An unshaken trust and other sermons

Contents

SERMON PAGE

I. An Unshaken Trust 19

II. Ebenezer 36

Introduction

Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, the author of the following sermons, stands easily as the prince of Southern Baptist preachers ; and if I should leave off the qualifying word Baptist, and even the word Southern, I should not perhaps miss the mark very far. At the meeting of the Baptist Young People's Union of America in Chattanooga, in July, 1897, Dr. Hawthorne preached what was called the Convention sermon. It was in his best style. A brother from the North afterward remarked to a Southerner : " I didn't know you had anybody down here who could preach like that." "Oh," replied the Southerner, " we have plenty of them." But I rather doubt it, though admiring the loyal pride of the Southerner.

Dr. Hawthorne comes by his eloquence honestly. His father, Rev. Kedar Hawthorne, was a sturdy pioneer Baptist preacher of Alabama. As the result of his labors he baptized more people than any minister who ever lived in Alabama — between five and six thousand. A prosperous planter, he preached at first without salary. He was a constituent member of the Southern Baptist Convention. The son entered the ministry at about twenty-two years of age. He had received a liberal education for those days, at the Military Academy, Camden, Ala., and at Howard College, where he took both a literary and a theological course.

His eloquence early attracted attention, and pulpits all over the land were open to him. He filled successively the pulpits of the Broad Street Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala. ; the First Baptist Church, Selma, Ala. ; Franklin Square Baptist Church, Baltimore, Md. ; Broadway Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky. (of which he was the first pastor, and whose beautiful house of worship was erected under his ministry) ; Tabernacle Baptist Church, New York City ; the First Baptist Church, Montgomery, Ala. ; the First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. ; the First Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga. ; and the First Baptist Church, Nashville, Tenn., where he is now, and where I trust he will long remain. All of these pulpits he filled with distinguished ability, large congregations attending upon his ministry. The members of the various churches grew in numbers and in all Christian graces. His last three pastorates — in Richmond, Atlanta, and Nashville — have been notably successful. His audiences at the First Baptist Church, Nashville, are only limited by the capacity of the building.

Dr. Hawthorne is a natural orator. In person he is six feet four inches in height, with a massive frame, which gives him a commanding presence, and secures attention before he utters a word. He is a very Apollo in appearance, as well as an Apollos in eloquence. His face is smooth shaven, mobile, and expressive. His features are classic, not unlike those of Edwin Booth. In repose they are strong and manly. In the heat of speech they are capable of expressing every emotion, from a smile of sympathy to a storm of passion. His voice is round and full, highly cultivated, well modulated, and always under perfect control. In fact, with him, as it was with Spurgeon, his voice forms no small element in his success as an orator. His enunciation is clear and distinct, so that each word can be easily heard by every one in the audience. His manner at first is slow and deliberate. He moves off with the calm dignity of an ocean steamer, or of an avalanche just loosed from its moorings. But as he warms up to his subject he becomes like the steamer in mid-ocean, proudly plowing the mighty waters, or like the avalanche as it rushes onward and sweeps all before it. He reminds one in his manner, not of the foaming, dashing mountain torrent, but rather of the broad, majestic river.

.His mental characteristics correspond with his physical. He is a strong, clear thinker. He is more the rhetorician than the logician, more the poet than the historian, more the orator than the debater. But he is by no means lacking in the qualities of the logician, the historian, and the debater. He knows what he wants to say and he says it — says it beautifully, says it grandly, but he says it, and says it so that every one understands what he meant to say. In the preparation of his sermons he is most painstaking, spending hours and often days upon them. Most of them are written in full, but many of them are either extemporaneous or only partially written. He is fortunate in having his son, Mr. C. W. Hawthorne, as his stenographer. To him he dictates his written sermons after careful study upon them. They are taken down on the typewriter in large letters. Dr. Hawthorne then goes over the sermon, underscores a catch word or two in each sentence, and takes the manuscript to the pulpit with him, but he has so familiarized himself with the sermon that he makes but little reference to the manuscript, and the listener is scarcely aware that he has it before him at all. His style is smooth, elevated, dignified, never low or vulgar. He seldom makes attempts at wit, or tries to play upon the emotions. But not infrequently smiles light up the countenances of his audience and tears steal down their cheeks. He abounds in illustrations, but they are always of a high order, often either scriptural or historical. He is more of a topical than a textual preacher, discussing great themes rather than specific texts.

But while nature has done much for Dr. Hawthorne, grace has done more. His sermons are not simply cold, beautiful, intellectual compositions. They come from his heart as well as from his head. He is more of a preacher to the head than to the heart, perhaps, but he reaches the heart also — reaches the heart through the head. In all that he says there is an atmosphere of spirituality, a tone of devotion. Back of the beautiful sentences uttered in so eloquent a manner you feel the throbbing brain and the pulsing heart of a man, drawing you into close sympathy with him. It is said that when people heard JEschines they would go away saying, " Isn't he a splendid orator?" When they heard Demosthenes they would exclaim, with clenched fists and flashing eyes, " Let us fight Philip." Dr. Hawthorne, in these respects, is a combination of both iEschines and Demosthenes as an orator. People admire him and at the same time they are moved to want to be and do better. Dr. Broadus says that " Eloquence is so speaking as not merely to convince the judgment, kindle the imagination, and move the feelings, but to give a powerful impulse to the will." Dr. Hawthorne has all these elements of true oratory, including the last.

The writer remembers very vividly an experience of his own which illustrates this point. It was at the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, at Montgomery, Ala., in 1886. Dr. Hawthorne preached the Convention sermon. His text was : " Where is the Lord God of Elijah ? " The sermon was a plea for courage and boldness in dealing with the foes of the Living God all about us now. At its conclusion he asked : " Who will be an Elijah to stand against the foes of God?" The young preacher sitting on the front seat and listening intently to every word of the sermon, was wrought up to the point of enthusiasm, and it was all he could do to keep from jumping up on the seat and exclaiming, "I will, doctor, I will." This experience is probably only one of many others of a similar nature which might be related by those who have sat under the ministry of Dr. Hawthorne.

A large part of Dr. Hawthorne's power consists in his intense earnestness. He evidently feels every word he says, and he wants you to feel its importance also. He does not speak simply to please, but to move, to help. He has a practical aim in it all, which he keeps, and makes you keep, constantly in view. He drives continually to that end. He is of a very positive nature. He always takes his stand on one side or the other of any question. And he goes all the way, whichever way he goes. He has convictions, and he is absolutely fearless in expressing them. He may not always be right, but he is always positive. His disposition is of the combative order. His " hot Southern blood," as he calls it, makes him somewhat impulsive. He is never so much at home as when attacking something, especially the evils of the day, and above all the liquor traffic, which is his pet abomination. When denouncing these evils his sarcasm is most biting, his invectives withering. At such times, as some one said of Daniel Webster, " each word weighs a ton." His sentences crack like a whip and cut like a knife. He seems the spirit of eloquence incarnate, the genius of oratory in the midst of a battle, where thought is powder, words are bullets, and he himself is the heavy artillery, volleying and thundering against the foe. At other times, when there is no special battle against sin raging, he is as smooth as a river, but always interesting, always helpful, always elegant and eloquent. Many of his sentences are polished until they shine with resplendent beauty, but the beauty is that of the mountain rather than of the flower, a lofty grandeur rather than an insipid prettiness. He is an orator ; but he is pre-eminently a pulpit orator, discussing noble themes in a manner befitting their dignity. He believes thoroughly in those grand old Baptist principles which have come down to us from Christ and his apostles, often through fire and through blood, and which he has loved to preach for so many years. But in his advocacy of them he never forgets that he is a Christian gentleman. He puts Christ before the church, the blood before the water always. He prefers the spirit of Christianity to its form, the substance to the shadow. Rites and ceremonies he abominates, and hypocritical pretensions his soul abhors.

His private character is of the purest and loftiest type. He loves virtue, loathes vice ; admires honesty, and despises meanness or trickery. It is this high character which gives him to a large extent his popularity both as a man and as a preacher, and which adds weight and dignity to his utterances. He is oftentimes regarded as cold and haughty, holding his brethren at arm's length from him. People at first are disposed to stand somewhat in awe of him. But never was there a greater mistake made about a man. He is as simple and unaffected as a child, easily approachable by any one, companionable in the highest degree, warm-hearted, loving, and lovable, with a sincerity and transparency about his character which make it very, beautiful. I do not know any one who has received as much praise that is as completely unspoiled by it, and as apparently unconscious of it. Through it all he is the same simple, genial Christian, the same

INTKODUCTION 15

noble, manly man, brave as a lion, but tender as a woman and generous to a fault. It is this individuality, this strong personality, this manliness of character, that constitutes one of the chief sources of his power. For after all, our sermons are simply the reflection of our characters, the projection of ourselves into the pulpit. He is a man among men. But his manhood is subdued, refined, ennobled, guided, dominated by the principles of Christ. To him to live is Christ. Christ lives in him, and the life he now lives is the Christ life. When he speaks he speaks for Christ, and Christ speaks through him.

Preaching is hard work, the hardest work in the world. It brings into play every part of a person, physical, mental, and spiritual. The half-hour during which he stands before the people to preach puts a tremendous strain upon the preacher, a draft upon all his forces. It is a supreme test of the man. But while hard it is glorious business when it is glorious, though most inglorious w T hen it is inglorious. The privilege of being an ambassador for Christ, of standing before men and beseeching them in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God, is one which angels might well covet. What preacher worthy of the name is there who does not "love to tell the story of Jesus and his love," whose soul does not thrill with rapture as he repeats the message entrusted to him ? Oh, the joy of that hour ! What joy can compare with it ? There is no happiness on earth to equal it, and I doubt if there will be any in heaven superior to it. And then when he who delivers the message is one who has sat often at the Saviour's feet and dwelt in his inner chambers and learned his holiest secrets, who has looked into the King's face, who is himself a master of assemblies, and can sway people with his words as the grain is swayed in the breeze, what sacred bliss, what infinite joy ! Such is the experience of Dr. Hawthorne.

Dr. Hawthorne has a lecture on the subject of " The World's Great Orators," which he recently delivered in his own pulpit on a week night to an audience which filled the large house, despite the fact that an admission fee was charged. Of course he did not include himself in the list of the world's great orators. But he might have done so. For among them all there have been few who have combined more of the graces and beauties and at the same time the triumphs of true oratory than are combined in him.

He is now sixty-one years of age. But despite some recent ailments resulting from malaria and grip, his general health is good. His constitution is strong and robust. For one who has done the work he has he is a well-preserved man. The gray hairs are just beginning to show plainly in his long, black, glossy locks. He ought to have ten or even twenty years more of good solid work for the Master in him. I trust he may be spared to accomplish it. But it can be only a few years at most that he shall be with us. When he falls it will be like the falling of a giant oak in the midst of the forest, like the falling of some bright particular star from the heavens. Those of us who are living will hardly look upon his like again. He seems

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm ; Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

John of Antioch was called Chrysostom, " the golden-mouthed"; Bossuet, "the eagle of eloquence " ; Edward Everett, " the silver-tongued orator." All of these expressions might be applied to Dr. Hawthorne. It seems to me, though, that there is one adjective which peculiarly fits him — magnificent. Magnificent in appearance, magnificent in diction, magnificent in character, magnificent as a man, magnificent as a preacher — " Hawthorne the Magnificent," so let it be.

The following sermons, after being preached in his own pulpit, were published in the " Baptist and Reflector," where they were read with the greatest delight and profit by a large circle of readers. Among them, it should be stated, are some of the best sermons of his life, which he has been especially requested to put in permanent form. The published sermons lack much in losing the commanding presence of the author, the force of his personality, the fire of his flashing eyes, the modulation of his voice, all of which go far toward impressing them upon his audience. But still one finds in them his eloquent diction, his elevated thought, his classic illustrations, and breathing through all his earnest purpose and his noble spirit, which make even the written sermons exceedingly interesting and helpful. That those published in this volume may prove such to the reader, leading him to a higher, better, truer, more consecrated Christian life, I most earnestly join my prayers with those of the distinguished author.

Edgar Estes Folk.

Nashville, Tenn.

"Let come on me what will. . . Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. ,, Job 13 : 13, 15.

God delights to honor a true man. He takes pleasure in placing him where the world may see the excellence of his character and feel the power of his life. But before he sets him in a regal place and encircles his brow with a crown of glory, he suffers him to be tried. He subjects him to a baptism of fire. He lets the world and Satan smite him with manifold afflictions. In this way he prepared such men as Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Carey, and Judson for their exalted stations and work. Having suffered with Christ, they now reign with him over the hearts and lives of men.

God saw in his servant Job a man in whom he was well pleased. " Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil ? " Such integrity must not be permitted to dwell in obscurity. It must be exalted and made visible to men of every land and age. But as a preparation for such exaltation, Job must pass through great tribulation.

What God loves the devil hates. What God delights to honor the devil loves to defame. When God said, " Hast thou considered my servant Job, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil," the devil answered, " Doth Job fear God for nought ? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side ? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." By this Satan means that Job is a hypocrite, that selfishness is behind all his piety and fealty to God, and that if deprived of his temporal prosperity he would be utterly wicked and faithless.

The devil to-day is just what he has ever been. The same sneer is on his face and the same venom is on his lips. Where is the man in this city, in this country, or in the wide world, who fears God and eschews evil in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, against whom some emissary of Satan has not brought the charge of insincerity and hypocrisy ? How often we hear the remark, " Such a man belongs to the church because it helps him in his temporal affairs. He gets the patronage of the church in his business. But let misfortune come upon him, let him lose his custom, and let his business go down, and he will make shipwreck of his faith." Who has not heard the mean indictment that ministers of the gospel are mere hirelings, that they are preaching for pay, that they are making merchandise of religion, that they have no faith in what they preach, that they care nothing for the souls of men, and that if their emoluments were taken from them they would desert their flocks, go over to the ranks of infidelity, and curse the Christ whose gospel they have preached ?

If the men who make these charges are sincere, they not only repudiate Christianity, but pronounce themselves utterly faithless toward men. They believe that man is too selfish to be able to approximate an act of disinterested goodness. They believe that all his conduct toward God and his fellow-men is inspired solely by the desire and purpose to advance his own earthly interests.

Just that is what the devil professes to believe, and you know what the devil is. He has neither pity nor respect for man. He is man's enemy. His work is to degrade and damn him. Men who have no confidence in their fellows have none in themselves. Believing the whole human race to be entirely selfish, all their transactions are inspired solely by the love of self. They use their fellow-men only as instruments to accomplish their selfish ends. If it is to their interest to applaud a man they bind the laurel on his brow, but if they can put money in their purse or elevate themselves to political office by detraction and slander, there is nothing in their depraved hearts to restrain them.

No man is better than his faith. He who has faith in mankind, he who sees among the ruins of the fall traces of a primeval glory which through God's infinite grace may be recovered, he who believes that there is human pity that is real, and human love that is pure, he who believes that there is a Godward side to man's being which is capable of real fellowship with the true and good, is man's friend. But he who believes that the central and ruling principle of every human heart is the love of self and that human aspiration can rise to nothing higher and nobler than the gratification of self, is man's enemy. Like Satan, conscious of his own depravity and vileness, he would drag earth and heaven down to a level with himself.

How miserable must such a man be ! In all the broad world of humanity he sees nothing that is worthy to be loved and honored, and nothing in which he is willing to confide and look for sympathy and support in the day of trouble. Satan said he was going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. He is the most miserable being in the universe because he loves nothing and confides in nothing. Peace has forsaken the breast of that man who believes that the regnant principle of every human heart is unmitigated selfishness. Such a belief unfits him for the enjoyment of any blessing. He looks upon every man as his enemy. He regards all human conduct as deceptive and every offer of kindness as the forerunner of a base betrayal. Regarding himself as a devil incarnate in a world of devils, he walks up and down the earth, hoping to find some grains of comfort in reviling and cursing his fellow-men. His years are all winter, his world all hollow and false, and his universe all gloomy and ghastly.

Young men, the days are evil. The moral atmosphere which you breathe is laden with poison. All around you are men whose material prosperity depends upon your degradation. Just to the extent that they corrupt your minds and lives they add to their ill-gotten gains. These men would tell you that man is incurably selfish, and therefore incapable of disinterested goodness. They would tell you that those Christian temples are only monuments to the hollowness and hypocrisy of the men who built them. They would tell you that religion is only a cloak, under which men seeking their own aggrandizement conceal the iniquity of their hearts. They would tell you that even the men who have been leaders of our sacramental hosts, and whom the world has loved and honored for their Christian virtues, were deceivers of mankind and went down to their graves with a lie on their lips.

They would teach you to despise the faith of the Christian mother who nurtured your childhood and to despise the counsels of the Christian father who breathed upon you his dying benediction. They would persuade you to forsake the Christian sanctuary and spend your Sabbaths in club rooms. They would tell you that IngersolPs tracts are better than the Bible, and the lascivious songs of the beer saloon sweeter than the songs of Zion. They would entreat you to hate and cry down every man who would put restraints upon unholy lust or who w T ould insist upon honesty in business and fair dealing at the ballot box.

These are the men who set themselves up as your teachers, and who would give direction to your lives. Will you accept such a leadership ? Will you allow them to destroy your reverence for all things sacred ? Will you suffer them to pluck from your hearts the faith that was planted there by a mother's love, and the lessons of honor and rectitude received from a father's lips ? Will you exchange the cup of the Lord for the cup of devils ? Will you forsake Christ for Belial? If not, then join in holy alliance with those who are fighting the worst adversaries of God's truth and man's welfare, and help to generate a moral atmosphere in which this upas tree of infidelity, blasphemy, and dishonesty cannot live.

Are there any honest men in the w T orld ? The devil says there are none. Among the millions of men and women who wear the Christian regalia and follow the crimson banner of the cross, are there any who love truth and righteousness more than themselves, and whose allegiance to God's cause cannot be shaken by any tempest of adversity? The devil says there are none. He is a liar, and the truth is not in him. His indictment is a libel as black as the starless night to which eternal justice has consigned him.

I am not blind to the world's depravity. I recognize the fact that among the millions who claim to be believers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, there are many whose hearts and lives are stained with the deepest hypocrisy. But virtue has not forsaken the world ; honesty, honor, and patriotism still live. In the marts of trade there are thousands of men whose moral integrity has withstood every temptation to wrong dealing. The assumption of certain political henchmen that every American voter has his price is absolutely false. That there is a large element of our population who have no appreciation of the dignity and responsibility of citizenship, I do not deny. That vast sums of money have been raised to corrupt the ballot, and that thousands of ignorant and impecunious wretches have bartered their birthright, I am compelled to admit. But patriotism lives; and I believe will live forever in the hearts of the American people. The majority of the property holders of this country in the last Federal election voted for what they believed to be for the welfare of the whole country. And there are millions of the horny-handed sons of toil in our workshops and factories, on our farms and in our mines, who would resent as an unpardonable insult to their manhood any attempt to purchase their ballot or to intimidate them in the exercise of their constitutional right to vote according to their honest convictions.

Unselfish devotion to Christ's kingdom is one of the most manifest realities of this world. The pages of history are luminous with the names of men who were loyal to God in the midst of affluence and luxury, and who were equally loyal in the depths of poverty.

I have gone to the almshouses of this country and found men who were once merchant princes. They were Christians in the heyday of their temporal prosperity, but still better Christians in the dark day of adversity. All such facts demonstrate that man is capable of disinterested fealty to God 7 and that when he plants himself by faith on the foundation of God's eternal truth, not even the gates of hell can prevail against him.

In the sacred narrative before us Satan declares that selfishness is at the bottom of Job's uprightness and piety, and that if Job's material possessions were taken from him he would not only forsake religion, but curse the Holy Being whom he had worshiped and served. God accepts the challenge and suffers the test to be made. All that Job has of temporal treasure is placed within the power of Satan. From what follows we may judge what would become of the possessions of any God-fearing and upright man, if Satan were allowed absolute control of them. If it were proclaimed to-day by the civil authorities of this country that for the next week all laws against vice and crime would be annulled, and that all evil-doers should, within that period, be absolutely free to do whatever their malign passions should prompt them to do, what a reign of terror would ensue. Scarcely a Christian home would escape the torch. Stores would be rifled, banks robbed, and factories and churches demolished.

That such results would follow the removal of all restraints from evil-minded men we can readily believe when we see how the upright man in the land of Uz fares in the hands of Satan. At a time when he had no thought of evil, and imagined himself secure beneath the protecting arm of Him whom he had served so faithfully, there came a messenger and said : " The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away ; yea, they have slain thy servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

Hardly had this messenger finished his sad story before there came another, who said : " The fire of God is fallen from heaven and hath burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee."