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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2498.txt b/2498.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae3a058 --- /dev/null +++ b/2498.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3938 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Addresses by Henry Drummond + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +At the time this was typed in 02/04/2000, there were images showing +Millet's "The Angelus" available on the internet at the following +sites: http://www.tam.itesm.mx/~jdorante/art/realismo/1205.jpg + + +http://www.udayton.edu/mary/gallery/artists/angelus.html +http://www.tigtail.org/TVM/X2/a.NeoClassic/millet_angelus.1859.jpg +http://www.i-a-s.de/IAS/Bilder/MILLET/Angelus.htm While this list +is not exhaustive (and should include the Louvre--where the painting +is hung--but I couldn't find it there) there should be at least +one of these active at the time of the reading. + +Addresses by Henry Drummond + + + + + +Introductory. + + + + +I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during my +visit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sat around the +fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. +Being tired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry +Drummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a +small Testament from his hip pocket, opened it at the 13th chapter +of I Corinthians, and began to speak on the subject of Love. + +It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, and +I determined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to Northfield +to deliver that address. Since then I have requested the principals +of schools to have it read before the students every year. The one +great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to +each other. Would that we could all move into that Love chapter, +and live there. + +This volume contains, in addition to the address on Love, some +other addresses which I trust will bring help and blessing to many. + +[signed]D. L. Moody. + + + + + +Contents + + + + +Love, the Greatest Thing in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 +Lessons from the Angelus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 +Pax Vobiscum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 +First! An Address to Boys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 +The Changed Life, the Greatest Need of the World . . . . . . . 82 +Dealing with Doubt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 + + + + + +Love: The Greatest Thing in the World + + + + +Every one has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of +the modern world: What is the 'summum bonum'--the supreme good? +You have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the +noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet? + +We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the +religious world is Faith. That great word has been the key-note +for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned +to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are +wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the mark. In the +13th chapter of I Corinthians, Paul takes us to + + +Christianity at its source; + + +and there we see, "the greatest of these is love." + +It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment +before. He says, "If I have all faith, so that I can remove +mountains, and have not love, I am nothing." So far from forgetting, +he deliberately contrasts them, "Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love," +and without a moment's hesitation the decision falls, "The greatest +of these is Love." + +And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his +own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing +student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all +through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote +"The greatest of these is love," when we meet it first, is stained +with blood. + +Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out +love as the "summum bonum." The masterpieces of Christianity are +agreed about it. Peter says, "Above all things have fervent love +among yourselves." ABOVE ALL THINGS. And John goes farther, "God +is love." + +You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, "Love +is the fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what he meant +by that? In those days men were working the passage to Heaven +by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other +commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came +and said, "I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, +you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking +about them. If you LOVE, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole +law." + +You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any +of the commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." +If a man love God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is +the fulfilling of that law. "Take not His name in vain." Would he +ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved him? "Remember +the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Would he not be too glad to +have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object +of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God. + +And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him +to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. +It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only +insult him if you suggested that he should not steal--how could +he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him +not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him +it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream +of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. He would rather +they possess it than himself. In this way "Love is the fulfilling +of the law." It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new +commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ's one. + + +Secret of the Christian life. + + +Now Paul has learned that; and in this noble eulogy he has given +us the most wonderful and original account extant of the "summum +bonum." We may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of +the short chapter we have Love CONTRASTED; in the heart of it, we +have Love ANALYZED; toward the end, we have Love DEFENDED as the +supreme gift. + + +I. The Contrast. + + +Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those +days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these things +in detail. Their inferiority is already obvious. + +He contrasts it with ELOQUENCE. And what a noble gift it is, +the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing +them to lofty purpose and holy deeds! Paul says, If I speak with +the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become +sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." We all know why. We have +all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, +the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies +no Love. + +He contrasts it with PROPHECY. He contrasts it with MYSTERIES. +He contrasts it with FAITH. He contrasts it with CHARITY. Why +is Love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the +means. And why is it greater than charity? Because the whole is +greater than the part. + +Love is greater than FAITH, because the end is greater than the +means. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the +soul with God. And what is the object of connecting man with God? +That he may become like God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the +means, is in order to Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously +is greater than faith. "If I have all faith, so as to remove +mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." + +It is greater than CHARITY, again, because the whole is greater +than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the +innumerable avenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, +a great deal of charity without Love. It is a very easy thing +to toss a copper to a beggar on the street; it is generally an +easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the +withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings +roused by the spectacle of misery, at the copper's cost. It is too +cheap--too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we +really loved him we would either do more for him, or less. Hence, +"If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love it +profiteth me nothing." + +Then Paul contrasts it with SACRIFICE and martyrdom: "If I give +my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." +Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the +impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character. +That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak +in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, +that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth +its unconscious eloquence. + +It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His +character is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the great +Lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the +only white man they ever saw before--David Livingstone; and as you +cross his footsteps in that dark continent, + + +Men's faces light up + + +As they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They +could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his +heart. They knew that it was love, although he spoke no word. + +Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down +your life, that simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You +can take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may +take every accomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; +but if you give your body to be burned, and have not Love, it will +profit you and the cause of Christ NOTHING. + + +II. The Analysis + + +After contrasting Love with these things, Paul, in three verses, +very short, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing +is. + +I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It +is like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of +light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come +out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component +colors--red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all +the colors of the rainbow--so Paul passes this thing, Love, through +the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out +on the other side broken up into its elements. + +In these few words we have what one might call + + +The spectrum of Love, + + +the analysis of love. Will you observe what its elements are? +Will you notice that they have common names; that they are virtues +which we hear about every day; that they are things which can +be practised by every man in every place in life; and how, by a +multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, +the "summum bonum," is made up? + +The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients: + + +Patience . . . . . "Love suffereth long." +Kindness . . . . . "And is kind." +Generosity . . . . "Love envieth not." +Humility . . . . . "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." +Courtesy . . . . . "Doth not behave itself unseemly." +Unselfishness . . "Seeketh not its own." +Good temper . . . "Is not provoked." +Guilelessness . . "Taketh not account of evil." +Sincerity . . . . "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth + with the truth." + + +Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; +good temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme +gift, the stature of the perfect man. + +You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to +life, in relation to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and +not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ +spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; +Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or +added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing +of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme +thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving of a further +finish to the multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum +of every common day. + +PATIENCE. This is the normal attitude of love; Love passive, love +waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its work when +the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and +quiet spirit. Love suffers long; beareth all things; believeth +all things; hopeth all things. For Love understands, and therefore +waits. + +KINDNESS. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's +life was spent in doing kind things--in MERELY doing kind things? +Run over it with that in view, and you will find that He spent a +great proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in + + +Doing good turns + + +to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the +world, and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but +what God HAS put in our power is the happiness of those about us, +and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them. + +"The greatest thing," says some one, "a man can do for his Heavenly +Father is to be kind to some of His other children." I wonder why +it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world +needs it! How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! How +infallibly it is remembered! How superabundantly it pays itself +back--for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly +honorable, as Love. "Love never faileth." Love is success, Love +is happiness, Love is life. "Love," I say with Browning, "is energy +of life." + + +"For life, with all it yields of joy or woe + And hope and fear, + Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,-- + How love might be, hath been indeed, and is." + + +Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in +God. God is Love. Therefore LOVE. Without distinction, without +calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the +poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need +it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, +and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference +between TRYING TO PLEASE and GIVING PLEASURE. Give pleasure. +Lose no chance of giving pleasure; for that is the ceaseless and +anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. "I shall pass through +this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or +any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. +Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way +again." + +GENEROSITY. "Love envieth not." This is love in competition with +others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men +doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy +them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the +same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. +How little Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian +feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which +cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of +every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. +Only one thing truly need the Christian envy--the large, rich, +generous soul which "envieth not." + +And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this +further thing, HUMILITY--to put a seal upon your lips and forget +what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen +forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the +shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. +Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is +not puffed up." Humility--love hiding. + +The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this "summum +bonum:" COURTESY. This is Love in society, Love in relation to +etiquette. "Love doe not behave itself unseemly." + +Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said +to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is +to love. + +Love CANNOT behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored +persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir +of Love in their hearty they will not behave themselves unseemly. +They simply cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there +was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet. It was +because he loved everything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the +things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple +passport he could mingle with any society, and enter courts and +palaces from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. + +You know the meaning of the word "gentleman." It means a gentle +man--a man who does things gently, with love. That is the whole art +and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things +do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the +inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. "Love +doth not behave itself unseemly." + +UNSELFISHNESS. "Love seeketh not her own." Observe: Seeketh not +even that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, +and rightly, to his rights. But there come times when a man may +exercise even + + +The higher right + + +of giving up his rights. + +Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes +much deeper. It would have us not seek them at all, ignore them, +eliminate the personal element altogether from our calculations. + +It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often eternal. The +difficult thing is to give up OURSELVES. The more difficult thing +still is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we have +sought them, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken +the cream off them for ourselves already. Little cross then to +give them up. But not to seek them, to look every man not on his +own things, but on the things of others--that is the difficulty. +"Seekest thou great things for thyself?" said the prophet; "SEEK +THEM NOT." Why? Because there is no greatness in THINGS. Things +cannot be great. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even +self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a +great purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste. + +It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all +than, having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It +is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to +Love, and nothing is hard. I believe that Christ's "yoke" is easy. +Christ's yoke is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is +an easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier way than +any other. The most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that +there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in +giving. I repeat, THERE IS NO HAPPINESS IN HAVING OR IN GETTING, +BUT ONLY IN GIVING. Half the world is on the wrong scent in the +pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, +and in being served by others. It consists in giving, and in +serving others. "He that would be great among you," said Christ, +"let him serve." He that would be happy, let him remember that +there is but one way--"it is more blessed, it is more happy, to +give than to receive." + +The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: GOOD TEMPER. "Love +is not provoked." + +Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We +are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. +We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a +matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account +in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in the heart +of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and +again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements +in human nature. + +The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. +It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You +know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely +perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" +disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral +character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. +The truth is, there are two great classes of sins--sins of the BODY +and sins of the DISPOSITION. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a +type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now, society +has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its brand +falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? +We have no balance to weigh one another's sins, and coarser and +finer are but human words; but faults in the higher nature may be +less venal than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him who is +Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred times more base. No +form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness +itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For +embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the +most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up +men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in short, + + +For sheer gratuitous misery-producing power + + +this influence stands alone. + +Look at the Elder Brother--moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful--let +him get all credit for his virtues--look at this man, this baby, +sulking outside his own father's door. "He was angry," we read, +"and would not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, upon the +servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect +upon the Prodigal--and how many prodigals are kept out of the +Kingdom of God by the unlovely character of those who profess to +be inside. Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself +as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? +Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, +touchiness, doggedness, sullenness--these are the ingredients of +this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these +are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins are of +the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live +with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the +question Himself when He said, "I say unto you that the publicans +and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you"? There +is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man +with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people +in it. Except, therefore, such a man be + + +Born again, + + +he cannot, simply CANNOT, enter the kingdom of heaven. + +You will see then why Temper is significant. It is not in what +it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it +with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a +revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent +fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional +bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness +underneath; a sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped +involuntarily when off one's guard; in a word, the lightning form +of a hundred hideous and un-Christian sins. A want of patience, a +want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want +of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash +of Temper. + +Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to the +source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die +away of themselves. souls are made sweet not by taking the acid +fluids out, but by putting something in--a great Love, a new Spirit, +the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating +ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate +what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, +and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. +Time does not change men. + + +Christ does. + + +Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." + +Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once more, that +this is a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently, +for myself, for yourselves. "Whoso shall offend one of these little +ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone +were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth +of the sea." That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the +Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. IT IS +BETTER NOT TO LIVE THAN NOT TO LOVE. + +GUILELESSNESS and SINCERITY may be dismissed almost without a word. +Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possession +of it is + + +The great secret of personal influence. + + +You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who +influence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of +suspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere they expand, and +find encouragement and educative fellowship. + +It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable +world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no +evil. this is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil," +imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction +on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What +a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! To +be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate +others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their +belief of our belief in them. The respect of another is the first +restoration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of what +he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become. + +"Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the +truth." I have called this SINCERITY from the words rendered in +the Authorized Version by "rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, +were this the real translation, nothing could be more just; for he +who loves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in +the Truth--rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not +in this church's doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that +ism; but "in THE TRUTH." He will accept only what is real; he +will strive to get at facts; he will search for TRUTH with a humble +and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. +But the more literal translation of the Revised Version calls for +just such a sacrifice for truth's sake here. For what Paul really +meant is, as we there read, "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but +rejoiceth with the truth," a quality which probably no one English +word--and certainly not SINCERITY--adequately defines. It includes, +perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make +capital out of others' faults; the charity which delights not in +exposing the weakness of others, but "covereth all things"; the +sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see things as they are, +and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or calumny +denounced. + +So much for the analysis of Love. Now the business of our lives +is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the +supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, +to learn Love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning +Love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The +world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a +holiday, but an education. And + + +The one eternal lesson + + +for us all is HOW BETTER WE CAN LOVE. + +What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man +a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What +makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What +makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing +capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different +ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body +and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no +biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires +no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of +moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing +of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous +expression of the whole round Christian character--the Christlike +nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this +great character are only to be built up by + + +Ceaseless practice. + + +What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Though +perfect, we read that he LEARNED obedience, and grew in wisdom +and in favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot +in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty +environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid +souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent +temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round +you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor +prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice which god +appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and +humble, and generous, and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do +not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless image +within you. It is growing more beautiful, though you see it not; +and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore +keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among +men and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and +obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talent develops itself +in solitude; character in the stream of life." Talent develops +itself in solitude--the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, +of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world's +life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love. + +How? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named a few of the +elements of love. But these are only elements. Love itself can +never be defined. Light is a something more than the sum of its +ingredients--a glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is +something more than all its elements--a palpitating, quivering, +sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colors, men can +make whiteness, they cannot make light. By synthesis of all the +virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot make love. How then are +we to have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our souls? +We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have +it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these +things alone will not bring love into our nature. Love is an EFFECT. +And only as we fulfill the right condition can we have the effect +produced. Shall I tell you what the CAUSE is? + +If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John +you find these words: "We love because He first loved us." "We +love," not "We love HIM." That is the way the old version has +it, and it is quite wrong. "WE LOVE--because He first loved us." +Look at that word "because." It is the CAUSE of which I have +spoken. "BECAUSE He first loved us," the effect follows that we +love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He +loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. +contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before +that mirror, reflect Christ's character, and you will be changed +into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no +other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the +lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to +it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look +at + + +The great sacrifice + + +as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of +Calvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become +like Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put +a piece of Iron in the presence of an electrified body, and that +piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into +a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and +as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets +alike. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and + + +Gave himself for us, + + +and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive +force; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you +will be drawn unto all men. that is the inevitable effect of Love. +Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in +him. + +Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or +by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by +supernatural law, for all law is Divine. + +Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered +the room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, +"My boy, God loves you," and went away. The boy started from his +bed, and called out to the people in the house, + +"God loves me! God loves me!" + +One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved +him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a +new heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the +unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is +patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other +way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we +love everybody, we love our enemies, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. + + +III. The Defence. + + +Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason +for singling out love as the supreme possession. + +It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: IT +LASTS. "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again +one of his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and +exposes them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought +were going to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, +passing away. + +"Whether there be PROPHECIES, they shall be done away." It was the +mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become +a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means +of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the +king. Men waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung +upon his lips when he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul +says, "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail." The Bible +is full of prophecies. One by one they have "failed"; that is, +having been fulfilled, their work is finished; they have nothing +more to do now in the world except to feed a devout man's faith. + +Then Paul talks about TONGUES. That was another thing that was +greatly coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." +As we all know, many, many centuries have passed since tongues +have been known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any +sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in +general--a sense which was not in Paul's mind at all, and which +though it cannot give us the specific lesson, will point the +general truth. Consider the words in which these chapters were +written--Greek. It has gone. Take the Latin--the other great tongue +of those days. It ceased long ago. Look at the Indian language. +It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish +Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in the +English tongue at the present time, except the bible, is one of +Dickens' works, his "Pickwick Papers." It is largely written in +the language of London street-life; and experts assure us that in +fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader. + +Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, +"Whether there by KNOWLEDGE, it shall be done away." The wisdom of +the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day +knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished +away. You put yesterday's newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has +vanished away. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopaedias +for a few cents: their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the +coach has been superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity +has superseded that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions +into oblivion. One of the greatest living authorities, Sir William +Thompson, said in Scotland, at a meeting at which I was present, +"The steam-engine is passing away." "Whether there be knowledge, +it shall vanish away." At every workshop you will see, in the +back yard, a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few +cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was +the pride of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the +great invention; not it is superseded, its day is done. And all +the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be old. + +In my time, in the university of Edinburgh, the greatest figure +in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of choloform. +Recently his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by +the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out +the books on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. +His reply to the librarian was this: + +"Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it +down in the cellar." + +Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men +came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the +whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day +to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. "Now +we know in part. We see through a glass darkly." Knowledge does +not last. + +Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul +did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, +fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things +the best men thought had something in them, and brushed them +peremptorily aside. Paul had no charge against these things in +themselves. All he said about them was that they would not last. +They were great things, but not supreme things. There were things +beyond them. What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what +we possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; +but they are temporary. And that is a favorite argument of the +New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but +simply that it "passeth away." There is a great deal in the world +that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that +is great and engrossing; but + + +It will not last. + + +All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the +flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not +the world therefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life +and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give +itself to something that is immortal. And the only immortal things +are these: "Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of +these is love." + +Some think the time may come when two of these three things will +also pass away--faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does +not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the +life that is to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. +God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting +gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, that +one coinage which will be current in the Universe when all the +other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless and +unhonored. You will give yourself to many things, give yourself +first to Love. Hold things in their proportion. HOLD THINGS +IN THEIR PROPORTION. Let at least the first great object of our +lives be to achieve the character defended in these words, the +character--and it is he character of Christ--which is built round +Love. + +I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually +John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told +when I was a boy that "God so loved the world that He gave His +only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have +everlasting life." What I was told, I remember, was, that God so +loved the world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing +called peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was +to have safety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever +trusteth in Him--that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust is only +the avenue to Love--hath + + +Everlasting life. + + +The Gospel offers a man a life. Never offer a man a thimbleful of +Gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely +rest, or merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a more +abundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and therefore +abundant in salvation for themselves, and large in enterprise for +the alleviation and redemption of the world. Then only can the +Gospel take hold of the whole of a man, body, soul and spirit, and +give to each part of his nature its exercise and reward. Many of +the current Gospels are addressed only to a part of man's nature. +They offer peace, not life; faith, not Love; justification, not +regeneration. And men slip back again from such religion because +it has never really held them. Their nature was not all in it. It +offered no deeper and gladder life-current than the life that was +lived before. Surely it stands to reason that only a fuller love +can compete with the love of the world. + +To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is +to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with +love. We want to live forever for the same reason that we want to +live to-morrow. Why do we want to live to-morrow? Is it because +there is some one who loves you, and whom you want to see to-morrow, +and be with, and love back? There is no other reason why we should +live on than that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has +no one to love him that he commits suicide. So long as he has +friends, those who love him and whom he loves, he will live, because +to live is to love. Be it but the love of a dog, it will keep him +in life; but let that go, he has no contact with life, no reason +to live. He dies by his own hand. + +Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ's +own definition. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, that they might +know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." +Love must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, +then, love is life. Love never faileth, and life never faileth, +so long as there is love. That is the philosophy of what Paul +is showing us; the reason why in the nature of things love should +be the supreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the +nature of things it is an Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are +living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor +chance of getting when we die unless we are living now. + + +No worse fate + + +can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, +unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate +condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and +he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is Love. + +Now I have all but finished. How many of you will join me in +reading this chapter once a week for the next three months? A man +did that once and it changed his whole life. Will you do it? It +is for the greatest thing in the world. You might begin by reading +it every day, especially the verses which describe the perfect +character. "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; +love vaunteth not itself." Get these ingredients into your life. +Then everything that you do is eternal. It is worth doing. It +is worth giving time to. No man can become a saint in his sleep; +and to fulfill the condition required demands a certain amount of +prayer and meditation and time, just as improvement in any direction, +bodily or mental, requires preparation and care. Address yourselves +to that one thing; at any cost have this transcendent character +exchanged for yours. + +You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that +stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments +when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans +the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, +there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled +to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too +trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your +eternal life. I have seen almost all he beautiful things God has +made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has planned for +man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above all the life +that has gone four or five short experiences, when the love of God +reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love +of mine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's +life abide. Everything else in all our lives is transitory. Every +other good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows +about, or can ever know about--they never fail. + +In the book of Matthew, where the Judgement Day is depicted for us +in the imagery of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep +from the goats, the test of a man then is not, "How have I believed?" +but "How have I loved?" The test of religion, the final test of +religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I say the final test +of religion at that great Day is not religiousness, but Love; not +what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, +but how I have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of +commission in that awful indictment are not even referred to. By +what we have not done, BY SINS OF OMISSION, we are judged. It could +not be otherwise. For the withholding of love is the negation of +the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for +us He lived in vain. It means that He suggested nothing in all our +thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our lives, that we were +not once near enough to Him to be seized with the spell of His +compassion for the world. It means that--- + + +"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." + + +Thank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's +need. Live to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hair's +breadth, what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ +is. Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, +visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where?--"Whoso shall receive +a little child in My name receiveth Me.' And who are Christ's? +"Every one that loveth is born of God." + + + + + +Lessons from the Angelus. + + + + +God often speaks to men's souls through music; He also speaks to +us through art. Millet's famous painting entitled "The Angelus" +is an illuminated text, upon which I am going to say a few words +to you to-night. + +There are three things in this picture--a potato field, a country +lad and a country girl standing in the middle of it, and on the +far horizon the spire of a village church. That is all there is to +it--no great scenery and no picturesque people. In Roman Catholic +countries at the evening hour the church bell rings out to remind +the people to pray. Some go into the church, while those that are +in the fields bow their heads for a few moments in silent prayer. + +That picture contains the three great elements which go to make up +a perfectly rounded Christian life. It is not enough to have the +"root of the matter" in us, but that we must be whole and entire, +lacking nothing. The Angelus may bring to us suggestions as to +what constitutes a complete life. + +I. + +The first element in a symmetrical life is WORK. + +Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course +the meaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as +our worship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths +of life remains unsanctified. + +The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was +spent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of +His life He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and +yokes and household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied +only about two and a half years of His earthly life; the great +bulk of His time was simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, +and ever since then work has had a new meaning. + +When Christ came into the world He was revealed to three deputations +who went to meet and worship Him. First came the shepherds, or +working class; second, the wise men, or student class; and third, +the two old people in the temple, Simeon and Anna; that is to say, +Christ is revealed to men at their work, He is revealed to men at +their books, and He is revealed to men at their worship. It was +the old people who found Christ at their worship, and as we grow +older we will spend more time exclusively in worship than we are +able to do now. In the mean time we must combine our worship with +our work, and we may expect to find Christ at our books and in our +common task. + +Why should God have provided that so many hours of every day should +be occupied with work? It is because + +Work makes men. + +A university is not merely a place for making scholars, it is +a place for making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing +corn, it is a place for growing character, and a man has no +character except that which is developed by his life and thought. +God's Spirit does the building through the acts which a man performs +from day to day. A student who cons out every word in his Latin +and Greek instead of consulting a translation finds that honesty +is translated into his character. If he works out his mathematical +problems thoroughly, he not only becomes a mathematician, but becomes +a thorough man. It is by constant and conscientious attention to +daily duties that thoroughness and conscientiousness and honorableness +are imbedded in our beings. Character is + +The music of the soul, + +and is developed by exercise. Active use of the power entrusted +to us is one of the chief means which God employs for producing the +Christian graces. Hence the religion of a student demands that he +be true to his work, and that he let his Christianity be shown to +his fellow students and to his professors by the integrity and the +conscientiousness of his academic life. A man who is not faithful +in that which is least will not be faithful in that which is great. +I have known men who struggled unsuccessfully for years to pass +their examinations who, when they became Christians, found a new +motive for work and thus were able to succeed where previously they +had failed. A man's Christianity comes out as much in his work as +in his worship. + +Our work is not only to be done thoroughly, but it is to be +done honestly. A man is not only to be honorable in his academic +relations, but he must be honest with himself and in his attitude +toward the truth. Students are not entitled to dodge difficulties, +they must go down to the foundation principles. Perhaps the truths +which are dear to us go down deeper even than we think, and we will +get more out of them if we dig down for the nuggets than we will +if we only pick up those that are on the surface. Other theories +may perhaps be found to have false bases; if so, we ought to know +it. It is well to take our surroundings in every direction to see +if there is deep water; if there are shoals we ought to find out +where they are. Therefore, when we come to difficulties, let us +not jump lightly over them, but let us be honest as seekers after +truth. + +It may not be necessary for people in general to sift the doctrines +of Christianity for themselves, but a student is a man whose business +it is to think, to exercise the intellect which God has given him +in finding out the truth. Faith is never opposed to reason, thought +it is sometimes supposed by Bible teachers that it is; but you +will find it is not. Faith is opposed to sight, but not to reason, +thought it is not limited to reason. In employing his intellect +in the search for truth a student is drawing nearer to the Christ +who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." We talk a great +deal about Christ as the way and Christ as the life, but there is +a side of Christ especially for the student: "I am the truth," +and every student ought to be a truth-lover and a truth-seeker for +Christ's sake. + +II. + +Another element in life, which of course is first in importance, +is GOD. + +The Angelus is perhaps the most religious picture painted this +century. You cannot look at it and see that young man standing +in the field with his hat off and the girl opposite him with her +hands clasped and her head bowed on her breast, without feeling a +sense of God. + +Do we carry about with us the thought of God wherever we go? If not, +we have missed the greatest part of life. Do we have a conviction +of god's abiding presence wherever we are? There is nothing more +needed in this generation than a larger and more Scriptural idea +of God. A great American writer has told us that when he was a +boy the conception of God which he got from books and sermons was +that of a wise and very strict lawyer. I remember well the awful +conception of God which I had when a boy. I was given an illustrated +edition of Watts' hymns, in which God was represented as a great +piercing eye in the midst of a great black thunder cloud. The +idea which that picture gave to my young imagination was that of +God as a great detective, playing the spy upon my actions, as the +hymn says: + +"Writing now the story of what little children do." + +That was a very mistaken and harmful idea which it has taken me +years to obliterate. We think of God as "up there," or as one who +made the world six thousand years ago and then retired. We must +learn that He is not confined either to time or space. God is +not to be thought of as merely back there in time, or up there in +space. If not, where is He? "The word is nigh thee, even in thy +mouth." The Kingdom of God is within you, and God Himself is among +men. When are we to exchange the terrible, far-away, absentee God +of our childhood for the everywhere present God of the Bible? Too +many of the old Christian writers seem to have conceived of God +as not much more than the greatest man--a kind of divine emperor. +He is infinitely more; He is a spirit, as Jesus said to the woman +at the well, and in Him we live and move and have our being. Let us +think of God as Immanuel--God with us--an ever-present, omnipresent, +eternal One. Long, long ago, God made matter, then He made the +flowers and trees and animals, then He made man. Did He stop? Is +God dead? If He lives and acts what is He doing? He is + +Making men better. + +He it is that "worketh in you." The buds of our nature are not +all out yet; the sap to make them comes from the God who made us, +from the indwelling Christ. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy +Ghost, and we must bear this in mind, because the sense of God is +kept up, not by logic, but by experience. + +Until she was seven years of age the life of Helen Keller, the +Boston girl who was deaf and dumb and blind, was an absolute blank; +nothing could go into that mind because the ears and eyes were +closed to the outer world. Then by that great process which has +been discovered, by which the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the +mute speak, that girl's soul became opened, and they began to put +in little bits of knowledge, and bit by bit they began to educate +her. They reserved her religious instruction for Phillips Brooks. +After some years, when she was twelve years old, they took her to +him and he began to talk to her through the young lady who could +communicate with her by the exceedingly delicate process of touch. +He began to tell her about God and what He had done, and how He loved +men, and what He is to us. The child listened very intelligently, +and finally said: + +"Mr. Brooks, I knew all that before, but I didn't know His name." + +How often we have felt something within us impelling us to do +something which we would not have conceived of by ourselves, or +enabling us to do something which we could not have done alone. +"It is God which worketh in you." This great simple fact + +Explains many of the mysteries of life, + +and takes away the fear which we would otherwise have in meeting +the difficulties which lie before us. + +Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met on Sunday night +to sing hymns in the cabin. As they sang the hymn, "Jesus, Lover +of my Soul," one of the Americans heard an exceedingly rich and +beautiful voice behind him. He looked around, and although he did +not know the face he thought that he recognized the voice. So when +the music ceased he turned and asked the man if he had not been +in the Civil war. The man replied that he had been a Confederate +soldier. "Were you at such a place on such a night?" asked the +first. "Yes," he said, "and a curious thing happened that night; +this hymn recalled it to my mind. I was on sentry duty on the +edge of the wood. It was a dark night and very cold, and I was a +little frightened because the enemy was supposed to be very near +at hand. I felt very homesick and miserable, and about midnight, +when everything was very still, I was beginning to feel very weary +and thought that I would comfort myself by praying and singing a +hymn. I remember singing this hymn, + + +'All my trust on Thee is stayed, + All my help from Thee I bring, + Cover my defenceless head + With the shadow of Thy wing.' + + +After I had sung those words a strange peace came down upon me, +and through the long night I remember having felt no more fear." + +"Now," said the other man, "listen to my story. I was a Union +soldier, and was in the wood that night with a party of scouts. I +saw you standing up, although I didn't see your face, and my men +had their rifles focused upon you waiting the word to fire, but +when you sang out, + + +'Cover my defenceless head + With the shadow of Thy wing.' + + +I said, 'Boys, put down your rifles, we will go home.' I couldn't +kill you after that." + +God was working in each of them, in His own way carrying out His +will. God keeps his people and guides them and without Him life +is but a living death. + +III. + +The third element in life about which I wish to speak is LOVE. + +In this picture we notice the delicate sense of companionship, +brought out by the young man and the young woman. It matters not +whether they are brother and sister, or lover and loved; there +you have the idea of friendship, the final ingredient in our life, +after the two I have named. If the man or the woman had been +standing in that field alone it would have been incomplete. + +Love is the divine element in life, because "God is love." "He +that loveth is born of God," therefore, as some one has said, let +us "keep our friendships in repair." Let us cultivate the spirit +of friendship, and let the love of Christ develop it into a great +love, not only for our friends, but for all humanity. Wherever +you go and whatever you do, your work will be a failure unless you +have this element in your life. + +These three things go far toward forming a well-rounded life. Some +of us may not have these ingredients in their right proportion, +but if you are lacking in one or the other of them, then pray for +it and work for it that your life may be rounded and complete as +God intended it should be. + + + + + +Pax Vobiscum. + + + + +I once heard a sermon by a distinguished preacher upon "Rest." +It was full of beautiful thoughts; but when I came to ask myself, +"How does he say I can get Rest?" there was no answer. The sermon +was sincerely meant to be practical, yet it contained no experience +that seemed to me to be tangible, nor any advice that I could +grasp--any advice, that is to say, which could help me to find the +thing itself as I went about the world. + +Yet this omission of what is, after all, the only important problem, +was not the fault of the preacher. The whole popular religion is +in the twilight here. And when pressed for really working specifics +for the experiences with which it deals, it falters, and seems to +lose itself in mist. + +The want of connection between the great words of religion and +every-day life has bewildered and discouraged all of us. Christianity +possesses the noblest words in the language; its literature overflows +with terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods which can +fill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, Light--these +words occur with such persistency in hymns and prayers that an +observer might think they formed the staple of Christian experience. +But on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most of us, +how surely would he be disenchanted. I do not think we ourselves +are aware of how much our religious life is + +Made up of phrases; + +how much of what we call Christian Experience is only a dialect +of the Churches, a mere religious phraseology with almost nothing +behind it in what we really feel and know. + +To some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences seem further away +than when we took the first steps in the Christian life. That life +has not opened out as we had hoped. We do not regret our religion, +but we are disappointed with it. There are times, perhaps, when +wandering notes form a diviner music stray into our spirits; but +these experiences come at few and fitful moments. We have no sense +of possession in them. When they visit us, it is as surprise. +When they leave us, it is without explanation. When we wish their +return, we do not know how to secure it. + +All of which means a religion without solid base, and a poor and +flickering life. It means a great bankruptcy in those experiences +which give Christianity its personal solace and make it attractive +to the world, and a great uncertainty as to any remedy. It is as +if we knew everything about health--except the way to get it. + +I am quite sure that the difficulty does not lie in the fact that +men are not in earnest. This is simply not the fact. All around +us Christians are wearing themselves out in trying to be better. +The amount of spiritual longing in the world--in the hearts +of unnumbered thousands of men and women in whom we should never +suspect it; among the wise and thoughtful, among the young and +gay, who seldom assuage and never betray their thirst--this is one +of the most wonderful and touching facts of life. It is not more +heart that is needed, but more light; not more force, but a wiser +direction to be given to very real energies already there. + +The usual advice when one asks for counsel on these questions is, +"Pray." But this advice is far from adequate. I shall qualify the +statement presently; but let me urge it here, with what you will +perhaps call daring emphasis, that to pray for these things is not +the way to get them. No one will get them without praying; but +that men do not get them by praying is a simple fact. We have all +prayed, and sincerely prayed, for such experiences as I have named; +prayed, believing that that was the way to get them. And yet have +we got them? The test is experience. I dare not limit prayer; +still less the grace of God. If you have got them in this way, +it is well. I am speaking to those, be they few or many, who have +not got them; to ordinary men in ordinary circumstances. But if we +have not got them, it by no means follows that prayer is useless. +The correct conclusion is only that it is useless, or inadequate +rather, for this particular purpose. To make prayer the sole +resort, the universal panacea for every spiritual ill, is as radical +a mistake as to prescribe only one medicine for every bodily trouble. +The physician who does the last is a quack; the spiritual advisor +who dies the first is + +Grossly ignorant of his profession. + +To do nothing but pray is a wrong done to prayer itself, and can +only end in disaster. It is as if one tried to live only with the +lungs, as if one assimilated only air and neglected solid food. +The lungs are a first essential; the air is a first essential; but +the body has many members, given for different purposes, secreting +different things, and each has a method of nutrition as special to +itself as its own activity. While prayer, then, is the characteristic +sublimity of the Christian life, it is by no means the only one. +And those who make it the sole alternative, and apply it to purposes +for which it was never meant, are really doing the greatest harm +to prayer itself. To couple the word "inadequate" with this might +word is not to dethrone prayer, but to exalt it. + +What dethrones prayer + +is unanswered prayer. When men pray for things which do not come +that way--pray with sincere belief that prayer, unaided and alone, +will compass what they ask--then, not getting what they ask, they +often give up prayer. + +This is the natural history of much atheism, not only an atheism of +atheists, but a more terrible atheism of Christians, an unconscious +atheism, whose roots have struck far into many souls whose +last breath would be spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a +mistaken Christianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief in +the omnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when the appropriate +conditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, but not blind prayer. +Blind prayer is superstition. Prayer, in its true sense, contains +the sane recognition that while man prays in faith, GOD ACTS BY LAW. +What that means in the immediate connection we shall see presently. + +What, then, is the remedy? It is impossible to doubt that there +is a remedy, and it is equally impossible to believe that it is +a secret. The idea that some few men, by happy chance or happier +temperament, have been given the secret--as if there were some sort +of knack or trick of it--is wholly incredible and wrong. Religion +must be for all, and the way into its loftiest heights must be by +a gateway through which the peoples of the world may pass. + +I shall have to lead up to this gateway by a very familiar path. +But as this path is strangely unfrequented where it passes into +the religious sphere, I must ask your forbearance for dwelling for +a moment upon the commonest of commonplaces. + +I. Effects Require Causes + +Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God +of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and +never at random. the world, even the religious world, is governed +by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by +law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting +this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from +the air like snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; +and if they did, they would no less have their origin in previous +activities and be controlled by natural laws. Rain and snow do +drop from the air, but not without a long previous history. They +are the mature effects of former causes. Equally so are Rest and +Peace and Joy. They, too, have each a previous history. Storms and +winds and calms are not accidents, but brought about by antecedent +circumstances. Rest and Peace are but calms in man's inward nature, +and arise through causes as definite and as inevitable. + +Realize it thoroughly; it is a methodical, not an accidental world. +If a housewife turns out a good cake, it is the result of a sound +receipt, carefully applied. She cannot mix the assigned ingredients +and fire them for the appropriate time without producing the +result. It is not she who has made the cake; it is nature. She +brings related things together; sets causes at work; these causes +bring about the result. she is not a creator, but an intermediary. +She does not expect random causes to produce specific effects--random +ingredients would only produce random cakes. So it is in the making +of Christian experiences. Certain lines are followed; certain +effects are the result. These effects cannot but be the result. +But the result can never take place without the previous cause. +To expect results without antecedents is to expect cakes without +ingredients. That impossibility is precisely + +The almost universal expectation. + +Now what I mainly wish to do is to help you firmly to grasp this +simple principle of Cause and Effect in the spiritual world. And +instead of applying the principle generally to each of the Christian +experiences in turn, I shall examine its application to one in +some little detail. The one I shall select is Rest. And I think +any one who follows the application in this single instance will +be able to apply it for himself to the others. + +Take such a sentence as this: African explorers are subject to +fevers which cause restlessness and delirium. + +Note the expression, "cause restlessness." RESTLESSNESS HAS A CAUSE. +Clearly, then, any one who wished to get rid of restlessness would +proceed at once to deal with the cause. If that were not removed, +a doctor might prescribe a hundred things, and all might be taken +in turn, without producing the least effect. Things are so arranged +in the original planning of the world that certain effects must +follow certain causes, and certain causes must be abolished before +certain effects can be removed. Certain parts of Africa are +inseparably linked with the physical experience called fever; this +fever is in turn infallibly linked with a mental experience called +restlessness and delirium. To abolish the mental experience the +radical method would be to abolish the physical experience, and +the way of abolishing the physical experience would be to abolish +Africa, or to cease to go there. + +Now this hold good for all other forms of Restlessness. Every other +form and kind of Restlessness in the world had a definite cause, +and the particular kind of Restlessness can only be removed by +removing the allotted cause. + +All this is also true of Rest. Restlessness has a cause: must +not REST have a cause? Necessarily. If it were a chance world we +would not expect this; but, being a methodical world, it cannot be +otherwise. Rest, physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every +kind of rest has a cause, as certainly as restlessness. Now causes +are discriminating. There is one kind of cause for every particular +effect and no other, and if one particular effect is desired, the +corresponding cause must be set in motion. It is no use proposing +finely devised schemes, or going through general pious exercises +in the hope that somehow Rest will come. The Christian life is +not casual, but causal. All nature is a standing protest against +the absurdity of expecting to secure spiritual effects, or any +effects, without the employment of appropriate causes. The Great +Teacher dealt what ought to have been the final blow to this infinite +irrelevancy by a single question, "Do men gather grapes of thorns +or figs of thistles?" + +Why, then, did the Great Teacher not educate His followers fully? +Why did He not tell us, for example, how such a thing as Rest might +be obtained? The answer is that HE DID. But plainly, explicitly, +in so many words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many words. +He assigned Rest to its cause, in words with which each of us has +been familiar from his earliest childhood. + +He begins, you remember--for you at once know the passage I refer +to--almost as if Rest could be had without any cause; "Come unto +me," He says, "and I will GIVE you Rest." + +Rest, apparently, was a favor to be bestowed; men had but to +come to Him; He would give it to every applicant. But the next +sentence takes that all back. The qualification, indeed, is added +instantaneously. For what the first sentence seemed to give was +next thing to an impossibility. For how, in a literal sense, can +Rest be GIVEN? One could no more give away Rest than he could +give away Laughter. We speak of "causing" laughter, which we can +do; but we can not give it away. When we speak of "giving" pain, +we know perfectly well we can not give pain away. And when we aim +at "giving" pleasure, all that we can do is to arrange a set of +circumstances in such a way as that these shall cause pleasure. +Of course there is a sense, and a very wonderful sense, in which a +Great Personality breathes upon all who come within its influence +an abiding peace and trust. Men can be to other men as the shadow +of a great rock in a weary land; much more Christ; much more Christ +as Perfect Man; much more still as Savior of the world. But it +is not this of which I speak. When Christ said He would give men +Rest, He meant simply that he would put them in the way of it. By +no act of conveyance would or could He make over His own Rest to +them. He could give them + +His receipt + +for it. That was all. But He would not make it for them. For +one thing it was not in His plan to make it for them; for another +thing, men were not so planned that it could be made for them; and +for yet another thing, it was a thousand times better that they +should make it for themselves. + +That this is the meaning becomes obvious from the wording of the +second sentence: "Learn of me, and ye shall FIND Rest." Rest, +(that is to say), is not a thing that can be GIVEN, but a thing to +be ACQUIRED. It comes not by an act, but by a process. It is not +to be found in a happy hour, as one finds a treasure; but slowly, as +one finds knowledge. It could indeed be no more found in a moment +than could knowledge. A soil has to be prepared for it. Like +a fine fruit, it will grow in one climate, and not in another; at +one altitude, and not at another. Like all growth it will have an +orderly development and mature by slow degrees. + +The nature of this slow process Christ clearly defines when He says +we are to achieve Rest by LEARNING. "Learn of me," He says, "and +ye shall find rest to your souls." + +Now consider the extraordinary + +Originality of this utterance. + +how novel the connection between these two words "Learn" and "Rest." +How few of us have ever associated them--ever thought that Rest was +a thing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would +to learn a language; ever practised it as we would practice the +violin? Does it not show how entirely new Christ's teaching still +is to the world, that so old and threadbare an aphorism should still +be so little known? The last thing most of us would have thought +of would have been to associate REST with WORK. + +What must one work at? What is that which if duly learned will +find the soul of man in Rest? Christ answers without the least +hesitation. He specifies two things--Meekness and Lowliness. +"Learn of me," He says, "for I am MEEK and LOWLY in heart." + +Now these two things are not chosen at random. To these +accomplishments, in a special way, Rest is attached. Learn these, +in short, and you have already found Rest. These as they stand +direct causes of Rest; will produce it at once; cannot but produce +it at once. And if you think for a single moment, you will see +how this is necessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, and +the connection between antecedent and consequent her and everywhere +lies deep in the nature of things. + +What is the connection, then? I answer by a further question. + +What are the chief causes of unrest? + +If you know yourself, you will answer--Pride, Selfishness, Ambition. +As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not +true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of +personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which +the intercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at +lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the +petty friction of our every-day life with one another, the jar +of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the +collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will or the taking +down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible. Wounded +vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these +are the old, vulgar, universal + +Sources of man's unrest. + +Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two chief objects +for attainment the exact opposites of these. To meekness and +lowliness these things simply do not exist. They cure unrest by +making it impossible. These remedies do not trifle with surface +symptoms; they strike at once at removing causes. The ceaseless +chagrin of a self-centered life can be removed at once by learning +meekness and lowliness of heart. He who learns them is forever proof +against it. He lives henceforth a charmed life. Christianity is +a fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood into an anaemic +or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a perfectly sound body; no +fever of unrest can disturb a soul which has breathed the air or +learned the ways of Christ. + +Men sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at +Rest. But flying away will not help us. "The Kingdom of God is +WITHIN YOU." We aspire to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the +bottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do +men. Hence, BE LOWLY. The man who has no opinion of himself at +all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, BE +MEEK. He who is without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes +to him. It is self-evident that these things are so. The lowly +man and the meek man are really above all other men, above all other +things. They dominate the world because they do not care for it. +The miser does not possess gold, gold possesses him. But the meek +possess it. "The meek," said Christ, "inherit the earth." They +do not buy it; they do not conquer it; but they inherit it. + +There are people who go about the world looking out for slights, +and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every +turn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for +such men as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. +They have had no real education, for they have never learned + +How to live. + +Few men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into mature +life the merely animal methods and motives which we had as little +children. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed +that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the +Fine Arts; that it has to be learned with life-long patience, and +that the years of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it +triumphantly. + +Yet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men + +The art of life. + +And its whole curriculum lies in one word--"Learn of me." Unlike +most education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had +from books, or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from +the life. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian +graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy +Him. We learn His art by living with Him, like the old apprentices +with their masters. + +Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary +and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new +principle--upon His own principle. "Watch my way of doing things," +He says; "Follow me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly, +and you will find Rest." + +I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or +to any man, can be a bed of roses. No educational process can be +this. And perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the +simple "learn" of Christ, they would not enter His school with so +irresponsible a heart. For there is not only much to learn, but + +Much to unlearn. + +Many men never go to this school at all till their disposition is +already half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To +learn arithmetic is difficult at fifty--much more to learn +Christianity. To learn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in +the case of one who has had no lessons in that in childhood, may +cost him half of what he values most on earth. Do we realize, +for instance, that the way of teaching humility is generally by +HUMILIATION? There is probably no other school for it. When a man +enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a very great +thing. There is much Rest there, but there is also much Work. + +I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to +ignore the cross and minimize the cost. Only it gives to the cross +a more definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus +directly and casually with the growth of the inner life. Our +platitudes on the "benefits of affliction" are usually about as +vague as our theories of Christian Experience. "Somehow" we believe +affliction does us good. But it is not a question of "Somehow." +The result is definite, calculable, necessary. It is under the +strictest law of cause and effect. The first effect of losing +one's fortune, for instance, is humiliation; and the effect of +humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one humble; and the +effect of being humble is to produce Rest. It is a roundabout +way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature generally works by +circular processes; and it is not certain that there is any other +way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest. IF a man could make +himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; but we do not +find that this happens. Hence we must all go through the mill. +Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate and the +quickest road to life. + +Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one +of the most troubled lives that was ever lived: tempest and tumult, +tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all he time till the +worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of +glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might +have gone to Him and found Rest. Even when the blood-hounds were +dogging Him in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples +and offered them, as a last legacy, "My peace." Nothing ever for +a moment broke the serenity of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune +could not reach Him; He had no fortune. Food, raiment, +money--fountain-heads of half the world's weariness--He simply did +not care for; they played no part in His life; He "took no thought" +for them. It was impossible to affect Him by lowering His reputation. +He had already made Himself of no reputation. He was dumb before +insult. When he was reviled, He reviled not again. In fact, there +was + +Nothing that the world could do to him + +that could ruffle the surface of His spirit. + +Such living, as mere living, is altogether unique. It is only +when we see what it was in Him that we can know what the word Rest +means. It lies not in emotions, or in the absence of emotions. +It is not a hallowed feeling that comes over us in church. It is +not something that the preacher has in his voice. It is not in +nature, or in poetry, or in music--though in all these there is +soothing. It is the mind at leisure from itself. It is the perfect +poise of the soul; the absolute adjustment of the inward man to +the stress of all outward things; the preparedness against every +emergency; the stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm +of an invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in God. +It is the mood of the man who says, with Browning, "God's in His +Heaven, all's well with the world." + +Two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception +of rest. The first chose for his scene a still lone lake among +the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering +waterfall, with a fragile birch-tree bending over the foam; at the +fork of a branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin +sat on its nest. The first was only STAGNATION; the last was REST. +For in Rest there are always two elements--tranquility and energy; +silence and turbulence; creation and destruction; fearlessness and +fearfulness. This it was in Christ. + +It is quite plain from all this that whatever else He claimed to +be or to do, He at least + +Knew how to live. + +All this is the perfection of living, of living in the mere sense +of passing through the world in the best way. Hence His anxiety to +communicate His idea of life to others. He came, He said, to give +men life, true life, a more abundant life than they were living; "the +life," as the fine phrase in the Revised Version has it, "that is +life indeed." This is what He Himself possessed, and it was this +which He offers to mankind. And hence His direct appeal for all +to come to Him who had not made much of life, who were weary and +heavy-laden. These He would teach His secret. They, also, should +know "the life that is life indeed." + +II. What yokes are for. + +There is still one doubt to clear up. After the statement, "Learn +of Me," Christ throws in the disconcerting qualification: + +"TAKE MY YOKE upon you, and learn of Me." + +Why, if all this be true, does He call it a YOKE? Why, while +professing to give Rest, does He with the next breath whisper +"BURDEN"? Is the Christian life, after all, what its enemies take +it for--an additional weight to the already great woe of life, +some extra punctiliousness about duty, some painful devotion to +observances, some heavy restriction and trammeling of all that is +joyous and free in the world? Is life not hard and sorrowful enough +without being fettered with yet another yoke? + +It is astounding how so glaring a misunderstanding of this plain +sentence should ever have passed into currency. Did you ever stop +to ask what a yoke is really? Is it to be a burden to the animal +which wears it? It is just the opposite. It is to make its burden +light. Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke, the +plough would be intolerable. Worked by means of a yoke, it is +light. A yoke is not an instrument of torture; it is + +An instrument of mercy. + +It is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; it is a +gentle device to make hard labor light. It is not meant to give +pain, but to save pain. And yet men speak of the yoke of Christ +as if it were slavery, and look upon those who wear it as objects +of compassion. For generations we have had homilies on "The Yoke +of Christ"--some delighting in portraying its narrow exactions; +some seeking in those exactions the marks of its divinity; others +apologizing for it, and toning it down; still others assuring us +that, although it be very bad, it is not to be compared with the +positive blessings of Christianity. How many, especially among +the young, has this one mistaken phrase driven forever away from +the kingdom of God? Instead of making Christ attractive, it makes +Him out a taskmaster, narrowing life by petty restrictions, calling +for self-denial where none is necessary, making misery a virtue +under the plea that it is the yoke of Christ, and happiness criminal +because it now and then evades it. According to this conception, +Christians are at best the victims of a depressing fate; their +life is a penance; and their hope for the next world purchased by +a slow martyrdom in this. + +The mistake has arisen from taking the word "yoke" here in the same +sense as in the expression "under the yoke," or "wear he yoke in +his youth." But in Christ's illustration it is not the "jugum" of +the Roman soldier, but the simple "harness" or "ox-collar" of the +Eastern peasant. It is the literal wooden yoke which He, with His +own hands in the carpenter shop, had probably often made. He knew +the difference between a smooth yoke and a rough one, a bad fit +and a good fit; the difference also it made to the patient animal +which had to wear it. The rough yoke galled, and the burden was +heavy; the smooth yoke caused no pain, and the load was lightly +drawn. The badly fitted harness was a misery; the well-fitted +collar was "easy." + +And what was the "burden"? It was not some special burden laid upon +the Christian, some unique infliction that they alone must bear. +It was what all men bear. It was simply life, human life itself, +the general burden of life which all must carry with them from the +cradle to the grave. Christ saw that men took life painfully. To +some it was a weariness, to others a failure, to many a tragedy, +to all a struggle and a pain. How to carry this burden of life +had been the whole world's problem. It is still the whole world's +problem. And here is Christ's solution: "Carry it as I do. Take +life as I take it. Look at it from My point of view. Interpret +it upon My principles. Take My yoke and learn of me, and you will +find it easy. For my yoke is easy, works easily, sits right upon +the shoulders, and THEREFORE My burden is light." + +There is no suggestion here that religion will absolve any man from +bearing burdens. That would be to absolve him from living, since +it is life itself that is the burden. What Christianity does +propose is to make it tolerable. + +Christ's yoke + +is simply His secret for the alleviation of human life, His prescription +for the best and happiest method of living. Men harness themselves +to the work and stress of the world in clumsy and unnatural ways. +The harness they put on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fitted collar +at best, they make its strain and friction past enduring, by +placing it where the neck is most sensitive; and by mere continuous +irritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature is +quick and sore. + +This is the origin, among other things, of a disease called +"touchiness"--a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one +of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, +when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward +disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, +WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other +place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps +as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart +while the old sensitiveness is becoming numb from want of use. + +It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to adjust the +burden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has a +perfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence +to human nature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with +all surrounding things, and restoring those who are jaded with the +fatigue and dust of the world to a new grace of living. In the +mere matter of altering the perspective of life and changing the +proportions of things, its function in lightening the care of man +is altogether its own. + +The weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth. +Suppose the attraction of the earth were removed? A ton on some +other planet, where the attraction of gravity is less, does not +weigh half a ton. Now Christianity removes the attraction of the +earth; and this is one way in which it diminishes man's burden. +It makes them citizens of another world. What was a ton yesterday +is not half a ton today. So without changing one's circumstances, +merely by offering a wider horizon and a different standard, it +alters the whole aspect of the world. + +Christianity as Christ taught is the truest philosophy of life ever +spoken. but let us be quite sure when we speak of Christianity +that we mean Christ's Christianity. Other versions are either +caricatures, or exaggerations, or misunderstandings, or shortsighted and +surface readings. For the most part their attainment is hopeless +and the results wretched. But I care not who the person is, +or through what vale of tears he has passed, or is about to pass, +there is a new life for him along this path. + +III. How fruits grow. + +Were Rest my subject, there are other things I should wish to say +about it, and other kinds of Rest of which I should like to speak. +But that is not my subject. My theme is that the Christian +experiences are not the work of magic, but come under the law of +Cause and Effect. I have chosen Rest only as a single illustration +of the working of that principle. If there were time I might next +run over all the Christian experiences in turn, and show the same +wide law applies to each; but I think it may serve the better +purpose if I leave this further exercise to yourselves. I know no +Bible study that you will find more full of fruit, of which will +take you nearer to the ways of God, or make the Christian life +itself more solid or more sure. I shall add only a single other +illustration of what I mean, before I close. + +Where does Joy come from? I knew a Sunday scholar whose conception +of Joy was that it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere +in Heaven, and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow +let down and fitted into their souls. I am not sure that views +as gross and material are not often held by people who ought to be +wiser. In reality, Joy is as much a matter of Cause and Effect as +pain. No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of +the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must +be grown. There is a very clever trick in India called the mango +trick. A seed is put in the ground and covered up, and after diverse +incantations a full-blown mango-bush appears within five minutes. +I never met any one who knew how the thing was done, but I never +met any one who believed it to be anything else than a conjuring +trick. The world is pretty unanimous now in its belief in the +orderliness of Nature. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they +do know that they cannot grow in an hour. Some lives have not even +a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they did grow in an +hour. Some have never planted one seed of Joy in all their lives; +and others who may have planted a germ or two have lived so little +in sunshine that they never could come to maturity. + +Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject +into one of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any +instance have appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest, +for I do not wish you to think I am speaking words of my own. But +it so happens that He has dealt with it in words of unusual fullness. + +I need not recall the whole illustration. It is the parable of +the Vine. Did you ever think why Christ spoke that parable? He +did not merely throw it into space as a find illustration of general +truths. It was not simply a statement of the mystical union, and +the doctrine of an indwelling Christ. It was that; but it was +more. After He had said it, He did what was not an unusual thing +when He was teaching His greatest lessons--He turned to the disciples +and said He would tell them why He had spoken it. It was to tell +them + +How to get joy. + +"These things I have spoken unto you," He said, "that My Joy might +remain in you, and that your Joy might be full." It was a purposed +and deliberate communication of His + +Secret of Happiness. + +Go back over these verses, then, and you will find the Causes of +this Effect, the spring, and the only spring, out of which true +Happiness comes. I am not going to analyze them in detail. I ask +you to enter into the words for yourselves. + +Remember, in the first place, that the Vine was the Eastern symbol +of Joy. It was its fruit that made glad the heart of man. Yet, +however innocent that gladness--for the expressed juice of the +grape was the common drink at every peasant's board--the gladness +was only a gross and passing thing. This was not true happiness, +and the vine of the Palestine vineyards was not the true vine. +"CHRIST was the TRUE Vine." Here, then, is the ultimate source +of Joy. Through whatever media it reaches us, all true Joy and +Gladness find their source in Christ. + +By this, of course, is not meant that the actual Joy experienced +is transferred from Christ's nature, or is something passed on from +Him to us. What is passed on is His method of getting it. There +is, indeed, a sense in which we can share another's joy or another's +sorrow. But that is another matter. Christ is the source of Joy +to men in the sense in which He is the source of Rest. His people +share His life, and therefore share its consequences, and one of +these is Joy. His method of living is one that in the nature of +things produces Joy. When He spoke of His Joy remaining with us +He meant in part that the causes which produced it should continue +to act. His followers, (that is to say), by REPEATING His life +would experience its accompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, +would remain with them. + +The medium through which this Joy comes is next explained: "He that +abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit." Fruit first, +Joy next; the one the cause or medium of the other. Fruit-bearing +is the necessary antecedent; Joy both the necessary consequent and +the necessary accompaniment. It lay partly in the bearing fruit, +partly in the fellowship which made that possible. Partly, that +is to say, Joy lay in mere constant living in Christ's presence, +with all that that implied of peace, of shelter, and of love; +partly in the influence of that Life upon mind and character and +will; and partly in the inspiration to live and work for others, +with all that that brought of self-riddance and joy in others' +gain. All these, in different ways and at different times, are + +Sources of pure happiness. + +Even the simplest of them--to do good to other people--is an instant +and infallible specific. There is no mystery about Happiness +whatever. Put in the right ingredients and it must come out. He +that abideth in Him will bring forth much fruit; and bringing forth +much fruit is Happiness. The infallible receipt for Happiness, +then, is to do good; and the infallible receipt for doing good +is to abide in Christ. The surest proof that all this is a plain +matter of Cause and Effect is that men may try every other conceivable +way of finding happiness, and they will fail. Only the right cause +in each case can produce the right effect. + +Then the Christian experiences are our own making? In the same +sense in which grapes are our own making and no more. All fruits +GROW--whether they grow in the soil or in the soul; whether they +are the fruits of the wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can +MAKE things grow. He can GET THEM TO GROW by arranging all the +circumstances and fulfilling all the conditions. But the growing +is done by God. Causes and effects are eternal arrangements, set +in the constitution of the world; fixed beyond man's ordering. +What man can do is to place himself in the midst of a chain of +sequences. Thus he can get things to grow. But the power is the +Spirit of God. + +What more need I add but this--test the method by experiment. Do +not imagine that you have got these things because you know how to +get them. As well try to feed upon a cookery book. But I think +I can promise that if you try in this simple and natural way, you +will not fail. Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits +in fulfilling the conditions of their growth. The fruits will come, +must come. We have hitherto paid immense attention to EFFECTS, to +the mere experiences themselves; we have described them, extolled +them, advised them, prayed for them--done everything but find out +what CAUSED them. Henceforth + +Let us deal with causes. + +"To be," says Lotze, "is to be in relations." About every other +method of living the Christian life there is an uncertainty. About +every other method of acquiring the Christian experiences there is +a "perhaps." But in so far as this method is the way of nature, +it cannot fail. Its guarantee is the laws of the universe--and +these are "the Hands of the Living God." + +The true vine. + +"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch +in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that +beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. +Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide +in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, +except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in +me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, +and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me +ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as +a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into +the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my word abide +in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. +Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so ye shall +be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved +you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall +abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, +and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that +my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." + + + + + +"FIRST!" An Address to boys. + + + + +I have three heads to give you. The first is "Geography," the +second is "Arithmetic," and the third is "Grammar." + +I. + +First. Geography tells us where to find places. + +Where is the Kingdom of God? It is said that when a Prussian +officer was killed in the Franco-Prussian war, a map of France was +very often found in his pocket. When we wish to occupy a country, +we ought to know its geography. Now, WHERE is the Kingdom of God? +A boy over there says, "It is in heaven." No; it is not in heaven. +Another boy says, "It is in the Bible." No; it is not in the +Bible. Another boy says, "It must be in the Church," No; it is not +in the Church. Heaven is only the capital of the Kingdom of God; +the Bible is the guide-book to it; the Church is the weekly parade +of those who belong to it. If you turn to the seventeenth chapter +of Luke you will find out where the Kingdom of God really is: "The +Kingdom of God is within you"--within YOU. The Kingdom of God is +INSIDE PEOPLE. + +I remember once taking a walk by the river near where the Falls of +Niagara are, and I noticed a remarkable figure walking along the +river bank. I had been some time in America. I had seen black +men, and red men, and yellow men, and white men; black men, the +Negroes; red men, the Indians; yellow men, the Chinese; white men, +the Americans. But this man looked quite different in his dress +from anything I had ever seen. When he came a little closer, I +saw he was wearing a kilt; when he came a little nearer still, I +saw that he was dressed exactly like a Highland soldier. When he +came quiet near, I said to him: + +"What are you doing here?" + +"Why should I not be here?" he replied; "don't you know this is +British soil? When you cross the river you come into Canada." + +This soldier was thousands of miles from England, and yet he was +in the Kingdom of England. Wherever there is an English heart +beating loyal to the Queen of Britain, there is England. Wherever +there is a boy whose heart is loyal to the Kingdom of God, the +Kingdom of God is within him. + +What is the Kingdom of God? Every Kingdom has its exports, it +products. Go down the river here and you will find ships coming +in with cotton; you know they come from America. You will find +ships with tea; you know they are from China. Ships with wool; +you know they come from Australia. Ships with sugar; you know they +come from Java. + +What comes from the Kingdom of God? Again, we must refer to our +Guide-book. Turn to Romans, and we shall find what the Kingdom +of God is. I will read it: "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, +peace, joy"--three things. "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, +peace, joy." Righteousness, of course is just doing what is right. +Any boy who does what is RIGHT has the Kingdom of God within him. +Any boy who, instead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with +the other boys, has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy whose +heart is filled with joy because he does what is right, has the +Kingdom of God within him. The Kingdom of God is not going to +religious meetings, and hearing strange religious experiences; the +Kingdom of God is doing what is right--living at peace with all +men, being filled with joy in the Holy Ghost. + +Boys, if you are going to be Christians, be Christians as boys, and +not as your grandmothers. A grandmother has to be a Christian as +a grandmother, and that is the right and the beautiful thing for her; +but if you cannot read your Bible by the hours as your grandmother +can, or delight in meetings as she can, don't think you are +necessarily a bad boy. When you are your grandmother's age you will +have your grandmother's kind of religion. Meantime, be a Christian +as a boy. Live a boy's life. Do the straight thing; seek the +kingdom of righteousness and honor and truth. Keep the peace with +the boys about you, and be filled with the joy of being a loyal, +and simple, and natural, and boy-like servant of Christ. + +You can very easily tell a house, or a workshop, or an office where +the Kingdom of God is NOT. The first thing you see in that pace +is that the "straight thing" is not always done. Customers do not +get fair play. You are in danger of learning to cheat and to lie. +Better a thousand times to starve than to stay in a place where +you cannot do what is right. + +Or, when you go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy, +and ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, +some of the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and +the whole FEEL of the place miserable and unhappy. The Kingdom of +God is not thee, for IT is peace. It is the Kingdom of the Devil +that is anger, and wrath and malice. + +If you want to get the Kingdom of God into your workshop, or +into your home, let the quarreling be stopped. Live in peace and +harmony and brotherliness with everyone. For the Kingdom of God +is a kingdom of brothers. It is a great Society, founded by Jesus +Christ, of all the people who try to live like Him, and to make the +world better and sweeter and happier. Wherever boy is trying to +do that, in the house or on the street, in the workshop or on the +baseball field, there is the Kingdom of God. And every boy, however +small or obscure or poor, who is seeking that, is a member of it. +You see now, I hope, what the Kingdom is. + +II. + +I pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? Arithmetic. +Are there any arithmetic words in this text? "Added." What other +arithmetic words? "First." + +Now, don't you think you could not have anything better to seek +"first" than the things I have named to do what is right, to live +at peace, and be always making those about you happy? You see at +once why Christ tells us to seek these things first--because they +are + +The best worth seeking. + +Do you know anything better than these three things, anything +happier, purer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you +do not, seek first the Kingdom of God. I do not tell you to be +religious. You know that. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom +of God. I tell you to seek the Kingdom of God FIRST. FIRST. +Not many people do that. They put a little religion into their +life--once a week, perhaps. They might just as well let it alone. +It is not worth seeking the Kingdom of God unless we seek it FIRST. + +Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bow, +and send that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side? +Certainly not. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its +place, and it will take you straight through life and straight to +your Father in heaven when life is over. But if you do not put +it in its place, you may just as well have nothing to do with it. +Religion out of its place in a human life is the most miserable +thing in the world. There is nothing that requires so much to be +kept in its place as religion, and its place is what? second? third? +"First." Boys, FIRST the Kingdom of God; make it so that it will +be natural to you to think about that the very first thing. + +There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made +telegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself.) One day this +boy was up on the top of a four-story house with a number of men +fixing up a telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was +getting late, and the men said they were going away home, and the +boy was to nip off the ends of the wire himself. Before going +down they told him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when he +was finished, with his master's tools. + +"Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do," said the +foreman. + +The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the +wire. It was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering. +He lost his hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then +over and over to the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across +the "green" on which he was just about to fall, caught him on the +chest and broke his fall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay +unconscious among some clothes upon the green. + +An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all +soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and +went for the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back to +consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got back on his feet. What do +you think he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He +climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered +up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when +he got to the ground again fainted dead away. + +Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously +wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some +time. I am glad to say he got better. + +What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty. +He was not thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master. +First, the Kingdom of God. + +But there is another arithmetic word. What is it? "Added." + +You know the difference between ADDITION and SUBTRACTION. Now, +that is + +A very important difference + +in religion, because--and it is a very strange thing--very few +people know the difference when they begin to talk about religion. +They often tell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of God, everything +else is going to be SUBTRACTED from them. They tell them that they +are going to become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything +that makes a boy's life worth living--that they will have to stop +baseball and story-books, and become little old men, and spend all +their time in going to meetings and in singing hymns. + +Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that. +Christ said we are to "Seek first the Kingdom of God," and + +Everything else worth having + +is to be ADDED unto us. If there is anything I would like you to +remember, it is these two arithmetic words--"first" and "added." + +I do not mean by "added" that if you become religious you are all +going to become RICH. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the +shop tomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well, +nobody has missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to +burn a hole there. by breakfast time he wishes that money were +in his master's pocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He +says (to HIMSELF, and not to his master), "I was at the Boys' Brigade +yesterday and I was told to seek FIRST that which was right." Then +he says to his master: + +"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor." + +The master puts it in the till. What has the boy got in his pocket? +Nothing; BUT HE HAS GOT THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN HIS HEART. He has +laid up treasure in heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than +the quarter. + +Now, that boy does not find a dollar on his way home. I have known +that to happen, but that is not what is meant by "adding." It does +not mean that God is going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays +in better coin. + +Yet I remember once hearing of a boy who was paid in both ways. +He was very, very poor. He lived in a foreign country, and his +mother said to him one day that he must go into the great city and +start in business, and she took his coat and cut it open and sewed +between the lining and the coat forty golden dinars, which she had +saved up for many years to start him in life. She told him to take +care of robbers as he went across the desert; and as he was going +out of the door she said: + +"My boy, I have only two words for you--'Fear God, and never tell +a lie.'" + +The boy started off, and towards evening he saw glittering in the +distance the minarets of the great city. But between the city and +himself he saw a cloud of dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw +that it was a band of robbers. + +One of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, and said: + +"Boy, what have you got?" + +The boy looked him in the face and said: + +"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." + +The robber laughed and wheeled around his horse and went away back. +He would not believe the boy. + +Presently another robber came and he said: + +"Boy, what have you got?" + +"Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." + +The robber said: "The boy is a fool," and wheeled his horse and +rode away back. + +By and by the robber captain came and he said: + +"Boy, what have you got?" + +"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat." + +The robber dismounted, and put his hand over the boy's breast, +felt something round, counted one, two, three, four, five, till he +counted out the forty golden coins. He looked the boy in the face +and said: + +"Why did you tell me that?" + +The boy said: "Because of God and my mother." + +The robber leaned on his spear and thought and said: + +"Wait a moment." + +He mounted his horse, rode back to the rest of the robbers, and +came back in about five minutes with his dress changed. This time +he looked not like a robber, but like a merchant. He took the boy +up on his horse and said: + +"My boy, I have long wanted to do something for my God and for my +mother, and I have this moment renounced my robber's life. I am +also a merchant. I have a large business house in the city. I +want you to come and live with me, to teach me about your God; and +you will be rich, and your mother some day will come and live with +us." + +And it all happened. By seeing first the Kingdom of God, all these +things were added unto him. + +Boys, banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is +SUBTRACTION. It does not tell us to give things up, but rather +gives us something so much better that they give themselves up. +When you see a boy on the street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, +that you could not make that boy happier than by giving him a top, +a whip, and half an hour to whip it. But next birthday, when he +looks back he says, + +"What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a top. What I +want now is a baseball bat." + +Then when he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for +a baseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper +every day. He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts +with baseball bats and whipping-tops. + +Now, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows out of the evil +things one by one--that is to say, if they are really evil--which +he used to set his heart upon; (of course I do not mean baseball +bats, for they are not evils); and so instead of telling people to +give up things, we are safer to tell them to "seek first the Kingdom +of God," and then they will get new things and better things, and + +The old things will drop off + +of themselves. This is what is meant by the "new heart." It means +that God puts into us new thoughts and new wishes, and we become +quite different. + +III. + +Lastly, and very shortly. What was the third head? "Grammar." +Right. + +Now, I require a clever boy to answer the next question. What +is the verb? "Seek." Very good: "seek." What mood is it in? +"Imperative mood." What does that mean? "A command." What is +the soldier's first lesson? "Obedience." Have you obeyed this +command? Remember the imperative mood of these words, "SEEK first +the Kingdom of God." + +This is the command of your King. It MUST be done. I have been +trying to show you what a splendid thing it is; what a reasonable +thing it is; what a happy thing it is; but beyond all these reasons, +it is a thing that MUST be done, because we are COMMANDED to do +it by our Captain. Now, there is His command to seek FIRST the +Kingdom of God. Have you done it? + +"Well," I know some boys will say, "we are going to have a good +time, enjoy life, and then we are going to seek--LAST--the Kingdom +of God." + +Now, that is mean; it is nothing else than mean for a boy to take +all the good gifts that God has given him, and then give him nothing +back in return but + +His wasted life. + +God wants boys' LIVES, not only their souls. It is for active, +service that soldiers are drilled, and trained, and fed, and armed. +That is why you and I are in the world at all--not to prepare to +go out of it some day, but to serve God actively in it NOW. It +is monstrous, and shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the +Kingdom LAST. It is shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, +playing into the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn his flank. +Every hour a Kingdom is coming in your heart, in your home, in the +world near you, be it a Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. +You are placed where you are, in a particular business, in a +particular street, to help on there the Kingdom of God. You cannot +do that when you are old and ready to die. By that time your +companions will have fought their fight, and lost or won. If they +lose, will you not be sorry that you did not help them? Will you +not regret that only at the last you helped the Kingdom of God? +Perhaps you will not be able to do it then. And then your life +has been lost indeed. + +Very few people have the opportunity to seek the Kingdom of God +at the end. Christ, knowing all that, knowing that religion was +a thing for our life, not merely for our death-bed, has laid this +command upon us now: "Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God." + +I am going to leave you with this text itself. Every boy in the +world should obey it. + +Boys, before you go to work to-morrow, before you go to sleep +to-night, resolve that, God helping you, you are going to seek +FIRST the Kingdom of God. Perhaps some boys here are deserters; +they began once before to serve Christ, and they deserted. Come +back again, come back again today! Others have never enlisted at +all. Will you not do it now? You are old enough to decide. The +grandest moment of a boy's life is that moment when he decides to +"SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD." + + + + + +The Changed Life: The Greatest Need of the World. + + + + +God is all for quality; man is for quantity. The immediate need +of the world at this moment is not more of us, but, if I may use +the expression, a better brand of us. To secure ten men of an +improved type would be better than if we had ten thousand more of +the average Christians distributed all over the world. There is +such a thing in the evangelistic sense as winning the whole world +and losing our own soul. And the first consideration of our +own life--our own spiritual relations to God--our own likeness to +Christ. And I am anxious, briefly, to look at the right and the +wrong way of becoming like Christ--of becoming better men: the +right and the wrong way of sanctification. + +Let me begin by naming, and in part discarding some processes in +vogue already for producing better lives. These processes are far +from wrong; in their place they may even be essential. One ventures +to disparage them only because they do not turn out the most perfect +possible work. + +1. The first imperfect method is to rely on + +Resolution. + +In will power, in mere spasms of earnestness, there is no salvation. +Struggle, effort, even agony, have their place in Christianity, as +we shall see; but this is not where they come in. + +In mid-Atlantic the Etruria, in which I was sailing, suddenly +stopped. Something had gone wrong with the engines. There were +five hundred able-bodied men on board the ship. Do you think that +if we had gathered together and pushed against the mast we could +have pushed it on? + +When one attempts to sanctify himself by effort, he is trying to +make his boat go by pushing against the mast. He is like a drowning +man trying to lift himself out of the water by pulling at the hair +of his own head. + +Christ held up this method almost to ridicule when He said, "Which +of you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?" Put down +that method forever as being futile. + +The one redeeming feature of the self-sufficient method is this--that +those who try it find out almost at once that it will not gain the +goal. + +2. Another experimenter says: "But that is not my method. I have +seen the folly of a mere wild struggle in the dark. I work on a +principle. My plan is not to waste power on random effort, but to +concentrate on a single sin. By taking + +One at a time + +and crucifying it steadily, I hope in the end to extirpate all." + +To this, unfortunately, there are four objections: For one thing, +life is too short; the name of sin is legion. For another thing, +to deal with individual sins is to leave the rest of the nature +for the time untouched. In the third place, a single combat with +a special sin does not affect the root and spring of the disease. +If you dam up a stream at one place, it will simply overflow higher +up. If only one of the channels of sin be obstructed, experience +points to an almost certain overflow through some other part of the +nature. Partial conversion is almost always accompanied by such +moral leakage, for the pent-up energies accumulate to the bursting +point, and the last state of that soul may be worse than the +first. In the last place, religion does not consist in negatives, +in stopping this sin and stopping that. The perfect character can +never be produced with a pruning knife. + +3. But a third protests: "So be it. I make no attempt to stop +sins one by one. My method is just the opposite. + +I copy the virtues + +one by one." + +The difficulty about the copying method is that it is apt to be +mechanical. One can always tell an engraving from a picture, an +artificial flower from a real flower. To copy virtues one by one +has somewhat the same effect as eradicating the vices one by one; +the temporary result is an overbalanced and incongruous character. +Some one defines a PRIG as "a creature that is over-fed for its +size." One sometimes finds Christians of this species--over-fed +on one side of their nature, but dismally thin and starved looking +on the other. The result, for instance, of copying Humility, and +adding it on to an otherwise worldly life, is simply grotesque. A +rabid temperance advocate, for the same reason, is often the poorest +of creatures, flourishing on a single virtue, and quite oblivious +that his Temperance is making a worse man of him and not a better. +These are examples of fine virtues spoiled by association with +mean companions. Character is a unity, and all the virtues must +advance together to make the perfect man. + +This method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true direction. +It is only in the details of execution that it fails. + +4. A fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it is a variation +on those already named. It is + +The very young man's method; + +and the pure earnestness of it makes it almost desecration to touch +it. It is to keep a private note-book with columns for the days +of the week, and a list of virtues, with spaces against each for +marks. this, with many stern rules for preface, is stored away in +a secret place, and from time to time, at nightfall, the soul is +arraigned before it as before a private judgment bar. + +This living by code was Franklin's method; and I suppose thousands +more could tell how they had hung up in their bedrooms, or hid in +locked-fast drawers, the rules which one solemn day they drew up +to shape their lives. + +This method is not erroneous, only somehow its success is poor. +You bear me witness that it fails. And it fails generally for very +matter-of-fact reasons--most likely because one day we forget the +rules. + +All these methods that have been named--the self-sufficient method, +the self-crucifixion method, the mimetic method, and the diary +method--are perfectly human, perfectly natural, perfectly ignorant, and +as they stand perfectly inadequate. It is not argued, I repeat, +that they must be abandoned. Their harm is rather that they distract +attention from the true working method, and secure a fair result +at the expense of the perfect one. What that perfect method is we +shall now go on to ask. + +I. The formula of sanctification. + +A formula, a receipt for Sanctification--can one seriously speak +of this mighty change as if the process were as definite as for +the production of so many volts of electricity? + +It is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical experiment +succeed infallibly, and the one vital experiment of humanity remain +a chance? Is corn to grow by method, and character by caprice? +If we cannot calculate to a certainty that the forces of religion +will do their work, then is religion vain. And if we cannot express +the law of these forces in simple words, then is Christianity not +the world's religion, but the world's conundrum. + +Where, then, shall one look for such a formula? Where one would +look for any formula--among the text-books. And if we turn to the +text-books of Christianity we shall find a formula for this problem +as clear and precise as any in the mechanical sciences. If this +simple rule, moreover, be but followed fearlessly, it will yield +the result of a perfect character as surely as any result that is +guaranteed by the laws of nature. + +The finest expression of this rule in Scripture, or indeed in any +literature, is probably one drawn up and condensed into a single +verse by Paul. You will find it in a letter--the second to the +Corinthians--written by him to some Christian people who, in a city +which was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seeking +the higher life. To see the point of the words we must take them +from the immensely improved rendering of the Revised translation, +for the older Version in this case greatly obscures the sense. +They are these: + +"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of +the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, +even as from the Lord, the Spirit." + +Now observe at the outset the entire contraction of all our previous +efforts, in the simple passive: "WE ARE TRANSFORMED." + +We ARE CHANGED, as the Old Version has it--we do not change +ourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament +you will find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations +are described the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be +pointed out that there is a RATIONALE in this; but meantime do not +toss these words aside as if this passivity denied all human effort +or ignored intelligible law. What is implied for the soul here +is no more than is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology +the verbs describing the processes of growth are in the passive. +Growth is not voluntary; it takes place, it happens, it is wrought +upon matter. So here. "Ye must be born again"--we cannot be born +ourselves. "Be not conformed to this world, but BE YE TRANSFORMED"--we +are subjects to transforming influence, we do not transform ourselves. +Not more certain is it that it is something outside the thermometer +that produces a change in the thermometer, that it is + +Something outside the soul of man + +that produces a moral change upon him. That he must be susceptible +to that change, that he must be a party to it, goes without saying; +but that neither his aptitude nor his will can produce it, is +equally certain. + +Obvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an almost startling +revelation. The change we have been striving after is not to +be produced by any more striving. It is to be wrought upon us by +the moulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and +the bud bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation of +influences from the outside air, so man rises to the higher stature +under invisible pressures from without. the radical defect of all +our former methods of sanctification was the attempt to generate +from within that which can only be wrought upon us from without. +The radical defect of all our former methods of sanctification was +the attempt to generate from within that which can only be wrought +upon us from without. According to the first Law of Motion, +every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion +in a straight line, except in so far as it may be compelled BY +IMPRESSED FORCES to change that state. This is also a first law of +Christianity. Every man's character remains as it is, or continues +in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled BY +IMPRESSED FORCES to change that state. Our failure has been the +failure to put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There +is a clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get the clay to +mould the clay. + +Whence, then, these pressures, and where this Potter? The answer +of the formula is--"By reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord +we are changed." But this is not very clear. What is the "glory" +of the Lord, and how can mortal man reflect it, and how can that +act as an "impressed force" in moulding him to a nobler form? The +word "glory"--the word which has to bear the weight of holding +these "impressed forces"--is a stranger in current speech, and our +first duty is to seek out its equivalent in working English. It +suggests at first a radiance of some kind, something dazzling or +glittering, some halo such as the old masters loved to paint round +the head of their Ecce Homos. But that is paint, mere matter, the +visible symbol of some unseen thing. What is that unseen thing? It +is that of all unseen things the most radiant, the most beautiful, +the most Divine, and that is CHARACTER. On earth, in Heaven, +there is nothing so great, so glorious as this. The word has many +meanings; in ethics it can have but one. Glory is character, and +nothing less, and it can be nothing more. The earth is "full of +the glory of the Lord," because it is full of His character. The +"Beauty of the Lord" is character. "The Glory of the Only +Begotten" is character, the character which is "fullness of grace +and truth." And when God told His people HIS NAME, He simply gave +them His character, His character which was Himself: "And the Lord +proclaimed the name for the Lord...the Lord, the Lord God, merciful +and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." +Glory then is not something intangible, or ghostly, or transcendental. +If it were this, how could Paul ask men to reflect it? Stripped +of its physical enswathement it is Beauty, moral and spiritual +Beauty, Beauty infinitely real, infinitely exalted, yet infinitely +near and infinitely communicable. + +With this explanation read over the sentence once more in +paraphrase: We all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ +are transformed into the same Image from character to character--from +a poor character to a better one, from a better one to a little +better still, from that to one still more complete, until by slow +degrees the Perfect Image is attained. Here + +The solution of the problem of sanctification + +is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character of Christ. +You will be changed, in spite of yourself and unknown to yourself, +into the same image from character to character. + +(I.) All men are reflectors--that is + +The first law + +on which this formula is based. One of the aptest descriptions of +a human being is that he is a mirror. As we sat at table to-night +the world in which each of us lived and moved through this day was +focused in the room. What we saw when we looked at one another was +not one another, but one another's world. We were an arrangement +of mirrors. The scenes we saw were all reproduced; the people we +met walked to and fro; they spoke, they bowed, they passed us by, +did everything over again as if it had been real. When we talked, +we were but looking at our own mirror and describing what flitted +across it; our listening was not hearing, but seeing--we but looked +on our neighbor's mirror. + +All human intercourse is a seeing of reflections. I meet a stranger +in a railway carriage. The cadence of his first words tell me he +is English and comes from Yorkshire. Without knowing it he has +reflected his birthplace, his parents, and the long history of their +race. Even physiologically he is a mirror. His second sentence +records that he is a politician, and a faint reflection in the way +he pronounces THE TIMES reveals his party. In his next remarks I +see reflected a whole world of experiences. The books he has read, +the people he has met, the companions he keeps, the influences +that have played upon him and made him the man he is--these are +all registered there by a pen which lets nothing pass, and whose +writing can + +Never be blotted out. + +What I am reading in him meantime he is also reading in me; and +before the journey is over we could half write each other's lives. +Whether we like it or not, we live in glass houses. The mind, the +memory, the soul, is simply a vast chamber paneled with looking-glass. +And upon this miraculous arrangement and endowment depends the +capacity of mortal souls to "reflect the character of the Lord." + +(2). But this is not all. If all these varied reflections +from our so-called secret life are patent to the world, how close +the writing, complete the record within the soul itself! For the +influences we meet are not simply held for a moment on the polished +surface and thrown off again into space. Each is retained where +first it fell, and stored up in the soul forever. + +This law of assimilation + +is the second, and by far the most impressive truth which underlies +the formula of sanctification--the truth that men are not only +mirrors, but that these mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors +of the fleeting things they see, transfer into their own inmost +substance, and hold in permanent preservation the things that they +reflect. + +No one knows how the soul can hold these things. No one knows +how the miracle is done. No phenomenon in nature, no process in +chemistry, no chapter in necromancy can ever help us to begin to +understand this amazing operation. For, think of it, the past is +not only FOCUSED there, in a man's soul, it IS there. How could +it be reflected from there if it were not there? All things that +he has ever seen, known, felt, believed of the surrounding world +are now within him, have become part of him, in part are him--he +has been changed into their image. He may deny it, he may resent +it, but they are there. They do not adhere to him, they are +transfused through him. He cannot alter or rub them out. They +are not in his memory, they are in HIM. His soul is as they have +filled it, made it, left it. These things, these books, these +events, these influences are his makers. In their hands are life +and death, beauty and deformity. When once the image or likeness +of any of these is fairy presented to the soul, no power on earth +can hinder two things happening--it must be absorbed into the soul +and forever reflected back again from character. + +Upon these astounding yet perfectly obvious psychological facts, +Paul bases his doctrine of sanctification. He sees that character +is a thing built up by slow degrees, that it is hourly changing +for better or for worse according to the images which flit across +it. One step further and the whole length and breadth of the +application of these ideas to the central problem of religion will +stand before us. + +II. The alchemy of influence. + +If events change men, much more persons. No man can meet another on +the street without making some mark upon him. We say we exchange +words when we meet; what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse +is very close and very frequent, so complete is this exchange that +recognizable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other's +nature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt +to the first. + +Now, we become like those whom we habitually reflect. I could +prove from science that applies even to the physical framework of +animals--that they are influenced and organically changed by the +environment in which they life. + +This mysterious approximating of two souls, who has not witnessed? +Who has not watched some old couple come down life's pilgrimage +hand in hand, with such gentle trust and joy in one another that +their very faces wore the self-same look? These were not two +souls; it was a composite soul. It did not matter to which of the +two you spoke, you would have said the same words to either. It +was quite indifferent which replied, each would have said the same. +Half a century's REFLECTING had told upon them; they were changed +into the same image. It is the Law of Influence that WE BECOME +LIKE THOSE WHOM WE HABITUALLY REFLECT: these had become like because +they habitually reflected. Through all the range of literature, +of history, and biography this law presides. Men are all mosaics +of other men. There was a savor of David about Jonathan, and a +savor of Jonathan about David. Metempsychosis is a fact. George +Eliot's message to the world was that men and women make men and +women. The Family, the cradle of mankind, has no meaning apart +from this. Society itself is nothing but a rallying point for these +omnipotent forces to do their work. On the doctrine of Influence, +in short, the whole vast pyramid of humanity is built. + +But it was reserved for Paul to make the supreme application of +the Law of Influence. It was a tremendous inference to make, but +he never hesitated. He himself was a changed man; he knew exactly +what had done it; + +It was Christ. + +On the Damascus road they met, and from that hour his life was +absorbed in His. The effect could not but follow--on words, on +deeds, on career, on creed. The "impressed forces" did their vital +work. He became like Him Whom he habitually loved. "So we all," +he writes, "reflecting as a mirror the glory of Christ, are changed +into the same image." + +Nothing could be more simple, more intelligible, more natural, more +supernatural. It is an analogy from an every-day fact. Since we +are what we are by the impacts of those who surround us, those who +surround themselves with the highest will be those who change into +the highest. There are some men and some women in whose company +we are + +Always at our best. + +While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous +words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. +All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse, +and we find a music in our souls that was never there before. +Suppose even THAT influence prolonged through a month, a year, a +lifetime, and what could not life become? There, even on the common +plane of life, talking our language, walking our streets, working +side by side, are sanctifiers of souls; here, breathing through +common clay, is Heaven; here, energies charged even through a +temporal medium with the virtue of regeneration. If to live with +men, diluted to the millionth degree with the virtue of the Highest, +can exalt and purify the nature, what bounds can be set to the +influence of Christ? To live with Socrates--with unveiled face--must +have made one wise; with Aristides, just. Francis Assisi must +have made one gentle; Savonarola, strong. But to have lived with +Christ must have made one like Christ: that is to say, A CHRISTIAN. + +As a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce this effect. +It produced it in the case of Paul. And during Christ's lifetime +the experiment was tried in an even more startling form. A few +raw, unspiritual, uninspiring men, were admitted to the inner circle +of His friendship. The change began at once. Day by day we can +almost see the first disciple grow. First there steals over them +the faintest possible adumbration of His character, and occasionally, +very occasionally, they do a thing or say a thing that they could +not have done or said had they not been living there. Slowly the +spell of His Life deepens. Reach after reach of their nature is +overtaken, thawed, subjugated, sanctified. Their manner softens, +their words become more gentle, their conduct more unselfish. As +swallows who have found a summer, as frozen buds the spring, their +starved humanity bursts into a fuller life. They do not know how +it is, but they are different men. + +One day they find themselves like their Master, going about and +doing good. To themselves it is unaccountable, but they cannot +do otherwise. they were not told to do it, it came to them to do +it. But the people who watch them know well how to account for +it--"They have been," they whisper, "with Jesus." Already even, +the mark and seal of His character is upon them--"They have been +with Jesus." Unparalleled phenomenon, that these poor fishermen +should remind other men of Christ! Stupendous victory and mystery +of + +Regeneration + +that mortal men should suggest GOD to the world! + +There is something almost melting in the way his contemporaries, +and John especially, speak of the influence of Christ. John lived +himself in daily wonder at Him; he was overpowered, over-awed, +entranced, transfigured. To his mind it was impossible for any one +to come under this influence and ever be the same again. "Whosoever +abideth in Him sinneth not," he said. It was inconceivable that he +should sin, as inconceivable as that ice should live in a burning +sun, or darkness coexist with noon. If any one did sin, it +was to John the simple proof that he could never have met Christ. +"Whosoever sinneth," he exclaims, "hath not seen HIM, neither known +HIM." Sin was abashed in this Presence. Its root withered. Its +sway and victory were forever at an end. + +But these were His contemporaries. It was easy for THEM to be +influenced by Him, for they were every day and all the day together. +But how can we mirror that which we have never seen? How can all +this stupendous result be produced by a Memory, by the scantiest +of all Biographies, by One who lived and left this earth eighteen +hundred years ago? How can modern men to-day make Christ, the +absent Christ, their most constant companion still? + +The answer is that + +Friendship is a spiritual thing. + +It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That which I +love in my friend is not that which I see. What influences me in +my friend is not his body but his spirit. He influences me about +as much in his absence as in his presence. It would have been an +ineffable experience truly to have lived at that time-- + + +"I think when I read the sweet story of old, + How when Jesus was here among men, +He took little children like lambs to his fold, + I should like to have been with Him then. + +"I wish that His hand had been laid on my head, + That His arms had been thrown around me, +And that I had seen His kind look when he said, + 'Let the little ones come unto me.'" + + +And yet, if Christ were to come into the world again, few of us +probably would ever have a chance of seeing Him. Millions of her +subjects in the little country of England have never seen their +own Queen. And there would be millions of the subjects of Christ +who could never get within speaking distance of Him if He were +here. We remember He said: "It is expedient for you (not FOR ME) +that I go away"; because by going away He could really be nearer +to us than He would have been if He had stayed here. It would +be geographically and physically impossible for most of us to be +influenced by His person had He remained. And so our communion +with Him is a spiritual companionship; but not different from most +companionships, which, when you press them down to the roots, you +will find to be essentially spiritual. + +All friendship, all love, human and Divine, is purely spiritual. +It was after He was risen that He influenced even the disciples +most. Hence, in reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real +obstacle that we may never have been in visible contact with Himself. + +There lived once a young girl whose perfect grace of character +was the wonder of those who knew her. She wore on her neck a gold +locket which no one was ever allowed to open. One day, in a moment +of unusual confidence, one of her companions was allowed to touch +its spring and learn its secret. She saw written these words-- + +"Whom having not seen I love." + +That was the secret of her beautiful life. She had been changed +into the Same Image. + +Now this is not imitation, but a much deeper thing. Mark +this distinction, for the difference in the process as well as in +the result, may be as great as that between a photograph secured +by the infallible pencil of the sun, and the rude outline from a +school-boy's chalk. Imitation is mechanical, reflection organic. +The one is occasional, the other habitual. In the one case, +man comes to God and imitates him; in the other, God comes to man +and imprints Himself upon him. It is quite true that there is an +imitation of Christ which amounts to reflection. But Paul's term +includes all that the other holds, and is open to no mistake. + +What, then, is the practical lesson? It is obvious. "Make Christ +your most constant companion"--this is what it practically means for +us. Be more under His influences than under any other influence. +Ten minutes spent in His society every day, ay, two minutes if +it be face to face, and heart to heart, will make the whole day +different. Every character has an inward spring,--let Christ be +it. Every action has a key-note,--let Christ set it. + +Yesterday you got a certain letter. You sat down and wrote a reply +which almost scorched the paper. You picked the cruelest adjectives +you knew and sent it forth, without a pang to do its ruthless work. +You did that because your life was set in the wrong key. You began +the day with the mirror placed at the wrong angle. + +Tomorrow at day-break, turn it towards Him, and even to your enemy +the fashion of your countenance will be changed. Whatever you then +do, one thing you will find you could not do--you could not write +that letter. Your first impulse may be the same, your judgement +may be unchanged, but if you try it the ink will dry on your pen, +and you will rise from your desk an unavenged, but greater and more +Christian man. Throughout the whole day your actions, down to the +last detail, will do homage to that early vision. + +Yesterday you thought mostly about yourself. Today the poor will +meet you, and you will feed them. The helpless, the tempted, the +sad, will throng about you, and each you will befriend. Where were +all these people yesterday? Where they are today, but you did not +see them. It is in reflected light that the poor are seen. But +your soul today is + +Not at the ordinary angle. + +"Things which are not seen" are visible. For a few short hours +you live the Eternal Life. The eternal life, the life of faith, +is simply the life of a higher vision. Faith is an attitude--a +mirror set at the right angle. + +When tomorrow is over, and in the evening you review it, you will +wonder how you did it. You will not be conscious that you strove +for anything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything. You +will be conscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without +compulsion you were yet compelled; that without force, or noise, +or proclamation, the revolution was accomplished. You do not +congratulate yourself as one who has done a mighty deed, or achieved +a personal success, or stored up a fund of "Christian experience" +to ensure the same result again. What you are conscious of is "the +glory of the Lord." And what the world is conscious of, if the +result be a true one, is also "the glory of the Lord." In looking +at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or think of it, but only +of what it reflects. For a mirror never calls the attention to +itself--except when there are flaws in it. + +Let me say a word or two more about the effects which necessarily +must follow from this contact, or fellowship, with Christ. I +need not quote the texts upon the subject--the texts about abiding +in Christ. "He that abideth in Him sinneth not." You cannot sin +when you are standing in front of Christ. You simply cannot do it. +Again: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall +ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Think of that! +That is another inevitable consequence. And there is yet another: +"He that abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit." +Sinlessness--answered prayer--much fruit. + +But in addition to these things, see how many of the highest Christian +virtues and experiences necessarily flow from the assumption of +that attitude towards Christ. For instance, the moment you assume +that relation to Christ you begin to know what the CHILD-SPIRIT +is. You stand before Christ, and He becomes your Teacher, and +you instinctively become docile. Then you learn also to become +CHARITABLE and TOLERANT; because you are learning of Him, and He is +"meek and lowly in heart," and you catch that spirit. That is a +bit of His character being reflected into yours. Instead of being +critical and self-asserting, you become humble and have the mind +of a little child. + +I think, further, the only way of learning what FAITH is is to +know Christ and be in His company. You hear sermons about the nine +different kinds of faith--distinctions drawn between the right +kind of faith and the wrong--and sermons telling you how to get +faith. So far as I can see, there is + +Only one way + +in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world +as it is in the world of men and women. I learn to trust you, my +brother, just as I get to trust me just as you get to know me. I +do not trust you as a stranger, but as I come into contact with +you, and watch you, and live with you, I find out that you are +trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to you, and to lean upon +you. But I do not do that to a stranger. + +The way to trust Christ is to know Christ. You cannot help trusting +Him them. You are changed. By knowing Him faith is begotten in you, +as cause and effect. To trust Him without knowing Him as thousands +do, is not faith, but credulity. I believe a great deal of prayer +for faith is thrown away. What we should pray for is that we may +be able to fulfill the condition, and when we have fulfilled the +condition, the faith necessarily follows. The way, therefore, to +increase our faith is to increase our intimacy with Christ. We +trust Him more and more the better we know Him. + +And then another immediate effect of this way of sanctifying the +character is the tranquility that it brings over the Christian +life. How disturbed and distressed and anxious Christian people +are about their growth in grace! Now, the moment you give that +over into Christ's care--the moment you see that you are BEING +changed--that anxiety passes away. You see that it must follow +by an inevitable process and by a natural law if you fulfill the +simple condition; so that peace is the reward of that life and +fellowship with Christ. + +Many other things follow. A man's usefulness depends to a large +extent upon his fellowship with Christ. That is obvious. Only Christ +can influence the world; but all that the world sees of Christ is +what it sees of you and me. Christ said: "The world seeth Me no +more, but ye see Me." You see Him, and standing in front of Him +reflect Him, and the world sees the reflection. It cannot see Him. +So that a Christian's usefulness depends solely upon that relationship. + +Now, I have only pointed out a few of the things that follow from +the standing before Christ--from the abiding in Christ. You will +find, if you run over the texts about abiding in Christ, many +other things will suggest themselves in the same relations. Almost +everything in Christian experience and character follows and +follows necessarily, from standing before Christ and reflecting +his character. But the supreme consummation is that we are changed +into THE SAME IMAGE, "even as by the Lord the Spirit." That is to +say that in some way, unknown to us, but possibly not more mysterious +than the doctrine of personal influence, we are changed into the +image of Christ. + +This method cannot fail. I am not setting before you an opinion +or a theory, but this is + +A certainly successful means + +of sanctification. "We all, with unveiled face, reflecting in a +mirror the glory of Christ (the character of Christ) assuredly--without +any miscarriage--without any possibility of miscarriage--are changed +into the same image." It is an immense thing to be anchored in +some great principle like that. Emerson says: "The hero is the +man who is immovably centered." Get immovably centered in that +doctrine of sanctification. Do not be carried away by the hundred +and one theories of sanctification that are floating about in +religious literature of the country at the present time; but go to +the bottom of the thing for yourself, and see the RATIONALE of it +for yourself, and you will come to see that it is a matter of cause +and effect, and that if you will fulfill the condition laid down +by Christ, the effect must follow by a natural law. + +What a prospect! To be changed into the same image. Think of +that! That is what we are here for. That is what we are elected +for. Not to be saved, in the common acceptation, but "whom He did +foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of +His Son." Not merely to be saved, but TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE +OF HIS SON. Conserve that principle. And as we must spend time +in cultivating our earthly friendships if we are to have their +blessings, so we must + +Spend time + +in cultivating the fellowship and companionship of Christ. And +there is nothing so much worth taking into our lives as a profounder +sense of what is to be had by living in communion with Christ, and +by getting nearer to Him. It will matter much if we take away with +us some of the thoughts about theology, and some of the new light +that has been shed upon the text of Scripture; it will matter +infinitely more if our fellowship with the Lord Jesus become a little +closer, and our theory of holy living a little more rational. And +then as we go forth, men will take knowledge of us, that we have +been with Jesus, and as we reflect Him upon them, they will begin +to be changed into the same image. + +It seems to me the preaching is of infinitely smaller account than +the life which mirrors Christ. That is bound to tell; without +speech or language--like the voices of the stars. It throws out +its impressions on every side. The one simple thing we have to do +is to be there--in the right relation; to go through life hand in +hand with Him; to have Him in the room with us, and keeping us company +wherever we go; to depend upon Him and lean upon Him, and so have +His life reflected in the fullness of its beauty and perfection +into ours. + +III. The first experiment. + +Then you reduce religion to a common Friendship? A common +Friendship--who talks of a COMMON Friendship? There is no such +thing in the world. + +On earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is the nearest thing +we know to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion +akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expression +conceivable by man. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is +meant a protest against the greatest and the holiest in religion +being spoken of in intelligible terms, then I am afraid the +objection is all to real. Men always look for a mystery when one +talks of sanctification, some mystery apart from that which must ever +be mysterious wherever Spirit works. It is thought some peculiar +secret lies behind it, some occult experience which only the +initiated know. Thousands of persons go to church every Sunday +hoping to solve this mystery. At meeting, at conferences, many +a time they have reached what they thought was the very brink of +it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring over religious +books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; the next +page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be +borne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next +sentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them; +and though the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end, +the last chapter found them still pursuing. + +Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing +of the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Because +there was no "it." When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness +is simply + +The pursuit of Christ? + +When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious aspiration, +the approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not +in moods; Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mystic +rapture of the soul. + +And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason, +will find scant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a +religion expressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that +it is still too mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ +our most constant companion," is to them the purest mysticism. They +want something absolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These +are not the poetical souls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess, +but the prosaic natures whose want is mathematical definition in +details. Yet it is perhaps not possible to reduce this problem to +much more rigid elements. The beauty of Friendship is its infinity. +One can never evacuate life of mysticism. Home is full of it, love +is full of it, religion is full of it. Why stumble at that in the +relation of man to Christ which is natural in the relation of man +to man? + +If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical relation with +Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on +to it by still plainer analogies from common life. How do I know +Shakespere or Dante? By communing with their words and thoughts. +Many men know Dante better than their own fathers. Many men know +Dante better than their own fathers. He influences them more. As +a spiritual presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force +more real. Is there any reason why a greater than Shakspere or +Dante, who also walked this earth, who left great words behind Him, +who has greater works everywhere in the world now, should not also +instruct, inspire and mould the characters of men? I do not limit +Christ's influence to this: it is this, and it is more. But Christ, +so far from resenting or discouraging this relation of Friendship, +Himself proposed it. "Abide in me" was almost His last word to +the world. And He partly met the difficulty of those who feel its +intangibleness by adding the practical clause, "If ye abide in Me, +AND MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU." + +Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be long impersonal. +Christ himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words flesh; +do them, live them, and you must live Christ. "HE THAT KEEPETH +MY COMMANDMENTS, he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him and you must +love Him. Abide in Him, and you must obey Him. CULTIVATE His +Friendship. Live after Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, +and it is difficult to think what more you can do. Take this at +least as a first lesson, as introduction. + +If you cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon +yours, watch for it also indirectly. "The whole earth is full of +the character of the Lord." Christ is the Light of the world, and +much of his Light is reflected from things in the world--even from +clouds. Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal, +and it comforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the +sun. Christ shines through men, through books, through history, +through nature, music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one +should either look at a beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music, +or read a beautiful poem." The real danger of mysticism is not +making it broad enough. + +Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see +yourself grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things +grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. +Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that +they grew "from character to character." "The inward man," he +says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day." All thorough work +is slow; all true development by minute, slight and insensible +metamorphoses. The higher the structure, moreover, the slower the +progress. As the biologist runs his eye over the long Ascent of +Life, he sees the lowest forms of animals develop in an hour; the +next above these reach maturity in a day; those higher still take +weeks or months to perfect; but the few at the top demand the long +experiment of years. If a child and an ape are born on the same +day, the last will be in full possession of its faculties and doing +the active work of life before the child has left its cradle. Life +is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal in the +slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural +man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life +must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder +or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day? + +To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine +act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity +with itself, of a consciously despicable character standing before +Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must +one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord +the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste +for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, +or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping +the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only +while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see +how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of +wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be +over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world +can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart, +the renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of God. +Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath begun a good work in you +will perfect it unto that day." + +No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is +at stake will be careless as to his progress. To become + +Like Christ + +is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before +which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement +vain. + +Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of +their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it +has seemed up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let +me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on +activity. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion +for an angel, but never for a man. No in the contemplative, but +in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies +true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things, +is man's sanctification wrought. Resolution, effort, pain, +self-crucifixion, agony--all the things already dismissed as +futile in themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold +responsibility laid upon them. For what is their office? Nothing +less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and place it, and +keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It is to rally +the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright +and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to look +at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are near. + +You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph +the spectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the +observatory you saw him being by lighting a candle. To see the +star with? No; but to adjust the instrument to see the star with. +It was the star that was going to take the photograph; it was, +also, the astronomer. For a long time he worked in the dimness, +screwing tubes and polishing lenses and adjusting reflectors, and +only after much labor the finely focused instrument was brought +to bear. Then he blew out the light, and left the start to do its +work upon the plate alone. + +The day's task for the Christian is to bring his instrument to bear. +Having done that he may blow out his candle. All the evidences of +Christianity which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all +acts of worship, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer and +Meditation, all girding of the Will--these lesser processes, these +candle-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside. +But, remember, it is but for an hour. The wise man will be he who +quickest lights his candle; the wisest he who never lets it out. +Tomorrow, the next moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may +need it again to focus the Image better, to take a mote off the +lens, to clear the mirror from a breath with which the world has +dulled it. + +No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. That is +one great fixed point in this shifting universe. But THE WORLD +MOVES. And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and +readjustment for the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows +a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called THE +WILL. Hence, while the soul in passivity reflects the Image of +the Lord, the Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position +lest the drifting motion of the world bear it beyond the line of +vision. To "follow Christ" is largely to keep the soul in such +position as will allow for the motion of the earth. And this +calculated counteracting of the movements of the world, this holding +of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored, this steadying of +the faculties unerringly through cloud and earthquake, fire and +sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of the Will. It is +all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practice it is both; +in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in practice, "It +depends upon myself." + +In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous +statue. It was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a +genius, was very poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio +and sleeping-room alike. When the statue was all but finished, one +midnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake +in the fireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought +how the water would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the +dream of his life. So the old man rose from his couch and heaped +the bed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morning when the +neighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue +was saved! + +The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is life's one +charge. Let every project stand aside for that. The spirit of +God who brooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy +now creating men, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the +image of God. "Till Christ be formed," no man's work is finished, +no religion crowned, no life has fulfilled its end. Is the infinite +task begun? When, how, are we to be different? Time cannot +change men. Death cannot change men. Christ can. Wherefore PUT +ON CHRIST. + + + + + +Dealing With Doubt. + + + + +There is a subject which I think workers amongst young men cannot +afford to keep out of sight--I mean the subject of "Doubt." We are +forced to face that subject. We have no choice. I would rather +let it alone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, and I +am quite sure that most Christian workers among men have innumerable +interviews every year with men who raise skeptical difficulties +about religion. + +Now it becomes a matter of great practical importance that we should +know how to deal wisely with these. Upon the whole, I think these +are the best men in the country. I speak of my own country. I speak +of the universities with which I am familiar, and I say that they +men who are perplexed,--the men who come to you with serious and +honest difficulties,--are the best men. They are men of intellectual +honesty, and cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, +or phrases, or traditions, or theologies, but who must get to the +bottom of things for themselves. And if I am not mistaken, + +Christ was very fond + +of these men. The outsiders always interested Him, and touched Him. +The orthodox people--the Pharisees--He was much less interested +in. He went with publicans and sinners--with people who were in +revolt against the respectability, intellectual and religious, of +the day. And following Him, we are entitled to give sympathetic +consideration to those whom He loved and took trouble with. + +First, let me speak for a moment or two about + +The origin of doubt. + +In the first place, WE ARE BORN QUESTIONERS. Look at the wonderment +of a little child in its eyes before it can speak. The child's +great word when it begins to speak is, "Why?" Every child is full +of every kind of question, about every kind of thing, that moves, +and shines and changes, in the little world in which it lives. + +That is the incipient doubt in the nature of man. Respect doubt +for its origin. It is an inevitable thing. It is not a thing to +be crushed. It is a part of man as God made him. Heresy is truth +in the making, and doubt is the prelude of knowledge. + +Secondly: THE WORLD IS A SPHINX. It is a vast riddle--an unfathomable +mystery; and on every side there is temptation to questioning. +In every leaf, in every cell of every leaf, there are a hundred +problems. There are ten good years of a man's life in investigating +what is in a leaf. God has planned the world to incite men to +intellectual activity. + +Thirdly: THE INSTRUMENT WITH WHCIH WE ATTEMPT TO INVESTIGATE TRUTH +IS IMPAIRED. Some say it fell, and the glass is broken. Some +say prejudice, heredity, or sin, have spoiled its sight, and have +blinded our eyes and deadened our ears. In any case the instruments +with which we work upon truth, even in the strongest men, are feeble +and inadequate to their tremendous task. + +And in the fourth place, ALL RELIGIOUS TRUTHS ARE DOUBTABLE. There +is no absolute truth for any one of them. Even that fundamental +truth--the existence of a God--no man can prove by reason. The +ordinary proof for the existence of a God involves either an +assumption, argument in a circle, or a contradiction. The impression +of God is kept up by experience, not by logic. And hence, when +the experimental religion of a man, of a community, or of a nation +wanes, religion wanes--their idea of God grows indistinct, and that +man, community or nation becomes infidel. + +Bear in mind, then, that all religious truths are doubtable--even +those which we hold most strongly. + +What does this brief account of the origin of doubt teach us? It +teaches us + +Great intellectual humility. + +It teaches us sympathy and toleration with all men who venture upon +the ocean of truth to find out a path through it for themselves. +Do you sometimes feel yourself thinking unkind things about your +fellow-students who have intellectual difficulty? I know how hard +it is always to feel sympathy and toleration for them; but we must +address ourselves to that most carefully and most religiously. If +my brother is short-sighted I must not abuse him or speak against +him; I must pity him, and if possible try to improve his sight, or +to make things that he is to look at so bright that he cannot help +seeing. But never let us think evil of men who do not see as we +do. From the bottom of our hearts let us pity them, and let us take +them by the hand and spend time and thought over them, and try to +lead them to the true light. + +What has been + +The church's treatment of doubt + +in the past? It has been very simple. "There is a heretic. Burn +him!" That is all. "There is a man who has gone off the road. +Bring him back and torture him!" + +We have got past that physically; have we got past it morally? What +does the modern Church say to a man who is skeptical? Not "Burn +him!" but "Brand him!" "Brand him!"--call him a bad name. And +in many countries at the present time, a man who is branded as a +heretic is despised, tabooed and put out of religious society, much +more than if he had gone wrong in morals. I think I am speaking +within the facts when I say that a man who is unsound is looked +upon in many communities with more suspicion and with more pious +horror than a man who now and then gets drunk. "Burn him!" "Brand +him!" "Excommunicate him!" That has been the Church's treatment +of doubt, and that is perhaps to some extent the treatment which +we ourselves are inclined to give to the men who cannot see the +truths of Christianity as we see them. + +Contrast + +Christ's treatment + +of doubt. I have spoken already of His strange partiality for the +outsiders--for the scattered heretics up and down the country; of +the care with which He loved to deal with them, and of the respect +in which He held their intellectual difficulties. Christ never +failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is "CAN'T +BELIEVE"; unbelief is "WON'T BELIEVE." Doubt is honesty; unbelief +is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with +darkness. Loving darkness rather than light--that is what Christ +attacked, and attacked unsparingly. But for the intellectual +questioning of Thomas, and Philip, and Nicodemus, and the many +others who came to Him to have their great problems solved, He was +respectful and generous and tolerant. + +And how did He meet their doubts? The Church, as I have said, +says, "Brand him!" Christ said, "Teach him." He destroyed by +fulfilling. When Thomas came to Him and denied His very resurrection, +and stood before Him waiting for the scathing words and lashing +for his unbelief, they never came. They never came! Christ gave +him facts--facts! No men can go around facts. Christ said, "Behold +My hands and My feet." The great god of science at the present +time is a fact. It words with facts. Its cry is, "Give me facts. +Found anything you like upon facts and we will believe it." The +spirit of Christ was the scientific spirit. He founded His religion +upon facts; and He asked all men to found their religion upon facts. + +Now, get up the facts of Christianity, and take men to the facts. +Theologies--and I am not speaking disrespectfully of theology; +theology is as scientific a thing as any other science of facts--but +theologies are + +Human versions + +of Divine truths, and hence the varieties of the versions and the +inconsistencies of them. I would allow a man to select whichever +version of this truth he liked AFTERWARDS; but I would ask him +to begin with no version, but go back to the facts and base his +Christian life upon these. + +That is the great lesson of the New Testament way of looking at +doubt--of Christ's treatment of doubt. It is not "Brand him!"--but +lovingly, wisely and tenderly to teach him. Faith is never opposed +to reason in the New Testament; it is opposed to sight. You will +find that a principle worth thinking over. FAITH IS NEVER OPPOSED +TO REASON IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, BUT TO SIGHT. + +With these principles in mind as to the origin of doubt, as to +Christ's treatment of it, how are we ourselves to deal with those +who are in intellectual difficulty? + +In the first place, I think WE MUST MAKE ALL THE CONCESSIONS TO +THEM THAT WE CONSCIENTIOUSLY CAN. + +When a doubter first encounters you, he pours out a deluge of abuse +of churches, and ministers, and creeds, and Christians. Nine-tenths +of what he says is probably true. Make concessions. Agree with +him. It does him good to unburden himself of these things. He has +been cherishing them for years--laying them up against Christians, +against the Church, and against Christianity; and now he is startled +to find the first Christian with whom he has talked over the thing +almost entirely agrees with him. We are, of course, not responsible +for everything that is said in the name of Christianity; and now +he is startled to find the first Christian with whom he has talked +over the thing almost entirely agrees with him. We are, of +course, not responsible for everything that is said in the name +of Christianity; but a man does not give up medicine because there +are quack doctors, and no man has a right to give up his Christianity +because there are spurious or inconsistent Christians. Then, as I +already said, creeds are human versions of Divine truths; and we +do not ask a man to accept all the creeds, any more than we ask +him to accept all the Christians. We ask him to accept Christ, +and the facts about Christ and the words of Christ. You will find +the battle is half won when you have endorsed the man's objections, +and possibly added a great many more to the charges which he has +against ourselves. These men are + +In revolt + +against the kind of religion which we exhibit to the world--against +the cant that is taught in the name of Christianity. And if the +men that have never seen the real thing--if you could show them +that, they would receive it as eagerly as you do. They are merely +in revolt against the imperfections and inconsistencies of those +who represent Christ to the world. + +Second: BEG THEM TO SET ASIDE, BY AN ACT OF WILL, ALL UNSOLVED +PROBLEMS: such as the problem of the origin of evil, the problem +of the Trinity, the problem of the relation of human will and +predestination, and so on--problems which have been investigated for +thousands of years without result--ask them to set those problems +aside as insoluble. In the meantime, just as a man who is studying +mathematics may be asked to set aside the problem of squaring the +circle, let him go on with what can be done, and what has been +done, and leave out of sight the impossible. + +You will find that will relieve the skeptic's mind of a great deal +of + +Unnecessary cargo + +that has been in his way. + +Thirdly: TALKING ABOUT DIFFICULTIES, AS A RULE, ONLY AGGRAVATES +THEM. + +Entire satisfaction to the intellect is unattainable about any of +the greater problems, and if you try to get to the bottom of them +by argument, there is no bottom there; and therefore you make +the matter worse. But I would say what is known, and what can be +honestly and philosophically and scientifically said about one or +two of the difficulties that the doubter raises, just to show him +that you can do it--to show him that you are not a fool--that you +are not merely groping in the dark yourself, but you have found +whatever basis is possible. But I would not go around all the +doctrines. I would simply do that with one or two; because the +moment you cut off one, a hundred other heads will grow in its +place. It would be a pity if all these problems could be solved. +The joy of the intellectual life would be largely gone. I would +not rob a man of his problems, nor would I have another man rob +me of my problems. They are the delight of life, and the whole +intellectual world would be stale and unprofitable if we knew +everything. + +Fourthly--and this is the great point: TURN AWAY FROM THE REASON +AND GO INTO THE MAN'S MORAL LIFE. + +I don't mean, go into his moral life and see if the man is living +in conscious sin, which is the great blinder of the eyes--I am +speaking now of honest doubt; but open a new door into + +The practical side of man's nature. + +Entreat him not to postpone life and his life's usefulness until he +has settled the problems of the universe. Tell him those problems +will never all be settled; that his life will be done before he has +begun to settle them; and ask him what he is doing with his life +meantime. Charge him with wasting his life and his usefulness; +and invite him to deal with the moral and practical difficulties +of the world, and leave the intellectual difficulties as he goes +along. To spend time upon these is proving the less important +before the more important; and, as the French say, "The good is the +enemy of the best." It is a good thing to think; it is a better +thing to work--it is a better thing to do good. And you have him +there, you see. He can't get beyond that. You have to tell him, +in fact that there are two organs of knowledge: the one reason, +the other obedience. And now tell him there is but One, and lead +him to the great historical figure who calls all men to Him: the +one perfect life--the one Savior of mankind--the one Light of the +world. Ask him to begin to + +Obey Christ; + +and, doing His will, he shall now of the doctrine whether it be of +God. + +That, I think, is about the only thing you can do with a man: to +get him into practical contact with the needs of the world, and +to let him lose his intellectual difficulties meantime. Don't ask +him to give them up altogether. Tell him to solve them afterward +one by one if he can, but meantime to give his life to Christ and +his time to the kingdom of God. You fetch him completely around +when you do that. You have taken him away from the false side of +his nature, and to the practical and moral side of his nature; and +for the first time in his life, perhaps, he puts things in their true +place. He puts his nature in the relations in which it ought to +be, and he then only begins to live. And by obedience he will soon +become a learner and pupil for himself, and Christ will teach him +things, and he will find whatever problems are solvable gradually +solved as he goes along the path of practical duty. + +Now, let me, in closing, give an instance of how to deal with +specific points. + +The question of miracles is thrown at my head every second day: + +"What do you say to a man when he says to you, 'Why do you believe +in miracles?'" + +I say, "Because I have seen then." + +He asks, "When?" + +I say, "Yesterday." + +"Where?" + +"Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was a drunkard redeemed +by the power of an unseen Christ and saved from sin. That is a +miracle." + +The best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. That is a +fact which the man cannot get over. There are fifty other arguments +for miracles, but none so good as that you have seen them. Perhaps, +you are one yourself. But take a man and show him a miracle with +his own eyes. Then he will believe. + + + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Addresses by Henry Drummond + diff --git a/2498.zip b/2498.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5babfd7 --- /dev/null +++ b/2498.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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