newton the missionary;
   think of Paul the persecutor and Paul the apostle; and marvel not, as
   if it were impossible that a man should be born again.

   III. Marvel not--as if it were unnecessary. Regeneration is more than
   intelligible and possible--it is necessary, to enter the kingdom of
   God. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
   Jesus says it is necessary. A man cannot see the kingdom of God except
   he be born again. He not only cannot enter it; Jesus says he cannot see
   it. It is actually invisible to him. This is why the world says of
   religion, "We do not understand it; we do not make it out; we do not
   see it." No, of course they do not see it; they cannot see it; first,
   it is necessary to be born again.

   When men come into the world, they are born outside of the kingdom of
   God, and they cannot see into it. They may go round and round it, and
   examine it from the outside, and pass an opinion on it. But they are no
   judges. They are not seeing what they are speaking about. For that
   which is born of spirit is spirit, that which is born of flesh is
   flesh; and they can only give a criticism which is material on a thing
   which is spiritual. Therefore the critical value of a worldly man's
   opinion on religious matters is nothing. He is open to an objection
   which makes his opinion simply ludicrous--he is talking about a thing
   which he has never seen. So far as one's experience of religion goes,
   Regeneration makes all the difference. It is as if some one had been
   standing outside some great cathedral. He has heard that its windows
   are of stained glass and exceeding beautiful. He walks all round it and
   sees nothing but dull, unmeaning spaces--an iron grating over each, to
   intensify the gloom that seems to reign within. There is nothing worth
   seeing there, but everything to repel. But let him go in. Let him see
   things from the inside. And his eye is dazzled with the gorgeous play
   of colours; and the miracles and the parables are glowing upon the
   glass; and the figure of Jesus is there, and the story of His love is
   told on every pane--and there are choirs of angels, and cherubim and
   seraphim, and an altar where, in light which is inaccessible, is God.

   So let a man enter into the kingdom of heaven--let a man be born again
   and enter--and he will see the kingdom of God. He will see the miracles
   and the parables which were meaningless, colourless once; he will see
   the story of the Cross, which was a weariness and an offence; he will
   see the Person of Christ and the King in His beauty, and beholding as
   in a glass the glory of the Only begotten, he shall be changed into the
   same image from glory to glory. Marvel not if it is necessary, to see
   all this, that he must be born again.

   Within this great world there are a number of little worlds, to which
   entrance is only attainable by birth. There is the intellectual world,
   for instance, which requires the birth of brains; and the artistic
   world, which requires the birth of taste; and the dramatic world, which
   requires the birth of talent; and the musical world, which requires the
   gift of harmony and ear. A man cannot enter the intellectual world
   except he have brains, or the artistic world except he have taste. And
   he cannot make or find brains or taste. They must be born in him. A man
   cannot make a poetical mind for himself. It must be created in him.
   Hence "the poet is born--not made," we say. So the Christian is born,
   not made.

   There remains one other and imperative protest against Regeneration
   being unnecessary. Human nature demands Regeneration as if it were
   necessary. No man who knows the human heart or human history will
   marvel as if it were unnecessary that the world must be born again.
   Every other conceivable measure has been tried to reform it. Government
   has tried it, Philosophy has tried it, Philanthropy has tried it, and
   failed. The heart--the national heart or the individual heart--remains
   deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Reformation has been
   of little use to it; for every reformation is but a fresh and
   unguaranteed attempt to do what never has been done. Reconstruction has
   been of little use to it; for reconstruction is an ill-advised
   endeavour to rebuild a house, which has fallen a thousand times already
   with the same old bricks and beams. Man has had every chance from the
   creation to the present moment to prove that Regeneration was not the
   one necessity of the world--and, again, has utterly failed.

   We are still told, indeed, that all the world needs is just to get a
   start. Once set a man on his feet, or a universe, with a few good
   guiding principles. Give human nature fair play, and it must win in the
   end. But no. The experiment has been tried. God tried it Himself. It
   was fairly done, and it failed. The wickedness of man had waxed great
   throughout the land. So God said He would destroy all living flesh, and
   select a picked few of the best inhabitants to start the world afresh.
   A fair experiment. So all the world was drowned except a little nucleus
   in an ark--the picked few who were to found Utopia, who were to
   reconstruct the universe, who were to begin human life again, and make
   everything so much better than it was before. But the experiment
   failed. The picked few failed. Their children failed. Their children's
   children failed. Things got no better; only worse, perhaps, and worse;
   and no man ever really knew the cause till Jesus told the world that it
   must--absolutely and imperatively must--be born again.

   If human nature makes it necessary, much more does the Divine nature.
   When Christ shall present His Church to God, it must be as a spotless
   Bride. In that eternal kingdom saints are more than subjects: they are
   the companions of the King. They must be a select number. They must be
   a highborn company. Marvel not if you and I are to be there--as if it
   were unnecessary that we must be born again. "Lord, who shall abide in
   Thy tabernacle--who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? He that hath clean
   hands and a pure heart." "There shall in no wise enter into it anything
   that defileth." Marvel not as if it were unnecessary that our robes
   should be washed white.

   Marvel not, as if it were unintelligible.

   Marvel not, as if it were impossible.

   Marvel not, as if it were unnecessary that ye must be born again.

   But marvel if you are. Marvel if you are not. Marvel that you may be
   to-day.
     __________________________________________________________________

PENITENCE

   "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter . . . .and Peter went out,
   and wept bitterly."--LUKE xxii. 61, 62.

   EVERY man at some time in his life has fallen. Many have fallen many
   times; few, few times. And the more a man knows his life and watches
   its critical flow from day to day, the larger seems to grow the number
   of these falls, and the oftener reaches out to God his penitential
   prayer, "Turn yet again, O Lord!"

   We have all shuddered before this as we read the tale of Peter's guilt.
   Many a time we have watched the plot as it thickens round him, and felt
   the almost unconscious sympathy which betrayed of itself how like the
   story was to one that had sometimes happened with ourselves. And we
   knew, as we followed the dreary stages of his fall, that the same
   well-worn steps had been traced since then by every human foot. How
   Peter could have slept in the garden, when he should have watched and
   prayed, all men who have an inner history can understand. The
   faithlessness that made him follow Christ far off, instead of keeping
   at his Master's side, not the best of us will challenge. For we too
   know what it is sometimes to get out of step with Christ. We shall be
   the last to stop and ask his business in that worldly company who
   warmed themselves by the fire. And none who know that the heart is
   deceitful above all things, will wonder that this man who had lived so
   long in the inner circle of fellowship with Christ, whose eyes were
   familiar with miracles, who was one of that most select audience who
   witnessed the glory of the transfiguration--that this man, when his
   ears were yet full of the most solemn words the world had ever heard,
   when his heart was warm still with Communion-table thoughts, should
   have turned his back upon his Lord, and, almost ere the sacramental
   wine was dry upon his lips, have cursed Him to His face. Such things,
   alas! are not strange to those who know the parts in the appalling
   tragedy of sin.

   But there is a greater fact in Peter's life than Peter's sin--a much
   less known fact--Peter's penitence. All the world are at one with Peter
   in his sin; but not all the world are with him in his penitence. Sinful
   Peter is one man, and repentant Peter is another; and many who kept his
   company along these worn steps to sin have left him to trace the
   tear-washed path of penitence alone. But the real lesson in Peter's
   life is the lesson in repentance. His fall is a lesson in sin which
   requires no teacher, but his repentance is a great lesson in salvation.
   And Peter's penitence is full of the deepest spiritual meaning to all
   who have ever made Peter's discovery--that they have sinned.

   The few words which form the pathetic sequel to the tale of Peter's sin
   may be defined as the "ideal progress of Christian penitence." They
   contain materials for the analysis of the most rare and difficult grace
   in spiritual experience. And lying underneath these two simple
   sentences are the secrets of some of the most valuable spiritual laws.
   We find here four outstanding characteristics of the state of
   penitence:

   (1) It is a divine thing. It began with God. Peter did not turn. But
   "the Lord turned and looked upon Peter."

   (2) It is a very sensitive thing. A look did it. "The Lord looked upon
   Peter."

   (3) It is a very intense thing. "Peter went out and wept bitterly."

   (4) It is a very lonely thing. "Peter went out"--out into the quiet
   night, to be alone with his sin and God.

   These are characteristic not only of the penitential state, but of all
   God's operations on the soul.

   (1) To take the first of these, we find that the beginning of this
   strange experience came from God. It was not Peter who turned. The Lord
   turned and looked upon Peter. When the cock crew, that might have
   recalled him to himself. But he was just in the very act of sin. And
   when a man is in the thick of his sin his last thought is to throw down
   his arms and repent. So Peter never thought of turning, but the Lord
   turned; and when Peter would rather have looked anywhere else than at
   the Lord, the Lord looked at Peter. And this scarce-noticed fact is a
   great sermon to every one who sins--that the Lord turns first.

   Now the result of this distinction is this: that there are two kinds of
   sorrow for sin. And these are different in their origin, in their
   religious value, and in their influence on our life. The commoner kind
   is when a man does wrong, and, in the ordinary sense of the word, is
   sorry that he has done it. We are always easier in such a case when
   this sorrow comes. It seems to provide a sort of guarantee that we are
   not disposed to do the same again, and that our better self is still
   alive enough to enter its protest against the sin the lower self has
   done. And we count this feeling of reproach which treads so closely on
   the act as a sort of compensation or atonement for the wrong. This is a
   kind of sorrow which is well known to all who examine themselves, and
   in any way struggle with sin. It is a kind of sorrow which is coveted
   by all who examine themselves; which gives relief to what is called a
   penitential heart, and lends a fervour to many a penitential prayer.
   But it is a startling truth that there is no religion in such a state.
   There is no real penitence there. It may not contain even one
   ingredient of true repentance. It is all many know of repentance, and
   all many have for repentance. But it is no true sorrow for sin. It is
   wounded self-love. It is sorrow that we were weak enough to sin. We
   thought we had been stronger men and women, and when we were put to the
   test we found to our chagrin that we had failed. And this chagrin is
   what we are apt to mistake for penitence. But it is no Divine gift of
   grace, this penitence--it is merely wounded pride--sorrow that we did
   not do better, that we were not so good as ourselves and our neighbours
   thought. It is just as if Peter turned and looked upon Peter. And when
   Peter turns and looks upon Peter, he sees what a poor, weak creature
   Peter is. And if God had not looked upon Peter he might have wept
   well-nigh as bitterly, not because he had sinned against his God, but
   because he, the great apostle, had done a weak thing--he was weak as
   other men.

   The fit of low spirits which comes to us when we find ourselves
   overtaken in a fault, though we flatter ourselves to reckon it a
   certain sign of penitence, and a set-off to the sin itself which God
   will surely take into account, is often nothing more than vexation and
   annoyance with ourselves, that, after all our good resolutions and
   attempts at reformation, we have broken down again.

   Contrast for a moment with such a penitence the publican's prayer of
   penitence in the temple. It was no chagrin nor wounded pride with him.
   And we feel as we read the story that the Lord must have turned and
   looked upon the publican, when he cried "God"--as if God were looking
   right down into the man's eyes--"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
   Stricken before his God, this publican had little thought of the
   self-respect he had lost, and felt it no indignity to take the
   culprit's place and be taught the true divinity of a culprit's
   penitence.

   Now it will be seen at once that the difference between the publican's
   penitence and the first-named sorrow is just the difference between the
   divine and the human. The one is God turning and looking upon man, the
   other is man turning and looking upon himself. There is no wrong in a
   man turning and looking upon himself--only there is danger. There is
   the danger of misinterpreting what he sees and what he feels. What he
   feels is the mortification, the self-reproach of the sculptor who has
   made an unlucky stroke of the chisel; the chagrin of the artist who has
   spoilt the work of weeks by a clumsy touch. Apart altogether from
   religion we must feel mortified when we do wrong. Life, surely, is a
   work of art; character-building, soul-culture are the highest kind of
   art; and it would be strange indeed if failure passed unresented by the
   mind.

   But what is complained of is not that it passes unresented by the mind,
   but that it passes unresented by the soul. Penitence of some sort there
   must be, but in the one case it is spiritual, in the other purely
   artistic. And the danger is the more subtle because the higher the
   character is the more there must necessarily be of the purely artistic
   penitence.

   The effect is, that self gets in to what ought to be the most genuine
   experience of life, makes the most perfect imitation of it, and
   transforms the greatest opportunities for recovery into the basest
   ministry to pride. The true experience, on the other hand, is a
   touching lesson in human helplessness; teaching how God has to come to
   man's relief at every turn of his life, and how the same Hand which
   provides his pardon has actually to draw him to the place of penitence.

   It is God looking into the sinner's face that has introduced a
   Christian element into human sorrow. And Paul, in making the Christian
   vocabulary, had to coin a word which was strange to all the
   philosophies of the world then, and is so still, when he joined the
   conceptions of God and sorrow into one, and told us of the Godly sorrow
   which has the marvellous virtue of working repentance not to be
   repented of. And it is this new and sacred sorrow which comes to sinful
   men as often as the Lord turns and looks upon their life; it is this
   which adds the penitential incense to the sacrifice of a broken and
   contrite heart. That was a great distinction which Luke brings out, in
   the prodigal's life, between coming to himself and coming to his
   father. "He came to himself," and then "he came to his father." So we
   are always coming to ourselves. We are always finding out, like the
   prodigal, the miserable bargains we have made. But it is only when we
   come to our Father that we can get them undone and the real debt
   discharged.

   (2) But now, secondly, we come to the sensitiveness of penitence. Or
   rather, perhaps, we should talk of the sensitiveness of the penitent
   human soul. The Lord turned and looked upon Peter. There is nothing
   more sensitive in all the world than a human soul which has once been
   quickened into its delicate life by the touch of the divine. Men seldom
   estimate aright the exquisite beauty and tenderness of a sinner's
   heart. We apply coarse words to move it, and coarse, harsh stimulants
   to rouse it into life. And if no answer comes we make the bludgeon
   heavier and the language coarser still, as if the soul were not too
   fine to respond to weapons so blunt as these. There is coarseness in
   the fibres of the body, and these may be moved by blows; and there is
   coarseness in human nature, and that may be roused with threats; but
   the soul is fine as a breath, and will preserve, through misery and
   cruelty and sin, the marvellous delicacy which tells how near it lies
   to the spirit of God who gave it birth. Peter was naturally, perhaps,
   the coarsest of all the disciples. Our picture of him is of a
   strong-built, sun-tanned fisherman, robust, and fearless in
   disposition, quick-tempered and rash, a man who would bluster and
   swear--as we know he did--a wild man who had the making of a memorable
   sinner had not God made him a memorable saint. But inside this wild
   breast there lay a most lovely and delicate plant--the most tender
   plant, perhaps, but one which God had growing on the earth. With His
   own hand He had placed it there. With His own breath He nourished it
   from day to day; and already the storms in the wild breast were calmed
   and tempered for the holy flower which had begun to send a perfume
   through even coarse Peter's life. It always purifies a man to have a
   soul, and there is no such beauty of character as that which comes out
   in unconscious ways from a life made fine by Christ.

   So God did not thunder and lighten to make Peter hear His voice. God
   knew that though Peter was blustering and swearing with his lips, there
   was dead silence in his soul. A whisper at that moment--that moment of
   high-strung feeling--a whisper even was not fine enough in its touch
   for this exquisitely sensitive spirit; so the Lord turned and looked. A
   look, and that was all. But it rent his heart as lightning could not,
   and melted into his soul.

   There is a text in the Psalms which uses the strange expression, the
   gentleness of God. We wonder sometimes when God is so great, so
   terrible in majesty, that He uses so little violence with us, who are
   so small. But it is not His way. His way is to be gentle. He seldom
   drives; but draws. He seldom compels; but leads. He remembers we are
   dust. We think it might be quicker work if God threatened and compelled
   us to do right. But God does not want quick work, but good work. God
   does not want slave work, but free work. So God is gentle with us
   all--moulding us and winning us many a time with no more than a silent
   look. Coarse treatment never wins souls. So God did not drive the
   chariot of His omnipotence up to Peter and command him to repent. God
   did not threaten him with thunderbolts of punishment. God did not even
   speak to him. That one look laid a spell upon his soul which was more
   than voice or language through all his after life.

   Here, then, are two great lessons--the gentleness of God, and the
   gentleness of the soul--the one as divine a marvel as the other. God
   may be dealing with us in some quiet way just now and we not knowing
   it. So mysteriously has all our life been shaped, and so unobtrusive
   the fingers which mould our will, that we scarce believe it has been
   the hand of God at all. But it is God's gentleness. And the reason why
   God made Peter's heart sensitive, and yours and mine, was to meet this
   gentleness of His.

   Yes; we misunderstand God altogether, and religion, if we think God
   deals coarsely with our souls. If we ask ourselves what things have
   mainly influenced our life, we find the answer in a few silent voices
   which have preached to us, and winds which passed across our soul so
   gently that we scarce could tell when they were come or gone. The great
   physical forces of the world are all silent and unseen. The most
   ponderous of all--gravitation--came down the ages with step so
   noiseless that centuries of wise men had passed away before an ear was
   quick enough to detect its footfall. And the great spiritual forces
   which startle men into thoughts of God and right, which make men
   remember, in the rush of the world's life, that they have souls, which
   bring eternity near to us, when time is yet sweet and young, are not so
   much the warnings from the dead who drop at our side, nor the threats
   of judgment to come, nor the retributions of the life that is; but
   still small voices, which penetrate like Peter's look from Christ, and
   turn man's sensitive heart to God. The likeness of a long-dead mother's
   face; the echo of a children's hymn laden with pure memories, coming
   over the guilty years which lie between; the fragments of an old,
   forgotten text--these are the messengers which Heaven sends to call the
   world to God.

   Let those who are waiting for Christ to thunder at their door before
   they will let Him in, remember that the quiet service of the Sabbath
   Day, and the soft whisper of text and Psalm, and the plaint of
   conscience, and the deep, deep heart-wish to be whole, are Christ's
   ways of looking for them. Let workers for Christ remember this. Let
   those who try to keep their influence for Christ, ponder Christ's
   methods of influence. Let those who live in the shade, whose lives are
   naturally bounded by timidity and reserve, be glad that, in the genius
   of Christianity, there is a place for even the Gospel of the Face. And
   let those who live in the battle, when coarser weapons fail, discern
   the lesson of Elijah: "A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and
   brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the
   wind: and after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the
   earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in
   the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" (I Kings xix. 11).

   (3) Thirdly and briefly, for the truth is obvious, we learn from
   Peter's recovery that spiritual experience is intense. Peter wept
   bitterly. And this short sentence for ever settles the question of
   emotion in religion. When the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and
   memory crushed into one vivid moment the guilt of those
   never-to-be-forgotten hours, what else could Peter do than weep
   bitterly? Let memory so work on any of our lives to-day, and let the
   eye of the Eternal bring the naked truth from out our past, and let us
   ask if "bitterly" is a word too strong to express the agony of God's
   discovery of our sin. Much need, indeed, had Peter to weep bitterly;
   and if there are no bitter tears betimes in our religious life, it is
   not because we have less of Peter's sin, but little of Peter's grace.

   It is vain to console ourselves by measuring, as we try to do, the
   small size of the slips we make as compared with his. There is such a
   thing in the world as a great sin, but there is no such thing as a
   small sin. The smallest sin is a fall, and a fall is a fall from God,
   and to fall from God is to fall the greatest height in the universe.
   The publicity of a sin has nothing to do with its size. Our fall last
   week, or yesterday, or to-day, was just as great, perhaps, as Peter's
   fall, or David's, or Noah's, or Jacob's, or the many private sins which
   history has made public examples, or the Bible placed as beacons to all
   the race.

   Every sin that was ever done demands a bitter penitence. And if there
   is little emotion in a man's religion, it is because there is little
   introspection. Religion without emotion is religion without reflection.
   Let a man sit calmly down to think about his life. Let him think how
   God has dealt with him since ever he lisped God's name. Let him add to
   that how he has dealt with God since ever he could sin. And as he turns
   over the secrets of his past, and forgotten sins come crowding one by
   one into his thoughts, can he help a strong emotion rising in his
   heart, and shedding itself in tears? Yes; religion without emotion is
   religion without reflection. And, conversely, the man who gives himself
   to earnest thought upon his ways will always have enough emotion to
   generate religious fervour in his soul.

   Only let religious emotion run in the right channel, let it work itself
   out in action and not in excited feeling, let it be something more than
   nervous agitation or a mere selfish fear and there is no experience
   more purifying to the soul. No doubt it was a great thing for Peter
   that he wept bitterly, and no doubt from the bitterness of that night
   of penitence came much of the sweetness that hallowed his after life.

   (4) Fourthly, and lastly, penitence is a lonely thing. Peter went out.
   When the Lord turned, He looked upon Peter. No one else noticed the
   quiet glance that was exchanged. But it did its work. It singled out
   one man in a moment, and cut him off from all the rest of the world.
   "And Peter went out." And there was no man beneath the firmament of God
   that night so much alone as Peter with his sin.

   Men know two kinds of loneliness, it has been said,--a loneliness of
   space and a loneliness of spirit. The fisherman in his boat on the wide
   sea knows loneliness of space. But it is no true loneliness. For his
   thoughts have peopled his boat with forms of those he loves. But
   Peter's was loneliness of spirit. A distance wider than the wide sea
   cut off the denier from all fellowship of man, and left him to mourn
   alone.

   When God speaks He likes no other voice to break the stillness but His
   own. And hence the place that has always been given to solitude in all
   true religious life. It can be overdone, but it can be grossly
   underdone. And there is no lesson more worth insisting on in days like
   ours than this, that when God wants to speak with a man He wants that
   man to be alone. And God develops the germ of the recluse enough in all
   true Christian hearts to see that it is done. "Talent forms itself in
   solitude," says the German poet; "character amidst the storms of life."
   And if religious character is developed and strengthened in the battle
   of the world, it is no less true that religious talents are cultivated
   in quiet contemplation and communion alone with God. Than the
   worshippers who do all their religion in public there are none more
   profoundly to be pitied; and he who knows not what it is to go out from
   the crowd sometimes and be alone with God is a stranger to the most
   divine experience that comes to sanctify a Christian's heart.

   But what gave the beauty to Peter's loneliness was this--that he took
   God's time to be alone. Peter's penitence was not only an intense thing
   and a lonely thing, it was an immediate thing. Peter need not have gone
   out that time. He might have stood where he was, and braved it out. God
   has looked at us when we were sinning; and we did not do as Peter did.
   He lost no time between his penitence and his sin. But we spoil the
   grace of our penitence many a time by waiting till the sin grows old.
   We do it on purpose. Time seems to smooth the roughness off our sin and
   take its bitterness away. And we postpone our penitence till we think
   the edge is off the sharpness of the wrong. As if time, as if eternity
   could ever make a sinner's sin less black. Sin is always at its
   maximum. And no man ever gets off with penitence at its minimum. The
   time for penitence is just the time when we have sinned. And that
   perhaps is now. Peter's penitence came sharp upon his sin. It was not
   on his death-bed nor in his after life. But just when he had sinned.
   Many a man who postpones his penitence till he cannot help it,
   postpones his penitence till it cannot help him, and will not see the
   Lord turning till He turns and looks upon him in judgment. Then,
   indeed, he goes out to weep. But it is out into that night which knows
   no dawn.

   Such are the lessons from Peter's penitence. Just one word more.

   When God speaks He speaks so loud that all the voices of the world seem
   dumb. And yet when God speaks He speaks so softly that no one hears the
   whisper but yourself. To-day, perhaps, as the service has gone on, the
   Lord has turned and looked on some one here. And the soul of some one
   has gone out to weep. No one noticed where the Lord's glance fell, and
   no one knows in the church that it was--you. You sit there in your
   wonted place. But your spirit is far away just now, dealing with some
   old sin, and God is giving you a lesson Himself--the bitterest, yet the
   sweetest lesson of your life, in heartfelt penitence. Come not back
   into the crowd till the Lord has turned and looked on you again, as He
   looked at the thief upon the cross, and you have beheld the "glory of
   the love of God in the face of Jesus."
     __________________________________________________________________

THE MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART

   "A man after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all my will."--ACTS xiii.
   22.

  A BIBLE STUDY ON THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE

   No man can be making much of his life who has not a very definite
   conception of what he is living for. And if you ask, at random, a dozen
   men what is the end of their life, you will be surprised to find how
   few have formed to themselves more than the most dim idea. The question
   of the summum bonum has ever been the most difficult for the human mind
   to grasp. What shall a man do with his life? What is life for? Why is
   it given? These have been the one great puzzle for human books and
   human brains; and ancient philosophy and mediaeval learning and modern
   culture alike have failed to tell us what these mean.

   No man, no book save one, has ever told the world what it wants; so
   each has had to face the problem in his own uncertain light, and carry
   out, each for himself, the life that he thinks best.

   Here is one who says literature is the great thing--he will be a
   literary man. He lays down for himself his ideal of a literary life. He
   surrounds himself with the best ideals of style; and with his great
   ambition working towards great ends, after great models, he cuts out
   for himself what he thinks is his great life work. Another says the
   world is the great thing--he will be a man of the world. A third will
   be a business man; a fourth, a man of science. And each follows out his
   aim.

   And the Christian must have a definite aim and model for his life.
   These aims are great aims, but not great enough for him. His one book
   has taught him a nobler life than all the libraries of the rich and
   immortal past. He may wish to be a man of business, or a man of
   science, and indeed he may be both. But he covets a nobler name than
   these. He will be the man after God's own heart. He has found out the
   secret philosophy never knew, that the ideal life is this--"A man after
   Mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My will." And just as the man of
   the world, or the literary man, lays down a programme for the brief
   span of his working life, which he feels must vanish shortly in the
   Unknown of the grave, so much more will the Christian for the great
   span of his life before it arches over into eternity.

   He is a great man who has a great plan for his life--the greatest who
   has the greatest plan and keeps it. And the Christian should have the
   greatest plan, as his life is the greatest, as his work is the
   greatest, as his life and his work will follow him when all this
   world's is done.

   Now we are going to ask to-day, What is the true plan of the Christian
   life? We shall need a definition that we may know it, a description
   that we may follow it. And if you look, you will see that both, in a
   sense, lie on the surface of our text. "A man after Mine own
   heart,"--here is the definition of what we are to be. "Who shall fulfil
   all My will,"--here is the description of how we are to be it. These
   words are the definition and the description of the model human life.
   They describe the man after God's own heart. They give us the key to
   the Ideal Life.

   The general truth of these words is simply this: that the end of life
   is to do God's will. Now that is a great and surprising revelation. No
   man ever found that out. It has been before the world these eighteen
   hundred years, yet few have even found it out to-day. One man will tell
   you the end of life is to be true. Another will tell you it is to deny
   self. Another will say it is to keep the Ten Commandments. A fourth
   will point you to the Beatitudes. One will tell you it is to do good,
   another that it is to get good, another that it is to be good. But the
   end of life is in none of these things. It is more than all, and it
   includes them all. The end of life is not to deny self, nor to be true,
   nor to keep the Ten Commandments--it is simply to do God's will. It is
   not to get good nor be good, nor even to do good--it is just what God
   wills, whether that be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or
   suffering or recovering, or living or dying.

   But this conception is too great for us. It is not practical enough. It
   is the greatest conception of man that has ever been given to the
   world. The great philosophers, from Socrates and Plato to Immanuel Kant
   and Mill, have given us their conception of an ideal human life. But
   none of them is at all so great as this. Each of them has constructed
   an ideal human life, a universal life they call it, a life for all
   other lives, a life for all men and all time to copy. None of them is
   half so deep, so wonderful, so far-reaching, as this: "A man after Mine
   own heart, who shall fulfil all My will."

   But exactly for this very reason it is at first sight impracticable. We
   feel helpless beside a truth so great and eternal. God must teach us
   these things. Like little children, we must sit at His feet and learn.
   And as we come to Him with our difficulty, we find He has prepared two
   practical helps for us, that He may humanize the lesson and bring it
   near to us, so that by studying these helps, and following them with
   willing and humble hearts, we shall learn to copy into our lives the
   great ideal of God.

   The two helps which God has given us are these:

   I. The Model Life realized in Christ, the living Word.

   II. The Model Life analysed in the Bible, the written Word.

   The usual method is to deal almost exclusively with the first of these.
   To-day, for certain reasons, we mean to consider the second. As regards
   the first, of course, if a man could follow Christ he would lead the
   model life. But what is meant by telling a man to follow Christ? How is
   it to be done? It is like putting a young artist before a Murillo or a
   Raphael, and telling him to copy it. But even as the artist in
   following his ideal has colours put into his hand, and brush and
   canvas, and a hint here from this master, and a touch there from
   another, so with the pupil in the school of Christ. The great Master
   Himself is there to help him. The Holy Spirit is there to help him. But
   the model life is not to be mystically attained. There is spirituality
   about it, but no unreality. So God has provided another great help, our
   second help: The Model Life analysed in the Word of God. Without the
   one, the ideal life would be incredible; without the other, it would be
   unintelligible. Hence God has given us two sides of this model life:
   realized in the Living Word; analysed in the written Word.

   Let us search our Bibles then to find this ideal life, so that copying
   it in our lives, reproducing it day by day and point by point, we may
   learn to make the most of our life, and have it said of us, as it was
   of David, "A man after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My will."

   (1) The first thing our ideal man wants is a reason for his being alive
   at all. He must account for his existence. What is he here for? And the
   Bible answer is this: "I come to do Thy will, O God." (Heb. x. 7.)

   That is what we are here for--to do God's will. "I come to do Thy will,
   O God." That is the object of your life and mine --to do God's will. It
   is not to be happy or to be successful, or famous, or to do the best we
   can, and get on honestly in the world. It is something far higher than
   this--to do God's will. There, at the very outset, is the great key to
   life. Any one of us can tell in a moment whether our lives are right or
   not. Are we doing God's will? We do not mean, Are we doing God's
   work?--preaching or teaching, or collecting money--but God's will. A
   man may think he is doing God's work, when he is not even doing God's
   will. And a man may be doing God's work and God's will quite as much by
   hewing stones or sweeping streets, as by preaching or praying. So the
   question just means this--Are we working out our common every-day life
   on the great lines of God's will? This is different from the world's
   model life. "I come to push my way." This is the world's idea of it.
   "Not my way, not my will, but Thine be done"--this is the Christian's.
   This is what the man after God's own heart says: "I seek not mine own
   will, but the will of Him that sent me."

   (2) The second thing the ideal man needs is Sustenance. After he has
   got life, you must give him food. Now, what food shall you give him?
   Shall you feed him with knowledge, or with riches, or with honour, or
   with beauty, or with power, or truth? No; there is a rarer luxury than
   these--so rare, that few have ever more than tasted it; so rich, that
   they who have will never live on other fare again. It is this: "My meat
   is to do the will of Him that sent Me" (John iv. 34).

   Again, to do God's will. That is what a man lives for: it is also what
   he lives on. Meat. Meat is strength, support, nourishment. The strength
   of the model life is drawn from the Divine will. Man has a strong will.
   But God's will is everlasting strength--Almighty strength. Such
   strength the ideal man gets. He grows by it, he assimilates it--it is
   his life. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
   cometh out of God." Nothing can satisfy his appetite but this. He
   hungers to do God's will. Nothing else will fill him. Every one knows
   that the world is hungry. But the hungry world is starving. It has many
   meats and many drinks, but there is no nourishment in them. It has
   pleasures, and gaiety, and excitement; but there is no food there for
   the immortal craving of the soul. It has the theatre and worldly
   society, and worldly books, and worldly lusts. But these things merely
   intoxicate. There is no sustenance in them. So our ideal life turns its
   eye from them all with unutterable loathing. "My meat is to do God's
   will." To do God's will! No possibility of starving on such wonderful
   fare as this. God's will is eternal. It is eternal food the Christian
   lives upon. In spring-time it is not sown, and in summer drought it
   cannot fail. In harvest it is not reaped, yet the storehouse is ever
   full. Oh, what possibilities of life it opens up! What possibilities of
   growth! What possibilities of work! How a soul develops on God's will!

   (3) The next thing the ideal man needs is Society. Man is not made to
   be alone. He needs friendships. Without society, the ideal man would be
   a monster, a contradiction. You must give him friendship. Now, whom
   will you give him? Will you compliment him by calling upon the great
   men of the earth to come and minister to him? No. The ideal man does
   not want compliments, He has better food. Will you invite the ministers
   and the elders of the Church to meet him? Will you offer him the
   companionship of saint or angel, or seraphim of cherubim as he treads
   his path through the wilderness of life? No; for none of these will
   satisfy him. He has a better friendship than saint or angel or seraphim
   or cherubim. The answer trembles on the lip of every one who is trying
   to follow the ideal life: " Whosoever shall do the will of My Father
   which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother"
   (Matt. xii. 50; Mark iii. 35).

   Yes. My brother, and My sister, and My mother. Mother! The path of life
   is dark and cheerless to you. There is a smoother path just by the side
   of it--a forbidden path. You have been tempted many a time to take it.
   But you knew it was wrong, and you paused. Then, with a sigh, you
   struck along the old weary path again. It was the will of God, you
   said. Brave mother! Oh, if you knew it, there was a voice at your ear
   just then, as Jesus saw the brave thing you had done, "My mother!" "He
   that doeth the will of My Father, the same is My mother." Yes; this is
   the consolation of Christ--"My mother." What society to be in! What
   about the darkness of the path, if we have the brightness of His smile?
   Oh! it is better, as the hymnist says,


   "It is better to walk in the dark with God,

   Than walk alone in the light;

   It is better to walk with Him by faith,

   Than walk alone by sight."

   Some young man here is suffering fierce temptation. To-day he feels
   strong; but to-morrow his Sabbath resolutions will desert him. What
   will his companions say, if he does not join them? He cannot face them
   if he is to play the Christian. Companions! What are all the companions
   in the world to this? What are all the friendships, the truest and the
   best, to this dear and sacred brotherhood of Christ? "He that doeth the
   will of My Father, the same is My brother."

   My mother, my brother, and my sister. He has a sister--some sister
   here. Sister! Your life is a quiet and even round of common and homely
   things. You dream, perhaps, of a wider sphere, and sigh for a great and
   useful life, like some women whose names you know. You question whether
   it is right that life should be such a little bundle of very little
   things. But nothing is little that is done for God, and it must be
   right if it be His will. And if this common life, with its homely
   things, is God's discipline for you, be assured that in your small
   corner, your unobserved, unambitious, simple woman's lot is very near
   and very dear to Him Who said, "Whosoever doeth the will of My Father,
   the same is My sister."

   (4) Now we have found the ideal man a Friend. But he wants something
   more. He wants Language. He must speak to his Friend. He cannot be
   silent in such company. And speaking to such a Friend is not mere
   conversation. It has a higher name. It is communion. It is prayer.
   Well, we listen to hear the ideal man's prayer. Something about God's
   will it must be; for that is what he is sure to talk about. That is the
   object of his life. That is his meat. In that he finds his society. So
   he will be sure to talk about it. Every one knows what his prayer will
   be. Every one remembers the words of the ideal prayer: "Thy will be
   done." (Matt. vi. 10).

   Now mark the emphasis on done. He prays that God's will may be done. It
   is not that God's will may be borne, endured, put up with. There is
   activity in his prayer. It is not mere resignation. How often is this
   prayer toned off into mere endurance, sufferance, passivity. "Thy will
   be done," people say resignedly. "There is no help for it. We may just
   as well submit. God evidently means to have His way. Better to give in
   at once and make the best of it." Well, this is far from the ideal
   prayer. It may be nobler to suffer God's will than to do it, perhaps it
   is. But there is nothing noble in resignation of this sort--this
   resignation under protest as it were. And it disguises the meaning of
   the prayer. "Thy will be done." It is intensely active. It is not an
   acquiescence simply in God's dealing. It is a cry for more of God's
   dealing--God's dealing with me, with everything, with everybody, with
   the whole world. It is an appeal to the mightiest energy in heaven or
   earth to work, to make more room for itself, to energise. It is a
   prayer that the Almighty energies of the Divine will may be universally
   known, and felt, and worshipped.

   Now the ideal man has no deeper prayer than that. He wants to get into
   the great current of Will, which flows silently out of Eternity, and
   swiftly back to Eternity again. His only chance of happiness, of
   usefulness, of work, is to join the living rill of his will to that.
   Other Christians miss it, or settle on the banks of the great stream;
   but he will be among the forces and energies and powers, that he may
   link his weakness with God's greatness, and his simplicity with God's
   majesty, that he may become a force, an energy, a power for Duty and
   God. Perhaps God may do something with him. Certainly God will do
   something in him--for it is God who worketh in him both to will and to
   do of His good pleasure. So his one concern is to be kept in the will
   of God.

   The ideal man has no deeper prayer than that. It is the truest language
   of his heart. He does not want a bed of roses, or his pathway strewn
   with flowers. He wants to do God's will. He does not want health or
   wealth, nor does he covet sickness or poverty,--just what God sends. He
   does not want success--even success in winning souls--or want of
   success. What God wills for him, that is all. He does not want to
   prosper in business, or to keep barely struggling on. God knows what is
   best. He does not want his friends to live, himself to live or die.
   God's will be done. The currents of his life flow far below the
   circumstances of things. There is a deeper principle in it than to live
   to gratify himself. And so he simply asks, that in the ordinary round
   of his daily life there may be no desire of his heart more deep, more
   vivid, more absorbingly present than this, "Thy will be done." He who
   makes this the prayer of his life will know that of all prayer it is
   the most truly blessed, the most nearly in the spirit of Him who sought
   not His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him.


   "Lord Jesus, as Thou wilt! if among thorns I go

   Still sometimes here and there let a few roses blow.

   No! Thou on earth along the thorny path hast gone,

   Then lead me after Thee, my Lord; Thy will be done."

   [Schmolk.]

   (5) But the ideal man does not always pray. There is such perfect
   blessedness in praying the ideal prayer that language fails him
   sometimes. The peace of God passes all understanding, much more all
   expression. It comes down upon the soul, and makes it ring with the
   unutterable joy. And language stops. The ideal man can no longer pray
   to his Friend. So his prayer changes into Praise. He is too full to
   speak, so his heart bursts into song. Therefore we must find in the
   Bible the praise of his lips. And who does not remember in the Psalms
   the song of the ideal man? The huntsmen would gather at night to sing
   of their prowess in the chase, the shepherd would chant the story of
   the lion or the bear which he killed as he watched his flocks. But
   David takes down his harp and sings a sweeter psalm than all: "Thy
   Statutes have been my Songs in the House of my pilgrimage" (Ps. cxix.
   54). He knows no sweeter strain. How different from those who think
   God's law is a stern, cold thing! God's law is His written will. It has
   no terrors to the ideal man. He is not afraid to think of its sternness
   and majesty. "I will meditate on Thy laws day and night," he says. He
   tells us the subject of his thoughts. Ask him what he is thinking about
   at any time. "Thy laws," he says. How he can please his Master, what
   more he can bear for Him, what next he can do for Him--he has no other
   pleasure in life than this. You need not speak to him of the delights
   of life. "I will delight myself in Thy statutes," he says. You see what
   amusements the ideal man has. You see where the sources of his
   enjoyment are. Praise is the overflow of a full heart. When it is full
   of enjoyment it overflows; and you can tell the kind of enjoyment from
   the kind of praise that runs over. The ideal man's praise is of the
   will of God. He has no other sources of enjoyment. The cup of the
   world's pleasure has no attraction for him. The delights of life are
   bitter. Here is his only joy, his only delight: "I delight to do Thy
   will, O my God" (Ps. xl. 8).

   (6) The next thing the ideal man wants is Education. He needs teaching.
   He must take his place with the other disciples at his Master's feet.
   What does he want from the great Teacher? Teach me Wisdom? No. Wisdom
   is not enough. Teach me what is Truth? No, not even that. Teach me how
   to do good, how to love, how to trust? No, there is a deeper want than
   all. "Teach me to do Thy will" (Ps. cxliii. 10). This is the true
   education. Teach me to do Thy Will. This was the education of Christ.
   Wisdom is a great study, and truth, and good works, and love, and
   trust, but there is an earlier lesson--obedience. So the ideal pupil
   prays, "Teach me to do Thy will."

   And now we have almost gone far enough. These are really all the things
   the ideal man can need. But in case he should want anything else, God
   has given the man after his own heart a promise. God never leaves
   anything unprovided for. An emergency might arise in the ideal man's
   life; or he might make a mistake or lose heart, or be afraid to ask his
   Friend for some very great thing he needed, thinking it was too much,
   or for some very little thing, thinking it unworthy of notice. So God
   has given

   (7) The ideal Promise: "If we ask anything according to His will, He
   heareth us . . . . and we know that we have the petitions that we
   desired from Him" (I John v. 14). If he ask anything--no exception--no
   limit to God's confidence in him. He trusts him to ask right things. He
   is guiding him, even in what he asks, if he is the man after God's own
   heart; so God sets no limit to his power. If any one is doing God's
   will let him ask anything. It is God's will that he ask anything. Let
   him put His promise to the test.

   Notice here what the true basis of prayer is. The prayer that is
   answered is the prayer after God's will. And the reason for this is
   plain. What is God's will is God's wish. And when a man does what God
   wills, he does what God wishes done. Therefore God will have that done
   at any cost, at any sacrifice. Thousands of prayers are never answered,
   simply because God does not wish them. If we pray for any one thing, or
   any number of things we are sure God wishes, we may be sure our wishes
   will be gratified. For our wishes are only the reflection of God's. And
   the wish in us is almost equivalent to the answer. It is the answer
   casting its shadow backwards. Already the thing is done in the mind of
   God. It casts two shadows--one backward, one forward. The backward
   shadow--that is the wish before the thing is done, which sheds itself
   in prayer. The forward shadow--that is the joy after the thing is done,
   which sheds itself in praise. Oh, what a rich and wonderful life this
   ideal life must be! Asking anything, getting everything, willing with
   God, praying with God, praising with God. Surely it is too much, this
   last promise. How can God trust us with a power so deep and terrible?
   Ah, He can trust the ideal life with anything. "If he ask anything."
   Well, if he do, he will ask nothing amiss. It will be God's will if it
   is asked. It will be God's will if it is not asked. For he is come,
   this man, "to do God's will."

   (8) There is only one thing more which the model man may ever wish to
   have. We can imagine him wondering, as he thinks of the unspeakable
   beauty of this life--of its angelic purity, of its divine glory, of its
   Christ-like unselfishness, of its heavenly peace--how long this life
   can last. It may seem too bright and beautiful, for all things fair
   have soon to come to an end. And if any cloud could cross the true
   Christian's sky it would be when he thought that this ideal life might
   cease. But God, in the riches of His forethought, has rounded off this
   corner of his life with a great far-reaching text, which looks above
   the circumstance of time, and projects his life into the vast eternity
   beyond. "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever"(1 John ii.
   17).

   May God grant that you and I may learn to live this great and holy
   life, remembering the solemn words of Him who lived it first, who only
   lived it all: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
   enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My
   Father which is in Heaven."
     __________________________________________________________________

"WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?"

   "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your
   life?
   It is even as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then
   vanisheth away."--JAS. iv. 14.

  AN OLD YEAR SERMON

   TO-MORROW, the first day of a new year, is a day of wishes. To-day, the
   last day of an old year, is a day of questions. Tomorrow is a time of
   anticipation; to-day a time of reflection. To-morrow our thoughts will
   go away out to the coming opportunities, and the larger vistas which
   the future is opening up to even the most commonplace of us. To-day our
   minds wander among buried memories, and our hearts are full of
   self-questioning thoughts of what our past has been.

   But if to-morrow is to be a day of hope, to-day must be a day of
   thought. If to-morrow is to be a time of resolution, to-day must be a
   day of investigation. And if we were to search the Bible through for a
   basis for this investigation, we should nowhere find a better than this
   question, "What is your life?"

   We must notice, however, that life is used here in a peculiar sense--a
   narrow sense, some would say. The question does not mean, What quality
   is your life? What are you making of life? How are you getting on with
   it? How much higher is the tone of it this year than last? It has a
   more limited reference than this. It does not refer so much to quality
   of life as to quantity of life. It means, How much life have you got?
   What value do you set upon your life? How long do you think your life
   will last? How does it compare with eternity?

   And there are reasons which make this form of the question particularly
   appropriate, not only to this last day of the year, but, apart
   altogether from that, to the state of much religious thought upon the
   subject at the present moment. These reasons are mainly two. There is a
   large school just now who utterly ignore this question. There is a
   large school who utterly spoil it. There may be said to be two ways of
   looking at life, each of which finds favour just now with a wide circle
   of people.

   1. The theory that life is everything.

   2. The theory that life is nothing.

   Or, adding the converse to these:

   1. The theory that life is everything and eternity nothing.

   2. The theory that life is nothing and eternity everything.

   Now, those who hold the first of these, object to the time-view of life
   altogether. And there can be no doubt that this is the favourite of the
   two. For one thing, it is decidedly the fashionable view. It is the
   view culture takes, and many thinking men, and many thoughtful and
   modern books. Life, these say, life is the great thing. We know
   something about life. We are in it--it is pulsating all around us. We
   feel its greatness and reality. But the other does not press upon us in
   the same way. It is far off and mystical. It takes a kind of effort
   even to believe it. Therefore let us keep to what we know, what we are
   in, what we are sure of.

   The strength of this school is in their great view of life; their
   weakness and error, in their little view of time. Their enthusiasm for
   the quality of life makes them rush to the opposite extreme and ignore
   its quantity. The thought that life is short has little influence with
   them. They simply refuse to let it weigh with them, and when pressed
   with thoughts of immortality, or time-views of life, they affirm, with
   a kind of superiority, that they have too much to do with the present
   to trouble themselves with sentimentalisms about the future.

   The second view is the more antiquated, perhaps the more illiterate.
   Life, with it, is nothing at all. It is a bubble, a vapour, a shadow.
   Eternity is the great thing. Eternity is the significant thing.
   Eternity is the only thing. Life is a kind of unfortunate
   preliminary--a sort of dismal antechamber, where man must wait, and be
   content for a little with the view of eternity from the windows. His
   turn to go is coming; meantime let him fret through the unpleasant
   interval as resignedly as he can, and pray God to speed its close.

   The strength of this school is that it recognises eternity, its
   weakness, and its great error, that it refuses to think of life and
   spoils the thought of eternity for those who do. The first school
   requires to be told that life is short; this, so far from having to be
   told that it is short, has to be told that life is long--for life to it
   is nothing.

   It is clear, of course, that each of these views is the natural recoil
   from the other. The mistake is that each has recoiled too far. The
   life-something theory cannot help recoiling from the life-nothing
   theory; but it need not recoil into life-everything. So the
   eternity-something theory cannot help recoiling from the
   eternity-nothing theory; but it need not recoil into
   eternity-everything.

   It is plain, then, that both these theories are wrong, and yet not
   altogether wrong. There is a great deal of truth in each--so much,
   indeed, that if the parts of truth which each contains were joined into
   one, they would form a whole--the truth. And if the sides were nearly
   equal,--as many who think life nothing as think life everything,--there
   could be no attempt more useful than to find a harmony between. But the
   sides are not equal, and hence the better exercise will be to deal with
   the side which has the truth the furthest in arrear.

   This, undoubtedly, is the life-school--the life-everything school. The
   other is, comparatively, a minority. At least, those who hold the
   extreme form of it are a minority. It is a more obvious and striking
   truth that life is something; and it is not difficult to convince the
   man who makes eternity everything to allow something to life. But to
   get the man who makes life everything to grant a little to eternity is
   harder; for the power of the world to come may be yet unfelt and
   unproved, and the race of life be so swift that the rival flight of
   time remains unseen.

   There are mainly two great classes who swell the ranks of the majority,
   who refuse to think of the flight of time.

   1. The great busy working and thinking class, who are too careful of
   time ever to think of eternity as its successor. These have too little
   time to think of time.

   2. The great lazy worldly class, who are too careless of time ever to
   think that it will cease. These have too much time to think of time--so
   much of it that they think there will be always much of it.

   Now it is to these two classes that this Old Year's question comes home
   with special power, "What is your life?" And it is no reason why the
   majority should decline to face the question, that a fanatical minority
   have made the subject nauseous by the exaggeration of eternity. For if
   these men suffer in their lives by treating life as a thing of no
   importance, the others certainly suffer more by exaggerating life at
   the tremendous expense of eternity.

   The great objection to thinking about eternity, or, to take the other
   side, about the brevity of life, is that it is not practical. The
   life-school professes to be eminently utilitarian. It will have nothing
   to do with abstractions, nothing that does not directly concern life.
   Anything that is outside the sphere of action is of little consequence
   to practical men. The members of this school feel themselves in the
   rush of the world's work, and it is something to think of that. It is
   something to live in the thick of it, to yield to the necessities of
   it, to share its hopes, and calmly endure its discipline of care. But
   when you leave life, they protest, you are away from the present and
   the real. You are off into poetry and sentiment, and the meditations
   you produce may be interesting for philosophers and dreamers, but they
   are not for men who take their stand on the greatness of life and crave
   to be allowed to leave the mystical alone.

   Now the answer to that,--and it may be thoroughly answered,--may be
   given in a word. First of all, who told you eternity was nothing? Who
   told you it was an unpractical, unprofitable dream? Who told you to go
   on with your work and let time and other abstractions alone? It was
   certainly not God. God takes exactly the opposite view. He is never
   done insisting on the importance of the question. "O that they were
   wise . . . . that they would consider their latter end"--that is what
   God says. "Make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days what it
   is"--that is what David, the man after God's own heart, says. "Teach me
   to number my days"--that is what Moses, the friend of God, says.

   And you will notice the reason God gives for thinking about these
   things. It was enough, indeed, for Him to say it, without any reason;
   but He has chosen to give us one. Why are we to number our days? "That
   we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." That is the reason for thinking
   about time. It is to make us wise. Perhaps you have thought this is
   merely a piece of sentiment, a flower of rhetoric for the poet, a
   harmless, popular imagination for ignorant people who cannot discourse
   upon life, a dramatic truth to impress the weak to prepare their narrow
   minds for death? But no; it is not that. God never uses sentiment. And
   if you think a moment you will see that it is not the narrow mind which
   needs this truth, but his who discourses on life. The man who
   discourses most on life should discourse the most on time. When you
   discourse on life, you plead that it is in the interests of life. You
   despise the time view as unpractical in the interests of the new life
   school who care too much for life to spend their strength upon the
   sentiment of time. Ah! but if you really cared for life, this sentiment
   would only make you love it the more. For time is the measurement of
   life. And all in life must be profoundly affected by its poor, scant
   quantity. Your life on earth is a great thing, a rich and precious
   possession. It is true that it is full of meaning and issues which no
   man can reckon. But it is ten thousand times greater for the thought
   that it must cease. One of the chief reasons why life is so great is
   just that life is so short. If we had a thousand years of it, it would
   not be so great as if we had only a thousand hours. It is great because
   it is little. A man is to be executed, and the judge has given him a
   month to prepare for death--one short month. How rich every hour of it
   becomes, how precious the very moments are! But suppose he has only
   five minutes. Then how unspeakably solemn! How much greater is the five
   minutes life than the month life! Make eternity a month and life five
   minutes--if such a tremendous exaggeration of life could be conceived.
   How much greater does it become for being so very small!

   How precious time is to a short-lived man! I am to die at thirty, you
   at sixty; a minute is twice as dear to me, for each minute is twice as
   short. So a day to me is more than a day to Methuselah, for he had many
   days, and I have but few. Oh! if we really felt the dignity of life, we
   should wonder no less at its brevity than at its dignity. If we felt
   the greatness of life at this moment, how much keenness would this
   further thought add to it--that we might be dead before this sermon was
   done! How many things we permit ourselves on the theory that life is
   great, would be most emphatically wrong on the theory that time was
   also great! How many frivolous things,--yes, how many great things
   even,--should we have to turn out this moment from our lives for just
   this thought, if we believed it, that time is short! For there is no
   room among the crowded moments of our life for things which will not
   live when life and time are past. So no one who does not feel the keen
   sense of time flying away at every moment with the work he has done and
   the opportunities he has lost, can know the true greatness of life and
   the inexpressible value of the self-selected things with which he fills
   its brief and narrow span. The thought of death must change at every
   point the values of the significant things of earth not less than the
   thought of life, and we must ever feel the solemn relations given to
   our life and work from the overwhelming thought that the working-life
   is brief.

   A modern poet has described, in strangely suggestive words, the time
   when first the idea of time and death began to dawn upon this earth.
   The scene is laid in some Eastern land, where a great colony had risen
   from the offspring of Cain, the murderer of his brother. Cain knew what
   death was--he had seen it. But he alone, of all his scattered family,
   for he kept his burning secret to himself. Cain's family grew and
   spread throughout the land, but no thought of death came in to check
   the joyous exuberance of life; till one day, in boyish pastime a hurled
   stone strikes Lamech's son, and the lad falls to the earth. Friends
   gather round him as he lies, and bring him toys and playthings to wake
   him from his sleep. But no sleep like this had ever come to Lamech's
   son before, and soft entreating words bring no responsive sound to the
   cold lips, or light to the closed eyes. Then Cain comes forward,
   whispering, "The boy is dead," and tells the awe-struck family of this
   mystery of death. And then the poet describes the magic of this word,
   how "a new spirit, from that hour, came o'er the house of Cain." How
   time, once vague as air, began to stir strange terrors in the soul, and
   lend to life a moment which it had not known before. How even the
   sunshine had a different look. How "work grew eager, and device was
   born." How


   It seemed the light was never loved before,

   Now each man said, "Twill go, and come no more."

   No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,

   No form, no shadow, but new dearness took

   From the one thought that Life must have an end.

   So the thought that life will be no more, that each day lived is
   hastening on the day when life itself must stop, makes every hour of
   ours a million times more great, and tinges every thought, and word,
   and act, with the shadow of what must be.

   From all this, it will now be clear that the man who is really
   concerned to live well must possess himself continually of the thought
   that he is not to live long. And that it is in the highest interests of
   great living, to stimulate life, not to paralyze it, that God asks us
   all to-day, "What is your life?"

   But the Bible has done more than ask this question. It has answered it.
   And when the Bible answers a question, it gives always the best answer.
   We could do no better, therefore, than consult it a little further now,
   for it so happens that there are few subjects which the Bible goes into
   so thoroughly as this one--few thoughts which rise more often or more
   urgently to the surface of the great Bible lives than "What is your
   life?"

   And, besides, there is a peculiarity in the Bible answers which makes
   them particularly valuable, and which has tended, more than anything
   else, to impress them profoundly upon the deeper spirit of every age.
   And that peculiarity is this, that the answer is never given in hard,
   bare words, but is presented, wrapped up in some figure of such
   exquisite beauty, that no mind could refuse to give it a place, were it
   only for the fineness of its metaphor. Take, as an example, the answer
   which follows the question in the text, "What is your life?" "It is
   even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
   away." Who could afford to forget a thought like that, when once its
   beauty had struck root within the mind? And if God did not rather
   choose a few hard solid sentences of truth to perpetuate an answer to
   one of the most solid thoughts of life, is it not just because He
   wanted it to be remembered evermore--because He wanted the thought of
   the shortness and uncertainty of life to live in every living soul, and
   haunt the heart in times when other thoughts were passionless and dull?
   In childhood, before deeper thoughts had come, He would paint this
   truth, in delicate tints, on every opening soul; and in riper years,
   when trouble and sickness came and weaned the broken mind from sterner
   thoughts, He would have the man still furnished with these
   ever-preaching pictures of the frailty of his life.

   Why is it that there is such strange attractiveness to many hearts in
   the Bible thoughts of time, and why the peculiar charm with which the
   least religious minds will linger over the texts which speak of human
   life? It is because God has thrown an intensely living interest around
   these truths, by carrying His images of the thoughts He most wanted
   remembered into the great galleries of the imagination, where the soul
   can never tire. Had such thoughts been left to reason, it would have
   stifled them with its cold touch; had they been sunk in the heart, it
   would have consumed itself and them in hot and burning passion; but in
   the broad region of the imagination there is expansiveness enough for
   even such vast truths to wander at their will, and power and mystery
   enough to draw both heart and reason after them in wondering, trembling
   homage. And if no day almost passes over our heads without some silent
   visitation to remind us what we are, it is because the Bible has
   utilised all the most common things of life to bring home these lessons
   to the soul, so that no shadow on the wall, nor blade of withered
   grass, is not full of meanings which every open heart can read.

   Now, it is a remarkable fact, in this connection, that the Bible has
   used up almost every physical image that is in any way appropriate to
   the case. And if we were to go over the conceptions of life which have
   been held by great men in succeeding ages of the world, we should find
   scarce anything new, scarce anything which the Bible had not used
   before.

   There lie scattered throughout this Book no fewer than eighteen of
   these answers, and all in metaphor, to the question, "What is your
   life?" And any one who has not before gathered them together, cannot
   but be surprised at the singular beauty and appropriateness of the
   collection. To begin with, let us run over their names. "What is your
   life?" It is


   A tale that is told. A sleep.

   A pilgrimage. A vapour.

   A swift post. A shadow.

   A swift ship. A flower.

   A handbreath. A weaver's shuttle.

   A shepherd's tent removed. Water spilt on the ground.

   A thread cut by the weaver. Grass.

   A dream. Wind. Nothing.

   Generally speaking, the first thing to strike one about these images is
   that they are all quick things--there is a suggestion of brevity and
   evanescence about them, and this feeling is so strong that we might
   fancy there was only one answer to the question, What is your life?
   namely, Your life is short. But if we look closer at them for a moment,
   shades of difference will begin to appear, and we shall find the hints
   of other meanings as great and striking, and quite as necessary to
   complete the conception of "your life."

   First of all, then, and most in detail, three of these metaphors give
   this answer:--

   I. Your life is a very little thing. We have admitted that life is a
   very great thing. It is also a very little thing. Measure it by its
   bearing on eternity; there is no image in God's universe to compare
   with it for majesty and dignity. It is a sublime thing--Life. But
   measure it by its bearings upon time, by its results on the world, on
   other lives; there is no image too small to speak of its meanness and
   narrowness, for it is a little thing, "Your life." It is "a shadow," it
   is "a shepherd's tent removed," it is "a tale that is told."

   A Shadow. It is unreal; it is illusory. It falls across the world
   without affecting it; perhaps it only darkens it. Then it rises
   suddenly, and is gone. It leaves few impressions; and if it could,
   shadow cannot act much on other shadows. So life at the best is a poor,
   resultless, shadowy thing.

   A Shepherd's Tent Removed. Just before sunset the slopes of the Eastern
   hills would be dotted with Arab tents. And when night fell, the
   traveller in these lands, as he lay down to rest would see the
   glimmering of their fires and hear the noisy bleating of their flocks.
   But in the morning, when he looked out, both herds and herdsmen would
   be gone. Hours ago, perhaps, the tents had been struck, and the hills
   would be silent and lonely as if no foot had ever stirred the dew on
   their slopes before. So man, the Bible says, traces out his trackless
   path through life. He is here to-day, in the noise of the world's
   labour; to-morrow, when you look for him, he is gone. Through the night
   sometime his frail tent has been struck, and his place is empty and
   still. His life has left no track to tell that it was there--except a
   burnt-out fire to show that there a shepherd's tent had been removed.

   But the best of these images is the third--A Tale that as told. Some
   think this means a thought or meditation. "Your life is a meditation,"
   as the margin has it. But as the psalm in which the words occur was
   written by Moses, it is probable that the obvious meaning of the words
   is the correct one. In their journeyings the children of Israel would
   have many weary, unoccupied hours. There would be no books to relieve
   the monotony, and no doubt the people would attempt to beguile the
   tedious marches and the long hours by the camp fires at night, with the
   familiar Oriental custom of narrating personal adventures in the form
   of stories or tales. Night after night, as this went on, the different
   tales of the storytellers would begin to get mixed, then to confuse
   their audience, then even to weary them. The first tale, which made a
   great impression once, would lose its power, and the second, which was
   thought more wonderful still, would be distanced by the third. Then the
   third would be forgotten, and the fourth and the fifth; till all would
   be forgotten, and last night's tale would be the vivid picture in every
   mind to-day. But the story-teller would know that to-night another
   would have his turn, and sit in the place of honour, and tell a more
   vivid tale than he told the night before, and his would be forgotten
   and ignored.

   So we do spend our years as a tale that is told. The dead have told
   their tales; they have said their say. They thought we would remember
   what they did and said. But, no; they are forgotten. They have become
   old stories now. And our turn will come--our turn to stop; our turn for
   the Angel of Death to close the chapter of our life, whether it be a
   novel or a psalm, and write the universal "Finis" at the end. What
   though a sentence here and there may linger for a few brief years to
   find a place--without quotation marks--in some tale better told, the
   tale itself must close and be forgotten, like the rest, an ill-told,
   ill-heard, and ill-remembered tale.

   II. There is, next, and briefly, another set of metaphors which bring
   out the more common answer (which, therefore, it will only be necessary
   to name), that Life is a short thing. Shortness, of course, is
   different from littleness. A lightning flash is short, but not little.
   But life is both short and little. And there are two ways in which life
   is short: (1) Measured by growth. (2) Measured by minutes. Those who
   are growing most feel time shortest. They have started with the wrecks
   of being to fashion themselves into men, and life is all too short to
   do it in. Therefore they work out their salvation with fear and
   trembling--fearful lest death should come, trembling lest life should
   stop before it is worked out. But they who measure life by its minutes
   have nothing to say of its brevity; for their purpose it is long
   enough. It is not more time they want, but "the more capacious soul,"
   as some one says, "to flow through every pore of the little that they
   have." But there is no distinction in the Bible treatment of the two.
   Time is the same to all. It is a handbreadth; a weaver's shuttle;
   nothing; an eagle hasting to the prey; a swift post; a swift ship.
   David used to pray to God to give him a measure for his days. Well, he
   got it. It was the breadth of his hand. We carry about with us
   continually the measure of our days. "My days are as an handbreadth."

   The others are familiar symbols enough. The weaver's shuttle--is it the
   monotony, the sameness, the constant repetition of life? Rather the
   quickness, the rapid flight through the thin web of time; the shuttle
   being then, perhaps, the quickest image men had.

   Then those in the country in early times could know nothing more rapid
   or sudden than the swoop of an eagle on its prey; then, by the seaside,
   nothing more fleet than the swift sailing away of a ship driven by the
   unseen wind, or the hasty arrival of the "swift post" or messenger with
   tidings from afar. And it was not for want of opportunity if they did
   not learn their lessons well in those simple days, when the few changes
   life had were each thus stamped with the thought of the great change
   into eternity.

   III. The next thought is so closely allied to this that one can
   scarcely separate it but for convenience. It suggests the idea of
   transitoriness. Your life is a transitory thing. It is a thing of
   change. There is no endurance in it, no settling down in it, no real
   home to it here. Therefore God calls it a pilgrimage--a passing on to a
   something that is to be. Still closely allied to this, too, is the
   simile of the text--that life is a vapour. It means there is no real
   substance in it. It is a going and coming for a moment, then a passing
   away for ever. And then there are two or three metaphors which advance
   this idea still further. In their hands life passes from transitoriness
   into mystery. This life of ours, they show us, is a mysterious thing.
   And, it is true, life is a mysterious thing. We do not understand
   life--why it should begin, why it should end. There is some meaning in
   it somewhere that has baffled every search; some meaning beyond, some
   more real state than itself. So the Bible calls it a sleep, a dream,
   the wind. No book but the Bible could have called our life a sleep. The
   great book of the Greeks has called death a sleep:--


   "Death's twin-brother, sleep."

   But the Bible has the profounder thought. Life is the sleep. Death is
   but the waking. And the great poets and philosophers of the world since
   have found no deeper thought of life than this; and the greatest of
   them all has used the very word--our little life is rounded with a
   sleep. It seems to have been a soothing thought to them, and it may be
   a sanctifying thought to us, that this life is not the end; and
   therefore it is a wise thing to turn round sometimes in our sleep, and
   think how there is more beyond than dreams.

   There are but two thoughts more to bring our questions to a close, and
   they will add a practical interest to what has gone before.

   IV. What is your life? Life is an irrevocable thing. We have just
   finished an irrevocable year. As we look back upon it, every thought
   and word and act of it is there in its place, just as we left it. There
   are all the Sabbaths in their places, and all the well-spent days or
   ill-spent days between. There is every sin and every wish and every
   look still in its own exact surroundings, each under its own day of the
   month, at the precise moment of the day it happened. We are leaving it
   all at twelve o'clock to-night; but, remember, we leave it exactly as
   it stands. No single hour of it can be changed now, no smallest wish
   can be recalled, no angry word taken back. It is fixed, steadfast,
   irrevocable--stereotyped for ever on the past plates of eternity. Our
   book has a wonderful metaphor of this--"water spilt upon the ground,
   which cannot be gathered up again." No; we cannot gather up these days
   and put them back into Time's breaking urn, and live them over again.
   They are spilt upon the ground, and the great stream of Time has sucked
   them up, and cast them already on the eternal shores among all bygone
   years, and there they bide till God's time comes, and they come back,
   one by one, in order as they went, to meet us again and Him before the
   Judgment Bar. To-morrow is to be a time of resolution, is it? Well, let
   this resolution take the foremost place of all, that, when this day of
   next year comes, and we look once more at the irrevocable past, there
   shall be fewer things to wish undone, or words to wish unsaid, and more
   spots where memory shall love to linger still, more steps which, when
   retraced in thought, will fill the heart with praise.

   V. Lastly: life is more than an irrevocable thing, it is an uncertain
   thing--so certainly uncertain, that it is certain we shall not all be
   here to see this next year close. What means the grim image in the
   Bible of the weaver's thread suspended in the air, and the blade of the
   lifted knife just touching it with its edge? It means that you must
   die. The thread of your life is to be cut. The knife may be lifted now,
   the keen blade just touching it; one pressure of the hand, and it is
   done. One half, left unfinished, still hanging to the past--the other,
   dropped noiselessly into eternity. Oh, life is an abruptly closing
   thing! Is it not as grass? In the morning, it groweth up and
   flourisheth in the evening, it is cut down and withereth. Is your life
   ready for the swiftly falling knife, for the Reaper who stands at your
   door? Have you heard that there is another life--a life which cannot
   die, a life which, linked to your life, will make the past still bright
   with pardon and the future rich with hope? This life is in His Son.
     __________________________________________________________________

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

   "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His
   will."--ACTS xxii. 14.

   WE resume to-day a subject, the thread of which has been broken by the
   interval of a few Sabbaths--the subject of the Will of God.

   Already we have tried to learn two lessons:--

   (1) That the end of our life is to do the will of God.

   (2) That this was the end of Christ's life.

   It will help to recall what has gone before if we compare this with
   another definition of the end of life with which we are all familiar.

   Of course this is not the most complete statement of the end of our
   life; but it is the most practical, and it will recall the previous
   conclusions if we refer to this for a moment.

   Our Shorter Catechism, for instance, puts the end of life in quite
   different words. "Man's chief end," it says, "is to glorify God and
   enjoy Him for ever." But this answer is just too great for us. There is
   too much in it. It is really the same answer, but turned towards God.
   It is too great to understand. It is as true, but too profoundly true.
   It is wonderfully conceived and put together, but it goes past us. It
   expresses the end of life God-ward--determines the quality of all the
   things we do by the extent to which they make way in the world for the
   everywhere coming glory of God. But this is too wonderful for us. We
   want a principle life-ward as well as God-ward. We want something to
   tell us what to do with the things beneath us and around us and within
   us, as well as the things above us. Therefore there is a human side to
   the Shorter Catechism's answer.

   What is the chief end of man?

   Man's chief end is to do the will of God.

   In one sense this is not such a divine answer. But we are not divine.
   We understand God's will: God's glory, only faintly--we are only human
   yet, and "glory" is a word for heaven.

   Ask a schoolboy, learning the first question in the Catechism, to do a
   certain thing for the glory of God. The opportunity of doing the thing
   may be gone before the idea can be driven into the boy's head of what
   the glory of God means. But tell him to do the thing because it is
   God's will that he should do it--he understands that. He knows that
   God's will is just what God likes, and what he himself probably does
   not like. And the conception of it from this side is so clear that no
   schoolboy even need miss the end of life--for that is simply doing what
   God likes. If our souls are not great enough, then to think of God's
   glory as the practical rule of life, let them not be too small to think
   of God's will. And if we look after the end of life from this side, God
   will from the other. Do we the will of God, God will see that it
   glorifies God.

   Let us suppose, then, that after casting about for an object in life,
   we have at last stopped at this--the end of my life is to do the will
   of God. Let us suppose also that we have got over the disappointment of
   finding that there is nothing higher for us to do in the world. Or,
   perhaps, taking the other side, suppose we are beginning to feel the
   splendid conviction that, after all, our obscure life is not to be
   wasted: that having this ideal principle within it, it may yet be as
   great in its homely surroundings as the greatest human life,--seeing
   that no man can do more with his life than the will of God,--that
   though we may never be famous or powerful, or called to heroic
   suffering or acts of self-denial which will vibrate through history:
   that though we are neither intended to be apostles nor missionaries nor
   martyrs, but to be common people living in common houses, spending the
   day in common offices or common kitchens, yet doing the will of God
   there, we shall do as much as apostle or missionary or martyr--seeing
   that they can do no more than do God's will where they are, even as we
   can do as much where we are--and answer the end of our life as truly,
   faithfully, and triumphantly as they.

   Suppose we feel all this, and desire, as we stand on the threshold of
   the truly ideal life, that, God helping us, we shall live it if we may,
   we are met at once with the question, How are we ever to know what the
   will of God can be? The chief end of life is to do the will of God.
   Question: How am I to know the will of God--to know it clearly and
   definitely? Is it possible? and if so, how?

   Now, to begin with, we have probably an opinion on the matter already.
   And if you were to express it, it would be this: that it is not
   possible. You have thought about the will of God and read and thought,
   and thought and read, and you have come to this conclusion, that the
   will of God is a very mysterious thing--a very mysterious thing, which
   some people may have revealed to them, but does not seem in any way
   possible to you.

   Your nature is different from other people's; and though you have
   strained your eyes in prayer and thought, you have never seen the will
   of God yet. And if you ever have been in the same line with it, it has
   only been by chance, for you can see no principle in it, nor any
   certainty of ever being in the same line again. One or two special
   occasions, indeed, you can recall when you thought you were near the
   will of God, but they must have been special interpositions on God's
   part. He does not show His will every day like that: once or twice only
   in a lifetime, that is as much of this high experience as one ever dare
   expect.

   Now, of course, it is no use going on to find out what God's will is if
   the thing is impossible. If this experience is correct--and we cannot
   know God's will for the mystery of it--we may as well give up the ideal
   life at once. But if you examined this experience, even cursorily, you
   would find at once how far away from the point it is.

   1. In the first place, it is merely an experience; it is exclusively
   based on your own experience, not on God's thoughts regarding it, but
   on your own thoughts. The true name for this is presumption.

   2. It assumes that, the end of life being to do God's will, and you not
   being able to know God's will, are therefore not responsible for
   fulfilling the end of life. This is self-deception.

   3. It suggests the idea that God could teach you His will if He liked,
   seeing that He had done so once or twice by your own admission. And
   yet, though He wants you to do His will, and you want it too, He
   deliberately refuses to tell you what it is. This is an accusation
   against God.

   It is something worse than unreasonable, therefore, to say that we
   think it hopeless for us ever to know God's will. On the contrary,
   indeed, there is a strong presumption that we should find it out. For
   if it is so important a thing that the very end of life is involved in
   it, it would be absurd to imagine that God should ever keep us the
   least in the dark as to what His will may mean.

   And this presumption is changed into a certainty when we balance our
   minds for a moment on the terms of this text. "The God of our fathers
   hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will." It is not simply
   a matter of presumption, it is a matter of election. Have you ever
   thought of this strange, deep calling of God? We are called to
   salvation, we have thought of that; we are called to holiness, we have
   thought of that; but as great as either is this, we are called to know
   God's will. We are answering our call in other ways; are we answering
   it in this? What is God's will? Are we knowing God's will? How much
   have we learned of that to which we have been called? And is it our
   prayer continually, as it was his to whom these words were said, that
   we may be "filled with the knowledge of His will"?

   It is a reasonable object of search, then, to find out what God's will
   for us may be. And it is a reasonable expectation that we may find it
   out so fully as to know at any moment whether we be in the line of it
   or no; and when difficulty arises about the next step of our life, we
   may have absolute certainty which way God's will inclines. There are
   many kinds of assurance in religion; and it is as important to have
   assurance of God's will as to have assurance of God's salvation. For
   just as the loss of assurance of salvation means absence of peace and
   faith, and usefulness, so absence of assurance of God's will means
   miserable Christian life, imperfect Christian character, and impaired
   Christian usefulness.

   We start our investigation, therefore, in the belief that God must have
   light for all of us on the subject of His will, and with the desire to
   have assurance in the guidance of our life by God as clear and strong
   as of its redemption and salvation by Christ.

   In one sense, of course, no man can know the will of God, even as in
   one sense no man can know God Himself. God's will is a great and
   infinite mystery--a thing of mighty mass and volume, which can no more
   be measured out to hungry souls in human sentences than the eternal
   knowledge of God or the boundless love of Christ. But even as there is
   a sense in which one poor human soul can hold enough of the eternal
   knowledge of God and the boundless love of Christ, so is there a sense
   in which God can put as much of His will into human words as human
   hearts can bear--as much as human wills can will or human lives
   perform.

   When we come to put this will into words, we find that it divides
   itself into two great parts.

   I. There is a part of God's will which every one may know--a universal
   part.

   II. A part of God's will which no one knows but you--a particular part.

   A universal part--for every one. A particular part--for the individual.

   I. To begin with the first. There is a part of God's will which every
   one may know. It is written in Divine characters in two sacred books,
   which every man may read. The one of them is the Bible, the other is
   Nature. The Bible is God's will in words, in formal thoughts, in grace.
   Nature is God's will in matter and tissue and force. Nature is not
   often considered a part of God's will. But it is a part, and a great
   part, and the first part. And perhaps one reason why some never know
   the second is because they yield no full obedience to the first. God's
   law of progress is from the lower to the higher; and scant obedience at
   the beginning of His will means disobedience with the rest. The laws of
   nature are the will of God for our bodies. As there is a will of God
   for our higher nature--the moral laws--as emphatically is there a will
   of God for the lower--the natural laws. If you would know God's will in
   the higher, therefore, you must begin with God's will in the lower:
   which simply means this--that if you want to live the ideal life, you
   must begin with the ideal body. The law of moderation, the law of
   sleep, the law of regularity, the law of exercise, the law of
   cleanliness--this is the law or will of God for you. This is the first
   law, the beginning of His will for you. And if we are ambitious to get
   on to do God's will in the higher reaches, let us respect it as much in
   the lower; for there may be as much of God's will in minor things, as
   much of God's will in taking good bread and pure water, as in keeping a
   good conscience or living a pure life. Whoever heard of gluttony doing
   God's will, or laziness, or uncleanness, or the man who was careless
   and wanton of natural life? Let a man disobey God in these, and you
   have no certainty that he has any true principle for obeying God in
   anything else: for God's will does not only run into the church and the
   prayer-meeting and the higher chambers of the soul, but into the common
   rooms at home down to wardrobe and larder and cellar, and into the
   bodily frame down to blood and muscle and brain.

   This, then, is the first contribution to the contents of the will of
   God. And, for distinction, they may be called the physical contents.

   Next in order we come to the moral contents, both of these coming under
   the same head as parts of God's will which every one may know.

   These moral contents, as we have seen, are contained in the Word of
   God; and the Bible has a variety of names for them, such as
   testimonies, laws, precepts, statutes, commandments.

   Now this is a much more formidable array than the physical contents. It
   is one thing to be in physical condition--a prizefighter may be
   that--but it is quite another to be in moral condition. And it is a
   difficult matter to explain exactly what God's will in this great sense
   is; for, on the one hand, there is the danger of elevating it so high
   as to frighten the timid soul from ever attempting to reach it, and, on
   the other, the insensible tendency to lower it to human standards and
   aims.

   It must be understood, however, to the full that, as far as its
   formidableness is concerned, that is absolutely unchangeable. God's
   moral law cannot be toned down into anything less binding, less
   absolutely moral, less infinitely significant. Whatever it means, is
   meant for every man in its rigid truth as the definite and formal
   expression of God's will for him.

   From the moral side there are three different departments of God's
   will. Foremost, and apparently most rigid of all, are the Ten
   Commandments. Now the Ten Commandments contain, in a few sentences, one
   of the largest-known portions of God's will. They form the most strict
   code of morality in the world: the basis of all others, the most
   venerable and universal expression of the will of God for man.
   Following upon this there come the Beatitudes of Christ. This is
   another large portion of God's will. This forms the most unique code of
   morality in the world, the most complete and lovely additional
   expression of the will of God for Christians. Passing through the human
   heart of Christ, the older commandment of the Creator becomes the soft
   and mellow beatitude of the Saviour--passes from the colder domain of
   law with a penalty on failure, to the warm region of love with a
   benediction on success. These are the two chief elements in the moral
   part of the will of God for man. But there is a third set of laws and
   rules, which are not to be found exactly expressed in either of these.
   The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes take up most of the room in
   God's will, but there are shades of precept still unexpressed which
   also have their place. Hence we must add to all this mass of law and
   beatitude many more laws and many more beatitudes which lie enclosed in
   other texts, and other words of Christ which have their place like the
   rest as portions of God's will.

   Here, then, we already know a great part of what God's will is;
   although, perhaps, we have not often called it by this name. And it may
   be worth while, before going on to find out any more, to pause for a
   moment and find out how to practise this.

   For, perhaps, when we see how great a thing it is, this will of God,
   our impulse for the moment is to wish we had not known. We were
   building ourselves up with the idea that we were going to try this
   life, and that it was easy and smooth compared with the life we left.
   There was a better future opening to us, with visions of happiness and
   holiness and even of usefulness to God. But our hopes are dashed now.
   How can we do God's will?--this complicated mass of rules and statutes,
   each bristling with the certainty of a thousand breakages? How can we
   keep these ten grave laws, with their unflinching scorn of compromise
   and exacting obligation, to the uttermost jot and tittle? How can our
   coarse spirits breathe the exquisite air of these beatitudes, or fit
   our wayward wills to the narrow mould of all these binding texts? Can
   God know how weak we are, and blind and biassed towards the breakages,
   ere ever we thought of Him? Can He think how impossible it is to keep
   these laws, even for one close-watched experimental hour? Did Christ
   really mean it--not some lesser thing than this--when He taught in the
   ideal prayer that God's will was to be done on earth even as it is done
   in heaven?

   There can be but one answer. "God hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest
   know His will." And God expects from each of us neither less nor more
   than this. He knows the frailty of our frame; He remembers we are dust.
   And yet such dust that He has given each of us the divinest call to the
   vastest thing in heaven. There, by the side of our frailty, He lays
   down His holy will--lays it down confidingly, as if a child could take
   it in its grasp, and, as if He means the child to fondle it and bear it
   in its breast, He says, "If a man love Me, he will keep My words."

   There must be something, therefore, to ease the apparent hopelessness
   of doing this will of God--something to give us heart to go on with it,
   to give strength to obey God's call. We were not prepared to find it
   running in to the roots of things like this; but there must be
   something brighter somewhere than the dark side we have seen. Well,
   then, let us think for a moment on these points.

   1. In the first place, there must be such laws. God is a King--His
   kingdom the kingdom of heaven. His people are His subjects. Subjects
   must have laws. Therefore we start with a necessity. Laws must be.

   2. But who are afraid of laws? Good subjects? Never. Criminals are
   afraid of laws. Who dread the laws of this country, cry out against
   them, and would abolish them if they could? Drunkards, thieves,
   murderers. Who love the laws of this country? The honest, the wise and
   good. Then who are afraid of God's laws--would abolish them if they
   could? The wicked, the profligate, the licentious. But you would not.
   The just and holy, the pure in heart and life love them, respect them.
   More still, they demand them. It would be no kingdom without them--no
   kingdom worth belonging to. If it were not for its laws of truth and
   purity, and its promise of protection from unrighteousness and sin, it
   would have no charm for them. It is the inaccessible might and purity
   of will in the kingdom of God that draw all other wills as subjects to
   its sway. It is not only not hard, therefore, that there should be such
   elements in God's will as law; it is a privilege. And it is more than a
   privilege to have them.

   3. It is a privilege to do them. And it is a peculiar privilege, this.
   It consists partly in forgetting that they are laws--in changing their
   names, commandment, precept, testimony, statute, into this--the will of
   God. No sternness then can enter with the thought, for God's name is in
   the name, and the help of God, and the power of God, and the
   constraining love of Christ. This takes away the hopelessness of trying
   to keep God's will. It makes it a personal thing, a relation to a
   living will, not to didactic law.

   And there is, further, a wonderful provision near it. When God puts
   down His great will beside me telling me to do it, He puts down just
   beside it as great a thing, His Love. And as my soul trembles at the
   fearfulness of will, Love comes with its calm omnipotence, and draws it
   to Himself; then takes my timid will and twines it around His, till
   mine is fierce with passion to serve, and strong to do His will. Just
   as if some mighty task were laid to an infant's hand, and the
   engine-grasp of a giant strengthened it with his own. Where God's law
   is, is God's love. Look at Law--it withers your very soul with its
   stern inexorable face. But look at Love, or look at God's will, which
   means look at Love's will, and you are re-assured, and your heart grows
   strong. No martyr dies for abstract truth. For a person, for God, he
   will die a triple death. So no man will die for God's law. But for God
   he will do it. Where God's will, then, seems strong to command, God's
   love is strong to obey. Hence the profound texts, "Love is the
   fulfilling of the law." "And this is the love of God that we keep His
   commandments, and His commandments are not grievous."

   God's will, then, is as great as God, as high as heaven, yet as easy as
   love. For love knows no hardness, and feels no yoke. It desires no
   yielding to its poverty in anything it loves. Let God be greater, and
   His will sterner, love will be stronger and obedience but more true.
   Let not God come down to me, slacken truth for me, make His will weaker
   for me: my interests, as subject, are safer with my King, are greater
   with the greatness of my King--only give me love, pure, burning love
   and loyalty to Him, and I shall climb from law to law through grace and
   glory, to the place beside the throne where the angels do His will.
   There are two ways, therefore, of looking at God's will--one looking at
   the love side of it, the other at the law; the one ending in triumph,
   the other in despair; the one a liberty, the other a slavery. And you
   might illustrate this in a simple way, to make it finally clear,--for
   this is the hardest point to hold,--in some such way as this.

   Suppose you go into a workshop occasionally, and watch the workmen at
   their task. The majority do their work in an uninterested, mechanical
   sort of way. Everything is done with the most proper exactness and
   precision--almost with slavish precision, a narrower watch would say.
   They come exactly at the hour in the morning, and throw down their work
   to a second exactly when the closing bell has rung. There is a certain
   punctiliousness about them, and a scrupulosity about their work; and as
   part cause of it, perhaps, you observe an uncomfortable turning of the
   head occasionally as if some eve were upon them, then a dogged going on
   of their work again, as if it were always done under some restraint.

   But among the workmen you will notice one who seems to work on
   different principles. There is a buoyancy and cheerfulness about him as
   he goes about his work, which is foreign to all the rest. You will see
   him at his place sometimes even before the bell has rung, and if
   unfinished work be in his hands when closing time has come, he does not
   mind an extra five minutes when all the others are gone. What strikes
   you about him is the absence of that punctiliousness which marked the
   others' work. It does not seem at all a tyranny to him, but even a
   freedom and a pleasure; and though he is apparently not so mechanical
   in his movements as his mates, his work seems better done and greater,
   despite the ease and light-heartedness which mark him through its
   course. Now the difference between them is this. The first set of men
   are hired workmen. The man by himself is the master's son. Not that he
   is outwardly different; he is a common workman in a fustian jacket like
   the rest. But he is the master's son. The first set work for wages,
   come in at regulation hours lest aught be kept off their wages, keep
   the workshop laws in terror of losing their place. But the son keeps
   them, and keeps them better, not for wages, but for love.

   So the Christian keeps the will or the laws of God because of the love
   of God. Not because they are workshop regulations framed and hung up
   before him at every moment of his life; but because they are his
   Master's will. They are as natural to him as air. He would never think
   of not keeping them. His meat is to do the will of his Father which is
   in heaven. There is no room for punctiliousness in this the true way of
   doing God's will. A scrupulous Christian is a hired servant and not the
   Master's son.

   II. But now, very briefly, in the second and last place, there is an
   unknown part of God's will--at least, a part which is only known to
   you. There is God's will for the world, and God's will for the
   individual. There is God's will written on tables of stone for all the
   world to read. There is God's will carved in sacred hieroglyphic which
   no one reads but you. There is God's will rolling in thunder over the
   life of universal man. There is God's will dropped softly on the
   believer's ear in angel whispers or spoken by the still small voice
   within. This, the final element in God's will, to distinguish it from
   the moral and physical contents which go before, one might call the
   more strictly spiritual content.

   This is a distinct addition to the other parts--an addition, too, which
   many men ignore, and other men deny. But there is such a region in
   God's will--a region unmapped in human charts, unknown to human books,
   a region for the pure in heart, for the upright, for the true. It is a
   land of mystery to those who know it not, a land of foolishness, and
   weaknesses, and delusive sights and sounds. But there is a land where
   the Spirit moves, a luminous land, a walking in God's light. There is a
   region where God's own people have their breathing from above, where
   each saint's steps are ordered of the Lord.

   Now this region may be distinguished from the other regions by its
   secrecy. It is a private thing; between God and you. You want to know
   what to do next--your calling in life, for instance. You want to know
   what action to take in a certain matter. You want to know what to do
   with your money. You want to know whether to go into a certain scheme
   or not. Then you enter into this private chamber of God's will, and ask
   the private question, "Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do?"

   Then it is distinguished by its action. It concerns a different
   department of our life. The first part of God's will, all that has gone
   before, affects our character. But this affects something more. It
   affects our career. And this is an important distinction. A man's
   career in life is almost as important as his character in life; that is
   to say, it is almost as important to God, which is the real question.
   If character is the end of life, then the ideal career is just where
   character can best be established and developed. A man is to live for
   his character. But if God's will is the end of life, God may have a
   will for my career as well as for my character, which does not mean
   that a man is to live for his career, but for God's will in his
   character through his career.

   I may want to put all my work upon my character. But God may want my
   work for something else. He may want to use me, for instance; I may not
   know why, or when, or how or for whom. But it is possible He may need
   me, for something or other at some time or other. It may be all through
   my life, or at some particular part of my life which may be past now,
   or may be still to come. At all events, I must hold myself in readiness
   and let Him trace my path; for though it does not look now as if He had
   anything for me to do, the next turn of the road may bring it; so I
   must watch the turnings of the road for God. Even for the chance of God
   needing me it is worth while doing this--the chance of Him needing me
   even once. There is a man in Scripture whom God perhaps used but once.
   He may have done many other things for God; still, there was one thing
   God gave him to do so far overshadowing all other things that he seems
   to have done but this. He seems, indeed, to have been born, to have
   lived and died for this. It is the only one thing we know about him.
   But it is a great thing. His name was Ananias. He was the instrument in
   the conversion of Paul. What was he doing in Damascus that day, when
   Paul arrived under conviction of sin? Why was he living in Damascus at
   all? Because he was born there, and his father before him perhaps you
   will say. Let it be so. A few will be glad to cherish a higher thought.
   He was a good man, and his steps were ordered--by ordinary means, if
   you like--by the Lord. Could Ananias not have been as good a man in
   Jericho or Antioch or Ephesus? Quite as good. His character might
   almost have been the same. But his career would have been different.
   And, possibly, his character might have been different from the touch
   of God upon his career. For when God comes into a man's career, it
   sometimes makes a mighty difference on his character--teaches him to
   live less for character and for himself, and more for his career and
   for God, rather more for both--more for his character by living more
   for his career. Gold is gold wherever it is; but it is some difference
   to the world whether it make a communion cup or gild the proscenium of
   a theatre.

   There is a difference, then, between God in character and God in
   career. You may have God in your character without having God in your
   career. Perhaps you should have been in London to-day, perhaps in
   China. Perhaps you should have been a missionary; perhaps you should be
   one yet. Perhaps you should have been in poorer circumstances, or in a
   different business altogether. Perhaps you have chosen a broader path
   than God would have willed for you. Your character may not seem to have
   suffered; but your career has. You may be doing God's will with one
   hand consecrated to Christ, and making your own autobiography with the
   other consecrated to self.

   Would you know the will of God, then? Consult God about your career. It
   does not follow because He has done nothing with you last week or last
   year, He may have nothing for you now. God's will in career is mostly
   an unexpected thing--it comes as a surprise. God's servants work on
   short notices. Paul used to have to go off to what was the end of the
   world in those days, on a few hours' warning. And so may you and I. It
   is not a thing to startle us, to alarm us, to make us say, "If this
   might be the upshot we would let God's will alone." It would be a
   wonderful privilege to come to you or me; yes, a wonderful privilege
   that He should count us worthy to suffer this or anything more for Him.

   But you are old, you say. Ananias was old. Or steeped in a profession.
   Paul was steeped in a profession. Or you are inexperienced and young. A
   lad came to Jesus once with five loaves and two small fishes, but they
   fed five thousand men. So bring your lad's experience, your young offer
   of service, and God may use you to twice five thousand souls. That does
   not mean that you are to do it. But be in God's counsels, and He will
   teach you whether or no.

   How are you to know this secret will of God? It is a great question. We
   cannot touch it now. Let this suffice. It can be known. It can be known
   to you. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. "I will guide
   thee with Mine eye." Unto the upright in heart He shall cause light to
   arise in darkness. This is no mysticism, no visionary's dream. It is
   not to drown the reason with enthusiasm's airy hope or supersede the
   word of God with fanaticism's blind caprice. No, it is not that. It is
   what Christ said, "The sheep hear His voice, and He calleth His own
   sheep by name, and leadeth them."
     __________________________________________________________________

THE RELATION OF THE WILL OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION

   "This is the will of God, even your sanctification."--I THESS. iv. 3.

   "As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
   conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.'"--I
   PET. i. 15, 16.

   "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. . . . By the which will we are
   sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
   all."--HEB. x. 9, 10.

   OUR discussion of the will of God landed us--perhaps in rather an
   unforeseen way--in the great subject of sanctification. You may
   remember that we made this discovery, that the end of sanctification,
   in the sense of consecration, is to do the will of God, and that the
   proof was based on these words: "Present your bodies a living
   sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and be not conformed to this
   world." Why? "That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and
   perfect will of God." We are to present ourselves to God, not because
   it is a pleasant and luxurious thing to live in the state of
   consecration, but to do the will of God. Or, to sum this up in a single
   sentence, it might read: "This is sanctification, even to prove the
   will of God."

   But our text to-day is apparently the very opposite of this. "This is
   the will of God, even your sanctification." Then it looked as if
   sanctification was in order to the will of God; now it looks as if the
   will of God was in order to sanctification.

   It is evident, therefore, that there is still something in this part of
   the subject which demands a clearance. And in order to gain this it
   will be necessary to present the other side of the same question, and
   complete the view of the subject of holiness itself.

   There are in the Bible two great meanings to the word sanctification.
   The first may be roughly called the Old Testament word. The second is
   identified, but not exclusively, with the New. The Old Testament
   meaning had this peculiarity, that it did not necessarily imply any
   inward change in the heart sanctified. In fact, it was not even
   necessarily applied to hearts at all, but to things. A field could be
   sanctified, a house could be sanctified, an altar, a tabernacle, gold
   and silver vessels, the garments of the priest, the cities of refuge.
   Anything, in short, that was set apart for sacred use was said to be
   sanctified. But the New Testament word had a deeper meaning. It meant
   not only outward consecration, but inward holiness. It meant an
   internal purification of the heart from all uncleanness, and an enduing
   it with the mind of Christ. It was not a mere separation like the
   first, but a visitation--a separation from the lower world, and a
   visitation from the higher, the coming in of God's Spirit from above
   with a principle of holiness that was to work an inward likeness to the
   character of God.

   The practical object of the first process is mainly to put the thing in
   position where God can use it. A golden candlestick was sanctified, so
   that it might be of some use to God. A house was sanctified, so that it
   might be exclusively His--to do what He liked with. In like manner a
   man is consecrated--that God may use him. It is the process by which he
   is got into position for God. And all that sanctification does for him,
   in the first sense of the word, is so to put him in position that he
   shall always be within reach of God--that he shall do what God likes,
   do, that is to say, what God wills.

   But there is something more in sanctification than man's merely being a
   tool in the hands of God. If there were not, automatons could do the
   work far better than men. They would never oppose God's will, and they
   would always be in position. But God's will has a reaction upon the
   instruments whom He employs. God's will does not stop with His will, as
   it were. It recoils back upon the person using it, and benefits him. If
   the instrument is a sanctified cup, or a sanctified house, it does not
   recoil back, and make an internal change in them; but if it is a person
   who does God's will, God's will is not only done, but the person or
   doer is affected. God never keeps anything all to Himself. He who so
   loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, does He not with
   Him also freely give us all things? His Son is for us, His love is for
   us, His will is for us. How do we know that it is for us? Because this
   is the will of God, even your sanctification. Whatever else may be
   involved in it, this is in it; whatever else He may get from it, this
   is something which you get, your sanctification. "By the which will,"
   as Hebrews says, "we are sanctified." "This is My will, not My gain,
   but yours; not My eternal advantage, but yours; not My holiness, but
   your sanctification.'" Do you think God wants your body when He asks
   you to present it to Him? Do you think it is for His sake that He asks
   it, that He might be enriched by it? God could make a thousand better
   with a breath. It is for your sake He asks it. He wants your gift to
   give you His gift--your gift which was just in the way of His gift. He
   wants your will out of the way, to make room for His will. You give
   everything to God. God gives it all back again, and more. You present
   your body a living sacrifice that you may prove God's will. You shall
   prove it by getting back your body--a glorified body. You lose the
   world that you may prove God's will. God's will is that you shall gain
   heaven. This is the will of God, therefore, that you should gain
   heaven. Or this is the will of God that you should gain holiness, for
   holiness is heaven. Or this is the will of God, even your
   sanctification.

   To sum up these facts, then, we find that they shape themselves into
   these two propositions:--

   1. That our sanctification, or, more strictly, our consecration, is in
   order to the will of God, "to prove what is that good and acceptable
   and perfect will of God."

   2. That this reacts upon ourselves--a conspicuous part of God's will
   being that we should be personally holy. "This is the will of God, even
   your sanctification."

   The first of these has already been discussed, and now the question
   comes to be how we can best fulfil this conspicuous part of the will of
   God and become holy ourselves. It is God's will for all of us that we
   should become holy. How are we to become holy?

   We have probably asked this question many times already in our life. We
   have thought, and read, and prayed about it, and perhaps have never yet
   reached the conclusion how indeed we are to become holy. Perhaps the
   question has long ago assumed another and evasive form with us, "When
   are we going to become holy?" or perhaps a hopeless form, "How ever are
   we to become holy?"

   Now the real way out of the difficulty is to ask a deeper question
   still: "Why do I want to be holy?" All the great difficulties of
   religion are centred round our motives. Impurities in a spiritual
   stream generally mean impurities at the spiritual source. And all
   fertility or barrenness of soul depends upon which source supplies the
   streams of the desires. Our difficulties about becoming holy,
   therefore, most likely lie in our reasons for wanting to become holy.
   For if you grant the true motive to holiness, you need no definition of
   holiness. True holiness lies in touching the true motive. We shall get
   nearer the true roots of holiness, therefore, if we spend a little time
   over the root-question: "Why do I want to be holy?"

   1. The first thing which started some of us to search for a better
   life, perhaps, was Infection. We caught an infection for a better life
   from some one we knew. We were idling our own way through life, when
   some one crossed our path--some one with high aims and great
   enthusiasms. We were taken with the principles on which that life was
   lived. Its noble purpose charmed us: its disregard of the petty
   troubles and cares of life astonished us. We felt unaccountably
   interested in it. There was a romance in its earnestness and
   self-denial that captivated us, and we thought we should like to take
   down our own life, and put it together again on this new plan. So we
   got our first motive to holiness.

   Now this was not a wrong motive--it was only an imperfect one. It
   answered its purpose--so far. For God takes strange ways to start a
   man's religion. There is nothing more remarkable in the history of
   conversion, for instance, than the infinite diversity of answers to
   this question: "What made you first think about your soul?" God does
   take strange ways to start a man for heaven. The way home is sometimes
   shown him by an unexpected finger-post; and from a motive so unworthy
   that he dare not tell it in after-life, there comes to many a man his
   first impulse toward God. And long after he has begun to run the
   Christian race, God may try to hasten his lagging steps by the spur of
   a motive as far beneath an heir of heaven as his spiritual life is
   beneath what it ought to be.

   But the principle to be noted through it all is this, that the motives
   which God allows us to start on are not the ones we are to live on. It
   may be adversity in business that gives us a fresh start. It may be
   affliction, or ambition, or church-pride, or a thousand things. But
   such an impulse cannot last, and it cannot carry us far. And there must
   come a time to exchange it for a higher one if we would grow in grace,
   or move onward into a holier life. A man's motive must grow, if grace
   would grow. And many a man has to live on old grace, because he lives
   on an old motive. God let us begin with a lower one, and then when He
   gave us more grace, it was that we might get a higher one; but we spent
   the grace on something else, and our motive is no higher than before.
   So, although we got a start in religion, we were little the better for
   it, and our whole life has stood still for want of a strong enough
   motive to go on.

   2. But it was not necessary that we should have caught our infection
   from a friend. There is another great source of infection, and some of
   us are breathing its atmosphere every day --books. We may have got our
   motives to be good from a book. We found in works on ethics, and in all
   great poets, and even perhaps in some novels, that the highest aim of
   life was to be true and pure and good. We found modern literature
   ringing with the praises of virtue. By-and-by we began to respect it,
   then to admire it, then to wish for it. Thus we caught the enthusiasm
   for purity which has changed our whole lives, in a way, and given us a
   chief motive to religion.

   Well, we must thank God for having given us a start, anyhow. It is
   something to have begun. It is a great thing to have an enthusiasm to
   be true and pure and good. Nor will the Bible ever be jealous of any
   lesser book which God may use to stir men up to a better life. But all
   lesser books sin and come short. And the greatest motives of the
   greatest of the lesser books fall as far short of the glory of God as
   those who live only by the enthusiasms which are kindled on the altar
   of modern literature fall short of the life and mind of Christ. God may
   give these motives to a man to start with. If he will not look into
   God's Book for them, God may see fit to put something remotely like
   them into men's books. Jesus Christ used to come to men just where they
   were. There is no place on earth so dark that the light of heaven will
   not come to it; and there is no spot of earth where God may not choose
   to raise a monument of His love. There is always room anywhere in the
   world for a holy thought. It may come to a man on the roadside, as to
   Paul; or in the fork of a sycamore tree, as to Zaccheus. It may come to
   him at his boats, as to Peter; or at his Bible, as to the Eunuch. But,
   whether it come at the boats, or whether it come at the Bible, whatever
   is good is God's; and men may be thankful that the Giver of all good
   has peopled the whole earth and air and sky with thoughts of His glory,
   and filled the world with voices which call men near to Him. At the
   same time, it must be understood again that the initial motives are
   never meant to continue us far on the road to God. As a matter of fact,
   they never can continue us, and if a man does not get higher ones, his
   religion must, and his morality may, come to a bitter end. The
   melancholy proof occurs to every one in a moment, that those who
   inspire us with these almost Divine enthusiasms are, and have been,
   many of them, degraded men and women themselves. For if a man's motives
   to goodness are not higher than the enthusiasms of his own higher
   nature, the chances are that the appeals of his lower nature, in time,
   will either curb or degrade them.

   The true motive to holiness, then, is not to be caught from books.

   3. In the next place, some of us, perhaps, were induced to aim at a
   better life from prudential motives, or from fear.

   We had read in the Bible a very startling sentence--"Without holiness
   no man shall see the Lord." Now we wished to see God. And we found the
   Bible full of commands to keep God's law. So, with fear and trembling,
   we began to try. Its strictness was a continual stimulus to us. We were
   kept watching and praying. We lived in an atmosphere of fear, lest we
   should break it. No doubt this has done good--great good. Like the
   others, it was not a bad motive--only an imperfect one. But, like the
   others, it will have to be exchanged for a higher one, if true progress
   in holy living is to be made.

   4. Then some of us found another motive in gratitude. The great love of
   God in Christ had come home to us with a peculiar power. We felt the
   greatness of His sacrifice for us, of His forgiveness of us. And we
   would try to return His love. So we set our hearts with a gracious
   purpose towards God. Our life and conversation should be becoming the
   Gospel of Christ. We would do for His sake what we would never do for
   our own sake. But even a noble impulse like this has failed to fulfil
   our heart's desire, and even our generosity has left us little nearer
   God.

   5. And. lastly, there is this other thought which has sometimes helped
   us onward for a time--a feeling which comes over us at Communion times,
   at revival times, which Christian workers feel at all times: "Here are
   we surrounded by great privileges--singled out from the world for God's
   peculiar care. God comes very close to us; the very ground is holy
   oftentimes. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy
   conversation and godliness? How different we ought to be from all the
   people around! How much more separate from every appearance of evil!
   How softly we should walk, who bear the vessels of the Lord!"

   Now some of these motives are very beautiful. They are the gifts of
   God. Doubtless many have attained to a certain measure of holiness by
   employing them. And they have at least awakened in us some longings
   after God. But they are all deficient, and hopelessly inadequate to
   carry on what sometimes they so hopefully begin.

   And they are deficient in these three ways:--

   1. They are unscriptural--rather, they do not convey the full
   scriptural truth.

   2. They are inadequate to produce more than a small degree of holiness.

   3. They never produce the true quality of holiness.

   If we have not yet had higher motives than these, then it follows that
   our spiritual life is being laid down upon principles which can never
   in the nature of things yield the results we had hoped and waited for.

   We have been wondering why our growth in grace has been so small--so
   small, indeed, that sometimes it has almost seemed to cease. And as we
   look into our hearts, we find this one reason, at least--perhaps the
   great one--that our motive is incomplete.

   Now, the weakness of the old motive, apart from the error of it,
   consisted in this: in the first place it wanted authority; in the
   second, it proposed no standard. As regards the first, there was no
   reason why one should strive to be better. It was left to one's own
   discretion. Our friend said it, or our favourite author, and the
   obligation rose or fell with the nearness or remoteness of their
   influence. And as regards the standard, our friend or our favourite
   author's favourite hero was but a poor model at the best, for only a
   most imperfect spiritual beauty can ever be copied from anything made
   of clay.

   Well, then, what is the right motive to holiness of life? We have been
   dealing with ordinary motives hitherto; now we must come to
   extraordinary ones. Holiness is one of the most extraordinary things in
   life, and it demands the noblest motives, the noblest impulses, or
   none. Now we shall see how God has satisfied this demand of our nature
   for an extraordinary motive to this extraordinary thing,
   holiness--satisfied it so completely, that the soul, when it finds it
   out, need never feel unsatisfied again. God's motive to holiness is,
   "Be ye holy, for I am holy."

   It is a startling thing when the voice of God comes close to us and
   whispers, "Be ye holy"; but when the question returns from our lips,
   "Why should we be holy?" it is a more solemn thing to get this answer,
   "For I am holy." This is God's motive to holiness--"For I am holy." Be
   ye holy: here is its authority--its Divine obligation. For I am
   holy--here is its Divine motive.

   Be ye holy. Think of the greatness of the obligation. Long ago, when we
   began the Christian life, we heard a voice, "Be ye holy." Perhaps, as
   we have seen, it was an infectious voice, the voice of a friend.
   Perhaps it was an inspiring voice, the voice of poetry and literature.
   Perhaps it was a warning voice, the voice of the law. But it was not a
   commanding voice--the voice of God. And the reason was, perhaps, that
   we were not thinking of the voice: we were thinking of the "holy." We
   had caught sight of a new and beautiful object--something which seemed
   full of promise, which was to consecrate even the common hours of our
   life. The religious world seemed bright to us then, and the books and
   the men were dear that would help us to reach out our hands to this. It
   was something new that had come into our life--this fascination of
   holiness. Had we been asked about the voice which said, "Be ye holy,"
   we should indeed have said it was God's. But, in truth, it was only our
   own voice, which had caught some far-off echoes from our reading, or
   our thinking, or our friends. There was no authority in the voice,
   therefore, and it rested with our own poor wills whether we should grow
   in holiness or not. Sometimes our will was strong, and we were better
   men and women then than ever in our lives before; but there were
   intervals when we listened to another voice, "Be ye prosperous," or "Be
   ye happy," and then we lost all we had gained.

   But with the Divine obligation before us, it is no longer optional that
   we should be holy. We must be holy. And then see how the motive to
   holiness is attached to the obligation to holiness--the motive for
   holiness: "For I am holy." The motive accounts for the obligation.
   God's one desire for the whole earth is that it should be holy--just
   because He is holy. And the best He can do with men is to make them
   like Himself. The whole earth is His and He would have it all in
   harmony with Him. God has a right to demand that we should be holy
   --that every one should be holy, and everything, just because He is
   holy Himself. To take even the lowest ground, we allow no ornaments in
   our house that are not lovely and pleasant to the eye. We have no
   business to cumber God's earth with ourselves if we are not holy--no
   business to live in the same world with Him. We are an offence to
   God--discordant notes in the music of the universe.

   But God lays this high obligation upon us for our own sake. For this we
   were made. For this we were born in a Christian land. For this, strange
   things have happened in our lives--strange pieces of discipline have
   disturbed their quiet flow, strange troubles, strange providences,
   strange chastenings. There is no other explanation of the mystery of
   our life than this, that God would have us holy. At any cost God will
   have us holy. Whatever else we may be, this one thing we must be. This
   is the will of God, even our sanctification. It is not necessary that
   we should be prosperous or famous, or happy. But it is necessary that
   we should be holy; and the deepest moments of our lives give us
   glimpses sometimes of a more tender reason still why God says, "Be ye
   holy"--it is for our own sakes: because it would be hell to be unholy.

   There is now only one thing wanting in our new motive to holiness. We
   have discovered the sources of its obligation far up in the counsels of
   God, and deep down in the weakness of our own nature. We have found
   holiness to be an absolutely necessary virtue--to live without which is
   to contradict our Maker. But we have not yet looked at its quality. The
   thing we are to pursue so ardently--what is it? How are we to shape it
   to ourselves when we think of it? Is there any plain definition of
   it--any form which could be easily stated and easily followed. It may
   be very easily stated. It is for those who have tried it to say whether
   it be easily followed. Be ye holy, as He is holy. As He is holy, as He
   who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy. This is the form of
   holiness we are asked to aim at. This is the standard, God's commentary
   on the motive, "As He. . . . so ye." Ponder for a moment the difference
   between these pronouns. He--Ye. He who hath called you--Jesus Christ.
   He who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. He who when He
   was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered, He threatened not. He
   who was without spot or blemish, in whom even His enemies found no
   fault.

   Ye the fallen children of a fallen race. Ye with hearts deceitful above
   all things, and desperately wicked. Ye are to become as He. The two
   pronouns are to approach one another. The crucifiers are to work their
   way up to the crucified. Ye are to become as He. Here is a motive as
   high as the holiness of God. It makes us feel as if we had our
   life-work before us still. We have scarcely even begun to be like
   God--for we began perhaps with no higher motive than to be like some
   one else--not like God at all. But the little betterness that we get
   from books, the chance impulses that come from other lives, have never
   fulfilled in us the will of God--could never sanctify such hearts as
   ours and make ye become as He.

   No doubt a great deal of human good is possible to man before he
   touches the character of Christ. High human motives and human aims may
   make a noble human life. But they never make a holy life. A holy life
   is a life like Christ's. And whatever may be got from the lower motives
   to a better life, one thing must necessarily be absent from them
   all--the life like Christ's, or rather, the spirit like Christ's. For
   the life like Christ's can only come from Christ; and the spirit of
   Christ can only be caught from Christ.

   Hence, therefore. we come at Last to the profound meaning of another
   text which stands alone in the Word of God and forms the only true
   climax to such a subject as this.

   "Lo I come to do Thy will, O God," the author of the Hebrews quotes
   from David, and goes on to add, "By the which will we are sanctified."
   Christ came to do God's will, by the which will we are sanctified. This
   is the will of God, even your sanctification. But the writer of the
   Hebrews adds another lesson: "By the which will we are sanctified."
   How? "Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
   Our sanctification is not in books, or in noble enthusiasm, or in
   personal struggles after a better life. It is in the offering of the
   body of Jesus Christ once for all. Justification is through the blood
   of Jesus Christ once for all. Sanctification is through the body of
   Jesus Christ once for all. It is not a thing to be generated, but to be
   received. It is not to be generated in fragments of experience at one
   time and another--it is already complete in Christ. We have only to put
   on Christ. And though it may take a lifetime of experience to make it
   ours, the sanctification, whenever it come, can only come from Christ,
   and if we ever are sanctified it will only be because, and inasmuch as
   we have Christ. Our sanctification is not what morality gives, not even
   what the Bible gives, not even what Christ gives, it is what Christ
   lives. It is Christ Himself.

   The reason why we resort so much to lower impulses to a Christian life
   is imperfect union with Christ. We take our doctrines from the Bible
   and our assurance from Christ. But for want of the living bright
   reality of His presence in our hearts we search the world all round for
   impulses. We search religious books for impulses, and tracts and
   sermons, but in vain. They are not there. "I am Alpha and Omega, the
   beginning and the end." "Christ is all and in all." The beginning of
   all things is in the will of God. The end of all things is in
   sanctification through faith in Jesus Christ. "By the which will ye are
   sanctified." Between these two poles all spiritual life and Christian
   experience run. And no motive outside Christ can lead a man to Christ.
   If your motive to holiness is not as high as Christ it cannot make you
   rise to Christ. For water cannot rise above its level. "Beware,
   therefore, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,
   after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
   after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
   bodily. And ye are complete in Him which is the head of all
   principality and power" (2 Col. viii. 10). "Who of God is made unto us
   wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor.
   i. 30). "As ye have therefore received the Lord Jesus, so walk ye in
   Him."
     __________________________________________________________________

HOW TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

   "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it
   be of God."--JOHN vii. 17.

   THERE is an experience which becomes more and more familiar to every
   one who is trying to follow Christ--a feeling of the growing loneliness
   of his Christian life. It comes from a sense of the peculiarly personal
   interest which Christ takes in him, which sometimes seems so strong as
   almost to make him feel that his life is being detached from all the
   other lives around him, that it is being drawn out of the crowd of
   humanity, as if an unseen arm linked in his were taking him aside for a
   nearer intimacy and a deeper and more private fellowship. It is not,
   indeed, that the great family of God are to be left in the shade for
   him, or that he is in any way the favourite of heaven; but it is the
   sanctifying and, in the truest sense, humbling realization that God
   makes Himself as real to each poor unit as if he were the whole; so
   that even as in coming to Christ at first he felt himself the only
   lost, so now in staying with Christ he feels himself the only found.
   And it is, perhaps, true that without any loss in the feeling of
   saintly communion with all those throughout the world who say "Our
   Father" with him in their prayers, the more he feels that Christ has
   all of him to Himself, the more he feels that he has Christ all to
   himself. Christ has died for other men, but in a peculiar sense for
   him. God has a love for all the world, but a peculiar love for him. God
   has an interest in all the world, but a peculiar interest in him. This
   is always the instinct of a near fellowship, and it is true of the
   universal fellowship of God with His own people.

   But if there is one thing more than another which is more personal to
   the Christian--more singularly his than God's love or God's
   interest--one thing which is a finer symbol of God's love and interest,
   it is the knowledge of God's will--the private knowledge of God's will.
   And this is more personal, just inasmuch as it is more private. My
   private portion of God's love is only a private share in God's
   love--only a part--the same in quality and kind as all the rest of
   God's love, which all the others get from God. But God's will is a
   thing for myself. There is a will of God for me which is willed for no
   one else besides. It is not a share in the universal will, in the same
   sense as I have a share in the universal love. It is a particular will
   for me, different from the will He has for any one else--a private
   will--a will which no one else knows about which no one can know about,
   but me.

   To be sure, as we have seen before, God had likewise a universal will
   for me and every man. In the Ten Commandments, in conscience, in the
   beatitudes of Christ, God tells all the world His will. There is no
   secret about this part, it is as universal as His love. It is the will
   on which the character of every man is to be formed and conformed to
   God's.

   But there is a will for career as well as for character. There is a
   will for where--in what place, viz., in this town or another town--I am
   to become like God as well as that I am to become like God. There is a
   will for where I am to be, and what I am to be, and what I am to do
   to-morrow. There is a will for what scheme I am to take up, and what
   work I am to do for Christ, and what business arrangements to make, and
   what money to give away. This is God's private will for me, for every
   step I take, for the path of life along which He points my way: God's
   will for my career.

   If I have God's will in my character, my life may become great and
   good. It may be useful and honourable, and even a monument of the
   sanctifying power of God. But it will only be a life. However great and
   pure it be, it can be no more than a life. And it ought to be a
   mission. There should be no such thing as a Christian life, each life
   should be a mission.

   God has a life-plan for every human life. In the eternal counsels of
   His will, when He arranged the destiny of every star, and every
   sand-grain and grass-blade, and each of those tiny insects which live
   but for an hour, the Creator had a thought for you and me. Our life was
   to be the slow unfolding of this thought, as the corn-stalk from the
   grain of corn, or the flower from the gradually opening bud. It was a
   thought of what we were to be, of what we might become, of what He
   would have us do with our days and years, our influence and our lives.
   But we all had the terrible power to evade this thought, and shape our
   lives from another thought, from another will, if we chose. The bud
   could only become a flower, and the star revolve in the orbit God had
   fixed. But it was man's prerogative to choose his path, his duty to
   choose it in God. But the Divine right to choose at all has always
   seemed more to him than his duty to choose in God, so, for the most
   part, he has taken his life from God, and cut his career for himself.

   It comes to pass, therefore, that there are two great classes of people
   in the world of Christians to-day.

   (1) Those who have God's will in their character;

   (2) Those who have God's will likewise in their career.

   The first are in the world to live. They have a life. The second are in
   the world to minister. They have a mission.

   Now those who belong to the first class, those who are simply living in
   the world and growing character, however finely they may be developing
   their character, cannot understand too plainly that they are not
   fulfilling God's will. They are really outside a great part of God's
   will altogether. They understand the universal part, they are moulded
   by it, and their lives as lives are in some sense noble and true. But
   they miss the private part, the secret whispering of God in the ear,
   the constant message from earth to heaven. "Lord, what wilt Thou have
   me to do?" They never have the secret joy of asking a question like
   this, the wonderful sense in asking it, of being in the counsels of
   God, the overpowering thought that God has taken notice of you, and
   your question--that He will let you do something, something peculiar,
   personal, private, which no one else has been given to do--this thought
   which gives life for God its true sublimity, and makes a perpetual
   sacrament of all its common things. Life to them is at the best a bare
   and selfish thing, for the truest springs of action are never moved at
   all; and the strangest thing in human history, the bounding of the
   career from step to step, from circumstance to circumstance, from
   tragedy to tragedy, is unexplained and unrelated, and hangs, a
   perpetual mystery, over life.

   The great reason possibly why so few have thought of taking God into
   their career is that so few have really taken God into their life. No
   one ever thinks of having God in his career, or need think, until his
   life is fully moulded into God's. And no one will succeed in knowing
   even what God in his career can mean till he know what it is to have
   God in the secret chambers of his heart. It requires a well-kept life
   to know the will of God, and none but the Christlike in character can
   know the Christ like in career.

   It has happened, therefore, that the very fact of God's guidance in the
   individual life has been denied. It is said to give life an importance
   quite foreign to the Divine intention in making man. One life, it is
   argued, is of no more importance than any other life, and to talk of
   special providences happening every hour of every day is to detract
   from the majesty and dignity of God; in fact, it reduces a religious
   life to a mere religious caprice, and the thought that God's will is
   being done to a hallucination of the mind.

   And there is another side to the objection, which though less
   pronounced and definite, is subtly dangerous still--that there does
   indeed seem to be some warrant in Scripture for getting to know the
   will of God, but that, in the first place, that probably means only on
   great occasions which come once or twice in a lifetime; and, in the
   second, that the whole subject is so obscure that, all things
   considered, a man had better walk by his own common sense, and leave
   such mysteries alone.

   But the Christian cannot allow the question to be put off with poor
   evasions like these. Every day, indeed, and many times a day, the
   question rises in a hundred practical forms. What is the will of God
   for me?" What is the will of God for me to-day, just now, for the next
   step, for this arrangement and for that, and this amusement, and this
   projected work for Christ? For all these he feels he must consult the
   will of God; and that God has a will for him in all such things, and
   that it must be possible somehow to know what that will is, is not only
   a matter of hope, but a point in his doctrine and creed.

   Now without stopping to vindicate the reasonableness of such
   expectations as these, it may simply be affirmed as a matter of fact
   that there are a number of instruments for finding out the will of God.
   One of them is a very great instrument, so far surpassing all the rest
   in accuracy that there may be said to be but one which has never been
   known to fail. The others are smaller and clumsier, much less delicate,
   indeed and often fail. They often fail to come within sight of the will
   of God at all, and are so far astray at other times as to mistake some
   other thing for it. Still they are instruments, and notwithstanding
   their defects, have a value by themselves, and when the greater
   instrument employs their humbler powers to second its attempts, they
   immediately become as keen and as unerring as itself.

   The most important of these minor instruments is Reason, and although
   it is a minor instrument, it is great enough in many a case to reveal
   the secret will of God. God is taking your life and character through a
   certain process, for example. He is running your career along a certain
   chain of events. And sometimes the light which He is showing you stops,
   and you have to pick your way for a few steps by the dimmer light of
   thought. But it is God's will for you then to use this thought, and to
   elevate it through regions of consecration, into faith, and to walk by
   this light till the clearer beam from His will comes back again.

   Another of these instruments is Experience. There are many paths in
   life which we all tread more than once. God's light was by us when we
   walked them first, and lit a beacon here and there along the way. But
   the next time He sent our feet along that path He knew the side-lights
   should be burning still, and let us walk alone.

   And then there is Circumstance. God closes things in around us till our
   alternatives are all reduced to one. That one, if we must act, is
   probably the will of God just then.

   And then there are the Advice of others--an important element at
   least--and the Welfare of others, and the Example to others, and the
   many other facts and principles which make up the moral man, which, if
   not strong enough always to discover what God's will is, are not too
   feeble oftentimes to determine what it is not.

   Even the best of these instruments, however, has but little power in
   its own hands. The ultimate appeal is always to the one great
   Instrument, which uses them in turn as it requires, and which
   supplements their discoveries, or even supplants them if it choose by
   its own superior light, and might, and right. It is like some great
   glass that can sweep the skies in the darkest night and trace the
   motions of the furthest stars, while all the rest can but see a faint
   uncertain light piercing for a moment here and there the clouds which
   lie between.

   And this great instrument for finding out God's will, this instrument
   which can penetrate where reason cannot go, where observation has not
   been before, and memory is helpless, and the guiding hand of
   circumstance has failed, has a name which is seldom associated with any
   end so great, a name which every child may understand, even as the
   stupendous instrument itself with all its mighty powers is sometimes
   moved by infant hands when others have tried in vain.

   The name of the instrument is Obedience. Obedience, as it is sometimes
   expressed, is the organ of spiritual knowledge. As the eye is the organ
   of physical sight; the mind, of intellectual sight; so the organ of
   spiritual vision is this strange power, Obedience.

   This is one of the great discoveries the Bible has made to the world.
   It is purely a Bible thought. Philosophy never conceived a truth so
   simple and yet so sublime. And, although it was known in Old Testament
   times, and expressed in Old Testament books, it was reserved for Jesus
   Christ to make the full discovery to the world, and add to His teaching
   another of the profoundest truths which have come from heaven to
   earth--that the mysteries of the Father's will are hid in this word
   "obey."

   The circumstances in which Christ made the great discovery to the world
   are known to every one.

   The Feast of Tabernacles was in progress in Jerusalem when Jesus
   entered the temple to teach. A circle of Jews were gathered round Him
   who seem to have been spell-bound with the extraordinary wisdom of His
   words. He made no pretension to be a scholar. He was no graduate of the
   Rabbinical schools. He had no access to the sacred literature of the
   people. Yet here was this stranger from Nazareth confounding the wisest
   heads in Jerusalem, and unfolding with calm and effortless skill such
   truths as even these temple walls had never heard before. Then "the
   Jews marvelled, saying, `How knoweth this man letters, never having
   learned?'" What organ of spiritual knowledge can He have, never having
   learned? Never having learned--they did not know that Christ had
   learned. They did not know the school at Nazareth whose Teacher was in
   heaven--whose schoolroom was a carpenter's shop--the lesson, the
   Father's will. They knew not that hidden truths could come from God, or
   wisdom from above.

   What came to them was gathered from human books, or caught from human
   lips. They knew no organ save the mind; no instrument of knowing the
   things of heaven but that by which they learned in the schools. But
   Jesus points to a spiritual world which lay still far beyond, and tells
   them of the spiritual eye which reads its profounder secrets and
   reveals the mysteries of God. "My doctrine is not Mine," He says, "but
   His that sent Me"; and "My judgment is just," as He taught before,
   "because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which
   hath sent Me." And then, lest men should think this great experience
   was never meant for them, He applies His principles to every human mind
   which seeks to know God's will. "If any man will do His will, he shall
   know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

   The word doctrine here is not to be taken in our sense of the word
   doctrine. It is not the doctrine of theology. "Any man" is to know if
   he will do His will. But it is God's teaching--God's mind. If any man
   will do His will, he shall know God's mind; he shall know God's
   teaching and God's will.

   In this sense, or indeed in the literal sense, from the first look at
   these words it appears almost as if a contradiction were involved. To
   know God's will, it is as much as to say, do God's will. But how are we
   to do God's will until we know it? To know it; that is the very dilemma
   we are in. And it seems no way out of it to say, Do it and you shall
   know it. We want to know it, in order to do it; and now we are told to
   do it, in order to know it! If any man do, he shall know.

   But that is not the meaning of the words. That is not even the words
   themselves. It is not, If any man do, he shall know; but if any man
   will do. And the whole sense of the passage turns upon that word will.
   It means, "If any man is willing to do, he shall know." He does not
   need to do His will in order to know, he only need be willing to do it.
   For "will" is not at all the sign of the future tense as it looks. It
   is not connected with the word do at all, but a separate verb
   altogether, meaning "is willing," or "wills." If any man wills, or if
   any man is willing, to do, he shall know.

   Now notice the difference this makes in the problem. Before, it looked
   as if the doing were to come first and then the knowing His will; but
   now another element is thrown in at the very beginning. The being
   willing comes first and then the knowing; and thereafter the doing may
   follow--the doing, that is to say, if the will has been sufficiently
   clear to proceed.

   The whole stress of the passage therefore turns on this word "will."
   And Christ's answer to the question, How to know the will of God? may
   be simply stated thus: "If any man is willing to do God's will he shall
   know," or, in plainer language still, "If any man is sincerely trying
   to do God's will, he shall know."

   The connection of all this with obedience is just that being willing is
   the highest form of obedience. It is the spirit and essence of
   obedience. There is an obedience in the world which is no obedience,
   because the act of obedience is there, but the spirit of submission is
   not.

   "A certain man," we read in the Bible, "had two sons; and he came to
   the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.' He answered,
   I will not': but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the
   second, and said likewise. And he answered, I go, sir': and went not.
   Whether of them twain did the will of his father?" Obedience here comes
   out in its true colours as a thing in the will. And if any man have an
   obeying will, a truly single and submissive will, he shall know of the
   teaching, or of the leading, whether it be of God.

   If we were to carry out this principle into a practical case, it might
   be found to work in some such way as this. To-morrow, let us say, there
   is some difficulty before us in our path. It lies across the very
   threshold of our life, and we cannot begin the working week without, at
   least, some notice that it is there. It may be some trifling item of
   business life, over which unaccountable suspicions have begun to gather
   of late, and to force themselves in spite of everything into thought
   and conscience, and even into prayer. Or, it may be, some change of
   circumstance is opening up, and alternatives are appearing, and
   demanding choice of one. Perhaps it is some practice in our life which
   the clearing of the spiritual atmosphere and increasing light from God
   are hinting to be wrong, while reason cannot coincide exactly and
   condemn. At all events there is something on the mind--something to do,
   to suffer, to renounce--and there are alternatives on the mind to
   distinguish, to choose from, to reject. Suppose, indeed, we made this
   case a personal as well as an illustrative thing, the question rises,
   How are we to separate God's light on the point from our own,
   disentangle our thoughts on the point from His, and be sure we are
   following His will, not the reflected image of ours?

   The first process towards this discovery naturally would be one of
   outlook. Naturally we would set to work by collecting all the possible
   materials for decision from every point of the compass, balancing the
   one consequence against the other, then summing up the points in favour
   of each by itself, until we chose the one which emerged at last with
   most of reason on its side. But this would only be the natural man's
   way out of the dilemma. The spiritual man would go about it in another
   way. This way, he would argue, has no religion in it at all, except
   perhaps the acknowledgment that reason is divine; and though it might
   be quite possible and even probable that the light should come to him
   through the medium of reason, yet he would reach his conclusion, and
   likely enough a different conclusion, quite from another side.

   And his conclusion would likewise be a better and sounder conclusion.
   For the insight of the non-religious method may be impaired, and the
   real organ of knowing God's will so out of order from disuse, that even
   reason would be biassed in its choice. A heart not quite subdued to God
   is an imperfect element, in which His will can never live; and the
   intellect which belongs to such a heart is an imperfect instrument and
   cannot find God's will unerringly--for God's will is found in regions
   which obedience only can explore.

   Accordingly, he would go to work from the opposite side from the first.
   He would begin not in out-look, but in in-look. He would not give his
   mind to observation. He would devote his soul to self-examination, to
   self-examination of the most solemn and searching kind. For this
   principle of Christ is no concession to an easy life, or a careless
   method of rounding a difficult point. It is a summons rather to learn
   the highest and most sacred thing in Heaven, by bracing the heart to
   the loftiest and severest sacrifice on earth--the bending of an
   unwilling human will till it blends in the will of God. It means that
   the heart must be watched with a jealous care, and most solemnly kept
   for God. It means that the hidden desires must be taken out one by one
   and regenerated by Christ--that the faintest inclination of the soul,
   when touched by the spirit of God, must be prepared to assume the
   strength of will and act at any cost. It means that nothing in life
   should be dreaded so much as that the soul should ever lose its
   sensitiveness to God; that God should ever speak and find the ear just
   dull enough to miss what He has said; that God should have some active
   will for so e ready to make it our daily prayer, that we may know God's
   will; and when the heart is prepared like this, and the wayward will is
   drilled in sacrifice and patience to surrender all to me human will to
   perform, and our heart be not the first in the world to be ready to
   obey.

   When we have attained to this by meditation, by self-examination, by
   consecration, and by the Holy Spirit's power, we may b God, God's will
   may come out in our career at every turning of our life, and be ours
   not only in sacramental aspiration but in act.

   To search for God's will with such an instrument is scarce to search at
   all. God's will lies transparently in view at every winding of the
   path; and if perplexity sometimes comes, in such way as has been
   supposed, the mind will gather the phenomena into the field of vision,
   as carefully, as fully, as laboriously, as if no light would come at
   all, and then stand still and wait till the wonderful discerning
   faculty of the soul, that eye which beams in the undivided heart and
   looks right out to God from every willing mind, fixes its gaze on one
   far distant spot, one spot perhaps which is dark to all the world
   besides, where all the lights are focussed in God's will.

   How this finite and this infinite are brought to touch, how this
   invisible will of God is brought to the temporal heart must ever remain
   unknown. The mysterious meeting-place in the prepared and willing heart
   between the human and divine--where, precisely, the will is finally
   moved into line with God's--of these things knoweth no man save only
   the Spirit of God.

   The wind bloweth where it listeth. "We hear the sound thereof, but
   cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." When every passion
   is annihilated, and no thought moves in the mind, and all the faculties
   are still waiting for God, the spiritual eye may trace perhaps some
   delicate motion in the soul, some thought which stirs like a leaf in
   the unseen air and tells that God is there. It is not the stillness,
   nor the unseen breath, nor the thought that only stirred, but these
   three mysteries in one which reveal God's will to me. God's light, it
   is true, does not supersede, but illuminates our thoughts. Only when
   God sends an angel to trouble the pool let us have faith for the
   angel's hand, and believe that some power of Heaven has stirred the
   waters in our soul.

   Let us but get our hearts in position for knowing the will of God--only
   let us be willing to know God's will in our hearts that we may do God's
   will in our lives, and we shall raise no questions as to how this will
   may come, and feel no fears in case the heavenly light should go.

   But let it be remembered, as already said, that it requires a well-kept
   life to will to do this will. It requires a well-kept life to do the
   will of God, and even a better kept life to will to do His will. To be
   willing is a rarer grace than to be doing the will of God. For he who
   is willing may sometimes have nothing to do, and must only be willing
   to wait: and it is easier far to be doing God's will than to be willing
   to have nothing to do --it is easier far to be working for Christ than
   it is to be willing to cease. No, there is nothing rarer in the world
   to-day than the truly willing soul, and there is nothing more worth
   coveting than the will to will God's will. There is no grander
   possession for any Christian life than the transparently simple
   mechanism of a sincerely obeying heart. And if we could keep the
   machinery clear, there would be lives in thousands doing God's will on
   earth even as it is done in Heaven. There would be God in many a man's
   career whose soul is allowed to drift--a useless thing to God and the
   world--with every changing wind of life, and many a noble Christian
   character rescued from wasting all its virtues on itself and saved for
   work for Christ.

   And when the time of trial comes, and all in earth and heaven is dark
   and even God's love seems dim: what is there ever left to cling to but
   this will of the willing heart, a God-given, God-ward bending will,
   which says amidst the most solemn and perplexing vicissitudes of life:


   "Father, I know that all my life

   Is portioned out for me;

   The changes that are sure to come

   I do not fear to see;

   I ask Thee for a present mind,

   Intent on pleasing Thee."
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   1 Kings

   [1]19:11

   Psalms

   [2]40:8   [3]103:3-4   [4]103:3-4   [5]119:54   [6]143:10

   Matthew

   [7]6:10   [8]12:50

   Mark

   [9]3:21   [10]3:35

   Luke

   [11]15:28   [12]22:61-62

   John

   [13]3:7   [14]4:34   [15]7:17   [16]14:12   [17]16:7

   Acts

   [18]9:1-18   [19]13:22   [20]22:14

   Romans

   [21]5:10

   1 Corinthians

   [22]1:30

   2 Corinthians

   [23]4:18

   Philippians

   [24]1:21

   Colossians

   [25]8:10

   1 Thessalonians

   [26]4:3

   Hebrews

   [27]10:7   [28]10:9-10

   James

   [29]4:14

   1 Peter

   [30]1:15-16

   1 John

   [31]2:17   [32]5:14
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

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