in earnest speaks loudly. Demosthenes thundered from the _bema_.
Cicero's speech rang like a trumpet-call through the forum. One Hebrew
prophet in his commission is directed to cry aloud, spare not, lift up
his voice like a trumpet. Another, pre-announcing the Messianic mercy,
like one who has found a spring in the desert and shouts to his
comrades of the caravan, sends out his call upon the wind: "Ho! every
one that thirsteth! come ye to the waters!" Had Jesus desired to limit
his salvation to a few unconditionally elected favorites, would he not
have restricted the invitation? With such a policy, walking quietly
through the crowd, seeking out his elect here and there, calling them
privately in undertones to their peculiar privilege, would certainly
seem to have been in better keeping than an undiscriminating stentorian
cry from a conspicuous position to the multitude. But, intending the
mercy for all, he offers it to all. Does he mock them with an
invitation which is insincere? Oh! better we know the love divine! The
water of life is not the private property of a churl, streaming from a
statue in a little park, surrounded by a lofty granite wall, with an
iron gate locked against the public, while a few favored individuals,
as selfish as himself, are furnished each with a key; but an open
fountain in the field, without inclosure or obstruction, clearer than
the Clitumnus and more copious than the San Antonio, issuing like the
outlet of a subterranean ocean from the base of the everlasting hills;
while the Son of God, more glorious than the morn upon the mountains,
stands over it crying with voice that reaches every nation: "If any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink!"
Finally, the invitation is to be regarded. Who here is not athirst?
Some thirst for riches, some for honors, some for pleasures, a few
perhaps--may grace enlarge the number--for the water of salvation. Gold
cannot satisfy the soul; the more we have, the more we crave. The world
has not enough of glory in its gift to fill the aching voids of
ambition; elevation evokes aspiration, and at the last summit the cry
is still "Excelsior!" One after another, all sensuous enjoyments pall
upon the taste; and fluttering like butterflies from flower to flower,
and sipping like honey-bees every sweet of field and forest, we learn
at length with a sated Solomon that all is vanity. The gilding of an
empty cup can never satisfy the thirsty soul. "We were made for God,"
says St. Augustine, "and our hearts are restless till they repose in
him." For God, even the living God, David thirsted long ago; and here,
incarnate in our nature, stands the Divine Object of his desire, crying
to the world: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!"
But there is something, see you not? for the thirsty soul to do. Christ
cannot save us till we come. He is indeed, as St. Paul calls him, "the
Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe"--of all men,
because he has opened the fountain for all and invited all to the
fountain--especially of them that believe, because they accept the
invitation and come to him for supply. Whoever, whatever, wherever you
are--however great your obstructions, and however numerous and enormous
your sins--called, you may come; coming, you will receive; receiving,
you shall be satisfied forever. "Rivers of living water," Jesus offers
every believer in him. See the adaptation--"water"--to assuage your
thirst, to refresh the weary soul, to revive him who is fainting and
dying. Observe the quality--"living water"--not a stagnant pool, but a
salient spring, a fountain that never fails, a well of water within
springing up unto everlasting life. Behold the abundance--"rivers of
living water"--not one great stream, but many--an inexhaustible supply,
having its source in a shoreless and unfathomable sea--
"Its streams the whole creation reach,
So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each,
Enough forevermore!"
But the coming is not all. Come and what? Come and see? Come and
explore? Come and investigate? Come and analyze the water, and discuss
its qualities, and speculate about its probable effects? Come and
praise the fountain, and commend it to others, and enjoy its cool
retreats, and admire its beautiful environs, and congratulate your
friends upon its conveniences, and applaud the benevolence that opened
it for the benefit of all? Nay, come and drink. Not all the water from
the smitten rock could save the Israelite that would not drink. Not all
the river of the water of life flowing through the City of God can
quench the thirst of the soul that declines it. Personally you must
appropriate the mercy. Personally you must experience its restoring
power. Salvation is not a theory, but a fact; not a speculation, but a
consciousness; not an ethical system to be reasoned out by superior
intellect, but a divine blessing to be taken into the believing heart.
It is a new life received from the Fountain-Life of the world. Gushing
from the throne of God and the Lamb, "clear as crystal," with a
copiousness and an energy which no dam can stay nor dike restrain, it
offers its refreshment to all, free as the air, the dew, the rain, or
the sunlight of heaven. Drink, and you shall never thirst again. Drink,
and find your immortality in the draught!
[1] Preached in Rochester, N.Y., 1842.
VII.
SOJOURNING WITH GOD.[1]
Ye are strangers and sojourners with me.--Lev. xxv. 23.
I have a dear friend to-day on the Atlantic. Four days ago, in New-York
Harbor, I accompanied him to the floating palace that bears him to
Europe; and put a book into his hand, which may furnish him some
entertainment on the voyage, and some service perhaps in the land of
art and beauty for which he is bound. Next Lord's Day he hopes to spend
in London; and thence, after a short pause, to proceed to Rome, where
he means to remain three months or more. A summer in that city is to an
American somewhat hazardous on the score of health, and the facilities
for seeing and exploring are far less favorable than they are in the
winter. Yet, as this is the only season he can command for the purpose,
he is willing to encounter the dangers and dispense with some of the
advantages, for the sake of a brief sojourn in the grand old metropolis
that dominated the world in the days of the Caesars, and has since ruled
it with a rod of iron in the hands of the popes.
In "the historic city" he will meet with much to entertain a mind like
his--highly cultivated and richly stored with classic lore; and for all
that he wishes to accomplish, he will find his opportunity far too
brief. But he will not be at home there--a transient and unsettled
visitor. Every thing will be different from what he has been accustomed
to in his own country--government different--society different--manners
and customs different--churches and worship different--dress, diet and
language different--architecture, public institutions, general aspect
of the city, and natural scenery on all sides, quite different from any
thing he ever saw before. And while he daily encounters new objects of
absorbing interest--new wonders of art--new treasures of antiquity--new
illustrations and confirmations of history, and feels the charm of a
thousand beauties to which he has not been accustomed, the very
contrast will make him confess that he is a stranger and sojourner, and
think frequently of his home beyond the sunset, and sigh for the
fellowship of the dear hearts far over the western sea.
And should he go farther, and visit the ruined lands of the Nile--the
Jordan--the Euphrates, and wander over the silent wastes that once
smiled with golden harvests, glowed with gorgeous cities, and teemed
with tumultuous populations; everywhere--on the burning sands of the
desert--in the savage solitudes of the mountains--amidst the crumbling
memorials of ancient civilizations and religions--in the tent of the
Arab, the wayside encampment, and the comfortless caravansera--he will
constantly require the pledge of chieftains, the protection of princes,
the safe conduct of governments, and the covenanted friendship of the
rude nomadic tribes among whom he makes his temporary abode.
This is the idea of our text: "Ye are strangers and sojourners with
me." It is God speaking to his chosen people, about to take possession
of the promised land, instructing them concerning their polity and
conduct in their new home and relations. One of the specific directions
given them is, that they are not to sell the land forever, because it
belongs to him, and they are his wards--tenants at will, dwelling on
his domain, under his patronage and protection. For six years he leased
to them the land, so to say; but every seventh year he reclaimed it as
his own, and it was to be neither tilled nor sown; and after seven such
sabbatic years, in the fiftieth year, which was the year of Jubilee,
every thing reverted with a still more special emphasis to the divine
Proprietor; and the people were not permitted to reap or gather any
thing that grew of itself that year even from the unworked soil, but
were to subsist on the product of the former years laid up in store for
that purpose. All this to teach them that the domain was Jehovah's, and
they were only privileged occupants under him--that he was their
patron, protector, benefactor, while they were strangers and sojourners
with God.
In a general sense, these sacred words describe the condition of all
men. All live by sufferance on the Lord's estate, fed and sustained by
his bounty. Whether we recognize his rights and claims or not, all we
have belongs to him, and the continuance of every privilege depends
upon his will. You may revolt against his authority, and fret at what
you call fate; but his providence orders all, and death is only your
eviction from the trust and tenure you have abused. What is your life,
and what control has any man over his destiny? A shadow on the ground,
a vapor in the air, an arrow speeding to the mark, an eagle hasting to
the prey, a post hurrying past with despatches, a swift ship gliding
out of sight over the misty horizon--these are the Scripture emblems of
what we are. Every day is but a new stage in the pilgrim's
progress--every act and every pulse another step toward the tomb. The
frequent changes of fortune teach us that nothing here is certain but
uncertainty, nothing constant but inconstancy, nothing real but
unreality, nothing stable but instability. The loveliest spot we ever
found on earth is but a halting-place for the traveller--an oasis for
the caravan in the desert. The world itself, and all that it contains,
present only the successive scenes of a moving panorama; and our life
is the passage of a weaver's shuttle--a flying to and fro--a mere
coming and going--an entry and an exit. For we are strangers and
sojourners with God.
But what is in a general sense thus true of all, is in a special sense
true of the spiritual and heavenly-minded. As Abraham was a stranger
and a sojourner with the Canaanite and the Egyptian--as Jacob and his
sons were strangers and sojourners with Pharaoh, and the fugitive David
with the king of Gath--so all godly people acknowledge themselves
strangers and sojourners with God. This is the picture of the Christian
life that better than almost any other expresses the condition and
experiences of our Lord's faithful followers--not at home here--ever on
the move--living among aliens and enemies--subject to many privations
and occasional persecutions--every morning hearing afresh the summons,
"Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest"--practically
confessing, with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, "Here
we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." The world knew
not their Master, and knows not them. If they were of the world, the
world would love its own; because they are not of the world, but he has
chosen them out of the world, therefore the world hateth them. Wholly
of another character--another profession--another pursuit--aiming at
other ends, and cheered by other hopes--the carnal, selfish,
unbelieving world cannot possibly appreciate them, and they are
constantly misunderstood and misrepresented by the world. Regarding not
the things which are seen and temporal, but the things which are unseen
and eternal, they are often stigmatized as fools and denounced as
fanatics. Far distant from their home, and surrounded by those who have
no sympathy with them, they show their heavenly citizenship by heavenly
tempers, heavenly manners, heavenly conversation, all hallowed by the
spirit of holiness. So one of the Fathers in the second century
describes the Christians of his time:
"They occupy their own native land, but as pilgrims in it. They bear
all as citizens, and forbear all as foreigners. Every foreign land is
to them a fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They are in the
flesh, but they walk not after the flesh. They live on earth, but they
are citizens of heaven. They die, but with death their true life
begins. Poor themselves, they make many rich; destitute, they have all
things in abundance; despised, they are glorified in contempt. In a
word--what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The
soul inhabits the body, but is not derived from it; and Christians
dwell in the world, but are not of it. The immortal soul sojourns in a
mortal tent; and Christians inhabit a perishable house, while looking
for an imperishable in heaven."
To such heavenly-mindedness, my dear brethren, we all are called; and
without something of this spirit, whatever our professions and
formalities, we do but belie the name of Christian. "If ye then be
risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth, on the right hand of God; set your affections on things above,
not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with
Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we
also appear with him in glory."
Bowed down with many a burden and weary because of the way, how much is
there to cheer and comfort us in God's good word to his suffering
pilgrims--"Ye are strangers and sojourners with me"!
There is the idea of friendly recognition. As the nomad chief receives
the tourist into his tent, and assures him of his favor by the
"covenant of salt;" so God hath made with us an everlasting covenant of
grace, ordered in all things and sure; since which, he can never disown
us, never forsake us, never forget us, never cease to care for his own.
There is the idea of pleasant communion. As in the Arab tent, between
the sheik and his guest, there is a free interchange of thought and
feeling; so between God and the regenerate soul a sweet fellowship is
established, with perfect access and unreserved confidence. "The secret
of the Lord is with them that fear him," and his delight is in his
saints, who are the excellent of the earth.
There is the idea of needful refreshment. "Turn in and rest a little,"
saith the patriarch to the wayfarers; and then brings forth bread and
wine--the best that his store affords--to cheer their spirits and
revive their strength. God spreads a table for his people in the
wilderness. With angels' food he feeds them, and their cup runs over
with blessing. He gives them to eat of the hidden manna, and restores
their fainting souls with the new wine of the kingdom.
There is the idea of faithful protection. The Arab who has eaten with
you will answer for your safety with his own life, and so long as you
remain with him none of his tribe shall harm a hair of your head.
Believer in Jesus! do you not dwell in the secret place of the Most
High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty? Has he not shut you,
like Noah, into the ark of your salvation? Is not David's rock your
rock, your fortress, your high tower, and unfailing city of refuge?
There is the idea of infallible guidance. The Oriental host will not
permit his guest to set forth alone, but goes with him on every new
track, grasps his hand in every steep ascent, and holds him back from
the brink of every precipice. God said to Israel: "I will send my angel
before thy face, to lead thee in the way, and bring thee into the land
whither thou goest." Yea, he said more: "My presence shall go with
thee, and I will give thee rest." Both promises are ours, my brethren;
and something better than the pillar of cloud and fire, or the manifest
glory of the resident God upon the mercy-seat, marches in the van of
his pilgrim host through the wilderness, and will never leave us till
the last member of his redeemed Israel shall have passed clean over
Jordan!
There is the idea of a blessed destiny. Their divine Guide is leading
them "to a good land, that floweth with milk and honey"--"to a city of
habitation"--"a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is
God"--"a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens"--the
Father's house of "many mansions," where Christ is now as he promised
preparing a place for his people, and where they are at last to be with
him and behold his glory. Oh! with what a sweet and restful confidence
should we dismiss our groundless fears of the future, saying with the
psalmist--"Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive
me to glory!" The pilgrim has a home; the weary has a resting-place;
the wanderer in the wilderness is a "fellow-citizen with the saints and
of the household of faith;" and often have we seen him in the evening
twilight, after a long day's march over stony mountain and sultry
plain, sitting at the door of the tent just pitched for the night, with
calm voice singing:
"One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er--
I'm nearer to my home to-night
Than e'er I was before--
Nearer the bound of life,
Where falls my burden down--
Nearer to where I leave my cross,
And where I take my crown!"
and with the next rising sun, like a giant refreshed with new wine,
joyfully resuming his journey, from the first eminence attained gazing
a moment through his glass at the distant glory of the gold-and-crystal
city, then bounding forward and making the mountains ring with the
strain:
"There is my house and portion fair,
My treasure and heart are there,
And my abiding home;
For me my elder brethren stay,
And angels beckon me away,
And Jesus bids me come!"
The saintly Monica, after many years of weeping at the nail-pierced
feet, has at length received the answer to her prayers in the
conversion of one dearer to her than life; and is now ready, with good
old Simeon, to depart in peace, having seen the salvation of the Lord:
"As for me, my son, nothing in this world hath longer any charm for me.
What I do here, or why I should remain, I know not. But one wish I had,
and that God has abundantly granted me. Bury me where thou wilt, for
nowhere am I far from God!"
Dark to some of you, O ye strangers and sojourners with God! may be the
valley of the shadow of death; but ye cannot perish there, for He whose
fellowship is immortality is still with you, and you shall soon be with
him as never before! Black and cold at your feet rolls the river of
terrors; but lift your eyes a little, and you see gleaming through the
mist the pearl-gates beyond! There "the Captain of the Lord's host" is
already preparing your escort!
"Even now is at hand
The angelical band--
The convoy attends--
An invincible troop of invisible friends!
Ready winged for their flight
To the regions of light,
The horses are come--
The chariots of Israel to carry us home!"
[1] Preached in Charleston, S.C., soon after a year's sojourn beyond
the sea, 1858.
VIII.
BUILDING FOR IMMORTALITY.[1]
So they built and prospered.--2 Chron. xiv. 7.
In the fairest of Italian cities stands the finest of terrestrial
structures--a campanile or bell-tower, twenty-five feet square, two
hundred and seventy-three feet high, built of white and colored marble
in alternate blocks, covered with a royal luxuriance of sculpture
framed in medallions, studded everywhere with the most beautiful
statuary disposed in Gothic niches, and finished from base to
battlement like a lady's cabinet inlaid with pearl and gold. It would
seem as if nothing more perfect in symmetry, more exquisite in
workmanship, or more magnificent in ornamentation, could possibly be
achieved by human genius. Pure as a lily born of dew and sunshine, the
approaching tourist sees it rising over the lofty roof of the Duomo,
like the pillar of cloud upon the tabernacle; and when he enters the
Piazza, and finds it standing apart in its majestic altitude, and
looking down upon the vestal loveliness of the Tuscan Santa Maria, he
can think only of the Angel of the Annunciation in the presence of the
Blessed Virgin. Whoever has gazed upon its grand proportions, and
studied the details of its exquisite execution, will feel no
astonishment at being told that such a structure could not now be built
in this country for less than fifty millions of our money; nor will he
wonder that Jarvis, in his "Art Hints," has pronounced it "the noblest
specimen of tower-architecture the world has to show;" that Charles the
Fifth declared it was "fit to be inclosed with crystal, and exhibited
only on holy-days;" and that the Florentines themselves, whenever they
would characterize any thing as extremely beautiful, say it is "as fine
as the Campanile."
Gentlemen, you have reared a nobler edifice! Nobler, not because more
costly, for your pecuniary outlay is as nothing in the comparison.
Nobler, not because the material is more precious, and the architecture
more perfect; for what is a pile of brick to such a miracle in marble?
or where is the American builder that would dream of competing with
Giotto? Nobler, not because there is a larger and richer-toned bell in
the gilded cupola, to summon the inmates to study and recitation, or to
morning and evening worship; for the great bell of the Campanile is one
of the grandest pieces of resonant metal ever cast; and its voice,
though soft as flute-tones at eventide coming over the water, is rich
and majestic as an angel's song. Far nobler, however, in its purpose
and utility; for that wonder of Italian architecture is the product of
Florentine pride and vanity in the days of a prosperous republic--a
less massive but more elegant Tower of Babel, expressing the ambition
of its builders; and though standing in the Cathedral Piazza, its chief
conceivable objects are mere show and sound; while the end and aim of
this edifice is the development of mind, the formation of character,
the creation of a loftier intellectual manhood, the reproduction of so
much of the lost image of God as may be evolved by the best media and
methods of human education.
The excellence of your structure, then, consists mainly in this--that
it is only a scaffold, with derricks, windlasses, and other apparatus
and implements, for building something immeasurably more excellent.
Here the thinking power is to be quickened, and the logical faculty is
to be awakened and invigorated. This is to be effected, not so much by
the knowledge acquired, as by the effort called out for its
acquisition. The teacher is to measure his success, not by the number
and variety of terms, rules, formulas and principles he has impressed
upon the memory, but by the amount of mental power and independence he
has imparted to his pupil. True, in educating the mind, knowledge of
some sort must be acquired; but the thoroughness of the education
depends no more upon the quantity of the acquisition, than the health
of the guest upon the abundance of the banquet. The mental food, as
well as the material, must be digested and assimilated. It follows that
those exercises which require close and consecutive thinking, thorough
analysis, clear discrimination and accurate definition, are best
adapted to develop the higher faculties of the mind. Mathematics,
metaphysics, dialectics and philology must form the granite basis of
your building, sustaining the solid tiers of rich and varied marbles.
Then comes the aesthetic culture. First the substantial, afterward the
ornamental--this is the natural order, to reverse which were to begin
building the tower at the top. The very idea of the ornamental supposes
something substantial to be ornamented. No man will attempt to polish
the sponge, or paint a picture on the vacant air, or rear a stone
cathedral on a sunset cloud. There is no lily-bloom without the
sustaining stalk, nor magnolia grandiflora without the sturdy and
stately tree. "Wood, hay, stubble," are not fit materials for jewelry;
but "gold, silver, precious stones," may be wrought into a thousand
forms of beauty, sparkling with myriad splendors. The solid marble
superstructure resting upon its deep foundations of granite, firm as
the seated hills, can scarcely be too finely finished or too
sumptuously adorned. Upon a thorough mental culture sit gracefully, and
quite at home, philosophy, history, poetry, eloquence, music,
painting--all in literature and the arts that can refine the taste,
refresh the heart, and lead the fancy captive. To the mind thus
disciplined and adorned, a pleasant path is opened to the broadest and
richest fields of intellectual inquiry, where it may range at will with
the freedom of an angel's wing, charmed with beauties such as Eden
never knew, thrilled with melodies such as the leaden ear of ignorance
never heard, rejoicing in a fellowship of wisdom worthy of the
enfranchised sons of God, and realizing the truth so finely expressed
by the greatest of German poets:--