in number, called the Färöe Isles, some of which are of considerable
size and inhabited, others mere patches of rocks and turf. Upon one
of these, which is a mere sand spit flung up by the sea, a hermit had
taken up his residence. His dwelling was built of the stones of the
place, and the entrance was so low that he went in and came out on his
knees. When the door was closed, it was lighted by an opening in the
top which permitted a view of the sky, of the sun when far advanced
in the heavens, of the moon and the stars, but not of the earth. Here
this pious but deluded saint passed his days in prayer, meditation,
frequent fasting, and reading the Bible. His food was brought to him by
the inhabitants of the neighboring islands who greatly revered him for
his holiness and sought his prayers for themselves and their household.
He imagined that if he could see only the heavens, he should become
less earthly; that by cutting himself off from the sins, the cares,
and the labors of worldly and sinful men and being alone with God,
he should make great advance in holiness. Poor deluded man! If, when
he looked upon the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars, he had
only taken a reasonable and scriptural view of the purpose for which
they were created, he would have perceived that it was for the good of
others they were created, to declare the glory of God to a universe,
to cause grass to grow for cattle, and herbs for the use of man; that
for six thousand years they had been holding to all the nations of the
earth their high and perpetual discourse of the wisdom, power, and
goodness of God, who openeth His liberal hand and satisfieth the desire
of every living thing. Such reflections would have taught him that
if, instead of spending his life and energies, and consuming soul and
body, in prayers and meditations that began and ended in themselves,
he had taken a portion of his time to keep the fire burning on his own
hearthstone, and then gone forth among those islanders and told them
of God and Christ and the duties they owed, given them the benefit of
and shared with them his wisdom and holiness, and taught them to love
God and each other, it would have been more acceptable to God, and in
blessing he would have been blessed. This mistaken man imagined he
was crucifying sin when he was only crucifying the natural affections
and sympathies God had given him to be gratified for his own good and
that of others. Man was not made to live in a state of isolation, but
in fellowship with his kind. The human heart craves sympathy just as
naturally as the vine stretches its tendrils to clasp some friendly
prop, and, failing to reach it, droops and withers and bears no fruit.
He, who is the centre of many loving hearts, whose interests, joys, and
sorrows are his and his theirs, is stronger and happier than he who
treads the brier-planted path of life alone, with no one to lean upon
and share the burden or the conflict with him. We were made to find our
happiness in the happiness of others. When is a gift valuable? When
it is a part of the heart of him who bestows it. That which makes the
gifts I receive upon occasions like this of priceless value to me is
that they come from those with whom I have lived in love and sympathy
so long that they have become part of myself. The Saviour has said it
is more blessed to give than to receive. It is more blessed to give
than to receive. It is more gratifying to be able to bestow favors
than to be obliged to receive them. It is more like our Maker. He
never receives anything, for all things are His. He is the universal
giver.... May He who gives us all things reward you in your persons and
in your households, and grant you that which He sees is best for your
happiness both here and hereafter.
HOME
[Delivered at “Donation Party,” October 19, 1897]
The sweetest word that ever trembled on human lips is the word “home.”
It embraces and concentrates in itself the germs of a thousand forces
of happiness, power, and progress yet to be developed from it. So
long as man wanders, and, like the savage, merely gathers what grows
of itself from the soil, or captures the fish of the streams, the
birds of the air, and the beasts that roam the forests, he makes no
progress; he bestows no labor upon, and therefore takes no interest
in, that abode which he is to abandon to-morrow. It is only when he
has a permanent dwelling and produces something from the earth that
progress, happiness, and the home relation begin. Home is the place
where character is built, where sacrifices to contribute to the
happiness of others are made, and where love has taken up its abode.
Love is the strongest passion of our natures and finds its happiness
in sacrificing for its object; the parent for the child, the child for
the parent, the sister for the brother. In this relation they are in
the best possible position for moral and intellectual development; they
stimulate and call out each other’s powers, energies, and affections.
Infinite wisdom has declared, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
There is not a more unsightly or unprofitable tree than a white pine
growing alone. It is a mass of knots, knobs, short-jointed, crooked,
and wind-shaken,--in short, a scrub. The lumbermen in contempt call it
a bull pine. But put a thousand of them together as near as they can
grow. What a change! As you enter that majestic cathedral no sunbeam
can pierce, and look up at those heights,--trees straight as an arrow
seventy feet to a limb,--you almost feel like uncovering in reverence.
Thus with the family relation. The happiest homes are those the members
of which are frequently called to sacrifice something or to deny
themselves something for the others’ comforts and happiness. It is this
that sweetens home. It is those who bear the burdens of life together,
relying upon and trusting in each other, who get the most out of life,
bear its trials without being soured by them, and rear children who
arise and call them blessed--children that have real manhood--who can
look danger in the eye without quailing and grapple to severe tasks
without wilting, and are nobody’s servants.
It is evident that home is not mere locality, that it is not defined
by metes and bounds. From Gibraltar to Archangel, from Calcutta to the
frozen seas, there are homes. One principle, one fruit-bud produces
them all. Home is not a thing that can be bought or sold in the market.
You may buy a homestead or a house, you may perhaps buy a wife, but you
cannot buy a woman’s love. Costly furniture, rich dresses, retinues
of servants, and luxurious dishes do not make homes. It is not the
residence but the affection of the occupants that constitutes the home.
Those who are united in the bonds of a true affection behold themselves
reflected in each other, and each is to the other as another self. In
the confidence of love there is repose.
My friends and neighbors, this assembly is made up of those who have
been reared and have reared others in homes where parental love and
filial affection were the mainsprings of action and the foundation of
charitable and friendly acts. The desire to share with others the gifts
a kindly Providence bestows on ourselves is bred in the atmosphere of
home. All the sweet charities of life are but the overflow of these
feelings and sympathies born and bred at the domestic hearthstone.
I thank you, my friends and neighbors, for the gifts of affection
bestowed this night, and may the blessing of God rest upon yourselves,
your children, and your homes.
SERMONS
THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN
Text: Luke xv. 18, 20. “_I will arise and go to my father._” “_But when
he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and
ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him._”
The Saviour, by a beautiful and affecting story, illustrates the
natural and inevitable result of a sinful course, a course of
ingratitude and disobedience to God. We have placed before us the life
of a Hebrew patriarch. In that land now so barren beneath the curse of
God and the curse of a despotic government, but once so full of beauty
and blossoming, when the Chosen People clothed its now barren mountain
peaks with clambering vines and its valleys with waving grass and
grain, dwelt a Hebrew, a righteous man among the kindred of his people,
to whom God had given goodly land, and flocks and herds in abundance,
whose tents stretched far over the plains, and who had servants
born in his house. This man had two sons, one of whom was much older
than the other. It was a pleasant household; the father was kind and
affectionate to his servants and to the poor,--a just man, fearing God
and tenderly attached to his children.
As the two brothers were different in their age, so were they in their
dispositions. The elder son was sober, industrious, and found in the
care of the flocks and the quiet enjoyments of rural life enough to
occupy and interest him. The father could put confidence in him,
could go away from home and leave all his business to his care, sure
that it would be completed as if he himself were present. But though
sober, industrious, and trustworthy, and held by the restraints of
his education, yet he was not of an affectionate and generous nature,
but penurious and severe in his temper, and much more feared and
respected than beloved by his servants and his equals. But the younger
son was the very opposite. He was full of life and energy, but fickle
and restless, and directed his energies to no good purpose. He cared
nothing for business nor for cattle. He would not remain at home, but
wandered from tent to tent and from vineyard to vineyard and into the
distant city; the farm life was dull and distasteful to him. His father
could put no trust in him. If so be that his father went from home and
left him in charge of the flocks and the servants, he was sure to find
on his return that the flocks had strayed, that some of them had been
lost or devoured by the wolves, or to find his son frolicking with the
servants instead of directing their labor. Thus while he could trust
the elder son with everything, he could trust the younger with nothing,
and must always watch him with constant anxiety.
Yet, with all his faults, the younger son was generous and
affectionate, keen to perceive and understand, and of great
determination to accomplish when he was so minded. The father often
said to himself: “Oh, that my son would only do well! How much
comfort and honor would he be to me! And how much good he might
accomplish!” Indeed, it seemed ofttimes that the boy could not help
his wrong-doing; his wild, frolicsome, headstrong nature did so hurry
him along. Afterward he would be sorry and even shed tears, and then
go straightway and do the same again. Yet was the heart of the father
more after this wild slip of a boy than after the other.
There is in the heart of the parent a principle, not possible perhaps
to be explained, which leads him to be more attached to and indulgent
of the youngest child. There is something also in the very anxiety
that the follies of the disobedient child occasion which calls out and
fosters the affections of the parent more strongly for him than for
the one who never gives that cause for uneasiness. The father also
felt that the boy, though carried away by the impulses of his own
imaginations and the romance of his nature and spirit, was after all
of deeper affections and nobler impulses and greater capacity than
the other son, and had in him all the raw material of a noble, useful
character, could this impetuous spirit and these burning impulses be
subdued, not destroyed, and these energies wisely directed. Many a
bitter tear he shed, and many a prayer he put up to God for this child
of his love and his old age.
Matters went on in this way from bad to worse, the son becoming
more and more discontented and uneasy. He listened to the tales of
travellers who had been to distant lands and over the sea till his
blood boiled, and he said to himself: “Shall I never see anything but
these same hills and valleys? Shall I never hear any discourse but
about sheep and goats and fleeces of wool and cheese and barley? Shall
I never see anything of the great world of which I hear so much? Must
I stay here and milk goats when there is so much pleasure in the world
to be enjoyed?” But now the time draws near when he shall be of age
and his own master to go where he pleases. How he has been counting
the days and reckoning up the time when he shall escape the restraints
of home! No sooner has the time arrived than he goes to his father and
says to him, “Father, give me so much of your property as belongs to
me, my share.” He does not ask it as a gift, but as a debt which the
father was under obligations to pay him. What right had he to demand
anything of the father? Had it been his elder brother who made this
demand, who for many years after he was of age had labored hard and
given the proceeds of his labor into the common stock, there would have
been some justice in the request. But this man had never done anything,
had spent all he could get, had tried his father to the utmost, and
now had the assurance to come to his father and say: “Such a part of
the property belongs to me. I want it, that I may go where I like and
spend it as I wish.” He had been so long in the habit of receiving from
his father without effort of his own that he had come to consider it as
a matter of right.
The father was pained by this ungrateful conduct, and the prodigal in
his own heart felt ashamed of himself; in the bottom of his heart he
loved and respected his father, but the love of pleasure, his lofty
imaginations of the enjoyments to be found in the world of which he had
read, heard, and dreamed so much, overpowered all other feelings. Could
he only escape from the restraints of home and obtain money and means
to gratify his desires, he should be happy. The father without any
reproach divides his living and gives to him his share. He has never
seen so much money before in his life. He is mad with joy. He thinks
it will never be exhausted. He can hardly stop to bid good-by to his
family, to his father whose heart aches to see this son of his love so
glad to leave him. He takes his journey into a far country, just as far
from home as he can get, that his friends may not be able to know what
he is doing or to trouble him with advice. He’s had advice enough. He’s
had enough of home. He’s going to try the world. Now he gives loose
rein to all his lusts. He is soon surrounded by a circle of generous,
jovial companions who would die for him; who every day pledge him
health and happiness in the social glass; who, so far from troubling
him with advice, tell him he is a noble-hearted, princely fellow, and
that everything he says and does is just right. How much better they
are than his father’s old, stupid, hard-working servants, or than his
sober brother who thought only of sheep and begrudged him every cent,
or than his father who was always telling him about the temptations
of life! These noble, large-hearted fellows tell him money is made to
spend and life is made to enjoy.
While he is thus going onward in the pursuit of pleasure, there comes
a famine in the land. The prices of food rise to a fearful extent.
His money is exhausted, and he is amazed to find that his friends so
kind begin to cool in their affections just in proportion as his means
diminish. He finds that, so far from dying for him, their intention
is to live upon him till he has nothing left and then reproach him
for his extravagance. The friend who begged him to make his house his
home, just as though he were in his own father’s house, intimates
that times are very hard and every one must look out for himself.
Hunger succeeds and rags. He who never had a serious thought before
is serious enough now. He who never bestowed a thought upon food or
raiment must now find food or perish. In his necessity he resorts to
the house of a farmer and with humble tone begs work. He who demanded
of his father the property he had never earned a dollar of begs for the
meanest employment that may keep him from starving! The farmer tells
him that he may go into his fields and feed swine and eat a morsel with
the servants in the kitchen. But the servants’ fare is scanty, just
sufficient to preserve life. In the morning after taking his morsel, he
goes with a heavy heart to his work. What a contrast! He thought his
home lonesome; but where and what is he now? All around him the land
is scorched, the streams are dry, the trees leafless. He thought it
hard to feed cattle; he must now feed hogs and beg for the privilege.
Corn is so scarce that the swine can have only the husks, and he is so
hungry that he would fain fill himself with the husks that the swine
eat and no man gives unto him. Not one of all his former friends upon
whom he has spent so much will give him a crust.
He now comes to himself; for the first time in his life he begins to
think. He thinks of his kind old father, of his home where there is
plenty. He says, “How many servants of my father have bread enough
and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” He says, “Shall I go home?”
Pride whispers: “Go home? How can I look upon my father’s face, on my
brother who was always steady and industrious, and the old neighbors?
My very looks will tell what I am, and where I have been, and what I
have been doing. No, I won’t go home. I can’t go home. I will starve to
death first.” But it is much easier to talk about starving than it is
to starve. Hunger and poverty are hard masters. Long is the struggle,
terrible. At length he decides. “I will go while I have strength enough
left to get there. ’I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no
more worthy to be called thy son.’” And before his resolution has time
to cool, he sets out on his journey.
How truly and strikingly does this illustrate the condition of one who
wanders from God, and breaks the commands and deserts the house of his
Father in heaven. A young man has grown up the inmate of a Christian
family, but God has created him. His abilities of body and mind are
from God. The property which he acquires, the ability to obtain it,
and the opportunity and the time are God’s ability, God’s property,
God’s time. God declares that by using these in his service, he shall
be happy in life, and in eternity receive the crown of glory. But these
commands are not agreeable to him any more than the commands of the
father were to the prodigal. He does not feel that his abilities and
happiness are the gift of God, that he is under any obligation to his
Father in heaven. In the flush of youth and health and hot blood, he
feels that his strength is the strength of stones and his flesh brass.
He says to his heavenly, as the prodigal to his earthly, Father, “Give
me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” He feels that they are
his own to use as he pleases, and thus he means to do; though like the
prodigal all the return he has ever made to God is to sin against Him.
He loves not to think of God and eternity and Christ and sin. So, like
the son in the parable, he goes into a far country.
It is not literal space that is here meant; it is the distance of
thought and feeling and affections and obedience. A man need not go
out of his country to get far from God. At home, in the practice of
all the outward duties of morality, regular in the attendance upon the
sanctuary, he may yet live as far from God, as unwilling to submit to
His commands, as though living in the most disorderly manner and in
open sin. But whether on the ocean and in foreign lands he lives in
sin and spends his substance in riotous living and looks everywhere
among all forbidden pleasures for happiness, or on the land conceals a
proud heart under a correct life, the result is that he is wretched,
finds no peace. But now the Spirit of God touches his heart, leads
him to reflect upon his true condition. He comes to himself. “I have
broken the laws. I have grieved thy spirit. I deserve not the least
of thy mercies. Do with me what seemeth good in thy sight.” But then
the thought arises,--and it is a bitter one,--”How can I go into the
presence of that pure and holy God? I, so vile a sinner, who have
blasphemed His name! Can such a sin be forgiven?”
Let us now consider the reception the son meets with. It is noontide,
the time of burning heat. The cattle have sought the groves and the
cool places of the hills, or are standing in the running streams
beneath the tall reeds of the jungles. The goats seek the clefts of the
rocks. In his tent door, beneath the drooping branches of a sycamore
that screen it from the sun, sits an aged patriarch. On his face is
that submissive look that neither tongue nor pen can describe, and
that tells of high and holy communion with God. All around is peace
inviting to repose. The faint breath of the dying breeze is gently
rustling the leaves mingling with the hum of bees and the low murmur of
a distant brook. The servants are sleeping in the shadow. But the old
patriarch slumbers not with his slumbering servants. On his meek face
is a troubled look, and now and then a silent tear steals down his
cheek and falls upon his clasped hands. He is thinking of his absent,
dearly loved, wayward child! From the past he argues disastrously of
the future. If so headstrong and reckless under the mild restraint
of home, what will become of him when all check is removed? Where is
he, on sea or on land, this child of many prayers, many counsels, and
bitter anxieties? Is he living in riot and folly, or is he already
in suffering and distress, having not where to lay his head? Has he
remembered any of the words of affectionate counsel that have been
spoken to him? Do his thoughts ever turn toward his home and the
friends of his youth?
While the good father is thus sitting in his tent door praying for and
thinking of his son, he sees a traveller far off upon the plains, so
far that he just discerns him. He thinks, What if that should be my
son? So he steps out from the tent door and he looks long and eagerly,
for the traveller comes slowly. But as he approaches, the father sees
he is lame, footsore, and ragged, and his heart tells him: “This is
just the condition in which I might expect my son to come. Ah, yes,
that is he.” And instantly the father runs to meet him.
But what are the feelings of the prodigal as he draws near his native
country and the old familiar features of the landscape strike his eye,
and he sees in the distance his father’s tent and the old trees under
whose shadows he played when a boy? How does he feel? He does not feel
one-half the resolution he did when he set out. His hope which at first
sustained him begins to waver. He does not feel so much confidence now
as he did when he was farther off. He begins to think of his rags, and
the appearance he makes. He goes into the thicket and washes his face
in the brook and sleeks up his rags, and tries to make himself look
decent and respectable to meet his father. But it is no use. Wherever
he touches them they tear and finally fall off altogether, they are so
rotten. At length he gives up in despair and says: “Well, I must go as
I am, miserable wretch. I can’t make myself any better; the more I try
the worse I look. There’s nothing to make decency out of. Oh! what will
my father say to me, miserable? God help me!”
While he is thus talking and going along, he sees his father in the
tent door. “Oh,” he says, “there is my father now!” Then he stops right
short in the road and looks down upon the ground, and is of a good mind
to turn back and run away. But while he is hesitating, his father comes
running and falls right on his neck and kisses him. And when he feels
his old father’s arms embracing him, his lips on his cheeks, and his
tears on his neck,--oh, that is the worst of all. Then his heart is
like to break with sorrow. He did not expect such treatment as this.
If his father had only reproached him and said, “You vile, wicked boy,
is this what you have come to?” he could bear that better. But this
kindness and love,--it quite breaks his heart. Then as soon as he can
find voice for tears, he slips out of his father’s arms and falls
down on his knees and says: “’Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.’ Don’t
call me son; it breaks my heart. Make me thy servant, thy slave. Thou
didst give me a goodly fortune which I never earned a dollar of. I have
spent it all in folly, wasted thy substance, and disgraced thy name in
foreign lands wherever I have been. I come here in wretchedness and
rags to disgrace thee still more among the neighbors that know thee and
thy goodness. Now, Father, let me be thy servant and serve thee, that I
may earn thee something to atone for spending thy property and to show
that I am really sorry.” But the father will hear nothing of all this,
and while he is speaking, cuts him short, saying to the servants who
stand wondering, “Bring forth the best robe; take off his rags; wash
his sores; put a ring on his hands, and shoes on his feet: and bring
hither the fatted calf and kill it; for this my son was dead, and is
alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
Thus it is with the returning and repentant sinner. When he is far from
God and is first drawn by the Spirit and assured by revelations of His
mercy, he with considerable courage begins to seek and pray. But as he
comes nearer and the light from the Excellent Glory grows stronger, and
he sees more of his sins, he begins to doubt and to falter. But when
God sees him thus afar off, sees a little love in his heart, He comes
to meet him. He puts the robe of Christ upon him and gives to him the
signet ring.