Old stories with new lessons...

Dedication

TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF ONE WHO WAS MUCH IN MY THOUGHTS WHILE

WRITING THESE PAPERS,

WHO WALKED WITH ME TO THE PLACE OF BUSINESS AND TO THE HOUSE OF GOD J

Preface

I have one principal purpose in making this book : it is to do good to young people. I have had so much to do with them, especially in the later years of my life, that I have come to have something like the paternal feeling towards them ; and I am encouraged to issue this work by the many evidences that have come to me of the help that my other books have been to the young ; some of these expressions coming from persons of whom I have no other knowledge.

The preparation of these chapters has covered much time ; and in many instances I have forgotten to indicate by quotation marks what has been borrowed. Without hesitation I acknowledge my obligations to many writers for some of the thoughts and even for the language in this book.

The style of direct personal address, which is so marked, is the form in which the papers were originally cast, and is retained as not unsuited to the purpose of the book.

Philadelphia, October 1, 1888.

Think not that thou canst sigh a sigh,

And thy Maker is not nigh ;

Think not that thou canst weep a tear,

And thy Maker is not near.

Oh, he gives to us this joy,

That our griefs he may destroy ;

Till our grief is fled and gone

He doth sit by us and mourn. — William Blake.

Like one that waits and watches he hath sat As if there were none else for whom to wait, Waiting for us, for us, Who keep him waiting thus, And who bring less to satisfy his love Than any other of the souls above. — Faber.

Am I going out into the business and turmoil of the day, when so many temptations may come to do less honorably, less faithfully, less kindly, less diligently, than the Ideal Man would have me do ? . . . Am I going to do a hard duty, from which I would be gladly turned aside — to refuse a friend's request, to urge a neighbor's conscience ? Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. — George MacDonald.

Introduction

OUR FATHER.

The Lord's Prayer is often on our lips but very little in our hearts, and it is most imperfectly understood.

The Lord Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased his disciples came unto him. It is not likely that this was in a very public place, for on another occasion we learn that, when he withdrew for prayer, he went as far as a stone's throw from his companions into the deeper shade of the garden of Gethsemane. He was not given to praying in public places ; he condemned this habit in the Pharisees.

And yet he was near enough to the disciples for them to observe him ; and when his prayer was ended, they came and asked him to teach them to pray as John also had taught his disciples.

In answer to this request,, he taught them that form of words which has come down to us through these many centuries, and which we have now in our own language. We call it the Lord's Prayer.

How long he was engaged in prayer, or what he prayed for, we do not know ; but if you or I had seen him as he was bowed on his knees, with clasped hands and face upturned to his Father in heaven, with what interest we should have regarded him ! It is a very interesting and a very affecting sight to look at people who are praying. One week day, in the grand cathedral at Cologne, a plain woman, with what seemed a market-basket in her hand or on her arm, came m, placed her basket on the stone floor, and with her face to the altar kneeled down and said her short prayer; then arose, took up her basket and passed on her way. I was there for another purpose. The magnificent church, the splendid architecture, the surpassingly beautiful stained-glass windows, and the thought that pious men, hundreds of years ago, had conceived the idea of building the great church for the worship of God, deeply impressed me; but this poor woman, kneeling on the stone floor and saying her prayer, almost rebuked me.

If we had looked upon the Saviour as he was prayings should we not have wished that he might remember us in his prayer? We sometimes ask Christian friends to remember us in their prayers, but what would it have been to be remembered in his prayers ?

And yet a prayer of his is recorded, word for word, in which we are remembered, not by name, but as a class. In the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel, and in the twentieth verse, we read, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word." This includes you and me, if we are believers and followers of the Lord Jesus.

After our Lord ceased praying his disciples came and made a request. They wanted to be taught how to pray. " Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."

Are we to suppose that the disciples of Jesus did not know how to pray? Is this strange? Are there not some of us even in this day who do not know how to pray? And we know more of Christianity than the disciples of Jesus did in the early part of his ministry. Yet how little we know of the nature of prayer to God ! We say the Lord's Prayer

OUR FATHER. 13

over and over again ; we follow in the prayers of others ; we hear and are supposed to join in the prayers of the church ; and our utterances often mean no more to us than the parrot when repeating the words of its keeper.

A young girl in a Sunday-school class that I was teaching lingered one day after the class was dismissed and asked me to teach her how to pray. She told me that she said her prayers every night and every morning, as she kneeled at her bedside, but sometimes she felt that she was not praying. She was only saying her prayers.

Some people seem to be praying who are only in the attitude of prayer. You bow your heads in church, in the school-room, at the table ; you kneel down in the family or by your bedside; your thoughts wander; you are drowsy; you fall asleep on your knees ! How many people in church drop on their knees or bow their heads in their hands, and think little of the solemn words they are saying or to which they are listening ! And then how often do we pray for things which it would not be best for us to have ! Even in the first century the apostle James could say, " Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures." (Revised Version.)

Our Lord answered the request of his disciples, and gave them a form of prayer — a model prayer. I think he did not intend that they should offer this prayer every time they met for worship or prayed in secret, though there is no objection to this if we wish to do so. As I understand it, he gave it as a model on which all prayers should be constructed. He begins by saying, " When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven," as St. Luke has it ; or, " After this manner therefore pray ye," as St. Matthew has it "Our Father which. art in heaven."

The request which his disciples made was itself a prayer ; and it was answered as all real prayers are answered. The first words, u Our Father/' are the key which opens the door of heaven. Think how many people have offered this prayer ! Beginning with the apostles, to whom it was first taught, and on down through the fathers of the Church, for more than eighteen hundred years it has been continually used. Paul probably offered it in his Roman prison, shivering with the cold and longing for the companionship of his son Timothy. The martyrs in the Coliseum about to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, the Christian disciple chained to the stake and soon to be burned, and many a little child in the agonies of death, have offered this prayer.

In how many languages has it been offered ! First in the Greek language, in which it was originally spoken, or rather probably in the Aramaic or Syro-chaldaic (which was the spoken language of that time and country); then in old Latin, in Syriac, in French, in Italian, in German, in Saxon, and down to us in English ; and now, in hundreds of the languages of earth, does this best of all prayers go up to God every day and every hour in the day. I have heard these sacred words as they w r ere offered out in the woods where Christians worshipped God in tents on the camp-ground ; I have joined in their use with other voyagers on the deck of the rolling ship on the great ocean ; I have heard them chanted in the cathedrals of old England over and over again in a single service by boys' voices ; I have heard little Roman Catholic children say them as their pater noster, stopping at the church on their way to school with their little satchels on their backs ; and I am sure no prayer was ever so full as this and so well adapted to all people everywhere. They are the most familiar words in the Bible. They are the first words

OUR FATHER. 15

we ever heard from the Bible. They are more often said than any other words of prayer. We cannot remember the time when we first heard them. It must have been as our mothers held us on their laps, or as we kneeled at their side resting our young heads on their knees.

Everybody understands these words, " Our Father," for even those who have not had good fathers have known other boys who have. We know how fathers love their children. We know how children love a good father. What is a good father f

A good father loves his children. They are always near his heart. When they are treated unkindly, how he resents it ! Let any one speak harshly or unjustly or even slightingly of them, how keenly he feels it ! When they do well, how happy he is ! In fact, most of the thrills of joy or pain that good parents feel come to them through their children.

A good father is thinking about his children and planning for them and working for them continually. No distance is so great as to separate them from him in thought. He may be very far from home, in a strange land and alone ; he may be engaged all day in business or in sight-seeing ; but when he returns to his lodging in the evening and finds letters from home and sits down to read them, and the home scenes and home life are brought vividly before his mind, see how his eyes glisten, and soon the tears roll down his cheeks. The love of wife and children has been in his heart all day and all the time, but now he is no longer in his lonely lodging; he is at home again in thought, and the children are gathered round him calling him father.

A good father teaches his children. He wants them to have all useful knowledge. He spares no expense in their education. He withholds nothing which will promote their advancement in the knowledge of things that will make them useful and happy. He is careful also that no word shall escape his lips, and no act find expression in his life, the imitation of which would hinder or hurt his children.

A good father pities his children. When they are in trouble, he is troubled also. If they are sick, he is anxious ; if they are ill, he is distressed. If misfortune in any form befall them, he is unhappy; if they fall into crime, he hangs his head, his heart is broken, he wants to save them. Life to him after this is not worth living. In all history, in all literature, there is nothing more sad, nothing more pathetic, than the story of David, who, when informed of the death of his son Absalom, slain in rebellion, " went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept : and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son !"

God loves children not because they are good, for they are not all good, but because they are his children. A human father cannot help loving his children, even if they are not good. So God loves you and me, even if we do not yet love him.

God the good Father is thinking of his children. He teaches them. He pities them when in trouble or sorrow. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." He spares nothing, he withholds nothing, not even his well-beloved Son, to save us.

And see what privileges his children have ! A child at home in his father's house has the freedom of the house. He goes anywhere and everywhere. No part of the house is closed against him. Nothing is too good for him. He is at home. His father loves him, and he knows it. He always has the audience of his parents. Other people call on bus-

OUR FATHER. 17

iness or socially ; they cannot be sure of a reception, but the son is at home ; he is of the family.

A Roman emperor was once returning from successful war to the imperial city. It was a triumphal entry. The streets were thronged with people and lined with soldiers. The emperor, in his ivory chariot with gay horses, passed slowly through the crowded streets, receiving with evident pleasure the shouts of the people. Armed guards kept the passage clear and permitted no one to cross the street. Presently a boy darted through the crowd and ran up to the ivory chariot. The emperor stooped and lifted the boy to his arms. No other boy in the great city of Rome would have dared to do such a thing ; but this was the emperor's son : nothing was too bold for him.

There is one condition, and one only, wdiich will secure to us the benefits of this relationship to a divine Father. There comes a voice from the heavenly world w T ith these words : " My son, give me thine heart." It is the voice of our Father who is in heaven. It is a father's voice. There is no reproach for the past, however unworthy, ungrateful or sinful the past may have been ; it is only for the present and the future, Give me thy heart, my son !

Do not think you can put off this subject as long as you please, and then take it up as you please. This is a fatal delusion. And even if it were possible, think how ineffably mean and unworthy it would be to spend life in reckless wickedness, and then turn to God toward the end of life and offer him a heart wasted and impoverished by sinful courses ! " Let me have my pleasures," says one (meaning sinful pleasures), — " let me have my pleasures first; let me sow my w T ild oats." Ah ! but remember, " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." If you sow wild oats, you will reap 2 wild oats. If you sow to the wind, you shall reap the whirlwind.

I have thus tried to present God as a Father ; as one—

1. Whom you can love.

2. Whom you ought to love.

3. Whom you wish to live with in heaven.

Oh, if I could persuade any of my readers, even one or two, to look up to God who is " our Father in heaven," and give him the heart which he so justly claims — a heart which can be given, but which, alas, can be withheld from him, — if I could prevail with one to do this, then should I bless God that he has given me the power to write and you the inclination to read these counsels. Then would you, as long as life lasts, find a deeper meaning in this best of all prayers. Then would you know, as you never yet have known, what it is to say,

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our

DEBTORS.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. amen.

Give us Abram's faith unshaken

That the promise must be true, And what God hath undertaken

He assuredly will do ; Which not only could unmoved

Trust the covenant of grace, But the thing which he most loved

At the Lord's disposal place.

And he will come in his own time and power

To set his earnest-hearted children free; Watch only through this dark and painful hour,

And the bright morning yet will break for thee.

— Lyra Domestica.

He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a man of power.

— Guthrie.

Chapter I. Abraham

Somewhere in the far East, and far back in history, before the Christian era, before Moses or David — indeed, almost at the beginning of written history — there lived a man distinguished above most men that the world has known. It is not easy to say exactly where he lived, but it was in the region watered by the great rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was a country where the people worshipped the sun, moon and stars, and this man and his family probably worshipped these objects.

There came a call from the great God — how it came we do not know ; a call to Abram to leave his country and go into a land which should be shown to him. There seems to have been no questioning about the reality of the call, and no hesitation in obeying it. It was a small company that set out from Ur of the Chaldees to begin the long journey. They travelled until they came to Haran, a place which we cannot locate with absolute certainty, and there they halted. How long they remained here is also quite uncertain ; but there Terah the father of Abram died. Then Abram, with that divine call still ringing in his ears, gathered his family, his childless wife and orphan nephew, his servants and all his goods, and set out anew for the land which was to be given to him and to his descendants.

" Only one had heard God's call/' but that was sufficient. We can easily imagine the scene as they prepared to start ; for the customs of eastern people have come down with slight changes from that time to this,

The camels were collected and made to kneel down, as they do at this day, to receive the heavy loads that were put upon them. The articles of domestic use were very simple and few. These people did not live in houses such as ours. Most of them lived in tents, made of the coarsest stuff and easily taken down, folded and packed on the camels. The flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, the goats and the various domestic animals were grouped under the care of servants, each of whom was responsible for his charge. The travel was very slow, for the camels rarely went faster than a walk. Day after day they pursued their weary march over the sand-hills and the rough and rocky paths of that desolate region. If it was the summer season, they travelled in the early morning and evening ; resting during the hot midday hours under the shelter of the great oaks which are sometimes found on the slopes of the mountain districts, or under the shadow of the great rocks, as was most convenient.

They must have passed near or through Damascus, that ancient city, one of the oldest cities of which we have any mention in history. Here probably Abram secured that servant who became his faithful and trusted servant — " this Eliezer of Damascus."

The rivers were crossed at the fords, there being no ferries at that time; and so they passed on until, crossing the river Jordan, they came into that land which God had promised.

According to the sacred record, their first resting-place was at Sichem, that beautiful valley between the two mountains Ebal and Gerizim ; the same valley in which our Lord rested once at noon by the side of a well, when the woman of Samaria came and talked with him.

How long they remained at Sichem we do not know; nor do we know why they left that fruitful and beautiful valley ;

but we find them next, at the distance of a day's journey or so, in the open country, or on the hills between Bethel and Ai. And we cannot fail to recall the interesting incident that occurred years after this. His grandson Jacob spent an eventful night at or near this place ; that night when God was revealed to the wanderer, and his angels descended and ascended the ladder whose top reached up to heaven.

Here the tents were pitched as if for a long stay ; and the country about here, a " high and beautiful plain, is one of the finest tracts for pasturage in the whole land." But although the land had been promised to Abram and his descendants, the promise was not yet to be fulfilled. There came a famine upon the land ; the flocks and herds suffered for pasturage and' water; the country w T as thinly settled, there was no storage of food, and the wanderer once more struck his tent and moved to the land of Egypt.

And here we meet w r ith that incident in the life of the patriarch which discloses the first serious recorded defect in his character. He well knew that his coming to Egypt at the head of a large caravan would attract much attention, and he naturally feared that the appearance of his wife among such a people might lead to acts of violence toward himself or toward her. Failing to trust God who had so strangely called him, and who had led him so long and so safely in his journey, he deliberately agreed with Sarah his wife that she should pass as his sister. There is no excuse for his cowardice and falsehood.

But the fraud did not succeed ; no fraud succeeds, except it may be for a time; it is truth only that prevails. The king discovered the deception and resented it, and drove Abram out of his country.

Back again across the weary desert went Abram and his wife and all that he had, and Lot, his nephew, and all that he had, through the south country up to Bethel, which he had left to go to Egypt. The famine had passed ; the pastures were green again ; the streams were running with water and the flocks and herds had greatly multiplied. Now a new difficulty arose. The servants of Lot and the servants of Abram, jealous each of the other, jealous of the water springs and of the rich pasturage, quarrelled fiercely and bitterly. A separation was proposed. Abram, with great magnanimity, gave Lot his choice, either to remain where he was, in which case Abram would go, or to go anywhere he liked in the land. Lot, with characteristic selfishness, chose the rich lands in the Jordan valley, and departed to dwell in the cities there, while Abram remained up in the hills, content to live in tents and move from place to place, as he had always lived.

Then God spoke again to Abram ; and as if in commendation of his unselfish course (for God does most certainly commend unselfishness), he tells him to look around from the hills where he stood, for the whole land as far as he could see would be his and his children's forever. This led Abram to break up his Bethel camp again, and move southward toward Hebron.

Years seem to have passed, and the flocks and herds of the great chieftain were greatly multiplied, and his large family so increased that they numbered a small army, ready at short notice to take the field at their master's bidding.

An opportunity came. There was an invasion of kings from the East. They reached the fertile valley of the Jordan ; they captured and pillaged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah ; they carried off everything of value, and among the prisoners they took Lot and his family. News of the disaster reached Abram; he gathered his servants such as were trained to battle, as many as three hundred and eighteen, and pursued the retreating foragers as far north as the extreme limits of the land, almost to the mountains of Lebanon ; recaptured the prisoners, Lot and others, and brought back the booty which the invaders had stolen. But he refused, with the same generous unselfishness as he had shown in the separation from Lot, to receive any reward for his great services, although urged to do so by the king of Sodom.

I pass over the incident of the meeting with Melchizedek because there is not space in so brief a chapter to describe it, and because the story is quite full of incident even without this.

Now again God appears to him. It seems to have been a time of depression to the patriarch. Again and again had the land been promised to him and to his descendants. He was without children. He began to be afraid that he had not heard the voice of the Lord aright; else why had he so long delayed the fulfillment of his word?

It was night; all was quiet in the tents of the sleepers; the cattle were safe in the folds. Grave thoughts crowded on the mind of the patriarch; he reviewed his life, the strange way in which God had led him, the promises yet unfulfilled, when suddenly an angel (as Sir Frederick Leighton presents the scene in his striking picture) stands at the side of Abram, lifts the folds of his tent, leads him out in the dark night, and says, " Fear not, Abram : I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." But Abram said, " What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?"

Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, " This shall not be thine heir." You shall have one of your own.

" Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them." And in that cloudless night and clear atmosphere the stars were indeed innumerable. Can you count them? As he looked up in amazement toward heaven the Lord said to Abram, " So shall thy seed be."

And Abram believed the Lord.

But as if this were not enough, God made a special covenant with his servant, and in that solemn and startling incident of the divided carcasses of the heifer, the goat, the ram and of the birds, and the burning lamps passing up and down between the pieces, he confirmed his promise with a more sure word of prophecy.

This certainly should have convinced the patriarch that he might trust the word of the Lord. But his faith was not yet strong. He was still childless ; he was growing old, and in a weak and evil hour he yielded to suggestions which were not from the Lord, and sowed discord between himself and his wife. A child was born, named Ishmael, but it was not Sarah's child ; it was not the heir.

Time passed ; the boy Ishmael grew through the years of infancy and youth up to boyhood, and began to be about eleven years of age. But Abram knew he was not to be the heir ; and God appeared again, changed Abram's name, and renewed his promise to make him a great nation.

One day about noon Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, sheltered from the intense heat of the fiery sun, when three angels suddenly appeared in human form and talked with him. The simple and beautiful form of the story leads us to suppose that such visits were not uncommon. With true eastern hospitality, Abraham runs out to meet them, prostrates himself before them, invites them into the tent, washes their feet, and sets food before them — bread and flesh. Then they announced the wonderful fact that Isaac is to be born, the real heir whom Abraham had so long expected. After this" the men arose and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them a part of the way.