The simple gospel

Dedication

When twenty years of age I was called of God into the ministry. My now sainted mother was the first person to whom I made the divine impression known. Calmly and without surprise she said, "My son, I have been praying ever since you were born that God would call you to preach the gospel." Of this she had never given me an intimation.

To her sacred memory this book is affectionately dedicated by the author.

Foreword

I have seen no carefully wrought analysis of those elements of power which have made the preaching of the author of this book notable in the South for nearly half a century. I therefore give my own impressions, as one who has had unusual opportunity to study, at close range, his rare and beautiful homiletic gift.

There are men in pulpits who are not preachers; but are primarily teachers or lecturers; sometimes, alas, they are ecclesiastical mountebanks. Perhaps they lack the public temperament. Sometimes we cannot define their lack; but they leave us unmoved. Their oratory is but a painted flame — it does not warm.

Not so with the author of this book. The moment he appears before you you feel that you are in the presence of a master of assemblies. A compelling magnetism establishes rapport between speaker and audience. Every eye is riveted, every attention fixed. This power of personality is one of the rare gifts of a preacher; and without this his words sometimes become "as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." We hear with outward decorum, but inwardly

"The heart says, 'Brother, go thy way, None shall ask thee what thou doest, Or care a rush for what thou knowest.' "

There is a moral and also a physical magnetism. The born orator, to whom God has given the birthright of golden speech, generally has also the physical magnetism ; but if a speaker lack this

Foreword 5

it cannot be acquired. Not so with the moral magnetism. It is born of moods; which in turn are born of the divine Spirit. The same man may have it today and be without it tomorrow. It comes of protracted "tarrying in the upper room.,,

Yet, it is not wholly the creature of transient states. Some men so constantly occupy their minds with thoughts of God, and prayer is such a fixed factor in the mental and moral life, that the holy mood becomes a holy habit; and like Fletcher, they carry with them "an awful sense of other worlds." This other worldliness we call moral magnetism because no force is more hypnotic. The humblest street-preacher, if he has it, will dominate an audience with irresistible power.

No preacher impresses two auditors precisely alike; but everyone who hears Bishop Morrison senses this quality In his quiet deliverances it is felt as a pervasive influence ; and in his more powerful moods it broods over an audience with an almost awful and oppressive power. Out of such preaching character is often re-conditioned with dramatic and startling suddenness; and sometimes whole communities are transformed as if by divine magic.

Another element of power which marks the author of this book is unity of character. In some instances the several elements of personality do not perfectly fuse; but our author has a perfectly unified personality; and this is always an element of power. The men who lack this ele-

6 Foreword

ment are but intellectual Hamlets halting between opinions and refining upon subtleties.

Truth lies before the author of "The Simple Gospel" straight as a highway in the sun. Without hesitation or reserve, he delivers his entire force, mental, moral and personal, upon the conscience of his audience; and the recoil is sometimes tremendous. He has never relied very much upon "the subliminal uprush." He has always been a hard student, seeking his material with a passionate avidity and rarely quoting the language of another. Given a suggestion or seedthought, ideas of his own throng him with almost bewildering profusion.

His mental world is a world of order. We have heard great preachers whose appeal was more to the imagination than to the reason ; and the effect was like lightning among mountains where landscapes form only to dissolve without leaving any definite impression. This is never true of the author of "The Simple Gospel." His clarity is a delight, and his sentences move to their objective straight as a sunbeam. He employs one central vertebral thought, and all the others are grouped about it. Every exposition, trope, or illustration clings to the central thought as steel filings to a magnet. And to this* delightful lucidness, there is added zest. Sentences volley and explode with epigrammatic percussion. Simile and metaphor rise unexpectedly, as the covey of birds from the wayside copse.

Foreword 7

There is nothing of the decadent or moribund ; and the effect is to stimulate rather than depress.

Readers of "The Simple Gospel" will also discover a versatility which is very rare. Even great preachers sometimes repeat other men, and repeat themselves ; but we have seen in the author's study, as many as eighty discourses in manuscript ; and we doubt whether there is so much as a paragraph repeated.

A final quality which we note is vitality. We have heard discourses which suggested the gloom of the morgue, and the length of the coffin. But the contents of this book are delightfully humanized. Vivacity and spontaneity are here. The discourses crackle and sparkle with the electricity of life; and, the secret of this vitality is in the author's first-hand relation to God and His truth.

Henry F. Harris.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

1. The Beginning 11

3. The First Language 26

Chapter I. The Beginning

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." — Gen. 1:1

This is the complete account of creation. The original language leaves out the definite article — "the" — and simply says, "In beginning God created the heavens and the earth." When that beginning was we know not. There is nothing before this verse, and it has no connection with the verses that follow. It is out to itself. The ark on the flood. The lone sail on the sea. The space of time between the first and second verses has never been measured. Creation is complete in this statement — heaven and earth, with all that constitute them as a structure.

THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY.— An erratic imagination may venture beyond this writing; but, like the raven let loose from the ark, it will wander away and Be lost. Truth, like the dove, finds no resting place for her foot ; and hence returns to find sure rest in this handwriting of God.

The vast reach of the text declares it divine. The birth of all being is announced in a sentence, and that as simple as childhood. Here are heaven and earth standing together at the threshold of history. New-born of the divine. Twins, and, like the Siamese, never to be separated ; and now making their debut into the economy of God.

THE BEGINNING OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.— This is the aim in redemption. For this Christ lived, suffered, and died; that He might do what this text does, bring us to God. This opening sentence is the type of the final coming together of God and man. The end expressed in the beginning. Here we meet God for the first time. Here the endless acquaintance begins. Here we meet Godhead, mystery, power. In the beginning; when was that? God — who is He? "Created" — what does this mean? Here is the fountain head of thought and inquiry. Here is food for eternal investigation. Here God is introduced under a name that implies tri-unity. The "Elohim;" the three one. Here we learn the name of the Father; and after the lapse of time we come nearer and see the Son ; and still later we have the Holy Ghost come and dwell in us. God in hearing. God in sight. God in us.

This text presents God as "past finding out." The mystery and simplicity are evidence that it is from God. The way of life is so plain that "the wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein ;" and other portions of Scripture so deep and strange that the philosopher must needs kneel and confess. "Thine, 0 Lord, is the wisdom." Here we see God at the extremes. In the simplicity of salvation, and in the darkness of His own counsels. God revealed, and God past finding out.

THE BEGINNING OF FAITH.— Faith begins here. Where God meets us faith begins. When

The Beginning 13

we walk with God we walk by faith. The little child is not anxious as to where it is, and where it is going; only so its father is holding its hand. So faith is not anxious to know of the beginning or the end; only so it knows that God is with it. Hence faith is satisfied with this text, not because it understands it, but because God is in it. All beginnings are mysterious. The beginning of life, consciousness, love, thought. All mysterious ; but faith is satisfied because "God is in all."

LEARNING TO BE A CHRISTIAN.— This is not like learning to spell, read, or reason. Faith has no A. B. C. to lead the heart by gradual induction. The Bible doesn't begin that way. Had it been a system of science it would have begun in that manner. But it is a system of faith, and faith has no need of such a process. Its first lesson is as difficult as its graduation. The soul is tested at the beginning. Abruptly and without preface you are called to believe that God is, and that He did create; that He did absolutely make something out of nothing. Not a mote or an atom, but a heaven and an earth. St. Paul states this test. "By faith (not science) we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God ;" (not arrange^ out of pre-existent matter, but created) , "so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear." Here is the test. If you can accept this first verse in the Bible, then you can believe all that is necessary to save your soul. The water in the stream of inspiration is as deep at the bank as in mid-current. If you cannot believe this text, then linger here and pray "Lord, increase my faith." Linger until He helps you to believe; and this will be your beginning of faith, love, life and immortality.

THE BEGINNING OF MANIFESTED LOVE. —Not the beginning of love; but the beginning of its manifestations. Labor is proof of love. Your continued and unflagging toil for your loved ones is proof of your love for them. God was here at work, not to build for Himself, for He inhabiteth eternity; but to build for another. Here is God's grand lesson in this wonderful text. Here we learn how to be co-workers with God. How to exalt our labor and make it worthy of the sons of God.

This was the daybreak of love. Creation creeping up from primeval darkness and unfolding her glory. This was the daybreak of divine love. I cannot see what is beyond the sunrise; but I see the light is there ; the glory of the morning filleth the far-off abyss. I cannot see what is beyond this text ; but the light is there, and I see the glory gleaming from beyond it. The beginning of that endless day of love that shall ever be rising and yet never reach its noon.

The new-made heavens and earth were the heralds coming up from eternity's wilderness crying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Christ had for His forerunner a solitary seer in rude raiment. Adam had for his herald creation in all the mystery of the morning song of time.

THE TWO POLAR POINTS.— These are where

The Beginning 15

God's love seems to culminate. Points where the horizon closes down and beyond which we can take no reckoning. Creation and Crucifixion. In creation we see how high He could exalt man ; in the crucifixion we see how low He could humble Himself. Creation tells what He did for us at first. Crucifixion tells what He suffered for us at last. Paradise and Calvary. Man living amid flowers — God dying among thorns. These are the extreme points of our vision. Eden's light and Gethsemane's gloom. The beauty and the blood. His work and His suffering can show us no more. All beyond is known to Him alone.

BEGINNING OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. — Here is God and what God has created. To know God is religion. To know what He has created is science. Both begin here. They have an even start and should always be kept even. But the mistake is, while religion believes and worships and rests in the Creator; science digs, and doubts and struggles with the things created. This is fatal when the man fails to know God, and shuts himself down to a simple knowledge of creation. The man who knows the world, the things created, and loves, and lives in them and for them, is an eternal mistake, a sort of homoswine — "Satisfied with snout of groveling appetite, to grub his happiness from the dirt."

THE PRIMER OF HUMANITY.— This life is the primary of eternity. We live on earth to study toward heaven. Earth is full of index hands pointing that way. Sometimes we come to a prov idential problem that we cannot solve. We turn it over, and around, and look at it through our tears; but all in vain, there is no solution. But heaven and earth were made by the same God, and at the same time; always connected and never in conflict. Hence these hard readings are right if we could only read them aright.

How often when in school have you tugged, and perspired, and fretted, and despaired, over a hard problem in mathematics. You tried again, and again, until your head ached ; and still the answer would not come like the answer in the book. And when the kind teacher solved the problem for you you were amazed at your own conclusion.

How we wrestle with the strange providences of God, and try in vain to understand them ! We study them with moist eyes and heavy heart, and sometimes conclude that they are wrong in the Book. That God has not directed this, and has nothing to do with it.

Heaven and earth can never be separated : God hath joined them together. This life and the other life are connected. Paul speaks of the "Whole family in earth and in heaven." His providences are only the golden chains that connect the two worlds. Here we can only feel our way. We can reach the golden links only for a short distance. We know to what they are fastened here ; but we cannot see the fastenings on the other side, nor the hand that is drawing them. But after a time we shall exchange worlds. We shall go up and stand at the other end of the providence chains.

The Beginning 17

Then shall we see how graciously those chains worked in the dark, how they drew the dear ones, that were in danger, up and out into eternal safety; how they drew those things gently out of our hands and possession which were becoming a snare and an injury. Like the faithful nurse amid the little ones in the nursery, catching away from the little hands that which might wound or hurt, the angels of God, the ''ministering spirits/' are watching this old world's nursery, catching away, so strangely, so sadly sometimes, the things that would be hurtful.

We try now to read the other life through the experiences of this life; but all in vain. The light is too dim. Sin has dimmed our eyes. The letters get mixed; the reading is broken and incorrect. But when we come to read the other way; to read this earth from heaven's light; when we ,tand in that light, where "there is no need of the light of the sun ;" when we read earth from heaven, then the reading will be all clear.

What a joy ! Amid the restful surroundings, on some sweet hillock, hard by the River of Life ; to sit down and quietly re-read our own history. What a revelation! To see how I was watched, guarded, pulled' back from destruction. How I fretted and chafed when things were taken from me, things that would have wrought my ruin. We will read and rejoice. Then read again and shout, "Thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory," and brought us safe home at last !

Chapter II. A Separation On The First Day

"And God divided the light from the darkness." — Gen.

1:4.

"I am the light of the world." — Jno. 9:5.

ut

'THE PHYSICAL CREATION ILLUS- TRATES THE MORAL."— The infant earth was born blind and "darkness was on the face of the deep." The first necessity was light. And God said "Let there be light; and there was light." The human soul — like the infant earth — is born blind. Darkness is on the face of the deep. A depravity which is hopeless and helpless. Like the new-born world, there is no life. But it abides in death until God says again, "Let there be light." That same "Spirit of God" which moved upon the dead waters, moves upon the dead soul and it awakes to see and know its condition. And under this light of conviction and the moving of the Holy Spirit there comes order out of moral darkness and chaos. And the soul is born again ; born from the dead; born from above.

"God saw the light that it was good." So the new-born soul when it sees the light of salvation, it shouts because of the goodness of that light, and rejoices as the angels in the morning-song of Creation.

TIME OF THE SEPARATION.— It was the first creation day on which "God divided the light from the darkness." Light and darkness are incompatible and cannot dwell together. The first thing that God did after He made the light was to put a division between it and the darkness. This division was not only the first, but an all-essential one. And in this God has given us the great lesson to learn and practice in the moral and religious life. To divide between the light and the darkness. The very first lesson for the young convert is to learn to distinguish between what is of God and what is of the world: and then to make the division — make it clear and distinct — and never to be reunited. God said when He instituted marriage, "Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder." So when He divorced the light from the darkness, it was forever. What God has thus put asunder let no man join together. And as the very existence of the day depends on this divorce, and upon keeping the darkness out of it; so the clear, bright Christian life depends upon its entire divorce from the world. A separation as definite as when "God divided the light from the darkness."

THE TWILIGHT LIFE.— This is a kind of truce between day and night. What a multitude trying to be Christians and yet unwilling to give up the world; clinging to its customs and its follies. These things darken their spiritual skies and rob them of their joys: while they find that as the light departs the darkness thickens. And when the light that is in them becomes darkness, "How great is that darkness !"

God divided between the light and the darkness before He proceeded with His work. Let us admonish you to follow the example. Follow the divine plan — separate between Christ and tihe world ; because Christ is the light of the world."

Christ divided in the moral world as clearly as is the division in the natural world between light and darkness. "Whoso loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him." "No man can serve two masters." "He that is not with me is against me."

LIGHT IS THE EMBLEM OF CHRIST IN HIS PURITY.— He said, "I am the light of the world." That is the moral world ; just as the natural light is the light of the physical world. And the natural light is the emblem of Christ's purity.

Sin has brought the world under the power of corruption and death. "By sin came death." However healthful the human form it contains the seeds of death. The flowers fade and the fruits only mature to rot. The earth is full of death, and death and corruption reign everywhere and over everything.

But the light, like the Master, is not in bondage to corruption. And, like Him, it "Shall never see corruption." It walks a conqueror through the grave-yards of the universe ; too pure for contamination. It will go into the abodes of filth ; creep through the crevice into the dark dungeon; stay all day in the contagion of the hospitals and pesthouses; find its way through the casement into the sick-room, and kiss the lips of the hopeless sufferer; and when the burial vaults are opened it goes down and creeps over the dust and bones of the dead; and yet withal, remains as pure as when it issued from the fountain of light at first.

Such is Christ in the moral world. Unaffected by sin and beyond its power of contamination. He stands the only one in the universe exempt from sin. Pure in life, in work, and teaching ; yea, His very grave pure. Like the light, He went everywhere with impunity ; too pure for contamination. He ate with sinners, suffered the sinful woman to caress and bathe His feet with her tears, touched the loathsome leper, mixed the clay and spittle for the eyes of the blind beggar, stood at the open grave and breathed the air from the four days dead, and yet remained as pure as when the shepherds gave Him welcome : and even when in the tomb, corruption, with hideous form, did not venture to tread the precincts of that tomb.

LIGHT IS A UNIVERSAL BLESSING.— God wrapped the young universe in a garment of light. He did not create the light for only a part of the world, but for all creation. For the pauper as well as for the prince. He did not light the sun to "put it under a bushel," but on the great solar candlestick and upon the center-table of the universe. Hence it "giveth light to all who are in the house."

Such is the universal light of Christ. Not the light of the Jew only nor the Gentile alone; but "The light of the world." Just as God wrapped the light about the new-born earth, so He wrapped His promise about the new-born race. "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." God gave them a covering of skins for the body and a covering of promise for the soul.

And though it was hard for them to leave their Eden home and go out among the thorns, yet they could go anywhere and endure anything when wrapped in God's promise. So we can go from prosperity to poverty: from affluence to indigence; and even "glory in tribulations," when wrapped in the promises of God.

THE LIGHT HAS A LIFE-GIVING POWER— The natural light is the element which the flowers breathe. If you would stop the breath of your favorite exotic you have only to set it away in the darkness of the cellar and it soon has the pallor of death.

Christ declares, "If ye believe in me ye shall have the light of life." And we have spiritual life in proportion to our proximity to Christ. When we turn from this light and crawl into some worldly cavern to hide treasures, or into some den of selfishness where we may evade duty or escape responsibility, then like the flower in the dark cellar, we are soon at the point of spiritual death.

Nothing is more detrimental to health than living too close to the ground. And nothing is more hurtful to the spiritual health than living too close to the world. What the church needs is light and sunshine. She needs to come up higher.

To leave the basements and darkness of the world and come into the higher and purer altitudes where the spiritual life — like the flowers in the sunlight — can live and flourish. If you would be strong and healthful Christians remember that "Prevention is better than cure." To keep clear of religious chills we must keep on high ground and live above the world.

WHAT SCIENCE HAS CONTENDED.— While light is friendly to health and is essential to life, some have contended that it has healing properties and power to cure disease. And about forty years ago, it was thought that science had discovered the process for extracting the healing properties of the light by means of blue-glass. Some of you remember the "blue-glass craze" that swept over the country. The papers were filled with the wonderful accounts of the healing property of the light when brought through blue-glass. Many homes had one window filled with blue-glass ; and the heart of many a sufferer beat with high hope, only to meet with sore disappointment. The sensation passed. The blue-glass disappeared from the journals and front windows, leaving the sufferers still to suffer.

But in Christ — the light of the world — there is healing power. The "Sun of Righteousness" has not only light, but healing in his beams. And God has revealed what science could never discover, that is, how we may extract the lifeelixir from the divine sunbeams. Not with blue-glass, but with the glass of the gospel. "Now we see though a glass darkly." Not by the natural light, but by the light of the Holy Spirit. This light comes to us through a crimson medium. It is red with the precious blood of Christ. And the divine Spirit, shining through it, throws a crimson glow and glory over our race. It is the blood that saves and the Holy Spirit that applies. The healing power of this blood-red light has been tested for thousands of years and has never failed of cure in a single case. The poor sufferer lay at the pool for "thirty and eight years" without help from that pool; the invalid carried in his easychair and placed before the blue-glass window for weary hours, only to be carried back in sad disappointment. But who ever placed himself before this gospel — this glass of God — looking through it by the light of the Holy Spirit, and failed to feel its healing power? This crimson light is a light no cloud can obscure, no sorrow can eclipse. It may be winter ; the sun gone and the heavens dark ; loved ones dead and the home sad ; still you can read this blessed word, feel its warmth and power, and shout for joy in its light. Take it when you visit the graves of your dead. And as you sit and sadly meditate, you forget the dust that sleeps, while it shows you the resurrection and brings Jesus to you as He came to the grave in Bethany ; and you hear Him say, "I am the resurrection and the life." "Thy loved and lost shall live again."

Has He healing power? Ask the "four and twenty thousand" at the throne— ask the millions bivouacked under the sod and awaiting the resurrection— ask the multitudes marching heavenward on this God's foot-stool ; ask the gray-heads in this congregation, if they have been healed by His power? They will tell you that "While the outward man is perishing the inward man is renewed day by day." May He evermore give us this light of life !

Chapter III. The First Language

Text: "The heavens declare the glory of God." — Ps. 19:1

The language of the skies was the first and most simple speech, sublime as the Divine and simple as childhood. This is the first language learned by the little child. It asks about the heavens and the great God that made them. It takes its first lessons from the heavenly alphabet. It asks about the great sun and the beautiful moon, as if they were the capitals, and then about the stars, which are the lesser A B C's of the heavens. We learned something of this sky language before we learned our letters. We learned it because it was simple and pleasant.

You can teach a little child more in an hour with a map spread before it than in a day or a week without the map. God mapped the lesson on the velvet of the skies, so nicely adjusted to the sensibility of the eye. Its color never cloys. Study the heavens for an age and they never become commonplace. Other things lose their charm. The toy pictures over which we clapped our hands with glee have long since lost their interest, but the skies are as lovely to us now as when we first asked about them in childhood. Like the "old, old story" the heavens are ever new. NOT A DEAD LANGUAGE— We love the

The First Language 27

speech that thrills; that eloquence which comes from an ardent soul thrilling through the words. There is life in the language of the skies. The sun warms His words into our blood and makes us feel what He says. The stars cause us to feel the far-away touch of that providence of which they silently speak. The balmy sky subdues the soul into a sense of its own sweet serenity.