THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak in
Public," Etc.
With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other
Theologians
INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University
VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE
1908
CONTENTS
VOLUME VIII.
TALMAGE (1832-1901).
A Bloody Monster
SPURGEON (1834-1892).
Songs in the Night
POTTER (1834-1908)
Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks
ABBOTT (Born in 1835).
The Divinity in Humanity
BROOKS (1835-1893).
The Pride of Life
GLADDEST (Born in 1836).
The Prince of Life
CLIFFORD (Born in 1836).
The Forgiveness of Sins
MOODY (1837-1899).
What Think Ye of Christ?
FOWLER (1837-1908).
The Spirit of Christ
WHYTE (Born in 1837).
Experience
WATKINSON (Born in 1838).
The Transfigured Sackcloth
LORIMER (1838-1904).
The Fall of Satan
LITTLE (Born in 1839).
Thirst Satisfied
TALMAGE
A BLOODY MONSTER
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For
many years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly
printed his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by
nature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice
was rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and
earnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit
oratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and
sensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people
spellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.
TALMAGE
1832--1901
A BLOODY MONSTER[1]
[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by
permission.]
_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him._--Gen. xxxvii.,
33.
Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then
brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the
idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their
infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold
up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African
thicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody
maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole
generations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers
who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully
exclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him."
There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use
of stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the
Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their
seats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are
opium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the
desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De
Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which
has specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew
hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The
Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo,
an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude,
that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow.
Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly
holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be
called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure
the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the
groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's
key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the
highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it
not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister
with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from
the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on
his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England,
and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and
did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital?
Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which
to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the
pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to
dissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Who
will gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale this
mountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses to find
still other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with the
bleached bones of drunkards?
The Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of our
people, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their
shops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of bread
going out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty will
attack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with the
window-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particular
honor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside for
these. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in
clothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their
hats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for
any other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But
swing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in the
peace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks fly
and the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat
of the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come!
Will it?
It may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and the
husbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by
this vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up
and demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way
of driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. We
have, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evil
by a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic
cholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are,
for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more
inducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying to
restrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whisky
made--if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand
dollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from
the eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed on
the Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it has
destroyed for ever.
I sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be.
The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.
Bountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Music
in the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!
Well-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!
House the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs at
pawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour!
Carpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses!
Wife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on her
face, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in
every room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale!
Wife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend,
brandishing his fist, cries, "Out! out! What are you doing here?" Did
I call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformed
it. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets.
Rum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed that
paradise into a hell.
I sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from one
of our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisters
were present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thunders
that greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet.
They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never looked
so well. Everybody said, "What a noble brow! What a fine eye! What
graceful manners! What brilliant prospects!"
Man the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just been
sent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is matted
and makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Who
is this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police
and carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man the
second? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed his
prospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered those
garlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out his
manhood. Rum, accurst rum!
This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants
fall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves.
Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into
suffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swings
its scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of
Zion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your own
households have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it;
but where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Where
was he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night?
Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this
habit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go on
a little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of you
should try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist,
and one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left.
This serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and
'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until the
bones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from their
sockets, and the mangled wretch cries. "O God! O God! help! help!" But
it is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain when
once it is fully fastened.
I have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt him
down, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting our
children right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utter
aversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even as
medicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have a
natural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horrid
stuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully as
you do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to the
almshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with them
into the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hath
fallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face,
bruised, savage, and swollen, and say, "Look, my son. Rum did that!"
Looking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness,
goes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, a
howling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, say
to your son, "Look; that man was once a child like you." As you go by
the grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slain
and their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out to
your children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdays
they break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at my
father for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: "I am more
liberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glass
after we have been taking a drink." Three of his sons have died
drunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits.
Again, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. How
many men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship,
and demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that the
question of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; and
that, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits of
intoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christian
people. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend a
few days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will find
out why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteous
enactments.
Again, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friends
of the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue their
circulars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests;
and by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance public
morals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret,
and, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain our
position. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell all
their plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying on
of this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks a
train which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion of
this monstrous iniquity!
Again, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of men
who have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I know
it is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised a
thing, do it. "Some have broken the pledge." Yes; they were liars. But
all men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all persons
to make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvation
of many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never be
estimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, and
multitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have kept
it till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands the
proclamation of emancipation.
Again, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They have
already done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last to
treat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awful
disease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Once
fastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectures
will not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospel
of Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awful
thirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were on
the other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires of
hell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst for
intoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, called
for a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wrist
into the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirst
is on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Away
with the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife!
he would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down.
Away with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away with
heaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. "Give me the drink!
Give it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soul
trembles over the pit--the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale with
tears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam--give it
to me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternal
banishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"
Again, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade
the respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic
beverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you
who drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose your
balance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. You
have, under God, in your power the redemption of this land from
drunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, and
then come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, your
sympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that you
will find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly,
you will probably save somebody--perhaps your own child; thirdly,
you will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you made
the sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinking
respectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare of
death, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this whole
continent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow of
drunkards' graves.
This rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your
beautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you
would see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would see
it hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would
find it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would
feel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart.
There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful
curse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it
that silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the golden
scepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite
turned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? What
was it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the last
war, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western
steamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved to
hear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. People
wondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should
have such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a
sot.
I call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the path
of death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see how
everything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring back
joy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet you
with as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like to
rekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not
too late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the
memory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from
your anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not
call back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in
those awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memory
the bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is not
too late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family the
remainder of your fast-going life.
But perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one who
may not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out.
You take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you the
courage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions and
friends, "I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; nor
will I countenance the habit in others"? Have nothing to do with
strong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and has
stood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; until
now the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night,
stands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men.
Do I address one whose regular work in life is to administer to
this appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we be
pronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woes
must be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour of
the day!
Do not think that because human government may license you that
therefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that they
respect the "original package" decision by which the Supreme Court
of the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas,
which decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect for
a wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of the
Supreme Court who gave minority report against that decision were
right, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defend
itself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the Supreme
Court notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington is
the throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, or
municipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effect
is destruction.
God knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you have
poured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been kept
than yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sour
mash, or beer. God calls it "strong-drink." Whether you sell it in low
oyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel,
the divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meet
your customers one day when there will be no counter between you. When
your work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business,
all the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd around
you, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you their
wounds and say, "You made them"; and point to their unquenchable
thirst and say, "You kindled it"; and rattle their chain and say, "You
forged it." Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with the
hands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes they
will push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up from
beneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, "Wo
to him that giveth his neighbor drink!"
SPURGEON
SONGS IN THE NIGHT
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834.
He was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time,
and his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasm
attracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and
melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of
his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was
in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity,
intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and
an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of
silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbon
from a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptied
itself." Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in his
lifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicoll
says: "Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; and
as I get older I read them more and more." He died in 1892.
SPURGEON
1834--1892
SONGS IN THE NIGHT
_But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the
night_?--Job xxxv., 10.
Elihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wise
Jehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion;
hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, cast
about him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of
the most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right one
in Job's case. He said within himself--"Surely, if men be tried and
troubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their
troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say,
'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu's
reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the
Christian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which
many believers are plunged, is this--that while they are looking
about, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape
their troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real help
cometh; they do not say, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in
the night?" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell upon
those sweet words, "God my maker, who giveth songs in the night."
The world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should have
one. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; but
they grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon from
heaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light,
which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm
stillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, and
there forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, and
an angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again,
touches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors of
the day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we have
many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy
season. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; there
is "the terror by night"; there is the dread of robbers and of fell
disease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have
no light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancy
that spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly,
they would find it to be true, that
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,
Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake,"
and that at all times they are round about us--not more by night than
by day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even
night hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night,
and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have
you never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of your
chamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence--save now and
then a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you not
fancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you not
conceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you,
were also mouths of song--that every star was singing God's glory,
singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deserved
praise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit,
to catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praises
which are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear--the
praises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven,
and moves the stars in their courses....
If we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin with
what God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will find
it a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electing
love and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well to
sing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thou
wast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook
thy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and
ratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which,
ere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills were
children, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved thee
well, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst go
back to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run back
to that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or the
fountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thy
God inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in His
loving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this a
charming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like those
which come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictated
by meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing of
election: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there are
that are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who are
afraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in His
Bible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:
"Sons we are through God's election,
Who in Jesus Christ believe;
By eternal destination,
Sovereign grace we now receive.
Lord, thy favor,
Shall both grace and glory give."
Think, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a song
in the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key as
that, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and they
are the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not sing
a little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave,
thou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: "Come, poor
slave, come with me"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous moment
when He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said:
"I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free"?
What tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happy
morning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as a
seraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: "I am forgiven; I am
forgiven":
"A monument of grace,
A sinner saved by blood."
Go back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song in
the night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hast
some precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grown
over with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of His
mercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like that
which thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that?
Wast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wast
thou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man!
I beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a few
bulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith may
float safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done.
What! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn over
the book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar?
Canst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee at
Hermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thou
never been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped the
jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast;
go back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; and
tho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shall
glitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath given
thee a song in the night.
But I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there is
something to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is one
thing I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, and
that is, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and
because His compassions fail not." If we cannot sing very loud, yet we
can sing a little low tune, something like this--"He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."
"Oh!" says one, "I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow.
I am a poor wretch." So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not so
poor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; if
you are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledges
that he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they come
through the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, I
have no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no right
to complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creature
deserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur;
we can lift up our hands, and say, "Night! thou art dark, but thou
mightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have been
poorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick--well, I have some
friend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse."
And therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to sing
about--"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!" Besides,
Christian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon.
There is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one or
two little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think you
may find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left,
and some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not put
out, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; but
methinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a song
in the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one,
perhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, bless
God for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then,
if thou canst not find a song in the night.
But, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet more
sweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I am
preaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps there
are not to be found a class of men in London who are suffering
a darker night than they are; for while many classes have been
befriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (if
I am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inch
of their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their bread
shall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, the
sweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grass
so near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry by
the House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that their
average wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and that
they have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensive
articles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which they
buy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they are
made with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers,
who, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsist
upon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedingly
pleased with one of them. He said, "Well, sir, it is very hard, but I
hope there is better times coming for us." "Well, my friend," I said,
"I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the Lord
Jesus Christ comes a second time." "That is just what we hope for,"
said he. "We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless the
Lord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; and
then He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieces
with an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." I
was glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing about
the morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thought
of the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with little
success; "the kingdoms of this world" are not "become the kingdoms of
our Lord and of his Christ"; we send out missionaries; they are for
the most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see the
fruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shall
not always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is
coming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with
unction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and
when colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds.
The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth." For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of that
second coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that the
sweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings,
that the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down,
that liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting,
and that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extended
throughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, think
of the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of
thy Lord.
There is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in the
night. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and we
shall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shall
get it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed of
an apparently dying saint, last night, I said, "Well, sister, He has
been precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and His
past loving-kindnesses." She put out her hand, and said, "Ah! sir, do
not talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now as
ever; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior that
I am in need of, for I am a sinner still." I found that I could not
comfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, of
the gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, of
the songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, "Yes, I
shall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;" and then she
seemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with that
thought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it
shall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled with
cares--it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garments
may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a
little longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trials
will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the
prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then,
"With transporting joys recount
The labors of our feet."
Our trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to one
another about them in heaven, and find all the more to converse
about, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on,
therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a
night that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by
and by.
And now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences of
songs in the night above all other songs.
In the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night--I
mean in the night of trouble--you may be quite sure it is a hearty
one. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonder
whether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two in
Smithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under pain
and penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can all
sing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiest
thing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; but
when the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Can
you say, "Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him"? That is hearty
singing; that is real song that springs up in the night. The
nightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. We
know a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought to
sing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the night
that makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweet
and hearty, because it is in the night.
Again: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs we
hear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to sing
by-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. They
can sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will not
sing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs with
which to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of those
light songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not do
to enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; but
the Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave off
his song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot in
Jordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, and
keep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he is
there, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter
strain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a
great many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable
set, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song." Ay, but, my dear
friends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your
songs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will
soon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me one
that will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards it
up, and says, "I'm rich"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. But
give me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever.
Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have
real faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as
far as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see
providence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessors
cannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him.
Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by
day who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers;
but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a
courageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's
sonnets in the darkness.
He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love
to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else
praises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on
His head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is
something. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to
stick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and
forsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in
the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from
the heart.
I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the
excellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you
their use.
It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because
it will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and
had some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you
whistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the
natural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like
singing to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble,
we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with
difficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song." We have begun to
sing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing." That is
about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an
evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the
evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can
begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants
sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in
the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say
he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he can
sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to
purge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and
you will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as
long as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your
fears.
Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your
companions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with
you, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us,
that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful
dark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, and
poor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when his
doubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it,
and he heard a man in front of him saying, "Yea, when I pass through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Now, that man
did not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheer
a man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do not
know who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it.
Sing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. There
is some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by your
sonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut up
in the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your song
inside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means of
getting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if you
can, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you go
down from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have first
looked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come down
with a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer up
many a poor way-worn pilgrim by it.
One more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try and
sing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in
all the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend a
great deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who
disbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the
sorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said,
"Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil,
thou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
right ways of the Lord?" That is about the politeness such men ought
to have who deny God's truth. "We start with this assumption: we will
prove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to prove
God's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and
bid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained
little by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has been
to send a man round the country, to follow another up who has been
lecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious.
Why, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should we
follow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need not
wish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but
that is not God's way.
God's direction is, "Preach, teach, dogmatize." Do not stand
disputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and
there leave it. Say to them, "He that believeth shall be saved, and he
that believeth not shall be damned"; and when you have done that,
you have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries stand
disputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their time
by attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, of
heathenism? Why not just go and say, "The God whom ye ignorantly
worship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved;
believe me not, and the Bible says you are lost." And then, having
thus asserted God's word, say, "I leave it, I declare it unto you; it
is a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about."
Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove
your own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that
demands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if
you do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there
be such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done
my duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave
it. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove
your religion. Live it out!
Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give
the external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your
neighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When
he was sick, he said, "Oh, send for the doctor"; and there he was
fretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises.
When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the
Lord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take
the cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.
You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its
power; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will
say, "There is something in that." And when you come to the borders of
the grave--he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how
frightened he was--give him your hand, and say to him, "Ah! I have a
Christ that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me
sing in the night." Let me hear how you can sing, "Victory, victory,
victory!" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty
thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half
so well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful
frame; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up,
and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the
Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy
of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them,
the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will
give the best possible proof of Christianity.
POTTER
MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE