Bible Commentaries

Chapter5

Prayer

Almighty God, are we not all in one place, with one accord, and is not our heart steady towards thee in love and in eager expectation? Have we not come together in the one all-uniting and all-reconciling name of Jesus Christ thy Son? Wilt thou then withhold the gift of the Holy Ghost, and allow us to abide in our own emptiness and poverty of mind and heart—wilt thou not rather open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing until there be not room to receive it? Thy blessing is always larger than our space, thou doest unto the children who pray unto thee exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or think. Thy grace is an eternal surprise, thy providence is a daily miracle. If thou dost not astonish us by great interpositions which our eyes can see, it is because of the daily appeal which thou dost make to our understanding and our heart, by thy care and gentle patience.

Thou hast beset us behind and before and laid thine hand upon us: thou knowest our downsitting and our uprising, our going out and our coming in, and there is nothing in all our life on which thine eye doth not rest with the anxiety of love. The very hairs of our head are all numbered; thou dost notice the falling sparrow. Thou dost not neglect to baptize any root that is in all thine earth, thy great impartial sun throws its infinite splendour over all thy works which we behold. We will expect great things from thee, our hearts shall be warmed by a special hope, our eyes shall look for the blessing as if they would bring it. Behold this desire is of thine own creation, and this expectancy cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, and thou wilt not forsake the work of thine hands, thou wilt not inspire a prayer that thou mayest deny it.

Thou knowest with what psalms and loud thanksgivings we have come into thine house. Every heart has brought its own tribute of love and praise, no life before thee in all thy courts is dumb, but everywhere is the sign of thy presence and thy life. Hear the thanksgiving of those in whose houses thou hast set a great light, hear the blessing of those who praise thee for life giving and for life sparing, and for afflictions survived—the Lord send after such thanksgiving, answers of inspiration that shall guard and guide, ennoble and bless, the praising life.

Thou knowest who have come with songs that have in them suggestions of sorrow: they will sing though it be in the night time: whilst they sing, the darkness lowers itself upon them, in the very midst of their praising their hearts are stung with cruel memories, and in the very house of God, the enemy faces them as if even here they should find no rest on the day thou hast made for thyself. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, the life is aware of its own agony, weakness, poverty, and helplessness. Are not these the conditions upon which thou dost visit us in Christ Jesus—was it not when there was no arm to save, when there was no eye to pity, that thine own eye and thine own arm brought salvation? Thou dost address thyself to our weakness; it is because of our nothingness that thou dost come unto us; when we are weak then are we strong; emptied of ourselves and of every broken trust we have ever recorded, thou dost come to us with the fulness of thy salvation, and with the infinite sufficiency of thy grace. Therefore our hope is in God this day: were we rich and increased in goods in our own deluded imagination thou wouldst not come to us, but because and though we are blind and naked and miserable and have nothing, and because our tearful eyes are lifted up unto the heavens, thou wilt come to us in Jesus Christ, the ever-living Priest, the one Man whose prayer is ever acceptable.

We put ourselves into thine hands, thou didst make us and not we ourselves, we know not what a day may bring forth: we are plagued by our own ignorance, we are deceived by the pretensions of a strength that can do nothing, we are misled by spiritual enemies on every hand, our convictions are trifled with, our best vows are laughed at, and our endeavors after the better life are mocked by foes invisible. Yet amid all this experience of temptation and danger and distress, we know that the Lord liveth, that he regardeth them that put their trust in him, and that he will not leave them desolate in the time of his visitation. Lord, how long? Take our little life into thy keeping: its days are but a handful that a child can number, yet is our life the beginning of thine own—we begin to be immortal as thine own eternity.

Be with those whom we have left at home—those who are afraid of the cold, such as are weak and in pain, and are ready to die. With those for whom the physician can do no more, before whom he has let his hands fall in helplessness, saying that his resources are at an end. Thy resources have no end, thou dost begin at the point of our exhaustion, and when we say there is nothing more, behold thou dost create gardens round about our feet, and lead us forth into paradises unsuspected. Gladden thy desponding ones with new hope, give them that sureness and constancy of faith in thyself, before which death dies away, or comes with excuses, because we are sent for to the King's inner chamber. Amen.

Acts 2:1-21

1. And when the day of Pentecost [the second of the three great Jewish feasts, the Passover being the first, and the third the Feast of Tabernacles] was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place [the upper room].

2. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind [lit, a mighty wind borne along], and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

3. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire [a comparison, not a reality], and it sat upon each of them.

4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues [languages they had not known before], as the Spirit gave them utterance.

5. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven [it was to the Jew much to be desired that he might die and be buried near the holy city].

6. Now when this was noised [cried abroad], the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

7. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another. Behold, are not all these which speak Galilans?

8. And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? [there was no jargon or incoherent speech].

9. Parthians [from India to the Tigris], and Medes [east of Assyria], and Elamites [in the district known to the Greeks and Romans as Susiana], and the dwellers in Mesopotamia [between the Euphrates and the Tigris], and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia.

10. Phrygia, and Pamphylia [all countries within Asia Minor], in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya [anciently applied to the African continent], about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome [sojourners from Rome], Jews and proselytes [persons who have come over].

11. Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God [the majesty of God].

12. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?

13. [But] Others mocking said, These men are full of new [sweet] wine.

14. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them [spake forth unto them], Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken [the only instance of the word in the New Testament] to my words:

15. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. [Wine was drunk by the Jews with flesh only, and flesh was only eaten late in the day.]

16. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel [with perhaps one exception the oldest prophetic book];

17. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

18. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

19. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:

20. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:

21. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord [an expression which does not occur in the Gospels, though so common in the Old Testament] shall be saved.

The Outpouring of the Spirit

MARK the very critical care of the divine Head of the Church, in fixing special times for the communication of special blessings. Here we have the largest possible opportunity which God himself could have secured for the communication of his supreme gift. Pentecost was a harvest festival: about that time people could come with the least degree of danger, from various outlying countries and districts. In the spring time the sea was troubled violently, and in the winter almost impassable, but in the quiet solemn harvest time everybody seemed to be more at liberty than at any other period of the year, and the sea and the land seemed rather to invite than to repel the traveller. So at the very time when men were released from the greatest pressure of business, and when the elements were most favourable to voyaging and journeying, God came down in the great heaven-wind and the great heaven fire and owned and crowned the redeemed and expectant church.

There are opportunities even in divine providence. The days are not all alike to God. Not only has he chosen what we call the first day or the seventh day, as a day of rest—if you read carefully the whole record of his providential dealings with the world, you will find that he has chosen a hundred days. We in our narrow interpretation of things bind him down to one day, whereas is there in reality a single day in our life that he has not a lien upon? He may not say, "I will claim most of every one of those days, from the very beginning to the very end thereof: and one day I will have all for myself," but does he not come in upon birthdays, days of deliverance, times of surprise, days of unusual sorrow, periods when anxiety sharpened itself into agony, and when the whole life seemed to be one cruel and burning pain? Has he not come in upon our wedding days, and joyous days of every name and kind, saying in gentle whispers, "I have some share in these?" Let your drinking be a sacrament, let your eating be a religious festival, let all your bell-ringing and heart-enjoyment have in them subtle suggestions of divinity and of religious sacrifice.

God is not the God of one day only; he takes up the one day and specially holds it before us, but only symbolically. What he does with that day he wants to do with all the others, but his is an educating and not a driving process; it is little by little that he moves, almost always imperceptibly, nevertheless most constantly and surely. He will not rest until he has secured every whit of us, judgment, imagination, conscience, will, and every element that enters into manhood—and we shall be sanctified, body, soul and spirit.

Not only did God seize the largest possible opportunity, but he also availed himself of the largest memorial feast known in Israel. There was no feast like the Pentecost; there were three great things done at that time—there was a remembrance of bondage. This feast was fifty days after the leaving of Egypt, and was fixed on account of the leaving of Egypt: it was a feast of deliverance and triumph, and yet having in it, sobering it and chastening it all the way through, memories of cruelties endured and of oppressions survived. Thus whilst the heart was tender, while Egypt seemed to be just behind Israel like a threatening spirit, and whilst Israel was confident of its final escape from thraldom, just then, at a critical point, visible to no eye but the eye of Omniscience, was this special communication of divine grace made to the human heart.

At the Pentecost all the sacrifices were offered. On other occasions there might be partial sacrifices, but at the pentecostal season the whole series of sacrifices was gone through, and one became added to the whole, the offering of two wave-loaves, two loaves made of fine flour and leavened, were taken up and waved, before the Lord, in token that loneliness had given place to union, that isolation had entered into companionship, that that which before was without fermentation, inspiration, and movement, had now begun to lift itself towards the heavens in wordless but most significant aspiration and prayer.

At the Pentecost it was specially required that Israel should remember Sinai and the giving of the law. Thus all through, Israel was called upon to bear the memory of thunder and lightning and earthquake, and a great shaking of earth's stablest things. Will there be any other period in all the history of the earth yet to come, dating from the giving of the law, when amid thunders and great wind-storms and lightnings there shall be given some better gift than the stern law, before which all men fell down as self-accusing offenders? Will the great voices, the solemn thunders, the appalling fires, always be used for the giving of mere law? Or will they one day be turned as it were into a sanctuary from the midst of which God shall breathe his spirit of peace and rest and sanctification and love?

On this occasion we have the largest possible union. For example, here is the largest possible union of nationalities. There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Jerusalem was never so full as then—there was therefore a union in the introductory sense of mere nationality and association. There was always the largest union of desire. Note the word accord. The instruments were all in tune together: there was but one feeling, one wish, one desire; the assembly was without mental distraction or moral discord; quarrelling, clamour, suspicion, jealousy, envy—these were all outside; within the gathered circle there was but one spirit, one expectation, one hope, one growing wonder—the silence that precedes revelations.

Have we known the mystery of silence, or has there in our very own quietness always been an undertone of trouble? Know we the restlessness of an eloquence so eloquent that it says nothing? Or are our ears filled with minor noises and are a hundred colloquies proceeding within us? If Acts 2:21

(Continued.)

IT is in the presence of the Holy Ghost that we find the true union of the church. There are diversities of operation, and must always be such, but diversity of operation does not destroy, or in any degree impair, the unity of the Spirit. There is one Spirit, there is one faith, though there be many creeds, there is one baptism, though there be many forms of it, there is one Lord, though He shine in a thousand different lights. We have been vainly looking for union in uniformity, and because of the lack of uniformity we have oftentimes most ignorantly mourned the absence of union. Consider how irrational is such mourning, and how it is rebuked in the most practical terms by all that we know, even of the lower life with which we are most familiar. Is the human race one or many? is there any difficulty in identifying a Acts 2:22-36

22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth [only seven weeks had elapsed since he died the death of a slave!], a man approved [publicly demonstrated] of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

23. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands [a Hebrew formula for "by means of"] have crucified and slain:

24. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death [the travail-pangs]: because it was not possible that he should beholden of it.

25. For David speaketh concerning him [in reference to him], I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand [an image of the warrior who extends his shield over his comrade on his left hand], that I should not be moved:

26. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:

27. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [Hades, the unseen world], neither wilt thou suffer [give] thine Holy One to see corruption.

28. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt maker me full of joy with thy countenance.

29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day [thus showing that he did not rise again].

30. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

31. He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption [a pious error therefore to embalm the body of Christ].

32. This Jesus hath God raised up [from the dead], whereof we all are witnesses.

33. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted [into heaven], and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed [poured] forth this, which ye now see and hear.

34. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord [Jehovah] said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand [a common Eastern expression].

35. Until I make thy foes thy footstool [an expression for complete victory].

36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

The Effect of Pentecost Upon Peter

THIS is a full length portrait of Peter himself. If we see clearly the effect upon Peter, we shall have a true idea of the effect of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon the entire church. God shows us things that are too great to be seen in their completeness, in illustrative and easily-comprehended parts. Those who carefully study Peter's speech in answer to the mockers, will see in the case of one Acts 2:37-47

37. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart [stung with remorse. The only instance of the word "pricked" in the New Testament] and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

38. Then Peter said unto them, Repent [the Hebrews express sin and punishment by the same word, and also repentance and comfort] and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

39. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

40. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward [crooked] generation.

41. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls.

42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles" doctrine and fellowship [ Philippians 1:5]; and in breaking of bread, and in prayer.

43. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and. signs were done by the apostles.

44. And all that believed were together, and had all things common.

45. And sold [the verbs throughout this description are in the imperfect tense, as expressing the constant recurrence of the act] their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

46. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house [at home], did eat their meat with gladness and singleness [the only instance of the word in the New Testament] of heart.

47. Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added [the tense implies a continually recurring act] to the church daily such as should be saved [them that were made safe].

The Effects of Gospel Preaching

PETER having explained the events which happened on the day of Pentecost, an immediate effect was produced upon the people who heard him; that effect is stated in these very graphic words, "They were pricked in their hearts." So the Holy Ghost was poured out upon them as he had been poured out upon the assembly of the Church. We see here, therefore, the double action of the Holy Spirit. He is poured out upon the Church to sanctify and to confirm in the faith; and he is poured out upon those who are outside the Church that he may alarm and quicken and direct to right conclusions.

We must remember that this was the first Christian Sermon that had been preached. Jesus Christ was no longer present in the body. Christian revelation, so far as the bodily presence of Christ was concerned, had been completed, and his last word upon earth had been spoken. Now we are curious to know how the truth will make its way upon its own merits, apart from that singular magnetic influence which attached to the bodily presence and the audible voice of the divine Master.

Will the truth make its way by sheer force of its celestial beauty and grace, and comfort, or will it perish under other voices than Christ's own? So long as Christ was present, he could work miracles. His soul could look out of his eyes upon the multitude as the soul of no other man could look. Perhaps therefore any progress which the kingdom of heaven had made amongst men was owing entirely to the bodily presence and magnetic influence of the visible Christ. So we wait, we hear the discourse, and when it is concluded we read,—that when the people heard this they were pricked in their hearts.

Observe the peculiarity of that effect. Not, they were awed by the eloquence; not, they were excited in their imagination; not, they were gratified in their taste; the result was infinitely deeper and grander. "They were pierced in their hearts." An arrow had fastened itself in the very centre of their life. In their conscience was inserted the sting of intolerable self-accusation. This was the grand miracle. Truly we may say this was the beginning of miracles of the higher, because the spiritual kind. Great effects are produced by great causes. A reflection of this kind would, however, have a very remote interest for us were it confined to an ancient incident. As a matter of fact, the Apostle Peter preached the only sermon that any Christian minister is ever at liberty to preach. This discourse of Peter's is not nineteen centuries old. It is the only discourse that any minister of Christ dare utter, if he be faithful to his stewardship. This is the model sermon. This the evangelical doctrine. No change must be made here or a corresponding change will be made in the effect which is produced. Men may be more eloquent, men may be more literary, men may be more technical and philosophical, they may use longer words and more abstruse arguments, but the effect will be like other talk, it will be pointless, and there will be no answer in the great human heart,—no conscience will accuse, no eyes will be blinded with tears, from no multitude of men will there be extorted the cry, "What shall we do?"

Let us look at this sermon and see how it is made up. It is full of Scriptural allusions, and no sermon is worth listening to that is not full of Bible. The reason why our preaching is so powerless and pointless is that we do not impregnate it with the inspired word itself. Peter did not make the sermon. He quoted David and Joel , the Psalm and the prophets, and set these quotations in their right relations to what had just happened in Jerusalem, and whilst he was talking history he made history. Faithful to God's word, God's Spirit was faithful to him, and herein was that grand word eternally realised in all its beneficent tenderness—"My word shall not return unto me void." Peter's word would have returned void, but God's word is as a sower going forth to sow, and in the eventide of his labour bringing back his sheaves with joy.

This discourse of Peter's was also full of Christ. But for Christ it never could have been delivered. From end to end it palpitates with the Deity and glory of the Son of God. It is also full of holy unction. It was not delivered as a schoolboy might deliver a message. The great strong rough frame of the fisherman-preacher trembled, yea quivered and vibrated under the feeling of the sacred message which the tongue was delivering. The sermon is also full of patriotic and spiritual tenderness, and all the while without art or trick or mechanical skill, it led up to a vehement and solemn demand. When that demand was thundered upon the people they were "pricked in their heart," and they said, "What shall we do?" They did not applaud the man, they were concerned about themselves; they were not pleased, they were pierced; and they were not gratified, they were convicted; they sought for no excuse; they asked for no great pleader to state their case in reply, they said with tears, What must we do?

But even this great sermon of Peter's does not explain the full result. The preacher must have had something to do with the effect. He had just received the Holy Ghost. The cloven tongue like as of fire still sat and burned upon him, and his whole soul thrilled with newly-given inspiration. An inspired doctrine demands an inspired ministry. The Book is inspired, but when uninspired readers read it they kill the very fire of heaven when it touches their reluctant tongues. What if we have an inspired Bible but an uninspired Church? It is there that the holy influence is lost. Inspiration inspires. It is simply useless for us to say that the Bible is inspired, if we who profess to believe it, do not share its inspiration. When the Holy Ghost is both in the doctrine and in the people who profess it, the mountains of difficulty shall be beaten with a new threshing instrument having teeth, and will fly away like dust upon the mocking wind.

Are we inspired? Do we read the word with the soul, or merely pronounce it with the lips? If with the lips only, what wonder if the people listen to the Bible with a very languid curiosity and are not unwilling that the broken and soul-less reading should cease?

Nor have we read the full account yet of the production of this mighty effect. The people themselves were in an anxious state of mind: they were prepared for vital statement; anything that was beautiful in nature or in music would not have satisfied them. They would have resented any discourse that bristled with merely clever allusions or curious conceits of expression. They were a prepared people. The fire fell upon prepared material, therefore the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified. How can we preach to a people unprepared to hear? The work is too great for any man. A prepared pulpit should be balanced by a prepared pew. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." To the unthirsty man the Bible spring is without attraction as it rises and falls and plashes, unheard and unheeded. But to the thirsty traveller, sun-smitten and weary, how sweet, how tender, and delightful is the music of running brooks and streams!

A very solemn reflection occurs here. I feel no difficulty in laying down the doctrine that where the heart is unaffected, Christian service is more mischievous than beneficial. Let us understand and apply that doctrine so far as we may be able. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." If in our service, we touch everything but the heart, the service has done us more harm than good. What if our notions be increased, if our motives be left unbaptized with purifying fire? What if we have received a thousand new ideas into the intellect, if no angel has been received into the home of the heart? And what if we have been flattered and cajoled and "daubed with untempered mortar," if the word has not reached the very seat of the disease?

Pray for a ministry that shall affect the heart. We must have a heart-searching ministry. He who seeks after a comforting ministry only, and a restful one that shall give him no disturbance actually treats himself maliciously, and wounds his own life. Let us pray for a ministry that shall tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and leave the truth in the order of divine providence to make its own way in the intelligence, the affections, and the conscience of the world.

This great gospel revelation is an appeal to the heart; if your fancy has been titillated, or even your graver judgment satisfied, if your heart be left unpricked, untroubled, and untorn, the word has been in vain. Lay bare your hearts, say, in God's strength, "Let me hear the exact truth, yea, if it tear me to pieces and inflict upon me the severest cruelties, such piercing shall lead to a great joy." The effect was grand in every aspect. Three thousand souls were added in the city that day, unto them that were being saved. And this will be the effect of Christian teaching everywhere under the right conditions. People will be added to the Lord: the Lord's list will be enlarged every day, and there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God, over sinners that repent. Again and again we read that the people who heard the Apostolic preaching, "cried out." We have lost that cry: we have succumbed to the cold and benumbing spirit of decorum.

I read of men being carried away, forced into exclamation, of men, women and children coming together in common sorrow, and singing together in common joy; but today the Church may possibly have lost much in losing a healthy excitement. Christianity is not a picture to be gazed upon and admired as an instance of ancient skill. It is the fire of the Lord. It is the sword of the Spirit. It is a cry that can awaken a cry. And whilst it is perfectly true that there may be an irrational excitement which ought to be subdued and controlled, it is also true that there is a spiritual enthusiasm, a noble feeling, an absolute consecration without which the Church may be but a painted sepulchre.

This gracious effect having taken place, we find that the people continued steadfastly in the apostles" doctrine, and in fellowship, in breaking of bread and in prayers. That effect is just as remarkable as the other. The flock kept well together for fear of the wolf. Were we ourselves in heathen lands as Christians we should realize the joy of keeping closely together. We should want very often to see one another and to hear the voice of mutual instruction and encouragement. But living in a Christian land where Christianity has become a luxury, or in some instances even an annoyance, what wonder that we do not realize the primitive enthusiasm, and enter with delight into the original fellowship and union of the Church? The people continued in the right teaching. Until our teaching be right our life must be wrong. We must ask for the pure bread, the pure water, the undefiled Bible, and live on that; out of such nutritious food there will come proper results such as fellowship, sacramental communion, and common prayer. Therein perhaps some mistake may have been made. A man says, "I can pray by myself," that is perfectly true, but you should realize that you are something more than yourself; you are part of a sum total. A man is not at liberty in the Christian sense of manhood to detach himself from his race, from the common stock to which he belongs, and to live as if he had no relation to the great breadth of humanity.

Herein is the advantage of common prayer and common praise. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together." There is inspiration in sympathy, there is encouragement in fellowship. It does the soul good to see the hosts gathered together under the royal banner stained with blood; to see the great army marching shoulder to shoulder under the blast of the great trumpet. Continue steadfastly to realize your relations to your fellow-Christians and to the whole Church. "No man liveth unto himself" who lives aright. We belong to one another; the Lord's family is not broken up into units only, it is constituted and consolidated into a sacred and happy household.

Other effects followed; they had all things common, "they sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need." This is the sternly logical outcome of true inspiration. But having regard to all the social conditions under which we live this mechanical form of union is impracticable, as it is understood from the reading of the mere letter. But having lost this form, which broke down under the eyes of apostles themselves, we still reserve the spiritual outcome and meaning. My contention is that today Christianity makes all things common, and that Christian society as it is constituted in a Christian land is the true expression of the spirit which formed itself otherwise in primitive days. My strength is not my own, it belongs to the weakest child that I may see groaning under oppression. If I interfere in the case of an oppressed man, and if the oppressor should say to me, What have you to do with this man—he is not yours? Christianity obliges me to say he is mine. If you see an animal ill-used and ill-treated, though it be not yours in any technical or legal sense of the term, you are called upon to interfere by an earlier right, and by a diviner law. Whoever has strength owns it for the benefit of those who have none. Why give bread to that poor little child? the child is not yours. Yes, the child is mine by virtue of its necessity. It would not be mine in so tender a sense were it clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, but by its weakness, by its poverty, by its tears, by its homelessness, it is my child, and every man holds his possession as a trust, for every other man who is in respectable poverty.

So we must go to larger meanings, and no longer seek in little narrow definitions the whole meaning of the Christian revelation. This very thing, this high Christian socialism is now realized in Christian society, and society owes more to Christ in this respect than society is sometimes willing to admit. To me there is nothing good that I cannot trace back to the heart of the Son of God. Good thinking, true teaching, noble action, high motive, look where I may, I find the only satisfactory explanation of all these things in the priesthood, the doctrine, the life, the cross of the Son of God.

Christianity is followed always by the same effects. Do not let us give way to the mischievous suggestion that certain things happened in apostolic times which are impossible now. It is not so: that is where the Church has lost her inspiration, her weight and her spiritual philosophy. She is content to have a Christ two thousand years old. The Church is today defending the Christ of the first century instead of living the present Christ who is now praying for her. The historical argument will never cease to have its own proper value; documentary evidence must always be valuable in the very highest courts of Christian tribunal: but what we, the rank and file, have to do is this, to remember that Christ is but a day old as well as a thousand years old. Born today, as well as twenty centuries since; living today, as certainly as he lived when he walked in Jewry and did miracles in Galilee. But we have let him out of our grip; we have allowed him to pass us unnoticed. We are talking about ancient history instead of testifying to present experience. Let me call you—I would I could do so in trumpet tones, yea, with the boom and solemnity of thunder itself—to the realization of this doctrine, that Christ is now living, that his gospel is as mighty today as it ever was, that the human heart is unchanged, that the disease of the heart needs the exact remedy which is found in the gospel, and, if we faithfully and lovingly preach and live what we know of inspired truth, the hearts of men will own our call of God and our ministry by tongue and pen, and life shall not fall without some noble recognition and response.