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{\LARGE\strut{ONE DAY AT A TIME}}
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This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the \hyperlink{project-gutenberg-license}{Project Gutenberg License} included with
this ebook or online at {https://www.gutenberg.org/license}. If you
are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws
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\noindent
Title: One Day at a Time
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       and Other Talks on Life and Religion
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Author: Arch. Alexander
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Release Date: March 29, 2012 {[}eBook \#39309{]}
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Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE DAY AT A TIME ***
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Produced by Al Haines.
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{\noindent}
If any one of us knows a word of hope or has picked up a message of
comfort anywhere, it is his plain duty to share it, these days.  We owe
it to each other to cherish as exceeding precious, and to pass on to
others, every brave and helpful word or thought we come across.\par

Well, here is a splendid one for us all, and especially for those who
have most at stake in this great conflict, and are looking anxiously
ahead and fearing what the weeks may have in store,--"As thy days, so
shall thy strength be."  It is a great and glorious promise.  And just
a couple of verses further on, it is caught up and included in one
greater still,--"The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the
everlasting arms."  Fathers and mothers, with a boy, or more than one,
perhaps, away on active service for King and country, this promise is
for you, to take to your heart and hide there, like some precious
secret between you and God,--As thy days, so shall thy strength be.\par

Notice carefully, however, how the promise runs.  Not, mark you, as
your life is, not as your years are, not even as your weeks are, but as
your days, so shall your strength be.  For each day as it comes, God's
promise is that strength will be given you, but just for a day at a
time.  The way to live under any circumstances, but especially in these
hard weeks, is just a day at a time.  Leave to-morrow with God, my
brother, until it comes.  That is what the Word of God lays upon you as
a duty.  Live this day at your best and bravest, trusting that God's
help will not fail you.  And for the duties and trials of to-morrow,
however hard and heavy, believe that strength for that day also will be
given you, when it comes.\par

You cannot have failed to observe what an important place this way of
living had in the teaching of Jesus Christ.  He was always trying to
get men to trust the coming days to God, and to live fully worthily and
nobly to-day.  He was dead against the practice of adding to the
burdens of to-day fears and forebodings for to-morrow.  It is in love
to us, in His desire to save us unnecessary pain, that He bids us
remember that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."\par

In one of R. D. Blackmore's fine open-air stories, there is a character
who talks at length about horses.  After comparing good ones and bad
ones in their behaviour the first time they breast a hill with a load
behind them, he sums the matter up thus: "Howsoever good a horse be, he
longeth to see over the top of the hill before he be half-way up it."
The man who is listening to him confesses that he has often felt that
way himself!  And I do not know that there are many of us who can claim
to be guiltless in this respect.  Yet it is perfectly plain that the
men and women who are living the bravest and most successful lives
around us, and are proving towers of strength to others, are those who
have learned the art of living just a day at a time, and of depending
upon God for strength for that day in the simplest and most trustful
fashion.\par

Why, my brothers, if God our Father had meant us to carry on our backs
the fears and anxieties of the coming days, He would surely have told
us more about them!  If we were meant to bear to-day what next week
holds, surely we should have been permitted to see into next week.  But
we cannot.  We cannot see a single second ahead.  God gives us Now, and
To-Morrow He keeps to Himself.  Is there anything wiser or better we
can do with our to-morrows than just to leave them quietly and
trustfully with Him?\par

The habit of living ahead, as so many of us do, prevents us from
getting the full taste and flavour of the happiness and blessing that
are ours to-day.  I defy any man to be adequately grateful for this
day's sunshine if he is worrying all the time about the chance of a bad
day to-morrow.  Mark Rutherford, merciless self-critic as he was, takes
himself severely to task for this habit in his "Autobiography."  "I
learned, alas! when it was almost too late," he says, "to live in each
moment as it passed over my head, believing that the sun as it is now
rising, is as good as it ever will be."  Yes, in great things as well
as in little things, that is true.  If we are to live our lives at the
full, and anywhere on the Christian level, the only way is to live one
day at a time.\par

Our forefathers in the pulpit were fond of reminding their hearers to
live each day as if it were their last.  And in solemn truth, without
being in the least morbid, that is the way to live.  If a man knew that
after to-day, he would not smell the sea again, how fully and
gratefully would he fill his lungs with its ozone to-day!  If he knew
he were not to enter God's House again, how earnestly and sincerely and
reverently he would join in its worship to-day!  Yes, but the point is,
why should his hope, that he has other days to come, prevent him taking
out of this day all that he possibly can?  Why should this day be any
less prized, because others in all probability will follow it?\par

But the great value of this word is the comfort of it to those who are
anxious and fear the coming days.  And which of us is not in that
category?  I do not suppose there is one of my readers upon whom,
somehow or other, the war has not levied its tax.  Nearly every one has
somebody belonging to him or her who is in this gigantic struggle, and
whose welfare is a matter of real concern.  And, closer still, there
are fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, whose very dearest are
"in it" or are getting ready to do their share.  They have joined, and
we are proud that they have joined, for this is a cause that ennobles
every mother's son who fights for it.  But who shall say what the
mother's thoughts are, these days?  How proud, and justly proud, the
father is that his boy has played the man, and offered himself to his
King and for his country!  But only God, who made the father--and the
mother--heart, knows what the surrender costs.  And only God knows how
eagerly and anxiously they look ahead to try to see what the future may
hold.\par

And, knowing that, He sends His comfort to you, fathers and mothers.
The comfort of His promise,--As thy days, so shall thy strength be.
Just a day at a time, my friend!  Do not take fears for next month on
your shoulders now.  You will get strength given you for to-day,
certain and sure, and when next month comes, the strength and comfort
for that day will come too, as certain and as sure.  Be not
over-anxious about the morrow.  Leave your to-morrow, and your
soldier-son, in God's hands.  You can do nothing more at the best, and
this is the best.  But it is such a mistake to do anything less.  Leave
all your to-morrows with God--it is what He wants you to do--and humbly
and gratefully take from His hands His gift of To-day, and the strength
that comes with it.  If that be not enough--and it is not enough for
God has said more--when that is not enough, still your heart a moment,
and listen!  And you will hear, beneath that promise for to-day, like
the grand deep tones of an organ, the magnificent diapason of the
Father's constant love and mindfulness,--"The eternal God is thy
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."  And surely that is
enough!\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"So for To-morrow and its needs\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl I do not pray,\par}
}

{\vl But keep me, guide me, help me, Lord,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Just for To-Day."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, who dost appoint the way for each of us, give us the
grace to trust that as Thou hast helped us hitherto, so, in Thy great
mercy, Thou wilt bless us still.  We do not ask to see the distant
scene.  Keep us, and our beloved, this day; and in quietness and
confidence teach us to leave to-morrow with Thee, our Father.  Through
Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.\par\label{god-in-the-wheels}%
\hypertarget{god-in-the-wheels}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The Spirit of life was in the wheels.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(EZEKIEL i. 21.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ II}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ GOD IN THE WHEELS}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
The prophet Ezekiel once had an extraordinary vision of God.  He tries
to tell us about it, but his description seems to be a meaningless
jumble of cherubim, and wheels,--wheels within wheels, complex,
wonderful, unresting.  Behind all, he saw the Glory of God.  And again
and again he tells us that "the Spirit of Life was in the wheels."\par

Now that at least is intelligible, and it is a good thing for us to
think about.  The Spirit of God is in the wheels.\par

I want to suggest to you that He is in the wheels of industry.  We have
no hesitation in saying that God gives the farmer his harvest, and we
actually thank Him for it in His temple.  A shepherd with a lamb in his
arms is for a pastoral people like the Jews the very image of the
Saviour God.  But men who dwell in towns, and work in mills and
factories and yards and railways, or who control or manage such places,
have little to do with either corn or sheep.  Is it not worth while to
remind them that God is also in the wheels?  Do you remember how
Kipling's old chief engineer Macandrew believed that his twin monsters,
driving the liner onward on her way, sang their hourly hymn of praise
to God?  And why not?  From all the wheels of industry and man's
inventiveness, goes there not up to Him a praise as real as the song of
His little birds?\par

Where two or three gather together on Lord's days, God is truly and
graciously present.  But I want you to remember that out in the noisy
moving world of industry and business, God is present also, guiding,
controlling and bringing His long, long plans to pass.  It is by His
decree that all the countless wheels of traffic and production turn and
spin, for He needs them all, and has brought them into being by the
hands of men, and they are His, as the Church is His.  I would not have
you, as Christian men, look upon your week-day world with its mechanism
and its traffic, that world of yours that goes so literally upon
wheels, as a province of life very far remote from the presence of God.
I would remind you rather that God's spirit is in those wheels, that
they move at His bidding, and that they are working out His purposes
upon the earth.\par

I would suggest, further, that God is in those wheels whose turning
brings us Change.  If you will allow the figure, I would say that God
is in the wheels of Change and time.\par

As we grow older, we resent more and more the constant alteration of
the surroundings of life.  It saddens us that there should be such a
continual moving on.  But perhaps it is in the realm of doctrine and
practice that changes hurt and perplex us most.  Godly old customs die
out.  The face of truth seems to alter.  Old notes in religion
disappear and new ones take their place, and we are sorely tempted to
ask if it be possible that the children can know God better or serve
His Christ more truly than their fathers.  Ah yes, from forty years and
upwards, men are very apt to have a quarrel with change.  They resent
it, and would spike Time's wheels if they could.\par

Forgetting that the Spirit of God is in those very wheels.  Change is
God's method and His blessing.  The Bible does not envy the man who has
no changes.  It is afraid for him, afraid that for want of them, he may
settle on his lees, and forget the fear of God.\par

Of course, no one will defend every new fashion, or assert that
everything recent is an improvement on what went before.  But I, for
one, do believe that generation after generation men are moving up,
being shepherded up, the long slope of history nearer to God.  I
believe that God's promise is that He will do better for us than at the
beginnings, and I believe He is keeping His promise.  I must believe
that the history of this world which man rough hews, is--spite of all
the wars--being shaped by God Himself, or else there is no God at all.
And so I would say to those who distrust the continual changes of life,
and would fain stop the wheels that turn on and on and never halt,
"Fear not!  Be of good courage!  For aback of all change is God our
Father, and it is His Spirit that is working in the wheels."\par

Again, I would suggest to you that God is in the wheels that shape your
own lot and mine.  The wheels of Chance, they are sometimes called, the
mere whirligig of destiny, as if the world were some blind
irresponsible machine grinding on in the dark, and heeding not which or
how many lives were broken in its teeth.\par

And I grant you that there be times when that idea seems feasible.  For
life is full of mysterious happenings, and chance sometimes seems the
most probable explanation.  The tragedy of Job is always being played
somewhere.  There are men who up to a certain point in life have known
nothing but good fortune, and after that, nothing but disappointment
and disaster.  Out of a blue sky the bolt may fall on any one; while
from clouds lowering and heavy, it is waited for, expected and
dreaded--and never comes!  The merest knife-edge of circumstance
sometimes affects results out of all proportion to its importance.  "A
grain of sand in a man's flesh" as Pascal remarks, "has changed the
course of Empires."  Yes, I grant you, there be times when the blind
chance theory does suggest itself.\par

But by an overwhelming majority the instinct of man is against it.  And
best of all, Jesus Christ, our supreme authority, has pledged Himself
in His life and death, that the Ruler and Disposer of all events is
Eternal Love.  We have learned from Jesus to say and to trust "Our
Father who art in Heaven."  We know and believe that whatever is to
come falls not by chance, but is sent and permitted by the Love of God,
who makes no mistakes.  Taught and inspired by Jesus, many thousands of
men and women have committed themselves and all their interests--home,
health, happiness, reputation, loved ones--to the keeping of God the
Father, and known by the peace that came to them, that it was a real
transaction.\par

Soulless wheels of destiny! say some.  The blind mechanism of law!  Ah,
no, Jesus is the refutation of that.  Law there is, and mechanism there
must be.  But neither blind nor soulless.  For, above all, is the
Father Love of God, and it is His spirit that is guiding and governing
the wheels.\par

Wheels of Industry, Wheels of Change, Wheels of Destiny.  And God's
Spirit in them all!\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, to whom not only the Church but our whole work-a-day
world belongs, give us the purged sight that can see Thy tokens there.
Deliver us from all foolish fear of changes since the goad moving all
things onward is in our Father's hand.  And help us to be sure that
whatsoever befalleth us and ours has been permitted and appointed by a
Love that passeth knowledge.  Amen.\par\label{a-triple-best}%
\hypertarget{a-triple-best}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The just shall live by faith.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(ROMANS i. 17.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ III}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ A TRIPLE BEST}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Some time ago I came across the life-motto of George Stephenson, the
"father of the locomotive," as he has been called, the man whose brains
and sagacity made possible the network of railways which spreads now
over the earth.  The crystallised experience of such a life is worth
studying Here, then, was Stephenson's working formula:--"Make the best
of everything; think the best of everybody; hope the best for yourself."\par

First, MAKE THE BEST OF EVERYTHING.  In every set of circumstances
possible or conceivable, there are always, at any rate, two ways of
acting.  You can look for the helpful, bright, and hopeful things, and
"freeze on" to these meantime.  Or, you can select all the doleful,
sombre aspects, and sit down in the dust with them.  Now, if it did not
matter which a man did, there would be no good saying any more.  But it
has long since become abundantly clear that the man who makes the best
of his circumstances, however hard they be, comes most happily out of
them in the end.  In other words, it pays to make the best of things.
It is the cheery people who recover quickest when they are sick.  There
are men who, if their house should fall in ruins about them, will
contrive some sort of shelter meantime with the broken beams!  That is
the type that wins out in the end somehow; these are the men to whom
the miracles happen--who never know when they are beaten, who will face
the most tremendous odds with "the half of a broken hope" for a shield,
who are never done until they are dead.  What makes for success or
failure in a man is nothing external to him at all.  It is something
within him.  It is the temper of his spirit.  It is the way he captains
his own soul.\par

The other day I saw a photograph of a backyard.  It was a little bit of
a place, of the most forlorn appearance, littered with tin cans,
overgrown with weeds, and hemmed round with blank walls of brick.  But
it came into the hands of a man who believed in making the best of
things.  Another photograph showed that same backyard after a year had
passed.  It was still as small as ever, still overlooked by high walls
and surrounded by chimneys.  But it was now a perfect little oasis of
beauty amid a wilderness of bricks and slates.  Will anybody deny that
that spirit pays?\par

Right up the scale, from little things to the highest things, the man
who looks for the shining possibilities and follows them, is the man on
whom, in our short-sighted way, we say that Fortune smiles.  Rather, he
smiles in such a determined way to Fortune, that she has at length to
smile back!\par

Nobody pretends that it is easy, when we have failed, to gather our
powers together and try again.  But nearly all the big men have had to
do that very thing.  It certainly is not easy, when you have a heavy
burden of your own, to spare a cheery word or a hand of sympathy for
somebody who is really much better off, but there are plenty of people
doing it at this moment.  Nero's palace is the last place in this world
where you would expect to find a company of loyal Christian folk.  Yet
there were such people there, "the saints of Cæsar's household."  And
the grace of God that made that possible can achieve all these lesser
wonders too.\par

Second, THINK THE BEST OF EVERYBODY.  There is a winsome legend that
Jesus once revealed Himself in this way:--A knot of idlers had gathered
in the street round a dead dog.  One remarked how mangy and unkempt its
hide was.  Another said, "What ugly ears!"  But a stranger, who had
come forward, said, "Pearls are not whiter than its teeth!"  And men
said to one another, "This must be Jesus of Nazareth, for nobody but He
would find something good even in a dead dog."  Certainly it is the
mark of the most Christlike men and women that they delight rather in
emphasising the merest speck of goodness than in denouncing the too
visible evil.  We can, all too easily, see the fault in another.  What
we cannot see is the heart of the defaulter, the weight of temptation
he struggled under, and his bitter inner penitence.  "Granted," as
Carlyle says, "the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle
damaged; the pilot is blameworthy.  He has not been all-wise and
all-powerful.  But, to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his
voyage has been round the globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of
Dogs."\par

The way to get the best out of people is to think the best about them.
Let a man see that you have good hopes of him, and recognise what is
best in him, and, in ways of which science can give no explanation, you
add to his chances of reaching better things.  In any case, who would
not wish to stand on Christ's side rather than on Judas's.  "This
ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the
poor." That is Judas.  "Let her alone.  Why trouble ye her?  She hath
wrought a good work in me.  She hath done what she could."  That is
Jesus Christ.\par

Third,--Don't leave yourself out of the picture.  HOPE THE BEST FOR
YOURSELF.  George Eliot, in her "Scenes of Clerical Life," gives, in
one chapter, an account of how the Rev. Amos Barton is criticised and
discussed in his parish.  In the next chapter we see the Rev. Amos
himself going on his way blissfully unconscious of the poor opinion in
which he is held, believing quite honestly in himself, and not a little
proud of his abilities.  "We are poor plants," says this keen student
of character, "buoyed up by the air vessels of our own conceit."  And a
blessed thing, too, when you think of it!  If we only knew all the
disparaging remarks people make about us, we should never face up to
our duties at all.  What helps us along is our innocent belief in our
powers, in the esteem in which we are held--our little conceits, if you
like.  Since they send us to our tasks with more spirit, and keep us at
them with more determination, aren't they good things in their way?
They are indeed just a lower form of that hope that we are speaking
of--Hope's poor relations.\par

If these are of such value, how much more pure quiet steady Hope
itself, purged of all pride and undue self-esteem?  Hope the best for
yourself, and you are already a good way on the road to it.  Suggestion
is a tremendously powerful instrument, even when you make it yourself.
By self suggestion, the psychologists tell us, you can influence your
actions, your character, and your general outlook in a wonderful
fashion, either to your advantage or your hurt.  Therefore, they say,
be careful never to suggest evil to yourself.  Never say to yourself,
"I'm going to make a mess of this," or "I am not fit for that."
Suggest success, happiness, health, and you beckon them to you.  Hope
the best for yourself, and you pave the way for its coming.\par

On higher planes, the same holds true.  Hope on, and, though you fall
you will rise again.  Believe that you will be enabled to face your
trouble or temptation, and you will be brought through it somehow.
Even when the end of life is near, hope still, for beyond this best
there is a better, and God's road winds uphill all the way.\par

But, you say, this is just faith.  I know it is.  Run your hopes for
yourself up as high as you can reach, and they will touch God and
become faith.  That is why you are to hope the best for yourself.
Because--God.  Because God the Father loves you, and desires the best
for you too.  I believe in the optimism which Stephenson's motto
embodies, because I believe in the Fatherhood of God through our Lord
Jesus Christ.  That is why I counsel you to go on hoping that the best
is yet to be.  Not that we can earn it at all, or that we deserve it at
all.  But--because God, our Father.  And, for the daring and faith of
that saying, this sufficient ground.--Because--Jesus Christ.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Help us all, Heavenly Father, to meet the discipline of life with
stouter hearts.  May we all try harder to cultivate the Christ-like
mark of charity.  And spite of our many sins and shortcomings, and our
poor love of Thee, grant us the courage to believe that all things, in
Thy great Love for us, are working together for our good.  We ask it
for Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par\label{finical-farming}%
\hypertarget{finical-farming}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{He that observeth the wind}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{shall not sow, and he that}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{regardeth the clouds shall not}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{reap.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(ECCLESIASTES ii. 4.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ IV}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ FINICAL FARMING}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
When a man like the writer of Ecclesiastes gives his views on life, it
is worth everybody's while to listen.  A tabloid of experience is worth
a ton of theory.  And it is from his own knowledge of men and
experience of life that he has discovered that "he that observeth the
wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."\par

Was ever a temper of mind, that we all know something about, more
neatly hit off than that?  You can see the very picture which this wise
preacher had before his eyes.  Agricola was a farmer in his parish who
would not sow his fields unless the wind was blowing soft and gentle
from a certain direction, and the clouds were just as he wished to see
them.  He held there was no hope of a harvest unless wind and clouds
were right.  And I observed, says the wise man, that Agricola, my
farmer friend, waiting for the exactly suitable conditions, never got
his seed in at all.\par

He was speaking chiefly about benevolence and charity when he used this
figure.  And that is one reason why we need to give heed to it.  For
ours is an age of charity.  We give more to the poor and needy to-day
than ever any nation gave before.  It is said, indeed, that a good deal
of our giving is not very wise.  Our charities overlap.  The truly
necessitous are forgotten, and the improvident, the lazy, and the
wasteful reap the largest share.  Certainly that is one of the perils
of charity-giving.  But I question very much if, in our efforts to
avoid it, we are not running the risk of falling into a graver mistake
still, namely, of observing the wind overmuch before we sow.  If I
refuse to give my mite for Christ's sake till I have made perfectly
certain that it will not be misused, if we withhold our subscription
from a charity till we are assured that it is managed in the very most
economical fashion, it will end in us giving nothing at all.  There is,
of course, a reasonable amount of inquiry that is not only legitimate
but necessary.  Just as there is a regarding of the clouds before
reaping which is simply wise.  But, to wait till every scruple is
satisfied, till every risk has been eliminated and there is not a cloud
in the sky, is to wait for a state of matters that may be long enough
in coming.  Meantime the needy person may die; or the corn blacken in
the fields.\par

Charity, however, is but a small part of Christian benevolence.  The
law of Christ says "neighbour" whether he be poor or not.  He is in
trouble, and I feel inclined to visit him.  Must I wait till I am sure
he will not misunderstand my motive?  I have it in my heart to forgive
him.  Shall I defer the reconciliation till I am convinced he will not
offend again?  Or I have hurt and offended him, and wish to apologise.
Had I not better wait till I know that he will not reject my advances?
The wise man's answer to all these questions is an emphatic No.  If you
wait for all that, he says, you will wait too long, and the chance will
go past.  Wait till the wind and the clouds are just as you would wish
them, and you will neither sow nor reap at all.\par

What to do, then?  The wise man answers: "In the morning sow thy seed,
and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not whether
shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike
good."  Just because you can never fully calculate what the result of
your labours may be, give up trying.  Don't trouble about it, but do
what comes to your hand at the time.  If it is sowing time, don't wait
for the perfect day.  If the weather will do at all, sow thy seed in
the morning, and in the evening do not stop.  In other words, Take life
more royally.  Do not be deterred by its ordinary risks.  Seize your
chance like a brave man.  You do not know, of course, whether that seed
you sow will prosper or not.  But sow it, all the same.  Don't let the
fact that you don't know cause you to hold your hand.  It is just
because you do not know but that the kindness which you offer your
neighbour may be ill-requited, that there is a royal free-handed
self-forgetfulness in offering it.  That a man should live his life and
do his good deeds with a certain dash and carelessness of
consequence--that, the Preacher thought the ideal of noble living.  And
when we measure it by the standard of Him who said, Do good and lend,
hoping for nothing again, it does not seem to come so very far short.\par

For, of course, there are the continual surprises that life holds for
faith.  If only the corn reaped when the clouds were just right was
safely gathered in, then indeed we might feel that we could not be too
careful.  But what do we find again and again?  Why, we find that men
who have had the faith to sow when the day was by no means perfect have
been blessed beyond their expectations.  We find our barns full and
running over, though we reaped on a cloudy day.  We have seen men cast
their bread upon the waters, where you would say it was certain to be
lost, and find it again, after many days.  It's perfectly true that you
don't know whether shall prosper this or that.  Yet how often have you
been surprised to find that where you thought you knew, you were proved
mistaken, and where you dealt in faith, it stood justified beyond your
dreams.\par

And so, the end of the matter for the Preacher is, once more, Live your
life royally, with a certain loving wastefulness, and an easy disregard
of calculations.  Do all the good you can, and do it with a free hand,
not asking to see your harvest before you sow, but taking your risk of
it, and leaving the outcome with God.  "Cast your bread on the waters,
and you will find it after many days."\par

But what of the bread one has cast on the waters, only to see it
carried away, apparently of no use to anybody?  What of the faith that
has not been justified?  What of the good done to the ill-deserving, of
the kindly-meant act repaid with indignity and scorn?  It is a hard
question, not easy to answer, not fully to be answered at all.  "After
many days," said the Preacher.  And there is no sign yet, we say.
Patience, brothers, patience!  God's day is not yet done.  When the
days have run out to the end, it will be time enough to say if we miss
the bread returning.  We shall be better able to count the gains and
the losses, if there are any then,--when the "days" are done.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Teach us, O Lord and Master, the high and difficult lesson that only
those who lose their lives shall truly find them.  Show us that the
manna hoarded in miserly fashion is always touched by Thy curse.  In
small things as in great, may this be a token that we are Thy
disciples, that virtue also goeth out of us.  Amen.\par\label{the-doctor}%
\hypertarget{the-doctor}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{But when Jesus heard}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{that, he said unto them, they}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{that be whole need not a physician,}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{but they that are sick.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(MATTHEW ix. 12.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ V}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE DOCTOR}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Jesus is Himself the best witness as to what He was, and what He wished
to do for men.  It is a fact, moreover, for which we cannot be too
thankful that, in explaining Himself, Jesus used not the language of
doctrine, but living figures and symbols which the humblest and
youngest could not fail to understand.\par

When, for example, He compared Himself to a shepherd leaving the ninety
and nine in the fold and braving the darkness and the steep places that
he might bring back the one that had wandered, He opens a window into
His own love for men which is worth pages of description.  For those
who are familiar with the daily life and work of a shepherd, it means a
great deal that Jesus waits to be the Shepherd of men.\par

But, in these very different days of ours, there are multitudes in
streets and tenements who have never seen a shepherd, and know not what
manner of life is his.  So that one is glad that Jesus gave Himself
other names as well.  When Matthew Arnold met the pale-faced preacher
in the slums of Bethnal Green, and asked him how he did--\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"Bravely," he said, "for I of late have been\par}
{\vl Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the Living Bread."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
If that name for Christ brought him comfort, another preacher may be
allowed to confess that he has often been cheered and helped by the
thought of Jesus as the Good Physician.  I am glad that in effect, at
least, if not in actual words, He called Himself by that name.\par

This is His apology for consorting with publicans and sinners, for
being so accessible to those who had lost caste and character.  He says
it is the sick who need a Physician, not those who are well.  And His
defence implies that Jesus regarded Himself as being in a true sense a
Physician, not for outward ills merely, but for the whole man, body,
mind, and spirit.\par

The days were, as you know, when priest and physician were one calling;
and it is doubtless to the advantage of both vocations that their
spheres are now distinct.  But it may be, and I think it is,
unfortunate that Jesus should be regarded by many as so entirely
identified with the priestly side of life and the priestly calling.  It
is beyond question that a faithful priest is, in his degree, a mirror
of Christ, and helps men to see Him more clearly.  But it is also
true--and a truth worth underlining in these days--that the Doctor,
too, is a symbol of what Christ means to be to men--nay, more, that
there are respects in which the figure of a beloved physician of to-day
comes nearer to the reality of the living human Christ than any other
calling in the world.\par

It is a sure and unique place which the Doctor holds in the esteem and
confidence of the community.  He is the most accessible of all
professional men, the most implicitly trusted, and, I think, the best
beloved.  At all hours of the day and night he is ready to give his
services to those who need him.  His mere presence in the sick room
inspires confidence.  In the poor districts of town and city
especially, he is more really the friend and confidant and helper of
everybody than any other person whatever.  As no other man does, the
Doctor goes about continually doing good.  His life is a constant
self-sacrifice for his fellow-men.  He wears himself out in the
interests of the needy.  He runs risks daily from which other men flee.
He asks not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and often and
literally he gives his life a ransom for many.\par

And I do not know what we have been thinking of that we have not
oftener made use of this as Christ's claim for Himself, that we have
not told the ignorant and the very poor especially, who know far more
about the Doctor than they do about the Church, who are, in fact, shy
of all that is priestly, but who do understand and appreciate the
Doctor, I say, I do not know why we have not oftener told them to
forget that Jesus is the King and Head of the Church and remember only
that He is the best of all Physicians.  That Christ is compassionate,
sympathetic, and approachable, like the Doctor, would be veritable good
news to many a poor ignorant soul who is mightily afraid of His priests.\par

The word which comes to our lips when we seek to characterise the life
and work of the true Doctor is Christlike.  And big as the title is, it
is deserved.  In sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, in his care most for
those who most need him, in the way he identifies himself with his
patient, bearing with, because understanding, his weakness and
petulance and fears, and seeking all the while only to heal and help
and save him, there is no more Christlike character or calling in the
modern world than the Doctor.\par

I am the happy possessor of an engraving--a gift from one whose calling
is to teach doctors--of Luke Fildes' famous picture.  Most of you
doubtless are familiar with it.  It represents the interior of a humble
home where a little child lies critically ill.  The father and mother,
distracted with grief, have yielded their place beside the couch to the
Doctor, who sits watching and waiting, all-absorbed in the little one's
trouble.  It is a noble face, strong, compassionate, resourceful,
gentle; and if the Eternal Christ of God is to be represented to us in
His strength and gentleness by any human analogy or likeness whatever,
as He wished to be, and indeed must be, no finer figure could be found,
I think, than that, none more certain to draw out the reverence and
gratitude and trust of men.\par

Men of all grades and classes appeal to and trust the Doctor.  But how
many of them realise that Jesus desires that men should come to Him and
trust His willingness to help and save them, just as they would do to
some good physician?  How many men who have found comfort by taking
their fears and forebodings to the Doctor and hearing his authoritative
"Go in peace!" know or realise that just so would Jesus have us bring
Him our unworthiness and shame and sin?  Jesus never preached at those
whom His compassion drew to Him.  He never lectured them, He just
helped them, and that at once.  He lifted them to their feet and gave
them a new hope.  He, straightway, in God's name, assured them of
forgiveness.\par

Ah, if men only understood that Jesus is to be found to-day down among
the world's burdened and weary souls, not as a Priest begirt with
ceremony and aloof from daily life, but as a Physician, approachable,
helpful, human, who sees and pities their weakness, and longs to save
them and help them to their best.  If men only understood that!\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We come to Thee, Thou Good Physician, with all our ills and fears.  We
would whisper in Thine ear the troubles that frighten and shame us.
Surely Thou wilt hear.  Draw near us in Thy strength and Pity, and in
Thy Mercy heal us all.  Amen.\par\label{well-and-now}%
\hypertarget{well-and-now}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Whatsoever thy hand findeth}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{to do, do it with thy might,}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{for there is no work nor device}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{nor knowledge nor wisdom in}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{the grave whither thou goest.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(ECCLESIASTES ix. 10.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ VI}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ WELL AND NOW}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
In popular and condensed form, the golden rule according to
Ecclesiastes is, "Do it well and do it now."  His own words are,
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is
no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou
goest."  We want to let that precept soak into our minds for a little.\par

DO IT WELL.  "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
Among the lesser joys of life there are few that thrill one with a more
pleasurable sense of satisfaction than that which goes with the bit of
work finished, rounded-off and done as well as one can do it.  No
matter what the job may be, if it is worth doing at all, or if it is
one's business to do it, it is not difficult to recognise in the
curious inward glow over its honourable completion, a token of God's
good pleasure, some far-off echo of His "Well done!"\par

It is a truism which never loses its point that it is enthusiasm that
commands success.  In her weird book called "Dreams," Olive Schreiner
tells the parable of an artist who painted a beautiful picture.  On it
there was a wonderful glow which drew the admiration of all his
compeers, but which none could imitate.  The other painters said, Where
did he get his colours?  But though they sought rich and rare pigments
in far-off Eastern lands they could not catch the secret of it.  One
day the artist was found dead beside his picture, and when they
stripped him for his shroud they found a wound beneath his heart.  Then
it dawned upon them where he had got his colour.  He had painted his
picture with his own heart's blood!  It is the only way to paint it, if
the picture is to be worth while at all.  If we would have the work
that we do live and count, our heart's blood must go into it.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.\par

What magnificent heart-stirring examples are coming to us every day
just now, from sea and battle-field, of the good old British virtue of
sticking in gamely to the end and "seeing the thing through!"  If the
stories of the old English Admirals are calculated, as Stevenson says,
to "send bank clerks back with more heart and spirit to their
book-keeping by double entry," shall not the story that unfolds day by
day of what our own kith and kin are doing, nerve and inspire us all to
"do OUR bit," to face up to OUR duty, humdrum and ordinary though it
be, with the same grit and energy, with the same determination to see
it through, and make as good a job of it as we can?\par

The Preacher has his reason for this advice.  Because, he says, some
day you will have to stop and lay down your tools, and that will be the
end.  No more touching botched work after that.  No going back to lift
dropped stitches then.  Such as it is, your record will have to stand
as you leave it, when Death raps at your door.  Even for us in this
Christian age, this ancient Preacher's reason still stands valid and
solemn.  Do what you are at now as well as ever you can, for you shall
pass that way no more again for ever.\par

The Apostle Paul, who expresses practically the same sentiment, gives a
different reason.  "Whatever ye do," he writes to the Colossians, "do
it heartily as to the Lord."  And that is the point for you and me.
Not merely because we have a limited time to work, but because our work
is Christ's service, we must do it heartily, with all our might.  It is
to the Lord.  To us all in our different labours, in the things we work
at day by day, and the worthy interests we endeavour to support, there
comes this call that transforms the very commonest duty into an
honourable obligation to a personal living Master--Whatever ye do, do
it heartily as to the Lord.\par

Yes, and DO IT NOW.  For the amount of misery and suffering and remorse
that is directly due to putting off the God-given impulse or generous
purpose to some other season, is simply incalculable.  If all the kind
letters had been written when the thought of writing was fresh and
insistent--ah me, how many burdened souls would have been the braver
and the stronger.  If only the friendly visit had been paid when we
thought about it--and why wasn't it?  "Never suppose," says Bagshot,
"that you can make up to a neglected friend by going to visit him in a
hospital.  Repent on your own death-bed, if you like, but not on
another's."\par

An old writer on agriculture says that there are seasons when if the
husbandman misses a day he falls a whole year behind.  But in life the
result is often more serious still.  When you miss the day, you miss it
for ever.  Wherefore, let us hear the words of the Preacher.  If we
have a kind purpose in our heart towards any living soul, let us do it
now.  If we think of beginning a better way of living, let us begin
now.  If we propose to end our days sworn and surrendered servants and
soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, let us volunteer now, for this is
the day of salvation.\par

It is said that a great English moralist had engraved on his watch the
words, "The night cometh," so that whenever he looked at the time he
might be reminded of the preciousness of the passing moment.  The night
cometh.  How far away it may be, or how near to any one of us, no one
of us knows.  But near or far it cometh with unhalting step.
Wherefore, whatsoever the thing be that is in your heart to do, great
or little, for yourself or for others, for man or for God--DO IT NOW!\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, by whose command it is that man goeth forth to his work
and his labour until the evening, grant us all a more earnest regard
for the sacredness of each passing moment, and help us to do with our
whole heart whatsoever our hand findeth to do.  For Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par\label{the-washen-face-in-war-time}%
\hypertarget{the-washen-face-in-war-time}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{And he washed his face,}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{and went out, and refrained}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{himself, and said, Set on bread.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(GENESIS xliii. 31.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ VII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE "WASHEN FACE" IN WAR TIME}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
That is what Joseph did when his feelings nearly overmastered him at
the sight of his brother Benjamin standing before him, all unconscious
of who he was.  He "sought where to weep," says the record with quaint
matter-of-factness, for of course he did not want his brothers to see
him weeping just yet.  So "he entered into his chamber and wept there."
But Joseph's secret affections being thus recognised and allowed their
expression, he had a duty to perform.  He put a curb upon his feelings.
He took a firm grip of himself.  He "washed his face and went out, and
refrained himself, and said, Set on bread."  One cannot help admiring
that.  It was a fine thing to do.\par

And there are two classes of people in our own time in whom one sees
this same attitude, and never without a strange stirring of heart.\par

The first and most honourable are those who have already tasted of the
sorrows of war and lost some dear one in the service of King and
country.  We speak of the courage and sacrifice of our men, and we
cannot speak too highly or too gratefully about that.  But there is
something else that runs it very close, if it does not exceed it, and
that is the quiet heroism and endurance of many of those who have been
bereaved.  Time and again one sees them facing up to all life's calls
upon them with a marvellous spirit of self-restraint.  God only knows
how sad and sore their loss is.  And upon what takes place when they
enter into their chamber and shut the door and face their sorrow alone
with God, it does not beseem us to intrude.  Such sorrow is a sacred
thing, but at least we know, and are glad to know, that God Himself is
there as He is nowhere else.  It is never wrong and never weak to let
the tears come before Him.  As a father understands, so does He know
all about it.  As a mother comforteth, so does the touch of His Hand
quieten and console.\par

But what fills one with reverent admiration is that so many of those
whose hearts we know have been so cruelly wounded have set up a new and
noble precedent in the matter of courage and self-control.  They are
not shirking any of the duties of life.  They are claiming no
exemptions on the ground of their sorrow, and they excuse themselves
from no duty merely because it would hurt.  They wear their hurt gently
like a flower in the breast.  They carry their sorrow like a coronet.
Out from their secret chambers they come, with washen face and brave
lips to do their duty and refrain themselves.  How beautiful it is!
What a fine thing to see!  The sorrowing mother of a noble young fellow
I am proud to have known, said to a friend recently who was marvelling
at her fortitude, "My boy was very brave and I must try to be brave,
too, for his sake."  Dear, gentle mother!  One cannot speak worthily
about a spirit so sweet and gracious as that.  One can only bow the
head and breathe the inward prayer, "God send thee peace, brave heart!"
But, surely, to accept sorrow in that fashion is to entertain unawares
an angel of God!  The feeling which underlies this new etiquette of
sorrow with the washen face is not very easily put into words.  But it
rests, I think, upon the dim sense that the death which ends those
young lives on this noble field of battle is something different from
the ordinary bleak fact of mortality.  If death is ever glorious, it is
when it comes to the soldier fighting for a pure and worthy cause.
There is something more than sorrow, there is even a quiet and reverent
pride in the remembrance that the beloved life was given as "a ransom
for many."  When one thinks what we are fighting for, one can hardly
deny to the fallen the supreme honour of the words "for Christ's sake."
And it is not death to fall so.  Rather is it the finding of life
larger and more glorious still.  It is that that marks the war-mourners
of to-day as a caste royal and apart.  It is that that moves so many of
them by an inward instinct to wear their sorrow royally.  Hidden in the
heart of their grief is a tender and wistful pride.  Lowell has put
this feeling into very fine words:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"I, with uncovered head,\par}
{\vl Salute the sacred dead,\par}
{\vl Who went and who return not--\par}
{\vl Say not so.\par}
{\vl 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,\par}
{\vl But the high faith that fails not by the way.\par}
{\vl Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;\par}
{\vl No bar of endless night exiles the brave,\par}
{\vl And, to the saner mind,\par}
{\vl We rather seem the dead that stayed behind."\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
The other class who are teaching us a new and better way to bear
burdens are the friends at home of those who are on active service.
Men, with sons in the trenches, are going about our streets these days
almost as if nothing were happening, making it a point of honour not to
let the lurking fear in their hearts have any outward expression.
Wives and mothers and sisters are filling their hands and their hearts
full of duties, and putting such a brave face on life that you would
never suspect they have a chamber that could tell a different tale.  It
is absolutely splendid.  There is no other word for it.  I walked a
street-length with a young wife recently whose man has been ill and out
of the fight for a while.  She hoped that he might have been sent home,
and who can blame her? but he has gone back to the trenches instead.
And how bravely and quietly she spoke of it!  Pride, a true and noble
pride in her beloved soldier, a resolute endeavour to do her difficult
bit as uncomplainingly and willingly as he--it seemed to me that I saw
all that in her brave smile.  And I said to myself, "Here is the cult
of the washen face!  And a noble cult too!  Britain surely deserves to
win when her women carry their crosses so!"\par

It is easy, of course, to read the thought in their minds.  Our men,
they say, are splendid, why should we be doleful and despondent?  They
have made a new virtue of cheerfulness; let us try to learn it too.
They have offered everything in a cause which it is an honour to help
in any degree; let us lay beside theirs the worthy sacrifice of the
washen face and a brave restraint.  Such, I imagine, is the unconscious
kind of reasoning which results in the resolute and cheerful bearing
you may see on all sides of you every day.\par

And wherever it is seen, it carries its blessing with it.  Others with
their own private burdens and anxieties are encouraged to hold on to
that hope and cheerfulness which are just the homely side of our faith
in God and in the righteousness of our cause.\par

The cult of the washen face is contagious.  It spreads like a
beneficent stain.  And since it is entirely praiseworthy, we can but
wish it to spread more and more.  Those who come out from the chambers
where they have kept company with sorrow or anxiety, to face life and
duty with shining face and mastered feelings, are not only proving
their faith in the Divine Strength, they are making a precious
contribution to the moral stedfastness of the nation.\par

"And he washed his face and went out and refrained himself."  Good man!\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We bless Thee, O God, for the assurance that Thine ear is ever open to
our cry, that it is never wrong to take our sorrows and our cares to
Thee.  But help us also, endowed with Thy strength in our secret
chambers, to bear our burdens bravely in the sight of men.  For Thy
Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{the-real-martha}%
\hypertarget{the-real-martha}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{But few things are needful,}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{or one.}}}}{\footnotesize{"  R. V. (margin).}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(LUKE X. 42.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ VIII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE REAL MARTHA}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
When Jesus said, upon one occasion, that He had not where to lay His
head, He was speaking the bitter and literal truth.  He had really no
home of His own, but was everywhere a wanderer, dependent on others for
shelter and food; and though the New Testament draws a veil over all
the hardships which that entailed even in the hospitable East,
imagination can picture something at least of what the homelessness of
Jesus must have meant.\par

But He had close and warm friends who made it up to Him as far as
friends could, and of these were the two sisters, Martha and Mary, who
with their brother, Lazarus, had a house in Bethany.  This place was
His haven and shelter, for "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus."  The sisters were unlike in disposition.  Mary, we can
imagine, was dreamy, meditative, perhaps a little delicate and fragile,
and gifted with a quick and loving sympathy.  Martha was robust,
practical, energetic.  Her way of showing the Master that she
considered it an honour to have Him for a guest was to give Him the
very best that her housewifely skill could suggest.  No trouble was too
much for her.  And it is very possible that one of the charms which
this home had for Jesus--one of the qualities which made it a real
place of rest--was its well-ordered arrangements, the quiet, efficient,
capable way in which things were done.  And whose was the credit for
that?  Martha's.\par

What would that household have been like without Martha?  And what
would any home that is fortunate enough to have a Martha in it, be like
without her?  The truth is our debt to the Marthas is one which we have
never fully acknowledged.  You would imagine, hearing the way in which
her name is sometimes used, that it has an apologetic character, as if
the making of a home comfortable and homelike were a gift to be lightly
esteemed in comparison, for example, with the ability to write verse!
It is foolish to play Mary off against her sister in this way.  Martha
did what she could do best, and showed her love for Christ in that
fashion, and you may be quite sure that He understood.  Mary served Him
in her way, by giving Him what He needed more at times than food--a
heart to listen to His message, and a sympathy which made the telling
of it meat and drink to Him.  Each sister was the complement of the
other.\par

But we wrong Martha, of course, in thinking of her as always in the
kitchen.  Certainly when there waas a meal to be prepared you would
find her there, and well that was for the household and the servants.
But nobody is always eating or thinking about eating; and often of an
evening, doubtless, when the labours of the day were over, Martha would
join her sister at the feet of the Master whom she loved as much as
Mary did.\par

The incident which has given rise to the popular misconception of
Martha's character occurred during a visit which Jesus paid in the days
before Lazarus fell sick.  Something went wrong in Martha's department
that day.  Perhaps it was a mistake of a servant that irritated the
usually self-controlled Martha, or maybe some oversight of her own.  At
anyrate, it set up a condition of worry which straightway began to add
to itself, as its habit is, seven other devils.  And as Martha went out
and in the dining chamber getting things ready, the sight of Mary
sitting there at the Master's feet doing nothing, struck her, perhaps
for the first time, as rather out of place.  Things began to go further
wrong.  Just when Martha wanted to do special honour to Jesus, the
ordinarily smooth-running wheels of that home began to creak and grind.
Each time she entered the room where Christ and Mary were, Martha's
steps grew brisker and more emphatic; and then the last straw was laid
on, and the outburst came!  Martha asked Jesus if He really did not
care that Mary was leaving her to do everything.  Bid her come and help
me, she said.\par

Of course, Jesus knew that it was for His sake that Martha was giving
herself all this trouble.  He saw, as even we can see, that this
kind-hearted, worried woman was speaking crossly, as the very best will
do at times, because she was tired and a bit overdriven.  And with a
perfect and gentle chivalry and tact He made His reply.  As the
Authorised Version puts it, it jars on one, somehow.  But King James'
translators have misread their text.  What Jesus said was: "Martha,
Martha, you are unduly anxious and troubled.  Only a few things are
necessary, or even one.  Mary has chosen a good part, and I cannot
allow you to take it from her."\par

Martha, remember, was making a feast worthy of the Master, and Jesus,
looking upon the various dishes being got ready, said, in effect, I do
not really need so many as that.  One would do quite well.  And I must
not let you think that Mary is doing nothing.  She, too, is ministering
to me by her sympathy and her willing ear, and you must not take away
the good part she has chosen.\par

Jesus was not speaking about the personal salvation of either Mary or
her sister.  He was only dealing gently with a good and true friend of
His who had not served Him as she had wished to do.  When He spoke of
what was needful, He meant needful for Himself, the Guest whom both the
sisters were seeking to honour.\par

He made no comparison between Martha's service and Mary's.  He did not
say, as we have read it so often, that Mary had chosen the better part.
He said, in her defence, that Mary's was also a good part.  He is not
blaming Martha, but only expostulating with her in the gentlest
fashion, and defending Mary from the charge which Martha in her heat
had made against her, the charge of being useless, and doing nothing to
help to entertain the Master.  Jesus said, She is helping to entertain
Me in her own way, and, He added, it is a good way.\par

When Jesus having said that only a few things were necessary, dropped
His voice, as we may imagine, and added "or indeed one," He may have
meant more than He seemed to say.  For there was one thing that was
more than meat to our Lord, and that was to find a soul with heart and
sympathy open to His message.  And it may be that He felt, as He said
the words, that Mary's ministry met a need of His deeper than that for
which Martha was catering.  At anyrate, the oldest and best versions of
this Gospel give Christ's words as we have rendered them, and they
stand here, not to be used as a peg on which to hang doctrines, but
rather as a proof of the gentle courtesy of our Lord, of His insight
into character and motive, and of His gracious recognition of the worth
of any and every kind of service that has love at its heart.\par

Martha went back to her kitchen, and Mary remained where she was.  Mary
was not asked to go and help.  Martha would have protested if she had
come.  Martha was not called upon to go and sit beside Mary.  Each
continued the service for which she was best fitted.  But each, I
think, had learned something that day.  And you and I must not leave
this page of our New Testament till we have learned it too--that we
serve best when we do gladly that for which we are best qualified; that
it belongs to our Christian service to recognise in all loyalty that,
though others find different ways of expressing it, theirs is a good
part; and that we must never either belittle it or seek to take it from
them.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, Who by many diverse ways dost bring us near to Thee,
and in differing modes and stations dost appoint our service, help us
gladly and gratefully to do the things we can do, neither envying those
whose opportunities are greater, nor forbidding those who follow not
us.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{our-unearned-increment}%
\hypertarget{our-unearned-increment}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{He giveth (to) His beloved}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{(in their) sleep.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(PSALM cxxvii. 2.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ IX}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ OUR UNEARNED INCREMENT}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
"It is vain for you," says the writer of the 127th Psalm, "to rise
early and sit up late and eat the bread of sorrow, for so He giveth to
His beloved (in their) sleep."  That is the true reading, and I want
you to think about it.  "God giveth to His beloved while they sleep."
Over and above what you have yourself achieved, you GET something you
have never worked for.  And you get that, as it were, in your sleep.
This is a beautiful thought, and there are three people to whom I want
to offer it as God's comfort.\par

The first is the worried man.  It is indeed directly against worry that
this psalmist sets forth his reminder.  It is not that he minimises the
need for hard work and watchful care.  But he tells the man who is
feverishly burning his candle at both ends, and consuming himself in a
frenzy of tense anxiety, to leave something for God to do.  It is as if
he said, "Why so hot, little man, why so fiercely clutching all the
ropes?  Remember that God is working too as well as you, working in
your interest and in love for you.  When you have done your best
therefore, go to your bed and sleep with a quiet mind, for God giveth
to His beloved even so."\par

One can imagine how a word like that would relax the tension and lead
some persuadable Hebrew who heard it to say, "Ah, well, I worry far too
much.  After all, I am not Providence.  I am always getting a great
many things I have not wrought for.  I shall worry less about securing
the good things I desire for me and mine, and trust more to God to give
them as He sees fit."  If all of us who needed this reminder just had
the sense to come to the same conclusion!\par

I have seen a man compass his family with so many careful regulations
and observances that the criticism of a candid friend seemed entirely
just.  "You would think," he said, "to see so-and-so shepherding his
family, that there was no other providence than his own."  You can't be
with your best beloved all the while.  And you ought to know that God
too is watching even while you sleep.\par

If there be some plan on which you have set your heart, and you are
over-anxious about it, quote this text to yourself.  Do your best, of
course, but, having done so, leave the outcome with God.  About a great
many of the things over which we worry ourselves needlessly, I believe
God's word to us is:--Leave these things to Me.  You can't work for
them.  And anxiety won't bring them.  But you will get them, as you
need them, just as if they came to you in your sleep.\par

Said one hermit to another in the Egyptian desert, as he looked at a
flourishing olive tree near his cave, "How came that goodly tree there,
brother?  For I too planted an olive, and when I thought it wanted
water, I asked God to give it rain and the rain came, and when I
thought it wanted sun I asked God and the sun shone, and when I deemed
it needed strengthening, I prayed and the frost came--God gave me all I
demanded for my tree, as I saw fit, and yet it died."  "And I,
brother," replied the other hermit, "I left my tree in God's hands, for
He knew what it wanted better than I, and behold what a goodly tree it
has become."\par

The second man to whom I would offer the comfort of this word of God is
the man who is disappointed.  Things have gone wrong with him.  The
plan on which he spent so much of his time and energy has miscarried,
and a very different result has emerged from what he counted on.  His
way, as he saw it, is blocked, and he has had to turn aside.\par

Now, there are not many things one can say usefully to a disappointed
man.  And it is cruel kindness to try to heal his hurt lightly.
Nevertheless, to him also the psalmist's message applies, and what he
needs to remember, that he may pick up heart and go on again, is that
God giveth to His beloved while they sleep.\par

We have all had disappointments, sore enough at the time, which
after-experience proved to have been blessings in disguise.  Many a man
can point to a signal failure as the beginning of a true success or
usefulness or happiness.  We did not feel as if we were being enriched
when our plan fell through, and we were bitter and rebellious enough at
the time, it may be, but it is quite clear to us now that God was at
that very time giving to us with both His hands.\par

No one, of course, can see that about any more than a few of his
disappointments.  It would be false to experience to speak as if we
could.  But what is manifestly true about one or two may conceivably
hold with regard to them all, if we knew more, or could see better.
And the Christian Gospel calls us to believe and trust that that is so.
There is another Hand than ours shaping our life, a wiser Hand.  Better
things are being done for us than we can see in the meantime.  And the
man whose hopes and plans have turned out amiss, but whose trust is
still in God, is invited by our psalmist to reason with himself
thus:--"I am like a man asleep, and I do not rightly understand at
present, but I will trust that it is not for nothing that misfortune
has come, and when I wake I shall hope to see that God has been giving
to me in love and mercy when I was not aware of it at all."\par

The third man whom this text will help and comfort is the worker, the
man or woman who is trying to do something for Christ's sake.  The
Christian worker needs to be told that what he is trying to do is not
nearly all that he is doing.  What he is, is speaking as loudly as what
he does or says.  There is an aroma and fragrance about the life of the
consecrated Christ-like man or woman which sweetens and sanctifies
other lives beyond what he or she can ever know.  Some of the best
sermons in the world have been preached by people who least suspected
what they were doing.  The invalid in the home does not know how real
religion becomes to all who watch her patience and unselfishness.  And
among the busy and vigorous we often catch hints and reflections, that
they never suspect, of what Christ-likeness means.  The man who has
surrendered his life to God, indeed, is a channel of blessing to others
beyond all he ever dreams of.  He must not be disheartened when he
realises how little he is doing, for the truth is he is doing far, far
more than he knows.  Wherefore, my brother, be of good cheer, and
render your service to Christ with a quiet heart.  Lay your course, and
work your ship, and hoist your sail and trust.  And the gifts of God
will enrich you, and the winds of heaven will bring you on your way,
even while you sleep.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We give Thee thanks, O God, for all Thy bounties, undeserved and
unearned; for the increase Thou dost send us while the stars are
shining; for Thy gracious thirty-fold and sixty-fold beyond what we
have sown.  Every morning Thou leavest gifts upon our doorstep and dost
depart unthanked.  But this day we remember, and we bow our heads to
render unto Thee our humble and our hearty thanks for all that Thou
hast given us while we slept.  Amen.\par\label{smoking-wicks}%
\hypertarget{smoking-wicks}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The smoking flax he shall not quench.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(ISAIAH xlii. 3.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ X}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ SMOKING WICKS}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We read the 42nd chapter of Isaiah now as if it were a part of the
Christian Evangel.  And that is right.  For whoever the Servant may
have been, of whom Isaiah was thinking, it is Christ and only Christ
who completely fulfils this prophecy.  This is a true description of
His spirit and His method.  "The dimly-burning wick he shall not
quench."\par

The figure is easily understood.  Here is a piece of flax floating in
oil, and burning so faintly that it seems a mere charred end from which
the smoke coils thinly upwards.  Some one comes and snuffs it out,
because it smells.  That is the way of the world's reformers, as Isaiah
saw it, and we can see it still.  By and by they will trim the wick and
light it with fire of their own, but first they will quench the spark.
But there is One to come, said Isaiah, shooting his arrow of prophecy
in the air, who will go otherwise about it.  He will not despise the
spark because it is so feeble.  He will tend it and foster it, and make
the evil-smelling bundle of flax into a clear, shining light.  And the
saying has found its mark in Jesus Christ.\par

When a woman that was a sinner made her way into the house where He sat
at meat, and wept at His feet, He amazed all those present by the
extraordinary gentleness of His dealing with her.  He did not refer to
the evil in her life.  He did not, as other good men would have done,
first cast her down, that He might afterwards lift her up.  He simply
took the beautiful impulse after good which she brought Him out of a
life besmirched and tawdry, held it in His hands--a mere spark of
virtue--and breathing on it, blessed it, and behold it was a flame,
burning up the evil in her life, a lamp lighting her path along a new
and hopeful way.  That was Christ.  He does not, He will not quench the
dimly-burning wick.\par

Now--and this is our point--if those who profess and call themselves
Christians are to have the spirit in them that was also in Christ
Jesus, must not this be their mark too?  Does not this prescribe their
attitude to life, that many-coloured, strangely-mixed compound of good
and evil?  Good in any form, however feeble, however mixed, as in this
world it inevitably is, with what is evil, should find in those who
call themselves by Christ's name, its truest supporters, sympathisers,
friends.\par

To the eye and heart in sympathy with it, beauty often peeps out in
strange places.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"The poem hangs on the berry bush,\par}
{\vl When comes the poet's eye,\par}
{\vl And the whole street is a masquerade\par}
{\vl When Shakespeare passes by."\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
So the mark of the Christ-like heart is just that it discerns, and,
discerning, loves the feeblest tokens of some inward grace that redeems
a life from evil.  Do not be afraid that by welcoming the scant good,
you may be held to approve of the greater evil.  That is a risk that
God Himself rejoices to take.  Did not Christ risk that, when He
accepted that poor woman's worship?  Did He not risk it when He held
out His hands to a man like Zaccheus?  Does He not risk it always when
He declares, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out?"  And
shall we refuse because the risk is too great?\par

Life presents us with many anomalies that refuse to square with our
theories.  You find men exhibiting qualities of character, which any
Christian might be proud to emulate, outside of the Church altogether.
And you cannot simply label these--"glittering vices," and pass on.
God is not two but One, and goodness is His token wherever it be found.
"The World," says John Owen, "cannot yet afford to do without the good
acts even of its bad men."  And the truth for us to learn is that the
grace of God is not bound by our standards or limits.  Make the circle
as wide as you like, you will still discover fruits of the Spirit
outside, where by all our canons they were never to be expected.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"And every virtue we possess,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl And every victory won,\par}
}

{\vl And every thought of holiness\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Are His alone."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
It is for something more than tolerance I am pleading.  For that may be
a weak and a wrong thing, if it spring not from belief in the good.
What our calling demands is something more, the rejoicing, hopeful
recognition of the good deed or purpose anywhere, and the offer of a
sympathy and a faith in which it can grow.  That gift of yours may
actually be the decisive factor in a life balancing perilously betwixt
good and evil.  Three times, the other evening, I tried to light my
study fire, and each time it went out.  The paper burned, but the
sticks apparently would not light.  At last in despair I flung in a
burning match and went away--and when I returned I found a cheerful
blaze: the brief glimmer of that last match had been the determining
factor.  You will smile perhaps at the illustration, but you will
remember, all the better, that where the flax is even smouldering,
there the angels are still fighting for a soul.  And you will, maybe,
remember also that even your warm sympathy may turn the scale, and fan
the flicker to a flame.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray that
the mind that was in Him may more and more be found in us.  Help us to
offer to what is good anywhere a sympathy in which it may grow and
increase.  Grant us a helpful faith in the struggling good in every
man, even as Thou, our Father, dost call us sons while as yet we are
but prodigals, afar off.  For Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par\label{culpable-goodness}%
\hypertarget{culpable-goodness}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Let not then your good be}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{evil spoken of.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(ROMANS xiv. 16.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XI}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ CULPABLE GOODNESS}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
In his letter to the Christians at Rome, the Apostle Paul counsels them
not to let their "good be evil spoken of."  And at first we ask
ourselves if this is a possible thing.  Can you have good that is evil
spoken of?  Since this is a matter that ought to concern us all, I want
to suggest one or two ways in which this very result may be brought
about, that those of us who are trying to follow an ideal of goodness
may be on our guard.\par

First, we can very readily have what is good in us evil spoken of
because of our CENSORIOUSNESS.  When men come upon some fruit that
grows upon a goodly-looking tree, or one at least that has a
trustworthy label attached to it, and find it sour or bitter to the
taste, they are apt to be particularly resentful.  And it is with
precisely such indignation that they observe men and women who profess
themselves followers of Christ exhibiting a censorious and critical
spirit.  Where ought you to find the broadest charity, the kindliest
judgment, the most Christ-like forbearance and restraint?  Among
Christians, of course.  And yet--alas! alas!\par

Just keep your ears open with this end in view for a week, and you will
be surprised at the appallingly hard judgments that come tripping
daintily from the lips of some of those you know best.  And if that
line of investigation be not very handy, just watch yourself for the
same time, and you will learn what a rare thing Christian charity is.\par

We talk a lot about it, but in real life we "forbid" men very readily
"because they follow not us," we belittle things which we do not
understand, we speak rashly about people whom we do not know, and we
are ready, without the least consideration, with our label for the
movement or the man, who happens to be brought to our notice.\par

Ah, if we could only see how far astray we often are, what a libel our
label is, and how unChrist-like many of our speeches appear!  We don't
know enough of the inner life of any man to entitle us to pass judgment
upon him.  A critical spirit never commends its possessor to the
affection or the good-will of men.  Besides, it blinds him to much that
is really beautiful, and cuts him off from many sources of happiness.
You will see evil in almost anything if you look for it, but that is
not a gift that makes either for helpfulness or popular esteem.  "I do
not call that by the name of religion," says Robert Louis Stevenson,
"which fills a man with bile," and, on the whole, the ordinary man is
of the same mind with him.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"Judge not; the workings of his brain\par}
{\vl And of his heart thou canst not see.\par}
{\vl What looks, to thy dim eyes, a stain,\par}
{\vl In God's pure light may only be\par}
{\vl A scar brought from some well-won field,\par}
{\vl Where thou wouldst only faint and yield."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Sometimes one must, in the interests of true religion, pass judgment,
but these times are not so frequent as we suppose.  And if there are
occasions more than others when the disciple needs an overflowing
measure of Christ's spirit, it is when it is his clear duty to
diagnose, disapprove, and condemn.\par

Secondly, we may have our good evil spoken of by our EXTREMENESS.  I
should be very chary of saying that there is such a thing as being
righteous overmuch, but for two reasons.  The first is that there is an
injunction in Scripture against it.  And the second is that I have met
people, of whom, in all charity, it was true!  The modern name for
being righteous overmuch is being a "crank."  Now, nobody loves a
crank.  The extremist always does his own cause harm.  Carefulness
about one's food is a good thing, but to take an analytical chemist's
outfit to table with us is simply to ask for the contempt of all
sensible people.\par

Paul's advice to the Philippians was, "Let your moderation be known to
all men."  And Paul was himself a splendid example of the true
moderation as distinguished from that which is merely indolent and
uninterested.  Earnest, enthusiastic, loyal, there was yet about him a
big and healthy sanity, a sweet reasonableness, and--what the extremist
always lacks--an engaging tact.  In other words, Paul was a Christian
gentleman, and if you want to know what that means, read his letter to
Philemon about Onesimus the runaway slave.  There are blunt words with
which a man can be felled as effectually as with the "grievous
crab-tree cudgel" of which Bunyan speaks.  Paul did not consider it any
special virtue to employ such words.  His Christian zeal did not lead
him to make a statement in a way that would irritate and rasp a man's
soul.  There is a certain extreme candour affected by some Christian
people, who pride themselves on always calling a spade a spade.  But if
it hurts my friend to hear me say "spade" I know of no law of God that
compels me to name the implement at all!\par

And then, lastly, we can have our goodness "evil spoken of" because it
is so COLD.  It sometimes seems as if, in our day, warmth of manner had
gone out of fashion.  Ian Maclaren once said of our generation that it
will "smile feebly when wished a happy New Year as if apologising for a
lapse into barbarism."  But I don't think any sensible person, not
blinded by an absurd convention, cares for that type of rarified
demeanour.  No one likes to get a hand to shake which feels like a dead
fish!\par

In one of his books, Dr Dale of Birmingham criticised that line in
Keble's hymn which speaks about the trivial round and the common task
giving us "room to deny ourselves."  "No doubt," he says, "but I should
be very sorry for the people I live with to discharge their home duties
in the spirit of martyrs.  God preserve us all from wives, husbands,
children, brothers, and sisters who go about the house with an air of
celestial resignation."  Ah, no, that's not the goodness, either at
home or on the street, which wins men.  It is not beautiful because it
is too cold.  The religion of Jesus is something much more than
duty-doing.  Thou shalt love the Lord thy GOD WITH ALL THY HEART.
Whosoever compels thee to go a mile, GO WITH HIM TWAIN.  Whatsoever ye
do, do it HEARTILY AS UNTO THE LORD.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
From all unkind thoughts and uncharitable judgments; from all
intemperate speech and behaviour; from coldness of heart and a frigid
service, Good Lord, deliver us.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{a-khaki-virtue}%
\hypertarget{a-khaki-virtue}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{God loveth a cheerful giver.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(2 CORINTHIANS ix. 7.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ A KHAKI VIRTUE}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We are proud to believe that, in the article of courage, our men are
second to none in the world.  They have glorious traditions to live up
to, and they are adding to these pages--nay, a whole volume, as
splendid as any in our annals.  Yet it is not of our soldiers' courage
I wish to speak.\par

For we are told on all hands that there is another quality shining
brighter still these days in the trenches in France and Belgium, in
ambulance waggons and field hospitals, and in the camps at home,
namely, cheerfulness.  Again and again the same tale is repeated from
one quarter or another--"our men are simply wonderful," "they treat
discomfort as a joke."  They label the very instruments that deal death
among them with names that raise a smile.  Nurses, doctors, and
correspondents tell us that the light-hearted way in which our soldiers
face pain and suffering and force twisted lips to smile has created a
new record for the British Army.  When the story of this war is
written, and the world gets a nearer glimpse into those awful trenches,
I venture to prophesy that the quality in our countrymen which will
most capture the imagination and fill us with the greatest pride will
be the gay, undaunted cheerfulness with which they faced it all.\par

Surely we who stay at home may learn something of that virtue too.  For
it is worth learning.  Ordinary people who only know what they like,
without knowing why they like it, have a very warm side towards the
person who, when things are grey and gloomy, can keep cheerful.  They
would much rather see him come in on a dull day than a wiser man whose
wisdom was a burden to him, or even than a pious person whose piety ran
to solemnity and gloom.  It is high time, indeed, that the tradition
was broken for good and all which associates moral excellence with a
funereal heaviness of manner and denies the favour of the Lord to one
who, as Goldsmith has it, "carols as he goes."\par

For the blessing of God is written visibly upon the results of
cheerfulness wherever you find it.  God rewards the gallant souls who
keep their colours flying through every battle, even though they have
to nail them up over a sorely damaged ship.  If you want a proof that
the hopeful and cheery way of facing the rebuffs of life and tholing
its aches and disappointments is more in the line of what God expects
from His children than the doleful whining temper, you have it shown
unmistakably in the fact that the gallant unconquerable soul solves
problems, overcomes difficulties, endures pains, and wins successes
where the solemn and easily depressed would simply have given in and
lain down.  You can safely prophesy that the man whom you hear singing
as he goes through the valley, like the pilgrim that Bunyan's Christian
heard, is going to get out of it safely and honourably in the end.  The
Lord Himself will deliver him, as He delights to deliver all those who
face life smiling and unafraid, and meet His Fatherly discipline with a
stout heart.\par

Cheerfulness, in other words, pays for oneself.  But it is also a great
blessing to others.  One very safe and sure way to help our fellows up
their hills is to breast our own as bravely and gaily as we can.  And
the cheerfulness which heals and blesses like the breath of morning is
that which shows up against a background of cloud and trouble.  Let us
all in this year of war and clean courage, register a vow that we shall
take a leaf out of our soldiers' book, and think less about our own
troubles, teach our lips to smile when things are wrong, and keep our
eyes wider open for trouble's danger signals among our friends.  It's a
simple way of doing good, but a very effective one.  For cheerfulness,
like mercy, is twice blessed.  It blesseth him that has, and him that
sees!\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"It was only a glad Good Morning\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl As she passed along the way,\par}
}

{\vl But it spread the morning's glory\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Over the livelong day."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
But cheerfulness needs its explanation.  It implies something.  A man
is not cheerful without some underlying philosophy of life to sustain
him, some pillar of faith or hope at his back.  When a man faces life
dauntless and smiling, he does so because some inward and, it may even
be, unconscious faith or hope thus finds its expression.  What that
faith is, different men will describe in different ways.\par

But however much the descriptions vary, it all comes back to this in
the end, that the man who is living bravely and cheerfully is
expressing by his conduct at any rate his faith in the Fatherhood and
good Providence of God.  He knows that "God's in His Heaven"; at any
rate he believes so.  He believes that things do not just fall out by
chance, but that a Father Hand controls all, and a Father Heart cares
even for the sparrow's unheeded fall.  The God who rules all makes no
mistakes.\par

And is not that a cardinal part of the faith which Jesus brings near to
all who are learning of Him?  There are various adjectives used to
qualify the title Christian.  One hears, for example, of "earnest
Christians," and earnestness is a very necessary quality, even though
one does occasionally happen upon "earnest Christians" who are rather
unlovable and irritating people.  But there's another adjective, not
nearly so common--and yet it denotes a quality just as essential in
those who have taken Christ's gospel of God's Love and Fatherhood to
their hearts--namely, cheerful.  A "cheerful Christian."  Let us all
try to be that kind of Christian at least.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
"The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns
and duties.  Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with
laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry.  Give
us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting
beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the
gift of sleep.  Amen."\par

\begin{itemize}
\item[R.] \begin{itemize}
\item[L.] STEVENSON.\par
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
\label{the-overcoming-of-panic}%
\hypertarget{the-overcoming-of-panic}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"(Jeremiah dwelt among the}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{people that were left in the}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{land.("}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(JEREMIAH xl. 6.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XIII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE OVERCOMING OF PANIC}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Once upon a time Jeremiah the prophet had asked for only one thing,
that he might get away from that strange cityful of perverse men to
whom it was his hard lot to be the mouthpiece of a God they were
forgetting.  He was tired of them.  "O that I had in the wilderness a
lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from
them."\par

Well, time passed on.  The people got no wiser, and Jeremiah's burden
certainly got no lighter.  But the very chance he prayed for came.  He
had a clear and honourable opportunity to go to the lodge in the
wilderness, or anywhere else he liked, away from the men who had
disowned his teaching.  His work was done apparently, and he had
failed.  Yet with the door standing invitingly open, see what Jeremiah
did!  He "went and dwelt among the people that were left in the land."
He had his chance and he did not take it!\par

We all know something of this desire to get rid of a present hard duty,
or a difficult environment, or a perplexing problem.  And yet I wonder,
if the way were similarly opened up for us, how many would seize the
opportunity?  I believe that the feature of such a situation would just
be the large number of us who, when it came to the pinch, would choose
as Jeremiah did, to remain where we are!  Something would hold us back.\par

Yet the desire itself is natural enough, and a man need neither be a
coward nor a weakling who confesses to it.  The hours when the daily
round seems altogether flat and unprofitable, and when one would gladly
change places with almost anybody, are real hours in life, and it is no
shame to have known them.  But between that knowledge and the actual
escape, the actual fleeing from one's post, there is a great gulf fixed
that, for very many with any high ideal of duty, is impassable.  For,
though a man has known the state of mind that looks for some back door
out of a depressing situation, he has had the other experience also,
the joy of self-mastery, the keen sense of pleasure that comes to him
when he discovers that his surroundings do not count for so much as he
himself does.  That experience, though it be only in memory, will stand
between a man and retreat.  He has conquered before, and the thrill of
victory over material discouragements may be his again.  And so, though
the way of escape be open, he will choose to remain and fight it out.\par

Sometimes the mere weight of his responsibility may tempt a man to wish
that he might escape.  There is a fairly well-known symptom of nervous
disease whose name signifies the fear of being shut in, when the
patient dreads the experience of being in any closed place.  Sometimes
a moral panic of that kind comes to a man when he realises that he is
shut in with some duty which must be gone through with.  With something
of the instinct of the trapped animal he may look round for a way of
escape.\par

Yet does that mean that he would take the chance deliberately, with
eyes full open to the consequences, if it were offered?  I think not.\par

You can apply the test to yourself.  Have you ever accepted some
responsibility, and then, when the occasion came nearer, backed out of
it for no other reason than that you were afraid?  If you have, you
will perhaps remember whether you felt proud of yourself, whether,
beneath the undoubted relief, there was not a good deal of quiet shame
and self-scorn.  If the same thing were to happen again, you might feel
the impulse to desert, but if you remembered your former experience,
you would hardly yield to it, I imagine.\par

The plain truth is that no proper man really likes a soft job.  "In the
long run," says J. A. Symonds, "we really love the sternest things in
life best."  And he speaks truth.  There is a certain exhilaration in
the endurance of hardness.  Responsibility braces most men like a shock
of cold water.  What is arduous calls them as with a trumpet.  And in
the general sense of quiet contempt for the person who in a panic
flings up his responsibility, we may recognise one of God's elementary
checks upon cowardice.\par

There are those who are reading these words who are enduring hardness
and making sacrifices from which they might easily escape.  They do at
times desire relief.  But the point is that they don't take it, when it
is possible.  And I say there must be some reason for this.  What is it
that holds men back from the easy way when it stands open before them?\par

For one thing, I think, the sense of the place that hardness and effort
and endurance play in every true life.  For centuries men have climbed
up to strength of character, if at all, by ways uniformly arduous and
steep; and distrust of the primrose path, however alluring, has passed
as an instinct into our blood.  In the small unheroic affairs of life
we have learned that a difficulty faced and overcome, or a duty
doggedly fulfilled, add a precious something to experience that there
is no other way of securing.  The schoolboy on a hot summer day may
look up from his task, away out wistfully to the cool shade of the
trees across the playground, and wish that he were there, rather than
where he is.  Yet even he knows, what we all come to learn, that that
is not the road to anything in life worth the gaining.\par

Another deterring impulse is the sense of a divine vocation.  Our
calling and circumstances are ordained for us by God, and we must not
quit the field till the day is done.  It is He who has chosen our lot
in life and summoned us to the sphere we fill.\par

We may succeed or fail as seems to Him best.  Sometimes he places men,
for reasons of His own, in corners where success, as commonly measured,
is not possible.  But one thing--success or failure--we must not do.
We must not shirk.  We must not run away.  God means us to stand fast
and do our best.  For failure even, if it be honourable, He may have
His good word at the last.  But to the man who has shirked life's hard
duties, not even God can say, "Well done!"\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Lord of our life, and God of our salvation, make us strong to endure
hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.  Thou sendest no man a
warfare upon his own charges.  In dependence on Thy help, grant us
grace to do each duty, as the hour and Thy will may bring it.  And,
with Thy fear in our hearts, grant us deliverance from all other fears
whatever.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{the-day-s-darg}%
\hypertarget{the-day-s-darg}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Whatsoever ye do, do all}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{to the glory of God.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(1 CORINTHIANS x. 31.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XIV}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE DAY'S DARG}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
It is never hard to connect the presence of our Lord and Master Jesus
Christ with our Sabbaths and our hours of worship.  If ever Christ
comes near us in spirit at all, we say, it is when in the quiet of the
sanctuary we reach out hands of prayer and desire to Him.  The link
between our worship and our Lord is strong and obvious.  But, when the
din of business shuts out all else, when the hard, toilsome duty of the
ordinary day is to be done, when we are at work amid surroundings that
have no suggestion of sacredness or of God about them--what of the link
with Christ then?  It is much harder then, is it not? to imagine any
thinkable and workable connection that our Lord has with that sphere of
life, broad and extensive as it is.  There are many indeed who forget
that there is any, and live as if there were none.  And yet the solemn
truth is that if that link is not strong and real, we don't know what
religion means.  We have hardly the right to call ourselves Christian
men and women unless we can relate our week-day labours to the fact of
Christ.\par

So let us try to strengthen that link.  Let us look at our daily work
in the light of religion.\par

First, let me remind you that our work is by divine commandment.  It is
not something that God allows us to do when we are not worshipping.  It
is His ordinance that we should all work at something.  The business of
life is labour of some sort.  I do not know if we all realise how the
Fourth Commandment begins--"Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy
work."  And the man who is inexcusably idle, or who belittles his work,
even in the interest, as he thinks, of religion, is breaking this
commandment as truly as he who neglects the other half of it and
dishonours the Sabbath day.\par

No one will accuse the Apostle Paul of any indifference or lukewarmness
where true religion was concerned.  Yet it was this Apostle who ordered
the Thessalonians to go on with their daily occupations even though
they believed, as so many did at that time, that the Return of the Lord
to earth was just at hand.  By our daily work we serve the Lord as
truly as when we gather to His worship.  Let us get out of our heads,
then, the false and foolish idea that all the working part of our week
is the part at which God looks askance.  Man's chief end is to glorify
God, and one of the ways of doing that is by being loyal to the duties
of each hour whatever they may be.\par

Secondly, I would ask you to think of those quiet, unrecorded years of
our Lord's life on earth before His public ministry.  The Gospels give
no details, but the fact is perfectly certain that up till His
thirtieth year Jesus of Nazareth worked at His trade as a carpenter.
If only we would let that fact soak into us, it would alter our whole
idea of the relation of our daily work to religion.  Jesus worked
Himself.\par

And we have, as has been pointed out, interesting indirect proof as to
what manner of life He lived on those workaday levels that we all know
so much about.  For, to this Carpenter of Nazareth there came a day
when, in Nazareth itself, He stood forth as representative of a
morality and religion higher than ever was proclaimed before.  He spoke
to men about the true way to live like one having authority.  And there
were many who so resented what they deemed His presumption that
anything that reflected on His claims or belittled His authority would
gladly have been seized upon and made the most of.  Had there been in
Nazareth a bit of botched work of His doing, "a door of unseasoned wood
or a badly made chest," don't you think it would have been produced to
discredit His mission?  If any one could have been found with whom the
Carpenter had not dealt honourably and justly, if, as He walked the
streets of His native town and lived His humble daily life in the sight
of all men, there had been anything that weakened His claim to guide
and teach His brethren, don't you think they would have found it out
and taxed Him with it?\par

There was nothing of that.  Jesus faced His fellows with His daily duty
behind Him, and it reinforced every word He said.  His message to men
was backed up by His daily life.  He spoke of religion as no other son
of man ever did, but He lived it long before He ever opened His mouth.
He brought religion down to the workshop and the street, and showed men
what it meant there.  And unless He had done that, it is difficult to
conceive that His public ministry of itself would have satisfied men
that He was indeed One sent from God.\par

Do you see, then, from this point of view, what a great and vital part
of religion our day's work is, and the way we do it, our life at home,
our ordinary contact with our fellow-men?  It is that that gives weight
to any profession we may make.  If in our daily life we are not
exhibiting our religion, nothing that we can profess or say on Sunday
will make up for that defect.  It is what we are on Monday and Tuesday
that underlines and emphasises the claims we make at church on the
Sunday.  Behind all our prayer and profession lies the everyday life.\par

Third, our daily work is sanctified by the fact that our Lord and
Master is with us, to help and strengthen us there, as truly as when we
pray.  Jesus Christ is not far away, as we so pitifully misconceive it,
amid the dust of business, when we must keep our temper and follow
conscience along the hard way and deal honourably with all men.  He is
near us there also, ready and willing to help us to be true to God and
man on that road which once He trod Himself.\par

There is a famous unwritten saying of Christ which puts memorably what
the Gospels likewise testify.  "Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me.
Cleave the wood and there am I."  Christ is as near us in our daily
work as that!  When Peter and his friends went a-fishing, you remember,
with heavy hearts because the Master had gone away from them, He met
them by the lake as they plied their ordinary calling.  So does He
wait, my brother, to meet you and me wherever the duty of the hour may
take us.  For our working life is not outside of His interest nor out
with His care and guidance.  With reverent imagination Van Dyke has
seemed to hear the Christ speak thus--and the words may perhaps further
weld the link for some of us between our everyday duty and the Christ
whom we worship and seek to serve:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"They who tread the path of labour follow where My feet have trod;\par}
{\vl They who work without complaining do the holy will of God.\par}
{\vl Where the many toil together, there am I among my own;\par}
{\vl Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with Him alone.\par}
{\vl I, the peace that passeth knowledge, dwell amid the daily strife,\par}
{\vl I, the bread of heaven, am broken in the sacrament of life.\par}
{\vl Every task, however simple, sets the soul that does it free,\par}
{\vl Every deed of love and mercy done to man is done to Me.\par}
{\vl Nevermore thou needest seek Me; I am with thee everywhere--\par}
{\vl Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and I am there."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Our Lord and Master, whose command it is that we do with our whole
heart whatsoever our hand findeth to do, grant that we may so yield and
surrender ourselves, body, mind and spirit, unto Thee, that even in the
common business of each ordinary day we may serve Thee and glorify Thy
great Name.  Amen.\par\label{gashmu-the-gossip}%
\hypertarget{gashmu-the-gossip}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Gashmu saith it.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(NEHEMIAH vi. 6.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XV}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ GASHMU THE GOSSIP}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Gashmu is a mere name in Scripture.  He is mentioned only three
times--twice as acting with Sanballat against Nehemiah, and once as the
authority for a false piece of news.  It is reported, wrote Sanballat
in a cruel letter to Nehemiah, that you are plotting against the king,
and "Gashmu saith it."  That is what Gashmu stands for in Scripture, a
tale-bearer, a slanderer, a gossip.  What an unenviable immortality to
be remembered only as the pedlar of a tale he knew to be untrue!\par

As long as we live together in society, there will be a kind of gossip
that is inevitable, the kindly or merely casual relation of small and
insignificant matters of fact, as that the painters are in next door,
or that Mrs So-and-So has got a new bonnet.  It is not of that I want
to speak.\par

For there is another sort as deadly as the plague, and in civilised
countries the cruellest and most devilish instrument that one man or
woman can use against another.  And that is the inventing of an untrue
report about a man's doings or character, or the unthinking repetition
of the same.  That is the pestilence that walketh in darkness; that is
the destruction that wasteth at noonday.  And I wish I had the pen to
write of it as it deserves.\par

It is very, very common.  We are all too ready to repeat what we have
heard, with a "Gashmu saith it," as if that certified the tale correct.
And the harm done is simply incalculable.  If my house is burned or I
lose my money, I can still get along by the kindness of my friends for
a little, till I find my feet again.  But whoever by some lying story
takes away my character, deals me a blow from which there is no
recovering, which my loyalest friends can do nothing to avert.  I have
no redress, no compensation, and no help.  Any one may be a victim, and
you and I, by thoughtlessly passing on the deadly thing, may all
unconsciously be driving another nail into a man's coffin.\par

Did you ever lie awake at night and think that even now the cancer may
have begun on YOUR good name, that whispers may be going about among
your friends concerning you?  Those who know you will hear it, and will
say, It's a lie!  But that won't stop it.  And you will never know till
some day you waken up and find that your reputation is in danger.  And
not one word or vestige of truth may be in it.  It may be a lie pure
and simple, or a colourable counterfeit of some quite innocent truth.
That won't make any difference.  It is enough merely to start it, and,
like a stone thrown down an Alpine slope, it gathers others in its
train, till an avalanche swoops down on some unsuspecting head.\par

When King Arthur enrolled his Knights of the Round Table, he made them
take the oath to "speak no slander."  And there is a knightly chivalry
of speech which ought to be the mark of all those who have promised
fealty to Jesus Christ.  Our discipleship of Jesus demands of us the
high endeavour to love our neighbour as ourselves, and that
presupposes, as one of its consequences, that we guard his name against
false witness as carefully as we protect our own.  If we hear a good
story about some one, a report that is to his credit and honour, let us
blazon that abroad.  We are all far too slow at that, and somehow the
tale that is a little damaging has a far easier and more rapid
circulation.  Might we not make more of our brother's successes?  Might
we not oftener repeat about him what he is too modest ever to say about
himself?  It were a true and kindly Christian act.  But never, as we
call ourselves servants of Christ, never do our brother such a grievous
irreparable wrong as to start about him a tale which may not be true.
God can and will forgive you your sins of speech.  But even He cannot
make clean the character which a foolish word has sullied.\par

King Arthur went further, however, than demanding that his knights
should speak no slander.  Their vow included the words, "no, nor listen
to it."  And that is a high and difficult course to keep.  It is not
easy, when you are being told of something that is striking or
sensational of a merely gossipy character, to stop the conversation and
lead it into other channels.  It requires great courage and as great
tact.  But how many of us ever try it?\par

If, however, the refusal to listen be regarded as a counsel of
perfection, there remains yet the further injunction--never REPEAT the
gossip you have heard.  That at least is homely and possible.\par

We used to read in our book of Fables of the lamb that noticed this
significant thing about the track that led to the lion's den--that all
the footprints pointed inwards, but there were none returning.
"Vestigia nulla retrorsum."  No footprints backwards.  It would be a
good motto for us all.  Let the stories, the ill-humoured, unkind,
uncharitable sayings that float and wander about everywhere, let them
come to us as they will, but let the traces end there.  Be such a
person that men may trace a story from its source down the chain TO
you, but never PAST you.\par

We can do that much at least for our friends.  All about us is the
constant, unquiet drift of gossip and distorted half-truth, as restless
as the sand in the desert, dancing and whirling with every puff of
wind.  We can do something to arrest that drift.  We can be for our
friends in some measure what Isaiah said that God's Servant, when He
came, should be, the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land, stopping
the drift of the sand, and sheltering our friends by our loyalty and
our silence.\par

Don't even repeat the gossip that comes to you, not only for the strong
reason already given, but also for this little one, that you won't
likely repeat it correctly.  With all the will in the world, it is one
of the hardest things to retail a story just exactly as you heard it.
Sir Walter Scott, speaking about anecdotes that he had heard, said he
always liked to cock up their bonnets a bit and put a staff in their
hands that they might walk on a little brisker and sprightlier than
when they came to him!  But we all do that, without meaning to do it at
all.  We add a little bit.  We exaggerate just the tiniest fraction,
and our hearer when he repeats the story does the same, and so the
matter grows till it is big enough to do much mischief.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"A Whisper broke the air,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl A soft light tone and low,\par}
{\vl Yet barbed with shame and woe.\par}
}

{\vl Now, might it only perish there,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Nor further go!\par}
}}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
Ah me!  A quick and eager ear\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Caught up the little meaning sound;\par}
}

{\vl Another voice has breathed it clear,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl And so it wandered round,\par}
}

{\vl From ear to lip, from lip to ear,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Until it reached a gentle heart,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl And that--it broke."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
There is a legend that once a king avoided death in a poisoned cup that
had been handed to him by making over it the sign of the Cross--when it
broke in pieces at his feet.  Let us, when we are tempted to retail the
vivid, poisonous piece of scandal, stop and invoke the Spirit of
Christ.  Is this that I am going to say about my brother the kind of
thing I should say if Christ were standing by?  Am I justified in
turning over that bit of gossip which may be true, but which ought not
to be true?  Our duty, who profess and call ourselves Christians, is
clear.  We are to speak no slander no, nor listen to it.  We are to
retail evil about no man.  We are to love one another.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, whose command it is that we love our neighbour as
ourselves, help us to cherish and protect his good name as carefully as
we guard our own.  Make us more willing to repeat the good about him,
but slower to retail or exaggerate the evil.  Grant us all a deeper
sense of the deadly wrong a foolish tongue can work, and keep Thou the
door of our lips.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{god-in-front}%
\hypertarget{god-in-front}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Thou preventest him with}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{the blessings of goodness.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(PSALM xxi. 3.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XVI}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ GOD IN FRONT}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
You know how, in a happy home, the near approach of a birthday is
signalised, how parcels are mysteriously smuggled in and hidden in
secret places, and, though everything seems to be going on as usual,
yet the plans are being laid in train that will surprise and delight
the fortunate owner of the birthday when the festal day dawns.  That is
our feeble, human way of trying to surprise one another with the
blessings of goodness.  That is how we "prevent" our beloved with
tokens of our remembrance.  So, says the Psalmist, does God deal with
us.  Not only have we--what we so much need--His forgiveness of our
past, and His help and presence for the day which now is; He is working
for us in the future too, sowing the days to come with blessings for us
to pick up when the passage of time brings us to the places where He
has hidden them.\par

The idea that God has been beforehand in our history, getting ready, as
it were, for our coming, though not a very usual one, is very helpful,
and it finds abundant illustration and proof in all directions.  When a
child arrives on this earth, he enters into the enjoyment of bounties
and blessings prepared, not merely weeks, but literally ages before his
coming.  Warmth he needs, and aeons ago the coal beds were formed in
the bowels of the earth.  Food he needs, and God "laboured for ages,"
as Sir Oliver Lodge puts it, to bring corn into existence.  For corn
needs soil, and, to make that, the Creator had to set the glaciers
grinding over the granite, and to loosen the forces of rain and frost
and running water over great stretches of time.\par

Every child born into the world becomes the heir of all the ages past.
What blessings have been prepared for most of us, in advance, in the
homes into which we were born, and the gracious influences under which
we have grown up!  "I have to thank the gods," says Marcus Aurelius the
pagan Emperor, "that my grandfathers, parents, sisters, preceptors,
relations, friends and domestics were almost all of them persons of
probity."  "I have to thank the gods."  Who else is there to thank but
God who prevents us in this way with the blessings of goodness?  God is
working beforehand in our interest in all these things.  So, when we
awaken to a sense of Him, there is His Church, established of old,
awaiting to take us by the hand and help us on our way.  When we learn
our need of a Saviour, behold Christ stands at the door and knocks.
When, in penitence of heart, we ask God's mercy, we learn that, long
since, it was laid up in store for us.  Before we thought of loving
God, He first loved us, and gave Himself for us in Jesus Christ our
Lord.  Is it not gloriously true all the way along that God has been
beforehand with His goodness?\par

And that, of course, is the explanation of all the glad surprises of
life.  The Lord has prepared them for us beforehand.  He has sown the
future with good things and watched our surprise as we picked them up.
When Mary Mardon and her father, in Mark Rutherford's "Autobiography,"
went to the seaside to look for lodgings they saw a dismal row of very
plain-looking houses.  Mary objected instinctively to the dull street,
but her father said he could not afford to pay for a sea view, so they
went in to inquire.  To their delight they found that what they thought
were the fronts of the houses were really the backs, for the real
fronts faced the bay, had pretty gardens before the doors, and a
glorious sunny prospect over the ocean.  Isn't that what we often find
to be the case?  Our most treasured friends are not always those whom
we fall in love with at first sight.  The thing we greatly fear
dissolves like mist.  An envied, but despaired-of, blessing is flung
into our lap.  A door of splendid hope opens in a dead wall.  Life is
full of the unexpected as if wonder were one of the things God wanted
very much to keep alive in us.  When, as you think, everything has been
exhausted, God surprises you with a fresh gladness.  And, aback of all,
there is the unending surprise of God's patience with us, and of that
daily mercy of His, which we so ill requite, and so often forget.\par

Of course, no one dreams of suggesting that all our surprises are of a
happy sort.  It is not so.  But the point is that if it is God who has
hidden the blessings for us to come upon, it is He also who has hidden
the other things.  God's hand does not slip so that we get the wrong
parcel by accident.  He prevents us also with the blessings that we do
not call by that name at all.  In his Lay Sermons, Huxley, describing
the tadpole in its slimy cradle, says: "After watching the process hour
after hour, one is almost possessed by the notion that some more subtle
aid to vision than an achromatic object-glass would show the hidden
artist with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to
perfect his work."  If, in that wonderful fashion, God is working
beforehand according to a plan of His own, in the life of a tadpole, is
it not much more likely that He is so working in your life and mine,
not in its joys only, but also in its dark hours and its sorrows?
That, indeed, is the very message and comfort of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that not even a sparrow falleth to the ground--calamity indeed for the
sparrow--without our Father.\par

If it be true that God our Father is working in advance of us all the
time, then surely it is wrong to speak of the monotony of life?  For we
are on a road which God Himself has sown with surprises for us, and the
hour of our deadliest weariness may be the immediate percursor of our
richest and most joyous find.  Who could have supposed, at the end of
the eighteenth century, when poetry in England seemed dead, that a
great galaxy of stars--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley,
Keats--was on the very eve of rising?  The unexpected can always
happen.  You may come upon another of God's hidden blessings to-morrow.
Let us not talk of monotony, therefore, in an age which has seen so
many wonderful things happen.  Rather let us hold to the faith that all
the while God is going before us with the blessings of goodness.\par

This faith puts another complexion on all our fears and forebodings.
Before we live it, the web of our life passes through God's hands.  And
the shaded parts, as well as the bright parts, are in His wise and
loving design.  Nobody can promise us freedom from sorrow, but the
Bible promises that God is beforehand to make the sorrow bearable.  He
has adjusted our temptations to our strength, and never a one has He
hidden, where we come upon it, that it is impossible for us by His help
to withstand.  Before the mother puts her little child into his hot
bath at night, she tests the water first with her fingers.  And the
Psalmist means us to believe that life comes to us from God, who has
measured and adapted it for us, beforehand, in a like fashion.\par

Viewed in the light of this faith, Death itself takes on a different
aspect.  Oliver Wendell Holmes has suggested that the story of this
life and the next can be fully written in two strokes of the pen, an
interrogation-point, and, above it, a mark of exclamation--fear and
question here below, and, above, adoration, wonder, surprise.  "I go to
prepare a place for you," said Christ to His disciples.  If the
preparation for us here is so wonderful, is it likely to fail yonder?
If Love made ready for us here, shall it not be beforehand there too?
Yea, verily.  Our experience of how God prevents us here with His
loving kindness ought to strengthen in us all the "faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and the saint's trust in every age, that when we pass
hence it will be to meet the grandest, the most blessed, and the most
surprising provision of all."\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Our Father in Heaven, we shall not be afraid of what life may hold for
us when we have learned that our little web has first passed through
Thy merciful and loving hands.  We have often prayed that Thou wouldest
go with us; but Thou hast answered us beyond our asking, for Thou goest
before us all.  In the faith of that leading, make us to journey
bravely and to sleep secure.  Amen.\par\label{unbelief-kept-quiet}%
\hypertarget{unbelief-kept-quiet}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Fight the good fight of faith.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(1 TIMOTHY vi. 12.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XVII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ "UNBELIEF KEPT QUIET"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
We are often told that this is not an age of faith, that the day of the
beautiful, old, simple acquiescence is past, whether it ever comes
again or not.  Some one has wittily suggested that the coat of arms of
the present age is "an interrogation-point rampant, above three bishops
dormant, and the motto 'Query.'"  But, like a great many more witty
things, that saying leaves one questioning whether, after all, it be
really true.  I venture, for my part, to assert that a great many more
people are really interested in this matter of faith than most of us
imagine.  There is something that haunts men as with a sense of hidden
treasure about this wonderful thing in life called Faith, that always
seems to be going to disappear, and yet somehow does not.  With a
strange, wistful persistence men linger about this pool, though there
are many to tell them that the "desired angel bathes no more."\par

I wish to speak a word of encouragement to-day to all who are finding
faith hard.  "Fight the good fight of faith," says Paul to his young
friend, Timothy.  Fight.  I want to remind you that faith often implies
effort, that there is nothing in the idea of faith which is
incompatible with struggle, that the very form of Paul's advice implies
an antagonism.\par

It is true that many think of the "faith of the saints" as a quiet,
contented habit of gentle acquiescence, a sweet and beautiful state of
mind very far removed from the restless, questioning, analytic temper
of the man of to-day.  Now, I do not say that faith is never seen now
in that placid form, but I do say that that was not the type Paul had
in mind when he wrote Timothy, it is not the figure which best
described his own faith, and it is certainly not the aspect he would
require to deal with, were he writing to the men of to-day.\par

For they are only too conscious of much inward suspense of judgment and
uncertainty concerning many things in Heaven and earth.  And that
inward conflict seems to many of them a sign that faith is waning, if
not dead.  They have forgotten that it is that very sense of inward
conflict which proves that faith is not dead.  Dead things do not offer
any resistance.  We ought by this time to have learned that a thing
"may be for us an intellectual puzzle, and yet a sheer spiritual
necessity," and that the Christian faith is, for every soul who has
once caught it.  There are a great many earnest and honest men to whom
it is the best of news that Christian faith is not incompatible with
very grave perplexities.  The real opposite of faith is not doubt, as
so many suppose, but deliberate and satisfied denial.  Faith can live
in the same life along with very many doubts--as a matter of fact, in
the case of not a few of the most Christ-like men of our time, it is
living beside them constantly.  Paul assures us that outside of him he
found fightings and within him he found fears.  Yet he kept the faith
for all that.  They start up on all sides, these spectres of the mind
and reason, and they ask questions which a man cannot answer.  Yet
Faith may be dwelling in his life in very deed and truth, because faith
is something more than the sum of all his beliefs.  It is the whole
conscious and deliberate set and desire of his being.\par

It is a well-known fact that a man may be truly courageous, acting,
speaking, thinking bravely at the very moment when panic fears are
gripping his heart.  I like that fine old story of the soldier
advancing into the fire zone with steady step, and taunted by a comrade
for his pale face.  "You're afraid," said the other.  "I know I am
afraid," said he, "and if you felt half as much afraid as I do, you
would turn and flee."  It is the very finest courage that dominates and
controls a sensitive organisation, and holds the shrinking other-half
to its purpose with firm grip.  Just so is it with faith.  A man keeps
his course, lifts up his eyes to the hills, lives for God and His
Christ, prays on, struggles on, and hopes for the home beyond the edge
of life, while often enough his mind is full of questioning and the
puzzle of God's deep mysteries.  For faith is not what the intellect
says merely.  It is what the whole man is struggling and trying to say.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"With me, faith means perpetual unbelief\par}
{\vl Kept quiet, like the snake 'neath Michael's foot,\par}
{\vl Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe."\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Don't do yourself the wrong of thinking that faith has vanished because
the snake is felt to be writhing.  "Perpetual unbelief kept quiet."
Yes, but what keeps the clamouring doubts and fears under foot?  Just
yourself, just your highest self, the bit of you made for God, and
unable to do without Him!  Faith is the vote of the whole man, of the
best of the man, in the face of a protesting minority.  In other words,
fight is a splendid word to use in speaking about faith.\par

Let a man ask himself--Does he really wish that the best he has dreamed
or heard about God and His love for men, His passion to deliver them
from evil, and His pity and nearness to us all in Jesus Christ His
Son--does he wish all that to be true?  No man is without faith who
does wish that, and is living in the direction of his desire.  In that
man's life who, despite all the clamour and philosophy of Babylon, is
keeping his window open towards where he believes Jerusalem to be,
there is that vital element of faith that is linking his life to God
even now, and will bring him where he would be at last.\par

I do not think that the prodigal was at all sure of the welcome that
awaited him.  Probably his mind, as he limped along in his rags, was
full of misgivings and fears.  But the father hailed him as his son
whenever he saw afar off that the lad's face was set for home.  I do
not imagine our Father will concern Himself very much about the gaps in
our creed if only our faces are turned homewards and towards Him.  Let
the man I have tried to speak to be of good courage, and fight on with
a stout heart.  Faith is not sight.  It may not even be assurance, may
be only hope and longing, and a reaching towards the Highest.  But I
firmly believe that no man, even though he may fall on the way home,
and before he knows of his welcome, I believe that no man shall be cast
out at the last, whose arms, as he fell, were outstretched in desire to
God.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, Author and Finisher of our faith, help us with all our
strength to fight the good fight.  When our defence is being broken, do
Thou garrison our souls, O God, that we may be able to stand in the
evil day, and, having done all, to stand.  Through Jesus Christ our
Lord.  Amen.\par\label{the-equipment-of-joy}%
\hypertarget{the-equipment-of-joy}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The joy of the Lord is your strength.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(NEHEMIAH viii. 10.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XVIII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE EQUIPMENT OF JOY}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Let us talk about joy, and especially that kind of it of which Nehemiah
was thinking when he said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."  It
is strange that while practically everybody would agree as to the
wholesomeness and the duty of joy in the ordinary sense of the term, to
add the words "of the Lord" to it, seems, to some, completely to alter
its character and in fact to spoil it, to turn it into an unreal sort
of joy which is not true joy at all.\par

I wish emphatically to protest against such a conception of religious
joy as an injustice to the Father Love of God.  The joy of the Lord, as
I understand it, is not different in quality from wholesome human
gladness, it is, in fact, just that gladness deepened and sanctified by
the sense of God, and the knowledge of Him brought to us by Jesus
Christ our Lord.  There is not a single innocent and pure source of
gladness open to men and women on this earth but is made to taste
sweeter when they have opened their hearts to the love of God.  It is
the very crown of happy living that is reached when a man can say, "My
Lord and my God."  Once I have dared to accept the wonderful truth that
even for me the Eternal Father has His place and His plan and His care,
every simplest happiness, every common joy of living, every delight in
the beauty of the world and the pleasures of home and work and
friendship--every one of these takes on a keener edge.  It is a
pestilent heresy to declare that a Christian ought to walk through life
like a man with a hidden sickness.  On the contrary, there is no one
who has a better right to be joyous and happy-hearted.  Do you think it
is for nothing that the "joy of our salvation" is a Bible phrase?  And
shall we believe that that salvation is ours and not be mighty glad
about it all the time?  What is the good of translating "Gospel" as
"good news" and at the same time living as if religion were a bondage
and a burden grievous to be borne?  Of all the strange twists of human
convention, it is surely the strangest to allow ordinary human joy to
be happy and cheerful, and to insist that those whose joy is in the
Lord should pull a long face, and forswear laughter, and crawl along
dolefully as if to the sound of some dirge!  The "morning face and the
morning heart" belong of right to the truly religious, and no one ought
to be gladder, come what may, than the man who has made the highest and
best disposal of his little life that any one can make, namely,
surrendered it in faith and obedience to his Lord.\par

A gloomy, ponderous, stiff religion which looks askance at innocent
merriment and is afraid to pull a long breath of enjoyment has the mark
of "damaged goods" on it somehow, and no one will take it off your
hands.  It is not catching, and certainly your children will never
catch it.  It is said to be a good test of a religion that it can be
preached at a street corner.  But I know a better test than that.
Preach it to a child.  Set him in the midst of those who profess it.
If their religion frightens him, freezes the smiles on his lips, and
destroys his happiness, depend upon it, whatever sort of religion it
be, it lacks the essential winsomeness of the religion of Jesus Christ.\par

I need not say, of course, that I am not pleading for a more hilarious
religious life.  And, equally of course, empty frivolity, and the cult
of the continual grin are insufferable things to endure either in the
name of religion or anything else.  Not by a single word would I lessen
the condemnation which such aberrations deserve.  But I do say, and
with all my heart I believe that a deep, abiding well-spring of
happiness--which our author calls the "joy of the Lord"--is of the very
essence of true religion, and is indeed, what he asserts it, actually
our strength.  Actually our strength.  Let us be quite clear about that.\par

The man in whose heart there dwells this best of all joys is a strength
to other people.  We don't need any one to prove that to us, I imagine.
We have all been helped and revived many a time merely by contact with
some hearty cheerful soul.  Who, for example, that had his choice,
would elect for his family physician a man with a doleful air?  Have we
not all found that a doctor's cheery manner was as potent a medicine as
any drug that he called by a Latin name?  Ay, and even when we are in
trouble, and our hearts are sad and sore, I think we would all rather
see the friend whose faith in God showed in a brave and buoyant outlook
than one whose religion was of the dowie and despondent sort.\par

I have heard it said of an employee who had the gift of the joyous
heart that the twinkle of his eyes was worth £100 a year to his firm.
I could easily believe it, though the money value might well have been
set at any figure, seeing that the thing itself is really priceless.
Did not the most famous modern apostle of the duty of
happiness--himself a signal proof that joy is something more than the
mere easy overflow of health and animal spirits--did not Stevenson
declare that "by being happy we sow anonymous benefits," and that "the
entrance of such a person into a room is as if another candle had been
lighted?"  I take it the proof is ample that a joyous heart is a
strength to others.\par

But more, it is a strength to oneself.  That may not be so obvious, and
yet the result here is even more certain.  Ordinary experience tells us
that joy is good for us, that depression and gloom work us bodily harm.
But from one province of scientific study especially there has come a
wonderful array of evidence that makes it as certain as any fact can be
that the happy states of mind do literally add to our strength in quite
measurable directions.  There is, in strict fact, no tonic in all the
world like gladness.\par

That being so, joy, and especially the best kind of it of which
Nehemiah speaks, is not a luxury, not a condition you may legitimately
cherish if you are fortunate enough to possess it.  It is a sheer
necessity.  You can't do without it.  Even to meet your sorrows, even
to gird you for service, even to run your race without fainting, you
need the joy of the Lord, which is strength.  And since the Father has
stored up such an abundant supply of it in this world of His, since it
is knocking at our doors every day, and only our distrust and suspicion
keep it outside, we know what to do to secure this good gift of God.
We have only to open our doors to let it in, and give it room.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl {\noindent}
"So take Joy home\par}
}

{\vl And make a place in thy great heart for her,\par}
{\vl And give her time to grow, and cherish her,\par}
{\vl Then will she come and oft will sing to thee\par}
{\vl When thou art working in the furrows--ay,\par}
{\vl Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.\par}
{\vl It is a comely fashion to be glad--\par}
{\vl Joy is the grace we say to God."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Help us, O God, beyond our poor and forgetful thanksgiving, to show
forth the praise of Thy loving kindness by our joy and gladness.  For
Thy great grace and mercy toward us, and for all the gifts of Thy
sleepless Providence, we offer Thee the joy of our hearts.  Accept our
offering, we beseech Thee; forgive its scant measure, and teach us to
be glad in Thee.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{the-god-of-the-unlovable-man}%
\hypertarget{the-god-of-the-unlovable-man}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The God of Jacob is our refuge.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(PSALM xlvi. 11.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XIX}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE GOD OF THE UNLOVABLE MAN}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
There is a phrase which echoes through the Old Testament like the
refrain of some solemn music--the "God of Jacob."  "The God of Jacob,"
says the 46th Psalmist, "is our refuge."  Yet when you think of it, it
is a strange title.  The "God of Abraham" you can understand, for
Abraham was a great and faithful soul.  And the "God of Isaac," also,
for Isaac was a saint.  But the "God of Jacob" is a combination of
ideas of a very different sort.  For though, by God's grace, Jacob
became a saint in the end, it took much discipline and trouble to mould
him into a true godliness.  And, for the greater part of his life, and
many of his appearances on the stage of Scripture, his actions and
ideals are not such as to make us admire him very passionately.  We
like Esau for all his faults, but we do not like Jacob for all his
virtues.  There is something cold and calculating about Jacob that
repels affection.  For all his religion, the Jacob of the earlier
chapters is a mean soul, successful but unscrupulous, pious but not
straight, spiritually-minded but not lovable.  And yet the Almighty
condescends to be known as the God of Jacob, and the Bible loves that
name for God!\par

What does that say to you?  To me it says this--and I think we all need
to learn it--that God is the God even of unlovable people!  That even
unlovable people have a God!  That the Lord is very gracious to
sinners, we all rejoice to believe, for that is the Evangel of Jesus,
and He Himself was found practising it even among the waifs and
outcasts of society.  But that unlovable people have a God, too, is
actually harder for us to realise, for the plain fact is that
unlovable, disagreeable people irritate and annoy us more even than the
sinners.  If you question that, just analyse your attitude to the
Prodigal in our Lord's wonderful story, compared with that toward his
respectable, cold-hearted and priggish elder brother.  The brother
irritates us.  We call him, with some heat, as Henry Drummond did, a
baby, and we want to shake him.  But we never want to shake the
prodigal.\par

Now, we all have, on our list of acquaintances, people whom we have
labelled disagreeable, who continually rub us the wrong way, as we put
it.  There is the man who is always talking about himself, and is
filled with conceit like a bladder with air.  "There is the man," says
Hazlitt in one of his Essays, "who asks you fifty questions as to the
commonest things you advance, and, you would sooner pardon a fellow who
held a pistol at your breast and demanded your money."  There is the
ill-tempered, sulky person, and the grumbling, whining, dolorous soul
never without an ache or a grievance.  So we can all draw up our own
private "Index Expurgatorius" of the people we bar or dislike.  We say
these people are unlovable.\par

And, since the corruption of the best is the worst, we are agreed that
the most unlovable of all types is the religious undesirable, the smug,
unctuous, oily person, for example, whose sincerity is continually in
question, the narrow, intolerant, little soul who cannot see any sort
of truth or righteousness except his own, or the prim and pious man who
is cocksure of his interest in the life to come, but is not straight in
the affairs of the life which now is.  There are others, but
enumeration is not a very profitable or a pleasant task.  Take them all
together, gather them in a crowd in your memory, and then set yourself
this exercise for your sanctification and growth in grace.  Realise
that the Lord your God is the God also of these unlovable people.  Get
that idea thoroughly into your heart, and say it to yourself, if need
be, many times a day.  These people look up to Him in worship just as
you do.  They have their sacred hours in His presence just as you have.
There is nothing you look for to God, that they do not seek, too, from
Him.  They are not of a different order from you, but the same order.
And though you do not love them, God does.  Though they are outside of
your circle, they are not outside of His.  The God of Jacob is their
God.  And therein lies for them, as it did for Jacob, the hope and
promise of better things to come.\par

If we remembered that, should we not be more patient and forbearing
with them than we are, keener to look for the best in them, and to make
the best of them than we are?  Just to think of what is meant by the
"God of Jacob" is to set our sharp and bitter judgments of others over
against the infinitely tender compassion and patience and longsuffering
of God.  All the wonder of the divine grace is hidden in the phrase.
And this is the wonder--that God never grows tired even of disagreeable
people.  He does not give up caring even for the unlovable.  But oh!
what poor sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty {\itshape{we}} are, with our
quick, rash final judgments and our hard, unbrotherly hearts!\par

Did you ever ask yourself what some of these unlovable people are
doing, the while you and I are telling each other how impossible and
unlovable they are?  George Eliot suggests it somewhere thus:--"While
we are coldly discussing a man's career, sneering at his mistakes, and
labelling his opinions 'Evangelical and narrow' or 'Latitudinarian and
pantheistic,' or 'Anglican and supercilious,' that man in his solitude
is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one,
because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult
word and do the difficult deed."  Ah, yes, it's a mercy that there is a
God even for unlovable people!\par

But there is a question that has been waiting all this time, and we
must ask it before we close.  {\itshape{What about ourselves, you and me}}?  Are
we such lovable people that we can afford to judge others?  Do we never
rub our friends the wrong way, and, without meaning it, annoy and
disappoint and repel them?  Are {\itshape{our}} religious profession and our
daily practice so very much in keeping that we may talk about prigs and
self-righteous people as if they belonged to an entirely different
world?  May I speak for you all and say humbly "No"?  No, God knows
they are not!  The fact is that if we know ourselves at all well, we
must be aware that we have it in us to be quite as disagreeable and
selfish and self-righteous as anybody.  It is only our best beloved who
do not get tired of us, and sometimes even they must be hard put to it.\par

But there is a blessed Gospel for those who have made that discovery
about themselves.  There is a God of Jacob.  Abraham is too high for
us, and Isaac is too saintly, but Jacob, faulty, disappointing,
unlovable, yet by God's grace redeemed and perfected at last, Jacob is
the man for us!  The hope and comfort of all who have learned what they
really are is that "the God of Jacob is our refuge."\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Bring us, we pray Thee, O God, into a truer knowledge of ourselves.
Make us to learn how frail we are, how poor and blind and naked; to the
end we may regard with due charity the shortcomings of others, and may
worthily praise Thy great Mercy, who yet hast not turned away Thy face
from us.  For Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par\label{under-the-juniper-tree}%
\hypertarget{under-the-juniper-tree}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Elijah went a day's journey}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{into the wilderness, and came}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{and sat under a juniper tree, and}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{requested for himself that he}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{might die.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(1 KINGS xix. 4.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XX}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ UNDER THE JUNIPER TREE}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
A well-known writer relates that, when passing through Edinburgh once,
he saw a procession of Friendly Societies, and observed on one of the
banners the name emblazoned, The Order of the Juniper Tree.  His
comment is:--"Many of us belong to that order."  So we do.  And,
because of that, we can diagnose Elijah's trouble quite accurately.  He
is suffering, as we have all suffered at some time or other, from the
pains and penalties of reaction.  Just because he had climbed to a
height almost superhuman, the reaction when it came was very black and
terrible.  The Bible is too wise and too true to human nature to
conceal the fact that for his hour of splendid daring, Elijah had his
price to pay.\par

It's a commonplace, of course, but just one of those commonplaces which
in the bulk spell wisdom, that there was a physical reason for this
condition.  To put it plainly, Elijah was tired out.  He had been using
up his physical and nervous energy at such a ruinous rate during the
past few hours, that he had overdrawn his account.  It strikes one as a
very significant fact that when God's angel took the prophet in hand,
the first thing he did was to provide him with a meal.  Elijah was
actually on his way back to his normal condition when he had had
something to eat.\par

That is not a mere incident in the story.  It is exceedingly important,
because, sometimes the religious depression with which we are
acquainted arises in a similar way.  It is a very useful fact to
remember that a man's whole religious outlook is coloured by the
condition of his health.  We may be slow to admit such a low and
material cause for effects so apparently spiritual.  But it is a fact
all the same.  And it is only wise to recognise it.\par

But Elijah's reaction was not entirely or even mainly physical in its
origin.  He had been in a very exalted spiritual condition during the
contest on Carmel.  Think what the man had done!  He had stood alone in
the path of a whole nation rioting down to idolatry and shamelessness,
and with voice and presence and fire from Heaven had stopped and turned
them, driven the huddled, frightened sheep back again to the ways and
the worship of God.  Was it to be wondered at that his very soul within
him was faint under the strain?\par

Though the vision and the privileges of the hill-top are what the best
men covet most, it is but little of it at a time that any one can
stand.  Do you remember that Jesus would not let Peter and James and
John remain long on the Mount of the Transfiguration, even though they
wanted to build tabernacles and dwell there?  There have been few
greater spiritual experts than John Bunyan, and when he has described
how his pilgrim fared in the Palace Beautiful, how he slept in a
chamber called Peace, how he saw afar off the Delectable Land, whither
he was journeying, where does he take him next?  Straight down into the
Valley of Humiliation, where he has to fight for his life against the
darts of the Evil One flying as thick as hail!\par

There is no cure for reaction, of course, but there are one or two
rules which experience has proved to be helpful.\par

For example, it is never a wise thing, when you are depressed, to
attempt to form any judgment about yourself, your service, or your
standing in the sight of God.  By some Satanic impulse, that is the
very time, of course, when you will be tempted to do it.  It may appear
a very wholesome spiritual exercise when you have gone a day's journey
into the wilderness and are faint, to reckon up what manner of man and
disciple of Christ you are.  But don't do it then.  Nobody sees truly
either himself or God, under a juniper tree.\par

And then, if possible, do not speak about your despondency.  Don't
express your mood outwardly at all, if you can help it.  Bottle it up
if you can, and you will starve it all the sooner.  His biographer
relates of the late Ian Maclaren that, like many people who have Celtic
blood in their veins, he was subject to curious fits of depression and
gloom which did not seem to be in any way connected with bodily health.
"But," he goes on to say, "he never inflicted his melancholy moods on
his family, was only very quiet and absorbed, and kept more closely to
his study.  In a day or two he would emerge again, like a man coming
out into the sunshine."\par

And lastly.  Once a man has sworn himself a disciple and soldier of
Jesus Christ, neither doubt nor depression, neither darkness nor
reaction absolves him from the obligation to follow and to serve when
he is called.  It must be confessed that it is an undue sense of the
importance of our own feelings that makes the juniper-tree-mood the
peril and hindrance that it is.  We need to remember that the call of
Christ overrides personal feelings.  In His army too, there is
discipline to be thought of, and "it is not soldierly to skulk."  When
the bugle calls to action, nobody but a coward would make the fact that
he is not feeling quite up to the mark, an excuse for sitting still.
Reaction is a natural thing, but cowardice is always shameful.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, we bless Thee for the comfort of Thy perfect knowledge
of us.  We are glad to think that Thou knowest our frame and
rememberest that we are dust.  Make us more wise to bring the burden of
our moods of darkness and reaction to the footstool of Thy perfect
understanding; but save us, we beseech Thee, from all yielding in the
long fight against them.  Seeing that Thy grace is sufficient for us
and Thy strength made perfect in our weakness, grant us a godly fear of
all unmanly surrender.  For Thy Name's sake.  Amen.\par\label{instructing-the-cabin-boy}%
\hypertarget{instructing-the-cabin-boy}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{If any man will do his will}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{he shall know of the doctrine.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(JOHN vii. 17.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXI}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ INSTRUCTING THE CABIN BOY}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
When John Wesley was on his way home from Georgia, he wrote this record
of the voyage in his Journal:--"Being sorrowful and very heavy (though
I could give no particular reason for it) and utterly unwilling to
speak close to any of my little flock (about twenty persons), I was in
doubt whether my own neglect of them was not one cause of my heaviness.
In the evening, therefore, I began instructing the cabin boy, after
which I was much easier."\par

This is a significant passage for various reasons.  For one thing, it
lets us see that even a spiritual genius like Wesley sometimes fell
into the mood of doubt.  And, for another, it shows how, almost by
accident, as it seems, he found a cure for his trouble.  It is plain
that religion just then had lost its savour for the great evangelist.
The joy had gone out of his service and the power from his prayers, and
he was not sure of anything at all.  This is practical doubt, the only
serious kind there is.  "Being sorrowful and very heavy and very
unwilling."\par

There are not a few men and women whose trouble this is.  They are in
straits to know what is really God's truth.  They greatly desire to lay
hold of it surely for themselves.  The tremendous earnestness of those
who have found the old dogmas unsatisfying, and are adrift again in a
twentieth century search for God, is one of the most significant
features of the situation.  Can a man really come in touch with God?
they ask.  Is there a living Christ whose presence redeems men from
evil and can lift them up to what they long to be?  Is there a life
with God which even Death cannot end?  And those who are in such deep
earnest to know God vitally for themselves, are sorrowful and heavy
indeed to find that all their thinking and reading and inquiry do so
little for them.  They pray for light, and examine all the evidence
with a wistful eagerness, but the clouds still lie around them, and
they are still wandering, now in this direction, now in that, like men
lost in a mist.\par

Is there no way out of this tangle?  Yes, there is.  To all who are
sorrowful and heavy because they know so little they can call their own
about God and spiritual living, I want to say, There is a way forward,
a safe, sure way.  It is the way that Wesley stumbled upon.  "I began
instructing the cabin boy."  That is the way for you and me to a fuller
experience of God.\par

That is the simple solution which so many thousands of us have
overlooked, and it was the discovery of Jesus Christ.  When asked how
He knew about God, He answered that it was because He was doing God's
will, and He added, If any man, no matter who, no matter what his
doubts be, if any man be willing to do God's will, where, and as, it is
clear to him, he too shall know.  God will not leave him in ignorance
of what is really essential.\par

Nowhere, except in the Bible, do you find such a method of learning
recommended.  From nobody but Christ could such a precept come, for it
is clean contrary to all that we know about learning in other spheres.
Study and you will know, think, investigate, ask questions--that, we
can understand.  That is how knowledge comes to us in the realms with
which we are acquainted.  But when men asked Christ how they could
learn God's truth for themselves, He said, First of all you must obey
it.  Do, and you will know.\par

You remember the lepers whom Christ touched, of whom it is written that
"as they went, they were healed?"  That is how the only sort of doubt
that really matters is healed.  As you go, not as you sit still and
puzzle, but as you shoulder the nearest duty and obey what light and
knowledge you have.\par

"I don't know," Wesley would say to himself, "whether I am in my right
place here or not, whether I am really Christ's servant or not.  I am
in the dark, and don't seem to be sure of anything.  But there is that
cabin boy.  I can at least do him some good.  That is right anyhow,
whatever be uncertain."  "After which," he says, "I was much easier."
It is marvellous to read, but it is a law as certain and safe as
gravitation.  Do God's will as you know it, and you will get more
light.  "Doubt of any sort," said Thomas Carlyle, "cannot be removed
except by action."\par

It is hardly necessary to say, of course, that the knowledge which
Christ promises to those who will obey God's will is not of dogma in
its restricted theological sense.  It was life Christ talked about, it
was life He was concerned with, and, for Him, life meant not
head-knowledge, but heart-experience and heart-hold of God.  It is that
He promises in His great saying.  So do not make the mistake of
thinking that when you seek to do the Will of God, all your mental
difficulties, about miracles or inspiration or what not else, will come
to an end.  These are problems, not of life, but of mind, and you have
them because God has given you a mind, and you will probably have them
as long as your mind is growing.  What Christ does promise is of vastly
more importance, namely, the light of God's truth in your heart, the
assurance of God in your inmost soul, that you shall know for yourself
that God is, and that He is near to you, and that your true life is in
Him; and when a man has got that length, there are many doctrinal and
other mental puzzles for the solution of which he is content to wait
with an easy trust and patience.\par

I like that saying of Viscount Kenmure's, away back in the sixteenth
century, "I will lie at Christ's door like a beggar, and, if I may not
knock, I will scrape."  I like it, for this reason, that I am quite
sure there is no essential door of God in earth or heaven which is shut
against the man who casts himself so utterly on Him as that.  And I
take Kenmure's word to illustrate what Jesus meant by If any man will
do God's will.  It is when a man says, I cannot see, I do not know, my
mind is filled with spectres and doubts and questions, but, so help me
God, I will do the thing that is right for me, I will walk by what
little light I have--it is then, it is to that man that there come
infallibly the knowledge which no criticism can shake, and the peace
which the world can neither give nor take away.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, we thank Thee for this one straight road out of our
doubts, and the difficulties we so often make for ourselves.  We bless
Thee for the stedfast certainty that no man, who will rise and follow
what light he has, shall finally be left in darkness.  By doing shall
we come to know.  As we go upon our clear duty, other truths become
more clear.  It is our Lord's own doctrine, and in His Name we pray
that Thou would'st help us to learn it.  Amen.\par\label{god-s-door-of-hope}%
\hypertarget{god-s-door-of-hope}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The valley of Achor for a}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{door of hope.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(HOSEA xxv. 15.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ GOD'S DOOR OF HOPE}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
The world has a scheme of redemption of its own, and men can themselves
do something for the brother who has fallen.  But the plan involves,
invariably, a change of surroundings.  Worldly wisdom says, of the
youth who is making a mess of his life, "Ship him off to the colonies,
try him with a new start on another soil."  But the grace of God
promises a far more wonderful salvation.  It makes possible a new start
on the very spot of the old failure.  It leads a man back to the scene
of his old disloyalty, and promises him a new memory that shall blot
out and redeem the old.  God does not take the depressed and
discouraged out of their surroundings.  He adds an inward something
that enables them to conquer where they stand.  It is not some new
untried sphere that God gilds with promise.  It is the old place where
one has already failed and fallen.  It is the valley of Achor, the
scene of Israel's defeat, and Achan's shame and sin, that God gives to
His people as a door of hope.\par

In Italian history, during the Middle Ages, the republics of Pisa and
Genoa were often at war, and at one time the Genoese were badly beaten
in a sea-fight near the little island of Meloria.  Some years after, a
Genoese admiral took his fleet to that same spot and said, "Here is the
rock which a Genoese defeat has made famous.  A victory would make it
immortal."  And sure enough, the fight that followed ended in a great
victory for Genoa.  It is that sort of hope that God holds out to all
defeated souls who put their trust in Him.  He points us back to our
valley of Achor, the place with a memory we do not like to think of,
and He says, There is your door of Hope, Go back and try again.  And
those who go back in His strength are enabled to write a new memory
upon the old shame.\par

Our Lord and Master is very gracious to forgive us when we come to Him
in penitence to tell Him of the position we have lost by our
faithlessness or our cowardice, but He does not consent to the ultimate
defeat of the very feeblest of His soldiers.  "Go back and try again,"
is His order.  There are many, as Dr Matheson says, who offer us a
golden to-morrow, but it is only Christ who enables us to retrieve our
yesterday.  For His grace is more than forgiveness.  It is the promise
to reverse the memory of Achor, to turn defeat into victory even yet.\par

Achor, further, literally means Trouble, and it is a great thing for us
when we have learned that even there God has for us a door of hope.\par

The valley of Trouble is perhaps the last place in the world where the
uninstructed would look for any fruit of harvest, and yet again and
again men have brought the fairest flowers of character and holiness
out of it.  How many a devout and useful servant of Christ owes the
beginning of his allegiance to a serious illness, to some crippling
disappointment, to an overwhelming sorrow?  In all humility there are
many who can say, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, and
there are many, many more about whom their friends often quote that
text.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"I walked a mile with Pleasure;\par}
{\vl She chattered all the way,\par}
{\vl But left me none the wiser\par}
{\vl For all she had to say.\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"I walked a mile with Sorrow,\par}
{\vl And ne'er a word said she,\par}
{\vl But oh, the things I learned from her,\par}
{\vl When Sorrow walked with me!"\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
There is a door of Hope even in the valley of Trouble, and those who
tread it in God's company shall not fail to find it.\par

There is one other class who need to know that even in Achor there is a
door of hope, the depressed and discouraged.  Phillips Brooks once
declared, "I came near doing a dreadful thing the other day.  I was in
East Boston and I suddenly felt as if I must get away from everything
for a while.  I went to the Cunard dock and asked if the steamer had
sailed.  She had been gone about an hour.  I believe if she had still
been there, I should have absconded."  I wonder if there is any one who
has not known that feeling?  When duty is dull, and circumstances
discouraging, when we seem to be merely ploughing the sands, "Oh," we
say, "for the wings of a dove!"  Comfort and happiness and salvation
seem to lie solely in escape.  And it may be that they do.  But more
often the trouble is in ourselves, and would travel with us to the new
post.\par

If there be any depressed or discouraged reading these lines, I should
like to remind them of God's promise to give the valley of Achor--that
is the depressing scene of your labours, my brother--for a door of
hope.  You are looking for your hope somewhere else, anywhere else
provided it be out of your present rut and drudgery.  In reality your
door of hope lies in the rut, in the valley itself.  It is not escape
you need.  It is just a braver faith that God is in your valley with
you, and that He needs you there.\par

Take a firmer grip of that, and go back to where you serve, and you
will find, please God, that even in your valley He has opened for you a
door of Hope and Gladness.\par

May all those who are living and working these days in the valley of
Achor find in it somewhere God's Door of Hope.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Grant us, O God, the faith that in Thy strength we can yet succeed even
in the place where we have failed.  Teach us that it is Thy whisper we
hear, when we have fallen into Despond, bidding us rise and try again.
And grant us the courage to be sure, since Thou hast a tryst to meet
and help us there, that even our Achor shall open to us its door of
hope.  Amen.\par\label{nowadays}%
\hypertarget{nowadays}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{There be many servants}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{now-a-days that break away}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{every man from his master.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(1 SAMUEL xxv. 10.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXIII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ NOW-A-DAYS}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Nabal, says the Bible, was a churl.  When David sent his men to request
some provender, in return for services rendered, this ill-mannered
sheep-farmer broke out, "Who is David?  There be many servants
now-a-days that break away every man from his master."  It was a
singularly rude and ungracious reply, all things considered.  But it is
not about Nabal's truculence I wish to speak.  I want you to think
about that phrase he used, and the tone in which it was said.
"Now-a-days."  The implication, of course, is that servants did not
break away from their masters in {\itshape{his}} young days.  Things were
different in the times {\itshape{he}} could remember.\par

You will recognise this peculiar intonation of "Now-a-days" as
something fairly familiar.  You hear it yet, quite often.  Now-a-days
the Church has lost caste.  Now-a-days the Bible is a neglected book.
Now-a-days faith is on the wane, and most people don't believe anything
at all.  There are many such sentences, beginning with the word
Now-a-days and sounding like a chant on a minor key.\par

This pessimistic philosophy is difficult to fight, for it is
unsubstantial, and dissolves like mist whenever you come to close
quarters.  But there are three queries I have noted in my Bible
opposite that "Now-a-days" of Nabal.\par

And the first is--What about the man himself?  Judge his philosophy by
his actions.  Nabal apparently believed that servants were getting
entirely out of hand, and he speaks as if he remembered something very
different in his own early days.  Very good.  What was he doing to
maintain the old standards?  Nothing, less than nothing.  His personal
manners and behaviour were such that servants would be very ready to
break away on that farm, I should think.  Now, what business has Nabal
to go whining, in general terms, mark you, about servants now-a-days,
when he behaves like a boor to his own?  For any declension which he
may see about him, he is himself largely responsible.\par

I think that it is a perfectly fair line of argument, and it disposes
of quite a number of pious "inexactitudes."  When I hear a man talking
about the lost influence of the Church now-a-days, I am always tempted
to inquire what his own relation to it is, whether he is loyally
supporting it and working in its interests, for experience has taught
me that a very great deal of exaltation of the Church's past records,
at the expense of its position to-day, comes from men who are
themselves doing absolutely nothing to help it on its way.  There are
exceptions, of course, but, as a rule, it is not the active workers in
any worthy cause who are lamenting its failure.  The men who think the
country is going to the dogs are themselves to be found, for the most
part, lolling in the clubs.  It is not the pledged and active member of
Christ's kingdom who thinks it is disappearing from the earth.  And to
those who are fond of the Now-a-days type of complaint, I would suggest
the inquiry--What about yourself?  Are you helping to keep up the old
standards as you say you remember them?  Or is your influence also
tending to set this ball of the earth rolling in the very direction you
deplore, namely, down the hill?\par

The second query on Nabal's "Now-a-days" is--Can his memory be relied
upon?  It is an instinct with us all to idealise the past, and gild it
in memory with all sorts of romance.  We quietly drop all the shadows
from the picture as time goes on.  Were ever summer days since so long
and fine and sunny as they were when we were boys?  Never!  We are all
agreed about that.  Yet when we were boys, men who were then grey were
using exactly the same words about summer days years before!  We are
all apt to praise the past just because it is the past, and because it
has a way of turning rosy as it recedes.  The wise man recognises that,
and allows for it.  The foolish man begins many sentences with
"Now-a-days," and ends with a shake of the head and a sigh.\par

But there is something that does not forget nor gild the past with
false romance, and that is history.  Turn back its pages a hundred
years or more; read such a book as H. G. Graham's "Social Life in
Scotland in the Eighteenth Century"; and you will soon discover what a
fine word Now-a-days really is.\par

As far as humanity and civilisation, brotherly charity, and true
religion are concerned, the man who in pessimistic mood contrasts
now-a-days with the good old times a hundred years ago, simply does not
know what he is talking about.  Changes there have been, many and
radical, but change is not necessarily a sign either of declension or
decay.\par

I can partly understand a man without faith in God giving his vote for
a general falling off in human progress, but I cannot understand a man
who believes in God, and in the presence in the world of a living
spirit of Christ, being a pessimist.  No one affirms, of course, that
we are progressing everywhere, and all the time.  Set-backs here and
there, there are in human history just as in a successful campaign.
But that, on the whole, the world grows better, the Kingdom comes, and
earth draws nearer to Heaven, seems to me to be simply a corollary from
the fact that God reigns, and has blessed us with knowledge of Himself.\par

I grant you that the war is a disappointing revelation of how far
mankind still has to travel.  But, as far as we are concerned, I am not
disposed to counsel undue humiliation and self-condemnation on account
of it.  A people that for the sake of unseen eternal realities like
honour and righteousness will make the sacrifices which we are making,
can hardly be said to be degenerating, especially when we remember some
of the causes for which we have drawn the sword in years and
generations gone by.  But even though the clock of progress be set back
awhile--and that does not seem so likely now as when the war began--it
is simply not possible that, in this world of God's, evil should
ultimately vanquish good, that the Spirit of Christ should finally be
crushed by the forces that oppose it.  That can never be.  As soon
might the germs of disease which the sun destroys turn round upon it
and quench its blessed light.\par

The third query opposite Nabal's "Now-a-days" is--Does he truly discern
the present time?  Does he know "now-a-days" even as well as he knows
the past?  As a matter of fact, David was not just a servant who had
broken away from his master, and if Nabal had only lived a little
longer he would have seen how completely he had misread the signs of
the times.\par

That is worth remembering when you are tempted to say, Now-a-days
things are out of joint.  Maybe you don't clearly see these very days
you are disparaging.  When Jesus preached in Nazareth, the village
where He had been brought up, the people said, Is not this the
Carpenter? and in their anger at His presumption, as they thought it,
they wanted to make away with Him.  If they had only known!\par

It is not enough to recognise that we cannot see the future.  We cannot
even see the present.  Think what it would be like if we could see the
great men, the prophets, poets, reformers, leaders, who are at this
present moment in our nurseries and schools, or if we were able to
recognise in the--at present--small shoot of a cause, the great tree
into which in God's providence it is destined to grow!\par

Now-a-days; now-a-days!  What a delusion it is for anybody to think he
knows "now-a-days" well enough to call it names!  It is not with
observation that the Kingdom comes.  God rings no bell when He has a
new and gracious purpose afoot in the world.  And the thing for you and
me to do is to rest confidently in the faith that, in His own good way
and time, God is redeeming the world to Himself, and to do all that we
can to help Him, and to make our little corner of it a brighter and a
better place.  But do not let us imagine that we can see all that is
going on about us.  There is far, far more of God and of goodness in
the world than we suspect.  The woods and hedges look very bleak and
bare to-day.{[}1{]}  It is a dead and barren aspect that Nature wears
now-a-days.  Yet {\itshape{even now}} the sap is mounting quickly in every living
stem, and Spring is getting ready while we sleep.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{{[}1{]} Written in February.}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
So, let us have the courage to believe--so is it with every worthy
cause of God and man.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Almighty God, Ruler and Disposer of all events, we would remember that
this world of ours is, first of all, Thine.  We believe that, though
Thy Kingdom comes not with observation yet it does come more and more.
We believe that, with Thee, the best is yet to be.  And we pray that,
with that faith in our hearts, we may leave the large campaign with
quietness and confidence to Thee, and seek rather to discharge the
duties of that post Thou hast assigned to us, with loyalty and good
hope.  Amen.\par\label{roundabout-roads}%
\hypertarget{roundabout-roads}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{And a certain man drew a}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{bow at a venture.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(2 CHRONICLES xviii. 33)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXIV}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ ROUNDABOUT ROADS}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
It sounds improbable that though a whole army was trying to kill Ahab,
it should be an arrow which a man shot at a venture, or as the Hebrew
has it, quaintly, "in his simplicity"--when twanging his bow
carelessly, or trying a new string perhaps--that should find the king's
heart.\par

And yet it is the thing that does happen occasionally in real life.  We
sometimes do get the target when we are aiming for something else.  The
name which we have been worrying to recall strolls casually into our
memory when we have given up trying and are not thinking of it at all.
There are certain stars, astronomers tell us, which they see best when
they look askance.  And I have come to think that there are certain
precious goods of His which God allows us to possess on the same
conditions.  You see them by looking past them.  You get them by aiming
at something else.  "Look at your goal and go for it straight," says
worldly wisdom, wisely and truly enough in many instances.  All the
same there are good things in life to which that is emphatically NOT
the road.  The real way to secure these is to aim for something else.\par

This is true, for example, of Happiness.  Everyone of us wants to be
happy.  And there is such a bountiful provision of the means of
happiness all about us that it is difficult to resist the conclusion
that God means us all to be happy.  Yet when those for whom happiness
is meant and prepared seek it directly and for itself, it is as certain
as anything can be that they won't find it.  You ask, perhaps you pray
for this boon, and God shows you only some bare duty that is clearly
yours.  Out to it you go, like a brave man, not thinking there can be
any blessings on that road, when, lo! as you journey, happiness comes
to you, quietly, filling your heart with peace.\par

One does not find that the New Testament, as a matter of fact, has much
to say about being happy at all.  There is so little reference to it
that it looks as if God had forgotten our need.  I find that the Book
which I had thought might tell me how to find happiness tells me
instead of "bearing one another's burdens," doing it "unto one of the
least of these"; tells me about my brother's need of me when he is sick
or naked or hungry; tells me even about such a thing as a cup of cold
water to a thirsty disciple.  Ah! but when, in however poor a fashion,
I forget my own quest and gird myself in Christ's name and try to DO
some of these things, I find that God has not forgotten after all,
that, all the time He has been showing me THE way to happiness, and I
did not recognise it because it is not a straight road.  It's not a
question of seeking, but of forgetting to seek.  Happiness comes to you
oftenest when you are intent on bringing it to your brother.\par

The same principle holds true also with regard to Influence.  It is
natural that a man should desire that his shadow when it falls on
others should heal and not hurt.  But the healing, helpful shadow is
not got by wishing for it.  As soon as you begin to think about it and
aim for it, you will go astray.  Here is a little poem which tells how
the strange magnetic quality of influence for good comes to a man:--\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"He kept his lamp still lighted,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Though round about him came\par}
}

{\vl Men who, by commerce blighted,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Laughed at his little flame.\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}

{\vl He kept his sacred altar\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Lit with the torch divine,\par}
}

{\vl Nor let his purpose falter,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Like yours, O World, and mine.\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}

{\vl And they whose cold derision\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Had mocked him, came one day\par}
}

{\vl To beg of him the vision\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl To help them on their way.\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
}

{\vl And, barefoot or in sandal,\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl When forth they fared to die,\par}
}

{\vl They took from his poor candle\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl One spark to guide them by."\par}
}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
That is the secret--a roundabout way, as you see.  If Influence is to
be ours, that is how it will come, not by our trying to be influential,
but by our striving to be upright, loyal, and true.\par

In the third place, this is true of Life in Christ's sense of the term.
Life was one of His favourite words.  It was Life, in the highest
sense, that He claimed to bring to men.  And the greatest calamity in
His eyes that could fall on any man is that that inward soul-life
should die.\par

Yet when those in whom He has awakened it, aim directly for its growth
and culture, they make mistakes.  To the question--Shall I regard the
development and deepening of that soul-life of mine as the one end and
object of my living? the answer of Jesus, as I understand it, is No.
Life, said He, at its highest and fullest and most perfect, is reached
by giving it away.  He that loseth his life shall save it.\par

What a long way from this ideal are those good people who are for ever
laying their fingers on their spiritual pulse and plucking their
soul-life up by the roots to see how it is growing!  There is a nobler
use of life than to save it in that fearful fashion.  There is a truer
way to grow in grace than by hoarding up virtue so, namely, by letting
it go generously out from us.  When St Nicholas got to Heaven with his
white robes of sainthood stained with mud through stopping on his way
to help a carter pull his waggon out of a rut--a task which his fellow
St Cassianus, for the sake of his robes, avoided and declined--it was
the muddy saint whom the Master welcomed with the sweetest smile and
the most gracious words.  Whoso loseth his life, the same shall save it.\par

Happiness, Influence, Life, these three, and the road to each of them
is indirect.  May God bless it to us that we have stood for a little to
mark the flight of an arrow shot "in simplicity!"\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, may we have grace to discover the blessings that lie on
Thy roundabout roads.  May we never make the mistake of thinking that
the path to true happiness is the one that runs straight towards it.
Keep us true to Christ, and we shall not then be false to any man.  And
give us to know that we are likest Him, not when we hoard and cherish
life and virtue, but when we spend them without stint or measure in any
worthy cause of God or man, for His sake.  Amen.\par\label{the-extravagance-of-love}%
\hypertarget{the-extravagance-of-love}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Why was not this ointment}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{sold for three hundred pence,}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{and given to the poor?}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(JOHN xii. 5.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXV}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF LOVE}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
"Wherever this Gospel is preached, this that she had done shall be told
as a memorial of her."  What a gracious memorial, and how worthy of it
was Mary's beautiful outburst of generosity!  But what a pity that the
speech of Judas should be recorded also, as a memorial of him!  And
yet, on mature consideration, we would not have the Judas criticism
forgotten.  Because it called forth what we might not otherwise have
had, the vindication of Jesus Himself.  And because, as a matter of
fact, we are constantly hearing the protest of Judas repeated in our
own day, and are often ill-held to know how to meet it.\par

"This he said," records our evangelist bluntly, "not because he loved
the poor, but because he was a thief and kept the bag."  Yet he might
have been an honest man and said the same thing.  For very many honest
and earnest men and women are repeating this criticism still.  It is
repeated whenever it is taken for granted that practical utility is the
only standard by which to judge actions and offerings, that God and man
can be served in no other way than by "iron bars and perspiration."\par

How often do we meet the type of mind that admits the service of a
ploughman and denies that of poet or artist, for whom a waterfall, as
somebody has said, exists merely as so much power for driving turbines,
and whose sole test of usefulness is that of making two blades
grow--and corn blades at that!--where but one grew before.  We are
commonly browbeaten by this type of person, and yet we feel that
somehow, if we could only say it, he is wrong--that the poet's is as
divine a vocation as the farmer's, that God meant a silver band of
falling water in a green glade to suggest other things besides dynamos,
and that he who even paints some blades of grass, and paints them
pleasingly, has his place somewhere in the great guild of servants of
God and man.\par

One has heard the same attitude taken up in other directions too.  Why
spend so much money on a Church, you will be asked, when there are so
many poor people in the land?  What need for stone pillars and a fine
organ, when a plain building and a harmonium would do as well?  Why try
to secure what is called a beautiful Church service, dignified,
stately, musical, when the very baldest worship is acceptable in God's
sight, if only it be sincere?  We have heard all that, and other
remarks like that, often, and we have seldom been able to give reasons
against them.  A mere instinctive sentiment seems a feeble thing to
oppose to such cold and hard facts.  Yet somehow we feel that it is all
wrong if only we knew how to convict it.\par

Did it ever occur to you that Jesus Himself has answered that objection
and others like it when He vindicated Mary's action that night?  There
is no doubt that her ointment cost a deal of money, money that could
have fed many hungry people.  It was an extravagant offering, without
any practical outcome, save that Jesus was refreshed.  There is no
doubt also about our Lord's sympathy with the poor and needy.  And yet
He upheld Mary's action, and would not have it called wasteful!  All
that could be said in its favour was that it was beautiful, that it
touched Jesus keenly, and influenced all who saw it done.  And that, as
I read the story, was one reason at least why Jesus defended it.  He
allows the Beautiful.  He would have the Beautiful honoured for its own
sake even in a world so full of sorrow and trouble as this.\par

For my part, I am very grateful that this word of Christ's has been
recorded.  For it affords sufficient warrant for declaring the poet,
the artist, the architect, and all those who are trying to make the
world more beautiful, God's servants too, offering Him a gift He does
not disdain to recognise, as truly as the physician, the
philanthropist, and the preacher whose object is to make it better.\par

Beauty of form and structure has been lavished profusely by the Creator
on creatures too small to be seen.  There are more things grow out of
God's earth than corn for food or timber for building houses.  There's
the heather and the wild flowers, the daisies and the violets.
Hard-headed common-sense asks--What's the use of them?  What good do
they do?  The answer is that they are beautiful, and that seems in
God's sight to be justification enough for having made them.\par

So when we see Love breaking her alabaster box, and pouring forth her
offering without stint, as she is doing every day--a mother lavishing
care upon an ungrateful son, a husband surrounding a peevish wife with
a tireless devotion, or a sister keeping her own love-dream at arm's
length that she may guard and guide some graceless brother--let us lay
our hands upon our lips when we are tempted to criticise.  These
actions may be foolish, extravagant, quixotic, and may outrage every
canon of common-sense.  But there is a fragrance about them without
which the world would be much poorer.  They are morally beautiful, and
for that reason, our Lord Himself would teach us, they are not to be
rudely handled nor judged by any hard standard.\par

Yes, but He said more than that.  He found a more complete extenuation
of Mary's extravagance.  It was because she loved much.  Her gift was
an offering of love to Himself.  "She hath done it for my burial."  And
that is the end of the whole matter, my brothers.  Love is always
extravagant when measured by the tape-line of bare duty.  It always
overflows.  It breaks its box and gives everything it has.  Yet, like
the widow's cruse of old, its casket is never empty, for even when it
has given its all, the next needy case will find succour at that door.
Take your charity subscription sheet to the man who loudly asserts that
too much money is being given to the Kirk this dull season, and what
will you get?  Take it also to the man who has signed a bigger cheque
than he can well afford that the House of his God may be made
beautiful, and it will be strange if you are sent empty away.  Ah no,
it is not Mary, whose devotion has found outlet in some sudden
generosity, it is not she who neglects the poor.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, whose we are and Whom we seek to serve, enlighten us,
we pray Thee, in the knowledge and practice of that supreme service
which is love.  May we learn that the greatest thing in our little
lives is the love they hold for God and man.  Teach us to appraise
love's extra everywhere as those who have also felt and understand.
And when our own gift and offering must needs be poor and small, may we
be encouraged by the remembrance that even a widow's mite that love has
offered is precious in Thy sight.  Amen.\par\label{the-art-of-doing-without}%
\hypertarget{the-art-of-doing-without}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{I know both how to be}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{abased, and I know how to}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{abound.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(PHILIPPIANS iv. 12.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXVI}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE ART OF "DOING WITHOUT"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
In one of his letters, Paul declares that he knows both how to be
abased and how to abound.  Most people, who did not stop to think,
would be inclined to assert that the second of these lessons did not
require much learning.  It's an easy enough thing to be content, they
would say, when you have plenty.  Far harder is it to learn how to do
without.  I am not at all sure that that is right.  I rather think
that, of the two, abundance is a more searching test of a man's true
quality than scarcity ever is.  Carlyle has declared that for one man
who will stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.\par

But whether that be so or not, there is no question that it is a great
thing to have the secret of doing without.  And the merest glance
abroad convinces us that it is of the utmost importance.  In
literature, for example, the quality which confers most distinction
upon style is the art of omission.  Did not Stevenson, himself a
master, say that one who knew what to omit could make an Iliad of the
daily newspaper?  And the commonest blunders in the great business of
living spring from ignorance of this secret.  Why do some people make
themselves disagreeable in a community by their touchiness and
sulkiness?  Simply because they have not learned how to be abased, how
to live without getting their own way always, or without getting the
praise or recognition to which they feel themselves entitled.  It's an
art, you see, which is well worth studying.\par

It has to be added that opportunities for practising it are never long
wanting from anybody.  We don't need to choose what things we shall do
without, as a rule.  The things are simply taken from us, or we never
get them.  It may be our own fault, or it may not.  The result is the
same.  We have to do without.  And we give away our inmost self by the
fashion in which we do it.\par

There is, for example, the question of material goods.  It's easy to
talk unreal nonsense here, and we all must confess to wishing to have
more of this sort of property than we do possess.  But I honestly
believe that the Apostle Paul did not greatly concern himself whether
he was, materially speaking, well-off or ill-off.  There are other men
that one knows who have attained to the same point of view.  There's no
question either that for those whose religion is a vital thing it is
the right point of view.  The real man is independent of either riches
or poverty, because the real man is the man inside.  Riches is not you.
Poverty is not you.  You are what you are in your inner spirit.  The
riches there are invisible, but they are eternal--love, faith, hope,
peace.  And the man who has these, as Paul had them, can honestly say
that it is of relatively small moment whether he is in a material
sense, rich or poor.\par

Or take the question of friendship.  Who can tell in adequate words
what it means to have one true, loyal friend?  But it has happened
sometimes that the very closest friendships are broken and a man has to
stand alone, not by his own choice, but in the grim ordering of things.
There is a higher obligation than that you keep faith with your
friends.  First and foremost you must keep faith with yourself, with
your own conscience, with the voice within.  And it may be that
obedience to that involves seeming disloyalty to your friends, either
for a while or permanently.\par

Such a time came to Paul.  He had for conscience' sake to stand alone;
and he did it.  He was able to do it because his life did not rest for
its ultimate pillar on his friendships any more than on his riches.
Paul's real life was within.  That inner life of his was enriched and
made radiant and constant by one supreme fact--he believed that Jesus
Christ his Lord deigned to share it with him in spirit.  It is not
irreverent to say that in his inner soul Paul lived with Christ.\par

Maybe his words are too big for us to use, but each of us who, at some
hard bit of our journey, has appealed beyond friends to the Christ
within, saying, "I have done, O Lord, what seemed to me right.  And my
friends are hurt and angry.  But Thou knowest"--that man has learned,
even in a slight degree, that there is a nearer and truer blessing
possible for sinful men than even human friendship.\par

Then there is another thing that has sometimes to be done without.
There are privileges that belong to every Christian man and woman, and
are in a sense their birthright--the sense of God, confidence,
quietness of heart, hope.  There is no doubt that every real Christian
should be walking and working in the light and gladness of God's
presence.\par

But it is just as clear that not all are so blessed.  It may be their
own fault.  Doubtless in many cases it is.  Or it may be temperament or
outward circumstances that determine it.  Anyhow, many have to walk,
not in the light but in uncertainty, perplexity, and misgiving, and
sometimes even in darkness.\par

But "a bird is a bird even though it cannot sing."  And a Christian is
a Christian still even though his soul is dark within him, and he goes
on in fear, never daring to look up and hope at all.\par

That is spiritual abasement.  It ought not to be.  It is never to be
lightly acquiesced in.  But it happens sometimes to earnest men and
women, and it seems to be the settled condition of a few.  Is it
possible to do without these things?  Can a man manage to exist and
even move forward who has for a while lost his hold on his faith and on
God?  There are good and godly men who have done it.  Brother Lawrence
did it.  Robertson of Brighton did it.  Horace Bushnell did it.  And
many, many more.  When all that they held most precious in faith had
been eclipsed for the time, they steered still by the little light they
knew.  Though there should be no heaven, they resolved that they were
called to be pure, truthful, patient, kind, since these things could
never be wrong.  Though there were no Christ, they would still follow
where He had once seemed to invite them.  And so doing and so following
they came again to know.  The darkness passed, and faith and gladness
returned.  They had lost hold of God for a little, but He had never
lost hold of them.  And, brethren, whatever the doubt or darkness be,
that's always true.  That is what makes it possible at all.  That is
what may make it even blessed.  For\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"It's better to walk in the dark with God\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Than to walk alone in the light;\par}
}

{\vl Better to walk with God by faith\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl Than to walk alone by sight."\par}
}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Our Gracious God and Father in Heaven, whether Thou dost appoint for us
poverty or riches, save us from thinking that a man's life consisteth
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.  Beyond all our
friendships, be Thou our Friend and Helper, and grant us to seek first
the blessing of our God.  Make us very sure, for their comforting and
our own, that when men in their darkness sorely seek Thy face, the very
ache of their quest is token that Thou hast already found them.  For
Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par\label{wonder}%
\hypertarget{wonder}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{And Moses said, I will now}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{turn aside and see this great sight.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(EXODUS iii. 3.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXVII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ WONDER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Moses, adds one commentator significantly, was then eighty years of
age.  By the ordinary standards, he was an old man, yet he had not lost
his youthful sense of wonder.  It is a good sign, the best of signs,
when a man has lived so long and yet finds wonder in his heart.  It is
a bad sign when a man at any age, or when a generation of men, find
nothing in all God's world to wonder at.\par

Yet in many quarters it is regarded as the correct attitude to refrain
from expressing surprise at anything, no matter how striking.  The
utmost concession to be made to what is really wonderful is a languid
and patronising "Really?"  That is always a pitiful thing.  For where
there is no wonder there can be no religion worthy of the name.\par

The instinct of worship and the instinct of wonder are very intimately
related.  And where the one has died, the other cannot be in a very
healthy state.  "I had rather," said Ruskin once, "live in a cottage
and wonder at everything, than live in Warwick Castle and wonder at
nothing."  And his preference is to be commended.  For he who has never
wondered has never thought about God in any way to be called thinking.\par

It was our Lord Himself who said that the ideal of religion was the
child-like heart.  Everyone knows that these little people are always
being brought to a halt to wonder at something.  And Heaven is in very
truth nearer to them then, and they are more truly filled with its
spirit, than either you or I are when the glory and bloom of this world
unfold before our eyes, or the thought of the Infinite and Eternal God
comes to us and we have not felt impelled to bow our heads in silence
and worship, spell-bound, and in a godly fear.\par

It is not hard to lay one's finger on some of the causes that have
brought about this state of things.  A silly fashion, for one cause,
has decreed that wonder is vulgar.  Why that should be so, no one can
tell.  But if there be higher intelligences than ours in God's
Universe, and they see the sons of men, as they have plenty of chances
to do, casting an indifferent glance at the full pomp and majesty of
the setting sun, or reading such a Psalm as the 103rd with an untouched
heart, how they must marvel indeed!\par

And then, of course, familiarity tends to blunt the sense of wonder in
a certain and common type of mind.  The best men have always resisted
that tendency and recognised that it works harm to life and character.
They have remembered to look for God in the common and familiar, and
that is a search that goes far to make a man a saint, just because it
is a continual prayer, a continual holding open of the heart to God.
His answer is to fill the wondering heart, bit by bit, with Himself.\par

Ignorance, too, is often a cause, the kind of ignorance that calls
itself knowledge.  It is an innocent delusion on the part of the
youthful tyro in Science that after he has made a little experiment
with a prism and a beam of sunlight, there is nothing wonderful in the
rainbow.  Pure, profound Science on the other hand, speaks very
humbly--and wonders all the while.\par

Nature is dumb and silent concerning the Infinite behind it to him who
goes but to catalogue and dissect.  Take a heart that can wonder with
you on your country-walk, open your eyes and look, open your heart like
a child and listen, and you will find, as Moses found, that even in a
bush there may be the Voice of God.  Hold the door of your heart ajar
in simple wonder, and some thing of God will enter to cleanse and
freshen it, as the hot and dusty street is washed by the rain from
Heaven.\par

Just as he who goes to Nature with a heart that cannot wonder, will
find no message there for him, so he who looks out upon the sanctities
of home, of human life and love, in that dull mood of mere acceptance,
must often find himself hard pressed for material when he makes his
thanksgiving to God.  George Eliot has spoken somewhere of the agony of
the thought that we can never atone to the dead for the stinted
affection we gave them, for the "little reverence we showed to that
sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing
God has given us to know."  The divinest thing God has given us to know!\par

Have we realised that that gift of God to us lives now in the same home
with us?  Do you know what it is?  It is a wife's devotion, a mother's
care, a brother's comradeship, a sister's love.  It is the trust and
affection of little children, and the patience of those who love us.
And yet there have been men--judge ye if this be not true--who have
lived close to gifts of God like these, and taken them all unquestioned
and never wondered at the undeserved bounty of them or their
continuance from day to day.\par

How easy it is to discover the gifts and charm of a stranger, how easy
to wonder at that!  But to wonder at the sacrifice and the patience of
the love that dwells under the same roof with us, and stoops, in Mrs
Browning's happy phrase, "to the level of each day's most quiet need,"
how few of us do that!  And yet, without daily wonder, how can we be
sure that we do not slight it, or requite it ill, how can we truly give
our thanks to God whose gift it is?\par

Most important of all, he who brings no wonder in his heart can never
be touched with the sense of God.  The lack of the great deep and awful
wonder of our fathers in all their thought and speech about God, has
brought it about that our religious speech to-day is too often either
superficial, flippant and easy, or syllogistic, mechanical, and hard.
It is the absence of wonder that tempts men to imagine that God can be
enclosed in any formula whatever, or brought to the hearts of men in so
many rigid propositions.  If men would but give their wonder expression
when they frame their creeds, there would be less chafing where the
edges are too sharp.\par

I am bound to confess that my sympathies are altogether with a working
man who once listened to a fervid evangelist at a street corner
unfolding a scheme of salvation as clean-cut and mechanical as a
problem of Euclid, and buttonholed him afterwards to inquire if he had
ever read any astronomy.  No, he said, he had not.  "That's a pity,"
said the artisan, "for, eh, man, but ye have an awfu' wee God."  In all
reverence, my brothers, that is what the absence of wonder brings us
to, a small God, a small salvation, and a merely mechanical Christ.\par

Men have sometimes asked what that childhood of the Kingdom is on which
Jesus laid so much stress, and some have taken it to mean renunciation
of intellect and reason in favour of a Church's dogma.  But it means,
says John Kelman, something far more human and more beautiful--"it
means wonder and humility and responsiveness, the straight gaze of
childhood past conventionalities, the simplicity of a mind open to any
truth, and a heart with love alive in it."  That is surely right.  That
is what becoming a little child in Christ's sense does mean.  First of
all, wonder.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Almighty and eternal God, Creator and Ruler of the Universe, dwelling
in light that is inaccessible and full of glory, whom no man hath seen
or can see, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of
man that Thou visitest him?  Behold what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God!  Such
knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high, we cannot attain unto
it.  O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord
our Maker.  Amen.\par\label{the-fatherhood-of-god}%
\hypertarget{the-fatherhood-of-god}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{If ye then, being evil, know}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{... how much more ... your}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{heavenly Father.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(LUKE xi. 13.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXVIII}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
If it were a conceivable thing that we had to part with all the words
of Scripture save one, and if we were allowed to choose that one, there
are some of us who would elect to retain that great declaration of
Jesus--"If ye being evil know ... how much more ... your heavenly
Father."  For, having that, we should still be rich in knowledge of the
Love and Fatherhood of God.  We should still know Christ's dominating
conception of God, and have His last and highest word regarding Him.
We should still be able to rise, as Jesus not only warrants but invites
us to do, from the little broken arc of true fatherhood on earth to the
perfect round in Heaven.\par

At the warm reassuring touch of that "How much more your heavenly
Father" whole systems of brainy divinity vanish away!  The truth of the
Fatherhood of God, vouched for and lived on by Jesus, kills men's hard
and unworthy and hurtful thoughts about God as sunshine kills the
creatures that breed and prevail in darkness and ignorance.  They can
no more live alongside of a realisation that Christ's name for God is
His true name, and really describes His attitude to all the sons of
men, than the dark, creepy things that live under the stone can remain
there when you turn it over and let in the air and the light.\par

But, say some, you must not carry the truth of God's Fatherhood too
far.  What is too far? I ask.  I want to carry it, and I believe Christ
means us to carry it, as far as ever it will stretch, and that is "as
far as the East is from the West."  Think of a father's GOOD-WILL.  It
is conceivable that other men may do you a deliberate wrong.  But you
are entitled to believe that your father won't.  You may not understand
what he proposes, but you can be quite sure that he means only your
good.  Henry Drummond tells how his early days were made miserable by
the conception he had of God as of some great staring Eye in the
heavens watching all he did.  But that is a policeman's eye, not a
father's.\par

There are many tokens that, even yet, we have not realised what these
blessed words of Jesus mean and imply.  A mother vainly trying to
answer the old, old question why her little one was taken from her,
will say, "Perhaps I was too fond of him."  Or, should sudden sorrow
come, the explanation suggested by the troubled one himself is, "I was
too happy."  There are plenty of people who are afraid to declare that
they feel very well or are very happy, in case the upper Powers should
hear and send trouble, apparently out of sheer malice!  "Bethankit,
what a bonny creed!"  Oh! what a dreadful caricature of God!  How it
must pain the Father to hear His children talking so!\par

There is another mark of fatherhood, as we know it on
earth--COMPASSION, pity, the willingness to forgive.  There is no
forgiveness on earth like a father's or a mother's, none so willing,
none that will wait so long and yet give itself without stint at last.
Pity, as the world of business and of ordinary relationship knows it,
is at best a transient emotion.  It murmurs a few easy words and then
forgets.  But parent love suffereth long and is kind, hopes against
hope, and waits and is still hopeful when every one else has written
the offender down irreclaimable.  It is such compassion and pity for us
sinners, how great soever our sins be, that Jesus would have us come
for to God in Heaven.\par

But will not men abuse such patience and long-suffering? it is asked.
Is it not a risky thing to tell them that God is our Father?  It is.
But it is the risk that Love takes cheerfully, and that only Love can
take.  And when men talk lightly and complacently about the great mercy
of God, there is something, I think, which they have forgotten, namely,
that at the heart of the divine Fatherly forgiveness there lies the
shadow of the Cross.  I do not say that in any conventional sense.  I
say it because I have seen for myself that at the heart of all true
earthly forgiveness of a fatherly sort there lies this same mysterious
shadow.  Shall not the father forgive his returning prodigal?  Yea,
verily, and with all his heart.  But, ah, before that, think how the
father has suffered with his son, and for his son.  The prodigal's
shame is the father's shame too, and lies heavy on his heart.  And it
is out of a chamber where he and that pain have long been companions
that the earthly father issues to welcome and receive at last the lad
who has sought his face penitent and in his right mind.  The welcome is
real.  The forgiveness is full and free.  And yet behind it there is
sacrifice.  The price of it is suffering.  Aback of it lies--the Cross!
That is what silences cheap thinking and glib speech about the
forgiveness of God.  If God's long-suffering be like a father's here,
it is, first, long suffering.\par

The danger, however, is not that we abuse God's grace knowingly and in
callous complacency.  Far more is it, I think, that we never actually
accept and realise and build our lives upon the gracious compassion of
the Heavenly Father and His willingness to forgive.\par

Every parent ought to know Coventry Patmore's beautiful lyric, "The
Toys."  In it a father tells how, when his little son had been
disobedient again and again, he struck him, and sent him with hard
words and unkissed to bed--"his mother, who was patient, being dead."
And when, later, he went upstairs to see him, he found him asleep, his
lashes still wet with tears, and--what touched him most--on a table
beside his bed all his little treasures heaped together to comfort his
sad heart--a box of counters, and a red-veined stone, a piece of glass
abraded by the beach, and six or seven shells, a bottle with blue
bells, and two French copper coins--all his little store of precious
things.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
So when that night I prayed\par}
{\vl To God, I wept and said--\par}
{\vl "Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,\par}
{\vl Not vexing Thee in death,\par}
{\vl And Thou rememberest of what toys\par}
{\vl We made our joys,\par}
{\vl How weakly understood\par}
{\vl Thy great commanded good,\par}
{\vl Then, fatherly not less\par}
{\vl Than I, whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,\par}
{\vl Thou'lt leave Thy wrath and say:\par}
{\vl 'I will be sorry for their childishness.'"\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
One word more about our Father's SILENCE.  Our fathers here on earth
had their silences when we were children.  We asked him for something
that we wanted very much.  And he gave no reply.  We went on asking.
We expected to get what we had set our hearts on.  He heard us hoping
and believing that this good thing would come to us, and he held his
peace.  But we knew that silence, and we trusted it.  We were quite
sure that he would have told us if we were deceiving ourselves, that
his gift, when it came, would, at least, not be a mere mockery of our
hopes.\par

And I often think of these words of Christ's, "If a son shall ask bread
of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?" when I stand
by a graveside, and speak the words of radiant hope with which we lay
our beloved to rest.  Our Father hears us speak that hope.  He has
heard hearts in an agony through all the generations wish that it might
be true--that this bleak fact of Death is not the end, but only the
beginning of a better thing.  But He keeps silence.  We have no sure
proof, only the blessed hope of the Christian evangel.\par

He keeps silence.  But, my brethren, can we not trust that silence
since it is our Father's?  We have asked this bread in our pain and
through our tears.  We have asked it because it seems to us we need it
so.  And whatever gift His silence hides, this at least is certain, it
is not, it cannot be, only a stone.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Almighty God, who through Jesus Christ has taught us to call Thee our
Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast chosen a name so dear to us to
reveal Thy care and Love.  When our way is dark and our burden is heavy
and our hearts are perplexed, grant us the grace to know that Thou who
art directing every step of our journey art a God of Love, and Thy true
and perfect Name is Our Father in Heaven.  Through Jesus Christ our
Lord.  Amen.\par\label{the-unreturning-brave}%
\hypertarget{the-unreturning-brave}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Whosoever will lose his}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{life for my sake shall find it.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(MATTHEW xvi. 25.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXIX}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE UNRETURNING BRAVE}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{(EASTER DAY, 1915)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{NOTE.--I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Sir Wm. Robertson
Nicoll's "When the Wounded Go Home," a tender and courageous message.}}
\endgraf}
\par

Christmas in war time was like an evil dream.  Easter is like a breath
from Heaven itself, a wind from the pure and blessed heights of God
blowing the clouds of battle-smoke apart for a brief space so that we
all may see again that beyond the smoke and beyond grim death itself
there is the Life Enduring, a Divine Love compared to which ours at the
best is untender and hard, a Fatherly welcome beside which welcomes
here are faint and cold.  This is the strangest Easter Day the world
has ever known, yet never have the thousands and thousands of stricken
homes and sore hearts needed more the living hope that is begotten anew
in the Christian Church this day by our Lord's rising again from the
dead.  It is assuredly of God's mercy that Easter should fall in these
days, when so many fathers and mothers, wives and sisters and lovers
need its hope and comfort so.\par

We cannot but think to-day of the many, many homes in our own and other
lands from which strong and brave men marched away weeks or months ago,
because they had heard the call, and were willing to make the supreme
sacrifice for righteousness' sake, who will never come back again, who
have died a soldier's death and sleep in a soldier's grave--fathers,
husbands, sons, lovers, gallant men, dear lads, cheerful, willing,
dauntless.  You find their names by the hundred and the thousand in the
casualty lists, but the loss you cannot measure unless you could see
all the shadowed homes.  How many such homes there are in our own land
alone, How many such in our own little circle!\par

Try to realise that, and then ask if a more gracious message could fall
upon all these hearts to-day than the Easter message of the Christian
Church,--that there is no death and that its seeming victory is not a
victory.  The old, old question, If a man die shall he live again? is
answered to-day by the triumphant Yes! of Christendom.  Yes, he never
ceases to live.  From the inferno of the battlefield the mortally
stricken do but pass across the bridge and stream of death to God's
Other Side.  When they fall in battle, they fall into His everlasting
Arms.  They do not die.  They are not dead.  It is only their poor
mortal bodies that the shrieking shells can maim or destroy.  They
themselves, the real self and spirit of them, no material force can
hurt, for that belongs to a higher kingdom than the visible, and its
true goal and home are not here at all.\par

To all who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death in these
days, to all who have watched their beloved go out where every true man
would wish to go, and know only too surely that they shall never
return,--to these to-day Jesus Christ has His Word to speak,--and would
that all might hear it and give it room in their hearts to do its
blessed work!  It is to Him we owe it, and He is our authority for
believing that beyond the darkness and separation of death there is the
morning of a new and fairer day.  The valley of the Shadow, yea, the
valley of battle itself opens out again at its far end to the sun's
rising and the untrammelled life in the light and liberty of God.  The
happy warrior is borne by gentle hands to God's own land of peace,
where the fret and fury of battle slip from him like a discarded
garment, and beside the still waters of that better country he finds
healing for his hurt.  It is that quiet and blessed hope that is being
reborn in our hearts this day as the Church keeps her festival of a
Risen and a Living Christ.  It is that lively hope the Church offers
for comfort to all stricken homes and to every sorrowing heart.\par

They offered themselves, these gallant lads, not for anything they
hoped to gain, but for the sake of honour and liberty, of justice and
righteousness.  And when a man casts himself on God in that fashion,
offering not the words of his lips, nor the homage of his worship, but
himself, all that he has, his life and all that life holds for him,
think you that upon that poor soul, with his priceless offering borne
humbly in his hands, the God and Father of us all is going to turn His
back?  "He that loseth his life," said Jesus, "for my sake shall find
it."\par

There are times when the most gracious doctrine is not gracious enough
to represent and embody the Spirit of Christ to us.  We want something
more, and we often seek it and sometimes find it in poetry, in art, or,
best of all, in the silence of our own hearts when God-given instinct
whispers what no words or doctrine can ever express.  Such a time is
now.  Such a need is ours to-day.\par

I make no defence of it theologically, and I ask no man to accept it
who does not feel it clamouring at his heart for entrance, but I
confess that for me a couple of lines of John Hay's in his "Pike County
Ballads" strike a note which all that I know in my heart of the Spirit
of Christ leaps up to welcome and approve.  It is when he has told the
story of Jim Bludso's sacrifice.  Jim was engineer on the "Prairie
Belle," a river-steamboat, and he was rather a rough, careless man.
But when the steamer took fire, it was Jim who held her against the
bank till everybody got safely off except himself.  With eyes wide open
to what he did, he sacrificed his life to save the other souls on
board.  Hay sums up in these lines:--\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"And Christ ain't going to be too hard\par}
{\vl On a man that died for men."\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
I leave it there.  I trust I am a loyal son of the Church, but I must
have a place in my creed somewhere for the hope which these lines
express that Christ ain't going to be too hard on a man that died for
men.\par

But there is something more to be said.  Every chaplain at the front
tells us that the most careless and irreligious youths and men take up
a wonderfully different attitude out there.  Men pray in the trenches
who have never prayed before.  I heard some stories recently that
brought tears to my eyes, of brave and simple confessions made at
little gatherings for prayer in strange places, by some of those very
lads whom we reckoned indifferent and heedless before they left home.
And some of then, turning their faces simply and earnestly, and by an
old, old instinct of the heart, towards God and His Christ before the
battle broke upon them, some of them have fallen on the field!\par

Many, many more there must be who turned them Godwards even at the
eleventh hour in one brief upward glance to ask forgiveness and
strength to play the man, about whom no chaplain can report, for no one
knows or saw or heard save Christ Himself.  But there's a glorious page
in the Gospel to assure us beyond all doubt or question that no one who
makes that appeal, though it be the dying thief himself, ever makes it
in vain.\par

And there we leave the issue--with God, who is kinder than our kindest,
and whose mercy is from everlasting.  It is He who has brought us this
blessed hope, through His Son, this Easter Day, and we honour His gift
best by taking it in all its breadth and comfort to our hearts.  To the
broken-hearted wife or mother, to whom the bald War Office report has
come, let us take this comfort,--"Your beloved is not dead.  God has
him in His gracious care and keeping till the day break and the shadows
flee away."  For that is the Easter message, God be thanked.  And this
is Easter Day.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
To Thy merciful care and keeping we commend all the sons and daughters
of affliction, and especially those who in this great contest have lost
some loved one.  Grant that even through their tears they may discern
the glory that belongs to those who have given their lives a ransom for
many.  Be Thou their help and their strength, and may the sympathy of
all who know them be for them an earnest and token of Thy great Love
and Compassion.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.\par\label{the-sacrament-of-sunset}%
\hypertarget{the-sacrament-of-sunset}{}%
{}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{"}}{\itshape{{\footnotesize{The heavens declare the}}}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\itshape{{\footnotesize{glory of God.}}}}{\footnotesize{"}}
\endgraf}
\par}
{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}{\vl 
{\raggedright
{\footnotesize{(PSALM xix. 1.)}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\raggedright
\endgraf}
}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\normalsize{ XXX}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\centering
\endgraf}
{\vl 
{\centering
{\normalsize{ THE SACRAMENT OF SUNSET}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
"The sky," says Ruskin, "is the part of Nature in which God has done
more for the sake of pleasing man, more from the sole and evident
purpose of touching him, than in any other of His works."  It looks
like the truth.  For there is no scene of earth so fair or majestic
that man cannot spoil it.  Where the "cataract exults among the hills,
and wears its crown of rainbows all alone," he will build him a
power-house to supply current to some distant town.  But he cannot
touch the heavens.  In the heart of some fairy glen he will placard the
virtues of somebody's pills, and plaster the gate-posts in a sweet
country lane with the specious claims of some quack doctor, but above
it all, it is God, and God alone, who spreadeth out the heavens like a
curtain and in them has set a tabernacle for the sun.  Even in places
where the face of earth wears no suggestion of natural beauty the face
of the sky redeems it from evil.  For, above the squalor of the city's
meanest slum, burn the great fires of the setting sun, and overhead the
fleecy white clouds sail silently all night long.\par

But, of it all, the glory of the sunset is chief.  The dawn has its
cold splendours too, but not many of us are there to see it when it is
at its best.  It is at eventide, when the work of the day is done, and
the spell of its restfulness lays the senses open, it is then chiefly
that God unfolds these splendid harmonies of colour in the western
heavens.  And, by consent, on this Ayrshire coast, on which I look out
as I write, these glories can be seen to great advantage.  It is into
no flat expanse of water that the dying sun sinks here.  The peaks and
crags of Arran invest its passage with an indescribable pomp and
majesty, standing out against it like the massive pillars of some giant
gateway of the West.  It is never twice the same.  Sometimes lurid and
blazing, with masses of thunder-cloud piled high, all their outer edges
rimmed with fire; and, next night, peaceful and level, a study in
straight lines, as if the great Artist, with even brush, had washed the
sky with bands of grey and blue and gold.  Each evening God has His own
picture for us, His own handiwork, unspoiled by man.  How many of us
ever pause to recognise its beauty?  What does it mean that such a
prodigality of harmonious colours should be the most ordinary feature
of our evening hour?  Is it that God Himself takes delight in the
beauty of it all, for its own sake, rejoicing, like all good workmen,
in the work of His hands?  Or has He some purpose with regard to His
children of mankind?  Is it, as Ruskin says, for the sake of pleasing
man?  How unthankful and unmindful we are, if that be so!\par

The sunset teaches us to put together these two ideas--beauty, beyond
the wit of man to portray, and God.  There is plenty of ugliness and
sin in the world, and the life of men.  Man himself recognises how much
of the beauty that might have been has been marred and disfigured by
him.  Yet in his heart he worships it, and feels after it afar off.
And in the evening sky it is written that Beauty belongeth supremely
unto God.\par

Whatever that far-off divine event be, to which the whole creation
moves, one of its features shall be, must be, a beauty which shall
fully satisfy.  For beauty and God cannot be divorced.  And when, of an
evening, God for His own good pleasure, working with those material
elements which have no power to disobey His behests, unfolds His will
in such dazzling visions of splendour, is He not declaring that the end
and goal of life itself, when His purpose therewith is completed, and
Man, too, has fallen into harmony with His will, shall be fair, and
satisfying, and beautiful?\par

Let us not be afraid to say and believe that God speaks to us in the
sunset.  If I pick up the receiver of a telephone and hear my friend
announce some good news that fills my heart with gladness, it does not
disturb me to remember that the wire itself has no power to speak.  For
I feel that somewhere at the end of the wire is a mind and a heart like
my own who is using the dead, soulless wire as a medium of speech with
me.  When the glories of the sun's setting fall upon your heart like a
benediction, stirring you to devout and grateful thought, breathing
peace upon you, cleansing your desires of all that is mean and sordid,
do not be afraid to believe that, behind and beyond all that is
material and visible, there is the Mind and Heart in whose image yours
was made, whose gift peace is, whose whisper, though it come along dead
ether-waves to reach you, is His whisper nevertheless.\par

It is perhaps natural that the prevailing quality of the thoughts that
arise within us when we watch the setting sun should be pensive,
tender, and, not seldom, a little sad.  For it speaks of the end of the
day and the coming night.  Its charm and spell are like that of autumn,
the remembrance of what has gone, the tender grace of a day that is
dead.  For all the beauty and wonder of this world, there is a tear at
the heart of things.  Beneath all our laughter and happiness there lies
that deeper note.  The night cometh.  There is an end to it
all--friendship, love, happiness, work, life itself.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
"For be the long day never so long,\par}
{\vl At last it ringeth to evensong."\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
And yet, and yet, my brothers, the end is beautiful, more beautiful
even than the beginning.  God has made the day's death to be exceeding
fair.  The sun passes gloriously to its rest.  Hopefully too, for,
passing thus, it promises a new and fairer morning.  So do God's
children die.\par

\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}

{\centering
{\footnotesize{PRAYER}}
\endgraf}
\par}
\end{verse}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
O Lord our God, who hast written Thy Word of hope and promise in the
evening sky, be near us when our day is done, and the wind has fallen
silent, and the night is waiting.  Put us to sleep in a chamber of
peace whose windows open toward the sun rising, and, when we awake, may
we be still with Thee.  For Jesus' sake.  Amen.\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}}

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