This, says Sir George, is the greatest saying of the Old Testament; and there is only one other in the New which excels it:

Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Huxley had eyes for the first, but none for the second; the Scottish lady had eyes for the second, but none for the first; but they who 'see life steadily and see it whole' will stand up to salute the majesty of both.

VII

It is customary for the Presidents of the United States to select the passage which they shall kiss in taking the oath on assuming the responsibilities of their great office. President Harding had no hesitation in making his choice. He turned to this great saying of Micah. 'What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?' The lady in the Scottish church would frown and shake her head, but the President felt that, of all the texts in the Bible, that was the best.



XII

WALTER PETHERICK'S TEXT

I

He was born at Islington on the day on which Sir Walter Raleigh was executed; and his father named him after the gallant knight whom he himself was so proud of having served. That was forty-seven years ago. He is now a prosperous London merchant, living, at ordinary times, over his warehouse, and delighting in the society of his four motherless children. At ordinary times! But these are not ordinary times. The plague is in the city! It appeared for the first time about two months ago and has gradually increased in virulence ever since. Mr. Petherick has therefore withdrawn with his two boys and his two girls to Twickenham. This morning—the morning of July 16, 1665—they all go together to the Parish Church. The riverside is in all its summer glory. The brilliant sunshine seems to mock both the wretchedness so near at hand and the heavy anxiety that weighs upon their hearts. During the week a solemn fast-day has been observed, and to-day, services of humiliation and intercession are to be held in all the churches. Several times, during the past week or two, Mr. Petherick has visited the city. It was a melancholy experience. Most of the shops were shut; poor creatures who claimed that they themselves or their relatives were infected by the pestilence cried for alms at every corner; and he had passed many houses on whose doors a red cross had been marked, and, underneath, the words, 'Lord, have mercy upon us!' To-day that pathetic entreaty is to be offered in every sanctuary. All through the country, men and women are pleading that the awful visitation may be stayed. At Twickenham the church soon fills, and the fervently murmured responses give evidence of the depth and intensity of the universal emotion. Mr. Petherick never forgot the sermon that was preached in the old church that July morning. At least, he never forgot the text. 'Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord and I will joy in the God of my salvation!'

The fields barren! The stalls empty! The vineyards bare!

I will rejoice! I will joy! I will joy! I will rejoice!

The text reminded the Pethericks of the dazzling sunshine that, as they came along, had seemed so unsympathetic. For here was a radiance equally incongruous! Here was faith shining like a solitary star on a dark night! Here was joy, singing her song, like the nightingale, amidst the deepest gloom! It was as though a merry peal of bells was being rung on a day of public lamentation.

II

'The words took hold upon me mightily!' wrote Walter Petherick to a friend in 1682. I do not wonder. Quite apart from their singular application to his own case, they are full of nobility and grandeur. When, in 1782—exactly a century later—Benjamin Franklin was appointed American Plenipotentiary at Paris, some of the brilliant French wits of that period twitted him on his admiration for the Bible. He determined to test their knowledge of the Volume they professed to scorn. Entering their company one evening, he told them that he had been reading an ancient poem, and that its stately beauty had greatly impressed him. At their request he took from his pocket a manuscript and proceeded to read it. It was received with exclamations of extravagant admiration. 'Superb!' they cried. 'Who was the author? Where did Franklin discover it? How could copies be obtained?' He informed them, to their astonishment, that it was the third chapter of the prophecy of Habakkuk—the passage to which Mr. Petherick and his children listened that sad but sunny morning at Twickenham.

The Petherick incident belongs to the seventeenth century; the Franklin incident belongs to the eighteenth; and they remind me of one that belongs to the nineteenth. Daniel Webster was one morning discussing with a number of eminent artists the subjects commonly chosen for portrayal upon canvas. 'I have often wondered,' he said, 'that no painter has yet thought it worth his while to draw his inspiration from one of the most sublime passages in any literature.' 'And what is that?' they asked. 'Well,' he replied, 'what finer conception for a masterpiece could any artist desire than the picture of the prophet Habakkuk sitting in the midst of utter ruin and desolation, singing, in spite of everything, faith's joyous and triumphant song?'

III

Suppose!

It is a Song of Suppositions!

'Suppose the fig tree shall not blossom!'

'Suppose the vine shall bear no fruit!'

'Suppose the labor of the olive shall fail!'

'Suppose the fields shall yield no corn!'

'Suppose the flock shall be cut off from the fold!'

'Suppose there shall be no herd in the stalls!'

'Suppose! Suppose! Suppose!'

I very well remember a conversation I once had at Mosgiel with old Jeanie McNab. Jeanie subsisted on a mixed diet of smiles and songs.

'But, supposing, Jeanie——' I began one day.

'Now don't you have anything to do with supposings,' she exclaimed. 'I know them all. "Suppose I should lose my money!" "Suppose I should lose my health!" And all the rest. When those supposings come knocking at your heart, you just slam the door, and bolt it, and don't let any of them in!'

It was excellent advice; yet the prophet acted on a diametrically opposite principle. When the supposings came knocking at his door, he cried 'Come in!' and in they came!

'Suppose the figs are barren!'

'Suppose the vines wither!'

'Suppose the olive fail!'

'Suppose the corn perish!'

'Suppose the sheep starve!'

'Suppose the cattle die!'

The prophet invites them all to come in. They jostle each other as they throng his little room. He hears all that they have to say, and then he answers them.

'Whence came all these things?' he demands. 'Whence came the figs and the vines and the olives, the corn and the flocks and the herds?' And, having asked this question, he himself proceeds to answer it.

'HE gave them!' he cries triumphantly, 'HE gave them! And if they perish, as you suppose, He can as easily replace them! Therefore will I rejoice in the Lord and will joy in the God of my salvation! It is a small thing to lose the gifts as long as you possess the Giver; the supreme tragedy lies in losing the Giver and retaining only the gifts!'

There is no record as to what the preacher said that Sunday morning at Twickenham; but some such thoughts as these must have been suggested to the eager minds of the Pethericks as they listened so attentively. 'The words took hold upon me mightily!' the father confessed, in a letter to a friend, long afterwards.

IV

That evening a horror of great darkness fell upon the soul of Walter Petherick. He spent the sunset hours quietly with the young people, and, before they bade each other good-night, he read with them again the passage that had so impressed them in the morning. Then, left to himself, Mr. Petherick put on his hat and took a stroll in the lane. It was a perfect summer's evening, warm and star-lit; yet its peace failed to penetrate his tortured soul. A glow-worm twinkled in the grass under the hedge, but no ray of light pierced the impenetrable gloom within. He returned to his room, and, after sitting for a while at the open window, looking down on the sluggish waters of the tranquil river, he threw himself on his knees beside his bed. One by one he prayed for each of his children. The red cross that he had seen on so many doors seemed to have stamped itself upon the retina of his eye; it blazed before him even whilst the lids were closed in prayer.

'Lord, have mercy on us!' said the legend under the cross.

'Lord, have mercy on us!' cried Mr. Petherick over and over and over again.

He thought of the morning's text, but it only mocked him, as the sunshine mocked him on his way to church.

'I could not say it,' he moaned. 'If my children were snatched from me—my fine boys and my lovely girls—the treasures that she left me—how could I rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my salvation?'

He broke into a fresh outburst of supplication. Again he mentioned each of his children by name. 'Spare him; oh, spare him!' he cried; and, as he thought of the girls, 'Spare her, O Lord; have pity, I beseech Thee!'

He wiped his face; it was damp with perspiration. He allowed his forehead to rest upon his folded arms; and then, bowed there in the solitude of his room and in the stillness of the summer night, a strange thought took possession of him.

V

He remembered to have prayed as fervently as this before—many, many years ago. In those days—the days of his earliest religious experiences—he had prayed, almost as earnestly as this, for his own spiritual prosperity, for the extension of Christ's Kingdom and for the enlightenment of the world. It seemed like a dream as he recalled it. He was scarcely more than a boy in those days. The ardor and intensity of that distant time had deserted him so gradually, and had vanished so imperceptibly, that he had never missed it until now. Love had come into his life, irradiating and transfiguring everything. Love had led to marriage; four happy children had brought added gladness to his home and fresh contentment to his heart; and he had abandoned himself without reserve to these domestic cares and comforts. The things that had so completely captivated his soul were all of them good things—just as the fig and the vine and the olive, the corn and the flocks and the herds were all of them good things—but he had allowed them to elbow out the wealthiest things of all. The good had become the enemy of the best. Before his heart had been gladdened by those treasures that were now so dear to him, he had every day rejoiced in the Lord and joyed in the God of his salvation. But not since! His enrichment had proved his impoverishment! What was it that the preacher had said? 'It is a small thing to love the gifts as long as you possess the Giver; the supreme tragedy lies in losing the Giver and retaining only the gifts.' And Walter Petherick felt that night that that supreme tragedy was his.

He rose from his knees, reached for his Bible, and turned once more to the chapter from which the minister had preached. 'O Lord,' it began, 'revive Thy work in the midst of years!' He himself was 'in the midst of years.' The thought brought with it a sense of shame and a rush of thankfulness. He was ashamed that he had permitted the years that had gone to filch so much from him. Like waves that strew treasures on the shore, and snatch treasures from the shore, he felt that the years had brought much and taken much. Yet he felt grateful that he was still 'in the midst of the years'; it is better to discover life's loss at the halfway house than to find it out at the end of the journey! He returned the Bible to its place, and, as he did so, he closed his eyes and repeated for himself the prophet's prayer.

'O Lord,' he cried, 'revive Thy work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy!'

It seemed as if the prayer had opened the gates of his soul to the peace of the night. As he looked again at the glistening river, he felt strangely soothed and comforted. And, half an hour later, he was sleeping as restfully as any of his children.

VI

Once more it is a Sunday evening, and once more we are at Twickenham. For at Twickenham the family have now made their home; they never, after the Plague Year, resided in the city. More than twelve months have passed. We last saw them on July 16, 1665; this is Sunday, September 2, 1666. And this Sunday has been as eventful and as memorable as that. For, just as the family were assembling at the breakfast table, Henry, the elder of the two boys, burst into the room, exclaiming excitedly:

'Father, the city is on fire!'

It was true! London was one great sea of flame! In the afternoon the father and the two sons drove as far as the Borough; it was as near as they could get to the raging conflagration. And what a sight confronted them! Immense tongues of crimson shot up from the burning city and seemed to lick the very skies. When the clouds of smoke parted for a moment, they saw towers falling, walls collapsing, chimneys tottering, whilst the crash of roof after roof kept up a series of reports that resembled the firing of artillery. Every now and again a terrific explosion rent the air, followed immediately by an eruption of flaming debris that looked volcanic in its weird grandeur. London seemed to be in the grip of an angry demon that was bent on tearing it to fragments. The fire exhibited a thousand fantastic forms; it blazed in every conceivable hue and color; it roared and shrieked and sputtered; it hissed and thundered and growled. A spectacle of such vivid beauty, yet of such awful horror, had never been seen in England before. And, somewhere within the area swept by that red, red ocean of flame, was Mr. Petherick's warehouse containing all, or practically all, his earthly possessions!

But that Sunday night the soul of Walter Petherick knew no such anguish as it had known a year ago. He thought of the 'supposes.' He read once more the prophet's song of defiance and of triumph. He smiled to himself as he reflected that the flames could only take the gifts; they could not rob him of the Giver. 'Therefore,' he said to himself, 'I will rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my salvation'; for 'it is a small thing to lose the gifts as long as you possess the Giver; the supreme tragedy lies in losing the Giver and retaining only the gifts!' And that Sunday night, whilst London crackled and blazed, the sleep of Walter Petherick was once more like the sleep of a little child.

VII

Again it is a Sunday evening at Twickenham. Walter Petherick has been celebrating his fiftieth birthday. Three years have passed since the Great Plague and two since the Great Fire. In the presence of the young people, he has poured out his heart in reverent gratitude for the mercies that have so richly crowned his days. And now, the soft autumn day, with its russet tints and its misty sunlight having closed, he is once more alone in his room.

'O Lord,' he prays, 'Thou hast been pleased by pestilence and by fire to redeem my soul from destruction. Thou didst threaten me with the loss of Thy choicest gifts that I might set my heart's affections once more upon their Giver. But the fig tree did not wither; the vines did not perish; the olive did not fail. The pestilence did not touch my children; the flames did not destroy my goods. Accept the thanks of Thy servant this day and help him, all his days, to rejoice in the Lord and to joy in the God of his salvation.'

And the records show that Walter Petherick lived to enjoy long life, abounding wealth, great honors, and the clinging affection of his children's children. And ever in his heart he cherished a deep, deep secret and sang a rapturous song. For he reveled, not only in the gifts, but in the Giver. He rejoiced in the Lord and joyed in the God of his salvation.



XIII

DOCTOR BLUND'S TEXT

I

The doctor was the worst man in Bartown, and that was saying a good deal. For Bartown had the reputation of being 'the wickedest little hole in all England.' It is Harold Begbie who, in The Vigil, tells its story. Dr. Blund, he assures us, spent most of his time drinking gin and playing billiards at 'The Angel.' In a professional point of view, only one person in the little seaside town believed in him, and that was the broken and bedraggled little woman whose whole life had been darkened by his debauchery. Mrs. Blund was never tired of singing the doctor's praises. When she introduced him to a newcomer, and told of his wondrous cures and amazing skill, he listened like a man in a dream. 'Dr. Blund,'—so runs the story—'Dr. Blund was twitching with excess of alcohol, and only muttered and frowned as his wife talked of his powers. The terrible old doctor, with his hairy, purple face and his sunken eyes, seemed to think that his wife was doing him the most dreadful dis-service. It was wonderful that this little woman, instead of shrinking from exhibiting her husband, should have so pathetic a faith in the dreadful-looking rogue that she evidently fancied that he had but to be seen to be chosen as medical adviser.'

Thus the story opens. It could scarcely be expected that such a wreck could hold together for long. Exactly half-way through the book I find Mr. Rodwell, the young rector, standing at the street-corner talking to Mr. Shorder, the wealthy manufacturer. They are interrupted. Mrs. Blund comes hurrying breathlessly round the corner.

'Mr. Rodwell,' she pants, 'please come at once! Dr. Blund! He's asking for you! I've been to the vicarage, I've been everywhere, hunting for you. Don't delay a moment, please!'

Richard Rodwell was an earnest young clergyman, who had ideas of his own about things; and the task to which he was now summoned was very little to his taste. He saw in Blund a man who had lived hideously and was now concerned to avert his just punishment. He tried to believe that there was some hope for such a wretch; but the attempt was not altogether successful. He bent over the dying man and talked of mercy and repentance and forgiveness. But the words did not come from his own soul, and they did not comfort the soul of the man to whom they were addressed.

'There's something else!' he gasped.

'There is nothing outside the mercy of God,' replied the vicar.

'It's in the Bible, what I mean,' returned the dying man.

'What is it?' asked Rodwell soothingly.

'It's a text, "Except a man be born again——" You know the words, Born again. What does that mean?'

The doctor, in his professional capacity, had often seen a child draw its first breath, and had been impressed by its utter pastlessness. It had nothing to regret, nothing to forget. Everything was before it; nothing behind. And here was a text that seemed to promise such an experience a second time! To be born again! What was it to be born again? The dying doctor asked his insistent question repeatedly, but the vicar was out of his depth. He floundered pitifully. At last the doctor, to whom every moment was precious beyond all price, lost patience with the hesitating minister and changed the form of his question. Looking fixedly into his visitor's eyes, he exclaimed:

'Tell me, have you been born again?' Rodwell hung his head in silence, and the voice from the bed went on.

'Have you ever known in your life,' he asked, 'a moment when you felt that a great change happened to you? Are you pretending? Have you ever been conscious of a new birth in your soul?'

The vicar fenced with the question, but it was of no avail. The dying man raised himself suddenly on an elbow. 'You can't help me!' he cried angrily. He seized Rodwell's wrist and held it tightly, fiercely. As he spoke, the fingers tightened their grasp, and he bent Rodwell's hand down to the bed, as it were for emphasis.

'You don't know,' he cried. 'You're pretending. The words you say are words for the living. I am a dying man. Have you the same message for the living and the dying? Have I a lifetime before me in which to work out repentance? You can't help me! You don't know! You have never been born again!'

Such a rebuke smites a minister like the sudden coming of the Day of Judgment. After his conversion John Wesley wrote a terrible letter to his old counselor, William Law. 'How will you answer to our common Lord,' he asks, 'that you, sir, never led me into light? Why did I scarcely ever hear you name the name of Christ? Why did you never urge me to faith in His blood? I beseech you, sir, to consider whether the true reason of your never pressing this salvation upon me was not this—that you never had it yourself!'

'It was a terrible discovery to make,' says Mr. Begbie. 'To think that he—Richard Rodwell, Vicar of Bartown—knew so little of the nature of God that he could say no single word that had significance for this dying soul! He was dumb. The words on his lips were the words of the Church. Out of his own heart, out of his own soul, out of his own experience, he could say nothing.'

'Forgive me,' he said, as he bent over the form on the bed, 'forgive me for failing you. It is not Christ who has failed; it is I.' He turned to go. The dying man opened his eyes and looked at Rodwell sadly and tragically.

'Try to learn what those words mean,' he muttered. 'Born again! It's the bad man's only chance.'

They parted, never to meet again; and from another minister's lips the doctor learned the secret for which he craved.

II

It is very difficult to excuse Mr. Rodwell, especially when we remember that the words that the dying doctor found so captivating, and that he himself found so perplexing, were originally intended to meet just such cases as that of Dr. Blund.

'What is it to be born again? How can a man be born again?' asked the voice from the bed.

'How can a man be born when he is old?' asked Nicodemus, as he heard the Saviour's words uttered for the first time.

'When he is old!' To Nicodemus, as to Dr. Blund, there was something singularly attractive about the thought of babyhood, the thought of pastlessness, the thought of beginning life all over again. But to the aged ruler, as to the aged doctor, it was an insoluble enigma, an inscrutable mystery.

'How?' asked Nicodemus of the Saviour. 'How can a man be born when he is old?'

'How?' asked Dr. Blund of Mr. Rodwell. 'How can a man be born again?'

We all feel that, unless the gospel can meet just such cases as these, we might almost as well have no gospel at all. And yet we have also felt the force of that persistent and penetrating How?

Dr. Blund is no frolic of Mr. Begbie's imagination. Dr. Blund is the representative of all those—and their name is legion—who, in the crisis of the soul's secret history, have turned towards the Saviour's strange saying with the most intense wistfulness and yearning. Let me cite three instances—each as unlike the others as it could possibly be—in order to show that all sorts and conditions of men have at some time felt as Dr. Blund felt in those last hours of his. John Bunyan, the tinker of Bedford, was born in the seventeenth century; the Duke of Wellington, soldier and statesman, was born in the eighteenth century; Frederick Charrington, the London brewer, was born in the nineteenth century. From a great cloud of available witnesses I select these three.

As to John Bunyan, the story of the beginnings of grace in the dreamer's soul is familiar to us all, but it will do us no harm to hear it from his own lips once again. 'Upon a day,' he says, 'the good providence of God called me to Bedford, to work at my calling; and in one of the streets of that town I came to where there were three or four poor women sitting in the sun talking about the things of God; and being now willing to hear them discourse, I drew near to hear what they said; but I heard, yet understood not; they were far above, out of my reach; for their talk was about a new birth!'

'Their talk was about a new birth!'

'Ye must be born again!'

'I heard,' says Bunyan, 'but I understood not!'

'At this,' he goes on to say, 'at this I felt my heart begin to shake, for I saw that in all my thoughts about salvation, the new birth did never enter into my mind!'

Thus the soul of the sleeper awoke. He walked the streets of Bedford asking the old, old question, the question of Nicodemus, the question of Dr. Blund, the question of us all. 'How can a man be born again? How can a man be born again?'

From John Bunyan to the Duke of Wellington seems a far cry. But the transition may not be as drastic as it appears. Dr. W. H. Fitchett, who has made a special study of the character and achievements of the great Duke, recently told the story of a remarkable and voluminous correspondence that took place between Wellington and a young lady named Miss Jenkins. To this earnest and devout girl, her faith was the biggest thing in life. She had but one passionate and quenchless desire: the desire to share it with others. She sought for converts everywhere. A murderer awaited execution in the local gaol. Miss Jenkins obtained permission to visit him. She entered the condemned cell, pleaded with him, wept over him, won him to repentance, and the man went to the scaffold blessing her.

Then, from the winning of the lowest, she turned to the winning of the highest. She fastened her eyes upon the Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, the statesman of the hour, the most commanding figure in the three kingdoms. Wellington was then sixty-five, a man covered with honor and absorbed in public affairs. But, to Miss Jenkins, he was simply a great worldly figure, and, in 1834, she wrote a letter—a letter winged by many prayers—warning him of the peril of living without a sure, deep consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, through the redemption of Jesus Christ. Wellington's iron nature was strongly moved. He replied by return of post, and thus inaugurated a correspondence in the course of which he wrote to Miss Jenkins no fewer than three hundred and ninety letters. In the course of this amazing correspondence, Miss Jenkins begged for an interview, and it was granted. Miss Jenkins took out her New Testament and read to the old warrior these very words. 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!' 'Here,' says Dr. Fitchett, in unfolding the story, 'here was a preacher of quite a new type! A girl's lips were reciting Christ's tremendous words: "Ye must be born again!" She was addressing them directly to him, and her uplifted finger was challenging him. Some long-dormant religious sensibilities awoke within him. The grace of the speaker, and the mystic quality of the thing spoken, arrested him.' To the end of his days the Duke firmly believed that, by means of this girl-prophet, God Himself spoke to his soul that day.

Mr. Frederick Charrington's story has been put on record by Guy Thorne. He was the son of the great brewer, the heir to more than a million pounds, and his time was very largely his own. He traveled and formed friendships. One of his earliest friends was Lord Garvagh. They traveled together, and, when they parted, Lord Garvagh asked Charrington if he would grant him one request. 'When you are quite alone,' his lordship pleaded, 'I should like you to read slowly and carefully the third chapter of John's Gospel!' Later on, Charrington met William Rainsford, and the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. 'Do you know what I wish you would do, Fred?' Rainsford said to him one day. 'I wish, when you are by yourself, that you would study the third chapter of the Gospel of John!'

'This is a very curious thing,' Charrington said to himself. 'My old friend, Lord Garvagh, and my new friend, Rainsford, both say exactly the same thing; and they both profess to be saved.'

Thus doubly challenged, he read the chapter with the closest attention, and was arrested by the words: 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!' 'As I read,' he says, 'light came into my soul,' and he ever afterwards regarded that moment as the turning-point of his whole life.

III

Now, what did these men—these and a hundred thousand more—see in the strange, mysterious words that Jesus spoke to the aged ruler twenty centuries ago? That is the question, and the question is not a difficult one to answer.

A new birth! To be born again! What can it mean? It can only mean one thing. 'I wish,' somebody has sung——

I wish that there were some wonderful place Called the Land of Beginning Again, Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches And all of our poor, selfish grief Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door, And never put on any more.

The words, if they mean anything, mean that there is such a place. A man may have a fresh start. In describing the greatest change that took place in his life—the greatest change that can take place in any man's life—Frank Bullen says: 'I love that description of conversion as the "new birth." No other definition touches the truth of the process at all. So helpless, so utterly knowledgeless, possessing nothing but the vague consciousness of life just begun!' Dr. Blund was thinking of the babes whose first breath he had seen drawn. So innocent; so pastless! Oh, to begin where they were beginning! Oh, to be born again!'

Dr. Blund cannot begin where they were beginning. He cannot enjoy again—at any rate in this world—the opportunities of growth and development that were theirs. But he can be born again! He can start afresh! Dr. Blund made that discovery on his deathbed, and, in talking of the dead doctor's experience, the young minister made the same discovery a day or two later. He felt his need; he turned in an agony of supplication to the Saviour whom he had so often preached; and he, too, entered into the new life.

'He made the great discovery,' Harold Begbie says. 'It had happened; the longed-for event had come; he stood by himself, all by himself, conscious now of the heart; no longer satisfied either with his own intellect or the traditions of a church. The miracle had happened. He had discovered the helplessness of humanity. He had discovered the need of the soul. He had begun at last to see into the heart of things.' He had been born again!

There are two kinds of progress. There is the progress that moves away from infancy towards youth, towards maturity, towards age and decrepitude. And there is a higher progress, a progress that moves towards infancy. 'Except ye be converted and become as little children,' Jesus said, 'ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God.' And the only way of becoming a little child once more is by being born again. It is the glory of the gospel that it offers a man that chance.



XIV

HEDLEY VICARS' TEXT

I

'Those words are the sheet-anchor of my soul!' said Hedley Vicars, a gallant young Army officer, as he sat talking to his sweetheart in the handsome drawing-room at Terling Place.

'Those words are more golden than gold!' exclaimed Miss Frances Ridley Havergal, and she ordered that they should be inscribed upon her tomb.

'Those words did give a great ease to my spirit!' John Bunyan tells us.

'Those words,' said old Donald Menzies, the mystic of Drumtochty, 'those words fell upon me like a gleam from the Mercy-seat!'

What words? Let us return to Hedley Vicars! He was only twenty-eight when he fell, leading his regiment—the Ninety-seventh—in action before Sebastopol. The enemy attacked suddenly under cover of the darkness. 'The men of the Ninety-seventh behaved with the utmost gallantry and coolness,' said Lord Raglan, in the historic dispatch that reached England on Good Friday, 1855. 'They were led by Captain Vicars, who, unfortunately, lost his life in the engagement; and I am assured that nothing could be more distinguished than the gallantry and good example which he set to the detachment under his command.' His biographer tells us that it was more than three years earlier—in November, 1851—that, whilst awaiting in his room the return of a brother officer, he idly turned over the leaves of a Bible which lay on the table. The words, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin,' caught his eyes and profoundly impressed his mind. 'If,' he said, as he closed the sacred Volume, 'if this be true, I will henceforth live by the grace of God as a man should live who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.' That night he could scarcely sleep; the great words repeated themselves again and again within his throbbing brain; they seemed too good to be true.

'All sin! All sin!'

'Cleanseth from all sin!'

'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.'

He never tired of telling of that wonderful experience. Miss Marsh, to whom he was engaged to be married, says that, almost as soon as they were first introduced to each other, 'he gave her an outline of the manner in which God had worked the great change in his heart. With forceful simplicity he told the point of the story; how the words, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin," became the sheet-anchor of his soul, adding, "Thus was I born again of the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever!"'

II

Away back in the infancy of the world I hear one of the earliest of the Patriarchs uttering a great and bitter cry. 'I have sinned!' he cries; 'what shall I do?' And, as I turn over the leaves of my Bible, I find that question echoed again and again, generation after generation and age after age. Yet never once does it receive the slightest hint or suggestion of an answer. And, depend upon it, if the Son of Man had never come into the world, it would have echoed round the globe—still unanswered and unanswerable—until this day. 'O Plato, Plato!' cried Socrates, 'it may be that the gods can forgive sin, but, alas, I do not see how!' Nor anybody else. Job's question fell back upon his face; the universe could give him no reply. It is very striking. And so, here at the beginning of my Bible, I hear the first man's question; and, here at the end of my Bible, I hear the last man's answer!

'What shall I do? What shall I do?'

'I have sinned; what shall I do?'

'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!'

III

These two men—Job and John—present us, first with a comparison, and then with a contrast. It is interesting to examine side by side their views of the sin that represented so terrific a problem.

Job thought of it as a contaminating thing. He felt that his soul was soiled. 'What shall I do?' he cries, 'what shall I do? If I bathe myself in snow water and wash my hands never so clean, yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me!' Every day of his life he thought he heard, morning and noon and night, the awful Voice of the Most High. 'Though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God.' He felt as Macbeth felt when advised to cleanse the stain from his guilty hands.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand! No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red!

Job was like the old lama, in Rudyard Kipling's Kim, who, year after year, wandered through cities and rice-fields, over the hills and across the plains, always searching, but searching in vain, for the River, the River of the Arrow, the River that could cleanse from sin!

John, on the other hand, thought of sin as a condemning thing. The great word 'condemnation' occurs on almost every page of his writings. He feels that every man's sin carries its own conviction. It is like finger-print evidence; it speaks for itself; it needs no long procession of corroborating witnesses. There it is! It tells its own terrible tale, and there is no gainsaying it.

IV

And yet, looked at in another way, the thoughts of these two men stand in sharp and striking contrast, the one with the other. 'I have sinned,' cried Job; 'what shall I do? What shall I do?'

But there is no reply. In the course of the stupendous drama that bears his name, Job scours sea and land, earth and sky, for some answer to the wild questionings of his soul. He climbs the summits of the loftiest mountains and thrids the labyrinth of the deepest mine; he calls to the heights of the heavens and to the depths of the sea. But there is no answering voice, and he is left to nurse his dumb and piteous despair. Every attempt that he makes to rid his soul of its defilement is like the effort of a man who, in trying to remove the stain from his window, rubs on the wrong side of the glass.

But, in contrast with all this, John saw the Cross! How could he ever forget it? Had he not stood beside it, gazed into the thorn-crowned face, and received from those quivering lips their last sacred bequest—the charge of the Saviour's mother? And, all through the eventful years that followed, John never tired of presenting the Cross as the only answer to the Patriarch's question. He may not have perfectly understood it—no man ever yet comprehended all its heights and sounded all its depths! But it is easier to accept it than to reject it. For, if I reject it, I am confronted by an enigma even more unanswerable than Job's.

Oh, why was He there as the Bearer of sin If on Jesus my guilt was not laid? Oh, why from His side flowed the sin-cleansing stream, If His dying my debt has not paid?

If, that is to say, the Cross is not the divine answer to the mystery of all the ages, then who shall attempt to solve the dark, inscrutable, impenetrable mystery of the Cross?

V

But it is! Experience proves it! In the course of his dazzling Apocalypse, John tells us that he saw a war being waged in heaven; and the hosts of righteousness overcame their powerful and sinister foes by the virtue of the blood of the Lamb. I do not know what he means—never expect to know in this world. But I know that, in this life, something very like it happens every day.

Martin Luther says that, in one of his periods of depression at the Wartburg, it seemed to him that he saw a hideous and malignant form inscribing the record of his own transgressions round the walls of his room. There seemed to be no end to the list—sins of thought, sins of word, sins of deed, sins of omission, sins of commission, secret sins, open sins—the pitiless scribe wrote on and on interminably. Whilst the accuser was thus occupied, Luther bowed his head and prayed. When he looked up again, the writer had paused, and, turning, faced him.

'Thou hast forgotten just one thing!' said Luther.

'And that—?' asked his tormentor.

'Take thy pen once more and write across it all: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!"' And, at the utterance of those words, the spirit vanished and the walls were clean!

In his Grace Abounding, Bunyan tells us of a period in his life during which his soul seemed to be held in fetters of brass; and, every step he took, he took to the sound of the clanking of chains. 'But about ten or eleven o'clock on a certain day,' he says, 'as I was walking under a hedge (full of sorrow and guilt, God knows), suddenly this sentence rushed in upon me, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." At this I made a stand in my spirit and began to conceive peace in my soul, and methought I saw as if the tempter did leer and steal away from me, as being ashamed of what he had done. At the same time also I had my sin and the blood of Christ thus represented to me: that my sin, when compared to the blood of Christ, was no more to it than this little clod or stone is to the vast and wide field that here I see. This gave me good encouragement.'

Neither Martin Luther nor John Bunyan would object to my setting them in the company of Donald Menzies. For, like them, Donald was at war with principalities and powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places. In the lonely anguish of that grim struggle it seemed as though, at the last, the gates of hell must have prevailed against him.

'Then,' he says, 'I heard a voice, oh, yes, as plain as you are hearing me: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." It was like a gleam from the Mercy-seat, but I waited to see whether Satan had any answer and my heart was standing still. But there was no word from him, not one word. Then I leaped to my feet and cried, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And I looked round, and there was no one to be seen but Janet in her chair with the tears on her cheeks, and she was saying, "Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"'

'When I uttered those words,' says Luther, 'the evil spirit vanished and the walls were clean!'

'When I made a stand upon those words,' says Bunyan, 'the tempter did steal away from me and I entered into peace!'

'When I heard those words,' says Donald Menzies, 'I waited to see if Satan had any answer, but there was no word from him, not one word!'

This, surely, is what the seer means when he says that he saw all the hosts of evil routed and scattered by the virtue of the blood of the Lamb.

VI

Down at the library yesterday afternoon I spent an hour in glancing through the various volumes of Southey's Commonplace Book. And, among a vast assortment of musty notes that are now of interest to nobody, I came upon this: 'I have been reading of a man on the Malabar coast who had inquired of many devotees and priests as to how he might make atonement for his sins. At last he was directed to drive iron spikes, sufficiently blunted, through his sandals, and on these spikes he was to place his naked feet and then walk a distance of five hundred miles. He undertook the journey, but loss of blood and exhaustion of body compelled him to rest one day under the shade of a spreading tree. As he lay there, a missionary approached and began to preach the gospel. He announced as his theme the words: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Whilst the evangelist still preached, the man sprang up, tore off his sandals, and cried aloud: "That is what I want! That is what I want!" And he became a living witness to the fact that the redeeming blood of Christ does cleanse from human guilt.'

'That is what I want!' cried Southey's pilgrim on the coast of Malabar.

'That is what I want!' cried Luther in the Wartburg.

'That is what I want!' cried Bunyan at Bedford.

'That is what I want!' cried Donald Menzies at Drumtochty.

'That is what I want!' exclaimed young Hedley Vicars, as his startled eyes fell upon the tremendous words that seemed to leap from the Bible on the table. 'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.' 'That is what I want! That is what I want!'

Hedley Vicars appropriated the priceless gift held out to him, and his whole life was transfigured in consequence. His life—and his death! For, on that fatal night before Sebastopol, it was with Hedley Vicars as it was with the soldier with whom the poet has familiarized us. Everybody knows the story. Two men of God moved in the darkness across the field on which, that day, a battle had been fought.

And now they stand Beside a manly form, outstretched alone. His helmet from his head had fallen. His hand Still firmly grasped his keen but broken sword. His face was white and cold, and, thinking he was gone, They were just passing on, for time was precious, When a faint sigh caught their attentive ears. Life was still there, so bending down, They whispered in his ears most earnestly, Yet with that hush and gentleness with which We ever speak to a departing soul— 'Brother! the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, Cleanseth from every sin.'

The pale lips moved, And gently whispered 'hush!' and then they closed, And life again seemed gone.

But yet once more They whispered those thrice blessed words, in hope To point the parting soul to Christ and heaven— 'Brother! the precious blood of Jesus Christ Can cleanse from every sin.'

Again the pale lips moved, All else was still and motionless, for Death Already had his fatal work half done; But gathering up his quickly failing strength, The dying soldier—dying victor—said: 'Hush! for the angels call the muster roll! I wait to hear my name!'

They spoke no more. What need to speak again? for now full well They knew on whom his dying hopes were fixed, And what his prospects were. So, hushed and still, They, kneeling, watched.

And presently a smile, As of most thrilling and intense delight, Played for a moment on the soldier's face, And with his one last breath he whispered 'Here!'

'I have sinned! What shall I do?' cries this despairing soul at the beginning of my Bible.

'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!' answers the man who leaned upon the Saviour's breast and gazed full into the thorn-crowned face of the Crucified.

'That is what I want!' exclaims the man at Malabar, speaking, not for himself alone, but for each and all of us.

'Those words are more golden than gold!' says Miss Havergal, as she orders them to be inscribed upon her tomb.

'They are like a gleam from the Mercy-seat!' cries Donald Menzies.

'They are the sheet-anchor of my soul!' Hedley Vicars tells his sweetheart. And he is a very wise man who, in the straits of his experience, stakes his faith upon that which such witnesses have tested and have found sublimely true.



XV

SILAS WRIGHT'S TEXT

I

Silas Wright was deprived by sheer modesty of the honor of being President of the United States. His is one of the truly Homeric figures in American history. By downright purity of motive, transparency of purpose, and the devotion of commanding powers to the public good, he won for himself the honor, the love and the unbounded confidence of all his fellows. It used to be said of him that he was as honest as any man under heaven or in it. He might have aspired to any office to which it was in America's power to call him. Only his extreme humility, and his dread of impeding the promotion of his friends, kept him from rising to a position in which his name would have taken its place with those of Washington and Lincoln. But he refused almost every honor. 'He refused cabinet appointments,' says Benton, in his Thirty Years' View. 'He refused a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States; he rejected instantly the nomination of 1844 for Vice-President; he refused to be nominated for the Presidency. He spent as much time in declining office as others did in winning it. The offices he did accept were thrust upon him. He was born great and above office and unwillingly descended to it.' Whittier is very conservative in his choice of heroes. Those whom he commemorates in verse are not only great men, but good ones. And Silas Wright is among them. 'Man of the millions,' he says, in the lines that he penned on hearing of Mr. Wright's death:

Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon! Portents at which the bravest stand aghast— The birththroes of a Future, strange and vast, Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise, and strong, Suddenly summoned to the burial bed, Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead. Who now shall rally Freedom's scattered host? Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?

The splendid personality of Silas Wright has been best revealed to us in Irving Bacheller's The Light in the Clearing. The book is partly history and partly commentary and partly fiction. Silas Wright, says Irving Bacheller, carried the candle of the Lord; and all the world rejoiced in its radiance.

II

Barton Baynes, the hero of the book—for whose actuality and historicity the author vouches—is an orphan brought up on a farm by his Uncle Peabody and Aunt Deel. Getting into all sorts of scrapes, he makes up his mind that he is too heavy a burden on the affectionate and good-natured couple; and one night he runs away. Out in the darkness, however, he meets with strange adventures, loses his way, and at length finds himself in the hands of Silas Wright, the Comptroller. The Senator first falls in love with the bright-faced, open-hearted, intelligent boy, and then takes him back to his uncle's farm. From that moment the friendship between the two—the great man and the obscure country boy—grows apace. After a while the Senator visits the district to deliver an address, and he spends the night at the farmhouse. It is a great occasion for Bart; and after supper an incident occurs that colors all his life and strikes the keynote of the book. As Barton approaches Mr. Wright to say Good-night, the Senator says:

'I shall be gone when you are up in the morning. It may be a long time before I see you; I shall leave something for you in a sealed envelope with your name on it. You are not to open the envelope until you go away to school. I know how you will feel that first day. When night falls, you will think of your aunt and uncle and be very lonely. When you go to your room for the night I want you to sit down all by yourself and read what I shall write. They will be, I think, the most impressive words ever written. You will think them over, but you will not understand them for a long time. Ask every wise man you meet to explain them to you, for all your happiness will depend upon your understanding of those few words in the envelope.'

The words in the sealed envelope!

What are the mysterious words in the envelope?

And what if the sealed envelope contains a text?

III

In the morning, when Barton rose, the Senator was gone, and Aunt Deel handed the boy the sealed envelope. It was addressed: 'Master Barton Baynes; to be opened when he leaves home to go to school.' That day soon came. At the Canton Academy, under the care of the excellent Michael Hacket, Bart felt terribly lonely, and, in accordance with the Senator's instructions, he opened the note. And this is what he read:

'Dear Bart, I want you to ask the wisest man you know to explain these words to you. I suggest that you commit them to memory and think often of their meaning. They are from Job: "His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust." I believe that they are the most impressive in all the literature I have read.—Silas Wright.'

Bart soon learned to love and admire the schoolmaster; he was the wisest man he knew; to him, therefore, he went for an explanation of the words.

'All true!' exclaimed Mr. Hacket, after reading the note. 'I have seen it sinking into the bones of the young, and I have seen it lying down with the aged in the dust of their graves. Your body is like a sponge; it takes things in and holds them and feeds upon them. A part of every apple that you eat sinks down into your blood and bones. You can't get it out. It's the same with the books that you read and the thoughts that you enjoy. They go down into your bones and you can't get them out. A man's bones are full of the sin of his youth, which lies down with him in the dust!'

IV

But the best exposition of the text is not Michael Hacket's, but Irving Bacheller's. The whole book is a vivid and arresting and terrible forth-setting of the impressive words that Barton found in his sealed envelope.

All through the book two dreadful characters move side by side—Benjamin Grimshaw and Silent Kate. Benjamin Grimshaw is rich and proud and pitiless. Everybody is afraid of him. But Roving Kate is not afraid. Indeed, he seems to be more afraid of her. Wherever he is, she is there. She is wild and bony and ragged. She is, or pretends to be, half demented. She tells fortunes with strange antics and gesticulations, scrawling her prognostications upon stray slips of paper. But Benjamin Grimshaw is the main object of her attention. She hates him, and hates him all the more terribly because she once loved him. For Roving Kate, the Silent Woman, was once Kate Fullerton, Squire Fullerton's pretty daughter. And Benjamin Grimshaw had loved her, and betrayed her, and spurned her, and married another. In the village cemetery you might have seen a tombstone bearing her name. Her father erected it to show that she was dead to him for ever. Poor Kate had never known her mother. And so, in the course of the story, Benjamin Grimshaw had two sons, only one of whom he recognized. For Kate Fullerton was the mother of the other. And, in her shame and her anger and her hate, Kate resolved to follow the father of her base-born child all the days of his life; and there she stands—unkempt, repulsive, menacing—always near him, the living embodiment of the sin of his youth.

Amos Grimshaw, his petted and pampered son, comes to the gallows. He is convicted of murder upon the highway. The father is in court when the Judge pronounces the awful sentence. And, of course, Roving Kate is there. Ragged as ever, the Silent Woman is waiting for him as he comes down the steps. She shoots out a bony finger at him, as, bowed and broken, he passes into the street. He turns and strikes at her with his cane.

'Go away from me,' he cries. 'Take her away, somebody! I can't stand it! She's killing me! Take her away!'

His face turns purple and then livid. He reels and falls headlong. He is dead! Three days later they bury him. Roving Kate stands by the graveside, strangely changed. She is decently dressed; her hair is neatly combed; the wild look has left her eyes. She looks like one whose back is relieved of a heavy burden. She scatters little red squares of paper into the grave, her lips moving silently. These are her last curses. Barton Baynes and his schoolmaster, Mr. Hacket, are standing by.

'The scarlet sins of his youth are lying down with him in the dust,' whispers the master to his pupil as they walk away together.

V

This is terrible enough—the thought of our sins surrounding our deathbeds and lying down with us in our graves—but the book contains something more profound and terrible still!

For, in addition to the grave of Benjamin Grimshaw, from which we have just turned sadly away, there are two other graves in the book. The one is a felon's grave—the grave of Amos Grimshaw. And what sins are these that are lying down with him in the dust? They are some of them his own; and they are some of them his father's; and they are some of them the sins of Roving Kate, the Silent Woman. Yes, they are some of them the woman's sins. For when Amos was but an impressionable boy, Kate had supplied him with literature by which she hoped to pollute and ruin him.

Out of the deathless hatred that she bore to the father, she longed to destroy the son, body and soul. She gave him tales that would inflame his fancy and excite his baser instincts, tales that glorified robbery, murder and villainy of every kind. If Amos Grimshaw had been a good man's son, and if ennobling influences had been brought to bear upon him, he might have lived to old age and gone down at last to an honored grave. But his father's example was always before him, and Kate's books did their dreadful work only too well. He became a highway robber; he shot a stranger on a lonely road. It came out in evidence that the deed had been perpetrated under circumstances identical with those described in one of the sensational stories found in the Grimshaw barn—the stories Kate had given him!

'It's the same with the books you read,' the schoolmaster had said, when Bart sought from him an explanation of the text in the sealed envelope; 'they go down into your bones and you can't get them out.'

And Kate's books had gone down into Amos Grimshaw's bones; and thus her sins and his father's sins lay down in the dust of the felon's grave and mingled with his own. No exposition of Silas Wright's text could be more arresting or alarming than that. My sins may overflow from my grave and lie down in the dust with my children!

VI

And, on the very last page of The Light in the Clearing, we have an even more striking presentment of the same profound truth. For I said that, in the book, there is yet one other grave. It is a lonely grave up among the hills—the grave of the stranger who was shot by Amos Grimshaw that dark night; and this time it is old Kate who sits weeping beside it. For who was the stranger murdered upon the highway? It turns out to have been Kate's own son!

'It is very sorrowful,' she moans. 'He was trying to find me when he died!'

And so the murderer and the murdered were step-brothers! They were both the sons of Benjamin Grimshaw!

And, in this grave up among the hills, there lie down with poor murdered Enoch his own sins—whatever they may have been—and his father's sins—the sins that made him an outcast and a fugitive—and his mother's sins, the sins of the only being who loved him!

Yes, his mother's sins; for his mother's sins had slain him. In her hatred of Benjamin Grimshaw, she had moved Amos Grimshaw to become a murderer, and he had murdered—her own son!

'It is very sorrowful!' she moans.

It is indeed; sin is always sorrowful.

VII

'Wherefore come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'

It is best to make an end of them, and to turn from them, once and for all, that they lie down at last neither with us nor with our children.



XVI

MICHAEL FARADAY'S TEXT

I

The lecturer had vanished! A crowded gathering of distinguished scientists had been listening, spellbound, to the masterly expositions of Michael Faraday. For an hour he had held his brilliant audience enthralled as he had demonstrated the nature and properties of the magnet. And he had brought his lecture to a close with an experiment so novel, so bewildering and so triumphant that, for some time after he resumed his seat, the house rocked with enthusiastic applause. And then the Prince of Wales—afterwards King Edward the Seventh—rose to propose a motion of congratulation. The resolution, having been duly seconded, was carried with renewed thunders of applause. But the uproar was succeeded by a strange silence. The assembly waited for Faraday's reply; but the lecturer had vanished! What had become of him? Only two or three of his more intimate friends were in the secret. They knew that the great chemist was something more than a great chemist; he was a great Christian. He was an elder of a little Sandemanian Church—a church that never boasted more than twenty members. The hour at which Faraday concluded his lecture was the hour of the week-night prayer-meeting. That meeting he never neglected. And, under cover of the cheering and applause, the lecturer had slipped out of the crowded hall and hurried off to the little meeting-house where two or three had met together to renew their fellowship with God.

In that one incident the man stands revealed. All the sublimities and all the simplicities of life met in his soul. The master of all the sciences, he kept in his breast the heart of a little child. Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse has well asked—

Was ever man so simple and so sage, So crowned and yet so careless of a prize? Great Faraday, who made the world so wise, And loved the labor better than the wage!

And this, you say, is how he looked in age, With that strong brow and these great humble eyes That seem to look with reverent surprise On all outside himself. Turn o'er the page, Recording Angel, it is white as snow! Ah, God, a fitting messenger was he To show Thy mysteries to us below! Child as he came has he returned to Thee! Would he could come but once again to show The wonder-deep of his simplicity!

In him the simplicities were always stronger than the sublimities; the child outlived the sage. As he lay dying they tried to interview the professor, but it was the little child in him that answered them.

'What are your speculations?' they inquired.

'Speculations?' he asked, in wondering surprise. 'Speculations! I have none! I am resting on certainties. 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!' And, reveling like a little child in those cloudless simplicities, his great soul passed away.

II

Faraday was a perpetual mystery. He baffled all his colleagues and companions. Nobody could understand how the most learned man of his time could find in his faith those restful certainties on which he so calmly and securely reposed. They saw him pass from a meeting of the Royal Society to sit at the feet of a certain local preacher who was notorious for his illiteracy; and the spectacle filled them with bewilderment and wonder. Some suggested that he was, in an intellectual sense, living a double life. Tyndall said that, when Faraday opened the door of his oratory, he shut that of his laboratory. He did nothing of the kind. He never closed his eyes to any fragment of truth; he never divided his mind into watertight compartments; he never shrank from the approach of a doubt. He saw life whole. His biography has been written a dozen times; and each writer views it from a new angle. But in one respect they all agree. They agree that Michael Faraday was the most transparently honest soul that the realm of science has ever known. He moved for fifty years amidst the speculations of science whilst, in his soul, the certainties that cannot be shaken were singing their deathless song. Like a coastguard who, standing on some tall cliff, surveys the heaving waters, Faraday stood, with his feet upon the rock, looking out upon a restless sea of surmise and conjecture. In life, as in death, he rested his soul upon certainties. And if you will ask what those certainties were, his biographers will tell you that they were three.

1. He trusted implicitly in the Father's love. 'My faculties are slipping away day by day,' he wrote to his niece from his deathbed. 'Happy is it for all of us that our true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as little children trusting in the Father of Mercies and accepting His unspeakable gift.'

2. He trusted implicitly in the Redeeming Work of His Saviour. 'The plan of salvation is so simple,' he wrote, 'that anyone can understand it—love to Christ springing from the love that He bears us, the love that led Him to undertake our salvation.'

3. He trusted implicitly in the Written Word. 'To complete this picture,' says Dr. Bence Jones, in bringing to a close his great two-volume biography, 'to complete this picture, I must add that Faraday's standard of duty was not founded upon any intuitive ideas of right and wrong, nor was it fashioned upon any outward experiences of time and place; but it was formed entirely on what he held to be the revelation of the will of God in the written Word, and throughout all his life his faith led him to act up to the very letter of it.'

'On these certainties,' he exclaimed, 'I stake everything! On these certainties I rest my soul!' And, summing up the three in one, he added, 'For I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.'

It is wonderful how the universal heart aches for assurance, for confidence, for finality, for certainty. Mr. Dan Crawford tells of a cannibal chief beside whose deathbed an African boy was reading selections from the Gospel of John. He was impressed by the frequent recurrence of the words 'verily, verily.'

'What do they mean?' he asked.

'They mean "certainly, certainly!"'

'Then,' exclaimed the dying man, with a sigh of infinite relief, 'they shall be my pillow. I rest on them.'

Sage or savage, it is all the same. Bunyan's great night was the night on which he found that same pillow. 'It was with joy that I told my wife, "O, now I know, I know!" That night was a good night to me! I never had a better. I longed for the company of some of God's people, that I might have imparted unto them what God had showed me. Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarcely lie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ!'

'Those words shall be my pillow!' said the African chief.

'Those words shall be my pillow!' said the English scientist.

'Those words shall be my pillow!' cried John Bunyan.

'For I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!'

III

'He is able to keep!' That was the sublime confidence that won the heart of John Newton. It came to him in the form of a dream on his voyage home from Venice. I have told the story in full in A Bunch of Everlastings. 'It made,' he says, 'a very great impression upon me!' The same thought made an indelible impression upon the mind of Faraday, and he clung tenaciously to it at the last. 'He is able to keep'—as a shepherd keeps his sheep. 'He is able to keep'—as a sentry keeps the gate. 'He is able to keep'—as the pilgrims kept the golden vessels on their journey to Jerusalem, both counting and weighing them before they set out from Babylon and again on their arrival at the Holy City. 'He is able to keep'—as a banker keeps the treasure confided to his custody.

'I know whom I have believed,' says the margin of the Revised Version, 'and I am persuaded that He is able to guard my deposit against that day.'

'I know in whom my trust reposes,' says Dr. Weymouth's translation, 'and I am confident that He has it in His power to keep what I have entrusted to Him safe until that day.'

'I know whom I have trusted,' says Dr. Moffatt's version, 'and I am certain that He is able to keep what I have put into His hands till the Great Day.'

He will guard my treasure!

He will honor my confidence!

He will hold my deposit!

I know! I know! I know!

IV

Faraday's text is an ill-used text. It is frequently mis-quoted. It occurred one day in the course of a theological lesson over which Rabbi Duncan was presiding.

'Repeat that passage!' said the Rabbi to the student who had just spoken.

'I know in whom I have——'

'My dear sir,' interrupted the Rabbi, 'you must never let even a preposition come between you and your Saviour!'

And when Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, was dying, a friend endeavored to fortify his faith by reciting some of the most familiar passages and promises. Presently he ventured upon the words:

'I know in whom I have believed, and——'

But the sick man raised his hand.

'No, no,' exclaimed the dying Principal, 'it is not "I know in whom" but "I know whom"; I cannot have even the little word "in" between me and Christ. 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!'

John Oxenham has expressed the same thought with an accent and emphasis well worthy of the theme:

Not What, but Whom, I do believe, That, in my darkest hour of need, Hath comfort that no mortal creed To mortal man may give.

Not What but Whom. For Christ is more than all the creeds, And His full life of gentle deeds Shall all the creeds outlive.

Not What I do believe, but Whom. Who walks beside me in the gloom? Who shares the burden wearisome? Who all the dim way doth illume, And bids me look beyond the tomb The larger life to live?

Not what I do believe, But Whom! Not What, But Whom!

It was a Person, a Living and Divine Person, of whom Faraday was so certain and on whom he rested so securely at the last.

V

Is there in all Scottish literature a more robust, more satisfying, or more lovable character than Donal Grant? Readers of George Macdonald will cherish the thought of Donal as long as they live. He was the child of the open air; his character was formed during long and lonely tramps on the wide moor and among the rugged mountains; it was strengthened and sweetened by communion with sheep and dogs and cattle, with stars and winds and stormy skies. He was disciplined by sharp suffering and bitter disappointments. And he became to all who knew him a tower of strength, a sure refuge, a strong city, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. As a shepherd-boy among the hills he learned to read his Greek Testament; and, later on, he became tutor at the Castle Graham. It was his business in life to instruct little Davie, the younger son of Lord Morven; and he had his own way of doing it.

'Davie,' he said one day, 'there is One who understands every boy, and understands each separate boy as well as if there were no other boy in the whole world.'

'Tell me who it is!' demanded Davie.

'That is what I have to teach you; mere telling is not much use. Telling is what makes people think they know when they do not, and makes them foolish.'

'Well, what is his name?'

'I will not tell you that just yet; for then you would think that you knew Him when you knew next to nothing about Him. Look here! Look at this book!' He pulled from his pocket a copy of Boethius. 'Look at the name on the back of it; it is the name of the man who wrote that book.'

Davie spelled it out.

'Now you know all about the book, don't you?'

'No, sir, I don't know anything about it.'

'Well, then, my father's name is Robert Grant; you know now what a good man he is!'

'No, I don't!' replied Davie.

And so Donal led Davie to see that to know the name of Jesus, and to know about Jesus is not to know Jesus.

'I know Him!' cried Faraday in triumph.

George Macdonald makes Faraday's text the master-passion of his hero's life to the last. All through the adventures recorded in the book, Donal Grant behaves like a man who is very sure of God. 'I know Him,' he seems to say. 'I know Him.' And the closing sentences of the story tell us that 'Donal is still a present power of heat and light in the town of Auchars. He wears the same solemn look, the same hovering smile. That look and that smile say to those who can read them, "I know whom I have believed." His life is hid with Christ in God; he has no anxiety about anything; God is, and all is well.'

VI

'I know whom I have believed.'

Pascal had the words engraved upon his seal; Canon Ainger left instructions that they should be inscribed on his tomb at Darley Abbey; but, like Donal Grant, Michael Faraday wove them into the very warp and woof, the fiber and fabric of his daily life.

'Speculations!' he cried in dismay, 'speculations! I have none! I am resting on certainties! For 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!'

Happy the heads that, in the soul's last straits, find themselves pillowed serenely there!



XVII

JANET DEMPSTER'S TEXT

I

Sitting here in my pleasaunce on the lawn, surrounded by a riot of hollyhocks, foxgloves, roses, geraniums, and other English flowers that she described so vividly, and loved so well, I find myself celebrating in my own way the hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Eliot. Lying open beside me on the garden-seat is a very well-worn copy of Janet's Repentance. It has been read many times, and must be read again to-day. For even those who cannot go as far as Dr. Marcus Dods in pronouncing it 'one of the greatest religious books ever written' will at least agree that in religious feeling, spiritual insight and evangelical intensity, it is among the most noble and most notable of our English classics. The pity of it is that, long before the book was written, its brilliant authoress had drifted away from that simple and majestic faith which she so tenderly portrays. Indeed, I have sometimes fancied that she wrote of Janet with a great wistfulness in her heart. She seems to have felt that if, in the straits of her soul, she had found her storm-tossed spirit in communion with personalities like those by whom Janet was surrounded in the day of her distress, her spiritual pilgrimage might have been a sunnier one. But she drifted. No other word will describe the process. Some powerful but sensitive minds, like that of Goethe—with whose works she was so familiar—have been driven or torn from their anchorage by some sudden and desolating calamity; but with George Eliot it was quite otherwise. She was a gentle English girl, born on a farm, and passionately attached to the quiet beauty of the countryside. She delighted in the village green, the rectory garden, the fields waving with golden buttercups, and the shady woods in which the primroses twinkled. She loved to watch the poppies tossing in the corn, the wind sweeping over the red sea of clover, and the hyacinths nodding on the banks of the silvery stream. The smell of the hay and the song of the birds and the life of the fields were her ceaseless satisfaction and refreshment. Perhaps, as she wandered about those winding lanes and lonely bridle-paths, she became too contemplative, too introspective, too much addicted to the analysis of frames and feelings. Perhaps, dwelling so exclusively on the abstract and the ideal, her fresh young spirit became unfitted for its rude impact with the actual and the real. Perhaps, too, she was unfortunate in respect of the particular specimens of the evangelical faith that came under her notice. Perhaps! At any rate, she came at length into daily contact with men and women, and her girlish faith reeled under the shock. It is one of the most grievous tragedies of the spiritual realm that conscience often finds the sunny climate of an ardent evangelism singularly enervating. The emotional side of one's nature luxuriates in an atmosphere in which the ethical side becomes languid and relaxed. A man must be very careful, as Mr. Gladstone once incisively observed, to prevent his religion from damaging his morality. The simpleminded people with whom this sharp-witted and fresh-spirited young Englishwoman met had not fortified themselves against that insidious peril. One woman told a lie and the offense was sheeted home to her. 'Ah, well,' she replied, in a nonchalant and easy way, 'I do not feel that I have grieved the Spirit much!' George Eliot was horrified. She saw, to her disgust, that strong religious feeling could consist with flagrant dishonor. Her finely poised and sensitive soul experienced a revolt and a rebound. She changed none of her opinions, yet she changed the entire attitude of her mind; and, with the passage of time, the new attitude produced new ideas. She had not quarreled with the faith of her childhood; she simply lost her love for it. Her anchor relinquished its hold, and, almost imperceptibly, she drifted. 'She glided out of the faith,' as Principal Fairbairn so expressively puts it, 'as easily and as softly as if she had been a ship obeying wind and tide, and her faith a sea that opened silently before and closed noiselessly behind her.'

Wherefore let all those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity! For if, through any glaring inconsistency between my faith and my behavior, I offend one of these little ones that believe in Him, it were better, so the Master Himself declared, that a millstone were hanged about my neck and that I were cast into the depths of the sea.

II

Now, in the story that lies open on the garden-seat beside me, all the characters are very religious people. Yet they are divided sharply into two classes. There are the very religious people who are all the worse for their religion, and there are the very religious people who are all the better for it. Mr. Dempster is a very religious man. In the opening sentence of the story, the first sentence in the book, he acknowledges his indebtedness to his Creator. He is a very religious man—and a drunkard! Mr. Budd is also a very religious man. Indeed, he is warden at the Parish Church. 'He is a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five and forty, whose scandalous life has long furnished his more moral neighbors with an afterdinner joke.' But a very religious man is Mr. Budd! Mrs. Linnett is a very religious woman. She dotes on religious biography. 'On taking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turns to the end to see what he died of,' and she likes the book all the better if a sinister element enters into its composition. Mrs. Linnett is a very religious woman—and a gossip! We are introduced to a whole group of such characters—men and women who are very religious, but who are none the better for their religion.

And, side by side with these unamiable figures, are a set of people, equally religious, whose characters are immeasurably sweetened and strengthened by their religion. It is not that they profess another faith, attend another church, or spend lives remote from the affairs with which the others have to do. As George Eliot herself pointed out, when the publisher hesitated to commit himself to this manuscript, it was not a case of one religion against another, or of one creed against another, or of one church against another, or even of one minister against another. The members of this second group move in the same environment as do the members of the first; Sunday by Sunday they make their way to the self-same sanctuaries; yet every day they grow in gentleness, in thoughtfulness, in kindness, and in all those graces of behavior that constitute the charm of lovable and helpful lives. In this attractive group we find Mr. Jerome, Mr. Tryan, and little Mrs. Pettifer.

It is, of course, an old story, vividly and startlingly retold. The same cause will produce diametrically opposite effects. The sun that softens the wax hardens the clay. The benefit that I derive from my religion, and the enjoyment that it affords me, must depend upon the response that I make to it. The rays of light that fade my coat add a warmer blush to the petals of the rose. Why? My coat does not want the light and makes no response to it; the rose cannot bloom without the light and drinks in the soft rays as the source of all its beauty. Under the influence of the sunshine, the violets in the vase droop and become noisome; the living lilies under my window unfold and assume an even statelier grace. It is all a matter of response. Religion was always beating upon the lives of Mr. Dempster and Mr. Budd and Mrs. Linnett, as the sunlight beats upon the coat and the cut-flowers. They did not open their hearts to it; they made no eager response to it; it was a thing that shone upon the surface, and that was all. Their lives consequently wilted and shriveled and grew less beautiful. They were like violets made vile by the very light that was designed to make them lovely. Mr. Tryan, Mr. Jerome and Mrs. Pettifer, on the other hand, opened their hearts to the love of God as the rose opens its petals to the light of the sun. Their religion was a revelry to them. So far from its merely beating upon the surface, as the sunlight beats upon the surface of the coat, it saturated the very depths of their being. They were like the lilies under my window; the rays that withered the violets in the vase only make them more graceful and more fair.

III

Here, then, are the two groups; and the central scene of the story is the transfer of the principal character from the one group to the other. Janet Dempster, the wife of Robert Dempster, is, like her husband, very religious, but, like him, she is none the better for her religion. But matters at home hurry to a climax. Dempster drinks more and more, and, drinking, goes from bad to worse. He treats his wife, first with coldness, and then with cruelty. At length comes the dreadful and dramatic scene that readers of the story will never erase from their memories. In a fit of drunken savagery he burst into her room at midnight. He drags her from her bed; pushes her down the stairs and along the hall; and then, opening the front door, he hurls her by sheer brute force out into the street. Here is George Eliot's picture: 'The stony street; the bitter north-east wind and darkness; and in the midst of them a tender woman thrust out from her husband's home in her thin nightdress, the harsh wind cutting her naked feet and driving her long hair away from her half-clad bosom, where the poor heart is crushed with anguish and despair.' It is in these desperate straits that religion presents itself to her view in an entirely fresh guise.

In her extremity, poor Janet thinks of little Mrs. Pettifer—a member of that other group, the group that resembles the lilies under my window, the group of kindly souls whose lives have been irradiated and beautified by their faith. She taps at the cottage window; Mrs. Pettifer hastens to the door; and, as soon as that frightened little body can recover from the first shock of her astonishment, she draws Janet into the room and then into the warm bed. Having composed and soothed her, she slips out of bed again, lights the fire and makes a cup of tea. In this guise, religion presents itself to Janet!

But she needs more! A roof to shelter her, a fire to warm her and a friend to caress and mother her—these are very welcome; but her heart is crying out with a yet deeper hunger. She feels that she, a poor weak woman, is standing against a world that is too hard and too strong and too terrible for her. What can she do? Where can she go? Little Mrs. Pettifer urges her to open her heart to Mr. Tryan, the minister; and to Mr. Tryan she accordingly goes. And in Mr. Tryan she finds ready helpfulness, warm sympathy, and a perfect understanding of her inmost need. Her life, she feels, is but a tangled skein. To convince her that he is no stranger to such conditions, Mr. Tryan tells her of his own struggles and distresses. He has not stood aloof from the battle, looking on; he has been in the thick of the fight—and has been wounded. She feels for him, and, in feeling for him, becomes conscious that the healing of her own hurt has already begun. In this guise, religion presents itself to Janet Dempster!

In the person of Mrs. Pettifer and in the person of Mr. Tryan, religion became incarnate under the eyes of poor Janet. In the person of Mrs. Pettifer and in the person of Mr. Tryan, 'the word became flesh.'

But Janet still needs more! Mrs. Pettifer shelters and soothes her body; Mr. Tryan comforts and strengthens her mind; but her soul, her very self, what is she to do with that? She feels that she cannot trust herself with herself. Is there no still greater incarnation of the faith?

Mrs. Pettifer is the Incarnation Motherly.

Mr. Tryan is the Incarnation Ministerial.

But, in her heart of hearts, there is still a deep and bitter cry. Mrs. Pettifer can comfort; she cannot keep through all the days to come! Mr. Tryan can counsel; he cannot guard from future sins and sorrows! To whom can she commit herself? It is from Mr. Tryan's lips that the answer comes. The words fall upon her broken spirit, as she herself tells us, like rain upon the mown grass:

'COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT LABOR AND ARE HEAVY-LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST!'

And once more the solution is an incarnation! When Janet's storm-beaten body needed fire and food and shelter, religion became incarnate in the person of Mrs. Pettifer. When Janet's distracted mind needed counsel and guidance, religion became incarnate in the person of Mr. Tryan. But when Janet's sin-laden soul cried out for a Saviour Who could deliver her from the stains of the past, and keep her amidst the perils of the future, religion became incarnate in the Person of the Son of God!

The Incarnation Motherly!

The Incarnation Ministerial!

The Incarnation Mediatorial!

'Come unto Me!' the Saviour said. And Janet came! She was a changed woman! 'A delicious hope,' George Eliot tells us, 'the hope of purification and inward peace, had entered into Janet's soul, and made it spring-time there as well as in the outer world!' 'She felt,' we are told again, 'like a little child whose hand is firmly grasped by its father, as its frail limbs make their way over the rough ground: if it should stumble, the father will not let it go.' She had opened her heart to the living Lord as the living flowers open their petals to the glad sunlight; and He had become the strength of her life and her portion for ever. Temptation came, fierce and sudden and terrible; but He was always there and always able to deliver.

IV

In the correspondence with her publisher as to whether or not the manuscript should be printed, George Eliot assures him that the characters are drawn from life. And, in the closing paragraph of the story, she tells us that Janet—an old woman whose once-black hair is now quite gray—is living still. But Mr. Tryan, she says, is dead; and she describes the simple gravestone in Milby churchyard. 'But,' she adds, 'there is another memorial of Edgar Tryan, which bears a fuller record; it is Janet Dempster, rescued from self-despair, strengthened with Divine hopes, and now looking back on years of purity and helpful labor. The man who has left such a memorial behind him must have been one whose heart beat with true compassion and whose lips were moved by fervent faith.' It is the last sentence in the book; and every minister, as he closes the covers and lays it aside, will covet for himself some such incarnate monument. Only as a preacher's preaching is 'made flesh' in that way, will it be understood and appreciated by the generations following.



XVIII

CATHERINE BOOTH'S TEXT

I

Who that was in London on October 14, 1890, can forget the extraordinary scenes that marked the funeral of Catherine Booth? It was a day of universal grief. The whole nation mourned. For Mrs. Booth was one of the most striking personalities, and one of the mightiest spiritual forces, of the nineteenth century. To the piety of a Saint Teresa she added the passion of a Josephine Butler, the purposefulness of an Elizabeth Fry, and the practical sagacity of a Frances Willard. The greatest in the land revered her, trusted her, consulted her, deferred to her. The letters that passed between Catherine Booth and Queen Victoria are among the most remarkable documents in the literature of correspondence. Mr. Gladstone attached the greatest weight to her judgment and convictions. Bishop Lightfoot, one of the most distinguished scholars of his time, has testified to the powerful influence which she exerted over him. And, whilst the loftiest among men honored her, the lowliest loved her.

Such strong lives have their secrets. Mrs. Booth had hers. Her secret was a text. As a child she learned it by heart; as a girl she pinned her faith to the promise it enshrined; amidst the stress and strain of a stormy and eventful life she trusted it implicitly; and, with all the tenacity of her keen, clear intellect, she clung to it at the last. In the standard Life of Catherine Booth—a huge work of a thousand pages—four chapters are devoted to the scenes at the deathbed. And then we read:

'The lips moved as though desiring to speak. Unable, however, to do so, the dying woman pointed to a wall-text, which had for a long time been placed opposite to her, so that her eyes could rest upon it.

MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE

It was taken down and placed near her on the bed. But it was no longer needed. The promise had been completely fulfilled.'

'That,' said a speaker at one of the great Memorial Meetings in London, some of which were attended by many thousand people, 'that was her text!' And, as so often happens, her text explains her character.

For, considered apart from the text, the character is an insoluble enigma. It is like a consequence without a cause. I was talking a week or two ago with an old man, who, in Australia's earlier days, did a good deal of pioneering in the heart of the bush.

'Once,' he told me, 'soon after I first came out, I really thought that I had reached the end of everything. I was hopelessly lost. My strength was utterly exhausted. I had gone as far as I could go. The country around me was flat and dry; my thirst was a perfect agony; and my poor dog followed at my heels, her tongue hanging out, and her sides panting pitifully. We had not seen water for several days. I sat down under a great gum-tree, hoping that an hour's rest would bring me fresh heart and new vigor. I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, Fan was standing near me, wagging her tail. She seemed contented and satisfied; her tongue no longer protruded. An hour or two later, I suddenly missed her; she had vanished in the scrub. She was away about twenty minutes. I determined to watch her. Presently she set out again, and I followed. Surely enough, she had found a tiny spring in a slight hollow about half a mile away; and by that spring we were saved.'

I have seen something like this in a higher realm. I recall, for example, Richard Cecil's story of his conversion. Richard Cecil—the friend and biographer of John Newton—was one of the great evangelical forces of the eighteenth century, as Catherine Booth was of the nineteenth. But, in his early days, Richard Cecil was a skeptic. He called himself an infidel, but he was honest in his infidelity. He could face facts; and the man who can look facts fairly in the face is not far from the kingdom of God. Richard Cecil was not, his skepticism notwithstanding. 'I see,' he says, in telling us of the line of thought that he pursued as he lay in bed one night, 'I see two unquestionable facts.' And what were they? They both concerned his mother.

'First, my mother is greatly afflicted in circumstances, body and mind; and I see that she cheerfully bears up under all her suffering by the support that she derives from constantly retiring to her quiet room and her Bible.

'Second, my mother has a secret spring of comfort of which I know nothing; while I, who give an unbounded loose to my appetites, and seek pleasure by every means, seldom or never find it. If, however, there is any such secret in religion, why may I not attain to it as well as my mother? I will immediately seek it!'

He did; and those who are familiar with his life-story know of the triumphant result of that quest. It was precisely so with Mrs. Booth. Her children knew that, like the bushman's collie, she found refreshment at some secret spring. Later on, she told them of the text and led them, one by one, to the fountains of grace. 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' And when, at last, the avenues of speech and hearing were closed, they hung the golden words before her clouding eyes. Again she greeted them with rapture, and, with unwavering confidence, pointed her children to their deathless message.

II

In his Grace Abounding, John Bunyan tells us that there was a period in his spiritual history when his soul was like a pair of scales. It partook of three phases. At one time the right-hand balance was down and the left-hand empty and high; then for awhile they were exactly and evenly poised; and, at the last, the left-hand balance dropped and that on the right-hand was swinging in the air.

At the first of these stages he was being tormented about the unpardonable sin. He reminded himself that, for Esau, there was no place for repentance; and he felt that there was none for him. The scale in which he laid his despair was heavily weighted; the scale in which he placed his hope was empty!

And the second stage—the stage that leveled the balances? 'One morning,' he says, 'as I was at prayer, and trembling with fear, lest there should be no word of God to help me, that piece of a sentence darted in upon me: My grace is sufficient! At this I felt some stay as if there might yet be hope. About a fortnight before, I had been looking at this very scripture, but I then thought that it could bring me no comfort, and I threw down the book in a pet. I thought that the grace was not large enough for me! no, not large enough! But now it was as if the arms of grace were so wide that they could enclose not only me but many more besides. And so this about the sufficiency of grace and that about Esau finding no place for repentance would be like a pair of scales within my mind. Sometimes one end would be uppermost and sometimes again the other; according to which would be my peace or trouble.'