The woman of Samaria has struck the marvel in the life of Jesus; He had nothing to draw with. The most attractive figure in the fields of time had no outward cause for His attractiveness. He says so Himself, ''I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." His drawing will be proportionate to His withdrawing, to His shrinking within Himself, to His sacrifice. The greatest compliment you can pay to man or woman is to say that they attract without adornment. There are some who would reveal their birth in any garb‚ in the meanest, in the poorest. You might clothe them in rags; you might lodge them in hovels; you might surround them with the humblest furniture; but their speech would betray them to be "not of Galilee." They have nothing to draw with, but they themselves draw. They may stand before the judgment-seat of a Pilate; but their attitude says "I am a king." So is it with Thee, Thou Son of the Highest. Thou hast nothing to attract but Thine own beauty. Thou hast put off the best robe of the Father; Thou hast assumed the dress of the prodigal son. It is in a soiled garment that Thou hast solicited my love. Thou hast come to me footsore and weary - a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Thou hast offered me no gifts of material glory. Thou hast asked me to share Thy poverty. Thou hast said: ''Wilt thou come with me to the place where the thorns are rifest, to the land where the roses are most rare? Wilt thou follow me down the deep shadows of Gethsemane, up the steep heights of Calvary? Wilt thou go with me where the hungry cry for bread, where the sick implore for health, where the weary weep for rest? Wilt thou accompany me where pain dwells, where danger lurks, where death lies? Wilt thou walk with me through the lanes and alleys where the poor meet and struggle and die? Wilt thou live with me where the world passes by in scorn, where fashion pauses not to rest, where even disciples have often forsaken me and fled? Then is thy love complete, my triumph perfected. Then have I reached the summit of human glory; for thou hast chosen me for myself alone, and without the aid of earth I have drawn thy heart to heaven." Reverend Matheson
The world has all along been refusing to let Christ through. It has never had room for Him within the inn; it has relegated Him to the manger. It wants Him to be kept apart. It is willing to visit Him occasionally in the manger - even, at times, to bring a little gold and frankincense. But it does not wish Him to become a force in its own affairs. Why so; what is it afraid of? The same thing which Edom feared. Edom was afraid that the hordes of Israel would tear up her cultivated fields and destroy her national produce. The world fears that Christ will tear up human instincts and make men unnatural. The world is wrong; we are never so natural as when we are Christians. What kills naturalness is self-consciousness; it makes us either too confident or too shy. When I am too confident I am thinking about myself; when I am too shy I am equally thinking about myself. In both cases the mirror of myself is the prominent thing. What will break the mirror? A larger environment. Why are traveled people so nice? It is because they are so natural. And why are they so natural? It is because their eyes have rested on a wider sphere. They have forgot their own greatness; they have forgot their own humility; they have forgot to think about themselves at all - they have smashed their mirror.
So shall it be with thee, my soul, if thou wilt let Christ in. Thou shalt become for the first time perfectly natural. Thou shalt be a traveled man - the most traveled of all men. Before thee shall stretch the general assembly of the firstborn - the biggest scene in the universe. The things around thee shall lose their importance either as a cross or as a crown. Thou shalt forget to be proud, thou shalt forget to be humble. There shall come to thee a larger love, which shall destroy both vaunting and shrinking. Perfect health neither says '' I am sick "nor" I am well; " it is unconsciousness of its own breathing. So shall it be with thee when Christ shall enter in. Thou shalt become spontaneous, natural, free. Thine shall be the singing of the brook, the warbling of the bird, the kindling of the flower. There shall be no pausing for effect, no posing for attitudes, no angling for favor, no trying to seem. No more shalt thou study the right thing to say; it shall be given thee in the moment - love's moment. Thy goodness shall be grace - something native to thy life. Thy kindness shall be instinctive - born in thy blood. Thy sacrifice shall be unconscious - part of thy being. Thy service shall be easy - an expression of thine own heart. It is sin that has made thee unnatural; thou shalt be a child of nature again when thou hast let Christ in.
"They drank of that spiritual rock which followed them." 1 Corinthians 10:4
It is ever so. The blessing of our good deeds does not accompany them; it follows them. It often seems at the time as if they were done in vain. Our good actions appear for the present to have a death in the desert. You give a coin to a beggar who seems to be starving. He thanks you profusely. You watch his receding form, and see him vanish into the first gin-shop. You say ''my charity has all gone for nothing." No; it is only your money that has. Do not identify your money with your charity. The one, through the force of long habit, may be spent in an ale-house within five minutes; the other may be laid up in the heart for years, and bear rich interest after many days. I have seen a kind advice bring forth at the time only a storm of temper; but on the morrow it was weighed and accepted. "Light is sown for the righteous" is a beautiful phrase. It tells me that I must expect my good deeds to lie underground a while. Like the disciples, I must begin the journey to Emmaus ere I have heard of the risen flower. Yet my Christ shall overtake me on the way, and at evening, when the day is far spent, the fruits of the morning shall abide with me.
Lord, if Thou wilt go before me, I shall be content that Thy goodness and mercy follow me. I should not like to postpone obedience to Thy command till I can see the good of it. There are times when to me, as to Abraham, there comes the mandate, "Get thee out of thy country into a land which thou knowest not." At such times I cry, like Moses, ''I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory; let me see the gain of Thy command before I go." But Thou sayest: ''No, my child, I go before; the gain follows. I know there are things in the journey to appal thee. I have pointed thee to the red heights of Moriah; I have spread for thee the stone pillow of Bethel; I have prepared for thee the lonely peak of Nebo. What then? Wilt thou insist beforehand on seeing the ram in the thicket? Wilt thou insist on beholding in advance the ladder from heaven? Wilt thou insist on having a previous view of the Promised Land? Nay, let my voice to thee precede my light. Plunge into the sea, and thy Christ will follow. Dive into the night, and the morning will follow. Stride into the desert, and the world will follow. Thy glory shall come after thee. Thy buried Christ shall meet thee in the evening. Thou shalt drink at twilight of that fountain which was sealed to thee at dawn.'' Matheson.
"A promise being left us of entering into His rest." Hebrews 4:1
What is my promise of entering into rest? It is not my possessions, but my wants. When you ask men the ground of their immortal hope they often point you to the powers of the human soul - proud reason, lofty imagination, clear judgment, far memory. That is a vain boast. To the inhabitant of another star these might seem but the movement of a midge's wing. My brother, you have mistaken the secret of your true dignity. It is not the sense of what you have, but the sense of what you have not, that makes you a man, that divides you from the beast of the field. What do you mean by a ''boy of promise"? Not a boy who has reached great knowledge, but a boy who wants more knowledge than he can yet get; we call such "a promising lad." Your heavenly Father has a like estimate - whether for boys or girls, for men or women. He measures your promise by your wants. Not he that is content with the treasures within his door is the Father's promising son. It is he that batters on the door and cries " Let me out, let me out; it is too narrow here, too dull, too lonely." The boy is above his environment. He is beyond his playthings, but not yet ready for his prizes. He is in the desert between Egypt and Canaan. Egypt is past; Canaan is not yet come; yet his cry is not to get back, but to get forward. The land of the Pyramids would not please him now. He has no rest in all the yesterdays; he wants something from to-morrow.
My Father, I understand now why it is to the ''poor in spirit" that Christ promises the kingdom. The proof of my royalty is my unsatisfied soul. The promise of my rest is my unrest. My claim to Thee is my longing for Thee. I could not long for Thee if Thou wert not in me; my want is the shadow of Thy sunshine. I am the only creature on earth that is not content with its environment. The bird carols all the day, and asks not larger wing. The fish swims upon the wave, and desires no friendlier bosom. The cattle browse in the meadow, and find the meadow ample room. But neither the air nor the water nor the land has been a rest to me. I have refused to sing where the lark sings - outside the gates of heaven. I have beat against the bars; I have demanded to get in. The gate that bars me from Thee has spoiled my song. My want of Thee is my prophecy of Thee. Why do I refuse to sing on the outside of the heavenly gate? Because within the gate is my Father's house, with its warm fires of welcome, with its many mansions of gold. My thirst for Thee is the cry for "home, sweet home;" and the cry is itself the promise that I shall enter into Thy rest. Matheson
"Seek to excel." What a strange precept for a gospel of love! Is not the wish to excel, a very bad thing? Is it not the root of most of the evil in the world? Is it not the cause of jarrings and jealousies and jostlings? Does it not raise heart-burnings different from those of the disciples on the road to Emmaus? Yes; but look at the passage again. Look at the reason given for the precept: Forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts. Paul says if they had been zealous for material gifts he would have given very different advice. To excel in a material gift means to excel others. The possession of outward fame depends on your superiority; the beauty of a particular type of face lies in its rarity.
But to excel in spiritual gifts is not to excel others; it is to surpass our former selves. The value of a spiritual gift depends on its diffusiveness - on the number of people that have it besides myself. Joy dies unless it is shared. Love breaks the heart unless it is reciprocated. Knowledge makes a solitude if it is possessed by one alone - the solitude of the Son of Man. The gold of the outward world is precious 'from its scarcity; but the gold of the kingdom of God grows precious as it becomes ample.
My soul, wouldst thou know whether thy gift is spiritual or temporal? Ask thyself the question, Why do I wish to excel in it? Is it that men may say, "He walketh among the golden candlesticks; he is the chief among ten thousand"? Then thy gift is temporal - a poor fragile, earthly thing. But is it that thou mayst make others rich? Is it that thou mayst share with those around thee? Is it that men may cease to say of thee, ''He is the chief among ten thousand"? Is it that thou mayst make thy brother glad? Is it that thy voice may cheer the toiling, that thy song may brighten the invalid, that thy reading may instruct the blind, that thy painted flower may gladden the infirmary, that thy music may beguile a sister's hour of weariness, that thy poetry may kindle the aspiring of drooping souls? Then is thy gift spiritual, whatever it may be. Be it stone and lime, be it verse and rhyme, be it earth and time, if it is meant for ''the edifying of the Church" it is a gift of the Spirit of God. Reverend Matheson
There is one more reason why I am disposed to accept this doctrine of future recognition; that is, so many in their last hour on earth have confirmed this theory. I speak not of persons who have been delirious in their last moment and knew not what they were about, but of persons who died in calmness and placidity, and who were not naturally superstitious. Often the glories of heaven have struck the dying pillow, and the departing man has said he saw and heard those who had gone away from him. How often it is in the dying moments parents see their departed children and children see their departed parents. I came down to the banks of the Mohawk River. It was evening, and I wanted to go over the river, and so I waved my hat and shouted, and after awhile I saw some one waving on the opposite bank, and I heard him shout, and the boat came across, and I got in and was transported. And so I suppose it will be in the evening of our life. "We will come down to the river of death and give a signal to our friends on the other shore, and they will give a signal back to us, and the boat comes and our departed kindred are the oarsmen, the fires of the setting day tingling the top of the paddles. Oh, have you ever sat by such a deathbed ? In that hour you hear the departing soul cry. "Hark! look!" You hearkened and looked. A little child, pining away because of the death of its mother, getting weaker and weaker every day, was taken into the room where hung the picture of her mother. She seemed to enjoy looking at it, and then she was taken away, and after awhile died In the last moment that wan and wasted little one lifted her hands, while her face lighted up with the glory of the next world, and cried out "Mother!" You tell me she did not see her mother? She did. So in my first settlement at Belleville a plain man said to me, "What do you think I heard last night? I was in the room where one of my neighbors was dying. He was a good man, and he said he heard the angels of God singing before the throne. I haven't much poetry about me, but I listened and I heard them too." Said I, "I have no doubt of it." Why, we are to be taken up to heaven at last by ministering spirits. Who are they to be? Souls that went up from Madras, or Antioch, or Jerusalem? Oh, no, our glorified kindred are going to troop around us. Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D.
Then come the climax and the crisis. A climax is the climbing to
the top rung of the ladder. A crisis is the meeting place of possible
victory and possible disaster. A single step divides between the two —
the precipice-height, and the canon's yawning gulf.
It was a climax of opportunity; and a crisis of action. God's
climax of opportunity to man. Man's crisis of action. God made man
sovereign in his power of choice. Now He would go the last step and give
him the opportunity of using that power and so reaching the topmost
levels. God led man to the hill of choice. The man must climb the hill
if he would reach its top.
Only the use of power gives actual possession of the power. What
we do not use we lose. The pressure of the foot is always necessary to a
clear title. To him that hath possible power shall be given actual
power through use.
This opportunity was the last love-touch of God in opening up the
way into the fullness of His image. With His ideal for man God went to
His limit in giving the power. He could give the power of choice. Man
must use the power given. Only so could he own what had been given. God
could open the door. Man must step over the door-sill. Action realizes
power.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil was the tree of choice.
Obedience to God was the one thing involved. That simply meant, as it
always means, keeping in warm touch with God. All good absolutely is
bound up in this — obeying God, keeping in warm touch. To obey Him is
the very heart of good. All evil is included in disobeying Him. To
disobey, to fail to obey is the seeded core of all evil.
Whichever way he chose he would exercise his God-like power of
choice. Whichever way he chose, the knowledge would come. If he chose to
obey he would know good by choosing it, and evil by rejecting it. He
knew neither good nor evil, for he had not yet had the contact of
choice. Knowledge comes only through experience. In choosing not to
obey, choosing to disobey, he would know evil with a bitter intimacy by
choosing it. He would become acquainted with the good which he had
shoved ruthlessly away.
With the opportunity came the temptation: God's opportunity;
Satan's temptation. Satan is ever on the heels of God. Two inclined
planes lead out of every man's path. Two doors open into them side by
side. God's door up, the tempter's door down, and only a door- jamb
between. Here the split hoof can be seen sticking from under the cloak's
edge at the very start. Satan hates the truth. He is afraid of it. Yet
he sneaks around the sheltering corner of what he fears and hates. The
sugar coating of his gall pills he steals from God. The devil bare-faced, standing only on his own feet, would be instantly booted out at
first approach. And right well he knows it.
A cunning half- lie opens the way to a full -fledged lie, but
still coupled with a half-truth. The suggestion that God was harshly
prohibiting something that was needful leads to the further suggestion
that He was arbitrarily, selfishly holding back the highest thing, the
very thing He was supposed to be giving, that is, likeness to Himself.
Eve was getting a course in suggestion. This was the first lesson. The
school seems to be in session still. The whole purpose is to slander
God, to misrepresent Him. That has been Satan's favorite method ever
since. God is not good. He makes cruel prohibitions. He keeps from us
what we should have. It is passing strange how every one of us has had
that dust in his eyes. Some of us might leave the ''had "'out of that
sentence.
See how cunningly the truth and the lie are interwoven by this
old past-master in the sooty art of lying. "Your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as God knowing good and evil." It was true because by
the use of this highest power of choice he would become like God, and
through choosing he would know. It is cunningly implied with a sticky,
shameful cunning that, by not eating, that likeness and knowledge would not
come. That was the He. The choice either way would bring both this
element of likeness to God in the sovereign power of choice, and the
knowledge.
Then came the choice. The step up was a step down: up into the
use of his highest power; down by the use of that power. In that wherein
he was most like God in power, man became most unlike God in character.
First the woman chose: then the man. Satan subtly begins his attack
upon the woman. Because she was the weaker? Certainly not. Because she
was the stronger. Not the leader in action, but the stronger in
influence. He is the leader in action: she in influence. The greater
includes the less. Satan is a master strategist, bold in his cunning. If
the citadel can be gotten, all is won. If he could get the woman he
would get the man. She includes him. She who was included in him now
includes him. The last has become first.
She was deceived. He was not deceived. The woman chose unwarily
for the supposed good. The man chose with open eyes for the woman's
sake. Could the word gallantry be used? Was it supposed friendship? He
would not abandon her? Yet he proved not her friend that day, in
stepping down to this new low level. Man's habit of giving smoothly
spoken words to woman, while shying sharp-edged stones at her, should in
all honesty be stopped. Man can throw no stones at woman. If the woman
failed God that day, the man failed both God and the woman. If it be
true that through her came the beginning of the world's sin, through
her, too, be it gratefully and reverently remembered, came that which
was far greater — the world's Savior.
The choice was made. The act was done. Tremendous act! Bring your
microscope and peer with awe into that single act. No fathoming line
can sound its depth. No measuring rod its height nor breadth. No thought
can pierce its intensity. That reaching arm went around a world.
Millenniums in a moment. A million miles in a step. An ocean in a drop.
Volumes in a word. A race in a woman. A hell of suffering in an act. The
depths of woe in a glance. The first chapter of Romans in Genesis
three, six. Sharpest pain in softest touch. God mistrusted — distrusted.
Satan embraced. Sin's door open. Eden's gate shut.
Mark keenly the immediate result that came with that intense
rapidity possible only to mental powers. At once they were both
conscious of something that had not entered their thoughts before. To
the pure all things are pure. To the imagination hurt by breaking away
from God, the purest things can bring up suggestions directly opposite.
Through the open door of disobedience came with lightning swiftness the
suggestion of using a pure, holy function of the body in a way and for a
purpose not intended. Making an end of that which was meant to be only a
means to a highest end. Degrading to an animal pleasure that which held
in its pure hallowed power the whole future of the race. There is
absolutely no change save in the inner thought. But what a horrid
heredity in that one flash of the imagination! Every sin lives first in
the imagination. The imagination is sin's brooding and birth-place. An
inner picture, a lingering glance, a wrong desire, an act — that is the
story of every sin. The first step was disobedience. That opened the
door. The first suggestion of wrong-doing that followed hot on the heels
of that first step, through that open door, struck at the very \itals
of the race — both its existence and its character. That first suggested
unnatural action, with its whole brood, has become the commonest and
slimiest sin of the race.
Here, in the beginning, the very thought shocked them. In that
lay their safety. Shame is the recoil of God's image from the touch of
sin. Shame is sin's first checkmate. It is man's vantage for a fresh
pull up. There are only two places where there is no shame: where there
is no sin; where sin is steeped deepest in. The extremes are always
jostling elbows. Instantly the sense of shame suggested a help. A simple
bit of clothing was provided. It was so adjusted as to help most.
Clothing is man's badge of shame. The first clothing was not for the
body, but for the mind. Not for protection, but for concealment, that so
the mind might be helped to forget its end suggestions. It is one of
sin's odd perversions that draws attention by color and cut to the
race's badge of shame. It would seem strongly suggestive of moral
degeneracy, or of bad taste, or, let us say in charity, of a lapse of
historical memory.
Mark the sad soliloquy of God: "Behold the man has become as one
of us: He has exercised his power of choice." He tenderly refrains from
saying, "and has chosen wrong! so pitiably wrong!" That was plain
enough. He would not rub in the acid truth. He would not make the scar
more hideous by pointing it out. "And now lest he put forth his hand and
take of the tree of life." ''Lest!'' There is a further danger
threatening. In his present condition he needs guarding for his own sake
in the future. "Lest" — wrong choice limits future action. Sin narrows.
With man's act of sin came God's act of saving. Satan is ever on
the heels of God to hurt man. But God is ever on the heels of Satan to
cushion the hurt and save the man. It is a nip-and-tuck race with God a
head and a heart in the lead. Something had to be done. Man had started
sin in himself by his choice. The taint of disobedience, rebellion, had
been breathed out into the air. He had gotten out of sorts with his
surroundings. His presence would spoil his own heaven. The stain of his
sin would have been upon his eternal life. The zero of selfishness would
have been the atmosphere of his home. The touch of his unhallowed hand
must be taken away for his own sake. That unhallowed touch has been upon
every function and relationship of life outside those gates. Nothing
has escaped the slimy contact.
Sin could not be allowed to stay there. Its presence stole heaven
away from heaven. Yet sin had become a part of the man. The man and the
wrong were interwoven. They were inseparable. Sin has such a tenacious,
gluey, sticky touch! Each included the other it could not be put out
without his being put out. So man had to be driven out for his own sake
to rid his home-spot of sin. The man was driven out that he might come
back — changed. Love drove him out that later it might let him in. The
tree of life was kept from him for a time that it might be kept for him
for an eternity.
When he had changed his spirit, and changed sides in the fight
with it started that day, and gotten victory over the spirit now
dominant within himself, those gates would swing again. When the stain
of his choice would be taken out of his fiber it would be his right
eagerly to retrace these forced steps, and the coming back would find
more than had been left. Love has been busy planning the homecoming. The
tree of life has been grown in his absence to a grove of trees. The
life has become life more abundant.
"Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed" a Good Friday Hymn
It is noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect to
our thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness, with what is distant in
place or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at once
with our ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are,
we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to the
past or the future. Neither the point of time, nor the spot of earth, in
which we physically live, bounds our rational and intellectual
enjoyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history; and in
the future by hope and anticipation.
As it is not a vain and false, but an exalted and religious
imagination, which leads us to raise our thoughts from the orb, which,
amid this universe of worlds, the Creator has given us to inhabit, and
to send them with something of the feeling which nature prompts, and
teaches to be proper among children of the same Eternal Parent, to the
contemplation of the myrids of fellow-beings, with which His goodness
has peopled the infinite space--so neither is it false or vain to
consider ourselves as interested and connected with our forefathers,
through all time; allied to our ancestors; allied to our posterity;
closely compacted on all sides with others; ourselves being but links in
the great chain of being, which begins with the origin of our humanity,
runs onward through its successive generations, binding together the
past, the present and the future, and terminating at last with the
consummation of all things earthly, at the throne of God. Daniel Webster
We all spend much time in panegyric of longevity. We consider it a great thing to live to be an octogenarian. If any one dies in youth we say, ""What a pity!" Dr. Muhlenbergh in old age, said that the hymn written by him in early life by his own hand, no more expressed his sentiment when it said:
" I would not live alway."
"I Am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.'' John 11:25
If one be pleasantly circumstanced he never wants to go. William Cullen Bryant, the great poet, at eighty-two years of age standing in my house in a festal group, reading "Thanatopsis" without spectacles, was just as anxious to live as when at eighteen years of age he wrote that immortal threnody. Cato feared at eighty years of age that he would not live to learn Greek. Monaldesco at a hundred and fifteen years, writing the history of his time, feared a collapse. Theophrastus writing a book at ninety years of age was anxious to live to complete it. Thurlow Weed at about eighty-six years of age found life as great a desirability as when he snuffed out his first politician. Albert Barnes so well prepared for the next world at seventy said he would rather stay here. So it is all the way down. I suppose that the last time that Methuseleh was out of doors in a storm he was afraid of getting his feet wet lest it shorten his days.
Indeed, I sometime ago preached a sermon on the blessings of longevity, but in this, the last day of 1882, and when many are filled with sadness at the thought that another chapter of their life is closing, and that they have three hundred and sixty-five days less to live, I propose to preach to you about the blessings of an abbreviated earthly existence.
If I were an agnostic I would say a man is blessed in proportion to the number of years he can stay on terra firma, because after that he falls off the docks, and if he is ever picked out of the depths it is only to be set up in some morgue of the universe to see if any body will claim him. If I thought God made man only to last forty or fifty or a hundred years, and then he was to go into annihilation, I would say his chief business ought to be to keep alive and even in good weather to be very cautious, and to carry an umbrella and take overshoes, and life preservers, and bronze armor, and weapons of defense lest he fall off into nothingness and obliteration.
But, my friends, you are not agnostics. You believe in immortality and the eternal residence of the righteous in heaven, and therefore I remark that an abbreviated earthly existence is to be desired, and is a blessing because it makes ones life-work very compact. Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.
This world is turning on its axis once in four and twenty hours; and, besides that, it is moving round the sun in the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. So that we are all moving; we are flitting along through space. And as we are traveling through space, so we are moving through time at an incalculable rate. Oh! what an idea it is could we grasp it! We are all being carried along as if by a giant angel, with broad out-stretched wings; which he flaps to the blast, and, flying before the lightning, makes us ride on the wind. The whole multitude of us are hurrying along, - whither, remains to be decided by the test of our faith and the grace of God; but certain it is, we are all traveling. Your pulses each moment beat the funeral marches to the tomb. You are chained to the chariot of rolling time. There is no bridling the steeds, or leaping from the chariot; you must be constantly in motion. Spurgeon.
There have been human hearts, constituted just like ours, for six thousand years. The same stars rise and set upon this globe that rose upon the plains of Shinar or along the Egyptian Nile; and the same sorrows rise and set in every age. All that sickness can do, all that disappointment can effect, all that blighted love, disappointed ambition, thwarted hope, ever did, they do still. Not a tear is wrung from eyes now, that, for the same reason, has not been wept over and over again in long succession since the hour that the fated pair stepped from paradise, and gave their posterity to a world of sorrow and suffering. The head learns new things; but the heart forevermore practices old experiences. Therefore our life is but a new form of the way men have lived from the beginning. H. W. Beecher.
Tiniest insects build up loftiest mountains. Broad bands of solid rock, which undergird the earth, have been welded by the patient, constant toil of invisible creatures, working on through the ages, unhasting, unresting, fulfilling their Maker's will. On the shores of primeval oceans, watched only by the patient stars, these silent workmen have been building for us the structure of the world. And thus the obscure work of unknown nameless ages appears at last in the sunlight, the adorned and noble theater of that life of man, which, of all that is done in this universe, is fullest before God of interest and hope. It is thus, too, in life. The quiet moments build the years. The labors of the obscure and unremembered hours edify that palace of the soul, in which it is to abide, and fabricate the organ whereby it is to work and express itself through eternity. J. B. Brown.
Come with me to the Yosemite Valley; yonder stands El Capitan - the atmosphere so clear, it seems as though you might strike it with a stone. Approach nearer; how it looms up; how it grows and widens; how grand! See yonder those shrubs in the crevice - shrubs? They are trees, a hundred feet in height, three feet and more in diameter. Do you see that bend in the face of the rock? That is a fissure, 75 feet wide. Nearer yet, still nearer. It seems as if you might touch it now with your finger. Stand still under the shadow of El Capitan. A plumb line from the summit falls fifty feet from the base. Now look up, up, up, 3,600 feet - two-thirds of a mile — right up. How grand and sublime! Your lips quiver, your nerves thrill, your eyes fill with tears, and you understand in some degree your own littleness. "The inhabitants of the earth are but as grasshoppers." How small I am! I could not climb up fifty feet on the face of that rock, and there it towers above me. Yonder is the great South Dome, rising sheer up 6,000 feet - more than a mile, seamed and seared by the storms of ages, but anchored in the valley beneath. There are the Three Brothers, there the Cathedral rocks and spires, there the Sentinel Dome and the Sentinel Rock. How magnificent! See yonder the wonderful Yosemite Falls leaping through a gorge eighteen feet before it strikes, coming down like sky-rockets, exploding as they fall; striking, it leaps 400 feet, and again it leaps 600 feet. More than half a mile the water pours over. What a dash, what a magnificent anthem ascending to the great Creator! Now look around you in every direction, and you feel the littleness of man. Oh! I am but as the dust in the balance, but as the small dust in the balance; but God created man in His own image, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and made him - not gave him - but made him a living soul; therefore I am a man, a living man, but that is a dead rock. I am a living man. The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the world be removed like a cottage, the milky way shall shut its two awful arms and hush its dumb prayer forever, but I shall live, for I am a man with the fire of God in me and a spark of immortality that will never go out. The universe, grand and magnificent and sublime as it is, is but the nursery to man's infant soul, and the child is worth more than the nursery; therefore, I, a living, breathing, thinking, hoping man, with a reason capable of understanding, in some degree, the greatness of the Almighty, a mind capable of eternal development, and a heart capable of loving Him, am worth more than all God's material universe, for I am a man with a destiny before me as high as heaven and as vast as eternity. John B. Gough.
(Yosemite National Park and Hymn by RadiantTV)
With other ministrations thou, O Nature! Healest thy wandering and distempered child: Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, - Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amid this general dance and minstrelsy; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit healed and harmonized By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
Life is a journey, the end is nearing. It is a race, the goal will soon be reached. It is a voyage, the port will soon be in sight. Time is but a narrow isthmus between two eternities. You are going surely How many things you have already left behind! - the old home, friends, parents, scenes of childhood and early years. How much of the way you have passed over! You will never return to the place from which you started. You are going on, and on, and away from all your early years. It is a startling thought, that our business will soon be left behind; that our work will be done, and that we shall leave this stage of being - leave it forever - our homes and cares, and all the interests that engage us here, and never more come back. It is an amazing thought that we, if we are Christians, shall soon be in heaven. Think of it! Time and all its opportunities passed forever! The suns and moons and stars all behind us; springs and summers and autumns all gone; the sights and sounds of earth all passed away ! Soon - very soon - shall we be in heaven. "We shall see God, we shall behold Christ in His glory, we shall look upon the angels. Mothers will be searching for their children, and husbands and wives will find each other; and all hands, parted in Christ, will be clasped again. It is like coming into port after an ocean voyage. The shining shore-line, how it grows on the waiting eye! The joy will be like that with which the Crusaders first saw Jerusalem. Rev. C. L Goodell, D. D.
Monsignor Bonomelli, in a letter read at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, June, 1910, said:
Jesus has, in reality, not vanished either from history, or from the life of Christianity. He lives at all times in millions of souls. He is enthroned as King in all hearts. The figure of Christ has not the cold splendor of a distant star, but the warmth of a heart which is near us, a flame burning in the soul of believers and keeping alive their con- sciences. Putting aside certain opinions, which, honored at the moment, may possibly be abandoned to-morrow, criticism had hoped to effect a complete demolition of the conception of Christ, but what criticism really demolished was merely irrelevant matter. The figure of Christ, after all the onslaughts of criticism, now stands forth more pure and divine than ever and compels our adoration.
We sometimes come across passages in the Bible with statements that
are antithetical and which seem really to contradict one another. One
of these is found in 2 Cor. 6, 10: “As poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” “How shall we explain
this?” How can such a thing be possible?” you ask. Well, let us look
into the matter a little. Let us take our dear Savior as an
illustration. Surely, He could be said to be poor during His state of
humiliation here on earth! His first days on earth were spent in a
manger, for there was not room for Him — as it seemed, on account of His
poverty — in the inn. Even after having taken up His Messianic calling,
this poverty pursued Him. When, for instance, the representatives of
the government asked of Him the tribute-money, the common treasury of
Jesus and the little group of disciples was found to be empty, so that
Peter must needs be sent to procure the necessary coin through a miracle
that Jesus wrought. At another instance, Jesus Himself said: “The foxes
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has
no where to lay His head.”
Yes, He was poor, and yet, did He not make many rich? Could we have
asked the hungering multitude in the wilderness after they had filled,
and the twelve basketfuls had been gathered of pieces left over from
five loaves and two fishes; or the frightened disciples on the Sea of
Galilee, whose lives had been saved by the stilling of the tempest; the
widow of Nain, whose only son, having been dead, was returned to her
living; Lazarus and his sisters after the former had been called forth
out of the tomb, — their answer would surely have been in the
affirmative. Again, the woman taken in sin to whom Jesus said: “Neither
do I condemn thee; go and sin no more;” the malefactor on the cross
receiving the forgiveness of his sins and the assurance of a place with
Christ and Paradise– in short, the multitude of weary and with sin
heavy-laden souls, to each of whom Jesus spoke words of hope, of peace,
of joy, saying: “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” — could
we have asked all these, they would surely have answered that Jesus had,
in truth, made them “rich;” that there are no riches to be compared
with those that we receive from Him, “who, though immeasurably rich, was
made poor for our sakes.”
But how shall we, who are poor, make many rich? By becoming truly
“poor in spirit,” by realizing that we have, indeed, nothing in
ourselves. When we have come to that point, realizing that we are poor
and helpless, yea, destitute in ourselves, then the Lord can fill our
hearts with “riches” that know no measure, with treasures that fade not
away, “that neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal.” From such a storehouse of real treasures we
are then enabled, through the grace of God, to “make many rich.” Sermon by Rev. Carl J. Segerhammer.
"I Surrender All" is a Christian hymn, with words written by American art teacher and musician Judson W. Van DeVenter (1855–1939), who subsequently became a music minister and evangelist. It was put to music by Winfield S. Weeden (1847–1908), and published in 1896.
Van DeVenter said of the inspiration for the text:
"For some time, I had struggled between developing my talents in the field of art and going into full-time evangelistic work. At last the pivotal hour of my life came, and I surrendered all. A new day was ushered into my life. I became an evangelist and discovered down deep in my soul a talent hitherto unknown to me. God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, He caused me to sing."
Judson Van DeVenter was born on a farm in Michigan in 1855. Following graduation from Hillsdale College, he became an art teacher and supervisor of art in the public schools of Sharon, Pennsylvania. He was, in addition, an accomplished musician, singer, and composer. Van DeVenter was also an active layman in his Methodist Episcopal Church, involved in the church's evangelistic meetings. Recognizing his talent for the ministry, friends urged him to give up teaching and become an evangelist. Van DeVenter wavered for five years between becoming a recognized artist or devoting himself to ministry. Finally, he surrendered his life to Christian service, and wrote the text of the hymn while conducting a meeting at the Ohio home of noted evangelist George Sebring.
Following his decision to surrender his life to the Divine, Van DeVenter traveled throughout the United States, England, and Scotland, doing evangelistic work. Winfield S. Weeden, his associate and singer, assisted him for many years. Toward the end of his life, Van DeVenter moved to Florida, and was professor of hymnology at the Florida Bible Institute for four years in the 1920s. After his retirement, he remained involved in speaking and in religious gatherings. Van DeVenter published more than 60 hymns in his lifetime, but "I Surrender All" is his most famous.
"I Surrender All" was put to music by Weeden, and first published in 1896 in Gospel Songs of Grace and Glory, a collection of old and new hymns by various hymnists, compiled by Weeden, Van DeVenter, and Leonard Weaver, and published by Sebring Publishing Co. The following year, Van DeVenter and Weeden also published their jointly written gospel hymn "Sunlight". Weeden, born in Ohio in 1847, taught in singing schools prior to becoming an evangelist, and was a noted song leader and vocalist. Weeden published many hymns in several volumes, including The Peacemaker (1894), Songs of the Peacemaker (1895), and Songs of Sovereign Grace (1897). His tombstone is inscribed with the title of this hymn, "I Surrender All". Read more . . .
"Music video by Bill & Gloria Gaither performing I Surrender All (feat. The Isaacs) [Live]. (P) (C) 2012 Spring House Music Group. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of applicable laws. Manufactured by EMI Christian Music Group."
It is better to keep one's face forward, even tho we can not see
all that is before us. Tho we grope blindly, if we still steadily climb
upward and onward, seeking to do God's will, we may be sure he will
bring us to our desired goal. There are times when the greatest souls
pass through experiences like those about which Tennyson writes:
I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.
Pliny compares life to a river. The river, small and clear in its
origin, gushes forth from rocks, falls into deep glens, and wantons and
meanders through a wild and picturesque country; nourishing only the
uncultivated tree or flower by its dew or spray. In this, in its state
of infancy and youth, it may be compared to the human mind, in which
fancy, and strength of imagination, are predominant: it is more
beautiful than usual. When the different rills or torrents join, and
descend into the plain, it becomes slow and stately in its motions, and
able to bear upon its bosom the stately barge. In this mature state, it
is deep, strong, and useful. As it flows on towards the sea, it loses
its force and its motion, and at last, as it were becomes lost and
mingled with the mighty abyss if waters. -Sir Humphery Davy
Springtime has come, and as we go out into nature, we receive on
every hand evidences of a new life: the flowers and the trees with their
sweet fragrance and fresh, exuberant verdure: the balmy breezes about
you; the rippling brooklet at your feet; the music of the feathered
concert overhead. All bear testimony, in a language without words, yet
none the less forceful, that spring, the happiest season of the year,
has come, and with it new life and new hopes.
But there is one thing we must not overlook in these our observations
of nature, and that is the thankfulness for this new life that goes up
from all these creatures of nature, animate and inanimate, to God, their
Maker. We can read it in the sweet, blushing petals of the flower, the
merry rippling of the brook, the early morning hymn of praise from the
birds in the thicket. Again, when the hungry throat of the little
nestling is filled by the mouthful of food the mother-bird brings, and
the excited chirping at once ceases, and quite satisfaction takes its
place, can we not again see a thanksgiving to Him who clothes the lilies
of the field, and without whose will no sparrow falls to the earth?
Now, dear reader, there is a lesson to draw from this. You may be a
young man or a young woman, and consequently in the springtime of your
life. And as you have enjoyed to the fullest extent, during these balmy
days, the beauties of nature, you have found your own being throbbing
with new life, and you have been thrilled at the thought of that life’s
possibilities. But have you stopped to ask yourself whether or not you,
like all these creatures of nature, have returned thanks to your Maker
for the new life, hopes and possibilities that are yours? says David.
May that be the lesson that springtime brings us! Sermon by Rev. Carl J. Segerhammer.
