The Greatest ThingIn the WorldAnd Other Addresses

BY

HENRY DRUMMOND

NEW YORK CHICAGOFleming H. Revell CompanyLONDON AND EDINBURGH

Copyrighted 1891 and 1898By Fleming H. Revell Company. 

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS. 

LOVE, THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 7

LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS 35

PAX VOBISCUM 44

FIRST! AN ADDRESS TO BOYS 70

THE CHANGED LIFE, THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD 82

DEALING WITH DOUBT 113

INTRODUCTORY. 

I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during myvisit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sat around the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Beingtired after the services of the day, I told them to ask HenryDrummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a smallTestament from his hip pocket, opened it at the 13th chapter of ICorinthians, and began to speak on the subject of Love. 

It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, and Idetermined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to Northfield todeliver that address. Since then I have requested the principals of myschools to have it read before the students every year. The one greatneed in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to eachother. Would that we could all move into that Love chapter, and livethere. 

This volume contains, in addition to the address on Love, some otheraddresses which I trust will bring help and blessing to many. 

(signed) D. L. Moody. 

LOVE:

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

Every one has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of themodern world: What is the _summum bonum_--the supreme good? You havelife before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest objectof desire, the supreme gift to covet?

We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in thereligious world is Faith. That great word has been the key-note forcenturies of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to lookupon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If wehave been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of ICorinthians, Paul takes us to

 CHRISTIANITY AT ITS SOURCE;

and there we see, "The greatest of these is love. "

It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a momentbefore. He says, "If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. " So far from forgetting, hedeliberately contrasts them, "Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love, " andwithout a moment's hesitation the decision falls, "The greatest ofthese is Love. "

And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his ownstrong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing studentcan detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through hischaracter as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote, "The greatest ofthese is love, " when we meet it first, is stained with blood. 

Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love asthe _summum bonum_. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed aboutit. Peter says, "Above all things have fervent love among yourselves. "_Above all things. _ And John goes farther, "God is love. "

You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, "Love isthe fulfilling of the law. " Did you ever think what he meant by that?In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping theTen Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments whichthey had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, "I will showyou a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundredand ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you _love_, youwill unconsciously fulfill the whole law. "

You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any ofthe commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. " If a manlove God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is thefulfilling of that law. "Take not His name in vain. " Would he everdream of taking His name in vain if he loved him? "Remember theSabbath day to keep it holy. " Would he not be too glad to have one dayin seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection?Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God. 

And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honorhis father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would bepreposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if yousuggested that he should not steal--how could he steal from those heloved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witnessagainst his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing hewould do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet whathis neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. Inthis way "Love is the fulfilling of the law. " It is the rule forfulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the oldcommandments, Christ's one

 SECRET OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

Now Paul has learned that; and in this noble eulogy he has given usthe most wonderful and original account extant of the _summum bonum_. We may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the shortchapter we have Love _contrasted_; in the heart of it, we have Love_analyzed_; toward the end, we have Love _defended_ as the supremegift. 

I. THE CONTRAST. 

Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in thosedays thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these things indetail. Their inferiority is already obvious. 

He contrasts it with _eloquence_. And what a noble gift it is, thepower of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them tolofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, "If I speak with the tonguesof men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. " We all know why. We have all felt thebrazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountableunpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love. 

He contrasts it with _prophecy_. He contrasts it with _mysteries_. Hecontrasts it with _faith_. He contrasts it with _charity_. Why is Lovegreater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And whyis it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than thepart. 

Love is greater than _faith_, because the end is greater than themeans. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul withGod. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he maybecome like God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the means, is in orderto Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. "If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, Iam nothing. "

It is greater than _charity_, again, because the whole is greater thana part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerableavenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, a great deal ofcharity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to abeggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to doit. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relieffrom the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, atthe copper's cost. It is too cheap--too cheap for us, and often toodear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do morefor him, or less. Hence, "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love it profiteth me nothing. "

Then Paul contrasts it with _sacrifice_ and martyrdom: "If I give mybody to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. "Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than theimpress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character. That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak inChinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, thatlanguage of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth itsunconscious eloquence. 

It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. Hischaracter is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the greatLakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the onlywhite man they ever saw before--David Livingstone; and as you crosshis footsteps in that dark continent, MEN'S FACES LIGHT UP

as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. Theycould not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in hisheart. They knew that it was love, although he spoke no word. 

Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down yourlife, that simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You can takenothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may take everyaccomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you giveyour body to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you and thecause of Christ _nothing_. 

II. THE ANALYSIS. 

After contrasting Love with these things, Paul, in three verses, veryshort, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing is. 

I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It islike light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light andpass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on theother side of the prism broken up into its component colors--red, andblue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colors of therainbow--so Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificentprism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other sidebroken up into its elements. 

In these few words we have what one might call

 THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE, the analysis of Love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will younotice that they have common names; that they are virtues which wehear about every day; that they are things which can be practised byevery man in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of smallthings and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the _summum bonum_, ismade up?

The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:

Patience "Love suffereth long. "Kindness "And is kind. "Generosity "Love envieth not. "Humility "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. "Courtesy "Doth not behave itself unseemly. "Unselfishness "Seeketh not its own. "Good temper "Is not provoked. "Guilelessness "Taketh not account of evil. "Sincerity "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth. "

Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness;good temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supremegift, the stature of the perfect man. 

You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and not to theunknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much oflove to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ mademuch of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, butthe inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternalspirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, isnot a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to themultitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every commonday. 

_Patience_. This is the normal attitude of love; Love passive, Lovewaiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its work when thesummons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quietspirit. Love suffers long; beareth all things; believeth all things;hopeth all things. For Love understands, and therefore waits. 

_Kindness_. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ'slife was spent in doing kind things--in _merely_ doing kind things?Run over it with that in view, and you will find that He spent a greatproportion of His time simply in making people happy, in

 DOING GOOD TURNS

to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in theworld, and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but whatGod _has_ put in our power is the happiness of those about us, andthat is largely to be secured by our being kind to them. 

"The greatest thing, " says some one, "a man can do for his HeavenlyFather is to be kind to some of His other children. " I wonder why itis that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needsit! How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! How infalliblyit is remembered! How superabundantly it pays itself back--for thereis no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, asLove. "Love never faileth. " Love is success, Love is happiness, Loveis life. "Love, " I say with Browning, "is energy of life. "

 "For life, with all it yields of joy or woe And hope and fear, Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, -- How love might be, hath been indeed, and is. "

Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God. Godis Love. Therefore _love_. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it isvery easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most ofall upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhapswe each do least of all. There is a difference between _trying toplease_ and _giving pleasure_. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of givingpleasure; for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a trulyloving spirit. "I shall pass through this world but once. Any goodthing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show toany human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. "

_Generosity_. "Love envieth not. " This is love in competition withothers. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other mendoing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy themnot. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same lineas ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How littleChristian work even is a protection against un-Christian feeling! Thatmost despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian'ssoul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless weare fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing trulyneed the Christian envy--the large, rich, generous soul which "enviethnot. "

And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn thisfurther thing, _Humility_--to put a seal upon your lips and forgetwhat you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolenforth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into theshade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is notpuffed up. " Humility--love hiding. 

The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this _summumbonum_: _Courtesy_. This is Love in society, Love in relation toetiquette. "Love does not behave itself unseemly. "

Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to belove in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love. 

Love _cannot_ behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutoredpersons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of Lovein their heart they will not behave themselves unseemly. They simplycannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there was no truergentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet. It was because he lovedeverything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the things, great andsmall, that God had made. So with this simple passport he could minglewith any society, and enter courts and palaces from his little cottageon the banks of the Ayr. 

You know the meaning of the word "gentleman. " It means a gentle man--aman who does things gently, with love. That is the whole art andmystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do anungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, theinconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. "Lovedoth not behave itself unseemly. "

_Unselfishness. _ "Love seeketh not her own. " Observe: Seeketh not eventhat which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, andrightly, to his rights. But there come times when a man may exerciseeven

 THE HIGHER RIGHT

of giving up his rights. 

Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes muchdeeper. It would have us not seek them at all, ignore them, eliminatethe personal element altogether from our calculations. 

It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often eternal. Thedifficult thing is to give up _ourselves_. The more difficult thingstill is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we have soughtthem, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the creamoff them for ourselves already. Little cross then to give them up. Butnot to seek them, to look every man not on his own things, but on thethings of others--that is the difficulty. "Seekest thou great thingsfor thyself?" said the prophet; "_seek them not_. " Why? Because thereis no greatness in _things_. Things cannot be great. The onlygreatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, isalmost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justifythe waste. 

It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all than, having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It is onlytrue of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to Love, andnothing is hard. I believe that Christ's "yoke" is easy. Christ's yokeis just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way thanany other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The mostobvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness inhaving and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, _there isno happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving_. Half theworld is on the wrong scent in pursuit of happiness. They think itconsists in having and getting, and in being served by others. Itconsists in giving, and in serving others. "He that would be greatamong you, " said Christ, "let him serve. " He that would be happy, lethim remember that there is but one way--"it is more blessed, it ismore happy, to give than to receive. "

The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: _Good temper. _ "Love isnot provoked. "

Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclinedto look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it asa mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man'scharacter. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn itas one of the most destructive elements in human nature. 

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know menwho are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, butfor an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposition. Thiscompatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of thestrangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is, there are twogreat classes of sins--sins of the _Body_ and sins of the_Disposition_. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no doubt whatever asto which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh oneanother's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words; but faultsin the higher nature may be less venal than those in the lower, and tothe eye of Him who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundredtimes more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than eviltemper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, fordestroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, forwithering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, inshort, FOR SHEER GRATUITOUS MISERY-PRODUCING POWER

this influence stands alone. 

Look at the Elder Brother--moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful--lethim get all credit for his virtues--look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own father's door. "He was angry, " we read, "andwould not go in. " Look at the effect upon the father, upon theservants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect uponthe Prodigal--and how many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom ofGod by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside. Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathersupon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness--these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all illtemper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to livein, and for others to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christindeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto youthat the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heavenbefore you"? There is really no place in heaven for a disposition likethis. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for allthe people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be

 BORN AGAIN, he cannot, simply _cannot_, enter the kingdom of heaven. 

You will see then why Temper is significant. It is not in what it isalone, but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it with suchunusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation ofan unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever whichbespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubbleescaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; asample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarilywhen off one's guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundredhideous and un-Christian sins. A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, areall instantaneously symbolized in one flash of Temper. 

Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to thesource, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will dieaway of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluidsout, but by putting something in--a great Love, a new Spirit, theSpirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what iswrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, andrehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time doesnot change men. 

 CHRIST DOES. 

Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. "

Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once more, that thisis a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently, formyself, for yourselves. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone werehanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of thesea. " That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesusthat it is better not to live than not to love. _It is better not tolive than not to love. _

_Guilelessness_ and _Sincerity_ may be dismissed almost without aword. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possessionof it is

 THE GREAT SECRET OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 

You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people whoinfluence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere ofsuspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere they expand, and findencouragement and educative fellowship. 

It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitableworld there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil, " imputes nomotive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on everyaction. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulusand benediction even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is to besaved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon seethat success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. The respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect aman has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope andpattern of what he may become. 

"Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth. "I have called this _Sincerity_ from the words rendered in theAuthorized Version by "rejoiceth in the truth. " And, certainly, werethis the real translation, nothing could be more just; for he wholoves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in theTruth--rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not in thischurch's doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but "in_the Truth_. " He will accept only what is real; he will strive to getat facts; he will search for _Truth_ with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literaltranslation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice fortruth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read, "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth, " aquality which probably no one English word--and certainly not_Sincerity_--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others'faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness ofothers, but "covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose whichendeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them betterthan suspicion feared or calumny denounced. 

So much for the analysis of Love. Now the business of our lives is tohave these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme workto which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn Love. Islife not full of opportunities for learning Love? Every man and womanevery day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it isa schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And

 THE ONE ETERNAL LESSON

for us all is _how better we can love_. 

What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a goodartist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man agood linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a goodman? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious aboutreligion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under differentlaws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man doesnot exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man doesnot exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strengthof character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character--theChristlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents ofthis great character are only to be built up by

 CEASELESS PRACTICE. 

What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Thoughperfect, we read that He _learned_ obedience, and grew in wisdom andin favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, thevexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have tolive and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not beperplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, andceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is yourpractice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it ishaving its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, andunselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that ismoulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing morebeautiful, though you see it not; and every touch of temptation mayadd to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do notisolate yourself. Be among men and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talentdevelops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life. " Talentdevelops itself in solitude--the talent of prayer, of faith, ofmeditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of theworld's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love. 

How? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elementsof love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never bedefined. Light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients--aglowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more thanall its elements--a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness, they cannotmake light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, theycannot make love. How then are we to have this transcendent livingwhole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We tryto copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. Wepray. But these things alone will not bring love into our nature. Loveis an _effect_. And only as we fulfill the right condition can we havethe effect produced. Shall I tell you what the _cause_ is?

If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John youfind these words: "We love because He first loved us. " "We love, " not"We love _Him_. " That is the way the old version has it, and it isquite wrong. "_We love_--because He first loved us. " Look at that word"because. " It is the _cause_ of which I have spoken. "_Because_ Hefirst loved us, " the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we loveall men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we loveeverybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love ofChrist, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ'scharacter, and you will be changed into the same image from tendernessto tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. Youcan only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and growinto likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, thisPerfect Life. Look at

 THE GREAT SACRIFICE

as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross ofCalvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become likeHim. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece ofiron in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of ironfor a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnetin the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leavethe two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by sidewith Him who loved us, and

 GAVE HIMSELF FOR US, and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractiveforce; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you willbe drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any manwho fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him. 

Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or bymystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or bysupernatural law, for all law is Divine. 

Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered theroom he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, "My boy, God loves you, " and went away. The boy started from his bed, andcalled out to the people in the house, "God loves me! God loves me!"

One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved himoverpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a newheart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovelyheart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient andhumble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, welove our enemies, _because He first loved us_. 

III. THE DEFENCE. 

Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason forsingling out love as the supreme possession. 

It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: _itlasts. _ "Love, " urges Paul, "never faileth. " Then he begins again oneof his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposesthem one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were goingto last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passingaway. 

"Whether there be _prophecies_, they shall be done away. " It was themother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become aprophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of anyprophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Menwaited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lipswhen he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whetherthere be prophecies, they shall fail. " The Bible is full ofprophecies. One by one they have "failed"; that is, having beenfulfilled, their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now inthe world except to feed a devout man's faith. 

Then Paul talks about _tongues_. That was another thing that wasgreatly coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. " As weall know, many many centuries have passed since tongues have beenknown in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in general--a sensewhich was not in Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot giveus the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider thewords in which these chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Takethe Latin--the other great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago. Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, ofIreland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The mostpopular book in the English tongue at the present time, except theBible, is one of Dickens' works, his _Pickwick Papers_. It is largelywritten in the language of London street-life; and experts assure usthat in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average Englishreader. 

Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, "Whetherthere be _knowledge_, it shall be done away. " The wisdom of theancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day knowsmore than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. Youput yesterday's newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has vanishedaway. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopędias for a fewcents: their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has beensuperseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has supersededthat, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One ofthe greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said inScotland, at a meeting at which I was present, "The steam-engine ispassing away. " "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. " Atevery workshop you will see, in the back yard, a heap of old iron, afew wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in fromthe country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its dayis done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day willsoon be old. 

In my time, in the university of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in thefaculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recentlyhis successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by thelibrarian of the University to go to the library and pick out thebooks on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. His replyto the librarian was this:

"Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it downin the cellar. "

Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men camefrom all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the wholeteaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day tooblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. "Now we knowin part. We see through a glass darkly. " Knowledge does not last. 

Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul didnot condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; buthe picked out the great things of his time, the things the best menthought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside. Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he saidabout them was that they would not last. They were great things, butnot supreme things. There were things beyond them. What we arestretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things thatmen denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that isa favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, notthat it is wrong, but simply that it "passeth away. " There is a greatdeal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a greatdeal in it that is great and engrossing; but

 IT WILL NOT LAST. 

All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the worldtherefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecrationof an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give itself to somethingthat is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: "Now abidethfaith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love. "

Some think the time may come when two of these three things will alsopass away--faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is tocome. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the EternalGod, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift, that one thingwhich it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will becurrent in the Universe when all the other coinages of all thenations of the world shall be useless and unhonored. You will giveyourselves to many things, give yourself first to Love. Hold things intheir proportion. _Hold things in their proportion. _ Let at least thefirst great object of our lives be to achieve the character defendedin these words, the character--and it is the character ofChrist--which is built round Love. 

I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continuallyJohn associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told whenI was a boy that "God so loved the world that He gave Hisonly-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should haveeverlasting life. " What I was told, I remember, was, that God so lovedthe world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing calledpeace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to havesafety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trusteth inHim--that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust is only the avenue toLove--hath

 EVERLASTING LIFE. 

The Gospel offers a man a life. Never offer a man a thimbleful ofGospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a moreabundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and thereforeabundant in salvation for themselves, and large in enterprise for thealleviation and redemption of the world. Then only can the Gospel takehold of the whole of a man, body, soul and spirit, and give to eachpart of his nature its exercise and reward. Many of the currentGospels are addressed only to a part of man's nature. They offerpeace, not life; faith, not Love; justification, not regeneration. Andmen slip back again from such religion because it has never reallyheld them. Their nature was not all in it. It offered no deeper andgladder life-current than the life that was lived before. Surely itstands to reason that only a fuller love can compete with the love ofthe world. 

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is tolive forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with love. We want to live forever for the same reason that we want to liveto-morrow. Why do we want to live to-morrow? Is it because there issome one who loves you, and whom you want to see to-morrow, and bewith, and love back? There is no other reason why we should live onthan that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has no one to lovehim that he commits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who lovehim and whom he loves, he will live, because to live is to love. Be itbut the love of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that go, hehas no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by his own hand. 

Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ'sown definition. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, that they might knowThee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. " Lovemust be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, loveis life. Love never faileth, and life never faileth, so long as thereis love. That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reasonwhy in the nature of things Love should be the supreme thing--becauseit is going to last; because in the nature of things it is an EternalLife. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when wedie; that we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless weare living now. 

 NO WORSE FATE

can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregeneratecondition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and hethat dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is Love. 

Now I have all but finished. How many of you will join me in readingthis chapter once a week for the next three months? A man did thatonce and it changed his whole life. Will you do it? It is for thegreatest thing in the world. You might begin by reading it every day, especially the verses which describe the perfect character. "Lovesuffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth notitself. " Get these ingredients into your life. Then everything thatyou do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. Noman can become a saint in his sleep; and to fulfill the conditionrequired demands a certain amount of prayer and meditation and time, just as improvement in any direction, bodily or mental, requirespreparation and care. Address yourselves to that one thing; at anycost have this transcendent character exchanged for yours. 

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments thatstand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the momentswhen you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans thepast, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, thereleap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to dounnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling tospeak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. Ihave seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I have enjoyedalmost every pleasure that He has planned for man; and yet as I lookback I see standing out above all the life that has gone four or fiveshort experiences, when the love of God reflected itself in some poorimitation, some small act of love of mine, and these seem to be thethings which alone of all one's life abide. Everything else in all ourlives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the acts oflove which no man knows about, or can ever know about--they neverfail. 

In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is depicted for us inthe imagery of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep fromthe goats, the test of a man then is not, "How have I believed?" but"How have I loved?" The test of religion, the final test of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I say the final test of religion atthat great Day is not religiousness, but Love; not what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I havedischarged the common charities of life. Sins of commission in thatawful indictment are not even referred to. By what we have not done, _by sins of omission_, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. Forthe withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, theproof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It meansthat He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspirednothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him, to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world. It meansthat--

 "I lived for myself, I thought for myself, For myself, and none beside-- Just as if Jesus had never lived, As if He had never died. "

Thank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hair's breadth, what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who isChrist? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where?--"Whoso shall receive a little child in Myname receiveth Me. " And who are Christ's? "Every one that loveth isborn of God. "

LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS. 

God often speaks to men's souls through music; He also speaks to usthrough art. Millet's famous painting entitled "The Angelus" is anilluminated text, upon which I am going to say a few words to youto-night. 

There are three things in this picture--a potato field, a country ladand a country girl standing in the middle of it, and on the farhorizon the spire of a village church. That is all there is to it--nogreat scenery and no picturesque people. In Roman Catholic countriesat the evening hour the church bell rings out to remind the people topray. Some go into the church, while those that are in the fields bowtheir heads for a few moments in silent prayer. 

That picture contains the three great elements which go to make up aperfectly rounded Christian life. It is not enough to have the "rootof the matter" in us, but that we must be whole and entire, lackingnothing. The Angelus may bring to us suggestions as to whatconstitutes a complete life. 

I. 

The first element in a symmetrical life is _work_. 

Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course themeaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as ourworship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths oflife remains unsanctified. 

The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life wasspent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of Hislife He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokesand household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only abouttwo and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His timewas simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since thenwork has had a new meaning. 

When Christ came into the world He was revealed to three deputationswho went to meet and worship Him. First came the shepherds, or workingclass; second, the wise men, or student class; and third, the two oldpeople in the temple, Simeon and Anna; that is to say, Christ isrevealed to men at their work, He is revealed to men at their books, and He is revealed to men at their worship. It was the old people whofound Christ at their worship, and as we grow older we will spend moretime exclusively in worship than we are able to do now. In the meantime we must combine our worship with our work, and we may expect tofind Christ at our books and in our common task. 

Why should God have provided that so many hours of every day should beoccupied with work? It is because

 WORK MAKES MEN. 

A university is not merely a place for making scholars, it is a placefor making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing corn, it is aplace for growing character, and a man has no character except thatwhich is developed by his life and thought. God's Spirit does thebuilding through the acts which a man performs from day to day. Astudent who cons out every word in his Latin and Greek instead ofconsulting a translation finds that honesty is translated into hischaracter. If he works out his mathematical problems thoroughly, henot only becomes a mathematician, but becomes a thorough man. It is byconstant and conscientious attention to daily duties that thoroughnessand conscientiousness and honorableness are imbedded in our beings. Character is

 THE MUSIC OF THE SOUL, and is developed by exercise. Active use of the power entrusted to usis one of the chief means which God employs for producing theChristian graces. Hence the religion of a student demands that he betrue to his work, and that he let his Christianity be shown to hisfellow students and to his professors by the integrity and theconscientiousness of his academic life. A man who is not faithful inthat which is least will not be faithful in that which is great. Ihave known men who struggled unsuccessfully for years to pass theirexaminations who, when they became Christians, found a new motive forwork and thus were able to succeed where previously they had failed. Aman's Christianity comes out as much in his work as in his worship. 

Our work is not only to be done thoroughly, but it is to be donehonestly. A man is not only to be honorable in his academic relations, but he must be honest with himself and in his attitude toward thetruth. Students are not entitled to dodge difficulties, they must godown to the foundation principles. Perhaps the truths which are dearto us go down deeper even than we think, and we will get more out ofthem if we dig down for the nuggets than we will if we only pick upthose that are on the surface. Other theories may perhaps be found tohave false bases; if so, we ought to know it. It is well to take oursoundings in every direction to see if there is deep water; if thereare shoals we ought to find out where they are. Therefore, when wecome to difficulties, let us not jump lightly over them, but let us behonest as seekers after truth. 

It may not be necessary for people in general to sift the doctrines ofChristianity for themselves, but a student is a man whose business itis to think, to exercise the intellect which God has given him infinding out the truth. Faith is never opposed to reason, though it issometimes supposed by Bible teachers that it is; but you will find itis not. Faith is opposed to sight, but not to reason, though it is notlimited to reason. In employing his intellect in the search for trutha student is drawing nearer to the Christ who said, "I am the way, thetruth and the life. " We talk a great deal about Christ as the way andChrist as the life, but there is a side of Christ especially for thestudent: "I am the truth, " and every student ought to be a truth-loverand a truth-seeker for Christ's sake. 

II. 

Another element in life, which of course is first in importance, is_God_. 

The Angelus is perhaps the most religious picture painted thiscentury. You cannot look at it and see that young man standing in thefield with his hat off, and the girl opposite him with her handsclasped and her head bowed on her breast, without feeling a sense ofGod. 

Do we carry about with us the thought of God wherever we go? If not, we have missed the greatest part of life. Do we have a conviction ofGod's abiding presence wherever we are? There is nothing more neededin this generation than a larger and more Scriptural idea of God. Agreat American writer has told us that when he was a boy theconception of God which he got from books and sermons was that of awise and very strict lawyer. I remember well the awful conception ofGod which I had when a boy. I was given an illustrated edition ofWatts' hymns, in which God was represented as a great piercing eye inthe midst of a great black thunder cloud. The idea which that picturegave to my young imagination was that of God as a great detective, playing the spy upon my actions, as the hymn says:

 "Writing now the story of what little children do. "

That was a very mistaken and harmful idea which it has taken me yearsto obliterate. We think of God as "up there, " or as one who made theworld six thousand years ago and then retired. We must learn that Heis not confined either to time or space. God is not to be thought ofas merely back there in time, or up there in space. If not, where isHe? "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth. " The Kingdom of God iswithin you, and God Himself is among men. When are we to exchange theterrible, far-away, absentee God of our childhood for the everywherepresent God of the Bible? Too many of the old Christian writers seemto have conceived of God as not much more than the greatest man--akind of divine emperor. He is infinitely more; He is a spirit, asJesus said to the woman at the well, and in Him we live and move andhave our being. Let us think of God as Immanuel--God with us--anever-present, omnipresent, eternal One. Long, long ago, God madematter, then He made the flowers and trees and animals, then He mademan. Did He stop? Is God dead? If He lives and acts what is He doing?He is

 MAKING MEN BETTER. 

He it is that "worketh in you. " The buds of our nature are not all outyet; the sap to make them comes from the God who made us, from theindwelling Christ. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, andwe must bear this in mind, because the sense of God is kept up, not bylogic, but by experience. 

Until she was seven years of age the life of Helen Keller, the Bostongirl who was deaf and dumb and blind, was an absolute blank; nothingcould go into that mind because the ears and eyes were closed to theouter world. Then by that great process which has been discovered, bywhich the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the mute speak, thatgirl's soul became opened, and they began to put in little bits ofknowledge, and bit by bit they began to educate her. They reserved herreligious instruction for Phillips Brooks. After some years, when shewas twelve years old, they took her to him and he began to talk to herthrough the young lady who had been the means of opening her senses, and who could communicate with her by the exceedingly delicate processof touch. He began to tell her about God and what He had done, and howHe loved men, and what He is to us. The child listened veryintelligently, and finally said:

"Mr. Brooks, I knew all that before, but I didn't know His name. "

How often we have felt something within us impelling us to dosomething which we would not have conceived of by ourselves, orenabling us to do something which we could not have done alone. "It isGod which worketh in you. " This great simple fact

 EXPLAINS MANY OF THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE, and takes away the fear which we would otherwise have in meeting thedifficulties which lie before us. 

Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met on Sunday night tosing hymns in the cabin. As they sang the hymn, "Jesus, Lover of mySoul, " one of the Americans heard an exceedingly rich and beautifulvoice behind him. He looked around, and although he did not know theface he thought that he recognized the voice. So when the music ceasedhe turned around and asked the man if he had not been in the Civilwar. The man replied that he had been a Confederate soldier. "Were youat such a place on such a night?" asked the first. "Yes, " he said, "and a curious thing happened that night; this hymn recalled it to mymind. I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood. It was a dark nightand very cold, and I was a little frightened because the enemy weresupposed to be very near at hand. I felt very homesick and miserable, and about midnight, when everything was very still, I was beginning tofeel very weary and thought that I would comfort myself by praying andsinging a hymn. I remember singing this hymn, 'All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring, Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing. '

After I had sung those words a strange peace came down upon me, andthrough the long night I remember having felt no more fear. "

"Now, " said the other man, "listen to my story. I was a Union soldier, and was in the wood that night with a party of scouts. I saw youstanding up, although I didn't see your face, and my men had theirrifles focused upon you waiting the word to fire, but when you sangout, 'Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing, '

I said, 'Boys, put down your rifles, we will go home. ' I couldn't killyou after that. "

God was working in each of them, in His own way carrying out His will. God keeps his people and guides them and without Him life is but aliving death. 

III. 

The third element in life about which I wish to speak is _love_. 

In this picture we notice the delicate sense of companionship, broughtout by the young man and the young woman. It matters not whether theyare brother and sister, or lover and loved; there you have the idea offriendship, the final ingredient in our life, after the two I havenamed. If the man or the woman had been standing in that field aloneit would have been incomplete. 

Love is the divine element in life, because "God is love. " "He thatloveth is born of God, " therefore, as some one has said, let us "keepour friendships in repair. " Let us cultivate the spirit of friendship, and let the love of Christ develop it into a great love, not only forour friends, but for all humanity. Wherever you go and whatever youdo, your work will be a failure unless you have this element in yourlife. 

These three things go far toward forming a well-rounded life. Some ofus may not have these ingredients in their right proportion, but ifyou are lacking in one or the other of them, then pray for it and workfor it that your life may be rounded and complete as God intended itshould be. 

PAX VOBISCUM. (Copyright, James Pott & Co. Used by permission. )

I once heard a sermon by a distinguished preacher upon "Rest. " It wasfull of beautiful thoughts; but when I came to ask myself, "How doeshe say I can get Rest?" there was no answer. The sermon was sincerelymeant to be practical, yet it contained no experience that seemed tome to be tangible, nor any advice that I could grasp--any advice, thatis to say, which could help me to find the thing itself as I wentabout the world. 

Yet this omission of what is, after all, the only important problem, was not the fault of the preacher. The whole popular religion is inthe twilight here. And when pressed for really working specifics forthe experiences with which it deals, it falters, and seems to loseitself in mist. 

The want of connection between the great words of religion andevery-day life has bewildered and discouraged all of us. Christianitypossesses the noblest words in the language; its literature overflowswith terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods which canfill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, Light--thesewords occur with such persistency in hymns and prayers that anobserver might think they formed the staple of Christian experience. But on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most of us, how surely would he be disenchanted. I do not think we ourselves areaware how much our religious life is

 MADE UP OF PHRASES;

how much of what we call Christian Experience is only a dialect of theChurches, a mere religious phraseology with almost nothing behind itin what we really feel and know. 

To some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences seem further awaythan when we took the first steps in the Christian life. That life hasnot opened out as we had hoped. We do not regret our religion, but weare disappointed with it. There are times, perhaps, when wanderingnotes from a diviner music stray into our spirits; but theseexperiences come at few and fitful moments. We have no sense ofpossession in them. When they visit us, it is a surprise. When theyleave us, it is without explanation. When we wish their return, we donot know how to secure it. 

All which means a religion without solid base, and a poor andflickering life. It means a great bankruptcy in those experienceswhich give Christianity its personal solace and make it attractive tothe world, and a great uncertainty as to any remedy. It is as if weknew everything about health--except the way to get it. 

I am quite sure that the difficulty does not lie in the fact that menare not in earnest. This is simply not the fact. All around usChristians are wearing themselves out in trying to be better. Theamount of spiritual longing in the world--in the hearts of unnumberedthousands of men and women in whom we should never suspect it; amongthe wise and thoughtful, among the young and gay, who seldom assuageand never betray their thirst--this is one of the most wonderful andtouching facts of life. It is not more heat that is needed, but morelight; not more force, but a wiser direction to be given to very realenergies already there. 

The usual advice when one asks for counsel on these questions is, "Pray. " But this advice is far from adequate. I shall qualify thestatement presently; but let me urge it here, with what you willperhaps call daring emphasis, that to pray for these things is not theway to get them. No one will get them without praying; but that men donot get them by praying is the simple fact. We have all prayed, andsincerely prayed, for such experiences as I have named; prayed, believing that that was the way to get them. And yet have we got them?The test is experience. I dare not limit prayer; still less the graceof God. If you have got them in this way, it is well. I am speaking tothose, be they few or many, who have not got them; to ordinary men inordinary circumstances. But if we have not got them, it by no meansfollows that prayer is useless. The correct conclusion is only that itis useless, or inadequate rather, for this particular purpose. To makeprayer the sole resort, the universal panacea for every spiritual ill, is as radical a mistake as to prescribe only one medicine for everybodily trouble. The physician who does the last is a quack; thespiritual adviser who does the first is

 GROSSLY IGNORANT OF HIS PROFESSION. 

To do nothing but pray is a wrong done to prayer itself, and can onlyend in disaster. It is as if one tried to live only with the lungs, as if one assimilated only air and neglected solid food. The lungs area first essential; the air is a first essential; but the body has manymembers, given for different purposes, secreting different things, andeach has a method of nutrition as special to itself as its ownactivity. While prayer, then, is the characteristic sublimity of theChristian life, it is by no means the only one. And those who make itthe sole alternative, and apply it to purposes for which it was nevermeant, are really doing the greatest harm to prayer itself. To couplethe word "inadequate" with this mighty word is not to dethrone prayer, but to exalt it. 

 WHAT DETHRONES PRAYER

is unanswered prayer. When men pray for things which do not come thatway--pray with sincere belief that prayer, unaided and alone, willcompass what they ask--then, not getting what they ask, they oftengive up prayer. 

This is the natural history of much atheism, not only an atheism ofatheists, but a more terrible atheism of Christians, an unconsciousatheism, whose roots have struck far into many souls whose last breathwould be spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a mistakenChristianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief in theomnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when the appropriateconditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, but not blind prayer. Blindprayer is a superstition. Prayer, in its true sense, contains the sanerecognition that while man prays in faith, _God acts by law_. Whatthat means in the immediate connection we shall see presently. 

What, then, is the remedy? It is impossible to doubt that there is aremedy, and it is equally impossible to believe that it is a secret. The idea that some few men, by happy chance or happier temperament, have been given the secret--as if there were some sort of knack ortrick of it--is wholly incredible and wrong. Religion must be for all, and the way into its loftiest heights must be by a gateway throughwhich the peoples of the world may pass. 

I shall have to lead up to this gateway by a very familiar path. Butas this path is strangely unfrequented where it passes into thereligious sphere, I must ask your forbearance for dwelling for amoment upon the commonest of commonplaces. 

I. EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 

Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God oforder. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never atrandom. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. TheChristian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the airlike snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; and if theydid, they would no less have their origin in previous activities andbe controlled by natural laws. Rain and snow do drop from the air, butnot without a long previous history. They are the mature effects offormer causes. Equally so are Rest and Peace and Joy. They, too, haveeach a previous history. Storms and winds and calms are not accidents, but brought about by antecedent circumstances. Rest and Peace are butcalms in man's inward nature, and arise through causes as definite andas inevitable. 

Realize it thoroughly; it is a methodical, not an accidental world. Ifa housewife turns out a good cake, it is the result of a soundreceipt, carefully applied. She cannot mix the assigned ingredientsand fire them for the appropriate time without producing the result. It is not she who has made the cake; it is nature. She brings relatedthings together; sets causes at work; these causes bring about theresult. She is not a creator, but an intermediary. She does not expectrandom causes to produce specific effects--random ingredients wouldonly produce random cakes. So it is in the making of Christianexperiences. Certain lines are followed; certain effects are theresult. These effects cannot but be the result. But the result cannever take place without the previous cause. To expect results withoutantecedents is to expect cakes without ingredients. That impossibilityis precisely

 THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL EXPECTATION. 

Now what I mainly wish to do is to help you firmly to grasp thissimple principle of Cause and Effect in the spiritual world. Andinstead of applying the principle generally to each of the Christianexperiences in turn, I shall examine its application to one in somelittle detail. The one I shall select is Rest. And I think any one whofollows the application in this single instance will be able to applyit for himself to all the others. 

Take such a sentence as this: African explorers are subject to feverswhich cause restlessness and delirium. 

Note the expression, "cause restlessness. " _Restlessness has a cause. _Clearly, then, any one who wished to get rid of restlessness wouldproceed at once to deal with the cause. If that were not removed, adoctor might prescribe a hundred things, and all might be taken inturn, without producing the least effect. Things are so arranged inthe original planning of the world that certain effects must followcertain causes, and certain causes must be abolished before certaineffects can be removed. Certain parts of Africa are inseparably linkedwith the physical experience called fever; this fever is in turninfallibly linked with a mental experience called restlessness anddelirium. To abolish the mental experience the radical method would beto abolish the physical experience, and the way of abolishing thephysical experience would be to abolish Africa, or to cease to gothere. 

Now this holds good for all other forms of Restlessness. Every otherform and kind of Restlessness in the world has a definite cause, andthe particular kind of Restlessness can only be removed by removingthe allotted cause. 

All this is also true of Rest. Restlessness has a cause: must not_Rest_ have a cause? Necessarily. If it were a chance world we wouldnot expect this; but, being a methodical world, it cannot beotherwise. Rest, physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every kindof rest has a cause, as certainly as restlessness. Now causes arediscriminating. There is one kind of cause for every particular effectand no other, and if one particular effect is desired, thecorresponding cause must be set in motion. It is no use proposingfinely devised schemes, or going through general pious exercises inthe hope that somehow Rest will come. The Christian life is notcasual, but causal. All nature is a standing protest against theabsurdity of expecting to secure spiritual effects, or any effects, without the employment of appropriate causes. The Great Teacher dealtwhat ought to have been the final blow to this infinite irrelevancy bya single question, "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs ofthistles?"

Why, then, did the Great Teacher not educate His followers fully? Whydid He not tell us, for example, how such a thing as Rest might beobtained? The answer is that _He did_. But plainly, explicitly, in somany words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many words. He assignedRest to its cause, in words with which each of us has been familiarfrom his earliest childhood. 

He begins, you remember--for you at once know the passage I referto--almost as if Rest could be had without any cause; "Come unto me, "He says, "and I will _give_ you Rest. "

Rest, apparently, was a favor to be bestowed; men had but to come toHim; He would give it to every applicant. But the next sentence takesthat all back. The qualification, indeed, is added instantaneously. For what the first sentence seemed to give was next thing to animpossibility. For how, in a literal sense, can Rest be _given_? Onecould no more give away Rest than he could give away Laughter. Wespeak of "causing" laughter, which we can do; but we can not give itaway. When we speak of "giving" pain, we know perfectly well we cannot give pain away. And when we aim at "giving" pleasure, all that wedo is to arrange a set of circumstances in such a way as that theseshall cause pleasure. Of course there is a sense, and a very wonderfulsense, in which a Great Personality breathes upon all who come withinits influence an abiding peace and trust. Men can be to other men asthe shadow of a great rock in a weary land; much more Christ; muchmore Christ as Perfect Man; much more still as Savior of the world. But it is not this of which I speak. When Christ said He would givemen Rest, He meant simply that He would put them in the way of it. Byno act of conveyance would or could He make over His own Rest to them. He could give them

 HIS RECEIPT

for it. That was all. But He would not make it for them. For one thingit was not in His plan to make it for them; for another thing, menwere not so planned that it could be made for them; and for yetanother thing, it was a thousand times better that they should make itfor themselves. 

That this is the meaning becomes obvious from the wording of thesecond sentence: "Learn of me, and ye shall _find_ Rest. " Rest, (thatis to say), is not a thing that can be _given_, but a thing to be_acquired_. It comes not by an act, but by a process. It is not to befound in a happy hour, as one finds a treasure; but slowly, as onefinds knowledge. It could indeed be no more found in a moment thancould knowledge. A soil has to be prepared for it. Like a fine fruit, it will grow in one climate, and not in another; at one altitude, andnot at another. Like all growth it will have an orderly developmentand mature by slow degrees. 

The nature of this slow process Christ clearly defines when He sayswe are to achieve Rest by _learning_. "Learn of me, " He says, "and yeshall find rest to your souls. "

Now consider the extraordinary

 ORIGINALITY OF THIS UTTERANCE. 

How novel the connection between these two words "Learn" and "Rest. "How few of us have ever associated them--ever thought that Rest was athing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would tolearn a language; ever practised it as we would practice the violin?Does it not show how entirely new Christ's teaching still is to theworld, that so old and threadbare an aphorism should still be solittle known? The last thing most of us would have thought of wouldhave been to associate _Rest_ with _Work_. 

What must one work at? What is that which if duly learned will findthe soul of man in Rest? Christ answers without the least hesitation. He specifies two things--Meekness and Lowliness. "Learn of me, " Hesays, "for I am _meek_ and _lowly_ in heart. "

Now these two things are not chosen at random. To theseaccomplishments, in a special way, Rest is attached. Learn these, inshort, and you have already found Rest. These as they stand are directcauses of Rest; will produce it at once; cannot but produce it atonce. And if you think for a single moment, you will see how this isnecessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, and the connectionbetween antecedent and consequent here and everywhere lies deep in thenature of things. 

What is the connection, then? I answer by a further question. 

 WHAT ARE THE CHIEF CAUSES OF UNREST?

If you know yourself, you will answer--Pride; Selfishness, Ambition. As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true thatits unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personalmortifications and almost trivial disappointments which theintercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at lengthenedintervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the petty friction ofour every-day life with one another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, thecrossing of our will or the taking down of our conceit, which makeinward peace impossible. Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these are the old, vulgar, universal

 SOURCES OF MAN'S UNREST. 

Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two chief objects forattainment the exact opposites of these. To meekness and lowlinessthese things simply do not exist. They cure unrest by making itimpossible. These remedies do not trifle with surface symptoms; theystrike at once at removing causes. The ceaseless chagrin of aself-centered life can be removed at once by learning meekness andlowliness of heart. He who learns them is forever proof against it. Helives henceforth a charmed life. Christianity is a fine inoculation, atransfusion of healthy blood into an anęmic or poisoned soul. No fevercan attack a perfectly sound body; no fever of unrest can disturb asoul which has breathed the air or learned the ways of Christ. 

Men sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be atRest. But flying away will not help us. "The Kingdom of God is _withinyou_. " We aspire to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the bottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do men. Hence, _be lowly_. The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never behurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, _be meek_. He who iswithout expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him. It isself-evident that these things are so. The lowly man and the meek manare really above all other men, above all other things. They dominatethe world because they do not care for it. The miser does not possessgold, gold possesses him. But the meek possess it. "The meek, " saidChrist, "inherit the earth. " They do not buy it; they do not conquerit; but they inherit it. 

There are people who go about the world looking out for slights, andthey are necessarily miserable, for they find them at everyturn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for suchmen as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They havehad no real education, for they have never learned

 HOW TO LIVE. 

Few men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into maturelife the merely animal methods and motives which we had as littlechildren. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed;that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the FineArts; that it has to be learned with lifelong patience, and that theyears of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it triumphantly. 

Yet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men

 THE ART OF LIFE. 

And its whole curriculum lies in one word--"Learn of me. " Unlike mosteducation, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had frombooks, or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from thelife. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We learnHis art by living with Him, like the old apprentices with theirmasters. 

Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary andheavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a newprinciple--upon His own principle. "Watch my way of doing things, " Hesays; "Follow me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly, and youwill find Rest. "

I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or toany man, can be a bed of roses. No educational process can be this. And perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the simple"learn" of Christ, they would not enter His school with soirresponsible a heart. For there is not only much to learn, but

 MUCH TO UNLEARN. 

Many men never go to this school at all till their disposition isalready half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To learnarithmetic is difficult at fifty--much more to learn Christianity. Tolearn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in the case of one whohas had no lessons in that in childhood, may cost him half of what hevalues most on earth. Do we realize, for instance, that the way ofteaching humility is generally by _humiliation_? There is probably noother school for it. When a man enters himself as a pupil in such aschool it means a very great thing. There is much Rest there, butthere is also much Work. 

I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, toignore the cross and minimize the cost. Only it gives to the cross amore definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directlyand casually with the growth of the inner life. Our platitudes on the"benefits of affliction" are usually about as vague as our theories ofChristian Experience. "Somehow" we believe affliction does us good. But it is not a question of "Somehow. " The result is definite, calculable, necessary. It is under the strictest law of cause andeffect. The first effect of losing one's fortune, for instance, ishumiliation; and the effect of humiliation, as we have just seen, isto make one humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce Rest. It is a roundabout way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Naturegenerally works by circular processes; and it is not certain thatthere is any other way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest. If aman could make himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; butwe do not find that this happens. Hence we must all go through themill. Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate andthe quickest road to life. 

Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one ofthe most troubled lives that was ever lived: tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till theworn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea ofglass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might havegone to Him and found Rest. Even when the blood-hounds were doggingHim in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples andoffered them, as a last legacy, "My peace. " Nothing ever for a momentbroke the serenity of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could notreach Him; He had no fortune. Food, raiment, money--fountain-heads ofhalf the world's weariness--He simply did not care for; they played nopart in His life; He "took no thought" for them. It was impossible toaffect Him by lowering His reputation. He had already made Himself ofno reputation. He was dumb before insult. When he was reviled, Hereviled not again. In fact, there was

 NOTHING THAT THE WORLD COULD DO TO HIM

that could ruffle the surface of His spirit. 

Such living, as mere living, is altogether unique. It is only when wesee what it was in Him that we can know what the word Rest means. Itlies not in emotions, or in the absence of emotions. It is not ahallowed feeling that comes over us in church. It is not somethingthat the preacher has in his voice. It is not in nature, or in poetry, or in music--though in all these there is soothing. It is the mind atleisure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the soul; the absoluteadjustment of the inward man to the stress of all outward things; thepreparedness against every emergency; the stability of assuredconvictions; the eternal calm of an invulnerable faith; the repose ofa heart set deep in God. It is the mood of the man who says, withBrowning, "God's in His Heaven, all's well with the world. "

Two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception ofrest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among thefar-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thunderingwaterfall, with a fragile birch-tree bending over the foam; at thefork of a branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat onits nest. The first was only _Stagnation_; the last was _Rest_. For inRest there are always two elements--tranquillity and energy; silenceand turbulence; creation and destruction; fearlessness andfearfulness. This it was in Christ. 

It is quite plain from all this that whatever else He claimed to be orto do, He at least

 KNEW HOW TO LIVE. 

All this is the perfection of living, of living in the mere sense ofpassing through the world in the best way. Hence His anxiety tocommunicate His idea of life to others. He came, He said, to give menlife, true life, a more abundant life than they were living; "thelife, " as the fine phase in the Revised Version has it, "that is lifeindeed. " This is what He Himself possessed, and it was this which Heoffers to mankind. And hence His direct appeal for all to come to Himwho had not made much of life, who were weary and heavy-laden. TheseHe would teach His secret. They, also, should know "the life that islife indeed. "

II. WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 

There is still one doubt to clear up. After the statement, "Learn ofMe, " Christ throws in the disconcerting qualification:

"_Take my yoke_ upon you, and learn of Me. "

Why, if all this be true, does He call it a _yoke_? Why, whileprofessing to give Rest, does He with the next breath whisper"_burden_"? Is the Christian life, after all, what its enemies take itfor--an additional weight to the already great woe of life, someextra punctiliousness about duty, some painful devotion toobservances, some heavy restriction and trammeling of all that isjoyous and free in the world? Is life not hard and sorrowful enoughwithout being fettered with yet another yoke?

It is astounding how so glaring a misunderstanding of this plainsentence should ever have passed into currency. Did you ever stop toask what a yoke is really for? Is it to be a burden to the animalwhich wears it? It is just the opposite. It is to make its burdenlight. Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke, theplough would be intolerable. Worked by means of a yoke, it is light. Ayoke is not an instrument of torture; it is

 AN INSTRUMENT OF MERCY. 

It is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; it is a gentledevice to make hard labor light. It is not meant to give pain, but tosave pain. And yet men speak of the yoke of Christ as if it wereslavery, and look upon those who wear it as objects of compassion. Forgenerations we have had homilies on "The Yoke of Christ"--somedelighting in portraying its narrow exactions; some seeking in theseexactions the marks of its divinity; others apologizing for it, andtoning it down; still others assuring us that, although it be verybad, it is not to be compared with the positive blessings ofChristianity. How many, especially among the young, has this onemistaken phrase driven forever away from the kingdom of God? Insteadof making Christ attractive, it makes Him out a taskmaster, narrowinglife by petty restrictions, calling for self-denial where none isnecessary, making misery a virtue under the plea that it is the yokeof Christ, and happiness criminal because it now and then evades it. According to this conception, Christians are at best the victims of adepressing fate; their life is a penance; and their hope for the nextworld purchased by a slow martyrdom in this. 

The mistake has arisen from taking the word "yoke" here in the samesense as in the expressions "under the yoke, " or "wear the yoke in hisyouth. " But in Christ's illustration it is not the _jugum_ of theRoman soldier, but the simple "harness" or "ox-collar" of the Easternpeasant. It is the literal wooden yoke which He, with His own hands inthe carpenter shop, had probably often made. He knew the differencebetween a smooth yoke and a rough one, a bad fit and a good fit; thedifference also it made to the patient animal which had to wear it. The rough yoke galled, and the burden was heavy; the smooth yokecaused no pain, and the load was lightly drawn. The badly fittedharness was a misery; the well-fitted collar was "easy. "

And what was the "burden"? It was not some special burden laid uponthe Christian, some unique infliction that they alone must bear. Itwas what all men bear. It was simply life, human life itself, thegeneral burden of life which all must carry with them from the cradleto the grave. Christ saw that men took life painfully. To some it wasa weariness, to others a failure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggleand a pain. How to carry this burden of life had been the wholeworld's problem. It is still the whole world's problem. And here isChrist's solution: "Carry it as I do. Take life as I take it. Look atit from My point of view. Interpret it upon My principles. Take Myyoke and learn of Me, and you will find it easy. For My yoke is easy, works easily, sits right upon the shoulders, and _therefore_ My burdenis light. "

There is no suggestion here that religion will absolve any man frombearing burdens. That would be to absolve him from living, since it islife itself that is the burden. What Christianity does propose is tomake it tolerable. 

 CHRIST'S YOKE

is simply His secret for the alleviation of human life, Hisprescription for the best and happiest method of living. Men harnessthemselves to the work and stress of the world in clumsy and unnaturalways. The harness they put on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fittedcollar at the best, they make its strain and friction past enduring, by placing it where the neck is most sensitive; and by mere continuousirritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature isquick and sore. 

This is the origin, among other things, of a disease called"touchiness"--a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is oneof the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, whenit becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, _with ahair-trigger_. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; tolet men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unusedpart of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the oldsensitiveness is becoming numb from want of use. 

It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to adjust theburden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has aperfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence tohuman nature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with allsurrounding things, and restoring those who are jaded with the fatigueand dust of the world to a new grace of living. In the mere matter ofaltering the perspective of life and changing the proportions ofthings, its function in lightening the care of man is altogether itsown. 

The weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth. Supposethe attraction of the earth were removed? A ton on some other planet, where the attraction of gravity is less, does not weigh half a ton. Now Christianity removes the attraction of the earth; and this is oneway in which it diminishes man's burden. It makes them citizens ofanother world. What was a ton yesterday is not half a ton today. Sowithout changing one's circumstances, merely by offering a widerhorizon and a different standard, it alters the whole aspect of theworld. 

Christianity as Christ taught is the truest philosophy of life everspoken. But let us be quite sure when we speak of Christianity that wemean Christ's Christianity. Other versions are either caricatures, orexaggerations, or misunderstandings, or shortsighted and surfacereadings. For the most part their attainment is hopeless and theresults wretched. But I care not who the person is, or through whatvale of tears he has passed, or is about to pass, there is a new lifefor him along this path. 

III. HOW FRUITS GROW. 

Were Rest my subject, there are other things I should wish to sayabout it, and other kinds of Rest of which I should like to speak. But that is not my subject. My theme is that the Christian experiencesare not the work of magic, but come under the law of Cause and Effect. I have chosen Rest only as a single illustration of the working ofthat principle. If there were time I might next run over all theChristian experiences in turn, and show the same wide law applies toeach; but I think it may serve the better purpose if I leave thisfurther exercise to yourselves. I know no Bible study that you willfind more full of fruit, or which will take you nearer to the ways ofGod, or make the Christian life itself more solid or more sure. Ishall add only a single other illustration of what I mean, before Iclose. 

Where does Joy come from? I knew a Sunday scholar whose conception ofJoy was that it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere inHeaven, and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow letdown and fitted into their souls. I am not sure that views as grossand material are not often held by people who ought to be wiser. Inreality, Joy is as much a matter of Cause and Effect as pain. No onecan get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits ofthe Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown. There is avery clever trick in India called the mango trick. A seed is put inthe ground and covered up, and after diverse incantations a full-blownmango-bush appears within five minutes. I never met any one who knewhow the thing was done, but I never met any one who believed it to beanything else than a conjuring trick. The world is pretty unanimousnow in its belief in the orderliness of Nature. Men may not know howfruits grow, but they do know that they cannot grow in an hour. Somelives have not even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if theydid grow in an hour. Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy inall their lives; and others who may have planted a germ or two havelived so little in sunshine that they never could come to maturity. 

Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject intoone of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any instancehave appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest, for I donot wish you to think I am speaking words of my own. But it so happensthat He has dealt with it in words of unusual fullness. 

I need not recall the whole illustration. It is the parable of theVine. Did you ever think why Christ spoke that parable? He did notmerely throw it into space as a fine illustration of general truths. It was not simply a statement of the mystical union, and the doctrineof an indwelling Christ. It was that; but it was more. After He hadsaid it, He did what was not an unusual thing when He was teaching Hisgreatest lessons--He turned to the disciples and said He would tellthem why He had spoken it. It was to tell them

 HOW TO GET JOY. 

"These things have I spoken unto you, " He said, "that My Joy mightremain in you, and that your Joy might be full. " It was a purposed anddeliberate communication of His

 SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 

Go back over these verses, then, and you will find the Causes of thisEffect, the spring, and the only spring, out of which true Happinesscomes. I am not going to analyze them in detail. I ask you to enterinto the words for yourselves. 

Remember, in the first place, that the Vine was the Eastern symbol ofJoy. It was its fruit that made glad the heart of man. Yet, howeverinnocent that gladness--for the expressed juice of the grape was thecommon drink at every peasant's board--the gladness was only a grossand passing thing. This was not true happiness, and the vine of thePalestine vineyards was not the true vine. "_Christ_ was the _true_Vine. " Here, then, is the ultimate source of Joy. Through whatevermedia it reaches us, all true Joy and Gladness find their source inChrist. 

By this, of course, is not meant that the actual Joy experienced istransferred from Christ's nature, or is something passed on from Himto us. What is passed on is His method of getting it. There is, indeed, a sense in which we can share another's joy or another'ssorrow. But that is another matter. Christ is the source of Joy to menin the sense in which He is the source of Rest. His people share Hislife, and therefore share its consequences, and one of these is Joy. His method of living is one that in the nature of things produces Joy. When He spoke of His Joy remaining with us He meant in part that thecauses which produced it should continue to act. His followers, (thatis to say), by _repeating_ His life would experience itsaccompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would remain with them. 

The medium through which this Joy comes is next explained: "He thatabideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit. " Fruit first, Joynext; the one the cause or medium of the other. Fruit-bearing is thenecessary antecedent; Joy both the necessary consequent and thenecessary accompaniment. It lay partly in the bearing fruit, partly inthe fellowship which made that possible. Partly, that is to say, Joylay in mere constant living in Christ's presence, with all that thatimplied of peace, of shelter, and of love; partly in the influence ofthat Life upon mind and character and will; and partly in theinspiration to live and work for others, with all that that brought ofself-riddance and joy in others' gain. All these, in different waysand at different times, are

 SOURCES OF PURE HAPPINESS. 

Even the simplest of them--to do good to other people--is an instantand infallible specific. There is no mystery about Happiness whatever. Put in the right ingredients and it must come out. He that abideth inHim will bring forth much fruit; and bringing forth much fruit isHappiness. The infallible receipt for Happiness, then, is to do good;and the infallible receipt for doing good is to abide in Christ. Thesurest proof that all this is a plain matter of Cause and Effect isthat men may try every other conceivable way of finding happiness, andthey will fail. Only the right cause in each case can produce theright effect. 

Then the Christian experiences are our own making? In the same sensein which grapes are our own making and no more. All fruits_grow_--whether they grow in the soil or in the soul; whether they arethe fruits of the wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can _make_things grow. He can _get them to grow_ by arranging all thecircumstances and fulfilling all the conditions. But the growing isdone by God. Causes and effects are eternal arrangements, set in theconstitution of the world; fixed beyond man's ordering. What man cando is to place himself in the midst of a chain of sequences. Thus hecan get things to grow: thus he himself can grow. But the power is theSpirit of God. 

What more need I add but this--test the method by experiment. Do notimagine that you have got these things because you know how to getthem. As well try to feed upon a cookery book. But I think I canpromise that if you try in this simple and natural way, you will notfail. Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits infulfilling the conditions of their growth. The fruits will come, mustcome. We have hitherto paid immense attention to _effects_, to themere experiences themselves; we have described them, extolled them, advised them, prayed for them--done everything but find out what_caused_ them. Henceforth

 LET US DEAL WITH CAUSES. 

"To be, " says Lotze, "is to be in relations. " About every other methodof living the Christian life there is an uncertainty. About everyother method of acquiring the Christian experiences there is a"perhaps. " But in so far as this method is the way of nature, itcannot fail. Its guarantee is the laws of the universe--and these are"the Hands of the Living God. "

 THE TRUE VINE. 

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch inme that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch thatbeareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Nowye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide inme, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except itabide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am thevine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, thesame bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If aman abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered;and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my word abide in you, ye shall ask what yewill, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so ye shall be my disciples. As the Fatherhath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keepmy commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept myFather's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have Ispoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joymight be full. "

"FIRST!"

AN ADDRESS TO BOYS. 

I have three heads to give you. The first is "Geography, " the secondis "Arithmetic, " and the third is "Grammar. "

I. 

First. Geography tells us where to find places. 

Where is the Kingdom of God? It is said that when a Prussian officerwas killed in the Franco-Prussian war, a map of France was very oftenfound in his pocket. When we wish to occupy a country, we ought toknow its geography. Now, _where_ is the Kingdom of God? A boy overthere says, "It is in heaven. " No; it is not in heaven. Another boysays, "It is in the Bible. " No; it is not in the Bible. Another boysays, "It must be in the Church, " No; it is not in the Church. Heavenis only the capital of the Kingdom of God; the Bible is the guide-bookto it; the Church is the weekly parade of those who belong to it. Ifyou turn to the seventeenth chapter of Luke you will find out wherethe Kingdom of God really is: "The Kingdom of God is withinyou"--within _you_. The Kingdom of God is _inside people_. 

I remember once taking a walk by the river near where the Falls ofNiagara are, and I noticed a remarkable figure walking along the riverbank. I had been some time in America. I had seen black men, and redmen, and yellow men, and white men; black men, the Negroes; red men, the Indians; yellow men, the Chinese; white men, the Americans. Butthis man looked quite different in his dress from anything I had everseen. When he came a little closer, I saw he was wearing a kilt; whenhe came a little nearer still, I saw that he was dressed exactly likea Highland soldier. When he came quiet near, I said to him:

"What are you doing here?"

"Why should I not be here?" he replied; "don't you know this isBritish soil? When you cross the river you come into Canada. "

This soldier was thousands of miles from England, and yet he was inthe Kingdom of England. Wherever there is an English heart beatingloyal to the Queen of Britain, there is England. Wherever there is aboy whose heart is loyal to the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God iswithin him. 

What is the Kingdom of God? Every Kingdom has its exports, itsproducts. Go down the river here and you will find ships coming inwith cotton; you know they come from America. You will find ships withtea; you know they are from China. Ships with wool; you know they comefrom Australia. Ships with sugar; you know they come from Java. 

What comes from the Kingdom of God? Again we must refer to ourGuide-book. Turn to Romans, and we shall find what the Kingdom of Godis. I will read it: "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy"--three things. "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy. "Righteousness, of course, is just doing what is right. Any boy whodoes what is _right_ has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy who, instead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with the other boys, hasthe Kingdom of God within him. Any boy whose heart is filled with joybecause he does what is right, has the Kingdom of God within him. TheKingdom of God is not going to religious meetings, and hearing strangereligious experiences; the Kingdom of God is doing what isright--living at peace with all men, being filled with joy in the HolyGhost. 

Boys, if you are going to be Christians, be Christians as boys, andnot as your grandmothers. A grandmother has to be a Christian as agrandmother, and that is the right and the beautiful thing for her;but if you cannot read your Bible by the hour as your grandmother can, or delight in meetings as she can, don't think you are necessarily abad boy. When you are your grandmother's age you will have yourgrandmother's kind of religion. Meantime, be a Christian as a boy. Live a boy's life. Do the straight thing; seek the kingdom ofrighteousness and honor and truth. Keep the peace with the boys aboutyou, and be filled with the joy of being a loyal, and simple, andnatural, and boy-like servant of Christ. 

You can very easily tell a house, or a workshop, or an office wherethe Kingdom of God is _not_. The first thing you see in that place isthat the "straight thing" is not always done. Customers do not getfair play. You are in danger of learning to cheat and to lie. Better athousand times to starve than to stay in a place where you cannot dowhat is right. 

Or, when you go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy, and ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, someof the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and thewhole _feel_ of the place miserable and unhappy. The Kingdom of God isnot there, for _it_ is peace. It is the Kingdom of the Devil that isanger, and wrath and malice. 

If you want to get the Kingdom of God into your workshop, or into yourhome, let the quarreling be stopped. Live in peace and harmony andbrotherliness with everyone. For the Kingdom of God is a kingdom ofbrothers. It is a great Society, founded by Jesus Christ, of all thepeople who try to live like Him, and to make the world better andsweeter and happier. Wherever a boy is trying to do that, in the houseor on the street, in the workshop or on the baseball field, there isthe Kingdom of God. And every boy, however small or obscure or poor, who is seeking that, is a member of it. You see now, I hope, what theKingdom is. 

II. 

I pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? Arithmetic. Arethere any arithmetic words in this text? "Added. " What otherarithmetic words? "First. "

Now, don't you think you could not have anything better to seek"first" than the things I have named to do what is right, to live atpeace, and be always making those about you happy? You see at once whyChrist tells us to seek these things first--because they are

 THE BEST WORTH SEEKING. 

Do you know anything better than these three things, anything happier, purer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you do not, seekfirst the Kingdom of God. I do not tell you to be religious. You knowthat. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom of God. I tell you to seekthe Kingdom of God _first_. _First. _ Not many people do that. They puta little religion into their life--once a week, perhaps. They mightjust as well let it alone. It is not worth seeking the Kingdom of Godunless we seek it _first_. 

Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bow, andsend that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side? Certainlynot. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its place, and itwill take you straight through life and straight to your Father inheaven when life is over. But if you do not put it in its place, youmay just as well have nothing to do with it. Religion out of its placein a human life is the most miserable thing in the world. There isnothing that requires so much to be kept in its place as religion, andits place is what? second? third? "First. " Boys, _first_ the Kingdomof God; make it so that it will be natural to you to think about thatthe very first thing. 

There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who madetelegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself. ) One day this boy wasup on the top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing up atelegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was getting late, andthe men said they were going away home, and the boy was to nip off theends of the wire himself. Before going down they told him to be sureto go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with his master'stools. 

"Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do, " said theforeman. 

The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the wire. It was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering. He losthis hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then over and overto the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across the "green" on towhich he was just about to fall, caught him on the chest and broke hisfall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay unconscious among someclothes upon the green. 

An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes allsoiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and wentfor the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back toconsciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got upon his feet. What do youthink he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He climbed theladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when he got to theground again fainted dead away. 

Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some time. I amglad to say he got better. 

What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty. He wasnot thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master. First, theKingdom of God. 

But there is another arithmetic word. What is it? "Added. "

You know the difference between _addition_ and _subtraction_. Now, that is

 A VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE

in religion, because--and it is a very strange thing--very few peopleknow the difference when they begin to talk about religion. They oftentell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of God, everything else isgoing to be _subtracted_ from them. They tell them that they are goingto become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything that makes aboy's life worth living--that they will have to stop baseball andstory-books, and become little old men, and spend all their time ingoing to meetings and in singing hymns. 

Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that. Christsaid we are to "Seek first the Kingdom of God, " and

 EVERYTHING ELSE WORTH HAVING

is to be _added_ unto us. If there is anything I would like you toremember, it is these two arithmetic words--"first" and "added. "

I do not mean by "added" that if you become religious you are allgoing to become _rich_. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the shoptomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well, nobodyhas missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to burn a holethere. By breakfast time he wishes that money were in his master'spocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He says (to _himself_, and not to his master), "I was at the Boys' Brigade yesterday, and Iwas told to seek _first_ that which was right. " Then he says to hismaster:

"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor. "

The master puts it in the till. What has the boy got in his pocket?Nothing; _but he has got the Kingdom of God in his heart_. He has laidup treasure in heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than thequarter. 

Now, that boy does not find a dollar on his way home. I have knownthat happen, but that is not what is meant by "adding. " It does notmean that God is going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays inbetter coin. 

Yet I remember once hearing of a boy who was paid in both ways. He wasvery, very poor. He lived in a foreign country, and his mother said tohim one day that he must go into the great city and start in business, and she took his coat and cut it open and sewed between the lining andthe coat forty golden dinars, which she had saved up for many years tostart him in life. She told him to take care of robbers as he wentacross the desert; and as he was going out of the door she said:

"My boy, I have only two words for you--'Fear God, and never tell alie. '"

The boy started off, and towards evening he saw glittering in thedistance the minarets of the great city. But between the city andhimself he saw a cloud of dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw thatit was a band of robbers. 

One of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, and said:

"Boy, what have you got?"

The boy looked him in the face said:

"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat. "

The robber laughed and wheeled around his horse and went away back. Hewould not believe the boy. 

Presently another robber came and he said:

"Boy, what have you got?"

"Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat. "

The robber said: "The boy is a fool, " and wheeled his horse and rodeaway back. 

By and by the robber captain came and he said:

"Boy, what have you got?"

"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat. "

The robber dismounted, and put his hand over the boy's breast, feltsomething round, counted one, two, three, four, five, till he countedout the forty golden coins. He looked the boy in the face and said:

"Why did you tell me that?

The boy said: "Because of God and my mother. "

The robber leaned on his spear and thought and said:

"Wait a moment. "

He mounted his horse, rode back to the rest of the robbers, and cameback in about five minutes with his dress changed. This time he lookednot like a robber, but like a merchant. He took the boy up on hishorse and said:

"My boy, I have long wanted to do something for my God and for mymother, and I have this moment renounced my robber's life. I am also amerchant. I have a large business house in the city. I want you tocome and live with me, to teach me about your God; and you will berich, and your mother some day will come and live with us. "

And it all happened. By seeking first the Kingdom of God, all thesethings were added unto him. 

Boys, banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is_subtraction_. It does not tell us to give things up, but rather givesus something so much better that they give themselves up. When you seea boy on the street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, that you couldnot make that boy happier than by giving him a top, a whip, and halfan hour to whip it. But next birthday, when he looks back he says, "What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a top. What I wantnow is a baseball bat. "

Then when he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for abaseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper everyday. He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts withbaseball bats and whipping-tops. 

Now, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows out of the evil thingsone by one--that is to say, if they are really evil--which he used toset his heart upon; (of course I do not mean baseball bats, for theyare not evils); and so instead of telling people to give up things, weare safer to tell them to "seek first the Kingdom of God, " and thenthey will get new things and better things, and

 THE OLD THINGS WILL DROP OFF

of themselves. This is what is meant by the "new heart. " It means thatGod puts into us new thoughts and new wishes, and we become quitedifferent. 

III. 

Lastly, and very shortly. What was the third head? "Grammar. " Right. 

Now, I require a clever boy to answer the next question. What is theverb? "Seek. " Very good: "seek. " What mood is it in? "Imperativemood. " What does that mean? "A command. " What is the soldier's firstlesson? "Obedience. " Have you obeyed this command? Remember theimperative mood of these words, "_Seek_ first the Kingdom of God. "

This is the command of your King. It _must_ be done. I have beentrying to show you what a splendid thing it is; what a reasonablething it is; what a happy thing it is; but beyond all these reasons, it is a thing that _must_ be done, because we are _commanded_ to do itby our Captain. Now, there is His command to seek _first_ the Kingdomof God. Have you done it?

"Well, " I know some boys will say, "we are going to have a good time, enjoy life, and then we are going to seek--_last_--the Kingdom ofGod. "

Now, that is mean; it is nothing else than mean for a boy to take allthe good gifts that God has given him, and then give him nothing backin return but

 HIS WASTED LIFE. 

God wants boys' _lives_, not only their souls. It is for activeservice that soldiers are drilled, and trained, and fed, and armed. That is why you and I are in the world at all--not to prepare to goout of it some day, but to serve God actively in it _now_. It ismonstrous, and shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the Kingdom_last_. It is shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, playinginto the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn his flank. Every hour aKingdom is coming in your heart, in your home, in the world near you, be it a Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. You are placedwhere you are, in a particular business, in a particular street, tohelp on there the Kingdom of God. You cannot do that when you are oldand ready to die. By that time your companions will have fought theirfight, and lost or won. If they lose, will you not be sorry that youdid not help them? Will you not regret that only at the last youhelped the Kingdom of God? Perhaps you will not be able to do itthen. And then your life has been lost indeed. 

Very few people have the opportunity to seek the Kingdom of God at theend. Christ, knowing all that, knowing that religion was a thing forour life, not merely for our death-bed, has laid this command upon usnow: "Seek _first_ the Kingdom of God. "

I am going to leave you with this text itself. Every boy in the worldshould obey it. 

Boys, before you go to work to-morrow, before you go to sleepto-night, resolve that, God helping you, you are going to seek _first_the Kingdom of God. Perhaps some boys here are deserters; they beganonce before to serve Christ, and they deserted. Come back again, comeback again today! Others have never enlisted at all. Will you not doit now? You are old enough to decide. The grandest moment of a boy'slife is that moment when he decides to "_Seek first the Kingdom ofGod_. "

THE CHANGED LIFE:

THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD. 

God is all for quality; man is for quantity. The immediate need of theworld at this moment is not more of us, but, if I may use theexpression, a better brand of us. To secure ten men of an improvedtype would be better than if we had ten thousand more of the averageChristians distributed all over the world. There is such a thing inthe evangelistic sense as winning the whole world and losing our ownsoul. And the first consideration is our own life--our own spiritualrelations to God--our own likeness to Christ. And I am anxious, briefly, to look at the right and the wrong way of becoming likeChrist--of becoming better men: the right and the wrong way ofsanctification. 

Let me begin by naming, and in part discarding, some processes invogue already for producing better lives. These processes are far fromwrong; in their place they may even be essential. One ventures todisparage them only because they do not turn out the most perfectpossible work. 

I. The first imperfect method is to rely on

 RESOLUTION. 

In will power, in mere spasms of earnestness, there is no salvation. Struggle, effort, even agony, have their place in Christianity, as weshall see; but this is not where they come in. 

In mid-Atlantic the Etruria, in which I was sailing, suddenly stopped. Something had gone wrong with the engines. There were five hundredable-bodied men on board the ship. Do you think that if we hadgathered together and pushed against the mast we could have pushed iton?

When one attempts to sanctify himself by effort, he is trying to makehis boat go by pushing against the mast. He is like a drowning mantrying to lift himself out of the water by pulling at the hair of hisown head. 

Christ held up this method almost to ridicule when He said, "Which ofyou by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?" Put down thatmethod forever as being futile. 

The one redeeming feature of the self-sufficient method is this--thatthose who try it find out almost at once that it will not gain thegoal. 

2. Another experimenter says: "But that is not my method. I have seenthe folly of a mere wild struggle in the dark. I work on a principle. My plan is not to waste power on random effort, but to concentrate ona single sin. By taking

 ONE AT A TIME

and crucifying it steadily, I hope in the end to extirpate all. "

To this, unfortunately, there are four objections: For one thing, lifeis too short; the name of sin is legion. For another thing, to dealwith individual sins is to leave the rest of the nature for the timeuntouched. In the third place, a single combat with a special sin doesnot affect the root and spring of the disease. If you dam up a streamat one place, it will simply overflow higher up. If only one of thechannels of sin be obstructed, experience points to an almost certainoverflow through some other part of the nature. Partial conversion isalmost always accompanied by such moral leakage, for the pent-upenergies accumulate to the bursting point, and the last state of thatsoul may be worse than the first. In the last place, religion does notconsist in negatives, in stopping this sin and stopping that. Theperfect character can never be produced with a pruning knife. 

3. But a third protests: "So be it. I make no attempt to stop sins oneby one. My method is just the opposite. 

 I COPY THE VIRTUES

one by one. "

The difficulty about the copying method is that it is apt to bemechanical. One can always tell an engraving from a picture, anartificial flower from a real flower. To copy virtues one by one hassomewhat the same effect as eradicating the vices one by one; thetemporary result is an overbalanced and incongruous character. Someone defines a _prig_ as "a creature that is over-fed for its size. "One sometimes finds Christians of this species--over-fed on one sideof their nature, but dismally thin and starved looking on the other. The result, for instance, of copying Humility, and adding it on to anotherwise worldly life, is simply grotesque. A rabid temperanceadvocate, for the same reason, is often the poorest of creatures, flourishing on a single virtue, and quite oblivious that hisTemperance is making a worse man of him and not a better. These areexamples of fine virtues spoiled by association with mean companions. Character is a unity, and all the virtues must advance together tomake the perfect man. 

This method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true direction. It is only in the details of execution that it fails. 

4. A fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it is a variation onthose already named. It is

 THE VERY YOUNG MAN'S METHOD;

and the pure earnestness of it makes it almost desecration to touchit. It is to keep a private note-book with columns for the days of theweek, and a list of virtues, with spaces against each for marks. This, with many stern rules for preface, is stored away in a secret place, and from time to time, at nightfall, the soul is arraigned before itas before a private judgment bar. 

This living by code was Franklin's method; and I suppose thousandsmore could tell how they had hung up in their bedrooms, or hid inlocked-fast drawers, the rules which one solemn day they drew up toshape their lives. 

This method is not erroneous, only somehow its success is poor. Youbear me witness that it fails. And it fails generally for verymatter-of-fact reasons--most likely because one day we forget therules. 

All these methods that have been named--the self-sufficient method, the self-crucifixion method, the mimetic method, and the diarymethod--are perfectly human, perfectly natural, perfectly ignorant, and as they stand perfectly inadequate. It is not argued, I repeat, that they must be abandoned. Their harm is rather that they distractattention from the true working method, and secure a fair result atthe expense of the perfect one. What that perfect method is we shallnow go on to ask. 

I. THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION. 

A formula, a receipt for Sanctification--can one seriously speak ofthis mighty change as if the process were as definite as for theproduction of so many volts of electricity?

It is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical experiment succeedinfallibly, and the one vital experiment of humanity remain a chance?Is corn to grow by method, and character by caprice? If we cannotcalculate to a certainty that the forces of religion will do theirwork, then is religion vain. And if we cannot express the law of theseforces in simple words, then is Christianity not the world's religion, but the world's conundrum. 

Where, then, shall one look for such a formula? Where one would lookfor any formula--among the text-books. And if we turn to thetext-books of Christianity we shall find a formula for this problem asclear and precise as any in the mechanical sciences. If this simplerule, moreover, be but followed fearlessly, it will yield the resultof a perfect character as surely as any result that is guaranteed bythe laws of nature. 

The finest expression of this rule in Scripture, or indeed in anyliterature, is probably one drawn up and condensed into a single verseby Paul. You will find it in a letter--the second to theCorinthians--written by him to some Christian people who, in a citywhich was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seeking thehigher life. To see the point of the words we must take them from theimmensely improved rendering of the Revised translation, for the olderVersion in this case greatly obscures the sense. They are these:

"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of theLord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even asfrom the Lord, the Spirit. "

Now observe at the outset the entire contradiction of all our previousefforts, in the simple passive: "_We are transformed. _"

We _are changed_, as the Old Version has it--we do not changeourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament youwill find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations aredescribed the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be pointedout that there is a _rationale_ in this; but meantime do not tossthese words aside as if this passivity denied all human effort orignored intelligible law. What is implied for the soul here is no morethan is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology the verbsdescribing the processes of growth are in the passive. Growth is notvoluntary; it takes place, it happens, it is wrought upon matter. Sohere. "Ye must be born again"--we cannot born ourselves. "Be notconformed to this world, but _be ye transformed_"--we are subjects totransforming influence, we do not transform ourselves. Not morecertain is it that it is something outside the thermometer thatproduces a change in the thermometer, than it is

 SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE SOUL OF MAN

that produces a moral change upon him. That he must be susceptible tothat change, that he must be a party to it, goes without saying; butthat neither his aptitude nor his will can produce it, is equallycertain. 

Obvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an almost startlingrevelation. The change we have been striving after is not to beproduced by any more striving. It is to be wrought upon us by themoulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the budbursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation of influencesfrom the outside air, so man rises to the higher stature underinvisible pressures from without. The radical defect of all our formermethods of sanctification was the attempt to generate from within thatwhich can only be wrought upon us from without. According to the firstLaw of Motion, every body continues in its state of rest, or ofuniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it may becompelled _by impressed forces_ to change that state. This is also afirst law of Christianity. Every man's character remains as it is, orcontinues in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled_by impressed forces_ to change that state. Our failure has been thefailure to put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There isa clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get the clay to mouldthe clay. 

Whence, then, these pressures, and where this Potter? The answer ofthe formula is--"By reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord weare changed. " But this is not very clear. What is the "glory" of theLord, and how can mortal man reflect it, and how can that act as an"impressed force" in moulding him to a nobler form? The word"glory"--the word which has to bear the weight of holding those"impressed forces"--is a stranger in current speech, and our firstduty is to seek out its equivalent in working English. It suggests atfirst a radiance of some kind, something dazzling or glittering, somehalo such as the old masters loved to paint round the head of theirEcce Homos. But that is paint, mere matter, the visible symbol of someunseen thing. What is that unseen thing? It is that of all unseenthings the most radiant, the most beautiful, the most Divine, and thatis _Character_. On earth, in Heaven, there is nothing so great, soglorious as this. The word has many meanings; in ethics it can havebut one. Glory is character, and nothing less, and it can be nothingmore. The earth is "full of the glory of the Lord, " because it is fullof His character. The "Beauty of the Lord" is character. "Theeffulgence of His Glory" is character. "The Glory of the OnlyBegotten" is character, the character which is "fullness of grace andtruth. " And when God told His people _His name_, He simply gave themHis character, His character which was Himself: "And the Lordproclaimed the name of the Lord . . . The Lord, the Lord God, mercifuland gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. "Glory then is not something intangible, or ghostly, or transcendental. If it were this, how could Paul ask men to reflect it? Stripped of itsphysical enswathement it is Beauty, moral and spiritual Beauty, Beautyinfinitely real, infinitely exalted, yet infinitely near andinfinitely communicable. 

With this explanation read over the sentence once more in paraphrase:We all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ are transformedinto the same Image from character to character--from a poor characterto a better one, from a better one to a little better still, from thatto one still more complete, until by slow degrees the Perfect Image isattained. Here

 THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF SANCTIFICATION

is compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character of Christ, andyou will become like Christ. You will be changed, in spite of yourselfand unknown to yourself, into the same image from character tocharacter. 

(1). All men are reflectors--that is

 THE FIRST LAW

on which this formula is based. One of the aptest descriptions of ahuman being is that he is a mirror. As we sat at table to-night theworld in which each of us lived and moved throughout this day wasfocused in the room. What we saw when we looked at one another was notone another, but one another's world. We were an arrangement ofmirrors. The scenes we saw were all reproduced; the people we metwalked to and fro; they spoke, they bowed, they passed us by, dideverything over again as if it had been real. When we talked, we werebut looking at our own mirror and describing what flitted across it;our listening was not hearing, but seeing--we but looked on ourneighbor's mirror. 

All human intercourse is a seeing of reflections. I meet a stranger ina railway carriage. The cadence of his first words tells me he isEnglish and comes from Yorkshire. Without knowing it he has reflectedhis birthplace, his parents, and the long history of their race. Evenphysiologically he is a mirror. His second sentence records that he isa politician, and a faint inflection in the way he pronounces _TheTimes_ reveals his party. In his next remarks I see reflected a wholeworld of experiences. The books he has read, the people he has met, the companions he keeps, the influences that have played upon him andmade him the man he is--these are all registered there by a pen whichlets nothing pass, and whose writing can

 NEVER BE BLOTTED OUT. 

What I am reading in him meantime he also is reading in me; and beforethe journey is over we could half write each other's lives. Whether welike it or not, we live in glass houses. The mind, the memory, thesoul, is simply a vast chamber panelled with looking-glass. And uponthis miraculous arrangement and endowment depends the capacity ofmortal souls to "reflect the character of the Lord. "

(2). But this is not all. If all these varied reflections from ourso-called secret life are patent to the world, how close the writing, complete the record within the soul itself! For the influences we meetare not simply held for a moment on the polished surface and thrownoff again into space. Each is retained where first it fell, and storedup in the soul forever. 

 THIS LAW OF ASSIMILATION

is the second, and by far the most impressive truth which underliesthe formula of sanctification--the truth that men are not onlymirrors, but that these mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors ofthe fleeting things they see, transfer into their own inmostsubstance, and hold in permanent preservation the things that theyreflect. 

No one knows how the soul can hold these things. No one knows how themiracle is done. No phenomenon in nature, no process in chemistry, nochapter in necromancy can ever help us to begin to understand thisamazing operation. For, think of it, the past is not only _focused_there, in a man's soul, it _is_ there. How could it be reflected fromthere if it were not there? All things that he has ever seen, known, felt, believed of the surrounding world are now within him, havebecome part of him, in part are him--he has been changed into theirimage. He may deny it, he may resent it, but they are there. They donot adhere to him, they are transfused through him. He cannot alter orrub them out. They are not in his memory, they are in _him_. His soulis as they have filled it, made it, left it. These things, thesebooks, these events, these influences are his makers. In their handsare life and death, beauty and deformity. When once the image orlikeness of any of these is fairly presented to the soul, no power onearth can hinder two things happening--it must be absorbed into thesoul and forever reflected back again from character. 

Upon these astounding yet perfectly obvious psychological facts, Paulbases his doctrine of sanctification. He sees that character is athing built up by slow degrees, that it is hourly changing for betteror for worse according to the images which flit across it. One stepfurther and the whole length and breadth of the application of theseideas to the central problem of religion will stand before us. 

II. THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 

If events change men, much more persons. No man can meet another onthe street without making some mark upon him. We say we exchange wordswhen we meet; what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse is veryclose and very frequent, so complete is this exchange thatrecognizable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other'snature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt tothe first. 

Now, we become like those whom we habitually reflect. I could provefrom science that applies even to the physical framework ofanimals--that they are influenced and organically changed by theenvironment in which they live. 

This mysterious approximating of two souls, who has not witnessed? Whohas not watched some old couple come down life's pilgrimage hand inhand, with such gentle trust and joy in one another that their veryfaces wore the self-same look? These were not two souls; it was acomposite soul. It did not matter to which of the two you spoke, youwould have said the same words to either. It was quite indifferentwhich replied, each would have said the same. Half a century's_reflecting_ had told upon them; they were changed into the sameimage. It is the Law of Influence that _we become like those whom wehabitually reflect_: these had become like because they habituallyreflected. Through all the range of literature, of history, andbiography this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. Therewas a savor of David about Jonathan, and a savor of Jonathan aboutDavid. Metempsychosis is a fact. George Eliot's message to the worldwas that men and women make men and women. The Family, the cradle ofmankind, has no meaning apart from this. Society itself is nothing buta rallying point for these omnipotent forces to do their work. On thedoctrine of Influence, in short, the whole vast pyramid of humanity isbuilt. 

But it was reserved for Paul to make the supreme application of theLaw of Influence. It was a tremendous inference to make, but he neverhesitated. He himself was a changed man; he knew exactly what had doneit;

 IT WAS CHRIST. 

On the Damascus road they met, and from that hour his life wasabsorbed in His. The effect could not but follow--on words, on deeds, on career, on creed. The "impressed forces" did their vital work. Hebecame like Him Whom he habitually loved. "So we all, " he writes, "reflecting as a mirror the glory of Christ, are changed into the sameimage. "

Nothing could be more simple, more intelligible, more natural, moresupernatural. It is an analogy from an every-day fact. Since we arewhat we are by the impacts of those who surround us, those whosurround themselves with the highest will be those who change into thehighest. There are some men and some women in whose company we are

 ALWAYS AT OUR BEST. 

While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerouswords. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. Allthe best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse, andwe find a music in our souls that was never there before. Suppose even_that_ influence prolonged through a month, a year, a lifetime, andwhat could not life become? Here, even on the common plane of life, talking our language, walking our streets, working side by side, aresanctifiers of souls; here, breathing through common clay, is Heaven;here, energies charged even through a temporal medium with the virtueof regeneration. If to live with men, diluted to the millionth degreewith the virtue of the Highest, can exalt and purify the nature, whatbounds can be set to the influence of Christ? To live withSocrates--with unveiled face--must have made one wise; with Aristides, just. Francis Assisi must have made one gentle; Savonarola, strong. But to have lived with Christ must have made one like Christ: that isto say, _A Christian_. 

As a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce this effect. Itproduced it in the case of Paul. And during Christ's lifetime theexperiment was tried in an even more startling form. A few raw, unspiritual, uninspiring men, were admitted to the inner circle of Hisfriendship. The change began at once. Day by day we can almost see thefirst disciple grow. First there steals over them the faintestpossible adumbration of His character, and occasionally, veryoccasionally, they do a thing or say a thing that they could not havedone or said had they not been living there. Slowly the spell of HisLife deepens. Reach after reach of their nature is overtaken, thawed, subjugated, sanctified. Their manner softens, their words become moregentle, their conduct more unselfish. As swallows who have found asummer, as frozen buds the spring, their starved humanity bursts intoa fuller life. They do not know how it is, but they are different men. 

One day they find themselves like their Master, going about and doinggood. To themselves it is unaccountable, but they cannot do otherwise. They were not told to do it, it came to them to do it. But the peoplewho watch them know well how to account for it--"They have been, " theywhisper, "with Jesus. " Already even, the mark and seal of Hischaracter is upon them--"They have been with Jesus. " Unparalleledphenomenon, that these poor fishermen should remind other men ofChrist! Stupendous victory and mystery of

 REGENERATION

that mortal men should suggest _God_ to the world!

There is something almost melting in the way His contemporaries, andJohn especially, speak of the influence of Christ. John lived himselfin daily wonder at Him; he was overpowered, over-awed, entranced, transfigured. To his mind it was impossible for any one to come underthis influence and ever be the same again. "Whosoever abideth in Himsinneth not, " he said. It was inconceivable that he should sin, asinconceivable as that ice should live in a burning sun, or darknesscoexist with noon. If any one did sin, it was to John the simple proofthat he could never have met Christ. "Whosoever sinneth, " he exclaims, "hath not seen _Him_, neither known _Him_. " Sin was abashed in thisPresence. Its roots withered. Its sway and victory were forever at anend. 

But these were His contemporaries. It was easy for _them_ to beinfluenced by Him, for they were every day and all the day together. But how can we mirror that which we have never seen? How can all thisstupendous result be produced by a Memory, by the scantiest of allBiographies, by One who lived and left this earth eighteen hundredyears ago? How can modern men to-day make Christ, the absent Christ, their most constant companion still?

The answer is that

 FRIENDSHIP IS A SPIRITUAL THING. 

It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That which I love inmy friend is not that which I see. What influences me in my friend isnot his body but his spirit. He influences me about as much in hisabsence as in his presence. It would have been an ineffable experiencetruly to have lived at that time--

 "I think when I read the sweet story of old, How when Jesus was here among men, He took little children like lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with Him then. 

 "I wish that His hand had been laid on my head, That His arms had been thrown around me, And that I had seen His kind look when he said, 'Let the little ones come unto me. '"

And yet, if Christ were to come into the world again, few of usprobably would ever have a chance of seeing Him. Millions of hersubjects in the little country of England have never seen their ownQueen. And there would be millions of the subjects of Christ who couldnever get within speaking distance of Him if He were here. We rememberHe said: "It is expedient for you (not _for Me_) that I go away";because by going away He could really be nearer to us than He wouldhave been if He had stayed here. It would be geographically andphysically impossible for most of us to be influenced by His personhad He remained. And so our communion with Him is a spiritualcompanionship; but not different from most companionships, which, whenyou press them down to the roots, you will find to be essentiallyspiritual. 

All friendship, all love, human and Divine, is purely spiritual. Itwas after He was risen that He influenced even the disciples most. Hence, in reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real obstaclethat we may never have been in visible contact with Himself. 

There lived once a young girl whose perfect grace of character was thewonder of those who knew her. She wore on her neck a gold locket whichno one was ever allowed to open. One day, in a moment of unusualconfidence, one of her companions was allowed to touch its spring andlearn its secret. She saw written these words--

"_Whom having not seen I love_. "

That was the secret of her beautiful life. She had been changed intothe Same Image. 

Now this is not imitation, but a much deeper thing. Mark thisdistinction, for the difference in the process, as well as in theresult, may be as great as that between a photograph secured by theinfallible pencil of the sun, and the rude outline from a school-boy'schalk. Imitation is mechanical, reflection organic. The one isoccasional, the other habitual. In the one case, man comes to God andimitates him; in the other, God comes to man and imprints Himself uponhim. It is quite true that there is an imitation of Christ whichamounts to reflection. But Paul's term includes all that the otherholds, and is open to no mistake. 

What, then, is the practical lesson? It is obvious. "Make Christ yourmost constant companion"--this is what it practically means for us. Bemore under His influence than under any other influence. Ten minutesspent in His society every day, ay, two minutes if it be face to face, and heart to heart, will make the whole day different. Every characterhas an inward spring, --let Christ be it. Every action has akey-note, --let Christ set it. 

Yesterday you got a certain letter. You sat down and wrote a replywhich almost scorched the paper. You picked the cruelest adjectivesyou knew and sent it forth, without a pang to do its ruthless work. You did that because your life was set in the wrong key. You began theday with the mirror placed at the wrong angle. 

Tomorrow at day-break, turn it towards Him, and even to your enemy thefashion of your countenance will be changed. Whatever you then do, onething you will find you could not do--you could not write that letter. Your first impulse may be the same, your judgment may be unchanged, but if you try it the ink will dry on your pen, and you will rise fromyour desk an unavenged, but a greater and more Christian man. Throughout the whole day your actions, down to the last detail, willdo homage to that early vision. 

Yesterday you thought mostly about yourself. Today the poor will meetyou, and you will feed them. The helpless, the tempted, the sad, willthrong about you, and each you will befriend. Where were all thesepeople yesterday? Where they are today, but you did not see them. Itis in reflected light that the poor are seen. But your soul today is

 NOT AT THE ORDINARY ANGLE. 

"Things which are not seen" are visible. For a few short hours youlive the Eternal Life. The eternal life, the life of faith, is simplythe life of a higher vision. Faith is an attitude--a mirror set at theright angle. 

When tomorrow is over, and in the evening you review it, you willwonder how you did it. You will not be conscious that you strove foranything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything. You will beconscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without compulsion youwere yet compelled; that without force, or noise, or proclamation, therevolution was accomplished. You do not congratulate yourself as onewho has done a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or storedup a fund of "Christian experience" to ensure the same result again. What you are conscious of is "the glory of the Lord. " And what theworld is conscious of, if the result be a true one, is also "the gloryof the Lord. " In looking at a mirror one does not see the mirror, orthink of it, but only of what it reflects. For a mirror never callsthe attention to itself--except when there are flaws in it. 

Let me say a word or two more about the effects which necessarily mustfollow from this contact, or fellowship, with Christ. I need not quotethe texts upon the subject--the texts about abiding in Christ. "Hethat abideth in Him sinneth not. " You cannot sin when you are standingin front of Christ. You simply cannot do it. Again: "If ye abide inMe, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shallbe done unto you. " Think of that! That is another inevitableconsequence. And there is yet another: "He that abideth in Me, thesame bringeth forth much fruit. " Sinlessness--answered prayer--muchfruit. 

But in addition to these things, see how many of the highest Christianvirtues and experiences necessarily flow from the assumption of thatattitude toward Christ. For instance, the moment you assume thatrelation to Christ you begin to know what the _child-spirit_ is. Youstand before Christ, and He becomes your Teacher, and youinstinctively become docile. Then you learn also to become_charitable_ and _tolerant_; because you are learning of Him, and Heis "meek and lowly in heart, " and you catch that spirit. That is a bitof His character being reflected into yours. Instead of being criticaland self-asserting, you become humble and have the mind of a littlechild. 

I think, further, the only way of learning what _faith_ is is to knowChrist and be in His company. You hear sermons about the ninedifferent kinds of faith--distinctions drawn between the right kind offaith and the wrong--and sermons telling you how to get faith. So faras I can see, there is

 ONLY ONE WAY

in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world as itis in the world of men and women. I learn to trust you, my brother, just as I get to know you, and neither more nor less; and you get totrust me just as you get to know me. I do not trust you as a stranger, but as I come into contact with you, and watch you, and live with you, I find out that you are trustworthy, and I come to trust myself toyou, and to lean upon you. But I do not do that to a stranger. 

The way to trust Christ is to know Christ. You cannot help trustingHim then. You are changed. By knowing Him faith is begotten in you, ascause and effect. To trust Him without knowing Him as thousands do, isnot faith, but credulity. I believe a great deal of prayer for faithis thrown away. What we should pray for is that we may be able tofulfill the condition, and when we have fulfilled the condition, thefaith necessarily follows. The way, therefore, to increase our faithis to increase our intimacy with Christ. We trust Him more and morethe better we know Him. 

And then another immediate effect of this way of sanctifying thecharacter is the tranquillity that it brings over the Christian life. How disturbed and distressed and anxious Christian people are abouttheir growth in grace! Now, the moment you give that over intoChrist's care--the moment you see that you are _being_ changed--thatanxiety passes away. You see that it must follow by an inevitableprocess and by a natural law if you fulfill the simple condition; sothat peace is the reward of that life and fellowship with Christ. 

Many other things follow. A man's usefulness depends to a large extentupon his fellowship with Christ. That is obvious. Only Christ caninfluence the world; but all that the world sees of Christ is what itsees of you and me. Christ said: "The world seeth Me no more, but yesee Me. " You see Him, and standing in front of Him reflect Him, andthe world sees the reflection. It cannot see Him. So that aChristian's usefulness depends solely upon that relationship. 

Now, I have only pointed out a few of the things that follow from thestanding before Christ--from the abiding in Christ. You will find, ifyou run over the texts about abiding in Christ, many other things willsuggest themselves in the same relations. Almost everything inChristian experience and character follows, and follows necessarily, from standing before Christ and reflecting his character. But thesupreme consummation is that we are changed into _the same image_, "even as by the Lord the Spirit. " That is to say, that in some way, unknown to us, but possibly not more mysterious than the doctrine ofpersonal influence, we are changed into the image of Christ. 

This method cannot fail. I am not setting before you an opinion or atheory, but this is

 A CERTAINLY SUCCESSFUL MEANS

of sanctification. "We all, with unveiled face, reflecting in a mirrorthe glory of Christ (the character of Christ) assuredly--without anymiscarriage--without any possibility of miscarriage--are changed intothe same image. " It is an immense thing to be anchored in some greatprinciple like that. Emerson says: "The hero is the man who isimmovably centered. " Get immovably centered in that doctrine ofsanctification. Do not be carried away by the hundred and one theoriesof sanctification that are floating about in religious literature ofthe country at the present time; but go to the bottom of the thing foryourself, and see the _rationale_ of it for yourself, and you willcome to see that it is a matter of cause and effect, and that if youwill fulfill the condition laid down by Christ, the effect must followby a natural law. 

What a prospect! To be changed into the same image. Think of that!That is what we are here for. That is what we are elected for. Not tobe saved, in the common acceptation, but "whom He did foreknow He alsodid predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. " Not merelyto be saved, but _to be conformed to the image of His Son_. Conservethat principle. And as we must spend time in cultivating our earthlyfriendships if we are to have their blessings, so we must

 SPEND TIME

in cultivating the fellowship and companionship of Christ. And thereis nothing so much worth taking into our lives as a profounder senseof what is to be had by living in communion with Christ, and bygetting nearer to Him. It will matter much if we take away with ussome of the thoughts about theology, and some of the new light thathas been shed upon the text of Scripture; it will matter infinitelymore if our fellowship with the Lord Jesus become a little closer, andour theory of holy living a little more rational. And then as we goforth, men will take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus, and as we reflect Him upon them, they will begin to be changed intothe same image. 

It seems to me the preaching is of infinitely smaller account than thelife which mirrors Christ. That is bound to tell; without speech orlanguage--like the voices of the stars. It throws out its impressionson every side. The one simple thing we have to do is to be there--inthe right relation; to go through life hand in hand with Him; to haveHim in the room with us, and keeping us company wherever we go; todepend upon Him and lean upon Him, and so have His life reflected inthe fullness of its beauty and perfection into ours. 

III. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 

Then you reduce religion to a common Friendship? A commonFriendship--who talks of a _common_ Friendship? There is no such thingin the world. 

On earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is the nearest thing weknow to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion akin toFriendship is simply to give it the highest expression conceivable byman. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is meant a protestagainst the greatest and the holiest in religion being spoken of inintelligible terms, then I am afraid the objection is all too real. Men always look for a mystery when one talks of sanctification, somemystery apart from that which must ever be mysterious wherever Spiritworks. It is thought some peculiar secret lies behind it, some occultexperience which only the initiated know. Thousands of persons go tochurch every Sunday hoping to solve this mystery. At meetings, atconferences, many a time they have reached what they thought was thevery brink of it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring overreligious books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; thenext page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would beborne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The nextsentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them; andthough the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end, thelast chapter found them still pursuing. 

Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothingof the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Becausethere was no "it. " When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness issimply

 THE PURSUIT OF CHRIST?

When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious aspiration, theapproach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not inmoods; Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mysticrapture of the soul. 

And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason, will findscant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a religionexpressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that it is stilltoo mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ our most constantcompanion, " is to them the purest mysticism. They want somethingabsolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These are not the poeticalsouls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess, but the prosaic natureswhose want is mathematical definition in details. Yet it is perhapsnot possible to reduce this problem to much more rigid elements. Thebeauty of Friendship is its infinity. One can never evacuate life ofmysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it, religion is full ofit. Why stumble at that in the relation of man to Christ which isnatural in the relation of man to man?

If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical relation with Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on to it by stillplainer analogies from common life. How do I know Shakspere or Dante?By communing with their words and thoughts. Many men know Dante betterthan their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritualpresence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Isthere any reason why a greater than Shakspere or Dante, who alsowalked this earth, who left great words behind Him, who has greaterworks everywhere in the world now, should not also instruct, inspireand mould the characters of men? I do not limit Christ's influence tothis: it is this, and it is more. But Christ, so far from resentingor discouraging this relation of Friendship, Himself proposed it. "Abide in me" was almost His last word to the world. And He partly metthe difficulty of those who feel its intangibleness by adding thepractical clause, "If ye abide in Me, _and My words abide in you_. "

Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be long impersonal. Christ himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words flesh; dothem, live them, and you must live Christ. "_He that keepeth MyCommandments_, he it is that loveth Me. " Obey Him and you must loveHim. Abide in Him, and you must obey Him. _Cultivate_ His Friendship. Live after Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, and it isdifficult to think what more you can do. Take this at least as a firstlesson, as introduction. 

If you cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon yours, watch for it also indirectly. "The whole earth is full of thecharacter of the Lord. " Christ is the Light of the world, and much ofhis Light is reflected from things in the world--even from clouds. Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal, and itcomforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the sun. Christ shines through men, through books, through history, throughnature, music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one should eitherlook at a beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music, or read abeautiful poem. " The real danger of mysticism is not making it broadenough. 

Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourselfgrow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grownoiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul saidfor the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew"from character to character. " "The inward man, " he says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day. " All thorough work is slow; all truedevelopment by minute, slight and insensible metamorphoses. The higherthe structure, moreover, the slower the progress. As the biologistruns his eye over the long Ascent of Life, he sees the lowest forms ofanimals develop in an hour; the next above these reach maturity in aday; those higher still take weeks or months to perfect; but the fewat the top demand the long experiment of years. If a child and an apeare born on the same day, the last will be in full possession of itsfaculties and doing the active work of life before the child has leftits cradle. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to theanimal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man tothe natural man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of aneternal life must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; whowill wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day?

To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine actof faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity withitself, of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must one trust theprocess fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord the Spirit" willdo His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visibleprogress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end bywatching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. Aphotograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simplystops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world can improve the result or quicken it. Thecreation of a new heart, the renewing of a right spirit, is anomnipotent work of God. Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath beguna good work in you will perfect it unto that day. "

No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is atstake will be careless as to his progress. To become

 LIKE CHRIST

is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing beforewhich every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain. 

Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of theirlives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemedup to this point as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. A religionof effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never fora man. Not in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope;not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm ofideals, but among tangible things, is man's sanctification wrought. Resolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, agony--all the thingsalready dismissed as futile in themselves, must now be restored tooffice, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them. For what is theiroffice? Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, andplace it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. Itis to rally the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirrorbright and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is tolook at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights arenear. 

You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph thespectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the observatory yousaw him begin by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but toadjust the instrument to see the star with. It was the star that wasgoing to take the photograph; it was, also, the astronomer. For a longtime he worked in the dimness, screwing tubes and polishing lenses andadjusting reflectors, and only after much labor the finely focusedinstrument was brought to bear. Then he blew out the light, and leftthe star to do its work upon the plate alone. 

The day's task for the Christian is to bring his instrument to bear. Having done that he may blow out his candle. All the evidences ofChristianity which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all actsof worship, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer andMeditation, all girding of the Will--these lesser processes, thesecandle-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside. But, remember, it is but for an hour. The wise man will be he who quickestlights his candle, the wisest he who never lets it out. Tomorrow, thenext moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it again tofocus the Image better, to take a mote off the lens, to clear themirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it. 

No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. That is onegreat fixed point in this shifting universe. But _the world moves_. And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment forthe soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called _the Will_. Hence, while thesoul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intenseactivity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of theworld bear it beyond the line of vision. To "follow Christ" is largelyto keep the soul in such position as will allow for the motion of theearth. And this calculated counteracting of the movements of theworld, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud andearthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor ofthe Will. It is all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practiceit is both; in theory it is both. But the wise man will say inpractice, "It depends upon myself. "

In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous statue. It was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a genius, wasvery poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio andsleeping-room alike. When the statue was all but finished, onemidnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake in thefireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought how thewater would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the dream ofhis life. So the old man rose from his couch and heaped thebed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morning when theneighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue wassaved!

The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is life's onecharge. Let every project stand aside for that. The spirit of God whobrooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy now creatingmen, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image of God. "Till Christ be formed, " no man's work is finished, no religioncrowned, no life has fulfilled its end. Is the infinite task begun?When, how, are we to be different? Time cannot change men. Deathcannot change men. Christ can. Wherefore _put on Christ_. 

DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

There is a subject which I think workers amongst young men cannotafford to keep out of sight--I mean the subject of "Doubt. " We areforced to face that subject. We have no choice. I would rather let italone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, and I am quitesure that most Christian workers among men have innumerable interviewsevery year with men who raise skeptical difficulties about religion. 

Now it becomes a matter of great practical importance that we shouldknow how to deal wisely with these. Upon the whole, I think these arethe best men in the country. I speak of my own country. I speak of theuniversities with which I am familiar, and I say that the men who areperplexed, --the men who come to you with serious and honestdifficulties, --are the best men. They are men of intellectual honesty, and cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, or phrases, ortraditions, or theologies, but who must get to the bottom of thingsfor themselves. And if I am not mistaken, CHRIST WAS VERY FOND

of these men. The outsiders always interested Him, and touched Him. The orthodox people--the Pharisees--He was much less interested in. Hewent with publicans and sinners--with people who were in revoltagainst the respectability, intellectual and religious, of the day. And following Him, we are entitled to give sympathetic considerationto those whom He loved and took trouble with. 

First, let me speak for a moment or two about

 THE ORIGIN OF DOUBT. 

In the first place, _we are born questioners_. Look at the wondermentof a little child in its eyes before it can speak. The child's greatword when it begins to speak is, "Why?" Every child is full of everykind of question, about every kind of thing, that moves, and shines, and changes, in the little world in which it lives. 

That is the incipient doubt in the nature of man. Respect doubt forits origin. It is an inevitable thing. It is not a thing to becrushed. It is a part of man as God made him. Heresy is truth in themaking, and doubt is the prelude of knowledge. 

Secondly: _The world is a Sphinx. _ It is a vast riddle--anunfathomable mystery; and on every side there is temptation toquestioning. In every leaf, in every cell of every leaf, there are ahundred problems. There are ten good years of a man's life ininvestigating what is in a leaf, and there are five good years more ininvestigating the things that are in the things that are in the leaf. God has planned the world to incite men to intellectual activity. 

Thirdly: _The instrument with which we attempt to investigate truth isimpaired. _ Some say it fell, and the glass is broken. Some sayprejudice, heredity, or sin, have spoiled its sight, and have blindedour eyes and deadened our ears. In any case the instruments withwhich we work upon truth, even in the strongest men, are feeble andinadequate to their tremendous task. 

And in the fourth place, _all religious truths are doubtable_. Thereis no absolute truth for any one of them. Even that fundamentaltruth--the existence of a God--no man can prove by reason. Theordinary proof for the existence of God involves either an assumption, argument in a circle, or a contradiction. The impression of God iskept up by experience, not by logic. And hence, when the experimentalreligion of a man, of a community, or of a nation wanes, religionwanes--their idea of God grows indistinct, and that man, community ornation becomes infidel. 

Bear in mind, then, that all religious truths are doubtable--eventhose which we hold most strongly. 

What does this brief account of the origin of doubt teach us? Itteaches us

 GREAT INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY. 

It teaches us sympathy and toleration with all men who venture uponthe ocean of truth to find out a path through it for themselves. Doyou sometimes feel yourself thinking unkind things about yourfellow-students who have intellectual difficulty? I know how hard itis always to feel sympathy and toleration for them; but we mustaddress ourselves to that most carefully and most religiously. If mybrother is shortsighted I must not abuse him or speak against him; Imust pity him, and if possible try to improve his sight, or to makethings that he is to look at so bright that he cannot help seeing. Butnever let us think evil of men who do not see as we do. From thebottom of our hearts let us pity them, and let us take them by thehand and spend time and thought over them, and try to lead them to thetrue light. 

What has been

 THE CHURCH'S TREATMENT OF DOUBT

in the past? It has been very simple. "There is a heretic. Burn him!"That is all. "There is a man who has gone off the road. Bring him backand torture him!"

We have got past that physically; have we got past it morally? Whatdoes the modern Church say to a man who is skeptical? Not "Burn him!"but "Brand him!" "Brand him!"--call him a bad name. And in manycountries at the present time, a man who is branded as a heretic isdespised, tabooed and put out of religious society, much more than ifhe had gone wrong in morals. I think I am speaking within the factswhen I say that a man who is unsound is looked upon in manycommunities with more suspicion and with more pious horror than a manwho now and then gets drunk. "Burn him!" "Brand him!" "Excommunicatehim!" That has been the Church's treatment of doubt, and that isperhaps to some extent the treatment which we ourselves are inclinedto give to the men who cannot see the truths of Christianity as we seethem. 

Contrast

 CHRIST'S TREATMENT

of doubt. I have spoken already of His strange partiality for theoutsiders--for the scattered heretics up and down the country; of thecare with which He loved to deal with them, and of the respect inwhich He held their intellectual difficulties. Christ never failed todistinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is "_can't believe_";unbelief is "_won't believe_. " Doubt is honesty; unbelief isobstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content withdarkness. Loving darkness rather than light--that is what Christattacked, and attacked unsparingly. But for the intellectualquestioning of Thomas, and Philip, and Nicodemus, and the many otherswho came to Him to have their great problems solved, He was respectfuland generous and tolerant. 

And how did He meet their doubts? The Church, as I have said, says, "Brand him!" Christ said, "Teach him. " He destroyed by fulfilling. When Thomas came to Him and denied His very resurrection, and stoodbefore Him waiting for the scathing words and lashing for hisunbelief, they never came. They never came! Christ gave himfacts--facts! No man can go around facts. Christ said, "Behold Myhands and My feet. " The great god of science at the present time is afact. It works with facts. Its cry is, "Give me facts. Found anythingyou like upon facts and we will believe it. " The spirit of Christ wasthe scientific spirit. He founded His religion upon facts; and Heasked all men to found their religion upon facts. 

Now, get up the facts of Christianity, and take men to the facts. Theologies--and I am not speaking disrespectfully of theology;theology is as scientific a thing as any other science of facts--buttheologies are

 HUMAN VERSIONS

of Divine truths, and hence the varieties of the versions and theinconsistencies of them. I would allow a man to select whicheverversion of this truth he liked _afterwards_; but I would ask him tobegin with no version, but go back to the facts and base his Christianlife upon these. 

That is the great lesson of the New Testament way of looking atdoubt--of Christ's treatment of doubt. It is not "Brand him!"--butlovingly, wisely and tenderly to teach him. Faith is never opposed toreason in the New Testament; it is opposed to sight. You will findthat a principle worth thinking over. _Faith is never opposed toreason in the New Testament, but to sight. _

With these principles in mind as to the origin of doubt, and as toChrist's treatment of it, how are we ourselves to deal with those whoare in intellectual difficulty?

In the first place, I think _we must make all the concessions to themthat we conscientiously can_. 

When a doubter first encounters you, he pours out a deluge of abuse ofchurches, and ministers, and creeds, and Christians. Nine-tenths ofwhat he says is probably true. Make concessions. Agree with him. Itdoes him good to unburden himself of these things. He has beencherishing them for years--laying them up against Christians, againstthe Church, and against Christianity; and now he is startled to findthe first Christian with whom he has talked over the thing almostentirely agrees with him. We are, of course, not responsible foreverything that is said in the name of Christianity; but a man doesnot give up medicine because there are quack doctors, and no man has aright to give up his Christianity because there are spurious orinconsistent Christians. Then, as I already said, creeds are humanversions of Divine truths; and we do not ask a man to accept all thecreeds, any more than we ask him to accept all the Christians. We askhim to accept Christ, and the facts about Christ and the words ofChrist. You will find the battle is half won when you have endorsedthe man's objections, and possibly added a great many more to thecharges which he has against ourselves. These men are

 IN REVOLT

against the kind of religion which we exhibit to the world--againstthe cant that is taught in the name of Christianity. And if the menthat have never seen the real thing--if you could show them that, theywould receive it as eagerly as you do. They are merely in revoltagainst the imperfections and inconsistencies of those who representChrist to the world. 

Second: _Beg them to set aside, by an act of will, all unsolvedproblems_: such as the problem of the origin of evil, the problem ofthe Trinity, the problem of the relation of human will andpredestination, and so on--problems which have been investigated forthousands of years without result--ask them to set those problemsaside as insoluble. In the meantime, just as a man who is studyingmathematics may be asked to set aside the problem of squaring thecircle, let him go on with what can be done, and what has been done, and leave out of sight the impossible. 

You will find that will relieve the skeptic's mind of a great deal of

 UNNECESSARY CARGO

that has been in his way. 

Thirdly: _Talking about difficulties, as a rule, only aggravatesthem. _

Entire satisfaction to the intellect is unattainable about any of thegreater problems, and if you try to get to the bottom of them byargument, there is no bottom there; and therefore you make the matterworse. But I would say what is known, and what can be honestly andphilosophically and scientifically said about one or two of thedifficulties that the doubter raises, just to show him that you can doit--to show him that you are not a fool--that you are not merelygroping in the dark yourself, but you have found whatever basis ispossible. But I would not go around all the doctrines. I would simplydo that with one or two; because the moment you cut off one, a hundredother heads will grow in its place. It would be a pity if all theseproblems could be solved. The joy of the intellectual life would belargely gone. I would not rob a man of his problems, nor would I haveanother man rob me of my problems. They are the delight of life, andthe whole intellectual world would be stale and unprofitable if weknew everything. 

Fourthly--and this is the great point: _Turn away from the reason andgo into the man's moral life. _

I don't mean, go into his moral life and see if the man is living inconscious sin, which is the great blinder of the eyes--I am speakingnow of honest doubt; but open a new door into

 THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF MAN'S NATURE. 

Entreat him not to postpone life and his life's usefulness until hehas settled the problems of the universe. Tell him those problems willnever all be settled; that his life will be done before he has begunto settle them; and ask him what he is doing with his life meantime. Charge him with wasting his life and his usefulness; and invite him todeal with the moral and practical difficulties of the world, and leavethe intellectual difficulties as he goes along. To spend time uponthese is proving the less important before the more important; and, asthe French say, "The good is the enemy of the best. " It is a goodthing to think; it is a better thing to work--it is a better thing todo good. And you have him there, you see. He can't get beyond that. You have to tell him, in fact, that there are two organs of knowledge:the one reason, the other obedience. And now tell him, as he has triedthe first and found the little in it, just for a moment or two to joinyou in trying the second. And when he asks whom he is to obey, youtell him there is but One, and lead him to the great historical figurewho calls all men to Him: the one perfect life--the one Savior ofmankind--the one Light of the world. Ask him to begin to

 OBEY CHRIST;

and, doing His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be ofGod. 

That, I think, is about the only thing you can do with a man: to gethim into practical contact with the needs of the world, and to let himlose his intellectual difficulties meantime. Don't ask him to givethem up altogether. Tell him to solve them afterward one by one if hecan, but meantime to give his life to Christ and his time to thekingdom of God. You fetch him completely around when you do that. Youhave taken him away from the false side of his nature, and to thepractical and moral side of his nature; and for the first time in hislife, perhaps, he puts things in their true place. He puts his naturein the relations in which it ought to be, and he then only begins tolive. And by obedience he will soon become a learner and pupil forhimself, and Christ will teach him things, and he will find whateverproblems are solvable gradually solved as he goes along the path ofpractical duty. 

Now, let me, in closing, give an instance of how to deal with specificpoints. 

The question of miracles is thrown at my head every second day:

"What do you say to a man when he says to you, 'Why do you believe inmiracles?'"

I say, "Because I have seen them. "

He asks, "When?"

I say, "Yesterday. "

"Where?"

"Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was a drunkard redeemedby the power of an unseen Christ and saved from sin. That is amiracle. "

The best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. That is a factwhich the man cannot get over. There are fifty other arguments formiracles, but none so good as that you have seen them. Perhaps you areone yourself. But take a man and show him a miracle with his own eyes. Then he will believe. 

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