Part 5

What sacred associations cluster around the word "father"! The thought of him, _if he was a father indeed_, was inwoven into all our youthful plans and early ambitions. We knew no worldly care when we dwelt beneath his sheltering roof; as we grew in years, we increased also in confidence in him. He was our adviser in doubt, our protector in danger, our supporter in perplexity. A true father is the best earthly friend while he is alive, and after he is gone, there gathers around his memory a halo of tender remembrance. All that is generous, manly, noble, and wise is to a loving son treasured up in the word "father." But the earthly significance, the human fatherhood, does not exhaust the meaning of this blessed name; it is but a mere pattern and shadow of that relationship which God sustains to His people. He is a "Father"; we, then, are His children by nature and adoption, by creation and redemption, and, as children, we may go to Him, and with all confidence and boldness ask Him as dear children ask their dear father. And such confidence, such trustful looking up in faith and reliance to Him as our Father, is a becoming attitude to-day. We stand upon the shores of another year, as it lifts itself, veiled in mist, from the great ocean of the future. Futurity means uncertainty, and uncertainty suggests anxiety. Say not that it is not so. As God created man, he is forecasting in his thoughts. It is as easy and natural for us to have regard to what is before us as it is for the waters of the Mississippi to flow towards the Gulf. Nor does God forbid it. Says wise King Solomon: "A wise man deviseth his way." He forms his plans, he frames his resolutions, he has his ambitions, his object in life that he wishes to attain. It is not a sign of sanity or of Christianity to walk into the future blindfolded, irresolutely, improvidently. The business man who at this time looks over his stock and ledger and strikes a balance of profit and loss, so as to make prudent arrangement for the business of the incoming year, the man of family who gazes upon the members seated about his table, and, considering demands and expenditures, weighs his income and ability to make ends meet, or whatever situation you may be in, or relation you may sustain, an intelligent, provident, weighing, considering, looking into the future is legitimate, wise, proper. But that is one thing; another thing, and not an uncommon thing, rather too prevalent, is to look into the future with fear, trembling of heart, and anxiety of mind. "Oh, how shall we ever get through; it's been none too rosy in the past, income scant, debts, some yet to pay, children growing up, health not to boast of,"--what a dreadful nightmare these considerations are to many people at the start of a new year; how it crushes out all good cheer, happiness, the very thing men are wishing each other!

'Tis foolish, 'tis needless, and godless! A man bending and staggering along the road under the weight of a heavy load met a passing wagon; he was invited to get in. He did so, but he still kept the load on his back. Foolish man! Yet that's the common attitude. God's chariot drives up to us this morning, overtaking us on life's way. "Get in, traveler, I will bear thee along," is the invitation. "Cast all your cares upon me. I will care for you." "Thank you, kind Lord, but I prefer to bear the load myself." There is a Being that has brought us into this world,--Father, we call Him. He is a resourceful Father, having all forces and agencies of sky, land, and sea, all the operations of men, angels, and beasts at His command; He is a loving Father; He has pleasure in the children after His heart. Silly child, you say, that will start to cry and make a great ado because it has conceived the notion that its wealthy father cannot feed and clothe it any longer. Is it not just as incongruous, my dear Christian, for you to perplex yourself with thoughts of anguish that God cannot provide for you any more? "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?" He should neglect His loving providence, leave and forsake thee this year? O ye of little faith!

In one of the books handed to our children at Christmas time is the history of a familiar and beautiful German hymn. Reduced by financial straits to sell his only means of support, his violin, a poor musician took it to the pawnshop of a Jew. As he gave it up, he looked lovingly at it, and tearfully asked the Jew if he might play one more tune upon it. "You don't know," he said, "how hard it is to part with it. For ten years it has been my companion; if I had nothing else, I had it. Of all the sad hearts that have left your door, there has been none so sad as mine." Whereupon, pausing for a moment, he seized the instrument and commenced a tune so exquisitely soft that even the Jew listened, in spite of himself. Then, laying aside the instrument, he said, "As God will," and rushed from the shop, only to be stopped at the door by a stranger, who, having listened, said to him, "Could you tell me where I could obtain a copy of that song? I would willingly give a florin for it." "I will give it to you without the florin." The stranger happened to be the Swedish ambassador, and when he heard the poor man's story, his troubles ended then and there. Redeeming the instrument, he called his landlady and his friends, and sang, to his own accompaniment, his own sweet hymn, No. 350 in our hymn-book, of which this is the first stanza:

Leave God to order all thy ways, And hope in Him, whate'er betide, Thou'lt find Him, in the evil days, Thine all-sufficient strength and guide. Who trusts in God's unchanging love Builds on a rock that naught can move.

This is the first reflection that lies in these introductory words, "Our Father." It expresses trustful looking up to Him at the beginning of the year. And, _again_, it supplies obedience in duty. It is a part of the father's relation to direct and control, as well as provide, for his children. He has a rightful authority over his household, the right to tell them what to do and how to do. None other with our heavenly Father.

The new year means new activities, new problems, new duties. With the morrow the tradesman, the mechanic, and the clerk will return to the work of his calling, the student to his books, and the housewife will be as busy as ever before. The great machinery of secular life will all clatter and hum in all its complexity and parts. And in the church, there will not, as there dare not be, a standstill. Much still remains to be done. How shall we face it? In our own strength? "With might of ours can naught be done, soon were our loss effected." After our own plans, doing things to suit our own selves? Is that the way it is in a well-regulated household? There is one whose law obtains, whose word determines, whose wish regulates it all. So ought it be with our life's duties. No matter what may be the occupation of your head and of your hands, whether you be a physician ministering to the alleviation of human ills, or a carpenter constructing the earthly home for man to dwell therein, our blessed Lord was both, physician and carpenter. Whether life's work finds you busy with the pen, like Matthew, the publican, sitting at the receipt of custom, or, like Martha, cumbered and concerned about many things, one reigning principle ought to be governing it all, as it governed the life of Him who was our example in all things, this: "My work is to do the will of Him that sent me."

Begin your work with Him, consecrate it to Him, conduct it with Him. Serve Him in it. There are two ways of doing everything--with God and without God. You may go to your work on Monday morning with God or without God; you may discharge its thousand and one different details with God or without God; your fellow-workman and companions may not know the difference, and yet, my dear hearer, it makes all the difference in the world, and a difference even for the world to come, whether you do your work with a glance of the eye upward and a spirit that says, "Our Father." Work without God is drudgery, duty cold and stern; it lacks inspiration, warmth, joyful energy. It is done because it must. It makes the worker a slave. That is not the way God would have us perform it, and it is not the work--neither in family, nor shop, nor church, that brings grand results. Whenever you feel your service becoming irksome or your duties degenerating, done with little conscientiousness and still less joy, then speak, "Our Father"; and when you saunter forth knowing that you are going to perform your Father's business, then the direst and most uninteresting things of daily life will acquire a new importance in your eyes, and will be done with a spring of elasticity and gladsomeness. Let me ask you to try this heavenly specific, and you will find that bending over your toil, with these thoughts, it will be lit up with radiance and significance hitherto inexperienced and duty will be merged into delight. This is the second consideration, when we can truly and intelligently say, "Our Father," life's work becomes transfigured with a new meaning and joy. In such a spirit go hence to this year's employments. Do them with God.

One other phase of human experience remains to be touched upon at this time. The Lord Himself hath said by the mouth of Solomon: "He that spareth the rod hateth the child," and He is too wise a Father to think of training His children without discipline. It is by sending them trials that He leads them to bethink themselves and to return when they have been backsliding, develops them in character, and prepares them for the discharge of arduous and important duties. Whatever we may regard this method of dealing with us, this is His method, and it will be no different with the incoming year. What shape that trial will take, this none can say in advance; it may bring sickness to ourselves or to our near and dear ones; pain of body, feverish tossing, restless nights, weary days; it may bring reverses in fortune; the position we thought so secure may pass into the hands of another; our income may decrease, trade languish, accidents and expenses multiply; it may be that the grim visitor will invade our homes, a casket, little or large, be placed into our rooms to remind us that in the midst of life we are in death. God alone, who knows the future, knows. And when these ordeals occur, it is well to keep before us a few things.

In the first place, we must recognize that, however strange and unwelcome these experiences are, 'tis He who sends them, and gives them just because He deals with us as His children. Discipline is a privilege that a father reserves for His own children. One does not get himself to correct the faults of all the young people in the neighborhood. You direct your efforts along that line to your own, and only because of your affectionate interest in them do you visit them with correction. Even so it is with God, and when we are suffering from His hands, instead of thinking that He has forgotten us, we ought to see in the chastisement a new evidence of His continued regard for us. The trials sent us, my dear hearers, are the tokens of a heavenly Father's affection, and happy art thou if in life's salutary discipline you have learned to look up and say, "Thy will be done."

Then, knowing from whom it proceeds--to mention the second consideration,--you will be wonderfully sustained. To illustrate, a story from my holiday reading: A little girl sent on an errand had to cross a wide but shallow stream, but there were firm and tried stepping-stones all the way over. "Oh! I'm afraid," said the child to a lady who was passing. "Why are you afraid, there are stones all the way over. See how easily I can cross it." Very timidly the little girl began to cross. "Just one step at a time is all you have to take," said the kind guide. So one step followed another--the first few were the hardest to take,--and soon she was safe on the other shore, smiling at her fears. "It is not so hard after all," she remarked, "just one step at a time brought us over." Beloved, when troubles come,--they are sure to, in this year also,--do not look so much at the waters before you, but at the stepping-stones the Father has placed for your feet. Here is a strong, firm stepping-stone that has often sustained me: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." Here is another: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Have a few such stepping-stones, select one in particular for this year. This, perhaps, will do, small, but weighty, "Our Father." Amen.

EPIPHANY SUNDAY.

I am the Light of the world.--_John 8, 12._

Underneath Rome, the ancient capital of the world, and extending for miles and miles between the River Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea, are those mysterious passages called the catacombs. How far they go, whither they lead, at what exact point they terminate, no living man can tell. From the examinations of the learned who have explored them for some little distance, at some few points, we know that they are long and narrow quarries in the rock; underground roads mined out of the soft volcanic tufa, or stone, on both sides of which the early Christians, who would not burn, but insisted on burying their dead, would deposit their departed, and where during these fierce persecutions they would also assemble for worship. These passages are but high enough to walk upright through them; they are so narrow in width that you can touch the sides on either hand, as you grope along, and they are unutterably silent and dark. If you strain your eye forward, you see nothing beyond the few feet which the feeble torch or flickering candle illumines; if you look up, the rock is there; if you gaze to the right or to the left, you see the shallow niches, like shelves, one over another, where are strewn the bones of the dead, crumbling into dust and ashes; and gazing behind you, you feel a choking sensation at the heart, that if your light should go out, or your guide should forsake you, you would never find your way back,--as it is a well-known fact that many too curious in their researches have disappeared. Such, then, are the catacombs, a subterranean home of death, a place of impenetrable darkness. And, my beloved, what better emblem could be found to illustrate what this world is like, without the Gospel of Jesus Christ, than the hopeless labyrinths of darkness underneath the City of Rome?

Take the time when our Savior pronounced these words of our text, or when, as Epiphany suggests to us, those wise men came from the East, following the star,--what darkness was spread over the earth! With the exception of the one people, numbering only a few millions at most, and these sunk away in general apostasy, aside from the little wax lights of the Jews, there was universal gloom. Around them, to the farthest limit of the earth, including enlightened and refined Greece and Rome, the whole world of man lay in heathenism and idolatry, feeling after God, but knowing Him not, worshiping and serving creatures rather than the ever-blessed Creator. Think of Egypt's adoration of bulls, rams, cats, bugs, birds, and crocodiles! Think of the Assyrian's worship, or of any of those people of antiquity, rendering to beasts or to heroes and the spirits of dead men, like the Chinese and Japanese and Hindoos of this day, the homage due unto the living God! Add to this the attendant miseries, shameless debaucheries, cruelties, revolting abominations, practiced all over in the name and belief of honoring God and meriting the favor of heaven, and it may well be said, the world was darkness, pitch black darkness. And it is so even to this present day where Christianity has not yet shed its redeeming light. It is so with every human soul; the darkness of ignorance, of sin, of misery is upon it. The man whose understanding has not yet been enlightened by the beams of spiritual truth is just like a tourist groping along, and stumbling among, the bones and dust of the catacombs. He knows not what he is living for, as little as the underground passenger knows whither he is going. Whenever misfortune and sorrow comes, there is none to turn to for consolation.

Whenever conscience is troubled and agitated with a sense of its guilt, and there are times when the spectral hand of conscience, like in the case of King Belshazzar, writes bitter things against them, there is no remedy or peace. When death comes, it is all gloom, spiritual night, a prison-house, a catacomb.

All our knowledge, sense, and sight Lie in deepest darkness shrouded, Till God's brightness breaks our night By the beams of truth unclouded.

And that is the lesson of this season, which means manifestation, that is the message of Christ to the world of man and to each soul. He is the Light. As God at the beginning of the world, when it was a huge mass of confused matter, wrapped in unpenetrable darkness, spake the word: "Let there be light," and there was light, so, when humanity at the beginning of these ---- years was spiritual darkness, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and men saw His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Addressing ourselves to our text, let us _I. trace some points of resemblance between Christ and light_; _II. note the conduct which becomes us toward this Light_.

The purest and most untarnishable thing in this world is light. Snow is pure, so is ice, water, and air, but each of these will admit of defilement, may be marred and polluted. It is not so with light. Man's hand cannot soil it. No corruption can infest or cleave to it. Nothing can defile its rays or attach pollution to its beams. And such is Christ. All creatures have shown themselves liable to sin and moral taint, but Christ passed through the world of sin as a sunbeam through a house of filth and disease, and came forth as pure and blessed as He sprang from God Himself. He took on Him sin's form, that He might endure sin's due, but sin's stain He never knew. In Bethlehem's manger, He was the holy Child. He lived a human life, oppressed with all its cares and temptations, grew up among its corrupt children, suffered its coarseness, its rebuffs, and its villainies, but with all this He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. He was the spotless Lamb of God, pure; for He was the Light.

Again, light is as bright as it is pure. Things are bright in proportion as they are full of light. The day is bright when no clouds shut out the sun. The scenery is bright when illumined by the greatest number of rays. The hope is bright when it is freest from gloomy forebodings and fullest of the light of promise. And such is Christ. He is brightness, "the brightness of the Father's glory," and His office is to dispense brightness. That is the brightest time in the soul when there is most of Christ in it. That is the brightest page on which most of Christ is found. That is the brightest sermon in which most of Christ is heard. That is the brightest life in which most of Christ is seen. That is the brightest world in which Christ is most fully received; and that heart, that home, that church is but confusion and darkness where Christ is not.

Light, likewise, is free. It comes without cost, and it comes everywhere. No poverty is so great as to debar from its blessing, nor is there an open crevice, a nook or corner in all this wide world into which it is unwilling to enter, or where it fails to throw its heavenlike smiles. The halls of the great and the huts of the humble does it gild alike, and that without money and without price. As related, it is free, and so is Christ. The command is: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." There is no place nor spot where its beams are not to be diffused, no heart into which it does not struggle for entrance. To the poor as well as to the rich, to Jews as well as to Gentiles is Christ offered equally freely, and on the same terms of free grace to each and all willing to accept Him. He is the true Light, ready to lighten every man that cometh into the world.

Another quality that pertains to the nature of light is that it is revealing. Darkness obscures. Where it is not light, a pit may gape at our feet, a murderer may be waiting in our path, a dagger aimed at our heart; we do not see and know, our vision is held. It requires light to perceive these things. And so in the spiritual world, Christ is the great Revealer. By Him we come to know God and our true selves. By Him we learn who and where we are, what our needs are, and how to relieve them. One of the hardest things in the world is to make people believe that they are guilty and lost beings. The reason is, they are in the dark. They need the light to show them themselves. And that light is Christ. Only let a man examine himself in the light of Christ's life and teaching, and it will not be long until he sees that self of his to be a mere mass of guilt, and things appearing quite differently in this world of imperfection and sin.

And to mention the final feature, light is life-giving. Without light the world is dead. Where the sun rarely shines, or not at all, there is barrenness, dreariness, perpetual winter, desolation. It is the warming light of spring that starts the dormant germs, that swells the buds, and clothes the vineyards, the field, and the woods with vegetation, fragrance, and plenty. So with the spiritual Light. Where Christ is not, life is not, there is spiritual barrenness, winter upon the soul. But when His beams shine in upon the soul, the seeds of virtue put forth, the tree of faith lifts up its fragrant bloom, and the fruits and flowers of love and grace spring and bud.

Thus, by a few comparisons with the material, natural light, have we sought to explain in what sense Christ is called, or rather calls Himself, the Light.

Let us inquire how we ought to conduct ourselves toward Him. First of all, if you would enjoy the blessings of this Light, you must receive the Light; the outward illumination must be followed by a corresponding inward one. What good does the light do the man who, when its morning rays shine into his room, will pull down the shades and close the shutters and pull the cover of his couch over his head? It's only the worse for the man. The thing is to receive it, to throw open the shutters of your heart, and to let its radiant sunbeams burst into its every corner and crevice. That is what it is for, and we fail of its purpose and benefit if we fail to so treat it. What if the incoming rays do show us the dust that lies upon furniture and floor? Should we therefore dislike it, reject it, or should we cleanse the furniture and the floor? What if the spiritual Sun reveals to us our darling sins and ignorances? Should we therefore avoid it and dislike it? It is extremely sorry to see the attitude of the most of mankind, how they will cling like bats and owls to darkness who fly away to some dismal haunts, and there sit and blink whenever a ray of spiritual sunlight reaches them. Christ Himself said: "Men love darkness rather than light." Let it not be so to us. Let us accept and profess it, take its blessed rays into our souls.