immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from
their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject
are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the
suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much
to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,
where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,
under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, in
like manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "but
cast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passages
suggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange
images when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in
heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "that
old serpent called the devil." Back of them there doubtless lies a
history whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad,
imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingency
of freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty,
transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherently
probable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted from
the law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitants
of heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals on
earth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry in
Milton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat that
overtook its leader:--
"Him the almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition: there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."
An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest he
fall into the condemnation of the devil." Here presumptuous arrogance
and haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the
great transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--
"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"
And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--
"What time his pride
Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim,
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,
With vain attempt."
Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His
disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated
and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that
devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at
their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to
the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of
themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and
self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,
half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thus
identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic
ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that the
demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names
are written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege and
power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote
humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.
We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--a
lesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.
It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of
egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to
self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Ye
shall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which
beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before
them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never
trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival
Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated
and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its
attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer
paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the
gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain
into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of
sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty
king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm
splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which
dulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the East
lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his
self-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I have
built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for
the honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!
In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening
judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was
compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven
is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow
of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his
throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels
which his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say
taught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything
himself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of
the mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech
from his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity
to be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too
self-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignation
overtook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them,
and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their
glittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is
another conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating," writes
the historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"--the
splendid palace of Viterbo--"at that instant the avenging roof came
down, on his head." And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom
which awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and
in the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans
for his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his
self-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being
publicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--
"I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
These many summers on a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me."
It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in
the lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its
pernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we
ought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position,
not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are
merely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is
common to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and
however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from
that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of
the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his
reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and
the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the
last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes
of a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow
circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as
intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her
day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of
England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as
we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and
the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what
passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof
of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.
And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the
state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or
ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.
Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the
worse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied
heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,
that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is
being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,
or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed
this country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and
"broke ope"
"The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building."
[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]
Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the
weird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" could
not be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,
Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of
self-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had
chosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus
the growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure
the rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the
light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the
expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look
on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he
would "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not to
perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.
Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,
from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.
The man, for instance, who frets against providence because his
standing is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently
a better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He
imagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are not
recognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,
as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his
heavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,
and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people
in every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.
They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but
they will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no
disgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.
Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have
no means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses,
mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at least
so they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite to
maintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualify
for the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength of
their virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a
captain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his
own, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their
moral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized
and lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of this
folly, or safe from its perils. They "think more highly of themselves
than they ought to think"; they come to regard themselves as specially
favored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy
manner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. When
they pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and
when they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds
contempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in
the name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide their
self-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the
manner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves.
They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess in
casting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, and
they are as much in need of the Savior's warning: "I beheld Satan, as
lightning, fall from heaven." And because they have failed to give
heed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in his
downward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.
"As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind,
Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split;
So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend";
and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, when
they have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" What
more pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen the
forsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood in
the unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on the
moss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and the
sight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thought
of what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair,
valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers once
made these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silence
is broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle of
the nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of the
mighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptied
of his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts and
feelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned in
evil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; and
everywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway.
Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, he
is ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somber
presence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront and
amaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in every
direction. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions,
irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging
outlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions,
clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and
stormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of
human history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that "the
heart of a lost angel is in the earth," and as we know its throbbings
carry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we can
surmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs.
Browning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--
"The prodigy
Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes,
Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.
I think that thou hast one day worn a crown
Under the eyes of God."
But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray a
deeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joys
of a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from those
which mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side of
humanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy.
One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;
the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. One
seeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternal
darkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, where
reigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called "the
blest." In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,
"My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame can
calmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It
is found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and
goodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed
in his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so
remains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.
Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.
He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighs
the eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and
which constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the
grief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God's
fair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into
sin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold
changed!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the
whirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.
In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the
inspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like
Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem
others better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to
cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome
sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would
foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean
on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just
as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its
calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its
perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own
ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true
greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the
prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the
trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our
strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why
they were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that
the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple
with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield
before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid
and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus
is it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when its
gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest
breath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and
downward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it is
frozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures
of mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm of
wrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it and
level it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. God
grant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!
KNOX LITTLE
THIRST SATISFIED
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educated
at Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in
1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He also
holds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as a
preacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to the
High Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works of
educational character, such as the "Treasury of Meditation," "Manual
of Devotion for Lent," and "Confirmation and Holy Communion."
KNOX LITTLE
BORN IN 1839
THIRST SATISFIED[1]
[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]
_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and
appear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.
The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is one
of those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of the
Christian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, her
prayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in the
Hebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of the
human soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, more
touching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and that
exalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirst
for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the
presence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the action
of the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the daily
service, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have about
them so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requires
explanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,
why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch
wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real
justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general
texture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the
text. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your
thoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a better
than the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of its
teaching is the cry of the soul for God.
And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject
that demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of
example or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--does
it not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The
attitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the Christian
Church? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midst
of a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midst
of a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time of
severe temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thought
of evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? And
what is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men and
women in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at times
their pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards and
loftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of the
Christian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--that
that is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made in
your church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have at
least moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments of
pause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from that
which is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in the
ministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church as
this? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,
powerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why is
it good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy and
beautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exerted
themselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?
Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in this
bustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in this
sink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought to say, and must ultimately
feel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has one
satisfaction, one only--"My soul is athirst for God, for the living
God." Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we waste
our time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practical
about this thirst of the soul?