are perishing. You have no food for your souls. You will die and be
lost. Why sit here and perish in a foreign land? Why feed on husks when
you may have the choicest of the wheat? There is bread enough in your
father’s house. Many have gone there; more are on the road; others are
coming. Won’t you join the goodly company? Be resolute. Say, “I will.”
Be resolute as in the emergencies of life and business; as when the lee
shore is on one side and the gale on the other, and the seaman presses
the canvas on the cracking spars and the straining rigging, and the
ship must carry it or be dashed upon the breakers; be resolute as when
one sees his friend perishing in the water and says, “I will save him
or die with him.”
My dear hearers, won’t you say: “I will go. Nothing shall keep me back
from my Saviour. Sins nor fears nor devils shall not stop me. I will
try if I die. I know that God is merciful.”
WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES
The Second Epistle of Peter, Chapter III, part of 16th verse. “_In
which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures,
unto their own destruction._”
In speaking from this text I might dilate upon the etymology of the
words “unlearned” and “unstable.” I might go on to observe that we
must take the Bible as a whole and be taught of the Spirit in order to
practice its plain truths and fathom its more difficult ones; that as
in the schools of human science the elementary text-books are simple
while those designed for the advanced classes are more abstruse, thus
the Bible contains many things which are now far beyond the reach
of our minds, but to the comprehension of which we shall clamber up
in eternity; that in the Bible, the book of time and eternity, the
two volumes are bound in one. Here we only read the preface and the
introduction; in the hereafter we shall peruse the whole of the book.
But as these themes are frequently discussed with more of learning than
I can presume to bring to the task, I shall pursue a less beaten path
and content myself with observing that to “wrest” a thing signifies
to wrench or twist it from its true position; the very word implies
violence. Thus to wrest a truth of Scripture signifies to detach it
from the other truths of the system, to make it bear a false meaning,
or to rob it of all meaning. A truth of Scripture thus wrested is no
longer a truth, and is, therefore, of no avail to the man who has
wrested it. It can do him no good; he can no more get to heaven with it
than a man who should tear a plank or a breast-hook from a ship could
cross the Atlantic upon it. But as there are capillary veins and nerves
in the bodily organization which discharge important though minute
functions, and becoming diseased affect larger vessels and tissues,
the consequence of which is sickness, and the result death, so there
are methods of wresting the Scriptures less violent but not less
fatal in their consequences. So great, my friends, is the evil bias of
our nature and so deceitful is the human heart that we are prone to
deceive ourselves, imagining that we are doing the will of God while we
are doing our own will, obeying while we are wresting the Scriptures.
This principle, following the example of Jesus of Nazareth, I will
illustrate by a parable.
In that never-to-be-forgotten year when the Pilgrim Fathers of New
England rose up from their knees beneath the cliffs of Holland and
embarked, there dwelt, where Derwent-Water pours its swift current into
the black gorges of a lonely tarn, the descendant of a house, rich
in ancestral memories and renowned in arms. Often had these massive
walls rung to the battle clarion and its floors echoed to the tread
of mail-clad men. But their descendant, though inheriting all the
lofty heroism of his race, is, with a heart subdued by grace, a man of
scholarly tastes, of peace, and of God.
Amid the family circle where are the mother that reared, the wife that
cherishes him, and the children who climb his knees, he lives, labors,
and prays. “Surely,” said some looker at the outward appearance, “this
man does not serve God for naught. Has not God made a hedge about him
and all that he has? He would have his good things in both lives. Is he
willing to sacrifice anything? Would he do anything with the Cross of
Christ other than build it into the masonry of his castles or inscribe
it upon the banner folds of his vassals?” Let us see.
He enters his library, a room of antique mould; the roof groined and
blazoned reflects a thousand hues of soft light from lamps of fretted
gold. The thickly carpeted floor returns no echo to the footfall. View
him as he stands beneath that mellow light: The face is the face of a
prophet. The pure white brow, which no hardship has bronzed and around
which the locks of early manhood are clustering, is as radiant with
goodness as heaven’s own light. The eyes suffused, not dimmed, by that
mist which is the forerunner of tears, are turned toward heaven, while
from their calm depths, pure as those through which wanders the light
of stars, beam glances of gentle affection, a humility not assumed but
ingrained like the summer flush upon the cheek of a ripened grape. The
strong, firm lips are slightly parted with an expression of purpose
and action; motionless they seem to utter, “Father, what wilt Thou have
me to do?”
Thoughtful he stands, then bows that stately head in deep contrition
before God. He kneels, indeed, upon an embroidered cushion, but it
is wet with tears. This man of noble blood and old descent, who
sayeth “to this man ’Go,’ and he goeth, and to another ’Come,’ and
he cometh,” grovels in the dust before his Maker. In his anguish he
prostrates himself upon the floor; he cannot get low enough before
his God. It is in his heart to embark with the Pilgrims, and he asks
counsel of Heaven: “Father, wilt Thou that I leave these towers of my
ancestors, moistened with their blood and beneath whose shadows their
bones lie mouldering, and my mother now in the wane of life? Wilt Thou
that I should take the wife of my bosom, my little ones reared in
luxury and with tenderness, that I myself ever having lived and loved
among the gifted and the great should go forth with my brethren to
the wilderness? Tell me, O my Father, that it is my duty, and I will
fling my whole estate into thy treasury as willingly as ever prodigal
wasted his in riotous living; I will venture my life and the lives of
those dearer to me than my own as readily as ever one of my warrior
ancestors laid lance in rest to break a hedge of spears. Thou knowest
that I love mother, wife, and children, comfort, refinement, wealth;
that life is sweet to the lusty and the young. Thou knowest how dear
to me are these old trees beneath which in childhood I played, these
swelling hills, these gently sloping vales, this fair stream whose
gleam I love at the sunset hour to catch through green foliage and to
whose murmur I love to listen, this chosen retreat filled with books
that embalm the lore of centuries whither I may retire after drinking
a thousand inspirations from without, and in silent prayer and thought
make them my own, growing in the reaches of my lonely thought to
greater affluence of progress and power. But I love Thee, O Lord Jesus
Christ, my Saviour, more than these; therefore let me go. Already my
brother and my kindred deem that I shrink from sacrifice and thus shall
thy name be dishonored through me. Thou lovest me not, else wouldst
Thou chasten me, wouldst permit me to endure hardness. Surely I am a
bastard and no son. He that never suffered never loved.”
But while thus he prays and pleads, a voice from the Excellent Glory
whispers to his soul: “I know thou lovest me. Yet shalt thou not
embark. In Abraham I accepted the full purpose and the firm intent; so
will I in regard to thee. I have in reserve for thee tasks as stern,
and sacrifices as great, as the forests of America can furnish, tasks
for which I created thee and gave thee thy capacities. Thy forefathers
were men of brawn, but thou art a man of mind. Have not I chosen the
men who are to go? Their flesh is hard, their bones are strong to bear
the harness, and their whole course of thought is of a sterner cast,
better fitted than thine to bear the sword and set the battle in array.
It is not my will that the fire shall die upon the ancient altars;
remain thou to quicken its flame. I will not that thy mother, that
old saint who hath reared her household in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord, shall in her old age lack the protection of the son best
fitted of all her race to cherish her declining years; for I am a
covenant-keeping God. Remain, therefore, to lay thy hand upon her eyes.
Learning, eloquence, and passing knowledge to bend the minds of men
of all ranks to thy wish are thine. Go then into the councils of the
nation, there to use thy power for me, to moderate the fierceness of
persecution and send succor to those who are to go forth with the wolf
and the bear to the hillside. There are keener pangs than those born
of flowing blood and stiffening wounds on lonely battlefields, gashes
deeper than the tomahawk and the scalping knife can make, wrestlings
more terrible than those with flesh and blood. Fear not that thou
shalt lack occasions to prove thy zeal. Thou shalt find all the sunny
memories of thy life turned to gall. The church to whose altar thy
mother had thee linked with all the sweet memories of thy childhood
shall close to thee its doors. Thy children shall be excluded from
those seats of learning where their kindred and their mates resort.
And thou must endure all these things being among them, and thus the
iron will be pressed into thy soul day by day, which is more terrible
than to endure in a foreign land where thou art equal to thy fellows in
suffering and in privilege. These are sterner trials to the flesh and
to the faith, than when war horses are neighing and clarions sounding
to the charge, and the maddening rush and roar of conflict impart the
very courage they require to rush on perils and set thy life upon a
cast. Over the wreck of chosen thoughts and blighted hopes, through
the anguish of susceptibilities which refinement and culture have made
capacious of suffering of which under natures are incapable, shalt thou
glorify me.” Yet how many a short-sighted onlooker at that day, unable
to appreciate the inward motive, judged him who remained as shrinking
from the reproach of the Cross and wresting the Scriptures to suit a
carnal policy and the love of ease.
Let us view this principle in yet another light. In a distant apartment
of the same castle is seated one whose features, though of a stronger
and sterner cast, browned by toils and exposure on fields of battle,
still bear that family resemblance which denotes them brothers. But
his limbs are cast in nature’s stronger mould, and his hand turns
naturally to the sword hilt. Upon his knees is a bundle of letters that
he peruses with eager interest. They are from the exiles in Holland,
informing him of the time of their departure, and urging him to join
them. And among the letters are some from his old companions in the
war of the low countries. Wrapped in thought the hours pass by him
unheeded. At length, rising suddenly to his feet and thrusting open
the door that leads to the great hall of the castle, he paces the
stone floor. His eye kindles as it glances over the portraits of grim
warriors and the proud trappings that adorn its walls. He stops in his
lofty stride, a frown gathers upon his brow, his hand grips to the hilt
of the sword at his side. He has made up his mind. His is the giant
strength and haughty pride of an heroic line. Retiring to his chamber,
he likewise kneels to pray, while the frown of anticipated conflicts
and the flush of stirring memories have scarce yet faded from his brow.
But there is no tremor in the hard tones of his voice, none of those
bitter tears that wet the pillow of the other fall from his eyes. There
is no breaking down of the strong man before Him who is stronger than
the strong man armed. But he prays like Henry the Fifth at Agincourt
or Bruce at Bannockburn. To carry his point he prays “my will be done”
with the spirit of those who inscribed upon the muzzles of their
cannon, “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy
praise.”
This man has condescended to help God. Through the long tempestuous
voyage, those fearful months of mingled famine and plague when the
icy breath of winter penetrated even to the pillows of the dying, and
the Pilgrims drove the ploughshare through the graves of those most
dear to them lest the savage should count the dead and ascertain their
weakness, he passed unbroken. Neither hunger nor sickness bows his
iron frame nor breaks his haughty spirit, and yet, unknown to himself,
he is all the while wresting the truths of Scripture, and deems he is
doing the will of God while he is consulting his own inclinations. Is
the discipline of Providence therefore to waste itself upon this rugged
nature, only to be repelled like the surf from the rock, in broken
wreaths of foam? Will he never become as a little child that he may
enter into the kingdom?
Yes. His daughter is dying. The daughter, the only remaining member of
a once numerous household, whom he loves with an affection the more
absorbing since he loves nothing else, to whom he has given the scanty
morsel suffering hunger himself, whom he pressed to his bosom in the
long nights of that terrible winter that she might gather warmth from
his hardier frame, and around whom cluster all the affections that
throb beneath the crust of his rugged nature, as the oak wrappeth its
roots about the place of stones,--that daughter is dying. Though it
is now the Indian summer and an abundant harvest has scattered plenty
among the dwellings of the exiles, his daughter is perishing beneath
the terrible exposure she has endured. Upon her delicate frame the
previous winter and spring have done their work. Stretched upon a couch
of skins, she is fading like the yellow and falling leaves that the
forest is showering upon the roof, and the morning breeze is gathering
in little heaps around the threshold of the rude cabin. The strong man
has met one stronger than himself. The arrow aimed by no uncertain hand
has found the joints of the harness. A sweet smile begotten of that
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, mingles with the hectic
flush on her cheek; and as he watches the ebbing tide of life, every
sigh of pain, every frown that furrows the pale brow, wrung from her by
the agony of dissolution, shakes his iron frame. But it is suffering,
not submission. She lifts her finger, and he is at her side, takes her
head upon his broad shoulder, and his war-worn cheek is pressed to
hers, while the golden locks mingle with his white hairs like sunbeams
reposing upon a fleecy cloud, as he listens to her low speech.
“Father, I must soon leave thee.” A hot tear falling on her cheek is
the only reply. “Father,” she says, laying her thin finger upon a
yellow leaf that an eddy of the wind just then blew in at the open door
upon the bed, “I am like this leaf, almost at my journey’s end.”
“I know it, my child,” is the low answer.
“Canst thou give me up?”
“I cannot give thee up. Not a drop of my blood flows in any living
being but in thee, the blood of a noble race. I had thought that in
this new soil, transplanted, the old oak might flourish with renewed
strength; but over thee, the dearest and the last, is creeping the
shadow of the grave. My sons died a soldier’s death, and I mourned
them as a soldier should. Thy mother I married as the great marry, for
reasons of state and policy, but thou with thy gentle ways hast knit
thyself into my very heart, and I must lay thee in a nameless grave,
and conceal it from the Indian’s gaze, while thy kindred sleep beneath
sculptured marble and the shadow of proud banner folds. Thine uncle who
thought to take the journey with us flinched when it came to the trial,
while I have faced pestilence, treachery, and war. Surely I have borne
a heavy cross, and thus am I rewarded. God is too hard with me. He has
no right to bereave me in my old age of the only being I ever truly
loved.”
“Father, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”
“Dear child, torture me not thus or I shall go mad.”
“No, father, but thou wilt go mad if, in this desperate sorrow, thou
dost not win Heaven’s grace. If thy heart does not break in penitence,
thy brain will reel in madness. Father, dear father, it becomes me
to seek knowledge of thy gray hairs, and thou art esteemed by all a
man of shrewd counsel. But to those who, like me, are on the brink of
eternity, there is given a knowledge not of earth, and through these
weak lips the spirit speaks. Deceive not thyself. Thou hast as yet
borne no cross, but thou hast wrested the Scriptures. May it not be to
thine own destruction. Thy spirit could not brook oppression, and, as
thou couldst not resist, so hast thou fled from it. The perils of exile
and the stormy seas were less terrible to thee than the foot of the
oppressor on thy neck. Thou wast bred amid the alarms and in the bloody
frays of the border wars; thou hast loved the clash of steel, and the
smoke of battle is as the breath of thy nostrils. Thou hast been a
man of blood from thy youth up. My uncle was bred a scholar amid home
delights, unused to scenes of trial and hardship. They had terrors for
him, whereas they had none for thee. And yet he would have gladly come
with us had he not been forbidden of Heaven. I heard him pleading with
God to make known to him his duty. That which would have been to him a
real cross but was none to thee he was willing to take up. But God has
laid upon him a weightier one at home. Thus hast thou prayed to have
thine own way, hast suffered in accordance with thine own will, not the
will of God. The cross, the real cross, is now before thee. Wilt thou
take it up? If thou dost not do this, father, whither I go thou canst
not come. For nineteen years thou hast anticipated my slightest wish.
Wilt thou now refuse my last request? I, a timid maid, a daughter of
affluence and luxury, who had never listened to a harsher sound than
the murmur of Derwent-Water over the rocky bed and the breath of morn
among the hills, have broken every tie, torn from my heart the youth
I loved, because he stood between me and Christ, encountered perils
before which warriors quail, for the love of Jesus. I have drunk of the
bitter cup, but the cross has brought me to the crown. I see it. It
glitters in the hand of Christ. Soon it shall press my brow. Never in
the flush of youth and love in my early home did I know such joy as in
this savage wilderness, this rude hut, and at this dying hour fills my
soul. So will the cross bring thee to the crown. Dear father, wilt thou
not say, ’Thy will be done’?”
The words died upon her lips like the murmur of distant music. Her
head which in the last energies of expiring nature she had raised from
his shoulder fell back, and she passed away even on his bosom. The red
light of morning fell on that still cold face on which the strong
man’s tears were showering like the summer rain, but they were tears
of submission. In that midnight vigil he had lived years, had fathomed
the difference between doing the will of God when it suited and when it
crossed his inclination, between wresting and wrenching the Scriptures
into conformity with a haughty spirit and bringing that spirit into
obedience to the truth; between making a cross to suit ourselves and
then bearing it in our own strength and for our own glory, and taking
up that which Christ places before us.
Are we, my dear friends, wresting the Scriptures, picking and choosing
among the commands of God, and obeying only those that run parallel
with our inclinations? Have you gone just so far in obeying the
commands of God as fashion and the custom of your acquaintances would
go and stopped short when duty became self-denial? Have you done just
as little for Christ as you thought could in any way consist with a
fair profession in the eyes of the world, and have you gone just as
far in the pleasures of the world as you in your judgment might go and
still escape the fate of the unbeliever?
Some persons wrest the Scriptures with a rude force, a noisy and
destructive violence, denying the existence and attributes of their
Maker, and are open scoffers and unbelievers; but others with a silent,
imperceptible force, unperceived even by themselves, and silent as
the power of frost which lifts the whole northern continent upon its
shoulders. Their morality, Christian culture, urbanity of deportment,
earnestness in defence of sound doctrine, private and public charities,
are not grounded on a new heart, but proceed from other motives;
force of education, the restraints of society, the love of a sect,
connection of religion with some political opinion, and not from the
spirit of love to Christ which it breathes; they spring from the desire
to be reconciled to God by something less galling to the pride of the
human heart than unconditional surrender. My friends, receiving the
doctrines of Scripture without obeying their requirements is a plain
and palpable wresting of the Scriptures. You believe there is a God
whose hand rules the universe, yet you have never bent the knee to ask
for His direction or to thank Him for the mercies He has bestowed. You
believe that you must strive to enter in at the strait gate, yet you
have never striven. You believe that when a person feels in his soul
the strivings of the Holy Spirit directing him to God, he ought, if he
would be saved, to fall in with and supplement them by his own efforts.
You have felt these strivings, yet you have never lifted a finger to
help yourselves. Is not this holding the truth in unrighteousness?
Delay is wresting the Scriptures. God saith, “Now is the accepted
time.” Unbelief says, “Will not another time do just as well?” God
says, “To-day if you will hear his voice.” Procrastination says, “Will
not to-morrow do as well?” God says, “You know not what a day may bring
forth.” The careless hearer says, “To-morrow shall be as this day and
much more abundant.” Thus you think one thing and do another. This is
not the way to live, and certainly it is not the way to die. Remove, I
entreat you by faith and repentance, this strange discrepancy between
faith and practice.
[Illustration: INTERIOR VIEW OF ELIJAH KELLOGG’S CHURCH AT HARPSWELL,
MAINE.]
THE BEAUTY OF THE AUTUMN
[From a sermon to Bowdoin Students, October, 1889.]
Autumn is a most beautiful and joyous season of the year; more so even
than spring. The winds are low, and rich with a solemn music. The days
are clear and bright and have an element of assurance that pertains not
to the changeful skies of April. The air is bracing and salubrious. The
drapery of nature is gorgeous with the blended beauty of infinite hues.
The crimson and scarlet of the oaks, the bright yellow of the birch,
the bluish green of the willows contrasted with the brown and orange
of the soil and rocks, are all radiant in the sunlight and the keen
frosty air. The rich yellow of the corn bursting from the husk, the
loaded stalks swaying heavily in the October wind, all combine to form
a picture more beautiful, far more satisfactory, than spring presents.
Spring is the season of hope, yet it is hope deferred. Many unforeseen
casualties may destroy the crop before it is ripe for the sickle. But
harvest is hope realized. It is the time of taking possession.