IV.
Liberty.
The new Century will call for freedom in every walk of human life.
That bright dream of the ages--Liberty--how far ahead of us she still lies!
What a bondage life is to multitudes! What a vast host of the human race, even of this generation, will die in slavery--actual physical bondage! Slaves in Africa, in China, in Eastern Europe, in the far isles of the sea and dark places of the earth, cry to us, and perish while they cry.
What a host, still larger, are in the bondage of unequal laws! Little children, stricken, cursed, and damned, and there is none to deliver. Young men and maidens bound by hateful customs, ruined by wicked associations, torn by force of law from all that is best in life, and taught all that is worst. Nine men out of ten in one of the great European armies are said to be debauched morally and physically by their military service; and all the men in the nation are bound by law to serve.
What a host--larger, again, than both the others--of every generation of men are bound by custom in the service of cruelty. It is supposed that every year a million little children die from neglect, wilful exposure, or other form of cruelty. Think of the bondage of those who kill them! Look at the cruelty to women, the cruelty of war, the cruelty to criminals, the cruelty to the animal creation. What a mighty force the slavery of cruel custom still remains!
All that is best in man is crying out for emancipation from this bondage, and I know of no deliverance so sure, so complete, so abiding as that which comes by the teaching and spirit of Jesus. But, even if freedom from all these hateful bonds could come, and could be complete, without Him, there still remains a serfdom more degrading, a bondage more inexorable than any of these, for men are everywhere the bond-slaves of sin. Look out upon the world--upon your own part of it, even upon your own family or household--and see how evil holds men by one chain or another, and grips them body and soul. This one by doubt, this by passion, this by envy, this by lust, this by pride, this by strife, this by fear, this one by love of gold, this one by love of the world, and this one by hatred of God! Is it not so?
What men want, then, is personal, individual liberty from sin. Given that, and a slave may be free. Given that, and the child in the nursery of iniquity may be free. Given that, and the young man or maiden held in the charnel-house of lust may be free. Given that, and the victim of all that is most cruel and most brutal in life may still be free. Oh! blessed be God, he whom the Son makes free is free indeed!
This, and this alone, is the liberty for the new Century--the Gospel liberty from sin for the individual soul and spirit, without respect of time or circumstance; and here alone is He who can bestow it--Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
This, I say, is The Man for the new Century.
V.
Knowledge.
The new Century will be marked by a universal demand for knowledge.
One of the most remarkable features of the present time is the extraordinary thirst for knowledge in every quarter of the world. It is not confined to this continent or that. It is not peculiar to any special class or age. It is universal. One aspect of it, and a very significant one, is the desire for knowledge about life and its origin, about the beginning of things, about the earth and its creation, about the work which we say God did, which He alone could do. Oh, how men search and explore! How they read and think! How they talk and listen! Where one book was read a generation ago, a hundred, I should think, are read now; and for one newspaper then read, there are now, probably, a thousand. Every man is an inquiry agent, seeking news, information, or instruction; seeking to know what will make life longer for him and his; and, above all, what can make it happier.
And here, again, I say that Jesus is The Man for the new Century. He has knowledge to give which none other can provide. I do not doubt that universities, and schools, and governments, and a great press, can, and will, do much to impart knowledge of all sorts to the world. But when it comes to knowledge that can serve the great end for which the very power to acquire knowledge was created--namely, the true happiness of man--then, I say, that JESUS is the source of that knowledge; that without Him it cannot be found or imparted; and that with Him it comes in its liberating and enlightening glory.
Oh, be sure you have that! No amount of learning will stand you in its stead. No matter how you may have stored your mind with the riches of the past, or tutored it to grapple with the mysteries of the present, unless you know Him, it will all amount to nothing. But if you know Him who is life, that is life eternal. Knowledge without God is like a man learned in all the great mysteries of light and heat who has never seen the sun. He may understand perfectly the laws which govern them, the results which follow them, the secrets which control their action on each other--all that is possible, and yet he will be in the dark.
So, too, knowledge, learning, human education and wisdom are all possible to man; he may even excel in them so as to be a wonder to his fellows by reason of his vast stores of knowledge, and yet know nothing of that light within the mind by which he apprehends them. Nay, more! he may even be a marvellous adept in the theory of religion, and yet, alas! alas! may never have seen its SUN--may still be in the blackness of gross darkness, because he knows not Jesus, the Light of the world, whom to know is life eternal.
VI.
Government.
The new Century will demand governors.
Every thoughtful person who considers the subject must be struck by the modern tendency towards personal government all over the world. Whatever may be the form of national government prescribed by the various constitutions, it tends, when carried into practice, to give power and authority to individual rulers. Whether in monarchies like England, where Parliament is really the ruling power; or in republics like France and the United States, where what are called democratic institutions are seen in their maturity; or in empires like Germany and Austria, the same leading facts appear. Power goes into the hands of one or two who, whether as ministers, or presidents, or monarchs, are the real rulers of the nation.
Perfect laws, liberal institutions, patriotic sentiments, though they may elevate, can never rule a people. A crowd of legislators, no matter how devoted to a nation, can never permanently control, though they may influence it. Out of the crowd will come forth one or two; generally one commanding personality, strong enough to stand alone, though wise enough not to attempt it. In him will be focussed the ideas and ambitions of the nation, to him the people's hearts will go out, and from him they will take the word of command as their virtual ruler. It has ever been so. It is so to-day. It will always be so.
And as with nations so with individuals. Every man must have a king. Call him what we will, recognise him or not, every man is the subject of some ruler. And this will, if possible, be more manifest in the future than in the past. Men will not be satisfied to serve ideas, to live for the passing ambitions of their day, they will cry out for a king.
Am I wrong when I say that JESUS IS THE COMING KING? In Him are assembled in the highest perfection all the great qualities which go to make the KING OF MEN. And so the new Century will need Him, must have Him; nay, it cannot prosper without Him, the Divine Man, for He is the rightful Sovereign of every human soul.