SQLite format 3@  ii!%%atableTopicsTopicsCREATE TABLE Topics (Title NVARCHAR(100), Notes TEXT)s9=01 The Home{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE HOME\par \par "Few are the tones of love He hears,\par Unpillowed oft His weary head;\par By day He wrought, by night He prayed,\par His way was pave,c l .  t9zA@"Leaving Nazareth, He went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake." Matthew 4:13\par \par That is always a momentous era in the history of every individual, when the period of youth is over, and manhood goes forth to grapple with the stern realities of life. Existence has new responsibilities\emdash new cares\emdash new hopes\emdash new motives\emdash new trials\emdash new joys. If the character was plastic before, and only molding or developing, now it fast consolidates. "The Man" takes a new position. He selects his own associates\emdash discovers his own resources\emdash manifests his own tastes and congenialities. The magnetic needle, trembling and oscillating before, fixes itself now to its pole; and there, with little variation, remains till he goes to the last and longest home of all.\par \par We have in these words the first glimpse which the Bible gives us of the Home of Jesus. Around that name, the earthly Home of the Lord of Glory, how many hallowed and sacred thoughts gather! Other spots already, indeed, claimed the honor. Egypt was for a time His home. There, in the morning of that mysterious infancy, He fled with His parents, till a message from Heaven assured of a safe return. Nazareth was His home. There, an impenetrable silence broods over thirty years of wondrous interest to all time. We dare not lift the veil of secrecy. But we can well picture the lovingness of that holy Childhood and Youth, unruffled by one frown or passion or taint of selfishness\emdash a Holy Light in a dwelling of peaceful obscurity, His hands toiling, as we have reason to believe they did, in the workshop of His reputed father, thus voluntarily subjecting Himself to the full heritage of the curse of toil. We can picture the wanderings of that mysterious boyhood amid the olive groves and wooded eminences which enclosed the Village. We can listen in thought to the earliest prayers lisped in the quiet homestead or on the silent hills. Rising even then with elastic step "a great while before day," while the lower valley was still sleeping amid the shadows of early dawn, the "Holy Child" was invoking the ear of His Father in Heaven.\par \par But CAPERNAUM is invested with a deeper interest still. Youth, obscurity, privacy, are left. He is now the public Person\emdash the Teacher sent from God\emdash the MAN. Nazareth was the home of His parents. There He was "subject to them." The period of subjection is over. He has completed His beauteous example\emdash He has read His holy lesson to boyhood and youth. Now He has to bear a more advanced and dignified testimony. Manhood in its prime is invited to come to the shores of Gennesaret, or to enter one of the lowly porticos in the town of Capernaum, and gather solemn instruction by a visit to the Home of JESUS!\par \par "Master, where do You live?" said two of His disciple-followers on one occasion. "Come and see," was His answer. He invites us to come also. We can, indeed, speak nothing regarding that lowly dwelling; we can mar k no stone of the outer building; we cannot tell whether the blue waves of the Lake murmured under its lattice; or whether it looked out to the Vines climbing the slopes which hemmed in the plain. But the mere locality is nothing. It is the wondrous Life that stamped its impress on that home, and that reads many a lesson still as to what the home and the life together should be. Come, then, let us gather with all reverence around this model "Home," where the ideal of MAN, the root and flower of perfect Hu manity, mysteriously unfolded itself.\par \par Let us look to the life of Jesus in its twofold aspect\emdash social and public; individual and private.\par \par I. SOCIALLY\emdash The character of the Redeemer partook of no asceticism. The Home of Jesus was in the center of Galilean and (Jerusalem excepted) the center of Palestine life. He was, in this respect, unlike His great forerunner, John the Baptist. Rigid, austere, separating himself from the amenities of existence, the wildern ess and solitudes of Judea were John's abode. He shunned society. He came and delivered his message to teeming multitudes by day, and then, as the night shadows gathered around the Jordan, he plunged back into the untrodden wilds, with no eye to look kindly on him but that of One, whose presence to him was more than all human tenderness could be! There was much to love, at least to revere, about the Forerunner of the Messiah. He was bold, honest, courageous, sincere. He had forsaken all for the sake of hi s message. He could afford no time to fritter away in a worthless world. It took him the livelong night to get his spirit braced up for the solemn ministry of the morrow. With the prayer still lingering on his lips, he went forth with the old burning message of persuasion and terror\emdash "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"\par \par But the Home of Jesus was not the wilderness! No secluded nook was His selected dwelling\emdash no quiet Palestine hamlet where He could dwell in mystic loneliness, refusing to mingle in the common business and duties of life. He pitched His own tent in the midst of human tabernacles, amid the noise and bustle of a town\emdash the hum of busy industry ever around Him\emdash coming in contact with every description of character\emdash rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, bond and free, noblemen, centurions, publicans at the receipt of custom, sailors and bargemen on the Lake, crude Galilean mountaineers and shepherds, caravans crossing with motley crowds from Syria and Persia to lower Palestine and Egypt. He met them all in free, unrestrained communion. At one time, reading to the Jews in their synagogue. At another, gathering the multitude at their spare hours by the sea-side, with suggestive nature before Him\emdash His pulpit a fisherman's boat\emdash proclaiming the great salvation. At another, seating a similar crowd on the grass at the head of the Lake, He would miraculously feed them with the bread which perishes, and unfold spiritual things from the earthly type.\par \par Nor do we find Him in any way spurning the duties and delights of social fellowship. At one time, He consecrates with His presence a marriage-feast at the neighboring Cana. At another, He is a guest in a Pharisee's house, eating with publicans and sinners. At another, as the Jewish Sabbath sun sinks behind Mount Tabor, look! the shores and highways are lined with eager hundreds. The sick and palsied, the blind and lame, come to receive the magic touch, and listen to the Omnipotent word! Wherever He goes, His steps are tracked with mercy; misery, in every form, crouches at His feet; and gratitude bathes the wondrous Healer with its tears.\par \par II. Thus much for His outward, public, social life\emdash the stirring scenes of ministry and miracle. But is the portraiture complete? Does the revelation of the ideal of Human perfection end here? We now turn to its other phase, the remaining complement in that wondrous character; the PRIVATE Life of Jesus. He had, as each of His people have, a secret, inner being, in conjunction with the outer and social: the one a reflex of the other. That busy world on the one side of the Sea of Tiberias, witnessed His mighty deeds, heard His weighty words, and glowed under the sunshine of holy smiles and joyous friendships. But amid these boats flitting up and down the lake, one may now and then be seen (as the twilight shadows are falling) gently traversing its bosom; and when moored on the other side, a Figure, companionless and alone, is ascending the rugged steeps of the mountain, until the veil of night shuts Him out from view.\par \par When the lights of luxury are gleaming on the opposite shores, and the fishermen's oars are heard pursuing their nightly task, the Son of Man and Lord of Glory is seeking refreshment and repose for His soul in divine communion. With the deep solitudes of nature for His oratory, He "continues all night in prayer to God." He is left "alone," and yet! He is "not alone," for His "God and Father are with Him!" Most beautiful union of the active and the contemplative: public duty and private devotion; ceaseless exertion, and needful spiritual cessation and repose; the outer life all given to God and man; the private inner life diligently cared for and nurtured; night by night, and morning by morning, the sinless and spotless One fetching down heavenly supplies, as if in every respect He were "tempted as we are," requiring equal strength for duty and preparation for trial. How it links us in sympathy to this adorable Redeemer, to think that He had bodily as well as mental affinities with ourselves; that He participated with us (sin only excepted) in ALL our infirmities!\par \par Do we, like Him, combine the two great elements of human character? Are our public duties\emdash the cares, and business, and engrossments of the world, finely tempered and hallowed by a secret walk with God? Is our outer life distinguished like His by earnest diligence in our varied callings\emdash love to God and kindness and goodwill to man throwing a softened halo around our path; beneficence, generosity, sterling honor, charity, unselfishness characterizing all we do?\par \par Is our inner life a feeble transcript of His? If the world were to follow us from its busy thoroughfares, would it trace us to our family altars and our closet devotions? Would it discover in our secret histories, "Sabbaths of the soul," when wearied with the toil and struggle of earth, we ascend in thought the mount of Prayer, and in these holy mental solitudes seek an audience of our Father in Heaven? Action and meditation, I repeat, are the two great components of Christian life, and the perfection of the religious character is to find the two in unison and harmony.\par \par Not like Martha of old, all bustle, energy, impulse, and finding little time for higher interests. Nor like Mary, on the other hand, wrapped in devout meditation, indifferent to the duties and shrinking from the struggles of life, but the happy intermingling of both. In one word, come and visit the Home of Jesus\emdash see that noblest of combinations, consuming zeal and childlike teachableness\emdash untiring devotion to His fellows, hallowed converse with His God. Oh, that each dwelling, that each life, might be like that! Would that, in order to make a "model home," we were often led to cross and re-cross in thought Gennesaret's lake. Then would our hearths and households more frequently be like Edens, blooming in a desert world\emdash miniatures of the great Heavenly Home, where still there will be the beautiful combination of untiring energy in God's service, and of peaceful rest and repose in God's love.\par \par Let us only add, as one out of many practical lessons this subject suggests, a word of encouragement for the guiltiest. Where did this Blessed Lord of Glory establish His home? What portion of the wide world, or of the sacred land, did He select during the three most eventful years of earth's history for His most frequent residence? It was "the land of darkness;" it was "the region of the shadow of death." It was among a people who, in the most impressive and significant of Bible figures, are represented as "sitting" in that darkness; content to remain in guilty apathy and unconcern, heeding not the gloom around them, and the appalling shadows gathering overhead. Yet, He spurned them not. No; He, "The Light," entered this thick and gloomy darkness. Incarnate truth came into the midst of error. Incarnate wisdom settled in the midst of ignorance. Life came and settled in the abodes of death!\par \par What does this teach? but that none need despair. Those who till this hour have been "sitting in darkness"\emdash the darkness of guilt, and sin, and miserable estrangement from God\emdash may listen to the voice of Jesus saying\emdash "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life."\par \par And not only do we here learn that Jesus comes to the very worst, and is willing to enlighten them, but that He can change the very worst\emdash that He does enlighten them. The Sun of Righteousness has not only arose on Galilee, but He rose "with healing in His beams." "Its common people heard Him gladly." His best converts, his truest and most trustworthy friends were from the ports, and fishing boats, and villages around Gennesaret. Oh, if He effected such a change on them, there is no room for despondency! "That is the true light which enlightens every one that comes into the world." He is willing to take up His home in every soul\emdash though that soul be as the valley of the shadow of death. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, is willing to shine into that heart with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Whatever your darkness may be, Christ can relieve it; Christ can dispel it! If your heart be as a Gennesaret swept with storms, He will come and whisper in your ears, as He did of old, His calming words\emdash "Peace, be still."\par \par The Home of Jesus, His outer home, at Capernaum, is but a memory of the past; not one stone has been left upon another that has not been thrown down. But He has a more enduring home, which human hands cannot annihilate, and time cannot destroy. "Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, I dwell in the high and in the holy place; with him also that is humble and of a contrite spirit!"\par \par \par \par \par \cf1\fs23\par }  God, he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.\par When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."\par Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." Luke 5:1-5\par \par The first Memory of Gennesaret is appropriately connected with a fishing scene in its inland sea. It must have been now about the end of November or beginning of December, when the sultry heat of summer had disappeared; when the trees were either bared of their leaves, or seared with autumnal tints, and the voice of the turtle-dove was silent. Our Blessed Lord had recently returned to His native Galilee, after a summer absence in Judea; and several eventfu!l months were now to be spent on the shores of the lake, before the next Passover, in March or April, summoned Him again to the capital.\par \par As He was now walking alone along the white sand that fringed the beach, we may suppose it to have been at that morning hour when nature was waking up again to life and energy; the usual traffic had been resumed in the little seaport of Capernaum, and the fishermen, who had been out the livelong night, were returning to the nearest landing-point with t"heir spoil. Four of these seafarers, Andrew, Peter, John, and James, had reached the shore. They had been unsuccessful in their labors; weary and jaded, they were in the act of washing their nets before retiring to their hamlets for refreshment and rest.\par \par But One who, as we shall presently see, was no stranger to them, had been noting their unrecompensed toil. There was a deep meaning and reason, which they knew not at the time, for the dispiriting results of their midnight industry, but# which was, before long, to be made manifest. Meanwhile, however, Simon is approached by a voice whose music he was often in future to hear. His Lord "as one that serves" begs from the lowly fisherman the accommodation of his boat, that He might make it a platform from which to address His first Gennesaret auditory\emdash a throng of ardent followers who had gathered on the sea-beach, eager to listen to His teachings.\par \par We may realize the scene. The Lake, so often fretted with storms, exp$osed to sudden gusts coming sweeping down the ravines of the mountains, was now hushed into a dead calm. Tree and rock, fishing-hamlet and villa, were mirrored in its quiet waters. Hushed, too, was the dense mixed multitude that crowded on the shore; while the great object of their eager curiosity\emdash Jesus of Nazareth\emdash sat in meek majesty in Peter's fishing-boat, about to speak the words of eternal life!\par \par Dare we picture to ourselves the expression of that godlike countenance? %Accustomed as we are to think of Him as the ideal of human excellence, and in outward form as well as inward loveliness, "fairer than the children of men," we may venture to realize some feeble image of that portraiture, while yet the happy memories of peaceful Nazareth were hovering around Him, and before a woe-worn path had furrowed the brow of the Man of Sorrows with the lineaments of predicted sadness.\par \par It was the sunny morning of a dark and troubled life-day. The Sun of Righteousnes&s, as He arose on this valley and shadow of death, had no spot, no murky cloud foreboding the darkness that was to shroud His setting. He was "as a bridegroom coming forth out of his chamber, and rejoicing like a strong man to run his race." With grace poured into His lips, this "Chief among ten thousand"\emdash this "altogether Lovely one"\emdash proceeds to unfold the great revelation for which, during four thousand years, the world had waited in anxious expectation. It was a momentous day in the histor'y of the Church. It was the inauguration of the first noble band of missionaries\emdash an ordination scene and ordination sermon\emdash the setting apart of under-shepherds by the Great Shepherd, to "feed the flock of God" which He was about to "purchase with His own blood."\par \par We cannot pronounce when and where the first introduction took place between Jesus and these future teachers of the world. May He not possibly, in the days of His youth, when living in mysterious seclusion in the n(ot far-distant Nazareth, have stood on the shores of Gennesaret, and, as the young fishermen of Bethsaida were helping their fathers to adjust their nets, may they not have unconsciously beheld in the stranger, their future Master and Lord? We can form, with greater certainty, such a conjecture at a later period; we have in one passage an indirect intimation that Capernaum formed a rendezvous for the caravan in north Galilee, in going up to Jerusalem to observe the paschal feast (John 2:12). If so, might )not these youths, who were afterwards to be linked in so holy a relation, love to group and pitch their tents together in that sacred pilgrimage? Might they not travel onwards singing their psalms, under the clear light of moon and stars, in their nightly journey\emdash the Galilean fishermen little dreaming that some of those very songs they chanted were to the praise of the wondrous Being who, in human form, walked at their side?\par \par But be this as it may, we know, at all events, that not* many months before the events here recorded, they had met Him on the banks of the Jordan, probably after the celebration of the Passover, when, on returning to their native lake, they paused to listen to the Baptist's stirring words. The Great Messiah, of whom he bore witness, was then pointed out to them. They hailed Jesus of Nazareth as their Lord and Master, and cast in their lot with Him as disciples. Whether they met during the brief intervening period we cannot tell. But we may surely well believe +that often would these four fishermen spend their lonely midnight hours on the lake, by discoursing of Him whom His great Forerunner had so recently pointed out to them as "the Lamb of God."\par \par Could Peter forget the penetrating omniscience which had even then scanned his own character, and anticipated the lights and shadows in his ardent temperament (John 1:42)? Could Andrew and John forget the hallowed evening converse, when, at His own gracious invitation, He welcomed them to His tempor,ary abode, and from four o'clock till the night shadows closed around them, caused their hearts to burn within them? Moreover, if they had never personally met since, their confidence in His power and in the divinity of His mission must have been strengthened and confirmed by the miracle recently performed on the nobleman's son at Capernaum, all the more impressive that it was by the power of a distant word at Cana, that the dying youth had been raised to life. It must have been, at all events, now with a- joyful surprise, while washing their nets, that His longed-for voice was heard. How would the lost labor of that midnight be forgotten, and the thought of fatigue banished, when they beheld Him once more standing on the shore ready to unfold to them and to the multitudes the mysteries of His kingdom! With what delight would they gather around to listen to the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth!\par \par Let us pause at this point in the sacred story, and gather a few PRACTICAL LESS.ONS.\par \par I. Observe here, how God honors worldly industry, and hallows His own appointed heritage of toil.\par \par These fishermen, though enrolled among the disciples of Jesus, did not on that account forsake their honest callings, as if discipleship and daily work were incongruous. No; with all the hallowed recollections of that day at Bethany and the Jordan, no sooner did they reach Bethsaida, than, clothed in their rough cloaks, they were out night after night on the sea, pat/iently waiting subsequent communications of their Lord's will. And now, when He meets them again, when that loving Voice is once more heard, how are they engaged? Still at their work\emdash their hands ministering to their necessities\emdash standing knee-deep in the water, in the shadow of their fishing-boats, "washing their nets." What does all this tell us, but that Christ honors and consecrates daily industry. He would here, as elsewhere, proclaim the beautiful harmony between the most laborious ardor0 in our several earthly employments, and religious earnestness; that the world's dullest tasks and most drudging toil can be baptized and hallowed with the new-born spiritual element; and that while men may be "not slothful in business, they may be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."\par \par II. We learn that Jesus gradually prepares His people for service and trial.\par \par As in mental training, so in spiritual, there is an education\emdash a gradual progressive discipline. They 1are brought to their exalted attainments in grace\emdash the consecrated heights of His kingdom\emdash not by some sudden or miraculous elevation, but step by step. It is "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." The fishermen of Bethsaida may have received, as we have already conjectured, the first hallowed impressions from casual meetings with the young Nazareth Pilgrim in their journeys to the city of solemnities; or the earliest seed of the kingdom might have been more recently p2lanted by the teachings of the Baptist. This had been still further nurtured by a solemn personal interview with their Lord. Months had elapsed, to allow all these to take root. They had been left to themselves during this intervening period to a secret work of faith and prayer. And now, when love has been deepened, and faith strengthened, He demands loftier services; imposes heavier responsibilities. The Disciples are to become Apostles. The nets and boats of Galilee are to be left for the mightiest mini3stry ever entrusted to human hands.\par \par There may be exceptions, and there are exceptions to this great rule. A persecutor may be struck down, and in a moment transformed into an apostle. A felon may be arrested by grace amid the agonies of crucifixion, and in the twinkling of an eye be translated from a criminal's death to a believer's crown. But God's processes in the spiritual economy are, generally speaking, gradual and progressive. The temple rises stone by stone. Nicodemus-like, we ha4ve to grope our way to higher spiritual manifestations, to higher faith, higher duties, higher grace. Were it otherwise, it would contradict the Divine method of working. It would unteach the oft-recorded lesson in that mighty volume of parables, where growth is never sudden; but slow, silent, almost imperceptible: the sapling hardening into the oak before it can wrestle with the storm; the child creeping before it can walk, spelling its way upwards through successive stages of mental progress.\par \par 5 God Himself more than once, indeed, employs this very same image regarding His people. He acts a parent's part in guiding the tottering steps of feeble spiritual infancy, "dandling them on His knees," comforting them as one whom his mother comforts," "bearing them on His shoulders, as a man bears his own son that serves him," "leading them about, instructing them, keeping them as the apple of His eye;" until at length, strong in the manhood of vigorous faith, they "mount upon eagle's wings."\par 6 \par III. Learn in our seasons of trial and despondency never to despair.\par \par Peter had been toiling all night, and nothing had been caught. But his Lord gives the word, "Launch forth into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch." Peter replies by telling of their lack of success\emdash that "all night" (the best and most likely time for catching fish) they had labored in vain; but, addressing Jesus as "Master" (evidently showing the relation in which he already stood to Him)7, he adds in simple faith and submission to a will he had been taught to love, "Nevertheless, at Your word I will let down the net." The result was the enclosure of such "a multitude of fishes that the net broke."\par \par Ah! when was the soul ever disappointed which followed the Lord fully? How often, in our night-seasons of despondency and trial, are we prone, in our short-sighted folly, to exclaim, "All these things are against me?" How often do we feel, in spiritual experience, as if all ef8fort in Christian attainment were worse than hopeless? The heavens have become as brass, and the earth as iron; our prayers are unavailing; ordinances are unblest; sanctuary wells are without water; our sun is wading amid clouds; the net of faith is let down amid the promises of God; but unable to appropriate them, we are ready to say amid this long night of spiritual toil, "Surely my Lord has forsaken me, and my God has forgotten me."No! no! pray on\emdash labor on\emdash trust on\emdash "They who wait o9n the Lord shall renew their strength!"\par \par Resolve, with Peter, "Nevertheless, at Your word, Blessed Savior! I will launch forth once more. I will let down my net into this dark, deep, unfathomable sea. Though You slay me yet will I trust in You. In ourselves, Lord, we are helpless, hopeless, weak, perishing; but at Your word we proceed; Lord, what would You have us to do? Our wills we would resolve into Yours\emdash Your will is always the best. We shall not arraign the appointments of Yo:ur unerring rectitude. Even though at times we are led to adopt the words of the prophet\emdash 'I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain;' with him can we add, 'Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.' Even if carrying a cross be required, fresh launching forth into the deeps and midnights of trial, we shall let down our nets, assured in the end of a glorious recompense."\par \par For have we not His own recorded promise?\emdash "Let us ;acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3. Let us seek to value more and more that precious promise.\par \par The multitudes on Gennesaret's shore, and the disciple in the boat, who with fond eagerness listened, and with joyful alacrity obeyed, read to us solemn lessons. Of the one it is said, "They pressed on Him to hear the word of God;" ove all from first to last, as the gift of God, through Jesus Christ my Lord. "Nevertheless, at Your word, I will count all but loss for the excellency of His knowledge."\par \par Reader! let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly! Let it be your counselor; the ultimate court of appeal in every perplexity. If your own proud reason, or self-will, or corrupted nature and blinded conscience, should dictate an opposing line of procedure, let this lofty determination settle and silence all doubt, "Nev?ertheless, at Your word." Sit as a meek disciple under this infallible Teacher. Silence the temptations of the great Adversary as your Lord silenced them before you, by the rebuke, "Get behind Me, Satan\emdash It is written." And when the Sabbath comes around, be it yours, like the crowd on Gennesaret's shores, to go to the sanctuary eagerly thirsting for the Word of eternal life\emdash not the words of frail mortals, worms of the dust; but, despising all the excellency of man's wisdom, seeking only to have declared to you the whole counsel of God. Be earnest in prayer, that He may send forth His light and His truth to lead you and guide you. Then shall a Savior God be invisibly present by His Spirit, to bless and lighten, to gladden and refresh your souls; and the Beatitude, intended for all time and for every age of the Church, will be made good in your experience: "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } s9=01 The Home{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE HOME\par \par "Few are the tones of love He hears,\par Unpillowed oft His weary head;\par By day He wrought, by night He prayed,\par His way was paved with love and tears."\par \par  ))GUI02 The Fishermen.1{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE FISHERMEN\par \par One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word ofCee;\par Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,\par Thou from hence my all shall be;\par Perish every fond ambition,\par All I've sought, or hoped, or known,\par Yet how rich is my condition,\par God and heaven are still my own!"\par \par "Then Jesus said to Simon, 'Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men.' So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him." Luke 5:10, 11; Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17-21\par \par DThe Sermon to the multitudes we have spoken of in the preceding chapter being finished, the "Consecration service," the all-absorbing event of that memorable hour, begins. How is it conducted? What is the Savior's mode of illustrating solemn truths which are to have their bearings on the remotest ages of the world? In that great Temple of Nature\emdash the everlasting mountains its pillars\emdash the arching sky its roof\emdash the Lord alike of nature and of grace discourses to His disciples and to the CEhurch of the future by means of an acted parable. He who, at a later period of His ministry, cursed a fruitless fig-tree on the way to Bethphage, in order that it might be to all time a standing memorial of the guilt of hypocritical profession, now makes the humble callings of the fishermen of Galilee the means of conveying to their own minds, lessons of faith, and confidence, and hope. He takes the nets they were washing, as exponents of these great truths, and prepares to make them "Fishers of men."\parF \par At the bidding of their Master, after their night of unsuccessful toil, they had once more launched forth into the deep. The nets had been lowered\emdash the unrewarded efforts of the long midnight hours were more than recompensed. So wondrous was the capture, that they had to beckon to Andrew and John to come to their assistance from the adjoining pier. The net was discharged of its contents, and both vessels were filled to the point of sinking with the unprecedented spoil. It is the sequGel of the narrative which is now to engage us, in which three points invite our attention.\par \par I. SIMON PETER'S EXCLAMATION\emdash "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."\par \par The feelings of Peter form the natural workings of every soul which, conscious of its sinfulness, has been brought into visible contact with its God. He had known of Jesus before as the Holy Youth\emdash the Teacher sent from God\emdHash the Prophet of whom the Baptist testified that He was "mightier than he." But here he felt the consciousness of a more majestic Presence still. He sees standing before him the Lord of creation, the owner of "the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the sea." His feelings are those of trembling Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." The finite felt himself in contact with the Infinite. Faith, love, adoring reverence, and intermingled with all, a profound Iabasing sense of worthlessness and guilt, makes this impulsive apostle humble himself in the dust. In tremulous dread, he is ready to say with Pilgrim Israel, as they cowered under the blazing peaks of Sinai, "Let not God speak with us, lest we die."\par \par Very different was his subsequent conduct, when he had learned, by "perfect love," to "cast out fear." Called to gaze into profounder depths of his Redeemer's glory\emdash though subsequent nearer and dearer fellowship tended in no degree tJo diminish his sense of that gulf, which must ever be untraversed between the Creator and the creature\emdash the sinner and the divinely exalted Holy One\emdash nay, though quickened spiritual sensibilities would tend rather to augment and intensify the sense of unworthiness and imperfection\emdash yet the terror of this first surprise never again returns. When we next see him at his Savior's feet, owning Him as God, there is no trembling accent on his lip as he makes the joyous avowal, "Lord to whom canK we go? You have the words of eternal life; we believe and are sure that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who was to come into the world."\par \par As years roll over his head, increased familiarity with his Divine Master only deepens this loving, trustful confidingness; and even after the Lord had withdrawn from him His visible presence\emdash after the heavenly veil had shut out His glorified person from the eyes of His apostle\emdash that fervent soul loved to penetrate the inviLsible; realizing an absent Savior, he thus comforted his own heart and the hearts of those to whom he wrote, "Whom having not seen you love, and in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."\par \par Why, and how this wondrous change in his feelings? It is the history of every believer still, when he comes for the first time into solemn, heart-searching contact with God\emdash when the eyes of his understanding are enlightened, and the drMeadful consciousness passes over the stricken spirit\emdash "I am a poor, miserable, guilty, condemned being, responsible to One who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." Ah! when life's long-slumbering atheist-dream has been thus dispelled; when the soul, naked, unsheltered, guilty, unforgiven, feels itself all in a moment in the presence of the God with whom, emphatically, "it has to do;" when an inexorable law flashes conviction and condemnation on a misspent past, speaking trumpet-tongued of the Nrighteousness of the lawgiver; when a future of limitless being rises up before him in ghastly reality; impressive and solemn ciphers, unheeded before, now standing in front of the solitary "unit of earthly existence;" when the miserable shreds and patches of earthly goodness and virtue are disclosed in their utter worthlessness\emdash conventional moralities seen to be but "splendid sins"\emdash sparks of fire of their own kindling, quenched one after another, and revealing only a darkness more felt; theO awakened sinner, stricken down, helpless, terrified, before this first revelation of Jehovah, exclaims, with Job, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes!" He gazes on the great God of Heaven\emdash the Holy One\emdash the Just One\emdash the Righteous One\emdash but it is out of Christ, and He is a "consuming fire." "Depart from me," he exclaims in a paroxysm of fear. It is the feeling of our fallen Parents of old, when, under theP fresh consciousness of their guilt, they fled frightened from their Maker. The voice which had so lately all music, has now become nothing but terror and wrath; the flaming cherubim guard the way. Where is the spot in the wide universe to which that burdened soul would not rush to screen itself from revealed truth, holiness, omniscience?\par \par But, look! the flaming sword guarding the way to the Tree of Life is seen quenched with blood. The unbridged gulf of separation has been spanned; a glQorious sunshine bringing peace and rest and consolation, bursts from that dark and lowering sky. The brief history of that joyful transformation is thus told\emdash "God is in Christ, reconciling a lost world to Himself." Yes! that trembling one ventures to lift up his eyes in these moments of waking agony. He sees One standing by him in mingled majesty and tenderness, who has magnified that law and made it honorable, and who, by His doing and dying, has opened up a way of forgiveness to the guiltiest. ThRe gates of torment are shut; the gates of glory are opened. It is no longer a "fearful" but a blessed thing "to fall into the hands of the living God." In trembling transport he exclaims\emdash (not as in the first anguish of awaking convictions, "Depart from me," but,) "Lord, to whom can I go but to You?" "Entreat me not to leave You, nor to return from following after You. Where You go, I will go; where You dwell, I will dwell. Through life I will pass cheered by Your love; in death I shall be supportedS by Your everlasting arms; through all eternity I shall in Your unveiled presence, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."\par \par Oh, happy consummation! if, while we are smitten down by a sense of our unworthiness, we are directed to adoring Gospel views of Christ, in His person, and offices, and work. Believer! turn your eye with arrested gaze on this divine Savior. The more you gaze, the more will terror give way to wonder, love, confidence, and joy! The more you study His divine cTharacter, the more you will understand the divine secret of repose\emdash "Acquaint yourself now with God and be at peace."\par \par II. We have THE SAVIOR'S ASSURANCE\emdash How gently He speaks! "Jesus said to Simon, FEAR NOT." It is the same calming word which, as we shall find in later times, soothed and lulled disquieting misgivings\emdash dropping like oil on the surging sea\emdash "Fear not, it is I, do not be afraid." When John found himself gazing on the lustrous countenance of his RedeUemer in Patmos, he fell awe-struck at His feet, "as one dead." But the whisper of a well-known voice was enough to restore confidence and joy. It was the same gracious watchword\emdash "Fear not, I am He who lives, and was dead."\par \par What a sublime antidote to our misgivings! What a balm to our troubled spirits, these accents of undying and unchanging solace, stealing like celestial chimes from the upper sanctuary\emdash "FEAR NOT!" Fear not, poor sinner trembling under a sense of your sin,V your great unworthiness, your black ingratitude. "I have come to seek and to save those who are lost."\par \par Fear not, faint and weary one, appalled at your own deep corruptions and guilty estrangements. The temptations and snares of a seductive world, and that great antagonist, unbelief, ever tempting you to stray from the living God; "I will make my grace sufficient for you."\par \par Fear not, tempted and tried one, beaten down with a great fight of afflictions; your garnered eaWrthly blessings swept from you like chaff in the summer's threshing floor, your household plundered of its nearest and dearest, and the gaping fissures in your bleeding heart refusing to be healed or comforted. Fear not, I am better than son or daughter, or any earthly relative. Heart and flesh may faint and fail, but God is the strength of your heart, and your portion forever.\par \par Fear not, you who "all you lives were held in slavery by your fear of death." I once was dead. I have sanctifiXed the grave before you. I have fought and conquered death in his own territories, and dragged him in triumph at my chariot wheels. This last enemy may at times, be to you like a cold ghastly shade moving on the midnight lake. But trust Me, when it comes, you shall hear amid the storm, a loud Voice mightier than the noise of many waters; yes, than the mighty waves of the sea\emdash "Fear not, it is I, don't be afraid."\par \par The Savior, having relieved his servant's fears, proceeds to unfold Ythe nature and duties, the responsibilities and encouragements, of the great apostolic work.\par \par How startled must that fisherman of Galilee have been by the announcement which now fell upon his ears\emdash "From now on you shall catch men!" Jesus made the mute tenants of the lake that lay in dead and dying heaps in the net, a living parable and pledge of far vaster successes. He was to retain his net, but souls were to be the nobler prey. He was to buffet waves still, but they were to be tZhe waves of human passion, and ignorance, and crime. He was to hoist his sail still on a more treacherous sea, but, with a mightier arm than his own guiding the helm, he would reach the heavenly shore with the unbroken net, and lay at his Redeemer's feet joyous multitudes rescued from the depths of ruin and despair.\par \par Commentators have often marked, in the original Greek, the power and beauty of the word here used by Jesus, and whose full meaning is so inadequately expressed by the term "[catch" in our translation. It means to catch, not in order to kill and destroy, but to "catch alive," to catch in order to preserve and perpetuate life, or to raise it to a higher state of development.\par \par Ah! wondrous encouragement to Peter, and to all who like Peter are entrusted with the net of the gospel! Ministers of Christ! here is your high prerogative, to raise the myriads which at the Savior's word you capture\emdash to raise them from the lower element, "the earth, earthy," to the\ higher and nobler and purer element of undying endless LIFE. If the analogy fails in the case of the humble spoil which then lay on the earthly shore, it is only that Christ, by the beauty of contrast, may bring out more vividly the true grandeur of the great commission. It was as if He had said, "Peter, that net of yours has dragged its multitudes out of their briny depths, but they struggle and die in this new and hostile element. As they are cast on the beach, their tiny existence, the ephemeral life ]I gave them, terminates forever. But different, far different, is your embassy. At my command you are to let down your net. Myriads on myriads in the ocean depths of despair are to be the fruits of your faithful toil and that of others; and no sooner do they leave their old element of guilt and depravity, than they begin to breathe a new and nobler life, immortal as My own."\par \par Would that those of us who are "Fishers of men," Ambassadors of Christ, could realize this vast, this incomparabl^e work, with all its tremendous responsibilities and tremendous results! Death and life are here confided to us! Our aim is here represented to be, not a mere external varnishing over with new habits, new tastes, new virtues; but to effect a change of being. The faithful preaching of the gospel ought to have for its object a bringing up and out from the deep, dead sea of nature; elevating to a new heaven-born atmosphere. Oh, LIFE is a solemn thing!\emdash a solemn word! It is a solemn hour\emdash every pa_rent knows it\emdash when a child is born into the world\emdash when the first infant cry breaks upon the ear, and tells that a little inhabitant has been added to the domain of life\emdash a new heir of an endless imperishable being!\par \par And shall not that be a solemn and momentous event, when, at the second spiritual birth, the cry of the new creature is heard, "Lord, save me, or I perish"\emdash when the immortal spirit begins to breathe a new atmosphere, to share in the very Life of the` Almighty who made him, and in the Resurrection-life of the Savior who redeemed him? You are captured in the Gospel net, but it is to have life infused, the only thing worth calling life in a dead and dying world. I repeat it, the Gospel raises to a higher platform\emdash it raises from the groveling element of fallen sinful nature to the higher element of grace and glory.\par \par The little seed is in its element when, beneath the clod, it slumbers in darkness in its clay or mossy bed; but nobaler is its new element, when it springs exultant from its prison house, and, arrayed in living green, bathes its newborn tints in the glorious sunlight. The caterpillar is in its native element when, embedded in its chrysalis state, it lies a torpid and forbidding groveler in its winter shell; but nobler is its destiny, when on wings of purple and gold it spurns its tiny sepulcher, and in resurrection attire it speeds from flower to flower. The earth is one mass of teeming life, living and moving, and turbning on its axis, even when night wraps it in its curtain, and deep sleep pervades its silent tenantry; but nobler surely is that life, when the sun lights up with living glory temple and tree, and rock and mountain, transforming lake and ocean into burnished gold, and man, its high priest, "goes forth to his work and his labor until the evening."\par \par But what are these compared to the higher Life and Glory with which the immortal soul is invested, when the Great Spirit, brooding over its cchaos, gives the summons, "Let there be light," "Let there be Life." Oh, that this might ever be the aim\emdash the end\emdash the glory of all preaching (perish all other)\emdash to "catch men," not by human power or human eloquence\emdash the wisdom of words\emdash exalting ourselves at the expense of our Master\emdash making the cross of Christ of no effect; but in faith and love and joyful hope, letting down the simple net\emdash it may be with crude untutored hands, but doing so at the word of Christ,d and with longing desire to bring immortal spirits safely to the heavenly shore, living trophies to cast at the Great Master's feet!\par \par The ministers of Christ, in handling the gospel net, are apt at times to be discouraged. They have to mourn like Peter over hours of unavailing effort\emdash Sabbaths when the net was (as they thought) in faith let down; but no result of their labors\emdash no owning of their work. Yet we will not despair. "Nevertheless at Your word we will still let down ethe net."\par \par Others may resort to other expedients for the improvement of man, solving the great problem of fretful, careworn, restless, suffering humanity apart from the gospel. The philosopher may dream of visionary earthly antidotes; the statesman may see in some cold, frigid, intellectual training a panacea for human wrongs; the moralist may discourse on human virtue, and the self-rectifying power of human goodness; the Socialist may dare to propound his damning theories as the pioneerfs of the halcyon reign of unbounded liberty. But "nevertheless we will let down the net." We have boldness and confidence that Christ, and Him crucified, and the new life which this Lord of life has to impart, are the true and only secrets of peace on earth and good will to men.\par \par See what that gospel has done already! mark its power and progress ever since that hour when on Tiberias shore Christ spoke this authoritative word to these humble fishermen! How weak their efforts! how humble tgheir instrumentality! What! a handful of uneducated men from the darkest of all the Palestine provinces, and one other converted Jew of Tarsus; who ever dreamed of these hurling superstition from her throne\emdash silencing her oracles\emdash demolishing the temples and shrines of ages\emdash bringing the whole Roman empire, as by a magic touch, to own a crucified Savior as its God and King?\par \par What can't grace do? Their first motto has been the motto of every faithful successor in the glohrious company of apostles\emdash "Nevertheless at Your word we will let down the net." The ancestral splendors of our own ancient ritual is against us; the pomp and pride of imperial Rome is against us; the learning and philosophy of polished Greece is against us; the idolatries of Paganism, with their lust and revelry, and blood, are against us; the heart of corrupted, degraded humanity is against us\emdash "Nevertheless at Your word we will let down the net."\par \par Rome has conquered by heri sword; Greece has rendered herself immortal by her triumphs of intellect. The Jew, arrogant and fanatical, boasts of a descent from the world's aristocracy, and proudly clings to an abrogated ritual. But we, with the humblest instrumentality\emdash an instrumentality of which the net of lowly fishermen is the befitting type\emdash we will go forth on our accredited mission, feeling that herein lies the secret of all success\emdash "Not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord God of Hosts." "jIt has pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save those who believe!"\par \par More than this, looking closely at this prophetic parable, we find that Christ, in calling human agents to be Fishers of men, not only divinely appoints to the office, and divinely qualifies for the office, but there is an exquisite significance in the accompanying act of the catch of fishes. It is a prophetic promise that men shall be enclosed; that His word shall not return to Him void; that the net of thke kingdom shall not be let down in vain. It is the Lord Himself giving the pledge, and symbol, and guarantee of success; and we shall find Him repeating the same with still greater significance, at the close of all\emdash at His last visit to Gennesaret, before He ascended to glory.\par \par Oh, yes! the letting down of that net, the filling it, the drawing; it is the Lord's work and not man's. "Neither is he who plants anything, neither he who waters, but God who gives the increase, that our falith may not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." The great and glorious history of apostolic preaching and ministerial success for the last 1800 years, may be given in the lofty words of the Psalmist; they are words that would seem more especially to take their date from the very hour of which we now speak, when Jesus stood on Gennesaret's shore\emdash when His omnipotent mandate moved the first wave\emdash this impelling another, and another, and another still\emdash until the glad gospeml waters are now fast sweeping over the sands of time\emdash "The Lord announced the word\emdash great was the company of those that proclaimed it. Kings and armies flee in haste; in the camps men divide the plunder. Even while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold."\par \par III. Let us observe the DISCIPLES' RESOLUTION\emdash "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus." Or as the same incidennt is recorded in the parallel passage in Matthew's gospel\emdash "At once they left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw other two brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him."\par \par It is a solemn lesson of self-denial we are called on here to come and learn at the feet of Galilean fishermen. It was, ito must have been for them, a trying hour. At a moment's warning their worldly all was to be left. The hallowed scenes of youth were around them. Every rock and ravine\emdash every sheltered nook and bay in that lovely inland sea\emdash they knew it well. The Bethsaida hamlet, from which childhood was used to rush in its sunny morning to welcome the father, as his boat scraped the shallows, after his night of toil in the lake, was full in view. Nay, we are expressly told, that father's ear listened to the sptrange summons that implied separation from him and his home, probably forever. They just had, moreover, their boats filled to overflowing. Elated with success, which they might have been perverse enough to attribute to ordinary causes, they never before had so strong inducement to cleave to their nets and carry on their calling.\par \par And for what were they to exchange their all? It was to carry a heavy cross! It was to attach themselves to the person and fortunes of the reputed Son of a carqpenter, who was often unable to tell of so secure a shelter as had the fox of the mountain or the bird of the forest! Yet they ("immediately") without deliberating\emdash without conferring with flesh and blood\emdash without reasoning on maxims of expediency\emdash willingly surrendered that all, and cast in their lot with the despised and rejected One! "Follow me!" said their Lord; and with cheerful willingness their boats, homes, friends, were left. "From now on they are fishers of men!"\par \par r Did they regret this noble commitment? Were they sufferers by their self-sacrificing devotion? "Look!" says Peter, on an after occasion, "we have left all and followed You!" Jesus said in reply, "I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age\emdash and in the age to come, eternal life!"\par \par Ah! who ever suffered by casting in his lot wsith a suffering Savior, and with joyful resolution following Jesus? "Would to God," said another great follower (unabashed by the regal purple before him in making his bold avowal)\emdash "would to God," said he, even though the clank of the chain on his own arm reminded of earthly bonds\emdash "would to God you were not only almost but altogether such as I am!"\par \par Reader! have you followed\emdash are you following Jesus as did these His first apostles? You are not called on, thank God, litke them to follow Him in the confiscation of your earthly goods, or in the relinquishment of your earthly homes. To be a follower of Christ does not require huge sacrifices\emdash brilliant displays of heroic suffering. I believe that meek Savior is most honored by those who bear most meekly what I might call little crosses, who, not in the great battlefield of the world, but in the quiet of their own homesteads, exhibit the lowly, submissive, patient spirit of cross-bearing disciples.\par \par uLook back on your past life\emdash look even back on a single year, and can you point to any one action in the course of it, in which you are conscious of having made some little denial of self, because you thought that denial would be pleasing to Jesus? Can you tell of some passion you subdued\emdash some lust you mortified\emdash some kindly deed you performed, because you believed your Savior would be honored, and you were thereby doing His will? Can you tell of some sore affliction to which you bowed vin meek and lowly submission, manifesting in your trial patience, and faith, and unmurmuring resignation, because you thought of an unmurmuring Savior, and that your own cross was but as dust in the balance compared with His?\par \par Say, isn't that following of your Lord self-rewarding and self-recompensing? "If any man serves me," says He, "let him follow Me, and where I am there shall also My servant be; if any man serves Me, him will My Father honor!" Even if it be suffering and trial you awre called to endure, what a privilege in this to "follow Jesus." Yes! put the emphasis on these little words\emdash "Follow Me." "They followed HIM!" Suffering believer! is it no comfort in the midst of trial to think that you are following in the very footsteps of a suffering Savior\emdash that you, a poor, guilty, worthless sinner, are faring no worse than your Lord and Master did\emdash the stainless, spotless, sinless, and uncomplaining Lamb of God?\par \par Follow Him fully\emdash cast off xevery impediment\emdash every lingering sin that would hamper you in His service. Go and show that you follow Him by your deeds. It was not by tarrying at their nets, or lingering on the shores, that the disciples manifested their resolve to cast in their lot with the homeless Christ of Galilee! They did it. Ah! religion is not contemplation, but action. Religion is not a thing of mopish sentimentalism, or self-effacing looks, or trite phrases. It is launching forth into the deep of our own and the world'ys great necessities. It is letting down the net for a catch, and then, in conjunction with this earnest work, rising up and following the example, the footsteps, the word, the will of Jesus.\par \par Arise, then, let us be going! We may, like the disciples in that first hour of their calling, be all in ignorance of a veiled and shadowed future; but, if like them, in the company of the Lord, we may fearlessly leave our fondest earthly treasures behind us, making but one conditional prayer, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here." Following Him in His cross we shall at last be sharers with Him in His glorious crown, and reap the blessing which He elsewhere promises to His Apostolic band, and through them to all who inherit a disciple-spirit. "I assure you that when I, the Son of Man, sit upon my glorious throne in the Kingdom, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Matthew 19:28\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } ^^:}03 The Call and Consecration.1{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE CALL AND CONSECRATION\par \par "Jesus, I my cross have taken,\par All to leave and follow ThB|h leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-15)\par \par I. THE SCENE\par \par Recent and trustworthy travelers have identified a mountain on the west side of the Gennesaret lake, with the "Mount of Beatitudes," from whose two-horned top the Savior delivered His memorabl}e sermon. This mountain is visible from all parts of the lake, its double or "bifurcated cone" mingling in every view of the diversified landscape. A deep ravine, known as "The Valley of Doves"\emdash connects this mountain, with the plain of Gennesaret and the shores of the inland sea. As this retired yet elevated spot was easily accessible, we may imagine the Divine Redeemer often ascending it through the narrow mountain gorge. From the flowers that carpeted the ravine, and the doves that built their ne~sts on the branches overhead, He may have derived the imagery He employs in His sermon; when He speaks of the lilies as clothed, and the fowls of the air as ministered to by an unseen but gracious Provider.\par \par He was in the act of returning in company with the vast multitude back towards Capernaum, when a strange and startling sight disclosed itself. What though flowers were clothing the earth, and birds singing among the branches? What though azure skies over-canopied them, and a lake which was the image of peace was sleeping in quiet loveliness at their feet? One sight and wail of human misery now borne to their ears and confronting their eyes, too sadly reminded them that sin had made this world a world of suffering\emdash full, like the prophet's pronouncement, of "lamentation, and mourning, and woe."\par \par A miserable being, afflicted with the most loathsome and ignominious of diseases, had been brooding in silent thought (possibly for days\emdash possibly for weeks) as to whether he might dare venture to cast himself at the feet of the wondrous Restorer. Vain to this lonely and desolate spirit was all the beauty of that outer nature in the midst of which his existence had been spent. The curse of God was resting upon him. His brother man looked strange and alien upon him. From that ghastly countenance, rich and poor, young and old, fled frightened. What to him were the thickly-studded towns and villages which fringed that scene of busy life\emdash he dared not so much as set foot in one of them; though born a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a child of Abraham; a sad curse severed him from the privileges of the enfranchised nation. What though he saw and heard, spring after spring, at the Passover season, joyful groups with songs on their lips going up to Jerusalem, the city of solemnities; There was no place for him among the multitude that kept holiday. Ceremonially unclean, he was by a terrible edict cut off from the congregation of the Lord. While others took sweet counsel together, and went to the house of God in company, he could only in the bitterest of captivities "weep when he remembered Zion!"\par \par His lonesome home was either some secluded hut amid these Galilee mountains, or if he were permitted to associate with his fellows at all, it was a wretched confederacy with other lepers like himself, who, in their exile communities, only recounted to each other the dismal story of their sufferings, and gazed on faces and frames more ghastly and mutilated than their own.\par \par But what dreams can't Hope indulge in, in life's dreariest exigencies? In such a case as the present, indeed, every vestige of such hope might well seem to have expired; not only was the disease itself inveterate, but this leper's was one of the worst types of it. Luke speaks of him as "full of leprosy." Year after year he may have watched with the horror of despair the slow, silent, insidious progress of the deteriorating disease, like an unseen vulture preying on his flesh\emdash devouring limb by limb, member by member. He had become a loathsome and distorted shadow of what once he was. Life itself was a curse. It would have been to him a blessing to die.\par \par But in that desolate bosom still lay some lingering sparks of hope\emdash the last emotion of the human soul that expires. These were fanned into a faint glow by hearing of the wonders wrought by the Prophet of Galilee. A few weeks before, when the Sabbath's sun had sunk behind the western hills of the Lake; the lame, the sick, the diseased, the dying, had been borne to the Capernaum home of this greater than human Physician. The result was, that that sun rose the next morning on a healed city\emdash disease had fled. Many an aching pillow and anguished heart had been exchanged for songs of deliverance!\par \par Was the suggestion a strange or unnatural one which gathered strength in the bosom of this outcast Leper\emdash "Can't this same Savior heal me? Can I alone not feel His healing touch? Can that omnipotent word not reach this horrible plague\emdash dash the lifelong tear from this eye, and pallor from this cheek\emdash wrench away these torn clothes which (by a severe necessity) I am doomed to wear\emdash open these portals and thresholds I am forbidden to enter\emdash and send me forth a free man, to set my feet within Your gates, O Jerusalem?"\par \par All that he had seen and heard that day may have tended to strengthen his hopes and embolden his resolves. He may have been hovering with eager expectancy outside the crowd on the Mount of Beatitudes\emdash screening himself behind the ledge of a rock or undulation of the hill\emdash the calm silent air wafting to his ear some of the wondrous words of the Preacher! Did he listen to these opening sentences? Did they not appear as if meant for him?\par \par "What!" he would inwardly say\emdash "blessings and benedictions poured on the 'meek,' the 'poor,' the 'persecuted,' the 'despised!' Did not Jesus of Nazareth speak, too, in His closing sentences, as if Omnipotence slumbered in His arm? Why should I set limits to combined power and mercy? I feel assured He is able. Is He willing? I shall try it\emdash I shall test it! Crouching at the feet of this Prophet of Mercy, if I be spurned away, it is only what the past has often taught me to endure. Yes! I, the most wretched of the wretched, will go and claim His pitying love, and throw this suffering body and suffering spirit imploringly at His feet." Thus did a ray of anxious hope dawn on the saddest bosom in all Galilee!\par \par The time has arrived! The tramp of the multitude is heard. They are wending their way down one of the bypaths to the lakeside. In an instant the halting cripple, with head bare and clothes torn, and covering on his lip, bounds from his lurking-place. Shouting the terrible watchword, "Unclean! unclean!" to warn the crowd from his presence, he is prostrate in the dust, his face touching the garment-hem of the One only Being in the wide world from whom he has hope of cure.\par \par It was a wondrous meeting! The two opposites of being\emdash the extremes of humanity\emdash met at that moment in that Gennesaret road. It was a meeting of Mercy with Despair; Omnipotence with Weakness; Sympathy with Suffering; Purity with Pollution; Life with Death! Not more striking was the contrast in nature between the bleak, sterile, torn desert hills on the east of the lake and the fertile garden-slopes on its west, than between that torn and dislocated body and soul\emdash that terrible monument of shattered humanity\emdash and the calm Godlike Being who gazed lovingly down on the wretch who clutched the dust with his deteriorated fingers, uttering the wild lament of hereditary despair\emdash yet mingling this with nobler accents, "Lord, if You will, You can make me clean!"\par \par Moment of thrilling suspense! The multitude and the disciples are panic-struck, and may probably have recoiled from the forbidden contact; they may possibly have urged the intruder to leave. ONE was there who had no such unkind of unmerciful thought. Well did JESUS know all that dreadful history! the touching story of years written in that ashen countenance! He put forth His finger\emdash He touched the body which no unleprous hand had ever before dared to approach! The Omnipotent "I will!" sounded forth, bearing on its wings words of healing. The scales dropped from his face\emdash the flush of health mounted to his cheek\emdash pain fled from his aching limbs. "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"\par \par And now we may imagine the multitude, with the restored Leper in their midst, entering the gates of Capernaum, telling to fresh crowds thronging around them of the new sermon and miracle they had just heard and witnessed. The words so full of tenderness and love\emdash of comfort to the lowly and poor and meek; the miracle a display of power unparalleled since the days of Elisha and Naaman. What other evidence was needed that a great Prophet, indeed, had arisen in Israel? It was a twofold marvel even in that old land of miracle and prodigy\emdash "the Lepers are cleansed, the gospel is preached to the poor!"\par \par II. Let us now pass from the Scene, to its GREAT LESSON\emdash the Terribleness of Sin!\par \par We have frequent examples in the Old Testament dispensation, as well as in the course of the Savior's teaching, of outward and visible objects being taken as expositions, or types, of moral and spiritual truths. Of all these emblems, whether in the animate or inanimate world, none was more terribly impressive and significant than the disease of LEPROSY. It is not only that we discern therein some striking resemblances to SIN\emdash the great spiritual malady\emdash and employ the one as illustrative of the other. These resemblances or analogies were no mere accidents.\par \par Leprosy was singled out by God Himself from the vast catalogue of human diseases and sufferings, to keep before the eyes of His people of old a perpetual memorial of the vileness and awfulness of moral evil. The outer body was made by Him a mirror of the far deeper and darker taint in the soul. It was a silent preacher in the midst of the theocratic nation and to the end of time, testifying to the virulence of a more inveterate malady\emdash that "from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in us, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." Although it by no means invariably followed that the lepers of Israel were afflicted with their dire plague in consequence of personal sin, yet we know also this to have been the case in several recorded instances, such as those of Miriam, Gehazi, and Uzziah. At all events the disease was regarded by the Jews as a mark of the Divine displeasure. They spoke of it as "the finger of God." It was considered an outward and visible sign of inward disorganization, guilt, and impurity.\par \par But more than this\emdash it was the sign of "DEATH." The prayer of Aaron, in behalf of Miriam, was, "Let her not be as one 'dead,' of whom the flesh is half consumed." By the express injunctions contained in the Levitical law, the Leper was obligated to attire himself in the garments of death. He had to wear torn clothes, the garb which mourners were in the habit of putting on for the dead. His head was to be bare, his upper lip covered\emdash tokens also of grief for the dead. He was to reckon himself thus a dead man. He wore these funereal trappings, as if bewailing his own dissolution\emdash a walking sepulcher\emdash a living corpse in a world of living men. His befitting exclamation might be, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?"\par \par A learned writer, who has described this subject in all its aspects, informs us that this idea of leprosy as an emblem of Death, not only lingered in the Middle Ages among the Jews, but was transplanted, during the Crusades, along with the disease itself, into Europe and Christendom, where "it was usual to clothe the leper in a shroud, and to say for him the masses for the dead."\par \par The same parabolic meaning and intention may be still further traced in the rites employed on the occasion of cleansing a leper. These were precisely what were appointed for cleansing one who had been defiled by contact with a dead body\emdash "the hyssop, the cedar-wood, and scarlet," thus not only identifying leprosy with Death, but making restoration from it an image of life from the dead\emdash a visible sign of what is thus translated into gospel language, "He has quickened you who were dead in trespasses and in sins."\par \par And to complete this terrible picture of the figurative and symbolic meaning of leprosy, the Leper was solemnly forbidden to enter the camp or city of God. This living impersonation of vileness and death was not allowed to stand in the temple courts, or mingle in the solemn festivals of Israel\emdash nor was there any exemption; Miriam, the sister of Moses, and Uzziah, with his kingly crown, had both to bow calmly to the stern statute. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." He thus solemnly declared, by banning the ceremonially unclean from His holy camp and His holy City, that "evil cannot dwell with Him\emdash that fools cannot stand in His presence"\emdash that He cannot "look upon sin but with abhorrence;" not only that, by exclusion from the earthly Jerusalem courts, He would dimly shadow forth the dreadful truth, that into the courts of the heavenly Jerusalem nothing shall be admitted that "is impure, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful."\par \par Solemn, indeed, was that journey which the Hebrew of old undertook, when, on the first appearance of the suspicious taint-spot (the possible precursor of a life of misery and shame), he hurried to God's appointed priest to submit to the testing scrutiny! If, after careful examination, the worst fears were realized\emdash how agonizing the moment when, in exchange for his usual clothing, the torn attire of death was fastened upon him, his head shaved, his lip covered, and the mournful lament put into his mouth, with which he was, in all time to come, to warn every human footstep away, "Unclean! unclean!"\par \par Even if there had been the dim possibility of some subsequent cure, the bitterness of that hour would have been mitigated; but, over and above all the other terrible features in the malady, was its inveteratecy. The door of hope (so far as human remedies were concerned) was closed on the hapless victim; he was left to weep tears of disconsolate despair! Unless by some special intervention of Divine power, he was a Leper to the day of his death. The grave alone would close and terminate his sufferings. The disease was incurable\emdash ineradicable!\par \par Have any, who read these pages, the leprosy of unforgiven and uncancelled guilt still cleaving to their souls? Mark this terrible picture of Sin\emdash this Parable of death! You are living a life of death, "dead while you live." Mourners are going about the streets lamenting their dead. "Weep not for them, but weep for yourselves." Let the dead bury their dead! Their funeral hour, the burial rites, are soon over. But if you continue in your present state, what is Life to you, but a long funeral procession? You are bearing within you a dead soul, coffined in a dying body! Your throbbing heart, like a muffled drum, beating "funeral marches to the grave!"\par \par Think of this, you who are content to live on in your natural condition, unwashed, unjustified, unsanctified. LIFE\emdash the only thing worth calling life\emdash the life of God in the soul\emdash extinct! "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." Saddest of all, you stand, like the Leper, self-excluded and self-exiled from fellowship with God\emdash an isolated being, excluded from sympathy and association with all that is holy and happy in the universe. It is bad enough when a man is avoided by his fellows\emdash when, like another Cain, a brand is set upon his brow, and he has to flee society, to shrink in cowering shame from its glance. But what is that, compared to the fearful position of being exiled and outcast from God and angels\emdash from heaven and holiness\emdash from peace and love\emdash to be unbefriended by that Great Being, whose smile is happiness, whose glance of unutterable wrath is worse than death!\par \par Oh, when I wish a picture of the terribleness of sin\emdash when I seek in old Palestine\emdash that land of type and parable\emdash for some dreadful symbol or memento of God's abhorrence of guilt\emdash I may see it in the fig-tree on the road to Bethphage, scarred and blighted, with its coiled leaves and blasted stem; I may see it in the terrible desolation reigning on the Dead Sea shores (the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah); I may hear it in the roll of its briny waves, as they fret and murmur on the cheerless beach, telling the endless story of submerged cities and of retributive vengeance. But, more terrible and impressive still, when I stand on one of the byways of Galilee, and listen to a parable spoken by that wretched outcast, with his squalid tatters and uncovered head, shut out from the cheerful light of other homes, doomed to listen to no music but the sad wail of tortured bodies and broken spirits like his own\emdash standing afar off from the camp of God, friends and relatives shrinking back at his approach, the trappings and memorials of death, indicating that the King of Terrors has already set his foot upon him, and claimed him as his prey! Terrible emblem surely, of that chasm of separation which yawns, unbridged, between God and the sinner! Infinite Purity hiding His face from infinite guilt!\emdash disowning the very being He made once after His own image, because he has disowned Him\emdash leaving him to the tyranny of his own sins, consigning him, because he has consigned himself, to the terrors of the first and second death in one!\par \par And add to all, that this sin of yours is incurable by human hand or human skill, as the leprosy of old laughed to scorn the power and skill and art of man. God alone, by a special act of mercy, could arrest the malady! When Naaman came to the king of Israel to demand a cure, the reply of the monarch indicated who alone had power to grant his request, "Am I God, to kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy?" It is the same with sin\emdash it is incurable by earthly agency. An ocean of tears cannot cleanse it; human virtues and merits and penances cannot eradicate its deep, dark blot. Man or angel, beast of the earth, creeping thing or flying fowl, "the cattle on a thousand hills, and ten thousand rivers of oil"\emdash all would be of no avail to purchase freedom from the polluting taint. No hand but One can be stretched forth to save; no voice but One can bid the terrible scourge away! "Lord, be merciful to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You."\par \par Ah, if the leprosy-spot of sin be washed from our souls, the sentence of death recorded within us be obliterated, the new life, the Life of God, begun in our hearts, this shall be our befitting confession\emdash "YOU have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." "The living, even the living, he shall praise YOU, as I do this day!"\par \par Before we leave this memory of Tiberias, let us ponder, for our own spiritual profit and encouragement, two features here specially noticeable in the conduct of the poor outcast who cast himself at his Lord's feet.\par \par I. Mark his PRAYER\emdash "Lord!" Prayer arrests the ear of God. The lispings of this castaway are heard by the Helper of all the helpless. Though wearied and exhausted with uttering a lengthy sermon, and though eager multitudes are thronging around Him, one voice, and that of the most wretched of Galileans, stops the footsteps of Jesus, draws a tear to His eye, and words of mercy from His lips!\par \par Reader, learn the Power of Prayer. Christ's hand is never shortened, His ear is never heavy. He is no longer, indeed, personally near, as He was at Gennesaret; we cannot, as the Leper did, gaze on His countenance and bathe His feet with our tears; but faith can make the Mount of Beatitudes and the mount of Heaven equally near. Science is in these our days completing her vastest prodigy, by bringing the Old and the New World within whispering distance, defying three thousand miles of ocean to arrest the secret in its transit. But mightier far is the agency spoken of here. Prayer, swift as the electric current or volleyed lightning, enters the ear of the God of Sabaoth. The message sent to Heaven is heard while we are yet speaking, and comes back loaded with blessings of peace and love and mercy.\par \par Love prayer\emdash love to frequent the Mount of Beatitudes, the Mount of Blessings. Make the most, too, of the opportunities for prayer while you have the means. If the Leper had allowed Jesus to now pass by, unapproached and unsolicited, he might never again have found Him traveling that way. If the cry of prayer had not now been uttered, he might have been doomed to return to his wretched home, to languish out the dregs of existence in hopeless despair. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near."\par \par The time of Sickness is such a pathway where Jesus may be met; the hour of Bereavement is such a meeting-place with Jesus; the House of prayer is one of the pathways the Savior loves to frequent. Sabbath after Sabbath Jesus comes down from his Mount of Beatitudes, scattering blessings as He passes. Remember each Sabbath may be His last\emdash His concluding journey\emdash the last time you can cast yourself at His feet and implore His mercy. He loved the mount of Prayer Himself. He often wandered up that very ravine, to alone make the "mountain" His oratory. Be it so with you; delight often to follow His steps, ascending the hill of the Lord, saying, "I will get to the mountain of myrrh, and the hill of frankincense!"\par \par II. Mark the Leper's FAITH, "If You will, You can!" He believed (and it is all the sinner needs to feel in casting at his Savior's feet), Jesus' ability to effect Cure\emdash "You Can!" He was convinced that the omnipotent Prophet of Galilee had only to utter the word, and the pangs of a dreary and dismal life would cease forever!\par \par "Human power," he seems to say, "and human skill are of no help to me; I have tried every variety of human cure, I have applied every balsam; I have sought, like Naaman, the waters of Israel, I have plunged again and again in Jordan's healing streams, but all in vain; still 'the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint.' Jesus of Nazareth! I come to You, believing that Your word is mightier than all the waters of Syria or Israel. There is a Physician before me who is better than the balm of Gilead. Oh, You who can bind up the broken-hearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives, give me 'beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning!' Lord, save me! else I perish!"\par \par It is enough\emdash "Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will, be clean, and immediately his leprosy departed from him."\par \par One point remains still to be noticed. Jesus enjoined him to "go immediately and show himself to the priest, offering the gift that Moses commanded." What meant this closing injunction?\par \par We find, on reference to the Jewish law, that after the restored leper had satisfied the priest of an effectual cure having been wrought, this minister of God was appointed to take two birds. The one was to be killed, and its blood poured into an earthen vessel filled with running water; the other, tied with a scarlet thread and bunch of hyssop to a stick of cedar, was to be dipped into the earthen pitcher containing the mingled blood and water. With this the leper was sprinkled seven times, and then the living bird was set free to join its mates\emdash a significant emblem or symbol that the leper was now at liberty to resume that interaction with his fellows, which, on account of his disease, had been long suspended.\par \par Who can fail, in all this, to see a far deeper and more touching significance? That bleeding bird, slain by the officiating priest, was a striking type and emblem of a nobler Sacrifice\emdash blood of a nobler Victim, shed to wash out a moral taint, of which the leprosy (terrible as it was) was but a feeble shadow. Who can fail to have suggested (in the mingled contents of that earthen vessel) the recollection of the spear of old which pierced the side of the Innocent One, and from which flowed out a running stream of "blood and water?"\par \par But what of the other bird, bound with its mysterious hyssop-bunch, and tied with red scarlet thread, and which was immersed in the crimson flood? We cannot mistake it. Here, surely, is the type of the SINNER wearing the bonds and fastenings of the everlasting covenant, plunged in the Fountain of blood\emdash that fountain "opened for sin and for uncleanness." Lo! he is free. That bird of old, fluttering and struggling in terror, flew away from the scene of death! With joyous wing it soared with its fellows up in the blue heavens, or perched with them on its native branches in the nearest thicket!\par \par Beautiful emblem of the Sinner! "The Son has made him free, and he is free indeed." The blood and water have effected "the double cure:" the one justifies, the other sanctifies\emdash the one delivers him from the guilt, the other from the pollution of sin. And now behold that once terrified spirit, with wings soiled and plumage ruffled, soaring upwards and onwards on the pinions of faith, and hope, and gospel freedom, singing up to heaven's gate its untiring song, 'Unto Him who loved me and washed me from my sins in His own blood, to Him be glory and praise forever and ever!"\par \par Yes; "to Him that washed me." There was the special tune in that wondrous type: the bird\emdash the live bird\emdash dipped in the blood of his fellow! It was not a bird dipped in the blood of lamb or goat, but in the blood of one of its own mates\emdash one that had been nurtured, it may be, in the nest, or that had perched and sung with it on the same bough!\par \par Precious truth\emdash Jesus our Fellow-Man! The blood in which our souls are washed is the blood not of incarnate Archangel or incarnate Seraph, but blood that flowed from a human side and human veins\emdash from the Brother and the Friend of the race, the MAN Christ Jesus.\par \par The fellows of the Leper of old, his very friends and acquaintances, fled from him. Not so our Fellow-Man, our Brother on the Throne. He "commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners (lepers) He died for us." Are we ushered into this glorious liberty with which Christ makes His people free? Sprinkled with the twofold emblem of blood and water, are we spreading our wings, the wings of faith and prayer, heavenwards, singing the new song, "We are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God?" Beware of defiling yourselves with the leprous taint of Sin. It is contaminating\emdash infectious. Its tendency is to spread; it will eat into the vital principle. If permitted, it will destroy the life of God in the soul.\par \par Keep near the atoning Fountain; be ever traveling to your "Fellow's blood." The scarlet thread, the mark and badge of covenant mercy, has been put upon you; "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ has made you free."\par \par If there be one Reader of these pages who feels that, by reason of sin (it may be some recent plague-spot), he is a spiritual Leper\emdash some deep, dark blot defiling the conscience, the sense of pardon obscured, the Divine face hidden\emdash standing thereby excluded from the camp of God; go immediately to the running stream\emdash the perennial Fountain with its crimson tide\emdash adopt as your own, the prayer of a sin-stricken penitent, who had the leper and his cure in view when he uttered it\emdash "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; yes, wash me, and I shall be whiter than the snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which You have broken may rejoice."\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } ''me04 The Incurable Cured{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE INCURABLE CURED\par \par by John MacDuff\par \par When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man wit{ing." Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him." Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10\par \par "The Sun of Righteousness" had arisen on "Galilee of the Gentiles," the region and shadow of death, with "healing in His wings." From the summit of the Mount of Beatitudes, ''to the poor" the Gospel had been preached. On the plain and its base, or by the shores of the Lake, a Leper had been cleansed. And now, no sooner had the Divine Philanthropist entered "His own city," (Capernaum) than a new suitor is at His feet. A Roman officer, whose servant was stretched on a bed of pain and death, comes to receive fresh proof of the Divine benediction, so recently uttered\emdash "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."\par \par Let us look, first, to THE SUPPLIANT'S PREVIOUS HISTORY.\par \par He was "a Centurion," or captain in the army of Herod, stationed with a hundred men under his command in the barracks at Capernaum. We know nothing as to how long he had been resident in this town of Galilee. While there, however, he had become a Gentile proselyte to Judaism. In his communion with the Jewish mind, he had been led to a knowledge of the true God. The bewildering Polytheism, the ancestral Religion of his own land, into which he had been initiated in youth, with its "lords many and gods many"\emdash the heartless vices and growing profligacy of Roman manners\emdash contrasted unfavorably with the sublime simplicity of the worship of Israel's one Jehovah, and the lofty morality inculcated by the Mosaic law. Had religion been with him merely a stepping-stone in professional advancement\emdash life a struggle for pay and place\emdash to stand well at the government Palace of Caesarea and Tiberias, he had only to become the flatterer of Herod, to swear by the gods of Olympus and the Capitol, and plunge into the vices of these libertine courts.\par \par But in that vast Roman empire, God was preparing many minds for a kingdom whose glory and vastness the Caesar had never dreamed of. One of these "hidden ones" was this Capernaum soldier. He looked beyond the glitter and pageantry of earthly pomp and power to more enduring realities, and sought to have the yawning chasm of his heart's deep necessities filled with the great, the good, and the true. The simple yet sublime revelations of the Hebrew theology had thrown a flood of light on his path, and resolved many perplexities and doubts, whose solution he had vainly sought in his own mythological systems. An alien by birthright, he became by faith a child of Abraham; a stranger and foreigner, he had become a fellow-citizen with the household of God; and, better still, he lived under the influential power of that religion which he had espoused as his creed.\par \par We are called upon here to observe, very notably in his case, how true Piety ennobles and elevates the character. Moralities\emdash native virtues and amiabilities, indeed, may exist independent of religion, but these are purified and sanctified by grace. Religion dignifies the whole man. A landscape beautiful in itself, is glorified by sunlight. Natural virtues may, in themselves, be lovely and of good report; but when the soul in its actions and motives is pervaded and renovated by grace, it is like that same landscape bathed in sunshine, sparkling with a glory and beauty never possessed before. Thus did the fear of God operate in the case of this centurion. It made him a better Man, a better Friend, a better Master, and perhaps a better Soldier too.\par \par Let us look to two of these attributes as illustrated in the narrative we are now considering.\par \par (1.) He was A GOOD NEIGHBOR. "He loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue;" or, literally, "He has built the synagogue for us." Rooted out, was the hatred and scorn with which pagan nations regarded the nation of Israel. But this man had been taught, for its own and "the Fathers' sakes," to love it; and he gave the most substantial proof of the reality of this affection, for in the center of Capernaum, or close by the shores of the lake, rose conspicuous the one Synagogue of the town\emdash a strange and untypical memorial for a Gentile Roman to raise at his own expense.\par \par See here how religion makes the soul unselfish! Many a man, if he is personally faring well, is indifferent how his neighbor or the world fares. Perhaps unloved and uncared for himself, he thinks there is the less claim upon him, to love or care for others. He is in the midst of those who have no great claims upon him. He is too glad for the excuse or apology for steering clear of what would touch his means, or invade his time, or burden him with new cares and responsibilities. It is the old plea, "Am I my brother's keeper?" "No! I will live for myself\emdash I will clutch my gold the faster, and die amid hoards of plenty. I am a Gentile\emdash the blood of old Romulus is in my veins\emdash the memory of a proud line of heroes is my heirloom. What do I care for these dogs, the Jews, these bigot Hebrews? I shall do Caesar's work, and pocket Caesar's pay. I shall build my villa on this lake, and have my yacht on its waters. I shall put to shame Herod's attendants in the luxuries of my table, and the splendors of my retinue. What concern have I with these barbarians of Galilee? I am sent to curb their turbulent spirit. I will render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. What have I to do with rendering to their God the things that are God's?"\par \par So speak many now; but this great and good Centurion did neither think nor act this way. He had riches, and he would use these riches, not for self or sin, but for the glory of that great Being he had been led to revere. After consecrating his own soul as a living temple of faith, and love, and grateful obedience, he had raised up a sanctuary where his poorer fellow citizens might serve the God of their fathers, and where they might read and hear that law which had made him wiser and better than all his heathen teachers. The Roman soldier was sent to repress and subjugate by the sword; but the sword was sheathed, and he conquered by the weapon of kindness. He loved the nation he had been taught from his infancy to hate, and the God he served was now about to make good in his experience the old promise, "Those who bless Israel, I will bless."\par \par Himself and his servant being both heathens by birth, he felt as if he dared not personally approach the great Jewish Teacher. But he asks and willingly obtains the intervention of the elders of the city. He had proved to them a kind neighbor and generous benefactor. They are glad now for an opportunity to reciprocate his offices of regard. Though his presence in their town as an officer of the Roman army was a badge of their political servitude and degradation, yet the law of gratitude and love triumphs over all party jealousies and national animosities. They joyfully undertake the task of mediators, and hurry with his errand to the Savior's feet. The words of Jesus that morning on the Mount of Beatitudes had scarcely died away, when they received, in the case of the Centurion, a touching fulfillment\emdash "Love your enemies, do good to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High."\par \par (2.) He was A KIND MASTER. The Synagogue-building might have been a piece of Roman ostentation\emdash the monument which a vain man had erected in a foreign land to perpetuate his name, and secure for himself a brief remembrance. It might have been even worse: it might have been erected by the old Roman on the principle of later Romanists\emdash as the price of a monster "indulgence," a sop with which to quiet conscience and hush suspicion, in the midst of vice, extortion, and profligacy. But far different was it in his case. The external deeds of generosity and munificence had their counterpart in goodness of heart and a holy life.\par \par We follow him within the sacred threshold of his own homestead. It is all that we could have expected\emdash in happy conformity with his public character. The love whose field was the Jewish nation, had its center and focus in the domestic hearth. It is, indeed, a beautiful and touching picture which is here presented to us: an Officer seated by the bedside of his suffering servant, who was racked with torturing pain, "grievously tormented"\emdash "ready to die."\par \par Death at all times is a solemn thing. Who better able to brave it than was the iron soldier of old Rome, familiar with it as he was, under its most fearful forms? But it is one thing to face it in the hour of battle\emdash boldly to die a hero's death\emdash and another to watch the slow and stealthy footstep of the grim Destroyer, as he creeps into our loved circles, and threatens to drag endeared residents down to the abode of everlasting silence. That ghastly enemy confronts him now face to face, and threatens to sweep away "one dear to him" (or, as the word means, "highly valued"). Though that valued one was but a slave, occupying a different relation to his Roman master from what the British servant does to a British master, we may well come and sit at the feet of this "Good Centurion," and learn lessons of kindness and affection to our inferiors and dependents.\par \par Is there not a solemn reproof and reprimand to many a master and mistress, in the tear that stood in that Centurian's eye, and the heaving emotions that struggled for utterance in his bosom, as he sat, night by night, at the couch of his slave, and sought by word and deed to alleviate his sufferings? Pure and undefiled religion before God, led him to stoop to these offices of lowly love. That blessed Redeemer, at whose feet he was about to cast himself, illustrated, at a subsequent period of His ministry, by a significant act, this duty of condescension and kindness\emdash He washed His disciples' feet. He told them to "go and do likewise;" and His whole gospel breathes the precept, "Condescend to men of low estate."\par \par Let Christian masters come to this house in Capernaum, and study the living picture there presented for imitation. The Roman officer felt that a solemn tie which neither God nor nature, nor the memories of years, would allow him to treat lightly, bound him to that dying slave. He might, as thousands of old did, and as many do still, profit by the toil of their dependents during the best period of their lives, and then, in sinking health or failing strength, turn them adrift on a cold and cheerless world, stripping them of comforts at the very time these are most needed. We fear that in our own day such cases are to be found; that not a few are verily guilty in this respect concerning their lowly brother or sister. If, amid the pitiless storms and biting cold of winter, we left our own home comforts, and visited many black and smoldering firesides in our vicinities, is it uncharitable to ask, Would no master or mistress stand rebuked at the bar of conscience and of God, by the disregarded prayer trembling on quivering lips\emdash "Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone"? Past fidelity is not thus to be harshly recompensed.\par \par But it was not so with the Centurion of Capernaum and his trusty dependent. He cherishes the remembrance of years on years of faithful, unremitting service; and now he will change places for a time with the helpless sufferer; he will be himself as one that serves, bending over that anguished pillow in offices of affection and solicitude.\par \par Happy would it be for social life did Religion, more than it does, thus sanctify and hallow the bond uniting servant and master!\emdash the Servant working under the lofty Christian motive, "I serve the Lord Christ;" the Master, knowing and remembering that he has a "Master also in heaven"\emdash the spirit at least remaining of Boaz' salutation to his servants as they reaped his fields at Bethlehem: He meeting them with the benediction, "The Lord bless you!" and they responding, "The Lord bless you!"\par \par Such, then, is a glimpse into the character\emdash the public and private life\emdash of the man who now sent the urgent message to the Savior in behalf of his servant, and who follows up the mission of the elders of the city by leaving the sickbed he was tending, and prostrating himself at the Lord's feet. We wait with anxiety to learn the particulars of this interview.\par \par Let us look, first, to the Centurion's address to the Savior. Two things are very observable in his conduct and words.\par \par I. Observe his HUMILITY\emdash "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof." What words for a proud Roman to address to a poor Jew! The elders had just a little before, reached Jesus with the centurion's message, enforcing it with the plea, that he was worthy for whom He should do this. But different is the humble Officer's own estimate: he felt that he was a "sinner of the Gentiles"\emdash an alien from the commonwealth of Israel\emdash having no heritage in the covenant promises and the temporal blessings therein included.\par \par But he felt more than this. The deep things of God's law had been revealed to his inquiring spirit. He was convinced of the deficiency and defilement of his best obedience and holiest deeds, and with no disguised, or false, or counterfeit humility, he bends in lowliest abasement before "THE Holy One." A higher wall of separation than the old conventional one between Jew and Gentile, separated between him and Infinite purity. He had, doubtless, become familiar with the person and character of the Savior from His teachings and miracles in and around Capernaum. It may be, in the sumptuous synagogue which his own generosity had reared, he had himself been spectator of the cure of the Demoniac. He must, doubtless, have heard of the miraculous catch of fish. He must have witnessed the results, at least, of that wondrous Sabbath evening, when disease, which in the morning had flapped its gloomy wings over many a household, at sunset fled by His mighty mandate away. It is more than likely, in his rank and position, that he knew the nobleman whose son in the same city had recently experienced the might of Christ's omnipotent word. Would not the same Power that raised a son, raise a Roman bond-slave? Was he not approaching One who knew no distinction between Jew and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free?\par \par It is, indeed, a lovely impersonation of Humility, to see this offspring of proud Rome\emdash a captain in her armies\emdash one of those accustomed to wear contempt on his lip whenever the name of "Jew" was mentioned\emdash laying aside the pride of name and rank and nation; forgetting that he had stood among the martial legions in Rome, or sat a guest at Herod's table; accustomed ever to command, seldom to obey; rushing now, in the extremity of his unselfish sorrow, to the feet of the homeless Savior\emdash the carpenter's Son\emdash the Companion of fishermen!\par \par But while "God resists the proud," He "gives grace to the humble." "He who humbles himself shall be exalted." That half-heathen worshiper and suppliant has his brow at this hour wreathed with laurel, which survives in imperishable glory; while the garlands of Roman triumphs and victors have faded into decay, and left no trace behind. He has a monument in the hearts of all loving Masters, and faithful Servants, and humble-hearted Christians. For "wherever the gospel is preached in all the world," there shall this, that this Roman officer has done, be told as a memorial of him.\par \par II. The second feature notable (most notable) in the Centurion's conduct, is his FAITH. Whenever there is Humility, there is the companion grace of Faith; as a tree sends its branches upwards in proportion as it strikes its roots downwards; so in proportion as a man is deep in humility, is he "strong in faith, giving glory to God."\par \par The remarkable feature in this grace of the Centurion, and which drew such a tribute regarding it from the lips of Omniscience, was that for the effecting of his servant's cure, he solicited from Jesus, nothing but a word. Unlike the nobleman who journeyed to Cana, and begged Jesus to "come down" to Capernaum and heal his son (imagining that the personal presence of the Healer by the sick-bed was indispensable), this Centurion requested no more than the mere utterance of the will of Omnipotence. He who of old said, amid brooding chaos, "Let there be light," had now but to give forth the mandate, Let there be Life, and returning health would mantle the cheeks, and the palsied hands be clasped in grateful thanksgiving.\par \par Observe, too, as an interesting feature in the Centurion's Faith, it took its color and character from his Soldier-life\emdash "FOR," he adds, "I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me." "I am myself a subordinate\emdash I am used to obeying the Tribune to my superior officer; and the soldiers of my company, in a similar way, give prompt obedience to my orders. I say to this man go, and he goes; to another come, and he comes; and to my servant do this, and he does it."\par \par The application of the appeal is evident: "If I, in this my worldly calling, have only in the name of Caesar to speak and it is done\emdash I believe, Lord, it is much more so with You. Sickness and Disease are Your appointed messengers; they are Servants executing Your dictates; they come and go at Your command; this palsy now chaining my servant down to his bed\emdash bid it flee away: trouble not Yourself to come and touch\emdash but even here, in this open street, utter the healing word, and I know the result\emdash my servant shall be healed."\par \par We may well cease to wonder at Christ calling this great faith. Faith deals with the distant, the unseen, the palpable, the intangible. It has been well defined, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Men are ever craving for the evidence of sense and sight; the word of Thomas is one natural to these earthly hearts of ours, "Except I SEE. . . I shall not believe." But "Blessed," said the Lord, "are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." We, in this age of the Church, are in the position of that sick Servant at Capernaum. To the eye of sense we are separated from the Savior. We see Him not\emdash we can touch Him not\emdash the hand cannot slip amid the crowd to catch His garment hem\emdash we cannot hear His loved footsteps as of old on our thresholds; but Faith penetrates the invisible; the messenger, Prayer, meets Him in the streets of the New Jerusalem; and Faith and Prayer together, the twin delegates from His Church below, He has never yet sent empty away.\par \par Reader, go in the spirit of that Faith to Him; believe in what He has done and what He is still willing to do. Go, and like the Centurion, beseech Him "immediately." Make the most of fleeting opportunities. Beware of abused responsibilities. Do not wait and linger until you effect some preliminary preparation. "Just as you are," with no posture but that of humility, and no prayer but the prayer of faith, cast yourself at His feet, saying, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" And the greater the measure of your faith, the larger and more munificent will be the recompense. Jesus tells the Centurion-suppliant that the answer given will be commensurate with the degree of his faith\emdash "As you have believed, SO be it done to you."\par \par Having considered the feelings manifested by the Roman Centurion in addressing Jesus in behalf of his sick servant, turn we now to the Savior's comment on the conduct of this noble-minded Centurion, and to those practical lessons with which the subject is replete.\par \par He announces, in connection with this remarkable display of faith, The bringing in of the Gentile nations, "Truly I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say to you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."\par \par This Roman soldier was the first-sheaf of a mighty harvest yet to be reaped from heathen lands\emdash the first-fruits of that vast quarter of the globe where Christianity was after-ages to set up its banners and gather its noblest trophies. In the case of the miraculous cure on the Leper, Jesus, it will be remembered, "touched" him. That leper was a Jew\emdash a Hebrew by birth; the "touching" him, may be seen as emblematic of the Savior's coming into personal contact with those of His own nation\emdash "He came to His own," though "His own received Him not." In the case of the present miracle, however, there was no immediate or personal contact with the subject of it. The Savior spoke the distant word and the Roman slave was cured. May not this have been designed as emblematic of those far off Gentiles and Gentile nations, millions on millions, who were never permitted, like Israel, to gaze on the Incarnate God, but who were, in after-ages, to experience the power and potency of His miraculous word and will?\par \par "Many shall come and shall sit down with Abraham!" This is surely a startling utterance to these Galileans; only surpassed by this Jewish Prophet and Teacher turning round and commending openly to the crowd, the faith of a Gentile as surpassing that even of the "peculiar people." He prefaces it with the word that marks something strange and unaccustomed, "truly I say to you." Strange, indeed, to Jewish ears it was! That leper, miserable spectacle though he was, was descended from Abraham. He had the accents of the Hebrew tongue hanging on his lips\emdash he might be able to point, as most Jews were, in the absence of any other heritage, to the sepulcher where lay the ashes of his fathers: but here was a ROMAN\emdash the synonym of Enmity, Oppression, Profligacy\emdash for, along with their conquering standards they had imported to the shores of that quiet Lake the crimes and vices of the capital.\par \par Could it be that such wild olive-branches were to be grafted into the native olive branch? that these Gentile wanderers are to be gathered by the Good Shepherd into one fold? these peoples so diverse, and for so long considered so antagonistic, to be fused into one mass, and that out of this mass there is to arise the Church of the future? Yes! and this Roman officer and his slave are selected as the first of these "children of God scattered abroad" who are to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the new kingdom\emdash the children of Abraham's faith, partakers in Abraham's promise, and finally to be sharers in Abraham's glorious reward.\par \par There are many important reflections suggested by this memorable incident\emdash we can only refer to two of these.\par \par First, we are again taught the often repeated Scripture lesson, that in every profession and occupation of life, a man may serve God. How often are people apt to plead their professions and worldly engagements as an apology for ungodliness! "I might have been a Christian," say many, "but for this adverse position in which I am placed in business. I might have been following a mother's teachings, and reaping the blessings of a mother's prayers; but, cast where I am, it is vain to think of a holy walk. I am, by a sad necessity, denied the happiness of a religious life."\par \par How different it was with this Roman Centurion! Not only, soldier as he was, did he fear God; but, it is very observable, he fed and nurtured his faith from his military habits and experience. The old discipline and training of a Camp-life read to him a high spiritual lesson in approaching Christ. "For I am a man set under authority."\par \par Ah, it is beautiful when a man thus makes his trade or profession, whatever it be, suggestive of spiritual incentives and motives of action! David, in the most imperishable of poems, made his Shepherd-life beautifully to shadow forth his covenant relation to God, beholding in "the green pastures" and "still waters" to which he led his flock, a peaceful image of spiritual safety and repose. Listen to the apostle Paul, "the tentmaker," toiling with his own hands at the goats' hair canvass that he "might be chargeable to no man"\emdash as he suspends his manual labor to write an epistle to the Church at Corinth, he borrows from his rustic occupation encouragement for their hearts and his own, with regard to more enduring "tents"\emdash "For we know that when this house of our earthly tent is taken down, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Or, at a later period, "I am an ambassador in bonds," said he, as he wrote with the heavy iron fettering his hand; but the chain suggests the glorious contrast, "the word of God is not bound." And thus, every profession may become suggestive of such and similar spiritual truths.\par \par Is it the Husbandman? He can read in the golden Harvest undying type and pledge of spiritual blessings as the result of faith and earnest diligence in the heavenly husbandry, that "in due season we shall reap if we faint not."\par \par Is it the Sailor? Every wave that wafts him nearer the harbor may remind him of the vaster Voyage on which he is embarked, and warn him of the treacherous storms, and tell of the glorious security of the heavenly Port.\par \par Is it the Physician? He is reminded, amid complicated troubles which perplex his experience and baffle his skill, of a Physician who, in a more inveterate trouble, can heal "all diseases."\par \par Is it the Merchant? He is reminded by the very vicissitudes of trade\emdash the ebbings and flowings in the tide of prosperity\emdash of the need of securing an interest in a better possession, and more enduring riches than earth can give.\par \par Is it the Soldier? He hears mightier bugle-notes sounding to arms, "It is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is your salvation nearer than when you believed!" He is reminded of a more gigantic battle-plain than the world's conflicting hosts ever occupied\emdash and the need there is of taking to himself "the whole armor of God; and fighting the good fight of faith, and laying hold of eternal life."\par \par It is striking to note that the first Gentile convert welcomed to the new spiritual kingdom\emdash the first Gentile whose prayer was heard and whose slave was healed\emdash was a European Officer\emdash the first of a noble army who have, in after-ages, joined the ranks of the faithful.\par \par It is interesting, moreover, to know that he was not the only officer in the service of Caesar, who, at this era of the world, and in Palestine, was brought to fear God. We have another of similar rank\emdash the centurion spoken of at the dreadful terminating scene of Gospel story, who, gazing up on the meek countenance of the Crucified, exclaimed, "Truly this is the Son of God!" We read in a subsequent period of "Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band," quartered with his men at the seat of government at Caesarea, that he was "a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always."\par \par We know how the apostle Paul, in his final imprisonment in Rome, melted the iron hearts of Nero's Imperial Guard. The very soldiers between whom the chained prisoner slept were touched, by his sublime patience, his fervid prayers, his unflinching courage, his glorious hopes.\par \par Thanks be to God, the army has never been without its number of "the good soldiers of Jesus Christ," from the time of this Roman centurion on the Lake of Galilee, down to the hour when Hedley Vicars was consigned to his grave in the Crimean Sea, and Henry Lawrence to his Indian grave. Brave hearts, unflinching in the hour of duty and death, have loved to cast their swords and shields at the foot of the Cross, and to glory, far above earthly triumphs, in that of the Roman, "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith."\par \par We have thought of that Roman Centurion in connection with his Faith and Kindness and Humility on earth. We may think of him at this moment\emdash the battle of life long ago ended\emdash the sword long ago slumbering in its scabbard\emdash the watch-fires of the nightly encampment quenched forever\emdash the trumpet of battle hung mute in the heavenly halls\emdash seated as a fellow-guest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the noble army of prophets and patriarchs, apostles and martyrs, in the kingdom of glory\emdash clothed in white robes, with the palms of a better and nobler VICTORY in their hands!\par \par We may learn, as a second lesson, that Great Faith is fostered in the midst of difficulties. It would only be to rehearse what we have already said, to show that this pre-eminent Faith of the Centurion was so reared and nurtured.\par \par The fact of being a Roman by birth; a Pagan in religion; a Soldier by profession\emdash formed a threefold impediment in the path of his spiritual life. But he manfully counted the cost, and, not only was victory obtained, but when he laid the spoils at his Lord's feet, that Savior declared that Israel had need to blush for their faith, when placed side by side with that of the Gentile stranger.\par \par It is of the very nature of Faith to grow in the midst of trials and obstacles! The greatest spiritual heroes of the past\emdash those whose faith culminated highest\emdash are those who "subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire." Plunge them into the deep, like the fabled hydra they seem to rise with renovated energy.\par \par Noah's faith, how wondrous! battling against the taunts and ridicule of a scoffing world, and standing alone to buffet the storm for 120 years.\par \par Abraham's faith was strongest in his most trying hour, when the son of his prayers\emdash the child of promise\emdash was doomed to perish by his own hand.\par \par The faith of the eleven Disciples was never more remarkable than when returning orphaned and bereaved from the Mount of Ascension\emdash Him whom they most loved, vanished from their sight\emdash left to battle an alien world alone! Yet, we read, "they returned to Jerusalem with great joy!"\par \par Paul's faith never was stronger or more glorious than when the aged man was fettered in his dungeon, with almost certain death impending. "Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him."\par \par And every martyr at the stake, and every missionary in his gigantic task, has to bear the same testimony, that it was when the tempest was highest, and the battle loudest, they were "strong in faith, giving glory to God." The Oak is rooted firmest and fastest, that has been nurtured, not amid quiet climates and in the sheltering valley, but high on the mountainside where it has had to wrestle with the storm. That is not vigorous training for the rower, when resting on his oar, his boat is borne down the descending stream. But his is the hardened sinew and brawny arm whose bark has to face the fiercest current, and struggle with contending wind and tide.\par \par The great man and master-mind was once the boy at school, who bravely encountered difficulty and disadvantage; who wept hot tears over the baffling task, and dried them not until he conquered impediments, gaining mental and moral courage every step in his ascending way. So it is in the higher spiritual struggle. Bunyan's Christian, who scrambled and ran up the "Hill Difficulty," was found asleep on the Enchanted ground."\par \par Do not be downcast, then, if difficulties and trials surround you in your heavenly life. They may be purposely placed there by God, to train and discipline you for higher developments of faith. If He calls you to "toiling in rowing," it may be to make you the hardier seaman\emdash to lead you to lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, and, above all, to drive you to a holier trust in Him who has the vessel and its destinies in His hand, and who, amid gathering clouds and darkened horizon, and crested billows, is ever uttering the mild rebuke to our misgivings\emdash "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } 1}u05 The Soldier and His Slave{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE SOLDIER AND HIS SLAVE\par \par When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, 'my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffer and watch, and wait.\par Knock\emdash He knows the sinner's cry;\par Weep\emdash He loves the mourner's tears;\par Watch\emdash for saving grace is nigh;\par Wait\emdash till heavenly light appears.\par Hark! it is the Bridegroom's voice.\par Welcome, pilgrim! to your rest;\par Now within the gate rejoice,\par Safe, and sealed, and bought, and blest."\par \par "Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so He went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them." Luke 7:36-38\par \par In our last scene of busy life on the Shores of Gennesaret, we visited in thought the house of a Gentile officer in Capernaum, and were there taught the hallowed relation which ought ever to subsist between master and servant, rich and poor.\par \par We have now a change of incident within the walls of the same city; where Hebrew synagogues and Hebrew dwellings mingled with the villas and mansions of Roman courtiers, and the palaces of Herodian princes.\par \par In one of these Jewish houses the scene of our present narrative is laid. It is a Parable in real life. New phases of humanity here meet us, with which Jesus dealt; and in dealing with which, He has left behind important lessons for our guidance and instruction.\par \par Of the many graphic scenes, indeed, in Sacred story, we know not one more striking than that which is at present to engage our attention. It is a Picture amid Gospel Pictures. One ceases to wonder that the great Painters of the middle ages clung to it as a favorite subject for delineation. We have in the group itself\emdash its lights and shadows\emdash the individuality of its unique and contrasted characters\emdash all that contributes to make a striking and powerful composition. Proceeding rapidly, as we are doing, through this portion of the gospel Picture-gallery, we dare not pass it by in silence. Other minor figures crowd the background, but there are Three which stand out from the inspired canvass in significant prominence\emdash three impersonations of vastly diverse character.\par \par In the foreground of all, and arresting first our attention, is the impersonation of lowly Penitence and Humility. Close by, in bold contrast and antagonism, is the type of haughty supercilious Pride and Religious Formalism. And, thirdly, to complete the triad, and in still greater contrast, there is the Godlike Impersonation and essence of ineffable Tenderness, Compassion, Love.\par \par The Weeping sinner, the Self-righteous Pharisee, the Great and Gracious Redeemer. Let us for a little, with God's blessing, dwell on each of the three in their order.\par \par (I.) The first figure which meets our eye in the picture is that of THE LOWLY PENITENT (The Weeping sinner)\par \par Her history is a brief one\emdash soon told: "A woman in the city, who was a sinner." "THE sinner" was her infamous epithet! The guilt of a life of immorality and shame was branded on her brow. She was probably a Gentile\emdash one of those unhappy outcasts from virtue and peace that had been imported to the Jewish lake by the loathsome corruption of Roman leaders.\par \par All at once, however, her life has become changed. How she may have been prepared to undergo so vast a revolution in her history, we cannot tell. For years, it may be, her soul may have been struggling in vain to get free. Her heart may have been torn and tortured with the memories of a blighted past, and a miserable and abandoned present; and yet she might know no faithful ear, perhaps, to which she might reveal the reality of her wretchedness. The sunny recollections of joyous and innocent childhood, and a happy home, may have mingled sadly with the thought of the agonized and broken hearts there left, from which she had torn herself forever. A future of terrible and untold desolation rose before her. No Gadarene demoniac, more truly than she, went about "seeking rest and finding none."\par \par But Rest she has found. Her base betrayers have crushed that bleeding heart under their feet\emdash they mock her tears and scorn her self-reproaches. But One voice she has heard which has spoken peace to her troubled soul!\par \par Where she first saw Jesus, we cannot tell. Where she first listened to those gracious balm-words which stanched her bleeding wounds, we know not. Could she have been in the crowd that day by the Lakeside, when the Lord of nature and grace spoke so tenderly from the fisher's boat? Could she have lingered, on that more recent occasion, in the skirts of the multitude as, from the Mount of Beatitudes, wondrous words of power, and wrath, and mercy, fell on her ears? Might she not have heard the stern utterance there pronounced in connection with such sins as hers, "The whole body shall be cast into hell?" Might not she also have listened there to the blessing in reserve for the "poor in spirit," the "persecuted," the "mourner?" Might she not have heard that Great Restorer who had healed lepers and sick, rich and poor, noble and despised, say without reserve or condition\emdash "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened?"\par \par Or, is it not more probable still, that she may have listened in Capernaum to that briefest but loveliest of all the Savior's utterances spoken shortly before, and which has for eighteen hundred years calmed the tempests in many storm-swept bosoms, "Come to Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest? Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me: for I am meek and lowly of heart: and you shall find rest for your souls? For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light?" "Are not these words, these golden words," she might say, "just for ME? They are all I require\emdash all I have been seeking for! I am a 'WEARY one;' none but God in Heaven knows how weary! This heart of mine for years has been torn and broken. The burden of crimson sin has been weighing me down. Did I not hear Him say, 'Come to Me, I will give you rest? you shall find rest to your souls?'"\par \par Might there not thus have been one echo at least to these soul-soothing words in that crowd? One ear listening which drank them in? One bosom sighing for that to which it had been ever before a stranger\emdash a yoke which was easy, and a burden which was light?\par \par But whatever were the occasion\emdash wherever the scene, and the place, and the manner of her awaking from her sleep of death\emdash she had been arrested, convicted, humbled, comforted; her conscience had been struck, her life of profligacy was loathed and abandoned forever. Now, all her thoughts are about coming into a personal encounter with that Great Being who had brought her up out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set her feet upon a Rock, and established her goings!\par \par Who can picture all the reality of that season of deep conviction\emdash the tears she wept in secret over her life of infamy?\emdash and if she now cherishes the humble hope that that terrible past is wondrously forgiven, how full is she still of trembling apprehensions! The scene in the text discloses to us the turning-point in her history. It is the struggle between life and death. In the anguish of her newly-awakened and deeply-stricken heart, she has long been making the patriarch's prayer her own\emdash "Oh! that I knew where I might find HIM, that I might come even to His seat!"\par \par Her cherished wish is now to be gratified. Such an opportunity for seeing the Savior does now occur. She had heard that He was guest that afternoon in a rich Pharisee's house. The doors of the dining-hall (according to Eastern custom) were open. Could she not creep unbidden behind where He was, and weep at His feet the tale of her sorrows? Yet many, and diverse too, are the struggles before she dare venture there. Two impediments, especially, must have powerfully deterred her.\par \par There was, first, that which many a penitent transgressor still feels\emdash the fear of others. The dread of cruel censure, contempt, and scorn. She seems to have had the curse of an unenvia ble notoriety resting upon her. May she not be spurned away? May not that drooping heart, opening to the gladsome sunlight, be trodden under foot by merciless man?\par \par Then add to this the torturing thought\emdash how can she face the infinitely PURE ONE? She seems to say, "Can I, dare I, venture into the presence of Incarnate holiness? Can He endure my defiling touch? Will He condescend to receive me; to cast on me one look of pity\emdash to utter one word of compassion? May I not only agg ravate the tortures of this heart by listening to merited upbraidings, by hearing that 'Rest' there is for the 'weary,' for every weary head, but mine, and such as mine!"\par \par But what will a soul in earnest not do? What barriers can restrain it? Frown who may, she resolves to repair to that "fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness;" and to tell her story by those tears which had been "her food, day and night," since she first listened to her Savior's words.\par \par She enters the house. Silently she steals behind the couch where the Lord reclined. If the other guests have been observing her\emdash if the whisper and comment of indignation is passing round from lip to lip\emdash it matters not to her. She hears it not, and cares not though she hears. JESUS IS THERE! She thinks of no one in the assembly but the Refuge of the weary, the Help of the helpless, the Friend of the friendless. Her eye rests on Him alone. She has found "Him whom her soul loves." "He is all her salvatio n, and all her desire."\par \par See her now, in her lowly lurking-place. Not a word is spoken. Her burning tear-drops (what Augustine calls "the blood of her heart") are left to speak for her. They fall on her Savior's unsandalled feet. On these feet she imprints her kisses, and dries them with the disheveled hair of her head. An act, it is worthy of observation, which was performed only by the lowliest female slaves in Rome to their masters. In this poor sinner's case, therefore, it was signif icant. Branded with ridicule by man, she fled to the God-Man. That trembling Penitent casting herself at her heavenly Master's feet, seems rejoicingly to say, "O Lord, truly I am Your slave, I am Your slave; You have loosened my bonds."\par \par And as if this were not all, a box of fragrant perfume, which she had procured, probably to lavish on her own person in the days of her shame, she now breaks, and pours on the feet she had moistened with weeping. As we behold the loosened tresses (what Paul speaks of as "the glory of woman"), now spurning all adornment, and the fragments of the alabaster-box scattered around, this weeper of Holy Writ seems to have anticipated the same apostle's injunction to other similar penitents, and to be acting upon it\emdash "As you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness."\par \par Oh, beautiful type! Marvelous picture of broken-hearted sorrow! A poor outcast of wretchedness lying low at the cross! her footpath there saturated with dewy tears. A miserable wreck of humanity who had broken loose from her moorings, drifting helpless, hopeless, ruined, lost, to the bleak winds and howling sea of eternity, now fastened to the Great Living Rock. There was joy in Heaven that day, among the angels of God, over that one sinner that repented!\par \par We now pass on to the second Portrait in this Gospel picture\emdash the type of haughty supercilious Pride and Religious Formalism\emdash the Self-righteous Pharisee. Can there be conceived a greater contrast and transition? From one low in the dust of self-abasement, confessing herself the chief of sinners, to one who is the type and portraiture of haughty self-righteous formalism! The host at this entertainment was a PHARISEE.\par \par Little or nothing is said of him in the narrative, to throw any distinctive light on his history. We have no reason to believe that he was, by any means, a disreputable specimen of his class. Had he been so, our blessed Lord would have been more unqualified in His condemnation. He was no Skeptic. Neither profanity nor immorality probably could be laid to his charge. Multitudes of such were round about that Lake; profligate Gentiles, scoffing Romans, rationalistic Sadducees. But he was very different. He was, for all we know, a good Moral man. He was a Synagogue attender. The very fact of having Jesus as his guest intimated a respect for religious Teaching. He was punctilious in Synagogue services and Ceremonial rites. The only incidental glimpse, indeed, the narrative gives of his character, indicates this much\emdash he marveled that if Christ were truly a prophet, gifted with the discernment of spirits, He did not shrink from the unclean touch of the sinner at His feet. He spoke within himself, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who, and what manner of woman this is, that touches him." He speaks of the Magdalene not as the woman who "weeps," or "kisses," or "anoints," or "loves," but as the woman that "touches."\par \par He was then, externally to a Jew, all that could be wished. He "thanked God that he was not as others." He tithed all he possessed with scrupulous nicety. He could boast, it may be, of the broadest phylactery in Capernaum. He was a pupil of Hillels, or, perhaps, made it matter of thankfulness that it was not Hillel, but Shammai, at whose feet he had sat, and whose spirit he had imbibed. He made it his boast that he never had any dealings with the Samaritans; that far off as Mount Zion was, he had ever shunned, as defiled, their temple on Gerizim; and in going up to the annual feasts, rather than run the risk of contamination, he would take the circuit of the Jordan route to avoid it. No, no; other Jews might show a latitudinarian spirit and have dealings with Samaritans; never would he! Others might believe in the sincerity of a Publican smiting on his breast and confessing himself a sinner, and God hearing that prayer; never could he! And as for condescending so much as to touch this Gentile Sinner, this wretched offscouring of Roman profligacy, it would defile and contaminate him\emdash it would be a blot on his pedigree as the child of Abraham. He had conscientious objections to take the Jewish children's bread and cast it to Gentile dogs!\par \par Jesus saw what was passing in the narrow, shriveled soul of this turbaned Religionist; indeed, but for a brief and sententious parable, which the merciful Philanthropist interposed, the Pharisee-host might have bid away the poor suppliant from his home and table. "O Simon!" says a learned commentator, "if you were not a poor sinner, Jesus would not have come to your table; had not this woman been a penitent sinner, she would not have sought Him in your house. Oh, that you knew what a Savior He is\emdash how He knows you and her: her repentance\emdash your pride!"\par \par Is not this Jewish Pharisee a "Representative man"\emdash a type still of his Class? In him we have one of those cold, heartless spirits who have an outward respect for conventional Religious Forms, but have no corresponding realization of the exceeding breadth of God's law, and the exceeding sinfulness of their own hearts. They see sin in others, but they are all as they should be; they can pull out the speck in their brother's eye, but they have no thought of a beam in their own. Champions for sect and party; orthodox, as they firmly believe in their own creed\emdash all the world are wrong, or may be wrong, but they are sure they are right. Their Church is the pure one. They can trace their pedigree to apostles. Others have altered their rubrics; they never have. Others seem to live on enthusiasm; they can take Religion easy, and get into Heaven notwithstanding. There are poor at their doors, why not let the Law or Police look after them? If a miserable transgressor comes in their path, they hold it would not be respectable to have dealings with him; if a brother, overtaken in a fault, comes with the hot tears of grief pleading for forgiveness, they think it best to have nothing to say to him. It may do for a good Samaritan to pick up that wounded man; but, being Jews, they would contract defilement by touching him. They are sorry for him; but, shaking their heads and sighing, they leave him to the tender mercies of others, and "pass by on the other side!"\par \par Let us beware of this cold, selfish, proud spirit. If there is anything more obnoxious to God, more withering to all that is noble in the human soul, it is this\emdash the gilding of the outside of the cup and platter\emdash the whitewash of the moral sepulcher\emdash the Religion which begins and centers and terminates in self, and whose culminating glory is the complacent thought, "I am better than others. Stand back, I am holier than you!"\par \par The Omniscient Savior sent the arrow of conviction to this Pharisee's conscience. Like another Nathan, self-judged and self-condemned, he brought home the verdict, "you are the man." He would do the same to every one of us, who in the shadings of this picture may see any dim reflection of himself. He who knew all the deep labyrinths of the human heart thus gives in another place His estimate of self-righteous, Pharisaic formalism, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven."\par \par But let us pass on to the third and last principal figure in our Picture. In the center of the group (between the two we have described), is the Living and All-glorious type of human Tenderness, Compassion and Love\emdash an exalted SAVIOR-GOD, the Great and Gracious Redeemer.\par \par We wait anxiously to mark how He receives the trembling Transgressor. Are her fears well founded? Are her sobs to die away in empty echoes within these walls? Ah! if it had been man\emdash selfish, haughty, unfeeling man\emdash away, spurned and broken-hearted, she would have been sent; but "My ways are not as your ways, nor My thoughts as your thoughts, says the Lord!"\par \par At first He speaks not\emdash He leaves her in silence to exhaust her tribute of sorrow and love. The streams of her heart being just opened, He lets the flood of tears rush on unchecked. But He does break His silence\emdash He can bear and brook no longer the cruel frowns and taunting looks of those around. With what feelings must the broken-hearted one have listened to the tones of ever-living love, as thus He (yes, HE the Lord of glory) spoke in behalf of the vilest of sinners. "Simon," he said to the Pharisee, "I have something to say to you." "All right, Teacher," Simon replied, "go ahead." Then Jesus told him this story: "A man loaned money to two people\emdash five hundred pieces of silver to one and fifty pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt."\par \par He turns then round in meek majesty to the Penitent, and applies the simple but expressive rebuke. "Do you see," he continued to Simon, "this woman? I entered, a weary Stranger, into your house. In accordance with usual custom\emdash the rites of ancient hospitality\emdash you or your servants should have afforded Me water for My feet: this was denied Me: but your neglect or inconsideration was more than supplied by her. From the well ing fountains of her grief she has bathed My feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss\emdash this usual courtesy to a Jewish Rabbi you have, from motives of calculating prudence, withheld from Me; but she, ever since she crept behind this table, has not ceased to kiss My feet. My head even with common olive oil you did not anoint; but this woman has anointed not My head, but My very feet, and that, too, with costliest spikenard. Therefore I say to you, Her sins, w!hich are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."\par \par And now follows the gracious, longed-for word to the listening Penitent. Now comes her own assurance of comfort and Joy\emdash "Your Sins Are Forgiven." "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Her Lord has received her, looked upon her, defended her, assured her, forgiven her, and now He sends her away with the coveted benediction. She came weary to Him, and He has not belied His ow"n sure word, for she has received "rest" for her burdened soul.\par \par Most lovely picture, we again say, this of the Savior of the world, with that despised, down-trodden, forlorn female at His feet! We have here a living type and embodiment of what Christianity has done to wipe the tears from degraded womanhood, and raise her from the dust to which paganism had doomed her. What is the boasted Chivalry of the middle ages, but the legitimate effect of the elevating spirit of Christianity? Wher#ever Christianity is not, there is woman found with the curse of bondage and degradation resting upon her\emdash the drudge and menial slave, instead of the helpmeet and companion of man. The first words that our Lord uttered when He rose from the grave were addressed to a whole world in tears\emdash "Woman! why are you weeping?" And He could point to that vacant sepulcher He had just left as the certain pledge, amid higher blessings, that before long these tears would be dried. O Jesus! Woman (personated$ by that poor Penitent in the text) may well come and lie adoring at Your feet. Your religion has been the breaker of her chains and the balm of her sorrows! We cease now to wonder that she was last at Your cross and first at Your tomb!\par \par Let us pass on to several Practical Lessons which this narrative suggests. We may take three which have reference to Great Sinners.\par \par I. We learn that for Great Sinners there is a Great Savior. Here is THE Lesson of all lessons. We have %been studying this Picture figure by figure, but like the ancient Painters we must be jealous of detracting from what, after all, is the central glory of it. All the other parts must be subordinated to One\emdash all other figures must only be brought in as helps to tell the story of His exceeding love.\par \par Yes! Jesus is the Chief Speaker here; and, "chief of sinners," He speaks to you! He tells you in words and deeds of unutterable tenderness, that you never need despair of His mercy!\emda&sh that for "scarlet sins" and "crimson sins" there is an ever opened fountain. "This man receives sinners," was the ironical taunt of proud and haughty Pharisees. "This man receives sinners," is the Savior's own motto\emdash the glorious peculiarity of His great salvation! Hear it, you who are bowed down with an overwhelming sense of some heinous sins! there may be one such whose eye is falling on these pages; some troubled miserable being\emdash shivering on the verge of despair\emdash an awful past fro'wning upon you\emdash specters of guilt haunting you by night, and the scorpion sting of conscience goading you by day; hiding your fears from those nearest and dearest to you; your heart alone knowing its own bitterness\emdash the dreadful unrest of unforgiven and unmortified sin!\par \par I am commissioned this day to lead you to this Picture in the great gallery of Truth\emdash to point to that wicked Profligate with the blood of souls on her head, and to tell you she trembled and wept, and b(elieved and rejoiced! Hers was the worst supposable case. No sheep in all the Galilee fold more outcast, worthless, self-condemned than she; and yet\emdash see the kind Shepherd! He had followed after her (it may be for years on years), tracking her guilty steps as she rushed farther and farther from the fold, but He ceased not "until He found her;" and when He had found her, He laid her on His shoulders rejoicing, saying "Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep which was lost!"\par \par The) Pharisees' axiom (and still the creed and verdict of many) is\emdash "God can have no dealing with such vile sinners." He can\emdash He does! Remember, it is not the Sinner He hates, but Sin. He loves the sinner. He gave His Son to die for the sinner, to show how He loves him! What other proof of this do we need when we have the Cross of Calvary? "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Him and live." If you are saying now, as you contemplate that picture of anguished Penite*nce and Redeeming Love, "Would it were the same with me!" I answer unhesitatingly, "It may be the same; with God's grace it shall be the same! Come! you whose sins are of the deepest dye\emdash the memories of the past, memories of guilt and loathing and self-reproach\emdash your hearts restless and anguished as you stoop over the dark abyss; put this picture before your mental eye\emdash keep it there\emdash hang it upon your heart-walls\emdash ponder it in your hours of conviction and your hours of desp+air\emdash suspend it above your death-pillows, and write under it as its name and inscription\emdash 'Where sin abounded GRACE did much more abound!'"\par \par Learn that toward Great Sinners there ought to be shown great tenderness. It is often not so with man. There is often a mean pleasure in spurning the transgressor from our presence\emdash recalling the memory of sin\emdash loading with cutting rebuke and upbraidings\emdash when a kind word and kind act might reclaim from the paths of vic,e and soothe a shattered and a broken heart!\par \par Yes, I fearlessly say it, there is often a harsh unwillingness to make allowance for circumstances\emdash for the power of temptation and the seductions of a guilty world. How often is this the case with the wretched outcasts of whom the woman in the text is the type! Society frowns on them (that we dare not blame); but is there to be left no room for repentance and for tears? If another such weeping Magdalene, as in the text, is to implore a- kind look, after years of anguished penitence, are these tears to be cruelly mocked, and is she to turn her head to the grave as the only rest and resting-place for her woe? Is a brother to turn an erring sister from his gates? Can a parent read this story of redeeming mercy, and let the iron enter deeper into the heart of his penitent and exiled child?\par \par Yet how often is it so, and this all the while (oh! the cruel and base injustice of public morality)\emdash while the man\emdash the b.ase seducer\emdash who murdered the peace of innocent households, and brought a father and mothers' gray hairs in sorrow to the grave\emdash while he is permitted to strut unbranded on the world's highway! The world's doors are open to him\emdash the lounges of fashion he can frequent\emdash he can clasp still the young hand of virtue, and whirl with it in the giddy dance; the victims of his sin meanwhile left to pine in brokenhearted misery\emdash unwept for\emdash unsolaced! One's heart burns with indig/nation at the hollow baseness of this too truthful picture of what is called "fashionable life." I ask you whether should that deserted woman, shivering in the ragged tatters of poverty in her wretched garret, or her destroyer, moving amid the lights and halls of luxury\emdash whether is that poor, broken-down, battered flower, with its soiled and withered leaves, or he who has crushed its young tendrils under foot, and left it to rot and consume in the delirium of despair\emdash which of these two is mos0t hated in the sight of God\emdash which of these two ought to be most branded in the eye of man?\par \par You may remember another similar Victim of guilt and shame hurried into the presence of Christ. Her cruel-hearted accusers were all loud in her condemnation; until Jesus, by a personal appeal to their consciences silenced their clamor, and pronounced the milder verdict\emdash "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." Let us come to this Parable-picture, and learn a lesson of tendernes1s to the erring. Learn it from Him who is our great Example. "He will not break the bruised reed\emdash He will not quench the smoking flax." We have often truly reason to say "Let me not fall into the hands of man." But we have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. To every weeping, broken-hearted Penitent, lying low at His cross and casting the burden of sin there, He says, "I will be merciful to your unrighteousness; your sins and your iniquities will I rememb2er no more!"\par \par III. Learn that from Great Sinners God expects great gratitude and love.\par \par This Woman's sins, which were many, were "all forgiven," and, as a consequence, "'she loved much." We must not, from all I have said, be tempted to infer that Christ in any degree winks at sin. The stupendous journey He undertook from the heights of glory to the depths of humiliation refutes at once the thought! If sin, great or small, were a trivial thing in the eye of God, do you t3hink that He would have exacted a penalty of such untold anguish from the Son of His love? Equally abhorrent must be the thought of continuing in sin because such grace abounds. Would not this be to represent a holy God as the great Patron of iniquity? Would it not be to make the entire Incarnation work one gigantic effort to relax the penalties of the law, and let the transgressor violate it with impunity? We repel the thought, as Paul repelled it, with an indignant "God forbid!"\par \par Let t4hose who have been thus graciously forgiven, and "forgiven much"\emdash who by the free grace and tender mercy of God have had such a full, free, everlasting remission extended to them\emdash let such show by holy living and holy acting\emdash by contrition and humility, by kindness and gentleness and unselfishness, by love to God and love to man\emdash the depth of their gratitude to Him who has dealt with them as the tenderest earthly father never dealt with his dearest and fondest child. This lowly Pen5itent in the text, as she crouches tremblingly and lovingly at the feet of Jesus, with the mingled remembrance of great guilt and great forgiveness, lavishes upon Him her best! She may have had nothing else to offer. The sole treasure of a wretched home, she plucked from her bosom and poured its fragrant contents on the feet of her pilgrim Redeemer!\par \par She seems to speak to every crimson and scarlet Transgressor, who, heart-sick with sin\emdash stricken down by the terrors of the law\emdas6h the truths of the second death\emdash the dreadful other world\emdash has rushed to the only Ark of safety, the sheltering Covert for the weary and heavy laden! She seems to say, "Give Him\emdash oh! give Him not the crumbs and dregs, not the sweepings and remnants of 'a worn and withered love,' but let your tribute offering be, to the full measure of your ability, commensurate with the magnitude of that forgiving mercy which has borne the mighty load away into a land of oblivion!"\par \par Re7ader! Is the sweet music of that word now falling on your ear\emdash "Sinner! your sins are forgiven?" Grace has called you!\emdash Love has redeemed you! Blood has washed you! Peace is bequeathed to you! Heaven is before you! Be it yours to reply, "Lord! I am Yours! My love to You\emdash that cold callous thing which we call love\emdash is but as a drop in the ocean of Your tenderness. But here I am! Take me, use me for Your glory! This body, long a dark, desecrated shrine, full of loathsome pollution, s8anctify it as a Temple to Your praise. This soul, that has been long groveling in the dust, wallowing in the mire of its earthliness and sin, bring back to it the lost image and lineaments of Your great Self! This life, this existence reclaimed by you from the blank chaos of death and despair\emdash oh! let it be one never-ending thank-offering of gratitude to Him who has 'loved me with an everlasting love.'\par \par And Death!\emdash when that solemn moment draws near, which I once shuddered to name\emdash 'MY death!'\emdash let it be the sweet triumph-hour of a spirit at peace with its God! As I confront the once dreaded water-floods, let me hear the old word which on earth I loved so well. Let me hear it come floating across the dark billows, glorious with the new impress and meaning of Heaven; yet still spoken by Him who died, that to me and for me He might utter it, as He stands beckoning on the heavenly Shore, "Come to me, weary one, and I will give you rest!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } UA06 Three Portraits{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THREE PORTRAITS\par \par "Pilgrim! burdened with your sin,\par Come the way to Zion's gate;\par There, till mercy shut you in,\par Knock, and weep,;ever-watchful foe\par This holy seed remove,\par But give it root in every heart\par To bring forth fruits of love.\par Let not the world's deceitful cares\par The living Word destroy,\par But let it yield a hundredfold\par Of peace and faith and joy."\par \par "Behold, a farmer went out to sow his seed." Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8\par \par We have until now been engaged mainly in witnessing our Lord's miracles of power, or< in listening to His utterances of mercy and compassion on the shores of the Galilean Sea. We have, in the present chapter, a remarkable specimen of a favorite method, which often and again on subsequent occasions He adopted, in unfolding the mysteries of His kingdom\emdash that is, teaching BY PARABLE.\par \par The Treasure-house of Creation is taken to interpret the doctrines of Grace\emdash Pictures hung in the outer world, and on which the eye of Jew and Gentile had gazed a thousand times, u=nconscious of their containing any spiritual suggestions, are transferred by Him to the walls of the Gospel Temple, and there pointed to by the Lord of both kingdoms as illustrators of Divine truths. The hills and fields, the corn and trees, the flowers and waters, are employed as exponents of heavenly verities. The ordinary lessons of His kingdom, indeed, and especially warnings to the obdurate and impenitent, are still to be conveyed in the old familiar vehicle of plain unvarnished language. He arrays t>he startling judgment truths of the preceding chapter, in Matthew, in no mystic drapery. He attempts no proverb when exposing the guilt of hypocrites and announcing their doom. But when He would unfold the "secrets" of His kingdom, He puts "apples of gold in pictures of silver." He adopts a cycle of parabolic emblems to instruct His Church until the end of time.\par \par The first Four were spoken from a fishing-boat to a vast throng assembled by the seaside. The remaining three were uttered imm?ediately afterwards to the disciples in a private house in Capernaum. Beautiful is the unity, and most natural the sequence, of these seven vivid similitudes, in that parable-chapter\emdash beginning with the incipient act of the Kingdom, the "Sower sowing the Seed," and ending with the emptying of the Draw-net\emdash fetching the Redeemed multitudes, at the time of consummation, home to the heavenly shore.\par \par It is the opening one of the series, the Parable of the Sower, which alone we sh@all consider, as a specimen of the others. "Is there anything on the spot to suggest the image thus conveyed?" "So," says a recent traveler, "I asked, as I rode along the track under the hillside by which the Plain of Gennesaret is approached. So I asked at the moment, seeing nothing but the steep sides of the hill alternately of rock and grass. And when I thought of the Parable of the Sower, I answered that here, at least, was nothing on which the Divine teaching could fasten; it must have been the distaAnt corn-fields of Samaria or Esdraelon on which Christ's mind was dwelling. The thought had hardly occurred to me when a slight recess in the hillside, close upon the plain, disclosed at once in detail, and with a conjunction which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature of the Great Parable. There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water's edge! There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or edge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on Beither side of it, or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse and mule and human feet. There was the good rich soil which distinguishes the whole of that plain, and its neighborhood, from the bare hills elsewhere descending into the lake, and which, where there is no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hillside protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn\emdash thatC kind of which tradition says the Crown of Thorns was woven\emdash springing up, like the fruit trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat."\par \par As we have good reason to infer that, in the closing parable of the series, the figure of a draw-net was suggested by the sight of some Gennesaret fishermen discharging their cargo at the moment on the shore, so the Parable we are now to consider was probably suggested by what the eye of our blessed Redeemer beheld as He Dthen gazed from the fishing boat along the fertile plain.\par \par We can realize the spectacle\emdash (at that season and spot so natural)\emdash a Sower in early spring scattering his handfuls of grain in the upturned furrow. Birds from sea and mountain are screaming around his head, tracking his steps and picking up the stray grains which the harrow had missed, or which had been tossed on the hardened foot-road. It was a fertile text for His opening similitude\emdash "behold, a farmer went ouEt to sow his seed!"\par \par Before proceeding to the parable itself, let us advert for a moment to the Sower and the Seed. We cannot for an instant hesitate in determining that the Sower was, in the first instance, Christ Himself, and the Seed those great gospel truths which He came from heaven to implant in the hearts of man. Moreover, from the diverse soils, spoken of in the Parable, on which the seed was cast, it is evident that one of the fundamental lessons intended to be therein set forthF is\emdash that God sows everywhere\emdash that He wills that "all should come to the knowledge of the truth." As in that wondrous and beautiful Panorama of natural scenery stretching before the Savior's eye in the land of Gennesaret, there was every variety of soil, from the mountain sward and the thin rocky layer to the loam of the valley, so, in the world of human hearts and homes, was there every variety of condition and rank, disposition and character.\par \par But the Sower was to "sow besGide all waters"\emdash He, the glorious Sun, was to shine alike on palace and cottage\emdash on rich and poor\emdash on learned and despised. The gospel was to be preached to every creature! No waste so barren as to forbid the Spiritual Husbandman's labor\emdash no rocky heart so hard as to be passed despairingly and unheeded by. If the scattered seed, thus so extravagantly cast, bore no produce, the fault was not God's\emdash the shortcoming rested not with the Sower but with the ungracious soil of the hHuman heart. He would have none to perish unwarned; His gospel is preached "as a witness to all nations;" mighty to save, in the case of those who meekly and lovingly receive it, but through the perversity of those who reject it, mighty also to condemn.\par \par While Jesus, however, is the Great Sower, He has confided the scattering of the seed\emdash the preaching of His holy word\emdash to human instrumentality. "It has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe."\paIr \par This parable forms a picture of every congregation of Christ's people, gathered on His own Day, throughout the world. The living and breathing souls gathered within the walls of the sanctuary, constitute the four diverse soils in the human Landscape\emdash the Hardened footpath; the Rocky covering; the Thorny ground; the Honest soil. The Servant of God\emdash the spiritual Husbandman\emdash in His name scatters the seed, all in ignorance where it falls, how it is received, what is rooted,J what is lost, what is rejected, what is germinating! He cannot tell what is the result. But another there is who CAN\emdash who does!\par \par Yes! it is a solemn view to take of this great reality\emdash that as we are assembled in the house of prayer, Christ Himself is gazing upon us! He, the Great Sower and Master Husbandman (no longer in His garb of humiliation on the shores of an earthly lake, but from His throne in glory), is gazing down on the multitudes of immortal beings gathered SabbaKth after Sabbath in His house of prayer. We may think little of the solemnity of such meetings; we may view with indifference the scattering of this Sabbath seed. He does NOT! As the Sabbath-bell tolls, He hushes the songs of ministering seraphim; echoing his old Gennesaret text in their hearing\emdash as if souls lost or souls saved were the result of every sanctuary convocation, "behold, a farmer goes out to sow!"\par \par Let us, attend, then, in their order, to the FOUR different classes of Lhearers specified by our Blessed Lord in this parable. We shall speak of the first two in the present chapter, and reserve the consideration of the two latter for a subsequent one. Observe, in all the four, it is the same Sower, the same Seed, the same Season. The effects alone are different, arising from the diverse soil and condition of the human heart.\par \par I. There are the WAYSIDE HEARERS. "As he was scattering the seed, some fell by the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the airM ate it up."\par \par Some corn seeds are here represented as falling on the hard beaten path in the center of the field used by foot-passengers, or where the wagons of traffic or the carts of the husbandmen were in the habit of going. It was crushed under the feet of the one, or bruised under the wheels of the other.\par \par Significant picture this, of the hearts of many hearers! The seed of the Word is scattered by the preacher's hand, but it falls on hearts hard as the beaten paveNment. Around, furrows may be opening and inviting its entrance, but no crevice is there, in these adamant souls! The proclamation of the law in its terrors, or the gospel with its blessings, is like the winter winds or the summer sun, beating on the graves of the churchyard: the dead hear not the one and feel not the other. This first class of Hearers come, indeed, to the House of God. They hear the Word; they are church-goers if they are nothing else. They must have a religion of some kind. To be churchlOess, would compromise them in society; it would brand them in the world of fashionable profession. They must come, because others come. The trumpet-peal of custom is their Sabbath-bell. They could not enjoy their sins and follies but for this miserable blinder to the world, this wretched opiate to their consciences. But, as to all that is spoken or heard (if heard at all), they are utterly callous. They do not perceive the yawning chasm of their souls' deep necessities. They have no depressing consciousnePss of their lost condition, or of the magnitude of unseen eternal realities. As they sit in their pews, their thoughts are all in the world; they fold their arms and lapse into one of its dreamy reveries. Imagination becomes the hard-beaten footway of the text.\par \par Up comes the wagon of Pleasure, filled with the withered, faded garlands of last week's follies and gaieties, its lusts and sins, and the anticipations of fresh ones!\par \par This wagon past, another presents itself: iQt is that of Business, lumbering along with its noisy, deafening wheels. The past week's gains and losses, its happy hits, its vexatious blunders, its clever tricks and successful advantage-takings; perhaps, conjoined with these, the daring ventures and wild schemes of a desperate future\emdash on it comes, these dizzy wheels of traffic crushing underneath them all thoughts of the soul, of holiness, of death, of judgment, of eternity!\par \par This wagon past, in some adjoining pew a fevered braRin sees yet another toiling up the hardened road, heavier laden still than the others! It is Mammon with his smoking team, pushing on with his bags of gold, fearful of every rut in the way lest it may jolt his treasure, and leave some glittering coin rolling in the dust. And yet, though a wagon-load heaped high, all his thoughts are on filling it higher still, though this only increases the chances of jolting and loss! Yet on it comes; the precious seed is scattered, but the iron wheels grind it to powderS, pulverizing into dust that which is of value infinitely greater than thousands of such gold and silver!\par \par These wheels, observe, every time they pass, are making harder still the way, lessening the chance of the seed germinating, giving to the heart more of the consistency of the rock and granite than before. Oh! how many hearts thus become, in the very sanctuary, a beaten thoroughfare for worldly schemes, and pleasures, and pursuits, and interests, and devices. They have no serious vieTws about God or religion. They do not feel that they stand in any relation to the seed sown. If the truth were spoken plainly out, it is an intrusion, all this preaching, and praying, and church-going. If it were not for 'appearance sake', they would be done with it.\par \par Their Religion at best is a mere piece of formality, a grand illusion. If you speak to them of holiness, they will say, "It is all a pretense." If you speak to them of conversion, they will call it an enthusiast's or fanatiUc's dream. If you speak to them of death and hell, they will turn uneasy on their seats, and say, "We don't want to hear of such things just now." In one word, they have no personal interest or concern in all that is spoken\emdash "As a deaf adder, they hear not;" and amid a thousand other things that may be flitting to and fro in the chambers of their memory, God is really and truly "not in all their thoughts."\par \par At times, indeed, in spite of themselves, the barbed arrow will strike themV; conscience will speak and their spirits tremble, and who knows but that despised seed, lying forgotten on the surface of their adamant heart, might in due time grapple with the ungenial soil and spring up.\par \par But, another Foe is at hand. If the foot of business or the wheels of worldliness fail to mutilate and crush, there is a great "counter-worker" of the Sower, who in the parable is represented as casting his dark shadow over the moral landscape. "Then comes the Wicked One, and catcheWs away that which was sown in his heart." Satan the arch-robber\emdash Apollyon "the Destroyer," is keeping his watchful eye on the scattered seed. If the wagon passes it unscathed, he has other means at hand for preventing its growth.\par \par As our Lord, in looking towards the sower in Gennesaret, probably saw a flock of motley birds circling around him, and darting down to secure every stray grain which lay exposed on the road; so Satan, the "Prince of the power of the air," lets loose on thXe soul, birds of prey that pick up every spiritual seed. Some grains may have fallen into the ruts of memory, others into the sacred crevices of conscience; but a horde of winged thoughts, evil desires, corrupt passions, idle trifles, come sweeping down suddenly, and leave the heart bared and forsaken!\par \par The corn grains of impression may be lying on the heart of the hearer when the parting blessing is pronounced, and he rises from his seat to retire from the House of God. But crossing theY threshold, the old familiar world is there again, with its blue, or hazy, or wintry sky, as the case may be. There has been enough of serious talk in church. In five minutes or less, he is back again to the old starting-point\emdash the absorbing topics of the day. These seem now invested with all-engrossing reality. If some stray grain be still left, it is not allowed long to linger; any startling thought, any rousing or solemn impression is erased like the rippled sand-marks by the first rising tide.\pZar \par Ah, how great are the devices\emdash the "depths of Satan!" He has been studying that heart of man, with its beaten footways, for 6000 years! Every year he is profiting by past experience. How terrible to think that he makes the very House of God his whispering-gallery; that into its sacred precincts\emdash the very Holy of holies\emdash or into the secret chamber of devotion\emdash sweep his accursed legions to rob the soul of the Salvation so dearly purchased and so freely offered!\par[ \par Do not be ignorant of his devices! He employs thoughts; wandering, flighty, winged fancies, as his Birds of prey\emdash in themselves apparently harmless, but potent enough to pillage the heart of its best treasures. It matters not to him what the instrumentality is, if he only succeeds in abstracting the mind from grander realities\emdash if the thoughts of Eternal realities be only kept in abeyance.\par \par Beware of a wandering heart in the Sanctuary, leaving the seed to fall\ neglected and uncared for! If Israel of old left the manna ungathered when it fell, it melted away; it was shriveled in the sun's rays; the day's supply was forfeited, and nothing could compensate for the loss. Seek to remember, Sabbath after Sabbath, as you take your places in the courts of the Lord, that you cannot leave as you entered; that the seed then sown must have a bearing on your eternity; that the gospel then preached must be either the "savor of life unto life," or "of death unto death!" "Do ]not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." "This, then, is he who received seed by the wayside."\par \par II. We turn now to the second class spoken of in the parable: The STONY-GROUND HEARERS. "And some fell," says Luke, "upon rocky soil, and as soon as it was sprung up, i^t withered away, because it lacked moisture." The parallel passage in Matthew is, "Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The plants sprang up quickly, but they soon wilted beneath the hot sun and died because the roots had no nourishment in the shallow soil."\par \par By what is here called "stony places," we are not to understand fragments of loose rock or stone, into the crevices or interstices of which the seed fell; for if so, it might have found its way to the soil below, a_nd in spite of the impediments and darkness that obstructed and dwarfed its growth, it might have struggled upwards to the air and sunlight, and gathered strength by the very difficulties it had to encounter. By "stony places," our Lord intends rather one of those manifold rocks abutting into the plain of Gennesaret and fringing its rich corn-fields, on which there was a thin layer or deposit of soil, sufficient to conceal the naked stone, but not sufficient to afford nutriment to bring the seed to perfec`tion. The present, however, is unlike the previous description of the Wayside-seed. There, the grain was either trampled under foot, or carried away by marauding birds. But here, it springs up; and moreover, it does so "quickly," "with joy." There is a marvelously rapid growth. While in the rich soil around, the germinating seed has not burst its clod, and no flush of green is visible, the grain on the rocky knoll is shooting upwards with premature vigor, and giving promise of speedy perfection.\par \para But, the discerning eye of the Husbandman knows better! It is an unhealthy vitality; it cannot strike its fibers downwards into the adamant stone: "It has no depth of soil"\emdash no root, no moisture. The underlying rock, by the heat which it retains, may warm the superincumbent soil, and thus act as a rapid stimulant to the seed. But, soonest green, it is soonest decayed; it is stalk-growth, nothing more. The, blazing sun sends down its fiery rays, the mushroom plant droops, and withers, and dbies!\par \par This is a truthful picture of a new, and, at first sight, a more promising set of Hearers. "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that hears the word and immediately with joy receives it: yet has he no root in himself, but endures for a while, for when tribulation or persecution arises for the word's sake, by and by he is offended." "The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places," says Luke, "is the man who hears the word and at once receives it withc joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away."\par \par They represent that class of hearers in our churches who are susceptible to strong and lively emotions. Not like the preceding class, who are careless and apathetic, they enjoy a preached Gospel. They are easily stirred under its urgent messages. As the ambassador of Christ scatters his seed, and discourses of man's responsibility\emdash the certaintdy of judgment\emdash the awfulness of the second death\emdash their spirits thrill under the startling averments; resolutions of new obedience are formed\emdash they leave the church with a tear in their eye and the iron in their soul. But then, it is all surface work\emdash superficial, shallow impression. It has sprung up under the stimulating heat of excitement, and expends itself in emotional feeling. The underlying proud rocky heart, apparently more influenced and impressed, is really harder than thee beaten footpath representing the former class. The roots have taken no vital grasp\emdash they are spreading\emdash and straggling along the upper layer of profession\emdash they have no hold on the inner deeps of the man's being\emdash the heart remains unconverted as before.\par \par They are the class spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, "So they come pretending to be sincere and sit before you listening. But they have no intention of doing what I tell them. They express love with their mouths,f but their hearts seek only after money. You are very entertaining to them, like someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice or plays fine music on an instrument. They hear what you say, but they don't do it!" In one word, theirs is a religion of smiles and sunbeam\emdash a summer walk, all prosperous so long as no dreary cloud sweeps across their landscape. But when trial comes\emdash when they are brought to know the great truth, "no cross, no crown"\emdash that the Religious life is no sailing gdown the current, but a breasting of the waters\emdash a denial of self\emdash a struggle with corruption\emdash a parting with loved sins; when brought face to face with some strong temptation, the grappling with some vile temper, the resistance of some viler lust\emdash ah! whenever this Sun of trial and tribulation rises, the precocious promise turns out to be a mockery. Their soul shrivels into the old lifeless thing it always was. Their Religion is based on no solid principle: it is like the fretful htreacherous ocean\emdash the ruffle is only on the surface, underneath is the deep calm of death!\par \par Of this class we have many Scripture examples. Take one. Demas had been a faithful disciple of Paul; he had loved his noble master; he had enjoyed his faithful preaching; he had accompanied him in his journeys, and taken a share in the proclamation of his gospel. But in later times, Persecution arrests the apostle in his labors. Old and infirm, he is cast into the prison in the Roman capitail. If ever he needed the hand and voice of earthly friendship, it was now\emdash to smooth his pillow of straw and speak peace to his downcast spirit! But Demas (faithful in prosperity) turns traitor and coward in adversity. The sun of trial and fierce tribulation arises "for the word's sake."\emdash The leaves of a lifetime fail. Scorched and withered and blighted, his lonely master has to utter through sorrowing tears, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world!"\par \par Beware ojf this superficial Religion\emdash this Religion of frames and feelings and strong impulses. Nothing that is superficial lasts. The superficial house will soon totter to its foundations: the superficial book will fret its little hour before its author and itself are consigned to oblivion: the superficial student may acquire a surface-talk on everything, and be full of youthful promise; but when launched into the world, he will soon find that nothing will stand but the deep, the solid, the real. So it is wkith the religious Life. No evanescent emotions dare come in place of real heart-change. Do not allow mere impressions to evaporate before they issue in saving conversion. The impressions made by a rousing sermon are no more real Religion, than the hearing of a salvo of artillery on a review-day might be called fighting.\par \par That is real religion which can be carried with you into your families\emdash your business\emdash the coarse contacts and toiling drudgeries of life\emdash that can stalnd unscathed in the whirlwind of temptation, trial only leading you nearer God\emdash like the flower long imprisoned in the dark dungeon, but whose roots are watered by some hidden kindly spring, and which, when the iron doors are opened, turns its leaves joyously and lovingly to the sunlight.\par \par This our age has in it, we fear, much affinity with the second class spoken of in the Parable. Surface-work\emdash in all things, is its distinguishing characteristic. Frivolous gaieties are too moften the layer on which its very religion grows. Souls\emdash selfish souls covered over with the wreck and debris of worldliness\emdash come and sit in our churches to get their share of the Sabbath-seed. Saturday evening has closed over scenes of giddy pleasures. Weary and jaded, they come to a new scene of mental excitement, to indulge in a new class of feverish emotions in the house of God. The reaction is not displeasing. Heart-sick, it may be, with the week's frivolities, wearied in body and mind\enmdash they sit with complacency to hear of their sins; they heave some sighs over their follies; they feel that they have been mocked in their pursuit of pleasure, and as they listen to the sublime lessons\emdash the hopes\emdash the promises\emdash the joys of the Gospel\emdash a tear starts in their eye, and a pang visits their souls. The Seed of promise seems for the moment to have taken root and sprung. But soon Monday treads on the heels of Sabbath-hours and Sabbath-resolutions. From the ballroom to othe church, from the church to the ballroom. The world's sun is up again in the horizon. The giddy soul rushes afresh, headlong into temptation. Amid the smiles and frowns of that withering world the sickly leaves pine and die!\par \par Seek to avoid anything and everything that tends to foster this life of cold indurating selfishness\emdash the life of Pleasure which is a life of death. This life of mere Sabbath religion and weekly godlessness is one of dreadful peril. It deceives the soul. It pmakes you believe there is a merit in coming to church, and in sowing the seed on the rock of weekly selfishness, though it withers before evening has gathered around you its shadows.\par \par Better, you may say, a withered stalk than none at all. Better these few Sabbath sighs and tears and pious excitement than treading the seed under foot, and denying it all entrance into the memory or heart. Oh! has it come to this, that a few pitiful sighs and tears and emotions on Sunday, are to purchase qabsolution for a week's frivolity and sin\emdash as if, by wearing this garment of Sabbath sackcloth, you could, with greater impunity, during the week, wear "the garment spotted by the flesh?" You are thereby only throwing a sop to an accusing conscience. You are ruining the Good Seed, which might have been cast with advantage on other and kindlier soil. You are resting satisfied with the husk and shell of Religion, despising its kernel. You are blinding your own eyes to the fact which the great Harvest-rtime of the world will force on you, that you are contenting yourself with "a name to live while you are spiritually dead."\par \par It is a terrible thing thus to be sowing to the wind and reaping the whirlwind\emdash to be forfeiting and abusing opportunities, and causing the very Ordinances of God to aggravate alike your guilt and condemnation. Even your very afflictions will be unsanctified. If the Seed had sunk into a good soil, when the sun of trial pours down its rays, its heat would noursish and foster it. But that seed, falling on "a rock-bed of selfishness"\emdash on the thin layer of soil besprinkling a godless heart\emdash look! when affliction arises, the heat only scorches and burns, embittering the pangs of the evil day. Like fabled Icarus soaring aloft on his waxen wings\emdash borne upwards for a time on the breezes of prosperity\emdash when you come to face the fiery Sun\emdash the wings melt, and you fall powerless to the earth.\par \par Reader! while the hypocrite's hope shall perish, seek to be so rooted in the faith\emdash grounded in the love of Christ, that when the great trial-hour shall come\emdash when the branch shall be stripped of its verdure\emdash "the beautiful rod" broken and, as in the vision of the Apocalypse, "all the green grass burnt up"\emdash it may be yours exulting, in the precious seed that has fallen deep into your hearts, to say, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever."\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } TT<q07 The Sower and the Seed (part 1){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE SOWER AND THE SEED (part 1)\par \par "Oft as Your word, O God, is cast,\par Like seed into the ground,\par Let the rich dews of heaven descend,\par And righteous fruits abound.\par Let not the :vnd.\par You cannot toil in vain\emdash\par Cold, heat, and moist, and dry,\par Shall foster and mature the grain\par For garners in the sky.\par And duly shall appear\par In beauty, verdure, strength,\par The tender blade, the stalk, the ear,\par And the full corn at length."\par \par "Listen to what the parable of the sower means." Matt. 13:18; Mark 4; Luke 8.\par \par In the preceding chapter, our attention was dwirected to two classes in the Parable of the Sower\emdash the Wayside and Stony-ground hearers. We shall proceed to consider the two remaining soils our Lord here describes\emdash the Thorny and the Good ground.\par \par The third class He speaks of are the THORNY-GROUND HEARERS. "Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants." "The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness ofx wealth choke it, making it unfruitful."\par \par The Seed, you observe here, takes root\emdash it penetrates more deeply than in either of the preceding cases. The soil was no longer the superficial layer on the top of the rock; if justice had been done to it, the result must have been an ample produce. But the good seed was "strangled" by rival occupants. Thorns were there\emdash not thorns already grown and covering the surface, but old uneradicated roots, which, at the insertion of the seed,y may have shown no vestige above ground, but which, before long, began to push upwards in their former strength. Being the stronger of the two, indigenous to the soil\emdash old possessors\emdash they soon proved more than a match for the tiny stalks of grain, strangling them with their prickly branches; (literally, "they went in between the wheat, and choked it.")\par \par The evil was twofold: the thorns drew that nutriment from the soil which otherwise the germinating seed would have approprizated. There was room for one, but not for both. The sap that would have sent its vivifying juices up the stalk of corn, expended itself mainly on the stronger rival. The corn plant grew up, therefore, a dwarfed and sickly thing from the exhausted and impoverished soil.\par \par But there was another evil entailed by these thorny occupants of the ground\emdash they hid the sunlight. Their thick bristling boughs (thicker than the thorns in our country) interrupted and intercepted the two great sup{ports of vegetable life\emdash air and sunshine. Thus, though some of the corn stalks shot up, struggling into existence in spite of these impediments, what did it matter? The ear was hollow\emdash the fruit worthless. The reaper's sickle passed them by untouched. They were but mockeries of his toil; they would only encumber his barn; or, if mixed with other grain, injure and detract from its quality.\par \par Here is the third picture of the hearers of the word. The Seed of immortal truth finds| deep lodgment in their memories and hearts. The great requirements of the soul\emdash the great questions of eternity are, for a while at least, no superficial matters. They feel the momentous interests at stake. They sit in breathless and arrested solemnity under the proclamation of the gospel They like faithful preaching. They are not as the former class, who would take offence at bold statements; who warn their ministers to lower their standard lest they leave their church; who try to cajole their spi}ritual teachers into that greatest snare\emdash preaching smooth things.\par \par They relish the full and gracious unfolding of the plan of Redemption. Christ crucified they are willing to take as the sole "power of God unto salvation." But soon a great and crying evil develops itself at the very root of their spiritual being. Unmortified habits and tastes and propensities, for a while muffled and concealed, begin to manifest their presence and power in the soil of the heart. Religion springs u~p\emdash but, look! it is a dwarfed and mangled thing; for side by side with it there are old and vicious principles and practices. These, like the Thorns, are of spontaneous growth\emdash natural to the heart; while the Word, like the corn-seed, is an exotic. The newborn principle has no chance with the old veteran owners of the soil; spiritual things have to wage an unequal conflict with those of the earth, earthy; and what is the result?\emdash the life of godliness is eaten out and consumed\emdash the soul "brings forth no fruit to perfection"\emdash Satan's devices within the heart are more mischievous and more fatal than his troop of birds from outside\emdash and "the last state of this man is worse than the first."\par \par Our Blessed Lord leaves us in no doubt as to what is meant by these thorns. He tells us they are "the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth." These monster impediments have been rightly regarded as the two great, though diverse causes, of spiritual declension and decay\emdash and both in equal antagonism to the soul's progress.\par \par "The Cares of the world"\emdash the poor man's birthright of poverty\emdash the weekly and daily struggle with oppression and scarcity\emdash living, as he often does, from hand to mouth\emdash an unprovided morrow forecasting its dark shadows upon him, and blinding his soul to its nobler destinies\emdash with so many things to be anxious and troubled about in this world, that the one thing needful is kept in abeyance and thrust into a corner. His family\emdash his house-rent\emdash his trade\emdash his merchandise\emdash his daily toil\emdash these are the bristling thorns that are overmastering better thoughts, and better times, and better resolutions. When he started on his journey\emdash fresh from a mother's prayers\emdash the precious seed seemed to have taken thorough root; but life, with its feverish anxieties and cankering cares, has eaten out the memory of a parent's sacred words and admonitions. The footpath to the place of prayer is choked with entangling weeds. It was once a well-beaten path, but the thorn and the nettle, in wild luxuriance, tell the too truthful story of a knee unbent\emdash prayer neglected\emdash God forgotten!\par \par The other and opposite cause of strangling the seed is the "Deceitfulness of wealth." The Poor man's spiritual life is choked with needless cares\emdash poverty staring him in the face with its real or imagined evils. The Rich man is endangered and imperiled by the Deceitfulness of wealth.\par \par But mistake us not\emdash there is no necessary deceitfulness in Riches themselves. It would be a harsh thing if God poured affluence into a man's lap, and all the while was pouring a curse! It is not the mere fact of a man being a millionaire\emdash having bags of gold in his possession\emdash that brings him under the category of a Thorny-ground Hearer. When Christ says, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God," He means those who trust in riches\emdash who make riches their idol\emdash and clutch their gold as if it were the gate of heaven. The poor, lowly, miserable beggar, who has his hoarded pence sewed up in the rags he wears, or the rags he sleeps on, is destroying his soul as much with these "choking thorns" as the lordly Miser with his coveted thousands. The Wagon we have already spoken of, as crushing under its grinding wheels the seed scattered on the wayside, is as much a mammon-load whether a poor man sits hugging his bags of copper, or a wealthy king sits trembling amid his chests of gold.\par \par "The Greek word for riches is not riches absolutely as possessed, but riches desired." Avarice is a quality of mind\emdash a base principle of earth-born souls common to rich and poor\emdash to the Dives and the Lazarus\emdash in the extremes of society\emdash to the man eating his crust of bread, and the man wearing his purple and fine linen. But however this love of gold may develop itself, (whether in hurrying to be rich, or in the cursed ambition that, like a raging fever, has seized all men to pretend to be people of style and greatness beyond their rank\emdash amassing only for personal aggrandizement and selfish extravagance)\emdash when a man whose soul has been once fired with better things\emdash who was once feelingly alive to his spiritual necessities, and once drank in greedily the truths of the gospel\emdash when that man surrenders himself to the tyranny of these lusts, allowing them to twist their roots round the very nerves and sinews of his being, either for the wretched pleasure of living miserly, or living and dying a prodigal spendthrift\emdash what more appropriate description could be given of the ruinous deceitfulness of these riches than this, that the good seed "fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked it?"\par \par What a living protest have we in these "Thorny ground hearers"\emdash this third class in the parable, against the great crying sin of our day\emdash the rock on which vessels freighted with immortality are weekly wrecked and foundering! Men of promise and high aspirations\emdash men even of religious training and religious profession\emdash become seized with the accursed thirst for gold\emdash bartering health, morals, principle, social ties, life itself, in this demon-scramble. The cold-blooded murders, and villain plunderings of the street and the highway, perpetrated by the dregs of society, are not one whit more heinous in the sight of God, than are the polished counterparts of social and individual baseness, where the betrayal of high trust, or the delirium of wild speculation, has embittered the widow's tears, defrauded the orphan of his bread, and left happy firesides stripped and desolate. Well did He who knew the human heart denounce "covetousness" as "idolatry."\par \par Depend upon it, God will visit our land and our time with judgment, if this usurping Dagon is not hurled from its throne. It is this mammon-spirit which, in the case of all ancient nations, formed the first symptom of decadence and decrepitude\emdash the first impelling wave which rose to a wild deluge of ruin. God keep us from the verge of this engulfing whirlpool, and tune our lips more to the music and spirit of the prayer of honest, contented, unostentatious frugality\emdash "Give me neither poverty nor riches\emdash feed me with food necessary for me!"\par \par And as the Deceitfulness of wealth is common alike to poor and rich, so would I add, that "the Worries of this life" must by no means be considered as spiritual hindrances peculiar to the poor. Alas! in every rank, in every station, these distracting, disquieting solicitudes are a injurious enemy of the soul's welfare. It is no light thing thus to allow the heart to be unduly engrossed with these earthly cares. Christ Himself includes them in a catalogue of great sins. Were you never struck with these words? "Be careful," says He, "or your hearts will be weighed down with careless ease and drunkenness." And what follows? is it the mention of some other low and groveling lust? Hear what He says, "careless ease and drunkenness, and filled with the worries of this life. Don't let that day catch you unaware."\par \par "The worries of this life" everyone must have. It would be an idle mockery to say, "Bury your cares! Cares and religion are incompatible. Let your family shift for themselves. Take no thought of tomorrow." This would be presumption; not faith. It would be fatalism, not trust. It would be the argument for the selfish isolation of the hermit's cell\emdash the sinful ignoring of life's duties\emdash the denial of the common debt due to the vast brotherhood of man. But be on your guard against excess of care, or unlawful care. It is the attribute of the worldly\emdash the unregenerate\emdash that they "mind earthly things." They are grovelers. Their souls "cleave to the dust," instead of soaring heavenwards. They are content with the prodigal's portion in the far country, when they might have been guests at their Father's ample table and joyous home.\par \par You will carefully observe that the great evil of the Thorny ground Hearers was, that they were content to let the seed fall in an unprepared heart. By a blunder in spiritual husbandry, they had neglected to root out latent principles of evil, which afterwards rose with giant growth, and crushed and mangled every stalk of spiritual promise. The contending thorns and seed illustrate, by parabolic figure, a former saying of Christ, "No man can serve two masters;" "You cannot serve God and mammon." I repeat what I have already said\emdash no soil has sufficient sap to mature both thorns and grain\emdash the presence and growth of the one must inevitably alienate the vital juices and nutriment that would otherwise have contributed to the strength and growth of the other. It can bear wheat, or it can bear thorns, but it has not the productive power to bear the two. So it is in the spiritual field. You cannot have your crop of sin and your fruits of righteousness. You cannot live both for time and eternity. By seeking to retain both worlds, you lose both.\par \par See that every root of bitterness likely hereafter to spring up and trouble you be eradicated; all idle frivolities\emdash all guilty pleasures\emdash all occupations of doubtful propriety likely to dislodge God from the heart. By indulging in these, you are willfully stripping yourselves of gospel blessings. You are shackling yourselves so as to be unable to stoop to the joyous fountain gushing at your feet, and to partake of its living stream.\par \par When you go to prayer, the key has gathered over it the rust of worldliness. It can no longer fit the lock. You kneel in your closets; but, the wheels of devotion, like those of Pharaoh's chariots, are taken off, or drag heavily. And then, what is the inevitable result? "A divided will, a half service, ever ends in the prevalence of evil over good." The half-hearted believer\emdash the border Christian\emdash the loiterer between the kingdoms of light and darkness\emdash spoken of in this third class, cannot linger long where he is; darkness gets the better of light\emdash conscience gets more and more drugged and stupified\emdash the upspringing seed goes from weakness to weakness\emdash the latent thorny corruptions from strength to strength!\par \par Now, in all these three classes of soils in the parable we have hitherto considered, there is a seeming and apparent progress to something better\emdash a nearer approach to the character of a true believer. But it is in semblance, not in reality. The guilt of the three may rather and more truthfully be taken in an inverse ratio from the order stated here\emdash the deep-rooted corruption of the heart manifesting itself with greater intensity at each advancing step. The beaten road\emdash then the rocky ground\emdash then, in spite of great promise and great privilege, the choking thorns. "The climax is apparently from bad to better. The first understand not. The second understand and feel. The third understand, feel, and practice. But in real order it is from bad to worse. Less dreadful is the state of those who understand not the word, and lose it immediately, than that of those who feel it, receive it with joy, and in time of trial fall away. Less dreadful, again, this last, than that of those who understand, feel, and practice, but are fruitless and impure." (Alford)\par \par We pass on now to the fourth and last class of Hearers.\par "Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop\emdash a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." We may take the explanation of this as given by Luke: "The seed on the good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop."\par \par We are arrested here by the question, What is the good heart? Is there anything in the natural soil of the human spirit entitled to be called honest or good? Is there any natural aptitude in the soul of man for receiving the seed of the kingdom?\par \par We answer, unhesitatingly, None, independent of the grace of God, and the vivifying, transforming, regenerating power of His Spirit. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." The preparation of the heart is from the Lord. "The soil is made receptive by a granted receptive power." It is His rain which softens the hardened path. It is His hammer which splinters the rock in pieces. It is His ploughshare which uproots the strangling thorns, and converts the wilderness into a well-watered garden.\par \par Moreover, the term "good" we are to take in a comparative and qualified sense. Alas! even after the Spirit of God has been at work, and the heart has been renewed, how much of the old man still remains! How much of nature still mingles with better purposes! "What will you see in the Shulamite? The company of two armies." The two opposing antagonist forces of grace and corruption\emdash the thorn still struggling to its old mastery, and the power of God alone keeping it down.\par \par There are two special characteristics here given of this good heart\emdash\par I. It is HONEST. The man is serious, when he seats himself in his pew and listens to the words of eternal life. It is no mere pleasant song he hears to beguile the passing hour. It is the great question of questions\emdash the theme which overshadows his whole eternity, and, makes all things here\emdash his business, his trade, his wealth his family\emdash look little indeed, poor trifles, in comparison with these peerless eternal realities!\par \par Let us seek to be serious. Earnestness is the great secret of success in worldly things. A man with no great natural gifts\emdash not above mediocrity in intellect\emdash if his soul be set upon some object or attainment, evincing earnestness, a fixedness of purpose, unity of action, and concentration of thought\emdash will secure the golden prize. From the boy mastering his task, to the hero taking a city, or the astronomer finding his planet, a dogged earnestness of purpose will eventually lead to triumphant results. So with spiritual things. "This ONE thing I do," is the great motto and maxim of the conquering Christian. Honestly yield yourselves up to this heavenly seed. "Keep it," as it is here said: do not allow the soiling contacts of the world to stifle its growth, but seek to "go on to perfection."\par \par 2. A second characteristic of the "good heart" here mentioned is, that "by persevering it produces a crop."\par \par It is not sentimental emotion\emdash lively frames, excitable feelings\emdash but it is living action, abiding permanent principle. It is one thing to feel\emdash another to act. A touching story in a newspaper-column\emdash a historical incident a thousand years old\emdash a spectacle of misery or poverty, seen in walking along the streets\emdash any or all of these may make me feel; but it is another thing to relieve need, to prove the good Samaritan, to bind up the wounds of the sufferer, and fill the mouths of the perishing. Unless feeling be thus expanded and developed into action, it is a useless thing. A man can weep over a romance novel, who never gave a farthing to an orphan, or who would see his fellow drowning and refuse to help him. So in spiritual things, a man may feel the truths of God's Word\emdash the story of Redeeming love may fill his eye\emdash he may listen with a glowing heart to denunciations of selfishness, to pictures of the beauties of holiness, and the happiness of doing good\emdash and yet it may all evaporate in mere sentiment, and he may go out of church the icicle he entered it, thawed for the moment into tears, but these congealed and frozen again, when he passes from the region of idealism into the realities of life.\par \par  Let it not be so with you. Let others "think" religion, or theorize on religion, or talk about religion, be it yours to live religion. It is not creeds, or party, or churchmanship that will save you. All the dogmatic theology of Christendom and its schools, will not save you. A dry, orthodox creed, or confession of faith, could as little insure the salvation of a soul, as a rule in Algebra, or a problem in Mathematics. Bring forth fruit! Be holy\emdash love God! Open the drooping leaves of your renewed natures to the gladsome sunlight. In one word\emdash "Do those things which are pleasing in His sight."\par \par This is the need\emdash the crying demand of our age\emdash a living Christianity\emdash Epistles of Christ that may be "known and read of all men." Presumptuous scoffers are there, who would dare to allege that the Bible is an antiquated book\emdash that its age is past and gone\emdash that it was well enough for the world or the Church in its infancy\emdash but the refinements of the present era demand something higher and better. Vain dreamers! Christians, if you who value your Bibles and prize their priceless worth, know that something better, something nobler, cannot be given; remember too, there is one volume (not a substitute, but an all important supplement), which you can produce to silence the gainsayer\emdash the volume of your Life\emdash a volume read by worldly and scoffing eyes, that scorn to read the Word of God. They can despise God's blessed Revelation as an impotent and antiquated story, but they cannot resist the mighty eloquence of a pure, holy, Christ-like, heavenly walk!\par \par Scorning the base compliances of the world; at war with its selfishness; diffusing a kindly glow of love, and charity, and peace, and amiability all around: Yes, here is Christianity! No pulpit figment\emdash no barren theory\emdash no worn-out dream of an age long gone by; but an active, living, influential principle; a life hid with Christ in God; the glorious, imperishable, indestructible seed, taking root in heaven-born natures, and bringing forth fruit "in some thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown."\par \par From the entire Parable let us gather a lesson to Ministers and People\emdash to the Sowers and the Soil.\par \par The SOWERS\emdash How vast their responsibility! God's accredited Servants, going forth Sabbath after Sabbath, bearing the precious seed\emdash seeking with all fidelity to keep back nothing of the Truth of God\emdash to lay bare all heart deceptions\emdash to denounce every spurious soil which mocks the good seed and imperils eternity. If desirous to be true to our great mission, woe be to us if we rest satisfied with any man-made religion; any wretched compromise of hollow profession; anything short of aiming at the salvation of souls. One soul really saved, is worth ten thousand merely MORALIZED!\par \par The ambassadors of Christ, indeed, may not scorn, but exult in the title of the upholders of Virtue\emdash the stern and uncompromising denunciators of national and individual immorality. But at the same time, would we repudiate the idea that we are but Conservators of the public peace, commissioned to watch the floodgates of crime, to repress, whether in its more polished or debasing forms, hydra-headed vice, and to enforce the claims and extol the happiness of virtue. This would be a poor petty installment of the great debt we are commissioned by our Heavenly Master to discharge. No! Our work is the sowing of Gospel seed\emdash the free proclamation of a free Salvation, through the Blood of Jesus; regeneration and sanctification through the Spirit of Jesus. All else will be inadequate to renew a man's nature and raise his soul from the ruins of the fall.\par \par We might preach to the drunkard forever on his drunkenness, or to the thief on his pilfering, or to the covetous on the baseness and peril of fostering a mammon-spirit. We might possibly make them reformed people, but we would not make them saved men. Moreover, being a mere change of habit, not of principle, we could have no security for its permanency; it would be but the lopping down of the thorns, only to spring again, to shoot aloft their stems in wilder luxuriance and strength than ever. It is not single fruits we ask to be manifested, or single thorns we wish extirpated; for "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." He has new motives, new aims, new principles of action.\par \par Seek for the promised aids of the Holy Spirit to effect a radical change in your hearts; that by what Chalmers happily called "the expulsive power of a new affection," "all old things may pass away, and all things become new." Thus will your minds, Sabbath after Sabbath, be prepared and made receptive for the good seed of the word. That word is "quick and powerful," and can convert into a fruitful soil for the visits of Jesus, what was once as a hardened footpath, trodden by Satan and swept by his legion emissaries.\par \par Yes! this is our comfort and consolation, that the word we preach is not the word of Man, but the word of God. It is altogether independent of man. However weak and unworthy the instrument, it is God's appointed ordinance. Often, when in conscious weakness and feebleness, we utter its wondrous truths\emdash when at times, as every minister of the gospel must feel, we are pressed down by lack of faith and lack of zeal, our work dimmed and clouded by human sin and human frailty and infirmity; or, what is equally felt, often when inculcating solemn lessons which we have most urgent need ourselves to learn, demanding tears of contrition which we need ourselves first to weep\emdash oh, what a comfort to fall back on the assurance that "the word of God is not bound!" That it is not of him who preaches or him who speaks, or of him who hears, but "of God who shows mercy."\par \par Often it is a coward heart that sounds the trumpet in battle\emdash stirring the courage and nerving the arm of thousands. The Sun in yonder heavens, that dispenses light to its circling planets, is said itself to be a cold and frigid mass. The Sower scattering the grains from his side may be enfeebled by age and disease, need and poverty\emdash but yet the seed thus scattered by a decrepit hand takes root in the thankful and well-cultured soil, and produces food for hundreds.\par \par So, thanks be to God, the Church of Christ is independent of the mere Instrument. The sound of salvation\emdash the light of truth\emdash the seed of the gospel\emdash is independent of US! "The excellency and the power are altogether of God." There may be no Paul to plant, no Apollos to water, but He is able from stammering lips and feeble tongues to "give the increase."\par \par And if there be a word to the Sower there is also a word to the SOIL. O that we would bear in mind that each successive sowing increases our responsibility! We are invested, so to speak, each Sabbath with a new responsibility. On account of each Sermon we hear, we have incurred new obligations\emdash we have heard fresh warnings; and listened to fresh entreaties. Oh! in the great diary of Heaven, while the fact of our meeting is thus inserted, "Behold a sower went forth to sow"\emdash the appended entry in the book of God, regarding every heart, will either be "This day salvation," or, "This day condemnation, has come to this house!"\par \par Break up your fallow ground! God does not in the text irremediably give up and surrender the three worthless soils. The very utterance of the parable seems to imply that the most hardened ground might yet become soft, and the most obdurate reclaimed!\par \par But see, oh, see to it, that you are not self-deceived. The startling fact in this parable, that out of four diverse soils ONE only was sound and good, ought surely to lead us to deep heart-searchings, to scrutinize our motives and character, and ascertain what, on the Great Day of reckoning, would be our standing-place before God.\par \par Do not go to the sanctuary merely to listen and not to practice\emdash to hear what is preached, to criticize it, or laud it, or condemn it\emdash to give the ear and the lip during the brief Sabbath hour to God; and the soul during the week, to the world. A few passing resolutions, and then to lapse again into sin\emdash the victim of a deeper ruin than before. Ah! my brother, it may seem a small matter to you now, this scorning of offered mercy\emdash this cold indifference to the perils and prospects of eternity. You may afford now to smile at these pleadings as idle tales; to let the seed lie rejected on the hardened footpath\emdash the footpath once softened, it may be, by a father's prayers and watered by a mother's tears. But wait until you come to stand on the verge of the dreadful precipice\emdash about, in an unexpected moment, to take the final leap into a neglected eternity\emdash and say, at what value will you estimate your neglected Sabbaths THEN?\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } hI08 The Sower and the Seed (part 2){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE SOWER AND THE SEED (part 2)\par \par "Sow in the morn your seed,\par At eve hold not your hand,\par To doubt and fear give no heed,\par Broadcast it o'er the lauThrough the gloom are flying.\par Oh! should storms come sweeping,\par You in heaven unsleeping,\par O'er Your children vigil keeping,\par Hear and save!\par \par Stars look o'er the sea,\par Few and sad and shrouded;\par Faith our light must be\par When all else is clouded.\par You whose voice came thrilling,\par Wind and billow stilling,\par Speak once more our prayer falling\emdash\par Power dwells with Thee!"\par \par "Then He got into the boat and His disciples followed Him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're going to drown!'" Matt. 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25\par \par This is the first of the "Memories of GENNESARET" which have their scenery and illustration not on the shores, but on the Lake itself. Lessons from the lips of the Great Teacher are now read to us amid winds and waters.\par \par We have already, indeed, found our Blessed Redeemer discoursing from the deck of a vessel to the listening multitudes, and, in the miraculous Catch, claiming as the Lord of Nature, dominion over the Fish of the sea. But He is now to manifest His dominion over the Sea itself. As He has already asserted Lordship over its tenants, He is about to claim sovereignty also over their unstable watery realm itself.\par \par Who can estimate the priceless worth of that handful of voyagers, who, in the dusky evening twilight, push off from the Western Shore? That humble fishing-boat contains the Infant Church. It is freighted with the world's Salvation! These winds and waves are charged with sublime moral and spiritual lessons to the end of time. As we hear uttered the mandate which chained the tempests of Galilee, and laid to sleep its waters, we can take up the words of the Psalmist and say, with a nobler than their primary meaning, "O Lord God Almighty, who like you? You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, You still them!"\par \par Let us seek to gather from this interesting incident some of those lofty lessons it is fitted and designed to teach us. It speaks emphatically "concerning Christ and his Church," and let these two points successively engage our thoughts.\par \par The Storm on the Lake speaks CONCERNING CHRIST.\par \par (1.) His HUMANITY is here strikingly brought before us. That same afternoon Jesus had spoken the Parable of the Sower\emdash a parable, as we have remarked, probably suggested by seeing, near to where He stood, a farmer, in early spring, casting his seed into the upturned furrow. Evening had now come. That sower had retired to his home. Already may he have been stretched on his bed of sleep, recruiting his weary frame after the toils of the day. So also had the Heavenly Sower! None more needing repose than He after a day of such unremitting labor!\par \par But where is His home? where His bed? Out amid the chill damps of the evening, a boat is seen gliding along the lake, manned by a few fishermen. They speak with suppressed breath, for a weary, jaded passenger, wrapped for warmth in a coarse fisherman's coat, lies snatching what rest he can find in the back part of the vessel. Let no harsh voice break His rest. He has, during that long day, been scattering the seed of a nobler than any earthly harvest. How deep, how profound are His slumbers! The splash of the oars\emdash the scream of the birds overhead\emdash disturb Him not. Yet crude is His couch\emdash hard His pillow. They took Him into the boat, (in the quaint but expressive words of Mark,) "Even as He was."\emdash all unrefreshed and unprepared for a voyage. The evening meal probably untasted. The garments needed for crossing the Lake unprovided. His head, as the word in the original seems to imply, rests uneasily on the rough wooden rail at the stern of the boat.\par \par It is a touching incident in the life of the great Apostle, when, "as Paul the Aged," he sent a message to Timothy to bring with him "the cloak he left at Troas" to protect his shivering frame from the cold of a Roman dungeon. But what was this in striking poignancy, compared to the scene we have here? Paul's Master and Lord\emdash the Being of all Beings\emdash GOD Manifest in the flesh\emdash that Adorable human form within which Deity dwelt\emdash laid on the rough planks of a fishing-vessel\emdash exhausted nature demanding refreshment and rest!\par \par We have read of hunted and outlawed monarchs seeking refuge and repose in forest huts. Tales linger in our own land of royal adventurers sleeping soundly and gratefully in the chill mountain cave, or on the clay floor of Highland hovels. But what are these?\emdash poor insignificant nothings in comparison with the scene before us. The Lord of Glory\emdash Immanuel, God with us\emdash out on the bleak sea\emdash the dusk of approaching night for His curtains, the sky for His canopy\emdash stretched like a helpless babe in the arms of sleep\emdash lulled to rest by the music of oars and the ripple of waters!\par \par The scene deepens in interest as the voyage proceeds. When they left the shore, the sun had apparently set peacefully over the Western mountains\emdash the sky was unfretted with a cloud\emdash the sea unruffled with waves. But suddenly one of those squalls or gusts so often experienced in inland lakes came sweeping down the opposite mountain gorge. The gathering clouds answer to the wail of the hurricane. The waves beneath lift their crested forms, and the rain rushes from the blackened heavens. So violent, indeed, does the tempest soon become, that, from the wetting spray dashing over the boat, and the torrents from above, she is fast filling with water\emdash "The waves beat into the ship so that it was now full." It could, indeed, be no mimic storm, no ordinary danger, that would lead the fishermen-disciples, who knew the sea so well from youth, to cower in terror for their safety and abandon themselves to despair.\par \par And what now of that majestic Sleeper? Weary Humanity still asserts its need of repose. The wind is sighing and sweeping around. The rain is pouring on that unprotected pillow. Yet still He slumbers! The wild howling war of the elements awakes Him not! And unless His disciples with rough hand had come and roused Him, these weary eyes would have slept through the storm. Even that last lurch of the vessel which had led the faithless mariners to cry, in an extremity of tremor and agitation, "Master, Master!"\emdash even this had not disturbed that Sleeping Man!\par \par Oh, wondrous, beautiful testimony to the perfect Humanity of Jesus. I say perfect Humanity; for many there are, who, while they speak of Him as Man, think of Him at the same time as something far beyond their sympathies and feelings, their weaknesses and infirmities\emdash a sort of half-Man, half-Angel, incapable of any identity of experience with them\emdash His life a mysterious drama, which they may gaze upon with wonder, but which to them is invested with no personal interest. Look at this picture on the Lake of Tiberias. One only of all that little crew was prostrated with bodily exhaustion, and that one was Jesus!\par \par It is the same Pilgrim Savior who, after traversing the dusty roads of Samaria, with its hot summer sun blazing overhead, flung Himself, weak and way-worn, as best He could, on a well by the wayside, and asked from a Samaritan woman a cup of cold water. It is the same lowly Sufferer who, exhausted with weariness and watchings\emdash stripes and buffetings\emdash fell powerless under the cross which cruelty compelled Him to bear; or who, as He was transfixed on it, in anguish exclaimed, "I thirst." It is the same Divine Sympathizer whose breaking heart gave vent to its pangs, in audible sobs, at the Graveyard of Bethany. The "Temple of His body" was mysterious indeed\emdash a holy, sinless, unpolluted shrine. But though separate from sinners, it was not separated from human infirmities. Hunger, thirst, weakness, weariness, suffering, pain, had their lodgment there. The motto and superscription on its portico ever was, "Behold the Man!"\par \par Most touchingly do we read this truth in the narrative before us. Ah! when I wish to feel certified of the glorious, upholding, gladdening assurance, that Jesus was indeed "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh;" that He knows my frame; that He remembers I am dust; that He had the blood of the human race in His veins, and the sinless infirmities of the human race in His nature; that He knows the very lassitude and languor of this frail body, which so often crushes and enfeebles its companion spirit\emdash I go not to hear Angels chanting His advent in the lowly Manger, nor to the Magi hastening, under their guiding star, to present offerings at the feet of that Infant of Bethlehem. I go not even to the home of earthly friendship, to see Him ally Himself with human hearts. I rather go out amid the bleak and howling winds of an earthly Lake. I see there the Savior who died for me, sunk in slumber on the deck of a vessel\emdash glad for rest, as the humblest son of earthly toil\emdash the prostration of an overwrought frame refusing to be roused by nature's loudest accents, and requiring the hands and voice of His own Disciples to unseal His weary eyelids!\par \par Again\emdash while a perfect Humanity, observe, further, it was a pure, spotless HUMANITY, which belonged to Jesus.\par \par That peaceful Slumberer on lake Gennesaret is the type of Innocence. If Jonah out-slept his storm, it was because his conscience was lulled and deadened. He had defied his God; and his God for the moment had so left the Atheist Prophet, that the tempest's rage fell disregarded on his soul. But a Greater, a Holier than Jonah, is here! No moral storm ever swept over that pure, calm, sinless spirit. No unquiet, disturbing vision of guilt, now flits across the Sleeper's bosom.\par \par On the other side of the lake where He was going, a demon-crowd of Devils haunted the gorges of Gadara. According to some writers (as having in their power the destructive agencies of nature by reason of the sin of man), they may have been riding now on the wings of this storm, doing their best to avert their own approaching adversary. Think of their bosoms tortured by the memory of a guilty past, maddened to despair by the prospect of a hopeless future; the sport of tempests, of which Gennesaret's surface was then a feeble type. These wicked were like that "troubled sea which cannot rest." But see the Spotless Lamb of God!\emdash in the absence of all human comforts, yet with the calm treasure of a peaceful conscience, He sleeps tranquilly, as the cradled infant which a mother's gentle lullaby has sung to rest!\par \par But (2.) The scene we are now considering also speaks concerning the Savior's DEITY.\par \par It is remarkable, that in all the more memorable incidents of our Lord's life, whenever His lowliness and humiliation are signally manifested, there is generally, in conjunction with this, some majestic exhibition of His Godhead. His Humanity was proclaimed in the lowly stable of His birth; but in that same hour Angels over Bethlehem sung of His glory. His Humiliation was touchingly proclaimed in receiving baptism (a sinner's rite) at a sinner's hand; but the Heavens were opened, and a sublime voice from "the Excellent Glory" attested His Divinity. Bethany's teardrops spoke of the tenderness of His Human heart. Bethany's word of omnipotence, which summoned the putrefying dead man from the tomb, proclaimed the majesty of His Godhead. Calvary's Cross shows us a dying man\emdash the crown of thorns\emdash the gash of the spear\emdash the criminal's torture\emdash the malefactor associates\emdash all speak of the depths of Humiliation. But a blackened sun; riven rocks; the earth trembling to support its Creator's cross\emdash were nature's glorious testimonies that He who hung in ignominy on that tree was "The Mighty God."\par \par We have the same contrast of lowliness and greatness in this scene on the Lake of Galilee. "As the Son of Man," says a writer, "He slept; but as the Son of God in Man, He awakes and speaks. For Himself, exhausted; for others, Almighty." He opens His eyes on that scene of nature's wildest uproar, and sitting undisturbed in the midst of it, counsels and comforts. First, as a great Master reproving His disciples' fears, and then as the great God uttering His "Peace, be still." As the Lord alike over the atmosphere above, and the waters beneath, He addresses each separately. Looking upward, first to the storm raging on high, He rebukes the wind, saying 'Peace!' Then turning to the waves below, the angry surging of the sea, He adds, 'Be still.' A new element in nature thus casts a trophy at His feet, and owns Him her Lord!\par \par We have already witnessed, on the shores of the Lake, His power over bodily diseases. We have seen the leper cleansed by His touch. The centurion's servant healed by a distant message. Now would He show that "dragons, and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind," are equally ready to "fulfill His word." "He spoke, and it was done!" There are no labored means required. The intervention of no rod, as in the case of Moses, to stretch over the deep. From the fishing-vessel, as His throne, He issued His behest. Every wave rocked itself to rest. The winds returned to their chambers. The lights on the shore were once more reflected in the waveless sea\emdash "Immediately there was a great calm." Well might the disciples, as they beheld the power of that marvelous mandate, exclaim, in the words of their Psalmist King, as they crouched adoring at their Master's feet, "The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Oh, come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker!"\par \par While we exult in the Humanity, let us evermore exult in the Deity of Christ. Had Deity not inhabited the bosom of that sleeping Man, the disciples must have had a yawning sepulcher in these depths. We would have had to tell this day of nothing except ruined souls and a sinking world. It was His Deity which impressed an untold value on all His doings and dying. Take away the great keystone of Christianity\emdash that Godhead dwelt in the bosom of Messiah\emdash and our hopes for eternity lie buried with His unrisen body in the grave at Jerusalem! But "His name is Immanuel, GOD with us." While we look up to heaven and see a MAN upon the throne, we can at the same time exclaim, "Your Throne, O GOD, is forever and ever!" The combination of the two in the one person of the Ever-living Redeemer, makes Him to be all we need, and all that we can desire.\par \par It is, indeed, in His glorified Humanity He now lives and reigns. He needs no longer, as at this eventide scene on Gennesaret, earthly rest. His period of weakness, His struggle with human infirmity, is over. We need not, like the disciples, now go to awake Him; for in yonder glorious Heaven "He faints not, neither is weary." "He that keeps Israel" now "neither slumbers nor sleeps." But His heart of love knows no change. He is "that same Jesus," our God yet our Brother, our Brother yet our God!\par \par There may be comfort to some here in the thought (more especially brought before us in this passage in connection with Christ's deity) that He rules over winds and waves. "What kind of man," exclaimed the disciples, "is this, for even the winds and the sea obey Him." No storm that sweeps the ocean can defy His power, or resist His control. These boisterous elements are His ministers and messengers. Not one storm-cloud can gather\emdash not one crested wave rise\emdash not one board can loosen\emdash without His permission, who "holds the winds in His fists." All power is committed to Him in Heaven and on Earth.\par \par The Satanic Prince of the power of the air, if some mysterious dominion is assigned to him, has a mightier One to control His demon rage; and whether it be the atmosphere that comes loaded with plague and fever, pestilence and cholera\emdash or the hurricane that uproots a forest and overturns a house, burying a beloved child in the ruins\emdash or the tornado that strews the bosom of the ocean with the pride of navies, or sends wailing and widowhood into the fisherman's lonely Dwelling\emdash "The Lord sits upon the floods; yes! the Lord sits as King forever." "The floods, O Lord, have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. But the Lord on High is mightier than the noise of many waters; yes, than the mighty waves of the sea!"\par \par But, II. The text speaks, not only "concerning Christ," but "concerning HIS CHURCH." This both in its collective and in its individual capacity.\par \par In previously considering the miraculous catch, we found the fish enclosed in the net were designed to form an instructive pledge and symbol to the "Fishers of Men" of the success of their labors. If the Fish were thus typical of immortal souls; the element in which they lived, the heaving, changing, restless water, with its fitful alternations of calm and tempest, was surely an appropriate picture of human life, swept with storms and strewed with wrecks. And if, as we believe, each portion of this sacred incident is filled with symbolic instruction, we may warrantably look also for some figurative truth in that tossed vessel with its frightened crew. Nor is there much difficulty in finding its true place in the Sacred Allegory. If the Ark of Noah, in the old patriarchal deluge, was not only a befitting type of the Church, but was really the Church of God, tossed on that raging flood; have we not in this Gennesaret vessel the Gospel type and symbol of the same\emdash the Church in the world, and yet not of the world\emdash subject to the storms of persecution, often hurried into guilty fears and faithless distrust and misgiving\emdash yet her Lord, not (as in the extremity of her unbelief she sometimes supposes), like Baal, slumbering and sleeping, but seated invisible at her helm, guiding her through the roaring surge, and enabling her to ride out the tempest!\par \par At no period has the Church been exempt from such hurricanes. Even in these our days (though, thank God, the outer storm is hushed, and she is holding on her way in these favored lands through calm and tranquil seas), there are discerning spirits who can catch up distant indistinct mutterings\emdash presages of a coming tempest, more fearful than any she has yet buffeted\emdash "the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear." If, before the Millennial morning breaks, there is thus a deeper and darker night of trial in reserve for the Church of Christ\emdash Satan and his demon-throng, riding on the wings of persecution, putting forth their last giant effort for her destruction\emdash be it ours to exult in the thought that there is a Sleepless PILOT at her helm, who can say, like His great Apostle in the Adrian storm, "I exhort you to take courage!" "GOD is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved: THE LORD shall help her, and that right early."\par \par (2.) This passage speaks concerning the Church in her individual capacity.\par \par It speaks of Disciple life and Disciple experience. It is easy for us to speak and theorize about Faith, but God often casts us into the crucible to test and purify our gold, and separate it from the dross and alloy. He brings us into the vortex of the storm to see whether we shall wring our hands in faithless despair, or rush to our Master. The disciples in Gennesaret had acted unfaithfully; untrustingly. They might have known that, though the wail and death-shriek of perishing crews had been heard all around, one boat at least would have defied the rush of waters and roar of winds. With Jesus in their midst, they need have feared no evil.\par \par The simple fact of His presence ought to have been pledge and guarantee enough that their safety was secured. If some more cowardly spirit than the rest had urged His being awakened\emdash some impetuous Peter, in his eager impulsive haste, had hurried to the stern to utter his unbelieving fears\emdash we would have expected some one of the others of calmer mold and stronger faith, some John or James, to have arrested the intruder, saying, "Do not disturb Him!" Sooner shall these mountains that gird the lake be removed, than He allow "one of His little ones to perish." Let us gaze in calm serenity on the face of the Almighty Sleeper. Let us "be still and know that He is GOD!"\par \par But, alas! for the moment they seem all to have been involved in the same unworthy anxiety, "Master, Master! Don't You care that we are going to drown?"\par \par We cannot, we dare not, to a certain extent, wonder at their fear. So far it was natural. There was much to awaken apprehension. Their ship reeling on the waves, and their Lord appearing unconscious of their danger "asleep on a pillow." It was the excess of their terror which drew forth the rebuke. Each Evangelist in recording it gives a slight variation. One says, "You have little faith;" another, "Where is your faith?" a third, "You have no faith." But in all the three cases it is the lack of FAITH which is blamed; the lack of that principle which "casts out fear." We may wonder, perhaps, at the severity of the condemnation. Was Faith on their part really so utterly lacking? Did not rather their very rushing to their sleeping Lord seem to indicate the intensity of their trust in that perilous crisis-hour? They felt that if they are to be rescued at all from a dreadful grave, it can be by Him alone. Yet, observe, He rebukes them, as if their Faith were poor, trifling, unworthy of the name!\par \par How is this?\emdash It is plain that His condemnation of it is relative. It is judged by a standard of its own. Had some of the multitude (not the disciples) manned this vessel, and rushed thus imploringly in the tempest to awake Him, probably, as in the case of the Gentile Centurion, Jesus would have commended their faith as great. But these anxious disciples were those who should have known better than to distrust for one moment His ability and willingness to save. Had they witnessed to so little purpose His recent miracles? Had they heard with so little profit His recent Discourse of heavenly wisdom? Unkind and cruel, in the case of trusted friends, was the cry with which they roused Him, "Don't You CARE that we are going to drown?" Anything to that beneficent Being would have been less cutting and wounding than this\emdash "Don't You CARE!" It was doubting not His power but His Love, that love to which every hour since they knew Him had borne testimony.\par \par How kindly, gently, considerately, yet faithfully, He deals with them! He utters no reproach for that crude awaking, robbing Him of the slumber He so greatly needed, and which His untiring energy elsewhere denied Him. But, gazing with earnestness upon them, He puts the penetrating question, which must have gone like an arrow to their hearts, "Why are you so fearful?" He speaks as a faithful Master to His faithless disciples before He turns to speak to the elements. The winds and waves He allows to revel at will before He has delivered in the hearing of the Voyagers the word of needed reproof. He has no ear for the warring elements, until, in mingled severity and kindness, He has poured oil on the troubled sea of these vexed hearts.\par \par Are any of us thus fearful? Jesus turns to us and says "Won't you trust Me? Look at Calvary's Cross! Is that not a pledge and guarantee that I will never leave you nor forsake you? For, a small moment I may appear to have forsaken you, but with great mercies will I gather you\emdash with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon you!"\par \par Let this be with us, as with the disciples, the result of all these storms of Trial\emdash to drive us nearer our Heavenly Master, and endear Him to our souls. They wondered at the moment, doubtless, what could be the cause of such a storm. Why not have arrested it or kept it chained in its mountain hold, until that boat with its valued crew got safe to land?\par \par Thus they may have reasoned while the tempest was overhead, and their hearts failed them for fear. But what was their verdict when they were planting their anchor in the white sands on the Gadara shore? They said one to another, "What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?" Their Lord rose higher than ever in their estimation. In the future manifold sacred memories of that wondrous ministry, how the combined remembrance of the weary MAN and the Almighty GOD would brace them for their great fight of afflictions! That "peace, be still," has been a motto and watchword which these howling winds of Gennesaret have wafted from age to age and from climate to climate, sustaining faith in sinking hearts, and producing in many a storm-swept bosom a "great calm!"\par \par Oh, happy for us if all the hurricanes that ruffle life's unquiet sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious. If God has to employ stormy trials, severe afflictions, for this end, let us not quarrel with His wise ordination. Better the storm with Christ than the smooth water without Him.\par \par "Far more the treach'rous calm I dread\par \par Than tempests bursting overhead."\par \par It is the experience, not of the luxurious hotel, but of the harsh battle-field, the trench and night-watch, which makes the better and hardier soldier. It is not the exotic plant nursed in the glass hothouse and artificial heat which is the type of strength; but the plant struggling for existence on bleak cliffs, or the pine battling with Alpine gusts, or shivering amid Alpine snows. If there be a sight in the spiritual world more glorious than another, it is when one sees (as may often be seen,) a Believer growing in strength and trust in God, by reason of his very trials\emdash battered down by storm and hail, a great fight of afflictions\emdash enduring loss of substance\emdash loss of health\emdash loss of friends\emdash yet, standing by emptied coffers and full graves, and with an aching but resigned heart, enabled to say "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!"\par \par Never let us take our trials as an indication that God is angry with us; saying, like Martha, in our blind unbelief, "Lord, if You had been here, this never would have happened. The Savior cannot have been at my side, or else this desolating storm would never have swept over me." No, He was with the disciples\emdash sleeping in their very boat\emdash when the Gennesaret hurricane descended. "Behold," says the Evangelist (as if arresting our attention to the fact), "Behold" (when He is voyaging with His own apostles) "there arose a great tempest." And often is it so still. He selects the blackest cloud, and causes His people to pass through it, that He may span it with His Rainbow of mercy, and show in blended colors, His power, and faithfulness and, love!\par \par And what remains, but to urge you to flee to that same adorable almighty Savior, and to cast all your cares on Him who has shown you, at such a cost, how He cares for you. You who are in perplexity, temptation, trial\emdash environed with storms of unbelief and doubt and inward corruption\emdash go to your Lord as the disciples did. They give you a new testimony to the power of Prayer. It was Prayer that roused their Divine Master. He continued asleep until His disciples awoke Him. And the great principle in the gospel dispensation still is, "Ask, and you shall receive." How beautifully is here brought out His willingness to hear the cries of His perishing people! All the roar of the hurricane\emdash the voice of wind, and rain, and mountain waves\emdash awakes Him not; but the cries and entreaties of His people, at once reach His ear!\par \par Let us, then, arise and call upon our God. The great lesson taught both to the Disciples and to us in this storm, is that, in nearness to Jesus lies all our safety. Weak faith, and Little faith, as well as Great faith, are encouraged to rush to this Great Deliverer! The world is at best a treacherous sea. Its Painted Boats may hold on for a while their uncertain course, spreading their white wings before summer gales and favoring breezes. But a sudden hurricane comes; the waters are strewed with their wrecks, and "the place which once knew them knows them no more!" But, safe in the Ark of God, steered by the Heavenly Pilot, we are as secure as combined omnipotence and love can make us. And when earthly storms are all over, every crested wave of a chequered past will only endear to us more the Haven of rest, where the tempest's voice will be never more either felt or feared!\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } = m09 The Storm on the Lake{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE STORM ON THE LAKE\par \par by John MacDuff\par \par "Night sinks on the wave,\par Hollow gusts are sighing,\par Sea birds to their cave\par il spirit came from the tombs to meet Him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain." Matt. 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39\par \par We now follow our Lord's footsteps, for the first time, to the eastern shores of Gennesaret. Striking must have been the contrast between their sterile aspect and the cultivated beauty with which we have hitherto been familiar around Capernaum. Hills, with a few patches of cultivation, rose slanting from the water's edge, unrefreshed by those rills and water-courses which formed nature's contribution to the life of the western side. If we add to an uncongenial climate and the absence of soil, exposure, as at this day, to the incursion of the adjoining desert hordes, we find an additional reason for the comparatively scanty inhabitants\emdash the near and strange proximity of intense activity to desolation and barrenness. It was a border land "of darkness and the shadow of death," abandoned to a mixed population of Jew and Gentile; animals clean and unclean\emdash the sheep of the Hebrews, the swine of the Gentiles\emdash browsing on adjacent pastures. No rich plain or undulating slopes fringed, as on the opposite shore, the margin of the lake, on which "the sower" could "go forth to sow." If that memorable parable were suggested by an incident seen in the fields of the one side, the parable of the lost sheep\emdash roaming through a trackless waste, had its appropriate scenery on the other. These Eastern wilds formed "the desert place," to which Christ, on other occasions, invited the disciples to "go and rest a while." The very solitude of this wilderness was a pleasing refuge to Him from unceasing labor. There, amid nature's rugged temples and oratories, her Great Maker and Lord "ofttimes resorted," for purposes of meditation and prayer.\par \par Such is the befitting frame for that terrible picture which we are now to contemplate; a theme uninviting in itself, and encompassed with not a few difficulties\emdash but which, occurring, as it does, in the order of the narrative, we dare not pass in silence.\par \par The description of the Gadarene Demoniac is given by the first three Evangelists. We shall avail ourselves of the notices peculiar to each, taking as the groundwork that of Mark, which is distinguished (as most of his other narrations are) for minuteness and fidelity in all its parts. His is evidently the narrative of an eye-witness; and, connected in some way, as we have good reason to believe the writing of his Gospel was, with Peter\emdash the Evangelist and the Apostle-spectator, in compiling their inspired narratives, have retained, with graphic power, each feature of the thrilling incident.\par \par Let us look first to THE PICTURE itself, and then examine its DETAILS. In other words, let us describe the general SCENE, and afterwards, from its several parts, deduce some general LESSONS.\par \par 1. THE SCENE. Recent travelers inform us that opposite the town of Tiberias, on the eastern shore, a recess is formed in the mountains, where there are still the remains of a Jewish burying ground. Caves, either natural or artificial, are hollowed out of the rock, while the ruins of a city crown the heights at the top of the valley. There is a strong presumption in favor of this being the locality of the scene presented to us in the passage we are now considering.\par \par In our last chapter, we found the Lord and His Apostles suddenly overtaken by a storm in the midst of the Lake\emdash no ordinary storm, as the narrative infers\emdash but one which led the disciple fishermen, who knew these waters so well, to cower in terror at their Master's feet.\par \par But what is this to the moral hurricane which sweeps down upon them the moment their anchor is planted on the eastern beach? Out of one of these rocky tombs or sepulchers, a being in human shape, rushes with fleet foot down the intervening slope, with wild gestures and cries. Mournful was his history! He is no madman or maniac bereft of reason, the victim of a disordered fancy or bewildered imagination\emdash a deeper and darker woe broods over him.\par \par One of the spirits from "the abyss"\emdash an infernal demon, or rather a whole legion of them\emdash had taken possession of that wretched body, and set it on fire of hell! It is altogether a misconception to give to this passage a mere figurative rendering\emdash to resolve this Demoniac's case into a mere affliction of insanity, a disorganization of the brain. Some would do so to evade the difficulties of the question. But by thus rejecting the express declaration of Scripture, they only escape one perplexity to involve themselves in another. If Demoniacal possession had been a mere crude fancy of the Jews\emdash a popular delusion\emdash can we for a moment entertain the idea, that He who came on earth to bear witness to truth would have fostered among his disciples or their countrymen belief in a superstitious lie?\emdash that He would have misnamed mere aberration of the intellect, by calling it the possession of a devil? No, we only do honor alike to Christ and to His Sacred Word when we accept, in the fullest sense, its literal averments, though they may do violence at times to our feelings, and cross our carnal reason.\par \par We know that often and again, in the course of His ministry, the Savior makes special reference to the personality and presence of Evil Spirits. In exorcizing these, He addresses personal agents. He speaks to an individual, not to a disease, "Hold Your peace and come out of him!"\par \par At the period of the advent of the Prince of Light, there seems to have been an especial putting-forth of the might of the Prince of Darkness. The "Strong man armed" was invaded in his territory by the "Stronger than he." Until now his subordinate ministers sat unchallenged on their vice-regal thrones; the blinded nations bowed before them in abject allegiance. But his kingdom is doomed. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil."\par \par Will his empire be resigned without a struggle? No! His confederate legions are gathered especially in and around the land of Judea. Every shaft is taken from his armory, to avert, if possible, the signal, impending ruin.\par \par In that very Storm on the Sea, there may (as we surmised) have been demon-spirits giving strength to the hurricane, mustering in diabolic rage the destructive forces of nature, under some mad delusion that they might possibly effect the ruin of the Voyagers, and thus prevent the doom they seem to have known too well was at hand.\par \par Terrible seems to have been the subjection of the miserable Being now before us, who was led captive by their will! They had driven him into "solitary places." Perhaps, under the bitter consciousness of the demon power within him, he had himself sought the deepest solitudes of nature, to be screened there from his more favored fellows. Moreover, as if solitude intense enough could not be found amid these desert hills, the demoniac had made his home "amid the tombs," places which, from his happier infancy, he had been taught to regard as "unclean," and to rush from their unhallowed contact.\par \par There he is!\emdash "the living among the dead"\emdash half envying the ghastly repose of the crumbling bones and skeletons that strewed the caves where he dwelt! A supernatural muscular strength had been imparted to him. Again and again had the neighboring Gadarenes, for their own protection and safety, attempted to curb his fury, binding him with iron chains and "fetters;" but these he had broken like thread. In frantic delirium he roamed the adjoining mountains, while, in his wilder attacks, he was "driven by the evil spirit into the wilderness"\emdash the bleak, flat desert which stretched far away from the hills that girdled the Lake.\par \par Under perhaps a consciousness of deep guilt as the cause of his misery, the narrative further describes him as the Victim of self-torture\emdash "crying and cutting himself with stones." They had attempted to clothe him, but in his demon rage every rag of clothing had been torn from his bleeding, lacerated body. A highway seems to have led from the town to the shore, but "no one now could pass that way." Travelers avoided the haunted approach. He was the terror of the neighborhood; not by day only but at night too, when all around was silent and still, the piteous wailings of the demoniac awoke the echoes of the mountains and startled the fishermen in their lonely night-watch on the sea!\par \par And yet, by carefully attending to the narrative, you will observe that there is in that tempest-tossed spirit a strange mysterious blending of human consciousness and fiendish hate\emdash an interweaving of truth and error\emdash a confounding of his own personality with that of the devils. His own nature is crushed to the dust by some savage tormentor lording it over him; yet the overmastered soul (the nobler being of the man) seems now and then to rise to the surface, and to utter longings for emancipation. It was thus not an entire wreck of the inner life. There are chinks and openings that appear every now and then in that deep, dark, dungeon-spirit\emdash rays and flashes of nobler thought and aspiration that are ever revealing themselves, although only to bring into sadder and more fearful contrast the prevailing gloom. I repeat it, however, this very misery of his tells us he was not an utterly abandoned and hopeless castaway. Had he been so, conscience would have crouched a submissive slave at the feet of these demon powers. No cry for deliverance would have rung through these solitudes; the man, assimilated to the fiends within him, would have rather rushed frightened from contact with infinite Purity, Power, and Goodness.\par \par But, so far from this, there is evidently a struggle (though a seemingly hopeless one) in that tortured frame. He would spurn, if he could, this alien tyrant-power that was detaining him in unwilling bondage, and throw open the temple gates of his soul to a nobler Owner. As he roams from rock to rock, and from tomb to tomb, a cry for emancipation seems to mingle with the wild wailings which ring through the vaults of the dead\emdash "Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?"\par \par Is there no response to that wild appeal? ONE, and One only, in the wide world can hush the tempest of that storm-swept soul, and say, "Peace, be still!" That ONE is near! The Demoniac, from the increased distress and tumult of his spirit, may have had some information given him that the Deliverer was now approaching. It is possible that, in his moments of lucid consciousness, he may have heard of a Great Prophet who, in the synagogue on the opposite side of the lake, had expelled demons from bosoms like his. Hoping against hope, that he, too, might not be beyond reach of the omnipotent word, he may have been watching with eager longing each boat that dropped its sails as it neared that solitary strand. At all events, no sooner does the fishing vessel with the Lord and his disciples, touch the Gadara shore, than we see him hastening down the slope, and the next moment he is a suppliant at the Redeemer's feet!\par \par In this act we recognize the man himself\emdash his own nobler nature. The demon, for the instant, has lost the ascendancy, and degraded humanity asserts its right to be heard.\par \par  "Come out of the man, unclean spirit!" exclaims the voice of Him who must have beheld with touching emotion the human soul made "a habitation of devils"\emdash ruined, dishonored, enslaved!\par \par But the lucid moment has already passed into the demon mood. The spirit within him stifles the struggles of his better self. Seizing hold of the man's speech and utterance, he thus breaks silence, disowning Christ's interference, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the most High God? I adjure you by God that You torment me not." The Demoniac, upon this, reeled back at the sight of his Deliverer, and fell anew into a convulsive fit.\par \par It may seem, at first, strange, that obedience to Jesus' omnipotent command could be for a moment delayed. Doubtless He could have enforced an immediate compliance; and He must have had wise reasons for permitting the demon to retain for an instant longer, his infuriate mastery, after He had uttered the mandate of expulsion. It has been supposed, that in putting the question to the Demoniac, "What is your name?" He wished, before his last and most fearful convulsion, to restore him to personal consciousness\emdash to the remembrance of his earlier history and better times. But here, again, either the indwelling demon anticipates the reply\emdash once more seizing on his organs of speech as if the question had been addressed to him; or, it may be, the wretched man, confusing again his own personality with that of the devils, answered, saying, "My name is Legion, for we are many." LEGION! (a Phalanx\emdash a compact squadron of Imperial Rome in battle array), is his own description of the invading spirits of darkness that had run riot within him! His whole inner being had been wildly torn and dislocated by a host of infernal fiends\emdash "rulers of the darkness of this world\emdash spiritual wickednesses in high places."\par \par But what are all these before the might of Incarnate Omnipotence? Too well did they know the power of Him they owned and recognized as the "Son of God most High." With the same remarkable interchange of personality, either the Demoniac himself, or the possessing devils, importune the Savior not to send them to "the deep" (or the abyss), the dreadful abode of Apostate Spirits\emdash the place of final doom and condemnation.\par \par In the parallel passage in Matthew, they are represented as crying out as they addressed Jesus, "Have You come here to torment us BEFORE THE TIME?" What time? It was the hour which they knew too well was numbered, when, with their Great Leader, they should be cast into the bottomless pit, "prepared for the devil and his angels."\par \par Their further request, "not to be sent out of the country," was equivalent to the other. It seemed a current belief among the Jews, that each region or district was under the sway of Good Angels and Wicked Demons. If the demons, in the present instance, had been expelled their allotted region at Gadara, it would have been tant amount to anticipating their certain doom\emdash sending them beforehand to the dreadful "abyss" which was to form their future and everlasting dwelling.\par \par We need not linger on the sequel of the narrative, nor on the needless and unprofitable questions to which it has given rise. Two thousand swine were feeding on one of the adjoining mountains. Our Lord, in His sovereignty, grants the startling request of the demons, that, instead of being driven out of the country, they might be permit ted to enter into the animals. As a subordinate reason, this permission may have been given as a righteous retribution for the owners keeping, in a Hebrew territory, what was in direct violation of the Jewish law, (swine being reckoned unclean). Be this as it may, the herd, being entered by the fiends, rush headlong in frantic rage to the slopes overhanging the lake. One after another, each following its blind leader, they leap over the precipices, and are engulfed in the waters below. Those tending the s wine fly in consternation to the adjoining city. The inhabitants hurry out to verify with their own eyes the strange rumors which had reached them. Not only do they find the herd perishing in the waters, but, stranger than all, the scourge and terror of the region is sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind!\par \par Oh! wondrous triumph over hellish confederacy! Mighty as was that Voice which, an hour before, had chained the tempests and bridled the storm; more wondrous stil l was that which could put a curb on the untamable spirit of a hapless wreck of humanity! "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles!"\par \par II. THE LESSONS. Let us now look, as we proposed, at this Picture in its various parts or DETAILS\emdash at its lights and shadows\emdash the dark side and the bright side. In doing so, we have, in the dark side, the Possessor and the Possessed; in the bright side, the Restorer and the Restored.\par \par  1. THE POSSESSOR.\par \par How dreadful the truth that is here brought before us\emdash the sway which Satan had, and still has, in our earth! Thanks be to God it was the culmination of his power at that great crisis-time in the world's history\emdash emphatically "the Hour and Power of Darkness." How terrible that power must have been, when the first Apostle who died\emdash "Satan entering into him"\emdash died a suicide and a traitor; and the first two disciples of the Christian apostles\emdash "Satan filling their hearts"\emdash died liars and hypocrites.\par \par Christ, in vision, saw him "fall as lightning from heaven." On the cross, He bruised his head, plucked the jewels from his crown, rescued from him the usurped dominion of Life, and, as the Moral Conqueror, ascending up on high, He dragged him and "captive multitudes captive," at the wheels of His triumphant chariot. Yet still does the Arch-deceiver "rule among the children of disobedience." "Let not any one think," says Luther, "the devil is now dead; for as He that keeps Israel, so he that hates Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps." Cases, indeed, of "possession" of the human body, are either now at an end, or are comparatively rare. It would be presumption to speak with confidence on a subject in which we have such limited data to guide us. One thing, at all events, is plain, that if such cases do occur, they are not so palpable as then. Satan seeks now to conceal his dominion. His name is the "Prince of darkness," and he delights to work in the dark. Jesus, on the shores of Gennesaret, forced him to speak out. He dragged to light the demon-horde that had converted a living man into a raving fiend. The raging lion was driven from his lair. He was exposed, in the very act of "seeking whom he might devour."\par \par Now, he continues to lie concealed in the thicket\emdash he succeeds once more in silently and stealthily seizing his victim, binding not the body with iron chains, but the soul with moral and spiritual fetters, and degrading it into a "habitation of dragons." "He so conceals his agency," says an able writer, "that while we fancy we are sailing before the impulse, and floating down the stream of our own free volitions, his hand is on the helm; thus flattering our pride, scoffing at our weakness, and steering our destiny at the same time" (Harris).\par \par We dare not ignore this truth of the existence and personality of Satan with his subordinate evil angels\emdash his "dominions, principalities, and powers"\emdash an organized consolidated agency of evil. Vast must be their multitude!\emdash the air around us, for all we know, is thronged with their myriad ranks!\emdash their assaults only deflected by the counter-working agency of Good Angels\emdash those whom God gives charge to "encamp round about His people, and bear them up in all their ways."\par \par Let us not be guilty of rushing to a false inference from this doctrine, that it is incompatible with the freedom of a moral agent\emdash that it diminishes our moral responsibility\emdash that we may plead, as an excuse for our sins, that we have become the helpless victims of a power without us\emdash that, (by a harsh fate which we cannot control) we are "delivered over unto Satan."\par \par While the Bible does everywhere admit the existence of that extraneous power, and traces to it the authorship of evil\emdash "Satan has filled your heart"\emdash "Satan entered into Judas"\emdash "Get behind me, Satan"\emdash yet the Satan without, has his echo in the evil heart within; the temptation is Satan's; the crime and guilt is our own. "They sell themselves," says God, "to work iniquity. If we are set on fire of hell, the fuel is our own collecting. Every yielding to sin on our part, allows the deeper insertion of the wedge on Satan's\emdash an opening wider of the heart's doorway to let the invader in. The same Bible which tells of the dread influence of the arch-apostate and his legions, commands us to "RESIST the devil, and he will flee from us."\par \par Beware of his first encroachments. If, like the inhabitants of Jerusalem of old, you give him of the gold of the Temple to propitiate him, this will only lead him to make bolder demands until the Temple is laid in ruins. Your safety consists in living near to God\emdash soaring above the wiles of the Great Adversary on the wings of faith and prayer. "Surely in vain," we read in a striking verse in Proverbs, "the net is spread in the sight of any bird" (or as that is rendered in the margin of our Bibles, "in the sight of him that moves on the wing"). In vain will Satan spread his traps, and snares, and nets, in the sight of the Believer, who, on the soaring pinions of his renewed, regenerated nature, rises above the fascinations of the world\emdash the toils of sin\emdash singing, as he soars to heaven's gate\emdash "I desire a better country, that is, an heavenly!"\par \par 2. We now turn from the Possessor to the POSSESSED.\par \par  What a terrible spectacle! a human body, God's own Temple\emdash become a desecrated shrine, the haunt and residence of the sworn enemy of His throne and His universe! The man lapsed into the fiend. A Hell in embryo! How had he, we are led to inquire, become the subject of so terrible a destiny? Was it a mere capricious exercise of demon-rage that selected an innocent victim, and made him the sport of unmerited wrong, so embittering life as to cause death to be a happy release\emdash a welcome termination to ignominious torture?\par \par We have no clue, indeed, in the narrative that would lead us to connect the man's present sufferings with his previous history. But there is at least a strong presumption that his own guilty excesses had invited the terrible assault. This legion company may have been roaming the district in search of a victim. Look! the gates of a corrupt and corrupting soul were found open for their entrance\emdash a body debilitated by gross passions, wallowing in sensuality, the whole nervous system, shattered and unstrung, bid welcome to the wandering horde. Conscience\emdash the conscience of innocent days, when a pure mind dwelt in an unpolluted frame\emdash now and then awoke up to a sense of present guilt and forfeited innocence. But the demon-throng were ever watching to crush the aspirations of nobler life, and hurry him at last as their companion to the abyss!\par \par This gives an dreadful reality to the Picture before us, and invests it with utterances of pathetic warning. Ah, is it not to be feared that it is the actual picture of many who, in the words of Scripture, "give themselves over to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness," paying for their excesses the terrible penalty of a shattered body, a ruined soul, and a maniac's end?\par \par Would that youth, in the hot fever of its passions, if unrestrained by loftier Bible motives, would come with us to Gadara, and gaze on the picture of its inevitable fate\emdash this awful Bible picture of SENSUAL EXCESS! Would that those who have surrendered themselves to tyrant lusts\emdash pandering to base appetite, destroying and enervating their bodily frames\emdash would mark here the terrible destiny awaiting them. Our own asylums can, at this hour, furnish many a counterpart. See yonder wretch\emdash half man, half fiend\emdash coiled up, shuddering with terror, in one of the midnight tombs of Galilee, clutching the ground in the wildness of despair\emdash the chains dangling by his side, and the blood streaming from suicidal wounds\emdash his body turned into a living grave! Slaves of Abandoned Lust!\emdash "Oh that you were wise, that you understood this, that you would consider your Latter End."\par \par 3. We pass to a more pleasing theme\emdash the, bright side of the Picture\emdash to the RESTORER and the RESTORED. Here (as in all the other Gospel scenes we have hitherto contemplated) stands out, in bright and beautiful contrast, the Divine Savior\emdash the Restorer of the lost, the Comforter of the downcast.\par \par If ever there was a case, which, we might have thought, would have repelled Infinite Goodness and Infinite Purity, it is that which we are now considering. No Leper-house more loathsome or polluted than this. Joined to his filthy idols\emdash the trail of the serpent in every chamber of imagery\emdash Christ might well have said, "Let him alone!"\par \par But who can "limit" the Holy One of Israel? He will leave behind in that wild region, if He should never visit it again, ONE ever enduring memorial of His grace and power. He would tell His church and people in every age, that if Satan is mighty, there is a mightier still\emdash that over this legion-dominion "all power is committed" to the "Stronger" than the "strong man." He has only to utter the word, and the demons surrender their prey, and crouch submissive at His feet!\par \par Moreover, adverting to a still further exhibition of the Savior's power in the sequel of the narrative, observe the Devils would not and dared not enter into the herd of swine, until they had received His permissive word "Go." Blessed assurance! Satan's power is bounded! Satan's Lord says now, as then, "This far shall you go, and no further, and here shall your proud waves stop!"\par \par Both from the case of this Gadarene Demoniac and the one in the Synagogue of Capernaum, we learn, that, great as was the sway of Satan over the bodies and souls of men, it was not such as to  prevent them taking themselves to Jesus, and seeking His mercy. If this were so at a time when the influence of the great Adversary was at its height, we may take comfort in the assurance that no power of Satan can now deter us fleeing to the "Power of God;" that if our Faith and Hope is built upon that Rock, "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."\par \par And further, in connection with the Restorer of this Demoniac, we have the assurance that there is a period of triumph at hand\emd!ash a time coming when Satan's kingdom shall be destroyed, when Jesus shall put him and all other enemies "under His feet."\par \par That Satanic Empire got its greatest and final blow on the cross of Calvary. "Now," said Jesus, when that cross was projecting its shadow on His path, "shall the Prince of this world be cast out!" It was even so. "As He bowed His head, and cried, 'It is finished!' he dragged the pillars of the Usurper's Empire to the dust." And if we see not yet "all things put und"er Him," we know on infallible authority that victory does await the Prince of life. The chain is already forged which is to bind the destroyer. Ever since the day when his serried legions were routed at Calvary, the loyal subjects of his Divine Conqueror have been following up the triumph of their Lord, gathering spoils and trophies from the nations so long enthralled\emdash the Great Captain of Salvation "from henceforth expecting, until His enemies be made His footstool."\par \par You who are# feeling at times downcast by reason of "the depths of Satan," mourning over his power alike in your own hearts, in the church of God, and in the world; remember his doom is sealed! Jesus can say of each one of His people as of Gad of old, "A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last." We can anticipate with confidence the predicted period when the tyranny of six thousand years shall end\emdash Satan and all his vanquished legions be strewn, like the hosts of Egypt, on the shores of Time$\emdash and, in the words of God to His true Israel, "The enemies you have seen today, you shall see no more forever."\par \par 4. Finally, let us contemplate THE RESTORED.\par \par How beautiful this calm sunset after a storm-wreathed sky! His fellow citizens come out in numbers to witness the prodigy\emdash the once infuriated man sitting, like a child, at the feet of his deliverer, "clothed, and in his right mind." A vaster than mere deliverance from a bodily thraldom would seem to %have been his\emdash it was a translation all at once "out of darkness into marvelous light." No captive hurried from the world's darkest and most pestilential dungeon to breathe the pure light of day, ever experienced the gladsome sensations of this Restored Demoniac.\par \par Can we wonder at his fervent wish, as his Lord and the disciples are once more about to depart and cross the Lake, that he might be allowed to accompany them? What, he might naturally think, may be the consequence when my& deliverer is gone? A new invasion, either of the old legion or of a fresh raid from the Hosts of Darkness, may be made on this trembling frame, and my last state may be "worse than the first." How natural that he should cling in grateful love to that mighty Being, who had "brought him out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set his feet upon a Rock, and established his goings, and put a new song into his mouth, even praise unto our God." "HOWEVER Jesus did not allow him, but said to him, G'o home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you."\par \par We cannot pronounce what may have been the special object Jesus had in giving this man such express injunctions to publish his cure, while the same publicity, as you will remember, he strictly forbade in the case of the Leper. It has been surmised that a previous profligate life had involved his acquaintances and friends in his guilt and ruin, and he may have been sent spec(ially to warn them, lest theirs might be the same terrible doom without the same hope of deliverance. Christ's refusal to allow him to accompany Him may, moreover, have been intended as a great lesson for all\emdash that true rest and repose in a Savior's presence is reserved for heaven; that life has great duties and great responsibilities; that religion is not a thing to be thrust into a corner, the joys of which are to be selfishly appropriated, without one effort to impart them to others; but home, fr)iends, country, humankind, are the successive spheres for the operation of our Christian influence. Shining first and brightest in our own dwellings, the light of truth must radiate to the earth's circumference.\par \par While from this man's history there is a voice of terrible warning, there is a voice surely also of encouragement and mercy. Are there any whose eyes may fall on these pages conscious of a lifetime of sin? trembling on the brink of despair, fearful lest all be lost? ONE has come* to the shores of a desolate world; He has encountered tempests of wrath, that He might reach your homes and hearts of wretchedness with the word of pardon and peace! Oh, flee to Him without delay. Your spiritual adversaries may be many\emdash "their name is legion"\emdash but One is on your side, alone, but omnipotent. "God is for you, who can be against you?"\par \par Yes, there is no room to despair. Blessed be His name, there are none debarred and excluded from mercy, and to whom we may not +utter the free message, "Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope."\par \par With these demons of the text the case was different. With them hope was extinguished. Their probation time had come and gone; their mighty game for Eternity had been staked and lost; their die was cast, and cast forever! "What have WE to do with YOU?" was their too truthful theology. The door of mercy on them was irrevocably shut. They had "gone to their own place!"\par \par But it is with you as with th,e demoniac! A Savior's voice can still reach you\emdash a Savior's blood can still wash you! You may up to this hour have been "wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked," but His grace can bring you submissive to His feet\emdash seat you there "clothed, and in your right mind," clad in the spotless clothing of His imputed righteousness!\par \par "Behold the goodness and severity of God\emdash on those who fell severity, but on us goodness if we continue in His goodness!"\par \par See th-at that goodness be not spurned. Flee to that Savior's feet while yet He tarries on the earthly side of the Lake. Soon He may depart\emdash soon He may re-cross the waters\emdash the opportunity of meeting Him may be past! This was probably the one solitary visit He ever made to the Gadarenes. It may be the same to us. See that our conduct be not a copy of theirs, bidding Him begone, "praying Him to depart out of our coasts." He may never return. He may take us at our word. He may prove in this, by stern reality "a prayer-answering God."\par \par Might He not have so dealt with us before now? How often, already, have we rejected Him? Oh! if He had done to us, as he did to the Gadarenes\emdash granted our request\emdash where should we have been at this hour? But still He lingers! The anchor of Hope still clings to the sands of Time. Still is He "waiting to be gracious." "If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } 11; e!10 The Spoiler Spoiled{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE SPOILER SPOILED\par \par "They went across the lake to the region of the Gadarenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an ev0ar The earth-bower of my sainted child!\par Forth sped the doom\emdash 'Return to dust!'\par In the cold grave my treasure lies;\par I was a traitor to my trust,\par I got it not to idolize!\par Hush! breaking heart, that pines and weeps,\par Laughing the holy word to scorn,\par 'The maiden is not dead but sleeps;'\par You'll meet her on the Heavenly morn!"\par \par "Then a man names Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue1, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with Him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying." Luke 8:41, 42; Matt. 9:18-26; Mark 5:22-43.\par \par The two last incidents we considered, were the Storm on the Lake, and the more terrible picture on its eastern shore, of the Gadarene Demoniac. "The Man Christ Jesus," oppressed with fatigue of body and exhaustion of spirit, lay stretched, fast asleep, in the hinder part of a fishing vessel, until roused by His 2disciples from His needed repose, to allay the tempest. On landing, we found Him encountering a victim of Satanic rage\emdash a bosom more troubled than earth's most unquiet sea! But to the moral storm, as to the natural, He had said, "Peace, be still!" Then, as a strange sequel to this miracle, the Gadarenes "pled with Jesus to leave their region." In obedience to their ungrateful wish, He has taken ship, once more, to the western side, where the people are already lining the beach, eager to welcome Him.3\par \par And what is the first recorded incident in connection with the Lord and His disciples, as they again tread the streets of Capernaum? They had left behind them a fearful monument of Sin. They are called now to behold Sin's terrible consequences!\par \par Ah! Death!\emdash O unsparing Foe!\emdash terrible Invader!\emdash Severer of the firmest of earthly bonds\emdash causing, from the hour of the fall, one loud wail of suffering to arise from the households you have swept\emdas4h converting the world itself into one vast sepulcher\emdash its teeming millions a long burial procession to the one long home!\emdash every heart beating its own "funeral march to the grave!" But the Prince and Lord of Life now draws near. You are about to be stormed in your own citadel\emdash compelled to relinquish your prey; and to every bosom in all time which you are crudely to rifle, there are consolatory words and lessons to be gathered from this scene we are now to consider.\par \par L5et us first rehearse the narrative; and then endeavor to gather up some of the more solemn and comforting truths which that narrative enforces.\par \par We have no further light thrown in Gospel story, on the principal personage in this scene. He was Ruler of the synagogue of Capernaum; supposed to be one of those "elders of the Jews" we previously found coming in a body or deputation, to intercede with Jesus in behalf of the Centurion's servant, saying, that "he was worthy for whom he should do6 this, for he loves our nation, and he has built us a synagogue."\par \par This pious Israelite had urged his suit successfully for another\emdash the slave of a Gentile soldier who had been stretched on a couch of sickness, "ready to die." The Divine philanthropist had listened to the pleadings of faith and gratitude, and immediately accompanied him in the direction of that soldier's abode. But a far tenderer case now engrosses this Ruler's thoughts\emdash a far tenderer sorrow weighs down his 7own heart. The Grim Messenger is now standing at his own portal!\par \par An only daughter, like the one Ewe lamb of the prophet's parable, gladdened his home. She had arrived, too, just at that age when a father's heartstrings are bound fastest and firmest around his child's soul, and before the world had time to taint or stain her with its corruptions. With that child had been doubtless interwoven every thought of the future; she was the pride of the family, the prop of the present, the promis8ed solace of her parents' old age. Often perhaps, in the midst of other trials, they would glance at the loving spirit at their side, and say, "This child shall comfort us." But health and strength, youth and intelligence, are unable to exclude the sleepless foe of human happiness. The shadows of death are falling around that dwelling; and it is the one they least dreamed of, that is marked out to fall!\par \par We have not detailed to us, as in the case of Lazarus, the circumstances of that hou9r of anxiety and sorrow; whether disease had crept imperceptibly upon her; the King of terrors coming with noiseless step\emdash velvet footfall; the candle of decaying life burning down slowly until it reached its socket; or whether, with appalling suddenness, the arrow had sped\emdash the sun, which perhaps that morning rose on a cheerful home, setting over the valley of death, amid weeping clouds. All the entry we have in the inspired Record is, "She was dying." She had reached that terrible crisis-hou:r when hope's last glimmerings were being extinguished\emdash the last tides of life were slowly ebbing\emdash that sun was "going down while it was yet day!"\par \par Can nothing be done to arrest the death-arrow in its course\emdash to stop that sun from so premature a setting? The anguished father thinks of ONE, and ONE alone, who can say, "Sun, stand still!" "Can that same Jesus" (he might think to himself), "who cured a humble slave, who gave back to a fond Master the life of a faithful ser;vant"\emdash can He not (will He not) pity "one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel?" Will He, can He, if I rush to Him in this hour of my sorrow, deny me His pitying love, and the exercise of His wondrous power?"\par \par There is no time for delay. With fleet footstep he rushes to the feet of the Prophet of Galilee, and in an agony of prayer beseeches Him to follow him to his dwelling. The Savior obeys; accompanied by a mixed crowd, among whom deeper and holier feelings and sympathies minus to that trembling parent. The sand-glass of that loved one's life was hurrying to its last grain. He might have reached her in time, had it not been for this. But the likelihood is that the golden opportunity is past and gone; these few minutes' delay have cost the father his child\emdash locked her fast in a sleep too deep to be disturbed!\par \par And yet, we may well believe, there were gracious purposes in this, as there ever are in much which our blindness is apt to regard as adverse and? unfavorable. The smaller miracle\emdash (the intermediate cure)\emdash would prepare the crowd for receiving the greater one. Above all, it would strengthen and confirm the faith of the witnessing parent\emdash lead him to hope against hope, and, in the extremity of his anguish, make him "strong in faith, giving glory to God." We hear from his lips no fretful and impatient utterances\emdash no insinuations against his Lord, or against the other suppliant, regarding the delay. Meekly he waits the Redeemer@'s time and will; and before long he shall have the promise fulfilled in his experience: "The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks Him." "It is good for a man that he both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God."\par \par But just at the moment when faith has got its pledge of Divine power\emdash when the procession is again in motion, and joyous visions of the past are beginning to fill the future, messengers from his homestead are the bearers of heavy tidings:A "Your daughter is dead, do not trouble the master!" "Fatigue not (as the word means), that weary, toil-worn Savior\emdash add not to his journey or exhaustion. Let Him have the rest He so much requires; His presence could be of no avail now, for death has put his impressive, irrevocable seal on these lips."\par \par Ah! bitter news! Just when hope was rising\emdash when the future was beginning again to have its rainbow hues spanning a dark sky\emdash these tints melt and merge into a deeper daBrkness than before. The torch is quenched. The great dreaded blight of existence has passed over the parent's heart!\par \par Now is the time for Jesus' utterances of comfort; for now was the moment when doubt and misgiving were most likely to rise and eclipse the hitherto triumphant actings of faith. Now was the time for those harsh thoughts of rebellious nature, we have already hinted at, which so often, at such seasons, overmaster our nobler feelings. "If it had been but a few moments sooner,C my child might have been spared! If the Lord had only postponed the performance of that other act of love until He had left my threshold, I might still have had my precious gourd blossoming around me! It was these moments of delay that bereft me of my household treasure. By stopping to give peace to one sufferer, He has done so at the sacrifice of all that most fondly bound me to earth!"\par \par If these, and thoughts like these, were about to arise, Christ in mercy interposes. We read, "JesusD answered," (not that Jairus spoke aloud his own feelings, but He who reads the secret heart answered to what was passing in the heaving depths of that soul)\emdash "Hush! hush!" He seems to say, "do not allow these thoughts to arise in your heart; dismiss all such unworthy doubts." "Do not be afraid, only believe."\par \par And now He has reached the house. The trappings and outward pageantry of death too truthfully verify the tidings of the messengers. In accordance with oriental custom, hiredE mourners and hired minstrels were already filling that silent chamber with dirges; while with these mingled the deeper and truer wailings of the smitten hearts.\par \par "Go away!" said Christ, as in a tone of authority He rebuked these vehement demonstrations of mimic sorrow\emdash "Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead, but ASLEEP." An enigmatic expression to the tumultuous mob around, but to the father, it was the renewal and repetition under a lovely figure of the formerF pacifying utterance, "Do not be afraid, only believe." The word "dead"\emdash the utterance of the human messengers, too well calculated to annihilate the last spark of hope\emdash is replaced by the rekindling word, "she sleeps." Man has put the terrible extinguisher on that lamp. But Jesus says, "Do not be afraid." What is that message of death, when I, the Lord of life, have been summoned by you? You have seen my power on a suffering woman\emdash "only believe, and I will show you greater things than Gthese."\par \par The irreverent thronging crowd are kept outside. The mimic mourners are all excluded. His three favored disciples (afterwards the witnesses of His transfiguration on the Mount, and of His agony in the garden), are alone allowed to enter the chamber sacred to sorrow. In dumb emotion the two parents are bending over their withered flower. But so also is He who gave it\emdash who planted it\emdash who plucked it and who is to give it back again. In the might of His own omnipotence\Hemdash in His own name (without invoking, like His prophets or apostles under similar circumstances, any higher power), death is summoned to yield his victim. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" The sleeper awoke! The prostrate lily raises its drooping head, and sheds once more its fragrance in that joyous home. That happy Israelite might well take up the words of his great ancestor, which he had so often read in the synagogue service, but perhaps without being evIer before touched by them: "You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!"\par \par Let us now seek to ponder one or two of those practical lessons with which this scene and passage are replete.\par \par I. The first lesson we may gather from the text is, that all are exposed to domestic bereavement.\par \par J It may seem unkind to break the trance of earthly bliss by referring to the possibility, far less the certainty, of trial. And yet it is needful, now and then, solemnly to repeat the warning that you and yours "will not always live."\par \par If God has up to now put upon your household the exempting mark\emdash if the destroying angel has passed by your door unscathed\emdash if you have no vacant chair at your home-hearth, no yawning chasm in your heart of hearts\emdash you are the exception, Knot the rule. God knows we have no gloomy pleasure in being prophets of evil. It is a poor gospel to dwell on harrowing thoughts of death\emdash the shroud\emdash the grave! But I would take these as preachers, to enforce the lesson daily taught us, "You also be ready." Yes, sooner or later, each one of us, parents and children, shall be brought to learn the solemn truth, "I am about to die." And if there be one who peruses these pages, who, like the minstrels of whom we have been speaking, is ready to haLve a smile on his lips, and to "laugh to scorn" a trite commonplace which everyone knows and many care not to hear\emdash if youth in its strength, or manhood in its prime, is saying inwardly, "No fear for me," "My mountain is standing strong"\emdash we would say to him with deep solemnity, "You fool, this night your soul may be required of you!"\par \par Parents may well listen to a special word of solemn admonition. The death spoken of in the text was that of a child "twelve years of age." WhiMle this tells that your children may, at any age or at any time, be taken from you, it ought to urge upon you fidelity to your immortal trust. If you would wish the richest of all solaces when you are bereft of them, deal faithfully with their souls now. Do not allow any false shame to prevent you in all seriousness speaking to them of the things which belong to their everlasting peace. If you should ever come to mourn over an early grave, to you it will be the sweetest of all consolations if you can thinNk that that "buried treasure of yearning hearts" was the subject of a mother's prayers and a father's counsels\emdash that under that grassy sod there sleeps the child who from earliest years you had "lent to the Lord." On the other hand, it will be the bitterest of reflections (the iron truly will enter into your soul), if you have to weep burning tears of anguish over parental unfaithfulness and neglect. Bereft of that hope, "My child is in glory," you will be bereft indeed!\par \par II. We leOarn from this passage that we need trials to bring us near to God.\par \par It was his child's sickness that drove Jairus to the feet of Jesus. But for that home-trial his faith would never have been exercised, nor his love and gratitude evoked. While in health and prosperity, we are apt to take God's gifts as matters of course. It is not until the storm rises, that, with these atheist hearts of ours, (like the heathen sailors in Jonah's vessel), we fall upon our knees and feel that our only safPety is in Him "who rules the raging of the seas." Yes! when God makes breaches in our households\emdash when He brings home to us the truth that our existence, and the existence of our children, is a perpetual miracle\emdash when we discover that those little lives, pillars in our households, which we have vainly thought were pillars of iron, turn out to be pillars of dust\emdash when the solid ivory discovers itself to be the melting snow wreath\emdash then are we driven to discover what is the sole impeQrishable Portion!\par \par If God is visiting any one of you with the deep experience of trial, it is that He may speak home to you. Never does He speak so gently, so wisely, so loudly, so solemnly, as when He asserts His right to take away what He originally gave. See, in the text, the unbelieving, laughing, mocking crowd, are disqualified to hear Jesus. They have "passed at a bound" from their mimic sorrow to heartless mirth; simulators\emdash actors\emdash they are thrust out of that Holy PreRsence. But the stricken Parents are taken into the favored circle. They gaze upwards from the face of the dead on Him who is "fairer than the children of men." In such a Presence unbelief is hushed, and faith is ready to hear "what God the Lord has to say to their souls." How many can tell, "But for the death of that Parent, that Brother, that Sister, that Child, I would have been to this hour without God and with out hope!"\par \par III. Let us learn, from the incident of the text, the comfort Sof Prayer in the hour of sickness and death.\par \par This Ruler, we read, came and fell down before him, pleading with him to heal his little daughter. "She is about to die," he said in desperation. "Please come and place your hands on her; heal her so she can live." Trial drove Jairus in his hour of dreaded bereavement to prayer, and "the effectual fervent prayer of this righteous man availed much."\par \par The same blessed refuge is open for us in times of sickness. When our friendTs or our children are stretched on beds of suffering and death, we can take their cases to God, and plead with Him in their behalf at the Mercy Seat. We must not indeed dream that our prayers (as they were in the case of the Jewish ruler) must necessarily be answered, and that at our earthly bidding a miracle should follow. This would be presumption, not faith; this would be to usurp the Sovereignty of God\emdash to substitute our own wisdom for His\emdash it would be to make our will and not His paramounUt. If we had only to speak and it was accomplished, it would make man God, and degrade God to the level of man. It would be to dishonor the Almighty, making Him the servant of the creature\emdash not the creature waiting on in loving trustfulness as the servant of the Creator. Far, far better is it for the lowly suppliant to endorse every petition with the words, "Father, not my will but Yours be done."\par \par And yet, let us remember for our comfort, that prayers at a deathbed (apparently unhVeard and unanswered) are not in vain. They may smooth the death-pillow. They may remove from it its thorns, and put the promises of Christ in their stead. They may lead sorrowing survivors to lowly resignation, and disarm earthly reflections of their poignant sting. Yes! do not forget this, when seasons of family trial overtake you\emdash when the best of earthly means and instrumentality prove ineffective, and those near and dear to you are hovering on the confines of the grave. Do not sit down wringing Wyour hands in despair, as if Jehovah were like Baal, asleep or on a journey, and His ear deaf, when you most need His intervention. Arise, call upon Your God! Plead the assurance that if in accordance with that better will and wisdom "the prayer of faith SHALL save the sick."\par \par The Patriarch David of old, is a rebuke in this respect to the lack of faith in many a Christian parent now. For seven whole days was he stretched on the bare earth importunate for his infant's life. "Who can tell,X" said he, "whether God may be gracious to me that my child may live?" Not until the little spark had fled, and the sad accents fell on his ear, "Your child is dead," did the prayer melt into the bright hope full of immortality\emdash " I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me!"\par \par IV. Learn the nature of real sorrow.\par \par He who wept at the grave of Lazarus does not forbid Tears. They are holy things, consecrated by Incarnate tenderness. Let the world, if they may, cYondemn it as unmanly to grieve\emdash or worse, let them seek oblivion for their trials in the giddy round of its pleasures and follies, and make the grave of their dead as soon as they can, be "the land of forgetfulness." He encourages no such cold and stern stoicism. But, on the other hand, neither does He countenance excessive sorrow. True Christian grief is calm, tranquil, chastened. The noisy, wailing, mimic crowd are spurned from the scene. If they had been the tears of a Martha or Mary, He would haZve held them as sacred; but being the hollow echoes of unfeeling hearts, He says, "Why all this commotion and wailing?"\par \par Jesus, on every occasion in His public ministry, stamps with His abhorrence all pretense. He dislikes unreality, what is made to appear gold which is tinsel\emdash whether it be simulated joy, or simulated piety, or simulated tears. That is a poor sorrow which expends itself in funeral trappings\emdash which is measured by doleful looks, and passionate words, and mourn[ing clothes. True grief is not like the stream which murmurs and frets because it passes over a shallow bed\emdash that which is deepest makes least noise. Inconsolable sorrow is inappropriate the Christian. To abandon one's self to sullen gloom, moping melancholy and discontent, is sadly to miss and mistake the great design of trial. God sends it to wake us up to a sense of life's realities\emdash not to fold our hands, but to be more in earnest than ever in our work and warfare.\par \par Oh! w\hen He sees fit to enter our households, and, as the Great Proprietor of life, to resume His own, be it ours to thank Him for the precious loan, to acknowledge His right and prerogative to recall the grant. "The Lord loves a cheerful giver." Although it was in a trial, of which, God forbid, either you or I should ever know the bitterness, I know not in all Scripture a more touching picture of this silent acquiescence in God's sovereign will than we have in the case of a parent who had seen his two worthle]ss children smitten down before his eyes, and yet of whom we only read that "Aaron held his peace."\par \par V. Finally, let us learn from this passage that Christ is the Great Vanquisher of DEATH.\par \par Previously we have traced His footsteps of mercy and power as the Healer of diseases\emdash the Savior of the body\emdash the Lord of nature\emdash the Ruler of the spirit. We have seen Pain crouching importunate at His feet; Penitence creeping meekly at His side bedewing Him with t^ears; Sickness at His summons taking wings and fleeing away.\par \par But now he has reached a new era in His life of marvels. He has broken the bands of Death. He has gathered in the first sheaf of that mighty Harvest of life, of which the angels are to be the Reapers in the Resurrection morning.\par \par He gives us here a comforting assurance; first, regarding the Dying, and second, regarding the Dead.\par \par (1.) He tells us regarding every death-bed\emdash that the thr_ead of existence is in His hands\emdash that He quickens and restores whom He will\emdash that to Him as "God the Lord, belong the issues of life and death."\par \par "Your daughter is dead;" (said bold human unbelief) "trouble not the Master." But the message is premature. He has inverted the sand glass. He has made the shadow as in Hezekiah's dial to go back!\par \par Oh, glorious assurance! Our lives and the lives of all near and dear to us are in His keeping. It is He who sends the` death-messenger. It is He who marks every tree in the forest\emdash plucks every flower in the garden. My health and sickness, my joys and sorrows, my friends, my children, are in the hands of the Christ of Calvary! We, in our blind unbelief, may regard Death as some arbitrary tyrant lording it, with iron scepter, over hapless victims. But the Gospel teaches a nobler philosophy. It tells of One in heaven who has in His hands "the keys of the grave and of death," and who, at the time He sees best, but nota one moment sooner, "turns man to destruction, and says, Return, you children of men!"\par \par (2.) He gives us a comforting word regarding the DEAD. Christian, He says of your dead (the dead in Christ), "Do not be afraid, only believe." "Weep not; she is not dead, but sleeps." Yes, weep not! she is not dead, but LIVES! Death is but a quiet sleep. Soon the morning hour shall strike\emdash the waking time of immortality arrive, and the voice of Jesus will be heard saying\emdash "I go that I may bawake them out of sleep."\par \par It has been often noted that there is a beautiful and striking progression in our Lord's three miraculous raisings from the dead. This instance, we have been considering, was the first in point of time. The daughter of Jairus was raised immediately after death had taken place, when the body was still laid on its death-couch. Her soul had but taken its flight to the spirit-world, when the angels that bore it away were summoned to restore it. The second, in orderc of time, was the raising of the son of the widow of Nain. Death had in this case achieved a longer triumph. The usual time for lamentation had intervened\emdash he was being borne to his last home when the voice of Deity sounded over his casket. The third and last of this class of miracles, was the raising of Lazarus of Bethany. In his case, death had attained a still more signal mastery. The funeral ceremonies were over\emdash the sepulchral grotto held in its embrace the loved and lost; four days had tdhese lips been sealed before the life-giving and life-restoring word was uttered. There is one other gigantic step in this progression. "The hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth."\par \par In the first case we have cited, the time elapsing between the dismissal of the spirit and its recall, was measured by moments, the second by hours, the third by days; the fourth is measured by ages\emdash centuries\emdash A millennium! Beut what of that? What though we speak of the tomb as the "long home," and death as the long sleep? By Him (with whom a thousand years is as one day) that precious, because redeemed dust, shall be gathered together, particle by particle. "I will ransom them," He says, as he looks forward through the vista of ages to this glorious consummation\emdash "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be Your plague! O grave, I will be Your destruction."\par \parf Blessed, thrice blessed time! As in the case of Jairus, it was his own loved daughter who, in form and feature, was again restored: as the widow of Nain gazed on the unaltered countenance of her own cherished boy: as the sisters of Lazarus saw in him who came forth from the grave, no alien form strangely altered, but the Brother of their hearts\emdash so, we believe, on that wondrous Morning of immortality, shall the beloved on earth wear their old familiar smiles and loving looks. They shall regtain their personal identity.\par \par And further, as in the case of the daughter in the text, her Parents received her once more into their arms\emdash as in the case of the widow's son, it is expressly said, "they delivered him to his mother"\emdash as in Bethany, we are allowed to look into the home circle again reunited, Jesus once more loving "Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus," and they loving one another\emdash so may we believe that, on the Resurrection day, the affections which hallowed hohmes on earth, shall not be dulled, quenched, annihilated, but rather ennobled and purified. Brothers, sisters, parents, children, shall be linked once more in the fond ties and memories of earth, gathering in loving groups around the living fountains of waters, and singing together the twofold anthem of Providence and Grace\emdash "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb!"\par \par If we descend for a moment from these lofty contemplations, it is to utter a brief word, ini conclusion, to those who know nothing of such glorious hopes\emdash who are locked in the slumbers of a far sadder Death. Yes! there is a more dreadful sleep\emdash a more dreadful death\emdash than that of the Grave! They are rather to be envied who have "fallen asleep" (or as the word means) who have been "laid asleep by Jesus." Faith, in her noblest musings, would not weep them back from their crowns, and deprive them of their bliss! But they are to be pitied who are still slumbering on in the deep sejpulchral stillness of spiritual death\emdash that death from which there can only be a waking up in anguish! With deep solemnity would I say, "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life!"\par \par When we are called, as at times we are, to hear of deathbeds in every phase of life\emdash in every stage of the chequered journey\emdash manhood in the sere and yellow leaf\emdash youth in its prime\emdash childhood in its innocence\emdash infancy in its tenderest bukd; or when these truths come home to us as arrows feathered from our own bosoms\emdash solemn thoughts welling up from the very deeps of our being; I know not what will make a man serious if such impressive lessons fail to do so! Reader! If God were to meet you tonight, could you meet Him? Would you be ready for the Opened Books and the Great Judgement? Nothing\emdash nothing will be of any avail at that hour, but the life of faith in the Son of God; not the wretched possibility of a deathbed repentance, but an honest, loving, cordial closing NOW, with that great Salvation.\par \par It is but a slender thread that binds us to existence; every moment, "Truly there is but a step between us and death." Oh, that we may so live, that that step may be regarded as a step between us and Glory; and that, when the final summons comes, it may be to us\emdash what weeping friends cannot see\emdash the Chariots of Salvation and the Horses of fire, waiting to bear us to Paradise!\par \par \cf1\fs23\par }  ]A11 The Only Daughter{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE ONLY DAUGHTER\par \par "Fondly I prized that lovely mind\par Where all was gentle, sweet, and mild;\par A thousand blooming flowers entwined\p/n Of human care and crime,\par With whom the melodies abide\par Of th' everlasting chime;\par Who carry music in their heart,\par Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,\par Plying their daily task with busier feet,\par Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat."\par \par "After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. 'Follow Me', Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything aond followed Him." Luke 5:27, 28; Matthew 9:9, 10; Mark 2:14\par \par We cannot be sure what precise chronological place among the Memories of Gennesaret the calling of Matthew should occupy. But we cannot be far wrong in considering it as having occurred in immediate connection with the incidents on which we have been recently dwelling.\par \par Of the previous personal history of the future Evangelist we know nothing. But a flood of light is thrown upon his character, and the positionp he occupied in Capernaum, by the worldly profession from which he was taken to be a Follower and Apostle of Jesus.\par \par If any one name or class was more hated than another among the Jews, it was that of the Publicans. These, as is well known, were the collectors of the tax laid on the Jewish nation by the foreign power by which they were subjugated. The impatience of the Hebrews under the Roman yoke rendered taxation in any shape peculiarly offensive. The odium of the public burdens themseqlves, came to be shared by the officers who exacted them, so much so, that it was only the more degraded among their countrymen who could be found willing to accept pay and place, reckoned at once servile and degrading. It was written in their law (Deut. 17:15), "You may not set a stranger over you who is not your brother." The Hebrew that would stoop to collect these revenues (badges of national dishonor), was considered guilty of an infraction of their sacred code\emdash denounced as having done homage rto an alien and heathen master.\par \par There are never lacking, however, in any community, mean-souled, covetous men\emdash men of iron will by nature, and that indurated by practice, who will venture, at any risk, to brave public opinion, and stoop to have their mammon-spirit gratified. The office of Publican was an easy road to wealth; and a man destitute of self respect, who was heedless about losing his character, or rather who had no character to lose, would not be scrupulous in acceptings this lucrative office under Caesar. The collecting of these taxes, moreover, afforded the publicans additional opportunities for indulging in tyrannical exaction and fraud. Any appeal from their overcharges was carried to a Roman tribunal, where the case was often pre-judged, and the chance of reimbursement rendered nearly hopeless. The civil rulers never deemed it diplomatic to encourage resistance to their subordinate officers. Thus, Might too often triumphed over Right; while the petitioners, in antictipation of an adverse decision, could readily disarm the hostility of the tax-gatherer by means of a secret bribe.\par \par The code of morality among the Publicans, you can thus see at once, was that of the lowest description. We cease to wonder at the disgust in which they were held by the rest of the population. The severest thing a proud Pharisee could say was, "God, I thank you I am not as this Publican!" The daughters of Israel scorned alliance with them in marriage. Their testimony was nout received at Jewish tribunals. It was a common saying among the Jews, "that vows made to thieves, murderers, and publicans, might be broken," and when our Lord himself spoke of an incorrigible offender, one who, from persistence in wrongdoing, was to be excommunicated from the Church, He says, "Let him be to you as an heathen man and a publican."\par \par There may have been exceptions, indeed, among the class we are speaking of\emdash individuals of nobler parts, who were not so unscrupulous avnd dishonest as others. We have nothing, however, to entitle us to consider Levi (or Matthew) in any more favorable light than as an average specimen of his calling. His post for "receipt of custom" seems to have been at the port of Capernaum. There he was seated when Jesus met him, receiving dues. The question is one of no great importance whether the calling and conversion of the first Evangelist was sudden, or whether it had been preceded by processes of anxious thought\emdash severe mental and spirituwal struggles.\par \par Most probably the latter. Though we never dare limit the omnipotence and sovereignty of Divine grace, it seems more in accordance with God's usual dealings, and the analogy in His other works, to connect the great moral change known as conversion, with certain means and instrumentality; not making it the offspring of blind, unreasoning impulse. Who can tell, that, though unknown to his fellow tax-gatherers or to the thronging crowds which crudely jostled and wrangled arounxd his place of business, there had been for a long time, a silent, secret, unnoticed spiritual work going on in that man's soul! For days\emdash for weeks\emdash conscience may have been speaking; the thought of a debased moral nature, grasping avarice, illicit gains, may have been disturbing his peace by day, and his dreams by night.\par \par He may, long before this, have been an hearer of the discourses of the Great Prophet, and a witness of His miracles. He may have listened to some of thosey Divine lessons in which a lofty morality had been inculcated, to which he, alas! had long been a stranger. How terribly would his whole life stand rebuked by the utterance of these golden words\emdash they may have gone like a barbed arrow into his soul\emdash "Do to others as you would that they should do unto you." "Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and you shall be the children of the Highest." As another Publican, at a later date, swung himself on the branch of a syczamore tree to attract the notice of the Holy Teacher, so may this officer of Capernaum have followed the crowd of stragglers to the Mount of Beatitudes, or heard, amid the pauses of traffic, some gracious words which sank into his soul, and stirred the depths of his being.\par \par Who can picture the conflict that may have ensued between nature and grace, principle and conscience, mammon and God? He may have long felt the heavenly impulse before he dared to publicly avow it\emdash a desire to r{enounce his sinful and fraudulent ways; but the old arguments, "My subsistence, my gains, my family," crushed and smothered better thoughts. He may have been for long what the old writers call "a Borderer," wavering and hovering on the confines of light and darkness; the pendulum vibrating between two worlds! But Incarnate Truth confronts him, and the whole lie of his former being melts before the rays of that Glorious Sun. Jesus comes, sees him, and by an omnipotent word and look, conquers! Joined to the| Son of God and Savior of the world by this outward act and inward principle of life and love, he has become "a new creature"\emdash "All old things have passed away, and all things have become new."\par \par The same great change must take place with regard to all of us before we can enter the kingdom of God. There must be a leaving behind us of all that is of the earth earthy, and a cleaving with full purpose of heart to the Lord who died for us. Let us not deceive ourselves with the thought t}hat some external profession\emdash acting up to some conventional standard of religion recognized by the community in which we dwell\emdash Sabbath forms of devotion, and weekly worldliness\emdash will save us, instead of saving conversion. Much less, that some fond dreams of future amendment will exempt us from the need of present repentance and crucifixion of sin in the heart and life. Let us remember the words of Him who never made one hard exaction, or imposed one unnecessary burden\emdash "If any ma~n will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." If any are disposed to feel that such denial is unreasonable, if not impossible, come with us to the Port of Capernaum and as we gaze on that scene of worldly business, and hear a voice in the midst of it, saying, "Follow Me," let us endeavor to weigh well all that is comprehended in the willing response\emdash when Matthew "left all, rose up, and followed Jesus."\par \par We might examine the conduct of Matthew from many points of view, but we shall illustrate it, at present, under one aspect, (an aspect which the Church in modern times may do well to ponder), that is, as a life of sacrifice.\par \par I. The conversion of Matthew involved A SACRIFICE OF THE WORLD.\par \par A financial sacrifice is all the greater if the man who makes it is naturally avaricious and covetous. We can quite well imagine an individual who is happily exempt from the passion of money-making, counting it no great hardship to take some step involving a reduction in earthly gain. But it is no small struggle with him who has, from youth up been a cringing worshiper of mammon, to cast the hoarded treasure from his grasp, and throw himself penniless into the world.\par \par Such was the case with Matthew. If he had not been naturally a covetous man, the chances are all against his being ever found seated at the custom-house of Capernaum. Moreover, that this particular "receipt of custom" was a lucrative one, is further evinced by the fact that he was able on quitting it forever, to make a sumptuous feast for his friends and former associates. It was different with him in this respect from the other apostles. Fishermen on the lake\emdash their sole riches consisted in a joint fishing vessel with its tackle, and the precarious gains of their daily toil. What a test of his sincerity\emdash that he was swayed by some mighty principle superior to nature\emdash that in one moment he was able to surrender at his Lord's bidding his golden prize, and cast in his lot with the despised and homeless Savior of Galilee.\par \par Yes; the world might not have wondered that he thus left his original calling had there been some carnal and lucrative equivalent held out in the other. But it was all the reverse. That Savior had taken care to undeceive every adherent who clung to hopes of worldly advancement\emdash "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay His head." Yet, with this prospect of poverty, disgrace, and contempt\emdash the Publican willingly renounced his earthly all. At the very moment his coffers are filling, behind the pressing crowd around his tribute table, he sees a Divine countenance, and listens to a Divine call. The glittering coin\emdash the idol of his life\emdash was in a moment forsaken; that loving look, that convincing word, are more to him than "thousands of gold and silver," and waiting not to count the cost, or debate the expediency, he threw in his lot with the Prophet of Nazareth.\par \par What an example for us! Are we willing to make similar sacrifices for the glory of God's name? Ah! rather, how poor, and feeble, and inadequate are our most self-denying efforts when compared with those of this Hebrew tax-gatherer. He left his all\emdash he gave God his best, and kept the remnants to himself. We give God our remnants, and keep our best to ourselves. He left his worldly gain at Christ's bidding\emdash what have we left? what have we sacrificed? What 'pennies' have we thrown into His treasury! Often only the crumbs and sweepings of guilty extravagance! O that every believer\emdash every member of the Christian priesthood\emdash would come to consider his possessions, his houses and lands, his wealth, his money, not as a mere property to be selfishly used, but as a talent to be employed for the good of man and the glory of God\emdash a trust committed to his charge by God and for God, and in respect of which his stewardship will at last be rigidly scrutinized.\par \par It may seem to the carnal, worldly-mind a hard saying\emdash who can bear it?\emdash to leave ALL and follow the Savior. But who that has pondered the story of Redeeming love, can call anything unreasonable that Lord requires? Glance upwards to Him who thus demands the surrender, and remember how willingly and cheerfully He left His all for us! The noblest instance of renunciation on the part of His people is but a mere shadow\emdash dust in the balance\emdash in comparison with that self-sacrificing love which exchanged a Throne for a manger\emdash a Crown for a cross. How does that noble appeal of the Great Apostle make all the sacrifices of man pale into nothingness like the rushlight before the sun\emdash "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus, who, though He were rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be made rich."\par \par II. We have just now spoken of Matthew's sacrifice of the WORLD; there was another still greater sacrifice he proved by his deeds he was willing to make\emdash THE SACRIFICE OF SELF.\par \par The unpretentious, unboastful, unostentatious spirit of this Israelite is beautifully exemplified by one or two almost unnoticed touches in the inspired records. As if covered with shame and confusion at the remembrance of the past, he seems anxious to utter no word which would go to magnify himself, or exalt his own character and doings.\par \par While other Evangelists speak of a "Great Feast" he made, and to which he invited Jesus, he says nothing as to its greatness in his own Gospel\emdash all the reference he makes to it is, "Jesus was having dinner in the house." While Luke speaks of it as his own house, Matthew leaves the particular house indefinite.\par \par Again, in speaking of forsaking his calling at the bidding of his Savior, while Luke speaks of him as leaving "all" and following, he himself omits the words "Left ALL." But for the fidelity of his brother Evangelist the amount of his self-sacrifice would have been left unrecorded. He is content with the more modest entry, "He rose and followed."\par \par The other Evangelists, in classifying the Apostles, two by two, give him the precedence of Thomas; he reverses the order, Thomas first, himself last.\par \par While the others put a enhancing veil over his former life by inserting his other name (Levi), he has no such scruple, but adopts the old title with the unenviable notoriety it had on the shores of Gennesaret. And more, if you consult his list of the apostleship, and compare it with the others, he would seem desirous to hide from view all in himself that was praiseworthy, and to magnify the grace of God in his conversion, by bringing into prominence all that was blameworthy. In the list of Apostles given by his fellow Evangelists there is no account given of their respective worldly callings, but he makes in his own case and name a strange exception\emdash he styles and subscribes himself, "Matthew, the Publican."\par \par Oh, how unlike self and self-love is all this! When a man has committed some great fault in his past life\emdash when there is some scar in his history, how careful is he to hide it from the world, or if this he cannot do, to palliate and extenuate his conduct as best he can. A bankrupt cares not to speak of his insolvency. Whether it be his misfortune or his crime, it is an inhibited, and shunned, and forbidden theme. But Matthew, as a converted man, would have others to know what the grace of God had done in his behalf. As the lights of a picture have a value and strength given to them by the disposition of shadow, he brings into prominence the shades in his past spiritual life to give power to that light which had "shined into his heart," even "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."\par \par In writing his Gospel\emdash that sacred record which was to be read by millions on millions\emdash what an opportunity, had self been paramount, of displaying his own character to the best advantage. But the whole narrative of his conversion is there merely incidental. It is hidden among a crowd of other sacred facts. What of all he recorded could have made such an indelible impression on his own mind\emdash what memory half so hallowed or momentous, as when his Lord, in ineffable love, stood confronting his custom-house, and gave that never-to-be-forgotten word, whose echoes to his last hour were ringing in his ears\emdash the "Follow me"\emdash which was henceforth to be his motto for all time?\par \par Yet where would we discover, in reading the account in Matthew, that the narrator of the event was the veritable Publican at the Port of Gennesaret? He gives it no undue prominence. His passing reference to it is to exalt not himself, but Him who is "the chief among ten thousand." The selfish man, in rearing this monument to be read by future ages, would have done his utmost to magnify his own deeds, exalt his own sacrifices, and hide the dark blemishes in his previous life. But, when that inspired monument is reared\emdash on the four sides of which each Evangelist inscribes the record of our Lord's ministry\emdash see how the three others carefully obliterate all memory of their brother's former life, and seek to give due prominence to his generosity and self-sacrifice\emdash while he himself, in giving his version of the great Gospel story, puts all his own goodness in the shade; and, as we seek the sculptor's name amid the letters he has chiseled, we find it thus entered amid the glorious company of Apostles\emdash "Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the Publican!"\par \par III. We have still another instance of sacrifice in the case of Matthew\emdash the sacrifice of a class of feelings that had a more special reference to HIS RELATION TO OTHERS.\par \par When one who has previously led a godless life comes under serious spiritual impressions\emdash when the great Gospel change operates on his conscience, and he becomes a converted man\emdash not the smallest part often of the struggle through which he passes, is the ridicule to which he has exposed himself at the hand of his former companions. "I would willingly," is the musing of many, "become religious\emdash live a life of piety and prayer. But what would my associates think of me?\emdash my companions in daily life\emdash my brothers\emdash my kinsmen\emdash my neighbors in the counting-room\emdash my assistants at the receipt of custom? I could bear anything, and put up with anything but these scoffing sneers. I would boldly make the avowal which conscience prompts; but I dare not breast that sweeping current of ridicule which I know too well must necessarily be encountered."\par \par Or, to avoid this, how often do we see the newly awakened and regenerated soul adopting another alternative\emdash (it was the unhappy expedient of Christians of the earlier ages)\emdash rushing from the world into solitude\emdash escaping cold, repulsive, unsympathizing looks and words from those with whom they formerly associated, by an unhealthy abandonment of life's duties and responsibilities. Now, at first sight, there may be something to admire in the apparent boldness and unworldliness of such resolves. An air of saintliness gathers around these hermit-spirits. They seem to have surrendered much for God and heaven. A spurious sentimental piety would speak of them as living and moving in another atmosphere than ours, and forbid us lightly to violate the sanctity of their religious seclusion.\par \par "Those hermits blest and holy maids,\par The nearest heaven on earth\par Who talk with God in shadowy glades,\par Free from crude care and mirth;\par To whom some viewless teacher brings\par The secret love of rural things,\par The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale,\par The whispers from above that haunt the twilight vale."\par \par But, say as we will, this is the romance of religious life\emdash not its reality. Far nobler\emdash far more self-sacrificing\emdash is the conduct of the man, who, like Matthew, after forming his resolution to leave all and follow a despised Master, will gather together at a great Feast his old companions\emdash his fellows in trade\emdash his former confederates in fraud\emdash and disclosing to them boldly his own change of principles, seek to make them partakers of the same liberty with which he himself has been made free. We believe if Matthew had now acted as his own natural feelings would have dictated, he would have shut himself up in his dwelling, shunned his former associates, and waited anxiously for the next Passover, that he might follow his Lord to Jerusalem, and leave Galilee and Capernaum forever! But, with conduct worthy of a hero, he will not leave his post\emdash he will not leave his city, until he takes a graceful method of bidding his acquaintances farewell, and of giving them an opportunity of hearing from the lips of his Lord those words which had spoken peace and joy to his own soul!\par \par Yes, there was sacrifice here\emdash the bold sacrifice of a man fearless of all possible misconceptions. If he had been the slave of the dread of these, he might have thought to himself\emdash "Will not this fatally damage me in the eyes of my future companions?\emdash will not Christ and his disciples, if they see me in such company, denounce me as worldly and inconsistent? Will they not say, That man pretends to be one of us\emdash pretends to have made great sacrifices and renunciations, but his soul is clinging to the dust as before? He seemed to have forsaken all\emdash but his house and halls are open, as ever they were, to the unworthy and depraved."\par \par He heeded not such possible insinuations. He felt, before he left the city of his birth or his sojourn, that he owed a great duty to those who had been for years his friends and intimates. He was in future to be honored as an Apostle in carrying the Gospel message to distant tribes; but, in the true spirit of Christianity, he will first begin at home. All unkind and uncongenial though they now be in sentiment and feeling, he will impact and influence his old associates at Capernaum, before he goes forth, either by pen or voice, to evangelize the world. He was acting up to the injunction our Blessed Lord gave subsequently to another Apostle\emdash "When you are converted, strengthen your brethren."\par \par Are there any of us who, like Matthew, have been brought out of darkness into the marvelous light of the Gospel? Have we still some old companions at our "receipt of custom," those with whom we have been long brought into contact, but who are still without God?\emdash perhaps associates in our former guilt, ruined by our former example. We owe them a heavy debt of Christian love! It becomes us to strive to do what best we can, while we have opportunity, for their souls' salvation. It may be a hard matter; it may need a bold heart to do it; but what might not many a young man, many a youthful soldier of the cross, effect, with the glory of God as the great aim of his life; how much might he not effect at his place of business\emdash on those seated with him at the same desk, or standing behind the same counter, or plying the same worldly calling\emdash teaching them to sanctify and hallow their worldly work with great religious motives, and to interweave diligence in business with fervency of spirit, "serving the Lord!"\par \par IV. The last illustration of the spirit of sacrifice on the part of Matthew (though not, of course, specified in any of the passages which head this chapter) was THE SACRIFICE OF LIFE.\par \par We know little of the future of this Apostle, but what we do know, is all in accordance with the antecedents on which we have now been commenting. After spending eight years in Judea, during which time his memorable Gospel was written, he went (according to the statements of early ecclesiastical writers) on his apostolic mission and labors to Africa. Through him Ethiopia first "stretched out her hands unto God." But on that virgin soil too, the blood of this faithful Galilean was spilt\emdash by a violent death for his blessed Master's sake, he set the most impressive of seals to his sincerity. The World, Self, Friends, Home, Country, and now Life itself, were freely surrendered at the bidding of his great Lord.\par \par From first to last, indeed, his was a noble specimen of an entire and unqualified sacrifice. The other disciples seem, after entering on the apostleship, still to have retained their boats and nets. We still meet Peter and John, Andrew and James, as Fishermen on the Sea of Tiberias; but Matthew we never find again at his former calling. If we visit in thought the port of Capernaum, a new Collector is seated at the Tax Booth\emdash a new tenant occupies the scene of the strange farewell feast. The Fishermen could go back with safety and impunity to their daily occupation, for it was a lawful one\emdash rid of all temptation to fraud and unworthy dealing. But it was different with the Publican. Return to the old resort might have been perilous. The old fires of covetousness might have been rekindled; drawn within the perilous vortex he might have made shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience, and proved another Demas loving the present world and forsaking Christ. He seems purposely to shun Galilee; and even when the other disciples return to it for a season, he cleaves to his adopted home in Judea.\par \par After the Savior's resurrection we have the names of the apostolic band enumerated only twice; on the first occasion, when Jesus met them on the shores of Gennesaret\emdash the name of Matthew is NOT there; on the second, when they are gathered in "the upper room" in Jerusalem\emdash Matthew IS mentioned! His voice is heard with the rest, engaged in earnest prayer for the coming of the Paraclete\emdash "following" his Lord in thought to the glory to which He had ascended, and waiting for the promised baptism of fire. That Holy Spirit, in accordance with the Savior's word, is poured abundantly on Matthew, to qualify him alike to be an inspired Historian and a faithful Missionary.\par \par As the Historian\emdash He "guides him into all the truth," "brings all things to his remembrance," "shows him things to come." As the Missionary\emdash He imbues him with supernatural gifts, in accordance with his Lord's parting declaration\emdash "you shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth!" Forth he went, on his great errand; ending A LIFE OF SACRIFICE on a martyr's cross, and inheriting, we doubt not, a martyr's crown.\par \par In conclusion, Christ would speak to each of us in the words he addressed to this Publican\emdash "FOLLOW ME!" Believers! He asks you to honor Him in your daily callings\emdash in your everyday words and works. If, like the other fishermen-disciples, you are engaged in lawful occupations, leave them not, but ennoble and sanctify them with high Christian motives; and, as you reap in worldly gains, do not forget the God who is the Proprietor of your wealth, and looks to you to be the almoners of His bounty.\par \par If, like the Publican at the Roman toll, yours is debatable ground\emdash where principle is at stake\emdash some desperate game at which conscience holds the dice with trembling hand\emdash like Matthew forsake it. Leave it, and leave it forever; and take as your motto (with the Divine favor and blessing)\emdash "The little that a just man has, is better than the riches of many wicked."\par \par Oh! plead not your worldly duties, your business, your engagements, as an apology for living without God; as if the voice of Christ cannot find you there, and His grace cannot triumph over all obstacles. Remember it was amid the coarse jostlings of that crowd at the port of Capernaum\emdash amid the shouts of bargemen\emdash the ringing of hammers\emdash the roll of wagons\emdash that Matthew first heard (yes, and listened to) the call, "Follow me!"\par \par One other thought still suggests itself. We have spoken of Matthew's life as a lowly yet splendid instance of Self-sacrifice; and yet, I would beg you to mark that, in the very midst of that Sacrifice there is an element of CHEERFULNESS. It is a striking thing to note, at the very moment when he has made renunciation of his worldly ALL\emdash when his old associates and acquaintances are doubtless, speaking of him as a ruined man, the old publican makes a Feast\emdash a joyous Banquet! He is cheerful, at the very moment when he must have been conscious that the world, by a voluntary act, was receding from his grasp, and that his, henceforth, is to be a simpler meal, a humbler abode, a more despised Master than the Roman Caesar!\par \par But this is a true Picture of Christianity, and of the power of true Christianity on every heart. Religion is a Feast\emdash Religion is gladness. Let others paint it, if they will, draped in sackcloth, with melancholy on the brow and a bunch of funereal cypress in the hand. That is a spurious religion; not the Religion of this Savior-God who sat with Matthew at his feast\emdash honored him with His presence at this social gathering! Never did the soul of Matthew find true joy until now. He had it not before, in his bags of gold\emdash his lordly bribes\emdash his cursed robberies. But he had it now in "the peace of God which passes all understanding" "keeping his heart;" and even when he left that table, and bade farewell forever to a luxurious home, he could look up to the face of his Great Master and say, "You have put gladness into my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."\par \par If God is calling upon us to follow Him, and if that following demands the surrender of much that our hearts may fondly cling to, whether it be the world or self, or friends, or children, or home, or substance\emdash at His bidding let us do it willingly\emdash "The Lord loves a cheerful giver." The very surrendering, if it be for His glory, will have an accompanying blessedness. Oh! I repeat, what can we surrender for Him to be compared for a moment with what He surrendered for Us?\emdash "God Spared Not His Own Son!" What sacrifice can we count great, or unreasonable, or grievous, after this! Thus, being willing to honor Him as the Taker as well as the Giver, let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "There is no man that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive manifold more in this present time; and in the world to come life everlasting." \par \cf1\fs23\par } [ mY12 The Life of Sacrifice{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE LIFE OF SACRIFICE\par \par "There are in this loud stunning tide\par me to sit down on the grass. Taking the five leaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over." Matthew 14:19, 20; Mark 6:39-43; Luke 9:14-17; John 6:10-13\par \par The miracle, which is to form the subject of this chapter, seems to have had an important influence on the Jewish mind, in substantiating the claims of Jesus to be the Son of God and the Messiah promised to the Fathers. We cannot wonder, therefore, that it occupies a prominent place in Gospel story. It is worthy of note that the miracle itself\emdash the feeding of the five thousand\emdash is described by all the four Evangelists. Even John, who seldom travels in his inspired narrative beyond the events transacted in Judea, on the present occasion inserts this remarkable Galilean incident, in connection with the sublime discourse to which it gave rise on the Bread of life.\par \par Before referring to the locality of the miracle, it may be well to advert to the two causes which seem to have induced our blessed Lord and His disciples to suspend, for a time, their labors on the busy western shore of Gennesaret, and seek the seclusion and repose of the opposite side.\par \par The first appears, from Mark, to have been the untimely death of John the Baptist, whose imprisonment in the castle of Macherus on the Dead Sea, had just been terminated by an act of capricious and cold-blooded cruelty and murder on the part of Herod. A sorrowing group of his bereaved disciples seem to have hastened, when the deed was consummated, (or rather after the interment of their master's mangled remains,) to inform a mightier than John of the mournful tragedy. He who afterwards wept tears of anguish over the grave of Lazarus, was not likely to be unmoved when the tidings reached Him of His greatest prophet\emdash a true "Master in Israel"\emdash having fallen.\par \par We have here a glimpse of the tenderness of the soul of Jesus. Sorrow at the death of a valued friend and follower, whose holy life had shone with undimmed luster to its close, stirred the depths of His loving heart. Grief likes to be alone. The great world, with its din and bustle, is strange, grating, and uncongenial at such an hour. Jesus, feeling as a man, would seek to leave the crowd for a little while\emdash to commune with His own heart and be still. Related alike by kindred and affection to the Messenger of the Covenant, He summons His disciples to take ship from Capernaum and make for the farther shore, that there they might mingle their tears and lamentations over the hero-heart that had so suddenly ceased to beat.\par \par John was the Forerunner of his Lord. "He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light"\emdash the morning star heralding the dawn of Gospel day! When that Star was quenched in the firmament, the Great Sun of all Being mourned the sudden extinction of His brightest satellite, and for the moment waded through clouds of sorrow. As the "Friend of the Bridegroom," the Baptist had "rejoiced greatly at the sound of the Bridegroom's voice;" now the Bridegroom in His turn mourns when the voice of His faithful, earnest, self-denying friend is forever hushed and silenced.\par \par But a second cause may be added for this retirement to the solitudes of Naphtali. We find, in the preceding context, that the twelve Apostles had just returned from their first missionary tour in the towns and villages of Galilee\emdash the first-fruits and pledge of vaster enterprises throughout Judea and the world. Weak and exhausted with their incessant ministrations, their Lord provides for them this season of needful rest. "Come you also," says He, "apart into a desert place, and rest a little." It was a befitting opportunity, too, for communicating in private to their Divine Master the results of their preaching. "The apostles," we read, "gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had DONE and what they had TAUGHT!"\par \par Solemn and touching picture! Ah! it is what every minister of the Gospel has yet to do\emdash when his work is done\emdash when his mission is over\emdash and he crosses to meet his Lord in the deep solitudes of eternity. What an incentive this for every Steward of the mysteries of grace to be earnest, faithful, self-denying, instant in season and out of season\emdash "warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that he may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." How terrible to confront his Judge at last, and to be branded by his own deeds and his own teachings as a traitor to his trust; listening, in the silence of self-condemnation, to the twofold question which will be put at the threshold of immortality\emdash "What have you DONE? What have you TAUGHT?"\par \par The place to which the Redeemer and His disciples now retired was in the neighborhood of Bethsaida, on the northeastern shore of Gennesaret, under the green mountains of Golan, where the Jordan hurries its waters into the Lake.\par \par We are not to understand by "a desert place" a region of dry barren sand; on the contrary, it was a spot fertile in itself, but it had not, like the opposite land of Gennesaret, been brought under the cultivation of the husbandman. It remained in a state of nature. Cattle browsed on its slopes, or on the rich pastures at the mouth of the Jordan. It was now the most delightful season of the Palestine year. The first flush of spring was carpeting both plain and mountain with living green. John specially notes the season: "The Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near;" and, again, as confirmatory of the time, Mark (who is ever the most graphic and pictorial of the Evangelists, always seizing, if I might so say, with a painter's eye, some striking natural feature in the scene he delineates), afterwards represents the multitudes, in his description of the miracle, as seated on the "green grass."\par \par The Lord and His disciples had crossed alone in their fishing vessel, but the many eager hearers they had left behind\emdash still thirsting for the word of the kingdom\emdash set out on foot, walking round by the northern shore of the lake, in hopes of meeting Jesus as He landed, and of again enjoying His instructions. The fame of the Prophet of Galilee had now rapidly spread. As these anxious groups passed through the towns and hamlets that lined the shore, they added to their numbers\emdash villagers, farmers, and fishermen swelled their company. Moreover, the time of the Passover approaching, it is more than probable they would meet some of the northern caravans of pilgrims coming to the holy feast. The report of the miracles performed in the towns bordering on Tiberias, had reached the adjacent region\emdash Tyre and Sidon\emdash the secluded hamlets of Lebanon and the cities of Syria; and many, hearing that the wonder-working Teacher was so near, would doubtless willingly suspend their journey, and join the groups who were hastening to meet Him.\par \par The crowd which had left, a few hours before, the streets of Capernaum, has now increased with these varied recruits to the number of five thousand. Might it not be taken as the first pledge of a vaster fulfillment of old Jacob's prophecy regarding the coming of the Shiloh\emdash "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be?"\par \par From one of these green slopes, already indicated, Jesus sees the multitudes. The flocks browsing on the pastoral scenes around Him are carefully tended; but the Great and Good Shepherd is "moved with compassion" towards the human crowd below, because "they were as sheep without a shepherd!" He prepares, therefore, to lead them to green pastures and still waters, and to give them food to eat which the world knows not of.\par \par Let us here note, the ever unselfish, untiring, unwearying ardor of the Savior in His great mission of mercy. Could we have wondered, if, in the present instance, He had declined to leave repose so needed?\emdash all the more needed, as He knew that, with the Passover drawing near, there would be fresh claims on His own teaching, and on that of his disciples. How hard, it seems, to break that rest, (that well-earned recompense), after weeks of unremitting toil, and days in which they had scarce leisure or opportunity to taste food! Could we have thought it strange if Jesus had rebuked this crude disturbance\emdash this unkind intrusion on sorrow and repose\emdash and left the motley throng to return, as best they might, to their places of sojourn? But never in any one instance do we find Him sacrificing the comforts of others to minister to His own. "Christ pleased not Himself." It was the motto of His whole earthly existence. The deeps of His being are stirred by the sight of these unshepherded, unfolded sheep; and He hurries down the mountain slope to minister alike to their spiritual and temporal necessities. In a few moments that same majestic voice is heard in the deep stillness of this mountain solitude, with the roll of Jordan at their side, and the blue heavens for their canopy, proclaiming words which cause many in that "wilderness and solitary place" to be "made glad."\par \par Before performing His work of omnipotence, Jesus seemed desirous of testing the faith of His own disciples, and especially of one, from whom, after many weeks of close fellowship and communion, we might well have expected a more prompt recognition of the power of his Master. "When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He said to PHILIP, Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this He said to prove him: for He himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little."\par \par Philip, of all the Apostles, seems to have been "slow of heart." He gave promise, at an earlier period, of better things\emdash when, with a soul apparently full of zeal and confidence, he sped to Nathaniel with the good news that Messiah had at last been found; and when he would not leave the honest Israelite until, from under the shade of his fig tree, he had "brought him to Jesus." The mingled gentleness and severity of the Savior's rebuke, addressed to Philip, on an after occasion, might have been administered now\emdash "Have I been with you so long and yet have you not known me, Philip?"\par \par Jesus had put the present question, "Where shall we buy bread?" to see whether or not he would leap at once to the conclusion, warranted by all which, during the preceding weeks, his eyes had seen and his ears had heard of the Word of life. He had witnessed the tempest stilled\emdash devils cast out\emdash the possessed sitting calm at their Deliverer's feet; he had seen Sickness, at the same mandate, taking wings and fleeing away\emdash and, above all, Death itself compelled to yield its prey; and yet, in dull, stupid unbelief, he begins to make the poor calculation about the eight months wages of bread it would cost to feed them!\par \par Others, less privileged, might have conveyed to him a silent reprimand. Had the Leper of Capernaum\emdash or the friends of the Paralytic\emdash or Jairus\emdash or the Gentile centurion\emdash had one or other of these listened to the Savior's question, the likelihood is, that from each and all there would have been the reply\emdash "You who changed the storm into a calm\emdash You who have the elements of nature and the events of providence in Your hand\emdash You who have the key of heaven's garner at Your belt\emdash You have only to speak the word, and manna will distill, as before, from the clouds, or the fowls of the air will fetch, as they did to Elijah of old, a mysterious supply. What is this fainting crowd in this remote corner to You, who opens Your hand and satisfies the desire of EVERY living thing?"\par \par Let us beware of dishonoring God by our unbelief, descending to earthly shifts and earthly calculations instead of honoring Him by a full and implicit reliance in His mingled power and mercy, His ability and willingness to help, feed, sustain, and comfort. "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" was the challenge which unbelief once uttered. The reply was, a forty years experience of unvarying and unfailing faithfulness and love. "Man's extremity" is often "God's opportunity"\emdash He allows our circumstances to be at the lowest, that He may render more signal His interposing mercy and grace. Remember, "those things that are impossible with men are possible with God." Not only that, "all things are possible to him who believes." "Cast then your burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain you!" "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and truly, you shall be fed."\par \par One of the disciples is apparently either more unselfish than the rest, or possibly he may be spokesman for the others\emdash Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. "There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?" This, from the narrative of the other Evangelists, seems to have formed their own supply of provisions\emdash the little stock which they had provided before crossing the lake\emdash for their own evening meal. After the previous days of exhaustion and labor, to which we have already referred, this simple food could hardly have been spared; and had Andrew or his brother Apostles been men of selfish natures, they would have taken care not to make known the existence of their tiny store. But, as we found in the case of Matthew, it is the Gospel's great triumph to displace SELF, and on its ruins upraise the two great master principles of love to God and love to man.\par \par Let us learn the lesson here, of a kindly interest in others\emdash a willingness to deny ourselves, if we can confer a benefit on our fellows. He is unworthy of the name of Christian, whose every thought begins, centers, and terminates in self\emdash a cold, frigid icicle, chilling all who come within his reach; when he gives, giving grudgingly; and what he gives, costing him no sacrifice. Sacrifice of some sort, either of substance, or time, or personal effort, is necessarily involved in every deed of true beneficence. It was not the gifts of costly munificence, thrown with supercilious air into the Treasury, which the Savior valued; but the widow's two mites, the little earnings which a grateful, giving heart doled out of her poverty, and which made her evening's meal simpler and scantier than otherwise it would have been.\par \par Let us go back in thought to that rural scene on the Jordan, and as we behold the disciples hastening to their Lord with their handful of barley loaves and fishes, at His feet, for distribution to the fainting multitude\emdash let us learn anew, the lesson of self-sacrifice. That scene is a miniature picture of the world, with its thousands (no, its millions!) of starving outcasts; famishing, body and soul, in temporal and spiritual destitution. Have we, like the disciples, abridged our own comforts to minister to theirs; or rather, is it not the duty of each to ask, before God, What can I spare? Is there no needless expenditure\emdash no lavish waste\emdash no foolish luxuriance; nothing that could be spared in my house or my table, in my social feasts, that, instead of going to feed and pamper that love of extravagance which is running wild in all modern society, would tend to dry the widow's tears, clothe the nakedness and feed the mouths of the orphan and destitute?\par \par Not that the elegancies and refinements of life are to be condemned and denounced. Far from it! As "creatures of God" they are good, and if kept in due subordination, not to be refused, but rather "received with thanksgiving." But they are to be condemned, if they are either abused, or if their very lavish profusion only hardens into a deeper and more intense selfishness, and a more guilty ignoring of the needs and claims of others. We shall find immediately a command given, with regard to the fragments of the feast, that they were to be carefully gathered, so as to allow of no wastefulness.\par \par Ah! might not the crumbs, often despised among us, go to gladden the lot of some lowly Lazarus at our gate? might not the delicacies at many a table be spared, or lessened, to swell the widow's barrel of meal? might not some lights of luxury go far to feed her cruse of oil? Remember the Apostle's words, "Whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God dwell in him?" Remember the words of a Greater than the Apostle, that adorable Savior, who on the Great Day will reckon what is done to the least and poorest of His brethren, as if done to Himself\emdash "I was hungry, and you gave Me food ; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink." In doing it to that shivering outcast, that ragged beggar, that old man groping in his blindness, that widow with her homeless orphans, that idolater abroad, that heathen at home\emdash "Truly I say to you, you did it to ME."\par \par But, to return to the miracle. It is supposed when Jesus first put the question we have already considered to Philip, it had been towards the afternoon. But as the day wears fast away, and twilight approaches, His disciples come to Him in great concern, urging the necessity of dismissing the crowd to the adjoining villages, that they might procure needed food and lodging for the night. The Lord proceeds without delay, to manifest His power by the prodigy which follows: "He directed them," says Mark, "to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass; so they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties."\par \par We may imagine the scene\emdash Groups of people gathered in regular order; their long-drawn shadows at that sunset hour projected on "the green grass," or creeping up the gentle slopes. In front, facing these haggard countenances, with the traces of grief and exhaustion on His own, stands the Son of God! He is about to fulfill the truth of a saying uttered from a mountain platform then in full view, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." These fainting thousands (many of them at least), had sought the Kingdom of God, and now they were to have the promised addition of temporal blessings.\par \par The feast proceeds\emdash the food increases and multiplies in the hand of Christ\emdash still more, in that of the Apostles, as they deal it out to the crowds\emdash and more still, as the separate groups receive their allotted portion. At last, when all are satisfied, the disciples receive the closing command, "Gather up the fragments that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten them." The leftovers of the feast was greater than the amount of the original provisions.\par \par Oh! beautiful type of true benevolence, and its invariable results. The Apostles had given their little all with an ungrudging spirit\emdash but they were no losers. The loaves expanded in the hands of Giver and receiver; and when the donors came to count their loss, look! it was a mysterious gain! "One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."\par \par But there were weightier spiritual truths intended to be conveyed in this miraculous feast. The Miracle for a moment lapses into the Parable. Great and glorious truths in an acted Parable-form are impressed by their Master on the apostolic band. These, as we have seen, had just returned from their first mission. He tells them still, in His name, and on His authority, to proceed on their Godlike work. That crowd was symbolic of a world, fainting, wearying, hungering, for the Bread of life\emdash and the command to the disciples is, "You give them something to eat."\par \par Nor were the left-over overflowing baskets without their significancy\emdash did they not point to the inexhaustible affluence and fullness of the Divine riches?\emdash that thousands on thousands have been ministered to, and yet still the table in the wilderness is as full as ever? Millions of hungry souls have been fed, and still the promise is as ample as ever, "He satisfies the longing soul with good things;" "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Still the command is to His servants, "Give them to eat"\emdash Proclaim, "You who have no money, come, buy and eat; come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Yes, there is more than this implied\emdash in these overflowing baskets of fragments, God seems to say to his servants, "I will multiply my blessing, the more the bread is given, the more the word is proclaimed. There will not only be "bread enough," but "to spare." I will give "more exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think."\par \par While all this is encouraging to ministers, who are the distributors of the bread; those who receive it at their hands may read in this Parabolic miracle the willingness of Christ to supply the needs of all His people in this desert world. They never can come out of place, or out of season, to Him. As we see the Savior coming forth from His needed solitude and rest, to minister to these wearied multitudes, does He not proclaim to all time, to fainting myriads, who, in future ages would have far deeper cause of weariness and unrest, "whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away."\par \par And now, let us "gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted"\emdash or rather let us, from the Savior's own discourse the day following, carry away the ONE great Fragment\emdash His own sublime spiritual lesson supplied by the miracle\emdash it is the keynote of that wondrous Sermon\emdash "Do not labor for the bread that perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life."\par \par LABOR NOT FOR THE PERISHABLE!\emdash What lesson more needed, when with multitudes the perishable seems all they live for\emdash all they care for? Yes, indeed. Sad it is, when we come in sober seriousness to pause and think of it, that so many thousands should be frittering away this great period of preparation for eternity in this unprofitable labor of earth\emdash Unprofitable! for what in a few brief years will all this worldly toil come to? All that the world can give, apart from Christ, never can, never will, satisfy. You may as well, by a few grains of sand, or a few spadefuls of dust, expect to fill up a yawning chasm, as fill the gaping crevices of man's soul\emdash reach the deeps of his being with the poor nothings of earth. He was born for nobler things, and with less noble things you cannot satisfy him.\par \par Besides all this, how transient, uncertain, precarious, all that wealth can hoard, and labor realize! Like Sisyphus of old, the stone, after a lifetime's labor, has been heaved to the mountain-summit; but in one unwary moment, it slips from the hand, down it hurries, with hopeless bound, to the depths of the valley; the golden heap which took a lifetime to amass, one solitary wave of calamity comes and washes away!\par \par  BUT, "he that believes on ME shall NEVER hunger." His inordinate appetite for earthly things shall be so subdued and vanquished by the nobler portion he has in Myself, that he will neither too ardently covet earthly blessings, nor fret and mourn too heavily when they are taken away.\par \par Let us listen to the voice of Him who is even now saying to us, "I Am the Bread of Life!" Let the voice of that same yearning Shepherd, who was moved with compassion towards the wandering multitude\emdash let the voice of Jesus be heard telling every weary "laborer" of that rest He has procured. Let the word of admonition follow us out into this busy world; let its accents fall in the place of business, in the crowded mart, in the workshop, by the counter, in the classroom, in the study\emdash let it follow us up the ladder of ambition, and track our steps in the race for riches\emdash "labor not for the food which perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } AAEe14 The Night Rescue by John MacDuff, 1818-1895{\rtf1\ansi\deffރi qq13 The Miraculous Feast.1{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE MIRACULOUS FEAST\par \par "And He directed the peopl0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par The Night Rescue by John MacDuff, 1818-1895\par \par \par Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.\par During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.\par But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Matthew 14:22-27\par \par It is night on the Sea of Galilee! a night of tempest\emdash the Lord of the sea and the storm walks majestically on the waves. "He made darkness his secret place-his pavilion round about him are dark waters and thick clouds of the sky." We know of no subject in the inspired picture-gallery which exceeds this in sublimity and grandeur. If there be poetry in any part of the Gospel story, it is here. It forms an episode in a Life which itself was the grandest and most sublime of Epics . Let us approach the scene with sanctified imaginations; and as we contemplate the Creator of all worlds\emdash His head wreathed with tempests\emdash the restless surge his pathway, approaching the laboring vessel of the Apostle-fishermen, and revealing himself as their God and guide\emdash be it ours with triumphant faith to exclaim, "This GOD is our God forever and ever, He will be OUR guide even unto death."\par The miraculous feast to the crowd of five thousand being over, Jesus dispersed the multitudes to their several abodes. As the night-shadows were falling, they might be seen in straggling groups winding their way round the northern shore to their various hamlet-homes. We can think of the Passover pilgrims, too, accompanying them\emdash their voices attuned to some of those psalms and sacred songs they were in the habit of singing by night on the occasion of this solemn anniversary! Would not the melody be all the sweeter on account of the gracious words they had heard proceeding a few hours before, from the lips of the wonder-working Prophet, whom the entire crowd, John tells us, had He permitted, were ready to hail at that moment as their Messiah-King "the hope of Israel and the Savior thereof?"\par Before dismissing the multitude, however, He gives directions to His disciples to enter their vessel and re-cross the lake to Bethsaida. He gives no indication as to how or where He may rejoin them\emdash whether He will follow next morning in the steps of the crowd, and meet them in the streets, or at the port of Capernaum\emdash or whether He will avail himself of some other vessel crossing the lake at early dawn. On all this He maintains a mysterious silence.\par From the words "He constrained them to get into the ship," (Matt. 14:22) we may almost gather that it was with fond reluctance the disciples assented to this separation. They may have attempted even a gentle remonstrance, pleading either that He would still accompany them, or else permit them again to drop anchor, and suspend their voyage until He was prepared to go. The sky may have already been wearing a threatening aspect; the hollow moanings familiar to the fishermen's ears may have been premonitory of a coming storm; lowering clouds may have been wreathing the brow of the Gadara heights and the headlands of Tiberias.\par On a former occasion when the disciples encountered another storm on the lake, they felt that all was safe when their Master had said, "Let us pass over". Their adorable Lord\emdash the Heavenly Pilot\emdash was with them in the vessel. Now it was different. They had before them night on a tempestuous sea; and he, whose voice alone could hush its fury, was leaving them to brave it alone!\par But His word and will were paramount. That great Lord, whose power and tenderness were so recently manifested to the fainting multitudes, commands them to depart. It is enough; they ask no more. Though the storm may have been already beating high-like brave soldiers, who, at the bidding of their Captain, rush on to the assault, determined to conquer or perish\emdash they are in a moment launched on the deep, encountering the crested waves and the gathering darkness.\par It was twilight (about six o'clock) when they set out. A fair breeze would soon have run them to the western side; but when midnight came, it found them little more than half way on their voyage. Owing to a furious head-wind, their sail was useless; and though for nine hours they toiled manfully at the oars, three o'clock (the fourth watch of the night) found them still pitching in the midst of that roaring sea the fitful lights (their only compass) glimmering distant as ever on the longed-for opposite shore. The former cry of faithless unbelief may now have been often on their lips as they thought of last evening's mysterious parting, "Master, master, care You not that we perish?" "If He had been with us," we may picture them saying to each other, "If He had been with us, asleep as He was before, in the hinder part of our ship, then we could have rushed to His side, invoked His aid, and, in a moment would the storm have been changed into a calm. But where He is now, we cannot tell; our cries are inaudible, our prayers are vain; they are drowned in the rage of that tempest." "Surely our way is hid from the Lord, and our judgment is passed over from our God!"\par Let us pause here and learn a twofold lesson.\par Viewing this scene as a picture of human life, learn, first, How sudden are the transitions in human experience, from sunshine to storm, and from storm to sunshine. A few hours before, the disciples had been dealing out the miraculous stores to the joyous groups on the green grass, partaking along with them of this mountain Feast\emdash the Great Shepherd of Israel Himself tending them with loving interest. Never did sun seem to go down more happily, or promise a more auspicious rising. But now the sky is clouded\endash night has drawn its curtains gloomily around them\emdash and, worse than all, the Lord of the Feast is gone. The Shepherd has left, and the sheep are scattered like broken reeds on the trough of the sea.\par Let us not calculate too fondly or confidently on the permanency of any earthly good. Let us be "glad" for our gourds, but not "exceeding glad." When we may be saying, "Peace, peace, sudden destruction may come." Today God may be spreading for us a table in the wilderness; prodigal nature may be pouring her richest gifts into our lap\emdash at evening; the sun of our earthly joys may go down in thick darkness, and the memory of our best blessings be all that remains.\par Learn, as a second lesson, that God often sends trials to His own people, from which the world are exempt.\par Who are these we here behold, tossed on that sea? Jesus had sent the multitudes quietly and peacefully away; no storm burst on them; no danger threatened them; no fear disquieted them. Of all the thousands who had a few hours before listened to His voice, His own beloved followers alone were called to contend with the tempest.\par  And it is often so still, with Christ's people; often do storms visit them, from which the world are free; oftimes, when the world is in sunshine; they are in darkness. The bands of ransomed voyagers, now lining the heavenly shore, give their united testimony\endash "We are they who have come out of great tribulation."\par But God has always some wise end in view in sending His people into such a sea of troubles. In the case of the disciples, it was evidently to discipline their faith, and to prepare them for sterner moral storms, yet in reserve for them. That night at Tiberias would imprint on their inmost souls truths and lessons which never would be effaced in all their future apostleship, and serve to brace their spirits for many an hour of perplexity and danger.\par It is worthy of note, too, the progression in these trials of faith. The severity of the test is increased as the spiritual life advances. Just as a child is by degrees, step by step, taught to walk, so are these disciples tutored in the higher walk of faith. The previous storm had doubtless the same end in view (the testing and strengthening of this great principle), but there was on that occasion a gracious tempering of the wind by the Good Shepherd to His little flock-His shorn lambs. When the tempest then burst around them, He was at their side, though fast asleep on a pillow; yet the very fact of His presence must have calmed fears that might otherwise have overmastered them. But they are to graduate still higher in the school of faith. A severer test, therefore, now comes. On the former occasion, Jesus was like the mother seated by her infant's cradle, rocking it asleep with the tones of her well-known voice, or dispelling its fears by imprinting, with her own lips, kisses on its brow. Now, with the increase of spiritual and apostolic experience, He would subject them to a severer ordeal\emdash a further step in His gradual process of discipline. And how does He do so? It is in the very way that same mother disciplines her babe, at a more advanced period of its infancy, when teaching it to walk. She places it by itself on the opposite side of the room, to let it feel that it is alone. The little learner, conscious that it is left to its own resources, and that even at the peril of a fall it must risk the tiny adventure, with outstretched hands makes its way across the floor to bury its head in that bosom of safety, and clings there more closely and tenderly than ever! It is not the tender vine, supported by its trellis work, which is the type of strength, but the oak of a hundred years, standing alone on the mountain height, wrestling with the storm the very buffetings of the blast only making it moor its roots firmer and deeper in its ancestral soil.\par "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice." "If need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold which perishes, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ."\par But to return to the narrative. As the disciples' dangers increase, so also do their fears. Sadder and stranger than ever seems their Master's absence. "Where is now our God?" mingles in thought, often and again, with the wild accents of the storm. It is unlike His kind heart thus to have deserted us, and consigned us to the mercy of this pitiless tempest.\par But where in reality was their beloved Savior in the hour they most needed His presence, and most ardently longed for it? He seemed to have hid His face from them, but it was in appearance only, not in reality. Upon the heights of one of these mountains that girdled the north-east corner of the lake, the Redeemer of the world, in the silence of midnight, is alone with His God! That mountain summit is converted into an altar of Prayer. His eye is at one moment on the distant sea, at another uplifted to heaven; the breathings of His soul are ascending in behalf of His disciples; He is watching every billow that breaks on their tempest-tossed bark, every fear which disturbs their fainting hearts. The darkness cannot hide them from Him; their troubled thoughts "He knew afar off." Though not praying with them, He is praying FOR them, that "their faith fail not."\par Oftimes are the people of God tempted, with repining Zion, to say, "My Lord has forsaken, and my God has forgotten me." But what says Zion's God, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" Isaiah 49:15. Storms and tumults may be raging without\emdash temptations may be assailing within; besetting sins may now be disturbing the serenity of our spiritual joys; seasons of holy refreshment and peace may be gone; God may seem to be hiding His face, and we are troubled. But behind these temporary clouds there sits a Savior of unchanging faithfulness, who, though we may have forgotten Him, has not forgotten us. Yes! precious assurance! at the very moment when we may be thinking all to be lost\endash the vessel which bears in it our eternal destinies about to be foundered\emdash when faith is beginning to fail, and hope to sink\emdash all dark without, all trouble within\emdash and worse than all, when our heavenly Pilot seems to have deserted us\emdash there is above A PRAYING SAVIOR! He who watched the disciples' agitated vessel, from Galilee's mountain, and converted its lonely summit into a place of prayer, is now seated a great Intercessor on Mount Zion above, directing the roll of every billow that threatens His people's peace, and, though to them unseen, "praying that their faith fail not!"\par And as it was with the disciples of old, He will not always deny His people the sensible comforts of His grace and presence. Generally in the darkest hour of their trial, when they least look for Him, and least expect Him, He reveals Himself. Coming, too, in the very pathway of their troubles; going "through the flood on foot," and causing them "THERE" in the very place and experience of tumultuous sorrow)\emdash causing them there to "rejoice in Him!"\par BUT, alas! in the narrative before us, we have a mournful testimony, how sad often is the contrast between the faithfulness of a Savior God, and the faithlessness and unbelief of man.\par Jesus comes! walking majestically with His radiant form across the troubled waves. He is so near His disciples that they can hold converse with Him. Dark as was the night, they might well have guessed that it was their Lord's form as well as voice that was upon the waters. The joyous utterance might well have passed "from tongue to tongue"\emdash "The Master has come!" We expect to hear every moment, as He nears the vessel's side, the word of joyous recognition, "My Lord and my God."\par But strange! His appearance seems to trouble and agitate them more than that vexed and agitated sea. With those superstitious feelings so proverbially common among sailors and fishermen, they think they observe in the hazy darkness only some unwelcome messenger from the spirit-world\emdash they imagine, possibly, in their dread, either that one of the spirits of darkness, roaming so lately the gorges of Gadara, is now evoked from the depths of the lake where it had plunged with the mountain herd; or else that the hour of their own death and destruction has arrived, and a premonitory herald from the regions of Hades\emdash some terrible shape such as the Jewish fancy was wont to picture\emdash has come from the world of the dead to give them warning, that that yawning sea is preparing their sepulcher, and these moaning night winds chanting their requiem! Faith is for a moment eclipsed by vain superstition. "They were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear."\par How great the contrast; the heaving waters, the perturbed disciples, and the calm majestic tranquillity of the Great Lord!\par And is not the experience here described often that of God's people still? When Jesus comes to them on some billowy night of trial\emdash He comes radiant with beauty\emdash His heart full of love\emdash His hands full of blessing. But they can see nothing in the looming mist but a phantom spirit. Their eyes see of are dimmed with unbelief\emdash the windows of the soul are darkened\emdash they remember God, and are troubled. Or sometimes, it is even a sadder experience, when in the extremity of their unbelief all their former pledges of His faithfulness and loving-kindness seem to vanish, when for the moment the rush of despair comes over them. Religion is a lie; its comforts delusions\emdash its fears tales of credulity and terror\emdash its joys but phantoms\emdash and the whole pillars of their belief seem to rock and tremble to their base. With others again, even when He is recognized, His dealings seem strange. As with the disciples in the text, He comes to their ship, but He makes "as if He would have passed them by." He walks, but it is towards the bow of the vessel. There is a strange delay in His intervention. He hears their cries, but He seems as if He heard them not. The sun is in the heavens, but there is no light in the sky\emdash no break in the clouds.\par Be assured there is some wise reason for such postponement\emdash such apparent "passing by." You remember, how strange seemed His delay to the family of Bethany, when He lingered among the mountain glens of distant Gilead, instead of at once responding to their message and hastening to their relief. But in the end it was all "for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby", issuing in a glorious proof, that "the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him." You remember in that memorable walk with the two disciples at Emmaus, when he reached the village, "He made" apparently, "as though He would have gone farther." Why? It was, as on the occasion before us, to draw forth the fervid invitation of burning hearts, "Abide with us. . . and they constrained Him." How often does He thus delay His succouring mercy\emdash postpone deliverance\emdash just in order to draw forth the music of importunate prayer?\par Yes! not the least memorable lessons in this scene on the midnight sea, are those of PRAYER. We see our blessed Lord Himself, as the Man Christ Jesus, occupied in prayer. He Himself comes forth from the mount of Prayer to tread the waters. As the great ideal of Humanity\emdash the Exemplar of His people, He would teach them, that if they would overcome the greatest difficulties, if they would tread triumphant on waves of trial and persecution, they must come from their bended knees. In walking thus majestically from His mountain oratory across the raging sea, He seems to speak this parable unto them and unto us, that "men ought always to pray and not to faint." The cry of the disciples, on the other hand, arresting as it did the ear of their Master, and evoking the word of support and love, tells us in the depths of our extremity never to despair. Each of these voyagers on GENNESARET was a witness to the truth of words which their great ancestor uttered in olden times, not far from the scene of their present terror "I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me. Through each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,\par and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life." Psalm 42:7-8.\par The earthquake, and the whirlwind, and the fire, being now past, there comes "the still small voice." Loud above the riot of the storm sounds the well-known, gentle, soothing, familiar tones, "Be of good cheer, It is I, be not afraid." Their Master's form they had mistaken in the lowering darkness, but the voice was well known to them. Just as the sailor, when owing to the dense fog, he is unable to find the beacon in the light-house; hears the sound of the bell, swung on its top, by the force of the tempest.\par That brief but beautiful word of comfort is fenced on either side with "Be of good cheer," "Do not be afraid." But the ground of consolation is in the middle clause. That fear-dispelling, comfort-giving, "IT IS I," must have fallen on their ears like a strain of celestial music. "It is I." I your Lord and Master. I who have oftimes before spoken peace in your hours of trouble. I who have bidden the weary and the heavy laden come to have rest. I whose word has given light to the blind, and health to the diseased, and comfort to the mourner, and life to the dead. I who but a few brief hours ago had compassion on the multitudes, "because they were as sheep not having a shepherd." Do you think I will not much rather have compassion on you, My own sheep, who "follow me, and know My voice?" "Be of good cheer, It is I"\emdash Fear not.\par It is the same brief utterance with which He has calmed the storm-tossed in every age. When Paul, in an after year, was in imminent peril of his life, shut up in the Roman barracks in Jerusalem, in the Castle of Antonio, that same Lord, at the same midnight hour, stood by the bedside of His desponding servant, and repeated the same peace-giving word\emdash "Be of good cheer, Paul." Again, at a subsequent period, one of those very disciples now in this vessel had a sublime vision vouchsafed to him of his Lord! It was so overpowering and glorious as to lead him to "fall at His fe et as one dead." But the same right hand was extended, the same gentle voice was heard, saying, "Fear not."\par And who has not felt in the storm-night of the soul the soothing power of that voice, and that presence, and that word? "IT IS I." Jesus lives. O! It is the felt presence, and power, and love of a Savior God which is the secret of the Christian's strength\emdash not Jesus, a distant abstraction\emdash Jesus, some mythical Being of superhuman might, soaring far beyond human conception a nd human sympathy\emdash but Jesus, the personal Savior\emdash the Living One\emdash the Acting One\emdash the Controlling One\emdash (ay, and to as many as He loves,) the Rebuking One and the Chastening One! The hand of Jesus, and the will of Jesus, and the love of Jesus, is to him seen in everything. "It is I," is to him penciled on every flower, murmured in every breeze, waving on every forest branch. It is the superscription in every event in Providence. It gleams in gilded letters in prosperity. It s tands brightly out in the dark and cloudy day. It is written on every sick pillow\emdash on every death chamber\emdash on every vacant chair, and vacant heart. Yes! that little word which rose from the bosom of Tiberias has gone forth to the end of the world, circling in undying echoes wherever there is a soul to comfort and a tear to dry. It gave peace to the chained Apostle in his Roman dungeon. "All men forsook me," says he, "Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, and delivered me out of the mouth of the lion." And that same Divine Attraction that tuned the lips of those lonely tempest-tossed fishermen to songs in the night, is able still to allay every anxious fear\emdash every trembling misgiving. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" "The floods have lifted up their voice, the floods have lifted up their waves; but the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the might y waves of the sea."\par Let us learn from this entire passage, that we are always safe when following the will and directions of our Lord and Master.\par Notwithstanding the momentary terror and lack of faith on the part of the disciples, it was, as we have seen, in obedience to the express command of Jesus, they had left the shore and braved the storm. "He CONSTRAINED them to get into the ship." With such a warrant as this, they had no cause for fear. Come darkness\emdash come tempest\emdash come ship-wreck\emdash come death\emdash come what may, they launched into the deep, "for the Lord had bidden them!" If they had left the shore unbidden by Him, they might have had good cause for alarm. The first breathings of the tempest would have disquieted them, but with this gracious encouragement, even though we are told that "the wind was contrary" they heeded it not. Their own doubting hearts might have prompted them to relinquish the voyage, and, since "all these things were against them," to return to shore. But the Lord had given the word! They pursued undaunted their onward course, and this was the helm by which they steered through the adverse waters" The Lord has bidden us."\par If we, too, when seasons of trial overtake us, thus hold on amid all difficulties, cleaving faithfully to Christ, he will at last cause light to shine out of darkness, and bring us unto a quiet haven.\par There is a very striking contrast between the case of the disciples in the narrative, and that of Jonah\emdash the former obeying the directions of their Lord, the latter fleeing from His presence. How did it fare with each? For a time God seemed to prosper the journey of the disobedient prophet. Everything at first seemed to concur in his favor, and promised him a speedy and propitious voyage. He accomplished his land journey in safety, he found a vessel just ready to embark at the very time he needed it, and, with a serene sky and unruffled sea, he holds on his way. Look, again, to the disciples. They scarce have left the shores of Galilee, when the shadows of night begin to fall\emdash a storm arises\emdash opposing winds, and an adverse tide defy their seamanship, and seem to tell that obedience to their Lord's command is impossible. But how did the respective voyages terminate? The faithful disciples, struggling fearlessly on through winds and waves and buffeting elements, at last found, what we shall also find, an ample recompense for every storm we encounter, amid every trial we endure\emdash they found the Lord. The other, in his guilty flight, was at first borne on by a propitious breeze, but speedily the calm was changed into a storm; and, engulfed in the raging elements he had madly braved, he was led to feel, in his sad experience, what "an evil thing it is to depart away from the living God."\par Or, take another still older example: Look at Lot, at the bidding, not of his God, but of his own worldly ease and selfish ends, seeking the rich inheritance, while his more self-denying kinsman and uncle is content with the poorer portion. At first, all seems prosperous with him; the man of pleasure revels amid his well-watered plains and his luscious vintages; his cattle browse on richest pastures; the sun of heaven shines not on a fairer climate, on statelier dwellings\emdash or nobler flocks. But, mark the end! Abraham, the unselfish, God-fearing, falls asleep full of years and faith. The noblest of epitaphs is to this day read by millions on the old cave of Machpelah\emdash "The Father of the Faithful, THE FRIEND OF GOD!"But go to yonder height at Zoar, and note the contrast. See the proud home of Lot. The place that once knew it knows it no more! A canopy of fire is its winding-sheet; the depths of a bituminous lake its sepulcher\emdash a calcified pillar, with a terrible history, stands overlooking the scene of perpetual desolation; and sadder far than that calcified pillar in front\endash and blacker far than the blackened ashes beneath\emdash the Temple of his own Soul has been blasted and withered with infamy and shame! He who ("a righteous man") might have stood forth in these early ages as a glorious monument of primitive faith and virtue\emdash a bright beacon-light to guide\emdash became a glaring balefire, in the light of which the most distant ages may read the awful warning\emdash "Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall."\par Once more, THE CHURCH COLLECTIVELY, as well as believers individually, may find comfort and consolation in the narrative we have now been considering.\par The two occasions of the stilling of the tempest, have been justly considered as typical of two great epochs in the Lord's administration of His Church on earth. The first (when He was with His disciples) symbolizing the period of His personal ministry\emdash when, as God "manifest in the flesh," He was visibly among them, cheering them with His companionship. The second, when after His ascension, He no longer gladdened the Church with His personal presence; when He left it, apparently to battle its own way amid the storms of persecution; but yet, all the while continuing to watch it, as he does now, from the Heavenly Hill, controlling every billow which threatens its peace. As He appeared of old, at the fourth watch of the night, just the hour preceding day-dawn, and not only cheered the disciples with the joyful\emdash "It is I" \emdash but came up amid the toiling rowers, hushed the storm, and conducted them safe to shore;\emdash so it will be, at the deepest hour of the world's midnight\emdash the hour preceding the millennial-morn! He himself has forewarned us (as if He took the very symbol He employs from that night at Gennesaret), that when "the sea and the waves are roaring, and men's hearts are failing them for fear," then the sign of the Son of Man shall be seen,\emdash "His way in the sea, and His path in the deep waters,"\emdash and the trembling Church, cowering amid the darkness, will lift up its night-Song\emdash "Let the sea roar and the fulness thereof . . . before the Lord, for He comes! He comes! to judge the earth."\par Ah! we are apt in the midst of these environing \{surrounding\} storms, which threaten, and shall yet still more threaten, the existence of the Church of God\emdash we are apt at times to wonder if its Great Head has forgotten His word, and forgotten His promise. There are ever craven hearts ready to echo the desponding cry\emdash "Where is the promise of His coming?" but, fear not! Jesus has not left the foundering vessel to reel and plunge amid these moral tempests that are to close the great drama of time! No!\emdash "in the fourth watch of the night"\emdash when the darkness is thickest and the billows highest\emdash "He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." Just as the new creation is about to put on its full robe of morning light, He will hush every billow; and mooring His vessel on the heavenly shore, take His storm-tossed Church to be FOREVER WITH ITS LORD.\par Let us seek to be in the position of men waiting for the dawn\emdash standing on the deck with the cry on our lips\emdash "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." And when we observe His presence on the waves, let it not be ours to exclaim in terror\emdash He comes! but there is no pardon in His voice!\emdash He comes! but there is no mercy in His footstep! Rather may we know the music of these words, which, to all that hear them, will be as the gate of heaven "IT IS I\emdash IT IS I\emdash DO NOT \par \cf1\fs23\par } water." "Come," He said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. "You of little faith," He said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Matt. 14:28-32\par \par In the preceding chapter, we considered that memorable scene on the Lake of Galilee, when in the midst of the tempest, "toiling in rowing," the disciples were gladdened by the joyous advent of their Lord. At first, terror-stricken as they saw the mysterious form on the midnight sea, but calmed and quieted on hearing the familiar voice and the reassuring word.\par \par In following out the sequel to this scene, let us direct our thoughts\emdash\par I. To the DISCIPLE around whom the main interest of the present incident gathers.\par II. To the SCENE itself; and\par III. To some of its LESSONS.\par \par I. The DISCIPLE who forms the central figure in this gospel narrative, is one who has impressed on him a peculiar and powerful individuality. There are in his character, certain strong and well defined traits\emdash marked lights and shadows familiar to the most unobservant reader. Had no name indeed been mentioned in this passage, we would at once have been led to figure on Peter as the apostle who went, in impetuous haste, down from the vessel's side, braved the stormy sea\emdash walked upon it\emdash sank in terror, and rose again in faith! Peter's is that composite character which one often meets with in the world, formed by a union of opposites. Bold, hasty, forward, ardent\emdash a soul full of deep emotion and sudden impulse, who in the fever of the moment would do a brave and hazardous thing from which, in a calmer mood, he would be deterred. Thought with him was action. To determine was to attain. In such a mind as his, to doubt would have been a grave impropriety . He is the David of the New Testament\emdash soaring at one moment with buoyant pinion to the skies, singing as he soars, "The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear?" The next, struggling as a wounded bird on the ground\emdash with the plaintive note, "My soul cleaves to the dust!"\par \par Or, perhaps, we may more appropriately liken him to some of David's mighty men, capable of a bold and dashing exploit\emdash killing, at one time, a lion in a winter snow-pit\emdash at another!, plunging through the slumbering Philistines, and filling their helmets with "the water of the well of Bethlehem"\emdash bringing the longed-for drink to their hero leader. If Peter had been, like these\emdash a soldier by profession\emdash he would have been suited for the brilliant attack\emdash the sudden raid\emdash the impetuous assault (some daring feat of arms)\emdash not for the slow, wasting decimating siege and trench work. His enthusiasm and ardor (honest and sincere at the time) were apt to b"e damped in the moment of trial and danger. For emergencies to which he fancied himself equal, the event proved he was not. A child of Ephraim boldly "carrying his bow," he turned faint in the day of battle! An Asahel, swift of foot, he becomes, in his trial-hour, a "Ready-to-halt." Facing the sullen visages of frowning Pharisees and armored Romans, his countenance falls\emdash his knees tremble. Foolish\emdash faint-hearted\emdash he sinks into the renegade and coward!\par \par Thus, doubtless,# was Peter a defective character. He had great faults\emdash but these, too, were softened and redeemed by many noble compensating qualities. Better all that striking energy of soul\emdash that warm, outspoken, hearty enthusiasm\emdash even although it proved often mistimed, often rash, sometimes culpable\emdash better this, than that cold, repelling, apathetic, pulseless spirit, which never kindles into one earnest or loving emotion.\par \par There were other types of character in that very fis$hing vessel, perhaps more beautiful and perfect. Take John, as the ideal of the Christian man\emdash meek, calm, adoring. His befitting place\emdash the bosom of Jesus in his life, and the cross of Jesus at his death. His the holiest legacy ever bequeathed by filial love\emdash "Son, behold your mother!" His gentle heart is like some quiet river, unrippled by one wave, mirroring the rich garniture of loveliness fringing its banks, and murmuring, as it glides by, the tranquil music of love. Better this, th%an the maddening torrent, tearing over rock and precipice, as it hurries to its ocean home.\par \par But rather give me that boisterous river, with its foam and thunder, its cataracts and wild music, than the fetid, stagnant pool, which sleeps on in dull torpid inaction. Better the fervent, enthusiastic Christian, than the men of Meroz\emdash those who "do nothing"\emdash the cold, timid calculators\emdash men of dull drowsy routine in the religious life, in whose sight fervor and fanaticism are& the same things; ever jealous of going too far, never suspecting whether they may not be going far enough; who, knowing that it is an apostolic caution, "it is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good," adopt the prudent way of avoiding blunders by not being zealously affected at all.\par \par Peter's faults were the infirmities of a noble mind; and before he received his crown, he became a living testimony as to what the grace of God could do in modifying natural temperament. Peter, "s'peaking in his Epistles," is another man from the impetuous Fisherman, on the shores or on the bosom of his native lake. Tradition represents him as having, at his own request, been crucified with his head downwards, in token of humility. We may accept the legend, at all events, as has been remarked, as a significant emblem of the "inversion of his character." At the close of his existence, his old age is like the peaceful subdued sunset which often terminates a troubled day; or like the mountain which, c(lose at hand, is torn and splintered\emdash ploughed up with unsightly scars by spring floods and winter storms. But as we recede, and the soft autumn evening tints fall upon it\emdash the jagged outline is lost; we see only a mass of mellowed glory!\emdash Such was the evening of Peter's life.\par \par II. Let us consider the description here given of one of these sudden impulses of this impulsive apostle, harmonizing as it does so entirely with the rest of his history and character. Judging fr)om this peculiar temperament, perhaps when the mysterious phantom form was first seen on the waters, Peter may have been the most faint-hearted of all. While the calm John, or the cool, cautious Thomas, may have looked their danger sternly in the face, he may have seen, in the shadowy figure, nothing but the spirit of the Tempest, or the wings of the Angel of Death, and fled, cowering in terror, to the hold of the vessel. But no sooner does he listen to the comforting, "It Is I," than shame and sorrow ove*rwhelm him that he had been so "slow of heart," and in the very rebound from faithlessness to newly awakened joy, he resolves by an heroic act to atone for these moments of unworthy cowardice. "Lord!" says he, "if it is You, tell me to come to You on the water."\par \par Even yet, however, his voice trembles as he speaks. Neither his faith nor his motives will bear rigid scrutiny. The very word with which he begins his bold and presumptuous request implies a secret doubt\emdash "IF it is You."\p+ar \par Ah! how often does that guilty word mingle still in our deep midnights of trial\emdash questioning God's voice, God's way, God's will, God's loving wisdom. How apt are we to indulge in unkind, unrighteous surmises; saying, like Martha of Bethany (the "Peter of her sex"), when the Master came to her in the midst of a still darker tempest, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died?" Let us "be still and know that He is God." There is no room for an "if" or a "why" in all ,His providential dealings. Shall we own the voice of God, as we stand in the natural world in the loaded air of summer noontide, when from the heavy clouds there issues bolt after bolt of living thunder? and in the moral world shall we refuse to acknowledge and adore the same? No; when out, buffeting the wintry sea of trial, "neither sun nor star appearing, and a very great tempest lying upon us;" while others may only hear the rougher accents of the storm, be it ours to recognize the soft undertones of c-ovenant love, and to exclaim with one who had likewise Nature, Providence, and Grace in his eye when he penned his words\emdash "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty . . . The Lord sits upon the flood, yes, the Lord sits king forever. The Lord will give strength to His people. The Lord will bless His people with peace."\par \par But to return to the narrative\.emdash While there was doubt and misgiving on the part of Peter, in illustration of that strange union of opposites to which I have referred, there was in conjunction with these, boldness and presumption.\par \par His own thought, doubtless, was to make an avowal of his faith, but what he did display was not faith, but a base counterfeit. It was a degenerate semblance and figure of the true. Rightly named, it was forwardness, fool-hardihood\emdash the haughty spirit, which is inevitably succeede/d by a fall.\par \par Let us always be careful to give things their proper designation. Let us be specially on our guard against looking at vice and virtue through a distorted medium, giving the name of gold to what may, after all, be base alloy; confounding great heavenly principles with hollow semblances; calling evil good and good evil; putting darkness for light and light for darkness. How often do we hear revenge misnamed honor; passion, spirit; extravagance, generosity; free thinking, libe0rality; blasphemy, wit; and presumption, faith.\par \par In the case before us, we may be apt, at first sight, to confuse and confound two feelings and emotions, in themselves widely different. Peter in appearance is very magnanimous nor do we deny (his Lord Himself owns it) that there was in his bold deed a certain amount of faith and confidence in Christ's ability and power. So far his conduct was commendable; but there was more of the reverse\emdash more of pride, ambition, rashness.\par \pa1r His faith in his Divine Master would have been tempered with a wiser discretion, and a kindlier regard for the feelings of others, had he simply joined with his fellow apostles in inviting Jesus into their ship. But he lorded it over them. There was an implied assumption of superiority in the personal request, "Tell ME." We could not even have quarreled with his conditional "If," had he put it in the form, "If it be Your will, Lord." But with a rashness similar to that which drew down a later r2ebuke, when unbidden he cut off the ear of Malchus, he utters, on his own authority, and more in the tone of a mandate than a proposal, "TELL me to come." There is a struggle for pre-eminence, a craving to win the highest praise from his Master. He would wish to make himself out the boldest and bravest of the apostle-crew. It is the saying and the failing of a future occasion put in another form and other words\emdash "Though all be offended, yet I shall not."\par \par Doubtless, had an injuncti3on to leave the vessel emanated from the lips of Christ, it would have been alike his duty and his joy to obey; there would then have been no sinking, no faltering. If the Lord had "given the word" He would have made Peter's "feet like hinds' feet," and set him upon these "high places." But this frail worm himself takes the initiative. He makes his own will and wish antecedent to the will of his Lord, and he must pay the penalty of his presumptuous daring.\par \par Let us beware of such a spirit4\emdash this love of pre-eminence\emdash this exalting our own reputation or good name at the expense of others. "Do not be high-minded, but fear." "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Self-denial is one of the most beautiful offshoots of humility; and Humility, remember, is the loveliest plant in the heavenly garden. The Lord of the garden delights to tend it and nurture it. The man on the white horse in Zechariah's vision, rode among the myrtle trees, which were in the bottom of the v5alley, not amid the oaks of Bashan or the cedars of Lebanon. The sweetest note of the lark, though she loves to carol in the sky, is said to be when she alights in her nest in the furrow. Let us seek the shade\emdash not being wise in our own conceits; but "in humility consider others better than yourselves."\par \par How kindly and considerately does Jesus deal with this bold and rash, yet ardent and devoted man. "Lord, tell me to come." He forbids him not. Had he done so, there would have been6 lost to Peter the most valuable lesson his Master ever taught him. Jesus uses the present opportunity to discipline him by his failure to become, as he afterwards did become, a spiritual giant and hero; out of his very weakness He made him strong!\par \par Our Lord, as Man, had His own likings and partialities for individual character; and though that of John was probably cast in the human mold most resembling His own, yet His personal attachment to Peter is undoubted. He seemed to take a pleas7ure in training him, just as a faithful teacher takes special pleasure and pains in the training of an eager, ardent, impetuous child, or a faithful farmer in cleansing a fruitful, grateful soil of redundant and noxious weeds.\par \par Peter makes his request. A single word is all he gets in reply. The same voice which, a few moments before, gently quieted by a threefold assurance the fears of all the affrighted crew, says, in answer to the bold outspoken one\emdash "come!" He does not refuse, b8ut neither does He give any warrant or promise of upholding power. Peter had said "Tell me;" Christ does not say "I tell." Peter had said "on the water." Jesus speaks of no footway there. Peter had said "unto You;" Jesus gives no such invitation. He utters only the one indefinite word, "come!" "Come," He seems to say, "bold one, make trial of your strength; come if you can; but it is on your own risk and responsibility; I give no pledge or warrant of success to your carnal presumption."\par \par 9 He does come! He descends the side of the lurching vessel\emdash the next moment his feet are on the unstable waves. His faith is for the moment strong, and fixing his countenance on his great Redeemer, he travels in safety along that strangest of pathways. But a wandering eye is the first symptom of a mournful reverse. He turns his face from Christ; he transfers his glance to the rolling waves at his feet, and the storm sighing overhead. "When he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid." It was no new tem:pest that had sprung up; the sea was not opening its mouth wider than before; the sky was no blacker; the hurricane no louder; the waves were beating as high when he first sallied forth. But with his eye and his heart on the Lord of the storm, he had no room then for a thought of danger. Now it was different. Gazing on the tempestuous elements, he trembled at his own courage. He took his eye off the secret of his support, and down he sank like lead in that raging sea.\par \par Ah! Peter is here ;a living impersonation of UNBELIEF, which is nothing else but a diversion of the Soul's Eye from God\emdash a looking to the creature\emdash to the world\emdash to sight\emdash to self\emdash to sense\emdash and ignoring the great Creator, the Blessed Redeemer, and the things Unseen! The disciple, while he retained his faith, saw no waves and heard no winds. The disciple, faithless, with his eye turned from his Lord, was awakened to the reality of the maddening elements around him; and then the Lord left ise him again. How is he raised? He honors Christ throughout in this memorable crisis. He might have dreamed at that moment of other ways of extricating himself from his peril. Was there no rope in the hold of the boat? Could he not have asked one of the Apostle rowers to stretch him one of those oars with which, a few minutes before, they had been toiling in vain to make head against the storm? Or, where was his natural or acquired skill in swimming, of which we read afterwards, when near the beach of th?at same lake on a later occasion, he plunged headlong into the water and swam manfully ashore! But he resorts to none of these expedients. Having dishonored Jesus by distrusting Him, he will honor him once more by fresh confidence in His power and love. "None but Christ" is His motto. His cry, "Lord, save me, else I perish!" Not all the props you can employ can raise up the battered downtrodden flower so well as the congenial sunshine. So this drooping flower turns his leaves to the Great Sun of Righteous@ness. The Apostle is sinking\emdash but even as he sinks, he sinks "looking unto Jesus."\par \par And as the Servant honored his Master\emdash as the Disciple honored his Lord\emdash so does the Lord and Master honor him and deal tenderly with him in return.\par \par He might have righteously left him for a while in his anguish and trepidation, to feel the consequences of his rashness. With the horrors of death taking hold on him, He might have addressed him in words of cutting rebuke Aand upbraiding. But He will first restore His confidence. "Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him." The Lord's hand was not shortened that it could not save. Peter's experience was that of the Psalmist\emdash "When my foot slipped, Your mercy, O Lord, held me up!"\par \par And now comes the gentle rebuke. It would not have been well for Peter\emdash it would not have been well for the Church of the future, which was to read and ponder this scene\emdash had the salutary needed Breproof been allowed to pass. Gentle, however, it was! He does not address him as the presumptuous unbeliever\emdash neither does He reprimand him for making the attempt to come. This might have had the effect of damping his energies for bolder deeds yet in reserve for him. Thus is he addressed by Him who "breaks not the bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking flax"\emdash "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"\par \par That sensitive heart required no harsh or severe word to enforce the appCeal. A look, you will remember\emdash a glance of impressive silence, yet of deep significance\emdash afterwards covered his face with bitter tears. So now, that one brief question would bring before him the memory of a hundred former acts of love and power, all of which would aggravate the unkindness of distrusting that Gracious Savior. It was equivalent to saying, "Peter! after all that I have done for you in the past, why have you now dishonored Me?\emdash why refuse reliance now on my all-powerful armD? I still acknowledge that you have faith\emdash but in this critical emergency it has shown itself to be small. Why have you wounded Me so by this unworthy doubting?"\par \par The accused is silent. He attempts no reply. Perhaps his tears forbid it. Doubtless he returned to the vessel a humbled man. It was a night which to his dying hour would be much remembered. Yet could it fail to rivet his affections more strongly than ever around that Savior? If we put a "Song of the Night" into his lips, Emay it not be appropriately that of the Great Prophet\emdash "Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become my salvation."\par \par Let us now ponder one or two of the PRACTICAL LESSONS suggested by this subject, though these indeed have already been so far anticipated.\par \par I. We learn that Faith and fear may be found existing together in the minds of God's children, and that we must not make the exFistence of doubts and misgivings an evidence that we have no faith.\par \par That Peter had faith, notwithstanding his distrust and fear, is obvious. It was faith, though mingled with other lower motives, which led him to venture on the water. It was faith which, as he was sinking, prompted the prayer, "Lord, save me." And in his rebuke Christ recognizes the existence of faith, though he speaks of it as small, "O you of little faith."\par \par From this, the desponding child of God mayG draw a lesson of consolation and encouragement. You whose souls are harassed with fears\emdash who are mourning over the coldness of your love, the weakness of your graces, the languor of your spiritual frame, learn here not to argue from the existence of doubt, that faith must be lacking or cannot be real. True it is, the further you advance in the Divine life the greater your faith will be, and the fewer will be your doubts. But Christ here does not refuse to stretch out an arm of mercy to one of littlHe faith. If you have faith only as a grain of mustard seed, it tells what spirit you are of. For this is no plant of earthly growth that will blossom spontaneously in the soil of the unregenerate heart, it is "not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." The Bible speaks of various degrees of Faith. And there are different figures employed to denote the operation of this great principle. Its first and simplest act is represented as a "Looking to Christ," then a "coming to Christ," a "receiving Christ," a "lIaying hold of Christ," a "cleaving" to Christ, a "trusting" in Christ.\par \par But the lowest in this scale, provided it be a real faith, gives a sinner an interest in Jesus and his salvation, as well as the highest. The faith of the "weak" as well as of the "strong" rests on the same one Foundation. But mistake us not! We do not mean to say that because the smallest degree or measure of faith is an index of spiritual life, that therefore there is no need of further degrees of it. If, there is Jtrue faith, it must, like every other Christian principle, be progressive. This must be the prayer of every heart in which that grace is real, "Lord, increase my faith." While with holy humble gratitude we can say, "Lord, we believe," we must ever be adding, "Help our unbelief."\par \par II. We are taught here the great cause of all the doubts and misgivings of God's people. It is, as in the case of Peter, a lack of dependence on Christ. We have seen when that ardent Disciple first ventured on tKhe watery element his footing was firm, because his faith in his Lord's power was firm; but as soon as his eye was turned from his heavenly Master on the boisterous elements around, then faith failed, and he began to sink!\par \par What was the secret of Paul's boldness amid his great fight of afflictions? It was keeping the undeviating eye of Faith fixed on that same glorious Redeemer. With a martyr's stake casting its shadow on his path, or with the rage of Nero's lions in his ear, he could exLclaim, "None of these things move me."\par \par Is it not even so with us? Why is it that we who once, it may be, were confident in the Lord's faithfulness, and who stood firm, like a rock in the waters, against the temptations that were assailing us, may now be unable to resist their force? Is it not because we have turned away the eye of faith from a reigning Savior, and fixed it on the troubles and tumults and dangers around; reasoned about the strength of our temptations and the severity of Mour trials, the greatness of our difficulties, and the imminency of our dangers\emdash forgetful of that blessed truth that Christ is able to save to the uttermost? We have doubted His ability and distrusted His faithfulness, and He has now left us to feel "how frail we are."\par \par III. We learn from this narrative\emdash What is the source of relief to the sinking soul, in its times of troubles and fear. It is Christ Himself\emdash a renewed application to Him as a Savior.\par \par N You remember the well-known incident in old Roman story, when, in crossing a strait in the hour of maddening storm, coward hearts were tortured with terror, as they listened to creaking planks in their tiny vessel. The sea was lashing over them; their eyes were dimmed with the blinding spray\emdash Death seemed to sit on every crested wave. A voice from one of noble bearing, sitting wrapped in a military cloak by the stern, blended with the accents of the storm\emdash "The Bark cannot sink which carries OCaesar and his fortunes!" It was enough. The revelation of the imperial presence and the imperial word was like oil cast on the fretful sea. Their courage rose\emdash with undaunted souls they buffeted its waves, and were before long on the wished-for shore.\par \par Reader, in the midst of your earthly troubles, turn in self-oblivion to the Heavenly Pilot. A nobler than Caesar is at your side! He tells you that there is nothing to fear\emdash that there shall be no loss of any man's life\emdashP no, not even of the ship\emdash but that you shall all get "safe to land." If duty has called you out to the troubled waters, let Faith\emdash that divine principle\emdash believing\emdash trusting, honoring Jesus\emdash bear you up amid every difficulty and every danger. Say with this same Apostle on another memorable occasion, "Lord, to whom can I go, but to You? You have the words of eternal life;" or with another sinking castaway, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? and why so disturbed within me? Put Qyour hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God."\par \par IV. Let us here note the means by which this application is made and final deliverance obtained. It is PRAYER\emdash "Lord, save me, I perish."\par \par How delightful to think that amid all the troubles of the world without, and all the tumults of the heart within, a Savior's ear is ever open\emdash the gates to a throne of grace are never shut! Yes, though we may be conscious that much of our doubt, and darkRness, and despondency can be traced to nothing but our own faithlessness\emdash though we may be conscious that we have ourselves roused the storm which now and again may be desolating our hearts\emdash there is yet room for calling upon Him who can say to the storms within as to the storms without, Peace\emdash be still; and no tempest-tossed spirit in its sinking moments ever applied to Him for help, and applied in vain.\par \par Are there any reading these pages thus tossed with tempest and rSefusing to be comforted\emdash whose faith is weak\emdash whose hearts are desponding\emdash whose love is cold\emdash who are mourning over the departure of seasons of spiritual light, and liberty, and joy? Let your hour of doubt and trembling be turned into an hour of prayer. You may have changed in your love to your Redeemer\emdash forgotten and forsaken Him\emdash rejected His grace, and distrusted His faithfulness\emdash but He is unchanged in His love towards you! The storm may have hidden His face,T but He is as near you as He was to Peter of old. For you there is still open, what there was to the sinking disciple\emdash a Throne of grace! Go with the cry, "Lord, save me, I perish"\emdash and you will find that the hour of supplication will be turned, as with him, into an hour of deliverance. For "immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him."\par \par O wondrous power of Prayer! What miracles, what triumphs does it accomplish! It has turned the volleyed lightning in its path.U It has scared away the brooding pestilence. It has unlocked the bronze gates of the sky, and brought down floods on the thirsty soil. It has smoothed the pillow of sickness. It has dried the widow's tears, and filled the mouths of her orphans. It has brought back the wandering prodigal to his Father's hearth and home. It has wrestled with an angel, and prevailed. It has arrested the ear and moved the arm of Omnipotence.\par \par The telescope has with giant bound scaled the stars and traversed VImmensity. The electric spark can now conduct its winged messages from sea to sea, and from continent to continent. It can stay armies on their march, and silence the thunders of battle, and give the momentous word and will on which depends the fate of thrones and the destinies of nations. But what is that to a power which transmits messages from the lips of the finite creature to the presence-chamber of the Infinite God?\emdash finding its way where the eye has never roamed, the telescope never reached, Wscience with its lightning-pinions never soared\emdash penetrating the gates, unlocking the garners of Heaven!\par \par Do we know this Power of Prayer? Feeling that we are perishing, have we sent up a cry for help to that God who is a refuge to His people in every time of trouble? If so, He will send help out of His holy hill of Zion. Why is it that our prayers seem so frequently to go unanswered\emdash that, despite of them all, we feel that we are sinking still? Is it not because they are notX the cries of those who feel their great and impacting need of Christ, and are really desirous that His hand be stretched out for their rescue? Let us go with the publican's lowly spirit, and with the sinking disciple's importunate entreaty, "Lord, save me, I perish! Lord, I look to You for safety. There is no safety in myself. I feel that I am a lost undone sinner, and unless plucked from the billows of sin, I shall perish everlastingly. But, Lord, from the depths I cry to You; help me, O helper of the hYelpless! Show me that man's extremity is God's opportunity," and then, as surely as in the case of Peter, Jesus will stretch forth His hand. It may not be, as with him, "immediately." But "the Lord is good to those who wait for Him, unto the soul that seeks Him." "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he WILL strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord."\par \par V. We learn, from the narrative before us, that distrust in Christ's faithfulness is displeasing to Him\emdash Jesus REBUKED hZim, saying, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" That question, we have seen, carried an arrow of deep conviction to Peter's heart. He dared not answer it. His silence told how deeply it was felt! And does not that same question ring reproachfully in many of our ears; if we are now surrounded with trial or temptation\emdash disposed to question or distrust the Redeemer's faithfulness. "Why," He seems to say, "Oh, why, unbelieving one, do you doubt? Look back on your past history; don't you remember[ the hours when you tasted My faithfulness and mercy; when My candle shined upon your head, and my peace lit up your soul with a joy infinite as heaven? Look back, and is not your pilgrimage journey crowded with Ebenezers, telling that the Lord has helped you? Don't you remember the hour of trouble when I wiped your tears; the hour of temptation when I dispelled your foes; the night of affliction when I soothed your sorrows, and whispered peace when all around was death; the hour of prayer and the season \of communion, when I made the House of God as the very gate of heaven? And if darkness and tempest have now succeeded\emdash if the calm has been changed into a storm, and I seem to have hid My face, Oh, why do you doubt? Shouldn't My faithfulness in the past be an encouragement for the future\emdash a pledge and assurance that I will never fail you nor forsake you?"\par \par VI. We learn again, from the deliverance given to the sinking disciple, that there is no situation in which Christ is not] willing and able to help us.\par \par When did He come to Peter and to his fellow voyagers? It was "about the fourth watch of the night," while morning had scarcely begun to dawn, and all nature was sunk in slumber! And who, after the toils of the preceding day, would have felt these slumbers more sweet, or nature's rest more refreshing, than the weary Man of Sorrows? But He who had gone to the lonely mountaintop, to seek a bed of rest, when elsewhere He had none, willingly forsook even this, t^o come to the help of His beloved disciples! What does this tell us, but that we can never go out of season to Christ; that there is not the hour in which He is inaccessible to our needs, or will refuse to give us help; that there is no danger from which He cannot extricate us; nor the trial which He will not overrule for the strengthening of our faith. He is able to save\emdash He is willing to save. None are beyond the reach of His abounding grace and mercy.\par \par As the ocean supports a na_vy as easily as the bubble on the breaker, or the sea bird sitting on its crested foam; as the earth supports the everlasting hills as easily as the tiny grass which clothes its sides, or the cattle which browse on them; so Jesus can save great and small; He is the spiritual Atlas carrying a ruined world. In the season of our deepest extremity, even when, like the apostle, we may seem on the brink of perishing\emdash the waves of destruction about to close over us\emdash with such a Savior there is no roo`m to despair.\par \par VII. Finally, we have here a lesson of rebuke and warning: Christ calls Peter's "a little faith." And yet, weak and faithless as he was, when we read this narrative, how are we overwhelmed and abased when we think of the poverty and meagerness of our faith, when compared even with that of the sinking disciple? We behold him in that hour of tempest, stepping down from the vessel and committing himself to the raging waters. He hears his Lord's voice, and, fearless of danger,a travels along the unstable element to throw himself at His feet. We see, in the same moment, courage, ardor, prayer, love, devotedness; and yet the Savior reproves him, and his silence tells that he felt the rebuke was no more than was due. Surely if this could only be called a "little faith," what must He who so denominated it, think of ours?\emdash when many of us can tell of lives that present one sad history of doubt, and distrust, and faithlessness\emdash prayerless, careless, godless seasons, when bthe least vanities are cleaved to in preference to Christ, and we rush to every 'savior' but the one who died for us.\par \par Do not let us harshly and censoriously deal with Peter until we have "considered ourselves." Let us look at his frailties side by side with our own. Our judgment on the apostle may well be tempered with mercy\emdash our judgment on ourselves may well be mingled with shame. Let us be equally noble, as he was, in our avowal of attachment to our Great Lord. Let us be equally ready, when we stumble and fall, for his baptism of bitter tears. Let us be equally resolute in spirit for his martyr-death. If God sends us midnights of trial, let these be hallowed and consecrated to us, as they were to him, by a more loving trust in that loving Savior\emdash leading us the more fondly to welcome the Lord's voice upon the waters, and to take as our motto and watchword for all the contingencies of an unknown future, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } }}[i]15 The Sinking Disciple{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE SINKING DISCIPLE\par \par "Lord, if it's You," Peter replied, "tell me to come to You on the ebounding gospel mercies blest\par Dare spurn the Savior's grace and scorn His Name;\par Forget not, though His patience now endures,\par The heathen's hell will be a heaven to yours!"\par \par "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than ffor you."\emdash Matthew 11:23, 24.\par \par While following, in the preceding chapters, the Savior's footsteps on Gennesaret, with no name or spot, in all the favored region, have we been more familiar than with Capernaum. His ever memorable sojourn within its walls, is now, however, speedily to terminate. Along with other Hebrew Pilgrims, He is about to proceed to the City of solemnities (Jerusalem), in order to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles.\par \par But before He leaves its gagtes, He must utter in its hearing a solemn warning\emdash a dreadful denunciation, over unrequited love and guilty impenitence. He looks down the vista of ages to that solemn day when cities and their inhabitants shall throng the area of the Great Tribunal, and when He who holds the balances in His hand will deal out, with unerring equity, to each and all, their respective sentences.\par \par It is not often that Jesus\emdash the meek, and gentle, and tender Savior\emdash speaks in accents of sthern wrath and upbraiding; we may well believe He never uttered one needlessly harsh word. When we behold Him, therefore, as the Minister of Justice, standing with the flaming sword in His hand, proclaiming "terrible things in righteousness"\emdash "he that has an ear to hear, let him hear!"\par \par We have these three points brought before us for consideration in this solemn address of our Lord\emdash\par \par I. Capernaum's Privileges.\par \par II. Capernaum's Neglect.\par i \par III. Capernaum's Doom.\par \par I. Capernaum's PRIVILEGES\par "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies?" We reject the interpretation put upon this clause by some of the older writers, that it has reference to the worldly prosperity of the city as the great seaport of Gennesaret; still more, another, that the allusion is to its elevated natural site. It is, undoubtedly, in a spiritual sense Christ speaks. His reference is to Capernaum's exaltation in unprecjedented and unparalleled religious privilege.\par \par Of all the cities in Palestine, none was in this respect more exalted (nay, so exalted) as this town of Galilee. Bethlehem was "exalted" as the scene of the Manger, and of the Seraphim who sang the advent-hymn of the Prince of Peace. Nazareth was "exalted" as the home of His youth: imagination loves to watch in this little city, nestling amid its picturesque hills, the unfoldings of that wondrous Humanity\emdash to follow Him as He climbed ikn mysterious boyhood these sunny slopes, or toiled in the lowly workshop of His reputed father. Jerusalem was "exalted" as the scene of more thrilling and majestic events. It witnessed the awful termination of the drama of love and suffering\emdash the Agony; the Cross; the Grave; the Resurrection.\par \par But if we would select the most instructive chapter in the Great Biography\emdash that which contains the most thorough manifestation of the life of Jesus, we must seek it in Capernaum\emdashl we must linger in its streets, or frequent the mountain slopes, which looked down on its busy waters. It is spoken of emphatically, with reference to Jesus, as "His own city," the place where He dwelt. For the three most eventful years of His life He made it His home. Either within or outside its gates, miracle followed miracle in rapid succession. Bodily disease; sickness; blindness; palsy; death itself\emdash fled frightened at the presence of the Lord of life; while the very waves which washed its pormt had been made a pathway for a new display of Power, and murmured their tribute to His Divinity.\par \par Nor was it the WORKS of Jesus alone which this favored city had witnessed. Hundreds on hundreds would echo the later verdict of the soldiers and officers, "Never man SPOKE like this man." The noblest of all His recorded discourses was uttered with Capernaum in view. The rocks, and ravines, and mountain summits around, had listened to Beatitudes of love and mercy for which the world had stranined its listening ear for 4000 years. That noble series of Parables, explanatory of the nature of His kingdom, was spoken as He was moored in a fishing boat by its beach. If we cannot even now, read these truthful lessons and words of wisdom without profound emotion, what must it have been to have listened to them, in the living tones of that living voice, and to have gazed on the countenance of the Divine Speaker, "fairer than the children of men?"\par \par And even mightier still than word oro deed, sermon or miracle, was, (as we have just noted,) the holy LIFE of this adorable Philanthropist. What a matchless combination of power and gentleness\emdash of majesty and humility! How unlike all human greatness\emdash how unlike all human selfishness! a zeal that never flagged\emdash a love that never faltered\emdash a pity and compassion which sheltered the wretched, the worthless, the abandoned, and those "who had no helper." When His public work was done in the city, He was seen betaking Himselpf, amid falling twilight shadows, to some neighboring "mountain apart to pray;" or if bodily fatigue demanded rest, no sooner was the cry for support heard, than He was seen hurrying back from His solitude and mountain pillow to afford the needed help.\par \par O favored Capernaum! honored for three long years as the abode of "God manifest in the flesh." How surpassing your privileges! What were the boasted glories of earth's proudest capitals, at that moment, in comparison with this town by theq solitary lake of Northern Palestine? What was Rome, with her imperial eagles, looking down from her seven hills, exulting in the sovereignty of the world? What was Athens, or Alexandria, with their schools and systems\emdash their sages and philosophers\emdash looking down from their haughty pinnacles of intellectual triumph on the subject world of Mind? What were these in comparison with the honor enjoyed by that city, within whose honored walls dwelt the Prince of the Kings of the earth\emdash "Christ,r the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God?"\par \par In its streets, or on its hill slopes, or amid the chimes of its waves, words of mighty import were first heard, which were destined yet to be borne where the Eagles of Rome had never penetrated. There a mighty balsam was distilled for the wounds of bleeding humanity, which the doctrines of Aristotle and Plato had failed, and ever should fail, to stanch: No wonder, then, that over this His adopted home, His heart should yearn with deepest emotison. His eye wanders first to the further towns, lining these same shores, and which were not unfamiliar with His voice and presence. As He gazes on them with tearful eye, thus He weaves His plaintive lament: "Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." But He has a deeper and sterner plaint reserved for another city\emdash a more solemn and emphatic exclamation: "andt you, Capernaum" (I turn now to you, the spot most favored of all, during my earthly pilgrimage), "and you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven!"\par \par Is it a far-fetched comparison, if we see, in the privileges enjoyed by this city of Gennesaret, a reflection of our own? What the region around it proverbially once was among the Hebrews ("a region and shadow of death"), Britain was to the old world; a land of savage barbarism and debasing superstition. But to us, as to them, who once "sat iun darkness," light has "sprung up." Cast your eye over the map of the habitable earth, and what the spot, what the nation in its two hemispheres so favored as ours? I speak not of our worldly prosperity\emdash our national glory. I speak not of our enterprise\emdash our science\emdash our arts\emdash our commerce\emdash our institutions. Regarding all these in their place, we have reason for honest pride. But I speak of our spiritual privileges, which may well be prized as a Briton's noblest birthright\emvdash the security and conservator of all the rest.\par \par Look to other countries, on which the Sun of heaven smiles more brightly and favorably than on our own, yet cursed and demoralized with horrid rites of impurity and blood\emdash millions bowing to insensate blocks\emdash yearning souls, feeling the void and worthlessness of their own barren systems, longing for some nobler panacea than superstition can give\emdash ten thousand Ethiopians stretching out their unsupported hands to some bewtter God than their idols of silver and gold.\par \par Look at empires nearer home. The saddest of all sad features in many of the nations of Europe is, that God's own truth is not free\emdash that a poor perishing sinner is not permitted to read with his own eyes that precious Word which was intended to be patent as the air of heaven!\par \par Oh, is it no blessing to turn from this sickening tale of a benighted world and a benighted Christendom, and see our own land, with every fettexr struck from the limb of thought and action, shining like a spiritual lighthouse\emdash in the midst of the darkening waves? Is it no blessing that we can tell of peaceful Sabbaths, and holy ordinances, and unbound and unforbidden Bibles?\emdash that free as the streams that leap from our mountain ravines are these precious waters of salvation?\emdash that while myriads of heathens are passing into a dark eternity, or pining unsolaced in the bitterness of broken hearts; we can sit by the bedside of the syick, the forlorn, the bereft, the aged, the dying, and from the leaves of this Holy Book, light up the faded countenance with the smile of a foretasted Heaven?\par \par May not He who uttered these words of profound solemnity in the hearing of Capernaum, well look down on this our favored country, and with solemn and significant emphasis echo the exclamation: "And YOU who are exalted to heaven!"\par \par II. Consider Capernaum's NEGLECT. He "upbraided" this city, along with the others,z "because it did not repent."\par \par Now it is worthy of note that there is no special or atrocious sin laid to the charge of this lake-city. During all the period of our Savior's residence there, we read of no personal insult its inhabitants offered Him. Nazareth, the town of His childhood and youth, has covered, in this respect, its otherwise hallowed name and memories with everlasting reproach. The furious assault its citizens made on the guiltless and innocent Savior is stated as the reaso{n for His leaving it and coming to dwell in Capernaum. But in His new home we have the record of no such ignominious persecution\emdash no such outburst of personal animosity. On the contrary, He seems there to have been honored and respected. His influence was great; and the most blinded and obdurate could not shut their eyes to the fact that a Great Prophet had arisen in the midst of them. Representatives from all its diverse ranks and offices did him homage; Publicans from their Custom-house; Fishermen| from their nets; Leaders of the Jewish synagogue; Officers in Caesar's ranks and drawing Caesar's pay\emdash while the common people heard him gladly.\par \par But what of all this? While there were some (we may hope many) happy exceptions, with the vast multitude there was continued indifference, cold and cheerless neglect; with many more, daring irreligion, and the indulgence of those unblushing vices which, imported from the Roman capital, had been propagated by an abandoned Court. They hear}d His words, but they practiced them not. They owned him as a Heaven-sent Teacher, but they refused to regulate their lives by His lofty instructions.\par \par In the neighboring city of Tiberias, that imperial Court of Herod was located. This unhappy sovereign was himself the type of hundreds whom the Redeemer had doubtless now in His eye. Herod vaunted no infidelity. On the contrary, he had been the personal friend of John the Baptist. He admired the great preacher's unworldly spirit\emdash hi~s deep and singular earnestness\emdash the novelty and impressiveness of his themes! He invited him to his palace. He listened to his faithful, soul-stirring words\emdash and yet all the while that palace was the scene of shameless profligacy. Herod\emdash this sermon-lover, this Religionist, who could hear the holiest of mere men preach the doctrine of Repentance\emdash was reveling in guilty defiance of the laws of God and man. Patiently he heard John so long as he kept on the great general theme\emdash so long as he allowed him to remain undisturbed in his own wickedness. But when he became a 'Nathan' to him\emdash when the faithful, fearless Forerunner hurled the bolt of rebuke at the soul of his imperial master, and dragged to light his secret lusts, he could tolerate him no longer. Herodias is retained, and John is sent to exile.\par \par So it was with many in Capernaum. They could follow Jesus to the heights of the Mount, and listen to His beatitudes. They could stand for hours on the white sands of the lake as He spoke to them from Simon's vessel all the words of the kingdom; but when He urged the necessity of a daily self-denial\emdash a daily bearing of the cross\emdash they were immediately offended. "This is a hard saying," they said, "who can bear it?" "From that hour they walked no more with Him." This was their condemnation that light (the great Light of Life) came to their city, but they loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.\par \par Has Capernaum in this respect no parallel and counterpart in modern times? Alas! alas! Is it not to be feared that now, as then, men are content with having "a name to live," who are spiritually dead. There are thousands who come to our churches, who hear the preacher, who assent to the message, but go back from listening to the tremendous themes of Death, Judgment, and Eternity, to plunge deep as ever into engrossing worldliness and sin. The preacher may be heard\emdash his words may fall like lulling music on the ear, but the gates of the soul are firmly locked and barred against admission\emdash the Baptist may thunder his rebukes, but some Herodias, some heart-sin and life-sin, will, in spite of them, be retained and caressed.\par \par Are there none now reading these words, whom the Savior would begin (as He did with Capernaum) to "upbraid," because they have repented not? When His scrutinizing eye looks down, Sabbath after Sabbath, upon listening audiences throughout our land, all apparently solemn, sincere, outwardly devout, does He not discern, lurking underneath this fair external guise, the signs and symptoms of loathsomeness and decay; like the pure virgin snow covering the charred and blackened ruin, or the emerald sod muffling the volcano. Ah! sermons will not save us\emdash church-going will not save us\emdash orthodoxy in creed and party will not save us. Repent! Repent! is the sharp, shrill call of the Gospel-trumpet. There must be a change of heart\emdash a change of life\emdash a crucifixion of sin\emdash and with full purpose of heart, a cleaving unto the Lord who died for us.\par \par Like Capernaum in our privileges, let us see to it that we be not like Capernaum in our guilt. Better that we had been born among a Pagan-horde\emdash better that we had been kneeling before shapeless idols, votaries of dumb clay, or worshipers of the Great Spirit of the fire or the mountain, than knowing a Savior, and yet rejecting Him\emdash the freeborn citizens of a Christian land, and yet the enslaved possessors of Heathen hearts!\par \par III. We are called to ponder Capernaum's DOOM. "And you, Capernaum, shall be brought down to hell."\par \par That this refers to no mere temporal judgment, is plain from what is immediately added\emdash "It shall be more tolerable," says our Lord, "for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." Sodom was already destroyed. It was the future judgment of both, therefore, at the great day, to which the reference is made.\par \par No doubt this future and final retribution has had its significant foreshadowing in a temporal overthrow; for nothing in all Palestine (no, not the dilapidated walls of Jerusalem itself) is more striking, than the contrast between Gennesaret as it was, so busy a scene of traffic and life, with what it is now, a spectacle of loneliness and desolation. The very site of the ruins of Capernaum, and its sister towns, is matter of dispute. Jordan, as he rolls past, hurrying his waters to the Asphalt Lake (the Dead Sea), carries the tidings to its submerged cities, that that once "Sea of Life," has become a "Sea of Death," like itself.\par \par But as we have said, we must seek for the full meaning of our Lord's words, not in the grey moldering heaps which strew the shores of that now silent lake, but in a more terrible scene, when from beneath these crumbling stones, buried thousands shall rise at the last summons! It is a solemn and dreadful picture here brought before us. The Angels of Judgment are commissioned to announce them with their trumpets, and to gather in before the tribunal, not solitary individuals, but congregated masses; City is brought to confront City; Capital to confront Capital!\par \par Capernaum is seen to rise from its shroud of ruins! It is the old earthly home of Jesus that is now conducted to the bar of judgement. Let the Witnesses be summoned! Three solemn years, like three venerable forms, come forth from the ancient past. They testify how its streets had been trodden by the footsteps, its shores had echoed to the voice, its arraigned thousands had gazed on the mighty works of Him, who, once the Savior, is now the Judge!\par \par Nor are there lacking individual witnesses to substantiate this testimony. Hear their evidence. One has to aver: 'I was stretched on a couch of sickness "ready to die." He came, and by a word healed me.'\par \par Another\emdash 'The foulest of diseases (leprosy) had, from infancy, tortured my frame, banished me from my fellows. He gave the mandate. Returning health thrilled through my veins, and those that had before fled frightened from my presence, beheld in me also a new trophy of His divinity.'\par \par Another has to tell\emdash 'My son was trembling on the verge of the grave\emdash a look and a word restored him.' Another\emdash 'My only daughter was hushed in that sleep from which human power can effect no awaking. The King of Terrors had torn her from our side. But the Lord of Life entered our dwelling, rolled back the gates of death, and gave us back our loved and lost!'\par \par Material Nature can even be summoned to add weighty testimony. The mountains whose verdant slopes so often listened to His voice\emdash the midnight solitudes which heard His prayers for the impenitent\emdash the grassy meadows where He fed the hungry and compassionated the fainting multitude\emdash the white sands that bore His footsteps\emdash the very waves that rocked themselves asleep at His omnipotent "peace, be still." There is a tongue in every one of them to attest the privileges of the ungrateful city.\par \par And now appears a stranger and more impressive Witness. It is a witness called from the depths of a tremendous sepulcher. Calcified rocks with their riven fronts have borne for ages the significant epitaph of an unexampled overthrow; temple and tower emerge from these abysmal deeps\emdash the hum of a vast City breaks on the ear! It is SODOM, the doomed capital of the Patriarchal age\emdash The "City of the PLAIN" confronts the City of the northern SEA! "Exceedingly wicked sinners against the Lord," what have you to plead?\par \par 'Had we enjoyed,' is the reply, 'the privileges of Capernaum, we would have repented long ago, in sackcloth and ashes. Had that voice of majesty and love sounded in our streets as it did in theirs, we "would have remained until this day"\emdash the brimstone cloud would have dissolved\emdash the bolts of living fire would have been undischarged\emdash smiling plains and vineyards would have been where for ages sullen death-waters have rolled\emdash we might have lifted up our faces unabashed in this hour of judgment. Lord! Great Judge! to us much was not given\emdash forbid that from us much should be required!'\par \par What does the Righteous Lord say? 'SODOM! Justice demands retribution for your crimes\emdash your guilt was not without its aggravations\emdash you were not left unsupported and unwarned; the voice and the prayers of the Father of the Faithful ascended for you\emdash a Righteous man testified in your midst from day to day against your unlawful deeds\emdash yet you would not listen; the doom of Earth must be confirmed now! City, you were filthy, be filthy still!'\par \par But YOU, Capernaum! the same Justice demands that far different be YOUR doom! The guilt of Sodom was guilt contracted in the thick darkness of the old world\emdash a few broken beams only struggled through the mists of early day!\par \par But YOU, Capernaum! what city of earth so favored? Your hills were the first gilded by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness\emdash your waters were the first to sparkle under His radiance. It was no earthly prophet or messenger that came and tarried within your walls, summoning you to repentance! Oh, mightier than all preceding Witnesses, your JUDGE Himself must now take the place of deposition, and testify against you! I warned you!\emdash I counseled you!\emdash I lifted up my voice in your streets! Never did I break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax!\emdash I sought to bring forth judgment to victory. But my pleadings of love fell powerless on impenitent souls. You knew Your Lord's will, and did not do it! You were exalted to heaven with privileges\emdash be thrust down to hell for the misimprovement of them! 'Truly I say to you, It is more tolerable for the land of Sodom in this the day of judgment than for you!'\par \par It is the same principle which will regulate the procedure in the Final Day with reference to US. The same great law of unerring equity will be rigidly adhered to\emdash "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded."\par \par Is there one among us who has trampled on unnumbered privileges\emdash the lessons of early piety\emdash followed by a manhood of daring ungodliness, or with whom solemn providential warnings have been guiltily neglected and scorned? What shall the Great Judge say on that Day of just retribution? 'Guilty one! Your doom admits of no mitigation! There is everything to aggravate and nothing to extenuate. I made for years your soul a very Capernaum. I lingered in it, with My footsteps of mercy plying you with every motive and every argument to induce you to hear My voice, and turn at My reproof. I spoke to you in prosperity\emdash by the full cup; but you drank it unacknowledged. I spoke to you in adversity\emdash by desolate hearts and swept chambers; but you received the chastisement in sullen fretfulness, and rushed only deeper into worldliness and sin. See that Outcast by your side! If the mighty works had been done in his case that were done in yours, it might have been far otherwise with him. If he had had your mother's prayers\emdash your paternal counsels\emdash your pastor's warnings\emdash your solemn afflictions, he might have been clothed before now in the sackcloth of repentance. But no penitential tear stole down your cheek\emdash My grace has been resisted\emdash My spirit grieved\emdash My love mocked and scorned. Truly I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for miserable thousands throughout eternity than for you!'\par \par We are obviously taught by all this, that there are to be gradations in future punishment\emdash aggravations of guilt and degrees of suffering. Of what these are to consist, we cannot tell; doubtless among them will be the gnawing rebukes and accusations of memory and conscience, over abused privileges\emdash the bewailing of opportunities and mercies madly thrown away by us.\par \par In that impressive parable of our blessed Lord, describing the condition and experience of the lost, one of the saddest elements in the woe of Dives is unfolded in the reply of Father Abraham\emdash a reply whose echoes will circulate gloomily through the domains of despair\emdash "Son, REMEMBER!" Capernaum, remember! you were the honored home of a Savior you guiltily rejected. Sinner, remember! how that Savior stood and knocked day by day, week by week, at the gates of your soul\emdash remember! How you grieved and scorned Him\emdash remember! that parental prayer, that funeral, that sermon, that lifetime of privilege!\par \par Even on earth, how often do we see how memory and conscience together can light up a hell in embryo! Not far indeed from Capernaum, there was an illustration of this in the case of the imperial tyrant, to whom we have previously alluded. Herod had guiltily connived at the murder of the most innocent of men, and most devoted of ministers. The base deed is consummated. But no sooner is it so, than conscience is roused to its work of retributive vengeance; the image of the slaughtered prophet haunts his thoughts by day, and scares him in dreams by night\emdash Herod the king, soon heard about Jesus, because people everywhere were talking about him. Some were saying, "This must be John the Baptist come back to life again. That is why he can do such miracles." Others thought Jesus was the ancient prophet Elijah. Still others thought he was a prophet like the other great prophets of the past. When Herod heard about Jesus, he said, "John, the man I beheaded, has come back from the dead!"\par \par It is John reanimated to inflict merited retribution on his old destroyer! the stern preacher has come from Sheol! he has been sent from the spirit-world as a minister of vengeance! Conscience sees the grim spectral shadow flit ominously before him, like the fabled ghosts of the murdered\emdash all his power cannot bribe it\emdash all his courage cannot charm it away!\par \par Yes; this is but a foreshadowing of what will terribly aggravate the sufferings and upbraidings of the lost; some foul deed that murdered (worse than the body) the soul of a fellow-creature, will fasten upon the transgressor like the sting of the scorpion, and give him no rest day nor night. The terrible imagery will track his footsteps, and traverse, with terrifying form, his path.\par \par I was a traitor to my child, will be the harrowing thought of one; he might have been in glory but for me! I laid snares for the innocent, will be the self-reproach of another. I sowed the seeds of vice in virtuous hearts; they are now piteously upbraiding me as the author of all their misery! I was the Pastor of a Flock, is the torturing anguish of a third; but I deceived them with a name to live, I neglected to tell them of their danger, and urge them to accept the great remedy, and the voice of my people's blood is crying out against me! We had that Savior in our offer, will be the wild cry of thousands more, but we rejected His love and spurned His grace.\par \par Ah, it is this last which was the crime of the Capernaum sinner, (misimproved privileges), and we fear no guilt will be more general, no reflections more harrowing, than those arising from its consciousness. Yes; be assured nothing will be half so terrible as to be confronted with the charge of abused responsibilities. If he be without sail and rudder, the castaway on the raft could not be blamed for inability to buffet the storm, reach the haven, and save his owner's cargo; but a heavy responsibility would rest on the pilot, who, with fully equipped vessel, a bright sky above, a favoring breeze, and a safe navigation, permitted her to run aground, or be dashed on the rocks.\par \par Not only, in the case of abused privileges, is the responsibility greater, but the ruin is swifter and surer! The very possession of privileges, if these are unimproved, will only lead to a greater hardness and impenitency of heart. The sun, and dews, and rains of heaven, which warm and moisten, and fructify the living blade, or plant, or tree, accelerate the decay and rottenness of the dead one. As by familiarity with sin, its native odiousness is worn away\emdash the first shudder of tender conscience is followed by a duller sense of its turpitude, then the swift downward descent to perdition. So by familiarity with the gospel, the urgency and impressiveness of its messages are diminished; just as the Alpine shepherd can, through habit, sleep undisturbed at the base of the roaring cataract, or the soldier can hear without wincing the thunder of the cannon.\par \par God keep us from the sin and danger of being preachers and hearers, and not doers\emdash having the head enlightened and the soul unsaved\emdash our privileges only forging the heavier fetter, and feeding and fanning the hotter flame!\par \par Awake, my Brother, before it is too late, from your sleep of indifference. God calls on all men, everywhere, to repent. Yours may, until now, have been the guilt of Capernaum; yours its heavy responsibilities; but the Savior has not yet stood at the gates of your heart to utter the last malediction; announcing that you are, through impenitence, finally given over to judicial blindness! While Capernaum still enjoyed the Lord's presence, for the vilest sinner within its walls there was mercy! We entreat you, by the great Day of Judgment\emdash that Day in which Sodom and Capernaum and we shall together meet\emdash to remain no longer as you are.\par \par Do not go down to the grave, with your souls unsaved! Jesus is still lingering on your thresholds. It was the wondrous record of three years of miraculous works and cures in the Galilean city\emdash "He healed them ALL;" and He is still the Physician who heals ALL diseases! Soon it will be too late to rush to His feet; He will have bidden an eternal farewell to the souls that have rejected Him, or death may have put his impressive seal on their hopes of pardon. A few more faint "pulses of quivering light," and your earthly sun will have set forever! The past may be a sad one\emdash you cannot recall it\emdash you cannot revoke or cancel it\emdash it has winged its flight before you to meet you at the Judgment. But the future is yours, and God helping you, the dark and cloudy day may yet have its golden sunset! Up, and with the earnestness of men resolve to flee sin and cleave to the Lord, that that dreadful hour may never arrive, in which your own knell shall thus be rung\emdash "If you, even YOU had known in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, but now they are forever hidden from your eyes."\par \par Can I close these solemn thoughts without a word of incentive and encouragement to God's own people? The text tells us that there are to be different degrees of punishment in a state of woe; but there are other passages in abundance, which teach us the cheering corresponding truth, that there are to be different degrees of bliss in a future heaven. One star is to differ from another star in glory. There are to be rulers over five, and rulers over ten cities\emdash those who are to be in the outskirts of glory, and those basking in the sunlight of the Eternal Throne!\emdash Is this no call on us to be up and doing?\emdash not to be content with the circumference, but to seek nearness to the glorious center\emdash not only to have crowns shining as the brightness of the firmament, but to have a tiara of stars in that crown? It is the degree of holiness now that will decide the degree of happiness then\emdash the transactions of time will regulate the awards of eternity.\par \par And as we have seen that memory will increase and aggravate the wretchedness of the lost, so will the same purified ennobled power intensify the bliss of the saved. Ah! with what joy will they re-traverse life, mark every successfully resisted temptation\emdash every triumph over base passion and sordid self\emdash every sacrifice made for the glory of God and the good of man\emdash every affliction they have meekly borne\emdash every cross they have submissively carried\emdash every kindly unostentatious deed, done from motives of love and gratitude to the Savior. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. The Christian life is action; it is not theory\emdash it is not dreamy thought\emdash sickly sentimentalism. The formula of the great Judge's sentence on the last day to the Righteous is (not "well thought," or "well purposed," but)\emdash "well DONE;" to the Wicked\emdash "Inasmuch as you DID it not."\par \par Fellow sinners, washed by the same blood\emdash fellow pilgrims, traveling to the same eternity\emdash fellow prisoners, who are so soon to stand at the same Great Judgement\emdash are we ready to meet the summons which may sooner than we think startle us in the midst of our neglected privileges?\emdash "Go! Give an account of your stewardship!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } !517 Heroism{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0U=16 The Doomed City{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE DOOMED CITY\par \par by John MacDuff\par \par "Ungrateful sinner! on your future rests\par A sadder heritage of guilt and shame,\par Who with ad;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par HEROISM\par \par "Then rest, poor soul,\par He bids you rest,\par Nor tremble at the dread tomorrow;\par Lean on Your Savior's willing breast,\par And you shall know no care nor sorrow\par No longer trust your tottering limb,\par But cast your burdens all on Him\par Who set His face to tread the blood-stained path,\par And without murmur drained His Father's cup of wrath."\par \par "As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." Luke 9:51\par \par There must always be a feeling of sadness in bidding farewell to a place where we have long sojourned, and with which is interweaved many hallowed associations\emdash the scenes of sunny childhood\emdash the hills on which we gazed\emdash the stream which murmured tranquilly by the parental home\emdash the kind looks, and kind hearts, and kind words which throw a halo more sacred still around the dwelling of our early youth.\par \par Jesus, being Man, participating in all the tenderest sensibilities of our nature, could not be altogether a stranger to similar emotions. He is now about to bid farewell to scenes and localities with which for thirty-three years of a mysterious life He had been familiar. The last three of these, though saddened, as we have seen in the former Chapter, by unbelief and impenitence, were yet linked with loving and momentous memories. His words and deeds were embalmed in grateful remembrance in many a town and fishing hamlet of Gennesaret. The dying, the dead, the sick, the blind, the halt, the lame, had learned to revere Him as a Great Prophet, a generous Philanthropist, a faithful Friend. The very children loved to follow Him\emdash to listen to His simple teachings, and to lisp His sacred name. If He refused the offer of a crown, He was king in ten thousand hearts; and heavily would the tidings have fallen on many, had they known the truth, that this Great and Gracious Redeemer was about to depart from Galilee, never again, except for the briefest of interviews, to return!\par \par If it is sad, even with bright prospects before us, to bid adieu to a home such as I have described, how are these feelings of sadness augmented when that departure is accompanied with gloomy forebodings, too truthful presentiments of evil and sorrow?\emdash the knowledge that there is but a step between the hallowed home-hearth and the chilling blasts of a wintry unbefriending world? When the hand of death has entered a household, and the widow and her orphans are forced adrift amid bleak scenes and stinted comforts, who (save those who have felt it) can describe the fond lingering look turned to the old dwelling, listening for the last time to the murmur of its brook, the sunlight glancing amid the quivering leaves, under whose shadow childhood has often loved to repose! The youth leaves a father's roof under any circumstances with a drooping spirit. But how are his regrets embittered when he knows that he is entering on a rough and rugged path, about to exchange gentle looks and kind smiles\emdash for frowns, reproach, cold neglect, and insolent scorn!\par \par What\emdash if we dare compare human feelings with those of Jesus\emdash what must have been His emotions in leaving now the home-scenes of Galilee and Gennesaret under the tremendous consciousness of the trial-hour awaiting Him? What must have been His thoughts, as for the last time He stands near some spot where the Jordan, issuing from the lake, resumes its impetuous course, and, taking His farewell glimpse of the scenes of His ministry and miracles, He hastens onwards to the climax of His life of woe? But He trembles not\emdash flinches not\emdash falters not! His resolution is taken! With a HEROISM unparalleled in the world's history, He seems, in words He afterwards uttered, to be longing for the hour of conflict and victory\emdash "There is a terrible baptism ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished!" In this Festival Journey, how diverse the thoughts and experiences of the multitudes\emdash the Disciples\emdash their Lord!\par \par The multitudes could participate in no such saddening farewells. These feast-days periodically recurring, formed to them the most joyous events of the year\emdash holiday times, all whose associations were mirth and gladness; happy occasions for friends meeting friends at the distant capital, and uniting together in the worship of their fathers' God and their own! On ordinary occasions these feelings would have been also shared by the disciples. It was different, however, now. They had recently been receiving mysterious and significant intimation from their Beloved Master of a terrible crisis impending\emdash how He "must go up to Jerusalem" to suffer, to be rejected, and crucified. Their feelings are thus powerfully and graphically described by Mark\emdash\par \par They were now on the way to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were filled with dread and the people following behind were overwhelmed with fear. Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him in Jerusalem. "When we get to Jerusalem," he told them, "the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, beat him with their whips, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again." Mark 10:32-34\par \par How strange, that notwithstanding such an announcement as this, the bearing of Him who uttered it should be so calm, so magnanimous!\emdash that instead of shrinking at these dreadful shadows that were now projected on His path, He should commence from Galilee that "Dolorous way," terminated by the crown of thorns and the bitter tree, with tearless eye and unhesitating step; and that the Evangelist has to give, as the closing record of this portion of His Gennesaret life\emdash "As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, He resolutely set out for Jerusalem."\par \par Let us endeavor to ponder one or two reasons which among others must have served to strengthen and sustain the Savior in setting out on this momentous journey\emdash in other words, the causes of a resolution and magnanimity so remarkable, with a crisis so appalling at hand.\par \par I. He was cheered by the consciousness that in now going to Jerusalem He was fulfilling the will of His Father.\par \par This great idea, this elevated motive, was ever paramount with Him\emdash the impelling power in every thought, word, and deed\emdash "My food is to do the will of Him that sent me." There was an hour appointed by the Father for the consummating of His work on earth. That hour, no bribe, no threat, could tempt Him either to anticipate or evade. A short while before, some worldly, time-serving "kinsmen" urged Him to proceed without delay to Jerusalem, seizing the opportunity of unbounded popularity to claim the Throne of David, and assert His claims to the Messiahship, "Leave here, and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You do. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." His answer was meek and gentle, yet tempered with righteous severity, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready." "There is no restriction laid upon your time, and even if there were, you would not be willing to attend to it, if worldly prudence or advancement dictated otherwise. But it is otherwise with ME. A great WILL above regulates my every movement; I cannot and shall not by one hair's-breadth deviate from the path that WILL has prescribed."\par \par But the moment had at length arrived which the Father had appointed for the Great Sacrifice. Daniel's "seventy weeks" of years were on the eve of "accomplishment;" and, in obedience to that Higher WILL, He prepares to depart. The hour strikes which had been waited for by all time, "and He sets his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem!"\par \par Here is the secret of moral strength in encountering our seasons of trial and difficulty\emdash the conviction that our times are in the hands of God; thus leading to complete and entire subordination of our wills to His. How it would disarm affliction and bereavement of their bitterest stings if we were enabled to give as the history of our darkest dispensations, "This is my heavenly Father's will!" The hour has come\emdash the hour appointed by loving Wisdom. "The world's time is anytime;" their trials are called "misfortune;" "untoward accident;" "wayward calamity." But the Christian, like his Lord, is able to view every occurrence as emanating from a Hand of infinite love, a Mind of infinite foreknowledge, and a Will of infinite faithfulness. Every phase in his history\emdash every step in his pilgrimage\emdash its most trifling incidents and circumstances\emdash are Divinely appointed. Feeling that he is under this kind and gracious guardianship, he resolves his own will into the will of The Supreme! All that concerns him and his are parts of a vast harmonious plan. The future (mazy, dark, mysterious,) is fully known to One who sees the end from the beginning\emdash educing good out of seeming evil\emdash order out of apparent confusion. Even when a cross (a shadow of his Lord's) looms gloomily on his path, he breathes with unmurmuring lips, "Even so, Father!" and sets his face steadfastly to endure his baptism of suffering and blood!\par \par II. Another reflection which would, doubtless, sustain Jesus in this farewell hour, would be the thought of past fidelity and devotedness in His great work.\par \par How faithful, how devoted, the great Redeemer was during these brief but eventful years of residence within and around Capernaum, we have often had occasion to note; from His first utterance in its Synagogue, as the anointed Preacher of glad tidings, down to the hour here spoken of, when He took His last view of Galilee, and proclaimed to its cities, and to the world, those healing words on which His own death was now to impress an untold significancy and value\emdash "The Son of Man is come to save that which was LOST!"\par \par We found, in a former chapter, how His weary human nature often sank under physical exhaustion, gladly snatching a few hours of sleep, as best He could, on the planks of a rough fishing-vessel, or on the brow of the midnight mountain. His was the ceaseless activity of holy work; curing physical maladies; expounding heavenly truths; pointing the weak and weary\emdash the burdened and backsliding\emdash the neglectful and the lost\emdash to that wondrous salvation He was sent from heaven to purchase and proclaim. "Never a man spoke"\emdash never a man toiled and labored, wept and prayed like this Man! Yes, the consciousness that He had been enabled to fulfill His God-like work with such unwearying devotedness, could not fail mightily to uphold His spirit when about to confront more terrible experiences\emdash "the hour and power of darkness."\par \par Let us ask, How is it with us? In the prospect of the time when we too are to be "received up"\emdash that moment which sooner or later awaits us all\emdash when our spirits shall wing their flight from an irreparable past into a changeless future\emdash can we anticipate or meet it with the joyous humble hope, "I have not lived in vain\emdash my work is done\emdash I have served my God\emdash I have been for long reposing on the merits of that blessed Redeemer\emdash I have sought to spend existence under the sovereignty of the lofty motive to please Jesus!" Or, alas! is it with us, as with many; Christians in name, but whose lives are a mournful blank? If they have love to God; it is a fruitless love; if they have faith in Christ, it is a faith without works"\emdash withered, sapless, unproductive, dead!\par \par Reader, if you would seek, when the last Messenger comes, to receive his summons with calm composure and tranquil joy\emdash live now to God! Study, as your model, that lovely Life we have been tracing in its three most momentous years\emdash that "Rose of Sharon," as it bloomed and blossomed on the shores of Tiberias. Let its tints and fragrance follow you to your homes, your closets, your places of business, your scenes of enjoyment. Let all your daily thoughts, words, actions, be molded and regulated by the inquiry, "How would Jesus have acted here?" As activity, in His Father's work, was the great law of His being, make it also yours. "Lo, I come, I delight to do Your will, O my God," was His utterance when, (pillowed in that bosom of everlasting love), the Redemption plan was first proposed to Him. Sacredly did He fulfill His high resolve, from the moment He entered our world as the Babe of Bethlehem, until, with the voice of a Conqueror, He could proclaim\emdash "I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You gave me to do."\par \par Like Him, too, "work while it is called today." His appointed period for active energy on earth was short\emdash three brief years included it all. Your probation time may not be longer; it may not be so long. Ah! "the night is coming when no man can work." Think, before it is too late, how terrible to be confronted by Death, all unfit and unprepared to die\emdash the oil not bought\emdash the lamps flickering\emdash hours wasted\emdash opportunities neglected\emdash an unprovided-for eternity lying at your door!\par \par If tonight the angel-messenger were to deliver his command\emdash "The time has come for you to be received up;" could you, with the joyful alacrity of your Lord, set your face steadfastly to meet the great struggle-hour of nature? could you adopt the words uttered from the noblest of deathbeds\emdash "As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me\emdash the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of his return." 2 Tim. 4:6-8\par \par III. Jesus willingly "set His face to go to Jerusalem" and accomplish His decease, when He thought of the glory that was to follow.\par \par If His last utterance, at this time, in sight of Gennesaret was, that His mission as the Son of Man was "to save the lost," what a theme was this with which to nerve His soul in the prospect of that dreadful baptism!\emdash "THE LOST," who by these sufferings would be reclaimed\emdash the countless myriads whose robes, through that blood-shedding, should through eternity be made white!\par \par At that eventful moment His omniscient eye must have had mapped out before it all terrible realities of Gethsemane's Garden and Calvary's Cross\emdash every thorn of the crown\emdash every mark of the nails\emdash every gash of the spear. But if such was the dark foreground in the earthly picture, there was a bright and glorious background\emdash the perspective of a palm-bearing multitude of triumphant victors. For the joy that was thus set before Him He "endured." He beheld, in this transporting vista-view, myriads who must otherwise have become monuments of inexorable Justice in the dark prison-house of despair, made everlasting pillars in the temple of God, saved by His bleeding love and mercy. Oh, when He thought of that goodly harvest which was to be reaped\emdash a harvest of which His blood was the costly seed; when He estimated that revenue of glory which, by means of His cross and passion, should, through everlasting ages, roll in to the triune God, He willingly turned His back on the peaceful homes and hamlets of Galilee, fearlessly to confront the hour of His own tragic sufferings.\par \par Is ours the same joy? does this cheer us under all the trials to which we may now be subject\emdash does it nerve and sustain us in the thought of death itself\emdash that soon the night-songs are to melt into the praises of eternity\emdash the night-shadows to merge in the glories of unending day? Amid the light afflictions of the present, are we keeping in view the bliss which is hereafter to be revealed; forgetting the tossings of the intervening ocean, in the prospect of the quiet haven and the everlasting rest?\par \par The earthly father, going to a foreign land to provide for his dependent family, is cheered amid all the difficulties and privations which may beset him, with the thought of again rejoining them\emdash that after a brief struggle in an uncongenial region, he will be back again amid cheerful faces and joyous welcomes. Shall we not willingly submit to any loss, any cross our gracious God sees fit to appoint us, if we can exult in the well-founded hope of a blissful future\emdash a glorious immortality, where these very losses and crosses will be found to turn into eternal gain? Let the sweet chimes, coming floating on our ears from the towers of the New Jerusalem, cheer our spirits and quicken our languid footsteps. Let us set our faces towards there; and though we may have our Kedron-brooks and Gethsemanes of bitter sorrow now, let us think of the sinless, sorrowless, tearless heaven beyond, where these shall never more be known or dreaded!\par \par And now, in conclusion, let us ask, Are we ready for Death?\emdash do the words of this passage fall on our ears as a truthful, a beautiful description of the "inevitable hour," the time when we are to be "received up?" How many are there to whom every thought of dissolution is strangely different\emdash to whom death is the most harrowing of prospects\emdash a dark portico at whose shadow they tremble\emdash a Grim Monarch, whose very name carries with it terror and dismay? No wonder that it is so, if you are content to live in guilty unreadiness for its advent\emdash if your peace is to this hour not made with God\emdash if you are squandering existence without one thought of Hell or Heaven.\par \par But if it is otherwise\emdash if you have fled to Jesus, the Sinner's Savior and the Sinner's Friend\emdash if you have personally appropriated all the benefits of His purchase, and are living by faith on the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you, then is the King of Terrors disarmed of his might\emdash he is an unsceptered and crownless monarch\emdash and when you anticipate that solemn hour when he is to make inquisition at the house of your earthly tabernacle, you need no longer think of it with dread\emdash you may rather associate it with descending angels and ministering saints smoothing your pillow, and waiting as a celestial convoy to "receive you up."\par \par Yes, I again say, Beautiful figure! It speaks of death as an hour of emancipation and triumph. Up to that moment you are, like the fettered eagle, chained down in the earthly cage; but a Messenger comes from the Spirit-world, snaps the encumbering bond, that you may soar a free-born citizen to your true home in the skies!\par \par That time must before long arrive when you shall be called to die. Are you so living, that you could bid a joyful farewell to your pilgrim warfare and joyfully enter on your pilgrim rest? If you cannot yet contemplate unappalled that final hour\emdash if you are still living at a conscious distance from God, eternity unprepared for, your soul unsaved\emdash delay no longer repairing to Him who alone can give you peace; and, as you hear Jesus proclaiming the grand focus truth of His Gospel\emdash the Son of Man has come to save the lost\emdash as one of the lost accompany Him in this His final journey to Jerusalem\emdash go with Him to His cross! gaze on His bleeding wounds! His dying agonies!\emdash see what He did to save you and such as you! As you listen to His expiring cry, "It is finished!"\emdash remember its comforting accents were meant to reach your souls.\par \par Do not think that Jerusalem towards which He calls you to set your face is a prize beyond your reach! He has flung open its portals for you. Having overcome the sharpness of death, has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Ah! were the procuring of that Heaven dependent on yourself, then you might well despond and despair. But He is "the Way, the Truth, the Life"\emdash "By Me if any man enter in he shall be saved!" It is because His face was set to the Earthly Jerusalem that the Heavenly has unbarred its gates to you! He Himself, by His doing and dying, has let down the patriarch's typical ladder; by it, you are invited to enter within the gates into the city. Relying on Him who has thus "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light," you can, like your Lord, set out on the final Journey, saying, with the cross beside you and the crown above you, "Into Your hand I commend my spirit; for You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth."\par \par \cf1\fs23\par }  John 20:1-18\par \par The history of Mary Magdalene forms an appropriate link, connecting the earlier with the later "memories of Gennesaret." Her holy and honored ministry of love interweaves, like a golden thread, the tissues of that Greater Life from which her own derives all its interest and sacredness.\par \par It is strange how a name worthy of deepest reverence should, by a popular misapprehension, which has no ground whatever to support it, been confounded with that of the penitent\emdash "the Magdalene" of the Pharisee's house\emdash whose striking history we have already considered. Of MARY's previous life we know nothing further, than that she had become a miracle and monument of the Savior's power and mercy. Her case in the Western Magdala, was the counterpart to that of the demoniac on the Eastern Gadara shore, and the exorcism of seven devils, sufficiently indicates the malignant character of the possession. From her name being afterwards mentioned along with "Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, and Susanna," and it being related of her, that along with these, "she ministered to the Lord of her substance;" we may possibly infer that her position in society was not the poorest. It may have been one rather of competence, if not of wealth and luxury. But what was the world with its pomp\emdash what the glitter of Herod's court\emdash what the loveliness of hill, and shore, and sparkling water, that met her eyes all around, when a malady worse far than withering paralysis, or leper's taint, held her in the chains of Satan? Jesus (we know not where) had found her. His word of power had scattered the demon-throng; and never did gratitude so track a deliverer's footsteps, with duteous love and tears. From that hour she became a devoted follower of her Great Lord\emdash a model Christian, worthy the imitation of all believers, and more especially those of her own sex.\par \par Our first introduction to her in sacred story, is in a reference the Evangelist makes to a missionary tour of Jesus and His apostles, through the towns and villages of Galilee. It is on that occasion we find her associating with the other honored females we have already mentioned, in providing for the needs of the homeless Savior. She had probably, a considerable while before this, been attached to His person and cause; but with beautiful modesty she has kept in the shade\emdash shunned publicity. It is only when acts of womanly devotion and kindness are required, that this quiet star is seen noiselessly and unobtrusively shining in her appropriate sphere. In gentle consideration she ministers to the indigence of her pilgrim Lord, as she afterwards embalmed His corpse, watched by His shroud, and wept at His grave.\par \par No Apostle truly, of all the company, loved the Redeemer more than she. It must have been pure unselfish affection for Him, which alone prompted her to undertake that long journey, we spoke of in last chapter, to the ever memorable Passover which witnessed His crucifixion. The males from all Palestine, it is well known, usually assembled at the public festivals in Jerusalem, while the females "tarried at home." MARY, however, had heard from His own lips unusual and mysterious intimations of approaching ignominy, suffering, and death. She cannot brook the thought of separation in the prospect of an hour like this. She feels she can do but little in the way of active service\emdash feeble would be her interposition when the hour of danger came\emdash impotent her arm to ward off those legion foes; but if she can do no more, may she not contrive, by word or look, to solace these seasons of mysterious anguish? If death is indeed to stamp its ghastly lineaments on that holy Visage, can she not be hovering near at hand, to assist in performing the last sad tribute of affection? may not her hands serve, in some unknown way, to soothe and smooth that dying pillow, and close those lips which uttered the first words of mercy her soul ever heard? Her resolve is taken; and among "the women which followed him from Galilee," when "He set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem," was Mary of Magdala.\par \par Our next meeting with her is at the most solemn spot of earth\emdash the most solemn moment of all time\emdash lingering near the cross on which her adorable Redeemer hung, in company with "the mother of Jesus, and His mother's sister, and Mary the wife of Cleophas." How acute and poignant must have been the anguish of that hour\emdash the rude taunts of ruffian soldiery sounding in her ears\emdash the cry of "Crucify Him," ascending from the infuriated crowd\emdash along with other base indignities offered to the unmurmuring Sufferer. How willingly would her own tender feelings have induced her to rush from the scene of ignominy and shame, and bury her griefs, as the disciples were unmanfully burying theirs, in some secluded chamber in Jerusalem. A concern even for her own personal safety, might have dictated withdrawal from that arena of wild bloodshed and terror; but while others (His trusted friends) had grown cruelly faithless, "perfect love," in her case, had "cast out fear"\emdash her love was "strong as death;" and when in that hour, around the cross of the Eternal Son, "deep was calling to deep"\emdash all God's waves and billows rolling over Him\emdash she gave proof of the saying, that "many waters cannot quench love, nor many floods drown it."\par \par Pre-eminent indeed was the claim which that Savior had on the devoted gratitude and love of this woman. In addition to dispossessing her body of fiendish tyranny, enthroning reason on its abdicated seat, He had evidently lighted up her soul with gospel peace, and cheered her future with gospel hopes. The feeling uppermost in her heart doubtless was, "What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" Like the devoted crew in the sinking vessel, who will rather go down with their faithful Captain than leave Him in the hour of extremity\emdash she, her sister-heroines, and the Beloved Disciple, are willing to brave every indignity and danger\emdash yes, death itself\emdash rather than desert their gracious Lord. Doubtless, the eye which from the cross recognized His own mother and named her, would not fail to note, in the devotion of the kindred spirit at her side, a lovely sequel to previous constancy and devotion. How He would be cheered and sustained, by this loving sympathy, in that hour of all others when He most needed it! On the other hand, how fondly would they receive His last look! How would these accents linger in their ears, as they wended their sorrowful way back to the city\emdash "Woman, behold Your Son! Son, behold Your mother!"\par \par But the ministry of love is not ended. Joseph of Arimathea had "asked for the body of Jesus," and, wrapping it in a linen shroud, "laid it in a new tomb." Nicodemus, too, had provided a mixture of myrrh and aloes\emdash a hundred pounds weight\emdash and embalmed the corpse. This, in ordinary circumstances, might have relieved from the need of additional expenditure on costly spices, or making further provision for the burial. But theirs was no common, no ordinary attachment; although, even in this beautiful tribute of affection, we have proof that while love was strong, faith was weak. Amid the humiliations of that dreadful hour, when they beheld the King of Terrors effecting so signal a triumph, all their fond hopes regarding the "Messiahship" and "the kingdom" seem buried in their Lord's sepulcher. He had told them plainly that He was to be killed, laid in the grave, and in three days rise again. But the insignia of death had been so terribly imprinted on their memories as to exclude every nobler thoughts. The preparation we find them making for embalming the body, too truly reveals the irresistible conviction which had seized their minds, that His flesh was to share the common doom of mortality, and to be laid in its long home.\par \par The spices and perfumes were duly purchased on the Friday evening; and after the hours of the paschal Sabbath (the most sacred of all the year) had elapsed, Mary Magdalene is seen, in the early dawn of the first day of the week, hastening to the spot where all she most loved lay silent in the domain of death. As she and the other Galilee women enter the garden gate, their first thought is as to how they shall be able to remove the incumbent stone. They are nearing the spot. Look! the stone is already rolled aside from the mouth of the sepulcher. Mary, in a moment of panic, leaves her companions and rushes into the city to carry to the disciples the tidings of the deserted grave. The thought of crude hands pillaging the sepulcher, and taking the beloved inhabitant away, alone seems to have occupied her. She has never entertained the possibility of her Lord having risen. She had expected to have seen his cherished form again, to have bathed his pale countenance with her tears, and laid the embalmed corpse in its rocky bed. Blinded to grander realities by her overpowering grief, in an agony of sorrow she pours out her painful tale to the disciples, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him."\par \par Meanwhile, the other women who have lingered behind, see a young man seated in the vacant tomb, clad in long white clothing\emdash the emblem of gladness. He announces the startling tidings that the Lord they loved had risen, that He was to go before them into Galilee, that Gennesaret and its shores were again to hear the familiar music of His voice. "He goes before you into Galilee, there shall you see Him, as He told you."\par \par Peter and John, on hearing the strange account from the lips of Mary, had hurried to the sepulcher. They had entered it\emdash beheld with their own eyes the napkin and linen clothes lying by themselves, (the undoubted trophies of victory,) and yet, with mingled doubt, and wonder, and terror, they "went away again to their own home!" Mary, unable to run so quickly as they, had followed their steps to the tomb, where (in the most touching portion of the wondrous story) we find her alone, alone with her tears. "Mary stood outside the sepulcher weeping!" Still is the idea of a risen Savior by her undreamed of. She is filled with sorrow at the loss of a beloved friend\emdash indignant, poignant anguish at the thought of crude hands and iron hearts stealing His remains away. The death stillness in that silent place seemed to echo the dismal taunt, "Where is now your God?"\par \par For the first time she ventures a closer inspection of the grave. Stooping down into the deserted vault\emdash look, two angel forms have taken their places, "the one at the head, the other at the feet where the body of the Lord had lain." The celestial messengers are the first to break silence. In affectionate sympathy with her fast-falling tears, they put the question, "Woman, why are you weeping?" We might have expected at that lonely hour and lonely spot, with two mysterious visitants from the spirit world, that she would have been agitated and frightened; but her grief was too acute, her mind too much riveted on one absorbing topic. She repeats her sorrowful answer, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."\par \par There is often, at a time of trial and bereavement, some peculiar phrase or turn of expression which we come almost mechanically to use, and which seems at last naturally to well forth from the depths of the smitten heart. We find, in the case of Martha and Mary of Bethany, that the settled utterance in their season of bereavement was, "If the Lord had been here, our brother would not have died." In MARY's case she seems to have attuned her lips to the plaintive lament, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." She reminds us of the picture given in the Song of Solomon, of the spouse roaming the streets of the city with disheveled tresses and tearful eye, in search of her Beloved, saying, "I sought him, but I found him not; I called upon him, but he gave me no answer."\par \par But "the Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him." She hears a footfall, and in turning about sees by her side a Solitary Figure. The angel's question is repeated. The Stranger asks the cause of these hot tears. She supposes Him to be the gardener, and in importunate urgency demands\emdash "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him." Love will brave anything; it feels as if it could cope with impossibilities, even though it should be a female arm bearing away a dead body by its own unaided strength. One word from the Stranger's lips dissipates every shadow of darkness\emdash dries every tear\emdash "Jesus said to her, MARY!" It was one of the first words His risen tongue had spoken. MARY! He needed no other utterance. It is "the voice of the Beloved!" "His sheep know His voice." He calls His own sheep by name, and leads her out! "She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni! (which means Master!)"\par \par Wondrous meeting between the great moral Conqueror and a weeping woman! between the Great and Good Shepherd and this bleating sheep of His smitten and scattered flock. The Shepherd had been "smitten"\emdash the sheep had been "scattered"\emdash but He is now fulfilling the accompanying promise, "I will turn My hand upon the little ones." And how gently that hand is turned! He appeared to her in no overpowering splendor, no dazzling glory. She mistakes Him for the gardener. Though surrounded with the evidences of victory, He is still the lowly Man, the Brother, the Friend. He rose with the same heart of unaltered and unalterable love with which he died, "That same Jesus!" The experience of the Psalmist was fulfilled in that of this honored disciple\emdash "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." Weeping had endured during the two preceding nights, but joy came in the morning. She rushes into the city with her heart bursting with the wondrous tidings\emdash "I have seen the Lord!" Words long familiar to her, had now a new and nobler meaning impressed on them as they glowed under the sunbeams of a first Christian Sabbath\emdash "This is the day which the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad of it!"\par \par Ah, how God honors waiting faith! The Disciples, in their doubt and selfish sorrow, had stood aloof from the scene of ignominy and death\emdash they forfeited the first glorious surprise, the first coveted benediction. But Mary had continued at her ministry of watchful love and in her case a new testimony was added to the faithfulness of God to His own recorded promise\emdash a promise equally applicable to his waiting, watchful, prayerful people in every age\emdash "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord."\par \par Let us learn, from the experience of Mary, the true and only source of comfort to the dejected, downcast, sorrowing spirit. Angels were there. They had spoken to her kind and soothing words, but they could not dry one tear. They found her in floods of grief, and in grief they left her. It was not until the Lord of Angels drew near and spoke, that her sorrow was turned into joy!\par \par Observe, moreover, that it was not the Form of Christ\emdash His bodily appearance\emdash that dispelled her doubt and lighted up her soul with peace. It was His VOICE! that mighty Voice which had first bid away the demon-throng that ruled her wretched body! The Person of Jesus is now withdrawn from the eyes of His church. His glorified body is hidden from our view within the curtained splendors of the Holiest of all. But His Voice is still heard. The echoes of His tender soul are still preserved fresh to us as they sounded to Mary, in His own Blessed Word. We can still write over every precious promise it contains, "Thus says the Lord;" "Truly, truly, I say to you."\par \par And now, we might imagine Mary's joy complete. Jesus is once more by her side. The "little time" He spoke of, "You shall not see me," is now past. She has entered on the "while" that "You shall see me!" There seems now to lie before her, a happy future of perpetual interaction, that is to know no interruption until her own dissolution summons her away! But different are His purposes towards His Church and people. "Touch me not," He says, "for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." His work is incomplete if He does not ascend to His Mediatorial Throne. Though dear to them would have been His living, loving, personal Presence, yet there are purposes of mercy still unfulfilled which demand His departure\emdash the Intercessory work\emdash the comforting Mission of the Paraclete. He is to leave them, and yet not to leave them. Tossed on Gennesaret, He is still up on the Heavenly Hill bending on their agitated boat His watchful eye, and coming invisibly to their aid in an hour of extremity.\par \par "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended!" But, did not these words indicate to that lowly disciple that there was a time coming (though not now) when she should touch Him? Yes, on the Last and Great Day, when He was to come again and receive His people to Himself, and to utter in their hearing the joyous word of welcome, "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!" This Resurrection Morning at Golgotha was in one sense a "coming again," but not the GREAT coming! He is now a Pilgrim Lord, in haste to be gone to finish in glory His vast undertaking. But soon these clouds shall be torn, and soon the Conqueror of Calvary, seated on His throne, will greet the no longer weeping Magdalene with the old name of affection\emdash in unutterable love He will say to her, MARY! She was not ashamed of Him and His word, while other disciples were; and He will then "confess her name before His Father and before the holy angels." Great was Mary's honor and privilege in seeing a dying and a risen Jesus\emdash in being last at His cross and first at His sepulcher.\par \par But if we be of Mary's faith, and partake of her lowly self-denying love, we shall be sharers too in her joy on that glorious Easter-morn of Creation, when our Lord shall come forth, not from the swaddling bands of death, but with His head encircled "with many crowns." She "ministered to Him of her substance," and waited on Him with unwearying devotedness. Though in this respect we cannot imitate her, we can do what is in His sight equivalent\emdash we can bestow our time, our substance, our personal exertions, in lowly offices of love and mercy to His people\emdash "You did it unto THEM." "You did it unto ME!"\par \par We know nothing further of Mary's earthly history beyond what is here told us regarding the interview at the sepulcher. It is more than probable\emdash more, we believe certain\emdash that she met Him again on His return to Galilee, and followed His footsteps on her beloved native shore. The last words recorded as having been uttered by her are these\emdash "I have seen the Lord!" They are true of her at this hour! She is now "seeing" Him without a tear, and that forever and ever!\par \par May Mary's gladsome exclamation be ours, when we are waking from our sepulchers! In turning around at the Archangel's summons in the darksome cell of the grave, may it be to see Jesus standing with looks and tones of ineffable kindness, ready to pronounce our name as one written in His own Book of Life! Happy for us if we can say, even now, in joyful hope, "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Hum, for we shall see Him as He is!"\par \par Meanwhile let us exult in Him as an unchanged and unchanging Savior\emdash a Brother born for adversity. The message which Mary bore to the disciples was a message to the Church in every age\emdash "Go, tell my brethren." Comforting thought! The risen, exalted, crowned Jesus is "not ashamed to call us Brethren!" Even when He stood on the field of His triumph\emdash Death a dethroned monarch under His feet!\emdash yes, even then, when the glories of Heaven were fully in view, the crown, the throne, the universal homage\emdash when He saw the gates of Heaven lifting up their heads, that He, the King of Glory, might enter in\emdash He speaks of the redeemed sinners he came to save as Brethren! And when He refers to His own entrance into the beatific presence\emdash the glorified Son returning to the bosom of the Eternal Father\emdash mark His words\emdash "MY Father and YOUR Father, MY God and YOUR God!"\par \par Arise, then, and let us go on our way rejoicing. We have glorious anticipations!\emdash we have a glorious Predecessor! "Look!" said the angel, "He goes before you into Galilee!" Joyous must have been the thought to Mary and the other women, in returning the long road to their distant home, the certainty of their again meeting their Lord! If they had left Judea under the impression that they had bid Him farewell forever\emdash that before they reached the shores of Tiberias the chariot-cloud would have borne Him away\emdash with heavy and disconsolate hearts would they have set out on their pilgrimage! But the angel's implicit word\emdash "There shall you see Him," must have put gladness into their hearts, and caused them with buoyant footstep to undertake the journey!\par \par Pilgrim believers! yours is the same strong consolation! You shall meet Him again on a better than any Gennesaret shore, to enjoy blessed interchanges of love, an everlasting Sabbath-feast in a Sabbath world! "He goes before you." It is a blessed watchword for every Zionward Traveler. You need not dread the way to the "long home"\emdash "He goes before you, look! He Himself told you!" Have your eye ever fixed on these Heavenly shores, these everlasting hills; for "There you shall see Him!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } 1Q!18 Mary Magdalene{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par MARY MAGDALENE\par \par "Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for His needs. Among them were MARY MAGDALENE." \emdash Matthew 27:55, 56, and 28:1-11; Luke 8:1-4;ue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE FEAST ON THE SHORE\par \par "Sun of my soul! O Savior dear,\par It is not night if You are near;\par Oh! may no earthborn cloud arise\par To hide You from Your servant's eyes.\par Abide with me from morn to eve,\par For without You I cannot live;\par Abide with me when night is nigh,\par For without You I dare not die.\par  O Framer of the light and dark,\par Steer through the tempest Your own ark;\par Amid the howling wintry sea,\par We are in port if we have Thee.\par Come near and bless us when we wake,\par Ere through the world our way we take,\par Till in the ocean of Your love\par We lose ourselves in heaven above."\par \par "Afterward Jesus appeared again to His disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way . . ." John 21:1-14\par \par We are once more summoned in thought, in this beautiful closing chapter of John's Gospel, to the Lake of Gennesaret. Since we last followed the footsteps of Jesus there, the great event had been accomplished. That Adorable Being, whose miracles of love and power had hallowed its shores, had expired in anguish on the cross, and risen in triumph from the tomb. The mighty debt of ransomed myriads had been paid; glory had been secured to God in the highest; peace on earth, and good-will had been granted to men!\par \par We do not wonder to find that the Disciples have returned again to their native sea, when we recall the announcement referred to in the preceding chapter, made first by the angels and repeated by the Lord Himself, that He was "to go before them into Galilee," and that there they were to see Him.\par \par We naturally love those localities which have been specially consecrated to us by early and hallowed associations. No spot is so dear to a hero, on his return from the scene of his triumphs, as the village where he was born, or the banks of the stream where childhood, in its young morning of joy and hope, delighted to wander. More cherished still is the place associated with spiritual blessings\emdash the room sanctified by a father's counsels and a mother's prayers\emdash the dwelling where we held endeared communion and fellowship with Christian and congenial hearts\emdash the House of God where we first listened to the joyous word which brought life and peace to our souls.\par \par Might not Jesus, as MAN, participate to some degree in such feelings, when we find Him now seeking out once more His beloved and honored haunts on Tiberias before He ascended to glory? Every creek and bay, every hamlet and mountain slope, had some memorial of mingled majesty and love. There poverty, disease, demon fury, death itself, had surrendered and succumbed at His word. The very sea and storm had conceded to His might, and crouched submissive at His omnipotent mandate.\par \par And if these scenes were sacred and hallowed to the Master, equally sacred would they be to the Disciples. There they had listened to His utterances of matchless wisdom\emdash there they had been summoned by Him to undertake their Great Embassy. Busy as they were now once more at their old occupation on the Lake, wherever they turned their eye, its undulating shores must have been fragrant with His name and presence. Capernaum rose before them with its crowded memories of power and mercy. Yonder were the bifurcated peaks of the Mount, where the most wondrous of discourses was uttered\emdash yonder was the plain, flushed now with the loveliness of spring, where the Sower had sowed\emdash yonder, in the far north, was the green tableland where the barley loaves were dealt out as emblems of mightier spiritual blessings\emdash yonder, hiding itself amid sterner nature, was the scene of demoniacal conquest\emdash there, yet again, the bleak mountain oratory, where the Lord of all this wondrous Panorama poured out His soul in the ear of His Father. And when night fell, and the stars looked down, at one moment, from their silent thrones, and the next were swept from the heavens by the sudden storm, the Apostle fishermen would remember the majestic form of Him who walked before on these very waters, and the Voice that mingled with the moanings of the tempest, saying, "Peace, be still"\emdash "Fear not, it is I, do not be afraid."\par \par Can we doubt that these solemn and manifol d remembrances would now often tune their lips on their lonely night watch\emdash that day after day they would be thus interrogating one another, "Where shall we see Him?" "When shall we again hear His longed-for voice? He is faithful who promised that He would meet us here again. Even so; come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."\par \par Seven of them\emdash James and John, Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and probably Andrew and Philip\emdash have been out on the Lake all night long; but their toil, as on a former occasion, is unrecompensed. Morning begins to streak the mountains of Naphtali\emdash distant Hermon is unveiling his diadem of snow. As they approach within a few cubits of the shore, in the grey dawn of that morning light, a solitary figure attracts their eye\emdash "they did not know that it was Jesus!" The first word He uttered might have told them all!\emdash "Children!" Yet still they recognize Him not! He appears but as a passing wayfarer whom curiosity has drawn to watch the mooring of the boat on the shingle. He inquires if they have any fish captured that might serve for a morning meal? They answer despondingly that they had none!\par \par The mysterious Stranger bids them "cast out on the right side of the ship." The result was so vast an enclosure of fish that they were unable to draw it to land. The quick-sightedness of love discerns the divine Presence\emdash the similarity of the present with a former occasion has led the Beloved John to scrutinize more closely the person  of the Speaker. Catching up the sweet music of that well-known voice, he is the first to reveal the joyous secret, whispering it first with half-trembling lips into the ear of his chief associate\emdash "It is the Lord!" Peter, with characteristic impetuosity and fervor, wraps around him his coarse fisherman's tunic, springs into the sea and swims a hundred yards to shore, in order that he may cast himself soonest at the feet of his Great and Good Master. The other disciples follow behind, dragging with t hem the net with its encumbering load!\par \par Who can describe the profound emotion of that meeting at that calm hour when all nature was hushed and still? It is simply and artlessly told in the Gospel narrative. No strong or exaggerated effects are inserted by the Apostle to mutilate the simple grandeur of the picture. Not a tear, not a word, not a question is recorded. No, in significant silence they confront the Holy One\emdash "None of the disciples dared ask him, Who are You? knowing that it was the Lord!" But there was an unusual\emdash it may be a miraculous\emdash provision ready for them at that landing place\emdash "a fire of coals, fish laid thereon, and bread." The feast had been prepared by their adorable Lord. Before inviting to partake of it, however, He bade them drag their nets to land. Peter in a moment complied with the request, and it is specially noted that, as full as the net was, and that too of "large fish," it was brought on shore unbroken.\par \par "Come and dine" was the brief invitation given and accepted. The Master and his seven disciples surround that lowly table. "Jesus came, and took the bread, and gave it to them, and fish likewise."\par \par Strange and mysterious transaction! We are at once led to inquire as to its signification and meaning. A feast of the kind did not seem in itself necessary at that spot or hour. The fishermen disciples were near their own Bethsaida dwellings, and the risen body of the great Redeemer, we have reason to believe, was not dependent, as it was before the Resurrection, on the "bread which perishes" to sustain it. We have already found that many of our Lord's actions around these shores were symbolic of some great spiritual truths. We cannot for a moment doubt that the present is to be classified with these, and that that morning hour and morning meal were fraught with momentous lessons to the disciple-guests, and to the Church in every age. Let us seek, with God's blessing, to gather from this detailed narration some of that SOLEMN INSTRUCTION it was designed to impart, specially to the disciples and in the main also to ourselves.\par \par I. Before speaking of the Feast, let us, for a moment, advert to the same general lesson, which a previous similar incident furnished, that God honors and consecrates daily toil.\par \par The disciples met their Lord while they were engaged with their nets and boats, prosecuting their former calling. A risen Jesus would thus teach us, that instead of worldly industry proving a hindrance and impediment to the religious life, it may rather, if not perverted and abused, become the very channel through which God delights to meet His people.\par \par It is a healthful and encouraging lesson in this everyday working world of ours\emdash to the merchant at his desk and the apprentice at his counter, the artisan at his hammer, the ploughman at his field, and the cottager at her wheel. It tells that that tear and wear\emdash that "loud stunning tide" of human care and incessant toil so far from being incompatible with the service of God, may be made by Him the very medium for higher and more exalted revelations of Himself.\par \par There are times, indeed, when worldly work\emdash the grinding wheels of business\emdash must be hushed, and we are alone with God. There are solemn seasons when the din of earth dare not intrude; Closet hours\emdash Sabbath hours\emdash Sanctuary hours, without which the spiritual life would languish and die. Jesus had met the Disciples lately, in "an upper chamber in Jerusalem." It was their solemn convocation on the first day of the week\emdash Gennesaret, with its nets and fishing vessels, was forgotten then\emdash it was the Day and the Place of prayer and communion. Jesus met them as He delights to meet His people still in their Sabbath assembly, and "breathed upon them, and said, Peace be unto you, receive the Holy Spirit!" But having shown us these, His own disciples, in their Sabbath attire, he would seek to show us them also in the rough attire of everyday life.\par \par He had left them for a while with the indefinite assurance\emdash "I go before you into Galilee, there shall you see Me." How, meanwhile, are they to employ themselves? are they to remain in listless inactivity at their native village? are their boats to be anchored on the beach, and their old means of honest industry abandoned? No; if there be no immediate apostolic work ready for them, like their "beloved brother Paul," at a future day, when, side by side with the tentmakers of Corinth, he plied his busy task, they will teach a great lesson, to the world and the Church, of how God loves honest earnestness in our lawful worldly callings; and how, moreover, diligence in business may be combined with fervency in spirit serving the Lord! Jesus tells us He is to meet us again; but we are not, meanwhile, with hermit spirits, to abandon life's great duties. We are to carry out these with unabated ardor. Let us never forget that it was while the disciples were out formerly with their fishing craft, toiling all night, and returning faint and weary in the morning light, that Jesus met them and put honor on their laborious efforts by bidding them, "let down once more for a catch"\emdash and filling their empty net with a multitude of fishes!\par \par II. The disciples were reminded, by this renewed miraculous capture, of their former call and consecration as FISHERS OF MEN.\par \par Their Lord had put signal honor upon them; constituting them His companions, and apportioning for them a work of unparalleled magnitude, responsibility, and honor. But during an interval of time fraught with momentous consequences to the world, they had proved unworthy of their distinguished trust\emdash they had become traitors to their Master\emdash cowards in adversity. Might He not transfer the apostolate to others? How could He still confide to the trembling band that had cowered in terror when the Shepherd was smitten (one of their number basely denying Him!)\emdash how could He still confide to them a vast commission which, in the first hour when their heroism had been tested, they had basely trampled under foot?\par \par No! they had fainted and grown weary of Him\emdash might He not justly have grown weary of them? But "the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary. He gives power to the faint; and to those who have no might He increases strength." The gospel-net is still to be entrusted to their hands. At His word myriads of immortal souls should, through their instrumentality, be enclosed in it. He would, moreover, comfort them with the assurance of His continual presence and blessing\emdash that, in the darkest night of their worldly or spiritual toil, they might think of a Great and Wise Provider\emdash a wakeful eye of Heavenly love that would never allow them to toil unowned and unrecompensed. While, on the one hand, He would seek them to feel their utter impotency without His presence and blessing, He would also assure them of the triumphant success which should follow, and must ever follow, His omnipotent word and prompt obedience to it\emdash that, being "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," their labor in the Lord should not be in vain!\par \par III. Another truth this Gennesaret scene was designed to teach, is the victorious and safe ingathering of the Church of God at the Resurrection morning.\par \par On the occasion of the former Miraculous Catch, the nets had been broken. These nets, on that previous occasion, have been supposed by commentators, from the days of Augustine downwards, figuratively, to represent the Church of God in its present condition. The boats, you will remember, when our Lord then spoke to Peter, were still out on the deep, they were "ready to sink"\emdash the weight and struggles of the fish broke the meshes of the net, and many of the enclosed escaped into their old element. Fit type of the visible Church in its militant state\emdash still on the stormy sea, often threatening to sink, the net rent with unholy and unhappy divisions, enclosing indiscriminately both "bad and good"\emdash believers and professors\emdash saints and hypocrites\emdash those having the form without the power of godliness, who are arrested for a season only to return once more to their sinful element.\par \par But in this second miraculous enclosure all is different\emdash the net is not hauled in, while the boats are still on the sea\emdash the fishermen are now done with the sea of life, its storms and toils, and night-watchings; they have planted their own footsteps on the Heavenly shore, and brought their net along with them.\par \par It is a lovely picture of the Resurrection Morn, when all divisions and separations among Churches and Christians shall be at an end\emdash when every fish in the sea of immortal being, "all the children of God scattered abroad," shall be gathered in. Notwithstanding the vast aggregate, not one shall be missing. Over the unbroken net the glorified Redeemer will be able to repeat the declaration of His last intercessory prayer\emdash "Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost."\par \par IV. Another object Christ had in view, in this morning feast and meeting, was to demonstrate His own real and undoubted Humanity.\par \par He wished to convince the disciples that it was no shadowy apparition which, at that morning hour,  saluted them and then vanished away. It was the Man Christ Jesus\emdash the same Adorable Being who had been known to them often before on these same shores in "the breaking of bread."\par \par True it is, indeed, we are fully warranted in believing that His bodily form had undergone some mysterious change since the Resurrection. The term here employed is significant\emdash "He showed Himself." "His body, after the Resurrection, was only visible by a distinct act of His will." It is possible, to!o, there may have been some alteration in feature; perhaps the weary, toil-worn, wasted countenance of the Man of Sorrows, those furrowed lines of deep woe, which had imprinted themselves on the disciples' last memories in the Garden\emdash these may have been exchanged for an aspect of calm elevated joy, befitting the Risen Conqueror.\par \par But one thing they could not mistake\emdash His heart of hearts was unchanged! They would not wound Him by questioning His personal identity. This seems "to be the meaning of the Evangelist's singular statement\emdash "None of the disciples dared ask him, Who are You? Knowing Him to be the Lord." They saw, perhaps, some external alteration (they must have done so, else why so slow to recognize Him as they were); but they knew Him from His words, His looks, His loving soul\emdash they knew Him to be the Lord.\par \par He Himself, by the most significant act, confirms the joyful assurance. He reveals Himself as an unchanged Savior. Though risen and# exalted, and with untold honors in prospect, He still condescends to lowly offices of love and mercy. He meets His fishermen-apostles in the chill damps of a spring morning on the Lakeshore. He who, before His decease, washed their feet, and "wiped them with the towel with which he was girded," has risen from the grave with the same loving heart which He ever had! He meets them at the frugal meal\emdash He prepares that meal with His own hands\emdash He partakes with them\emdash He calls the lowly guests$ His "Children!" He would proclaim, as His name and memorial to all generations\emdash "Jesus in His life of humiliation\emdash Jesus in His state of exaltation\emdash Jesus risen\emdash Jesus glorified\emdash Jesus crucified\emdash Jesus crowned\emdash is the same yesterday, and today, and forever!"\par \par V. In this Feast, Jesus would seem to speak, by anticipation, of a nobler and better festival He was then on His way to prepare for His Church in glory.\par \par After the night o%f toil, and the miraculous catch, came the joyous Banquet. Glad must have been the surprise to these weary jaded men, after their discouraging labors, to find their Greatest and best Friend ready to welcome them on shore, with provided pledges of temporal and spiritual blessings. It told a joyous story of the future\emdash it forewarned, in the first instance, of a possible (no more, a certain) night of discouragement\emdash baffled labors\emdash work impeded\emdash souls uncaptured and unsaved. But all a&t once, in the hour of utter hopelessness, the Lord gives the word\emdash the nets are lowered and filled\emdash the elect are gathered in\emdash the great gospel net with its priceless enclosures is brought safely to the Heavenly shore!\par \par Better than all, Jesus Is There!\emdash the world's long night-season is over\emdash the eternal morning dawns and the first sight which catches the eye of the triumphant and glorified Church is\emdash her Glorified Lord. Faithful to His own promise, He' has come again to receive them to Himself, that where He is, there they may be also. They who have faithfully and manfully toiled through the night of earthly disaster and discouragement, shall then "sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob," in His Father's kingdom.\par \par Let us rejoice in the prospect of this glorious meeting\emdash May we be among the number of those who "love His appearing!" Some of you may be out now amid the darkness of the earthly sea\emdash the lights in your eart(hly firmament may be dimmed\emdash one star after another, that cheered you over the waves, may be mysteriously extinguished. But soon shall daybreak appear; and, standing on the Heavenly shores, in His own peerless ineffable love, Jesus will be waiting to greet you with the welcome\emdash "Enter into the Joy of your Lord."\par \par And finally, we must regard this whole scene as an encouragement to devoted work in the Lord's service.\par \par That Feast was the reward of labor. Had th)ere been no night of toil, no mutual invitations to "go fishing," that Holy Stranger would not have met them at day-dawn with so gracious a meal and so rich a blessing. "God is not unmindful of your work of faith, and your labor of love;" your services to His people and His cause shall not go unrecompensed by Him on the Great Day, when "He will give to every man according as his work has been." Each, remember, has His net of influence and responsibility; forbid that we should confront our Lord, at last, o*n the shores of eternity, with the woeful confession\emdash "My time is done, and my work is not done!"\par \par But while there is a word of exhortation and encouragement to all, there seems to be a special one for Christ's special Servants\emdash Ministers of the gospel\emdash for the Apostles of Gennesaret, and the true "Successors of the Apostles"\emdash successors in their faith and zeal, their self-sacrifice and devotion, who are "wise to win souls"\emdash faithfully letting down the gospe+l net for the catch.\par \par Their work is concluded. Their Lord himself is standing waiting to receive them at the everlasting Feast of His own presence and love. The banquet is prepared\emdash shall He issue the invitation, "Come, all things are ready?" No, something still is needed! the Almighty Provider has yet some element of bliss to add, before the feast is complete. "Bring," He says, "of the fish that YOU have caught!"\par \par Oh, wondrous thought! the faithful Servants of Christ\emdash the "Fishers of men"\emdash are told by their Lord, on that joyous morn, to bring with them the immortal souls they have captured! Assembled at the heavenly feast\emdash with the Savior before them, and the white-robed band of immortals saved through their instrumentality, seated by His side\emdash they shall be enabled, in Paul's burning words of triumph, to exclaim, "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not YOU in the presence of the Lord Jesus?"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } 66Mm=20 The Testimony of Love{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE TESTIMONY OF LOVE\par \par "When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon son of John, do you truly love Me more than th--qy19 The Feast on the Shore{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\bl.ese?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'you know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed My lambs.' Again Jesus said, 'Simon son of John, do you truly love Me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know I love You.' Jesus said, "Take care of My sheep.' The third time He said to him, 'Simon son of John, do you love Me?' Peter was hurt because Jesus asked Him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' He said, Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.'" John 21:15-17\par \par The Feast we considered in the preceding c/hapter is followed by a solemn and touching interview between the Lord and one of the Apostle-guests.\par \par We can almost surmise, before the name is mentioned, which of the apostles it was. They had all been guilty of unkind desertion, when their sympathy would have been greatly valued; but one, who had been pre-eminent in professions of ardor, zeal, and devotedness, had proved, in the hour of trial, the first to fail. Peter's downfall had, indeed, been humiliating. We would not have wondere0d, if, covered with confusion at the thought of his recent treachery, and refusing ever again to meet the glance of his injured Master's eye, he had fled back in terror to Galilee, and hid himself, for very shame, in one of its most secluded hamlets.\par \par But what will not the consciousness of devoted love brave and overcome? Never more convinced than now of attachment to that Lord he had deeply wounded, he is the first of all the seven to throw himself at His feet and implore His forgivenes1s. It would have been strange, too, had it been otherwise. A special message had been sent to him by Mary Magdalene, which might well have brought burning tears to the eyes of one of sterner mold than he. "Go," said the angel-guardian at the sepulcher, "go your way, tell his disciples, AND PETER."\par \par We may imagine the interview between this messenger of reconciliation and the trembling Apostle on the Resurrection morning. When Mary rehearsed to him the angel's words, would he not, at firs2t, listen to them as idle tales\emdash as a message too good to be true? 'What!' may he not have said to her, 'have you not mistaken the name? John or Andrew, James or Matthew, it may have been, but I am the last, surely, who would have been singled out with this special remembrance of a love I so basely requited.' Yet it was all true. A new testimony that God's "thoughts are not as man's thoughts, and God's ways are not as man's ways!"\par \par "AND PETER!" How these two little words would ling3er like undying music in his soul. How they would follow him every step in his way back to his native Galilee, haunt his sleeping and waking hours, and prove like a bright gleam in his lonely watches on the midnight sea!\emdash And now, when He who dictated them is standing before him in peerless majesty in the morning light, can we wonder that, unable to repress the outburst of his grateful feelings, he is seen plunging into the water, cleaving the waves with his brawny arms that he might be the first to4 reach the shore! The Feast, we found, was partaken of in solemn silence\emdash but when concluded, the Risen Lord is the first to speak, and Peter's name is the first on His lips.\par \par We have already explained the significant symbolism of the miraculous Catch of fish, and of the Banquet which followed\emdash how the Fishermen-apostles were addressed figuratively through the trade with which from youth they had been familiar\emdash their nets being taken as typical of the Gospel Church, and5 the fish enclosed, of the living souls they were to capture. Our Lord now, however, changes the metaphor. He passes to one with which these Villagers of Bethsaida, amid the abounding green slopes and pasture-lands which bordered their lake, must have been equally familiar. Perhaps where they now were, a flock of sheep might have been seen browsing on one of the adjoining mountains: they may, at the moment, have attracted the eye of the true "Shepherd of Israel," as they emerged at that early hour from th6eir nightly fold.\par \par Be this as it may, the old figure which David loved so, well, when he sang of the Shepherd-love of God, is now taken by the Good Shepherd to instruct His own Disciple. The figure of the net spoke emphatically of the magnitude of the ministerial work\emdash the vast and glorious ingathering of the family of God, which was to take place previous to the Heavenly Feast. Now He proceeds to unfold the principle or motive by which that work could alone be successfully prosecu7ted, and the method of attaining the great final recompense.\par \par How does our Lord address the erring, but penitent, Apostle\emdash "Simon, Son of John." Simon! He had surnamed him after his noble confession at the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, Peter, "the Rock." But the Rock that should have manfully braved the storm had become the brittle reed, shattered by the first blast of temptation. His conduct had belied his loud protestations, and forfeited the nobler title. His Lord, therefore, goe8s back to the simple name of his old fisherman life\emdash that which He employed on another occasion when the same disciple was tottering to a fall, "Simon! Simon! Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat." Or again, when he was found slumbering at his post, instead of being, as he should, the wakeful attendant and guardian of the Great Sufferer\emdash "SIMON, why are YOU sleeping?"\par \par And while there is a thrice-repeated name, there is also a thrice-repeated questio9n, "Do you love Me?"\par \par There can be no doubt as to the Lord's intention in the thrice-repeated question. He wished, by reminding of the threefold denial, to convey to His servant a gentle threefold rebuke. He could not have done so more impressively; while in the addition He makes to the first query, "Do you love Me more than these?" there is an equally manifest reference to that occasion when, in a self-sufficient boastful comparison of his own moral heroism with that of his fellow-disci:ples, Peter had said, "Though all should be offended because of You this night, yet will not I."\par \par Simon heard the first two questions unmoved; but when for the third time it was uttered\emdash implying, as it did, a secret mistrust as to his sincerity, and reminding with such marked significance of his threefold sin\emdash the questioned apostle "was grieved." He began to suspect there must be some good reason for these implied doubts. He knew that the loving heart which so interrogated ;would not unnecessarily wound him; that his gracious Lord would not utter a needlessly unkind word or question. Could it be that He, who knew all things, might see foreshadowed some future denial, which led Him to receive these ardent protests with such significant caution? Could it be that his heart, which had so deceived him in the past, was to prove a traitor-heart again, and that he would have to renew his bitter weeping over the humiliations of a still sadder fall?\par \par It was, however,< the very grief his Lord desired. He wished to humble him, to annihilate his self-confidence and self-sufficiency. He would teach him that the very love he was tempted to boast of was not an innate, self-generated principle, but, like all his other gifts, divinely imparted and nurtured. He would lead him in future to be ever drawing supplies, not from his own frames and feelings, which were fitful as the changing sand, or apt to fail as the summer brook, but from the exhaustless fountainhead, God Himself!=\par \par That our Lord's reiterated appeal had the intended effect we cannot doubt. It read a lesson the Apostle never forgot until his dying hour. We may regard this interview, indeed, as a crisis in Peter's history\emdash the date of a new development in his inner life. The proud self-sufficient Disciple becomes from this day onwards a little child. He comes forth from the furnace into which his Lord had cast him, purified as gold\emdash humbled, but really exalted. We see in his very reply t>o the present threefold question the germ of this new grace of future poverty of spirit. His answer in former times would probably have been, "I know that I love You." But Jesus has taught him a different estimate of himself. He appeals from his own truant, untrustworthy heart, to that of the great Heart-searcher, "Lord, You know all things; you know that I love You."\par \par His Lord had asked him as to the relative intensity of his love, whether it was now according to his former boasting est?imate of it\emdash "more than these." The humbled Apostle takes no note of the comparison. His silence is its own interpreter. There was once a time when he would have been arrogant enough to say, "Yes, Lord; none can love you as I do." But the memories of the past, and the rebukes of the present, have seated him in the dust. He can only make the confident appeal to Him who knew the heart, as to the sincerity of present resolutions, and the depth of present attachment. "I am done," he seems to say, "judgi@ng others\emdash I have done judging myself. I once imagined I was bold enough to walk with undaunted step the raging water; but faith failed, and I began to sink. I once drew my sword, with what I thought a hero-heart, against an armed band; the next hour I was a coward trembling with guilty fear. I once said I was ready to go to prison and to death, and that though all should deny and grow faithless, I would never be one of them. Yet, I was the first to be ashamed of that Lord to whom I had sworn unswerAving allegiance, and my sin was blackened with aggravations I shudder to recall. Now, I dare boast no more. I can say nothing as to the dependence to be placed on my devotedness. Fitful in the past, it may be fitful still, but at present, Lord, it is with no false lips that I declare, with Your scrutinizing glance upon me, YOU know that I love You."\par \par Jesus forthwith proceeds to reinstate him in the Apostolic office, which, by his unworthy conduct, he had for the time forfeited. Anew he aBffixes the seal on his previous high commission, "Feed My lambs"\emdash "Feed my sheep."\par \par His Lord had listened to his protestations of love. He accepts them; and in token of acceptance He tells His disciple to go and act a Shepherd's role to His purchased flock. His words are equivalent to saying, "Simon, if you indeed love Me, make proof of the reality of your love, not by your words but by your acts. Prove by newly baptized zeal and unremitting labor that I have not unworthily confideCd in your resolute assertions."\par \par And in this, Jesus would proclaim to His Church in every future age, that the grand qualification for the feeding of the Sheep is the love of the Great Shepherd in the heart of the under Shepherds. Nothing can be done acceptably but what proceeds from this paramount Christian motive\emdash LOVE TO CHRIST. Peter could not fail, surely, at this moment peculiarly to feel its constraining influence. He was standing within the shadow of the Cross and the Tomb\Demdash that blended memory of love and anguish was fresh on his soul\emdash the hand that had just broken the bread still bore upon it the print of the nails. Formerly he loved his Lord as a Heavenly Friend\emdash now he loves Him as a gracious Savior. Formerly he could say with Paul, "Who LOVED me"\emdash now he can add, "Who GAVE HIMSELF for me!"\par \par It is the same paramount gospel claim which is, or ought to be, all-powerful, as an incentive for duty and action with ourselves. We have alEl the old claims of God's love remaining in undiminished and unaltered power\emdash God our Creator; God our Preserver; God our Bountiful Benefactor; but to these is superadded the culminating claim of all\emdash God our REDEEMER! If you wish to learn the secret of obedience\emdash of active service or passive suffering\emdash come and seat yourselves at Calvary's Cross\emdash listen to the thrilling words\emdash the pathetic appeal coming from these dying lips: "All this I have done for YOU\emdash What dFo you do for ME?" Or, as this has been translated by one who knew well the sovereign power of that love\emdash "you are not your own, you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies and in your spirits, which are His." Depend upon it, nothing will nerve the soul for high, and holy, and pure, and self-sacrificing deeds, but this great principle\emdash "The love of Christ constrains me!" Sinai, with its thunders, says, "You SHALL love God." But Calvary says, "We love Him, because He first Gloved us!"\par \par How does OUR LOVE stand to that Great and Gracious Redeemer? Were He to prompt the question at this hour, "Do you love Me?"\emdash could we reply in honest earnestness, "Yes, Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You."\par \par Perhaps some who read these pages may be Backsliders. Like Peter, you may have forsaken your first love. You may have become as bruised reeds and smoking flax. You may think that return is hopeless to that Savior, whose grace you haHve despised, and whose loving heart you have so grievously wounded. Look for your encouragement to Peter's gracious reception by his Lord on these shores of Tiberias. Had he obeyed, perhaps, his own first impulses, he would have fled frightened from that Presence, and fearing a withering glance he felt he dared not face. Ah! if ever there was one who might have been spurned away, it was that poor despicable waverer in Pilate's judgment hall, who, with oaths and curses, denied the Lord who bought him. But IJesus sent a special message of love to him, as He does to us. And what was the Penitent's resolve? It was to cast himself imploringly at his Master's feet, and seek that loving mercy he had never yet sought in vain! As the loving child cannot close his eyes in sleep, until he has received his father's forgiveness; so this erring Apostle feels that joy must be a stranger in his heart, until he receives from his Lord's own lips the cheering assurance that the past is all pardoned\emdash that his crimson anJd scarlet sins are buried in the depths of forgetfulness!\par \par And Jesus not only receives him, but even in rebuking him, what tenderness, what unutterable gentleness is mingled with that rebuke! We quite expect, after so black a catalogue of guilt, a reprimand of corresponding severity. When the words are first uttered "Simon, son of John"\emdash we expect to hear the enumeration of his former sins\emdash his arrogance\emdash his presumption\emdash the oaths and curses and cowardly desertioKn. But we see "the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." He knew well that that wounded spirit did not require to be needlessly lacerated. There is no direct reference, therefore, to the past\emdash no catalogue of former sins dragged afresh to the light of day. Like the Shepherd in the parable of the lost wanderer, in silent love "He lays him on His shoulders rejoicing," saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep which was lost!"\par \par Reader! are youL overwhelmed at the thought of some past sins\emdash some deep dark blots disturbing your peace, and darkening your spiritual prospects\emdash deterring you from the mercy-seat\emdash leading you to restrain prayer before God? Delay no longer! Flee to that same unchanging Lord of love. He is waiting now to be as gracious as He was to the penitent Apostle at Gennesaret. He is as willing now as then to say, "I will be merciful to your unrighteousness; your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more."\Mpar \par And learn once more from this subject, that it is by GRACE you stand. Why was Peter not a Judas? Why do we not find him, like his brother apostle, a vessel (once freighted with noble resolves) lying a wreck on the desert shore? It was grace which made all the difference. Grace called him\emdash grace restrained him\emdash grace rescued him. He was a commentary on the words, "kept by the power of God." Jesus Himself tells, that at one time there was truly but a step between Peter and deaNth. There was but one link that prevented the chain of his spiritual life from snapping, but it was the golden link of His own ever-living intercession\emdash "Satan has desired to have you, BUT I have prayed for you that your faith fail not!"\par \par It is the same with us. We can boast of no grace that we have. We are dependent every hour on the upholding arm of a gracious Savior. That arm removed, and we sink like lead in the waters. Distrust yourselves. Feel that your own strength is utter Oweakness. Let your cry be, "More grace! more grace!"\emdash ever traveling between your own emptiness and Christ's infinite fullness.\par \par And with His grace sustaining you, seek to have His love constraining you. Seek to have more and more a realizing sense of the paramount claims of that amazing mercy! Seat yourselves often under Calvary, and gaze on Him who spared not His own life's blood, that He might rescue you from the waves of destruction, and spread for you a Feast on the Heavenly shore. Oh! with such a miracle of stupendous condescension in view, can we wonder that He should ask, regarding all else that may be competing with His paramount claims\emdash wealth, friends, home, children\emdash "Do you love Me MORE THAN THESE?" Give Him henceforth the throne of your best affections, and be able to say in the spirit of the old martyr, "If I had a thousand hearts, I could love Him with them all. If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them down for His sake!"\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } Qme:\par You are all in all to me!\par What is life! a scene of troubles\par Following swiftly one by one;\par Phantom visions\emdash airy bubbles,\par Which appear, and then are gone.\par What at best the world's vain fashion!\par Quickly it must pass away;\par Vexing care and whirlwind passion,\par Surging like the angry spray.\par One brief moment, Lord, may sever\par All that earth can 'friendship' call;\Rpar But Your friendship is for ever\emdash\par It outlives the wreck of all."\par \par "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obSey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:16-20\par \par We have now reached the last of Gennesaret's Sacred Memories. The time has come when the Savior is to take a final farewell of its shores. In the two previous chapters, we found Him by the Lake side, holding, in a quiet morning hour, a private and confidential meeting with His Apostles. A more numerous gathering is now appointed, that He may publicly bid adieu to the many dTevoted disciples scattered throughout Galilee, among whom He had longest lived and labored.\par \par The place of assemblage was "a mountain," most probably the Mount of Beatitudes\emdash the spot hallowed by former burning words of warning and mercy, and which more than any other overlooked the scenes of His ministry and miracle. We have every reason, moreover, to believe that this was the same memorable Convocation to which Paul refers when he speaks of Christ having been "seen by five hundredU brethren at once"\emdash the greater part of whom were still alive when he wrote, though a few had "fallen asleep."\par \par As Jesus afterwards, on the summit of Olivet, took farewell of the scenes of His ministry in Judea, so now, in presence of a larger throng, he closes His ministry in Galilee, and upon the shores of its honored Sea.\par \par The Roman hero of old, at the close of his victorious campaign, used to address his soldiers before being conducted to the Capitol to be croVwned. The Prince of the Kings of the Earth, before ascending the Hill of God, to receive the reward of His triumphs, assembles together His faithful followers, to convey to them words of encouragement and directions for duty, when His own visible presence would be withdrawn. As the Great High Priest of His Church, He had recently entered within the veil with the offering of His own blood. Now, the curtain being torn, He, the true Aaron, comes forth to pour His benediction on the waiting people; or, like aW fond father, who, before he sets forth to a distant land, gathers his family around him, to breathe upon them farewell accents of comfort and peace.\par \par The Evangelists give us no particulars regarding the interesting transaction here referred to. It is but the dim outline of a picture which we long to have filled in. May we not, however, so far venture to realize it? With the local Scene we are already familiar. Few hamlets would there be on the Lake that would not probably send a believiXng delegate to the solemn assembly. Conspicuous among the band of five hundred, would there not be the Centurion of Capernaum, with his restored servant\emdash The Leper, now purged of his uncleanness, no longer an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, but a fellow-citizen with the saints and of the household of God\emdash The Widow of Nain, with the tear of gratitude in her eye, as she first gazed on a restored son at her side, and then upon the face of the Great Restorer\emdash The Paralytic, standing Yupright, with vigorous limb and gleaming eye\emdash The Maniac of Gadara, now the calm and loving believer\emdash Jairus, also, with the living trophy of redeeming power leaning gently on his arm\emdash Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Susanna, no longer ashamed to mingle in the same group with another (once outcast) sister, who had testified, at their common Master's feet, by tears of anguish, the depth and intensity of her sorrow and love?\par \par If we could have wished an ampler description of Zthe Scene and its Convocation, still more could we have desired that the memorable farewell address of the Great Redeemer had been fully given to us. It has, however, for wise reasons been withheld. All that is recorded is the briefest of outlines; but that outline is, nevertheless, precious and significant. It embraces three statements, to each of which we would now invite attention.\par \par Conscious that for the last time they were standing in the presence of their Divine Master, the multitu[de would doubtless listen in breathless silence as they heard the farewell tones of the Voice they loved so well. Let it be with something of the same feelings that, in this closing chapter, we gather in thought around the feet of Jesus, and hear the parting word He has to say to our souls!\par \par The three recorded assertions of our Lord consist of\par I. A PARTING ASSURANCE.\par II. A PARTING COMMISSION.\par III. A PARTING PROMISE.\par \par I. There is A \PARTING ASSURANCE\emdash "All power has been given to Me in heaven and in earth."\par \par What more precious farewell truth, what more blessed Keepsake, could the Savior have confided to these waiting hundreds, than this\emdash that to Him has been committed the Scepter of universal Empire! Many there had witnessed His poverty, His humiliation, His cruel buffetings, His bitter death. But now these were all past. His head was about to be "crowned with many crowns." As King and Head of His Church], "All things had been delivered to him by his Father." He knew that "the Father had given all things into His hands." He would impart the comfort of this ennobling truth to the orphaned Church He was to leave behind Him\emdash when the chariots of God had borne Him away from their sight, they could still think of the Christ of Galilee as boundless in His resources; that He who so often had spoken to them "in righteousness," was still "mighty to save"\emdash "The Prince who had power with God," and must "^prevail"\emdash "the Wonderful, the Counselor, the MIGHTY GOD."\par \par This "prophecy" was of no "private interpretation," intended merely for the ears of this mountain auditory. These five hundred formed the representatives of the Church of Christ in every age\emdash whatever truths were soothing and consolatory to them, may be equally so to us. And who will not exult in the glorious assurance, that to these very hands, that were pierced on Calvary's Cross, has been confided the Sovereignty o_f the Universe!\par \par John, sixty years later, beheld in striking vision, in Patmos, a book or roll "sealed with seven seals." Tears came to the aged eyes of the Evangelist, because no one in heaven or in earth was found "worthy to take the book" and unloose its mysteries. All at once, one of the redeemed from the earth conveys to him the joyous assurance, that he need no longer "weep," for the "Lion of the tribe of Judah had prevailed to open the book" and unloose its mystic seals. What was `this, but the announcement in significant figure of the Savior's own last utterance, that He has had committed to His keeping the roll of Providence\emdash that roll in which is inscribed not only the fate of kingdoms, the destinies of nations\emdash but all that concerns the humblest and lowliest member of His Church on earth\emdash with Him rests the unfolding of the roll\emdash the breaking of the seals\emdash the pouring out of the vials\emdash the bursting of the thunders. Need we wonder that in takiang the book into His hands, the ransomed myriads in the Apocalyptic vision should be seen falling down at the feet of the LAMB, with their harps and golden vials full of incense; and, exulting in the thought that the Great Ruler of all was a Brother of the human race, they should attune their lips to the lofty ascription, "You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, FOR You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation!"b\par \par Yes, I repeat, who will not exult in the thought, that this vast world of ours is committed to the rule of Jesus\emdash that it was "created by Him," that it was created "for Him," that "by Him all things are held together?" I look up to the spangled dome of Heaven with its myriad constellations. I am told these lamps, hung in the sky, are burning incense-fires to His glory\emdash that they march at His word, and their eternal music is an anthem to His praise. I look to the landscape bceneath\emdash all that vast furniture in the Palace of Nature is His providing. It is He who covers it in its robe of light, who wreathes the brow of Spring in living green, and decks the valleys in Summer glory. Not a breeze murmurs through the forest, nor a dewdrop sparkles on its leaves, the sun shoots not one golden arrow through its glades, but by His permission. It is He who pencils the flower, and intones the thunder with its loud peals, and gives voice to the tempest, and wings to the lightning.\pdar \par But these manifestations of His power in nature are subordinate to a nobler sovereignty with which He is invested in the moral and spiritual world. There, too, nothing can happen but by His direction; nothing can befall us but what is the dictate and result of His loving wisdom. Often, indeed, that wisdom and love are veiled behind gigantic clouds of permitted evil. "Truly, You are a God who hides Yourself"\emdash "Your judgments are a great deep"\emdash is often all the explanation whiceh our finite minds can offer. But when we remember the pledge, in His own life's blood, which He has Himself given of His love to His people, dare we impugn the rectitude of His dealings, or arraign the wisdom of His ways? No! This Savior-God reigns, "let the earth be glad." From the heart stripped of its beloved gourd by the gentle hand of death, to the more terrible cry of perishing thousands in a revolted empire or beleaguered capital\emdash what truth more sublime, what syllables fall with more soothifng music on the soul than these\emdash "HE" (the Savior who died for me, who now lives for me) "does according to His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth!"\par \par Conscious that the Lord has set Him as "King on His holy hill of Zion," we may well take up that triumphant Psalm, which to hundreds of bleeding hearts will ever have a memorable significance\emdash that Psalm which speaks pre-eminently of the ascension glories of a reigning Redeemer. In one of the wogrld's very darkest hours, when the last vestige of the footsteps of a God of Love seemed obliterated\emdash when, man-forsaken and God-forsaken, the hapless innocents were about to go down into darkness, tempted to cry out in frantic unbelief, "Is there a God on the earth?" the glorious truth of the text was made to fringe the edges of the threatening cloud\emdash a blood-stained leaf floating on the crimson deluge pointed to the all-power of Jesus as the alone sheet-anchor in the maddening storm. "The Lohrd has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to our God, sing praises: sing praises to our King, sing praises. God reigns over the heathen; God sits on the throne of his holiness. The shields of the earth belong unto our God: He is greatly exalted."\par \par II. We have here A PARTING COMMISSION. "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to obey everything I ihave commanded you."\par \par Appropriate seemed the spot where Jesus now stood to issue this great commission. It was on the frontier land of Judea\emdash "Galilee of the Gentiles"\emdash almost within sight of Heathendom.\par \par At an earlier period of His public ministry the command had been very different\emdash "Do NOT go into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans do not enter; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." A new dispensation, hojwever, with the rending of the old temple veil, had now dawned on the world\emdash the brotherhood of the human family was boldly announced; the leaves of the tree of life were no longer to be for the healing of Judea, but for "the healing of the nations."\par \par The announcement of Christ's investiture with "all power" is beautifully connected with this missionary injunction\emdash "All power," says He, "is given to Me," THEREFORE, "go and make disciples of all nations"\emdash as if the firstk use He would make of this Mediatorial rule and sovereignty was to break down the barriers that had so long separated race from race, and make the waters of salvation roll round the globe, and, like its own oceans, touch every shore. Seated as King in the citadel of Zion, He had examined its armory, inspected its treasures, and the first use He makes of these is to armor His Disciples, and send them forth as the conquerors of the world.\par \par What a startling commission! what a gigantic underltaking! Had the wise of this world been of the listening throng on that Galilee mountain, how would they have laughed it to scorn! What! that handful of Galilean barbarians and fishermen to go forth on the conquest of the human race?\emdash men devoid of learning, polish, worldly tact, worldly wisdom, to proclaim a lowly Jew, who lived a lowly life and died an ignominious death, Lord of all? To undertake, moreover, to wage war with lust, and passion, and self in every shape\emdash to proclaim that there wmas sin against high Heaven, not in the word and deed only, but in the secret thought of revenge, the rising passion, the unclean look\emdash to hurl the venerated religious systems of ages from their thrones\emdash to dethrone Jupiter from the Capitol, Minerva from the Acropolis, and erect in their place the pure, self-denying doctrines of the Cross, and the worship of an Invisible God! It seemed the ravings of childish enthusiasm, the boldness of ignorant and infatuated dreamers.\par \par And wnhat were to be their weapons? The battle of the world's warriors is "with confused noise and garments rolled in blood." The secret of Mohammedan triumph was the power of the sword. But the commission is not "go and subdue," "go and conquer"\emdash but go and teach, go "make disciples." It was to be a moral victory over Mind, Conscience, Will, a debased Nature, groveling Passions. It was by a few scrolls written by Hebrew prophets, and Jewish fishermen and publicans, that the world was to be "turned upsideo down!" The unlettered listeners, with nothing but the simple sling of faith and the smooth pebbles from the brook of eternal Truth, were to go forth on their apparently hopeless undertaking!\par \par If those localities are sacred in the world which are associated with the first plannings and conception of a great enterprise, where originated some grand thought or purpose which has had a powerful influence for good on mankind\emdash if that spot is memorable where Columbus first dreamed of his punknown western world\emdash or where Newton sat under his garden-bough and grasped the law which molds the raindrop and gives the planet its pathway\emdash or the library where Luther found the dusty volume which gave birth to the Reformation, and emancipated the human mind from the despotism of ages\emdash how illustrious and hallowed surely must ever be that mountain scene in Galilee where the simple Jew listened with startled ears to the strange command, that "Repentance and remission of sins" were noqw to be preached, in the name of Jesus, "to all nations"\emdash that henceforth there was to be "neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free"\emdash that the Angel of the Jewish Church had now folded his wings, and that "another Angel" was about to "fly in the midst of Heaven, having the Everlasting Gospel, to preach to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people."\par \par What a sacred trust was here confided to us! Woe to that Church which neglects so hallowed a commissionr and selfishly appropriates its spiritual blessings without one effort to convey them to others.\par \par If farewell words are ever solemn and binding ones, let the Church of Christ come to this Mountain of Galilee, and listen to the parting command and injunction of her Great Lord. Striking surely, and significant it was, that, before He ascended, one of His last farewell looks should have been turned towards the nations yet sitting in darkness; that His last utterances were burdened with a soslemn charge to the Church of the future to "go far hence unto the Gentiles." The wailing cry of unhappy Heathendom was doubtless, at that moment, borne to His ear from all coming ages. The wild shriek that has risen in our own age may have mingled in the terrible appeal. Well He knew that nothing would tame savage hearts but the regenerating power of His own blessed Gospel; and, therefore, before He bids the world farewell, and allows the chariot-cloud to descend, He utters, with heathen mountain-peaks int view, and half heathen villages at His feet, the ever memorable command, "Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."\par \par III. We have finally, the PARTING PROMISE.\par \par The Savior's discourse is drawing to a close; a few more utterances and He will vanish from sight never again to be seen by His Church on earth, until the Great Day of His appearing.\par \par Sorrow was doubtless filling their hearts aut the thought of His departure, when the most sacred and joyous of friendships seemed about to be dissolved for ever. But by one glorious promise He turns their sorrow into joy\emdash "I go," He seems to say, "and yet I will never leave you. These heavens are about to receive Me, but though My personal presence be withdrawn\emdash though this Risen Body is soon to be screened from view behind the veiled glories of the Holiest of all, do not think that in reality My Presence is gone, for Lo! I am with you valways, even to the end of the world."\par \par There is a beautiful connection and contrast between the first and the last assertions of this farewell discourse. The assertion of His unlimited sovereign Dominion was a cheering and gladdening one. It was the announcement that the garnered riches of the Universe were in His possession, and that all these would be used in behalf of His people. He seems in it to take the telescope and sweep the boundless skies of His power, proclaiming His kingdom wto be an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion enduring throughout all generations.\par \par But now is the telescope laid aside and the microscope is turned to every atom of redeemed dust! He leaves the symbols of His might in the Heavens above\emdash His regal sway over "thrones, dominions, principalities, powers"\emdash and turning to every single individual member of His Church on earth, the feeblest, the poorest, the lowliest, the most desolate\emdash He says, Lo! I am with You always, evenx to the end of the world! The splendors of His mediatorial throne were at that moment in view. The harps of Heaven were sounding in His ear. But He assures them, when standing on the very threshold of all this glory, that His heart of love would still continue with the Pilgrim Church He was to leave in a Pilgrim World. "All power is given to Me in Heaven;" YET, "Lo! I am with you!"\par \par That farewell saying has lost none of its comfort. "You"\emdash that little word embraced every one of Hisy redeemed people! YOU\emdash Jesus looked down the vista of eighteen centuries, His eye, perhaps was on some lone spirit now reading these pages who thinks he has been left to the mercy of the storm, and still He says, "O you of little faith, why are you downcast? Dispel your tears, dispel Your misgivings, 'Lo! I am with YOU!'"\par \par Yes, Blessed assurance amid much that is changing here! Heart and flesh faint and fail! Often our cisterns are scarcely filled when they break in pieces\emdash ozur suns have scarcely climbed the meridian when they set in weeping clouds\emdash our fondest schemes are blown upon\emdash our most cherished gourds withered. We seat ourselves in our homes, but there are blanks there\emdash vacant seats tell the too truthful tale of severed links, and blighted hopes, and early graves. As old-age creeps on, we look around us, but the companions of our pilgrimage are gone\emdash noble forest trees, one by one, have bowed to the axe; "the place that once knew them, knows t{hem no more." BUT there is ONE surviving the wreck and ruin of all sublunary joys, changeless among the changeable\emdash "Lo! I am with you"\emdash and "the wilderness and the solitary place" are by that presence made glad!\par \par Amid sacred musings over departed friends\emdash when visions of "the loved and lost" come flitting before us like shadows on the wall, how often do we indulge the pleasing imagination of their still mingling with us in mysterious communion; their wings of light and| smiles of love hovering over us; delighting to frequent with us hallowed haunts, and reparticipate with our spirits in hallowed joys. This may perchance be but a fond delusion regarding others\emdash but it is sublimely true regarding JESUS!\par \par When the gates of the morning are opened, swifter than the arrowy light His footstep of love is at our threshold, and His voice is heard saying, "Lo! I am with you!" When the glow of health has left our cheek, and the dim nightlight casts its flick}ering gleam on our pillow, His unslumbering eye is watching us, and His lips gently whisper, "Lo! I am with you!"\par \par When the King of Terrors has entered our dwellings\emdash when we are seated amid the dreadful stillness of the death chamber, gazing on the shroud which covers the hope of our hearts and the pride of our lives; oh! amid that prostration of earthly hopes\emdash when unable to glance one thought on a dark future\emdash when the stricken spirit, like a wounded bird, lies strug~gling in the dust with broken wing and wailing cry\emdash longing only for pinions to flee away from a weary world to the quiet rest of the grave\emdash in that hour of earthly desolation, He who has the Keys of death at His belt\emdash more, who has tasted death Himself, and, better still, who has conquered it\emdash draws near in touching tenderness, saying, "Lo! I am with you!" I will come in the place of your beloved ones. I am with you to cheer you, to comfort you, to support and sustain you. I, who once wept at a grave, am here to weep with you\emdash I will be at your side in all that trying future\emdash I will make My grace sufficient for you, and My promises precious to you, and My love better than all earthly affection. All others are changeable, I am unchangeable! Others must perish; I am the strength of your heart and your portion forever!\par \par Mark the word in this parting Promise, "Lo! I am with you ALWAYS." In the original it is more expressive; it means All THE days"\emdash (all the appointed days). Our times are in the hands of Jesus\emdash He counts not our years, but our DAYS\emdash and He promises to be with us every day to the last day of all; and when that last day comes, He does not withdraw His Presence, but changes the Scene of it, and says, "TODAY you shall be with Me in PARADISE."\par \par Reader! cling to this glorious farewell promise. Rejoice in Christ's fidelity to it. The natural world never belies her promises; we can calculate with unfailing accuracy on her unvarying sequences. The sun that sets today behind the western hills, will rise tomorrow. The trees which in the waning year are bared of their foliage, will be clothed with verdure in returning spring. The farmer, casting his seed in the prepared furrow, sees afar off Autumn with her joyous sickle coming to bear the harvest treasure home.\par \par And if the natural world be thus scrupulously truthful and unerring\emdash "He is faithful who promised, I will never leave you, nor forsake you." True, we may not, and do not, witness, in visible manifestation, the Savior's power or presence. But as the mightiest agencies in the natural world\emdash gravitation, heat, electricity\emdash are hidden and impalpable, yet constant in their influence, and stupendous in their effects; so it is with this ever-present Savior.\par \par We see Him not\emdash we hear not His voice\emdash we cannot touch, like the believing suppliant of old, the hem of His outer garment. But it is the mission of Faith to rise above the impalpable and intangible, and to hold converse with the UNSEEN. The Believer, planting his footsteps on the Rock of Ages, can say, with triumphant joy, "the Lord lives, and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted." Mounting with Paul on soaring pinions, he can challenge the Heavens above and the Earth beneath, legions of Angels and hosts of devils, ever to separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord!\par \par \cf1\fs23\par } 99sI-21 The Farewell{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs22\par \par THE FAREWELL\par \par "Lord! no guardian to defend me\par In the world I have like Thee;\par None so willing to befriend Pier and His Slave\par 6. Three Portraits\par 7. The Sower and the Seed (part 1)\par 8. The Sower and the Seed (part 2)\par 9. The Storm on the Lake\par 10. The Spoiler Spoiled\par 11. The Only Daughter\par 12. The Life of Sacrifice\par 13. The Miraculous Feast\par 14. The Night Rescue\par 15. The Sinking Disciple\par 16. The Doomed City\par 17. Heroism\par 18. Mary Magdalene\par 19. The Feast on the Shore\par 20. The Testimony of Love\par 21. The Farewell\par \par \pard\cf1\fs23\par } JJ+ YMacDuff - Memories of Gennesaret{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs22 MEMORIES OF GENNESARET\par by John MacDuff, 1887\par \par Our Lord's Ministry in Gennesaret\par (also called Galilee or Tiberias)\par \par 1. The Home\par 2. The Fishermen\par 3. The Call and Consecration\par 4. The Incurable Cured\par 5. The Sold