consecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into
humility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great
and noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride
when he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men,
to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above
himself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving
than any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there
for us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows its
full salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that
Redeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself
to the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of
anything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that
Christ, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is
the one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that
consecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the
"pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then,
but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the
world. The soul is saved!
The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins
which the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the
lifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the
profoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us from
sins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What
unworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!
My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved
from yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that
you may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth
live to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior.
If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied
with his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If
any man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be
ye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest
because life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there
is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.
GLADDEN
THE PRINCE OF LIFE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove,
Pa., in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordained
pastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N.Y., and
Springfield, Mass., until 1882, when he assumed charge of the First
Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupied
editorial positions, and has published many books on social and civil
reform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular and
common life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combines
vigor with grace.
GLADDEN
BORN IN 1836
THE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's "The New Idolatry." By permission of
The McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]
_And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from the
dead._--Acts iii., 15.
This is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the temple
porch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years,
whose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection from
the dead he is now bearing witness. "The prince of life!" It is one of
the many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him.
Reverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences whenever
they spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words with
which they loved to deck His memory. He was "the Prophet of the
Highest"; He was "the Great High Priest"; He was "the Shepherd of the
Sheep"; He was "the Captain of Salvation"; He was "the First Born of
Many Brethren"; He was "Redeemer," "Reconciler," "Savior." Gratitude and
affection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, but
there is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than this
with which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death,
gave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the word
of Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described His
mission: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it
abundantly." Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gave
with princely munificence--freely, unstintedly.
The phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, since
the day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day of
the week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Him
the Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, in
the other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in the
impassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, the
Author and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and the
Living One.
Those who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need to
have their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son of
Man to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems to
have been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by the
multitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that He
possest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribed
to Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, the
cleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of the
vital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, new
life seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some who
seemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It is
a physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughly
healthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciated
or exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to the
dying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as through
the veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and that
those who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may have
the power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. The
miracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in the
literal sense; they were wonders, marvels--for that is what the word
miracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of natural
law is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purely
natural occurrences, taking place under the operation of natural
laws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all the
secrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these words
of Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: "If ye
abide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works
than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father."
The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was
brought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation
of His Life to them. "Of His fulness," said John, "we all received,
and grace for grace." There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of
vitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those
who came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any mere
physical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physical
endowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influence
oftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as the
result of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through the
soul. The order was, first, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; then, "Arise
and walk." If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quickly
recovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubled
consciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those who
received Him the great boon of life.
Thus Jesus proved Himself "the Prince of Life." In the early ages of
the Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as
"the Lord and Giver of Life"; but that was because He was believed to
be the Continuator of the work of Jesus--the spiritual Christ.
There seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelation
of the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways of
conceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is more
significant than that which we are now considering. Those words of
Jesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we come
to think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describes
Himself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with the
thieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. "The thief
cometh not," He says, "but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I
came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly," Have we
not here the great fundamental distinction between men--the line that
separates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheep
from the goats--that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in His
parable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations or
philosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some are
life-destroyers. "The thief cometh not but that he may steal and
kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it
abundantly."
I do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is a
large class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and kill
and destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do not
cherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is a
distinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character,
that He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; but
He expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact to
which He guides our thought is this--that there are ways of living,
forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and
other ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus
contrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it
abundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must
interpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of
life--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep
and awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of
these directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and
central good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;
the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can
rightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by
determining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body
and spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men
are adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men
are debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have
to do.
Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct
upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life.
The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the
wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life
of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of
industry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the
life of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and
weaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be
judged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life of
the body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the
everlasting truth:
"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love,
of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes
the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is
richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by
means of his possessions, over the lives of others,"
We have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word of
the Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that
we might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will
be the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.
It is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life;
so that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargement
and enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employs
shall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; so
that all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall be
favorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spiritual
life, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiring
them with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man which
helps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth is
perhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of the
Christian religion which it is possible to bear in this day and
generation. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can do
more to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any minister
or missionary can do.
But it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shall
be destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage his
industry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be taken
from wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of his
employees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and their
hope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardly
religious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But such
a handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any heretical
teacher or lecturer ever did or can do.
The fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by which
capital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and the
community is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of the
people. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. They
increase the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessaries
of life. They extort from the people contributions for which no
equivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden of
toil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all who
work; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed,
and the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every one
of those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are reading
in these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minute
tentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do the
world's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of his
life for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemes
flourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormous
proportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always the
final payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who are
producing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletion
of the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces of
the underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat a
little less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey to
the tomb--all because of those who come to steal and to kill and to
destroy.
Such is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficent
business. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them,
shelters them, generously distributes among them the goods that
nourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on the
resources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thus
enriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude.
And I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in what
is called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the way
in which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tending
either to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whom
we have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life;
and that this is the final test by which we must be judged--are we
producers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in the
world--more of physical and spiritual life--because of what we are and
what we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessened
by what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger and
sounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are we
making them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?
When Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing--if
such it could be called--was under the dominion of those who came
to steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and the
civilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatory
civilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate and
despoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in which
the enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class was
fed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Of
course, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fall
which Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst of
this awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyone
doubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who were
trampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for those
whose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows?
What did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagog
where He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of the
prophet Isaiah and read therefrom: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he
hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord"--adding as He sat down, under the gaze of
the congregation, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your
ears"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission to
change the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end to
the plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in human
hearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; to
inspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to give
it abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of His
fulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit,
they do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and souls
of their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And is
not this included in His meaning when He says: "I am come that they
may have life, and that they may have it abundantly"?
To-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to men
of the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving is
not hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts the
flame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings the
soul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, and
obedience to its law brings to any organism life and health and
peace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of our
conduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knows
no term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has entered
into our lives, then in all our relations with others life is
increased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives are
forever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and
when all the members of the society in which we move have received
this spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to
hurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages,
and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came to
bring.
We hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire to
share with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may,
with all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we would
freely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life,
fuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up the
means of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted,
our health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affections
are withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to that
which is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could only
understand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly and
freely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!
Shall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the gift
that He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We are
reading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is it
but the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Master
upon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that this
little book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands and
littering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many minds
and in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to the
simplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again the
Sermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus brought
down to this day and applied to the conditions of our complex
civilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And I
wish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose to
put ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know that
we should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that there
would be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us.
We should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; and
we should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we were
doing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers and
the devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace.
Is not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that is
deepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into which
Jesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, the
blessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition,
and walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed.
CLIFFORD
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
John Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire,
in 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, and
University College, London. He has had much editorial as well as
ministerial experience and has published a number of works upon
religious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban,
the editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the _Homiletic
Review_, styles him "the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly the
most conspicuous figure in his own denomination." He speaks of "the
profundity of thought," "simplicity and beauty of diction," the
"compactness of argument" and "instructive expository character" of
this preacher's discourses.
CLIFFORD
BORN IN 1836
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
_I believe in the forgiveness of sins_.--Apostles' Creed.
This is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed.
We here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go with
them through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough of
Despond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length the
cross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him who
died for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the River
of Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all,
and that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting.
It is a new note, and it is a little surprizing--is it not?--to most
students of this creed that we should have to travel through so many
clauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping with
the spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we should
have all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts of
Christian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the Holy
Spirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith by
which the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which there
has been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints.
I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed does
touch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central--to
that which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of the
forgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world;
but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man,
you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the
conquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of
humanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.