Chapter I: Midnight 342 (5)

We do not see this family circle again till just before the final scene of the great tragedy of Christ's life. The hour was at hand, of suffering, betrayal, rejection, denial, shame, agony, and death; and with the shadow of this awful cloud over his mind, Jesus comes for the last time to Jerusalem. To the eye of the thoughtless, Jesus was never so popular, so beloved, as at the moment when he entered the last week of his life at Jerusalem. Palm branches and flowers strewed his way, hosannas greeted him on every side, and the chief priests and Scribes said, "Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold the world is gone after him!" But the mind of Jesus was wrapped in that awful shade of the events that were so soon to follow.

He passes out, after his first day in Jerusalem, to Bethany, and takes refuge in this dear circle. There they make him a feast, and Martha serves, but Lazarus, as a restored treasure, sits at the table. Then took Mary a pound of ointment, very precious, and anointed the head of Jesus, and anointed his feet with the ointment, and wiped them with her hair.

There is something in the action that marks the poetic and sensitive nature of Mary. Her heart was overburdened with gratitude and love. She longed to give something, and how little was there that she could give! She buys the most rare, the most costly of perfumes, breaks the vase, and sheds it upon his head. Could she have put her whole life, her whole existence, into that fleeting perfume and poured it out for him, she gladly would have done it. That was what the action said, and what Jesus understood. Forthwith comes the criticism of Judas: "What a waste! It were better to give the money to the poor than to expend it in mere sentimentalism." Jesus defended her with all the warmth of his nature, in words tinged with the presentiment of his approaching doom: "Let her alone; she is come aforehand to anoint my body for the burial." Then, as if deeply touched with the reality of that love which thus devoted itself to him, he adds, "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the world, there shall what this woman hath done be had in remembrance." The value set upon pure love, upon that unconsidering devotion which gives its best and utmost freely and wholly, is expressed in these words. A loving God seeks love; and he who thus spoke is he who afterward, when he appeared in glory, declared his abhorrence of lukewarmness in his followers: "I would thou wert cold or hot; because thou art lukewarm I will spue thee out of my mouth." It is significant of the change which had passed upon Martha that no criticism of Mary's action in this case came from her. There might have been a time when this inconsiderate devotion of a poetic nature would have annoyed her and called out remonstrance. In her silence we feel a sympathetic acquiescence.

After this scene we meet the family no more. Doubtless the three were among the early watchers upon the resurrection morning; doubtless they were of the number among whom Jesus stood after the resurrection, saying, "Peace be unto you;" doubtless they were of those who went out with him to the Mount of Olives when he was taken up into heaven; and doubtless they are now with him in glory: for it is an affecting thought that no human personality is ever lost or to be lost. In the future ages it may be our happiness to see and know those whose history has touched our hearts so deeply.

One lesson from this history we pray may be taken into every mourning heart. The Apostle says that Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power. The laws by which accident, sickness, loss, and death are constantly bringing despair and sorrow to sensitive hearts are upheld by that same Jesus who wept at the grave of Lazarus, and who is declared to be Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and forever. When we see the exceeding preciousness of human love in his eyes, and realize his sympathetic nature, and then remember that he is RESURRECTION AND LIFE, can we not trust him with our best beloved, and look to him for that hour of reunion which he has promised?

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body is a precious concession to human weakness and human love. How dear the outward form of our child,--how distressing to think we shall never see it again! But Christ promises we shall. Here is a mystery. St. Paul says, that as the seed buried in the earth is to the new plant or flower, so is our present mortal body to the new immortal one that shall spring from it. It shall be our friend, our child, familiar to us with all that mysterious charm of personal identity, yet clothed with the life and beauty of the skies; and then the Lord God will wipe away all tears from all faces.

XVI

THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF JESUS

There was one great characteristic in the life of Jesus which his followers succeed in imitating less than any other, and that is a singular sweetness and attractiveness which drew toward him even the sinful and fallen. There are the most obvious indications in all the narrative that Christ's virtue was not of the repellent kind that drove sinners away from him, but that there was around him a peculiar charm and graciousness of manner which affected the most uncongenial characters.

We are all familiar with a style of goodness quite the reverse of this--a goodness that is terrible to evil-doers--a goodness that is instinctively felt to have no sympathy with the sinner. Such was the virtue of Christ's great forerunner, John the Baptist. He commanded, but did not charm; the attraction that drew men toward him was that of mingled fear and curiosity, but there was no tenderness in it. When the Scribes and Pharisees flocked to his baptism, he met them with a thunderbolt: "O generation of vipers! who hath warned _you_ to flee from the wrath to come?" He declined all social joys; he would not eat or drink at men's tables; he dwelt alone in the deserts, appearing as a _Voice_--a voice of warning and terror! His disciples were few; he took no pains to make them more.

But even this stern and rugged nature felt the charm and sweetness of Jesus, as something different from himself. It is very touching to read how the peculiar demeanor of Jesus impressed this hardy old warrior: "And looking on Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." The words seem as if they might have been said with tears in the eyes. Immediately two of his few disciples left him and followed Jesus; and he was content. "He must increase and I must decrease," he said humbly. "He that is from Heaven is above all."

We find that Jesus loved social life and the fellowship of men. Though he spent the first forty days after his mission began in the solitude of the desert, yet he returned from it the same warm-hearted and social being as before. The first appearance that he made was at a wedding-feast, and his very first miracle was wrought to enhance its joy. A wedding-feast in those lands meant more than with us. It was not merely an hour given to festivity, but lasted from three to seven days. There were large gatherings of relations and friends from afar; there were dances and songs, and every form of rejoicing; and at this particular feast in Cana it seems Jesus and his mother were present as honored and beloved guests. His gentleness and affability led his mother to feel that she might perhaps gain from him an aid to the inadequate provision made for the hospitality of the occasion. His reply to her has been deemed abrupt and severe. That it was not so understood by his mother herself is evident from the fact that she did not accept it as a refusal, but expected a compliance, and gave orders to prepare for it. It was necessary when among relatives in his family circle to express with great decision the idea that his miraculous powers were not to be considered as in any way under the control of his private and human affections, and that he must use them only as a Higher Power should direct.

His presence at this wedding was significant of that divine love which ever watches over the family, and the wine that he gave symbolized that cheer and support which God's ever-present love and sympathy pours through all the life of the household. We gather incidentally from many seemingly casual statements that Jesus was often invited to feasts in the houses of both rich and poor, and cheerfully accepted these invitations even on the Sabbath day.

He seems to have been also especially attractive to little children; he loved them and noticed them; and it would seem from some parts of the Gospel narrative as if the little ones watched for his coming and ran to his arms instinctively. Their artless, loving smiles, their clear, candid eyes, reminded him of that world of love where he had dwelt before he came to our earth, and he said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." It was the sense that he loved little ones that led mothers to force their way with their infants through reproving and unsympathetic disciples; there was that about Jesus which made every mother sure that he would love her child, and that the very touch of his hands would bring a blessing upon it; and when his disciples treated the effort as an intrusion it is said "Jesus was much displeased." He did not merely accept or tolerate the movement, but entered into it with warmth and enthusiasm; he did not coldly lay the tips of his sacred fingers on them, but took them up in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them; he embraced them and held them to his heart as something that he would make peculiarly his own.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Jesus was the children's favorite, and that on his last triumphal entrance into Jerusalem the hosannas of the children in the temple should have been so loud and so persistent as to excite the anger of the priests and Scribes. They called on him to silence the little voices, as if they felt sure that he could control them by a word; but that word Jesus refused to speak. The voices of these young birds of paradise were dear to him, and he said indignantly, "If these were forbidden to speak the very stones would cry out."

But still more remarkable is the fact that Jesus was attractive to a class who as a general thing hate and flee from religious teachers. The publicans and sinners, the disreputable and godless classes, felt themselves strangely drawn to him. If we remember how intensely bitter was the Jewish sense of degradation in being under Roman taxation, and how hardly and cruelly the office of collecting that tribute was often exercised, we may well think that only Jews who cared little for the opinions of their countrymen, and had little character to lose, would undertake it. We know there are in all our cities desperate and perishing classes inhabiting regions where it would be hardly safe for a reputable person to walk. Yet in regions like these the pure apparition of Jesus of Nazareth walked serene, and all hearts were drawn to him.

What was the charm about him, that he whose rule of morality was stricter than that of Scribes or Pharisees yet attracted and drew after him the most abandoned classes? They saw that he loved them. Yes, he really loved them. The infinite love of God looked through his eyes, breathed in his voice, and shed a persuasive charm through all his words. To the intellectual and cultured men of the better classes his word was, "Ye must be born again;" but to these poor wanderers he said, "Ye may be born again. All is not lost. Purity, love, a higher life, are all for you,"--and he said it with such energy, such vital warmth of sympathy, that they believed him. They crowded round him and he welcomed them; they invited him to their houses and he went; he sat with them at table; he held their little ones in his arms; he gave himself to them. When the Scribes and Pharisees murmured at this intimacy, he answered, "The whole need not the Physician, but those that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." His most beautiful parables, of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal Son, were all poured out of the fullness of his heart for them--and what a heart! What news indeed, to these lost ones, to be told that their Father cared for them the more because they were lost; that he went after them because they wandered; and that all around the pure throne of God were pitying eyes watching for their return, and strong hands of welcome stretched out to aid them back. No wonder that the poor lost woman of the street had such a courage and hope awakened in her that she pressed through the sneering throng, and under the very eyes of Scribe and Pharisee found her refuge and rest at the gracious feet of such a Master. No wonder that Matthew the publican rose up at once from the receipt of custom and left all to follow that Jesus, who had taught him that he too might be a son of God.

And we read of one Zaccheus, a poor worldly little man, who had lived a hard, sharp, extortionate life, and perhaps was supposed to have nothing good in him; but even he felt a singular internal stir and longing for something higher, awakened by this preacher, and when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing he ran and climbed a tree that he might look on him as he passed. But the gracious Stranger paused under the tree, and a sweet, cheerful voice said, "Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must dine at thy house." Trembling, scarce able to believe his good fortune, we are told he came down and received Jesus joyfully. Immediately, as flowers burst out under spring sunshine, awoke the virtues in that heart: "Lord, half my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything by false accusation I restore fourfold." This shows that the influence of Jesus was no mere sentimental attraction, but a vital, spiritual force, corresponding to what was said of him: "As many as received him to them gave he power to become sons of God."

It is a mistake to suppose that wicked people are happy in wickedness. Wrong-doing is often a sorrowful chain and burden, and those who bear it are often despairingly conscious of their degradation.

Jesus carried with him the power not only to heal the body but to cure the soul, to give the vigor of a new spiritual life, the joy of a sense of recovered purity. He was not merely able to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," but also, "Go in peace;" and the peace was real and permanent.

Another reason for the attractiveness of Jesus was the value he set on human affections. The great ones of the earth often carry an atmosphere about them that withers the heart with a sense of insignificance. Every soul longs to be something to the object of its regard, and the thought, "My love is nothing to him," is a chilling one. But Christ asked for love--valued it. No matter how poor, how lowly, how sinful in time past, the love of a repentant soul he accepted as a priceless treasure. He set the loving sinner above the cold-hearted Pharisee. He asked not only for love, but for intimacy--he asked for the whole heart; and there are many desolate ones in this cheerless earth to whom it is a new life to know that a godlike Being cares for their love.

The great external sufferings of Christ and the prophetic prediction that he should be a "man of sorrows" have been dwelt upon so much that we sometimes forget the many passages in the New Testament which show that the spiritual atmosphere of Christ was one of joy. He brought to those that received him a sense of rest and peace and joy. St. John speaks of him as "LIGHT." He answered those who asked why his disciples did not fast like those of John, by an image which showed that his very presence made life a season of festivity: "Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them?" What a beautiful picture of a possible life is given in his teaching. God he speaks of as "your Father." All the prophets and teachers that came before spoke of him as "the Lord." Christ called him simply "THE FATHER," as if to intimate that Fatherhood was the highest and most perfect expression of the great Invisible. He said, therefore, to the toiling race of man: "Be not anxious, your Father in Heaven will take care of you. He forgets not even a little sparrow, and he certainly will not forget you. Go to him with all your wants. You would not forget your children's prayers; and your Father in Heaven is better than you. Be loving, be kind, be generous and sweet-hearted; if men hate you, love and pray for them; and you will be your Father's children."

See how the man Jesus, who was to his disciples the Master, Christ, had power to comfort them in distress, and how not only his own followers, but also those of his great forerunner, John, were naturally drawn to confide their troubles to him.

These disciples who took up the Baptist's disfigured body after spite and contempt and hate had done their worst on it, who paid their last tribute of reverence and respect amid the scoffs of a jeering world, were men--men of deep emotions and keen feelings; and probably at that moment every capability of feeling they had was fully aroused.

It appears from the first chapter of John, that he and others were originally the disciples of the Baptist during the days of his first powerful ministry, and had been by him pointed to Jesus. We see in other places that the Apostle John had an intense power of indignation, and was of that nature that longed to grasp the thunderbolts when he saw injustice. It was John that wanted to bring down fire from heaven on the village that refused to shelter Christ, and can we doubt that his whole soul was moved with the most fiery indignation at wrong and cruelty like this? For Christ himself had said of the martyr thus sacrificed: "Among those that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." He had done a great work; he had swayed the hearts of all his countrymen; he had been the instrument of the most powerful revival of religion known in his times. There had been a time when his name was in every mouth; when all Jerusalem and Judæa, and beyond Jordan, thronged to his ministry--even the Scribes and Pharisees joining the multitude. And now what an end of so noble a man! Seized and imprisoned at the behest of an adulterous woman whose sin he had rebuked, shut up in prison, his ministry ended, all his power for good taken away, and finally finishing his life under circumstances which mark more than any other could the contempt and indifference which the great gay world of his day had for goodness and greatness! The head of a national benefactor, of a man who had lived for God and man wholly and devotedly from his birth, was used as a football, made the subject of a court jest between the courtesan and the prince.

Oh that it had pleased God to give us the particulars of that interview when the disciples, burning, struggling under pressure of that cruel indignity, came and told Jesus! Can we imagine with what burning words John told of the scorn, the contempt, the barbarity with which the greatest man of his time had been hurried to a bloody grave? Were there not doubts--wonderings? Why did God permit it? Why was not a miracle wrought, if need were, to save him? And what did Jesus say to them? Oh that we knew! We would lay it up in our hearts, to be used when in our lesser sphere we see things going in the course of this world as if God were not heeding. Of one thing we may be sure. Jesus made them quiet; he calmed and rested them.

And all that Jesus taught, he was. This life of sweet repose, of unruffled peace, of loving rest in an ever-present Father, he carried with him as he went, everywhere warming, melting, cheering; inspiring joy in the sorrowful and hope in the despairing; giving peace to the perplexed; and, last and best of all, in his last hours, when he sought to cheer his sorrowful disciples in view of his death and one of them said, "Lord, show us the Father and it will suffice," he answered, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The Invisible Jehovah, the vast, strange, mysterious Will that moves all worlds and controls all destinies, reveals himself to us in the Man Jesus--the Christ.

We are told of an Old Testament prophet that sought to approach God. First there was a mighty tempest; but the Lord was not in the tempest. There was a devouring fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. There was an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there came at last a "still, small voice:" and when the prophet heard that he wrapped his face in his mantle and bowed himself to the earth.

The tempest, the earthquake, the fire, are the Unknown God of Nature; the still, small voice is that of Jesus!

It is to this Teacher so lovable, this Guide so patient and so gracious, that our Heavenly Father has committed the care and guidance of us through this dark, uncertain life of ours. He came to love us, to teach us, to save us; and not merely to save us, but to save us in the kindest and gentlest way. He gives himself wholly to us, for all that he can be to us, and in return asks us to give ourselves wholly to him. Shall we not do it?

XVII

THE TOLERANCE OF JESUS

"We saw one casting out devils, and he followed not us; and we
forbade him. And Jesus said, Forbid him not."

There is nothing in which our Lord so far exceeds all his followers as in that spirit of forbearance and tolerance which he showed toward every effort, however imperfect, which was dictated by a sincere spirit. Human virtue as it grows intense is liable to grow narrow and stringent; but divine love has an infinite wideness of allowance.

We are told of the first triumphant zeal of the twelve Apostles when, endued with miraculous power, they went forth healing the sick, casting out devils, and preaching the good news of the kingdom to the poor. They came back to Jesus exulting in their new success, and we are told they said unto him, "Lord, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followed not us."

Jesus said unto them, "Forbid him not, for there is no man that will do a miracle in my name that will lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our side."

Here our Lord recognizes the principle that those who seek what he is seeking, and are striving to do what he is doing, are in fact on his side, even although they may not see their way clear to follow the banner of his commissioned Apostles and work in their company. Christ's mission as he defined it was a mission of healing and saving, a mission of consolation and the relief of human misery; and this man who was trying to cast out the devils in his name was doing his work and moving in his line, although not among his professed disciples.

Jesus always recognized the many "sheep not of this fold" which he had in this world--people who were his followers by unity of intention with what he intended, though they might never have known him personally. He tells the Jews, who believed in a narrow and peculiar church, that "many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven," and in his pictures of the last Judgment he makes the final award turn on the simple unity of spirit and purpose with Him in his great work of mercy for mankind.

We see intimated that the accepted ones are amazed to find themselves recognized as having shown personal regard to Christ, and say, "Lord, when saw we thee hungry or athirst or in prison and ministered to thee?" And the reply is, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." A more solemn declaration cannot be given, that our Lord accepts the spirit which is in unison with his great work of mercy for mankind, as the best offering of love to himself; and in this sense it is true that no man who would seek to do miracles of mercy in His spirit could lightly speak evil of him.

In this case our Lord might have seen that the arrogant, dictatorial temper which had come upon his followers in the flush of their first success might have disgusted and repelled a sincere man who was really trying to help on the good work in which Christ was engaged; and perhaps he may now see, as he looks down among our churches here and there, some good man in his own peculiar way seeking to do the work of the Lord, yet repelled from following in the train of his professed disciples. Instead of forbidding such "because they follow not us," he would have us draw them towards us by sympathy in the good they are doing, trusting in our Lord to enlighten them wherever they may need more distinct light.

The Protestant must not forbid the Romanist mission whose plain object seems to be to call sinners to repentance, and to lead professing Christians to a higher and holier life; nor must the Romanist in the pride of ancient authority forbid the Protestant evangelist that is seeking to make known the love of Jesus. And there are men in our times, of pure natures and of real love for mankind, whose faith in divine revelation is shaken, who no longer dare to say they believe with the "orthodox," but who yet are faithfully striving to do good to man, to heal the sick and cast out the devils that afflict society. Sad-hearted men are they often, working without the cheer that inspires the undoubting believer, often under a sense of the ban of the professed followers of Christ; yet the infinite tolerance of our Lord is leading them as well as those who more formally bear his name.

It was Cyrus, the Persian king, who worshiped the Zoroastrian gods, that is called in the prophecy "God's shepherd;" to whom God says, "Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."

Let us hope that there are many whose right hand Christ is holding, though they as yet know him not; for He it is who says:--

"I will bring the blind by a way they know not. I will make
darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these
things will I do unto them and not forsake them."

It pleased our Lord to number among the twelve Apostles one of those natures which are constitutionally cautious and skeptical. Thomas had a doubting head but a loving heart; he clung to Christ by affinity of spirit and personal love, with a slow and doubting intellect. Whether Jesus were the Messiah, the King of Israel, destined to reign and conquer, Thomas, though sometimes hoping, was somewhat prone to doubt. He was all the while foreboding that Christ would be vanquished, while yet determined to stand by him to the last. When Christ announced his purpose to go again into Judæa, where his life had been threatened, Thomas says,--and there seems to be a despairing sigh in the very words,--"Let us also go, that we may die with him." The words seemed to say, "this man may be mistaken, after all; but, living or dying, I must love him, and if he dies, I die too."

Well, the true-hearted doubter lived to see his Lord die, and he it was, of all the disciples, who refused to believe the glad news of the resurrection. No messenger, no testimony, nothing that anybody else had seen could convince him. He must put his own hand into the print of the nails or he will not believe. The gracious Master did not refuse the test. "Reach hither thy finger and behold my hand, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing," he said, and the doubter fell at his feet and cried, "My Lord and my God!"

There was but a gentle word of reproof: "Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." It is this divine wideness of spirit, this tolerance of love, that is the most characteristic element in the stages which mark the higher Christian life. Such spirits as Fénelon, Francis de Sales, John Woolman, and the apostle Eliot, seem to have risen to the calm regions of clear-sighted love. Hence the maxim of Fénelon: "Only perfection can tolerate the imperfect." But we, in our way to those regions, must lay down our harsh judgments of others; we must widen our charity; and, as we bless our good Shepherd for his patience with our wanderings and failures, must learn to have patience with those of our neighbors.

XVIII

THE SILENCE OF JESUS

In the history of our Lord's life nothing meets us more frequently than his power of reticence. It has been justly observed that the things that he did _not_ say and do are as just a subject of admiration as the things that he said and did.

There is no more certain indication of inward strength than the power of silence. Hence the proverb that speech is silver and silence is golden. The Church of the middle ages had her treatises on "The Grace of Silence."

In the case of our Lord we have to remember first the thirty years of silence that preluded his ministry; thirty years in which he lived the life of a humble artisan in the obscure town of Nazareth. That he was during those years revolving all that higher wisdom which has since changed the whole current of human society there is little doubt. That his was a spirit from earliest life ardent and eager, possessed with the deepest enthusiasm, we learn from the one revealing flash in the incident recorded of his childhood, when he entered the school of the doctors in the temple and became so absorbed in hearing and asking questions that time, place, and kindred were all forgotten. Yet, eager as he was, he made no petulant objection to his mother's recall, but went down to Nazareth with his parents and was subject to them. This ardent soul retreated within itself, and gathered itself up in silence and obedience.

When, at the age of thirty, he rose in the synagogue of his native place and declared his great and beautiful mission it is quite evident that he took everybody by surprise. No former utterances, nothing in his previous life, had prepared his townsfolk for this. They said, "How knoweth this man letters? Is not this the carpenter?" What habitual silence and reticence is here indicated! For this was the same Jesus whose words, when he did speak, had that profound and penetrating power that stirred the hearts of men, and have gone on since stirring them as no other utterances ever did. But when he did speak his words were more mighty from the accumulated force of repression. They fell concentrated and sparkling like diamonds that had been slowly crystallizing in those years of silence; they were utterances for time and for eternity.

In like manner we see numerous indications that he withdrew from all that was popular and noisy and merely sensational with a deep and real distaste. So far as possible he wrought his miracles privately. He enjoined reticence and silence on his disciples. He said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." He pointed to the grain of mustard seed and the hidden leaven as types of its power.

In the same way we see him sometimes receiving in silence prayers for help which he intended to answer. When the Syro-Phoenician woman cried to him to heal her daughter, it is said "he answered her never a word;" yet healing was in his heart. His silence was the magnet to draw forth her desire, to intensify her faith and reveal to his disciples what there was in her.

So, too, when word was sent from the sisters of Bethany, "Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick," he received it in the same silence. It is said, "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus; when he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was." In those two days of apparent silent neglect, how many weary hours to the anxious friends watching for him who _could_ help, and who yet did not come! But the silence and the wailing ended in a deeper joy at the last. The sorrow of one family was made the means of a record of the Saviour's tenderness and sympathy and his triumphant power over death, which is for all time and for every mourner. As he gave Lazarus back whole and uninjured from the grave, so he then and there promised to do for every one who believes in him: "He that believeth on me shall never die."

In the family of the Saviour was a false friend whose falseness was better known to the Master than perhaps to himself. He knew the falsity of Judas to his trust in the management of the family purse, yet he was silent. He sought the sympathy of no friend; he did not expose him to the others. From time to time he threw out general warnings that there was one among them that was untrue--warnings addressed to _his_ conscience alone. But he changed in no degree his manner toward him; he did not withhold the kiss at meeting and parting, nor refuse to wash his feet with the others; and the traitor went out from the last meeting to finish his treachery, leaving his brethren ignorant of his intended crime. This loving, forbearing silence with an enemy--keeping him in his family, treating him with unchanging love yet with warning faithfulness, never uttering a word of complaint and parting at last in sorrow more than anger--was the practical comment left by Jesus on his own words: "Love your enemies, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." This, the last, the highest grade in the science of love, is one that few Christians even come within sight of. To bear an enemy near one's person, perfectly to understand his machinations, and yet feel only unchanging love and pity, carefully to guard his character, never to communicate to another the evil that we perceive, to go on in kindness as the sunshine goes on in nature--this is an attainment so seldom made that when made it is hard to be understood. If the example of Jesus is to be the rule by which our attainments are finally to be measured, who can stand in the judgment?

The silence of Jesus in his last trial before Herod and Pilate is no less full of sublime suggestion. We see him standing in a crowd of enemies clamorous, excited, eager, with false witnesses distorting his words, disagreeing with each other, agreeing only in one thing: the desire for his destruction. And Pilate says, "Answerest thou nothing? Behold how many things they witness against thee." It was the dead silence that more than anything else troubled and perplexed the Roman governor. After he has given up his victim to the brutalities of the soldiery, to the scourging and the crown of thorns, he sends for him again for a private examination. "Whence art thou? Speakest thou not to me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and power to release thee?" In all the brief replies of Jesus there is no effort to clear himself, no denial of the many things witnessed against him. In fact, from the few things that he did say on the way to the cross, it would seem that his soul abode calmly in that higher sphere of love in which he looked down with pity on the vulgar brutality that surrounded him. The poor ignorant populace shouting they knew not what, the wretched scribes and chief priests setting the seal of doom on their nation, the stolid Roman soldiers trained in professional hardness and cruelty--he looked down on them all with pity. "Daughters of Jerusalem," he said to the weeping women, "weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." And a few moments later, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

We are told by the Apostles that this Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The silence of God in presence of so much that moves human passions is one of the most awful things for humanity to contemplate. But if Jesus is his image this silence is not wrathful or contemptuous, but full of pity and forgiveness.

The silence and the great darkness around the cross of Calvary were not the silence of gathering wrath and doom. God, the forgiving, was there, and the way was preparing for a new and unequaled era of forgiving mercy. The rejected Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God, not to fulfill a mission of wrath, but to "give repentance and remission of sins."

XIX

THE SECRET OF PEACE

Peace! Is there in fact such a thing as an attainable habit of mind that can remain at peace, no matter what external circumstances may be? No matter what worries; no matter what perplexities, what thwartings, what cares, what dangers; no matter what slanders, what revilings, what persecutions--is it possible to keep an immovable peace? When our dearest friends are taken from us, when those we love are in deadly danger from hour to hour, is it possible still to be in peace? When our plans of life are upset, when fortune fails, when debt and embarrassment come down, is it possible to be at peace? When suddenly called to die, or to face sorrows that are worse than death, is it possible still to be at peace?

Yes, it is. This is the peculiarity of the Christian religion--the special gift of Christ to every soul that will receive it from him. In his hour of deepest anguish, when every earthly resort was failing him, when he was about to be deserted, denied, betrayed, tortured even unto death, he had this great gift of peace, and he left it as a legacy to his followers:--

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the
world giveth give I unto you."

He says himself that his peace is not what the world giveth. It does not come from anything in this life; it cannot be taken away by anything in this life; it is wholly divine. As a white dove looks brighter and fairer against a black thunder-cloud, so Christ's peace is brightest and sweetest in darkness and adversity.

Is not this rest of the soul, this perfect peace, worth having? Do the majority of Christians have it? Would it not lengthen the days and strengthen the health of many a man and woman if they could attain it? But how shall we get this gift? That is an open secret. St. Paul told it to the Philippians in one simple direction:--

"Be not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God; and the peace of God that passeth understanding shall
keep your heart and mind."

There we have it.

Now if we look back to the history of these Philippians, as told in the Book of Acts, we shall see that when Paul exhorted them never to be anxious about anything, but always with thanksgiving to let their wants be known to God, he preached exactly what they had seen him practice among them. For this Philippian church was at first a little handful of people gathered to Jesus by hearing Paul talk in a prayer-meeting held one Sunday morning by the riverside. There Lydia, the seller of fine linen from Thyatira, first believed with her house, and a little band of Christians was gathered. But lo! in the very commencement of the good work a tumult was raised, and Paul and Silas were swooped down upon by the jealous Roman authorities, ignominiously and cruelly scourged, and then carried to prison and shut up with their feet fast in the stocks. Here was an opportunity to test their serenity. Did their talisman work, or did it fail? What did the Apostles do? We are told: "At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them." That prayer went up with a shout of victory--it was as Paul directs, prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Then came the opening of prison doors, the loosing of bonds, and the jailer fell trembling at the feet of his captives, saying, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And that night the jailer and all his house were added to the church at Philippi. So, about eleven years after, when Paul's letter came back from Rome to the Philippian church and was read out in their prayer-meeting, we can believe that the old Roman jailer, now a leading brother in the church, said, "Ay! ay! he teaches just what he practised. I remember how he sung and rejoiced there in that old prison at midnight. Nothing ever disturbs him." And they remember, too, that this cheerful, joyful, courageous letter comes from one who is again a prisoner, chained night and day to a Roman soldier, and it gives all the more force to his inspiring direction: "Be anxious for nothing--in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

If Paul had been like us, now, how many excuses he might have had for being in a habitual worry! How was he shut up and hindered in his work of preaching the gospel. A prisoner at Rome while churches that needed him were falling into divers temptations for want of him--how he might have striven with his lot, how he might have wondered why God allowed the enemy so to triumph.

But it appears he was perfectly quiet. "I know how to be abased, and how to abound," he says; "everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me."

But say some, "Do you suppose if you go to God about everything that troubles you it will do any good? If you do ask him for help, will you get it?"

If this means, Will God always give you the blessing you want, or remove the pain you feel, in answer to your prayer? the answer must be, Certainly not.

Paul prayed often and with intense earnestness for the removal of a trial so sharp and severe that he calls it a thorn in his flesh. It was something that he felt to be unbearable, and he prayed the Lord to take it away, but the Lord did not; he only said to him, "My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness."

The permission in all things to let our requests be made known to God would be a fatal one for us if it meant that God would always give us what we ask. When we come to see the record of our life as it is written in heaven, we shall see some of our best occasions of thankfulness under the head of "prayers denied."

Did you ever see a little child rushing home from school in hot haste, with glowing cheeks and tearful eyes, burning and smarting under some fancied or real injustice or injury in his school life? He runs through the street; he rushes into the house; he puts off every one who tries to comfort him. "No, no! he doesn't want them; he wants mother; he's going to tell mother." And when he finds her he throws himself into her arms and sobs out to her all the tumult of his feelings, right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable. "The school is hateful; the teacher is hard, and the lessons are too long; he can't learn them, and the boys laugh at him, and won't she say he needn't go any more?"

Now, though the mother does not grant his foolish petitions, she soothes him by sympathy; she calms him; she reasons with him; she inspires him with courage to meet the necessary trials of school life--in short, her grace is sufficient for her boy; her strength perfects his weakness. He comes out tranquilized, calm, and happy--not that he is going to get his own foolish wishes, but that his mother has taken the matter in hand and is going to look into it, and the right thing is going to be done.

This is an exact illustration of the kind of help it is for us "in everything by prayer to make known our requests to God." The very act of confidence is in itself tranquilizing, and the divine sympathy meets and sustains it.

A large class of our annoyances and worries are extinguished or lessened by the very act of trying to tell them to such a person as Jesus Christ. They are our burning injuries, our sense of wrong and injustice done us. When we go to tell Jesus how cruelly and wickedly some other Christian has treated us, we immediately begin to feel as a child who is telling his mother about his brother--both equally dear. Our anger gradually changes to a kind of sorrow when we think of Him as grieved by our differences. After all, we are speaking of one whom Christ is caring for and bearing with just as he is caring for us, and the thought takes away the edge of our indignation; a place is found for peace.

Then there is still another class of troubles that would be cut off and smothered altogether by the honest effort to tell them to our Saviour. All the troubles that come from envy, from wanting to be as fine, as distinguished, as successful as our neighbors; all the troubles that come from running races with our neighbors in dress, household show, parties, the strife "who shall be the greatest" transferred to the little petty sphere of fashionable life--ah, if those who are burdened with cares of this kind would just once honestly bring them to Jesus and hear what he would have to say about them! They might leave them at his feet and go away free and happy.

But whatever burden or care we take to Jesus, if we would get the peace promised, we must _leave_ it with Him as entirely as the little child leaves his school troubles with his mother. We must come away and treat it as a finality. We must say, Christ has taken that. Christ will see about it. And then we must stop thinking and worrying about it. We must resolve to be satisfied with whatever may be his disposal of the matter, even if it is not at all what we would have chosen.

Paul would much sooner have chosen to be free and travel through the churches, but Christ decided to allow him to remain a chained prisoner at Rome, and there Paul learned to rest, and he was happy in Christ's will. Christ settled it for him, and he was at peace.

If, then, by following this one rule we can always be at rest, how true are the lines of the hymn now so often sung:--

"Oh, what joy we often forfeit!
Oh, what needless pain we bear!
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer."

XX

THE CHURCH OF THE MASTER

What is the true idea of a Christian church, and what the temper and spirit in which its affairs should be conducted?

For this inquiry certainly we are not to go back to New England or Cotton Mather primarily, nor yet to the earlier Anglican authorities, or the long line of Roman precedent, and the Fathers of the Church, nor even to the Apostolic churches, but to Jesus Christ himself, and to the earliest association that could be called a Christian church.

There is a difference in this discussion between _the_ Church and _a_ church. _The_ Church is the great generic unity or outside organization; _a_ church is a society related to the whole, as a private family to the State.

In the time of our Lord the generic body--_the_ Church of God--was the Jewish church. Jesus was a regularly initiated member of that church, and very careful never to depart from any of its forms or requirements. He announced in the Sermon on the Mount that, in regard to the Jewish law, he was not come to destroy but to fulfill. He said distinctly to his disciples: "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all things therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do ye not after their works, for they say and do not." The Apostles never separated formally from the Jewish church. They were so careful in this regard that they on one occasion induced St. Paul, who was reported to be a schismatic, to go in a very marked and public manner into the Jewish temple and conform to the Jewish ritual; and when he addressed a company of Jews on one occasion he commenced with the words: "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee." He elsewhere speaks of the perfectness of this initiation into all the customs and privileges of the national church--that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

The Christian Church arose inside the Jewish church, exactly as the Methodists arose inside the Church of England. They were a society professing subjection and obedience to the national church in all respects where the higher law of God did not require them to go against earthly ordinances. Thus, when the Jewish Sanhedrin forbade the Apostles to preach in the name of Jesus, they answered, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." In like spirit did John Wesley and his ministers answer the bishops when they tried to shut their mouths from preaching the gospel to the poor of England.

But in the mean time it is to be remembered that the Lord Jesus gradually formed around himself as a personal centre an organization of disciples, both men and women. This band of disciples may be looked upon as the seed form of the Christian Church, and the order of their union having been administered immediately by the Master must be studied as conveying the best example of the spirit and temper, though not necessarily the exact form, in which all churches should be constituted.