II.

His Words to the Thief.

"And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise."

The crucifixion of the two robbers with Jesus was a sort of topstone of obloquy and disgrace contrived by His murderers with the double object of further humiliating Him in the eyes of the people, and of adding poignancy to His own agony. The vulgarity and shamefulness of it were the last touch of their contempt, and the last stroke of His humiliation. There was a kind of devilish ingenuity in this circumstantial way of branding Him as a malefactor. And yet in the presence of this extremity of human wickedness and cruelty, Jesus found an opportunity of working a wondrous work of God; a work which reveals Him as the Saviour, strong to save, both by His infinite mercy and by His infinite confidence in the efficacy of His own sacrifice.

"To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Eyes and heart for the sorrowful He had, as we see; and now ears, and hope nigh at hand, for the sinful. No word of resentment; no sense of distance or separation between the spotlessness and perfection of His character and this poor lonely convict—but a strange and wonderful nearness, now and to come. "With Me," He says—"With Me in Paradise." Ah! this is the secret of much in the life of the Son of God—this intimate, constant, conscious nearness to sinners and to sin! He had sounded the depth of evil, and, knowing it, He pitied, with an infinite compassion, its victims; He got as near as He could to them in their misery, and died to save them from it.

That heart-nearness to the thief had nothing to do with the nearness of the crosses. Every one knows what a gulf may be between people who are very near together—father and son—husband and wife! No, it was the nearness of a heart deliberately trained to seek it; a heart delighting in mercy, and deliberately surrendering all other delights for it; hungering and thirsting for the love of the lost and ruined.

The hart panteth after the waters, The dying for life that departs, The Lord in His glory for sinners For the love of rebellious hearts.

And so He is quite ready, at once, to share His heaven with this poor defiled creature, the first trophy of the cross. Again—what a lesson of love!—how different, all this, from the common inclination to shrink away from contact and intercourse with the vile! Oh, shame, that there can ever have been such a shrinking in our poor guilty hearts! The servant is not above his Lord. He came to sinners. Let us go to them with Him!



III.

His Words to the Father.

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

This prayer for His murderers is a revelation of the wonderful nearness and capacity of love. The Saviour passes from pole to pole of human ken, to find a ground on which He can plead for the forgiveness of those cruel and wicked men; and He finds it in their ignorance of the stupendousness of their sin against Him. It seems as though He chooses to remain in ignorance of what they did know, and to dwell only on what they did not. "They know not what they do!"

It was ever so with Him! He has no pleasure in iniquity. Wrong-doers are so precious to Him that He never will magnify or exaggerate their wrong— no, not a hair's breadth. He will not dwell on it—no, not a moment, except to plead some reasonable ground for its pardon, such as this—the ignorance of the wrong-doer, or the rich efficacy of His sacrifice. He will only name sin to the Father, in order that He may confess it for the sinner, and intercede for mercy and for grace.

This is the old and ever new way of dealing with injuries, especially "personal injuries." Is it yours? Are you seeking thus after reasons for making the wrong done to you appear pardonable? Is your first response to an affront or insult or slander, or to some still greater wrong, to pray the Father for those whom you believe to be injuring you, that His gracious gift of forgiveness may come upon them?

That is the principle of Calvary. That is the spirit, the mind of Christ. That is the way in which

He won the meed and crown: Trod all His foes beneath His feet, By being trodden down.

"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."

Death has always been held to afford a final test of faith, and here the human soul of Jesus passed through that mortal struggle which awaits us all when heart and flesh shall fail. "Into Thy hands"—that is enough. As He passes the threshold of the unknown—goes as we must—into the Valley of the Shadow, faith springs forth and exclaims, "Into Thy hands." All shall be well. In this confidence I have laboured; in this confidence I die; in this confidence I shall live before Thee.



IV.

To Himself.

"It is finished!"

Thus in His last, ever-wonderful words Jesus pronounces Himself the sentence of His own heart upon His own work. It is completed. Every barrier is broken down, every battle is fought, every hellish dart has flown, every wilderness is past, every drop of the cup of anguish has been drunk up, and, with a note of victorious confidence, He cries out, "It is finished!" Looking back from the cross on all His life in the light of these words, we see how He regarded it as an opportunity for accomplishing a great duty, and for the fulfilment of a mission. Now, He says, "The duty is done—the mission is fulfilled; the work is finished!" Truly, it is a lofty, a noble, yea, a godlike view of life!

Is it ours? Death will come to us. "The living know that they shall die." The waters will overflow, and the foundations will be broken up, and every precious thing will grow dim, and our life, also, will have passed. We shall then have to say of something, "It is finished!" It will be too late to alter it. "There is no man that hath power in the day of death."

What, then, shall it be that is finished? A life of selfish ease, or a life of following the Son of Man? A life of sinful gratification, of careful thought of ourselves, unprofitable from beginning to end, or a life of generous devotion to the things which are immortal in the honour of God and the salvation of men?



VIII.

The Burial of Jesus.

Good Friday Fragments.

"And after this Joseph of Arimathoea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand."—John xix. 38-42.

Death has many voices. This death and burial speak aloud in tones of triumph. It as a death that made an end of death, and a burial that buried the grave. And yet it was also a very humble and painful and sad affair. We must not forget the humiliation and poverty and shame written on every circumstance any more than the victory, if we would learn by it all that God designed to teach.



I

"He tasted Death."

To many, even among those who have been freed from guilty fear, mortality itself still has terrors. By Divine grace they can lift up their hearts in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection, and yet they shrink with painful apprehension at the thought of the change which alone can make that resurrection possible. There is probably no instinct of the whole human family more frequently in evidence than this repulsion for the grave. Death is such an uncouth and hideous thing.

Nothing but bones The sad effect of sadder groans; Its mouth is open, but it cannot sing.

All its outward circumstances help to repel us—the shroud, the coffin, the grave, the silent shadows, the still more silent worms, the final nothingness. The mental conditions, too, generally common to the last acts of life, tend to intensify the feeling: the separation from much that we love, the sense of unfinished work, the appreciation of grief which death most usually brings to others: the reality of disappointed hopes, the feeling that heart and flesh fail, and that we can do no more—all these tend to make it in very truth the great valley of the dark shadow.

To many, even among the chosen spirits of the household of faith, approaching death also starts the great "Why?" of unbelief. For, in truth, the death of some is a mystery. It is better that we should say so, and that they should say so, rather than that we should profess to be able to account for what, as is only too evident, we do not understand. In confronting death this mystery is often the great bitterness in the cup. To die when so young! To die when so much needed! To die so soon after really beginning to live! To die in the presence of so great a task! Oh, why should it be? How much of gloom and shadow has come down on hearts and households I have known, from the persistency of that "Why?" intensifying every repulsion for the hideous visitor, adding to every other the greatest of all his terrors—doubt.

Now, in the presence of such doubts—or perhaps I ought rather to call them questionings and shrinkings—has not this vision of the dead body of our Lord something in it to charm away our fears? Does it not say to us: "I have passed on before; I that speak in righteousness, Mighty to save. I have trodden the winepress alone. At My girdle hang the keys of life and death; I, even I, was dead; yes, really, cruelly dead; but I am alive for evermore"?

He tasted death. The king of terrors was out to meet Him. The long shadows of the gloomy valley really closed Him round, and He crossed over the chilly stream just as you and I must cross it—all alone. Nothing was wanting which could invest the scene, the hour, the circumstances with horror and repulsion. There was pain, bodily pain; there was mental anguish; there was the howling mob, the horrid contempt for Him as for a malefactor; the lost disciples and shattered hopes; the reviling thief; the mystery of the Father's clouded face; the final sinking down; the letting go of life; the last physical struggle—when He gave up the ghost and died.

Yes. He passed this same way before you. He wore a shroud. He lay in a grave. The last resting-place is henceforth for us fragrant with immortality. The very horrors, and shadows, and mysteries of the death-chamber have become signs that death is vanquished. The tomb is but the porch of a temple in which we shall surely stand, the doorway to the place of an abiding rest. "In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you."

Living or dying—but especially when dying—we have a right to cry with Stephen, the first to witness for Christ in this horror of death, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." To Him we commit all. He passed this way before with a worn and bruised body, in weakness and contempt, with dyed garments and red in His apparel, and on Him we dare to cast ourselves—on Him and Him alone. On His merits, on His blood, on His body, dead and buried for us. He will be with us even to the end—He has passed this way before us.



II.

"A Savour of Death unto Death."

A celebrated Roman Emperor who had in the very height of his power embarked on a campaign for the extermination, with all manner of cruelties, of the followers of Jesus Christ, spoke one day to a Christian, asking him in tones of lofty contempt and derision:—

"What, then, is the Galilean doing now?"

"The Galilean," replied the Christian, "is making a coffin!" In a few years the great Emperor and the vast power he represented were both in that coffin!

Since his day, how many other persecutors have also journeyed surely to it! How many infidels—nay, how many systems of infidelity, have passed on to dust and oblivion in that same casket! What multitudes of doubters—of ungodly, unclean, unregenerate—have been laid within its ever-widening bands! What vast unions of darkness, hatred, and cruelty, under the leadership of the great and the mighty, have been broken to pieces beside that coffin! How much that seemed for a time proud and rich and great in this poor world's esteem, has at last passed into it, and disappeared for ever! Yes, the martyr of long ago, on the blood-besmeared stones of persecuting Rome, was right, the Galilean Saviour and King not only made a Cross, but He made, and He goes on making, a coffin!

Will you not have His Cross? Is there no appeal to you to-day from that hill side, without the city wall? Does it not speak to you of the power, the sweetness and nobleness of a life of service, of sacrifice for others, of toil for His world. Has it no message for you of victory over sin and death, of life from the dead—life, abundant life, in the Blood of the Son of Man! Believe me, unless you accept His Cross, He will prepare for you a coffin. "The wages of sin is death." It matters not how noble your aspirations, how lofty your ideals of life and conduct, how faithful your labour to raise the standard of your own life— unless you accept the Cross, all must go into the grave. Your highest aims, together with your lowest, your most cherished conceptions, your most deeply-loved ambitions, all must be entombed. "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder."

If His death-sacrifice be not a savour of life unto life it must be a savour of death unto death. This is the single alternative. Jesus Christ in life and death is working in you, in us all, toward one of these ends— either by love and tears and the overflowing fountain of His passion to gather us into the union of eternal life with Him and with the Father; or to entomb us—all that we have and all that we are—in the death and oblivion of the grave He has prepared.



III.

"And He was Buried."

For a little time they lost Him. The grave opened her gloomy portals; they laid Him down, and the gates were closed—for a little time. And yet He was just as really there, as really alive for evermore, as really theirs and ours, as really a victor—nay, a thousand times more so, than if He had never bowed Himself under the yoke of Nature. He was gone on before, just a little while, that was all.

Is not that the lesson of His burial for every one who sorrows for the loss of loved ones called up higher? Are they not buried with Him? Are they not gone on before? Are they not ours still? Are we not theirs as really as ever? He passed through that brief path of darkness and death out into the everlasting light of the Resurrection Glory. Do you think, then, that He will leave them behind? The grave could not contain Him. Do you think it has strength to hold them? You cannot think of Him as lying long in the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea; why, then, should you think of your dear ones as in the chilly clay of that poor garden in which you laid them? No—no! they are alive—alive for evermore; because He lives, they live also.

Yes! this was the meaning of that strange funeral of His—this was at least one reason why they buried Him. It was that He might hold a flaming torch of comfort at every burial of His people to the end of time. Sorrow not, then, as those that have no hope. He is hope. Your lost ones, perhaps, were strongly rooted in your affection, and your heart was torn when they were plucked up. You cried aloud with the Prophet: "Woe is me, for my hurt! my wound is grievous. But I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it; my tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken." Ah, but remember He was buried also. He knows about the way. He was there. He has them in His keeping. They are His, and yours still. You have no more need to grieve over their burial than over His. They live, they love, they grow, they rejoice. They are blessed for evermore.

And our dear dead will meet us again, if we are faithful, in those bodies which our Lord has redeemed. That also is the witness of His burial and resurrection. The corruptible shall put on incorruption. In the twinkling of an eye shall it be done. And we shall see them in the body once more, even as His disciples saw Him. They supposed at first that they saw a spirit, but He said: No! "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have!"

This blessed hope is our hope. Love is indeed stronger than death; many waters, nay, the swellings of Jordan themselves, cannot quench it! Dear ones, gone on before, we shall embrace you again; hand in hand—the very same hands—we shall greet our King:—

Together we'll stand When escaped to the shore, With palms in our hands We Will praise Him the more; We'll range the sweet plains On the banks of the river, And sing of Salvation For ever and ever.

Yes—we know and love you still, because we know and love our Lord.



IX.

Conforming to Christ's Death.



"That I may know Him . . . being made conformable unto His death."—Phil. iii. 10.

"Conformable unto His death." At first sight the words are something of a surprise. "His death?" Has not the thought more often before us been to conform to His life? His death seems "too high for us"—so far off in its greatness, in its suffering, in its humiliation, in its strength, in its glorious consequences. How is it possible we should ever be conformed to such a wonder of love and power? And yet, here is the great Apostle, in one of those beautiful and illuminating references to his own experience which always seem to bring his messages right home to us, setting forth this very conformity as the end of all his labours, and the purpose in all his struggles. "What things were gain to me," he says, "those I counted loss for Christ; yea, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him*, having . . . the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death."

[Footnote *: Or, as the Revised Version has it in the margin, "not having as my righteousness that which springs from the law; but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God on the condition of faith: . . . becoming conformed unto His death."]

There are probably deeps of thought and purpose here which I confess that I cannot hope to fathom; which in the limits of such a paper as this I cannot even suggest. Is it possible, for example, that the sorrow and suffering which fall upon those who are entirely surrendered to God and His work are, in some hidden way, sorrow and suffering for others? Is this what Paul means when he says in his letter to the Colossians: I "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church"? It may be so. This would indeed be a glorious and a wonderful "fellowship of His sufferings."

Or, again, consider what an entirely new light might be thrown upon God's dealings with us in afflictions and pain, if it should appear, in the world to come, that, in much which is now most mysterious and torturing to us, we had but been bearing one another's burdens! Every one knows how often love makes us long to bear grief and pain for those dear to us; every one has seen a mother suffer, in grateful silence, both bodily pain and heart-anguish, in her child's stead, preferring that the child should never know. Suppose it should turn out, hereafter, that many of the afflictions which now seem so perplexing and so grievous have really been given us to bear in order to spare and shield our loved ones, and make it easier for them—tossing on the stormy waters—to reach Home at last? Would not this add a whole world of joy to the glory which shall be revealed? And would it not transform many of the darkest stretches of our earthly journey into bright memorials of the infinite wisdom and goodness of our God?

But I pass away from matters of which we have, at best, but a gleam, to those concerning which "he that runs may read."

But if Christ upon His cross is meant for an object-lesson to His people, is it not reasonable to expect that His words spoken in those supreme moments should throw light upon that conformity to His death of which we are thinking? The words of the dying have always been received as revealing their true character. Death is the skeleton-key which opens the closed chambers of the soul, and calls forth the secret things—and in the presence of the "Death-Angel" men generally appear to be what they really are. Our Lord and Saviour was no exception to this universal rule.

To the latest breath, We see His ruling passion strong in death.

His dying words are filled with illuminating truth about Himself, and they throw precious light upon His death. Let us, then, tarry for a few moments before His cross, and look and listen while He speaks.



I.

"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

Men were doing the darkest deed of time. Nothing was wanting to make it hateful to God and repulsive to mankind. All the passions to which the human heart is prone, and all that the spirits of Hell can prompt, had joined forces at Calvary to finish off, in victory if possible, the black rebellion which began in Eden. Everything that is base in human nature— the hate that is in man, the beast that is in man, the fiend that is in man—was there, with hands uplifted, to slay the Lamb. The servants of the Husbandman were beating to death the beloved Son whom He had sent to seek their welfare. It was amidst the human inferno of ingratitude and hatred that these words of infinite grace and beauty fell from the lips of Love Immortal. Long nails had just pierced the torn flesh and quivering nerves of His dear hands and feet; and while He watched His murderers' awful delight in His agony, and heard their jeering shouts of triumph, He lifted up His voice and prayed for them, "Father—forgive."

There are thoughts that lie too deep for words. The inner light of this message may be revealed—it cannot be spoken. But one or two reflections will repay our consideration. Here was a consciousness of sin. Here was the suggestion of pardon. Here was prayer for sinners.

A consciousness of sin—of theirs—ours—not His own. Infinite Love takes full account of sin. Boldly recognises it. Straightway refers to it as the source of men's awful acts and awful state. "O My Father, forgive!" On the cross of His shame, in the final grip with the mortal enemy, the dying Christ—looking away from His own sufferings, forgetful of the scorn, and curses, and blows of those around Him—is overflowing with this great thought, with this great fact—that men's first imperative, overwhelming need, is the forgiveness of their sin.

The suggestion of pardon. He prays for it. What a transforming thought is the possibility of forgiveness! How different the vilest, the most loathsome criminal becomes in our eyes the moment we know a pardon is on the way! How different a view we get of the souls of men, bound and condemned to die, given up to selfishness and godlessness, the moment we stand by the cross of Jesus, and realise, with Him, that a pardon is possible! The meanest wretch that walks looks different from us. Even the outwardly respectable and very ordinary person who lives next door, to whom we so seldom speak, is at once clothed with a new interest in our minds, if we really believe that there is a pardon coming for him from the King of kings.

He prays. Yes, this is the great prayer. What an example He has left us! It was not enough to die for the sinful—the ungrateful—the abominable—He must needs pray for them. Dear friend, you may have done many things for the ungodly around you—you may have preached to them, and set them also a lofty example of goodness; you may even have greatly suffered on their behalf; but I can imagine one thing still wanting: have you prayed the Father for them?

Remember, He pleaded for the worst: those very men who said, "Let His blood be on us, and on our children." He prayed even for those, and I do not doubt that He was heard. Indeed, it was, I earnestly believe, His prayer which helped on that speedy revival in Jerusalem; and among the three thousand over whom Peter and the rest rejoiced were some who had urged on and then witnessed His cruel death, and for whom His tender accents ascended to the Throne of God amid the final agony of His cross.

Dear friend, are you "becoming conformed unto His death"?



II.

"To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."

"He saved others-He saved others—Himself He cannot save!" Amidst the din of discordant voices, this taunt sounded out clear and loud, and fell upon the ears of a dying thief. Perhaps, as so often happens now, the Devil over-reached himself even then, and the strange words made the poor criminal think. "'Others'—'others'—He saves others—then why not me?" Presently he answered the railing unbelief of his fellow-prisoner; and then, in the simple language of faith, said to the Saviour: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom."

Jesus Christ's reply is one of the great landmarks of the Bible. It denotes the boundary line of the long ages of dimness and indefiniteness about two things—assurance of salvation in this life, and certainty of immediate blessedness in the life to come. "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!" There is nothing like it in all the Scriptures. It is as though great gates, long closed, were suddenly thrown wide open, and we saw before our eyes that some one passed in where none had ever trodden before. The whole freedom and glory of the Gospel is illustrated at one stroke. Here is the Salvation of The Salvation Army! To-day—without any ceremonies, baptisms, communions, confirmations, without the mediation of any priest or the intervention of any sacraments—such things would indeed have been only an impertinence there—to-day, "TO-DAY shalt thou be with ME." Indeed the gates are open wide at last!

But the great lesson of the words lies rather in their revelation of our Lord's instant accessibility to this poor felon. His nearness of heart; His complete confidence in His own wonderful power to save; His readiness of response—for it may be said that He leaps to meet this first repentant soul—are all revealed to us. But it is the fact that, amid that awful conflict, His ear was open to another's cry—and such another!— which appeals most to my own heart. With those blessed words of hope and peace in my ears, how can I ever fear that one could be so vile, so far away, so nearly lost, as to cry in vain? Nay, Lord, it cannot be.



III.

"Woman, behold thy son."

When Jesus had spoken these words to His mother, He addressed the disciple He had chosen, and indicated by a word that henceforth Mary was to be cared for as his own mother. Great as was the work He had in hand for the world, great as was His increasing agony, He remembered Mary. He knew the meaning of sorrow and loneliness, and He planned to afford His mother such future comfort and consolation as were for her good.

This tender care for His own is a rebuke, for all time, to those who will work for others while those they love are left uncared for; left, alas! to perish in their sins. If regrets are possible in the Kingdom of Heaven, surely those regrets will be felt most keenly in the presence of divided families. And if anything can enhance the joys of the redeemed, surely it must be that they are "families in Heaven." Who can think, even now, without a thrill of unmixed delight, of the reunions of those who for long weary years were separated here? What, then, will it be—

When the child shall greet the mother, And the mother greet the child; When dear families are gathered That were scattered on the wild!

And what strength and joy it was to Mary. Looking forward to the coming victory, He knew that nothing could so possess her mother-heart with gratitude, and fill her soul with holy exultation as this—that He, the Sacrifice for sin, the Conqueror of Death, and the Redeemer of His people, was her Son. And so He makes it quite plain that He, the dying Saviour, was Mary's Son.



IV.

"It is finished."

There is a repose, a kind of majesty about this declaration which marks it out from all other human words. There is, perhaps, nothing about the death of Jesus which is in more striking contrast with death as men generally know it than is revealed in this one saying. We are so accustomed to regrets, to confessions that this and that are, alas! unfinished; to those sad recitals which so often conclude with the dirge-like refrain, "it might have been," that death stands forth in a new light when it is viewed as the end of a completed journey, and the conclusion of a finished task. This is exactly the aspect of it to which our Lord refers. His work was done.

The suffering, also, was ended. Darkness had had its night of sore trial, and now the day was at hand. Trial and suffering do end. It is sometimes hard to believe it, but the end is already appointed from the beginning. It was so with the Saviour of the world; and at length the hour is come, and He raises His bruised and bleeding head for the last time, and cries in token of His triumph, "It is finished!"

But is there not also here a suggestion of something more? Up to that concluding hour it was always possible for Him to draw back. "I lay down My life for the sheep," He had said; "no man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." His was, in the very highest and widest sense of the word, a voluntary offering, a voluntary humiliation, a voluntary death. Up to the very last, therefore, He could have stepped down from the cross, going no further toward the dark abyss. But the moment came when this would be no longer possible; when, even for Him, the sacrifice would be irrevocable—when the possibility "to save Himself" was ended, and when He became for ever "the Lamb that was slain," bearing the marks of His wounds in His eternal body. When that moment passed, He might well say, "It is finished."

Is there not something that should answer to this in the lives of many of His disciples? Is there not a point for us, also, at which we may pass over the line of uncertainty or reserve in our offering, saying for ever— it is finished? Is there not an appointed Calvary somewhere, at which we can settle the questions that have been so long unsettled, and, in the strength of God, at last declare that, as for controversy of any kind with Him, "it is finished"? Is there not at this very same cross of our dying Saviour a place where doubt and shame may perish together—crucified with Him, and finished for ever?

This would be, indeed, a blessed conformity to His death.



V.

"I thirst."

This is the first of the three words of Christ which relate specially to His own inner experiences, and which I have placed together for the purpose of this paper.

"I thirst." They gave Him vinegar to drink—or, probably, in a moment of pity the soldiers brought Him the sour wine which they had provided for themselves. He seems to have partaken of it, although He had refused the mixture that had been before offered Him merely to deaden His pain. To bear that pain was the lofty duty set before Him, and so He would not turn aside from it one hair's breadth.

But He humbled Himself to receive what was necessary from the very hands that had been crucifying Him. He, who could have so easily commanded a whole multitude of the heavenly host to appear for His succour, and to whose precious lips, parched in death, the princes of the eternal Kingdom would have so gladly hastened with a draught from celestial springs, condescended to ask the help of those who mocked Him, and to take the support He so sadly needed from His triumphant persecutors.

Oh, you who are proud by nature, who are reserved by nature, who are sensitive in spirit, who feel every wrong done to you like a knife entering your breast, and who, when you forgive an injury, find it difficult to forget, and harder still to humble yourselves in any way to those who, you feel, have wronged you—here for you is a lesson, here for you is an example, a precious example, of the condescension of Love. Yes. to love those who seem to be against you, to love those in whom there always appears to you to be some difference of spirit or incompatibility of temperament, will mean, if you are made conformable unto your Master's death, that you will be able to receive at their hands services, kindnesses, pity, advice, which your own poor, fallen nature would, without divine grace, have scorned and spurned.



VI.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

Here is a great mystery. No doubt, to the human nature of our Lord, it did appear as though the Father had forsaken Him, and that was the last bitter drop in the cup of His humiliation and anguish. If men only knew it, the realisation that God has left them will be the greatest agony of the sinner's doom. And here upon the cross, our Lord, undergoing the penalty of sins not His own has yet to experience fully the severance which sin makes between God and the human soul.

But, even to many of those who love and serve God fully, there does come at times something which is very similar to this strange and dark experience of our Lord's. Before the final struggle in many great conflicts, those inward consolations on which so much seems to depend are often mysteriously withdrawn. Why it should be so we do not know; it is a mystery. Some loyal spirits have thought that God withdraws His consolations and His peace, that the soul may be more truly filled with His presence, thus substituting for divine consolation the "God of consolation," and for divine peace the "God of peace." In any case we have this comfort: it was so with our Master. Do not let the servant expect to be above his Lord.

This terrible moment of seeming separation from the Father, and the dark cry which was wrung from our Saviour's broken heart, did not, however, make the final victory any the less. And, if you are one with Him, and have really set your heart on glorifying Him, and if you can only endure, such moments will not take from your victory one shred of its joy. Oh, then, hold on to your cross! hold on to your cross! even if it seems, as it sometimes may, that God Himself has forsaken you, and that you are left to suffer alone, without either the sympathy of those around you, or the conscious support of the indwelling God. Hold on to your cross. This is the way of Calvary—this is becoming conformable to the death of the Lord Jesus.



VII.

"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."

Here our Lord enters upon the extremity of His humiliation. Death must have been repulsive to Him. If the failure of heart and flesh, the cold sweat, the physical collapse, the last parting, the solitude and separation of the grave are all repelling and painful to us, how much more to Him!

And, indeed, the picture which Christ presents to the outward eye in these last moments is unquestionably one of deep humiliation. The disordered garments—stained with blood and dirt, the distended limbs, the bleeding wound in His side, the face smeared with bloody sweat and dust, the torn brow and hair, and the swollen features, must have combined with all the horrible surroundings to make one of the most gruesome sights that ever man saw. And it was at this moment, in His extremity, that He says: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." "Father, I have done all that I can do; now I leave Myself and the rest to Thee."

Here is a beautiful message—the great message about Death. This is, in fact, the one way to meet the shivering spectre with peace and joy.

But the great lesson of this last word from the cross of Jesus is the lesson of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob: that faith in the Father is the inner strength and secret of all true service. It was, in a very wonderful and real sense, by faith that He wrought His wonders, by faith He suffered, by faith He prayed for His murderers, by faith He died, by faith He made His atonement for the sins of the world. The faith that not one iota of the Father's will could fail of its purpose.

Oh, dear comrade and friend, here is the crowning lesson of His life and death alike—"Have faith in God." Will you learn of Him? In your extremity of grief or sorrow—if you are called to sorrow— will you not trust Him, and say, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my bereaved and bleeding heart"? In your extremity of poverty—if you are called to poverty—Oh, cry out to Him, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my home, my dear ones." In your extremity of shame and humiliation— arising, maybe, from the injustice or neglect of others—let your heart say in humble faith, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my reputation, my honour, my all." In your extremity of weakness and pain—if you are called to suffer weakness or pain—cry out in faith, "Father, into Thy hands I commend this my poor worn and weary frame." In your extremity of loneliness and heart-separation from all you love for Christ's sake, if that be the path you tread, will you not say to your Lord, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my future, my life; lead Thou me on."

Yes, depend upon it, faith is the great lesson of the cross. By faith the world was made; by faith the world was redeemed. If we are truly conformed to His death, we also must go forward in faith with the great work of bringing that redemption home to the hearts of men; and all we aim at, all we do, all we suffer, must be sought for, done, and suffered in that personal, simple faith in our Father and God which Jesus manifested on His cross, in that hour when all human aid failed Him, and when He cried in the language of a little child, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."



X.

The Resurrection and Sin.



"Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was . . . declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."—Romans i. 3, 4.

Just as one of the great proofs, if not the great proof, of the truth of Christianity is the vast fact of the world's need for it, so one grand proof of the Resurrection lies in the fact that no interpretation of Christ's teaching or Christ's life would be worth a brass farthing—so far as the actual life of suffering man is concerned—without His Death and Resurrection. That teaching might be illuminating—convincing—exalting; yes, even morally perfect; and yet, if He did not die, it would be little more than a superior book of proverbs or a collection of highly-polished copy-book maxims. That life—that wonderful life—might be the supremest example of all that is or could be good and great and lovely in human experience; and yet, if He did not rise again from the tomb, it would, after all, be only a dead thing—like a splendid specimen of carved marble in some grand museum, exquisite to look upon, and of priceless value, but cold and cheerless, lifeless and dead.

For it is a Living Person men need to be their Friend and Saviour and Guide. The splendid statue might possibly invite or challenge us to imitate it, but it could never call a human heart to love its stony features. Noble and pure as Jesus Christ's example undoubtedly was, it could of itself never satisfy a human soul or inspire poor, broken, human hearts with hope and love, or wash away from human consciousness the stains of sin. These things can only be done by a Living Person. So it is that we are not told to believe on His teaching or on His Church, but on Him. He did not say "Follow My methods or My disciples," but "Follow ME." If He be not risen from the dead, and alive for evermore; if, in short, it be a dead man we are to follow and on whom we are to believe—then we are, indeed, as Paul says, "of all men the most miserable."



I.

But it is the life of Jesus, and the evidence of that life, in us that are really all-important. No extent of worldly wisdom or historical testimony can finally establish for us the fact and power of Christ's Resurrection, unless we have proof in ourselves of His presence there as a Living Spirit. With St. Paul, we must "know Him, and the power of His resurrection." That is the grand knowledge. That is the crown of all knowledge. That is the knowledge which places those who have received it beyond the freaks and fancies of human wisdom or human folly. That is the knowledge which cleanses the heart, destroys the strength of evil, and brings in that true righteousness which is the power to do right. That is the greatest proof of the Resurrection.

No books, not even the Bible itself; no testimony, not even the testimony of those who were present on that first Easter Day, can be so good as this, the experimental proof. It is the most fitting and grateful, and adapts itself to every type of human experience. And it is beyond contradiction! What avail is it to contradict those who can answer, "Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit"? It is even beyond argument! For of what advantage can it be to argue with a man that he is still blind, when he tells you that his eyes have been opened, and when he declares, "Whereas I was blind, NOW I SEE"?

To us Salvationists, the hope of the world, and the strength of our hard and long struggle for the souls of men, centre in this glorious truth. He is risen, and is alive for evermore; and because He lives we live also' All around us are the valleys of death, filled with bones—very many and very dry. Love lies there, dead. Hope is dead. Faith is dead. Honour is dead. Truth is dead. Purity is dead. Liberty is dead. Humility is dead. Fidelity is dead. Decency is dead. It is the blight of humanity. Death— moral and spiritual death in all her hideous and ghastly power—reigns around us. Men are indeed dead—"dead in trespasses and sins." What do we need? What is the secret longing of our hearts? What is the crying agony of our prayers? Is it for any human thing we seek? No. God knows—a thousand times, no! We have but one hope or desire, and that is "life from the dead." We want life, the risen life—life more abundant—life Divine, amid these deep, dark noisome valleys of the dead.

Here, then, is our hope. He rose again, and ascended up on high, and received gifts for men. This is the hope which keeps us going on; this is the invisible spring from which our weary spirits draw the elixir of an invincible courage—Christ, the risen Christ, who has come to raise the dead! "You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." Hallelujah!

"Dead in sins!" Jesus never made light of sin. He used no disguise when He talked of it, no equivocal terms, no softening words. There is no single suggestion in all His discourses or conversations that He thought it merely a disease, or a derangement, or a misfortune, or anything of that kind, or that He deemed it anything but a ruinous and deadly rebellion against God—the great disaster of the world, and the most awful, dangerous, and far-reaching precursor of suffering in the whole existence of the universe. He said it was bad, bad all through—in form, in expression, in purpose; above all, in spirit and desire. That there was no remedy for it but His remedy. No rains in all the heavens to wash it, no waters in all the seas to cleanse it away, no fires in Hell itself to purge its defilement. The only hope was in the blood of His sacrifice. And so He came to shed it, to save the people from their sins.

That is our hope. We are of those who see something of the fruits of sin, and to whom it is no matter for the chastened lights of the literary drawing-room. We know—some of us—how deep the roots of pollution can strike into human character by our own scorched and blistered histories; and we know by our observation into what deeps of black defilement men can plunge. The charnel houses of iniquity must ever be the workshops of the Salvationist. There we see of the havoc, the cruelty, the debauchment, the paralysis, the leprosy, the infernal fascination of sin. And we know there is only one hope—the Lamb that was slain, and rose again from the dead, and ever liveth for our salvation.



II.

The only really satisfactory test of any faith, or system of faiths, lies in its treatment of sin. Human consciousness in all ages, and in all conditions of development, bears witness to the fact of sin with universal and overwhelming conviction. Men cannot prevent the discomfort of self-accusation which ever follows wrong-doing. They cannot escape from the bitter which always lies hidden in the sweet. They cannot forget the things they wish to forget. Even when they are a law unto themselves, they are compelled to judge themselves by that law. It is as though some unerring necessity is laid upon every individual of the race to sit in judgment upon his own conduct, and to pass sentence upon himself. He is compelled to speak to his own soul of things about which he would rather be silent, and to listen to that which he does not wish to hear.

The proof that this is so is open, manifest, and indisputable. Human experience in the simplest and widest sense of the word attests it. It stands unquestioned amid floods of questions on every other conceivable subject. No system of philosophy, no school of scientific thought, no revelation from the heavens above or the earth beneath can really weaken it. It is not found in books, or received by human contact, or influenced by human example. It is revealed in every man. It is felt by all men. They do not learn it, or deduce it, or believe it merely. They know it. All men do. You do. I do.

Many things contribute to this simple and yet supremely wonderful and awful fact of human experience. One of them is the faculty of thought. Man is made a thinking creature, and think he must; and if he thinks, he must, above all, think about himself, about his future, his present, his past. A great French writer—and not a Christian writer—says on this subject: "There is a spectacle grander than the ocean, and that is the conscience. After many conflicts, man yields to that mysterious power which says to him, 'Think.' One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. With the sailor this is called 'the tide.' With the guilty it is called 'remorse.' God, by a universal law, upheaves the soul as well as the ocean."

And side by side with this thinking faculty, there is the further fact, that God will not leave men alone. On those unerring and resistless tides He sends into the human soul His messages. He visits them. He arouses them. He compels their attention. In His providence, by acts of mercy and of judgment—by sorrow and loss—by stricken days and bitter nights, He makes them remember their sin. All the weapons in His armoury, and all the wisdom of His nature are employed to bring men to a sense of guilt—to prick them to the heart—in order to lead them to recognise and to confess and to turn away from sin. If, therefore, man by any invention had found out a way by which he could escape from the consciousness of evil without putting it away, God would not let him go.

Clearly, then, the initial proof of success in religion must be that religion can deal satisfactorily with the conscious guilt of sin. To this high test, all theories, all pretences, all promises must come at last. What are they in their actual effect on the memories and consciences of men in relation to their sin? How do they treat with guilt? How do they meet remorse? Can they silence the clamours of the night? Can they give peace when it is too late to undo what sin has done? Do they suffice amid the deepening shadows of the death chamber—the place where ever and anon the forgotten past comes forth to demand the satisfaction so long delayed?

But these, after all, are only the fruits—some of the fruits of sin. What of the thing itself? That is the sternest test of all. The mere condemnation of sin, no matter how fully it harmonises with our sense of what ought to be, does not satisfy man. The excusing of sin is no better; it leaves the sinner who loves his sin, a sinner who loves it still. If excuses could silence conscience, or set free from the bondage of hate or passion, how many of the slaves of both would soon be at liberty!

The re-naming of evil which has often been attempted during the last two or three thousand years, and again in quite recent days, has little or no effect either upon its nature or upon those who are under its mastery. The new label does not change the poison. Its victim is a victim still. Nor does the punishment of sin entirely dispose of it, either in the sufferer, or in the consciousness of the onlooker. No doubt the discovery and punishment of sin do give men a certain degree of satisfaction, but at best it is only a relief, when what they need, and what they see their fellows need, is a remedy. Sending a fever patient to hospital is a poor expedient unless we cure the disease. Sending a thief to prison is a poor affair if he remains a thief. It is not in reality a victory over thieving; it is, in fact, a defeat.

Yes—it is a cure we need. And we know it. A cure which is not merely a remedy for the grosser forms which evil takes in men's lives, and their terrible consequences, but a cure of the hidden and secret humours from which they spring. The deceitfulness of the human heart. The thoughts and intents which colour all men do. The lusts and desires, the loves and hates from which conduct springs. The selfishness and rebellion which drive men on to the rocks.

The real question for us then is, Can our religion—does our religion, when tried by the test of human experience—afford any remedy for these? Unless it does, man can no more be satisfied or be set free by condemnations, or excusings, or re-christenings, or punishments of sin, than the slave can be contented with discussions about his owner's mistakes or emancipated by new contrivances for painting his chains!



III.

But what is this sin, the consciousness of which is thus forced upon all —this determined, persistent, active evil? It is not the mere absence of good-a negative gain—but it is the love of, and the actual striving after that which is flatly condemned by God, and is in open rebellion against Him. The centreing of the corrupt heart upon its own corruption. Opposition to the pure will of God. Pride, falseness, unscrupulous ambition. Self-seeking, regardless of the means by which its object is obtained. Luxury, effeminacy, and sensuality. The lusts and fleshly passions. Malice, cruelty, and envy. The greed of gain. The love and thraldom of the world. There it is—the running sore of a suffering race. The outflow of the carnal mind, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. There is no getting away from it. "Against this immovable barrier—the existence of sin—the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birth of human thought, and have retired broken and powerless, without displacing the minutest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark, rugged surface."

And the worst of all is that sin is a wrong against God. Man sins, of course, against himself. That is written large on human affairs, so that no fool, however great a fool, may miss it. Well may the prophet say, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" Men mix the hemlock for themselves! The sinner is a moral suicide!

Man sins against his fellow. Nothing is more evident to us than that men tempt and corrupt one another. They hold one another back from righteousness. They break down virtue, and extinguish faith, and silence conscience in their neighbours. They act as decoys and trappers for each other's souls. They play the Devil's cat's-paws, and procure for him the rum of their fellows, which could not be compassed without their aid. In short, the sinner is a moral murderer!

But, after all—and it is a hideous all—the crowning wrong, and the crowning misery, is that sin is sin against God.

Unless the Bible be a myth, and the prophets a disagreeable fraud, and the whole lesson of Jesus Christ's life and death an illusion, God is deeply concerned with man. That concern extends to man's whole nature, his whole existence, his whole environment; and most of all it is manifest with regard to his sin. God puts Himself forward in the whole history of His dealings with men as an intimate, responsible, and observing Party in the presence of wrong-doing. He watches. He sees. He knows. He will consider. He will remember or He will forget. He will in no wise acquit the guilty, or He will pardon. Justice and vengeance are His, and so is forgiveness. He will weigh in the balances. He will testify against the evil-doer, or He will make an atonement for him. He will cut off and destroy, or He will have mercy. He will repay, or He will blot out.

From beginning to end of Revelation—and there is something in the human soul which strangely responds to Revelation in this matter—we have a sense, a spiritual instinct, of the truth which Job set forth, "If I sin, then Thou markest me, and Thou will not acquit me from mine iniquity," which is confirmed by Jeremiah, "Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God;" and which is insisted upon by the Apostle when he writes, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

Yes, it is against the Lord God men have sinned, and to Him they are accountable. And they know it. Here again is something which does not come by observation or instruction, but by an inward sense which can neither be mistaken nor long denied. Sooner or later, men are compelled to acknowledge God, and to acknowledge that they have sinned against Him. As with David, when he cried out, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight"—so to every man comes at last the awakening. We see, as David saw, that whomsoever else we have wronged, God is most wronged; whomsoever else we may have injured, the great evil is that we have broken His law and violated His will.

In the light of that experience, sin becomes instantly a terrible and bitter thing. The fact that sinners can win the approval of men, the honour of success; that they can hide iniquity; that they can for a time escape from punishment, makes no difference when God appears upon the scene. Evil starts up for judgment. Memory marshals the ranks of transgression. Retribution seems the only right thing to look for. Punishment appears to be so deserved that nothing else can be possible. In their own eyes they are guilty. Guilt is branded upon them.

It is from this realisation of having offended God that there spring the dark forebodings of punishment. Men may dread it, and be willing to make superhuman sacrifices to escape it, but they expect it all the same. Thus in all ages men have cried out less for pardon and release from penalty than for deliverance from the guilt and domination of evil. Their language by a universal instinct has been like David's: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."



XI.

"Salvation Is of the Lord"

"Salvation is of the Lord."—Jonah ii. 9.

"Work out your own salvation."—Phil. ii. 12.

Salvation is of the Lord, or not at all. It is a touch; a revelation; an inspiration; the life of God in the soul. It is not of man only, nor of that greatest of human forces—the will of man, but of God and the will of God. It is not mere will-work, a sort of "self-raising" power—it is a redemption brought home by a personal Redeemer; made visible, tangible, knowable to the soul redeemed in a definite transaction with the Lord. It brings forth its own fruits, carries with it the assurance of its own accomplishment, and is its own reward. It is impossible to declare too often or too plainly that Salvation is of the Lord.



I.

And yet, around us on every side are those who are relying upon something short of this new life. They have set up a sort of human virtue in the place of the God-life. They are slowly mastering their disordered passions. The base instigations of their lower nature are being thwarted. Greedy appetites which reign in others are in them compelled to serve. Tendencies to cunning and falsehood, the fruits of which are only too apparent in the world at large, they watch and harass and pinch. Animosities, and jealousies, and envies—those enemies of all kinds of peace—are repressed, if not controlled.

And these followers of virtue go further than this. They aim at building up a character which can be called noble, or at least virtuous. And some succeed—or appear to themselves to do so. They cultivate truth. Honesty is with them, whether as to their business or their social life, the best policy. They are just. They are temperate. By nature and by training they are kind and generous; so much so that it is as difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor; not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another; in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle, and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character; that by self-cultivation, and perhaps by a kind of self-redemption, they have produced a very beautiful and desirable being!

I will not stay to inquire how far heart conceit and heart deceit may account for much of this, or to suggest that a great contrast may exist between the outer life and the unseen deeps within. I will admit for the moment that all is as stated, and even more. What, then? With much of grace and beauty, it may be; trained and tutored in the ways of humility and virtue; able to live in the constant and kindly service of others, and devoted to truth and duty—with all these excellencies they may yet be dead while they live. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Generous, lovable, dutiful, honourable flesh, but only flesh. A chaste, and, if you like to have it so, a useful life, but LIFELESS. A fine product of a lifetime of labour in the culture of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers, but, after all—DEAD. For "He that believeth not on the Son of God hath not life."



II.

In this view the body, and in a larger degree the mind, becomes a sepulchre for the soul. All the attention given to education, to refinement and culture, to the develop ment of gifts—for instance, such as music or inventive science—to the practice of self-restraint and the pursuit of morality, is so much attention to the casket that will perish, to the neglect of the eternal jewel that is enclosed. It may be possible to present a kindly, honest, law-abiding, agreeable life to our neighbours; to go through business and family life without rinding anything of great moment with which to condemn ourselves; to be thought, even by those nearest to us, to be living up to a high standard of morality, and yet—for all this has to do with the casket only—to be dead all the while in trespasses and sins.

The young man who should spend his fortune upon his tomb would be scarcely so great a fool as he who spends his life on those things in himself which are temporal, to the neglect of those which are eternal. Only think of the absurdity of devoting the splendid energy of youth and manhood, the grand force of will, the skill of genius, and the other gifts which commonly men apply to their own advancement and success, to the adornment, enriching, and extension of one's grave!

And yet this is very much the case of those of whom I am thinking. All their advances, whether in moral attainment, in personal achievement, or in worldly advantage, are, at the best, but enlargements and adornments of a tomb, and of a tomb destined itself to perish!



III.

Do I, then, discourage good works? Has man no part to play in his own deliverance? Is he, after all, only an animal—the mere creature of circumstance and natural law? Have I forgotten that "faith without works is dead"? No, I think not. I have but remembered that works without faith are dead also. The one extreme is as dangerous as the other. The legal, mechanical observance of the rules of a right life, apart from a living faith in Christ, can no more renew the heart in holiness and righteousness, than can a mere intellectual belief of certain facts about Christ, apart from working out His will, save the soul, or make it meet for the inheritance of the saints. In both cases the verdict will be the same. The faith in the one is "dead"; the works in the other are also "dead."

The fact is, Salvation is a two-fold work. It is of God—it is of man. Did God not will man's Salvation he could not be saved. Unless man will his own Salvation he cannot be saved. God is free. Man also is free. He may set up a plan for saving himself; but, no matter how perfect, it will fail unless it have God for its centre. And God, though He has devised the most infinitely complete and beautiful and costly scheme of redemption for man, will none the less fail unless the individual man wills to co-operate with Him. Man is not a piece of clay which God can fashion as He likes. He is not even a harp out of which He can get what strains He will without regard to its strings. There is in man something—a force—an energy— which must act in union with God, and with which God must act in wonderful partnership, if His will is to be accomplished.



IV.

It is true, of course, that God does much for a man without his aid. I do not now refer to material blessings. He it is who gives us "life, and breath, and all things"—and gives them largely without our effort. But even in man God does much without his help. He calls. He stirs up conscience. He gives flashes of light to the most darkened heart. He softens by the hand of sorrow, and rebukes with the stripes of affliction. Memory, human affection, hope, ambition, are all made means by the Holy Ghost to urge men to holiness. The ministry of goodness in others is so directed as to point multitudes to the way of the Cross. But this will not provide the one thing needful. Instruction, clear views of the truth, belief in the facts of God's love and grace, admiration of Salvation in other lives, even the desire to declare the Gospel, may all be present, and yet the soul be—DEAD—dead in trespasses and sins—cursed, bound, and corrupted by dead works. Just as the noblest and highest efforts of man towards his own Salvation, without the co-operating, life-giving work of God, can result only in confusion and death; so the most powerful, gracious, long-suffering and tender yearnings and work of God for man's Salvation, without the co-operating will of man, can result only in distress, disappointment, and death.



V.

Are you dead? Are you in either of these classes? Are you relying on God's mercy; waiting for some strange visitation from on high; depending with a faith which is merely of the mind upon some past work of Christ; but without the vital power of His mighty life in you? Filled with desires that are not realised; offering prayers that are not answered; striving at times to work out a law of goodness which you feel all the time is an impossibility for you? Living, so to speak, out of your element—like a fish out of water? That is DEATH.

Or are you, on the other hand, depending for Salvation on your own labour to build up a good character, and to live a decent, honourable, and honest life? Conscious of advance, but not of victory? The servant of a high ideal, but without liberty? The devotee of your own self? All the powers and qualities of your nature growing towards maturity, except the powers of your soul? The casket—as life goes on—growing more and more adorned, while the eternal spirit, the priceless jewel made to receive the likeness of God and enjoy Him for ever, seems ever of less and less worth to you? That also is DEATH.

The man who is in either class is dead while he lives. He is a walking mortuary.



XII.

Self-Denial.



"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."—Matt. xvi. 24.

It is a striking thought that self-denial is, perhaps, the only service that a man can render to God without the aid or co-operation of something or some one outside himself. No matter what he does—unless it be to pray, which would hardly be included in the idea of service —he is more or less dependent upon either the assistance or presence of others. If, for example, he speaks or sings for God, whether in public or in private, he must have hearers; if he writes, it is that he may have readers; if he teaches, he needs scholars; if he distributes gifts, there must be receivers of his charity; if he leads souls to Christ, these souls must be willing to come; if he suffers persecution, there must be persecutors; or if, like Stephen, he is called to die for his Lord, there must be those who stone him, and others who stand by consenting to his death.

A few moments' consideration will, I think, also show, that even in the sphere of our personal spiritual experience, it is very much the same. We can, after all, do but little for ourselves. Salvation comes to men through human instrumentality, and seldom apart from it. We are, I know, saved by faith; but how shall we believe unless we hear? and how shall we hear without a preacher? That instruction on the things of God, which is a necessity for every true child of God, comes almost invariably by the agency or through the experiences of others.

The joys and consolation of fellowship can only be the result of communion with the saints. In spiritual things, as in ordinary affairs, it is the countenance of his friend which quickens and brightens the tired toiler as "iron sharpeneth iron." And though it is true that God can, and often does, wonderfully teach and inspire His people without the direct aid of any human agent, it is equally true that He generally does so by the employment of His word, which He has revealed to men, or by the recalling of some message which has already been received into the mind and heart.

Nor does this in the least detract from our absolute dependence upon Him. The man who crosses the Atlantic in a steamship is no less dependent on the sea because he employs the vessel for his journey. We are no less dependent upon the earth for our sustenance because we only partake of the wheat after it has been ground into flour and made into bread. And so, we are no less dependent upon God because He has been pleased to employ various humble and simple instruments to save, and teach, and guide us. After full allowance has been made for the power and influence of intervening agencies, it is in Him we really live, and move, and have our being.

But I return to my first word. There is one kind of service open to all, irrespective of circumstances and gifts, which can be rendered to God without the intervention of anyone. And this we may truly call self-denial. Much that quite properly comes under that description need never—probably will never—be known to anyone but God. It may be a holy sacrament indeed, kept between the soul and its Lord alone.



I.

There is the Denial of all that remains of Evil in us.

How many sincere souls, when they look into their own hearts, find, to their horror, evil in them where they least expected it; find them part stone, when they should be all flesh; find them bound to earth and the love of earthly things, when they should be free from the world and the love of the world; find them occupied, alas! so often with idols and heart-lusts, when God alone ought to rule and reign. Here is a sphere for self-denial. Here is a service to be rendered to God, which will be very acceptable to Him, and which you alone can perform.

And if you would thus deny yourself, then examine yourself. Study the evils of your own nature. Recognise sin. Call it by its right name when you speak of it in the solitude of your own heart. If there are the remains of the deadly poison in you, say so to God, and keep on saying so with a holy importunity. "Confess your sins." Attack them as the farmer attacks the poison-plant amongst his crops, or the worms and flies which will blight his harvest, and which, unless he can ruin them, he knows full well will ruin him. That is the "perfect self-denial"—to cut off the right hand, and to pluck out and cast away what is dear as the right eye, if it offend against the law of purity and truth and love.

But you yourself are to do it. Do not say you cannot, for you alone can. If you would be His disciple—His holy, loving, pure, worthy disciple—you must deny yourself. Cry to Him for help as much as you will—you cannot cry too often or too long—but you must do more than that: you must arise, and deny your own selfish nature; pinch, and harass, and refuse your own inward sins, and expose them to the light of God. Confess them without ceasing, mortify them without mercy, and slay them, and give no quarter. Say, and say in earnest:—

Oh, how I hate these lusts of mine That crucified my God!— These sins that pierced and nailed His flesh Fast to the fatal wood.

Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die— My soul has so decreed; I will not longer spare the things That made my Saviour bleed.

Whilst with a melting, broken heart, My murdered Lord I view, I'll raise revenge against my sins, And slay the murderers too.



II.

There are Denials of the Will.

Human nature is a collection of likes and dislikes. The great mass of men are governed by their preferences. What they like, they strive after; what they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now, true self-denial is the denial, for Christ's sake and the sake of souls, of these preferences. To say to God: "I sacrifice my way for Thy way—my wish for Thy wish—my will for Thy will—my plan for Thy plan—my life for Thy life"—this is self-denial.

Nothing can be more acceptable to a good father's heart than the knowledge that his son, living and labouring far away from him amid difficulties and opposition, is courageously sacrificing his own preferences, and faithfully seeking to carry out his, the father's, will. In such a son that father sees a reproduction of all that is strongest and best in his own nature. And so it is with the Heavenly Father. No greater joy can be His than to see the resolute surrender of His children's own will to His, and the daily denial of their hopes and plans for themselves and theirs in favour of His plans.



III.

There are Denials of the Affections.

The precious things of earth— The mother's tender care, The father's faith and prayer— From Thee have birth.

And, just because love is of such high origin, and is the greatest power in human life, it is often captured and held by the Devil as his last stronghold against God. The heart is at once the strongest and the most sensitive part of our nature; and it is here, therefore, that we often find the most blessed and profitable opportunities for self-denial.

That pleasant companionship, so grateful, so fruitful of joy, and yet so likely to tempt me from the path of faithful service, "Lord, I deny myself of it." That mastering affection for wife, or husband, or children—so beautiful in its strength and simplicity, and yet so exacting in its claims—"Lord, I deny myself of the abandonment to which it invites me; I put it in its proper place, second to Thee, and to the work Thou hast given me to do." That love of home, and friends, and circle, which is so powerful a factor in life, and enters so constantly into all the arrangements and details of our conduct, influencing so largely all real plans for doing God's work—"Lord, I will deny it, when it is in danger of lessening my labours for Thee and Thy Kingdom." The pleasant hour, the quiet evening, the restful book, "I will lay them at Thy feet, for Thy sake, when they hinder me doing Thy will. It is between me and Thee alone; it is the sacrifice of love."

How precious it must be to God to see such self-denial! When the true lover sees the woman he has chosen leaving all for his sake, calmly laying down the love of father and family, and even braving the rebuffs and unkindness of those from whom before she has known nothing but affection, in order that she may give him her whole heart and life, how strong become the cords which bind him to her! Every sacrifice she makes for his sake forges another bond which will not easily be broken. And is the Lord a man, that He should be behind us in loving with an everlasting love those who thus give up and deny their own loves for Him? No! a thousand times no! He will repay. Every self-denial is a seedling rich with future joys. For it is indeed true that "He that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will give him the morning star."



IV.

There are Denials with reference to our Gifts.

"Look not," says the Apostle, "every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." That is, even in the exercise of his choicest gifts and graces, let a man forget his own in his desire to employ and bring forward the gifts of others. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." That is, in your own mind take a humble view of yourself, your own powers, and your own worthiness, and hold your comrades in higher esteem than you hold yourself, in honour preferring one another to yourself. That would be a very real self-denial to some people!

"Recompense to no man evil for evil," though you know he well deserves it; "Avenge not yourselves." "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." That is, deny yourself of your own joys, that you may enter into the sorrow of others; and lay aside your own sorrows and tears, and silence your own breaking heart, when you can help others by entering with joy into their joys.

You will see, beloved, that all this is work which no one can do for you, and that it is in a very true sense high service to God as well as to man.

How, then, is it with you?

Are you a self-denying disciple? If not, beware, lest it should shortly appear that you are not a disciple at all.



XIII.

In Unexpected Places.



"And . . . while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know Him."—Luke xxiv. 15, 16.



I.

The Knife-grinder.

The only person in the house, except the man and his wife, was a young domestic servant, a Soldier of The Salvation Army. Her employers were generally drinking when they were not asleep, and the drinking led to the most dreadful quarrelling. Disgusting orgies of one kind or another were of almost daily occurrence, and such, visitors as came to the house only added fuel to the fiery furnace of passion and frenzy through which the girl was called to walk.

Since that happy Sunday afternoon two years ago, when she gave herself to God in the wholesome village from which she came, the meetings and the opportunity, given her by The Army, of doing some work for other souls had been a bright light in her life. Little by little religion had come to have for her something of the same meaning it had for St. Paul: though I fear she knew very little of St. Paul, or of the great and wise things he wrote—domestic service is seldom favourable to the study of the Scriptures. But the same spirit which led the great Apostle to confer not with flesh and blood, and which took him into Arabia before he went to Jerusalem, was leading this quiet, country maiden to see that to be a follower of Christ means something more than to win a fleeting happiness in this life and a kind of pension in the next. She was beginning to understand that to be really Christ's means also to be a Christ; that to be His, one must seek for the lost sheep for whom He died. And so Rhoda—I call her Rhoda, though that was not her name—when she found to what sort of people she had, in her ignorance of the great city, engaged herself, had set to work to seek their salvation.

Many very good people would probably think that she would have been a wiser girl to have gone elsewhere—that the risks of such a position were very great, and so on. No doubt; but the light of a great truth was rising in Rhoda's heart and mind. She perceived in her very danger an opportunity to prove her love for her Saviour by risking something for the souls of those two besotted creatures, for whom she dared to think He really died.

And so, day after day, she toiled for them: night after night she prayed for them. And in her sober moments the wreck of a woman, her mistress, wept aloud in her slobbering way, and talked of the days long, long ago, when she, too, believed in the things that are good.

The first flush of novelty in the sense of doing an unselfish thing for God wore away, and presently Rhoda's real trial began. The drinking and fighting grew worse, and the difficulty of getting out to a meeting grew greater. Gradually the weary body robbed the struggling soul of its time to pray; and, worst of all, by slow degrees Rhoda's faith was shaken, for her prayers, her agonising prayers, on behalf of those dark souls were only too manifestly not answered. Was it worth while, after all, troubling about sinners? Was it her affair? Why should she care? Of what use could it be to become an Officer, in order to seek the many, if God did not hearken to her cry for the few?

One day the Captain of the Corps to which Rhoda belonged called, and seemed grieved with her for neglecting the meetings. This was a heavy blow. She could not or would not explain, and when that night, in the midst of a drunken brawl, her master struck her in the face, heart and flesh both failed, and she determined to say no more about salvation, and to abandon all profession of religion.

That night seemed long and dark, and when at last sleep came, the pillow was wet with tears of anguish, of anger, and of pride.

"Scissors to mend! to mend! to mend!" The monotonous calls of London hawkers are a strange mixture of sounds—at one moment attractive, at another repelling; they are, perhaps, more like the cry of a bird in distress than anything else.

Rhoda looked at her wood-chopper as the knife-grinder came nearer to the house, and as he passed beckoned him, and gave it to him. She made no remark. He was rough and grimy, and his torn coat gave him an appearance of misery, which his face rather belied. She was miserable enough, and made no reply to his cheery "Good morning!"

Presently the axe was sharpened, and the man brought it to the door. She paid him.

"Thank you," he said. And then, with kindly abruptness—"Excuse me, but I see you have been crying. Do you ever pray?" And, after a silence, "God answers prayer, though He may not do it our way. He did it for me. I was a drunkard, but my mother's prayers are answered now, and I belong to The Salvation Army. Do you know any of them? Oh, they just live by prayer!"

Rhoda stood in silence listening to the strange man till she ceased to hear him, and looking at him till she ceased to see him! Another Presence and another Voice was there.

It was the Christ.

Rhoda was delivered. She is still fighting for souls, and loves most to do it where Satan's seat is. But the knife-grinder never knew.



II.

A Kiss.

The heat and smell in the narrow slum were worse than usual. A hot Saturday night in midsummer is a bad time in the slums, and worse in the slum public-houses. It was so on the night I speak of. In and out of the suffocating bar the dirty stream of humanity came and went. Men who had ceased long ago to be anything but beasts; women with tiny, white children in their bony arms; boys and girls sipping the naphtha of perdition, and talking the talk of fools; lewd and foul-mouthed women of the streets, all hustled and jostled one another, and sang, and swore, and bandied horrid words with the barmen—and, all the while, they drank, and drank, and drank! The atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with the dust and tobacco-smoke, and little by little the flaming gas-jets burnt up the oxygen, till by midnight the place was all but unendurable.

Among the last to go was a woman of the town, who betook herself, with a bottle of whisky, to a low lodging-house hard by. There she drank and quarrelled with such vehemence that in the early hours of the morning the "Deputy"—as the guardian of order is called in these houses—picked her up and threw her into the gutter outside. There, amid the garbage from the coster-mongers' barrows and the refuse of the town, this remnant of a ruined woman lay in a half-drunken doze, until the golden sunlight mounted over the city houses and pierced the sultry gloom on the Sabbath morning.

Another woman chanced that way. Young, beautiful alike in form and spirit, and touched with the far-offness of many who walk with Christ, she hastened to the early Sunday morning service, there to join her prayers with others seeking strength to win the souls of men.

"What is that?" she asked her friend as they passed.

"That," replied the other, "is a drunken woman, unclean and outcast."

In a moment the Salvationist knelt upon the stones, and kissed the battered face of the poor wanderer.

"Who is that—what did you do?" said the Magdalene. "Why did you kiss me? Nobody ever kissed me since my mother died."

It was the Christ.

That kiss won a heart to Him.



III.

A Promotion.

Henry James was coming rapidly into his employer's favour. Thoughtful, obliging, attentive to details, anxious to please, and, above all, thoroughly reliable in word and deed, he was a first-class servant and an exemplary Salvationist. In the Corps to which he belonged he stood high in the esteem both of the Local Officers and the Soldiers, and there was no more welcome speaker in the Open-air or more successful "fisher" in the sinners' meetings than "Young James."

The question of his own future was beginning to occupy a good deal of attention. Ought he to offer himself for Officership in The Army? He was very far from decided either one way or the other, when one evening at the close of business his master sent for him. He expressed his pleasure at the progress James was making, and offered him a greatly improved position—the managership of a branch establishment, with certain privileges as to hours, an immediate and considerable advance in salary, and the prospect of a still more profitable position in the future. There was really only one condition required of him—he must live in premises adjoining the new venture, and he must not come to and fro in the uniform of The Army. His employers had a high esteem for The Salvation Army. It was a noble work, and their opinion of it had risen since they had employed one or two of its Soldiers. But business was business, and the uniform going in and out would not help business, and so forbh.

The young man hesitated, and, to the senior partner's surprise, asked for a week to consider.

During the week there were consultations with almost every one he knew. The majority of his own friends said decidedly "Accept." A few Salvationists of the weaker sort said, "Yes, take it; you will, in the end, be able to do more for God, and give The Army more time, more money, more influence." On the other hand, the Captain and the older Local Officers answered, "No; it is a compromise of principle; the uniform is only the symbol of out-and-out testimony for Christ; you put it on in holy covenant with Him; you cannot take it off, especially for your own advantage, without breaking that covenant. Don't!"

James promised himself—quite sincerely, no doubt—that it should not be so with him. And on the appointed day informed the firm that he accepted their proposal.

The new enterprise was a success. Everything turned out better than was expected. At the end of six months the new manager received a cordial letter of thanks from the firm, and a hint of further developments.

But Henry James was an unhappy man. He had gained so much that he was always asking himself how it came about that he seemed to have lost so much more! Position, prospects, opportunity, money—these were all enhanced. And yet he went everywhere with a sense of loss, burdened with a consciousness of having parted with more than he had received in return. As a man of business, the impression at last took the form of a business estimate in his mind. Yes, that was it; he had secured a high—a very high—price that evening in the counting-house, when the partners waited for his answer; he had parted with something; he had, in fact, sold something.

It was the Christ.

It proved a ruinous transaction.



XIV.

Ever the Same.

A New Year's Greeting.

"Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His: and He changeth the times and the seasons."—Daniel ii. 20, 21.

"I am the Lord, I change not."—Malachi iii. 6.

"He changeth the times and the seasons." What a beautiful thought it is! Instead of the hard compulsion of some inexorable and unchanging law fixing summer where it must, and planting winter in our midst whether it be well or ill, here is the sweet assurance that the seasons change at His command; and that the winds and the waves obey Him. It is not some abstract and unknowable force, taking no account of us and ours, with whom we have to do, but a living and ruling Father: He who maketh small the drops of water that pour down rain; He who shuts up the sea with doors, and says: "Here shall thy proud waves be stayed"; He who maketh the south winds to blow, and by whose breath the frost is given; He who teaches the swallow to know the time of her coming, and has made both summer and winter, and the day and the night His servants—He is our Father. How precious it is to feel that our times are in His hands; and to know that, whether the year be young or old, He will fill it with mercy and crown it with loving-kindness!

Do not be deceived by the modern talk about the laws of Nature into forgetting that they are the laws ordained by your Father for the fulfilment of His will. Every day that dawns is as truly God's day as was the first one. Every night that draws its sable mantle over a silent world sets a seal to the knowledge of God who maketh the darkness. Behind the mighty forces and the ceaseless activities around us stands the Sovereign of them all. The hand of Him who never slumbers is on the levers. The earth is the Lord's, and His chosen portion is His people; and when "He changes the times and the seasons," He fits the one to the other.

It is with some such thoughts as these that I send out a brief New Year's Greeting to my friends. I wish them a Happy New Year, because I feel that God has sent it, that He wills it to be a happy year—a good year: that in all the changes it may bring, He will be planning with highest benevolence for their truest welfare. Whether, therefore, it holds for them sorrow or joy, it will be a year of mercy, a year of grace, a year of love. "Blessed be God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. He revealeth the deep and secret things. He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him."

Let us, then, go forward, and fear not.



I.

Material Changes.

All things that touch the life of man are marked for change. As knowledge advances, and men come nearer to the secrets of the world in which they live, they find how true indeed it is, that man is but "a shadow dwelling in a world of shadows." Everything is changing—everything but God. The sun, the astronomers tell us, is burning itself away. "The mountains," say the geologists, "are not so high as they once were; their lofty summits are sliding down their sides year by year. The everlasting hills are only everlasting in a figure; for they, too, are crumbling day by day. The hardest rocks are softening into soil every season, and we are actually eating them up in our daily bread."

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mists, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

The great ocean-currents are changing, and vast regions of the earth's surface are being changed with them, and Time is writing wrinkles on the whole world and all that is therein.

But, above it all, I see One standing—my Unchanging God. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thine hands; they shall perish, but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail."

What a contrast there is between the Worker and His work, between the Creator and the creature! We see it in a thousand things; but in none is it so manifest for the wayfaring man, or written so large upon the fading draperies of time, as in this: "They shall perish, but Thou remainest."

And greater changes yet seem to lie ahead. A universal instinct points to the time of the restitution of all things. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting"—and it has been a long, weary waiting—"for deliverance." But the day of the Lord will come. "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." In his vision John saw, as it were, a picture of that final change. "Lo," he says, "there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sack-cloth of hair"—it looks as though the wise men who say it will burn itself out are right!—"and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." What a combination of astounding catastrophes is here! Earth and stars are to meet in awful shock! Sun and moon to fail! Cloud and sky to disappear; the elements to melt with fervent heat—a world on fire!

But, above it all, the Lamb that was slain will take His place upon the Throne—unmoved, unchanged, amidst the tumult of dissolving worlds. My God, my Saviour, in Thy unchanging love I put my trust:—

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; 'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head.



II.

Changes of Association.

But far-reaching as are the changes in our material surroundings, those with which we have to battle in our personal associations are often as great, and are often much more painful. Indeed, man himself is the most changeable thing in all man's world.

It is not merely that our companions and friends and loved ones die—the wind passeth over them, and they are gone, and the dear places that knew them know them no more—it is not merely this; nor is it that their circumstances change, that wealth becomes penury, that health is changed to weakness and suffering, and youth to age and decay—it is not merely this, but it is that they change. The ardour of near friendship grows cold and fades away; the trust which once knew no limitations is narrowed down, and, by and by, walled in with doubts and fears; the comradeship which was so sweet and strong, and quickened us to great deeds, as "iron sharpeneth iron," is changed for other companionships; the love which seemed so deep and true, and was ready "to look on tempests" for us, becomes but a name and a memory, even if it does not change into a well of bitter waters in our lives.

This fact of human mutability, this inherent changeableness in man, is the key to many of the darkest chapters of the world's history. The prodigal, the traitor, the vow-breaker, these have ever been far more fruitful sources of anguish and misery than the life-long rebel and law-breaker.

The Psalmist touches the inner springs of sorrow when he says, "All that hate Me whisper together against Me; yea, Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me."

No one who has once read it can forget that revelation of the pent-up shame and agony in David's heart, which was voiced in his cry, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

The human heart probably fell to its lowest depth of ingratitude and sin when poor Judas changed sides and sold his Lord. What a change it was! Alas, alas, what a quagmire of uncertainties and shifting sand unsanctified human nature must be! Nay, is.

I suppose that few of us have escaped some sorrowful experiences of this kind. Even to those who have not tasted the fruits of human fickleness in the great affairs of Christ's Kingdom, there has generally come some share of it into the more private relationships of life. In the home, in the family, or in the circle of friendship or comradeship, we have had to lament the failure of many tender hopes. But, blessed be the name of our God, who knoweth what is in the darkness, amidst the changing scenes we have found one Comfort. Above the strife of tongues, and over the stormy seas of sorrow, when, as Job said, even our kinsfolk have failed, and our familiar friends have forgotten us, there is borne to us the voice of One who sticketh closer than a brother, saying, "I am the Lord; I change not. With Me there is no variableness, neither the shadow of turning. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." The more men change, the surer God will be; the more they forget, the more He will remember; the further they withdraw, the nearer He will come.



III.

Personal Changes.

And we, ourselves, change also. As the years fly past, the most notable fact about us, perhaps, is the changes that are going on in our own experiences, our habits, our thoughts, our hopes, our conduct, our character. How much there was about us, only a few years ago, which has changed in the interval—nay, how much has grown different even since last New Year's Day! Indeed, might we not say of a great deal in us, which to-day is, that to-morrow it will be cast away for ever?

Have you, my friend, not had to mourn over some strange changes?

Has not your joy been often so quickly turned to sorrow that you have wondered how you yourself could be the same person? Has not some trifling circumstance often seemed to cloud your sky for days, darkening all the great lights in your heaven, so that your whole past, and present, and future have seemed different to you, and you stood in the stupor of astonishment at the gloomy change? Has not your zeal for souls been subject to like strange and unaccountable changes, so that the work you once thought impossible you have found easy; or the work you once delighted in, you now find hard, difficult, and barren? Has not your freedom in prayer, and your desire for it, wavered between this and that until you have not known what to think of yourself?

Has not your perception of duty, and your devotion to it, at one time clear and strong, become at another so dim and feeble, that you have been utterly ashamed of your wobbling and cowardice, and amazed at your failure? And, most sorrowful of all, has not your love for your God and Saviour been up and down—shamefully down—so that when you have afterwards reflected on your coldness towards Him and His cause, you have been covered with confusion and astonishment at the fickleness of your own heart?

THE END