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           Title: Brooks by the Traveller's Way
      Creator(s): Jowett, John Henry (1864-1923)
     Print Basis: New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son (1902)
   CCEL Subjects: All; proofed
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                                     BROOKS

    BY THE

                                TRAVELLER'S WAY

BY

J. H. JOWETT, M.A.

CARR'S LANE, BIRMINGHAM

Author of
"APOSTOLIC OPTIMISM"
etc.

    Fifth Thousand

NEW YORK

A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON

3 & 5 WEST 18^th STREET, Near 5^th AVENUE
LONDON: H. R. ALLENSON

1902

PRINTED IN ENGLAND.
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Foreword.

   The addresses in this volume were all originally published in the
   Examiner newspaper, and it was not intended by Mr. Jowett, that they
   should ever take more permanent form. They were found, however, to be
   so helpful and stimulating by a wide circle of readers, and so many
   requests for their republication were received, that it has been
   resolved to issue them in the present volume, with the hope that they
   may appeal for good to a still larger public. As they retain the form
   of spoken rather than written addresses, it is only due to the author
   that this much should be stated.

   W. B. SELBIE,

   (Editor of "The Examiner." )
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  i.

Man's Setting and God's Setting.

   "I have set."--Psalm xvi. 8.

   "He set."--Psalm xl. 2.

   The Bible abounds in figures representing spiritual attitudes and the
   Father's gracious response. Man assumes a certain posture of soul, and
   the grace of the Lord falls upon him like a soft and inspiring light.
   How shall I dispose my life? At what angle shall I incline it that I
   may receive this glorious baptism? I find the requisite suggestion in a
   verse of the Psalmist,--"I have set the Lord always before me." That is
   a "setting" on my part, which will issue in a responsive "setting" on
   the part of God. I determine the direction of gaze; He will determine
   the character of my life. I "set the Lord always before me"; He will
   "set my feet upon a rock." He will "set my feet in a large place." He
   will "set before me an open door." Let us consider both sides of the
   wondrous fellowship, the steady contemplation, and its inevitable
   results.

  I. Man's Setting.

   "I have set the Lord always before me" (Psalm xiv. 8).

   You are away from home, and in the far-away city; before you retire to
   rest you take out of your pocket a photograph, and gaze upon the
   likeness of your wife or child. How calming and steadying is the
   influence of the picture as you set it before you! One of Robertson's
   congregation at Brighton used to keep a portrait of the great preacher
   in the room behind his shop, and when he was tempted to any mean
   device, he would set the likeness before him, and its influence
   determined his inclination in the way of truth. But it is not the
   figure of any earthly personality, however noble and ennobling, which
   is the object of the Psalmist's contemplation. He "sets" before him the
   august and holy presence of God, and in the glory of His most searching
   light all the Psalmist's affairs are determined.

   "I have set the Lord always before me." It is not a temporary vision;
   it is a fixed outlook. It is not a Sabbath contemplation; it is the
   permanent background of the week. If the Lord is "always before me,"
   then everything else which may obtrude into the line of sight will be
   seen in relationship to God. I shall see nothing by itself; everything
   will be seen in divine company. Everything that emerges into my regard,
   and which demands my contemplation, will be seen against the great
   white background of the Almighty. I will judge everything by its
   appearance in this most revealing light. How does a thing look with God
   in the background? My suggestions, my desires, my pleasures, my
   ambitions, my conversations, my business, my prayers, shall all be seen
   in this heavenly relationship, and by its revelation shall their true
   quality be judged and determined. But to "set the Lord always before
   me," not only implies the possession of revealing light; it also
   implies a disposition of reverent and righteous choice. The man who
   "sets the Lord always before him" not only discerns the real nature of
   things; he chooses the worthy and repels the base. To "set the Lord
   always before me" implies another "setting" which is expressed by the
   prophet Isaiah, "I have set my face like a flint." That which is
   unveiled as unworthy I spurn with holy contempt; the revelation creates
   a revulsion. So that to "set the Lord" before one expresses a two-fold
   attribute of character--the attribute of clear discernment and of wise
   and sanctified choice.

  II. God's Setting.

   The man who steadily contemplates God as the abiding background of all
   his affection will find a spiritual ministry operating in his life with
   most gracious response. Let us gather up two or three of the "settings"
   which are the happy experiences of those who set their mind upon God.

   (1) "He set my feet upon a rock."

   The shake and tremble shall go out of life. Timidity shall be changed
   into a sense of firmness and security. The loose, uncertain sand and
   gravel shall be consolidated into rock. Loose ideas about the right
   shall be changed into strong perceptions. Loose principles shall be
   converted into immovable convictions. Vagrant affection shall be
   transfigured into steady and unwavering love. Weak will shall be
   energised into mighty powers of righteousness. There shall be about the
   entire life a firmness, a decisiveness, a sense of strength and "go"
   and security, analagous to the feelings of a man who has stepped from
   wet slippery clay to firm and solid rock.

   (2) "Thou hast set my feet in a large place."

   The life of the man whose gaze is fixed upon God shall not only be firm
   but roomy. Everything about his spirit shall receive enrichment. The
   consecrated life is not lived in the dark, dank surroundings of a
   narrow cell. Our feet are set in a "large place." Our affections, which
   were dwarfed and petty, become spacious and inclusive. Our pleasures
   have larger skies and more remote horizons. The enjoyments of the
   unconsecrated life were only as the uncertain pools and puddles of the
   common way. "Thou shalt make us to drink of the river of Thy
   pleasures." The only pleasures that are denied us are the bewitching
   and destructive delights of the flesh. But why should we mourn that
   they are gone? It would be like mourning for the return of the
   beclouding steam that dimmed the window-pane. The steam has gone, the
   blinding carnality is removed. We have now an outlook over the large
   and beautiful realm of the spirit. Our feet are "set in a large place."
   Our possibilities are enlarged. There are no limits to the power of our
   becoming, no confines to the bounds of our optimism. Peak upon peak
   rises before us, and we cheerfully entertain the hope of standing at
   last upon the ultimate summit "in the measure of the stature of the
   fulness of Christ."

   (3) "I have set before thee an open door."

   The life that is lived in steady contemplation of God is not only firm
   and roomy, but is characterised by daily enlargement. Every day the
   Lord opens doors to the consecrated life. Words that hitherto had no
   meaning throw open their doors and unveil their wealth. Promises that
   have hitherto been under lock and key fling their doors ajar, and
   invite us to partake of their treasure. We don't know just where we
   shall find the open door. Sometimes a lowly service confronts us. We
   discharge the humble task, and in the act of obedience we find we have
   passed through an open door into an enlarged conception of "the
   inheritance of the saints in light." In the old castle at Edinburgh,
   the way to the Crown Jewels leads through a very humble doorway and
   through a very dingy and circuitous passage. The humble doorways of
   common duties are frequently the way to the room where God keeps His
   jewels. The Lord is ever giving us new opportunities, fresh chances,
   that day by day we may grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him. It is
   His will that we should grow daily in finer discernment, richer
   affection, and more brilliant hope.

   Let us "set the Lord" always before us, and life in its inmost depths
   shall be wondrously transfigured. We shall step upon rock, we shall
   live in a large place, and life will be abundant in opportunities for
   moral and spiritual growth.
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  ii.

Things Concealed.

   "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing"--Prov. xxv. 2.

   The Lord conceals that He may the more abundantly reveal. He hides a
   thing in order that we may have the refining discipline of seeking for
   it, and enjoy the keen delights of discovery. Things which are come at
   easily are esteemed lightly. The pebble that lies upon the common way
   is beneath regard. The pearl that lies buried in ocean depths is a
   treasure of rare price. The pain of getting intensifies the joy of
   possessing. If everything could be picked up from the surface, life
   would become exceedingly superficial. But the best things are
   concealed. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a
   field." We have to dig for our wealth. We are called to a life of toil
   and discipline and research. Things are concealed in order that life
   may be a perpetual inquest. The only healthy life is the life of ardent
   inquisitiveness. "Ask." "Seek." "Knock."

   But where shall I make my search? I never know where the wealth may be
   concealed. The patch of ground which appears to be the most unpromising
   may be the hiding place of the finest gold. Therefore I will
   interrogate the commonplace, I will search into the humdrum ways of
   life; I will pierce into the heart of tame and sober duties; I will
   look for treasure even in the dark cloud. I will assume that there is a
   dowry of grace even in the ministry of pain. I will search for the
   wealth of poverty, the advantage of apparent disadvantage, the jewels
   that may be in the heaviest grief. I will look for the hidden treasure,
   for "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing."

   1. It is the glory of God to conceal His teaching in the hard and
   toilsome ways of experience.

   I come to know when I have begun to do. The doctrine is hidden in the
   obedience. "If any man will to do, he shall know." Illumination breaks
   out in the ways of consecration. The Bible expresses this teaching in a
   great variety of forms. Here is a beautiful image from the lips of the
   Psalmist. "Light is sown for the righteous." I can so arrange the
   sowing of seed that my garden is never without flowers. They succeed
   one another in appropriate succession, and each month is adorned with
   its own distinctive loveliness. I think of next March, with its bleak
   and chilly east winds. I imagine its prevailing desolations. But the
   bulbs are sown which, when the chilly month comes, will have emerged
   into beautiful flower. Now hidden, they are sown for March, and at the
   appointed time they will appear in their radiant robes. And there are
   chilly March months which I anticipate in the round of my life, the
   season of cold disappointment, of heavy perplexity, of dark
   bereavement; but "the light is sown," and when the chilly month comes,
   the light will be manifested in counsel and glory. Now it is hidden;
   when it is needed it will be found. But where shall I find it? "Light
   is sown for the righteous." Only along that particular way has the seed
   been sown. No light has been sown in the ways of revolt, and if I
   journey in these paths of transgression, the March season will find me
   bereft of the illumination of a clear and cheery light. Only as I toil
   along the way of obedience, the way of righteousness, shall I have
   gracious surprises of light which the loving Lord has sown and
   concealed for my benediction.

   Here is another word from the old book suggestive of the same teaching.
   "To him that overcometh will I give of the hidden manna." There is
   hidden manna. God has concealed heavenly food, nourishing and
   sustaining vision. Where has He concealed it? Just beyond the fight.
   "To Him that overcometh will I give." The fight is followed by the
   feast. Every conquest leads to the discovery of hidden manna. You fight
   and overcome the devil, and immediately you are conscious of a sweet
   joy, a sense of satisfaction, a wondrous perception of the fellowship
   and favour of God. It is the hidden manna. "Angels came and ministered
   unto Him." This gift of illumination, and this feast of fat things do
   not come to us before we have traversed the way of obedience. These are
   favours that are hidden in the very midst of the toilsome way, for it
   is "the glory of God to conceal a thing."

   2. It is the glory of God to conceal His fortune in apparent
   misfortune.

   We often find that the "valley of the shadow" gives rest to eyes which
   had become wearied with the "green pastures," and tired with the
   gleaming of the "still waters." It is sometimes the shadow that
   "restoreth our soul." The darkness often brings the healing medicament.
   In the apparent misfortune the Lord has hidden a fortune. God has
   concealed His riches in the night. The overcast sky is frequently our
   best friend.


   "The clouds ye so much dread

   Are big with mercy, and shall break

   In blessings on your head."

   What a calamity it appeared when the Apostle Paul was checked in his
   missionary career, and imprisoned in custody at Rome. It appeared as
   though an irrigating river had been dammed up, and had become a
   localised lake. His evangel appeared to be confined, and his activities
   paralysed. But it was "the glory of God to conceal a thing." The
   misfortune was only the shrine of a larger fortune. The Apostle cries
   with great jubilation--"The things that happened unto me have turned
   out rather for the furtherance of the Gospel." Out of his activity
   there came glorious letters which have guided and cheered the
   pilgrimage of a countless host.

   Pain comes to be my guest. My powers are wasted, and I am burdened with
   the dark companionship. I call it a calamity, or I regard it as a sore
   misfortune; but how often it has turned out that the calamity was only
   the dark vesture of benediction. In my suffering I gained a wider
   sympathy. My responsiveness was enriched. "Thou hast enlarged me when I
   was in distress."

   Disappointment flings a barrier across my path. My purposes are
   thwarted. My ambitions are checked. There comes an imperative "halt" in
   my life. I regard it as an ill day, and yet how often the apparently
   ill thing contains a jewel. Disappointment makes me think. I take a
   wider view of things. Through my thoughtfulness I attain to a finer
   discernment. Such is the gracious nutriment that is often hidden in a
   prickly burr. The dark misfortune was only "the shadow of the
   Almighty."

   3. It is the glory of the Lord to conceal His power in apparently
   contemptible agents.

   We never know where the Lord is preparing His instruments. Their
   emergence is usually creative of surprise. God hides His preparations
   in such strange places. He wants a missionary for the New Hebrides, and
   He fashions him in a peasant's cottage at Dumfries. Three of the most
   stalwart and fruitful labourers in modern Methodism were reared in a
   labourer's hut. God so frequently deserts conspicuous spheres, and
   nourishes His great ones in the obscure corners of the world. Perhaps
   the mightiest spiritual ministry, now being exerted in our country, is
   proceeding from the life of some unknown and unrecognised woman, living
   a strong and beautiful life in cramped and abject material conditions.
   "Things that are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things that are
   not." He makes the nobodies and the nothings into kings and queens.
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  "Behind and Before."

   "Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon
   me."--Psalm cxxxix. 5.

   "Thou hast beset me behind!" He deals with the enemy in the rear, the
   foe that lurks in my yesterdays. He does not ignore the dark heritage
   that bears down upon me from the past. "And before!" He deals with the
   enemy in the front, the foe that seems to hide in my to-morrows. "And
   laid Thine hand upon me!" He deals with the immediate contingency, and
   gives me a present consciousness of ample defence and security.

   But does He perfectly understand me? Does He know my idiosyncrasies? Is
   He intimate with my peculiar weaknesses? Does He know where the hedge
   is thin and vulnerable, and where my life is most easily invaded and
   defiled? Does He know where defences are more specially required? Let
   us seek the answer in the earlier verses of the Psalm, and let the
   spacious experience of the psalmist be interpreted as revealing the
   Almighty's intimate knowledge of the individual life.

  I. God's Intimate Knowledge of the Individual Life.

   "O Lord, Thou hast searched me." The examination has been most thorough
   and penetrating. Every nook and corner has been explored. Nothing has
   been overlooked, unrecognised, unnamed. "I, the Lord, search the
   heart."

   "And known me." It is the knowledge of an intimate friend. I require
   knowing. I am often misunderstood. The unexplored is so frequently the
   misjudged. The Lord knows me. "I know my sheep."

   "Thou knowest my downsitting." He is present in my seasons of
   meditation, in the hours when I sit down to think and plan and devise,
   and when the formative purposes of life are chosen and shaped.

   "And mine uprising." He is an intimate presence when meditation is
   ended, and the moment of execution has arrived. He knows when my
   purpose becomes an action, when "I will arise" has passed into "he
   arose," and resolution is being fulfilled.

   "Thou understandest my thought afar off." He discerns the faintest
   beginnings of purpose. He detects the mental germs. He sees my thought
   long before it is incarnated in an act. He sees it "afar off," when it
   is only a trembling suggestion, and when it passes almost imperceptibly
   across the threshold of the mind.

   "Thou searchest out my path." He knows the way I take to achieve my
   purposes. He knows all the windings of the road. He knows when it is
   "straight" and when it is "crooked." He knows all the means I employ.
   "He is acquainted with all my ways."

   "There is not a word in my tongue, but lo! O Lord, Thou knowest it
   altogether." He watches life as it blossoms at the lips. He marks the
   kindly vehicle of grace. He notes the ungainly vehicle of malice and
   ill-will. He knows the contents of all my intercourse, and how it is
   determined and coloured by the threats and flatteries of men.

   Surely this God knows me! He is intimate with my personal "make-up,"
   with my own peculiar weaknesses, and knows just what is needed to
   render me strong and invulnerable.

  II. The Security Given.

   1. "Thou hast beset me behind." He stands between me and my enemies in
   the rear. He defends me from the hostility of my own past. He does not
   cut me away from my yesterdays. Consequences are not annihilated; their
   operations are changed. They are transformed from destructives into
   constructives. The sword becomes a ploughshare; the implement of
   destruction becomes an agent of moral and spiritual culture. The Lord
   "besets me behind" and the sins of yesterday no longer send their
   poisoned swords into my life. They are changed into the ministers of a
   finer culture, nourishing godly sorrow, and humility, and meekness, and
   self-mistrust. The failures and indiscretions of yesterday are no
   longer creatures of moral impoverishment and despair. He "besets me
   behind," and they become the teachers of a quiet wisdom and
   well-proportioned thought.

   2. "And before." He comes between me and the enemy that troubles me
   from to-morrow, the foe that lies ambushed in futurity and disturbs the
   peace of to-day. And so He deals with my fears and anxieties, and
   repeats the miracle of transformation, and changes them from swords
   into ploughshares. He changes destructive anxiety into a constructive
   thoughtfulness. He converts a lacerating fretfulness into an energetic
   contentment. He transforms an abject fear into a holy reverence. He
   takes the terror out of to-morrow, and enables me to live and labour in
   a fruitful calm.

   3. "And laid Thine hand upon me." And the hand suggests the sweet sense
   of companionship. The little child awakes in the night, and is
   affrighted by the darkness and the stillness, but the mother puts out
   her hand and just rests it upon her troubled babe, and the little one
   sinks to rest again. "O, let me feel Thee near me!" "Only in the
   darkness just to feel Thy hand."

   And the hand suggests the ministry of soothing. The nurse lays her cool
   hand upon the burning brow of her patient, and he exclaims, "How lovely
   that is!" And when I come into a sudden crisis in life, and am tempted
   to become feverish, and "heated hot with burning fears," the Lord lays
   His cooling hand upon me, and I grow calm again. "And Jesus touched
   her, and the fever left her."

   And the hand suggests the ministry of guidance. That is a most
   suggestive word, constantly in the book of the prophet Isaiah: "And the
   Lord said unto me with a strong hand." Speech by strange graspings!
   Suggestion by grips! Guidance by the creation of a mighty impulse! The
   Lord declared His will unto the prophet Isaiah by implanting in his
   life the sense of a tremendous imperative, a terrific "must," a
   consciousness which the prophet expressed under the symbol of the grasp
   of a "strong hand." "Thy right hand shall guide me."

   With these defences we are safe. In these hands our security is
   complete. "None shall pluck them out of My hand." "Into Thy hands, O
   Lord, I commit my spirit."
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  iv.

Spiritual Culture.

   "Teach me Thy way."--Psalm lxxxvi. 11.

   "Teach me to do Thy will."--Psalm cxliii. 10.

   "I delight to do Thy will."--Psalm xl. 8.

   "Teach me Thy way." Refine my conscience. Make my sense of right and
   wrong clear and definite. Suffer me not to grope in moral confusion.
   Train me in a fine discernment of moral values. Let me grow ever more
   and more exquisite in the perception of the spiritually lovely.

   "Teach me to do Thy will." I want more than a fine sense of moral
   distinctions. I need more than a rare perception of right. I need to
   know the best way to accomplish it. There are wise and unwise ways of
   seeking the sovereignty of the right. I may fail of the end by using
   indiscreet means. I require not only a trained conscience, but an
   illumined judgment. I need to be taught how "to do."

   "I delight to do Thy will." That marks a still more matured stage in
   discipleship. When the soul instinctively and joyfully inclines to the
   way of obedience, the life has reached a stage of rare fruition.

   And so the scattered verses of my text arrange themselves in a
   heightening gradation, and together express the spacious compass of a
   consecrated life. "Teach me Thy way"--the training of the conscience.
   "Teach me to do Thy will"--the illumination of the judgment. "I delight
   to do Thy will"--the rectification of the will.

  I. The Training of the Conscience.

   "Teach me Thy way." The conscience is the organ through which the Lord
   makes known to me His way, and unveils the primary distinctions between
   right and wrong. The more refined and highly trained is the organ, the
   more exquisite will be its perceptions. The greater sensitiveness of
   the telephonic receiver has vivified the clearness and the detail of
   the message. But the organ of conscience can be impaired and its
   receptivity largely destroyed.

   (1) It can be injured by sin.

   John Ruskin's father would never allow him to gaze upon any inferior
   picture lest his artistic sense should be impaired. A similar reasoning
   might be followed in relation to the moral sense. To contemplate the
   morally inferior, to gaze upon the ugly, to have intercourse with sin,
   damages the fine delicacy of this sensitive organ.

   (2) It can be perverted by prejudice.

   If conscience be regarded as a light "which lighteth every man that
   cometh into the world," then it is within our power to put up a stained
   window and pervert the light. We can erect the coloured medium of a
   prejudice or a spirit of envy, or a jealousy, and the light we then
   receive is in reality "darkness." We walk in the darkness, and our
   errors re-act upon the conscience, and injure its exquisite
   perceptions.

   (3) It can be muffled by compromise.

   All attempts to find a go-between in matters of right and wrong
   inevitably issue in the muffling of the conscience. There are tradesmen
   who, on the Sabbath, compromise with their sense of right by putting up
   two shutters to their shop window, and then behind the shutters they
   continue their business as on any other day of the week. Those two
   shutters play a large part in the destruction of the finer parts of the
   moral life. If the Lord is to teach us His way, to lead us into deeper
   and more fruitful perceptions, all these things must be forsaken. He,
   who is the Teacher, will be our Defender; He who gives the revelation
   to conscience is willing to provide the power by which the accuracy of
   the conscience may be preserved.

   Now all training of the conscience proceeds in the direction of the
   scruple. In moral and spiritual culture the line of progress is not
   from the less to the greater, but from the greater to the less. A man
   can measure the increasing refinement of his conscience by its more
   pervasive activity in the trifle. The path of perfection leads towards
   a "faithfulness in that which is least." It is "he that doeth the
   least," whom the Lord accounts as great. "Teach me Thy way." Train my
   conscience. Educate it. Breathe upon it Thy refining breath, that in
   the smallest affairs I may discern the secret of the Lord.

  II. The Illumination of the judgment.

   "Teach me to do." A man may know the right to aim at, and may take an
   unwise way to reach it. He may have a good conscience and be possessed
   of little tact. He may be conscientious but not resourceful. He may
   have fine moral discernment, but poor practical judgment. We often dim
   and imperil the end by the unwisdom of our means. Much good work is
   spoiled by ill-judged method. A man may speak to his fellow man
   concerning the matter of his salvation, and he may altogether impair
   the beautiful purpose by an ill-considered approach. We require not
   only refined conscience but illumined judgment, and so the Psalmist
   prays, "Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me." Knowing the truth, he
   prays for knowledge to apply it. In short, he needs a sound judgment.
   He requires to be taught how "to do" the will.

   Now what is the secret of wise judgment? Does it not consist very
   largely in the active exercise of the imagination? A man of sound
   judgment is a man who looks all round a thing, and to do this requires
   the use of a disciplined imagination. Wellington used to say that one
   of the great secrets of successful generalship was the power to imagine
   what was going on behind a stone wall. That is the faculty we require
   in common life, the power to imagine what is going on in our brother's
   life, the power to "put ourselves in his place." Imagination is the
   twin sister to sympathy. They move together. If we had a broader and
   more responsive sympathy, we should have a quicker and more alert
   imagination. A more spacious sympathy and a more active imagination
   would give us two of the main essentials of a sound judgment. When we
   pray, therefore, "Teach me to do," we, in reality, ask the Lord to
   enrich the stock of our humanity, to make us more human and less
   self-centred, to broaden the responsive service of our life. "I will
   run the way of Thy commandments when Thou shalt enlarge my heart."

  III. The Rectifying of the Will.

   "I delight to do Thy will." "I delight," which, literally interpreted,
   means, "I am bent," to do Thy will. The inclinations of life are
   instinctively set in the way of obedience. The sense of constraint and
   reluctance is absent. The bent of the life is God-ward, and the bent
   abides. This represents a fine and mature attainment. What at first was
   constrained has come at length to be natural. He who says "I will
   incline my heart unto Thy testimonies," and will resolutely incline it
   every moment, day by day, will at length be able to sing, "O God! my
   heart is fixed." When the spiritual becomes natural, we have entered
   into the joy of the Lord. When our obedience has become instinctive,
   "His statutes have become our song." "We delight to do His will."
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  v.

The Secret of Hope.

   "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that
   ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Ghost."--Romans xv. 13.

   What a radiant assembly of jewels! It would scarcely be possible to
   bring together into two short sentences a larger company of resplendent
   words,--"God," "hope," "joy," "peace," "believing," "power," "Holy
   Ghost"! A prayer which in almost one sentence encompasses these
   spacious benedictions must have issued from a very exultant spirit, and
   one deeply acquainted with "the unsearchable riches of Christ." If we
   re-arrange the members of the text in vital and logical order, the two
   extreme limbs would appear to be these: "The God of Hope," and "That ye
   may abound in hope." The one expresses the creative ministry, the other
   expresses the created result. The text describes the making of
   optimists,--the "God of Hope" fashioning the children of hope. The
   remainder of the passage points out the gracious intermediaries by
   which the divine purpose is accomplished.

  I. The Great Creative Source. "The God of Hope."

   There are some matches which can only be kindled on one kind of
   surface. We may rub them on an unsuitable surface through a very long
   day, and no spark will be evoked. The fine effective flame of hope can
   only be kindled upon one surface. The human must come into contact with
   the divine. Where else can the holy fire be kindled? A mother is in
   despair about her son. His face is set in the ways of vice, and his
   imagination is being led captive by the devil. How shall I quicken the
   mother's hope, the hope which is so fruitful in loving devices? I will
   tell her that it is a long lane that has never a turning. I will tell
   her that the fiercest fire burns itself out at last. But these worldly
   proverbs awaken no fervent response. The depression remains heavy and
   cold. The match does not strike. I must lead her to "the God of Hope."
   A brother is discouraged because of his moral and spiritual bondage.
   How shall I kindle his hope? I will point out to him the lofty ideal,
   and let the dazzling splendour of the supreme heights break upon his
   gaze. But the ideal only emphasises and confirms his pessimism. I will
   then turn his eyes upon inferior men, and point out to him men who are
   more demoralised than himself. But the vision of the inferior is only
   creative of self-conceit A fine efficient hope is not yet born. The
   match does not strike. I must lead him to "the God of Hope." It is in
   God that assurance is born, and a fruitful optimism sustained. We must
   get our fire at the divine altar.

  II. The Gift of Inspiration. "In the Power of the Holy Ghost."

   The "God of Hope," in the pursuit of his purpose to create children of
   hope, plants in their life the inspiring presence of the Holy Spirit.
   The Scriptures compare the ministry of this presence to the influence
   of a wind, an atmosphere, a breathing.

   1. It is quickening. Like the air of the spring time. Buried or
   sleeping powers awake and bud, and clothe themselves in grace and
   beauty. I become conscious of new and increased capacities, new powers
   of love, and faith, and spiritual discernment. "In Christ shall all be
   made alive." "The last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

   2. It is bracing. How easy it is to make long journeys in fine, bracing
   air! Five miles in the city wearies one more than twenty miles in the
   Lake District. The Holy Spirit breathes through the life a bracing,
   invigorating influence. My powers are at their best. I am able to
   persist, able to endure. "They shall walk and not faint."

   3. It is revealing. It is the clean, clear air which unveils the
   panoramas. When the Holy Spirit possesses me I "see visions." I "grow
   in knowledge." "He shall lead you into all truth."

   These are some of the ministries which are implied in the gift of the
   Holy Ghost. They are the primary requisites in the production of an
   optimist.

  III. The Creation of an Equable Temperament.
  "Filled with all Joy and Peace."

   The life that is possessed by the pervasive "power of the Holy Spirit"
   will acquire the fruitful, equable temperament of "joy and peace."

   1. Joy. Not a scintillating, transient happiness, but a permanent
   cheeriness. Life shall be lived in the light. "Lift upon us the light
   of Thy countenance." It is that light, the light of the countenance,
   which rests upon the life. What a difference the sunlight makes to the
   landscape! It transfigures and beautifies the commonplace. What a
   difference a smile makes upon a plain face! The plain face is
   glorified. The sunshine of the Lord's favour upon the life--that is,
   Christian cheeriness and joy. "Now are ye light in the Lord." "The God
   of Hope fill you with all joy." Every room in the house illumined!
   God's grace resting upon everything! The sunshine in every corner--upon
   the affections, upon the judgment, upon the conscience; everything
   suffused in the "light of life."

   2. Peace. A deep, quiet sense of rightness in the background. It does
   not imply the absence of tribulation, but it suggests an abiding
   consciousness that fundamentally we are right with God. A man can go
   happily through a hard day's work if everything is right at home. If
   things are wrong there, all the work of the day is haunted and
   impaired, and every moment is weighted with the burden of years. A man
   can encounter much tribulation, and encounter it calmly if everything
   is right at home, if all is well between him and his God. "Peace" is
   just that sense of rightness with God. "It is well, it is well with my
   soul!" The presence and power of the Holy Spirit are creative of a
   temperament of mingled joy and peace.

  IV. The Consequent Optimism. "That Ye may abound in Hope."

   Surely this appears as quite an inevitable issue. If life is inspired
   by the presence of the Holy Ghost, quickened, braced, and taught by His
   power, and possessed of a temperament of joy and peace, it will
   "abound" in large and fructifying hope. I shall "abound in hope"
   concerning myself, that at length I shall stand before my God clothed
   in the white robes of a perfected life. I shall "abound in hope"
   concerning my brother. I shall never regard him as "past praying for."
   I shall hope "all things," even when confronted with the stupendous
   power of majestic vice. "The day will dawn and darksome night be past."
   The "God of Hope," through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the
   creation of a cheery and equable disposition, will make me to "abound
   in hope."

   There are two words in the great text which have not yet been
   quoted--"In believing." They describe the link which binds the
   despondent and the pessimistic soul to the "God of Hope." Shall we
   rather say, they describe the channel by which the quickening and
   cheering influence of "the God of Hope" is conveyed to the depressed
   and disquieted life? Belief is an attitude of soul which implies both
   alliance and reliance--a surrender and a trust. To lay down the will at
   the King's feet: to make His will my choice: to attempt obedience in
   dependence upon His grace: this is the very secret of practical belief.
   "Believing," I receive "the power of the Holy Ghost"; and "the God of
   Hope" fills me with all joy and peace, that I "may abound in hope," and
   in all the sanctifying energies of this endless life.
     __________________________________________________________________

  vi.

My Need of Christ, Christ's Need of Me.

   "I am the vine; ye are the branches."--John xv. 5.

   The Bible appears to exhaust all available figures in describing the
   intimate relationship which exists between the Lord and His own. All
   the most subtle and vital associations are laid hold of to shadow forth
   the wonderful fellowship which unites God and the children of God. The
   exquisite fitness of the one to the other is suggested by such
   relationships as hunger and bread, thirst and water, and the intimacy
   of their united lives is unveiled in the figures of the vine and its
   branches, the head and its members, the bridegroom and the bride. It is
   around the first of these symbols that we will concentrate the thought
   of this meditation.

  I. "I am the Vine Ye are the Branches."

   Then man can only realise himself in union with the Christ.

   The branch cannot realise itself apart from the Vine. Its powers remain
   latent and unexpressed. Its capabilities remain undeveloped and
   unconceived. If the branch is to burst into bud and leaf and flower and
   fruit, its resources must be drawn from the Vine. It has no sap of its
   own creation. Its quickening and sustaining power can be obtained only
   by association. Its ideal is realised by an alliance which engages the
   tissues of its most inward parts.

   Man can only come to himself by an intimate alliance with Christ. Apart
   from Christ man is never consummated. The force is wanting which would
   bring his powers to fruition. If his capabilities are to become
   abilities, if his possibilities are to ripen into actualities, if the
   human branch is to break into bud, and flower, and fruit, and life is
   to receive its appropriate crown, man must enter into profound and
   hearty fellowship with Christ. Every part of man's varied and composite
   personality will receive enrichment when the energising sap of the Lord
   flows in the deep and hidden parts of his life.

   (1) May we assume a physical quickening? Why should we shrink from the
   assertion that if the branch comes into union with the Vine, even the
   physical powers will be purified and strengthened? Surely it is not
   illegitimate reasoning to assume that virtue is a finer health-minister
   than vice. We do not make nearly sufficient allowance for the influence
   of the spirit upon the body. The hopeful temperament is very frequently
   a more potent element than the doctor's medicine in ridding the body of
   sickness and disease. Get a clean, sanctified spirit into the body, and
   the influences, even upon the flesh, must be very different from the
   influences which proceed from an unclean spirit of rebellion and night.
   "He shall quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in
   you." I am not prepared to relegate the fulfilment of this promise to
   an altogether remote futurity. It may be consummated only upon the day
   of the great unveiling, but I cannot think that its operations are
   still and inoperative even to-day. "Everything shall live whither the
   river cometh"; and in that "everything" I am inclined to include the
   quickening even of the physical capacities of the life.

   (2) May we assume a mental quickening? If the energy of the Vine flows
   into the branch, will man realise himself more perfectly in the realm
   of the mind? That is the promise of the book. The Word of God has a
   great deal to say about "discernment." Again and again it is implied
   that the mental powers are sharpened, that the judgment is quickened
   when life is pervaded by the fine presence of the Spirit of God. The
   damp atmosphere will blunt the edge of the finest razor, and an unclean
   spirit can impair the acuteness of the rarest mental power. The
   wholeness of the mental capacity is affected by the general atmosphere
   of the life. In a remarkable article written by the late Mr. Hutton, at
   the time of Sir Isaac Holden's death, the great essayist declared his
   conviction that the extraordinary fertility and inventiveness of Sir
   Isaac's mind had been fed and nourished by the deep underlying
   spirituality and nobility of his life. When a man worships the Lord
   with "all his soul," he attains the possibility of serving Him "with
   all his mind."

   (3) May we assume a moral quickening? If the sap of the Vine flows into
   the branch, man will realise himself in a rarer moral fruitage.
   Conscience will flower in more exquisite discernments. Will will
   sweeten into a rarer willingness. Obedience will become more and more
   choice. Affection will grow richer in benevolence and discernment. "The
   fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness." When the divine sap flows into
   human life, the branch bears all manner of fruit. Life is not morally
   lopsided. It is full and fine proportioned, abounding in an all-round
   moral excellence.

   (4) May we assume a spiritual quickening? When the branch becomes
   allied with the Vine man realises himself in undreamed-of powers for
   the apprehension and appreciation of the things of God. He is enabled
   to enter with awed and reverent discernment into the mysteries of
   grace. He finds himself capable of appropriating the riches of
   redemption. He experiences the peace of forgiveness. He knows "the
   power of the resurrection." He "grows in grace and in knowledge," and
   feels the glory of the immortal hope. When life is energised by the
   divine sap, life acquires rare appreciations, and holds intimate
   fellowship with God. In all these ways man must realise himself in
   union with the Christ. We come to ourselves in Him. In Him our best is
   hidden; He has our crown. "Our sufficiency is in Him." "We are complete
   in Him."

  II. "I am the Vine; Ye are the Branches."

   Then Christ can only express Himself through union with man.

   We have been considering the impotence of the branch apart from the
   Vine; but what can the Vine do without the branch? The Vine has need of
   the branch in order to express itself in flower and fruit. We frustrate
   the Vine if we deprive it of the branch. We have only to conceive of a
   branchless vine to realise its impotence. It has pleased the Lord to
   express Himself through His own. He still incarnates Himself in His
   children. He communicates Himself to the world through man. If we
   revolt we deprive the Lord of the means of expression.

   He declares His Gospel through witnesses; therefore He has need of the
   branches. He proclaims His power through the healed man; He has
   therefore a need of the branches. He warns and counsels the people
   through prophets; He has therefore need of the branches. In an equally
   intimate figure, He declares that we are His "body." The unseen life of
   the Spirit embodies itself through us; we are its eyes, ears, hands,
   and feet. If we refuse the service, we silence the King.

   He is yearning to express Himself in your own home, but He has no
   branch! He wants to reveal to your family what gracious fruit is
   matured in the life that abides in Him. He wants to show how barrenness
   changes to beauty under the influence of His sap, and how unfulfilled
   promise grows into ripe and beautiful attainment. But He has no branch!
   He longs to express Himself in the civic life. He wants branches in the
   Town Councils, on our School Boards, in all the different spheres of
   civic government and life. He wants to display the fruits of
   consecrated politics, the clear and mature rectitude of the Christian
   saint. But does He always find the branch? This is an aspect of the
   matter which we are commonly inclined to forget. The severance of the
   Vine and the branch is contemplated as meaning the paralysis and death
   of the branch. We do not very frequently regard it as meaning a maimed
   and impoverished Vine. When we offer ourselves to Christ, the branch
   not only attains the power of self-realisation, but the Vine acquires
   the vehicle for its own gracious and benevolent expression. The Apostle
   Paul offered himself as a branch to the Vine, and so intimate was the
   alliance that he was able to say, "I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in
   me." "For to me to live is Christ." The Lord consummated the
   personality of the Apostle, and through him expressed His mind and
   purpose to a world. "I am the Vine; ye are the branches."


   "Take my life and let it be

   Consecrated, Lord, to Thee."
     __________________________________________________________________

  vii.

The Shepherd and the Sheep.

   "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I
   give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
   any man pluck them out of My hand."--John x. 27, 28.

   In these words there are disclosed to us some of the gracious
   attributes of the Heavenly Shepherd, and some of the prominent
   characteristics of His sheep. Let our meditation seek to gather fruit
   from the contemplation of both.

   "My sheep hear My voice." They have the gift of spiritual discernment.
   All voices do not sound alike to them. They can distinguish the still
   small voice, even amid the Babel and clamour of the world. They can
   catch the tones of their own Shepherd amid the loud shoutings of many
   aliens. They have the gracious faculty of being able to sort the
   messages which assail their ears. In whatever direction they turn, they
   can hear the call of the Shepherd.

   (1) The voice of yesterday. "My sheep hear My voice." The disciples of
   the Master can interpret the voice that calls to them from the days of
   the past. "I heard behind me a great voice." They gather instruction
   from the voice that speaks in this commanding tone. History is full of
   expression; it abounds in teaching. In song and wail, in psalm and
   warning, the disciples can hear the voice of the Lord.

   The "days that have been" yield their instruction to the days that are,
   and the instinct of to-day is refined and chastened by the fight and
   failures and victories of yesterday. The present gains in riches by the
   witness of the past.

   (2) The voice of to-day. "To-day if ye will hear His voice." The Lord's
   own people catch the sound of their Master's voice in the seemingly
   silent circumstances of to-day. They discern His voice in what other
   men regard only as a dumb drift. They hear the new message in the new
   conditions. "New occasions teach new duties." The disciple discerns the
   duty, and in it he hears the still small voice of his God.

   (3) The voice of to-morrow. "My sheep hear My voice." "I heard a voice
   from heaven say, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." The
   disciple hears that alluring and inspiring call. When he applies an
   eager ear at the door of a stern futurity, he hears the soothing and
   calming word, "Blessed." The voice that peals to him from the unknown
   drives away all his fears.


   "Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,

   The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea,

   And laden souls, by thousands meekly stealing,

   Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee."

   "And they follow Me." The sheep not only discern the voice of the
   Shepherd, they respond to His call, and follow in glad obedience. What
   at first may be. a choice, becomes at last an instinct. The sound of
   the voice prompts the heart to obedience. The soul leaps to the call.
   There is a beautiful passage in the Book of Revelation which may be
   appropriately quoted here. "I heard a voice from heaven, as a voice of
   many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder, and I heard the voice
   of harpers harping with their harps." Who are these triumphant ones in
   the heavenly place? "These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever
   He goeth." Then they are "following" still! They began their
   companionship where we have still ours. They accompanied Him "through
   the green pastures," and "by the still waters," and through the
   perilous ways of the weird and darksome vale. They took up their cross
   daily, and now they follow Him still where the hard road and the
   threatening gorge are quite unknown. They are perfecting in larger
   spaces the character which began to be formed in the narrower ways of
   time. The gift of discernment and the spirit of obedience are two of
   the primary characteristics of the disciples of Christ.

   "I know them." Here is the reciprocal discernment. The Master
   recognises His own. He never mistakes one for another. He knows our
   idiosyncrasies. He knows my "make-up," my peculiar individuality, my
   special conditions. He does not deal with us as though we were all
   alike. "He calleth His own sheep by name." He watches each life as
   though it presented a unique and separate problem. His recognition
   means more than perception. It implies sympathy. He not only knows; He
   feels. He responds to the need which He discerns. He can be "touched
   with the feeling of our infirmities."

   "I give unto them eternal life." How this Gospel abounds in messages
   concerning life, and in declarations which proclaim the Master as the
   Fountain of Life! "In Him was life." "The Son hath life in Himself." "I
   am the Bread of Life." "I am the Life." And what His lips proclaimed,
   His life confirmed. Everything He did was characterised by an abounding
   life. What an expression of intense and abounding life is to be found
   in phrases like these: "Get thee behind Me, Satan"; "He steadfastly set
   His face to go to Jerusalem." What an inexhaustible wealth of affection
   is to be found in an expression as this: "Having loved His own which
   were in the world, He loved them unto the end." And now there comes an
   inspiring promise that this Fountain of Life is willing and waiting to
   impart it into the wills and minds and hearts of His children. He will
   give unto us "eternal life"--life which is characterised not so much by
   quantity as to duration, but by quality, rendering us partakers of His
   own divine nature.

   "They shall never perish." They shall be made indestructible. The far
   country shall never get hold of them again to waste their treasure.
   Their power shall never be impaired. They shall be kept in health. They
   shall never be "lost." They shall become ever more and more alive.
   Everything that is worthy shall be increasingly quickened and enriched.

   "No one shall pluck them out of My hand." They shall not be snatched
   into destruction. They shall not be victims of any sudden emergency.
   They shall never be taken "off their guard." What a wonderful promise,
   and yet a promise of which we may all reap the gracious fulfilment. We
   often excuse our moral lapses by declaring that we were taken unawares.
   "The wolf catcheth them." It need not be. We may be always secure if we
   are willing to be kept. Resting in our Saviour's hands we may be quite
   inviolable. If we have to cling to Him with our frail and fragile
   fingers, we shall drop away from sheer exhaustion in the cold and
   stormy day. But if we are resting in the hollow of His hands, with His
   fingers closed over us, what shall make us afraid?

   And what is the foundation of all these gracious experiences? The
   answer is to be found in the very first word of our text. "My sheep."
   Can that word be used of me? Am I willing to be His? Have I yielded
   myself to be His property? Can I say, "I am not my own?" Do I admit the
   Master's claim? If the claim be admitted, then all the gracious issues,
   which we have been contemplating, will become assuredly ours.


   "To Thee, Thou bleeding Lamb,

   I all things owe;

   All that I have and am,

   And all I know.

   All that I have is now no longer mine,

   And I am not mine own; Lord, I am thine."
     __________________________________________________________________

  viii.

Lightening the Burden.

   "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He shall
   never suffer the righteous to be moved."--Psalm lv. 22.

   To whom is this gracious promise of sustenance made? Some people's
   burdens are intended to be burdensome; the very heaviness of their load
   is purposed to discharge a gracious ministry. The yoke of the
   unrighteous is purposed to be galling. It would be calamitous to ease
   their pain even by shifting the position of the burden. The load that
   presses upon their souls may bring them to their knees, and the
   endurance of pain may issue in the fellowship of prayer. The gracious
   promise of our text is spoken to the surrendered life. Immovableness
   shall be the characteristic of the righteous. It is the righteous who
   remains uncrushed beneath the heaviest load, and who, under the burden,
   is sustained by the strengthening influences of grace.

  I. The Burden Bearers "the Righteous."

   But who is the righteous? We can infer the nature of sources by the
   character of issues. We can discern the nature of the will from the
   tendency of the life. If we know the effects of living, we can infer
   its secret springs. Now the Word of God records many significant
   symptoms and effects and tendencies of the righteous life, and from the
   observation of these we may possibly interpret its primary character
   and source. Let us glance at two or three of these descriptive words.

   (1) "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life."

   Here is a symptom of the righteous life. Its conversation is
   vitalising; the purport of its speech is constructive. The Scriptures
   dwell on this characteristic with very varied emphasis. "Let nothing
   proceed out of your mouth but what is edifying." Our speech is to aid
   in the rearing of a stately and exquisitely finished life. "The lips of
   the righteous feed many." Their speech is food. Their conversation
   nourishes the minds of those with whom they hold intercourse. Their
   words revive the better selves of their companions. "The tongue of the
   righteous is as choice silver." Nothing common or vulgar is permitted.
   Their speech is carefully selected. It is sincere and refined, and
   therefore refining. The whole round of their conversation is a gracious
   "fountain of life."

   (2) "The labour of the righteous tendeth to life."

   Then not only their speech but their labour is a minister to more
   abundant life. The manner of the man's labour, the way in which he
   earns his bread, quickens the common life. There is nothing poisonous
   about his business ways; nothing perverting or destructive. They are
   not murderous but vitalising, and tend to quicken and enrich the
   corporate life.

   (3) "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life."

   All the varied issues of his life, all his accomplishments, the
   plentiful products of character and conduct, everything that emerges
   from his personality, minister to a more abundant life. All the fruit
   on his branches tend to sweeten and purify the common life.

   Such are a few of the effects and symptoms of the righteous life. From
   such streams we can infer the spring. "With Thee is the fountain of
   life." The righteous is in profound fellowship with the Eternal. His
   will is united by steady, momentary surrender to the will of God. He
   lives and moves and has his being in the august contemplation of the
   Eternal. "The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life." The righteous
   is one who, by reverent fear and obedience, is in communion with the
   fountain, and the issues of his conduct and character minister to the
   vital enrichment and purification of the race.

  II. The Burden: "Thy Burden."

   What is the burden which is weighing with painful intensity upon the
   heart of this troubled Psalmist? Let us look abroad over the disturbed
   surface of the psalm. What does he bemoan as the burden of his soul?

   (1) He bemoans the loud unblushing aggressiveness of evil. He goes
   about the city, and the ostentation of evil fills his eyes and
   ears--"The voice of the enemy"; "The oppression of the wicked"; "They
   cast iniquity upon me"; "Violence and strife in the city"; "Iniquity
   and mischief also"; "Oppression and guile depart not from her streets."
   It is the burden of social evils which weighs upon the man's soul, as
   an intolerable and suffocating load. It weighs him down. "My heart is
   sore pained within me." "Horror hath overwhelmed me."

   (2) He bemoans the unfaithfulness of the professor. The leaven of
   professed goodness is revealing itself to be bad. The salt is going
   wrong. "It was thou . . . my companion, my familiar friend . . . we
   walked in the House of the God with the throng." He is burdened by the
   presence of the unfaithful professor, who hath profaned his covenant.
   Such is the two-fold perversity which is crushing the Psalmist's soul;
   the burden of proud evil and the burden of false virtue. In the face of
   these he is almost seduced into flight. "Oh that I had wings like a
   dove, then would I fly away and be at rest."

  III. The Divine Injunction: "Cast Thy Burden on the Lord."

   The remedy for thy depression is not to be found in flight, but in
   continued fight. Rest will not be discovered in the solitude of the
   wilderness, but in an alliance with thy God. Thou art assuming to carry
   the burden in thine own weakness, and the load is too much for thee.
   Thou hast a Partner. This kind of burden-bearing is the labour of a
   "company." The yoke is proposed to be borne by thee and thy God. Bring
   together all the words of the Scriptures which suggest the gracious
   truth. The Bible is great in that class of words which begin with the
   syllable "com": communion, companionship, comfort, commit, communicate.
   And all these words with the suggestive preface declare that life is
   purposed to be an intimate partnership between ourselves and God, and
   that, if man ignores his great Divine partner, life's burden will break
   his heart. "Cast thy burden on the Lord." Hie thee away to God, go into
   thy closet shut the door, have a little time with thy Partner; tell Him
   of the evil of thine own heart; tell Him of the evils that invest the
   city; tell Him that the word "flight" has been whispered in thine ears,
   but that thou art more inclined to stand. "Cast thy burden on the
   Lord," and when thy Partner lays hold of the load, thy burden shall
   become light.

  IV. The Divine Promise: "He Shall Sustain Thee."

   That is the common way by which the Lord lightens the burden of life.
   It is not lifted away from us; our strength is increased, and the
   burden becomes light. He gives us sustenance, and, being stronger men,
   we are able to carry the old load with a lighter and more confident
   heart. Is not this what happened under the appalling sufferings of
   Gethsemane? The burden was unspeakably heavy. "Father, if Thou be
   willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will but Thine be
   done." And what was the answer to this poignant prayer? The burden was
   not removed, but the Master Himself was sustained. "There appeared unto
   Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him." That angel is still
   ministering among the children of men. He is still imparting sustaining
   strength to those who are bowing beneath life's load. He appears to us
   in unexpected guise. Sometimes the strengthening food is brought to us
   in most unfamiliar ways. "I have commanded the ravens to feed thee." "I
   have commanded a widow to sustain thee." We never know just how the
   sustenance may come. It may come to us through the speech of our
   friend, through a chance incident related in a book, through a
   suggestion from a work of art. We cannot tell how the angel who brings
   the bread may be robed, but the bread is sure. "He never will suffer
   the righteous to be moved." Thou shalt not slip or slide, thou shalt
   remain firm as upon a rock. He will preserve thee from the timidity
   which is fraught with moral peril. He will strengthen thee so as to
   encounter thine own temptations and the evils of thy city with a brave
   and exultant heart.
     __________________________________________________________________

  ix.

"How Much More!"

   "How much more." These words express a mode of reasoning enjoined and
   commended in the Christian Scriptures. We are permitted to begin on the
   plane of the human, and reason upward to the Divine; on the plane of
   the material, and reason to the spiritual; on the plane of the
   temporary, and reason to the Eternal. We are to exercise the powers of
   observation in the common ways of life. We are to interrogate the
   common heart, and find there the elements of our thinking, and with
   these elements we may then begin to shape our conception of the Divine.
   "If ye then . . . how much more your Father." We are to search among
   ourselves for alphabetic hints and suggestions, and with these we may
   partially determine the ways and the thoughts of the Eternal mind. We
   are permitted to move about in our homes, and through the many rooms of
   our large earthly house, gathering rudimentary hints from which we may
   form our conceptions of the gracious and glorious personality of God.
   "Look about you," the word seems to say, "and you will find in the
   familiarities of your home life, and the commonplaces in the world
   about you, the elements of right thinking concerning the Divine." "If
   ye then . . . how much more your Father."

   I. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more
   shall your Father!"

   I am counselled to go into the family circle with the purpose of
   discovering some hints about God. I am told that in the arrangements
   and government of a typical home, I shall obtain glimpses of the divine
   fatherhood. Let me exercise this privilege. I will go into a home and
   exercise my powers of observation. What do I observe? I notice the
   presence of a pervading affection, but I am impressed by the
   mysteriousness of its working. I notice that affection has an extensive
   wardrobe. It does not always appear in the same dress. It enshrines
   itself in very varied guises, sometimes attractive, sometimes
   apparently forbidding, but through all the different vestures the one
   affection persists. There is one breath in the organ, but there are
   many notes. One breath can express itself in bewildering plenitude of
   sounds. I wonder to be told that behind the variety a pervading unity
   is sustained. The breath now issues in tones of thunder; now it warbles
   in bird song; now it expresses itself in clarion-call, like a bugle
   peal, summoning troops to muster; and again in a sweet persuasiveness,
   like the soft wooing of a lover. "But all these worketh that one and
   selfsame breath." So is it with affection in the home. It expresses
   itself in many guises and tones, now severely, now gently, now in tones
   of persuasion, and again with the imperative of a commander. If I
   remain in the home for any lengthy period, I can observe the affection
   assuming almost the variety of the seasons. Now it is sharp and severe
   like the winter. Now it is soft and gentle like the spring. Now it is
   ardent, and overflowing with sunny cheer like the summer. And now it is
   mellow, full, and yet restrained like the autumn. This is one of the
   primary characteristics which I observe in the home life, that
   affection reveals itself through many different conditions, but behind
   the varied conditions it remains invariable and constant.

   I notice, further, in the home life that the wishes of the children do
   not always determine the gifts of the parents. I observe that affection
   frequently expresses itself in apparent antagonism to the one beloved.
   The wish of the child is not the law of the home. The law of the home
   is determined by the judgment of the parents. Your sick child asked for
   a cake, you gave her medicine. Is this affection? The child asked for a
   fish, and you gave her a scorpion; but only to the child does it appear
   a scorpion; in reality you have given the child the only possible food.
   The child had unwittingly asked for a scorpion, and affection revealed
   itself in apparent antagonism to the child's desire.

   Now take the step in reasoning commended by the Scriptures. "If ye
   then, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more shall your
   Father, which is in heaven." If these things pervade the common home
   life, if affection sometimes denies, and sometimes restrains, and
   sometimes expresses itself in severity, "how much more" will the
   all-wise affection be constrained to act in apparent antagonism to our
   own blind and petty desires. Our Father will give "good things." I may
   ask for freedom; He may increase the restraints. I may ask for the
   sweet, and the response may be found in intensified bitterness. I may
   ask for fish, and there may come an apparent scorpion. But the
   antagonism is apparent. The thing that comes is "good." "Thou art good,
   and doeth good." "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." "He
   satisfieth our mouth with good things."

   2. "If God so clothed the grass of the field, which to-day is, and
   to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more shall He clothe you, O
   ye of little faith."

   I am to take a blade of grass, and contemplate it, and from the
   suggestions it conveys to me reason upward to a larger and truer
   conception of God. Have you ever gazed at a blade of grass? I don't
   mean have you merely glanced at it; but have you taken it up and
   feasted your eyes upon it until its exquisite beauty is for ever
   imprinted upon your soul? "Think of it well," says John Ruskin, "and
   judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and
   of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes, or good for
   food--stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron,
   burdened vine,--there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly
   graced, as that narrow point of feeble green." Contemplate, therefore,
   a blade of grass. Examine the exquisite robes of a lily. Take one of
   the commonplaces of the ordinary field. Look long at the daisy, or the
   buttercup, or a sprig of moorland heather. And when your vision is
   possessed by the ineffable loveliness, call to mind the Scriptural
   reasoning, "If God so clothe the grass of the field, how much more
   shall He clothe you." Give to the reasoning its largest reaches. Don't
   confine the suggestions to merely temporal vestures. Lift it up to
   include the robing of the Spirit. When I turn to the Word of God, I
   find descriptions of most wonderful clothing. "Robes of righteousness."
   "Garments of Salvation." "Who are these in white robes?" "Garments of
   praise." These phrases describe the lovely clothing of a hallowed and
   perfected life. May I have my spiritual nakedness covered by their
   surpassing beauty? I obtain the inspiring answer from the common field.
   If God takes so much pains with a blade of grass, how much more will He
   take with one of His own children. The exquisiteness of a flower of the
   field gives me hope that, through the grace of God, I may one day be a
   flower in His kingdom. The beauty of nature shall make me confident of
   obtaining the beauty of holiness.

   3. "If the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of the heifer,
   sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of
   the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ."

   The argument is just this. If certain things happened in the Old
   Testament, how much more will they happen in the New. If certain things
   happened in the uncertain twilight, how much more will they occur in
   the splendour of the noontide? If these gracious experiences took place
   at the turn of the winter, how much more will they abound amid the
   dazzling plenitudes of the summer glory. If this man in Old Testament
   times, who had never seen Christ, attained to this height, "how much
   more" may I, who have gazed upon the Master's face? If Moses obtained
   the spirit of endurance, "as seeing Him who is invisible," "how much
   more" may we endure, upon whose eyes has dawned all the glory of the
   incarnate God? If Job attained unto patience, upon whom the beauty of
   the Lord had not yet arisen, "how much more" shall we, who have seen
   the transactions of Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary and Olivet? And so I
   go through the Old Testament, noting a saint here, and another there,
   and witnessing their triumphs, and I come away from the spectacle with
   this word upon my lips, "If these things can be achieved before the
   unveiling of the King, how much more may they now be accomplished when
   the light has come, and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon us?" If
   these things occurred in the day of types and shadows, what may be
   their power and plenitude in the day of splendid reality, when the Lord
   has come? If our brethren in the twilight felt the cleansing power of
   sacrifice and knew their sin to be forgiven, how much more shall be the
   wealth of our consciousness who have gazed upon the "Lamb of God," and
   have heard the apostolic word that "God for Christ's sake has forgiven
   you"?
     __________________________________________________________________

  x.

No Failing! No Forsaking!

   "For He Himself hath said He will in no wise fail thee, nor will I in
   any wise forsake thee, so that with good courage we say the Lord is my
   Helper, I will not fear; what shall man do unto me?"--Heb. xiii. 5, 6.

   "He hath said I will in no wise fail thee," "so that with good courage
   we say, I will not fear." What a beautiful antiphony! The evangel of
   the Father awakens the song of the children. Life moves to gladsome
   music when we appreciate the content of the eternal promise. We walk
   like kings and queens when we recognise the dignity of our
   companionship. When the terror goes out of the heart, the uncertainty
   goes out of the steps, and life marches to the stately measures of
   bright and triumphant strains. "He hath said" . . . "So that we say."
   Our speech takes its measures from His speech. Our house is built upon
   the foundation of the divine word. It ought to be a roomy house, for
   God's promise is very rich and plenteous, and "His commandment is
   exceeding broad." Let our meditations gather round about both the
   speeches--the gracious evangel of the Father, and the joyful response
   of the children.

   "I will in no wise fail thee." "I will not wax feeble towards thee when
   thy difficulties grow mighty. Thy resources shall not run out in the
   day of stress and strain. I will not fail thee when life approaches
   some supreme and severe demand." Such appears to be a little of the
   wealth of the gracious word. The promise proclaims that the crisis
   shall not find us impoverished. I was recently travelling in an
   electric car up one of the steep streets of a town in the West Riding,
   and when we had reached the middle of the ascent the power suddenly
   failed, and we stuck fast with half the height still to be climbed.
   This may provide us with a figure by which we may enter into the heart
   of the promise of God. Power is never to fail us on "the Hill
   Difficulty." The moment of supreme test is to be the moment of supreme
   revelation. The most trying conditions of life are to be the seasons
   when the Father will most be glorified. And so the promise appears to
   me to have reference to two different classes of conditions through
   which every soul has to pass. It has reference to the sharp emergency,
   and to the prolonged monotony.

   He will not fail us in the sudden emergency. The rope will not snap at
   the unexpected tension. The great disappointment shall not destroy our
   steadfastness. The receipt of bad news shall not extinguish our valour.
   A sudden bereavement shall not break our hearts. Our resources will be
   sufficient. The staying power will remain. We shall "stand it well,"
   for "the Lord will in no wise fail us."

   He will not fail in the prolonged monotony. Perhaps the test of
   monotony is more severe than the test of an emergency. Perhaps the long
   pull tends more to exhaustion than some tremendous but momentary
   strain. In a cycle journey which I took recently from Oxford to London,
   I found the latter half of the journey far more trying than the earlier
   part. The earlier part of the road was full of changes, now climbing,
   now descending; the latter part was one long, dead, monotonous level.
   Along the monotonous level I missed the freshening breeze, the
   expansive outlook, the rest which is born of change. The limbs were apt
   to tire, the same muscles being unceasingly exercised. The uneven road
   brought more muscles into play, or changed the posture of the limbs,
   and out of the variety there came strength. Life which has to trudge
   along the dead level is in fearful peril of exhaustion. "Because they
   have no changes they fear not God." When my difficulty faces me daily
   through many years, or when my pain becomes chronic, or when my anxiety
   respecting the prodigal child is perpetuated through half my life, I
   need the presence of rich and most nutritious resources. It is in these
   dead monotonies that Christ reveals the glory of His power. He can
   bring blessedness even into drudgery, and the long, long lane, which
   seems to have never a turning, may become the very "Highway of the
   Lord." In the stress of startling crises, and in the prolonged strain
   of a standing trouble, our Father will in no wise fail us.

   "Neither will I in any way forsake thee." This adds an emphasis to the
   preceding word. The Lord will not desert us; He will not leave us
   behind. He will not drop us when we grow old and are worn out. Our war
   correspondents tell us very frequently of worn-out horses, which are
   left upon the line of march to die. Our God will not so forsake His
   children. The worn-out life He rather "carries in His bosom." "In Thy
   manifold mercies Thou forsakedst me not." "When my father and mother
   forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." The frail, the easily-spent
   are the peculiar care of the Almighty God.

   How easily we forsake one another! The lure of gain will make us
   forsake our friend. The garland of the world draws us into alienation.
   "Demas hath forsaken Me, having loved this present evil world." The
   vision of peril will drive a man to forsake his brother. He fears the
   persecutor, so he takes the way of ease. He turns with alarm from the
   valley of shadows, and abides in the green pastures. "At my first
   defence no one took my part; they all forsook me." How beautiful it is
   when a man stands close by his exhausted brother, and permits no offer
   of gain or threat of pain to take him away. There is no more beautiful
   characteristic of a noble man than that which is attributed to
   Onesiphorus by the Apostle Paul:--"He was not ashamed of my chain." The
   Apostle's captivity only drew his comrade into closer and more
   affectionate bonds. His chains were the ministers of a deeper spiritual
   wedlock. This is the abiding attachment referred to in the text, only
   in an infinitely exalted degree. The Lord is never repelled by our
   need; rather is it our need by which He is enticed. "I will in no wise
   forsake thee."

   Now let us look at the children. If they have apprehended the Father's
   evangel, if the music of His word is in their hearts, if they
   appreciate the strength of the promise, what will be the issue in their
   life?

   "With good courage we may say, the Lord is my Helper." Mark their fine,
   inspiring, confident conception of God. "My Helper." The word is
   suggestive of one who runs with succour at the hearing of a cry. It is
   the act of a mother, who, perhaps amid much clamour, hears the faint
   cry of her child in the chamber above, and who runs to bestow
   expressions of love and of comfort. "His ears are open unto their cry."

   What wonderful examples we have of "The Helper" in the New Testament
   Scriptures! The cry of an aching heart always brought succour from the
   Helper. The Syro-Phoenician woman came with a breaking heart, and
   falling at His feet, she cried, "Lord, help me!" and the Helper gave of
   His resources, and gave abundantly. "Oh, woman, be it unto Thee even as
   Thou wilt." But perhaps a still more suggestive instance is to be found
   in the story of the father who brought to the Lord his son, who was
   afflicted with a dumb spirit. Twice does the father ask for help, and
   twice the help was given. He prayed that they might be helped in their
   tragic trouble, and he prayed that he might be helped in his wavering
   unbelief. The Lord heard both the heart-cries, and the needed succour
   was given. The Lord can hear cries that never pierce the human ear.
   There is no sigh so low as to escape His hearing, The faintest breath
   of an aspiration sounds like thunder in the ears of the King. "He
   inclined unto me, and heard my cry."

   "I will not fear." If the Lord is listening, and heeding, and even
   anticipating my cry, "I will not fear." I will not be a child of
   alarms. I will not be a victim of superstition. Rather will I be a
   child of faith. I will not fear the visible hosts of armed foes, the
   unseen heights are full of horses and chariots of fire. I will not fear
   the cloud, for "He cometh in thick clouds," and these seeming portents
   will be only the vehicles of heavenly benediction. I will not fear my
   yesterdays, for the "Helper" is my rearguard. "Goodness and mercy shall
   follow me," and by the ministry of grace shall wipe out my
   transgressions. I will not fear the lurking snares of to-day, for "He
   will keep my feet." I will not fear the unknown experiences of
   to-morrow, for "my times are in His hands." The apprehension of the
   truth that the Lord is "My Helper" issues in a consequent fearlessness
   which makes my life the progress of a conqueror.

   Now let us finally bring the two extreme clauses of the text together,
   and we shall obtain the point of view from which all life can be seen
   in true perspective and proportion. "He Himself hath said. . . . What
   shall man do unto me?" Survey the antagonisms of the world with the
   word of the Almighty sounding through your soul, and the antagonisms
   will cease to appear insuperable. The colossal barrier will no longer
   seem impenetrable, and the mountains will melt away like smoke. "I can
   do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me." "I will not fear."
   He is always preparing a place for me, a place where next in my life's
   journey He will call me to stand. "Every valley shall be exalted, and
   every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be
   made straight, and the rough places plain."
     __________________________________________________________________

  xi.

Perilous Sleep.

   "I think it meet to stir you up by putting you in remembrance."--2
   Peter i. 13.

   "I stir up your minds by way of remembrance."--2 Peter iii. 1.

   The peril suggested by the Apostle is that of an insidious sleep. His
   readers were not inclined to any deliberate revolt from the truth. They
   were not meditating any act of open and avowed treachery. They were in
   no immediate danger of consciously allying themselves with the evil
   one. They were not mustering their forces in hostility to the Son of
   God. The peril was of another kind. They were in danger of almost
   unconsciously dropping their enthusiasm, of loosing the keenness of
   their discipleship, and of subsiding into a fatal sleep. The Apostle
   therefore seeks to "stir them up," to keep them awake, to preserve
   their vivid apprehension of truth and their sense of the glory of the
   grace of Christ. This perilous sleep, which so easily encroaches upon
   the Christian life, may be induced in many ways, and our meditation may
   gather round about those which are perhaps the most prevalent.

  I. There is a sleep which is begotten of
  familiarity with the truth.

   That which once startled us may ultimately minister to a deeper
   slumber. The Christmas bells awoke me in the hours of night, but I lay
   awake until they lulled me into sleep again. The alarm bell which
   originally stirred us into the brightest vigilance may act at last as a
   lullaby to lead us into deeper sleep. The green of the spring time
   arrests us by its novelty, but by summer time the observation of most
   people is satiated, and the attention has gone to sleep. The permanent
   grandeur of the night sky has long since induced the majority of people
   into a profound sleep, while a display of fireworks will stir them into
   most deliberate attention. What is the principle underlying all this?
   Unwilled observation is soon satiated and goes to sleep. Willed
   observation, vision with executive force behind it, is full of
   discernment, and is continually making discoveries which keeps the mind
   alert and interested. Get a will behind the eye, and the eye becomes a
   searchlight, and the familiar is made to disclose undreamed-of
   treasure. We must "stir up the mind" by allying it to a strong,
   deliberate, and directive will. If the familiar thing is to abound in
   fruitful revelations, if I am not to sleep in mental satiety, I must
   control my observations with a strong hand, so that, in all its work,
   it is as sharp and penetrating as a needle.

   Is not all this equally true as to our familiarity with Christian
   truth? Here in the Word of God we have pictures of the life of Christ,
   revelations of His mind and disclosures of His heart. We may become so
   familiar with them that our attention goes to sleep. There are no
   further unveilings, no novelties, nothing unexpected, and the familiar
   vision ceases to arrest our attention. What do we need? We need to
   "stir up the mind," to put some force behind it, to direct it in a
   strong, fresh, eager inquisitiveness. We need to put it into the
   attitude of "asking," "seeking," "knocking," and the familiar presence
   will reveal itself in unaccustomed guise. The familiar puts on
   wonderful robes when approached by a fervent inquisitor. Truth makes
   winsome revelations to her devoted wooers. Every day the ardent lover
   makes a new discovery. If men would come to the familiar pages of God's
   Word with mental alertness analagous to that which they bring to the
   inspection of a stock-and-share list, they would have gracious
   surprises, which would make the heart buoyant and glad. The Book
   promises its wealth to the wakeful. There is no book has more to say
   about "unfolding," "revealing," "manifesting," "showing," "declaring,"
   and the only condition is that the spectator of the promised apocalypse
   should be an ardent seeker, stirring up his mind in eager and
   determined quest.

  II. There is a sleep which is begotten
  of decided opinions.

   There is a very suggestive sentence in one of John Stuart Mill's
   essays, which will enable me to make my meaning perfectly clear: "The
   fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it
   is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors." That is to
   say, a decided opinion may make a man thoughtless about his opinion and
   may induce a mental sleep. It so frequently happens, that when a man
   has attained a decided opinion, he ties a bit of tape about it, puts it
   away in a pigeon hole, and lapses into unconscious slumber. He leaves
   off thinking about it. When the matter was still doubtful, he was
   engaged in constant examination. While the conclusion was still
   uncertain, he remained a persistent explorer. But now that his judgment
   is decided, the explorer goes to sleep. What is the issue? We lose a
   thing when we cease to think about it. It is well to have decided
   thoughts, but it is bad and fatal to stop thinking. There is need in
   every life for a fresh stream of thought to be continually playing
   about the most cherished opinions, principles, and beliefs. When the
   photographer is developing his plate in a dark room, he keeps the
   liquid in constant motion, moving over the face of the plate, and
   evolving into clearer outline its hidden wealth. Our thought should be
   continually moving over the face of truths and beliefs, bringing out
   into discernment lines and beauties never before conceived. You have a
   very decided opinion on the Atonement? Then there is a peril that you
   may cease to think about it. The thing is settled and you may go to
   sleep. The man who has not a very decided opinion about the Atonement
   may be moving with doubtful thought round about the great mystery, and
   may, after all, be gathering fruit which may be unknown to you. Let us
   "stir up our minds" and turn the stream of our thought on to our
   accepted beliefs and our decided judgments, that the wealth of these
   may not remain stationary, but may reveal more and more of the hidden
   wisdom of grace.

  III. There is a sleep which is begotten
  of failure.

   Success can make a man sleep by making him cocksure. Triumph can make
   men careless and thoughtless. The glare of prosperity can close men's
   eyes in slumber. There is a "destruction that wasteth at noon-tide." A
   perilous sleep can also be begotten of failure. When repeated
   disappointment visits the life, when the "wet blanket" is frequently
   applied to our fervent ambitions, when the fire in the soul is damped,
   and enthusiasm dies out, the life is inclined to a most dangerous
   sleep. How many there are who were once awake and enthusiastic in civic
   service, or in seeking social ameliorations, or in the ministry of
   Christian instruction, who are now sunk in the indifference of a
   profound sleep. They were disappointed with the results. The grey
   conditions at which they worked never gained any colour. The
   unattractive lives to which they ministered were never transfigured.
   The desert never revealed even a tiny patch blossoming like the rose.
   And so their enthusiasm smouldered. They became lukewarm. Their
   reforming energy abated. They went to sleep. This is "the pestilence
   that walketh in darkness." Is not this the peril that the Apostle Paul
   anticipated for young and enthusiastic Timothy? He was beginning his
   Christian discipleship, fervent, hopeful, optimistic, with the eager
   consecration of his entire strength. The Apostle knew that
   disappointment would confront him, that cold water would be thrown upon
   his enthusiasm, that many a hopeful enterprise would issue in apparent
   failure, and the young recruit would be exposed to the indifference of
   a fatal sleep. "Stir up the gift that is in thee." Stir it into flame!
   Keep thy first love ardent and vigorous. Feed thy fires. Let
   disappointment only deepen thy consecration, and failure keep thee near
   the well-spring of eternal life.

  IV. There is a sleep which is begotten of
  the enchanted ground.

   When difficulties appear to have vanished from our life, when Apollyon
   no longer encounters us with dreadful front, when there is no lion in
   the way, when the giants are miles in the rear, and the precipitous
   hills, that took so long to climb, are away back on the far horizon,
   then we are in imminent peril of a most dangerous sleep. "I saw then in
   my dream that they went on till they came to a certain country, whose
   air naturally tended to make one drowsy if he came a stranger into it.
   And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep, wherefore he
   said unto Christian, `I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can
   scarcely hold up mine eyes. Let us lie down here and take a nap.' `By
   no means,' said Christian, `lest sleeping, we never awake more. Let us
   not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober.'" And how did
   these two pilgrims contrive to keep themselves awake as they journeyed
   over the enchanted ground! "Now then," said Christian, "to prevent
   drowsiness, let us fall into good discourse." "With all my heart," said
   the other, "where shall we begin? Where God began with us?" The great
   dreamer has summed up their conversation in this marginal note, "Good
   discourse prevents drowsiness." They had an experience meeting. They
   began with the very first stages of their conversion, and told each
   other the story of God's redeeming grace. They reviewed the miracles of
   the Lord's mercy. That is the secret of safety for any traveller over
   the enchanted ground. Begin your review "where God began with you."
   Tell over to yourself, or to others, the early story of the Lord's
   dealings with you. Stir up your mind with a rehearsal of the wonders
   and favours of God, and so far from lapsing into sleep, you shall be
   kept awake in a grateful song. The grace of the Lord will occupy your
   heart with such intensity that spiritual lapse will be impossible.

   "Watch therefore . . . lest, coming suddenly, He find you sleeping."
     __________________________________________________________________

  xii.

Beauty in the Heights.

   "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains."--Psalm cxlvii. 8.

   "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." Unless we read the words
   in the right tone, we can never apprehend the trend of their
   suggestion. The words are uttered in a tone of great surprise. They are
   much more than a descriptive record of a certain feature in a vast
   assemblage of natural things. They express the unexpected, the unique.
   The Psalmist is profoundly surprised to find grass growing upon the
   mountains. It would have been ordinary and commonplace, arousing no
   wonder, to have found it in the vale, but to find it away up in the
   heights where barrenness usually reigns, affected him as the suggestion
   of exceptional power, and stirred him into profound amazement. He
   discovered what he thought to be a native of the valley, dwelling upon
   the mountain tops. Have we any similar surprises on other planes of
   being and life? Are we sometimes startled by encountering the
   unexpected in the heights? Let us see.

   1. "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." I am not surprised to
   find piety at the Carpenter's bench, but I wonder to find it in the
   midst of the Throne. I am grateful that Christ has in these recent days
   had the opportunity to reveal to the world what He can do in the
   neighbourhood of a Throne. He frequently reveals to the world the
   spiritual beauty with which He can grace the Poet. It is almost a
   commonplace for us to behold His workmanship in the production of some
   pure and noble merchant. But only rarely is He permitted to display His
   sanctified power upon the occupant of a throne. Now the claim of the
   religion of Jesus is this, that faith is effectual everywhere. The Lord
   can grow His flowers in every place. His converts are not taken from
   any particular place or vocation. He can make them anywhere. He can
   grow His flowers in palaces or in garrets, but I am not quite sure that
   they are grown with equal ease. The Master has told us that there are
   conditions in which it is very difficult to rear a saintly life. "How
   hard is it for them that have riches to enter into the Kingdom." It is
   inspiring therefore to know that even in the hardest places He can
   redeem and beautify His people. "He maketh grass to grow upon the
   mountains."

   It is a wonderful conjunction to find piety upon the throne. Study the
   conditions in which the choice temperament has to be begotten and
   reared. The occupant of a throne is the centre of a most lonely
   Majesty. All who are round about her pay her obeisance. All who draw
   near unto her bow the knee. The altar of homage burns without ceasing.
   Is it any wonder that in conditions so intoxicating the monarch should
   be "lifted up" in perilous self-dependence, and God should be exiled
   from the thought? But in our own day the Lord has made it plain to us
   that even on these far and lonely heights He can rear a saint. Piety is
   blooming about the seat of majesty. The Queen, to whom everybody bowed
   the knee, herself bowed the knee to a greater. She reverently
   recognised God. She has, by the intimacy of her fellowship, and by the
   fervour of her devotion, made the hallowed words upon our coins
   infinitely more than members of a legal and official phraseology. She
   has transfigured them, and made them shine as radiant truth. Of her it
   may be said that she was "Fidei Defensor," as Paul himself was able to
   say "I have kept faith." Of her, too, it is well and true to say she
   was sovereign "Gratia Dei," for the grace of God was the empowering
   energy in her long and beneficent career. In these stupendous heights
   of majesty I marvel to find a soul upon its knees. I wonder to find a
   flower of piety blooming in the mountains.

   2. I am not surprised to find lowliness adorning a subject, but I
   wonder to find it dwelling in the very heart of sovereignty. It is a
   rare thing to find lowliness in the heights. What do we mean by
   lowliness? It is a word which is grievously impoverished, and much
   misunderstood. It is sometimes associated with the shrinking spirit; a
   little less frequently it is regarded as synonymous with the cringing.
   Its meaning is far otherwise. A man may shrink from a high calling, and
   may not be lowly. His shrinking may be the child of his pride. The New
   Testament uses the word with quite other significance. Perhaps if we
   call to our mind the figure of a carpet or of a rug, we may be helped
   near to the New Testament conception of the word. When the carpets are
   up in the house there is a sense of general forlornness and discomfort.
   The hollow sounds in the house make the home sepulchral. When things
   are put straight again how comforting it is to have the carpets down.
   Or recall the comfort which the use of a rug gives to one in
   journeying. Or call to mind how refreshing it is to leave the hard
   dusty highway, where your feet have become weary and sore, and to turn
   on to the fringe of grass which now carpets the wayside. All these
   figures will lead us to the central suggestion of the meaning of
   lowliness. It is a laying down of one's sympathies and affections, and
   making as it were a carpet or rug of them, that the chills and pains of
   the world may be removed. The man who is lowly has kind purposes,
   friendly feelings, beneficent deeds, and these are spread out before
   the lives of others, that the bareness of living, and the coldness of
   living, and the soreness of living, may be partially taken away. A man
   who "lays down his life" that he may bring rest and comfort and joy to
   another, is essentially a lowly man. A man who offers the leisure-time
   of his days to ministering to bruised and broken lives, is graced with
   the Christian robe of lowliness.

   Now this kind of lowliness is a commonplace among the poor. I am not
   surprised when I find a member in one of the poor courts of a crowded
   city, spreading out her affections and her sympathies for another to
   rest upon. But I am amazed when I find this disposition allied with
   sovereignty. Power usually makes for pride. It creates a spirit of
   exclusiveness. It often issues in cruelty. One can frequently trace the
   evil influence of power in a master who has just been created out of a
   working-man. The transformation is often creative of hardness, and
   sympathy is narrowed or destroyed. Young mistresses, intoxicated with
   the sense of power, are often thoughtless towards their servants. Power
   of any kind is apt to "freeze the genial currents of the soul," and to
   be a great enemy to the spirit of lowliness. But the Lord can grow this
   grass in the heights.

   3. I am not surprised to find the virtue of temperance in conditions of
   scanty or moderate affluence, but I am surprised to find it in
   conditions of sumptuousness and wealth. "How oft the sight of means to
   do ill deeds makes ill deeds done." To behold the means to gratify the
   appetite often leads to the gratification. Appetite often sleeps where
   the means to please it are not abounding. It is so easy for those who
   are sumptuously placed to spend their lives in eating, drinking and
   merry making. It is so easy for the wealthy to become morally vulgar,
   and to lose their virtuous self-control. I therefore wonder when one
   meets the grace of a rigid self-control in circumstances of overflowing
   affluence. But the Grace of God can accomplish it. He can grow this
   flower in the heights. He can cultivate souls of puritan temperament in
   conditions which appear to be intensely hostile to its creation. In the
   midst of all manner of sensational enticements He can keep the
   pleasures simple, natural, and homely, and in a land which flows with
   milk and honey, He can preserve the appetite in healthy self-restraint.

   "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." If the Lord can do this
   on the mountains, what may He do in the vales? If He can grow choice
   temperaments in the heights of majesty and power, what may He grow in
   the quieter places of obscurity and seclusion? The majority of us are
   children of the valley. We are not called upon to occupy any
   conspicuous place. The blasts that shake the heights do not disturb us.
   God has not called us to the supreme difficulty of an exalted station.
   Let us ask ourselves the searching question--have we permitted the Lord
   to beautify the vale? The plain may be a desert, or it may blossom like
   a rose. Let us ask the great Renewer to take us in hand, and clothe us
   in His own unspeakable beauty.
     __________________________________________________________________

  xiii.

"Dying, We Live."

   "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth by
   itself alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."

   "Except a grain of wheat"--a germ of life, a promise, a potency, a
   possibility--"fall into the ground,"--enter into fellowship with other
   forces, merge itself in the dissolving, evolving powers of the broad
   earth--"it abideth by itself alone"--it never gets any further, it
   never enters into a richer realisation; it remains a promise, a mere
   potentiality, a bare possibility, and does not discover the wealth that
   lies enshrined in its own heart.

   Except a human soul--the germinal promise of unutterable wealth--enters
   into fellowship with other souls, loses itself in the larger interests
   of a broad humanity, buries itself in the common ground of the race,
   "it abideth by itself alone," an unfulfilled promise, a sleeping
   possibility, never realising the wealth of its own endowment. "Except a
   grain of wheat fall into the ground and die," its powers remained
   unpacked, and the joy of harvest is unborn. Except a life is buried in
   the common life all manner of autumn glory is imprisoned and unsprung.
   Resurrection is subsequent to burial: maturity waits upon communion.
   The powers of a life never ripen to their prime until the life is lost
   in the interests of a wealthy fellowship.

   "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth by
   itself alone." Then the cure of loneliness is death. "It abideth by
   itself alone." That is a most chilling and impoverishing loneliness. It
   is the loneliness of incessant self-remembrance. It is the loneliness
   of a life that is always with itself, that never loses itself, that
   never forgets itself, a life that never bleeds for others, that never
   expends beneficent energy for others, that never satisfies itself in
   thoughtful sympathy for others. It is the loneliness of a life that
   never occupies the common stand-point, and never loses itself in the
   crowd. "It abideth by itself alone." It is the loneliness of the
   egotist, of the man whose world is himself, who never gets away from
   himself, who never dies to his little sphere that he may live a larger
   life in the wider spheres of the race.

   There is a nervous disease know to physicians as chorea, and in this
   distemper "the patient sometimes turns round and continues to spin
   slowly on one spot." Egotism is just an incessant spinning on one spot.
   Sometimes we spin slowly round about our own particular talent. Or
   perhaps the centre of our egotism is our suffering. How prone we are
   just to spin round about our own pains and complaints! An ailment is
   apt to make us think ourselves interesting to other people, and we move
   as the craving absorbents of the world's sympathy. We all know the
   sufferer who ever pilots the conversation round about his own pains,
   and if it appears to stray for a moment from the line of the recital of
   his sombre symptoms, he sharply turns it back again to his
   all-engrossing centre! We are apt to find a melancholy pleasure in
   "tearing the lint from our bruises and the bandages from our limbs,"
   and moving in fascinated contemplation of our own complaints.

   Now, the egotist is exceedingly lonely, and becomes increasingly so,
   and that by the eternal law of God. It is a dry, parched, arid
   loneliness, for the genial springs and currents of the soul have never
   been unsealed. Incessant self-regard imprisons a life in the wintriest
   impoverishment. If I would attain unto a life that is bright, genial,
   fruitful and interesting, I must cease to spin upon a point and move in
   wider fields. I must die to self and be born in brother. I must be born
   into another man's life, into his interests and affairs, into his joys
   and sorrows, his pains and disappointments, his conquests and defeats.
   I must be born into my brother's world, and stand at his point of view,
   and contemplate the landscape of life from his window. How does life
   look through the eyes of the poor? I must be born into their world and
   gain the sympathetic vision. How does life appear through the eyes of
   the rich? I must seek to gain their point of view and survey the hills
   and the vales, the slippery slopes and the dangerous crossings which
   fill the line of their sight. The old man must not forget the world of
   the young man, and the young man must think himself sympathetically
   into the world of the old man. The sectarian must sensitively interpret
   his brother sectarian who worships over the way, and the political
   partisan must seek an intelligent apprehension of the other partisan
   who sits on the opposite bench. Health must seek to realise the glooms
   of sickness, and sickness must strive sympathetically to apprehend the
   glowing vistas which stretch away in the land of health. We must die to
   self, and be born in one another's worlds. We must call out and employ,
   in sanctified exercise, the elevating faculty of the imagination.
   Egotism is born when imagination is dormant. The man of little
   imagination is always the victim of large conceit. Small imaginations
   are always creative of petty worlds, and in the tiny world the little
   self looks colossal. What is the function of imagination? Imagination
   is the exploring faculty prospecting other worlds. It exercises itself
   in the unseen. It seeks to realise what is proceeding behind the blank
   and unsuggestive wall. It strives to pierce the veil and vesture of the
   flesh, and to interpret the mystic life behind. It endeavours to enter
   into another man's thoughts and feelings, and to gather up the
   significant movements of his spirit. It is imagination, lofty and
   sanctified, that takes me out of myself and places me in the home of
   another self. Where imagination is weak, or listless, or asleep, other
   selves become obscurities or nonentities, and our own swelling self
   fills the entire scene. And so we have John Ruskin making the startling
   assertion that "an unimaginative person can never be reverent or kind."
   The assertion is self-confirmatory. The imagination is just a refined,
   discerning sensitiveness, and where this is absent there can be no
   perception of the venerable, and where man does not perceive the
   venerable, he cannot be reverent, and where there is no reverence there
   is the spirit of harshness and cruelty, and man can never be kind.
   Imagination delivers me from incessant self-regard--from merely looking
   upon my own things,--and enables me to adopt the Apostolic counsel, and
   to "look upon the things of others." When imagination lifts me into the
   world of my brother, there arises a need of a new vocabulary. New
   things come into existence for which new terms are required. The old
   lonely life had no need of the terms, because the things themselves did
   not exist. Now, with the death to self, beautiful intimacies are born,
   and I require such great and wide-reaching words as these--sympathy,
   fellowship, communion, co-operation, and the whole vocabulary of
   brotherly speech which rings in the Kingdom of God. When a hallowed
   imagination is at work, egotism dies, and with the death of egotism,
   loneliness is destroyed. "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground
   and die, it abideth by itself alone."

   "But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Then death to self is not
   only the cure of loneliness, it is the secret of fruitfulness. "It
   bringeth forth much fruit." "To die"--to bury yourself in others--is
   the secret of personal fruitfulness. Impartation is the clue of
   multiplication. We must get away from self if we want self-treasures to
   be beautified. To give a thing is more really to possess it. How is it
   with a truth? Here is a truth which has been given to me. What shall I
   do with it? Shall I merely lock it up in some strong secret room of the
   mind? Then I shall lose it, or retain it only as a dim and corroding
   treasure. How, then, shall I keep it? Impart it, and in the very act of
   imparting I shall more truly possess it. There is not a Sunday School
   teacher who does not know how a truth which has lain dull and
   unattractive on the floor of the mind for years, has shone
   resplendently while he sought to impart it to his scholars. He said he
   never really saw it till he began to teach it. Truth never puts on its
   most beautiful garments until it is being given away. The disciple
   never sees the superb glory of the truth until he becomes an apostle.
   If we bury the truth in self it soon appears tarnished; if we share it
   with a brother it shines like a star. While we give we all the better
   possess; if we die, things germinate into richer loveliness; we "bring
   forth much fruit."

   It is not otherwise with the Church. If the Church shrink into a club,
   self-contained, self-sufficient, it "shall abide by itself alone,"
   unconscious of its own heritage, imprisoned in chills and infertility.
   But if the Church dies she "bringeth forth much fruit." The Church must
   get out of herself, must die to herself, must become apostolic and
   missionary, both at home and abroad. For her own sake the Church must
   be apostolic, going out to prospect among men with the word of her
   great evangel. The Church will lose the grip and beauty of the truth if
   she fail in her commission. The Church never really claims a truth
   until she has proclaimed it. When she takes a truth, and gets away from
   her comfortable self, and enacts the truth before others, the truth is
   lifted up before her own vision, verified, clarified, glorified. She
   stands in the midst of her mission with her own treasures burnished and
   refined. But if we drop the mission, and sink into a cosy club, if we
   drop the apostolic and become self-centred ecclesiastical egotists, we
   shall abide by ourselves alone, and the winter of our isolation will
   rob us even of the bloom we bear, and we shall lapse into moral and
   spiritual sterility. This is the explanation of much of the spiritual
   barrenness which prevails among men and Churches. We spin too much on
   one spot. Life would become more fruitful if we shifted our ground. It
   is when life becomes self-forgetful that our powers are raised to their
   highest significance. Graces speedily germinate in the atmosphere of
   sacrifice. The life bringeth forth much fruit.
     __________________________________________________________________

  xiv.

Statutes become Songs.

   "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
   good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
   you and persecute you: that ye may be the children of your Father which
   is in heaven."--Matthew v. 44, 45.

   "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." "The
   children." There is a wide difference between a mere connection and a
   kinsman. One is in the sphere of the legal and artificial; the other is
   in the vital and natural. One is determined by a certificate; the other
   resides in the blood. There is an equally wide and more profound
   distinction between offspring and children. One is suggestive of common
   blood; the other of common spirit. One indicates relationship; the
   other implies fellowship. Joel and Abiah, who "turned aside after
   lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment," were not the children
   of Samuel; they were only his fleshly seed and offspring. To be a child
   is to share a spirit. Not to share the spirit is to be only the seed.
   "Abraham is our father." No, "ye are of your father the devil." Your
   deeper spiritual movements have their origin and affinity in him. To be
   a child means more than succession; it means repetition of the life
   which gave us our birth. It means more than descent; it means spiritual
   likeness. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the
   children of God"; so beautifully do they reflect and repeat the spirit
   of our God. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you . . . that ye
   may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." I shall be a
   child, revealing and repeating a Father. If I do this I reflect Him.
   The child unveils the Father. Then mark this principle, What He wishes
   me to be, He is. He says that if I love, I shall be like Him, a child
   of my Father who is in heaven. What is the significance of this? His
   commandments are revelations of Himself. If I gaze at what He commands
   me to be I shall see what He is: Have we sufficiently thought of this?
   We have looked for revelations of our God in the promises; have we
   sought the revelations in the commandments? We have looked into the
   commandments for our duties; have we looked for our comforts? It throws
   a tender, mellow, softening light round about apparent severity. Take
   the most searching and exacting commandment you can find in the Sacred
   Word. Say to yourself--"This is what a child is to be like; this, then,
   is what the Father is like," and use the apparently stern commandment
   as an open window through which to gaze upon the incomparable and
   inspiring loveliness of the eternal God. The commandments laid upon men
   are revelations of God. That which stands alone as a commandment appals
   me; seen as a revelation it fills me with rejoicing.

   Now, let me turn the light of this principle upon two or three
   exceeding broad and uncompromising commandments which confront us in
   the Word of God.

   1. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
   hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
   you." The brilliance of the ideal almost consumes me. The vastness of
   the height tends to make me faint and despondent even before I leave
   the base. Let us hold the commandment squarely before us. "Love your
   enemies." The man who makes your misery his policy, who dogs your
   steps, who sets snares for your feet, who twists your words, who is
   always pointing out the fly in the ointment, and who is never happier
   than when he is slowly dropping bitterness into your cup; your enemy,
   love him. There must be no fiery retaliation, no mere chilling
   toleration, no proud and lofty contempt. I must remain well-disposed
   toward him, watching my opportunity to save him from himself. My enemy
   is first of all an enemy to himself. The bitterness which he drops into
   my cup has, first of all, poisoned his own. I must be lovingly alert
   for his salvation. "Do good to them that hate you." If opportunity
   should place him in thy power, let there be no rejoicing because thou
   hast him "on the hip." Use the opportunity in the ministry of goodness!
   Ferret out a way of doing a kindness, and take the beautiful living
   branch and drop it into the waters of bitterness, if perchance they may
   be made sweet. "Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
   despitefully use you and persecute you." Remember them upon thy knees.
   Name them quietly and kindly in thy most secret place. Offer them the
   highest privilege it is in thy power to grant--the privilege of being
   remembered when thou art face to face with God. Forget the superficial
   injury he inflicts upon thee in the absorbing thought of the fatal
   injury he is inflicting upon himself. On thy part he creates
   bitterness; on his part he commits suicide. Therefore for their sakes,
   "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
   hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
   you."

   The demands of the command are appalling. The command is so exceeding
   broad as to stretch across the entire path of my life, and there is no
   possible margin for compromise or evasion. If I confine my attention to
   the commandment and its relationship to me, I am oppressed and
   discouraged by the firm breadth of its demands. Why should I bow to the
   commandment? That I may be a child of the Father. This is what a child
   is like; so through this I see my Father. The commandment becomes a
   revelation, and I am filled with an inspiring and aspiring sense of
   rejoicing. What God wants me to be, He is.

   "Love your enemies." Look through that window at God. God loves His
   enemies. Don't let the energy of that great truth be wasted in a vague
   and diffused generality. God loves His enemies. He is vigilantly alert
   to redeem us from ourselves. From Him there proceeds a river of mighty
   beneficent energy working round about us to accomplish our redemption.
   Love in God is no idle or passive sentiment. A mother's love is just a
   bequest from the heart of God. All her finest, most exquisite, and
   tenderest instincts have been communicated to her out of the
   unsearchable riches of God. A mother's purest love is just a broken
   piece of the ineffable love of God. All the deep feelings of parental
   solicitude are but echoes of the primary reality that dwells in the
   heart of God. And this love of the Eternal is at work about His
   enemies, seeking to deliver them from their enmity, and to lift them
   into the sweet and spacious condition of spiritual health. There is no
   one, however remote he may be from God, however wretched and dejected,
   however shameless and unclean, to whom the eternal love is not
   ministering, as a mother stoops with yearning solicitude over her
   sickly child. That is a wonderful word of the Psalmist's, and abounding
   with cheer and inspiration, "Thou hast loved my soul out of the pit."
   Thou hast loved me out of it! Have we not known men who have been loved
   out of meanness and out of looseness by the unwearied affection of a
   noble wife? Their character was elevated by the persistent application
   of a mystic gravitation which they were unable to resist. God loves His
   enemies, and loves them out of the pit! He does good "to them that hate
   Him." His mercies do not cease with our obedience. He prepares green
   pastures for us when our just reward would be a desert, and He leads us
   by still waters when we might have expected a land of drought. God
   loves His enemies, and does good to them that hate Him. This fills me
   with rejoicing, and makes the soul to exult in the power of a
   quenchless hope. So I will interpret His commandments as revelations.
   They shall first of all tell me, not what I must be, but what God is,
   and the inspiration of the glorious vision shall nerve and brace me for
   the task--by the attainment of which I become my Father's child. "Love
   your enemies," and so be a child. God is the Father, and so loves the
   children.

   2. Now, turn the light of the principle upon another commandment,
   calculated, I think, to fill us with fear. "Lord, how oft shall my
   brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times?" "I say not
   unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven." That is a
   suggestion that these things are not to be governed by mere processes
   of counting; that they belong to a province where arithmetic has no
   sovereignty, and where quite other measures and standards hold the
   throne. Let us deepen the clear significance of the teaching. "If thy
   brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive
   him; and if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven
   times in a day turn again to thee, saying, `I repent,' thou shalt
   forgive him." That seems an overwhelming ideal! I do not wonder that
   the apostles, to whom the word was spoken, fearfully perceived the
   vastness of the demand, and instinctively broke into speech which was
   both confession and prayer--"Lord, increase our faith!" What is the
   principle of the commandment? The principle is this, that arithmetic
   plays no part in real forgiveness, that mere counting is not to
   determine the outgoings of mercy and grace. But what a large part we
   allow arithmetic to play in common life! How many of us have ever
   forgiven a man three times? "As this is the first time, I forgive you,
   but--." And we carry the memory of the first offence forward and
   forward, and in the second offence condign, and final judgment is
   inflicted for both. Our arithmetic is our ruler. That is not the
   prescribed way of the Word. To forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and
   on each fresh offence not to count the last--to have no arithmetic in
   these high regions--this is to make demands upon our grace which we
   have apparently no resources to meet. And that is perfectly true if we
   confine ourselves to the bald limits of the commandment. We want an
   inspiration, if the aspiration is to be more than a mocking dream.

   Where shall we get the inspiration? Apply our principle; the
   commandment laid upon men is a revelation of God. What makes a child
   reveals the Father. What God wants us to be, He is. Take the
   commandment, then, and use it as a window to look at God! "Not seven
   times, but seventy times seven." That is the character of the
   forgiveness measured out to us by the eternal God! There is no
   arithmetic in the transaction, no severe counting of the forgiveness of
   yesterday. "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions . . .
   and will not remember thy sins." I fell yesterday, and sincerely I
   turned to the Lord for forgiveness, and "He inclined unto me, and heard
   my cry." I have fallen again to-day. I would like humbly to seek His
   gate that I may tell Him the sad and saddening story. Will He heed me
   if I knock at the door? Or shall I be spurned away? Will the dogs be
   turned upon me, or shall I hear the heartening voice, "Come in, my
   beloved!" "If he trespass against thee seven times a day, and seven
   times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive
   him." Through that commandment I see my God. I will not be afraid to
   knock at His door. As old Samuel Rutherford says, "It becomes us still
   to knock, and to die knocking." I hold up this commandment concerning
   forgiveness, that in it you may see the beauty of your God. The
   commandment becomes a revelation, and in the inspiration of the
   revelation the commands may be fulfilled.
     __________________________________________________________________

  xv.

Unfulfilled Impulse.

   "Lord, I will follow Thee--but--"--Luke ix. 61.

   "Lord, I will follow Thee--but--." Then he perceived the beauty of the
   Christ. He acknowledged His authority. He recognised His duty. An
   impulse had been created within, which, being interpreted, said unto
   him, "Follow," and he now replied, "I will follow--but--." Let us
   apprehend very clearly the stage at which he had arrived. It had come
   to this. There was the Lord, Son of Man, King of the race, beckoning
   into discipleship. Conscience had said, "Follow Him, for He is thy
   supreme Lord." The heart had said, "Follow Him, for He is the ideal
   loveliness." Conscience and heart had combined to the creation of an
   impulse which urged the life to immediate decision. The impulse was
   aroused and active. The imperative sounded in the very depths of his
   soul, "Follow Him." "I will follow--but--." Obedience to the impulse is
   delayed. Impulse is kept waiting while attention is diverted elsewhere.
   Precedence must be given to another interest. "I will follow Thee, but
   suffer me first to go and bury my father." "At thy peril, no!" "Lord, I
   will follow Thee, but suffer me first to go and bid farewell." "At thy
   peril, no!" Does that wear the appearance of harshness? Does it seem
   inconsiderate and severe? The harshness is only apparent. It is the
   harshness of the man who violently grasps another who is drowning. It
   is the severity of kindness. It is the emphasis of love.

   Let us look at it. What is the essence of the narrative? The essence is
   this--that nothing must be allowed to take precedence over a divine
   impulse, that a divine impulse is of royal and imperial descent, and
   must ever be given the first rank. Man's relationship to Christ is the
   primary relationship, and to that relationship all other associations
   must bow. That is the pith and marrow of the story. My first and
   immediate attention must be given to any impulse which concerns my
   relationship to Christ. Nothing on earth must be permitted to thrust it
   into a second place. "Let me first bury my father." "First, the
   impulse," replied the Lord. "Let me first bid farewell." "First the
   impulse!" "Seek ye first the kingdom."

   Now why this pre-eminence to a divine impulse? Christ had looked at the
   two men, and had gazed into their souls. Perhaps they had been men of
   the world, living on the mere superficies of things, absorbed in
   affairs that are belittling and transient, and having no large bracing
   intercourse with the things of the Eternal. And now the Master saw that
   the divine spark was kindling. He saw that a faint, fitful and
   trembling inclination was aspiring after a higher life. He saw that the
   men felt the impulse, and were half inclined to heed, and half inclined
   to seek postponement. He saw the precariousness of the heavenly
   babe-life that in the heart was newly born. He knew just how long it
   would live if it were treated with neglect. He knew that if attention
   were denied until after the father was buried, the impulse also would
   be dead and buried. He knew that postponement meant destruction, that
   if obedience to a good impulse be deferred until the third day, on the
   third day there might be no impulse to obey. And so underneath the
   Master's reply there runs this current of awful warning: "With thee,
   the postponement of a day may mean eternal death; the spark of divinity
   may be extinguished; the spirit may be quenched; and if thou seekest
   postponement until after the burial of thy father's body, or to bid thy
   friends farewell, the heavenly impulse is imperilled. Even these must
   not be given pre-eminence, but must be sternly set aside. This is thy
   pre-eminent concern: First, the divine impulse, `Follow thou Me.'"

   This is Christ's way of emphasising for all time the infinite and
   transcendent preciousness of a divine impulse. No life is utterly
   without good impulse. No life is consistently and increasingly bad.
   There are softer seasons among the years, times when the springs in the
   life are unsealed, and lovely purposes come to birth. We have a
   beautiful phrase by which we describe the gracious season. We speak of
   being in a "softer mood," as though the rain had fallen, as indeed it
   has, and turned the hard unfertile ground into forcing-beds of
   beauteous growth. "I will come down like rain," says the gracious God,
   and like rain He comes, creating these "softer moods" in the life, and
   causing it to be fragrant with budding things of the kingdom. This
   rainy season is known to all.

   Now we cannot tell in what circumstances the rainy seasons will come,
   and the consequent softer mood. No one can foretell the coming of the
   Lord, or anticipate His ways. Sometimes the vision of infirmity will
   cause the rain to fall, and soften the heart in gracious sympathies. It
   was my lot only a little while ago to have daily intercourse with a man
   in the prime of life, over whose body creeping paralysis was stealing
   with slow but irresistible tread. Little by little the disease was
   claiming the flesh, but it had no proprietary rights over the spirit,
   and the cheery faith and hopefulness of his soul remained intact. He
   crawled about, a minister of light. And I have seen a group of men,
   watching him as he crept like light about the grounds, and their voices
   sunk into a whisper as one voiced the common feeling, and said, "That
   ought to make us better men." "Yes," I thought, "the Lord's rain is
   falling on this group. The vision of infirmity is bringing the heavenly
   shower, and giving men a softer mood, a spiritual impulse, a more
   sensitive aspiration after a better life." I wondered if the physical
   paralysis of one is to glorify God by the spiritual emancipation of
   many. Infirmity created a softer heavenly impulse, which said, "Follow
   Me."

   But there are softening seasons other than those caused by the visions
   of infirmity. I have known God's rain fall in copious showers the
   morning after a great sin. The night before the shower I was hard,
   rebellious, obstinate! I shut the gates of my calmer reason, and opened
   the gates of fiery passion, and I sinned. But, next morning, on to the
   hard passion-burnt heart, the gracious long-suffering Lord came down
   like rain. He brought me into a softer mood. He re-sensitised my
   sympathy. He created a drift heavenward. Reflection was the occasion of
   a rainy season, giving birth to a heavenly impulse, which said, "Follow
   Me."

   Who does not know that the hour of bereavement is sometimes the season
   of the falling rain? Many a divine impulse has had its birth by an open
   grave. Here and now I could not pray that God would do away with
   infirmity and death. If it were in my power now, by the lifting up of
   my hand, to rid this land of infirmity and death, I think I should
   hardly dare to lift it. I know not what would become of us if in our
   present condition there were no more pain and no more death. Life would
   become a mass of selfish isolations. We should become hard as the
   nether millstone, and the softer mood and the heavenly impulses would
   be unknown. So God keeps it possible for us to grow into His image by
   keeping two dark angels in our midst, the angel of pain and the angel
   of death, whose visits to our homes keep us from becoming callous, and
   call us from the thraldom of the senses by the creation of a
   heaven-directing impulse which says to