======================================================================== WRITINGS OF BEVERLY CARRADINE - VOLUME 1 by Beverly Carradine ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Beverly Carradine (Volume 1), compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 99 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 01.00. A Box of Treasure 2. 01.01. The Battle on This Planet 3. 01.02. Five Kinds of Divine Healing 4. 01.03. From What Christ Does Does Not Make Us Free 5. 01.04. The Holy Ghost No Failure 6. 01.05. The Victim of Natural Goodness 7. 01.06. The Travail of Zion 8. 01.07. The Freedom of the Holiness Movement 9. 01.08. The Upper Room and Tongues 10. 01.09. Leaving the First Principles 11. 01.10. The Delay of the Gospel 12. 01.11. The Jungle in the Heart 13. 01.12. The Death of Conscience 14. 01.13. New Wine and Old Bottles 15. 01.14. The Shout at Jericho 16. 01.15. The Wise Men of the West 17. 01.16. A Perfect Consecration 18. 01.17. Christ - The Altar 19. 01.18. The Sunrise Blessing 20. 01.19. Religious Singing 21. 01.20. The Divine Monopoly 22. 01.21. Celestial Property 23. 01.22. Disappointment 24. 01.23. Difference in Hearing 25. 01.24. Lessons from Crucifixion 26. 01.25. Preaching the Great Instrumentality of Salvation 27. 01.26. The Auricular Cuspidor 28. 01.27. Moulting and Shedding 29. 01.28. The Effect of Distance 30. 01.29. Lessons from Hailey's Comet 31. 01.30. The Aeroplane Blessing 32. 01.31. The Forty 33. 01.32. The Divine Permission of Wrong Doing 34. 01.33. The Necessity of a Day of Judgment 35. 01.34. The Quiet Power of Goodness 36. 01.35. The Chamber Over the Gate 37. 01.36. The Sick Room 38. 01.37. Some Thoughts About Death 39. 01.38. Dying Flashes 40. 02.00. A Bundle of Arrows 41. 02.01. The Name of Jesus 42. 02.02. "Art Thou the Gardener?" 43. 02.03. Signals of the Soul 44. 02.04. The Manufacture of Gods 45. 02.05. A Wilderness University 46. 02.06. The Other Side 47. 02.07. Songs in the Night 48. 02.08. TheThird Chapter of Life 49. 02.09. Lessons from the Stars 50. 02.10. The Daily Death 51. 02.11. The Gradual Revelation of Prayer 52. 02.12. The Gnat and the Camel 53. 02.13. The Ox Cart 54. 02.14. "Alas, My Brother" 55. 02.15. The Way That Seemeth Right 56. 02.16. The City of Refuge 57. 02.17. A Deceived Heart 58. 02.18. The Calamities of the Wilderness Life 59. 02.19. A Bottomless Abyss 60. 02.20. God's Instruments 61. 02.21. The Stony Heart 62. 02.22. The Dead Body 63. 02.23. The Gifts of the Spirit 64. 02.24. The Renewing Power of Prayer 65. 02.25. Mourning Days Ended 66. 02.26. A Strange Power of the Soul 67. 02.27. The Blight of Irreverence 68. 02.28. Devotion to Sin 69. 02.29. The Reserve of Christ 70. 02.30. On the Roost 71. 02.31. In a Quicksand 72. 02.32. The Peacemaker 73. 02.33. Religious Influence 74. 02.34. Cutting Loose From Earth 75. 022.35. The Close of the Year 76. 03.00. A Journey to Palestine 77. 03.01. The Departure 78. 03.02. New York and Vicinity 79. 03.03. The Ocean Voyage 80. 03.04. Liverpool - Ayre in Scotland 81. 03.05. Scottish Lakes and Mountains 82. 03.06. Stirling, Bannockburn, and Edinburg 83. 03.07. Melrose and Abbotsford 84. 03.08. In England - Warwick - Kenilworth - Stratford - Oxford 85. 03.09. London - Spurgeon - Dr. Parker - St. Paul's Cathedral 86. 03.10. London - Gray's Country Church Yard 87. 03.11. The English People - London 88. 03.12. Paris 89. 03.13. Paris 90. 03.14. The Rhine 91. 03.15. Baden and Switzerland 92. 03.16. Venice 93. 03.17. Venice 94. 03.18. Rome 95. 03.19. Naples 96. 03.20. Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius 97. 03.21. The Mediterrranean Sea - Egypt 98. 03.22. In Egypt - The Pyramids 99. 03.23. Palestine - Jaffa - Jerusalem ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 01.00. A BOX OF TREASURE ======================================================================== * * * * * * * A BOX OF TREASURE By Beverly Carradine * * * * * * * In this 38 chapter work by Mr. Carradine (Nazarene), he presents us with chapters to challenge our hearts. He has some very interesting chapters like the one on healing, the Holy Ghost is no failure, thoughts on death, etc. 1910 CONTENTS Chapter 1 The Battle on this Planet Chapter 2 Five Kinds of Divine Healing Chapter 3 From what Christ Does not make us Free Chapter 4 The Holy Ghost No Failure Chapter 5 The Victim of Natural Goodness Chapter 6 the Travail of Zion Chapter 7 The Freedom of the Holiness Movement Chapter 8 The Upper Room and Tongues Chapter 9 Leaving the First Principles Chapter 10 The Delay of the Gospel Chapter 11 The Jungle in the Heart Chapter 12 The Death of Conscience Chapter 13 New Wine and Old Bottles Chapter 14 The Shout at Jericho Chapter 15 The Wise Men of the West Chapter 16 A Perfect Consecration Chapter 17 Christ – The Altar Chapter 18 The Sunrise Blessing Chapter 19 Religious Singing Chapter 20 The Divine Monopoly Chapter 21 Celestial Property Chapter 22 Disappointment Chapter 23 Difference in Hearing Chapter 24 Lessons from Crucifixion Chapter 25 Preaching the Great Instrumentality of Salvation Chapter 26 The Auricular Cuspidor Chapter 27 Moulting and Shedding Chapter 28 The Effect of Distance Chapter 29 Lessons from hailey’s Comet Chapter 30 The Aeroplane Blessing Chapter 31 The Forty Chapter 32 The Divine Permission of Wrong Doing Chapter 33 The Necessity of a Day of Judgment Chapter 34 The Quiet Power of Goodness Chapter 35 The Chamber over the Gate Chapter 36 The Sick Room Chapter 37 Some Thoughts about Death Chapter 38 Dying Flashes * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.01. THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET ======================================================================== Chapter 1. THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET. There is a war going on in the universe, beside which the military conflicts of the nations of this earth sink into utter insignificance. As to duration, we observe that our Civil War lasted four years, the Revolutionary struggle eight, the campaigns of Napoleon twelve or fifteen, the Carthaginian and Roman wars several decades of years; but the great contest we speak of as taking place in the universe has been going on without the intermission of a day or hour for thousands of years. As for numbers engaged on either side, one to three million of soldiers would easily cover in a numerical way the combatants in the campaigns of the nations, while in this moral conflict which is raging as described in the Bible and recognized in life, every angel in Heaven, every devil in Hell, and every human being on earth has taken part or is at present doing so. Then when in addition we notice that its battle fields are worlds; that the fight is not between a man and his fellow simply, but between the creature and his Creator; that the result is everlasting life and blessedness, or eternal death, woe and misery; we see at once how unspeakably this war of the universe transcends in every particular, battles of the kingdoms and nations of this world. How far into the vast creation of God this conflict has gone we cannot tell. It has touched other orbs according to the Bible, and there seem hints that would point to its presence in still more distant globes. It is evident from Scripture that the battle is over in one of these three worlds, God having obtained the victory there as he will in all other places where the rebellion has broken out. The sinning angels completely defeated there, are today with their leading Head, simply awaiting God’s time to send them into the Pit, the penitentiary of the universe. The place, where the war existed before our time, is perfectly free now from every enemy of God, and the conflict is transferred to the planet we live in. It has been raging six thousand years, is in every country, city and village, has penetrated every home, and the battle lines rush and fall back, wave and waver, advance and retreat in every human breast. The shot and shells the gasp and groan, the captivity and death, the shout and victory has taken place in every part of the whole round world upon which we live. God for wise reasons has allowed the fallen angels or devils to take part in an unseen but unmistakably felt way in this strange, sad, bitter and long lasting contest on earth. This very fact of allowing wicked angels to help evil men, in itself shows that He has no fear or apprehension whatever of the final triumph, when the nations that forget God, and all dying in unbelief and disobedience, shall be turned into the Hell that was prepared for the Devil and his angels. The features of this war seem in a certain sense to change as it rages in first one world and then another, or comes moving down the centuries in our own earth. That is, certain great principles and truths have to be defended and reestablished, so to speak. Different doctrines and facts, from God’s existence authority, character and person, down to the least commandment, have to be rescued from alien, perverting, and inimical hands, and not only vindicated and proved, but fixed all the more firmly as well as abidingly in the heart, minds and lives of the moral, intellectual beings the Almighty has made. But whatever is the question, the issue, the struggle, the defiance, the denial or the resistance, it is always a fight against God in some form. The attack is made upon something that God is, or has said or has done. In the first conflict we read of that broke out in another world, we gather from certain lines in the Scripture that it was God’s dominion and rulership that was assailed. In the early portion of our planet’s history the great battle with the nations was not only the authority of God, but the fact that there was only one God. The prophets of Heaven, few in number, met this issue continually as they were confronted with many priests and prophets representing a multitude of gods. There is but one God is the Old Testament cry from beginning to end! Every true Servant of Heaven, stood for this issue in the face of the idolatry and polytheism of the day. "There is one God" he said, "and beside Him is none other"! Now let the reader ask himself if this is the question in our day? And at once he must answer, No. What is the fight now? Certainly not the fact of a divine, exalted person. Every heathen land recognizes a supreme being. The Jews stand for that. The Mohammedans have that truth cried out from the minarets of their mosques by their muezzins twice or thrice every day. Even an infidelity called Deism admits an infinite divine One called God. What is the fight about now, has been for the two thousand years, and will be, and must be, until the end of time or the close of this earthly probation? Do we need to say to any intelligent Christian, or any thoughtful, observant being, that the battle today is in regard to the person and claims of Jesus Christ? Is He the eternal Son of God? Is He Divine? Is He the Messiah? Is He the second person in the Trinity? Can He forgive sins? Can He sanctify the soul by the baptism with the Holy Ghost? Can He raise the dead? Is He the judge of all the earth? The whole struggle of the last twenty centuries circles about Christ, as to who He is, and what He can do. It is certainly well to know this in order to fight intelligently and successfully, and in order not to beat the air uncertainly, to waste our ammunition, and really do nothing and get nowhere. It would be pitiful indeed to think we were on Christ’s side, and yet not only be doing nothing for Him, but be actually against Him. For instance, what time and energy are lost in trying to prove that there is a God or supreme being, when this is really not the issue on hand; and when the Bible says that everybody believes the fact but a "fool." That is in view of the manifest, design in creation all around us, to be an atheist, or one who says there is no God, is to be senseless or an idiot! And what is the use of reasoning with idiots? This is not the battle anyhow! The fight is about Christ, His messiahship, divinity, ability to pardon, sanctify, raise the dead, and judge the world. To be in the true war going on we must say yes to all these facts, and stand up for every one of them. If we do not, then we have left or are leaving the battle line. Hence it is First; that a man who denies the Messiahship of Christ is out of the real contest. He has been whipped by the other side. He is a captive now in the ranks of God’s enemies, for God is backing up the claims of His Son, and bids men to kiss the Son lest He be angry, and declares that He laughs at and will bring to naught the counsel of the kings against "His Anointed." Second, when Mohammedanism denies the divinity of Jesus, it, while claiming to be a true religion, is out of the army of God, and actually arrayed against the cause of the Being whom they profess to believe and in whose service they fancy they are. Third, when Unitarianism declares against the divinity of Jesus Christ, robbing Him of His place in the God-head, they have ceased at once to be on the Lord’s side in the battle that is now going on in the world. For the fight is not now "Is there one God?" that is an achieved victory! But is there a Trinity of persons in this one God, and is not Christ the second person in that Triune God? Hence it is that Unitarianism is no longer in the fight on God’s side, but is in the ranks of His enemies. Fourth, when Infidelity and what is called the general unbelief of the multitude, say that Christ cannot forgive sins, then all such people by this very statement, and their consequent conduct, range themselves in battle array against the cause of Heaven in this world. Fifth, when numbers of Christians so-called, declare that there is no second work of grace in which Christ sanctifies the soul, but ascribe holiness to growth and development, to a result of good works, etc., they have surrendered or denied the most important claim of the Son of God, robbed Him of His distinctive glory, and loaned their regiments and brigades to the enemies of the Father and His Son. Fancying they are for God, they are really fighting the cause of God. Sixth, when Swedenborgianism and other religious schools and followings like them, deny the future resurrection of the body, and the coming day of Judgment, giving the most fanciful, unwarrantable and mystical meaning to the Scripture stating these facts, and which the Father says shall be done by His Son, they have been whipped out of the battle line of truth, and become mixed up with the enemies of the Son of God. Seventh, when Christians join lodges, fraternities and brotherhoods where the divinity of Jesus Christ is not recognized, where not even His name is in their rituals, then they have virtually given up the very battle which the Father is making for His Son, and has been pressing for the last two thousand years. Preachers and laymen of different churches who have joined secret societies and brotherhoods, have informed us that the lodge or fraternity was established on a broad basis, viz.: the fact of a supreme divine being and the brotherhood of man. Our reply to them is that the Bible does not teach any such brotherhood, but the contrary. That Christ said of a certain people that they were of their father the Devil, and the Scriptures declare unsaved men to be children of wrath. So that the popular platform talk about the brotherhood of man is mere oratorical gush and moral rot. Moreover that which they term the broad basis of the lodge’s system is a complete surrender to the side of the enemy, of the person and claims of the Son of God. That which they pronounce a broad platform is so constructed in its so-called breadth as to push Jesus Christ clear of the ground, and leaves Him out of sight and hearing, without worship and without even recognition. We call their attention to the fact that the "fight" now on, and that must be on until Jesus appears as the Judge of the earth in the mid Heavens, and "His enemies shall become His footstool," is not over the truth that there is a divine supreme being, for all nations and religions agree to that, but the more faith-trying statement and revelation of Heaven that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, and the only Saviour of the World. This is the assertion and contest of a true unfallen Christianity. So that to join a lodge or fraternity with the idea that such a society or brotherhood offers a broader basis than can be found in the Christian Church by the simple recognition of a supreme divine being, is really to give up the "battle," is to deny the Saviour, surrender the claims and rights of Jesus Christ, and actually be found warring against the will and work of the "Supreme Being," who as God the Father, is vindicating and pressing on to final triumph the cause of His Son in this present dispensation. In addition to this when we behold a so-called "Congress of Religions," where Christian ministers sit on the same platform with Jews, Mohammedans, and followers of Buddha and Confucius, and hear the mongrel meeting called by the newspapers, and thoughtless unspiritual church members, an assembly of beautiful fraternity, a public exhibition of Christian unity and love; we are filled with loathing, disgust and horror over the delusion, misconception and misstatement of the sickening affair. Instead of Christian fraternity it is nothing else but downright Christian disloyalty! It is a slap, blow, wound and public insult given to Christ. It is a virtual surrender in a most prominent and conspicuous way of the dignity, divinity and supremacy of Jesus the Son of God. For a Christian minister to sit in fraternal relation in a pulpit or on a platform with Hindoo priests who deny the divinity of our Lord, and by the side of Jewish rabbis, who affirm that our Saviour is a bastard and impostor; is for that same preacher of the gospel or church layman not only to put Christ to a public shame and humiliation, but to bring Him on a level with false saviours and gods, to deny Him, to surrender Him, to give up the real fight of the last twenty centuries and be found on amiable friendly terms with the opposers and enemies of the Son of God. The Congress of Religions and the Lodge occupy the same position in this horrible treason, this traitorship in regard to Jesus, the Son of God, the only Saviour of the world. God save every reader of these lines from such a broadness and so-called fraternity and catholicity of spirit, that after all its flowery speeches and sentimental gushings is nothing but the denial, the betrayal, the surrender, and downright forsaking of Jesus Christ the Son of God. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.02. FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING ======================================================================== Chapter 2 FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING. If we give really serious thought to the subject, we are compelled to admit that all healing comes directly or indirectly from God. There could be none at all without his work or works. It is a happening or result connected in every instance with some kind of manifestation or exercise of divine power. There have been sudden recoveries, so called, that have apparently taken place under the manipulations of the veriest cranks and humbugs, as well as those which are beheld under the influence and work of certain ecclesiastical bodies, where really and actually there had been no disease or sickness. The complaint existed solely in the imagination. But under some kind of appeal or surrounding, a mental revolution took place, the fancied ailment of course disappeared, and there stood before the community an apparent marvelous and sudden cure. And yet no real healing had taken place, for there had been no actual malady to operate on. Evidently then, the delivery from an imaginary physical affliction, however pleasant the mental consequence may be, is in all truth no virtual case of healing. Genuine healing must and can only proceed from God. A second thought we advance is that God heals in more ways than he gets credit for. Not only the world but the friends and followers of the Lord rob him of much of his glory and power as well as his wisdom and goodness, when they restrict him to one mode of bestowing health and recovery upon the afflicted human body. By such a conclusion as well as doctrine, they purloin from the Divine Being four-fifths of the praise that is due him for this great blessing, for God has no less than five ways of healing the body! Furthermore, as the Almighty One has seen fit to restore more people by four of the methods alluded to, than by the one which is so urged upon mankind by some of the smaller ecclesiastical bodies, we see that instead of four-fifths it would be nearer the truth to say that ninety-nine hundredths of the credit and glory belonging to God in this matter has been taken from him, or failed to be attributed to him. One method of divine healing known to numbers and believed in by many, is instant restoration by the power of God, in answer to faith and prayer on the part of the one afflicted, or by others who plead and believe in his behalf. We have repeatedly in our life beheld both of these instances. Some cases where individual and solitary faith was sufficient to bring health and life back with a rush into the pain racked and disease smitten body. In other cases, for whose sakes prayer was made, the recovery came to persons who were hundreds of miles away and the deliverance arrived while the supplicators were on their knees pleading for the one who at that moment was hovering on the borders of eternity. Bishop Galloway of the M. E. Church South was undoubtedly brought back to life in this way. Once while a pastor in New Orleans a leading woman of our congregation was suddenly restored, who had been given up by several doctors. Her husband, himself a prominent physician, was sleeping in a corner of the room, expecting to be told of his wife’s last breath. The writer was on his knees begging God for her life, when suddenly with a beautiful smile she spoke aloud and said, "God has healed me!" and it was so, and it was a perfect restoration. Several months later, while at a district conference, a telegram came acquainting that body of ministers and laymen with the sad tidings of the swift approaching dissolution of a gifted and pious young preacher of that annual conference. Instantly the Presiding Elder called everybody to their knees, and asked one of the preachers to lead in prayer. The Spirit of God came on the man praying, and with tears and strong crying he plead, God willing, for the life of the young man. When all arose, after the prayer had been concluded, a number felt that it had been heard and accepted in heaven. In a few hours came the news that at the very time we were on our knees pleading with God about his sick servant, the dying man, over one hundred miles away, was suddenly healed. A second divine method of healing is by water. The great chemist of the universe in some way, and with a certain blending of chemical elements, and an abiding proportion among themselves that puzzle both physicians and pharmacists, has given a healing property to springs and pools of water that effect a perfect cure of the human body, though accomplished gradually and not suddenly like the first. As God made the water, and placed the restoring quality in its crystal flow, of course then the cure is as much a case of divine healing, as when it comes in answer to faith and prayer. The only difference is that one is direct, personal and immediate, while the other is instrumental, personal and gradual. But God is in both. That water heals many ailments and maladies of the flesh no one in possession of his sense and senses can truthfully deny. Twice the writer has been restored to perfect health by the power of this second mode of healing. Once at Cooper’s Wells in Mississippi, when a pastor in Vicksburg. Again in 1893, when we had sciatica boiled out of us by the steaming natural baths of Hot Springs, Ark. This kind of cure can be properly called Divine Healing Number Two. A third mode of divine healing has been deposited so to speak in climate. None of us could count the people who, dying by inches in one part of the country, have been restored to perfect health by removing to another state or territory. As God has made the climate, and given to it the virtue or power to renew or relieve certain physical conditions, then are we compelled to admit the fact of a third kind of divine healing; and as we see an annual exodus of people seeking for the mountain, sea shore or desert atmosphere, as their different and peculiar troubles call for, then we behold plainly not only the faith of multitudes in such a cure, but later on we mark, in many instances, the proof of the healing in its obtainment. And this is Number Three. A fourth divine healing comes through the virtue of medicine and the skill of real doctors. That God has placed certain remedial qualities in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, is recognized in Scripture, proved in nature, and realized in life. That God also has given to some men the cast of mind which, when informed and trained, makes them skillful and successful physicians, we can no more doubt than that he makes preachers, and scatters gifts of all kinds among the children of men. We believe that there are multitudes asleep in the cemetery who would have lived many years longer if they had used the helps and means of recovery which God had sent them in medicine, and the knowledge and experience of men wise and able in the medical realm. As both medicine and men are the creations of God, the proper treatment by one, and the correct use of the other, can be most reasonably expected with God’s blessing on the instrumentality to result in a divine cure of still another order. This we would call Divine Healing Number Four. The writer and countless thousands can bear witness to this mode of restoration. And what is more, we can properly call it divine healing, and give God the glory. A fifth character of divine healing is to be seen in Nature itself. That is, in every case of real sickness the laws of our physical being, come to the succor of the afflicted and endeavor in various ways to throw off the disease; and wherever given a fair chance will bring relief. Now as Nature and its laws are all of God, we are compelled to see in this restoration, no accident whatever, but a divine healing again; and which we can very truly term Divine Healing Number Five Here, then, we have five different kinds of Divine healing. Furthermore we would state that we have seen every one of these forms and expressions of the power of God, not only present but testifying in our meetings These things being so, we cannot refrain from drawing several conclusions. One is that the individual who has been blessed and restored through one of these operations, ought not to discount the experience, and cast his brother out of the synagogue whom God has helped in another way. Second: To keep us humble and looking to him all the while; and to make us tolerant with one another, and to broaden us spiritually as well; God, who is pleased to heal us in a certain manner at one time, may see fit to restore us in a different way on another occasion. Third: There are some people whom God evidently will never heal at any time or in any way. Whether these persons be good or wicked, yet it is alike manifest that they will never recover what, in some way, has been lost or forfeited. The Lord withholds his blessing from every one of the five modes of healing we have mentioned. This is not only beheld as a fact in Scripture, but also in daily life. As physical health is not essential to pardon, holiness, and entrance into heaven, we can breathe easily when we see a number of good people unable to find, in any of the five ways, a recovery of bodily strength and soundness. As for wicked people, we count it a blessing to the church, to society and to the world, that many of them can never get back their lost health and physical power. For there are very many men and women living today whom, if God was to restore in body, would at once become a curse to family and community as they plunged afresh into careers of worldliness, drunkenness, debauchery and general deviltry. Healing, then, is not for everybody, as good sense, as well as the Bible, will show; and so is not to be taught, and sought after as all can and should ask for regeneration and sanctification. Hence when a self-constituted evangelist and teacher telegraphed to a preacher in one of our large cities, "Have all the sick and devil-possessed to meet me when I come" -- there was shown at once in the dispatch that a fanatic and profound ignoramus was sending the telegram. Fourth: That as all healing comes from God, then to God let us give the glory, whether the cure comes by climate, water, medicine, nature, or the direct personal touch of the Almighty. Fifth: Our physical weakness, and acquired or inherited diseases need not keep us out of heaven, if our souls are well, and stay right with God. The beggar whom Christ tells us about was full of sores, and died on an ash-pile near the rich man’s gate. But the Saviour said the angels came for him, and bore him aloft on their snowy wings to Paradise. Sixth: There is a healing of the soul which is far more important than that of the body, no matter how blessed and desirable the latter may be. When we obtain the grace of full salvation, it often brings with it, as a beautiful attendant or follower, a well body. But even if it does not and we may be called to witness and work for God in a frail and trembling tenement of clay, yet the spirit itself, full of spiritual health, will be a compensation that will pay many times over for all our physical pangs. Nor is that all. But one of these days the struggle and battle of life will be over, we will take the last breath, heave the last sigh and enter into rest and be well forevermore. St. John in Revelation has given us a picture of how it shall be with us then in the words, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying: neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.03. FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES DOES NOT MAKE US FREE ======================================================================== Chapter 3 FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE. The promise of the Saviour to His followers was that He would make them "free indeed." This He did at Pentecost through the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. This He continues to do to this day for those who will meet the conditions He has laid down. This freedom however desirable and blessed, is less than some think it to be, and at the same time is far more than others have been taught to regard and expect in the promised grace. If the Blessing does not give and make us more than we found and experienced in regeneration, then we fail to see the significance and truthfulness of the term "Free Indeed." The Bible evidently teaches three distinct soul states or conditions under the expressions Bondage, Free and Free Indeed. The last evidently must mean more, and as a typified blessing, bring more to us in the soul life than we experience in what is plainly an intermediate grace taught in the word free. On the other hand, if the "Free Indeed" blessing allows us or causes us to do what is clearly unallowable in regeneration and contradicted and forbidden by other portions and passages of the Bible, then evidently we have not the blessing which Christ promised, or have distorted, perverted and actually destroyed a beautiful grace of God in changing what the Scripture calls "freedom indeed," into downright license for the flesh and sin. There are no less than eight distinct kinds of law recognized and taught in the Word of God. They are the Moral, Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, Ceremonial, Constitutional, a seventh known as the Law of Custom, covering the demands of good taste and propriety, and still another, the eighth, called the Law of Sin. First it must be evident to any right thinking person that the Saviour has never come to release us from obedience to the Moral Law or the divine commandments. Christ died to meet the demands of a holy law that had been broken by sinners, but never fulfilled it in such a sense as to allow the redeemed, His followers, to violate it. He would have been a poor Saviour, a fearful leader indeed, and His people wretched followers, if they construed His obedient life into a liberty granted them to transgress that which he so gloriously honored. His plan was not to fill the earth with commandment breaking antinomians, but law-keeping Christians Second as to what we would here term Natural Law, is of God and is to be respected and obeyed if we would not come into physical disaster. These commandments are not written on two tables of stone merely, but on all the stones, in the air and water, in the sky above us, and in the earth beneath. The man who claims the great blessing of the Saviour and acts as if he was exempt from this solemn law of the universe itself, is a fool or a fanatic. The devil tried to make Christ break it, by asking him to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. He said that it was written that the angels would bear him up lest he should dash his foot against a stone. The tempter left out the words "in thy ways." The Saviour’s reply was, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." The warning was against our counting upon the miraculous deliverances of God when we presumptuously ignored or broke his laws in Nature. But the objector says Jesus himself told his disciples in the sixteenth chapter of Mark that they should go forth, take up serpents, and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt. But if the Lord had said that he would have contradicted himself and uttered the opposite which he spoke to Satan; for in the former instance he taught we should respect natural law, and here he would bid us defy it. Moreover, the best Christian Scholarship has proven that this entire paragraph in the sixteenth of Mark is a human interpolation. Christianity does not have to be proved, nor does it stand in what savors of jugglery. It has better and more consistent evidence than that. But the objector quotes the mishap which befell Paul when a serpent came out of the burning fagots and stung him, and that Paul felt no harm. This is true, and yet quite different from the truth the Saviour brought out in His answer to the devil. Paul was not hunting for serpents, he was not walking around, so to speak, with a chip on his shoulder daring a snake to sting him. He was not throwing himself from the pinnacle. He was not defying the laws of Nature. If he had we would beyond all question have had a different narrative from the pen of Luke, and it would have been Paul who died, while the snake got away. Nevertheless our God is greater than any of His laws, and when the need comes he can keep fire from burning, lions from killing, snakes from poisoning, then His children are set upon by their enemies of hell and earth. But the same God teaches us both in grace and nature not to thrust ourselves unsent of him among tigers, not to stick our fingers in rattlesnake dens, and in a word not to cast ourselves from pinnacles, trusting that because we have his love in our hearts that we will not fall and be dashed to pieces on the ground. A third law is seen in Civil Jurisprudence, and all that legislation needed for good government and the protection of the citizens of the land. It needs no argument to prove the necessity of such law in view of the world we live in and the effect that sin has had upon the manners and morals of the nations. Christ honored such human codes when he paid taxes or tribute, and when he said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s." Evidently the freedom which the Saviour brings us is not to make us dodge the assessor and tax collector, or graver still, turn us into Moonshiners, avoiders and cheaters of custom charges and revenue stamps, and finally anarchists and outlaws. Christianity proper makes a good citizen out of its converts, while the man filled with its highest grace is bound to be the very best in the truest sense in the community and state. A fourth law is found in Church or Ecclesiastical Legislation. God’s kingdom has a temporal and material side. Under the direction of heaven it has a taxation seen in tithes and offerings. It has necessarily forms of worship. It possesses sacraments and ordinations. It inducts men into offices and works to which God has called them, and provides for their mental furnishing and training, and for their temporal support. Experience proves the wisdom and even the necessity of some kind of church law and government. Candidates are to be received into membership and the ministry; offenders are to be disciplined and punished; sacraments are to be administered; the work is to be regulated and directed in many ways, and ordaining hands are to be laid suddenly on no man. Christ recognized all these different features of church form and discipline, and honored them. He watched approvingly the people putting their gifts into the treasury, commended a poor woman when she gave all she had, told the cleansed lepers to show themselves to the priests, and advised the people to obedience to right teachings of the rulers and priests, but not to do as they did when they went wrong. As we have studied the great blessing of "freedom indeed," which the Saviour has for the souls of his followers, we cannot but feel that it is intended to make us a member of the Church of Christ in the highest and best sense of the word. No person should be more faithful in the use of the means of grace, or keep the spirit as well as the letter of the commandments, or be more spiritual in his inner life and more devoted to God and man in his outer life, than the individual who has had his heart cleansed and filled with Perfect Love. Such Christians are not intended of God to leave the church but stay in it, bring back its lost glory and power and draw the people heavenward by their holy shining and burning. When a man claiming the blessing of sanctification construes it into a freedom that delivers him from the observance of wise and good limitations and sanctions placed upon him by one of the branches of the church of Christ, laws founded in the very necessities of the case, we cannot but think that the seceding brother has either blundered in his judgment, or made a mistake in thinking that he enjoys the blessing of holiness. Of course if a State or Church would impose a law upon us contrary to the Law of God, and would exact an obedience of us which was violative of the Commandments of Heaven, then our allegiance and loyalty belongs primarily and preeminently to the Lord and not to man. We must obey God rather than men. But otherwise, where the laws of nation and church are right we can possess the "freedom indeed" which Christ promised, and still be good, tax-paying citizens, and faithful, God-honoring church members. A Fifth Law clearly recognized in the Bible, and plainly evidenced in life, and in every one’s life, can be properly called Constitutional Law. Certain kinds of meats, drinks, fruits and vegetables do not agree with everybody. The saying born of this fact is an old one, that what is food to one is poison to another, and just as a pot of wild greens came near wiping out a theological school in Elisha’s day, so there are dishes that if heartily partaken of by some people would as inevitably cause the illness and most likely the death of almost as many. The smell and taste of squash, the burr artichoke and pumpkin pie invariably nauseate the writer, but we know of others who have doubtless better taste, to whom the artichoke is the greatest of delicacies, and the deeper the pumpkin is on the pastry the better they like it. Evidently we are running under different physical governments here, although fully justified and wholly sanctified. Then we notice that certain meats eaten in the torrid zone will produce scrofulous and other kinds of disease, but in the frigid regions these same fat meats and blubber help to keep numbers of the human race well and strong. It takes lime water only four days to put the writer in a sense hors du combat, while there are others who would be as sick and helpless without it. Truly every one should be fully persuaded in his own mind from what he has found out in other departments of his being that were not the moral realm. And then we should judge one another in "meats and drinks" no more. As far as we have been able to observed the blessing of holiness does not alter or annul the constitutional law we are writing about. If change comes at all it will be by the strange transformation which is thought to come about in periods of seven years. A Sixth Law in the Bible, appearing in directions and command, and as plainly emphasized in the very Spirit of Christianity, is the law of Propriety, Courtesy and Politeness. Respect for ourselves, and regard for others demand from us certain regulations of conduct, and a consideration for the person, feelings, and rights of every one we meet and have to do with in life. One inspired writer bids us condescend to men of low estate; to be pitiful, to be courteous. In the thirteenth of First Corinthians we have the legislation of love as well as its charming picture. While the Golden Rule to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us, is the great commandment that exhibits, as well as protects, the life of which we are writing. Holiness is never given to the child of God that he might be rude and personally offensive and obnoxious in his words and manners. It is true that holy people can give from their knees, in the pew, and from the platform and pulpit, terrible warnings and rebukes that will blanch faces and cause the stoutest hearts to tremble; but this is not scolding, such people are utterly removed from the doing of a coarse, ungenteel thing, and at the same time feel the unclouded smile and full favor of God while delivering messages that offend and even infuriate the people to whom they are addressed. Paul on one occasion told the high priest that he was a whited wall. But he was not angry. He who drew this striking picture wrote the love chapter of the Bible, and penned an epistle to Philemon that only a refined gentleman could have written. The Saviour was filled with love when he gave Jerusalem up, when He upbraided Capernaum, and when he delivered that fearful arraignment of the Scribes and Pharisees. But where can be found anywhere in his life of sharp tests and bitter trials a single instance where he was coarse, rude and personally offensive. Some persons have certainly failed to understand the nature of sanctification, and the realm in which it moves, when they conclude it gives them the right to be disagreeable and discourteous in their manner, to pry into one’s family history, to worm confidences and confessions out of people to gratify their own curiosity, and to fiercely lay down law and testimony for others to follow. We know of a woman who thinks she is led of God to insinuate herself into the confidence of people and thereby obtain admissions of guilt and trouble, deluded with the idea of a pure motive when her own morbid curiosity is the mainspring of the proceeding. She tells her victims that they will feel ever so much relieved when they have poured their secrets out upon her sympathetic ear and heart. She ought to have said spittoon and slop jar instead of ear and heart. A gentleman of our acquaintance gave marching orders of a most unmistakable character to just such a bonnetted and becrinolined female buzzard. There has been peace at that home ever since. Others with their mistaken conceptions of freedom, feel justified and even commissioned to comment on everything and everybody, whether they understand all things or not. They are so frank, so open. They really meant their mouth when they said open. They are constrained, to speak their mind. We do not doubt it. But there never seems that about their words and spirit, to make people feel it is the mind of Christ which they possess. We know of individuals claiming full salvation who cannot be in the company of other persons over a minute without violating the laws of true politeness, and wounding, distressing and even disgusting the hearer. Some of them wonder why they have been dropped, so to speak, by many of their friends and acquaintances. Why they make so few and lasting attachments, when the explanation is in their own conduct. They broke the law of which we are writing, so frequently and ruthlessly that many could not endure them. So the persistent transgressor was avoided. The penitentiary for the violator of moral law; and ostracism from many home, social and religious circles for the personally disagreeable man or woman. Who does not know of individuals whose conversation abounds in such offensive remarks as "Why! how dreadfully you look!" "How old you are getting!" "How fast you are breaking!" "I never knew until a moment ago that you had a cast in your right eye!" "They tell me you wear a wig--is it so?" "I see your work as a singer is over, your voice is badly cracked," etc., etc. One woman in the South at a holiness camp meeting asked an evangelist if his teeth were false. He smiled forbearingly and told her they were genuine and rooted in the gum according to nature. Then she requested the privilege of feeling them with her fingers to have the proof of touch and thereby be able to settle a dispute among several of her female friends relative to the matter. We asked the brother if he submitted to the impertinence, and he said, "Yes." Our rejoinder was that he should have brought down the two rows of incisors on that investigating digital, so that its owner would never have doubted his dental furnishing again, and also at the same time obtained a lesson on the wisdom of being polite and well bred which would have lasted her until her dying day. We do not doubt that holiness has suffered in numerous places because of the grave mistake made by some of its believers and advocates, in thinking that Christ, in His great blessing, gave us liberty to be personally offensive and obnoxious to other people. We find in many localities parties who seem to be bitterly opposed to the doctrine and experience of sanctification, when upon investigation we discover that they really know nothing of the teaching and had anything but correct ideas of the experience. Their animosity and antagonism had been aroused by unwise, unfortunate and even reprehensible modes adopted by certain individuals in presenting the truth and life. We have witnessed in the sessions of annual conferences, as arbitrary ruling and discourteous treatment, by the chair of preachers and laymen who were powerless to defend themselves, as ever took place in the world’s political and legislative halls. May we be spared every such spectacle in the ranks and amid the gatherings of people claiming the blessing of full salvation. We should be an example on the lines of moderation, kindness, consideration of others, and show a beautiful unvarying Christian courtesy to all. This would only have to be seen to be admired and commended, while such living would at the same time most powerfully preach the man of Galilee whose spirit we say we possess, and whose commandments and words we follow. Thus far we have written about six different kinds of law that we are not made free from, through obtainment of sanctification or Christ’s Baptism with the Holy Ghost, viz., the moral, natural, civil, church, constitutional, and the law of conduct as shown in propriety, courtesy and all that pertains to good breeding. Well for the church, for the cause of God and for humanity that Christ never came to release us from the proper observance of the above six laws. There is a positive blessed freedom given in addition to this, but the man who keeps faithfully the requirements discussed in this chapter is already a free man and a most proper candidate for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost which will make him free indeed. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.04. THE HOLY GHOST NO FAILURE ======================================================================== 4. The Holy Ghost No Failure The caption above may strike some readers as peculiar and needless, but will not others, who are studying the times, watching God’s providential movements, and listening to the outspoken fears, opinions and judgments of great numbers of people. That the Holy Spirit can be no failure we might well know from his divine personality as well as Executive Office. He is God, and to him has been entrusted by the Father and Son the work of applying, advancing and completing the great plan of Redemption, until the world is brought back to God, and Christ appears in the clouds to judge and reward mankind. The ground of the suspicion and accusation that the work and dispensation of the Holy Ghost is a failure appears to be in the apparently unmoved masses of mankind all around us; the lethargy and powerlessness of the church; the seemingly superior force of an evil habit over a man as compared with the influence which Heaven has upon him; the backsliding of Christians; and the spectacle of the great unconverted world outside of the church. All these things are grave enough to contemplate to be sure, but every one of them is explainable and that, too, without a single impeachment upon the ability of the Holy Spirit to meet successfully and triumphantly all these conditions, and to do thoroughly and completely all that the Bible says he can, and will yet certainly perform. Two things should not be forgotten by these aforesaid criticizers and judges of heaven, and discounters of the great Executive of the Trinity, and that is, that men are endowed with moral freedom, and so cannot be forced. Again, that in view of the ignorance, prejudice, spiritual darkness, sin and power of the devil, time must be given the Holy One to accomplish his mission. And yet thus far he has hardly had a chance. As yet His work has been sporadic, and not as it will be. His human agents and instruments have been slow and stupid. The great majority in the church have never been "born of the Spirit." A mere handful have been baptized with the Holy Ghost. His so-called people get sidetracked and clear off the track, impeding and hindering the work on the outside world. Difficulties that would be appalling and paralyzing to any but an omniscient, omnipresent omnipotent God are constantly on the hands of the Spirit. And yet in spite of all, He, the Holy One, is moving on and up with his work, and will yet bring the nations to the feet of Christ. Knowing his boundless resources he has nothing to fear as to the final outcome. And like him whom he represents, he will not faint, nor be discouraged until all be fulfilled and the universal victory shall take place which is prophesied in the Word of God. The Holy Ghost has been sent forth to reprove or convict the world of sin. And for that matter this has already been done. The light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world has visited each soul, whether that being is in heathen or Christian lands. It is not necessary to know there is a Holy Ghost to be convicted and reproved by the Holy Ghost. Nor is it essential to be in a meeting. Nor is it required that a man be willing to be convicted. Here is a work of the Spirit that can take place independently of the consent of a free moral agent. According to the testimony of all the ages the Holy Spirit has been no failure on this line. He certainly got in a most successful work one morning in Jerusalem when a multitude in deep distress cried to the disciples, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then let the reader ask himself if there was any lack in the trouble for sins or sin wrought in his case by the Spirit prior to his conversion or sanctification. Did he not see himself in all his weakness and helplessness, and sin in all its blackness and vileness? Could he have stood it, if the burden had been heavier? No doubt about it, that it was a perfect work. Again, the Father uses the Spirit in regenerating the soul; the first work being made distinctive and peculiar by the figure, "Born of the Spirit." The Son employs him in the second work of grace described as "The Baptism with the Holy Ghost." It is noticeable that both of the other persons of the Trinity take the Holy Ghost as their tremendous instrument or agent of power. They certainly have confidence in him. It is also to be observed that whoever claims to obtain or arrive at these two moral states or conditions otherwise than by the power of the Holy Ghost, soon treats the community without exception, to a first-class exhibition of spiritual ignorance, fanaticism, humbuggery and make believe, and inevitably followed by the character downfall and life failure, as the building built on the sand was certain to go when the floods came, according to the parable of Christ. With all who have allowed the Spirit to regenerate and sanctify, we have yet to hear a single one say that he or she was dissatisfied with the work. Judging from their radiant faces, and their ringing testimonies, they are not only content but exultant over what the Holy Ghost did. They cannot even speak of it without the heart swelling, the eyes filling, and the voice giving glory to God. So there seems to be no failure there. As for the seemingly stronger power of sinful habit over a man, as compared to the delivering influence of the Holy Ghost, it is only apparent and not really so. The condition of being perfectly freed from the dominion of every form of sin, is, that we give up the sin itself first. "Let the wicked forsake his way--and I will have mercy upon him," says the Lord. We have been struck with the fact that deliverance from the tobacco habit will never be given if the man cherishes in his mind an intention to return to it. Nor will the work be done, while the wretched little compromises are seen in chewing sticks, wax and gum. We know of an evangelist who carries around with him for the habit-ridden victim something that looks like tobacco with licorice in it. The Spirit will not honor such a halfway surrender. So his power is not seen in the case, and he is misjudged as to his ability and counted a failure. What an army of men and women could stand up today and declare truthfully the complete rescue from alcohol, narcotics and every acquired and perverted appetite of the flesh, giving all the glory to God through the power of the Holy Ghost. They would all say that He was no failure in their case. As for the lethargy and lack of power in the church, this state of things does not arise from the fact that the Holy Spirit could not in a single second, vitalize, electrify, glorify and turn the church loose on the world, powerful, exultant and irresistible; but the trouble and cause of failure is the neglect of the same people to meet the conditions which the Spirit makes imperative before he will work in us and through us upon the nations. If the tarrying in the Upper Room for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and for that alone, is not separated from educational and missionary programs, the Spirit will not fall on us, and we will not be able to fall on the people, and the people will not fall before the Lord. As for the ability of the Holy Ghost to finish the work, committed to him by the Father and Son, of bringing the nations to the feet of Christ, and the world back to God, none can doubt who read correctly the Word of God. As we have already said, the Father and Son have perfect confidence in his power to carry on and complete the work of Redemption, in this Third and Last Dispensation, called the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Christ said it was expedient that he go away that the Spirit might come. In no place does the Word of God say that it will be expedient to recall the Spirit because of his failure, and so another and fourth Dispensation set up. This would prove the Saviour to have made a blunder, if such a statement appeared, or would present the world with a double conflicting and contradictory teaching in the Bible. We are glad that we do not belong to a class or body of men who belittle or discount the work and power of the Holy Ghost in saying that the world is getting worse and worse, and that he will have to be retired and give way to some other kind of Dispensation on the order of a temporal kingdom. The Bible does not say the world is getting worse, but that under certain conditions mentioned, "Evil men shall wax worse and worse." This is quite different. Nor does the Bible say that there is another Dispensation to follow this, but declares we are in "the Last Days," or, more correctly, "The Last Dispensation." No, the Holy Ghost is able to bring the nations and all the adversaries of Christ down to his feet, and this he can and will do WITHOUT CHRIST COMING VISIBLY AND PHYSICALLY TO HIS RELIEF! Two verses out of many prove this. They are in Hebrews, tenth chapter, and they settle the fact of Christ remaining in heaven while the Holy Ghost makes a complete work of the Gospel on earth. The verses are the twelfth and thirteenth--"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." The reader will observe that Christ remains sitting on his throne in heaven! He does not come back to earth to assist a failing Holy Ghost! He waits on his throne in heaven expectant, until his enemies are conquered and his cause won. And these enemies are made his footstool! It is evident that he is still sitting on his throne when the victory, clothed and described in such a remarkable and convincing figure, is accomplished. And mind you, achieved by the Holy Ghost on earth for a Christ sitting on his throne in heaven. No, thank God, the Holy Ghost is no failure! Some preachers and teachers may so falsely instruct the people, but the Word of God most plainly and powerfully declares to the contrary. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.05. THE VICTIM OF NATURAL GOODNESS ======================================================================== Chapter 5 THE VICTIM OF NATURAL GOODNESS. There is in every age a lot of talk about natural goodness; a spiritual condition, character and life which is said to exist apart from any creative and keeping work of God. It is evident that such a claim made for humanity is a direct blow given to the Bible, a stab at the truth of Redemption through Christ, and exalts the human race to a plane where they need nothing or little from the hands of God to make them what they should be on earth, and qualify them for a blessed existence in Heaven. We can see that if there is such a thing as natural goodness, then whoever possesses that most excellent and desirable grace, is not dependent on the Blood of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the change of their hearts and transformation of their lives. Whether they constitute a small or large class, nevertheless it remains that here is a body of people who can reach the skies without traveling the Mt. Calvary and Upper Room Route. This makes things embarrassing for the preacher in the pulpit. For if all in the audience have this natural goodness, then neither the Bible nor his ministry is needed. If a part of the congregation are in this lovely condition then the preaching cannot possibly benefit a goodly portion of the assembly. They might as well get up and return home. In contradiction of this conceit and false teaching of men, the Bible affirms that the whole race has been polluted by the Fall, that none are good or righteous in themselves, that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, while Christ declares that out of the heart proceedeth every vile and unholy thing. He gave a dreadful list of some of the dark brood which nest in the soul. He did not make a complete catalogue, but mentioned evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and blasphemies. He made no exception, but said "the heart." In denial of this, men point to good children, to lovely moral people, who never belonged to a church, to respectable, benevolent, kind individuals who never professed a change of hearts etc., etc., etc. In rebuttal of this assumption of natural goodness that is claimed to exist apart from God, we say that such teaching would establish two sources of goodness, and one of these not in God? Whereas, the Bible declares that in the absolute independent and underivable sense there is none good but one and that is God. In further disproof of what is called natural goodness--we make the following observations: First, that much of so-called natural goodness can be explained in the unrecognized early conversion of children. The child’s heart has not reached the hardness and resistance of the adult, and is quite susceptible to religious lives and influence about it. Often children are converted at three and four years of age, and frequently without having been in a Gospel meeting. A preacher’s smile, word, or kindly act may have been the agency under God, and the little one received converting grace and hardly knew the character of what had happened. Nor are the grown people around disposed to believe that a child can know God, and so a work of salvation was done, which while unheralded and unadmitted by surrounding people, yet transformed a life. This change, that ushered the young being into a real spiritual life, is set down by the family and relatives as an instance of natural goodness, and yet it was God’s work, only He did not get the credit. The honor and glory was given to so-called natural goodness. Second, much so-called natural goodness can be accounted for through the preventing grace of God. God cannot convert or sanctify any one against that person’s will, but He can and does prevent much evil from taking place in one’s life through providential dealings and that without interfering with a man’s free moral agency. The opening of a religious book, the meeting with a good man, the singing of a hymn, the sound of a church bell in the distance, can all be used by the Spirit of God in disarming evil, changing the current of feeling, arousing conscience and creating better desires, intentions and living. In some such way God kept Abimelech from sin; and when that worthy was disposed to praise and crown himself for his abstinence, the Lord informed him that he had nothing to congratulate himself for in the sense of personal worth and conquest, that He the Lord had kept him from wronging a good man like Abraham. Third, a lot of so-called natural goodness can be explained by the fact of an environment of ease, a life of comfortable and delightful circumstances of a material character. A tiger with a full stomach and a lamb on the inside of him, is quite different from the same tiger with an empty body and a fat sheep on the outside of him. In the first situation he acts as if he was himself of the innocent, woolly tribe, in the second he is beheld in the true light--a tiger. We knew a well-to-do Southern family where everything ran smoothly, love abounded, and family prayers was held morning and night. It seemed to be a religious household without any profession of saving grace. The Civil War came on and impoverished them. Their slaves were set free, the great cotton plantation was overrun with weeds, and finally sold under mortgage. With this material change of temporalities came an awful alteration to this "naturally good" household. The father became a reprobate, the sons drunkards, two daughters were addicted to the opium habit, and a third fell into a life of shame. The entire home circle went down with a crash. Instead of having religious principle, and redeemed character as a life foundation, they had been resting on cotton bales, rice barrels and sugar hogsheads. And when adversity swept these supporting pillars away, the little fanciful edifice of natural goodness went down with the flimsy undergirding, and nothing was left. Truly it is easy to play at goodness, and ape piety, when the store room is full, the house is beautifully furnished, the automobile is at the door, the bank account large, and the income more than abundant. But only let a cyclone of financial ruin sweep that same family into beggary, and now where are the sweet smiles and cheerful manners of the famous so-called natural goodness? Truly, there is a difference between a full and an empty tiger. A fourth explanation of natural goodness can be found in simulated excellence. There is no question but that we have a class of people in the land who for certain reasons practice some of the spirit and aspects of Christianity. They hang on their own sapless boughs one or more of the fruits of the regenerated life. For some purpose or policy of their own they abound in benevolences that are of a public nature. Their names are seen frequently if not constantly in every list of charity where the donors are given to the world in the columns of a newspaper. Of course all such philanthropy is not genuine Christian fruit, but it appears so to many, and the simulator obtains what he is after, public recognition and reward. Moreover, they get the credit of being good, kind, charitable, and yet never belonged to a church, bowed at an altar, or prayed and wept through to anything that is given from the skies. Behold they are good without the help of God, they have natural goodness, and the Bible is discredited, and the Saviour’s redemption is slapped in the face and denied again. But Christ taught that if we gave to be seen of men, what claim could we make to the life, spirit and character He came to bring? According to the Saviour’s teaching as to secrecy of giving, the loudly proclaimed benevolence is an offence to God and actually a sin. There was a New England nurse named Jane Tappan who for years was considered the soul of generosity. She was always making presents to people. And as she belonged to no church, and made no claim to any experience of grace, then of course, her kindness and benevolence was held up as a proof of the natural goodness of the heart. But after awhile the awful discovery was made that she murdered a number of patients. She generally selected those who had full pocketbooks, and so Natural Goodness Jane was liberal on money stolen from the pockets and purses of patients whom she had killed. A fifth explanation of natural goodness can be found in the restraints of law and the fear of consequence. Truly these two facts make a large lot of people act as if they had been converted and sanctified. It is a charming spectacle to behold thousands of persons thronging our streets and behaving themselves so beautifully. They are so polite and considerate of each other, they smile, bow, give right of way, stand aside at the crossings, pick up dropped handkerchiefs, etc., that it looks like they all had perfect love. Then see them passing great stores where diamonds, watches, gold chains and silverware are flashing in the show case, and only a thin pane of glass between them and the treasure. And yet they are so good they will not break that fragile barrier and protection and make off with thousands of dollars. They even pass by open, uncovered fruit stands, and will not take a single peach or plum. Oh, how good these people are. Truly, the Millennium is in sight. And yet most of these persons never attend a church and have never experienced the saving grace of God. They all seem naturally good, and under their coats and dresses feathers doubtless are sprouting on their shoulder blades. This is a goodness that cannot keep from evolving wings. And yet every sensible reader knows that of that crowd behaving itself so well, there are thousands who fairly long to rifle the show window, snatch a roll of bank notes from the cashier’s desk, and would do so but for the fear of law, and the after consequences in jail and penitentiary. The same principle is seen at work in the penitentiary, where a thousand men behave themselves perfectly. They arise from their beds, fall into line, come promptly to their tables at meal hours, stick to their work all day, and go to bed promptly without breaking a single law throughout the whole day. It looks well, has the appearance of goodness, but as we all must know is simply a rectitude and regularity of conduct born of dread of the dark cell and cruel punishment of other forms and kinds. It is not a natural, but an unnatural goodness born of a great fear. We once saw a cobra in a large box that had a glass lid or cover through which we could observe the dreadful and deadly creature. He looked quite gentle and was very quiet. It seemed as if he had never stung or hurt anybody in all its life, nor would ever consent to do so. But we caught a glance out of his eye as we bent over the coiled up reptile which was decidedly startling. It seemed to say, "If I was only out of this box I would show you who I was, and what I could do." And we said, I believe you, and thank God for the strong box that restrains you! In like manner we are called upon to behold the Natural Goodness of the human race, and we mark certain glances, movements, and hear certain hissings and utterances that make us grateful to Heaven for the strong box of the law which confines and restrains this much boasted tribe of the naturally good. After all it is a cobra held in check by public opinion, legislation, policemen, jails, penitentiaries and scaffolds. If it could have its way on our streets and in our homes, pandemonium would break loose, and hell itself would appear to have come to abide on earth. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.06. THE TRAVAIL OF ZION ======================================================================== Chapter 6 THE TRAVAIL OF ZION. The Bible throughout plainly teaches that the salvation of the world is to come through the church. And it is equally clear in teaching that it is not to be by a cold formal ecclesiasticism, but a holy church whose glory shall be beheld and felt and whose divine power shall cause the nations to flock to the light of her burning, calling her gates salvation and her walls praise. Christ’s prayer for the church was that it might be sanctified, that the world might believe and know that God had sent Him for its redemption. Ezekiel said that the heathen would know the Lord when He should be sanctified in His people before their eyes. Certainly He is not "sanctified" or "made holy" in most of the denominations and congregations today before the eyes of the world. Another prophet in perfect harmony with the teachings of the Scripture throughout declares that only when Zion travails will sons and daughters be born unto God. Travail is one of the sharpest pains known in the physical realm. Its cry is simply heart-breaking. Few can hear it without tears, while husbands are scarce indeed who can listen at all to the agonized wail. With faces set and white we have seen them take their hats and rush away from the sound of the pitiful groans of the one they loved best on earth. God takes this physical pang and heartbreaking wail and applies it to the church, and says that such a suffering, burden and agonizing cry must come on His people, before sons and daughters are born unto Him, or in other words, before genuine conversions can take place. In view of this inspired statement several questions at once arise in the mind. One is, what shall we say of the policy of those pastors and evangelists who, passing by and over the state of the church as we see it today, endeavor to secure a revival among the unconverted. God conditions salvation among the lost on the spiritual life of the church and a very high plane at that. And yet these leaders of the people deliberately ignore what the Divine Being says about the matter and would have judgment commence among the lost when the Lord says it must begin at the House of God. It is a well known fact that evangelists who observe the divine requirement and insist upon the Upper Room experience for the church, before conversions can be expected in the streets as at the Day of Pentecost, that all such preachers and leaders are avoided by leading congregations, union meetings and conferences, and workers are sought and selected who "let the church alone and go for sinners," as it is commonly said. They seem not to know, or have determined to forget that God will not go into business with a morally spotted partner; that He insists that they who bear the vessels of the Lord should be clean; that in unmistakable illustration of His plan He made one hundred and twenty of His most devoted disciples and followers tarry ten days in Jerusalem until they received the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and then, and not until then, did the revival break out in the streets where we see three thousand born of the Spirit in one day, and five thousand the next day. Zion was in travail and sons and daughters were born unto God by scores and hundreds and thousands. Of course it is very evident to the spiritually illumined why the divine plan is not approved, relished or followed by most of the churches today. It brings an attention on themselves that they do not desire; it rolls an awful obligation upon them which they do not propose to assume; it requires a going down before God and men, a cleansing from all sin, a dying out to this world and a living for and in God that is not on their program at all. Nor will they have it, or listen to a man who preaches and urges upon them such an humbling, praying, seeking and finding. It is not the financial outlay of the meeting that these church members dread. On the contrary, it is well known that if they can secure an evangelist who will "let the church alone and go for sinners out in the world," they give largely and liberally to such a man and meeting. It is far easier for such people to go down deep into their pocket books than to go down low at the altar. Giving up money is far less difficult with them than surrendering sins and yielding up the entire self to God. Liberality touches only the vest pocket and a very small section of the person, but holiness takes in the whole man. This is the reason that the Holiness Evangelist leaves a place with but little over his travelling expenses and can lay up nothing against the "rainy day" and the time of a helpless old age, while another kind of evangelist goes off with five hundred to two thousand dollars from every meeting. The congregation or audience gladly pays down the aforesaid "blood money" for the privilege of being "let alone," of not being urged to obtain holiness, or of coming into a great soul agony over the salvation of men. Down in their hearts these givers to such a meeting know that they have escaped cheaply by the payment of twenty-five, fifty or one hundred dollars. We have often wondered how such workers feel as they go away with the blood money of lost souls in their pockets, knowing they have not declared the whole counsel of God, that they have withheld essential truth, and completely ignored the method God lays down for a real revival and the genuine salvation of men. A second question that arises in the mind is that where God’s plain commands and directions are not followed for the obtainment of a meeting of supernatural transforming and converting power, what are we to think of the paraded, printed and trumpeted results of all such union and so-called gospel services? How are we to regard the converts and accessions to the church of these same greatly advertised meetings? God says before there can be conversions, or sons and daughters born unto Him, Zion must travail. But in these meetings Zion did not travail. There was no upper room tarrying nor upper room receiving of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. No messages were given declaring that judgment must begin at the House of God. The evangelist had been corresponded with and bought off beforehand with the express understanding that he should preach to the goats or the sinners out in the world. So Zion not receiving the attention God demands, and the health of God’s people not attended to, there was not only no travail of the church, but as the Bible says, "Zion had no strength to bring forth." We stand amazed at the utter ignorance shown by many leaders in the church of the law of analogy which God lays down for our information and guidance in this matter. In the home life, a certain all important period affecting especially one member of the family is most anxiously prepared for in the building up and strengthening of her upon whom the great trial is to come. Every sacrifice is made, and every attention is devoted to her in view of the approaching crisis. For if in that hour she has not strength to bring forth, there is not only no life added to the household and family, but there are really two deaths. The mother then is the object of supreme interest, properly and necessarily if we would see a son or daughter born into the family. At once the thoughtful spiritual person must recognize the philosophy and meaning of the Holiness Movement. It is to get Zion ready to bring forth children to God. It is to prepare the church as a spiritual mother to have genuine conversions, to present sons and daughters unto the Almighty. We repeat the question then, what are the kind of accessions to the church that we are having today in our so-called Gospel Union Meetings; and what are these converts that Christianity is getting, and what kind of sons and daughters of God are these that are being reported, that come not only from a non-travailing, but from a dead mother? Can a dead mother bring forth offspring? Must we close our understanding to the laws of analogy, and deny the Word of God, and say that this card-signing crowd of so-called converts have been born of God through a spiritually dead mother? Reformation is not transformation. The first a man can do, the second only God can perform. Joining the church is not salvation, but being born of the Spirit. Now look at the brigade of card signers and by close questioning it is evident that they not only know nothing of regeneration, but have not even experienced the bitterness of repentance. They know not a thing about the birth of the Spirit, and stare in silence and ignorance in answer to the question if they have had the witness of the Holy Ghost to their being children of God. And lo! These puppet figures, these joiners of a meeting house, these doll babies stuffed with saw dust, are labeled and printed and publicly called the sons and daughters of God. Here and there an honest and ripe soul finding salvation in the deadest meeting, and in no meeting at all as was the case with the writer, is no disproof of the argument in this chapter founded on the Word of God. God once used an animal to rebuke a disobedient servant of His. This was an exception. His rule is to send men to reprove men. The rule of salvation according to the Bible and according to an analogy laid down by the Lord Himself is that Zion must travail before sons and daughters can be born unto God. In view of this double truth and statement it is easy to read through the lines of a report where we are informed that several hundred were at the altar, but nothing is said about several hundred being saved. In some newspapers, we are informed, the figures having been given by the evangelist that five, six or seven thousand people passed through the inquiry room. But passing through an inquiry room is not salvation. Five thousand goats and snakes can move through an inquiry room and pass out as they came in, still snakes and goats. Verily God’s way is the true way and the best. When Zion travails, sons and daughters will be born unto God. He who would prevent the Judgment that must begin at the House of God. and would rob the church of Christ of the Upper Room experience is really the enemy of his race, and is standing between God and the salvation of the world. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.07. THE FREEDOM OF THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT ======================================================================== Chapter 7 THE FREEDOM OF THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT. In saving this world, God has not only to supply truth and salvation, but is under the necessity of providing the best methods for the preservation of this truth and the enforcement or carrying out of the Redemption he has furnished. Among the factors on the earthly side that was necessary was the priest. An under shepherd was called by the Chief Shepherd; a human priest was needed to stand forth not only as a type but a representative of the great High Priest in heaven. The priest called of God to minister to the people officiated in the Tabernacle Temple and Synagogue, as well as moved about among the homes and walks of his fellow beings in the work of doing good. Very naturally these appointees of heaven would in time be affected by social ties, domestic affections and personal obligations, as well as by the strong influence proceeding from the councils and sanhedrins of the very ecclesiasticism which they were called to serve. Consciously or unconsciously in such a position and situation, the truth they stood for originally, would in time and in some measure be affected. The complete messages from heaven would not be delivered; and so the cause of God as well as the best spiritual interests of man would be hurt. Because of this fact, all foreseen by the Almighty, the prophet was brought forth as a most conspicuous figure in the economy of grace. He seems always to have been the special messenger of heaven, a man prepared, provided for and protected in remarkable ways by the King of Kings. Sometimes this servant of the Lord was fed and delivered by miraculous methods; and always was made to feel that God was for him and back of him and would see him through every trial, duty, difficulty and danger in which he found himself. Dependent alone on his Maker for his commission and provision, he was the peculiar servant of the Lord, and was felt to be his mouthpiece as he came to nations and cities, stood before kings, generals and the people, and delivered the messages of God without the fear or favor of men before his eyes. This peculiar position, this distinct dependent relation of the prophet upon God alone, secured the courage and boldness that the ambassador of the skies ought to have, and also the delivery of warning rebuke or commandments in their integrity and completeness to the people as the Lord desired. In the present day we see the pastor taking the place of the priest of olden times. Like his predecessor, the office is essential, and so in the pastoral charge and in the councils of the different denominations the preacher in his appointment is found as a fixture of grace and intended by the Lord to be a blessing to his kingdom and the world itself. But as in the former case, we observe that the social, domestic and certain ecclesiastical relations affect the servant of God to a greater or less extent in his proclamation of the truth, and in his dealings with the souls committed to his care. It is very difficult indeed for men in the pastorate to remain unaffected and uninfluenced by the oppositions, hates, intrigues, friendships, affections, flatteries, and, one may add, the briberies which surround and assail the office. The Bible speaks of a gift perverting the judgment, and we need no argument to prove the difficulty in the way of a pastor preaching a close Gospel and delivering the awful warnings of the Bible and presenting the conditions and the way of obtaining a full salvation to a congregation who have been personally kind, and fairly loaded the preacher down with benefits. The temptation is to avoid subjects and to pass in silence over sins, that these very people ought to hear about because of their ignorance of the one, and their guilt in regard to the other. This is a mere hint in reference to the difficulty and danger of the pastoral relation. It is not an easy one. So that the whole messages of God are not heard by many of the large audiences gathered every Sabbath in the spacious sanctuaries and imposing cathedrals of the land. This alarming fact necessitates another order of the ministry, clearly recognized in the New Testament and used by the Holy Ghost to this day, called the Evangelist. The apostle Paul not only shows the difference between the Evangelist and the Pastor, but teaches that the former outranks the latter in the mind of God as a gift to the kingdom of Grace. The Evangelist in some respects takes the place of the prophet. He cannot foresee and foretell as did the Seer of God, but supported in a different way from the pastor, freed from many limitations and restrictions that are seen in the life of the preacher in charge, burdened with special messages from God, and swung providentially all over the country, he can deliver warnings, rebuke sin, cry against the evils of the day, strike at formality, unmask hypocrisy and declare a full salvation from sin, as other pulpit servants of heaven either can not or will not do. It is no more intended of God that the Evangelist should abuse this freedom and powers than did the prophets. Like them, it is true, he being human, can go off on money lines as did Balaam, or suppress or let down the truth, and thereby swell the ranks of the false prophets who continue to sell themselves out to the Ahabs and Jezebels of this world. But many of them, thank God! are faithful, and sound a Full Salvation and complete messages from the skies in the ears of the people. Fed, clothed, protected, upheld, delivered and blessed by the Lord who calls them to the work, they go where he wants them to go, and says what he wants them to say, though men and devils rage, and the universe itself should go to pieces. In this same line of thought we would observe that the church is a spiritual necessity. As a divine institution it not only is intended to spread, but to preserve the truth. Its teachings, sacraments, ceremonies, Sabbaths, worship, regular and special meetings find their existence and exercise in the double fact of the will of God and the need of man. But like the priest and the pastor, the church can settle down, lose its aggressiveness, part with its purity and forfeit its holy power. It may in different places and ages become in a measure spiritually blinded, deafened and even deadened. Unsaved people may swell its membership and rule in its councils. Its saved membership may become disheartened, discouraged and even overpowered by unspiritual elements and forces in the congregation. It may fall into ceremonial ruts, be satisfied with a routine of work, substitute Chautauquas and conventions for real revivals, and become not only ignorant but even offended at the preaching of a pure and full Gospel, and denounce, resent and withstand the actual presence and power of the Holy Ghost in their midst. Because of this, God raises up great religious movements distinct from what is seen going on in the regular ecclesiastical world. Repeatedly these mighty awakenings and spiritual uprisings have stirred different nations and the world itself. They were made of God to do what the church was failing to do. They deliver messages the church is either afraid or disinclined to utter. They call the people to complete renunciation of sin, to perfect, obedience to God, and to holiness of heart and life. They, as movements, are distinct and free from the church, but are really the true friends to the church proper, and to the neglected world outside. The movement seems to occupy as a body of people holding the truth, the same relation to God and the human race, as did the Prophet and the Evangelist as individuals. It gives the whole truth and nothing but the truth to men, depends constantly upon God, and is peculiarly guided, upheld, delivered, honored and blessed by the Lord. The instant that such s movement takes upon itself the form of a church, it gradually loses its power, and settles down into the condition already described, and becomes respectable, moral and orthodox but also comparatively unctionless and powerless. Equally fatal to the movement is it, when it places itself under the wing of ecclesiastical authority, getting its life from its recognition, and obtaining its orders from human instead of divine lips. If the movement is of God it is bound to be a true friend to his kingdom and church; but to be that best friend it has to live, move and have its being through the touch, breath, hand and power of God. If it takes its directions and commands from man other than from God in its revival and salvation work, then it has exchanged divine for human wisdom, leaning on the natural and physical, instead of the spiritual and supernatural, and has nothing to expect but defeat, failure and disaster. Such a course followed by Prophet, Evangelist and Holiness Movement of any age would instantly end the distinctiveness and peculiar glory of their offices and mission, and leave as one of the lamentable results an emasculated, attenuated and vitiated gospel on the hands of men. The present day holiness movement is one of the great, divine quickenings and uprisings we have been describing. It has been raised up of God not to hurt the world, but to save it; not to be an enemy to the church, but its true friend. Its best service to the church, however, can only be rendered by a free, independent relation as a religious movement. All holiness people should be members of some evangelical church of Christ. But the holiness movement itself is of God. It has been like another John the Baptist sent of God. It has come to arouse, rebuke, encourage, teach, fire and fill all in the churches who will hear its wonderful messages. If it takes the form of an ecclesiasticism, it is but a question of time when it will become like the other churches, and will soon need to be awakened, recovered and saved as it once did other similar bodies. If it places itself under the wing of any church, it will then become a mere department of that denomination; it will get its orders second-handed instead of from headquarters; the intimate divine relation and vital union will be broken up; and spiritual weakness and death will again be seen as the result. Receiving its pay and its commands from men, it will of necessity cease to be the supernatural thing, the flaming Evangel of Truth, the God-called, fire-filled and heaven-led movement of grace and glory. And while respectability and orthodoxy are left, salvation and holy power falling from the skies on the people will be memories of the past. The holiness movement to be a blessing to the world and to the church cannot afford to get under any but the divine wing. It must receive its orders from God. It must speak for God, no matter what may be the message, what the surrounding, and what the consequence. The holiness movement cannot afford to become popular. The instant it tries to please men, it will cease to please God, and he will set it aside as he has done Prophets and Evangelists who made the same fatal mistake. The holiness movement cannot afford to sell out to Leagues, Fraternities, Communities, Railway Companies, Rich men, or to anybody or anything. Any gift of land, houses, or money; any extension of favor, influence, patronage of a private or public character, which throttles the truth, cuts down the warnings, rebukes and proclamations that God would have the people hear, are so many chains and fetters to the cause, so many bandages and gags upon the mouths of her preachers, and so much Judas blood money for the sale of the beautiful divine truth of holiness or full salvation. The holiness movement, to be what the Lord wants it, must declare the whole counsel of God, keep back nothing of his truth as to sin and salvation, and sing, pray, preach, shout and live for him without the fear or favor of any man or of all men before its eyes. It must be peculiarly his messenger of truth; his mouthpiece; his evangel; his prophet as of old. If we as holiness people become faithless; if we trim off and let down in our teaching and living; if we make affinity with Ahab and his crowd; get allies from Egypt and Syria; take up with prophets who say smooth things to please various bodies of people, if we use trumpets that give an uncertain sound, and fight with swords in the scabbard; if we aim for popularity instead of salvation, and for the applause of men rather than the smile, presence, favor and power of God in our midst; then are we already undone! The Shekinah will have gone from the mercy seat! Ichabod will be written on the walls of the temple! Our Glory will be departed! Nothing will be left then but another spiritual carcass or skeleton bleaching on the highway of the past: while God will proceed again to raise up another body of people who will be truer servants to him, and better friends to the human family than the faithless band who through money, red pottage, man-fear and public favor fell by the wayside. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.08. THE UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES ======================================================================== Chapter 8 THE UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES. There are several features connected with the gathering and waiting of a certain company in the famous Upper Room in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago, that is well worthy of study and imitation in these days of religious instability and false doctrine. One fact about them was that they were the most faithful followers that Christ had upon the earth. It was not a collection of sinners praying for pardon, but a band of disciples supplicating for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. It must be evident to any one who has even a slight knowledge of unregenerate human nature, that it would be impossible to get one hundred and twenty unconverted people to be in a continuous prayer meeting of ten days. Even if penned up in such a room, they could not be kept in. They would break through the windows, or tear down the ceiling or dig through the floor before they would endure the spiritual torment of such a place and service. But what sinners would not do, and could not be compelled to endure, regenerated souls with the love of God, and hungering for the fullness of salvation, could easily and naturally be seen doing. This single fact alone is sufficient to reveal the character and spiritual status of the Upper Room Assembly prior to the morning of Pentecost. A second fact is that they were gathered at this time for one object. The Scripture states that they were told to tarry, and did tarry for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. This remarkable lack of division as to other points of doctrine and experience; this wonderful unity and agreement as to the one crowning work of grace which Christ had told them about, reveals one of the reasons for the amazing, overwhelming descent of the Holy Spirit upon them. We do not doubt a single instant that if God’s people in church, camp ground and revival service, would leave out of their "programs" everything but this; if they would quit trying to cover all creation with their multiplied diversified services and meetings; if they would give Missions, Missionaries, Education, Church Extension, Colleges, Introduction and Showing Off of Prominent Men, and even Testimony Meetings, a rest for a while, and put the ten days in with a continuous, fervent, humble, importunate waiting on God for the Baptism, and outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the church and camp, we would have scenes rivaling Pentecost and results that would bring millions of souls to God, and send shocks of consternation and horror to the very center of the black heart of Hell. A third fact about this marvellous meeting of other days, was that up to the time the Spirit fell on the tenth day, not a single effort had been made to get a sinner into the meeting, or anything done to secure the salvation of any one of the many lost souls in Jerusalem. Multitudes of unsaved men were on the streets of that city, but not one of the number was invited or brought to the meeting in the Upper Room. As we see spiritual things today, we recognize plainly that had this been done, and a mixed crowd gathered, Pentecost would not and could not have occurred. It required the unity and fixedness of purpose, and the patient, humble waiting in prayer of the best regenerated people in all that country, to make possible the marvellous happenings of Pentecost and the days which followed. All this sounds wonderfully in harmony with Christ’s prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, where He declares that He prayed not for the world, but for them from the Father had given Him out of the world. That they were now not of the world. and He prayed that they might be sanctified. And He wanted them sanctified, that the nations might believe and know what God had done for the world through His Son. Everywhere we hear preachers and laymen, who have not studied out the divine way to a real, sweeping revival where hundreds and thousands of souls would be saved, insisting that we preach to sinners. They think that we do not care for the salvation of the unconverted unless we do as they say; and yet their method is not the true, effective Bible way of bringing souls to God. The proper study of the ten days in the Upper Room, and of the Saviour’s Prayer, shows that if the population in the state, and if the world itself is to be saved. it will have to be through a wholly sanctified and fire-baptized church. A fourth fact about this company in the Upper Room was that they did not pray for a gift of the Holy Spirit, but for the Holy Ghost Himself, who is greater than all his gifts. It was the culminating blessing, the crowning work of divine grace, that was to usher in and finish most gloriously and triumphantly the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost, which they sought, plead for and obtained. Inspiration had declared that He, the Holy Ghost, was for all believers who met the conditions of His coming, but that His gifts were distributed as God saw fit in His sovereign pleasure and infinite wisdom, to one this, and to another that. Again, the Scripture declares that the gifts are variable and not perpetual, but that the Spirit Himself would come to abide forever. In view of these statements of God, we see the Upper Room company showing true wisdom in seeking that which was culminating, crowning, superior and abiding; and in making no effort for that which was less, which not every child of God can have, and that even when possessed will in time "vanish away." It is true that they obtained the Gift of Tongues that morning, but it is most noticeable that they did not seek the "gift." It was thrown in that day. Nor is there any account that this company ever had it again. It departed as a certain exigency and need passed away. While the Holy Ghost who had filled them, abided in them continually and to the end of their joyous, useful, powerful lives. Hence it is that when we hear today of God’s people seeking for the Gift of Tongues, we behold a perfect contrast to the spirit, conduct and object of the One Hundred and Twenty in the Upper Room. We also see people confessedly sanctified seeking something that God has placed far below Sanctification or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. We mark them striving for that which is ranked as low down as seventh in the gifts of the Spirit, and one also that Paul emphatically declares "vanishes away," while Holiness or Perfect Love, which comes with the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, he affirms is never to pass away. Nor is this all. Even if we had the real Gift of Tongues in our midst, and it is certain that we have not, the same God-inspired man said, "I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an (unknown) tongue." (The word in brackets is not in the original.) Still again, this wonderful mouthpiece of God said, that even where the genuine Gift of Tongues should be possessed, that such a gift should not be exercised unless there was an Interpreter present. Hear his words, "If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence." People claiming this gift today are quick to quote the Apostle, "Forbid not to speak with tongues." But behold here is another "forbid," which they have overlooked. If no interpreter is present, "keep silence," Paul says. Moreover, there was all this care when the genuine gift was present! What shall be said of the "gibberish" that is called Tongues today? It would be well for the people who have discounted the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and put a gift above the Giver, to remember several things: First,that the word "unknown " which they quote so much, is not God’s word. It is a human interpolation and not the Scripture. Second, that the "tongues" with which the disciples spoke at Pentecost were not "unknown" tongues or "Gibberish." Luke says, "That every man heard them speak in his own language." And again we read in the eighth verse of the second chapter of Acts, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born." Here was no unintelligible jargon; but languages of earth recognized distinctly by people coming from these different countries and nations. Third,if the Gift of Tongues is as they put it, higher in value and importance than the Blessing of Sanctification, or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, then should there be commensurate results in their meetings and labors when it is received. We notice that when the disciples were baptized with the Holy Ghost there was a great revival and many souls were saved. Where is the sweeping revival and salvation of men in what is called "The Tongue Movement" today? Fourth, it is noteworthy that the church in which the Gift of Tongues broke out in Paul’s time, gave that Apostle more trouble than all the other churches put together. He told them plainly that they were "carnal." He also said to them that jabbering together as they did, they not only did not edify anybody, but people hearing you, -- "will they not say that ye are mad!" In view of all these things; and in recognition of the fact that even after "coveting the best gifts" there remains a "more excellent way;" the way of Holiness and Perfect Love all laid down in Christ’s Prayer, and the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, we propose not to run after a thing which is not even among the "best gifts ;" that God ranks as Number Seven in the list; that unaccompanied with love Paul says is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal and which, according to the Bible, is certain at last to "cease" and "vanish away." We prefer the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, purifying the heart, filling with Perfect Love and enduing the soul with power. And in the strength and grace of this crowning culminating work of God, would "rather speak five words with the understanding, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.09. LEAVING THE FIRST PRINCIPLES ======================================================================== Chapter 9 LEAVING THE FIRST PRINCIPLES. In the middle of the first century, Paul wrote to a church, and through it to all Christian churches, to leave first principles and go on to perfection. He did not say "grow" to perfection, but "go." He did not say "towards perfection," which would mean a kind of approximation or camping in the neighborhood, but the command was to "go on TO perfection." Here was an arrival a getting somewhere; in other words, a definite experience. Dr. Adam Clark says that a better translation is "Let us be borne on immediately into perfection." The first among the "principles" that the apostle mentioned was repentance. His idea was not to destroy a cardinal doctrine or an essential experience of the heart and mind in coming to God, but leaving repentance as something not to be done over again, we should sweep on to an establishing grace called holiness, or perfection, wherein the affections, will, and the whole life would be so bound to God that repentance in the old passed away sense would not be needed. We were to leave it as the boy at school quits the alphabet for higher literature; and the multiplication table for advanced mathematics. Neither letters nor figures are despised or set aside, but they were simply means to a higher end, and having learned them as an opening lesson, a principle of knowledge, the boy now goes on to the culminating and crowning study and mental possession in logic and trigonometry. To see a school boy in the alphabet, and stalled in the multiplication table for years, would indicate beyond all doubt that the lad was a mental weakling or idiot. Physicians pronounce such instances to be cases of "arrested development." It is always a melancholy object, and we find ourselves wondering as we see the outward physical shape all right, what could have happened to the mental mechanism within, that has led to this clogging of the wheels and permanent halt of the intellectual life before us. There he is in the alphabet, and laboring on the first division of the multiplication table, with no sign whatever of advancement. He has stopped at the first principles. We have known boys who were not idiots, and yet could not get out of the preparatory or freshman classes at college. We knew a preacher who was five or six years on the first year’s course of study in theology in the itinerancy of the M. E. Church South. The report was that he would not study, he would not go on; in other words, he camped, in a scholastic sense, by the first principles. Paul, in the first century, was trying to get a body of believers away from the primer and first reader of repentance to a salvation that needed not to be repented of, and that would deliver them from the up and down life and zigzag course of a mere beginner; and yet here, lo and behold, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and ten, nearly two thousand years later, the great body of the preachers and members of the Christian church have their eyes fixed on what Paul regarded as first principles, and insist on going back to repentance. Doubtless many of them do need repentance for the way they have treated "perfection," or holiness, and we question not there is a demand for godly sorrow on other lines, among the clergy and laity; but the point we are making is the wonder that after twenty centuries, multiplied thousands of Christian churches will not listen to the doctrine of holiness, but insist on having a preaching that properly belongs to the unillumined, unsaved and lost classes of humanity. In arranging for meetings, in calling evangelists, the condition exacted more and more is that holiness shall not be preached, but repentance instead shall be presented. The church ignores the Divine command to press on to the highest experience of the Christian life, and would return to the lower plane, uncertain light and gloomy camping place of a sinner getting ready to be saved. The proof of what we say is in the character of the evangelist and the subject matter of his discourse admitted into our large churches in the cities and towns of the land. He has to leave Perfection and go to Repentance, reversing Paul’s command, in order to get his call to and permission to stay through the meeting. Some of them insist that they do preach holiness at certain times in these services, but it is noticeable that no one gets the blessing under them, and it is presented as a doctrine in such a vague way, so often confounded with growth, and there is such an utter dropping out of the definite seeking for the blessing and dying out at the altar, that no one needs to wonder that the people do not obtain the pearl of great price, the experience of entire sanctification. Even at conferences and at some so-called holiness camp grounds, the brother who leads the camp meeting, or conducts the Pentecostal services, as they term it, must be famous, not for going to the bottom and top of the subject, but be well known for his careful avoidance of the life and death issue, and if handled at all, yet so delicately, carefully and ambiguously, that "everybody" will be pleased with the cautious speaker, who fails to put the audience under conviction and was never known to lead a soul into the genuine, unquestionable experience of entire sanctification. One of these brethren told us once that he preached the doctrine and experience "with exceeding wisdom." He repeated the three words three times, laying great stress on the two concluding ones, "exceeding wisdom." We asked him if any one ever obtained the blessing under this style of preaching. With decided embarrassment he replied: "No." We rejoined that we did not preach with "exceeding wisdom," for we did not possess that mental endowment, but with a full and overflowing heart we tried to make plain "the whole counsel of God," about this work of sanctifying grace, and had beheld thousands obtain the "blessing." Our style may not have pleased certain boards and committees, but it certainly had the endorsement of heaven and the constant approving smile and presence of God. According to the divine plan laid down in the Bible, judgment must begin at the house of God; Zion must shine and burn, and then nations will flock to the light of her burning; the work must begin at Jerusalem and in the Upper Room with Christ’s own disciples. The church must obtain "perfection," and the world will sweep into "repentance." The people of God must receive the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, which "purifies" as well as "endues with power," and although only one hundred and twenty in number they will so awe, move, convict and reprove the world of sin when the Spirit comes to them, that three thousand sinners will be converted in the streets one day, five thousand the next, and after that daily such as shall be saved. It makes the heart sad to see the time of the world’s salvation hindered and postponed by this mistake of the people. The world will never be taken for God by a church needing repentance, but by one filled with the Holy Ghost. So said the prophets; and so said Christ. In the prayer of the Saviour in the seventeenth chapter of John, He pleads for the sanctification of His disciples then and of those to follow thereafter, that the world might "believe" and "know" His great salvation, while in the sixteenth chapter of the same book the Lord distinctly states that the world would be reproved of sin after He had sent the Spirit upon them, His own disciples. Somehow the Adversary has got the church to reverse God’s plan, and instead of leaving the first principles and going on to Perfection, they have ignored perfection, or holiness, and gone back to repentance. The congregations all over the land are kept in the alphabet until the great majority of the membership are but spiritual weaklings, and the house of God filled with moral dwarfs, who were brought into this condition by a case of arrested development. Meantime the annual protracted meeting is held, and an evangelist secured with the full understanding that holiness as a work of grace, received instantaneously through consecration and faith in the blood of Christ, must not be preached, and only messages delivered that will bring a lot of half-awakened sinners into the church, and keep the church itself down in this same spiritual plane or condition, where these latest accessions dwell. What a blow that is to the church of Christ, in the revelation that they bask in the same lesser light and feed on the same weaker food that is given to the unconverted and the newly regenerated, or "babes in Christ." Think of it! Members of the church converted ten, twenty and thirty years ago, turning from the "strong meat" that God wants them to have, and begging for the milk bottle of infants just born into the Kingdom! Two questions we would ask here, that surely will be brought forth on the Final Day: First, to the churches of the land -- why do you insist that the evangelist and pastor reverse God’s order of saving men, and silence them in the main commission given them? Are such people wise above God? Turn to Ephesians 4:11-16 , where we are told that Christ gave evangelists, pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints! (regenerated people) for the edifying of the body of Christ, for their solid establishment, and then ultimately as a result, "the increase of the body." Again is their throttling of the pastor and evangelist a dread of the light that comes by the preaching of holiness, the cost of obtaining the blessing, the sacrifices to be made, the giving up of reputation, talent, time and self? How contemptible such a crowd will be at the Judgment, where it will appear that they clamored for a preaching to outsiders and sinners, to save themselves from messages of God that would have laid their own proud heads and bodies in the dust. A second question is to all those pastors and evangelists who permit themselves to be cheated out of the highest results in works of grace by taking their orders from men, councils and sanhedrins instead of obeying God. Many do not, but some do. Why do they allow themselves to be gagged and choked off in this way? Is it fear of man? Is it desire for popularity? Is it dread of a real Gospel battle? Is it lust for position and appointment? Is it love of money? What about this reversal of God’s method? What about the divine commission of the evangelist and pastor, changed and regulated to please man? What about the starving flocks, the unfed sheep, the powerless congregations that fill the land, and sinners going to hell by the drove in the face of a church spiritually helpless and unable to save them? And, finally, what about the death bed, and the Day of Judgment to a being who had the light, who knew his duty to God and man in these things, yet would not do it? And behold! the fallen, unjust steward said to the equally unfaithful tenants, "How much owest thou my Lord? So much? Well, sit down and write thirty for sixty, and fifty for one hundred, and especially write Repentance instead of Perfect Consecration and Full Salvation." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.10. THE DELAY OF THE GOSPEL ======================================================================== Chapter 10 THE DELAY OF THE GOSPEL. It seems very strange to some that after nearly twenty centuries Christianity has not yet taken the world for God. They reason that it is the truth; has the power of an omnipotent being to enforce it on mind and conscience; while the same infinite author possesses a multitude of physical agencies by which He could defend His own, and overwhelm His adversaries. And yet here, after nearly two thousand years have passed away, Christianity is still struggling for victory, while hundreds of millions have never heard the name of Christ, and Mohammedanism, which sprang up centuries later, has more than doubled the numbers of our holy religion, and did it in several hundred years. The effect on many in the world, in view of these things, is to awaken doubt as to the genuineness of the Christian religion. While with many careless thinkers in the church itself, there is an equally dishonoring unbelief or question as to the power of Christianity through the Holy Ghost to win the battle and bring the world back to God. Over against this downright infidelity in and out of the church, we have the statement of the Bible of a final worldwide conquest. We have also a declaration concerning the Saviour’s mind about the long-drawn out war, where the Scripture affirms that He will not faint nor be discouraged until victory is conclusive and eternal. Also the vivid portrayal of His perfect assurance as to the complete triumph of His cause, in the words that the Heavens receive Him until the restitution of all things. and that He has sat down on His throne in the heavens, there to remain until all His enemies shall be made his footstool. These two verses alone would convince the thoughtful, well-balanced mind that Christianity is all right; that "Christ has all power in Heaven and earth;" and that the Holy Ghost in the third and last dispensation is not and will not be defeated. The apparent slowness of the Christian religion to capture the world and redeem the race from sin and the power of the devil can be accounted for from a number of reasons. One cause is discernible in the character of the Gospel itself. Unlike the compromises of earthly religions; different from the easy demands, as well as promises of a sensuous paradise made by the Koran of Moslemism; the Gospel strikes plainly at all and every sin, insists on the destruction of every heart and life idol, the perfect cleansing of the soul, the complete submission of the will to God, and the being filled and led continually by the Spirit of God. Cannot the most thoughtless see the difference on the multitude between the preaching of the Gospel over against the teaching of the Koran? The first insisting on the crucifixion and death of the carnal mind, and after that the proper subjugation of the life to God, while the latter permits sin to remain in the present life and promises a fleshly enjoyment in a world to come. Who wonders that Christianity crept as to numbers while Mohammedanism bounded at once up into the five and six hundred million figures. The truth of this statement finds confirmation in our midst by contrasting the reports of evangelists who preach a superficial gospel, with the account given of a meeting by men who went to the bottom of the sin question, showed the desperate wickedness of the heart, and demanded a perfect consecration of all to God, faith in the Blood alone, and a waiting and dying out at the altar until the Fire fell from Heaven. In these days it is rare for these latter named workers to count over forty or fifty souls who really get through in a ten days’ meeting; but when Bible terms are dropped by some preachers, the sin question glanced at, the consecration exacted only partial, while the tarrying at the altar scarcely exceeds ten minutes, and men full of inbred sin are called on to pray for such seekers -- who wonders that the members sent out from the battlefield (battlefield!) sweep easily from two to five hundred? It is the character of the true Gospel to offend. To substitute it with a vitiated, emasculated, eviscerated, attenuated Religion, is to have crowded houses, hundreds joining something, hundreds standing in the aisle, hundreds not able to get in, while the "oldest inhabitant" (who is both blind and deaf) says he has never seen nor heard for years anything to equal that same meeting. The same principle and rule applied to the nations shows the difference between Christianity and Moslemism as to numbers. A second explanation of the apparent slowness of gospel progress is to be found in the freedom of man’s moral nature. There can be no compulsion in the matter of a human being’s salvation. He is to be reasoned with, entreated, conscience appealed to, but cannot be coerced. Physical forces cannot and do not reach the case. A person may be compelled to an outward submission by muscular force, while the heart and soul is in complete rebellion to the so-called subduer. God wants no such sacrifice and service as this. It must be free and voluntary. The Saviour does not propose to win the nations to His side by the use of a Mahomet’s sword, or as Spain converted Mexico and Peru with the spear, arrow and gun. He has no idea of corralling or herding the race into heaven by a mere physical omnipotence. Heaven is a condition as well as locality, and men must be changed to its likeness of spirit and character, or it would be torment to those who are dragged or otherwise forced in. The fact is that the nature of man, and the character of the conflict going on, utterly forbids the use of material force to obtain victory for the truth. So when men marvel at the slow advance of a religion they know to be true and divine, and say God is omnipotent, and ask why does He not end this long struggle against sin, the devil and an ungodly world by floods, pestilences, tempests of fire, earthquakes and cyclones, they speak as one of the foolish ones. The battle cannot be settled this way, a moral nature cannot be changed by simple physical might. According to the papers, quite recently, wealthy gentleman who had been pursuing a runaway son over the country found him eating at a restaurant table in company with an actress. He took the young man of twenty by the ear, he himself being a Jeffries in stature and strength, and led him out of the place to the depot close by, and, so to speak, policed him home. He might have added crime to his lack of humanity and true wisdom, and killed his son; but the point we make is that in either case there would have been no spiritual or moral change in the youth. If this would be the best method, God has no lack of dynamic forces by which we could be hurled out of the theater into a pew of the church, or caught by the neck and flung up towards Heaven. Yet just as the youth we have spoken about now doubtless hates the being who put public shame on him and will never rest until he leaves his home forever; so the man physically dragged from an opera box to a church seat remains the same in nature, while if shot by a tremendous force of nature towards the skies, and even inside the gates of pearl, there would be another law and power at work which would pull him out and back and land him away down in the kind of world for which he was morally fitted. And it came to pass, said Luke, that Judas after his death went unto his own place. Such being the moral freedom of man, who needs to wonder that Christianity does not sweep immediately on to perfect victory over all the earth? The triumph of Christ is in the change of heart, cleansing of soul, submission of the free will to God, and the holy life which follows. Evidently it is much easier to secure joiners to a church, get people to be baptized with water, to hold up their hands and say they want to meet their mother in Heaven, "desire a better experience," etc., etc., than to obtain genuine followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is this freedom that He has to confront and deal with, and which causes the years to stretch out in the individual case, and the centuries to roll by in the struggle with the world, while victory in the complete sense still has not been obtained. A third reason for the seeming Gospel delay or failure is found in the fact that the church has lost the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Christ distinctly taught that His followers must have this blessing in order to carry victory everywhere and brings the nations to God. Nothing could be more specific in His teachings than this, and so He "commanded" them that they should tarry in Jerusalem until this marvellous purifying and empowering grace should be obtained. After that He said you will be witnesses for Me unto the uttermost part of the earth. He did not tell them to take the blessing by faith and go, but to "TARRY" until they got it. When some of the disciples, with their eyes and thoughts fixed on the time that he should return, asked when that coming would be; great was the rebuke they received and He answered: "It is not for you to know the times and seasons -- but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." In other words, the great essential thing was the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. That was to enable them to be witnesses for Him; that would sweep them to the uttermost part of the earth, while it also gave them victory in Judea and Samaria; and it was that which would bring the times and seasons all right, and the world itself back to God. Alas for it that the church as a whole has lost this conquering grace and irresistible blessing, which brought three thousand souls to God the first morning the disciples obtained it. A blessing in the power of which they saw five thousand men saved the next day. And in the might and force of this great culminating, crowning work of grace Christianity swept to the ends of the earth and bade fair to bring universal victory to the Son of God in the first two centuries. But it was lost. And in the third century the church became so popular that an emperor joined it. Still later the devil applied for membership. And then the world got in! and the Holy Dove took flight into the skies. Would that the faithful who are left today would forget sinners for a while, as did the one hundred and twenty, and pull away from the sluggard stay-at-home "three hundred and eighty" and go at once to the Upper Room. And there Tarry! until the fire fell and they would all be filled with the Holy Ghost. Then would come times and seasons indeed! The glory would pour out of the Upper Room! The streets would be filled with converts! And then we would begin to see the nations turn to God and His Christ, the multitudes would flock to the church as doves to the windows, and the vision of Ezekiel in regard to the Holy Waters would be fulfilled in the sight of a world submerged with the knowledge and grace of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.11. THE JUNGLE IN THE HEART ======================================================================== Chapter 11 THE JUNGLE IN THE HEART. The seventeen manifestations of the carnal mind or inbred sin given by Paul in one of his epistles is certainly startling and alarming. But when we see clearly traced in scripture the outlines of various forms of animal life projected in character by the same principle of evil, and find these ghastly portraitures or pictures reproduced today in men and women around us, the sensation of surprise turns into an emotion of horror. The thought that "the body of sin" within us can take upon itself the appearance, spirit and action of a certain forest animal is fearful enough, but when we discover that the carnal mind is a kind of complex nature and can assume in succession a multiplicity of animal forms and characteristics, the revelation is simply overwhelming to the mind and heart sickening beyond words to express. If carnality in each unregenerate and regenerate heart in a church or neighborhood took but one semblance and wrong spirit, even that would make every congregation to possess a menagerie; but to see it taught in the Word of God, and proved in life that there is a deep swarming infested jungle in each individual breast is the thought that is full of such unutterable horror to every spiritually illumined mind. We do not doubt but that if each honest inquirer after truth would keep a faithful diary of his moods and conduct he would find that in the course of a single year that everything which creepeth, crawleth, stingeth, hisseth, biteth, crusheth and killeth in the jungle of India has had its moment, hour or day in his own heart. The Jungle is a quiet, peaceful looking piece of dense woodland to the outside observer; but in those same shadowy recesses, and under the tangled vines and inter-twisted boughs, and all through its brakes and sloughs there is a multiplicity and fearfulness of moving forms that completely belie the outward appearance of peace and safety. It is certainly one thing to look at the outside of a man’s life, to observe the immaculate dress, gracious demeanor, carefully studied language and modulated tones of voice; and a totally different affair to get a sudden insight into the thought life, heart realm, and real history of the individual. The man in the pulpit, on the platform, in the office, on the street, is one sight; but the same person at home or far away from home, and from all who know him, may be a spectacle as different as it is possible for language to describe, and revealing such Jungle features as would remain an astounding memory forever. Think of an arm that once protected becoming a boa-constrictor to crush. Of a tongue that formerly cooed like a dove, darting out like the poison prongs from the red throat of a rattlesnake, to injure and destroy. Of a face that an hour or day before beamed with kindness, suddenly taking on the frightful features and expressions of an infuriated hyena or tiger. These instances are but the faintest hints of what is going on in, and coming out of, the Jungle of the human heart. The panther has a cry like a little baby; the serpent has a soft sibilant sound like a quick sigh; the anaconda covers its victim with a froth from its own mouth before swallowing it alive; the boa-constrictor enfolds quietly with fleshy coils and then gradually strangles and kills; the vampire sucks away the lifeblood, after first having fanned its prey to sleep. So even in the Jungle denizens there is an attractive, bewildering or false outside which covers an opposite nature underneath. Truly we do not have to live long or go far before we hear the serpent’s sibilant whisper in the social circle, note the vampire wing, mark the mouth froth and feel the enveloping coils of a human Python who would crush heart, body and soul alike. Holmes, the murderer of over thirty people, had a most ingratiating manner. Nearly all who met him were charmed with his conversation and deportment. The young man who killed two young women in a church in San Francisco, was so outwardly well bred and altogether pleasing in his ways, that he was not only a great social favorites but had been elected assistant superintendent of the Sunday school. What vampire wings, serpent whispers and panther baby cries these men had! There are animals of the feline order in the world, soft, sinuous, purring and apparently grateful for every gentle rubbing and smoothing received, which are suddenly transformed by a single adverse stroke of the patter and petter, into a raging, eye-blazing, claws-scratching singe cat. A judge of the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania said recently in the trial of a case before him that "all women were cats." But he would have spoken a deeper truth is he had said that every unsanctified human heart is an East India Jungle. Well may we wonder as we stand at the borders of such a life and say, what will be the next manifestation, the latest animal form which will come forth, show itself unmistakably and then retire into the deep, dark, unknown depths of the soul? In a single day or week, a human being with this nature can reveal the opossum, porcupine, ostrich, jackal, snake, vulture, bear and lion. We are kept in amazement at the transformations of the person before us, and wonder what will be the following appearance. We have seen Inbred Sin when located inside an hungry body growl like a bear until dinner came on, next eat like a famished wolf, then gradually change into a meek contented looking sheep, and still later take upon itself the sportiveness and playfulness of a harmless gazelle. But unfortunately the gazelle sipped too much wine in the following half hour, or some one crossed him in some way, whereupon the amiable antelope became first a hedge hog, then a wild boar, and then a glaring-eyed tiger, and the whole household trembled at this latest revelation of the Jungle. We have seen inbred sin cooing in a woman who was well dressed and had everything coming her way to gratify and satisfy until we thought that a dove with downiest feathers and most liquid of notes had strayed away from its companions, preferring her gentler nature, and was roosting somewhere in her graceful body. Later, suddenly vexed, first with her husband and then her son, we saw the straight bill turn instantaneously into a curved one, and the innocent pedal extremity of a Philomel become the sharp, hooked claw of the hawk. Still later we ran unexpectedly on her in the hall where she was violently scolding a poor servant girl, and this time we looked upon a fierce eyed female tigress in trailing draperies circling about the frightened, pale faced young woman. The dove, nightingale, hawk and eagle had disappeared in the Jungle, and a panting, swollen featured cougar had come forth and was now in the house wearing skirts. We never hold a meeting but in the prayer of convicted people we hear confession of heart and life sins, some times a half dozen in number, that as to nature have their startling types in the bogs, brakes and tangled depths of the wilderness. We do not question but that every true examiner of carnality in the heart would discover so many things which correspond to what we read in Natural history as to creeping, clawing, squirming, stinging, scratching, biting, growling, roaring, tearing, rending, devouring qualities and performances, that he would never say again that he obtained a pure heart in regeneration, but would in horror and agony of mind begin to cry to God for deliverance. It would be well before death to explore this Jungle in the soul. Its revelations in that late and trying hour are often so fearful that hope sickens, faith is paralyzed and the soul goes out in a voiceless despair into the darkness of the World of the Lost. It would pay to investigate the Jungle at once. God has great axes of Truth to hew the way into the profound and tangled mazes of the heart. His Spirit, stronger than ten thousand arc lights; mightier in its radiance than our sun; than vega, nine hundred times larger than our sun; than Arcturus, three thousand times greater and brighter than our sun; can flood the mind with a light beyond all these, and reveal within us every glittering eye, gleaming tooth, dripping tongue, piercing fang, ripping claw, ponderous paw, crushing hoof and goring born that ever has or ever will proceed from or belong to Sin. The same power which exposes, can also destroy. And He who shows the awfulness and peril of the Jungle can in a moment depopulate it of its inhabitants, transform it into a Garden of Eden, fill it with forms of peace, love and moral beauty, and delight the observer with as many manifestations of goodness in the same breast as once amazed and distressed him with appearances and actions of evil. We can but marvel that men seem to prefer an inward fellowship of wild animals and hating, raging devils to the presence of the heavenlies, the communion of the Holy Ghost and the unbroken companionship of the Son of God. Would that we had more like the Man of Gadara who in wretchedness and despair at the torment, rending and tearing of evil spirits within him, cried out to Jesus, and accepted His great deliverance. The life picture of all such would be exactly like that of this Bible character. Devils cast out; Heaven within; clothed and in their right mind; sitting at the feet of Jesus; looking in love, gratitude and devotion into the face of the Son of God, and saying, "Behold wherever you go, I beseech Thee let me be with you." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.12. THE DEATH OF CONSCIENCE ======================================================================== Chapter 12 THE DEATH OF CONSCIENCE. Conscience is that power or faculty of the soul, by which we recognize and pronounce upon the moral character of our words and deeds. This attribute lifts us above the animal world more remarkably than our immortality; for if conscience should be disposed of or destroyed in some way in a human being, then he has become an immortal instead of a mortal brute. It is not to be denied that as a race we possess as purely a physical or animal nature, as the inhabitants of our barns, stables and farms, We eat, sleep and try to protect ourselves from the weather as they do. The scramble for food we see in some places, the noisy mastication and hurried gulping and swallowing by a long line of bowed heads is marvellously suggestive of scenes we have beheld in troughs and different kind of receptacles located in styes and pens. We are certainly animal, no matter what else may be said of us. The moral nature with its voice the conscience, lifts us unspeakably above the brute world to which we are so closely allied in similarity of fleshly form and appetite, and reaches forth its hand and exercises its energies to touch and get in harmony with a spiritual life and the spiritual Universe above it. Its voice calling to duty, disapproving wrong, and condemning sin within, shows there is a spirit and nature within us, distinct from the body and utterly unknown to the animal world about us. No domestic or wild animal has any conception or knowledge of right or wrong in the moral sense. They know of no such things as irreverence or Sabbath-breaking; while stealing, idolatry, false witnessing, and all other sins, are utterly beyond their comprehension. This peculiar knowledge belongs to men and angels, necessitating a Day of Judgment for them because of this higher form of life, with its perception of good and evil, its volitions, its freedom of choice, its power to obey or disobey divine commandments, and its deeply ingrained sense of responsibility for conduct, and accountability to the Almighty Maker of Heaven and earth. The difficulty of the higher nature on the inside with the lower nature on the outside can well be imagined and also remembered. If the visible material being without is a hog or dog or goat, the angel within is bound to have a hard time in making itself heard and in endeavoring to secure its rights. It is a long, bitter struggle indeed to persuade the spirit which the Creator put inside to yield to the domineering life of an animal on the outside; to accept the fleshy enswathement of muscle, bone and blood as the soul’s true dress, and the domain of appetite to be the realm of a nature made in the image of God; to let the body monopolize and absorb, and pull down, until the man is dog from head to foot, hog up and down, or goat through and through. If human beings only possessed the animal nature, then they could live like such creatures and not have a pang of shame, regret or remorse. It is the moral nature that gives such trouble for awhile to men who would ignore the existence and presence of the soul, and strive to live as if they had only a body, with simply a superior intellect to animals at the other end of it. But the teaching of the Bible is that by a certain course of conduct, the conscience can be lulled to rest, put to sleep, seared as with a hot iron, choked into insensibility and completely slain or murdered so far as this present terrestrial life is concerned. What the Scripture declares about this fearful consummation of the death of conscience is plainly revealed all around us in the lives of men. In both volumes, the sacred and human records of the fearful catastrophe, it is observable that it was not accomplished at once. But nevertheless it will finally done. There is a frightful awakening of conscience in Hell, As we see in the case of the "Rich Man" and evidenced by the torment of the lost. The undying worm and unquenchable flame spoken of by Christ as the suffering of beings in the Pit is a figure of the revived conscience, eating at the heart, and burning its agony in the soul forever. It is there awake and alive for all eternity. But while this is the awful truth about the future of conscience in the Lost World, yet equally true is it that it can be utterly dead for months and years in the present existence, and preceding the dissolution of soul and body. In the remarkable spectacle of Joseph’s brethren quietly eating after having thrust their brother into a pit where they had left him to die a lingering death by starvation, we behold such a case of moral callousness and hardness as almost to challenge belief and cause one to doubt the evidence of his own senses. Here they were breaking bread while a brother who had just begged piteously for mercy, was nearby doomed to a horrible death by their own counsel and hands. It looked like the bread would have appeared stained with blood, and have choked them. And verily it would have done so to any but the spiritually petrified and devilized. Another instance we see in the case of Judas who could quietly sit at the table, endure the eyes of Christ fixed upon him, receive a sop from his hands, eat it, and then go out and betray Him to His enemies for a handful of silver. Still another exhibition of the dead conscience is beheld in the action of the Pharisees, Scribes and Elders in bringing about the mock trial, false witnessing and actual murder of the Son of God. And still another manifestation is held up in the Bible, in the case of the woman who had committed a gross crime, and then wiping her mouth asked, what evil have I done? The days of the Inquisition could furnish libraries in description of what occurred in that period in the name of Conscience, when the very moral faculty referred to and invoked was dead. Men who could behold unmoved a fellow creature die slowly before their eyes on a Rack which cracked and broke his bones, and tore muscle and sinew out of place; who could pitilessly mark the thrusting of red hot irons into the bowels of men and hear with greedy ears their frightful screams; such beholders and listeners were no longer men, but through the utter death of conscience had become a horrible compound of animal and devil. The dead conscience is seen today not only in practiced political and financial villainy, but in willful persistent wrongdoing in the family and church, in habitual falsifying and slander, the steady breaking of the commandments of God, and all done without a single inward pang by day, or the loss of a moment’s sleep by night. Such people can deny the words, the power and the Blood of Christ, and yet eat at the Lord’s Table. They can, like Joseph’s brethren, wound and stab a brother with their slanderous tongues, and then after that take up bread in their bloodstained hands and eat heartily. They can commit the grossest social crimes and then wipe their mouths and say, why what have I done? Myriads of church members break the Sabbath constantly not only without scruple, but without thought! Doctors and patients regularly and systematically murder unborn offspring, then sit down to eat, and wiping their mouths say in reply to horrified questioners, why what evil have I done? And yet what a taste of blood all such bread ought to have in view of the Heaven denounced crime which they have committed. Still the horror grows as we see great numbers of those who were once in the light and experiences of Christianity, now sitting far back in the church in the midst of sinners, with faces like stone, their souls animalized and devilized, while hearing unmoved the deepest, mightiest and most burning messages from God in the pulpit. They often smile and whisper during the delivery of just such divinely anointed sermons, and hardly get out of the church or tent, before they are deeply engrossed in conversation about dress, fashion, business or pleasure. One might as well speak to a corpse, as preach to such a person, so far as spiritual sensibility of heart and life response is concerned. Indeed, God calls all gatherings of such individuals, "The Congregation of the Dead." Some one was telling the writer years ago of a sermon he heard Sam Jones preach in the "eighties" on a camp ground located in a dense woodland in the State of Mississippi. He said it was a discourse on Sin, and in it, toward the conclusion, the preacher spoke of the death of conscience. As he proceeded in the heart sickening description, the camp fires slowly going down, the woods full of dark shadows, the silence so profound that the rustle of a falling leaf could be heard, the people became conscious of the faint chirping of a solitary cricket some little distance away in the neighboring depths of the forest. The lonely, pathetic note was a kind of symbolism of the voice of conscience, and as it at last sank into silence, that also was so like the portrayal going on of the gradual dying and final death of conscience, that a number of the observers of the incident were moved most profoundly. If that was melancholy, what is it to see going on unmistakably before us, the weakening, and ultimately the stillness of an utter death come upon the voice of an immortal soul? There can be no comfort in the thought that some of these consciences will arouse agonizingly in a last moment as did Judas, or that all will arise in torment never to sleep again, as was the case of Dives in Hell, and that such will be the experience of all the nations and multitudes who go down into the Bottomless Abyss. There is no hope or remedy for the lost soul in Perdition. Somehow we feel that the cry of conscience will be the sharper, and its agony all the greater when it awakens in Hell, after its long sleep and deathlike trance on earth. Meantime godly parents, and devoted pastors and evangelists are trying to make themselves heard by their spiritually dead, families and congregations; and stretched on their faces in supplication are begging God to give them the word, the conversation, the prayer, the sermon, the cry! that will penetrate the dull, cold ear before them and bid the sleeper wake and make the dead arise. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.13. NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES ======================================================================== Chapter 13 NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES. In spite of the marvellous mental capacities of man, and of the wondrous discoveries and advancements the race has made in every line of knowledge; yet it is remarkable through what difficulties and oppositions, all these intellectual victories and onward marches to improvement had to come before reaching final success. Of course the great mass of mankind did not have these conceptions nor take part in the struggle to bring them to their birth and completion. There were pioneers of thought, just as there were explorers and openers-up of our country when it was a wilderness. The multitude in both instances stayed at home and furnished the criticizing, doubting and croaking. But even the leaders in certain lines of thought were dull enough when confronted with the teachings and discoveries of other realms and kingdoms concerning whose laws and phenomena they were themselves ignorant. Certainly it was with a deep and far-reaching meaning that the Saviour once spoke about new wine bursting old bottles. It seems that the new wine, even in the intellectual life, has a way of splitting and disrupting old mental receptacles and reservoirs. Men get accustomed to ways of thinking and doing, and do not want to be disturbed. So that a discovery which upsets ancient premises and conclusions, occasions a change of living, and ushers in the pain, worry and labor of novel situations and fresh adaptations, is anything but pleasing and popular at first to them, if indeed it is ever accepted. We have a ministerial friend who had been preaching several years to an unmoved congregation. Moreover, this church body had been in a like condition through a number of preceding pastorates. One morning this clergyman told his astonished audience that they had been occupying the same seats and pews for years, and, for that matter, were in the same physical attitudes. That he was confident that several hundred had heard the gospel for the last twenty years through the left ear, while an equal number had received it through the right auricle. His earnest request now was that everybody in the house would change locations, and hear the truth from another angle, and listen to the Word from another part of the sanctuary. He felt confident, he said, that there would be immediate and great results. The idea was that people settle into habit ruts, and sink down in dry routines of life, into mental indolence and physical sluggishness, and become old bottles, and finally take a pride in being dried up, unyielding, unadaptable, and generally petrified. Certain it is that the history of mankind confirms the words of Christ, who spoke of the bursting of old bottles under the working pressure of new wine. It is well known by every schoolboy how the new wine of Copernicus, when he said the earth moved and the sun was the center of the solar system, cracked and split the ecclesiastical and astronomical wiseacres of his day. The discovery of the circulation of the blood was met by a storm of ridicule in the medical world. It is equally well known what a testing, trying time steam had to go through before the world accepted it as the great friend and helper of the human family. It is said that when Fulton’s little skeleton of a steamboat went puffing and panting its way up the Hudson, it encountered a schooner coming down the river. When the sailors beheld this first of the steam kind with its black smoke and rattling noises, they thought it was the devil; and diving down into the hold of their vessel fell upon their knees and prayed the Lord for deliverance. Then it is also related that a man with what is called a mathematical and scientific head, while admitting the feasibility of applying steam in many ways and directions, was showing by a great array of figures on a piece of paper that no vessel could ever cross the ocean with such power, as no ship hold could contain the quantity of coal necessary for the voyage; when just as he had completed the demonstration, lo! there was a smoke on the horizon, and here came a steamer into port from all the way across the sea. Of course this meant another old bottle had blown up. The telegraph, the telephone, the air brake, and every other great and useful thing had a time of it in coming into recognition and use, because of the old bottles in the world. Descending even to lower planes, and smaller affairs, it is still the same. The first man who hoisted an umbrella over his head was nearly mobbed. While the use of suspenders for the upholding of pantaloons met with a storm of ridicule and denunciation. Many pulpits were especially bitter, and accused every preacher who wore "galluses," as being filled with pride, haughtiness and vain glory. In the ecclesiastical world, the melodeon or organ was the new wine that split the old bottle of the "Tune Lifter," whose repertoire consisted of four or five hymns and the doxology. In the religious and spiritual realm, a genuine revival is certain to burst the old bottles of formality and a lifeless ritualism. When Luther poured the new wine of justification by faith, into the old dried up ecclesiastics who preached salvation by works, there was a great rending of ancient ministerial skins and explosions of a hidebound churchianity. When Wesley emptied the new wine of sanctification by faith, on the old cut and dried Church of England and the ceremonialisms of his time and day, countless bottles of the ancient pattern blew up, while there was enough of salvation allowed to run to waste sufficient to have saved a thousand worlds. To this day, the old bottles are in the way of a genuine Holy Ghost revival, and the reception of full salvation by the churches. As we have marked them before us ranged on the shelf, or more correctly speaking, sitting in the pews; the yellow skin, dead-looking eye, severe mouth, flinty brow, dry speech and cold, impassive countenance, all declared the correctness and faithfulness of Christ’s words in his use of the descriptive words, Old Bottles. The sweetness and power of God’s great truths and blessings are too much for them. So they explode, get mad, quit the meeting, abuse the preacher and evangelist, leave the church, raise a storm and go to pieces generally. We never yet held a revival meeting but from twenty to one hundred old bottles would burst as we tried to get the wine of a full salvation into them. We might well be discouraged, but we thank God in the same community there are always new bottles that can stand God’s truth, and the whole truth at that, and want it poured into them. The New Bottle stands for recently regenerated, and also those who by prayer, Bible reading, obedience to God and faithful living have kept their freshness and newness through years of dryness, while other converts and church members become hard, cold, and dry. There is a way of walking with God after the New Birth, where the follower of Christ remains a new bottle after the flight of years. He grows in grace, advances in all the light he has, and only waits for fuller knowledge, to be cleansed from all sin and possess a holy heart. We find such Christians everywhere. And as Lydia’s heart opened to the preaching of Paul, so their loyal souls turn readily, gladly, and thankfully to the proclamation of a Full Salvation, or Holiness by faith in the Blood of Christ. It is evident from Scripture as well as life itself, that the time for the reception of the wine of Sanctification is at a period close to that of justification and regeneration. It was only a few months after leaving Egypt that God’s people were brought up to Kadesh Barnea, and Canaan was in full view. It seems to be the will of God that the wine of Holiness should be put into New Bottles. So Paul exhorts a church to forget the first principles and to go on to (be borne on immediately into) perfection. While those Heaven-taught men, Wesley and Asbury, urged upon their preachers that the young converts should be led at once into the experience of Holiness or Entire Sanctification. They dreaded and had but little confidence in the Old Bottles. And so does every one of reading, reflection, observation and spiritual discernment. The Old Bottle is in the way of the world’s progress; and it also prevents the salvation of the nations. God buried nearly a million of them in the sands of Arabia. It had to be done to bring the New Bottles into Canaan. Alas, for the Old Bottles. They are everywhere. In the churches and colleges, in the pulpit and pew, in the Board of Stewards and the Ladies’ Aid Society. And they are nothing but bottles. They have nothing in them but wind. If they were filled with old wine it would be all right. But they have none of the old elixir, nor can they stand the new wine. Here and there they sit in lines and rows, dry looking, yellow skinned, with sucked-in sides, and having in them only a little hot air or nothing at all. To pour the wine-like truth of God into such people is to be rewarded in a few days with a series of loudmouthed explosions and general blowing up. It is this ecclesiastical phenomena which causes the appearance in the church paper, or the utterance by the lip of various chief rulers in the synagogue, of that threadbare well-worn, time-smoothed saying, that a certain evangelist, or a certain revival meeting, had split the congregation, offended and driven away some of the best people in the membership, torn everything to pieces and ruined the church forever. The real history of the case was, and it will so appear at the Day of Judgment, that Holiness was preached in a formal, worldly church, and as the wine of Full Salvation was poured out on the choir, Ladies’ Aid Society, and Board of Stewards, some Old Bottles exploded! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.14. THE SHOUT AT JERICHO ======================================================================== Chapter 14 THE SHOUT AT JERICHO. It is surprising how new light will come upon a passage of Scripture by giving it a thoughtful and fixed instead of a passing glance or attention. Not only have we discovered erroneous quotations by this method, but an actual opposite meaning to what had been conceived in the narrative of occurrence or statement of some truth or doctrine. Notably is this the case in reference to the famous shout given by the Israelites before the walls of Jericho. Every Bible reader’s eye has fallen on the verse in Joshua, "And the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city." Still oftener the words have been heard in prayer, testimony, exhortation, and sermon in reference to the shout and the falling wall of Jericho, and not one in a hundred or thousand seems to take note of several most essential facts of the history, viz., when the shout was raised, what it did not do, and what really knocked down the wall. Some most profound mistakes have been made concerning this notable matter. First. as to the time of the shout. The general mistake is that it was given at the very outset or beginning of the siege and conflict. And so we have repeatedly heard leaders of meetings say that the true way to do was to shout the walls down at once, and hence in accordance with their ideas instituted a general bawling and outcry which was not only hours but days ahead of time, and which not only did no good, and gained no victory, but really wrought harm and mischief in a variety of ways. The facts of the case in the Jericho shout were that it was given on the seventh day of the siege, and at the conclusion of the thirteenth march of the children of Israel around the entire walls of the city. Then with the blare of trumpets, the stentorian cry of the whole army filled the plain, echoed back from the sides of the mountains, and rent the very heavens. It ascended at the right moment, and was wonderful and powerful because it came at the proper seasons and in the fullness of time. There are many cries and shouts of God’s people today that fall powerless because they are out of human and divine order, and are hours, days and occasionally even weeks ahead of schedule. The word is given to the thoughtless, "Shout the walls of Jericho down!" and then a senseless and fleshly screaming and bawling are indulged in to the amusement of the world, the hardening of sinners, and the grief of the spiritually wise and good. Who has not marked the emptiness, deadness and darkness which seems to come upon a meeting after one of these premature charge, where the enthusiasm was man made and pumped up, and God had not given the command to shout and march forward. There are times and seasons in the kingdom of grace as well as in nature; and it is not without significance that the Word reads that when the Spirit fell on the disciples the day of Pentecost had "fully come." It is no use pushing the clock up to twelve when it is only nine. Our fooling with the hands on the dial does not change the course of time itself. After all, we have to sit down and wait until it is really noon, no matter how the hands point. There is a great disposition upon the part of certain hasty and uninstructed people to reach results without meeting conditions, to pull the melon before it is ripe, to praise without praying beforehand, to secure a wonderful victory without doing a single thing. The whole proceeding is a grave mistake and is clearly rebuked and contradicted by the natural and spiritual kingdoms of God. The rapture, liberated tongues and resistless power of the disciples came after ten days of waiting humbly and continuously before God. The shout before Jericho, followed by th e tumbling of its walls, was preceded by thirteen marchings around the place, and seven days full of tests to faith and demands on the labor of the body. So when the command is given by some leader to his congregation to "Shout the walls of Jericho down," it is well to ask what has been done preceding this noise that we are about to make, that is worth talking about, that God can use and bless, and that he has a right to expect and demand of us. This simple question when properly regarded and applied is calculated to open our eyes, and to explain some very fruitless and powerless meetings when there was a great deal of racket made. A second mistake made by some in regard to the shout given before Jericho is in regard to what it accomplished. The general idea is that the united cry and volume of sound knocked the walls of the city flat. But according to the Bible it was not the shout at all that did it, but something entirely distinct and different. Paul tells us in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and thirteenth verse, "By FAITH the walls of Jericho fell down!" What a wonderful thing faith is, how it connects soul and life with God and so in the strength and power of the Holy and Almighty One accomplishes the most amazing results. Inspiration speaks of it quenching the violence of fire, stopping the mouths of lions, putting armies to flight, and raising the dead. In the instance written about in this chapter it is seen flinging an entire city wall down in the dust; while John declares it can and does overcome the world. The devil is only too happy to get our eyes fixed on the realm of sense again, to be taken up with mere sound, to deify uproar, and go to worshipping the physical in the sense of exalting and blindly following it into many foolish and hurtful performances. It is true that Faith may and does bring about noise, but noise does not produce faith. It is with significance that the apostle says that "bodily exercise profiteth little," and the prophet declares that "It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Surely it is not our shouting that creates our faith but our faith that raises the shout, and knocks down the walls of opposition. We have known a number of meetings where the presence and power of the Holy Ghost was notably lacking, and where the service was "whooped up" by some manipulator to an appearance far beyond the reality. It was the sudden stimulation in a few moments, of a depleted spiritual system. It was an electric treatment, instead of the reception of health and life. And so there was a reaction and recoil that was most painfully felt by some, and perfectly apparent to all. We have known a wind and thunder storm to suddenly come up on a warm day, promising rain and coolness, and after crashes from the clouds, and great volumes of dust blown in every direction, the whole hubbub ended without a drop of moisture, and followed by a dry, sultry and blistering heat that was worse than the former condition. We have seen this whole scene reproduced in many a meeting, and as we marked the absence of the Gospel dew and rain, the lack of real unction and holy power, we felt that not only souls were being grieved on earth, but God was wounded in Heaven. There had been much thundering on the human side, but no soul-refreshing, life-renewing downpour of grace from the heavenly side. Inskip was accustomed to mighty scenes of grace in his meetings, and his great voice would often float like a banner over it all. But when his quick ear would recognize that the flesh was getting ahead of the Spirit, that there was more thunder than lightning, more wind than rain, and more noise than grace and actual power, he would lift his hand, command attention, and bring the whole assembly into perfect silence, a solemn, holy stillness before God. He never lost, but always gained ground by this piece of spiritual generalship. It is certainly one thing for the leader of a meeting to tell a couple of hundred people to cry out "Hallelujah!" and a totally different thing when God bids them do it. It is the difference between perspiration and inspiration; between thunder and lightning; and between human noise and divine power. In the former case the shout is bigger than the faith, in the latter instance the faith is greater than the shout. In conclusion we say, that we must not give up the shout. God himself commanded it, but we must see that it comes in the right place. The praises and hallelujahs that are at a premium in heaven are not creatures of accident, but come as a result of spiritual condition, and right relations with God. They can point to a pedigree of faithfulness, to antecedents of grace, where such facts as obedience to God, abiding in the ranks, seven days of protracted effort, and thirteen consecutive marchings around, figure prominently and significantly. Then and there is born the true shout. But even here we must not forget, that it was not the shout, not the noise, not the marching around that won the battle, but Faith! Faith! Faith! that brought down with a resounding crash on the plain, the whole encircling wall of the city of Jericho. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.15. THE WISE MEN OF THE WEST ======================================================================== Chapter 15 THE WISE MEN OF THE WEST. There is much talk these days about Advanced Thought, and a New Theology. According to these latter day lights, all of us are tremendously in the dark who do not go with them in their new psychologies and religious creeds. According to some of these writers and speakers, the disciples and the Saviour Himself were much cramped and limited in their expressions and declarations of doctrine, while the Fathers of our Methodism were simply nowhere. A small sized clerical sprig on this wild vine of latter days, made a motion in an annual conference that John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection be removed from the course of study and reading for Methodist preachers, and a book written by a college president of Nebraska fame be substituted. A presiding elder told the writer that the old time way of defining depravity and remaining sin in the soul of the regenerated, as given by Wesley and Clarke was an offense to him. That it created a nausea, sense of repugnance, and instant rebellion both in mind and heart. We happily remembered as he spoke, that this is the invariable feeling of all in whom the Old Man still abides, and is most unmistakable confirmation of Bible statements, and proof of the carnal mind in the regenerated as taught by the old time Wesleyan Theology. Before accepting this advanced thought with its new definitions, and this modern theology that puts the old with all its advocates to shuns, we must insist on two things. First, that it turns out better, stronger, and holier followers of Christ, and, second, that it brings with it a corresponding increase of the power, favor, and approval of God. This is not an unreasonable or improper demand, as any candid reflecting mind must admit. God wants His creatures to have the pure and full truth, in that it "makes us free" and becomes a blessing in every way to the church and the world. So that if the New Theology is of God, then we have a right to expect the Heavens to open and the Holy Ghost to fall on this kind of preaching and living as occurred on the Day of Pentecost; and after that continuously on the lives and labors of such disciples. We do not refer here to the miracles attendant on some of these occasions, but to the unquestionable presence, blessing, and power of God. Let the honest seeker after Truth compare the piety, spirituality, preaching, labors and fruit in salvation lines of the Wesleys, Fletcher and Clarke, with that of men today who are riddling the Bible, and tearing to pieces what is known as Methodist or Wesleyan Theology, and the difference or rather contrast is simply overwhelming. Then let him mark the spiritual lifelessness, the lack of unction, the notable absence of the Holy Ghost in the sermons, and services of these Latter Day Wise Men of the West, and he is compelled to feel another blow that is a regular knock down in its convincing power, that these teachers are altogether off, and gone as well. There may be a great lot of rhetoric, oratory, philosophy and "science falsely so-called." But these Wise Men of the West as we have concluded to call them are not trying to find Jesus, but to get rid of Him; and their Star of Bethlehem is a will-o’-the-wisp from Massachusetts, or a Jack o’lantern from Nebraska. An additional blow of conviction is received in marking the liberty, power, unction, gladness, and marvellous spiritual results attending the ministry of these who preach a Bottomless Hell, a Topless Heaven, Total Depravity, Repentance, Regeneration, Entire Sanctification as a second work of grace, and the other great truths and doctrines we find in the New Testament and faithfully incorporated in the Arminian-Wesleyan Theology of the Methodist church. We have yet to see or hear of a preacher getting happy and shouting in the pulpit, as he preached against these great facts and experiences laid down in the Word of God, and in the standards, writings of our Fathers. Nor have we ever heard of God granting a revival to any of these nineteenth and twentieth century stabbers of Divine Truth? They may have protracted meetings, a worked-up enthusiasm, and a number of accessions, but the supernatural is not beheld, and the Holy Spirit does not fall upon them and the people; there is no dreadful conviction for sin; and there is no tidal wave of salvation rolling upon sinners; and no sight of congregation and preacher with shining faces beholding the scene, full of joy and the Holy Ghost. If this New Theology and latter day way of presenting the Bible is right and ahead of the disciples and the Wesleys, why does it not get foremost in salvation, ands why does not Heaven open and pour itself out on such people and preaching! When we furthermore observe how the Spirit of God continues to honor men who preach the great doctrines we have mentioned, how conviction rests upon the congregation, how the altars are crowded with penitents and seekers, how souls leap with shining faces and glad cries and shouts into pardon and holiness, we cannot have and do not entertain a single doubt as to who has the Truth these days, who are in the divine order, and who are preaching the Word and declaring the whole counsel of God. Recently we were in a city holding a meeting on the old Gospel plan, while one of these Wise Men of the West, a pastor of a leading church, was at the same time preaching a series of sermons to his people. He at his end of the town, was belittling and slurring at the Bible. We, in another quarter of the community, were upholding and magnifying the Book. One evening he spent a whole hour ridiculing the history of the Deluge, the ark of Noah, and the story of Jonah. The same evening I exalted the sacred volume as much as he had slurred at and struck it; and the different results attending the two services would have convinced the most skeptical as to who had the truth, and on whose side was the Lord. We were told that after the man of Higher criticism was through with his assault on the Bible, not a soul was at the altar, not a tear was shed, not a sign of conviction or salvation was beheld, and not a single prayer even, was uttered. The assembly was dismissed from a service where God’s Word had not been honored but dishonored; and where faith had not been strengthened, but weakened and shaken to its center. That same night when we had exalted the Word of God (Deluge, Noah’s Ark, the history of Jonah and all), we beheld deep conviction throughout the whole service, felt the presence and power of God every moment, had the altar quickly filled with seekers for pardon and holiness, and after a regular storm of song, exhortation and prayer, we saw nearly twenty souls sweep with tears, shouts and happy laughter into the experience of justification and sanctification. Here was a difference indeed between the New and the Old Theology; between thought that was "advanced" clear out of and away from the Bible, and thought that was content to keep in the Scripture and clothe the expression of truth in language used not only by men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, but in words that fell from the lips of Divinity itself. A second Wise Man of the West, a great preacher and official in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, claimed to have received three distinct spiritual experiences, which he called Introductions to the Three Persons of the Trinity. He had first an introduction to the Son, subsequently one to the Father, and still later one to the Holy Spirit. Being a gifted man, and possessing a royal imagination, he made these epochs of his soul marvellous indeed. The Holiness movement had not yet swept through the South, so quite a number of the ministry and laity felt humble indeed as they heard this great orator talking about three different blessings, when they had been glad to get one. They did not stop to reflect that our great pulpit declaimer must have been quite a stranger indeed to God, or had a way of running from and forgetting Him, inasmuch as he required three introductions! After this the Holiness movement began to sweep things in the South, and behold our great preacher was indignant over our claiming a second work of grace! Just where the propriety of his displeasure, and the consistency of his conduct came in we failed to see, for according to his own count, he was still ahead of the Holiness people one step or notch; for they had secured only two blessings and he claimed three. After this, our much introduced friend and fellow servant, became so stirred up and wrathful over the Full Salvation movement, and did so persecute these who claimed the experience of sanctification, that it speedily became apparent to all that he had received another and Fourth Introduction, and this time it was to the Devil! A third Wise Man of the West, speaking before a Methodist college in the North, took occasion in his Baccalaureate address to score the Bible teachings of Depravity, and yet he had sworn he would stand by the doctrines of his church. But he had "advanced" his thought and was now clear out of his own church standards as well as the Bible itself. Moreover in his Western wisdom he failed to see how he was pulling redemption, and the whole Christian edifice down about his ears with a complete destruction. For it must be evident to the thoughtful that if there is no depravity, then there is no need of regeneration and sanctification. The Blood is useless, the Atonement a farce, the Tragedy of the Cross a piece of empty acting, and all the calls to repentance, faith, consecration, and holiness, preposterous and absurd. In fact, Heaven itself is lost as a finality to this Incredo of New Theology. For if, convinced that there is no sin nature, a man fails to come by humble faith to the Saviour for the redemption and transformation that is alone in Him, then heaven cannot be gained! The Bible plainly declares that without the divine supernatural birth of the Spirit, no man can enter the Kingdom of God. And without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Here is wisdom indeed that saws the limb off between the man and the tree, that throws a lighted candle into the cellar stored with gunpowder, that pulls out the pillars and sleepers of the building in which one lives, and calls it advanced Thought. Truly "if the foundations be destroyed" what will become of the superstructure of the Christian life? A fourth Wise Man of the West was lately laughing at the idea of depravity or inbred sin in children. The day before he had been attacking the doctrine of holiness in another quarter. He asked an old saint the question, "If both parents of a child are sanctified how can the child be born with inbred sin? How can you account for the badness of their offspring?" Evidently this philosopher of the west had forgotten his wisdom and argument of the preceding day, when he scoffed at a sin nature being in children. But the servant of God did not remind him of this inconsistency and contradiction, but simply replied, "If you express surprise at sin existing in the offspring of sanctified parents, how can you insist that the children of unconverted and unregenerated fathers and mothers are born pure and without sin"! This is a specimen of the wisdom of the Wise Men of the West, and it is only a very little of what we could tell about these Latter Day Lights, who have come up to Boston and Chicago (not Jerusalem), riding on hobby horses (not camels) and bringing (not gold and frankincense and myrrh), but tobacco, Free Masonry, old revamped heresies, a bloodless theosophy and a Christian Science falsely so called. We beg to be excused by our Advanced Thought brethren, but we prefer the Old Theology of the disciples and the Wesleys, to the New Theology of men who never see a conversion, and never had a revival in their lives. We prefer the Bible and Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection to the notorious antagonistic writings of certain men in Massachusetts, Nebraska and Alabama. We would rather go with the Wise Men of the East, who came to find and worship Jesus; than to follow the Wise Men of the West who have evidently, in their attacks on the Bible and Christianity, given the infant Moses over to Pharaoh to nurse, and surrendered the child Jesus to Herod. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.16. A PERFECT CONSECRATION ======================================================================== Chapter 16 A PERFECT CONSECRATION. We are confident that the explanation of much of the offence ostensibly aroused over the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, springs really from the announcement of the price necessary to be paid for its obtainment. A consecration that is confessedly defective, that allows certain mental reservations, is not fought by devils nor opposed or objected to by the church. It is the devotement of the whole man for all time that seems to arouse hell and earth. The adversary well knows that a partial or imperfect consecration will never bring the Baptism with the Holy Ghost upon the soul. So there are many revival meetings, so called, and consecration services so named that he has not the slightest uneasiness about. He knows what it costs to secure the goods, and that the price is not being paid at these popular gatherings, and so is not alarmed about the results of such meetings, smiles at the reports, and does not inaugurate an agency or movement to injure, retard or stop the largely attended, newspaper puffed, popular affair. The meeting that makes clear the price and way of obtaining holiness is one that disturbs, alarms and infuriates the devil. This is the service or series of services that he causes his servants and instruments to belittle, abuse, misrepresent, oppose, and if possible to break up. He knows that where a perfect consecration is made, the fire will fall, men and women will be sanctified wholly and a body of divinely empowered people literally hurled upon him, will put him on the run, keep him on the run, and shake his old rotten kingdom to pieces about his ears. It strikes the writer that no man is justified in denying the fact of such a blessing as holiness who has not met the conditions required for its obtainment. He is really in no place even to criticize. How can he say there are no such goods in the spiritual market, when he will not put the price on the counter. He is not only not allowed to handle the pearl of great price, but it is questionable whether a man sees the full beauty of the blessing until the whole cost has left his hands. It is the individual who is walking in the light, not standing, or worse still, backing out of the light, who gets the cleansing from "all sin" that John writes about. A perfect consecration is unspeakably ahead of the Epworth League, Christian Endeavor consecration, which is made with heart and life reservations, rendered at every monthly and annual gathering, and leaves the soul at last hurt, hardened and deadened in some kind of way as to put it beyond the call and reach of Full Salvation. A perfect consecration puts its hand on every moment of our time. It will not allow us to be devoted on the Sabbath and then careless, prayerless, unspiritual and even worldly on the week days. This commitment will not permit us after going to the prayer meeting Wednesday night, to fraternize in a lodge with all sorts of unbelievers on Thursday night. There are men who seem to be completely the Lord’s as Sunday school superintendents, but are just as plainly, worldly or business absorbed beings, all the other days of the week. Some persons belong to the Lord while in the church building, but in another tenement they are not his. That strange little creature called the Chameleon, which takes the color and hue of everything that it is resting upon, was made to give us a picture in a concrete shape of this variable brother. We heard the judgment once passed upon a preacher that when he was in the pulpit he should never come out of it, and when he was out of it, he never should go back into it. Here was Bro. Chameleon again, the imperfectly or partially consecrated Christian. The perfectly consecrated man is God’s man everywhere and anywhere; any time and all the time. Secondly, a perfect consecration lays its hand upon the purse. We do not believe it is possible to obtain and retain the blessing of holiness without having an understanding with God in regard to our income and property. Very many regenerated people, and even church members, give one-tenth of their income to God. But a perfect consecration goes deeper and farther than that and lays all material substance on the altar just as all time was given to God. This does not mean that a man literally sells out everything he has, or gives away all he owns, or turns his property over to a Dowie or one of Dowie’s little imitators. This last proceeding would destroy the individual stewardship which the Lord declares exists between each individual soul and himself. Every one must give an account for himself; not this man or that man for another; but each one must render an account of himself and his stewardship to God. Perfect Consecration lays every dollar on the altar with the full recognition that all belongs to God. That it is impossible to give the Lord one-tenth and then use the other nine-tenths in a way that Heaven cannot approve. In a high, holy sense all belongs to Christ and so must be used in a manner that He can smile upon and bless. Further still, that as everything belongs to God, if he should call for it, then all would be given up to him. Third, a perfect consecration brings the entire body to the Lord. His own Word bids us to present it to himself a living sacrifice. The impossibility of the holy fire falling, and the Spirit of God filling one who kept back a single member, hand, foot, eye or tongue, is evident to any thinker. Not only is a part of the price withheld, but it is manifest that any faculty or power which we refuse to devote to God is certain to be the cause of our moral undoing. On the principle that the gate in Jerusalem which was not closed on the Sabbath brought a world of trouble to that city and finally captivity in Babylon; so the member we refuse to give to God will inevitably bring us into spiritual calamity. Job said he "made a covenant with his eye" -- David did not. Willis Cooper failed to include his eyes and feet in his Epworth League consecration and was burned up in a theater in the city of Chicago. Perfect Consecration evidently presents the entire body a living sacrifice unto God, not only to spend and be spent in his service, but no matter what may be our walk, position and occupation in life, to live to his glory. Fourth, a perfect consecration means the yielding up to God, of the soul with its will, intellect, sensibilities and every one of its marvellous forces and powers. The fully dedicated body, indeed proves that the spirit is all right, for the soul goes along with its shrine or temple. But in the Bible we find the specific language, "My son, give me thy heart." The heart here stands for the soul, and God never calls a sinner a son. He is not a son by nature and can only become so by being born of the Spirit. The popular platform talk about the universal Fatherhood of God is simple rot. Christ himself said of a certain body of people, "Ye are of your father the devil." So it is the child of God who is asked to present his body a living sacrifice, and to give his heart in all its fullness and completeness to God. Finally a perfect consecration means the giving up of every tie and interest for the obtainment of Christ in the purifying, abiding, satisfying sense taught in the Bible. The Saviour said unless we left father, mother, lands, brethren and all for his sake, we were not worthy of him. He said "worthy of me." He did not say worthy of pardon, for pardon is not secured that way. The condition of salvation is repentance and faith, with not a word about consecration, for a sinner cannot consecrate. When the Saviour was speaking of one’s leaving all for his sake he was using the language of consecration, and laying down the price or condition of obtaining him as the perpetual indweller, a privilege which comes only with the blessing of entire sanctification. Let the reader review these five points of a perfect consecration, and he will be convinced of several things: First, that with such a complete devotement of self and life, there is no room or ground left for a "third blessing," so called. Second, that such a consecration cannot possibly be improved upon, and does not need to be repeated, but simply continued. This of course breaks up that view of consecration held by Epworth Leagues, Christian Endeavor Societies, Y. M. C. A.’s, and the whole Keswickian following. Third, when such consecrations are made, the church is deeply offended, is outspokenly indignant, and all hell itself is infuriated, and well it may be, for now something is going to happen! Fourth, when Christians do thus wholly and forever give themselves up to God in perfect consecration, something does happen! The holy fire falls from heaven; men and women are wholly sanctified; the Holy Ghost witnesses to the distinct work; a revival begins; and salvation free and full begins to roll like a tidal wave through the church and over the community. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.17. CHRIST - THE ALTAR ======================================================================== Chapter 17 CHRIST THE ALTAR. The book of Hebrews is a commentary on Leviticus. It reveals the gospel in the Old Testament, and shows Christ where many had not seen Him. It was also written to answer and end the boasting of the Jews over the early Christians. The former pointed to their stately Temple, and gorgeously attired priests, and multitudes of lambs and bleeding victims, and said in their pride, "See what we have, while you have nothing." The book of Hebrews is an overwhelming answer to that false claim and statement. The apostle shows that the Levitical economy, the mode of teaching truth then, was a kind of kindergarten way of instructing spiritual infants or children. That priests, lambs, altars, garments, ceremonies, cleansings, and so forth were but pictures and shadows of truths and experiences which now are known, possessed and enjoyed in a solid, substantial and abiding way. The antitype takes the place of the type. The shadow gives way to the substance, and the Christian with his living, glowing realities, is infinitely better off than the Jew in the midst of his symbols, no matter how grand, colossal and numerous these types may have been. So the argument of the apostle, and the Christian through him to the Jew, is this: "Have you a temple? So have we, for God has said we are His Temple! Your temple but symbolizes us. Did He not say to you what house will you build me, will I dwell in a house made of wood and stone? What house can confine me, when I inhabit the heavens? No! In that man will I dwell he that humbleth himself and trembleth at my word. For ye are God’s building. Ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost." Again he argues, Have you a priest? So have we! What if yours is taken from one of the tribes and clothed with glittering vestments. Our priest is one forever after the order of Melchisedek, without father or mother, or beginning or ending of days; Jesus Christ the righteous. Still again. Have you a lamb? So have we, one without blemish and without spot, Jesus, the Holy One of God. Your lamb was but a type of ours, and ours sent from Heaven sweeps infinitely ahead of yours taken from the flock and fold. And yet still another argument: "Have you an altar? So have we. "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle." Some preachers have asked us what right we had to claim Christ as our altar, and to say that as an altar He sanctifies us. Our reply has been that we say so for two reasons: First, it is stated by Scripture that "The altar sanctifies the gift," and, "Whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy." Truly it is seen at a glance that whatever sanctifies and makes holy cannot be an ordinary or earthly thing or person. It takes the divine being to make one holy. Now the altar in the Jewish economy was as prominent an object as the lamb or priest. What could it stand for? Surely not a Communion Table. This altar sanctifies everything or person upon it. Surely a Communion Table cannot do that. Are all people sanctified by touching a communion table? Paul says, "We have an altar," and then after a sentence which reads as a parenthesis he says, "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing his reproach." Truly we are finding today that, while we are made to see the Lamb and the Priest in the Temple, yet to come to the Altar which sanctifies we have to go outside the camp, and find reproach in doing so. Hear the word, "We have an altar; whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of these beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." Let the reader remember that the Old Testament says the Jew had an altar, and that Paul in the New Testament says the Christian has one. Let him also bear in mind that the Bible says that the Jewish altar sanctified and made holy. Will the Christian altar do less? But who can sanctify but God! So that the altar in both dispensations must refer to a divine being or work. Christ said that the altar sanctified the gift. Who can be that altar but Himself. Certainly the altar and the gift are different, for one sanctifies, and the other is sanctified, and the latter by the former. "For He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all one, wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren." Christ is evidently the altar according to Scripture. The second proof of this fact is seen in the demand of Redemption itself. There are three things which are imperative for our salvation. They must be. One is a priest, the second a victim, and the third an altar. Somebody has got to undertake our case and plead for us; some one must take our place and die for us to satisfy the law; and some one must sanctify us to get us fit for heaven. We need a priest to pray, a lamb to die, and an altar to sanctify. Who furnished these three things? Did Christ do a part, and some one else another? Did some great angel assist Him in this work of Redemption? If so, then we have more than one Saviour, or Christ is only a partial Saviour. There is no need to speculate here, for the Bible says, "He trod the wine press alone." He stood in the breach alone. There was no one with Him. Deliverance was laid on His shoulder. He was the Daysman, the only name given under heaven, the all in all we needed in salvation. Well, if Christ is all, and has done all, then He must be Priest, Lamb and Altar. There is no escape from this. Whether we make His human nature the lamb or victim that died, and the divine nature on which it was offered the altar of infinite merit; or whether we say the whole Christ was priest, lamb or altar according to the need of the soul approaching Him, still it remains that we can see Him as the Altar. There is no dispute today among the great body of God’s people about the Priesthood of Christ. Nor is there any question among Evangelical Christians that Christ is the Lamb of God who died for our sins. The remaining lesson to be learned is that Jesus is our sanctifying Altar. That if He is our Lamb, and Priest, then He ought to be our Altar. That if as our Priest He prays for us, and as our Lamb dies for us to meet the demands of the law, then as our Altar He should sanctify us. This blessed fact many thousands have learned, and many thousands more are learning, as full salvation is preached, and Holiness campmeetings multiply. Somehow God witnesses to the statements made that Christ is our Altar. We do not believe that if we said to a man, "The Communion Table sanctifies you wholly," that any one in his senses would believe it, or that the Holy Ghost would fall upon such a speech. But we have seen the Spirit fall, in marvelous and transforming power, upon many hundreds who have looked up and said, "I believe that Christ my Altar sanctifies me wholly now." One argument made by the opponent of the Altar truth is that the Jew brought his gift to the priest and he (the priest) laid the gift on the altar. This reasoning was made to overturn the thought that we laid ourselves on the altar. This is a mere quibbling over words. Why not object to the thought that we bring ourselves to the priest? In one sense it is absurd, and yet in another it is true. True it is that the priest laid the gift on the altar, but the gift had first been brought to him. So we bring ourselves to Christ, but Christ is the Altar as well as the Priest. We commit ourselves to Him, and through His grace and power we obtain what we seek. Without Him we can be nothing and do nothing. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.18. THE SUNRISE BLESSING ======================================================================== Chapter 18 THE SUNRISE BLESSING. The sentence above was written in reference to Jacob, after his Peniel experience. In a beautiful sense it was a part of the blessing, and in a most striking manner became a sign and seal of the grace which had come to the night long wrestler and day dawn victor. We are convinced that the sunrise feature of this scriptural occurrence belongs to sanctification as something inherent as well as declarative; and that it is felt not only in the ushering in of the glorious triumphant life, but something that should and does abide. That not only is there realized immediately an unspeakably glad light streaming into the soul and life; but each day seems to be a repetition of its bright predecessor, and so the sunrise remains as a fixture. We go down a road that has a perpetual morning on it. In a way known only to those to whom the sweet warm blessing has come, we enter upon a spiritual experience where the freshness, beauty, gladness and glory of the soul in its union and communion with the Lord, is like a continual new born day. We travel a way with a constant brightness on the road. It has no declining sun; it witnesses no eclipse and although the course may be long, rock strewn and often margin lined with perils and sorrows, yet it knows no sunset. Light is always on t he path, and it is always the radiance of a sunrise. We have known people who held unbrokenly to this charm and glory of holiness. We never met them but the sunrise look was on their faces; and every thing that belongs to that first hour of day in freshness, buoyancy and gladness, was theirs in the spiritual sense in all they said and did. Some others after years of continual victory have gotten somehow under a declining sun. The shadows are unmistakable. The eastern look has gone from the countenance. A west wind is in the air. A droop of spirit, a melancholy way of talking, a pessimistic view of holiness and the Gospel itself comes like the notes of the whippoorwill through the gathering gloaming. It is wonderful how hard it is to convince some of these glory stripped children of light that the charm and power of holiness is gone, when their sun is beheld in the western instead of the eastern sky. That orthodox experience, good sense, excellent methods, correctness of life and nothing else can take the place of that perpetual sunshine experience of the soul and that sunrise expression on the face, in its effect upon the hearts, minds and consciences of the outside world. In a world like this, of eclipses, cloudy days, black nights and frequent sunsets; the sight of a man with a constant gleam of peace, joy and victory in his spirit and on his countenance; with a holy gladness in his eyes, and the exultant note of moral triumph in his voice; this spectacle is evidently something so divine, so unearthly, so supernatural that logic and argument are powerless in its presence, opposition sinks down overcome by it, and a mighty yearning swells the breast of the beholder to enter upon a life and possess a blessing so manifestly sent down to the human race from another and better country. There are some avowedly walking the way of holiness who never knew this eastern glory. They took a will-o’-the-wisp of their own fancy for the Sun of Righteousness. Or some evangelist hung up a lantern and told the deluded soul it was a sunrise. Others followed moons that soon passed into the last quarter, and then the dark stage, and left them in a gloom deeper than they ever knew before. But there were others who really possessed the beautiful experience. Each day began with a sunrise. And there was one every hour. And the sun rose every minute. And a great light was in their faces; a deep gladness in their voices; and a mighty victory was in all their trials, temptations, labors, and battles. Every time we met them we saw the sun-flash on their foreheads, heard the bird song of a happy freedom in their throats, and knew a sweet, fresh, unbroken daytime was in their souls. Then there came a change in the position and altitude of the sun. It was low in the west. With others it went completely down. So that with all the substitute of the stars; and the lighting up the street with lamps; and the carrying around of lanterns; the fact could not be hid that night had come. Some of these shadowed ones are full of sadness over this condition: and so concerning them we are full of hope. They will watch for the morning, and on their sad but expectant eyes the day will break again. There are others who do not seem to realize that "their sun has gone down." They are counting the lamps on the streets, and using candles and some gasoline torches presented by a wandering evangelist. They seem to take more pleasure in the flash of a glow worm these days than in the sunrise glory of former years, and which came after a night spent in the tears of a life surrender and pleading, importunate supplication with God. This leads us to say that the Peniel Sunrise was no accident. It was the result of something said, suffered and done on the human side. When these things took place with Jacob, God told him he had prevailed, was a prince, and gave him a road with a sunrise at the end of it and along which highway he was to walk the rest of his days and indeed forever. In like manner the same price has to be paid today for such a wonderful experience and life. And as the original cost has to be kept paid down in order to retain the heavenly glory, so it is that we see not only why some so-called seekers have never obtained; but why others who did enjoy it have lost the blessing and perhaps forever. Never let it be forgotten that the heartsick Jacob sent everything he possessed and loved over the brook Peniel, while he remained alone on the western side. It takes everything we have to obtain the blessing of holiness. Like Jacob we must be left alone. Everything we own and everybody we hold most dear must be sent over the brook, put on the altar, or in a word yielded to God. The cattle, servants, business, the children, and finally Rachel must go. God is a jealous God. He must be all or nothing. He will not allow a rival of any kind. Rachel, or the person or thing which Rachel stands for, must go over the brook. The soul must be left first alone, and then find itself with God. As far as we can understand the passage of Scripture describing the wonderful scene, the Lord made no appearance, and no wrestling spirit of prayer commenced until Jacob was alone. This ought to throw light on some beshadowed, gloomy cases today. They wonder why the burden, or agonizing spirit of prayer for the blessing does not come upon them. The answer is that they are not yet solitary. They are holding on to somebody or something. The soul must come into an experience of isolation and loneliness before the divine wrestler appears, and that real prayer begins which is to mean so much for the individual and so much to many more in the years that are to follow. The sunrise blessing, replete with sweet compensation for every earthly loss; full of an indescribable reward and glory, comes naturally and properly to one who has given up everything to God. But as it is only bestowed on one who has sent his all over the brook; what folly to look for such a pearl when we have not laid down the price; when not only God, but even men can see that we are not left alone on the brookside. Something, or someone, is still with us. The business has not been forsaken or consecrated. The troubles have not been committed to God. The enemies have not been left with heaven. The children are not laid on the altar. Rachel is still by the side and ruling in the heart and life. And yet with all this withheld from God there are people who want the same sunrise to come upon them, that came upon a man who sent everything he had over the brook, prayed all night, and weeping in the cold, cheerless dawn, said to God, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." The sunrise experience is a glorious one. It is better far than all that which time, money and men can give. It keeps the heart from breaking when the suns of earth set, moons pale, stars vanish, and the lamps and candles lit by human hands are extinguished. But it cannot be obtained for a song or for a trifle. An imperfect consecration cannot get in sight of it. All we have has to go over the brook. And we must be left alone. Then ascends the prevailing prayer! Then comes the divine testimony that we have conquered, and are princes! And then a sun rises to light the newmade prince upon his way to fields of duty, to a throne of glory, and to the home of his Father in heaven. After crossing Peniel. men who have received the blessing of holiness seem to hold former loves and possessions with a new kind of tenure, pleasing and acceptable to God. They are given repossession of many things, under a greater light, a sweeter affection, and with God as supreme over everything and all the time. If this heavenly life should be broken, and the business or idols get back and uppermost again; if in a word, the Lord is made second in place in the heart, mind and life by anything or anyone; then the sunrise glory at once departs! Moreover, everybody can see it is gone. The word Ichabod is on the wall. The following view will now be placed before every thoughtful observer, viz., one class of people camping on the east side of Peniel with their sun on the west side. Others on the west side with their sun gone down entirely. Still others groping their distant way under the stars. Others still lighting their lamps at home. And still others borrowing candles from individuals met in the many meetings which they restlessly and feverishly frequent. Listen how they knock and call! Our sun has gone down! Who will give us light? Who will direct and lead us from our sunset and midnight, to the glorious sunrise we saw and felt and knew in other days? The only reply to be given is, that the same price paid to secure in the first instance is necessary to recover the blessing when it is lost. Everything has to be sent over the brook again. The business must be made secondary and tributary. The idol must be dethroned. The midnight wrestle and lonely struggle must be resumed. The weeping words must be spoken to God, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me!" When lo! the brook is crossed by the supplicator himself; the oldtime glory is restored; the former power is back; perfect love once more swells and overflows the heart, and the prince turns with a smile to walk a road that he notices with a tender thrilling joy, has a beautiful golden sunrise at the end. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.19. RELIGIOUS SINGING ======================================================================== Chapter 19 RELIGIOUS SINGING. Every one is agreed as to the power of song. And yet it would be hard to analyze the strange, strong influence it produces on mind and heart. It is indeed remarkable how the human voice, when thrown from conversation into another kind of intonation, a versified, melodized utterance, that instantly, every auditor in hall or church feels differently and acts differently. New sets of emotions seem to be stirred, thought moves on a higher plane, visions of a purer, nobler life in the future or past fill the mind and swell the soul, and a better man exists for a few moments if not for all time. National hymns and anthems wonderfully mold and shape a country’s character and history. During royal reigns in France the Marseillaise is not allowed to be sung. It seems able to produce a revolution with a single rendition. We question whether any man can hear the Songs of his Homeland in a foreign country without being profoundly moved. In addition to the national anthem there is a variety of melodies bearing on friendship, love and the home life, all of which contribute their influence in the formation of individual character, and, heard in after years, can never be listened to without emotion. The mother of the writer had cradle songs, and hymns we have heard her sing in the evening by the fireside, which wrought abiding impressions for good on the hearts and lives of her children. Then there were the cottonfield chants sung by the negroes at their work, and the wild, weird melodies rendered by the colored deck hands of the steamboats on the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, that once heard left an everlasting effect upon the mind. Any kind of music seems to attract the human family, the hand organ on the street, the soldier’s love ditty in the camp, the strumming guitar amid the moonlit trees, the flute from over the water, and the improvised quartette on the big liner in midocean. We remember once how two gentlemen singing at a piano in the saloon of a steamer on the Mediterranean brought almost every passenger into the room, while officers of the ship hung around the door, and sailor faces lined the transoms. It was a study to watch the countenances of this silent and cosmopolitan audience. The skins were of every color, white, yellow, red, brown and black, and yet all had the same expression of deep, unaffected interest. The heart was asserting itself. The soul was touched. A common humanity was present. David spoke of "songs in the night," and at once a troop of recollections comes to us all of beautiful hours and experiences gone by, through the power of these single four words. He had doubtless listened to music in the night time as we have, and been affected as we were. Numerous have been the times that we have gone to our hotel window and listened to students singing as they went back to college, until the last voice died away on the night air. Repeatedly we have stood on the wharf in Vicksburg and seen one of our mammoth palatial steamboats at the hour of sunset swing out into the mile wide Mississippi, turn her head southward towards New Orleans, and gradually disappear around the distant bend with fifty deck hands chanting one of these primitive, blood-tingling, eye-filling river songs which remains ever after a beautiful and strangely sorrowful memory. As the weird strains died out along the shadowy shores, and down the misty stream, we have turned back into the city and, as we walked upon the streets felt the emptiness of the world, the unsatisfactoriness of this life, with such a longing for a happier world and a better life, that at times we thought the heart would fairly break. It is not to be wondered at, that God has laid his hand on music and made it one of his mighty factors and instruments for the spread of the Gospel. The Old Testament has a good deal to say about the song side of salvation, and speaks of the "singers," and also "the harps with a solemn sound." In the New Testament we read that Jesus sang with his disciples. The words of that hymn can doubtless be traced back, but how we would love to know the melody. Paul and Silas sang at midnight in prison, and found a comfort in it, while the jailer and prisoners realized a conviction, that perhaps could not have been felt or produced at that time by any other means of grace. Song seems to be one of the wings of the flying angel of Truth. And so when God sent the preacher John Wesley to bless the world, he dispatched with him the singer Charles Wesley, to bless it even more. The same Holy Spirit, in calling Moody to the work, put Sankey by his side. And when he commissioned Whittle he joined Bliss with him. And so on to this day, after the preacher prays, the people sing; and when the sermon is ended the congregation sings again. While after the selection of an evangelist is made, the next question is who shall assist him by leading in song? As we are creatures of manifold powers and sensibilities; as we are indeed in a creative sense harps of a thousand strings, it is needful that our hymns and spiritual songs should cover the whole range of spiritual feeling. We did not say of sentiment. We are speaking of the moral and spiritual realm and what properly belongs to that, in a pure elevating, comforting, inspiring, heart-revealing, Christ manifesting, God elevating collection of words and melody. We believe that songs which refer to broken domestic ties, and appeal to the natural affections have no rightful place in a true hymnology. They make the people weep, but such tears are not these that God wants, and that the Word of God properly preached or incarnated in hymn is intended and able to produce. Moreover, the hymns which deserve the name should have a variety of verbal expression as well as melody, in order to meet every one of the moods and tenses, every inward state and condition, every loss and possession, every hope and despair, and every privilege and danger of this most wonderful creation of God, a human soul. Men need to be awed with anthems of the greatness and grandeur of God; horror stricken with minor chord productions about the world of the lost; awakened from slumber by trumpet-like sounds of the Judgment; as well as comforted in sorrow, strengthened in trial and temptation, and stimulated to do and endure for the holy cause of heaven. A hymn with doggered lines or wretched poetry ought not to be allowed in a respectable hymnbook. Neither should be tolerated old love songs like "Annie Laurie," "Belle of the Mohawk Vale," and many others that have sipped off their everyday garments, put on Sunday clothes as to sacred words, and now try to pass themselves off for saints or angels. There are some of our modern day pieces that are so full of associations of early days and serenading nights, that the mood produced is anything but devotional and religious when they are sung. The words, "Let us go courting," would be eminently more fitting as a conclusion from the pulpit, than the sentence, "Let us pray." However, we must confess that after one of these hymns we are glad to hear somebody say, "Let us pray." We feel the need of it -- not only on behalf of the robbed and wronged congregation, but for the singers themselves. Yes, indeed -- let us pray after some of the jigs, waltzes, quicksteps, love songs and regular negro cabin breakdowns, misnamed hymns, we have heard in Sunday schools, churches, protracted meetings, and even on holiness camp grounds. How few of the popular gospel meeting hymn books of the day are marked with any broadness as to the great subjects and doctrines of the Bible. Let the reader look at the departments of Wesley’s hymn books, and the narrow jollification line of the Issues of today. With some there is not a single solemn opening piece of the Being and attributes of God. Not a solitary hymn about hell, and none on the Day of Judgment, as described in the Bible, and as sung by Watts, and John and Charles Wesley. The song books that appeal to the vitiated taste today are mainly on the "Old Black Joe," "Jollification Jump," "Moonlight on the Mother’s Grave," and "Mother’s Boy" line. People think these are religious hymns, when they are not on spiritual and supernatural planes, but in the domestic and natural realms. Then, as we read the wretched doggerel lines claiming to be poetry, in some published hymn books, and contrast them with the pure, chaste, refined, elevated, inspired as well as rhythmic verses of John and Charles Wesley, of Watts and Newton, of Faber and Moore, we confess to a sickness of heart and a nausea elsewhere, and a conviction irresistible, that difficulty of hearing, yes, stone deafness, would not be an umixed evil under certain circumstances. The mother of the writer informed us when we were a boy, that the reading of a hymn by a Methodist preacher, his solemn lining it out to the congregation, and the deeply impressive melody to which it was sing made a lifetime impression upon her. The music was "Windham;" the words ran Shall I for fear of feeble man, The Spirit’s course in me restrain? Or undismayed by deed and word, Be a true witness for my Lord! Shall I to soothe the unholy throng Soften my speech or smooth my tongue; To gain earth’s gilded toys or flee The cross endured, my Lord, by Thee! What then is he whose face I dread, Whose wrath or scorn make me afraid? A man? An heir of death! A slave To sin! -- A bubble on the wave! Yea, let men rage since thou wilt spread Thy shadowing wings around my head, Since in all time thy tender love Will still my sure protection prove. She said that the preacher dwelt in a most effective way upon the last three words of the second and fourth lines in the first two stanzas. That his noble bearing and fine scorn as he read the third verse was indescribable. While the exultation in the fourth came like an inspiration. She pictured the man’s solemnity, dignity, unctious delivery and unmistakable moral superiority, speaking like one who had just come from the presence of God; the singing by many voices of the great hymn to the Heaven inspired melody of Windham; and she had the writer as much moved as the people had been in that faraway day of her girlhood. To hear of such things, and then in these latter days, see a man in a short bobtail sack coat kick up his heels and go to singing "On Monday I am happy, On Tuesday I am gay -- "etc., etc., makes us yearn with a great longing for the return to our midst of some beautiful things that have faded and fled away. We conclude while in this mood with the words of David: "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High. To shew forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.20. THE DIVINE MONOPOLY ======================================================================== 20 THE DIVINE MONOPOLY. The meaning of the expression above is not intended to cover the individual and body of people who in different ways try to capture and possess the divine being, and by opinion, speech or creed warn all others off from their fancied possession. Of course this caption could be made to represent these personages, and they are recognized with hardly an introduction needed. A religious denomination announcing themselves to be "Christians," "The Church of God" and "The Israel of God," have attempted a divine monopoly in their ecclesiastical name or designation. It may not have been intended by them, and no arrogant, excluding spirit may have filled them when they selected the usurping title; but it is evident to the thoughtful that all such appellations are virtual slaps in the face of every other branch of the Christian church. If a religious paper should call itself "God’s Witness and Advocate of Bible Holiness," the legitimate inference would be that it was not only God’s special organ, but God’s only organ in the world for teaching and spreading holiness. All other papers by this title would be but imitators, and standing in secondary and remote degrees from the Throne. The name would not only be an impertinence, but a direct insult to all other holiness papers published. It would be an attempted Divine monopoly. This mistaken and reprehensible practice is seen in the use of the words "My Christ" and "Father" by individuals in testimony meetings and in the pulpit. Good taste alone, aside from considering the common rights of the church and mankind, should deliver a person from this piece of arrogance and impertinence. The Bible teaches us that Christ died for all and lives for all. That God loves the world. That he has no partiality. And the Saviour told us that in addressing the First Person in the Trinity we should say "Our Father." We once received a letter from a young lady who wrote, "Father has told me I must do so and so," and "Father has directed me to come out of the church," etc., etc. At first I judged she was speaking of her earthly parent, when to our amazement we discovered, as we read farther on, that she was referring to God. The shock of this first experience we have never forgotten. We did not reply to the party, as we felt the case was hopeless. But since then we have heard the expression again and again sounded in the pulpit -- generally by young evangelists -- hardly ever by pastors, or by men of ripened years. The term used is so flippant, breathes such unwarranted familiarity with the Almighty, contains such an evidently boastful spirit, and such a disregard of the equal rights of redeemed humanity, that its every enunciation sends a dagger like pain to the soul, and a great sorrow over the spirit. We know of but One who, as God’s only begotten Son, has the right to speak to and of the Divine First Person in this way. In private the soul may properly address the Lord after this manner; but in public it is an ecclesiastical impertinence and a religious atrocity. But the Divine monopoly to which we allude in the caption of this chapter refers not to our attempted capture of the Almighty, but to his appropriation and possession of us. He has a right to do this, and so indicates his will and moves upon us accordingly. He would be everything to us in demanding all from us. Most people would not have God in the life at all. Many of his followers would possess him in a restricted sense. They would use him very much as they do the carpenter, tradesman, physician, dentist, butcher, baker and all the different vendors and employes of life. Just as they would call in the lawyer to prepare a legal paper, give advice and bow him out of door and recollection. And even as they would call on a surgeon to bind a broken joint and dismiss him with restoration of strength and health; so they would have the Lord look in on them a couple of hours on Sunday; comfort them in a day of sorrow; but after that take himself out of sight and thought until needed and summoned again. We verily believe that there are many people who only regard Christ in this light, to be called up and looked to when death enters the house. Then he is expected to console, and do it well. After that he should retire until by another bereavement he is wanted once more. This treatment of the Saviour puts him very much on the line and plane of a bottle of liniment or toothache drops to be used when needed, and set aside on the mantel or in the closet and be forgotten unless the pain returns. God will never submit to such dishonor and degradation. He will be all or nothing. And he will have us all the time, or not at all. One of the reasons that the Lord has likened himself to almost everything that has value and beauty in it, and to every one that comes with benefit and blessing to the human race, is to give birth to the thought and establish the fact of the Divine Monopoly Claim. We find that God is compared to wind, fire, heat, light, water, bread, wine, certain fruits and flowers, to a sun, star, day dawn, a door, wall, tower, city, and life itself. Then he has introduced himself in his relations to and helps to the soul as Friend, Lawyer, Physician, Judge, Exemplar, Adviser, Comforter, Teacher, Rewarder, Guide, Captain, King, Ruler, Tradesman, Potter, Lapidary, Father, Brother, Husband, Bridegroom, and in other terms and by still other figures too numerous to mention. The significance in all this is that God can be and is all things to us. The legitimate and certain conclusion from the above fact is that as such he can monopolize us, and that easily, and do it to our highest good as well as perfect happiness. If any one will glance at the offices of a number of the living figures used, he will see that each one necessarily takes quite a portion of time out of one’s life: whether it be lawyer, physician, friend, tradesman, guide, teacher, ruler or any one of the personages and positions mentioned. But notice that God announces he is all of them! This means of course, then, that he has us all the time, and altogether, and we are brought face to face with the Divine Monopoly. Can any one see a monopoly that injures here, where the Lord is the best of counsellors, guides, guards and friends? Men have been writing much of late years about the "simple life," but it seems that we have it here in its reality and perfection. And certainly it is the restful and undisturbed life. For if we make God everything to us; if we go to him for all things and at all times, the defections and desertions of men will not affect us, nor afflict us, nor change our course, nor stop our progress in duty and for heaven one single moment of time. God’s Monopoly will have destroyed the power of the corporations and combinations of men. It is a study to watch the agitations, perturbations and fluctuations of individuals who shape their lives to avoid the stonings of the public and win instead the oxen sacrifices all entwined with garlands and ropes of roses. If the flowers appear, their heaven has come and they are radiant, hopeful and joyous. If the rocks begin to patter around and wounds are felt, the fret, worry, trouble and despair of the human target is something comical as well as pitiful to see. They trusted God only in the springtime of the year. They were strong in faith and hope only when men were throwing bouquets at them. When the winter of human discontent and disfavor came, they did not know God as a Fire to keep them warm, or as a Sun to bring forth fairer flowers than ever waved in an earthly atmosphere or struck root in the soil of this old world. When men rained stones upon them, they knew not God as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land, as a shelter in the time of storm, and as a wall of protection, a strong tower of refuge, and an all encompassing shield, so that the pestilence that walketh by night and the arrow that flieth by day, and the strife of tongues and the wrath of man would all alike fail to reach the object of human and Satanic hatred. But the man who lets God have him wholly and all the time, knows the perfect peace and security of which we write. A thousand fall at his side, and ten thousand at his right hand; but the calamities mentioned in the Holy Book do not come nigh unto him. "He shall call upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and shew him my salvation." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.21. CELESTIAL PROPERTY ======================================================================== Chapter 21 CELESTIAL PROPERTY. Elsewhere we have written about the wisdom, duty and practicability of laying up treasure in heaven. In the present chapter we desire to dwell upon the nature or character of that property which we are told can be laid up in the skies for our present, future and everlasting enrichment. It is quite remarkable that while there are no lines of communication between this world and the heavenly land similar to those that bridge and bring together the nations and continents of the globe on which we dwell, yet there is communication of the most unmistakable kind; and there is transportation of spirit; and a remarkable transportation of things counted most valuable on earth, into forms of greatly increased value in heaven. There are bills of exchange, and letters of credit well known in the business world, which look to the uninitiated like so many worthless pieces of printed paper; but when these same unimposing appearing documents are presented in far distant foreign countries at great banks and commercial houses, they cause a perfect stream of gold to be poured from the cashier’s into the presenter’s hands. After one sight or hint of this business method among men, the thought of transfer of property from earth to heaven by the child of God ought not to strike the mind with amazement, but with the glad recognition of such a possibility. God is ready to do a most profitable business with the soul. He has the strongest of banks, the largest of clearing houses, and the safest of agencies in the reception of what we entrust and deposit with him, and in the transfer of all such values to heaven, where they will await our presence and check, in sums and amounts tremendously added to by the interest and dividends declared in the kingdom of glory. One thing we can lay up in heaven is money. One would think from the grudging gifts of many of God’s people, the way that many contributions to the cause of the gospel have to be begged, surprised and literally wrenched out of others, that the general idea is that all such money given is value lost; when the fact is that the only part of our earthly treasure in gold and silver and bank notes which is saved from a burning world and the wreck and ruin of time is that portion which we gave to heaven. This very truth was brought out by the Saviour in the parable of the unjust steward. Very many have been the expository and explanatory struggles of scholars, commentators and preachers over this remarkable passage of Scripture, but nearly all we ever heard or read agree that one teaching of these words of our Lord is, that we can so use our money here on earth as that it will receive us in everlasting habitations in heaven in the sense of reward and exaltation. In other words, God makes the moneyed sacrifices of his people to meet and greet and bless them in the skies, in forms of such increased spiritual wealth, as no bill of exchange could ever secure, and no bank of this world ever dream of presenting to any applicant. As we have contemplated the stinginess of many professed Christians, and thought, suppose the pavement before each mansion, and the crown on each head in heaven was made out of the moneyed gifts people made to the cause of Christ on earth -- then how many heads would have coronets of copper, and how many heavenly homes would have no golden street before it, but a mud puddle instead. It would be a good idea to ship enough property through the exchange of heaven to secure a crown of twenty-four carats of the noblest of metals, and a front walk of gold that will look a little larger than a pocket handkerchief, or better still, attain at least the proportions of a parlor rug. But some one replies, what if a person is poor in this world’s goods, what has he got that will begin to do what is suggested. Our answer is that all such cases are most happily covered in the history of the woman whom Christ saw throw two mites of copper in the treasury. They were worth about a farthing or so of English money, but it was all she had on earth. The Saviour declared she had given all she owned. Hence the gift of the woman outranked that of others made that day; for they, said Christ, cast in of their abundance, but she threw in everything that she possessed. What a wonderful investment that lonely poverty stricken worshiper made that day. What an overwhelming interest it has paid into the kingdom of Christ on earth. How innumerable have been similar investments which this act has brought forth. What coupons of grace, and dividends of blessing have been attached to or flowed from the little deposit of that morning. What royal estates and possessions of happiness, blessedness and glory have already rolled upon, and will continue to come upon that woman in heaven for the gift she made to God in the deepest poverty, giving all she had, and dreaming not that anyone beheld or knew of the act. As for her crown -- when we see it, men will think that the output of an hundred rich mines was somehow wrought in it. As for the golden pavement in front of her door, it will be a thousand feet deep, run up and down the street a mile or so, sheathe her side alley and back yard, and have blocks enough piled up in her warehouse to contribute handsome fronts to the mansions of a whole denomination of rich and stingy Christians who used to give a mere trifle out of their abundance, and called it in their consummate meanness and profound ignorance, "The Widow’s Mite." It is perfectly amazing to see how many who claim to give the contribution of the poor widow, overlook the fact that she gave her ALL to God. A second piece of earthly property we can lay up in heaven is our prayers. We are told that they are bottled, up there. Here is not only a transfer of value, but an unmistakable teaching of a gathered and preserved influence in heaven, which God uses in and for his Kingdom’s victory and advancement on earth. Not only is the petitioner made better by the supplications he offers for others, but in some way the vessels in which they are preserved are uncorked, and the prayer heard and kept in the skies is turned back again on the world and accomplishes wonders of grace through the blessing of the Almighty to whom they were addressed. A third piece of property in heaven is our good works. By a strange kind of transmutation, or by a transference of values not the less remarkable, the words and deeds spoken and lived for Christ and humanity are found again in the Kingdom of Glory awaiting us in diversified forms of incalculable spiritual wealth. Christ speaks of a cup of cold water given in his name on earth, meeting us in the city of God in the changed form of a blessed reward. Labor in his service shall be re-beheld in the shining of the resurrected body, and souls saved shall be numbered like glittering stars in a crown. Suffering for Christ’s sake shall be recompensed with a throne, and differing degrees of faithfulness to him shall be recognized by diverse and graded degrees of glory as one star is seen to surpass another in the heavens. Very strict and faithful account is kept in the upper world of the good works, and the various classes of such labors rendered by the godly in the name of the Lord Jesus. He numbers them off at the Day of Judgment, saying, "You fed me," "You gave me drink," "You clothed me," "You entertained me as a stranger," "You visited me when I was sick," "And I was in prison and you came unto me." Nothing that we are doing for him is unobserved or overlooked, and not a single deed shall be unrewarded in the skies. Hence the more we accomplish for him the better for mankind, and the better for our own souls even in time. But in addition it is equally true that the more we abound in the work of the Lord the greater treasure we are laying up in heaven, and the vaster the spiritual fortune that will be there to astonish and delight us on our arrival. It is said of a certain queen in Europe that she gave two exceedingly valuable pearls to be sold in order to found an institution of mercy for poor and undone women. That once sitting by the side of one of the dying inmates, the sufferer gasped out with her last breath, "But for your goodness and kindness I would not have had this bed on which to die, nor heard of my Saviour," bent forward, kissed the hand of the queen, left two great tears glistening upon it, and fell upon the pillow dead. It is said of the queen that looking at the tears shining on the back of her hand, and then gazing upward, she said softly and reverently, "My Saviour, thou hast already sent back to me my two pearls and they are so much more beautiful than those I gave to Thee." It was a beautiful thought and a true one as well. But this, according to the Bible, is not all of the reward. The big pay day is to come. The cashing of the letter of credit is yet to take place. The full fortune is to be turned over to us in the New Jerusalem. It is true that even in this life, according to the Bible, God pays his children back in the very lines they gave to him -- but it is careful always to state that a crown is laid up against "that day"; and that in the world to come we will have exceeding and abundant weights of glory, as well as life everlasting. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.22. DISAPPOINTMENT ======================================================================== Chapter 22 DISAPPOINTMENT. It would be difficult to define the word disappointment in a way to meet the approval of the heart. After all the head agreed to as to correctness of definition, the literal rendering of the word, yet no term nor sentence of explanation could bring out the pangs felt by the inner nature when the suffering indicated by the expression took place. We regard it as constituting a necessary experience even though its pangs are bitter in the extreme, and continue long years in their melancholy abiding. It is as important to be undeceived about persons and things, about conditions and circumstances, as to be taught in even more positive ways in other lines. The bright, eager anticipation of young people, contrasted with the thoughtful, sober, sad, unexpectant look of these who are older and have become wiser, is one of the features of human life that is certain to strike the beholder. Artists tell us that lines intended to represent mirth and gladness are made with upward strokes. In sorrow the marks are reversed and are drawn downward. To observe these strange revealing symbols, these drooping facial signs that constitute some of the letters of a great heart and life language is a study for the curious and a most pathetic occupation for the lover and well wisher of his race. We are placed here in this world to learn. Knowledge of every kind is certain to come where we are both peculiarly situated and most faithfully presided over. Some lessons we could doubtless get along very well without. Some teaching is essential. A good deal of our information came through processes that were simply heartbreaking, though afterwards it was heartmaking, if the idea involved in the term will be considered. Strange to say that nearly all learning is attended with pain. There are lessons that in their mastery we felt soul and body would part. The obtainment of still other knowledge left us stricken, stunned, and all but hopeless as we saw the sun go down at midday with no prospect apparently of ever rising again. But the ivy grew over the life ruin. There came strange, sweet resurrections from the tomb we had built. And another Sun rose upon us bringing healing in his wings, and under whose gentle, penetrating, revealing light we learned more precious, heart comforting, life delivering and character-exalting truths than could ever be acquired under the natural sun, or all the illuminations of candle, lamp, arc light and burner falling on manuscript and book, and streaming over desk, platform and pulpit itself. Bereavement, loss and disappointment under the blessing of God prove to be three of our greatest earthly teachers; and the greatest of these three is Disappointment. Indeed, it is evident that the two first named are but different forms of the last. So all hail to Disappointment. There is a disappointment which comes to us in early life, relative to things that surrounded us, and that seemed what really they were not. A quicksand appears to be as firm and solid looking as any other body of sand, but it is not. It is necessary to discover this for the sake of our own preservation. Then we found that the most gorgeous flowers did not possess the sweetest odors; while some humble looking plants fairly loaded the atmosphere with their fragrance. Then what a surprise, not to say mental shock, we experienced as children when, after gazing with admiration at the brilliant plumage of the peacock, we a little later heard his voice. All these happenings were preparations for, as well as illustrations of, deeper discoveries yet to be made. Second, there was a disappointment in what outwardly seemed to be caskets full of treasure, fairy bowers of enjoyment, and El Dorados of happiness. There was the first outing, the first ball, and all the other new untried experiences of the social life. But at the close of the long day; at the end of the night with its giddy whirl, hot air and empty nothings; how differently the disordered room and faded arbor looked! There was another set of experiences set up in the mind, and some opinions formed very different from what had been entertained beforehand. There had been some pleasure -- but, alas! how much pain. Darkness was falling on some places that once seemed light; and light was streaming where formerly there had been great darkness. We found out that all is not gold that glitters; that some things, like Christmas trees, cannot bear fruit, although confections may be tied on to the branches for a brief while. All these discoveries were hints and prophecies of what lay up for the life explorer and traveler in the far away misty years of the future; and so much alike was the disenchantment that we could use the first party picnic, dance, and theater, with its flimsy scenery and painted people, as exact illustrations. Third, there is a disappointment created through the false promises of the great adversary. Life is not what he whispered it would be in his service. Sin is not the satisfying experience he insisted it was. He was careful to say nothing about the worm buried in the lovely, luscious fruit. He made no reference to the thorn which grew under the rose. And was studious to hide the serpent coiled up under the shadow of a honeysuckle arbor. So through his falsehoods we ran after the rainbow, but did not find the bag of gold at either end. We took Will o’ the Wisps to be Stars of Bethlehem. And firmly believed for years we could sow wild oats and reap wheat; could plant brambles and then gather from them in after life, handfuls of roses and baskets of pomegranates. Certainly it is well to be taught right on these lines, and here is where we can behold Disappointment doing us a world of good. A fourth disappointment is realized in ourselves. We do not know what right we had in starting life, to indulge in such day dreams as we all cherished. Pinnacles of fame were ascended; in our conceit we were smarter than anybody; outshone everybody; and in imagination got elected to the highest offices in church and State, and had everybody bowing and bending to us because of our fancied gifts, superior wisdom and superlative excellency is everything. Time is a marvellous revealer, ideal breaker and general convincer. We did not get elected, not even to the office of a constable. No one dreamed of making us a bishop or putting us at the head of the nation. By some remarkable oversight, as we once thought, our presence was not desired, our counsel asked, our influence solicited in times and at places we felt assured we were the only person who could deliver the community, church or country. Well! It is about over with most of us now; and we are content to be plain, ordinarily gifted people; to be a glow worm by the side of a country fence, a tin lantern in a barn, instead of a Bartholdi Statue towering in a world’s harbor and flashing electric light far out to sea. The relief is great to ourselves, and exceedingly so to the people around us. We reread the parable of the frog and the ox and begin to take warning in time. Better still, we fix our eyes afresh on that lowly seat Jesus spoke about and learn the secret of happiness in the same place where Mary was taught, and hear the same voice saying to us that the good gift which we have chosen shall never be taken away from us. Then there is a disappointment in our character as well as in our fancied abilities. We have not been as courageous at times as we should; nor as sweet under provocation; nor as silent under injury and wrong. Sometimes it would have been better, had we spoken out for the truth, and then there were seasons when we should have been still and left the vindication of ourselves and the truth with God. Christ did both, and never erred. Somehow we got things mixed. So we handled flashing swords and were quite free in the amputation of ears we never made. It kept the Saviour busy, especially in our earlier religious life, in healing people we had wounded in our efforts to instruct and save. As the sun draws near the western horizon of life; and the White Judgment Throne gets near, we find the boast going out of us as we review our past labors and battles, while the Blood of Jesus Christ becomes our sovereign comfort, heart stay, lip plea and life victory. So it is that our disappointment in self leads us to higher views of Christ, and better lives for ourselves. Therefore we thank God, take fresh courage, and push on to the skies. A fifth disappointment is in people whom we loved, trusted and leaned upon. It is clear that it takes these very affections and devotions to create the pang now alluded to. For where we have not loved nor trusted there can hardly be a falling away from us, nor the suffering experienced through having been forsaken and betrayed. We question whether there is a keener agony in our earthly life than this. The Saviour felt it and left the expression of this sorrow in language never to be forgotten. David suffered in this sad part of human history. It was his familiar friend, Ahithophel, who lifted up his voice, hand and heel against him. He said he could have endured the wrong and injury itself better, but for the fact that a friend had done it. The coldness of an oldtime friend hurts peculiarly. The stab of Pompey’s dagger goes deeper than the sword of strangers and avowed enemies. The betrayal of a trust; the violation of a promise; the disregard of an obligation; the leaving our side in time of toil, sickness and trouble to join the ranks of our enemies against us, makes epochal days with us; so that we feel that we do not strain the truth when we call them our Gethsemanes, Gabbathas and Golgothas. Some people sour and go down under these fearful trials. But there are others who, after the life wound, look up with streaming eyes and blood dripping heart to Him on the cross who trod the same lonely, bitter way, and take a new and better hold on life, because of a sweeter and truer conception and realization of existence. Well indeed, has this Disappointment served us, if in the trouble it brings, it at last finds us closer to Christ, and fastens our gaze on Him rather than people, even though these people are our own friends. We say in conclusion that there is one disappointment which never comes to us. That is, we are never mistreated or ill treated by the Saviour. "He will not forsake thee though all else should flee." He will never break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. He will not give us over to the will of our enemies, much less join their ranks against us. He will not fail us He has never deceived us and never will. He has never broken a single promise made to us, and never will. In all the history of Time he has never turned a soul away that came unto him. "March on, then, right boldly; The sea shall divide. And this be the token. No word he hath spoken. Was ever yet broken,. ’The Lord will provide." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 01.23. DIFFERENCE IN HEARING ======================================================================== Chapter 23 DIFFERENCE IN HEARING. We read that on a certain day in the life of Christ on earth, God the Father spoke from the heavens to Him, saying, "This is my beloved Son; hear ye Him." This voice brought the remarkable fact to light that there were four kinds of ears, as some would say, or classes of hearers, as others would express it, in this crowd over which the sentence from Heaven sounded. One class, truly speaking, were no hearers at all. They were so deeply engaged in attending to earthly things, or were in such a soul deadened condition, that not a single word spoken by the Almighty just over their heads was recognized by them. God had made these same hearing faculties, but sin and disobedience and fleshly mindedness had closed up the receptive organs of sound, and on the principle that the eyes of fish in the Mammoth Cave went out in the darkness; so the ears of moral beings from long inattention to the voice of God, ceased to hear at all, and while others heard and were blessed by messages from the skies, they were conscious of nothing themselves. The great sky arched above them, full of peopled worlds, rippling with wings of angels, and glorious with the omnipresence of God, had become to them only a great, empty, silent concavity, a vast depth containing nothing but space. A second class of hearers that day, thought when the Father spoke, "that it thundered." Viewed in the light of the first class, this body of people, in the judgment of some, would be pronounced better off spiritually than the others. They heard something, while the former set remarked nothing. This may be so, but when we stop to consider the moral perversion and blundering spiritual judgment, betrayed in mistaking a blessed utterance of God, for a crash or boom of thunder, we fail to see where the character superiority comes in. Infidelity that has made the sayings and commands of the Father in the Old Testament to be pronunciations of folly and cruelty, belong to the second division of the assembly of which we are writing. When men like Hume and Ingersoll attack the divine benevolence and wisdom in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, they make the loving voice of God to be thunder in its harsh, pitiless, terrifying power. This class is further seen in those who attend great and genuine revival meetings, where the Word is preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, where conviction is deep, conversions bright and blood red, and sanctifications thorough and snow white. But all in vain the work of God goes on before such people. Even as at Pentecost this second division mocked and likened the work of the Spirit in the disciples to a drunken debauch; so to this day there are people in our religious gatherings in church and on camp grounds who pronounce the supernatural scenes before them to be excitement, fanaticism, and some bordering on the sin against the Holy Ghost even call it the work of the devil. God is speaking from the pulpit, and about the altar, but they see only the physical side, hear only the natural, which is necessarily in this world connected with the spiritual, and go away criticizing and condemning what they termed frenzy and lack of self control. God spoke, and they said, "it thundered." A third class said of the voice that fell through the air, that an angel spoke to Christ. This division represents that part of religious and spiritual humanity that see, hear and attain to only a part of the truth and experience of Redemption. They sweep ahead of the first two bodies we have mentioned, but do not go far enough. Many are content with morality. Others camp permanently in the realm of benevolence and humanitarianism. Still others stop at justification, and others still realize that there is a second work of grace, yet never receive the blessing and the witness of the Holy Ghost to it in their souls. According to the Bible, as well as the evident lack of power in their lives, these individuals have halted too soon. They have come short of some fullness of knowledge, some satisfying experience, some great culminating grace, that is not only bound to be felt by themselves in their own hearts, but is patent to the spiritual, thoughtful observer who considers them. As in the case of the blind man under a first touch of the Saviour’s hand, they see, but not clearly and perfectly. And as in Jacob’s all night prayer wrestle, according to Micah the mysterious struggler seemed to be an angel but holding on, at daybreak the celestial visitant was revealed to be the Lord; so there are some in the spiritual life who never seem to get through into perfect light; never pray through to a day break sunrise revelation of God in their souls, and to walk the road of life thereafter, settled, assured, triumphant, princes in the judgment of Heaven and having power with God and man. A fourth class of people on this wonderful morning in the Temple, heard correctly. They knew who was speaking, what was said, and to whom the words came. They heard God’s voice, and in that fact proved themselves to be of that saved number of whom the Saviour said, they hear His voice and know it. They become at once a typical class of all these who have had a fullness of waiting before God, and received the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. They stayed with the Saviour until He gave them the second touch, and now "see perfectly." They did not tarry by pools, troubled once a year by an angel’s wing, but sought Him who made all the pools, and created all the angels, and He made them whole. They went to the Upper Room and tarried until the fire fell. They pray past the angel stage of Jacob’s prayer, and get through to the day break God Almighty revelation, when the Lord speaks to him in the deep sense of the word face to face. Here is born a class that momentarily hear from headquarters. They walk and talk with God. Angel voices are good, but communion with the Almighty is far better. Why go down the stream for water when they have the Fountain Head? Why be sidetracked on a gift of the Spirit when they have the Spirit himself in His fullness? Why be disturbed and confused about what men say, when they not only have heard but continue every moment to hear in the sweetest, clearest, most heart satisfying and life strengthening way from God Himself? That all of the Lord’s people do not know Him thus, does not spring from divine partiality, but from the failure of a number of His followers to observe the conditions for the obtainment of so great a grace. Just as in hearkening with the physical ear, there is a bent position of the body, the hand raised to the ear, and a fixed undeviating attention; so to hear satisfactorily from the Lord the body must be bowed, the hand of prayer raised and the whole soul fixed in the profoundest listening attitude, to hear what the Lord God will speak. It costs something to send a telegram a few hundred miles, but the price is far greater to get a cablegram across the sea to another country. In like manner, is one will compute the distance from this world, across the seas of blue space, islanded with stars, to the capital of the Universe, it will be seen that the full charge on the Heaven-gram has not been paid. It takes all we are and have and ever shall be and possess, to get our dispatch through, hear from God, and receive full returns. There is also everything in "turning aside" and getting in character position to receive messages from Heaven. Moses was a very busy man, had numerous flocks and herds dependent on him for food and protection; but yearning to know more of, and to hear from God, he "turned aside" from his labors and everything, and saw and talked with Jehovah. After seeing the King of Heaven, he was well able to confront the monarchs of earth. Daniel had the care and affairs of a kingdom upon him, but he took time to leave everything, and by the side of the river Hiddekel, for six weeks, waited on God. We need not tell the reader how, at the end of that time, wireless messages dated in Heaven came upon him so thick and fast that he sank overpowered on his hands and knees; such was the weight and glory of tidings that covered all time, and reached to the end of the world. Elijah, in the effort to get away from human presence, went first three days’ journey into the desert, then a still longer trip into the wilderness, and afterward with mantle wrapped about his head, listened, and heard the "still small voice." If people would study the spiritual significance of these things; would turn away from the vain janglings of men, observe the conditions and pay the price of a full, perfect communion with God, then no longer would be seen and heard the strife and divisions in the courts of the Temple when God speaks. But unity would be beheld and harmony would prevail. The Lord’s sheep would hear His voice and recognize it. And all would know Him from the least to the greatest among His own. The world would be convinced, souls saved by the multitude, and God would be glorified. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 01.24. LESSONS FROM CRUCIFIXION ======================================================================== Chapter 24 LESSONS FROM CRUCIFIXION. When Paul said that he was crucified with Christ, he evidently referred to a religious experience very different from, and profounder as a work of grace than regeneration. That he was speaking of the second and subsequent work is evident from the figure he uses, and that which it stands for. In the first place it is well to recollect that the Word of God calls regeneration a birth. If it is a spiritual birth as Christ distinctly affirms it to be, then it cannot be a crucifixion for several reasons. One is the striking difference in the two figures. We could never understand spiritual things if God likened what is called our conversion, to such widely dissimilar and hopelessly irreconcilable occurrences as a birth and a death. A cradle and a cross are very different objects indeed to look upon; and the sensations born of the two are about as wide apart as it is possible to conceive. Moreover, we do not remember ever to have seen a man get in a cradle, nor has any one on earth ever beheld a baby nailed to a cross. The cradle is too small for the man. The cross is too large for the child. A second reason for seeing the distinctive teaching of the figure, is, that a human being has to be born before he can be crucified. The Spirit calculated on our using the minds God gave us, and that we would remember that birth precedes death, and so, when he was speaking of regeneration or the new life, he was referring to one thing, and when he was dwelling upon crucifixion, that most fearful of deaths, that he was teaching another and very different thing. Evidently the Spirit was presenting two very dissimilar spiritual facts and occurrences, when he made John say, "To them gave he power to become the sons of God, which were born," etc., etc., and later inspires Paul to write, "I am crucified with Christ." A third fact confirming the thought advanced in this chapter is seen in the peculiar suffering spoken of in the verse when the Apostle says he is crucified. The hasty reader sees the reference to pain, recalls certain moments of anguish and grief that he experienced in seeking pardon or salvation, and hastily concludes that it is another allusion to or description of regeneration and goes on his way. But let this be settled forever by the facts that regeneration or the New Birth are attended with birth throes, but the suffering Paul mentions in Galatians 2:20, are death agonies. There is a vast difference between birth pains and death pangs. The very character of the suffering is different. Then in one, a life is coming in, and in the other a life is going out of the world. Still again, with the birth of the child the suffering is mainly with the mother. And in harmony with this fact, the Bible declares that when Zion travails, sons and daughters will be born unto God. When it comes to death, the dying man has all the pain to himself. Crucifixion puts its every pang undivided on the crucified. Some who are invincibly opposed to a second instantaneous work of grace making the heart pure and holy, have endeavored to find proof of the growth theory, or a gradual work, in the fact that crucifixion itself is not a sudden, but a slow mode of death. Our first reply to this is that if they insist on this feature of the death of the cross, then we insist on their adhering to the figure throughout, and not be longer than six hours, or three days dying on the cross, or obtaining the blessing of holiness. Our second answer is that crucifixion in the sense of being nailed on the wood is one thing, and crucified in the sense of hanging dead on the ghastly tree is another. One has reference to a process, the other to the end. One is beheld in the present tense, the other in the past. The process was over with Paul, and he says, "I am crucified." Mr. Wesley said that sanctification was a gradual and an instantaneous work. He did not mean to say that some obtained the grace by growth, over against another class who received it in a moment. Indeed, he said he never knew one to obtain the blessing by the first method. He simply taught that man’s part in the matter was a gradual approach, but the work itself, the divine part was instantaneous. So, just as in crucifixion, there is a dying, and then a death; the limp, unconscious form hanging on the cross declaring that the work is over and done; so in sanctification we behold on the man’s side a painful progress, coming to and ending at last in a moment where God meets the perfectly devoted and consecrated soul, the fire falls, the pangs end, the old man hangs dead, and the blessed and blissful Christian can cry, "I am crucified" Just as we behold the victim nailed to the cross writhing and twisting in agony for hours, and then suddenly cease from all motion and suffering, having entered upon the rest of death; so we can see, and do see around us today in our meetings, Christians passing through anguish analogous to that of crucifixion, and then suddenly at the altar or elsewhere find an instantaneous relief and deliverance, as sweet as it was sudden, and as abiding as it is profound. groans cease, tears are wiped away, the cramped, kneeling posture is given up, while with a leap of joy they are on their feet with shining face and lips overflowing with happy laughter or shouts of joy. The long, weary struggle is over, and they have entered into the rest that remaineth for the people of God. These things being so, how perfectly unphilosophical, unnatural and unscriptural it is to hear preachers and teachers declaring to sanctified people that there are other deaths and "deeper deaths" awaiting them. He who proclaims so unreasonable and absurd a doctrine can never have known the crucifixion that Paul speaks of in Galatians, or the death of the old man that so many of God’s people feel to have taken place in their own individual case at the end of a perfect consecration, and implicit faith in the Blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin. We suspect that such teachers never knew the death of the cross. They were hung up on gum elastic bands and not on nails. They were tied to the beams with ribbons and not transfixed with spikes. They had soothing touches on the head and not thorns driven in the brow. They had sparkling water given at every sigh, and not vinegar and then gall in the midst of bitter cries. The cross was not upright with them, but slanted so as to keep the weight of the whole man off from the suffering members. In fact, the cross must have been a lounge. And the old man did not die, but had a fit. This being so, of course such people must teach a deeper death, for they still feel something tremendously alive in them. But how they discount the blessing of sanctification in doing this. How in addition to that, do they take the old-time attractiveness from it as the perfect rest, the peace that passeth understanding, the joy unutterable and full of glory, the sweet perfection to which we were urged to come as the culminating as well as the ultimate grace of the child of God in this life. With such a pure heart filled with perfect love we were told we were in condition to see God. We had the white garment for the wedding, we even rested on the word that "it is appointed unto men once to die," and that in the destruction of inbred sin, the sting of death itself was gone, and our own personal demise would rather be a happy departure than a painful dissolution. When lo! these teachers tell us that sanctification is a series of deaths; that there are "deeper deaths" all along the Christian journey until the last breath is drawn, and the gates of the tomb receive us. Such a view makes the holiness evangelist the most remarkable of all undertakers, as he is engaged in repeated burials of the same man. It makes sanctification the most unattractive and undesirable of experiences, as it introduces us to undying death agonies, and deaths that cannot be counted, and each one "deeper" than its predecessor. It is true that Paul said, "I die daily;" but a mere glance at the chapter in which the words occur, show that he was making no reference whatever to sin. He was speaking of a martyrdom that might happen to him any day. He taught that the sin nature could and should die once for all, while he Paul through the power of such men as Herod, Felix, Festus and Caesar might die any day. The same Paul also wrote that he kept his body under and brought it into subjection. But he did not say that he kept the body of sin in subjection. There is a vast difference between a human body that God made, and "the body of sin" that the devil manufactured. The former is to be kept under; the latter is to be destroyed. The apostle is perfectly clear in his presentation of these two utterly distinct facts. So all these thoughts strengthen the conclusion that there cannot be a "deeper death" in the spiritual life unless we go to hell. After the blessing of entire sanctification, we may die daily in the sense of humiliations, mortifications, affronts, revilings, slanders and all kinds of private cuts and public shame, but the old man of sin dies once. Not by section and piecemeal, but all over. The real crucifixion is a marvelous quieter, settler and deadener. He who can say with Paul, "I am crucified," makes no announcement for future funerals of the old man. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 01.25. PREACHING THE GREAT INSTRUMENTALITY OF SALVATION ======================================================================== Chapter 25 .PREACHING THE GREAT INSTRUMENTALITY OF SALVATION. God has ordained preaching as the great potential instrumentality of recovering the world. The Bible declares that it has pleased God to save the world by the foolishness of preaching. It does not say foolish preaching, but the foolishness of preaching. That is, in the judgment and according to the wisdom of this planet God’s plan of sending men to instruct, warn, rebuke, exhort and preach that the race may be saved and sanctified, looks like a silly, senseless undertaking and is a great loss of time, talent, labor and money. No one in his senses would underrate the necessity, value and power of prayer, but we should none the less properly relate the means of grace to each other, and not contradict God who has exalted preaching to the first rank, and declares it is His chosen method, the Sword of His right hand for producing conviction, moving men, drawing them to the point of surrender and consecration, and so obtaining pardon and holiness. Let the reader recall the revivals of the present and past and see if it was not the preaching which drew the crowd, cut down into hearts, illumined the mind, convinced the understanding, swept people to the altar and actually started the praying. It is because of the high honor and responsible office God has given to preaching, that we so jealously notice every encroachment upon it, and cry out against every slur and indignity put upon it. It is God’s method of saving the world, and who could doubt for an instant what a tremendous revival, what a tide of salvation would sweep the entire nation and continent if right preaching could be poured forth from every pulpit in the land. So well does the nevil know of this power that his constant attack is on the pulpit in some way. The assaults are many and various, and this very persistency of evil movements against preacher and preaching is alone sufficient to impress most profoundly and anxiously every thoughtful mind. One attack is to put men in the pulpit who were never called by the Holy Ghost to declare the Gospel. No man should take this honor upon himself, Paul states, except he who is called to it as Aaron was to his ministry. All men then thus entering the sacred desk come not in by the door, but the Saviour says climbed in some other way, and He adds, are thieves and robbers. Such men e# existed in His day; abounded in Wesley’s time; and still are to be met in great numbers in the Established Church of England. Not a few are in our own so-called evangelical churches. Vanderbilt University is putting a lot of such unconverted and uncalled men into the Southern Methodist ministry as the years roll by. All such pulpit occupiers are interlopers, and Christ brands them thieves and robbers, God cannot bless them. Nor can they without the Holy Spirit preach truly and really and properly the book of books given us by the Holy Ghost. So we see how the Word of God can be nullified and actually prevented by a band of hirelings as the Saviour called them, men who without the spirit and without His call to wield the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, certainly cannot do so. And here again comes a trouble; that the world has been taught to regard their little sermonettes, essays, and brief literary talks as preaching. Who wonders at men’s contempt for such ministrations when spiritual and supernatural results never appear? A second attack on preaching is made by the adversary in the effort to get the preacher to sin and backslide so that he will not have the heart to deliver the whole Word, and have no fire, energy or unction to preach any part of it. It is needless to say that nothing ever happens in the line of conviction and salvation in such congregations and churches. There are no doubt, earnest prayers going up from the pew, but the pulpit gun, the gospel cannon which God has selected and brought forth to win the battle is silent, and so the altar is empty, the audience listless and dead, and Hell scores another victory in shutting off the message which alone could win the day. A third attack on preaching is seen in cutting God’s true preacher down in the time that should be given him in public worship. Fully three-quarters of the hour that should be devoted to the Gospel message is relegated to or has been usurped by a befeathered, beribboned, bejeweled, bepowdered and begiggling choir who solo and duet, and triet and quaver and semi-quaver and demi-semi-quaver, and hemidemisemiquaver, and all that time worse than nothing has been presented to the eyes, ears and hearts of the people. There are good men in the pastorate today who are thus shut off and out. Some protest in vain, some give up in despair. Both alike know that nothing can be done in a mere handbreadth of time, and above all, when the Holy Ghost plan has been ignored, and the Word of God discounted, belittled, set aside and regarded as a nuisance to be endured for a quarter of an hour, and never over thirty minutes. A fourth attack on preaching is made by a deliberate, premeditated effort on the part of certain leaders (not preachers) and some singers to arouse a storm of enthusiasm, and create a wave of religious excitement and feeling which runs so high that handling the Word becomes impossible. No one doubts a moment, the right of the Holy Ghost to come upon a meeting, change its course, stop the sermon or do anything else He sees fit to do. Though we must affirm that the Spirit is not likely, when He has right preaching and true preachers on hand, to set aside the very instrument He has chosen to bring conviction and salvation to the people. We certainly would not be surprised if He headed off some kind of so-called preaching, but hardly that which pleases Him and which He desires the people to hear. Moreover, all grant that the Spirit has a right to fall on true messages and send such tides of glory over the congregation that God alone is heard, felt and thought about. The objection urged is against the deliberate, whooped-up excitement which as all who are experienced in large religious gatherings well know can easily be done, and after all nothing be done. There are excitable natures to begin with, and emotional individuals, and also good people who are set like hairtriggers. All that is needed is a hymn like "Meet Me There" and "I Saw the Moonlight on My Mother’s Grave," a few whoops, a jump or two, and the whole thing is off on natural, sympathetic and even fleshly lines, and once more the Word of God has been prevented from being delivered. It is noticeable by the most spiritual and experienced of evangelists that when the "rapture" which was "worked up" and did not "fall suddenly from the skies," is over, and used up; that it leaves the meeting in a collapsed and worse condition. The sermon seems to fall flat, the audience appears to be switched off from the main line, and the workers are "wind blown." They cannot do much in the battle around the altar, as they exhausted themselves on a skirmish before the real conflict began. They are like the man who ran an hundred yards to jump a ditch, but when he reached it he was so tired that he could not jump at all and had to sit down and rest. So deeply impressed are some evangelists with this mistake that they are careful to keep the opening of each meeting in their own hands, select hymns of solemn, convicting power, and so head off the hoop-la element, that would ignore preparatory conditions, would make the spiritual clock hit twelve when it is not yet nine o’clock, and actually get ahead of God. While there are singers who so deliberately try to work up this religious furor and evanescent gush that they have lost scores of good calls from these who love them personally, but deplore their method of discounting, setting aside and silencing the Word of God, which is God’s chosen instrument to win the Gospel battle. There are numerous other attacks made on the Word in the form of "The Tongue Movement ;" overdrawn Testimony Meetings in our camps; and other mistaken as well as deplorable things which virtually sheath the Sword of the Spirit in a scabbard and substitutes lectures, social gatherings and lollypop in general for the mighty truth of God which He said should be preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. We honor and observe every means of grace, but when we see God placing preaching (real, true preaching) at the head of the line, and hear Him declaring that it is His chosen and ordained instrument and agency of spreading truth and salvation over the world, we can but view with suspicion anything, person or movement which discounts, belittles, or would in any way set it aside. Christ’s preaching brought the disciples to the Upper Room to obtain the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. Peter’s preaching, not his prayers, led three thousand souls to God on the morning of Pentecost. The disciples after Herod’s persecution "went everywhere preaching the Gospel," and saw marvellous results. Luther’s preaching moved Europe and sent a revival wave in every direction. Wesley’s and Whitefield’s preaching swept England and America with a tide of salvation. And Holiness preaching is securing victory for Christ and Full Salvation all over the land. No wonder that Asbury said to his preachers, preach holiness in every sermon. No wonder that pastors and evangelists backslide who cease to declare and urge this great salvation of God. No wonder the fire of Heaven falls when its true follower wields the Sword of the Spirit and holds up an uttermost salvation to all through the Blood of the Son of God. That the will of God might be done, and the human race redeemed, it would be well indeed if the harangue of unconverted men; and the sermonizing of Spirit-forsaken men; and lecturing; and the unintelligible bawling and squalling of worldly choirs; and whooped up enthusiasm; and every other sham and counterfeit, introduced by men and devils to take the place of Holy Ghost preaching, be done away with now and forever. Christ has chosen the weapon, ordered the line of march, set the battle in array, and revealed the heavenly plan in the divine commission. We can hardly improve on it. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." And, "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 01.26. THE AURICULAR CUSPIDOR ======================================================================== Chapter 26 THE AURICULAR CUSPIDOR. We are taught in the Bible that the human body is the Temple of God, and that dedicated to Him it should be kept from all defilement; otherwise it would meet with the divine judgment and destruction. In the teaching of consecration we are told to put every member on the altar. The idea being that any part not devoted to God would be the cause of the undoing and ruin of the complete man, soul and body. Much history of individuals is given in Scripture to bring out this truth, that a single member of the physical man withheld from the rightful claim of the Lord, and misdirected in lines of selfishness and sin, will be certain to bring trouble, misfortune, calamity, and unless repented of, destruction to the man himself. The hair of Absalom, the foot of Asahel, the tongue of Shimei, the eye of David, were prolific of misery and death to their owners. The argument made and conclusion drawn from these and many other instances in the Word of God, is that the whole man has to be given to God if that being would not be lost; that perfect consecration is the price and condition of spiritual safety on earth and entrance into heaven at last. This we doubt not is the reason that Job said that he had made a covenant with his eye, while people today seeking holiness enumerate physical members as well as spiritual faculties and say I lay hands, feet, eyes, lips, tongue and all on the altar. It is well known to any Bible student how much stress is laid in Holy Writ on the devotement of the tongue to God. How many warnings are given as to its wrong use, what fearful descriptions of its power to injure and destroy, while the solemn statement is made that it sets on fire, and is itself set on fire of hell. In Psalms 15:1-5 we are given a list of those who cannot enter heaven, and among them we find mentioned the person "who taketh up a reproach against his neighbor." He did not originate the accusation or slander, but simply repeated it, handed it around, and kept it going. He has not used his tongue to ask the vilified or maligned individual if the charge was true, but falling into the line of detraction with a decided relish, helped the libel and falsehood on its way. Such a person with such a tongue, God says, cannot enter heaven. Because of these grave perversions of the lips, preachers have much to say in the pulpit against unruly speech. And yet there is another organ of the body located very close to the tongue, called the ear, and whose misuse leads to the most direful spiritual calamities, about which we hear little or nothing in the way of warning, rebuke and proper instruction. Christ recognizes the marvellous power for evil of this member in the words "Take heed what ye hear" and "Take heed how ye hear." From what we can read in the Bible and see in life, it is as essential to guard the ear as the eye, to lay the former on the altar as the latter. One thing is certain, and that is if we do not listen to a reproach against a neighbor, we certainly would have nothing to repeat with the tongue. So the ear seems to get the tongue into the very trouble mentioned in the fifteenth psalm. There seems to be two injunctions that might well cover most of our cases. One is to take heed how we hear. We owe it to God, to man and our own souls to listen properly and in the right spirit to what is said to us. No one can estimate the amount of trouble and misery that has come upon human beings through faulty attention and a consequent incorrect report of what was declared to have been said. Who can number the preachers whose sermons have thus been twisted out of all shape. While statements made in the social and family life were so distorted through some failure to grasp the whole utterance as to bring about lifetime separation and even death itself. Another injunction is to take heed what we hear. It is the ignoring of this most wise commandment that prostitutes this exalted member of the body and lowers it to an environment of degradation and to realms of infamy. In turn it revenges itself on the soul, by dragging the spirit down to breathe the same foul atmosphere, walk by the identical cesspools, and sink finally in the mud-wallows of iniquity. It is wonderful the effect produced upon the heart within, by what we listen to on the outside. Infidelity leaves its dark doubts, impurity its stains, and error and untruth precipitates a deposit which results in damaged faith, warped character, and a wrong life. Where is the victim who can escape blame for this inward injury, when it was so evidently in his power to refuse to hear, and to move entirely away from the blighting utterances of such a speaker? The well formed ear is a beautiful organ, and to behold such a handsome and remarkable member not only misused as mentioned, but abused, dishonored, degraded, and actually made to serve the purpose of spittoon is a thought and fact almost too horrible and sickening for words. A spittoon is a receptacle for the expectoration of mouths. Saliva stained and discolored with snuff and tobacco and scented with alcohol is ejected copiously into the wood, iron or stone jar. Moreover not only anything can be shot into it, but anybody can use it. Its condition soon becomes too disgusting for verbal expression. Now to think that the human ear, which can be and should be devoted to the hearing of that which exalts, uplifts, purifies and saves, is beheld a receptacle for the profanity, obscenity, hatred, malice, slander and lying going on all around, and its owner willing thus to prostitute and degrade the God-given faculty and instrument is as horrible and disgusting a fact in the character realm, as the full spittoon is a nauseous and detestable object of vision in the material world. Such a degenerate ear not only secures all scandal, slander and filth that is being expectorated by human mouths, but it allows every malicious spitter to have that organ as a cuspidor. Of course we do not mean that we cannot listen to grave, distressing charges against people who have erred and are guilty. This would be the height of folly and would put judge, jury and newspaper reporters out of work. This also would consign the church itself to a state of ignorance, and place as well as infliction upon it of wrong and sinful conduct that should not be thought of a single moment. Its integrity and purity alike demand a proper hearkening to and disposal of matters pertaining to its spiritual welfare as well as right standing before the outside world. The evil we are writing against is the debasing of a noble organ to the level, as well as purpose, of a spittoon. The open, ready, listening to every declaration, sling, fling, innuendo, as well as deliberate slander of people, whether they be of the church or even of the world. We once had a holiness man to tell us that he took a certain abusive and scurrilous paper to see what was being said about the various brethren. We could but marvel as he spoke as to where the difference came in between the mud-flinging editors of that journal and the individual before us who with eager eyes read all its insinuations and accusations. As he evidently enjoyed what they relished; and devoured what they had previously masticated, we felt that they were not only of the same tribe, but he was on still a lower plane than the parties he was reading after. In like manner we fail to see any difference between the backbiter and the individual who listens with enjoyment to the backbiting. The one who takes up a reproach against his neighbor, and the person who by sympathetic appreciative listening really endorses the tale bearer, and so puts himself on the same plane and in the same rank with a character whom God declares cannot enter His tabernacle or dwell in His holy hill. The lips of the tobacco spitter and flaring mouth of a spittoon bear a remarkable likeness to each other in smell, stain, color and repulsive appearance. And so between the ready circulator of scandal, and the quick interested listener to slander there is a similarity in certain moral features, an unmistakable family likeness as to character that we do not doubt an instant, that the same doom God pronounces on one He utters against the other; and the celestial gate which is shut to the former is as certainly closed upon the latter. We all observe how quickly a man dodges, swerves and even runs to save his clothes and body from bilge and slop thrown out of a window above or near him. How much more quickly should he avoid the flinging or pouring forth from malicious, falsifying mouths of a froth spawn and venom which God tells us has had its inspiration and source from the depths of the Bottomless Abyss. The question is, how can one with proper regard for others, and real respect for himself, not only lend his ear to every scandal spitter in the land who approaches him, but consents to hold the auricle spittoon himself, while the tattler and slanderer expectorates. If it was possible to take flashlight charactergraphs, the invention would reveal many a circle and group on the street and in the hotel office, where most of the human figures would be seen sporting huge cuspidors on the sides of their heads instead of ears, while others ejected muddy, discolored streams of language from their mouths towards the six foot receptacles before them and so expertly was the thing done on both sides that not a single drop fell on the ground. We wonder if the person who is likely to be offended at this figure, may not have done repeatedly what we are writing about, and furnished just such receivers for gossip, slander and misrepresentation as we have described. Truly it would be well for the world and better for us all if the ear could be exalted from the spittoon relation and changed into a great receiver and recorder of noble utterances, lofty sentiment, and splendid achievements, gleaned from every realm; of ennobling knowledge, and good spoken of man and God rather than evil of our brother fellow traveler to eternity, or falsehood of Him who made us, redeemed us and overflowed our hearts and lives with every good and perfect gift from both the material and spiritual world. With such a capital of mind and heart wealth, a man could never be poor in the true sense of the word, but would make others rich; need never be unhappy or unemployed, but become a blessing to every one and at all times. There would be no exclusion from the Holy Hill of a character like this: but all such redeemed beings would constitute the nobility of Heaven; be celestial princes; God’s sons and daughters; and look marvellously like Him on the Throne who while on earth did good to the children of men, and who lifted countless thousands from the mire and pit into which they had fallen, and never pulled a single one down. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 01.27. MOULTING AND SHEDDING ======================================================================== Chapter 27 MOULTING AND SHEDDING. I notice that birds have a way of moulting their plumage without outside assistance. Birds know that when men begin to pull their feathers out, the next thing on the program is that they will be roasted. Men are beginning to discover in these days what the birds all along knew, that pulling and roasting come very close together. I observe also that the trees shed their leaves of their own accord. It would be too big an undertaking for men to go around with baskets and ladders and try to strip the forests. Nature has its season when, with the stoppage of the flow of sap, and the blowing of autumn winds the leaves come whirling down in a golden shower. And it was done so gently, quietly, thoroughly and satisfactorily! In like manner we have to shed things. We started the spiritual life by leaving off our actual sins. Later we got rid of the Old Man. Since then we cannot number the wrong ideas, unwise methods, foolish notions, hasty conclusions and improper ways of approaching and dealing with men we have dropped. No bird ever moulted like we have done. No tree has ever outstripped us in the shedding business. All that most honest people want is a season of light and grace, and behold the sap which nourished error and mistake ceases to flow, and while a gentle wind from heaven stirs the soul, the blunders, ignorance, prejudices, false ideas, follies, nonsense and tomfooleries of other years go whirling like yellow leaves to the ground. One thing we shed as a young preacher was a rattan. No one told us not to carry it, but some kind of sap quit flowing as we got nearer to God, and the little walking cane shed itself. After that we moulted a beaver hat. No one mentioned the remarkable harmony existing in the juxtaposition of two equally hollow spheres, and no one knocked the remarkable headpiece away from the self-satisfied countenance which it surmounted. This would have been to have secured a longer stay. Instead of that a season of grace came, and in that autumn of sober reflection with recollections of the poverty and lowliness of the Saviour, a wind blowing softly from the skies lifted the hat, and it fluttered out of sight and mind as the leaves of other years have departed and are forgotten. Then came the shedding of witty speeches perpetrated while leading a testimony meeting The happy repartee, the quick turn of thought upon another person, which brought a laugh from the audience, looked well, scored an intellectual victory, and was undertaken with a kind and loving heart; but the sight of mortified servants of God, old followers of the Cross almost snubbed into silence, and gray-haired and simple-hearted people wounded to the quick at the amusement brought upon them--this sight was soon adequate and amply sufficient to put an end to the practice forever. Once in a meeting a brother stood up and quoted for his testimony, "The cleansing stream, I see, I see!" and sat down. We replied, "There is something better than seeing the stream of cleansing, and that is being in it!" The pained look of the brother went to our heart, as we fear our words had gone to his. Anyhow, we did some more "shedding" that day, and determined to be more careful and tender from that hour forward. We question much whether young people should be put forward to lead the testimony service of a campmeeting; especially if they aspire to shine instead of lead, and crave to be witty and even funny at the expense of gray-haired men and women of God who were in the service of Heaven before the joking, jesting, amusing, brilliant, talkative leader was born into the world. It takes religion, sense, tact, and a kind, loving, considerate heart to make a good leader of a testimony meeting. So when we see pertness taking the place of piety, and humor usurping the station of love, we feel like praying: "Lord, let the seasons of grace roll on; stop the sap; befrost the leaf; and send a wind from heaven to strip from us all wrong foliage and clothe us instead with leaves that are full of healing and load us down with the fruits of the Spirit for which men are hungry and starving all over the land." We know of three different cases, where one preacher thinking that another was making grave lifetime mistakes, wrote a warm letter of warning; but as it proved the communication was much warmer than the writer intended. It blistered and burned! Then came in reply an outcry of pain and of protest from the victim, whereupon two of the parties went into the moulting business. This time it was the gridiron epistle that was dropped. We mean by the gridiron epistle, a letter which is written in such a spirit and style that its hard, unbending lines and high temperature most forcibly remind one of that implement of the kitchen on which the process of broiling takes place. Time would fail to tell of what, and how much is quietly dropped, or vigorously flung off in the course of years from the boughs and branches of a healthy Christian life. They are not sins, but are unwise sayings and doings, wrong conceptions of doctrine, false ideas of duty, mannerisms, improprieties, eccentricities, extravagances--in a word, things that, like fungus growth, need to be cut off, or, like the frosted leaf, ought to be shed quickly and blown utterly away. Happy for the frost which falls with killing power on certain fruits and leaves that we have beheld hanging on to certain lives. And truly that strong, autumnal gale from Heaven cannot blow too soon which shall strip from us and bear away the needles, the superfluous, the unsightly, the burdensome and the hurtful, and leave us open for a foliage and fruitage which shall be honored of God, and blessed to the present and everlasting good of men. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 01.28. THE EFFECT OF DISTANCE ======================================================================== Chapter 28 THE EFFECT OF DISTANCE. It is well known that remoteness has the power of softening and beautifying many objects in nature, and also when applied to individual character and life work, works an equally striking charm, attractiveness and potent spell. But it is also equally true that distance is decidedly against our seeing and knowing correctly the history as well as character of men. There are heart victories of the most tremendous nature that the world never knows anything about. There is a patient suffering, a sacrifice of life, a bearing of others’ burdens that takes place in many an individual existence of which the multitude hurrying by occupied with itself has no knowledge. Such an existence from its very nature is removed, and then the world is distant after another order, and so the peculiarly tried and overburdened man goes on his unrecognized way to the grave and the Judgment. As we have brooded over the sad as well as cruel mistakes made in life through the fact and power of distance in some form, we have been compelled to say alas for it! Would that something might happen or could be done, that drawing people nearer, would end this most prolific cause of human suffering and unhappiness. There is such a thing as territorial distance. This separates the nations, and has caused prejudices, antipathies, reprisals and wars beyond number. This is still at work separating North from South, dividing England from Ireland, and isolating one continent from another. Truly the Fall is great, and Sin a fearful thing when through its effect, a few miles of earth and water makes it impossible to be kind or even just to one another, when a New Englander bristles at the very name of South Carolina, and honor cannot be done to a great statesman and a polished gentleman because his name was Jefferson Davis and he lived in Mississippi. And what shall we say if entire sanctification or perfect love cannot remove this spirit? Sometimes the territorial distance is only a side or back yard, and lo! we have to behold, though on a smaller scale, the same prejudices, antipathies, reprisals and going to war with each other. We know of a family feud in Mississippi that has lasted over fifty years, and yet both households are refined, cultured and very lovely in many particulars. But a little strip of earth only a few miles wide has utterly prevented the homes in question from knowing and loving each other. Then there is the creed and ecclesiastical distance. Here is a separation broader than the Atlantic, and stormier than its big billows and winds. Members of different denominations if they only knew each other would be filled with love and admiration, yet separated by nonessential doctrines, shun each other as if they possessed the black plague or leprosy. Convicted at a gospel meeting of another church they refuse to seek conversion or sanctification at the strange altar, because forsooth it is not their meeting house. They are even surprised and sometimes in indignant that they should be asked to seek the Lord at a Methodist or Full Salvation revival. Why, I am a Catholic or Episcopalian or a Presbyterian! they say, as if that completely released them from the moral obligation of the truth or the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They might with equal propriety and wisdom have gone on and said, why the shingles on the roof are not those I have been worshipping under, and your windows are plain and ours are stained, and our church building cost more than yours. We do not doubt that the devils in hell indulge in roars of laughter at our poor narrow headed, shallow hearted, spirit blinded human race as seen here and there walled in and fortified against each other through sectarian and denominational misconception of Christianity. Some cannot enjoy a sermon unless the preacher wears a garb that looks like a nightrobe. Others must have a ritual where they rise up and sit down in worship a great deal. Still others will not allow another Christian to partake with them of the Lord’s supper because the water of baptism was applied to the body instead of the body being applied to the water. Then comes the minor tribes of No-Hog Meat, No-Breakfast, No-Necktie, Postum Coffee, Jumpers, Rollers, Third Blessingers, Tongues and Walkers-Around-With-Shut-Eyes. Meantime not to take up with the idiosyncrasy of each one of these movements is to fall under its reproof and ban; and Blood washed, Spirit filled, God accepted and heaven honored men are set aside, cast off and struck at because of their refusal to endorse and press some doctrine, form or custom that is perfectly nonessential to happiness, usefulness and salvation. A little brick wall, or plank partition seems as powerful to prevent people from knowing and loving each other as a Himalayan range of mountains twenty thousand feet high, a Desert of Sahara a thousand miles wide, or a vast Pacific ocean seven thousand miles from shore to shore. A third kind of distance between men is that of temperament. It hardly needs any argument to convince the thoughtful, observant man of the extreme difficulty of getting human beings of the nervous, bilious, sanguine, or melancholy order of constitution to understand and appreciate each other. It is this dissimilarity which occasions such widely different views and oscillating see-saw speeches in Congress, State Legislatures and the various ecclesiastical bodies known as Synod, Council, Convention and Conference. Each representative of the psychically unlike declares that the opinions and proceedings of the other will ruin church and country. Something in the mental character construction has thrown up Alps, Appenines, and Mediterraneans between them, and they are foreigners to one another, and again we have to behold antipathies, reprisals and wars. Well for the race that Christ was the Son of Man in the deepest, broadest, truest respect; that He possessed all the temperaments in a happy balancing power so that He sympathizes with all, while everybody can come to Him knowing that He understands them and that perfectly. A fourth kind of distance that divides men is found in utter difference of life history and experience. We once heard a prominent minister say in enumerating the blessings which filled his life that he found it hard to sympathize with a number of his brethren who had walked ways of bereavement, sorrow, trial and suffering that were unknown to himself. He had never lost a child; all were living. He had never been called to stand by the coffin of his wife. He possessed an ideal home. His household was devoted to him. He had a number of rich relatives and devoted friends whose purses were open to him. Then there was property in the immediate household. As he counted off these temporal and beautiful mercies, and showed up the Edenic setting of his peculiarly sheltered and favored life, we could well understand why he could not understand, nor feel for, nor do justice to other men whom he called his brethren. Once when a young pastor in New Orleans, with a heart bowed down and almost broken with a combination of perplexities, cares and troubles, we were about taking a street car to visit one of the leading bishops of our church and confide to him a number of painful, delicate and unbearable things; when we were as suddenly arrested by the divine touch and voice as if a friend had laid his hand upon our shoulder and spoke in our ear. The inward voice, the quick, deep, vivid impression was "Do not go to him." Another instant and just as clear was a direction and leading to visit an elderly lady of sixty, who had been through every kind of sorrow and was the saintliest woman in the city. Both voices and touches were from God. Time thoroughly proved it. The man high in official capacity as he was could never have understood the heart and life history of the young preacher. The woman on the other hand could and did comprehend the goaded, perplexed and burdened life, spoke the right word, gave the true counsel and comfort, and undoubtedly delivered a soul at one of the great crises which comes into the lives of so many if not all the children of men. These are not all of the causes of the separation and mutual misunderstanding of good people. But as natural barriers keep the nations apart, and they know very little of each other, so the ignorance is about as profound existing between acquaintances, neighbors and even friends because of ecclesiastical, social, domestic, educational, temperament and character conditions. The Alleghenies, Ural and Andes ranges of mountains are nothing as compared to the separating power of these states and circumstances. The desert is not more forbidding. The polar regions scarcely more impenetrable. The seas are hardly wider than the little side yard or church creed which separates two men living side by side on the same street, or in pews just across the aisle from each other. There are few travelers who are willing to cross these deserts. Few like Abruzzi who scale the Himalayas. The followers of Columbus are not many who will take the trouble to sail from the east to find out who and what is in the west. So the ignorance of each other continues, the antipathies prevail, the misjudgment goes on, reprisals are the order of the day in many quarters; and war is carried on after the bitterest and most relentless fashion in homes, neighborhoods, communities and churches in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ten, nearly two thousand years since the Holy Ghost fell on the church in the baptism of purity, power and perfect love. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 01.29. LESSONS FROM HAILEY'S COMET ======================================================================== Chapter 29 LESSONS FROM HALLEY’S COMET. These celestial visitors called comets are full of mystery. Just what they do for the universe is unknown still, although astronomers have been studying them for many centuries. That they do perform some essential part we question not, as God makes nothing for naught. If insignificant worms, burrowing away out of sight under the ground, render a most important service to the soil, how much more should we be prepared to believe that these great leviathans of the sky with heads ranging from fifty thousand to one million miles in diameter, and with tails sometimes reaching the amazing length of one hundred million miles and more, have a most essential work to render for the good not only of our solar system, but for the vast universe itself that lies so far away from our little settlement, or village of planets. Some of these comets are elliptic; that is, their angle of turning around the sun is such that the astronomers can calculate from the two lines of approach and departure what size the whole curve or ellipse is, and so when the glaring eyed, hair streaming sky racer will return again. These ellipses or heavenly race tracks range in the matter of time from three years to eight hundred and even more; and as to distance from a few hundred million of miles to such numbers as to make the head whirl, and almost bankrupt mathematics in the use of figures. The comet of 1882, which many of our readers will remember as such a splendid object, especially in the morning sky, will not return for nearly one thousand years. The comet now approaching us was last here in 1835 and has an ellipse of about seventy-five years. This visitor belongs to our solar system. All these seventy-five years Halley’s comet, as it is called, has been crossing just half the breadth of our solar system and returning. Somewhere about the year 1872 it rounded Neptune, our remotest planet, which is two billion eight hundred millions of miles from the sun, and started back this way. Astronomers say that its present accelerated speed as it approaches the sun is about a million miles a day. There is another class of comets called parabolas, and still another known as hyperbolas. The two lines of approach and recedure of the parabolas are such as to indicate that this class of comets will never return. The curve made by them in turning the sun is so great that it will never be closed as in the case of a circle or ellipse. Such a comet goes off into infinity. The hyperbolas, of which only a half dozen or so have been seen by the telescope, move in still remoter regions from the sun; and while the elliptic comet comes in a few hundred thousand or several millions of miles from the sun, the hyperbolas’ nearest approach is three hundred millions of miles. Like spectre ships on the sea of infinite space, they silently pass on by us, and away forever in the boundless immensity beyond. The only difference we can see, from what we have read, between the parabola and hyperbola comet is that the latter seems to be headed for far more distant points in the universe than the former. The ablest writers on the sidereal heavens think that these more remote rangers of the skies have been on their way toward us not only for thousands but millions of years. The present approaching visitor brings us several lessons or messages from the skies. One is the inconceivable vastness of God’s universe or empire. So many people regard the earth and themselves, as so large and important, that they need this solemn reminder coming to them through the heavens. Let the reader bear in mind that the trip taken by Halley’s comet across just half the diameter of our Solar System, would require a locomotive going at the rate of a thousand miles a day, eight thousand two hundred and sixteen years to accomplish, and yet our Solar System as compared to the Astral system above us and beyond us in the far away firmament, is like a shell on the sea shore, a pebble in the desert of Sahara, a mere speck on the face of creation. It is known that light travels at the rate of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. So it takes light from the sun nearly four hours to reach Neptune, the farthest planet of our Solar System. But think of it! God’s universe is so great that it requires light thirty thousand years to cross the diameter of even the visible stellar heavens that twinkle at such infinite distances above and on all sides of fathomless space. We glance at the nations of Europe, at our own country, at our proud cities, and say if the Solar System itself six billions of miles in diameter is but a speck or dot on the face of creation, what are you? and where do you come in? Truly, the comet which brings this exhortation with attendant reflections does well in its preaching. Fixing its gleaming eye upon us, and throwing its streaming hair back from its white forehead, it makes an appeal of such a nature to the whole human family as should make every one lift his eyes from mud and the muck rake and fix them with the life ever after on God, Christ, duty and eternity. A second message of the comet is in regard to the greatness of God who made the universe. That such a system, vast, complicated and yet harmonious at every point, could have evolved itself without an infinite omnipotent intelligence back of it, is too absurd to entertain as a thought a moment. It would be infinitely easier to believe that a watch with all its related and correlated parts, time-keeping power, etc., etc., made itself, than to think for a moment that the stupendous and perfect mechanism in the heavens above us sprang there by blind chance, or through a fortuitous concourse of atoms. There is too much harmony, regularity, order, and smooth working laws to credit such folly, a single instant. The comet puts in its voice here. Speaking to the world it says: "I left you seventy-five years ago. I am due to cross your track in 1910. Please put on your Bulletin Board that I am on time. Add also that the God who made such a locomotive for the sky, and laid the tracks in the air, and arranged the schedule, caused a six billion miles run without a stop for recoaling, and engineered the whole thing through without a single failure or accident, is a God infinite in wisdom, almighty in power, is as good as He is great, and should be worshiped, adored and obeyed by every man, woman and child on the face of the earth." A third message of the comet is a warning of the hopelessness of all opposition to God. It would have us to consider its own vast size, its rush at times of over one hundred miles a second, its swing out into space beyond the limits of the Solar System for five hundred millions of miles; and yet argues the comet: "God easily manages me. He has bridled me with His laws and guides as He will. When I was almost out of sight of the whole Solar System, the Almighty laid His hand on me out yonder in measureless space and began to draw me back. And I had to yield. And great in volume as I am, I was as an infant in the hands of a giant. And yet he is controlling ten thousands times ten thousands comets larger than myself, and is leading billions of suns through the infinite fields of space as a shepherd would direct his flock through a field. What hope of success, then, has any man or city, or nation against such a Being of Omnipotence whom not only winds and sea obey, but the universe itself stands in place because of the Word of His power. My advice, says the Comet, to everybody is to get right with God at once. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of earth, but "woe unto him who striveth with his maker." A fourth lesson of the comet has reference to the equanimity with which God must view all enemies to Himself and His truth. It is an awe inspiring thought to a human being to know that great bodies of matter from one million to many million miles in diameter are rushing through space with a speed from one to four hundred miles a second and that still other vast bodies are crossing the orbits of the former class, and yet the Almighty is without the slightest anxiety. The Bible speaks of His peace and how it passeth all understanding. The fact is that God is greater than the universe, and His power infinitely beyond anything that He has made. So the Almighty perfect master of the situation rules on restfully and triumphantly, knowing there can never be accident, failure or direful mishap in His vast physical kingdom of billions of suns, trillions of planets, quadrillions of satellites and quintillions of comets without His consent or bringing about. The Cometic argument is, if God is thus undisturbed by what we see going on all around us in space among the worlds, how much more tranquil is the Almighty when He beholds a few human insects and ants trying to sting His truth to death or block up His way in Redemption and the providential deliverances of the children of men. How little a man must look to God. How small even the monarch of earth. The Bible says that when the kings of the earth took counsel together against Him and His Anointed, He that sat in the heavens laughed. He never arose from His throne, but continued to sit, and as He sat, He laughed. How perfectly are we all in His power. If we tried to run He could chase us with a comet. If we defied Him He could send a stream of destroying fire on us from the skies as he did on Sodom. Indeed, He could by the breaking of one of the laws He made, send the world flying from its place, and let it fall forever and ever in the black, bottomless space that lies underneath the vast twinkling universe of God. No, God is not afraid of any one of us, nor of all of us put together. This may be one of the reasons He lets us live, and furnishes us air, sunlight, and rations while we keep up the hopeless contest. A further message from the comet is one of wonder that his approach should be viewed with alarm and many times with panic. What the Comet communicated at this point we got by wireless. It said: Every time that I or some of my brethren flash through the skies there is always a lot of you people on earth that think the end of the world is coming. Why don’t the people read the Bible and get over your newspaper alarms? It is true that the world is to be destroyed, but not by a comet, but by Him who made the comets. He will appear in the sky and not one of us; and the nations will wail not because it sees one of us in the heavens, but because of the sight of Him who made the universe and has come to judge the world on the last day of its probation. Another word I would say, and that is, as I have returned after a long absence, even more certainly will the Being who created me come back to earth; and if men dread me and my coming, how much more ought they to dread and prepare for the return of Him who made all the comets, and all the worlds and suns, and holds the universe in the hollow of His infinite hand. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 01.30. THE AEROPLANE BLESSING ======================================================================== Chapter 30 THE AEROPLANE BLESSING. The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, became convinced that it was possible to make a machine which while heavier than air yet could fly. In this they voiced a belief beyond the general faith around them, and in face of the popular view that the only contrivance man could construct which would float and bear human beings with it, must be less heavy than the air which its size displaced. So the balloon filled with a gas of much lighter specific gravity than our terrestrial atmosphere was the commonly accepted faith and highest scheme of mechanism as to a flying machine. But the Wright brothers had a mental vision of the aeroplane, and began to talk about it. Perhaps they had observed that birds were heavier than air, and yet they skimmed and shot through the sky. May be they pondered over the fact that satellites, planets and suns were much weightier than the ether in which they floated. And so the mental inquiry and investigation began. Evidently they reasoned from these visible data, and felt assured that there were laws and principles in nature which if discovered and applied would result in a machine that would rush and fly, although like the birds and worlds, it was heavier than the atmosphere they proposed to navigate. They spent very many hours watching the flight of larger birds like vultures as they circled about in the mid heavens. Moreover, they talked so much about the machine they intended making and flying in, that it is said the women of the household were nearly distracted and felt like giving them another kind of flight through the air by means of their brooms. At this juncture the two young men applied to the War Department, unfolding their plans and asking for financial assistance in the matter which so profoundly interested and engaged them. The War Department tossed the letter aside into the waste basket, was much amused, said no such thing had ever been or could be, called the Wright brothers a couple of cranks and proceeded to forget the whole occurrence. After this the two young men, though disappointed, yet not at all despairing, founded what they called an Experimentation Station at a place in North Carolina called Kill Devil Hill. Here they made many unavailing efforts to fly with their machine. With each baffled experience they would study the question again, working on the machine here and there as they thought they saw the difficulty, and then would try again. A number of people who had come to observe what was going on, and to witness a success, grew wearied and fell away in their attendance thinking that nothing would ever come of it. But one day the machine flew! And the Wright brothers were in it! Such had been the diminution of interest that only five people witnessed the victory; the "getting through;" in a word, saw the two young men get the Aeroplane Blessing. The news was flashed by the wires all over the land. A machine heavier than the air had been made to fly! And while some still doubted and said nothing would ever come of it but broken bones and destroyed lives, yet others believed, and it would be hard to enumerate the great number that are today working diligently and persistently on similar air machines that they might obtain the same blessing the Wright brothers got on Kill Devil Hill, and fly as they flew and as they have been flying ever since. In like manner there were those in the Church of Christ whom we can properly call the "Right Brothers" who believed it was possible to rise, float and fly in the experience of holiness even in this present sinful world. The Wrong Brothers and the Brothers-in-law in the Church took issue with them, and firmly and even violently and angrily stated no such experience was possible. That we had to become lighter than this world’s air. That we had to be emptied of the soul by death, drop this heavy physical body in the grave, before we could ever dream of being holy. That we had to be made ethereal by glorification and translation, and then in some far distant world where there was no such thing as the attraction of gravitation exercised by sin and things of time and sense, then, and only then, we could rise, float and fly in the atmosphere of the heavenly life. But the Right Brothers had been struck with the amazing analogy and parable going on in the sky about them of birds heavier than the air flying about easily, and worlds weightier than the ether whirling around safely, regularly and beneficially in the vast depths of space. And they had also found something in the Bible which agreed exactly with the divine handwriting and argument in the mid heavens, viz., that He could sanctify us wholly, and preserve us blameless in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, could keep us from falling and present us faultless at last before His presence in Heaven with exceeding joy. So the Right Brothers went to work to get the blessing that makes us overcome the world, the flesh and the devil gives us a "full joy," causes it to "remain," keeps us unspotted from the world and delivering us from the hand of our enemies, enables us to live without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. There was a natural application to the powers that be, for sympathy, instruction and help in the matter. But all such applicants soon found out that they had run up against a War Department instead of an Instruction Bureau. So that many who read these lines will remember how their letters were thrown in the Waste Basket, how they were dubbed cranks, visionaries, enthusiasts and even Pharisees; how there was much amusement at their expense at headquarters and elsewhere; and how with a great number, the occurrence, the individual, and all were put out of mind. Some quite eminent in the War Department said that really they had no time to devote to such twaddle and nonsense. There was nothing left for the Right Brothers to do, but to establish an Experimentation Station. In other words, they fell on their knees and begged the Lord to give them the Flying Blessing. They started a Revival meeting in an old school house or in a brush arbor in the woods, and falling down at the altar pleaded with God for holiness or the Aeroplane Blessing. They told Him they knew but little of the mysteries of the universe and grace, but they did know that He was God; that He was omnipotent; that He was greater than the world and all the worlds; that He was mightier than His own laws; that He was infinitely more powerful than the Devil and all devildom put together; that if sin abounded, grace much more abounded; that they just knew He was able to do exceeding abundantly for them above all that they could ask or think; and that they wanted the blessing of a pure heart and a constantly victorious life in this life and world. Oh how the Right Brothers prayed, wept, and kept trying to fly. There were many efforts and many failures. But with each failure they would examine carefully the mechanism of their consecration, studied the steering gear of the Word, increased and perfected the steam of faith and then would try again. The Wrong Brothers were much amused and discontinued their attendance on the meeting. The Brothers-in-law said the whole thing was a piece of superlative folly. The idea of living a holy life in such a world as this. Of flying with these heavy natures of ours in such an atmosphere as belonged to this sinful planet. They were so indignant that they not only would not go to the meeting, but denounced it everywhere. The name of the place where the meeting was held was called Kill the Old Man Hill. It was not an euphonious title, and the name offended a great number of fastidious people. Some kept away from the Experiment Station Camp Grounds because of this objectionable nomenclature. Still others came out of curiosity, but after a number of services, and not beholding anything which rewarded their itching eyes and ears, they also fell away, and hardly a handful was left at the altar looking on where the Right Brothers were trying to make an ascension. One day they flew! They got the blessing! They rose in the air! They sailed over the heads of the Wrong Brothers, the Brothers-in-law, the Half Brothers, the Step Brothers and all the others who knew not the experience of Kill the Old Man Hill! They got the body, then property and all the heavy things of time and sense on the Altar. Saw with a flash the principles and laws of a Redemption greater than the Fall. Got everything adjusted, and one day touched the spring and flew. Moreover, they have been floating, flying and sailing ever since in the clear blue sky of holiness. It is a joy and inspiration to see them living above the world, though still in the world. And demonstrating to all observers that through the grace and power of the Son of God they can live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, and serve the Lord in holiness all the days of their life. Meantime the news has been flashed in all directions. We can be sanctified wholly, and kept from falling in this life and in this world. Whereupon Experimentation Stations in the shape of Revival Meetings and Camp Grounds are being established in every direction. And letters and telegrams are continually carrying the tidings, that while the Wrong Brothers are out in force at the Experimentation station and obtaining nothing, yet the Right Brothers are getting through and making glorious ascensions. One telegram read, two hundred flew at this Camp Meeting. Another dispatch said sixty flew at the last service. And behold the conviction is deep and spreading everywhere, that to get the real blessing, the genuine thing, the floating, flying, sailing experience above the world and sin, the rise must be made on Kill the Old Man Hill. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 01.31. THE FORTY ======================================================================== Chapter 31 THE FORTY. [Acts 23:13 "And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy." -- This scripture verse was installed by the transcriber.] Great has been the number, and very different in kind have been the bands and companies that have formed in the streets and proceeded from the gates of Jerusalem. But one in particular for character uniqueness holds our attention for awhile. Numerically, according to the Scripture, the individuals amounted to forty. As to cruelty of heart and wickedness of design, hardly any array of figures could have done them justice. But the term "Forty," since their short-lived history, has been preserved to brand this company and give it an immortality of infamy, even as the words "The Twelve," "The Seventy," and "The One Hundred and Twenty" are now known to describe other bodies of men, giving to them as well an eternity of honor and glory. As "The Forty" the men making up this band will ever be known as beings who had become unified to commit as unjust, cruel and murderous an act as ever emanated from a depraved human heart. The iniquity which drew them out of obscurity, and bound them together as one man, was the murder of St. Paul. The agreement was to kill him without trial while he was on the way to a court of Justice. To make the act surer, they took a solemn oath not to eat or drink again until the black deed was done. The names of these men have not been given. The whole Forty could not send down a single title to posterity and history. The Bible explanation is found in the statement of the memory of the wicked rotting and perishing. In the long centuries that have rolled by and over them in some distant world, we doubt not they have wished their history had perished with their names. But the Bible tells us that everything shall be brought to light, and that which is hidden will be made manifest; and so their plot to kill an innocent man is coming up the ages to confront them at the Judgment Bar of God. At first there is felt a wonder in the mind that forty men could be found in one city ready to enter upon such a frightful compact of death. But it must be remembered that this was the same place that sent out of its gates a multitude to murder the Son of God. Then the human heart is the same in all times and countries, and ready until changed by divine grace to enter upon horrible agreements of wrong and sin, and equally ready to carry out its plans in fearful acts of cruelty, injustice and death itself. Repeatedly we have known bodies of men try to put down, as they call it, another man; and this intended victim of their hate, would be no sinner, no violator of commandments, human or divine, but simply claiming to be cleansed by the Blood of Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost. So we have seen one hundred pitted against one, who made not the slightest effort toward self-defense. Then we have known of four in one city who entered into agreement to crush and ruin a man whom God was continually honoring and using in the salvation of souls. We also know of a case where three in another city, and three again in still another community, entered into the old compact of the Forty, to down an individual who had displeased and offended them. The partnership and covenant was not to destroy wicked corporations around them, or overthrow bold and powerful enemies of God; but to blight, blacken, injure and overwhelm one who had met Jesus in the way; who had tarried and been filled with the Spirit in the Upper Room; but who did not pronounce their shibboleth, did not cast out devils their way, and would not bow down to them as the supreme authority. According to history it was dangerous to be a Sadducee when a Pharisee was around, and vice versa. In later days a Protestant had no chance in the Middle and Dark Ages. The Catholic downed him. Today the unpardonable offense is to claim the experience of holiness. And still again, to refuse to go into the fanaticisms and wildfireisms of a number is to be rushed upon at once by "The Forty." Certain conditions of things seem to bring out the Forty. Carried away by prejudice, misinformation, intolerance, unholy zeal and a blinding hate and fury they doom to downfall and death all who cross their path. But the Forty made a very foolish vow. It seems that they bound themselves with a solemn oath not to eat or drink until they had slain Paul, a chosen servant of God. In this covenant of Death, they overlooked some very important facts. One, the uncertainty of getting possession of the man they had doomed to destruction. Another most weighty truth they failed to take into consideration was that there was One on the Throne of the Universe, whose eyes run through the earth to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him. A third fearful fact was that they had unconsciously voted death upon themselves in case they did not succeed in killing their victim. They swore they would not eat or drink again until they took the life of the Apostle. But what if he escaped their vengeance? Then according to their vow they must all die instead. And moreover, they chose for themselves a very horrible mode of dissolution; one lingering and agonizing, viz., the death by starvation. What a fearful alternative they had brought to their own doors! What a pit they had dug for their own feet which they intended for another. Fourth, the Forty ran up against another oath older than theirs by two thousand years, and one made by God Himself. Luke describes it: "The oath which He sware unto our father Abraham that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." Here was oath over against oath. A human vow versus a divine promise. A worm and grasshopper of the duet trying to stop Him who rolls the stars through infinite space. The poor creature of an hour endeavoring to measure arms With the omnipotent and everlasting One of the skies who inhabiteth eternity, and says beside Me there is none other. What result could there be, but one in such a hopeless conflict. What but confusion, failure, overthrow and death could come to the Forty. Alas for them when they vowed such an oath against a good man! Instead of mentioning eating and drinking, and the meal they proposed to dispose of upon Paul’s death, they should have ordered forty winding sheets, forty coffins, and given directions to have forty graves or tombs prepared at once and for themselves in their home cemeteries. The vanity and impotency of the oath of the Forty is seen in the easy, simple way in which God brought it to naught. He did not summon flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder; He martialed no howling tempests nor cheek-blanching earthquake throes; nothing of the kind. He simply caused it to happen that Paul’s sister’s son heard of the conclave and cabal; and the chief captain of the Roman garrison was told that a young man had a certain thing to tell him. Then the Bible says, "The chief captain took him by the hand and went with him aside privately, and asked him, what is that thou hast to tell me?" So out came the hellish plot! And then quietly, that very night, Claudius Lysias, the captain, prepared a guard of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen, four hundred and seventy in all, and committing Paul to their keeping, sent the apostle swiftly and safely away to a distant city. When the morning came, and the Forty arose fierce and breakfastless to kill Paul as he would be led to trial, behold their intended victim was safe and sound many miles away. Truly, the simplicity and ease of the deliverance was one of God’s ways of showing His enemies their utter nothingness in His sight. Not even an angel was called from heaven to withstand the Forty. A whisper, a handshake, a brief colloquy, a quiet order, a hurried night march, and the deliberately concerted, carefully planned, and terrifically sworn to plot of nearly an half hundred wicked men is brought suddenly to utter confusion and failure. What an immeasurable contempt must be felt by the Almighty for all the compacts and confederations of evil made by men against Himself and His people. The Bible says He that sitteth in the heavens laughs, even when the kings of the earth take counsel against Himself and His Anointed. What about the opposition of ordinary mortals! It is said that Dean Swift had a Board of Vestrymen of unusually thick skulls. He was trying in vain to get their consent to have constructed a walk of wooden blocks or cobble stones from the street to one of the church entrances. Suddenly, in a moment of irritation, he said "Gentlemen, all you have to do is to put your heads together, and the walk will be made." There is no record that the aforesaid vestrymen saw the irony in the speech; but if they had, and had dedicated their thick craniums to make the pavement, still there would be no lack of similarity of dense occiputs left on earth, and invariably seen worn by men who pit their vows and strength against the promises and omnipotence of God. On just such highways of numbskulls, God has sent and is still sending His servants and truth to win fresh victories, and to conquer and possess the land. He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder He restrains. Here the curtain might properly fall on the Forty, mad and hungry, without breakfast and without Paul. But the scene went on. For there is dinner time, and still no Paul. And then there is that most awkward and uncomfortable oath not to eat anything nor to drink anything until they had slain God’s servant. Then here is the supper hour, but with no eating according to the fearful oath by which they had bound themselves. The stomach was in an agony, and the mind was in a storm. The battle was lively between the two. Which should surrender and which one would capitulate. Something must be done and that quickly, for the cemetery draws very near if the Bread and Meat Supply is cut off. But what about that oath! And what was to become of their word of honor? And what would the church say! And how the people would laugh. And how they would guffaw, no matter what they did, whether they starved because they did not get Paul, or returned to food after not getting him. Oh, that oath! And oh, these empty, aching stomachs! And oh, the trouble these St. Pauls and other servants and preachers of Christ bring on respectable church members and certain honorable and high-toned citizens of the land! On the first day of this self inflicted fast was doubtless born the celebrated religious fad, "The No Breakfast Movement." The Forty did not intend to make themselves famous this way, but nevertheless they seem to be the charter members of this abstinence society. On the second day, it is likely that the Postum Coffee Movement began. The argument being made by adroit consciences working over empty stomachs that it was neither meat nor drink, and so could be compromised on. The third day with its increased suffering may have led to the invention of various light "breakfast foods," in the desperate effort to ward off immediate starvation and mollify conscience as well. The fourth day a number ate on the sly, if they had not done so before; while others got absolved from their oath by the priests, and had a lively skirmish at home among the pots and kettles. The fifth day saw the last one who had held out, if any refrained from food that long, drawing up to the table, instead of stretching out in a coffin and disappearing in the grave. And so none starved, and all broke their oath. The apology and explanation which they gave for their continued existence on earth was, that while they had not killed Paul, yet they had made him run, and so they felt absolved from their vow, and therefore could eat again. But Paul had not run! Alas for the Forty! We do not doubt but that every, time after this, when they were seen sitting down at a table to eat, people would smile and even laugh outright. As to their present life in the Pit, we think it very likely that devils and lost men often ask them if they believe in sticking to one’s oaths; and which in their judgment weighs most, and better deserves attention, a big vow or a great dinner. The descendants of the Forty are still in our midst. Still we behold compacts made and combinations formed against the servants of the Lord. Still we see the oath of men going down before the older promise of God that human hates and plots shall not succeed against His friends and followers. Still we see the Forty suffering hunger pangs from the disappointed Feast of gratified revenge and malevolence. And above all, the Forty themselves are compelled to behold men whom they had condemned and devoted to overthrow and ruin, pass triumphantly on their way, secure and rejoicing under the strange double protection of man and God. Alas for the Forty! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 01.32. THE DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING ======================================================================== Chapter 32 THE DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING. There is scarcely any feature connected with man’s stay on earth more mysterious than the apparent unconsciousness and inaction of the Supreme Being in regard to the violence, injustice, cruelty and wrong doing which takes place in every age and on every hand. Nations are overwhelmed, cities pillaged, people slain or led into captivity, and there seems no sign in the skies that the Omniscient One up there beheld any part of the melancholy history. Looking closer we behold individuals wronged, cheated, impoverished, insulted, slandered, oppressed and murdered, and still no voice forbidding from Heaven, no thunderbolt of justice or vengeance dropping from a cloud, the seasons come and go, the victim sinks out of public sight or disappears in the grave, while the wrongdoer keeps on in a flourishing way, well in body, prosperous in business and having apparently all that heart could wish. David confessed that he had been nearly overwhelmed at this view of crowned iniquity, and sleeping justice, until from the standpoint of the sanctuary he got light and explanation. And many since David’s time have wondered and even despaired over the same spectacle, and failed to get the viewpoint and consolation from the House of God. Not a reader of these lines but could give matter for a volume showing up the suffering of the innocent, the triumph and prosperity of the wicked, and the wrongs of a life time coming to the tomb and final sleeping place of the dead, still unrectified. We knew a man who married a wealthy and beautiful Southern girl. He gambled her fortune away, was faithless to her, made her life miserable and finally broke her heart. Long ago she has been in the grave robbed of many years of a beautiful life to which she was entitled. In the last few years of her existence she had to toil like a slave. Her sorrows drove her into a seclusion from her friends, and then came the untimely grave. The man who committed the wrong still lives, seemingly without regret or remorse, has every physical comfort, and has his concluding years made bright and pleasant to him through a daughter who is perfectly devoted to this slayer of her mother. A handsome girl from the same Southland married a man who fairly worshipped her. There was no want of hers but he gladly supplied and his constant effort for years was to make life bright and beautiful to her. In return she neglected and heart starved him, and he became the saddest and most silent of men. He died in the prime of manhood and seemed glad to go. She was left with the property, and is still living without any sign of mental or spiritual suffering, and no mark or judgment of a displeased Heaven upon member, person or life for the course of selfishness, sinfulness and heartlessness which she followed for over forty years. In numerous Gospel meetings, the worldly Churchianity element prevails against faithful servants of God and the truth as it is in its fullness in Christ. Sometimes the evangelist is sent off unpaid, while busy tongues abuse and misjudge him by the retail and wholesale. He and the Holiness people who stood with him are said to be disturbers, church splitters and the spreaders of false doctrine. The services close on some occasions with a very slender victory, or a drawn fight, or what seems to the public to be a defeat for full salvation. The workers go away under social and ecclesiastical disfavor, while the victorious, worldly element of the church, resume the reproved, condemned methods of amusement and finance, get a popular evangelist the next time, and seem not only to be perfectly serene and easy in heart and mind, are happy in the social, and prosperous in the business life, but even appear to the public to have the favor of Heaven with them in their subsequent revival meeting under the gentle sway of Bro. Easy, the evangelist, and Professor Smile, the leader of song. People predicted the swift and terrible judgment of Heaven upon individuals, lay and ministerial, for the part they took in blocking up the way of a sweeping revival, and standing in between God and the souls of their household and the congregation as to salvation. Some thought they would be struck dead in a few days. But the weeks roll by and we see the laughers and resisters of holiness, still breaking the Sabbath, still going to the lodge, still smoking their pipes and cigars, and still evidently prospering in the store, standing high in the conference, powerful in the cabinet, and saying their health was never better than now. We have known faithful preachers put out of prominent pulpits by wealthy people who used bishops as their instruments. Such men we have seen humiliated before the public, ostracized from many circles, brought into the deepest financial distress, while the families that so crushed them rolled around in wealth, in carriages, in pride and in fat. Not a sign could be seen from the visible Heaven that God had observed the way in which His devoted messengers had been treated. Humiliation and want were the accompaniments of the victim, and comfort, plenty, human adulation and their dictatorial way in everything seemed to go with those who had smitten the truth and God’s prophets. In a meeting led by the writer, a man mauled and beat his wife for attending the services. She yielded and has doubtless gone into spiritual darkness. The man remains in excellent health, has seeming good spirits, enjoys eating and drinking, attends the lodge, and is evidently pleased highly with himself and the life he is living. Not a single stroke from the skies fell upon him when he struck down the mother of his children for attending the church where the fullness of the Gospel of Christ was being held up to her hungry soul. It looked then and since as if God had not observed the cruelty, brutality and moral awfulness of the act. That weakness and innocence are helpless, and that money, physical might and meanness have their day and complete, unhindered right of way. Before the reader draws a hasty conclusion, let him remember that this is not an unusual happening. This is not peculiar to this century, and the one lately passed away. How long were the Jews in Egyptian captivity or slavery? How long was Joseph in prison, while those who put him there were in freedom outside? Let the reader count the years that Herod lived after he killed John the Baptist. It looked like God could not avenge the death of His true servant. Then enumerate the years Pilate lived after giving Jesus up to the murderous, clamoring Jews. And still again observe that Jerusalem remained in its pride, ease, wealth, pleasure and formal ritualistic life forty years after crucifying the Son of God. To the careless thinker and observer it appears as if no great crime had been committed after all; as if Heaven was powerless to judge the proud city and haughty church that had murdered God’s only Son, and requite them for the horrible crime they had committed. But God saw them! And God sees now! And the insulted King of the Universe had the power then and now to destroy in s single moment of time every being who is transgressing His laws, wronging His people and outraging the authority, dignity and majesty of Heaven. But there was and are still, reasons for that conduct on the part of the Almighty which men have falsely construed into inattention, inaction, and disregard of what is going on in the ranks of the beings He has created. One cause for God’s apparent permission of wrong doing, is that immediate signal punishment and calamity for every misdeed would change the present probationary existence into a kind of automaton machine, slave, penitentiary like character of living. Just as men in penal institutions are knocked down, beaten and severely punished for the slightest misdeed, and get to wear a cowed face which covers a trembling, fearful, dissembling spirit, and obedience is rendered simply from servile dread and not from noble motives of love, duty and right; so the sudden infliction of judgment and physical suffering on men by the Almighty for every wrong word and act, would end the very freedom of choice, the liberty of motive and the untrammeled spontaneous character of life that makes a genuine probation. Men would be outwardly good or obedient to divine commandments simply to escape immediate visitations of divine displeasure and wrath. Earth would no longer be an arena, where men could and would show to three worlds what their inward character really was, but a vast prison house where pricking swords, uplifted whips, handcuffs, clubs and dark cells in constant threat and use made the human race walk straight and do right, not from the love of God and good, but from constant dread of suffering and a paralyzing dread of the Lord of Heaven. God is no suppressionist. He wants things to come out for manifestation, confession, renunciation and destruction. Moreover, the very liberty He grants men in their lives to act out what is really in them, becomes a wonderful confirmation of what He says in His Word about sin, and the human heart in its deceitfulness, blackness and desperate wickedness. We do not doubt that if God had not thrown out the lines of longitude and latitude of perfect moral freedom, but had instead driven the race into a sullen, stolid submission through a superior physical force, that the students of character and writers on the spiritual and character life would be extolling human nature to the skies and the solemn assertions of the Bible about the extent and depth of the world’s downfall into sin would be denied on every hand. But as the parable says, the Lord went into a far country, and stayed a long time. Here the permission for wrong doing is brought out in the double figure of a great distance and long time. Then came out the true inwardness of the tenants and they began their wicked career of injustice, oppression and cruelty. They took advantage of what seems to be opportunity, and filled the land with the sighs, tears and groans of their victims. A second reason for the divine permission of wrong doing for long periods is, that it is made to be a powerful test and discipline for the faith, patience and piety, of God’s own people. David was driven to the sanctuary to understand as well as to endure the reign and prosperity of the wicked. And we will have to make the same flight to God to bear up under what we are forced to see and made to feel by the same characters and classes. We know of no more powerful call and drain upon faith than the sight of the wicked in power and comfort, while God’s true ones lack for daily necessities, are visited with afflictions, and meet with the unkindest and most unjust treatment at the hands of their fellow men. The soul is compelled to cling to God’s word, and believe in God’s truth and faithfulness then, or it is sure to be undone. As for the discipline received by the mind and heart through such experiences, we need not argue. We have long ago seen both in the Scripture and in life, that God in His dealings with His followers is constantly endeavoring to bring forth the passive graces of the Christian character which beyond all question are the loveliest of all the virtues, excellencies and fruit of the redeemed soul. With this thought in mind we begin to see why the Lord let David have so many enemies and suffer so much at their hands; why Job was so afflicted and lost his friends; why Joseph was allowed to stay in prison such a weary while; and why to this day He permits His people to be brought along ways of wrongs, sorrow and suffering that they never would have dreamed of choosing for themselves. The result in many cases, in sweetness, patience, silent endurance, self-containedness and a mighty strength in God, justifies the wisdom and providence of Heaven in the manner in which they have been tried, and the way along which they have been led. A third reason for God’s slowness in inflicting immediate punishment on men for wrongdoing is that He has appointed a day, a great, final Day of Judgment when every one shall give account of himself to God for every thought, word and deed of the life, and when justice shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet. God is going to be vindicated that day, the injured shall be righted, and sin shall be fearfully and eternally punished. So great, perfect and overwhelming will be the victory of that final period for truth and for God, that He can afford to wait quietly, silently and assuredly for that time. The infidel, blasphemer and swearer will get their deserts that day. The business man who with trusts, monopolies, high prices and cheats in trade got rich at the expense of his oppressed neighbors will get his suffering and damnation at last. The rich who denied crumbs of bread to the poor at their gate will scream for drops of water in hell. The bishop who went around lecturing on secular and fictional subjects instead of preaching the Gospel; who traveled on the train on Sunday and fought Holiness will stand undone at the Judgment and fall away with a cry of horror from the presence of the Judge as He says, "Depart from Me--I know you not." The man with the slanderous pen and mouth; the woman with the tongue of a serpent, will receive their retributive doom at last and be cast into the same Pit with all liars, whisperers, backbiters and takers up of every reproach against a neighbor. The being who possessed social, ecclesiastical and financial power on earth will be stripped of it all in the presence of Christ, and find too late that spiritual treasure is what is demanded that Day, that likeness in speech and life to Christ, and that the power of Blood-washed character is the real potency and necessary condition in the eternal world. The reign of the oppressor in church, state, social circle, business office, and the home, is over forever. The innocent are vindicated, the wronged are righted, the injured are blessedly and eternally recompensed. Tears are wiped away forever. There will be no more sorrow, neither any kind of pain. As for the wicked, the Bible says they shall be turned into hell with all the nations that forget God. It is the Day of the Wrath of the Lamb and the Justice and Judgment of God. Well does the Scripture say, "The Great Day of His wrath has come, and who will be able to stand!" * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 01.33. THE NECESSITY OF A DAY OF JUDGMENT ======================================================================== Chapter 33 THE NECESSITY OF A DAY OF JUDGMENT. There is absolute need for a great Judgment Day, where the Judge is all-powerful as well as infallible, and where decisions are exactly right, and all sentences are just and proper. God is not only to be vindicated at that time, but man also. The divine character is to be revealed, and human conduct in respect to that nature is likewise to be declared. There are some features of the Day which especially impress the writer. One of them is the complete reversal of the opinions, judgments and sentences of this world upon human character, achievement and life. Men will be horrified and all but overwhelmed to find before the blazing tribunal of Almighty God, that those who were called "first" on earth shall be "last," "and the last shall be first." At that hour. offices. rank. position in church or state, will stand nowhere when separated from character. It is absolutely nothing to be elected to the chair of a college, or to a bishopric in a church, if one be not chosen of God through the Spirit to holiness of heart and life. It will amount to nothing that the body has been burned, goods given to feed the poor, the tongue speak like an angel, if we have not the mind and possess not the Spirit of Christ. We have thought often of the discomfort and torture of a king or queen in the spirit-world accustomed to fulsome homage and adulation on earth, yet stripped of it all out there, and finding themselves in a spiritual rank far beneath some of their humblest subjects. How also prominent officials in the ecclesiastical realm will reconcile themselves to the fact of the tremendous exaltation over them in heaven of men whom they despised, and lorded it over so much on earth. The Judgment Day is to show who was the real man in God’s sight, and to establish the fact that it is not office or position on earth, but character, and that character blood-washed, obedient to God, and possessing the Spirit of Christ. This fact alone will cause a marvelous coming up and going down in the opinions of men concerning individuals whom they had long ago graded and settled in a certain way in their own minds. Opinions will have to be changed. Another truth equally forcible is, that some of God’s people are better than they seem, and others worse. It does not take long for us to get acquainted with these characters, but many others do not thus sees because various things militate against the discovery. We knew a son who had the highest confidence in, and devotion to, the memory of his father. It was something beautiful to hear him speak of his departed parent. But there were parties living who knew the father to be thoroughly unprincipled. Not for any consideration would they have broken the young man’s heart by the disclosure of the real parental life. Some idea of the coming shock to him on the Day of Judgment can be easily seen. It required a great deal of self control, as well a grace, for a group of ministers to smile pleasantly on a lady entertainer when she was enlarging upon the beautiful life, purity and high sense of honor of her husband, whom she called her "sweetheart," when they were in actual possession of knowledge sufficient to destroy her domestic happiness forever and cause the "sweetheart," as she called him, to leave the community in disgrace. On the other hand there are people who are a great deal better than they get credit for. We have known both men and women who have been made to suffer not only for years but for a life time, through the unscrupulous or careless tongue of a fellow-creature. Innocent words and acts were misconstrued, distorted by an impure mind, and a suspicion, not to say a stain, was placed upon the name and character of a good man or woman. For years we misjudged a minister of the gospel through just such a verbal wrong done him by a quick speaking and hasty judging female. A simple act of politeness on his part was misconstrued by her diseased imagination to be an impertinence and even insult. Years have passed and we have seen the man pastor of quite a number of leading churches, loved and respected by all of his congregations, while she, his detractor, has been classed and graded long ago by spiritual men in the pulpit and pew as "light" and "chaffy." But she has told the circumstances to many who, without means of discovering the truth, will go to the Judgment believing in her and doubting the individual she stabbed. So that day will hold another surprise. In applying the thought of this chapter to many happenings in life, we are constrained to say that in such a world as this, it is impossible to get justice. Sometimes prejudice is in the way; anger and hate make it impossible for some to do justice to another; facts cannot be had; witnesses cannot be found; proof may not be obtained to refute a suspicion or lie, men will not confess their own acts of guilt; people do not take time to search out and find the truth; many receive the first side of a story related and hold to that; so that more than ever we see the need of a Day of Judgment where facts will be known and the truth, and the whole truth at that, will be revealed. Among other happenings of earth are the separations and divorces taking place in so many families over the land. We have discovered that the sympathy from the first with the public is with the woman. Before a line is read about the sad occurrence the man is sentenced and hung, so to speak, in the judgment of countless millions. The black dress, drooping head, and tears of the woman in the court house will generally carry with a sweep of emotion judge, jury and audience. Men as a rule appear at their worst in such a scene. No man looks well in an altercation, dispute, or legal suit with a woman. The sympathies are with the weaker vessel. Few stop to inquire into the merits of the case. People do not recall at such a time the possibility of art being brought to bear in the pose of the head, the droop of the eyelid, and even the flowing of tears; that the affecting scene has been studied out before, and even practiced. So the man is legally sat down on, and socially damned, and goes to the grave and to Judgment with a side of the question directly opposite to what the court and audience saw, and which history will astound people on that day when the white light of truth is poured on human conduct and life. Even in trials by jury, where witnesses are brought out by the score, and days are spent and every effort put forth to get at the real facts of different cases of crime, how impossible is it even after all this labor, to secure perfect justice to the accused. But when we are confronted with instances of accusation, where no effort is made to obtain proof or evidence, where the party is pronounced guilty without a trial, without a single chance to clear himself or herself, we see the very essence of the injustice and unreliableness of human judgment. Even in the courts of law run by unconverted men, they ask the prisoner at the bar whether he is guilty or not guilty. But we have to enter the social and church circle to behold the amazing spectacle of a man being tried without a jury, condemned without a hearing, and after being hung, asked if he has anything to say why he should not be executed. Truly the spirit of wrong and oppression is seen everywhere. We heard a mother once say to her son, who had misjudged her, "I thank God that a man is not my judge, even though that man may be my son." Few sons-in-law expect justice to be done them by a mother-in-law. Political parties have not the slightest expectation of receiving proper treatment from the hands of their opponents. One religious denomination seems incapable of judging another ecclesiastical body properly and truly. When a man obtains the blessing of holiness, he might as well from that moment give up all idea of being understood, and of obtaining justice at the hands of his brethren in the church. All defense of self and explanations of words and works is that much breath lost. The sanctified man soon learns that he need not look to his conference, or bishop, or his church paper for endorsement and approval, no matter how close he may walk with God. Having found this out through bitter experience, many holiness people nowadays never make the slightest effort to defend or explain their conduct under various charges and accusations in what is called the church press. Recently an evangelist was prohibited from holding a meeting in Texas by the pastor of the M. E. Church South. The Christian Advocate’s account of it placed the evangelist in a most unenviable light. He was represented as a recalcitrant, as a defier of authority, and as thrusting himself upon a community where he was not wanted. The whole article was as untrue as it was unkind. As the man read the piece, his heart sickened and ached for minutes over this unjust editorial sentence. But he was to make a still more painful discovery, for behold, in the columns of a Holiness paper published in Texas, he was more severely handled than he had been by the church organ. The holiness paper said he had acted the coward in leaving the place. Perfectly conscious of the injustice of both charges; that he had not come in a defiant spirit, as one paper said, nor had he left with a single feeling of man fear in his heart, as the other journal asserted--he was made more than ever to see the impossibility of obtaining justice in this world, even though our judges be preachers and editors of religious periodicals; and that many a sentence issued by an editorial tripod will, most fortunately for us all, be completely upset, and altogether reversed by the decision of the highest and Last Court on the Judgment Day of the Son of God. When David was offered one of three troubles, war, famine or pestilence, he said to the prophet, "Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, let me not fall into the hand of man." This was almost the exact language of the captain of a merchantman, who, seeing himself and crew about to be captured by pirates, said, "I would rather trust to the mercy of God than the mercy of man," and firing his pistol into the powder magazine, blew himself and most of his followers into eternity. Of course this dreadful act was wrong, but at the same time it showed the discovery by unsaved men of the very fact concerning which we have been writing. Truly, the longer we all live, the more thankful we should be, and are, that we are not to be finally judged by men in their shortsightedness, ignorance, and prejudice, but by a holy, all wise, pitiful and just God. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 01.34. THE QUIET POWER OF GOODNESS ======================================================================== Chapter 34 THE QUIET POWER OF GOODNESS. We were once in the city of Cologne on the banks of the River Rhine. At sunset we visited a great Cathedral that is famous for its architectural beauty and historic associations. We entered the building as the service of vespers commenced. Hundreds were present and all standing on the stone floor, as there seemed to be no pews. In the great throng we saw many peasants, while there were also throngs of others and of both sexes, who were citizens of the city, and doubtless members of the church we were visiting. A misty sunset reflection came through the large stained windows, while a few lights sparkled like stars here and there in the ceiling of the vast structure. A deep toned organ was playing softly in some remote hidden gallery, and a woman’s voice was singing and leading the service from the same secret place high up in the groined arches of the pillared temple. A priest stood before the altar with a censer in his hand. As the organ played and the woman sang, he silently swung the censer. From where we stood we could just hear a slight tinkle of the chains as the incense bearing vessel was oscillated gently backward and forward. With each movement of the priest’s hand we observed a little puff of white smoke or vapor leave the censer and dissipate in the air. But after a while we recognized the sweet delicate odor of the incense. It had silently, noiselessly but steadily pushed its way through two or three hundred feet of atmosphere and had reached not only those who stood near, but had brought its fragrance like a delightful presence to those who were afar off. We said at once this is the way that a truly good and beautiful life is recognized. If we are willing to be a small vessel like the censer, and let God put the spirit of Christ and Holiness in us and then give ourselves over into the hands of our High Priest, the son of God, to be swung steadily as He will, those in the temple and in the community are certain to detect and appreciate the excellency and loveliness of the heavenly gift within us. Of course the melody of the organ must proceed, and the singing from unseen heights be realized, and so while the song goes on the life steadily reaches out touching this person and yonder individual, until a great congregation at last have to admit the sweetness and power of the life lived unobtrusively in their midst. One’s talents may be few and ordinary, the work circumscribed and the field limited, but if we will let the Saviour put the blessing of holiness in us, will permit Him to swing us in that narrow place where we dwell, and humble position we fill, it is but a question of time when the incense will travel a long way from the place where we first obtained it, and where we live, and the fragrance of the pure heart and the loving life will reach not only those near, but many afar off whom we never expected to touch, and will die ignorant of a multitude whom we have blessed. It is well known that the best man in a church is not thus acknowledged because he springs up and announces in a loud voice that he is, but the incense stole out humbly and devoutly from the human censer, as Christ swung him and they of the congregation had to admit that a beautiful life was in their midst. In like manner we get to know the best old woman in the country neighborhood. She lives in a lonely home that is off the main road; she rarely visits or gets to town; she has no trumpet sounding before her what she is and what she has done. And yet everybody in that part of the county, and numbers in other counties know that the best woman in all that region lives in a certain humble dwelling back of the cotton wood grove, just the other side of the creek. Somehow people who are in trouble go to her first. The preacher himself visits her for counsel and sympathy. While the young mother who has just buried her first born soon finds her way to this gray-haired, shining-faced saint, who has laid husband and six children, her all, in the old graveyard overshadowed with a grove of sighing pine trees. Christ swung the censer and the incense that stole across the sedge field was wafted over the brow of the hill, and along the diverging roads to different homes, so the bereaved young wife and the broken-hearted young mother were drawn to her, and buried their faces in her lap while she spoke of the Resurrection of the dead, of Heaven, of the reunion of parted ones in the skies, and "comforted them with the comfort wherewith she had been comforted of God" in the many hard trials and sorrows she had met on the way. Once we were in Arizona and our next appointment was in Boston. To make a certain fast train and reach our meeting in time we had to take a long drive of fifty miles across a desert or prairie. A gentleman who was well acquainted with the western wilds drove us in a buggy to the town where the Cannon Ball stopped. The memory of that long lonely trip will never be forgotten. Starting in the afternoon the night soon overtook us on the plain and then for hours there was nothing but a silence that could be felt and a loneliness that was like a stifling atmosphere, it was so oppressive. Hours followed hours and the only sound was the dull beat of the horses’ hoofs on the sod, the melancholy swish of the prairie grass in the night wind and the howl of a distant coyote. We finally were so affected by the stillness of the desert and the world of darkness all around us that we ceased all conversation. Suddenly near the hour of eleven we saw a flash and sparkle of light away in front of us, and as we afterwards discovered, fully fifteen or twenty miles away. We caught the first view from a swell of ground in the prairie and we thought we had never beheld anything so beautiful, so attractive and heart-cheering. It seemed to inspire hope, and waved its far off white hand to us to come on, and spoke of shelter, rest, companionship, welcome and safety. If we never knew before, we understood then why Christ said: "I am the light of the world," and likened His people to the same blessed figure of illumination, consolation and guidance. By and by as we descended the gentle slope we lost sight of our electric light shining over the plain from the distant town toward which we were traveling. Then with another swell of the prairie we saw it again, still shining, still gladdening us with its beautiful radiance as we were far away in the night, and still beckoning us to come on where entertainment and comfort were awaiting us. And so we traveled on, still cheered by this single light, when at last about two hours after midnight we rolled into town where a score or more of great arc burners were making the streets like day, swept up to a hotel, got a room, some rest and food and caught the daylight fast train going eastward. We said that night, and have thought the same many times since, that the life of a good man or woman shines out on this dark, sad world like the light did on the Arizona desert. The quiet power of Godliness cannot be denied by the thoughtful and observant. Its striking influence in times of trouble upon others, its cheering effect in the night of sin and sorrow, its guiding, directing force to the wanderer and those who have gone far away from duty and God, has been felt and admitted by many millions of souls. Like a light Madam Guyon shone in the darkness of France. Like a light Wesley gleamed in the profound gloom of what Hume calls the darkest hour of England’s history. But some would say that these were very gifted and remarkable persons, and that the comparison fails because of the relative weakness and insignificance of what is called the ordinary Christian. That the first individuals are arc burners, while the commonplace followers of the Lord are only candles. To this we reply that the Bible does not call us arc burners, but by the very term which some so modestly assume. The word says, "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." The main thing is to light it, and then the good work at once begins. It is wonderful how far a candle can be seen in the night and over a wide intervening country. We have read the most affecting things about its quiet, gentle ray shining through a dark, stormy night, cheering and guiding belated travelers to the house where it shone. Repeatedly ships have been saved by them. What cares the lost traveler whether the beacon was in a gold, silver, brass or wooden candle stick, and whether it was made of wax, sperm, paraffine or tallow. It was the light itself that cheered, guided and saved. The thing is, will we be the Lord’s candle? Will we let Him ignite us and place us where He will, so we may shine for Him, give light to those in the household, and help the wandering belated travelers who are out in the night and storm outside. The rest will follow in due time. Men will knock at the door of our lives and say we were lost and saw your light shining and have come to you for guidance and help. And thousands will arise in Heaven and call such people blessed, saying we would have perished in the desert of sin, in the awful night of iniquity, but we beheld your life, took heart and came to God for pardon and Holiness, and He took us in and saved us. We remember a hymn we used to sing much as a young preacher. "O the lights along the shore, That never grow dim; never, never grow dim; Are the souls that are aflame With the love of Jesus’ name, And they guide us, yes, they guide us unto Him." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 01.35. THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE ======================================================================== Chapter 35 THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE. The battle that decided Absalom’s fate, and restored David to his throne, was fought in Gilead on the eastern side of Jordan. David who had charged his three generals, Joab, Abishai and Ittai, "Deal gently with the young man Absalom for my sake," sat by the gate of the city of Mahanaim and waited with a burdened heart for news from the distant field of conflict. At last a watchman on the walls saw a man running towards him, and then another coming from the same direction. Both brought tidings of victory to the king, and both knew of the death of Absalom by the hands of Joab and his young men. But the first would not, perhaps could not get his consent to tell the father of the slaying of his son as he was caught by the boughs of a tree and could not defend himself or escape. Then the second was enjoined to speak, by David, with the words, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" And Cushi answered, "The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt be as that young man is." The Scripture says with its incomparable pathos, "And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, thus he said, ’O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son!" The room over the gate in which David poured out his grief, detaches itself somehow from the other features of the Bible narrative and suggests certain facts to the mind. One is, that a truly great sorrow must have its lonely hiding place away from, and above the crowd. The sight of David turning from citizen and soldier, from street and palace, from human voices and presences, to be alone with his crushing sorrow, not only moves the spirit in deepest sympathy, but is felt to be a kind of picture lesson of the heart’s wish and conduct under a grief that is truly great and overwhelming in its character. The desire of the soul is to get away to itself. It would hide from the gaze of the idly curious. Human pity and consolation are felt to be powerless at such a time, and the stricken life yearns for the boon of perfect loneliness. In other words, it craves the solitude of "the room over the gate." This is so truly a principle belonging to the wounded heart, that when we are confronted with glib and eloquent portrayers of private sorrows in mixed social circles and public occasions, we may know at once that a profound life-crushing woe has not visited the wordy, windy being before us. A truly great sorrow hides itself and craves privacy in the indulgence of its bitter load and affliction. We have heard women air their marital griefs and household troubles in a company made up of mere acquaintances and strangers. We were told of a female who took a leading part in the singing at her husband’s funeral. We listened once with a sickened feeling to a woman evangelist while she told a nondescript audience how she preached to an assembly of people in a hall while her husband lay dead in his coffin up stairs. Every such occurrence exhibited a violation not only of the decencies of life, the absence of a proper respect and regard for the dead, but is an exposure of the fact that a real crushing sorrow had not come to any one of them. In the first instance the reader can judge for himself both easily and correctly. In the second case there was no love lost on either side as numbers knew. And in the third occurrence the marriage had been made for money and not affection, and there was no actual grief in the voluble feminine as she was posing down stairs as a martyr at the stake, and getting credit for a Christian resignation when not a particle of that beautiful grace was in her soul. She was glad he was gone. A lifetime observation convinces us that genuine grief draws away from publicity, from cold, observing eyes, from the babel of human tongues and crouches down alone with its misery in the stillness of the room over the gate. A second thought is that such are the calls of life upon us, that we cannot remain in the chamber over the gate, but have to come back to the duties and responsibilities awaiting us in public. David had not been long alone with his overwhelming bereavement, when the summons came that he was wanted, and that to stay aloof nursing his sorrow would mean disaster both to him and his kingdom. And so brushing away the tears and choking back the sobs, the king came and stood in the presence of the people to lead and rule them as of yore. This is certainly one of the most painful obligations of life, and yet one of the most pressing and essential. It looks to every one of us who have entered the room over the gate, that we can never leave it again. The very sunshine on the outside seems to mock us, and the murmur of tongues, and the sound of laughter on all sides is a torture. But there are grave faced, stern lipped Joabs that summon us back to the desk, counter, platform, pulpit, farm and store, and so exerting every fiber of strength we return to irksome duties, to weary hearted performances, and fill our places once more in the ranks of our fellow men. And we go back not to burden others with our life loads and wretchedness; but as David returned with a saddened but resolute mind to his offices as a king and without a word about Absalom, so we are to sink the individual grief and speak not of the personal sorrow for the sake of the many who need help, and for the good of the human race as a whole. Self-contained and self-restrained we should be all the stronger and nobler for such spirit control, and go back into the walks of men to do all in the line of usefulness and blessing that is expected of us by God and man. Here then is another proof that the noisy proclaimer of his wrongs, suffering and bereavements is not doing what he should do, and is not the man that God desires and plans him to be. Truly this world would be sorely hurt, and robbed as well, of its greatest men and their achievements for humanity, if those who have been fearfully smitten in life should have remained in "the chamber over the gate." A mere glance at sacred and secular history will reveal what has been wrought in the best and highest lines for mankind by those who in some way have suffered most, and yet who still came and walked in the midst of the suffering children of men, and did all that could be done for them in body and mind and soul. A third truth we draw from this Scripture scene is that it is possible to be a blessing to men and yet bear about with us in the heart "The Room Over the Gate." We do not have to lay bare our troubles to the gaze of men, but there is a chamber in the soul where one can retire and there in the presence of God let the tears drip unchallenged and unrebuked over the dead Absaloms of our life. When Robert E. Lee, looking through his field glass saw that he had lost Gettysburg through the failure of one of his lieutenant generals to carry out his orders, it is said that he lowered the glass and rode away without a single expression of impatience, pain, regret or anger. And yet a crushing disappointment and sorrow had befallen him. There was no time for him to indulge his grief in some neighboring tent or house near the battlefield. He had to work now to bring his defeated army back to Virginia. And he did so. But no one could study his face then and thereafter when an Appomattox had been added to his sorrows and humiliations, but could see that he had "A Room Over the Gate" in his heart. Here in this strange apartment of the spirit we doubt not that he silently suffered and grieved; but that he kept his burden to himself, made him all the greater as a man, and all the more admirable in the eyes and judgment of the world. We knew in earlier days a great church editor whose writings, full of strong, pure, lofty thought, and carrying with them a nameless pathetic power, moved, strengthened and blessed the minds and hearts of many thousands of readers. He had met his Absalom sorrow in his early manhood in the distressing death of his young bride. He never spoke of this past bereavement to the public, or even alluded to it in the social circle. And yet it was evident to the discerning eye that he bore about with him in his breast "A Room Over the Gate." After his death a friend, looking over his private papers, found this written paragraph which was evidently penned not for publication, not for human eyes to rest upon, but as a kind of wail like David’s when he went up the steps to the chamber over the portal crying, "O Absalom, my son, my son." The paragraph of a few lines read as follows: "Twenty miles from this room as the crow flies, is a grave which has borrowed grace and beauty from the form of the lovely young woman who sleeps within. The shadows of the live oaks touch it kindly; the rose vine clambering near by drops its white and scarlet petals lovingly upon it. The mockingbird gives its tribute of song from a neighboring willow to one whose voice was sweeter than its own. We visit the spot each anniversary of the death of the beautiful sleeper. But all the duties and rush of life are not sufficient to keep us from holding vigil every day by the side of this last resting place of one, who when she went away into the skies took with her the charm of this world and left us desolate and stripped of all but duty to God and man, and waiting till life shall end, and we shall meet again in a country where death is unknown and parting never comes again." All honor to the man who in sorrow can keep his grief to himself, and although the Room Over the Gate is in his heart and life, yet can come down like David did to help and bless others, and be a king among men in the best, truest and highest sense of the word. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 01.36. THE SICK ROOM ======================================================================== Chapter 36 THE SICK ROOM. Very many are the thoughts that come to one in the loneliness of the sick room. There is ample facility for uninterrupted meditation in the solitariness of the apartment. Then pain provides as many wakeful hours at night as are generally given us by the laws of nature in the day. Very many, then, are the lessons of the sick room. In fact it is one of God’s schools or colleges where the very best knowledge is imparted, where we learn and unlearn, and where new light falls on persons, events, conditions and one’s own self, so that salvation is found by some, and great advancement to others in the wisdom and knowledge of God and in the soul life when already we are saved. Some men seem to find no place or apology for the presence of sickness in the Christian Dispensation. They appear to think that it is declarative of sin somewhere, and Heaven’s judgment upon it; or that it records a low state of faith in the child of God who is physically afflicted and cannot obtain an instantaneous, or anyhow a speedy cure. This is certainly not the teaching of Scripture, but the contrary. And as for the lessons and achievements of the sick room, we fail to see how as a race we can afford to do without them. While none of us naturally prefer to be the victim of a painful illness, nor would we like to see it visit another, and are quick to pray for deliverance from the pale faced visitor at once; yet it remains that to strike out what sickness of the body has been under grace to the soul, what a power it has wielded in the home, and how God has in innumerable times and places been glorified by it, would be to rob the Cause of Truth not only of the greatest moral victories, sublime heroisms, holy triumphs, and beautiful, melting scenes of grace in the sick room and death chamber, but would lay low one of Christianity’s greatest universities where we are taught truths and brought into mental and spiritual conditions that overtop in value, and outlast in time and eternity, all the curriculums of earth’s most famous schools and colleges. Men are not so fond of pain as to desire spiritual knowledge by that sorrowful route. But the invalid room comes to us all sooner or later, whether we like it or not, and the teaching begins while the mind silently takes note of the presence of the Faculty in the physician, with his knife, the nurse, with glass and spoon, and then the long procession of the hours, the longer array of physical pangs, and the eloquence of silence itself is poured forth, while the weary days and nights go by. They all seem qualified to teach, and certainly we learn, under their varied ministry. The desk in this strange, sad institute is a bed, while the correct, approved and insisted-upon attitude of the students is a horizontal one. Here the back is turned towards the earth, and the face lifted upwards to the sky, and all it contains in its marvelous depths. The school house is very quiet. No noise allowed in the room. The student with his desk which is placed in the corner or pulled out into the middle of the apartment, must have perfect stillness around him. Who can tell what is taught, what is received or given up, what is conquered or yielded in these lessons of a week, month or several months. We have all been to this school. Many are still at the desk. It has been hard study for months and months. It would certainly be surprising if we did not learn some few things in that time. One thing we got to feel most deeply was the sense of our own insignificance. What did it matter to the world; what does it amount to the whole earth if any man is moved from its walks and men are told that he is sick. The globe rolls on just the same carrying the nations with it; the nations rush on their way regardless if thousands disappear from their midst. The absence of a man from the ranks of men is as much missed and as quickly replaced by the form of another, as the water rushes in to fill up the space when the finger is withdrawn from the bowl. The water pours in, and the hole that the child thought would be left after the pulling away of the finger is as instantly gone. So when the invalid with pale face and feeble step comes to the open window and looks out; the rattle of cabs, the tread of heels on the pavement, the roar of the train and whistle of distant steamboats tells him in unmistakable language that the world has rolled on just the same in its labor, thought, speech, action and achievements, and that this faded piece of humanity leaning against the window has not been missed among the busy millions a single moment. Moreover, the world hardly knew when he disappeared, and when he returned to the scene of action. Only recently one man said to another in a crowd, grasping his hand with surprise: "Why, Joe, I thought you were dead." And yet this same Joe doubtless wondered who could take his place when he was gone. In the city of New Orleans there is a building which apparently rests upon a row of Satyr-like figures. They appear to be holding up the main structure and the bent position of the forms, the deep lines on the stony faces would indicate that the load and pressure were tremendous, and but for them, all would topple in the dust, walls, pillars, dome and all. But the architect and builder will tell you that not a pound of weight rests upon the shoulders of these stone images. That niches were provided for them, and they--these same burdened looking Satyr--were slipped into the places prepared for them after the building was completed. In a word, they were "put in" and the anxious, wearied, oppressed look was "put on!" And so it is that the little human figure of today can be taken from the niche of time, place, and position, and the great edifice that God has built for the present and everlasting good of man will continue to stand and abide forever. Redemption does not rest upon us, but upon Christ as its true, immovable and eternal foundation. A second lesson was the helplessness, and if we might be allowed to say it, the secondariness of the body. Its boasted spring and strength is gone in a few hours. Its appetites are disregarded. It is evidently a vessel or casket containing something greater. And this greater thing comes to the front now. The soul flits like an angel over the prostrate body and marvels at its weakness and heaviness. The strength of the soul rises over its fallen physical comrade. It exults when the body complains. Its hunger and thirst remains and is gratified, while the material form before it can neither eat nor drink, nor does it care to do so. The poor body is reduced to whispers, and finally to inability to communicate its wants to friends and attendants; while the soul at this very time of physical prostration seems often to be at its best, and communes face to face unbrokenly with the God of the Universe. We can but say in view of this fact alone, there is another nature distinct from the physical, and a higher, nobler nature, and that whatever is done for the spirit is necessarily compelled to take rank far above anything that is or could ever be done for the body on the part of Heaven. Still another out of the numerous lessons obtained at the sick school, we receive a deeper realization than ever of the faithfulness of Christ. Numbers see the person smitten with disease rise up, leave the ranks of the well in body, and disappear in the sick room, but do not follow him. They sometimes give a passing thought or recollection, but they stop short of the door, and by and by forget the one who went in and lay down in a suffering that was to continue for long weeks and months. But Christ came into the room, and closing the portal remained with the afflicted one. How sweet it was to find Him by you and in you, when the hot head struck the pillow, and pain in spite of all you could do, wrung scalding tear drops from the eyes. The divine whisper was, "I will not leave you comfortless. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Then some more tears came of another order, and they were very sweet and heart relieving. It matters not with the Saviour that the sick one is gifted or not, well-to-do or not, attractive or not, popular or unpopular, a success or a failure, as men count these things. Jesus comes into the sick room all the same and there He abides. The physician steps in for a minute twice a day; the visiting friend manages to give five minutes; the nurse on being paid, stays from six to eight hours, but the Saviour never leaves the room. He stays all the hours. The Life Angel may be sent at last, and the invalid goes back to the labors and conflicts of earth, fairly weighted down with holy, gracious, grateful memories of Christ in the sick room. Or the Death Angel may come; the weary wheels of life cease to turn; and one of God’s chariots sweep the sufferer from the realms of pain to the glory world, and rest life above in the skies. Now then for the undertaker and plumed hearse, for anchors and crowns of roses on the coffin lid, for silver plates and inscriptions of broken hearted love and grief that were unuttered on earth. Now, then, for a great attendance and procession of suddenly materialized friends, for sighs that cannot be heard in the casket, for tears that cannot be seen through the shroud, for words of kindness and commendation and praise that came too late for the silent sleeper on the bier. Now then, we repeat, is the time for the works of men, music, addresses, brotherhoods, regalias, flowers, funeral train and all. And all done for one who sees not, hears not, and is a billion leagues away in another world. But Christ’s work was done before hand. He came to us while we were living and suffering. He handed us over, so to speak, to men when we were dead, and when only the poor shell that contained the gem was left. Truly, many of us will say with overflowing hearts, and eyes, and lips, when we see the Saviour in Heaven: "I was sick and ye came unto me." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 01.37. SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH ======================================================================== Chapter 37 SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH. That is a strange conjunction which exists between a visible body and an invisible spirit. The result of this mysterious alliance is a living being, a personality affecting and influencing us in many ways, so that we are different, and life itself is not the same because of this living, thinking, loving creation of God. When the spirit leaves the body we see that the inhabitant of the tenement of clay is gone. The some one who not only gave physical force to the body, but invested it with a mental, moral and social charm, is departed. Even while we hang broken-hearted over the form that is left, yet the one who loved us and whom we loved has vanished. What lies on the bier and in the coffin is but the casket from which the jewel has been taken, the mere semblance of a person who himself is in distant worlds, even while our tears drip on the cold, unconscious face. Several facts impress us about this strange, sad thing called death. One is its unspeakable pathos. Perhaps the helplessness of the dead may be the great reason for the tender, pitiful feeling which it invariably inspires. Anyhow, the hardest of men are touched at the sight and even enemies are disarmed in its presence. What was once a strong, resolute man is now seen unable to lift a hand or speak a single word in self-defense, no matter what the attack may be. People were busy enough to criticize and condemn only a few days before. What has happened to so silence them? What strange force has the pale-faced, silent sleeper exercised that not only the bitterest adversaries cease their accusations, but even speak that which is kindly concerning the pathetically helpless form before them? A second fact is the eloquence of death. Surely a man never pleads his sorrows, wrongs and unfortunate life so well as when he is silent in the coffin. The lips do not move, but they persuade and win the people all the same. Something in us also begins to entreat for the one who cannot speak for himself. We recall the difficulties of his life, we remember his disadvantages, the injustices done him, the hard lot he had, and so the speechless, voiceless one in the casket is not only vindicated, but acquitted and honored. A third feature is the isolating power of death on those who are bereaved. A man who has lost a loved one is at once exiled into a world to himself. Friends grasp his hand and speak kindly words, but none seem able to come where he is now living. It would take not only a similar grief, but the identical sorrow to do that. So he has a language of his own, a suffering peculiarly his, and a world all to himself. He is removed in a sense from those who observe him, and just as sadly true, they, the observers, are far from him. No sailor shipwrecked on a rock, with waves breaking all around him and no sail or land in sight, is more truly insulated than the man upon whose heart has fallen the crushing affliction of the death of one near and dear to him. How far away seem all signals of sympathy and help; how remote all human vessels in the offing; how unable all seem to come near and land; and what a ceaseless stretch of billows of grief and pain keep rolling in on the mind and heart. Exiled and expatriated indeed. A fourth influence of death is realized in the heart shrinking from and suffering under sounds and scenes of merriment and joy. Once in a great bereavement, a sudden laugh on the street would nearly break my heart. We would find ourselves wondering how any one could be glad in such a grief-stricken grave-riven world like this. The only sound we recall which we could endure in that sorrowful period was the ringing of distant church bells during the month of Lent. Somehow they spoke of heaven and had a soothing power. In a late sorrow, as we walked alone one night on the street we passed a dwelling ablaze with light where a wedding was taking place. At another just beyond a party was going on, the street was crowded with carriages, while voices, music and laughter from the house filled the night air. We were not selfish enough to wish the pleasure of others marred because we walked a stricken man on their pavements, but we only mention the fact how a great trouble made the sounds of merriment and revelry pierce the grieving heart like daggers. A greater suffering came as we turned a corner, on which the Methodist church stands. It has been made an Institutional church, and just as we passed it the sounds of a bowling alley, the stroke of the ball and rattling fall of the ten pins came through the windows of the annex and broke upon our ears. God only knows the suffering we endured to hear such sounds from His House, and at such a time of personal bereavement and sorrow. How can they do it! we said, as we walked with dripping tears alone in the night. A fifth fact about death is seen in its strange power to give an appearance as well as experience of emptiness to everything in the world. It is marvelous how the death of one person will make the earth look lonesome and desert-like, while life seems hardly worth the living. No matter how great the crowd, how busy the throng, the aching consciousness that one is gone from the walks of life, never to return, causes us to feel the solitariness and forsakenness we have mentioned, while Ichabod is written on every street and house, and on every employment and enjoyment of time. We have never read a paragraph or poem that so perfectly describes this state of mind as is done in a few simple, natural, but powerful, lines written by George Eliot: "AND I AM LONELY" "The world is great! the birds all fly from me; The stars are golden fruit upon a tree, All out of reach! My little sister went, And I am lonely. "The world is great! I tried to mount the hill Above the pines, where the light lies so still, But it rose higher! Little Lisa went, And I am lonely. "The world is great! the wind goes rushing by. I wonder where it comes from? Sea birds cry And hurt my heart! My little sister went, And I am lonely. "The world is great! the people laugh and talk And make loud holiday; how fast they walk! I’m lame, they push me; little Lisa went, And I am lonely." A final thought is that such is the crushing power of the sorrow coming from bereavement that we do not see how any one can endure it without Christ. In fact we do not believe that the human heart can bear such grief apart from divine support and consolation. Stoicism is not proper triumph over trouble, and is not victory at all. Hardness and bitterness is not conquest, but defeat. While resort to opiates, alcohol and rushing into worldliness is a confession that the bereaved person did not carry their load to Christ the Burden-Bearer, that they have themselves sunk under the unbearable weight of grief, and have ended in failure where others obtain victory. The soul was made for God, is dependent upon Him and can only be happy in Him. So if we need Him in the days of youth, health, strength and happiness, what can we do without Him in the period of profound sorrow, in the time when the room has been emptied, the chair made vacant and a new grave is seen in the cemetery? We pity from the depths of our soul the man or woman who has not God with them in such dark, sad, trying hours. We were once summoned in haste when a pastor, to a home where an only child, a beautiful girl of three years of age, had suddenly died. As we entered the room and glanced at the bed on which the little form was resting, it seemed as if she had fallen asleep. The long lashes lay on her cheek, the ringlets were gently stirred on her forehead, by a soft breeze blowing through the open window. There was no wasting appearance of sickness, nor even death, and yet the soul was gone. We next looked for the mother, and found her on the floor on the other side of the bed, writhing in speechless agony, with both hands, clutching her breast as if her heart was breaking. We knelt down and tried to talk with and pray for her; but she seemed to hear nothing, and would not be comforted. She was without Christ and went down with her sorrow then and thereafter. We saw a man who had buried his wife, and had returned to his home after the funeral, sit down on the front door step and refuse to go in. He said with a voice and look of utter despair: "I have no home now. I do not care to live." Instead of coming to Christ, he took to drink, and added to his unconsoled sorrow a ruined character and life. How thankful we are to see others even in the first anguish of their grief, and all the pain of the after loneliness; go at once to the Son of God; cling to Him; leave all with Him; and by His power and love and grace get comforted while the tears are dripping. They kiss the hand that seems to smite them; and looking up to Him from the most crushing of bereavements say like one of yore, Though you slay me, yet will I trust you. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 01.38. DYING FLASHES ======================================================================== Chapter 38 DYING FLASHES. When a candle is about to expire, it has been often observed to send up one or more gleams of light, that were brighter and stronger than the preceding flame, but only to be followed immediately by extinction and darkness. When a building is being consumed, we have all noticed the same phenomenon. Just as we thought all was over, a sheet of fire burst forth and towered up that reminded one in its energy, brightness and height of a far earlier period of the conflagration. It looked like the spectators were to be treated to a greater display than ever, when suddenly the flame went down, the glow ended and blackness came upon the smoldering heap. The explanation in the candle’s action was some little source of strength that had not been touched until that moment; and the transitory outburst of fire, heat and light from the doomed dwelling was the falling in of some wall or roof hidden by the smoke, giving for a few moments only, the fuel for one more burst of dying power, a farewell flash of antecedent force and greatness that was now being ended forever. The same thing is noticeable in the intellectual life, where gifted authors, after having delighted the world, will pass into third class work, become prolix, common-place and tedious, and then just before the light goes out in the grave, will write some of their best paragraphs, pages and chapters. Generals who are acknowledged military geniuses show the same temporary brilliancy just before defeat, exile, or death, puts out the candle entirely. Something grotesquely analogous can even be seen in lunacy, that has its flashes of mental brightness from the disorder and shadows of a long mental gloom and coming night of death. A similar manifestation is beheld in the action of the sun at the close of day. Its race through the skies is ended, and the great monarch is sinking out of sight behind a bank of leaden colored ordinary looking clouds. It is anything but a remarkable or beautiful close of diurnal life, when suddenly, on glancing again toward the west, the horizon seems to be on fire, and the sun, with a closing stroke of power, has dyed the heavens with his blood, and gone down on a funeral pyre of crimson and gold. This is the sun’s dying flash. It is as wonderful as anything he has done in all the preceding hours of the day, but it is his last for that day. A startling likeness to these happenings in the natural world and intellectual realm is frequently to be beheld in the spiritual life. There can be a glorious sunrise, a useful day to follow, then a declination of experience, a cooling off of heat, a lessening of light, a steady sinking earthward, and then just before the backslidden life sinks out of sight, a few dying flashes of power may precede the disappearance of the man from the ways of righteousness or from the world itself forever. All this is strikingly seen in the lapse and ruin of Balaam. For after repeated disobediences to God in his treatment of the angel, we hear him uttering some of the sublimest prophecies in the Bible. It is impossible to recall without emotion his words, "I shall see him but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh," and remember that they were uttered after he had sinned, and just before his final, moral ruin and death on the plain. Repeatedly we have beheld the same strange happenings in the lives of Christians who have gone or are going astray. A most remarkable prayer, or a most wonderful sermon has been known again and again to fall from lips that had already been untrue to Christ, and false and sinful in the gravest way. The candle was down in the socket and was giving one final upward leap. Some piece of untouched goods like the hidden wall, suddenly surged and fell forward, giving a momentary glare. The sun was sinking, and just before he disappeared sent a dying flash that streamed up to the very zenith and looked for a while as if the day was coming back. But it was the last glance as well as gasp of an ended day; and night with a sable mantle of grief came softly forward, and with glistening starlike tears on its robe, bent over the casket in the west, and gazed silently and mournfully upon the departed form. It is possible, however, to invest the last gleaming of the day with another and happier meaning. The sunset of the Occident we know is the sunrise of the Orient. The dying flash in the west of one land is a morning flash of glory on another shore. This is not always the case in the spiritual life, but it may be so. The tearful, melting, kindling hope, new resolution, a strange, unexpected energy, and sudden burst of power, short-lived and evanescent as all may be, can only come from the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. Left to itself the backslidden and sinful soul would never feel a pang of contrition nor realize a single pulsation of goodness. The wandering sheep would die on the dark mountains of iniquity but for the seeking divine shepherd. The slumbering soul would sleep on in its unconscious apathetic state, but for the voice that wakes the dead. It is well for the drifting, staggering, falling, dying Christian to study properly these last flickerings of godliness in his heart and life. If he insists on regarding them as the final flare of the exhausted candle, then his own despair will hasten the coming utter darkness and ruin. But if he will realize that the sudden blaze and upward movement in his soul, was not so much the consuming of a wall of some remaining excellence and virtue in his character, as the warm breathing and quickening power of the Holy Ghost upon his fainting, sinking spirit, then has he ground indeed for fresh hope, good determinations, new efforts and the beginning of a better life with higher aims, deeper love, profounder humility, mightier faith and grander results than ever known before. That which he and others considered a sunset, can be a glorious sunrise on the remaining years of the life, and making a more beautiful day in the spiritual sense than was beheld in the other that may have ended in evening shadows and gloom. The Spirit of God does not work with the soul to tease and disappoint, but to fulfill and bring to pass. If he shows the pattern of a life sanctuary to the mind in some exalted moment, it is that a temple of glory should go up and not a den or a hovel. The Bible says God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. First, he stimulates the man to will, and then he energizes him to perform that which is right. God cannot compel a man in moral conduct, or decide for him in the choice between good and evil. The utmost that the Spirit can do is to woo and urge, and this he will and does do. Now as God has made us for his glory as well as our happiness; as he certainly must value property created in his own image, and does not want a single soul to perish and so declares in his Word--it is evident and conclusive that when he works upon an individual to forsake sin, and make a new start for duty, righteousness and heaven--such a divine movement is made with the design and desire that the man be recovered and set on his heavenward way. In other words, what is supposed to be the twilight of a closed day, is intended to be the dawn of a new epoch, the beginning of a fresh and glorious religious history. The scarlet of evening is to become the crimson of morning. The Past may be looked back upon as an Occident with melancholy surf breaking upon rocky shores; while the Future stretches out before the eyes like a golden Orient with dimpled seas, sunny harbors, groves of palm and strands of coral. The dying flash of the evening, turns out to be the flood of light and dash of glory of the morning. * * * * * * * THE END ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 02.00. A BUNDLE OF ARROWS ======================================================================== * * * * * * * A BUNDLE OF ARROWS By Beverly Carradine * * * * * * * In this 35 chapter work by Mr. Carradine (Nazarene), he presents us with devotional type thoughts and themes. CONTENTS Chapter 1 The Name of Jesus. Chapter 2 "Art Thou the Gardener?" Chapter 3 Signals of the Soul. Chapter 4 The Manufacture of gods. Chapter 5 A Wilderness University. Chapter 6 The Other Side. Chapter 7 Songs in the Night. Chapter 8 The Third Chapter of Life. Chapter 9 Lessons from the Stars. Chapter 10 The Daily Death. Chapter 11 The Gradual revelation of Prayer. Chapter 12 The Gnat and the Camel. Chapter 13 The Ox Cart. Chapter 14 "Alas, My Brother". Chapter 15 The Way that seemeth Right. Chapter 16 The City of Refuge. Chapter 17 A Deceived Heart. Chapter 18 The Calamities of the Wilderness Life. Chapter 19 A Bottomless Abyss. Chapter 20 God’s Instruments. Chapter 21 The Stony Heart. Chapter 22 The Dead Body. Chapter 23 The Gifts of the Spirit. Chapter 24 The Renewing Power of Prayer. Chapter 25 Mourning Days Ended. Chapter 26 A Strange Power of the Soul. Chapter 27 The Blight of Irreverence. Chapter 28 Devotion to Sin. Chapter 29 The Reserve of Christ. Chapter 30 On the Roost. Chapter 31 In a Quicksand. Chapter 32 The Peacemaker. Chapter 33 Religious Influence. Chapter 34 Cutting Loose from Earth. Chapter 35 The Close of the Year. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 02.01. THE NAME OF JESUS ======================================================================== Chapter 1 THE NAME OF JESUS. The Saviour had many names given him by reason of his greatness and many sidedness. Through various images and figures as well as titles the Spirit of God endeavored in the Word to present the inexhaustible Christ to mind as well as heart, that men might obtain some approximate conception of the magnitude and amplitude of the Redeemer of the world. The name Jesus brought by the angel out of heaven and delivered to Mary seems to be the dearest and most precious to the human soul of all the appellations and descriptions given him. It means Saviour, but has also become the verbal embodiment of all the graces and virtues as well as powers of the marvellous man of Galilee. In spite of all that it stands for however, in the line of love, sacrifice and redeeming grace, we have to notice First. There has never been a name as much reviled and as shockingly handled. Some of us are wonderfully sensitive about what is said about us; but if we multiply the scurrility, slander and accusations a billion fold that is directed against the most prominent and hated of religious teachers, and workers, still we are not even in sight of the vidette line of the great body of abuse that is uttered against the Holy One of God. No being so vile, but has a way of speaking of Christ as if he was viler. No age, or sex, or business, or walk in life, or social grade is free from this language of profanity and blasphemy. From the boot-black to the merchant; from the sailor to the admiral; from the general to the soldier; from the judge in the stand to the jockey on the horse; from the editor in the office to the newsboy on the street; everywhere we hear the sacred, holy name of Jesus connected with horrible oaths and blasphemous imprecations. Men who respect the names of earthly rulers and kings of nations, have no regard or reverence whatever for the name that Paul says is above every name, and that belongs to him who is King of Kings and is the Ruler of the Universe. A second fact is, that there is no other name so generally and bitterly hated. Christ said himself that the world hated him. None of us can say that. Some can count up a dozen active foes; and others enumerate possibly several hundred enemies. But the Savior has the whole unregenerate globe against him, according to his own words. Then there is a hatred springing up towards him among his own people. He said he was wounded in the house of his friends; and the hand which betrayed him was with him on the table. Moreover, when he preached the deeper truths of his gospel, great numbers of his disciples left him and followed him no more. This remarkable aversion springs up even to this day, when we see people professedly loving Christ and yet abominating some of his words, shunning many of his people, and ridiculing and fighting his own peculiar distinguishing work, the purifying of the soul by the Baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire. As religious people we are disliked by a certain number of people, and often with provocation. But the Saviour was hated by the many; and without a justifying reason. As he said in speaking of such an unnatural and unpardonable spirit and conduct, "They hated me without a cause." A third fact about the name of Jesus is that none other commands so great a following. Alexander had his phalanxes, Caesar his legions and Napoleon his armies, that followed their leaders to death. They swept upward in numbers toward several millions. But what about the multitudes that believe in, follow faithfully, and would cheerfully, gladly die for Christ! All the kings of earth together could not assemble an army anywhere or at any time like that which would spring to the front at the name of Jesus. Moreover, this marvellous fact is seen to exist in all the countries, and through all the centuries. The day of Alexander, Caesar and Bonaparte is over. They have no army or following now. But Christ is the contemporary of all the ages, and is felt to be a conscious presence, a crowned personality, and an almighty influence and power in any and every one of the centuries. The King of England would have a hard time raising an army in the United States. The Czar of Russia and the Kaiser of Germany would meet with as great a failure. But Jesus could get a multitude in every nation in any year, on any day and at any moment of time. Out of palaces, hovels, colleges, farms, shops, stores, offices, hospitals, prisons, ships, armies, navies, mines, forests, and the depths of the desert itself, here they would come, a vast following of people, outnumbering all the standing armies, home reserves, civil, political and fraternity processions of earth, a hundred thousand and a million fold times over. There is surely no name like the name of Jesus. Fourth, there is no name as much beloved as that of Jesus. There are terms and titles exceedingly precious to the human heart, like sister, wife, mother, home and heaven; but far above all as to depth of love and intensity and eternity of affection, gratitude, loyalty and devotion towers the name of Jesus. The apostle said truly it is above all others. If a vote should be taken as to the dearest and most prized appellation on earth, the unregenerated unillumined multitude would doubtless cast in their ballots for certain localities and for individuals in the social and home circle. But the Christian world would without hesitation agree on the name of Jesus. The writer of this article bent over his dying singer, Prof. Rinehart, and said, "Do you know Jesus, my brother?" and the very name called the man back from unconsciousness, and looking upward with a gush of tears and countenance all ashine, he cried, "Yes, thank God! Yes, thank God!" and went back in another moment into the gathering shadows of Death. It was the only word that could have brought him back; for it is the name above every name. Fifth and finally, it is above every other name in the realm of salvation. There is none other name given under heaven whereby men can be saved. To mention another is not only mockery, but blasphemy. We can easily conceive the disgust and horror of men, when brought into heartbreaking conviction over the fact and presence of sin in them, that the name of some fellow mortal should be held up as the hope and deliverance of the anguished and despairing soul. At such a time we look as naturally to him as the disciples tossed on the waves of Galilee fixed their eyes upon his approaching form and cried unto him for help and rescue. In our early ministry the church and camp meetings abounded and resounded with sermons about Jesus. He was lifted up, exalted, and made not only prominent but pre-eminent in nearly all the discourses we heard. The preachers "Preached Christ." And it was simply wonderful to see the results. Altars would be filled, the power of God would fall, and conversions would be as clear as a bright unclouded day. The hymn that we heard lined in hundreds of different services and which has not fallen upon our ears in any church, or on any camp ground for over fifteen years was: "Jesus, the name high over all, In earth and hell and sky; Angels and men before it fall, And devils fear and fly." The favorite texts in those days were, "The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory." "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold I am alive forever more, amen and have the keys of hell and of death." These and similar passages of Scripture were handled not only by the rank and file of the ministry, but by the great preachers who as connectional officers visited the annual conference, or were invited to fill the pulpit at the camp meetings. As the name which is above every name was lifted up, the Spirit of God would fall on the Word, the preacher and the people, and we have beheld great congregations moved under the divine power as we have seen a woodland or a field of wheat stirred, shaken and bowed under a strong wind from the heavens. How gravely those preachers used to read the hymns about the Son of Man and the Son of God. How solemnly they held up the sorrowing, the scourged, the rejected, the crucified, the dying, the risen and the ascended Christ. How breathlessly the people listened. How suddenly and overwhelmingly we have seen the Spirit fall! And a shouting, weeping, laughing, crying, praying, pleading, hand-clapping audience would stand revealed to the amazed vision of a great crowd of beholders. Who could entertain for a moment the thought that any other name could have produced such a scene? Upon what other name could Heaven descend with its mighty endorsement and approving power? The very Pit itself would rise up against another rival claimant, crying out, "Jesus I know -- but who are you!" No, there is no one like Jesus in earth or Heaven. As the Chiefest, Highest and Greatest, all power has been given unto him. He is going to subdue all His enemies, and rule the nations. The whole world shall receive the law from his mouth. And at the closing Day of Time the Bible tells us "that every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 02.02. "ART THOU THE GARDENER?" ======================================================================== Chapter 2 "ART THOU THE GARDENER?" The sentence above was the question Mary put in the early morn of the Resurrection to Jesus, whom she did not recognize. In a minute afterward she saw her mistake and fell at the feet of the Lord, crying out, "Rabboni." And yet, in a deep and blessed sense she was not mistaken. The Saviour is a gardener. The first Adam was one, and the second Head of the Race is a far greater one. The first tilled the soil and cared for the trees in Eden; while the second digs in the soul, plants the Tree of Life, and cultivates the noblest and sweetest of flowers in the soil of the human heart. The figure is far from being uncommon in the Bible; and as we read as well as feel what Christ has done, and is doing for us, we change the query of Mary into an affirmation on our part, and say, with profound thanksgiving, "Thou art the Gardener." He found a desert when he first looked upon our sin-blighted natures. But he knew the energy of the seed and plants which he brought, and saw how, under the dew of heaven and through his labor, that the same wilderness could blossom as the rose, and the wild life waste burst forth with springs of pure and everlasting pleasure. Nobody seemed to want us but the Saviour; and so he bought us, walled us in from the world, blasted the rocks, dug up the briars, inserted the plow and thoroughly broke up the soil. It would take much time to tell how he fertilized the heart; how he sowed and planted, grafted and pruned, trained and propped, and made the garden beautiful as well as profitable. By and by it became a perfect maze of loveliness with winding walks, clambering vines, clustering roses, bowers of rest and landscapes of wondrous beauty. Meantime the useful was prominent, and many kinds of fruits hung from laden boughs, fountains gushed with cool water, and seats were to be found just where they were most needed. Men oftentimes separate the beautiful and profitable, as though they could not affiliate, but as they study the Divine methods they change their modes of procedure; for it is observable that God joins together loveliness and usefulness. This is seen from the charming cloud that bears fruitfulness at the same time in its breast for the fields; and beheld as well in the religiously useful man, whose very piety will transform homeliness of countenance into an attractiveness far nobler and more lasting than mere physical comeliness. The constructor of parks made a great advance when seats were scattered under the trees and children allowed to roll on the grass. There was a time that such places were like hung-up pictures, simply to be gazed upon. The regular country garden has always appealed to the writer because of this combination of the beautiful and excellent, the ornamental and useful. There were the soldier-like rows of cabbage, beets and cauliflower, together with the scarlet radish, whose growing ripeness cracked the soft, crusty ground and tempted the passerby to pluck and eat. Then came long furrows of tasseling corn, stick barricades of peas, a green, tangled bed of strawberries, and frames of the rosy tomato. On one side was a line of peach trees, on the other some noble bearing apricots and nectarines. In a remote corner was a little thicket of plums. Near the gate was a large pear tree, which shaded perfectly a rustic seat, from which one could look down several of the main walks and see their sides both brilliant and fragrant with flowers and roses of a dozen different varieties. There were two arbors in the garden, one overhung with purple clusters of grapes and the other fairly buried under the clambering yellow cloth of gold, and snowy star jessamine. The gate was overarched with honeysuckle, into which the humming-birds came for their daily nectar, without the slightest fear of molestation. A person might take a book and, straying into this garden, take one of its half-dozen seats under fruit tree or trellised vine, and he would at once find it exceedingly difficult to keep to man’s printed works, when here was a volume of Nature outspread before every sense, whose writer was God, whose type was many colored, and whose pages were fresh and sweet as if just from the Press of Heaven. We who think at all are bound to admit that the Lord can do even more beautiful and wonderful things in the soul. Paradise can be restored on a nobler, better scale. We can have the lost Eden again, and within. But as of yore, the Lord must plant the Garden. When we submit to this work of grace, a number of things are certain to happen. First, there will be moral loveliness. It is impossible to turn the life over to Christ without all seeing the change for the better. There is a spiritual beauty as certain as there are physical good looks. Second, the feature of Christian usefulness will be seen blended and intertwined with the moral comeliness of the life. The man whose heart is cultivated by the Savior is bound to be a benediction wherever he goes. A study of the nature of the plants that Christ puts in the soul will settle this fact forever. No one can have flourishing in him such traits and virtues as kindness, gentleness, meekness, goodness, and long-suffering, without being a blessing to all with whom he comes in contact. These are some of the fruits of the Lord’s soul garden, and they are just what the world is starving for. Third, the existence of such a soul-garden is bound to cause pleasure to the Lord who planted and made it what it is. There is a fashion of attributing insensibility to the Being who created feeling. This misconception would make the Lord regardless of what is going on continually under his eye. This wrong idea traced to its legitimate conclusion, would make the Almighty indifferent to the actions of vice as well as those of virtue. He would thus turn an unmoved eye upon a man whether he was doing right or wrong. The Bible teaches no such folly. Analogy alone would say, that if it delights a man to gaze upon a beautiful, widespread farm, waving with harvests and garnished with orchards of yellow and crimson fruit; which farm was, when first seen, nothing but a tangled brake and gloomy wilderness; how much purer and deeper must be the joy of God when he looks upon a soul that was once stony, hard, unlovely and unprofitable, and yet is now beautiful and productive, transformed by his gracious and powerful dealings into a well-watered, safely-defended and perfectly-kept life garden, a place wherein the Lord himself delights to walk. What did the pioneer farmer do, compared to what the Lord did; one working in the soil, the other with an immortal soul; the farmer gathering crops and grain of a season, the latter bringing in fruit unto eternal life. The fact that our faithfulness pleases God ought to make us more devoted than ever. That he does "take pleasure" in his people we have the statement of Scripture. Fourth, the existence of such a soul garden is certain to attract and bless the human family. We have often been struck with the spectacle of multiplied thousands of people rushing from the hot and cooped-up city to garden-like places, that possessed the desirable features of trees and fountains, flowers and fruit, seats and shade These are but the outward signs and tokens of better things needed by the soul. It is blessed to think that a man can be garden-like, and give forth to his fellow-creatures not only the promise but the fulfillment of far nobler experiences than those offered by keepers of summer resorts. When others obtain what he possesses, it is bound to stop the mad rush to places of idle amusement established by the hands of men. All of us remember the strange, sweet attractiveness of some lives over us, before we found the secret of the Lord. They with sympathy, counsel and instruction, rested and revived us. We went from them refreshed and strengthened. It was as though we had been among seats and fountains. The explanation was, they were Gardens of the Lord. When the church is filled with such people, who have been made so by the grace of God; it will likewise become so beautiful and fruitful, so attractive and satisfying, that men will forsake their week-day and Sunday worldly resorts, and flock to the House of the Lord. This is to be the secret of the church’s power in the Millennial age. This will be her glory. The Lord is going to make a park in the souls of his children. If we have studied the world’s want correctly, it needs that Christians come after it with a garden in the heart rather than a library in the head. Finally, the existence of such a restored Eden brings a subjective joy. The man thus transformed is himself blessed beyond all language to adequately describe. He who has borne for years the briars, brambles and bitter weeds of sin, and then finds his soul changed into a flower and fruit garden, is bound to be a happy man. He not only feels sweet in his spirit as if roses were blooming inside, but he is consciously a blessing and strength to others by the very life he lives. This is true living and brings its own peculiar throb and thrill. Nor is this all, for the Lord comes and walks in the garden. The soul receives its Maker! The creature through grace is able to please and entertain the Creator! The idea was strikingly foreshadowed in Eden; but Sin broke in and the happy communion and fellowship between God and man was ended. Then Adam was driven out with his unborn posterity, and Paradise disappeared. The second Adam next appeared, kept the broken law, and would now lead the race in the glorious recovery or restoration of Eden. This time he would plant the Garden in the heart. Thank God he is doing so. The instant that the soul is thus transformed God comes down and takes possession of the evergreen labyrinth. He is ever to be found in the walks and recesses, by the fountains, fruits and flowers of the genuinely and fully saved life. Multiplied thousands in the land can bear testimony to this blessed fact. Two indescribably sweet experiences are theirs: One is that their souls feel like a watered garden all the while; and the other is that Jesus is the Gardener. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 02.03. SIGNALS OF THE SOUL ======================================================================== Chapter 3 SIGNALS OF THE SOUL. There are various signs given by men who are imprisoned, or floating helplessly on the wreck of a ship, or cast away on a desert island, by which their presence and peril are made known to the great busy outside world, and appeal for relief thus signaled. The minute gun at sea is a volume in itself. The poor rag fluttering from a tree top on a rocky isle in remote parts of the ocean is eloquence. The tin plate, with a few nail marks on it and flung from the grated window of a fortress, was a letter of fullest character to tell the shocked world of the life confinement of the man in the iron mask. These signals declare existence, and suffering, and become a hail or farewell, a petition or funeral notice, according to the time they are given and observed. Some are beheld too late. The last rocket is shot from the sinking vessel before the life boat leaves the shore. The cloth is noticed in the tree, but on disembarking, the relief party discovers only a skeleton lying under its wavering melancholy shadow. It seems to the writer that there is nothing more isolated, invisible and imperiled than the human soul. When imprisoned, it is the profoundest of bondages. When shipwrecked, it is the worst of all calamities. And as for separation, loneliness and suffering what can approximate these experiences and life condition of the human spirit. It is so walled in by flesh and bone, that we cannot see it with the eye. It can be so buried in ignorance, prejudice and sin that one cannot get a word through the thick walls and locked doors to where it is sleeping. It can drift so far in evil that we cannot send a message to it. It can so petrify with despair and wickedness that we have no hope of making ourselves understood by what seems a captive in stone, a man with an iron mask on his face. Through these and other reasons there are some who question soul existence, and an immortal personality, in the beings they meet. They see, they say, no sign of this captive, this shipwrecked mariner, this invisible nature or spirit, made for God and a certain kind of life, and now suffering, starving and perishing for lack of relief and deliverance. But there are many who mark the signals going up, call attention to them and are trying to bring help and comfort and liberty to the imprisoned, the entombed and the castaway, and thereby add to the sons and daughters of the Almighty, and swell the glorious population of heaven. They know there are souls in human bodies, and they must be rescued. In a sense they have the ocular and unmistakable proof that there is a prisoner in the silent castle, and a starving sailor on the lonely rock. One signal sent up by the soul is the manifestation of a peculiar hunger. There is a physical appetite known to us all that is met and satisfied with meat and bread. Back of this corporeal nature is an intellectual life craving information of all kinds. It questions and receives answers; searches and obtains facts and has as a consequence a gratification peculiar to itself, and as real as the satisfaction realized by the stomach after a sufficient meal. This nature we call mind, or intellect. But back of, and higher than both of these, the physical and mental, is a something with a purely spiritual longing for God and truth. The entire separateness and distinctness of this desire and appetite, is seen in the fact that with natural hunger satisfied, and the mind filled with information to repletion, this other and third life cries out for light and food and help. Something within us different from the craving for knowledge, and unspeakably removed from bodily desire, wants not the creature, but the Creator himself. It is remarkable how in addressing a large and mixed audience of people, when we have spoken of certain attributes of the Almighty, and the profound want of the human soul, its need of God, and eternal restlessness and despair without him, what a deep stillness has come upon the congregation. In scores of faces we saw looks cast upon us that came from the deepest and farthest away realm in man. We got a glimpse of the soul: We saw a faint skyrocket on the horizon. We beheld the fluttering cloth on the tree top of a distant shore. We knew that an immortal spirit was waving a signal to us. A second sign of the invisible soul is the flash of joy which leaps into the face when it finds and receives its Saviour and God. There is no gladness like it; no light of countenance equal to it; and its very uniqueness declares something has been reached never before touched. Also that something or some one has gone where bread could not go, and swept far beyond and higher than human knowledge of any kind has or can ever possibly come. This is a beacon light, that no matter how far down the national, educational and social horizon it may glimmer, yet its reflection is certain to be seen. It is like no other shining, and declares that a soul is there and has been found. A third sign of the strangely hidden away soul is its distress signal of approaching ruin. The loss of the soul is called its everlasting death in the Bible. The term is a strange one because the same Book shows the soul still living in eternity. It is not annihilated, but has a death that never dies. In a word, failing to find God and enter upon its true life on earth, it passes into an endless existence so stripped and starved, so dwarfed and blighted and undone, that it is impossible to apply with truth and correctness so beautiful a word as life to such a woeful state of being. As the soul approaches this fearful catastrophe, it has signs of fluttering that are simply unmistakable concerning the coming disaster. No gun pealing mournfully through the stormy night more certainly declares a ship in danger and going down, than we are made to see that an immortal soul is perishing before our eyes. No leprosy leaping into the forehead of the sinning King of Israel was clearer to the view of the shocked priests that stood around, than is the vision of a soul steeped in iniquity dying to God and truth before our eyes. No spectacle of a band of Cortez’s soldiers led bound by the Mexicans to an altar on a hilltop and murdered in sight of their horror-stricken comrades on the plain, was ever more evident than is the spectacle of immortal spirits led to the slaughter by the hands of sin, the world and the devil, and slain in full view of the world. There was no lack of signs of disaster and death in any of these cases. And in the greater woe of a perishing soul the tokens are perfectly manifest, and as melancholy as they are unmistakable. Not always does the man himself, consciously or willingly admit his ruin, but the coming calamity has a way of declaring itself in facial lines and marks, in gathering countenance shadows, and deepening spirit gloom, that cannot be misunderstood. There is a peculiar pensiveness felt by the observer in watching the close of a day from the summit of a hill commanding a broad landscape. The wider the view the profounder is the impression made upon the mind and heart as the eye takes note of the sinking sun, the final disappearance of the red in a bank of purple clouds, the fading of the colors in the west, the creeping of gray and then black shadow over the plain, while the evening star lifts up a white hand in the sky as if to hush all nature and mankind to stillness about the dying bed, and over the death itself and departure of a day that can never come back again. We sat on the brow of Lookout mountain a few years ago, and watched a summer day die. The memory of the gradual sinking of the crimson globe until the last glowing edge went beneath the horizon, and vail after vail of gloom was thrown over the bier, and fell upon hills, fields, valleys, and the broad silent Tennessee river, winding along far beneath in the gloaming, remains with the writer until today as one of the deep impressions or mental pictures of his life. We listened to a whippoorwill far down the mountain side, whose note that evening sounded like a dirge. A locust was drowsily singing in a tree above our head. A sadness was upon us that we found impossible to shake off. We had seen the death of a beautiful day. It had faded away before our eyes. Its opportunities, privileges and possibilities were ended forever. Its life was gone, and it could never come back again. But melancholy and affecting as was this sight, we have witnessed far sadder and more heart-breaking scenes in the spectacle of an immortal soul dying to truth and God, and steadily sinking, and finally disappearing into the gloom of an everlasting night. We have seen the light leave the face, the shadows creep up, the gloom settle, a distant dark world reach up and claim them, and they were gone and forever. Who that ever witnessed such a Christless, joyless, hopeless death, can forget it. What a stillness falls on the group in the room. What pathos was in the closing eye and in that last quivering breath which sounded like a sigh. How distinctly and painfully came the fall of a footstep on the pavement, and the solemn stroke of the town clock far away in the night. We, remember that once as a young preacher on witnessing such a scene of an ended life, and far more dreadful a soul lost forever, we burst into tears and sunk on our knees with an uncontrollable fit of sobbing. And so the very shadows of twilight is a sign both of the life and death of the day. And the gloom of a sinful life, and the blackness that settles down upon the dying moments of an unsaved man, is just as unmistakably a distress signal that a soul has been in our midst and has gone down before our eyes forever. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 02.04. THE MANUFACTURE OF GODS ======================================================================== Chapter 4 THE MANUFACTURE OF GODS. One of the strange and dreadful powers of men is the ability to make gods for themselves. No matter how ordinary their talents, and unsuccessful their efforts in other directions, here in the deity constructing business they always excel, and from the successful manufacture of one, they can soon turn out "gods many." In fine scorn and irony the prophet addressed an idolatrous people, and said, You take the trunk of a tree, make an image of it, call it God, and then afterwards burning it up, fail to see the silliness and absurdity of the whole proceeding. But this and all other arguments fail to deter idolaters from their god manufacture; so intellectual Greece had thirty-three thousand false deities, military Rome possessed as many, and benighted Africa owned as great a multitude. No tribe, no matter how degraded and poverty-stricken, seems to be poor when numbering their gods. They are legion, and they are of brass, iron, wood, stone, and anything and everything but spirit. In enlightened America we have as many false gods as the countries mentioned ever possessed. Men are still busy making gods. It is true that in this nation men have better conceptions of the Divine Being than the Asiatics and Africans possess; they know that God is a spirit and is not to be constructed in the forms and images which the heathen fashion for themselves. Nevertheless, all misconceptions of God are idolatrous. All wrong ideas which result in the robbing him of certain moral attributes, or which deny his Will and Word and Work, inevitably make an idol or false God. It is marvellous to see what impertinent and sacrilegious hands men lay upon the Almighty. They take from him attributes which belong to him and clothe him with qualities which he plainly disclaims, and which are perfectly alien to his character. The result is of course a false God. Evidently the God of the Bible does not suit people in America, and so they have gone to work to cut him up, shave him down, and then add a certain worldliness, weakness, and general molluscousness to his character which really brings another false God upon the scene, whom men worship, and whom at last they will find powerless to save. It is a sickening thought that there are so many Christian congregations in the land today who are worshipping a false Christ. About all some of them have of the real, true Saviour is the name Jesus Christ. That a certain divine man named Christ died on Calvary two thousand years ago is the one fact and truth they start out with, but after that comes in their handiwork in all that remains. Instead of changing their hearts and lives to suit the Holy One of the Bible, they alter him to suit their worldly and sinful lives. So a soft, easygoing, worldly Christ is lifted up in their Church as the object of worship. As a God he is indifferent to the amusements and business life of his followers. He winks at card-playing, theater-going and Sunday traveling. He does not mind white lies, gossip, and various kinds of diversions in the family and church. He is perfectly satisfied that his people come to his temple twice on Sunday, sing him an anthem or two, bow slightly in the pews, and if convenient attend the prayer meeting on Wednesday night. The rest of the week can be spent anywhere and everywhere, it suits them; it is all the same to him. We have not the shadow of a doubt in our minds that we have churches throughout our country called "The Church of the Redeemer," or "The Church of the Messiah," that if the real Christ, as he is, should walk down its aisles, the congregation would not know him and if he preached a single sermon they would never hear another; and if he persisted in his rebuke they would kill him as certainly as did the Jews. It is purely an imaginary Christ that many congregations are worshipping. They have manufactured a God to suit themselves. The boundary lines of his salvation have been so run in and out as to allow not only questionable things, but matters forbidden by the Law and the Sermon on the Mount. The Christ of the Bible, demanding a complete consecration, a devoted service, and a rulership without a rival in the heart, is one being, and the one they call Christ who permits compromise, a half-hearted following, and actual sin and worldliness is another person altogether different. The first is the true God, the second is a false one manufactured by the worshipper and unable to save in life, comfort in death or deliver at the Day of Judgment. In our goings about we have often heard the following expression: "My God allows me to do so and so, or this and that." We never heard the speech, but felt that some kind of sin was being covered. In numerous instances the proof was finally given to verify the suspicion. The explanation of the phrase is that the man, being plainly forbidden by the God of the Bible from committing certain things, or acting in various ways, immediately proceeded to make a God for himself who would allow him to do whatsoever he desired. This manufactured deity he calls "his God." Then in due season we hear the words, "My God allows me to play cards," or to "go to the theater," etc., etc. These gods of course are very diverse, as people do not all favor the same kind of sin; and so they differ and are numerous as well. If a town has a population of three thousand people it is perfectly safe to say there are over one thousand false gods in the community, while a city of a million would have an array of man-created deities that would make the thirty-three thousand idols of Athens look like a corporal’s guard. It stands to reason that if we would wield a harsh, slanderous tongue, we must be under the necessity of creating a God who will allow this, so that we can in the indulgence of such unkindness and spleen be able to say that our God continues to smile upon and bless us. The God of the Bible is against such words and such a spirit; so the counterfeit deity is struck off, elevated into position, and then, with hands wet with the blood of a brother’s reputation, the deluded man looks upward, while the lips say, "My God allows me to do this," "My God continues to bless and prosper me while I do and say such things." If a man wants to be divorced from his wife for other than the scriptural cause, he is under the necessity of making a God to let him do it, for the true God forbids it. Hence we do not have to travel far these days to hear a man or woman say, "My God allowed me to get a divorce; and the ground was incompatibility" Another God-maker! If a person would like to gossip, or repeat evil reports; if he would condemn a fellow-being unheard, and nurse a grudge; he must manufacture a God to permit such a spirit and life, for the true God is against it all. No one need be surprised to hear people, who are well-known to be guilty of these things, stand up in testimony meetings and say that God dwells in their hearts, and they never enjoyed religion more in all their lives than now. The explanation is that a God has been manufactured to suit the unloving, unChristlike life. It is true that their tongue is sharper than a serpent’s tooth, and their conversation is one of abuse, detraction, and slander; yet here comes the stereotyped expression, "My Lord was never nearer and dearer to me than now. He fills me now. He keeps me blessedly all the time." In spite of the bold declaration many of the readers of this chapter will recall how the God of the Bible failed to make his presence felt at this juncture; and how, when the testifier sat down there was a peculiar silence, unctionless, ominous and oppressive. False gods allow us to retain right eyes and right arms that offend. They grant seats at Jezebel’s table, and most distinguished favors and attentions from the world. They generate no fears, whisper nothing about a coming judgment, but rock the soul to sleep with the nonsensical but soothing doctrine of Final Restoration. It is dreadful to mark the confusion and horror which comes with the light of the death hour revelation to men who have worshipped gods of their own creation. They find with a sudden and unspeakable shock that they have been adoring fantasies, delusions, and silly imaginations of their own. They find vanishing illusions where they wanted a divine Person, and mental fog where they needed the arm of the Omnipotence. They compassed themselves with sparks of their own kindling, and now, says the prophet, they lie down in sorrow. They took their own desires to be divine leadings; their personal spleen to be righteous indignation, and their pitiless treatment of their fellow-creatures to be zeal for the Lord. With Christ’s own statement that no one who cast out devils in his name could speak lightly of him, and could not be against him, yet they proceeded to condemn and cast out from their regard and presence all that did not "follow with them," no matter what miracles of grace these same people were performing in Christ’s name. This strange anomaly and contradiction was their religion, and this un-Christlike Christ was their Lord. Of course at death no such God appeared to help and save. The true God had been substituted with a false one, and he was not only powerless to deliver, but being a mere concept, and a vain one at that, he was not even present to comfort, and so the now undeceived soul was left to flounder in darkness and despair in the hour of death. Better far to serve the true God, though that service cost not only the right eye, and hand and foot, but all of earth beside. What are our members to us if we be cast with them in the Lake of Fire? and what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? If the reader has a god, he should take it at once to the Bible and see how it compares with the Holy Being revealed there. If dissimilarity exists, and the prodigious blunder has been made of making a God instead of receiving One who never had a beginning, there should be an instant destruction of the idol, the abandonment of the false, and a cleaving now and forever to the one true God, high over all and blessed forevermore. It is infinitely better to discover a great spiritual mistake in life, than in death, when the senses are failing, the mind wandering, devils are assailing, and all the strange, trying and paralyzing sensations attending dissolution sweep like dark billows over the soul. It would be a dreadful thing in the midst of dying gasps, fading faces, and a receding world, to discover in the last moment of life that we had worshipped a wretched counterfeit, a base imitation, a helpless idol, a God that we ourselves had manufactured. Alas for the man who has created an imaginary God; served all his life a false God; and dies at last with no God! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 02.05. A WILDERNESS UNIVERSITY ======================================================================== Chapter 5 A WILDERNESS UNIVERSITY. This is a day of schools, universities and training institutes of every kind. Knowledge has increased and in the making of books, and the conferring of degrees there seems to be no end. We are thankful for learning of every proper kind. We believe in the storing of the mind and in the developing of the intellect. We are glad to see church colleges springing up, and rejoice when we hear of schools founded for the training of young men and women for home and foreign missionary work. And yet we cannot but know that unless a certain famous "Upper Room" with its divine light and fire, its supernatural transformation, impartation and education, finds not only a place, but a prominent and pre-eminent one in the place of learning, that God’s work will never be done as he desires it, salvation will not roll like a flood, and the world never be brought under the power and to the feet of the Son of God. We have only to look at the Past, and turn our eyes on the Present, to see that the greatest reformers and revivalists, the mightiest rebukers of sin, and most tremendous movers on spiritual lines, were never made so by our scholastic institutes, no matter how great the extent of ground, or how venerable with age were the buildings of these same state, nation, or world famous universities. God’s marvelous mouthpieces seem all to come up from what we call the Wilderness. They appear unheralded. They were not dreamed of. Nobody knew them or anything about them, when suddenly they burst forth from obscurity upon an astonished and convicted community, country, and even the nations of the world. The astounding fact to the thoughtful mind is that these men, when they do appear before the public, seem to be thoroughly prepared, fitted, filled and furnished for their work! Their faces, lives, messages, courage, readiness, steadfastness, character poise, fullness of mind and heart on living and everlasting issues, and the unmistakable spiritual force dwelling in and proceeding from them, show without doubt that they are not accidents, but have been thoroughly prepared for their life work somewhere in the deep unknown privacy, out of which they suddenly came. They were getting ready for great battles in life before men ever heard of them. They were studying hard the text books of sin and salvation, poring diligently over the mysteries of the heart and heaven, and getting filled with the knowledge of God and the wisdom of the skies, while the people to whom they were to come later, were dozing, dreaming, idling and sinning their hours, years and lives away. They were faithful student in the Wilderness College, of God, Truth and Everlasting things, while hundreds of millions of their fellow beings were absorbed in pleasure, amusement, fashion and the business of the world; or if in the schools, taken up with the enjoyment of athletic games or the securing of evanescent accomplishments, or the understanding of languages as dead as the people who once spoke them and have passed away. No wonder these graduates of the Wilderness College move and stir the cities and confound the schools and universities. What they say is so new, fresh, spiritual, startling, quickening, powerful and overwhelming, that men go down before such a truth charged, heaven filled instrument. The people muse in their hearts, and are pricked in their souls, and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance turn from the idols of time and earth to serve the living God. Then how full and ready such scholars of the Wilderness are. They never seem to be confused and upset by questions, no matter who asks them. They know what to say, and how to say it, whether it be to a soldier or citizen, to Pharisee or Sadducee, to Herodian or Essene, and have a message for King Herod himself and his infuriated wife. There is something in the high, vaulted, star-frescoed chambers and solemn corridors of the Wilderness College that brings a corresponding seriousness of manner and loftiness of thought. Having been face to face with the sublime so long, such individuals cannot consent to trifle. Away from men’s ideas, ideals, ritualisms, formalisms and superficialisms, they bring back at once to the people, in language, bearing and life the forgotten heaven and the unknown God. They have been so much alone with the Creator in nature that they bring him in their prayers and preaching, in their rebukes and warnings, as they felt and beheld him in the heart of his own works. So their words distill as the dew, emit fragrance like a wild flower, charm like the song of the woodland bird, and yet on the other hand will suddenly change and the speech of the God-filled graduate of the Wilderness leaps and flashes like the lightning, strikes like a thunderbolt and rushes like a storm upon the awe-struck ears and over the trembling consciences of the solemnized and frightened congregation. The graduated students of the Wilderness University all seem to have the Upper Room experience. All speak of the holy fire. All seem to have looked in the deep sense of the word, upon the face of God. And all are fearless, for he who comes from the presence of Jehovah, is never afraid of the countenance of man. The Bible teaches this, and life proves it to be true. When in the Holy Land a few years ago, we stood one morning on the top of a building crowning the summit of Mt. Olivet, and looked southward, eastward and northeastward at the wilderness which stretches today in those directions. We could but think what that particular rocky, sandy, mountainous waste had been to the world in the way of warning, instruction and spiritual benefit; and what the wilderness in general and in particular has always been to the human family. Its greatest friends and mightiest helpers have come literally and figuratively from the desert. Moses was a student of high distinction in the Wilderness School. He took a forty years’ course. What he learned there not only enabled him to stand before kings in palaces and lay down the law to them, but elevated him to the leadership of a great nation. Having talked with God, it was a small matter to come into the audience chamber of Pharaoh and speak to him with steady voice and unflinching eye. More than that, with his countenance luminous from the glory of his protracted interview in the mountain with the Almighty, he towered in moral and spiritual greatness over two hundred and fifty thousand men, and subdued a great rebellious camp of over a million people in a single morning. Elijah came out of the Wilderness that lay to the northeast. He seemed to love his Alma Mater after his graduation, and would return again and again to the desert for post graduate courses. In one of these trips he took up a special study called "The Ravens and the Brook." This was followed by immediately increased activity and usefulness. On another occasion he visited the University where Moses had gone to school, and there took the degree of "The Cave and the Still Small Voice." It was after this new communion with God in the Wilderness that he secured Elisha for the prophetic office, rebuked King Ahab for his crime against Naboth, and pulled fire down from heaven twice to the overthrow and death of his enemies. John the Baptist was a graduate of the Wilderness College of Judea. He undoubtedly took first honors. His salutatory to the people around about Jordan will never be forgotten. Jerusalem and numerous other towns and cities turned out en masse to hear later addresses of the man clothed in a shaggy skin and eating wild locusts. As he talked, he presented life-sized pictures and portraits free of charge to everybody who attended his meetings. These photographs that he struck off with his burning mind remain unfaded to this day. The Publican found his likeness was that of a robber. The Pharisee to his surprise and indignation, as well as the anger of his church friends, discovered that his picture was that of a viper. Soldiers, citizens, indeed everybody, beheld themselves perfectly understood and most thoroughly described. And so it is not to be wondered at that "all men mused in their hearts of John." It does not appear that he ever received a call to become the pastor of any Jerusalem Synagogue, or the head of their school for the prophets, or to take any kind of position as teacher or ruler in the Temple. His sermons on Repentance were bad enough; but his additional teaching that there was a Baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire to be given by Christ was even worse; while his free gift to every hearer in his audience of an accurate character likeness of the listener himself was simply disgusting and unbearable. Moreover, his habit of telling the truth was very embarrassing to many in his congregation. Then instead of confining his rebukes to common people, and persons who were not present but at a great distance, he reproved very prominent individuals like King Herod and his wife, and that, too, when they had done him the great honor of coming to listen to him. For these reasons as well as others we have not time to mention, our first honor man of the Wilderness of Judea never received a city call. It was well that he did not, as no church in the land could ever have seated his regular congregation. So he continued to hold services in the Desert until the time of his imprisonment and death. The Savior preached his funeral sermon, taking for his text the words, "Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 02.06. THE OTHER SIDE ======================================================================== Chapter 6 THE OTHER SIDE. A certain old legend tells of two knights meeting on a highway, and getting in a dispute over a shield that was suspended between them. One said that it was silver, the other declared it was gold. From high words they passed to blows with sword and battleaxe, until finally they both lay bleeding, exhausted and mortally wounded in the dust. A traveler coming along, saw them in this plight, and asked the cause. They with failing breath explained the trouble, when their questioner informed them that they were both right and both wrong; that the shield was silver on one side and gold on the other. The obvious lesson from the story is that before battling the two warriors should have gone over, each to his opponent’s side, and discovered for himself what of fact and truth was in the statement of his antagonist. If this had been done, not only anger and bloodshed would have been prevented, but life itself saved. The folly and contest of the two knights is still to be seen, and the bitter battle is on hand everywhere because men persistently look at but one side of a statement, report, question or occurrence. On all sides we see contestants weltering in something more precious than life blood; who have not only destroyed peace, happiness, reputation and influence in others; but fought themselves out of their own spiritual peace and blessedness; and murdered not only the faith, love and joy of others, but killed their own as well. They stabbed, and were stabbed to death in the saddest sense of the word, and in the identical way that the two knights perished. If they had only come around to their brother’s side for a while, if they had put themselves in the other one’s place for a moment, if they had been just, or even calm, or simply been thoughtful for several minutes, how different would have been the result. How much sorrow would have been averted. How many friendships and affections would have remained undisturbed to bless both parties for life and forever. But no. The first sight with them was the correct view. The first impression was a revelation. The first report was the truth. The whisper of suspicion was conviction. There was but one side to the shield. It was of one metal. He that said to the contrary should meet the point of abusive tongue or destroying sword, and die the death. The Bible gives us better directions than these and tells us that there is another side to the story which our neighbor has just told us. But with many there is no desire to credit any but the first account especially if it be a bad one. Some birds like carrion. Some people prefer to believe evil of their fellow creatures rather than good. They have a strong disinclination to rank their brother as a man of pure gold. They prefer to think he is silver and are made secretly glad that he is not even silver but sounding brass. When a lad we had a cousin, who, when a young man, was called upon through the death of the head of the family, to manage a large estate. It was a trying position for so young a person, but he met the responsibilities successfully and remarkably. In the many blunders in work, insubordination of individuals and diverse trials peculiar to a large Southern plantation, not only his temper but his judgment was constantly put to the test. In all these difficult situations he acted as if he had an old head on young shoulders, and strikingly like men should bear themselves who possess the grace of God, and have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. We noticed that he never went by a first rumor. When two persons were involved in a disturbance he never passed judgment on the matter from the statements of one of these parties. His invariable answer to hot-headed advisers was, "Let us wait and hear the other side." And when that other side was heard, what a difference it made! Yet even then, he would add the two together, then divide by two, do some subtracting here and there as he knew the parties, and would thus calmly, justly and impartially find a remainder, which from his lips became a judgment that was wonderfully near, if not the whole truth. We wish very much that this man of the world could have transmitted his just, discriminating mind and kind, faithful, unprejudiced judgment to many of us evangelists, preachers, writers and editors. As molders of public opinion we do well to speak advisedly, and act justly at all times. There are many people who believe everything which appears in print. The cold, black type seems to be conclusive proof of the truth of the statement or accusation which they read. Behold, it was in a paper! They read it with their own eyes! And therefore as it was in print, it was bound to be true. In view of such unsophisticated minds, and because of a certain evil effect on all hearers, how careful we all ought to be in making what we call the first report and delivering it as though it was final. And what a wrong we inflict on individuals by presenting one side of an occurrence or piece of life history, as though there was not another side to the matter which, if declared and known, would completely change public opinion. Moreover, who can wonder at the growing difficulties of Christian work, when such grave charges are made against the workers not only by their enemies, but by their friends? For certain it is that if half the things be true that are uttered and written against evangelists and preachers the wonder is that any pastor, church, community or camp ground can ever get their consent to send for them and engage their service. It is an exceedingly awful charge to utter or publish of men called of God to preach, and whom God is honoring in every meeting, that they are preaching for gain. This accusation places them on the same plane with the worst men in the Bible and history. Surely there must be another side to such cases. A side which if known to the public would completely sweep away the condemnation and clear the accused with credit and honor. Full of ignorance and inexperience, and quick to make hasty decisions in all matters, we spent quite a number of our earlier years in receiving and believing the first report. The party who reached us first was the true man. His version of the affair was the fact of the case and nothing else was to be depended on. The side of the shield which we beheld was the right side, and we even questioned whether there was another side. So we went on to our own hurt and to the injury of others. A woman once told us something in reference to a preacher, and we avoided him for years. Then suddenly the indisputable truth came out that the woman had lied outright. A lady had us to visit her sick husband. Through a history she narrated of his conduct to her, we gave him the rebuke we thought he deserved. He was perfectly silent through it all. Weeks afterward we found out that the man was a martyr and the wife a domestic singe cat and the cause of all the family trouble. Time would fail to tell of other instances through which we went blundering, believing as we did that every shield was just what we saw it at the first glance, and ready to shiver a lance with any one who intimated that the occurrence, character, life, duty or doctrine in hand had any other side to it than the one we beheld. In later years, taught by experience and other ways, we find an increasing slowness to pass final opinions upon men and events; and a growing willingness to believe there is another side to every question and to every life that is up for pubic criticism and judgment. Recently a man asked us if we were not getting rich from the sale of our books. It was hard to keep from laughing outright in his face. We finally asked him if he knew what we obtained from the sale of each separate volume, and he said he did not. The eyes of the man opened wide as we gave him the information, and then we further informed him what we received a year from the sale of our books his eyes opened still wider. He had a view of the other side. He thought he had seen a gold shield hanging up, but found by going around and viewing it from another quarter that it was silver, and pewter at that. A man tells a preacher who has an understanding with his board of stewards about the amount of his salary; and the evangelist who has an agreement with a pastor or committee employing him, in regard to remuneration--that their faith is at fault, that they do not trust God. Now suppose we glance at the other side, and ask the brother who imputes the faith of his brethren if he has a lock on his front door. He replies yes. Then we ask him where is his trust in God. Has God not promised to guard his dwelling and to give his angels charge over him? Cannot God protect one as well as provide for another? Look when and where we will, and at whom, and we are impressed with the fact that there is always another side to be considered. And because there is, we ought to be careful how we judge and whom we condemn. James says that we ought not only to be slow to wrath, but slow to speak. For certain it is that if we knew the other side of the matter and person we are so quick to disapprove and censure, our spirit, words and conduct we doubt not oftentimes would be exceedingly different. We would pity where we had abused; would exonerate where we had condemned; and would feel like crowning where we had presented the vinegar and the gall. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 02.07. SONGS IN THE NIGHT ======================================================================== Chapter 7 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. Music by day is beautiful and grateful, but melody at night, wafted through quivering leaves or floating across the water is lovelier still, and is always felt to wield a peculiar and greater power over the heart. The notes of a flute stealing through the starlight can never be heard without emotion, while a song by night heard in the distance melts every power of the soul, thrills every chord of the heart and is ever after hung up in the halls of memory a picture of rare and unfading beauty. It might puzzle some to answer why a song in the night is so peculiarly affecting to the mind and spirit. For, after saying that the voices of the singers seem to be softened at such a time; that the garish day is over; that the sight and sound of labor are gone; and a stillness has settled and a loneliness outspread over the wood and field and stream in a way to prepare one to be melted and moved, yet other things are felt to exit that seem to defy all analysis of thought and therefore render impossible any expression of the same in words. Irving’s description of the music he heard at the Alhambra in the moonlight will ever remain a gem of literary beauty. While the gondolier’s song on the star-gemmed Adriatic has touched the heart and fired the pens of a thousand writers. The writer, when a small lad, lay one night in an old grassy field near Brandon, Miss. Sent on a mission to the railroad, he was camping with several men a mile from the place. It was near the close of the Civil War and Confederate troops were encamped in and around the county seat we have named. Suddenly a military band began playing in the distant town. Floating over the treetops and hillsides it came to us as we lay courting sleep, with a thrilling melting power we have never forgotten to this hour. Wide awake now, we listened with wet eyes and swelling heart to "Old Dog Tray," "Maggie By My Side," and other strains that made the boy feel that his body was all too small to hold the different emotions which surged like billows in his breast. It was a song in the night, and the lad will never cease to remember the song and the night. Repeatedly we have been aroused since we became an evangelist by the voices of young men singing as they passed down the street, and always we awoke with pleasure, although we were tired and it was long after twelve. But the nocturnal melody did the business, and we found our heart going out in prayer and good wishes for the late singers. Every one who possesses the least sensibility of soul must admit that the awakening by the sound of a serenade is always pleasant. The instruments and voices breaking in on the ear of a person half asleep, or half awake if we will, weave a delicious spell, a delighted momentary thrill so pure and sweet as hardly to belong to earth. Any imperfections in the performance are not noticed in the gradual recovery of consciousness, while the night with its strange softening, crowning touch to the harmony itself, makes the waker think for a second that he has heard a strain from the heavenly world. It was only, however, a song in the night. David had evidently listened to music at such a time. And hence we find him taking the beauty, tenderness, pleasure and melting power of such occurrences and applying them to certain experiences of the spiritual life. According to the Book of Psalms, he knew of two kinds of song in the night; one in which he would sing to God and the other in which God sent the song to him. To the first the Psalmist alludes in the words, "I call to remembrance my song in the night." He admits that he had been so troubled he could not speak; but he recalled some hymn of praise he had written and dedicated to God in happier days, and commenced singing it to Him in the night. We scarcely know of a more pathetic scene in David’s life than this. The man was in trouble, his soul was without comfort, his spirit was overwhelmed, he could not sleep and could not speak, and yet burdened, sad, wakeful in his misery and smitten voiceless on the earthward and human side, he, in spite of everything and all things, commenced singing to God. Here was faithfulness indeed Here was love and loyalty to the Divine One, no matter what men and devils did nor how the natural heart drooped, sickened and ached all but to death. We have heard mighty and glorious anthems swell upward to God from crowded church and camp ground, and we question whether a sweeter or more acceptable song ever came into the ears of the Almighty than the hymn of love and praise uttered by the trembling lips of a suffering, tortured, persecuted and discouraged child and servant of his on earth. To sing in the day when all goes well is easy; but to sing in the night is faithfulness, devotion and worship of the highest order. No one can doubt that this pleases God, moves him and would naturally draw him to come to the quick relief of such a follower. Every parent knows how the voice of a child in distress instantly inclines his heart to bring immediate help and comfort. While in the case of Deity, if deliverance should be delayed, it would not be for lack of love and interest, but that such a soul might obtain all the benefit of such a situation in its own enrichment and development, and that the world and universe itself might have added to its spiritual wealth. the benediction and grace of such a character and life. A song in the day is an easy affair. Any worldling can render such a performance. But the song in the night! The faithful utterance in times of trouble. The true thing said in time of greatest difficulty. The loyal, submissive, devoted speeches spoken about God when the soul is comfortless, enemies are thick, troubles are multiplied and relief is not in sight--here is something worth talking about, and that few seem able to do! Well may we pray for the world’s good and the glorifying of Christ’s Redemption that the Singers in the night might be increased an hundred and a thousand fold. We recently read of a little boy who was run over and badly injured in a street accident. As he lay under the hands of the surgeon, he asked the physician if he might sing while he operated on him. The doctor consented and the little fellow with blanched cheeks and quivering lips, began singing and sang over and over again, with his childish treble, the first verse of that noble hymn called "Palms." "Blossoms and palms in varied beauty vie, Decked is the road with fragrant flowers to greet Him; Jesus has come, a world’s sad tears to dry, E’en now the throng rush forth with joy to meet Him. Sing and rejoice with one accord, Sing joyous songs for this sublime ovation, Hosanna. Praised be the Lord, Blessed is He who has brought us salvation." It was at night, and yet a crowd of attendants nurses could not keep from gathering about the martyr singer. We doubt not that all got a nobler view of life at the spectacle, and we do not question that the surgeon did his very best for the little sufferer, who sang so courageously in the midst of his agony. Would to God that, instead of complaints, Heaven could hear the singing of its afflicted and smitten children coming up out of the night. Not only would it be nobler on our part, but better for the world itself. It was Paul’s song in the night, while he was fastened in the stocks, which brought relief from heaven to himself and salvation to the jailer and many others in the prison. And we can but feel that it will be our singing in the night of trouble that will produce earthquakes of conviction, open the doors of outer and inner prisons and awaken and set free the slumberers and captives of sin on every side and in every place. The other kind of song in the night to which David refers is the one that God himself sent to him. So he speaks of the Lord "compassing him about with songs;" and again he writes, "In the night His song shall be with me." In the first instance the man uplifts his song to God; in the latter case God sends down a song to the man. And here also it comes in the night. The Psalmist says, "In the night His song shall be with me!" Here God is doing the comforting. The serenade comes from the skies. The singing is done in heaven and then wafted earthward to the child of God in the night. Hence it is that when John was sent to Patmos, and the darkness of persecution, exile and loneliness had settled upon him, the Lord made the Gold and Silver Trumpet Company and the String Band of the Holy City come out and play on the hillsides of heaven. The banished servant of Christ heard the singing, and "the sound of the harpers harping on their harps," and was so blessed and filled that he wrote a long letter to the seven churches about it, and all the churches have been reading that letter ever since. Paul had many a night of sorrow and affliction to come down upon him, but every time the Lord saw to it that his lonely and oppressed follower received a serenade from the kingdom of glory. In one of them he was caught up, and saw and heard unspeakable things. He said afterwards that he did not know in the ecstasy and glory which filled him whether he was in the body or out of the body. Wesley heard this singing. And so does every faithful minister of Jesus Christ who preaches the whole truth and finds himself opposed, contradicted, and struck at by friend and foe, and by men and devils. The shadows come, but with them the divine serenade. Heavenly voices strike upon the listening ear of the soul, and a song begun in heaven floats downward, and is finished in the swelling heart of the smitten, wearied, but still loving and loyal follower of the Son of God. There are aged servants of the Lord who awaken a great while before day and cannot sleep again. And there are physically afflicted ones who cannot slumber for pain. And there are bereaved Christians whose homes have been stripped by death, and who lie awake at night thinking of the empty chair and vacant room, and the new-made grave in the cemetery. All of these three classes know what we mean by the song in the night. They also know that but for such songs which God gives in the darkness, their hearts would have broken and they would have gone down into a pit of despair and into the grave itself. But the singing from the skies saved them. At three different periods, the writer has taken long railroad trips alone, while his dead lay in the baggage car in front. As he leaned his head against the window frame of the flying train, and looked out at the distant stars, feeling crushed with the emptiness of the world and the full desolation of life at such a season of trouble, yet each time God remembered his lonely and sorrowing servant and sent him a song in the night. Otherwise he feels that his heart must surely have broken by the way. He, in common with others who are presenting a full salvation, will alike meet with many sore trials and difficulties. All will undoubtedly be wounded by friend, stabbed by foe, and be maligned, abused and opposed on every hand. The night of natural sorrow and trouble is certain to come, but with it is equally sure the blessed, blissful serenade of the skies. God is faithful, and because he is faithful, he will see to it when the darkness comes, that the song which will make us endure the long night, and even forget the gloom, shall come also. We, like the lad, may be stretched in the shadows on the cold fields of earth, and far this side of the Golden City. But the Lord will take note of condition and situation, and full of pity for the solitary sufferer, will cause one of the bands of heaven to commence playing from some hillside of glory. And the listening ear shall hear, and the upturned face of the man on the stony ground will glow, and ever afterwards in speaking of that hour and experience he will say with one of old, I was caught up, and saw and heard things unspeakable. I know not whether I was in the body or out of the body. God knoweth. I do know that I was in the dark, and God sent me a song in the night. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 02.08. THETHIRD CHAPTER OF LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 8 THE THIRD CHAPTER OF LIFE. The caption of this chapter may at first impress the reader as being somewhat vague and misty, but light will come with a few explanatory sentences, and the application will be readily made and warning taken by those who feel that it comes home to heart and conscience. In the study of the Bible, and of secular history, as well as the cases of people around us, we have been for years increasingly impressed with the fact that men pass through three different moral states or conditions, which well cover the whole life and that might very properly be called three chapters. Sometimes the "third chapter" is misread by the world, and the man is altogether misjudged by an over or under valuation. Sometimes it is not granted to the public to read the third section. But it is there just the same, has been written, or put up in the plain type of deeds and actual character, even though men fail to have the complete bound volume placed in their hands for perusal. There is a day and hour coming when this third division shall be read by everybody. That time is called the Day of Judgment. "The other books," these life volumes of ours, will be opened then and there, and all the record will be complete even to footnotes and a remarkable addendum which no one knew or suspected. We all shall be known then; and the finishing chapter will doubtless create the greatest surprise in that tremendous hour when infinite knowledge with perfect justice sits on the throne to sift out, divide, apportion, punish and reward according to the real lives of men. We have not time now to amplify the three life chapters of the sinner who dies impenitent. The simple words Sin--Deeper Sin--and Final Loss of the Soul, however, would be their proper though dreadful headings. These captions would describe the dark course and darker end, the sad drifting and awful shipwreck of an immortal spirit. Some sinners have been plucked like brands from the burning at the eleventh hour, at half-past eleven and a quarter to twelve; so that their chapters read Sin--Deeper Sin--and Salvation. The last of the three may be written in a place remote from where the first two were compiled. So that no doubt not there are men who, having drifted from home as vile transgressors and died are now supposed to be in hell when they are in heaven. The third chapter was edited and published unknown to old-time friends and neighbors in a far distant State, on a cot in a hospital, in a cabin on the prairie, in the bunk of a ship, or on the blood-stained soil of a battlefield. Not less remarkable is the "third chapter" in the lives of Christians. With some the book proceeds just as God desires it, from good to better, from better to best, and so ending graciously and victoriously. Such a life conclusion of ripe fruitage, extended usefulness, blameless record and general character triumph constitutes one of the priceless heritages of the church. But there are numerous instances when the rounding up, or "third chapter," is so surprising, mortifying, heart-rending and appalling that human models and previous standards of judgment fairly go down with a crash, and men feel for a while that they hardly know how to premise again in the realm of character. On account of the Fall of Man, the first chapter in every life must necessarily be headed "Sin." But when the second has written over it "Salvation," we have every right to expect the caption of the third to embrace the words Spirituality, Holiness, Success and Victory. When it reads to the contrary, the world laughs and mocks, while the church stands amazed, distressed and bewildered. To illustrate what we have in mind, we call attention to the history of Asa, King of Judah. His second chapter fairly thrills the heart. The Bible says, referring to this time of his life, that, "He did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord." He put down idolatry in the land, and caused the people to worship God. When a vast Ethiopian army of a million men invaded his kingdom, Asa cried unto God, and the Lord gave him an overwhelming victory. With such a record as this we would naturally expect not only the same kind of life from the man, but even better, with increasing loyalty to God, and greater triumphs over his enemies to the end. But instead of that, in turning to the Bible we read the heart-sickening Third Chapter of this King’s life. Another great army came against him; and forgetting what God had done for him in the face of even greater odds, and failing to wait upon Him for direction and help, he used gold and silver to hire the help of a Syrian army. He obtained a victory, but God at once sent a prophet to pronounce a judgment upon him for what he had done. Then we read that Asa became furious at the rebuke and thrust the prophet into prison. It is stated in addition that "he oppressed some of the people the same time." After this a great physical affliction befell him, and the sacred chronicler writes, "Yet in his disease he sought not the Lord, and Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign." No one can read this last division of the man’s life without the deepest disappointment and pain, while the query arises, "Why did he not remain faithful? What made him let down as he did and commit those foolish and sinful things?" The same kind of history is going on today. The Third Chapter, recording the facts of spiritual lapse, faithlessness, sin, and life failure, is one of the ghastly facts that continues to sadden the hearts of God’s people as in the days of Asa and other faithless servants of Heaven before him. Let us see if we can recognize just a few out of many. The first chapter in a certain man’s life revealed him a sinner. The second showed him saved and one of the humblest and most gentle and loving of preachers. In high appreciation of this Christ-like minister, the church made him a bishop. After this came the third chapter, and behold, it recorded him as the ridiculer of the religious experience of his brethren, the actual oppressor of better men than himself, a kind of modern pope in spirit, word and deeds, and so he died. Another character volume tells of a worldly woman in the first chapter; how she was saved, sanctified and blessedly used of God in the second chapter; but in that strange, disappointing third division she is seen listening to and adopting the teachings of Growth and Suppression Schools and standing plainly stripped of former glory and power. Opening still another one of "The Other Books," we see in the first chapter a drunkard, in the second a completely redeemed man and living thus for twenty years, and in the "third" a drunkard again! We cannot refrain from giving a few more as we have seen and known them, but in condensed form, simply taking the heading of the chapters as follows. Drunkard, Preacher, Lecturer and Backslider. * * * Preacher, Insurance Agent and Backslider. * * * useless, useful, useless again. * * * A dozen times at least when a young preacher have we listened to the first two chapters of a prominent minister in one of our Conferences. We give them in a brief style: Chapter 1. There were two young men, A. and V. Both were well educated, accomplished and wealthy and both were unconverted. Chapter 2. A. obtained religion and V. laughed at him and told him he was making a great mistake, and missing a life of pleasure. At the time of this ridicule both were on a steamboat going down the Mississippi, A. to enter the ministry, and V. to New Orleans on a spree. V. was killed in a duel a year later. A. became one of the most useful and devoted of preachers. For twenty years he was recognized as the most spiritual man in his Conference. The above are the two chapters, and the moral lessons drawn from them are too evident to repeat. If the curtain could have been rung down right then, the lights put out, and the actors retired from view, how the writer and reader could use those two life divisions with tremendous effect upon sinners. But there was a third chapter, and here it is: Chapter 3. After A. had been in the ministry something over twenty years, the doctrine and experience of Entire Sanctification was presented to him. Unhappily for him and many others, he stifled his convictions, turned against this Bible Truth, fought it pitilessly, brought discouragement and grief to many good people, oppressed a number as did king Asa, became the bitterest man in his Conference, and died a silent, melancholy and many believe a hopeless death! * * * Sometimes the third division of a man’s life is known only to a few people. How it must sicken them to hear the second chapter lauded, spouted and raved over on public occasions, in the papers, and over the coffin of the deceased, when they know the third chapter, with its stains of sin and crime. There was once a terrible criminal in one of the Northern States. He was converted and sanctified in a very remarkable way. These two chapters of the man’s life have been sounded aloud and the changes rung upon them many times and in numerous places. As the man is now dead, it is supposed that he went right on improving to his last hour. But a few people know the third chapter, and it is a distressing one! He got implicated in a church quarrel, lost his sweetness, then his experience, and died without a word! * * * The conclusion of the whole matter is that we had all better look out for our third chapter. The second may have been a glorious one; but there is no absolute guarantee that the third will surpass it or even measure up to it. The fearful thought is that it may fall far below the mark. No wonder the Bible bids us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling; and also declares that he who thinketh he standeth should take heed lest he fall; while Paul says that he kept his body under, and brought it into subjection, lest that after having preached to others he himself might be a castaway. God grant to us all that the evening of our life may sweep beyond its noon and morning in grace and glory. And when we stand before the Judgment Bar of God and "the Book" is opened, and "the other books" are opened, and the three complete divisions of life are read before an assembled universe, we may not be ashamed to be confronted with the final chapter of our lives. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 02.09. LESSONS FROM THE STARS ======================================================================== Chapter 9 LESSONS FROM THE STARS. Some writer tells us truly that there are sermons in stones, and books in running brooks. We have been struck with the startling Gospel truths that are prominent in mythological narrative, and surprised and pleased to note that even in the plays of childhood the most profitable moral lessons and spiritual truths can be discovered. Lately in astronomical study we have been deeply impressed with the profound and solemn teachings to be received from the floating universe above us. Volumes could be written about the laws of attraction and repulsion; the apparent waste of light and energy; the unknown shape of the stellar system; the motion of the universe itself toward some unseen point, and many other impressive facts. Among the strange truths in the stars is the fact of different-colored suns. Some are red, others pure white, still others yellow, while a number are black. These colors are not arbitrarily given of God, but strangely declare the age, energy and condition of the suns bearing them. It is found by astronomers, through the spectroscope and other instruments, that certain elements lack or abound in these vast globes of fire that are rolling in mid air trillions and quadrillions of miles from us, according to their youth, maturity or old age. These elements make a strange handwriting in the spectrum of the astronomer, and he knows by the color of the star whether it is beginning or ending, or has terminated its life career. First, the red sun declares the lusty strength of youth. Comparatively few cycles have passed over it, and it has a long and wonderful history of light and heat, and hence of usefulness before it. It has not reached its highest power, but is on the way. This well covers the case of the blood red justified man he has light, heat and strength, and is a blessing. But he has only begun his life and work, according to the Bible, and is destined for greater things. It is quite interesting to see the soundly and recently converted individual rushing on his way, pouring out his new life on all around him, and not dreaming that there is another and greater glory for him, with profounder influence and wider sweep of power. Second, the heavens above hold in its depths the flaming type of a mightier grace in the form of giant suns of purest white, with intense measures of heat, and vaster orbits of influence and power. We are certainly glad to know that the Kingdom of Grace measures up here most gloriously to the hints and teachings of the firmament above us. Not only the Bible, but history, rolls into view, not only the red suns of the justified, but great life orbs flooding community, and nation, and the world itself with the flashing white light and the glowing white heat of holiness. Wesley, Fletcher, Fenelon, Finney, Inskip and others of their spiritual magnitude correspond well with Sirus, Procyon, Vega, Altair and Regulus, by whose side our sun is small and faint indeed. We are grateful indeed for the pure light of holiness which can be possessed without regard to physical size, or social and ecclesiastical station. We thank God that many have it and are illumining and warming up homes, neighborhoods and churches with its beautiful radiance. The experiences of these people agree with the handwriting of the stars. They say that God called them into spiritual life and being, and after enjoying for awhile a blood red justification, they were swept into a burning, glowing, snow white sanctification. A third class of suns in the heavens is seen in what is called the yellow stars. This orb is in the afternoon of its existence. Its fires are burning out, its heat is gradually waning, its time of decrepitude is at hand, and it is on the road to extinction. The marvellous little instrument called the spectroscope has found out what the telescope could not discover, and has placed in a strange handwriting in the spectrum before the intelligent eye of the astronomer the solemn announcement that the life of a sun is steadily going out before us far up in the heavens. What is seen in the sky is likewise beheld on the earth. The gradual fading of a star in the firmament is not a more certain and terrible fact than the dying out of the divine fire and light from an immortal soul once illumined and quickened of God. And while it must be a solemn sight, indeed, for men of science to watch through the flight of centuries the gradual extinction of a sun, yet it is a far more dreadful spectacle to behold right before our eyes in the course of a few months or years the light and life of God go out in a human soul. Men who study the heavens sometimes give us reasons for the decay and death, so to speak, of a sun; but oftener they confess to profound ignorance of such mysteries happening so far away in space. As thoroughly mystified are observers today who see men pass into the blood red, thence up to the snow white, powerful experience of the Christian life, and then begin to enter upon the yellow of an unmistakable decay. Something has happened to sun or Christian, but what is the happening? What has gone wrong? What force has died out? What constituent element has departed? A star ninety trillions of miles away is not harder to read and understand than a human soul only a few feet removed from us. Both are dying out, both are growing yellow, but what did it, and what is the matter, is the question. The reader will notice that the colors we have mentioned, and the order in which they have been named, are all true to nature. We may take the flush of the morning, the white of noonday, and the yellow of evening; or start with the blush of spring, the whiteness of summer and the brown tints of autumn; or begin with the rosy hue of infancy, the fairness of youth, and the yellowing skin of increasing years yet in every instance we see that the order of colors as laid down in this article is the correct one. The yellow sun in the universe is a dying sun! What a pang it gives the heart to look about us in life and see the fearful fatal correspondence in the moral world to what is transpiring in the natural realm. And it seems that no number of newly justified and wholly sanctified souls rushing here and there in their orbits of devotion and duty can take away the sadness aroused in us at the spectacle of the soul weakening, heart cooling, character crumbling, and general life darkening of men and women once ablaze for the truth and God, and full of faith and the Holy Ghost. A fourth class of suns swing in deadness, and blackness through the fathomless regions of the far away firmament. They have burned out. All their heat and fire have departed. Light and warmth may fall around them and upon them, but they themselves have no light or heat of their own. Under the strongest instruments they are recognized to be darkened and dead. Usually they are found geared up or connected in some way with suns of the first and second magnitude. One is following Sirius, around, and another has been discovered attached to the star Algoz. They are not planets, but burned out suns. They are the backslidden stars of the heavens. Cold and helpless themselves, they get what light that is upon them, and are prevented from flying away altogether into outer darkness through their great faithful white hot brethren in the skies known as Sirius, Algoz, Vega, Capella, Altair and Regulus. The eye has only to drop from the sky to the earth to behold at once the darkened faces, midnight souls, and cold, unresponsive and unprofitable lives of those who once shone, burned, flashed, moved, rushed and achieved for God. The black suns are in our midst. They no longer give light or heat. The radiance which falls upon them and about them comes from other people. They are actually kept in some kind of orbit by the power of some great faithful soul with whom they find themselves providentially connected. A preacher may become a darkened sun, and yet be kept in place by a faithful spiritual congregation. A church may become lifeless, and yet through a devoted man in the pulpit be held to some kind of duty, and be saved from utter worldliness. As we look still deeper into these mysteries with the glass of observation we see a sanctified man at a white heat going through life with a cold, irreligious wife circling round him. Or a holy woman moving in a home or church orbit with a spiritually dead husband carried along by her side. In still another direction we behold a darkened household swinging around a single consecrated member of that home. Four, six or eight dark bodies moving around, and kept in some kind of order by a solitary life full of the love and grace of God. And still again we observe a shallow, unspiritual, and actually backslidden singer journeying about with a holiness evangelist who has the real fire and glory in his soul. In every instance we observe that the dark body gives no light nor heat of its own, and seems to be kept in place by another soul that is greater, brighter and warmer than itself, in the best and highest sense of the word. Let each reader of these lines ask himself, or herself, which one of the suns covers their case. Is it red, white, yellow or black with our souls! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 02.10. THE DAILY DEATH ======================================================================== Chapter 10 THE DAILY DEATH. In one of his epistles Paul declared that "he kept his body under." A number who strive to find scripture to bolster them in their teaching of the suppression of the sin principle or carnal mind, have endeavored to make this verse serve their purpose. Unfortunately for them the Apostle does not say he "kept the body of sin under," but his own body. There is a great difference between the "body of sin" created by the devil, and the human body made by the Almighty. The former is to be crucified and destroyed, and the latter is to be kept under. In another place Paul declared that he underwent a daily death. His words were, "I die daily." Again we hear the defenders and apologists of resident sin in the heart, crying out that we make a grave mistake in saying the body of sin or the old man is put to death, for here the great Apostle to the Gentiles plainly states that his experience was a daily death. A careful reader of the Bible could never, it seems to us, so mix and confound such widely different scripture passages as the verses referred to. Paul did not say that "the old man" died daily, but "I (Paul) die daily." The devil made the old man, and God made Paul. The apostle in perfect understanding of what he is writing about, declares a single, final, finishing death for the Old Man, while for himself he says, "I die daily." Moreover in this expression, not the slightest reference is made to any kind of sin, but to a martyrdom which he expected might befall him any day at the hand of the Caesars. As with Paul the sanctified people of today can bear witness to the unmistakable, instantaneous and complete death of inbred sin or the old man, and also to an experience which follows in this earthly life which can be most properly described in the words, "I die daily." This is not "the deeper death" taught by some evangelists, who feeling still the remains of the carnal mind, are naturally driven to such a teaching. How can there be a deeper death? A death is a death. If the old man is dead, he is dead. What death can there be for the dead, but that which is called the second death in hell--and which of itself never dies! No, there can be a complete death of the body of sin in the soul the heart entering at once upon a life of cleanness and restfulness; and yet as individuals we make acquaintance with what may be called a daily death. The old man dies once for all, but we in a sense die daily. And as with the Apostle it is not sin that is the trouble, but something very widely and radically different from sin. Paul moved in an atmosphere of martyrdom. Perhaps many holy people who read these lines are doing the same. Many of them have found out what is meant by the white blood of the nerve. They have been tied on the rack, and broken repeatedly on the wheel which was set going in domestic, social and ecclesiastical chambers. They feel in a deep mystic sense they have fought with gladiators and have been thrown to wild beasts of Ephesus. Truly they know another death than that of the old man. First, there is the dying to the constant slights shown them and discount set upon their words and deeds by their own church brethren. A holy people expect as much from the world, but it comes with quite a shock to find that a great part of the family of God despise and condemn them. No matter what is done in the way of zeal, activity, liberality and magnanimity on the part of the truly sanctified, it is all met with a chilling indifference not to say condemnation by the churches of today. As a boy we once displeased the acknowledged king of the school play ground. We made some swift and capital runs in the game we were playing after that, but he ignored them all, froze us with his cold stare, and ingloriously put us aside. Very nobly and liberally and faithfully are some of God’s holy people doing today in the pew and pulpit. But unless they give up preaching and testifying to sanctification they meet the stony gaze, the icy silence, and the careful avoidance of all words of praise and commendation of what has been done for God, the church and humanity. This is a kind of martyrdom, and here we have to die. Second, there is the constant dying to the deliberate and repeated misrepresentation of motives, performances, character and life. This assailing comes not from one quarter; but just as Christ had the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes and every other following and organization against him, so the man baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, and who testifies to it, and urges it upon others, will get to know what the words isolation and loneliness mean, and find out all that is embraced in the term general opposition. He will discover as he plumbs the straight line of holiness that the hand of every man seems to be lifted against him. John Wesley not only had the world and the church opposed to him, but numbers on his own side, in the very societies he had founded. The cost of obtaining and retaining the genuine blessing, and of staying on the main line of holiness, is to have Pharisee, Sadducee, Essene, Herodian, Long Hair, Short Hair, Wild Eye, Ranter, Skinner, Blisterer, and a multitude of other characters solidly arrayed against one. To all of this we must die, and die daily. Third, there must be a dying to a number of personally disagreeable and offensive people who are coming up the road along with the holiness movement. Who has not encountered the individual who deliberately tried to overhear confidential conversations? Who has not met the person, male or female, who pries into one’s personal and family history, and propounds questions that no one with any true refinement or proper regard for the proprieties could or would ever dream of asking? Who has not been interviewed, examined and cross-questioned, so to speak, by the veriest strangers and briefest of acquaintances as to one’s age, size of family, spiritual condition of each, etc., etc., etc. One lady asked a certain evangelist if his teeth were false, and if she might feel them with her finger so as to be able to settle a dispute then going on among five others of her sex in regard to that interesting fact. The aforesaid brother could have convinced the skeptical sister in a most impressive and incisive way concerning the genuineness and steadfastness of the molars in controversy, but it would not have been in harmony with the teachings of Perfect Love, and so he refrained, though doubtless he was tempted. It is very likely that many in the land today would be only too glad to have an addition to the Litany reading after this manner, "From all such social plagues and pestilences may a kind Providence deliver us." But as it seems we cannot escape from the affliction of such people, then the next best thing is to die to them. A fourth dying is seen in the patient endurance of slanderous attack and coarse personal abuse. There are numbers of individuals in the church and in the holiness ranks who have been made the recipients of the most abusive and insulting letters, and have seen repeatedly printed in different publications the gravest of charges and slanders. The writer, printer, publisher and even deliverer of these attacks perhaps did not know that they were violating one of the Postal Laws of the United States, and had subjected themselves to a fine of thousands of dollars, and an imprisonment of years in the penitentiary. It is nothing to the United States whether the charges are true or false. That is not the point. The Government does not propose that its mail system should be prostituted to the use of originators and disseminators of slander. If any one doubts what the writer says about this, let him procure a copy of the postal laws of the United States and read the section relative to scurrilous and slanderous letters and printed matter sent by the mails. The fact that a number of evangelists and preachers, wit h the law in their hands against these vilifiers, refuse to use their power, but go on patiently and silently, shows how thoroughly the soul can die to the abuser and slanderer. A fifth dying must take place in regard to our hold upon persons we once spiritually helped, and to our influence in places where in other days we preached and labored and had great success and triumph. It is deeply impressive and thought provoking to see how a preacher sent to a new pastoral charge tries to retain his ascendency and rulership in the old appointment left behind. Also the smile is made to deepen in noticing how some evangelists unconsciously fall into the role of playing the Cardinal, the Pope, or the Diocesan Bishop, in towns and communities where they have held in former days a successful meeting. They do not know how to stand aside for other men as much sent of God as themselves. They would keep the whole community under their wing. They would rule and reign without a rival, over conscience and life, general and cosmopolitan as it may be. The fact that their own particular work is ended; that other men gifted and used of the Spirit may be needed, does not seem to occur to them. The additional truth that the people they once taught to walk, can ever walk without them is too painful a thought to be admitted to the mind. So though far distant these kind of brethren still wish to fill the milk bottle, and prepare the food, and are exceedingly distressed to discover that their own spiritual children have actually taken catnip tea from another hand, and have even gone to broiling their own steaks. We find that we are called upon to die out completely here, in the acceptance of the fact that the persons we once were made a blessing to, can get along without us; that they even forget us; and that other laborers coming in, crowd us out from the heart, mind, plan and life of the people even where there is no unkindness or hatred toward us who were peculiarly near and dear in earlier days. We could say much more on this line of thought, but enough has been written to plainly show that after the funeral of the Old Man, there are still repeated visits of the hearse to the door of one’s life. There is and should be no more death to "the body of sin." And Scripture and Reason alike are against the idea of a deeper death of the carnal mind or inbred sin. But there are frequent deaths to persons, conditions and all the changing circumstances of this life, where sin is not, and should not be involved a single particle. The black crepe has fluttered on the door knob a number of times since the burial of the "Old Man," but it was not for him. He had not been granted a resurrection, to be followed with a deeper death, and therefore treated to bigger bunches of crepe and longer streamers of woe. No, after obtaining the great blessing some of us thought that certain things must be or must not be, or we did not see how we could well live, get along, etc., etc., etc. Well, these same trying, painful melancholy things came to pass just as we preferred they should not. And as they would not die to us, we concluded to die to them. Hence the frequent flutter of the black crepe on the door knob, though the old man lies cold and dead in the graveyard. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 02.11. THE GRADUAL REVELATION OF PRAYER ======================================================================== Chapter 11 THE GRADUAL REVELATION OF PRAYER. Owing to the Holiness of God, and the spiritual state of his creatures, there is discoverable in the way of approach to and perfect communion with him, a certain gradualness as unmistakable as it is necessary and unavoidable. If men have to fix their attention to perceive the truth and force of some thoughtful lecture or sermon; so must there be a spiritual concentration to recognize what God has to say to and in us. Elijah wrapped a mantle about his head, and then heard the "still small voice." This fact was not stated without deep significance. There is a certain form gone through as well as a proper attiring of the body, before men are led into the presence of an earthly monarch. This is but a shadow of a greater truth and fact. There are galleries, corridors and ante-chambers in the spirit life that have to be traversed before we stand in the Throne Room and confront our King face to face. Even physical distance has its teaching to the thoughtful; and as we look at the steps to be taken from the door to the footstool of the throne of a terrestrial Ruler, so we say there is spiritual distance to be gone over, and steps of various duties to be taken, before we can hear the voice of our Heavenly King speaking to us and feel his divine touch on our soul. It is either ignorance of this truth or the ignoring of the fact itself that accounts for so many unprevailing and unsuccessful prayers in this life. Men ring the gate bell and expect an immediate vision of and audience with the Holy One of Israel, without regard to spiritual preparation or moral condition. They would have God careless of rules and laws which they themselves observe and exact of one another. Their expectations in the religious life, if carried out in the social world, would remove all such things as steps, walks, shoe scrapers, foot mats, front doors, inner doors and would precipitate one from the front gate into the innermost and most sacred chamber of the house. Of course there are people who are living continually in the presence of the King, and this article does not apply to them, but to those who are offering up prayers for pardon, restoration and holiness. To all such there is a period of cleansing, a season of ringing and knocking, a time of patient waiting, before the door is opened and the soul admitted to audience with the Lord. There is a certain gradualness even in the answer. Just as we have stood on a porch, and rung the bell for admittance in the house of a friend, we first felt a vibration of the floor which declared approaching footsteps, next heard the sound of opening doors on the inside, and then have seen the quiver of the door knob before the door itself opened. So in the victorious prayer, before the triumph comes, there are unmistakable indications and sensations that Mercy, the servant of God, is coming to let us in. If we will only stay on the porch and not leave; if we will only stand faithfully by the door, and give the persistent importunate push to the bell of prayer, we will hear distant doors opening, we will feel the vibration of coming footsteps of grace, we will see the door knob move, and better still, the portal of Blessing itself fly wide open before our wistful, pleading, beseeching souls. This gradual revelation of prayer is brought out very remarkably in the case of Jacob as he sought God on the side of the brook Peniel. At first there was nothing but solitude and darkness. The Bible says "he was left alone." The next turn in events was that, after a certain lapse of time, a man came out of the gloom and began to wrestle with him. Micah the prophet relates the third change where the man became an angel and Jacob wept as he struggled with the celestial visitor. At daybreak according to Moses, the conquering Jacob found that he had the Lord in his arms, and cried, "I have seen God face to face"! The deepest truths and most precious lessons are taught in this remarkable progress and development of prayer as seen in the spiritual milestone words: loneliness man--angel--God! The first experience of every seeker after pardon, reclamation or holiness is one of profound loneliness. Like Jacob he sends everything he has over the brook, beginning with his cattle and ending with Rachel. The dearest was held to the last, but even the favorite, the well beloved, and the idolized have to go if we would meet God as Jacob did. As we linger in supplication everything appears to recede and fall away from the petitioner. How dreary the night, how distant and cold the stars to one who is seeking God in loneliness and darkness. For a while he seems to get no nearer. If anything the Lord appears to be farther off than ever. The soul is in gloom, the world looks pitiless, and the heart is a lump of lead. Instead of feeling better we feel worse. Instead of angel presences, devils envelop the spirit. Instead of an opening heaven, there seems to be a yawning hell. When we come to look thoughtfully into the matter, this painful period is in a sense perfectly natural and should be expected. If one has been drifting seaward all through the night and turns at day dawn to see the remoteness of the shore, who wonders that the swimmer’s heart should sink within him at the sight. In prayer we really turn from our drifting toward the world and hell, and direct our gaze back to duty and heaven. Who marvels that the soul is at first all but paralyzed at the recognition of the great spiritual distance between its present position and the place where it ought to be. Who is astonished when a man beginning in prayer to look to God, should be overcome at the sight of his own ungodliness, or moral unlikeness to God; and feel his own conscious unworthiness pulling him down into depths of hopelessness. Here is where numbers sink and go down utterly. They do not recognize the lonely, stripped, helpless experience as one actually necessary to make us look to and cling to Christ; but construing it into an indication of divine forsakenness, a condition of soul too far gone to be recovered--behold they fall into discouragement and despair and lose all. A second stage of prayer is where we pray on and come to the moment when we receive help from above equivalent to the strength of a man. Something comes to us, help us, puts its arms about our spirit, and strangely assists the soul to continue the struggle after God. These are divine encouragements intended to keep us from fainting, without being the blessing itself that we are seeking. The third stage of the real importunate prayer, comes after this, in which we obtain an angel blessing of relief and comfort. That is, some people "feel a great deal better than they did." And here they stop, instead of going on to the triumphant conclusion and end. This class are never exactly certain about their spiritual standing or locality in grace. While good sweet people, almost any kind of searching sermon can upset them, while the appearance of opposition is the signal for their going down. A strong, positive character on the opposing side can easily disconcert them, and they can hardly be counted on in a battle until the victory is won. Finally, there is a fourth and culminating point and experience in prayer. There is a downward rush of a perfect satisfying blessing from the sky, and all upward gush of triumph, joy and blessedness in the heart. There is a daybreak revelation of God himself to the soul, and in the soul. Something happens which makes the enraptured man says "I have seen God face to face." Something has transpired that takes the scare out of him, burns the trickster and supplanter nature from the character, gives the victor power over men, and makes him a prince in his own consciousness and in the sight of God. Nature is full of wonderful enriching secrets to those who keep digging in her fields and tarrying at her portals. The Kingdom of Grace is not behind, but ever ahead of the physical world in its ability to bless and glorify the man who observes its laws and complies with its conditions. The trouble with most people is that they take the hand from the plow and leave the field too soon. There are others who stick to the furrow until the crop is made and find themselves rich in grace for this world, and opulent in glory for the life to come. Some persons ring the doorbell and then leave in impatience or despair. But there is another set of individuals for whom we thank God, who, after ringing, wait; and then ring again, and wait some more; and do some more ringing, followed by an equally persistent waiting, until at last the Door of Mercy opens; the Mansion of Grace is entered, and walking in, these prevailers, conquerors and princes sit down and take possession to go out no more forever. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 02.12. THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL ======================================================================== Chapter 12 THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL. The world’s greatest teacher was and is Jesus Christ. He never has, never will and never can be surpassed. Truly it was said of him, "Never man spake like this man." And these words were uttered by those who had been sent to arrest him. His bitterest enemies agreed that "the whole world had gone after him." How his sayings still live! There is no mold, rust, decay and death for them. They impress, astonish, silence and overwhelm as much in the twentieth century as they lockjawed and confounded his adversaries in the first century. The scathing terms "whited sepulchres" and "wolves in sheep’s clothing" cut and burn as deeply today as when they first fell from his holy lips on the hills of Judea and within the walls of Jerusalem. His figures and illustrations were so vivid and forceful that they actually hurt. One can all but feel the right arm being cut off, and the right eye plucked out, in order that the soul might be saved. The wealthy man who was devoted to his money, had the darkest and strangest sensations creep and crawl over his spirit in the words, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." How wealthy people and their sycophants have been working on that camel and on the eye of that needle ever since. But there is the statement in the original, the eye of a cambric needle, and there is the camel standing before it! Then who but Christ could over have harnessed a gnat and camel together to pull in the service of Truth. Men might have coupled a lion and tiger, a camel and giraffe, or two elephants, or two whales; but the Great Teacher geared a gnat and camel together to do as deep plowing and throw up as large a furrow as can be found in any field of moral and ethical truth under the heavens. This amazing figure was used by him to describe the character and lives of his opponents, the Scribes and Pharisees. They could violate God’s law; be arrant hypocrites and humbugs; be filled with spiritual pride; be cruel as the grave and actually murder the Son of God; but oh, how careful they were about Rabbinical customs and traditions, how observant of ritualistic forms, how careful to wash before and after meals, and how defiled they felt they would be if they happened to step on unhallowed ground, or went a single yard over a Sabbath day’s journey! It was dreadful even to think of! Looking at this morally grotesque sight, this strange double-headed, religious character monster, who ignored the essential and magnified and exalted the nonessential, Christ brought out his figure of the gnat and the camel. In measureless scorn and withering sarcasm he said, "Ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!" Coming down the Ages, there has not been a century but men have witnessed the reappearance of this spiritual monstrosity, and that too in the ranks of people calling themselves the children of God. They could stand to light the fires of the Inquisition, and to imprison, torture and execute beings whom God loved and Christ had died for; but they could not endure a divergence from some piece of ritualism or bear for a moment any difference in verbal expression of some doctrine perfectly nonessential to salvation. It was the gnat and camel over again. Even in the mountains of Italy, among bloodthirsty brigands, this strange procedure has been beheld. Many of us have read of a peculiarly ferocious band of these outlaws, who after a recent frightful murder of a party of travelers, sat down in merriment and laughter with their blood-stained hands to eat their midday meal; when suddenly they were filled with consternation and horror to find that they were eating meat on Friday! One of the captives, who had been spared for the sake of a ransom, said they fell down at the foot of an old stone cross in deepest remorse and mental agony. They had swallowed the camel of murder, and were now gagging over a gnat of superstition and ceremonial observance. But the gnat and camel did not remain in the mountains of Italy; they have been seen in the United States, and in every State of the Union; for the farm is big and much plowing is being done, and myriads of plowers with their grotesque team of a gnat and camel are to be beheld in innumerable ecclesiastical fields no matter in which direction we turn the gaze. The writer once had a presiding elder tell him that his views of entire sanctification or holiness were a great straining of the Scripture. Only a few weeks afterward we heard the same minister keep a badly bored preachers’ meeting listening to him for nearly an hour, while he labored to prove that Christ made his ascension to heaven between the time Mary Magdalene first saw him and a few minutes later when the company of women beheld him. How he labored, how he stressed the words, "Touch me not," etc., and strained things until they fairly cracked, and all over something that was perfectly unnecessary to our peace and purity here, and to our salvation hereafter. Of course we had another vision in this of the gnat and the camel. We know of a body of religious people who continually ring the changes on making restitution; and we believe that they are right in insisting that we make all monetary wrongs right, if we would secure self-respect, enjoy a good conscience and possess salvation and the favor of God. But there are other wrongs in this life that are deeper than financial injuries. And as we have noticed that identical body of people careful to restore street car and railroad fare money, running from five cents up to fifteen and twenty dollars, and yet at the same time heard of and read their bitter and slanderous attacks on the characters and lives of other people; we have been made to wonder at some individuals’ ethical code, and then straightway ceased to wonder as we saw them plowing with our old acquaintances, the gnat and the camel. Let any man with any judgment at all be appealed to for a decision as to which is the gravest and foulest wrong, to take a few dollars from an individual or to damage his good name and reputation. And his answer every one will know without asking. Money can be recovered, but the hurt inflicted on one by an unjust charge and slander is simply irremediable. No possible reparation equivalent to the damage can ever be rendered. Sin is sin, we all know, and a theft and a lie are both forbidden by the Decalogue. But at the same time we must all admit that the loss of a few dollars is not to be compared with the deprivation or injury of a good name by the tongue of human hate and falsehood. It is wonderful then to observe how these people who are so scrupulous to pay back a little money they once took, go on with such equanimity in their tongue-lashing and backbiting life. It would all be a mystery but for Christ’s figure when he tells us that it is possible in the religious world for people to strain at a gnat and then turn around and swallow a camel. In still other parts of our country we have men who have gone into a condition that could be called necktie-phobia and coffee-phobia. To be seen with a black or white tie under the collar, or beheld lifting a cup of coffee to the lips, is to bring upon one, from these people, a verbal avalanche of criticism, and a loveless, pitiless tongue-lashing that fairly makes the air quiver. Here seems to be an indignation and fiery judgment over two things that are not mentioned in the Bible at all; while they exercise a perfect silence in regard to the intolerance, and absence of love which they themselves are displaying, and about which the Bible has a great deal to say. Here are our old acquaintances the gnat and camel again. Unfortunately for a number of us we owned the gnat, and the camel belonged to the other parties. So they sprang upon their camel and took after our gnat. In other words, to resume the figure, they could swallow without any trouble their own bitter scolding, fussing, fault-finding spirit, but gagged and choked over our poor little cup of coffee, one-third milk, and over our humble little cravat costing ten cents a dozen. In still another quarter of our land we were most vigorously assailed for defending the eating of pork, and found later that our assailer had married a second time before he had a right to do so in the sight of God. The disregard of a ceremonial law that has been fulfilled and nailed to the cross was a most grave offense, but the breaking of an eternal, unchangeable moral law was, comparatively speaking, nothing. He strained at a rasher of bacon, and then turned about and swallowed a whole camel in the shape of a violated commandment of God. In still other localities we have listened to a great clamor and protest against the oppressive conduct of bishops who were declared to be nothing but popes riding rough shod over the people, etc., etc. Wherever this is the case, we can but sincerely grieve over the melancholy fact, and wish and pray for better and happier times. But the startling fact that we call attention to is, that the very man or set of men who rail so against ecclesiastical authority and domination, by and by through some little withdrawal movement from the church, come into the same possession and position, and straightway exhibit the identical spirit and practice they had condemned in others. Now then let bishops and popes hide their diminished heads. They are simply nowhere by the side of this newly-fledged, self-called, self-created, self-anointed and ordained ecclesiastic magnate, functionary and dignitary of Persimmon Ridge School House, Cane Break Hollow Chapel and Black Jack Neighborhood Church. We do not mean to say that a number of God’s people have not been justified in forming congregations of worship as a result of gross mistreatment and tyranny. The thing we call attention to is the figurehead of the movement itself, the individual who, in calling the people away from popery and autocracy as he terms it, becomes a greater autocrat and bigger pope than the one they fled from in their dread of man bondage and desire for religious liberty. They ran from one being who allowed them some freedom of thought and proper latitude of life, to another who takes the place of personal choice and judgment, dictates what they shall eat, how they shall dress, what they must believe, and how they shall live to a point beyond that of a Sultan of Turkey and a Czar of Russia. They gagged over a gnat and swallowed a camel. As for the leader himself, he strained at a gnat sting of ecclesiastical authority, and turned around and swallowed himself--the veriest pope, the biggest church dictator, the most high-handed ruler over individual conscience and congregational liberty that has been beheld in the annals of history whether of ancient or of modern times! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 02.13. THE OX CART ======================================================================== Chapter 13 THE OX CART. The Ark of God contained the two tables of the Law, the rod of Aaron that budded, and a portion of the manna which fell from heaven. It was covered and overshadowed by the two forms and outstretched wings of the Cherubim. Underneath the wings was the Mercy Seat, where the glory of God shone, and the voice of the Almighty spoke. The Ark was a wonderful embodied epitome of the great Redemption of heaven for earth. This Ark was repeatedly placed in some of its journeyings upon an ox cart. In this very happening a most remarkable truth was taught. The fact that in its passage through the Wilderness to Canaan it was borne by the Levites does not rob the first statement made of a single forceful feature. The truth we allude to is that a divine salvation is seen making its way through the nations, apparently upheld by means, and escorted and defended by agencies unspeakably inferior in every respect to itself. Every Bible reader will recall some of the sacred and wonderful history of the Ark. How the divine glory shone through the Cherubim upon Israel; how God spoke to Moses from the Mercy Seat giving commands and directions to his people; how Dagon tumbled down before it; how many thousands of the Lord’s enemies were destroyed because of their conduct toward it; and how Uzzah was smitten with instant death by having touched it. And yet this sacred symbol of salvation, this strange, awful representative of the skies, was borne for years on the shoulders of men, and at other times was laid on an ox cart! It would be hard to conceive of a simpler, ruder piece of architecture than an ox cart; and especially one made in those early days. The very name brings up a vision of heavy axletrees, cumbersome wheels, plain yokes and pole, and the roughest of planking for the platform or body of the vehicle. To this is added the creaking and groaning of the wagon, and still to this, the slow gait of the pensive eyed oxen, the most patient and humble among animals. In one of the journeys, two cows were hitched to the cart, and it is said they went lowing along the way for their calves that had been left behind. The teaching of all this is that the divine, in visiting the world to bless and save man, had to come in the form of the human. To reach and dwell and move about on earth, it had to assume earthly forms. The glory of God appears in lowly vessels. The Ark of God is in our midst with all it stands for in power and salvation, but look where we will it is always on an ox cart. Mortal, finite men are told, like the Levites, to camp around and protect a divine Redemption. A salvation from heaven itself is committed to agencies and beings immeasurably lower, compared to its author, than the uncomely and humble ox cart was inferior to the wonderful life-giving, death-dealing, glory-shining Ark which rested upon its plain timbers. The principle is everywhere. The Ark is on the ox cart. It had to be. It cannot be otherwise. First, it is seen in the Incarnation. Here the eternal Logos takes the nature of fallen man, is born of a poor woman, sees the first light in a stable, is cradled in a rough manger, and dies on a rugged wooden cross. Second, it is beheld in the sun-burned fishermen whom Christ called to be his disciples. Men of poverty, and unlettered as the schools would say, yet here was the ox cart bearing about the Ark of a free and full salvation for all. Of course men in a natural or earthly wisdom would have preferred that a Golden Chariot should have been provided for the carrying about of a Divine Revelation and Redemption. So they wanted the Messiah to be a great national prince and warrior. The teachers and heralds of heaven’s message to men should be found in like manner among the noble, rich and great of church and state. They would have it so today. The Golden Chariot instead of the ox cart is quite in demand. But any one who thinks at all would see that if the highest and greatest of this world were the messengers of God; and if all our houses of worship were the most colossal and imposing of edifices; still when men and buildings were compared with what is in the skies, that all of our richest and best would instantly shrink and shrivel to the plainness, uncouthness and contemptible proportions of the ox cart. We cannot get rid of the ox cart. It is here to stay so long as God is greater than man, infinite wisdom towers above ignorance, omnipotence above human weakness, and salvation is vaster than the world it has come to save. Moreover, other things are at work, so that the Ark of God is but rarely seen resting upon what we agree to call the golden chariots of earth. "Ye see your calling, brethren," said Paul, "how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called--but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." The rich and great of earth do not desire what the Ark stands for nor would possess in reality what it contained in symbols. They do not want the two tables of the commandments written in their hearts, nor Christ as the manna to abide perpetually, nor to feel that their life is nothing but a poor stick at best, and can only bloom and bud and bear fruit when taken within the vail into the Holy of Holies. So it seems that God has to choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith. The Ark is compelled to be on the ox cart. Third, the ox cart is seen in our religious services. There is not a gathering of God’s people together but we are made to see how far short we come in prayer, praise and worship of what is due the Almighty. That which we are singing and praying and preaching about is infinitely higher and greater and worthier than all we can say in hymn, supplication, testimony and sermon. Fourth, the ox cart is observed in the infirmity, ignorance, narrowness, prejudice and general blundering that belongs to poor, fallen human nature, and that clings to it even in the Christian life. It is not the spectacle of ungainly form, and eccentric conduct that we refer to, but to the absence of gentleness and courtesy and true refinement, and to the presence of downright rudeness and coarseness springing from a rough nature, bigotry, lack of observation and experience, and a profound ignorance about a great many important things. It looks like the School of Christ itself would teach better lessons here, in absence of early home training, and that discipline of life which compels men to consider and respect the feelings and rights of others. But there is much to be deplored here, and the ox cart is so large and so needlessly rough and repulsive looking, that sometimes the Ark is utterly overlooked, and if seen, made perfectly undesirable by its most unattractive and undesirable companion. Fifth, the ox cart is recognized again in the loudly expressed regret and complaints of gospel adherents and followers over the toil and they have to endure for Christianity’s sake. We read in the Bible that the cows drawing the cart and Ark went lowing on their way. The bellowing was not only over work laid on them, but there was vociferous longing for the calves that had been left at home. It is impossible to enter a single church and attend a camp ground, visit a council synod conference, or drop in a steward’s meeting without hearing the lowing of the cows. Complaint is made over burdens laid upon individuals in bringing the Ark up to Jerusalem. Downright fussing and scolding is heard about so much money and service being required of them. They are tired of it all. They are lowing about it; and they are lowing about certain things that were left behind in the world, which they want with them, and do not desire to give up. Listen to the lowing! Finally the ox cart appears once more in the slowness of the church to bless and save the world. True it is that slow-paced oxen seem hitched to the gospel vehicle instead of winged Cherubim. We are a long time taking the nations. The twentieth century finds us crawling and lowing on the way. Many years have been spent in the country of the Philistines. The Ark with all its fullness of meaning has not even yet reached Zion. David and the rulers have not yet gone forth to meet it, and bring it with singing and praises into Jerusalem. It is still at the house of Obed Edom. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 02.14. "ALAS, MY BROTHER" ======================================================================== Chapter 14 "ALAS, MY BROTHER" The words of the caption of this chapter were uttered by an old backslidden prophet over the corpse of a young man of God, whom he had led astray and caused to be destroyed. Through his words the unfortunate being had been influenced to disobey God, and so came to an untimely and dreadful death. And yet here he was bewailing the young man’s fate. Told that the young prophet’s dead body was lying in the road, he remarked in a complacent, magisterial way, "This is none other than the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord." Later on he stood over the corpse and said, as he viewed the mutilated and lifeless body, "Alas, my brother." Here is an irony of fate, indeed, when the person who ruins another sits in a kind of sympathetic judgment over the victim. This is the sorrow expressed by the saloon-keeper over the drunkard found frozen to death at his door. This is the regret of the world over the suicide of a man whom it has driven to despair. "Poor fellow," says the world, as they hear of the man’s starvation, heart-break or suicide. And yet, by its own traps, dens, temptations and beguilements, it had led him astray until he was willing to do the desperate deed. We have attended the burial of individuals who belonged to some Lodge or Fraternity. We remember that the white-aproned procession marched around the open grave wherein rested the coffin, threw in sprigs of cedar or arbor vitae, and said, as they circled around, "Alas, my brother." We marvelled then if they knew where the words they used came from. We wondered if they were aware that they were the utterance of an old prophet over a man of God whom he had ruined! Truly it is a most unfortunate selection by the fraternities, not only because of the original circumstance, but because of the suggestions it make to the mind that here again the destroyer is uttering words of pity over the destroyed. The fraternity in the first place beguiles the man from his family and accustoms him to frequent absences from the home circle. Next it regales him with banquets and convivial gatherings, throws him with all sorts and sets of men, and in a word, furnishes a toboggan slide for him to shoot away with increasing velocity from duty, home and loved ones, until the final plunge comes into the grave and eternity. After that it is in order for the society or lodge to announce the death in the papers, and with white aprons and regalia complete, parade around the open grave and, while throwing in sprigs of cedar on the unconscious form, say, "Alas, my brother." It is certainly a most appropriate utterance. It covers the case. In fact, it covers both cases, the destroyers and the destroyed. Whether looking at the silent body in the coffin, or at the moving ring of men about the grave, the true description of the whole scene which springs from the heart to the lips, is the old time sentence, "Alas, my brother!" In glancing again at the scriptural incident before us in the case of the destroyed young prophet, we are taught the utter vanity of earthly pity and compassion, so far as the ruined party is concerned. What good did it do the slain man of God for an old, white-haired, backslidden prophet to wring his hands over him and say, "Alas, my brother!" What comfort, help and blessing can possibly be realized by the victim of the world, when the destroyers of character and soul gather around the coffin with sighs and bowed heads, and place flowers upon the bier of the man or woman whom they caused to forget duty and God and dragged down to hell. What advantage when the papers publish the tidings of the sudden death, and friends and acquaintances of the departed meet on the street and say, "Have you heard that A. is dead? Poor fellow!" What possible consolation can come to a soul writhing in the torment of the damned, from the hurried expression, "Poor fellow," dropped upon the streets, and as quickly forgotten by speaker as well as hearer in the whirl of pleasure, the rush of business and the struggle for gain and for fame. These very men helped to ruin the man whose funeral is disappearing down the street. And yet the next day they begin to forget him, and in a week’s time he has been completely dropped out of mind. Meantime the victim is lifting up his voice in everlasting anguish in hell. What if his friends have silver lettering on the handsome coffin lid which spells the two words, "at rest!" Does this metallic falsehood put an end to the gnawing of the undying worm, and draw the wailing lost soul from the Pit? The club, the fraternity and society, boon companions united to bring him to hell, and now they hire an undertaker for a few dollars to put him in heaven with the words, "At Rest," on his casket. Sometimes, to heighten the delusion, a cross or anchor of beautiful flowers is laid just above or below the glistening falsehood. Some time ago we were standing on a street in a large city watching a funeral procession of a very prominent man. Not only fraternities were in the line of march with their regalia, but detachments of infantry, cavalry and artillery. Two or three large brass bands poured forth their solemn dirges upon the air, and thousands of people lined the streets of the city which had thus bestirred itself to do this public honor to its deceased son. A chosen orator at a great hall had delivered a glowing eulogium upon the life and character of the dead. He said the city regarded him with just pride. He had made a fortune through his own enterprise, built a great hotel and public place of amusement in the community where he had resided, had represented his State in the Legislature and in Congress, and all were justly proud of him. Young men were exhorted to take pattern after him, imitate his many virtues and excellences and go down into history enshrined in the hearts of the people as did this great man, etc., etc., etc. The real history of the individual was that he had made part of his fortune by an accident, the other half by a fraud, built the aforementioned structures for the profit in them, had two living wives, and possessed a most unenviable record in other ways. He was taken sick while on a drunken spree and had died without repentance, giving no sign whatever of salvation. So that, while the orator on the funeral occasion was glorifying him as a model for the young manhood of the country to imitate, he, the eulogized, was wringing his hands in everlasting agony and despair in hell. While the brass bands were sounding forth the solemn strains of a dead march, whose minor chords made the blood to tingle and the eyes to fill, the man himself was far away in the world of the lost where, Christ says, is heard the voice of "weeping and wailing," "where their worm dieth not, and the flame is not quenched." What mattered it, we thought, to that poor, eternally destroyed soul, that a magnificent funeral ceremony and parade was granted him, and was at that moment passing along the streets of his city, while he, millions of miles away, was in the Bottomless Pit, writhing with undying torment. While the speaker was praising him, conscience was lashing his own spirit into torture. While the bands were wailing on the street, he was wailing in hell. "At Rest" was on the coffin lid. "Poor fellow," dropped from the lips of old-time acquaintances on the street. "Alas, my brother," was spoken by the fraternities at the grave. But the devil meanwhile went into convulsions of merriment over the make-believe, the stupendous farce on earth, while he was witnessing the real truth, the frightful, everlasting tragedy of a lost soul in hell. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 02.15. THE WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT ======================================================================== Chapter 15 THE WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT. According to the Bible, and history itself, there are many kinds of lives being lived on the earth. These character presentations are called "ways," and as such diverge, converge, cross and run in every conceivable direction before the eye of the observer. Some of these ways are emphatically and unmistakably bad. Others are as clearly good. Still others have appeared for a season to be wrong, and then proved to be right. While still others look to be right but are evil and certain to end in ruin. In this last class of lives there is a division; one is seen where the course seems to be a correct one only to the outsider, while the man himself living the life is conscious that it is wrong. The other division is far the strangest; where the man representing the character is the one who is victimized as to the deception. He is in a wrong way, and one that ends in ruin and death, and yet it seems right to him. There are not a few of these ways. One is that of reformation. That is, a man will risk death and the Judgment with the sinful nature that is in him. He would substitute a wonderful divine work with a small-sized human tinkering. He would attempt an entrance into and happy adjustment of himself to a holy heaven when there has been no moral change or character transformation in his own soul. Reformation is only an external alteration, and no more renews or regenerates the spirit, than putting on a new suit of clothes can restore and heal a leper. And yet with this superficial touch of the life, that may be done for policy’s sake and other ignoble motives, there are many who are steadily and some swiftly approaching the dreadful final character inspection and judgment of Almighty God. The way has a surface shine upon it, it looks proper, it seems right, but is certain to end in the rejection, overthrow and damnation of the soul. A second seemingly right way is the diligent but unspiritual church life. If a Christian is really spiritual he will be active in the work of the Lord; but it is perfectly possible to be zealous in religious labors, and not at all pious. The words spirituality and activity are not synonymous. That which they stand for should go together and be seen in twin-like connection in the same breast and life; but it is far from being the case with many who name the name of Christ, and who stand high upon the rolls of the church. That a merely energetic pushing of the material interests of the Savior’s Kingdom will not be sufficient to secure an entrance into Heaven, is made unmistakably plain in the Word of God. Even faithfulness in what seems to be the more spiritual side of Gospel work will not secure admission. The clear statement of Christ in the matter is seen in the words, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity." So even devotion to all kinds of meetings, preachings, and evangelistic labors will not take the place of a holy heart and life. It looks all right; it gains the respect and regard of the world, and the favor and approbation of the church, but is not salvation, after all. A cheat and humbug can abide for years and indeed a lifetime in it. It is one of the ways that can seem right, when the man walking its road is heading for eternal death all the while. A third apparently right way is a self-constituted censorship of God’s people. There is no doubt that the Lord raises up reprovers; and there is no question that the world in a strange, uneasy way recognizes the divinely commissioned rebuker who stands fearlessly forth in the community and before the nation, and administers the quivering, cutting verbal lash where it is needed. But there is a vast difference indeed between a man sent of God to do this solemn and fearful thing, and the man who sends himself. There is a wide separation between authority and impertinence, between holy reproof and mere fussing and scolding. To the first character the multitudes flock as they did to John the Baptist, while from the second the crowds scamper, to be delivered from the ranting and raving of the unbalanced enthusiast, or the spleen of an insufferable egotist. To many the position of a general public rebuker at first ranks well. It seems right. And for a while it covers the inconsistencies, incongruities and moral shortages of the self-nominated and elected censor; but history is faithful to record that the end of these men is spiritual failure and death. Sharp tools are not for children. A sword or gun is especially dangerous in ignorant and unpracticed hands. A stranger to the weapon who throws a boomerang had better get his grave clothes ready. But graver than all these conditions, and more profound the peril still is that of a man who thrusts himself forward into a place and office where God has not called him, and where certainly God will not stand by and deliver him. Hence Samuel’s rebuke and God’s rejection of Saul; and hence the smiting of King Uzzah with leprosy. A censor is a high position. Such a one takes his seat on a throne and assumes impeccability and infallibility. He shoots his thunderbolts, and hews down the people. He is greatly grieved with the misdoings of everybody. It looks well. The way seems right. But if he is not sent of God, he will go down, and be crushed under the ruins of his own judgment seat, and perish with the same sword which he was so free to use in wounding and slaying his fellow-creatures. A fourth apparently right way is seen in the twisting, and shaping of a wrong course, until it is made to look right to the bender and misshaper. Men have learned the art of perverting scripture to defend and cover sin. Sadder still, they go into practices, beliefs, unbeliefs and lives that are plainly forbidden by the Word of God, and with a most ingenious manipulation of conscience, ignoring of proper example, and a steady refusal to obey the strivings of the Holy Spirit, they settle down at last quietly and contentedly under a sentence of death which reads, "Woe unto them who call good evil, and evil good." Under persistent effort toward error, the strangest transformation has taken place before their eyes. Sin has become goodness; wrong is now right; a tiger is a lamb in their sight, and an unclean vulture they call a Paradise Bird. It is now in vain to tell them they are mistaken. They cannot so see it. They have sustained inward injury, the spiritual vision is blurred and the moral judgment destroyed. That which is evil in the sight of God, and wrong in the opinion of men, is perfectly right with them. There is no need to cite examples here; though pages could be filled with them. Far more profitable would it be for each one of us to ask ourselves, Am I drifting, or have I drifted into such s moral condition? This remarkable passage of Scripture adds that the "way" spoken of ends in "ways of death." The singular of sin becomes plural in calamitous results. Or those who persist in this peculiar course of evil will reach finally their doom, but along different routes, and enter upon different deaths. There is such a thing as a divine judgment, knocking a human body into the cemetery. Then there is such a thing as death of influence, death of a good name, death of one’s character, death of earthly friendships and loves, death of every holy desire, and finally eternal death. In dwelling upon this alarming verse; and in recalling that we have immortal souls on probation; and in remembering that eternity is our existence beyond the grave, and that conditions of endless, changeless happiness or woe await us there as the result of our moral choices and lives, we are drawn at once to the following conclusions: First, we cannot dare to tread an evil or wrong way. The termination of such a course is so clearly laid down in the Bible, and so manifest in life, that it would be utter madness to be found in the broad road that leads to destruction. Second, we cannot afford to walk in a way that simply seems right. There is too much at stake in this world and in the world to come, for us to risk our all on an appearance; we must have a reality. There must not be a hope so, and seem so, but a know so. We must know that we have passed from death unto life; we must know whom we have believed; and we must know that if this earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens. In a word, we must get right, be right and do right. We must not be content with a way which seemeth to be right, but enter upon and abide in a life which the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and conscience all agree in pronouncing to be the true, the good and the right way. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 02.16. THE CITY OF REFUGE ======================================================================== Chapter 16 THE CITY OF REFUGE. The Spirit of God, in presenting to the world through the Word in figurative description the Saviour of mankind, had to place under tribute in nature every thing strong, pure, beautiful, courageous and superlatively excellent. It is wonderful how many things Christ is likened to that we might by these very comparisons and illustrations have some proper conception of the completeness and almightiness of the Redeemer. The reader will easily recall the figures Lily of the Valley, Rose of Sharon, Morning Star, Day Dawn, Sun, and a host of other images. Among the numerous objects utilized by the Spirit to show up the full saving power of the Lord was the City of Refuge. Several features about it throw light on the great truth of Redemption. One fact was the number of the cities. Instead of one there were six. This shadowed forth the fullness of the saving power of the Lord Jesus. And this truth in figure is faithfully confirmed in language in the New Testament where Christ is said to be able to save to the uttermost, and his salvation can do for us far above all that we ask or think. Our insufficiency is in ourselves, but a most overflowing sufficiency is in the Savior. No man need be lost for lack of salvation. And no man goes to hell simply because he was a sinner. He passed by the City of Refuge to get to Destruction. And just as six cities immeasurably overlap all needs of a single individual in his entertainment and general providing for, so the salvation of the Son of God is unspeakably above and beyond every possible spiritual necessity and condition of the sinner. The Man of Galilee is not only a mighty, but an almighty Savior. A second fact concerning the Cities of Refuge was that they were located on both sides of the river Jordan. There are many dividing lines in this world springing from the facts of race, color, sex, age, temperament, training, education and other conditions too numerous to mention. People on one side of these rivers which divide can hardly see how anybody on the other side of the stream, wall, or fence can possibly be saved, or know Christ as they enjoy and possess Him. While they are wondering behold they see the fugitives of earth, whose salvation they questioned, running from sin, judgment and hell, and safely reaching and being received by Christ. The City of Refuge is on both sides the river. Christ is too great and loving and merciful to be monopolized by a class or a caste. He is not the Son of Judea or even Asia--he is the Son of Man! All nations feel that he is their peculiar Savior. All denominations feel somehow that they are at home, and in sympathy with him, and he with them. And individuals with every kind of temperament, rest in the blissful consciousness that Christ understands them, and that as one hand fits into another hand, he, the Savior, fits into them. He is the Son of Man. As a City of Refuge he is on both sides the river. A third fact concerning the City of Refuge was that it was open for the gravest and greatest crime in the land, in the person of the manslayer. We do not write the words hastily in saying the greatest of crimes. We cannot conceive a more horrible and everlasting deed in its results, than the taking of a human life. A priceless existence has been ended that the murderer never gave; probation has been suddenly terminated forever; and from an immortal soul, hope, peace, joy and salvation removed for an endless eternity. Other crimes may be rectified. The soul sinned against may recover from the wrong. The besmirched spirit may obtain a plumage of snow after having lain among the pots. But what can be done for the being suddenly cut off in his iniquity, and sent unrepentant to hell by the shot, stab or blow of a murderous hand. And yet the City of Refuge was founded for this very kind of transgressor. The lesson taught and blessed hope thus thrown out to a despairing world then is that Christ can save the worst man that lives. The Scripture says the chief of sinners. And in pursuance of this plan and exercise of this ability the Lord gave great offense to the church of his day. The reproach urged against him was that he went with publicans and the morally undone; and his explanation was that He came for the lost and that the physician ought to be found among the sick. The fickleness of Peter, the doubt of Thomas, and the bigotry of Paul all went down before him. While the great Apostle published a regular catalogue of the worst of evildoers, who in our age are promptly sent to the penitentiary, but whom Christ met and saved. In the list we find idolaters, adulterers, extortioners, thieves and murderers. Christ, our City of Refuge, is open to receive and save the vilest being that lives if he will only come. So, then, no man goes to hell because he was a sinner or a great sinner at that, for all have sinned, and the Bible declares the human heart to be desperately wicked; but the soul sinks into perdition because it turned away from the Saviour and the only Saviour of the universe. The extent of wickedness ought not to be in the way; because of the extent of the Redemption. Sin has abounded, the Bible admits, but it also affirms that grace much more abounds. A fourth feature of the City of Refuge was that it afforded perfect protection to the manslayer as long as he abided inside its walls. The Avenger was not allowed to enter the gates of the place and lay claim upon the poor, trembling guilty wretch. He was safe therein from the hands of all his enemies and would-be destroyers. In like manner if we fly to Christ for salvation we realize deliverance from every foe. Not only are devils kept from us, but the Saviour’s promise is that no one shall pluck us from his hand. Here is taught in the figure of the City of Refuge not only a present and personal safety, but protection and deliverance from the very consequences of our sins. For as the manslayer beheld the Avenger outside of the walls and unable to touch him as the days and months rolled by, so the soul in Christ is kept not only in peace but assurance that not a single one of his adversaries shall harm him, their hate shall fail, their machinations fall to the ground, while the very consequences of past transgressions shall be checked and completely ended. The faithful man abiding in the love and will of God shall see everything of the past being made to work together for his good. We have known individuals after their conversion and sanctification allow the Adversary to nag and torment them with the thought that the result of misdeeds which have long ago been pardoned will break with avenging and destructive hand upon them at last, and cause their changed life to be all in vain. Such a person fails to see the deep teaching of the City of Refuge as applied to Christ, and the soul abiding in him. From the walls of the redeemed life, one may behold his enemies tenting on the plains and training their guns, but no weapon can prosper and no sword or arrow will reach him who has committed all to Christ and lives in the center of his will. We have listened to some heart rending confessions of burdened souls and anxious lives, and have frequently told them they were safe so long as they were true to God and abided in Christ; and wherever we have seen this faithfulness on the part of the child of God, we have beheld an even greater faithfulness on the part of God toward such a follower. He was never delivered over into the will and hand of his enemies. A fifth lesson of the City of Refuge was that when the manslayer came forth outside the walls of the protecting locality, the Avenger could destroy him. All this we have marked in the Christian life. We have seen a man escape from his adversaries of earth and hell and find security in the Savior for years. Then for some cause, would grow careless, come outside the safety line of grace, and be captured and ruined by men and devils. They should have remained in Christ. A final teaching of the City of Refuge we gather in the fact that the manslayer remained safe and undisturbed in the place until the death of the High Priest. Fortunately for us our High Priest, Jesus Christ, the Righteous, will never die. As he said of himself, "I am he that was dead, and am alive again forever more." He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Then as our deliverance and security is to be co-etaneous and co-extensive with the life of our High Priest, it is perfectly evident from that fact alone that if we abide in Him, we shall be safe with Him and in Him forever. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 02.17. A DECEIVED HEART ======================================================================== Chapter 17 A DECEIVED HEART. The Bible has something to say about the deceitful heart; declaring that in this respect it transcends everything in the line of cunning and dissimulation. The language of Inspiration states in unmistakable words that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." This is quite an opposite view to that held by certain famous pulpit and platform orators, and equally prominent writers. They abound in praises of that which God likens to a cage of unclean birds, and to a dripping and putrefying sore. Their deliverances are naturally much more agreeable and popular with mankind than the declarations of men who repeat without change of word or syllable the fearful descriptions of God about human depravity. But in this chapter we call attention to the fact that God holds up the heart in another light, and shows it to be as profoundly deceived as it is deceitful. He turns from the positive pole of deceitfulness, and calls attention in his word to the negative pole of the state of deception in which it rests. It is shown to be not any more a deceiver than it is deceived. It is fearful in its duplicity and cunning, but it is equally given to being hoodwinked, honey-fuggled and generally bamboozled. Of all beings and creatures, none can be as thoroughly blinded, befooled and deceived as a human soul. The very persons who laud the native goodness of the heart, and indulge in panegyrics of its innate power of recovery and redemption, show in their statements unacquaintance with the Word of God, ignorance of the world’s history, and, above all, reveal their own tremendously deceived mind as to the condition of the nature which they possess and praise. Through his servant Isaiah, God has been pleased in a single verse to give four signs or indications of a deceived heart. The first is declared in the words "turned aside." The man may have been once in the ways of righteousness and usefulness, but has been sidetracked in some manner. Like Christian he was betrayed into a path that seemed to go in a parallel direction with the main road; but there was a divergence which finally landed him far indeed from the "old paths" in which he formerly walked, rejoiced in and accomplished for God. But the fearful thought is that sidetracked as he is, the man is so deceived that he does not know it. He thinks he is in the main road, when he is not only out of it, but far from it. He supposes he has greatly advanced when he is "turned aside." Who of us have not seen this character, with a strange kind of smile on his face, talking about "greater light," "deeper deaths," "second dispensations," "redemption bodies," and a "resurrection life." Such people imagine a character advancement when they are really "turned aside," and standing still as to development and usefulness, while continually passed by thousands and tens of thousands of Christians who have not lost the simplicity and sincerity of Jesus Christ, and who feel that the "old paths" of the Bible, and the experiences of early Methodism cannot be surpassed or improved on by the mysticism, hysterics and hallucinations of modern day religions A second sign of the deceived heart is beheld in its effort to be filled and satisfied with that which in its very nature is unsatisfying. The picture or figure given us by Isaiah in the remarkable passage is that of a man "feeding on ashes!" What if we could behold such a spectacle in life? How amazed and shocked we would be; and how we would endeavor to undeceive and deliver the deluded being. But whoever tries to find satisfaction and happiness outside of God, is doing nothing in the world but feeding on ashes. Sinners in their amusements; backsliders with their idols; worshippers with ritualism and ceremonialism; people with lip worship and manmade doctrines; are all alike breakfasting, dining and supping on a diet of ashes. The hero worshipper, demagogue follower, Pope exalter and deifier, whether in Catholic or Protestant circles, is simply a gormandizer of ashes. A man absorbed in the red-tapeism and machine work of the church is but sitting down to a table that, so far as soul satisfaction is concerned, is covered with dishes that are full of ashes. A person symbolizing, spiritualizing, mysticizing and mystifying the scriptures fairly away from the hungry soul is, in his highly wrought conceits and notions, drawing up his chair to a banquet of white and gray ashes. In a word, whoever strives to be happy, satisfied and blessed in any way except with Christ in the heart and God in the life, is doing nothing more, and accomplishing nothing wiser and better than a being who sits down with knife, fork and spoon to satisfy the pangs of hunger, with an old ash heap piled up high before him! A third sign of the deceived heart is seen in the loss of the power of correct spiritual discernment between truth and error. The verse says that such a man cannot say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" The individual has a falsehood in his life of doctrine or practice; and it is as near to him as his right hand; and it is in his right hand; and yet he cannot see nor say that it is hollow, false and wrong. This agrees exactly with the description of the Israelites when they reached a moral state where they preferred Dathan and Abiram as teachers and leaders to Moses, and liked brass censers better than gold ones, and walked in the light of false fire instead of the holy flame which God sent down to burn upon his altar. Still deeper on this line we read in the scripture of people who are "given over to believe a lie." All this is very horrible; and yet it is God’s own description of a deceived heart. And when we raise our eyes from the pages of the inspired volume and study movements and men about us today, we find with a shock that just what the Book said has taken place, and is constantly occurring all around us in the land. So busy has been the "lying spirit" that went forth to deceive the people; and so great is the "strong delusion" that has come upon many and in diverse ways, that we confess to being filled time and again with a feeling of profoundest helplessness and hopelessness. Who would undertake the talk of illuminating the mind of the "No Sect" advocate; or dream of wining from his folly the man who boasts that he has his resurrection body; or ever expect to alter the infatuation of the worshipper of Saturday. What human wisdom and power can change the Mormon, convert the Mohammedan and persuade the Jew? All of these are different in their beliefs and unbeliefs, and yet all say they are right. All have lies in their right hand, and yet none of them can see it, nor believe it; and much less say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" Some observers declare that they have seen a few of these deluded ones staggering back toward the light and truth at the end of years of failure, and some at the end of life itself. But they seem to have obtained a lasting injury by the "strong delusion" in which they were plunged for years; for even those who return years before death, yet have received such damage to character, standing and influence, that they never are the same again. Their life influence is gone. Whatever work they may do in other worlds; their labor in this for the results once possible to them, seems to be among the impossible things. They meet with continual failure. Their mission is ended. They sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and though they weep their very eyes out, they cannot get it back. The rule is that few indeed of the strongly deluded ever recover from their delusion. The man with the lie in his right hand, who is unable to perceive that it is a lie, generally dies believing that he has the truth in his possession. Very horrible and dreadful must be and will be the awakening of such a man in hell. Fourth, we have the Bible truth in saying that persons die in this deceived state. We refer the reader to the same verse from which we have been quoting where the prophet adds, "He cannot deliver his soul." In the days of Moses, Dathan and Abiram died in their folly. In the days of Wesley, Bell and Owens, who went into such wildfire and into such abuse and excoriation of the modern apostle of holiness, drifted in their backslidden lives into gross sins and perished without hope and without God. From what we see in the Word, and read in History, and witness around us, we have every reason to despair concerning "the deceived heart," the man with a lie in his right hand and who seems utterly unable to recognize its nature and call it by its name. At the same time we should pray that we who remain on probation, and are moving through the lowlands of this devil-tempted planet, may be kept from the delusion of the "many spirits that are gone out into the world;" and especially be delivered from him who has gone forth to blind and mislead the nations, and who does not hesitate in his infernal work to deceive the very elect. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 02.18. THE CALAMITIES OF THE WILDERNESS LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 18 THE CALAMITIES OF THE WILDERNESS LIFE. The wilderness wandering of the Israelites has been often called a type of the regenerated life. This is a mistake. It is intended to show the spiritual condition certain to come upon the Christian who neglects or refuses to enter the Canaan of Perfect Love or Holiness. It was not long after leaving Egypt that God’s people were brought to Kadesh-barnea, and bidden to go over. Accepting the evil report of the spies, and putting God’s will and word aside they, in full view of the Land of Promise, went back into the wilderness. It was the beginning of a life long, dreary wandering, in which the bodies of every adult save two were left to decay and bleach in the sands of Arabia. Sooner or later every regenerated person is brought to the border line of entire sanctification. Under a sermon, good book, desperate sickness, or powerful revival, Kadesh-barnea is seen, and the inward urging of the Spirit, and call of the Word to the child of God is to go over. But just like the Jews, many believers become unbelievers at this all important place and time, and, receiving the false report of the majority instead of the true testimony of a minority, turn back into a wilderness wandering that is the inevitable result of not entering upon Holiness. The calamities in both cases, though separated by thousands of years, are identical. Out of seven distinct woes recorded by the Bible we mention three. One was the divine displeasure. "With whom," writes Paul, "was he grieved? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." To think of God being "grieved forty years" with an individual or people! To think of one’s being persistently disobedient to Heaven all that length of time, and feeling for forty years the offended face of God fixed upon the beclouded soul! Men who go counter to the will and command of God, are bound to have this as their portion. The Jews languished under it, and there are Christians today dying under it. There are men all over this broad country, both in pulpit and pew, who are walking day by day, and from one year’s end to another under the aggrieved, displeased countenance of the Almighty. And they know it. Our observation is that nothing can atone for this calamity. That nothing of human favor or worldly position can make up to the soul for the loss of the smile and light of the countenance of God. Truly we can bear to have everybody displeased with us in the social circle, the household, the church, and the whole world itself, but we cannot afford to have God offended. It is possible for a man to have a whole community or nation frowning upon and opposing, but so long as the face of God is uplifted upon him, he can be happy, useful and victorious through it all. But if the Lord is grieved, if he turns away the light of his countenance, then are we poor, weak, helpless and miserable indeed. The stars seem to fight in their courses against us, the chariot wheels stick in the mud, the ditches run blood instead of water, and there is the sound of an opposing army marching in the air. Alas for the man or woman with whom God is displeased. What an uphill work is duty. How hymns drag. How prayer is driven like smoke back in the face. What heaviness, uneasiness and trepidation come upon the soul, when the man is called to lead a congregation in prayer, or preach the gospel before a crowded house. And yet under this thick cloud of divine displeasure thousands of church members and Christians are walking today. And all because they refused to "go over" and "enter into his rest," though the life lay outspread before them in all its loveliness, and Kadesh-barnea in the form of a book, conversation, sermon, or revival meeting, was inviting and smiling like an open doorway before them. A second calamity mentioned is that of no progression. The Israelites were steadily marching through the years, but they got nowhere. With all their traveling, after thirty years and more, they would be no nearer Canaan than they were two or three decades before. They were going in circles. They doubled on their tracks. Their retreats equaled their advances. Their backslidings were as numerous as their forward movements. What a strange sensation, yes, horror must have swept over them when they would come upon the remains of old campfires where they had abided a while long years before. There were the heaps of ashes, ends of unburned sticks, and even bones they had gnawed upon lying around. And lo! they had thought they were approaching Canaan! Here is calamity indeed, to be ostensibly serving God, and yet really making no advancement and getting nowhere. To think that we are steadily progressing when we are simply going in rings. To be saying in class meetings for forty years that we are growing in grace, and yet no nearer Canaan or Holiness than then we started. What a shock it must be to the man or woman who has not lost all spiritual life, and become a carcass in the wilderness, to suddenly come upon the camping place of ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty years ago! In other words, to find the same low state of grace, the same weakness in temptation, the same faultfinding and sensitiveness, the same disposition to take offense, and indisposition to forgive wrongs and injuries, lying round about in the soul. Here are the unburned ends of sticks, piles of gray ashes, and half-gnawed bones of a former camping place. Here we are back again. And the bones, sticks and ashes are so many sign posts, telling us that we have gotten nowhere; that we are still in the old place. Calamity indeed! After all our professions, and boastings, and church attendings, and after saying, "We had it all," and did not need a second work of grace, thus to run up on these dry bones and mouldy ash heaps! To see that in spite of all our orthodoxies, moralities, liberalities, decencies, activities, board meetings, convention attendings, and many other things which we had construed into a steady advancement; to discover we have been only going in rings and circles in the wilderness life instead of approaching the border line of holiness! That we have been "marking time" instead of marching forward; that we have been trotting all day long, indeed all the life long in the shade of one tree. There are men today in the active work, who ten, fifteen and twenty years ago were sanctified and put into a larger field of usefulness. Now and then they get a home church paper, and find its columns filled with things that they have left long ago. There are the squabbles over modes of water baptism, wranglings over rules of order, windy disputes about some one-horse college, records of some preacher’s "pounding," teachers’ institute or Chautauqua gathering. It was a vision of an old camping place. It was as though he was sitting among cold ash piles where he had once warmed himself, and held old dry bones in his hand upon which he had gnawed some fifteen to twenty years before. A third calamity that comes from going back into the wilderness is the inability to distinguish between the false and true. The time came to the Jews that they could not tell a brass censer from a gold one, nor false fire from the holy flame which burned on God’s altar. They also followed Dathan and Abiram rather the Moses, and then God slew the two false teachers and misleaders of Israel, they were quite angry. It is a dreadful thought that we can lose spiritual discernment, and true knowledge of doctrine and experience, and become a prey to evil spirits and false teaching. The land today has many thousands of people who once walked with God, but turned back and are now going into every long-haired, wild-eyed doctrine that comes along. They cannot tell brass from gold, false fire from true fire, the counterfeit from the genuine, nor the devil’s messenger from the prophet and servant of God. Such persons seem to prefer humbug to truth. They mistake plausibility and volubility for Gospel liberty and unction, and prefer to be guided by the writings of some man or woman rather than the inspired Word of God. They take to the revived, or, rather, galvanized teachings of some old, defunct religion or philosophy of a departed age rather than be blessed, and filled by a salvation all embracing in its scope, purifying and satisfying in its nature, holy in it work and transforming the worshipper into the likeness of the God who is its author. Turning from the grand elevating truths of the Bible, as being too great for credence, they proceed to swallow the most absurd, contradictory and unreasonable of human doctrines. They cannot endure a God-sent Moses, but are ravished with a self appointed Korah and Dathan, for whom God in his disgust caused the earth the open and destroy. They cannot follow a saintly Wesley or Fletcher, whom God continually honored, but take up with writers and preachers who were never accused of being holy by the warmest of their admirers and never had a revival under their preaching all the days of their lives. They prefer falsehood to truth, brass to gold, false fire to true fire, Abiram to Moses, and any and every old thing, like Spiritualism, Sanfordism, Eddyism and Sin itself to Full Salvation or Holiness of Heart and Life through Consecration and Faith in the Blood of Christ. These are some of the results of turning back from Kadesh-barnea. It would have been infinitely better to have gone over into Canaan. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 02.19. A BOTTOMLESS ABYSS ======================================================================== Chapter 19 A BOTTOMLESS ABYSS. One of the Bible descriptions of hell is that it is a bottomless abyss. This figure was a source of considerable amusement to a prominent infidel in the North. He said on the platform in one of his blasphemous lectures, that he was not afraid of anything that had no bottom to it. To his brilliant mind, the thing described had no foundation, nothing to prop it up, and so could not sit or stand alone; in a word, did not and could not exist. The same figure of the World of the Lost filled the writer with a sense of horror from the terrible meaning he saw in it. It is true that he did not possess the superior intellect of the skeptic; but the Scripture tells us that certain truths, and they are the big ones after all, are spiritually discerned. And so with awakened and developed moral instincts in him, that were dormant or dead in the infidel, he saw with an unspeakable shock what had escaped the mere scholar and man of the world. He grasped at once the thought that in the unique description of hell as a bottomless abyss the fact of locality was not in the words or figure, but the far more ghastly statement of condition. That a man going to hell would find himself sinking into deeper depths for ever. There would never be a time when the moral falling of the lost being would cease. There would never be an age or cycle or remotest period in the illimitable future of eternity when the character drop would be arrested, and the undone man cease to p lunge deeper. Hell is a bottomless abyss as to infinite depths of increasing devildom, and soundless distances into which and down through which lost men and women sink forever. The same truth and argument that builds up a topless heaven and peoples it with a redeemed race that is constantly advancing and rising in grace, knowledge, happiness and holiness, would naturally suggest a bottomless hell whose population having cut themselves off from God, the source of life, goodness, and blessedness, are compelled to fall, and to fall forever. The caption of this chapter, however, is not The Bottomless Abyss, but A Bottomless Abyss. There seems to be two as far as we can understand the Bible, and that crowning work of God, a human soul. The first is in a world called hell, and the other is in, or may be in, the human breast and life. The soul is so amazingly endowed as to faculty and capacity, that it can become a topless heaven or a bottomless hell, according as it receives or rejects and turns away from God. As it is so constituted that it cannot abide intellectually and morally in the same place, but there is bound to be advancement or retreat, bloom or blight, life or death, godliness or ungodliness, with ever increasing heights or depths of the same, we see the perfect reasonableness of the statement that an eternal and infinite heaven or hell can be finally set up in the soul. A man who advocates an everlasting progression of the character life in the skies, to be consistent must admit an unending sinking of the same in a realm and world where God and goodness never come. There is not only a crumbling, caving in, and falling in of one’s own nature, but a conscious, steady descent of one’s own self-hood into profounder depths of darkness and vileness as though going down into a bottomless abyss. Our observation of men in life confirms the statement just made. All of us see human beings steadily getting lower in a moral sense before our grieving and horror stricken gaze. Nothing that we can say or do, or that the Gospel promises or threatens, seems to affect them. They slip away from our grasp and view as we have seen miners descend a deep shaft into the darkness of the earth a thousand feet below. The light lingered a while on their faces as they sank, then there came darker shadows, and finally all sight of them was lost. So have we beheld men go down so deep in depths of iniquity that they were finally lost not only to our gaze and touch, but even to the sound of our voice shouted after them. There is such a thing as getting where the word of reproof and cry of warning cannot reach the soul. Husbands, wives, sons, daughters and friends all over the land are fast descending to that place. Preachers mark certain of their members reaching such depths that every cry and signal from the pulpit are disregarded, because unseen and unheard. It must be a frightful spectacle to behold from a distance a man sinking in a quicksand. To see him going steadily down until the yellow death has engulfed him to the loins. To notice from afar his efforts to recover himself, followed by deeper sinkings. To see him throw himself to one side and then another, and yet going down all the time. To mark that when the tawny destruction has reached his arm pits, the victim yields to despair and ceasing all effort goes slowly downward and disappears in the saffron plain of death. Even more horrible is it to observe human souls slowly descending before our eyes into the yielding sands of sin, or into a yawning pit of wickedness down which they slip and sink steadily as the months and years go by. They soon get beyond our reach. No matter how we stretch the hand, it does not seem to touch them. They go down before our eyes. A white gleam of forehead turned up toward us in the form of a hasty promise, or a fluttering look of hope is inspired for an instant by a tear they shed, or new leaf they said they would turn over; but it was but for a moment, and after that they seem to sink faster from words to deeds, from deeds to habits, from habits to character, and then with a plunge from character to destiny, black, hopeless and eternal. The bottomless abyss is in the man as a fact of consciousness. Sinners know that they are getting worse all the time. The transgressor who now and then stops a moment to think is compelled to admit his increased capacity for sinning in the line he is pursuing, and for the increased volume of desire attending that form of evil. It is engulfing him. He feels that he is gliding with swifter motion down the slippery sides of the special iniquity. Something is falling in upon himself, and he is being buried alive. Who has not known men falsify so often and so long, that they seemed to lose relish for truth itself and would not and could not state simple facts without twisting, distorting and fairly covering up the transaction with mental colorings, and verbal additions until the occurrence as presented was hardly anything like the original happening. We have met men so practiced in lying that they seemed to enjoy it as one would the possession and exhibition of a rare and beautiful accomplishment. In addition they became so morally hardened in the sin itself, that when detected and exposed they never seemed the least particle ashamed or disconcerted, but gathering their depraved forces together proceeded calmly to lie their way out of the present difficulty. As for the sin of faultfinding and harshness in speech and judgment, it will as inevitably take possession of a man as much as opiates, liquor and other forms of sin, bind and make hopeless captives of its votaries. No human body ever more completely vanished in a quicksand, than the light, beauty and glory of the soul will be swallowed up and disappear in the black, blinding, suffocating, choking, destroying mud of a spirit and life of lovelessness, uncharitableness, bitterness and revengefulness. So is it with the love of money. And with every form of uncleanness, with bad temper, with hasty speech, and with suspicion of people. Indeed with every form and character of sin, the man who lives therein is compelled to see not only that the sin is growing on him, but that he is sinking in the sin. He ought to be horrified to observe his growing proficiency, his acquired alertness, his amazing dexterity in matters where once he had to admit he was halting and clumsy. But instead of horror there comes, it seems, a strange exultation over success in dark lines. The soul seems to be thrilled with a sense of its falling. On the same principle that the murderer Holmes took a pride in having killed over thirty people without being detected, that successful burglary fascinates, so that any kind of sin indulged in grows on the sinner. The one idol started with becomes thirty-three thousand at last to which Greece bowed down without regret or compunction. The occasional glass changes to twenty drinks a day. Careless speech to downright lying. Hasty judgment to indiscriminate and general censure. Individual dislike to universal rancor and hatred. And so the man continues to sink, and always in the pit of his own making or selection. And he falls with the sin in his soul that as Scripture declares deceived his own heart and turned him aside. The Word adds, that such is his darkness and delusion that "He cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 02.20. GOD'S INSTRUMENTS ======================================================================== Chapter 20 GOD’S INSTRUMENTS. It is impossible to study the Kingdom of God in its work and movements on earth without being impressed with the variety and diversity as well as multiplicity of agencies and instrumentalities used by the Lord for the accomplishment of his purpose. We do not refer now to the differences as seen in hymn, prayer, testimony and sermon, but to the various kinds of people he employs, with the peculiar selfhood, style, manner, temperament, knowledge and gift belonging to each. We doubt not that if many of us had the calling of the preachers and the stationing of workers in the gospel field, we would make a bad bungle and dreadful failure of the whole matter. We are sure that the first thing which would impress the observer would be the utter absence of that endless diversity seen in the divine method, while the human arrangement would present a row of gospel laborers most monotonously and drearily alike. There are churches who would have every minister in the Christian ranks exactly like their own pastor. There are also not a few in the pulpit who would have all laymen, or all preachers, precisely the copy of themselves. They might be ashamed to confess it, but in the hearts of countless thousands there is the conviction that the trouble with the world, and the matter with the church, and the reason there are so few revivals and so little salvation, is that there seems to be nobody else who plans, works, preaches and practices their way. If they could be multiplied all over the land, there would be hope for the world, but as they are but one, and the mould was broken after they were made, alas for the people, the church, the nation and the globe itself. As we listen to their wholesale criticism relative to other workers, and bodies of people, and mark a most notable absence of judgment and censure launched at their own heads, we are compelled to infer that the thought mentioned above is in the heart of many. The adoption of high-sounding, all-embracing Scriptural terms by way of ecclesiastical nomenclature, as well as the irreverent and even profane way of capturing and using the name of God himself, as if he had been monopolized, is one of the symptoms of the spirit of narrowness we are writing about. Fortunately for the world, the church, the cause of salvation, and the present and everlasting good of men, God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher and better than our thoughts. His methods of reaching and saving men are wider, broader, profounder and infinitely more effective than our plan and style of accomplishing things. Some of us would only put scholars and graduates in the field; but God has always had a host of laborers in his vineyard who never had a chance to attend school, never saw a college, and never went through an institution of learning except to go in at the front door and come out at the back. Men in their narrowness would use but one class, but God in his wisdom lays his commissioning hand upon many classes. Some congregations have a pastor with a funereal manner, sepulchral voice, who dresses like an undertaker and preaches like he was burying the dead. For personal reasons they are devoted to him, and would like all other preachers to pray, read hymns and deliver sermons like their ecclesiastical pet. But while God uses this good man with his little flock, yet he has to consider the endless variety of temperament, taste, education and training in the ranks of hundreds of millions of people outside of the church just named, and therefore send servants, workmen, prophets and priests according to that boundless diversity. So in every age the Lord has used men of sparkling wit, and bubbling humor and vehement spirit and fiery action, all the very opposite of the solemn pastor so well beloved in the church around the corner. Time would fail to tell how God has employed rough and uncouth men, and profoundly ignorant men, and others with a single gift, or one song, or a shout or a laugh, and through them has moved great audiences, rolling in salvation on the people through them like a flood of glory. Paul, in speaking of this, says: "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise--and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are." Repeatedly at meetings, both small and great, we have seen a man unlock a tied up state of affairs, and billows of glory roll down from the skies on the audience, where there was nothing in the appearance of the person to suggest that he was to be the Joshua of the hour, and nothing in what he said to account for the split in the sky and the laughing, weeping, shouting scene in the church or under the tabernacle. But mark the point already made, that there are many styles of people on earth, and there must be numerous ways used to reach them. There are countless thousands of human heart locks, and so the Lord must have many different kinds of keys on his ring. The right key was fitted in on one of those wonderful mornings. Truly this fact ought not to discourage or unduly humble us. A man must possess all the temperaments and all the gifts and graces and all knowledge and power and be a veritable harp of a thousand strings, if he expects to capture and win everybody. As it is, most of us amount only to a jew’s-harp, or a cornstalk fiddle. Thank God, however, we can play "Amazing Grace" on them, "How Firm a Foundation," and "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood," and behold a measure of success. But while we cannot draw all and save everybody, others, elsewhere and in different ways from ours, are lifting up Christ, pointing the way to holiness and heaven and getting people saved whom we could not stir or move a single step. We ought to be glad then over this variety and diversity in the ranks. That, as goldsmiths, silversmiths, tradesmen, lawyers and doctors all united to build the walls of Jerusalem, God has laid his hand upon every gift and power of his people, and engaged them in the work of arousing, convincing, persuading and drawing men to salvation and heaven. So we are thankful for the stormy Elijahs and the weeping Jeremiahs, for the logical Paul and the tender, loving John. For the man who can preach an audience up to the sight of the gates of the Golden City, and for the one who can bring them back and make them willing to bear the cross and go along a lonely, sorrowful, misunderstood way all the days of their lives. For singer, shouter, laugher, weeper, hand-clapper, foot leaper, exhorter, preacher and the whole business--we give thanks for them all, for God uses them all. In full harmony with the thought presented in this chapter, not a preacher who reads these lines but will remember occasions when a strong, convincing argument utterly failed to move the congregation; and then to the speaker’s intense surprise some point or thought little relied upon, some illustration that for a moment he hesitated to use, melted everything and won a complete victory. Once at a camp meeting, where the preaching had been excellent, of a high order and unctuous as well and yet no particular movement had taken place, the break came one afternoon while a prosy, commonplace old country preacher was talking in a quiet tone and sleepy manner about the glorious triumphs of the Gospel in the days of early Methodism. Right in the midst of the quiet narration there was a sudden falling of the Holy Ghost as instantaneous and startling as if there had been a flash of lightning, a crash of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. The memory of that afternoon with the misty light under the shadowy rustic tabernacle, the swaying forms, uplifted faces, clapping hands, streaming tears and ringing shouts, will never fade away from our mind. We also recall the figure of the preacher in the pulpit, and do not think that any one in the assembly was more astonished than himself at the marvellous scene before him. All next day he wore a meek, chastened, humble, repressed kind of proud look, as if he carried all the keys of heaven at his girdle, and people would have to call on him to get into the divine storehouse of grace, when really he was just a key himself and only one of the millions which the Lord of Glory carries in his hand. That afternoon our brother happened to fit in the human lock that was before him. On the other hand, at another meeting, a gifted preacher whom we most cordially love and admire, addressing a congregation of laboring, unlettered men and women, began a masterly discourse with the words, "The deductions of ancient philosophy and the trend of modern thought," etc., etc., when there was scarcely a single auditor before him who had much thought of any kind, whether ancient, modern, middle age, or any other age. We question whether any of them knew what he meant by "trend." As for the word "deduction," judging from some of the faces gazing vacantly upward at him, we rather think they supposed he was referring to a farmyard fowl of a new variety. But we heard the same splendid speaker present this noble discourse to an audience of readers and thinkers, and the effect was tremendous. He threw his fishing line in the right pool. His key fitted another kind of lock. The door swung open and how he walked in! It was good to see him with the Gospel in his strong, intellectual, logical grasp knocking the deductions of ancient philosophy and the trend of modern thought head over heels down on the floor and out of the back door, while happy, appreciative souls cried out, "Glory." In one of our summer camps the leaders had preached faithfully, warning especially against backsliding and losing unwittingly the grace of God. But somehow their warnings did not seem to take deep hold. One morning a young preacher, with his mind filled with pictures of the farm and country life where he was raised, stated in his sermon in a simple, natural way that one day, as a lad, he was sent to the field with a bucket of water for his father, who was plowing in the remote distance. He said he was very busy thinking, and hardly realized that his load was getting lighter. But on reaching his father, he gave him the tin can, and behold, there was not a drop of water in it. He looked back and as far as he could see there was a line or trail of water clear across the field. The bucket had a small hole in the bottom, and it had been leaking from the time he had filled it at the well. So when he reached his father he did not have a drop in the vessel. There was no need of making an application. Everybody had done that. A kind of foolish looking, troubled, convicted grin was general. They all saw the point and what is more, felt it. They saw inbred sin as a medium of moral leakage as they had never beheld it before. They understood now how they had lost the grace of God while in the service of God, and had actually run dry while carrying the water of life to others! They had a vision of themselves with nothing in their souls at the end of life’s furrow; and a still more dreadful view of their standing empty in the presence of the Heavenly Father at the Day of Judgment; and we could see that thought and conscience were busy with many that morning on the camp ground. Meantime we thanked God for the faithful and unique workman he had in the pulpit that day. Once in the office of a dentist we saw at his right hand a circular revolving table, on which teeth. Just a touch of his finger and the table flew around and his quick eye fell on that which he wanted and in another moment, file, saw or one of the countless drills was in his hand and the work proceeded with the person in the chair. So in the divine work, none of us can be everything. All of us cannot be saws or hammers or files. Some of us may be only a drill, and a great number of us have to give way to a finer drill before the nerve is reached and the work done. We ought to be glad that we are on the circular revolving table and the Lord uses us at all. Therefore, let us not get up a row with the other instruments. Let us rather be glad that our Lord has such a variety and diversity on his table. The patients are many, the disease is great, the pain tremendous. So we ought to cry to God to use any of us and all of us, and whosoever and whenever and wherever he will, to cure and set at rest forever this poor, miserable, life-burdened, soul-aching, heart-broken old world. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 02.21. THE STONY HEART ======================================================================== Chapter 21 THE STONY HEART. The expression "Stony Heart" is used by Ezekiel. In noticing carefully the prophet’s statement about it, some most important and essential truths will be obtained. Things that not only should be known, but must be understood in order for the soul to enter into perfect peace and enjoy full salvation. The verbal environment of the words, "The Stony Heart" is full of suggestion and information. First, that after God has given the "new heart," the "stony heart" is still left. This is a deathblow to Zinzendorfianism, or all those who insist that in regeneration the soul is purified and freed from all sin. The teaching of purity being the result of the New Birth is quite flattering to human nature, quite soothing to the feelings of the Old Man, and most agreeable to the parties themselves who want no more altar work in their case, no tarrying in the upper room for the descending fire, and no "second travail" that Christ might be formed in them the hope of glory. It is enough for them that Christ has been "revealed to them"; they know and care nothing about his being "revealed in them." They insist that regeneration has done a complete work, and settled the whole sin question. All that is left for them now is to grow in grace and knowledge and train and develop the holy heart which has been given them. But Ezekiel filled with the Holy Ghost differs with this class, and declares that after God gives the new heart, the stony heart still remains. Second, he distinctly affirms that after God has given the new heart and new spirit, that then he will take away the stony heart. This additional statement is a deathblow to those who deny the second work of grace. For here it is made clear that God’s first work to the soul is to impart something, while the second is to remove something. If Zinzendorfianism was true, then this Scripture would have to be altered, and the Word declare that the stony heart was removed by the new heart, and there was no place found for it. But lo! according to the Bible, here is the stony heart left after we have obtained the new heart. And as God is said in the same passage to take away the stony heart, we are brought face to face with the fact of the second work of grace. Third, the passage contains a knock-down and fatal blow to Keswickism or the Northfield school teaching about the Adamic or old sin nature being left suppressed in us. They say it remains in us. Ezekiel says here that it is taken out! It also shows that something more than anointing or enduement for service is received in the second waiting upon God. His Spirit is put within us, but it is accompanied by the removal of the stony heart. Fourth, the Growth theory of developing into purity is put to rout in this passage by the words, "I (that is God) will take away the stony heart." There is no evolution or insensible approach about it; God does the work. "I will do it," says the Almighty. Fifth, the passage renders a most satisfactory explanation of the double-minded life of the regenerated. The "double-minded man" whom James writes about in his epistle is better understood through this description by the prophet, of a man who had at the same time a new heart and a stony heart. According to the Scripture by James the regenerated being possesses a carnal and spiritual mind. Sometimes one is felt to be uppermost, and sometimes the other. The individual admits one day that he feels religious, and on another that he does not feel religious. All the variation and alternation of feeling, purpose and conduct in the converted life arises from the possession of the "double mind." Ezekiel confirms this thought by the teaching that there is such a thing as one having at the same time a new heart and a stony heart. Until God by the second work removes the latter, then is there bound to be those fluctuations of spirit and ups and downs of life which are so disheartening to the Christian, and so puzzling and reprehensible to the worldly onlooker. Until the deeper light comes, what a mystery the regenerated man is to himself. One day he is tender, prayerful and devout, and the next day means of grace are a dreariness, religious conversation distasteful, and his heart feels like a rock. The stony nature is uppermost this time, and having everything its own way. The very hour he would feel tender he is like adamant, and while others are happy and praising God, his own soul is cold, hard and heavy as a stone. Sixth, if the stony heart is allowed to remain within us, the result is finally to spiritually petrify its owner. The new heart will sooner or later become hard. The face gathers rigid lines, the eyes severity, and the very voice comes into a tone and accent that is wonderfully suggestive of rock and granite. Long ago we have seen that the early removal of the stony heart is necessary for the preservation of the new heart. In other words, we must be sanctified in order to remain justified. It is a wonderful thing to live a truly justified life. It is claiming a high experience indeed to say that the soul keeps in an approved and accepted relation with God all the time. It is evident that many who profess such a grace are referring simply to their having once received the blessing of justification; that years ago they were soundly converted, and rejoiced a day or week in the unclouded approval of God. The justified life with them is an event in the past, a thing of vanished years--a memory. Whereas, according to the Bible, it stands for much more than that. It means a constant walking in the light, unbroken fellowship with God, and the testimony that we please God. Unless we become wholly sanctified this blessed relation is constantly beclouded and broken. The stony heart must go in order that the new heart may remain. It is a fearful thing after a bright conversion, and right in the midst of the duties, activities and even worship of the Christian life to discover a stonification taking place in us, a petrification of sensibility and a deadening of spiritual graces, which we seem utterly powerless to arrest or prevent. And yet this is the actual condition of many thousands in the land today. They claim justification; but the darkened countenance, heavy eye, silent lip, powerless and empty prayer and inactive life all declare they are surely mistaken. The soul that feels justified is glad, the eye sparkles, the mouth is quick to praise God, the prayer has liberty and unction, and service for God is cheerfully and joyfully undertaken. And yet both the Bible and life prove that this state of things will not remain unless we obtain our Pentecost. We must be purified to remain justified. The stony heart must go if we would keep the new heart, and have it abide in us as an heart of flesh. Seventh, we are blissfully conscious of the fact when God removes from us the stony heart. Painfully aware of its presence while it was with us, we are overflowingly happy over its complete removal and everlasting absence. How sweet it is to realize that the old, hard, heavy, cold, unmelting, unyielding nature is gone. We are not angels with wings, nor Solomons of wisdom, nor pieces of human perfection in body, mind or performance of work--but thank God the Stony Heart is gone. Gone with the Stony Heart is the desire to throw rocks at the Davids of God as Shimei did; or to cast stones at his anointed Stephens as did the Jews. The Second Work of Grace takes the stone of sin out of the heart, and the stone of hate and revenge out of the hand. And into this emptied and cleansed soul God puts his Spirit to dwell; and into the emptied hand he places the two-edged sword called the Word of God, which, while wounding with one side can perfectly heal with the other. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 02.22. THE DEAD BODY ======================================================================== Chapter 22 THE DEAD BODY. In the book of Second Kings we read that Elisha was summoned by a heartbroken mother to restore her dead son to life. The woman’s agony was so great that for a time she could not declare her trouble, but groveled on the ground at the prophet’s feet. When her affliction was at last made known, and petition understood, Elisha went straightway to the house of death, entered the room where the corpse lay upon the bed and began the supernatural battle with that long invincible foe of man, that last to be destroyed enemy of the human race -- Death It was not a very inviting and promising labor before him. He had come from the despair of the mother, was now in the silence of the death chamber, and looked upon the ghastly pallor, the rigid muscles, and felt the marble coldness of the corpse before him. The first thought suggested by this scene is that in like manner the children of God are confronted with dead bodies. As it was in Egypt on a memorable sorrowful night, there is a corpse in every house, while the land is filled with this dreadful kind of death. The pulseless forms are to be seen along the entire journey of the longest life Sometimes the lifeless body is to be found in an unconverted member of the family. For when it comes to spiritual intelligence and soul responsiveness to the truths of salvation, we have indeed a dead man or woman to deal with. In religious coldness and lifelessness there is a marvellous and horrible similarity between an unsaved person and a body shrouded for the grave And when we approach such individuals to speak with them about their souls and the things of God, it is wonderfully like talking to, looking at and touching a corpse in a coffin. Corpses receive a great many attentions, have many things said to them, but they seem to see not and hear not, and certainly do not answer. Again the dead body is found in a sinful, worldly community, where God is completely ignored, and the devil reigns. Still again the dead body is felt in a spiritually lifeless congregation before whom the preacher or evangelist stands, to whom he speaks, and with whom he labors for days and seeks to bring back to the cold, clammy, silent, deaf, heavy, irresponsive thing, the departed Spirit of God. A second thought suggested by this piece of the prophet’s history is that the only hope under God for the dead boy in the house of the Shunamite woman was in a certain living man who had just entered the building, and whose name was Elisha. Not any man could raise this lad from the dead, for Gehazi, the servant of the prophet, had come, laid his staff upon the child’s face, and there was no response or movement of any kind. If the sinner or the dead congregation is to be aroused, it will be under the blessing of God through a human instrumentality; but both the Bible and History agree in teaching that not any man can or will be that instrument. Gehazis with their rods abound. There is much coming and going, bowing and rising, chanting and talking--but the dead all about us fail to rise. How the whole sickening scene makes us cry out for the Elishas of God, men whom God honors and uses, and who through the divine blessing have made many a home and church to rejoice by calling back their dead to life and usefulness. It is a stirring thought indeed, that the salvation and recovery of one person depends upon the presence and faithfulness of another. They may be far apart, but it becomes the will of God through his providence to bring the two together. So Ananias finds Saul in prison, and Philip is swept by the Spirit into the desert to lead the troubled Eunuch into light and salvation. The old fairy story of the Prince waking up the Princess who had slept one hundred years shines with a new meaning under this Bible lesson. And truly the one who arouses us from moral slumber and death is bound always to be a Prince and is so to us. The heart of the writer goes out with a great admiration, tenderness and affection for the preacher who led him into full salvation. His every thought and word concerning this man is full of loyalty and kindness. He often wonders how a person who has been converted, sanctified, blessed and led forth into a deeper, sweeter spiritual life, could ever raise his hand, direct his pen, or move his tongue against the being God used so to help him. It is as unnatural as though the youth Elisha raised from death should, in after days, meet the prophet on the road, and strike him to the ground. A third thought brought us by the study of this passage is the method the prophet adopted to restore the dead child. The first thing he did, according to the Bible account, was to kneel down and pray to God. It does not say how long he supplicated, but one can well imagine with the gravity, the very desperateness of the case before him, how low he got down before God, how he humbled himself, how he sighed and wept and agonized and hung on to the Lord without any regard to flying time. We have not the slightest idea that he arose from the floor until he felt the unmistakable assurance in his soul that his request was granted. That as he had prevailed with God, he would conquer with man. Knowing Elisha’s character as we do through the Scripture, we have not the remotest belief that he would have ceased his prayer and entered upon his work, without the melting, blissful, blessed divine whisper that he was going to win in the battle with death before him. We are equally confident that the reason why the "Dead" sleep on all around us, in spite of ringing church bells, volumes of song, and vociferous preaching, is that the prevailing prayer has not been offered which must precede a life and congregation resurrection. The disciples prayed through, and on the tenth day received Pentecost and gathered from the Jerusalem moral graveyard three thousand living souls. If we do the same, we will be certain to behold very wonderful things in the way of men getting out of the sepulchres of sin, casting off their grave clothes at the door of the tomb, and going forth to do mighty deeds in the life and liberty of the children of God. Another thing Elisha did was to stretch himself upon the dead body, and as the Bible says, "Put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands." This is what we are to do in a sense with the spiritually lifeless who have come into our lives with their chilling and saddening power. In a figurative way we must come down where they are, eye to eye, and hand to hand. We must realize their inanimate condition and come after them, and stretch ourselves upon them in mighty resolution and endeavor to bring them out of sin and darkness into salvation and light. Paul said he made himself all things to all men that he might win the more. He did not sin, but came in another sense down where the lost man was, in order to restore him. He, so to speak, stretched himself upon the corpse. It takes not only grace to do this, but much grace. The hope of the spiritually dead is in the spiritually living. The former are helpless, and so the latter must come to the former. Death must be met with life, coldness, with warmth, irresponsiveness with activity, and the dumb, blind, motionless, icy sinner be ministered to, fluttered over, and warmed by a loving, patient, glowing Christian heart and life. We hear much talk these days about dead churches, and backslidden members, and lost sinners. The question is what have we done to get them alive? Have we pulled away from everybody less spiritual than ourselves, given up as hopeless the backslider, and held ourselves utterly aloof from the transgressor? Then are we running from the corpse! We have left the dead man in the house of death! The Saviour did not do this; but came to a charnel house of a world, and brought life and immortality to light. He lived and died in the deadest ecclesiasticism that ever appeared on this planet; but he raised from spiritual tombs all around men and women to take up his work after he had gone, and, as a consequence, multitudes of redeemed beings are in Heaven, and multitudes more are mentioning these very beings He ransomed, in prayer, hymn and sermon every day of this world’s history. Elisha did not leave the corpse, but penetrated the house of death, prayed by the side of dissolution, stretched himself upon what was lifeless clay and on the way to corruption, and behold! the flesh warmed, the breath came back, the dead lived, and a house of mourning was turned into a habitation of praise and thanksgiving. We know of parents who never gave up their children, and have seen them all saved at last. We know of a wife who prayed for her husband with an unshaken faith for sixteen years and saw him at last soundly converted to God. We also heard of a young girl who, from the age of twelve until she was twenty, never ceased her gentle, loving and wise efforts to bring her cold, worldly and wicked father to salvation. Others failed and despaired. But she stood by the corpse; warmed the dead thing with her beautiful Christian life and love, and saw the man not only converted, but wholly sanctified, and today a faithful, devout, consistent member of the church. Very many are the preachers and evangelists in the land today who are called to stand in the presence of a profound, spiritual death in the form of the congregation before them. Every feature and characteristic of dissolution seems to be there. The very graveyard is suggested by the memorial windows an all sides. The tomb is there, and the corpse is in or by the tomb. There is the glazed eye, the irresponsive face, the rigid appearance, and the heavy ear--for the dead hear not. For days the funeral services seem to proceed. Some are for running and leaving the body to be buried by any who will, or to rot above the ground. But the men we speak of stay in the chamber of death, and wrestle with strong crying and tears over the insensible, pulseless form before them. They feel all the weariness, loneliness and heartsickness attendant upon the situation, but they know in whom they have believed, and that the Saviour is the Resurrection and the Life. And so they wrestle and labor on. To all such is granted the blessed, thrilling, supernatural sight of the dead arising from coffin, bier and cemetery, with shining faces, and shoutings and leapings of joy, to die no more forever. In a Southern town we once labored with a lifeless church for a whole week, and seemingly to no purpose. On the eighth day, while preaching, the fire suddenly fell from heaven, and twenty-five souls were regenerated and sanctified, and fifteen were saved that night. Here was forty in one day. The exact number was repeated the next day, and thirty-five were given to us from the grave on the day following. This made one hundred and fifteen in three days. Thus ended the appearance of an ecclesiastical cemetery, and upon the ruins of the monuments a thriving, bustling community of redeemed souls built habitations of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. In a large Western city, we had reached the end of the tenth day, and the chamber of death was still filled with cold, rigid forms, and we were almost ready to despair, when on the eleventh day, while preaching on Sunday afternoon on the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, suddenly the resurrecting power came down, the glory fell upon the long silent audience, a celestial pandemonium broke loose and very many hardly knew whether they were in the body or out of the body--God knoweth. From this individual cemetery we obtained three hundred risen bodies for the Lord; one hundred converted and two hundred reclaimed and sanctified. God help us to be like Elisha, and not give up dead bodies too soon. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 02.23. THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== Chapter 23 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT. The Gifts of the Spirit do not mean the Gift of the Holy Spirit himself. The Bible is very clear in its statements concerning the difference, and our good sense ought to recognize the distinctness and separateness of the two without the slightest trouble. We have seen men who had the Gift of the Holy Ghost, who were notably lacking in a number of His gifts. On the other hand we have known most excellent and useful Christians who possessed one or more of the gifts of the Spirit, who had neither sought nor "Received the Holy Ghost" as taught in the book of Acts and the epistles of James, Peter, John and Paul. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, we find a number of the Spirit’s gifts mentioned. Among them are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, divers kinds of tongues, etc., etc. The apostle also illustrates the matter by reference to different members of the body as the foot, hand, ear and eye. The idea is that the gifts differ as greatly as the members of the body, and some seem to be more honorable than others, but all are needed, and make up that harmony and completeness of the church, that is designed and desired of God. When Methodism began its wonderful career it possessed not only the Gift of the Holy Ghost, but abounded in the gifts of the Spirit. A perfect army of workers were at once brought forward, and the needs of the church supplied, and the wants of the world met in the diversity as well as number of laborers. Class leaders, exhorters, local preachers and traveling preachers were only a part of this suddenly raised up heavenly company. We have observed in our work of a quarter of a century, that when a genuine revival takes place, and the Spirit has right of way, this remarkable variety of gifts and laborers immediately takes place. All the man-made offices and titles, the mere human setting up of ecclesiastical grades and distinctions is but an imitating and counterfeiting of the divine work; and while showy, dressy and attractive enough through uniform and ceremonial, yet they lack unspeakably and immeasurably the freshness, charm, power and effectiveness of the Holy Ghost order. The mere ecclesiastic, though robed and Rabbi’d, is nothing and can accomplish nothing beside the man anointed or filled with the Spirit to do a certain work. All Jerusalem came out to see and hear John. Priest and prelate were smitten dumb before the man sent of God. Church-made deacons, elders, curates, vicars, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes are as nothing before singers, prayers, exhorters and gospel messengers chosen, anointed and sent forth by the Holy Ghost to reach and bless the church and the world. As the Spirit retires or is grieved away, these gifts disappear, and remarkable workers sink out of sight. It is a sad day for the church and the world when such a thing takes place. It is disaster indeed. When the writer was a pastor, and his churches were swept with a genuine Scriptural revival, he noticed that this diversity of gifts abounded among his people, and that his congregation was enriched and blessed with every kind of Christian laborer. There seemed to be no confusion. Men and women of every intellectual and social plane came naturally to the front, and worked harmoniously, agreeably and successfully together, according to Paul’s figure of the members of the body, Christ, the living Head, was present and seemed to supervise and easily control all. The hand, foot, ear, eye, tongue, voice and heart were all there. We had some mighty in exhortation, others powerful in testimony, still others resistless in song, and still others simply overwhelming in prayer. Some were gifted in altar work. Some seemed called to mission halls. And some were at their best in street meetings. The Spirit had his way. Every kind of soldier and weapon were in the ranks, and our triumphant church swept through the Sabbaths, the months, and the entire year with constant victory. This is as it should be, and will be, if the Spirit is allowed to have right of way. In the first years of the writer’s ministry, and before the holiness movement had come to the front, and the gift of the Holy Ghost was definitely sought as a distinct blessing, there were many genuine revivals in the Conference of which he was a member. In the writer’s own church services, and in the camp meetings which he attended, he witnessed a number of remarkable outpourings of the Spirit, with the clearest and most powerful conversions and reclamations. In this period we recall numerous instances of the gifts of the Spirit; and the wonderful power that these anointed ones had in their peculiar realm and field of work. One of these individuals was undoubtedly called by the Holy Ghost to sing. No matter at what part of the service he was used, Heaven always honored the man. In the opening hymns of the meeting he would immediately silence, soften and hold tearful and breathless the audience. At the close of the sermon, his singing would fill the altars when sermon and exhortation would fail. Most of his hymns were old-time Methodist pieces, with an addition of more modern ones, but selected with great care for gospel truth, and deep spirituality. Then the melodies were never on the jig and Negro minstrel order. The harmonies were tender, plaintive, solemn and always unctuous. Put this man anywhere else in the gospel battle and he was a failure. Singing was his regal and solitary gift. Another gift of the Spirit we recall of those days was that of exhortation. There were men in the travelling and local ministry who possessed it in a most remarkable degree. Some had it in connection with preaching and teaching ability, but the rule was that it abided alone. And we often met and listened to persons in the pulpit who carried a license to preach, when the Holy Ghost had called them to be exhorters. Their place was not in the sacred desk, but standing inside the altar, or before the altar, or walking down the aisle a human flame, a torrent of fiery speech before which the people went down like windrows in a field. These warnings, appeals, invitations and prophetic-like deliverances would hardly ever last more than ten or fifteen minutes, but God’s weapon had gone deep in the hearts of his enemies, and the wisdom and power of another gift of the Spirit demonstrated beyond all doubt and question. We have seen the exhorter save the battle, and turn defeat into victory, when the preacher of the hour had failed. And we beheld the occurrence so many times, that we knew better than ever why the Holy Ghost put such a gift on certain men, and stationed them here and there on the field of danger and conflict. A third gift we were profoundly impressed with in those earlier days, was the power of prevailing prayer, possessed by some of the brethren. Strange to say, more laymen than preachers had this endowment. Now and then a minister would thus be distinguished, but the rule was that it seemed to be one of the gifts of the Spirit to the pew. It would be impossible to give a faithful description of the operation of this talent, as it was exercised by different men. Education or its lack; originality; eloquence; simplicity of speech; voices trumpet-like or flute-like; naturally produced an external dissimilarity, but all these Jacob-like wrestlers in prayer had power with God and man and prevailed. There they were alike. Some would begin quietly, rise to a gale and end in a tornado of spiritual power. Some began vociferously and would close quietly with victory all over the camp or house. Others would rise and fall, like the billows of the sea, and after dropping into an humble conversational tone with the Almighty, a child-like address to the Heavenly parent would suddenly flame forth in a swift succession of inspired supplications that seemed literally to lift the gates of heaven from their hinges, and let a flood of glory down upon the congregation, who were changed in an instant to a laughing, weeping, shouting, crying, leaping, hand-clapping and face-shining multitude of transported beings. Among the number of this third class was a preacher. It got to be known all through the Conference how the Spirit used this man in prayer. In camps and revivals we have often heard him called on to pray, and generally in the darkest, hardest hour of the battle around the altar. We never knew him fail to bring heaven and earth together. His many triumphs never spoiled him, and so keeping humble, the Spirit continued to use him longer than he is able to handle most laymen and clergymen. This brother would always begin in a quiet but earnest tone. In another minute all could hear the accent of longing and later the wail of pleading. He would make "rushes," as they say in football language, and always held the ground he had conquered. And he carried the people with him. There was something in the tone, fixed solemn face and gently swaying figure of the man that showed he was going to reach the goal and get the victory. There were sentences he would utter that would be like exploding bomb shells. Then there would be another verbal rush at the throne of grace and toward heaven itself, so that one could all but see the walls going down. He had a way at times just before the culminating victory, of stooping forward, bringing the palms of his hands together with a resounding slap, and crying out, "Now, Lord!" And like a lightning flash from heaven we have seen the power of the Holy Ghost fall upon the people, sinners would be stricken to the ground, others would leap shouting to their feet, and a perfect storm of glory would sweep through the altar and all over the tabernacle. * * * We sigh for these vanished gifts and departed workers. They left many of our churches long ago. And there is no question but they are thinning out, and weakening down all over the land. The unctuous singer, flaming exhorter and man of mighty overwhelming prayer, are becoming in many quarters greater rarities with every passing year. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 02.24. THE RENEWING POWER OF PRAYER ======================================================================== Chapter 24 THE RENEWING POWER OF PRAYER. It seems very strange and foolish in the eyes and to the judgment of worldly wisdom, that actual strength and spiritual benefit are received by human beings in praying to an invisible and silent God. The expressions of relief falling from the lip, are attributed to excitement; while the glowing countenance and overflow and overspread of smiles and tears are accounted for in a philosophical manner very satisfactory to the explainer, though the explanation itself misses the mark by a thousand miles. When the unspiritual outsider would interpret the relief experienced in the observance of this means of grace, by the temporary diversion of the mind from the burden and troubles of the day, he forgets to explain why such abiding peace remains when the prayer is over, and the same daily cares and sorrows come back upon the soul and brood upon the life. The fact is that when the child of God prays he is actually having audience with God, and as he lifts his soul in humble, believing petition to his Maker and Redeemer, the Spirit of God overshadows and comes upon him, there are holy conceptions of life and duty, births of resolution, and influxes of strength and power more than sufficient to meet and overcome every trial and difficulty of the unrolling days and years. Somehow the connection is made, the wires set up, and the message gets through. Better still, the outstretched hand touches God, and there is an instantaneous and steady flow of the divine life into the fainting, sinking soul, and the spiritually sick, so to speak, rise up to minister to others, and the morally dead stand upon their feet and come forth to gladden and bless mankind. The Bible says if we wait upon the Lord we shall renew our strength. There is no explanation as to how the change is effected from lifelessness to animation and exhilaration, from weakness to vigor and from faintness to force; but we all know that it is done, and have been made to marvel and rejoice thousands of times, over this supernatural happening along the long lonely journey of life. The day of trial came between Sabbaths. There was no church service going on, and no preacher or Christian in sight. The rent was due, the agent had been rough, the pocketbook was empty, the baby was sick, the head as well as the heart had been aching all day, when the faltering discouraged Christian wife or mother knelt behind the empty flour barrel in the little pantry or store room, and while telling the Saviour all about it, and asking for strength, the sweet, delightful, heavenly help came. It swept in an instant all through the soul, seemed to animate and invigorate the whole body, and veritably a new creature with moist, shining eyes, and glowing, happy face went out of the humble little larder back to the care of the children and to the never-ceasing toils and drudgeries of everyday home life. And not one of the children but saw and felt the influence of the change that had taken place. It seems to the writer that if some great discoverer and creator in the realm of science could make a certain kind of metal plate or ball, which, attached to a post or wall in one of the closets or apartments in the house, needed only to be touched or pressed a minute, when gently but powerfully there would come perfect waves of physical rest and strength to the body--it seems to us that every member of the household would pay regular visits to the room and count it all joy that such a blessed invention was in their dwelling. A being would be a fool indeed to go dragging and pulling himself around in an exhausted condition, when there, under his own roof, was a contrivance which in a moment could make him physically another being, and all he needed to do was to touch it. No such creation is possible to man, but God can, and has, granted us something even more wonderful. For the blessing we write of not only affects in a strange, sweet sense the body, putting an actual physical spring into it, but it lifts the burden from the heart, takes worry from the mind and causes the soul itself to be glad and to rush forward with a new impartation of heavenly power to do or endure according to the will of God. There is not an apartment in the house, but this wonderful instrument of grace can be found. God sees to the regulating and working of the machinery. We are told simply to go into the room, and, after we have closed the door, to take down the receiver and go to calling, and we will hear from Heaven. We need only to kneel down beside the bed or over yonder in the shadowy corner behind the wardrobe, when suddenly something honey-like, wine-like, flame-like, takes place in the depths of the soul, and behold one of the Lord’s dispirited, drooping followers has leaped to his feet ready for the burden, prepared for the race and panoplied and eager for any battle. Surely the great body of Christians in the land have forgotten this marvellous provision of God for our deliverance, and that he has them everywhere and not one will fail us if we observe the conditions of their usage, as laid down in the word of God. These instruments of grace, these golden plates of glory, which if a man touches or stands upon, send sweet currents of spiritual life and force into the moral being, are fortunately for us to be found in other places besides the room of a house. The Publican stood on one in the outer court of the Temple, where no one in the city or sacred edifice dreamed of its location. And yet so great was its power that as the man cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner," the drooping head was lifted, sins of a lifetime were swept away, the joy of salvation rushed in, and the man went down to his house justified. Jeremiah to his delight found one able to hold him up in the bottom of a well or pit, in which he had been lowered to die by royal commandment. Deep in the loathsome mud he sank, but right then and there he struck the golden plate; he took down the receiver and began calling upon God. It is recorded that he not only did not sink deeper, but was marvelously sustained and finally lifted up from his dark and fearful surroundings into light and liberty again: Paul found one of these marvellous fixtures of grace in the road to Damascus, and still another in a house on a street called "Straight," in the city of Palms. As he prayed Ananias came with his instruction, the scales fell from his eyes, and he was filled with the Holy Ghost. Elijah discovered not less than seven of these power workers and life energizers on the brow of Mt. Carmel. As he lingered a while on each one, it is not to be wondered at that when he did commence running toward Jezreel he kept ahead of the horses and everything else. It seems to be the design of Providence to have the world dotted, if not actually paved, with these helps and uplifters of the soul, so that no matter where a man might be, he need never go down in discouragement and defeat, but lay hold on wire and lever, take up sounder and receiver, and find help and deliverance in every time of need. We remember a member of our church who was a farmer, and from his constantly shining face, his exultant, triumphant soul, and his beautiful, Christ-like life, we judged that he had some understanding with the Lord whereby long lines of the grace and glory machines had been placed up and down every corn and cotton furrow that he possessed. The writer when a lad for months observed the practice of nightly prayer, mainly through the request of a lady friend. One night he was entertained at the country home of a physician. The house being crowded with company, three or four of the male guests were put in one of the bedrooms. As he, in the presence of the others, knelt to pray, he was greeted by an obstreperous fit of laughter on the part of this doctor. The boy arose from his knees flushed and indignant, and gave the physician a scathing rebuke, which the man keenly felt, but the sad part was that the lad quit praying from that hour. The attack of ridicule was too much for him. It is very remarkable, and makes one of the strange coincidences in life, the occurrence to which we now call attention. Fully seven or eight years rolled away; the physician moved away from this house, and the writer rented it; and right by the side of the bed, in the identical spot where he had uttered his last prayer, here, after the flight of eight years, he knelt to pray again. The fourth time he went down before God he heard from heaven! The machine had little rest after that. The fact is he increased the number rapidly, having one in each room of the house, and three between the house and the store located a mile away. One of these was kept in a lovely little valley, a second on the brow of a hill, while the third was in a cottonwood grove. Still a fourth was behind the counter in a dark corner of the store. The reader can imagine the spiritual condition of a man who had the prayer plates or instruments in the house, three on the road to the store, and one in the store, and all faithfully attended to every day. Suffice to say, that even then, in the beginning of his Christian life, he found that it paid to pray, and to pray much. After the lapse of a quarter of a century he feels like reaffirming with a thousand-fold greater emphasis, the power and efficacy of prayer for every condition of life. Truly it was not in vain, and it should not be in vain, that the statement was made in the Bible: "Men ought always to pray and not to faint." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 02.25. MOURNING DAYS ENDED ======================================================================== Chapter 25 MOURNING DAYS ENDED. The general opinion is that we have to enter Heaven before sorrow can possibly end with us. We are told this is a vale of tears, and sighs, that moans and lamentations are the common and unchangeable language of the human family until Time shall be no more, and we have all entered through the Gates of Pearl into the everlasting city. And yet Isaiah distinctly tells us in the thirty-fifth and in the sixtieth chapters of his Prophecy that our days of mourning can and shall be ended, and that on earth. The man has not entered Heaven, but Heaven has entered the man. Of course the Scripture does not mean that causes of natural sorrow will cease; or that our hearts shall not feel the bitter pangs of bereavement while our tears drip on the white, unconscious face in the coffin. The Savior wept. and the best and holiest of people will continue to feel the pain that will spring up naturally, involuntarily and of necessity under the mistreatment and ill-treatment of ingratitude, falsehood, cruelty and wrong. Suffering can actually be felt in the words of our Lord when he said, "The hand that betrayeth me is with me on the table." Evidently there is an anguish that has no personal relation with wrong doing, and by which the pure heart and godly life is affected through the hand, tongue and act of a wrongdoer. The existence of this state of things is no contradiction to the promise in the Bible of a religious experience in which mourning days are ended. It must be remembered that the Scripture is not a book on Science, nor written to satisfy mysterious and really unknowable facts concerning the universe and the life beyond the grave. It is a volume on Salvation. It treats of our cure and deliverance from the disease of Sin, and is looking at and dealing with men from the standpoint of Redemption. It recognizes and teaches that the original cause of all sorrow in the world was the entrance of Sin into the race. And that even now in every life the great cause of our days of grief and nights of sadness is sin in some one of its many forms. Hence in presenting a Full Salvation from all sin, and looking at men always in the light of Redemption, the Book of God naturally and properly declares a blessing can be secured in which the days of our mourning shall be ended. First, this state of blessedness begins in pardon. For if the recollection of our transgressions and their pressure on conscience bows down the heart and brings repeatedly the sigh and groan to the lip, it stands to reason when God for Christ’s sake forgives all our sins, then that much sorrow is ended and those periods of gloom connected with their existence are terminated. Second, through the Birth of the Spirit we receive an ability through grace to live without sin; for the Word says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." Now we all know through bitter experience that the instant we do wrong, shadow and sorrow fall upon and take possession of the whole being. This gloom is not only indicative of the divine displeasure but is the protest of the soul itself against iniquity. For man was never made to sin. It is clear then that if the salvation of the Son of God can break up the sinning business, it has also with that achievement ended the days of mourning which invariably dawn or rather darken over our heads when a commandment of God is broken and some kind of guilt stains the heart. A third cause of sadness to the soul is the presence of inbred sin. This peculiar heart heaviness is not continuous, but occasional and always a mystery to the regenerated. Sin is a gloomy principle, and where it remains in the Christian in the form of the carnal mind, it is certain to affect the spirit with the strange periodical melancholy to which we have referred. In such cases no wilful sin can be recalled, or has for that matter been committed; and yet here is this mind depressing influence at work, leading to fits of prolonged silence, or despondent remarks, and to a cast down appearance as well as an equally weakened and lapsed condition of the man’s spirit life and activities. The Word of God declares that this "body of sin" can be "destroyed," and in that event of course, those days of spiritual eclipses, sunset shadows and midnight gloom are no more, and so another large number of mourning days are ended. A fourth cause of gloom with the people of God can be traced to the mistakes, blunders and failures which seem necessarily connected with human life we find it here on earth. Certainly as long as we do not know all things, we cannot infallibly read and measure men; and while we fall short of certain infinite attributes called omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, it ought not to appear astonishing nor remain unpardonable with ourselves and others, that we make unwise decisions, blunder in our judgments, and fail in our enterprises and labors in ways too numerous to mention. There are godly men and women today, whose hearts are clean, and lives right and acceptable in the sight of God, who have not ended their days of mourning because of just such happenings and conditions referred to in the above paragraph. As wholly sanctified people it is their privilege to live as described in Isaiah 55:1-13 and Isaiah 60:1-22, and they do the most of the time. But the day of mistake, blunder and failure coming, and neglecting to deal with it as God would have them, or not understanding what to do with it, the necessary consequence is an additional period of mourning. Terminated are the days of sadness over sin dwelling within, or sins committed without. They know how to dispose of the shadows originating from those old-time experiences, but go down into gloom over a lesser evil and a smaller trouble. We have known the best and godliest of people to make an unwise speech; fail to do the exactly correct and proper thing in some trying complication of duties, and then sink into gloom for hours over the occurrence. We have known a layman to limp and stumble in prayer; a leader of religious song make a break or mistake in service; or a preacher through exhaustion of body or an overheated audience room, fail conspicuously and unmistakably on his sermon. With some the pain and shadow of the failure or blunder remained for hours, and even days, while with still others it abided as a constantly recurring life memory of sorrow and mortification. We hardly need to show how this state of mind is certain to affect the person in duties and labors that follow, and its equally unhappy influence upon others with whom such a person is thrown when in this mood of mind and condition of soul. If mentally burdened and preoccupied one can hardly do what God wants him to do, or be what He desires him to be. The anxious face and worried tone and vacant eye, are all against us in the work of doing good. And we thank God we need carry none of these things with us in the journey to Heaven. I beheld them, said Isaiah, and sorrow and sighing had fled away, and everlasting joy was on their heads. Perhaps the crowning gladness of Full Salvation is the discovery that we can place our blunders and failures just where we cast our sins and sin, under the Blood of Christ, and in the hands of an almighty, overruling God. Some have learned how to do this, and are living that way daily, hourly and momentarily. So with them the Scripture is at last perfectly fulfilled, and all their mourning days are ended. In a meeting once in Ohio, a good brother stood up in the hour given to testimony, to tell some thing; when to his amazement the whole circumstance or recollection had escaped him. With hundreds of people looking at him, and a silence that grew with every passing second, the situation was anything but pleasant and enviable. But suddenly we saw a sweet light steal over his face, while he said, "I have forgotten what I wanted to say--but Hallelujah anyhow"--and then he sat down. It was all so simply, humbly and beautifully done, that tears stood in many eyes, while amens and shouts abounded. Some men would have grieved over the mortifying circumstances for months and years, but our brother possessed the secret of which we are writing, and never felt a shadow; the days of his mourning were all ended. In a certain camp meeting in the South, no matter how men resisted nor devils raged, nor the tide of battle turned, two faithful preachers laboring with us would inform the Lord with glad cries from their knees that they "were on top!" It was the same truth taught in this chapter only embodied in different words. For as far as we have been able to see and understand things in life, it is the man "on top" who does the shouting, and the man underneath who does the mourning. Verily our speech betrayeth us. Our very words declare our spiritual location. Certain it is, that if we turn down our sins, get our feet on the adversary, put every sad, trying circumstance of life under the Blood, where we had previously plunged the past and the soul itself, and keep at this--then are we undoubtedly on top, and the days of our mourning are all ended. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 02.26. A STRANGE POWER OF THE SOUL ======================================================================== Chapter 26 A STRANGE POWER OF THE SOUL. We doubt not that there are powers of the soul that have not yet been imagined; and depths that no lead-line of thought has sounded. And this we feel to be the case while the greatness of the spirit through daily study is constantly growing upon us. He who investigates the nature of the soul, its strange action upon itself and as certain influence upon others, will confess to two feelings, one a sense of bewilderment, and the other an emotion of awe. Who has not been puzzled at its swift alternate softenings and hardenings, its magnanimity and meanness, its sacrifices and selfishness, its activity and idleness, its bravery and cowardice. Swung in one direction it impresses the observer with its kinship to God, but with a pendulum sweep it appears gazing at us with the features of Satan. Sometimes it lies within the body as quietly as a lake sleeping amid the hills, not a yearning of regret disturbs its rest, not a thought of pleasure or dream of ambition can stimulate it. It seems more than quiet, it is felt to be stagnant. But in the next moment or hour the body is aquiver with the awakened spirit, not aroused necessarily by anger, but by a great thought, noble intent and sublime purpose. The man stands thrilled with a consciousness of power. Nerve and vein are on fire. The heart is a Mountain of Flame! The breast swells, and at that moment nothing in the universe is too hard to undertake or accomplish. If we had to liken the soul to anything material we would take the ocean. The sea, with its shifting colors, its light and shadows, its calms and storms, and last but not least its horizon line, measuring off indeed a visible greatness, but suggestive also of depths, lengths and breadths beyond, and of realms unseen, unknown and unexplored. Who has not felt that horizon line in his own soul, and beheld it in others, and who can approach it without thinking of distant sailing ships, peaceful sunny islands, but also of monsoons, typhoons and all that these and other things of sea and land stand for, in the spiritual life. However we started out to write not of many, but of a single power of the soul. Among the various faculties within us is one called conscience. It is a moral attribute, and its province is to pronounce upon the quality of our actions and put upon them the seal of approval or disapproval. We all agree that it is conscience which rebukes us for the sin just committed, and applies the lash upon the quivering and suffering spirit, but what power of the soul is that which stamps the conviction upon the mind that everybody knows of the sin itself? The deed may have been committed in secret, and it is not possible for any living being to be aware of what has been done, and yet the inward feeling remains that the ghastly thing is a matter of public knowledge. If this is the act of conscience, then has that faculty three functions, first to approve, second to condemn, and third to produce the impression and even conviction that one’s guilt is known to everybody. Dickens speaks of a murderer, who after slaying his victim and leaving him in the woods at night, and in a place where he could not possibly be found for days, yet fancied that everybody was talking about the murder. Miles away from the place of tragedy, and in the heart of a great city, he was convinced that men were looking up at the window where he was crouching, and speaking of the crime. Not only the water gutters about the house gurgled like the dying man did, but footsteps on the street seemed to stop at the door, and men were coming to arrest him. All this intense misery was produced by this strange power of the soul. A gentleman related to us several years ago the following dream. He dreamed that he had committed a crime, a heinous offense, a sin the thought of which in his waking moments he would not allow to enter in his mind a moment; yet in his night visions he committed this deed. In his dream he was passing down the street, bearing his heart load, when suddenly a man sprang upon him from behind a corner, and with a red-hot iron branded him upon face and throat. The brand bore the name of the sin! Even in slumber the sense of shame and pain was intolerable, amounting to an indescribable agony. He at once began to run, and sped like the wind block after block, but the thought which burned and blistered equal to the scorching letters, and which he could not outrun, was, "Everybody sees the word which has been stamped upon you." We have related this dream in order to illustrate the peculiar power of the soul about which we are writing. It seizes the guilty mind, writes on it the sin of the life, and then presses home the thought, "Everybody knows the sin, for everybody sees it!" When a pastor of large city churches, we never relaxed our efforts, but we immediately felt the effect of this power. The neglect of pastoral work would in point of time scarcely cover a week, not enough to have excited comment, yet the disturbing thought would continually arise, "Everybody is talking about your slothfulness." A young man of our acquaintance once complained to us that people were talking about his private life, his habit of secret drinking, when the truth was that no one dreamed of it. And so, not suspecting his intemperance, there had not been any comment by the community on the subject. The voice within was so loud that he thought it was the verdict of society against him. The strange inward testifier swept out and came back upon the sufferer’s own soul after the manner of a boomerang. It pointed its own hand at the man and said this is not a finger, but the tongue of the public. All men are talking about you. It is doubtless this very feeling or conviction which brings the criminal to confession, or, if he flies for life from country to country, betrays him finally into the hands of justice. Murder will out is an old saying, and men said it because of their knowledge of this distressing and terrible power that is resident in man. What has been our object in writing these lines? Mainly to bring out the following thought: If the soul exercises such a dreadful office here, what will be the full force of its torment hereafter in Eternity, when the sins of the life under the accusing tones of conscience will seem to leap out in blazing characters upon the face, when the assembled universe will be able to read the guilty past, and the overwhelming consciousness is that nothing is hidden nor can be hidden. At such a time it will seem to maddened beings as though hands were pointing at them from the dust, and voices were speaking to them from the clouds, crying out all the sins of a lifetime. Who will be able to bear this? And who is willing to go into eternity to enter upon such an existence, and to endure forever such a doom? * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 02.27. THE BLIGHT OF IRREVERENCE ======================================================================== Chapter 27 THE BLIGHT OF IRREVERENCE. According to the dictionaries, reverence is made up of fear and awe, mingled with respect and esteem. In public worship it is this spirit which secures that "decency and order" contended for by the apostle in one of his epistles. As a Christian grace and excellence it is simply essential to the character and life of the child of God. In studying the realm in which reverence should have sway, we see at once that it lays claim upon the human body. It is not a matter of indifference to God as to how men approach his presence and deport themselves before him. The Scripture is careful to note the profound humbling, the solemn waiting, the actual position in prayer, and the spirit which must reign within us if we would hear from Heaven. Reverence also necessarily lays its hand upon our speech, in view of the Infinite and Almighty Being whom we address. And here again on account of the ignorance and presumption of human nature, God has seen fit to lay down in his Word the forms of language with which we should come to him in prayer and at the hour of public worship. At these two points mentioned above, speech and conduct, we have noticed that Irreverence breaks in to the injury and grief of earth and heaven. Let any one study the Saviour’s tender, reverent prayer to his Father in the seventeenth chapter of John, and read Paul’s solemn supplications in his epistles, and then tell us where do people of today get their authority and example for the shocking familiarity with which they handle the divine name, and address the Holy Eternal One in public service. We have heard men say not only "Dear Jesus," but "Dear God!" in public prayer. In the same solemn hour we have heard men indulge in witticisms, make puns, and crack jokes! In letters written to us by good people, we have been many times distressed with an expression they used--"Father told me to do so and so." If we had not read some preceding sentences we would naturally have supposed that they were speaking of an earthly parent. In private prayer we may use terms in speaking with the Lord, that we cannot employ in public worship or in a letter to another. Then Christ can say "Father" as none of us can; and we should remember that he told us to say "Our Father." The expression then in the letter, or spoken in the testimony meeting, that "Father told me," etc., is not only a selfish, monopolizing claim, but a speech of wretched taste, and full of ignorance and irreverence. In a town in the State of Washington, a preacher told us that a founder of one of the recent ecclesiasticisms, laid a dime upon the altar rail, and actually commanded God to make it a thousand dollars! This shocking scene was witnessed by several hundred people. Here was the violation of veneration in the double sense--of speech and action; and in that two-fold violation of word and conduct we see Irreverence sweeping over the land today. Strange to say that much of this unholy familiarity we see in the ranks of God" people, is a rebound from the formality and deadness of certain frozen churches. As we study the matter in history and life, we see that if a proper homage and awe is not preserved by the presence of the Holy Ghost, then Ceremonialism, and a freezing Formalism takes its place. Then should there come a sweeping revival on full salvation lines, the people delivered from an actual thralldom, and made consciously free, are in peril of swinging to an opposite extreme. The congregation is in danger of acting like a mob, and the services take on the racket and chatter of a business exchange, and at times remind one of pandemonium. This was the "confusion" which Paul declared that God was not the author of. And this was why he plead for "decency and order." We have nothing to say against the stir, noise, outcries and shouts about the altar, where Christians are laboring with penitents and seekers, and getting them with glad hallelujahs into the Fountain of Cleansing. We refer to the regular worship where in the use of appointed means of grace we are seeking to have audience with a Holy God, and bring his Spirit down upon the people. We are pleading for the respect and adoration that we owe to our great Creator and Redeemer, and to the place and house of worship where he has promised to reveal himself to those who humble themselves and tremble at his Word. There is nothing in Christianity to injure so beautiful a grace as reverence, but Christians may have manners and methods that will surely work its harm and destruction. There is nothing about Holiness to destroy such a lovely, adorning virtue, but we have seen here and there in the Holiness movement, things that will certainly wound it to death. We have heard God’s name handled so familiarly and irreverently in some of our meetings as to border on profanity and sacrilege. Here was irreverence in speech. As to conduct, we know but few meetings in the field of active work where we do not see scores of people whispering and talking during the singing of the hymns, and even during the season of prayer. This is never beheld in the Churches which some people are so fond of abusing. In a town in one of the Middle States, as we drew near one morning to the hall where our gospel services were being held, we heard a perfect babel of tongues before entering the door. As we entered, instead of finding the people silent, meditative and prayerful before the opening of a meeting on which much depended, we were almost deafened with the clatter of gossipy speech. Dozens of women were talking loudly, several groups were indulging in bursts of laughter, and it was not the religious laugh, while a lad of eight years of age seated at the open piano, was banging on the keys with might and main. One of the prominent workers in this hall had expressed regret to me in a previous conversation that the church as a body had held aloof from this work. As we surveyed the sickening scene just described we felt we could understand in a great measure why and where the aloofness came in. We cannot count the meetings where we have known people claiming the highest experience of grace keep up a constant buzz and whisper while others were pleading with God for the outpouring of his Spirit. It is certainly a spectacle never to be forgotten to see the singers on their knees, and at the same time running through the hymn book, looking for the next selection. Sometimes they have condescended to give various little grunts and groans to let the prayers and pleaders around know that they had an ear open to what was transpiring; but this simply added hypocrisy to irreverence and filled observant sinners with amusement, and many of God’s people with pain and grief. A few months since the writer had called the people to their knees to implore the divine blessing and favor on the service of the hour. Fancying that we heard various disturbing sounds, we looked up, and saw about half the people were on their knees, and the other part of the congregation was sitting bolt upright and gazing around. Five or six couples among the kneelers were whispering to each other while simulating the attitude of prayer. Several were examining the pages of their hymn books. One brother seemed to be counting some money that had been contributed, a second was reading a letter, and a third was adding up some figures with a lead pencil on a piece of crackling white paper. All of these three were on their knees. And all this was going on in a Full Salvation meeting. Now does any one believe that such dishonor of the Divine One can be practiced without results of the gravest and most lamentable character taking place? We barely mention two. One is a certain injury and blight upon our own souls. We may think we are proving our liberty and are free, but we are surely losing more than we gain. Some of the tenderest and most sacred sensibilities of the soul are certain to perish if we thus treat God, and thus carelessly and familiarly handle the precious, holy things of Heaven. We believe that the devil tempts the people of God as much to be irreverent as he does sinners to be profane. He knows the blunting, deadening and hardening of the soul which is certain to ensue, and so urges Christians on in this direction. Who with any experience at all has not felt repeatedly and violently moved within to extravagance of speech and conduct, and even farther, to this dreadful familiarity of speech and manner towards God. Some yield to the temptation, and think they are free in the Gospel, when they have swung clear away and out of a proper Christian liberty and entered the realm of irreverence. Would they declare the exact truth after one of these displays of apparent liberty, they would confess to a strange sense of emptiness and deadness that came upon the soul the instant they took their seat, and before the echo of their words had died away upon the ears of a remarkably silent congregation. A second injury will be wrought on the Holy Cause itself which we profess and love. People will judge the tree by its fruits. And when they notice disregard for certain spiritual decencies and proprieties, and a kind of pandemonium, instead of that godly fear, holy awe, and reverent waiting upon God as commanded in the Scripture, and which characterizes true worship, they are going to be properly offended and will undoubtedly have nothing to do with us. Holiness with them will stand for racket, uproar, disorder and lack of veneration and godly fear. We repeat that not a word is here said against that necessary confusion about the altar, where we are praying, pleading, shouting and helping souls through into pardon and holiness. Not a word is uttered against the manifestations and commotions which are certain to come from the anointings and outpourings of the Holy Ghost upon the worshipping assembly. We do not, and would not lay the weight of a feather upon true spiritual freedom. It is the working of the "flesh" that we deplore. It is the spirit and practice of irreverence that is steadily gaining ground in our midst against which we lift up our voice in lamentation and in condemnation. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 02.28. DEVOTION TO SIN ======================================================================== Chapter 28 DEVOTION TO SIN. Sin is the cause of all the trouble in the universe. It turned angels into devils, wiped out the Garden of Eden, dug every grave, raised the walls of hell, destroyed the happiness of homes, wrecked character, put torment in the human heart, and in a word is at the bottom of all the heartache, heartbreak and misery in the world. It is strange that men should be devoted to so foul and unhappy a thing. That they would open their hearts to admit, and speak with their lips in defense of this disrupter of the household, this annihilator of peace, and this destroyer of character and happiness. But it is so, and so remarkable is the fond attachment that we feel safe in saying that if Christians were as given up to Christ as sinners are to sin the Millennium could dawn upon us tomorrow. One evidence of devotion is confidence. A certain measure of confidence most individuals have in one another; but we know of no one who would let a party blindfold him and start to lead him away without asking, "What are you going to do with me?" Trust here evidently is not implicit. But constantly we see sinners willingly hoodwinked and led down to hell by sin, and yet the victim never dreams of asking where it is carrying him. Farther still we observe, that when human confidence is once shaken in a person, it is difficult to restore it. A man may have lived a Christian life for years, and then commit a gross sin. He had patiently built up a Christian reputation and with a single wrong act of a gross nature knocked down a superstructure in a moment, which it took twenty years to erect. It went down like a cob-house, but the trouble is that it cannot be built up again like a cob-house. God may forgive, but men in a certain sense never will. They will always feel a measure of distrust. The fallen one seems unable to regain the ascendancy over the people which he formerly possessed. Men are not that much devoted to one another. But when we look at the same thing in the life we are describing, we find that sin can fool a man every day, and lie to and deceive him for a lifetime, and yet such is that sinner’s devotion to Evil that he goes on believing and trusting in it, to the end. It seems to be nothing to him that sin has betrayed and mocked and disappointed him so many times. He actually seems to be all the more ardent in his trust and faithful in his following. Certainly we would all agree that people must be very much absorbed in and fond of a man that, no matter what he did, they still believed in him the same. And yet here is the devotion of the transgressor to the life and leading of Iniquity. A second evidence of devotion is endurance of physical discomfort for the sake of the object of affection. We find among many of God’s people that a hot or cold day, or a black and rainy night are amply sufficient to keep them from prayer-meeting or church service. But we never saw a night so cold, dark and disagreeable, that would prevent a sinner from sinning. Sin had only to speak through one of the appetites and out the devotee would go to brave any or all of the elements of rain, hail, snow, wind and storm. We knew of a preacher once who was summoned one dark, blustering night to pray with a dying man. The minister, with his cloak wrapped about him, stood on the second story balcony and talked with the messenger in the street. "I can not come," he said. "It is too dreadful a night." "But, Sir, he wants you to pray with him." "I will be around in the morning," replied the preacher. "But," urged the messenger, "he will be dead before morning." "Well," said the man of God, "we will pray that he will not be dead by morning," and straightway retired from the balcony, pulled down the window and went to bed. When we heard this narrated, just as we have given it, we could but think how differently a sinner would have answered if Sin, his master, had called him. All that the Adversary would have had to say was, "I want you up the street for a while," and the ringing reply would have been, " all right, wait until I get my hat." And he would have gone if it had been raining pitchforks! We do not feel that we are guilty of the least extravagance when we say that if Christians were as consecrated to Christ as sinners are to sin, the Lord could come tomorrow and take possession of a surrendered and redeemed world. A third evidence of devotion is seen in one’s willingness to leave the society of all else for the sake of the object worshipped. Look at the worldling! What ties can bind him at home. Christians find excuse for staying away from the house of God and post of duty through disinclination to leave the company of husband, wife or child. But a sinner will forsake anything and say good-by to anybody and everybody at the call of his false God. Who can count the home circles today, the lonely firesides, the solitary wives and mothers, made so by the call of Sin to the listening husband or son? Forgotten now is the marriage vow to cleave under all circumstances to the wife who hung in trustful love as a young bride upon his arm years ago. Sin called, and every tie and band is snapped, the heart cords pull in vain, and conscience speaks to no effect. The man has gone to serve his idols. The woman sits in waiting loneliness, brooding over the bitter separation, and the long absences. The explanation in the sinner’s case is found in what we call devotion to Sin. A fourth evidence is witnessed in the readiness to lay down one’s money on the shrine of the perverted affection. We need make no argument to prove how a man’s means flows toward the object of his love or devotion. When attachment springs up in the masculine heart toward a woman, it becomes instantly declared by gifts of various kinds. If one’s love settles upon a pursuit, pleasure or some thing, instead of a person, the same phenomenon of lavish expenditure is beheld. So we have only to look around to behold streams of gold and silver flowing to the theater, dance hall, restaurant, confectionery, tailor shop and millinery department, according as one or the other happens to be the idol of the life. We notice, moreover, that all such money is lavished without any fretting or murmuring. It is gladly given to obtain what the individual craves. Whoever heard a sinner growling about what he has to spend for his dram, cigar, theater ticket or midnight lunch? One has to go among certain classes of Christians and church members to hear complaining when financial calls are made. Once in our early ministry we took up a collection for Foreign Missions. Supposing that the church was enlightened on the subject, and all Christians would feel it to be a privilege as well as duty to give; we simply announced the assessment and sent around the baskets. Instead of the two hundred dollars we needed, we obtained something like twenty. We became wiser at once; and the next time, we preached an hour on Missions, holding up the subject in various lights. We showed the civil, social, commercial and moral advantages, next brought in the salvation feature, and concluded with several tear-drawing anecdotes of the burning of Hindoo wives, the destruction of Chinese girl children, etc. Then we said to the collectors, "Pass the baskets around quickly Brethren." That day we received three or four hundred dollars! But what did it not take in the way of argument and pleading to bring the amount! As for Sin, it needs not to argue or reason. It hardly ever has to ask the second time. It simply says to the sinner, "I want some money," and it comes flying. The demand may be repeated on many occasions, but such is the fondness of the sinner for his Idol that he always responds, and does it willingly. Again and again the sinner is seen doing in the matter of money gifts what the Christian does not do. That is, giving the last coin he has on earth to his god. Many times the toper has spent his one remaining nickel for a drink of whisky, then dropped on the street, where he froze to death, and fell into a bottomless hell. But who witnesses such a moneyed expression of love among the rank and file of God’s people? Many a Christian has given the last nickel he had in his pocket, but he had more money and property elsewhere. But the sinner spends his last cent on the lusts and appetites that are leading him astray, dies in despair and goes stripped, bankrupted and undone to a Lost Eternity. This is what we call devotion; and so we repeat that if Christians were as devoted to Christ as sinners are to Sin, the Millennium would not have to come, but would be here already. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 02.29. THE RESERVE OF CHRIST ======================================================================== Chapter 29 THE RESERVE OF CHRIST. The Gospel gives a completeness of life and character outline of the Saviour that is not to be found in the paintings of men. The portraits by earthly artists are numerous, and many of them famous, but there is a marvellous similarity in them all in melancholy, agony and general dreariness of appearance. The Saviour was as truly human as he was divine, and as a man and a wholesome, perfect man had his pure soul filled with every noble sensibility and lofty thought belonging to the spirit made in the image of God. It is lovely to see him with the children about him and in his arms; but it is also a glorious sight to behold him in his holy indignation, with scourge in hand, cleansing the Temple and driving out animals and materialized men in a crowd before him. It is delightful to hear him speaking for hours to the disciples and to the multitude that he said was like sheep without a shepherd; but it is even more thrilling to mark him perfectly silent to such men as Herod and Pilate. All these were but parts of the many-sided but perfect character of the Son of God. And the more faithfully we study the record of his life, the profounder we are impressed with this wonderful mosaic of human perfection as exhibited in the words, deeds, spirit and conduct of the Man of Galilee. He had preferences. He had friends. And he had particular friends. The twelve seemed nearer than the multitude; and three of the twelve closer than the rest. Then one of the three seemed to be even nigher to Christ than the other two. But this is not all; for the same Book which gives these facts of the, Saviour’s loving, discriminating heart; of a readiness to pour out the treasures of his knowledge and affection upon certain worthy ones, shows him reticent, reserved and even silent to others who were following him in his journeyings through the land. The Gospel says plainly and unmistakably that there were persons to whom he did not commit himself, for he knew what was in man. The reserve of Christ to certain persons is the striking, startling thought presented by this Scripture. And it is a fact made clear not only by the Bible but continually proved in life. There are some people like Herod and Pilate, to whom Christ is always silent. And there are still others to whom he does not commit himself. Here is not a refusal to speak to them, but a careful avoidance of confidence and trust as to deep Gospel truths, his own personal life and history, and plans for the present and future of the kingdom he has come to establish. He did not commit himself to them, because he knew them. He perfectly read them. and, knowing how unworthy they were of sacred revelation, and how unsafe these confidences would be with such people--Jesus held his peace and kept his counsel while in their presence. This conduct of Christ brings to us several most important truths and lessons. First it is the proof of the untoward condition of the human heart. Many preachers, lecturers and prominent writers today are fond of eulogizing human nature and making it a very clean, beautiful and noble thing, aside from any divine work of grace upon it. But the Saviour’s treatment of the group we have mentioned is a crushing negation to such a fond conceit. He dare not trust them with his thoughts, teachings or his person. They were unprepared, unfit and unworthy to receive a single heavenly confidence. He was unsafe in their hands. A second truth brought to light, is the confirmation of a former scriptural statement in regard to pearls cast before swine. There is no doubt that evil and not good comes from the ignoring of this principle, in the descending with holy phrases and spiritual arguments to combat and convince those who are contentedly living in a gross, carnal, worldly life. To such people gems are but pebbles to be tossed back, or ground under foot while the aroused animal nature turns and rends its rebuker and adviser. There is a way of talking to the vilest and most abandoned, and even in the language of salvation and the Scripture, where the words will be like swords and bullets. But pearls are never felt to be minnie balls to the gross in mind and life. Hence Paul" statement, "We speak wisdom to them that are perfect;" and Christ’s voiceless attitude to a band of people who were unworthy to receive a divine confidence. A third truth taught is a rebuke to those who suppose that candor and truth compel them to tell all they know and feel and have thought and heard, to everybody who comes along. Of all absurd notions this is one of the silliest; and of all weak, shallow-pated, backboneless and character-colorless beings, are the people who hold to and follow this idea. They take the lead in the foolish processions of this world. Vain for them is Paul’s conduct before the Sanhedrin; and all for naught is Christ’s quiet dignity and silent bearing to a shallow throng before him. They persist in making a confidant of the veriest stranger and latest arrival, and of turning themselves inside out for the benefit of any somebody or every nobody that passes by. This is their idea of openness and their conception of strict truth and candor. It is not enough that they have a sore finger, but they must unwrap it and show it to you, with a complete history of who hurt it, and w hen and where. This same mental and spiritual weakness also causes them to invest everyone with the double honor, office and occupation of Father Confessor, and Family Physician. Different from Christ they commit themselves to every man; but alas! unlike the Savior they do not know what is in man. A fourth fact brought out is the explanation of a number of the most painful experiences connected with our earthly life. We trusted those who were inwardly false and treacherous. We confided in those who were unworthy of any confidence placed in them. We built our friendship on a moral quicksand. We admitted a Judas into our inner circle of thought and affection, mistaking a bland face for sympathy and an affectation of interest for a genuine expression of love. Esop tells of the remarkable action of a frozen reptile that had been warmed back to life at a kindly fireside. A wiser than he speaks of a man who blesses us with a loud voice in the morning, and curses us later in the day. And Christ uncommunicative and reticent to certain people who had seen his miracles and professed to believe in him, presses the solemn warning still farther in his desire to save his people from needless heartache and heartbreak. But so long as men lack spiritual discernment, and while there are trusting, unsuspicious natures over against human shams and counterfeits, just that duration of time will the suffering of misplaced confidence be witnessed and felt on earth. To a man of high principle and exalted sense of honor, all confidences reposed in him are forever sacred and inviolable The relations of such individuals may change, and there may be rupture of intimacy and even estrangement, but the trust reposed in him is held by a man of genuine principle and integrity as binding forever. To a man of true nobility, not even enmity or great wrongs done him by the confiding party thereafter, can even then give him the right to betray what was once spoken in personal faith in him. We know men who could today put to shame their own detractors and enemies by the statement of facts well known to them and imparted in times of early friendship; but their voices are silent. They could never afford to debase themselves by such a contemptible method of retaliation and revenge. They feel, as all men of honor do, that a man who could act this way is low down indeed, and destitute of what makes a true Christian as well as a real gentleman. Christ knew this class of people and did not commit himself to them It would be well for many of the readers of this chapter to study the Saviour in this light as much as on other lines, and pray to be filled with a wisdom from above that would lead them to be as silent and reticent to some people as they should be open and communicative to others, who have no kisses of betrayal like Judas and Joab. A fifth truth taught by Christ’s reserve gives the explanation of many a silent and dead altar scene. Here is the solution of some of those strange human problems and spiritual incomprehensibilities met with again and again in the religious world. We wonder why something gracious and satisfying does not happen to certain seekers at the altar. Our prayers sometimes reflect reproaches upon the Holy One in the words, "Why not now, Lord!" But the silent God has a reason; and it is that he knows all about the man who is bowed in the chancel, and we do not. Again, we are struck with the fact that some very zealous people seem to be profoundly ignorant of certain blessed and holy experiences that are plainly promised the soul in the Word of God. One has only to be a few minutes with these fussy, scolding, argumentative and pugnacious people to realize that they do not know the Lord in a tender, beautiful way enjoyed by companies of God’s people in all countries and in all ages. The simple explanation is that Jesus knew what was in them, and so did not commit himself to them. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 02.30. ON THE ROOST ======================================================================== Chapter 30 ON THE ROOST. We have a large black bird in the South who has a way of spying out a sick or dying animal, and then straightway, perching itself on a fence or neighboring tree, waits with smoothed feathers and solemn visage for developments in the dissolution line. This interesting fowl is called the turkey buzzard, and it is marvellous how long and patiently he will abide in his lofty position of inspection and expectation. The hope that animates his breast and sustains him in his lonely vigil is the speedy demise of the animal lying helpless in the field or in the fence corner of the lane. The prophet Jonah did not think so, but he occupied for days the position and magnified the office of a turkey buzzard. He roosted on the hills near Nineveh, waiting for God to destroy the city before his eyes. That the disaster and ruin did not come was exceedingly disappointing and trying to the vulture nature remaining in him. The grief of the man over the withheld judgment is plainly stated in the Word of God. The prophet has many like him to this day. Not only are there men who present the woe of hell without tears, and wear an appearance of satisfaction that some people are going there, but there are still others who reveal the vulture nature in looking up signs of failure and sin in people, and in expecting the immediate downfall of individuals whom they dislike and have devoted in their minds to a complete overthrow and destruction. It is a spectacle never to be forgotten to mark Brother and Sister Vulture alight upon a roost of observation, smooth down their feathers, draw down the corners of their mouths, and assume the same meek, pious look that we have seen buzzards wear when watching a dying sheep, only in the case in question it was the temporal misfortune, character collapse or physical death of some man or woman they waited and wanted to behold. We have known men of this pattern give others six months or a year to live before the arrival of some terrible sorrow or judgment, because these unfortunates had aroused their disapproval by perpetrating the dreadful crime of differing with them in some of their sayings or doings. They were marked for ruin. A certain preacher received the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and soon had a church blazing with revival fire; immediately another minister, quite prominent in the same denomination, gravely declared that he gave this brother just two years to land in a lunatic asylum or commit suicide. This was seventeen years ago, and so for all that length of time this prognosticating and expectant man has been perched upon some high point of contemplation waiting for a fellow preacher to go down under some dreadful disaster, whereupon he would proceed to alight upon the carcass, pick the bones and say, "Did I not tell you so?" It is a lugubrious sight to see a row of buzzards sitting on a fence tarrying for some sick sheep or overworked and bogged down horse to die. They say but little, but do much thinking, and indulge in the greatest amount of ardent expectation. God seems to try to exhibit in the physical and animal world some of the features and characteristics of the sinful and depraved nature in man. So when we hear men and women prophesying coming judgments about people whom they do not like, and see them with watch and almanac in hand waiting for death and destruction to strike the victim, we know at once why God put the nature in certain large birds to roost on trees, smooth their feathers, cast down their eyes, assume a thoughtful, melancholy and expectant expression, and await the decease of some wounded animal by the road-side. Recently a good man died in the ministry. Already we have heard three persons intimate that God took him away because he had opposed them. Here was a group of one dead sheep and three turkey buzzards. Doubtless there were other vultures in trees farther down the road; we did not go on to find out; the three we had beheld were amply sufficient for our vision. The prophet of Nineveh certainly had the vulture nature well developed in him when he was waiting for the extermination of a million people to take place in order that his dignity might be upheld and his prophetic fame be preserved. This certainly sweeps ahead of an irate servant of God who anathematizes only individuals, or disgusted with a congregation shakes his coat skirts, wipes the dust from his feet, and tells the audience they can all go to hell if they want to, for he does not care. And yet it is evident that such a man possesses the same spirit of the messenger sent to Nineveh, and is plainly coming up to the completeness and fullness of this originator and captain of the Buzzard Brigade. In blessed contrast to all this is the long suffering nature of the Heavenly Father and the loving, tender, pitiful heart of the Son of God. When such a man as Ahab, vile and idolatrous as he was, humbled himself and went softly for a few days, God sent Elijah to tell him that he would be spared, and that the calamities prophesied should not happen in his day. The same Lord added one hundred and twenty years to the already disobedient antediluvian world, and promised to hold back his judgments from the wicked Sodom if ten righteous men could be found in the place. Likewise Paul, the persecutor, received an ample pardon. The dying thief had the door of Paradise open to him when all earthly portals were shut. While the multitude assisting in the crucifixion of the three, heard a voice ascending above the confusion and uproar, crying, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." This was the prayer of the same being who, when He had foretold the ruin of the city of Jerusalem, as he looked down upon it from the brow of Mt. Olivet, said with out stretched arms, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings but ye would not"-- and then burst into tears. What a contrast is this beautiful, loving heart and life of Christ, with that rending, snapping, fault-finding, abusive and anathematizing nature we find in some people who declare they are His followers, are filled with His Spirit, and yet who condemn in toto all who do not agree with them in everything and declare publicly that all are going to hell who are not part and parcel of their little "handful." Our Christ is not a tiger, but a lamb; and the Spirit he has sent forth into the world to subdue it is not a croaking raven, nor a roosting, devouring buzzard, but a dove. Truly the representative of heaven on the hills around Nineveh was a poor one. He certainly did not embody nor reflect the spirit and intentions of the heavenly world which had sent him forth as its ambassador. He came threatening, when God wanted him to warn the people. The preacher left no loophole of escape, and spoke so as to produce despair when the Lord desired repentance. The ambassador was after the destruction of the people, while heaven wished deliverance and salvation. Evidently Jonah had misread his instructions, had old orders, and was not in late touch with headquarters. He had undoubtedly become soured and embittered. What he regarded as a gospel sermon sounded like an invitation to dwell in a land flowing with vinegar, shaded with groves of cayenne pepper, and whose dew and rain were sulfur and brimstone. One thing is certain, that while on the hills of Nineveh he was a poor representative of the Country and King in whose name he came. Alas! the harm done to Christ in the name of Christianity. How some men follow Jehu instead of Jesus. How a fierce, intolerant, raging spirit is impiously and sacrilegiously called the Spirit of God, when it is a frenzy that has been itself "set on fire of hell." The same nature crops out in different ages. The features are unmistakable. It offered strange fire in brazen censers and attacked Moses. It ran the Inquisition in the name of the Son of God. It appeared again in the lives of Bell and Owens who called John Wesley a back number, said he was shorn of power, and finally switched off from the Wesleyan following into an independent movement, got tangled up in every kind of confusion, sank into merited oblivion, and both finally died backslidden in heart and in life. Jonah sitting on the hills waiting for God to burn up Nineveh, and becoming sulky and even angry because He did not do it, is a poor illustrator and declarer of the nature of his God, who so loved a sinful world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for it, and thereby save all who would accept Him from perishing. In like manner the threatener, denouncer and condemner of men, and good men at that, is a poor representative of Christ, unless he can burst into genuine tears when he says, "Your house is left unto you desolate," and after that get up on a cross and die full of love and pardoning mercy. By our fruits men will know us. If we bear thorns they will not call us a fig tree. If we go into the railing and abusive business our letters will all come directed to Mt. Ebal, instead of Mt. Gerizim or Mt. Zion. If we go around distributing lancets and mustard plasters, the world will never confound us with the band who, on a certain hill side, received bread and fish from the Saviour’s hand and then went up and down the ranks of the multitude with food for the body and words of cheer, love and comfort for the soul. God help us to be like Him of whom it is said that He went about doing good, healing the sick, preaching the kingdom of heaven, and delivering all those who were bound and oppressed by the devil. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 02.31. IN A QUICKSAND ======================================================================== Chapter 31 IN A QUICKSAND. A quicksand is a body of matter different in several respects from the pebbly creek-bed or shifting desert. Instead of being a solid resisting substance upon which we can safely walk, it has a treacherous yielding, sinking, sucking-in power which can easily and completely swallow up man, animal and vehicle. The very first syllable, "quick," reveals this trap of Nature under the figure of something that possesses a kind of life. It is indeed like a monster lying with its brown skin and quiet-looking, inviting appearance under the bright sunshine, and actually tempting one to step upon and walk over its surface. He that goes any distance on its area is hopelessly doomed. The deceitful particles seem to open for the reception of the victim; the yellow hands reach up from beneath to pull the horror-stricken wretch down; tawny arms begin to close with tightening, suffocating clasp around the panting, heaving breast; while the saffron face drawing nearer and nearer to the despairing eyes of the doomed creature, blows its own yellow life into the strangling throat, and shakes its yellow hair in triumph over the human head that has just sunk out of sight, forever. In the Bride of Lammermoor. Walter Scott gives a most thrilling and pathetic description of the death of the Master of Ravenswood in a quicksand. Both horse and rider went down a after a fearful struggle for life. By the time the faithful old attendant of the castle reached the place, the tragedy was over, and the murderous Spot or Thing had resumed its smiling calm. As the servant stood in anguish on the border of the marsh, an ostrich plume that had been dislodged from the hat of the struggling victim, and that was too light to sink, and driven by the breeze, came rolling over the sand to the feet of the butler, who picked it up, and placed it in his breast with bitter sobs and tears. It was all that the treacherous moor and left of the master of Ravenswood. We remember once to have read a description of a similar catastrophe which threw a spell of gloom over the mind for hours and days. The article said that a man was strolling on the seashore where long, flat stretches of mud and shells abounded. In picking his way here and there he suddenly discovered from the rapid sinking of his feet that he was in a quicksand. Forgetting where he had entered, his efforts to reach solid ground carried him deeper into the marsh and exhausted his strength at the same time. A human being looking through a glass, from a hill two miles away, saw the dreadful, gradual but certain end. The victim, now to his knees and making violent struggles to extricate his limbs, simply sank all the deeper. When he had gone down to his loins, he realized that his strength was exhausted, and that every effort was futile, even if he had any physical power left. He screamed and waved his hands, but the village was a mile and a half away, and not a soul but himself seemed to be on the shore. Several fishing vessels, with their white sails, were a mile or more out on the bay, but they did not notice him, and had they done so could not have reached him in time. He had sunk to the shoulders and tried laying his arms on the surface of the sand to buoy up the body; but he saw with horror that he still sank. He gave a wild glance about him, saw the distant town, the scattered homes on the sunny hillside, the vessels lazily sailing seaward, the white clouds floating in the blue sky near the horizon, and then, as if the sight of these things and his lonely dying in their presence gave him a burst of strength, he screamed again, and waved his arms. In another moment the sand filled his mouth and covered his eyes. There was a flitting gleam of the white forehead. That disappeared; and then the curly locks of his hair fluttered a moment in the wind, and all was gone. Another instant and a hand appeared above the sand, tried to wave, clutched at the air, and then sank steadily out of view! The sun shone on, the ships sailed seaward, the morning breeze broke the blue waves into white caps, and the quicksand resumed its quiet, harmless looking appearance; but a living being had been sucked into its depths, and an earthly life ended by it forever! Sin is a vast quicksand that is engulfing and destroying not only multitudes but nations. Different sins are bogs pulling individuals down to ruin. Habits founded on appetites and passions are the same treacherous, slippery, enfolding, sucking, deadly conditions that bring about the present and everlasting undoing of men and women. The similarity of these things in certain particulars to this trap of nature is not only startling, but horrible. The man is first led into the evil from ignorance of the deceitfulness and deadliness of sin. He is sure he can get through to the other side; and any way return from where he started if he finds cause for alarm. In this judgment the victim overlooks the growing power of a wrong indulgence, the abnormal craving that comes upon normal desire, the weakening of the whole moral nature by frequent transgression, the deadening of conscience together with the stifling of the voice of the Holy Spirit. He has failed to calculate upon the awful power of habit. And he has forgotten the dreadful indescribable spell, which is called infatuation, and that can be flung by one individual over another. Men can go so far in sin that they cannot get back, because they do not want to come back. They can go so far, and sink so deep, that all faith and hope leave them, and a dreadful, stony despair settles upon the heart and broods visibly upon the face and life. It is a fearful thing to see a man being sucked down to hell by some kind of iniquity. To view him steadily sinking deeper, and going lower as the months roll by. It is dreadful to mark him floundering in his impotent human efforts to escape from the folds, layers and bonds that are increasing and multiplying upon him. It is still more horrible to recognize the look of hopelessness on his face, and then behold him go down into the grave, and into hell before our very eyes. What thoughts fill a man who feels that he is lost and that the devil has him, we may imagine, but none except such an unhappy being can know. All the anguish, desperation and final despair which swept over the heart of the victim in the quick-sand, as he beheld the distant town, the sunny hill-side homes, the ships sailing in the offing, and the sea gulls winging their free, glad flight in the bright morning air! All this agony and more a thousand fold, fills the soul of the being who hopeless, helpless, and in the sight of Bibles, churches, and worshipping congregations realizes that the scarlet arms of Sin are about him strangling him to death, and that the black hands of the devil are pulling him surely and steadily down to the depths of "The Bottomless Abyss. An individual in great agony, in speaking to another about the sin of his life, said: When I am in the presence of the object of my temptation I am like a man flung into a river of chloroform. I become benumbed, deadened and all but helpless. In my fight against the sin, I climb out on the bank toward duty and salvation, weak and trembling, as I have seen a dog pulled shaking and exhausted from a flood of water! I see my only hope is in Christ! Call on Him for me and beg him to have mercy upon and save me!" This was a frightful portrayal, but not overdrawn in many instances who walk our streets and sit by our sides in the home and in the church. The reader will see that while the figure of description is different, yet the idea presented in this chapter is still there. A man sinking in a chloroform sin river is as surely pulled down and destroyed as one engulfed by the yielding substance of that strange, awful bog of Nature, called a quicksand. There is this thought, however, without which every man in transgression would be in despair the instant he realized that he was going down into ruin; and that is, some One is looking at him from the Hills of Heaven who is Almighty to save, willing to save, and able to save unto the uttermost. He who made the sea birds, can fly to our help faster than they, and easily bear the poor, struggling one upon the broad wings of his deliverance. He who walked with ease on Lake Galilee can likewise tread with safety upon the treacherous fatal moor. He who drew Peter out of the waves can pull the worst men out of the soundless bogs of evil. An additional thought of joy is, that unlike the man in the quicksand our cries and signals for help are not in vain. He who said that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the pitiful notice of God, will most surely behold the sinking of an immortal soul as it struggles with the toils and envelopments of appetite, evil habit and blackest iniquity. His eye is upon every such being, and so the instant the hand is raised, the voice lifted and the face is turned to Christ for relief, behold! that moment help, pardon, peace, deliverance and salvation will surely and abundantly come! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 02.32. THE PEACEMAKER ======================================================================== Chapter 32 THE PEACEMAKER. Among the beings who adorn the kingdom of Christ on earth is the Peacemaker. He is well called "blessed" by the Saviour. And this he is in a double sense, in that the life he lives is a blessing to others and reacts in the same way on himself. This character is to be found in different places and planes in life, but, wherever seen, all possess the same beautiful family resemblance. As first evident to the ocular sense the peace-maker is beheld in the effort to bring estranged and separated people together. This is certainly a most heavenly act; and when we see a person so engaged it does not take much imagination to believe that an angel is around, and celestial wings are fanning the air. The malevolent tattler and whisperer will sunder life-long friends; but the peacemaker would and does bring together, whose who had shunned and hated each other for years. It is not in the province of this chapter to tell how the Christ-like work is done; but to rejoice that it is done. The tribe is not large, but this big world would sorely feel the absence of this gentle-voiced, kindly-lipped band who are trying to bring together again, those whom others have divided. Second, the peacemaker is seen in the person who thoughtfully and studiously endeavors to remove trying and exasperating things from the path or life of another. Recently a gentleman asked his wife to go with him in his buggy to the plantation some six miles away. It was a very warm day. The road was dusty, and the woman had a number of pressing duties at home. But without a moment’s hesitation, and with a smiling face, and steady, kindly voice she said "Certainly," and, with a whispered order to a servant to do the best she could in her absence, she took her seat by the husband’s side for a long, hot ride. The quick, gracious act, to the wearied, nervous man, was like a benediction. A restful, pleased look was on his face all the morning, and it had been brought there by the peacemaker at his side. The woman’s countenance was also luminous, as blessed with her unselfish act she observed the happy lines appear on the tired mouth of her husband. Third, the peacemaker is seen in the person who is careful not to repeat disagreeable things, where their narration could do no possible good. We have known people who possessed a most remarkable faculty of dragging into conversation and verbally forcing upon individual and social circle facts or fancies of the most painful, ruffling and distressing nature. Such persons pay a visit simply to unload. And in a talk of a few minutes will repeat enough disagreeable things to drive any but a fully saved and sanctified soul into a perfect fever of annoyance, gloom or profound dejection. Hood, the celebrated English poet, in one of his inimitable compositions tells of a wearied business man going to his home, and that as he sank with a sigh of relief into his easy chair to take the first restful breath in that long day of toil, his wife drew near and began to pour forth an endless tale of domestic trials and woe, and general life mishaps. "The coal was out," "the servant had left," "the butcher and baker had sent exorbitant bills," "the landlord wanted the house," "the baby had fallen down stairs," "a number of country friends were coming to pay a long visit"--etc., etc., etc., concluding at last with the words, "And oh! there’s such a letter come, Inviting you to fight; Of course you won’t, you might get killed, God bless you, dear--Good-night." All of us have acquaintances, and even friends, that after a conversation with them, we feel a grayness begin to settle upon the sky, the heart grows sick and heavy, and we wonder if we have any friends left, while the cemetery seems after all the most attractive place on earth. Just as we have seen a man with an iron hook going around poking and prodding into barrels, boxes and even the refuse in the streets for something with which he is filling the sack on his shoulder; so have we beheld the peacebreaker working, stirring, raking, and hauling up and out to view things that not only religion, but good sense and humanity and decency would let alone. Fourth, the peacemaker is seen in the person who is careful to repeat pleasant, helpful and encouraging things. We have no reference to the conduct of the politician, nor to the compromisers nor to the utterer of "peace, peace, when there is no peace." The character we speak of can have the same contempt, disgust and indignation over sin and wrong doing that is revealed in the Scripture. But filled with a spirit of love, justice and moderation; and also possessing discrimination, wisdom and religious tact, this individual, while silent often about facts that are best left alone, is equally careful to make statements, and repeat the speeches of some about others, that have the effect of lightening the heart, renewing hope and strength, and cheering and brightening the whole life. Even rebuke becomes different when spoken by their lips, and advice has a sweeter taste than was ever dreamed could be, when coming, as it does, contrary to inclination and expectation. Some people always rub the natural grain of temperament the wrong way. They make even the promises of God too hot to hold. We once knew a woman, who while devoted to her husband, kept him in purgatory by the way she tried to please him. One of her favorite caresses was to run her fingers through his hair in a most demoralizing fashion to the mode he preferred it to hang. Then she would remember some distant duty and leave the man’s head looking like a fodder stack. He always had to go to the bureau and comb and brush his locks after one of these performances. The woman is a type of a large class of people whom we all know very well in the religious and irreligious world. They rub the wrong way. What a blessing it is to the home, social circle, church and community, to have in it, individuals who know how to remove and hide unseemly goods and chattels, and bring forward other kinds of verbal furniture that make for peace, happiness and general good will. They are beings who seem to possess a sixth sense and know as by a beautiful instinct how to do and say the right thing, in the right way and at the right time. A lady once said to us, that she did not fancy worldly people, but she did like people of the world. She meant a class of refined, well-bred persons who were never guilty of saying and doing rude, offensive and disagreeable things in the home and social circle. The character we are writing about goes far beyond this, in not being a merely negative figure, but a sweet, positive force of comfort and strength wherever found. We are thankful that many of us can number among our acquaintances and friends, a blessed company of choice spirits whose words of good cheer, and letters of sympathy as encouragement in past days of trial and difficulty, have next to the grace of God, done more for our deliverance, triumph and steadfastness, than any other agency of good that we can recall. They were peacemakers indeed; as their words and counsel, steadied and strengthened us, and kept us from the discouragements and failure which otherwise would have certainly been our portion. Fifth, the peacemaker is beheld once more in the life of one in the experience of full salvation, and whose spirit, conversation and entire influence is to bring men to a complete deliverance from sin, and to the full knowledge, possession and enjoyment of the redemption which Jesus Christ has brought to earth. There is no peace saith God to the wicked. And yet perfect peace is promised to the soul. According to the teaching of the Bible, and confirmed by the personal consciousness of the man himself, perfect peace can only come to the heart cleansed from all sin and filled with the Holy Ghost. Hence it is that the truest and best peacemaker, the one who is such in the highest sense of the word, is the man who is teaching and leading others into full salvation or the blessing of entire sanctification. He will not be regarded as such by the people who have been disturbed in the midst of their sins and idols by his proclamation of the whole counsel of God. He will rather be called a peace breaker. To this term will be added church splitter, agitator, disturber and upsetter. But God nevertheless will call him a peacemaker; and God’s sentences are those that will remain and abide forever. The Prince of Peace was accused of deceiving and dividing the people. The disciples had the same charge laid at their doors. So had Luther and Wesley. And so has every true servant of God who preaches or lives the full Gospel of Jesus Christ. But in the Final Day the false charges shall be lifted by the Lord himself from his abused and slandered followers; and it shall appear as though written in glittering letters of fire, that the so-called peace breakers of earth were, nevertheless, the true peacemakers of Heaven. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 02.33. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE ======================================================================== Chapter 33 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. One of the remarkable facts we are called upon to recognize in life is the strange power exerted by a person or thing upon the human soul. This force affecting in different ways the individual, is called influence. And so under a silent but not less real working of a hidden law, the sight of a flower moves the heart, the song of a bird melts the spirit, and the gleam of the evening star or fading of a sunset sky affects the mind at times beyond words to describe. Other impressions than these are abroad, and more commonly recognized by the world. They are termed social, political and financial influence. Each one differs from another, but all are powerful. To obtain them requires that great prices be paid down in the matter of labor, thought, education, refinement, money, activity and leadership. When we contemplate religious influence, we are brought to the study of the highest form or member of this remarkable family group. For while social, political and financial power are great, spiritual force is greater. The former is for time and earth alone, while the latter has for its realm both this world and the world to come, and for its life and reign, the long sweep of eternity. Religious influence deals with the immortal soul and results in changeless conditions and destinies. He who possesses it, is as genuine a power in the moral and spiritual realm as great financiers are in the business world. The man himself not only knows it, but all others who come in touch with him recognize it. Men may bluster and fret over the fact, but they cannot prevent their conscience from being troubled, their spirit hunger from being aroused, and their lives from feeling rebuked and drawn to duty, through the presence, or under the words and writings of such a man. Because of this power for good upon the souls we should well crave it, who have families and friends to save, and who would turn sinners from darkness to light, and from perdition to salvation. By the term religious influence we refer to genuine spiritual power. Not an approximation, imitation or counterfeit. There are such cheats today passing for the genuine coin of heaven. There are remarkably gifted men who by personal magnetism and commanding psychic forces for which we have no name, can sway and lead people in so-called religious and spiritual lines, that are not religious or spiritual in the true and scriptural sense. There may be tirade, excitement and frenzy in teacher and audience, and yet those who know the Holy Spirit best, feel that he is not there, with his holy, melting, sanctioning and endorsing presence. So by the expression religious influence we mean the genuine article; that real power for good, which proceeding from a man’s lips and life flows forth upon individual, and family circle, and congregation as veritably as a zephyr stealing from the sky touches and stirs a garden of plants and flowers. It is noticeable that a sinner has not a particle of religious influence. He may have social, political and financial ascendency in his community, and this many unregenerated people possess, but he can not have what is known as spiritual power. It is no use for a regular transgressor to take the platform or pulpit and give lectures on morals. His rebukes would be answered with amusement or scorn, and his advice. met with the words, "Physician, heal thyself." It evidently requires some kind of heart and life condition to secure a hearing in the moral realm, and to be obeyed and followed after being heard. Again we notice that a backslider is without this power. Different from the sinner he once possessed and wielded it, but lost his crown and scepter by transgression. Selling his birthright for a mess of red pottage, he finds himself stripped of his former glory, and weak, and even weaker than other men, in the realm of spiritual influence. The fact is that he is regarded with a scorn that is not visited upon the unconverted; for he knew better, had something better, and gave it up and went wrong. He had been washed, but returned to his wallowing in the mire. He had been a Son of the morning, but fell like Lucifer from the skies. Of course we are speaking here of gross backsliding; of grave, deliberate and repeated violations of God’s law resulting in darkness of mind, and emptiness and deadness of soul. All such men discover that when they advise, rebuke and even preach, they seem to be hammering against a perfect wall. The people will not yield, hearts are unbroken and souls remain unsaved. A man of wealth who had backslidden and fallen into gross sin; partly to redeem himself in the eyes of the community, offered to pay all the expenses of a revival meeting in his town. An evangelist and workers were about to come, ignorant of the case, when a committee of citizens waited on them, and said that while the a meeting was needed, yet they would rather do without it than have it brought to them through the soiled hands and life of the man in question. The meeting was not held. Evidently there must be a certain spiritual state and corresponding life, for a man to possess what is called spiritual power. In a word, to have religious influence a man must be religious. He must be genuinely good and live and walk in the Spirit of God. For just as an individual must have money if he would be a power in the financial world, so a man must have spirituality if he would be a spiritual force in the kingdom of morals and religion. This simple and yet reasonable rule serves to explain some very curious things in life that have puzzled the multitude, viz., why men in high places the church fail to reach the people in prayer, song, testimony and sermon; and on the other hand, why people in much humbler positions in the ecclesiastical world, move their hearers every time they stand on their feet and speak, or get on their knees and pray. A man with a deep religious experience is compelled to have spiritual power. We recall a local preacher of uncouth manner and but little education. He had some undesirable notions as to duty, and was undoubtedly a narrow man in a number of respects. But he was a profoundly godly man, and all of his household, including three grown sons, knew it. His family altar worship lasted always an hour. He never prayed less than half hour himself, and there was naturally some squirming and twisting of human bodies in the room. If he had been a mere professor, an empty shell of a Christian, his sons would never have endured this long trial. But he was a devoted man of God, they felt it and were convinced of it, and so they not only stood the long morning service, but every one of the man’s sons and daughters became not only members of the church but devoted followers of Christ. In one of our large Southern cities lived a minister of the Gospel who for fifty years adorned the doctrine of Christ by a holy, consistent life. His countenance beamed with benevolence, his ear was ever open to the tale of distress, and his hand and pocketbook quick to relieve the needy. No one was ever turned away from his home; and for sorrow, want and death to break into another dwelling was to find this man there as the next visitor, to render sympathy, comfort and every practical help in his power. No day was too cold, and no night too dark to keep this servant of God from a place where he felt he could do good and help in some way a human being. He so impressed himself on the town where he lived that he received tributes of respect and reverence from the whole community. He, in a figure, was uplifted to a throne, and sat down upon it with the cordial consent and grateful homage of the entire population. He was in the best sense the leading man in the city. It was noticed that the instant a general trouble, a common affliction occurred, that every eye seemed to turn to this man. The public convocation would be held, and when the noble form and calm, Christ-like face of this man appeared coming up the aisle, everybody seemed to feel relieved, and with a thundering unanimous vote he would be elected to the chairmanship of the gathering. He always opened the meeting with prayer, and then, like a Judge and Patriarch would advise the convention what to do. It was always good counsel, invariably it would be followed, the assembly would adjourn, and God’s servant would return to his house more honored and beloved than ever, and fixed more firmly than before, on that best of earthly thrones, the respect, affection and confidence of the people. He was full of the Christian religion, and most naturally and inevitably overflowed with religious influence. The men who were led to God by him in this country and who learned to love Christ through him in that large community could scarcely be numbered. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 02.34. CUTTING LOOSE FROM EARTH ======================================================================== Chapter 34 CUTTING LOOSE FROM EARTH. This old world has a tremendous way of holding people’s bodies on its surface, and of binding the thoughts, affections and aspirations here as well. It is a mistake to think that Death breaks this strange power. The reluctance of the sinner to leave earth and time is one of the proofs that a certain binding terrestrial law has not been annulled. This orb of clay is the only one the sinner knows anything about, and he leaves it with dread and unwillingness. He had rather a thousand times stay. He goes by the compulsion that is in dissolution. He leaves as did the mandrake, shrieking, when pulled from the ground. He carries the love of this planet away with him in his heart. To break the awful power of this globe, and to make it so that it is easy and pleasant to go, is the work of divine grace in the redemption of Jesus Christ. It is noticeable in a balloon, that to make it leave the earth, and float in the skies, it has to be filled with a substance that must be more than a match for the attraction of gravitation, and for the heavy detaining atmosphere which belongs to this world. In addition to this, certain cords and ropes that bind and hold down the sky machine must be severed; otherwise the inflated silk bag pants, heaves and surges like a thing of life, and, all in vain, as it remains connected with and fettered to the ground. When the last fastening is cut, the balloon rushes into the heavens. So in breaking this world’s power over our souls, God plants in us a new life and love, and we at once feel the skyward pulling in us, and that we have something within us better, purer and stronger than earth itself. But in the face of this fact, we become sensible of certain life cords that in the form of human relations and conditions hold us with a marvellous grip to this planet. To remove the soul suddenly from its abode here, with all these attachments and connections at their strongest and best, would be to make the hour of death awful and frightful indeed. It would be like tearing up an oak without having previously cut a single root. It would be the wrenching of the balloon from its stakes before a solitary rope had been severed. One object of the divine providence, the faithful dealing of God with the soul, is to so bring about, or permit things to happen, that the numerous ties which bind us so effectually and willingly to earth may be cut one by one, so that when the hour of departure to the skies arrives, the going may be an easy, willing and glad one. We have seen so many of these old-time bonds and links broken in some lives, that the solitary cord of duty alone seemed to keep them in our midst. And they appeared to be hungrily waiting for that one remaining fastening to be slipped from the stake, so that they could soar heavenward and homeward. Such people carry a far-away look in their eyes. The sky seems to be outpulling the earth. The cords that bind us to this globe of ours, run in many directions, and are found fastened in numerous places, from the home fireside, and social circle, down to the attachment for a locality, a piece of land, or a bit of sea and sky. One’s love, friendship, trust, business, habits of life, and hope itself furnish the strongest influences to hold and keep a being contentedly or expectantly here in an existence of trial, temptation and sorrow. The future alone, with its unknown possibilities, has held many a man to earth who otherwise would have plunged into the grave and eternity. Truly men are bound closely indeed to this little ball of matter only eight thousand miles thick, and destined at that to a complete overthrow and destruction. But the grace and power of God, and the flight of Time bringing with it the sad, sore experiences of life, can cut every tie of the already heaven-inflated spirit, and cause it to sweep with relief and gladness into the invisible and eternal. One severance in life is that which inevitably takes place in the passing away of early hopes and expectations. The fancies with which we start life are not facts. Air Castles are beautiful to look upon, but we cannot live in them. The charming edifice of the imagination was nothing but fog and cloud, and the cool north wind of a matter of fact world made the gorgeous mental structure tumble to pieces or melt away without a vestige left behind. With this disillusion, one of the first binding charms of earth loses its hold on the soul. A second sundering blow is the cooling and death of certain ardent friendships. Here no actual wrong has been inflicted, but people simply drop you. Their affections are transferred to other persons and objects. No matter how much philosophy or religion may be in the heart of the forsaken, yet such a happening is found to stab to the quick, and somehow by the wound and consequent suffering, the world sheers off and seems to have a looser hold upon the individual. A third sore experience is the betrayal of confidence. To a person who has a proper conception of honor, a confidence reposed in him or her, can not be betrayed without perfidy. The breathing of private griefs and affairs into the ear of a trusted friend, should be kept inviolate, no matter what changes should take place between the confider and the one receiving it. The trust was in its very nature sacred, and eternal. A person who obtains the confidences of another in the unsuspecting intimacy of friendship, and with altered feelings of other years, reveals that which was reposed in him and in his honor, has committed a moral crime before which Perjury itself could lift up its head in conscious superior integrity and dignity. Such an act has the characteristics of the spy, and in all nations the spy is hung. Such a person obtains information through disguises and falsehood, and the judgment by common consent of the world on such conduct is death. There are people who read this chapter who have adversaries today who were friends in other months or years. These enemies have ruthlessly stabbed them with the divulgence of heart and life histories which they secured moment by moment, and word by word in the bright, cloudless days of unsuspecting friendship. These same maligned people have as startling facts in their possession reflecting on their present foes who were once their friends, and yet never even have the temptation to give to the public matters of their private, domestic, and business life. The reason is that they cannot take such a mean revenge. They cannot do a dishonorable thing. They cannot violate the confidence of friendship, even when that friendship is past. They cannot be a spy. Nevertheless when the stab is given in the betrayal of trust, one of the strongest ropes is cut that binds the soul to this world. A positive promise was broken. A sacred confidence was abused. A secret which had been given to another in perfect faith was repeated to a third party, or given to an unfeeling and misunderstanding world. My, how the balloon swings and pulls and tugs skyward, after one of these gross violations of love and honor; and how the soul fastens a deeper, longer gaze upon Him who was denied and betrayed by friends and disciples; but who never Himself was unfaithful and untrue to another. A fourth effective discipline of life is found in the lack of appreciation. It is wonderful how the soul thrives like a sun plant in the light of good will and sympathy. rule is that men and women, like vegetation, do better under sunlight than frost. The home with its genial, loving fireside is better for spiritual improvement and development than the penitentiary with the dark cell. So there are many whose gifts and finest qualities have first been benumbed, and then driven into a Siberian retirement, who under other conditions could and would have made the best members and citizens of our social circles and communities. "Poor little Gerty," the evening star used to seem to say to the beaten, sobbing, neglected, misunderstood child as she lay watching it from her window in the garret. And poor little Gerty it is to many others in this weary world, who in the absence of earthly sympathy and kindness, are driven for comfort to the heavens, and especially to Him who is the King of that country. A fifth blow is felt in ingratitude. Scarcely any stab goes deeper in the heart than to have kindness met with unkindness, benefits with injury, and a life of sacrifice with the most cold-blooded ungratefulness. We are confident from years of observation that it is not the devoted husband who makes the same kind of wife; or vice versa. Nor is it the sacrificing father and mother who are rewarded with appreciative, grateful, obedient children. We have known of parents who denied themselves actual necessaries, were insufficiently clothed, and often went hungry to give their sons and daughters comforts, pleasures, education and even accomplishments, and were regarded with neglect, slight, disobedience and utter thanklessness. We have seen parents who had worked like slaves and pack horses for the good of their households, come to an old age where they were ignored, treated with contempt, elbowed aside, and all but pushed into the cemetery where they were finally only too glad to go. The Bible says of this kind of ingratitude, that it is sharper than a serpent’s tooth. And it is a tooth that cuts in two the thickest of cords which bind one to home and earth, and the balloon fairly surges to be gone. A sixth trial which we take time just to mention, is that of bereavement. How empty the world looks when certain ones we loved take their flight into the heavens. There are many millions of people still left who line the highway, and throng the streets, but very lonely feels the earth after some mounds and hillocks appear in the cemetery, whose sod covers the silent forms of those who were everything in this life to us. Somehow the balloon strains very hard upon the ropes after that, and the days and hours are counted when the signal shall be given, and the lingerer upon the shores of Time shall rush away as upon wings of light to rejoin the company that has preceded him months and years before. The writer knew one of the most gifted preachers of the South, who, when seventy years of age, would take his walking cane and walk out to the cemetery, two miles away from the city. Here he would spend most of the day among the tombs and graves of his household and many of his old-time associates and companions. One day his daughter said to him, "Father, why do you go out so often to the cemetery?" With a gush of tears to his eyes he replied, "I have more friends, my daughter, out there, than I have here in town." The soul was pulling away even then towards the sky. and yet as a child, we had seen him in the glory of his manhood, in the zenith of his matchless pulpit power, with his name spoken in praise and admiration by thousands, while multitudes hung enraptured on his words, and counted it an honor just to touch his hand. At this time he was not only young, handsome, eloquent, gifted and wealthy, but with friends by the hundred, and admirers by the thousand. How he must have loved this earth. How firmly he must have been bound to it. But as the years went by, the cords of the balloon were cut. Every kind of trial and loss and sorrow came into his life. Enemies as well as false friends did their work. Money took wings. Children died. The house got empty. A great company preceded him to the graveyard. By and by he wanted to go. Then he longed to go. One day the last cord was cut, and with a glad cry his soul flashed its way out of his body, and the heavens received him out of sight forever. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 022.35. THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR ======================================================================== Chapter 35 THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. There is something that strangely appeals to mind and heart in the ending of a day. As the sun sinks out of sight, and shadows gathers and men and animals alike forsake the fields and woods and hie them home, there is felt a pathetic power in the scene that the most gifted in language would find difficult to define and describe. A page, if not a chapter, of life has been turned, never to be rewritten. Incidents, experiences, meetings, and partings have taken place that can never be repeated at all in most instances, or if gone over again, never as before. Some years ago we sat on the brow of a mountain and saw the sun go down. For minutes it hung suspended over the horizon, a great scarlet globe, then slowly sank in an opaline west. That departed day has been recalled an hundred times to memory since then. We never think of that sinking sun, or behold one like it, but a favorite song called "Goodbye, Sweet Day" comes to mind with the recollection of that evening, and all that appeals to mind and heart in the fact of a day forever gone. If the termination of a day affects the spirit, how much more solemnly and profoundly should we be moved at the sight of the close or death of the year. A day is but a chapter of life, while a year is a volume. With some reason we may expect a number of chapters, but with what right can we count on many volumes! There may be many of the former, but necessarily there can only be a few of the latter. One thousand and ninety-five chapters, after all, meant but three volumes of life. One-third of the human race never reach the tenth volume. Countless millions never complete the first. So, as the year closes now in a few days, and some prepare to place the completed volume in their individual Library of Existence beside its earlier published companion books, and mark the number with the figures 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50, the thought may well and profitably fill the mind, "Shall I add yet another? or is this the last?" What kind of a book have we made out of this present number? How does it compare with the others? Is it better, or is it worse in appearance and contents? Some of the chapters we doubt not are much tear-stained. One or more has a black border all around, showing that Death has entered the home. One speaks very dejectedly of a certain sunset; another as rapturously about a sunrise. Several tell of the cooling of friendships, and the decay of a love that was thought to be eternal. One with many blots and the unmistakable mark of blistering tears, dwells upon a betrayal of trust. Surely there can be no more fascinating book to read than one of the volumes we have just mentioned. And all are invested with a certain sad interest when we come to the completion of the last page and sentence, and the finished work is placed on a shelf in the Library of the Universe. It is now a production to be referred to in many coming days, to be remembered at a dying hour, and to hear read aloud in full at the Judgment Day of Christ. Tennyson recognizes the musing melancholy of this time in the words: "I stood pensively, As one who from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, And the old year is dead." A part of the sadness which comes to the thoughtful mind over the close of the year, arises from the recollection of certain mistakes and failures made in this period of one’s life. It is perfectly natural for the pastor, evangelist, Christian worker, and every one indeed, who has been faithfully serving God, and achieving blessed results for heaven, to overlook their actually large success, and instead, to dwell with pain on the blunders and shortcomings which took place here and there in their labors and battles for righteousness and salvation. How differently we would act, we say to ourselves if we could go over the same way again. And we doubt not that with the painful light and knowledge which experience brings, there would be with many, a wiser course and more successful life. It may well be asked, that if such desires and resolutions, such amendments of judgment and conduct have been occasioned by these mortifying circumstances, then has not the soul secured a victory after all from the very jaws of defeat; while through the mistakes made, a strange, sad, yet most powerful education has been received, through the blessing and overruling power of God. Some one has said that we all see life like one riding backward in a carriage. The objects on the road are beheld and recognized only after they are passed. In like manner the real crises of one’s existence, the great opportunities, the times for certain speech and action, have in their momentous and weighty nature passed by before our minds and hearts seemed to take hold of the situation. Some of us, through lack of mental quickness, and by reason of disadvantages of many kinds, appear to be riding backward. We see the duty too late. We get sense on certain subjects after the hour the speech should have been delivered has gone. We see what we ought to have done to and for certain people, after they have departed from us and are out of our lives forever. Will not this fact count some in the Day of Judgment, that we had a back seat in the carriage? Then, does not God know that we knew nothing to start on? and so had everything to learn? In view of these facts it verily looks like men’s errors of judgment, and shortage of the best performance of what they desired and tried to do, might secure for them a kindlier consideration and treatment than is the usual fashion of the world to accord to its inhabitants. Nevertheless, with all this, the regret remains in the breast with very many who are not intellectually and spiritually dead, that they did not speak and do the best in everything, in the year that is just closing with them forever. Again, there is a sorrow felt over the departing year in the contemplation of the losses that have befallen us in that time. They are many, and run from mere disappointment in plan and labors to the going out from us and out of our lives of those whom we would gladly have bound to us with changeless ties of friendship, affection and association forever. These last experiences refer not only to bereavement, the empty room, the gap in the home circle, and the vacant chair in our midst, to which it looks like we can never grow accustomed; but to the losing of those who were once warm friends and loved us, and then grew cold, fell away and became either indifferent or open enemies. David felt this pang in connection with Ahithophel, and breathes out his sorrow over the matter in one of his Psalms. Samuel seemed to bear a lifetime affliction over the heart defection and life and character fall of Saul. The Lord had to ask him once, as if to arouse him from his grief, "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him?" It matters not how we lose our friends, whether they of their own choice leave us; or are stolen from us by untruthful lips; or go back to the world and into sin and forsake us; or whether through our faithfulness to Christ they give up our company and go no more with us. Yet the pain of the loss is felt, and memory abides, and the old love will not die. So the closing of the year to the thoughtful mind, and to the soul possessed with any measure of sensibility is a time and experience not to be regarded lightly, but as a very precious, sacred and solemn thing. It is as if one had come down to a vessel’s side which was about to sail away with his treasures and with friends and loved ones whom he would likely never see again. An English poet filled with this thought and feeling, once wrote: "I did so laugh and cry with you, I’ve half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die." The Christian standing by the departing year can think and write and say nobler and better things than this, although the three lines are very natural, and somehow appeal to the heart. We can say that the present volume is closed, but please God the next one shall be far better in every respect than its predecessors. The old year is going or gone, but the Saviour being our helper, the new year shall behold us enduring patiently suffering joyously, praying more, working harder, and living closer to Heaven than any other time we have ever known. The ship is about to sail away, but God assisting and keeping us we will come to the heavenly country at last to which the vessel is going. As we have bidden farewell to friends and loved ones on this shore, and seen them fade away into eternity; even so one of these days, it may be this very New Year, they over there will greet us with waving hands and shining faces and happy hearts, as leaving this world of sorrow and death, we drop anchor and land in that country where the King loves us, and where many have longed for our coming, and from which happy, blissful, blessed shore we will go away no more forever. O that beautiful land! The far away home of the soul! Where no storms ever beat On the glittering strand, While the years of eternity roll. * * * * * * * THE END ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 03.00. A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE ======================================================================== A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE By Beverly Carradine In this 43 chapter work, Carradine (Nazarene) recounts his trip to Palestine. CONTENTS Chapter 1 The Departure. Chapter 2 New York And Vicinity. Chapter 3 The Ocean Voyage. Chapter 4 Liverpool -- Ayre In Scotland. Chapter 5 Scottish Lakes And Mountains. Chapter 6 Stirling, Bannockburn, And Edinburg. Chapter 7 Melrose And Abbotsford. Chapter 8 In England -- Warwick -- Kenilworth -- Stratford – Oxford. Chapter 9 London -- Spurgeon -- Dr. Parker -- St. Paul’s Cathedral Chapter 10 London -- Gray’s Country Church Yard. Chapter 11 The English People – London. Chapter 12 Paris. Chapter 13 Paris. Chapter 14 The Rhine. Chapter 15 Baden And Switzerland. Chapter 16 Venice. Chapter 17 Venice. Chapter 18 Rome. Chapter 19 Naples. Chapter 20 Pompeii And Mt. Vesuvius. Chapter 21 The Mediterranean Sea – Egypt. Chapter 22 In Egypt -- The Pyramids. Chapter 23 Palestine -- Jaffa – Jerusalem. Chapter 24 Jerusalem. Chapter 25 Jerusalem. Chapter 26 Mt. Calvary. Chapter 27 Gethsemane Temple Place. Chapter 28 The Debris -- The Churches. Chapter 29 Jaffa Gate -- Wailing Place -- Mt. Olivet – Bethany. Chapter 30 Wilderness Of Judea -- Dead Sea -- River Jordan. Chapter 31 Gilgal -- Jericho -- Jericho Road. Chapter 32 Bethlehem. Chapter 33 Damascus Road -- Bethel -- Shiloh -- Jacob’s Well -- Mt. Gerizim. Chapter 34 Samaria -- Plain Of Sharon. Chapter 35 Lake Galilee. Chapter 36 Mt. Of Beatitudes -- Mt. Tabor – Cana. Chapter 37 Nazareth. Chapter 38 Moslemism -- Plain Of Sharon. Chapter 39 Scenes On The Plain Of Sharon. Chapter 40 Customs In Palestine. Chapter 41 Palestine As A Mission Field. Chapter 42 Guides. Chapter 43 The Return Trip. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 03.01. THE DEPARTURE ======================================================================== Chapter 1 The Departure. -- The Pullman Palace Car -- Southern Rivers And Slavery Songs – Central Depots -- Ohio City of Cleveland -- Mt. Vernon -- The Silver Key -- The Hudson. For many years I have desired to visit the Holy Land. While I realized the omnipresence of the Saviour, and that He was not to be confined to Jerusalem or Mt. Gerizim, and that His gracious presence made all places sacred, yet still the desire remained in the heart to see the earthly city of our God, and to tread the paths, ascend the slopes, and to stand in the places forever made peculiarly and tenderly sacred by the footsteps, and voice, and presence of Jesus, the Son of God. By a combination of providential circumstances the trip was made possible; and so, on Monday evening, June 23, 1890, I found myself bidding farewell to a band of friends who accompanied me to the cars to say God-speed at the beginning of a journey to last four months. When Paul was "accompanied to the ship" by his friends, he was consigned to wind and wave and many perils; but the writer was left in the midst of all the conveniences and luxuries of a Pullman palace car. Cushioned seats; and mirrors reflecting at every angle; a snowy aproned attendant awaiting orders; and an electric bell to summon him. These were some of the contrasting features that served to humble the writer as he recalled the much suffering apostle. After a little time an inviting supper-table, with spotless cloth and shining silverware, is placed before the traveler, who, in spite of hunger, gives most of his observation to the flying scene outside the car window. Later on a pleasant bed takes the place of the table, and the utter dissimilarity to the Pauline experience is established. Surely, we say, the centuries are different, and the treatment of the preachers is different, and the life of a bloated bondholder is today fairly thrust upon the humble traveler. But, softly, let us not go so fast. "Things," said the poet, "are not always what they seem." The bill of fare is anything but a fair bill when the time of settlement comes. As for the bed, curtained as it was, in darkness it proved a stronghold for the mosquitoes that arose at once and claimed the occupant for their own. Rendered desperate by their attacks, the writer raised the car window, when, in ten minutes, he was reduced to the condition of Pompeii, being covered with ashes and cinders from the Vesuvian locomotive. Let us now touch the electric bell, and bring the aproned servant to our relief. But he heeds not the touch. We ring again and again; but, according to Tennyson’s "Mariana," "’He cometh not’, she said." He never did come. We saw and heard others ring for him; but he never responded. If there is anything in the world a Negro hates, it is a bell. Let the ladies speak awhile to this point. The electric bell in the Pullman is an innocent affair, a child-amuser, and a pretty toy; but for the purpose for which it was constructed, it is an utter failure and an useless appendage. Just a word more about this flying palace, and we leave it. The eggs gave out in Southern Alabama, the tomatoes in North Alabama, the ice was exhausted in Tennessee, and the lemons all departed in Kentucky. "Things are not what they seem," said Longfellow. The names of our Southern rivers, as I have crossed the streams one by one, bring back to memory a number of what were called "slavery songs." The Tombigbee, the Tennessee, the Kentucky, and the Ohio each recalled one or more of these peculiarly pathetic melodies. A frequently recurring expression in them was "’Way down." ’Way down upon such a river;’ way down in such a State. Then came the words, "Toiling in the cotton and the cane." There were heartbreaking pictures of separated husbands and wives, and parted parents and children. A child is stolen from its Virginia home; a wife is carried "to Georgia to wear her life away;" a husband languishes in bondage "from the old Kentucky home, far away." The Tennessee, the Ohio, the Suwanee, and other rivers, through the power of song, were made in their meandering to become frames of pictures of unutterable pathos and beauty. The balls and bayonets of 1861-’65 tore away the living painting, but the frames are still left; and I can never look at their pebbly edges and willow margins without thinking of the pictures which they once encased. As a child -- although my father was a slave-owner -- my eyes were often moistened under the influence of these songs of slavery. But my eyes were not the only ones that were wet. Tears dripped in many States and lands. And these tears meant revolution and deliverance; for when you see thousands of people grieving over a state of things, that means a coming social or moral upheaval; and when a nation gets to singing about its troubles, the day of redemption is nigh. When the Marseilles hymn leaped from lip to lip, and, we might say, flowed from eye to eye, a nation awoke from its long slumber and sprang into freedom. I a m convinced that Song is one of God’s mightiest agencies for the effecting of His purposes, and I feel assured as well, that the songs of slavery, or the Negro melodies did as much, if not more, than speech or book, for the preparing of the people for emancipation. As I have studied the grand central depots that constitute one of the remarkable features of our large cities, I am more than ever impressed that there is one of the great needs of New Orleans. I know nothing that more impresses a traveler than the focalized travel and business seen at a great central depot. The constant arrival of trains from different quarters of the country, the roar of vehicles, the rush of constantly changing crowds of people, will advertise the city in the most forcible of ways. The Niagara distributed into twenty different channels would hardly be worth visiting; but the Niagara thundering away at one place attracts the nations. Let New Orleans gather up her railroad streamlets and pour them into her corporate lines, in the form of one great Niagara of a central depot. She will never regret it. Crossing the State of Ohio, diagonally, to Cleveland on its northern edge, we were struck with the fact that we were never a single minute out of the limits of a field of wheat. The forms of Beauty and Prosperity were never out of sight in that wonderful State. It is a nation in itself. The country approximates my conception of English scenery. There are vast expanses of gently undulating table-land. The crops are diversified, and, by their different colors, give a new charm to the landscape. The well-kept fences; the neatly-trimmed hedges, the cosy country homes, buried in orchards, or fronting spacious grassy lawns, and here and there spires or a belfry peeping above a distant line of trees, declaring the presence of town or village -- all combined to bring England constantly to mind. The city of Cleveland, situated beautifully, imposingly and advantageously by that inland sea, Lake Erie, is destined to municipal greatness of the first order. Ten miles away, as we approached over the level fields, we saw a vast cloud hovering over it. It proved to be the smoke of her multitudinous factories. I am reminded here, that at a point south of Cleveland, several years ago, I deflected from my course on a Northern trip and looked in on Washington City and Mt. Vernon. The day before I started the dentist extracted an aching tooth. In some way I contracted cold in the lacerated spot and went North with the cup of physical woe full to overflowing. In company with twenty or eighty others, I took the steamer that drops down the Potomac every morning from Washington to Mt. Vernon, twenty miles away. Of all the people that ever visited the place, I think that I bore the most appropriate countenance. A pain that looked like the deepest sorrow was written on every lineament of the face. At the landing we lined up the steep hill to the well-known tomb of Washington. One corpulent lady, just ahead of me, said in a loud voice, in the midst of her labored breathing, "Well, here is George at last!" I have smiled often since at this occurrence, but did not then. I knew but one thing, remembered but one word, and that thing and word was, Pain! And I looked at the tomb of the "Father of His Country" with an agonized expression of countenance that was altogether misunderstood by the people around me, and, doubtless, obtained great credit for me in their minds. They thought I was taking the death of Washington very much to heart, or, perhaps, they supposed I might just have heard he was dead! In making preparation for a distant Journey, after having strapped and marked the baggage, changed greenbacks into circular notes, and armed yourself with a passport, I hear much of the need of carrying along a small silver key. It unlocks no trunk or valise, but opens things of far more delicate character and difficult management. It is said there is no escape from this necessity. The key has to be obtained, carried along, and frequently used. The prince in the Arabian Nights had something of the kind, and closed doors flew open, and what seemed to be blank walls suddenly disappeared at the head of flowery avenues. The shut door and the blank, expressionless wall is one of the great troubles of the traveler. The silver key opens the one, and causes the wall to be full of expression, or, better still, to become a line of beautiful arches through which one passes unchallenged and even welcomed. I greatly desired to be on the right side of the car as we rushed down the eastern bank of the Hudson River. From this, coveted side you have a view of the river with its ship-sprinkled surface and city-dotted banks, ravishing to behold. Approaching a certain official with the request that I might be accommodated with a seat commanding this quarter of the landscape, I was made to feel that I stood in the presence of an American sphinx. But suddenly I remembered the silver key, and approaching another railroad employee, I inserted the wonderful little instrument, with the request that my seat might be changed. The transformation was marvellous, the sphinx melted away and left a smiling brother after the flesh. He looked upon me affectionately, he seemed to yearn over me -- he changed my seat to the riverside of the car. (I understand that in the far East, that instead of silver, a copper key is used, with like remarkable results.) So I had the pleasure of coming down from Albany to New York on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. What a panorama of beauty it presents to the fascinated eye! How History, and Fiction, and Legend, and Poetry, and great characters and lovely scenery all come down together to its banks and wave their hands in greeting to the passing traveler. Westward, some ten or fifteen miles away, tower, like a dark-blue thundercloud in the heavens, the Catskill Mountains. On the very top gleams the palace-like front of a great summer hotel that can be seen twenty miles away. Still further away to the south is a distant range of mountains, the wavy outline of whose summit makes a perfect representation of a recumbent man. Think of a human figure outlined on the sky for fifteen miles. It looks corpselike, while the mountains serve as the bier. The face, cold, grey, upturned to the sky, is to me like that of Washington. Beautiful and palatial homes are sprinkled on both shores; while the towns and cities, descending from heights to water’s edge, present, both day and night, a most striking appearance. The river itself is dotted all along its length with shipping and pleasure boats. The question arises in me, can the Rhine be any lovelier? Yonder, on the right, at Newburgh, where you see the United States flag floating over an ancient-looking building, was Washington’s headquarters. Lower down the river, on the western side, nestles West Point, the cradle of our military greatness. Washington himself selected the spot. It is certainly lovely and commanding. The buildings and grounds are on a plateau half way up the tall bluff that faces the river. Further down still is Stony Point, which, if my historical memory is not at fault, was taken from the British by Gen. Wayne in a night assault. Up those rocky sides our men climbed and swept all before them. Strangely, there comes to my mind a verse, suggested by this incident of war. Let, the young reader stop and memorize this stanza of a famous poet: "The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night." Near this point Washington flung an iron chain across the river to stop the English fleet. They broke it easily, and called it "the American pumpkin vine." A little further down, on the eastern bank, we pass in a few yards of the place where Arnold and Major Andre had their midnight interview in regard to the surrender of West Point. How they whispered here in these dark woods together. No one heard them; and yet all the world knows today of that guilty midnight conference of wickedness. The leaves overhead sighed over the treachery; The boughs of the trees wrung and tossed their hands in horror, and flung the dark secret to the waves at their feet, and they, the waves, sped away with the history of the act to an astounded nation. So truly did the night-whisper of Judas and the priests become a mighty voice that has filled the world. They thought no one would ever know of a thing whispered in the night! Here was a double guard or wall -- a whisper and the night! They forgot that Jesus said, "There is nothing hid but shall be known." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 03.02. NEW YORK AND VICINITY ======================================================================== Chapter 2 Danger of Foreign Travel to the Preacher. -- Sunday In New York -- Dr. Lyman Abbot -- Salvation Army -- Money Question -- Death of the Innocents -- Riverside Park -- Sleepy Hollow -- The Grave of Irving -- Site of Major Andre’s Capture -- Sunnyside. It is unquestionably a risky thing for a preacher to travel abroad. I allude not to physical peril, for statistics inform us that more people and killed and hurt at home than in traveling. I was thinking of another kind of danger altogether, the fact of impaired or destroyed usefulness. It has been noticed that in many cases foreign travel has led to the undoing of the preacher. The man beloved of the congregation who goes abroad never comes back. Some one else returns who bears a resemblance to him -- but he is not the same. Or if he returns he brings Europe and Asia with him, and from this time on we deal with a foreigner and are kept busy looking at panoramas of the old world. The man’s conversation is changed. Everything now reminds him of what happened in Rome or Venice. Every address or sermon is characterized by such expressions as, One evening while standing on the Bridge of Sighs -- or, One morning while resting in the shadow of the Pyramids, and so on endlessly. The preaching becomes changed; the temple of Solomon is in a measure obscured or eclipsed by the Colosseum of Rome; Mt. Calvary disappears and Mount Blanc heaves in sight with its glaciers and avalanches. The Gospel is snowed under or covered with the sands of oriental deserts. The social life is altered. The blandest of men after crossing the Atlantic become intolerant. Willing, before he crossed the ocean, to listen; after this performance he monopolizes every conversation. A large dinner-party is brought to dead silence, while a question flung along the whole length of the table about some trifling date or name of place, secures the wandering attention of the guests and permits the interrupter to take another -- perhaps the ten thousandth -- voyage back to the old world where many of his tired listeners devoutly wish he had remained. The reader begins to see something of the peril alluded to in the opening sentence. Am I not right when I ask his best wishes to go out for me that I may return as I left, an unassuming man and willing to accord to my fellow-creatures perfect liberty of speech, and that in my sermons no Caesar shall take the place of Scriptural characters, and that Calvary, "lovely, mournful Calvary," shall continue to tower above the Himalayas and hide the Alps, and be seen and felt in its beauty and power in the substance of every conversation, in the heart of every prayer, and in the soul of every sermon until the end of life? I have reached the city of New York. The Sabbath is better observed in many respects than in New Orleans. There are more outward decencies, although it is far from being what it should. On side streets I saw many store doors open, and from my lofty seat on the elevated railway, as I went to church, I looked in through third and fourth-story windows upon scores and hundreds of operatives hard at work in shirt-making and tailoring establishments. My heart bled for them as I watched their stooping forms and pale faces. I went over to Brooklyn to hear Dr. Talmage, but learned that he was absent on his summer vacation. What a kind congregation he has! -- a trip to the Holy Land, and than a vacation granted upon the top of that. From the deserted preaching-place of Dr. Talmage I walked down to Plymouth Tabernacle, Dr. Beecher’s famous church. I discovered, to my surprise, that the auditorium was very little larger than my own at the Carondelet Street Church in New Orleans. There were cane seats attached to the end of each pew that let down, would have filled the aisles and increased by several hundred the seating capacity of the building; but they were not in use. The chair wings were all folded neatly against the sides of the pews awaiting the step and voice of another pulpit giant before spreading themselves once more upon the air. The pulpit is made of olive wood brought from Palestine. The organ nearly touches the ceiling. The choir was composed of forty voices. Dr. Abbott and the assistant, at half-past ten, stepped upon the platform and confronted a four-fifths audience. The assistant pastor prayed the opening prayer in the never-to-be-forgotten theological seminary accent. He asked the Divine being to awaken the purity and holiness that lay dormant within us all! Dr. Abbott is a man of about sixty years, slender, medium height, grizzled beard, narrow face and high forehead. His text was from the Revised Version, "In his temple doth every one say glory." He said that Nature was the temple referred to here. The discourse treated of Nature, and was a preparation of the congregation for the summer vacation. Dr. Abbott impresses you agreeably, but not overwhelmingly; he was scholarly, but not eloquent, while his pulpit movements are angular -- not to say stiff. He labors also under this disadvantage, that the very memory of his illustrious predecessor fills the building, and as constantly, by swift mental comparisons, dwarfs the present incumbent. He made a number of capital points. Said there were two ways of approaching Nature; one with the critical, analytical eye, and the other in which the form and life of the Great Father was sought after. When, in summing up this thought, he said that when a man pressed his wife to his heart, that at such a time he never thought of the bivalvular action of the heart or circulation of the blood, I saw that he had his audience. In the evening I waited on the ministrations of a young Baptist minister. The sermon was mainly an apology for taking a summer vacation; said topic not being without its interest to a Jonah fleeing from pastoral duty, who sat unknown before him. When he defined to the audience the multifarious labors of a preacher, he opened certainly some of their eyes. He mentioned, humorously, a department of labor described by the term Special Requests, well known to every minister. A few days before he had been written to from the West to ship a gentleman a hound by express; and a few days before that came from a distant State a request to please hunt up a stray lunatic on the streets of New York. The writer listened with a wondrous fellow-feeling, and knew that he could tell things of a certain nature on that line that would in no wise lower the interest, but rather deepen the surprise of the hour. The young preacher’s power I soon discovered to be his deep love and sympathy for man, his burning earnestness, an d the fact that he held up before the people a living Christ. Monday night I visited one of the two places of worship of the Salvation Army. It was a rough wooden structure, appearing, as they doubtless intended that it should, like a barracks. A detachment of ten occupied the platform, composed of two women, six men, a boy and a Negro. The orchestra, so to speak, was made up of a piano, bass-drum, two tambourines, and clapping of hands together with the singing of the detachment. The meeting was presided over and led by a sweet-faced, black-eyed young woman who wore a black dress and a dark straw Quaker bonnet, over the top of which and coming down the sides was a broad red ribbon. She was a woman of manifest piety, showed marks of a fair education, and in the conduct of the meeting evinced herself full of resources. The audience was made up of different classes some being there evidently from curiosity; but under the earnest words of the leader and the martial-like melody of the hymns all were measurably affected. I had little conception until that night of how pleasantly such dissimilar instruments, as s piano, bass-drum and tambourine, could be made to agree. The church money question I find to be universal. Let no heart-sick pastor at home, wrestling with the problem of church finance, feel that his difficulty is peculiar to himself and his people. In the walls of the wealthy Plymouth Tabernacle I heard Dr. Abbott request his deacons to post themselves at the doors, and, basket in hand, to receive the collection that had been overlooked in the regular order of service. Then I heard one of these same deacons say to another, "That is right; let no one escape." As they spoke thus, it seemed to me that I was listening, as in a dream, to the utterances of Methodist stewards. At the Salvation Army barracks the leader announced a collection, and urged all present to give. Again my foot seemed to press my native heath. Sabbath night the Baptist preacher pressed upon his large audience the necessity of putting certain moneys, in certain envelopes, and so doing through the entire summer; that a great strain and pressure of the financial kind was now being experienced by the church. As he said this I immediately felt at home! Nothing that he could have said, even to the calling of my name, could have made me feel so perfectly at ease, and invested my surroundings with such a delightfully familiar air. Just now, in this heated spell, disease, like Herod of old, is hewing down the children of the poor classes from three years old and downward. Three hundred often in a week. One week saw five hundred white ribbons streaming from as many doors. As I sped along the elevated road one evening I saw a mother with her sick baby on the flat roof of a tenement-house in the crowded quarter. There she was, evidently, to give the poor little dying one a breath of fresh, pure air. My heart melted at the sight. Riverside Park is situated in the north-western part of the city, upon a high bluff overlooking the Hudson river, and commanding a view, up and down, of that animated stream for many miles. The park is treeless, save where the brow of the hill overlooks the river, but it is beautifully swarded. From its center arises the tomb of Gen. Grant. There the dead warrior lies in state, guarded day and night by two policemen. The whole scene -- the tomb remote from habitation of the living and the dead, the solitary coffin visible through the iron grating, the distant ships on the river, and the still more distant line of mountains -- formed a picture of loneliness striking to the mind, and ineradicable. Certainly it seems that one of the prices of greatness, or even prominence, in this world is loneliness. The higher men rise the lonelier they become, and the solitariness follows even in death. The question arose in my mind, Was this a great man lying before me? Was this life an accomplishment or an accident? Central Park is a rare stretch of physical loveliness. Two miles and a half long, and a half mile wide, with serpentine roads unfolding like silver ribbons through the trees, and with charming paths leading anywhere, everywhere, and suddenly bringing you into unexpected places of beauty, of cavern, glade, or lake side, you are constantly interested and charmed at every step. They have in the center of the park the obelisk brought thither Rome years ago from Egypt; but to my eye it was as much out of place as the helmet of Richard Coeur de Lion would be on the head of a dry goods clerk. That which most impressed me was that part of the park which has been trained to look like the forests of nature. Fully two hundred acres is, like a sylvan glade or deep tangled wild-wood. The eye and heart fairly luxuriates on the scene. I thought, as I looked, that when men desire to give us things worth the seeing and worth the having, they have to go to God’s works for a model. They obtained Gothic architecture by studying the splintered summits of the mountains. If they wanted an enduring arch, they fashioned one after the human skull. If they wanted a lighthouse that would withstand all the storms, they took the trunk of a tree for a model. And if they desired to delight the eye with a perfection of physical beauty in our parks, they did it not with avenue and colonnade, but by giving us in confused and yet delightful assemblage of rock, crag, leaping waterfall, glen and dark woods, a perfect representation of the Almighty’s works in nature. Sleepy Hollow, the site of the famous legend of Washington Irving, is located about a mile from Tarrytown, and Tarrytown itself is situated about twenty-five miles above New York, on the Hudson. Sleepy Hollow, opening on the Hudson and running up the hills, is shaped like a curved horn or trumpet. In the broadest part, which is a few hundred yards wide and not far from the river, is the old church and bridge, by which and over which Ichabod Crane dashed in his endeavor to escape from the headless horseman. The church, which is a venerable structure of brick and stone and measures about thirty by forty feet, bears the hoary date of 1699. Just above the church is the dark clump of trees from which suddenly emerged the midnight spectral horseman. As I looked at the places of which I had read frequently as a boy, it was hard to tell which were more real to me, the author of the legends or the creature of the author’s imagination, Irving or Ichabod Crane. Such is the wonderful power of Genius. It makes new worlds, fills them with new people who from that moment become as lifelike as characters of history, indeed, in a sense even more, for the historical personage dies, but the character of fiction cannot be buried -- he always seems alive. There is an old graveyard in Sleepy Hollow that runs from the ancient church up the northern slope of the valley. In the center of this cemetery and commanding a view of the "Hollow" and the Hudson River beyond, is the burial place of Irving. It seems to me for several reasons to be the proper spot for his last resting-place. It is not far from his home, it is in the midst of scenes made classic by his pen, and it is a place of great natural beauty as well. The marble slab at the head of the grave is not over three feet in height, but a large oak and beech blend their protecting shadows over the mound and give grace and character to the spot. I plucked a couple of daisies from near the grave as a memento of the man whose writings contributed so much delight to me in the days of my boyhood. It occurred to me as I left the place that "Sleepy Hollow" was a good name for a cemetery. Major Andre was captured on the high road that runs on the crest of the Hudson River hills towards New York city. The arrest took place a mile north of Tarrytown. Since that time the town has not tarried, but gone forward until it surrounds the place of capture. Five or six handsome residences today look down upon the little valley in which over a hundred years ago the unhappy young English officer was halted by the cowboys. Standing by the monument that is erected to their honor on the identical spot of arrest, I could easily recall the scene. The densely shaded road, the sloping descent of the same, the musing fire of the horseman, and the sudden rushing out of the woods upon him of his captors. They are now called and lauded as patriots, but at the time of the capture they doubtless had no higher object than the purse of the stranger. The scene that, followed of the examination of Andre’s person appears in bas-relief upon the monument. I was set to thinking by the guide’s explanation of the word Tarrytown. He said that long ago the farmers used to visit the village, and drank so deep and drank so long, and so protracted their stay from home, that the good wives called the place Tarrytown. O the Tarrytowns in the land! Three or four miles south of the last named place is Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving. The house is a two-story stone building abounding in old-style gables. You reach it by a road descending from the high road on the hills and leading through a wild and beautiful glen. The house is on a plateau fifty feet above the Hudson, with the wooded hills towering in the rear. The side of the house is turned to the river, but from the gallery, that is touched by the lawn and shaded by a number of old trees, there is a commanding view up and down the Hudson for many miles that could hardly be surpassed for loveliness. A large Newfoundland dog was walking about under the trees, with occasional meditative stops and glances into the far distance. From his dignified bearing you could tell that he felt he was well descended, or realized perfectly the honor and attention bestowed by the public upon the house over which he stood as a kind of guard and protector. A nurse and two handsomely-dressed children in a distant part of the grounds gave a coloring of life to a picture, which otherwise would have been mournful in its loneliness. As I glanced at the ivy-clad house, drank in the quiet beauty of the place, where smooth sward and lofty trees and hedges and stonewall all harmonized in a pleasing manner; and as I then turned and looked on the sail-besprinkled Rhine of America flowing past, and at the mountains in the far distance, I could understand why Irving wrote, and how he could write. With the mountains voicing thoughts of eternity, the flowing river speaking of time, the bending forest whispering the secrets of nature, and all the beauties and solemnities of distant landscapes arousing the soul to appreciation and reflection -- the mind must have been quickened, the heart must have been made to glow, and the pen was bound to move. It would have been wonderful if he had not written. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 03.03. THE OCEAN VOYAGE ======================================================================== Chapter 3 The Ship’s Departure. -- The Weather -- Seasickness-- Prominent People On Board -- The Man Dr. Talmage Baptized in the Jordan -- The Escaped Nun -- Service at Sea -- Fassnett Rock -- Coast of Ireland. From time immemorial it seems to have been the custom for an individual, in departing on a long sea voyage, either to burst out into spontaneous poesy, or, next best, to indulge in liberal quotations from the poets about the sea. Byron is most frequently called upon to assist the young navigator in relieving the soul of its pent-up emotions; while the great poet himself, on leaving England, cries out in rhyme: "’Tis done! and shiv’ring in the gale, The bark unfurls her snowy sail!" Can any one tell me what the poets mean by "’tis done"? They all use the expression, and use it often. But whether it heads a sonnet or poem of majestic length, the reader is always left to wonder and guess at the condition hidden back of this most indefinite phrase. "’Tis done!" I cried last Wednesday evening of July second. But my "’tis done!" was no mystery, but meant that I had paid down sixty dollars for the privilege of sleeping in a box six feet long and something over a foot wide for ten days, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. At half-past four of the afternoon above mentioned, the steamer Bothnia, of the Cunard Line, with three hundred passengers in the saloon, fifty in the second cabin, and one hundred in the steerage, swept out to sea. The scene at parting was striking in every respect; the smoking monster moved uneasily at her moorings, as if chafing and anxious to encounter the ocean’s waves. There were final business transactions, the last freight rushed in, the late passenger, the chattering throng, the cries of cabmen, and the shouts of sailors. Above all, there were the farewells; some full of laughter and merriment, while others were tearful, and still others were of such a nature that I felt my own eyes filling through sympathy. The pier was crowded with friends of the travelers, and spectators of the departure; and as the steamer swung off and away into the midstream of North River, with prow pointing to the bay, the pier became a snow-bank of waving handkerchiefs, answered instantly by a long line of white from the side of the vessel. And so they waved until distance blurred and then blotted them from the sight. Down we dropped into the bay, crowded with shipping; past Governor’s Island, with its circular fort; past Jersey Heights, crowded with stately residences; past Forts Hamilton and Lafayette, with their frowning batteries; down and out into the wide sea. Standing at the stern of the vessel, with my Bible resting on the taffrail, I read portions of God’s Word, and saw America fade from the view. Contrary to all expectations, we encountered rough weather the first day out. For two days we had, as the sailors called it, a heavy sea. One wave, dashing up on deck, washed the ladies right and left, while another, under a lurch of the ship, poured a torrent through the port-hole of my stateroom and deluged things generally. A heavy fog off the banks of Newfoundland encircled us -- now expanding, and now contracting -- as if undecided what to do with us. The fog-whistle sounded dolefully every thirty seconds; the rain dripped, or fell heavily; the smoke drooped out of the great chimney, and hung down like a wet banner, and then would break off in pieces, and be swallowed up and lost sight of in the encircling fog. In the midst of this Neptune came aboard and swayed his scepter over the great majority of the passengers. This is only another way of saying we were seasick. Think of three hundred people all sick at the stomach at the same time! Happy the man who has a friend to hold his head! But friends are few at such a moment. Each man mourns to himself apart. As the song of "Bingen on the Rhine" says: "There was lack of woman’s nursing, There was dearth of woman’s tears." The women at such a time as this have all they can do to nurse themselves. On account of the heavy sea, and many crossing the ocean for the first time, not a state-room but had its moaning inmate. I listened to the interjection "Oh!" intoned and accented in diversities of expression most remarkable. It sounded around me like the moans and cries of a battle-plain. Merchant, professor, preacher, clerk, artist, and mechanic were all on a common level now. Deep called unto deep. Author answered musician, and one another in a way not usual. Clergyman responded to layman in cries of nature that proved the homogeneity of the race. In the midst of it all a lady in the saloon, sitting at the piano, commenced singing "Annie Laurie." Her fine, rich voice filled the cabin, shaming many a prostrate man, touching the hearts of members with thoughts of home, and impressing every listener with the fact that there was one plucky person on the ship whom wind, and wave, and seasickness could not force down. Was I seasick? you ask. Please don’t mention it, but for two days I lay in my berth scarcely able to lift my head in silent misery. "What is seasickness?" I asked the ship surgeon whom I called in, and he told me that it was mainly a brain affection; that the condition and action of the stomach arose from sympathy with the nerve and brain. Be it so! In addition to the pain it creates, it intensifies greatly two of the senses. One the sight which takes note of the fact that the state-room, with its iron-plated ceiling, and seven by eight size, is like a burial vault, and that the berth only needs a glass cover to become a coffin. Next, the smelling power becomes acute, critical, discriminating, and analytical. It is well known that ships have a smell; but, being of a complex nature, it has puzzled many. I herewith had the public the analysis, which I worked out while lying sick in my narrow berth: Bilge water..........................10 Rats.................................05 Musty, wet carpets...................25 Odor of old oil cloth................10 Dining-room smell....................30 Kitchen odor.........................15 An Indescribable smell that defied all analysis.............05 Total...............................100 We have a number of notable people on board. Mrs. Barr, the novelist; Mrs. Lockwood, the superintendent of the Peace Department of the W. C. T. U.; Harry Paulton, the author of something, I forget what; Edith O’Gorman, the escaped nun; the man whom Dr. Talmage baptized in the River Jordan; and an ex-Governor of Wisconsin. In spite of their greatness, they live and move around like the rest of us. It would do the reader’s heart good to see the ex-Governor of the great State of Wisconsin reach across the table with his gubernatorial hand and help himself. The baptismal protege of Dr. Talmage is a queer genius. He told me, in conversation yesterday, that the baptism took place in an accidental way; that he always wanted to go under the River Jordan, and happening to meet Dr. Talmage (whom, I suppose, always wanted to put somebody under the Jordan), the submerging naturally and inevitably took place. The young man has achieved fame at the expense, not of blood or brain, but of a little water. Again and again he was pointed out on the ship, and will be till the end of his life, as the man whom Dr. Talmage baptized in the River Jordan. The voyage over the Atlantic becomes unspeakably monotonous. The passengers resort to various expedients to kill the time. There were no glittering icebergs and spouting whales to be seen. Evidently they had been engaged by other tourists for the season in other parts of the world. So the passengers helped in various ways to annihilate the eleven days of the sea-trip. Mrs. Lockwood lectured twice; the escaped nun gave a private address to the ladies in regard to the convent life. In the midst of her speech she was rudely interrupted by a Catholic priest, who, thrusting in his head through a window, called the lady speaker a liar. On one of the evenings the ladies improvised a concert. Most of the gentlemen turned the upper deck-cabin into a regular pool-room, in which the speed of the vessel was made the fluctuating stock. Gambling has certainly taken hold of the nation. Into none of these places did I go; but, stretched in my steamer-chair, read all the day, or studied the ways and phases of the ocean. I was especially interested in the storm-petrel -- a little bird with the size and movement of the swallow, that followed us across the ocean. I asked a sailor where they rested when they got tired, and he replied, "On the waves." "But may not a fish take them under if they do that?" I asked. "Oh!" replied the sailor, "they takes their chances." Next morning I saw them resting on the waves. As their little forms were lifted up and down by the great rolling swell of the Atlantic, I thought what a grand cradle these birds have; and another thought, sweeter and better, was: He that feedeth the sparrow on the land, cares for, feeds, and protects these little birds far out upon the boundless sea. What a sermon those petrels preached to me that day! On Sabbath morning I attended my first religious service at sea. An Episcopal clergyman officiated. The hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," sung very delightfully by a large improvised choir, went with word and strain directly to the heart. A sunset in mid-ocean is hung up as a picture of unfading beauty in my mind. The broad crimson disc was slowly sinking in the travel, when suddenly a line of golden fire ran along the edge of a long purple cloud that just seeped above the horizon. "Beyond the sunset’s radiant glow, there is a brighter world, I know." In spite of the changing colors of the sea, of occasional sails, and a few schools of porpoises, the days were long and the trip tedious. So when, on the morning of the tenth day, we sighted Fassnett Rock, the heart fairly leaped with joy. Fassnett Rock is fifty yards in diameter, conical in shape, and surmounted by a lighthouse. It was on this rock that the City of Rome struck a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, that same rock was to me like a lump of sugar broken off from the bed of Continental European sweetness, and placed there at the south end of Ireland to sweeten the waters there, and give a saccharine dash to the thoughts and emotions of land-sick men and women. From this point we ran up the eastern coast of Ireland toward Liverpool, at a distance of three to six miles from the shore. Most agreeably was I disappointed in regard to the appearance of Erin. The island held me with an ever-changing, but never-failing charm. For miles I beheld such a scene as this old, rocky shores, with precipitous or sloping hills coming down to the water’s edge; a long line of white surf foaming along the shore and leaping up high in other places, as if to scale the rocks; flocks of white-winged seas gulls wheeling about with restless cries; yonder a ruined monastery, and farther still, and perched on a high cliff, the ruin of an old castle. Further up the coast the hills, covered with green, came with gentler and more beautiful slopes to the sea-margin. I could see through a glass that every square yard of their surface was under cultivation. A number of the hill-sides, from a variety of crops, and through the division of the fields into regular squares, had the appearance of a great natural checker-board. But whether at foot of cliff, or base of hilly field, the white surf beat all along the strand. One line in the "Exile of Erin" well describes it; "In dreams I revisit thy sun-beaten shore." Many thoughts arose as I gazed upon this down trodden country; and, by and by, among the thoughts came welling up the recollection of three Irish songs; beautiful and pathetic are they all. Two especially lingered with me -- the "Exile of Erin" and "The Irish Emigrant’s Lament." On Sabbath morning, at nine o’ clock, our ship, after eleven days on the trip, made fast at the docks in Liverpool; and in a little while after my foot pressed the shore of the Old World. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 03.04. LIVERPOOL - AYRE IN SCOTLAND ======================================================================== Chapter 4 Arrival at Liverpool. -- The Sabbath -- English Scenery -- Gretna Green -- "Maxwellton" -- Ayr -- The Birthplace of Robert Burns -- "Bonnie Doon." On Sunday morning, at 11 o’clock, of July 13, I found myself whirling along the streets of Liverpool from the steamer, bound for a distant hotel. It was delightful to see the houses standing steady after watching the swaying masts and pitching prow of the vessel so long. It was refreshing to see people walk straight, and not in zigzag courses and sudden fetchings up, and equally sudden bearings off to leeward. The streets were filled with people going to church, and the most delightful sight was frequently seen of the family group wending their way to the house of God. As my cabman drove rapidly along toward my distant hotel, suddenly, as we came near a church, a policeman signaled the driver, and made him walk his horse noiselessly by. I thought of New Orleans, where, between parrots and organs, brass-bands, fire-men’s processions, and rattling cars, the minister at times cannot possibly be heard. One preacher in our city was much annoyed by a rooster that crowed vociferously and pertinaciously near his pulpit window just after he would take his text and begin his sermon. The preacher earnestly entreated the lady owner to have the chanticleer removed, or silenced in some way. Her reply was that a man was a poor preacher who could not preach louder than a rooster could crow. O New Orleans! Thou Babel of multifarious noises on the Sabbath-day, draw near with a few of thy sister cities, and sit at the feet of Liverpool, and take the first lesson in reverences -- viz., silence when the Gospel is being proclaimed. This English custom looks like a ray of the millennial dawn. In the afternoon, hearing the sound of music in the large stone square in front of the hotel, and learning that it was a detachment of the Salvation Army, I went over and found about twenty holding service, with a considerable crowd about them. The men were in full uniform, the women were arrayed in quiet-looking Quaker bonnets and dresses. The instruments of music were those of a regular brass band. The collection was taken up in a tambourine. I shall always have a higher regard for the latter-named instrument from this time: in a sense it is redeemed. After several stirring hymns, and three or four burning exhortations delivered by the men, the detachment moved off to another part of the city. As they departed, with the flag flying and the band playing a sweet and soul stirring hymn, I noticed as the strains died away in the distance that the faces of the dispersing men around me showed thoughtfulness and seriousness. In the evening I walked over to attend service in a Wesleyan chapel in a neighboring street. I listened here to a plain-looking preacher preach a plain sermon to a plain-looking congregation in a plain-looking church. The minister in the midst of his sermon indulged in antiquated and indifferent witticisms; the people responded at once with a half-suppressed laugh. I could not muster up even a smile, but thought of the time when Wesley used to hold forth the word of God among these people, and when, instead of laughing, they wept and were cut to the heart. One-fifth of the congregation remained to the Lord’s Supper, and after this some twenty or thirty of the membership took the small church organ and held an evangelistic meeting where five streets came together. This, I understand, they do every evening of the week. The hour here for evening service in the churches is half-past six. At this time the sun is several hours high. Returning to the hotel from these double services I was attracted by the sound of singing above the rush of a great throng and roar of wheels on the street. On investigation I discovered that it proceeded from a blind man and his family, accompanied by his accordion, and assisted by his friends stationed in the crowd. The voices were all remarkably fine. He would sing from the place where he sat, and his friends would respond from a distance of ten yards. The airs were all gospel hymns and melodies. The name of Jesus was prominent throughout. The effect was most gracious. Hundreds stood for an hour and listened. As I turned away I said in my heart: "Notwithstanding, every way Christ is preached, and I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." I left Liverpool on Monday. No travel for me on the Lord’s Day, except upon the high seas. I was glad to leave. A man whose celebrity consists in his having amassed great wealth fails to interest me, a city whose fame is in its massive brick structures and swollen commercial size exerts no charm over me. But the literary man and the historic city bind me to them with hooks of steel. I feel their drawing and holding power. So I was glad to leave the endless stone streets and countless acres of brick houses of Liverpool. The scenery that greeted my pleased eye as the train sped up the western coast of England was just what I had expected. There were the meadows starred with daisies, cowslips, and butter-cups; there were the well-cultivated fields, the neatly trimmed hedges, the distant town or hamlet, with the church belfry or spire just appearing above the encircling trees. I saw several old churches with graveyards by their side, situated as just mentioned, that would have perfectly met the description in Gray’s "Elegy in a Country Church-yard." I noticed that few of the fields were more than four acres in size. As we ran up through Cumberland and Westmoreland toward Scotland the fields became larger, the grain in a large measure disappeared, and the hills were covered with flocks. The Solway River is a small stream to divide two peoples as widely different as the Scotch and English, and yet it is there for all that. The rivers in Caledonia, as is known, are small; we would hardly dignify them by such appellations in America. But though inferior in size, they lack nothing in beauty. The favorite poet of Scotland has written in rapturous terms of the Nith, the Doon, and the Ayr. I have seen them, and after seeing them I felt in my heart that he had not used a single extravagant term. Gretna Green, just across the border, engrossed me for awhile. It looked quiet and innocent enough with its hamlet-like collection of houses. But what exciting scenes, what pale faces and beating hearts, what tearing of hair and fallings into swoons, what rushing of carriages and galloping of horses like mad, what wonderful episodes, it has seen. O, Gretna Green, how much joy and misery you have brought upon this world. And O, Gretna Green, just a word -- did you get your last name on account of the character of the people that came within your gates to be married? About twenty-five miles northwest of the border there is a little town called Maxwellton. It is now properly a suburb of Dumfries. I learned its name as I passed while admiring the graceful and beautiful sloping hills in that direction. At the same time a Scottish gentleman sitting near me informed me that braes in Scotch meant hills. Like a flash I put the two together, and saw that I was looking on the place where Annie Laurie lived, or, nearer still, that the site of the song was before -- "Maxwellton braes are bonnie." The next day, in another part of Scotland, I was told by a Scotch laborer that daisies are called gowan. So here was additional light thrown on the same sweet song -- "Like the dew on the gowan lying." From Dumfries to Ayr, which is fifty miles northwest, the whole land is filled with tokens and memories of Robert Burns. He reigns in the west as Scott does in the east of Scotland. In Dumfries he spent the last few years of his life and here he died. In the town of Ayr, or rather near it, he was born, and spent the first twenty years of his life. In Mauchline, midway between the two, he was married, and at Kilmarnock, near by, he published his first book of poems, that won him immediate fame. I became so interested through various things told me of his private life that I detected from the straight line of my route, and ran down to Ayr. This town is on the western coast of Scotland, in a direct line with the Island of Arran. It looks out in its quaintness upon the Frith of Clyde, while the river Ayr rushes foaming through its center, and plunges with its swift current into the sea. At nine o’clock in the evening I arrived; at half-past nine I was eating my dinner by a large window that looked toward the Frith of Clyde, and noticed that the daylight was still brightly shining. This peculiarity of the Northern day has struck me ever since I have been in high latitudes. There is almost no end to the day. I said to the waiter at my side, "What time does it get dark here?" "About half-past ten," he replied. Then he continued, "Nearly everybody goes to bed here at eight o’clock, and it is lonesome. The town looks like it is dead, sir." I remembered as he spoke that a lady in New Orleans had lately asked me if there was not a place on the globe where the sun rose and set at the same moment. Verily, I thought, I am coming to the place! And if things go on after this fashion as I travel farther North, I may yet take the last beam of the setting sun and the first ray of the rising orb and tie them in a bow-knot over the hour of midnight. Next morning as I was leaving the hotel on my sight-seeing excursion I saw my first Scotchman in his knee-pants. I could not but ruminate, as I looked at the sturdy calves of the man, of the part that pants play in the civilization of the world -- or, to put it more correctly, how civilization affects the length of the pants. There are some savages that hide themselves behind a little paint. Others, occupying a higher grade, have a waist appendage, or apron of cloth or leather. Then as we near the nineteenth century the pants unroll and drop to the knee. Today the curtain is down to the foot-lights. The tendency of civilization is to lengthen the pantaloons. Taking a cab I drove first to the birth-place of Robert Burns, about two miles east of the town. On my way I saw my first turf roof. At once I thought, what a capital idea for everybody. Let all who love the beautiful have a turf roof, and cultivate flowers all over the top of the house. Think of it, all ye who never did and never will sleep upon a bed of roses, think of sleeping under a bed of roses. I was also struck with the solidity and safety of the roof. In a little while after we reached the boyhood home of the poet. Most of my readers are familiar with the low stone cottage, about twenty-five feet long and twelve or fourteen high. It also possesses the turf roof, and at the time of the poet’s birth had but two apartments. I stood in the room where the child of genius was born. It is about ten feet square, the walls being of rough stone, the floor paved with like material, in pieces of irregular size, picked up doubtless in the fields; and the chimney, with a wide flaring mouth projecting far into the room, like the mud chimney of the Negro cabin. In the corner of the room, in a niche six feet long, five feet high, and four feet deep, answering for a bed, Robert Burns first saw the light. Everything showed the poverty of the family. How little did the mother think that day, as she heard the first cry of her babe, that the time would come that the poor, dimly-lighted room would become the cynosure of millions of eyes, and that thirty thousand persons annually would visit it, and stand meditating upon its rough stone floor, because of the child born to her on that morning. A number of interesting relics are shown in the building -- the poet’s table, candlestick, and several old letters. In the monument erected near by I was shown a Bible he had given "Highland Mary." His first love was "Highland Mary," but he married "Bonnie Jean." So the world wags, "Few men wed their Highland Marys." In the poet’s case death intervened, as is touchingly shown in his poem, "To Mary in Heaven." Near by on the banks of the Doon is the Auld Alloway Kirk, where Tam O’ Shanter saw the witches dancing amid the tombstones. I visited the ruined church and crumbling tombstones. A garrulous old Scotchman showed me around the graveyard, and with a harsh, cracked voice, and full of Scotch brogue, repeated copious passages to me from Tam O’ Shanter, until I was glad to escape. I walked alone down the road where Tam fled for his life, and stood on the old bridge where the witches caught hold of his horse’s tail. But I thought little of O’Shanter. My meditations and admiration were taken up by the "Bonnie Doon" which the old stone bridge spans; by the lovely landscape around, and by thoughts of him whose pen, like a magician’s wand, has glorified this land, and centered the eyes of the reading world upon it. "Ye banks and braes o’ Bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom so fresh and fair?" It is as true now as then. The Bonnie Doon is a stream twenty yards in width, beautifully clear, with banks covered with grass to the water’s edge and overhung with trees. It flows with most charming windings through scenery equal to the best in England. The meadows, fields, hedges, avenues of trees, hamlets, and old churches are all here, and strung together by the silver ribbon of the Bonnie Doon. I could not resist it, but climbed over a hedge and jumped down a steep place, and from the banks of the river gathered a handful of daisies, buttercups, and bluebells to bear away as a memento of the stream. The visitor is reminded that from Ayr Edward Bruce made his disastrous campaign into Ireland. He is also shown the place where Wallace set fire to the barns in which the English soldiers lay in a drunken sleep, this being done in retaliation for a massacre they had recently perpetrated upon a noble band of Scotch nobility. "The Twa Brigs of Ayr," with other interesting points, are also shown the tourist. As I sped away northward at noon on the train, and noticed a party of men in knee-breeches playing golf in the fields, and as I marked growing on the banks the beautiful red and purple heather, I knew that I was in Scotland. Walter Scott used to get heart-sick for a sight of the heather in his protracted absences from the land he loved so well. I thought of him the instant my eyes rested upon the modest shrub. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 03.05. SCOTTISH LAKES AND MOUNTAINS ======================================================================== Chapter 5 Glasgow. -- The Necropolis -- Loch Lomond -- On the Top of Ben Lomond -- The Guide’s Conversation -- The Pony and Guide Lunch together on the Edge of a Precipice -- Inversnaid – A Visit to the Cave of Rob Roy. In Glasgow there is little to arrest the progress of the traveler. These things may be said of it, that it is the great ship-building city of Great Britain: It has a chimney almost as high as Washington’s Monument, and it possesses an ancient cathedral built in the twelfth century. To me the most striking sight in Glasgow is the Necropolis. On a lofty, conical-shaped hill the cemetery of the city has been located. The tombstones cover the hillsides, tier upon tier, and rank upon rank, like a white-robed army. The hill fairly bristles and glistens with marble slabs and monuments to the very summit, and upon the apex of the eminence towers high above all the monument of John Knox. When, at a distance, you look at the marble-clothed hill, it seems to the hasty glance a part of the city; but a second look reveals it to be the city of the dead. It is I striking and solemnly impressive sight. I toiled up the spiral ascent to the top, and sat down to rest and think under the shadow of the monument of Knox. Next to a church, give me a cemetery in which to read, and meditate, and pray. In Glasgow and the town of Ayr, I saw for the first time of my life barefooted white women on the streets; and I saw numbers, of them. Verily I can see a new light on that sweet couplet: "Will you go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave Old Scotia’s shore?" Another spectacle that impressed me more agreeably in the two cities mentioned above, was the way that women carry their babies. The mother wraps, her shawl about herself and child in such a way as to make a nest for the little one in front. The shawl is not pinned, but in some ingenious way it is passed in and under itself so as to be self-confined, while it holds the babe securely. The strain is, transferred thus from the arm to the back, and the woman walks erect as an arrow. Moreover, the folding of the wrap has, to my eye, all the lines of grace, while the baby, snug and comfortable, looks out serene and smiling on the world. The Indian mother straps her child on her back, and goes bent forward along the road. The present matron of America hangs her child on one arm, and goes around inclining to one side, like the leaning Tower of Pisa, or like a bow when tightly strung. The Scottish mother is ahead of the females of ancient and modern America. From Glasgow it is twenty miles by rail to Loch Lomond. We passed the historic ruins of Dumbarton Castle on the way. As we drew near the queen of Scotland’s lakes, happening to glance from my car window, I saw looming up before me, high in the heavens, a purple mass of beauty and majesty in the form of Ben Lomond. I recognized the mountain instantly from pictures I had seen. An hundred tourists, myself among them, took a steamer at the southern end of the lake. Now, although the boat had abundance of seats, and we were all on deck, and there was nothing to keep everybody from seeing, behold! as soon as the steamer started, every living soul stood on their feet, and kept there as long as I was with them. Drawn by the beauty of the scenery, hungry to see all, "they would not down." The lake is twenty-five miles long, with a varying width of from one to five miles. A dozen wood-crowned islands dot, or rather gem, the southern part of the loch. The green-clad hills slope in graceful lines to the shore for the first three or four miles; then suddenly the mountains, in towering majesty, surround it, clothed in robes of royal purple, and with clouds resting on their heads as crowns. At Rowardennan, halfway up the lake, I left the great body of tourists, and disembarked at the foot of Ben Lomond, in order to ascend to the summit. It takes two to three hours to ascend, and one and a half to descend. Procuring a guide and pony, I sallied forth and up. And up it was. A dozen times I thought I saw the top, and as often another, and bolder and higher swell of the mountain greeted me. The path runs zigzag all the way to overcome the steepness. Halfway up a covey of grouse flew from the heather at our feet, and went skimming down the mountainside. A few sheep scattered about were hard to be distinguished at first sight from boulders of limestone, which cling here to the face of the mountain in great profusion. The sheep seemed surprised to see us, and, after a swift, startled look, scampered off amid the rocks. As we toiled upward the guide and I entered into conversation. He informed me that his wages was ten shillings a week. Think of it! -- two dollars and a half a week, in which he is required frequently to climb to the top of Ben Lomond. "Have you a family?" I asked. "Yes; a wife and six children." Again the song comes up: "Will you go to the Indies, my Mary," etc. I then begged him to ride, and let me walk some; but he wouldn’t hear to it. After a little he told me that a few days before he had piloted a lady and gentleman up, and that the gentleman rode and the lady walked all the way. "What!" I exclaimed, and then added, "They must have been husband and wife!" The guide was not certain. "Was the man from America?" He thought he was. "What excuse did he offer for riding, and allowing the lady to walk and climb a distance of five miles?" "He said he wanted to keep his feet dry!" Here I collapsed. I fell into a fit of musing about that precious man, with those blessed feet of his, that lasted a mile. I finally emerged from a brown study with the conclusion that he was already dry through and through. Heart dry, soul dry, the whole life and man dead and barren and dry. The sensation of steadily rising higher and higher is peculiar. As you notice that the horizon is expanding, that the houses beneath you are getting smaller, and the clouds nearer, there is a combination of thrills that pass through the heart that leave a vivid and everlasting memory. Finally we reached the top -- guide, pony, and myself. What a view! Some one says you can see half of Scotland from this peak. The summit is about twenty-five feet square, and level almost as a table. On the northern side the mountain falls away in a sharp, precipitous descent to the valleys beneath you. The pony walked to the edge of this side and began cropping the grass. (I was not on him then!) The guide sat on the same little plot of grass, and began eating his lunch of bread and cheese, with his legs dangling over the precipice, while he meditatively looked towards the North Pole. It looked like he and the pony got up that special tableau to startle the traveler. I shall carry through eternity with me the memory of the glorious view I obtained at noon, of July 16, from the summit of majestic Ben Lomond. Beneath me, and miles away, lay Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Loch Achray, and four other lakes gleaming like burnished silver in the sunlight. Stirling and Edinburgh, fifty miles away, that can easily be seen from this point, were hidden by a falling rain that walled in the eastern view. Southward I could see thirty miles, and no farther, because of a vail of low-hanging clouds. But west and north mountains upon mountains, peak beyond peak, in wild and yet harmonious array, stretched away in the distance, filling the soul with awe and reverence. Great altars of God they seemed to be, with the mist of a perpetual cloud-like incense drifting about their sides, or hovering over their heads. I removed my hat and worshiped God in their company. While lingering upon the fascinating spot, suddenly four English youths made their appearance, panting from their long, steep ascent. They were from Lancastershire, and viewing Scotland on foot. They remained only a few minutes, evidently coming up merely to say they had been there. Taking the southern side of the mountain -- which, although steep as the roof of a house, yet is less sharp in decline than the others -- taking this side, and utterly ignoring the winding path, they went slipping, sliding and bounding down, followed by a large black dog barking after them in high glee. It looked like they would reach the bottom in fifteen minutes; but evidently they met with difficulties, for on reaching the foot of the mountain, one hour and a half afterward, I discovered that they had just arrived. I sat down with the ruddy-cheeked boy-travelers to dinner in the pretty flower-surrounded hotel at the base of Ben Lomond. The dinner was composed of salmon trout, roast beef and gooseberry pie. My! how those Lancastershire boys did eat. It did me good to watch them. They were a little embarrassed and amused at their own appetites, as I gathered from unmistakable Masonic signals that passed between them. In the afternoon I took another passing steamer and pursued my journey to the head of the lake. I remained over night at Inversnaid, where I landed in order to visit the cave of Rob Roy. Many of my readers will remember Walter Scott’ s description of this cave in one, and, I believe, two of his works. It derives an added interest from the fact that Robert Bruce lived in concealment in it after his defeat at Dalree. The cave is on the eastern bank of Loch Lomond, one mile above Inversnaid. On leaving the hotel you plunge into the woods at once. The right, or eastern bank of the lake at this point is exceedingly lofty, and in places precipitous. A wild-looking forest covers the sides. Looking up through the boughs of the trees you can see the tall cliffs hundreds of feet above you, crowned with huge masses of gray stone. At some period in the past the cliff above shook its head and shoulders, and sent down great showers of these limestone boulders all along the side surface down to the very water’s edge. The path to the cave, one hundred feet above the level of the lake in some places, and hundreds of feet below the cliffs, winds through the forest, in and around these great rocks, through dense thickets, over musical little waterfalls, and by banks lovely with the tints of myriads of wild flowers. I gathered a handful of these crimson, yellow, purple and white sylvan beauties that charmed my eye that evening, and that must have gladdened the vision of Bruce and his few noble followers when they trod this self-same path to the cave. At last I reached it where the rocks were in wildest confusion, and where the mountains towered highest on the opposite side. Descending fully thirty feet amid the boulders, you turn to the left, walking on a narrow ledge around the jutting shoulder of a great gray mass of granite, and so come to the mouth of the cave. Truly it was a safe place. Fifty or sixty feet above the water, hidden among the rocks, overshadowed and screened by the trees, it would have taken the sharpest of eye s to have found the place. I discovered it by the help of a guide! There is an upper cave, and fifteen feet lower another one, somewhat larger, which I explored, or rather examined, with lucifer matches. It is now not over ten feet square; but was evidently once roomier. Memory was busy in recalling the noble life and achievements of the fugitive king, who had once slept on the cold rocks at my feet. The reader will readily understand why this cave impressed me more than the palatial abodes of royalty today, and how the arch of this gloomy cavern spoke more powerfully to my soul than the parapet of castle and the lofty vaulting of cathedral. Quickly and willingly I bared my head here at the very memory of a great man, which thing I have never felt inclined to do to a merely rich man. That evening, at the Inversnaid Hotel, I sat down with thirty ladies and gentlemen to a dinner consisting of eight courses. I had little appetite, and no sympathy with the social tomfoolery that was going on in connection with the dining-table. My thoughts were at the cave with the Bruce. I studied their faces, and again thought of him. I noticed their devotion to the bill of fare, and the abundance before them, and thought of the royal fugitive hungry in his cave. I saw that they knew how to eat! I remembered that Bruce knew how to live, and to achieve. I pushed the contrast one step further: The world, I said to myself, has never heard of these wine-drinking human figures before me; but all the nations have heard the thrilling story of Robert Bruce, the man who arose from the cave on the shore of Loch Lomond to be king of Scotland, and the conqueror of the armies of England. The hour of midnight finds me writing. The waves of the beautiful Loch Lomond break in twenty yards of my window. As I look out I can see the forms of Ben Voirlich, Ben Venue, Ben Crois, and other mountains, lifting themselves up in purple grandeur to meet and commune with the stars. Both stars and mountains are reflected in the Lomond mirror. A few miles away are the sites of the thrilling events so graphically narrated in Scott’s "Lady of the Lake," while Wordsworth’s poem of the "Highland Girl" was born by the side of the Inversnaid waterfall, whose murmur and musical beat upon the rocks I can hear as I write. Under such an encircling panorama of beauty it would seem hard to sleep; but, wearied with two weeks’ journeying, I say good-night to the fair scenes to which I shall soon say good-morning -- "And, wrapping the drapery of my couch About me, lie down to pleasant dreams." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 03.06. STIRLING, BANNOCKBURN, AND EDINBURG ======================================================================== Chapter 6 Loch Katrine -- Stirling Castle -- Battlefield of Bannockburn-Edinburgh Castle -- Holyrood Palace. Loch Katrine lies at right angles with Loch Lomond -- the latter running north and south, the former east and west. The traveler stages it five miles to go from one to the other. Loch Katrine is about nine miles in length, and the loveliest scenery is at the eastern end. Here, like an emerald gem upon the bosom of the lake, is Ellen’s Isle. Ben Venue towers up on the south bank, and Ben Aan on the north shore. The island is between the two, and not sixty yards from the northern bank. It is about two acres in extent, and covered with trees. You get a glimpse, as you pass, of the "Silver Strand" where Ellen’s boat landed at the Fitz-James interview. The Trosachs is a wild, beautiful valley, running from Loch Katrine to Loch Achray. Let the reader turn to Scott’s "Lady of the Lake" to obtain a description of this lovely glen. The tourist passes over twelve or fifteen miles of the deer chase so graphically presented in the above mentioned poem. And it added greatly to the charm of the stage ride, after leaving Loch Katrine, to identify the various points, with the guide book in one hand, and Walter Scott’s "Lady of the Lake" in the other. I came to Stirling by rail. The object of greatest interest in the town is the historic castle. From the depot there is a steady ascent through the city up to the castle gate. The information was here given me that the few times that this historic and royal fortress had been taken, it had always been captured on the town side. Here was food for reflection. The guide did not know how suggestive and significant was his speech. Somehow it is the town side I have learned to dread in a man’s life. How many fathers, husbands, and sons are being captured and ruined on the town side. Let a double wall of defence be run there as has been done at Stirling Castle. From the lofty walls on the northern side I was shown the battlefield of Stirling, where Wallace with ten thousand men, defeated the Earl of Surrey with a much larger army. The windings of the river Forth helped the noble Scotch leader to obtain the victory. From the east wall the prospect is simply glorious in its breadth amid length, and in the panorama of fields, rivers, hills, and mountains in the far distance. Stirling Castle is a landmark that can be seen for thirty or forty miles around. I was not surprised now at recalling what was told me on Ben Lomond, that on a fair day this castle could be plainly seen. From the south wall you can see in the distance, two or three miles away, the battlefield of Bannockburn. I could not help thinking how these castle walls, and the tops of the houses in the town of Stirling, were crowded with anxious observers of those two famous battles. What straining eyes, and white cheeks, and fervent prayers for son, and husband, and brother, and father who were in the conflict in the field beneath; and, besides this, the liberty of Scotland and their own lives were at stake. Yonder they could see the men falling to rise no more. Whose loved one was it? From the east wall you see near by the Grey Friars’ Cathedral, where Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned. The castle is garrisoned by three or four hundred young Highlanders. They are dressed in the military Highland costume, bare knees and all. With quite a redundancy of color, they look like animated rainbows as they pace their beats, or move about the court-yard. Viewed from a distance, with kirtle, plaid, armor, and an immense black shako on their heads, they presented an alarming appearance; but when you get nearer the fierce-looking warrior, and give a furtive look up under the nodding helmet, you encounter the smooth face, and beardless lip and cheek of a boy of eighteen or twenty. There he was, trying to look fierce, and holding his gun as if the castle was in a state of siege. I could scarcely restrain my smiles as I looked at the soldier-boy guard and at his three hundred companions. They are all boys and youths just enlisted, and they feel their importance, and have donned the war look in absence of war paint. I thought of the children at home, who, in their games, try to frighten their parents with sundry terrible faces and bloodcurdling cries. I thought of the fanners quietly reaping in the fields in sight of Stirling. I had a vision of Peace and Plenty, with their beautiful arms resting on the hills, and, with cheek in hand, smilingly looking down on the sheltered land. And I thought of these fierce boys in the castle of Stirling, keeping watch over some old gray walls and towers that everybody has forgotten but the traveler and the reader of history. Hold fast to your guns, ye sons of Mars! Bayonet every rat that attempts to come in under the portcullis; look out some rainy, windy night for the ghost of James Douglass, who was murdered by James II in yonder room and flung from the window into the court-yard; or, maybe, when the moon shines faintly through thin white clouds, you will see Mary, Queen of Scots, standing on the castle wall, wringing her hands over Scotland; or, perhaps, you will hear chattering voices coming up from yonder grated dungeon. If you hear or see anything, shoot your gun and fall back into the inner tower. Bar and bolt every gate, and, at all events, hold the castle! But hear me, my young Highlander: Long before you will ever have the opportunity of sheathing your bayonet in human flesh, the gospel of our blessed Lord will have so spread, and will have such a grip on men’s hearts, and consciences, and judgments, that war will cease, and that sword of thine will become a pruning-hook.* Taking a cab, I drove out to the field of Bannockburn. An iron grating and a large flagstaff mark the place where the Scottish standard was planted. By the spot I stood and took in the features of the battle-plain. Here is the gentle eminence upon which Bruce extended the lines of his troops for half a mile. At the base of it, two hundred yards away, is still flowing the little stream of Bannockburn. It flows water today, but it ran blood on that day. It is only about ten or twelve feet wide. I went down and examined it. Just beyond the stream was the marsh in which the English horse became entangled; and to the right of that, as we stand looking south, is the field that Bruce had filled with pits, and that completed the confusion of the invading army. The marsh and field are now well-cultivated wheat fields; and, where the English fell and died in great numbers, I now see a score of reapers diligently at work. What a sight that English army of one hundred thousand men, spread out on the plains an d hill-sides yonder, must have presented! Far to the left and to the south was pointed out to me the place where Edward’s tent was pitched, and where he viewed the battle. To the right is the hill over which the camp followers suddenly appeared, to the final discouragement or the invaders. Then memory brought back the remarkable scene, when thirty thousand men knelt in prayer in one long line on this eminence, while the good abbot extended his hands and blessed them. Could such men fail? Would God leave such an army to defeat? Then I recalled Robert Bruce’s address to his soldiers. And then I sang the beautiful and stirring song written by Burns: "Scots who hae with Wallace bled, Scots whom Bruce has often led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to glorious victory." One of the loveliest pictures I saw while in Scotland met my gaze in the suburbs of Stirling, in the person of a little boy, about four years of age, standing on a fence blowing soap bubbles, and watching them float away and burst. As I passed in the cab I smiled upon him, and the little fellow smiled back, and turned to look after another bubble that he had just cast off. How interested he was, and what a bright, eager little face he had! He little thought or cared that the stranger who had just passed him prayed God to bless his future life. As I looked back at him, the reflection came: Well, the world is doing just what that little boy is doing -- blowing bubbles -- there being this one difference: that the world cries when its bubbles burst and vanish; but the boy smiled. Over the immense bridge that spans the Frith of Forth we next sped on our way to the ancient capital of Scotland. The Brooklyn Bridge is 3,470 feet long and 135 feet high; The Bridge of Forth is 7,295 feet long and 370 feet above the water level. In Edinburgh we first visited the castle. This is built on an eminence even higher than that of Stirling Castle, being, as we were informed, five hundred feet above the level of the sea. There are seven gates to be passed before you get admittance into the castle proper. As I counted them, looked at the huge portcullis arrangement beside, and then glanced down from the lofty walls that crown the rocky and perpendicular crag to the street, over four hundred feet below me, I saw here was another impregnable fortress. The guide told me it always had to be starved into surrender. History speaks of one exception, and the case is told very thrillingly in one of Grace Aguilar’s books, called "The Days of Bruce." How I pored over that book when a boy! Randolph, a gallant follower of Bruce, one dark night, with thirty men, climbed these heights that previously, on account of their loftiness and perpendicularity, had been regarded as unscalable. It was accomplished through the leadership of a young man who had formerly dwelt in the castle, and who, from the ardent desire to visit his sweetheart every night in the town, found a way down the face of the precipice to the ground below. What will not love make a man attempt and achieve! He it was who guided Randolph and his small band up the face of the cliff, to the surprise and capture of the garrison. Here I found another regiment of young Highlanders, looking, if possible, more bloodthirsty than the Stirling battalion. England seems to be having some difficulty in finding recruits for her army. The walls and street corners abound in flaming placards, offering great inducements to young men to enlist in the service. Pictures of gorgeously arrayed grenadiers, and helmeted and plumed dragoons, fill up the sides of the placard to assist the youth in coming to a decision. The promise of being taken into the civil service, after so many years is added by way of lagniappe. [an extra benefit] The pay per annum, while serving, is three pounds, or fifteen dollars. High street, in Edinburgh, is interesting from one end to the other. I question whether another street in the world can group together as many historic places and objects of note. The Heart of Mid-Lothian is here, the Church of John Knox, the residence of the same apostolic man, the place where the coronation of kings was publicly announced, the house where the first Bible was printed in Scotland, the houses of illustrious men, and, not least in interest, the stone pillar where scolding wives were once chained for a certain number of hours. I accepted the last piece of information with a certain amount of mental reservation. The guide spoke with some feeling on the subject. He regarded it as a good custom, and, in a word, I gathered from the little he said that there was an agitated family history at his home. Holyrood Palace and Abbey made a profound impression upon me. The palace faces west, and, with its four-story front and four towers in a line, is a most imposing building. Although a number of kings and queens of Scotland have dwelt here, yet the mind singles out one above all, and keeps that one in memory all the time of the visit. I refer to Mary, Queen of Scots. Her rooms were on the third floor, as we say in America; but in the second story, as they call it in Great Britain. She had four apartments. One was her audience-room; back of that, and looking out of the front window of the palace, was her sleeping chamber. Two of the towers in front afforded her two other small apartments, eight by ten in dimension. Both of these small rooms opened into her sleeping chamber. One she used as her dressing-room; the other, which was in the northwest corner of the palace, she kept as her private supping-room. This last room has no outlet except through the sleeping apartment of the queen. In this room occurred that famous supper scene which was so violently and suddenly interrupted by her husband, Lord Darnley, and a few other Scotch noblemen rushing in and murdering her favorite secretary, Rizzio, before her eyes. They dragged his body through her sleeping-room, stabbing the dying wretch as they went, then through the audience-room, and left him, with fifty wounds, dead at the head of the staircase. In her bed room, and a few feet from the door of the small supper-room, I was shown another door opening upon a private staircase used by Mary, and up which the murderers came. What great people they were in those days for private stairways, and secret postern doors, and under-ground passages! The other end of this private stairway I afterward saw in a corner of the abbey, nearly a hundred yards away. Where else it wandered in the thick walls of the palace I could not tell. Doubtless the queen returned from her religious devotions in the abbey thus privately to her room. I was shown her bed in the sleeping-room. I wouldn’t have it if it was given to me. The mirror in which her beautiful face was reflected still hangs upon the wall. What a sad, careworn face it became afterwards! Her beauty was a snare to her and others, and led to the death of a number. Chastelard, the nephew of Chevalier Bayard, became infatuated, and secreted himself behind the tapestry of her room. Her maid attendants discovered him and on his repeating the offense, he was tried and beheaded. Bothwell blew her husband up with gunpowder, in order to marry her; and still others, on her account, came to an untimely grave. In the audience-room the stormy interviews between herself and John Knox took place. Every time he denounced her worldly, or Catholic, course she would send for him, and there would be bitter upbraiding, ending with a shower of tears. Knox stood like the Eddystone Lighthouse; the water dashed in vain, and he shone on. On one occasion Queen Mary, in her indignation, sent him out in the ante-room to await her good pleasure. There he found himself in the presence of the "four Marys," her attendants and maids of honor. Without a moment’s delay he turned to the simpering, bedizened girls of the court, and gave them a solemn exhortation and warning. How differently some of us would have acted! If we ever had screwed up sufficient courage to have rebuked the sins of the wealthy or of royalty; if even then we had been dismissed to cool the blood in an ante-room, and there found these giggling maidens, we would have said: "Fine weather we are having, ladies. I hope to see you out to our evening service at St. Giles. We will not keep you long, and, beside, there is a lovely song service preceding the sermon. Do come." And so, graciously smiling, we would have bowed ourselves out, and left four immortal souls unwarned. This is just where comes in the difference between our spinality and the vertebral column of John Knox. And this difference, barely touched upon, explains exactly why the Scottish preacher has a great monument, and is known to the world, while some of us have none, and are not known or felt anywhere. * * * *[Transcriber Note: This remark reveals what seems to be Post-Millennial views by Carradine, and this assessment of his views on that subject is also substantiated by other comments here and there in his writings.] * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 03.07. MELROSE AND ABBOTSFORD ======================================================================== Chapter 7 Melrose. -- The Abbey -- Abbotsford -- The Middle Ground -- Auld Robin Gray Melrose, fifty miles south of Edinburgh, is a small town of a thousand inhabitants, but rejoicing in a number of hotels with high-sounding and promising names. The title that drew me was the "King’ s Arms." I soon discovered that the landlord undertook several roles or disguises in ministering to the different wants of his guests. He answered the bell of the room, he stood behind my chair at the table, I saw him figuring about the little hotel-bar in a clerk-like way, and I had strong reason to suspect that he prepared the meal set before me. My dinner consisted of two dishes. I mention the dinner mainly because in the neighborhood of Walter Scott who never wrote a book without describing a number of meals in the most appetizing way. Oftentimes the Great Wizard of the North has made me hungry, so that I would have to lay down the book and go off for refreshment -- this when a boy. His favorite way was to introduce a tired, belated knight, who is ushered into the large dining-hall of a castle, hung round with trophies of the chase, pieces of armor, and family portraits, and there would be placed before him "a half-demolished venison pasty flanked by a cobwebbed bottle filled with a golden-looking liquid." My dinner in the "King’s Arms" was cold veal with mint sauce, and for dessert a sweet omelet. Was it that those two dishes were so superior, or was it that an invisible hand poured that rare sauce, hunger, over the food? The recipe of this dessert I will give to any lady who feels desperate in the attempt to please an exacting household. Melrose Abbey was built in the twelfth century. Judging from the ruins it was beautiful as well as colossal. Two-thirds of it is gone, but the third left is larger than some of our greatest church edifices in the South. The nave is entirely gone, with the exception of a section of wall. The transept and chancel in some sort still remain, in portions of the wall, and in a number of lofty pillars that shoot up far above the head, and in the tombs that lie thickly under our feet. But most of the roof is gone, and the stone pavement has disappeared in wide spaces. Where once hooded monks chanted and walked in procession along rich aisles, and through the soft light of stained windows, I look up now, and behold the sky is visible; I look down and when I am not walking on tombs I find the grass under my feet. High up on the edge of the roofless walls I noticed several jackdaws chattering away among themselves, while lower down some pigeons were cooing and apparently making nests in crevices not far from the vaulted passage in the wall along which surpliced choir-boys used to march and sing. Under the east window is the site of one of the most thrilling scenes in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," where the monk and soldier visit the crypt and open the tomb of Michael Scott, while the moonlight falls on them and on the face of the dead man through the panes of the window that is still left. Close by in the chancel is the heart of Robert Bruce. Sent to the Holy Land it was brought back, and in its silver case buried here. By its side is one of the monarchs of Scotland. Passing over a narrow, stone-covered place, between two pillars, the guide told me I had walked over seven noblemen. I comforted myself with the thought that they had walked when living over seven hundred seventy and seven people, while my stepping unwittingly over them when dead could do them no harm. What a curious custom our forefathers had of burying the dead under the stone floors of the channels and aisles of the churches. I little dreamed when I started what glorious and historic names, names that had thrilled me with their achievements by tongue, and pen, and sword, would literally leap out of the stones under my feet, and greet me as it were from the dust -- the names of Addison, Knox, Massillon, Fenelon, and others. It is a decided sensation to have your attention called to the fact that you are standing on the last resting-place of a man who moved the nations, or just as you have planted your foot down to see an illustrious name looking up into your face. Tennyson speaks in that strange poem of his called "Maud" about the feet of the living vexing the head of the dead. If he referred to this I have light at least on one line. I was shown a postern door in the wall of the abbey communicating with an underground passage, that burrows its dark way to the river Tweed. By this secret route the monks could escape by boat when hard pressed. In the chancel I was shown an upright stone of several feet in height on which I was told that Sir Walter Scott used to sit when he visited the abbey. No sooner is the information given than down go a certain number and a certain set of tourists upon that stone. By repeated sittings they have already brought out a high state of polish, and a certain amount of wear. If they keep at it, the time will come when the aforesaid rock will be brought even to the ground and disappear, just as the great toe of the Apostle Peter in Rome is steadily vanishing under the repeated kissings of the faithful. What a strange ambition this is, to sit in the seat of the great. What a fearful contrast is instantaneously drawn! Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, has been so often described that I will not undertake a needless task. Suffice to say that it is two and a half miles from Melrose in a northwesterly direction. The road leads through avenues of beechtrees, and lanes lined on either side with the blooming hawthorn hedge; then down near the banks of the Tweed, a stream of about twenty yards in width; and then up again and through smooth meadows, islanded with clumps of trees and dotted with sheep; and then through fields with soldier-like shocks of wheat; by a plot of ground where the crows were having a cawing assembly; past a grassy field where two or three horses were running races for their own amusement and enjoyment; so the road ran with varying charm until suddenly we looked down upon Abbotsford. It lies a little below the road, between the highway and the river Tweed. Embowered in trees, pinnacled, tunneled, parapeted, and bewailed to an extraordinary degree, there is no other house like it. Designed by Scott himself, he succeeded in giving to a modern building an ancient look. We were carried through five rooms, among which was the library with its twenty thousand volumes, and the armory with its fine and interesting collection of every conceivable kind of warlike implement. Here we saw the pistols of Napoleon that were found on the field of Waterloo, and also the gun of Rob Roy. The study, however, with the chair on which he sat, and the table on which he wrote, was doubtless the attractive spot to all in the house that morning. Here it was in this room looking south he wove the webs in which we and countless other wandering flies have been caught. His was the master-hand that so blended and twisted together the fiber of history and the thread of fancy that it is difficult to say where the o ne ends and the other begins. Fully twenty tourists entered the house while I was there, at a shilling apiece: this meant five dollars income for the family descendants. And so the travelers pour in continually, and with them a steady stream of silver currency that swells into the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars annually. The money that the great author strove to amass in order to save his property is coming in at last. In passing out of Scotland the last impressive view had was of the hills and downs that like a great belt separate the two lands, Scotland and England. Thought was busy in recalling how often war, like a tide, had ebbed and flowed over this region; how armies would loom up on these hills coming from the south, and then at another time how the blue bonnets and highland plaid throng would surge down from the north upon the broad fields and meadows of "Merry England." Merry indeed! What a misnomer for a land that has been as often shaken by foreign wars and convulsed with civil strife. The bare low-lying hills, with their flocks and sheep-folds were more powerfully suggestive of another, simpler and more plaintive memory. I refer to the exquisite poem of Auld Robin Gray. Written in Scotland by a Scottish woman and in a country like this, and, possibly, near this, I recalled with a new and increased interest the words: "When the sheep are in the fauld, And the kye are at hame, And a’ the world to sleep are gane-- The woes o’ my heart fall in showers from my e’e, While my gude man lies soun by me." The poem, when published, thrilled every heart, but the writer kept the authorship a secret for thirty or forty years. She then revealed it to Walter Scott. She attempted a sequel, but it did not take. Like Song-Replys, and volumes written in imitation of a striking book, it fell below the original. The heart-broken but dutiful woman of the poem was best left as she was first introduced. If Enoch Arden had obtained his wife and settled down, the poem of Tennyson would not stir the reader as it does now. Evangeline leaves a great pain in the heart, but if she had overtaken her lover, not as many copies of Longfellow’s beautiful conception would have been sold. There is a frantic desire on the part of most writers to marry everybody. You can see the sentences are all pointing, and the chapters are all swiftly rushing to this magical sentence of the conclusion, and "they were married and lived long and happily." But if this is the way with the books, life itself fails to show that congenial natures always thus come together in wedlock. The books have one record, and life another. When a story is true to nature it thrills. The little poem of Lady Lindsay has moved a great multitude. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 03.08. IN ENGLAND - WARWICK - KENILWORTH - STRATFORD - OXFORD ======================================================================== Chapter 8 Warwick. -- Kenilworth Castle -- Stratford-on-avon -- Oxford -- Addis Walk -- A Group of Boys. Warwick, in the south of England, claims ten thousand inhabitants. Arriving at, or near midnight, I found the depot deserted by all but one man. Obtaining direction from a passing citizen, I sought a hotel several blocks away, but found it shut up, dark and silent. One street lamp, with its flickering light, revealed a bell-handle on the door. I pulled it heartily and stood listening to the clanging echoes which I had awakened in a distant part of the building die gradually away. There was no response. It is not an enviable experience to stand alone in a foreign country at the hour of midnight before a dark and silent house, where the bell only serves to arouse the barking of dogs and not the drowsy sleepers of the house. Here unquestionably I missed one of the golden opportunities of life of doing an appropriate thing. It occurred to me afterward, just as most good things do. Here I was between two famous old castles -- Warwick and Kenilworth. The thought should have transported me into the age of knight-errantry as well as into its spirit. With my lance (my umbrella) I should have struck the portcullis (the front door) until it rang again, crying out: "What, ho! sir knight of the castle (hotel keeper), what, ho!" And he finally, after much clanging of inner iron gates (creaking of doors) would have thrust his plumed (night-capped) head through an upper casement, and called out: "Now who be ye that wanders on the queen’s highway at this unseasonable hour, disturbing the rest of her loyal subjects?" And I could have replied: "Fair sir -- a wandering knight from the realm of Lottery-ana, commonly known as Louisiana, craves a night’s courteous entertainment at your hands." But all this was not thought of until too late. And so the reception by and by was commonplace, and instead of being escorted into a large antlered dining-room a la Walter Scott, and confronted with the "venison pasty," we were led promptly and prosaically to a supperless bed. Next morning, standing on a bridge that spans the Avon, we had a view of Warwick Castle. It might be called a river-glade view. Looking up the tree-lined banks of the Avon, you behold, a quarter of a mile away, and just where the river bends westward, the gray walls and massive towers of the castle. Embowered in trees, yet the turreted towers lift themselves above the treetops and greet the eyes of the beholder from afar. There are a number of historic incidents connected with Warwick Castle, but the calm grandeur of the building, and the beauty of its surroundings made them take a second place in my mind at the time. Not far away in the town itself I can see the spire of the church in whose crypt sleeps the body of Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. How the graves of these prominent people are scattered. A man never knows where he is going to be buried if he is famous or infamous. My landlord drove me out in a handsome two-wheeled vehicle to visit the ruins of Kenilworth Castle that are six or seven miles north of Warwick. The weather was biting cold. Think of it, that in July I had two buffalo robes over the lap, together with the protection of glove and overcoat. My landlord remarked, as we bowled along at a rapid rate through the beautiful English scenery, that it was an unusual spell of weather for England. I accepted his apology for his country. There was an apology needed. After awhile he remarked that he never had the least trouble in recognizing Americans, and that he knew I was from the United States the instant he heard me speak at the door the previous night. I begged him to tell me how he thus recognized me. "By your brogue," he replied. His words fairly knocked me into a brown study. In fact, these English people are continually throwing me into the deepest spells of thought. Now here I had crossed the sea, expecting, and, in a measure, prepared to hear brogue from others, and yet before I have had the opportunity of fairly wiping the spray of the Atlantic from my face I am told that my speech--my speech that I had prided myself on for its true inflections and faithfulness to consonant and vowel sounds--that behold it was nothing but brogue! My meditation lasted a good while, and when I arose to the surface again, I came up bearing this conclusion with me: that every man’s tongue, no matter how pure, is mere brogue to his brother dwelling across a national border. My visit to Kenilworth Castle will always remain a beautiful but melancholy memory with me. It was formerly one of the largest and finest castles in England, was often the abode of royalty, witnessed a number of sieges, was possessed by a number of the lordliest men in the past, and was finally given by Queen Elizabeth to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Walter Scott, in his novel "Kenilworth," gives a description of one of three visits that Elizabeth paid to her favorite at this place. Lordly and imposing once, it is a mournful ruin today, although there is a grandeur still left in the ruins. One great tower in front -- fully two hundred feet square, with walls fifteen feet thick -- was built in William of Normandy’s time. This is called Caesar’s Tower. Another tower to the right was built by the Duke of Lancaster. Still a third was erected at vast expense by the Earl of Leicester. This one stands back of the other two, fronting another way. There was a time when other buildings existed, and, connecting the three towers, formed a great quadrangle; but these structures, being of a lighter character, have all disappeared and left remaining the towers mentioned. I climbed up the crumbling remains of steps and stone ledges upon the tower of Lancaster. I looked out upon cultivated fields, where in Elizabeth’s time a lake, covering eighty acres, spread out to the side of the castle and washed its very walls. But Cromwell drained it and today not a sign of it is left. I next crept down a spiral staircase into the room where Amy Robsart was confined. With its one narrow window and stone wall it had the chill of a vault. I ascended again, and stood looking at what was once the great banqueting hall. The floor was gone, even the pillars that supported the vast, square, lofty room had crumbled away, but you could see the paneless oriel windows at the side, and the marks of the highly-ornamented chimneys left partially clinging to the inner wall. Here Elizabeth swept in her robes of state, here silk rustled, satin shone, swords clanked, wine flowed, wit sparkled, and beauty and chivalry congregated. Here Leicester acted as the host of his sovereign, and doubtless knelt before her in ministering attendance as he did to her at the castle gate when she arrived. If he could have looked into the future and seen her leaving him to die in prison, would he have been as supple in knee and gracious in demeanor? I looked next at the quadrangle, or court, that had seen the mustering of stern warriors, or the gayer sight of knights and ladies in bright array preparing for hawking, or hunting, or the tiltyard; that had heard the yelp of hound, the blast of horn, the clang of trumpet, and had witnessed the running to and fro of squire and valet, and all the sights and sounds of a great castle. In that same courtyard, now grass-grown, I noticed a small flock of sheep quietly resting. On the ragged-edged walls of the towers around where once pennons and banners fluttered, I observed the marsh-mallow, and a sedge-like grass waving in the wind. And over the towers and down in the courtyard, and about all the castle there reigned a silence and loneliness that could be felt. It was a silence that had a speech, and a loneliness that had a presence. Stratford-on-Avon is a town of eight thousand inhabitants. A branch railroad from Warwick brings you to the place with many stoppages and a rainbow-like curve. The scenery round about the place is strikingly English with its fields and meadows. The undulation of the land is so gentle that you could not use the term hills even in courtesy in truthful description. In this immortal place, made famous by the many-sided man, as he is called, is found the birthplace, the school, the home, and the tomb of Shakespeare. It is remarkable that here was his life begun and ended. He was born here, educated, married in the neighborhood, Came back to it after an absence of years, lived here, died, and was buried. I know of no other instance like this among prominent characters, and it is a rare case with any man. Born in one place, we marry in another, live in a third, and die and are buried oftentimes in a fourth. The return of Shakespeare from the great throbbing London to the quiet country town greatly impressed me. Was it that he was ignorant of his greatness. (?) The return looks to me like conscious defeat, and consequent sadness. If he could have foreseen the vast pilgrimage of admirers that annually visit this place he would have been astounded. I counted forty people in the house the morning I was present, and thus they came and still they come. The house in which the great dramatic genius was born is a plain two-story cottage. He was born in the second story in a room so low that I could touch the ceiling with my hand. The child outgrew the room and defies measurement. How strange and often how humble are the places in which the prodigies of the world first see the light. The cottage of Anne Hathaway, his wife, is near the town. I did not visit it because of her shrewish memory. I gladly journeyed to this part of England to see the locality where lived and died a being whose lofty genius has stirred this generation, but I had no desire to look upon a place notable with recollections of a scolding tongue. Before Shakespeare married the damsel, he, in a poem addressed to her, wrote wittily: "Anne hath a will, Anne Hathaway." Written in jest at first, the lines afterward could have been penned in deep earnest. Tradition says that things were not comfortable at all times in the Shakespeare mansion. How careful the matron of a house should be. Who can tell but the quiet husband who cannot be understood and who is the target of many a lingual arrow, may burst in greatness upon the wondering world, and then the sharpened curiosity of the nations will inquire insatiably into all the affairs and circumstances of home life, and as a consequence sundry infirmities of temper and certain peppery qualities of speech pertaining to the female head of the house might be revealed. When Anne, the wife of William, closed the door and administered certain wifely rebukes, she regarded him as simply the husband of Anne; but he turned out to be Shakespeare! the literary marvel of the world. And as the world insists upon hearing all that is said and done to its favorites and idols, behold! through the crack of the closed door the heated tirade of the woman has issued and been heard by pitying multitudes. So Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, has become famous by certain lip-dressings she gave her philosopher husband. She little dreamed that her curtain lectures would resound through the world. When Mrs. Wesley practiced certain indignities and cruelties like hair-pullings upon her sainted husband, she little dreamed that the scene of privacy would be thrown out in strong colors upon the canvass of the future and gazed at in astonishment by the world. Let certain wives call a halt, and consider their husbands afresh. It may be, the quiet that is so irritating to the bustling housekeeper, is the ponderings of intellectual greatness. The husband may be a genius. If so, look out, for the world will want to know how said genius was treated. Shakespeare is buried in the church by the side of the river Avon. After standing awhile by the spot where his body sleeps, I went forth for a meditative walk under the trees. The massiveness of the cathedral, the lengthy avenue of lofty trees, the thickly populated cemetery, the quiet flowing past of the river Avon were felt by the mind to be proper surroundings. The voices of some young men rowing by on the river failed to detract from the solemnity of the place. Oxford is about midway between Stratford and London. In this town of colleges I sought at once the help of a guide. The river Thames puts in an appearance here under another name. Upon this stream takes place the famous annual boat-race of the university. Such is the narrowness of the stream that the boats race in what might be called single file, the object being for the prow of one to touch the stern of another. The spot where Latimer and Ridley were burned interested me far more deeply. A cross marks the place, and is today in the midst of a busy street. Among other interesting localities I visited and threaded the silent shades of the famous "Addison’s Walk." It is back of Magdalen College and remotely situated in the park owned by the school. The walk is about twelve feet wide and over a mile in length. The forest is on either side, while an avenue of trees, large in body and lofty in size, more directly shuts it in, and with its overarching boughs produces a shadow equal to twilight. The silence is unbroken save by the note of a bird, the rustle of a leaf, or the murmur of the brook flowing hard by. To this quiet, remote spot of sylvan beauty came the future classic writer so frequently, that it was called Addison’s Walk. It was here that he separated himself from the throng and listened to voices that men cannot hear in the rush and din of the multitude. It was here in this solitude he thought for the unthinking, and thought well, and prepared himself for life, so that when his life was over, and he was to be buried, men said that he ought to be among kings and queens, and there amid them he sleeps today. Every Methodist will readily realize with what interest I visited the college where John Wesley studied, and the one where in later years he was an instructor. No true Methodist or Christian can visit unmoved this place where our church was born, and where began the greatest revival known to the world since the days of Pentecost. In the great dining-hall of Christ College, which is a portrait gallery as well of her distinguished sons, I looked in vain for the face of John Wesley. I saw other faces that we have never heard of on our side of the water, and not generally known on this side of the sea--but the face of the man who under God sent a thrill of life, and a wave of power over the churches of the entire world is not there. Perhaps he did not cast out devils in the way some people desired; perhaps the people that followed him were not among the "chief rulers;" perhaps a prophet is not without honor save in his own home and country. In leaving Oxford, and one or two miles south of it, I noticed from the car-window a group of boys in boat-uniform walking swiftly over the fields toward the brow of a neighboring hill. With what an eager and assured air did they press their way along the path. The great object of life was evidently awaiting them. What they wanted was just over the hill. They had the thing tied, and it was waiting for them. Ah boys! I thought as I looked sympathetically after them, you are mistaken, you are deceived--the thing you want is not over there, I have been over the hill myself, not once, but many times, and it is not there! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 03.09. LONDON - SPURGEON - DR. PARKER - ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL ======================================================================== Chapter 9 London. -- Spurgeon--Canon Farrar -- Dr. Parker -- St. Paul’s Cathedral -- The Whispering Gallery -- On the Top of the Dome. I Arrived in London late on Saturday afternoon. An arrival in London has always been and will always be an event in a human life, from the child of genius coming up as a poor, unknown lad to the metropolis to achieve fame, to the traveler with no ambitious intent, but who has heard all his life of the wonderful city. These poor lads were much in my thoughts as I drew near the great capital. How many went up and failed! Chatterton, the most brilliant of them all, died heartbroken or starved. Shakespeare, after staying awhile, went back to Stratford-on-Avon, the home of his boyhood. Perhaps he thought he had failed. Some few succeeded and remained. But they all felt the thrill of entering London. As the poet laureate puts it, while afar off upon the fields or roads, they "Saw in heaven the light of London Flaring like a dreary dawn." Sunday morning dawned beautifully fair, and I sat down, so to speak, to a spiritual bill of fare not to be had every day, or in every place, by any manner of means. I listened to the three great lights of London at 11 A. M., 3 P. M., and 7 P.M. At eleven I directed my steps to Mr. Spurgeon’s church, which I found was twice as large as Dr. Beecher’s. I was escorted into the prayer meeting, held in a room back of the pulpit, just before preaching. One of the brethren, in the midst of a long prayer, called the meeting the center of power in the church. I had only been in the room a short while, but felt he was mistaken. Each succeeding prayer convinced me more than ever that the brother was incorrect. The center of power always means a glorious death to circumlocutory and mechanical prayers. In a few minutes more I noticed that Mr. Spurgeon was not present. An half-hour later I was listening to him as he poured a rich and unctuous gospel into the hearts of five thousand people. I knew then that the center of power was in Spurgeon. A man has to pray himself, and to pray much, and to pray mightily and importunately, to have power over the hearts and consciences of men. Nothing else will bring it. Mr. Spurgeon commented on the chapter he read for thirty minutes, and after that preached forty minutes. But no one wearied. What a feast he gave us in Christ’s first miracle in Cana of Galilee! Christ filled the discourse; was felt in every accent of the voice, and looked out of every expression of the face. The man drew the rich provisions for us as if, like Joseph, he had been filling the storehouses of his mind for years, and there was no stint nor limit. And yet in the midst of the feast I looked down and saw two of his prominent members asleep! I was comforted for myself and my brethren in the ministry. The great orator shows signs of physical feebleness. He moved stiffly in the pulpit, as if he feared the awakening of slumbering pain. But his square English face was lighted up with God’s own love and peace, and his intellect was as lordly as ever. After the sermon he took up a special collection. An hundred wooden boxes were instantly passed down the aisles, and the rattle of the pennies sounded like hail on the roof. I am convinced that the "collection" is an institution, universal and permanent. At 3 P. M., I listened to Canon Farrar at Westminster Abbey. The subject was, "Saul Forsaken of God." It was a polished sermon, like the statues around him; but a great spiritual power was not there. Perhaps it may be difficult to preach among marble statues, tombstones, and cold gray walls. To hear the organ in Westminster constitutes an experience. The strain rises up into the lofty ceiling, eighty feet above you, wanders away from you down the long nave, comes sweeping back up the transepts, gets lost among the many stone arches and pillars, and finally you hear it sobbing and dying among the tombs of dead kings and queens, and warriors, and statesmen, and poets, and preachers in the far distant parts of the building. At 7 P. M., I heard Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple. He is a Congregationalist. He preached that night to fully four thousand people. Dr. Parker wears his hair rather long and flung back. He has a grand leonine face that, in the distance, reminds you of Dr. C. K. Marshall. His subject was, "The Boy Samuel," his ministering before the Lord, and yet "not yet knowing the Lord." He held up the words, "not yet," and drew forth thought after thought until the hearer was amazed at their number and appropriateness. Dr. Parker is fresh, original, forcible, and, at times, dramatic in tone and gesture. My card secured me here, as elsewhere, immediate attention. Perhaps it was because of the "D. D." attached to the name. These lay brethren in England do not know how cheap a degree it is in America, and has come really to mean next to nothing. While in Mr. Spurgeon’s church I happened, in speaking to one of the ushers, to say Doctor Spurgeon. He quickly replied, "He is not a doctor; he is only a teacher!" Here was rebuke, and here was food for reflection. Is a "D. D." one thing and a teacher of God another? Do we cease to become a teacher when we attain unto this title? "He is only a teacher!" May the Lord grant us to be teachers, though we never have half the alphabet swinging, like a comet-tail, to our names! Monday morning I ascended to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral to get my bearings and map London in my mind forever. On our way up I was stopped in the dome to hear a whisper one hundred and fifty feet away. As I stepped in the gallery that runs around the inner wall of the dome I noticed five gentlemen, on the opposite side, with their ears to the wall, while the guide, standing near me, was whispering the following information: "St. Paul’s Cathedral was built by Sir Christopher Wren. It required over thirty years for its completion. The paintings on the ceiling were executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The height is four hundred and four feet. The diameter of this dome is one hundred and twelve," etc. The gentlemen left, and I took their place, whereupon the guide bowed himself against the stone wall, and, in a whisper, which I heard distinctly over one hundred feet, said: "St. Paul’s Cathedral was built by Sir Christopher Wren," etc. As I left three gentlemen took my place, and I saw the guide go down f or the third time against the wall, and impart the thrilling information that "St. Paul’s Cathedral was built," etc. My heart melted for the man. He spends his life going over about a half-dozen sentences, telling people that this cathedral was built by Sir Christopher Wren, and that, too, in a whisper, with his mouth against the wall. Over and over he tells it. He told it, the day I was there, doubtless, a thousand times. He is still telling it, and will continue to affirm and asseverate that matter about Sir Christopher Wren to the traveling multitudes through the years. If he is a man of much nervous sensibility, there are, doubtless, days that he heartily wishes that Sir Christopher Wren had never been born. Suppose a book should be written of the sayings of this guide? I remember a colored man who kept a coffee stand in Jackson, Miss., by the depot. I was passing through the place when I had just entered the ministry sixteen years ago. It was then I first heard his voice crying out: "Hot coffee and cold cakes!" Four years after I passed through again, and he was still calling, with the exception that he had left off the cold cakes. Either he had met with business reverses, or was growing more sententious. Eight years passed away, and, as my train stopped at Jackson for a few minutes one night, the first voice I recognized was that of my colored friend, with his unwearied statement of "hot coffee." This spring, in going up to deliver an address at Oxford, a midnight stoppage of a few moments at Jackson was rewarded with the sound of the voice of my old friend, still insisting that he had "hot coffee." These two words constituted the man’s vocabulary. He was never heard to say anything else. To my knowledge he has kept it up for sixteen years. There have been wars a nd revolutions in distant States; great have been the changes in the business and political world; but he has not changed. Suppose a book should be written containing the sayings of this man, as a companion volume of the biography and speeches of the guide of St. Paul’s Cathedral! In a little while I stood upon the "golden gallery" that runs around the Spire above the vast dome of St. Paul’s. Byron alludes to the dome in one of his poems, where, after painting the wilderness of houses and forests of masts said above it all: ----A foolscap’s crown, And that is London town." We are close by the ponderous bell that has been likened to conscience by some writer. It sends forth, at times, its deep solemn boom; but London, in the rush and roar of the daytime, hears and heeds it not. But at night, when the streets grow quiet, all hear it then. I can testify to both facts, and especially to the solemnity of its stroke at the hour of midnight. Writing in my room on several occasions until after midnight, and only three blocks away, I have come to know the iron voice of London’s great cathedral. Standing on the golden gallery, I observed that the river Thames, bending like a bow, divided London into two sections, north and south. Looking southward, I saw the Tower of London on my left hand on the east bank of the Thames, fully a mile away. To my right, two miles distant, was Westminster Abbey and the House of Parliament. Looking south again, I counted seven large bridges over the Thames. Facing north, many noted places came into view. Just beneath us is the Bank of England; a little to the left is the famous Newgate Prison; before us is the church on Cripplegate street, from which Mr. Wesley’s father was ejected, and in whose walls Cromwell was married and Milton lies buried. Farther out still is the place where William Wallace was executed, and the martyrs burned. Away to the left are the palaces of Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. The fog and smoke prevent our seeing more than two or three miles in any direction; but as far as we can see there are houses by the thousands and multiplied thousands -- the view is that of a wilderness of dwellings. Descending to the street, we find rushing through hundreds of channels, with impetuous force, great living streams of humanity. Streams mightier and more awful than Niagara and the Mississippi, in that they are living streams, shall live forever, and are rushing on to God and eternity. May the Savior guide these streams, and bring them to swell the volume and add to the gladness of the river of life that is to refresh and bless this world, and glorify, by and by, the universe of God forever! * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 03.10. LONDON - GRAY'S COUNTRY CHURCH YARD ======================================================================== Chapter 10 Westminster Abbey. -- The Chapels and Tombs -- Westminster Hall -- The Tower of London -- The White Tower -- The Place of Execution -- The Graves of Anne Boleyn and Catharine -- The Beheading Axe and Block -- A Visit to Gray’s "Country Churchyard." One of the first places a person desires to visit when in London is Westminster Abbey. The age of the building, its historical associations, its architectural excellence, and, above all, its being the receptacle of royal dust, and the dust of the great, and wise, and good of past generations and centuries make it to exercise a profound influence over the mind. The great columns of stone, rising to the loftiness of palm trees, and then branching out in ribs of granite over the ceiling, and interlacing, like the boughs of forest trees, is the first thing that strikes the eye. This is what is called groined vaulting. The idea was taken from the sight of an avenue of lime trees, with smooth, lofty trunks and with arching boughs, knit together at the top. I have been in a number of cathedrals, and I discover that this conception is in them all -- an avenue of granite trunks and limbs overhead. When these great columns line the transepts as well, crossing the nave at right angles, the feeling, as you walk amid their shadows, is not altogether unlike the sensation of wandering through mighty avenues of trees. All along the inner walls of these cathedrals, and approaching the nave or center aisle twenty or thirty feet, are chapels fenced in and hedged off, so to speak, from the main body in various architectural ways, and by works of art and monuments of different kinds. Here are the places, or in the crypts below, in which the mighty in deed and noble in blood slumber their long sleep. As I was entering one to see the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, my eye happened to rest upon the stone floor, when suddenly I saw blossoming under my feet the name of Addison! I was walking over his ashes, as thousands do daily. It looks like sacrilege; but it seems a custom here, and nothing is thought of it. In these old cathedrals you literally walk upon the dead. Think of walking down the aisle over the tombstones and ashes of twenty individuals and families before sitting down in your pew to hear the gospel! From the tomb of Elizabeth I went into another chapel were sleeps the body of Mary Queen of Scotts. She was beheaded and buried in another part of England, but her son, James the First, had her brought here after he came upon the throne. Her tomb is fully as rich as that of Elizabeth. In this same chapel I saw all in a row together, on marble slabs in the floor, the names of Charles the Second, William, and Mary, and Anne. Four sovereigns in a line, and no monument over their ashes save the slabs that cover their bodies! Again and again I was forced to pause or sit down by weight of meditation. They all sleep well. And they get along better now than they did in life. The world was hardly large enough to satisfy some whose names I read here in stone; but a very small place now is sufficient to keep them. The oppressor and the oppressed, the murderer and the murdered, are here close together, lying under the same roof, and their ashes shaken by the deep-toned roll of the same organ, whose music crashes down from amid the granite pillars above, and fills the vaults below. James the First has several children buried in one of the chapels. I was much touched with a verse that was carved on the headstone of one of them. I copied it with my pencil: "She tasted of the cup of life, Too bitter ’twas to drain; She put it meekly from her lips, And went to sleep again." I saw the empty tomb of Cromwell. After the Restoration his body was removed and burned, I think, while his head was fastened on a spike on Westminster Hall near by, and kept there for years. As I was looking at the tomb, several ladies drew near, of a rough pattern, and one, with strong Hibernian accent, cried out in regard to Cromwell: "And was he buried here? -- the writch!" Well for the great that they do not hear all that is said about them. How thankful all people ought to be that we cannot hear over a few yards, and that when we are dead we cannot hear at all! In the chapel of Edward the Confessor I saw the chair in which the kings and queens of England are crowned. Underneath the seat, and plain to view, is the celebrated stone of Scone, upon which the Scottish sovereigns sat during their coronation. If any would like to know concerning the architecture of this same chair, I can briefly, but truly, describe it. If you have a closet at home four or five feet high, and two feet deep, just nail a broad plank inside at the proper sitting distance, and you have got the coronation chair of England. In close proximity to Westminster Abbey is the House of Parliament, stretched in colossal proportions upon the banks of the Thames. Comparatively a new building, I was not so much interested in it; but was far more engrossed with a building in the rear, and now constituting a kind of ante-room for the parliamentary building. It is called Westminster Hall, and is replete with historic facts and thrilling events. It was for a long time the abode of royalty, and in it also Parliament sat for generations. In it Wallace was condemned to death, and so was Guy Fawkes. It was on one of its gable ends that the head of Cromwell was exposed. In front of it Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded. You may be sure that it was an interested gaze that was cast upon the ordinary-looking and yet remarkable structure. Another place I visited with profound interest was the Tower of London. This is fully three miles from Westminster Abbey, down the river. It is called the Tower, when really it is a cluster of towers. The central building, however, is the one that has given name and character to the place. Conceive a deep moat, and a lofty wall surmounted by, or rather built into a number of strong towers, and enclosing a piece of ground of several acres in extent. Besides this, there is an inner wall. From the center of this enclosed ground rises a rectangular, four-story building, sixty or eighty yards square, with a turret at each corner, and with walls fifteen feet thick. This building is called the White Tower. It was at one time a palace for the crowned heads of England, but was finally vacated by them for brighter and pleasanter abodes. It then became a prison for people of consequence, while under its shadow two places of execution were established, where the very best blood of England and Scotland was made to flow. It was in this central building that Sir Walter Raleigh was confined. And it was underneath the steps of the southern stairway of this same building that the skeletons of the two young princes, murdered by Richard the Third, were found. A slab in the wall announces the fact. They were killed in what is called the Bloody Tower, but were buried by Richard, as described, in the White Tower. The place is now used as a garrison, while the apartments, and council chamber, and great banqueting-hall of a departed royalty, have been transformed into magazines, armories, and a museum containing antiquities, relics, and interesting objects of all kinds. Among the mournful and painful things to be seen, is the cloak on which Gen. Wolfe died in front of Quebec, a genuine thumb-screw, a model of the "rack," and the beheading axe and block upon which Lord Kilmarnock and others were executed. The axe has a blade eighteen inches broad, the headsman’s iron mask is near it, while the block is hollowed out in front and rear for the reception of the breast on one side, and the drooping of the face on the other. This hollowing reduces the top edge of the block to a narrow strip of three inches in width, on which the neck is laid. On that strip I observed, with a sick feeling at the heart, two deep gashes in the wood. They needed no explanation! Between the central building and the western wall, in almost the center of the court yard, is the spot where condemned females were beheaded. A stone slab marks the spot. Here Anne Boleyn, and Catharine, and Lady Jane Gray were executed. I took a seat under a tree and gave myself up to reflection. I have walked amid so many sepulchres lately, and marked the spots signalizing so many cruelties and atrocities of men, that the soul was powerless to shake off a spirit of deep pensiveness. I conjured up the scene, as, one by one, at different periods, these lovely women stood there confronting the heartless crowd, the ghastly block and axe, the masked headsman, and the grave and eternity. How the innocence and helplessness of the woman appealed from the brutality and injustice of man to the merciful God! And how I feel He, in infinite pity drew near them at the trying hour! In a small chapel, thirty yards from where I sit, lie side by side, the bodies of the two murdered wives of Henry the Eighth. Verily, when this same Henry entered at death into perdition, Satan felt moved to resign and give him the throne! I firmly believe that there are some men who actually startle and horrify the devils. I foresee a revolution and strife in hell, before which the Miltonic angel war fades into insignificance. I remarked that only females were executed in the walls of the tower. The men were beheaded on Tower Hill, fully one hundred yards outside the walls. Lady Jane Gray and her husband were beheaded the same day. They were, as you know, a devoted couple. He was confined in Beauchamps Tower, and she in an adjoining house. I was shown the window through which she was looking when she saw the lifeless body of her husband brought in from Tower Hill. As my eyes followed the pointed finger of the guide to the window, it seemed that I could feel, even then, after the long lapse of time, that gaze of unutterable agony. In a few minutes she was led to the block herself, and the husband and wife were reunited. Has this chapter been of rather a gloomy nature? Then will I conclude it with a brief description of a visit I paid to "The Country Churchyard," where Gray wrote his elegy, and where he lies buried. The spot is thirty miles northwest of London, and about six east of Windsor. I went out in the evening, as being an appropriate time. Leaving the train at a town called Slough, I hired a cab and rode two miles to the immortalized place. Over a country of a table-like level, through pleasant lanes bordered with fields of grain, and by meadows on which I noticed grazing "the lowing herd," we went quietly and musingly along. By and by the road became lined with beech trees; then it turned down a lane thickly bordered with firs, and, bending sharply again, ran several hundred yards through an avenue of elm trees of largest size, whose interlacing boughs cast a deep, cool shadow underneath. A little farther on, and the driver stopped at a closed gate in a hedge, over which I could see a meadow, some portions of a field, a clump of trees, and a church spire. The driver was not allowed to go farther, and informed me that I must pursue the rest of the way by myself. It was in perfect keeping with my feelings so to do. Taking the path, I walked over the meadow and stood by the gate, studying the features of the "country churchyard" before me. The enclosure is studded with trees, and is surrounded by them as well. A little to one side is the church building, a structure of dark stone, with Gothic roof, and with a large, square tower at its side, rising up, at least, fifteen feet above the edge of the roof. The tower is covered from top to bottom with ivy. It was from this ivy-mantled tower that the owl hooted to the moon in complaint. As I look, facing west, upon the scene, the church is a little to the right, while to the left hand, in the small yard, and but a few steps from the building, is the "yew tree" mentioned in the poem. The elms are more numerous. "Beneath those rugged elms that yew tree’s shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap." It is all just as he wrote. Under the wide, drooping boughs of the yew tree I noticed not less than fifty graves. It is worthy of note that there is but one yew tree in the church yard, and if the poem is examined, it will be noticed that but one is mentioned. This faithfulness to facts and correctness of description strikes the heart of the observer very gratefully. Turning your back upon the enclosure, and looking east, your eyes fall upon the scene that is described in the stanza beginning, "hard by you wood." Looking in several directions you get views of open, grassy fields, over which the poet saw "the plowman plod," "the lowing herd wind its way," "the glimmering landscape fade," while his ear caught "the drowsy tinkling from the distant fold." Certainly it is fitting that Thomas Gray should be buried in the midst of scenes whose quiet beauty he has made by his genius a priceless legacy to the world. He lies in a tomb by the side of his mother, near the church, between "the yew tree’s shade" and "the ivy-mantled tower." I have never left a place with greater reluctance than this. The rooks were cawing on the tree-tops. The sun was going down in the west. It was at such an hour that Gray viewed the scene, and; walking about in the gloaming, moulded the lines of such unparalleled melody and beauty. I walked away, and lingered, turning often to take one other farewell look. And so I finally left the place; but in my soul I bore away the lovely scene with me as a precious possession forever. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 03.11. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE - LONDON ======================================================================== Chapter 11 The English People. -- The Accent -- "I beg pardon" -- Hotel Waiters -- Rosy Cheeks -- Ecclesiastical Titles -- Bunhill Fields -- City Road Chapel These English people are constantly throwing me into brown studies. So let it be however, for it is good to have the thinking faculties in lively exercise. Dickens was much amused at American manners and customs, and puts down the result of his observations in "American Notes," and "Martin Chuzzlewit." He did not seem to realize that the shield had another side, and that the sword he wielded, called national criticism, had a double edge, and, struck up by an American arm, might be made to fall with tremendous force upon the ways of Old England. If we grant that Great Britain, in its laws, customs, manners, and people has reached perfection, then are we all wrong in Columbia. The great novelist measured us by an English standard; but is the measure a right one? The time is coming when we will have given us by some American child of genius a book called "English Notes," and national criticism will be seen to possess a double edged blade, or more properly, the peculiar back action of the boomerang. Certainly such a writer, however otherwise he may be embarrassed, will never know the embarrassment of lack of material. And yet even such a book would not prove that we as a people are blameless, but the two books together will teach a fact which is daily being impressed upon me more and more as I pass through the land, and that is that the nations are laughing-stocks to one another. France smiles at Germany, to which the land of the Fredericks responds with a guffaw of reciprocal amusement. England lifts its eyebrows at America, to which the States might reply with a smile that could spread into the neighborhood of both ears. I have more than once felt the twitching of my risible muscles in looking at the garb of some Syrian street peddlers in New Orleans. I little thought that the day was coming when my long linen duster would create greater attention and amusement in certain parts of Switzerland where snow abounds and dust is not an affliction. A great fact underlies in this homely illustration. All I insist upon is that England shall not feel that she has the laugh to herself. If she knew her faults, she would say: Save me from the American laugh that could arise with the thundering roar of a Niagara, and come rebounding upon me from such sounding-boards as the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains. And yet I was told in New York that we have there a host of servile imitators of England, and that the younger part of the community push the matter to such an extreme that if they hear that it is raining in London, at once the young men of New York roll up their pants and hoist an umbrella. In addition to features of greater moment many lesser things struck me while in England. One was the English accent. To obtain it requires first that a man should contract a bad cold in the head, next that there should be a rigidity if not paralysis, of certain throat muscles and vocal chords; then let him labor for chest notes, banish from the face all appearance of animation, and doing these things he will have the appearance and rejoice in the lingual excellence of the subject of Queen Victoria. Another thing that immediately arrests attention is the unwearying, perpetual, and everlasting expression, "I beg pardon." If you look at an Englishman hard, he says, "I beg pardon." If you address him, and he does not catch the sense of the speech his invariable reply is, "I beg pardon," with a rising inflection on the pardon. Whether he hears you or not, and no matter what you ask, before the Britisher gives satisfaction, he draws his little verbal scimitar and plunges it through the ear into the brain centers made exquisitely sensitive by many previous stabs. While in England I had my pardon begged, on the average twenty or thirty times a day, until one unfamiliar with the custom would have supposed that I was the most injured and trampled-upon individual in the land. I was struck with the way that England thrusts forward her servants; and, in the person of the gentry, retires in the background. In nine cases out of ten the coachmen and footmen are finer looking men than the masters they drive, and always better dressed. The custom of the gentleman driving his own servant, which custom in America we are rapidly imitating, adds to the effectiveness of the picture in a most decided manner. If we look farther we find all the hotel waiters arrayed in black broadcloth, with swallow-tail coat, vest cut low to reveal a great expanse of immaculate shirt, with deep Byronic collar. Most of these waiters wear side whiskers, and the last one of them looks in his dignity and gravity as if he were the Prime Minister of England. By long contact with men of the world they actually acquire an ease of manner that is superior to many of the people they wait upon. Besides this, in all countries there are different table customs and proprieties peculiar to each land. These being often unknown to people thoroughly genteel, and who are perfectly at ease under any circumstances at home, give the waiter the advantage of superior knowledge in one direction at least, over the majority of those whom he serves -- an advantage which he feels and doubtless enjoys. Now see the conclusion that has strangely thrust itself upon me from viewing these things -- viz., that a stern kind of justice, a leveling fate, or a law of compensation, is at work in the servant world. The man is a servant, but he is better dressed than his employer, has easier manners, and, to crown all, is driven out by his master for an airing every evening. The master is so busy managing the horses that he cannot see anything; but the servant sits back and enjoys the scenery and, in fact, all things. Another thing to which I must call attention is the rosy cheeks of the women of England and Scotland. The fame of the blooming countenance of females in Northern latitudes has reached us of the South by song, poem, and pen of the traveler. In the innocence of my heart I thought that the rosy cheek was a kind of facial adornment that belonged perhaps to a certain nation -- that it was a beauty monopoly, and that the rose on the face blossomed from certain qualities and excellencies beneath the skin. It was therefore with a certain degree of regard that I noticed the facial bloom around me in landing on the shores of the Old World. But I went across the water to investigate and learn in all directions so I turned upon the phenomena before me the eyes of an honest critic and a truth-loving philosopher. Some are genuine, but in a number of instances I saw that the roses are due to the bleak winds that abound in certain latitudes for half, or more than half, the year; the bloom arises often from a chapped s kin and is rather an external application than a beauty developed from within. The ear, crimsoned by a bleak, north wind, is a quiet illustrator; while repeated Boreal smitings on the cheek irritate or affect in some way the veins and skin and leave a lasting scarlet tinge. All this is for the comfort of the pale-faced daughters of the South. Again, certain ecclesiastical titles provoke thought. A priest in the Church of England is Reverend, a Bishop is Right Reverend, and an Archbishop is Most Reverend. Ponder the titles, and see in what direction do they point. Is it an increasing or decreasing lustre? Is the last expression in the superlative degree, or is it the abbreviation of the word almost? If I am Reverend, and after that become Right Reverend, am I not losing ground? In a word, according to the titles, are we coming out of the big or the little end of the horn? I listened one Sabbath afternoon to one of these ministers of the Established Church intone the service in Westminster Abbey, and if there had been a half-dozen candles burning I would have supposed that I was in a Roman Catholic church. O what a humiliating conception of Christ’s and the Apostle’s manner of conducting religious services. Here is a rising and failing voice, confining itself to two notes, and with a sound that is a compound of a whine and moan, chosen as a vehicle to bring to my heart and understanding the blessed truth of God. Nor is this all; the rising and falling whine-moan was perfectly unintelligible. For all I could tell, it might have been a collection of the veriest nonsense. Would the soul feed on such food? Could it do so? Think of John or Peter or Paul whining away in the pulpit after such a fashion. May the Lord pour out a spirit of common sense upon certain branches of His Church! Rome patterned after pagan worship, the English Church is modeling after Rome, and certain of the American Churches are drawing from the faded design in England, which is itself a copy of a copy of a copy. I turn to a pleasanter theme. One of my afternoon trips in London was devoted to a visit to Bunhill Fields and City Road Chapel. I think the place is two or three miles north of the present center of London. The Bunhill Fields Cemetery is on the left hand of City Road as you go out, and the chapel is on the right hand, and directly opposite the cemetery. The latter place, which is a large square enclosed by an iron fence, is white with tombstones. They are of a very plain character, and show the effect of the sun and rain and wind of centuries upon them. The grave of Mrs. Susannah Wesley is near the center. It is marked by a plain slab five feet high, while the grave itself is now even with the earth. In addition, a modern walk passes over a fourth of her grave. Near her resting-place is the tomb of Richard Cromwell, and a little farther the vault of John Bunyan. Across the main dividing walk are the tombs of Isaac Watts and Daniel DeFoe. Very willingly I paused by the graves of these three last-named men. Here I was personally indebted to men whom I never saw. Across the long sweep of years and decades they had stirred and delighted me. DeFoe had charmed my childhood with his "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan had impressed me religiously in my boyhood, and Watts with his lovely and beautiful hymns had enriched my Christian manhood. City Road Chapel, so familiar in name and history to the Methodist reader, sets back twenty yards or more from the street, with a few trees of moderate size in front. The sexton admitted me into the plain, unpretentious building. The first impression that was strangely made on me as I looked around was that the brethren prayed long prayers here. Did the reader ever see a church that looked that way? If not, he has an experience or sensation awaiting him. My informant told me that the audience is not a large one, although I could see it was a roomy church, seating doubtless, with its spacious gallery, fifteen hundred people. I was invited to walk up and stand in the round, lofty pulpit, in which Mr. Wesley used to preach, but I declined with thanks. I have not the morbid desire to sit in the chairs or stand in the pulpits of great men. I saw a dozen men sit in Shakespeare’s chair in Stratford-on-Avon. They also dip by thousands in the chair of Walter Scott. Alas for them that genius does not ascend through and from a leather cushion or a piece of polished plank. The contrast presented to the mind at such a time is damaging to one of the parties. I preferred to stand off and view the place where this holy man of God, full of the Holy Ghost, so preached the gospel that the hearers often fell like dead men around him. O that the purity and piety and power that dwelt in him might abide upon us all at this day. In the rear of the chapel stands the tomb of Mr. Wesley. I bent my steps in that direction. You approach by a narrow yard on the right side of the church. This yard was bedecked with bed and table linen waving in the wind. I fervently wish that the parties who hung out these household banners had been blessed with a certain amount of proper sentiment, and a realization of the fitness of things. Emerging from this canopied side-yard, I came into the rear of the church, which I found to be a square court about thirty or forty yards each way. The place is filled with tombstones. In the center is that of Mr. Wesley, and near him are the plain tombs of Joseph Benson, Adam Clarke and Richard Watson. I lingered here as long as I could, and as I turned away my thought was that these four truly great men have not such sepulchers as I saw at Westminster covering men who had nothing but their titles; but in the morning of the resurrection there will burst forth a glory from these four graves before which the splendor of Westminster, and the magnificence of London itself, will pale into insignificance. God’s time has not yet come, the day of His people is yet to dawn. Mr. Wesley’s house is nearer the street than the church, and is on your right hand, as you stand facing the chapel. I was shown several pieces of his furniture, and I was struck with the taste of Mr. Wesley, and the richness and genuineness of these articles themselves. The founder of Methodism seemed to desire but few things, but these few he wanted solid and good. He had but two spoons, but they were both of silver. On the inside of the doors of his desk were the pictures of a dozen of the prominent Methodist ministers of his time. He cut them out of magazines and books, and pasted them with his own hand where he could see them. His room was a back room on the second floor. The front room he gave to his mother. Opening into his bedroom is a closet or dressing-room, in which he had a small writing-table, and where doubtless much of his praying was done. His bedroom is decidedly small, being not over ten feet square, if even that large. I remember noticing that the door could not be fully opened if a bed stood in the corner opposite. Here stood out to my mind one of the innumerable acts of self-denial that marked his life. The large pleasant front room was given first to his mother, and, after her death, turned over to some one else. I felt that here was holy ground, as, with uncovered head, I paused a few moments in the bedroom. Here he read, and prayed, and composed his sermons; here he thought and planned for Methodism; here he rested from his long, exhausting journeys, and here finally he died. It was in this room that, just before his spirit sped its way to heaven, he uttered the memorable words that have gone all over the world. It was a sentence of pure gold, akin to inspiration, and outweighing the globe with all its values: "The best of all is, God is with us." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 03.12. PARIS ======================================================================== Chapter 12 Lingual Difficulties in France. -- The Cafes -- Vendome Column -- Louvre Palace and Tuilleries Gardens -- Sainte Chapelle -- Palace of Justice -- How the Lawyers Dress -- Notre Dame -- The Sabbath -- Mission Work in Paris The experience that comes to one in landing in a foreign country, where an unknown tongue is spoken, is peculiar, and not one of unmixed enjoyment. As the white chalk hills or cliffs of Dover sink beneath the horizon, the English language, except in sporadic cases, goes with them, and as the foot presses the soil of France, and the ear takes in the rapid clatter of tongues from under moustached lips, the traveler begins to feel his loneliness and his comparative helplessness in a forcible way. Henceforth signs and gestures must be depended upon, while the tongue that has been so often relied on, and has answered to a thousand demands, is now relegated to a long rest. It can do little or nothing more. It is, so to speak, laid on the shelf; or, more elegantly, it lies down on its velvety cushion, leans against two shining rows of ivory, while the eyes and ears stand guard, and do what they can for the resting monarch. Whenever this reposing monarch, or member, arose and asserted himself in France, he got into trouble. Scores of times full of self-confidence, he sprang up with a bound and rushed forward into the verbal affray; but as often he sank back, discouraged, disgusted and defeated. On one occasion I adopted the happy expedient of speaking very volubly in English, with a strong French accent. A very common mistake! What happened then? Just this: that the descendant of Charlemagne turned and poured upon me such a flood of "omnia Gallia," without its being divisa in tres partes," that I was almost lifted from my feet. We parted, both being thoroughly mystified. But one feeling of exultation I bore away with me was, that if he had mystified me, I had also thoroughly confounded him. After being in Paris a couple of days I became bolder in regard to my lingual surroundings. So I stepped out to purchase some candles one evening, neglecting to obtain the French phrase from the hotel clerk, who spoke English. Entering into a store that contained a little of everything, I asked the female shopkeeper for a candle in plain Anglo-Saxon. She smilingly proffered various articles. I shook my head and fell back on my French accent. She grew more animated, and dived into her show cases for things I never dreamed of, nor would ever need. The battle became more interesting. It was impossible to tell which side would finally win. Finally a brilliant idea struck me. Raising my hand, I scratched an imaginary match in the air, and applied it to an equally fanciful candle. Her face at once lighted up. I thought I had conquered, when, lo! she stooped down and, from a shelf near the floor, lifted and handed me something that looked like the machine that is used for wooden scroll-work. I took a seat in despair. Then she smiled and I smiled. Then I left. She looked foolish, and so did I, and felt foolish besides. Further down the street I entered a shop where the owner understood English; but I was nearly an hour in getting the candles. The first thing that strikes the tourist in entering Paris is the cafe system. The pavements are fairly lined with small tables and chairs, where the people are eating ices and sherbets, drinking wine, or partaking of their meals, according to the hour of the day. At night especially, upon the larger avenues and the boulevards the throng of laughing, chatting, drinking, eating people at these little white-topped tables is simply immense, requiring a most sinuous course in some places for the pedestrian to move along. Sunday night, as I passed to and from church, the crowd was, if possible, even larger. Vehicles of every description were flashing hither and thither up the broad thoroughfare; merriment and conversation rose and fell like waves along the pavement, crowded with nicely-dressed men and women; wine glasses were clinking, and through the leaves of the overarching trees the electric light and the moonlight, in strange companionship, fell in checkered, quivering light and shadow upon the sitting an d moving groups beneath. These scenes on the week nights declare powerfully the absence of the home-life in Paris; but when beheld on the Sabbath, it teaches something sadder and more awful still, and that is, a city without God. It needs no prophet to affirm, after beholding such scenes and others of a darker nature, that, as a people, they are yet to taste in judgment "the wine of the wrath of God." God vindicates his holy day and law, and history is one long confirmation of the fact. One of the first visits I paid was to the Vendome Column. It is about two or three blocks from the river Seine, on the upper or eastern bank. The column stands in a square, through which only one street passes, from north to south. It was constructed out of fourteen hundred cannon taken from the enemies of France by Napoleon. This was one of the best things that Bonaparte ever did, to change implements of war into an inoffensive pillar of iron. If he had taken fourteen hundred more of his own and built another column, then would he, indeed, have been famous. When the Communists, in 1871, with cable and windlass, pulled it down, it was broken into fifty-six different pieces; but the government has had it all recast, and so the monument stands as it did in the time of the great Emperor. The Louvre Palace is near by, and situated directly on the banks of the Seine. It occupies three sides of a long square; not such a square as we have in New Orleans, but one equal to six of ours. The unoccupied, or western, side was finally filled up by the construction of the Tuilleries Palace. It was in this last-named building that Napoleon lived. It was destroyed in 1871 by the Communists, and a few years ago the ruins were all removed, and the vacant space is now beautified with flowers, walks, and statuary. If a person stands in the center of the broad walk of this garden and looks west, he will be in a line with some beautiful, wonderful, and historic objects. Back of him will be the vast Louvre Palace; back of him, only nearer, will be the place where the beautiful Tuilleries Palace once stood; in front of him is the broad graveled walk, one hundred feet wide, that divides the old Tuilleries gardens -- part of it in flowers and statuary, and part of it in trees. Farther still in the distance you see two great fountains; beyond these an obelisk of Egypt, standing in the center of the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine once did such dreadful work; still farther on stretches the Champs Elysees, a beautiful avenue of a mile in length; and finally, at the end of the avenue, and closing the view, the arch of Triumph, erected by the great Napoleon. I stood and looked in the direction I have indicated one Saturday evening, near the hour of sunset. He who could not think and feel under such circumstances could properly be wondered at. Half of the Louvre Palace is occupied by government offices, and the other half is used as a museum. Here are antiquities and relics beyond number, statues by the hundred, and miles of paintings. I walked, looking at them until I was weary, not in eye so much as in feet. I was shown the window from which the Bourbon king fired on the Huguenots, and in full view of the window is the tower whose bell gave the signal for the massacre to begin. In the church called Sainte Chapelle I stood examining the stained windows for which it is famous, when my attention was called to the fact that under the stone slabs where I stood were the bodies of Massillon and Fenelon -- one the most eloquent, and the other the holiest man that ever lived in France. With what sudden interest did I look down, and how careful and reverential became my steps. No one ever here seems to mind walking on sepulchres; but, for my life, I cannot get accustomed to the practice. The Palace of Justice, where all the courts are held, and where the lawyers congregate and perambulate in a large, central marble hall, next claimed my attention. I noticed that every one wore a black cap similar in shape to the tourist or traveler’s cap, and a black gown that descended to within four inches of the floor. As soon as a lawyer arrives he doffs his shining beaver, or more ordinary-looking hat, and dons at once the cap and gown that await him in a general dressing-room in the hall. The custom struck me as most excellent. It was not only a very becoming costume for every one, but it gave a magisterial look, and, above all, obliterated the distinctions of wealth declared by clothing. I could not help but think that when these lawyers arose to plead their cases in court, the fact that all were alike in dress must necessarily have a good effect on jury, and even judge. A lawyer’s shabby coat sometimes hurts him in the United States; but such a thing cannot happen in Paris very well, because o f this happy expedient. The church of Notre Dame is on the Island of Paris. It faces west, with two great square towers in front. The vaulting of the nave is one hundred and ten feet high, supported by seventy-five large pillars. You can get some idea of the size of this cathedral when I tell you it can accommodate a congregation of twenty-five thousand people. It was this church that in the Revolution was changed into a Temple of Reason, and surmounted with the figure of a woman. Napoleon restored it as soon as he came into power. It was in this church that the Corsican was crowned emperor of the French by Pius; or, rather, he crowned himself, inasmuch as he took the crown from Pius and placed it on his own head, and then to turned and crowned Josephine with his own hand. What a stir and talk this act must have created in Paris and Rome and all the world! I looked with great interest on the spot which I had often seen in pictures. The paintings were faithful, for the whole place was familiar to my mind. The three chairs, in which Napoleon and the Pope and Josephine sat, are still there; but the glory and pageantry of that day is gone, and the Pope and the Emperor and the Empress have moldered into dust and ashes. Very brightly did the light fall through the stained glass upon them on this day of triumph. I saw the light descend like a golden glory, and fall with almost perpendicular ray upon the same place. But the kneeling figures were not there and of all the twenty-five thousand people who filled the place at the time, and gazed breathlessly upon the scene, not one is left. Is it not pitiful to see men greater than all forms of material, strength and magnificence, passing away, while such things as chairs and walls and stone pillars remain? The next day was the Sabbath. On that day I cease traveling and sight-seeing. The time is spent in my room, and in attendance upon as many church services as I can well manage. In the morning I attended service at Notre Dame. There were two hundred people in an auditorium that seats or accommodates twenty-five thousand. Let the brethren that pine over empty pews take heart. Handing a church functionary two sous for the privilege of sitting near the chancel, I took a seat and endeavored to draw good from what was going on. The organ pealed away up somewhere among the pillars, the priest ah’d and oh’d his way along in the intoning, the little boys rung the bells; a good deal of stooping, bowing, and walking about took place; some rapid responsive reading in Latin between the half-dozen priests in the chancel, and then all was over. The priests and little boys in white glided noiselessly away, and disappeared in a spectral manner among the granite columns and monuments and statues of the shadowy cathedral. Then a man in uniform came and closed the chancel gate with a bang that filled the church with echoes; and the congregation melted away. A few remained, staring vacantly at the silent and deserted altar. They looked dazed, or may be they thought the little boys would come back and ring their bells once more. But they did not -- for the show was over. I tarried with the few for another purpose. The followers of Peter had not fed the sheep that day. We were still hungry. A tinkling bell does not satisfy the soul; and worship in an unknown tongue, and that a dead tongue, does not profit says the Bible. But the Lord said to the Samaritan woman: "The time is coming when men shall worship the Father everywhere." And so I opened my Bible, and in the dim light of the cathedral read the Word of Life and rejoiced in the presence and fellowship of the Savior. In the evening I went to three distinct religious services. Mr. McAll, who has about forty mission stations in Paris, is now away for two month’s rest and recreation. The Congregationalist church is also doing a good work in the missionary line, while the Wesleyan Methodist Church has, at least, twenty mission stations in this great field. I was struck with the intelligent audience at one of the latter-named places. The Congregationalist minister informed me that the one method open to them of saving the people of Paris is through pastoral labor and personal contact, and then drawing them into halls of religious worship. No street meetings of a religious character are allowed in Paris. To attempt a harangue of this kind on the street would quickly result in arrest and imprisonment. And so the work will be long and difficult, necessarily. Meantime the vast audience we crave to save sits Sunday evenings on the brilliantly lighted boulevards, laughing, chatting, smoking, and emptying wine glasses, while the churches are empty, the holy day of God desecrated, and Eternity forgotten. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 03.13. PARIS ======================================================================== Chapter 13 Paris. Napoleon -- His Tomb -- Pantheon -- The Morgue -- The Place De La Concorde -- Names That Are Misnomers -- Pere La Chaise -- The Bastile -- The Eiffel Tower -- An Evening Scene This entire land speaks of Bonaparte, at least to the traveler. Whether one hurries through France on the flying train, or tarries in Paris, the most prominent figure of the past is felt to be that of the Corsican. He has projected himself into the present and impressed his personality on this country in a most remarkable way. As you glance down the long broad thoroughfares seaming the land, you see him in fancy leading a group of horsemen, himself far in the front, with head slightly bent, with knit brow and compressed lip, while the hand jerks impatiently at the rein as he sweeps along. Again on yonder eminence we behold another group of stalwart-looking men in uniform standing near and about one of small figure clad in gray cloak and three-cornered hat. The white clouds drifting on the horizon answer in the mental picture for the smoke of the distant battlefield. But oftenest do we see him in Paris, not only in painting and statue, not only in the letter "N" that we find in many places, but through the magical power of association. The very names of streets and buildings are able to bring him up. The banks of the Seine recall the time when he, in a fit of despondency, meditated taking his life by plunging in its waves. The sight of the libraries bring to mind the pale young student, who for long months sought their quiet shadows, and filled his capacious mind with knowledge of every kind, so that when his country called for such a man, he was able to stand forth and say, I am ready. Within one block of my room is the street where he directed and discharged his cannon upon the mob, and France for the first time heard the voice and tread of her future master. Works of art by thousands in galleries, and playing fountains, and stately columns, and majestic arches, and radiating boulevards all alike speak of the great first Napoleon. The Hotel des Invalides is now his last resting-place. At 12 o’clock every day a cannon is fired close by in the barrack yards. So that the sleeping body of the Emperor still feels the vibration of the sounds of war. The roar of cannon was to him in life a well-beloved voice, so that the daily regular boom of the great piece of artillery is a fitting and appropriate sound, although now it is a requiem. The magnificent sarcophagus that contains his body, rests in the center of a circular crypt of polished granite, that is twenty feet in depth, and nearly forty in width. As I leaned on the encircling balustrade and looked down at the sleeping dust, I recalled a line of a song composed in his honor many years ago, a song, by the way, of great pathos and beauty-- "No sound can awake him to glory again." The cannon sends forth its heavy boom every day, the building trembles under the discharge, the body of the dead man quivers, but the eyes refuse to open and the sleeper slumbers on, awaiting the voice of the Son of God, who alone can awake the dead. I observed that Josephine was not by his side. As the divorced wife she could not be, nor did he deserve to have her there. She rests, I think, at Malmaison. Very wide apart, I notice, are the tombs of people who were very close to each other in life. This separation of the graves of loved ones is one of the sad features of this world of ours. Mary of Scotland is in London, while her husband sleeps in Edinburgh. Queen Elizabeth rests in Westminster Abbey, and the man she loved is entombed in Warwick. The graves of almost every household offer a study here, and a most pathetic study at that. The tombs of three of Napoleon’ s brothers, Jerome, Joseph and Louis, are to be seen in room-like recesses close by. He lifted them into prominence in life, and continued to do the same in death. How often we see a large family upheld and held together by a single member. It was so in the far distant days of Joseph in Egypt, and will continue to be so, I suppose, until the end of time. The fickleness of the Parisian populace is proverbial. Perhaps no one sight so forcibly brings the thought back to mind as the contemplation of the statue of Marshal Key. At one time he was a demi-god, and fairly worshiped by the people, then he was shot, and then after that his statue was erected upon the spot where he was executed. I have been much struck with the street statues of this city. As I looked into the history of the men who were accorded this honor I made this discovery, that the method of Paris is, either to kill a man and then make a statue of him, or make a statue and then kill the man. If choice had to be made here some people might feel a little puzzled and reasonably ask for time. I visited the Pantheon. This is built in imitation of the structure in Rome that bears the same name. It is used as a burial-place of the mighty dead of France. Victor Hugo has thus been honored. A feeling of a conglomerate character swept over me as I overheard a young traveler of undoubted country air say very earnestly to another person, standing near, "that Victor Hugo was a very fine old man!" Fortunately the great author was dead. For some minutes I walked on through the building with a feeling in my heart that found expression in the mental whisper -- O fame! The walls of the Pantheon are being covered with paintings of colossal size. The history of Joan of Arc is thus powerfully and felicitously represented in four scenes: The Call to the Life Work, the Warrior, the Crowning of the King, and the Death of the Martyr. They all hold the visitor with a deep fascination. Not far from this spot is a picture representing the beheading of St. Dennis. The saint is portrayed with bent body and on his knees, in the act of picking up the decapitated head with his hands. Although the painting was intended to be very solemn and awe-inspiring, it really requires an effort to keep from smiling! for as the saint holds his head before him in his hands it looks for all the world like he was gazing at and examining it microscopically and analytically for his own amusement or information, through his shoulders. Near by St. Dennis, and on the ground lies a man who has suffered decapitation likewise, and whose head rests several feet away from his body. A gentleman near me of an inquiring turn of mind turned suddenly to the guide and cried out: "I say, how is this? Here is St. Dennis beheaded and yet picking up his head, and here is another man who has lost his head, and yet he is lying still with his head by him -- how do you explain that?" "Oh," replied the guide, "St. Dennis was a saint and could pick up his head; but this other man is a poor devil of a fellow and had to leave his head on the ground!" The laugh went up from the crowd. I looked at the guide, and he had turned, and with his shoulders shrugged to his very ears, was walking away with his arms extended like the wings of a bird. "Bravo!" I mentally ejaculated; here is a stab at Roman Catholic folly in the heart of Catholic France, and by one of her sons. A few more blows like that, a little more blood-letting like that, and the victory of common sense and truth is bound to come." The Morgue is a ghastly place to visit. With no feeling of vain curiosity, but actually with a shrinking, reluctant spirit I entered the building. You pass in from the street through a door into a passage that runs parallel with the sidewalk. The inner wall of the passage is made of glass, and on the other side of the glass, ranged in a row, stare at you the suicides of the week. These were not all the self-inflicted murders, but were simply those who have not been recognized. On a placard on the wall I read the names of twenty. Eighteen of the twenty were men. Women with all of their physical weakness, and in face of the fact that they are constantly called the "weaker vessel," can endure much more suffering than the strong sex. With all of the bitterness of poverty and consequent hard work, and with all the unkind treatment, in addition, coming from the hands of brutal men, it is a rare thing for a woman to commit suicide. The bodies are placed here for identification. And I could not but reflect, as I tarried for a moment in the sad place, upon the agonizing scenes that had there transpired, as wife or mother recognized suddenly and, it may be, unexpectedly the face, cold in death, of husband or son. Poor, giddy, wine-drinking, pleasure-loving, Sabbath-breaking Paris continues to lead all the other cities in the matter of suicides. The Place de la Concorde is a large stone-paved square at the head of the avenue called Champs Elysees, and near the river Seine. It was in this square that the guillotine was erected and employed so busily in the time of the Revolution. Here Louis X VI and Marie Antoinette and Madame Roland and a host of others met untimely deaths. The blood of the best and noblest in France poured here in torrents. Here women knitted as they watched the flash of the descending blade of the guillotine, while the mob raged and roared like wild animals, as head after head was lifted up, and one victim after another stepped from the cart to the platform of death. And yet they call this spot the Place de la Concorde! What a way men have of misnaming things! What is in a name after all? Certainly some of them sound like a sarcasm -- a ghastly piece of irony. Take the word gentleman; is he always a gentle man? And the word nobleman; O how noble are some of the nobility! Dwell a moment on the term "Good Queen Bess." As the reader recalls her paroxysms of anger, her inordinate vanity, her imprisonment of people, and the deaths she had inflicted, the words Good Queen Bess become a fine piece of satire! May we all be saved from such goodness! Henry the Eighth was called the Defender of the Faith. What faith? Doubtless the faith he had in himself for if he ever had any other, it does not so appear in his life. And here right before me is a place that will be forever remembered for its scenes of discord, strife, and bloodshed; and, behold, it is called the Place de la Concorde! Pere-la-Chaise is the famous cemetery of Paris. The Prince of Wales remarked after his visit to America, that almost the first thing said to him on reaching one of our great cities would be, "Have you visited our cemetery?" In absence of historic places, this was the next best thing that a young nation could offer. In Pere-la-Chaise there is history as well as tombstones. I was told that here was one of the last stands made by the Communists, and that they fought desperately to the very end in the midst of these graves, and even in the tombs themselves. In the southern part of the cemetery is the tomb of Abelard and Heloise. I was informed that two hundred thousand people visit it annually, and that the younger class keep it supplied with flowers. As I was looking at the recumbent figures carved in stone I saw a lady connected with a traveling party stoop and pick a sprig of grass that grew beside the monument. The little occurrence, done quickly and with evident embarrassment, showed an amount of morbid sentimentality and a certain lack of moral fiber that was surprising, at least, to one individual. The Bastille as the reader knows, is no more. The spot is now marked by a large square, from the center of which shoots up a monumental shaft one hundred and fifty-four feet in height. Many of the stones of the ancient prison have been built into the bridges that cross the river Seine; the dungeons have been filled up, the chains are gone; the key, a thing of most enormous size, I saw at Mt. Vernon on the banks of the Potomac; so that the prison is pretty effectually scattered. But all the razing and removing of this building of horror can never obliterate from the minds of men the memory of the scenes of suffering and torture occurring on this spot for centuries. Much as we know of these dark transactions of the past, how little really of the full history do we know. The unwritten and unknown records of the Bastille transcend conception. The Eiffel Tower was of course ascended. Think of standing on the top of a slender spire nearly one thousand feet high, which an excited fancy would have you believe is bending and swaying in the wind. The traveler may leave his hotel with the full intention of mounting to the dizzy summit, but when he reaches the base of the tower and looks up, he has to go through sundry additional process of mental bracing and determinations of will. Some, I doubt not, turn back at this point, and many have to be encouraged. One lady after considerable delay took a hesitating and woe begone seat in the elevator with the solemn words: "Well, if I must, I must!" Later on she ejaculated to her son, a lad of fourteen: "Come here, my son, and sit close to me." The husband, a patient-looking man was not invited to a like proximity. There are three stops or platforms connected with the tower. From the third and last is obtained the lofty and wide-spread view for which the structure is famous. It is said that it commands a prospect of fifty miles. Paris lies like a map at your feet, while the Seine unrolls like a silver ribbon in the midst of an emerald landscape and finally disappears in the far distance. Such, however, is the great height of the tower, that the inequalities of land in and about Paris, and that gives it much of its charm, are literally flattened out and lost to the vision. A view of the city from a lesser altitude is more correct, satisfying, and beautiful. This outlook can be had from the Trocadero Palace. I have often heard people say that whenever they stood upon very lofty places they felt a strange and almost irresistible inclination to cast themselves down. So far from this being the case with the writer he was distinctly conscious of both a desire and determination not to do any such foolish thing, but to remain on the platform and when he returned, to come down by way of the elevator. A man seen on the ground from this height is a small sized spectacle never to be forgotten. As I looked down and saw a black dot moving about on the earth’s surface with two little specks alternately appearing and disappearing under the dot, I said, as I recognized the dot to be a man and the specks to be legs, is it possible that such a tiny creature as that could ever inspire fear in the breast of anything! A great courage seemed to arise within me, as I contemplated the human ants rushing around one thousand feet below me. Perhaps it was the distance that inspired the courage, but the wonder, nevertheless, arose that I should ever have dreaded those insects in the dust. Then came pity for them in their low estate, and so by and by I came down and stood with them and was like them once more. On the whole I prefer the horizontal view of my fellow-man. It is best every way. You can see into his eyes, and all but hear the beating of his heart. The lofty observation of men has been the trouble of the world, and will be, I fear, for generations to come. It is very difficult to recognize a man, and what is in a man from altitudes of any kind. May we all come down from Eiffel Tower, especially those of us who are called to the work of the pulpit. The people will be very glad to see us; and all of us who come down will be glad, now and forevermore, for the descent. I have remembered very clearly for years the description given of a certain minister, that he "was invisible six days and incomprehensible the seventh." He certainly must have been on Eiffel Tower. Let us all descend, even though we have to jump the distance. If we will not come down, may a kind Providence knock us down, and keep us among the people where we belong. An evening walk by the banks of the Seine and a meditative pause in the square at the head of the Champs Elysees marked the close of my last day in Paris. The Arch of Triumph loomed up in the distance against the sunset; the roar of the city came with subdued sound through the Tulleries Gardens in one direction, and from over the river in another; the avenues were alive with equipages that flashed along; pedestrians were thronging the beautiful walks of the park; children were sailing their boats in the miniature lake, or strolling with their nurses under the trees. It was a scene of life and gayety; and yet the feeling left in the heart as I turned homeward was one of melancholy. Several causes conspired to produce this, but the one that predominated, was the thought that this busy, beautiful, populous city was without God. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 03.14. THE RHINE ======================================================================== Chapter 14 The Rhine. A Scene in Belgium -- Cologne -- The Rhine -- The Vineyards -- The Ruins of Castles -- The Legends -- Col. Somebody -- Bingen on the Rhine -- A Moonlight Scene on the Rhine. I left Paris on the 8 o’clock morning train for Cologne, on the Rhine. In this journey you pass through the breadth of the kingdom of Belgium. A hard-worked looking people meet the gaze whenever and wherever you look. We ran for miles on the banks of the river Meuse. Mountainous hills descend at some places very steeply to the river’s edge. Running up the hill-sides were cultivated farms, divided into squares by hedges. The unconscious arrangement gave to these farms the appearance of pictures painted in living colors, set up in frames and leaned against the walls of the mountains. What a wonderful picture gallery that river valley was for awhile! From Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne, all in Prussian territory, the country was one waving mass of golden grain, with gleaners in the field, and loaded wagons moving along the tree-skirted roads, with villages amid spires in the distance, and in the remote distance ranges of purple hills shutting in the immense plain. We arrived at Cologne at or near 7 o’clock in the evening. There are two things to be done in this city that sits on the western bank of the river Rhine. One is to get a bottle of cologne, not because that it is especially needed at this place, but because here is the fountain-head of that famous perfume, Another thing to be done is to visit the great cathedral. It is a gothic structure, and by its size and beauty deeply impressed me. As I entered the building at 8 o’clock in the evening, I found the vast space within almost filled with a worshiping throng. A dim, weird light from a few lights struggled with the shadows of the temple; the great columns of stone lifted themselves up until they were fairly lost in the darkness of the lofty ceiling; a great crowd of people stood or knelt all about the building, every eye being on the priest who was literally enveloped in a cloud of incense arising from the altar; the music came from an unknown, undiscovered spot. It was from above, among the stone pillar s; but whether from the chancel, or from the right transept or the left, or from the end of the nave, it was impossible to tell. How the Roman Church calculates upon the effect of all these things -- the gleaming row of candles, the mysterious bell, the clouds of incense, the majestic pillared roof, the architectural magnificence, the distant music from above; the flitting, bowing, white-robed figures in the altar, and, over all, the dim, mystic light peculiar to the cathedral! It was a scene for a painter. Not all of the Rhine is beautiful; but that portion which lies between Bonn and Bingen constitutes the part that has figured most in song, poem, fiction, and book of travel. Taking the steamer at Cologne, and going up as far as Mayence, over an hundred and twenty miles away, you see it all. I was reluctant at the beginning of the voyage to yield the claims of the Hudson River; but before the journey was completed I had given the palm to the Rhine. The advantage of the latter is in the length of the mountain panorama, and in the castle ruins that crown the crags all along. Then there is such a delightful combination of the ancient and the modern, of wild nature and nature tamed. The harvests wave in the sunny fields, the sail gleams on the river, the vineyards clothe the mountain-side, and the ruined castle sits on the jutting crag. Industry leans on its reapinghook in the field, and History looks down upon you from the beetling rocks of the mountains that tower above you. Nature has three vails that she is fond of using, and which she employs with marked effect on the Rhine. She has a silver vail for the valley, a purple one for the hills, and a deep blue one for the mountains. I was much impressed with the old castles. Their strength and beauty of situation would strike the most careless observer. Some are half way down between the crest of the mountain and the edge of the river; others are perched upon the highest point, and stand with outline against the sky, noticeable for miles down the stream. The wonder was, how they could ever be taken by any kind of military assault. The castle of Drachenfels has been immortalized by an English pen. I cannot refrain from quoting the verse that appears in "Childe Harold:" "The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossom’d trees, And fields which promise corn and wine; And scattered cities crowning these, Whose fair white walls along them shine, Have showed a scene which I should see With double joy, wert thou with me." At Coblentz the "Blue Moselle" empties into the Rhine. It is a river that has a charming song composed in its praise. The strains that I had heard as a boy were sounding in memory the whole evening. Just opposite Coblentz is the fortified heights of Ehrenbreitstein, called the Gibraltar of Northern Europe. From the waves of the river to the topmost rocks it is a mass of walls and towers and battery-crowned plateaus. It is said that a most exquisite view of the country is to be had from the summit of the castle. Traveling on a short schedule, I could not stop, though my eye and heart hungered to do so. The vineyards constitute a most remarkable feature of this beautiful river. The slopes of the hills and the sides of the mountains are literally covered with them. In some places the mountain declivity is so sharp that it has to be terraced all the way down. At one point I counted twenty-eight or thirty distinct terraces. It is easy to imagine what a pleasing spectacle it presents. The legends of the Rhine are almost as numerous as its vineyards. A book containing a number was offered for sale on the boat; but I had indulged sufficiently in that lore as a boy, and I also had a few in condensed form in one of the books I had with me. I give, in a few brief words, one of them. The sentences in parenthesis are my own, with the desire to throw additional light on the authentic and interesting record. A certain lord, living in yonder castle to the right, had a daughter. (Oh, these daughters!) And she was lovely. (Of course.) About this time there came along a young wandering knight. (A kind of medieval tramp.) He fell in love with the daughter, and she with him. (All this was a foregone conclusion.) After a few months of lover-like happiness he went off to fight the Moors in Spain. (All of which was wrong. What had the Moors done to him?) In one of the battles he was wounded, and being left on the battle-field, was thought to be dead; and such a report came to the ears of the lovely daughter. At once she was plunged into despair, and immediately took the vail and became a nun. (This was extremely precipitate; she should have waited until the arrival of the evening mail.) The young wandering knight was not killed, as reported, but wounded. (If he had been a settled, industrious landholder in the neighborhood, he would have died but, being a kind of military tramp, he recovers.) Hastening back fr om the gory field, he finds, to his consternation and grief, that his lady love had taken the irrevocable vow of the nunnery; whereupon he spends the rest of his days leaning on and over the castle parapets of stone, looking down upon the convent that contained his lost treasure. (This morbid, unhealthy, useless piece of inactivity convinces me that had this young man lived in the present century, he would have been addicted to playing accompaniments on the piano, and writing bad poetry of a sentimental character.) Finally the young knight died. (Of what complaint is not mentioned in the legend; but I suspect that he caught cold sitting so long on the stones.) And now the young people rave over the one arch of the castle that is left. What mental conclusions they draw I leave to each reader to imagine; but the moral I draw from the legend is that you never know what young people are going to do. Still farther up there is another ruined castle where formerly dwelt seven lovely sisters. (This being four or five hundred years ago, there is no possible way of disproving the fact that all the sisters were lovely.) Having very large estates in addition to their beauty, they had quite a number of suitors. (Comment here is superfluous.) But these sisters did not desire to marry. (Perhaps they saw the men were after their land and money.) Anyhow, when compulsion was brought to bear upon these seven females in regard to matrimony, the legend relates that they drowned themselves in the river Rhine. (I have seen women who felt like drowning themselves for having married, but none affected like these Rhinish sisters.) The legend goes on to say that forthwith there came up above the surface of the river seven rocks, into which form the rocky-hearted sisters were transformed. (On reflection, this was not such a change after all. Nevertheless, it was a warning to other females who, since that time, have bee n more tractable. Think of it! -- seven sisters kill themselves rather than get married. Their race is perished!) In the journey up the Rhine there are occasions when, through the stoppage of the boat a few minutes, or from some features of the landscape being less striking, the passengers take note of each other, and exchange hasty salutations and a few words of pleasant remark. At one of these times I was introduced to a Col. Somebody, whose name I forgot in the multitude of famous people who are out in force this year. This colonel was Lincoln’s law partner, and wrote a life of the dead President. He quite enchained me with scraps of Lincoln’s early history, and with the account of the capture and death of Booth, his murderer. Bingen is reached about half-past seven in the evening. It lies on the west bank of the Rhine, at the foot of lofty vineyard clothed hills. Directly across the river the mountain-side is terraced and vine-clothed down to the water’s edge. It is a lovely place, and recalled to me with deeper appreciation the song by Mrs. Norton, of "Sweet Bingen-on-the-Rhine. After passing Bingen the mountains seemed to become weary with having entertained us so long; and so, with graceful poise of their beautiful forms, they swept off to the right and left for a distance of several miles, and stood looking back at us through their dark blue vails, and over their rounded, sloping shoulders. Thus coquettishly left, we pursued our way between level shorelines that remind me greatly of the Mississippi. Then lights began to twinkle here and there on the river from fishing-boats, and the stars came out overhead, and the trees stretched in spectral lines on the shore, and then the moon rose in cloudless beauty and poured a flood of liquid light on the distant mountains and fields and the broad flood of the river. And then a little while after the lights of the city of Mayence came into view before us, and the beautiful dream-like trip on the Rhine was at an end. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 03.15. BADEN AND SWITZERLAND ======================================================================== Chapter 15 Badewn and Switzerland. Railroad Speed in Europe -- Baden -- Switzerland -- Lake Geneva -- In the Alps. It took nearly a whole day of steady traveling on the cars to get through one of these European States, or Kingdoms, that measures about one hundred miles long and fifteen wide. It required over two days’ travel to pass through the borders of three of these Empires, and yet one of them rejoices in the dimensions just given, and another is only half as large. Certainly if their languages were no greater than their lands, I would drop off the cars at one of these stations, master the tongue before lunch, and come on again in the afternoon train. And yet, we see, over two days were consumed in passing through three of these Rhode Islands of Europe. How does such a thing happen? The reply is that the inhabitants of these countries, not willing that travelers should get over their borders before breakfast, and desirous, at the same time, of impressing the tourist with a sense of vastness as to the land, have adopted several happy expedients, all of which consume time, protract the journey, and give the idea of largeness to the country. One method is to change cars frequently. In the United States you can travel thousands of miles without leaving your seat, but in crossing the wide domains of Hesse, all of twenty-five miles in breadth, three distinct trains received my wearied body. Another method is slow running. Again and again I have been forced to smile at the recollection of remarks made on the superior swiftness of Continental trains. A third method is many stoppages. Sometimes it seemed to me that the sight of a man’s hat or the smoke from a chimney was sufficient to make the train blow for a landing, and when it landed, so to speak, what a rushing about over nothing, what clamor and vociferation and tread of feet and protracted staying over an empty depot, or a platform in a country field. The fourth method is seen in the solemn, deliberate, and protracted departure of the train from the station. In America off we go, like a bird on the wing; but in the Empires I speak of you could almost write a preface to a book in the time they take to -- let me say -- launch a train. First, after a greater and longer stir over a little baggage than you would see in one of our large central depots, the station-master rings a large bell; a little while after the conductor blows a shrill whistle three times; then the locomotive gives a loud scream; fourth, the station-master rings the bell again; fifth the conductor gives another twitter of his whistle, and as the train starts a railway official near the switch blows a horn. What else happens after that I do not know. Perhaps they keep it up until they hear we have reached the next station. However, it produce s solemn feelings in the breast of the traveler, as the deliberate and reluctant send-off is somewhat suggestive of doubts upon the part of the railway officials, as to whether we will ever be heard of again. Anyhow, and above all, the idea of vastness and importance to these Rhenish realms is made to loom up before the mind of the American traveler. But if they are small, these countries are lovely. The State of Baden lingers as a beautiful picture in the mind. It lies a narrow slip of land between a range of mountains on the east and the river Rhine on the west. Between these two natural borders I traveled for an hundred miles in a plain or valley waving with harvests, sprinkled with orchards and vineyards, and alive with gleaners in their blue smocks, while wagons heaped high with golden grain stood in the fields or were driven along the tree-lined roads to the distant village. The people live in villages and spend the day in the fields. Often I saw the young babies near the roads and under trees while the mother and older children toiled near-by cutting down or binding up the grain. Everybody works in these lands, and no one labors harder than the women. Many a heart-pang did I feel as I saw them, in Scotland, France, Germany, and Switzerland, doing a work that only a man should do. The fields are laid off in strips twenty feet wide and sever al hundred long. No two lying side by side belong to the same man, although one man may own twenty of them scattered in different parts of the field. This fact gives an endless diversity to the crops and lends a peculiar charm to the field landscapes. In Switzerland my eye was constantly enchained and delighted. There is something about this land that constantly brings up the thought of Scotland. They certainly touch each other in a number of similar points. The people of both nations are hardy and industrious, they are both liberty-loving people -- the William Tell of one answers to the William Wallace of the other; both have beautiful lakes, and both magnificent mountains. But the mountains of Switzerland surpass those of the other country. The utterance of two names will at once convince, these names being Jura and the Alps. The houses of Switzerland are unique. They are generally two or three stories in height, while the roof first projects from the sides of the house and then comes down protectingly within a few feet of the ground. It reminds one forcibly of a motherly old hen extending her wings over her brood. It was in this land I saw one morning a dog hitched to a cart, and doing effective service. This is certainly a redemption of dogs. Think, ye, political economists of America, of the wasted dog-power that lies at your door snapping at fleas, or roaming the streets at night making the hours hideous. This working of dogs will settle more than one problem. It will certainly give rest to the sick and nervous; for if the dogs are put to hard labor in the day they will be too tired to "return in the evening and make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city." In this land I also saw a woman geared after a fashion to a hand cart. This I felt was not a redemption of woman. How this hard toil takes out the womanly graces and beauties of the sex! The very structure and form of her body shows that she was never made for war and laborious toil. May the Savior lift up these hard-worked daughters of the continent! On Friday morning I had my first view of the Alps. The Jura mountains on the right and the Alps far away to the left was a heart-stirring spectacle. An equally fascinating sight awaited me. For several hours the train had been sweeping along, when suddenly it came out of a tunnel and turned sharply to the right, the Lake of Geneva, thirty miles long, six miles wide, and three hundred feet below us, burst on the sight. There it was, looking like a picture, shut in by towering mountains, with cities gleaming in the sunshine on its banks, with its hill-sides covered with vineyards, with its waters as blue as the heavens, and with a single white sail on its bosom. We ran along the northern bank for thirty miles, drinking in the unsurpassed beauties of this polished mirror of nature, that has for its frame the lofty Jura Mountains on one side, and the still loftier Alps on the other. I stopped at Geneva beautiful for its situation on the southern end of the lake, and famous as the dwelling-place of Calvin and Rosseau, and more generally known as the city of watches and music-boxes. Near the great stone bridge that spans the Rhone in Geneva I had my first view of Mont Blanc -- forty miles away. A silvery, wavy line just above the horizon, and coming to a shining peak or summit, was all that I could see of the monarch of mountains. Other mountains are clothed in blue, but Mont Blanc has lifted its head into the regions of eternal snow, and now surveys the kingdoms around through all the seasons and through all the centuries with a crown of glittering crystal and a robe of immaculate white. He never lays aside his crown, or changes the color of his royal garments. In approaching Italy through the western Alps I was reminded by the locality that through these defiles and over these mountain ranges Hannibal and Napoleon had marched with their armies. I complacently contrasted the different ways of approach to Italy -- the hard way they had, in blasting rock, bridging streams, wading snow-drifts, and avoiding avalanches; and the pleasant mode of transportation I enjoyed, seated in a cushioned compartment, with open windows, through which I could observe the scenery as the train sped along. A little while after these reflections and pleasing conclusions the news reached us by telegram that near Modan an avalanche had fallen, or landslip had taken place, and the road was torn up and washed away for half a mile. So it proved; and at three o’clock in the night we were all disembarked, or rather disentrained, in a wild mountain pass, and, luggage in hand, the passengers took up the line of march along the gorge by the side of a rushing mountain stream. The moon was almost overhead, the Alpine Mountains towered all around us, their summits and sides bathed in light, while their bases were in deep shadow. One lofty peak that shot from our feet far above us, and that had helped to do the work of destruction, looked under the moonbeams, which fell upon it, like a mountain of silver. As I glanced back at the straggling line of pedestrian travelers I saw that we were not so much unlike Napoleon and Hannibal after all. Our crowd by a stretch of fancy might have stood for one of the advanced lines, if not the skeleton of the army, in full retreat. I shall not soon forget the night-walk of a mile amid the Alps. The winding and shadowy defile, the torrent leaping down the valley as if it heard the voice of the sea calling it, the snow-topped mountain peaks lifted high in air, and the moon flooding the scene with liquid silver, made a picture so fair that I framed it, and have hung it up on the walls of Memory, there to remain. We were detained only a few hours, and next morning plunged into the Mt. Cenis tunnel, eight miles long; and then after twenty or thirty miles more of wild and beautiful mountain scenery we entered upon the fairy, sunny, and luxuriant plains of Italy. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 03.16. VENICE ======================================================================== Chapter 16 Vencie. Arrival at Venice -- The Gondola -- The Canal -- The Streets of Venice -- San Marco Square -- A Night Scene -- The Campanile -- St. Mark’s Cathedral -- The Healing Statue. I always desired to approach Venice by sea, and in the evening. I had read in some book, the name of which I have forgotten, of some travelers rowing by gondola to Venice, and, as they approached the bespired and bedomed city near the hour of sunset, there came to them over the waves the sound of distant church bells. Then these words were clinging to me: "Tis sweet to hear At midnight, on the blue and moonlit deep, The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier, By distance mellowed, o’er the waters sweep." But, instead of evening, I arrived at 5 o’clock in the morning; and instead of the approach to the city by boat, the cars now carry one over the lagoon that separates Venice from the mainland by means of a railroad bridge four or five miles in length. But this is the only change. The long, black railroad line that goes from Venice to the shore has not the arterial capacity to bring back continental life in sufficient force and quantity to change the city of the Doges. The cars only bring you to the border of the city, where Venice sits, birdlike, upon her one hundred and seventeen islands. The song which I heard as a boy-- "Beautiful Venice, Beautiful Venice, The Bride of the Sea"-- can be sung as truly now as then. In a few minutes I was in a gondola, gliding up the canals to the hotel. The bells were ringing in different directions, and their sound, floating up these channels or water was sweet and musical. The gondola soon enchains the eye. It is a long, narrow boat, twenty-five feet in length, and three or four in width. The high-peaked prow bears a broad battle-axe, which looks formidable, but is quite harmless. In the center rises a canopy of white or colored cloth, or a miniature cabin of wood painted black, latticed on either side to exclude the gaze and to receive the air. The stern, which ends sharply like the prow, is decked over from gunwale to gunwale for the distance of four feet. On this little platform the gondolier stands and propels the boat -- not by sculling or rowing, but by a method seen nowhere else than in Venice. An oarlock, one foot and a half high, rises from the right gunwale of the boat, and five feet from the stern. The gondolier, with his face to the bow of the boat, rests his oar in the lock, and pushes the handle from him, while, with a dexterous side movement of the paddle, he keeps the boat in line. There is no serpentine track made, but a swift and straight movement. T he motion delightful, and the sensation of gliding swiftly and noiselessly past doorways, up canals, down between endless lines of overhanging houses, under arches and bridges, is one delightful from the novelty and reality. The noiselessness is a striking feature in the gondola trip. The boat makes scarce a ripple, and the people in it keep silence. A luxury of stillness and dreaminess falls on the person indulging in the ride. Yonder is a young lady floating by, reading under her white canopy; yonder goes a gentleman smoking; others are silently looking out as they glide past. The only sound is the occasional dip of the oar, or the voice of the gondolier, calling out in warning to one another. Behold me, on this and two other occasions, shaded by a canopy, and resting on soft cushions, gliding up and down the canals of this wonderful city. One of the great charms of Venice is its deliverance from many city noises. No deafening rattle and roar of cab, and wagon, and heavy dray. Here is a city whose streets are made of water, whose carriages are boats, and whose dust is the rippling waves. As you go about in the gondola, the first and last impression made upon you is that Venice is a submerged or overflowed city. The feeling, or rather the appearance, is that the water has rushed over the streets to a considerable depth, and everybody is now in boats from sheer necessity. As one goes up and down these canals there is scarcely a sign of the stone pathways and lanes that traverse Venice in every direction. All you see are arched bridges of stone over which you notice people occasionally flitting, coming from unseen depths on one side, and disappearing into unseen depths on the other. Then, again, you see very few people at their windows and doors. This gives an appearance of forsakenness to the city, and adds another peculiarity that helps to make it unlike all other communities in the world. Let it not be supposed that Venice is sparsely settled. On those house-covered islands swarms a population of one hundred and forty thousand people. Let it not be supposed, again, that Venice has no thoroughfares but her canals. Of these canals she has one hundred and fifty, crossed by as many bridges; and these water avenues go in every direction, with all the windings and twistings of a serpent. But in addition, Venice has a number of lanes (I cannot call them streets) that wind and wander through the city, in a manner equal to the canals. They do not run by the side of the canals, but cross them by the stone-arched bridges. They are paved with stone or asphalt, and are from six to twelve feet wide. Fancy these streets, with houses on each side six stories in height. The least excitement on these liliputian boulevards creates a perfect jam and blockade. Merceria street is the main boulevard and business thoroughfare. It is twelve feet across, and its course is like a zigzag bolt of lightning in a cloud. But it is a fascinating street for all that. If the pedestrian will look up at the upper-story windows as he perambulates these little thoroughfares he will discover where a good many of the people are. Venice has, perhaps, some eight or ten squares. They are quite diminutive, not at all attractive, but seemed to be placed here and there through the city in order that the inhabitants may come out occasionally, and turn round, and stretch their arms, and take one good, long breath. The great square of the city, famous and popular, is the San Marco Piazzo. This is located in the southeastern corner of Venice; is two hundred yards long and about one hundred wide. The east side is formed by St. Mark’s Cathedral and the Palace of the Doges, while the other three sides are shut in by great palatial blocks once occupied by the nobility, but whose arcades are now filled with stores and cafes. Fanned by the breezes of the Adriatic, whose waves roll in thirty or forty yards of the place, and visited four or five evenings in the week by the military band, which plays deep into the night, the San Marco Square is the most popular promenade and resort for the Venetians. In passing through the place on several evenings I was confident five or six thousand people were before me. One night scene remains as a striking picture in my mind. The square was crowded with thousands. Dark-faced Italian men and black-eyed women of Venice, with bare head, and with mantilla and fan, were standing, sitting, or walking in every direction. Hundreds of people sat at little tables, that were encroaching far upon the square, eating ices and sipping wine. A high wind was blowing in from the sea, clouds were scurrying across the face of the sky; but it seemed only to add an impetus to the scene of life and gayety going on in the plazza. The military band, composed of sixty or seventy instruments, stood in a large circle in the center, playing a piece that for weirdness and melody and minor chord thrillings, I have no descriptive word. The faces of the musicians were almost entirely concealed by the heavy feather plumes that drooped forward, and moved and fluttered in the night wind. The shadowed face was in keeping somehow with the music. It was a strain made up of dirge-notes taken from winter winds, and cries of lost birds, and moans of long waves breaking on barren and uninhabited shores. It finally seemed to me to be a lament over Italy. Poor Italy! Poor priest-ridden, poverty-stricken Italy! Just as it seemed that all hope was gone, the music suddenly changed, and burst forth into new measures, and began to walk up an ascending stairway of joy and triumph. I saw in the strain that spring had succeeded to winter, that somebody had found the birds, and that a whole colony of people had settled on the uninhabited shore. I saw that the long night was over, that the sun was rising, that people had returned from long journeys, and everybody was shaking hands. As I walked back to my hotel I prayed in my heart that Christ might be the hope of Italy, and that He alone may be the cause of its joy and triumph, if triumph and joy it ever has. Just in front of St. Mark’s Cathedral rises the Campanile, a tower of three hundred and twenty feet high. Napoleon Bonaparte rode on horseback up its peculiar plane-like steps to the top. What a man he was for going up high, and then coming down again! What was true of the King of France in the select poems of Mother Goose, is true of its Emperor as well. Not being an emperor, I ascended the thirty-six inclined planes to the summit of the tower on foot. What a view! The Alps robed in purple in the west. In the north the railroad, like a black cord or cable, ties us to the European shore, to keep us from floating away. To the south swells the Adriatic Sea, over which the fleets of antiquity sailed, where Caesar came near drowning, and over which Paul was taken as a prisoner. To the east the Adriatic still. And Venice is at our feet. Yonder winds the Grand Canal, like an inverted letter S, through the city, dividing it in two parts. Midway its extent springs the white arch of the Rialto, a bridge made out of a single block of marble. The surface of the canal is covered with gondolas moving swiftly in every direction. As we notice the city, at a distance of five miles from the land, rising up, Venus-like, from the sea, we begin to see how impregnable it used to be in the Middle Ages from its situation, while its fleets swept, eagle-like, and like mother-birds around it in defense. We paid a visit to St. Mark’s Cathedral. Poets and sculptors and painters and imitative Americans rave over the beauty of the building. It is, beyond question, lovely. Ruskin, in his Stones of Venice, may be consulted by the curious. The floor of the cathedral was thrown into undulations by an earthquake years ago. The solemn handwriting of God is allowed to remain. The church custodians claim to have under the altar the body of St. Mark. As they are certain about it, I did not investigate. In a corner of the church is a small black statue of the evangelist. I saw four men rub their hands over it, and then rub their bodies in various places. Each man had his afflicted spot. As they did this they dropped a copper coin into a box near the statue, in payment of the homeopathic cure. The fourth man rubbed the statue vigorously, and then as earnestly rubbed a portion of his body just beneath his chest, which convinced me that his misery was altogether abdominal. He next felt in his pocket for his centime, and behold! the penny was not there. He looked dismayed and a trifle foolish, and then slowly departed. Here comes up some interesting questions. Would the tutelary saint heal on credit? Would the statue part with its healing gratuitously, considering the circumstances? Or did the statue let out its pain-easing power, ignorant of the fact of the man’s impecuniosity? If we could have followed that man and found out how his pains were, doubtless these solemn and important mysteries might have been explained. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 03.17. VENICE ======================================================================== Chapter 17 Venice. Venice -- The Shops -- Palaces -- Worship with the Waldensians -- The Doges -- Nuptials of the Sea -- Venetian Power -- Lions Mouth --Bridge of Sighs -- The Prison. The shops and stores of Venice are quite small, many of them being about twelve by fifteen feet. The storekeepers have struck upon the happy expedient of lining the walls with mirrors which, while brilliantly reflecting the light, also create the delusion that the room is double its actual size. Yet even with this fanciful enlargement the whole affair looks very much like playing at storekeeping to the American eye. That is until you come to settle your bills with them, and then you find there has been no playing in the matter. The ancient palaces of nobility abound. What with the action of the water at the base and the effect of the centuries on the walls, the observer is not much impressed with their magnificence. When we stand within, however, and glance at the painted and sculptured ceiling, the niches for statuary, and the mosaic floors, something of the old-time grandeur is realized. Before these palaces on the Grand Canal stand a row of colored posts, placed in the water, and only a few feet from the main door. The rank of the inmates is declared by the color and peculiar striping of the post. The recollection came at once to me of the streaked and striped barbell poles that abound in the United States. Who can tell but our first tonsorial artists were expatriated noblemen of Venice! Many of the palaces have passed into the hands of tradesmen and hotel-keepers. It is, I doubt not, very soothing to the democratic spirit of the commoners of America and England to sit, eat and sleep in these patrician halls, and moralize about the decay and fall of aristocracies, oligarchies and monarchies. On Sabbath evening I worshiped with the only Waldensian Congregation in the city. They met in a large upper room of one of the ancient palaces. The audience numbered about thirty, and there was a remarkable absence of unction. It was hard to realize that these people were the religious descendants of the church that in the dark ages withstood Paganism, Romanism, and all other isms of evil in the world. Both, the congregation and the palace in which they assembled, have lost their ancient glory. Time was when the Waldensians had no roof over their heads and lived in the mountains and fields, and great was their spiritual glory and power; but today I find them ensconced in a palace and their glory and power are gone. Few churches can stand being comfortably housed, and none can flourish in a palace. The cloud of Israel that once rested on the Waldensians has moved on and is settling today on a people working for God in the streets and the fields. It is wonderful to see what the church of God can do for the world’s salvation so long as it is turned out of doors. For instance the Apostolic Church on the high roads and the high seas; the Waldensians and the Albigensians in the mountains; Methodism in the mines of Cornwall and fields of England; and the Salvation Army in the streets of our great cities. Put the church in cathedrals and palaces, and at once and invariably she loses her power. It was on the same evening when searching for the Waldensians that as I was approaching one of the diminutive openings, called squares or plazzas in Venice, that my attention was attracted by the terrific bawling of a fruit-vender; such vociferations I never in any circumstances heard surpassed. Judging from his cries one would have supposed that he had a ship-load of fruit and vegetables; but when I drew near I discovered to my amusement that on a little table before him he had a single watermelon cut up into a dozen longitudinal slices. This was his stock; and all that tremendous fuss and noise was about and over this. Other venders around had more goods than himself, but he swept beyond them all in stentorian yells! I thought of a certain preacher in a certain preacher’s meeting, who on every Monday morning boasted so much of his large prayer-meeting, that my heart in listening to him fairly sank with discouragement. It was true that I had a large prayermeeting, but this brother bawled so much, and hallooed so loud over his watermelon that I went down one night to see it, and also to learn the brother’s methods by which he attracted such a crowd. To my amazement I discovered that his meeting was not as large as my own. Some people are given to bawling. Some people are given to bawling over a very little. I have known certain individuals in my life to halloo louder over a few slices of watermelon, so to speak, than others did over an entire watermelon patch! When a boy I used to pronounce the word Doge of Venice, the dog of Venice. The impression then in the mind was that the august head of the commonwealth flourished under a title thus spelt and pronounced. After coming to years of manhood, and finally visiting the City of the Sea, I discovered that I was not far wrong. More than one Doge could have had the last letter very properly omitted from his official name, and been well described in that portion of the word which remained. As the civil, military, and ecclesiastical head of the State, and given at one time unlimited power, the Doge was not slow to take advantage of the position, and so swept on with a high hand until there came the inevitable uprising of an opposing sentiment, and he was suddenly curbed and restricted and finally made a mere figurehead, as has been done before, and will be done again, to all tyrants and oppressors. Much has been sung and written about the nuptials of Venice to the Sea. It was a wonderful scene made up of a sunlit sea, sweeping fleets, fluttering pennons, imposing ceremonies, and the Doge in gorgeous robes casting the begemmed and flashing ring into the Adriatic. Much needless pain has been felt by the economic heart at this annual loss of a valuable gem. The fact was, as I am informed, that the same ring was cast every year into the sea. A fine net placed skillfully at the stern of the vessel under the waves, received the glittering treasure when it was flung down so freely, and held it safely for its owners. After the deluded public had disappeared the gem was slipped from the aqueous finger of the Adriatic, stolen in a word from the maritime spouse, and kept for a similar annual occasion. This is not the first or last thing of the kind beheld in the world. As one ponders the pages of history he is convinced that no one can be trusted with unlimited power. We rail at the tyranny of kings, but it has gone to record that when the people have the dangerous possession of absolute supremacy, they do just the same. Power is so intoxicating in its nature so self-exalting, man depreciating, and reason-dethroning that few or none can possess it and be just, and remain unchanged. It has been tried with kings and parliaments; with nations and cities; with triumvirates, decemvirates, and councils of one hundred, three hundred and five hundred; with one person and the whole people; with laymen and preachers; with the State and the Church; with senators of Rome, warriors of Sparta, nobility of France, commoners of England, and merchants of Venice -- but the result is always the same. Unlimited power granted for a lifetime upsets poor, weak man and makes him arbitrary, unjust, oppressive and cruel. Evidently the movement of God in Providence is to take this most dangerous trust, called power, and so divide it between the nations and parties and classes that the people may walk unimpeded by chains and fetters, and that the world may retire at night to sleep soundly and rest undisturbed. The Venetian government was as great a despotism as any that has afflicted the race of man. The fact that the rulers were merchant noblemen did not make their dynasty less dreadful. Human nature is the same in all ages and countries. As an evidence of the fearful power in Venice and the dread in which it was held, it is related that a man received the following laconic missive: "The climate of Venice is unhealthy for you." At once the man fled from the city for his life without stopping to carry with him a single article of property or to say farewell to a soul. He knew that life-time imprisonment or death was under this sententious line. But besides this there are unmistakable evidences of the old-time power and tyranny. One is the "Lion’s Mouth." This is now simply a slit in the wall, five or six inches in width and one in depth. A written communication dropped into this slit fell into the chamber of the "Council of Three." If the letter contained charges against any one in Venice, the result would be the immediate disappearance of that citizen from the walks of life. The fact that the written suspicion or charge was not signed did not take from it its potency. Surely this room would be like heaven; and the slit in the wall like the doorway to heaven, to that class of writers who love to sign themselves anonymously and whose joy it is to thus invisibly afflict their fellow creatures. Another evidence of the ancient tyranny is seen in the Bridge of Sighs. It is today the most pathetic of structures to the eye. The Bastile of Paris or the Tower of London do not affect you as powerfully. The very name is repeated with a sigh. The step comes to a halt upon the summit of the covered arched way, while reveries of most melancholy nature steal over the mind. Still another sign of the past is the prison at the farther end of the Bridge of Sighs. The cells of midnight blackness, once seen, can never be forgotten. In a narrow passage I was shown the spot where the prisoners of state were beheaded. The stone block which received the victim’s head, and the groove in the wall for the descending blade are still there. A small door near by opens just over one of the lagunes. What sorrowful and blood-curdling scenes have taken place in this little passage! I could see again the masked executioner, the silent guard, and the presiding official. I could see the flickering lights, and ghastly moisture on the walls, and the pallid prisoner as he stood helpless before the instrument of death. Let him scream aloud if he will, no one could possibly hear him through the thick walls that shut him in. It is not known in Venice what has become of him -- it may be that he is forgotten. In five minutes more the decapitated body will be stowed into a sack, thrust through the little door in the wall, dropped into a waiting boat on the canal, and rowed out to sea and sunk with weights to the bottom. And so they sleep by thousands in the depths of the blue Adriatic, and the secret of the crime and death sleeps with them. Oftentimes they stir uneasily, as if they would arise and come back to the streets of Venice and proclaim aloud to the world the false accusation, the kidnapping, the long, unjust imprisonment, and the awful, solitary death. The limb moves, the hand is lifted as if the sleeper was arousing himself, but it was only the movement of a wandering wave, and so the skeleton lies down again amid the sand and shells and coral of the ocean floor. There is but one who can awaken them, and when they hear His voice in the morning of the Last Day they will come forth, and with them volumes of unwritten history. Nothing shall be hidden that day; the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, men shall be rewarded according to their deeds, and these sleepers in the sea shall obtain justice at last, and find mercy, perhaps, for the first time. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 03.18. ROME ======================================================================== Chapter 18 Rome. Rome -- The Colosseum -- The Forum -- Palaces of the Caesars -- The Appian Way -- The Tomb -- Ecclesiastical Rome -- A Night-Visit to the Colosseum. It was nearly 11 o’clock at night when our train began to enter upon the Campagna that engirdles the city of Rome. A stoppage of a moment enabled me to raise the window and look out on the night. A lofty hill rose up in the dim distance the sky studded with quiet stars seemed to touch its summit. The barking of a dog from the distant hillside just reached my ears. Somehow the sight and sound struck in on the mind harmoniously with the occasion. In another moment the train was rushing through the darkness and barrenness of the Campagna. I remembered that this malarial and comparatively forsaken plain was once densely populated. Where once buildings and waving harvests were seen in every direction, today ruins, the remains of a vast aqueduct system and tombs, meet the eye. How can one account for its forsakenness, and this disease that now so broods upon it that the shepherds at the approach of summer hastily gather their herds and retire to the mountains? How much is owing to the neglect of man, how much to the scourge of God? As I leaned my head near the window listening to the rush of the wind, I peopled the plain with the armies of Hannibal and Caesar and Charlemagne, and Attila with his horde of Northern savages. It was their legions in rapid advance or tumultuous retreat that I heard in the air. It was their trampling, the beating of millions of feet that hardened the plain; it was their pitilessness which had brought the judgment of a rocky and blistered land to a country once fertile and beautiful. So I mused on as the train sped like a thing of life through the darkness. In a little while we saw in the distance the light of Rome reflected in the sky, and shortly afterward paused in the heart of the seven-hilled city. It is something of an experience to pass the first night in a city where the Caesars ruled; where Paul lived two years; from which has proceeded the most monstrous system of religious error; and about which the Lord Jesus said so much in the book of Revelation. Very naturally I read for my night and morning lessons the Epistle to the Philippians, and the second one to Timothy, both written from Rome. Some one divides the city into three parts, viz., ecclesiastical, modern and ancient Rome. The Vatican and first, in the form of St. Peter’s, the Vatican and its dependencies, lies on the west bank of the Tiber. Ancient Rome, by which we mean the Pantheon, Roman Forum, Palaces of the Caesars, the Colosseum, and other ruins, is on the eastern shore. Modern Rome is between the two, and has beside gone eastward of the ancient city, so that the ruins today stand encompassed by the modern buildings of the capital of Italy. Coming upon these ruins suddenly at the turn of a street, or built partially into a modern dwelling, they strike the eye and memory with the force of a blow. Neither do they look in keeping with the nineteenth century surroundings. A feeling of sadness comes over one whenever they are seen. An octogenarian in the midst of a merry band of children; an Indian warrior standing on the streets of Washington; a visitant from another world speaking an unknown language, and looking into our homes; all these are but steps by which you mount up to a faint realization of the impression produced upon the mind by these gray, moldering arches, walls, and pillars built two thousand years ago, as they are encountered in the neighborhood of streets and squares that are imitating the brightness and flashy splendor of the boulevards of Paris. It is like having a skeleton lay his hand upon your arm, or look with cavernous eyes upon you. It is a most forcible reminder of the change and decay and ruin that time is certain to bring. If Rome in its massiveness went down, what is to become of the cockleshell cities of today. My first visit was to the Colosseum. So deeply was I interested that I paid three visits to this world-famous structure. It is the acknowledged largest ruin in the world, and yet it was not that fact that flung such a spell over me. It is difficult by any array of figures to convey to the reader the proper conception of the magnitude and sublimity of this building. After saying that it is elliptical in shape, over six hundred feet in length, five hundred in width, and one hundred and fifty-six in height, one still cannot by a mental process do the great amphitheater justice. But when you stand in the center of the arena and look up, counting five galleries as the eye ascends, one rising above the other with scores of rows of seats, all ascending in an unbroken line to the edge of the topmost wall, and accommodating ninety-three thousand people -- then the size colossal breaks upon you! It is well called the Colosseum. The arena in which the gladiators fought, and in which thousands of Christians were killed by sword and wild beast, is nearly one hundred yards long and sixty wide. The wall that surrounded it, from the top of which the seats of the spectators began, is about twenty-five feet in height. As I stood there I conjured up the scenes of agony that had transpired there for centuries. I thought of the crushing sense of loneliness and helplessness that swept down upon the heart of the doomed Christian when led into this arena to die. He heard the dull roar of lion or tiger behind yonder iron-barred cell; in another moment he saw the animal leaping toward him; he glanced up and saw one hundred thousand faces looking down upon him, and their countenances were harder and more pitiless than the face of the animal rushing upon him. One moment to look upward, one cry to the Christ who was also murdered, and then the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bone, the swimming of the vast audience before the dying eyes, and t hen a mutilated, unconscious body upon the sand, with white face upturned to the sky. This is only the beginning. New victims are brought in singly, in groups, and as families. The spectacle must last for hours and when the odor of shed blood becomes offensive to the royal and patrician smell, then fountains of perfumery cast their jets high in the air. There beneath us is left the remains of the ingenious piece of mechanism. What kind of people were these Romans! On the right hand close to the arena is the place where the Emperor sat; just opposite to him were ranged the vestal virgins; in the topmost gallery sat the people. And yet when the gladiator looked to see if he should spare the man at his feet, the emperor and the people and the vestal virgins would unitedly give the signal to kill! High and low, church and world, agreeing on murder. Again and again, as I have journeyed over this land of Italy, I have asked myself the question, What is the cause of these naked fields, these half-cultivated lands, these mountains scraped bare, this pauperism and ignorance and error that abounds? Why is it that Italy, in many respects, does not measure up to her sister kingdoms? Standing in the Colosseum, part of the answer came to me. He who has not yet finished paying the Jew for what he did to his Son, is still settling an awful account against this land for the precious Christian blood that was shed on this spot before me for three hundred years! Verily Rome, whether pagan or Catholic, is, as God says about it, "drunk with the blood of the martyrs." My next visit was to the Roman Forum. This famous spot is being brought more and more to light. The place where Caesar walked, and Cicero delivered his masterly orations; where the voice of Cato was heard, saying Carthage must be destroyed; and where Mark Antony made the great, and for all I know the only speech of his life, was covered up all through the Middle Ages with the rubbish that had accumulated for centuries. The ancient pavement lay forty feet beneath the present city level. A few columns protruding through the ground located the place. In this century the work of excavation began, and the result is now before the traveler, in a deep trench an hundred yards wide and two or three hundred long, which has brought to light arches of temples, bases of columns, foundations of palaces and basilicas, and a quantity of statuary. It certainly stirs the blood of the professional speaker to see the remains of the rostrum where Cicero stood and swept his audience before him, and where the mighty question s of the world at that day were debated and settled. Who also would not look most earnestly at a point just opposite, where Antony (or Shakespeare) made that celebrated speech over the dead body of Caesar? On the spot where the body was burned, afterward a temple to Julius Caesar was erected. The foundations now seen in a half-dozen hillocks, is all that is left of the edifice. Very near to the latter-named building are the ruins of the Temple of Vesta. In the floor is the spot where the perpetual fire was kept burning. It was all out when I saw it, and the virgins and their successors gone. They that turn the thumb downward, crying out "Habet" to the gladiatorial executioner, must pass away, and their fires be put out in darkness. The palaces of the Caesars profoundly interested me. They both encircle and crown the Palatine Hill. This hill, one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the Tiber, is loftier and broader than I had imagined. The palaces, or rather ruins of the palaces, of Caligula, Tiberius, and Augustus, are built closely against the northern side of the hill, and may have projected above the summit. The Palatine was thus inlaid or fronted with marble palaces. On the top, which is several hundred yards in diameter, I find gardens, ruins, and broken statuary. On the eastern edge of the summit is the palace of Julius Caesar, which evidently was one of the costliest and handsomest of all. I walked through his dining hall, music-hall, and Nympheum, and moralized to the extent of a volume. He certainly felt the Capuan touch of wealth. The poor and hardy young warrior fought valiantly in the midst of a thousand fierce-eyed Gauls, but after luxuriating in Egypt and on the Palatine, a flabbiness came to the muscle, a weakness to the nerve, and he went down almost without a struggle deserving of the name before the wild, excited blows of a few Roman civilians. Coming to the northern edge of the Palatine and looking northeast a quarter of a mile we see the tower of the Golden House of Nero, where he surveyed his burning capital to the sound of his violin. The tower is left, but the fiddle and the fiddler are gone. Directly north of where we stand, and only four hundred yards away, is the Capitoline Hill, famous for the Senate House of ancient Rome. Just at our feet, and lying between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, is the Roman Forum. In the afternoon I drove out on the Appian Way, through the gate and beyond the old walls of Rome. The remains of that famous road are plainly to be seen. The interest born in my heart for this ancient national thoroughfare arose from a single verse in the scripture, in which we are informed that Paul came along this road as a prisoner to Rome. One or two miles from the city, where the driver turned into a little inn hard by to water and rest his horse, I strolled down the road, and seating myself on one of the old Appian blocks of stone, read the latter part of the twenty-eighth chapter of Acts. I could see the gate and wall distinctly, and the Appian Way leading in a direct course toward them and disappearing in the city; and then imagination caused Paul and his companions and guard to pass by me That he had been discouraged I know from the fact that when a few Roman brethren met him farther away down the road, it is said, "he thanked God and took courage." That he was resolute appears in one of hi s letters: "I must see Rome also." From this very point I doubt not his eyes saw the gate and distant city. What must have been his thoughts, and what a spectacle to heaven and earth and hell he presented. I see him nearing the city, and now he is at the gate, it opens, he passes in and is lost to view. One man gone to confront a million men! What cannot and will not a man do who loves Christ as Paul did, and which is full of the Holy Ghost? Many great men had gone through that gate -- Caesar, Pompey, Marius, Sylla, Antony, and Octavius -- and yet never before or since has a greater man passed through that archway than a man named Paul, who, in the year (33, entered footsore and weary, unknown and a prisoner into the city that was then the recognized ruler of the world. There was no revolution. Take courage, my brother. He did not win Caesar, but he gained Caesar’s household. He did all, and accomplished what God desired him to do. "My bonds are manifest in the palace and in all other places." Who can tell how much is behind these words? Anyhow, he wrote to Timothy that he had "finished his course." Modern Rome failed to impress me agreeably. It is a feeble imitation of Paris. The sight really jarred upon me as does the spectacle of a jocular preacher, or an aged person indulging in the pranks of a child. The minister should always be the recognized man of God; let a sweet dignity clothe the old; and let Rome be marked by solidity and grandeur of structure rather than by flashiness of shop. The long centuries and the grand events back of her seem to demand this. As a specimen of the mixing up of the ages, the conglomeration of architecture and the triumph of the new over the old, I saw one day a modern house perched on the top of a tomb built long before the dark ages. The mausoleum in this instance was a massive wall, circular in shape, and twenty or thirty feet in height. The nineteenth century contribution to its top by no means added to the appearance of the sepulchre, but suffered itself by a damaging contrast. The foundation was grander than the superstructure. So great and strong are these sepulchres that more than once they have been used for military purposes. The Castle of Angelo is well known to be the tomb of one of the kings, transformed into a fortress. Of course I visited St. Peter’s. Fortunately I was not overwhelmed with awe, nor struck dumb with astonishment. The view from the dome of the ancient city at my feet, the yellow Tiber flowing past, and the blue Mediterranean in the distance were scenes far more congenial to my feelings. The Vatican, the palace of the Pope, has something over eleven thousand rooms; and yet the prelate is not happy. He seems to want more space. He claims to be the Vicar of Christ on earth. What a startling difference between the two is suggested by the sight of the Vatican. The one said long ago: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." The man who claims to be His representative in the world has a palace that is a vast fortune in itself, whose long halls are filled with statuary, whose walls are lined with paintings, whose rooms cannot be counted, and whose doors are carefully guarded day and night by gorgeously uniformed companies of soldiers. I saw a cardinal richly robed and in his carriage with liveried coachman and footman on his way to call on the Pope. Again by very contrast I saw the Man of Galilee on foot amid the hills of Judea and traversing the long, hot roads of Samaria. I have no heart to write of the things seen and heard in Ecclesiastical Rome. This is the grand gathering place of relics and traditions. Bones and falsehoods abound. This is one place where the ear gets heartily weaned of hearing the word saint. The dead saints are here in force. They line the galleries, look down on you from the top of buildings, stare at you out of canvass, and pose rigidly before you in marble. They settle like a cloud between the mind and heaven. They come as a vail between the soul and Christ. Intended by Catholic invention to be an assistance, they have burdened the religious soul unnecessarily, and robbed Christ of His glory as Mediator and Intercessor. Many of them died in profound ignorance that they were saints. Are not acquainted with the fact yet, and, what is more, will never find it out. The impression that the traveler gathers from statue, painting, book, and lip, and carries away with him from churchly Rome is that St. Peter is undoubtedly the greatest being in heaven and eternity. It is no extravagant speech to say that the Son of God Himself is overshadowed in Rome by him. From the statue whose foot is being worn away by repeated kissings, to the vast building that bears his name and from the many paintings where the figure of the apostle is central and commanding, to the glances and prayers that are being constantly directed to him the fact is painfully manifest that Peter is again thrust in between the Savior and His divine work and glory. No one can look at the paintings that contain the figures of our Lord and Peter without seeing to what great advantage the apostle is made to appear. The glorious manhood of the Lord Jesus never appears, but he is invariably drawn with drooping figure and lifeless or melancholy face while Peter stands out from every work of art an embodiment of manliness, courage, and noble triumph. Even in the famous picture of "The Judgment," by Angelo, and where you would expect the Savior to be the most prominent figure, behold! St. Peter is there again the main man and actually seems to be directing and controlling the tremendous events of the day. What a holy sorrow would fill him in heaven, if he knew of these Romish follies committed in his name. The real Peter who in humility was crucified head downward, by his own request, would be the first to protest against this unmerited, anti-scriptural, and sinful exaltation of himself in the church. At 9 o’clock at night, while reading and meditating in my room, a great desire to visit the Colosseum by night came over me, Taking a cab, I drove to the ruin, and leaving the vehicle and driver on the road, I entered the dark and shadowy building alone and walked to the center of the arena. I had not the moonlight to illumine and glorify the place, but the somber night to deepen its solemnity. The sky was studded with stars. One beautiful planet hung tremblingly upon the broken edge of the southern wall. At one moment the place would be as silent as the grave; in the next it would be alive with echoes. The Colosseum sits alone in a valley between the Esqueline and Coelian Hills, and the sounds from distant streets of horses’ hoof and human voice came through the many openings of the walls and produced a hundred rattling echoes among the walls around and in the vaults below. It would have seemed to the superstitious that the multitudes who had gathered here in the past centuries were assembling once more. Again I conjured up the scenes of the dark past; again I saw the hundred thousand faces looking down into the arena; I saw the helpless Christian victim; I saw and heard the spring and roar of the wild beast; I saw the waving sword of the gladiator about to be sheathed in the heart of a dying saint; and then those sudden echoes that filled the building! was it the voices of an invisible audience in the seats above me in the dark, crying out "Habet!" I left the building with a great awe upon me, and with a realization of those days of trial and horror to the church, that I never could have had from any amount of reading in my quiet study in New Orleans. I returned to the hotel by way of the Forum. I looked across the empty place toward the palaces of the Caesars that skirt the edge of the Palatine Hill in that direction. A dozen street lamps have been stationed at regular distances around the side of this hill in front of the ruins. For what purpose I do not know, for that part of the city is completely deserted. But the shining of these lamps upon and through the doors and broken walls of the palatial ruins produced the strangest effect. It seemed as if the palaces were full of light; as if their old-time masters had returned and were holding high revel in their courts, after an absence of two thousand years. And so, like Nehemiah, "I went up in the night and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned; and the rulers knew not whither I went or what I did." * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 03.19. NAPLES ======================================================================== Chapter 19 Naples. Naples -- Its Beauty -- Its Social Extremes -- The Elevation of Snap Beans -- The Naples Donkey There is a saying to this effect: "See Naples, and then die." I have seen the city, and I have no intention of departing this life. The meaning of the proverb or saying, is, that after you look on Naples you have beheld the loveliest city and the most charming combination of sky, sea, and shore on earth, and that now you might afford to cease to live. You could die saying that nothing so beautiful is anywhere else to be beheld. This city of four hundred thousand inhabitants, sitting on an amphitheater of hills, and coming down by steps of terraced gardens and streets, to touch the blue, semi-circular bay at its feet, is a beautiful spectacle. Nor is this all. The city wears a diadem of stone on her forehead, called the Castle of St. Elmo. On its right cheek is a dimple called the Island of Ischia, and on its left cheek another dimple named the Island of Capri. At night she throws a cluster of brilliants on her neck, and the Mediterranean Sea forgets to storm in looking far off upon her beauty, while the mighty Vesuvius, as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, calls the attention of the nations to her as they pass by in distant ships, saying: "Behold the beautiful city of Naples!" I arrived at midnight, but, before retiring, stepped upon the balcony in front of my room to feast my eyes with a night view. The hotel at which I stopped stood on the highest street, and so, from my position, I overlooked the city below and the quiet bay. Glancing to the left, I saw what I desired. Vesuvius was there, lifting up his tall form, with a dark, feathery plume blown back from his head, while he fastened one eye upon Naples. "I am here," he seemed to say. "You towns at my feet are asleep: but I am not asleep. My eye is upon you all." Is it not wonderful that the towns and cities can sleep, while that red, angry eye is looking down the mountainside upon them? The expression, "A palace and a prison on each hand," is the statement of a fact not peculiar to Venice, but seen everywhere. In no place have I seen wider extremes than in Naples. The west end of the street that skirts the bay has the gardens and drives, where the wealthy congregate; and the east end of the same avenue will show you multitudes of barefooted men and women toiling laboriously and painfully for a scanty living. I looked into the streets where they live, and for darkness and narrowness I have never seen them surpassed. Men, women, children, donkeys, baskets, and I know not what, are crowded away and back in these cracks of walls, which they compliment and dignify by the name of streets. The people are scantily and meanly clothed, the men are burned brown; the women have turned yellow, and the children beg vociferously and pertinaciously. Such a sight as I saw one morning at an early hour I can never forget. Troops upon troops of people flocking into Naples from neighboring villages and the country with their fruits and vegetables, or coming to work in factories or workshops. How poor they looked! What a hard, bitter struggle life seemed to them! My heart ached as I looked at them packing their loads, pushing their carts, and driving their overburdened donkeys along. In the various cities in which I stop, I put the question: What is being done to save the people and bring them to Christ? I investigated the matter in Liverpool, London and Paris, in Venice and Naples. In some places I find a great deal is being done; in others, next to nothing. And I also find, from what my eyes see, that there is work for ten thousand more missionaries than we have in the field. About twenty or thirty Italians I found at religious service in the Wesleyan Chapel on Sunday morning. How long will it require to take Naples at this rate? Dropping into a Catholic Church of moderate size to see if any of the people were there, I found it filled with the hard-working class of the narrow streets, and all staring for dear life at the altar. It is remarkable how Catholics stare at the chancel. It is all the more surprising when we remember there is only a bowing man there, and a little boy ringing a bell. They have seen the performance a thousand times, and yet, with hungry look, they still gaze. How I trust that out of the pulpit jargon and altar genuflections they, through God’s mercy, will get something for the soul. One of the institutions of Naples is the donkey. He abounds here, but cannot be said to flourish. Many of the poor people own one, and it is amazing to see what they put on that poor, diminutive animal to bear, or hitch to him to draw. I have seen a family of five or six sitting up on a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a donkey that looked little larger than a Newfoundland dog. And at other times I have seen him so covered up by huge panniers, filled with fruits and vegetables and other merchandise, that you could see nothing but his ears and tail. A crowning indignity done this long-suffering animal is that his owner generally grasps him by the tail. I watched to see the reason, and soon discovered that the peasant used it as a kind of rudder, with which to steer the living craft. Almost any hour you can hear them lifting up their voices on the streets; and when a Naples donkey lifts up his voice in real earliest, then let Vesuvius look to its honors as a thunderer. If Mt. Vesuvius should burst forth into an eruption, and one of these Naples donkeys should bray at the same time -- well, let us not think of such a catastrophe! These Italian people who move on hotel planes are great for long dinings. To please them possibly, the courses are multiplied until the consumption of time in such a way becomes a positive affliction as well as a sin. Moreover, their courses amount to very little. There are never more than two dishes to a course, and oftentimes not more than one. So a hotel dining is really, after all, nothing but a few dishes strung out for more than an hour, the clatter of many clean plates, the whisk of napkins, the running of waiters, and a bunch of toothpicks. The other day, while at the dinner-table, a silver-covered dish was brought to me containing one of the courses. On removing the cover my eyes fell upon a double handful of snap-beans! Not so much as a piece of meat to rest their heads upon, or under which to coil their long, lean limbs. Now, suppose the reader had known in early life a poor, obscure, ordinary youth, and in traveling, should suddenly find him in the company of the nobility passing himself off for some great one. The feeling would be one of surprise and amazement on addressing him, or even beholding him. Thus was it I looked on the snap beans. I mentally ejaculated, Why, Snap Beans, I know you! I know how you are regarded in America, and your social standing there. You know that very few of the high-born care for you, and that your true place there is on a tin plate in the kitchen with the servants. And yet here I find you here lying on a silver dish and passing yourself off as somebody. Why, Snap Beans, thou friend and acquaintance of my boyhood, how did you get here, and how did you manage to fool these European people?" Snap beans as a course for dinner! Whenever people begin to live for the stomach they at once go into all kinds of absurdities. There are follies and ridiculosities of table manners and bill of fare. In the dethroning of Reason and Conscience, and the enthroning of the Stomach, we may look for absurdities. The brain that is left is racked for table novelties and culinary inventions. The result is often such as to excite the whole family of risible muscles. Then I have noticed that when a people swing like a pendulum between the two thoughts, what new things shall we eat, and how much shall we eat; when they spend much precious money, and much still more precious time, in feasting, and in a general deifying of the stomach, such people are getting at a place where God knocks them down with His providences and tears them to pieces with His judgments. The Bible says it is so, and History confirms the saying. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 03.20. POMPEII AND MT. VESUVIUS ======================================================================== Chapter 20 Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii -- Its Temples -- Public Buildings -- Dwellings -- The Street of Tombs -- The Meditative Statue --The House of Diomede -- The Ascent of Mount Vesuvius. Of course, I visited Pompeii. Let us get our local bearings. Mt. Vesuvius is ten miles east of Naples, and Pompeii is five miles southeast of Mt. Vesuvius. They are all nearly in line, and all three are on or near the Bay of Naples. Taking an early morning train, I ran along the shore of the bay, reaching the station in less than all hour. One hundred yards from the station is the Sea Gate of the city of Pompeii. It was through this gate that thousands rushed in the direction of the Bay of Naples, which is, perhaps, not over a half-mile away. I pause a moment at the gate to say that Pompeii, at the time of its destruction was no mean city in size, wealth, and importance. Its population at the time was about thirty thousand. It had a large trade by sea, was surrounded by a most fertile country, and was the abode of wealthy people, and even visited by royalty. It had been almost destroyed in A. D. 63 by an earthquake, but had recovered from this disaster, and the city was more richly and beautifully built than ever, when in the year 79 it was overwhelmed by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. There was first a fall of hot, suffocating ashes to the depth of three feet, and then a prolonged pouring of rapilli, or red-hot pumice-stones, on the doomed place to the depth of seven feet; then more ashes, and then more stones, until the city was covered. Two thousand people were destroyed. The city of Pompeii is one mile long and a half-mile wide. It was surrounded by a considerable wall, and had about eight gates. Not quite half of the city has been as yet exhumed. What we see of it shows a town most compactly built, having a large population, and abounding in wealth and luxury. At the entrance of the Sea Gate is one of the ancient buildings now turned into a museum. Many curious things pertaining to the buried city are here exhibited. In glass cases are the figures of a number of men and women whose bodies were discovered in various places in Pompeii, and preserved by a method familiar to the reader. With one exception, their petrified positions and attitudes show horror of mind and agony of body. The one exception is that apparently of a middle-aged man. The features and lines of the face are very plain, and show unmistakable calmness. His head rests on his left arm, and he seems to have accepted his fate and laid down to die. The body of a dog is a picture of physical agony. His legs are thrown upward and bent; his head twisted under his body, as if biting at the fire that was consuming him. His skeleton was found tied to the door of a man named Orpheus. How the howls of that confined dog pierced the ash-laden atmosphere, and added another sound of mournfulness and terror t o the already overburdened and horror-stricken night. Just beyond is the body of a young woman who has fallen upon her face, apparently to hide from her eyes the dreadful sights of the hour. Pursuing my walk up one of the streets, I came to the southwest corner of the town where laborers are engaged in the work of excavating. It was there I saw distinctly the different stratas of destruction that fell on the town as they appeared in the banks upon which the spades of the workmen were employed. There are a number of public buildings that were not only large, but elegant and beautiful. The Basilica, or Temple of Justice, has a breadth and massivenesss, even in its ruins, that deeply impresses the beholder. The Forum is worthy of the name. The size of the marble columns, the paved court, the life-size statuary, now deposited in the museum at Naples, show what this place and other similar public places were and of what architectural excellence and artistic taste these people were possessed, while the inhabitants of Great Britain were wearing the skins of beasts, dwelling in huts, and worshiping in a rude way in the center of twelve upright stones. The public baths are similar to those of today. There are hot and cold waterpipes, marble bath tubs, marble fountains, steaming-room, and sitting-room, while wine shops and restaurants are just across the street. You find wine shops at almost every corner. They are easily recognized by a front stone counter, in which still stand large jars and receptacles for the wine. Ashes, to the depth of five or six inches, now lie in the bottom instead of the lees of the liquor. The Temples of Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury, are all impressive by their size and remains of former beauty. The Temple of Isis is here with the rest. On this altar was found a sacrifice just deposited, when the sound of doom put an end to the service. The houses of wealthy men abound. I saw no homes of the poor. As I went through a number of these reputed abodes of the rich and noble, and saw the remains of marble fountains, the mosaic pavements, the walls richly colored or covered with paintings, the marble pillars and the small but beautiful rooms opening on the inner court, in whose center an ornamented fountain played, I saw there was no mistake about the tradition of the wealth of the place; and when, afterwards, in the museum at Naples, I saw the pictures and statuary and articles of various kinds that came out of these homes, there was not left the shadow of a doubt in my mind about the luxury that once filled these homes, and that made this city remarkable. There are some things I saw in Pompeii that I cannot speak of; only there are unmistakable signs that declare that the place was as generally corrupt as it was beautiful and luxurious. Long before I left the city I saw why the fire of Vesuvius had fallen on this particular part of the plain . There are some sins upon which God always rains fire. The offense of Pompeii was seen in more than one sin. Even at this distance of time four or five of the most wrath-provoking are perfectly manifest. It is a mistake to suppose that the houses were of one story. The numerous staircases all over the city show, at least, two stories, while the house of Diomede as clearly reveals a third floor. These upper stories were, doubtless, constructed of wood, and perished under a conflagration created by the red-hot pumice stones. The amphitheater that Bulwer speaks of is empty and desolate; but solemn, majestic and imposing. The Gate of Herculaneum, as it is called, opens on what is called the Street of Tombs, that stretches beyond the city walls several hundred yards. All had to be exhumed. Just outside the gate is the doorway in which the Roman sentinel was found dead at his post. It was the doorway of a tomb. Looking down the avenue of tombs, I beheld a sight which affected me strangely and sadly. Fully two hundred yards away, almost at the end of the street, a marble statue was leaning against one of the tombs on the right hand, and looking toward the gate where I stood. The right cheek of the statue was resting lightly on one hand upraised to the face. The position was one of waiting and meditation. The eyes were fixed upon us where we stood. It looked as if it was expecting us, and was waiting to welcome, or to invite us to a final resting place in one of the tombs. The utter loneliness of the street, coupled with the desolation of the city, greatly heightened the effect of the strange spectacle. Near the end of this street is the famous house of Diomede. The cellar is the strong point of interest with the tourist. I was much surprised at its shape and extent. It is fully ten or twelve feet in width and equally as high. It runs west fifty yards, and then, with another sharp turn, runs east the same distance. It is located under the flower-garden, and connects with the house at two points by a gradual rise in the floor. This was the wine cellar of Diomede, and the jars are still seen in ruinous condition, or with their imprint against the walls. The cellar is pierced with a number of small square apertures for the reception of air. Through these the ashes and suffocating fumes entered in destroying power upon those who had fled here for refuge. In this cellar the skeletons or bodies of fifty-eight people were found. The impression of the figures of some, with their clothes wrapped about their heads to keep out the hot ashes and air, is plainly seen on the wall against which they leaned. A man with a ring on his hand, and holding a key was found near the door. Close to him was his slave, bearing a box of jewels. But the servant and key and precious stones availed nothing at such a time. There is an hour when men and money can do nothing for us. That hour is when God "looks on the hills, and they tremble; when he touches the mountains and they smoke;" and when he rises in his omnipotence to shake terribly the earth. Mt. Vesuvius is five miles from Pompeii. Taking a guide and two horses, I had a wild gallop over the plain and fields toward the smoking volcano. What a gallop it was, through dusty lanes, and wide-spreading vineyards, and queer-looking villages with high stone walls, over whose top peered and clambered the boughs of all kinds of fruit trees! The half-naked children rushed out at our coming, crying out for money in shrill tones, while more than one old peasant woman dropped distaff and spindle, and gazed after us as we went clattering by. We had no time to tarry, for it takes several hours to climb Vesuvius, and it was now in the afternoon. As the guide and I swept on, vineyards followed upon vineyards. As we began to ascend the mountain, they actually became more luxuriant. The black ashes and cinders seem to be the soil in which the vine can best flourish. The wine, I understand, is very strong. The fire of the mountain, I suppose, has stolen into the grape. You climb more than one-third of the h eight of the volcano before the grape-bearing vine ceases to follow you. Further along we began to encounter lava beds. Remarkable when first seen, they became more wonderful in appearance the higher we ascended. Conceive of a vast level field, across which runs a strip of plowed land, say fifty or a hundred yards wide. But this plowed slip has been thrown up by plows that can cast a furrow fifteen or twenty feet high, and leave clods as big as a hogshead. Think of an ebony river churned by a cyclone into wildest confusion, and then its black, convulsed waves suddenly turned to stone. I saw every conceivable fantastic and horrible form in these lava rivers that poured down the sides of Vesuvius, and were arrested midway. Implements of war, human forms twisted in agony, and serpents folded and knotted together. Two-thirds and more of the distance up, the guide came to a halt in a wild, rocky spot at the foot of the cone proper. He remarked that the rest of the way must be pursued on foot, as it was too steep for the horses. At this juncture four men presented themselves, and offered to carry me up in a chair. Their price staggered me, and I said "No;" I would climb the rest of the way. Faithfully did I try, sinking in the ashes several inches with each step. High above me loomed the mountain, and desperately did I surge for an hundred yards to gain the top unaided. To my surprise, the four men toiled along by my side. It actually appeared that they believed I could not make the ascent. In fact, that was just what they believed and knew. They had seen hundreds do as I did that afternoon. It was of no avail; I had to give up, with breath and strength gone, and the head of the volcano still high in the air. At once they placed me in a chair, to which two handspikes were nailed, and I was lifted up thus, throne-like, on the shoulders of four stalwart men. And then how we climbed! And what an experience it was to be going on the shoulders of four men up the steep side of a roof four thousand feet high, whose eaves overhung Italy and the Mediterranean Sea, and the chimney at the top on fire! At last we reached the summit, and stood in twenty feet of smoke that boils up from the crater. Around the crater there are two lips, each one fully thirty feet high. The outer one is twenty feet off from the danger spot; the inner one over hangs the fire, and has rattling upon it a constant shower of stones thrown from beneath. Every minute or so there is a deep explosion in the crater, and a shower of black rocks are hurled two or three hundred yards in the air, and come rattling down, some in the gulf, many on the inner lip of the crater, and some on the outer lip where we stood. I had not the very blissful experience, in company with the guides, of dodging and retiring precipitately several times from these stones. What a view bursts on the charmed vision from this lofty place! What reflections crowd on the mind while you linger at the top, or descend the Steep sides of the cone, and the gentler slope of the mountain proper! The city and Bay of Naples are westward, and just beneath you. The Mediterranean is outspread in its calm blue beauty; a dozen populous towns are at the base of the volcano; houses and vineyards clamber up its sides, as though it was perfectly harmless. A vast plain, dotted with houses and towns, amid which I notice the ruins of Pompeii, and covered with orchards and vineyards, circles around three sides of Vesuvius, and stretches away in the distance till shut in by a lofty range of mountains that makes a fitting frame for so large and lovely a picture. At the foot of this fire-breathing monster is the town of Terra del Grecco, fair and flourishing, and yet it has been destroyed seven times by this volcano at whose feet it now confidingly nestles. How strange it is that men will believe in and cling to the thing that destroys them! I gave a farewell look and descended. This has always been a wonderful spot. Capua, where Hannibal’ s soldiers were changed to the nature of women is close by. I took in the soft beauty of the landscape, the fertility of the plain, the slumber of the ocean, and the swoon in the air. I remembered the fire of the grape, and the warmth of the sunbeam, and I began to understand the meaning of the word Capua as Hannibal saw it; and I also think I saw some of the circumstantial causes that developed finally into the overwhelming ruin of Pompeii. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 03.21. THE MEDITERRRANEAN SEA - EGYPT ======================================================================== 21 The Mediterranean Sea. Naples at Night from the Sea -- Stromboli -- Paul’s Journey by Sea -- The Mediterranean -- A Bill of Fare -- Egypt -- From Alexandria to Cairo -- Scenes from time Car Window -- Villages -- The Desert of Shur -- The Bazaars of Cairo -- The Mosque -- The View from the Citadel. On a beautiful evening in August I took ship at Naples, and sailed for Egypt. The farewell sight of the city twinkling at night, in ascending lights around its semi-circular bay, is an Italian picture that memory loves to recall. Vesuvius had his red plume of war floating in the night wind, while a bloody gash in his left side looked foreboding. Next morning we sighted and passed Stromboli -- that most peculiar volcano island. It rises up suddenly from the sea all around, forming a cone and reaching the height of three thousand feet. One would think that people would be slow to settle where they would be rendered doubly helpless in time of peril by fire above and water all around; and yet here, nestling at the foot of this volcano, whose fires never go out, is a large town or city. America has countless thousands of acres of land with no natural convulsions to disturb the settler to which she invites the nations; and yet the people of this volcano belt prefer to scrape a living from these hard rocks, having their houses occasionally knocked to pieces by earthquakes, and every four or five years running a race for their lives against streams of lava, and under showers of scoriae. It has been both pleasant and interesting to me to discover that I am traversing the same route by sea that Paul passed over in coming to Rome. According to the last chapter in Acts, he took a vessel that had sailed from Alexandria; I took one that was sailing to Alexandria. He landed at Puteoli, just nine miles above Naples. Passing this place in the day, as he evidently did, from the narrative, his eye rested on the beautiful bay and the smoking summit of Vesuvius. This was the very year in which the terrible earthquake occurred that almost overwhelmed Pompeii and several other cities. God was letting the corrupt land know that his servant had arrived! Luke says that they came from the island of Melita, thence to Syracuse, and touched at Rhegium. With what interest, as our ship passed down the Straits of Messina, did I look at this old city of Rhegium, and at the mountains that line both the Italian and Sicilian shores! The thought that this noble herald of the gospel had passed this way, and that his eyes had surveyed the landscapes before me, gave a charm to them over and above that which they possessed naturally. What a spectacle for men and angels was this journey of the apostle! I can realize its moral sublimity here as I could not far away. Christ’s ambassador in chains! God’s invading army, consisting of a single individual, and he a prisoner! South of Sicily we turned eastward, and ran parallel with Paul’s course for six or seven hundred miles. The Mediterranean was calm and lovely throughout the entire trip. The waves in the daytime, purple ones at night, beautiful sunsets in the evening, and a few snowy sails on the horizon were some of the pleasing features of the voyage. Nothing strikes the traveler more forcibly on an ocean trip than the loneliness of the sea. For days we steamed on over the deep without seeing a single sail in the offing. The first impression is that there are few ships on the waters. The real explanation is the vast expanse of the sea. After sailing steadily for a week over endless fields of waves and illimitable prairies of water, this fact comes with peculiar and almost overwhelming power upon the mind. What are ten thousand ships upon the ocean that covers three quarters of the globe? Just what an hundred men would be, scattered over the United States. How often does the reader think they would meet? The steamer on which I sailed was an Italian vessel. I knew not a word of the language, and the officers and crew knew nothing of English. The consequence was that there was silence for six days on the Mediterranean. A bow which I regularly rendered to the captain on entering the dining-saloon, would be answered by him with one far deeper and more profoundly impressive. His moustache would almost sweep the plate in his courteous greeting. This would be all. Then the captain and myself would observe an eloquent silence toward each other. Thought was busy, the powers of mastication were employed, but words were few. I herewith offer for inspection a kind of photograph of one of our breakfasts at sea; it could hardly be called a bill of fare: BOTTLES OF WINE. (I did not partake.) SOLEMN DISTRIBUTION OF ICE. SOUP AND POWDERED CHEESE. Change of plates. SALT FISH (Sardine size) AND OLIVES. Change of plates. VERMICELLI AND POWDERED CHEESE. Change of plates. FRIED FISH. Change of plates. STEAK AND POTATOES. Change of plates. CHEESE AND FRUIT. Removal of plates. COFFEE TOOTHPICKS. This meal, or rather rattle of plates, lasted over one hour. I often arose hungry from these matutinal [early morning] banquets of the sea. The name of one of Shakespeare’s comedies, "Much Ado About Nothing," would well describe some of these Italian table scenes where I have languished with an unsatisfied appetite and lost much valuable time beside. On the fifth day from Naples our ship cast anchor in the port of Alexandria. It needed not a second glance to show me that I was in a new world, in one sense, and in the Old World, in another. The palm trees near the river; the turbans, red fez caps and robes of the men; and the veiled women -- all proclaimed, most powerfully the East. Again and again a view of the Nile, through a perspective of palm-trees, spoke like a voice, saying: "You are in the Dark Continent, but also in the borders of one of the most ancient civilizations. You are in the far-famed land of Egypt." Who wonders that I read that night in the Word of God about Joseph and his sojourn here, and what the Gospels say about Jesus, as a child being brought down to Egypt! So I am in one land already that has been made sacred by the presence of the infant Savior. It seems strange to see a railroad in this old sleepy land; and yet here is one running from Alexandria to Cairo, and a day’s journey still farther on up the Nile. In the trip to Cairo, which takes something over four hours, you are held to the window by a constant interest. The great fertilizing river has already covered the fields, left its rich deposit, and is now retiring, while the farmers are all at work. I judge that these Nile farmers have a power by their ditches and small levees, to throw the water upon any portion of the land that they desire. I saw countless fields of wheat, corn, and rice. The character of the country and crops reminded me much of our Mississippi and Louisiana swamp lands. It would have been easy to have fancied one’s self back home, but for the buffaloes plowing in the fields, the camels in caravan procession along the high-road, and the turbaned men and veiled women everywhere to be seen. The villages of the poorer classes at first puzzled me for a descriptive word; but, after a few glances, the proper phrase came -- they are exactly like large dirt-dauber’s nests. The reader remembers the tenement that this interesting third cousin to the wasp builds on our American rafters. The house of a poor Egyptian is simply a dirt-dauber’s nest enlarged The railway often ran for miles by the side of one of the highroads of Egyptian travel. It was like gazing on a panorama to keep the eye fixed on that road. And it was a living panorama of deep interest. There were donkeys, buffaloes and camels; there were men in all the vivid and varied costumes of the East, and women black-robed, as a rule, and black-veiled up to the eyes. There is a traveler and his dragoman dashing along on horses, and there a group of travelers with a slow-moving caravan of camels. Yonder is a band of soldiers, and yonder, riding to himself, is a stalwart, bearded man, in red turban and white robe, sitting on the back haunches of a diminutive donkey, who progresses with such a swift, gliding motion that the man looks as if he were sailing along the surface of the ground in a sitting posture. But it is a sight to see his gravity and dignity of mien. The Sultan on his throne, could not look more impressive and magisterial. In drawing near to Cairo, I noticed on our left a high, yellowish ridge of ground, apparently thirty or forty feet above the level of the plain on which we were traveling. I needed not to be told that it was the beginning of the desert that reaches eastward to Gaza and the Dead Sea, and southward to Mt. Sinai and the lands where God led his people by the pillar of cloud and fire. I could not see over it, but I knew its barren wastes, and remembered what had occurred upon it; and it seemed like a presence to me. Over that plain Abraham had come and returned; over it Joseph had traveled as a grief-stricken youth, and was carried back with honors due to royalty. Over it Jacob had appeared wondering and rejoicing, and was carried back to Hebron with funeral celebrations of such a character and extent that the people said: "This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians." Under the long, sandy horizon line of this desert Moses disappeared with a great multitude of people who never came back. And over this very plain, after the flight of centuries, came and went back again "the young Child and His Mother." More than once lately have I seen a mother and her young child traveling these dusty roads under a burning August sky. The clinging babe, the downward droop of the mother’s face and the quivering heat beating oftentimes upon them on a treeless road, have thrown a new light and meaning upon the quiet statement made in the Gospel of that journey from Palestine to Egypt: "He took the young Child and His Mother by night and departed into Egypt." How much of suffering is there back of the simple affirmations of the Bible? Truly Christ suffered for us from the very days of his infancy! Truly the Father did not spare His Son! And there is the desert that brings these things to mind. What a monument it is! or, better still, what a wondrous pedestal it is! Forty feet high and over a thousand miles around the base, and upon it History and the Bible have grouped figures, and armies, and scenes, and transactions of the most profoundly interesting and important character. The bazaars of Cairo consist of a number of exceedingly narrow streets lined with diminutive shops and crowded with a jostling procession of human beings, camels and donkeys. In front of the shop sits -- Turkish fashion -- the owner, either smoking his nargileh or dispensing his goods with the dignity of a judge giving forth justice. The scene, as you look, is one of animation and attractiveness. The different-colored turbans and dresses, the veiled women, the clatter of various languages, the sudden and constant looming up of camels with riders or burdens -- these and other things constantly interest the spectator. I visited two mosques. Of course I could not be admitted on their sacred floors until my unhallowed feet had been encased in slippers. The first pair were as large as frying-pans. In these I slapped my way along, viewing the dirt, and dinginess, and religious mummery of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. At the next my pedal extremities were again enswathed in Eastern slippers, which were this time as remarkable for length as the preceding pair had been for breadth. Armed at my feet with slippers equal to short swords, I moved my dagger-like way into the mosque of Mahomet Ali. This is as beautiful a building as the other is unattractive. The auditorium is a vast and lofty chamber, surmounted with a dome illuminated with exquisitely colored glass. The lights of the auditorium are ranged in concentric circles, with a few clusters besides, suspended at certain points. When lighted, it must be a place of great splendor. There are no chairs used in their worship, but the floor is covered with mats. The leader addresses the sitting throng from an airy perch, reached by a carpeted staircase of thirty or forty steps. The females are admitted into a balcony that runs around the sides of the chamber at a height of fully fifty or sixty feet. Here, fenced off and deeply veiled, they get those portions of truth that may happen to fly upward. There is no music in a Mohammedan service. But after listening to their secular or profane music, one has reason for being thankful that there is no song service in their mosques, if he happens to be dwelling in the vicinity. Infidelity has no hymn book, and Mohammedanism has no singing in its worship. Both facts are significant, and mean the same thing, and that thing is that they are both spiritually dead. The dead sing not. "The living, the living, they shall praise thee," said King Hezekiah. I shall have more to say about Islamism in another chapter. From the citadel I had a fine view of Cairo and the surrounding country. For the first time I looked down on a minaretted city. The church spire and gospel bell give way in this land to the mosque and to the minaret, and the voice of the Muezzin calling four times a day to prayers. But this shall not be long. The promise is that Christ "shall inherit all nations." The sight of the minarets and domes; the uplifted plumed heads of the palm trees; the windings of the river Nile; the shipping on its bosom, with mast and spar of bamboo making a curve peculiar, yet pleasing, to the eye; the sight of the Pyramids, eight miles away, on the edge of the Great Desert -- all these made a view striking, peculiarly oriental and beautiful. It was also calculated to impress me with the fact that I was a considerable distance from home. This was the sensation experienced when I saw the Nile for the first time through a featherly line of palm trees. Traveling as I am now doing, independently of excursion parties, and alone, there are moments when, naturally, a feeling of solitariness sweeps down upon the heart. For instance: It is hard to be seeing constantly striking objects, and have no one to commune with on the subject. It is trying to see parties of friends and loved ones together, and feel shut out from like pleasures. There is a trying experience in being forever surrounded with strange faces, listening to a babel of strange tongues, and moving all the time through strange lands. But there are three things that instantaneously save me from the lonely feeling. One is: That I am traveling for the very purpose of seeing the strange and unknown. Next: A number of years ago I struck up an acquaintanceship and friendship with the clouds and stars. We have been on delightful communing terms for quite a while. As a boy they spoke to me and said many things that set me to thinking and quieted my spirit. As a child of God, I have recognized a still , small voice coming out from their beautiful sanctuaries. Their voices are kindly, their faces are friendly and familiar. So, all through the different countries I have journeyed, I have repeatedly steadied and cheered my heart with a view of the clouds and the stars. They are the only things that have not changed since I left home. There they are, the same "bright, motionless pillars of heaven" when piled up of the horizon; and there are the same constellations that I saw bend over the land in America. They actually give a homelike appearance to every foreign country. A third fact may be easily guessed by the reader. It is the sense of the perpetual presence and companionship of the Savior. I possess by my present remoteness a peculiar advantage in respect to the day. While writing this at 4 of clock in the afternoon, people in the United States are just sitting down to breakfast, or, perhaps, rising from bed. The day with me is far spent. I have looked into its history, lived its life, seen it grow old before they rub the sleep from their eyes. This gives one an advantage. It makes me something like a prophet, in that I have seen what they have not seen. I have dipped, in a sense, into the future, and looked into the face of the unborn and unknown. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 03.22. IN EGYPT - THE PYRAMIDS ======================================================================== Chapter 22 In Egypt – The Pyramids. The Valley of the Nile -- Historic Egypt -- The Donkey-Boy -- Oriental Scenes and Attitudes -- The Pyramids -- The Desert of Sahara -- Occurrences on the Summit of Cheops -- The Sphinx -- A Cruel Scene Interrupted Cairo, with a population of four hundred thousand souls, is about one hundred miles up the river Nile. The desert that stretches away east to Palestine touches it on one side while the yellow lip of the Great Desert is drawn back to the west fully eight miles. These two deserts are remarkable for their bluffs. They do not melt away into the shore or plain line of the Nile valley, but draw themselves up, as if saying, in conscious majesty, "I am the wild, unconfined Desert that laughs defiance at all the labors and implements of man to change and bring me into subjection." There was a time, doubtless when these two ghastly lips met, and there was nothing but death and sterility over this spot. But God trained the waters from the mountains, and brought them in a winding course until the channel was made, and a valley was formed to support a mighty nation, and, indeed, become the granary of distant peoples. He also did this to show, even nature, how He can bring life out death, and to reveal to us in figure how, out of earthly Saharas, He will cause a paradise yet to bloom. The valley varies in width. It is so fertile that I think it can grow anything and everything. As some one wrote, "Tickle it with a hoe and it smiles with a harvest." Some one says that Cairo is one of the most favorable points for studying Oriental life. I suppose this is so, because almost every nationality is here represented. Egyptians, Arabians, Turks, Greeks Nubians flow together on the streets in one common throng, but easily discerned by their different costumes, as well as strongly-marked faces. "Dwellers from every nation under heaven" are here, we say scripturally, and then cry out in heart for the large upper room and the descending Holy Ghost. I am duly appreciative of my historic surroundings. This is the land of puzzling dynasties, and a chronology that goes back farther than Adam, according to the wild figuring of some people. Here flourished the Ptolemies, and the fair descendant of their family, Cleopatra. Here Caesar fought and swam, and like to have drowned. Here Mark Antony made another celebrated speech that he really did not make. Certainly there never was a man whose fame as an orator was as cheaply made as that of Antony. Speakers of today, by revising and revamping printed proof-sheets of their orations, make themselves great orators: but Antony’s great speech had not been delivered until he had been dead fifteen hundred years; and the other speech at death appears nearly two thousand years after in poetical form, beginning, "I am dying, Egypt, dying." Now I call attention to the absurdity of addressing a female after this manner because she happens to live on the Nile. What would be thought of man saying in death to an English woman whom he loved, "I am dying, Great Britain, dying"? Certainly she would be justified in saying, "Farewell, America." How deeply affecting all this would be! The Pyramids are eight miles west of Cairo. A beautiful avenue of acacia trees line the road the entire way, with the exception of one or two short spaces. I went out with a dragoman, two donkeys and a donkey-boy. The donkey is the gondola of Cairo and the donkey-boy is the gondolier. The lad carries a rod about four feet in length, by which he steers the living craft, and also generates steam. It was a sight worth seeing to watch that donkey-boy go in a swinging trot for miles. With his arms slightly bent and his form inclined forward, he moves over the ground like a bird in its skimming flight. I was troubled about him, and offered to relieve him in various ways, but his reply was an additional thwack upon the animal and an increased gait, which spoke louder than words. About sunrise I left Cairo in the distance, with Hassan, my dragoman, and Mustapha, the donkey-boy, while the donkeys may doubtless have flourished under the names of Mohammed and Ali. I never saw such a country for high-sounding names as the East. As we entered the avenue of acacia trees, and for miles beyond, I beheld a scene equal to any pictured in the "Arabian Nights." At this early hour people were streaming into the city. There were men in white, red, and black turbans; and in white, black, blue, and brown robes. There were women in blue and black, some veiled to the eyes, and some veiled all over, and some few not veiled at all. There were strings of donkeys, and lines of camels, some loaded, some ridden, and some driven. Hundreds of people were scattered along the road under the trees, where they evidently keep house. Turkish soldiers went by rapidly on horses, and donkey-boys, clothed in a long, blue garment and white turban, kept pace with the galloping animals by their sides. It was a scene animated, variegated, and deeply interesting in its Oriental character throughout. It was along this road that I was more impressed than ever with the grace and dignity of Oriental attitudes. I never saw any but what were striking. A group of men looked like an assembly of patriarchs; when two met it seemed that Abraham and Melchisedek had come together; when one sat alone by the wayside, it was Eli thinking of the ark of God, or Jacob waiting to bless his sons. When I saw one, with white robe and red turban, sitting on a camel or donkey, it seemed that he ruled Egypt from the mouth of the Nile to the far limits of Nubia. I saw veiled women with waterpots on their heads, and with white or olive-tinted arms revealed in their upward position, and it was the picture of grace. I saw other females clothed and veiled in black, so that only the dark eyes could be seen, sitting alone under a spreading tree by the wayside; and a picture was immediately beheld that had charmed me long before and as vividly painted in the word of God. The meditative, lonely, and even forsaken attitudes, brought most powerfully to my mind four women mentioned in the Bible -- three in the Old and one in the New Testament. There is a repose of manner and a dignity about the men of the East that is rarely seen in the Western Hemisphere. You never see an Oriental tilt back his chair on two legs, or sit on three at once, as does the American. Mr. Dickens says he saw one of our countrymen occupy five chairs at the same time; he sat in one, his feet resting in two others, and the backs of two others under his armpits. We see nothing of this kind in the East. A walk through the bazaars will convince the skeptical here. The very manner of address or salutation, as the hand is raised first to the head and then laid upon the heart, is impressive. But here we are at the Pyramids. Although I had read much of these monster masses of stone, I was surprised a number of times before I left them. First, at their rough and jagged appearance, produced by the removal of the outer casing. Next, I was surprised at the steepness of the ascent. So sharp is the angle from base to summit, that to look down when half-way up, is anything but pleasant. Still another unexpected experience was that I had to rest five times before reaching the top, although I had two men assisting me. But the view repays one for all the weariness undergone. The winding Nile; the fertile valley here and there covered with silver belts and sheets of the overflowing river; the city of Cairo on the horizon in the east, and the pyramids of Memphis on the horizon in the north; while westward stretched forth the vast expanse of the Desert of Sahara. This desert rises suddenly from the valley of the Nile in a bluff forty or fifty feet high, and then spreads out as far as the eye can see as a vast, yellow field fall of slopes and hillocks. The Nile valley reaches out its emerald fingers as if timidly to touch it, but the desert refuses to be tamed. Like a great, tawny monster, it stretches itself unto its full height of fifty feet, looks out of its yellow eyes over the plain, and spying a traveler or caravan, springs with a sudden bound and roar upon them, shakes over them its brown mane, strangles them in its embrace, and then leaves their bones to bleach in the sun as a silent evidence of its power. But aside from this figure into which I have been betrayed, what a benefactor it really is to Europe. Men talk of turning the Mediterranean Sea into it, and making it a great inland ocean. Nothing would be more disastrous, I am confident. The Great African desert is the furnace of the continent that lies to its north. The ripening fruit, the mellowing grain, and comparative mildness of winter in Europe depends on the heat generated or reflected by this desert, and then spread or fanned northward by the winds that blow in that direction. This warm, desert air touches the frozen fields of snow on the mountain side and turns them into brooks and fountains; breathes upon the hard fruits of the land until they blush under its whispers and grow tender under its caresses; and, besides, making the more northern latitudes of Europe tolerable for human habitation; gives to Spain and Italy, in especial, the rich landscapes, the luscious fruits, the beautiful skies, and the soft and delightful climate for which they are famous. Poet and statesman, lover of beauty and political economist alike say let the Great Desert remain as it is, uncovered by the waves of the Mediterranean. Looking about me after arriving at the top of the pyramid, I found that I had an Arabian escort to the number of five. I had only bargained for two, but in midsummer travelers are few, and the pyramid vultures swooped down on the unexpected carcass. Before leaving the place I had ten or twelve about me. Consider my situation. Here I was, four hundred and seventy feet high in the air, standing upon a monument over four thousand years old, trying to give myself up to historic and moral reflections, and utterly unable so to do because of a chattering crowd of Mohammedans about me. Each one was intent and bent on doing me some service, giving me some piece of information, holding an umbrella over my head, offering me a drink of water from an earthen jug, in order to reap a backshish from my hand. "Yonder," I would say to myself, "is Heliopolis, where Moses was trained in all the wisdom --" when suddenly a swarthy face would be thrust before mine, with some unintelligible jargon, half English and half Arabic. Again I rallied. "Doubtless," I said, "Joseph visited this place --" when a dark hand would thrust before my eyes some battered, ancient coin, with request to buy. I had fully intended to have some fine moral cogitations on the pyramid, shading off into history -- the great battle of Napoleon, etc. -- but it was useless to try. So I finally turned to consider my crowd of attendants, and see what I was to learn from them. One was beseeching me to let him run down the side of the great pyramid and up the other in so many minutes. That he did it for Mark Twain -- that all Americans got him to do it. And he was, in a sense, chafing the bit to be off for me. I stood firm for ten minutes, and finally, for the sake of peace, and in order to get rid of the man, whose life is made up indeed of "ups and downs," I bade him be off, but to go slow stealing up the rocks. Another one of my voluntary attendants came near to me and began, in a most discordant voice, to sing the first verse of "Yankee Doodle." Upon his finishing it I made no remark, whereupon he sung it over, and as I still maintained a strict silence he said that some Americans liked "Yankee Doodle" and some did not. I told him I was among the last named number. That I had for it neither love nor admiration. One gun sent off and another one spiked! A third turned upon me with the request not to fail to give them backshish, that the Sheik at the foot of the pyramid got all the money, and they, the guides, did all the work. This third man was a kind of "medicine man," and called himself the "Doctor." In coming up and going down he would say to the other guide, who was younger and stronger, "Don’t get ahead of the Doctor." The longer I was with this interesting individual the firmer I was persuaded that "to get ahead of the Doctor" was an impossible thing. He informed me on the pyramid that he had two wives, one old and one young. I asked him which he liked best, and he replied, very promptly, the young one. But he added that he had some trouble with them, that not infrequently they quarreled and fought. "What do you do with them at such times," I asked. "I whip them," he replied. Looking him steadily in the eye, I said, "Who whips you?" Here straightway, of the top of Cheops, the great pyramid, an observer could have noticed a profound Mohammedan silence and a calm Christian triumph. I descended from my airy perch to hear Hassan, the dragoman, yelling and hallooing, in the shadow of these great stone antiquities and mysteries, for Mustapha, the donkey-boy, as irreverently as a man would call a colored boy in a cornfield. A hot, fatiguing time was spent in reaching the king’s chamber, which occupies the very center of the pyramid, measured up or down or from any side. The sight beheld, after the tramp, was an imposing sarcophagus in which there was nothing; a spectacle seen even until this day in America and elsewhere. Moreover, the result of that toil in the steep, dark galleries was strikingly like the reward given by the world to those who toil after its honors -- a rich coffin, and then darkness, emptiness, loneliness, and by and by, forgetfulness. Then there was an echo. The guide shouted, and the distant passages and tomb-chambers caught it up. I could hear the sound reverberating in remote galleries, and after awhile all was still. Yes there was an echo and them came silence. So is it still in life. I looked upon the Sphinx. A woman’s head and a lion’s body makes a sphinx in Africa, but a lion’s head and a woman’s body will make a sphinx anywhere. I rode all around it, climbed on one of its huge paws, stood near and far off, and looked into the solemn eyes about which I had read so much. Yes; it is solemnly impressive. How much of this effect is due to the centuries that fall like shadowy veils upon it, or how much is due to the visible embodiment of that idea of repose that pervades all Egyptian sculpture I cannot tell. I had always supposed from letters of travel that the face of the Sphinx was turned toward the great desert, and that its stony eyes ever rested upon that great expanse; but it is just the contrary. The back is toward the desert, the face fronts the east, and gazes upon the valley of the Nile, and the remoter line of the Desert of Shur that stretches away to Palestine. In the temple of the Sphinx near by I had a piece of alabaster chipped off a great column as a paper-weight for one of our bishops. It is an appropriate gift, for if anybody needs to appear solemn and mysterious, and do a great deal of steady looking, and be silent at the same time (I won’t say for four thousand years), that person is a Bishop. I little thought in starting out on my morning trip that I would be instrumental in stopping two Mohammedan fights before I returned to Cairo, but so it proved. The first was in the shadow of the pyramids. The second was on the acclaimed avenue to Cairo. The cries of a woman under terrific blows from a cudgel by a man made me look up, and demanded prompt action. Calling on my dragoman to do what he could to stop the brutality, we charged on our donkeys right into the crowd. It was "the Charge of the Light Brigade." The dragoman harangued in Arabic, and I protested in Anglo Saxon; and with one or two natives, stopped the sickening spectacle. It seemed that the woman’s offense was that she had not cleaned away the dust sufficiently under the trees where they lived. The normal state of the dust was four inches, and she had left about an inch in depth unremoved, whereupon the man beat her for untidy housekeeping. Here was a nabob indeed, an exquisite of the Nile, whose refined nature and cultivated habits rebelled when dust reached the depth or height of one inch. The male nature could stand no more, so he called on the female nature to suffer. A number of natives witnessed the scene in perfect indifference; some did not even look up to see what was going on. My own sudden arrival and irruption [forcible entrance] produced far more curiosity and interest. That surrounding unconcern spoke volumes: it showed that they were accustomed to such scenes. I called the woman to me. O how she sobbed! Great welts ran over her hands and arms where the brute had struck her. The agony of her face I shall never forget, as she wailed out in language I could not understand. But I pitied her, and she understood that. I took her brown hand in mine, and, looking up, pointed her to heaven. I meant that to God she must look now, and that He, after awhile, would give her deliverance and rest. I then laid some money in her hand and rode off, getting from the man a scowl that was like a storm-cloud at midnight. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 03.23. PALESTINE - JAFFA - JERUSALEM ======================================================================== Chapter 23 Pastine – Jafta – Jerusalem. Approach to Joppa -- House of Simon, the Tanner -- The Plain of Sharon -- Timnath -- House of Dagon -- Lydda -- The Threshing-floor -- The Mohammedan Posture -- The Valley of Bethshemesh -- The Valley of Ajalon -- Kirjath Jearim -- Mizpeh -- A Bedouin Encampment -- A Sleeping Jacob -- Jerusalem In all my journeying I have looked forward with a tender, glad feeling in my soul that each day brought me nearer the Holy Land. I would say, "One week more, and I will be in Jerusalem;" and then again, "Tomorrow I shall see the land forever made sacred by the presence of the Savior." The experience, as I studied it, was like that of one who urges his way and draws nigh to the place where abides one whom he loves above all others. On the morning of August 22d I obtained my first view of Palestine as a line of seashore; and, in the dim distance beyond, the mountains of Judea. A little later Joppa, on its conical-shaped hill, appeared. Leaning against the side of the vessel, I recalled the four great facts of the city’s history. Here ships came bringing cedar and other wood for the building of the temple of Solomon. At this place, I doubt not Solomon’s fleets landed, bringing gold and ivory, and apes and peacocks; to this place Jonah came and took ship when he fled from the presence of the Lord; at this place Tabitha, or Dorcas, lived and died, and was raised from the dead by the hand of Simon Peter; and here, on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house, near the sea, Peter saw at midday the sheet knit at four corners, and filled with all kinds of creeping things, let down from heaven three times and heard at the same time the explaining voice of God. I had time to think over all these things, and even read of them afresh in the Scripture before we cast anchor. As we swept into position, I noticed a ship unloading her cargo of lumber, as if the King of Tyre was still filling his contract, and Solomon still receiving. Just beyond the lumber vessel was a small two-masted ship, just such as I think Jonah embarked in, in that mad and impossible flight from God. The landing here is always difficult, because Joppa is without natural or artificial harbor, and the heave and swell of the sea has an unimpeded sweep to the shore. As soon as I landed, and before going to the hotel, I visited Simon the Tanner’s house by the sea. Along streets narrow and dirty I walked to the place. This much we have in identification that only three other houses dispute the claim; that this house is certainly by the sea, and has the flat, retired roof that the sacred narrative leads us to expect. As I stood upon the roof I took in the wide-open heaven through which that wonderful sheet was let down. A wide space was a fitting frame for the lesson given the apostle. What a lesson it was! And how hard it was for Peter, even after that, to remember! Of all the instruction that the Spirit strives to impress upon the human heart, there is none that man learns with greater difficulty, and forgets with greater readiness, than that of the "four cornered sheet." The gospel flood of salvation cannot go as it should, because of the walls and barriers that men have built everywhere between each other. The Egyptians would not eat with the Hebrews, for "that would be an abomination to the Egyptians." "The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." "God, I thank thee," said the Pharisee, "I am not like this publican." Caste law and hatred are implacable and undying. Let us all take a fresh look into the sheet, and listen to the interpreting voice of the Spirit. After I had descended from the roof I noticed I had been there at the very hour of the day that Peter had the vision, viz: "the sixth hour," which is twelve o’clock. I left Joppa in the afternoon in a carriage with a dragoman, who proved to be an intelligent man, and blessed with remarkable knowledge of Scripture. One or two miles from the town we entered upon the plain of Sharon. Its width is twelve miles, and length over thirty. This historic plain, although bare and brown in the sultry month of August, yet greatly impressed me by its size and natural beauty. In the spring it must be a lovely spectacle. I looked in vain for a rose or any kind of flower; and, stopping the carriage in the search, had to pluck instead a little thorny bush, with which the plain abounds. Think of plucking a thorn from the plain of Sharon as a memento Nevertheless the Rose of Sharon blooms on fairer plains above. All this may be part of the judgment which is on the land. On the eastern edge rose up the mountains or hills of Judea. As I looked on them I recalled the verse, "And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah." During the afternoon we passed the site of Timnath, where Samson lost his wife and had his revenge on the standing corn of the Philistines. A wretched mud village now marks the spot. I was also shown the town where the Temple, or House of Dagon stood, and where the wonderful scene of the image falling before the ark of God took place. Farther on we came to Lydda, called by the Arabians today Ludd. Two points of identification are readily seen -- one in the similarity of names, and the other in Acts 9:38 : "And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa." I suppose it is seven or eight miles distant. Here it was that Peter healed Eneas, and a great revival sprang up therefrom. I walked through the streets of the dirty and poverty-stricken town where "once dwelt the saints." The houses are constructed of mud and the stones of ancient ruins. The streets, which are narrow, winding alleys in reality, are strewn with litter and filth. The floors of many of the houses, mud-colored and windowless, were often four or five feet below the level of the street. The refuse accumulates well. The things noticed by the eye were revolting in many instances to almost every sense. I felt that Lydda was not such a place in the time of Peter. A great crime has been committed in this country. God’s Son was killed not thirty miles from this spot, and the face of Jehovah has been turned from the land for two thousand years. And his vengeance is written in barren fields, and naked mountains, and long lines of ruins all over this land. What will not happen to a country when God hides his face! I am struck, however, with the fact that the Jews constitute a small part of the population that partakes of this desolation. I meet twenty Egyptians, Arabians, Syrian peasants, and people who don’t know who they are, to one Israelite. All this, however, is in perfect fulfillment of the prophecies of old. The Jew was to be driven into all nations and the stranger was to enter in and possess the country, Mr. Rothschild is, however, still importing them from Russia and elsewhere. He has five or six colonies between Joppa and Damascus. Here he is settling the poor wanderers, and teaching the boys how to be farmers. I saw one of his colonies in the plain of Sharon. I notice that every village of any size has its theshingfloor. How often I have met the expression in Holy Writ, and concluded that it was a large, airy room like a barn, with a plain floor, and as substantial a covering. Here my preconceived ideas went to the winds, as they have been going about many things since I left home. It is good to leave home occasionally. The "theshingfloor" is a plot of ground two or three hundred feet square, level as a floor, and occupying the top of a hill, or an elevated piece of ground. I used to wonder why David offered Araunah, the Jebusite, such a price for his theshingfloor for the altar; but, after seeing the size and need of such a place, the wonder departed. The theshingfloor at Lydda was an animated scene, although I passed it late in the evening, when the main work was over. Long lines of grain in sheaves were in one part. A number of men were engaged in winnowing the chaff from the wheat in the old-time method of flinging the grain against the wind, while s till others were filling sacks. The cactus hedge abounds. It gets higher and thicker the nearer we approach the Judean mountain. The natives eat the bulby fruit, and I propose trying the same thing in the morning, when the dew is upon it. The camels eat the leaf, thorn and all, and evidently regard the prickly plants of the hedge and the thorns of Sharon as luxuries. The camel that will eat anything, and the donkey that eats almost nothing are certainly the animals for this poverty-stricken country. The Mohammedan, as you know, possesses the land. In a mosque at Lydda, at the hour of sunset, I saw some of them at their devotions. On a piece of matting he prostrates himself, touching the earth three times with his forehead, while he utters what is called the short prayer. He then arises, and standing erect and motionless, with face to the east, while his eyes are fixed upon a pillar or wall before him, goes through the long prayer, apparently oblivious of the presence of anybody and everybody. The night we passed in Ramleh. It has no scriptural associations, and the most remarkable thing they can relate in matters of the world is, that Napoleon once slept there. It was by the roadside at this place I saw my first leper. The lonely, sitting figure, the drooping form, the lower face covered by a portion of the robe, was a sight familiar, though before unseen, and melting to the heart. A few miles farther on I had pointed out the beautiful valley of Bethshemesh, along the side which the cart, laden with the ark of God, was drawn so wonderfully; the cows, as the Bible says, lowing as they went. The valley, after a while, turns southward and merges into the valley of Ajalon. Here, again, memory is stirred at that bold prayer and demand of faith upon the part of Joshua: "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, mind thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon." Great was the victory that day over the five kings! They were pursued from Gibeon to Azekah, across and down the valley of Ajalon. The Bible says, God took a wonderful part in that battle, for he rained down great stones from heaven upon the enemies of Israel. As I passed down the valley and along the hillsides, I suddenly began to notice myriads of stones on all sides. Strange to say, I had not thought of the Scripture statement until I saw the stones. In no other part of the country did I see rocks like these before me for peculiarity of size and multitude. They were just such as would be used in hurling down upon a great army. I picked up one of the smaller sized ones, two and a half inches in diameter, for the Editor of the New Orleans Christian Advocate. An encampment of Bedouins near the road attracted my attention. In walking through it a scene of abject poverty presented itself, while naked children stared and ill-natured dogs barked at me. A blanket stretched on a pole was all the shelter and, indeed, all the home they possess. "Two women were grinding at the mill." It was the same kind of mill used in the time of the Savior. There were two circular stones, the upper one having a small aperture through which to pour a handful of grain at a time. By an iron handle the woman revolved the upper on the nether stone, and the triturated grain gradually worked out at the surface edges and was received in a cloth spread on the ground. It was a slow and wearisome work. One of the women with whom I spoke, said her life was one of misery. Several miles from this place we began to ascend the mountains of Judea toward Jerusalem. It is true that, no matter how you approach the city, you have to "go up to Jerusalem." At the height of seventeen hundred feet we had a charming view of the plain of Sharon, and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. I can not, in suitable words, convey to the reader the dreariness of these mountains around Jerusalem. The road runs for twenty miles through and over them, and throughout it is a scene of profound desolation and mournfulness. The mountain sides show unmistakable signs of having once been terraced from summit to base, and cultivated; but the vineyards have vanished, and the terraces are in ruins, and, with the exception of an occasional grove of scattering olives, these noble trees are gone. The mountains themselves, denuded of their once beautiful covering, stand up and roll on to the distant horizon in bold, bare forms of gray limestone and red clay. Upon the summit and side of one of these hills stands Kirjath Jearim, where the ark of God was carried, and remained so long. Beyond this, and visible for miles, is Mispeh, where Samuel used to assemble the children of Israel, where Saul was elected, and was found "hid in the stuff." Two miles farther on, and northward on the Jaffa road, is Gibeah. It was near this place that Saul, in such sinful haste, sacrificed to the Lord with his own hand. Samuel had gone to Mispeh with promise to return; but Saul would not await his coming. When the eye takes in the two places, separated only two miles, something of the dark, impatient spirit of the King of Israel at once impresses the mind. Although separated from Samuel two miles, he would not wait for him, or tarry until a message could be sent. Here was light suddenly thrown on the character of Saul. With deep interest did I look upon the places connected with a life of the most brilliant beginning and dark and fearful ending, that is mentioned in the Word of God. I rode slowly all day, with my Bible frequently in hand, comparing the land with the Book and the Book with the land. God certainly made them both. Among the peculiar, sudden pleasures of the two days’ travel from Joppa to Jerusalem was the recognition of Bible pictures and sayings on all sides. The carob tree brought up one scene, the sight of two women grinding at the mill another; while near Emmaus I saw an Arabian, a young man, lying near the road, "with a stone for a pillow." Jacob and Bethel came immediately to mind. It is impossible to see Jerusalem as you approach it from the west. A new town is rapidly growing on that side of the city, hiding the wall and ancient buildings from view. Through droves of camels and donkeys, and through crowds of Arabians and Syrians, I entered the Jaffa Gate and found myself in Jerusalem, and, in a few moments, in the Grand New Hotel. In several minutes more I ascended the terraced roof of the building to look upon the city of our God and His Christ. I went up alone, with my heart in my throat. The lofty lookout wall was near the west wall by the Jaffa Gate, and commanded a widespread view of the city and the "mountains round about Zion." On the left was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre covering, it is said, the sites of the cross and the tomb. Immediately in front was the unmistakable site of the temple where infinite Wisdom taught and Infinite Power wrought miracles. Still farther beyond, and lifted high, was Mount Olivet, with its northern and southern slopes, and roads to Bethany, so familiar to the Christian and reader of the Bible. Here was suddenly arrayed before me the sights of the most amazing and important transactions in the history of the world, and, indeed, of the universe. The incarnation, the life and teaching of the Son of God, His crucifixion and death; His resurrection, and ascension; and the descent of the Holy Ghost, were all, in a sense, before me. It was a sudden materializing of spiritual truths before my eyes. It was a startling presentation to the eye of places thought about, talked about, loved and reverenced from the far-off days of childhood, and a far-away country, with but little hope of ever seeing them in the flesh. How would the reader have felt under the circumstances? What would any lover of Christ have done? Shall the Crusaders, at the first sight of the distant city, fall upon their faces and knees, with streaming eyes, crying out, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem" -- and the more spiritual follower of the Savior feel no melting of the heart? and shall h is cheeks be dry in the city of our God? At first a feeling swept over me that baffled all analysis and description. A pressure, a weight, an awe was upon me as came, I fancy, on Zechariah, when he saw the vision in the temple; or that fell on men of old time when they drew nigh the visible presence of God. And then, let men call it weakness; let them question the propriety of mentioning such things in print; but somehow I feel that I am not writing to critics, but to friends, and so I say that the sight of these places of the gospel fairly broke my heart, and I bowed my head on the railing before me and wept as I rarely weep in my life. * * * * * * * ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-beverly-carradine-volume-1/ ========================================================================