XENDURING HARDNESS

Heavenly Father, may all our hearts be filled with Thy praise. May the spirit of Thanksgiving fill all our days, and deliver us from the mood of murmuring and complaint. Graciously remove the scales from our eyes, so that we may look upon our life with eyes anointed with the eye-salve of grace. Help us to discern Thy footprints in the ordinary road. Grant that we may now review our yesterdays and see the providences which have crowded our paths. Help us to see Thy name on blessings that we never recognized, so that we may now be praiseful where we have been indifferent. Redeem us from our spiritual sloth. Awake us out of our perilous sleep. May our consciences goad us when we are in peril. May the good desires within us be so strengthened as to destroy every desire that is vain. Sow in our hearts the word of Thy truth. Guard the seed with the vigilance of Thy blessed Spirit, and let it appear in our life as a fragrant and bountiful harvest. Graciously watch us and defend us and make us mighty in consecration, and may we place our all upon the altar. Amen.

"Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3.

Any military metaphor which is used to-day will surely have a very arresting significance. Many of our hymns are crowded with military terminology. In the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book there is a whole section entitled "For Believers Fighting." We are all familiar with these martial hymns: "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "The Son of God goes forth to war", "Soldiers of Christ arise", "Stand up, stand up, for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross", "Oft in danger, oft in woe, onward Christians, onward go." But too often the soldier-like hymn is only a bit of martial poetry which pleases the emotions but does not stir the will. We like the swing of thetheme. It brings a sort of exhilaration into our moods, just as lively dance music awakes a nimble restlessness in our feet. Too often it is the song of the parade ground, and it is not broken with the awful thundering of the guns in actual war. But just now when we hear the phrase, "Endure hardness as a good soldier," our thoughts are carried away to the battlefields of Europe. We recall those roads like deeply ploughed fields! Those fields scooped by the shells into graves in which you can bury a score of men! Those trenches filling with the rain or snows, the hiding place of disease, and assailed continually with the most frightful engines of destruction! Pestilence on the prowl! Frost stiffening the limbs into benumbment! Death always possible before the next breath! These military metaphors in our hymns get some red blood into them when we use them against backgrounds and scenes like these. "Endure hardness as a good soldier."

Now the apostle calls for this soldierly spirit in Thessalonica. He is writing to young recruits in the army of the Lord. They are having their first baptism of fire.Their enemies are strong, subtle, ubiquitous. To be a Christian in Thessalonica was to face the fierce onslaught of overwhelming odds. But indeed in those early days, Christian believers, wherever they lived, had to be heroic in the defence of their faith and obedience. Everywhere circumstances were hostile. Nothing was won without sacrifice. Nothing was held without blood. To be a witness was to be a martyr. If a believer would be faithful to his Lord he must "fight the good fight of faith"; if he would extend the frontiers of the Kingdom of Heaven he must endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

What are the circumstances amid which the modern Church is placed? The Christian believer in our day is confronted with stupendous difficulties. Look at the present field on which our Christian warfare is to be waged. When the European war broke out I was staying at a quiet seaside village, from which I could see the soft green beauty of the mountains which encircle the English lakes. On the morning that war was proclaimed I felt as though some venerable and majestic temple hadsuddenly crumbled into dust. One of my most intimate friends, a noble German, was staying in my home, and we both felt as though some devil of mischief and disaster had toppled human affairs into confusion. The quiet sequence of human progress seemed to have been smashed at a stroke. The nations drew apart, and gulfs of isolation yawned between them, and down the gulfs there swept the cruel shrieking blasts of racial hatred and antipathy. Holy ministries which had been leagued in sacred fellowship were wrenched asunder. Spiritual communions which had been sweet and welcome curdled in the biting blast of resentment. The work of the Kingdom of our Lord was smitten as by an enemy; ploughshares were beaten into swords; pruning-hooks were transformed into spears; and instead of the fir and the myrtle-tree there sprang up the thorns and the briars. And then, to crown our difficulties, the red fury of war leaped into countries where our missionaries are proclaiming the gospel of peace, and the passion of battle began to burn where they are telling the story of the passion of Calvary, that holy passionof sacrifice which brought to the whole world redemption from sin, and reconciliation with God, and the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Our immediate circumstances do not offer the soldiers of Jesus an easy parade ground where we can just loll and sing our lilting songs; they rather offer us a fearfully rugged and broken field which demands as heroic and chivalrous virtues as ever clothed a child of God. What shall we do? Is it the hour for craven fear or for a noble courage? What shall we do on our mission fields? Shall we cry "forward," or shall we sound the depressing and despairing note of retreat? Shall we throw up the sponge, or shall we, in the spirit of unprecedented sacrifice, march forward in our campaign, and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ?

First of all, we must keep our eyes steadily fixed upon the object for which Christ died, that solemn and holy end for which He created and appointed His own Church. And what is that object? It is to let "all men know that all men move under a canopy of love" as broad as theblue sky above. It is to break down all middle walls of partition, and to merge the sundered peoples in the quickening communion of His grace. It is to unite all the kingdoms of the world in the one and radiant Kingdom of His love. That is the aim and purpose of our blessed Lord, and in all the shock and convulsions of to-day we must keep that object steadfastly in sight. It was said of Napoleon that "he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of present circumstances." That is to say, Napoleon was never blinded by the glare of victory or by the lowering cloud of defeat. "He saw only the object." Quietness did not throw its perilous spell about him. Calamity did not turn his eyes from the forward way. He saw only the object, and the glory of the goal sent streams of energy into his will and into his feet at every step of the changing road.

Now our temptation is to permit events to determine our sight. There is the shimmer of gold on the right hand, and we turn to covet. There is the gleam of the sword on the left hand, and we turn in fear. We allow circumstances to governour aims. Our eyes are deflected from their object by the dazzle or the uproar around us. And here is the peril of it all. When we lose the object of our warfare we begin to lose the campaign. And, therefore, one of the first necessities of the Christian Church in the present hour is to have our Lord's own purpose steadily in view, to keep her eyes glued upon that supreme end, and to allow nothing to turn her aside. "Let thine eyes look right on;" "Thy kingdom come;" "The kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God;" "He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet." This, I say, is the pressing and immediate need of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, to refuse to have his single aim complicated by the entanglement of passing circumstances, and to constantly "apprehend that for which we also were apprehended by Christ Jesus our Lord."

What else shall we do in this hour of upheaval and disaster? The Church must eclipse the exploits of carnal warfare by the more glorious warfare of the spirit. Just recall the heroisms which are happening every day in Europe, and on whichthe eyes of the world are riveted with an almost mesmerized wonder! Think of the magnificent sacrifices! Think of the splendid courage! Think of the exquisite chivalry! Think of the incredible powers of endurance! And then, further, think that the Church of Christ is called upon to outshine these glories with demonstrations more glorious still.

This was surely one of the outstanding distinctions of apostolic life. Whenever hostilities confronted the early Church, whenever the first disciples were opposed by the gathered forces of the world, wherever the sword was bared and active, wherever tyranny exulted in sheer brutality, these early disciples unveiled a more splendid strength, and threw the carnal power into the shade. They faced their difficulties with such force and splendour of character that their very antagonisms became only the dark background on which the glory of the Lord was more manifestly revealed. Their courage rose with danger and eclipsed it!

Let me open one or two windows in the apostolic record which give us glimpses of this conquering life. Here, then, is aglimpse of the hostilities: "Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name." There you have the naked tyranny of carnal power, and there you have the threat that burns through carnal speech. And now, over against that power put the action of the Church: "And they spake the word of God with boldness!" They were good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and by that boldness the tyranny and threat of carnal power were completely eclipsed.

Here is another glimpse of those heroic days: "And when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus." There again you have the demonstration of carnal power; and here again is the demonstration of the power of the spirit: "And they departed from the presence of the counsel, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." I say that this "rejoicing" eclipses that beating, and the good soldier of Jesus Christ puts the Roman soldier into the shade.

Let me open another window: "Andthey cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him." Get your eyes on that display of carnal passion and tyranny; and then lift your eyes upon the victim of it: "And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Who is the conqueror in that tragedy, the stoners or the stoned, the ministers of destruction or the good soldier of Jesus Christ? The carnal power was terrific and deadly, but it was utterly eclipsed by the power of grace, the power which blazed forth in this redeemed and consecrated life. Open yet another window upon this day of shining exploits: "Having stoned Paul they drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead." That incident seems to record the coronation and sovereignty of brutal strength. Now read: "And they returned again to Lystra." Paul went back to the place where he had been stoned, to tell again the good news of grace, and to carry to broken people the ministries of healing. And I say that this bruised man, beaten and sore, returning again to the scene of the stoning, is a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and by his magnificent courageand grace he eclipsed all the rough strength of the world and threw its achievements into the shade.

But it is not only in apostolic days that you can find these brilliant contrasts. The Church has been distinguished by such demonstrations of spiritual glory all along her history. When material power has been riotous and rampant, when rude, crude passions have blazed through the earth, the chivalry of the Church has shone resplendent in the murky night, and she has eclipsed the dread shocks of the world and the flesh and the devil by her noble sacrifices, and by her serenity, and by her spontaneous joy. The Church has distinguished herself by her manifestations of spiritual strength, by her lofty Christian purpose, by her glowing devotional enthusiasm, and this over against gigantic obstacles, and in the face of enemies who seemed to be overwhelming.

I think of James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea. How well I remember the last time I met him; his big, powerful body, his lion-like head, his shock of rough hair, his face with such a strange commingling of strength and gentleness,indomitableness and grace! And what he went through in New Guinea in carrying to the natives the story of our Saviour's love! And then, having gone through it all, he stood up there in England, on the platform of Exeter Hall, and said: "Recall these twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." What is happening in Europe just now that can put that exploit in the shade? I do not wonder that when that man thought of heaven he used these words: "There will be much visiting in heaven, and much work. 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." James Chalmers went back to New Guinea to tell and retell to the natives why Jesus came to thee and me and all men, and he won the martyr's crown. The love of Christ constrainedhim. And again I ask, what incidents in carnal warfare are not eclipsed by shining heroisms like these?

I might go on telling you these glorious exploits of grace, but I hasten to say that it is our privilege to continue the story. To-day carnal strength is stalking in deadly stride through a whole continent. And to-day the Church must do something so splendid and so heroic as will outshine the glamour of material war. This is the hour when we must send out more men and women who are willing to live and toil and die for the Hindu, and for the Turk, and the Persian, and the Chinese and the Japanese, and all the dusky sons of Africa. I verily believe that if the apostle Paul were in our midst to-day, with the war raging in Europe, he would sound an advance all along the line. He would call us in this hour to send out more men and women to save, and to comfort, and to heal; men and women who will lay down their lives in bringing life to their fellow-men. We must send forth new army corps of the soldiers of Christ, and we must give them more abundant means, endowing them so plentifully that they can go out into the needyplaces of Asia and Africa, and assuage the pains and burdens of the body, and dispel the darkness of the mind, and give liberty to the imprisoned spirit, and lead the souls of men into the life and joy and peace of our blessed Lord. If the Church would, and if the Church will, she can so arrest the attention and win the hearts of the natives of Africa and Asia with the grace and gentleness of the Lord Jesus, a grace and gentleness made incarnate again in you and me, and in those whom we send to the field, that the excellent glory of the Spirit shall shine pre-eminent, and in this hour of world-wide disaster the risen Lord shall again be glorified.

Shall we quietly challenge ourselves amid all the awful happenings of to-day? Here are the terms of the challenge. Shall the good soldier of Christ Jesus be overshadowed by the soldiers of the world? Or shall the courage and ingenuities of the world be eclipsed by the heroism and the wise audacity of the Church? Shall we withdraw our army from the field because the war is raging in Europe, or shall we send it reinforcements? Shall we practice a more severe economy and straiten ourarmy's equipment for service; or shall we practice a more glorious self-sacrifice, and make its equipment more efficient? Shall we exalt and glorify our Saviour, or shall we allow Him to be put in the shade? Shall we endure hardness, as good soldiers of Christ, or shall we take to the fields of indulgence, and allow the Church of the Living God to be outshone by the army of the world? Which shall it be?

Our holy battlefield is as wide as the world. The needs are clamant. The opportunities of victory are on every side. Our Captain is calling! What then, shall it be? Advance or retreat? What answer can there be but one? Surely the answer must be that we will advance, even though it mean the shedding of the blood of sacrifice.

One of our medical missionaries was Dr. Francis J. Hall of Peking, China. He had been graduated with high honours at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, and had consecrated his life to medical missionary work in China, where his large abilities promptly won him wide influence. In 1913 he said to one of his associates: "I have just been called toa Chinese who has typhus fever. Many physicians have died of that disease, but I must go." Two weeks later he was stricken. As he lay dying his mind wandered, and he was heard to exclaim: "I hear them calling, I must go; I hear them calling!" Do we hear them calling? Is the answer "Yes"? Then let us joyfully register a vow that, God helping us, the army of the Lord shall not be maimed because of our indifference, but as good soldiers of Jesus Christ we will, if need be, endure hardness, and give of our possessions, even unto the shedding of our blood.

Eternal God, we rejoice in the security that is offered to us in our midnights and in our noons. Thou wilt not leave us to the loneliness of self-communion, but Thou wilt hold fellowship with us along the way. Come to us as the Lord Jesus came to the men who were journeying to Emmaus, and make our hearts burn within us in the revelation of light and grace. Especially in these bewildering times wilt Thou steady our minds with Thy councils and inspire our hearts in the assurance of Thy sovereign love. Lead us along our troubled road. Let the heavenly light break upon our darkness. Help us to believe in Thy peace even when the world is at strife. Let Thy kingdom come. Even when the world is filled with the smoke of battle may we discern the presence of the Lord. Save us from the sin of unbelief. Reveal to us, we humbly pray Thee, the sin in which this strife has been born, and help the nations to turn from it in new consecration to Thee. In this gracious purpose wilt Thou possess our services. Help us to look beyond the seen into the strength and glory of the unseen. Cheer us with Thy consolations. Uphold us with Thine hand, and impart to us the gift of Thy gracious peace. Amen.

"And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth." Isaiah 5:26."And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Isaiah 7:18.

"And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth." Isaiah 5:26.

"And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Isaiah 7:18.

That was a startling word to fall upon the ears of the people of Judah. It shocked them into confusion. It was an altogether revolutionary word. It played havoc with their traditional beliefs. It smashed up all their easy securities. It turned their world upside down, and all their ancient confidences were broken. Let us try to feel the shock of the message. The people had come to regard their land as a sort ofdivine reservation, and they looked upon their nation as a specially favoured instrument in the hand of the Lord. They esteemed themselves as being in the friendly grip and fellowship of the Lord of hosts. All their movements were the inspirations of His counsels, and in the strength of His providence their nation's progress and destiny were assured. They lived in the assumption that every step in their national life was foreseen, and planned, and provided for, and that they were always being led towards divinely appointed goals. There was nothing of chance in their journeyings, and nothing of uncertainty in their ends. For them there was no blind groping in the darkness, for the Lord of hosts had charge of their national life; and "the sure mercies of David" would secure it from calamity and destruction.

That was what they thought about themselves. What did they think of the nations beyond their frontier? That was quite another story. They looked upon other nations as struggling blindly, and in their dark rage imagining vain things. These other nations had the promptings of passion, but they had no divine and mystic leadership. They moved hither and thither, but it was under no divine appointment, and a thousand traps were laid for their unhallowed feet. Yonder was Assyria, full of strength and full of movement, expressing herself in the might of tremendous armies, but she was under no divine command or inspiration. Assyria was like a boat in unknown waters, without a pilot, and she was marked for inevitable destruction. And yonder was proud Egypt, swelling with her power and renown, colossal in her material achievements, but she had no divinely enlightened eyes, she was blind in her goings, and her marching was in reality a staggering towards doom. And yonder were other nations from afar; but they were all just chance masses, looked upon as existing outside the frontier line of divine favour and enlightenment. They dwelt in some hinterland of life where God's gracious decrees do not run. They were beyond the orbit of divine thought and grace. Now that was the kind of thinking which the prophet had to meet. Judah regarded herself as nestling within the home circle of Providence, and all other nations were outcasts living beyond the sacred pale.

And now perhaps we shall be able to feel something of the astounding effect of the prophet's words. "And the Lord shall lift up an ensign to the nations from far." Far-away peoples are to move under the impulse and inspiration of the Lord, and in the light of His guiding command. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt." A far-away nation, thick as flies, is to move under the touch and ordination of God! "The Lord shall hiss for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." A far-away nation, thick as a hive of bees, is to move under the controlling purpose of the Lord! Can you feel the shock of the prophet's words? It is the shock of a larger thought which shakes the nations out of their small and cosey contentment. They had conceived the divine Providence as being confined exclusively to Judah's particular guidance and defence. They had thought within the limits of a country; they are now bidden to cross the frontier and conceive a Providence which encircles a continent and a world. The fly in Egypt,and the bee in Assyria, raising their wings at the touch of the Lord,—it staggered them into incredulity!

Now we can see what the prophet was doing. He was seeking to enlarge their sense of the orbit of the divine movement. For the little ripples on their pool he was substituting the ocean tides. For the circle of their native hills and valleys he was substituting a line which embraced the uttermost parts of the earth. And that is what I wish to do in this meditation. I wish to proclaim the vastness of the divine orbit, the tremendous sweep of the divine decrees, and I wish to emphasize the teaching of this great prophet, that momentous destinies may be born in far-away places, even at the very end of the world. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."

Well then, under the power of this teaching, let us think in wider orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. For we are apt to imprison our thought within very narrow and artificial restraints. Much of our thought about providential movements shuts God up to the circle of so-calledChristian nations: But what if a fierce and decadent civilization is to be corrected by the inspired influence of such peoples as are described by Rudyard Kipling as "lesser breeds without the law?" What if our God will hiss for the fly and the bee among just such peoples as we are inclined to patronize or despise? Let us imagine some modern Isaiah standing up in London or New York and uttering words like these;—"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of China, and for the bee that is in the land of India." I know that such a doctrine shocks our national susceptibilities, just as a similar doctrine shocked the national pride of the ancient Jews. But such a doctrine offers the only true interpretation of the range of the divine orbit. It may be that the reinforcements of civilization are to come from the movements of the stagnant waters of China. It may be that rivers of vitality are to flow into our life from the meditative, contemplative, philosophic, mystic races of India. Just think of their quiet, lofty, serious brooding, stealing into our feverish materialism and sobering the fierceness of the quest. I cannot but wonderwhat the good Lord, in the vastness of His orbit, is even now preparing for the world on the far-away plains of India and China.

Let your imagination exercise itself again in the larger orbit, and think of some modern prophet standing up in London with this message upon his lips;—"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of Russia." The message strikes us as incredible, but it is only because, like the people of Judah, our conception of the divine orbit is so small and circumscribed. I for one am watching with fascinated eyes the movements of Russia. I am wondering what is coming to us from that great people, so long and patiently sad, so full of reverence, going on long, weary pilgrimages to bow at holy shrines. Superstition? Yes, if you please. But I am wondering what is going to happen when the dogged strength of that superstition becomes an enlightened faith. I am wondering what will happen when that rich, fertile bed of national reverence begins to bear the full and matured fruits of the Spirit. What then? I know it is not easy to think it. It is not easy towiden the orbit of one's thought. It is never easy to stretch a neglected or unused muscle. But the wider thought is the orbit of our God, and in the mysterious land of Russia untold destinies may be even now at the birth.

And so do I urge that we think in vaster orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. Let us reject the atheism of incredulity, and let us encourage ourselves in the boundless hope of an all-encompassing God of the human race. The great God journeys on in His tremendous orbit, and who knows from what unlikely peoples the rejuvenation of the world is to come? "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."

Now I want to go further, and under the power of the prophet's teaching I would urge that we think in wide orbits of the divine raising of the heroic leaders of men. In what wide and mysterious sweeps the great God works when He wants a leader of men! The man is wanted here at the center, but he is being prepared yonder on the remote circumference! God hisses forthe fly or the bee, and He calls it from very obscure and unlikely fields.

Here is ancient Israel. Her altars are defiled, and her balances are perverted. She is hollow in worship, and she is crooked in trade, and the people are listless in their debasement. A leader is wanted to awake and scourge the people. Where shall he be found? The Lord hisses for a fly in Tekoa, a wretched little village, in a mean and scanty setting; and the fly was a poor herdman, following the flock, and eking out his miserable living by gathering the figs of the sycamore. And this Amos was God's man! A prophet of fire was wanted in Bethel, and God prepared him in Tekoa! But what an orbit, and who would have thought that Tekoa would have been a school of the prophets?

Stride across the centuries. The religion of Europe has become a gloss for indulgence. Nay, it has become an excuse for it. The Father's house has become a den of thieves. The doctrines of grace have been wiped out by a system of man-devised works. Religion is devitalized, and morals have become dissolute. Wanted, a man, who shall be both scourgeand evangelist! Where shall he be found? "The Lord hissed for the fly" that was in Eisleben, in the house of a poor miner, and Martin Luther came forth to grapple with all the corruptions of established religion. But what an orbit! A fire was wanted to burn up the refuse which had accumulated over spiritual religion, and the fire was first kindled in a little home, in a little village, far away from the broad highways of social privilege and advantage. Again, I say, what an orbit!

March forward again across the years. Here is England under the oppression of a king who claims divine sanction for his oppression. There is no tyranny like the tyranny which stamps itself with a holy seal. And in those old days of Charles I, tyranny wore a sacred badge. Tyranny carried a cross. It was tyranny by divine right. Wrong was justified by grace. I say, of all tyrannies, this is the most tyrannical. Wanted, a man to meet and overthrow it! Where will he be found? Will he be found in some national centre of learning where wealthy privilege holds her seat? Oh, no! The Lord hissed for a fly on the fens, from a little farm at Huntington, and Oliver Cromwell emerged, to try swords with the king on his throne! Let me give the familiar glimpse which Sir Philip Warwick offers us of Cromwell making his first speech in the House of Commons. "I came into the House one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily appareled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swollen and reddish; his voice sharp and untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour." And there is God's man! But what an orbit! A man was wanted for the defence of liberty and spiritual religion, and God prepared this man in the obscurity of a little farm among the fens. What an orbit is marked by the goings of the Lord. The Lord hissed for the fly on the fen.

March forward across the centuries. Here is slavery in the American republic.In spite of the noble words of the Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—in spite of these ringing human claims slavery nestled beneath the American flag. Well, wanted a man to deal with it! Where will he be found? Will he be found in some university centre? Will he be a paragon of intellectual learning and accomplishment? Oh no! The Lord hissed for a fly in Harden, in a scraggy part of Kentucky, Harden with its "barren hillocks and weedy hollows, and stunted and scrubby underbush,"—and there in a dismal solitude, and in a cheerless home, and in the deepest poverty, the great God made His man, and Abraham Lincoln came forth to cross swords with the great wrong, and to ring the bells of freedom from the "frozen North to the glowing South, and from the stormy waters of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific Main." But what an orbit of divine providence! Who would have guessed that just there, in that poor, unschooled, and unprivilegedfamily the great God was doing His momentous work? And I wonder where now in the vast orbit of His providence He is rearing the leaders of to-morrow? Our God moves in mighty sweeps, and He is even now at work in the mysterious ministries of His grace. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."

And then, under the influence of the prophet's teaching I want once more to urge that we think in wider orbits of the divine presence in the individual life. For instance, in what sweeping orbits the Lord moves on His journeys in seeking to bring us to Himself, and to fashion us into the strength and beauty of His own image. He lifts an ensign to some remote circumstance, and from afar there comes an influence which sets me on the road to God. He calls a ministry from distant Egypt, or from far off Assyria, and my life is turned to the home of my Lord.

Here is a careless young son of wealth in Cambridge University. Life for him is just an idle sport, a careless revel, a jaunty outing, an enjoyable extravagance. Lifeis just a shallow, shimmering pool; not an ocean with momentous tidal forces, and with the voice of the great Eternal speaking in its mighty tones. Wanted a man to awake this indolent son of wealth! And in what an orbit God moved to find the man! The Lord hissed for a fly in Massachusetts, and there, in Northfield, was a poor homestead, encumbered with mortgage; and a poor widow with seven children, so poor that the very kindling wood was taken by the creditors from the shed. And there in that poor woman's house God made His man, and Dwight Moody came forth, and went to Cambridge University, and proclaimed the evangel of grace, and by the love of God won this young fellow from a loose and jaunty and indifferent life, and kindled in him a passionate devotion to Christ which is now blazing away on the Southern Soudan in a campaign to light a line of Christian beacon-fires which shall stretch from coast to coast! But what an orbit! From a poor widow's homestead in Northfield to a sporting young fellow in Cambridge University!

I met a cultured man the other day, a man who has enjoyed all the academic advantagesthat money can provide, a man of university culture and distinction, but whose life has been spiritually indifferent, and who has held coldly aloof from God and the Kingdom of God. And in the vast orbit of His providence the great God brought this man into communion with Billy Sunday, and all the stubble of his neglected life was burned up in the consuming fire of his kindled love for the Lord. But just think of the orbit! The Lord hissed for His fly, and from the apparently incredible circumstance of a slangy evangelist this man was brought to his Father's House in reconciliation and peace. Again I say, what an orbit! "I will bring the blind by a way that they know not," and under His wide and mysterious leadership the blind find themselves at home.

And so, my friends, our God is still moving in these vast orbits. He hisses for a disappointment, and it comes and throws its shadow upon our life, but the shadow is purposed to be one of the healing shadows of grace. "I will command the clouds, saith the Lord." Yes, even our cloudy experiences move under command.They travel in the tremendous orbit of His providence. "I will command the ravens, saith the Lord God." Yes, there are diverse circumstances that come to us on wings,—kind words, cheering messages, bright inspirations, and they are the commanded ministers of God's providence. They are God's messengers on wings!

We can never tell in what remote circumstances the good Lord is even now preparing our to-morrow. But of one thing we may be perfectly sure, the great Lord is at work, and He is at work over wide fields. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." "The Lord is thy keeper.... The Lord shall keep thee from all evil, He shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

Heavenly Father, may we experience that deepest of all joys which is born of holy communion with Thee. Lead us into new fields of our wonderful inheritance in Christ. May we have new surprises of grace. May some fresh revelations of Thy love break upon our astonished vision. Remove the scales from our eyes, so that we may see clearly the things which are waiting to be unveiled. Graciously make known to us what Thou wouldst have us be in order that we may then more clearly apprehend what Thou wouldst have us do. Help us to remember what we ought not to forget, and help us to forget what we ought not to remember. May our minds be the servants of Thy truth. Let the beams of heavenly light chase out the darkness of error and let it be all glorious within. We humbly pray Thee to deliver us from our selfishness, and enlarge and refine our sympathies until they express themselves in willing sacrifice. May we feel the pains of others, and carry their burdens and share their yokes. May the circles of our compassion grow larger every day. Let the ends of the earth be at our own doors, and so may we hear the cry which is very far off. Illumine our lives in this service, and send us forth to enlighten and kindle the lives of others. Make us missionaries of Thy truth and ambassadors of Thy grace and love. May we be quick to discern opportunity, and ready to use it in the service of the King. Amen.

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matthew 3:11.

Such is the divine promise. Let me read the story of its fulfilment. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." Do not let us become victims of the letter and become entangled in the symbolism. It is possible so to regard material signs as to lose their spiritual significance. A musical word may conceal its own thought. Words are purposed to be the vehicles of mind. Symbols are intended to be transparencies, losing themselves in something better. They are ordained to be thoroughfares through which we pass to nobler destinations. The sign is to be the servant of its own significance.

Here then are men and women who are about to receive the promised gift of the Spirit of God. They have been waiting as their Master directed, waiting in prayer, and in prayer incalculably strengthened by community of desire, waiting in trembling watchfulness and expectation. Then the much-hoped-for day arrives and their spirits receive the infinite reinforcement of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We have a very pale reflection of this experience when two human spirits are given to each other in deep and vital communion. When David received the gift of Jonathan's spirit, and Jonathan received the gift of David's spirit, each of them obtained immeasurable enrichment. When Robert Browning received the gift of Elizabeth Barrett's spirit, and Elizabeth Barrett received the gift of Robert Browning's spirit, who can calculate the wealth which each of them found in the other's possession?

But these examples, and others even more sacred which we could gather from our own experience, are only pale and wan and shadowy, compared with the wonder which breaks upon the soul when the spirit of man receives the gift of the Spirit of God, and the two dwell together in mystic and glorious communion. What happens to the human spirit is suggested to us under the familiar symbols of wind and fire. "Like unto a rushing mighty wind;" "like unto fire." Do not let us be enslaved by any hampering details in the figures. Let us seek their broad significance. And what is the characteristic of a rushing mighty wind? It dispels the fog. It freshens the atmosphere. It gives life and nimbleness to the air. It is the minister of vitality. And the breath of God's Spirit is like that; it clears the human spirit, and freshens it, and vitalizes it; it acts upon the soul like the air of a spiritual spring. And as for the symbol of the fire; fire is the antagonist of all that is frozen; it is the antagonist of the torpid, the tepid; it is the minister of fervour, and buoyancy, and expansion. The wind changes the atmosphere, the fire changes the temperature; and the holy Spirit of God changes the atmosphere and temperature of the soul; and when you have changed the atmosphere and temperature of a soul you have accomplished a mighty transformation. It is about this change in the moral and spiritual temperature that I want to meditate, the gift of fire which we receive in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If the spirit of man and the spirit of God come into blessed communion, and the fire of God is given, how will it reveal and express itself? For if there be a gift of fire in the soul we shall most surely know it. Fire is one of the things which cannot be hid. You can hide a painted sun in your parlour and no one will know it is there, but you cannot hide a glowing fire. A man can hide a denominational label, he cannot possibly hide the holy fire of God. How, then, shall we know that the fire is there?

First of all I think I should look for the holy fire on the common hearthstone of human love. If the fire of God does not warm up the affections I fail to recognize what its heat can be worth. The first thing to warm up is the heart. The intimatefriend of the Holy Spirit is known by the ardour of his affections. He loves with a pure heart fervently. He is baptized with fire. Now I need not seek to prove the existence of cold hearts among us. I am afraid we must accept them without question. Whether there are hearts like fire-grates without a spark of fire I cannot tell. Personally, I have never met with anyone in whose soul the fire of love had gone quite out. I think that if we sought very diligently among the gray dusty ashes of any burnt-out life we should find a little love somewhere. Yes, even in Judas Iscariot, or in the dingy soul-grate of old frozen-out Scrooge. But there are surely souls so cold, and so destitute of love, that the poor fire never leaps up in dancing, cheering, welcome flames. Their temperature is zero.

There are other souls with a little fire of love burning, but it is very sad, very sodden, very sullen, very dull. There is more smoke than fire. There is more surliness than love. Their fire is not inviting and attractive. There is a little spitting, and spluttering, and crackling, but there is no fine, honest, ruddy glow. Theirtemperature is about ten above freezing. They are not frozen but they are not comforting.

There are other lives where the fire of affection is burning more brightly, and certainly with more attractive glow, but where it seems as if the quality of the fuel must be poor because the fire gives out comparatively little heat. The heart sends out a cheery beam across the family circle, but it does not reach beyond. There is no cordial warmth for the wider circles of fellowship. The fire burns in the home but it does not affect the office. It encompasses the child but it has no cheer for the stranger. What is the temperature of such a life? It is very difficult to appraise it. Perhaps it will be best to say that in one room of the soul the temperature is 60, while in all the other rooms it is down towards freezing.

And, therefore, I need not say how profound is the need in the world for warm, glowing, affectional fires. What awfully cold lives there are in the city, just waiting for the cheer of "the flame of sacred love!" There are souls whose fires have died down at the touch of death. There areothers whose glow has been dulled by heavy sorrow. There are others whose love has been slaked by the pitiless rains of pelting defeat. There are others again whose hearts are cold in the midst of material wealth. They have richly furnished dwellings, but their hearts are like ice. They are unloved and unlovely, and they are frostbitten in the realms of luxury. Wealth can buy attention; it can never purchase love. My God! What cold souls there are in this great city!

And, therefore, what a clamant and urgent need there is for love-fires at which to kindle these souls that are heavy, and burdened, and cold. And when the Holy Spirit is given to a man, and he is baptized with fire, it must surely, first of all, be the fire of cordial, human affection. And such is the teaching of experience. When John Wesley came into the fulness of the divine blessing in a little service at Aldersgate Street, London, he said that he "felt his heart strangely warmed." He was receiving the gift of holy fire. And I cannot but think that Charles Wesley was thinking about his brother's experience on thatday when he wrote his own immortal hymn which includes the prayerful lines:

"Kindle a flame of sacred loveIn these cold hearts of ours."

You find and feel the glow of that love-fire throughout the New Testament Scriptures. They who have the most of God's Spirit have the most of the fire. There was Barnabas, who was declared to be "full of the Holy Spirit," and he is also described as "the son of consolation." What a consummate title! Cannot we feel the love-fire burning and glowing in all his ample ministry? Full of the Spirit, and therefore full of consolation! The truth of the matter is this,—we cannot be much with the Spirit of Christ, and not take fire from His presence. In these high realms, communing is partaking, and we kindle to the same affection as fills the heart of the Lord. "We love because He first loved us." His fire lights our fire, and we burn in kindred passion. So do I proclaim that when the fire of God falls upon our spirits the sacred gift kindles and inflames the soul's affections. When we are baptized with the Holy Ghost and withfire, we receive the glowing power of Christian love.

Where else shall we look for that holy fire in human life? I think I should look for the presence of the fire of the Holy Ghost in fervent enthusiasm for the cause of Christ's Kingdom. And that indeed is what I find. The New Testament instructs me in this, and it teaches me that where man is baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire his own spirit becomes fervent. He is declared to be "ferventin spirit," and the original word means to bubble up, to boil, as in a boiling kettle; it is the emergence of the mighty power of steam. And so the significance is this: the fire of God generates steam, it creates driving power, it produces forceful and invincible enthusiasm. You will find abundant examples of this spiritual miracle in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps the Book might be more truly named "The Acts of the Holy Spirit," for all the glorious activity is generated by His holy fire. Let your eyes glance over the apostolic record. Mark how the fire of God endows man with the power of magnificent initiative. Take the apostle Peter;—oncehis strength was the strength of impulse, a spurt and then a collapse, a spasm and then a retreat, proud beginnings bereft of patience and perseverance. But see him when the Spirit of God has got hold upon him, and what a gift he has received of initial and sustained enthusiasm! "And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit!" You should see him then, and note the strength of his drive, and the ardour of his enterprise! And the example of Peter would be confirmed by the examples of all the other apostles, if only we knew their personal history and experience. I wish there had been given to us just a glimpse of doubting Thomas, slow, hesitant, reluctant, uncertain, when the Holy Spirit had him in possession. "And Thomas filled with the Holy Spirit,"—I would give something to know the end of that sentence. And I wish we had one glimpse of timid, fearful, night-walking Nicodemus, when the fire of God's Spirit blazed in his soul. "Then Nicodemus, filled with the Holy Spirit,"—I wonder what notable exploits would complete that unfinished sentence. This we know; the holy fire transformed the timid into the courageous, the lukewarminto the fervent, it generated a moral steam which made them invincible.

The first apostles drove through tremendous obstacles. Indeed, they never had the comfort of an open and unimpeded road. Every road was thick with adversaries. What then? Through them or over them! "But, Sire," said a timid and startled officer to Napoleon, on receiving apparently impossible commands, "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "Then there must be no Alps," replied his audacious chief. "There must be no Alps!" That was the very spirit of the first apostles. Mighty antagonisms reared themselves in their way,—ecclesiastical prejudices, the prejudices of culture, social hostilities, political expediences, and all the subtle and violent contrivances of the world, the flesh and the devil. "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "There must be no Alps!" Through them! Over them! What that coward Peter got through when the fire of God glowed in his soul! When a man has the holy fire of God within him he has a boiling fervency of spirit, and he can drive through anything.

And that same holy fire gives the sameterrific power to-day, the same driving enthusiasm, the same patient, dogged, invincible perseverance. If a man declares that he has received the fire of God's Holy Spirit, I will look eagerly for the impetus of his sacred enthusiasm. If he be a preacher I will look for labour in the passion, and the unsnarable energy and patience which he will assuredly put into his work. If he be a teacher, I will examine the generated steam, and note how much he can do, how far he can travel, and how long he can hold out in the service of his Lord. If he be a man who has set himself to some piece of social reconstruction I will watch with what ardour, and ingenuity, and inevitableness he is moving towards his goal. Is it the smashing of the saloons? "Then Peter, filled with the Holy fire;"—what if that power were harnessed to the enterprise? Or is it the awful plague and blight of impurity; or is it the cleaning up of politics; the establishment of rectitude in civic and national life? Whatever it be, the holy fire of God will reveal its presence in the soul of man in an ardent enthusiasm which cannot be quenched. It is the promise of our God, and shall He not doit? "He maketh His ministers a flaming fire,"—and that fire can never be blown out in the darkest and most tempestuous nights.

And lastly, I shall look for the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the fire of sacred resentment. If a man is baptized with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, I shall expect to see the presence of that fire in the capacity of hot and sensitive indignation. I need not say that there is a mighty difference between hot temper and hot indignation. Hot temper is a firing of loose powder upon a shovel. It is just a flare, and an annoyance, and a danger. But hot indignation is powder concentrated in the muzzle of a gun, and intelligently directed to the overthrow of some stronghold of iniquity. Hot temper is the fire of the devil. Hot indignation is the fire of God; it is the wrath of the Lamb. What is this capacity of indignation? It is the opposite to frozen antipathy, to tepid curiosity, to sinful "don't care," to all immoral coldness and calculated indifference. There are many people who can be irritated, but they are never indignant. They can be offended, but they are never nobly angry.The souls who are possessed with the fire of God are the very opposite to all these. I said at the very beginning of this meditation that the breath of God is like the quickening atmosphere of the Spring; but it is equally true to say that it can be like the destructive blast of the African sirocco—"The grass withereth and the flower fadethbecause the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." The hot breath of God is like unto a blast that scorches things in their very roots. And if we share the breath of God's Spirit we too shall be endowed with the ministry of the destructive blast, even the power of a consuming indignation. Any form of public iniquity will make our fire blaze with purifying wrath. Corruption in civic or national government, inhumanity in the treatment of the criminal and the unfortunate, the oppression of the poor, the brutal disregard of the rights of the weak and the defenceless, any one of these will draw out our souls in the hot and aggressive indignation which is the imparted fire of the Holy Ghost. If any one claims to have been baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and he is indifferent in thepresence of licensed iniquity, and apathetic and lukewarm when gigantic wrongs glare and stare upon him, that man's spiritual baptism is a pathetic fiction, and his boasted fire is only a painted flame.

But if a man suffer a personal injury, if some wrong is done to him, what kind of fire shall I expect to see in his life if he is filled with the Holy Ghost? Yes, if some one has done an injury to another, and the other has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, what kind of fire will he reveal? Listen to this: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!" It is the very fire that rains upon us from the Cross of our Lord: "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." What kind of fire is that? It is the same holy fire which flowed from the soul of the martyr Stephen as he was being stoned to death: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." It is a marvellous fire, a mostarresting fire; and we simply cannot withstand it. It is the very fire of grace; it is live coal from the altar of God.

So this is the sort of fire I look for when a man claims to be filled with the Holy Spirit,—the glowing fire of humble affection, the glowing fire of noble enthusiasm, the glowing fire of indignation, and the marvellous fire of self-forgetting grace. "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

"He came in tongues of living flame,To teach, convince, subdue,All powerful as the wind He came,And viewless too.Spirit of purity and grace,Our weakness, pitying see,Oh, make our hearts Thy dwelling-place,And worthier Thee."

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