,,men ,,in ,,the ,,making by ,,ambrose ,,shepherd1 ,d4,d4 ,author of ,the ,gospel and ,social ,questions1 ,etc4 ,hodder and ,stoughton ,london ,,mcmix ,i ,,inscribe ,,this ,,book ,,to ,,two ,,valued ,,friends ,,john ,,glaister1 ,m4,d4 ,,professor ,,of ,,forensic ,,medicine ,,university ,,of ,,glasgow ,,and ,,charles ,,scarth1 ,,esq41 ,j4,p4 ,,of ,,morley1 ,,yorks4 ,,preface ,the addresses which make up this book are printed1 almost exactly1 as they were spoken from my pulpit in ,glasgow4 ,i have yielded to repeated requests that ,i would put them in a more permanent form than memory1 or notes1 can supply4 ,there is always room for a book to young men2 whether or not the book ,i now offer them is worth its room1 is a matter about which ,i1 possibly1 am not the best judge4 ,this ,i can say3 ,there was a time in my life when ,i should have been helped1 had ,i met through the spoken word1 or printed page1 some of the things ,i have tried to say as faithfully as ,i know how to say them1 within the limits of taste and discretion4 ,whatever these addresses lack in thought1 and in the handling of the subjects discussed1 ,i have done my best to make them readable4 ,in the case of the average young man of to-day1 if a book does not interest him in the matter of style1 any other merits it may possess will have a weakened chance of making themselves felt4 ,if ,i have failed to meet this one condition of securing his attention--provided he give me a fair trial--,i shall be disappointed and1 to be candid1 surprised4 ,should1 however1 his interest be tolerably well sustained through the ethical part of these addresses1 say to the end of the chapter on ,the ,royal ,law1 ,i shall1 perhaps1 have no reason to complain4 ,at the same time ,i would advise him to persevere with the rest1 even at the cost of some effort4 ,there are one or two things which should be said by way of introduction to these addresses4 ,when the manuscript was out of my hands and in those of the printer1 ,i was informed that ,archdeacon ,wilberforce had1 in one of his books1 a sermon on much the same lines that are found in my chapter entitled ,a ,devil's ,trinity4 ,i have only to say that1 so far as ,i know1 ,i have never seen a line from the pen of ,archdeacon ,wilberforce4 ,and in this connection ,i should like to quote a sentence or two from the ,preface to my book on ,the ,gospel and ,social ,questions4 ,i remark there that1 fortunately or otherwise for me1 ,i have a tenacious memory which retains for long1 not only a thought which arrests me1 but the form in which it is expressed4 ,where ,i have made use of a quotation1 or tried to paraphrase something ,i have read--and this applies to the following addresses--,i have indicated the circumstances in the usual way4 ,the concluding chapter of this series is1 in the main1 a transcript of my booklet on ,the ,responsibility of ,god1 published by ,oliphant1 ,anderson and ,ferrier1 of ,edinburgh4 ,i have to thank these gentlemen1 and ,i do so heartily1 for their permission to make this further use of it4 ,considerable changes are made in the reproduction2 but ,i think this admission is due to any buyers the book may secure4 ,i have also to mention my great indebtedness to ,rev4 ,j4 ,f4 ,shepherd1 ,m4,a41 of ,manchester1 for his help with the proofs1 and for some valuable suggestions as to emendations of expression4 ,,ambrose ,,shepherd4 #f1 ,thornville ,terrace1 ,glasgow4 ,,contents ,i ,,youth ,,and ,,after ,,ii ,,youth',s ,,strategic ,,places ,,iii ,,the ,,worship ,,of ,,luck ,,iv ,a ,,devil',s ,,trinity ,v ,,temptation ,,and ,,responsibility ,,vi ,,self-,,respect ,,and ,,companionships ,,vii ,,the ,,royal ,,law ,,viii ',,he ,,was ,,despised ,,and ,,rejected' ,,ix ',,what ,,must ,i ,,do ,,to ,,be ,,saved8' ,x ,,does ,,god ,,have ,,fair-,,play8 ,,youth ,,and ,,after ,and ,terah died in ,haran4--,gen4 xi4 #cb4 ,,youth ,,and ,,after ,and ,terah died in ,haran4 ,this bit of prosaic information becomes suggestive by the emphasis of one word3 ,and ,terah died in ,haran4 ,this was not his birthplace1 but here he ended his days1 and that for a reason over which it is worth our while to pause4 ,and ,terah died in ,haran4 ,what of that8 ,all people have died somewhere1 who have lived and are dead4 ,when we first meet this man1 he was a citizen of no mean city4 ,ur of the ,chaldees was a great and representative centre in its day4 ,rising sheer from the midst of it1 we are told1 was an immense tower1 or observatory1 from the height of which men1 reputed wise1 watched the movements of the heavenly bodies2 and especially the moon1 for the moon was worshipped in ,ur of the ,chaldees as the great tutelary deity of this people4 ,here it was that ,terah lived1 at this time an old man1 and to trade1 as the ,scotch people would say1 a maker of images4 ,his craft was in things which symbolized some form of this lunar worship1 and which people bought to put in their houses4 ,terah had a son called ,abram1 who1 as he came to years of thought1 did not fall in very readily with this worship of the moon4 ,he appears to have become very early in life one of an order of doubters to whom the world owes much2 to have suspected1 at least1 that the moon was not1 as the priests taught1 a cause in itself1 but the effect of a cause4 ,what was that cause8 ,what was the fashioning hand behind the effect8 ,in other words1 he had come upon the doubt which explains much of the faith and achievement of the reformers and path-finders of the world4 ,neither doubt nor belief has any virtue in itself2 we must determine the moral quality by its expression in action4 ,had ,abram merely begun and ended with his doubts about the moon1 he would have died and been as soon forgotten as any other commonplace sceptic before or since his day4 ,the trouble is not that men doubt1 but that they are often content to do nothing else4 ,it may be better that they should believe wrong things1 than that they should cease to believe in anything4 ,abram began1 we imagine1 to talk to his father about his misgivings1 and notwithstanding the fact that ,terah's trade was dependent on the popular religion1 he seems to have yielded with something like enthusiasm to the greater personality of his son4 ,eventually they determined to leave ,ur of the ,chaldees and go1 no matter how far1 until they came to some place where they could worship in the new light which had come to them1 or1 as we should say1 according to conscience4 ,it was a formidable undertaking1 for they knew not their destination--if even1 indeed1 they knew their direction4 ,some one--,i forget who--has traced their route through ,larsa1 where men worshipped the sun2 through ,erech1 where they worshipped the planet ,venus--the bright evening star2 through ,nipur1 where they bowed the knee to ,baal2 through ,borsippa1 where they worshipped the planet ,jupiter2 and on and on until they came to ,haran1 where the people worshipped--the moon6 ,it was not until they came to ,haran1 that they touched1 as it were1 their first footprints1 and found the old religion4 ,and this was the finish for the poor old father ,terah4 ,whatever the motives with which he had set out on this pilgrimage1 whether of conviction more or less1 or parental affection entirely1 he was now weary4 ,there had been little temptation to pause before on the score of a people's worship4 ,that of the sun1 of ,venus1 of ,baal1 of ,jupiter1 probably did not arouse in him even a passing interest4 ,but when1 worn out in body and mind1 he suddenly came upon the old religion1 his journeyings after another faith and form of worship were at an end4 ,this powerful appeal to his past1 with its resurrection of old memories1 old prejudices1 and the pathos of old associations1 was too much for the old man4 ,no second call came to him2 or if it did1 he had neither heart nor ear for it4 ,it was ,abram the younger man who withstood the temptations of ,haran and with the faithful went on to a land they knew not of4 ,it was the younger who had the staying power which1 when acquired early1 goes through life1 and rejoins it in eternity sure as ever it came to it in time4 ,terah travelled some six hundred miles--a big journey in those days--to get away from the worship of the moon1 and in the worship of the moon he ended his years4 ,his evening and his morning were the same day3 ,and ,terah died in ,haran4 ,you see the thought underlying this bit of prosaic information4 ,it simply means that the years close down the possibilities of a certain kind of moral exodus4 ,it is in the days of your youth that you must make the legs of iron1 as ,emerson calls them1 for the journey which lies before you4 ,if you wait until you get into years before you find right principles1 and form good resolutions--well1 even then it is better to make some start in the right direction4 ,but why pile up the odds1 that start you never will2 or that you will not go far if you do8 ,the enthusiasms of old men are as rare as they are short-lived1 unless they are evolved out of earlier and worthy days4 ,there may be exceptions4 ,if there are1 ,i have never known one4 ,the rule is practically a law1 that old men1 who are nothing more than old men1 cannot make mighty resolves and carry them through4 ,they may1 for many reasons1 start out from ,ur of the ,chaldees2 but it is not often they get past ,haran1 if1 indeed1 they ever get so far4 ,more likely will it end in the old defeat3 ,i will return into the house whence ,i came out1 which is much the same1 or1 in some cases1 is even worse1 than if they had never left it4 ,the old man ,terah would get an interesting tour2 although very probably people would hear from him more about it at the end than he had ever seen on the way4 ,he would be a much-travelled man for those days1 but he never found the new religion4 ,it was the old religion that re-found him4 ,understand me3 ,i am far from saying that old age necessarily blocks the way to great attempts1 or to conspicuous success in them4 ,all history would cry out against such a statement4 ,there is an old age we delight to honour1 and which reverses the ordinary attitude to it in the general world4 ,instead of considering it a legitimate matter for lying about1 and polite not to be aware of its presence1 we make our boast in the virility which1 in some men1 accompanies their years until they quite shade out in a mellow maze of glory4 ,take some of our statesmen4 ,were not the mighty men of the great nineteenth century aged men1 if we count age only by shadows on the dial8 ,at a time of life when most men are honoured with a natural right to senility1 ,mr4 ,gladstone was girding on his armour for one of the biggest conflicts ever waged in the arena of our ,parliament4 ,and years after1 as the struggle still raged--to see him1 almost blind and deaf1 looking like so much vitalized parchment rather than a figure of flesh and blood1 as night after night he stood up to the agility of a ,chamberlain1 and the subtlety of a ,balfour--each perfected to a fine art--surely never gamer1 grander sight ever challenged the imagination of poet1 patriot1 or historian4 ,it was a testimony to all time of what can come out of the brain and soul of a man1 when the body that houses them is written and re-written over with the hieroglyphics of age4 ,it was a fitting termination to what may be1 and ought to be1 the great and sacred processes of life4 ,but ,mr4 ,gladstone was great at the end1 because all the way had been a preparation for it4 ,this is the secret1 if secret it be1 which young men cannot know and master too soon4 ,to end well1 you must begin well2 and you must fill in well the distance between the one and the other4 ,study carefully the triumph of old age in statesmanship1 in science1 and in affairs1 and you will have to connect them with years of stern discipline and strenuous endeavour4 ,in no case will you find strength where there has been no strain1 or palm where there has been no dust4 ,there are levels on which the truth1 that we reap what we sow1 admits of no qualification4 ,omnipotence itself cannot make it possible for us to gather grapes of thorns1 or figs of thistles4 ,to attempt after a given age1 and on the strength of a chance impulse1 to leave ,ur of the ,chaldees with its old habits and associations1 its old moral settings1 will carry us far as the impulse lasts1 but that in all probability will be only as far as ,haran4 ,and as ,terah died at ,haran1 so shall we4 ,it will be from moon to moon4 ,youth is the time to determine whether old age shall be a beautiful consummation1 or a bitter regret4 ,the threshold of manhood is the place to form resolutions that will have some chance of being kept1 to cultivate the thoughts you would have ultimately become things4 ,the serious danger is that1 with the impression of a long future before you1 you should merely drift in the present1 and forget how inextricably the texture of to-day will be woven into the fabric of to-morrow4 ,i am quite aware that what ,i have so far said is more likely to hinder than help the purpose ,i have in saying it4 ,you will not question that a clear nexus runs through our years1 but my teaching about it1 you tell me1 is needlessly severe4 ,if as the beginning is1 so must the end be1 what are we to say of a man's will8 ,what are we to say about the power and working of divine grace8 ,while there is life1 does there ever come a time when it is no longer true to say that out of it can pass the old1 or into it can come the new8 ,surely to affirm that such a time can be is to give the lie to religion and experience4 ,many a young man is having what is called his fling1 who is yet quite sure in his own mind that when the time comes to accept the more serious responsibilities of life1 he will change his habits and turn to ways that befit the new occasion4 ,so we are told4 ,and is it not true8 ,have we not known young men cover a considerable space of life with questionable1 and even more than questionable courses1 and yet settle down into exemplary domestic men and admirable citizens8 ,yes1 we have known them1 and1 whatever influences have brought about the change1 let us be thankful for it4 ,but what proportion do they bear to the legions who1 once in ,ur of the ,chaldees1 have neither thought nor desire for a better country8 ,while1 again1 they may leave it from anything but worthy motives4 ,men may be compelled to change their habits without changing their natures4 ,it is really to multiply words to no profit to debate the question4 ,your instinct tells you that it would be wickedness to encourage you to take your fling in ,ur of the ,chaldees on the risk that you can get away from it when prudence speaks the word4 ,settle it1 then1 as true for you1 that out of to-day walks a to-morrow2 and that what you shall do with to-morrow is practically determined by what you are doing to-day4 ,this counsel1 or admonition1 cannot be over-emphasized4 ,i assume that ,i am talking to young men who do not intend to make a failure of life2 then1 ,i tell you again1 that you must seize the one great chance you have1 to make it a success4 ,permit me now to apply very briefly what has been so far advanced1 first1 to your pleasures2 and1 secondly1 to something more important to you than old age1 and that is--middle life4 ,to everything1 says the ,preacher1 there is a time and a season1 and it must be that youth is the time for amusements and pleasures1 which are not so much the privileges of youth as native to it4 ,we are told that ,darwin in his old age expressed regret that he had deprived himself of so many of the pleasures and resources of life by his concentration upon that study1 the results of which have made his name so justly famous4 ,he gave to get2 but he lived to doubt his own right to pay the price4 ,and no young man should give place1 no not for a moment1 to a doctrine of work which excludes his right to the joys and abandon of his years4 ,there is danger1 and very real danger1 lest we should take for granted what the ,grad-grinds tell us1 that the only thing which matters is that we do work1 and are not idle4 ,work for its own sake is not enough4 ,it may turn men into machines--all clatter and monotony2 or it may make them fussy nuisances4 ,a soulless activity1 says ,canon ,ainger1 may save a man from vagrancy only by turning him into a thing2 or it may keep him from idleness by making him an egotist4 ,there is the man who1 to use the common phrase1 sticks at it with scarcely a competing thought or interest4 ,he scorns ease1 and lives laborious days4 ,for what8 ,i once heard it said1 and ,i believe it was true1 of a prosperous ,yorkshireman1 that the real pleasure he had in his money1 for which he had toiled hard1 was in a kind of mental calculation as to how many of his neighbours he could buy up4 ,i do all things that ,i may honour the ,father1 said ,jesus3 and work which is not under this impulse1 has in it no element of permanent satisfaction4 ,in some way every work has to be brought into a conscious relation to ,god1 or we only swell the crowd either of self-seekers1 or of the men whose toil leaves no such impression upon their character as gives sign or evidence of a sane or worthy aim and end4 ,to give to work its essential dignity1 and preserve it from mechanical routine we must bring motive into it--high and worthy purpose4 ,there is no virtue necessarily in being always at work1 but there is tremendous power in being able to work when we do work4 ,do not discount the old advice because it is commonplace3 work when you work1 and play when you play4 ,master the distinction there is between having what is called your fling1 and having your really good time4 ,get all the rational pleasure you can out of your young days4 ,let your religion be no dog ,cerberus1 snarling at the heels of innocent enjoyment4 ,but never lose sight of the fact that unless you have a definite and worthy purpose1 to attain which you keep your good time subordinate1 that good time will have the same relation to genuine pleasure that the throbbings of an ulcer have to the healthy action of the heart4 ,and a very plain word is needed here4 ,our trouble to-day is not that young people will have their pleasures and amusements2 it is that so many of them will have nothing else4 ,one who knows his day has told us1 that were it not for the sporting intelligence in the evening paper1 not a few of our young men would forget how to read4 ,it is a common experience to meet young men who have been decently educated1 as things go1 and yet they are ignorant as babies about the social and political questions which so vitally affect the welfare of the ,state4 ,decently educated1 ,i say1 as things go4 ,but how far is that8 ,i have five clerks in my office1 said a ,bradford merchant lately1 who probably could tell me all ,i want to know and more1 about a horse race1 a cricket1 or a football match2 and not one of them could translate for me a foreign business letter4 ,this is one principal reason1 he added1 why ,bradford is overrun with ,germans1 and why the ,germans are getting hold of so much of our trade4 ,on what is called the practical side of life1 the first duty of a young man is to be efficient in whatever honest thing he is doing to earn his bread2 and at the same time be preparing himself for whatever surprise or opportunity the future may have in store for him4 ,a few hours in the week given seriously to the latter1 will leave an ample margin of time for recreation and amusement2 and who knows what he may need1 until the need is there to test what he knows8 ,to be great on sport1 and a stick at one's business2 to be an authority on amusements1 and an ignoramus about almost everything else that is anything1 is the surrender of manhood1 and that in a day which has no need comparable with its need of capable men4 ,and such surrender has consequences that lie nearer than those which make themselves manifest in old age4 ,your next step is into middle life2 and it is here where the question is finally decided whether it is1 or is not1 well for us that we are here at all4 ,if a man has put little more than the rubbish of a selfish existence into his years he will1 by the time he is old in them1 be the victim of a callous insensibility which will carry him over into the stage beyond our human ken4 ,an unworthy old age rarely feels much moral suffering2 that but waits its awakening in the fires which shall try every man's work of what sort it is4 ,but when a man begins to sight the middle years1 he learns to know himself as never before or after4 ,this is the stage where increase of knowledge often means increase of sorrow4 ,it is1 in truth1 the sorrow of finding out our limitations which1 on their first acquaintance1 often seem more appalling than they actually are4 ,while youth may be saved by hope1 by what is to be1 middle life is often lost in the drab reality of what is4 ,every youth1 who is not as indifferent to his possibilities as though he were nothing more than a lump of flesh1 is about to become a numeral in the world4 ,the tragedy enters when he knows himself to be what in a sense he must remain--a cipher1 merely giving value to the men who do represent the numerals4 ,when the youth1 who used to talk about having the ball at his feet1 seems to have become very much the ball itself1 to be kicked hither and thither as circumstances may determine1 what then8 ,will he show that kicked he may be1 but ball he is not8 ,that circumstances may use him1 but they shall not make him8 ,the answer to this question will very much depend upon the stuff he put into his years1 while as yet he knew not his limitations4 ,and even where middle life has won success in the things men covet1 and for which they strive1 it may be the success that is just deadly in its reaction of monotony4 ,how often do we hear it said of a prosperous man1 who in middle years is giving place to unworthy habits1 or to ill-humour and chronic depression3 ,would he had something to take him out of himself2 some interest in anything1 if it were but a harmless hobby4 ,think of a man being reduced to the need of a hobby to keep him out of moral mischief6 ,what such a man1 if man he can be called1 really needs is some higher interest or a coffin4 ,a hobby is well enough in its place1 and much can be said for it1 but when it becomes a man's only peradventure between himself and the devil1 the world can probably spare him to its own advantage4 ,the young have no little safety in their years1 in the temporary buoyancy of the blood4 ,it is when the former draw in1 and the latter thins out1 that dangerous things get their more obvious and1 too often1 fatal chance with men4 ,it is when the first fires of passion have slowed down1 and the ties of early friendship have relaxed1 and the outlook appears to leave us with the problem1 not how to live1 but how to exist4 ,i tremble at times when my experience suggests the dangers of those long stretches of emptiness1 that so easily fill with the sinister and the unspeakable4 ,i would pray1 as a man in mortal terror1 against the bottomless pit of a motiveless existence4 ,this is why ,i put emphasis upon the threshold of manhood2 not that ,i believe it to be the most dangerous part of human life1 but because ,i believe it is the time to safeguard the part that is4 ,it is the time when habits can be cultivated1 and resources acquired1 which can make middle life as crowded with interest and good to enjoy as any of the earlier years1 and infinitely more useful4 ,but this is possible only when the middle years can command their own4 ,just as many of us postpone life until after our funeral1 so may we find ourselves in middle life discouraged and sullen because we cannot do what we would1 only because we have not done what we ought4 ,men do not always go under because they cannot do things4 ,they fail1 not because they do not know what it is well to do1 but because they do not choose to attempt it4 ,and why do they not choose8 ,so far as this question affects middle life1 it is largely because so few of us have the grit to face its difficulties1 and attack them1 when we have to do it with the serious handicap of self-made disadvantages4 ,it is while you are young that you must lay up these stores of living material for the after years2 and this is the significance of it all--you can only do it1 or you can do it most effectually1 when you are young4 ,as touching certain advantages1 the day after to-morrow is the only day that never comes4 ,have your good time1 ,i say1 and in it fear ,god1 and fear nothing else4 ,keep a clean youth1 and enjoy it to the full4 ,but let the thought have its place as a goad when required1 or as a steadying influence when the spirits would gallop too fast--the thought in the question3 ,how will it be with me when my years are thirty-five or forty8 ,that trying1 and in so many cases1 that fatal forty6 ,when the youth of rose-light and romance has faded into the light of common day1 and the horizon of life has shrunk incalculably1 and when the flagging spirit no longer answers to the spur of external things1 but must find its motive and energy from within1 or find them not at all4 ,see to it while you may1 that these forces1 when needed1 are there1 or whatever else you may gain will be but a mocking remembrancer of the greater thing you have lost4 ,i have but another word to add4 ,if there are1 as ,i trust there are1 middle-aged1 or even old men1 who would leave this ,ur of the ,chaldees1 with all its unworthy past1 and make for a better country1 do not1 ,i plead with you1 be discouraged by anything ,i have said4 ,remember1 ,i have been talking to the young2 but ,god forbid that what ,i have said to them should seem to exclude hope for you4 ,make your start1 though you should get no further than ,haran4 ,in a matter so supreme1 it is better to have tried and failed1 than never to have tried at all4 ,but you need not fail in any degree that success is possible to you2 and a success is possible to you in which are issues of everlasting life4 ,whatever the past1 build up with courage and humility what you can do4 ,god willing1 and by ,his grace1 you have time yet to prove how a consecrated determination can stretch out life's limits1 and wondrously redeem no little of past failure4 ,,youth',s ,,strategic ,,places ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because ye are strong4--#a ,st4 ,john ii4 #ad4 ,,ii ,,youth',s ,,strategic ,,places ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because ye are strong4 ,this description young men probably indicates that those to whom this part of ,st4 ,john's letter was addressed were seriously engaged in the work of grounding their character1 forming their habits1 disciplining their inclinations1 and confirming the election all must make between good and evil4 ,he was not writing to those who had failed in the struggle1 and had accepted their defeat4 ,he was not writing to those who1 beaten1 knew that they did not intend to try again1 and had thus written themselves out of the progressive forces of the human world4 ,he was writing to those who had shown promise of better things1 who were evidently pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of ,god in ,christ ,jesus4 ,i do not take it that the ,apostle credits the young men to whom he wrote with having won a victory which is never finally decided on this side the grave1 or with having attained to a moral altitude outside the reach of their years4 ,when he says1 ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because ye are strong1 he may be understood as referring to a strength consistent with1 and yet peculiar to1 their years--a strength the whole force of which was set in a right and healthy direction4 ,i want now to deal with the first part of this particular reference to the strength of young men4 ,it would be away from my present purpose to weight this address with any attempt to say what the writer means when he tells them that1 ,the word of ,god abideth in you1 and ye have overcome the wicked one4 ,i shall take the words of our text out of their context1 and use them as a topic3 ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because ye are strong4 ,strong in what sense8 ,how may we give the words a useful setting1 as a remembrancer and a call to the young men of to-day8 ,in the first place1 one great constituent of strength which is1 or ought to be1 the special possession of young life is--,hope4 ,it is a common remark that as we grow older we become chary of convictions1 and content ourselves with opinions4 ,i should be sorry to believe it1 but ,i am obliged to admit that age1 even with good people1 changes to a large extent their centre of gravity from hope to faith4 ,it is suggestive to mark the order of these in ,st4 ,paul's famous procession--faith1 hope1 love4 ,love1 he says1 is the greatest4 ,but he ranks hope before faith4 ,why8 ,the passage in which this classification occurs is part of the distinctive literature of the ,bible4 ,hence terms are not used carelessly4 ,what is the difference between the two8 ,hope1 says ,david ,hume1 is the real riches of human life2 as fear is the real poverty4 ,hope is that which is at the bottom of the vase1 as the ancients said1 when every other thing has gone out of it--by which1 as it has been suggested1 they probably meant the human heart4 ,while hope trembles in expectation1 faith is quiet in possession4 ,hope leaps out towards what will be2 faith holds on to what is4 ,hope idealizes2 faith realizes4 ,faith sees2 hope foresees4 #a ,in other words1 faith is apt to be content with what it has2 hope ventures out to annex the wider provinces of the imagination4 ,faith is the prose of our religious life1 hope is its poetry4 ,unless you think about it1 this will glance off your mind as a distinction without a difference4 ,it is more than that1 in the sense ,i am using the distinction4 ,the loss of youth is not so much in the flight of years1 as in the stealing away of our hopes4 ,we may be justified by faith1 but we are saved by hope1 in theology and in life4 ,there are twenty men who have faith in ,christ for one man who has hope that ,his ,spirit will ever incarnate itself in the life of the world4 ,as we get older1 most of us1 ,i am afraid1 are only too glad to keep our faith in great principles1 without hoping much for them4 ,the usual product of experience1 and more especially experience gained in attempting some great reform1 is1 as ,dr4 ,martineau remarks1 a certain caution and lowering of hope4 ,when the spent enthusiast looks back upon the riches of his early hopes1 and the poverty of his achievements1 he is tempted to regret the magnitude of his aims1 and advise a zeal too temperate to live through the frosts of inevitable disappointments4 ,nothing more damps the ardour of young people with good stuff in them than this caution called wisdom1 which so often creeps over us as we advance in years4 ,then it is so frequently the case that the precepts that most naturally flow from our lips are the negatives that stifle hope4 ,i can no longer afford convictions1 said a man to me once1 ,i have come to limit myself to opinions2 they can be held at less risk1 and changed at less cost4 ,and the disposition to regard both faith and hope in great things as subject to the same insecure and miserable tenure1 is apt to grow with the growing years1 until we come to sympathize with nothing which cannot take out a policy of assurance4 ,when we are young we may be susceptible to the new1 only because it is new to us4 ,we are ready to welcome in book or speech anything which charms us with a novelty we readily mistake for originality4 ,after we have crossed a line it may be well that most of us should become a bit obstinate1 a little stiff in our beliefs1 lest we be blown about by every wind of doctrine4#b ,at the same time1 there is always the danger of becoming so rigid in our opinions and faith as to permit no horizon of hope4 ,there are multitudes1 in our churches and outside them1 who1 from want of the hope that saves1 are dying from the top downwards4 ,and among them is an increasing proportion of young men4 ,i hear them boast that they have no ideals1 no hopes or aspirations that are above the earth earthy4 ,for once1 at any rate1 they have a conviction1 and it is1 that man lives by bread alone1 that his life is in the abundance of the things which he possesses4 ,they are too knowing to be caught prisoners by ideas1 too much men of the world to concern themselves about the ,utopias of religion4 ,and they call it strength4 ,strength6 ,it reminds one of the bitter remark of an historian on the march of the ,roman legions3 ,they make a solitude1 and call it peace4 ,strength6 ,there are those in perdition at this moment who could tell them that what they call strength is the stupidity which adds to sin the increment of a huge blunder4 ,the young man who is strong is he who has the moral genius of his years4 ,he does not deny that man lives by bread1 but he does deny that man lives by bread alone4 ,he has faith in the upward trend of the world2 and he has the hope which can give to faith its adequate translation4 ,he does not believe that there are two ,almighties in the world and that the devil is the greater2 that sin shall breed sin for ever4 ,he does not believe that the many must drudge to the limit of endurance and starve their higher nature as long as the world lasts1 that the few may taste the sweets of culture and opulence4 ,he does not believe that brute force shall for ever trample splendid intelligence underfoot1 or that we must always stand on the margin of the dark river of wrong1 in the unfathomed depths of which lie mysteries of terror--the despair of man1 the sorrow of ,god4 ,he has hope1 that mighty dynamic--,god's pledge to the young and unspoiled soul of a coming day when all that is false and unbelieving and wicked shall be cast into the consuming fire of divine holiness4 ,he has faith in the great day of the ,lord2 and with the splendid optimism1 the hope peculiar to his years1 he cries3 ,i can1 and ,i will1 hasten the coming of my ,lord4 ,this is one great element of a young man's strength--hope in goodness1 which goes so far to sustain the toil that can realize it4 ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because ye are strong4 ,another factor in this strength is--,freedom4 ,i hardly like the word1 but ,i want to express by it immunity from certain responsibilities4 ,young men1 up to a given period1 are1 as never again1 free to sacrifice for what look like the forlorn hopes and apparently lost causes of humanity4 ,my six reasons for taking no risks1 said a man in the ,american ,civil ,war1 are a wife and five children4 ,the reasons which in one man may resolve themselves into prudence1 in the case of another man1 differently circumstanced1 may be nothing better than cowardice4 ,some years ago four men stood on the cage at the mouth of the shaft that penetrated to the workings of a ,yorkshire coal-mine4 ,there had been an explosion1 and over forty men were imprisoned in what seemed likely to be their grave4 ,the brave fellows on the cage knew they were taking their lives in their hands1 but they stood calmly waiting the signal which should lower them into a possible death4 ,while some detail of the machinery was being adjusted1 a fine stalwart young man1 some three-and-twenty years of age1 forced his way through the crowd1 and1 seizing one of the rescue-party1 literally flung him out of the cage to the pit-bank1 and before the people could recover from their astonishment the men were being lowered through the pathway of the deep4 ,then they realized the meaning of the action4 ,he did it1 said the man who had been so summarily handled1 and his voice shook with emotion1 because ,i have a wife and bairns4 ,the younger man was free from responsibility2 he could better afford the risk4 ,there is a very real sense in which the same consideration tells in the warfare against sin and wrong4 ,some of us have less to risk in taking up the challenge which the powers of death and hell throw down to every true man4 ,i write unto you1 young men1 because from your relationship to circumstances you are more free to accept risks4 ,we often hear men lament1 and it may be sincerely1 that they cannot afford to face the practical logic of their social1 political1 and religious beliefs4 ,they shrink from the consequences of the good fight of faith4 ,had ,i only myself to consider1 says one1 how gladly would ,i sacrifice myself to attack this wrong or that iniquity4 ,we need offer no opinion about the moral quality of such a position2 enough to say that it is idle to ignore1 or even to underrate1 the force of it4 ,there are circumstances which are too strong for most men after they have put themselves in a given relation to circumstances4 ,let me say a word here about circumstances1 which will seem to contradict some things you will find in this book1 if you have interest enough in it to read it through4 ,a ,glasgow minister some time ago made a stand against a considerable minority in his church over some matter that1 as he said1 involved a principle for which he should fight4 ,it cost him many of his more wealthy members and adherents4 ,not many of us1 ,i said to him after1 have your courage to take so serious a risk4 ,nor should ,i have had it1 he answered1 had ,i not means that make me independent of my salary4 ,it was a candid admission1 and it reaches a long way4 ,the strength of this man was in his position quite as much as in himself2 and this is probably true of the great average of us4 ,circumstances may mean possibilities1 more often than possibilities mean1 or create1 circumstances4 ,what we can do is not only determined by what we bring into the world1 but by what we find when we get here4 ,give1 then1 whatever courage is native to you its full purchase1 by whatever favour you have in circumstances4 ,it is here the young man has a great advantage2 he is at an age when he can afford risks2 let him use it before his years are mortgaged by other demands4 ,in public life he can base his efforts on the fact that there are tremendous evils that need resistance1 that there are sacred causes which need assistance4 ,he can afford1 as never again1 to close with the truth that there is a corporate life1 a public virtue1 a humanity of the body politic1 with laws1 responsibilities1 and duties4 ,in social life he can refuse to bow to an arbitrary and often empty fashion1 or to immolate himself on the altar of mammon4 ,he can be a living protest against the tyranny and lust of money1 which are eating away the heart and destroying the soul of ,christendom4 ,he can stand for the sane and rational ideas and habits of life1 without which society but personifies the unscrupulous and vulgar parvenu4 ,and in religion he can accept the teaching and obey the commands of ,christ without any overwhelming temptation to escape them behind some exegetical device or the plea of expediency4 ,he can devote the rose bloom of his years to great principles1 before he has had time to catch the infection of a commonplace belief in ,god4 ,he can be a soldier of the ,cross1 and have himself placed in the forefront of the battle4 ,he can go down into the pit to rescue the perishing1 and take daring1 awful risks for the ,captain of his salvation and the race of which he forms a part4 ,i have written unto you1 young men1 because you can afford to be strong4 ,a third1 and for my present purpose a closing consideration in a young man's strength is--,audacity4 ,i might call it courage1 but it is that plus something else4 ,it is courage carried to a point of daring that amounts to what ,i have called it1 audacity1 or1 as the world would call it1 foolhardiness4 ,it is the merciful blindness which will not see difficulties2 it is the glorious recklessness which will not be stopped by them4 ,it is neither blindness nor recklessness2 it is the baptism with which a young man must be baptized whose life is penalized for the ,cross4 ,when a certain woman came into the presence of ,jesus1 and anointed ,him with an ointment very precious1 ,he answered the selfish criticism of some of the disciples with the unqualified remark that long as ,his ,gospel should be preached1 this that she had done would be told for a memorial of her4 ,to these disciples it is probable that the answer sounded like a benediction on waste4 ,jesus saw in the deed an abandon on the side of good1 which on the side of evil makes evil so popular and1 as it seems at times1 almost universal4 ,no one but a woman1 unless it were a young man of true fibre1 would have broken the vessel4 ,your middle-aged or old man would have cautiously taken out the stopper1 that the costly unguent might have been expended economically1 even on the ,saviour4 ,but this woman1 in her uncalculating devotion1 broke the vessel1 that all its contents might issue forth in one consecrated gift of love4 ,and it was what this broken vase symbolized that explains1 or does something to explain1 the unmeasured recognition of the action4 ,this is the moral temper of the young man whom ,st4 ,john describes as strong4 ,he does not fumble with the stopper in the vase-held forces of good4 ,if you believe1 he cries1 what ,christ lived believing and died believing1 then break the vase1 and do not keep as a private possession powers that are meant for the world4 ,do not keep as a personal luxury what is meant to be the family treasure4 ,such a young man is the living exegesis of ,christ's revolutionary word3 ,the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence1 and the violent take it by force4 ,when he is warned not to expect too much from human nature1 not to put too much trust in men1 not to waste his strength in trying to remove mountains1 not to jeopardize his chances on the threshold of manhood in trying to serve a world which1 so far from thanking him1 will very effectually resent his most disinterested efforts on its behalf2 when he is reminded of some once aspirant who1 young and confident as he1 set out to reform the world1 and now cynically affirms that the only wisdom is to let the world go to the devil in its own way--the young man who is strong says3 ,i acknowledge your facts1 such as they are1 but they are not facts for me4 ,i1 too1 may be beaten in the right1 but ,i would rather be that a thousand times over than succeed in the wrong4 ,it is the temptation of the wicked one to conclude that1 because history is said to have repeated itself hitherto1 it must needs repeat itself for ever4 ,i do not live on history2 ,i live to make history4 ,i believe that ,i was sent into the world new from the fashioning hand of the ,creator1 and that ,i have a new man's work to do4 ,if my life of faith on the ,son of ,god seem recklessness to you1 wanting in proportion and eccentric1 hold your opinions for all they are worth2 but you shall not influence me by your abandoned hopes1 you shall not even chill me with the east wind of your selfish ethics4 ,these are the young men we need to-day4 ,strong in hope1 in position1 and in daring2 strong in the strength which they find in their years1 and the strength they put into them4 ,and the ,church has a right1 society has a right1 the nation has a right to look to young men for a greater and a better future4 ,we who are older have a claim to look to you to confirm our faith in the survival of ,christianity as the living force of the future4 ,we need fresh leaders and men who incarnate new forces4 ,we need1 in fact1 a certain style of man--we never needed him more4 ,we want young men who are inspired by the truth that ideas are realities1 and that scepticism about high principles is the most destructive form of ignorance4 ,we want young men of vision in business4 ,not cranks1 not men who are responsible for their own failure in whatsoever their hand findeth to do2 but men who see that the institution of business is ,god's present plan for distributing wealth1 comfort1 and intelligence4 ,we want men in law who shall realize that the function of the legal profession is to build up justice and ensphere it in the will of the people4 ,we want men in politics who have a clear conception of what the kingdom of ,god is1 who recognize that the work of legislation and legislators is to think and speak and act for the interests of that kingdom--in the spirit and on the basis of ,divine ,fatherhood and human brotherhood4 ,and in the pulpit we want men who have in them the vision of an ,isaiah1 a ,paul1 a ,john1 and a ,luther2 men who shall make themselves felt as perennial gifts to their day--to tell us what we can do and what we ought to do1 to lift up a voice for the eternally true1 amid the clamour of self-interest and cries of craven fear4 ,the world needs nothing more2 the great ,english-speaking race has no need comparable with this need of men who can carry the spirit of vision1 which is really the power of achievement1 into every phase of our individual and collective life4 #c ,many of you represent great possibilities4 ,you are1 or you ought to be1 at the flow-tide of an untainted enthusiasm4 ,your life should be a moral heat1 which radiates in ever-enlarging circles of hope and service4 ,but there are fires which1 once they are allowed to slow down1 can never be rekindled4 ,there are large and generous beliefs at twenty-five years of age which1 unless we cultivate and keep ourselves in the love of them1 thin out like wasting magic1 and no necromancy can ever conjure them back again4 ,you young men have potencies of hope and enthusiasm which1 if denied expression1 strike inwardly and corrupt the source out of which they came4 ,and now1 ,i repeat1 is the time when you can give a true man's best hostages to the future4 ,now is the time to make the most of your strategic places in life4 ,almost before you know it1 your power to determine many things will have merged into obligations that not one man in fifty is free to disregard4 ,while it is called your day--before you are compassed behind and before with a commonplace that locks up so many lives like a numbing fate--signalize your record by some bit of heroism4 ,if you would have posterity call you wise1 seize your chance1 while you have it1 to be ,god's fool4 ,find the faith that can help you to play a man's part in the world2 find in your faith the power which can grasp you by your weakness and sin1 and lift you into strength and achievement4 ,the ,church needs you4 ,for of all the institutions in ,christendom the ,church is stifled with safety1 propriety1 and conventional wisdom4 ,it is the world which seems to monopolize the sparkle1 the daring1 and the picturesque4 ,respect us1 your seniors in years1 if we have done anything worthy in the past2 but do not let it influence you unduly if now we seem to you perhaps timid and conservative4 ,time will bring most of you to the same place4 ,but if--which ,god forbid--you do little after1 do at least something now to redeem your career from impotence or from miserable aims that all end in selfishness4 ,find1 ,i say again1 on the threshold of your years1 the power that can grasp you by your real requirement4 ,your first need is not wisdom1 but grace2 it is not education1 but regeneration2 it is not an ideal even1 but a ,saviour4 ,wisdom1 education1 and moral enthusiasms are but the machinery of our uplifting1 the driving-power is ,life4 ,you know the ,source of this power2 you know the way to ,him of ,whom it is written3 ,in ,him was life2 and the life was the light of men4 ,now is your accepted time-- ,are you in earnest8 ,seize this very minute3 ,what you can do1 or dream you can1 begin it2 ,boldness has genius1 power1 and magic in it4 ,only engage1 and then the mind grows heated2 ,begin1 and then the work will be completed4 #a ,robert ,collyer4 #b ,dr4 ,maclaren4 #c ,dr4 ,lyman ,abbot4 ,,the ,,worship ,,of ,,luck ,the lot is cast into the lap2 but the whole disposing thereof is of the ,lord4--,proverbs xvi4 #cc4 ,,iii ,,the ,,worship ,,of ,,luck ,it is reported that ,prince ,bismarck once and again attributed some of the most remarkable successes he had won in diplomacy to the circumstance that he had used truth as one of his greatest resources4 ,well aware of the fact that truth1 for its own sake1 was not the first thing that was expected from him1 the use of truth gave him the tactical advantage of knowing how almost inevitably the opposite diplomacy would interpret it4 ,he told the truth in order that it might be acted upon as something else4 ,to adopt his own characteristic phrase1 he used the truth4 ,if half the truth1 or an untruth1 would have served his purpose better1 either most likely would have been adopted and as readily used4 ,you call that witty1 said a great statesman once1 when some one related to him the saying of a well-known politician to the same effect--you call that witty--,i call it devilish4 ,it is a just description4 ,if the report is reliable that ,bismarck1 even in grim jest1 spoke of truth in this sense as one of his great resources1 the confession ought to cover his name with infamy4 ,i do not commit myself to the statement that he ever said this2 but whether he did or not1 he is credited with acting upon what is a very general impression of how truth may be used4 ,with vast masses of people it has become perilously like a conviction that strict integrity1 while good and desirable as an ideal1 is yet too much of a risk for the purpose of what is popularly known as practical life4 ,the advice said to have been given by a ,yorkshireman to his son who was entering on a business career would1 ,i imagine1 be widely acclaimed as common-sense3 ,get money2 get it honestly1 if you can--but get it4 ,we preachers tell young men that whether or not they get on in business1 they cannot afford not to go up in character2 and they are not in the world very long before they realize that its hopes in this admonition are but inverted fears1 that the shake of its head is a scepticism which troubles not to articulate itself in words4 ,a ,french cynic counsels us to always deal with a friend to-day on the possibility that he may be an enemy to-morrow4 ,and there is a wide and deeply-rooted prejudice in favour of holding the imperatives of integrity on the same terms4 ,our very language in this direction betrays us4 ,we talk about smart business men1 smart professional men1 and by the adjective we may mean men who1 though keen1 are yet honourable in their methods2 or we may mean men who are just as scrupulous as the law of the land or the arbitrary criterions of society oblige them to be4 ,and young men feel the impress of this widely-shared sentiment in a way particularly vivid4 ,they have1 indeed1 small chance to escape it4 ,the world is profuse in its explanations of why men fail1 but it has no mercy on the man who fails4 ,it has its cheap jargon about inheritances and environment1 and then kicks the man who is preached as their victim1 into perdition4 ,our operations may not be nice1 but young men soon find out1 or they think they do1 that it is success1 not charity1 which covers a multitude of sins4 ,hence the new commandment3 ,with all thy getting1 get success-- ,get place and wealth1 if possible with grace1 ,if not1 by any means get wealth and place4 ,the clamant need of our day is a clear teaching that shall appeal to us all1 but especially to young men1 as to what are the things that cannot be shaken1 the things inseparable from a human life that is worth living4 ,it is easy to part with our fine sense of integrity1 but1 once it is gone1 it is the hardest thing in the world to recover4 ,there are more senses than one in which we may speak of riches that are beyond the dreams of avarice4 ,the most valuable possession any man can have is the fight1 either in his own conscience or to the world1 to affirm himself to be an honest man4 ,and the position ,i shall maintain in this address is1 that there can be no sure success without honesty4 ,nor shall ,i speak about absolute honesty or the strictest honesty1 for ,i agree with those who say that there is but one degree of honesty4 ,it is not a quality with grades and modulations4 ,as well think1 or try to think1 of grades and modulations in the chastity of man and woman4 ,honesty1 like chastity1 is1 or it is not4 ,we are often told that1 from the lowest possible commercial standpoint1 honesty is not only the best policy1 it is the only policy4 ,whether or not it is the only policy depends upon the meaning we import into the term2 of this ,i am sure--it is the best policy4 ,but ,i shall not urge this doctrine upon you from the lower standpoint4 ,that might do more than insult your intelligence2 it would1 ,i trust1 offend against your moral self-respect4 ,i assume that you all would hold it true with ,archbishop ,whately when he says1 that though honesty is the best policy1 he is not an honest man who is honest for that reason4 ,if1 then1 these latter remarks can carry the weight ,i want them to bear1 what of those that have preceded them8 ,how are we to explain a sentiment which is virtually a religion1 having this one article for its creed3 that honesty1 while good as an ideal1 cannot be invariably relied upon for practical concerns8 ,how is it that so many men have to discover1 when they are no longer young1 that the thing which has passed from them and which they cannot recall is1 after all1 the one supreme value they possessed8 ,there are many explanations of this tragedy1 for tragedy it is1 and not the least of them is1 that so many young men have but one conception1 one definition of success4 ,these are men1 and one is tempted to think at times that they are not so much a class as a people1 who want material success and seek nothing else4 ,they have no other standard by which to judge the thing behind the word4 ,not what we are1 but what we have1 if the latter is substantial and declarative1 is the only idea which multitudes have of success4 ,in a clever character-study of a well-known public man we are told that1 ,as far as he has a philosophy at all1 it is this1 that merit rides in a motor-car4 ,it is a definition which fosters the impression that success can be secured the more quickly and surely by methods that are bound up with smartness1 chance1 or luck4 ,it is with the last of these ,i would come into somewhat close quarters4 ,and let me admit1 in the first place1 that there is such a thing as luck1 using the word in its common acceptation4 ,in what is called a scientific treatment of the subject in hand ,i ought to say1 as exactly as ,i can1 what ,i myself understand by luck4 ,it will leave abundance of room for criticism if ,i venture to define it--as some advantage that comes to a man independent of his moral worth1 his native gifts1 or of any equivalent he has rendered for it of industry and self-denial4 ,that some people have such an advantage it would be useless to deny4 ,two youths1 let us say1 enter a business house about the same age1 and at the same time4 ,they are1 as near as can be1 equally matched in equipment to command success4 ,in this respect there is little to choose between them4 ,one begins entirely on his merits2 he has no influence behind him to open doors before him as by some invisible hand4 ,the other has influence2 no matter what it is1 or how it works1 he has it1 and it operates distinctly in his favour4 ,a few years after1 and the latter has far out distanced the former in position1 salary1 and outlook4 ,and the reason is not the capacity of either2 it is the arbitrary advantage1 the piece of luck that one has had over the other from the start4 ,he has not much ability1 ,i heard it remarked lately of a young fellow who1 just having been licensed to preach1 had also received a call to an influential church1 and the remark elicited the significant answer3 ,no1 but whether he has ability or not1 his father has position and influence4 ,this hints to us why certain men1 if they do not fill1 yet hold the positions they do4 ,take some men in high places1 say in the political world4 ,recall a few names1 if you can1 of men who have held great positions in the ,state within the last quarter of a century1 and does any sane person contend that in ability they stand out sheer above ten thousand good average men who crowd about them8 ,i think it was ,sydney ,smith who said it was about equal to being canonized to marry into certain families4 ,and a man would need to be a very emphasized fool quite to spoil the advantages of a long line of position1 privilege1 and family ascendency4 ,take1 again1 a more typical case of what ,i mean by luck4 ,it came under my own notice4 ,a cloth-worker in ,yorkshire1 by carelessness or inadvertence1 raises the nap of a given fabric a shade above the regulation height4 ,he is dismissed1 and the cloth is laid aside as spoiled4 ,a ,french buyer comes in the place1 and casting his eyes on it1 instantly sees for it a future4 ,that touch of heightened nap has done it4 ,the manufacturer has his wits about him1 and what a week before was a mistake is now a new and valuable design which1 in a couple of years1 makes him what some of us would regard as a substantial fortune4 ,we are usually told that to admit the operation of this questionable factor in human affairs1 called chance or luck1 is inconsistent with a belief in the moral government of ,god1 or1 as we may prefer to call it1 the reign of law4 ,if this is so1 how are we to read those old words that chance happeneth to them all8 ,if we seriously contend that everything which happens in our human life is in accord with ,god's plans in us1 and working through us1 then ,i see not how we can refuse to hold such fore-ordination responsible for the grotesque1 the irrational1 the sinister1 and the wicked in our actions4 ,i could understand the objection were it limited to ,nature1 because that is a sphere in which it is the uses of things1 and the uses precisely1 which are the most obvious1 and these compose1 when taken together1 a mighty reciprocal whole in which part answers to part1 constituting an all-comprehensive and wondrous whole4 ,there is no place in ,nature for chance4 ,every particle of air is governed by laws of as great precision as the laws of the heavenly bodies4 ,it keeps its appointed order1 it serves its appointed ends4 ,nature never breaks out of its place4 ,it has no such power--but human nature has4 ,man has enough free-will to make him responsible for what he does with it1 and in the exercise of this mighty prerogative enters the element of chance or luck4 ,we cannot establish free-will by rules of logic1 we cannot gainsay it on the score of conviction4 ,it helps us to interpret the great in human life and history1 and what is sometimes even more to the purpose1 it helps us to account for the little4 ,as it has been well said3 ,it would save us much mental perplexity if we could assert without qualification that all is law1 that everything happens as ,god ordains4 ,but ,god cannot make two mountains without a valley between2 and ,he cannot give us free-will and withhold from us at the same time the freedom to make mistakes4 ,the contradictions in human life do not yield to verbal simplicities1 and1 whether we like it or not1 we have to acknowledge that this something called luck is a force in human events4 ,but let me say1 in the second place1 that there is nothing more easy than to exaggerate its extent and importance4 ,out of a hundred happenings that are generally attributed to luck1 if we could find the genesis of each one and trace its evolution or unfolding1 we should probably not find more than one that could be associated with the things that happen by chance4 ,the case of a man who achieved what is called a lucky fluke out of a piece of spoiled cloth is perhaps the only instance of its kind on record in the history of cloth manufacture4 ,i have admitted that there are cases where advantage falls to a man which cannot be explained by anything he deserves1 or has done to win it4 ,and the advantage1 such as it is1 often works untold hurt as an example4 ,just as the winnings of one gambler may tempt a hundred others to their undoing1 so a single case of coveted luck is apt to encourage young men to transfer their hopes of success in many directions1 from law to luck4 ,you see here and there a man who accumulates a large fortune from beginnings that look as much like pure chance as was that piece of spoiled cloth4 ,you see men close to you put into positions that have been secured1 not by training or ability to fill them1 but by the accident of influence1 or1 as you may think1 by even more reprehensible methods2 and your first impulse is to say that it is not merit but luck that holds the better cards4 ,but let the impulse pass and bring quiet thought and good practical sense to this problem of success in men1 and you will find that the instances are comparatively few where it is not about as wise to speak of it as luck as it would be so to characterize the law of cause and consequence4 ,when you are discussing a man's success or his position1 do not stop at the mere fact that he has it--that is obvious enough2 try to know how he got it1 and you may be surprised to find how little1 after all1 luck has had to do with it4 ,in one of the most quoted of our ,lord's parables we are told that they that were ready went in to the marriage feast4 ,and this right of entry was not a matter of luck4 ,they went in because they were ready1 and the others were left out because they had made no effort to be ready4 ,and so if you would understand a man's success1 know what he was doing while the opportunity tarried1 while his chance seemed to wait1 while his psychological moment appeared to linger4 ,our fate or our fortune is not in great occasions2 it is in our readiness to seize the opportunities that make great occasions4 ,we frequently hear young men complain that they have not had a chance4 ,are they always sure of that8 ,how often is it that their chance has been and gone1 without their knowing it8 ,there are scores of young fellows in our place1 said a large employer of labour lately1 who would be in vastly better positions than they are1 had they worked as hard to be ready for the better positions as they are anxious to have them4 ,there are multitudes of young men who appear to have lost sight of the distinction there may be between wishing for an opportunity and being ready to use the opportunity when it presents itself4 ,as ,sir ,frederick ,treves once said to the students at the ,aberdeen ,university3 ,the man who is content to wait for a stroke of good fortune will probably wait until he has a stroke of paralysis4 ,he who waits for good fortune without doing his part to make it possible1 opens up the way for lazy habits and morbid conclusions about the arrangements of life4 ,luck in any serious business or profession is not so much the coming of opportunity as readiness to make the most of the opportunity when it comes4 ,a man was speaking to me not long ago about one of the leading commercial men in this city4 ,what is there in him or about him to explain his success8 asked the man1 and he answered his own question with the round assertion that it was all luck4 ,it happened that ,i had some reliable information about the man under discussion1 and ,i want you to have it4 ,thirty years ago he was working from ten to twelve hours in the day as just an ordinary workman4 ,at the close of each day's toil he had his programme of studies1 which1 in its range and character of the subjects attacked1 would not have disgraced a good student at any university4 ,eventually his attention to business and his marked attainments won for him the recognition of his employers1 which meant in after years a place which was ultimately a leading place1 as one of them4 ,yet this was the man who was said to have won his success by a lucky turn of the wheel4 ,i admit his advantages4 ,i grant you that he showed himself to have brains and will above the average endowment of these great possessions4 ,but let me ask you to mark this3 he might have left his gifts unused1 as so many of us do4 ,it is probably not gifts1 in eight cases out of every ten1 that determine position1 but our use of them4 ,we have infinitely more in us than our will and determination ever bring out4 ,how few of us know the rich things ,god has put in our nature2 and we verily live and die in ignorance of rare deposits of wealth because we do not work the inward mines4 ,this young man was wiser4 ,he did not wait for his opportunity to turn up1 he turned up the opportunity4 ,because he neither slumbered nor slept while it tarried1 he was prepared to make the most of it when it presented itself4 ,and ,i am persuaded that something like this is the true explanation of practically the whole of what thoughtless people set down to luck4 ,what we call fore-ordination is verily the present which we have made out of the past4 ,we first make habits1 and then habits make us4 ,in our to-day walks our to-morrow1 and in a very solemn sense there is no dead past4 ,as it has been well said1 the tree that falls so disastrously is no accident2 it had the fall determined a century ago in some injury it received as a sapling4 #a ,there is much less luck in human affairs than is popularly supposed2 and1 if there were more than there is1 it would1 in the next place1 be moral insanity to put our trust in it4 ,nothing walks with aimless feet4 ,our life is no lottery4 ,we may make foolish experiments with it1 but we do so at our own risk4 ,it is no plaything of chance1 it is a stern responsibility which is determined by law that brooks no interference and excuses no indifference4 ,the proverb tells us that our lot is cast into the lap1 but the whole disposing is of the ,lord4 ,and just as the dark forces that sweep through our life are not necessarily hostile forces but form part of the order of the world1 so things that we regard as haphazard1 merely cast into the lap of chance1 may be divine agents working out a marvellous equality of opportunity throughout our human life4 ,i affirm it without a shadow of qualification1 that chance has no place whatever in the responsible formation of character1 and the formation of character is the decision of destiny4 ,beware1 then1 lest in playing with this ignis fatuus of chance you are trifling with law1 for law will not spare you4 ,you young men cannot make up your mind too soon that there can be no sure success apart from uprightness and integrity4 ,you cannot too early in this life settle it as an immovable truth for you1 that unswerving rectitude is not only a great and desirable ideal1 it is the only practical course you can afford to follow4 ,goodness1 ,i say again1 is the only success1 and ,i shall not try to save this statement by fencing the word success with any arbitrary definition of my own4 ,i just mean by it what any man means by it who has a healthy moral perception of things4 ,success1 like honesty1 has but one degree1 and as nothing is worthy to be called life which cannot be affirmed of ,god1 so nothing can be called success which is not the resultant of right-doing4 ,every advantage which you would try to scheme or sneak or coerce in face of the protest of conscience1 has in it its own curse and its certain defeat4 ,understand me3 right-doing will not necessarily help you to make a fortune or achieve some great position4 ,you may not have the special gifts to do either4 ,such gifts are something not ourselves which we might easily have been without4 ,neither religion nor morality promises to bestow these gifts1 any more than religion or morality claims to regulate the colour of our hair or the inches of our stature4 ,but when said1 there is yet a wonderful power in right-doing4 ,the man who does the right because he believes in it and loves it1 whether it is called successful or not1 is always bringing out far more than he thought was in him4 ,the faithful doing of daily duty continually reveals opportunities which1 used with readiness and a good conscience1 act upon life with a perpetual and gracious benediction4 ,then what about the end8 ,it may seem a far-off cry to talk to you young men about that4 ,but the end will come1 and you will need nothing then which you do not need all the way4 ,the end will only emphasize the need--the need of a good conscience4 ,the day is coming when all tainted success will mock1 as only a bad record can mock1 when there is but time left to regret1 and none to retrieve the past4 ,i am getting old1 writes one1 and ,i am wealthy2 but ,i would part with every shilling ,i possess1 and take my risk for bread1 to be at peace with my own conscience4 ,trample under your feet the immoral side of the maxim that nothing succeeds like success4 ,success is not always in hitting the things at which you aim2 it is the good conscience that you are aiming only at right things4 ,let your success be goodness1 and goodness will be your success4 ,leave luck to fools1 and act as though it had no existence4 ,believe that character or manhood1 without which nothing great is possible1 is the content of your endowment put out to full advantage through grace and will4 ,believe that every man1 worthy to be called a man1 has in him the promise of the gradual supremacy of character over the accidents and happenings of circumstances4 ,be1 then1 your own luck4 ,link your life in ,christ to ,god1 and stand up to all the world and say-- ,perish policy and cunning1 ,perish all that fears the light4 ,whether losing1 whether winning1 ,trust in ,god and do the right4 #a ,rev4 ,thomas ,templeton1 ,m4,a4 ,a ,,devil',s ,,trinity ,know ye not that ye are a temple of ,god8--,i ,corinthians iii4 #af4 ,,iv ,a ,,devil',s ,,trinity ,there are expressions taken from the ,bible which1 by length of popular usage1 become1 as it were1 independent either of their setting1 or of methods of exposition4 ,this usage has its length of days1 not always in the sense of the expression so much as in its sound4 ,those of you who have been accustomed to listen to ,christian preaching will have often heard appeals to your manhood1 to self-mastery1 to kingship over your habitudes1 rounded off with this question3 ,know ye not that ye are a temple of ,god8 ,in this way it has passed into what ,i have called popular usage4 ,and whatever it may be as exegesis1 it is good admonition4 ,if we may speak of a house made with hands as a dwelling-place of the ,most ,high1 we may also claim an equal sacredness for this mortal temple which is the crowning achievement of ,his creative power4 ,for myself1 ,i have never had the least sympathy with a teaching that almost amounts to a vilification of the body1 and which is at the basis of much that passes for religion1 both ,christian and pagan4 ,our body is a gift worthy of the ,giver4 ,we can do much to mar it in ourselves1 and through us for others4 ,hitherto the one perennial idolatry of the world has been destruction2 and if one thing has escaped this insanity less than another1 it is the human body4 ,but for all that1 we do not deny that a picture may be a work of genius1 because any madman could destroy it in less time than it takes to suggest the possibility4 ,much is said and written about the duality that is in us2 and many of us are ,manichean without knowing technically what the term means4 ,the two parts in the same self are represented as ,east and ,west1 and never the twain shall meet4 ,we must understand1 however1 what we mean by this bisection of man4 ,between the carnal and the spiritual there must be no compromise and there can be no peace4 ,but carnality is not in the body1 it is in the principle that uses the body as its medium and expression4 ,we say much about sins of the flesh2 as a matter of fact there is no such thing4 ,sin is1 before it is wrought out through the flesh4 ,it is not the body that commits adultery or gets drunk1 it is the creature which owns it4 ,the same ,apostle who tells us that the flesh lusteth against the ,spirit1 also speaks about the redemption of the body2 which means that as the latter can be degraded1 so can it be honoured by him who uses it4 ,hence the people who weaken the body to strengthen the soul begin at the wrong end4 ,let them guard the life1 and the strength of the body will become an agent of pleasure and service1 not of sorrow and defeat4 ,it is surely better to ride a fine steed well under control1 than find our safety only because we mount a hack4 ,i have heard young men complain bitterly about the disproportion between their bodily passions and their will-power4 ,they overlook two things--first1 that will can be acquired1 that an act of will means more will2 and1 secondly1 that passion in itself can be1 and is intended to be1 a great and precious possession4 ,the absence of passion may mean an anaemia1 which virtually cuts us off from some of the finest possibilities of human life4 ,our bodies are part1 and the highest part1 of a cosmic order which is sinful only when it refuses to be spiritualized4 ,if we regard the body as an exquisite instrument provided by our ,maker for the translation of the things of the ,spirit1 then so long as the ,spirit working by grace is the master1 we can hardly attach too much importance to the body as a temple of ,god4 ,if any man defile this temple1 says the ,apostle1 him shall ,god destroy4 ,the ways in which it can be defiled are endless1 as some of them are fatal4 ,for my present purpose there are three which ,i want to urge upon your serious consideration4 ,i must try to compress what ,i have to say about them into one address1 because the first ,i shall mention is something about which no clean-minded person would choose to write or talk without having1 what he conceives to be1 the gravest reasons for so doing4 ,in this case1 the fewer the words the more effective they may be1 if they arrest attention1 arouse thought1 and make some headway with the conscience4 ,there are three ways1 ,i repeat1 in which we may defile this temple1 and the first ,i will venture to speak about is the sin of ,impurity4 ,and when ,i say ,i will venture to mention it1 ,i quite realize that ,i am taking some risk4 ,he who would speak with authority and with wisdom on this subject to a mixed audience1 should possess a poet's gifts in the art of putting things4 ,but some one must speak1 and to whom does the duty fall1 if not upon him whose calling it is to stand between the quick and the dead8 ,if the good work of the world must wait to be done by perfect men1 the lease of evil has a long while to run4 ,it is1 in truth1 a sad reflection which should stir up strong protest in every earnest soul1 that this sin--so deadly in its nature--should be practically safe so far as the pulpit is concerned4 ,in many cases this is a result of sensitive timidity1 or it may be an affectation of refinement which is but veneered coarseness4 ,if it be the first1 it should be respected but not yielded to2 if it be the second1 it should receive no indulgence from us4 ,the great ,hebrew prophets1 and the ,supreme ,teacher ,himself1 did not surrender this stronghold of the soul to the evil one from a shrinking which1 if a man cannot conquer1 he is no preacher1 and still less to a mental indolence that will not seek out acceptable words through which to convey a warning4 ,i speak as unto wise men1 and submit it to your judgment whether the preacher who has to any extent the ear of young men can afford this eternal silence concerning a subject that so vitally affects character1 society1 and the race to which we belong4 ,there are many reasons why this sin of impurity seems to be on the increase4 ,the old order of town and country is fast breaking up1 and practically the whole migration and emigration is to the former4 ,britain is fast becoming a series of congested centres of population4 ,one consequence is the increasing number of women and girls who find it terribly hard to survive in the pitiless struggle to exist4 ,and we know what this means in so many cases4 ,it is no secret how the scanty earnings of a growing body of girls are eked out4 ,this is not a matter on which to dwell1 and while it is serious enough to compel some very searching thoughts1 ,i refer to it in order to say how much ,i want to see the day when every calling1 profession1 and trade in which a woman can earn her bread and efficiently make her way1 shall be open to her equally with a man4 ,the education of our girls should be the care of parents and the ,state1 every whit as much as the education of our lads4 ,there are positions in which ,i should not care to see women1 and hence ,i would work all the harder to bring about the economic conditions in which sex1 and the means of livelihood1 can have some fitting correspondence4 ,this ,i say1 that he who would exclude a woman because of her sex from any place where she can turn to honest account her capacities and industry1 is the enemy of women4 ,to the extent you restrict what is called the sphere of a woman who is dependent upon her own toil1 you set up temptations which every man worthy the name of man should sacrifice much to make impossible4 ,there is also the growing reluctance of young men1 more especially in the upper and middle classes1 to undertake the responsibilities of married life2 so rarely now are they content to creep before they walk4 ,they must begin where their parents leave off in position1 appearances1 and comforts4 ,this often means to defer marriage until these can be secured2 but it does not always mean that these men keep a clean record in the meanwhile4 ,a sinister consideration which has much to answer for in the existence of a class of women which1 in turn1 takes a terrible revenge on its makers6 ,nor are parents always as free from blame as they might be4 ,i have known fathers and mothers who had the reputation of being good men and women1 sternly forbid their daughters to engage themselves to young men who had most things to recommend them1 except too much means2 and ,i have known them encourage the advances of men whose past and present should have excluded them from any decent home--only because these men had money4 ,my purpose1 however1 in these remarks is not to discuss the sources or temptations to impurity1 so much as to say a faithful word to young men about the thing itself4 ,permit me to counsel you to face the truth and not to fear it1 that past a given age in your life and up to another the cravings of our lower nature are tremendously strong4 ,if you would fight the good fight for a clean manhood1 make no mistake about the task that lies before you4 ,these cravings implanted in a healthy man or woman are in themselves beautiful and right4 ,all turns upon the control of them4 ,if ,nature could have let us off more easily the conflict would have been less searching2 but nothing weaker would have secured the perpetuation of the race1 and all that it involves in struggle1 anxiety1 and self-sacrifice4 ,a young man came to me not long ago to ask for my signature to an application he was making for a certain position4 ,he told me in a few words about the years he had given to the fitting of himself for the place he was seeking1 and how anxious he was to get it1 because1 as he said1 he wanted to be married and to make a home for himself4 ,as he talked to me there was something so clean that looked out of the eyes of him1 while at the same time he gave me the impression of so modest a self-efficiency1 that my entire sympathy and heartiest good wishes were won for him4 ,i mention this incident because ,i want to hint much that ,i cannot put into words4 ,as you sight the years of responsibility you will1 if you are wise1 prepare yourselves by industry1 thought1 and control1 with a view to married life2 for marriage1 among other things1 is the natural1 the honourable1 and the divine provision for the legitimate cravings of our nature4 ,whenever ,i hear a man speak sneeringly of marriage1 if ,i have to conclude that he says what he feels1 ,i may not think him a fool1 but ,i strongly suspect that he is a blackguard4 ,he who attacks marriage2 he who by word or deed sets himself to undermine this foundation of our moral society1 must settle the matter with me1 and if ,i do not bring him to reason1 then ,i have nothing more to do with him4 ,so wrote ,goethe1 and ,i echo his words in your hearing4 ,keep marriage before you as a sacred goal1 and as an incentive to put out the best there is in you in order to reach it4 ,do more than this2 resolve that when you enter this covenant you will carry into it as clean a conscience about the past as you expect her to have who gives her happiness into your keeping4 ,one sex can substantiate no claim to licence1 or even indulgence in this matter1 that can be morally denied to the other4 ,there are events in life that are worth more than it costs to meet them well2 marriage is pre-eminently one of them1 and you can1 if you elect to do so1 enter it unspotted men4 ,get control of your imagination4 ,be lord over your thoughts4 ,you cannot1 as an old ,puritan writer says1 prevent the birds from flying over your head1 but you can prevent them making their nests in your hair4 ,which means that while you may not be able to prevent given thoughts from darting into the mind1 you can forbid their finding a home there4 ,the danger is not in what comes1 but in what is permitted to stay4 ,you have some sense of the training that is needed in certain parts of your nature2 and if you join that training to the help of ,god1 you can not only cast evil cravings out of your life1 you can do something that is harder still--you can keep them out4 ,be careful about companionships4 ,have no friendship with him who boasts of his amours1 the affairs of the heart1 that he can sustain at the same time4 ,shun1 as you would a pestilence1 the man of unclean speech4 ,let it be a truth with you which must not be questioned1 that the truest indication of nobility of character is reverence for womanhood4 ,by the sweet and holy thoughts of your mother1 by your sacred love and wishes for your sister1 ,i would remind you of words in which the wisdom of many buried ages lingers3 ,keep innocence1 keep purity1 and do the thing which is right1 so shalt thou be brought at the last to thine end in peace4 ,may you watch and pray1 that you yield not to temptation4 ,may you watch and pray1 that you enter not eternity with that stain upon the soul which no tears of your own can ever wash away1 or time blot out of the memory4 ,another way in which we may defile this temple of the body is by the habit of ,betting4 ,we usually speak of betting and gambling1 but the latter term includes and covers transactions so wide in extent1 and complex in their nature1 as to make it impossible for me in this address to do more than refer to them4 ,it must be understood in the few remarks ,i purpose to offer on this subject1 that ,i confine them to what ,i have called the habit of betting4 ,i shall not affirm that betting is necessarily a sin1 but ,i do state it as my conviction that its tendency and results are practically always in that direction4 ,william ,cobbett--than whom no man has ever written more sensibly to young men--says that betting is always criminal in itself1 or in what it leads to4 ,the root of it is covetousness1 a desire to take from others something for which you have given1 and intend to give1 no equivalent4 ,these statements may be debated1 but they appeal to me as essentially sound4 ,a young man says3 ,if ,i choose to risk a sum of money which ,i can afford to lose over a bet with some one else who can afford to do the same1 what has talk about equivalent got to do with it8 ,what1 or where1 is the wrong in such a transaction8 ,this is a test question1 and ,i am disposed to answer it by saying that ,i do not think any young man who takes himself seriously will urge it2 and when put on a lower plane1 the closer you examine it the more rotten it is found to be4 ,is it wrong to cultivate and indulge a habit that inevitably leads to bad results8 ,and that is what betting does1 apologize for it as you may4 ,putting aside for the moment any considerations about the money you can afford to lose1 you cannot afford1 either in your own or in the interests of the community of which you are a part1 to take the moral risks that are involved in betting4 ,it is to insult our intelligence to deny that1 comprehensively speaking1 the basis of betting is cupidity1 and cupidity of a particularly dangerous kind4 ,there may be exceptions1 but they are scarcely worth mentioning2 whatever may be the inception of the habit of betting1 it almost inevitably roots itself as greed2 and it is greed that consumes character like a furnace4 ,it is the black altar on which everything worth being must suffer immolation4 ,i was told some time ago of a place of worship which had a billiard-table on its premises4 ,provided at the suggestion of the minister with the best of intentions1 it was soon turned into a means of betting4 ,the managers were obliged to take the matter into serious consideration1 and out of a regard to the susceptibilities of the young men who used the table1 they decided not to prohibit stakes upon a game1 but to insist that all winnings should be handed over to the ,hospital ,fund4 ,the room was soon comparatively deserted4 ,the interest was not billiards1 so much as billiards plus the money won or lost in betting on billiards4 ,when ,i am told that to stake a trifle upon a game is not for the sake of winning money1 so much as to give the due seasoning of excitement to amusement1 ,i have to remark that in a few cases this may be so1 but it is not the explanation of betting4 ,almost entirely it comes to mean the desire to win money for which we have given1 and intend to give1 no just equivalent4 ,that almost deserted room on the church premises tells the truth about the whole squalid business4 ,almost any kind of amusement1 not accompanied with betting1 is1 to an increasing number of people1 as insipid as water is to the palate of a brandy-drinker4 ,in the case of young men the habit does two things3 it gives rise to false and ruinous impressions1 and it murders the soul4 ,as touching the former1 it tempts a young man to think he can get a living1 and a flourishing one1 without working for it--a greatly coveted science in these days4 ,it seems so much easier to put money in the pocket this way1 than by honest toil with head or hands1 or both4 ,the notorious fact that betting strikes at the root-principle of worthy and strenuous labour1 is not the least of the vicious features of this many-sided evil4 ,it also creates the most hopeless form of selfishness1 and it grows by what it feeds on4 ,the avarice of betting destroys the best part of us4 ,as ,i have said1 it kills the soul4 ,who1 indeed1 can call that which is left in the confirmed gambler1 a soul6 ,it is rather1 as one well describes it1 a shrunken1 useless organ1 a noble capacity sentenced to death by an ignoble passion1 which droops as a withered hand by the side1 and cumbers ,nature like a rotten branch4 ,to my thinking1 it is a waste of time to ask1 and it is an abuse of time to discuss the question1 wherein the wrong or evil of betting consists4 ,the practice has evil consequences1 and evil consequences only2 and they necessarily become the more evil the more widely it is diffused throughout society4 ,what other proof of wrong does a right-minded person ask8 ,my estimate of the effects of betting is such that ,i would neither employ nor trust any man who is addicted to it4 ,i hope and believe that ,i am talking to young men who have never touched this dangerous thing4 ,continue to be wise4 ,others1 it may be1 have ventured a little way4 ,my message to you is1 turn away from it1 another step may make retreat impossible4 ,as you value the things that rightly enter into life for attainment and possession--honest enterprise1 true success1 worthy ambition1 upright character1 peace of mind1 and hopefulness of outlook--bind these words about your neck1 write them upon the table of your heart3 ,he that getteth riches1 and not by right1 shall leave them in the midst of his days1 and at his end shall be a fool4 ,and once more1 we may defile the temple of the body by ,drunkenness4 ,or if this term1 and the state it connotes1 be unduly aggressive1 let me say by an intemperate use of strong drink4 ,there are those who tell us that any use which passes it through the lips is intemperate4 ,if ,i offer a word of criticism on this position1 it is because ,i want the assent of your reason in the few things ,i have to say about this part of the subject before us4 ,the first condition of permanent reform is1 that it shall be founded on truth4 ,the peculiar temptation1 it has been said1 of the ardent reformer is to exaggerate4 ,intense feeling is apt to build upon a half-truth--the unsafest of all foundations4 ,it is one thing to insist upon the evils that are inseparable from an intemperate indulgence in strong drink1 it is quite another thing to assert that it is evil1 and evil only1 to touch it at all4 ,the latter order of polemic is always liable to bring about a reaction which is terribly prejudicial to the good we desire to accomplish4 ,i have no warrant to question a man's loyalty to the forward movements of our time1 who conscientiously for the sake of health1 as he thinks1 or social arrangements1 cannot recognize it as his duty to forswear drink altogether4 ,when a man claims his liberty to be the arbiter of his habits in his home1 or in society1 for me to arrogate the right to censure him may be impertinence2 and1 so far as ,i am concerned1 to read him out of ,christian consistency may be to make myself1 as ,st4 ,james puts it1 a judge of evil thoughts4 ,when a man has reached fifty years of age1 and has worked hard and lived sparingly1 if he should consider it advisable to relax somewhat the severities of earlier years1 ,i have nothing to say to him unless it be to remind him of the example he owes to others1 and of the need there always is to keep before us the warning3 ,let him that thinketh he standeth1 take heed lest he fall4 ,i think it right to put this side of the question in its just evidence1 and having done so ,i willingly dismiss it with the remark that ,i am not talking to middle-aged nor to old men4 ,my appeal is to young men1 and ,i say to you without qualification1 without a suspicion of mental reservation1 you do not need strong drink4 ,there are conceivable circumstances where it may be medically prescribed1 but such prescription from competent men has well-nigh reached the vanishing-point4 ,near as any statement can get to its ultimate1 ,i affirm that you never have need of this drink4 ,keep it1 then1 out of your blood in your threshold years1 and you will have less or no craving for it at all in those that are travelling your way4 ,if you should imagine that you inherit the craving1 there is1 at any rate1 one rampart which1 if held1 the craving cannot force--that is1 total abstinence from the thing craved4 ,range yourselves with the abstainers1 and be proud of your legion4 ,it will be better for you in every way1 whether it be in physical health1 mental efficiency1 moral force1 or spiritual attainment4 ,settle it with yourselves1 that there are no conditions in your life which can be called normal1 and few that are abnormal1 where you need the drink1 and that to trifle with a thing so unnecessary1 and yet so dangerous1 is moral idiocy4 ,i plead with you to take high ground in your conceptions of the duty you owe to yourselves1 and to your day and opportunities4 ,as a nation we have to conquer drunkenness1 or it will go far1 as it is doing now1 to conquer the nation4 ,and we have a right to look to you young men to lead us forth to this great victory4 ,we have the right to ask you to quit yourselves like men in mighty attack upon this devil's trinity of impurity1 gambling1 and drunkenness4 ,i have said little in this address on what is called its distinctively religious side4 ,the religion is in the subject itself4 ,realize what it is that needs to be done in yourselves and in the world around you1 and ,i will trust religion to take care of itself4 ,face this work of conquest first by self-conquest1 and you will find the need of a help not yourselves and greater than yourselves4 ,and the help will come3 ,i can do all things1 said the ,apostle1 through ,christ which strengtheneth me4 ,i wish he would find the point again in this speaking man1 and stick to it with tenacity1 with deadly energy1 for there is need of him yet4 ,so wrote ,thomas ,carlyle of the preacher4 ,could we but find the point again--take the old spectacles off his nose1 and looking up discover1 almost in contact with him1 what the real ,satanas1 the soul-devouring1 world-devouring devils are4 ,i have tried1 however imperfectly1 yet faithfully1 to talk to you about three of these soul-devouring1 world-devouring devils4 ,give them no inch of foothold in your life1 and do a brother's part for others who1 perhaps weaker than you1 are waging the same conflict in the interest of the things that are sacred1 and kingly1 and divine4 ,and when your brief mortal life is over you shall have the noble satisfaction of knowing that you have done something to make sure and real the power of that new day when our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth1 and our daughters shall be as corner-stones1 polished after the similitude of a palace4 ,,temptation ,,and ,,responsibility ,let no man say when he is tempted1 ,i am tempted of ,god3 for ,god cannot be tempted with evil1 and ,he ,himself tempteth no man2 but each man is tempted1 when he is drawn away by his own lust1 and enticed4--,st4 ,james i4 #ac1 #ad4 ,v ,,temptation ,,and ,,responsibility ,st4 ,james has been called the ,saxon of the goodly company of the ,apostles4 ,it is in many ways a happy description4 ,we associate the term with thought1 rugged1 perspicuous1 easily grasped1 and expressed in the shortest and most readily understood words4 ,st4 ,peter1 in a reference to the letters of his beloved brother ,paul1 warns the reader of these letters that there are things in them hard to be understood1 which the ignorant handle only to their own confusion4 ,if the former part of this warning were written about the ,epistle ,general of ,st4 ,james it would be dismissed at once1 as having neither point nor application4 ,st4 ,james does not think deeply1 but he thinks clearly4 ,he knows what he wants to say1 and he says it in language that he who runs may not only read but understand4 ,he touches most of the great themes that engage the commanding mind of ,st4 ,paul1 and settles them--for no other word so well describes the process--in his own characteristic fashion4 ,in the passage before us he attacks the most difficult subject which the mind of man can approach1 and disposes of it to his own satisfaction in some forty-two of the shortest and most decisive words to be found in any speech or language4 ,it is well to come across a man like this occasionally2 he may not be profound1 but he has abundance of common-sense4 ,we see him just as ,god made him--genuine1 sincere1 calm1 and clear1 touching with searching words1 if not quite the roots of things1 yet1 without a doubt1 the things themselves4 ,he was the ,apostle of that myriad-headed person known as the man on the streets4 ,st4 ,paul1 however1 to the end of his manifold and strenuous life1 was always the student and the theologian4 ,and in nothing does the difference between these two men better illustrate itself than in their separate treatment of what is called the ,problem of ,evil4 ,st4 ,paul speaks of evil as the law in his nature1 as so entrenched there that the good he would do he does not1 and the evil he would not do he does4 ,unless we weigh these words carefully1 we overlook the significance1 in the connection before us1 of this term law4 ,it implies that evil is1 somehow1 a part of our being2 a something not our higher selves1 and yet so deeply rooted in our nature1 that like an unsleeping sentinel must a man be on his guard against it to the end of his mortal days4 ,were it not for this ,apostle's mighty faith in ,him who can give us the victory through our ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 we should say that he stands ever on the margin of that dark river in whose mysterious deeps are possibilities of wickedness and disaster1 the sorrow of ,god1 and the despair of man4 ,st4 ,james would not have put himself in opposition to a single thing that ,st4 ,paul wrote about the seat and nature of evil1 but to him the practical question was not its source but its control1 and concerning the latter he is sufficiently explicit3 ,let no man say when he is tempted1 ,i am tempted of ,god3 for ,god cannot be tempted with evil1 neither tempteth ,he any man2 but every man is tempted1 when he is drawn away of his own lust1 and by his own lust permits himself to be enticed4 ,you will notice that in this passage the writer puts no emphasis on outward inducements to sin2 he says nothing1 for example1 about a devil4 ,i do not assume that he would have questioned for a moment the traditional teaching about ,satan4 ,but he will allow no man to transfer to circumstances1 inheritances1 temptation1 or devil1 a responsibility which is his own4 ,comprehensively speaking1 he declares that if men do wrong it is because they want to do wrong1 or because they are not disposed to make a creditable fight against it4 ,so far as men know the right1 the right they can do1 if they will4 ,we can readily imagine how this ,apostle would handle one of the modern and enlightened critics1 who appear to think they have but to refuse a name in order to get rid of the thing which the name is held to represent4 ,you tell us1 he says to a man of this order1 that there is no devil2 that to think or talk of him in any personal sense1 say in the sense that ,milton incarnates him in ,paradise ,lost1 is mischievous and absurd4 ,that sounds formidable1 but to what does it amount8 ,the word1 or name1 'devil1' you1 tell us1 simply connotes a principle4 ,very well1 take the initial letter from the word1 and what have you left8 ,you have 'evil1' and that is the only thing about which you and ,i need concern ourselves4 ,in what degree have you advanced 'liberal thought1' as you choose to call it1 by telling us there is no devil1 while yet there is so much that is devil-like in yourself and in us all8 ,the ,apostle leaves a legion of questions unanswered1 and1 as compared with ,st4 ,paul's treatment of this complex problem of moral evil1 he moves on the surface4 ,but he is himself2 and1 in his plain and terse fashion1 he forces upon our attention one truth which1 on the principle that an inch of fact is worth a yard of theory1 is1 if well in the mind1 more useful than acres of metaphysics which leave us very much where we were4 ,his broad affirmation is1 that temptation does not1 and cannot1 put sin into a man's mind or heart4 ,temptation does not make1 it only finds4 ,the prince of this world cometh1 said our ,lord1 and hath1 or findeth1 nothing in ,me4 ,and ,his ,apostle takes his stand on the position1 that temptation does no more than reveal the latent evil within us1 waiting its opportunity to come out4 ,i mind me of a remark ,i once read1 and which has suggested whatever of worth there is in this address4 ,as to the notion1 says the writer1 that our adversary the devil puts evil thoughts in our mind1 ,i contend that neither ,god nor devil does it4 ,god would not1 the devil cannot4 ,the most that the enemy of our souls can do1 is to stir and use the possibilities already there4 #a ,this1 if ,i rightly apprehend his meaning1 is essentially the contention of the ,apostle ,james4 ,the temptation is to the latent evil what the spark is to the inflammable material4 ,if the material were not there the spark would be as harmless as though it dropped into ice-water4 ,i can hear words1 ,i can see things1 but they will have power over me only in the measure that something in me answers to the words and the things4 ,i was so tempted1 says a man1 and ,i yielded1 which means that the desire already there came into contact with the opportunity to gratify it1 and in what struggle there was1 the desire was greater than the will-power put out to control it4 ,to say that the sight of opportunity to do evil often makes evil done may be true1 but the sight does not make the evil1 it only discovers the evil ready for the sight4 ,in the first place1 then1 the ,apostle admonishes us1 that we cannot refer the guilt of our sin1 or the responsibility for moral failure1 to causes and sources outside ourselves4 ,we may do that with failure of many kinds1 but never in a case of conscious moral obliquity4 ,the ,apostle ,james would have agreed with the greater ,apostle when he said3 ,i find a law within me1 that when ,i would do good1 evil is ever present2 but he would not the less have stood his ground and said3 ,call it a law if you like1 but it is not1 and is not meant to be1 beyond our control4 ,it is one thing to be tempted1 it is another thing to fall4 ,every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed4 ,let us allow at this point for a word of qualification1 or we may find ourselves in confusion4 ,as ,i have just hinted1 we must not confound moral guilt and its consequences with the consequences of troubles and failures over which we have next to no control4 ,here is a man1 let us say1 who is a hard worker1 temperate1 enterprising1 and upright4 ,he is making headway in a certain business4 ,but a powerful combination is formed in the same line1 which offers him the two alternatives of absorption or almost certain ruin4 ,he decides to hold out against it1 to find possibly after a time that his business is gone1 and with it his capital1 and he himself in a world that apparently has no further use for him4 ,then1 soured and bitter1 nursing a sense of wrong1 he gradually parts with his self-respect1 probably takes to drink1 and goes down below the hope-mark of social redemption4 ,the man--and you probably have known such an one--may1 or he may not1 have been responsible for his business disasters4 ,he had a right to trust to his own judgment1 and providing that he did not choose to enter the combination1 he was justified in making a struggle for his own independence4 ,whether his decision was a wise one is nothing to the point2 it was his decision1 and he had the right to exercise it4 ,it brought trouble4 ,that was a contingency to be reckoned in the risk2 but having taken it1 he had no right to sacrifice his manhood to his trouble4 ,he might not be able to resist the strength of the circumstances that selected him for a commercial victim1 but he was bound to overcome the weakness in himself to which the circumstances appealed4 ,he might not be responsible for losing his business1 but he was responsible for losing himself4 ,we talk about people doing wrong from force of circumstances4 ,well1 every man who knows anything about it1 has felt something of the touch of omnipotence there may be in circumstances4 ,it is not always either kind or wise to try to hearten people who are in difficulties1 by concealing or underrating their force and gravity4 ,it is a terrible experience for a man past a certain age in his life1 to find himself in the grip of financial difficulties1 and face to face with social annihilation4 ,i have seen men there1 and the very thought of it unnerves me4 ,but past it all1 the old saying holds good1 there is nothing in life we can afford to do wrong for2 and if1 in the stress of circumstances1 a man elects to take a wrong turn1 he takes it according to the teaching of the text1 because the inclination towards wrong is there1 waiting its turn4 ,we may sympathize with a man who goes down in his outward affairs and social status before the impact of circumstances he cannot resist1 but we must maintain at the same time1 that while circumstances may explain the trouble1 whatever it is1 they cannot justify wrong-doing either to escape trouble or as a refuge when in it4 ,victor ,hugo declares that for every crisis we have in us an instinct to meet it4 ,that is a fine saying4 ,if any man1 who has had some moral training1 will obey his first instinct of right1 it is marvellous what possibilities there are at the heart of it4 ,if1 finding himself after the best he can do apparently defeated1 he will take heed and be quiet--that is1 do the best he can with what is left1 and trust ,god--he will also find that the resources of the old word are not yet exhausted3 ,light is sown for the righteous1 and gladness for the upright in heart4 ,he may have to lose his means1 and step down in the world1 as it is called1 but let him do it with a clean conscience and a fine integrity2 and just as man's periods are only ,god's commas1 so this man's going down is but a more splendid way of going up4 ,i can imagine that nothing is more pleasing in the sight of ,heaven than to see uprightness only the more enlightened1 quickened1 and made imperative by the troubles and vicissitudes of life4 ,let a man keep1 if he can1 what he has honourably got2 but if go it must1 let it go rather than attempt to save it at the cost of moral integrity4 ,let him say3 ,empty my purse if need be1 but fill my soul2 take my world1 but spare my life2 darken my circumstances1 but keep bright my spiritual outlook4 ,and what are the slights and neglect of a passing and superficial world to a man whose life is in tune with the ,infinite1 who hears in secret what one day will be said from the housetops of time and eternity3 ,well done1 good and faithful servant8 ,we are not always responsible for the temptations that sweep into our life4 ,i will go further than that1 and say that we are not necessarily responsible for what the attack of temptation finds in us2 that1 in some cases1 may be our inheritance1 and in others faults of early training2 but we are responsible for what temptation does with what it finds4 ,for it cannot be repeated too often that temptation never puts evil in our thoughts1 it only makes manifest the evil that is there4 ,and hardly more do we differ in our features than we do in the things which1 and through which1 we are temptable4 ,we cannot all be tempted by the same thing1 but all of us can be tempted by something4 ,you remember how ,achilles was dipped in the magic water and made invulnerable in all parts except one4 ,where the finger and thumb held the heel it was dry1 and1 though the arrows glanced off from the other parts of the body1 when they pierced this one soft place he was wounded1 and that unto death4 ,each one of us has his vulnerable place1 and it is our life-business to guard it4 ,the weak place is there2 the arrow will be aimed at it1 and if it find the place it is aimed at1 we may refer the blame to what or where we will1 it does not affect the truth1 that the blame is nigh unto us1 even at our own door4 ,let no man say when he is tempted1 ,i am tempted of ,god3 for ,god cannot be tempted with evil things2 neither tempteth ,he any man with1 or unto1 evil things2 but every man is tempted when he is drawn away1 when he yields to his own lust1 and by it is enticed1 by it is overcome4 ,which means1 in the second place1 that not only is a man his own worst enemy1 but that no enemy outside of man's self can vitally hurt him1 except so far as he places himself within the enemy's power4 ,this is not to say that other people cannot hurt us2 still less is it to say that it is not their will and wish to hurt us4 ,to commit oneself to such a statement would be to speak in the teeth of the commonest experience of human life4 ,there are men1 and women too1 who have the will1 the wish1 and the power to hurt us4 ,they are1 as ,christ said of this brood in ,his day1 of their father the devil4 ,to say a kind word about any one1 to do a generous turn for others on the road of life1 would be to them a positive task4 ,there are people with whom ,i would as soon think of entrusting anything ,i held sacred1 as ,i would think of risking the blood in my veins to the instinct of a deadly snake4 ,nor is it want of charity to say this2 it is want of sense to deny it4 ,beware of men is as much a word of ,jesus as ,his command to love one another4 ,there does not seem to be in the mind of most people any clear conception of the attitude of ,christ towards sin and sinful people4 ,and this confusion is at the bottom of many of our speculative difficulties1 as well as of our practical troubles in the ,christian ,church4 ,when we are convinced that a man's policy and his motives as translated in his policy are inimical to the highest interests of others1 to the commonwealth of good1 then we owe it to ourselves and others to speak and act upon our conviction4 ,there are men1 again1 whose vested interests mean our hurt1 working through institutions that are co-extensive with our civilization4 ,look about you on the effects of drink1 and then think how attractive its surface accessories are made4 ,consider the men who make fortunes out of lust itself2 how seductive they make the openings and avenues which end in the lethal chambers wherein are dead men's bones4 ,we have in our midst a well-organized body of men who make it their business for money to trade upon and to tempt the lowest and most dangerous forces of our carnal nature4 ,and what does it mean when these men are1 by the acknowledgment of public sentiment1 the representatives of what is called legitimate business8 ,it can only mean that the sentiment which should be the active and protective side of a worthy manhood is being used to destroy it4 ,beware of men who say to evil3 ,be thou my good6 ,reckon with the fact that in so far as we stand for anything in a life worth living1 there are people who have the will1 the wish1 and the power to do us hurt4 ,and yet1 ,i say again1 they can hurt us vitally--mark the word vitally--only so far as we place the opportunity within their power4 ,we have to hurt ourselves before we can be hurt by anything outside us4 ,we have to be our own enemy to give the enemy his advantage4 ,nothing1 says ,st4 ,bernard1 can work me harm except myself2 the harm ,i sustain ,i carry about with me1 and never am ,i a real sufferer but by my own fault4 ,recall once more the word of the ,lord ,jesus1 how ,he said3 ,the prince of this world cometh1 and findeth nothing in ,me4 ,the prince of this world crucified ,christ2 he made ,him the victim of the fear1 the hate1 the murderous fury of the organized religious classes of that day4 ,but the prince of this world could not pass by a shade the extent which the saving purpose of the ,saviour had ,himself decreed and set fast4 ,when the prince of this world came to the soul of the ,saviour1 the power of the prince of this world had reached its limits4 ,had there been1 ,i will not say sin1 but a sin2 had there been the shade of a suspicion of what the world significantly calls a past in that ,soul1 the devil would have had his leverage1 and the ,divine ,saviourhood would have thinned out at the most in the ordinary tragedy of a human martyrdom4 ,the emissaries of the prince of this world could lay violent hands on the body of ,christ--that was permitted for your salvation and mine2 but their power became impotence when it approached the soul1 and there is where the battle is won or lost4 ,fear not him who can kill the body only1 but fear it--that is the better translation--fear it1 the evil principle within thee1 that can cast both body and soul in hell4 ,we are told that a man once wrote the late ,mr4 ,spurgeon saying that unless he received from him within two days a specified sum of money1 he would publish certain things that would go far to destroy the great preacher's hold upon public estimation4 ,and ,mr4 ,spurgeon wrote back upon a postcard3 ,you1 and your like1 are requested to publish all you know about me across the heavens4 ,there is a world of meaning in the answer4 ,this master in ,israel had his enemies1 who would have hailed as a providence any report1 true or false1 which could have been effectually used to strike at the message through the man4 ,and it was because the man had not made himself his own enemy1 in the past or in the present1 that he could look this devil in the face and tell him that he was the devil4 ,this is how one man came out of an encounter with an enemy outside him2 take another case where the enemy of a man was the man himself4 ,he came to me1 this man1 when ,i was working in the ,south of ,england4 ,in a bitter temper he told me that he had been dismissed from a business house in the town4 ,he had left a good situation six months before he entered this house1 and was now ousted to make room for one who had resented his appointment from the first1 and had been his enemy4 ,i spoke1 as ,i promised to do1 to the employer1 with whom ,i had some influence1 and in whose integrity ,i had implicit confidence4 ,it is an absolute misrepresentation of the facts1 he assured me4 ,the man1 he said1 got his situation on no better than false pretences4 ,he had not been with us a week when it was evident that he was quite unequal to the duties of the position he had professed himself competent to fulfil4 ,it is nonsense to say that any one has ousted him2 the truth is1 that he has wasted his time1 and thrown away his opportunity1 so that in what should be his own line he has neither training nor proficiency to be other than a low-placed man4 ,this is a single line in a large literature4 ,it was a foolish use of the past that became the man's enemy the moment his present required something better4 ,and this is an instance of how we can so become our own enemy1 as to make it impossible for ,god to be our friend1 in the sense we imagine ,god should be our friend4 ,it would be1 not the law which is the deepest expression of divine thought and love1 but immoral force1 if we could waste the time sacred to the preparation for a better position1 and yet be ready for the position when it comes our way4 ,god can forgive the waste1 but ,god cannot give us back what the waste has lost out of our life4 ,we must never lose sight of the fact that divine forgiveness cannot be vulgarized into impunity4 ,i do not say for a moment1 in the case of a middle-aged man1 that the enemy he has made of himself is irredeemable and hopeless4 ,i believe that a man's own effort and the grace of ,god can change this enemy into a valuable friend1 if a man is man enough to accept and honour the cost of the great transformation4 ,but how few people1 past a given age1 ever do quite conquer the inward foes whose sinister power is of their own cultivation8 ,for one man who goes down before an outward enemy1 there are a score who lay themselves in the dust and keep themselves there by acts that become habits1 and habits that become character1 and character that hardens into something that looks like destiny4 ,this1 therefore1 suggests a closing word to you younger people4 ,many of you to whom ,i speak are in the making4 ,you are on the threshold of your manhood1 with practically the future in your own hands4 ,i often recall my faltering energies in thought of a remark ,i once heard the revered principal#b of my college make to a body of students who were about to enter upon their ministry3 ,gentlemen1 said he2 you may be able to offer twenty good reasons in after life for your failure1 if fail you do4 ,people will not concern themselves about your reason1 they will simply look at the fact that you have failed4 ,the truth in this remark is preeminently a truth for young people4 ,the world1 on one side of it1 is very hard and cruel4 ,it will apologize for failure in the abstract under tricks of speech1 and cant about charity1 but for individual failure it has no mercy4 ,listen to one who has to fight bitterly his own self-made enemies1 when ,i counsel you to begin straight from the beginning4 ,beware of making to-day the enemy of to-morrow4 ,the present1 says a wise man1 has always got to pay the purchase price of the past4 ,never let the temptation overcome you1 to take a short and shady cut to the gratification of desire1 or in the achievement of what is sought as success4 ,nothing in life is unrelated1 and everything you do which cannot pass the bar of your higher self is not only sin1 but also a blunder4 ,it may sleep to-day1 but it sleeps to wake4 ,when you can least afford it1 it will be more than awake1 it will be hungry4 ,educate and cultivate your conscience1 and never disregard its voice4 ,keep your heart with all diligence2 keep your heart1 and always have in it room for ,god4 ,in the open1 and in the secret of your life1 watch and pray that day by day you may say with ,spurgeon3 ,write1 if you like1 all you know about me across the heavens4 ,and while you may have your enemies in men and circumstances1 they will be as nothing and vanity compared with the friend you have in ,god and yourself4 ,never seek to refer your moral responsibility for actions to influences outside you4 ,settle it once and for good1 that a thing can radically hurt you there only so far as you place yourself within its reach4 ,yield yourselves to the ,power that can lift you by your real need1 the need of regeneration1 which can so change your nature that while you are free to many things that have in them the elements of temptation1 you are yet too free to want them--the ,power which can enable each one of us to say3 ,i fear no foe1 because1 by the help of ,god1 ,i am my own friend4 #a ,george ,dawson1 ,m4,a4 #b ,rev4 ,dr4 ,falding--,clarum et venerabile nomen4 ,,self-,,respect ,,and ,,companionships ,is ,saul also among the prophets8--#a ,samuel x4 #ab4 ,,vi ,,self-,,respect ,,and ,,companionships ,ever since we could hear or notice sayings and things1 and for long before we were here to do either1 this text has been in the world as a kind of proverb-question3 ,is ,saul also among the prophets8 ,if a man says something which is decidedly in advance of his generally-accepted reputation for intelligence and good sense1 if he surprise us by doing something which rises sheer above the plane of his average life1 if we happen to find him in company that is made up of men who are his superiors in attainments1 character1 and social importance1 we mark the unlooked-for circumstance by repeating this text4 ,we say3 ,how does this come to pass8 ,what is the explanation8 ,is ,saul also among the prophets8 ,if we think out our impression1 it means that the unexpected has somehow happened2 that the man must have more in him1 or about him1 than hitherto he has been credited with having1 or by some accident he is found where we should least have thought of looking for him4 ,in a word1 the popular interpretation of ,saul among the prophets is that ,saul had taken a step up4 ,the truth is1 the text may mean that he had taken one down4 ,it all depends who these prophets were4 ,before we can say that it is to a man's credit to be found in a certain company1 and that because he is there we must revise our judgments about him1 we must know what the company is1 and why for the moment he is in it4 ,it is also well to reflect that a man may be in a company and not of it4 ,in these prophets of the time of ,saul1 when we first meet them1 we have the type which prophesying had first assumed on ,canaanitish soil4 ,they were men1 as ,professor ,cornill in his suggestive book tells us1 after the manner of ,mohammedan fakirs1 or dancing and howling dervishes1 who express their religious exaltation through their eccentric mode of life1 and thus it comes that the ,hebrew word1 which means to live as a prophet1 has also the signification to rave1 to behave in an unseemly way4 ,these men lived together in ,israel until a very late date in guilds1 the so-called schools of the prophets4 ,they were1 in fact1 a species of begging friars1 and were held by the people in a contempt which they evidently did their best to deserve4 ,to ,ahab they prophesied whatsoever was pleasing to him to hear2 and as one of them came into the camp unto ,jehu with a message from ,elisha to anoint him king1 his friends asked him3 ,wherefore came this mad fellow to thee8 ,amos likewise indignantly resents being placed on the same level with this begging fraternity3 ,i was no prophet1 he says1 neither was ,i a prophet's son4 ,and so when the people exclaimed in astonishment3 ,is ,saul also among the prophets8 they did not mean3 ,how is it that such a worldly-minded man finds himself in the company of such pious people8 ,their meaning is better represented in a question like this3 ,how comes a person of such distinction to find himself in such disreputable company8 ,let it be understood that these last two or three paragraphs are roughly paraphrased from ,professor ,cornill's book1 ,the ,prophets of ,israel4 ,my opinion as to how far his reading of this proverb-question will bear criticism is of no value4 ,it may be open to debate whether1 historically1 he has not placed certain hysterical phenomena recorded of these prophets much too late4 ,but whatever scholarship may have to say about his interpretation of our text1 the interpretation commends itself to my judgment1 and it serves the purpose before me4 ,it has1 ,i venture to think1 a very timely message for us all1 and especially to young people4 ,you have heard the question a score of times1 and you will hear it again if you live4 ,hear it then1 for once1 as the remembrancer of this truth--that when ,saul was found among these so-called prophets he had ceased to respect himself1 and when a man does that he must either recover himself1 or accept moral ruin4 ,i care not what his exterior circumstances may be2 just so far as he fears self-scrutiny is he self-damned1 and he knows it4 ,we talk about the basis of character4 ,it is this1 or it is that1 according as a man may regard it from his standpoint of morals or religion4 ,we may call it what we choose1 but one thing is certain1 there can be no worthy character where we have not established some right to respect ourselves4 ,and this right must be born and reared1 not out of egotism1 nor in religious professions1 but in the findings of a cultivated conscience on the motives and actions of our everyday life4 ,a man may have many things1 and many things pre-eminently worth having--but as a question of character1 if he have not the right to respect himself1 that is the lack of the one thing which is virtually the lack of all4 ,i have mentioned religious profession1 and it is well to mark the commonplace but important distinction there may be between religion and our profession of it4 ,religion1 while it is a possession of infinite worth1 may be of no worth to us so long as we know that we are keeping back some part of the righteousness which is the backbone of any religion worth the name4 ,a man's religious beliefs and convictions are his own business4 ,they are between him and a higher tribunal than ours4 ,what he does concerns us2 and what he does he is4 ,it may take a time to identify the true relation between the two1 but our instinct decides the question1 long1 it may be1 before the actions appear to justify the verdict of the instinct4 ,somehow we know through this worth-discerning faculty whether a man is trying to be what we mean when we speak of a good man4 ,i believe that human character is homogeneous4 ,it is of one substance and quality in each particular person4 ,untold mischief has been done by excusing the unpardonable in a man1 on the ground that in some other directions he is a good man4 ,if he is ill to live with in the home1 or is hard and overreaching in his business1 if he willingly makes life more difficult than it need be for others1 this is conduct which is character2 and when it is found with a profession of religion1 let the man1 who thus outrages religion1 be anathema4 ,but at the same time1 young people should not conclude too hastily that a man is a hypocrite because he does some things they cannot reconcile with his profession4 ,a man may be a very faulty man1 and yet be a genuinely good man4 ,his goodness does not excuse his faults1 nor do his faults destroy his claim to goodness4 ,i have known many a son judge a father very harshly1 and find himself in after years glad to find a place of repentance4 ,if you would have less reason later on to call yourself a fool1 be told that as yet you are not the best judges of what are but faults on the surface of a man1 and what are vices that are the man himself4 ,the truth about others will out sooner or later2 what most concerns you in the meanwhile is to know the truth about yourselves4 ,while always trying to think fairly1 and even generously about others1 have you the right to think well of yourselves8 ,it is above all things necessary1 said the late ,president ,garfield1 that in every action ,i should have the good opinion of ,james ,garfield2 for to eat1 and drink1 and sleep1 and awake with one whom you despise1 though that one be yourself1 is an intolerable thought1 and what must it be as a life experience8 ,this is his way of saying that1 as he puts it1 above all things he must be able to respect himself2 and therefore there must be no double existence1 no secret sin1 no side streets off the open thoroughfare of his life1 which he preferred to visit when it was dark--for1 although his neighbours and friends might not know about them1 ,james ,garfield would know about them1 and to be this creature whom you despise was ,garfield's idea of what every rightly ordered man should think of with loathing4 ,it is the word of wise old ,polonius over again-- ,this above all3 to thine own self be true1 ,and it must follow1 as the night the day1 ,thou canst not then be false to any man4 ,let a man have the right to respect himself1 and he has that which can take the sting out of his disappointments and the tyranny of victory out of his failures4 ,he may be no great success1 as the world appreciates success4 ,he may not make much show at money-getting2 the position he fills may not excite much envy4 ,whether or not he achieves this order of success will be all the same fourscore years hence4 ,these things1 seen and temporal1 will be past and forgotten1 but that which he makes himself in the use of them will remain1 and that will not be all the same whatever it is4 ,i myself have been through a hard mill4 ,i know what it is to have to struggle for self-respect over the toil by which ,i earned my bread4 ,i have been counted as just a hand among a few hundred others1 of importance only so far as it affected the cost of a certain production4 ,but ,i say it advisedly1 and speaking out of years which have left their mark1 ,i would rather have this experience to the finish of my mortal days and all the way1 and at the end be able to look my soul in the face and say3 ,there is no shadow between us1 we are at peace--rather this1 ,i say1 than any such success as ,i have had1 multiplied a hundredfold1 if it can only turn to conscience to be smitten by it4 ,i would have you succeed2 and by success ,i mean1 for the moment1 what the world means by the term4 ,why should you not8 ,there is no necessary connection between a straight life and failure to win the kingdoms of this world4 ,you can be clean and conscientious in your methods1 and you can succeed if you have it in you to succeed4 ,if you have not1 scorn the trick of blaming honesty for what is really lack of ability4 ,there may be cases where honesty handicaps a man for a time1 but they are comparatively few and short-lived in their operation4 ,but lift the definition of success to higher levels1 and ,i assert without qualification that with the right to respect ourselves there can be no failure1 and without it there can be no success4 ,that ,i do or do not make money is a question of gift or the favour of circumstances2 that ,i am an honest man haps neither upon accident nor contingency4 ,it is the deliberate and responsible exercise of my own moral will4 ,i may make money or position and be a failure2 ,i may do neither and be a success4 ,let me counsel you to hold it true with the great ,president3 ,i must1 above all things1 have the good opinion of myself4 ,look up to ,god and pray3 ,keep ,thou me from secret faults2 then look in upon yourselves and say3 ,by the help of ,god ,i will make it possible for ,god to give me the help ,i ask4 ,to thine own self be true4 ,put this estimate upon yourself1 and whatever price the world may put upon you1 time will show that you have no more valuable asset than your own self-respect4 ,you may not be able to command the declarative success upon which the world places its emphasis1 but you can always deserve it4 ,he is the great man who can say1 and mean it1 ,i would rather be beaten in the right than succeed in the wrong4 ,saul had ceased to respect himself1 and this very probably supplies the explanation of his being found in this questionable company4 ,bear in mind who1 and what1 these so-called prophets were1 and you gather the force of the surprise with which it was asked3 ,is ,saul also1 the king1 the ,lord's anointed1 in the company of men like these8 ,for in this connection it suggests the influence of companionships4 ,there is a well-known saying that a man is known by the company he keeps1 and it is truer than many sayings that are oftener on our lips4 ,do you think him beyond further effort8 ,i said lately to a good man concerning one in whom we were both interested--a young man fast heading towards ruin4 ,i am afraid there is1 humanly speaking1 no hope1 was the answer2 he has taken up with company that forbids it4 ,when we are young we are apt to evolve friendships out of our imagination4 ,we do not so much prove them as create them1 according to the impulses and undisciplined generosities of our disposition4 ,it is only time1 here as elsewhere1 that can teach us how much there is that is human about the best of friends4 ,but how much may have been done1 for better or for worse1 before we realize that the angels have gone away only because they were never here8 ,as we get older outside friendships count for less4 ,life fills with other interests1 or it empties in a sense friendships can never fill4 ,if we who are older have carried into the later years one or two1 or two or three1 well-laid1 well-tested and useful friendships1 let us be very thankful1 and cherish them4 ,they are pearls of great price1 for no friends are like old friends1 and as they drop off we have to make the best we can of acquaintances4 ,it is when we are young that we have the genius for friendships2 they are1 indeed1 a necessary part of our life4 ,and whether or not it is much use to warn young people about the formation of friendships1 the warning is seriously needed4 ,much will be determined by affinities and by mutual sympathies4 ,you may have to sample many friendships before you find a friend4 ,and while it is difficult1 not to say impossible1 to lay down rules where affinities are involved1 one thing you can do1 you can allow the moral instinct to decide1 as it can decide1 whether in the real interests of character a given friendship is worth cultivation4 ,if you realize that you must surrender something of your better self to be the friend of a certain person1 you will be almost sure to establish that friendship at your peril4 ,it is far harder to save your life than it is to lose it1 and the chances are1 not that you will lift the friendship up to your level1 but that it will pull you down to its own4 ,these remarks on the general subject of personal friendship are warranted by its importance4 ,but there is another aspect of it which1 as a question of widespread and deep-seated influence1 is even more important4 ,and it is one that is too rarely touched in or out of the pulpit4 ,there is something which begins with only an acquaintance1 but it readily grows into more1 and that more is supplied at a heavy cost to the individual and to the community4 ,in a well-known passage in one of his letters1 ,st4 ,paul asks3 ,what concord hath ,christ with ,belial1 or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel8 ,wherefore come out from among them1 saith the ,lord1 and be ye separate2 touch not the unclean thing4 ,both the question and the admonition apply to personal friendships and to other relationships1 such as marriage1 social and business intercourse4 ,but it has another and wider application4 ,they refer to the general attitude of our thought1 our bearing towards interests and people whom we have reason to believe are hurtful themselves and represent hurtful institutions4 ,for me to call myself a ,christian1 and yet be on terms of apparent friendship1 of easy good nature and tolerance of men and things that stand for ,belial1 that are ,belial1 is one of the most effective ways ,i know of crucifying ,christ afresh1 and putting ,him to open shame4 ,whatever the ,king of ,israel might think of his company1 the fact that he was in it gave to their worthlessness a new tenure of existence and to their wickedness an added licence4 ,he did not make them better men1 but they made him a worse man4 ,and for us to appear to countenance wrong things1 so as to favour an impression that possibly they are not so wrong after all2 to strengthen the wickedness which would hide itself behind the sinister expression1 that the devil may not be so bad as he is painted1 is to be on the side of the devil4 ,it is to hearten the foes of good and perplex and discourage the enemies of evil4 ,in that remarkable book1 ,mark ,rutherford's ,deliverance1 the writer speaks of a day when politics will become a matter of life or death1 dividing men with really private love and hate4 ,i have heard it said1 he tells us1 that we ought to congratulate ourselves that political differences do not in this country breed personal animosities4 ,to me this seems anything but a subject of congratulation4 ,men who are totally at variance ought not to be friends1 and if ,radical and ,tory are not totally but merely superficially at variance1 so much the worse for their ,radicalism and ,toryism4 ,most of us1 he goes on to say1 have no real loves and no real hatreds4 ,blessed is love1 less blessed is hatred1 but thrice accursed is the indifference which is neither one nor the other1 the muddy mess which men call friendship4 ,the truth underlying these words is put in a severe form1 but there is truth in it4 ,our compromises in politics1 and the consequent slow and doubtful progress we make in social conditions1 have many explanations1 but the abiding one is1 that at the moral root of things we have not1 as ,mark ,rutherford means it1 those real loves and hatreds which vitally influence conduct4 ,take any wrong that happens to appeal to your sense of indignation1 and ask why it continues8 in what does it get its lease of existence8 ,and the answer is1 the fact that we have too many ,sauls among the prophets4 ,the wrong remains because1 although we do not profess to be its friends1 its friends have no need to reckon with us as its foes4 ,i have already alluded to my experience in a hard school4 ,indulge me if ,i return to it for a moment4 ,my earlier years were spent in a ,lancashire cloth mill4 ,in it ,i wrought from morning to night side by side with youths of my own age and men who were older4 ,for the most part1 young and old1 they were practised in almost every conceivable coarse and brutal way of casting their existence as rubbish to the void4 ,but ,i think ,i can truthfully say that1 while ,i tried to be loyal to the conditions of contact1 and as a comrade in the ranks was not unpopular1 yet they knew that neither within those grim walls nor without them was ,i of their world4 ,it is not easy1 sometimes it is very hard1 to take up this positive position amid one's daily surroundings4 ,and it is not only hard to do the thing itself2 it may be even harder to do it wisely4 ,it is not pleasant to have your conscientious attitudes to things which to you are neither expedient nor permissible interpreted by the old words used as a sneer3 ,stand aside1 for ,i am holier than thou4 ,young people like to be what is called popular with those who touch their lives2 and within well-defined limits they owe it to themselves and others to cultivate the qualities that invite popularity4 ,if1 however1 the price of popularity is some form of compromise with things that harm and things that hate--then1 if you are worth world-room1 you will draw the line sharply and keep on one side of it4 ,and that can be done without giving the impression that you are either a prig or a snob4 ,when you go the right way about it1 the attitude ,i advise is far harder in contemplation than it is in practice4 ,the real difficulty in eight out of every ten of the critical places in life is not what is in them1 but what we imagine is in them4 ,let it be felt that the things you hold to be wrong must expect from you neither compromise nor show of friendship2 that you are the open and declared enemy of unclean speech1 filthy jesting1 secret sins1 with their hints and implied fascinations1 brainless pursuits1 frivolous conversation1 and low down levels of existence1 and1 with the exception of those whose enmity it is a distinction to have1 people will come to realize that your position is neither that of the religious crank nor of self-righteous conceit--that it is the expression and outcome of your reverence for whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report4 ,human society has no need more pressing than its need of young men and women with moral courage and religious conviction to take up the right attitude to wrong things4 ,know ye not that whoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of ,god8 ,when ,saul was found in a certain company he had ceased to respect himself4 ,this is why he was found there2 and these two things were more than enough to sweep his life to its tragic close4 ,how many of us have read this man's life-finish8 ,let me suggest to you something new to read4 ,a story that has in it more elemental material than half the fiction that ever was written1 or half the facts that mortgage the attention of a superficial world4 ,read that chapter where ,saul1 face to face with the last things in his darkened career1 and hard upon the ,nemesis of his own evil past1 seeks out the woman with the familiar spirit1 and in the words that he addresses to the apparition which he conjures up before his distorted vision you have the confession of a lost soul3 ,the ,philistines make war against me1 and the ,lord answered me no more1 neither by prophet nor by dream4 ,i have read nothing1 says a well-known novelist1 quite like this man's experience in its utter abandon of lonely horror4 ,think what you may about the setting of this story1 you will be strangely lacking in moral insight if you miss the meaning that pulsates through the words that were wrung out of ,saul in his extremity4 ,they point to the lost1 which once lost is lost for ever4 ,even ,god1 ,i say again1 cannot give us back the yesterdays4 ,once they are gone we can only say3 ,that which is written is written4 ,many of you have practically the best of your chances before you1 but every day takes some part of them out of your hands1 and gives it to an irrecoverable past4 ,be jealous about your own self-respect1 and do only the things that command it4 ,take care of your self-respect1 and your success will take care of itself2 as also will your companionships4 ,seek ye the ,lord while ,he may be found2 call ye upon ,him while ,he is near4 ,do not put off and forget1 forget and put off until your clock strikes1 and so far as the best of your opportunities are concerned1 you have to say3 ,the ,lord answereth me no more1 neither by prophet nor by dream4 ,lay hold at once upon the help that comes through genuine decision for ,god4 ,place yourself in position where ,god can help you2 and you will find that ,god in ,christ denies you nothing except that which disappoints in the seeking and defeats in the finding4 ,you will realize that ,he offers you life2 strong1 sane1 happy life all the way1 and at the end the more life and the fuller4 ,,the ,,royal ,,law ,howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law1 according to the ,scripture1 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself1 ye do well4--,st4 ,james ii4 #h4 ,,vii ,,the ,,royal ,,law ,what ,st4 ,james calls the ,royal ,law1 is mentioned as far back as the time of ,moses4 ,it is one of the two commands to which our ,lord gave new incidence1 into which ,he put fresh meaning4 ,there has been1 ,i hardly need remind you1 endless debate about the source of some of ,christ's most characteristic sayings4 ,was ,he original in ,his teaching1 as we use the word1 or was ,he eclectic1 gathering together the most luminous things that had been said8 ,jewish scholars1 as we might expect1 have not been slow to point out that many of the sayings attributed to ,jesus1 and certainly many of ,his ideas1 are to be found in the old ,rabbinical writings2 that many of ,his highest truths had been announced by saints and seers of ,his race long before ,he came4 ,we need not question that there is truth in this representation4 ,but we must question the inference from these words1 long before ,he came4 ,for time has known no such solitude4 ,he1 which is1 and was1 and is to come1 has ever been in the world teaching men how to pray1 inspiring them what to say4 ,he had taught them of old time4 ,before ,abraham was1 ,he says1 ,i am4 ,and ,st4 ,john tells us that ,he was in the world1 and the world was made by ,him1 and the world knew ,him not4 ,originality is no mere traffic with words however skilfully manipulated4 ,there is a language of ,god transcending all words1 and intelligible only when we meet ,him spirit to spirit in the secret places of ,his eternity4 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,observe the setting of this admonition when first given3 ,thou shalt not avenge1 nor bear grudge against the children of thy people1 but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,this word neighbour connoted something that was a distinct advance in the upward trend of the race4 ,it did1 at any rate1 a little to lift the ,israelite out of himself into the lives of others4 ,but it meant to him1 at the most1 only those who were of the same tribe or nation4 ,in the fulness of time--when the world was ready--,jesus took up ,his own word spoken through ,moses1 and limited in its interpretation by the moral intelligence of that day2 took up ,his own word1 and made it co-extensive with humanity4 ,this is what ,i mean by a language of ,god transcending all speech4 ,you have been told1 says ,jesus1 to love your neighbour2 and to the question1 ,who is my neighbour8 ,he makes the answer reach out to its full circumference--,thy neighbour is he or she who bears thy nature4 ,by the law which declares that ,god has made of one blood all the nations of the earth1 the physical unity of the race is implied2 so by the operation of the law of love the moral unity1 or1 what we now call the solidarity of humanity1 is intended4 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,and ,i hardly need point out1 that it is this little word as in the text which gives us pause4 ,is it possible1 then1 to bring down this command and incarnate it in our daily life8 ,it does not say1 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour with certain arbitrary qualifications of thy own4 ,it evidently means what it says3 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,is it possible to do it8 ,and many of us are ready to answer1 ,it is not4 ,either there has been some mistake in the way it is reported1 we tell ourselves1 or it is useless to try to fulfil it with such natures as ours in such a world as this4 ,put it in this way3 granted we loved others as we love ourselves--this should be good and pleasant for those who possessed our love1 if it had genuine strength in it4 ,granted1 again1 we had the fulness of the strong love of others1 that should be helpful to us4 ,if we may condition the ,royal ,law in some such manner as this1 ,love them who love us2 or1 love them who are worthy of our love1 the difficulty is obviously lessened1 if not in fact removed4 ,but such a limit1 while it might amount to prudence1 would not reach up to beatitude4 ,if ye love them who love you1 what do ye more than others8 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,but who is thy neighbour8 ,and ,jesus answers1 thy neighbour is he who bears thy nature4 ,this is iteration1 but ,i venture it because ,i want us to confront the real insistence of this text4 ,they who share our nature may be1 and often are1 those who hate us with or without a cause4 ,there are people who perpetuate an existence on others which is little better than a moral and physical calamity4 ,to tell us to tolerate them1 not to speak about loving them1 is like telling us to attempt the impossible4 ,and yet ,jesus did not forget these people when ,he said3 ,love your enemies1 bless them that curse you1 pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you4 ,we1 then1 who say we accept ,christ's teaching must accept it4 ,this is one of the places where we cannot escape behind some ingenuity of exegesis or manipulation of text4 ,the command is plain4 ,we can take it or leave it4 ,one thing we cannot do1 we cannot re-write it4 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,as thyself4 ,if this but fixes a hard standard2 or simply indicates the measurement of neighbourly love1 then we may almost as well close the discussion--its practical attainment is out of our reach4 ,but1 as some one has very wisely said3 ,love of self must become a medium before it becomes a measure4 #a ,in other words1 we cannot love our neighbour as we ought until we love ourselves as we should4 ,out of love of self flow the ingredients which must enter into neighbour love4 ,the text1 then1 lays down a twofold obligation3 to cultivate a right love of self1 and to translate this love of self into love for others4 ,as touching the first part of this obligation1 it is useless to ask what it is in our neighbour we are to love as ourselves1 until we know what it is in ourselves we are to love4 ,in what sense is a man to love himself8 ,because there is a radical difference between self-love as taught and practised in the world1 and the love of self sanctioned and regulated by the ,royal ,law4 ,love of self is a right anxiety to secure the things we need in this world4 ,it is based upon the principle that life is not to be unclothed but clothed upon4 ,the fact that we are in the world and have to fulfil its desired ends should carry with it reverence for our manhood1 and the demand for space to work out its full equation4 ,while the ,apostle ,paul was always ready to subject his rights to the law of love1 he was equally careful to assert that they were his rights before he yielded them4 ,in his care for the weak brethren1 he did not become a weak brother4 ,one of the first things we have to learn1 is how to take wise care of ourselves2 and then1 step by step1 a true life is a growth in the knowledge of how so to take care of ourselves as to promote the best interests of others4 ,in this matter of a right love of self1 the point of transition at which it passes into beneficence is the victory over a self-love which is selfishness4 ,it is really the basal principle of moral government in the world4 ,but when this is said1 the surest and simplest answer to the question1 ,what is it in ourselves we are to love8 is to say--,we are to love that which ,god loves in us4 ,and what does ,god love in us8 ,from all we know of the divine nature as revealed in ,jesus ,christ1 we are surely right in thinking that ,god loves in us what is most like ,himself4 ,no man can stand at ,calvary reverently and thoughtfully for five minutes without being impressed with the truth of a wondrous self-sacrifice4 ,i met with a remark lately in a story ,i was reading which fastened itself on my mind4 ,it was made by a poor1 toiling woman who had scarcely sufficient means to keep body and soul together3 ,i never1 somehow1 she said1 seem to think a thing is mine until ,i have given it away4 ,this is the spirit that ,god loves1 a spirit ever getting further away from miserable aims that end with self4 ,god loves in us the self-mastery that scorns to compromise with self-indulgence4 ,god loves in us that which cannot find its true home in the things seen and temporal1 but must ever soar out to the things unseen and eternal2 the things that live in and wait upon the earnest man and after which he must ceaselessly aspire4 ,god loves in us the strenuous effort which proceeds from the conviction that there is sacred power in every life which must not be wasted in egotistical pride1 or in a narrowing self-love4 ,from instinct1 from the moral consciousness1 from the ,scriptures--these we know to be representative of the things that ,god loves4 ,and we know we are right in loving in ourselves what ,god loves in us4 ,we also know that no man can wisely love himself until he knows the purifying power of a love that is divine4 ,if now ,i may assume that this exposition of the text shows the ground1 and defines the sphere of a right love of self1 ,i may further say that the ,royal ,law does not require us to love in others what it does not permit us to love in ourselves4 ,and we do well to be clear about this4 ,many of us stumble over this text because1 not getting at its true inwardness1 we have an uneasy feeling that it carries us too far4 ,others try to work up an artificial sentiment1 and profess to exercise a charity which is not theirs to extend4 ,here is a man1 let us say1 who calls himself a religious man1 who yet notoriously is a mean and shabby creature4 ,i once heard this man1 well placed and prosperous1 boast of having that day become richer by some twelve hundred pounds through an oversight of a solicitor in winding up the affairs of a late client4 ,i afterwards learned that the mistake was at the expense of a widow and her young children1 who1 because of it1 were brought within very measurable distance of want4 ,must my love for my neighbour include one callous enough1 not only to do a thing like that1 but to boast about it8 ,must it annex the whole low plane of such a squalid disposition8 ,god forbid4 ,what ,i hope ,i should hate in myself ,i am not asked to love in another4 ,if a man is base and unworthy we are to recognize the fact1 however ugly2 we are to look the devil in him in the face1 and say it is the devil4 ,but1 on the other side1 ,christianity admonishes us that our judgments of our neighbours are neither infallible nor final4 ,it has been well pointed out1 that if we have found any part of the secret of ,god's mercy shown to us1 we shall not find it hard to believe in ,god's mercy for our neighbours4 ,to realize that the essential thing the ,redeemer saw in us and deemed it worth dying for1 ,he sees in them1 will help us1 however weary at times in their service1 not to weary of it4 ,in this command1 then1 we have the ground and motive for the sacrifice of each for the good of all4 ,we see that it is possible to love our neighbour in the sense we are to love ourselves4 ,we see that the command which1 on the surface of it1 seems to urge an unattainable experience1 is1 in truth1 what ,st4 ,james calls it1 the ,royal ,law that binds us together not only as neighbours1 but as children of the same ,all-,father4 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself4 ,should any one ask1 ,who does it8 ,i answer1 ,that is not the question4 ,to deny that we can love our neighbour in this sense is to deny that we can love ourselves4 ,yet ,i know what fate1 especially for young men1 may lurk in this cold1 faithless question4 ,and ,i want it to be understood1 that my single aim in this address--the reason why ,i have wrestled at this length for the meaning of the passage before us--is to show1 that whether we choose to do it or not1 it can be done4 ,i affirm that this text is a simple statement of the principle of the only rational1 helpful life man can live4 ,and to prevail upon you to admit this1 would be to accomplish much4 ,to accept it as the truth1 that you can love your neighbour as yourself1 is to win intellectual confidence in the service which your day demands of you4 ,it is to take the sting of death out of the old evil question3 ,who does it8 ,once recognize that ,christ asks for nothing impossible1 when ,he gave a new and ever-abiding authority to this ancient precept1 and the question will not be1 ,who does it8 ,rather will it be1 ,who can afford not to do it8 ,for not to do it is selfishness1 and selfishness is self-defeat4 ,he who exists only for himself1 exists only to injure himself4 ,it is the fashion now to get rid of a judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment here4 ,the latter part of the statement is not the whole truth1 but there is truth in it4 ,the strain brings out the strength there is1 but shirk it and we have weakness4 ,do as we like rather than do as we ought1 and the price must be paid in loss of manhood4 ,everything we gain for selfishness we must steal from ourselves4 ,ah me1 said ,goethe once1 that the yonder is never here4 ,go deep enough into every wrong and sin and you find at its root this selfishness4 ,so many of us degrade life into a heartless scramble4 ,we fight each other because each man1 dissatisfied himself1 is convinced that his neighbour is getting more than his share4 ,it may be doubted whether there has ever been a day in the ,western world when more people were dominated by the conviction that gain is godliness4 ,so many about us have virtually ceased to put their trust in anything about which they cannot lace their fingers4 ,with them1 dreamers about anything else are cranks1 and martyrs for anything else are nuisances4 ,and this reacts upon such apology as they have for more serious thinking4 ,we seem in many ways to be returning to the pagan condition when judgment was not feared and spiritual influences were unfelt4 ,in novel1 drama1 and much that passes for science1 we have the monotonous iteration that man is the creature of blind chance under an indifferent sky4 ,but this1 thank ,god1 is not the whole story4 ,there is another and brighter side4 ,if we take a very subdued estimate of our modern day and world1 ,i am yet persuaded that never were the saving ideas of the ,saviour more potent1 never have ,his high aspirations been more ardently welcomed or more strenuously followed than they are now4 ,past all human speculations about ,christ1 men hopelessly divided in creed are yet getting nearer to what ,he lived believing and died believing4 ,in the weariness of so much of the modern world1 and in the hopelessness of its outlook1 ,i see an age ready to receive anew the baptism of the ,holy ,spirit4 ,i see a temper ready to grasp with fresh earnestness the thoughts of the ,living ,lord and ,supreme ,teacher of our race4 ,men to-day are dreaming like dreams as shone before the souls of the ancient prophets1 and in the visions of men who have wrought for human progress since the first days even until now4 ,waking dreams of a new and diviner order of society4 ,a state marked by righteousness1 peace1 and happiness for the whole people2 the golden age1 when man1 knowing what it is in himself he ought to love1 loves that in his neighbour as in himself4 ,and ,christianity1 which came into the world to fulfil these heaven-born dreams1 is being openly challenged as never before to substantiate them4 ,in the larger aims of our spiritual ideals the yonder is never here1 nor1 indeed1 can it be4 ,there must always be above us something better than our best4 ,when we cease to make progress we die1 and that1 in the language of ,scripture1 is the second death4 ,if1 therefore1 the searching demand of the text confronts us with the weakness of our nature1 we need not wonder and we need not be discouraged4 ,it is the purpose it has in view4 ,it discloses an ideal1 and it reveals an end4 ,if in seeking to realize the ideal and gain the end we are forced to know how insufficient we are in our own strength--this1 ,i repeat1 is the end it seeks to accomplish in us and for us4 ,until our life is in ,christ linked on to ,god1 we cannot love our neighbour as we ought1 because we have not the higher power to love ourselves as we should4 ,but the power is offered us4 ,and it is for you young men to lay fast hold of it1 and accept the world's challenge in a way it has never been handled and faced before4 ,do not talk about the things you believe1 says the world to us who name the name of ,christ2 convince me that you believe by what you do4 ,and this is said1 not from an indifference to dogma1 as some would have us think4 ,it means that a man's beliefs are between himself and ,god4 ,it is what comes out of his belief1 that can be reckoned with amid the forces of our everyday life4 ,you place in cold sheet one of the loftiest passages of a great composer before a man sensitive to music1 but who does not know one note from the other1 and he looks at it with indifference4 ,you put the sheet before a gifted organist seated at his instrument2 and as the melody rolls forth in swells of power1 then in cadences of persuasive pathos1 the indifference of the man vanishes as he catches his breath like a sob1 and feels a prayer he cannot speak4 ,we say we believe in ,christ1 and men turn aside with indifference4 ,we live ,christ1 and men love ,him4 ,it is common enough to find this indifference about religion1 and a marked want of what ,i have called intellectual confidence in ,christianity as we preach it from the pulpit4 ,but ,i have never yet found a man infidel to the fruits of its spirit1 which are1 love1 peace1 goodness1 a living faith1 and a genuine self-sacrifice4 ,before men can be expected to become ,christ-like1 they must know what ,christ is like1 and how far are we prepared to put our lives before men as an answer to the question3 ,what think ye of ,christ8 ,preach ,christ by living ,christ4 ,all men1 says the ,koran1 are commanded by the ,saint4 ,and no man ever casts the wealth of his life and the crown of his devotion at the feet of ,jesus without quickening the earth with a diviner life1 and uplifting it with a new courage4 ,one of the most brilliant of the eighteenth-century poets said3 ,the lapse of time changes all but man1 who ever has been1 and ever will be1 just what he is4 ,which means that man is by make incurably selfish4 ,this is a lie4 ,and it is the worst kind of lying1 for it represents not only the inability to find good in man1 but the inability to believe that there is good to be found4 ,my own stand is where thought and experience have forced me4 ,from human nature left to itself ,i hope for nothing2 with that nature remade in ,christ ,i despair of nothing4 ,it all turns on the remake4 ,and it can be remade3 ,as many as received ,him1 to them gave ,he power to become sons of ,god3 who were born not of blood1 nor of the will of the flesh1 nor of the will of man1 but of ,god4 ,let us1 therefore1 by divine grace1 refashion our lives on the mighty principle of divine love4 ,and let us settle it as one of the truths never to be questioned1 that nothing is worthy to be called love that cannot be affirmed of ,god4 ,we know what ,god loves2 or we know enough for the practical ordering of our daily life4 ,let us love in ourselves what ,god loves in us4 ,this will include for ourselves and others all things which are good for us to have and enjoy2 and because it will exclude all things that are narrow1 mean1 and selfish1 it will go far to raise the world to a power of a new day4 ,then1 through hearts and homes1 through ,churches and societies1 the ,royal ,law1 made royal life1 will solve the problem of the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness4 ,it will become the touch of omnipotence that casts out of our life the unworthy1 by bringing in the opposite virtues1 resolving all into character which shall transform mankind into one realm over which the right and the might of ,christ shall at last prevail-- ,from creed and scheme the light goes out1 ,the saintly fact survives1 ,the ,blessed ,master who can doubt1 ,revealed in human lives8 #a ,two or three sentences in this chapter are memorized from a sermon ,i heard years ago1 preached by ,rev4 ,h4 ,e4 ,michie1 ,m4,a41 of ,stonehaven4 ',,he ,,was ,,despised ,,and ,,rejected' ,he is despised and rejected of men4--,isaiah liii4 #c4 ,,viii ',,he ,,was ,,despised ,,and ,,rejected' ,some two or three years ago the picture1 ,he was despised and rejected1 by ,sigismund ,getze1 was on view in ,glasgow4 ,in this address ,i shall try to tell you something about the impression it made on me2 and the reason will be given at the end why ,i include it in this series4 ,some of you may have seen the picture2 others may have read or heard about it4 ,the conception of it appears to have formed itself in the mind of the artist out of what ordinarily is a very commonplace circumstance4 ,he had attended a ,sunday service at ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedral1 and heard a sermon that made a deep impression upon him2 which found his higher being with something like the touch of an immortal influence4 ,he thought within himself3 ,what a real difference a word like this must make in the thoughts and life of those who have been privileged to listen to it4 ,never again1 surely1 can they be as though they had not heard it4 ,it was a message1 so he felt1 to shake men1 to arouse them1 and make them turn on one another and cry3 ,men and brethren1 what must we do8 ,under the impact of his own emotions and sensitive to his surroundings1 he was eager at the close of the service to share with others what he virtually demanded they should impart to him4 ,but he was grievously disappointed4 ,not a word did he hear1 not a look did he see on the face of a departing worshipper which so much as betrayed the transient emotion stirred by dream or romance4 ,if they had listened to the discourse1 they had evidently forgotten what they had been at no pains to remember4 ,no new experience befell this man of artistic and impulsive temperament4 ,i heard a sermon a short time ago preached in a seaside church1 which deeply moved me2 a sermon ,i was thankful to have heard1 and the like of which ,i would walk a long way to hear again4 ,as ,i stood outside the building waiting for a friend1 the congregation came out1 and ,i heard the usual interchange of verbal nothings4 ,the only reference ,i did hear to the service was from a well-dressed young man to a girl by his side1 and this is what he said3 ,a long-winded fellow1 that2 let us go on the parade4 ,the remark did not unduly surprise me4 ,i wonder1 said a man to me lately1 why some people go to a place of worship at all2 they appear to be as indifferent to what is said1 sung1 or prayed1 as the dog that barks is indifferent about the dog-star4 ,in every congregation of fair size there is a strange mixture4 ,but it always includes those whose attention and evident interest do something to compensate for others who show neither4 ,there are elect souls who hear the ,word and receive it4 ,you may not trace the fact by what they say1 but you know it by the holiness of helpfulness1 which radiates from them like light1 and is made by them as an atmosphere4 ,god has not ordained the foolishness of preaching--which does not mean foolish preaching--to thin out in the miserable anti-climax of a remark like that of the young man ,i have just quoted4 ,fortunately1 however1 our artist had not sufficient experience of the conventional congregation at a place of worship to have become philosophic about it--which usually amounts to indifference4 ,judging others by what he himself felt1 he thought they must be equally moved4 ,but instead of having received the preached ,word1 there was nothing1 so far as he could discern1 to indicate that they had even heard it1 while there was much to lead to the conclusion that they had not4 ,hence he resolved to repeat the sermon through the translation of his art4 ,they should1 if he could accomplish it1 receive through the eyes what they would not hear with the ears4 ,something like this1 we are told1 was the genesis of this picture1 with its central ,figure of the ,crucified ,one close by an ancient altar1 yet immediately outside a modern building called a ,christian church4 ,there ,he stands unregarded and silent1 but so far as ,his anguish speaks the eternal ,passion of ,god1 while there stream past ,him the clearly-defined types of a twentieth-century multitude--each1 with one doubtful exception1 as indifferent about who1 and whence1 and why ,he is1 as if ,he were one of the stone pillars that support the vestibule of the temple dedicated to ,his worship4 ,poverty sits at ,his very feet and it is not even curious2 fashion and vice1 toil and sport1 science and ruin1 culture and ignorance1 want and opulence pass by1 and do not so much as despise and reject ,him--for that at least would argue some form of interest4 ,it is the indifference which1 as ,confucius says1 is the night of the mind--night without a star4 ,i need not linger over the types4 ,you may see them any day in a characteristic ,london throng2 you may see them in a less emphasized form in a city like ,glasgow4 ,if ,i may make one reference to them1 let it be where the artist attempts to represent the attitude of the ,churches to the ,man of ,sorrows4 ,we have1 for example1 a high ecclesiastic in one of the sacerdotal communions1 and by his side there is some order of ,nonconformist minister4 ,the latter is evidently in earnest1 not to entreat the attention of the crowd to ,him whom they pass by1 but to convict his companion of error out of their commonly-received ,scriptures4 ,and the great ecclesiastic1 sleek1 debonair1 and well preserved1 has a bored look on his capacious face which says3 ,my dear good man1 why excite yourself8 ,i readily make you a present of your contention4 ,you take your truth and ,i will keep my position4 ,as we can settle nothing but ourselves1 why not settle ourselves as comfortably as we can8 ,according to the artist1 each in his own way is in the crowd and of it4 ,it is anything and everything except the ,crucified ,one1 as in ,st4 ,paul's it was anything and everything except the message spoken to those who1 having ears1 heard not4 ,how do we explain it1 then1 from his point of view1 that this stream of people1 representative of a widespread society1 is utterly indifferent to that ,figure so pathetic in its loneliness1 so tragic in its appeal1 and almost aggressive in its sorrow8 ,it is possible that not a type on the canvas is to be interpreted as quite ignorant of the letter of the claims made for ,him who is yet the ,object of the world's indifference4 ,there is a sense in which it is true that ,christ was never better known than ,he is in your day and mine4 ,we have the well-authenticated ,scriptures which testify of ,him4 ,we are more sure that we possess many of ,his sayings than we are sure that the writings known as ,shakespeare's plays were written by a man called ,william ,shakespeare4 ,in these ,scriptures ,he is reported to have said3 ,before ,abraham was1 ,i am4 ,and in another word1 that falls like a beam of light on everything ,he did and said1 ,he tells us that the ,son of ,man is come to seek and to save the lost4 ,we have the key-word of the ,father's message to the race in the wondrous declaration that ,god so loved the world1 that ,he gave ,his only-begotten ,son1 that whosoever believeth on ,him should not perish1 but have everlasting life4 ,we have a mighty ,christian literature which1 if it be evolved out of a myth1 resolves itself into a miracle4 ,we have the fact that never before was ,christ so admired1 so much quoted1 and so generally applauded as ,he is at the opening of the twentieth century4 ,we have accredited thinkers who reject1 as they think1 all dogmatic theologies about ,christ1 and yet tell us that the spirit which ,christ incarnated in ,his words and actions reveals a ,god humanity cannot improve upon4 ,we have1 moreover1 an army of men who are set apart by training1 and what they believe to be their calling1 to preach ,christ by precept1 and to teach ,him by a life derived1 as they declare1 from ,him whom they preach and teach4 ,and amid many failures1 and motives of the earth earthy1 these men do not all fail1 nor do they all live by bread alone4 ,was there no place in that canvas-crowd for one of those devoted men who1 ill-paid1 half-starved1 and overwrought1 toil night and day in that most awful work on this earth1 the attempt to rescue and raise the lapsed masses of our large populations8 ,was there no room for the man who penalizes body and soul to straining-point for words and thoughts that shall inspire and hearten men to steer their lives by the higher stars1 those eternal principles of truth and right8 ,was there no room for a woman of the ,salvation ,army who is out of some hideous slum for a moment's breathing1 before returning to it with a great self-renouncing life of love and healing8 ,but take the picture as the artist's impression of the ail-but universal indifference about ,him who is yet declared to be the soul and centre of our ,scriptures1 our creeds1 and our religious life1 and how do we explain it8 ,or if we put the artist's impression aside1 and on our own account face the truth which1 for the purposes of constructive art1 he may have exaggerated1 is there any less need that we should ask3 ,why is ,christ despised and rejected of men8 ,why is it that they do not come unto ,him that they may have life8 ,the answers are legion4 ,to my thinking1 they resolve themselves into practically one4 ,before we can know ,christ1 before we can understand ,christ1 before we can come to ,christ1 we must come to ourselves4 ,and not a face on that crowded canvas suggests a hope that he1 or she1 had taken an honest step in this all-determining direction4 ,before ,i can look to ,christ as my ,saviour ,i must know that ,i need a ,saviour4 ,before ,i can realize my need of salvation from sin ,i must realize that ,i am a sinner4 ,so much1 if not all1 turns there4 ,it is not every man who feels that he is a sinner because he talks about being one4 ,but let him feel it1 and out of the knowledge will come his saving health1 or the death that dies4 ,it is declared to be the work of the ,holy ,spirit to convince men of sin1 and the unbelief growing out of sin4 ,analyse the causes of indifference about the things that belong to our peace1 and you find that for the most part they resolve themselves into sin1 and the unbelief that follows sin1 as consequence comes out of cause4 ,i know with what impatience the world turns from what is called the evangelical teaching about the nature and effects of sin4 ,and we need not go outside the ,church to find the same impatience1 not to say contempt4 ,we have in our pulpits men who represent sin to us as good in the making4 ,it is in some sense a necessary means to an end4 ,they speak of arrested development1 of defect of will1 of inheritances and surroundings1 of a vacancy as yet unfilled by virtue4 ,it is hard to think that people held by a half-sceptical pantheism1 and the relativity of evil1 have ever been face to face with the awful deeps and disobediences of their own heart1 or have felt the hot breath of the devil on their own cheek4 ,if we have any worth-discerning faculty1 we know when a man is handling certain subjects whether he knows what he is talking about2 whether or not1 to use an expressive colloquialism1 he has been there4 ,no man who with the eyes of the soul has looked down that awful cleft that separates between the carnal mind and the holy will of ,god1 can use words here under the wasting impression that he knows things4 ,if ,christ only died to save us from something which1 after all1 is only good in the making1 then the ,cross of ,calvary is the supreme irony of time4 ,we shall never find a ,saviour by the road that1 at the most1 leads but to a martyr4 ,here is a man--and he is not an imaginary case--who is married1 and has young people growing up in the home4 ,he is wealthy1 with a reputable position in society4 ,but there is a sinister something in the background of his life1 and he sets himself to do what he knows full well is an irreparable wrong to an inexperienced and defenceless creature4 ,he makes no fight against the wicked prompting1 and does the hurt which if another man were to do to one of his own family he would willingly shoot him dead4 ,and say when the hurt is done1 a searchlight--he knows not whence it comes--is flashed across his soul and he sees himself as he is1 a base scoundrel before ,god and man1 will it help him to think of his sin as good in the making8 ,for whatever he may become1 he has done his part to damn another4 ,and let his conscience become1 as it can become1 and woe to him if it do not become1 as real as the wicked thing he has done1 and his first and devastating question will be1 not can ,god forgive him1 but can he ever forgive himself8 ,let his one hope come to be in some means of expiation1 which can give him a degree of rest from the sin by paying what he can of its wages1 and he will begin to realize what is meant1 not by the remission of the consequences of sin1 but by the remission of sin4 ,he will know the need1 where the need is agony1 which ,god in ,christ has met for us1 and which1 had ,he not met1 would have left the need something greater than ,god ,himself4 ,it is when a man must have peace with himself or die to all that is immortal in him--it is then ,i will trust him never again to pass by with unconcern the anguish of ,him who bore our sin in ,his own body on the tree4 ,sometimes we look at the ,lamb of ,god without feeling that we are sinners1 and then we have a thousand difficult questions to ask4 ,at other times the burden of sin is so heavy upon us1 we see the sinfulness of sin so vividly1 that we get away from the mere accident of place and time as far as it relates to sin1 we see sin as ,god saw it1 and must ever see it--then it is we look to the ,crucified ,one4 ,when ,i feel myself in my heart of hearts a sinner1 ,i once heard ,dr4 ,parker say1 a trespasser against ,god's law and ,god's love2 when ,i feel that a thought may overwhelm me in destruction1 that a secret1 unexpressed desire may shut me out of heaven and make me glad to go to hell to be away from the face of ,him that sitteth upon the throne--then when ,i am told that ,jesus ,christ was wounded for my transgressions1 that upon ,him was laid the chastisement of my peace1 ,i press my way through all the difficulties and say3 ,if ,i perish ,i will pray and perish at the ,cross2 for if this be not sufficient1 it hath not entered into the heart of man to solve the problem of human depravity1 and the human consciousness of sin4 ,i am not seeking to explain or defend what ,i am saying4 ,i may try to make it a little more clear before ,i close4 ,for the moment ,i am putting before you what ,i believe to be the truth of very truth4 ,to some ,i may be speaking in an unknown tongue1 but not to all4 ,if there is one here who1 with some years behind him1 has ever been in serious conference with himself1 he knows that there is something radically wrong with himself1 which calls for something he is powerless to supply4 ,he knows that the springs of his being have been poisoned1 and he has no detergent to make them sweet4 ,it is the fashion in our day to speak of the old description of hell-deserving sinner as marred by exaggeration1 if not to say morbid4 ,i do not fall into that fashion1 for it expresses just what ,i am--a hell-deserving sinner4 ,when the great ,puritan1 ,john ,newton1 saw a man taken out to be hanged1 he said3 ,but for the grace of ,god there goes ,john ,newton4 ,it is when the true idea of sin is realized under the convincing power of the ,holy ,spirit1 that the necessity of the sacrificial work of ,christ will be felt1 understood1 and become the one foundation of human hope4 ,do you say that you have felt nothing of this convicting and convincing power8 ,then ,i ask3 ,have you ever passed through an hour of serious inquest with your own soul8 ,have you ever tried to know yourself even as you are known8 ,the debate cannot be all on one side4 ,a man only knows that he is ignorant through the need of a knowledge he has not got4 ,before ,i can persuade you that ,christ is your ,saviour1 you must realize that it is a ,saviour you need4 ,before you can start out for ,christ you must come to yourself4 ,and while men make a mock of sin1 while they regard it as a matter of indifference1 or profess to explain it away under the terms of science and philosophy1 we need not wonder that they have so little faith in higher things4 ,we need go no further for an explanation of the thoughtless unbelief which is eating its way like a festering sore to the heart of our modern world4 ,if the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life sum up the totality of our being here1 why should that crowd on the artist's canvas be represented as moved by an anguish that touches no chord in its soul2 which is1 indeed1 foreign to its every thought1 sympathy1 and pursuit8 ,so long as men are indifferent about the very question1 ,why that anguish8 vain is the appeal1 ,to you is it nothing your ,saviour should die8 ,so long as men are utterly unconcerned about the fact1 and nature1 and effects of moral evil1 then selfishness will remain for men the only recognized law of self-preservation4 ,and here is where ,i come into line with the practical side of the ,christian evangel4 ,the ,cross of ,christ is no arbitrary arrangement4 ,it is not the expedient of a system cunningly devised by priest1 theologian1 or ,church4 ,it is the grimmest1 sanest1 divinest thing ever set up in this human world4 ,the ,cross is symbol of the only ,power that can enter the lists against selfishness1 and enter to throw it4 ,and let me plead with you to think about this3 every wrong in the world has selfishness1 if not for its root1 yet at its root4 ,cast out the selfishness which is sin1 and you cast out the first and the last thing that stands between us and the new heaven and the new earth4 ,think of this1 and you will better understand the anguish of ,him who carries the sorrow1 and is wounded in the wounds made by man's inhumanity to man4 ,refuse to think of it1 and cease to wonder why countless thousands mourn2 why the strong oppress the weak2 why might is worshipped as right2 why men seem to fear nothing but the hell of not making money4 ,think of it1 and cease to wonder why men's bodies and souls are sacrificed in what is little better than a murderous struggle to exist2 why one man has so much more than he earns1 and others earn so much more than they have4 ,think of it and cease to wonder why our age is distinguished by a bad pre-eminence of restlessness1 by feverishness1 a panting for excitement1 and a poisonous atmosphere of pessimism4 ,the ,cross of ,christ means the life that lives in unselfish service as against the selfishness that is death and defeat4 ,it means not only individuals and ,churches1 but the race1 redeemed and lifted from the dark and narrow life of self1 into the life and light of the kingdom of ,god4 ,can we wonder1 then1 that the rejection of the ,cross blasts our beliefs in everything divine and hopeful1 and is accompanied everywhere by a melancholy introspection and lack-lustre view of human life8 ,recall then in this connection what ,i have said about sin1 and the relation of ,christ's death to the forgiveness of sin4 ,what ,i am saying now does not include all that is implied in that relation2 but see in it what ,i have just put before you1 and you will realize that ,i am not talking in mere morbid terms1 nor in those of theology except so far as it is the theology of life4 ,long as men are willingly in their sin--which means selfishness in all its deadly forms--can we wonder at the unbelief portrayed on that canvas8 ,can we marvel why the ,christ is still despised and rejected8 ,it may be asked1 and justly1 what are the professed followers of ,christ doing to convince men of their need of ,him as their ,saviour2 to convince them by lives that are the evidence of triumph over sin8 ,what are ,christian people1 what are the ,churches doing to fight down the wrongs1 the hurtful conditions1 the curse-centres that degrade men1 keep them ignorant1 and as by a satanic ingenuity hide the real ,christ from those who most need to find ,him1 and are the least able to oppose the things that make ,him so misunderstood and even unknown8 ,how far are we responsible1 not only for the deliberately cultivated wickedness of men who choose evil as their good1 but for the indifference that passes by only because our lives have never compelled its attention8 ,the ,church is a ,church but to the extent that it is the organic expression of ,christ's life1 the visible ,body of ,his soul4 ,what1 ,i ask in all faithfulness1 are we doing to make real and living to men the presence of a ,lord who is ever suffering in their sin and for it8 ,the artist was well inspired to give his picture a twentieth-century setting4 ,what an amount of grim ,calvary there is in ,glasgow every day under the shadow of our ,churches2 ah6 and behind the sanction of their power4 ,that is the word that should smite us2 it is the word that must be said--behind the sanction of their power4 ,the world would begin to see ,christ1 if we ourselves would see ,him crucified1 not merely in the remote ,palestine of the first century1 but1 ,i say once more1 in this ,glasgow of to-day4 ,in the foul slum1 in the haunt of shame1 in the abode of crime and wretchedness1 in the places where children are robbed of their birthright before they know what things mean2 in the sweater's den1 in the heartless side of business competition1 in the drink hells1 in frivolous pursuits and brainless amusements1 in the insolence of wealth1 and the sullenness of poverty--in every place or thing where despite is done to the ,divine ,humanity4 ,let us feel that whatever wrong is done to a single human being1 throughout the world-wide family of man1 is literally done to ,jesus ,christ1 and we shall better understand that central ,figure in the artist's picture4 ,let us see ,christ crucified in whatever evil is done1 in whatever good is left undone that we could do1 and sin will become to us not a term only1 not a thing to be excused and explained away1 but a real and tremendous horror4 ,we shall feel it to be what it is1 a stab struck at the living heart of ,jesus ,christ4 ,as it has been truly said3 ,fellowship with ,christ's sufferings will become less of a mystical phrase1 and more of a vital fact4 ,to you is it nothing1 all ye that pass by8 ,as ,i sat and looked at that picture1 this was the question that oppressed my thoughts4 ,and then the further question forced itself--,why1 in so many cases1 and to all human seeming1 is it just that--nothing8 ,it is not enough to talk of sin1 and unbelief1 and indifference1 outside our life3 they are real enough1 but do they suggest no responsibility on our part8 ,let it be a call to prayer1 an incentive to unceasing watchfulness lest one should be passing by because there is nothing in us which constrains him1 or persuades her1 to look and be saved1 to look and live4 ,i said at the opening of this address that ,i would tell you later why ,i include it in this series4 ,i am not sure that ,i can keep my word4 ,what has been said will glance from your mind unless you have1 like ,luther1 and for the same reason1 wrestled with the question3 ,how shall a man be just with ,god8 ,but assuming that as yet this is outside your experience1 still you know the difference between what may but arbitrarily be called sin1 and sin that is what it is called4 ,believe me when ,i say that the first1 and worst1 and nearest of all problems for each man of us1 and for societies1 is the fact of sin2 and that with it no one deals1 or can deal1 save ,him upon whom the chastisement of our peace was laid1 and with whose stripes we are healed4 ,what is the exact relation between the death of ,christ and the forgiveness of sin no one can tell us2 but that there is a relation charged with redeeming power is not a theory about ,christianity--it is ,christianity4 ,i read some time ago that a ,van ,missioner1 who was preaching ,unitarianism in the villages of ,hampshire1 found himself at one of them interrupted by a number of farm labourers1 who began to sing-- ,what can wash away my sin8 ,nothing but the blood of ,jesus6 ,what can make me whole again8 ,nothing but the blood of ,jesus4 ,it washes white as snow1 ,no other fount ,i know4 ,to the modern enlightenment which patronizes ,jesus as a teacher and rejects ,christ as a ,saviour1 the theology1 or sentiment1 in these lines is not so much crude as grotesque4 ,at the best it is but curiously reminiscent of the ignorance of a by-gone day4 ,doubtless this well-meaning man had much to say worth hearing2 but he was talking in the name of religion1 and to these villagers there was in it the lack of the one thing1 which is the lack of all4 ,theology apart1 these simple folk found in these crude lines the heart of saving truth4 ,it is my conviction that they were right4 ,in this conviction ,i live1 and in it1 by ,god's grace1 ,i trust ,i may die and live again4 ,i do not despise ,jesus3 with all that is best in me do ,i reverence ,him as one of the world's supreme teachers2 but ,i cannot regard ,him as more than that1 said a friend to me after reading over the manuscript of this address4 ,and yet1 he added quietly1 if there is anything in ,christianity which distinguishes it from any other great religion1 it must be near to the place you have been trying to get at4 ',,what ,,must ,i ,,do ,,to ,,be ,,saved8' ,what must ,i do to be saved8--,acts xvi4 #cj4 ,if any man will do his will1 he shall know4--,st4 ,john vii4 #ag4 ,,ix ',,what ,,must ,i ,,do ,,to ,,be ,,saved8' ,when ,i was well into my teens1 said a very intelligent woman to me some time ago1 and for long after ,i had left them1 ,i listened to preachers and preaching2 and such powers as ,i had ,i put into my listening1 for ,i wanted to get at something ,i could hold for sure and real in the promises of religion4 ,i was told ,sunday by ,sunday to believe on the ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 to trust in ,him1 and commit to ,his keeping my soul's welfare4 ,and as far as ,i knew what belief meant ,i believed2 and tried to persuade myself that ,i was trusting ,christ4 ,but ,i was not conscious that it made any real difference in my life2 that it gave me anything ,i had not before4 ,hence ,i gradually came to the conclusion that either the preachers could not tell me what it was on which ,i had specifically to lay hold1 or it was useless for me to prosecute my attempt to grasp it4 ,this woman said what many think1 who are as yet within listening distance of our pulpits4 ,they want to understand what they must do and believe1 to lay hold of that which can make a difference in their life2 which can find in it1 or bring into it1 something that answers in very truth to what the ,bible calls the power of ,god unto salvation4 ,it is1 surely1 a reasonable thing to ask4 ,as religious teachers we can have no right to plead with people to believe what we are not prepared to help them to understand4 ,some of you may have reason1 as you think1 to endorse this woman's testimony as a fair statement of your own experience4 ,can ,i help you8 ,most gladly will ,i do so if ,i can4 ,one thing should be said1 as ,i come closer to the attempt4 ,if you are really anxious to find help1 guard against mistaken impressions of what that help should be1 or can be4 ,in religion1 as in all the deeper places of human life1 one great teacher is experience2 and you can neither anticipate nor rush experience4 ,a mother says in answer to certain questions of her child3 ,wait until you are older and you will find out4 ,that1 to the child1 is no answer at all2 but1 while the child is a child1 it is the only answer there is4 ,divine truth is infallible2 but1 as it has often been pointed out1 there is no human infallible apprehension of divine truth4 ,we have to admit that there may be1 and indeed must be1 many phases and aspects of saving truth which we cannot comprehend4 ,there are others1 again1 of which we get only distant and fugitive glimpses as we study the ,word of ,god4 ,but we shall also admit1 that these higher reaches of truth are not those alone on which our faith is called to repose4 ,it may seem to many of you1 that in my treatment of the subject now before us1 ,i overlook much that is essential to the ,christian doctrine of salvation4 ,i may even seem to eliminate the supernatural element from it4 ,a little thought1 however1 should correct the latter impression4 ,in passing ,i have only to say1 that ,i am not trying to exhaust this theme1 but simply to give it a setting which1 ,i venture to think1 is worth consideration4 ,what must ,i do to be saved8--a question which may be put in two very different states of moral being4 ,it may be asked in a temper merely curious and academic2 or it may1 as in the case of the text1 voice a profound sense of need4 ,if we would be saved1 we must realize that we need to be saved4 ,it was when the prodigal came to himself that he said3 ,i will arise and go to my father4 ,we are to be saved from what8 and into what are we to be saved8 ,in other words1 not only must old things pass away1 but all things must become new4 ,from what1 ,i repeat1 are we to be saved8 ,there is but one answer to the question3 ,we are to be saved from sin by being delivered from the power of evil2 and sin is the wilful assertion of our self-will against the holy will of ,god4 ,the sense of sin may vary in different people2 it may vary with the moods of the same personal experience4 ,there are people who appear to be quite callous about the evil within them and the evil they do4 ,but just as our moral nature is educated1 just as we grow in sympathy with the divine will1 do we become increasingly sensitive to the distance there is between what we are1 and do1 and the holiness of ,him who is a consuming fire4 ,we feel that the ,apostle was neither morbid1 nor did he exaggerate the actual situation when he cried3 ,o wretched man that ,i am1 who shall deliver me from the body of this death8 ,it has been said that the only way to be saved from sin is to cease to sin4 ,and it is true that a man cannot1 at the same time1 sin in any given direction1 and cease from that sin4 ,but it is also true that he may cease from sin in the sense of not doing certain things1 and yet be the greater sinner in the sight of ,god1 because of the motive which acts as his deterrent or restraining force4 ,i have seen men repent of their sin1 as the process was called1 when ,i have had no faith in it whatever4 ,they were not repenting of their sin1 but lamenting the cost of its indulgence4 ,we must do more than cease to do evil things only because evil has its price2 we must learn to do well by learning to love all that is meant by well4 ,there is no escape from evil except through love of good4 ,the ,christian salvation1 which means the saving of the whole self-hood of man1 is a positive thing from its inception into its endless development4 ,where it is repression it is that there may be expression4 ,this1 ,i imagine1 is what ,robert ,l4 ,stevenson must have meant when he said ,we are not damned for doing wrong1 but for not doing right4 ,christ1 he contends1 would never hear of negative morality2 'thou shalt' was ever ,his word1 with which ,he superseded1 'thou shalt not4' ,according to ,stevenson--,i do not say he is right1 but ,i do quote his words as worth attention--we are not damned so much for yielding to evil1 as for not getting into our life its oppositive virtue2 some content vital enough to cast out the evil1 and to keep it out4 ,to go on fighting some besetting sin is only to repeat1 for the most part1 an experience many of us know but too well4 ,it almost invariably ends one way4 ,in weariness and despair we ask3 ,why should we war with evil8 ,it is more than our test1 it is our fate2 let us take what sweet we can before it becomes all bitter4 ,which is but another way of saying3 ,evil1 be thou my good4 ,mark well1 then1 our next step4 ,it is not enough to tell us that we must conquer the wrong by doing the right4 ,the question is this3 ,is there any power1 anything in what is called saving grace1 which is adequate to the struggle on our part1 and which appropriated can make us1 to use the ,apostle's description1 more than conquerors8 ,there is2 and ,i will try1 first1 to tell you what it is1 and1 secondly1 how we may realize it4 ,it is--call it by what name we may for the moment--that which casts out the mean1 the ignoble1 and the selfish1 by filling out life with the great1 the noble1 and the unselfish4 ,it is1 in a word1 the salvation which means the highest character and blessedness1 which we1 individually and collectively1 are capable of reaching and realizing4 ,let us1 then1 call it what it is--the power of ,god unto salvation4 ,and how are we to get it into our possession8 ,the answer is1 it needs no getting in4 ,potentially it is there4 ,the kingdom of ,god is within you1 says ,jesus1 and it is ours to bring it out in all its actual reality4 ,it is the greater which includes the less1 of the gracious possessions ,god has put in our being1 and of which we know so little because we do not work these inward mines3 ,work out your own salvation1 for it is ,god that worketh in you4 ,some one makes a great inventor say3 ,anybody might have done it1 but the secret came to me4 ,do you believe the first part of this statement8 ,would you hold me true in saying that anybody might have anticipated the discovery of wireless telegraphy8 ,there are times when the world appears to halt for want of some new thing1 or for want of some one to put new meaning into the old4 ,and when the fulness of time has come1 the secret1 which has been sleeping through centuries of men1 awakes in a man4 ,he is the chosen of ,providence to deliver unto us that which he also has received4 ,what is true of a few in the endowment of what we call genius1 may be true of us all in the power of ,god unto salvation4 ,when we were made in secret1 and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth1 the ,maker of us all put a part of ,himself into the mysterious substance4 ,let each man1 says ,browning1 think himself a thought1 an act1 a breath of ,god4 ,there is evil in our nature2 but evil can mar us only so far as we allow it to become sin4 ,it is in victory over evil that we find character and make4 ,there is evil in our nature1 but there is also a germ of ,god which ,he can touch into immortality and glorify with the very splendour of ,his own image and being4 ,when that germ is quickened into life1 we are1 in the language of theology1 converted2 as it develops and becomes the more life and the fuller1 we are1 in the same language1 sanctified and made meet for the ,master's use4 ,is there anything mysterious in this2 anything we may not understand8 ,christ did not think so1 if we may judge from ,his conversation with ,nicodemus4 ,marvel not that ,i said unto thee1 ,ye must be born again4 ,our ,lord1 if ,i understand ,him aright1 tells this master of ,israel that there is nothing more wonderful about this new birth than there is about a new affection or a new love4 ,and what cannot love do8 ,no one enters our life except through love4 ,they may influence it profoundly1 but that of itself gives no admittance to the heart4 ,what1 ,i ask again1 cannot love do8 ,have we never known lives changed1 and indeed transformed by a new affection8 ,i have seen love work miracles2 and so far from not believing in such miracles within their sphere1 ,i believe in nothing else4 ,but does that which wakes love put it there8 ,is some new thing added to life8 ,rather let us say that it is life coming to its own2 just finding what was already there4 ,this may be what the ,psalmist means when he speaks of deep calling to deep4 ,the deep in man answers to the deep of attraction which appeals to it4 ,if man was conceived in the image of ,god1 then ,god is immanent in man4 ,this is not to say that this immanence is equal to1 or implies the whole content of what is known as ,christian salvation4 ,it is true that the eye and the brain must be there before the light can be perceived or any object interpreted4 ,but it has been pointed out with equal truth that the eye would be useless did not the light come to it1 and that the brain would have nothing to work on1 were not objects from without brought for our perception4 #a ,which means that immanence alone would be powerless apart from some transcendent influence4 ,unless this be so1 what are we to say of the multitudes which sit in darkness and the shadow of death8 ,our salvation is in the answer of the life immanent to the life transcendent1 and the connecting and combining power is the ,holy ,spirit4 ,but what1 in the next place1 is our part in this matter8 ,how is this power to come8 ,how1 to use a better term1 are we to realize it8 ,have we to wait for something1 or have we to do something to make it a real experience8 ,a youth1 let us say1 or a girl1 is beginning to learn music1 to play the violin or the piano4 ,at first it is drudgery1 and its immediate results are a trial unto all that are in the house4 ,the parent or teacher says3 ,persevere1 obey instructions1 and as you pass through routine into the soul1 the task will soon be lost in the pleasure4 ,the beginner may not believe it2 but granted the facility is there1 and determination to bend to the task of learning1 and the reward comes4 ,that which is within is brought out1 and by the only way it can be brought out3 ,stir up the gift that is in thee4 ,this hints to us the answer to the question1 ,have we to do something that salvation may become a known and felt reality8 ,we have to do something4 ,we have to do1 as we are told by ,him who only can tell us what it is we have to do3 ,will to do the will1 says the ,christ1 and ye shall know4 ,and if we are really seeking a basis of assurance in ,his saving power1 we ought surely to take ,him at ,his word1 when ,he tells us how to find it4 ,it is not first through assured belief that we become sure of ,christ1 it is by doing ,christ's will that we become sure of our belief4 ,have we to explain to a child the mechanism of its limbs before it can attempt to walk8 ,the impulse comes1 and the child walks1 that is all4 ,but the child has to walk to know that it can walk4 ,but what1 you ask me1 are we to say about sudden conversions1 of which we once heard so much1 and which we are still taught to seek and expect8 ,what1 ,i ask you1 about those sudden flashes of insight which at times seem to reveal in a moment a way out of difficulties which for years we have sought in vain8 ,a man told me lately about a period in his life when through drink and betting he was reduced from a prosperous man to a wreck in body and means4 ,i was down1 he said1 low as a human creature could get in this world4 ,he was converted to ,god1 and from the very hour his change came1 he declared that his craving for drink1 and mania for gambling1 dropped out of his being1 as a piece of dead matter falls away from a living organism4 ,and there are such cases1 thank ,god1 but we must not make our teaching about them misleading by making it despotic4 ,as in the instances of sudden insight1 we do not because we dare not say they are general1 deny that they occur4 ,the soul-development on its immortal side is1 for the most part1 gradual and slow4 ,the life-faculty is there1 but it often means hard work1 patient waiting1 and great faith1 to realize its presence and bring out its power4 #b ,it has been said that modern psychology confirms scientifically this method of seeking and finding the truth4 ,it teaches that action has often to precede thought and feeling4 ,if this is the word of psychology1 it is really in accord with the method of ,jesus4 ,practically all ,his teaching is addressed1 not so much to the intellect or to the emotions1 but to the will4 ,he does not put doing and believing in opposition2 in actual life they are really indistinguishable parts of a healthy spiritual growth4 ,but our ,lord does put doing before knowing1 as ,he puts religion before theology1 and life before the understanding of life4 ,his unmistakable object is to constrain men to take action1 rather than to wait for emotion1 or even for intellectual confidence and conviction4 ,as a matter of experience1 we find at every turn on the road of life we have to do things we do not want to do1 to secure the things we want to have4 ,necessity does not humour us1 and that is the reason the world owes so much to necessity4 ,we may be very superior about dogmatism in theology1 but well for us that dogmatism will have no such nonsense in life4 ,it is just doing the duty that tasks us most1 whatever our feeling about it1 which makes the difference between the worthy and the unworthy in character2 between the numerals and the ciphers in the human world4 ,it is doing1 not what we would1 but as we ought which changes reluctance into interest1 and the sense of futility into the joy of achievement4 ,it is doing what we know to be true which illumines its ever-lasting significance4 ,you could write stories which people would read1 said ,lecky repeatedly to ,george ,eliot4 ,she did not believe him1 and1 strange as it may seem1 she had almost a morbid shrinking from making the attempt4 ,but she did make it1 and we know with what results4 ,the attempt to write a story had not only to precede the belief that she could write one1 it had to reveal the gift4 ,and so ,jesus1 who came to manifest ,god1 says to you and me3 ,my brother1 ,my sister1 there is that in you which1 brought out and cultivated1 can achieve in you the highest order and quality of life in this world1 and fit you for whatever environment lies beyond4 ,believe me4 ,just take me at my word when ,i say to you1 will to do my will1 and doing it you shall come to love it--and that is to be saved2 for it is to be at one with the ,father in me4 ,leave your past1 however unworthy it may be4 ,what ,i have done and suffered for you has atoned for all4 ,do your part1 and you1 too1 shall testify3 ,i live1 and yet not ,i1 but ,christ that liveth in ,me4 ,this1 then1 is my position2 and whether or not it answer to fact and to ,scripture1 ,i leave with your judgment4 ,i ought to have accomplished something if ,i have made myself understood4 ,it probably overlooks much that many of you hold to be integral to the nature and meaning of salvation4 ,i have only to repeat1 that what has been advanced is a setting of this great subject2 and ,i venture to urge it upon your consideration4 ,it now remains for me to notice very briefly one or two further questions as ,i draw to a close4 ,what1 ,i may be asked1 are we expected1 as young people1 to understand about the doctrines and dogmas of ,christianity as necessary to an intelligent religious faith8 ,and what about feeling or emotion1 which is usually represented as a vital part of the driving power of ,christian life and conduct8 ,well1 speaking for myself1 ,i make no pretension to the lofty disregard of doctrine which in so many quarters seems to be regarded as the hall-mark of enlightened thinking4 ,we do well to beware of a so-called breadth1 which is but a pet euphemism for thinness4 ,but after all1 we can hold a thing for true1 and yet find no explanation of it which quite satisfies us4 ,theories about the heavens have come and gone1 but the stars remain4 ,christ was1 before creeds gathered about ,him2 and it is because ,he is1 that men must formulate doctrine to explain ,him4 ,i have long had the conviction that in religion nothing really matters but the ,spirit of ,christ4 ,this is not to say that if we have1 or claim to have1 the ,spirit of ,christ1 it makes no difference whether we do1 or do not1 believe in the historical ,christ4 ,to my thinking such a position is nonsense4 ,we may as well talk about an effect without a cause4 ,spirit must needs clothe itself with body4 ,the external may come in at different points of the process1 but the internal without the external cannot exist4 ,i am simply saying1 that everything we need to know in a general sense about ,christian doctrine becomes intelligible and reasonable1 not when we approach ,christ through our doubts and difficulties about doctrines1 but our doubts and difficulties through ,christ4 ,in ,him is life1 and the life is the light of men4 ,i care not for the moment what dogmas about ,christ you accept or reject2 ,i ask you to think1 and then say1 what heaven worth entering1 of state or place1 could close against us1 were we in the ,spirit of ,christ walking in the footsteps of ,christ8 ,then about feeling3 ,is there one of us who can say1 that he1 or she1 has never had the impulse that should lead to ,christian decision8 ,long as we make it possible for ,god to appeal to us1 ,he will find ,his own way4 ,from ,him is the impulse1 whichever way it comes1 but it is ours to put it in practice4 ,but just as we do not wait for feeling to take us out to earn our bread1 and keep a roof over our head1 so it is a far nobler thing to turn to ,god from a sense of duty1 and conscience1 and spiritual need1 than it is to depend upon feeling to make us do1 what not to do1 with or without feeling1 is our loss and our shame4 ,do not wait for feeling4 ,begin your part in the work of your own salvation4 ,if feeling carry you into decision1 and it sometimes does1 well and good4 ,but for one case where feeling leads to decision there are probably a score where feeling must be made by what follows decision4 ,take care of doing1 and feeling will take care of itself2 and as we rejoice in its inspiration1 we shall realize that1 perhaps for the most part1 it can come no other way4 ,to have the joy of doing good1 we must do good4 ,we cannot have the tonic and bracing sense of vigour by saying we will climb the mountain4 ,it is when we have scaled its heights that we have the experience of a new physical creation4 ,why wait1 then1 for what is waiting for us8 ,the ,divine ,spirit is universal and infinite4 ,it is the mother-soul of the universe1 with eternal power and sweetness and beauty1 and glory1 shining down upon all men1 stimulating them to be nobler1 to go up higher4 ,and when we accept the influence of the ,holy ,spirit seeking the divine in us1 and co-operate with it1 we have found the answer to the question3 ,what must ,i do to be saved8 ,does any one say1 ,i ask again1 that he has never had this impulse8 ,as truly can he say that he has never felt the sun4 ,let him take heed4 ,the sun sets1 and it is night4 ,there can be a night of the soul--the darkest1 blackest1 most hopeless night of all4 ,he that hath the ,son hath life2 and he that hath not the ,son of ,god hath not life4 ,to be saved is to live2 and only to the life above us can the life within us respond4 ,out of ,christ we do not live2 we but exist4 ,and existence at its highest estate has no power inherent in it to cast out the selfishness and death that build a hell's despair1 in what might be the kingdom of heaven in our human life and world4 ,do we want to be saved8 ,do we desire life8 ,then pray1 and begin at once to do what our heart and conscience tell us the ,christ would have us do4 ,will to do the will1 and doing it we shall enter1 gradually at first1 and then with more royal progress and joy unspeakable1 into the truth of ,his word3 ,because ,i live1 ye shall live also4 #a ,rev4 ,w4 ,l4 ,walker4 #b ,dr4 ,lyman ,abbot4 ,,does ,,god ,,have ,,fair-,,play8 ,know therefore that the ,lord thy ,god1 he is ,god1 the faithful ,god4--,deut4 vii4 #i4 ,x ,,does ,,god ,,have ,,fair-,,play8 ,a professor in one of our colleges1 who is an acknowledged authority on the prophets of the ,old ,testament1 gave a course of lectures lately on his own subject to a summer school of theology4 ,his aim in one of these prelections was to show how the prophet ,jeremiah developed himself by debate and discussion with ,god4 ,at its close an elderly clergyman1 shaking the lecturer by the hand1 said to him3 ,i was delighted to hear what you said about ,jeremiah4 ,i myself have for forty years preached the right and duty of men to stand up to their ,maker4 ,it was1 to say the least1 a crude way of expressing himself2 but the man had a meaning1 and ,i think ,i know what it was4 ,we may1 to a large extent1 have grown out of the old ,calvinistic representation of ,god2 but its reflex influence abides in a greater degree than we perhaps realize4 ,this representation puts its emphasis1 not so much upon the ,fatherhood as upon the ,sovereignty of ,god4 ,it holds man responsible for the moral quality of his actions to ,god2 but all reference to man's claims upon ,god are met with the stern question3 ,shall the thing formed say to ,him that formed it1 ,why hast ,thou made me thus8 ,whatever the ,apostle may have meant1 this question has been used to support an intolerable position1 and the clergyman spoke out his revolt against it4 ,his divinely implanted instinct of justice assured him that a ,god1 who is to command our intellectual confidence and heart-trust1 must1 while exercising the prerogatives of a ,sovereign1 accept the responsibilities of a ,father4 ,family life would break all to pieces if we as fathers did not carry our recognition of the claims and rights of children past a severe1 however just1 parental authority and control into the larger realm of wise liberty and undoubted affection4 ,and it is out of the best and highest we know of our relations to one another1 that we are to understand what we ought to be to ,god1 and what ,god has promised to be to us4 ,for ,god not only affirms ,his responsibility to us1 ,he challenges us to say1 whether1 having done our part1 we have weighed ,his part in the balance and found it wanting4 ,it is the declaration of the ,scriptures from beginning to end1 that the ,lord our ,god is a faithful ,god4 ,through the mouth of one of ,his prophets ,he confronts us with a question which1 were it not ,his own question1 would hurt us as almost profane3 ,what iniquity have your fathers found in me1 that they have gone far from me8 ,we need not shrink1 therefore1 from talking reverently about the responsibility of ,god1 for ,he asks us to build our trust1 not only in ,his promises1 but upon our experience of the faithfulness with which ,he has kept ,his promises4 ,what1 then1 is our testimony8 ,has ,god been faithful to us2 and if so1 are we justified in assuming that the same faithfulness is the experience of others8 ,know therefore that the ,lord thy ,god1 ,he is ,god1 the faithful ,god4 ,take this affirmation on its lowest grounds--as touching material things4 ,it is not said that man does not live by bread1 when it is said that he lives not by bread alone4 ,we may insist upon it1 that material concerns are not worthy to be compared with the things of the spirit2 but this does not affect the truth1 that while we are on this planet we must have material things4 ,jesus has told us that1 ,our ,heavenly ,father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask ,him4 ,it does not follow that the things we desire are the things we need4 ,christ does not pledge the divine faithfulness to our desires2 it is pledged to our needs4 ,and how is it redeemed1 even in the case of the latter8 ,think for a moment of the poverty there is amid all our plenty4 ,think of the evils and misery that are the consequence as well as the cause of poverty4 ,there are thousands of men1 and women1 and children dying every year in ,india from want and sheer starvation4 ,we are told that1 in each case1 a penny a day would mean comparative plenty4 ,they are ,god's creatures1 willing1 and indeed eager1 to work themselves to skin and bone for a penny a day1 and they cannot earn it4 ,think again of the untold human beings nearer home1 locked in a warfare from which there is no discharge but death2 the grim struggle for a bare existence1 with its chances at every turn of sickness1 accident1 no work1 and then the abyss4 ,when we have reckoned off the probable proportion of those who have done much to make the conditions in which they find themselves1 we have a large percentage of people who are no more responsible for the poverty and suffering they have to endure than they are responsible for the fact that they are in the world which uses them so harshly4 ,for my part ,i can offer no explanation of these things1 that can give a sensitive heart and an honest mind more than a very moderate degree of satisfaction4 ,there are communities1 and even races of people1 whose existence in this world appears to have no immediate relation to their own personal happiness and well-being4 ,they come and pass away as phases of what we must believe is an evolution towards higher things4 ,but this is the question3 ,have they who compose this lonely and sombre procession no claims upon their ,maker in the meanwhile8 ,i do not believe that one human soul will fail of absolute1 abundant1 and rich compensation1 in those eternal years that are at ,god's right hand4 ,i have a word to say about this later1 but for the present ,i may say that ,i answer many questions by my conviction that what we call death does not end all4 ,columbus is reported to have said3 ,i must have another continent to keep the earth's balance true4 ,and ,i must have the personal conscious future1 which is to right the wrongs of the ages1 if ,i am to believe and preach the faithfulness of ,god4 ,but we must guard against an impatience which is our littleness4 ,in the immense times of the ,almighty1 every dark mystery of human being can move away1 and leave the sky of ,providence at last1 arching over the soul with not a cloud to dim its stars4 ,for my present faith ,i hold it true with one who trusts-- ,that nothing walks with aimless feet1 ,that not one life shall be destroyed1 ,or cast as rubbish to the void1 ,when ,god hath made the pile complete4 ,when any man confronts me with the inequalities of our human lot1 with the suffering many have to endure from causes they have not instituted1 and circumstances over which they have no control1 ,i may be1 and often am1 obliged to make him a present of much that he has to urge4 ,but there are two things to be said1 on the other side1 which ,i can only briefly indicate1 and ask you to work them out in your own mind4 ,i affirm as the first of the two1 that the good in our life far outweighs the evil4 ,when all is said1 happiness is the rule of our normal experience1 and not misery4 ,we hear much1 for example1 about the suffering which is part of the order of the animal creation2 how a stronger beast feeds upon a weaker1 and is in turn the prey of another stronger still4 ,while again we are told that the joys of these myriads of sentient creatures are immeasurably greater than their pains4 ,they have pleasure more than sufficient to justify their call into existence1 in spite of the drawbacks to their happiness incident to the conditions of their existence4 ,i am satisfied that the latter representation is true of the animal world1 as ,i am convinced that it is true of the human4 ,let what may be said to the contrary1 life is a mighty boon4 ,when men bring in a verdict of unsound mind in a case of suicide1 the instinct may have more to do with it than the order of evidence on which the verdict is based4 ,we have to conclude that a man was insane before he could lay violent hands on himself4 ,look back upon our life1 we who have travelled some distance into it1 and let us say whether so far we do not account it a blessing to have lived and to be living4 ,we have had our hard lines1 and we have known the pleasant places2 we have had our sorrows1 and we have had our joys2 we have been under the clouds1 and we have lived in the sunshine4 ,nay1 ,i dare go further and say1 that for a day we have had of the former1 we have had a week of the latter4 ,it is a narrow and unworthy conception of happiness to invest all our chances of it in the accident of circumstances4 ,there is some force in the saying1 that heaven is here or nowhere4 ,if we have any thought of happiness worth turning into a fact1 our life may be filled with it though the hardest possible circumstances be surrounding us4 ,not where we are1 but what we are1 makes our much or little whether of good or ill4 ,it is an ungrateful proceeding to go through life consuming as much as possible of the fruits of a gracious present1 and yet with only plaints and complaints about the legislation which tempers the blessings with the little severity needed to teach us what the blessings are4 ,some one has remarked that it is the whole tragedy1 and ultimately the whole power of the ,christian religion1 that it is attacked from every side4 ,it is accused of faults that are hopelessly inconsistent with each other4 ,one day it is charged with making man too responsible2 the next1 with not making him responsible enough4 ,the truth is1 that we need not try to make man too responsible in order to make him responsible enough4 ,it has often been pointed out1 that the ,christian religion is by turns optimistic and pessimistic4 ,st4 ,paul is pessimist enough where he says3 ,for ,i know that in me--that is1 in my flesh--dwelleth no good thing4 ,but who so optimistic as the same ,apostle when he declares3 ,i can do all things through ,christ which strengtheneth me4 ,much of the secret of it1 under ,god1 is in a cultivated and consecrated will4 ,every matter1 says ,epictetus1 has two handles1 and you can choose which handle you will take4 ,every man has in him some promise of the gradual supremacy of character over the accidents1 happenings1 forces and factors of circumstances4 ,these may be his tests2 they need not be his fate4 ,the real vital division of the religious part of our ,protestant communities1 says ,wendell ,holmes1 is into ,christian optimists and ,christian pessimists4 ,i would rank myself among the former and say again1 that the good in the conditions of our life far outweighs the ill4 ,and while maintaining this position1 ,i would also1 as the second of the two things to be urged1 have us face the question1 ,who is responsible for the ill there is8 ,george ,meredith1 in a reference to this subject1 declares that no man can think1 and not think hopefully4 ,whether or not this be true in the case of every man who thinks1 this can be said--it ought to be true4 ,instead of multiplying words to no profit over the old question1 ,why all this misery and suffering8 let us think for a moment in another direction1 and we shall perchance be encouraged to think hopefully4 ,it has been said that human wisdom has arrived at no juster and higher view of the present state1 than that it is intended to call forth power by obstruction2 the power of a life that is perfect and entire1 by the responsibility of choice between the things that make or mar it4 ,if ,god can rank in us nothing higher than character1 and if character on the man side can be achieved only out of right choice translated in its kindred action--then it must follow that the power to choose the right is the power to choose the wrong4 ,which means in the fewest words1 that sin1 and all the ills and suffering that proceed out of its selfishness1 are the issue of this possibility of fatal choosing4 ,if it be asked3 ,why the possibility at all8 ,i answer that without it men would cease to be men and become something else2 and what that something else would be need not enter into our speculation4 ,it is because we can do wrong that we can do right2 and if we think about this1 may we not think hopefully8 ,it is the fashion in our day to write and talk as though heredity1 and the effects of the accumulation of heredity1 were somehow sinister enough to drape the heavens in black1 and silence all the songs of the angels4 ,this law1 we are told1 can have no moral interpretation consistent with freedom and responsibility4 ,the more than tendency of much that is being written and said is to depress the mind with a sense of the relentless force of general laws and influences1 and to diminish in the individual the conviction of his power to contend against them4 ,i would avoid dogmatism about this matter and simply say that this seems plain to me3 for one drawback we meet along the pathway of inheritances1 we have a very legion of resource and help through the gains of time1 and of the race4 ,the penalties we have to pay for transgression against law are not a just indictment of the law1 they are the penalty of its transgression2 a by-product1 which is always a decaying product as the character of the race heightens4 ,the purpose of ,god in us is character1 and once we have it1 established in divine grace and ensphered in the human will of a sufficient number of us1 we shall soon make our new and better world4 ,without this character we may hope for nothing1 with it we need despair of nothing4 ,granted then for a moment that we had but a little more of this ,god-fibre running through our individual and our collective life1 such an experience as physical want would become but a memory of a hideous past4 ,this good old mother-earth can yield us1 not only enough to go round1 but enough to go round in generous abundance4 ,why is it that a few have so much more than they can use1 and so many have less than they need8 ,do we think that ,god wills it8 ,can we conceive of it as having any part in the economy of the ,kingdom which ,jesus came to establish on the earth8 ,it is not ,god1 but our selfishness that wills it2 a selfishness that has its length of days and its malign power in the widespread folly and culpable ignorance that play into its hands4 ,think again for a moment about the effects on society as a whole of the intemperate use of strong drink4 ,they are incarnated in horrors1 look where we will4 ,the injuries which simply swarm out of our licensed temptations to drunkenness are not exceptional and irregular2 they are1 as one of the most eminent of our publicists has said1 uniform as the movements of the planets1 and as deadly as the sirocco of the desert or the malaria of the marshes4 ,there is not a profession round which drink has not thrown the spell of its sorcery2 scarcely a household that has not been despoiled by its leprous pollution4 ,and who is responsible for it8 ,does any one doubt that if the ,christian ,churches looked at this accursed traffic through the eyes of ,god1 and attacked it with faith in ,his omnipotence1 that we could not break its back within the next ten years8 ,long as we are content merely to run the eyes of our intelligence over the episodes of this great battle of wrong against right2 to mark down its critical moments1 and to analyse its issues while careful above all things not to implicate ourselves in the agonies of its crises1 then let us not challenge the faithfulness of ,god for wrongs and sorrows brought into the world1 and kept here by our selfishness4 ,those of us who have part or lot in this selfishness--and most of us have--let us1 at any rate1 play the game1 and accept our own responsibility4 ,i do not wonder at the severity there is in the human world2 for hard as it falls in places1 it is yet the sign-manual of its uplifting and hope4 ,we sometimes talk bitterly about the crucifixions in our life2 but believe it when ,i say1 that a world without them would be a dark and terrible vision4 ,if we could do evil with impunity1 if its punishment were a mere peradventure1 it would mean that evil was the heart of the world4 ,we may be profoundly thankful that wrong and suffering are cause and effect which nothing can break4 ,were it not so1 it would mean that under skies dark and pitiless1 a brutal scramble to survive would be the law1 as in the animal world it is said to be the instinct4 ,i know that many come into the world and leave it1 never having had the chance to be all they might have been in more gracious circumstances4 ,but ,i can trust them with ,him who is too wise to err1 and too good to be unjust4 ,this1 then1 is as far as ,i have got with the general merits of the subject before us4 ,to say there are experiences in the lives of individuals1 and even of communities1 which we cannot explain1 is no proof that the universe is immoral4 ,i submit to you1 that the good in our lot infinitely outweighs the ill for which we are not directly responsible2 and that the consequences of the ill for which we are directly responsible are intended to chastise it out of existence4 ,may ,i counsel you to think about what has been said8 ,remember there are some things ,god cannot do for us1 and yet leave us men4 ,he cannot make a better world without the consent of our individual obedience and the co-operation of our will4 ,i should1 ,i trust1 be the last man to ask people to be content1 or even patient1 with things as they are in the life that now is1 on the assumption merely that they are to be better in the life that is to be4 ,i do not say that heaven is here or nowhere2 but ,i do believe that it ought to be here1 in its degree1 as truly as anywhere else4 ,if we can think of contempt as part of the ,being of ,god1 surely this must be ,his feeling for much of the wrong and suffering that finds a place in the human world4 ,it is so gratuitous1 so insensate1 so unnecessary4 ,is it not a terrible reflection upon some of us1 that after the ,cross has been silently teaching the world these well-nigh two thousand years1 it can yet be said with some show of reason1 that the two forces that keep society1 as we know it1 together1 are the ignorance and the patience of the poor8 ,why should they be so long ignorant8 ,why should they be so chronically patient8 ,the sorrow of ,god must be1 not only that they suffer1 but that they are so patient under it as to make it scarcely distinguishable from content4 ,and why are they so patient8 ,this is the question ,god is asking through every thoughtful and humane man of us2 and one day--man with ,god speed its coming--we shall be numerous enough1 and in earnest enough1 to establish some real harmony1 some true correspondence1 between the inner dignity and the outward lot of the individual1 and1 through him1 of the community4 ,in the meantime1 then1 instead of asking1 how can ,god be ,god and permit wrong to be in the world8 let us face the truth1 however it may smite us1 the truth that wrong is in the world for this reason--that we permit it4 ,growing out of what has been advanced1 suffer me to press the subject a little further1 under one or two statements4 ,i purpose to do little more than indicate them1 and to ask for them your good consideration4 ,god is faithful3 therefore good must be possible4 ,i was talking some time ago with a very intelligent man1 who has a well-known name in the world of letters1 and he said to me3 ,i admit that we have made something that answers to progress in material things1 but ,i deny that we have made any advance in moral attainment4 ,a few rise above the average level1 for the rest it is the old story of cycles of abortive effort with no lasting good to the race4 ,we may theorize and idealize as we like1 he went on to say1 but ,bebel is right when he tells us that 'every man is the product of his times and the instrument of his circumstances4' ,it was talk that exactly expresses much of the time-spirit of our modern day4 ,it is a doctrine with no ,god in it1 and no invisible world4 ,it assumes that man has no vision and no volition2 that he is a mere billiard-ball in the game of existence1 which goes whithersoever the cue of blind fate sends it4 ,that one man rises1 and another falls1 is neither the virtue of one nor the vice of the other1 but the necessity of both4 ,we follow the better if we have the accident of certain gifts1 or we take hold of the worse1 if we have not4 ,in either case we are no more responsible for our direction than we are responsible for the fact that we have to take a direction at all4 ,i shall not build up words in trying to answer this position4 ,i can conceive of no man who has some conscience left1 however he may seek a refuge from himself in this doctrine of moral irresponsibility1 who1 at the soul of him1 does not know it to be a lie4 ,we commonly use the terms evil and sin as interchangeable2 and in doing so we are apt to fall into confusion4 ,evil is1 as it were1 embedded in our nature2 and for that we are not accountable4 ,sin1 as ,i have said before1 is in yielding to the evil1 and that is our responsibility4 ,st4 ,paul speaks of the evil he found in his nature1 and while he admits its malignant power1 he does not represent himself as powerless to contend against it4 ,he accepts no responsibility for the fact that evil is there2 but he does accept responsibility for what he does with it1 or what it does with him4 ,tis one thing to be tempted1 ,escalus1 ,another thing to fall4 ,i know with any man the power of evil in my heart2 and while it may come1 as it were1 in spite of myself1 ,i can determine the question as to whether it shall stay4 ,it is the vilest heresy of our day to preach and believe that circumstances can absolve us from our duty2 or that they can prevent us from following the right4 ,the battle is hard1 at times very hard1 but what battle is not hard that is worth winning8 ,put religion out of the question1 and do we find that the prizes of the world offer us easier terms8 ,it is the greatness of the ,christian religion1 that it not only tells us what it were good to do1 but it offers to us the power to do it4 ,the great teachers of the world have said to their disciples3 ,accept our ideas2 ,christ says3 ,accept ,me4 ,he makes everything centre in ,his ,own ,personality4 ,and the men who have helped to make what so far in our human world is grand and glorious1 have shown us that ,christ's word is a real word1 meaning a real thing4 ,one who has the right to testify has told us that1 when we do the will of ,god as if it were our own will1 we realize that ,god is doing our will as ,his own4 ,there is a great truth in this4 ,we so often fail because ours is a broken obedience4 ,we expect ,god to do ,his part1 while we keep back part of the price of our own1 and what response we have is the sense of being mocked in ourselves4 ,we have to find out that we cannot serve two masters4 ,however we fall short in practice1 the intention must be all for ,god1 or it will be none4 ,but let us be genuine co-workers with ,him in this great work of personal character-building2 and we find that we have a power not ourselves1 and infinitely greater than ourselves4 ,our achievements are not so much a question of gift1 as of dynamic4 ,they are not in the machinery1 but in the driving power4 ,how is it--was a question recently asked concerning one of the most useful men in the ,christian ministry--that with his obvious limitations he has accomplished so much8 ,and the answer was3 ,because he has made it possible for ,god to use him for all he is worth4 ,failure is impossible in the man who can say3 ,i live1 and yet not ,i1 but ,christ liveth in me4 ,we cannot explain the power2 but it is there1 and we all may have it by obedience to the conditions through which it can be given4 ,i have been down deep in the hell of moral failure1 writes one1 and by the grace of ,god ,i have come out of it4 ,i may not be able to explain ,his grace to the satisfaction of others2 but will others explain me to my own8 ,our lives may be the living evidences of this power4 ,the world asks for no more2 the world will accept no less4 ,our day1 we are told1 has ceased to believe in such miracles4 ,it were truer to say that it has ceased to believe in anything else4 ,goodness is possible2 and not to achieve it is to defeat the purpose for which we were born into this world4 ,let us believe in goodness4 ,let us learn to love goodness because it is goodness4 ,let us say1 and live our word1 that there are no charges we can pay which we are not prepared to pay to be1 and to do1 that which is possible to us--and ,god will not fail us4 ,any man who is putting out all his strength in work and prayer to build up his higher nature need have no devil-fear that his strength will not be equal to his day4 ,he may not be able to choose his circumstances2 but he can show that he1 and not the circumstances1 is the master4 ,he can offer to the world the living proof that the triumph of good is possible to him whose power is the faithful ,god4 ,and once more3 ,because ,he is faithful who has promised1 we may safely leave the issues of our life in ,his keeping4 ,if by the help of ,god we are trying to do the will of ,god1 nothing else really matters4 ,the crooked places of to-day will be made straight to-morrow4 ,after all1 it is not more knowledge we need1 but more power to use the knowledge we have4 ,much of our unrest only means that we want to know more than the silent ,god sees fit to tell us4 ,we know enough for the wise ordering of life2 and the highest1 holiest thing any of us can do1 is to do the wisest and best we know1 in whatever honest sphere circumstances have placed us4 ,the riddles of the universe1 and the perplexities and heartache which come out of our attempts to reconcile much that we know and see with the rule of an ,almighty1 an all-wise and faithful ,god--these will be here long after we are gone4 ,we must just take the ,master at ,his word when ,he says3 ,what ,i do thou knowest not now2 but thou shalt know hereafter4 ,we cannot1 says a wise teacher1 take up a drop of water1 and find in that drop the flow of the tides1 and the soft and then loud music of calm and storm4 ,to see the ocean we must grasp it in all its rocky bed1 bordered by continents4 ,so before the very present troubles of life1 we cannot see all the government of the faithful ,god4 ,it has boundaries wider than these4 ,human life is but a fraction of the sum of life4 ,the tides of the mind1 the music and the tumult of human waters1 cannot be heard and felt in this drop of existence4 ,we may believe that the moral government of the world is in the hands of ,him whose love and law are both the same2 and we may1 at the same time1 have to recognize the fact1 that so many suffer grievously from forces they have not called into being1 and which they are almost helpless to control4 ,we may have to reconcile as best we can1 a general ,providence1 with much apparent severity in its particular operation4 ,unless this be understood1 some parts of this address will appear inconsistent with each other4 ,i leave this order of suffering--not its causes--with the responsibility of ,god2 and1 for myself1 ,i am persuaded that our last word about it will be one of praise1 and not of reproach-- ,right for a while may yield to wrong1 ,and virtue be baffled by crime1 ,but the help of our need and the might of our creed ,are faith1 patience1 courage1 and time4 ,but to say that the faithfulness of ,god cannot be fully measured now is not to say that it cannot be measured at all4 ,do justly1 love mercy1 and walk humbly with ,god1 and our life will not only come out right at the end1 it will come out right all the way4 ,the lesson for us to learn is to labour and to wait2 to give ,god and ourselves space to work in4 ,whether ,god is in ,his heaven or not1 of this ,i am sure1 that1 given time1 right always comes to its own1 and all wrong1 sooner or later1 is defeat and disaster4 ,time forgets nothing1 it omits nothing which ,god requires at our hands4 ,it may not be ours to choose our task1 but we can choose to do it well4 ,what is really everyday religion is to do common things in an uncommon spirit4 ,there is nothing for us in the world that needs a lie2 nothing that excuses us from the wise admonition-- ,count that day lost whose low descending sun ,views by thy hand no worthy action done4 ,then let us just go on doing the highest we know1 and the best we can4 ,the reward may not seem to be to-day1 nor yet to-morrow2 but we shall see that it was everyday and all the way1 when we look back upon it from the shores of the life eternal4 ,let us trust the faithful ,god1 and we shall be taught to regard the troubles that test1 and the limitations that perplex us1 as the agents of ,his ,providence through the courses of time4 ,and as we see in each new revelation of ,his goodness and mercy towards us an added circle of splendour in ,his halo of light1 we shall learn to say of ourselves1 and the race of which we form a part-- ,the ,god of ,truth and ,love1 ,the ,ancient ,friend of man1 ,makes every age an onward stage1 ,and has1 since time began2 ,sing ye praises1 oh1 sing praises1 ,god has a glorious plan4