Mark 1

Mark 1:16-21

THE CALLING OF CHRIST’S FIRST Mark 1:16-21 THE lives of some great men make fascinating history. The life of Jesus Christ is enthralling. For two thousand years, men have been studying it, learning from it, marveling about it, and the marvel increases! Other men have had their followers, but no man ever had such disciples as those who became followers of Jesus. The first of these became especially famous, and in that list of four names, three of them became the inner circle of His intimates— Peter, James, and John.The manner of their call is elaborated by John, who, being one of them, would know the minor details. The latter half of his first chapter is devoted to this story. Mark, however, makes a briefer and much more graphic account of it; and, in some ways, a more suggestive one. There is not, necessarily, the least inharmony between these two reports. Mark records the call of the four, while John gives the manner of their response. It would seem, therefore, for John’s Gospel, that it was not immediate in the instance of all; that two of the brothers, Andrew and John, more readily became inquirers, and that their influence was effectively brought to bear upon the other two, Peter and James.Interpreting Mark’s report in the light of John’s record, we find especial attention given to The Christ of the Apostles; The Call of the Apostles; and The Commission of the Apostles.THE CHRIST OF THE . “Now as He walked by the sea of Galilee?” “He” —Jesus of Nazareth; He whom John the Baptist saw coming unto him, and of whom he said: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”.In this remark of John’s we have three fundamental facts regarding the person of Mark’s report. He was Jesus of Nazareth; He was the Lamb of God; He was the world’s only Saviour.He was Jesus of Nazareth! Jesus is His human name; though it suggests His Divine mission, its primary import is His pure humanity. He was born of a virgin; He was flesh and blood! When Pilate said: “Behold the Man”, his phrase was properly employed.The famous paintings intended to represent Jesus strikingly signify a historical fact, namely, the debate of the centuries as between His humanity on the one side and His Divinity on the other. The artists were doubtless influenced by the opinions of the fathers and early historians.

Some of these describe Jesus as angelic in features, and God-like in the magnificence of His form. St.

Jerome and St. Augustine, we are told, even reminded their auditors of the Psalmist’s words: “Thou art fairer than the children of men”, and Angelo, Da Vinci, Raphael and Titian interpret that thought. On the other hand, great religious teachers, like Clement, Origen, and Tertullian, took the Prophet’s words: “When we shall see Him there is no beauty in Him that we should desire Him”, literally, and reminded their auditors of the prophecy that He should be “marred as was never man”; and insisted that He was not only without celestial splendor, but lacked even in human attractions; was “ill-shapen and ignoble.”If one will study the theology of these fathers he will find, to his surprise, that the more skeptical ones of the early age held to this latter view; while those men who believed more implicitly in every word of God, held to the former—a most significant fact! Those who believe only in the humanity of Jesus are liable to depreciate His personal attractions— “He is a man, and no God is to be found in that form!” On the other hand, those who believe in His Deity to such an extent as to doubt His real humanity, are equally tempted to over-emphasize the signs of Divinity showing from every feature.We do not know how much, if any, veracity there is in the claim made for the ancient manuscript supposed to have been sent by Publicus Lentutus, president of Judea, to the senate at Rome. It reads after this manner: “There lives at this time, in Judea, a man of singular character, whose name is Jesus Christ. The barbarians esteem Him a Prophet, but His followers adore Him as the immediate offspring of the immortal God.

He is endowed with such unparalleled virtue as to call back the dead from their graves, and to heal every kind of disease with a word or touch. His person is tall and elegantly shaped; His aspect amiable, reverend.

His hair flows in those beautiful shades, which no united colors can match, falling into graceful curls before His ears, and agreeably couching on His shoulders, and parting on the crown of His head like the headdress of the sect of the Nazarenes. His forehead is smooth and large; His cheek without spot, save that of a lovely red; His nose and mouth are formed with exquisite symmetry; His beard is thick and suited to the hair on His head, reaching below His chin and parting in the middle like a fork; His eyes are bright, clear and serene. He rebukes with majesty, counsels with mildness, invites with tender and persuasive language—His whole address, whether in deed or word, being elegant, grave and characteristic of so exalted a being. No man has seen Him laugh, but the whole world beholds Him weep frequently; and so persuasive are His tears that the multitude cannot withhold their tears from joining in sympathy with Him. He is very temperate, modest and wise. In short, whatever His phenomenon may turn out in the end, He seems a man for excellent beauty and perfections, every way surpassing the children of men.”Beyond question this is the conception of Jesus pretty generally held now, and we suspect, as near the true picture of His personality as any one is likely to present. This moved the poet to write:“If Jesus was a man; and only a man, I say, Of all mankind, I will cleave to Him, And to Him I will cleave alway.” But according to the text He was more than a man!He was the very Lamb of God! The word of John the Baptist was: “Behold the Lamb of God”! In that language of the Baptist there was the linking up of Scriptures! The Old Testament Prophets had pointed forward to One to come; the angel Gabriel had announced His arrival; by His baptism God Himself, unwilling longer to leave men in question, speaking of Him, said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.It would seem that any man who made an earnest study of the life of Christ would be compelled to the expression of Napoleon: “Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit over-awes me, and His will confounds me. * * His Gospel, His apparition, His empire, His march across the ages and the realms—everything is for me a prodigy, a mystery insoluble.”And yet, to stand in awe in the presence of Jesus is not enough; one who does that may be compelled to consent, “He is the Son of God”. But such an one would not necessarily dwell upon John’s particular thought—“The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world”; the long-looked-for Messiah; the One hope of hurting hearts!How are we to get that knowledge of Him?

We believe that the way of the text, especially John’s text, tells. The two disciples spent a day with Him!

From His presence they went with a special testimony. It has always been so, and it will always remain so, that the men who spend the most time with Jesus will most positively believe in His Deity, and will be able to say without equivocation, “We have found the Messiah”, and will be able to answer the question of their doubting brothers as Philip replied to Nathanael, “Come and see”.Commenting upon that phrase one said: “We are not at liberty to urge men to come and see our literature; we are not asking them to look upon the church as an institution; not to come and see the preacher; not to come and look upon the most noted servant the Son of God ever had; we must go beyond the servant and show the inquirer the Lord Himself.” And the man who sees Him in His risen glory and power must of necessity fall at His feet as did Thomas, and say: “My God”! If one says that the visible presence of Christ is not in the world, and so we cannot see Him, we reply, “If the visible presence of Christ is not in the world, the spiritual presence, which is a presence larger still, more positive, more glorious, is in the world,” dispelling its despair, breaking its fetters, setting at liberty its slaves, lifting the curse of ignorance, the intolerable burdens of poverty, driving before its face its cruel inhumanity, and breathing upon every part of the world where His Name has been made known the breath of sweetness, of kindness, of joy; and, every doubting Nathanael of the world, if he but study that presence and person alike, would exclaim: “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel”.Dr. Strong, once president of Rochester Theological Seminary, on his seventieth birthday, expressed his amazement that any man who had ever known Jesus as Saviour, could, by any process of the intellect whatever, doubt His Deity. And another equally eminent theological professor, said: “If a reference to a personal experience may be pardoned, I may here set my seal. Never shall I forget the gain to conscientious faith and peace which came to my own soul not long after the first decisive and appropriating view of the crucified Lord as the sinner’s sacrifice.” So again we remark, the men who come into most intimate contact with Him will find it most easy to believe in His Deity.But, according to John, another remark regarding the Christ of the Apostles is justified.He was the world’s only Saviour.

It is not many years since a liberal minister of London, in his book “New Theology”, exploited the theory that when Isaiah wrote the fifty-third chapter of his Book, he had no reference whatever to Jesus. One of the marked signs of the skepticism of this age is in the circumstance that now many men are mouthing this deliverance of infidelity; and some of them are men who once had reputations for loyalty to both Christ and His Book.By the same process of argument one must deny that any Old Testament lamb slain upon the altar, under the Levitical system, had any reference whatever to “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”.

The testimony of John the Baptist, then, is disputed; and the interpretations of Philip, as he told the Ethiopian treasurer the meaning of Isaiah fifty-three, was far-fetched and false.Campbell Morgan, by earnest, honest study, has made himself easily one of the most noted men of the Old World, and his contributions to literature give positive proof of his versatility in both Scripture and scientific research; and Morgan, with much feeling, defends Isaiah’s prophetic reference as being the plain finger of prophecy; and going further, he declares that Jesus, the Lamb of God, marked by the finger of John the Baptist, was typified as far back as Isaac’s proposed offering; and the very question of Isaac to his father, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering”? is answered by John the Baptist, who, pointing to Jesus said: “Behold the Lamb of God”! He justly contends, “This is no mere accident! It is a part of the great proof of the unity of the Book. The old economy was able to produce the fire and the wood, symbols of judgment, but nothing more. In the New, the perfect sacrifice is provided, that sin may be put away—Jesus of Nazareth appears as ‘God’s Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world’.”Charles Spurgeon, speaking against the world’s effort to provide another way of redemption, says: “Poor sinners, you are still looking to yourselves. You rake the dung-hills of your human nature to find the pearl of great price which is not there.

You will look beneath the ice of your natural depravity to find the flame of comfort which is not there. You might as well seek in hell itself to find Heaven as look into your own words and merits to find sure ground of trust.

Down with your self-reliances! Down with them; everyone of them! Away with all those confidences of yours, for‘None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good.’ The one certain thing about Spurgeon is his Scripturalness! Read Acts 4:12 : “There is none other name, under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”.THE CALL OF THE . “Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me” (Mark 1:17). His call amounted to an actual demand. If Christ were only a man, this would be one of the strangest speeches ever made, and would indicate madness.What right has an ordinary Nazarene to stop at the lakeside and look into the faces of successful fishermen and say, “Come ye after Me”, demanding that they leave their occupation, take up with Him, sit at His feet, learn of Him, take orders from Him, become not only His disciples, but His very servants? Where in human history has any other man, supposed to be in his right mind, addressed his followers after this manner, excepting he do it in the name of his office as king, or emperor, or caliph? And where did any man who had no such vested authority make such a demand upon his fellows to have his demands regarded by a full and complete surrender of self?No! what they had seen of Jesus had convinced them that He was more than a man. Already there is an impression at least, profound and deep, to be later voiced by Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. In His voice they heard God’s voice, and did not disregard it.

When Joan of Arc undertook her matchless career, there was one impelling force driving her in unwonted ways, demanding of her the most unusual procedure, and in answer to every argument men made against her leadership she felt compelled to say: “My voices! My voices!”—by which she meant, “God is speaking, and I must obey.” That great missionary leader, Robert E.

Speer, speaking on “What Constitutes a Missionary Call” said: “Every time I go down to Asheville, and the train stops long enough in Salisbury, I go out to a little graveyard in the middle of the town and walk to a grave that I found several years ago. Something on a stone caught my eye and when I came up to it, I read the inscription: ‘Here lies the body of F. M. Kent, lieutenant-colonel of the First Louisiana Regulars, who died in 1864, in the month of April’; and underneath are these words: ‘He gave his life for the cause he loved.’ Nearby was the grave of John R. Pearson, first lieutenant of the Seventh Regiment of N. C., who was shot at Petersburg at the age of eighteen, and beneath the name the simple record, ‘I look for the resurrection of the dead.’” Speer says: “I took off my hat and stood beside the graves of the eighteen-year-old lieutenant and the older colonel, who had given their lives for the cause they loved.

I said, ‘Was that the way men did in those days? Did they answer the call of their leader, even though they knew they were marching in the face of death, prompted in their response by love for a great cause?’ “ Shall men do less now?

Shall the call of Jefferson Davis and the love of the southland mean more than the call of Jesus, than the love of a sinning and dying world? God forbid!This Scripture also expresses the idea of subservience. “Come ye after Me”. “After Me” is suggestive. Christ must lead; the Christian must follow. He must forever remain the Master; we must forever be servants. We employ the word “servant” meaning not alone secondary station, but with a view of faithful service. Many writers have spoken of the evident fact that Jesus was a judge of men; He knew what was in them. Have you not been impressed by the historical circumstance that Jesus never called any man from idleness? In the first instance here the brothers were casting their nets, actually engaged in their daily vocation.

In the next instance they were mending their nets, not only indicating their expectations of success in future fishing, but possibly suggesting a catch like that which they took once at Jesus’ command, which had broken the net.When Levi was called he was sitting at the seat of custom; and so on for every one of the twelve. That professor of the theological seminary who told his students about a man who came to him saying he was sure he had been called to the ministry, and when asked, “Why?” replied, “Because I fail at everything else I try to do”, was not reporting an exceptional instance. Again and again men talk after the same manner, saying: “The Lord has shut all other doors before us, and we think it is an evidence that He is opening to us the door of the ministry.” It is the poorest recommendation that any man has ever brought. Servants of the Lord God, if they are to do anything for Him, must be busy men and successful ones. We are not surprised, therefore, that Christ should call men who were successfully engaged.But the next sentence reminds us of another fact, namely, His call looks always to personal and official exaltation. “Fishing” is an honest calling; but “fishing for men” is a more honorable one. That statement is capable of a very wide application.

We do not care for what you are fishing, whether it be fish, or office, or gold; we do not care how successful you are in taking fish, or in securing office, or in heaping up gold; if God calls you from that occupation to be a “fisher of men” He has favored you with the highest of all honors, and brought you to an exaltation of which the world knows nothing. We have a friend in the ministry, one of the most noted Congregational ministers in the world, who came up from a position of poverty and humble apprenticeship in England, to be pastor, author, lecturer, with international reputation in all.

You say, “God has exalted him and honored him.” We have a friend in the Methodist ministry whose name is a household word in America, who began life as a blacksmith. You say, “God has exalted him and honored him.” We have a friend in the Baptist ministry, looked upon now as knowing few equals and no superiors, who began life as a farm lad. You say, “God has honored him and exalted him.” We have a friend in the Presbyterian ministry who used to be one of the leading base-ball lights of the land. You say, “God has exalted him and honored him.” We say to you that when God called another friend, a man from the office of teacher, to preach, God exalted him. And yet another he called from the office of banker, and that man he also honored and exalted, and yet another whom He called from a successful practice of law to preach the Gospel—in that call he was honored and exalted.Those of us who are parents are very likely to think if our daughters could marry brilliant and rich men rather than go as missionaries, we should see them honored instead of hidden. But such thought is folly and shows our poor appreciation of real values!

We also think if our sons could engage in one of the noble professions and stand at the top in the same, rather than serve God in some station of comparative humility, that we could share the honors with them. But such judgment is pitiful in the light of Scripture teaching, and none the less so in the light of Christian experience.It will be confessed that when General Booth died, the King of England was not more honored.

J. Wilbur Chapman says that one day he said to General Booth, “Tell me, what has been the secret of your success?” Before that question the great General hesitated a moment, and then with tears in his eyes, tears which crept slowly down his furrowed cheeks, he said, “Chapman, I will tell you the secret. God had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities, but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do for them, I made up my mind that God could have all there was of William Booth.” “Then,” said Chapman, “I learned another secret, for immediately the great man knelt and prayed, and as I listened to him pleading for the outcasts of London, and of New York, the lost of China, and for the great world itself lying in the wicked one, pleading with sobs and tears, I understood that his success was measured by his surrender.”THE OF THE .It was to be fishers of their fellows. “Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).Notwithstanding our modern teaching, with the emphasis upon sociology and all the rest, the Son of God set His disciples to one task, namely, to win their fellows—to be fishers of men. A. C.

Dixon was a good example of his own words. On one occasion he said: “Our business is to save some.

We may do other things, but they are incidental. As you walk down the corridor of the Astor House towards the restaurant, you will see standing in the door a man who never looks into your face; he always looks at your shoes. That man’s business is to black shoes, and I have never seen him look into the face of a guest. His one thought is about the condition of the shoes. A life insurance agent told me that he never saw a respectable man who did not suggest to him a policy. His business was to get policies.

Every person you meet should suggest salvation.” When John Wesley was robbed by a highwayman, he said to the fellow: “Sometime, my friend, you may repent of this, and if you ever do, remember, ‘The Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin’.” Years afterward that man sought Wesley out and told him that the word spoken then had been as a barbed arrow in his heart, finally compelling repentance and surrender to the Son of God. The Apostle of Christ has one supreme call!

Take men!For that call Christ has promised to prepare them. “I will make you to become fishers of men”. The essential preparation for every man who would do Christ’s service must come from Christ Himself. Other teachers he may have; this greatest of teachers he must have. Men talk sometimes about “modern education”, as if the world had just now begun to believe in scientific research; as if the church had just now begun to think that an educated ministry were desirable. Such conceptions are but the expression of the egoism of the age! There were cultured men in Greece, cultured men in Rome.

Gamaliel was a great teacher two thousand years ago, and the Apostle Paul a splendid and accomplished scholar. “Modern education” is, for the most part, a boast. Our forefathers believed in education, and in proportion to their opportunities, they secured it, notwithstanding the circumstances with which they were hampered.

If anybody doubts this he needs only to look into history a little to be convinced of it. Let our Puritan fathers express themselves on this subject. Over the north gate of Harvard you will read the inscription: “After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to our churches, when our present ministry [mark the phrase—an educated one—] shall lie in the dust.”The Church of God, wherever it has lived in the spirit of its Master, has been at once the parent and patron of education; and if the day ever comes when she forgets, for the special Apostles of Jesus at home and abroad, that the essential education must come from the great Master Himself, it will be a day darkening into night—a day threatening doom.As the pastor of a congregation including hundreds of young people, I have almost a boundless pride in the number who are students—good students; but I should be a false leader if I did not remind them that no teacher, at whose feet men sit, is worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with the Teacher who said: “Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. No preparation of the schools can ever take the place of that preparation which comes from receiving His Spirit and imbibing His wisdom.And yet, one point more in this election of the first Apostles.The place of their work was His appointment. For when they forsook their nets and followed Him, He led them “into Capernaum”. When they arose to go after Him they did not know where He would lead, nor does it seem that they asked.

That was with Him! He makes no mistakes!

It may be in India, it may be in Africa, it may be in China, it may be in America, let the Master say. It is little wonder that He wants some to go to Africa when we are told that oftentimes the delegates that come from the villages and jungles walk hundreds of miles to beg for teachers. It is little wonder that He sent two of my classmates to Korea, for in thirty odd years there they have seen thousands and tens of thousands turn to the Lord God. It is little wonder that He lays financial demands upon some of those of us He has called to live in this land of light and privilege. The marvel is that with our small sacrifices, He accomplishes so much. We were told a while ago that each thousand dollars spent in the year paid the salary of one missionary, supported seven native workers, helped to win sixteen new converts, assisted four Sunday Schools, provided Bible instruction for 165 Sunday School pupils, gave Christian education to sixty boys and girls, secured $745.00 in contribution from native Christians, gave Christian medical treatment to forty-five sufferers, cared for the administration work, and secured immeasurable spiritual results which no man can tabulate.And so, in our giving or going, let Him lead!

Mark 1:45

THE CHRIST Mark 1:45FEW subjects receive greater attention to-day than the subject of advertising. We are accustomed, however, to employ the phrase almost entirely with reference to business interests. It is only of late that men have realized that advertising the Christ and the Church were matters of vastly more importance than the successful sale of the best of earthly wares. A careful study of the New Testament will show that in the disciples’ day advertising the Christ was regarded as the very mission of the Church. In fact, the last promise that Jesus made before ascending into the heavens, looked definitely to the advertising of the Christ. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth”. Not every new convert begins his Christian life with a proper sense of obligation and privilege; but, in this text, we have the model convert! His one mistake, if he made any, was an error of enthusiasm, the most desirable of all misdemeanors. The common mistake of the present-day convert is exactly the opposite; the lack of fervor is the ground of failure, and silence too often takes the place of warranted speech. God’s gift of the Spirit is to the end of testimony to Jesus. Some most interesting things, some most helpful suggestions; yea, some most inspiring truths grow out of a careful study of this Scripture—it reveals a man who had had an interesting personal experience, who published it abroad, and thereby popularized the Christ. Let this be the outline of our study. HE HAD A He had been smitten with leprosy—sorely afflicted. “There came a leper unto Him, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him; If Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean”. The Old Testament is a Book of types, and it presents leprosy as the perfect symbol of sin. To this hour the lepers of the earth are its profoundly pitied people. Some time since a writer said, “At this moment in the Philippines, our missionaries are meeting the leper. They are revealing to him a love which he never expected from earth’s favored and healthy ones. And, by the use of the X-ray, they are giving positive relief from suffering, and at least a partial healing of the infected parts. Only recently a physician in a leper hospital has solicited musical instruments and organized a leper orchestra—a bright-faced group with mandolins, guitar, and flute”.

The writer continues, “Is not that an advance for the Kingdom over the early days of the church”. Yes, and in such a work the church reveals the spirit of the Christ. But the man of our text received more than a tender care—the compassion of the Son of God was shown him, and more than partial recovery—he was made perfectly whole; for, so soon as He had spoken “the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed”. What the earthly physician can accomplish in part, Christ can perfect. Man can do much to brighten, the lives of his afflicted fellows, but Christ can drive the last cloud from the sky, and flood the heart with light! No stringed instrument could give forth such music as found expression in the depths of this grateful heart. It is questionable whether Christ has ever listened to any oratorio rendered by the angels of Heaven, the music of which sounded more sweetly to Him than did the voice of the man healed at the Gate Beautiful, who went with the Apostles into the temple, “Walking and leaping, and praising God”. The music of Heaven will be made up of the spontaneous hymns of the healed—the songs of the cleansed and saved. He had approached Christ with only a partial faith. There are a great many people staying away from Jesus because they do not perfectly believe. This leper believed in His power, but he doubted His compassion. And yet, as Campbell Morgan puts it, “Hobbling on one crutch he came, saying, ‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean’”. The anxious man, the sorely concerned woman will make a start for the Saviour; and for such Christ always clears the way. A young lady student, in conference with the University minister, said, “I believe in religion; but I never recognized Jesus as Divine”.

He answered, “Are you willing to confess yourself a sinner in need of a Saviour?” to which she replied in the affirmative. “Would you consent to kneel and tell Jesus that you need help, and that if He can grant it you will accept it?” “I think I would”, was her reply. “Will you do it just now?” After a moment’s reluctance, knees were bent and the appeal made, and when, after prayer, she arose to her feet, she said, “Yes! He is the Son of God. I feel in my soul that He has heard and answered me”. One of the greatest women of modern times says, “I was an unbeliever; I doubted the Deity of Jesus Christ, but one day I decided in my mind that I would live as if Jesus were the Son of God, and as if I were responsible to Him as my God, and see what came of such a life. I had no sooner set about such a course in sincerity and earnestness than He made to me such a revelation of Himself as to clear the mind of all doubt, and the heart of all skepticism, and I knew Him to be my Lord”. That is in accord with His promise—“If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God”, and no man ever came to Christ with a little faith, but he left Him with a larger. This man received from Christ a perfect blessing. The leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. The most of you are familiar with “The Psalm of Life” by Henry W. Longfellow. It was one of the poems with which your youthful mind was wisely stored. It was written in 1839 and soon became one of the most popular in the English language. The story goes that when the great poet was in London, Queen Victoria sent for him to come and see her at the palace. He went, the interview was concluded, and he was climbing into the waiting coach when a man in working clothes approached him, hat in hand, and said, “Please, sir, your honor, are you Mr.

Longfellow?” “I am” said the poet. “And did you write ‘The Psalm of Life’? “I did”, replied the gentleman, ‘And yer honor; would you be willing to take the hand of a plain working man?” Mr. Longfellow gave him a hearty handshake, and in referring to it later, said, “I counted it the greatest compliment of my life that the man desired it”. Ward Beecher relates a kindred experience. When the Plymouth church was being built he picked his way one day through the piles of stone and workmen, and stumbling about, came upon one he knew, and putting out his hand, said cordially, “Why, John, how is the work going to-day?” The man dropped his load, and seizing his hand, said, “Oh, Mr. Beecher, you can’t know how it seems to me to have you stop and shake hands. When I get home I’ll tell the wife and children how you stopped, and I assure you I am a bigger man because of your recognition, and I will be a better one because of your cordial greeting”.

And yet, the pride with which Mr. Beecher related this incident at a later time, and the very delight that illumined his face while he told the same, indicated that he had gotten more joy out of that experience than did the man who had supposed himself the subject of special favor.

If we could only bring men to see that when they approach Jesus for a blessing they pay to His power and His compassion the compliment His infinite heart craves above all others, we believe that the suffering multitudes would not stay so long away from Him whose heart is blessed in blessing. HE IT ABROAD “But he went out and began to publish it much and to blaze abroad the matter”. He continuously advertised the saving power of Christ. The church is in need of just such advertising agents. Business men contend that there is power in oft-repeated ads; and there seems to be in hand just now a perfect illustration of that fact. Those of us who are in middle life were born to a knowledge of St. Jacob’s Oil. Our mothers would no more have attempted to keep house without it than to have reared a family without milk.

It was in the medicine chest of every mansion; and on the top shelf of the cupboard in every cabin. If one had eczema he used St. Jacob’s Oil; if he made a misstroke with the axe, and split his toe, they applied St. Jacob’s Oil. Now none so poor as to do it reverence. Another oil has taken its place.

We wonder why? I am credibly informed that the change is not necessarily an illustration of “the survival of the fittest”, but due to the circumstance that the successors of the old manufacturer of St. Jacob’s Oil, coming into the business, concluded it was folly to waste so many thousands in advertising. They saved their money and lost their trade! The repeated hearing or reading of a statement makes a permanent impression. Consequently great business enterprises pay out thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to say over to-day what they said yesterday. This principle obtains in the publishing of the Gospel truth. So far as the record goes, Jonah uttered but a sentence in the streets of Nineveh; but though the long hours of the Syrian day, he walked and cried again, and again, and again, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown” until by repetition, he brought four hundred and eighty thousand adults to their knees in penitence. This convert to Christ knew how to get the cause of his Master before the public. He published His saving power extensively. The text reads, “He blazed abroad the matter”. Inasmuch as Christ’s life was not lived in a corner, neither is the Gospel to be confined to narrow limits. It is ours to blaze it abroad; to reach the multitude with it. An empty seat in the House of God, during the hour of service, has but one explanation— some saint has sinned! Even a little loyalty to Jesus would have compelled one to bring another with him, and that seat would have been taken.

Our church has now a membership of 3,000. Something more than 2,500 of them live in our city. There ought to be a Gideon’s Band of a picked five hundred in that twenty-five hundred. If five hundred people brought each a friend to God’s house standing room would always be at a premium in the auditorium. Is there any reason that we could give to God why that is not done? But when the last seat is taken; and the open spaces are occupied with the standing, this work of blazing abroad the blessings to be had in Christ should be regarded as only begun. There is not a thing to hinder any prominent church from putting five or ten Gospel wagons, or automobiles into the streets for the entire summer months, and in the South the year round. If some will man them, and others will provide the cars, it would make this more extensive publication of the Gospel possible. What it would mean for the cause of Christ and for the building up of the church, if five to ten of the most conspicuous and popular corners of a city were at once taken possession of and held from 6: 30 to 7:30 p. m., through the summer months, no man can imagine! Beyond that there are ‘bigger opportunities still. Confessedly the newspaper is the present-day medium of power. At an expense of $15,000 to $20,000 a year a church reaches, on Sunday and week days, a few thousand people. At an expense of an additional $2,000.00 or $3,000.00, she could preach the Gospel, through the daily newspaper, to well nigh a half million of people. The great Moody Church, Chicago, once saw this opportunity and availed themselves of it, and every Saturday they took a column in the newspaper that had the largest circulation known to the Chicago press, and though it cost them $6,000 per annum, they counted it a blessed investment. America never produced a keener intellect nor a saner spirit than that of Wendell Phillips.

Seldom in his life did he utter a word that was not worthy of earnest consideration; and, Phillips said, “The newspaper is parent, school, college, pulpit, example, counsel all in one. Every drop of our blood is colored by it. Let me make the newspaper and I care not who makes the religion or the laws”. But for the newspaper, Wendell Phillips could never have won his glorious contention for freedom. Through its pages, yea by its very criticisms, he commanded the attention of the nation, and made his bitterest opponent the very medium of his glorious triumph. De Witt Talmage was a remarkable man and in the day of his strength attracted four thousand auditors. But that was a little work beside what he accomplished through the printed page. The newspapers of America gave him an audience of millions, and no minister of modern times ever moved such a multitude Godward. Bryan at the time of his death was reaching the world by the printed page. The column of the daily newspaper is the opportunity of the church. To decline its employment is to miss the first chance of exalting the Christ and advancing His cause.

A careful study of the successful pastors and churches of modern times will show that they have appreciated the power of printer’s ink. Dwight L. Moody, the peerless evangelist, was a pioneer in this respect. His appearance in a city was a signal for having the town sown down with tickets of invitation and the columns of the press teem with announcements of the meetings. If I called the names of the six most successful ministers in America to-day, and paid proper tribute to the good work they are accomplishing, some small critics would, sneeringly reply, “They are great advertisers!” which is only another way of intimating that the man who makes promises in the newspapers should be able to “deliver the goods”. Need a Gospel minister fail in that?

What so superb as his message; and what sorer need does the world know than its need of the very same? Charles Spurgeon was perhaps the best advertised man in England. He knew the power of the press and employed it, and often made mention of results from the same. In concluding an address one day, he said, “You will remember that one morning I mentioned the case of an infidel who had been a scorner and scoffer; but who, through reading one of my printed sermons, had been brought to God and to God’s house. Let me now tell you the sequel of that. On last Christmas Day that same infidel gathered together all his books and went into a public place in Norwich and there made a public recantation of his infidelity and a statement of his acceptance of Christ, and burned them all in the sight of the people. I have praised God for such a wonder of grace as that!” That prodigal of power was turned from a malicious opposition of Christ ‘to be a message-bearer for Him, by the printed page. If our Gospel has wrought for us what we say, it is our business to “publish it much, yea even to blaze it abroad”. HE THE CHRIST He stirred up opposition to Him; He excited interest in Him; He originated a church for Him. He stirred up opposition to Him. In consequence of his going out and publishing it much and blazing abroad the matter “Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places”. Any faithful advertiser of the work of Jesus Christ will create opposition. The last compliment a Christian minister, or a Christian church, ought to crave is to have all men speak well of him or it. Christ has declared, “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you”. It is a sure sign that you are not striking sin. It is proof positive that you are not calling men to repentance. It is an unanswerable evidence that you are compromising with the world, the flesh, and the devil. When Charles Spurgeon began his ministry in London, his sermons were often misquoted, his deeds were constantly misrepresented, and he himself was caricatured in most repulsive forms. Russell Conwell says, “He appeared in the periodicals of the times sometimes as a monkey, on other occasions as a flytrap, once as a pig; on another occasion as the devil himself.” “But”, adds Conwell, “all these advertised him largely and proved ultimately to be of great good to the cause. Persons sought Christ at almost every service, and it would have caused great surprise if a week had passed at any time without a number of conversions”. It is infinitely better to so preach the Gospel as to stir opposition than it is to leave men indifferent alike to it and to its Christ. He excited an interest in Christ. “Jesus was without in desert places and they came to Him from every quarter”. One of the most successful Methodist ministers in America, some years since, was appointed to a charge, in South Boston, that was sadly run down. The church stood in the midst of a boarding house population back of the old State House on Beacon Hill. He made up his mind to reach the multitudes of that vicinity. One day he went down to the Rope Walk, as they call it. About two hundred and fifty young men and women were coming out of a factory, “While I was there waiting”, he says, “with a package of invitations to the church services, a fellow came down with a load of the vilest of all vile illustrated papers to give to these same people. He was like a pack horse, and was about the most degraded looking specimen I had come across.

He gave me a knowing wink as if to say, “There are two of us”. I confess I was nonplussed, and felt pretty cheap to be found in the company of this degraded fellow giving out his vile stuff. But almost instantly the thought came, ‘This is only a picture of what is going on all over the world. It is a fight with the devil for souls; it is a constant competition. I am here in noble interests to get these young boys and girls for Christ, and I will remain and contest this ground with this lewd fellow! And so I went straight on, putting out my cards”.

And while the minister does not say it in that connection, the world knows that he reached the crowds and he created an interest in Jesus Christ; and men and women alike, by the hundreds, were induced to accept Christ as their Saviour during the days of his ministry in that city. He created a true church of Christ. “They came to Him from every quarter”. Wherever you get needy men in a circle, Christ is in the midst of them—the former seeking blessing, and the latter conferring it, you begin a church. Jesus once said that where “two or three are gathered together in My Name there will I be in the midst of them”. That is a church! But may I call your special attention to definition—“two or three gathered together in Christ’s Name with Christ in the midst” that is a church. If it is three hundred it is a bigger church; and if it is three thousand, a bigger one still, and if they are assembled in Christ’s Name, with Christ in the midst, perhaps the bigger the better. But mark you, in that church no “Jew” would be found, for a Jew does not assemble in Christ’s Name; no “Unitarian” would be found, for he has rejected Christ; no “reverent agnostic” would have special place, for the Name of Christ means very little to him, and no “atheist” would care to be included, for when he calls Christ’s Name it is to repudiate, and not to praise it.

The church that brings about “a conservation of our spiritual forces” will necessarily be a church in which Christ Himself is honored, and will show a “virility” which is accounted for by the presence of His Holy Spirit. Mr.

Tee, a writer of some time ago, had “A Cathedral Dream” and a magazine quoted him to this effect, “As I see the church of the future, we are not going to give up anything. We are going to insist upon having a great central cathedral in every city which shall belong to us. The church of the future is going to be a great spiritual metropolis, every man going there, every man belonging there. Men shall feel in church as in some great hushed city of each other’s lives. It shall be the one place where a man can go with a whole human race and face God. The church of the future is going to give room to everyman’s life while he has it. If it does this, we will all get together. And, if we all get together, the cathedral is inevitable.

We will soon give God a body on the earth. The church in every town at last shall be to every man the greatest thing he knows. It shall be like the sky over the other things. The nations of the earth shall be seen kneeling in it, and all the institutions of the sons of men—the universities, the corporations, the very railroads, the stately lines of ships from around the seas, shall bow themselves, and the great brutal mines from the hollows of the earth, all these shall come and be seen kneeling there before the God who is the God of all, with its hundreds of voices, its hundreds of instruments of praise, its scores of preachers, its unceasing services, and kinds of services, it shall enfold all men in one prayer and song”. That is almost as eloquent as some of Mrs. Eddy’s sentences are grandiloquent and has in it about as much common sense as characterizes Christian Science; and, if such a thing were possible, even a more meager modicum of Scripture. We need no new-definition of the Church, but a realization of the original meaning of the word, “men assembled in the Name of Christ, and Christ in the midst”; we need no new invention to effect a “virility” in the church, but a realization of the presence of the Holy Spirit; we need 110 “new message” to, or through, the church, but, rather, the recovery of the old message, and its delivery in the power of the Holy Ghost. A church made up after the Bible manner will never be content with mere assemblies; its members will come in for instruction and inspiration, but the same Spirit that assembles them, will commission them and send them forth; the sanctuary will not be a mere place of assembly, but a point of departure to the uttermost parts of the earth; its walls will not hold all our religion, but merely help it so that when we go beyond them, it will be in the interest of bringing the saving truth of the Son of God to the knowledge of men, women and children, and that without respect of person or station. The Gospel of such a church will not be preached from a plushed-carpeted pulpit merely, or heard merely by people that sit in comfortable, high-priced pews, but re-delivered by the members that make it up, in shop and office, and on street corners, as they have opportunity; by word of mouth, by published tracts, by secular press, by missions at home and abroad. The sanctuary will simply be a place to which we will come to light the fires of life, and from which we will go to carry them to the uttermost parts of the city; to the uttermost parts of the state, to the uttermost parts of the earth. Aggressive co-operation under the Spirit will accomplish such a church; and its con-quests are as sure as the power and promises of our Christ. “Once the welcome light has broken, Who shall say What the unimagined glories of the day: What the evil that shall perish in its ray? Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way!”