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diff --git a/old/67403-0.txt b/old/67403-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d25df0c..0000000 --- a/old/67403-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5089 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Stuff of Manhood, by Robert E. -Speer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Stuff of Manhood - Some Needed Notes in American Character - -Author: Robert E. Speer - -Release Date: February 13, 2022 [eBook #67403] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STUFF OF MANHOOD *** - - - - - - THE STUFF OF MANHOOD - - - - - By ROBERT E. SPEER - - - _The Stuff of Manhood_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _John’s Gospel_, The Greatest Book in the World - 12mo, cloth, net 60c. - - _Men Who Were Found Faithful_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _Some Great Leaders in the World Movement_ - _The Cole Lectures for 1911._ 12mo, cloth, net $1.25 - - _The Foreign Doctor_: “The Hakim Sahib” - A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, M.D., - of Persia. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.50 - - _Christianity and the Nations_ - _The Duff Lectures for 1910._ 8vo, cloth, net $2.00 - - _Missionary Principles and Practice_ 8vo, cloth, net $1.50 - - _A Memorial of Alice Jackson_ 12mo, cloth, net 75c. - - _A Memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _A Memorial of a True Life_ - A Biography of Hugh McAllister Beaver With - Portrait 12mo, cloth, $1.00 - - _Young Men Who Overcame_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _Paul, the All-Round Man_ 16mo, cloth, net 50c. - - _The Master of the Heart_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _A Young Man’s Questions_ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _The Principles of Jesus_ In Some Applications - to Present Life 16mo, net 60c. - - _Christ and Life_ The Practice of the Christian - Life 12mo, cloth, net $1.00 - - _Studies of the Man Paul_ 16mo, cloth, 75c. - - _Studies of “The Man Christ Jesus”_ 16mo, cloth, 75c. - - _Remember Jesus Christ_ And Other Talks About - Christ and the Christian Life 16mo, cloth, 75c. - - _The Deity of Christ_ 18mo, boards, net 25c. - - - - - _The Merrick Lectures for 1916–17. Delivered at the Ohio - Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, April 1–5, 1917_ - - - The Stuff of Manhood - - _SOME NEEDED NOTES IN - AMERICAN CHARACTER_ - - By - ROBERT E. SPEER - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO - Fleming H. Revell Company - LONDON AND EDINBURGH - - - - - Copyright, 1917, by - FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY - - - New York: 158 Fifth Avenue - Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. - Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. - London: 21 Paternoster Square - Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street - - - - -The Merrick Lectures - - -By the gift of the late Rev. Frederick Merrick, M. D., D. D., LL. D., -for fifty-one years a member of the Faculty, and for thirteen of those -years President of Ohio Wesleyan University, a fund was established -providing an annual income for the purpose of securing lectures within -the general field of Experimental and Practical Religion. The following -courses have previously been given on this foundation: - -Daniel Curry, D. D.――“Christian Education.” - -President James McCosh, D. D., LL. D.――“Tests of the Various Kinds of -Truth.” - -Bishop Randolph S. Foster, D. D., LL. D.――“The Philosophy of Christian -Experience.” - -Professor James Stalker, D. D.――“The Preacher and His Models.” - -John W. Butler, D. D.――“Mission Work in Mexico.” - -Professor George Adam Smith, D. D., LL. D.――“Christ in the Old -Testament.” - -Bishop James W. Bashford, Ph. D., D. D., LL. D.――“The Science of -Religion.” - -James M. Buckley, D. D., LL. D.――“The Natural and Spiritual Orders and -Their Relations.” - -John R. Mott, M. A., F. R. G. S.――“The Pastor and Modern Missions.” - -Bishop Elijah E. Hoss, D. D., LL. D.; Professor Doremus A. Hayes, Ph. -D., S. T. D., LL. D.; Charles E. Jefferson, D. D., LL. D.; Bishop -William F. McDowell, D. D., LL. D.; President Edwin H. Hughes, D. -D.――“The New Age and Its Creed.” - -Robert E. Speer, M. A.――“The Marks of a Man, or The Essentials of -Christian Character.” - -Rev. Charles Stelzle, Miss Jane Addams, Commissioner of Labor Charles -P. Neill, Ph. D., Professor Graham Taylor, and Rev. George P. Eckman, -D. D.――“The Social Application of Religion.” - -Rev. George Jackson, M. A.――“Some Old Testament Problems.” - -Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, D. D.――“Christianizing the Social -Order.” - -Professor G. A. Johnston Ross, M. A.――“One Avenue of Faith.” - - - - -Introduction - - -The moral elements of individual character are inevitably social. -And the social obligation immensely strengthens the sanctions which -enjoin them. When a man “has trained himself,” to use the words of -Lord Morley in dealing with Voltaire’s religion, “to look upon every -wrong in thought, every duty omitted from act, each infringement of the -inner spiritual law which humanity is constantly perfecting for its -own guidance and advantage ... as an ungrateful infection, weakening -and corrupting the future of his brothers,” he views each struggle -within his own soul against evil and each firm aspiration after purity -not as a mere incident in his own spiritual biography but as a fight -for social good and for the perfecting of the nation and of humanity. -And the struggle for social good and the perfecting of human life is -fundamentally a struggle for the triumph of ideals in personal wills. -God can take hold of men only in man. He revealed Himself and wrought -redemption less by a social process than by a personal incarnation. And -the only way of which we know to uplift the life of the nation and to -fit it for its mission and its ministry is to reform our own and other -men’s characters, and ourselves to be what manner of man among men we -would have the nation be among nations. It is of some of the elements -of character of which men stand specially in need to-day that we are to -speak in these lectures. What is good in our lives as individuals and -in our life as a nation is not in need of discussion here. And there is -no nobility in analyzing and deriding our weaknesses. Our purpose is -to urge our keeping if we have not lost them, and our regaining if we -feel them slipping from us, some of the elemental moral qualities and -spiritual resources which are vital to the capacity for duty and to the -living of a full and efficient life. - -It has seemed best, on the whole, to preserve in the printed volume the -free colloquialism of the lectures as they were delivered. - - R. E. S. - -_New York._ - - - - -Contents - - - I. DISCIPLINE AND AUSTERITY 11 - - II. THE CONSERVATION AND RELEASE OF MORAL RESOURCES 50 - - III. AN UNFRIGHTENED HOPE 85 - - IV. THE JOY OF THE MINORITY 118 - - V. THE LIFE INVISIBLE 160 - - - - -LECTURE I - -DISCIPLINE AND AUSTERITY - - -Whether there should be compulsory military training in America is a -question which some people will answer yes or no according to their -general theories and others according to their observation of the -actual effects of such training on moral character. But whatever our -views may be on this familiar question, whether we regard military -service as ethically helpful in its influence or as morally injurious, -we cannot differ as to the need in our national character of those -qualities of self-control, of quick and unquestioning obedience to -duty, of joyful contempt of hardship, and of zest in difficult and -arduous undertakings which, rightly or wrongly, we consider soldierly, -which we attribute in such rich measure to our forefathers, and which -the moral exigencies of our national task to-day as peremptorily -demand. To put these primary and elemental needs as sharply as -possible, let us call them discipline and austerity. Our American -character needs more of both. - -I do not know a better starting point than is found in one of those -vivid modern touches upon which we constantly come in the Old -Testament. This one is in the account of the closing year of King -David’s life. The story seems ancient and far away until we suddenly -read: “His father had not displeased him at any time saying, Why hast -thou done so?” If we were to translate the words more directly into -the language of our own day, we should say, “His father had always let -him do exactly as he pleased.” The reference is to David and his son -Adonijah, and to the want of discipline by which the father had ruined -his boy. - -It is not hard to reconstruct the story. David was busy about his cares -as king, and his heart was indulgent towards his children. Adonijah -seems to have been his youngest son, and the father let him have his -way, never reining him up or checking him by asking why he had done -thus or so. David pursued, in other words, the modern theory of child -training: that the one principle by which children should be educated -is the principle of letting what is naturally in them come out; that -they must not be crossed or frustrated, or have any external discipline -or control laid upon their lives. This is, of course, the extreme of -it, but in some form we hear the theory and see it applied all about us -every day. - -And it is a modern theory of self-education, also. We are told that -life should be left free to follow its native impulses; that it should -not be thwarted and intimidated by the conventions and prohibitions of -society; that men and women should consult their own hearts and then -should move out quite freely in obedience to their promptings; that -their lives and the lives of their children should not be twisted or -deflected by the imposition of any external authority or command. - -Well, that was the way Adonijah was brought up. His father was rich. -The boy had his own establishment, his own horses, his own retinue of -attendants, and round about him, as about any oriental king’s son, -there would be the usual crowd of flatterers and sycophants. There was -no will or desire that he had not the means to gratify, and his father -let him have his way. - -Further, he was the younger brother of Absalom, and the ancient record -says that they were handsome and popular boys. They had a way that -carried along those who came in touch with them, and as the king’s -sons, and the leading young men of the city, we have no difficulty in -understanding the atmosphere in which they lived and the conditions -within which they grew. - -It must be confessed that this was the easy way of going about the -matter. It is far easier to let a child have its own way than to -endeavour by wisdom and patience and strength, to study and decide what -is best for the child and without hurting the child’s will, to guide it -into the better way. It was far less care to David to let Absalom and -Adonijah go than it would have been to take these high-strung sons of -his in hand and endeavour to break them to discipline and truth, and to -send them out into life real men of power. It was much easier never to -call them and to say, “Boys, why did you do this?” Much easier never -to lay any authority or guidance upon them from without, much easier, -especially for a man like David. He had grown up on a farm, with all -the hardship and frugality of farm life, with no privileges as a lad, -and now that he was the king of his nation, he was able to do anything -whatever for his sons. It was difficult to refuse them the things he -had never had. Easily and indulgently――for he was a man of kindly heart -all his days――he found it simpler not to lay hard restraints upon his -boys when he could give them their own way. - -And, of course, this is the easier way of self-education too. For a -man to love himself so much that he never thinks of his neighbours, to -blind his eyes so completely to consequences that he can live for the -passing moment,――this is a very easy philosophy, and the man or the -woman who is able to practice it will seem, for a while, to live in -the sunshine, a fine butterfly, smooth-going life. All this is easier -than to say, not, What is my impulse? but, What ought I? not, What do -I like? but, What is best for all the world? not, What is the easy -way? but, What is the hard way over which the feet go that carry the -burdens of mankind, that bear the load of the world? - -But, though it is the easy way for a while, there comes a time when -it is no longer the easy way. When in his little room above the gate -the old king bowed his gray head in his hands and with breaking heart -sobbed out: “O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had -died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”――it was no longer the easy -way. When Adonijah rose up in insurrection against his old father as he -lay on his dying bed, gathering his little company of sycophants around -him and setting himself up in his father’s place, then it was no longer -the easy way that the old man had pursued. - -And to-day still, fathers and mothers who for a little while thought -the easy way was never to ask their children why they had done so, but -to let them go their own way with no imposition of outward authority or -control, find after a while that the easy way has turned bitterly hard. -I have a friend, a leading merchant in one of our large cities. Some -time ago another friend was visiting him, and as they walked down the -street together, suddenly a large car whizzed around the corner, full -of young people, among them the merchant’s son. This was the middle of -the forenoon and the boy was supposed to be at work in his father’s -establishment. The father turned to his friend and said: “I wish I knew -how I could hold my boy in.” But my friend understood why he could not. -He knew that only two or three years before the son had been rewarded -for passing examinations at college, examinations that it ought to have -been taken for granted that he would pass. But his father thought he -should be rewarded for passing them, and he bought a car and sent it -up to him at college. Now he wonders why this son does not know how to -bind himself to arduous duty. - -And in our own lives the easy education does not go easily all the way. -There comes a time when, having always indulged ourselves, we can’t -break the habit; when, never having taken our lives in our hands and -reined them to the great ministries of mankind, we discover that we -cannot. We find that we obey our caprices; follow any impulse; cannot -stick to any task; do not know a principle when we see it; have no -iron or steel anywhere in our character; are the riffraff of the world -that the worthy men and women have to bear along as they go. In Mr. -Kipling’s inelegant lines: - - “We was rotten ’fore we started――we was never disci_plined_; - We made it out a favour if an order was obeyed; - Yes, every little drummer ’ad ’is rights and wrongs to mind, - So we had to pay for teachin’――an’ we paid!” - -Now I suggest that we put all this positively to ourselves, for every -one of us knows that we are treading near some of the moral realities -of weakness and need in our day and nation. Why should restraint, -obedience, the authority of duty and God be let into our lives? In -order that out of all these things self-control may come. And why -should there be this submission and control of our lives by duty, and -truth and God? Well, the reasons are obvious, the moment we begin to -think about them. - -There is the indisputable fact that the strongest and best men and -women we know are men and women who were trained in this school, who -some time during their life, and the earlier the better, passed under -the discipline and influence of that chastening spoken about in the -twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, without which we are not -children of a clean God. All around us are these men and women, fathers -and mothers, who indulge their sons and daughters, who never confront -them with moral principle and obligation and duty, and then lament -because their children do not seem to have the old iron grasp of duty, -the old rigid love of truth and righteousness. Well, it is all very -simple. It is because those fathers and mothers are denying to their -children the very education that made themselves what they are. The men -and women, who will not run away from any task, who stand steadfast in -the truth, upon whose every word we can rest our whole soul, grew out -of a certain discipline, a certain education, and it was the kind that -Adonijah did not have. And all men and women who want to be masters of -their lives and to have strength to lay beneath the work of the world -must ask God that such discipline may be given to them. - -Not alone is this the only kind of training that can produce this kind -of character, but unless a man learns control from without, he will -never learn self-control. Unless he passes under the discipline of a -wiser and stronger hand at the beginning, he will never come to the -time of deliberate and moral self-discipline, which alone is character. -For this only is character,――the binding of life beneath the firm -sovereignty of the principle that is the heart of God. If nations do -not realize this they will pay heavily for their failure. “Make your -educational laws strict,” said Ruskin, “and your criminal laws may be -gentle; but leave youth its liberty and you will have to dig dungeons -for age.” - -And it is this that gives freedom. There is no freedom outside of -character. Liberty, as Montesquieu says, is not freedom to do just as -we please. Liberty is the ability to do as we ought. And the freedom -that we need is not the freedom of caprice and whim and listening to -our impulses. It is the freedom that enables our eyes clearly to see -what right is, and then empowers us to do it. Symonds put it in his -verse: - - “Soul, rule thyself. On passion, deed, desire, - Lay thou the law of thy deliberate will. - Stand at thy chosen post, faith’s sentinel. - Learn to endure. Thine the reward - Of those who make living light their Lord. - Clad with celestial steel these stand secure, - Masters, not slaves.” - -And if such self-control goes as far even as the self-extinction of -that voluntarily accepted Cross, on the green hill outside Jerusalem, -even so it will bring victory at the last, because it has brought -one long succession of victories over self all the days. I cut this -fugitive bit of verse from a newspaper the other day: - - “Pausing a moment ere the day was done, - While yet the earth was scintillant with light, - I backward glanced. From valley, plain and height, - At intervals, where my life path had run, - Rose cross on cross: and nailed upon each one - Was my dead self. And yet that gruesome sight - Lent sudden splendour to the falling night. - Showing the conquests that my soul had won. - - “Up to the rising stars I looked and cried, - There is no death! For year on year reborn, - I wake to larger life, to joy more great. - So many times have I been crucified, - So often seen the resurrection morn, - I go triumphant, though new Calvaries wait.” - -And this freedom and victory are waiting only for those lives that have -been broken beneath the cross of an absolute restraint of God, and -have so mastered themselves under God’s name by the help of Christ that -control has been given over in trust into their own hands. - -And we all know that power is to be won here in this school where men -are trained both to feel and to wield dominion. There is no power in -the world that is not power cabined, power held in some way. Loose -power is imperceptible and utterly useless. The only power we know is -power walled in, shut down, confined and beating against its barriers -and its walls. We know this in the athletic life of our colleges -to-day. No athletic trainer in any college ever followed David’s method -with Adonijah. The trainer is there to say: “Why did you do it that -way?” “Why did you not do it this way? You have no right to waste your -energy in that way. You must do it so.” There is one scene in _Quo -Vadis_ that redeems much else in the book. It is the scene in the -Coliseum, when the giant Gothic slave is shown saving the life of his -mistress, whom he loved. The great bull has come out with the girl’s -form tied to his horns, and there is dead silence as the bull stands -angrily facing the man. You remember the picture. As Ursus lays one -hand on each horn of the auroch the struggle begins. There is not a -sound. The great multitude watches the man’s muscles rise and harden -and the sweat come out and drop from every pore. They see his feet -sinking down in the arena, until the sand is above his ankles. Suddenly -the great head of the bull begins to twist under that awful strength. -Then the neck breaks and the giant lifts the limp form from the beast’s -neck and stands with the burden in his hands before the Emperor. One -likes to read such a picture of power secured by self-discipline. Do we -want to go out limp and beaten and ineffective in our lives against the -great mass of work in the world that waits to be done? Or do we want to -go in the strength of Him Who, having bent beneath His Father’s will, -was able to carry on the Cross the whole burden of human sin? - -And we must learn in this school the things we value and desire most: -purity and delicacy and refinement of character, for they cannot be -acquired elsewhere. So much social standing nowadays is uttered in -terms of self-assertion and indulgence and the ability to have any whim -or caprice gratified. This sort of self-assertion, this caprice, is -regarded by many of us as the highest mark of social authority, whereas -we know it is precisely the opposite, that it is self-restraint and -self-control and self-surrender that mark the finest lives. - -There is a beautiful story in the life of Goldwin Smith that -illustrates what I mean. In the early sixties, when he was one of the -keenest liberal minds of England, he was associated with Cobden and -Bright in the Manchester School. Again and again he found himself the -mark of the bitterest criticism from Disraeli. Later Goldwin Smith, -resigning his professorship at Oxford, came to Canada. At that time -Disraeli’s novel, “Lothair,” appeared in which he attacked Smith――of -course, without using his name――as a social parasite. It stung Smith -to the depths of his soul, but as it was an anonymous book there was -nothing he could do but sit down and write this note personally to -Disraeli: - - “You well know that if you had ventured openly to accuse me - of any social baseness, you would have had to answer for your - words; but when sheltering yourself under the literary forms of - a work of fiction, you seek to traduce with impunity the social - character of a political opponent, your expressions can touch - no man’s honour――they are the stingless insults of a coward.” - -That was all he did. And yet, at that very moment, Goldwin Smith had in -his possession letters of Disraeli, with which he could have crushed -him. Openly in Parliament Disraeli had said that he had never asked -Peel for any position. But among Peel’s papers which had been placed -in his hands Smith had a letter in which Disraeli had abjectly begged -Peel to give him office. All that Smith needed to do was to publish -Disraeli’s own letter to Peel and it would have ruined Disraeli’s -career. But to Goldwin Smith that was not a noble thing to do. Peel’s -correspondence had not been given to him to use in self-defense, or -for any personal justification of his own, and he repressed that -letter until Disraeli was dead. Then, years after, all of Peel’s -correspondence was published and the whole world knew what a gentleman -Goldwin Smith had been. Our modern ideals of what constitutes high -social and national standing and character say: “Fight fire with fire. -Dishonour releases honour from itself. He struck you foul; strike him -so in return.” But the man who had learned self-restraint in the school -of God’s loyalty and truth, who understood that power is ours, not to -use for self-seeking, but for the good of men and for God’s honour, -would not stoop to any such disloyalty and shame. - -Once more. Whose judgment is of any value? Who would have thought of -going to Adonijah and asking his opinion on anything whatsoever? He -did not know right from wrong. He never thought over the issues of -right or wrong. What would I like to do? What does passion bid me do? -What is my whim or caprice for to-night?――that was as far as Adonijah -had ever thought. No man would ever go to him, as no men will ever -come to you and me if we have not been trained in the school of moral -discrimination, if we have not looked on ethical principle and duty in -deciding the question whether each thing is really right for us and for -the whole world. If we are to be men and women to whom people will come -for comfort and strength and guidance, to whom our own children can -come with assurance that they will get the truth, we must be men and -women who now place ourselves beneath the firm discipline of God. - -We see all this put simply in two great things. We see it in our Lord’s -constant appeal, while here in the world, for men and women of fiber -and discipline. One came to Him and said: “Lord, what shall I do to -inherit eternal life?” And Jesus, looking upon him, loved him and -said: “I would not think of counselling anything hard. You must not -sacrifice anything. It is all very easy. The Father above is a Father -of great tenderness and compassion. He would not lay a straw’s weight -upon any child of His. Go; live according to your desires and by the -natural impulses of your heart, and for that you shall have treasure -in heaven.” Oh, no; He did not say that. He said: “Go, sell all that -thou hast, and come and follow me. Except ye love less than duty your -father and mother and brother and sister, yea, and your own life also, -ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.” - -We see it, too, in God’s way with men as He laid down His great laws at -the beginning, when His people were but as a race of little children. -Why did He not say to them: “This ye may do. The world is sweet and -fair. This ye may do, and all shall be easy to you”? Why, on the other -hand, did He speak to them in the stern admonitions of the Decalogue: -“Thou shalt. Thou shalt not”? God never hesitates to lay His great -denials upon mankind and at last to stifle us beneath the restraint -of death that He may issue us forth through that restraint into the -infinite liberties of the life immortal. - -Now do not brush all this away to-day, or any day, light-heartedly, as -it can be so easily brushed away. “Oh, don’t shadow our lives,” you -will say, “with your denials and your prohibitions and your restraints. -Leave life free and sweet as the summer air and the flowers of the -field”――that last how long? No, my friends, it were well for us that -we should learn this lesson, and learn it now, ere the time comes when -the silver cord is loosed and the wheel is broken at the cistern and -the grinders cease and the long shadows fall. You remember a tragic -incident in New York a few years ago――I do not need to recall the -details of it――when two young lives made shipwreck of themselves just -because they thought that impulse and caprice were the free voices that -they might obey. When it was all over, and the two lives had drawn the -veil of night across their short-lived evil joy, one of the papers -published a letter which the girl had written to a friend: - - “My friend,” she wrote, “you and I and Fred, young, heedless, - cynical, living in this reckless town of New York, may laugh - sometimes at the old things like law and religion, when they - say, ‘Thou shalt not.’ We may think that phrase was written for - old fogies, and we may sneer at ‘the wages of sin is death’; - but, my friend, there comes to us some time knowledge that the - law and religion are right. What they say we shall not do, we - cannot do without suffering. Fred and I have learned that. The - wages of sin is death.” - -It is worse than death; for what was Hell in that great vision that -John saw? Why, nothing but the removal of all restraint. “He which is -filthy, let him be filthy still.” He is unclean, let him be unclean. -He is unholy, let him be unholy. Take all the restraints away. That is -Hell. - -Away from the dark gates that open thither may another voice call us -here to-day, the clear, strong, summoning voice of Him Who said of -Himself: “I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent -me. I do always those things that please my Father,” and Who in the -garden of Gethsemane, when the anguish was almost greater than He could -bear, yet found rest when He prayed, “Father, not my will, but thine -be done”; that out of the willfulness and capriciousness and the whim -and mood of our little self-indulgent lives we may pass into the great, -strong, steadfast, sovereign will that waits for us; that we may stand -fast and be strong in the strength and chastening of God! - -Now I have put it――this matter of our need of discipline――in the -most personal and individual way, but it is our great national and -corporate need. The body of a nation can only exist through the -ordered discipline of its members and the spirit of a nation like the -spirit of a man needs to be cleansed of all the lusts of willfulness -and self-indulgence. The spirit of our American nation needs such -cleansing. Mr. Kipling has drawn us his picture of it: - - “Through many roads, by me possessed, - He shambles forth in cosmic guise; - He is the Jester and the Jest, - And he the Text himself applies. - - “His easy unswept hearth he lends - From Labrador to Guadaloupe; - Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, - He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. - - “Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown, - Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: - Blatant he bids the world bow down, - Or cringing begs a crust of praise; - - “Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, - He dubs his dreary brethren Kings. - His hands are black with blood――his heart - Leaps, as a babe’s, at little things. - - “But, through the shift of mood and mood, - Mine ancient humour saves him whole―― - The cynic devil in his blood - That bids him mock his hurrying soul; - - “That bids him flout the Law he makes, - That bids him make the Law he flouts, - Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes - The drumming guns that――have no doubts; - - “That checks him foolish-hot and fond, - That chuckles through his deepest ire, - That gilds the slough of his despond - But dims the goal of his desire; - - “Inopportune, shrill-accented, - The acrid Asiatic mirth - That leaves him, careless ’mid his dead, - The scandal of the elder earth.” - -Doubtless we do not like this picture. We call it a libel or a -caricature. Let it be so. Draw your own picture. If there is any -truth or faithfulness in it, if it is not blind with national vanity -and self-deceit, it will still be a revelation of national need of -discipline and of self-empire. - -And how can such discipline and self-empire be won? Well, it will -not be won on any ground of prudential expediency or practical -self-interest. It is well for men and nations to discern their moral -shortcomings and to realize their need of a new character. But there -are no automatic processes of community salvation. The disciplined -nation comes in only one way――by the answers of individuals to the -austere call of the one Person who can remake character and mould -the stuff of manhood and nationality. The austere call! This is the -nation’s need and it is the fundamental summons and the central note -of Christianity. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will -come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow -me.” - -The appeal of Christ was always addressed to the sacrificial and -the heroic. In every call which He issued to men there is this -unmistakable note of austerity. He never smooths things over for the -sake of pleasing people or of winning followers. There were times when -He seemed almost needlessly to draw in these repelling aspects of -discipleship, and to make the conditions of following Him unnecessarily -hard. It is related that it came to pass that, as they went in the way, -a certain man said unto Him, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever -thou goest.” And Jesus said unto him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of -the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” -And He said unto another, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, suffer me -first to go and bury my father.” Jesus said unto him, “Let the dead -bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” And -another also said, “Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid -them farewell which are at home at my house.” And Jesus said unto him, -“No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit -for the kingdom of God.” - -Christ never concealed His own judgments and convictions as to life’s -values in these matters, and spoke with the greatest scorn of all -indulgence and softness of life. “What went ye out for to see?” He -asked the people, regarding John. “A man clothed in soft raiment? -Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king’s houses.” He was -looking after men of iron and of austerity. “If any man will come after -me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” - -The beautiful thing is that this appeal of Christ’s was not futile. -Instead of repelling men it drew them. He actually obtained the men -whom He was hunting for, not by offering them worldly inducements, -not by making such appeals as anybody but Christ would have made, but -by addressing the sacrificial spirit in them, and making an appeal to -their latent capacity for heroism. There is a wonderful tribute in -Jesus’ method to those characteristics in human nature which have never -been destroyed, which can answer to the highest motives, which do not -need to be bought by any low compensations, but which spring into full -life when appealed to on the most heroic and unselfish plane. We know -how, in consequence, this exultation in difficulties, this love of -hardship, this scorn of ease became the characteristic note of early -Christianity. In the best summary description which Saint Paul gives -of Christian character and manhood, in the twelfth chapter of Romans -we find him speaking of “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation.” -And when he comes to write his conception of the character of the happy -warrior, we find him setting this in the foreground, “Endure hardship, -as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” The praise of the New Testament is -never given to those who have lived in luxurious, indulgent ease. It is -for that little company of men and women who have loved the difficult -tasks, and who with joy trod the rough ways that transcend the stars. -Every one of the great New Testament leaders is a man who exalts for -us this same love of moral hardship, this same scorn of indulgence and -smooth ease, and this same virtue of steadfastness, “And not only so,” -says Paul, “but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation -worketh stedfastness; and stedfastness, experience; and experience, -hope.” And Peter writes, “Yea, and for this very cause adding on your -part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue -knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control -stedfastness; and in your stedfastness godliness.” James joins in, -“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; -knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” And you -remember the description which John gives of himself in Revelation as -“your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and -stedfastness which are in Jesus.” - -Now, we ask ourselves the question why our Lord poured out all this -scorn on what the world counts the desirable condition and atmosphere -of life, why the New Testament has no patience with self-seeking, -indulgence, contentment, or ease as the standard of a human life, -why it speaks contemptuously of smooth ease of every kind, and -exalts, instead, the austere life, the life of strength, and of -self-discipline, why our Lord said to men when He came to call them -into the best thing there was in the world, “If any man will come after -me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow after -me.” - -Well, one reason why the whole New Testament pours out such contempt -upon the smooth life and exalts hardness, is because only hardness can -make a great soul, and the end of the Gospel, the end of life, was the -growing of souls. The words of Socrates, understood in the social sense -which he intended and not selfishly, contain the central end. “For I -do nothing,” said he, “but go about persuading you all, old and young -alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but -first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.” -It is true, in a sense, that we are here for the work we can do, but it -is also true, in a yet deeper sense, that we are here to become the -best workmen that we can become, and that the work we do has a large -measure of its value in its reflex power of making us capable of doing -better work. Evidently this is not the real workshop where God needs -His best men and women. When He has perfected His workmen and workwomen -and recognizes that they are prepared to do their best work, does He -make use of them here? Never. He takes them elsewhere, where evidently -the real work is to be done. Everything we see in this world would seem -to indicate that it is only the preparatory school, a place where men -and women are equipped for the real thing, that the career that is to -abide lies elsewhere than here. The purpose of these days is to make -us ready for the work God has for us to do in a larger sphere than -this, where we pass on, as Chinese Gordon told Mr. Huxley, to have a -larger government given to us to administer. God pours out His contempt -on smoothness of life because it cannot make greatness of soul, and -greatness of soul is one object of our being here. - -The Christian ideal despised, also, this smoothness which seems to many -of us the most desirable thing that life has for us, because there is -such little knowledge given with it. At best it can only play on the -very surface of life. We know no more than springs out of the deep -experience through which we pass. You remember the lines of Father -Tabb: - - “‘Where wast thou, little song, - That hast delayed so long - To come to me?’ - ‘Mute in the mind of God - Till where thy feet had trod - I followed thee.’” - -It is only where we have gone that we know the way; it is only the -experience in life that we have passed through that gives us our true -knowledge of life, because the end of life is its relationships, and -wealth of life depends on the breadth of true knowledge and the riches -of true relationship. Smoothness of life is simply deadening because it -keeps us out of what is real life. - -And Christianity derided smoothness of life, and scorned it, because -it separates us from fellowship with the noble and suffering life -of God. You know the long controversy in theology as to whether the -idea of suffering is compatible with the idea of a perfect God. There -have been some theologians who insist it could not be possible that -God should suffer. If He could suffer, He could not be God. Well, I -suppose all of us here are prepared without one moment of hesitation -to range ourselves on the other side, and to say that if God cannot -suffer He cannot be our God. He could not be a father if He did not -suffer. Christ could not have been the revelation of Him if He is not -a suffering God; for “He was the man of sorrows, and acquainted with -grief.” What He laid bare was a heart of love sharing the anguish of -others; for we have not a Father who cannot be touched with the feeling -of our infirmities,――We can say that of Him because of what we know -of Him who revealed Him,――We have not a Father who cannot be touched -with the feeling of our infirmities, no impassive God sitting where “no -sound of human sorrow mounts to mar His sacred everlasting calm,” but -a Father who pities His children, who enters into their life, and who -loves them with all His soul. We can have no knowledge of that God, no -fellowship with His life, if what we are living is the smooth, easy, -indulgent life, everything bought for us by others, nothing done by us -for others, no blood of sacrifice colouring our life red with the glow -of God and His incarnate Son. The New Testament despises the smooth -life that makes it impossible for men and women to have any part in the -deepest life of their Father. - -And the New Testament scorns the smooth, indulgent life because it -cannot connect men and women with the real springs of strength and of -power. No strong man was ever made against no resistance. We develop no -physical power by putting forth no physical effort. All the strength of -life we have we get by pushing against opposition. We acquire power -as we draw it out of deep experience and effort. And the new Christian -ideal made no place for indulgence and ease because these things leave -men and women weak, with no strength either themselves to bear or to -achieve for others. It is as Mrs. King puts it in Ugo Bassi’s “Sermon -in the Hospital”: - - “The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine; - Is it the poorer for the spirit shed? - The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof; - Are they the richer for that gift’s excess? - Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; - Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth - For love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice; - And whoso suffers most hath most to give. - - * * * * * - - God said to Man and Woman, ‘By thy sweat, - And by thy travail, thou shalt conquer earth,’ - Not, by thy ease or pleasure:――and no good - Or glory of this life but comes by pain. - How poor were earth if all its martrydoms, - If all its struggling sighs of sacrifice - Were swept away, and all were satiate-smooth, - If this were such a heaven of soul and sense - As some have dreamed of;――and we human still. - Nay, we were fashioned not for perfect peace - In this world, howsoever in the next: - And what we win and hold is through some strife.” - -And it was because our Lord knew this that He set over against men’s -wills the strait door of the kingdom of life. He did not betray the -trust that had been given to Him. He did not say, “Come, I will make -life easy for you.” He did not say, “Come, let us indulge ourselves -to heart’s content.” He said, “If any man will come after me, let him -leave all that behind, let him deny himself, and let him take up his -cross daily, and let him come after me.” - -Now, I know what many of us will be saying of all this. We will be -saying, “God did not bring us into the world with any cross. All our -life long has been a sheltered life. None of this hardness of which -you speak has ever come to us. Maybe our fathers and mothers knew it -before us, but they have shielded us from its pressure. Are we to go -back to crudeness and asceticism for the good of our souls? Are we who -have no cross deliberately to take our smooth lives and roughen them?” -Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. Those of us who were not born -with a cross must find one, those whose lives have been smooth are -deliberately to find ways of roughening them, so that we may know a -life of power and fellowship with the suffering God, and can go out to -real work, and be prepared for that greater life and greater service -which await us elsewhere than here. - -We shall not have any great difficulty in obeying this call of Christ -to roughen our lives. There are many crosses in the world too heavy for -the men and women who are trying to carry them. We can go out and find -one of these crosses and help to bear it. They are not far away. Here -is a clipping from the New York _Sun_: - - “A comely young Hungarian woman with a three-months-old baby in - her arms dropped to the sidewalk at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth - Street late yesterday afternoon and lay half conscious. An - ambulance surgeon who came said the woman was starving and that - her baby had bronchitis. - - “The woman recovered enough to tell the surgeon that she was - Mrs. Mary Scheinn, twenty years old, and that her husband had - died recently. She had been living with a friend at 97 Seigel - Street, Brooklyn, she said, but this woman also was very poor - and expected to be evicted to-day, so Mrs. Scheinn had walked - to New York to try to get her sick child into a hospital. She - tramped from hospital to hospital, and everywhere they refused - to take the child, she said. But she kept up the quest until - she gave out. She had had nothing to eat since yesterday and - little then. - - “The ambulance took the woman and child to Bellevue Hospital. - Both are in a rather serious condition.” - -Being young and comely, doubtless, if she had not had the baby, some -pimp or other American citizen, for a consideration within her power, -might have helped her, but being innocent and carrying a baby there she -stood until she fell down, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth -Street, in the heart of the city, a woman carrying a baby and a cross -that were too heavy for her. There were millions of Christian people -round about her. Thousands of us never knew what a cross was and we -let the woman with her child in her arms fall down under the weight of -hers. This world is black with the shadows of crosses. If we have none -of our own, in the name of the great Cross, let us borrow one. - -Here is a note from a girl. She is one of thousands and the note is -real. I had been speaking in one of the New York churches and the next -day came a letter from her asking me, if I really believed what I had -said, to answer some questions for her. I wrote in reply and this was -part of her answer: “The great trouble with me is that I have to fight -continually against despondency. Life to me is a series of sorrows and -troubles, that accumulate and grow larger, and just when I am at the -point of giving up altogether some little word or act deters me.... I -know I would be happy if I were, as you say, truly trustful towards -God, but God to me seems very far off and rather mythical. Your letter, -also the fact that you wrote, was a help to me. The part that perhaps -appealed to me most was the idea that God and God’s love are longing -for us. It is very fine to feel that when one is always lonesome.” I -learned more of her story but it is not for telling here. It was a -cross too heavy for her which she was trying to bear. Women who knew -her lifted its weight for her, taking it over upon themselves. - -And not only by taking up crosses, of which the world is full, can we -roughen our lives. Many of us can do it by simply cutting off some of -our waste and extravagance. There are many of us who never ask before -we spend money, “How can I get the greatest return from this money?” We -waste it like water, while Belgium, Serbia, Poland and Armenia call. It -is said that there are thirty million people in India who have only one -meal a day, and who never know what it is to have enough to eat. Some -of them say that if they could have enough to eat for just two days, -they would be willing to lie down and die content. Again and again, -hundreds of thousands of people in China have been the victims of -famine, while we were throwing wealth away. We can roughen life a bit -by denying ourselves, by abridging expenditure and devoting the money -to human need and to some of the services the world is dying for. - -Students often reject the ethical and economic arguments against -gambling. These arguments are valid but it is very hard to get a -clutch for them on many minds. You can point out how dishonourable -and essentially immoral it is for a man to have money which he did -not earn, for which he gave no equivalent, which came to him as no -expression of friendship or by no legitimate inheritance. All this -is clear to the healthy and manly moral sense. But the gambler does -not have such a sense. I have often wondered that the case is not -more frequently put from the other side, from the side of the wrong -of spending money in gambling. When a man has won on a bet the moral -question is lulled but when he has lost there is a chastened mood which -can be invited to reflect. What moral warrant did he have for throwing -his money away? What does he have to show for it? A million hungry -hands were outstretched to him, a world of want and suffering called -towards him over land and sea? And he threw his money away――got nothing -for it, did nothing with it. In a world like ours, there are parched -lips waiting for drink; there are hungry mouths in need of bread:――do -we have any right to waste in indulgence in a world like this? Men -should scrutinize every dollar that passes through their hands and ask, -“What is the very best thing that I can do with this?” - -And frugality, self-imposed for the sake of service, will come back -to us in rich reward in character and power. Horace Bushnell drew a -noble picture of the fruitage of true parsimony in his address at the -Litchfield County Centennial in 1851, on “The Age of Homespun”: - - “It was also a great point, in this homespun mode of life, that - it imparted exactly what many speak of only with contempt, a - closely girded habit of economy. Harnessed, all together, into - the producing process, young and old, male and female, from the - boy that rode the plow-horse, to the grandmother knitting under - her spectacles, they had no conception of squandering lightly - what they all had been at work, thread by thread, and grain by - grain, to produce. They knew too exactly what everything cost, - even small things, not to husband them carefully. Men of - patrimony in the great world, therefore, noticing their small - way in trade, or expenditure, are ready, as we often see, to - charge them with meanness――simply because they knew things only - in the small; or, what is not far different, because they were - too simple and rustic to have any conception of the big - operations by which other men are wont to get their money - without earning it, and lavish the more freely because it was - not earned. Still, this knowing life only in the small, it will - be found, is really anything but meanness. - - “Probably enough the man who is heard threshing in his barn of a - winter evening, by the light of a lantern, (I knew such an - example) will be seen driving his team next day, the coldest day - of the year, through the deep snow to a distant wood-lot to draw - a load for a present to his minister. So the housewife that - higgles for a half hour with the merchant over some small trade - is yet one that will keep watch, not unlikely, when the - schoolmaster, boarding round the district, comes to some hard - quarter, and commence asking him to dinner, then to tea, then to - stay over night, and literally boarding him, till the hard - quarter is passed. Who now, in the great world of money, will - do, not to say the same, as much, proportionally as much, in any - of the pure hospitalities of life? - - “Besides, what sufficiently disproves any real meanness, it will - be found that children brought up, in this way, to know things - in the small――what they cost and what is their value――have, in - just that fact, one of the best securities of character and most - certain elements of power and success in life; because they - expect to get on by small advances followed up and saved by - others, not by sudden leaps of fortune that despise the slow but - surer methods of industry and merit. When the hard, wiry-looking - patriarch of homespun, for example, sets off for Hartford, or - Bridgeport, to exchange the little surplus of his year’s - production, carrying his provision with him and the fodder for - his team, and taking his boy along to show him the great world, - you may laugh at the simplicity, or pity, if you will, the - sordid look of the picture; but, five or ten years hence, this - boy will probably enough be found in college, digging out the - cent’s worths of his father’s money in hard study; and some - twenty years later he will be returning, in his honours, as the - celebrated Judge, or Governor, or Senator and public orator, - from some one of the great states of the republic, to bless the - sight once more of that venerated pair who shaped his beginnings, - and planted the small seeds of his future success. Small seeds, - you may have thought, of meanness; but now they have grown up - and blossomed into a large-minded life, a generous public - devotion, and a free benevolence to mankind. - - “And just here, I am persuaded, is the secret, in no small - degree, of the very peculiar success that has distinguished the - sons of Connecticut, and, not least, those of Litchfield County, - in their migration to other states. It is because they have gone - out in the wise economy of a simple, homespun training, - expecting to get on in the world by merit and patience, and by a - careful husbanding of small advances; secured in their virtue by - just that which makes their perseverance successful. For the men - who see the great in the small, and go on to build the great by - small increments, and so form a character of integrity before - God and men, as solid and massive as the outward successes they - conquer. The great men who think to be great in general, having - yet nothing great in particular, are a much more windy affair.” - -Every one ought to roughen life by friendships that will bring into it -those influences which are not naturally in our daily associations and -will carry us into contact with men and women who struggle harder than -we do. A few such friendships will help to keep life from petrification -and to make us aware that the world is under a cross, and that our -hearts must be as open to all its needs as the heart of the Father of -human life is open always. - -And we can help to roughen our lives in the very sense in which Christ -meant them to be roughened if we will resist the steadily increasing -tendency of our day to multiply ways in which we are released from -doing things for ourselves. There are none of us who do not have a -hundred things done for us that our fathers and mothers had to do -for themselves. Little by little, we are ridding ourselves of the -responsibility of doing any service for ourselves whatsoever. There is -immense gain in this. It gives freedom for larger living but it can go -too far, and it would be a great thing if we resolved at periods that -we would not let anybody else do for us what we could do for ourselves. -There was a day, perhaps, when men needed the other rule, when it -was a great deal better to get other people to do things for us than -to do them ourselves, but the time has come when the world needs to -reverse that principle. What the world wants is not organizers, but -deorganizers, men and women who will increase the number of personal -services and activities, and who will bring something frugal, simple -and elementary back into life to deliver us from the false heaven of -ease and self-indulgence, which is as bad as any other kind of hell. -Christ came to save us from that. - -There is one other way in which we can answer this call, and can -deliver ourselves from the curse of smooth living. Around about us on -every side there are causes waiting for what men and women can do for -them. I do not mean crosses in any great, general, organized sense, -in which we send our five, our twenty-five or our hundred dollars to -some society and think we have, in that way, carried all the cross that -Christ means to have us carry. We cannot fulfill Christ’s command by -paying an organization to carry a cross for us. All the work they do -must be done, and it must be supported. Millions of dollars that are -not being given now ought to be given. But what Christ is waiting for -also and what we have got to do if we are to have the satisfaction of -the enduring life is to find each of us for himself some true cross of -personal service. There are men and women around us who are waiting for -some touch of sympathy, some kindness, some unflinching word of ours to -them that shall mean the awakening of their own discouraged or sleeping -souls, that they may come out to live. “If any man will come after me, -let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” - -One of the saddest things in the world to-day is the principle under -which those are living who are unwilling to bear these crosses and -to bring home into their lives the wholesome spiritual stimulus that -this roughening of life alone can give to them. We have reacted too far -from the old monastic idea. Men speak with scorn now of those men and -women who went away into monasteries and convents, despising the joys -of the world for the sake of their souls. But these men and women were -infinitely better than the great multitudes who go out into the world -to-day, despising their souls for the sake of the joys of the world. If -a man or woman wants to do any despising it is better to despise the -world than the soul. It were well for us to go back a little to the -spirit of the mediæval time. When that spirit was pure and good the -world’s richest service flowed out from it. - -The glory of life for us consists in finding the rough, the morally -austere things in life and then fearlessly and unhesitatingly doing -them. There is no splendour in the easy indulgent way. The splendour -lies in finding the hard thing to be achieved and revelling in it. - -Many years ago I clipped this story from the editorials of what was -then our ablest newspaper: - - “A young Briton named Felix Oswald became interested a while ago - in the geology of Turkish Armenia. He made long journeys through - that country and finally came home with an important amount of - valuable new material. It was not matter, however, that would - find favour in the eyes of the general publisher and Mr. Oswald - had to undertake its publication himself. He had the type set at - the lowest rates in a small town. There were 516 pages of print - and the author undertook the large task of doing the printing - himself. He hired a hand press and after weeks of hard work he - had produced 101 copies of the book. Feeling certain that this - edition would fill the demand he went about the next large job, - which was the hand colouring of all his maps and profiles. Then - the copies were bound and the book was out. - - “Leading geologists say that the work is one of the best of its - kind. The small edition is exhausted and the book will not be - reprinted. The editor of _Petermann’s Mitteilungen_, believing - that a wide circle of geologists would be glad to have the - important results of Oswald’s investigations, has just printed - in his periodical an extended résumé of them together with some - of the maps. The University of London has crowned the work with - its approval by conferring the degree of Doctor of Science upon - the author. Oswald has certainly earned the congratulations of - all who admire the qualities of courage, perseverance and - intelligent devotion to a special task.” - -A man does not have to go to Armenia to find the hard thing to do, -although there are harder and nobler tasks waiting there to-day than -Oswald undertook, tasks that are crosses in the divinest sense, scarred -with sorrow and grief. And perhaps there are some among us here now who -are bearing crosses and finding them beyond their strength. But they -are not to be mourned over. They were not of our making, were they? If -they were of our making, perhaps there is some penitence to be felt, -some restitution to be made. If they were not of our making, we may be -sure that they were built just for our shoulder, that One who knew us -made them that we might carry them, and become under them what we could -never become without them. And if we have no such cross, out from our -smooth and easy living, our cozy shelters in which we have been kept -and are kept now, One is calling us to come whose ancient word we hear -to-day: “I came not to send peace, but a sword. Whosoever would be my -disciple must love nothing as much as me, and must be willing to rise -up and follow me.” For men and women who will do this in the full and -joyous spirit of Francis of Assisi but in the forms suitable to our -modern life the summons of God and the world is clear. - - - - -LECTURE II - -THE CONSERVATION AND RELEASE OF MORAL RESOURCES - - -One of our most familiar national ideas during recent years has been -the conservation of our natural resources, our mines, our forests, our -water power, the agricultural capacities of our soil. It would have -been a good thing if this idea had occurred to us fifty years earlier. -But it is an idea which always comes late to a young nation. So long -as the population is sparse and the supply of good land unlimited -and it is an easy thing to pick up a living from the surface of the -ground, perhaps it is too much to expect that any people would be -careful and frugal. But when the population has increased and begins -to press against the means of subsistence, when the good public lands -are exhausted and a mere living becomes harder for the masses of the -people to secure, then any nation awakens to wisdom and turns from -recklessness and prodigality. - -And, doubtless, the idea would have occurred to us a full generation -earlier if it had not been for the terrible education of our Civil War. -There is a great deal to be set down on the good side of the account -of the Civil War. It took the putty of our national character and -burned it into stone. It ran steel fibres through our national life. -And it brought us for the first time to a sense of national unity. But -alas there is a great deal also on the ledger’s other page. For war -is not conservation, it is destruction. It educates any people not in -frugality but in wastefulness. Military supplies must be bought at once -at any cost. Everything is thrown away with a negligent and wasteful -hand. And so long as any people is pouring out its best possession, the -precious life-blood of its sons, like water on the battle-field, you -cannot expect it to be saving and careful in its material possessions. - -The days of waste that followed the Civil War are gone forever. The -nation has begun now to count carefully the amount of its available -wealth. We have seen calculations of how many millions of feet of -lumber we have standing in our forests and how many millions of tons of -coal we have still hid away in our treasure houses underground. And far -and wide over the nation now we are learning to husband the resources -we have left, mindful of our children who are to come after us. - -And it is a good thing that the nation in conserving her resources -realizes that there is something more important than a careful -husbanding of her mere material wealth. The vital resources of any -people are of more significance to her than clods of coal, or timber -on her hillsides. Of what use would it be to conserve the material -resources of any nation if we conserve them only for a deteriorating -racial stock? The nation has come to realize that the men and women -who compose it are its largest wealth, and that this treasure must be -guarded more sacredly than our mines, our forests, or our water power. -We have seen, accordingly, a whole new body of legislation growing up, -that would have made our fathers stand aghast, fixing the conditions -of employment, the age of employees, the sanitary condition of homes -and mills, the hours of work and the care of women. The expenditure -of immense sums for the protection of the life and health of factory -labourers is now readily recognized even by “soul-less corporations,” -which formerly fought against all such outlay, as money well invested. -In all the nation to-day we realize that there is a more precious -wealth than our material wealth. I saw an interesting illustration of -this new frame of mind a little while ago in a statement issued by some -leading men in Tennessee dealing with the excessive death rate among -the negroes of the South. They pointed out that among nine millions -of white people the death rate is 160,000, and that among the nine -millions of the negroes the death rate is 266,000. In other words, -among the negroes, 106,000 more people die every year than among a -corresponding number of the whites of our country. In the negro, these -men argued, the South had an invaluable asset, a better type of labour -on the whole, with all its drawbacks, than any other section of the -nation possessed, more docile, more faithful, less troublesome, and -the South could not afford to lose this labour which it needed for -developing its wealth. These men estimated the economic value of each -one of these lives at $350 a year, and the period of that economic -value at ten years, so that each one of these wasted lives was a loss -of $3,500 to the South, or $371,000,000 each year, one million dollars -a day, and they argued that the South could not afford such a waste. -The South, they held, must see that the death rate among the negro -is reduced to the same proportions as the death rate among the white -people, in order that such an enormous economic loss might be averted. -We are realizing all over the nation now that a man is a very costly -product. You can breed an animal in a few months for the market, but -it takes twenty years to grow a man, and no nation can afford to -throw away such costly products as men and women. These are its most -priceless wealth. If it expects to conserve its treasures and to be -prepared for the services of the days to come, it is bound to guard -this wealth more sacredly than any other. And American capital and -industry have come to see this clearly. Here is one typical utterance -by a leading engineer at a meeting of the Immigration Committee of the -Chamber of Commerce of the United States: - - “Industrial Americanization is a part of the prevalent - present-day movement towards the humanizing of industry. It - aims to make what is commonly called ‘welfare work’ not an - exercise of the individual employer’s ‘paternalism,’ but a - legitimate kind of business organization everywhere. There are - now innumerable kinds of ‘welfare work.’ One employer does it - from the point of view of ‘good business’; another on the ‘big - brothers’ theory. One man confines himself to playgrounds, - another to safety appliances. In one firm it is under the - employment manager; in another under a Y. M. C. A. director; - and in a number of other firms it is classified in as many - different ways. - - “There is no agreement among American employers as to where the - organization of the human side of industry really belongs. And - there are absolutely no standards for it. What we need to do is - to extend scientific methods to the human phases of industrial - organization, and thus give ‘welfare work’ a definite place - and definite standards. The engineer as the ‘consulting mind’ - of industry must be the leader in this work. It is he who - determines the site of the plant and its construction. Inside - the plant again, the engineer has much to do with efficiency - methods. No efficiency methods that are unrelated to the men in - the plant can prosper permanently.” - -But there is another sort of resource and national treasure greater by -far than these, which most of the nations are passing by. I mean the -latent and undeveloped capacities for ministry and achievement which -lie dormant inside human life. Every life is a reservoir of unawakened -possibilities. There is no one of us that is more than a fraction of -the man he should be. There is not one who is not falling short by -a wide margin of the ideals that he ought to attain, not one who is -making the contribution to the nation or building the share in the -Kingdom of God that God and mankind alike have a right to expect of -him. Not long before his death, an article contributed by Prof. William -James, of Harvard, appeared in the _American Magazine_, entitled “The -Powers of Man,” in which Professor James argued that mankind is living -on a very small fraction of its vitality, and that there are buried -underground strata of possibilities and of power which are never tapped -except in times of great emergency. For a little time then a man draws -on these reserves, and then seals the strata over again and falls back -on the surface levels once more. For illustration he spoke of the -familiar phenomenon of the second wind. Every boy can remember such -experiences. There came a time in the game when he was “all in.” He had -done his best and drawn on his last available power. Suddenly it was as -though something broke. A partition wall fell in. Unsuspected reserves -were released. The second wind came and reservoirs of power that had -been withheld came unexpectedly into play and he did better than he -had done before, what he had never been able to do before. That is an -absolute truth of experience all through life. In our great crises, any -one of many forces may unlock these energies and let them loose. And -the present needed appeal of the world is to men and women that they -should not be content to draw upon these reservoirs in crises alone. -The tragic crises come because these powers are not drawn forth and -used. The great wealth of the nations and of the world that needs now -to be unsealed is just this wealth of moral capacity lying latent and -dormant within. - -What I have been saying is certainly true in the realm of our physical -energies. I remember a story of John Lawrence, who went out to India a -raw, uninfluential Irish boy in the service of the East India Company, -resolved to do his work well and make himself a name. Very early in -his career he was assigned to the collectorship of the Jullundur Doab, -on what was then the frontier of India. He made himself perfectly -at home among his people, entering into their life, mastering their -vernaculars, learning their secrets, until at last men came to think of -“Jans Larens” as a demi-god with powers beyond the knowledge of common -men. One day as he was sitting in his house a messenger came in from -one of his districts and reported that a village was burning down and -begged him to come. He hurried out to the village. When he arrived he -asked the headmen if they had all the people out of the houses and was -told that all had been brought out except one old woman who refused to -come. He went to the house where the woman lived and looked in. There -she sat on a bag of grain. Lawrence entreated her to come out but she -refused, explaining that this bag of grain was all her earthly wealth. -If she came out she would starve; she would rather stay and be burned. -When Lawrence found his commands and entreaties unavailing, he rushed -in, with the embers from the burning roof falling on his shoulders, -stooped over and picked up the bag of grain, and left the burning -building, the old woman following obediently behind. The next day as he -was sitting in his house it flashed on his mind that the bag of grain -had been exceedingly heavy and he rode out curiously to the village -again to see how much he had lifted. He had no difficulty in finding -the old woman and her bag of grain. He stooped over to lift it but -could not budge it from the ground. But the day before he had budged -it. He had picked it up and carried it. The power to do it was lying -latent in him all the while. All he needed was just the piercing call -or inspiration adequate to release the buried energy. - -And the world is full of evidences that what is true physically is true -morally. In every man lies the power with the grace and help of God to -meet his great crisis and in every woman the power to bear the agony -and pain of her great hour. Only a few years ago, when the _Titanic_ -went down and some men who had walked as dogs at the heel of their -passions suddenly became masters of themselves and laughing stood at -attention to death as they waited on the deck, we all wondered what it -was that gave these men who had been slaves their sudden moral mastery. -That mastery was within all the time. It did not come out of the frame -of the _Titanic_. It did not come out of the iceberg. It was lying -buried all the while only waiting the hour and the Voice that was to -summon it to come forth. - -Among the nations to-day this is the needed truth as it is the needed -truth here in our own lives. There are boys here to-day who have been -yielding to temptation, to whom God would give energies to withstand -their enemy. In the nation there are even now capacities to conquer all -the evils with which the nation abounds. Some day our children will -look back and ask why we have allowed immorality to dominate the moral -life of the land and why in the world we have endured the saloon so -long. These things will be cleaned away some day and men will wonder -then what their mothers and fathers were about that they surrendered -where that happier generation will not surrender but will achieve. The -needed capacities are buried of God in life, but we are not willing to -believe that they are there or to have faith in Him to energize them. - -Let me put the truth in yet a different way. - -Last spring, just after Holy Week, I received a very interesting letter -from a friend who is one of the best known and best loved judges in our -country. It was written on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter -Day, and he said in it that he was pursuing the practice which he had -pursued for many years, of trying in the interval between Good Friday -and Easter morning to eliminate Jesus Christ entirely from his thought -of life and of the world in order that he might thus bring home to his -own mind and conscience more deeply the significance of Jesus, and he -said he could hardly wait for Easter morning to come to escape from the -oppressive gloom and depression in which his spirit was as a result of -his enforced practice. And he begged me, as one of his friends, to try -this between the next Good Friday and Easter Day and to see what the -experience would mean. - -Oddly enough my own thoughts that same day on which my friend was -writing this letter were exactly the opposite of his. He was thinking -of Jesus Christ as extinguished, he was thinking of all that He had -come to be and to do as gone, and he was trying to bring home to his -own heart what this utter loss of Christ would mean. I was meditating, -on the other hand, on that Saturday morning, on just the contrary idea. -On Good Friday, the day before this Saturday, there had been a great -Personality; now that Personality must be somewhere still. Personality -does not die. The next day, on Easter morning, there was to be a great -outburst of energy. That energy must be somewhere now. It will not be -created to-morrow morning. It must be somewhere to-day waiting to come -forth to-morrow. Where is it? And then I suddenly realized that it was -all there, that all that was to break loose Easter morning was shut -up inside that grave, that all the energies that were to peal across -the world on the new day were there asleep in that tomb that Saturday. -All the great love and power that had been had not been annihilated. -It was there somewhere, only out of sight for a little while. And the -great truth urged itself that all the dormant energies of life, all the -enshrouded and enfolded powers are here now and always just as truly as -they will be to-morrow when they awake, though for the hour they lie -latent and unused. - -Then I began to see, as one’s thought ran easily on, that that Saturday -between Good Friday and Easter Day was in reality a sort of symbol of -the whole of history. For history, as we look back upon it, is full of -these repressions and these emergences, and then perhaps repressions -again, of great impulses and outbursts of energy and of power. Now and -then they are for good, as when the Reformation broke across men’s -minds, shattering their shackles, opening old prison doors, allowing -the enslaved human spirit to come out and breathe the air of freedom. -But why had it not come before? All the great energies of God that -burst forth in it must have been here even before that hour. And why -did they have to subside afterwards? They all _were_ still? Why might -they not have gone beating their way onward and not have ceased so soon? - -Then also great explosions of evil come. We look out across the world -to-day and see all these dogs of war unleashed. But these dogs of war -were not born the year before last. They had been here all the time, -only they were chained and held in leash. Why were they not kept -chained and in leash? Why were they allowed to break loose and go wild -across the world in their havoc and devastation? We know perfectly well -that after a few months they are going to be chained again, and the -great reconstructive processes will begin to make the world anew. But -why do these reconstructive forces have to wait? They will not exist -any more truly then than they do to-day. Why not release them to-day -to go out and do their creative work in the world now? Why not on -Saturday let loose that which is to burst with creative freedom on the -world on Easter morning? - -And I saw that this was a symbol not of history only but also of human -life, that every human life is just the mystery of the infolding of -latent capacities that are there wrapped up, the infolding of great -ends of which no man can foretell. That is why, I suppose, a man feels -such awe every time he holds a very little child in his arms. He does -not know what it is that he has in his arms, what it is that will -some day come bursting forth from that little child. That must have -been Mary’s thrill in those early days when she held her little one, -knowing dimly and far away, if not clearly, that she held in her arms -the mighty Redeemer of men. “When I see a child,” said Pasteur, “he -inspires me with two feelings: tenderness for what he is now, respect -for what he may become hereafter.” Of personal life it is as true as of -history. Vast latent possibilities for good may come breaking forth. -Now and then they do, in some truth-loving, unfearing, plain-speaking, -God-obeying Martin Luther. Or they may issue in some tranquil, patient, -loving-hearted, steady-spirited, immovable Lincoln. Goodness comes -leaping forth, and oftentimes we are tempted to think the surroundings, -the circumstances, produced it. They produced none of it. They gave it -its opportunity and its chance, but it was all somewhere all the time -and it might not have come forth if something inside had not released -the spring of our will to God’s will and let those great energies of -good come pulsing out to do their work. - -And the same thing is true of the inwrought and enshrouded capacities -for ill. Jesus Christ laid off His limitations as well as His -activities that Saturday in the grave; and He left His limitations -there when He came out. Out of such Saturday graves in man’s character -it may be only the limitations that emerge. Out of many a man’s life -it is the dog that ought to be chained that is allowed to roam free, -while all the possibilities for good and sacrifice and ministry are -still-born inside. And sometimes, thank God, men discover all this -latent ill within and lay on it the restraining and throttling hand. -As godly old John Newton said when one day he saw a criminal being -led by, “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Newton.” He knew -that everything that had escaped in that brother of his lay latent in -himself, and he thanked God that a hand had been laid on all those -inner capacities for evil and wreckage and that that hand held them in -check and let only the good and the true and the pure go free. - -There is something infinitely hopeful and encouraging in the principle -of that Saturday in our Lord’s last week for every man and woman of -us, as we think of life’s work and what we are trying to get done in -the world. So many times a thing seems all vain. The teacher tried to -breed in the boy whom he taught a hate of lies and a love of the truth, -and he wrought with tears and blood at his task, and the boy went out -from him and it seemed to him to have been futile, this that he had -done for him. We put ourselves out in this or that effort of service -in the hope of achieving this or that great end. Every little while it -seems to us to have been all fruitless. But wait. It is only Saturday. -Easter morning is going to break and the seed that was sown in the -ground in darkness and obscurity will come forth then. The life that -was let go for a little while, all that we did not see and therefore -thought had run sheer to waste, we shall discover then will come -pulsating back. “No effort is wasted,” said Pasteur. - -It is a great joy of life to believe this, that what Isaiah said is -true through all the ages, by the very principle of the life of God, -that no word of His will come back to Him vain or be void, that it -will accomplish the thing He pleases and prosper in the errand whereon -He sent it. I received a letter the other day from a friend, the Rev. -Adolphus Pieters, who is a missionary in Japan. He had for very many -years been engaged in an interesting work. He published advertisements -of Christianity in the Japanese papers, and then occasionally printed -a brief attractive account of what Christianity was, with the hope -of arousing the curiosity of Japanese readers. At the end he would -add that if any one were interested he might correspond with him. As -a result of this work he came into correspondence with hundreds of -men. In this recent letter he writes: “The total number of people who -applied to us for tracts last year was 959, making the total from -February, 1914, when the work began, to December 31, 1915, 3,590. There -have been seven baptisms since my previous letter, and the total number -to date is forty-five. Number Forty-Five is a most instructive case of -the Lord’s blessing resting upon what was, humanly speaking, a complete -failure. The young man in question is a bright young student in the -Normal School at this place, who was baptized a week ago last Sunday, -after coming to my house off and on for two years, and getting a good -deal of instruction. I did not reckon him among the results of the -newspaper work, but after he was baptized he told me that he originally -got interested in the Gospel when he was attending the primary school -in his home town. Among his teachers was one named Okabe Katsumi, who -had seen our advertisements and secured some tracts, among which were -copies of the Gospels. He did not care for them himself, and had given -them to this boy, who was deeply impressed. In the course of time the -boy graduated from school and went to Oita to attend the Normal, and -he did so with the resolution already formed to look up the man who -advertised in the papers and learn from him more about the Christian -religion. - -“When I heard that, I looked up the card index, and found among the -4 ‘dead’ cards one for Okabe Katsumi. It was number 444, and he had -applied for tracts in the spring of 1912, but in August he wrote that -he had found something in our tracts that he did not like, and so had -made up his mind to have nothing more to do with Christianity. So his -card was marked in red ink, ‘Closed August 12, 1913,’ and filed away -among the ‘dead’ ones――a complete failure, so far as any one could see. -But it wasn’t a failure. God knew better. On the fifth of March, 1916, -a young man made public confession of his faith and was baptized as a -sequel to that application of Okabe Katsumi in 1912. - -“Such things sometimes make me look with something like awe upon my -card index. What is going on beneath the surface? How is God working -in the hearts of the ‘failures,’ or, if not in their hearts, through -them in the hearts of others? It is one more proof that ‘the foundation -of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are -his.’” - -Looking back across the years it could be seen that bread sown upon -the waters returned again. Absolutely no energy goes to waste in this -world,――no moral energy, no spiritual energy, any more than physical -energy. All that is released goes about its work. Let us thank God, -that there that Saturday morning in the dark of the grave all that -broke free the next day _was_, and was not dead beyond the resurrection -of life. - -And the assurance that a man simply cannot do anything in vain is not -only a word of great courage to us in the work that we are trying to -do in the world, it is a word of hope and courage to us also in our -own personal life and struggle for character. All the energy we need -to accomplish anything that ought to be accomplished in us is in our -reach. “All power,” said Christ, “is given to me in heaven and in -earth. I stand within at the centre of your life. Draw on me. Go out -in the faith of that and do whatever your work is in the world. I have -the energy that you need.” All the energy that we require for any task -in life or out of life is there, by token and assurance of the closed -grave and resurrection, in Christ, waiting to be drawn upon by any man -who wants to make use of it. - -And all this is not the exaltation of human will, the setting up of a -man’s own resolution and high purpose. It is precisely the opposite of -that. It is saying to a man: “There do not lie in the boastful surface -of your life the power and the resources that you need. Retire upon -God. You must get behind into the unplumbed depths where Christ waits. -You must go back of the Easter morning in the grave, the unopened womb -of the grave, to find it there. All of it is there in the now Risen -Christ Who that Saturday morning awaited resurrection.” This is simply -making faith a living, acting reality by which a man works; so that he -arises in the morning and can say: “O God, I have in Thee in me all -the energy and strength that I shall need this day. No temptation can -come to me to-day that I have not got the power in Thee, that I never -have used yet, to draw upon, that will enable me to meet and conquer. -No work will come to me to-day that is too much for me, no matter how -exacting or unprecedented in my experience. There is power in Thee for -me for this work that is come to me to do.” - -That Saturday morning, more vividly than any other day that brings back -the triumph and pain and glory of Easter to us, makes a man assured -that all the energies he needs are near by, that in God’s own presence -there are all the powers he wants, awaiting release by God’s grace for -all the necessities of his life. And if we could not believe this about -the world we are living in to-day, surely a man could not go on living -in it. If we had to surrender to the present order and temper of the -world what would be left to uphold us? It is because we know it is -Saturday night in human history that we can live through it. - -We know that as in individuals so in all the races of mankind, God has -planted these great dormant energies and powers. For scores and scores -of years the Chinese had despaired of their power to throw off the -opium curse. They knew it was sapping the very vitality of their land, -and yet they wondered whether the day would ever come when they would -have power enough to break those hateful chains that had been forged -upon them, and get back their freedom. Twenty years ago, as we went -to and fro in China, the most striking odour in the Chinese streets -was the pungent stench of smoking opium. One could scarcely go into a -Chinese city or walk in a Chinese highway without seeing the wretched -shipwrecks who were the products of that vice. Poppy fields bloomed red -over the Empire, and the race had almost come to despair. And what do -we find to-day? There is scarcely a great poppy field in the Republic, -scarcely a fume of opium that you can smell on the public street in any -Chinese city. The bonfires flared across the land as they burned up the -signs of the old bondage. A great race arose in power and in a massive -moral upheaval shook itself free. God had planted the energies there -that needed only the touch of a living faith in Him, a new assurance -of the freedom of man to do His will, and in this matter the whole -nation came out of its bondage into its liberty. - -For generations men wondered whether slaves could ever be set free. -We almost feared in our land here that slavery was a permanent -institution. But there came a time at last when from the wrist of every -American slave the chains fell away. It might have been generations -before; it might not have been until generations after; only in that -time appointed the moral energies awoke and came forth, and Saturday -burst into Easter Day for the negro bondmen of America. - -Precisely the same principle holds with regard to the things that we -fight to-day. It holds with regard to the war on war. Some day we shall -slay it. The kingdom of heaven, said Jesus, is among you. Well, let it -loose. The kingdom of heaven will have no war in it; the kingdom of -heaven will have no brothers cutting one another’s throats in it; the -kingdom of heaven will have in it no vice and lust dragging its slimy -trail across men’s hearths and hearts. If the kingdom of heaven is -within, why not set it free, that we may live in it as well as have it -buried inside of us! The world that we are living in is calling us to -go back to that principle of Saturday morning and to believe that all -we need to do the will of God is made available for us by God’s grace -now, if we will but obey. - -And if some men say that all this is only to put in other words the -theory of development, of historic evolution, why, what of it? Of -course it is, but what is development except the drawing out of what -has been folded in? What is evolution except the letting loose of what -the mind of God Himself at the beginning had planted within,――when in -the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world He poured the blood of -Christ into humanity in order that humanity might be reinforced with -the adequate energies to enable it to accomplish the thing that was -God’s first dream for it? Of course it is, and that is precisely the -ground of Christ’s constant appeal. “Come unto me,” He said to men, -believing that they could. “Unless you hear My call and follow Me, you -cannot be My disciple.” What meaning was there to His summons unless -the power to respond was there in answer to His call? “I stand at the -door of your inner being,” said He, “and knock. I am there waiting.” - -And so to us to-day, just as clearly as in those days, His voice -speaks: “Come out of your tomb, out of your chains, out of your -narrowness, out of your limitations, out of your despairs, out of your -dejections, out of your failures,――come out of them. The power of the -endless life is here for you, if only by faith and love you will lay -hold of it to-day.” Is that not, after all, the great central message -and the fundamental principle of Christ’s Gospel to us, which He -symbolized and illustrated in the shadow of the Saturday before the -Easter victory? It is in one of the old hymns: - - “Low in the grave He lay―― - Jesus, my Saviour! - Waiting the coming day―― - Jesus, my Lord! - Death cannot keep his prey―― - Jesus, my Saviour! - He tore the bars away―― - Jesus, my Lord! - Up from the grave He arose, - With a mighty triumph o’er His foes; - He arose a victor from the dark domain, - And He lives forever with His saints to reign: - He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!” - -And He arose once on Easter morning that on the Saturday before and -on every day, every one of us might also rise out of the old, low, -selfish, defeated life into the life through which are beating the -victorious energies and the sufficient strength of God. Shall it be so -with us? - - “Rigid I lie in a winding sheet, - Which mine own hands did weave, - And my narrow cell is myself――myself, - Which yet I may not cleave. - - “And yet in the dawn of the early morn, - A clear voice seems to say, - ‘I am the Lord of the final word, - And ye may not say Me nay. - - “‘Unloose your hands that your brother’s need - May ever find them free. - Unbind your feet from their winding sheet; - Henceforth they walk with Me.’ - - “And lo! I hear! I am blind no more! - I am no longer dumb! - Out from the doom of a self-wrought tomb, - Pulsate with life, I come.” - -Yes, I may come if I will, by His life Who will live again in me. - -But the trouble is men do not believe this. They do not believe in any -latent capacities adequate to the great task of life. They accept the -principle of surrender and incompetence. They have nothing for God and -God can make no use of them. And I imagine that it is such unbelief, -such misgiving as to whether after all we have any possibilities for -God in us, the undervaluation of God’s need of us and power to make and -use us, that lead many of us to live the futile, unfruitful, negative -lives which we do live. Men do not think their lives worth very much. -They do not deny that there are great men and that great work is to be -done in the world, but they think that God requires only those, that -He builds His kingdom on a few outstanding figures, that the common -men can look after themselves, and that they are not indispensable to -God. If we are to prevent this waste, and if we are to secure the life -without which God is impotent to build His kingdom in the world, we -must somehow bring home to men the recognition of the great truth that -God cannot get along without every man and all of that man, and that -every human life and all its buried powers are essential to God. - -One of the great purposes of our Lord’s coming here to earth was that -He might show men the value of a man’s life in the plan and thought -of God. Even the most sacred and time-honoured institution our Lord -weighed over against one man and found him outweighing the institution. -What was His own example but the illustration of the immeasurable value -of man? He did not come to teach the uselessness of human life, but -its pricelessness. He did this by becoming a man Himself. And this -principle of God’s need of men and their latent possibilities is not -mere theological theory. It is the hard historic fact that God has ever -needed men and waited for them and for what they were the men to do for -Him. Look at the great inventions, discoveries, achievements. What is -the whole lesson of the Incarnation but that there are things that God -Himself will not do except as He uses man? God Himself, we must say -reverently, was communicable and a Saviour only as man. And His call -to-day as it has been all through the years is for men who will believe -that the thing God wants done can be done by Him through them. The -Western Hemisphere was here before ever Columbus drew aside the veil -and broadened the horizon of mankind. These great energies which drive -the modern world were here from the beginning. We did not invent any -of them. There is not an ounce of power in the world to-day that was -not here when the world began. All that man has done has been simply to -discover existing secrets. He has created no power. He has only found -out what God has put here for him to find out. It took man a long time -to discover this. But God waited for him. And God needs these finding -men now as much as He has needed them at any time. He needs such men -now to break open what is still concealed. The past has not exhausted -all the heroisms, has not accomplished all the tasks. There are greater -ones yet for the days that are, if God can only find His men. - -Think how greatly God needs men to-day just to bring need and supply -together in the world. You remember the incident in the life of our -Lord as He came by the Pool of Bethesda where the sick lay, and spoke -to one poor man lying on his pallet. - -“Are you going in?” said He. - -“No,” said the man. “I have no friend who will help me in and others -get the benefit before I can come near.” - -There was the good, waiting to be gained, and here was the man, but -he had no man to stand for him between the need and the supply. A -few years ago a great famine raged just back from the coast of China. -There were millions of Chinese families who were in want and hundreds -of thousands died of starvation because there was not bread enough to -feed them. Little children lay crying at the breasts of dead mothers -by the roadsides. At that very hour the wheat was piled up at railroad -stations in Argentina as high as church spires. There was grain enough -to feed the starving millions in China. Here was the supply and there -was the need, but where were the men? God had not men enough on whom to -float the supply across to meet the need. What is true of outward need -is true of inward need as well. There is never a want where there is -not an adequate supply. No little child on this earth need go hungry -because God has not put enough in this world to feed it. No human heart -need go starved because there is not enough love to meet its wants. -There is all the food and all the love that humanity needs. But there -are lacking the men who for God will bring the supply to the demand. -The human need in the world can be met by the supply only through men -who will fill up the gap. God can do it only as men lend themselves to -Him. That is why, through all the years, the call of God has been for -volunteers. For every unique, external, individual call that has been -given to men, you can find a million calls that have been just the -answer of men to the great call of God for volunteers. And God surely -values the volunteer above the conscript. Isaiah did not wait for any -special coercive call. “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, -Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; -send me.” That call was enough to cover him, and he answered it. There -is so much work to be done that God cannot go marching through the -world looking for individuals, performing new miracles by which each -individual is to be thaumaturgically led up to his particular work. -God’s general way has been to picture before the eyes of His sons the -work to be done and to wait for their hearts to leap in response, as -Isaiah’s leaped: “Lord, let me have a share in this work ‘Here am I; -send me.’” - -Men are indispensable to God to put meaning into the words in which He -tries to tell His message to men. Words have no meaning of their own. -Words mean only as much as one man puts into them, or another man takes -out of them. The meaning of the word does not come from the word; it -comes from some life in which the word gets incarnated, or from some -other life which interprets the word. What would the word “friend” -signify to a man who had never had one? What does “tenderness” mean to -one who has never seen a mother and her child? Or what is “patriotism” -to one who has never seen or felt the contagion? You remember what the -eunuch said when Philip met him in the chariot reading the prophet -Esaias. “Understandest thou what thou readest?” Philip asked. And he -replied, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” Things mean -nothing to men until they are shown to them. Men go to China or Japan -and preach the Gospel. How is it done? Why, they take words that have -old meanings and fill them with new and different meanings by living -new ideas in deeds before the people. In our colleges this year what -meaning will honour, truth and friendship have, except as these words -derive their meaning from the object lessons in some men’s lives? There -are places where honour means dishonour; where purity means impurity; -where truth means falsehood. These noble words are confused with their -very opposites because no man has incarnated their right meaning in his -life. That was one reason why the incarnation was necessary nineteen -hundred years ago. There was no adequate religious or spiritual -vocabulary and never could have been otherwise. If God had not come in -the flesh, men would not have had the ideas that we use to describe -God’s coming in the flesh. To-day, as then, God is dependent upon men -in whom He can put meaning into His message to the world. - -Men are indispensable in enabling God to get His other men. He gives -men guidance for their lives. But how? I appeal to your own hearts. -How do we get the guidance of our lives? There are many who are sure -of having divine guidance in their lives, surer of that than they are -of any material thing, and yet, as we look back upon this supernatural -guidance, we realize that it has all been mediated through men. We can -name man after man who did for our lives, in smaller measure, just what -that man of Macedonia did for Paul. We get our guidance through men. -Saint Paul got his through a man. Through what man was it? Sir William -Ramsay has no doubt whatever that the man whom Saint Paul saw in his -dreams was none other than his friend Luke. A real man and a friend, -and no ghost figure, was the man of Macedonia through whom God gave -Paul his great missionary call. - -It would be easy to recall the lives of great missionaries and point -out how they received their divine guidance through other men――not -even through a dream, far less through some miraculous vision, but -through a brother man who came to talk with them, reasoned with them, -and showed them the best way in which a man could use his life. Men -are indispensable to God in order to guide other men into the work -which God has for them to do. And one reason why there is such an -awful waste of life to-day, why so many men, going out of the colleges, -miss the highest work of their lives, is simply because there are not -enough other men who recognize that they are indispensable to God in -order that, through them, God may guide men to their highest and most -efficient places. - -Men are indispensable to God in bringing men to Jesus Christ. As -men were brought to Christ by other men in the beginning, so has it -been during all the succeeding years. The angels are willing to do -what they can, but none of us have had any visible object lessons of -what they do. Men have been brought to Christ always by other men. -Imperfect lives are to be brought up to the Perfect Life, and to do -this service Christ uses common men, just such as we are. That is what -Paul conceived as the glory of his life, that he had the privilege of -being the bond――no other beings in the universe being able to take that -place――between men who had not found Christ and Christ hunting for His -own. - -Then God requires men now as He never required them in all the days -gone by to bear testimony to the Deity of Jesus Christ. We know how -little value our Lord attached to any accrediting evidences that did -not come right out of pure, human personality. He discredited the -advantages of bringing back Abraham from the dead, for example, to -bear testimony to the truth. If men were not willing to accept adequate -moral evidence, valid human testimony, they would not believe by -miracle, He said. That is why He was so pleased with the confession of -Simon Peter. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood -hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” -It rejoiced Him to get such testimony from a man who, in turn, had -drawn it out of his own experience of God. There is no greater need -in the world to-day than for a great body of men who know Christ to -be God more surely than they know themselves to be men, and are able -to go out and testify to what Christ can do with a definiteness and -certainty greater than that of any other testimony they can bear, who -can say what John said, “That which we have seen and heard declare we -unto you.” If there ever was a day when God was calling men to a great -undertaking, He is calling them now to be His witnesses, unimpeachable, -unflinching, to the unique personality, to the supreme divine character -and power of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. - -And it is not only for great men that God is calling to do these -indispensable tasks for Him. He wants the great men, no doubt, but He -wants, more than that, the great mass of the common men. After all, -the great man is only one man, and every little man counts just as -many as one great man. Since God has to have all, one little man is -as indispensable to the all as one great man can be. And until He has -all, He cannot do what He purposes to do. It is only when we _all_ come -“unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” that any -one of us can come. It is only when we “comprehend with _all_ saints, -what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love -of Christ, that any one of us can comprehend it. It is only when we -_all_ reflect as in a mirror the character of Christ that any one of -us shall be “changed ... from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of -the Lord.” And the little men, as a matter of fact, are doing as much -as the great. The night that Gough stood alone, with all hope gone, a -drunkard in the gutter, an almost forgotten man laid his hand on his -shoulder and said, “Man, there is a better life than this for you.” -The name of that man is remembered by a few, but forgotten by the -multitudes who will never forget the name of John B. Gough, or cease to -feel the glow of the fires which he kindled to blaze until the Judgment -Day. Even a little man may fill such an indispensable place as that of -helping God lay hold of a great man who will be one of the unmistakable -forces of God. - -And it is not only every man that is indispensable to God, but also -every bit of every man. We cannot take some sections of our lives and -eliminate them as though they were not indispensable to God. There can -be no schism between a man’s public and his private life. His hands -and what he does with them, his imaginings and where they go when -he is alone by himself without any coercing, these are just as much -indispensable to God as a man’s public worship or any of his activities -in the open ministry of Christ’s kingdom. It is every bit of the -man――body, soul, and spirit――that is indispensable to God. - -And if we are indispensable to God, we may be very sure that we are -indispensable to the world also. If God needs us, the world needs us -even more. It is waiting for the rising up of men who know that God -needs them, and who hand themselves over completely to His uses. “The -mightiest of civilizing agencies are persons,” said Dr. Fairbairn, -“and the mightiest civilizing persons are Christian men.” Those men -are doing most for the world who are doing most to make men aware of -how necessary they are to God, and who are going up and down the lands -allying men’s lives to the eternal life and power of God. This is the -greatest of all works――getting God His men. I heard Dr. J. Campbell -Gibson tell the Chamber of Commerce in Glasgow of a visit which he made -to a temple which had been turned into a modern school in inland China. -Over the gate of the school were these words in Chinese: “If you are -planting for ten years, plant trees; if you are planting for a hundred -years, plant men.” Men are God’s great interest and want. - -What an opportunity this opens for every man of us! We have thought of -our lives as little, insignificant, trivial, of no consequence. There -is One walking in the midst of us Who was speaking to Ezekiel. “I am -hunting for a man,” He is saying, “I am hunting for a man,” and it is -open to every one of us to rise up and say, “Lord, I am that man you -are hunting for. Seek no further. Here am I. Have me for your man.” Is -that the answer that He is getting from us? - - - - -LECTURE III - -AN UNFRIGHTENED HOPE - - -If we were asked what we considered to be the supremest motive in -life, the motive which does actually exercise the largest control -over human conduct, what would our answer be? A generation ago men -would have answered glibly enough: “The desire for happiness.” That -was then supposed to be the one commanding motive of mankind. But it -was not long before the answer seemed unsatisfactory and indefinite, -because what brings happiness to one man brings misery to another, or -what a man thinks will delight him in the end disappoints and such -experiences issue in confusion. It was ethically indiscriminate also. -The same motive covered moral contradictions, and men wanted some more -consistent answer to the question. Nowadays those who look despondently -at life often say in reply: “Avarice,――the desire for wealth.” Or, -those who look a little more deeply say it is not money, but the power -that money represents that men desire, and that their real motive is -to acquire sources of influence and control. Some who look at life -more hopefully are likely to reply: “Love or friendship.” That is -the thesis of one of the noblest books of our generation, written by -the late Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull, entitled “Friendship, the Master -Passion.” Doctor Trumbull told me once that when he first began the -work on this theme he spoke about it to his friend Charles Dudley -Warner, who said: “Trumbull, you cannot prove that thesis.” After the -book was done, Doctor Trumbull took the book to him and asked if he -would read it. He read it, gave it back, saying: “Well, Trumbull, you -have shown that it is true, after all.” And that is a lovely view to -take of life: that the motive that lies deeper than any other, and that -really in the actual conduct of men and women is the most controlling, -is the motive of unselfish friendship, of love. - -But what would you say if instead of any one of these three or other -answers that may suggest themselves, some one were to reply: “Not a bit -of it. The motive that really controls human life, that does actually -and not theoretically play the largest part in determining the conduct -of men and women, is――_fear_.” And before we pass that contention by it -may be worth our while to look at it and ask whether, or how far, it is -true. - -Take it in the matter of dress, for example. Does not fear play a large -part there,――either the fear of being unlike everybody else, or the -fear of being too much like everybody else? In every land, more even -in civilized lands than in uncivilized, the element of fear enters into -the small external characteristics of our daily living. - -And in the matter of opinion. We speak of public opinion as though it -were a free and stable and trustworthy thing. But the public opinion of -one generation contradicts the public opinion of another generation. -The public opinion of one section of the land denies the public opinion -of another section, in the same way in which two sections of society -in one community think in opposite ways. Why? Not because all the -individuals of these particular generations, or sections, or portions -of the community really and independently have thought the thing out -for themselves, but because, held under the atmospheric constraint of -fear, they are unwilling to break away from what is determined for them -by the opinions in the midst of which they live. There is a good deal -of pacifist opinion and a great deal more of militarist which is not -free and personal at all, but simply herd intimidation. And a great -deal of race prejudice and international suspicion is nothing but the -miasma arising from cowardice or that bullying selfishness which is -essentially cowardly. - -And a great deal of religion is of the same character. The predominant -element in many of the non-Christian religions is fear. It is so in -all of the earlier or animistic religions, where men live in constant -terror of the spirits that haunt the air or the world, and where a -large element of their worship is shaped by that dominant principle of -their religion, the dread of the unseen and the unexperienced. Even -among us is there not a great deal, both of religious orthodoxy and of -religious heresy, that is only the child of fear? There is a coercion -of sound doctrine and there is a coercion of false doctrine, and a -great many men and women belong to their school of religious opinion -simply because they are afraid to break away from the companionship in -which they have always been or to disagree with the associations which -condition them. - -Much religious conduct, too, springs only from the fear of one’s -environment. One of the saddest things which one meets in going out -across the world is the great multitude, especially of young men, who, -when they have left Christian lands and the environment and support of -Christian surroundings, have simply collapsed in all their religious -conviction and character. Asia is strewn from one end of it to the -other with the wrecks of men who, while they were at home, supposedly -were men of religious character and conviction, but who showed when -they went away from home that it was not a matter of their own real -selves at all. It was just a matter of their timid servility and -acceptance of the conditions imposed upon them from without, so that -once they were away from home and free to do as they pleased and had no -longer the help and uplift of their surroundings, their environmental -religion collapsed and they went in an entirely different way. - -And I think if only we would go deep enough in our own lives, and be -honest enough with ourselves to gain a clear insight into our motives -and impulses, we would discover how large a part fear has played in -us,――fear, of course, in all the wide range of its aspects, that shades -off on the one side into arrant cowardice and on the other side into -a mere hesitancy of character and timidity, but fear nevertheless. -Some of us are even now cloaking the things that lie deepest in our -hearts, because we are afraid to give expression to them. We go into -communities, into circles, into conditions where what has been natural -and real to us is unnatural and abnormal, and we hide our colours and -conceal our principles. And we do things we ought not to do or we do -not do the thing we know we ought to do simply because of fear. - -I had an experience a little while ago when this diagnosis was -confirmed to me. In a visit to one of our colleges, among the boys who -came around to talk quietly was one whom I knew as one of the leading -men in the life of the institution. He played on the eleven; he was -president of his class. He was very timid about talking lest somebody -should overhear, but when assured that we had the whole house to -ourselves he took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to me. - -He said: “Mr. Speer, I wish you would read this.” - -I looked at it and saw that it was written in a girl’s handwriting, and -said: “No, tell me about it.” - -“No,” he said, “please read it. It will tell you a great deal better -than I can.” - -So I opened his letter and began to read, substantially as follows: - - “DEAR ――――: - - “I know all about your life at ―――― College, and I want to tell - you what I think about you. You and I have known one another - all our lives, and we have been good friends; but I think you - are a coward and I think that I ought to tell you so.” - -I closed his letter and handed it back to him. His lips were quivering -and his eyes were moist as he said: - -“You can believe that when I got that letter it cut me all up, and the -worst of it is that what she says is true.” - -His father was a minister; his mother was of the salt of the earth. -He had grown up under the best influences of a clean and wholesome -Christian home, and he had slipped those strings. He had thought that -it was manly to surrender to the current ideals of the college; that -in cutting loose from the influence of his home he was doing a brave -and courageous thing. But the girl knew he was doing it because he was -a coward and she had the courage to tell him so. And he had come to -see it in that light for himself. In his college fraternity and in his -own class, men were praising him because he had broken from the old -enslavements of home and was living his own life like a man. But he -knew that he was nothing but a coward, who - - “Held that hope was all a lie - And faith a form of bigotry - And love a snare that caught him. - Then thought to comfort human tears - With sundry ill-considered sneers - At things his mother taught him.” - -And he had thought he was doing it because he was courageous, whereas -the real motive was that of fear. He was a coward, without courage -enough to fly his own flag unflinchingly, to be and do the thing which -in his heart, in the very fibres of his being, flesh of his mother’s -flesh, he knew was the thing he should be and do. - -And if we would really look into our lives we should discover that -fear plays a far larger part with us than we ever dreamed. Men and -women lie. Why? Simply because they are afraid of telling the truth -and taking the consequences. Nine out of every ten falsehoods――perhaps -ninety-nine out of every hundred――are the spawn of fear. And the same -thing is true of sin, and of no small measure of unbelief, as well as -of no small measure of pretended belief. - -Our great need is the discovering of something that will cast fear out -of our lives, that will enable us to walk unafraid in the open sunlight -of His pathway Who bade men to be afraid of nothing. Think how greatly -we need this emancipation from fear in the simple matter of loyalty to -principle. There is so much of expediency and compromise and adaptation -among us, so great reluctance to ruffle the smooth conventionalities -of life, whereas what the world needs is men and women who can see -right principle as principle, unconfused and undistorted, and then who, -unafraid, will abide in that right principle. - -How greatly, too, this is needed in the plain, commonplace matter of -duty-doing! All around us much simple work waits to be done by men and -women who, first of all, can see it, and then have the courage to do -it. The obscure tasks that, after all, are the really great and worthy -ones, how few there are to do them! There is a fine passage in Morley’s -essay on Rousseau in which he describes what real history is, and how -much we make of history that really is not history at all, but simply -the spectacular doings of men who for the time being were deemed great -and who usually were engaged in war, whereas the great bulk of life -was not the life of warfare at all. It was the life of peace,――of the -quiet agricultural people, of the tradespeople, of the homes, which is -not written up in any history at all,――that was the real history of the -world. The men and the women who were doing earth’s work were not those -who went out to battle or on great expeditions, but those who, day by -day, heroically, unflinchingly, and without fear of oblivion, did the -real business of the world. There are some familiar lines of Lowell’s -in “Under the Old Elm” that put the principle for us: - - “The longer on this earth we live - And weigh the various qualities of men, - Seeing how most are fugitive, - Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, - Wind-wavered, corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, - The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty - Of plain devotedness to duty, steadfast and still, - Not fed with mortal praise, - But finding amplest recompense - For life’s ungarlanded expense - In work done squarely and unwasted days.” - -And take this matter of Christian service that lies before the thought -of every earnest young life. Why are so many of us going to be, in the -cities and homes from which we came, the same useless driftwood that -we have been? Why? Simply because of our want of courage to face the -work that needs to be done there, and to undertake that work without -fear that we cannot do it, without fear that God will desert us in -attempting to do it, without fear of the irregularity and uniqueness of -our being seen engaged in it. Throughout the world Christ waits for men -and women to-day, as He waited for them――and so often in vain――while -He was here on earth. Who will hear His call now? “Lay aside your fear -and trust Me to be with you and to enable you to do the thing. Come and -take up My task after Me.” - -Some of us would dread to go out to live among the Chinese or -Mohammedan peoples, so far away. But we would not dread going out to -live in the legation, nor would we dread it much if we were to be -employed in some great commercial enterprise. Yet the geography would -be precisely the same, and our dangers and friendlessness would be -far greater. But we would not fear all that, because others would -think it natural and appropriate for us. But this other thing――the -missionary call――would be so exceptional, so unusual, so fantastic, -even fanatical, that we would fear to do any such dreadful thing! But -which life of us is worth mentioning in the same breath with the life -of God’s Son Who came into a carpenter’s home in a wretched little -Jewish village amid an outcast race, in a bare remote corner of the -earth, and lived there among peasant folk and farmers, pent up in the -charnel house of humanity, and Who was willing to count His equality -with God not a prize jealously to be retained, Who emptied Himself and -took on Him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even -the death of the Cross? The contrast between our life, with all its -privileges, to-day and the most squalid African village is invisible -over against the contrast between what Christ laid down and what Christ -took up for the love He bore us and His world. - -And we need greatly this fearlessness in our confession of Him,――that, -without concealing Whom we follow and Whose servants we are, we should -go out now, openly to avow our discipleship and the vow we have taken -of loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ! Think how many betrayals of Him -there have been, and how much of putting afresh to shame the Son of God -and crucifying Him anew by men and women who had said they were going -to follow Him faithfully, just as Simon said he was resolved to do on -that very night in which before the cock crew he denied his Lord. Shall -we not go out into the coming days with something in us that casts out -this fear? - -We look with longing and admiration upon such deliverance from fear -when we find it in other lives. I was in Edinburgh during the South -African war, just after the battle of Maegersfontein, and was staying -in the house of friends. There was one little boy in the family -named after Prof. Henry Drummond. I had been in the library all -the afternoon, the very room in which Sir James Simpson discovered -chloroform, and then had gone into the drawing-room for afternoon tea. -The boy and his governess were the only other members of the household -who came down. He and I fell to talking about the war. I asked him: -“What do you think about the war in South Africa?” - -“Well,” he said, “I did not think much about it at the beginning; I did -not think about it much until a friend of mine was killed.” - -“Yes,” I said, “who was the friend?” - -“General Wauchope.” - -He was, as you know, the commander of the Black Watch, and the Black -Watch had been recruited from Edinburgh. The boy told me about the -regiment and its fate, and shortly after his story was filled up by an -Oxford man who had been in Edinburgh when the tidings of the battle -came. He said every shop was closed, and along the streets little knots -of men were gathered, and you could see the sobbing of strong men -everywhere. There was scarcely a great family in Edinburgh that had not -been touched. And yet, at the same time, all through the city there was -a subdued sense of moral elevation, as though something had lifted the -character and temper of the city. They sorrowed in what had gone out -from them; but they rejoiced in the way that it had gone. That regiment -had been organized as a Scotch kirk. The chaplain was the minister of -the kirk. The officers constituted the kirk’s session. I believe almost -every man in the regiment was a member of the kirk, and I was told -that as they went down through the streets of Cork to embark for South -Africa, although not under orders or restraint, the men walked with -arms on one another’s shoulders, singing: - - “I’m not ashamed to own my Lord, - Or to defend His cause, - Maintain the honour of His Word, - The glory of His laws.” - -And when they were disembarked at Cape Town and were taking their train -to go to the front, they went on board singing the old Gospel soldier’s -hymn: - - “When the roll is called up yonder, - I’ll be there.” - -They were sent right up and almost at once into that fateful battle. -General Wauchope knew somebody had blundered, and he said to the men: -“Men, do not blame me for this.” And without any fear they went into -the ending from which no soldier such as they would draw back, unafraid -of anything that might come to them because unashamed to own their -Lord and unfearing to follow Him. - -Of such as those are we to be? Or will temptation intimidate us, and -the tone of the conversation of the men and women with whom we mingle -pull us down and cause us to fold our colours up and lay them away, as -the man did whom the sneer of a serving maid caused to deny the Lord -Who was dying for him? - -Where are we to find that which will drive out this fear? “Perfect love -casteth out fear.... He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” -From how many of our hearts to-day will the perfect love of Him Whom -we call Master and Lord expel all fear? Let it be so now. Not years -afterwards, when other things shall have palled upon us, years that -shall have brought their dulling influence with them, but now, in all -the full strength and richness and glory and eagerness of our lives, -let us admit the perfect love that shall cast out fear and send us out -the kind of men and women Christ would have us be, to join the great -company of men and women and girls and boys who, unfearing, - - “... climbed the steep ascent of Heaven, - Through peril, toil and pain. - O God, to us may grace be given - To follow in their train!” - -Christian character needs this conquest of fear and it needs the love -which is one of the deep springs of such conquest. It needs also in -our day an immensely more practical use of the principle of hope, a -principle almost totally neglected in theology and made nothing of in -our codes of conduct or in our creeds. Paul had a far deeper insight -into the human heart and a vastly richer grasp on life. “Now abideth -faith, hope, love, these three,” said he. - -Paul rendered a large service when he condensed the central ideals and -principles of Christianity in this way. The human mind is very fond -of formulas. If it had not been for some authoritative, simplifying -word like this, we might have gone on to construct all sorts of -prescriptions like the threes and sixes and tens and fifteens with -which we are so familiar in Buddhism. And yet the service which Paul -rendered is not without its dangers, for men are prone to simplify -further and to see whether the three cannot be reduced to one, or to -arrange the order and proportions of the three, or to contend alone -for that which some one of them signifies at the expense of the other -two. Paul’s own words should have saved us from such folly, for he -said quite clearly that one of these three was the greatest, “And now -abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is -love.” And yet his own doctrine elsewhere has been used to correct and -to counteract his expressed judgment here, and through the years we -have had our theologies constructed in disregard of the domination of -that one of these three principles which Saint Paul exalts. It has been -in terms of faith, and faith given a very definitive construction, that -our theological thinking with regard to Christianity has been chiefly -done. Little by little however the proportions have changed, and now -love, as one of the three great fundamental principles of Christianity, -is coming to its own, not as a principle of action only but as a -regulative principle also of our thought. - -But it is a strange thing that no one has ever arisen, apparently, -to say of hope what the intellect of the Church, over against Paul’s -judgment, has been prepared to say of faith. He declared that of these -three, love is the greatest. The current opinion of Christian thought -through the Christian centuries has contended that faith was the -greatest. What would men say if some one should arise now to restore -the proportions, who would make bold to declare, “Now abideth faith, -hope, and love; and the greatest of these is hope”? Surely the day will -come some time when hope will come to its own, when the Christian heart -and mind will no longer be content to construe its interpretation of -Christianity in terms either of love or of faith, or of love and faith -together, but will insist that these three abide――faith and love and -hope. - -And when a man stops for a moment to think, to disengage himself -from the unscrutinized conventions, he begins to realize immediately -that he has no faith and love unless he makes larger room for hope -in his thinking and feeling than has been allowed to us. For there -cannot be any faith detached from hope. You can conceive of faith in -three different ways. You may think of it in its primary form, in its -primary form in the New Testament at least, as personal trust, as the -confidence that exists between two personal spirits. But even so, can -you think of it without hope? If I have no hope of seeing Him in Whom -I trust, of consulting with Him, or serving Him, of entering into a -deeper and enlarged fellowship with Him, will not my personal trust -soon empty itself of reality? Or, secondly, you may think of faith as -the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews does, as the “substance of -things hoped for”; in which without any flinching, he binds faith up -with hope in terms that cannot be severed. And, thirdly, if you go on -to the rest of his definition, “the substance of things hoped for, the -evidence of things not seen,” still faith is undetachable from hope; -for, as Paul says in another passage, “We are saved by hope: but hope -that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope -for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait -for it.” And you cannot detach love from hope or have anything that -is real in the experience of love unless it inevitably leads a man on -into those things that clearly were in Paul’s mind when he spoke not -of faith and love only but also of hope. I ask any man’s heart if it -is possible to divorce hope from love. I suppose in one sense it may -be, and that you can speak of a hopeless love. Henry Martyn’s heroic -and tragic life was the unfolding of a hopeless love. But how different -that is from love that is undershot with hope. One looks towards -evening to see the children waiting as he comes home. The workman lives -in the hope of all that is there of joy and confidence and perfect -trust inside his home. Love would be a sorry thing to-day if it were -stripped of the hopes that give it its sweetness and its joy. - -And it is not only faith and love that root themselves inseparably in -hope, and that lose their fragrance and meaning if they do not continue -to draw both out of hope, but regarding almost everything else that -is dearest and most precious to us in life, does it not spring from -this same great treasury? In one of the chapters of the Epistle to -the Romans we find Paul again and again, in his efforts to bring his -message out to those to whom he writes, describing God in different -terms of speech. He begins by speaking of Him as the God of comfort, -the God of patience, and then he goes on to speak of Him as the God -of hope. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in -believing, that ye may abound in hope.” And then he closes by speaking -of the God of peace who is to order all hearts. Quite evidently in -his thought these things all run together, as again he writes: “Be ye -sober. Walk as children of light. Put on the breastplate of faith and -love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation.” Joy and gladness and -confidence and trust and hope,――all are rooted each in the other in his -own mind and experience. The best that we have got in life springs from -the fountains of hope. - -We do not wonder, accordingly, that the old religious experience and -the richer Christian experience, when it came, conceived and spoke of -God as the God of love and the God of hope. They never spoke of Him as -the God of faith. The old Hebrew idea of Him was as the ground-rock of -their hope. “O hope of Israel,” was their cry. The lovely thing is that -that burst from the lips of the man who mourned for his nation: “O the -hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble.” “Hope thou in -God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, -and my God.” God Himself when He comes to let Himself be richly known -to men makes on them the impression of a great and joyous and glad and -eager and boundless hope. - -And when we turn away from such clews as these and look right into -the face of life to ask what the powers and services and functionings -of hope in the actual life of man and in the life of the world are, -we realize that all this exultant hope has its deep grounding in -the actual living needs of men. It is by hope――the New Testament is -unequivocal about it, and our own experience answers to that word――it -is by hope that we are saved. Not in one passage in the New Testament -can you find the declaration that we are saved by faith. We are saved -“by grace through faith,” but Paul is flat-footed in his declaration -that we are saved by hope. And the moment a man looks life square -in the face he sees why it should be so. Were it not for hope there -could not be any saving that were worth a man’s while. There might -be a clearing up of the past; we might secure something like a clean -conscience; but there could not be any confidence, any ease, any rest, -as over against the tragic problem of life, if a man could not look -out into the future――which is really the thing he now has to deal -with――with boundless hope. Salvation is just that thing. It is not -cleaning up our lives from the point of view of the past, just for the -sake of cleaning up our lives; but it is the hope that for the sake of -our future God is going to live in us a saving life. - -All this is true whether we think of salvation as it comes penetrating -our lives and dealing with such problems as in shame and self-distrust -we think of in our hours of recollection and penitence, or whether we -think of it as something reaching out into the expanding experience -of the future. Either way, salvation is a matter of hope. There is a -lovely touch in one of Paul’s epistles where he says: “Having therefore -these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all -filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear -of God.” What do you think of that motive? He does not say, “Seeing -that our sin is so black and abhorrent as it is, seeing that the past -is so shameful and unworthy as it is, let us cleanse ourselves.” “My -brothers,” he said, “seeing we have such promises”――that is, “that the -hope is so bright, that there is no ground for despair, that we can -believe victory can actually be achieved by us, seeing that we have -these hopes, let us cleanse ourselves in growing holiness.” - -And then when those first Christian men came to look not only at -this present purging of life which should leave it rich and fragrant -and glorious but out upon the wide ranges of the untried and the -unforeseeable, they still construed salvation in terms of hope. “Now -are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: -but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we -shall see him as he is. And he that hath this hope in him purifieth -himself, even as he is pure.” It is so because there is in front of us -the dear voice calling, the voice that says to every one of us: “Man, -let that old past go now. It is done and gone beyond recall. Come out -with Me. There is a new road for your feet and Mine, a new tale that is -to be unfolded now, a new story, the contradiction of the old. Let the -past go now, and come and walk with Me in the limitless hope of the new -ways.” - -And it is not only by hope, as a simple downright matter of fact, that -men are saved and held fast to the Saviour; it is by hope also that -men are nerved and empowered. In the hour of darkness, it is what -lights all the darkness and makes it possible for men to bear. “Yes,” -we say to ourselves in the hour of pain, “I know; but I can stand it, -for after this comes something that is different from this.” That is -what the honest doctor says to us when he deals with us. “Now hold -steady for a moment. I am going to cut and it will hurt dreadfully. -But just wait. Beyond the pain lies freedom from pain.” And we say, -“Yes, doctor, cut. I can stand it.” In a moment the anguish is over. We -endure in that hope. Has it not always been so? For a little while the -mother bears her anguish and her pain for the joy and hope that a child -is born into the world. For a little while Jesus bore the loneliness -and the anguish of His grief and the shadow and the pain and the -disgrace of His Cross, because, looking over it, He saw the glory that -awaited Him and the world, and He endured all this, this anguish of -the Cross, for the joy that was set beyond. “Therefore,” says Paul, -“we rejoice in tribulation, in being flailed, in being pressed down as -grapes in the wine-press, in being put through discipline and strain, -we rejoice in all that, because we know that tribulation worketh -steadfastness, steadfastness experience, and experience hope, and hope -maketh not ashamed.” - -And you know the paradox, and the glory of it, is that the darker -you make the shadows the more triumphantly hope laughs in the midst -of them. The more difficult you make the night, the more hopeful and -enticing is the sure confidence of the dawn that is not far away. Our -word, “Cheer up! The worst is yet to come,” is as deep a Christian -word as was ever yet spoken. Be glad, because darker things lie just -ahead and then light beyond. Thank God that you are counted worthy for -tribulations like these; for these are what wash white a man’s robes -and make him fit to walk after the Lamb whithersoever He goes, in -company with the men whose lips have never known a lie. - -All this is put finely for us in “The Ballad of the White Horse,” the -best piece of work Chesterton has done. They were as dark days as ever -had been in English history. Tide after tide of invasion from Norse and -Dane had come pouring in. Again and again Alfred had called his men -and gone out and fought, and each time in vain. Now, as he sits on his -little island in the Thames among the reeds, the news comes to him that -the Danes are on their way for a fresh invasion of his land. He kneels -in prayer and asks the Virgin Mother whether he ought to go out yet -once more. Again and again, he tells her, he has gone out in hope, and -each time in the confidence that victory would be his, and each time he -has come back defeated, his men killed, and his people to sink lower -after each despair than the time before. And yet, as he prays to her he -says that if she will give him one word of assurance, he will go again. -But only this, as she stands by his side, will she say, - - “I tell you naught for your comfort, - Yea, naught for your desire, - Save that the sky grows darker yet, - And the sea rises higher.” - -And there that day among the reeds under the promise only that the -night was going to be blacker than he had ever known, that storms -fiercer than he had ever breasted were coming, Alfred rises up to do -what he had never done under the old assurance of easy victory, - - “Up over windy wastes and up - Went Alfred over the shaws, - Shaken of the joy of giants, - The joy without a cause.” - -And as his men saw him coming, they thought it was with the old vain -word of a sure victory, and they were about to tell him in advance that -if he came with such a message they would follow him no more. But not -now was Alfred’s word the easy word. No, but―― - - “This is the word of Mary, - The word of the world’s desire; - ‘No more of comfort shall you get - Save that the sky grows darker yet, - And the sea rises higher.’” - -And in front of that darkening sky and that rising sea his men rose up -to go with him, and this time, from the darkest night they had ever -known, came the bright morning of their lasting victory. Thank God, we -are not called out on any soft errand under the incitement of bright -choices, but challenged by great difficulties, black nights and rising -storms, to work in the hope of that which is invisible and which lies -beyond. It is by hope, and hope that lies behind impenetrable clouds, -that men are nerved and empowered. It is because the world is so black -and dark to-day that we walk out into it smiling in its face, knowing -that behind all this the morning the more surely waits, the morning in -which the men believe who have faith and love and hope. - -And it is by hope that our comforts are drawn down into our lives when -the darkest of all days come, and everything is quiet about the house -and the little feet that had run to and fro are still. We say, “Yes, a -little while and then those angel faces will smile, that I have loved -and lost and love.” What would we do in those hours if it were not for -the sure hope? Saint Paul lays his own heart open to all his friends -in one of his epistles: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, -brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even -as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and -rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with -him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which -are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them -which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a -shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and -the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain -shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord -in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort -one another with these words.” - -And as for us who are in the full flush and possession of all that -we have, it is by hope that we draw our comfort for our struggle. As -against the background of our defeats and failures, we say to our own -hearts: “Well, wait, just wait; my time will come. No matter how much -of this there has been, some day my hope will be fulfilled. It is sure -that something else than this there will yet be.” William Henry Green -became the outstanding Hebrew scholar in America. He was plucked when -he entered college in Latin and Greek. At Lafayette College for months -and months he found himself beaten on the very battle-field where -he stood at last the first man in the land. At Lexington, Virginia, -several years ago, I went to the grave of General Lee in the chancel -of the chapel of his college and then I went out to the grave of -Stonewall Jackson on that little hill. One of his townsmen was telling -me the story of Jackson and how by hope he wrested triumph out of his -uttermost failure. He had been teaching in the military academy, and -had just been about to give up his work because he had no gift of -discipline. He could not maintain order in his own classroom, my friend -said, and was about to surrender his career as a teacher, because he -thought he was incapable there. Then the war broke out, and within -twelve months Stonewall Jackson was the most famous disciplinarian on -earth. On the very field where the man’s failure had been most clear, -there he achieved his richest and greatest victory, by hope. And so we -comfort our hearts here to-day. “Yes,” we say to memories of which we -are reminded in our searching hours, “the evil and unworthy imaginings -and desires cling to us still, but it will not be forever. Some day, no -matter how often I have failed, if I live in hope, it will come to me, -the clean thing that the Lord said should be mine.” - -And last of all, there is nothing adequate for us in the way of -actually moulding men and doing that with life which we were set here -to do unless we can go to the work in the spirit in which our Lord and -Saint Paul entered it. If I have no hope for another man, I cannot -awaken any hope in him for himself. Unless I believe in him, how can he -believe? The glory of Christ was that, though He knew just what was in -man, and saw all the weaknesses and the slavery and the impurity and -the unwholesomeness, though He saw all this in man, He shut His eyes to -it deliberately and believed in the better capacities and possibilities -that were there and that He by His grace and His power could plant and -nurture and bring out until all that old baseness that had been the man -was not the man any more, and all this new purity that had not been the -man was the man, and Simon was turned at last out of his putty into -rock and stone. - -I do not know whether the apostles were conscious or not of what was -happening to them. Maybe they did not appreciate their Master, but -one likes to think that they must have done so, and that often they -would go off by themselves and one would say: “Andrew, is He not just -great? Did you ever meet any one like that before? Did you see what He -did this morning? He just shut His eyes completely to that meanness -that He saw in me, and that I saw the moment I let it out, too, and -He pretended that He never saw it at all, and He believed in me when -He knew and I knew there was nothing there to believe in. Is He not -wonderful? He will make a man of me yet.” And to this day He is still -doing just what He was doing then. In this place now He is doing just -that thing. He is shutting His eyes to what we do not want Him to see -and opening them to what only He can see in us. And His law must be our -law. - -I can put it in a little story that a friend of some of us, George -Truett, told to a little group some years ago in a western city. “I am -fond,” he said, “of recalling the first soul it was ever given me to -win to Jesus. I was a lad barely grown and a teacher in the mountains -of Carolina. One morning, as we were ready for prayers in the chapel, -there hobbled down the aisle to the front seat a boy of about sixteen -years old. He was an eager, lonely-looking lad. I read the Scriptures -and prayed and then sent the teachers to their classes. But my little -cripple lad stayed. I supposed that he was a beggar. And I said to -myself, ‘Surely this boy deserves alms. His condition betokens his -need.’ So I went to him at recess and said, ‘My lad, what do you want?’ -He looked me eagerly in the face and said: ‘Mr. Truett, I want to go to -school. Oh, sir, I want to be somebody in the world. I will always be -a cripple. The doctors have told me that, but,’ he said, ‘I want to be -somebody.’ - -“He had won me. He told me of their poverty, and that was taken care -of. I watched that lad for weeks and weeks. How bright his mind was! -How eager he was to know! One day I called him into my office and said -to him: ‘My boy, I want you to tell me something more about yourself.’ -He told me how, a few months before, his father had been killed in the -great cotton mill where he worked, and the few dollars he had saved up -were soon gone. They tried to do their best in the county where they -were, but found it difficult; so his mother said one day: ‘Let us move -to the next county, where they do not know us. Perhaps we can do better -where we are not known.’ So they moved and now he had come into my -school. He said, ‘I want to help mother, and I want to be somebody in -the world; so I made my appeal to you to come to your school.’ It was -time in a moment for the bell to ring for books. I laid my hand on the -head of the little fellow and said to him: ‘Jim, I am for you, my boy. -I believe in you thoroughly, and I want you to know that I love you, my -boy.’ And when I said that last word, the little pinched face looked -up into my face almost in a lightning flash, and he said: ‘Mr. Truett, -did you say you loved me? Did you say that?’ I said, ‘I said that, -Jim.’ And then with a great sob he said: ‘I did not know anybody loved -me but mother and the two little girls. Mr. Truett, if you love me, I -am going to be a man yet, by the help of God.’ And when a few Friday -nights afterwards I was leading the boys in their chapel meeting, as -was the custom, I heard the boy’s crutches over in the corner. There -Jim sat, in a chair away from the other boys to protect his leg. And -a little later he got up, sobbing and laughing at the same time, and -said, ‘Mr. Truett, I have found the Saviour, and that time you told -me you loved me started me towards Him.’” And then our friend added, -“Brothers, working men in the shops and everywhere are dying for love. -Your grammar may be broken, your plans may be imperfect, your machinery -may be crude, your organization may be rough; but if you love men and -pour your hearts out to them honestly and directly, there will be a -response that will fill your hearts with joy and heaven with praises.” - -And the need and functions of hope should be viewed in no narrow -personal way. We want to-day men who have a large and courageous -faith in God for the nation and the world. Of recent years a mood of -pessimism has spread through America. In one sense it represents a -wholesome reaction from the spirit of braggadocio and spreadeagleism of -an earlier day. So far it is wholesome. We need to be sobered and made -modest and quiet in our national spirit. But it is a bad thing when a -nation loses the zest of a great consciousness and a brave patriotism, -and thinks meanly of what God can do with it. Our nation needs now -not a timid and fearful sense of its impotence and incapacity, but a -realization that, whatever its difficulties and defects, God has a -mission for us which only we can fulfill for Him. For this mission -those men must be the nation’s soul of hope and expectation who know -that our greatest duty and service lie ahead of us and are waiting to -be grasped by men whose hearts face the untried without fear. - -And now shall we have this hope that nothing can slay? Do we want it? -Well, it is so near to us that we do not need to reach out after it. -You know where it is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “The Lord -Jesus Christ,” as Saint Paul says in the opening words of his first -Epistle to Timothy, “The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope.” This hope is not -something that we work up out of the fragments of moral ideals that we -find lying around in our lives or our nation. Jesus Christ is the hope -for a man and a people. If we want it, why not now take Him? Genuinely, -I mean, in a deep, living, religious way, take Him in His fullness of -life? God and the nation want the men who are filled with His courage -and hope: - - “God’s trumpet wakes the slumbering world, - Now each man to his post. - The red cross banner is unfurl’d, - Who joins the glorious host? Who joins the glorious host? - He who in fealty to the truth - And counting all the cost - Doth consecrate his gen’rous youth, - He joins the noble host! He joins the noble host! - - “He who, no anger on his tongue - Nor any idle boast, - Bears steadfast witness ’gainst the wrong, - He joins the sacred host! He joins the sacred host! - He who with calm, undaunted will - Ne’er counts the battle lost - But though defeated battles still, - He joins the faithful host! He joins the faithful host! - - “He who is ready for the cross, - The cause despised loves most, - And shows not pain or shame or loss, - He joins the martyr host! He joins the martyr host! - God’s trumpet wakes the slumbering world. - Now each man to his post. - The red cross banner is unfurled. - We join the glorious host! We join the glorious host!” - - - - -LECTURE IV - -THE JOY OF THE MINORITY - - -There are two forms of disloyalty. One is flinching, the other is -compromise. Of course, the compromiser will never allow that he is -disloyal. He is a practical man who realizes that theories and ideals -have to be adapted to a practical world, and he gives up a part, and -as unimportant a part as possible, in order that he may gain the rest. -He feels himself quite capable of judging how much to give up and what -part may rightly be given up. He will simply abate the unreason of -a God who demands all righteousness, and to Whom the whole truth is -truth. Let us set up against such men the uncompromising principle of -the duty of non-compromise. It is a principle from which the wisest -and best of men are sometimes won away in the supposed interest of -the great ends which they seek, and for which they feel that they may -rightly sacrifice subordinate issues. There is what some regard as a -striking incident of this character in the life of that uncompromising -man, Saint Paul. It is an exciting and instructive story. This is the -way it is told in the twenty-first chapter of Acts (vs. 17–30): - - “And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received - us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto - James; and all the elders were present. And when he had saluted - them, he rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought - among the Gentiles through his ministry. And they, when they - heard it, glorified God; and they said unto him, Thou seest, - brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them - that have believed; and they are all zealous for the law: and - they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all - the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling - them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after - the customs. What is it therefore? they will certainly hear - that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We - have four men that have a vow on them; these take, and purify - thyself with them, and be at charges for them, that they may - shave their heads: and all shall know that there is no truth - in the things whereof they have been informed concerning - thee; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, keeping - the law. But as touching the Gentiles that have believed, we - wrote, giving judgment that they should keep themselves from - things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is - strangled, and from fornication. Then Paul took the men, and - the next day purifying himself with them went into the temple, - declaring the fulfillment of the days of purification, until - the offering was offered for every one of them. - - “And when the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from - Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the - multitude and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, - help: This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against - the people, and the law, and this place; and moreover he - brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath defiled this holy - place. For they had before seen with him in the city Trophimus - the Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into - the temple. And all the city was moved, and the people ran - together; and they laid hold on Paul, and dragged him out of - the temple: and straightway the doors were shut.” - -And that was the disastrous end of this conscientious experiment. Paul -never tried another like it. Perhaps there is a construction of the -story which forbids the idea that it was compromise but it suffices -at any rate to raise the whole question of the wisdom of compromise -as a principle of action. It is the one incident in Paul’s life -where he might be thought even for a moment to have embarked on that -course. Wherever else we see him, he is a man of firm and unflinching -principles, who made no concealment of what he believed, and did not -try to adjust his convictions and practices to other convictions and -practices that were at variance with them. - -In the second chapter of Galatians, you will remember, Paul is telling -of a visit he made to Jerusalem some time before with Barnabas and -Titus, in which they went up to consider these very questions. Some -of the brethren in Jerusalem had endeavoured to persuade Paul to have -Titus, who was a Gentile, circumcised, and Paul says, “To whom we -gave place ... no, not for an hour.” And then he tells of the time -when Peter came to Antioch and he withstood him to his face because he -had been a trimmer and compromiser; for Peter, acting on the generous -impulse of his own heart as to what was right, had indeed bravely eaten -with the converted Gentiles, but when some men came down from Jerusalem -who were close to James, he withdrew himself from the Gentiles, -fearing, no doubt, that it might injure him in Jerusalem. - -Paul does not say anything in any letter about this particular -incident in Jerusalem, in which, for the one time in his life, he -was overpersuaded by his friends and put in a position where he was -very much misunderstood, and where he appeared to be compromising the -great principles in which he earnestly believed. We know what the -far-reaching consequences were. A great deal of trouble was brought -into his life by this act. It was out of it that all those succeeding -events came which took him at last to Rome to be tried before Cæsar. -Some may say that these results were good. Undoubtedly God led Paul’s -course on, but we may believe that God might have had even greater -things for him to do if only he had in this incident pursued his -customary course. - -But we want to go far beyond the question as to whether the consequences -may ever appear to justify acts of compromise. A course of action is -right or wrong, not according to the consequences, but according to its -conformity or unconformity to the character of God. And the point now -raised is whether it is ever right for us to compromise our own firm -convictions of truth and principle. - -Now, the world tells us that such compromise is to-day absolutely -unavoidable. Men and women, we are assured, cannot get along in a world -like this without adaptations. If it is meant by this only that we are -often obliged to adapt ourselves to that with which we do not agree, -why, of course, we have to assent, because we are in a world of give -and take of which we have to be a part, and it is necessary for us -to live our life and do our work in this world. Here in many of our -communities, for example, the saloons flourish. There is not one of -us here in this audience who believes that it is wise that the saloon -should exist under the protection of the government, but we have to -live in a land where the principle with which we disagree prevails, -and the only way we can escape is to go to some other land, and we -would only find there some other principle with which we could not -agree. We cannot live at all unless we are willing to adjust ourselves -to an actual world. “Compromise” when used as the principle of such -adjustment means simply that we must of necessity find room for -ourselves among the crossing strands of life. “All government,” says -Burke, “indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every vital and every -prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.” “It cannot be too -emphatically asserted,” says Spencer, “that this policy of compromise -alike in institution, in action and in belief which especially -characterizes English life is a policy essential to a society going -through the transition caused by continuous growth and development.” -And Emerson remarks, “Almost all people descend to meet. All -association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower -and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as -they approach each other.” - -If it is meant by compromise that we have to live under conditions -with which we do not agree and to which we must adjust ourselves, -why, of course, we must assent to that――it is perfectly obvious; but -we do not need to live under those conditions assenting to them. We -can bear our testimony against whatever we morally disapprove. We -can assert our conviction by word or by the silent protest of life -that those conditions are not right, and so to live in the midst of -conditions in which we do not believe, but from which we cannot escape, -is not compromise. It is compromise when we surrender our principles -so that others do not understand what those principles are, or when -we hold back something that is vital, or cover over deceptively or -misleadingly something essential. When we take before men a position -that is inconsistent with the position that in our hearts we are taking -before God, that is compromise, and that is wrong. Regarding the truth -in which we believe, the principles by which we know life ought to be -lived, regarding these things there cannot be compromise, in our lives -or in the Christian Church. - -There is a noble essay by Mr. John Morley, as he once was, on this -subject of compromise, its nature and limits, of which Scott Holland -says in “Lux Mundi” that “no one can read that book without being -either the better or the worse for it.” In it Morley takes up three -different spheres of life. First, the formation of opinion; second, -the expression of opinion when it is called out from us; and, third, -the propagation of opinion; and then he pursues this line of argument: -In the matter of the formation of opinion there cannot be any -compromise at all. Every one of us is bound to hunt for the truth, no -matter what the truth may be, and when we have found it, to give our -lives absolutely to it. In the realm of the expression of opinion, -nobody has any right to deceive any one regarding his principles and -convictions when they are called forth. But in the third place, he -admits room for compromise when it comes to the aggressive propagation -of our convictions. He says that every man is not bound to propagate -what he believes, and he takes for example his own case,――that of -a man who does not believe in the Bible, who has abandoned the old -religious views of his people, but who does not regard it as his duty -aggressively to propagate his dissentient convictions. - -In his own words his thesis is this: - - “In the positive endeavour to realize an opinion, to convert - a theory into practice, it may be, and very often is, highly - expedient to defer to the prejudices of the majority, to - move very slowly, to bow to the conditions of the status - quo, to practice the very utmost sobriety, self-restraint, - and conciliatoriness. The mere expression of opinion, in the - next place, the avowal of dissent from received notions, the - refusal to conform to language which implies the acceptance - of such notions――this rests on a different footing. Here - the reasons for respecting the wishes and sentiments of the - majority are far less strong, though, as we shall presently - see, such reasons certainly exist, and will weigh with all - well-considering men. Finally, in the formation of an opinion - as to the abstract preferableness of one course of action - over another, or as to the truth or falsehood or right - significance of a proposition, the fact that the majority of - one’s contemporaries lean in the other direction is naught, - and no more than dust in the balance. In making up our minds - as to what would be the wisest line of policy if it were - practicable, we have nothing to do with the circumstance that - it is not practicable. And in settling with ourselves whether - propositions purporting to state matters of fact are true or - not, we have to consider how far they are conformable to the - evidence. We have nothing to do with the comfort and solace - which they would be likely to bring to others or ourselves, if - they were taken as true.” - -Now, we cannot but be rather grateful that men, who if they spoke would -have to oppose Christianity, take this view and remain silent, and -yet that is not our principle. Believing in Christianity, we believe -that it would be wrong and unworthy compromise to conceal it and to -refrain from propagating it. Mr. Morley prefixed to his essay Whately’s -saying, “It makes all the difference in the world whether we put truth -in the first place or in the second place.” We hold to another word of -Whately’s also: “If our religion is false, we must change it. If it is -true, we must propagate it.” Notice that Morley is speaking not of his -doubts, but of his convictions. There is no obligation of a propaganda -of insecurity. There is an obligation to propagate positive truth. It -must, of course, be the truth that I believe. When I am asked what I -believe I must, of course, tell the truth. But we believe something -far more than that. The religious truth that one believes he must give -his life to propagate throughout the world, and it would not make any -difference if he were the only man in the world who held that truth, -it would still be his duty, if he believed it was the truth and the -great and necessary truth of life, to go out single-handed to defend -and propagate it. Athanasius is regarded as an impracticable and -troublesome type but the progress of the world is often lifted forward -a sheer and discernible stage by such uncompromisingness. - -Let us set forth some of the reasons why we may believe that there -dare not be, in our Christian life and our Christian service, any -compromise whatever, either in our searching for the truth, in our -utterance of the truth, or in our aggressive and active propagation of -the truth throughout the world. This is to put the matter, of course, -very broadly and sweepingly. There is a great deal to be said for some -of Morley’s nice discriminations. But actual life is a very rough and -imperative and elemental thing. The difficulty of acting on any body of -wary and wavery casuistical principles is enormous. The really workable -principle of actual living must be very simple and uncomplicated and -direct. The only safe ethical law is “No lie,” no lie whatever or under -any justification. So also, however crude and blunt the rule may be, -“No compromise” is the only practicable right rule. Mr. Morley closed -his essay with such a plain word: “It is better to bear the burden of -impracticableness, than to stifle conviction and to pare away principle -until it becomes mere hollowness and triviality.” And in the beginning -he wrote: “Our day of small calculations and petty utilities must first -pass away; our vision of the true expediencies must reach further and -deeper; our resolution to search for the highest verities, to give up -all and follow them, must first become the supreme part of ourselves.” -The loss by compromise to ourselves and others is certain, while its -gain is uncertain and problematical. - -In the first place, one believes this because compromise makes no -contribution to the settlement of the real issue over truth. It is -true that all the boundaries between truth and error are not clear and -sharply drawn lines. Often there is a gray and misty region between. -And much truth is only slowly and gradually won. But the ideal of truth -is clearer than the sun and as pure as the character of God. And we -have a far richer chance of winning it and all that it brings with it, -if we both think and live it uncompromisingly. “The political spirit,” -says Mr. Morley in noble words, “is the great force in throwing love -of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place. The evil -does not stop here. This achievement has indirectly countenanced the -postponement of intellectual methods, and the diminution of the sense -of intellectual responsibility, by a school that is anything rather -than political. Theology has borrowed, and coloured for her own use, -the principles which were first brought into vogue in politics. If in -the one field it is the fashion to consider convenience first and truth -second, in the other there is a corresponding fashion of placing truth -second and emotional comfort first. If there are some who compromise -their real opinions, or the chance of reaching truth, for the sake of -gain, there are far more who shrink from giving their intelligence free -play, for the sake of keeping undisturbed certain luxurious spiritual -sensibilities.... - -“The intelligence is not free in the presence of a mortal fear lest -its conclusions should trouble soft tranquillity of spirit. There is -always hope of a man so long as he dwells in the region of the direct -categorical proposition and the unambiguous term; so long as he does -not deny the rightly drawn conclusions after accepting the major and -minor premises. This may seem a scanty virtue and very easy grace. Yet -experience shows it to be too hard of attainment for those who tamper -with disinterestedness of conviction, for the sake of luxuriating -in the softness of spiritual transport without interruption from a -syllogism. It is true that there are now and then in life as in history -noble and fair natures, that by the silent teaching and unconscious -example of their inborn purity, star-like constancy, and great -devotion, do carry the world about them to further heights of living -than can be attained by ratiocination. But these, the blameless and -loved saints of the earth, rise too rarely on our dull horizons to -make a rule for the world. The law of things is that they who tamper -with veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital -force of human progress. Our comfort and the delight of the religious -imagination are no better than forms of self-indulgence, when they -are secured at the cost of that love of truth on which, more than on -anything else, the increase of light and happiness among men must -depend. We have to fight and do lifelong battle against the forces of -darkness, and anything that turns the edge of reason blunts the surest -and most potent of our weapons.” We do not believe in compromising, -because it makes no contribution to the larger discerning of truth or -the triumphing of that truth over error. - -In the second place, we do not believe in it because it creates a great -many more difficulties than it removes. Now, Paul was invited to this -compromising course in Jerusalem by his misguided friends because they -thought it would avoid trouble. They wanted to set Paul right with the -Jewish Christians in the city, and maybe with the Jews who were not -Christians; they wanted to remove an impression which they thought -prevailed regarding Paul’s attitude towards the Mosaic customs in the -Gentile world. - -Now, as a matter of fact, the principle of that impression was true, -for although, as Dr. McGiffert says, Paul - - “recognized the legitimacy of Jewish Christianity, and the - right of Peter and other apostles to preach to the Jews the - Gospel of circumcision, and though there is no evidence that he - ever undertook to lead the Jews as a people to cease observing - their ancestral law, he had certainly been in the habit of - insisting that his Jewish converts should associate on equal - terms with their Gentile brethren, and that they should not - allow their law to act in any way as a barrier to the freest - and most intimate association with them. But this, of course, - meant, in so far, their violation of the law’s commands. It - is certain also that Paul had preached for years the doctrine - that not the Gentile Christian alone but the Jewish Christian - as well is absolutely free from all obligation to keep the law - of Moses, and though such teaching might not always result in - a disregard of that law by his Jewish converts, it must have - a tendency to produce that effect and doubtless did in many - cases. It is clear therefore that both accusations had much - truth in them, and it is difficult to suppose that Paul can - have deliberately attempted in Jerusalem to prove them wholly - false. - - “And yet, though as an honourable man and a man of principle - he can hardly have undertaken to demonstrate that there was - no truth in the reports which were circulated concerning - him, it may well be that he tried to show that they were not - wholly true. It was evidently assumed by those who accused - him of ‘teaching all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to - forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, - neither to walk after the customs,’ that he hated the Jewish - law and that he was doing all that lay in his power to destroy - it; that he believed and that he taught everywhere that its - observance was under any and all circumstances a positive - sin. But this assumption was not true. Paul was certainly not - hostile to the law in any such sense. He believed that it had - no binding authority over a Christian, and he opposed with - all his might the idea that its observance had any value as a - means of salvation, or that it contributed in any way to the - believer’s righteousness or growth in grace; but he held no - such view of the law as made its observance necessarily sinful, - and rendered it impossible for him ever to observe it himself - in any respect. And it was not at all unnatural that he should - desire to convince the Christians of Jerusalem of the fact; - especially when he had come thither with the express purpose - of conciliating them and winning their favour for himself and - for his Gentile converts. He would have been very foolish under - these circumstances to allow such a false impression touching - his attitude towards the law to go uncontradicted.”[1] - - [1] “The Apostolic Age,” p. 341. - -This is a satisfactory defense if one were needed of Paul’s course, -but no one would question his motive. That was right enough and he -evidently acted in all good conscience, but the procedure, instead of -getting him out of his trouble, got him into worse trouble. It always -does that. I do not believe any man was ever permanently helped by -compromise. Every man who has begun to play with it has been drawn into -worse difficulties and troubles, or has gone down, perhaps without -conscious difficulty but with real moral loss, to a lower level of -life. For one thing, compromise blurs the line of cleavage between -truth and error, and that is exactly what no one of us can afford to -have done. We do not want the lines of distinction between what is -true and what is false slurred over for us. We want them sharpened -so that we shall make as little mistake as possible as to where they -lie. Furthermore compromise gets us into more difficulty than it -removes, because it throws together things that are not congruous or -reconcilable. This is its very nature. It brings into one bed things -that cannot sleep together, into one union things that cannot be -tied. And it postpones real settlements in the interest of spurious -arrangements, sacrificing some - - “greater good for the less, on no more creditable ground than - that the less is nearer. It is better to wait, and to defer - the realization of our ideas until we can realize them fully, - than to defraud the future by truncating them, if truncate - them we must, in order to secure a partial triumph for them - in the immediate present.... What is the sense, and what is - the morality, of postponing the wider utility to the narrower? - Nothing is so sure to impoverish an epoch, to deprive conduct - of nobleness, and character of elevation.” - -These are Mr. Morley’s closing words. This is the second reason why we -believe there can be no room for compromise in our Christian life or -service. - -In the third place, it encourages evil by making it think that having -got so much it can get the rest, and so it prolongs the life of evil. -That is exactly what compromise did in the old days of slavery. Every -one of those early compromises prolonged the life of evil which at -last the nation had to pour out its blood to destroy. That is what -compromise always does. It persuades evil that, after all, maybe evil -can win the victory, that having gotten so much from us it can get the -rest if only it will be patient, and we simply increase the courage of -our foe in proportion as we make any compromise with him instead of -standing up face to face against him from the very beginning. And so it -destroys the power and might of right causes by mixing in the taint of -wrong. You do not make a good man better by putting a dash of bad in -him. You do not make a good cause stronger by letting the evil come in; -you only weaken its strength and power. Compromise plays into the hands -of the very evil which we are here to overcome and destroy. - -In the fourth place, compromise breaks down the strength of rigid -consistency, and by letting in one qualification prepares the way for -others. That is the reason why it is so much harder for a man to be a -moderate drinker than to be a total abstainer. As was said of Samuel -Johnson, “He could practice abstinence but not temperance.” When a man -has made up his mind that he will never do a thing, it is a great deal -easier for him to refuse to do it in any given instance than if he has -made up his mind that he will do it moderately, because he never knows -when he ceases to be moderate. There is a sharp line between moderate -drinking and total abstinence. That boundary line no one can ever -mistake, but the boundary line between intemperance and moderation is -not located anywhere. There is no definite border between those two -countries. As a matter of fact, every man starts in by being a moderate -drinker. He never intended to become anything else but a moderate -drinker when he began. But there is a boundary line so clear that a -blind man can see it between yes and no, between not doing a thing at -all and doing that thing only moderately. We believe in the principle -of absolutely no compromise in moral habit and principle, and we -believe in the same principle in our clear and evangelical convictions -regarding the Christian faith. - -In the fifth place, we ought to shun all such compromise because -it undermines our confidence in men, and the solid unity of their -coöperative action. We know where truth is, but we never know where -calculating compromise may be. In the language of the deaf and dumb -this is the sign for truth――a straight line right away from your -mouth――for the simple reason that between two points there is only -one straight line, but there may be many crooked lines. The truth is -always a single thing, but the error,――no man knows what it may be. No -compromise makes possible unity of accord by giving people one standard -on which they can rely, and by supplying confidence in the stability of -men and their convictions. But we cannot follow the compromising man, -for as soon as he gets out of our sight we do not know where he will be. - -It is the man who makes no compromise, who stands fast by truth, that -we know we can locate. It was that which gave Stonewall Jackson his -huge power as a leader of men in the Civil War. He was a man of the -most unflinching Christian convictions. He was one who never moved the -breadth of a hair from his loyalty to his Lord or to truth as he saw -truth in the presence of his Lord. Colonel Henderson draws for us a -rich picture of the great soldier’s character and it is full of genial -and kindly touches, but it is faithful also in its account of the man’s -rigid and inflexible righteousness. - - “Jackson’s religion entered into every action of his life. No - duty, however trivial, was begun without asking a blessing, or - ended without returning thanks. ‘He had long cultivated,’ he - said, ‘the habit of connecting the most trivial and customary - acts of life with a silent prayer.’ He took the Bible as his - guide, and it is possible that his literal interpretation - of its precepts caused many to regard him as a fanatic. His - observance of the Sabbath was hardly in accordance with - ordinary usage. He never read a letter on that day, nor - posted one; he believed that the Government in carrying the - mails was violating a divine law, and he considered the - suppression of such traffic one of the most important duties - of the legislature. Such opinions were uncommon, even among - the Presbyterians, and his rigid respect for truth served to - strengthen the impression that he was morbidly scrupulous. - If he unintentionally made a misstatement――even about some - trifling matter――as soon as he discovered his mistake he would - lose no time and spare no trouble in hastening to correct it. - ‘Why, in the name of reason,’ he was asked, ‘do you walk a mile - in the rain for a perfectly unimportant thing?’ ‘Simply because - I have discovered that it was a misstatement, I could not sleep - comfortably unless I put it right.’ - - “He had occasion to censure a cadet who had given, as Jackson - believed, the wrong solution of a problem. On thinking the - matter over at home, he found that the pupil was right and - the teacher wrong. It was late at night and in the depth of - winter, but he immediately started off to the Institute, - some distance from his quarters, and sent for the cadet. The - delinquent, answering with much trepidation the untimely - summons, found himself to his astonishment the recipient - of a frank apology. Jackson’s scruples carried him even - further. Persons who interlarded their conversation with the - unmeaning phrase ‘you know’ were often astonished by the blunt - interruption that he did _not_ know; and when he was entreated - at parties or receptions to break through his dietary rules, - and for courtesy’s sake to seem to accept some delicacy, he - would always refuse with the reply that he had ‘no genius for - seeming.’ But if he carried his conscientiousness to extremes, - if he laid down stringent rules for his own governance, he - neither set himself up for a model nor did he attempt to - force his convictions upon others. He was always tolerant; he - knew his own faults, and his own temptations, and if he could - say nothing good of a man he would not speak of him at all. - But he was by no means disposed to overlook conduct of which - he disapproved, and undue leniency was a weakness to which - he never yielded. If he once lost confidence or discovered - deception on the part of one he trusted, he withdrew himself as - far as possible from any further dealings with him; and whether - with the cadets or with his brother-officers, if an offense - had been committed of which he was called upon to take notice, - he was absolutely inflexible. Punishment or report inevitably - followed. No excuses, no personal feelings, no appeals to - the suffering which might be brought upon the innocent, were - permitted to interfere with the execution of his duty.” - -“As exact as the multiplication table,” some one said of him, “and as -full of things military as an arsenal.” Those of us who are looking for -the secret of Christian influence over others may be sure that we will -find it here. Men are not going to follow the shifting man. They will -follow the man who makes no compromise, who has his firm convictions -and who stands by those convictions, no matter what the cost of his -loyalty may be. Recent American politics are rather eloquent and -convincing on this point. - -In the sixth place, compromise in principle substitutes reliance upon -majorities for reliance upon the truth, and the majorities never have -been right and we may doubt whether, until our Lord Jesus Christ comes -again, they ever will be right. God never has relied upon the majority. -He never has waited to do His work until it was ready to side with Him. -In all ages God has done His work by the few. In Old Testament times He -did it by the few. The one principle prevailed always――not by might, -nor by power. It was ever only “the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” -When our Lord came He did His work with the few. Through all the ages -God has been working so, and we simply depart from His whole method -in history when by compromise we try to get the force of the majority -on our side. The force of the majority does not amount to anything in -comparison with the force of truth. “The history of success,” says -Mr. Morley, “as we can never too often repeat to ourselves, is the -history of minorities.” And we do not believe in compromise because -it substitutes our reliance upon the majority for our reliance upon -the truth of God, and upon the strength of God to enable the few with -the truth to triumph against the error of the crowd. This passes for -foolish idealism and some of our most popular political leaders and -reformers have poured scorn upon the idealists and dreamers, who are -not to be numbered among the practical men. - - “One would like to ask them what purpose is served by an ideal, - if it is not to make a guide for practice and a landmark - in dealing with the real. A man’s loftiest and most ideal - notions must be of a singularly ethereal and, shall we not - say, senseless kind, if he can never see how to take a single - step that may tend in the slightest degree towards making - them more real. If an ideal has no point of contact with what - exists, it is probably not much more than the vapid outcome - of intellectual or spiritual self-indulgence. If it has such - a point of contact, then there is sure to be something which - a man can do towards the fulfillment of his hopes. He cannot - substitute a new national religion for the old, but he can - at least do something to prevent people from supposing that - the adherents of the old are more numerous than they really - are, and something to show them that good ideas are not all - exhausted by the ancient forms. He cannot transform a monarchy - into a republic, but he can make sure that one citizen at least - shall aim at republican virtues, and abstain from the debasing - complaisance of the crowd.”[2] - - [2] Morley, “Compromise,” p. 226. - -And we might add, “he cannot instantly make truth the life of the -nation, but he can be loyal to its commandments. He cannot make -political leaders honest and patriotic, but he can refuse to profit by -their dishonesty or to regard them as honest men if they will but wear -his badge and seek their own ends by promoting his. He can form his own -ideals of honour and glory and live by them whatever way others may go.” - -In the seventh place, compromise increases in peril as we draw near the -highest. If you take a man who is down on the lower levels, compromise -does not mean as much to him as it does to men who have been climbing -up. The nearer we come to Christ and the highest truth, the more -perilous does compromise become. As Edward Thring said: “In proportion -to excellence, compromise is impossible. A single leak sinks a great -ship, a raft that is all leaks floats.” That is just the deep lesson -that men and women need to learn; that the higher and cleaner and -more morally lofty or exacting the life, the more perilous compromise -becomes to it. One has heard Christian men say sometimes that they -thought they were safe in doing what this or that man, not as strong -or experienced or mature, could do. It is a great mistake. The clearer -and stronger a man’s life, the more careful must the man be, the more -solicitous, the more anxious, lest thinking he stands he falls. One -of the greatest things about the life of Paul was the humility and -self-distrust in which he walked, fearing lest when he had preached -to others he himself might be a castaway. We have to learn that here -lies power and duty, and that the cleaner Christ makes any human life, -the more careful must that life be to keep all its habits pure and -unsullied, and its convictions of truth unflinching and firm. - -It was this principle that made our friend, S. H. Hadley, and that -makes so many men who have escaped from the slavery of drink, go to -extremes in cutting off physical indulgences. Mr. Hadley not only -dropped once and forever the use of alcohol, but he stopped tobacco -too, and he tried to get every drunkard whom he was seeking to save to -discontinue the use of nicotine. He held that men should be clean every -whit and his strong conviction was that while he would not for a moment -class such indulgences together, nevertheless the man who wanted to be -free from the one would find his deliverance far easier if he sloughed -off the other also. It is safer and easier to be thoroughgoing and -indiscriminate, if you will, than to be always calculating how great -risks can be safely run. - -And, lastly, we believe in no compromise because the truth is bound -to prevail, and it will triumph the soonest when it is least hampered -and tied up with error or with qualification. One might stop here to -make a defense on this ground of the fanatics and devotees, but it -is enough to say that the truth is going to prevail because it is -God’s truth, and hell and all hell’s power in the world cannot stand -against it. What is the use in delaying the day of that triumph by -compromising with error? The right will prevail all the faster if we -make no compromise with error, if we go out and preach unflinchingly -and courageously with no compromise, with no surrender or economy or -adaptations, the hard, plain truth of God as we see it. If what we -think is truth is really error, it will be the sooner beaten down for -being made to stand up for itself. But if it is indeed the truth we -know it will prevail the more in the world as we keep it free from all -connection with anything that will weaken or becloud it. - -I know how much danger there is in such an attitude as this if we take -it up towards the truth that we hold. It lies in our human nature to go -to violence or extremes with everything. Martin Luther used to say that -human nature is like a drunken man trying to ride a horse, you prop him -up on one side and he topples over on the other. It is that way with -us. We try to be firm and we become hard-hearted. We pride ourselves -on uncompromising loyalty to the truth and we lack the tenderness -and sympathy. Moreover, as Bushnell said in his essay on “Christian -Comprehensiveness”: - - “It is the common infirmity of mere human reformers that, when - they rise up to cast out an error, it is generally not till - they have kindled their passions against it. If they begin with - reason, they are commonly moved, in the last degree, by their - animosities instead of reason. And as animosities are blind, - they, of course, see nothing to respect, nothing to spare. - The question whether possibly there may not be some truth or - good in the error assailed, which is needed to qualify and - save the equilibrium of their own opposing truth, is not once - entertained. Hence it is that men, in expelling one error, are - perpetually thrusting themselves into another, as if unwilling - or unable to hold more than half the truth at once.” - -And yet these dangers are lesser dangers than the danger of -surrendering the truth. And we can be guarded from them by the great -and unselfish love that guarded Paul. The man who loves others more -than he loves himself, who holds human lives sacred and free from -invasion, who is seeking not his own glory, but the glory of God and -the good of men, is in little danger from an absolutely uncompromising -loyalty to the truth. - -And if ever men have any doubts or misgivings regarding this, or if -the time of discouragements and fears comes to them, and they look -with longing to the multitudes who act together, while they think of -themselves as just a few, bearing testimony for the truth against -error and sin, they may encourage themselves with Mr. Matthew Arnold’s -doctrine of the remnant, or better yet, by remembering the great -Solitary, Jesus Christ. How lonesomely He walked His way; seeing what -no other soul was seeing; standing alone for the great truth which He -uttered, and at last meeting death upon the cross alone; one of His -disciples having betrayed Him, another having three times denied that -he ever knew Him, and all the others having left Him and gone away! -And yet as we look back, we see that lonely cross ruling the whole -world, and that forsaken figure men are clothing now with the crown -of everlasting light, and His name is above every name. All that we -are asked to do is simply to follow in His train, to take up the truth -which He opened, and for that truth to be willing to live, and, which -is far easier, if need be, to die. Our lives are ours for this one -thing, that through them, without compromise with error or with sin, -God may bear testimony to Himself, and whether He does that through -many years or through few, through peaceful personal service or through -storm and tragedy, is of no consequence. The one thing that is of -consequence is that we should know and be true to God. - -But there is a better way to set forth and commend this principle -as a law of life than by arguing it in these general terms. Let the -principle put on flesh and live before us in a man: - -“And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said -unto Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, -there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” - -The old man who spoke these words was one of the four great characters -of the Old Testament. He and Moses and Samuel and David stood apart in -the thought of the Hebrew people. Indeed, there was a sense in which -he and Moses were in a class by themselves. The appearance of those -two with our Lord on the Mountain of Transfiguration was only an -illustration of the place which they held in the imagination of Israel. - -These were the first words he spoke as he bursts on our view. What -lay behind them we can only surmise. He was a Tishbite, one “of the -sojourners of Gilead,” dwelling beyond the Jordan, a man brought up -in the desert. There on the level sands, with the eye of God looking -down upon him, he had come to a deep feeling of the soul’s lonely stand -before God, and convinced of God and the righteousness of God he came -over the Jordan to speak his message and do his work in the organized -national life of his people. He was a clean-limbed, frugal-lived man, -who gathered up his skirts about him, we are told, and ran straight -away sixteen miles before the chariot of Ahab, from Carmel to the -entering in of Jezreel; a calm, quiet, courageous, firm-principled man; -bred so in the desert with God. - -We do not have any very elaborate story of his life. He appears on the -stage and then he vanishes. There are long periods of time covering -years when he disappears entirely from the record. We can condense what -we know about his life into six brief chapters, between each two of -which there is an interval, in some cases, a long interval of time. - -He appears first of all in connection with the great drought which he -prophesied and which lasted for the three years he had foretold. We -see him by the little brook Cherith, fed of the ravens, until through -the long cessation of the rain the brook itself disappeared. Then we -see him in the house of the widow of Sarepta, feeding with her on her -little supply of meal, and in her hour of depthless sorrow raising her -son from death to life. And then, in the second chapter, he breaks -forth once more upon the national stage. Ahab and Obadiah, his chief -man, had sought for him up and down the land, having divided the -country between them, partly that they might seek water for their fast -diminishing herds, partly that they might meet again and punish this -troubler of Israel. At last, on one of the highways, the man of God -appeared to the prime minister and told him that he had no fear to meet -the king and would do so if he would carry word to Ahab. True to his -word, he met the king, confronted him with his disloyalty to Jehovah, -and challenged him to produce the prophets of Baal for the great test -on Mount Carmel; and then, after his triumph, Elijah again disappears. - -In the third chapter we have the only account of the man’s inner life. -If it were not for that chapter with its story of his subjective -struggle, Elijah would be no example for us men of this day. In all the -other chapters of the story he appears absolutely undaunted, unafraid -of the face of man, clearly convinced of what God would have him do, -and absolutely fearless in the doing of it. But here we are shown the -man in his own inward wavering, in doubt in some measure about the -reality or power of his mission, afraid to carry forward that which he -had set out to do with such daring spirit; and in the wilderness alone, -first beneath the juniper tree and then on Mount Horeb, Elijah had -to face again his life and settle himself once more in that faith in -the living God which had brought him out of the desert. And God stood -out and spoke to him, and Elijah rose up on his feet once more a man -unafraid to resume his mission. God bade him return and anoint a new -king over Syria and a new king over Israel, and to go to Abel-meholah -and find his own successor, the young man Elisha, plowing behind his -oxen. And the prophet went out from his hour of discouragement to find -at once the young man who was to take up his work after him and to be -an even mightier prophet than he. - -Then for a long time Elijah disappears again, only to reappear when he -confronts Ahab once more, in Naboth’s vineyard, shows him how little -he fears him, and pronounces upon him the judgment of Jehovah. Then he -vanishes from the stage for three years at least of solitary meditation -in the wilderness, vanishes so long that the common people apparently -forgot him, so that when one day he met a little party of the servants -of the new king Ahaziah on the highway bound to Ekron to consult -Baal-zebub, they did not know who the prophet was and brought back his -message to the king, able only to say of him that he was a hairy man, -with a leather girdle about his loins. But the king well knew that the -Tishbite had broken once more upon the stage of the nation’s life, -and he bowed beneath the judgments of God that the man from Gilead -denounced. - -Then in the concluding chapter we see Elijah and his young man coming -down from Gilgal to Bethel and then to Jericho and then back to the -wilderness out of which he had come, that from his own deserts where -he had come to know God he might go back to God again. And there in -the chariot of fire the man who was himself “the chariots of Israel, -and the horsemen thereof,” went up to the Lord God of Israel, Who was -alive, to meet Him before Whom he had always stood. - -One does not wonder that the old man impressed as he did the -imagination of his people, and that when centuries later John the -Baptist emerged upon the stage challenging the attention of the nation, -almost the first question addressed to him was, “Art thou Elijah?” - -And we have the secret of Elijah’s life given to us in these words -with which he is introduced to us, “As the LORD God of Israel liveth, -before whom I stand.” Out there in the barrenness of the desert beyond -the Jordan, Elijah had come to believe in a God Who was alive, and -before Whom he lived his life. The deserts have never bred polytheism. -The great polytheistic systems have sprung from the lush jungles of the -tropics. The great monotheisms have been born in the deserts. And out -on the lonely sands beyond the Jordan, beyond the hills and amid the -great level places where there was no one but God, Elijah came to know -that He was and to know that his life stood in Him. - -This was the principle of the man’s life――the consuming conviction of a -living God and of the commission of His uncompromising service. Indeed -we are not sure that we know Elijah’s name. It is possible that the -name by which we think we know him is only a pseudonym――Elijah, “My God -is Jehovah.” It may be that from the very repetition of this phrase to -which he was addicted, “The LORD God of Israel, before whom I stand,” -men came at last to call him by the opening note of his message, “the -man of the living God.” - -Now what that message meant to Elijah was just this: that the Lord God -was no dead force, no unknown cause of things, that the Lord God was -alive, and that a man was to have dealings with Him; that a man’s life -was not his own personal and irresponsible experiment, but a work to be -done in front of God; and that a man must reckon in all his thoughts, -in all his ways, with One Who lives, and go out and do his work in the -world in the consciousness of his relationship and his subjection to an -active, working, personal God Who would stand by him in the fire, would -uphold him before kings, and carry him through to the end of each of -his appointed tasks. If there is one thing that we need to get clearly -fixed in our own lives it is the matter of our attitude towards this -infinite and unseen God Who is alive. - -This faith in a God Who is alive, before Whose face a man is to live -his life, is no mere theory. You cannot find any conviction that will -more really mould and transform all our conduct and put uncompromising -stiffness in it than the conviction that we are living our lives -thus before the eyes of a God Who observes. In the life of Thring of -Uppingham we are told of an incident that pleased him greatly. It is -a story that came to him regarding a little group of boys who were -spending the summer in France. A visitor saw these English schoolboys -and overheard their conversation as to what they should do on Sunday. -Some of the boys were proposing a certain course of action, and all -seemed to agree until one fellow spoke up and said: “No, I do not -agree. I will not do it.” And when the other lads urged him to come -along, he still insisted that he would not. They asked him his reasons. -He said: “Well, Thring would not like it, and what Thring would not -like I do not intend to do.” “Well, but Thring isn’t here,” they said; -“he’s back at Uppingham.” “I do not care,” said the boy; “Thring would -not like it.” He believed that he was living in a real sense――I mean in -the most real sense of all, in the life of his personal will――before -the standards of his master, and by those standards as in the light of -his master’s countenance he insisted that he would uncompromisingly -live. Before the eyes of God a man will beware how he lives his life. -If he knows that this life of his can find no darkness where he can -hide himself from God, if he knows that all of his days are to be spent -before His face, that all his deeds are to be done beneath the gaze of -God, assuredly that will govern and control a man’s decisions about his -practical ways. The consciousness of a living God will give direction -to a man’s moral life. - -And it will not only give direction. There is many a man among us who -knows that the consciousness of a God Who is alive not only gives -determination and direction to his ways, but puts a new power and -inspiration in them. - -A friend in New York tells a lovely story about a boy in one of the -great English schools. He was an only child, and his mother died when -he was but a little fellow. Between him and his father there grew up -relations of the most delicate and sensitive intimacy. The father was -blind, so that the little boy had to be his father’s eyes, and until -the day came when the lad had to go away to school there was scarcely -an hour when the two were separated. But at last the time came and -the boy went. He became the best athlete in his school. One spring, -just before the final game in which the boy was to bowl for his own -school, tidings came that his father was seriously ill and he must -come home. The news sent the whole school into lamentation, for they -were afraid that he might not recover and that if he did not the boy -could not play in the concluding and critical game. And indeed, as it -turned out, the father died. The day before the game was to be played -the boy came back to school, and, to the amazement of all, let it be -known that he intended to play. The next day he took his place and -played as he had never played in his life before. When at last the game -was over and the school had won its triumph, one of the masters came -to the boy and expressed to him the delighted surprise of the school -at what he had done and their amazement both that he had played at -all and at the way he had played. “Why,” said the boy, “didn’t you -understand? I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. That was the first -game my father ever saw me play.” Beneath the consciousness that for -the first time his father’s eyes were open and watching him the boy had -discovered capacities of power that he hardly knew he possessed before. -Beneath the eye of our Father, Who is looking upon the game that we are -playing, where is the man that cannot play a better game, who cannot -draw on the reservoirs of power untouched before, who cannot come out -and do his work in the world and live his life with larger inspiration -and strength, with more dominion and sovereignty, because he is living -it before a God Who is alive? To such a man will compromise not seem a -filial insult impossible except by a base degradation of the soul? - -And not only did Elijah’s principle determine his conduct and pour -inspiration into it; it was this principle of a God Who is alive that -made him absolutely fearless. He was not only unafraid of physical -harm, but he had none of that subtler fear that every man knows――the -fear that he himself will fail, the fear that he cannot carry himself -safely through. What you and I are afraid of is not the things that are -without; our enemy is inside. Treachery within the walls is all that we -need to dread, and our deepest fear is of our own failure. That was the -great thing in Elijah’s life, that he dared to stand on Mount Carmel, -before all that crowd of priests, confident and fearless. He knew he -would prevail, that he had not promised in vain that God would answer. -The man who knows that he is living his life before a God Who is alive -and doing his work in the name of a God Who is alive is not afraid -either of what men can do to him or of the failure that he may make -himself. - -There is a story in the life of Dr. Schauffler that illustrates how -to-day too men can rise into just such fearlessness. The missionaries -were being bothered a great deal in Constantinople by Russian -machinations against the Protestant missions in the empire, and Dr. -Schauffler went to see the Russian ambassador. “I might as well tell -you now, Mr. Schauffler,” said the ambassador, “that the Emperor of -Russia, who is my master, will never allow Protestantism to set its -foot in Turkey.” The old missionary looked at him for a moment and then -replied: “Your Excellency, the kingdom of Christ, who is my Master, -will never ask the Emperor of all the Russias where it may set its -foot.” And he went on with his mission unintimidated by any agencies -working in the dark against him, because he was confident that the -living God Whose work he was doing would achieve for him His own -victory. - -And we see in this story of Elijah another thing that this great -conviction will do for a man: it will make a troubler of him. “Art thou -he,” said Ahab when he met Elijah in the midst of the great famine, -“art thou he that troubleth Israel?” “No,” said Elijah; “thou art he -who troubles Israel.” And yet they were both troubling Israel, the one -with the iniquities into which he was leading the people, the other -because the principle of the living God dominating his life drove him -as a great moral force against the evils of his time. A man cannot live -in a college or university with a faith that God is living and that -he himself is living in front of God, and be quiet before the moral -iniquities and evils he will find. It is not enough for a man to say, -“I will simply be myself, live my own clean life, and let my silent -influence count.” If his silent influence does not count, no other -influence of his will count. But the silence is not enough. A little -while ago I copied from one of the letters of Mandel Creighton, late -Bishop of London, written to his boys who were away at school, this -bit of advice. “You will see, then,” he writes to one son, who had -just been made a monitor in his school, “you will see, then, that the -chief influence of a monitor is in his example. But this is the point -on which I have seen many people deceive themselves. They trust to what -they call the force of silent example. That is most pernicious. If you -content yourself with merely keeping school rules and doing what is -right yourself and keeping out of the way of any fellows who you know -are doing wrong, or if you stand by and listen to them saying what they -ought not, without reproof, you are doing wrong. No, that won’t do. It -is part of the essence of good to fight against evil. You must set your -face strongly against all that is bad, and must put down not only all -that you find in the course of your walk, but you must go out of your -walk to find it in order to put it down.” - -There has been much complaint these last years because in high places -in this land there have been men who were troublers of the nation. -The great need of the nation has been men who were prepared to make -trouble in order that, at last, righteousness might come. Things that -have thought themselves secure will be shaken; long vested interests -that have believed themselves to be sacred will have their sanctity -scrutinized; and men will come at last into their rights and their -righteousness, if we are prepared, following the old Tishbite, to live -our lives before the God Who is alive. - -And this same principle brings peace and quiet and tranquillity to -men. Elijah shook once, we know, but only once. Every time we see him -on the public stage, no matter whom he is confronting――Jezebel, Ahab, -Obadiah, Ahaziah――he is standing with confident soul, quiet and still. -We can be sure that if on that day at Mount Carmel we could have first -mingled with those four hundred and fifty priests of Baal who knew that -their day of doom had come, and then have gone over and stood by the -side of the old man, we should have found the old man the most quiet -and placid person on the mountainside and his heart beat the calmest. -And we may be sure that we can go in the same tranquillity and calm and -steadfastness in which the old Tishbite lived, if we will believe as -deeply as he did in a Lord God Who is alive, and will live our lives -before His face with as little compromise and fear. - -And it is a great conviction like this of Elijah’s that steadies men in -the hour of their trial and that when they fall redeems them again. The -old prophet fell down. He ran from a woman’s threats, and beneath the -juniper tree and then on Horeb, he shook and was afraid. But God, Who -was alive before, was alive still, and He came to Mount Horeb, where -the man lay in his spiritual petulance and fear, and He was not in the -great wind, and He was not in the great earthquake, and He was not in -the great fire, but at last in the still small voice of life He spoke -to Elijah, and Elijah rose up on his feet once more and went out to -complete his work in unfaltering triumph. - -It works that way still. There is a letter of Abraham Lincoln, the -original of which is preserved in the state capitol at Albany. It is a -letter Lincoln wrote granting a pardon to a deserter. - - EXECUTIVE MANSION, - WASHINGTON, October 4, 1864. - - Upon condition that Roswell McIntyre of Company E, Sixth - Regiment of New York Cavalry, returns to his regiment and - faithfully serves out his term, making up for lost time, or - until otherwise lawfully discharged, he is fully pardoned for - any supposed desertion heretofore committed; and this paper is - his pass to go to his regiment. - - ABRAHAM LINCOLN. - - -On the side of it is indorsed: “Quartermaster’s Office, New York City, -October 22, 1864. Transportation furnished to Baltimore, Maryland. H. -Brownson”; and at the bottom in a different hand is this indorsement: -“Taken from the body of R. McIntyre at the Battle of Five Forks, -Virginia, 1865.” So he went back and died like a man, with his pardon -on his person. And to-day, to the coward and the deserter and the -traitor, the man who has compromised and the man who has run away, the -same Lord God Who set Elijah on his feet is speaking, and He is able to -send him back to be faithful, even unto death. Thanks be to a God Who -does not compromise and Who is still alive. - - - - -LECTURE V - -THE LIFE INVISIBLE - - -It is interesting to note two contrary tendencies in the current -appraisal of spiritual values in America. On the one hand there is -what has been called, not altogether happily, the tendency of ethical -materialism. In its best form it is simply a demand for reality, the -renewal of the old words, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” “Show -me thy faith by thy works.” In its less worthy forms it is the effort -to eliminate spiritual expression and formal religion from areas of -life where these have been most familiar. Illustrations in extreme -forms abound. - -We are told now that in charity love has nothing to do with the matter, -that the introduction of religious sentiment is only mischievous and -misleading, that the issue is one purely of proper economic principle -and organization. It is a question of employment for the unemployed, -or of calculating accurately the amount of need, counting the hungry -mouths and fixing the quantity of bread, and then determining -scientifically how much of the bread the hungry should earn, and how -much society through appropriate and unsentimental machinery should -supply. - -In medical philanthropy the new idea is that ideas have nothing to do -with it. The good Samaritan, we are told, did not give the wounded man -a tract or say anything to him about the religious views or motives of -his benefactor. He was satisfied to heal his skin and stop at that. Let -the chaplains depart from the hospitals. - -And so also in social service. The legitimate work is to improve the -culinary methods of the neighbourhood, to provide innocent games and -sports, to secure more adequate food supplies for living bodies and to -assist in the burial of dead ones; but Christ must not be mentioned, -and religious issues must not be raised. - -These are extreme illustrations, but they are perfectly familiar, and -the tendency they represent is indisputable. In this view our Lord, -of course, was far astray when He talked to His disciples by Jacob’s -well about having meat to eat which they knew not. “Meat!” say our -modern ethical materialists. “Meat is meat――beef or bread. It is not a -metaphor. Meat that is a metaphor is a mockery.” Well, it would be if -it were offered for food to a hungry man, but it is not a mockery to -the man who would go hungry to feed the hungry. And the whole modern -question is not between those who would give real meat to the hungry -and those who would give only metaphorical meat. It is between those -who want to deal with people’s skins only and those who mean to deal -both with their skins and with their souls, between those who conceive -of man as mainly belly and back and those to whom our real life is the -life invisible. - -It is a very curious phenomenon, this exclusion of Christian ideas from -the very area which they created. For all this charity and philanthropy -and social service were produced by the ideas of Christianity. And now -the fruit says to the vine and to the inward life, “I have no need of -thee.” Of course not all the fruit says this. Some of it only says, -“Vine and inward life, there is a prejudice against you. You would do -well to conceal yourself. I will pretend to be the real thing.” But -some of the fruit has gone further. “I am the real thing,” it says. “I -know more than James. Faith must not only show works: works are faith. -There is no need of metaphysics or creeds. Deeds are religion. The -only wealth is tangible wealth, things handled, works seen, bread out -of the ground, not down from heaven. Meat that the disciples could not -see is too pallid for this earth. Man is his skin and the bag which it -contains, and religion must understand this.” - -At the same time that this suicidal tendency is operating in the -field of man’s highest values seeking to destroy his standards and to -discredit the title-deeds of all his greatest treasures, a precisely -contrary tendency is acting in commerce and politics, in the field of -man’s lower values. While men are busy on the one hand in the effort to -materialize the spiritual wealth which Christianity has produced, other -men are seeking with a new earnestness to spiritualize our material -wealth. As education, science, philanthropy, surrenders the spiritual -vision and ideal, trade and politics clutch after it. Never before -in the history of the world has there been such an effort as there -is to-day to idealize nationalism, to build up spiritual conceptions -behind the State, to make racial feeling a religion. If some men think -that religious values and spiritual ideas and so-called “metaphysical” -notions can be spared from charity and social service, other men are -striving with all their might to secure all this rejected mass of -vitality and power for patriotism and the national life. - -And the same spiritualizing and idealizing tendency is even more -evident in commerce and finance. Wealth becomes less and less material. -In primitive times riches consisted in flocks and herds and land and -in actual gold and silver bullion or coins which their owner put in -a crock and buried in his house. Now wealth consists in credit and -securities, in figures written on a ledger in a bank, or in scraps -of paper in a tin box. The world’s work is done with little visible -wealth. Our new banking system is meant for this very purpose, -to provide immaterial instrumentalities. Millions of dollars are -transported invisibly. By a cable message or a message through the air -untold wealth that was in London can be made to appear in New York. And -all these intangible forms of wealth are exceeded in the judgment of -the late Mr. J. P. Morgan by the credit of character, something still -more “metaphysical.” The spiritualization of the material keeps pace on -one side with the materialization of the spiritual on the other. - -However clear or foggy our ideas on these issues may be now, viewing -them as present issues, we cannot fail to see sharply the indisputable -facts of the past. Looking backward we simply do not discern and cannot -remember the visible and outward values or possessors of values at all. -Where is the actual material wealth of earlier days, the flocks, the -gold and silver, the palaces? The amazing thing is that it is all gone. -The gold and silver which Rome gathered from the world, which went home -to Spain in the days of the Conquistadores, where is it all now? Where -are those who boasted it and built their fame or power on it? Shelley -tells us in his sonnet, “Ozymandias,” - - “I met a traveller from an antique land - Who said, ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone - Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand - Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown - And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command - Tell that its sculptor well those passions read - Which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things, - The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: - And on the pedestal these words appear: - “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, - Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” - Nothing beside remains. Round the decay - Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, - The lone and level sands stretch far away.’” - -And what befell Ozymandias’ image has befallen almost all the works of -the ancients’ hands. A few of their temples remain, and the arches of -their viaducts and some of the images of their public worship and of -their national ideals. But their wealth and the treasure houses which -they kept it in and the palaces of their pleasure and the cities of -their pride are gone. I never felt more keenly the tragedy and the -truth of this utter transitoriness and insecurity of all national glory -than looking over the massive ruins of the palace of the Chosroes kings -at Kasr-i-Shirin. All of Browning’s “Love Among the Ruins” seemed to be -there in mute evidence before one’s eyes: - - “Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles - Miles and miles - On the solitary pastures where our sheep - Half-asleep - Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop - As they crop―― - Was the site once of a city great and gay, - (So they say) - Of our country’s very capital, its prince - Ages since - Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far - Peace or war. - - “Now,――the country does not even boast a tree, - As you see, - To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills - From the hills - Intersect and give a name to, (else they run - Into one,) - Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires - Up like fires - O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall - Bounding all, - Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, - Twelve abreast. - - “And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass - Never was! - Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads - And embeds - Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, - Stock or stone―― - Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe - Long ago; - Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame - Struck them tame; - And that glory and that shame alike, the gold - Bought and sold. - - “Now,――the single little turret that remains - On the plains, - By the caper overrooted, by the gourd - Overscored, - While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks - Through the chinks―― - Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time - Sprang sublime. - And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced - As they raced, - And the monarch and his minions and his dames - Viewed the games.” - -All this is gone. The only wealth of the past which has survived is -such as Christ referred to. “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” -The ideas and the literature which enshrined them alone remain. Not the -manuscripts. They are gone, as though God would show in the most vivid -way His scorn of the visible and earth’s “real.” Not one original page -of Plato exists. But Plato’s mind is here still. The kings are gone. -But Isaiah and Jeremiah, the men of the inward resources, spokesmen and -ministers of the invisible life, abide. - - “The tumult and the shouting dies - The captains and the kings depart - Still stands Thine against sacrifice - A humble and a contrite heart.” - -And the issue is clear enough when we look at it concretely to-day -and contrast the men who have the inward resources with those who -have not, the movements which are fed from deep ideal springs with -those which deal skin-deep only with humanity. In one of our American -cities the president of a large institution was shelved in the prime -of life by younger and less conservative men who acquired control of -the business. They treated the older man well, gave him the nominal -headship with his former salary, but really transferred all the power -to other men. It was the chance of a lifetime for the older man. He had -his strength and his time for any service or ministry or pleasure he -might choose. But the only meat which he had to eat was the management -of the business, and accordingly he starved to death in a fine home -and with a large salary. All that the bag of his body needed he had, -but man cannot live by bread alone without a word from God. The Tinker -of Bedford Jail heard the key turn in the lock behind him. And did -he famish alone? He opened the gate of his house within and out they -came――Christian and Great-Heart and Hopeful and Evangelist and Mercy -and Dare-to-Die――and the loneliness of John Bunyan’s cell became the -greatest society on earth, and the immortals who marched out of the -wealth of his soul are the companions of millions who could not name -one human being who was Bunyan’s contemporary. The rich men who have -transmitted real wealth have been the lovers, the dreamers, the servers -who ate bread at God’s hands and who knew and taught men that the life -is more than meat and the body than raiment. “She was not daily bread,” -wrote her niece of Emily Dickinson. “She was star dust.” - -This above all was characteristic of Christ. Part of our Lord’s -preëminence of nature and of achievement was the untold wealth of His -inward resources. No philanthropist or social worker ever lived who -was His equal in all that our ethical materialists admire and praise. -But behind all this and as explaining all this He had meat to eat that -men knew not, thoughts of God, ideas of origin and destiny, of whence -He came and whither He was going, fellowship, purposes, a spiritual -program. His wealth was an inward, a communicable and eternal treasure. -It nourished Him and was for all men. - -“I have meat to eat,” said He. “Who brought it to Him?” asked they. “A -primrose by the river’s brim a yellow primrose” was to them; and it was -nothing more. Meat was meat, mutton or beef to His disciples. But to -Him the primrose was a volume of revelation. Meat was very life of God -within His soul. Language to Christ was windows into the wealth of the -eternities and the infinites. To men it was words. His discernment of -latent values in men made Him a rich man wherever He found a fellow. -He had cargoes of redeemable character afloat on the wide waters of -mankind, and these He was forever drawing home. Men brought Him a -sinner, flotsam of Galilee; and Jesus saw Himself rich with the latent -life of Peter of Pentecost, victor of the gates of hell. The stained -hand of the Samaritan concubine became under His faith purified to bear -the chalice of the life of God. He had more wealth latent in human -character than Crœsus ever dreamed of. His universalism, also, made -Him rich with all the wealth of humanity. All around Him men choked and -died in the stifling air of racial exclusion and prejudice. He lived in -the whole free world. Thinking in terms of all mankind and all the ages -makes the thinker rich beyond all the dreams of any racial avarice or -national pride. - -But above all His meat was simply this: to walk with God, to do the -will of God and to accomplish His work. His life was in God’s will, His -strength in God’s companionship. He lived powerfully among men because -He dwelt deeply in God. His wealth was not herds and gold, nor bonds -and credits, nor deeds; but the power to do deeds in the might and pity -of God. - -And the inward resources of Christ which are true wealth are accessible -also to us; and not accessible only, but indispensable. We need not set -much store by what the world calls wealth. Its one worthy use is as -capital for human service; and Christ who had none of it here still did -and inspired more service than all the world’s capital has performed. -Louis Pasteur was living on a salary of a few hundred francs. All -that he did was to examine with a microscope things infinitesimally -small and to reflect upon them, and then in his laboratory to write -down and send forth some new ideas. The practical men derided his -“pure science,”――a mere student of theories, spinner of silk dreams -thinner than the filaments of the silkworms of southern France. But -Pasteur’s thoughts were the richest source of wealth in France. -“Pasteur’s discoveries alone,” said Huxley, “would suffice to cover the -war indemnity paid by France to Germany in 1870.”[3] True wealth is -inward resources, the love of God’s world, of truth and holy thoughts, -friendship with the living and the dead, the possession of the Son of -God and His words which are spirit and life, and of His Spirit “whom -the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth -Him; ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.” - - [3] Vallery-Radot, “Life of Pasteur,” popular edition, p. 374. - -And all this wealth may be ours without going anywhere for it. No man -brought it to Him. “I have meat,” He said. So He calls us to be rich. -We do not need to go anywhere for it. No man needs to bring it to us. -It is here. It is Himself――the Bread of Life. Can we also say, “I have -it――meat to eat, of the world unknown, within my soul, within my soul”? - -To be able to say that is our great American need. I will not say -that it is a greater need now than it has ever been because we have -deteriorated and need to recover the element of spiritual idealism in -our national character. We have not deteriorated. Doubtless we have -lost many things that it would have been well for us to have kept, -and have kept much that it would have been better to lose. But we have -gained in our perception of the higher values and we seek them more -and not less than ever before. We are far from being what we ought to -be, but the past was farther, and we only think otherwise because we -clothe the past in mists of idealization. That very error is proof of -our deeper spiritual discerning. Evils are challenged now which passed -uncondemned a half generation ago. But though we have gained, we need -to gain more, and what we need to gain is not something æsthetic or -intellectual only, not broader philosophies or wider social programs, -not anything external or merely ethical, but something biological and -dynamic. We need the push and power of what One and One only offers. -“The thief cometh not,” said Christ, “but that he may steal, and -kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it -abundantly.” - -Not long before his death, as all remember, the late Mr. Morgan was -summoned to testify before a congressional committee which was seeking -to locate the seat of the money power. The object of those examining -Mr. Morgan was to bring out the extent of his own influence and -control, and to show, if possible, that in the hands of a few men was -concentrated the real domination of the financial life of America. -The popular impression, after the examination was over, was that Mr. -Morgan’s modest disavowals were justified by all the testimony, and -that there was no one person, or any group of individuals, in this -country who possessed so much power as was supposed to reside in the -hands of a little company of men. - -Now, at the best, there was no question of creating or producing -anything. Nobody thought of asking Mr. Morgan whether he could create -a grain of wheat, or heal a disease, or bring into existence anything -that was not already here. The main question was how much of something -that was here already was he, or any other man, able to control. As one -read the testimony, the one dominant impression it made on his mind was -how small and weak and ineffectual even the strongest human life was, -and how little was the effect that it could produce in what it was able -to do in behalf of others. - -How weak does even the strongest personality appear when contrasted -with One Who can say such words as these I have just quoted! Suppose -some great man now living were to say to us: “Come unto me, all ye -that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man -thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. I am come that they may have -life, and may have it abundantly,” how startled we should be! But -we have become familiar with the claim on the lips of Christ and do -not realize what we are really confronted with in that single great -Personality standing among men and offering to meet the ultimate human -need, to give us the deepest, richest, most priceless thing in the -world, which no one of us can give another. “I am come that ye may have -life, and that ye may have it abundantly.” - -And notice that here is not a claim only. There is a strange and -startling contrast. “The thief cometh to steal, and to kill, and to -destroy: I am come that ye may have life.” On the one side is our Lord. -Him we know. But who is this thief on the other side who has come, not -to give life, but to reduce it, contract it, dilute it――destroy it -altogether? Well, we know well enough that sin is such a thief, that -wherever sin is allowed to come into our lives it abridges those lives, -draws in the walls of their expansion, cuts down and impoverishes their -joys. And there are many things short of sin, less coarse and evil, -which, nevertheless, draw in the boundaries of life, narrow and stifle -it, and do the work of the thief who came to kill, and to destroy, and -to steal. Over against all these He stands Who said: “I came to give -life, to give it abundantly.” - -Now we know very well what men and women say when you bring them this -offer of Christ’s about His life. “Oh,” they say, “it all depends upon -what you mean by life. I have my own idea of life. The life I am living -is rich and satisfying to me, and I am not drawn to this life that -your tepid religion offers me in exchange.” But are those who answer -so fully satisfied? Are they really satisfied at all with any part of -their life except such of it as consists of the kind of life that Jesus -Christ our Lord Himself came to bring, with which alone the hearts of -men can be content? - -What do we mean when we speak of life that really satisfies us? I -asked some boys a little while ago what they meant when they spoke -about life, real life that would satisfy men. Four were boys at the -Hill School, Pottstown, Pa. They sat down and collaborated for a while -as to what real life meant to them, and when they got through it -came to this: Purity, integrity, the principle of Christian service, -unselfishness, and the desire to be perfect. I asked another man at -Princeton what life meant to him, real life. He was one of the best -athletes in the college, and this was the answer he gave: Humility, -charitableness, bravery, strength of conviction, honesty, sincerity, -truthfulness and the power to forgive. I asked a man at Yale what he -thought life was. He was the most popular man in the senior class at -that time. This was what he wrote down: “Service after the manner of -Jesus, honesty carried all the way through, sympathy, capacity for -work, patience in holding to principle, as well as fidelity in actual -duty.” - -Now if we were to define life better than these boys, and yet in the -way they were feeling after, not in any concrete expressions, but in -its central principle, we should borrow the words which Professor -Drummond borrowed from Herbert Spencer. Spencer said that the perfect -correspondence of any organism with its environment would be perfect -life. Professor Drummond modified this by adding just one word: the -perfect correspondence of any organism with a perfect environment would -be perfect life. Or, to put it as it is stated in one of our best -dictionaries: life is that state in any animal or plant in which its -different functions are all occupied in active healthy expression. Now -that is just what those boys were feeling after. Life is the free and -fearless completion of ourselves. Life is our utter unfolding in the -direction of that of which we are capable. Life is the pushing out of -the rim of our world into the great and boundless riches of God. Life -is the opening up of the gates of our prison house that we may go after -Him Whose word to men was: “If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly -my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make -you free.” Life is what Jesus Christ came to give, for His mission was -this: “The thief came to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come -that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” - -One great purpose of the Incarnation was to show what we are in our -deepest being in the purpose of God, and what we are capable of. Our -Lord did not come to parade before men the exceptional life to which -they could never attain. He came, as He Himself said, to show them -what it had been His Father’s will that they should all be. “As my -Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” “I go unto my Father, and -your Father; and to my God, and your God.” What Jesus Christ was in the -fullness of His unlimited life was the revealing of what God has in -His will for every one of us. The amplitudes that we see in Him, the -subsidence of all the petty boundaries, the unhampered outgoing of His -free spirit in the area of His Father, God,――all that is just a picture -of what God meant the life of each one of us to be. That is why they -called Him the Son of Man, because He was the picture of what God had -meant that His son, man, might be. - -And Christ came, not only to show the possibilities of such being, of -what men could do and what they could be made, but to be Himself that -expression of power in them competent to effect such a result, the tide -of the boundless life flowing through all the channels that they could -offer to Him. He came to be in mankind the deep, flowing stream of a -new life. One regrets to find in some churches to-day in the repetition -of the Apostles’ Creed the omission of the sentence: “He descended -into hell.” There is no word in the Creed which expresses more fully -the uttermost reach of the purpose of our Lord and the scope and -boundlessness of His love. Down even into hell He went in the utterance -of His love for mankind. How much this means! But to say no more, it -means this, that deep into the dark of our human life He came, that -there, below all sight, below all thought, He might release the vital -streams that have been flowing from the fountain of Calvary ever since, -and which have no other fountain. - -We know what would happen in our bodies, to put it simply, if some -great artery that fed our life were tied. Atrophy and palsy would -creep at once over our unnourished frames. Precisely the same thing is -true in the deeper life of our souls, if the arteries, those channels -through which Christ would pour His energy and strength and power, are -tied. To put the same thing still more simply: Suppose the Mississippi -River instead of running into the Gulf ran out of the Gulf deep into -the land. Suppose all of the rivers poured into the land instead of -into the seas. As a matter of fact, that is in one sense what they do. -We have got long past looking at rivers as drains for the land. We -know that they are arteries through which the life-blood of the seas -flows upon the land by way of the skies. And suppose there were no -Mississippi River. Suppose it were stopped at the gate. What a chill -and death would fall upon the land! And how often that life of Christ -which comes up to the gates of men’s lives is stifled, the stream that -would pour in kept out, the power that would control and remake blocked -at the door through which it would enter. “The thief is come,” He says, -“and you let him in, to kill, and to steal, and to destroy; I am come, -and you keep Me out. And I am come that you may have life, and that you -may have it in all the abundance of God.” - -And we know that this life of Christ is real and abundant life because -it fulfills the tests of life. It is a life of fullness in all its -correspondences and relationships. It completes life to the uttermost -of its possibilities, setting it in all those ties with that which -is outside of it, which constitute life. For, after all, there is no -separable life. All the life that we know is relationship. Our Lord -defined it in such terms in His great prayer: “This is life eternal, -that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom -thou hast sent.” Life can only be construed in terms of correspondence. - -We know that the life Christ came to give, and does give, is the -satisfying and real life, because it meets these testings. It gives us -this wealth of correspondence of relationship. - - “Oh, the pure delight of a single hour, - That before Thy Cross I spend, - When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God, - I commune as friend with friend.” - -We know that the life Christ brings is complete and full, because it -reëstablishes the tie and union between ourselves and God, and He -becomes to us again our Father and our Friend. We know it, because it -is the root of all deep and true and satisfying human relationships. -How can there be a real and full union of one man and one woman that is -not a union in Christ? And for the highest friendship and its ideals -we find sanction and nourishment best in Him and the groundwork of His -life. - -And Christ’s is the real and satisfying life, because it is creative and -energizing. It is not like the influence of that thief――selfishness, low -desire, sin and small ambition――who kills and steals and destroys. But -the life that Christ is teems with vitalizing power; it is strength and -energy and new service in men. I have never seen it more beautifully put -than in a letter of Stanley to David Livingstone. It was found by Lady -Stanley in a little pocketbook which her husband had carried on the -expedition for the relief of Livingstone. It was written in lead pencil. -It was a copy of the letter that Stanley had written to the great -explorer the very day after he left him. It has sometimes been -questioned whether Livingstone really made on Stanley the impression -which Stanley describes in his autobiography. There have been those who -said that that picture was but the reading back over the intervening -years of a growing hero worship. But here is the letter which Stanley -wrote as he came fresh from the old missionary’s companionship and the -inspiration of his personality: - - “MY DEAR DOCTOR: - - “I have parted from you all too soon; I feel it deeply; I am - entirely conscious of it from being so depressed.... In writing - to you, I am not writing to an idea now, but to an embodiment - of warm, good fellowship, of everything that is noble and - right, of sound common sense, of everything practical and - right-minded. - - “I have talked with you; your presence is almost palpable, - though you are absent.... - - “It seems as if I had left a community of friends and - relations. The utter loneliness of myself, the void that has - been created, the pang at parting, the bleak aspect of the - future, is the same as I have felt before, when parting from - dear friends. - - “Why should people be subjected to these partings, with the - several sorrows and pangs that surely follow them?――It is a - consolation, however, after tearing myself away, that I am - about to do you a service, for then I have not quite parted - from you; you and I are not quite separate. Though I am not - present to you bodily, you must think of me daily until your - caravan arrives. Though you are not before me visibly, I - shall think of you constantly, until your least wish has been - attended to. In this way the chain of remembrance will not be - severed. - - “‘Not yet,’ I say to myself, ‘are we apart,’ and this to me, - dear Doctor, is consoling, believe me. Had I a series of - services to perform for you, why then! we should never have to - part. - - “Do not fear then, I beg, to ask, nay, to command, whatever - lies in my power. And do not, I beg of you, attribute these - professions to interested motives, but accept them, or believe - them, in the spirit in which they are made, in that true David - Livingstone spirit I have happily become acquainted with.” - -And out from that lonely spot in eastern Africa, the younger man came -to begin a new career; all the old aimlessness and shiftlessness and -drifting gone forever from his life, to pass on now to lift up the -mission which, beneath the dripping eaves of the hut in which he died, -David Livingstone laid down. The tide of a new life and a new service -was in him. “I came that ye may have life, and that ye may have it -abundantly.” He had seen Christ and felt the contagion of the life of -Christ in Livingstone, and Christ’s word, articulate or inarticulate, -had come to live in him. And that life is life in the power and desire -to serve. - -This life that Christ came to give is the only real and satisfying -life, because it alone endures. We gather at Northfield each summer -and always go up to read afresh the brief inscription on Mr. Moody’s -grave on Round Top, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but -he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” We sing the same great -truth constantly in George Matheson’s hymn: - - “I lay in dust life’s glory dead, - And from the ground there blossoms red - Life that shall endless be.” - -I wrote the other day to a friend about her sister-in-law’s death, and -this was the last sentence of the letter which she wrote in reply: - - “I do not know if he”――that was her brother――“told you how - beautiful it was at the last; how S――――’s face lighted up with - such an expression of surprise and adoration, with her eyes - open to their fullest extent, and then it was all over. Only a - glimpse into the life that was not to end could have brought - such a look to a human face.” - -“And that life,” said He Who was the life, “I brought with Me and will -give to you.” - -Let us lift our hearts to the life that shall endless be, to the -liberty on which there never lay a chain, to the light of the land that -hath no need of any sun, because the “Lamb is the light thereof,” the -land of the new morning and the tearless life. The thief cometh――let -him not come in!――only to kill, and to steal, and to destroy. “I am -come, and I stand at the door and ask you now to let Me in, that you -may have life abundantly.” - -As these lectures close I would press all this in the most earnest and -personal terms upon each one individually. The processes of social and -moral progress in humanity are retarded or broken down because they -are not carried on a volume of adequate spiritual life in men. There -ought to be a Kingdom of Living Love and Brotherly Will on the earth. -And some day there will be, but there is not now and there cannot be -until the anemia of man is healed, and it can be healed in only one -way――by more life in man, by life abounding in men. The commercial and -materialistic solution of the world’s problem has been fully tried. -For a generation it has been preached and practiced as the one saving -gospel and out of the depths to which it brought us we begin to turn -heavenward again. The day for a new creed has dawned――the old creed of -truth and hope and freedom and life, of the wealth and glory of a city -unseen as yet, hid in the heavens and only possible on the earth as -drawn down by men to whom the invisible things are the surest of all -realities and who live and are strong in God. - - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - * * * * * - - - INSPIRATION FOR MEN - - - _ROBERT W. BOLWELL_ - - After College――What? - -12mo, cloth, net 75c. - -A protest, in the form of autobiographical chapters, against dawdling -through college. The author is sprightly and readable,――anything but -preachy――but does put some very wholesome and helpful facts in such -form as to grip the reader. - - - _HALFORD E. LUCCOCK_ - - Five-Minute Shop-Talks - -12mo, cloth, net $1.00. - -One of the best things of its kind yet issued. In each of these thirty -or more brief addresses, Mr. Luccock employs terse, epigrammatic -language and contrives to compress into a five-minute talk the wisdom -and counsel of a fifty-minute sermon. Every word is made to tell――to -tell something worth hearing and heeding. - - - _CHARLES CARROLL ALBERTSON_ - - Chapel Talks - -A Collection of Sermons to College Students. 12mo, cloth, net $1.00. - -Practical discourses on essential subjects delivered in various -colleges and universities, including Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, -Princeton, Yale, and Virginia. No one of these sermons required more -than twenty-five minutes to deliver. They are characterized by earnest -argument, familiar illustrations and forceful appeal. - - - _CORTLANDT MYERS, D. D._ - _Author of “Real Prayer,” “The Real Holy Spirit,” etc._ - - The Man Inside - -A Study of One’s Self. By Minister at Tremont Temple, Boston. 12mo, -cloth, net 50c. - -A four-fold study of the inner life of a man, in which the popular -pastor of Tremont Temple, discusses the forces that make him, lift him, -save him, and move him. The book is prepared in bright, interesting -fashion, and abundantly furnished with suitable and forceful -illustration. - - - _JOHN T. FARIS_ - _Popular-Price Editions_ - - The “Success Books” - -Three Vols. each, formerly $1.25 net. Now each 60c. net (postage extra). - - =Seeking Success= - =Men Who Made Good= - =Making Good= - -_Dr. J. R. Miller_ says: “Bright and short and full of illustrations -from actual life, they are just the sort that will help young men in -the home in school among associates and in business.” - - - - - BIOGRAPHY - - - _CHARLES G. TRUMBULL_ - - Anthony Comstock, Fighter - -Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25. - -An authorized biography of this great fighter for purity. The story -is one of life-and-death adventure, moral and physical heroism, and -incomparable achievement. During the thirty years in which Mr. Comstock -has been working for the suppression of vice he has destroyed over 43 -tons of vile books, 28,425 pounds of stereotype plates, two and a half -million obscene pictures and 12,945 negatives. The detailed account of -how all this was done is a most thrilling and remarkable story. - - - _FRANK J. CANNON――DR. GEORGE L. KNAPP_ - - Brigham Young and His Mormon Empire - -Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. - -Ex-Senator Cannon’s personal acquaintance with this apostle of the -Mormon Church and his knowledge of the religion and the people gained -by having been born and brought up in the heart of Mormondom, give more -than usual authority and interest to this biography. This life story -of the man who founded a Mohammedan kingdom in a puritan republic sets -forth in true perspective, in impartial and unbiased manner, the facts -about one of the most romantic and interesting characters in American -history. - - - _FRANCES WILLARD_ - - Frances Willard: Her Life and Her Work - -By Ray Strachey. With an Introduction by Lady Henry Somerset. -Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. - -A notable new life of the great temperance advocate written by an -English woman from an entirely new standpoint. Mrs. Strachey, the -granddaughter of the author of “A Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life,” -had immediate access to Miss Willard’s letters, journals and papers, -and the benefit of her grandmother’s advice and knowledge. - -Israel Zangwill says of the book, “A masterpiece of condensation, an -adequate biography of perhaps the greatest woman America has produced. -Nobody can read this book without becoming braver, better, wiser.” - - - _MRS. S. MOORE SITES_ - - Nathan Sites: - -Introduction by Bishop W. F. McDowell. Oriental Hand-Painted -Illustrations, gilt top, net $1.50. - -This is one of the notable books of the year. China looms large in -current political and religious interest, so that this life story of -one who for nearly half a century has been closely identified with -social and religious reform in that country must have a large place in -current literature. - - - - - QUESTIONS OF THE FAITH - - - _JAMES H. 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