creations but not His children. Souls are His offspring, emanations of Himself, bearing His image, and endowed with capabilities to love and serve Him for ever. In what does a true man feel the deepest interest? The fortune he has built up, the machine he has constructed, the book he has written? No, his own child is more to him than aught else. This feeling, that came from the Infinite Father, does not the Infinite Father possess, and in immeasurable degree? Unquestionably. an Secondly :-That a human soul is an afflicted child of God. In which of the children of a large family does the human parent feel the deepest interest? Is it not in the little invalid? Lying in a room in the palace of one of the greatest emperors of the world there is an afflicted child of his. Does not that child occupy more of his attention, absorb more of his sympathy, than the extent, the resources, and the grandeur of his kingdom? What to him are all the markets, navies, armies, wealth, power, and grandeur of his kingdom, compared to the health of his little child? Has not He who gave the human parent this feeling the same in His own Infinite heart? Undoubtedly. The doctrine, then, agrees with reason, but still transcends it. Subject: THE GOLDEN AGE. "For brass I will bring gold."ISA. lx. 17. This chapter has been considered an ode of congratulation to the Church on her glory in the last times. No period since it was composed has realized the magnificent promises it contains. The golden age of humanity is in the future. This age is here represented as so far excelling all future ages as gold excels brass. Morally this may include three things. I. That for PRACTICAL ATHEISM there will be GODLINESS. Through all past ages men have lived more or less without God in the world. Though millions have avowed their belief in many gods, and Christendom declared its theoretical belief in one God and one God only,-without uncharitableness it must be maintained that the great bulk of all ages have been practically without God. They live, plan, and act from day to day as if no God existed. God is not in all their thoughts. This is at once the curse and the crime of humanity. But in the good time coming godliness will be supreme and universal. God will be the grand object in the horizon of every soul. His character will engage the supreme love of all; His existence, the supreme thought of all; His will, the supreme law of all. God will be all in all. He will be the sun in which all things are seen, and in which all human powers, purposes, and enterprises will grow and flourish. The miserable "brass " of practical atheism will be exchanged for the "gold" of godliness. This may include another thought, namely: II. That for DOMINANT MATERIALISM there will be SPIRITUALITY. Through all past ages men, for the most part, have been materialistic-if not in theory, in practice. The body has been the monarch and the despot of the soul. The spiritual faculties and powers have been immersed in materialism; the soul has been carnally sold under "sin." The great question of all has been, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink, wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" But in the good time coming the soul will take the throne, will be in the ascendant. Men will be born of the spirit, and will be spirit: men will work, not the spirit for the body, but the body for the spirit. The beauty that will be admired in those days will be spiritual beauty; the dignity that will be honoured in those days will be spiritual dignity; the pleasures that will be enjoyed will be spiritual pleasures. The miserable "brass" of sensuality will be gone, and the "gold of spirituality will be every where recognized, appreciated, and enjoyed. This may in clude yet another thought, namely: III. That for CONTROLLING SELFISHNESS there will be BENEVOLENCE. Through all past ages men have been inspired more or less by selfishness; every man sought his own. Self was the centre and circumference of all human activity. Men felt and displayed more interest in self than in the whole race, the universe, or God. This selfishness generated all the fiendish passions that curse the past envy, jealousy, intolerance, avarice, tyranny, heartless cruelty. But in the good time coming this will give way to benevolence: men will lose all personal thoughts of self in the claims of society and the spirit of philanthropy and the love of God. Men will seek, not their own, but the things of others. "All things will be done with charity.' "Nothing will be done in strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind each will esteem other better than himself." The miserable "brass of selfishness will disappear, and the heavenly "gold" of benevolence will be the inspiration of all. Subject: YOUTHFUL PLEASURES. 66 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."-ECCLES. xi. 9. The text leads us to consider two things in relation to the pleasures of youth, I. Their AUTHORIZATION. Rejoice, O young man." There is no need to regard this as ironical. Youth has Divine authority to rejoice. It is natural for young life to break into frolic and song. The blood is warm, the limbs nocence had a limiting law? There was one tree out of the multitude denied him. God gives vast scope for human action and enjoyment; but not unbounded. There is a limitation. "Know thou," etc. First: He will judge you at the bar of your own experience. The young man who gives full play to his passions, yields himself up to intemperance, debauchery, and self-indulgence, will, by an immutable law, be made to endure, as years roll on, the penalties of his immoderation. Shaken nerves, emaciated remorseful conscience will make him feel that God has brought him to judgment. It is no fiction that traces tabes, gout, madness, and hypochondria to excesses of youthful gratification. are agile, the spirits are buoy-frame, enfeebled intellect, and ant, all things are fresh. There is a bloom on the landscape, and the sky is flushed with the streaks of morn. There is poetry in all. God desires the happiness of youth, and has made abundant provision for it. He who would deny to youth its pleasures, opposes the arrangements of nature, and reveals a spirit unmanly and undivine. Cheerful youth-hood is the condition of a healthy and vigorous manhood. The text leads us to consider II. Their MODERATION. "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Youthful pleasure is not to run into licentiousness. Here is the moderating principle, "Know thou," etc. Adam in his in Secondly: He will judge you at the bar of your own conscience. The over-indulgent youth will, as age comes on, be arraigned at the bar of his own conscience. The remembrance of his follies or extravagances, his inordinate gratifications, his neglect of opportunities of intellectual and moral improvement, will make him shrink and writhe as under the eye of Eternal Justice. CONCLUSION: Young men, gay, fast, bons-vivants, if you are not awed by the judgment that is beyond death, think of the judgment that you must face here. If you will not listen to ethics, listen to physiology, that tells you that you are even now erecting the throne of judgment before which you will shortly stand, an emaciated, helpless, hopeless culprit. Subject: THE RECIPROCAL ACTION OF LOVE. "We love Him, because He first loved us."-1 JOHN iv. 19. J. MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE LOVE. “He . . loved us.” We see the Divine goodness in Creation and Providence ; but nature cannot teach us a higher lesson than these. Redemption soars to sublime heights, and manifests the divine philanthropy and mercy. "God so loved the world," etc. In Redemption, there is both the declaration and proof of that love. It was ratified with blood. The Cross is the profoundest expression of that love; it required a God to love thus. It is stronger than sin. The moment its burning flame came into contact with sin, the latter was dissolved. It delights in self-sacrifice; self-immolation is its ultimate aim; and yet it expends its force, not for its own benefit, but for the benefit of others. Love is the soul of the universe and the hope of humanity. It is the foundation-stone of redemp tion. Love is the heart of God. In the bosom of Christ it throbbed; and rested not until it was consumed on the cross. II. THE RECIPROCAL ACTION OF DIVINE LOVE. "We love Him." These words, in the mouth of a Christian, mean a great deal. In these three words we have the essence of Christianity. The case is not, Do I attend church, take the sacrament, and appear very devout? but, Do I love? That is the question. It is ? subjective fact. It is a matter of personal consciousness. It must be "Christ in you." Creeds are nothing, where this is not. In its absence sacraments are barren of efficacy. Love is the ful filling of the law. It purifies the heart. It spiritualizes the conceptions, it beautifies the life. It is a golden link which binds us to the heart of God. It is begotten at the cross; it will be consummated hard by the throne. It is an indestructible, immortal principle. Have you got it? It is the condition of admission into the kingdom of God, and God will have no less. Nor do you require any other qualification. God Himself requires no more. III. THE PRIORITY OF DIVINE LOVE. "First." Before we even thought of Him, He loved us. When we hated Him, His love confronted even our hatred itself. Here is the peculiar genius and glory of Christianity. It is wealthy and can afford to expend that wealth of love upon sinners. It is none the poorer after all. "First!" God's thought always comes first concerning what is good and philanthropic. Man never anticipates God in these things. If the work of human salvation had been left to man's suggestion, it had never been done at all. Man was first to hate, God was first to love. The love of man requires something to invite and deserve it; but God loves in the absence of these. The love principle in Him is so strong, that it could not be otherwise. "God Is love"; therefore, He loves. And the rays of this love shine as gloriously upon the sinner as upon the seraph; even as the rays of the sun, which shine as magnificently upon the dunghill as upon the verdant lawn or the blooming summer flowers. Even so this love; it is never polluted by the object it touches; but rather refines, beautifies, and sanctifies. IV. THE POWER OF DIVINE LOVE CAUSATIVE OF THE HUMAN. "Because." It was the consciousness of the Divine love to us, which originated ours to Him. We had not known it else. It is not of human origination and development. It is not a native stock; but a new graft. It is a plant of the Lord's right hand planting. It is the gift of God. We never knew it till we felt His touch. It came throbbing with high supernal force when we saw the expression of His love in the death of the cross. We saw the stricken Saviour there; heard the low, sad wail of agony sent up from His breaking heart; whilst from His heaving breast and trembling lips He seemed to say, "I suffered this for thee." It was there that we first read the "because "" of our text, there that we first beheld the love which gave birth to ours. JOHN TESSEYMAN. MOHAMMEDAN PRAYER.-Just as the first ray of sunshine breaks forth, the Muezzin's cry is heard," To prayer, to prayer, O ye believers." It is but a form, alas! with most of the hearers; yet the very form reminds a servant of God of the privilege and duty of beginning the day with prayer. Then, when the echoing voices from minaret to minaret have died away, the working day begins, and the wants and pleasures of man make themselves known one after another. |
