"Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was ... declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."--Romans i. 3, 4.
Just as one of the great proofs, if not the great proof, of the truth of Christianity is the vast fact of the world's need for it, so one grand proof of the Resurrection lies in the fact that no interpretation of Christ's teaching or Christ's life would be worth a brass farthing--so far as the actual life of suffering man is concerned--without His Death and Resurrection. That teaching might be illuminating--convincing--exalting; yes, even morally perfect; and yet, if He did not die, it would be little more than a superior book of proverbs or a collection of highly-polished copy-book maxims. That life--that wonderful life--might be the supremest example of all that is or could be good and great and lovely in human experience; and yet, if He did not rise again from the tomb, it would, after all, be only a dead thing--like a splendid specimen of carved marble in some grand museum, exquisite to look upon, and of priceless value, but cold and cheerless, lifeless and dead.
For it is a Living Person men need to be their Friend and Saviour and Guide. The splendid statue might possibly invite or challenge us to imitate it, but it could never call a human heart to love its stony features. Noble and pure as Jesus Christ's example undoubtedly was, it could of itself never satisfy a human soul or inspire poor, broken, human hearts with hope and love, or wash away from human consciousness the stains of sin. These things can only be done by a Living Person. So it is that we are not told to believe on His teaching or on His Church, but onHim. He did not say "Follow My methods or My disciples," but "FollowMe." If He be not risen from the dead, and alive for evermore; if, in short, it be a dead man we are to follow and on whom we are to believe--then we are, indeed, as Paul says, "of all men the most miserable."
But it is the life of Jesus, and the evidence of that life, in us that are really all-important.No extent of worldly wisdom or historical testimony can finally establish for us the fact and power of Christ's Resurrection, unless we have proof in ourselves of His presence there as a Living Spirit. With St. Paul, we must "know Him, and the power of His resurrection." That is the grand knowledge. That is the crown of all knowledge. That is the knowledge which places those who have received it beyond the freaks and fancies of human wisdom or human folly. That is the knowledge which cleanses the heart, destroys the strength of evil, and brings in that true righteousness which is the power to do right. That is the greatest proof of the Resurrection.
No books, not even the Bible itself; no testimony, not even the testimony of those who were present on that first Easter Day, can be so good as this, the experimental proof. It is the most fitting and grateful, and adapts itself to every type of human experience.And it is beyond contradiction! What avail is it to contradict those who can answer, "Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit"? It is even beyond argument! For of what advantage can it be to argue with a man that he is still blind, when he tells you that his eyes have been opened, and when he declares, "Whereas Iwasblind, NOWISEE"?
To us Salvationists, the hope of the world, and the strength of our hard and long struggle for the souls of men, centre in this glorious truth. He is risen, and is alive for evermore; and because He lives we live also' All around us are the valleys of death, filled with bones--very many and very dry. Love lies there, dead. Hope is dead. Faith is dead. Honour is dead. Truth is dead. Purity is dead. Liberty is dead. Humility is dead. Fidelity is dead. Decency is dead. It is the blight of humanity. Death--moral and spiritual death in all her hideous and ghastly power--reigns around us. Men are indeed dead--"dead in trespasses and sins." What do we need? What is the secret longing of our hearts? What is the crying agony of our prayers? Is it for any human thing we seek? No. God knows--a thousand times, no! We have but one hope or desire, and that is "life from the dead." We want life, the risen life--life more abundant--life Divine, amid these deep, dark noisome valleys of the dead.
Here, then, is our hope. He rose again, and ascended up on high, and received gifts for men. This is the hope which keeps us going on; this is the invisible spring from which our weary spirits draw the elixir of an invincible courage--Christ, the risen Christ, who has come to raise the dead! "YouhathHe quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." Hallelujah!
"Dead in sins!" Jesus never made light of sin. He used no disguise when He talked of it, no equivocal terms, no softening words. There is no single suggestion in all His discourses or conversations that He thought it merely a disease, or a derangement, or a misfortune, or anything of that kind, or that He deemed it anything but a ruinous and deadly rebellion against God--the great disaster of the world, and the most awful, dangerous, and far-reaching precursor of suffering in the whole existence of the universe. He said it was bad, bad all through--in form, in expression, in purpose; above all, in spirit and desire. That there was no remedy for it but His remedy. No rains in all the heavens to wash it, no waters in all the seas to cleanse it away, no fires in Hell itself to purge its defilement. The only hope was in the blood of His sacrifice. And so He came to shed it, to save the people from their sins.
That is our hope. We are of those who see something of the fruits of sin, and to whom it is no matter for the chastened lights of the literary drawing-room. We know--some of us--how deep the roots of pollution can strike into human character by our own scorched and blistered histories; and we know by our observation into what deeps of black defilement men can plunge. The charnel houses of iniquity must ever be the workshops of the Salvationist. There we see of the havoc, the cruelty, the debauchment, the paralysis, the leprosy, the infernal fascination of sin. And we know there is only one hope--the Lamb that was slain, and rose again from the dead, and ever liveth for our salvation.
The only really satisfactory test of any faith, or system of faiths, lies in its treatment of sin. Human consciousness in all ages, and in all conditions of development, bears witness to the fact of sin with universal and overwhelming conviction. Men cannot prevent the discomfort of self-accusation which ever follows wrong-doing. They cannot escape from the bitter which always lies hidden in the sweet. They cannot forget the things they wish to forget. Even when they are a law unto themselves, they are compelled to judge themselves by that law. It is as though some unerring necessity is laid upon every individual of the race to sit in judgment upon his own conduct, and to pass sentence upon himself. He is compelled to speak to his own soul of things about which he would rather be silent, and to listen to that which he does not wish to hear.
The proof that this is so is open, manifest, and indisputable. Human experience in the simplest and widest sense of the word attests it. It stands unquestioned amid floods of questions on every other conceivable subject. No system of philosophy, no school of scientific thought, no revelation from the heavens above or the earth beneath can really weaken it. It is not found in books, or received by human contact, or influenced by human example. It is revealed in every man. It is felt by all men. They do not learn it, or deduce it, or believe it merely. They know it. All men do. You do. I do.
Many things contribute to this simple and yet supremely wonderful and awful fact of human experience. One of them is the faculty of thought. Man is made a thinking creature, and think he must; and if he thinks, he must, above all, think about himself, about his future, his present, his past. A great French writer--and not a Christian writer--says on this subject: "There is a spectacle grander than the ocean, and that is the conscience. After many conflicts, man yields to that mysterious power which says to him, 'Think.' One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. With the sailor this is called 'the tide.' With the guilty it is called 'remorse.' God, by a universal law, upheaves the soul as well as the ocean."
And side by side with this thinking faculty, there is the further fact, that God will not leave men alone. On those unerring and resistless tides He sends into the human soul His messages. He visits them. He arouses them. He compels their attention. In His providence, by acts of mercy and of judgment--by sorrow and loss--by stricken days and bitter nights, He makes them remember their sin. All the weapons in His armoury, and all the wisdom of His nature are employed to bring men to a sense of guilt--to prick them to the heart--in order to lead them to recognise and to confess and to turn away from sin. If, therefore, man by any invention had found out a way by which he could escape from the consciousness of evil without putting it away, God would not let him go.
Clearly, then, the initial proof of success in religion must be that religion can deal satisfactorily with the conscious guilt of sin. To this high test, all theories, all pretences, all promises must come at last. What are they in their actual effect on the memories and consciences of men in relation to their sin? How do they treat with guilt? How do they meet remorse? Can they silence the clamours of the night? Can they give peace when it is too late to undo what sin has done? Do they suffice amid the deepening shadows of the death chamber--the place where ever and anon the forgotten past comes forth to demand the satisfaction so long delayed?
But these, after all, are only the fruits--some of the fruits of sin. What of the thing itself? That is the sternest test of all. The mere condemnation of sin, no matter how fully it harmonises with our sense of what ought to be, does not satisfy man. The excusing of sin is no better; it leaves the sinner who loves his sin, a sinner who loves it still. If excuses could silence conscience, or set free from the bondage of hate or passion, how many of the slaves of both would soon be at liberty!
The re-naming of evil which has often been attempted during the last two or three thousand years, and again in quite recent days, has little or no effect either upon its nature or upon those who are under its mastery. The new label does not change the poison. Its victim is a victim still. Nor does the punishment of sin entirely dispose of it, either in the sufferer, or in the consciousness of the onlooker. No doubt the discovery and punishment of sin do give men a certain degree of satisfaction, but at best it is only arelief, when what they need, and what they see their fellows need, is aremedy. Sending a fever patient to hospital is a poor expedient unless we cure the disease. Sending a thief to prison is a poor affair if he remains a thief. It is not in reality a victory over thieving; it is, in fact, a defeat.
Yes--it is a cure we need. And we know it. A cure which is not merely a remedy for the grosser forms which evil takes in men's lives, and their terrible consequences, but a cure of the hidden and secret humours from which they spring. The deceitfulness of the human heart. The thoughts and intents which colour all men do. The lusts and desires, the loves and hates from which conduct springs. The selfishness and rebellion which drive men on to the rocks.
The real question for us then is, Can our religion--does our religion, when tried by the test of human experience--afford any remedy for these? Unless it does, man can no more be satisfied or be set free by condemnations, or excusings, or re-christenings, or punishments of sin, than the slave can be contented with discussions about his owner's mistakes or emancipated by new contrivances for painting his chains!
But what is this sin, the consciousness of which is thus forced upon all--this determined, persistent, active evil? It is not the mere absence of good-a negative gain--but it is the love of, and the actual striving after that which is flatly condemned by God, and is in open rebellion against Him. The centreing of the corrupt heart upon its own corruption. Opposition to the pure will of God. Pride, falseness, unscrupulous ambition. Self-seeking, regardless of the means by which its object is obtained. Luxury, effeminacy, and sensuality. The lusts and fleshly passions. Malice, cruelty, and envy. The greed of gain. The love and thraldom of the world. There it is--the running sore of a suffering race. The outflow of the carnal mind, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. There is no getting away from it. "Against this immovable barrier--the existence of sin--the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birth of human thought, and have retired broken and powerless, without displacing the minutest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark, rugged surface."
And the worst of all is that sin is a wrong against God.Man sins, of course, against himself.That is written large on human affairs, so that no fool, however great a fool, may miss it. Well may the prophet say, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" Men mix the hemlock for themselves! The sinner is a moral suicide!
Man sins against his fellow.Nothing is more evident to us than that men tempt and corrupt one another. They hold one another back from righteousness. They break down virtue, and extinguish faith, and silence conscience in their neighbours. They act as decoys and trappers for each other's souls. They play the Devil's cat's-paws, and procure for him the rum of their fellows, which could not be compassed without their aid. In short, the sinner is a moral murderer!
But, after all--and it is a hideous all--the crowning wrong, and the crowning misery, is that sin is sin against God.
Unless the Bible be a myth, and the prophets a disagreeable fraud, and the whole lesson of Jesus Christ's life and death an illusion, God is deeply concerned with man. That concern extends to man's whole nature, his whole existence, his whole environment; and most of all it is manifest with regard to his sin. God puts Himself forward in the whole history of His dealings with men as an intimate, responsible, and observing Party in the presence of wrong-doing. He watches. He sees. He knows. He will consider. He will remember or He will forget. He will in no wise acquit the guilty, or He will pardon. Justice and vengeance are His, and so is forgiveness. He will weigh in the balances. He will testify against the evil-doer, or He will make an atonement for him. He will cut off and destroy, or He will have mercy. He will repay, or He will blot out.
From beginning to end of Revelation--and there is something in the human soul which strangely responds to Revelation in this matter--we have a sense, a spiritual instinct, of the truth which Job set forth, "If I sin, then Thou markest me, and Thou will not acquit me from mine iniquity," which is confirmed by Jeremiah, "Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap,yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God;" and which is insisted upon by the Apostle when he writes, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
Yes, it is against the Lord God men have sinned, and to Him they are accountable. And they know it. Here again is something which does not come by observation or instruction, but by an inward sense which can neither be mistaken nor long denied. Sooner or later, men are compelled to acknowledge God, and to acknowledge that they have sinned against Him. As with David, when he cried out, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight"--so to every man comes at last the awakening. We see, as David saw, that whomsoever else we have wronged,Godis most wronged; whomsoever else we may have injured, the great evil is that we have brokenHislaw and violatedHiswill.
In the light of that experience, sin becomes instantly a terrible and bitter thing. The fact that sinners can win the approval of men, the honour of success; that they can hide iniquity; that they can for a time escape from punishment, makes no difference when God appears upon the scene. Evil starts up for judgment. Memory marshals the ranks of transgression. Retribution seems the only right thing to look for. Punishment appears to be so deserved that nothing else can be possible. In their own eyes they are guilty. Guilt is branded upon them.
It is from this realisation of having offended God that there spring the dark forebodings of punishment. Men may dread it, and be willing to make superhuman sacrifices to escape it, but they expect it all the same. Thus in all ages men have cried out less for pardon and release from penalty than for deliverance from the guilt and domination of evil. Their language by a universal instinct has been like David's: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."
"Salvation is of the Lord."--Jonah ii. 9.
"Work out your own salvation."--Phil. ii. 12.
Salvation is of the Lord, or not at all. It is a touch; a revelation; an inspiration; the life of God in the soul. It is not of man only, nor of that greatest of human forces--the will of man, but of God and the will of God. It is not mere will-work, a sort of "self-raising" power--it is a redemption brought home by a personal Redeemer; made visible, tangible, knowable to the soul redeemed in a definite transaction with the Lord. It brings forth its own fruits, carries with it the assurance of its own accomplishment, and is its own reward. It is impossible to declare too often or too plainly that Salvation is of the Lord.
And yet, around us on every side are those who are relying upon something short of this new life. They have set up a sort of human virtue in the place of the God-life. They are slowly mastering their disordered passions. The base instigations of their lower nature are being thwarted. Greedy appetites which reign in others are in them compelled to serve. Tendencies to cunning and falsehood, the fruits of which are only too apparent in the world at large, they watch and harass and pinch. Animosities, and jealousies, and envies--those enemies of all kinds of peace--are repressed, if not controlled.
And these followers of virtue go further than this. They aim at building up a character which can be called noble, or at least virtuous. And some succeed--or appear to themselves to do so. They cultivate truth. Honesty is with them, whether as to their business or their social life, the best policy. They are just. They are temperate. By nature and by training they are kind and generous; so much so that it is as difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor; not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another; in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle, and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character; that by self-cultivation, and perhaps by a kind of self-redemption, they have produced a very beautiful and desirable being!
I will not stay to inquire how far heart conceit and heart deceit may account for much of this, or to suggest that a great contrast may exist between the outer life and the unseen deeps within. I will admit for the moment that all is as stated, and even more. What, then? With much of grace and beauty, it may be; trained and tutored in the ways of humility and virtue; able to live in the constant and kindly service of others, and devoted to truth and duty--with all these excellencies they may yet be dead while they live. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Generous, lovable, dutiful, honourable flesh, but only flesh. A chaste, and, if you like to have it so, a useful life, butlifeless. A fine product of a lifetime of labour in the culture of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers, but, after all--dead. For "He that believeth not on the Son of God hath not life."
In this view the body, and in a larger degree the mind, becomes a sepulchre for the soul. All the attention given to education, to refinement and culture, to the develop ment of gifts--for instance, such as music or inventive science--to the practice of self-restraint and the pursuit of morality, is so much attention to the casket that will perish, to the neglect of the eternal jewel that is enclosed. It may be possible to present a kindly, honest, law-abiding, agreeable life to our neighbours; to go through business and family life without rinding anything of great moment with which to condemn ourselves; to be thought, even by those nearest to us, to be living up to a high standard of morality, and yet--for all this has to do with the casket only--to be dead all the while in trespasses and sins.
The young man who should spend his fortune upon his tomb would be scarcely so great a fool as he who spends his life on those things in himself which are temporal, to the neglect of those which are eternal. Only think of the absurdity of devoting the splendid energy of youth and manhood, the grand force of will, the skill of genius, and the other gifts which commonly men apply to their own advancement and success, to the adornment, enriching, and extension of one'sgrave!
And yet this is very much the case of those of whom I am thinking. All their advances, whether in moral attainment, in personal achievement, or in worldly advantage, are, at the best, but enlargements and adornments of a tomb, and of a tomb destined itself to perish!
Do I, then, discourage good works? Has man no part to play in his own deliverance? Is he, after all, only an animal--the mere creature of circumstance and natural law? Have I forgotten that "faith without works is dead"? No, I think not. I have but remembered thatworks without faith are dead also. The one extreme is as dangerous as the other. The legal, mechanical observance of the rules of a right life, apart from a living faith in Christ, can no more renew the heart in holiness and righteousness, than can a mere intellectual belief of certain facts about Christ, apart from working out His will, save the soul, or make it meet for the inheritance of the saints. In both cases the verdict will be the same. The faith in the one is "dead"; the works in the other are also "dead."
The fact is, Salvation is a two-fold work. It is of God--it is of man. Did God not will man's Salvation he could not be saved. Unless man will his own Salvation he cannot be saved. God is free. Man also is free. He may set up a plan for saving himself; but, no matter how perfect, it will fail unless it have God for its centre. And God, though He has devised the most infinitely complete and beautiful and costly scheme of redemption for man, will none the less fail unless the individual man wills to co-operate with Him. Man is not a piece of clay which God can fashion as He likes. He is not even a harp out of which He can get what strains He will without regard to its strings. There is in man something--a force--an energy--which must act in union with God, and with which God must act in wonderful partnership, if His will is to be accomplished.
It is true, of course, that God does much for a man without his aid. I do not now refer to material blessings. He it is who gives us "life, and breath, and all things"--and gives them largely without our effort. But even in man God does much without his help. He calls. He stirs up conscience. He gives flashes of light to the most darkened heart. He softens by the hand of sorrow, and rebukes with the stripes of affliction. Memory, human affection, hope, ambition, are all made means by the Holy Ghost to urge men to holiness. The ministry of goodness in others is so directed as to point multitudes to the way of the Cross. But this will not provide the one thing needful. Instruction, clear views of the truth, belief in the facts of God's love and grace, admiration of Salvation in other lives, even the desire to declare the Gospel, may all be present, and yet the soul be--DEAD--dead in trespasses and sins--cursed, bound, and corrupted by dead works. Just as the noblest and highest efforts of man towards his own Salvation,without the co-operating, life-giving work of God, can result only in confusion and death; so the most powerful, gracious, long-suffering and tender yearnings and work of God for man's Salvation,without the co-operating will of man, can result only in distress, disappointment, and death.
Areyoudead? Areyouin either of these classes? Are you relying on God's mercy; waiting for some strange visitation from on high; depending with a faith which is merely of the mind upon some past work of Christ; but without the vital power of His mighty life in you? Filled with desires that are not realised; offering prayers that are not answered; striving at times to work out a law of goodness which you feel all the time is an impossibility for you? Living, so to speak, out of your element--like a fish out of water? That is DEATH.
Or are you, on the other hand, depending for Salvation on your own labour to build up a good character, and to live a decent, honourable, and honest life? Conscious of advance, but not of victory? The servant of a high ideal, but withoutliberty? The devotee of your own self? All the powers and qualities of your nature growing towards maturity,except the powers of your soul? The casket--as life goes on--growing more and more adorned, while the eternal spirit, the priceless jewel made to receive the likeness of God and enjoy Him for ever, seems ever of less and less worth to you? That also isDeath.
The man who is in either class is dead while he lives. He is a walking mortuary.
"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."--Matt. xvi. 24.
It is a striking thought that self-denial is, perhaps, the only service that a man can render to God without the aid or co-operation of something or some one outside himself. No matter what he does--unless it be topray, which would hardly be included in the idea ofservice--he is more or less dependent upon either the assistance or presence of others. If, for example, he speaks or sings for God, whether in public or in private, he must have hearers; if he writes, it is that he may have readers; if he teaches, he needs scholars; if he distributes gifts, there must be receivers of his charity; if he leads souls to Christ, these souls must be willing to come; if he suffers persecution, there must be persecutors; or if, like Stephen, he is called to die for his Lord, there must be those who stone him, and others who stand by consenting to his death.
A few moments' consideration will, I think, also show, that even in the sphere of our personal spiritual experience, it is very much the same. We can, after all, do but little for ourselves. Salvation comes to men through human instrumentality, and seldom apart from it. We are, I know, saved by faith; but how shall we believe unless we hear? and how shall we hear without a preacher? That instruction on the things of God, which is a necessity for every true child of God, comes almost invariably by the agency or through the experiences of others.
The joys and consolation of fellowship can only be the result of communion with the saints. In spiritual things, as in ordinary affairs, it is the countenance of his friend which quickens and brightens the tired toiler as "iron sharpeneth iron." And though it is true that God can, and often does, wonderfully teach and inspire His people without the direct aid of any human agent, it is equally true that He generally does so by the employment of His word, which He has revealed to men, or by the recalling of some message which has already been received into the mind and heart.
Nor does this in the least detract from our absolute dependence upon Him. The man who crosses the Atlantic in a steamship is no less dependent on the sea because he employs the vessel for his journey. We are no less dependent upon the earth for our sustenance because we only partake of the wheat after it has been ground into flour and made into bread. And so, we are no less dependent upon God because He has been pleased to employ various humble and simple instruments to save, and teach, and guide us. After full allowance has been made for the power and influence of intervening agencies, it is in Him we really live, and move, and have our being.
But I return to my first word. There is one kind of service open to all, irrespective of circumstances and gifts, which can be rendered to God without the intervention of anyone. And this we may truly call self-denial. Much that quite properly comes under that description need never--probably will never--be known to anyone but God. It may be a holy sacrament indeed, kept between the soul and its Lord alone.
How many sincere souls, when they look into their own hearts, find, to their horror, evil in them where they least expected it; find them part stone, when they should be all flesh; find them bound to earth and the love of earthly things, when they should be free from the world and the love of the world; find them occupied, alas! so often with idols and heart-lusts, when God alone ought to rule and reign. Here is a sphere for self-denial. Here is a service to be rendered to God, which will be very acceptable to Him, and which you alone can perform.
And if you would thus deny yourself, then examine yourself. Study the evils of your own nature. Recognise sin. Call it by its right name when you speak of it in the solitude of your own heart. If there are the remains of the deadly poison in you, say so to God, and keep on saying so with a holy importunity. "Confess your sins." Attack them as the farmer attacks the poison-plant amongst his crops, or the worms and flies which will blight his harvest, and which, unless he can ruin them, he knows full well will ruin him. That is the "perfect self-denial"--to cut off the right hand, and to pluck out and cast away what is dear as the right eye, if it offend against the law of purity and truth and love.
But you yourself are to do it. Do not say you cannot, for you alone can. If you would be His disciple--His holy, loving, pure, worthy disciple--you must denyyourself. Cry to Him for help as much as you will--you cannot cry too often or too long--but you must do more than that: you must arise, and deny your own selfish nature; pinch, and harass, and refuse your own inward sins, and expose them to the light of God. Confess them without ceasing, mortify them without mercy, and slay them, and give no quarter. Say, and say in earnest:--
Oh, how I hate these lusts of mineThat crucified my God!--These sins that pierced and nailed His fleshFast to the fatal wood.
Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die--My soul has so decreed;I will not longer spare the thingsThat made my Saviour bleed.
Whilst with a melting, broken heart,My murdered Lord I view,I'll raise revenge against my sins,And slay the murderers too.
Human nature is a collection of likes and dislikes. The great mass of men are governed by their preferences. What they like, they strive after; what they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now, true self-denial is the denial, for Christ's sake and the sake of souls, of these preferences. To say to God: "I sacrifice my way for Thy way--my wish for Thy wish--my will for Thy will--my plan for Thy plan--my life for Thy life"--this is self-denial.
Nothing can be more acceptable to a good father's heart than the knowledge that his son, living and labouring far away from him amid difficulties and opposition, is courageously sacrificing his own preferences, and faithfully seeking to carry out his, the father's, will. In such a son that father sees a reproduction of all that is strongest and best in his own nature. And so it is with the Heavenly Father. No greater joy can be His than to see the resolute surrender of His children's own will to His, and the daily denial of their hopes and plans for themselves and theirs in favour of His plans.
The precious things of earth--The mother's tender care,The father's faith and prayer--From Thee have birth.
And, just because love is of such high origin, and is the greatest power in human life, it is often captured and held by the Devil as his last stronghold against God. The heart is at once the strongest and the most sensitive part of our nature; and it is here, therefore, that we often find the most blessed and profitable opportunities for self-denial.
That pleasant companionship, so grateful, so fruitful of joy, and yet so likely to tempt me from the path of faithful service, "Lord, I deny myself of it." That mastering affection for wife, or husband, or children--so beautiful in its strength and simplicity, and yet so exacting in its claims--"Lord, I deny myself of the abandonment to which it invites me; I put it in its proper place, second to Thee, and to the work Thou hast given me to do." That love of home, and friends, and circle, which is so powerful a factor in life, and enters so constantly into all the arrangements and details of our conduct, influencing so largely all real plans for doing God's work--"Lord, I will deny it, when it is in danger of lessening my labours for Thee and Thy Kingdom." The pleasant hour, the quiet evening, the restful book, "I will lay them at Thy feet, for Thy sake, when they hinder me doing Thy will. It is between me and Thee alone; it is the sacrifice of love."
How precious it must be to God to see such self-denial! When the true lover sees the woman he has chosen leaving all for his sake, calmly laying down the love of father and family, and even braving the rebuffs and unkindness of those from whom before she has known nothing but affection, in order that she may give him her whole heart and life, how strong become the cords which bind him to her! Every sacrifice she makes for his sake forges another bond which will not easily be broken. And is the Lord a man, that He should be behind us in loving with an everlasting love those who thus give up and deny their own loves for Him? No! a thousand times no! He will repay. Every self-denial is a seedling rich with future joys. For it is indeed true that "He that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will give him the morning star."
"Look not," says the Apostle, "every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." That is, even in the exercise of his choicest gifts and graces, let a man forget his own in his desire to employ and bring forward the gifts of others. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." That is, in your own mind take a humble view of yourself, your own powers, and your own worthiness, and hold your comrades in higher esteem than you hold yourself, in honour preferring one another to yourself.That would be a very real self-denial to some people!
"Recompense to no man evil for evil," though you know he well deserves it; "Avenge not yourselves." "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." That is, deny yourself of your own joys, that you may enter into the sorrow of others; and lay aside your own sorrows and tears, and silence your own breaking heart, when you can help others by entering with joy into their joys.
You will see, beloved, that all this is work whichno one can do for you, and that it is in a very true sense high service to God as well as to man.
How, then, is it with you?
Are you a self-denying disciple? If not, beware, lest it should shortly appear that you are not a disciple at all.
"And ... while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know Him."--Luke xxiv. 15, 16.
The only person in the house, except the man and his wife, was a young domestic servant, a Soldier of The Salvation Army. Her employers were generally drinking when they were not asleep, and the drinking led to the most dreadful quarrelling. Disgusting orgies of one kind or another were of almost daily occurrence, and such, visitors as came to the house only added fuel to the fiery furnace of passion and frenzy through which the girl was called to walk.
Since that happy Sunday afternoon two years ago, when she gave herself to God in the wholesome village from which she came, the meetings and the opportunity, given her by The Army, of doing some work for other souls had been a bright light in her life. Little by little religion had come to have for her something of the same meaning it had for St. Paul: though I fear she knew very little of St. Paul, or of the great and wise things he wrote--domestic service is seldom favourable to the study of the Scriptures. But the same spirit which led the great Apostle to confer not with flesh and blood, and which took him into Arabia before he went to Jerusalem, was leading this quiet, country maiden to see that to be a follower of Christ means something more than to win a fleeting happiness in this life and a kind of pension in the next. She was beginning to understand that to be really Christ's means also to be a Christ; that to be His, one must seek for the lost sheep for whom He died. And so Rhoda--I call her Rhoda, though that was not her name--when she found to what sort of people she had, in her ignorance of the great city, engaged herself, had set to work to seek their salvation.
Many very good people would probably think that she would have been a wiser girl to have gone elsewhere--that the risks of such a position were very great, and so on. No doubt; but the light of a great truth was rising in Rhoda's heart and mind. She perceived in her very danger an opportunity to prove her love for her Saviour by risking something for the souls of those two besotted creatures, for whom she dared to think He really died.
And so, day after day, she toiled for them: night after night she prayed for them. And in her sober moments the wreck of a woman, her mistress, wept aloud in her slobbering way, and talked of the days long, long ago, when she, too, believed in the things that are good.
The first flush of novelty in the sense of doing an unselfish thing for God wore away, and presently Rhoda's real trial began. The drinking and fighting grew worse, and the difficulty of getting out to a meeting grew greater. Gradually the weary body robbed the struggling soul of its time to pray; and, worst of all, by slow degrees Rhoda's faith was shaken, for her prayers, her agonising prayers, on behalf of those dark souls were only too manifestly not answered. Was it worth while, after all, troubling about sinners? Was it her affair? Why should she care? Of what use could it be to become an Officer, in order to seek the many, if God did not hearken to her cry for the few?
One day the Captain of the Corps to which Rhoda belonged called, and seemed grieved with her for neglecting the meetings. This was a heavy blow. She could not or would not explain, and when that night, in the midst of a drunken brawl, her master struck her in the face, heart and flesh both failed, and she determined to say no more about salvation, and to abandon all profession of religion.
That night seemed long and dark, and when at last sleep came, the pillow was wet with tears of anguish, of anger, and of pride.
"Scissors to mend! to mend! to mend!" The monotonous calls of London hawkers are a strange mixture of sounds--at one moment attractive, at another repelling; they are, perhaps, more like the cry of a bird in distress than anything else.
Rhoda looked at her wood-chopper as the knife-grinder came nearer to the house, and as he passed beckoned him, and gave it to him. She made no remark. He was rough and grimy, and his torn coat gave him an appearance of misery, which his face rather belied. She was miserable enough, and made no reply to his cheery "Good morning!"
Presently the axe was sharpened, and the man brought it to the door. She paid him.
"Thank you," he said. And then, with kindly abruptness--"Excuse me, but I see you have been crying. Do you ever pray?" And, after a silence, "God answers prayer, though He may not do it our way.He did it for me.I was a drunkard, but my mother's prayers are answered now, and I belong to The Salvation Army. Do you know any of them? Oh, they just live by prayer!"
Rhoda stood in silence listening to the strange man till she ceased to hear him, and looking at him till she ceased to see him! Another Presence and another Voice was there.
It was the Christ.
Rhoda was delivered. She is still fighting for souls, and loves most to do it where Satan's seat is. But the knife-grinder never knew.
The heat and smell in the narrow slum were worse than usual. A hot Saturday night in midsummer is a bad time in the slums, and worse in the slum public-houses. It was so on the night I speak of. In and out of the suffocating bar the dirty stream of humanity came and went. Men who had ceased long ago to be anything but beasts; women with tiny, white children in their bony arms; boys and girls sipping the naphtha of perdition, and talking the talk of fools; lewd and foul-mouthed women of the streets, all hustled and jostled one another, and sang, and swore, and bandied horrid words with the barmen--and, all the while, they drank, and drank, and drank! The atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with the dust and tobacco-smoke, and little by little the flaming gas-jets burnt up the oxygen, till by midnight the place was all but unendurable.
Among the last to go was a woman of the town, who betook herself, with a bottle of whisky, to a low lodging-house hard by. There she drank and quarrelled with such vehemence that in the early hours of the morning the "Deputy"--as the guardian of order is called in these houses--picked her up and threw her into the gutter outside. There, amid the garbage from the coster-mongers' barrows and the refuse of the town, this remnant of a ruined woman lay in a half-drunken doze, until the golden sunlight mounted over the city houses and pierced the sultry gloom on the Sabbath morning.
Another woman chanced that way. Young, beautiful alike in form and spirit, and touched with the far-offness of many who walk with Christ, she hastened to the early Sunday morning service, there to join her prayers with others seeking strength to win the souls of men.
"What is that?" she asked her friend as they passed.
"That," replied the other, "is a drunken woman, unclean and outcast."
In a moment the Salvationist knelt upon the stones, and kissed the battered face of the poor wanderer.
"Who is that--what did you do?" said the Magdalene. "Why did you kiss me?Nobody ever kissed me since my mother died."
It was the Christ.
That kiss won a heart to Him.
Henry James was coming rapidly into his employer's favour. Thoughtful, obliging, attentive to details, anxious to please, and, above all, thoroughly reliable in word and deed, he was a first-class servant and an exemplary Salvationist. In the Corps to which he belonged he stood high in the esteem both of the Local Officers and the Soldiers, and there was no more welcome speaker in the Open-air or more successful "fisher" in the sinners' meetings than "Young James."
The question of his own future was beginning to occupy a good deal of attention. Ought he to offer himself for Officership in The Army? He was very far from decided either one way or the other, when one evening at the close of business his master sent for him. He expressed his pleasure at the progress James was making, and offered him a greatly improved position--the managership of a branch establishment, with certain privileges as to hours, an immediate and considerable advance in salary, and the prospect of a still more profitable position in the future. There was really only one condition required of him--he must live in premises adjoining the new venture, and he must not come to and fro in the uniform of The Army. His employers had a high esteem for The Salvation Army. It was a noble work, and their opinion of it had risen since they had employed one or two of its Soldiers. But business was business, and the uniform going in and out would not help business, and so forbh.
The young man hesitated, and, to the senior partner's surprise, asked for a week to consider.
During the week there were consultations with almost every one he knew. The majority of his own friends said decidedly "Accept." A few Salvationists of the weaker sort said, "Yes, take it; you will, in the end, be able to do more for God, and give The Army more time, more money, more influence." On the other hand, the Captain and the older Local Officers answered, "No; it is a compromise of principle; the uniform is only the symbol of out-and-out testimony for Christ; you put it on in holy covenant with Him; you cannot take it off, especially for your own advantage, without breaking that covenant. Don't!"
James promised himself--quite sincerely, no doubt--that it should not be so with him. And on the appointed day informed the firm that he accepted their proposal.
The new enterprise was a success. Everything turned out better than was expected. At the end of six months the new manager received a cordial letter of thanks from the firm, and a hint of further developments.
But Henry James was an unhappy man. He had gained so much that he was always asking himself how it came about that he seemed to have lost so much more! Position, prospects, opportunity, money--these were all enhanced. And yet he went everywhere with a sense of loss, burdened with a consciousness of having parted with more than he had received in return. As a man of business, the impression at last took the form of a business estimate in his mind. Yes, that was it; he had secured a high--a very high--price that evening in the counting-house, when the partners waited for his answer; he had parted with something; he had, in fact, sold something.
It was the Christ.
It proved a ruinous transaction.