OLD WINE AND NEW:

Occasional Discourses.

BY

THE REV. JOSEPH CROSS, D.D., LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF "EVANGEL," "KNIGHT-BANNERET," "COALS FROM
THE ALTAR," "PAULINE CHARITY," AND
"EDENS OF ITALY."

NEW YORK:
THOMAS WHITTAKER,
2 and 3 Bible House.
1884.

Copyright, 1883,
By JOSEPH CROSS.

Franklin Press:
RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
BOSTON.

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

To THOMAS WHITTAKER, Esq., Publisher, New York.

My Dear Friend: In former times and other lands, when one wrote a book, he inscribed the volume to some distinguished personage—a bishop, a baron, a monarch, a magnate in the world of letters—through whose name it might win its way to popular favor, and achieve a success hardly to be hoped for from its own merit. Such overshadowing oaks seemed necessary to shield from sun and storm the tender undergrowth; and the dew that lay all night upon their branches the breezy morning shook off in showers of diamonds upon the humbler herbage at their roots. In an age pre-eminently of self-reliance and a country characterized no less by personal than political independence, authors have learned at length to walk alone, marching right into the heart of the public with no patronage but that of the publisher; and if a book have not the intrinsic qualities to bear the scorching beams and freezing blasts of criticism, down it must go amidst the débris of earth's abortive ambitions and ruined hopes. Not so much from conscious need of help as from high esteem of the noblest personal qualities, therefore, I beg leave upon this page to couple with my own a worthier name. Two years ago, when I placed in your trusty hands the manuscript of Knight-Banneret, I had the least possible idea of the harvest which might grow from so humble a seed-grain cast into a very questionable soil. The result was an encouraging disappointment; and Evangel soon followed, enlarging the horizon of hope; and Edens of Italy sent a refreshing aroma over all the landscape; and Coals from the Altar kindled assuring beacon-fires for the adventurer; and Pauline Charity, supported by Faith and Hope, walked forth in queenly state. During the publication of these several productions, so pleasant has been our intercourse—so great your kindness, candor, courtesy, magnanimity, hospitality, and every other social virtue—that I look back upon the period as one of the happiest of my life; and now, at the close of the feast, hoping that our last bout may be the best, I cordially invite you to share with me Old Wine and New.

Yours till Paradise,
JOSEPH CROSS

Nov. 1, 1883.

PREFACE.

Dear Reader: In the preface to Pauline Charity, did not the writer promise thee that volume should be his last? Some months later, however, at the bottom of the homiletical barrel, he found a few old acquaintances, in threadbare and tattered guise, smiling reproachfully out of the dust of an undeserved oblivion. He beckoned them forth, gave them new garments, and bade them go to the printer. And lo! here they are—twenty-two of them—in comely array, with fresh-anointed locks, knocking modestly at thy door.

If any of the former groups from the same family were deemed worthy of thy hospitality—if any of the twenty-two Evangelists gladdened thy soul with good tidings—if any of the twenty-two Knights-Banneret stimulated thy zeal in the holy conflict—if any of the twenty white-hooded sisters of Charity warmed thy heart with words of loving kindness—if any of the sixty seraphs, winged with sunbeams, laid upon thy lips a Coal from the Altar—if any of the twelve cherubs, fresh from the Edens of Italy, led thee through pleasant paths to goodly palaces and blooming arbors—turn not away unheard these twenty-two strangers, but welcome them graciously to the fellowship of thy house, and perchance the morrow's dawn may disclose the wings beneath their robes.

But if tempted to discard them as the vagrant offspring of a senile vanity thrust out to seek their fortune in the world of letters, know thou that such temptation is of the Father of lies. For not all of these are thy patriarch's Benjamins—sons of his old age. The leader of the band is his very Reuben—the beginning of his strength. Another is his lion-bannered Judah, washing his garments in the blood of grapes. In another may be recognized his long-lost Joseph, found at last in Pharaoh's chariot. And several others, peradventure, more ancient than thy father, though bearing neither gray beard nor wrinkled brow. And the consciousness of a better ambition than vanity ever inspired prompts their commission to the public, to speak a word in season to him that is weary—to comfort the mourners in Zion, giving them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for weeping, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, and filling the vale of Bochim with songs in the night. Nay, if the mixture of metaphors be not offensive to thy fastidious rhetoric, these brethren are sent down into Egypt to procure corn for thee and thy little ones, O Reader! that ye perish not in the famine of the land.

"Go to! the tropical language is misleading. We open the door to thy children, and find nothing but a hamper of Wine—twenty-two bottles—some labelled Old, and others New."

As thou wilt, my gentle critic! Perhaps twenty-two jars of water only. Yet healthfully clear, and sweet to the taste, it is hoped thou wilt find the beverage; and if the Lord, present at the feast, but deign to look at it, thou mayest wonder that the good wine has been kept till now.

Of Edward Irving, when he died fifty years ago, a London editor wrote: "He was the one man of our time who more than all others preached his life and lived his sermons." To preach one's life were hardly apostolical, though to live one's sermons might be greatly Christian. At the former the author never aimed; of the latter there is little danger of his being suspected. Yet this book is in some sort the record of his personal history. For a farewell gift to the world, he long contemplated an autobiography—had actually begun the work, written more than a hundred pages, and sketched a promising outline of the whole; when, in an hour of indigestion, becoming disgusted, he dropped the enterprise, and made his manuscript a burnt offering to the "blues." As a substitute for the failure, these discourses represent him in the successive stages of his ministry, being arranged in the chronological order of production and delivery, with dates and occasions in footnotes—the only autobiography he could produce, the only one doubtless to be desired. Should grace divine make it in any measure effectual to the spiritual illumination of those who honor it with a perusal, he will sing his Nunc Dimittis with thankful heart, and wait calmly for the day when every faithful worker "shall have praise of God." Farewell.

J. C.

Feast of All Saints, 1883.

CONTENTS.

OLD WINE AND NEW.

I.

FILIAL HOPE.[[1]]

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.—1 John iii. 2.

"I am to depart, you to remain; but which shall have the happier lot, who can tell?" So spake Socrates to his friends just before he drank the fatal hemlock. In all the utterances of the ancient philosophy there is no sadder word. The uncertainty of the hereafter, the impenetrable gloom that shrouds the state of the departed, sets the contemplative soul shivering with mortal dread. Like the expiring Hobbes, more than two thousand years later, the grand old Athenian felt himself "taking a leap in the dark." In his case, however, there was more excuse than in that of the modern unbeliever. The dayspring from on high had not yet visited mankind. The morning star was still below the horizon. Four centuries must pass before the rising Sun of righteousness could bring the perfect day. The Christ came, the true Light of the world; and life and immortality, dawning from his manger, culminated upon his sepulchre. Redeeming Love has revealed to us more of God and man than all the sages of antiquity ever knew; and our reviving and ascending Redeemer has shed a flood of radiance upon the grave and whatever lies beyond. In the immortal Christ we have a sufficient answer to the patriarch's question—"If a man die, shall he live again?" In his mysteriously constituted personality taking our nature into union with the Godhead, by his vicarious passion ransoming that nature, and then rising with it from the dead and returning with it to heaven, he assures all who believe in him of an actual alliance with the living God and all the blissful immunities of life eternal. And thus the apostle's statement becomes the best expression of our filial hope in Christ: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

The ground of our glorious hope as disciples of Christ is found in our gracious state as sons of God. But is not this the relation of all men? Originally it was, but is not now. By creation indeed "we all are his offspring," but not by adoption and regeneration. Sin has cut off from that original relation the whole progeny of Adam, and disinherited us of all its rights and privileges. The paternal likeness is effaced from the human soul. Alienated from the life of God, men have become children of the wicked One. Only by restoring grace—"a new creation in Christ Jesus"—can they regain what they have lost. To effect this, came forth the Only Begotten from the bosom of the Father, and gave himself upon the cross a ransom for the sinful race. Whosoever believeth in him is saved, restored, forgiven, renewed after the image of his Creator in righteousness and true holiness. Jesus himself preached to Nicodemus the necessity of this new birth, and "born of God" is the apostolic description of the mighty transformation. More than any outward ordinance is here expressed—more than mere morality, or reformation of life—a clean heart created, a right spirit renewed, the inception of a higher life whereby the soul becomes partaker of the Divine Nature. All this, through faith in Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Now there is reconciliation and amity with God—"an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." More; there is sympathy, and sweet communion, and joyful co-operation, and spiritual assimilation, and oneness of will and desire, and free access to the throne of grace in every time of need. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying—Abba, Father." "And if children, then heirs—heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." And oh! what an inheritance awaits us in the glorious manifestation of our Lord, when all his saints shall be glorified together with him! For, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

Our sonship, you see, is the ground of our hope. Our hope, you will now see, is worthy of our sonship.

At present, indeed, our glorious destiny is not apparent. By faith we see it, dim and distant, as through the shepherds' glass; in hope we wait for it with calm patience, or press toward it with strong desire; but what it is—"the glory that shall be revealed in us"—we know not, and cannot know, till mortality shall be swallowed up of life. It is spiritual; we are carnal. It is heavenly; we are earthly. It is infinite; we are finite. It is altogether divine: we are but human. Some of God's artists, as St. Paul and St. John, have given us gorgeous pictures of it, which we gaze at with shaded eyes; but while we study them, we cannot help feeling that they fall far short of the copied original. In our present state, what idea can we form of the condition of the soul, and the mode of its subsistence, when dislodged from the body? Nay, what idea can we form of the natural body developing into the spiritual, and all its rudimental powers unfolding in their perfection? Or, to speak more accurately and more scripturally, what idea can we form of the resurrection body, awaking from its long sleep in the dust, re-organized and re-invested—with new beauties, perhaps new organs, new senses, new faculties, all glorious in immortality? And the enfranchised intellect, who can guess the grandeur of its destiny—what new provinces of thought, new discoveries of truth, new revelations of science, new disclosures of the mysteries of nature and of God? And the spirit—the ransomed and purified spirit—who can imagine what perfection of love, what affluence of joy, what transports of worship and of song, what society and fellowship with the saints in light, it shall enjoy when it has entered its eternal rest? We know not how the statue looks till we see it unveiled; and the whole creation, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, is waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God. Now they are his hidden ones—hidden in the shadow of his wings, in the secret place of his tabernacle—their life hidden with Christ in God—their character and true glory hidden from the world—their ineffable destiny and reward hidden from themselves, till their dear Lord shall appear, and they also shall appear with him in glory. And well is it that our knowledge of the better world to come is so obscure and imperfect—necessarily obscure and imperfect, because God hath graciously revealed only what was essential to our salvation; for if he had revealed all that he might have revealed—if we could foresee and comprehend all that awaits us in the blessed everlasting future—we might have been so dazed and delighted with the splendors of the vision, as to be incapable of business, unfit for society, and better out of the world than in it. Wisely, therefore, God hath veiled the future, even from his saints. The oak is in the acorn, but we cannot divine its form, and must await its manifestation in the tree. Yet this we know, saith the apostle—and surely this ought to satisfy our highest ambition of knowledge—"that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Appear he certainly will. Let us not lose sight of this blessed hope. It is his own promise to the disciples on the eve of his departure: "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; and where I am, there ye shall be also." And the angels of the ascension reiterate the assurance to them, as they stand gazing after him from the Mount of Olives: "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven"—that is, visibly, personally, gloriously, in the clouds, with the holy angels. And what saith the apostle? "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him, he shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation"—the second advent as real as the first, and as manifest to human sight. To such statements no mystical or figurative meaning can be given, without violence done to the language. Not in the destruction of Jerusalem was the prediction fulfilled; nor has it since been fulfilled, nor ever can be, in any revival or enlargement of the Church; neither does Jesus come to his disciples at death, but through death they pass to him. Come at length he will, however, and every eye shall see him sitting upon the throne of his glory. The redemption of our humanity by price pledges a further redemption by power, which cannot be accomplished without his personal return to the ransomed planet. "And we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

That likeness to our Lord must be both corporeal and spiritual. St. Paul speaks of the whole Church as "waiting for the adoption—to wit, the redemption of the body;" and elsewhere states that the Saviour for whom we look "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body"—spiritualizing the natural, sublimating the material, endowing the physical organism with powers like his own, and adorning the long-dishonored dust with the radiant beauty of immortality. Yet more wonderful must be the change wrought upon the intellectual and spiritual nature. To be like "God manifest in the flesh"—what is it but to realize a mental development and maturity far transcending all that the wisest ever attained to in this mortal state, perpetual union of our redeemed humanity with the Divinity, and a blissful process of assimilation going on forever? Christ is light without darkness; and to be like him implies a clearness of understanding and a certitude of truth free from all prejudice, distortion, and blinding error. Christ is divine charity incarnate; and to be like him is to love as he loved—with the ardor, the intensity, the self-forgetfulness, which drew him to the manger and led him to the cross. Christ is immaculate holiness made visible to men; and to be like him is to be as spotless, as faultless, as free from iniquity, perversity, hypocrisy, impurity, as He who could challenge the world with the demand—"Which of you convinceth me of sin?" Christ is every moral excellence combined and blended in human character; and to be like him is to be subject to all those high principles and noble impulses which give him infinite preeminence as a model to mankind, and make him in angelic estimation "the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely." Christ is the King whom God the Father hath exalted above all powers and principalities even in heavenly places; and to be like him is to reign with him, partners of his glory upon an imperishable throne, when all the dominions of earth shall have passed away as a forgotten dream. All this, and much beside that no human imagination can conceive, is manifestly comprehended in the apostolic statement, that "he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe"—men and angels, the whole universe, beholding in every disciple a perfect facsimile of the glorified Master. And thus the declaration is triumphantly verified: "We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Spirit is invisible. In his essence, we shall never see God. That men might see him, he became incarnate in human flesh. Except in the person of Jesus Christ, his creatures will never see him. But even Christ is far away, gone back to heaven, and seen only by faith. Often, no doubt, his disciples wish they could see him with their eyes of flesh; but they never will till his promised personal return. With the apostle, they are ever thinking and speaking of him whom, not having seen, they love; in whom, though now they see him not, yet believing, they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But often, looking at him even by faith through the disturbing and distorting media of prejudice and passion, they make sad mistakes about him, about his complex nature, his divine perfections, his human character, his former work in the flesh, his present mediation with the Father, his spiritual relation to the Church, his headship over the redeemed creation. We can appreciate another only through his like within ourselves, our sympathy with his moral qualities. Wanting such sympathy, vice never appreciates virtue, the carnal never discerns the spiritual, the selfish never understands the benevolent and disinterested. Failing to discover the true substratum of character, they mistake motives, ridicule peculiarities, and give no credit for qualities which they cannot perceive. Thus, through the imperfection of our sympathy with the Saviour, or the utter want of such sympathy, even when we regard him by faith, we see him not as he is. Ask the world, "What think ye of Christ?" you will get a great variety of answers. One will tell you he is a myth, a phantom, a creation of genius, that never had a real historic existence. Another will call him a pretender, an impostor, a false prophet, utterly unworthy of human credit and confidence. Another pronounces him an amiable enthusiast, and a very good man; but self-deceived as to his mission and ministry, and not a teacher sent from God. Another deems him a wise moralist, enunciating principles and precepts such as the world never heard before; and in his life, an example of all that is pure and excellent; but not essential and eternal God, nor a vicarious sacrifice for human sin. But here is one who regards him as supremely divine, and yet "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;" and, by the nail-prints in his palms and the thorn-marks on his brow, so shall he be recognized when he cometh in his kingdom, and the nations of the quickened dead go marching to his throne. All mistakes about him will thus be corrected; and those who have seen him only through a glass darkly, shall see him face to face; and all who have loved and honored him as their Saviour, and trusted in him as their wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, awaking in his likeness from the dust, shall begin the antiphon which preludes the eternal song: "This is our God! we have waited for him, and he will save us! This is the Lord! we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation!" Oh that we all may then be found like him, and see him as he is!

[[1]] The author's first sermon, preached at Pompey Hill, Onondaga County, N.Y., on the sixteenth anniversary of his nativity, July 4, 1829—written afterwards, and often repeated during the fifty-four years of his ministry—the thought here faithfully reproduced, the language but little changed.

II.

REST FOR THE WEARY.[[1]]

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.—Matt. xi. 28.

A fine legend is related of St. Jerome. Many years he dwelt in Bethlehem, the town of his dear Lord's nativity. Hard by was the cave, formerly occupied as a stable, in which the blessed Babe was born. Here the holy man spent many a night in prayer and meditation. During one of these—waking or sleeping, we know not—he saw the divine Infant, a vision of most radiant beauty. Overwhelmed with love and wonder, the saint exclaimed: "What shall I give thee, sweet child? I will give thee all my gold!" "Heaven and earth are mine," answered the lovely apparition, "and I have need of nothing; but give thy gold to my poor disciples, and I will accept it as given to myself." "Willingly, O blessed Jesus! will I do this," replied the saint; "but something I must give thee for thyself, or I shall die of sorrow!" "Give me, then, thy sins," rejoined the Christ, "thy troubled conscience, thy burden of condemnation!" "What wilt thou do with them, dear Jesus?" asked Jerome in sweet amazement. "I will take them all upon myself," was the reply; "gladly will I bear thy sins, quiet thy conscience, blot out thy condemnation, and give thee my own eternal peace." Then began the holy man to weep for joy, saying: "Ah, sweet Saviour! how hast thou touched my heart! I thought thou wouldst have something good from me; but no, thou wilt have only the evil! Take, then, what is mine, and grant me what is thine; so am I helped to everlasting life!"

This, my dear brethren, is what Jesus, with unspeakable compassion, offers to do for us all. He would have us bring the several burdens under which we toil and faint, and lay them down at his feet. Pardon for guilt he would give us, peace for trouble, assurance for doubt and fear, and for all our fruitless agony divine repose. See how miserably men mistake his gospel, when they regard it merely as a set of doctrines to be believed, of duties to be performed, of ceremonies to be observed, instead of a mercy to be received, a blessing to be enjoyed, a salvation offered for our acceptance. It is indeed the unspeakable gift of God, the sovereign remedy of all our ills; in which, as rational and immortal beings, fallen in Adam, but redeemed by Christ, we have an infinite interest. There is a tenderness in the invitation, combined with a moral sublimity, demanding for its utterance the melody of an angel's tongue, with the accompaniment of a seraph's harp; and we ought to listen to the words of Jesus to-day with a faith, a love, a joy, such as Simon, James and John never knew, nor the pardoned sinner of Magdala, sitting in rapt wonder at the Master's feet. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

How suitable was this address to those who first heard it, laboring and heavy laden with the costly rites and burdensome observances of the Levitical law! Those rites and observances required a large portion of their time and a larger expenditure of money; yet of their real nature and meaning the common people knew very little, and therefore felt them to be a burden which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. Types and symbols they were of better things to come; but they could not take away sin, nor quiet a troubled conscience, nor give any assurance of the reconciliation and favor of Heaven. For this, God must be manifested in human flesh, the Prince of peace must come and set up his kingdom among men, by the blood of his sacrifice redeeming us from the curse of the violated law, and securing an eternal salvation to all them that obey him. Jesus here assures the Jews that he is what John the Baptist has already proclaimed him—"the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." It is as if he had said: "Come away from your bloody altars and sacrificial fires. These are but the shadows, of which I am the substance; the prophecies, of which I am the fulfilment. In me they all find their meaning and their virtue, and by my mission as the promised Saviour they are set aside forever. Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

Some there were, no doubt, among the hearers of Jesus, who were laboring and heavy laden with vain efforts to justify themselves by the deeds of the law. The Jews imagined that by doing more than their duty they could make God their debtor, and by extra acts of piety and mercy insure their own salvation as a matter of sheer justice. And even among Christians, who profess to take Christ as their only Saviour and his merit as the only ground of their justification before God, are there not many who are not altogether free from this Pharisaic leaven, endeavoring by their moral virtues and perfect obedience to make amends for the errors and delinquencies of the past? But creature merit is absurd, sinful merit impossible, and "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." The creature belongs to the Creator; and loving the Creator with all his soul, and serving the Creator with all his energies, and continuing that love and service without fault or failure throughout all the immortal duration of his being, he merely renders to God his own, and is still an unprofitable servant. But the sinner, already in arrears of duty to the Creator, can never, by yielding to God what is always due even from sinless creatures, satisfy the demands of the law upon its transgressor; and without some other means and method of pardon, which the divine wisdom alone can reveal, the old debt remains uncancelled upon the books, and no power can avert the penalty. Moreover, the sinner by his sin becomes incapable of offering to God any true love or acceptable service without divine grace prevening and co-operating to that end, so that no possible credit can accrue to human virtue and obedience, but all the glory must redound to God. Christ calls us away from all such futile hopes and fruitless endeavors. "I am your Saviour," he saith; "by no other name can you be saved; by no other medium can you come to the Father; through no merit but mine can you obtain absolution from your guilt; through no sacrifice or intercession but mine can you know that peace and purity for which you have hitherto striven and struggled in vain; come unto me, and I will give you rest."

And still another class, found in every large gathering of men and women, especially wherever the dayspring from on high hath dawned, there must have been among these hearers of the divine Preacher—those, namely, who were laboring and heavy laden with the conscious burden of their guilt. True it is, indeed, that such as are going on still in their trespasses do not commonly feel their sins to be a burden. They rejoice in them, and roll them as a sweet morsel under their tongues, talking of them as if it were a fine thing to be foolish and an honor to be infamous. But when the law of God is effectually brought home to the understanding and the heart—when they see themselves in the light of the divine holiness, and the whole inner man seems converted into conscience—then they feel that sin "is an evil and exceeding bitter thing," and cry out with the terrified Philippian, "What must I do to be saved?" or exclaim with the awakened and illuminated Saul, "Oh! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" or, smiting a guilty breast, pray with the publican of the parable, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

"As writhes the gross
Material part when in the furnace cast,
So writhes the soul the victim of remorse!
Remorse—a fire that on the verge of God's
Commandment burns, and on the vitals feeds
Of all who pass!"[[2]]

And remorse is accompanied with terror, and fearful apprehensions of the wrath to come. Condemned already, the affrighted sinner sees a more formidable sword than that of Damocles hanging over his head. Amidst all his carnal pleasures and social enjoyments, he is like that prince of Norway, who went to his wedding festival well knowing that it would end in his execution; and at the altar, and in the gay procession, and over the table loaded with luxuries, and through palatial halls strewed with flowers and ringing with music and merriment, saw everywhere and heard continually the preparations for the fatal hour. The agony of such a situation how can we imagine? I once knew an awakened sinner who described himself as enclosed in the centre of a granite mountain, no room to move a muscle, no seam or crevice through which one ray of light could reach him—picture of utter helplessness and absolute despair! Ah! my brethren! He who made the granite may dissolve it, or reduce the solid mountain to dust! And is there any guilt or misery from which the Mighty to save cannot deliver the soul that trusts in him? Your sin may be great, but his mercy is greater. Your enemies may threaten, but has he not conquered them and nailed them to his cross? To whom, then, will you apply for help, but to your divine and all-sufficient Saviour? Go not to human philosophy,

"Which leads to bewilder and dazzles to blind,"

but cannot satisfy the mind nor tranquillize the conscience. Go not to the ritual law of Israel, which could never make the comers thereunto perfect; nor to the blessed saints and martyrs, none of whom can avail you as mediators between your sinful souls and God; nor depend upon sacraments and sermons, for these can aid you only as they bring you into spiritual contact with Christ, the light and life of the world. Hear him calling—rise and obey the call—"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Rest is a pleasant word—how pleasant to the husbandman, toiling on through the long summer day! how pleasant to the traveller, pressing forward with his load to the end of his tedious journey! how pleasant to the mariner, after tossing for weeks on stormy seas, stepping upon his native shore and hasting away to his childhood's home! how pleasant to the warrior, when, having won the last battle of his last campaign, he returns with an honorable discharge to his mother's cottage among the hills! Rest is what we all want, and what Jesus offers to the weary and heavy laden soul. I saw a young lady bowed down with grief at the memory of her sins; and when I spoke to her, she looked up with a smile that made rainbows on her tears, and said: "O sir! I have had more happiness weeping over my sins for the last half hour than I ever had in sinning through all my life!" And if

"The seeing eye, the feeling sense,
The mystic joys of penitence,"

have in them so much sweetness for the soul, what shall we say of

"The speechless awe that dares not move,
And all the silent heaven of love!"

It is the rest of conscious pardon and satisfied desire; the rest of faith, seeing the invisible and grasping the infinite; of hope, reposing in the infallible promise and anticipating a blissful immortality; of resignation, losing its own will in the will of God, and leaving all things to the disposal of the divine wisdom and goodness; of perfect confidence and trust, saying with St. Paul: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that, he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Christ is the love of God incarnate in our nature; and where shall the loving John find rest, but in the bosom of the Eternal Love? And, tossed by many a tempest, or racked with keenest pain, why should not the weary and heavy-laden disciple of the divine Man of sorrows sing like one of his faithful servants whose flesh and spirit were being torn asunder by anguish:—

"Yet, gracious God, amid these storms of nature,
Thine eyes behold a sweet and sacred calm
Reign through the realm of conscience. All within
Lies peaceful, all composed. 'Tis wondrous grace
Keeps off thy terrors from this humble bosom,
Though stained with sins and follies, yet serene
In penitential peace and cheerful hope,
Sprinkled and guarded with atoning blood.
Thy vital smiles amid this desolation,
Like heavenly sunbeams hid behind the clouds,
Break out in happy moments. With bright radiance
Cleaving the gloom, the fair celestial light
Softens and gilds the horrors of the storm,
And richest cordial to the heart conveys.
Oh! glorious solace of immense distress!
A conscience and a God! This is my rock
Of firm support, my shield of sure defence
Against infernal arrows. Rise, my soul!
Put on thy courage! Here's the living spring
Of joys divinely sweet and ever new—
A peaceful conscience and a smiling Heaven!
My God! permit a sinful worm to say,
Thy Spirit knows I love thee. Worthless wretch!
To dare to love a God! Yet grace requires,
And grace accepts. Thou seest my laboring mind.
Weak as my zeal is, yet my zeal is true;
It bears the trying furnace. I am thine,
By covenant secure. Incarnate Love
Hath seized, and holds me in almighty arms.
What can avail to shake me from my trust?
Amidst the wreck of worlds and dying nature,
I am the Lord's, and he forever mine!"[[3]]

Hear ye, then, the loving words of Jesus. The invitation is unlimited; the grace is free for all. No sin is too great to be forgiven, no burden too heavy to be removed, no power in earth or hell able to keep you back from Christ. However dark your minds, however hard your hearts, however dead your spirits, hear and answer: "I will arise and go!"

"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!"

Lo! with outstretched arms he hastes to meet you, with tokens of welcome and the kiss of peace.

"Ready for you the angels wait,
To triumph in your blest estate;
Tuning their harps, they long to praise
The wonders of redeeming grace."

All heaven, with expectant joy, awaits your coming. Come, and satisfy the soul that travailed for you in Olivet! Come, and gladden the heart that broke for you upon the cross! Come, and at the nail-pierced feet find your eternal rest!

[[1]] Preached in Syracuse, N.Y., 1830; at Weston-super-Mare, Somersetshire, Eng., 1857.]

[[2]] Pollok.

[[3]] Isaac Watts in his last illness.

III.

MY BELOVED AND FRIEND.[[1]]

This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!—Song of Sol. v. 16.

By the ablest interpreters and critics of Holy Scripture, the Song of Solomon has generally been regarded as an epithalamium, or nuptial canticle. But, like many other parts of the sacred volume, doubtless, it has a mystical and secondary application, which is more important than the literal and primary. The true Solomon is Christ, and the Church is his beautiful Shulamite. In this chapter, the Bride sings the glory of her divine Spouse, and our text concludes the description. But what is thus true of the Church in her corporate capacity, is true also of her individual members; and without its verification in their personal experience, it could not be thoroughly verified in the organic whole. Every regenerate and faithful soul may say of the heavenly Bridegroom: "This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

Christ for a beloved—the Son of God for a friend! What nobler theme could occupy our thoughts? what sublimer privilege invest the saints in light?

So constituted is man, that love and friendship are necessary to his happiness, almost essential to his existence. Accumulate in your coffers the wealth of all kingdoms, and gather into your diadems the glories of the greatest empires. Bid every continent, island and ocean bring forth their hidden treasures, and pour the sparkling tribute at your feet. Subsidize and appropriate whatever is precious in the solar planets or magnificent in the stellar jewellery of heaven, and hold it all by an immortal tenure. Yet, without at least one kindred spirit to whom you might communicate your joy, one congenial soul from whom you might claim sympathy in your sorrow, the loveless heart were still unsatisfied—

"The friendless master of the worlds were poor!"

Among the children of men, however, love and friendship, in one respect or another, will always be found defective, liable to many irregularities and interruptions, painful suspicions and sad infirmities, which mar their beauty, tarnish their purity, and imbitter their consolations, turning the ambrosia into wormwood and the nectar into gall. Sometimes they are manifest only in words, and smiles, and hollow courtesies, and other external tokens; while the heart is as void of all true affection and confidence as the whitewashed sepulchre is of life and beauty. Beginning with flattery, they often proceed by hypocrisy, and end in betrayal. Or if there be sincerity in the outset, it may prove as impotent as childhood, as changeful as autumn winds, or as fleeting as the morning cloud. Or if not destroyed by some trivial offence, or suffered to die of cold neglect, their ties are clipped at length by the shears of fate, and no love or friendship is possible in the everlasting banishment of the unblest.

But amidst all the sad uncertainties of human attachments, how pleasant it is to know that "there is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother"—a Beloved whose affection is sincere, ardent, unchanging, imperishable—who can neither deceive nor forsake those who have entered into covenant with him—from whom death itself will not divide us, but bring us to a nearer and sweeter fellowship with him than we are capable now of imagining! Enoch walked with God till he was less fit for earth than for heaven, and St. John leaned upon the heart of Jesus till his own pulse beat in unison with the divine. Drawn into this blissful communion, every true disciple becomes one spirit with the Lord. Christ calls his servants friends, receives them into his confidence, and reveals to them the secrets of his kingdom. Not ashamed to own them now, he will confess them hereafter before his Father and the holy angels. "They shall be mine," saith he, "in that day when I make up my jewels." And the happy Bride, dwelling with ineffable delight upon the perfections of her Spouse, and anticipating the fulfilment of his promise when he cometh in his glory, concludes her song of joy with the declaration—"This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."

What, then, are the conditions on which such intimacy of the soul with Christ is to be established? Nothing is required but what is in the very nature of things necessary. Prophet, Priest and King, he can take into amicable alliance with him only such as respect and honor him in these relations. The prophet cannot be the beloved and the friend of those who refuse to hear his word; nor the priest, of those who reject his sacrifice and intercession; nor the king, of those who are still in arms against his gracious government. We must love him, if we would have his love; we must show ourselves friendly, if we would enjoy his friendship. Having died to redeem us, he ever lives to plead for us, and by a thousand ambassadors he offers us his love and friendship; but, no response on our part, no sympathy or co-operation, how can we call him our beloved and our friend? "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" There must be reconciliation and assimilation. We must submit to Christ's authority, and co-operate with his mercy. We must love what he loves, and hate what he hates. His friends must be our friends, and his enemies our enemies. The world, the flesh, and the devil, we must for his sake renounce; reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Does not St. Paul tell us that as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ?[[2]] What does he mean? That in baptism we not only enter into covenant with Christ, but also assume his character, and profess our serious purpose to walk as he walked, conformed to his perfect example, and governed by the same divine principles. As when one puts on the peculiar habit of the Benedictines or the Franciscans, he declares his intention to obey the rules and copy the life of St. Benedict or St. Francis, the founders of those orders; so, in putting on the Christian habit when you are baptized, you avow yourself the disciple of Christ, and openly declare your death thenceforth to sin and your new birth to righteousness. And without any thing in your heart and life corresponding to such a reality, how can you say of Jesus—"This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

But where there are no attractive qualities, there can be neither love nor friendship. Something there must be to inspire affection and confidence. In our divine Beloved resides every mental grace and every moral virtue. Our heavenly Friend is "the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely." Of the excellency of Christ all the charms of nature afford but the faintest images, and poetry and eloquence falter in the celebration of his praise. I ask your attention here to a few particulars.

Jesus is always perfectly sincere. With him there are no shams, no mere pretences, no unmeaning utterances of love or friendship. All is real, all is most significant, and there are depths in his heart which no line but God's can fathom.

And his ardor is equal to his sincerity. "Behold how he loved him!" said the Jews when they saw him weeping at the tomb of Lazarus. "Behold how he loveth them!" say the angels when they witness the far more wonderful manifestations of his friendship for the saints. Let the profane speak of Damon and Pythias, and the pious talk of David and Jonathan; there is no other heart like that of Jesus Christ, no other bond so strong as that which binds him to his disciples.

And his disinterestedness is commensurate with his ardor. In human friendships we often detect some selfish end; Christ seeks not his own glory or profit, but sacrifices himself for our salvation. No earthly affection is greater than that which lays down life for a friend; Christ died for us while we were yet enemies, upon the cross prayed for those who nailed him there, and from the throne still offers eternal life to those who are constantly crucifying him afresh and putting him to open shame. And in all his gracious fellowship with those who love him, it is their good he seeks, their honor he consults, their great and endless comfort he wishes to secure.

And not less wonderful are his patience and forbearance toward them. How meekly he endured the imperfections of the chosen twelve as long as he remained with them in the flesh! How tenderly he bore their misconceptions of his purpose, their misconstructions of his language, their fierce and fiery tempers, their slowness of heart to believe! How beautifully his patience carried him through all his life of suffering, and sustained him in the bitter anguish of the cross! And since his return to heaven, how often, and in how many ways, have his redeemed people put his forbearance to the proof! Try any other friend as you try Jesus, and see how long he will endure it. But our divine Beloved will not faint nor be weary, till he have accomplished in us his work of grace, and brought us in safety to his Father's house.

And who ever matched him in beneficence and bounty? "He is able," saith the apostle, "to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think." His ability is as large as his love, and that is immeasurable and inconceivable. Other friends, loving us sincerely, may want power to help us; he hath all power in heaven and earth. They may be far away in the time of need; he saith—"Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." As the vine gives its life to the branches, as the shepherd gives his time and care to the sheep, as the monarch gives riches and honors to his favorites, as the royal spouse gives himself and all he has to his chosen bride, so gives Christ to his elect, making them joint-heirs with himself to all that he inherits as the only begotten Son of God—unspeakable grace now, eternal glory hereafter! "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's!"

And what confiding intimacy find we in this heavenly friendship! The father, the brother, the husband, live in the same house, occupy the same room, eat and drink at the same table, with their beloved; Christ comes into our hearts, takes up his abode there, and feasts with us, and we with him. "Shall I hide from Abraham," said Jehovah, "the thing that I do?" "therefore Abraham was called the friend of God." "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," saith the Psalmist, "and he will show them his covenant." "Henceforth I call you not servants," said Jesus to the twelve, "but I have called you friends, for whatsoever I have received of my Father I have made known unto you." "Eye hath not seen," writes St. Paul, "nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." Every true disciple, like Ignatius, carries the Crucified in his heart, and knows and comprehends with all saints, the lengths and breadths and depths and heights of the love that passeth knowledge, being filled with the fulness of God.

And all this is unfailing and everlasting. Having loved his own who were in the world, Christ loved them unto the end, loved them still upon his cross, and ceased not to love them when he left them and returned to the Father, but remembered his promise to pray for them, and to send them another Comforter who should abide with them forever, and finally to come again and receive them unto himself, that where he is they might be also. Nearly nineteen centuries are past since he ascended whence he came, and still the promise holds good, and the lapse of ages has not diminished his affection, and to-day he loves his friends as tenderly as when he talked so sweetly with the little flock at the Last Supper and along the path to Olivet. Death, which dissolves all other friendships, confirms this forever. "I have a desire to depart," wrote the heroic Christian prisoner from Rome—"I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." Not long had the dear old man to wait. One morning—the 29th of June, A.D. 68—the door of his dungeon opened, St. Paul went forth, walked a mile along the way to Ostia, with his hands bound behind him knelt down, the sweep of a sword gleamed over him like the flash of an angel's wing, and the servant was with his Lord!

Thus, dear brethren, we see the incomparable qualities of our Beloved, the divine excellences of our Friend. Perfect wisdom is here, perfect knowledge, perfect prudence, perfect justice, perfect purity, perfect benevolence, perfect magnanimity, with immutability and immortality—whatever is necessary to win and hold the heart—all blending in the character of Christ. Is he not the very friend we need? How, without him, can we bear to live or dare to die? What are riches, culture, power, splendor, without his love? What can our poor human friends do for us in the hour of death? What could worlds of such friends do for us in the day of judgment? "In the name of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge." Flee away, ye heavens! Dissolve, thou earth! and vanish! It is my Beloved that cometh with his chariots! It is my Friend that sitteth upon the throne!

Oh! my brethren! Christ Jesus loves to make new friends, though he never abandons the old. Let us accept his gracious overtures, and join ourselves unto the Lord in an everlasting covenant. The poorest and vilest of us all would he take home to his heart, and love him freely and forever. The most unworthy of all the human race would he gladly introduce to the fellowship of saints and the innumerable company of angels, and seat the pardoned sinner at his side upon the throne. Oh! when I enter the metropolis, and hail the immortal millions of the blood-washed, and kneel to kiss the nail-pierced feet of the King, while all the harps and voices that have welcomed me go silent for his gracious salutation, with what rapture, as I rise, shall I look round upon the happy multitude and say—"This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

[[1]] Preached at a wedding festival, 1833.

[[2]] Gal. iii. 27.

IV.

REFUGE IN GOD.[[1]]

Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me.—Ps. xxxi. 2.

On a superb arch in one of the halls of the Alhambra, the traveller reads as he enters: "I seek my refuge in the Lord of the morning." The sentiment is worthy of Holy Scripture, whence doubtless it was taken by the writer of the Koran. More than two thousand years earlier than Mohammed, Moses had said to the beloved tribes, just before he ascended to his mountain death-bed: "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms." And how often does King David, environed with dangers and oppressed with sorrows, comfort himself with the assurance of an almighty protection and support! "Thou art my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." "In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock; and now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies that are round about me." "Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy; I will abide in thy tabernacle forever, I will trust in the covert of thy wings." "Thou art my hiding-place: thou wilt preserve me from trouble; thou wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance." And so in a hundred other passages of his psalms, and notably in the words we have chosen as the basis of this discourse: "Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me." In all such utterances, there seems to be some reference to the Hebrew cities of refuge, whither the manslayer fled from the avenger of blood, where he remained unmolested till he could have an impartial hearing, and whence, if found innocent of premeditated murder, he finally came forth acquitted amidst the congratulations of his family and friends. Here is the double idea of escape from persecution and security from punishment; and with reference to both these, the psalmist seeks his refuge in the Lord of the morning.

The first idea is refuge from persecution. David's persecutions were varied, and violent, and long continued. How sadly he tells the story, and pours out his melting soul in song! Deceitful and bloody men, full of all subtlety and malignity, compassed him about like bees, like strong bulls of Bashan, like a troop of lions from the desert. Daily they imagined mischief against him, and consulted together to cast him down from his excellency. They laid to his charge things which he knew not. To the spoiling of his soul, they rewarded him evil for good. With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon him with their teeth. As with a sword in his bones, they reproached him; saying continually, "Where is now thy God?" In his adversity they openly rejoiced, and with his misfortunes made themselves merry. They persecuted him whom God had smitten, and talked to the grief of him whom the Most High had wounded. With cruel hatred they hated him; yea, they tore him in pieces, and ceased not.

With these woful complaints agree the recorded facts of his life. One while we see him pursued like a partridge upon the mountains by the royal army, with his royal father-in-law at its head; from whom he escapes only by frequent flight, concealment in caverns, and weary sojourn at the court of a pagan king. And later in life we behold him driven from his throne, and chased from house and hold, by his own insurgent son; while Shimmei comes forth to curse the weeping fugitive, and cast stones at the Lord's anointed; and Ahithophel, his former familiar friend and courtly confidant, with whom he has often taken sweet counsel and walked in the house of God, lifts up the heel against him, and basely goes over to the standard of the conspirators.

No wonder he exclaims, as with the sigh of a breaking heart: "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried; mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God. They that hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head; they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty.... Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor. Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."[[2]] "I mourn in my complaint and make a noise, because of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked; for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me; fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away, and be at rest; lo! then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness; I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."[[3]]

Vain wish, O disquieted and trembling soul! No wings, no distance, no solitude, can save thee. Nearer at hand thou shalt find thy refuge, even in the Lord of the morning. And well knows the persecuted king where to look for succor and consolation. "O Lord, my God! in thee do I put my trust. Save me from them that persecute me, and deliver me; lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver."[[4]] "Show thy marvellous loving-kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them that put their trust in thee from those who rise up against them! Keep me as the apple of thine eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wing, from the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies who compass me about."[[5]] "Plead my cause, O Lord! with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help; draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation."[[6]]

How expressive is all this of utter helplessness, and reliance upon the living God! What fervent prayer is here! what faith in a personal power and a special providence which no human agency can baffle or resist! Proud mortals! talk no more of the strong will, the valiant arm, the dauntless courage, and your own self-sufficiency! "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm." "Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." What is the strategy of generals and the prowess of armies, to him "who rideth upon the heavens in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky"? Faith as a grain of mustard-seed is better than all your military science, and the prayer of the humblest peasant is mightier than embattled millions. The prayer of faith divides the sea, cleaves the granite, marshals the troops of the tempest, and makes the angels of God our allies. "When I call upon thee, then shall mine enemies be put to flight; this I know, for God is on my side." Such is David's confidence; such, my brethren, be ours! Is not every attribute of Jehovah in league with the devout believer, and all his infinite resources pledged to the support of his servants? And without any doubt of a divine hearing or fear of ultimate failure, every persecuted Christian may pray to the God of David: "Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me."

The second idea is refuge from punishment. The chief element of David's distress is a painful consciousness of guilt. It is conscience that wrings the wormwood for him into every cup of sorrow. It is remorse for past transgression that turns his tears into gall and makes his persecutions intolerable. Pure and innocent, he might defy his enemies, he might glory in tribulations. But he is forced to regard the wicked as God's sword for the punishment of his sins; and in all his pleadings we hear the voice of the penitent—sad confessions, bitter self-reproaches, touching appeals to the mercy of Heaven. "Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me from my transgressions; make me not a reproach of the foolish.... Remove thy stroke away from me; I am consumed by the blow of thy hand."[[7]] "Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink. Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Hear me, O Lord! for thy loving-kindness is good. Turn unto me, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies; and hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily."[[8]]

A good man, we all know, may be surprised by temptation, and so fall into grievous sin. Thus some of God's holiest servants have committed enormous crimes. Not the single or occasional act, however, constitutes character; but the habit of a man's life—his dominant impulse and prevailing tendency. To judge St. Peter, for example, by the one solitary instance of defection, were manifestly unfair; when his whole course, up to that moment, and ever afterward, was marked by uncompromising fidelity to the Master, with the most heroic daring and enduring in his service. Far more just were it to estimate the man by the tears which he wept when the reproving glance brought home the guilt to his conscience, and by his subsequent earnest endeavors to undo the evil he had done and honor the Saviour he had denied.

Apply this principle to the royal penitent. Who ever more truly loved God, or more honestly sought to serve him? Was not holy obedience the tenor and tendency of his life? If he erred in numbering the people—if he took Uriah's wife to his bosom, and slew the husband to conceal the crime—it was under the power of peculiar temptation, which we, having never experienced, are quite incapable of estimating; and those deplorable deeds are the only recorded exceptions—the manifest violent contradictions—to a long life of singular piety, purity and uprightness. And now, made sensible of his sin, mark you how bitterly he grieves for it, and how earnestly he groans for its forgiveness:—

"Have mercy upon me, O God! according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.... Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God! and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God! thou God of my salvation! and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness."[[9]]

What keen remorse and penitential shame are here! Was there ever a more ingenuous confession, a more thorough contrition, a more profound humility, or a more utter self-despair? The royal sinner seems to see the sin in all its hideousness, and to hate it with unutterable hatred. He seeks no subterfuge, attempts no extenuation; but charges the guilt home, with all its aggravations, upon his own soul. Never can he forgive his folly, nor weep tears, enough to express his sorrow for the fault.

Would to Heaven we might all thus feel our guilt, and haste to the shelter of the divine mercy! Sinners—great sinners—are we all. Is there one of us that has not sinned more deeply than David ever did? And, instead of being an exceptional act, our sin has been the habit of our lives. Justice, with double-flaming sword, is hard upon our heels. What shall we do, or whither turn, for safety? To thee, O Crucified Love! we come; and, with broken hearts, cast ourselves down at thy feet. All other saviours we renounce: all other merits we disclaim; all other sacrifices we abjure. Thou of God art made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Perishing, we implore thy mercy. Take us to the arms that were stretched upon the cross. Hide us in the heart that was opened by the soldier's spear. When we faint in the valley of the shadow of death, let us feel the assuring pressure of the nail-pierced hand. When the heavens are flaming above and the earth is dissolving beneath, "be thou our strong rock, for a house of defence to save us"!

[[1]] Preached in Ithaca, N.Y., 1838.

[[2]] Ps. lxix. 1-4, 19, 20.

[[3]] Ps. lv. 2-8.

[[4]] Ps. vii. 1, 2.

[[5]] xvii. 7, 8.

[[6]] xxxv. 1-3.

[[7]] Ps. xxxvii, 7, 8, 10.

[[8]] Ps. lxix. 14-17.

[[9]] Ps. li. 1-4, 7-14.

V.

PARENTAL DISCIPLINE.[[1]]

His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.—1 Sam. iii. 13.

Few things in the Bible are more beautiful than the child-life of Samuel. A gift of the loving God to a devout but sorrowful woman, his mother gladly gave him back to the Giver, and he ministered before the Lord in the sanctuary at Shiloh. At that time Eli was both high-priest and magistrate in Israel. As a man of God, and to him much more than a father, Samuel seems to have loved him very tenderly and honored him very highly. To ease himself somewhat of his onerous duties, perhaps, Eli had raised his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, to the dignity of the priesthood. In the exercise of their sacred trust, the young men had committed great excesses and abuses. From all sides the fact came to the ears of their father. Sweetly and gently he remonstrated with the offenders, but neglected to hold them back with the strong hand of parental authority. Probably from the first there had been some radical defect in the moral discipline of the family. An amiable and indulgent father, Eli had neglected the severer duty which his sacred office, even more than his paternal relation, imposed upon him. To make him sensible of his great delinquency, the guilt of his sons must be brought home upon his hoary head.

"Divinely called and strongly moved,
A prophet from a child approved,"

Samuel is commissioned to announce to him the heavy tidings, that God will judge his house forever, because "his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not."

In the outset, we cannot help observing the difference between the sons of Eli and his little ward. Samuel received his first lessons from the lips of a godly mother in the quiet home at Ramah. From his earliest consciousness he knew that he was to be a Nazarite, consecrated wholly to the service of Jehovah. His special training afterward in the house of the Lord was well adapted to fit him for the grand career before him. The gross misconduct of some who ought to have set him the best example must have wounded deeply his innocent heart, while it impressed him strongly with the deadly evil of sin and the mischief resulting inevitably from the relaxation of morals among the rulers of the people and the ministers of religion. Growing up in daily contact with the mysteries and symbols of the divine service, the sacred ritual which was to Hophni and Phinehas merely an empty form was to him replete with the spirit and power of holiness, elevating his thoughts, purifying his feelings, and moulding his whole character to its noble design. The names and things with which he was constantly occupied conformed him gradually but unalterably to God's gracious purpose, and made him the steadfast and uncompromising servant of the Most High—the man to reprove, rebuke, exhort, instruct the people—to retrieve losses, restore justice, reform abuses, assuage excitements, reduce chaos to order, establish the schools of the prophets, and wield a controlling power over the throne. Such a ministry required a character of steady growth, and the personal influence of a consistent and holy life. None of your modern revivals could ever have made a Samuel.

True it is, indeed, that some of God's most eminent servants—as St. Paul and St. Augustine—were converted in manhood, after a wasted youth of sin and crime; yet such instances are no real exceptions to the rule, that God directs the training of his servants from childhood, shaping his instruments by every act of his providence. St. Paul was thoroughly educated in the rabbinical learning of his day, and well acquainted with Greek literature and Greek philosophy, and so far prepared for his Christian apostleship to both Jews and Gentiles; and the logical and rhetorical studies of St. Augustine unconsciously made him the great Christian dialectician that he was, while the sensual indulgences of his earlier years intensified his knowledge both of the power of sin and the efficacy of divine grace which he was to preach to others. Generally, the Lord's most honored servants, like Samuel, have been chosen from their childhood, and nourished up for their special ministry under the hallowed influence of his truth and worship. Some of them, it is true, were afterward for a while occupied in other callings, before they went to their divinely appointed labor. Moses was a shepherd in the very wilderness through which he was to lead the Lord's beloved, and on the very mountain where he was to receive for them a law from the lips of God. David also was a shepherd, and a musician, and a warrior, and a fugitive, and an outcast from his country; and by all these conditions and experiences was he trained for his future pre-eminence, as the king of Israel, and the psalmist of the sanctuary, and the man after God's own heart. And Chrysostom was a lawyer, and Ambrose was a civilian and a prefect, and Cyprian was a professor of rhetoric, before they entered upon their nobler life-work for Christ and the Church. In all these cases, to which many others might be added, God's good providence wisely ordered the discipline of his servants, through knowledge, and sorrow, and conflict, and a great variety of experiences, out of which were developed those characters and qualities which were essential to their success in the high calling for which they were designed. And so with the holy Baptist, chosen to be the immediate harbinger of the Messiah; and the Galilæan fishermen, whom he afterward ordained as his apostles; and Timothy, appointed the first bishop of Ephesus; and Luther, the destined sword of Heaven to Papal Rome. And so it was with Samuel, from his very birth consecrated to God, growing up in the house of the Lord, becoming the prophet and judge of his people, the invincible champion of truth and righteousness; with such heroic energy maintaining the authority of the divine law, rebuking iniquity in high places, withstanding the current of the national degeneracy, and like an angel of God pronouncing the doom of a fallen monarch, that "all Israel even from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord."

To return to Eli and his sons. The father's fault seems to have been too much indulgence, too much tenderness, perhaps too much timidity, to restrain his consecrated lads from their wicked practices. The power he had, but would not assert it. The father's authority in his family at that age of the world was absolute and unquestionable. This fact leaves Eli's conduct without excuse. He remonstrated with the offenders, but far too feebly. Their crimes were of the very worst character, and aggravated by their sacred profession and holy environments; yet he had for them but a few soft and gentle words, scarcely strong enough to be called a reproof, without any assertion of authority as father, high-priest, or judge. One of our best biblical critics renders the text: "His sons made themselves accursed, and he frowned not upon them."

But while we animadvert upon the guilty negligence of Eli, let no parent plead the different customs of our day, the higher civilization of the race, or the diminished degree of parental authority, as an excuse for his own delinquency. Every father and mother are responsible for the moral restraint of the children that God has given them, and fearful beyond all estimate must be the consequences of disregarding the duty. Such is the tendency of human nature to evil, that it begins to show itself ordinarily at a very early period of life, and the utmost care should be taken to check it in its first manifestations. For this purpose it may be necessary to interpose the strength of the parental will in curbing the will of the child. Those who are taught from their infancy to submit their own will to the will of father or mother are more likely in later life to yield themselves to the will of God. The wise mother of the Wesleys has left on record these words for our guidance in this important matter: "In order to form the mind of the child, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will and bring it into an obedient temper. This is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after wretchedness and irreligion, and whatever checks and mortifies it promotes their future happiness and piety." Who will presume to question this statement? And if correct, is not Robert Hall's remark equally true—that "indulgent parents are cruel to their children and to posterity"?

But who can calculate the consequences? The fallow ground left unsown is soon sown by the winds with every vagrant seed of evil. One sin leads to another, the less generally to the greater; and by the inception of a single wrong principle in childhood, the young man who might have been a model of virtue becomes a curse to society, and the young woman who ought to have proved a priceless jewel turns out a mere package of dry goods if not something worse. True, these moral wrecks may possibly be recovered by converting grace; but such cases are extremely uncommon, and when they do occur they are regarded as miracles of mercy; and often, alas! the effect is as evanescent as the morning cloud and early dew. Generally, those who have grown up without religious restraint go on still in their trespasses, living without God and dying without hope.

"As in individuals, so in nations," writes the Rev. Charles Kingsley, "unbridled indulgence of the passions must produce, and does produce, frivolity, effeminacy, slavery to the appetite of the moment, a brutalized and reckless temper, before which prudence, energy, national feeling, any and every feeling which is not centred in self, perishes utterly. The old French noblesse gave a proof of this law which will last as a warning beacon to the end of time.... It must be so. The national life is grounded on the life of the family, is the development of it; and where the root is corrupt, the tree must be corrupt also." A fearful truth for the contemplation of Christian patriotism! Imagine an utter indifference to the morals of the rising generation all at once to prevail throughout the country, and all efforts for the spiritual culture of the young suddenly to cease; would not the frightful ruin rush over the land with the rapidity of an avalanche and the ubiquity of a deluge, instant and everywhere, in your highways and your byways, at your altars and your hearths, sweeping before it every thing pure and lovely—every thing valuable to existence, precious to recollection, or cheering in the visions of hope?

This side of the subject is not pleasing; let us look at the obverse. No moral maxim is sounder than that of the royal sage: "Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The principles of virtue early implanted insure the future saint and hero. A thoroughly good character impressed upon youth cleaves to the man forever.

Exceptions, indeed, there may be—very saddening and disheartening exceptions. It does sometimes happen that those who seem at least to have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord subsequently decline from the way of wisdom and become vicious in their lives. But such cases are too rare to affect the rule. And in these instances, is it not likely that we are deceived often by appearances? May not the religious culture have been radically defective in its principle or culpably incomplete in its process? Was not the child committed to incompetent hands, that marred the character they should have made; or abandoned to the influence of an evil world, and exposed to the contagion of bad example, before his virtuous principles were sufficiently confirmed and fortified? An accurate knowledge of all the facts would no doubt develop some capital defect in the education; would show something essential omitted, or something of evil mingled with the good, some base alloy blended with the pure metal, some infant viper coiled unseen among the buddings and bloomings of spring.

But I have the confidence to affirm that apostasy from the principles of a good Christian education very seldom occurs—so seldom, indeed, that the instances might almost be pronounced anomalous. It is a maxim attested by general if not universal experience, that upon the qualities acquired in childhood depends the character of manhood and old age. Childhood is the period of docility and impressibility, when habits of thought and feeling are formed with the greatest facility; and such habits, once formed, are extremely difficult to destroy; and the good wrought in the soul at that tender age, growing with its growth and strengthening with its strength, is almost invariably retained to the latest hour of life.

Ordinarily, no doubt, we are guided more by habit than by reason. To walk in the old way is much easier than to strike out a new. In this respect, taste follows the same law as thought and action. If the child has formed a taste for virtue, the potent law of habit insures its perpetuity. The virtuous taste prompts to virtuous deeds, and the virtuous deeds confirm the virtuous taste. Thus, by a reflex action, virtue proves its own conservator. Daily the habit grows stronger and the motive more efficacious. Daily the heart is more and more fortified against the assaults of temptation. Daily the world loses something of its fascination, its false maxims something of their plausibility, its apologies and solicitations something of their persuasive power.

As with the body, so with the spirit. Habitual inaction enfeebles the faculties, and renders their occasional operation inefficient and fruitless. On the contrary, by habitual exercise one becomes capable of performing with ease what were otherwise laborious and difficult, if not quite impossible. Thus the young, accustomed to resist their evil passions, will afterward keep them in due control without any very strenuous struggle; and the seeds of a pure morality, sown in early life, will strike their roots deep into the soil, and spring up in perpetual blossom and fruitage. The person is thenceforth virtuous, not without effort, but certainly with less effort than if he had never accustomed himself to virtue. The habit of virtue has made virtue amiable, and her service becomes a labor of love, her yoke easy and her burden light.

In speaking thus of the power of habit, which has been called "a second nature," I would not exclude from the process of education the agency of divine grace, nor lose sight of it as a necessary factor to the best results. Divine grace, indeed, has much to do with the formation of the habit, and must co-operate with every agency employed in the work. Without divine grace, there is nothing wise, nothing strong, nothing holy; and after all the efforts of parents, pastors, teachers—however great or however small the measure of success attained—we lift our hands to Heaven and sing:—

"Thou all our works in us hast wrought,
Our good is all divine;
The praise of every virtuous thought
And righteous word is thine.

From thee, through Jesus, we receive
The power on thee to call;
In whom we are, and move, and live—
Our God, our all in all."

An infidel objected to sending his little daughter to the Sunday school, "because," said he, "they learn things there which they never forget." The infidel was a philosopher. Knowledge is indestructible. The fact or the principle once acquired is never lost. The soul's past thoughts, feelings, impressions, and operations, are its inalienable property. They are engraven upon an imperishable tablet, and no power can efface the record. Though some parts of our experience may be but dimly and vaguely remembered, and much that we have learned may seem to be irrevocably forgotten, yet the mind is in possession of a law which, when brought into action, will completely restore the entire train of its former phenomena. They are not dead, but sleeping; and we know not what event at some future day may be the trump of their resurrection. The seed that lies buried in the earth through the long and dreary winter will germinate in spring-time and fructify in summer. Therefore let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

Christian parents! it is yours to begin at the cradle a work whose blessed influence shall extend beyond the tomb. By the principles you impart to your little ones, you insure the virtue and the Christianity of generations to come; you kindle lights to burn amidst the world's darkness when the faint glimmering of your own is gone; you adorn the living temple of the Lord with pillars of strength and beauty which shall challenge angelic admiration when all the colonnaded glories of earth's capitals are calcined by the fires of doom. To such an achievement, what are all the treasures of monarchs, and all the splendors of empire, and all the applause of heroism, and all the renown of authorship, and all the fascination of eloquence, and all the entrancing power of song?

Who has any fear of God, any love of country, any affection for his children, any regard for the welfare of posterity? By all these I implore you, and by every other consideration that ought to move the heart of man, awake to the work which Heaven enjoins and every instinct of nature urges upon you! Your time, money, knowledge, influence—how can they be better employed than in the Christian culture of the young immortals committed to your care? In the beautiful form you cherish, there is something far more beautiful—a jewel worth immeasurably more than the casket which contains it—a spirit that must live and think and feel when this planet shall have become a chaos, when out of that chaos shall have arisen the new cosmos over which Christ is to rule in righteousness forever. Shall this precious thing perish through your faithlessness to so sublime a trust? Shall harps be wanting in heaven, and white-robed ministrants before the throne, through the recreancy of any bearing the Christian name and honored with the title of father or mother? What is reason's estimate of the parental tenderness which provides so laboriously for the body, but totally neglects the soul—which regards so sedulously the interests of time, but utterly overlooks the concerns of eternity? To see your little ones wandering unrestrained in the broad way to ruin, or trained for this world only, as if there were not another beyond—oh! is it not enough to make their guardian angels turn away their faces and weep beneath their wings?

The Church is here to help you, but she requires your co-operation. The Sunday school is here to second your endeavors, but little can that do without your countenance and contribution. Men of Israel, help! Christ calls upon you from his cross to help. Juvenile vice and blasphemy through all your streets seem imploring you to help. Will you respond to the appeal? The result may be a blessing to your own house. The recollection will warm your heart amidst the chills of death. Sweet little minstrels with crowns shall rehearse the story to you when the cemetery and the sea are delivering up their dead. Not less, perhaps, than the eloquent preacher in the great congregation, the humble teacher of an infant-class may be shedding light into the dark places of the earth—may be scattering flower-seeds and raindrops over the face of the desert. Even more, it may be, than the consecrated minister at the altar of God, the liberal contributor to this beneficent agency is kindling a holy fire which shall burn when the stars have gone out—is touching the strings of a harp that shall send its melodies through eternity. O merciful God! when the seventh trump is sounding, and the quickened dead are gathering before thy throne, let it not be said of any in this assembly—"His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not"!

[[1]] Preached at a Sunday-school convention, 1840.

VI.

JOY OF THE LAW.[[1]]

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying—If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.—John vii. 37.

At three great annual festivals all the men of all the tribes of Israel were required to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem. One of these was the Feast of Tabernacles, kept in commemoration of the sojourn of their fathers in the wilderness, and as a special thanksgiving to God after the ingathering of the autumnal harvest. Its duration was strictly seven days, from the 15th to the 22d of the month Tisri; but it was followed by a day of holy convocation, distinguished by sacrifices and peculiar observances of its own, which was sometimes called the eighth day. During the seven days the people dwelt in booths formed of the branches of the palm, the pine, the olive, the myrtle, and other trees of thick foliage; and these temporary huts lined every street of the city, and covered all the surrounding hills. The public burnt-offerings, and the private peace-offerings as well, were more numerous than those of any other of the great national festivals. The bullocks sacrificed were seventy; but besides these were offered every day two rams, fourteen lambs, and a kid for a sin-offering. The long lines of booths everywhere, and the sacrificial solemnities and processions, must have furnished a grand spectacle by day; and the lamps, the torches, the music, the joyful gatherings in the temple-courts, must have given a still more festive character to the night. No other feast of the Hebrews was half so joyous as the Feast of Tabernacles; and therefore it was eminently fitting that it should be observed, as it was, with much more than its ordinary interest at the dedication of Solomon's Temple, again by Ezra after the restoration of the sacred structure, and a third time by Judas Maccabæus when he had expelled the Syrians and re-established the true worship of Jehovah.

The seven days accomplished, the eighth was ushered in with the glad sound of trumpets, summoning the multitudes to the holy convocation. During the seven days they had offered sacrifices for the seventy nations of the earth, as well as for themselves; the eighth was Israel's own day, and the sacrifices offered were exclusively for the people of the covenant, adding to the daily offerings already mentioned a bullock, a ram, seven lambs, and a goat for a sin-offering. As soon as the morning trumpets sounded, the booths were all dismantled, and the thronging thousands from every quarter hastened to the temple. The sacrifice was already on the altar, and the high-priest stood by in his more than regal array, with his numerous white-robed ministers. A priestly procession entered at the Water-gate, bringing water in a golden vessel from the neighboring Pool of Siloam. Approaching the altar, the bearer ascended the sacred slope, and delivered his burden into the hands of the high-priest; while the trumpets sent forth a joyous peal, to which the people responded with a shout that shook the city. Part of the water, mingled with wine, was then poured into the grooves of the altar around the morning sacrifice, and the rest was distributed among the attendant priests, who drank it amidst the grateful acclamations of the multitude; and finally the great choir, chanting to every instrument of music, poured forth the song of Isaiah—"With joy shall ye draw water from the wells of salvation!" This was called "the Joy of the Law;" and there is a rabbinical proverb to the effect, that he who has never witnessed it has never seen rejoicing. It was intended as a commemoration of the miracle of the smitten rock in Horeb, which the apostle tells us prefigured Christ; and it must have been just after this grand solemnity, or in connection with its impressive evening compline, that "Jesus stood and cried, saying—If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."

Here are four things full of instruction for us—the time, the speaker, the manner, and the invitation. In these we shall find the very marrow of the gospel, worth more to our souls than all the revelations of science and all the speculations of philosophy. Let us give them earnest and devout attention, and may God grant us the aid of his grace!

First, the time is to be noticed. "In the last day, that great day of the feast"—when there was present a vast concourse of the people. Three million have been counted in attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles. What an audience, what an inspiration, for an orator! How would Cicero have triumphed before such an assembly! Jesus needed no such impulse. His mind was ever full of light, his heart overflowing with love. He wanted but the opportunity to pour forth his divine speech upon the people, and surely he never had a better than now. How did his doctrine distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and the showers upon the grass! Great lesson for his servants, who ought to make their Master their model, and let no good occasion slip for pouring the light of life into benighted souls!

"In the last day, that great day of the feast"—when they were occupied with the most interesting observances of the national solemnity. Another might have said: "They will not hear me; they are too much absorbed to listen." Jesus was a better philosopher. Conscious of his own power, he knew perfectly the hearts of men. Never could his hearers recall the Joy of the Law, without recollecting the voice, the figure, the beaming countenance, of the strange young rabbi from Galilee, who stood forth in the midst of the great congregation, and dropped such heavenly words into their hearts. "Who was he? What meant he? Could any mere mortal have spoken so? Is the Messiah at length come? Let us seek him again, and hear more from those marvellous lips!" Another grand lesson for his servants, who ought to study to environ their teachings with associations which cannot fail, with every happy hour, by every happy memory, to recall the truths they have uttered and revive the impressions produced by their preaching.

"In the last day, that great day of the feast"—when the pleasant season was drawing to its close, and the people were ready to disperse and return to their respective homes. The last words of a dear departing friend linger long in the memory. The last utterances of a dying father or mother cannot soon be effaced from the mind of the child. The last sermon of a loved and honored pastor, before he leaves us to feed another flock, may impress us more profoundly than any thing he ever said to us before. The mere fact that it is the last time, that we may never see that face again, never again hear that familiar voice, brings home the truth with a vivid power, which can hardly fail to make it effective, even with those who have hitherto heard with indifference. Many who are now listening to our Lord will never listen to him again. Before another Feast of Tabernacles they may be in their graves, or he in heaven. To some present he may have preached many sermons, but will never preach another. It is their last opportunity, which seals up their account to the judgment. How must the thought have wrought upon a mind like his! what earnestness given to every word! what tenderness to every tone! Touching lesson again for us, my brethren! who ought to preach every Lord's Day as if it were our last! as if Death stood beside us saying—"Shoot thou God's arrows, and I will shoot mine!" as if the peal of doom were already ringing in our ears, and the graves around us delivering up their dead!

Next, the speaker is to be observed. It is Jesus, the Saviour, heralded by prophets, escorted by angels, proclaimed by the Eternal Father with an audible voice from heaven. A divine teacher, he comes to preach the acceptable year of the Lord—an incarnation of the Father's love, to unfold the secrets of the Father's heart to sinners, and make known the purpose of his tender mercy in their salvation. Throughout Galilee, and Judæa, and some of the neighboring provinces, he has already gone, preaching the kingdom of heaven and calling the people to repentance. He speaks as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Everywhere miracles attest his mission, and demonstrate his doctrine. The wisdom of his words is too much for the cunning sophistry of his enemies, and an eloquence of sublime simplicity forces conviction upon unwilling minds and takes the hearts of thousands captive. And now, in the temple, on one of the most popular occasions of religious worship and festivity, he is speaking to the people of things pertaining to their eternal peace. Can any who hear him ever forget those gracious utterances? "Happy souls!" methinks I hear you say, "happy souls, to have listened to such a teacher! Could I have been there! Could I have heard but once for half an hour! How eagerly would I have listened! how gladly responded to his invitation!"

Alas, my friends! how our own hearts deceive us! Had we been present, we should probably have done very much as most of the Jews did, and some of us might have shown still greater blindness of mind or hardness of heart. Have we not to-day the same gospel preached to us? Are not those who occupy our pulpits the accredited ambassadors of Christ? Is it not his word they speak, his claims they urge, his love they proclaim, and his salvation they offer? And how receive we the message and respond to the demand? With hearty faith, and grateful tears, and earnest obedience? Nay, do not many of us despise our own mercy, and reject the gracious counsel of God, not knowing the day of our visitation? Even we who profess faith in Christ and call ourselves his disciples—are we made wiser and better by the weekly recurrence of the blessed opportunity? "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." Every gospel sermon delivered to us is a message from the throne of heaven. It is as if Christ every Sunday morning descended afresh from the Father, and stood before us in the pulpit, and stretched forth to us the hands once nailed to the shameful cross; with many amplifications and additional arguments repeating what he said in the temple on "the last day—that great day of the feast." "See, then, that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven."

Thirdly, the manner is to be considered. "Jesus stood and cried." The attitude is instructive. Jewish teachers generally sat. So did Jesus on the Mount. Here he stands—stands ready to bestow—stands ready to depart. Ready to bestow, he is ever standing—more ready to bestow than we to receive. Delighting in mercy, he waits to be gracious. All the day long he stretches out inviting hands to the perishing. All the night he lingers with dew-sprinkled locks at the door. Now, if ever, is the accepted time; now, if ever, the day of salvation. While Jesus waits, there is hope for the worst. But he who stands may soon depart. Mercy is limited by justice. Probation is bounded by destiny. If we heed not its compassionate plea, even love must leave us, hopelessly hardened in our sin. Jerusalem rejected her Messiah, and perished in spite of his tears. "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?"

"Jesus stood and cried." This last word is suggestive. The orator much in earnest speaks loudly. Demosthenes thundered from the bema. Cicero's speech rang like a trumpet-call through the forum. One Hebrew prophet in his commission is directed to cry aloud, spare not, lift up his voice like a trumpet. Another, pre-announcing the Messianic mercy, like one who has found a spring in the desert and shouts to his comrades of the caravan, sends out his call upon the wind: "Ho! every one that thirsteth! come ye to the waters!" Had Jesus desired to limit his salvation to a few unconditionally elected favorites, would he not have restricted the invitation? With such a policy, walking quietly through the crowd, seeking out his elect here and there, calling them privately in undertones to their peculiar privilege, would certainly seem to have been in better keeping than an undiscriminating stentorian cry from a conspicuous position to the multitude. But, intending the mercy for all, he offers it to all. Does he mock them with an invitation which is insincere? Oh! better we know the love divine! The water of life is not the private property of a churl, streaming from a statue in a little park, surrounded by a lofty granite wall, with an iron gate locked against the public, while a few favored individuals, as selfish as himself, are furnished each with a key; but an open fountain in the field, without inclosure or obstruction, clearer than the Clitumnus and more copious than the San Antonio, issuing like the outlet of a subterranean ocean from the base of the everlasting hills; while the Son of God, more glorious than the morn upon the mountains, stands over it crying with voice that reaches every nation: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!"

Finally, the invitation is to be regarded. Who here is not athirst? Some thirst for riches, some for honors, some for pleasures, a few perhaps—may grace enlarge the number—for the water of salvation. Gold cannot satisfy the soul; the more we have, the more we crave. The world has not enough of glory in its gift to fill the aching voids of ambition; elevation evokes aspiration, and at the last summit the cry is still "Excelsior!" One after another, all sensuous enjoyments pall upon the taste; and fluttering like butterflies from flower to flower, and sipping like honey-bees every sweet of field and forest, we learn at length with a sated Solomon that all is vanity. The gilding of an empty cup can never satisfy the thirsty soul. "We were made for God," says St. Augustine, "and our hearts are restless till they repose in him." For God, even the living God, David thirsted long ago; and here, incarnate in our nature, stands the Divine Object of his desire, crying to the world: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!"

But there is something, see you not? for the thirsty soul to do. Christ cannot save us till we come. He is indeed, as St. Paul calls him, "the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe"—of all men, because he has opened the fountain for all and invited all to the fountain—especially of them that believe, because they accept the invitation and come to him for supply. Whoever, whatever, wherever you are—however great your obstructions, and however numerous and enormous your sins—called, you may come; coming, you will receive; receiving, you shall be satisfied forever. "Rivers of living water," Jesus offers every believer in him. See the adaptation—"water"—to assuage your thirst, to refresh the weary soul, to revive him who is fainting and dying. Observe the quality—"living water"—not a stagnant pool, but a salient spring, a fountain that never fails, a well of water within springing up unto everlasting life. Behold the abundance—"rivers of living water"—not one great stream, but many—an inexhaustible supply, having its source in a shoreless and unfathomable sea—

"Its streams the whole creation reach,
So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each,
Enough forevermore!"

But the coming is not all. Come and what? Come and see? Come and explore? Come and investigate? Come and analyze the water, and discuss its qualities, and speculate about its probable effects? Come and praise the fountain, and commend it to others, and enjoy its cool retreats, and admire its beautiful environs, and congratulate your friends upon its conveniences, and applaud the benevolence that opened it for the benefit of all? Nay, come and drink. Not all the water from the smitten rock could save the Israelite that would not drink. Not all the river of the water of life flowing through the City of God can quench the thirst of the soul that declines it. Personally you must appropriate the mercy. Personally you must experience its restoring power. Salvation is not a theory, but a fact; not a speculation, but a consciousness; not an ethical system to be reasoned out by superior intellect, but a divine blessing to be taken into the believing heart. It is a new life received from the Fountain-Life of the world. Gushing from the throne of God and the Lamb, "clear as crystal," with a copiousness and an energy which no dam can stay nor dike restrain, it offers its refreshment to all, free as the air, the dew, the rain, or the sunlight of heaven. Drink, and you shall never thirst again. Drink, and find your immortality in the draught!

[[1]] Preached in Rochester, N.Y., 1842.

VII.

SOJOURNING WITH GOD.[[1]]

Ye are strangers and sojourners with me.—Lev. xxv. 23.

I have a dear friend to-day on the Atlantic. Four days ago, in New-York Harbor, I accompanied him to the floating palace that bears him to Europe; and put a book into his hand, which may furnish him some entertainment on the voyage, and some service perhaps in the land of art and beauty for which he is bound. Next Lord's Day he hopes to spend in London; and thence, after a short pause, to proceed to Rome, where he means to remain three months or more. A summer in that city is to an American somewhat hazardous on the score of health, and the facilities for seeing and exploring are far less favorable than they are in the winter. Yet, as this is the only season he can command for the purpose, he is willing to encounter the dangers and dispense with some of the advantages, for the sake of a brief sojourn in the grand old metropolis that dominated the world in the days of the Cæsars, and has since ruled it with a rod of iron in the hands of the popes.

In "the historic city" he will meet with much to entertain a mind like his—highly cultivated and richly stored with classic lore; and for all that he wishes to accomplish, he will find his opportunity far too brief. But he will not be at home there—a transient and unsettled visitor. Every thing will be different from what he has been accustomed to in his own country—government different—society different—manners and customs different—churches and worship different—dress, diet and language different—architecture, public institutions, general aspect of the city, and natural scenery on all sides, quite different from any thing he ever saw before. And while he daily encounters new objects of absorbing interest—new wonders of art—new treasures of antiquity—new illustrations and confirmations of history, and feels the charm of a thousand beauties to which he has not been accustomed, the very contrast will make him confess that he is a stranger and sojourner, and think frequently of his home beyond the sunset, and sigh for the fellowship of the dear hearts far over the western sea.

And should he go farther, and visit the ruined lands of the Nile—the Jordan—the Euphrates, and wander over the silent wastes that once smiled with golden harvests, glowed with gorgeous cities, and teemed with tumultuous populations; everywhere—on the burning sands of the desert—in the savage solitudes of the mountains—amidst the crumbling memorials of ancient civilizations and religions—in the tent of the Arab, the wayside encampment, and the comfortless caravansera—he will constantly require the pledge of chieftains, the protection of princes, the safe conduct of governments, and the covenanted friendship of the rude nomadic tribes among whom he makes his temporary abode.

This is the idea of our text: "Ye are strangers and sojourners with me." It is God speaking to his chosen people, about to take possession of the promised land, instructing them concerning their polity and conduct in their new home and relations. One of the specific directions given them is, that they are not to sell the land forever, because it belongs to him, and they are his wards—tenants at will, dwelling on his domain, under his patronage and protection. For six years he leased to them the land, so to say; but every seventh year he reclaimed it as his own, and it was to be neither tilled nor sown; and after seven such sabbatic years, in the fiftieth year, which was the year of Jubilee, every thing reverted with a still more special emphasis to the divine Proprietor; and the people were not permitted to reap or gather any thing that grew of itself that year even from the unworked soil, but were to subsist on the product of the former years laid up in store for that purpose. All this to teach them that the domain was Jehovah's, and they were only privileged occupants under him—that he was their patron, protector, benefactor, while they were strangers and sojourners with God.

In a general sense, these sacred words describe the condition of all men. All live by sufferance on the Lord's estate, fed and sustained by his bounty. Whether we recognize his rights and claims or not, all we have belongs to him, and the continuance of every privilege depends upon his will. You may revolt against his authority, and fret at what you call fate; but his providence orders all, and death is only your eviction from the trust and tenure you have abused. What is your life, and what control has any man over his destiny? A shadow on the ground, a vapor in the air, an arrow speeding to the mark, an eagle hasting to the prey, a post hurrying past with despatches, a swift ship gliding out of sight over the misty horizon—these are the Scripture emblems of what we are. Every day is but a new stage in the pilgrim's progress—every act and every pulse another step toward the tomb. The frequent changes of fortune teach us that nothing here is certain but uncertainty, nothing constant but inconstancy, nothing real but unreality, nothing stable but instability. The loveliest spot we ever found on earth is but a halting-place for the traveller—an oasis for the caravan in the desert. The world itself, and all that it contains, present only the successive scenes of a moving panorama; and our life is the passage of a weaver's shuttle—a flying to and fro—a mere coming and going—an entry and an exit. For we are strangers and sojourners with God.

But what is in a general sense thus true of all, is in a special sense true of the spiritual and heavenly-minded. As Abraham was a stranger and a sojourner with the Canaanite and the Egyptian—as Jacob and his sons were strangers and sojourners with Pharaoh, and the fugitive David with the king of Gath—so all godly people acknowledge themselves strangers and sojourners with God. This is the picture of the Christian life that better than almost any other expresses the condition and experiences of our Lord's faithful followers—not at home here—ever on the move—living among aliens and enemies—subject to many privations and occasional persecutions—every morning hearing afresh the summons, "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest"—practically confessing, with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." The world knew not their Master, and knows not them. If they were of the world, the world would love its own; because they are not of the world, but he has chosen them out of the world, therefore the world hateth them. Wholly of another character—another profession—another pursuit—aiming at other ends, and cheered by other hopes—the carnal, selfish, unbelieving world cannot possibly appreciate them, and they are constantly misunderstood and misrepresented by the world. Regarding not the things which are seen and temporal, but the things which are unseen and eternal, they are often stigmatized as fools and denounced as fanatics. Far distant from their home, and surrounded by those who have no sympathy with them, they show their heavenly citizenship by heavenly tempers, heavenly manners, heavenly conversation, all hallowed by the spirit of holiness. So one of the Fathers in the second century describes the Christians of his time:

"They occupy their own native land, but as pilgrims in it. They bear all as citizens, and forbear all as foreigners. Every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They are in the flesh, but they walk not after the flesh. They live on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They die, but with death their true life begins. Poor themselves, they make many rich; destitute, they have all things in abundance; despised, they are glorified in contempt. In a word—what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The soul inhabits the body, but is not derived from it; and Christians dwell in the world, but are not of it. The immortal soul sojourns in a mortal tent; and Christians inhabit a perishable house, while looking for an imperishable in heaven."

To such heavenly-mindedness, my dear brethren, we all are called; and without something of this spirit, whatever our professions and formalities, we do but belie the name of Christian. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth, on the right hand of God; set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory."

Bowed down with many a burden and weary because of the way, how much is there to cheer and comfort us in God's good word to his suffering pilgrims—"Ye are strangers and sojourners with me"!

There is the idea of friendly recognition. As the nomad chief receives the tourist into his tent, and assures him of his favor by the "covenant of salt;" so God hath made with us an everlasting covenant of grace, ordered in all things and sure; since which, he can never disown us, never forsake us, never forget us, never cease to care for his own.

There is the idea of pleasant communion. As in the Arab tent, between the sheik and his guest, there is a free interchange of thought and feeling; so between God and the regenerate soul a sweet fellowship is established, with perfect access and unreserved confidence. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," and his delight is in his saints, who are the excellent of the earth.

There is the idea of needful refreshment. "Turn in and rest a little," saith the patriarch to the wayfarers; and then brings forth bread and wine—the best that his store affords—to cheer their spirits and revive their strength. God spreads a table for his people in the wilderness. With angels' food he feeds them, and their cup runs over with blessing. He gives them to eat of the hidden manna, and restores their fainting souls with the new wine of the kingdom.

There is the idea of faithful protection. The Arab who has eaten with you will answer for your safety with his own life, and so long as you remain with him none of his tribe shall harm a hair of your head. Believer in Jesus! do you not dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty? Has he not shut you, like Noah, into the ark of your salvation? Is not David's rock your rock, your fortress, your high tower, and unfailing city of refuge?

There is the idea of infallible guidance. The Oriental host will not permit his guest to set forth alone, but goes with him on every new track, grasps his hand in every steep ascent, and holds him back from the brink of every precipice. God said to Israel: "I will send my angel before thy face, to lead thee in the way, and bring thee into the land whither thou goest." Yea, he said more: "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Both promises are ours, my brethren; and something better than the pillar of cloud and fire, or the manifest glory of the resident God upon the mercy-seat, marches in the van of his pilgrim host through the wilderness, and will never leave us till the last member of his redeemed Israel shall have passed clean over Jordan!

There is the idea of a blessed destiny. Their divine Guide is leading them "to a good land, that floweth with milk and honey"—"to a city of habitation"—"a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God"—"a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens"—the Father's house of "many mansions," where Christ is now as he promised preparing a place for his people, and where they are at last to be with him and behold his glory. Oh! with what a sweet and restful confidence should we dismiss our groundless fears of the future, saying with the psalmist—"Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory!" The pilgrim has a home; the weary has a resting-place; the wanderer in the wilderness is a "fellow-citizen with the saints and of the household of faith;" and often have we seen him in the evening twilight, after a long day's march over stony mountain and sultry plain, sitting at the door of the tent just pitched for the night, with calm voice singing:

"One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er—
I'm nearer to my home to-night
Than e'er I was before—
Nearer the bound of life,
Where falls my burden down—
Nearer to where I leave my cross,
And where I take my crown!"

and with the next rising sun, like a giant refreshed with new wine, joyfully resuming his journey, from the first eminence attained gazing a moment through his glass at the distant glory of the gold-and-crystal city, then bounding forward and making the mountains ring with the strain:

"There is my house and portion fair,
My treasure and heart are there,
And my abiding home;
For me my elder brethren stay,
And angels beckon me away,
And Jesus bids me come!"

The saintly Monica, after many years of weeping at the nail-pierced feet, has at length received the answer to her prayers in the conversion of one dearer to her than life; and is now ready, with good old Simeon, to depart in peace, having seen the salvation of the Lord: "As for me, my son, nothing in this world hath longer any charm for me. What I do here, or why I should remain, I know not. But one wish I had, and that God has abundantly granted me. Bury me where thou wilt, for nowhere am I far from God!"

Dark to some of you, O ye strangers and sojourners with God! may be the valley of the shadow of death; but ye cannot perish there, for He whose fellowship is immortality is still with you, and you shall soon be with him as never before! Black and cold at your feet rolls the river of terrors; but lift your eyes a little, and you see gleaming through the mist the pearl-gates beyond! There "the Captain of the Lord's host" is already preparing your escort!

"Even now is at hand
The angelical band—
The convoy attends—
An invincible troop of invisible friends!
Ready winged for their flight
To the regions of light,
The horses are come—
The chariots of Israel to carry us home!"

[[1]] Preached in Charleston, S.C., soon after a year's sojourn beyond the sea, 1858.

VIII.

BUILDING FOR IMMORTALITY.[[1]]

So they built and prospered.—2 Chron. xiv. 7.

In the fairest of Italian cities stands the finest of terrestrial structures—a campanile or bell-tower, twenty-five feet square, two hundred and seventy-three feet high, built of white and colored marble in alternate blocks, covered with a royal luxuriance of sculpture framed in medallions, studded everywhere with the most beautiful statuary disposed in Gothic niches, and finished from base to battlement like a lady's cabinet inlaid with pearl and gold. It would seem as if nothing more perfect in symmetry, more exquisite in workmanship, or more magnificent in ornamentation, could possibly be achieved by human genius. Pure as a lily born of dew and sunshine, the approaching tourist sees it rising over the lofty roof of the Duomo, like the pillar of cloud upon the tabernacle; and when he enters the Piazza, and finds it standing apart in its majestic altitude, and looking down upon the vestal loveliness of the Tuscan Santa Maria, he can think only of the Angel of the Annunciation in the presence of the Blessed Virgin. Whoever has gazed upon its grand proportions, and studied the details of its exquisite execution, will feel no astonishment at being told that such a structure could not now be built in this country for less than fifty millions of our money; nor will he wonder that Jarvis, in his "Art Hints," has pronounced it "the noblest specimen of tower-architecture the world has to show;" that Charles the Fifth declared it was "fit to be inclosed with crystal, and exhibited only on holy-days;" and that the Florentines themselves, whenever they would characterize any thing as extremely beautiful, say it is "as fine as the Campanile."

Gentlemen, you have reared a nobler edifice! Nobler, not because more costly, for your pecuniary outlay is as nothing in the comparison. Nobler, not because the material is more precious, and the architecture more perfect; for what is a pile of brick to such a miracle in marble? or where is the American builder that would dream of competing with Giotto? Nobler, not because there is a larger and richer-toned bell in the gilded cupola, to summon the inmates to study and recitation, or to morning and evening worship; for the great bell of the Campanile is one of the grandest pieces of resonant metal ever cast; and its voice, though soft as flute-tones at eventide coming over the water, is rich and majestic as an angel's song. Far nobler, however, in its purpose and utility; for that wonder of Italian architecture is the product of Florentine pride and vanity in the days of a prosperous republic—a less massive but more elegant Tower of Babel, expressing the ambition of its builders; and though standing in the Cathedral Piazza, its chief conceivable objects are mere show and sound; while the end and aim of this edifice is the development of mind, the formation of character, the creation of a loftier intellectual manhood, the reproduction of so much of the lost image of God as may be evolved by the best media and methods of human education.

The excellence of your structure, then, consists mainly in this—that it is only a scaffold, with derricks, windlasses, and other apparatus and implements, for building something immeasurably more excellent. Here the thinking power is to be quickened, and the logical faculty is to be awakened and invigorated. This is to be effected, not so much by the knowledge acquired, as by the effort called out for its acquisition. The teacher is to measure his success, not by the number and variety of terms, rules, formulas and principles he has impressed upon the memory, but by the amount of mental power and independence he has imparted to his pupil. True, in educating the mind, knowledge of some sort must be acquired; but the thoroughness of the education depends no more upon the quantity of the acquisition, than the health of the guest upon the abundance of the banquet. The mental food, as well as the material, must be digested and assimilated. It follows that those exercises which require close and consecutive thinking, thorough analysis, clear discrimination and accurate definition, are best adapted to develop the higher faculties of the mind. Mathematics, metaphysics, dialectics and philology must form the granite basis of your building, sustaining the solid tiers of rich and varied marbles.

Then comes the æsthetic culture. First the substantial, afterward the ornamental—this is the natural order, to reverse which were to begin building the tower at the top. The very idea of the ornamental supposes something substantial to be ornamented. No man will attempt to polish the sponge, or paint a picture on the vacant air, or rear a stone cathedral on a sunset cloud. There is no lily-bloom without the sustaining stalk, nor magnolia grandiflora without the sturdy and stately tree. "Wood, hay, stubble," are not fit materials for jewelry; but "gold, silver, precious stones," may be wrought into a thousand forms of beauty, sparkling with myriad splendors. The solid marble superstructure resting upon its deep foundations of granite, firm as the seated hills, can scarcely be too finely finished or too sumptuously adorned. Upon a thorough mental culture sit gracefully, and quite at home, philosophy, history, poetry, eloquence, music, painting—all in literature and the arts that can refine the taste, refresh the heart, and lead the fancy captive. To the mind thus disciplined and adorned, a pleasant path is opened to the broadest and richest fields of intellectual inquiry, where it may range at will with the freedom of an angel's wing, charmed with beauties such as Eden never knew, thrilled with melodies such as the leaden ear of ignorance never heard, rejoicing in a fellowship of wisdom worthy of the enfranchised sons of God, and realizing the truth so finely expressed by the greatest of German poets:—

"Only through beauty's morning gate,
Canst thou to knowledge penetrate;
The mind, to face truth's higher glances,
Must swim some time in beauty's trances;
The heavenly harping of the muses,
Whose sweetest trembling through thee rings,
A higher life into thy soul infuses,
And wings it upward to the soul of things."

But is there not something still better, which ought to be an element in every process of human education? What is man? Merely an intellectual animal? Nay, but he has a spirit within him allied to angels and to God. The higher nature calls for culture no less than the lower. To the development and discipline of the rational and æsthetic faculties must be subjoined "the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Otherwise we educate only the inferior part of the man, and leave the superior to chance and the Devil. Make scholars of your children, but do not omit to make them Christians. Lead them to Parnassus, but let them go by the way of Calvary. Conduct them to Olympus, but let them carry the dew of Olivet upon their sandals. Make them drink deeply from the wells of human wisdom, but deny them not the living water whereof if one drink he shall never thirst again.

Why should a "wise master-builder" hesitate to connect religion with science and literature in the edification and adornment of the soul? Does not religion favor the most thorough mental discipline and contribute to the harmonious development of all the spiritual powers? Does not Christianity stimulate the mind to struggle against difficulties, ennoble the struggle by investing it with the dignity of a duty, and render the duty delightful by the hope of a heavenly reward? "Knowledge is power;" but what knowledge is so mighty as that which Christ brought from the bosom of the Father? Poetry and philosophy have their charms; but what poetry is like that of the Holy Spirit, and what philosophy like that of redeeming love? God's holy evangel enlarges and strengthens the mind by bringing it into contact with the sublimest truths, and making it familiar with the profoundest mysteries. It rectifies our perverted reason, corrects our erroneous estimates, silences the imperious clamour of the passions, and removes the stern embargo which the corrupt heart lays upon the aspiring intellect. It sings us the sweetest songs, preaches to us the purest morality, and presents for our imitation the noblest examples of beneficence and self-denial. Under its blessed influence the soul expands to grasp the thought of God and receive the infinite riches of his love.

And shall we wrong our sons and daughters by withholding from them this noblest agency of the higher mental and spiritual culture—

"The fountain-light of all our day,
The master-light of all our seeing"—

and turn them over, with all their instinctive yearnings after the true, the good, the pure, the divine, to the blind guidance of a sceptical sciolism, and the bewildering vagaries of a rationalistic infidelity? "No," to use the language of the late Canon Melville, "we will not yield the culture of the understanding to earthly husbandmen; there are heavenly ministers who water it with a choicer dew, and pour upon it the beams of a brighter sun, and prune its branches with a kinder and more skilful hand. We will not give up the reason to stand always as a priestess at the altars of human philosophy; she hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more beautiful robes to walk in, and incense rarer and more fragrant to offer in golden censers. She does well when boldly exploring God's visible works; she does better when she submits to spiritual teaching, and sits with Mary at the Saviour's feet."

Gentlemen, it is impossible to overstate the importance of religious culture in the work of education. Every interest of time and eternity urges it upon your attention. Your children are accountable and immortal creatures. "Give them divine truth," says Channing, "and you give them more than gems and gold; give them Christian principles, and you give them more than thrones and diadems; imbue their hearts with a love of virtue, and you enrich them more than by laying worlds at their feet." Your doctrine may distil as the dew upon the grass, and as the small rain upon the tender herb; but in some future emergency of life, the silent influence shall assert itself in a might more irresistible than the stormy elements when they go forth to the battles of God. If the work be faithfully done, the impression produced shall not be that of the sea-fowl on the sand, effaced by the first wave of the rising tide; but the enduring grooves cut by the chariot-wheels of the King of Trembling as he rides through the mountain ranges, and the footprints of his fiery steeds left deep in the everlasting rocks.

Forward, then, with your noble endeavor! You are building for eternity. You are rearing temples of living stones which shall survive all the changes and chances of earth and time, and look sublimely down upon the world's catastrophe. Up! up with your immortal campanile! It is compacted of imperishable gems, cemented with gold from the mines of God. No marble sculpture may adorn its niches and cornices; but angel forms shall walk its battlements in robes of living glory. No hollow metal may swing in its vaulted loggie, sending sweet echoes over the distant hills, and charming the song-birds to silence along the flowery Val d'Arno; but richer and holier melodies, ringing out from its heavenly altitudes, shall mingle with the music of the spheres, and swell the many-voiced harmony of the City of God!

[[1]] Preached at the opening of a new college edifice, 1859.

IX.

WAIL OF BEREAVEMENT.[[1]]

Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.—Job xix. 21.

Nothing is more important, yet few things are more difficult, than the proper control of our spirits in the time of trouble. There are two extremes to be avoided; stoicism and despondency. Stoicism feels too little; despondency, too much. The former hardens the heart; the latter breaks down the spirit. The one is a want of sensibility; the other, a lack of fortitude. This is an affected contempt of suffering; that, a practical abandonment of hope. Midway between the two lies the path of duty and happiness. St. Paul, quoting from King Solomon, warns us against them both: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord"—that is stoicism; "neither faint when thou art rebuked of him"—that is despondency. Israel is charged with the former: "Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; they have made their faces harder than a rock." Job fell into the latter: "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me."

No piece of history is more affecting than that of the perfect man of Uz. For the trial of his fortitude and his fidelity, the Almighty delivered him up, with certain restrictions, into the hand of Satan. The Sabeans and the Chaldæans robbed him of his oxen, his asses, and his camels, and slew his servants with the edge of the sword. Fire from heaven consumed his flocks in the field, and all his children perished together in a tempest. He was smitten "with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown; and he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes." His wife, the last on earth that ought to have been unkind to him, assailed him with bitter mockery; saying, "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!" Three friends, more faithful than the rest, came from afar to see and console him in his sufferings; and when they beheld the greatness of his grief they sat down with him in speechless astonishment; and surely that seven days' silence was better than any words of condolence they could have spoken. But when "Job opened his mouth and cursed his day," and related the sad story of all his troubles, they too became his censors, charging him with hypocrisy, and secret wickedness, and oppression of the poor and needy. These allegations stung him to the heart. Oh! was it not enough that God had forsaken him; that Satan had assailed him with all his weapons; that predatory bands had stripped him of his possessions; that the elements of nature had conspired against his prosperity; that his seven sons and three daughters had been taken from him in one day; that his body had become a mass of putrid disease, a loathsome living death; and that the wife of his youth looked upon him no more with affection, but treated him with cold indifference or haughty scorn? Must these wise and excellent men, the last friends left to him, join the cruel mockery, and accuse the upright of oppression, impiety, and every evil work? "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?" The good man's heart is crushed; he is ready to give up all for lost; and he pours forth his whole soul in this passionate appeal: "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me."

It is permitted us to complain under such afflictions, provided we do not "charge God foolishly." There is no guilt in tears, if they are not tears of despair. It is no crime to feel our loss. Insensibility is no virtue—has no merit—wins no reward. Religion does not destroy nature, but regulates it; does not remove sorrow, but sanctifies it; does not cauterize the human heart, but enables us to "rejoice evermore," and teaches us to "glory in tribulations also." Abraham mourned for Sarah; Joseph mourned for Jacob; David mourned for Jonathan, and even for wicked Absalom; "devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him;" and Jesus, the pattern "Man of sorrows," groaned in spirit, and wept at the grave of Lazarus. These chastisements are intended for our improvement; but if they are not felt, their end is not realized. If we have no sense of the stroke, how shall we submit to the hand that smites us? If our hearts are seared against all painful impressions, God is defeated in the purpose of his providence, and the best means of our salvation prove ineffectual; for he that is not sensible of his affliction will continue secure in his sin. The loss of one who is very dear to us—a husband and father, upon whom we depend so much for counsel, support, protection and happiness—must inflict a very deep wound; and who shall forbid that wound to bleed? None may say to the widow, "Weep not;" but He that can also say to the dead, "Young man, arise." Grief must have vent, or it will break the heart. Tears must flow, or they will fester in their fountains. It is cruel to deny one the relief of mourning, when mourning is so often its own relief. Sorrow calls for sympathy. Compassion is better than counsel. It is a great alleviation, when we can pour out our grief into another's bosom. Sympathy divides the sorrow, and leaves but half the load. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." This is what the troubled patriarch longed for, but could not find. His kindred were estranged from him, and all his inward friends abhorred him: his servants responded not to his call, and the wife of his bosom regarded him as an alien. No wonder that he exclaims, as if his heart were breaking, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me."

But it is better to complain to God than to man. He will appreciate my complaint He knoweth my heart. He seeth my sincerity. He pitieth me with more than a father's pity. His word can still the storm and calm the sea. His look can turn my darkness into light. He hath invited me to call upon him in the day of trouble, adding, "I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." He hath said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The apostle saith, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray." David saith, "I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path." There is a psalm—the CII.—on purpose for the afflicted, and this is its title: "A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord." The afflicted may complain; when he is overwhelmed he may complain even unto the Lord; yea, he may pour out his complaint before him, as one poureth out water; and here is an inspired formula of woe which he may employ in the divine presence without fear of extravagance or impropriety. Sorrow sometimes renders one speechless: "I am so troubled," saith David, "that I cannot speak." Oh! what a relief when we can empty our anguish into the ear and the heart of God! Such prayer is not incompatible with perfect submission to the divine will. "I was dumb, and opened not my mouth, because thou didst it;" dumb as it respects murmuring, but not as it respects prayer, for the next words are, "Remove thy stroke away from me; I am consumed by the blow of thy hand." Jesus in Gethsemane exhibits a pattern of perfect submission joined with fervent prayer. He "prayed earnestly," "in an agony," "with strong crying and tears;" thrice prostrating himself upon the ground; thrice imploring the Father, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" but as often adding, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done."

Oh! yes; you may complain, in the spirit of pious subordination; but you ought to guard against the excess of sorrow. To grieve too much were as great an evil as not to grieve at all. Where, then, is the proper limit, and when does sorrow become excessive, and therefore sinful? I answer:

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it renders you unmindful of your remaining mercies. It might be much worse with you than it is. You have forfeited all your comforts, yet God has withdrawn but few of them. Are those that remain worth nothing to you because others have been removed? Will you relish the less the fruit that is left, because some of it was blighted by untimely frost? You should set the higher value upon what you have, and enjoy the blessing with a grateful heart.

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it causes you to forget the grief of others. You are not the only sufferer in the world, nor is there any thing very peculiar in your afflictions. Thousands have experienced similar troubles, losses, bereavements. Some have parted with more than husband and father—have lost all at once, and are left to tread the dreary earth alone. You are doubtless acquainted with many with whom you would not now exchange conditions. And can you be so selfish as to forget all griefs but your own?

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it makes you indifferent to the public welfare. Poor old Eli was less afflicted by the death of his two sons than by the loss of the ark of the Lord, because with that was so intimately connected the prosperity of his people, the object dearest to his heart. A Spartan mother, who had five sons in the battle, stood at the gate of the city when a messenger came with tidings. "How prospers the fight?" she inquired. "Thy five sons are slain," answered the messenger. "I did not ask after my sons," replied the patriotic woman, "but how prospers the fight?" "We have won the day," said the other, "and Sparta is safe." "Then let us be thankful to the gods," exclaimed the inquirer, "for our continued freedom." Her private griefs were swallowed up in her concern for the public good.

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it disqualifies you for the duties of your position.

"Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e'er created solely for itself."

You live for others. Your friends have claims upon you. Your families and fellow-citizens require your beneficent activities. You cannot cast off this responsibility. It is written in your inmost nature. It is interwoven with the very constitution of human society. Wherefore the noble faculty of speech, the high prerogative of reason, the sweet flow of domestic sympathies, and the congregation of men in communities, with statutes and civil compacts, and distinctions of rank and office? All these indicate your duty to the human brotherhood; and if you grieve so as to unfit yourselves for that duty, you defeat the end of the divine benevolence.

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it blinds you to the grand purposes of Providence. Poor Job saith, "My soul is weary of my life," and again and again he desireth the quiet shelter of the grave. Yet do we find him piously inquiring into the reasons and final causes of the Almighty's mysterious dealings with him: "I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; show me wherefore thou contendest with me." We are well assured that "affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground." All things are under the restraint and control of Infinite Wisdom and Love. In every pain you suffer, whether appointed or permitted only, God is seeking your good. It were a double loss, doubly aggravated, first to lose your friend, and then to lose the benefit of the loss. Is not the loss of the former sufficient, without adding to it, by your immoderate grief, the infinitely greater loss of the latter?

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it refuses the proffered consolations of friendship. When Jacob rent his robe, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned many days for Joseph, and all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, he refused to be comforted, saying, "I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning." "In Ramah was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, refuseth to be comforted because they are not." To decline the needed consolation when it is offered, is certainly a sin. There is some little excuse for the children of Israel in Egypt, when Moses spake unto them of the promised deliverance, and "they hearkened not unto him for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage." The dying Rachel would have called her son Benoni, "the son of my sorrow," but that would have been too sad a remembrancer to Jacob of his beloved wife, and he called him Benjamin, "the son of my right hand."

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it will not accept relief even from the hand of God. He hath assured you that his grace is sufficient for you, and invited you to come to him for help in time of need. Yea, he is a present help in trouble; and he saith, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." To all who ask, he "giveth liberally, and upbraideth not." And will you not ask and receive, that your joy may be full? He hath not given you breath merely for sighs and groans, nor articulate utterance for ungrateful complaints of his providence. He hath afflicted you, perhaps, on purpose to draw you to himself; and will you thus defeat the designs of his mercy? Will you turn your back upon him when you need him most? Will you refuse to pray when prayer is most necessary for you? To whom will you go for aid, if not to God? Where will you find comfort, if not in his love? When will you seek the throne of grace, if not in time of trouble? Oh! how sweet is it to say with the psalmist, "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul."

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it preys upon your health and endangers your constitution. Grief unreasonably indulged soon devours the vigor of the physical system. This is an effectual method of suicide, not less guilty than a resort to the knife, the rope, the river, the pistol, or the poison. Some drink themselves to death, and others grieve themselves to death; who shall pronounce the former more criminal than the latter? Sorrow sometimes kills as suddenly as a bullet or a poniard through the heart; and sometimes it acts as a deadly potion, slow but sure. The food never nourishes, that is always mingled with tears. When your grief is so great, that no balmy airs, nor beautiful scenes, nor pleasant melodies, nor sympathies of friendship, nor solacements of society, nor consolations of religion, can soothe or refresh the soul, then your health is impaired, your strength gradually wastes away, the world loses too soon the benefit of your life, and you haste unsummoned to the judgment. This is the sorrow of the world which worketh death.

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it sours and imbitters the spirit against both God and man. This deplorable effect, instead of the peaceable fruits of righteousness, is often produced by affliction, when the providence is misinterpreted and perverted. Then the heart murmurs against God; saying with David, "I have cleansed my hands in vain;" or with Jeremiah, "My strength and hope are perished from the Lord;" or with Jonah, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." I have known persons indulge their grief to such a degree, that they loved nothing, enjoyed nothing, took interest in nothing, cared not for their nearest friends, grew indifferent to society, found no relief in solitude, turned away from the house of God, spurned his holy oracles, hated books, hated Nature, hated the very sunlight, neglected their own persons, and spent life in a continual groan. This is rebellion against Providence. "Why doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin?" How much better to say, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me!"

Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it continues so long as to become the settled habitude of the soul. The time for mourning has been limited by all wise nations, and the wisest have generally made it shortest. The Egyptians, who knew not God, mourned seventy days for Jacob; Joseph, his son, only forty-seven days. Israel mourned thirty days for Aaron, and thirty days for Moses, but only seven days for Saul. The inward sorrow, however, may last much longer than the outward show. The formal ceremony is soon laid aside; while the stricken heart carries its wound, still bleeding, to the grave. But the first poignancy of grief should not be allowed to continue too long, lest it produce the injurious effects of which I have already spoken. When it is not only indulged, but cherished as a luxury, it soon becomes sinful. When the mourner persists in nursing his woe, and feeds it with melancholy reflections in silence and seclusion, heeding neither the dissuasives of friendship nor the solacements of religion, he despises his own mercy and injures his own soul. Remember your departed friends with tenderness, but let your sorrow be subdued and holy, and aid the healing art of Nature with the balm of grace to shorten as much as may be the term of its continuance.

"But it is my best Friend that hath smitten me. It is the stroke of my heavenly Father that hath wounded me. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me. He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone; and my hope hath he removed like a tree. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me."

Then it is a painful touch. It is grievous to be smitten by a friend, and the stroke of the father breaks the heart of the child. Your bereavement is indeed a fiery trial, a sword in the bones, a spear that pierceth to the soul. I pity your sufferings, and wonder not at your complaint.

But it is a common touch. "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" Who hath not lost a friend? Who hath not sat in the shadow of the tomb? Even the immaculate Saviour suffered in the flesh. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." And can you hope for exemption?

And it is a righteous touch. The Creator is also the proprietor, and he has an unquestionable right to resume what he hath loaned. All are his; and shall he not do what he will with his own? Shall not the master of the garden gather his own fruits, the commander of the army dispose of his own men? What claim have you upon him for happiness? And how much more misery do you deserve than you have ever suffered!

And it is a needful touch. The loving Father never inflicts a needless stroke. Your delinquency calls for chastisement. Your forgetfulness of eternity requires the stern admonitions of death. The creature that has usurped the Creator's place must be removed. The heart that has grown fast to the world must be torn away. The tree that has struck its roots so deep into the soil must be loosened before it can be transplanted.

And it is a skilful touch. The musician is familiar with all the keys and powers of his instrument. The physician is well acquainted with the character of the disease and the qualities of the application. God's understanding is infinite, and his wisdom is infallible. He knoweth perfectly, when, and where, and how, and by what special means, most effectually to touch the human heart.

"Learn to lie passive in his hand,
And trust his heavenly skill."

And it is a tender touch. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." "A bruised reed will he not break, and the smoking flax will he not quench." The wound must be probed, but the surgeon will do it gently, and soothe the pain with cordials. "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men;" but "for your profit, that ye may be partakers of his holiness." He correcteth his people with loving-kindness,

"Most merciful when most severe."

And oh! is it not a blessed touch? It is the touch of a sword, which subdues the rebel will; the touch of a hammer, which breaks the stony heart; the touch of a fire, which separates the dross from the gold; the touch of a light, which illuminates the darkness within; the touch of a key, which opens the royal palace to the king; the touch of a fountain, which washes away sin and uncleanness; the touch of a sceptre, which assures of the monarch's gracious acceptance; the touch of a master, who asserts his claim and takes his property; the touch of a Saviour, rescuing the soul which he hath ransomed with his blood; the touch of a lapidary, polishing an immortal gem for Emmanuel's crown! God's dealings are mysterious but merciful. "Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." He saith to us, as he once said to Simon, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

"A bruised reed he will not break;
Affliction all his children feel;
He smites them for his mercy's sake;
He wounds to heal."

The Christian, like the Captain of his salvation, is made perfect through sufferings. His present griefs are the pledges of future joys. The gloomy night shall soon give place to an eternal day.

Such are the ways of God. And shall my ignorance impeach his perfect knowledge, and my folly arraign his infinite wisdom, and my evil complain of his transcendent goodness, and my weakness refuse the aid of his almighty arm? "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him." Strange were it indeed to hear one say: "Alas! I am undone, for I have nothing left but God." But is not this practically the language of the believer who sinks into a state of despondency under providential bereavements? He that has God for his portion could not be enriched by the bequest of a kingdom, by the inheritance of a world. The heir of God is heir of all things.

Zeno, who lost his whole fortune in a shipwreck, afterwards declared that it was the best voyage he ever made, because it led him to the study of philosophy and virtue. Happy for you, my friends, if your afflictions lead you to Christ! Happy, if, losing a friend, you find a Saviour! Receive, I beseech you, this chastisement as a new proof of your heavenly Father's love. Learn something from heathen Seneca, who said he enjoyed his friends as one who was soon to lose them, and lost them as if he had them still. Nay, learn rather from Him who bore your griefs and carried your sorrows; who, with the burden of all our accumulated woes pressing upon a sinless heart, exclaimed—"Father, not my will, but thine, be done!" Thus shall your loss disclose to you the pearl of great price, and enrich you with the imperishable wealth of the kingdom of God!

[[1]] Preached at a funeral, 1862.

X.

WISDOM AND WEAPONS.[[1]]

Wisdom is better than weapons of war.—Eccles. ix. 18.

We glory in the excellence of our arms. We boast of our superiority in this respect to the ancients. We attach great importance to such advantages, and rely upon them for the success of our campaigns. It is well. Let these things be properly estimated. But are we not in danger of overlooking what is much more essential to our prosperity? Is there nothing better than guns and bayonets? The royal Preacher gives the preference to wisdom. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge, the pursuit of worthy ends by proper means; and if we take the word in this its ordinary sense, the truth of the text will be obvious to all. But in the writings of King Solomon, as often in other parts of the Holy Scriptures, wisdom has another and higher meaning—piety, practical religion, conformity of heart and life to the law of God; and attaching this signification to the term, who can question the statement of the wisest of monarchs, "Wisdom is better than weapons of war"?

We will begin with some simple illustrations of this proposition in its lower application to secular affairs, and thus prepare the way for more copious discourse concerning its higher application to spiritual matters. And may God mercifully grant me persuasive words, and you "a wise and understanding heart"!

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war," because it gains its advantages at less expense. Weapons of war are very costly, and millions of money are required to insure their success. But wisdom wants no gold. "More precious than rubies," it is "without money and without price."

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war," because it wins its victories without sacrificing human life. Weapons of war strew the field with mangled and ghastly corpses, and fill the land with widows and orphans and broken hearts. But wisdom sheds no blood. Its tendency is to preserve life, and not to destroy. It resorts to counsel instead of appealing to the sword, and subdues its enemies without endangering its friends.

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war," because it leaves no wrecks or ruins as the landmarks of its progress. Weapons of war spread desolation and destruction on all sides; and buildings burned, and plantations devastated, and wealth scattered to the wind, everywhere attest the evils of international contention. But wisdom wastes no property. It accomplishes its beneficent purposes without injuring any man's estate. It turns no fruitful field into a wilderness, and disfigures the landscape with no smouldering heaps of demolished habitations.

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war," because it gives no encouragement to the malevolent and wicked passions. Weapons of war produce hatred, contempt, revenge, a thirst for blood; converting men into fiends, and rendering earth the counterpart of hell. But wisdom makes no enemies. It conciliates. It attracts love, inspires confidence, and binds communities and nations together in fraternal amity. It breathes something of the spirit of Christ's evangel, and echoes the angelic proclamation—"Peace on earth, good-will toward men."

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war," because its achievements are always of a much more valuable character. Weapons of war may overcome brute force, breaking the power of armies, subverting the thrones of monarchs, and arresting the course of incipient revolutions; while the mind remains unconvinced, the will unsubdued, and the heart still strong in its enmity. But wisdom eradicates the principle of hostility. It blasts the bitter fruit in the bud. It disarms enemies by making them friends. It occupies the mind, subjugates the will, and leads captive the heart. Therefore it is said, "He that winneth souls is wise."

These illustrations of the text in its lower application must suffice. Proceed we now to the higher. Wisdom is true religion, evangelical godliness; and this, whatever view we take of it, will be found superior to weapons of war.

We see its superiority in the excellence of its nature. Weapons are material: wisdom is spiritual. Weapons are terrestrial; wisdom is celestial. Weapons are worn upon the person: wisdom is seated in the soul. Weapons are wielded by the warrior: wisdom controls its possessor. Weapons are of earthly origin, human invention, Satanic suggestion: wisdom, like "every good and perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." It is a beam divine, by which we see the invisible. It is the breath of God, inspiring a new life, and imparting a new nature. It is an influence from the Infinite Spirit, quickening the dead conscience, and purifying the polluted heart. It is a gracious power, which subjugates, exterminates all that is hostile to holiness within, "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," and nerving every faculty to the conquest of the mighty host of spiritual foes that "beleaguer the human soul."

We read its superiority in the importance of its objects. Weapons are employed both for aggressive and for defensive purposes: so is wisdom, but in a very different way. Are weapons used to gain freedom? So is wisdom, but it is the freedom of the soul. To acquire riches? So is wisdom, but they are the "durable riches of righteousness." To augment power? So is wisdom, but it is power over the passions and the habits. To repel invasion? So is wisdom, but it is the invasion of the Prince of darkness. To expel enemies? So is wisdom, but they are the enemies intrenched within us. To extend dominion? So is wisdom, but it is the dominion of the world's Redeemer. To subjugate nations? So is wisdom, but they are the nations fighting against God. To liberate captives? So is wisdom, but they are the captives of sin and Satan. To gratify revenge? So is wisdom, but it is revenge against the destroyers of our race. To secure commendation? So is wisdom, but it is the commendation of the Eternal Judge of quick and dead. To achieve glory and honor? So is wisdom, but it is the glory of a heavenly inheritance and the honor of an imperishable kingdom. These are objects worthy of angelic enterprise, and illustrative of the transcendent excellence of wisdom.

We observe its superiority in the purity of its principles. Weapons foster and encourage evil passions in the human heart, and stimulate all its corrupt and vicious propensities; while wisdom eradicates them, originates the opposite virtues, and cultivates in all their "beauty of holiness" the gracious "fruits of the Spirit." On the one side we see pride; on the other, humility. On the one side, contempt; on the other, courteous respect. On the one side, distrust; on the other, ingenuous confidence. On the one side, restless ambition; on the other, tranquil contentment. On the one side, grasping avarice; on the other, open-handed beneficence. On the one side, bitter emulation; on the other, mutual aid and sympathy. On the one side, injustice and oppression; on the other, due regard for the rights of all. On the one side, deceit and wily treachery; on the other, unswerving truth and uncompromising fidelity. On the one side, turbulence, confusion and anarchy; on the other, the reign of divine law and angelic order. On the one side, savage brutality and diabolical cruelty; on the other, tears for all woes and help for all needs. On the one side, bitter and implacable malignity; on the other, the spontaneous flow of brotherly kindness and charity. On the one side, the desperate wrath and fury of revenge; on the other, meekness, gentleness, oblivion of injuries, and all the mind of Jesus. On the one side, an impious disregard of the Almighty's government; on the other, a profound reverence for his holy name, with an earnest desire to know and a settled purpose to do his blessed will. On the one side, an exemplification of the spirit and temper of hell; on the other, a practical illustration of those pure affections and hallowed influences which make men resemble the angels, and render our life "as the days of heaven upon earth." These are the ennobling principles of wisdom.

We perceive its superiority in the grandeur of its alliances. Weapons may secure an alliance with the governments of the world, with its wealth and power, its learning and eloquence, its useful and decorative arts, the glory of its monarchs, the policy of its statesmen, the influence of its sages, and the splendid renown of its conquerors. But wisdom boasts of loftier alliances with "the saints that are in the earth, and the excellent in whom is all its delight;" "a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people;" the élite of the universe, the "sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty," "whose names are in the book of life," whose robes of light, and harps of gold, and thrones of power, and crowns of glory, and palms of victory, await them in the city of "many mansions," the "house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens." It connects itself by invisible but indissoluble ties with the redeemed denizens of the "city of God," the purest and noblest men that ever lived and died, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, philanthropists and reformers, "the salt of the earth," and "the light of the world,"

"Doers of illimitable good,
Gainers of inestimable glory."

It claims community with the cherubim and the seraphim, spirits of light and love, the unshorn strength and unsullied purity of heaven. It lays hold upon the throne of God, and establishes an everlasting covenant with the Almighty, and interests the Ruler and Proprietor of the universe in its cause. Such an alliance secures divine sympathy, heavenly recognition, efficient co-operation, help for all needs, succor in all troubles, defence against all dangers, deliverance from all enemies, the triumphant success of all enterprises, and the enjoyment of "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And with this magnificent endowment of privileges, unknown to the hero of the battle-field, Wisdom, strong in her weakness, rich in her poverty, happy in her misfortunes, tranquil amidst popular commotions, and fearless of ten thousand foes, sits singing in the house of her pilgrimage—

"Not from the dust my joys or sorrows spring;
Let all the baleful planets shed
Their mingled curses round my head,
Their mingled curses I despise,
If but the great Eternal King
Look through the clouds and bless me with his eyes."

We confess its superiority in the character of its achievements. With arms men conquer inferiors or equals: through wisdom they overcome beings vastly greater than themselves—greater in number, in nature, in knowledge, in cunning, in courage, in energy, in endurance, in all the facilities and resources of warfare, except such as are furnished by the grace of God. With arms we vanquish human enemies: through wisdom, superhuman. With arms we vanquish external enemies: through wisdom, internal. With arms we vanquish visible enemies: through wisdom, invisible. With arms we vanquish mortal enemies: through wisdom, immortal. With arms we vanquish earthly enemies: through wisdom, heavenly principalities and powers dethroned and doomed. With arms we subdue provinces and subvert empires: through wisdom, overcome self, and bring our own rebellious nature under the government of God; and he who accomplishes this, saith Solomon, "is better than the mighty—than he that taketh a city." Alexander is said to have conquered the world. Vain boast! The world was not half conquered. But "he that is born of God," St. John tells us, "overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Faith is the theological synonyme of wisdom. Faith is the foundation of all true religion. Faith, wisdom, is real heroism. And it was through this the holy men of old achieved their splendid triumphs and won their immortal honors. And it is through this that the Christian still overcomes the world; overcomes its spirit; its false philosophy; its evil customs and fashions; its cunning strategy, and its open violence; the shallow sophistry of its unbelief, and the affected valor of its impiety; the fascination of its soft seductions and all the fury of its fierce revenge. Faith, with Hope and Charity for its allies, sprinkled with "the blood of the Lamb," and bold in "the word of its testimony," with the eagle's eye and the lion's courage, goes forth to the holy conflict; and all the missiles of malice, ridicule and infidelity—as cannon-balls by cotton-bales—are effectually repelled by the meekness and gentleness of its spirit; and the enemy at length succumbs to the virtue that he finds invincible. This is real victory! This is the sublime triumph of wisdom!

We behold its superiority in the measures and motives of its warfare. Here is a perfect contrast. Arms triumph by physical force and energy: wisdom prevails by the persuasiveness of truth, the gentleness of charity, the beauty of holiness, and the spirit of the Lord. The soldier seeks the aid of science and strategy: wisdom adheres to the simplicity of the gospel, repudiating all art, concealment, disingenuous trickery, such as false colors, masked batteries, treacherous ambuscades, and challenges its enemies with an honest front upon the open field. The military hero is cheered on by the voice of popular applause: wisdom has no admiring multitudes, seeks no encouragement from the world, but pursues its spiritual warfare in silence and in secret,

"All unnoticed and unknown,
Loved and prized by God alone."

There is much in "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war" to stimulate the combatants: wisdom has all the stern reality of the conflict, without any of its inspiring accompaniments—the martial strain, the glittering ranks, the floating banners, the roar of artillery, the shout of charging squadrons, and the clash of resounding steel. The mailed knight of the battle-field may gather strength from emulation: wisdom knows no emulation but that of love and good works—no fierce competition or contentious rivalry—striving only to excel in kindness of heart, sweetness of temper, and the moral likeness of the Son of God. You may be encouraged to the conflict by the hope of gain: wisdom has no expectation of earthly profit—no spoils to be won, no cities to be sacked, no mansions to be robbed, no bank-vaults to be rifled; but it forsakes all to follow Christ, and is content to practise his daily self-denial. You may look forward to worldly distinctions and honors: wisdom seeks no promotion short of the kingdom of heaven—no fame of heroism, no record in history, no celebration in song, no decoration of stars and wreaths, no triumphal arches, nor monumental pillars, nor statues in the temples of the gods. Nay, the times have been when those noble heroes who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, though the world was unworthy of them, were deemed unworthy of the world; had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, of bonds and imprisonments; were tortured, not accepting deliverance; were tempted, stoned, burned, beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder; wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and concealed themselves in dens and caves of the earth; being destitute, afflicted, tormented. "But wisdom is justified of her children."

We discover its superiority in the certainty of its final success. Arms may fail for want of discipline and skill: wisdom has drilled her soldiers, teaching their hands to war and their fingers to fight. Arms may fail for want of strength to wield them: wisdom girdeth us with strength unto the battle; and nerved by her influence, the feeblest in our ranks can run through a troop and leap over a wall. Arms may fail for want of competent officers: wisdom rejoices in the "Captain of the Lord's host," "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," with his eyes of flame, his vesture dipped in blood, many crowns upon his head, and a sharp two-edged sword proceeding out of his mouth, followed by the armies of Heaven, going forth conquering and to conquer. Arms may fail for want of sufficient defences: wisdom is environed with "a wall of fire," a living circumvallation of seraphim and cherubim; and "the name of Jehovah is a strong tower, into which the righteous runneth and is safe." Arms may fail for want of timely re-enforcements: wisdom can call to her aid at any moment "twelve legions of angels;" and, could we see their splendid array, the mountain is continually aflame with the artillery and cavalry of God. Arms may be rendered useless by the overwhelming forces of the foe: wisdom leads "a great multitude that no man can number;" any one of whom can chase a thousand, and two can put ten thousand to flight; as Gideon, with his three hundred, routed and destroyed the myriads of Midian. You may be unsuccessful in battle from a variety of inevitable accidents: wisdom never breaks her blade, nor bursts her musket, nor loses her bayonet, nor dismounts her artillery, nor drops a chance match into the magazine; and her batteries can never be stormed, nor her forces flanked, nor her trains captured, nor her ammunition exhausted, nor her officers out-generalled and circumvented by superior strategy. Your troops may lack the proper support of the government: Jehovah has pledged all his infinite resources to the aid of wisdom in "the good fight of faith;" and his word shall not fail till heaven and earth pass away. Your hopes may perish upon the very verge of victory: what soldier of wisdom ever left the field without the spoils of a vanquished foe? "Yea, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that hath loved us." Success, therefore, is certain. "The victory is the Lord's, and he giveth it to whomsoever it pleaseth him." Let the enemy boast, and rage, and threaten! "Who hath hardened himself against the Lord and prospered?" The sea shall drown them; the earth shall devour them; the fire of heaven shall consume them; the stars in their courses shall fight against them; or they shall perish at the blast of an angel's breath under the very walls of the city of God! However the line of battle may waver for a season, however the fortunes of the field may vacillate between victory and defeat, the word of God is sure, and wisdom shall triumph at the last.

We recognize its superiority in the ineffable glory of its issues. "Lamentation and mourning and woe" follow the triumph of arms, and the land bewails the unreturning brave: the victories of wisdom are universal blessings, cheering the earth and gladdening the skies; and wherever she prevails, the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose; and "the voice of salvation and praise is in the tabernacles of the righteous, saying, The right hand of the Lord is exalted! the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly!" The warrior may win a splendid spoil; and the capture of vast stores and precious treasures—the acquisition of cities, kingdoms, continents—may reward his valor: wisdom "winneth souls"—more costly than all the gems of Golconda, and all the gold of California—the most magnificent structures ever reared, and the most extensive empires ever formed. The victor may feel a proud gratification in his success, but it is necessarily mingled with much of unhappiness: the achievements of wisdom afford "fulness of joy, and pleasures forevermore"—joy without any mixture of sorrow, pleasures without any interval of pain. The commendation of superiors and the applause of the multitude are often imbittered to the conqueror by the envy of rivals and the malice of foes: but the "Well done, good and faithful servant!" of the Eternal Judge shall be re-echoed by the happy universe, and the saints and the seraphim shall compass you about with songs of deliverance, and every detractive tongue shall be shut up in the bottomless pit forever. History will record your heroism, eloquence will emblazon your victory, and poetry will perpetuate your praise; and the pencil, the chisel, the temple, the towering column and triumphal arch, will transmit your fame to future generations: but the Christian's memorial is in the New Jerusalem, "the new heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness"—"a new name, which no man knoweth, save he that receiveth it"—a new creation, glowing with the image of its Creator, over which the morning stars shall sing together, and all the sons of God shall shout for joy. The renown of your heroic deeds may fill the world and flourish over your grave: but wisdom shall inherit "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The brass will tarnish, and the marble will moulder, and the voice of the orator will go silent, and the minstrel shall sing no more in the sepulchre; but wisdom's "praise is not of men, but of God;" "and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Pharaoh perished; but Moses is immortal. Ahab went down to the dust; but Elijah drove his steeds of flame through the sapphire firmament. Saul fell in his blood upon Gilboa; but the tuneful son of Jesse still leads the symphonies of the church in the wilderness, while the cherubim and the seraphim around the throne join in his choral hallelujahs. Egypt is a desert, and Babylon is a heap of ruins, and Nineveh looks sadly up from her ancient sepulchre by the Tigris, and the imperial Mother of Nations sits in melancholy widowhood upon the bank of the "yellow Tiber;" but Joseph, and Daniel, and the captive Tobit, and "Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ," have found "a city of habitation," "whose builder and maker is God"—

"Where age hath no power o'er the fadeless frame,
Where the eye is fire and the heart is flame!"

The Roman conqueror returned in triumph, with large display of spoils and prisoners; and a magnificent array went forth to meet him, and the populace rent the heavens with shouts of welcome, and the wall of the city was torn down for his entrance, and splendid offerings sparkled at his feet, and stately structures over-arched his head, and rich odors perfumed the air, and sweet music enlivened the scene: oh! who shall tell of wisdom's coronation in the metropolis of the universe—the unnumbered millions of the ransomed, with palms and crowns and lutes, amid the radiance of angelic beauty too bright for mortal eyes, singing as the sound of many waters and mighty thunderings unto him that loved them and washed them in his blood!

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war." Are you satisfied with the proof? Then rally to the standard of wisdom, join her forces, fight her battles, win her rewards, sing her transcendent glories, and share the blissful immunities and emoluments of her victorious veterans forever! Why do you hesitate? Are you afraid of the opinions or the speeches of others? Oh! for shame! You have plenty of martial courage; where is your moral courage? You can march up to the mouth of the cannon and rush upon the point of the bayonet; why quail you at the scoff of the infidel and the scorn of the blasphemer? Come out, come out, on the side of truth and righteousness! Enrol yourselves with the saints, under "the Captain of your salvation!" Defiant of earth and fearless of hell, put on your arms, and away to the field, and take part in the conflict, that you may have place in the coronation!

"Soldier, go—but not to claim
Mouldering spoils of earthborn treasure,
Not to build a vaunting name,
Not to dwell in tents of pleasure.
Dream not that the way is smooth,
Hope not that the thorns are roses,
Turn no wishful eye of youth
Where the sunny beam reposes.
Thou hast sterner work to do—
Hosts to cut thy passage through;
Close behind the gulfs are burning—
Forward! there is no returning.

"Soldier, rest—but not for thee
Spreads the world her downy pillow;
On the rock thy couch must be,
While around thee chafes the billow:
Thine must be a watchful sleep,
Wearier than another's waking;
Such a charge as thou dost keep
Brooks no moment of forsaking.
Sleep as on the battle-field—
Girded—grasping sword and shield:
Those thou canst not name or number
Steal upon thy broken slumber.

"Soldier, rise—the war is done:
Lo! the hosts of hell are flying!
'Twas thy God the battle won;
Jesus vanquished them by dying.
Pass the stream—before thee lies
All the conquered land of glory;
Hark! what songs of rapture rise!
These proclaim the victor's story.
Soldier, lay thy weapons down,
Quit the sword and take the crown;
Triumph! all thy foes are banished,
Death is slain, and earth has vanished!"

[[1]] Preached to soldiers in camp, 1863.

XI.

LOVE TESTED.[[1]]

Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?—John xxi. 17.

Were the dear Lord to appear personally in our midst this morning, addressing one after another by name, and putting the same question thus pointedly to all, who would answer in the negative? Who would frankly confess so base an ingratitude? Who of all this assembly would, by the acknowledgment of so flagrant an impiety, write himself down with the reprobate? However negligently or wickedly men live, few are willing to admit that they are utterly wanting in love to him who loved them to the death.

But is love to Christ indeed so common? With a few exceptions of unbelief so blasphemous as to shock ordinary irreligion, are all men truly his friends? Are they so taken with his teaching, so enamoured of his virtue, so captivated by the beauty of his character, that they are ready to forsake all to become his disciples, and prove the sincerity of their attachment by the cheerful endurance of the severest sufferings? Do they generally accord to him his claims, practically observe his requirements, and devote all their energies to his service? Do they so believe in him as the one only Mediator between God and man, the one only name under heaven given among men by which they can be saved, that they renounce all others and cling with the tenacity of a death-grasp to his cross?

Let us ask ourselves the question. Let us enter solemnly into conference with our own hearts. Let every one bring his consciousness, his recollection, the facts of his life, to the test. "Do I truly love the Lord Jesus? Will my love bear the ordeal of a faithful and impartial scrutiny? Is my conduct, public and private, such as to put the matter beyond all doubt and controversy? Should my crucified Friend come visibly into the church, take me by the hand, look straight into my eyes, and say, as he did to 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' could I answer as promptly, as honestly, as emphatically, as the apostle did—'Lord, thou knowest that I love thee'!"

No superfluous or unprofitable inquiry is this, my dear brethren; but a matter of infinite moment, addressing itself immediately to each individual soul. Had Jesus deemed it a question of little consequence, think you he would have put it thrice in so searching a manner to St. Peter? Does not the repetition seem to imply a danger of mistake and self-deception? Yet the question obviously supposes the apostle might know with certainty whether he really loved or not. And if he, why not we? I will not put it to your consciousness, in which any man may be deceived; but the manifestation and fruits of love furnish certain practical tests, quite easy of application and far less liable to mistake; so that no soul, well instructed in the principles of Christianity, need remain in ignorance of so vital a matter.

Here, however, before we proceed any farther, a word of explanation and caution seems necessary. The passion of love, as we all know well enough, is innate. We naturally love our friends and all that is pleasing and attractive to us. But to this general rule love to Christ Jesus is certainly an exception. So fallen and sinful are we, that we cannot love that which is holy, perfect, divine, without the enlightening and purifying Spirit of grace from above. So blinded is our sight, so depraved and perverted our moral taste, that Christ is to us as a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, and there is no beauty that we should desire him. His sublime purity we cannot appreciate; his beauty of holiness we cannot endure. We must be regenerate, quickened together with Christ, raised from a death in trespasses and sins to a new life in righteousness. Possible it may be, indeed, for the infant, consecrated to Christ in baptism, to "lead the rest of his life according to this beginning;" from the very font, daily increasing in God's Holy Spirit more and more, until he come to Christ's everlasting kingdom. But if, as commonly happens, the fact prove otherwise—if there has been a defection from baptismal grace—there must be a return to the bond of the covenant, and a renewal by the power of the Holy Ghost, or there can be no true love to Christ. And those who now sincerely and supremely love him may know precisely when and where the blessed restoration took place, and the Sun of righteousness arose upon them with healing in his wings. And others, not baptized in childhood, may have a vivid recollection of the place and the moment in which they first discovered the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the Redeemer began to be unspeakably precious to their souls. Love to Christ, therefore, is not natural, but supernatural—not the result of self-culture, but the product of divine grace—a new and heavenly principle shed abroad in the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. The test of which let us now apply; and may God help us to do so with honest and faithful heart! "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"

If you love the Lord Jesus, you will think of him with pleasure. Love produces tender thoughts of the beloved. You cannot cease to think of them even when long absent. Can those who love the Saviour ever forget him? Will not their meditation of him always be sweet? How is it with you? Can you say with the psalmist—"The desire of our soul is unto thy name, and to the remembrance of thee"? Do you think often of Jesus, and dwell with delight upon his love? Do you meditate sweetly of him in the night-watches? Is the thought of him ineffably pleasing and joyful to your soul?

If you love the Lord Jesus, you will delight in communion with him. Love finds its greatest happiness in the presence of the beloved. Long absence is painful, and hopeless separation is intolerable. Every opportunity of communion with Christ, therefore, the saints value as a high privilege and seize with eager joy. The word in which he speaks to them is their sweetest music; the closet in which they meet with him is their highest Pisgah; the table at which he feeds them is the very antepast of heaven. Is this your experience? Do you love to speak with Christ in prayer? Do you joyfully listen to the messages of his grace, and read with pleasure the epistles of his love? Do you feast with a keen relish upon the heavenly manna and the new wine of the kingdom which he provides for you in the