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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Weighed and Wanting, by Dwight Moody
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Weighed and Wanting
+       Addresses on the Ten Commandments
+
+Author: Dwight Moody
+
+Release Date: August 3, 2010 [EBook #33340]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEIGHED AND WANTING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Keith G Richardson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Weighed and Wanting
+
+Addresses
+on the Ten Commandments
+
+BY
+
+D. L. MOODY
+
+"Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+Chicago : New York : Toronto
+
+Publishers of Evangelical Literature
+
+_Copyright, 1898, by The Bible Institute Colportage Association_.
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+The Ten Commandments
+
+Weighed in the Balances
+
+The First Commandment
+
+The Second Commandment
+
+The Third Commandment
+
+The Fourth Commandment
+
+The Fifth Commandment
+
+The Sixth Commandment
+
+The Seventh Commandment
+
+The Eighth Commandment
+
+The Ninth Commandment
+
+The Tenth Commandment
+
+The Handwriting Blotted Out
+
+
+
+THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
+
+_EXODUS 20: 3-17_.
+
+I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
+
+II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
+any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
+that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself
+to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,
+visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third
+and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto
+thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.
+
+III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the
+Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.
+
+IV. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
+labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
+Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor
+thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor
+thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made
+heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the
+seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed
+it.
+
+V. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon
+the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
+
+VI. Thou shalt not kill.
+
+VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
+
+VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
+
+IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
+
+X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet
+thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his
+ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
+
+
+
+Weighed in the Balances
+
+In the fifth chapter of Daniel we read the history of King Belshazzar.
+One chapter tells us all we know about him. One short sight of his
+career is all we have. He bursts in upon the scene and then
+disappears.
+
+THE EASTERN FEAST.
+
+We are told that he made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and
+drank wine before them. In those days a feast would sometimes last for
+six months in Eastern countries. How long this feast had been going on
+we are not told, but in the midst of it, he "commanded to bring the
+golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken
+out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his
+princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they
+brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the
+house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes,
+his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and
+praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood,
+and of stone."
+
+While this impious act was being committed, "in the same hour came
+forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick
+upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw
+the part of the hand that wrote." We are not told at what hour of the
+day or the night it happened. Perhaps it was midnight. Perhaps nearly
+all the guests were more or less under the influence of drink; but
+they were not so drunk but that they suddenly became sober as they saw
+something that was supernatural--a handwriting on the wall, right over
+the golden candlestick.
+
+Every face turned deathly pale. "The king's countenance was changed,
+and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were
+loosed, and his knees smote one against another." In haste he sent for
+his wisest men to come and read that handwriting on the wall. They
+came in one after another, and tried to make it out; but they could
+not interpret it. The king promised that whoever could read it should
+be made the third ruler in the kingdom; that he should have gifts, and
+that a gold chain should be put round his neck. But the wise men tried
+in vain. The king was greatly troubled.
+
+At last, in the midst of the consternation, the queen came in, and she
+told the monarch, if he would only send for one who used to interpret
+the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, he could read the writing and tell him
+the interpretation thereof. So Daniel was sent for. He was very
+familiar with it. He knew his Father's handwriting.
+
+"This is the writing that was written, _Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_.
+This is the interpretation of the thing: _Mene_--God hath numbered thy
+kingdom and finished it. _Tekel_--Thou art weighed in the balances,
+and art found wanting. _Peres_--Thy kingdom is divided, and given to
+the Medes and Persians."
+
+If some one had told the king an hour before that the time had come
+when he must step into the balances and be weighed, he would have
+laughed at the thought. But the vital hour had come.
+
+The weighing was soon over. The verdict was announced, and the
+sentence carried out. "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the
+Chaldeans slain, and Darius the Median took the kingdom." Darius and
+his army came marching down those streets. There was a clash of arms.
+Shouts of war and victory rent the air. That night the king's blood
+mingled with the wine of the banquet hall. Judgment came upon him
+unexpectedly, suddenly: and probably ninety-nine out of every hundred
+judgments come in this way. Death comes upon us unexpectedly; it comes
+upon us suddenly.
+
+Perhaps you say: "I hope Mr. Moody is not going to compare me with
+that heathen king."
+
+I tell you that a man who does evil in these Gospel days is far worse
+than that king. We live in a land of Bibles. You can get the New
+Testament for a nickel, and if you haven't got a nickel you can get it
+for nothing. Many societies will be glad to give it to you free. We
+live in the full blaze of Calvary. We live on this side of the cross,
+but Belshazzar lived more than five hundred years on the other side.
+He never heard of Jesus Christ. He never heard about the Son of God.
+He never heard about God except, perhaps, in connection with his
+father's remarkable vision. He probably had no portion of the Bible,
+and if he had, probably he didn't believe it. He had no godly minister
+to point him to the Lamb of God.
+
+Don't tell me that you are better than that king. I believe that he
+will rise in judgment and condemn many of us.
+
+All this happened long centuries ago. Let us get down to this century,
+to this year, to ourselves. We will come to the present time. Let us
+imagine that now, while I am preaching, down come some balances from
+the throne of God. They are fastened to the very throne itself. It is
+a throne of equity, of justice. You and I must be weighed. I venture
+to say this would be a very solemn audience. There would be no
+trifling. There would be no indifference. No one would be thoughtless.
+
+Some people have their own balances. A great many are making balances
+to be weighed in. But after all we must be weighed in God's balances,
+the balances of the sanctuary. It is a favorite thing with infidels to
+set their own standard, to measure themselves by other people. But
+that will not do in the Day of Judgment. Now we will use God's law as
+a balance weight. When men find fault with the lives of professing
+Christians, it is a tribute to the law of God.
+
+"Tekel." It is a very short text. It is so short I am sure you will
+remember it: and that is my object, just to get people to remember
+God's own Word.
+
+GOD'S HANDWRITING.
+
+Let me call your attention to the fact that God wrote on the tables of
+stone at Sinai as well as on the wall of Belshazzar's palace.
+
+These are the only messages to men that God has written with His own
+hand. He wrote the commandments out twice, and spoke them aloud in the
+hearing of Israel.
+
+If it were known that God Himself was going to speak once again to
+man, what eagerness and excitement there would be. For nearly nineteen
+hundred years He has been silent. No inspired message has been added
+to the Bible for nearly nineteen hundred years. How eagerly all men
+would listen if God should speak once more. Yet men forget that the
+Bible is God's own Word, and that it is as truly His message to-day as
+when it was delivered of old. The law that was given at Sinai has lost
+none of its solemnity. Time cannot wear out its authority or the fact
+of its authorship.
+
+I can imagine some one saying--"I won't be weighed by that law. I
+don't believe in it."
+
+Now men may cavil as much as they like about other parts of the Bible,
+but I have never met an honest man that found fault with the Ten
+Commandments. Infidels may mock the Lawgiver and reject Him who has
+delivered us from the curse of the law, but they can't help admitting
+that the commandments are right. Renan said that they are for all
+nations, and will remain the commandments of God during all the
+centuries.
+
+If God created this world, He must make some laws to govern it. In
+order to make life safe we must have good laws; there is not a country
+the sun shines upon that does not possess laws. Now this is God's law.
+It has come from on high, and infidels and skeptics have to admit that
+it is pure. Legislatures nearly all over the world adopt it as the
+foundation of their legal systems.
+
+"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of
+the Lord is pure, making wise the simple: the statutes of the Lord are
+right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure,
+enlightening the eyes."
+
+Now the question for you and me is--are we keeping these commandments?
+Have we fulfilled all the requirements of the law? If God made us, as
+we know He did, He had a right to make that law; and if we don't use
+it aright it would have been better for us if we had never had it, for
+it will condemn us. We shall be found wanting. The law is all right,
+but are we right?
+
+AN INFIDEL'S TESTIMONY.
+
+It is related of a clever infidel that he sought an acquaintance with
+the truths of the Bible, and began to read at the books of Moses. He
+had been in the habit of sneering at the Bible, and in order to be
+able to refute arguments brought by Christian men, he made up his
+mind, as he knew nothing about it, to read the Bible and get some idea
+of its contents. After he had reached the Ten Commandments, he said to
+a friend:
+
+"I will tell you what I _used_ to think. I supposed that Moses was the
+leader of a horde of banditti; that, having a strong mind, he acquired
+great influence over a superstitious people; and that on Mount Sinai
+he played off some sort of fireworks to the amazement of his ignorant
+followers, who imagined in their fear and superstition that the
+exhibition was supernatural. I have been looking into the _nature_ of
+that law. I have been trying to see whether I could add anything to
+it, or take anything from it, so as to make it better. Sir, I cannot!
+It is perfect!
+
+The first commandment directs us to make the Creator the object of our
+supreme love and reverence. That is right. If He be our Creator,
+Preserver, and Supreme Benefactor, we ought to treat Him, and _none
+other_, as such. The second forbids idolatry. That certainly is right.
+The third forbids profanity. The fourth fixes a time for religious
+worship. If there be a God, He ought surely to be worshipped. It is
+suitable that there should be an outward homage significant of our
+inward regard. If God be worshipped, it is proper that some _time_
+should be set apart for that purpose, when all may worship Him
+harmoniously, and without interruption. One day in seven is certainly
+not too much, and I do not know that it is too little.
+
+The fifth commandment defines the peculiar duties arising from family
+relations. Injuries to our neighbor are then _classified_ by the moral
+law. They are divided into offences against life, chastity, property,
+and character; and I notice that the greatest offence in each class is
+expressly forbidden. Thus the greatest injury to life is murder; to
+chastity, adultery; to property, theft; to character, perjury. Now the
+greatest offence must include the least of the same kind. Murder must
+include every injury to life; adultery every injury to purity; and so
+of the rest. And the moral code is closed and perfected by a command
+forbidding every improper _desire_ in regard to our neighbors.
+
+I have been thinking, Where did Moses get that law? I have read
+history. The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolaters; so
+were the Greeks and Romans; and the wisest or best Greeks or Romans
+never gave a code of morals like this. Where did Moses obtain that
+law, which surpasses the wisdom and philosophy of the most enlightened
+ages? He lived at a period comparatively barbarous; but he has given a
+law in which the learning and sagacity of all subsequent time can
+detect no flaw. Where did he obtain it? He could not have soared so
+far above his age as to have devised it himself. I am satisfied where
+he obtained it. It came down from heaven. It has convinced me of the
+truth of the religion of the Bible."
+
+The infidel, (now an infidel no longer), remained to his death a firm
+believer in the truth of Christianity.
+
+We call it the "Mosaic" Law, but it has been well said that the
+commandments did not originate with Moses, nor were they done away
+with when the Mosaic Law was fulfilled in Christ, and many of its
+ceremonies and regulations abolished. We can find no trace of the
+existence of any lawmaking body in those early times, no parliament or
+congress that built up a system of laws. It has come down to us
+complete and finished, and the only satisfactory account is that which
+tells us that God Himself wrote the commandments on tables of stone.
+
+BINDING TO-DAY.
+
+Some people seem to think we have got beyond the commandments. What
+did Christ say? "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the
+prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say
+unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall
+in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The commandments
+of God given to Moses in the Mount at Horeb are as binding to-day as
+ever they have been since the time when they were proclaimed in the
+hearing of the people. The Jews said the law was not given in
+Palestine, (which belonged to Israel), but in the wilderness, because
+the law was for all nations.
+
+Jesus never condemned the law and the prophets, but He did condemn
+those who did not obey them. Because He gave new commandments it does
+not follow that He abolished the old. Christ's explanation of them
+made them all the more searching. In His Sermon on the Mount He
+carried the principles of the commandments beyond the mere letter. He
+unfolded them and showed that they embraced more, that they are
+positive as well as prohibitive. The Old Testament closes with these
+words: "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded
+unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
+Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
+great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the
+fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their
+fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
+
+Does that look as if the law of Moses was becoming obsolete?
+
+The conviction deepens in me with the years that the old truths of the
+Bible must be stated and restated in the plainest possible language. I
+do not remember ever to have heard a sermon preached on the
+commandments. I have an index of two thousand five hundred sermons
+preached by Spurgeon, and not one of them selects its text from the
+first seventeen verses of Exodus xx. The people must be made to
+understand that the Ten Commandments are still binding, and that there
+is a penalty attached to their violation. We do not want a gospel of
+mere sentiment. The Sermon on the Mount did not blot out the Ten
+Commandments.
+
+When Christ came He condensed the statement of the law into this form:
+"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy
+soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor
+as thyself." Paul said: "Love is the fulfilling of the law." But does
+this mean that the detailed precepts of the Decalogue are superseded,
+and have become back numbers? Does a father cease to give children
+rules to obey because they love him? Does a nation burn its statute
+books because the people have become patriotic? Not at all. And yet
+people speak as if the Commandments do not hold for Christians because
+they have come to love God. Paul said: "Do we then make void the law
+through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law." It still holds
+good. The commandments are necessary. So long as we obey, they do not
+rest heavy upon us; but as soon as we try to break away, we find they
+are like fences to keep us within bounds. Horses need bridles even
+after they have been properly broken in.
+
+"We know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully; knowing this,
+that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
+disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane,
+for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for
+whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for
+menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any
+other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine."
+
+Now, my friend, are you ready to be weighed by this law of God? A
+great many people say that if they keep the commandments, they do not
+need to be forgiven and saved through Christ. But have you kept them?
+I will admit that if you perfectly keep the commandments, you do not
+need to be saved by Christ; but is there a man in the wide world who
+can truly say that he has done this? Young lady, can you say: "I am
+ready to be weighed by the law?" Can you, young man? Will you step
+into the scales and be weighed one by one by the Ten Commandments?
+
+Now face these Ten Commandments honestly and prayerfully. See if your
+life is right, and if you are treating God fairly. God's statutes are
+just, are they not? If they are right, let us see if we are right. Let
+us pray that the Holy Ghost may search each one of us. Let us get
+alone with God and read His law--read it carefully and prayerfully,
+and ask Him to show us our sins and what He would have us to do.
+
+
+
+First Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
+
+My friend, are you ready to be weighed against this commandment? Have
+you fulfilled, or are you willing to fulfil, all the requirements of
+this law? Put it into one of the scales, and step into the other. Is
+your heart set upon God alone? Have you no other God? Do you love Him
+above father or mother, the wife of your bosom, your children, home or
+land, wealth or pleasure?
+
+If men were true to this commandment, obedience to the remaining nine
+would follow naturally. It is because they are unsound in this that
+they break the others.
+
+FEELING AFTER GOD.
+
+Philosophers are agreed that even the most primitive races of mankind
+reach out beyond the world of matter to a superior Being. It is as
+natural for man to feel after God as it is for the ivy to feel after a
+support. Hunger and thirst drive him to seek for food, and there is a
+hunger of the soul that needs satisfying, too. Man does not need to be
+commanded to worship, as there is not a race so high or so low in the
+scale of civilization but has some kind of a god. What he needs is to
+be directed aright.
+
+This is what the first commandment is for. Before we can worship
+intelligently, we must know what or whom to worship. God does not
+leave us in ignorance. When Paul vent to Athens, he found an altar
+dedicated to "An Unknown God," and he proceeded to tell of Him whom we
+worship. When God gave the commandments to Moses, He commenced with a
+declaration of His own character, and demanded exclusive recognition.
+"I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
+Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
+before me."
+
+The Rev. Dr. Dale says these words have great significance. "The Jews
+knew Jehovah as the God who had held back the waves like a wall while
+they fled across the sea to escape the vengeance of their enemies;
+they knew him as the God who had sent thunder, and lightning, and
+hail, plagues on cattle, and plagues on men, to punish the Egyptians
+and to compel them to let the children of Israel go; they knew Him as
+the God whose angel had slain the firstborn of their oppressors, and
+filled the land from end to end with death, and agony, and terror. He
+was the same God, so Moses and Aaron told them, who by visions and
+voices, in promises and precepts, had revealed Himself long before to
+Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We learn what men are from what they say
+and from what they do. A biography of Luther gives a more vivid and
+trustworthy knowledge of the man than the most philosophical essay on
+his character and creed. The story of his imprisonment and of his
+journey to Worms, his Letters, his Sermons, and his Table-Talk, are
+worth more than the most elaborate speculations about him. The Jews
+learned what God is, not from theological dissertations on the Divine
+attributes, but from the facts of a Divine history. They knew Him for
+themselves in His own acts and His own words."
+
+Some one asked an Arab: "How do you know that there is a God?" "How do
+I know whether a man or a camel passed my tent last night?" he
+replied. God's footprints in nature and in our own experience are the
+best evidence of His existence and character.
+
+THE ISRAELITES WERE EXPOSED TO DANGER.
+
+Remember to whom this commandment was given, and we shall see further
+how necessary it was. The forefathers of the Israelites had worshipped
+idols, not many generations back. They had recently been delivered out
+of Egypt, a land of many gods. The Egyptians worshipped the sun, the
+moon, insects, animals, etc. The ten plagues were undoubtedly meant by
+God to bring confusion upon many of their sacred objects. The children
+of Israel were going up to take possession of a land that was
+inhabited by heathen, who also worshipped idols. There was therefore
+great need of such a commandment as this. There could be no right
+relationship between God and man in those days any more than to-day,
+until man understood that he must recognize God alone, and not offer
+Him a divided heart.
+
+If He created us, He certainly ought to have our homage. Is it not
+right that He should have the first and only place in our affections?
+
+NO COMPROMISE.
+
+This is one matter in which no toleration can be shown. Religious
+liberty is a good thing, within certain limits. But it is one thing to
+show toleration to those who agree on essentials, and another, to
+those who differ on fundamental beliefs. They were willing to admit
+any god to the Roman Pantheon. One reason why the early Christians
+were persecuted was that they would not accept a place for Jesus
+Christ there. Napoleon is said to have entertained the idea of having
+separate temples in Paris for every known religion, so that every
+stranger should have a place of worship when attracted toward that
+city. Such plans are directly opposed to the Divine one. God sounded
+no uncertain note in this commandment. It is plain, unmistakable,
+uncompromising.
+
+We may learn a lesson from the way a farmer deals with the little
+shoots that spring up around the trunk of an apple tree. They look
+promising, and one who has not learned better might welcome their
+growth. But the farmer knows that they will draw the life-sap from the
+main tree, injuring its prospects so that it will produce inferior
+fruit. He therefore takes his axe and his hoe, and cuts away these
+suckers. The tree then gives a more plentiful and a finer crop.
+
+GOD'S PRUNING-KNIFE.
+
+"Thou shalt not" is the pruning-knife that God uses. From beginning to
+end, the Bible calls for wholehearted allegiance to Him. There is to
+be no compromise with other gods.
+
+It took long years for God to impress this lesson upon the Israelites.
+He called them to be a chosen nation. He made them a peculiar people.
+But you will notice in Bible history that they turned away from Him
+continually, and were punished with plague, pestilence, war and
+famine. Their sin was not that they renounced God altogether, but that
+they wanted to worship other gods beside Him. Take the case of Solomon
+as an example of the whole nation. He married heathen wives who turned
+away his heart after other gods, and built high places for their
+idols, and lent countenance to their worship. That was the history of
+frequent turnings of the whole nation away from God, until finally He
+sent them into captivity in Babylon and kept them there for seventy
+years. Since then the Jews have never turned to other gods.
+
+Hasn't the church to contend with the same difficulty to-day? There
+are very few who in their hearts do not believe in God, but what they
+will not do is give Him exclusive right of way. Missionaries tell us
+that they could easily get converts if they did not require them to be
+baptized, thus publicly renouncing their idols. Many a person in our
+land would become a Christian if the gate was not so strait.
+Christianity is too strict for them. They are not ready to promise
+full allegiance to God alone. Many a professing Christian is a
+stumbling-block because his worship is divided. On Sunday he worships
+God; on week days God has little or no place in his thoughts.
+
+FALSE GODS IN AMERICA TO-DAY.
+
+You don't have to go to heathen lands to-day to find false gods.
+America is full of them. Whatever you make most of is your god.
+Whatever you love more than God is your idol. Many a mans heart is
+like some Kaffirs' huts, so full of idols that there is hardly room to
+turn around. Rich and poor, learned and unlearned, all classes of men
+and women are guilty of this sin. "The mean man boweth down, and the
+great man humbled himself."
+
+A man may make a god of himself, of a child, of a mother, of some
+precious gift that God has bestowed upon him. He may forget the Giver,
+and let his heart go out in adoration toward the gift.
+
+Many make a god of pleasure; that is what their hearts are set on. If
+some old Greek or Roman came to life again and saw men in a drunken
+debauch, would he believe that the worship of Bacchus had died out? If
+he saw the streets of our large cities filled with harlots, would he
+believe that the worship of Venus had ceased?
+
+Others take fashion as their god. They give their time and thought to
+dress. They fear what others will think of them. Do not let us flatter
+ourselves that all idolaters are in heathen countries.
+
+With many it is the god of money. We haven't got through worshipping
+the golden calf yet. If a man will sell his principles for gold, isn't
+he making it a god? If he trusts in his wealth to keep him from want
+and to supply his needs, are not riches his god? Many a man says,
+"Give me money, and I will give you heaven. What care I for all the
+glories and treasures of heaven? Give me treasures here! I don't care
+for heaven! I want to be a successful business man." How true are the
+words of Job: "If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine
+gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was
+great, and because mine hand had begotten much; if I beheld the sun
+when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath
+been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were
+an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the
+God that is above."
+
+But all false gods are not as gross as these. There is _the atheist_.
+He says that he does not believe in God; he denies His existence, but
+he can't help setting up some other god in His place. Voltaire said,
+"If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one." So the
+atheist speaks of the Great Unknown, the First Cause, the Infinite
+Mind, etc. Then there is _the deist_. He is a man who believes in one
+God who caused all things: but he doesn't believe in revelation. He
+only accepts such truths as can be discovered by reason. He doesn't
+believe in Jesus Christ, or in the inspiration of the Bible. Then
+there is _the pantheist_, who says: "I believe that the whole universe
+is God. He is in the air, the water, the sun, the stars."; the liar
+and the thief included.
+
+MOSES' FAREWELL MESSAGE.
+
+Let me call your attention to a verse in the thirty-second chapter of
+Deuteronomy, thirty-first verse: "For their rock is not as our Rock,
+even our enemies themselves being judges."
+
+These words were uttered by Moses, in his farewell address to Israel.
+He had been with them forty years. He was their leader and instructor.
+All the blessings of heaven came to them through him. And now the old
+man is about to leave them. If you have never read his speech, do so.
+It is one of the best sermons in print. I know few sermons in the Old
+or New Testament that compare with it.
+
+I can see Moses as he delivers this address. His natural activity has
+not abated. He still has the vigor of youth. His long white hair flows
+over his shoulders, and his venerable beard covers his breast. He
+throws down the challenge: "Their rock is not as our Rock, even our
+enemies themselves being judges."
+
+Has the human heart ever been satisfied with these false gods? Can
+pleasure or riches fill the soul that is empty of God? How about the
+atheist, the deist, the pantheist? What do they look forward to?
+Nothing! Man's life is full of trouble; but when the billows of
+affliction and disappointment are rising and rolling over them, they
+have no God to call upon. "They shall cry unto the gods unto whom they
+offer incense; but they shall not save them at all in the time of
+their trouble." Therefore I contend "their rock is not as our Rock."
+
+My friends, when the hour of affliction comes, they call in a minister
+to give consolation. When I was settled in Chicago, I used to be
+called out to attend many funerals. I would inquire what the man was
+in his belief. If I found out he was an atheist, or a deist, or a
+pantheist, when I went to the funeral and in the presence of his
+friends said one word about that man's doctrine, they would feel
+insulted. Why is it that in a trying hour, when they have been talking
+all the time against God--why is it that in the darkness of affliction
+they call in believers in that God to administer consolation? Why
+doesn't the atheist preach no hereafter, no heaven, no God, in the
+hour of affliction? This very fact is an admission that "their rock is
+not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges."
+
+The deist says there is no use in praying, because nothing can change
+the decrees of deity; God never answers prayer. Is his rock as our
+Rock?
+
+The Bible is true. There is only one God. How many men have said to
+me: "Mr. Moody, I would give the world if I had your faith, your
+consolation, the hope you have with your religion."
+
+Isn't that a proof that their rock is not as our Rock?
+
+Some years ago I went into a man's house, and when I commenced to talk
+about religion he turned to his daughter and said: "You had better
+leave the room. I want to say a few words to Mr. Moody." When she had
+gone, he opened a perfect torrent of infidelity upon me. "Why did you
+send your daughter out of the room before you said this?" I asked.
+"Well," he replied, "I did not think it would do her any good to hear
+what I said."
+
+Is his rock as our Rock? Would he have sent his daughter out if he
+really believed what he said?
+
+NO CONSOLATION EXCEPT IN GOD.
+
+No. There is no satisfaction for the soul except in the God of the
+Bible. We come back to Paul's words, and get consolation for time and
+eternity:--"We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that
+there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called
+gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords
+many,) yet to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
+things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all
+things, and we by Him."
+
+My friend, can you say that sincerely? Is all your hope centred on God
+in Christ? Are you trusting Him alone? Are you ready to step into the
+scales and be weighed against this first commandment?
+
+WHOLE-HEARTED ALLEGIANCE.
+
+God will not accept a divided heart. He must be absolute monarch.
+There is not room in your heart for two thrones. Christ said: "No man
+can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the
+other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye
+cannot serve God and Mammon." Mark you, He did not say--"No man
+_shall_ serve. . . . Ye _shall_ not serve. . . .", but "No man _can_
+serve. . . . Ye _can_ not serve. . . ." That means more than a
+command; it means that you cannot mix the worship of the true God with
+the worship of another god any more than you can mix oil and water. It
+cannot be done. There is not room for any other throne in the heart if
+Christ is there. If worldliness should come in, godliness would go
+out.
+
+The road to heaven and the road to hell lead in different directions.
+Which master will you choose to follow? Be an out-and-out Christian.
+"Him only shalt thou serve." Only thus can you be well pleasing to
+God. The Jews were punished with seventy years of captivity because
+they worshipped false gods. They have suffered nearly nineteen hundred
+years because they rejected the Messiah. Will you incur God's
+displeasure by rejecting Christ too? He died to save you. Trust him
+with your whole heart, for with the heart man believeth unto
+righteousness.
+
+I believe that when Christ has the first place in our hearts--when the
+kingdom of God is first in everything--we shall have power, and we
+shall not have power until we give Him His rightful place. If we let
+some false god come in and steal our love away from the God of heaven,
+we shall have no peace or power.
+
+
+
+Second Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
+any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
+that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself
+to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,
+visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third
+and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto
+thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments."
+
+The first commandment, which we have just considered, points out the
+one true object of worship; this commandment is to tell us the right
+way in which to worship. The former commands us to worship God alone;
+this calls for purity and spirituality as we approach Him. The former
+condemns the worship of false gods; this prohibits false forms. It
+relates more especially to outward acts of worship; but these are only
+the expression of what is in the heart.
+
+Perhaps you will say that there is no trouble about this weight. We
+might go off to other ages or other lands, and find people who make
+images and bow down to them; but we have none here. Let us see if this
+is true. Let us step into the scales and see if we can turn them when
+weighed against this commandment.
+
+I believe this is where the battle is fought. Satan tries to keep us
+from worshipping God aright, and from making Him first in everything.
+If I let some image made by man get into my heart and take the place
+of God the Creator, it is a sin. I believe that Satan is willing to
+have us worship anything, however sacred,--the Bible, the crucifix,
+the church,--if only we do not worship God Himself.
+
+You cannot find a place in the Bible where a man has been allowed to
+bow down and worship any one but the God of heaven and Jesus Christ
+His Son. In the Book of Revelation, when an angel came down to John,
+he was about to fall down and worship him, but the angel would not let
+him. If an angel from heaven is not to be worshipped, when you find
+people bowing down to pictures, to images, even when they bow down to
+worship the cross, _it is a sin_. There are a great many who seem to
+be carried away with these things. "Thou shalt have no other gods
+before Me." "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to any graven image." God
+wants us to worship Him only, and if we do not believe that Jesus
+Christ is God manifest in the flesh we should not worship Him. I have
+no more doubt about the divinity of Christ than I have that I exist.
+
+Worship involves two things: the internal belief, and the external
+act. We transgress in our hearts by having a wrong conception of God
+and of Jesus Christ before ever we give public expression in action.
+As some one has said, it is wrong to have loose opinions as well as to
+be guilty of loose practices. That is what Paul meant when he said:
+"We ought not to _think_ that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver
+or stone, graven by art or man's device." The opinions that some
+people hold about Christ are not in accordance with the Bible, and are
+real violations of this second commandment.
+
+A QUESTION.
+
+The question at once arises--is this commandment intended to forbid
+the use of drawings and pictures of created things altogether? Some
+contend that it does. They point to the Jews and the Mohammedans as a
+proof. The Jews have never been much given to art. The Mohammedans to
+this day do not use designs of animals, etc., in patterns. But I do
+not agree with them. I think God only meant to forbid images and other
+representations when these were intended to be used as objects of
+religious veneration. "Thou shalt not make _unto thee_. . . . Thou
+shalt not _bow down thyself_ to them, nor _serve_ them." In Exodus we
+are told that God ordered the bowls of the golden candlestick for the
+tabernacle to be made "like unto almonds, with a knop and a flower;"
+and the robe of the ephod had a hem on which they were to put a bell
+and a pomegranate alternately. How could God order something that
+broke this second commandment?
+
+I believe that this commandment is a call for spiritual worship. It is
+in line with Christ's declaration to that Samaritan woman--"God is a
+spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in _spirit_ and in
+_truth_."
+
+This is precisely what is difficult for men to do. The apostles were
+hardly in their graves before they began to put up images of them, and
+to worship relics. People have a desire for something tangible,
+something that they can see. It is so much easier to live in the sense
+than in the spirit. That is why there is a demand for ritualism. Some
+people are born Puritans; they want a simple form of worship. Others
+think they cannot get along without forms and ceremonies that appeal
+to the senses. And many a one whose heart is not sincere before God
+takes refuge in these forms, and eases his conscience by making an
+outward show of religion.
+
+The second commandment is to restrain this desire and tendency.
+
+God is grieved when we are untrue to Him. God is Love, and He is
+wounded when our affections are transferred to anything else. The
+penalty attached to this commandment teaches us that man has to reap
+what he sows, whether good or bad; and not only that, but his children
+have to reap with him. Notice that punishment is visited upon the
+children unto the _third_ or the _fourth_ generation, while mercy is
+shown unto thousands, or (as it is more correctly) unto the
+_thousandth_ generation.
+
+THE FOLLY OF IMAGES.
+
+Think for a moment, and you will see how idle it is to try to make any
+representation of God. Christians have tried to paint the Trinity, but
+how can you depict the Invisible? Can you draw a picture of your own
+soul or spirit or will? Moses impressed it upon Israel that when God
+spake to them out of the midst of the fire they saw no manner of
+similitude, but only heard His voice.
+
+A picture or image of God must degrade our conception of Him. It
+fastens us down to one idea, whereas we ought to grow in grace and in
+knowledge. It makes God finite. It brings him down to our level. It
+has given rise to the horrible idols of India and China, because they
+fashion these images according to their own notions. How would the
+president feel if Americans made such hideous objects to resemble him
+as they make of their gods in heathen countries? Isaiah bore down with
+tremendous irony upon the folly of idol makers: upon the smith who
+fashioned gods with tongs and hammers; and upon the carpenter who took
+a tree, and used part of it for a fire to warm himself and roast his
+meat, and made part of it in the figure of a man with his rule and
+plane and compass, and called it his god and worshipped it. "A
+deceived heart hath turned him aside."
+
+A man must be greater than anything he is able to make or manufacture.
+What folly then to think of worshipping such things!
+
+The tendency of the human heart to represent God by something that
+appeals to the senses is the origin of all idolatry. It leads directly
+to image-worship. At first there may be no desire to worship the thing
+itself, but it inevitably ends in that. As Dr. MacLaren says:
+"Enlisting the senses as allies of the spirit is risky work. They are
+apt to fight for their own band when they once begin, and the history
+of all symbolical and ceremonial worship shows that the experiment is
+much more likely to end in sensualizing religion than in
+spiritualizing sense."
+
+PICTURES AND IMAGES.
+
+But some one says--"I find pictures are a great help to me, and
+images. I know that they are not themselves sacred, but they help me
+in my devotions to fix my thoughts on God."
+
+When Dr. Trumbull was in Northfield, he used an illustration that is a
+good answer to this. He said, "Suppose a young man were watching from
+a window for his absent mother's return, with a wish to catch the
+first glimpse of her approaching face. Would he be wise or foolish in
+putting up a photograph of her on the window-frame before him, as a
+help to bear her in as he looks for her coming? As there can be no
+doubt about the answer to that question, so there can be no doubt that
+we can best come into communion with God by closing our eyes to
+everything that can be seen with the natural eye, and opening the eyes
+of our spirit to the sight of God the Spirit."
+
+I would a great deal sooner have five minutes communion with Christ
+than spend years before pictures and images of Him. Whatever comes
+between my soul and my Maker is not a help to me, but a hindrance. God
+has given different means of grace by which we can approach Him. Let
+us use these, and not seek for other things that He has distinctly
+forbidden.
+
+Dr. Dale says that in his college days he had an engraving of our Lord
+hanging over his mantlepiece. "The calmness, the dignity, the
+gentleness, and the sadness of the face represented the highest
+conceptions which I had in those days of the human presence of Christ.
+I often looked at it, and seldom without being touched by it. I
+discovered in the course of a few mouths that the superstitious
+sentiments were gradually clustering about it, which are always
+created by the visible representations of the Divine. The engraving
+was becoming to me the shrine of God manifest in the flesh, and I
+understood the growth of idolatry. The visible symbol is at first a
+symbol and nothing more; it assists thought; it stirs passion. At last
+it is identified with the God whom it represents. If, every day, I bow
+before a crucifix in prayer, if I address it as though it were Christ,
+though I know it is not, I shall come to feel for it a reverence and
+love which are of the very essence of idolatry."
+
+Did you ever stop to think that the world has not a single picture of
+Christ that has been handed down to us from His disciples? Who knows
+what He was like? The Bible does not tell us how He looked, except in
+one or two isolated general expressions as when it says--"His visage
+was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of
+men." We don't know anything definite about His features, the color of
+His hair and eyes, and the other details that would help to give a
+true representation. What artist can tell us? He left no keepsakes to
+His disciples. His clothes were seized by the Roman soldiers who
+crucified Him. Not a solitary thing was left to be handed down among
+His followers. Doesn't it look as if Christ left no relics lest they
+should be held sacred and worshipped?
+
+History tells us further that the early Christians shrank from making
+pictures and statues of any kind of Christ. They knew Him as they had
+seen Him after His resurrection, and had promises of His continued
+presence that pictures could not make any more real.
+
+I have seen very few pictures of Christ that do not repel me more or
+less. I sometimes think that it is wrong to have pictures of Him at
+all.
+
+Speaking of the crucifix Dr. Dale says; "It makes our worship and
+prayer unreal. We are adoring a Christ who does not exist. He is not
+on the cross now, but on the throne. His agonies are passed forever.
+He has risen from the dead. He is at the right hand of God. If we pray
+to a dying Christ, we are praying not to Christ Himself, but to a mere
+remembrance of Him. The injury which the crucifix has inflicted on the
+religious life of Christendom, in encouraging a morbid and unreal
+devotion, is absolutely incalculable. It has given us a dying Christ
+instead of a living Christ, a Christ separated from us by many
+centuries instead of a Christ nigh at hand."
+
+THE INDWELLING CHRIST.
+
+No one can say that we have nowadays any need of such things. "Behold
+I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the
+door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
+If Christ is in our hearts, why need we set Him before our eyes?
+"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in
+the midst of them." If we take hold of that promise by faith, what
+need is there of outward symbols and reminders? If the King Himself is
+present, why need we bow down before statues supposed to represent
+Him? To fill His place with an image (some one has said,) is like
+blotting the sun out of the heavens and substituting some other light
+in its place. "You cannot see Him through chinks of ceremonialism; or
+through the blind eyes of erring man; or by images graven with art and
+man's device; or in cunningly devised fables of artificial and
+perverted theology. Nay, seek Him in His own Word, in the revelation
+of Himself which He gives to all who walk in His ways. So you will be
+able to keep that admonition of the last word of all the New Testament
+revelation: 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'"
+
+I believe many an earnest Christian would be found wanting if put in
+the balances against this commandment. "Tekel" is the sentence that
+would be written against them, because their worship of God and of
+Christ is not pure. May God open our eyes to the danger that is
+creeping more and more into public worship throughout Christendom! Let
+us ever bear in mind Christ's words in the fourth chapter of John's
+gospel, which show that true spiritual worship is not a matter of
+special times and special places because it is of all times and all
+places:
+
+"Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain,
+nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour cometh, and now
+is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and
+in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit:
+and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
+
+
+
+Third Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the
+Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain."
+
+I was greatly amazed not long ago in talking to a man who thought he
+was a Christian, to find that once in a while, when he got angry, he
+would swear. I said: "My friend, I don't see how you can tear down
+with one hand what you are trying to build up with the other. I don't
+see how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come
+out of your lips."
+
+He replied: "Mr. Moody, if you knew me you would understand. I have a
+very quick temper. I inherited it from my father and mother, and it is
+uncontrollable; but my swearing comes only from the lips."
+
+When God said, "I will not hold him guiltless that takes My name in
+vain," He meant what He said, and I don't believe any one can be a
+true child of God who takes the name of God in vain. What is the grace
+of God for, if it is not to give me control of my temper so that I
+shall not lose control and bring down the curse of God upon myself?
+When a man is born of God, God takes the "swear" out of him. Make the
+fountain good, and the stream will be good. Let the heart be right;
+then the language will be right; the whole life will be right. But no
+man can serve God and keep His law until he is born of God. There we
+see the necessity of the new birth.
+
+To take God's name "in vain" means either (1) lightly, without
+thinking, flippantly; or (2) profanely, deceitfully.
+
+USING GOD'S NAME IRREVERENTLY.
+
+I think it is shocking to use God's name with so little reverence as
+is common nowadays, even among professing Christians. We are told that
+the Jews held it so sacred that the covenant name of God was never
+mentioned amongst them except once a year by the high priest on the
+Day of Atonement, when he went into the holy of holies. What a
+contrast that is to the familiar use Christians make of it in public
+and private worship! We are apt to rush into God's presence, and rush
+out again, without any real sense of the reverence and awe that is due
+Him. We forget that we are on holy ground.
+
+Do you know how often the word "reverend" occurs in the Bible? Only
+once. And what is it used in connection with? God's name. Psalm cxi.
+9: "Holy and reverend is His name." So important did the Jewish rabbis
+consider this commandment that they said the whole world trembled when
+it was first proclaimed on Sinai.
+
+USING GOD'S NAME PROFANELY.
+
+But though there is far too much of this frivolous, familiar use of
+God's name, the commandment is broken a great deal more by profanity.
+Taking the name of God in vain is blasphemy. Is there a swearing man
+who reads this? What would you do if you were put into the balances of
+the sanctuary, if you had to step in opposite to this third
+commandment? Think a moment. Have you been taking God's name in vain
+to-day?
+
+I do not believe men would ever have been guilty of swearing unless
+God had forbidden it. They do not swear by their friends, their
+fathers or mothers, their wives or children. They want to show how
+they despise God's law.
+
+A great many men think there is nothing in swearing. Bear in mind that
+God sees something wrong in it, and He says He will not hold men
+guiltless, even though society does.
+
+I met a man sometime ago who told me he had never sinned in his life.
+He was the first perfect man I had ever met. I thought I would
+question him, and began to measure him by the law. I asked him: "Do
+you ever get angry?" "Well," he said, "sometimes I do; but I have a
+right to do so. It is righteous indignation." "Do you swear when you
+get angry?" He admitted he did sometimes. "Then," I asked, "are you
+ready to meet God?" "Yes," he replied, "because I never mean anything
+when I swear."
+
+Suppose I steal a man's watch and he comes after me.
+
+"Yes," I say, "I stole your watch and pawned it, but _I did not mean
+anything by it_. I pawned it and spent the money, but _I did not mean
+anything by it_."
+
+You would smile at and deride such a statement.
+
+Ah, friends! You cannot trifle with God in that way. Even if you swear
+without meaning it, it is forbidden by God. Christ said: "Every idle
+word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the
+day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy
+words thou shalt be condemned." You will be held accountable whether
+your words are _idle_ or _blasphemous_.
+
+A SENSELESS HABIT.
+
+The habit of swearing is condemned by all sensible persons. It has
+been called "the most gratuitous of all sins," because no one gains by
+it; it is "not only sinful, but useless." An old writer said that when
+the accusing angel, who records men's words, flies up to heaven with
+an oath, he blushes as he hands it in.
+
+When a man blasphemes, he shows an utter contempt for God. I was in
+the army during the war, and heard men cursing and swearing. Some
+godly woman would pass along the ranks looking for her wounded son,
+and not an oath would be heard. They would not swear before their
+mothers, or their wives, or their sisters; they had more respect for
+them than they had for God!
+
+Isn't it a terrible condemnation that swearing held its own until it
+came to be recognized as a vulgar thing, a sin against society? Men
+dropped it then, who never thought of its being a sin against God.
+
+There will be no swearing men in the kingdom of God. They will have to
+drop that sin, and repent of it, before they see the kingdom of God.
+
+HOW TO KEEP FROM SWEARING.
+
+Men often ask: "How can I keep from swearing?" I will tell you. If God
+puts His love into your heart, you will have no desire to curse Him.
+If you have much regard for God, you will no more think of cursing Him
+than you would think of speaking lightly or disparagingly of a mother
+whom you love. But the natural man is at enmity with God, and has
+utter contempt for His law. When that law is written on his heart,
+there will be no trouble in obeying it.
+
+When I was out west about thirty years ago, I was preaching one day in
+the open air, when a man drove up in a fine turn-out, and after
+listening a little while to what I was saying, he put the whip to his
+fine-looking Steed, and away he went. I never expected to see him
+again, but the next night he came back, and he kept on coming
+regularly night after night.
+
+I noticed that his forehead itched--you have noticed people who keep
+putting their hands to their foreheads?--he didn't want any one to see
+him shedding tears--of course not! It is not a manly thing to shed
+tears in a religions meeting, of course!
+
+After the meeting I said to a gentleman: "Who is that man who drives
+up here every night? Is he interested?" "Interested! I should think
+not! You should have heard the way he talked about you today." "Well,"
+I said, "that is a sign he is interested."
+
+If no man ever has anything to say against you, your Christianity
+isn't worth much. Men said of the Master, "He has a devil," and Jesus
+said that if they had called the master of the house Beelzebub, how
+much more them of his household.
+
+I asked where this man lived, but my friend told me not to go to see
+him, for he would only curse me. I said: "It takes God to curse a man;
+man can only bring curses on his own head." I found out where he
+lived, and went to see him. He was the wealthiest man within a hundred
+miles of that place, and had a wife and seven beautiful children. Just
+as I got to his gate I saw him coming out of the front door. I stepped
+up to him and said: "This is Mr.--, I believe?" He said: "Yes, sir;
+that is my name." Then he straightened up and asked--"What do you
+want?" "Well," I said, "I would like to ask you a question, if you
+won't be angry." "Well, what is it?" "I am told that God has blessed
+you above all men in this part of the country; that He has given you
+wealth, a beautiful Christian wife, and seven lovely children. I do
+not know if it is true, but I hear that all He gets in return is
+cursing and blasphemy." He said, "Come in; come in." I went in. "Now,"
+he said, "what you said out there is true. If any man has a fine wife
+I am the man, and I have a lovely family of children, and God has been
+good to me. But do you know, we had company here the other night, and
+I cursed my wife at the table, and did not know it till after the
+company had gone. I never felt so mean and contemptible in my life as
+when my wife told me of it. She said she wanted the floor to open and
+let her down out of her seat. If I have tried once, I have tried a
+hundred times to stop swearing. You preachers don't know anything
+about it." "Yes," I said, "I know all about it; I have been a
+drummer." "But," he said, "you don't know anything about a
+business-man's troubles. When he is harassed and tormented the whole
+time, he can't help swearing." "Oh, yes," I said, "he can. I know
+something about it. I used to swear myself." "What! You used to
+swear?" he asked; "how did you stop?" "I never stopped." "Why, you
+don't swear now, do you?" "No; I have not sworn for years." "How did
+you stop?" "I never stopped. It stopped itself." He said, "I don't
+understand this." "No," I said, "I know you don't. But I came up to
+talk to you, so that you will never want to swear again as long as you
+live."
+
+I began to tell him about Christ in the heart; how that would take the
+temptation to swear out of a man,
+
+"Well," he said, "how am I to get Christ?" "Get right down here and
+tell Him what you want." "But," he said, "I was never on my knees in
+my life. I have been cursing all the day, and I don't know how to pray
+or what to pray for." "Well," I said, "it is mortifying to have to
+call on God for mercy when you have never used His name except in
+oaths; but He will not turn you away. Ask God to forgive you if you
+want to be forgiven."
+
+Then the man got down and prayed--only a few sentences, but thank God,
+it is the short prayers, after all, which bring the quickest answers.
+After he prayed he got up and said: "What shall I do now?" I said, "Go
+down to the church and tell the people there that you want to be an
+out-and-out Christian." "I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to
+church except to some funeral." "Then it is high time for you to go
+for something else," I said.
+
+After a while he promised to go, but did not know what the people
+would say. At the next church prayer-meeting, the man was there, and I
+sat right in front of him. He stood up and put his hands on the
+settee, and he trembled so much that I could feel the settee shake. He
+said:
+
+"My friends, you know all about me. If God can save a wretch like me,
+I want to have you pray for my salvation."
+
+That was thirty odd years ago. Sometime ago I was back in that town,
+and did not see him; but when I was in California, a man asked me to
+take dinner with him. I told him that I could not do so, for I had
+another engagement. Then he asked if I remembered him, and told me his
+name. "Oh," I said, "tell me, have you ever sworn since that night you
+knelt in your drawing-room, and asked God to forgive you?" "No," he
+replied, "I have never had a desire to swear since then. It was all
+taken away."
+
+He was not only converted, but became an earnest, active Christian,
+and all these years has been serving God. That is what will take place
+when a man is born of the divine nature.
+
+Is there a swearing man ready to put this commandment into the scales,
+and step in to be weighed? Suppose you swear only once in six months
+or a year--suppose you swear only once in ten years--do you think God
+will hold you guiltless for that act? It shows that your heart is not
+clean in God's sight. What are you going to do, blasphemer? Would you
+not be found wanting? You would be like a feather in the balance.
+
+
+
+Fourth Commandment
+
+"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor,
+and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord
+thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy
+daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
+stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made
+heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the
+seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed
+it."
+
+There has been an awful letting-down in this country regarding the
+sabbath during the last twenty-five years, and many a man has been
+shorn of spiritual power, like Samson, because he is not straight on
+this question. Can _you_ say that you observe the sabbath properly?
+You may be a professed Christian: are you obeying this commandment? Or
+do you neglect the house of God on the sabbath day, and spend your
+time drinking and carousing in places of vice and crime, showing
+contempt for God and His law? Are you ready to step into the scales?
+Where were you last sabbath? How did you spend it?
+
+I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding to-day as
+it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been
+abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the
+Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing
+to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes
+and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. "The sabbath was
+made for man, not man for the sabbath." It is just as practicable and
+as necessary for men to-day as it ever was--in fact, more than ever,
+because we live in such an intense age.
+
+The sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since.
+This fourth commandment begins with the word "remember," showing that
+the sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the tables of
+stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been
+done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still
+binding?
+
+I believe that the sabbath question to-day is a vital one for the
+whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If you
+give up the sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church the
+home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the direction
+in which we are traveling.
+
+The church of God is losing its power on account of so many people
+giving up the sabbath, and using it to promote selfishness.
+
+HOW TO OBSERVE THE SABBATH.
+
+"Sabbath" means "rest," and the meaning of the word gives a hint as to
+the true way to observe the day. God rested after creation, and
+ordained the sabbath as a rest for man. He blessed it and hallowed it.
+"Remember _the rest-day_ to keep it _holy_." It is the day when the
+body may be refreshed and strengthened after six days of labor, and
+the soul drawn into closer fellowship with its Maker.
+
+True observance of the sabbath may be considered under two general
+heads: cessation from ordinary secular work, and religious exercises.
+
+I.--CESSATION FROM SECULAR WORK.
+
+A man ought to turn aside from his ordinary employment one day in
+seven. There are many whose occupation will not permit them to observe
+Sunday, but they should observe some other day as a sabbath. Saturday
+is my day of rest because I generally preach on Sunday, and I look
+forward to it as a boy does to a holiday. God knows what we need.
+
+Ministers and missionaries often tell me that they take no rest-day;
+they do not need it because they are in the Lord's work. That is a
+mistake. When God was giving Moses instructions about the building of
+the tabernacle, He referred especially to the sabbath, and gave
+injunctions for its strict observance; and later, when Moses was
+conveying the words of the Lord to the children of Israel, he
+interpreted them by saying that not even were sticks to be gathered on
+the sabbath to kindle fires for smelting or other purposes. In spite
+of their zeal and haste to erect the tabernacle, the workmen were to
+have their day of rest. The command applies to ministers and others
+engaged in Christian work to-day as much as to those Israelite workmen
+of old.
+
+WORKS OF NECESSITY AND OF EMERGENCY.
+
+In judging whether any work may or may not be lawfully done on the
+sabbath, find out the reason and object for doing it. Exceptions are
+to be made for works of necessity and works of emergency. By "_works
+of necessity_" I mean those acts that Christ justified when He
+approved of leading one's ox or ass to water. Watchmen, police,
+stokers on board steamers, and many others have engagements that
+necessitate their working on the sabbath. By "_works of emergency_" I
+mean those referred to by Christ when He approved of pulling an ox or
+an ass out of a pit on the sabbath day. In case of fire or sickness a
+man is often called on to do things that would not otherwise be
+justifiable.
+
+A Christian man was once urged by his employer to work on Sunday.
+"Does not your Bible say that if your ass falls into a pit on the
+sabbath, you may pull him out?" "Yes," replied the other; "but if the
+ass had the habit of falling into the same pit every sabbath, I would
+either fill up the pit or sell the ass."
+
+Every man must settle the question as it effects unnecessary work,
+with his own conscience.
+
+No man should make another work seven days in the week. One day is
+demanded for rest. A man who has to work the seven days has nothing to
+look forward to, and life becomes humdrum. Many Christians are guilty
+in this respect.
+
+SABBATH TRAVELING.
+
+Take, for instance, the question of sabbath traveling. I believe we
+are breaking God's laws by using the cars on Sunday and depriving
+conductors and others of their sabbath. Remember the fourth
+commandment expressly refers to "the stranger that is within thy
+gates." Doesn't that touch sabbath travel?
+
+But you ask, "What are we to do? How are we to get to church?"
+
+I reply, on foot. It will be better for you. Once when I was holding
+meetings in London, in my ignorance I made arrangements to preach four
+times in different places one sabbath. After I had made the
+appointments I found I had to walk sixteen miles; but I walked it, and
+I slept that night with a clear conscience. I have made it a rule
+never to use the cars, and if I have a private carriage, I insist that
+horse and man shall rest on Monday. I want no hackman to rise up in
+judgment against me.
+
+My friends, if we want to help the sabbath, let business men and
+Christians never patronize cars on the sabbath. I would hate to own
+stock in those companies, to be the means of taking the sabbath from
+these men, and have to answer for it at the day of judgment. Let those
+who are Christians at any rate endeavor to keep a conscience void of
+offence on this point.
+
+SABBATH TRADING.
+
+There are many who are inclined to use the sabbath in order to make
+money faster. This is no new sin. The prophet Amos hurled his
+invectives against oppressors who said, "When will the new moon be
+gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth
+wheat?"
+
+Covetous men have always chafed under the restraint, but not until the
+present time do we find that they have openly counted on sabbath trade
+to make money. We are told that many street car companies would not
+pay if it were not for the sabbath traffic, and the sabbath edition of
+newspapers is also counted upon as the most profitable.
+
+The railroad men of this country are breaking down with softening of
+the brain, and die at the age of fifty or sixty. They think their
+business is so important that they must run their trains seven days in
+the week. Business men travel on the sabbath so as to be on hand for
+business Monday morning. But if they do so God will not prosper them.
+
+Work is good for man and is commanded, "Six days shalt thou labor;"
+but overwork and work on the sabbath takes away the best thing he has.
+
+NECESSARY AND BENEFICIAL.
+
+The good effect on a nation's health and happiness produced by the
+return of the sabbath, with its cessation from work, cannot be
+overestimated. It is needed to repair and restore the body after six
+days of work. It is proved that a man can do more in six days than in
+seven. Lord Beaconsfield. said: "Of all divine institutions, the most
+divine is that which secures a day of rest for man. I hold it to be
+the most valuable blessing conceded to man. It is the corner-stone of
+all civilization, and its removal might affect even the health of the
+people." Mr. Gladstone recently told a friend that the secret of his
+long life is that amid all the pressure of public cares he never
+forgot the sabbath, with its rest for the body and the soul. The
+constitution of the United States protects the president in his weekly
+day of rest. He has ten days, "Sundays excepted," in which to consider
+a bill that has been sent to him for signature. Every workingman in
+the republic ought to be as thoroughly protected as the president. If
+workingmen got up a strike against unnecessary work on the sabbath,
+they would have the sympathy of a good many.
+
+"Our bodies are seven-day clocks," says Talmage, "and they need to be
+wound up, and if they are not wound up they run down into the grave.
+No man can continuously break the sabbath and keep his physical and
+mental health. Ask aged men, and they will tell you they never knew
+men who continuously broke the sabbath, who did not fail in mind,
+body, or moral principles."
+
+All that has been said about rest for man is true for working animals.
+God didn't forget them in this commandment, and man should not forget
+them either.
+
+II.--RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.
+
+But "rest" does not mean idleness. No man enjoys idleness for any
+length of time. When one goes on a vacation, one does not lie around
+doing nothing all the time. Hard work at tennis, hunting, and other
+pursuits fills the hours. A healthy mind must find something to do.
+
+Hence the sabbath rest does not mean inactivity. "Satan finds some
+mischief still for idle hands to do." The best way to keep off bad
+thoughts and to avoid temptation is to engage in active religious
+exercises.
+
+As regards these, we should avoid extremes. On the one hand we find a
+rigor in sabbath observance that is nowhere commanded in Scripture,
+and that reminds one of the formalism of the Pharisees more than of
+the spirit of the gospel. Such strictness does more harm than good. It
+repels people and makes the sabbath a burden. On the other hand we
+should jealously guard against a loose way of keeping the sabbath.
+Already in many cities it is profaned openly.
+
+When I was a boy the sabbath lasted from sundown on Saturday to
+sundown on Sunday, and I remember how we boys used to shout when it
+was over. It was the worst day in the week to us. I believe it can be
+made the brightest day in the week. Every child ought to be reared so
+that he shall be able to say, with a friend, that he would rather have
+the other six days weeded out of his memory than the sabbath of his
+childhood.
+
+PUBLIC WORSHIP.
+
+Make the sabbath a day of religious activity. First of all, of course,
+is attendance at public worship. "There is a discrepancy," says John
+McNeill, "between our creed about the sabbath day and our actual
+conduct. In many families, at ten o'clock on the sabbath, attendance
+at church is still an open question. There is no open question on
+Monday morning--'John, will you go to work to-day?'"
+
+A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said, "You
+know John you are never absent from market."
+
+"O," was the reply, "we _must_ go to market."
+
+Some one has said that without the sabbath the church of Christ could
+not, as a visible organization, exist on earth. Another has said that
+"we need to be in the drill of observance as well as in the liberty of
+faith." Human nature is so treacherous that we are apt to omit things
+altogether unless there is some special reason for doing them. A man
+is not likely to worship at all unless he has regularly appointed
+times and means for worship. Family and private devotions are almost
+certain to be omitted altogether unless one gets into the habit, and
+has a special time set apart daily.
+
+A REMINISCENCE.
+
+I remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the sabbath.
+On one occasion the preacher had to send some one into the gallery to
+wake me up. I thought it was hard to have to work in the field all the
+week, and then to be obliged to go to church and hear a sermon I
+didn't understand. I thought I wouldn't go to church any more when I
+got away from home; but I had got so in the habit of going that I
+couldn't stay away. After one or two sabbaths, back again to the house
+of God I went. There I first found Christ, and I have often said
+since,
+
+"Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house of God when I
+didn't want to go."
+
+Parents, if you want your children to grow up and honor you, have them
+honor the sabbath day. Don't let them go off fishing, and getting into
+bad company, or it won't be long before they will come home and curse
+you. I know few things more beautiful than to see a father and mother
+coming up the aisle with their daughters and sons, and sitting down
+together to hear the Word of God. It is a good thing to have the
+children, not in some remote loft or gallery, but in a good place,
+well in sight. Though they cannot understand the sermon now, when they
+get older they won't desire to break away, they will continue
+attending public worship in the house of God.
+
+But we must not mistake the means for the end. We must not think that
+the sabbath is just for the sake of being able to attend meetings.
+There are some people who think they must spend the whole day at
+meetings or private devotions. The result is that at nightfall they
+are tired out, and the day has brought them no rest. The number of
+church services attended ought to be measured by the person's ability
+to enjoy them and get good from them, without being wearied. Attending
+meetings is not the only way to observe the sabbath. The Israelites
+were commanded to keep it in their dwellings as well as in holy
+convocation. The home, that centre of so great influence over the life
+and character of the people, ought to be made the scene of true
+sabbath observance.
+
+HOME OBSERVANCE.
+
+Jeremiah classified godless families with the heathen: "Pour out thy
+fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that
+call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, devoured him, and
+consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate."
+
+Many mothers have written to me at one time or another to know what to
+do to entertain their children on the sabbath. The boys say, "I do
+wish 'twas Night," or, "I do hate the sabbath," or, "I do wish the
+sabbath was over." It ought to be the happiest day in the week to
+them, one to be looked forward to with pleasure. In order to this end,
+many suggestions might be followed. Make family prayers especially
+attractive by having the children learn some verse or story from the
+Bible. Give more time to your children than you can give on week days,
+reading to them and perhaps taking them to walk in the afternoon or
+evening. Show by your conduct that the sabbath is a delight, and they
+will soon catch your spirit. Set aside some time for religious
+instruction, without making this a task. You can make it interesting
+for the children by telling Bible stories and asking them to guess the
+names of the characters. Have Sunday games for the younger children.
+Picture books, puzzle maps of Palestine, etc., can be easily obtained.
+Sunday albums and Sunday clocks are other devices. Set aside
+attractive books for the sabbath, not letting the children have these
+during the week. By doing this, the children can be brought to look
+forward to the day with eagerness and pleasure.
+
+PRIVATE OBSERVANCE.
+
+Apart from public and family observance, the individual ought to
+devote a portion of the time to his own edification. Prayer,
+meditation, reading, ought not to be forgotten. Think of men devoting
+six days a week to their body, which will soon pass away, and
+begrudging one day to the soul which will live on and on forever: Is
+it too much for God to ask for one day to be devoted to the growth and
+training of the spiritual senses, when the other senses are kept busy
+the other six days?
+
+If your circumstances permit, engage in some definite Christian
+work--such as teaching in Sunder school, or visiting the sick. Do all
+the good you can Sin keeps no sabbath, and no more should good deeds.
+There is plenty of opportunity in this fallen world to perform works
+of mercy and religion. Make your sabbath down here a foretaste of the
+eternal sabbath that is in store for believers.
+
+You want power in your Christian life, do you? You want Holy Ghost
+power? You want the dew of heaven on your brow? You want to see men
+convicted and converted? I don't believe we shall ever have genuine
+conversions until we get straight on this law of God.
+
+SABBATH DESECRATION.
+
+Men seem to think they have a right to change the holy day into a
+_holiday_. The young have more temptations to break the sabbath than
+we had forty years ago. There are three great temptations: first, the
+trolley car, that will take you off into the country for a nickel to
+have a day of recreation; second, the bicycle, which is leading a good
+many Christian men to give up their sabbath and spend the day on
+excursions; and the third, the Sunday newspaper.
+
+Twenty years ago Christian people in Chicago would have been horrified
+if any one had prophesied that all the theatres would be open every
+sabbath; but that is what has come to pass. If it had been prophesied
+twenty years ago that Christian men would take a wheel and go off on
+Sunday morning and be gone all day on an excursion, Christians would
+have been horrified and would have said it was impossible; but that is
+what is going on to-day all over the country.
+
+THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.
+
+With regard to the Sunday newspaper, I know all the arguments that are
+brought in its favor--that the work on it is done during the week,
+that it is the Monday paper that causes Sunday work, and so on. But
+there are two hundred thousand newsboys selling the paper on Sunday.
+Would you like to have your boy one of them? Men are kept running
+trains in order to distribute the papers. Would you like your sabbath
+taken away from you? If not, then practise the Golden Rule, and don't
+touch the papers.
+
+Their contents make them unfit for reading any day, not to say Sunday.
+Some New York dailies advertise Sunday editions of sixty pages. Many
+dirty pieces of scandal in this and other countries are raked up and
+put into them. "Eight pages of fun!"--that is splendid reading for
+Sunday, isn't it? Even when a so-called sermon is printed, it is
+completely buried by the fiction and news matter. It is time that
+ministers went into their pulpits and preached against Sunday
+newspapers if they haven't done it already. Put the man in the scales
+that buys and reads Sunday papers. After reading them for two or three
+hours he might go and hear the best sermon in the world, but you
+couldn't preach anything into him. His mind is filled up with what he
+has read, and there is no room for thoughts of God. I believe that the
+archangel Gabriel himself could not make an impression on an audience
+that has its head full of such trash. If you bored a hole into a man's
+head, you could not inject any thoughts of God and heaven.
+
+I don't believe that the publishers would allow their own children to
+read them. Why then should they give them to my children and to yours?
+
+A merchant who advertises in Sunday papers is not keeping the sabbath.
+It is a master-stroke of the devil to induce Christian men to do this
+in order to make trade for Monday. But if a man makes money, and yet
+his sons are ruined and his home broken up, what has he gained?
+
+Ladies buy the Sunday papers and read the advertisements of Monday
+bargains to see what they can buy cheap. Just so with their religion.
+They are willing to have it if it doesn't cost anything.
+
+If Christian men and women refused to buy them, if Christian merchants
+refused to advertise in them, they would soon die out, because that is
+where they get most of their support.
+
+They tell me the Sunday paper has come to stay, and I may as well let
+it alone. Never! I believe it is a great evil, and I shall fight it
+while I live. I never read a Sunday paper, and wouldn't have one in my
+house. They are often sent me, but I tear them up without reading
+them. I will have nothing to do with them. They do more harm to
+religion than any other one agency I know. Their whole influence is
+against keeping the sabbath holy. They are an unnecessary evil. Can't
+a man read enough news on week days without desecrating the sabbath?
+We had no Sunday papers till the war came, and we got along very well
+without them. They have been increasing in size and in number ever
+since then, and I think they have been lowering their tone ever since.
+If you believe that, help to fight them too. Stamp them out, beginning
+with yourself.
+
+PUNISHMENT OR BLESSING?
+
+No nation has ever prospered that has trampled the sabbath in the
+dust. Show me a nation that has done this, and I will show you a
+nation that has got in it the seeds of ruin and decay. I believe that
+sabbath desecration will carry a nation down quicker than anything
+else. Adam brought marriage and the sabbath with him out of Eden, and
+neither can be disregarded without suffering. When the children of
+Israel went into the Promised Land God told them to let their land
+rest every seven years, and He would give them as much in six years as
+in seven. For four hundred and ninety years they disregarded that law.
+But mark you, Nebuchadnezzar came and took them off into Babylon, and
+kept them seventy years in captivity, and the land had its seventy
+sabbaths of rest. Seven times seventy is four hundred and ninety. So
+they did not gain much by breaking this law. You can give God His day,
+or He will take it.
+
+On the other hand, honoring the fourth commandment brings blessing.
+"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure
+on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord,
+honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding
+thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words ('thine own' as
+contrasted with what God enjoins), then shalt thou delight thyself in
+the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the
+earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the
+mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
+
+I do not know what will become of this republic if we give up our
+Christian sabbath. If Satan can break the conscience down on one
+point, he can break it down on all. When I was in France in 1867, I
+could not tell one day from the other. On Sunday stores were open and
+buildings were erected, the same as on other days. See how quickly
+that country went down. One hundred years ago France and England stood
+abreast in the march of nations. Where do they stand to-day? France
+undertook to wipe out the sabbath, and has pretty nearly wiped itself
+out, while England belts the globe.
+
+A FIRM STAND.
+
+We have a fighting chance to save this nation, and what we want is men
+and women who have moral courage to stand up and say:
+
+"No, I will not touch the Sunday paper, and all the influence I have I
+will throw dead against it. I will not go away on Saturday evening if
+I have to travel on Sunday to get back. I will not do unnecessary work
+on the sabbath. I will do all I can to keep it holy as God commanded."
+
+But some one says: "Mr. Moody, what are you going to do? I have to
+work seven days a week or starve."
+
+Then starve! Wouldn't it be a grand thing to have a martyr in the
+nineteenth century? "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
+church." Some one says the seed is getting very low; it has been a
+long time since we have had any seed. I would give something to erect
+a monument to such a martyr to his fidelity to God's law. I would go
+around the world to attend his funeral.
+
+We want to-day men who will make up their minds to do what is right,
+and stand by it if the heavens tumble on their heads. What is to
+become of Christian Associations and Sunday Schools, of churches and
+Christian Endeavor Societies, if the Christian sabbath is given up to
+recreation, and made a holiday? Hasn't the time come to call a halt if
+men want power with God? Let men call you narrow and bigoted, but be
+man enough to stand by God's law, and you will have power and
+blessing. That is the kind of Christianity we want just now in this
+country. Any man can go with the crowd, but we want men who will go
+against the current.
+
+Sabbath-breaker, are you ready to step into the scales?
+
+
+
+Fifth Commandment
+
+"Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the
+land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
+
+We are living in dark days on this question too. It really seems as if
+the days the apostle Paul wrote about are upon us: "In the last days
+perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own
+selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, _disobedient to
+parents, unthankful_, unholy, _without natural affection_, despisers
+of those that are good, . . . ." If Paul was alive to-day, could he
+have described the present state of affairs more truly? There are
+perhaps more men in this country that are breaking the hearts of their
+fathers and mothers, and trampling on the law of God, than in any
+other civilized country in the world. How many sons treat their
+parents with contempt, and make light of their entreaties? A young man
+will have the kindest care from parents; they will watch over him, and
+care for all his wants; and some bad companion will come in and sweep
+him away from them in a few weeks. How many young ladies have married
+against their parents' wishes, and have gone off and made their own
+life bitter! I never knew one case that did not turn out badly. They
+invariably bring ruin upon themselves, unless they repent.
+
+BEGIN IN THE HOME.
+
+The first four commandments deal with our relations to God. They tell
+us how to worship and when to worship; they forbid irreverence and
+impiety in word and act. Now God turns to our relations with each
+other, and isn't it significant that He deals first with family life?
+"God is going to show us our duty to our neighbor. How does He begin?
+Not by telling us how kings ought to reign, or how soldiers ought to
+fight, or how merchants ought to conduct their business, but how boys
+and girls ought to behave at home."
+
+We can see that if their home life is all right, they are almost sure
+to fulfil the law both in regard to God and man. Parents stand in the
+place of God to their children in a great many ways until the children
+arrive at years of discretion. If the children are true to their
+parents, it will be easier for them to be true to God. He used the
+human relationship as a symbol of our relationship to Him both by
+creation and by grace. God is our Father in heaven. We are His
+offspring.
+
+On the other hand, if they have not learned to be obedient and
+respectful at home, they are likely to have little respect for the law
+of the land. It is all in the heart; and the heart is prepared at home
+for good or bad conduct outside. The tree grows the way the twig is
+bent.
+
+"Honor thy father and thy mother." That word "honor" means more than
+mere obedience--a child may obey through fear. It means love and
+affection, gratitude, respect. We are told that in the east the words
+"father" and "mother" include those who are "superiors in age, wisdom
+and in civil or religious station," so that when the Jews were taught
+to honor their father and mother it included all who were placed over
+them in these relations, as well as their parents. Isn't there a
+crying need for that same feeling to-day? The lawlessness of the
+present time is a natural consequence of the growing absence of a
+feeling of respect for those in authority.
+
+HONOR THY MOTHER.
+
+It has been pointed out as worthy of notice that this commandment
+enjoins honor for _the mother_, and yet in eastern countries to the
+present day woman is held of little account. When I was in Palestine a
+few years ago, the prettiest girl in Jericho was sold by her father in
+exchange for a donkey. In many ancient nations, just as in certain
+parts of heathendom today, the parents are killed off as soon as they
+become old and feeble. Can't we see the hand of God here, raising the
+woman to her rightful position of honor out of the degradation into
+which she had been dragged by heathenism?
+
+"Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the
+land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." I believe that we must get
+back to the old truths. You may make light of it, and laugh at it,
+young man, but remember that God has given this commandment, and you
+cannot set it aside. If we get back to this law, we shall have power
+and blessing.
+
+TEMPORAL BLESSING OR CURSE.
+
+I believe it to be literally true that our temporal condition depends
+on the way we act upon this commandment. "Honor thy father and mother,
+(which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well
+with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth." "Honor thy
+father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that
+thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the
+land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." "Cursed is he that setteth
+light by his father or mother." "Whoso curseth his father or mother,
+his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness." It would be easy to
+multiply texts from the Bible to prove this truth. Experience teaches
+the same thing. A good, loving son generally turns out better than a
+refractory son. Obedience and respect at home prepare the way for
+obedience to the employer, and are joined with other virtues that help
+toward a prosperous career, crowned with a ripe, honored old age.
+Disobedience and disrespect for parents are often the first steps in
+the downward track. Many a criminal has testified that this is the
+point where he first went astray. I have lived over sixty years, and I
+have learned one thing if I have learned nothing else--that no man or
+woman who dishonors father or mother ever prospers.
+
+Young man, young woman, how do you treat your parents? Tell me that,
+and I will tell you how you are going to get on in life. When I hear a
+young man speaking contemptuously of his grey-haired father or mother,
+I say he has sunk very low indeed. When I see a young man as polite as
+any gentleman can be when he is out in society, but who snaps up his
+mother and speaks unkindly to his father, I would not give the snap of
+my finger for his religion. If there is any man or woman on earth that
+ought to be treated kindly and tenderly, it is that loving mother or
+that loving father. If they cannot have your regard through life, what
+reward are they to have for all their care and anxiety? Think how they
+loved you and provided for you in your early days.
+
+A MOTHER'S LOVE.
+
+Let your mind go back to the time when you were ill. Did your mother
+neglect you? When a neighbor came in and said, "Now, mother, you go
+and lie down; you have been up for a week; I will take your place for
+a night"--did she do it? No; and if the poor worn body forced her to
+it at last, she lay watching, and if she heard your voice, she was at
+your side directly, anticipating all your wants, wiping the
+perspiration away from your brow. If you wanted water, how soon you
+got it! She would gladly have taken the disease into her own body to
+save you. Her love for you would drive her to any lengths. No matter
+to what depths of vice and misery you have sunk, no matter how
+profligate you have grown, she has not turned you out of her heart.
+Perhaps she loves you all the more because you are wayward. She would
+draw you back by the bands of a love that never dies.
+
+FILIAL INGRATITUDE.
+
+When I was in England, I read of a man who professed to be a
+Christian, who was brought before the magistrate for not supporting
+his aged father. He had let him go to the workhouse. My friends, I'd
+rather be content with a crust of bread and a drink of water than let
+my father or mother go to the workhouse. The idea of a professing
+Christian doing such a thing! God have mercy on such a godless
+Christianity as that! It is a withered up thing, and the breath of
+heaven will drive it away. Don't profess to love God and do a thing
+like that.
+
+A friend of mine told me of a poor man who had sent his son to school
+in the city. One day the father was hauling some wood into the city,
+perhaps to pay his boy's bills. The young man was walking down the
+street with two of his school friends, all dressed in the very height
+of fashion. His father saw him, and was so glad that he left his wood,
+and went to the sidewalk to speak to him. But the boy was ashamed of
+his father, who had on his old working clothes, and spurned him, and
+said:
+
+"I don't know you."
+
+Will such a young man ever amount to anything? Never!
+
+I remember a very promising young man whom I had in the Sunday school
+in Chicago. His father was a confirmed drunkard, and his mother took
+in washing to educate her four children. This was her eldest son, and
+I thought that he was going to redeem the whole family. But one day a
+thing happened that made him go down in my estimation.
+
+The boy was in the high school, and was a very bright scholar. One day
+he stood with his mother at the cottage door--it was a poor house, but
+she could not pay for their schooling, and feed and clothe her
+children, and hire a very good house too, out of her earnings. When
+they were talking a young man from the high school came up the street,
+and this boy walked away from his mother. Next day the young man said:
+
+"Who was that I saw you talking to yesterday?"
+
+"Oh, that was my washerwoman."
+
+I said: "Poor fellow! He will never amount to anything."
+
+That was a good many years ago. I have kept my eye on him. He has gone
+down, down, down, and now he is just a miserable wreck. Of course he
+would go down. Ashamed of his mother that loved him and toiled for
+him, and bore so much hardship for him! I cannot tell you the contempt
+I had for that one act.
+
+Let us look at
+
+A BRIGHTER PICTURE.
+
+Some years ago I heard of a poor woman who sent her boy to school and
+college. When he was to graduate, he wrote his mother to come, but she
+sent back word that she could not because her only skirt had already
+been turned once. She was so shabby that she was afraid he would be
+ashamed of her. He wrote back that he didn't care how she was dressed,
+and urged so strongly that she went. He met her at the station, and
+took her to a nice place to stay. The day came for his graduation, and
+he walked down the broad aisle with that poor mother dressed very
+shabbily, and put her into one of the best seats in the house. To her
+great surprise he was the valedictorian of the class, and he carried
+everything before him. He won a prize, and when it was given to him,
+he stepped down before the whole audience, and kissed his mother, and
+said:
+
+"Here, mother, here is the prize. It is yours. I would not have had it
+if it had not been for you."
+
+Thank God for such a man!
+
+The one glimpse the Bible gives us of thirty out of the thirty-three
+years of Christ's life on earth shows that He did not come to destroy
+this fifth commandment. The secret of all those silent years is
+embodied in that verse in Luke's Gospel--"And He went down with them
+and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them." Did He not set an
+example of true filial love and care when in the midst of the agonies
+of the cross He mode provision for His mother? Did He not condemn the
+miserable evasions of this law by the Pharisees of His own day:
+
+"Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This
+people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
+But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the
+precepts of men. . . . Full well do ye reject the commandment of God,
+that ye may keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy father and
+thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him
+die the death; but ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his
+mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me, is
+Corban, (that is to say, Given to God), ye no longer suffer him to do
+aught for his father or his mother: making void the word of God by
+your tradition, which ye have delivered."
+
+I have read of one heathen custom in China, which would do us credit
+in this so-called Christian country. On every New Year's morning each
+man and boy, from the emperor to the lowest peasant, is said to pay a
+visit to his mother, carrying her a present varying in value according
+to his station in life. He thanks her for all she has done for him,
+and asks a continuance of her favor another year. Abraham Lincoln used
+to say: "All I have I owe to my mother."
+
+I would rather die a hundred deaths than have my children grow up to
+treat me with scorn and contempt. I would rather have them honor me a
+thousand times over than have the world honor me. I would rather have
+their esteem and favor than the esteem of the whole world. And any man
+who seeks the honor and esteem of the world, and doesn't treat his
+parents right, is sure to be disappointed:
+
+AN EXHORTATION.
+
+Young man, if your parents are still living treat them kindly. Do all
+you can to make their declining years sweet and happy. Bear in mind
+that this is the only commandment that you may not always be able to
+obey. As long as you live, you will be able to serve God, to keep the
+sabbath, to obey all the other commandments, but the day comes to most
+men when father and mother die. What bitter feelings you will have
+when the opportunity has gone by, if you fail to show them the respect
+and love that is their due! How long is it since you wrote to your
+mother? Perhaps you have not written home for months, or it may be for
+years. How often I get letters from mothers urging me to try and
+influence their sons!
+
+Which would you rather be--a Joseph or an Absalom? Joseph wasn't
+satisfied until he had brought his old father down into Egypt. He was
+the greatest man in Egypt, next to Pharaoh; he was arrayed in the
+finest garments; he had Pharaoh's ring on his hand, and a gold chain
+about his neck, and they cried before him, "Bow the knee." Yet when he
+heard Jacob was coming, he hurried out to meet him. He wasn't ashamed
+of the old man, with his shepherds clothes. What a contrast we see in
+Absalom. That young man broke his father's heart by his rebellion, and
+the Jews are said to throw a stone at Absalom's pillar to the present
+day, whenever they pass it, as a token of their horror of Absalom's
+unnatural conduct.
+
+Come, now, are you ready to be weighed? If you have been dishonoring
+your father and mother, step into the scales and see how quickly you
+will be found wanting. See how quickly you will strike the beam. I
+don't know any man who is much lighter than one who treats his parents
+with contempt. Do you disobey them just as much as you dare? Do you
+try to deceive them? Do you call them old-fashioned, and sneer at
+their advice? How do you treat that venerable father and praying
+mother?
+
+You may be a professing Christian, but I wouldn't give much for your
+religion unless it gets into your life and teaches you how to live. I
+wouldn't give a snap of my finger for a religion that doesn't begin at
+home and regulate your conduct toward your parents.
+
+
+
+Sixth Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not kill."
+
+I used to say: "What is the use of taking up a law like this in an
+audience where, probably, there isn't a man who ever thought of, or
+ever will commit murder?" But as one gets on in years, he sees many a
+murder that is not outright killing. I need not kill a person to be a
+murderer. If I get so angry that I wish a man dead, I am a murderer in
+God's sight. God looks at the heart and says he that hateth his
+brother is a murderer.
+
+First let us see what this commandment does not mean.
+
+It does not forbid the killing of animals for food and for other
+reasons. Millions of rams and lambs and turtle-doves must have been
+killed every year for sacrifices under the Mosaic system. Christ
+Himself ate of the Passover lamb, and we are told definitely of cases
+where He ate fish Himself and provided it for His disciples and the
+people to eat.
+
+It does not forbid the killing of burglars, etc., in self-defence.
+Directly after the giving of the Ten Commandments, God laid down the
+ordinance that if a thief be found breaking in and be smitten that he
+die, it was pardonable. Did not Christ justify this idea of
+self-defence when He said: "If the goodman of the house had known in
+what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not
+have suffered his house to be broken up?"
+
+It does not forbid capital punishment. God Himself set the death
+penalty upon violations of each of the first seven commandments, as
+well as for other crimes. God said to Noah after the deluge--"Whoso
+sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and the reason
+given is just as true to-day as it was then--"for in the image of God
+made He man."
+
+What it does forbid is the wanton, intentional taking of human life
+under wrong motives and circumstances. Man is made in God's image. He
+is built for eternity. He is more than a mere animal. His life ought
+therefore to be held sacred. Once taken, it can never be restored. In
+heathen lands human life is no more sacred than the life of animals;
+even in Christian lands there are heartless and selfish men who hold
+it cheap; but God has invested it with a high value. An infidel
+philosopher of the eighteenth century said: "In the sight of God every
+event is alike important; and the life of a man is of no greater
+importance to the universe than that of an oyster." "Where is the
+crime," he asked, "of turning a few ounces of blood out of their
+channel?" Such language needs no answer.
+
+THE VALUE OF A MAN.
+
+Let me give you a passage from H. L. Hastings: "A friend of mine
+visited the Fiji Islands in 1844, and what do you suppose an infidel
+was worth there then? You could buy a man for a musket, or if you paid
+money, for seven dollars, and after you had bought him you could feed
+him, starve him, work him, whip him, or eat him--they generally ate
+them, unless they were so full of tobacco they could not stomach them!
+But if you go there to-day you could not buy a man for seven million
+dollars. There are no men for sale there now. What has made the
+difference in the price of humanity? The twelve hundred Christian
+chapels scattered over that Island tell the story. The people have
+learned to read that Book which says: 'Ye were not redeemed with
+corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
+Christ'; and since they learned that lesson, no man is for sale
+there."
+
+Men tell me that the world is getting so much better. We talk of our
+American civilization. We forget the alarming increase of crime in our
+midst. It is said that there is no civilized country on the globe
+where murder is so frequently committed and so seldom punished.
+
+SUICIDE.
+
+There is that other kind of murder that is increasing at an appalling
+rate among us--suicide. There have been infidels in all ages who have
+advocated it as a justifiable means of release from trial and
+difficulty; yet thinking men, as far back as Aristotle, have generally
+condemned it as cowardly and unjustifiable under any conditions. No
+man has a right to take his own life from such motives any more than
+the life of another.
+
+It has been pointed out that the Jewish race, the people of God,
+always counted length of days as a blessing. The Bible does not
+mention one single instance of a good man committing suicide. In the
+four thousand years of Old Testament history it records only four
+suicides, and only one suicide in the New Testament. Saul, king of
+Israel, and his armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri and Judas Iscariot are
+the five cases. Look at the references in the Bible to see what kind
+of men they were.
+
+OTHER KINDS OF MURDER.
+
+But I want to speak of other classes of murderers that are very
+numerous in this country, although they are not classified as
+murderers. The man who is the cause of the death of another through
+criminal carelessness is guilty. The man who sells diseased meat; the
+saloon-keeper whose drink has maddened the brain of a criminal; those
+who adulterate food; the employer who jeopardizes the lives of
+employees and others by unsafe surroundings and conditions in harmful
+occupations,--they are all guilty of blood where life is lost as a
+consequence.
+
+When I was in England in 1892, I met a gentleman who claimed that they
+were ahead of us in the respect they had for the law. "We hang our
+murderers," he said, "but there isn't one out of twenty in your
+country that is hung." I said, "You are greatly mistaken, for they
+walk about these two countries unhung." "What do you mean?" "I will
+tell you what I mean," I said; "the man that comes into my house and
+runs a dagger into my heart for my money, is a prince compared with a
+son that takes five years to kill me and the wife of my bosom. A young
+man who comes home night after night drunk, and when his mother
+remonstrates, curses her grey hairs and kills her by inches, is the
+blackest kind of a murderer."
+
+That kind of thing is going on constantly all around us. One young man
+at college, an only son, whose mother wrote to him remonstrating
+against his gambling and drinking habits, took the letters out of the
+post-office, and when he found that they were from her, he tore them
+up without reading them. She said,
+
+"I thought I would die when I found I had lost my hold on that son."
+
+If a boy kills his mother by his conduct, you can't call it anything
+else than _murder_, and he is as truly guilty of breaking this sixth
+commandment as if he drove a dagger to her heart. If all young men in
+this country who are killing their parents and their wives by inches,
+should be hung this next week, there would be a great many funerals.
+
+How are you treating your parents? Come, are you killing them? This
+sixth commandment follows very naturally after the fifth,--"Honor thy
+father and thy mother." Don't put any thorns in their pillows and make
+their last days miserable. Bear in mind that the commandment refers
+not only to shooting a man down in cold blood; but he is the worst
+murderer who goes on, month after month, year after year, until he has
+crowded the life out of a sainted mother and put a godly father under
+the sod.
+
+THE WORDS OF CHRIST.
+
+Let us look once again at the Sermon on the Mount, that men think so
+much of, and see what Christ had to say: "Ye have heard that it has
+been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever
+shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you,
+that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
+danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
+(an expression of contempt), shall be in danger of the council: but
+whosoever shall say, Thou fool, (an expression of condemnation), shall
+be in danger of hell fire." "Three degrees of murderous guilt," as has
+been said, "all of which can be manifested without a blow being
+struck; secret anger--the spiteful jeer--the open, unrestrained
+outburst of violent abusive speech."
+
+Again, what does John say? "Whosoever hateth his brother is a
+murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
+him."
+
+Did you ever in your heart wish a man dead? That was murder. Did you
+ever get so angry that you wished any one harm? Then you are guilty. I
+may be addressing some one who is cultivating an unforgiving spirit.
+That is the spirit of the murderer, and needs to be rooted out of your
+heart.
+
+We can only read man's acts--what they have done. God looks down into
+the heart. That is the birthplace and home of the evil desires and
+intentions that lead to the transgression of all God's laws.
+
+Listen once more to the words of Jesus: "From within, out of the heart
+of men, proceed evil thoughts--adulteries--fornications--murders
+--thefts--covetousness--wickedness--deceit--lasciviousness--an evil
+eye--blasphemy--pride--foolishness. . . ."
+
+May God purge our hearts of these evil things, if we are harboring
+them! Ah, if many of us were weighed now, we should find Belshazzar's
+doom written against us--"Tekel--wanting!"
+
+
+
+Seventh Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not commit adultery."
+
+An English army-officer in India who had been living an impure life
+went around one evening to argue religion with the chaplain. During
+their talk the officer said:
+
+"Religion is all very well, but you must admit that there are
+difficulties--about the miracles, for instance."
+
+The chaplain knew the man and his besetting sin, and quietly looking
+him in the face, answered:
+
+"Yes, there are some things in the Bible not very plain, I admit; but
+the seventh commandment is very plain."
+
+PLAIN SPEAKING.
+
+I would to God I could pass over this commandment, but I feel that the
+time has come to cry aloud and spare not. Plain speaking about it is
+not very fashionable nowadays. "Teachers of religion have by common
+consent banished from their public teaching all advice, warning or
+allusion in regard to love between the sexes," says Dr. Stalker. These
+themes are left to poets and novelists to handle. In an autobiography
+recently published in England, the writer attributed no small share of
+the follies and vices of his earlier years to his never having heard a
+plain, outspoken sermon on this seventh commandment.
+
+But though men are inclined to pass it by, God is not silent or
+indifferent in regard to it. When I hear any one make light of
+adultery and licentiousness, I take the Bible and see how God has let
+his curse and wrath come down upon it.
+
+"Thou shalt not commit adultery. . . . For this is a heinous crime;
+yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges. For it is
+a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine
+increase. . . . By means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece
+of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man
+take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon
+hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his
+neighbor's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. . . .
+Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that
+doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get;
+and his reproach shall not be wiped away. . . . Know ye not that the
+unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:
+neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
+themselves with mankind shall inherit the kingdom of God. . . . But
+fornication, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named among you,
+as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor
+jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving thanks. For
+this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person hath any
+inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive
+you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of
+God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers
+with them. . . . Whoremongers shall have their part in the lake which
+burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. . . . For
+without are whoremongers. . . ."
+
+These are a few of the threatenings and warnings contained in the old
+Book, up to its closing chapter. It speaks plainly, without
+compromise.
+
+MARRIAGE AND THE HOME.
+
+This commandment is God's bulwark around marriage and the home.
+Marriage is one of the institutions that existed in Eden; it is older
+than the fall. It is the most sacred relationship that can exist
+between human beings, taking precedence even of the relationship of
+the parent and child. Some one has pointed out that as in the
+beginning God created one man and one woman, this is the true order
+for all ages. Where family ties are disregarded and dishonored, the
+results are always fatal. The home existed before the church, and
+unless the home is kept pure and undefiled, there can be no family
+religion and the church is in danger. Adultery and licentiousness have
+swept nation after nation out of existence. Did it not bring fire and
+brimstone from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah? What carried Rome into
+ruin? The obscene frescoes and statues at Pompeii and Naples tell the
+tale. Where there is no sacredness around the home, population
+dwindles; family virtues disappear; the children are corrupt from
+their very birth; the seeds of sure decay are already planted. In 1895
+there were twenty-five thousand divorces in this country. I was on one
+of the fashionable streets of a prominent city some time ago, where
+every family except two in the whole street had either a son or a
+daughter that had been divorced. Divorce and debauchery go hand in
+hand. We are not gaining much in turning away from this old law, are
+we?
+
+THE DEVIL'S COUNTERFEIT.
+
+Lust is the devil's counterfeit of love. There is nothing more
+beautiful on earth than a pure love, and there is nothing so blighting
+as lust. I do not know of a quicker, shorter way down to hell than by
+adultery and the kindred sins condemned by this commandment. The Bible
+says that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, but
+"whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart." Lust will drive
+all natural affection out of a man's heart. For the sake of some vile
+harlot he will trample on the feelings and entreaties of a sainted
+mother and beautiful wife and godly sister.
+
+Young man, are you leading an impure life? Suppose God's scales should
+drop down before you, what would you do? Are you fit for the kingdom
+of heaven? You know very well that you are not. You loathe yourself.
+When you look upon that pure wife or mother, you say,
+
+"What a vile wretch I am! The harlot is bringing me down to an
+untimely and dishonored grave."
+
+May God show us what a fearful sin it is! The idea of making light of
+it! I do not know of any sin that will make a man run down to ruin
+more quickly. I am appalled when I think of what is going on in the
+world; of so many young men living impure lives, and talking about the
+virtue of women as if it didn't amount to anything. This sin is coming
+in upon us like a flood at the present day. In every city there is an
+army of prostitutes. Young men by hundreds are being utterly ruined by
+this accursed sin.
+
+THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER.
+
+I think that the most infernal thing the sun shines on in America is
+the way woman is treated after she has been ruined by a man, often
+under fair promises of marriage. Some one said that when the prodigal
+son came home he had the best robe and the fatted calf, but what does
+the prodigal daughter get? Although she may have been more sinned
+against than sinning, she is cast out and ostracized by society. She
+is condemned to an almost hopeless life of degradation and shame,
+sinking step by step into a loathsome grave, unless she hurries her
+doom by suicide. But the wretch who has ruined her in body and soul,
+holds his head as high as ever, and society attaches no stain to him.
+If he had failed to pay his gambling debts or was detected cheating at
+cards, he would promptly be dropped by society; but he may boast of
+his impure life, and his companions will think nothing of it. Parents
+who would not allow their daughters to become acquainted with a man
+who is rude in manners, sometimes do not hesitate to accept the
+society of men who are known to be impure.
+
+Talk about stealing--a man who steals the virtue of a woman is the
+meanest thief that ever was on the face of the earth! One who goes
+into your house and steals your money is a prince compared with a vile
+libertine who takes the virtue of your sister, or steals the affection
+of your wife, and robs you of her; no sneakthief that ever walked the
+earth is so mean as he. How men pass laws to protect their property,
+but when that which is far nearer and dearer to them than money is
+taken, it is made light of! If a man should push a young lady into the
+river and she should be drowned, the law would lay hold of him, and he
+would be tried for murder and hung. But if he wins her affection and
+ruins her, and then casts her off, isn't he worse, than a murderer?
+There are some sins that are worse than murder, and that is one of
+them. If some one should treat your wife or sister so, you would want
+to shoot him as you would a dog. Why do you not respect all women as
+you do your mother and sister? "What law of justice forgives the
+obscene bird of prey, while it kicks out of its path the soiled and
+bleeding dove?"
+
+GOD'S COMING JUDGMENT.
+
+God has appointed a day when this matter will be set right. "Be not
+deceived: God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
+also reap." He will render to every man according to his deeds. You
+may walk down the aisle of the church and take your seat, thinking
+that no one knows of your sin. But God is on the throne, and He will
+surely bring you to judgment. Do you believe that God will allow this
+infernal thing to go on,--women bearing all the blame while guilty men
+go unpunished? God has appointed a day when He will judge this world
+in righteousness, and the day is fast approaching.
+
+If you are guilty of this sin, do not let the day pass until you
+repent. If you are living in some secret sin, or are fostering impure
+thoughts, make up your mind that by the grace of God you will be
+delivered. I don't believe a man who is guilty of this sin is ever
+going to see the kingdom of God unless he repents in sackcloth and
+ashes, and does all he can to make restitution.
+
+AN EVIL HARVEST.
+
+Even in this life adultery and uncleanness bring their awful results,
+both physical and mental. The pleasure and excitement that lead so
+many astray at the beginning soon pass away, and only the evil
+remains. Vice carries a sting in its tail, like the scorpion. The body
+is sinned against, and the body sooner or later suffers. "Every sin
+that a man doeth is without the body: but he that committeth
+fornication sinneth against his own body," said Paul. Nature herself
+punishes with nameless diseases, and the man goes down to the grave
+rotten, leaving the effects of his sin to blight his posterity. There
+are nations whose manhood has been eaten out by this awful scourge.
+
+It drags a man lower than the beasts. It stains the memory. I believe
+that memory is "the worm that never dies," and the memory is never
+cleansed of obscene stories and unclean acts. Even if a man repents
+and reforms he often has to fight the past.
+
+Lust gave Samson into the power of Delilah, who robbed him of his
+strength. It led David to commit murder and called down upon him the
+wrath of God, and if he had not repented he would have lost heaven. I
+believe that if Joseph had responded to the enticement of Potiphar's
+wife, his light would have gone out in darkness.
+
+It ends in one or other of two ways: either in remorse and shame
+because of the realization of the loss of purity, with a terrible
+struggle against a hard taskmaster; or in hardness of heart,
+brutalizing of the finer senses, which is a more dreadful condition.
+
+We hear a good deal about intemperance nowadays. That sin advertises
+itself; it shows its marks upon the face and in the conduct. But this
+hides itself away under the shadow of the night. A man who tampers
+with this evil goes on step by step until his character is blasted,
+his reputation ruined, his health gone, and his life made as dark as
+hell. May God wake up the nation to see how this awful sin is
+spreading!
+
+Will any one deny that the house of the strange woman is "the way to
+hell, going down to the chambers of death," as the Bible says? Are
+there not men whose characters have been utterly ruined for this life
+through this accursed sin? Are there not wives who would rather sink
+into their graves than live? Many a man went with a pure woman to the
+altar a few years ago, and promised to love and cherish her. Now he
+has given his affections to some vile harlot, and brought ruin on his
+wife and children!
+
+ARE YOU GUILTY?
+
+Young man, young woman, are you guilty, even in thought? Bear in mind
+what Christ said: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,
+Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever
+looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her
+already in his heart." How many would repent but that they are tied
+hand and foot, and some vile harlot, whose feet are fastened in hell,
+clings to him and says: "If you give me up, I will expose you!" Can
+you step on the scales and take that harlot with you?
+
+If you are guilty of this awful sin, escape for your life. Hear God's
+voice while there is yet time. Confess your sin to Him. Ask Him to
+snap the fetters that bind you. Ask Him to give you victory over your
+passions. If your right eye offends, pluck it out. If your right hand
+offends, cut it off. Shake yourself like Samson, and say:
+
+"By the grace of God I will not go down to an adulterer's grave."
+
+There is hope for you, adulterer. There is hope for you, adulteress.
+God will not turn you away if you truly repent. No matter how low down
+in vice and misery you may have sunk, you may be washed, you may be
+sanctified, you may be justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by
+the Spirit of our God. Remember what Christ said to that woman which
+was a sinner--"Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith hath saved thee;
+go in peace;" and to that woman that was taken in adultery--"Go, and
+sin no more."
+
+
+
+Eighth Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not steal."
+
+During the time of slavery, a slave was preaching with great power.
+His master heard of it, and sent for him, and said:
+
+"I understand you are preaching?"
+
+"Yes," said the slave,
+
+"Well, now," said the master, "I will give you all the time you need,
+and I want you to prepare a sermon on the Ten Commandments, and to
+bear down especially on stealing, because there is a great deal of
+stealing on the plantation."
+
+The slave's countenance fell at once. He said he wouldn't like to do
+that; there wasn't the warmth in that subject there was in others.
+
+I have noticed that people are satisfied when you preach about the
+sins of the patriarchs, but they don't like it when you touch upon the
+sins of to-day. That is coming too near home. But we need to have
+these old doctrines stated over and over again in our churches.
+Perhaps it is not necessary to speak here about the grosser violations
+of this eighth commandment, because the law of the land looks after
+these; but a man or woman can steal without cracking safes and picking
+pockets. Many a person who would shrink from taking what belongs to
+another person, thinks nothing of stealing from the government or from
+large public corporations, such as streetcar companies. If you steal
+from a rich man it is as much a sin as stealing from a poor man. If
+you lie about the value of things you buy, are you not trying to
+defraud the storekeeper? "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer:
+but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."
+
+On the other hand, many a person who would not steal himself, holds
+stock in companies that make dishonest profits; but "though hand join
+in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished."
+
+A young man in our Bible Institute in Chicago got on the grip-car, and
+before the conductor came around to take the fare, they reached the
+Institute and he jumped off without paying his fare. In thinking over
+that act he said: "That was not just right. I had my ride and I ought
+to pay the fare."
+
+He remembered the face of the conductor, and he went to the car barns
+and paid him the five cents.
+
+"Well," the conductor said, "you are a fool not to keep it." "No," the
+young man said, "I am not. I got the ride, and I ought to have paid
+for it." "But it was my business to collect it." "No, it was my
+business to hand it to you." The conductor said, "I think you must
+belong to that Bible Institute."
+
+I have heard few things said of the Institute that pleased me so much
+as that one thing. Not long after that the conductor came to the
+Institute and asked the student to come to see him. A cottage-meeting
+was started in his house; and not only himself but a number of others
+around there were converted as a result of that one act.
+
+You can hardly take up a paper now without reading of some cashier of
+a bank who has become a defaulter, or of some large swindling
+operation that has ruined scores, or of some breach of trust, or
+fraudulent failure in business. These things are going on all over the
+land.
+
+I would to God that we could have all gambling swept away. If
+Christian men take the right stand, they can check it and break it up
+in a great many places. It leads to stealing.
+
+WHERE THE STREAM STARTS.
+
+The stream generally starts at home and in the school. Parents are
+woefully lax in their condemnation and punishment of the sin of
+stealing. The child begins by taking sugar, it may be. The mother
+makes light of it at first, and the child's conscience is violated
+without any sense of wrong. By and by it is not an easy matter to
+check the habit, because it grows and multiplies with every new
+commission.
+
+The value of the thing that is stolen has nothing to say to the guilt
+of the act. Two people were once arguing upon this point, and one
+said: "Well, you will not contend that a theft of a pin and of a
+dollar are the same to God?" "When you tell me the difference between
+the value of a pin and of a dollar to God," said the other, "I will
+answer your question."
+
+The value or amount is not what is to be considered, but whether the
+act is _right_ or _wrong_. Partial obedience is not enough: obedience
+must be entire. The little indulgences, the small transgressions are
+what drive religion out of the soul. They lay the foundation for the
+grosser sins. If you give way to little temptations, you will not be
+able to resist when great temptations come to you.
+
+GOD'S WEIGHTS.
+
+_Extortioner_, are you ready to step into the scales? What will you do
+with the condemnation of God--"Thou has taken usury and increase, and
+thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbor's by extortion, and hast
+forgotten me, saith the Lord God?"
+
+_Employer_, are you guilty of sweating your employees? Have you
+defrauded the hireling of his wages? Have you paid starvation wages?
+"Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy,
+whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy
+land within thy gates. . . . What mean ye that ye beat my people to
+pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.
+. . . Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your
+fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of
+them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of
+sabaoth."
+
+And you, _employee_, have you been honest with your employer? Have you
+robbed him of his due by wasting your time when he was not looking? If
+God should summon you into His presence now, what would you say?
+
+Let the _merchant_ step into the scales. See if you will prove light
+when weighed against the law of God. Are you guilty of adulterating
+what you sell? Do you substitute inferior grades of goods? Are your
+advertisements deceptive? Are your cheap prices made possible by
+defrauding your customers either in quantity or in quality? Do you
+teach your clerks to put a French or an English tag on domestic
+manufactures, and then sell them as imported goods? Do you tell them
+to say that the goods are all wool when you know they are half cotton?
+Do you give short weight or measure? See what God says in His Word:
+"Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of
+deceitful weights? Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a
+great and a small: thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a
+great and a small: but thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a
+perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be
+lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. . . . Ye
+shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in
+measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah and a just hin,
+shall ye have." Are you like those who said: "When will the new moon
+be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth
+wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying
+the balances by deceit? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the
+needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?"
+
+"Show me a people whose trade is dishonest," said Fronde, "and I will
+show you a people whose religion is a sham." Unless your religion can
+keep you honest in your business, it isn't worth much; it isn't the
+right kind. God is a God of righteousness, and no true follower of his
+can swerve one inch to the right or left without disobeying Him.
+
+STOLEN GOODS A BURDEN.
+
+I heard of a boy who stole a cannon-ball from a navy-yard. He watched
+his opportunity, sneaked into the yard, and secured it. But when he
+had it, he hardly knew what to do with it. It was heavy, and too large
+to conceal in his pocket, so he had to put it under his hat. When he
+got home with it, he dared not show it to his parents, because it
+would have led at once to his detection. He said in after years it was
+the last thing he ever stole. The story is told that one of Queen
+Victoria's diamonds valued at $600,000 was stolen from a jeweler's
+window, to whom it had been given to set. A few months afterward a
+miserable man died a miserable death in a poor lodging-house. In his
+pocket was found the diamond and a letter telling how he had not dared
+to sell it lest it should lead to his discovery and imprisonment. It
+never brought him anything but anxiety and pain.
+
+Everything you steal is a curse to you in that way. The sin
+overreaches itself. A man who takes money that does not belong to him
+never gets any lasting comfort. He has no real pleasure, for he has a
+guilty conscience. He cannot look an honest man in the face. He loses
+peace of mind here, and all hope of heaven hereafter. "As the
+partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth
+riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days,
+and at his end shall be a fool. . . . Let no man go beyond and defraud
+his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all
+such."
+
+I may be speaking to some clerk who perhaps took five cents to-day out
+of his employer's drawer to buy a cigar; perhaps he took ten cents to
+get a shave, and thinks he will put it back to-morrow--no one will
+ever know it. If you have taken a cent, you are a thief. Do you ever
+think how those little stealings may bring you to ruin? Let your
+employer find it out. If he doesn't take you into court, he will
+discharge you. Your hopes will be blasted, and it will be hard work to
+get up again. Whatever condition you are in, do not take a cent that
+does not belong to you. Rather than steal, go up to heaven in
+poverty--go up to heaven from the poor-house. Be honest rather than go
+through the world in a gilded chariot of stolen riches.
+
+RESTITUTION.
+
+If you have ever taken money dishonestly, you need not pray God to
+forgive you and fill you with the Holy Ghost until you make
+restitution. If you have not got the money now to pay back, will to do
+it, and God accepts the willing mind.
+
+Many a man is kept in darkness and unrest because he fails to obey God
+on this point. If the plough has gone deep, if the repentance is true,
+it will bring forth fruit. What use is there in my coming to God until
+I am willing to make it good, like Zacchaeus, if I have done any man
+wrong or have taken anything from him falsely? "If the wicked restore
+the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of
+life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not
+die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto
+him." Confession and restitution are the steps that lead up to
+forgiveness. Until you tread those steps, you may expect your
+conscience to be troubled, your sin to haunt you.
+
+I was preaching in British Columbia some years ago, and a young man
+came to me, and wanted to become a Christian. He had been smuggling
+opium into the States.
+
+"Well, my friend," I said, "I don't think there is any chance for you
+to become a Christian until you make restitution." He said, "If I
+attempt to do that, I will fall into the clutches of the law, and I
+will go to the penitentiary." "Well," I replied, "you had better do
+that than go to the judgment-seat of God with that sin upon your soul,
+and have eternal punishment. The Lord will be very merciful if you set
+your face to do right."
+
+He went away sorrowful, but came back the next day, and said: "I have
+a young wife and child, and all the furniture in my house I have
+bought with money I have got in this dishonest way. If I become a
+Christian, that furniture will have to go, and my wife will know it."
+"Better let your wife know it, and better let your home and furniture
+go." "Would you come up and see my wife?" he asked; "I don't know what
+she will say."
+
+I went up to see her, and when I told her, the tears trickled down her
+cheeks, and she said: "Mr. Moody, I will gladly give everything if my
+husband can become a true Christian."
+
+She took out her pocketbook, and handed over her last penny. He had a
+piece of land in the United States, which he deeded over to the
+government. I do not know in all my backward track of any living man
+who has had a better testimony for Jesus Christ than that man. He had
+been dishonest, but when the truth came to him that he must make it
+right before God would help him, he made it right and then God used
+him wonderfully.
+
+No amount of weeping over sin, and saying that you feel sorry, is
+going to help it unless you are willing to confess, and make
+restitution.
+
+
+
+Ninth Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
+
+Two out of the Ten Commandments deal with sins that find expression by
+the tongue--the third commandment, which forbids taking God's name in
+vain, and this ninth commandment, which forbids false witness against
+our neighbor. This two-fold prohibition ought to impress us as a
+solemn warning, especially as we find that the pages of Scripture are
+full of condemnation of sins of the tongue. The Psalms, Proverbs and
+the epistle of James deal largely with the subject.
+
+TRUTH NECESSARY.
+
+Organized society of a degree higher than that of the herding of
+animals and flocking of birds depends so much upon the power of
+speech, that without it we may say society would be impossible.
+Language is an essential element in the social fabric. To its purpose
+it must be trustworthy. Words must command confidence. Anything which
+undermines the truth takes (as it were) the mortar out of the building
+and if general, must mean ruin. Paul said--"Wherefore putting away
+lying, speak every man truth to his neighbor: for we are members one
+of another." Note the reason given--"we are members one of another."
+All community, all union and fellowship would be shattered if a man
+did not know whether to believe his neighbor or not.
+
+The transgressions of this commandment are very varied in form, and
+very frequent. Men and women of all ages have to guard against them.
+They include some of the most besetting sins. David said in his
+haste--"All men are liars." Some one has remarked that if he had been
+living nowadays, he might say it without haste and not be very far
+wide of the truth.
+
+PERJURY.
+
+The bearing of false witness is forbidden, but this must not be
+limited merely to testimony given in the law court or under oath.
+Isn't it a condemnation that men have to be put under oath in order to
+make sure of their speaking the truth? As a legal offence,
+_perjury_--the bearing of false witness when under oath--is one of the
+most serious crimes that can be committed. Nearly every civilized
+nation visits it with heavy punishment. Unless promptly checked, it
+would shake the very foundations of justice.
+
+_Lying_--uttering or acting falsehood--and _slander_--the spreading of
+false reports tending to destroy the reputation of another--are two of
+the most common violations of this commandment.
+
+LYING.
+
+We have got nowadays so that we divide lies into white lies and black
+lies, society lies, business lies, etc. The Word of God knows no such
+letting-down of the standard. A lie is a lie, no matter what are the
+circumstances under which it is uttered, or by whom. I have heard that
+in Siam they sew up the mouth of a confirmed liar. I am afraid if that
+was the custom in America, a good many would suffer. Parents should
+begin with their children while they are young and teach them to be
+strictly truthful at all times. There is a proverb: "A lie has no
+legs." It requires other lies to support it. Tell one lie and you are
+forced to tell others to back it up.
+
+SLANDER.
+
+You don't like to have any one bear false witness against you, or help
+to ruin your character or reputation: then why should you do it to
+others? How public men are slandered in this country! None escape,
+whether good or bad. Judgment is passed upon them, their family, their
+character, by the press and by individuals who know little or nothing
+about them. If one tenth that is said and written about our public men
+was true, half of them should be hung. Slander has been called "tongue
+murder." Slanderers are compared to flies that always settle on sores,
+but do not touch a man's good parts.
+
+If the archangel Gabriel should come down to earth and mix in human
+affairs, I believe his character would be assailed inside of
+forty-eight hours. Slander called Christ a gluttonous man and a
+winebibber. He claimed to be the Truth, but instead of worshipping
+Him, men took Him and crucified Him.
+
+When any one spoke evil of another in the presence of Peter the Great,
+he used promptly to stop him, and say:
+
+"Well, now, has he not got a bright side? Tell me what you know good
+of him. It is easy to splash mud, but I would rather help a man to
+keep his coat clean."
+
+I need not stop to run through the whole catalogue of sins that are
+related to these three. Falserumor--exaggeration--misrepresentation
+--insinuation--gossip--equivocation--holding back of the truth when
+it is due and right to tell it--disparagement--perversion of meaning:
+these are common transgressions of this ninth commandment, differing
+in form and degree of guilt according to the motive or manner of their
+expression. They bear false witness against a man before the tribunal
+of public opinion--a court whose judgment none of us escape. As so
+much of our life is passed in public view, any untruth that leads to
+a false judgment is a grievous wrong.
+
+A TEST OF TRUE RELIGION.
+
+Government of the tongue is made the test of true religion by James.
+"If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,
+but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. . . . For
+in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the
+same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body:" Just
+as a doctor looks at the tongue and can tell the condition of the
+bodily health, so a man's words are an index of what is within. Truth
+will spring from a good heart: falsehood and deceit from a corrupt
+heart. When Ananias kept back part of the price of the land, Peter
+asked him--"Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy
+Ghost?" Satan is the father of lies and the promoter of lies:
+
+FOR GOOD OR EVIL.
+
+The tongue can be an instrument of untold good or incalculable evil.
+Some one has said that a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that
+grows keener with constant use. "Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a
+sharp razor, working deceitfully. . . . They have sharpened their
+tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. . . . The
+mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the
+mouth of the wicked. . . . A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but
+perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit, . . ." Bishop Hall
+said that the tongues of busybodies are like the tails of Samson's
+foxes--they carry firebrands and are enough to set the whole field of
+the world in a flame. "Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths that
+they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the
+ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds,
+yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the
+governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth
+great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And
+the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our
+members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the
+course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of
+beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is
+tamed and hath been tamed by mankind: but the tongue can no man tame;
+it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God,
+even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the
+similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and
+cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain
+send forth at the same time sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree,
+my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine figs? so can no
+fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued
+with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his
+works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and
+strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth."
+
+Blighted hopes and blasted reputations are witness to its awful power.
+In many cases the tongue has murdered its victims. Can we not all
+recall cases where men and women have died under the wounds of calumny
+and misrepresentation? History is full of such cases.
+
+WORDS NEVER CALLED BACK.
+
+The most dangerous thing about it is that a word once uttered can
+never be obliterated. Some one has said that lying is a worse crime
+than counterfeiting. There is some hope of following up bad coins
+until they are all recovered; but an evil word can never be overtaken.
+The mind of the hearer or reader has been poisoned, and human devices
+cannot reach in and cleanse it. Lies can never be called back.
+
+A woman who was well known as a scandal-monger, went and confessed to
+the priest. He gave her a ripe thistle-top, and told her to go out and
+scatter the seeds one by one. She wondered at the penance, but obeyed;
+then she came and told the priest. He next told her to go and gather
+again the scattered seeds. Of course she saw that it was impossible.
+The priest used it as an object-lesson to cure her of the sin of
+scandalous talk.
+
+THE FATE OF THE LIAR AND SLANDERER.
+
+These sins are devilish, and the Bible is severe in its denunciations
+of them. It contains many solemn warnings. "Thou shalt destroy them
+that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
+. . . The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. Whoso
+privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off. . . . Lying lips
+are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are His
+delight. . . . By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words
+thou shalt be condemned. . . . All liars shall have their part in the
+lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second
+death." Whoso loveth and maketh a lie shall in no wise enter into the
+new Jerusalem.
+
+HOW TO OVERCOME.
+
+"But, Mr. Moody," you say, "how can I check myself? how can I overcome
+the habit of lying and gossip?" A lady once said to me that she had
+got so into the habit of exaggerating that her friends said they could
+never understand her.
+
+The cure is simple, but not very pleasant. Treat it as a sin, and
+confess it to God and the man whom you have wronged. As soon as you
+catch yourself lying, go straight to the person and confess you have
+lied. Let your confession be as wide as your transgression. If you
+have slandered or lied about any one in public, let your confession be
+public. Many a person says some mean, false thing about another in the
+presence of others, and then tries to patch it up by going to that
+person alone. That is not making restitution. I need not go to God
+with confession until I have made it right with that person, if it is
+in my power to do so; He will not hear me.
+
+Hannah Moore's method was a sure cure for scandal. Whenever she was
+told anything derogatory of another, her invariable reply was:
+
+"Come, we will go and ask if it be true."
+
+The effect was sometimes ludicrously painful. The talebearer was taken
+aback, stammered out a qualification, or begged that no notice might
+be taken of the statement. But the good lady was inexorable. Off she
+took the scandal-monger to the scandalized to make inquiry and compare
+accounts.
+
+It is not likely that anybody ventured a second time to repeat a
+gossipy story to Hannah Moore.
+
+My friend, how is it? If God should weigh you against this
+commandment, would you be found wanting? "Thou shalt not bear false
+witness." Are you innocent or guilty?
+
+
+
+Tenth Commandment
+
+"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy
+neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
+nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
+
+In the twelfth chapter of Luke our Saviour lifted two danger signals.
+"Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. . . .
+Take heed and beware of covetousness."
+
+The greatest dupe the devil has in the world is the hypocrite; but the
+next greatest is the covetous man, "for a man's life consisteth not in
+the abundance of the things which he possesseth."
+
+I believe this sin is much stronger now than ever before in the
+world's history. We are not in the habit of condemning it as a sin. In
+his epistle to the Thessalonians Paul speaks of "the cloke of
+covetousness." Covetous men use it as a cloke, and call it prudence,
+and foresight. Who ever heard it confessed as a sin? I have heard many
+confessions, in public and private, during the past forty years, but
+never have I heard a man confess that he was guilty of this sin. The
+Bible does not tell of one man who ever recovered from it, and in all
+my experience I do not recall many who have been able to shake it off
+after it had fastened on them. A covetous man or woman generally
+remains covetous to the very end.
+
+We may say that covetous desire plunged the human race into sin. We
+can trace the river back from age to age until we get to its rise in
+Eden. When Eve saw that the forbidden fruit was good for food and that
+it was desirable to the eyes, she partook of it, and Adam with her.
+They were not satisfied with all that God had showered upon them, but
+coveted the wisdom of gods which Satan deceitfully told them might be
+obtained by eating the fruit. She saw,--she desired--then she took!
+Three steps from innocence into sin.
+
+A SEARCHING COMMANDMENT.
+
+It would be absurd for such a law as this to be placed upon any human
+statute book. It could never be enforced. The officers of the law
+would be powerless to detect infractions. The outward conduct may be
+regulated, but the thoughts and intents of a man are beyond the reach
+of human law.
+
+But God can see behind outward actions. He can read the thoughts of
+the heart. Our innermost life, invisible to mortal eye, is laid bare
+before Him. We cannot deceive Him by external conformity. He is able
+to detect the least transgression and shortcoming, so that no man can
+shirk detection. God cannot be imposed upon by the cleanness of the
+outside of the cup and the platter.
+
+Surely we have here another proof that the Ten Commandments are not of
+human origin, but must be divine.
+
+This commandment, then, did not, even on the surface, confine itself
+to visible actions as did the preceding commandments. Even before
+Christ came and showed their spiritual sweep, men had a commandment
+that went beneath public-conduct and touched the very springs of
+action. It directly prohibited--not the wrong act, but the wicked
+desire that prompted the act. It forbade the evil thought, the
+unlawful wish. It sought to prevent--not only sin, but the desire to
+sin. In God's sight it is as wicked to set covetous eyes, as it is to
+lay thieving hands, upon anything that is not ours.
+
+And why? Because if the evil desire can be controlled, there will be
+no outbreak in conduct. Desires have been called "actions in the egg."
+The desire in the heart is the first step in the series that ends in
+action. Kill the evil desire, and you successfully avoid the ill
+results that would follow upon its hatching and development.
+Prevention is better than cure.
+
+We must not limit covetousness to the matter of money. The commandment
+is not thus limited; it reads, "Thou shalt not covet. . . anything. . . ."
+That word "anything" is what will condemn us. Though we do not
+join in the race for wealth, have we not sometimes a hungry longing
+for our neighbor's goodly lands--fine houses,--beautiful
+clothes,--brilliant reputation,--personal accomplishments,--easy
+circumstances,--comfortable surroundings? Have we not had the desire
+to increase our possessions or to change our lot in accordance with
+what we see in others? If so, we are guilty of having broken this law.
+
+GODS THOUGHTS ABOUT COVETOUSNESS.
+
+Let us examine a few of the Bible passages that bear down on this sin,
+and see what are God's thoughts about it.
+
+"_Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of
+God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
+adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
+nor thieves,_ nor covetous, _nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
+extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God_."
+
+Notice that the covetous are named between thieves and drunkards. We
+lock up thieves, and have no mercy on them. We loathe drunkards, and
+consider them great sinners against the law of God as well as the law
+of the land. Yet there is far more said in the Bible against
+covetousness than against either stealing or drunkenness.
+
+Covetousness and stealing are almost like Siamese twins--they go
+together so often. In fact we might add lying, and make them triplets.
+"The covetous person is a thief _in_ the shell. The thief is a
+covetous person _out of_ the shell. Let a covetous person see
+something that he desires very much; let an opportunity of taking it
+be offered; how very soon he will break through the shell and come out
+in his true character as a thief." The Greek word translated
+"covetousness" means--an inordinate desire of getting. When the Gauls
+tasted the sweet wines of Italy, they asked where they came from, and
+never rested until they had overrun Italy.
+
+"_For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor
+covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom
+of Christ and God_."
+
+There we have the same truth repeated; but notice that covetousness is
+called idolatry. The covetous man worships Mammon, not God.
+
+"_Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as
+fear God, men of truth,_ hating covetousness; _and place such over
+them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of
+fifties, and rulers of tens_."
+
+Isn't it extraordinary that Jethro, the man of the desert, should have
+given this advice to Moses? How did he learn to beware of
+covetousness? We honor men to-day if they are wealthy and covetous. We
+elect them to office in church and state. We often say that they will
+make better treasurers just because we know them to be covetous. But
+in God's sight a covetous man is as vile and black as any thief or
+drunkard. David said: "The wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and
+blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth." I am afraid that many
+who profess to have put away wickedness also speak well of the
+covetous.
+
+A SORE EVIL.
+
+"_He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he
+that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. When goods
+increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to
+the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The
+sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but
+the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a
+sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the
+owners thereof to their hurt_."
+
+Isn't that true? Is the covetous man ever satisfied with his
+possessions? Aren't they vanity? Does he have peace of mind? Don't
+selfish riches always bring hurt?
+
+The folly of covetousness is well shown in the following extract: "If
+you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in
+continual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for
+fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and
+strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet
+always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late
+to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running
+greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always
+studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you
+should see him grow grey in these anxious labors, and at last end a
+thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such
+a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish
+enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this
+character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd
+disquiets of the covetous man."
+
+I have read of a millionaire in France, who was a miser. In order to
+make sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and
+deep that he could go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a
+door with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. Search was
+made, but they could find no trace of him. At last his house was sold,
+and the purchaser discovered this door in the cellar. He opened it,
+went down, and found the miser lying dead on the ground, in the midst
+of his riches. The door must have shut accidentally after him, and he
+perished miserably.
+
+A TEMPTATION AND A SNARE.
+
+"_They that will be_, (that is, desire to be), _rich fall into
+temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
+drown men in destruction and perdition_."
+
+The Bible speaks of the deceitfulness of two things--"the
+deceitfulness of _sin_" and "the deceitfulness of _riches_." Riches
+are like a mirage in the desert, which has all the appearance of
+satisfying, and lures on the traveler with the promise of water and
+shade; but he only wastes his strength in the effort to reach it. So
+riches never satisfy: the pursuit of them always turns out a snare.
+
+Lot coveted the rich plains of Sodom, and what did he gain? After
+twenty years spent in that wicked city, he had to escape for his life,
+leaving all his wealth behind him.
+
+What did the thirty pieces of silver do for Judas? Weren't they a
+snare?
+
+Think of Balaam. He is generally regarded as a false prophet, but I do
+not find that any of his prophecies that are recorded are not true;
+they have been literally fulfilled. Up to a certain point his
+character shone magnificently, but the devil finally overcame him by
+the bait of covetousness. He stepped over a heavenly crown for the
+riches and honors that Balak promised him. He went to perdition
+backwards. His face was set toward God, but he backed into hell. He
+wanted to die the death of the righteous, but he did not live the life
+of the righteous. It is sad to see so many who know God, miss
+everything for riches.
+
+Then consider the case of Gehazi. There is another man who was drowned
+in destruction and perdition by covetousness. He got more out of
+Naaman than he asked for, but he also got Naaman's leprosy. Think how
+he forfeited the friendship of his master Elisha, the man of God! So
+to-day lifelong friends are separated by this accursed desire. Homes
+are broken up. Men are willing to sell out peace and happiness for the
+sake of a few dollars.
+
+Didn't David fall into foolish and hurtful lusts? He saw Bathsheba,
+Uriah's wife, and she was "very beautiful to look upon," and David
+became a murderer and an adulterer. The guilty longing hurled him into
+the deepest pit of sin. He had to reap bitterly as he had sowed.
+
+I heard of a wealthy German out west, who owned a lumber mill. He was
+worth nearly two millions of dollars, but his covetousness was so
+great that he once worked as a common laborer carrying railroad ties
+all day. It was the cause of his death.
+
+"_And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against
+the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done: When I saw
+among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels
+of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I_
+coveted them,_and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in
+the midst of my tent, and the silver under it_."
+
+He saw--he coveted--he took--he hid! The covetous eye was what led
+Achan up to the wicked deed that brought sorrow and defeat upon the
+camp of Israel.
+
+We know the terrible punishment that was meted out to Achan. God seems
+to have set danger signals at the threshold of each new age. It is
+remarkable how soon the first outbreaks of covetousness occurred.
+Think of Eve in Eden, Achan just after Israel had entered the Promised
+Land, Ananias and Sapphira in the early Christian Church.
+
+A ROOT EXTRACTOR.
+
+"_For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some
+coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves
+through with many sorrows_."
+
+The Revised Version translates it--"_a root of all kinds of evil_."
+This tenth commandment has therefore been aptly called a
+"root-extractor," because it would tear up and destroy this root. Deep
+down in our corrupt nature it has spread. No one but God can rid us of
+it.
+
+Matthew tells us that the deceitfulness of riches chokes the Word of
+God. Like the Mississippi river, which chokes up its mouth by the
+amount of soil it carries down. Isn't that true of many business-men
+to day? They are so engrossed with their affairs that they have not
+time for religion. They lose sight of their soul and its eternal
+welfare in their desire to amass wealth. They do not even hesitate to
+sell their souls to the devil. How many a man says, "We must make
+money, and if God's law stands in the way, brush it aside."
+
+The word "lucre" occurs five times in the New Testament, and each time
+it is called "_filthy_ lucre."
+
+"A root of all kinds of evil." Yes, because what will not men be
+guilty of when prompted by the desire to be rich? Greed for gold leads
+men to commit violence and murder, to cheat and deceive and steal. It
+turns the heart to stone, devoid of all natural affection, cruel,
+unkind. How many families are wrecked over the father's will! The
+scramble for a share of the wealth smashes them to pieces. Covetous of
+rank and position in society, parents barter sons and daughters in
+ungodly marriage. Bodily health is no consideration. The
+uncontrollable fever for gold makes men renounce all their settled
+prospects, and undertake hazardous journeys--no peril can drive them
+back. It destroys faith and spirituality, turning men's minds and
+hearts away from God. It disturbs the peace of the community by
+prompting to acts of wrong. Covetousness has more than once led nation
+to war against nation for the sake of gaining territory or other
+material resources. It is said that when the Spaniards came over to
+conquer Peru, they sent a message to the king, saying, "Give us gold,
+for we Spaniards have a disease that can only be cured by gold."
+
+Dr. Boardman has shown how covetousness leads to the transgression of
+every one of the commandments, and I cannot do better than quote his
+words: "Coveting tempts us into the violation of the first
+commandment, worshipping Mammon in addition to Jehovah. Coveting
+tempts us into a violation of the second commandment, or idolatry. The
+apostle Paul expressly identifies the covetous man with an idolater:
+'Covetousness, which is idolatry.' Again: Coveting tempts us into
+violation of the third commandment, or sacrilegious falsehood: for
+instance, Gehazi, lying in the matter of his interview with Naaman the
+Syrian, and Ananias and Sapphira, perjuring themselves in the matter
+of the community of goods. Again: Coveting tempts us into the
+violation of the fourth commandment, or Sabbath-breaking. It is
+covetousness which encroaches on God's appointed day of sacred rest,
+tempting us to run trains for merely secular purposes, to vend tobacco
+and liquors, to hawk newspapers. Again: Coveting tempts us into the
+violation of the fifth commandment, or disrespect for authority;
+tempting the young man to deride his early parental counsels, the
+citizen to trample on civic enactments. Again: Covetousness tempts us
+into violation of the sixth commandment, or murder. Recall how Judas'
+love of money lured him into the betrayal of his Divine Friend into
+the hand of His murderers, his lure being the paltry sum
+of--say--fifteen dollars. Again: Covetousness tempts us into the
+violation of the seventh commandment, or adultery. Observe how
+Scripture combines greed and lust. Again: Covetousness tempts us into
+the violation of the eighth commandment, or theft. Recall how it
+tempted Achan to steal a goodly Babylonish mantle, and two hundred
+shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight. Again:
+Covetousness tempts us into the violation of the ninth commandment, or
+bearing false witness against our neighbor. Recall how the
+covetousness of Ahab instigated his wife Jezebel to employ sons of
+Belial to bear blasphemous and fatal testimony against Naboth, saying,
+'Thou didst curse God and the king.'"
+
+HOW TO OVERCOME.
+
+You ask me how you are to cast this unclean spirit out of your heart?
+I think I can tell you.
+
+In the first place, make up your mind that by the grace of God you
+will overcome the spirit of selfishness. You must overcome it, or it
+will overcome you. Paul said: "Mortify therefore your members which
+are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,
+evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which
+things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience."
+
+I heard of a rich man who was asked to make a contribution on behalf
+of some charitable object. The text was quoted to him--"He that hath
+pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given
+will He pay him again." He said that the security might be good
+enough, but the credit was too long. He was dead within two weeks. The
+wrath of God rested upon him as he never expected.
+
+If you find yourself getting very miserly, begin to scatter, like a
+wealthy farmer in New York state I heard of. He was a noted miser, but
+he was converted. Soon after, a poor man who had been burned out and
+had no provisions, came to him for help. The farmer thought he would
+be liberal and give the man a ham from his smoke-house. On his way to
+get it, the tempter whispered to him:
+
+"Give him the smallest one you have."
+
+He had a struggle whether he would give a large or a small ham, but
+finally he took down the largest he could find.
+
+"You are a fool," the devil said.
+
+"If you don't keep still," the farmer replied, "I will give him every
+ham I have in the smoke house."
+
+Mr. Durant told me he woke up one morning to find that he was a rich
+man, and he said that the greatest struggle of his life then took
+place as to whether he would let money be his master, or he be master
+of money, whether he would be its slave, or make it a slave to him. At
+last he got the victory, and that was how Wellesley College came to be
+built.
+
+In the next place, cultivate the spirit of contentment. "Let your
+conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things
+as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake
+thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not
+fear what man shall do unto me."
+
+Contentment is the very opposite of covetousness, which is continually
+craving for something it does not possess. "Be content with such
+things as ye have," not worrying about the future, because God has
+promised never to leave or forsake you. What does the child of God
+want more than this? I would rather have that promise than all the
+gold of the earth.
+
+Would to God we might all be able to say with Paul--"I have coveted no
+man's silver, or gold, or apparel." The Lord had made him partaker of
+His grace, and he was soon to be a partaker of His glory, and earthly
+things looked very small. "Godliness with contentment is great gain,"
+he wrote to Timothy; "having food and raiment, therewith let us be
+content." Observe that he puts godliness first. No worldly gain can
+satisfy the human heart. Roll the whole world in, and still there
+would be room.
+
+May God tear the scales off our eyes if we are blinded by this sin.
+Oh, the folly of it, that we should set our heart's affections upon
+anything below! "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is
+certain we can carry nothing out. . . . Be thou not afraid when one is
+made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dieth
+he shall take nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him."
+
+
+
+The Handwriting Blotted Out
+
+We have now considered the Ten Commandments, and the question for each
+one of us is--are we keeping them? If God should weigh us by them,
+would we be found wanting or not wanting? Do we keep the law, the
+_whole_ law? Are we obeying God with all our heart? Do we render Him a
+full and willing obedience?
+
+ONE LAW, NOT TEN.
+
+These ten commandments are not ten different laws; they are one law.
+If I am being held up in the air by a chain with ten links and I break
+one of them, down I come, just as surely as if I break the whole ten.
+If I am forbidden to go out of an enclosure, it makes no difference at
+what point I break through the fence. "Whosoever shall keep the whole
+law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." "The golden
+chain of obedience is broken if one link is missing."
+
+We sometimes hear people pray to be preserved from certain sins, as if
+they were in no danger of committing others. I firmly believe that if
+a man begins by wilfully breaking one of these commandments it is much
+easier for him to break the others. I know of a gentleman who had a
+confidential clerk, and insisted on his going down Sunday morning to
+work on his books. The young man had a good deal of principle, and at
+first refused, but he was anxious to keep in the good graces of his
+employer and finally yielded. He had not done that a great while
+before he speculated in stocks, and became a defaulter for $120,000.
+The employer had him arrested and put in the penitentiary for ten
+years, but I believe he was just as guilty in the sight of God as that
+young man, for he led him to take the first step on the downward road.
+You remember the story of a soldier who was smuggled into a fortress
+in a load of hay, and opened the gates to his comrades. Every sin we
+commit opens the door for other sins.
+
+ALL HAVE COME SHORT.
+
+For fifteen hundred years man was under the law, and no one was equal
+to it. Christ came and showed that the commandments went beyond the
+mere letter; and can any one since say that he has been able to keep
+them in his own strength? As the plummet is held up, we see how much
+we are out of the perpendicular. As we measure ourselves by that holy
+standard, we find how much we are lacking. As a child said, when
+reproved by her mother and told that she ought to do right: "How can I
+do right when there is no 'right' in me?" All have sinned and come
+short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one.
+
+I do not say that all are equally guilty of gross violations of the
+commandments. It needs a certain amount of reckless courage openly to
+break a law, human or divine; but it is easy to _crack_ them, as the
+child said. It has been remarked that the life of many professors of
+religion is full of fractures that result from little sins, little
+acts of temper and selfishness. It is possible to crack a costly vase
+so finely that it cannot be noticed by the observer; but let this be
+done again and again in different directions, and some day the vase
+will go to pieces at a touch. When we hear of some one who has had a
+lifelong reputation for good character and consistent living, suddenly
+falling into some shameful sin, we are shocked and puzzled. If we knew
+all, we would find that only the fall has been sudden, that he has
+been sliding toward it for years. Away back in his life we should find
+numerous _cracked_ commandments. His exposure is only the falling of
+the vase to pieces.
+
+FALSE WEIGHTS.
+
+Men have all sorts of weights that they think are going to satisfy,
+but they will find that they are altogether vanity, and lighter than
+vanity.
+
+The moral man is as guilty as the rest. His morality cannot save him.
+"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. . . . Except ye be
+converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
+kingdom of heaven." I have often heard good people say that our
+meetings were doing good, they were reaching the drunkards, and
+gamblers, and harlots; but they never realized that they needed the
+grace of God for themselves.
+
+Nicodemus was probably one of the most moral men of his day. He was a
+teacher of the law. Yet Christ said to him: "Except a man be born
+again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is much easier to reach
+was a Lamb without spot or blemish, His atoning death is efficacious
+for you and me. He had no sin of His own to atone for, and so God
+accepted His sacrifice. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
+to every one that believeth. We are righteous in God's sight because
+the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ is unto all
+and upon all them that believe.
+
+If we had to live forever with our sins in the handwriting of God on
+the wall, it would be hell on earth. But thank God for the gospel we
+preach! If we repent, our sins will all be blotted out. "You, being
+dead in your sins, hath He quickened together with Him, having
+forgiven you all your trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of
+ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it
+out of the way, nailing it to His cross."
+
+LOVE THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW.
+
+If the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, you will be able to
+fulfil the law. Paul reduced the commandments to one: "Love is the
+fulfilling of the law." Some one has written the following:
+
+   "Love to God will admit no other God.
+   Love resents everything that debases its object by representing it
+by an image.
+   Love to God will never dishonor His name.
+   Love to God will reverence His day.
+   Love to parents makes one honor them.
+   Hate, not love, is a murderer.
+   Lust, not love, commits adultery.
+   Love will give, but never steal.
+   Love will not slander or lie.
+   Love's eye is not covetous."
+
+ARE YOU READY?
+
+It is the height of madness to turn away and run the risk of being
+called by God to judgment and have no hope in Christ. Now is the day
+and hour to accept salvation, and then He will be with you. Do you
+step aside and say: "I'm not ready yet. I want a little more time to
+prepare, to turn the matter over in my mind?" Well, you have time, but
+bear in mind it is only the present; you do not know that you will
+have to-morrow. Wasn't Belshazzar cut off suddenly? Would he have
+believed that that was going to be his last night, that he would never
+see the light of another sun? That banquet of sin didn't close as he
+expected. As long as you delay you are in danger. If you don't enter
+into the kingdom of heaven by God's way, you cannot enter at all. You
+must accept Christ as your Savior, or you will never be fit to be
+weighed.
+
+My friend, have you got Him? Will you remain as you are and be found
+wanting, or will you accept Christ and be ready for the summons? "This
+is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life
+is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not
+the Son of God hath not life."
+
+May God open your heart to receive His Son now!
+
+
+
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+
+Abide in Christ.
+
+Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Fellowship with the Son of God.
+
+Like Christ.
+
+Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Conformity to the Son of God.
+
+Holy in Christ.
+
+Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy.
+
+The Master's Indwelling.
+
+Northfield Addresses, 1895.
+
+The Spirit of Christ.
+
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+Church.
+
+Comprising the six great works in connection with which the author
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