IV

Greatheart is dead, they say!Greatheart is dead, they say!Nor dead, nor sleeping! He lives on! His nameShall kindle many a heart to equal flame;The fire he kindled shall burn on and onTill all the darkness of the lands be gone,And all the kingdoms of the earth be won,And one!A soul so fiery sweet can never dieBut lives and loves and works through all eternity.

Yes,livesandlovesandworks! 'There will be much to do in heaven,' he wrote to an old comrade in one of the last letters he ever penned. 'I guess I shall have good mission work to do; great, brave work for Christ! He will have to find it, for I can be nothing else than a missionary!' And so, perchance, James Chalmers is a missionary still!

Now, underlying this brave story of a noble life and a martyr-death is a great principle; and it is the principle that, if we look, we shall find embedded in the very heart of James Chalmers' text. No law of life is more vital. Let us return to that evangelistic meeting held on that drenching night at Inverary, and let us catch once more those matchlesscadences that won the heart of Chalmers! 'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'

'Let him that is athirst come!' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'so I came!'

'Let him that heareth say, Come!' James Chalmersheard; he felt that he mustsay; that is the connecting link between the evangelistic meeting at Inverary and the triumph and tragedy of New Guinea.

'Let him that heareth, say!'--that is the principle embedded in the text. The soul's exports must keep pace with the soul's imports. What I have freely received, I must as freely give. The boons that have descended to me from a remote ancestry I must pass on with interest to a remote posterity. The benedictions that my parents breathed on me must be conferred by me upon my children. 'Let him that heareth, say!' What comes into the City of Mansoul at Ear Gate must go out again at Lip Gate. The auditor of one day must become the orator of the next. It is a very ancient principle. 'He that reads,' says the prophet, 'must run!' 'He that sees must spread!' With those quick eyes of his, James Chalmers saw this at a glance. He recognized that the kingdom of Christ could be established in no other way. He saw that the Gospel could have been offered him on no other terms.What, therefore, he had with such wonder heard, he began, with great delight, to proclaim. Almost at once he accepted a Sunday school class; the following year he began preaching in those very villages through which, as a boy, his exploratory wanderings had so often taken him; a year later he became a city missionary, that he might pass on the message of the Spirit and the Bride to the teeming poor of Glasgow; and, twelve months later still, he entered college, in order to equip himself for service in the uttermost ends of the earth. His boyish passion for books and boxes had been sanctified at last by his consecration to a great heroic mission.

'Let him that is athirst come!' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'and I came!'

'Let him that heareth say, Come!' And Chalmers, having heard, said 'Come!' and said it with effect. Dr. Lawes speaks of one hundred and thirty mission stations which he established at New Guinea. And look at this! 'On the first Sabbath in every month not less than three thousand men and women gather devotedly round the table of the Lord, reverently commemorating the event which means so much to them and to all the world. Many of them were known to Chalmers as savages in feathers and war-paint. Now, clothed and in their right mind, the wild, savage look all gone, they form part of theBody of our Lord Jesus Christ and are members of His Church. Many of the pastors who preside at the Lord's Table bear on their breasts the tattoo marks that indicate that their spears had been imbrued with human blood. Now sixty-four of them, thanks to Mr. Chalmers' influence, are teachers, preachers and missionaries.' They, too, having listened, proclaim; having received, give; having heard, say; having been auditors, have now become orators. They have read and therefore they run. Having believed with the heart, they therefore confess with the mouth. This is not only a law of life; it is the law of the life everlasting. It is only by loyalty to this golden rule, on the part of all who hear the Spirit and the Bride say Come, that the kingdoms of this world can become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. It is the secret of world-conquest; and, besides it, there is no other.

'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'

'Let him that is athirst come!'

'Let him that heareth say, Come!'

I have somewhere read that, out in the solitudes of the great dusty desert, when a caravan is in peril of perishing for want of water, they give onecamel its head and let him go. The fine instincts of the animal will lead him unerringly to the refreshing spring. As soon as he is but a speck on the horizon, one of the Arabs mounts his camel and sets off in the direction that the liberated animal has taken. When, in his turn, he is scarcely distinguishable, another Arab mounts and follows. When the loose camel discovers water, the first Arab turns and waves to the second; the second to the third, and so on, until all the members of the party are gathered at the satisfying spring. As each man sees the beckoning hand, he turns and beckons to the man behind him. He that sees, signals; he that hears, utters. It is the law of the life everlasting; it is the fundamental principle of James Chalmers' text and of James Chalmers' life.

'Let him that is athirst come!' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'so I came!'

I heard the voice of Jesus say,'Behold, I freely giveThe living water; thirsty one,Stoop down, and drink, and live.'I came to Jesus, and I drankOf that life-giving stream;My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,And now I live in Him.

'And now I live in Him.' The life that James Chalmers lived in his Lord was a life so winsome that he charmed all hearts, a life so contagious that savages became saints beneath his magnetic influence.He had heard, at Inverary, the Spirit and the Bride say,Come!And he esteemed it a privilege beyond all price to be permitted to make the abodes of barbarism and the habitations of cruelty re-echo the matchless music of that mighty monosyllable.

Memory is the soul's best minister. Sydney Carton found it so. On the greatest night of his life--the night on which he resolved to lay down his life for his friend--a text swept suddenly into his mind, and, from that moment, it seemed to be written everywhere. He was in Paris; the French Revolution was at its height; sixty-three shuddering victims had been borne that very day to the guillotine; each day's toll was heavier than that of the day before; no man's life was safe. Among the prisoners awaiting death in the Conciergerie was Charles Darnay, the husband of her whom Sydney himself had loved with so much devotion but so little hope.

'O Miss Manette,' he had said, on the only occasion on which he had revealed his passion, 'when, in the days to come, you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you!'

And now that hour had come. It happened that Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton were, in form and feature, extraordinarily alike. Darnay wasdoomed to die on the guillotine: Carton was free. For the first time in his wayward life, Sydney saw his course clearly before him. His years had been spent aimlessly, but now he set his face like a flint towards a definite goal. He stepped out into the moonlight, not recklessly or negligently, but 'with the settled manner of a tired man who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end.' He would find some way of taking Darnay's place in the gloomy prison; he would, by his substitution, restore her husband to Lucy's side; he would make his life sublime at its close. His career should resemble a day that, fitful and overcast, ends at length in a glorious sunset. He would save his life by losing it!

It was at that great moment that memory exercised its sacred ministry upon the soul of Sydney Carton. As he paced the silent streets, dark with heavy shadows, the moon and the clouds sailing high above him, he suddenly recalled the solemn and beautiful words which he had heard read at his father's grave: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' Sydney did not ask himself why the words had rushed upon him at that hour, although, as Dickens says, the reason was not far to seek. But he kept repeating them. And, when he stopped, the air seemed full of them. The greatwords were written across the houses on either side of him; he looked up, and they were inscribed across the dark clouds and the clear sky; the very echoes of his footsteps reiterated them. When the sun rose, it seemed to strike those words--the burden of the night--straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. Night and day were both saying the same thing. He heard it everywhere: he saw it in everything--

'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'

That was Sydney Carton's text.

It is a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those you love by dying for them. I well remember sitting in my study at Hobart one evening, when there came a ring at the bell. A moment later a man whom I knew intimately was shown in. I had seen him a few weeks earlier, yet, as I looked upon him that night, I could scarcely believe it was the same man. He seemed twenty years older; his hair was gray; his face furrowed and his back bent. I was staggered at the change. He sat down and burst into tears.

'Oh, my boy, my boy!' he sobbed.

I let him take his time, and, when he had regainedhis self-possession, he told me of his son's great sin and shame.

'I have mentioned this to nobody,' he said, 'but I could keep it to myself no longer. I knew that you would understand.'

And then he broke down again. I can see him now as he sits there, rocking himself in his agony, and moaning:

'If only I could have died for him! If only I could have died for him!'

But he couldn't! That was the torture of it! I remember how his heart-broken cry rang in my ears for days; and on the following Sunday there was only one subject on which I could preach. 'And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept; and as he went he cried: O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!'

It was the unutterable grief of David, and of my poor friend, that they could not save those they loved by dying for them. It was the joy of Sydney Carton that he could! He contrived to enter the Conciergerie; made his way to Darnay's cell; changed clothes with him; hurried him forth; and then resigned himself to his fate. Later on, a fellow prisoner, a little seamstress, approached him. She had known Darnay and had learned to trust him. She asked if she might ride with him to the scaffold.

'I am not afraid,' she said, 'but I am little and weak, and, if you will let me ride with you and hold your hand, it will give me courage!'

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. She had discovered that he was not Darnay.

'Are you dying for him?' she whispered.

'For him--and his wife and child. Hush! Yes!'

'Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?'

'Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last!'

Nobody has ever readA Tale of Two Citieswithout feeling that this was the moment of Sydney Carton's supreme triumph.

'It is,' he said--and they are the last words in the book--'it is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done!'

He had never tasted a joy to be compared with this. He was able to save those he loved by dying for them!

Thatis precisely the joy of the Cross!Thatwas the light that shone upon the Saviour's path through all the darkness of the world's first Easter.Thatis why, when He took the bread and wine--the emblems of His body about to be broken and His blood about to be shed--He gave thanks. It isthat--and that alone--that accounts for the fact that He entered the Garden of Gethsemane with a song upon His lips. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the Cross, despising its shame!

'Death!' He said. 'What of Death?I am the Life, not only of Myself, but of all who place their hands in Mine!

'The Grave! What of the Grave?I am the Resurrection!

'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'

He felt that it was a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those He loved by dying for them.

'I am the Resurrection!'--those were the words that Sydney Carton saw written on land and on water, on earth and on sky, on the night on which he made up his mind to die. 'I am the Resurrection!' They were the words that he had heard read beside his father's grave. They are the words that we echo, in challenge and defiance, overallour graves. The rubric of the Church of England requires its ministers to greet the dead at the entrance to the churchyard with the words: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life;' and, following the same sure instinct, the ministers of all the other Churches have adopted a very similar practice. The earth seems to be a garden of graves. We speak of those who have passed from us as 'the great majority.'We appear to be conquered. But it is all an illusion.

'O Grave!' we ask, in every burial service, 'where is thy victory?' And the question answers itself. The victory does not exist. The struggle is not yet ended. 'I am the Resurrection!'

'I am the Life!'--that is what all the echoes were saying as Sydney Carton, cherishing a great heroic purpose in his heart, paced the deserted streets that night.

'I am the Life! I am the Life!'

'He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!'

'Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die!'

That being so, what does death matter? 'O, death!' we cry, 'where is thy sting?' and once more the question answers itself.

'O Death, where is thy sting?'--'I am the Life!'

'O Grave, where is thy victory?'--'I am the Resurrection!'

The Life and the Resurrection!'I am the Resurrection and the Life!'

The text that he saw in every sight, and heard in every sound, made all the difference to Sydney Carton. The end soon came, and this is how Dickens tells the story.

The tumbrils arrive at the guillotine. The little seamstress is ordered to go first. 'They solemnly bless each other. The thin hand does not tremble as he releases it. Nothing worse than a sweet,bright constancy is in the patient face. She is gone. The knitting women, who count the fallen heads, murmur twenty-two. And then--

'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'

They said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.

I am the Resurrection! O Grave, where is thy victory?

I am the Life! O Death, where is thy sting?

But there was more in Sydney Carton's experience than we have yet seen. It happens that this great saying aboutthe Resurrection and the Lifeis not only Sydney Carton's text; it is Frank Bullen's text; and Frank Bullen's experience may help us to a deeper perception of Sydney Carton's. In hisWith Christ at Sea, Frank Bullen has a chapter entitled 'The Dawn.' It is the chapter in which he describes his conversion. He tells how, at a meeting held in a sail-loft at Port Chalmers, in New Zealand, he was profoundly impressed. After the service, a Christian worker--whom I myself knew well--engaged him in conversation. He opened a New Testament and read these words: 'I am theResurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' The earnest little gentleman pointed out the insistence on faith: the phrase 'believeth in Me' occurs twice in the text: faith and life go together. Would Frank Bullen exercise that faith?

'Every word spoken by the little man went right to my heart,' Mr. Bullen assures us, 'and, when he ceased, there was an appeal in his eyes that was even more eloquent than his words. But beyond the words and the look was the interpretation of them to me by some mysterious agency beyond my comprehension. For, in a moment, the hidden mystery was made clear to me, and I said quietly, "I see, sir; and I believe!" "Let us thank God!" answered the little man, and together we knelt down by the bench. There was no extravagant joy, no glorious bursting into light and liberty, such as I have read about as happening on those occasions; it was the satisfaction of having found one's way after long groping in darkness and misery--the way that led to peace.'

Now the question is: did those words--the words that came with such power to Frank Bullen in the New Zealand sail-loft, and to Sydney Carton in the Paris streets--have the same effect upon both? Did they lead both of them to penitence and faith and peace? I think they did. Let us return to Sydney Carton as the sun is rising on that memorablemorning on which he sees the text everywhere. He leaves the streets in which he has wandered by moonlight and walks beside a stream.

'A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened color of a dead leaf, glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors ended in the words: "I am the Resurrection and the Life."'

'He that believeth in Me ... whosoever believeth in Me!'--the insistent demand for faith.

'He that believeth in Me!'--Sydney Carton believed and found peace.

'He that believeth in Me!'--Frank Bullen believed and found peace.

Paul has a classical passage in which he shows that those who have passed through experiences such as these, have themselves 'risen with Christ into newness of life.'

Risen with Christ!They have foundthe Resurrection!

Newness of life!They have foundthe Life!

In hisDeath in the Desert, Browning describes the attempts that were made to revive the sinking man. It seemed quite hopeless. The most that he would do was--

To smile a little, as a sleeper does,If any dear one call him, touch his face--And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.

Then, all at once, the boy who had been assisting in these proceedings, moved by some swift inspiration, sprang from his knees and proclaimed a text: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life!' As if by magic, consciousness revisited the prostrate form; the man opened his eyes; sat up; stared about him; and then began to speak. A wondrous virtue seemed to lurk in the majestic words that the boy recited. By that virtue Sydney Carton, Frank Bullen, and a host of others passed from death into life everlasting.

I began by saying that it is a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those you love by dying for them.

I close by stating the companion truth. It is a great thing--a very great thing--to have been died for.

On the last page of his book Dickens tells us what Sydney Carton would have seen and said if, on the scaffold, it had been given him to read the future.

'I see,' he would have exclaimed, 'I see the lives for which I lay down my life--peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy--in that England which I shall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom who bears my name. I see that I holda sanctuaryin all their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an oldwoman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed; and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other's soul than I was in the souls of both!'

'I see that I holda sanctuary in all their hearts!'--it is a lovely phrase.

It is a great thing--a very great thing--to have been died for!

Wherefore let each man be at some pains to build in his heart a sanctuary to Him who, for us men and for our salvation, laid down His life with a song!

It is a lovely Sunday afternoon in the early summer of the year 1690. The graceful and heathery path that winds its way along the banks of the Tweed, from the stately ruins of Melrose to the crumbling gables of Dryburgh, is in its glory. The wooded track by the waterside is luxuriating in bright sunshine, glowing colors and soft shadows. We are traversing one of the most charming and romantic districts that even Scotland can present. Here 'every field has its battle, every rivulet its song.' More than a century hence, this historic neighborhood is destined to furnish the home, and fire the fancy, of Sir Walter Scott; and here, beneath the vaulted aisle of Dryburgh's ancient abbey, he will find his last resting-place. But that time is not yet. Even now, however, in 1690, the hoary cloister is only a battered and weatherbeaten fragment. It is almost covered by the branches of the trees that, planted right against the walls, have spread their limbs like creepers over the mossy ruins, as though endeavoring to protect the venerable pile. And here, sitting on a huge slab that has fallen fromthe broken arch above, is a small boy of ten. His name is Ebenezer Erskine; he is the son of the minister of Chirnside. Like his father, he was born here at Dryburgh; and to-day the two are revisiting the neighborhood round which so many memories cluster. This morning the father, the Rev. Henry Erskine, has been catechizing a group of children at the kirk. He selected the questions in the Shorter Catechism that relate to the Ten Commandments; and the very first of the answers that his father then taught him has made a profound impression on Ebenezer's mind. The forty-third question runs: 'What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?' And the answer is: 'The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words: "I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."' Other questions follow, and they, with their attendant answers, have been duly memorized. But they have failed to hold his thought. This one, however, refuses to be shaken off. He has, quite involuntarily, repeated it to himself a hundred times as he pushed his way through the heather to the mossy abbey. It sounds in his ears like a claim, a challenge, an insistent and imperative demand.

I am the Lord!

I am thy God!

The Lord! Thy God!

It is his first realization of the fact that he is not altogether his own.

Eighteen years have passed. He is now the minister of the Portmoak parish. But it is a poor business. 'I began my ministry,' he says, 'without much zeal, callously and mechanically, being swallowed up in unbelief and in rebellion against God.' He feels no enthusiasm for the Bible; indeed, the New Testament positively wearies him. His sermons are long and formal; he learns them by heart and repeats them parrot-fashion, taking care to look, not into the faces of his people, but at a certain nail in the opposite wall. Happily for himself and for the world, he has by this time married a wife to whom the truth is no stranger. For years, poor Mrs. Erskine has wept in secret over her husband's unregenerate heart and unspiritual ministry. But now a terrible sickness lays her low. Her brain is fevered; she raves in her delirium; her words are wild and passionate. Yet they are words that smite her husband's conscience and pierce his very soul. 'At last,' so runs the diary, 'the Lord was pleased to calm her spirit and give her a sweet serenity of mind. This, I think, was the first time that ever I felt the Lord touching my heart in a sensible manner. Her distress and her deliverance were blessed to me. Some few weeks after, she and I were sitting together in my study, and while we were conversing about the things of God, the Lord was pleased to rend the veil and to give me a glimmeringview of salvation which made my soul acquiesce in Christ as the new and living way to glory.' The old text comes back to him.

'I am the Lord thy God!'

Once more it sounds like a claim. And this time he yields. He makes his vow in writing. 'I offer myself up, soul and body, unto God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I flee for shelter to the blood of Jesus. I will live to Him; I will die to Him. I take heaven and earth to witness that all I am and all I have are His.'

Thus, on August 26, 1708, Ebenezer Erskine makes his covenant. 'That night,' he used to say, 'I got my head out of Time into Eternity!'

Ten more years have passed. It is now 1718; Ebenezer Erskine is thirty-eight. Filled with concern for the souls of his people at Portmoak, he preaches a sermon on the text that had played so great a part in bringing his own spirit out of bondage.

'I am the Lord thy God!'

As he preaches, the memory of his own experience rushes back upon him. His soul catches fire. He is one moment persuasive and the next peremptory. No sermon that he ever preachedmade a greater impression on his congregation; and, when it was printed, it proved to be the most effective and fruitful of all his publications.

Five and thirty further years have run their course. Mr. Erskine is now seventy-three. He has passed through the fires of persecution, and, in days of tumult and unrest, has proved himself a leader whom the people have delighted, at any cost, to follow. But his physical frame is exhausted. An illness overtakes him which, continuing for over a year, at last proves fatal. His elders drop in from time to time to read and pray with him. To-day one of them, the senior member of the little band, is moved, in taking farewell of his dying minister, to ask a question of him. After grasping the sick man's hand and moving towards the door, a sudden impulse seizes him and he returns to the bedside.

'You have often given us good advice, Mr. Erskine,' he says, 'as to what we should do with our souls in life and in death; may I ask what you are now doing with your own?'

'I am just doing with it,' the old man replies, 'what I did forty years ago; I am resting it on that word, "I am the Lord thy God!"'

Now what was it, I wonder, that EbenezerErskine saw in this string of monosyllables as he sat on the fallen slab beside the ruined abbey in 1690, as he sat conversing with his convalescent wife in 1708, as he preached with such passion in 1718, and as he lay dying in 1753? What, to him, was the significance of that great sentence that, as the catechism says, forms 'the preface to the Ten Commandments'? Ebenezer Erskine saw, underlying the words, two tremendous principles. They convinced him thatthe Center must always be greater than the Circumferenceand they convinced him thatthe Positive must always be greater than the Negative.

The Center must always be greater than the Circumference, for, without the center, there can be no circumference. And there, in the very first word of this 'preface to the Ten Commandments,' stands the august center around which all the mandates revolve. 'Iam the Lord thy God.' 'I have many times essayed,' Luther tells us in hisTable-Talk, 'thoroughly to investigate the Ten Commandments; but at the very outset--"I am the Lord thy God"--I stuck fast. That single word "I" put me to a non-plus.' I am not surprised. The man who would enter this Palace of Ten Chambers will find God awaiting him on the threshold; and he must make up his mind as to his relationship with Him before he can pass on to investigate the interior of the edifice. In learning his Shorter Catechism that Sunday morning at Dryburgh, Ebenezer Erskine,then a boy of ten, had come face to face with God; and he felt that he dared not proceed to theCircumferenceuntil his heart was in harmony with theCenter.

He felt, too, that thePositivemust precede theNegative. Thepersonof the most High must come before thepreceptsof the Most High; theThou Shaltsmust come before theThou Shalt Nots. The superstructure of a personal religion cannot be reared on a foundation of negatives. Life can only be constructed positively. The soul cannot flourish on a principle of subtraction; it can only prosper on a principle of addition. It is at this point that we perpetrate one of our commonest blunders. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we invariably frame a variety of good resolutions; we register a number of excellent resolves. But, for the most part, they come to nothing; and they come to nothing because they are so largely negative. 'I will never again do such-and-such a thing'; 'I will never again behave in such-and-such a way'; and so on. We have failed to discover the truth that gripped the soul of Ebenezer Erskine that day at Dryburgh. He saw, as he repeated to himself his catechism, that the Ten Commandments consist of three parts.

(1)The Preface--'I am the Lord thy God!'(2)The Precepts--'Thou shalt ...'(3)The Prohibitions--'Thou shall not ...'

Our New Year's resolutions assume that we should put third things first. We are wrong. As Ebenezer Erskine saw, we must put thePersonbefore thePrecepts, and thePreceptsbefore theProhibitions. TheCentermust come before theCircumference; thePositivebefore theNegative.

When, at the end of December, we pledge ourselves so desperately to do certain things no more, we entirely forget that our worst offenses do not consist in outraging theThou Shalt Nots; our worst offenses consist in violating theThou Shalts. The revolt of the soul against the divineProhibitionsis as nothing compared with the revolt of the soul against the divinePrecepts; just as the revolt of the soul against the divinePreceptsis as nothing compared with the revolt of the soul against theDivine Person. It is by a flash of real spiritual insight that, in the General Confession in the Church of England Prayer Book, the clause, 'We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,' precedes the clause, 'And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.' In hisEcce Homo, Sir John Seeley has pointed out the radical difference between the villains of the parables and the villains that figure in all other literature. In the typical novel the villain is a man who does what he ought not to do; in the tales that Jesus told the villain is a man who leaves undone what he ought to have done. 'The sinner whom Christ denounces,'says Sir John, 'is he who has done nothing; the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side; the rich man who allowed the beggar to lie unhelped at his gate; the servant who hid in a napkin the talent intrusted to him; the unprofitable hireling who did only what it was his duty to do.' Christ's villains are the men who sin against thePersonand thePreceptsof the Most High; he scarcely notices the men who violate theProhibitions. Yet it is of theProhibitionsthat, when New Years come, we think so much.

At vesper-tide,One virtuous and pure in heart did pray,'Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day,From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say.'A voice replied:'From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;The rose that died for water from thy hand.'

At vesper-tide,One virtuous and pure in heart did pray,'Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day,From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say.'

A voice replied:'From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;The rose that died for water from thy hand.'

During a ministry of nearly thirty years, it has been my privilege and duty to deal with men and women of all kinds and conditions. I have attended hundreds of deathbeds. In reviewing those experiences to-day, I cannot remember a single case of a man who found it difficult to believe that God could forgive those things that he ought not to have done and had done; and I cannot recall a single case of a man who found it easy to believe that God could forgive those things that he ought to havedone but had left undone. It is our sins against the divinePreceptsthat sting most venomously at the last:

'The sad, sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;The rose that died for water from thy hand!'

Ebenezer Erskine saw that day at Dryburgh that he must recognize the inspired order. He must bow first of all to the authority of the DivinePerson; he must recognize the obligations involved in the DivinePrecepts; and, after this, he must eschew those things that are forbidden by the DivineProhibitions. That order he never forgot.

George Macdonald tells us how, when the Marquis of Lossie was dying, he sent post-haste for Mr. Graham, the devout schoolmaster. Mr. Graham knew his man and went cautiously to work.

'Are you satisfied with yourself my lord?'

'No, by God!'

'You would like to be better?'

'Yes; but how is a poor devil to get out of this infernal scrape?'

'Keep the commandments!'

'That's it, of course; but there's no time!'

'If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to begin!'

'How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?'

'There is one commandment which includes all the rest!'

'Which is that?'

'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!'

What did the schoolmaster mean? He meant that thePersonmust precede thePrecepts, as thePreceptsmust precede theProhibitions; he was insisting on the divine order; that was all. And I feel confident thatthatwas the burden of that powerful sermon that Ebenezer Erskine preached to his people at Portmoak in 1718. His last illness, as I have said, continued for twelve months. It was in its earlier stages that the old elder asked his question and received his minister's testimony concerning the text. A year later Mr. Erskine referred to the words again. On the morning of the first of June, he awoke from a brief sleep, and, seeing his daughter, Mrs. Fisher, sitting reading by his bedside, he asked her the name of the book.

'I am reading one of your own sermons, father!'

'Which one?'

'The one on "I am the Lord thy God!"'

'Ah, lass,' he exclaimed, his face lighting up, as a wave of sacred memories swept over him, 'that is the best sermon ever I preached!'

A few minutes later he closed his eyes, slipped his hand under his cheek, composed himself on hispillow, and ceased to breathe. The noble spirit of Ebenezer Erskine was with God.

Ebenezer Erskine reminds me of his great predecessor, Samuel Rutherford. When Rutherford was staying for a while at the house of James Guthrie, the maid was surprised at hearing a voice in his room. She had supposed he was alone. Moved by curiosity, she crept to his door. She then discovered that Rutherford was in prayer. He walked up and down the room, exclaiming, 'O Lord, make me to believe in Thee!' Then, after a pause, he moved to and fro again, crying, 'O Lord, make me to love Thee!' And, after a second rest, he rose again, praying, 'O Lord, make me to keep all Thy commandments!' Rutherford, like Erskine a generation later, had grasped the spiritual significance of the divine order.

'Make me to believe in Thee!'--the commandment that, as the schoolmaster told the Marquis, includes all the commandments!

'Make me to love Thee!'--for love, as Jesus told the rich young ruler, is the fulfilment of the whole law.

'Make me to obey all Thy commandments!'

The man who learns the Ten Commandments at the school of Samuel Rutherford or at the school of Ebenezer Erskine will see a shining path that runs from Mount Sinai right up to the Cross and on through the gates of pearl into the City of God.

There are only two things worth mentioning in connection with Dr. Davidson, but they are both of them very beautiful. The one was his life: the other was his death. Ian Maclaren tells us that the old doctor had spent practically all his days as minister at Drumtochty. He was the father of all the folk in the glen. He was consulted about everything. Three generations of young people had, in turn, confided to his sympathetic ear the story of their loves and hopes and fears; rich and poor had alike found in him a guide in the day of perplexity and a comforter in the hour of sorrow. And now it is Christmas Day--the doctor's last Christmas--and a Sunday. The doctor had preached as usual in the kirk; had trudged through the snow to greet with seasonable wishes and gifts one or two people who might be feeling lonely or desolate; and now, the day's work done, was entertaining Drumsheugh at the manse. All at once, he began to speak of his ministry, lamenting that he had not done better for his people, and declaring that, if he were spared,he intended to preach more frequently about the Lord Jesus Christ.

'You and I, Drumsheugh, will have to go a long journey soon, and give an account of our lives in Drumtochty. Perhaps we have done our best as men can, and I think we have tried; but there are many things we might have done otherwise, and some we ought not to have done at all. It seems to me now, the less we say in that day of the past, the better. We shall wish for mercy rather than justice, and'--here the doctor looked earnestly over his glasses at his elder--'we would be none the worse, Drumsheugh, of a Friend to say a good word for us both in the Great Court!'

'A've thocht that masel'--it was an agony for Drumsheugh to speak--'a've thocht that masel mair than aince. Weelum MacLure was ettlin' aifter the same thing the nicht he slippit awa, and gin ony man cud hae stude on his ain feet yonder, it was Weelum.'

It was the doctor's last conversation. When his old servant entered the room next morning, he found his master sitting silent and cold in his chair.

'We need a Friend in the Great Court!' said the doctor.

'A've thocht that masel!' replied Drumsheugh.

'Weelum MacLure was ettlin' after the same thing the nicht he slippit awa!'

'For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.'

My Bible contains two stories--one near its beginning and one near its end--which to-day I must lay side by side. Thefirstis the story of a man who feels that he is suffering more than his share of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He thinks of God as very high and very holy; too wise to err and too good to be unkind; yet he cannot shake from his mind the conviction that God has misunderstood him. And, in his agony, he cries out for one who can arbitrate between his tortured soul and the God who seems to be so angry with him. Oh, for one a little less divine than God, yet a little less human than himself, who could act as an adjudicator, an umpire, a mediator between them! But neither the heavens above nor the earth beneath can produce one capable of ending the painful controversy. 'There is no daysman who can come between us and lay his hand upon us both!'

A God!

But no Mediator!

That is thefirststory.

Thesecondstory, the story from the end of the Bible, is the story of an old minister whose life-work is finished. He writes, in a reminiscent vein, to a young minister who is just beginning; and earnestly refers to his own ordination. 'Whereunto,' he asks, 'was I ordained a preacher and anapostle and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity?' What is his message? He answers his own question. It is this. 'For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.'

A God!

And a Mediator!

Jobneeded a Friend in the Great Court; but, alas, he could not find one!

Paultells Timothy that he was ordained for no other purpose than to point men to Him who alone can intercede.

'One God--but no Mediator!' cries Job.

'One God--and one Mediator!' exclaims Paul.

In one respect these two thinkers, standing with a long, long file of centuries between them, are in perfect agreement. They both feel that if there is a God--and only one--no man living can afford to drift into alienation from Him. If there isnoGod, I can live as I list and do as I please; I am answerable to nobody. If there aremany gods, I can offend one or two of them without involving myself in uttermost disaster and despair. But if there isoneGod, and only one, everything depends upon my relationship with Him. And if I am already estranged from Him, and if there be no Mediator by whose good offices a reconciliation may be effected, then am I of all men most miserable.

'One God--but no Mediator!' cried Job in despair.

'One God--and one Mediator!' exclaims Paul, in delight.

'One God--and one Mediator!'

It is the glory of our humanity that it needs both the one and the other. We need a God and cannot be happy till we find Him. The instinct of adoration is in our blood, and we are ill at ease until we can find One at whose feet we can lay the tribute of our devotion. We need a Mediator, too, and are at our best when we recognize and confess our need of Him. It is, I say, the glory of a man that he can yearn for these two things. The most faithful and intelligent of the beasts feel no desire for either the one or the other. We know how Dr. Davidson died. I said that his conversation with Drumsheugh was his last. I was mistaken. His last conversation was with Skye, his dog. When John, the serving-man, paid his usual visit to the study before he went to bed, the doctor did not hear him enter the room. He was holding converse with Skye, who was seated on a chair, looking very wise and deeply interested.

'Ye're a bonnie beastie, Skye,' exclaimed the doctor, 'for a' thing He made is verra gude. Ye've been true and kind to your master, Skye, and ye 'ill miss him if he leaves ye. Some day ye 'ill diealso, and they 'ill bury ye, and I doubt that 'ill be the end o' ye, Skye! Ye never heard o' God, Skye, or the Saviour, for ye're just a puir doggie; but your master is minister of Drumtochty and--a sinner saved by grace!'

Those were his last words. In the morning the doctor was still sitting in his big chair, and Skye was fondly licking a hand that would never again caress him.

Skye, the noblest dog in the world, had no sense of sin and no sense of grace, no need of a God and no need of a Saviour!

Dr. Davidson, Skye's master, is a sinner saved by grace. And it is his sense of sin and his sense of grace, his need of a God and his need of a Saviour, that remove him by whole infinities from the faithful brute on the chair. 'A sinner,' as our fathers used to sing:

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