Men may object to it, of course—men object to everything. I remember a gentleman on the Hudson who took a querulous Englishman—not a Canadian, [laughter]—who had been finding fault with everything from the constitution of our government down to the shape of the toes of our shoes, out to see from his place the magnificent autumnal forests on the other side of the river, and the forests on the Hudson at this season of the year are as if thousands of rainbows had fallen to the earth and lodged. Said he, “Isn’t that magnificent?” “Well, yes, that is—yes, that is very fine; but don’t you think now that it is just a little tawdry, perhaps?” [Laughter.] There is nothing men may not object to in the works or in the word of God, if their hearts set them in that direction. No matter for the objection! The Gospel of Christ, instinct with power, coming from the heart, coming on the earnest word of him who believes it, goes through objections as the cannon ball goes through mists. Do not let us doubt or fear concerning its success, if we hold it as the fathers held it. Men object to the atonement; why, it has been the life of so many millions of human hearts that the multitudes on high are now uncounted and incomputable. They object to the doctrine of regeneration; that is the doctrine which more than any other exalts man’s nature, showing the royalty of it, the greatness of it, its possibilities, and the glory of its future.
Of course men may object. Do not let us be disturbed; but always remember that, with the word of God within us and the power and providence of God behind us, and the spirit of God going before us to open ways for our progress, victory is sure. Christ seemed insane in his aim at the beginning. Speaking a few words orally to his disciples; writing no line unless he wrote one on the sand; only uttering his thought in syllables that seemed dissipated in the air, and aiming by that to conquer the world to his truth,—it seemed like expecting the whistle of a boy in these mountain valleys to go reverberating as thunder over all the earth in all the centuries. But he did it. It seemed insane to undertake to build a kingdom by gathering a few scattered followers here and there, and especially a small nucleus of obscure and uneducated men bound together by nothing but the simple sacrament of eating bread and drinking wine in memory of him,—without saint or standard or army or treasure or navy or counselors or forum,—it seemed like building another Lebanon with shovelfuls of sand, or building another Jerusalem with charred sticks and straws. But he did it. His kingdom already is in all the earth. The proudest empire which sets itself against it, shivers in the contact. Napoleon saw this on the Island of St. Helena. Comparing himself as a man ruling in the world with Christ as a Godlike person, said he, “He is God and not man.” He has done the work thus far; he is to do it in the future, if you and I adhere to the gospel, if from all our pulpits reverberate the echoes of this great meeting, if the force which is here assembled goes forth to testify of that system of religion of which God is the centre and head, which has its grandest trophy and symbol in the cross of Christ, and which opens the vast and near eternity to the apprehension of every soul conscious of unconfessed sins, and to the desiring and exulting hope of every soul that has found rest in Christ—the gospel that is to fill the world at last.
I remember when a lad, forty years ago last spring, coming for the first time into this beautiful Portland harbor from Boston by the boat. The night was windy and rough. The cabin was confined, the boat was small; and very early in the morning I went up on deck. There was nothing but the blue waste around, dark and threatening, and the clouded heavens above. At last suddenly on the horizon flashed a light, and then after a little while another, and then a little later another still, from the light-houses along the coast; and at last the light at the entrance of this harbor became visible just as “the fingers of the dawn” were rushing up into the sky. As we swept around into the harbor the sunrise gun was fired from the cutter or corvette lying in the harbor, the band struck up a martial and inspiring air, the great splendor of the rising sun flooded the whole view, and every window-pane on these hills, as seen from the boat, seemed to be a plate of burnished gold let down from the celestial realms.
Ah! my friends, we are drawing nearer to the glory of the latter day. I have thought of that vision often. I thought of it then in my early carelessness, as representing what might be conceived of the entrance into heaven. I have thought of it as I have stood by the bed of the dying and seen their faces flush and flash in a radiance that I could not apprehend. I have thought of it this week as I have been in these meetings. The lights are brightening along the coast; the darkness is disappearing; the harbor is not far off; the Sun of Righteousness is to arise in all the earth, and the golden glory of the new Jerusalem is to be established here. Let it be ours in that great day to remember that we held the faith, we triumphed by the Cross, we stood with Paul and with the Son of God, taking God’s revelation for our inspiration and doing our work under that mighty impulse.
And unto God be all the praise. [Great applause.]
[ADVANTAGE OF WARM CLOTHING.]
[Concluded.]