Thoughts of and for the inner life : sermons

Front matter

■^1 tihraty of C^he 'theological ^tminavy

PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY

Lafayette College

Preface

THE thoughts expressed in these sermons are, in accordance with the title which is given to the vohinie, thoughts of and for the inner life. Such sermons are perhaps less often presented to hearers and readers in these now passing years than those which deal with external work and service and with the great activities of the Church on behalf of men who are outside of its limits. The inner life, however, does not lose its interest, or its infinite worth, to the Christian mind. The author hopes that some thoughtful Christians mayfind in what he has written a measure of useful suggestion that may repay them for the time which they chance to spend in looking over the pages of the volume. Thoughts are among the richest blessings which come to us in this world. Thoughts of the inner life are often richer than those of the outer Hfe.

The idea of the Christian life, which, in large measure at least, underlies the suggestions of the sermons, is that of a personal fellowship, a Divinehuman friendship, if we may use the term, between the believer and Christ. This is the Johannean idea, as set before us in the Fourth Gospel and viii PREFACE

the First Epistle, and is, to the mind of the writer of these discourses, one of the most beautiful and inspiring of all the thoughts presented to us in the New Testament.

The sermons have, most of them, been preached in the Chapel of Yale University to the audiences assembled there from time to time. Two or three of them have within themselves, as they are now printed, the evidences, very strongly marked, of their special purpose in relation to a company of young College men. Two or three others bear in them indications that they were written with reference to persons in a different sphere of life, or of a more advanced age. These things, however, are merely incidental, and, it is believed, will in no case lessen the interest or helpfulness — if, indeed, there be anything of this character pertaining to them — which they may have for any reader.

The volume now goes forth whithersoever it will — or whithersoever it may. May it bear a message of peace and of love in itself.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

Yale University, April, 1899.

Contents

Page

I. The Unnamed Disciple i -

II. Each Man's Life a Plan of God 19