Chapter VIII: Part 8

There is in the heart of the parent a principle, not possible perhaps to be explained, which leads him to be more attached to and indulgent of the youngest child. There is something also in the very anxiety that the follies of the disobedient child occasion which calls out and fosters the affections of the parent more strongly for him than for the one who never gives that cause for uneasiness. The father also felt that the boy, though carried away by the impulses of his own imaginations and the romance of his nature and spirit, was after all of deeper affections and nobler impulses and greater capacity than the other son, and had in him all the raw material of a noble, useful character, could this impetuous spirit and these burning impulses be subdued, not destroyed, and these energies wisely directed. Many a bitter tear he shed, and many a prayer he put up to God for this child of his love and his old age.

Matters went on in this way from bad to worse, the son becoming more and more discontented and uneasy. He listened to the tales of travellers who had been to distant lands and over the sea till his blood boiled, and he said to himself: “Shall I never see anything but these same hills and valleys? Shall I never hear any discourse but about sheep and goats and fleeces of wool and cheese and barley? Shall I never see anything of the great world of which I hear so much? Must I stay here and milk goats when there is so much pleasure in the world to be enjoyed?” But now the time draws near when he shall be of age and his own master to go where he pleases. How he has been counting the days and reckoning up the time when he shall escape the restraints of home! No sooner has the time arrived than he goes to his father and says to him, “Father, give me so much of your property as belongs to me, my share.” He does not ask it as a gift, but as a debt which the father was under obligations to pay him. What right had he to demand anything of the father? Had it been his elder brother who made this demand, who for many years after he was of age had labored hard and given the proceeds of his labor into the common stock, there would have been some justice in the request. But this man had never done anything, had spent all he could get, had tried his father to the utmost, and now had the assurance to come to his father and say: “Such a part of the property belongs to me. I want it, that I may go where I like and spend it as I wish.” He had been so long in the habit of receiving from his father without effort of his own that he had come to consider it as a matter of right.

The father was pained by this ungrateful conduct, and the prodigal in his own heart felt ashamed of himself; in the bottom of his heart he loved and respected his father, but the love of pleasure, his lofty imaginations of the enjoyments to be found in the world of which he had read, heard, and dreamed so much, overpowered all other feelings. Could he only escape from the restraints of home and obtain money and means to gratify his desires, he should be happy. The father without any reproach divides his living and gives to him his share. He has never seen so much money before in his life. He is mad with joy. He thinks it will never be exhausted. He can hardly stop to bid good-by to his family, to his father whose heart aches to see this son of his love so glad to leave him. He takes his journey into a far country, just as far from home as he can get, that his friends may not be able to know what he is doing or to trouble him with advice. He’s had advice enough. He’s had enough of home. He’s going to try the world. Now he gives loose rein to all his lusts. He is soon surrounded by a circle of generous, jovial companions who would die for him; who every day pledge him health and happiness in the social glass; who, so far from troubling him with advice, tell him he is a noble-hearted, princely fellow, and that everything he says and does is just right. How much better they are than his father’s old, stupid, hard-working servants, or than his sober brother who thought only of sheep and begrudged him every cent, or than his father who was always telling him about the temptations of life! These noble, large-hearted fellows tell him money is made to spend and life is made to enjoy.

While he is thus going onward in the pursuit of pleasure, there comes a famine in the land. The prices of food rise to a fearful extent. His money is exhausted, and he is amazed to find that his friends so kind begin to cool in their affections just in proportion as his means diminish. He finds that, so far from dying for him, their intention is to live upon him till he has nothing left and then reproach him for his extravagance. The friend who begged him to make his house his home, just as though he were in his own father’s house, intimates that times are very hard and every one must look out for himself. Hunger succeeds and rags. He who never had a serious thought before is serious enough now. He who never bestowed a thought upon food or raiment must now find food or perish. In his necessity he resorts to the house of a farmer and with humble tone begs work. He who demanded of his father the property he had never earned a dollar of begs for the meanest employment that may keep him from starving! The farmer tells him that he may go into his fields and feed swine and eat a morsel with the servants in the kitchen. But the servants’ fare is scanty, just sufficient to preserve life. In the morning after taking his morsel, he goes with a heavy heart to his work. What a contrast! He thought his home lonesome; but where and what is he now? All around him the land is scorched, the streams are dry, the trees leafless. He thought it hard to feed cattle; he must now feed hogs and beg for the privilege. Corn is so scarce that the swine can have only the husks, and he is so hungry that he would fain fill himself with the husks that the swine eat and no man gives unto him. Not one of all his former friends upon whom he has spent so much will give him a crust.

He now comes to himself; for the first time in his life he begins to think. He thinks of his kind old father, of his home where there is plenty. He says, “How many servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” He says, “Shall I go home?” Pride whispers: “Go home? How can I look upon my father’s face, on my brother who was always steady and industrious, and the old neighbors? My very looks will tell what I am, and where I have been, and what I have been doing. No, I won’t go home. I can’t go home. I will starve to death first.” But it is much easier to talk about starving than it is to starve. Hunger and poverty are hard masters. Long is the struggle, terrible. At length he decides. “I will go while I have strength enough left to get there. ’I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.’” And before his resolution has time to cool, he sets out on his journey.

How truly and strikingly does this illustrate the condition of one who wanders from God, and breaks the commands and deserts the house of his Father in heaven. A young man has grown up the inmate of a Christian family, but God has created him. His abilities of body and mind are from God. The property which he acquires, the ability to obtain it, and the opportunity and the time are God’s ability, God’s property, God’s time. God declares that by using these in his service, he shall be happy in life, and in eternity receive the crown of glory. But these commands are not agreeable to him any more than the commands of the father were to the prodigal. He does not feel that his abilities and happiness are the gift of God, that he is under any obligation to his Father in heaven. In the flush of youth and health and hot blood, he feels that his strength is the strength of stones and his flesh brass. He says to his heavenly, as the prodigal to his earthly, Father, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” He feels that they are his own to use as he pleases, and thus he means to do; though like the prodigal all the return he has ever made to God is to sin against Him. He loves not to think of God and eternity and Christ and sin. So, like the son in the parable, he goes into a far country.

It is not literal space that is here meant; it is the distance of thought and feeling and affections and obedience. A man need not go out of his country to get far from God. At home, in the practice of all the outward duties of morality, regular in the attendance upon the sanctuary, he may yet live as far from God, as unwilling to submit to His commands, as though living in the most disorderly manner and in open sin. But whether on the ocean and in foreign lands he lives in sin and spends his substance in riotous living and looks everywhere among all forbidden pleasures for happiness, or on the land conceals a proud heart under a correct life, the result is that he is wretched, finds no peace. But now the Spirit of God touches his heart, leads him to reflect upon his true condition. He comes to himself. “I have broken the laws. I have grieved thy spirit. I deserve not the least of thy mercies. Do with me what seemeth good in thy sight.” But then the thought arises,--and it is a bitter one,--”How can I go into the presence of that pure and holy God? I, so vile a sinner, who have blasphemed His name! Can such a sin be forgiven?”

Let us now consider the reception the son meets with. It is noontide, the time of burning heat. The cattle have sought the groves and the cool places of the hills, or are standing in the running streams beneath the tall reeds of the jungles. The goats seek the clefts of the rocks. In his tent door, beneath the drooping branches of a sycamore that screen it from the sun, sits an aged patriarch. On his face is that submissive look that neither tongue nor pen can describe, and that tells of high and holy communion with God. All around is peace inviting to repose. The faint breath of the dying breeze is gently rustling the leaves mingling with the hum of bees and the low murmur of a distant brook. The servants are sleeping in the shadow. But the old patriarch slumbers not with his slumbering servants. On his meek face is a troubled look, and now and then a silent tear steals down his cheek and falls upon his clasped hands. He is thinking of his absent, dearly loved, wayward child! From the past he argues disastrously of the future. If so headstrong and reckless under the mild restraint of home, what will become of him when all check is removed? Where is he, on sea or on land, this child of many prayers, many counsels, and bitter anxieties? Is he living in riot and folly, or is he already in suffering and distress, having not where to lay his head? Has he remembered any of the words of affectionate counsel that have been spoken to him? Do his thoughts ever turn toward his home and the friends of his youth?

While the good father is thus sitting in his tent door praying for and thinking of his son, he sees a traveller far off upon the plains, so far that he just discerns him. He thinks, What if that should be my son? So he steps out from the tent door and he looks long and eagerly, for the traveller comes slowly. But as he approaches, the father sees he is lame, footsore, and ragged, and his heart tells him: “This is just the condition in which I might expect my son to come. Ah, yes, that is he.” And instantly the father runs to meet him.

But what are the feelings of the prodigal as he draws near his native country and the old familiar features of the landscape strike his eye, and he sees in the distance his father’s tent and the old trees under whose shadows he played when a boy? How does he feel? He does not feel one-half the resolution he did when he set out. His hope which at first sustained him begins to waver. He does not feel so much confidence now as he did when he was farther off. He begins to think of his rags, and the appearance he makes. He goes into the thicket and washes his face in the brook and sleeks up his rags, and tries to make himself look decent and respectable to meet his father. But it is no use. Wherever he touches them they tear and finally fall off altogether, they are so rotten. At length he gives up in despair and says: “Well, I must go as I am, miserable wretch. I can’t make myself any better; the more I try the worse I look. There’s nothing to make decency out of. Oh! what will my father say to me, miserable? God help me!”

While he is thus talking and going along, he sees his father in the tent door. “Oh,” he says, “there is my father now!” Then he stops right short in the road and looks down upon the ground, and is of a good mind to turn back and run away. But while he is hesitating, his father comes running and falls right on his neck and kisses him. And when he feels his old father’s arms embracing him, his lips on his cheeks, and his tears on his neck,--oh, that is the worst of all. Then his heart is like to break with sorrow. He did not expect such treatment as this. If his father had only reproached him and said, “You vile, wicked boy, is this what you have come to?” he could bear that better. But this kindness and love,--it quite breaks his heart. Then as soon as he can find voice for tears, he slips out of his father’s arms and falls down on his knees and says: “’Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.’ Don’t call me son; it breaks my heart. Make me thy servant, thy slave. Thou didst give me a goodly fortune which I never earned a dollar of. I have spent it all in folly, wasted thy substance, and disgraced thy name in foreign lands wherever I have been. I come here in wretchedness and rags to disgrace thee still more among the neighbors that know thee and thy goodness. Now, Father, let me be thy servant and serve thee, that I may earn thee something to atone for spending thy property and to show that I am really sorry.” But the father will hear nothing of all this, and while he is speaking, cuts him short, saying to the servants who stand wondering, “Bring forth the best robe; take off his rags; wash his sores; put a ring on his hands, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

Thus it is with the returning and repentant sinner. When he is far from God and is first drawn by the Spirit and assured by revelations of His mercy, he with considerable courage begins to seek and pray. But as he comes nearer and the light from the Excellent Glory grows stronger, and he sees more of his sins, he begins to doubt and to falter. But when God sees him thus afar off, sees a little love in his heart, He comes to meet him. He puts the robe of Christ upon him and gives to him the signet ring.

My dear friends who are out of Christ, you are away from home. You are perishing. You have no food for your souls. You will die and be lost. Why sit here and perish in a foreign land? Why feed on husks when you may have the choicest of the wheat? There is bread enough in your father’s house. Many have gone there; more are on the road; others are coming. Won’t you join the goodly company? Be resolute. Say, “I will.” Be resolute as in the emergencies of life and business; as when the lee shore is on one side and the gale on the other, and the seaman presses the canvas on the cracking spars and the straining rigging, and the ship must carry it or be dashed upon the breakers; be resolute as when one sees his friend perishing in the water and says, “I will save him or die with him.”

My dear hearers, won’t you say: “I will go. Nothing shall keep me back from my Saviour. Sins nor fears nor devils shall not stop me. I will try if I die. I know that God is merciful.”

WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES

The Second Epistle of Peter, Chapter III, part of 16th verse. “_In which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction._”

In speaking from this text I might dilate upon the etymology of the words “unlearned” and “unstable.” I might go on to observe that we must take the Bible as a whole and be taught of the Spirit in order to practice its plain truths and fathom its more difficult ones; that as in the schools of human science the elementary text-books are simple while those designed for the advanced classes are more abstruse, thus the Bible contains many things which are now far beyond the reach of our minds, but to the comprehension of which we shall clamber up in eternity; that in the Bible, the book of time and eternity, the two volumes are bound in one. Here we only read the preface and the introduction; in the hereafter we shall peruse the whole of the book.

But as these themes are frequently discussed with more of learning than I can presume to bring to the task, I shall pursue a less beaten path and content myself with observing that to “wrest” a thing signifies to wrench or twist it from its true position; the very word implies violence. Thus to wrest a truth of Scripture signifies to detach it from the other truths of the system, to make it bear a false meaning, or to rob it of all meaning. A truth of Scripture thus wrested is no longer a truth, and is, therefore, of no avail to the man who has wrested it. It can do him no good; he can no more get to heaven with it than a man who should tear a plank or a breast-hook from a ship could cross the Atlantic upon it. But as there are capillary veins and nerves in the bodily organization which discharge important though minute functions, and becoming diseased affect larger vessels and tissues, the consequence of which is sickness, and the result death, so there are methods of wresting the Scriptures less violent but not less fatal in their consequences. So great, my friends, is the evil bias of our nature and so deceitful is the human heart that we are prone to deceive ourselves, imagining that we are doing the will of God while we are doing our own will, obeying while we are wresting the Scriptures. This principle, following the example of Jesus of Nazareth, I will illustrate by a parable.

In that never-to-be-forgotten year when the Pilgrim Fathers of New England rose up from their knees beneath the cliffs of Holland and embarked, there dwelt, where Derwent-Water pours its swift current into the black gorges of a lonely tarn, the descendant of a house, rich in ancestral memories and renowned in arms. Often had these massive walls rung to the battle clarion and its floors echoed to the tread of mail-clad men. But their descendant, though inheriting all the lofty heroism of his race, is, with a heart subdued by grace, a man of scholarly tastes, of peace, and of God.

Amid the family circle where are the mother that reared, the wife that cherishes him, and the children who climb his knees, he lives, labors, and prays. “Surely,” said some looker at the outward appearance, “this man does not serve God for naught. Has not God made a hedge about him and all that he has? He would have his good things in both lives. Is he willing to sacrifice anything? Would he do anything with the Cross of Christ other than build it into the masonry of his castles or inscribe it upon the banner folds of his vassals?” Let us see.

He enters his library, a room of antique mould; the roof groined and blazoned reflects a thousand hues of soft light from lamps of fretted gold. The thickly carpeted floor returns no echo to the footfall. View him as he stands beneath that mellow light: The face is the face of a prophet. The pure white brow, which no hardship has bronzed and around which the locks of early manhood are clustering, is as radiant with goodness as heaven’s own light. The eyes suffused, not dimmed, by that mist which is the forerunner of tears, are turned toward heaven, while from their calm depths, pure as those through which wanders the light of stars, beam glances of gentle affection, a humility not assumed but ingrained like the summer flush upon the cheek of a ripened grape. The strong, firm lips are slightly parted with an expression of purpose and action; motionless they seem to utter, “Father, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

Thoughtful he stands, then bows that stately head in deep contrition before God. He kneels, indeed, upon an embroidered cushion, but it is wet with tears. This man of noble blood and old descent, who sayeth “to this man ’Go,’ and he goeth, and to another ’Come,’ and he cometh,” grovels in the dust before his Maker. In his anguish he prostrates himself upon the floor; he cannot get low enough before his God. It is in his heart to embark with the Pilgrims, and he asks counsel of Heaven: “Father, wilt Thou that I leave these towers of my ancestors, moistened with their blood and beneath whose shadows their bones lie mouldering, and my mother now in the wane of life? Wilt Thou that I should take the wife of my bosom, my little ones reared in luxury and with tenderness, that I myself ever having lived and loved among the gifted and the great should go forth with my brethren to the wilderness? Tell me, O my Father, that it is my duty, and I will fling my whole estate into thy treasury as willingly as ever prodigal wasted his in riotous living; I will venture my life and the lives of those dearer to me than my own as readily as ever one of my warrior ancestors laid lance in rest to break a hedge of spears. Thou knowest that I love mother, wife, and children, comfort, refinement, wealth; that life is sweet to the lusty and the young. Thou knowest how dear to me are these old trees beneath which in childhood I played, these swelling hills, these gently sloping vales, this fair stream whose gleam I love at the sunset hour to catch through green foliage and to whose murmur I love to listen, this chosen retreat filled with books that embalm the lore of centuries whither I may retire after drinking a thousand inspirations from without, and in silent prayer and thought make them my own, growing in the reaches of my lonely thought to greater affluence of progress and power. But I love Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, more than these; therefore let me go. Already my brother and my kindred deem that I shrink from sacrifice and thus shall thy name be dishonored through me. Thou lovest me not, else wouldst Thou chasten me, wouldst permit me to endure hardness. Surely I am a bastard and no son. He that never suffered never loved.”

But while thus he prays and pleads, a voice from the Excellent Glory whispers to his soul: “I know thou lovest me. Yet shalt thou not embark. In Abraham I accepted the full purpose and the firm intent; so will I in regard to thee. I have in reserve for thee tasks as stern, and sacrifices as great, as the forests of America can furnish, tasks for which I created thee and gave thee thy capacities. Thy forefathers were men of brawn, but thou art a man of mind. Have not I chosen the men who are to go? Their flesh is hard, their bones are strong to bear the harness, and their whole course of thought is of a sterner cast, better fitted than thine to bear the sword and set the battle in array. It is not my will that the fire shall die upon the ancient altars; remain thou to quicken its flame. I will not that thy mother, that old saint who hath reared her household in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, shall in her old age lack the protection of the son best fitted of all her race to cherish her declining years; for I am a covenant-keeping God. Remain, therefore, to lay thy hand upon her eyes. Learning, eloquence, and passing knowledge to bend the minds of men of all ranks to thy wish are thine. Go then into the councils of the nation, there to use thy power for me, to moderate the fierceness of persecution and send succor to those who are to go forth with the wolf and the bear to the hillside. There are keener pangs than those born of flowing blood and stiffening wounds on lonely battlefields, gashes deeper than the tomahawk and the scalping knife can make, wrestlings more terrible than those with flesh and blood. Fear not that thou shalt lack occasions to prove thy zeal. Thou shalt find all the sunny memories of thy life turned to gall. The church to whose altar thy mother had thee linked with all the sweet memories of thy childhood shall close to thee its doors. Thy children shall be excluded from those seats of learning where their kindred and their mates resort. And thou must endure all these things being among them, and thus the iron will be pressed into thy soul day by day, which is more terrible than to endure in a foreign land where thou art equal to thy fellows in suffering and in privilege. These are sterner trials to the flesh and to the faith, than when war horses are neighing and clarions sounding to the charge, and the maddening rush and roar of conflict impart the very courage they require to rush on perils and set thy life upon a cast. Over the wreck of chosen thoughts and blighted hopes, through the anguish of susceptibilities which refinement and culture have made capacious of suffering of which under natures are incapable, shalt thou glorify me.” Yet how many a short-sighted onlooker at that day, unable to appreciate the inward motive, judged him who remained as shrinking from the reproach of the Cross and wresting the Scriptures to suit a carnal policy and the love of ease.

Let us view this principle in yet another light. In a distant apartment of the same castle is seated one whose features, though of a stronger and sterner cast, browned by toils and exposure on fields of battle, still bear that family resemblance which denotes them brothers. But his limbs are cast in nature’s stronger mould, and his hand turns naturally to the sword hilt. Upon his knees is a bundle of letters that he peruses with eager interest. They are from the exiles in Holland, informing him of the time of their departure, and urging him to join them. And among the letters are some from his old companions in the war of the low countries. Wrapped in thought the hours pass by him unheeded. At length, rising suddenly to his feet and thrusting open the door that leads to the great hall of the castle, he paces the stone floor. His eye kindles as it glances over the portraits of grim warriors and the proud trappings that adorn its walls. He stops in his lofty stride, a frown gathers upon his brow, his hand grips to the hilt of the sword at his side. He has made up his mind. His is the giant strength and haughty pride of an heroic line. Retiring to his chamber, he likewise kneels to pray, while the frown of anticipated conflicts and the flush of stirring memories have scarce yet faded from his brow. But there is no tremor in the hard tones of his voice, none of those bitter tears that wet the pillow of the other fall from his eyes. There is no breaking down of the strong man before Him who is stronger than the strong man armed. But he prays like Henry the Fifth at Agincourt or Bruce at Bannockburn. To carry his point he prays “my will be done” with the spirit of those who inscribed upon the muzzles of their cannon, “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.”

This man has condescended to help God. Through the long tempestuous voyage, those fearful months of mingled famine and plague when the icy breath of winter penetrated even to the pillows of the dying, and the Pilgrims drove the ploughshare through the graves of those most dear to them lest the savage should count the dead and ascertain their weakness, he passed unbroken. Neither hunger nor sickness bows his iron frame nor breaks his haughty spirit, and yet, unknown to himself, he is all the while wresting the truths of Scripture, and deems he is doing the will of God while he is consulting his own inclinations. Is the discipline of Providence therefore to waste itself upon this rugged nature, only to be repelled like the surf from the rock, in broken wreaths of foam? Will he never become as a little child that he may enter into the kingdom?

Yes. His daughter is dying. The daughter, the only remaining member of a once numerous household, whom he loves with an affection the more absorbing since he loves nothing else, to whom he has given the scanty morsel suffering hunger himself, whom he pressed to his bosom in the long nights of that terrible winter that she might gather warmth from his hardier frame, and around whom cluster all the affections that throb beneath the crust of his rugged nature, as the oak wrappeth its roots about the place of stones,--that daughter is dying. Though it is now the Indian summer and an abundant harvest has scattered plenty among the dwellings of the exiles, his daughter is perishing beneath the terrible exposure she has endured. Upon her delicate frame the previous winter and spring have done their work. Stretched upon a couch of skins, she is fading like the yellow and falling leaves that the forest is showering upon the roof, and the morning breeze is gathering in little heaps around the threshold of the rude cabin. The strong man has met one stronger than himself. The arrow aimed by no uncertain hand has found the joints of the harness. A sweet smile begotten of that peace of God, which passeth all understanding, mingles with the hectic flush on her cheek; and as he watches the ebbing tide of life, every sigh of pain, every frown that furrows the pale brow, wrung from her by the agony of dissolution, shakes his iron frame. But it is suffering, not submission. She lifts her finger, and he is at her side, takes her head upon his broad shoulder, and his war-worn cheek is pressed to hers, while the golden locks mingle with his white hairs like sunbeams reposing upon a fleecy cloud, as he listens to her low speech.

“Father, I must soon leave thee.” A hot tear falling on her cheek is the only reply. “Father,” she says, laying her thin finger upon a yellow leaf that an eddy of the wind just then blew in at the open door upon the bed, “I am like this leaf, almost at my journey’s end.”

“I know it, my child,” is the low answer.

“Canst thou give me up?”

“I cannot give thee up. Not a drop of my blood flows in any living being but in thee, the blood of a noble race. I had thought that in this new soil, transplanted, the old oak might flourish with renewed strength; but over thee, the dearest and the last, is creeping the shadow of the grave. My sons died a soldier’s death, and I mourned them as a soldier should. Thy mother I married as the great marry, for reasons of state and policy, but thou with thy gentle ways hast knit thyself into my very heart, and I must lay thee in a nameless grave, and conceal it from the Indian’s gaze, while thy kindred sleep beneath sculptured marble and the shadow of proud banner folds. Thine uncle who thought to take the journey with us flinched when it came to the trial, while I have faced pestilence, treachery, and war. Surely I have borne a heavy cross, and thus am I rewarded. God is too hard with me. He has no right to bereave me in my old age of the only being I ever truly loved.”

“Father, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”

“Dear child, torture me not thus or I shall go mad.”

“No, father, but thou wilt go mad if, in this desperate sorrow, thou dost not win Heaven’s grace. If thy heart does not break in penitence, thy brain will reel in madness. Father, dear father, it becomes me to seek knowledge of thy gray hairs, and thou art esteemed by all a man of shrewd counsel. But to those who, like me, are on the brink of eternity, there is given a knowledge not of earth, and through these weak lips the spirit speaks. Deceive not thyself. Thou hast as yet borne no cross, but thou hast wrested the Scriptures. May it not be to thine own destruction. Thy spirit could not brook oppression, and, as thou couldst not resist, so hast thou fled from it. The perils of exile and the stormy seas were less terrible to thee than the foot of the oppressor on thy neck. Thou wast bred amid the alarms and in the bloody frays of the border wars; thou hast loved the clash of steel, and the smoke of battle is as the breath of thy nostrils. Thou hast been a man of blood from thy youth up. My uncle was bred a scholar amid home delights, unused to scenes of trial and hardship. They had terrors for him, whereas they had none for thee. And yet he would have gladly come with us had he not been forbidden of Heaven. I heard him pleading with God to make known to him his duty. That which would have been to him a real cross but was none to thee he was willing to take up. But God has laid upon him a weightier one at home. Thus hast thou prayed to have thine own way, hast suffered in accordance with thine own will, not the will of God. The cross, the real cross, is now before thee. Wilt thou take it up? If thou dost not do this, father, whither I go thou canst not come. For nineteen years thou hast anticipated my slightest wish. Wilt thou now refuse my last request? I, a timid maid, a daughter of affluence and luxury, who had never listened to a harsher sound than the murmur of Derwent-Water over the rocky bed and the breath of morn among the hills, have broken every tie, torn from my heart the youth I loved, because he stood between me and Christ, encountered perils before which warriors quail, for the love of Jesus. I have drunk of the bitter cup, but the cross has brought me to the crown. I see it. It glitters in the hand of Christ. Soon it shall press my brow. Never in the flush of youth and love in my early home did I know such joy as in this savage wilderness, this rude hut, and at this dying hour fills my soul. So will the cross bring thee to the crown. Dear father, wilt thou not say, ’Thy will be done’?”

The words died upon her lips like the murmur of distant music. Her head which in the last energies of expiring nature she had raised from his shoulder fell back, and she passed away even on his bosom. The red light of morning fell on that still cold face on which the strong man’s tears were showering like the summer rain, but they were tears of submission. In that midnight vigil he had lived years, had fathomed the difference between doing the will of God when it suited and when it crossed his inclination, between wresting and wrenching the Scriptures into conformity with a haughty spirit and bringing that spirit into obedience to the truth; between making a cross to suit ourselves and then bearing it in our own strength and for our own glory, and taking up that which Christ places before us.

Are we, my dear friends, wresting the Scriptures, picking and choosing among the commands of God, and obeying only those that run parallel with our inclinations? Have you gone just so far in obeying the commands of God as fashion and the custom of your acquaintances would go and stopped short when duty became self-denial? Have you done just as little for Christ as you thought could in any way consist with a fair profession in the eyes of the world, and have you gone just as far in the pleasures of the world as you in your judgment might go and still escape the fate of the unbeliever?

Some persons wrest the Scriptures with a rude force, a noisy and destructive violence, denying the existence and attributes of their Maker, and are open scoffers and unbelievers; but others with a silent, imperceptible force, unperceived even by themselves, and silent as the power of frost which lifts the whole northern continent upon its shoulders. Their morality, Christian culture, urbanity of deportment, earnestness in defence of sound doctrine, private and public charities, are not grounded on a new heart, but proceed from other motives; force of education, the restraints of society, the love of a sect, connection of religion with some political opinion, and not from the spirit of love to Christ which it breathes; they spring from the desire to be reconciled to God by something less galling to the pride of the human heart than unconditional surrender. My friends, receiving the doctrines of Scripture without obeying their requirements is a plain and palpable wresting of the Scriptures. You believe there is a God whose hand rules the universe, yet you have never bent the knee to ask for His direction or to thank Him for the mercies He has bestowed. You believe that you must strive to enter in at the strait gate, yet you have never striven. You believe that when a person feels in his soul the strivings of the Holy Spirit directing him to God, he ought, if he would be saved, to fall in with and supplement them by his own efforts. You have felt these strivings, yet you have never lifted a finger to help yourselves. Is not this holding the truth in unrighteousness?

Delay is wresting the Scriptures. God saith, “Now is the accepted time.” Unbelief says, “Will not another time do just as well?” God says, “To-day if you will hear his voice.” Procrastination says, “Will not to-morrow do as well?” God says, “You know not what a day may bring forth.” The careless hearer says, “To-morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant.” Thus you think one thing and do another. This is not the way to live, and certainly it is not the way to die. Remove, I entreat you by faith and repentance, this strange discrepancy between faith and practice.

THE BEAUTY OF THE AUTUMN

[From a sermon to Bowdoin Students, October, 1889.]

Autumn is a most beautiful and joyous season of the year; more so even than spring. The winds are low, and rich with a solemn music. The days are clear and bright and have an element of assurance that pertains not to the changeful skies of April. The air is bracing and salubrious. The drapery of nature is gorgeous with the blended beauty of infinite hues. The crimson and scarlet of the oaks, the bright yellow of the birch, the bluish green of the willows contrasted with the brown and orange of the soil and rocks, are all radiant in the sunlight and the keen frosty air. The rich yellow of the corn bursting from the husk, the loaded stalks swaying heavily in the October wind, all combine to form a picture more beautiful, far more satisfactory, than spring presents. Spring is the season of hope, yet it is hope deferred. Many unforeseen casualties may destroy the crop before it is ripe for the sickle. But harvest is hope realized. It is the time of taking possession.

Thus it is with the servant of God. The autumn of his life is more glorious than its spring. That was hope; this is reality. Then a long road beset with perils lay before him; now they have been passed. Notwithstanding his trials, life has been sweet. It has not been altogether toil. He has beheld with open sense this glorious world and appreciated what the Creator has done for the happiness of his creatures. The song of birds, the breath of flowers, the majesty of seas, and the grandeur of mountains and of forests, the hope of spring, the beauty of summer, and the sweet companionship of kindred hearts, have all been his. But now he is to possess the source of all that so delighted him. He is to grasp that unseen hand that led him when he knew it not, and held the tangled thread of his daily life. He is to exchange the stream for the fountain, the sunbeam for the sun itself. The journey has not been without much of profit and pleasure, and the heart of the wayfarer has been cheered by messages from loved ones, but he would rather be at home. He who made the flower is lovelier than the flower. He who gave the grace doth the grace exceed. To sow the seed and watch its growth has been a hopeful labor, but it is better to bind the sheaves. Rich are the fading splendors of the autumn and gorgeous the dyes in which the Almighty has decked the departing year. Sweet the murmur of autumnal winds among the falling leaves mingling with the deeper cadence of the streams. But a brighter glory illumines the autumn of life that has been spent with God and for God. What language shall describe, what figures worthily set forth, the maturity of a soul that in these days of secular knowledge and Gospel privilege has gathered to itself, with a sanctified avarice, all that God has taught in the mighty utterances of nature and the clearer revelation of His word, that has laid art and science under contribution and grappled to every opportunity of intellectual and spiritual growth, that by trial has been refined, and by blessings quickened to a higher measure of gratitude and love.

Permit one united to you by the college tie to which time only adds intensity and depth, who has travelled over the path your feet are now pressing, who has reached that period of life when the tissue of the dream robe has fallen and when dreams unchilled by truth no longer minister that maddening fuel to the feverish blood, permit one to inquire if you are laying the foundations for such a maturity as has been described. You are living in a day that affords opportunity and likewise compels responsibility. Inspired by such sentiments, using aright your splendid opportunities and holding yourself true to your great responsibilities, may you resemble trees planted by living waters. May you be enrolled among the inhabitants of the city that hath foundations built by God on the banks of that river

“Whose sapphire crested waves in glory roll
O’er golden sands, and die upon the shore in music.”

THE ANCHOR OF HOPE

[From a sermon preached at the Second Parish church, Portland, Maine, on Sunday, August 5, 1900, “Old Home Week.”]

Hebrews vi. 19. “_Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil._”

The apostle declares that the relation of a hope in Christ to the soul is the same as that of the anchor to the ship.

The value of an anchor in emergencies is well known. A large ship filled with passengers is making her passage in midwinter across the western ocean. As she strikes soundings the weather thickens. The wind is easterly; the gale increases; the sea makes; snow begins to fall; and no pilot is to be found. But confident, too confident, of his ability, the master, unwilling to lie off, runs into the narrow channel of Boston Bay. The gale increases; the snow thickens. Sail after sail is taken in until the ship under short canvas can no longer hold her own, but makes leeway continually. Suddenly arises the cry, “Breakers to leeward! Breakers to leeward!” and the seamen behold the long, black line of ragged rocks and the white surf that breaks upon them, where the strongest ship becomes in a few moments like the chips and bark that fell from her timbers in framing.

There is now but one resource. Canvas can do no more. The navigator’s expedients are exhausted. There is but one hope left to cling to. The anchor may bring her up. With the skill and energy of men working for their own lives and the lives of those dependent upon their exertions, the ship is brought to and the anchors are let go. The ship trembles as fathom after fathom of massive chain is jerked through the hawse-holes. The fire flies from the iron folds that encircle the windlass, and, as she comes up to that terrific sea breaking mountains high, taking it over both shoulders and filling her whole waist with water, pitching and wallowing till every stick seems about ready to go out of her, and the windlass itself to be carried into the bows, anxious eyes look ahead at the seas and astern at the breakers. A cry is heard: “She drags! She drags! The surf is bringing the anchors home! They won’t hold!” Every cheek grows pale and strong men tremble.

Presently there is another cry: “Now she holds! She holds! The anchors have got her!” And men who have not spoken together during the voyage embrace each other for joy. The last link of scope is given; the chains are weather-bitted; the slatting canvas is furled; the yards are sharpened to the wind, and then she lies in that tremendous surf, whose pitiless diapason drowns every other sound--two hundred souls depending for life upon the links of those chains and the strength and clutch of those anchors.

Thus with the soul of man. Without the Christian hope it is a ship without an anchor, adrift on a stormy sea, at the mercy of its own passions, the temptations of life, and the wiles of the devil. These are the tempests which the soul must meet and struggle with; and, destitute of the gospel anchor, it must make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.

The anchor is the seaman’s last resort. He has many expedients with which to battle and make head against the tempest, but when all other methods fail, then the anchor must bring her up or she is lost.

Thus the Christian, when all other expedients fail, when his own strength is but weakness, flings himself upon the mercy of God, and moors head and stern to the eternal promise and the covenants of grace.

“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.”

Many a good ship has been lost, not because her anchors were insufficient and her ground tackle poor, not because they were not thrown clear and the ship properly secured to them, but because the holding ground was bad,--a smooth ledge, a soft mud, or loose sand,--insomuch that the anchors either slip over or cut through, and the seaman must perish without any fault of his own. In other places is found a soft mud or gravel upon the surface and beneath a strong clay, into which the anchor beds itself so sure and steadfast that no wind or sea will bring it home--the best of holding ground. Such anchorages are highly prized by seafaring men; they will beat up many a mile to windward to gain an anchor in them.

Thus the anchor of the soul is both sure and steadfast, because as the anchor of the ship goes through the surface mud into the deep, tenacious clay, it entereth into that within the veil.

The Holy of Holies, the most sacred place in the Jewish temple, was concealed by a veil, which was rent in twain at the crucifixion. That event was typical of those inward spiritual truths which are revealed to the believer by Christ, and in which his hope consists. The promises of grace and the inward witness of the spirit that he is an heir of those promises through faith in Christ are the holding ground of the believers’ anchor, where once bedded it is sure and steadfast.

These are inward spiritual joys of which the believer cannot be deprived except by his own remissness and the letting down of the anchor watch. These promises were the anchor of the apostle’s experience. A rough, stormy life was his--almost always on a lee shore and among the breakers. Very little smooth water did he see, for in every city bonds and imprisonment awaited him; but he had on board the gospel anchor, and shackled to it the chain of a rich and deep experience. The bitter end of that chain was clinched around the riding bits of his soul; and he had no fear that the anchor would come home or the chain part that moored him to it, and he could say: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

Life is the sea; the soul is the vessel; the grace, gifts, and experience of the soul make up the priceless cargo with which the ship is freighted. Heaven is the harbor all hope to make. The temptations, labor, and afflictions of life are the tempests we must encounter. It is a stormy sea and a wintry passage. You need good ground tackle and good holding ground. Have you them? If not, it is from negligence, not necessity. It is, my friend, because you have not bestirred yourself to take hold of the promises of grace that have been pressed upon you.

PRAYER OFFERED ON MEMORIAL DAY (May 30, 1883) AT BRUNSWICK, MAINE