The honeycombs of life ...

Front matter

ouis Alber^ Bankj

(Ctje Cbrist A volume of Sermons and

other Addresses and Papers $1.25

Author's Preface

The sermons and addresses in this volume have all been delivered during the past year in the regular course of my ministry in Boston and Brookh'n. They are reprinted here as deliA^ered, without change. The direct style of the public address has been retained. The friends throughout the country who have so graciously received the volumes which have preceded this are responsible for the present publication. In selecting from the Avork of the year material for tliis volume, I have had in view the desire of presenting a diversity of topics and themes such as would fairh^ be I'epresentative of my work. The kind assurances which have come to me from multitudes of my brethren in the ministry in regard to the helpfulness of previous volumes, lead me to hope 5 author's preface that to the preacher, the Sunday-school teacher, and Christian workers of every type, this new volume may, by illustration and suggestion, prove to be of some real profit. Sincerely hoping that every one who reads these discourses may find some honey that shall sweeten life's daily struggles and inspire to loftier exertions, I send them forth with a brother's blessing.

Lours Albert Banks.

Brooklyn, May 23, 1894.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Honeycombs of Life 9

II. Life in the King's Country 28

II

Another honeycomb, open to us all, is a cheerful heart. The London Christian Worlds some time ago, had an article of marked ability on " Ministering Gladness," in which the writer took the ground that, if joy is not the main end of life, it is certainly life's ordained condition. Surely no life is healthy without it. It may be true that enjoyment must ever elude those who live for nothing else ; but it is equally true that God has made life and joy so inseparable that no one can be healthy and noble without also being glad, sooner or later, and without coming.

finally, to rejoice much more than to grieve. So to speak, the happy God has taken pains to make His creatures happy too. Tlie chief ordinances of nature bear Avitness to this. Maternal pain, as a rule, bears no comparison with maternal exultation. Healtliy children, with a fair amount of food and kindness, know far more joy than sorrow. Thousands of invalids who never expect to be well again in this world are patterns of permanent cheerfulness and perennial fountains of gladness to all about them. One of the most, if not the most, cheerfulhearted and happy of the children with whom I ever came in contact is Helen Keller, wlio has been since early childhood deaf and dumb and blind. Indeed, one of the gladdest schools I have ever seen in my life was an institution for the blind. In ordinary cases, the reason why we so cry out under pain is because we are not used to it. Commonly everything we do ministers to our happiness. We are glad to go to bed when weary ; glad to rise refreshed to salute a new day; and glad to go about life's ordinary duties while the sun is in the heavens. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling are so many open inlets to the ordained joy of simply being alive. Every season brings its own especial gladness, every climate has its peculiar delights. Not only so, but to the consciousness of present enjoyment is to be added the pleasures of memory, and the felicities of hope, together with the marvellous power we possess of dwelling lightly on past pain, while reviving and re-enjoying bygone mercies, all of which means that the loving Creator has, with the most far-reacliing foresight and minutely adjusted skill, strung our very beings to the music of good cheer.

There is no real exception to the divine ordinance of predominant joy. There is pain. There are woes innumerable. Some lives are unspeakably sad. The very Saviour of the world is known as " the Man of Sorrows." But we no sooner recall this fact, than the gloom begins to break. It was " for the joy that was set before him " that the Son of God " endured the cross." Sorrow, then, need only be temporary. It is the shadow of joy. It is, therefore, also prophetic : " Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted."

Pain is a necessary discipline. Jehovah " doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of -men." This necessary discipline implies only the deep love of onr Heavenly Father. The goodness of God leadeth to repentance. Christ was anointed to heal the broken-hearted. The Gospel proclaimers are bringers of good tidings, whose rapid feet are beautiful upon the mountains. The first church — that which was born in Jerusalem on Pentecost — held daily festival ; when Philip went down to Samaria there was "great joy in that city," and the chief reason why the first preachers " turned the world upside down," was because they everywhere made dull lives bright, and turned sighs into singing. Along this line of joy-bringing ministry lies at this day the highest duty of the church, because therein is to be found the most crying need of the world. Even the most callous of men probably need to be encouraged to call to mind their sins as not past forgiveness ; while enormous numbers of the masses urgently require strong and generous help to win them back from despair, and convince them that God is love, and Calvary the natural manifestation of His great-hearted tenderness for us. Open the honeycomb of your cheerful heart, my brother, to the weary and discouraged.

^ III

The only other honeycomb that I sliall speak of this morninof is made in the same hive with the last — a hope in Clirist. This, too, with all its treasured sweetness, is open to every one. Hope is a part of our divine inheritance. Experience discovers many cheats and destroys many ideals, but it has not been able to destroy hope. We have all been deceived many times, and found the hook neatly hidden within the most attractive bait ; but though the bait changes as we grow older, hope still lures us onward.

Our world is so marvellously constructed, and we are so placed in it. that the future always seems to be beautiful, and every year cheers the heart with a new promise. No doubt, the final intention of God in ever luring us onward by hopes which are forever eluding us, is to show us that nothing on earth is permanent, and that when we have completed this life another one awaits us. There was one bird-song that Thoreau had heard many times, and tliough. he tried every time he heard it to find the singer, he never succeeded. He travelled far and fast, but never caught sight of its flight or its rest. Through all these years we have heard one song, sweeter than any bird-note, but we have never caught a glimpse of the singer. In our search we have seen and heard many other things of beauty and interest, but not this one. This is a messenger sent by the Heavenly Father to entice us away from the meadows and groves of earth, toward the fields and forests of a still bi-ighter and more glorious land.

Even here and now, hope tunes the soul to the sweet strains of heavenly music. There is an interesting story of Ole Bull and Ericsson, the inventor. They were friends in early life, but drifted apart, and did not meet again until each had become famous. Bull had charmed the ears of admiring thousands all over the civilized world, while the part the great mechanician played in naval Avarfare during tlie war roused the North to enthusiasm, and startled the world. When taking his leave. Bull invited

Ericsson to attend his concert that nio^ht.

o

Ericsson, however, declined, saying that he liad no time to waste.

Their acquaintance heing thus renewed, Bull continued to call on his old friend when visitino- New York, and usually, when taking his leave, w^ould ask Ericsson to attend his concert; but Ericsson always declined the invitation.

Upon one occasion. Bull pressed him urp-entlv, and said, —

"If you do not come, I shall bring my violin here and play in your shop."

" If you bring the thing here, I shall smash it."

Here w^ere two men, the very opposite of each other — Bull, an impulsive, romantic dreamer; Ericsson, stern, thoughtful, practical, improving every moment with mathematical precision.

Bulhs curiosity was aroused to know what effect music would have upon the grim matterof-fact man of squares and circles. So, taking his violin with him, he went to Ericsson's shop. He had removed the strings, screws, and apron. Noticing a displeased expression on Ericsson's face, Bull called his attention to certain defects in the instrument, and, speaking of its construction, asked Ericsson about tlie scientific and acoustic properties involved in the grain of certain woods. From this he passed on to a discussion of sound-waves, semi-tones, etc.

To illustrate his meaning, he replaced the string, and, improvising a few chords, drifted into a rich melody. ^

The workmen, charmed, dropped their tools and stood in silent wonder.

He played on and on ; and, when he finally ceased, Ericsson raised his bowed head, and with moist eyes said : —

"Do not stop. Go on I Go on! I never knew until now what there was lacking in my life."

So many men and women go on for years and years imagining that religion is something sentimental and impracticable — a thing for dreamers — that they do not need it, or care for it, until God manages in some unexpected way to carry the sweet hope of the Gospel into their hearts. Then, with Avet eyes and tender hearts, they exclaim, I never knew until now what there was lacking in ray life ! " I covet for you, every one, a life fed with honey and the honeycomb here, and abundant entrance into that land where our fondest hopes shall be lost in glorious fruition.

II

LIFE m THE KING'S COUNTEY

" The King's country." — Acts xii. 20.

IT is related of Hugh Latimer that when he was to preach one day before Henry VIIL, he stood up in the pulpit, and, beholding the king, he addressed himself in a kind of soliloquy thus : " Latimer, Latimer, Latimer, take care what you say, for the great king Henry VIIL is here." Then he paused, with all eyes upon him, and with tones of still deeper awe exclaimed: "Latimer, Latimer, Latimer, take care what you say, for the great King of kings is here." Slowly but surely there is being built up in the midst of this world a spiritual kingdom — the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is an invisible kingdom to the eye of sense, but all the more real because of that, for it is the unseen that is eternal and immutable. From out our dusty streets, from the 28 busy marts of toil, they are being gathered one by one ; without reference to earthly distinction, from rich and from jdoot, from learned and from ignorant, from black and from white, the great work of spiritual naturalization is going on. Paul said of himself and his friends, Our citizenship is in heaven." So all around the globe the numbers are multiplying from among Americans, Englishmen, F'renchmen, Germans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and from every monarchy or republic and nearly every tribe among the sons of men, of those who are taking the oath of allegiance to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords.

The great mission of the Christian church is to win aliens to this holy citizenship. The King's country, in this high sense in which Ave study it, pervades the universal consciousness of man. Its domain is the moral and spiritual life of mankind. The possibilities of citizenship in this heavenly dominion is within every human soul. We carry in our own hearts, by the very charter of our creation, made as we are in the likeness and image of God, credentials which, if presented with penitence and faith, will admit us into the high fellowship of the citizens of the King's country. Let us study some of the characteristics of life in this spiritual dominion.

Henri Amiel says, "Every soul has a climate of its own, or rather is a climate." And this is peculiarly true of Christ. He creates a spiritual climate, the atmosphere of which is breathed and enjoyed by all His disciples. For to be a Christian is to be like Christ. " Come unto me," He says, " all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my. burden is light." Again He says, "For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." And Paul says, " Let this mind be in you, which w^as also in Christ Jesus." And Peter tells us, " But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." And still again Peter urges, " For even hereunto were ye called : because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an • example, that ye should follow

LIFE IX THE king's COUNTRY his steps." And John declares, "He that saith he abideth in him ouglit himself also so to walk, even as he AA^alked." These Scri23tures, in perfect harmony with the universal teaching of the Bible, make Christ the very centre around which His whole spiritual dominion is to revolve. In John's vision of the New Jerusalem, one great characteristic was that they did not need the liglit of the sun or the moon, but the Lord God was the light of it, which is only the fulfilment of that great prophecy of Isaiah, who declares that the influence of the great Redeemer shall work mari^ellous transformations in the earth, until He Himself shall be the central sun of an all-encompassing kingdom. The glorious promise reads, " For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron. I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction mthin thy borders ; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thv o-ates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee :

but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no moi'e go down : neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thj^ mourning shall be ended."

Susan Coolidge, thinking about Christ as the central sun, creating as He does a spiritual climate for human souls to dwell in, sings a most helpful lay : —

" O heart beloved, O kindest heart! Balming like summer and like sun The sting of tears, the ache of sorrow, The shy, cold hurts which sting and smart, The frets and cares which underrun The dull day and the dreaded morrow — How when thou comest all turns fair, Hard things seem possible to bear, Dark things less dark, if thou art there.

Thou keepest a climate of thine own 'Mid earth's wild weather and gray skies, A soft, still air for human breathing, A genial, all-embracing zone, Where frosts smite not nor winds arise ; And past the tempest-storm of feeling Each grieved and weak and weary things Each bird with numbed and frozen wing, May sink to rest and learn to sing.

lilFE IN THE king's COUNTRY 33

Like some cathedral stone begirt,

Wliicli keeps tlirough cliange of cold and heat

Still temperature and equal weather,

Thy sweetness stands, untouched, unhurt,

By any mortal storms that beat, —

Calm, helpful, undisturbed forever."

One of the great cliaracteristics of the King's country is the consciousness of God's presence in human life. Two little children, Grace and Rob, were very much interested in their beautiful new Christmas books. Grace, the elder of the two, was explaining to Rob what a wonderfully good and generous person Santa Claus was. Rob was becoming impressed more and more favorably. Finally he asked, " Where does he live ? " Assuming a most knowing look, Grace replied, "Well, Rob, I don't 'xactly know, but I guess right across from God." It is the glory of the people who live in the King's country that the sunlight of God's presence falls daily upon their lives. Not that there are not trials in the King's country, not that there are not hard experiences of discipline ; but for every day of storm there is a bow of promise. There is a parable that tells how Laughter and Tears met one day in a shady lane. The sunshine and

THE HONEYCOMBS OE LIFE shade mingled pleasantly there, and the breath of the woods was strong in the air, as was also the fragrance of the clover-field near by ; but the lane was all too narrow to allow both to pass, for Laughter was full of life and buoyancy, and romped about so much that he took up a deal of room, while Tears seemed to be half blind, and could scarcely see her way.

She said in a soft, plaintive voice, like the song of a night bird, Why don't you let me pass ? This is my path."

" No," replied Laughter, this lane is mine ; and I am in a hurry, so you'd better climb the fence into the dark wood, and walk through the dead leaves."

" Why don't you climb the other fence ? " said Tears, softly, "and run along through the clover in the sunshine ? I am sure you'd like it better."

" Well," rejoined Laughter pleasantly, " I am sure I don't want to quarrel with so gentle a maiden ; and so, as we don't seem to agree about the path, suppose I turn about and go with you ? "

So they went on together through the tAvinkling shine and shadow, and each felt better for the comj)any of the other. And that is why, says the fable, that whenever you meet Tears, Laughter is not far away.

But upon far more solid grounds than any pleasant fable rests the assurance that to the citizen of the King's country the silver lining of divine care shall glorify every cloud, and at every eventide there shall be light. Even in the deepest trials that can come to human hearts, the King's country has peace and hope.

A Western secular journal contained the other day a most touching little incident. In the city where this newspaper is published there was a family consisting of husband and wife and one little boy scarcely old enough to talk plainly. A few weeks ago the young wife and mother was stricken down to die. It was so sudden, so dreadful, when the grave family physician called them together in the parlor, and in his solemn, professional way intimated to them the truth — there was no hope. Then the question arose among them. Who would tell her ? Not the doctor ! It would be cruel to let the man of science go to their dear one on such an errand. Not the aged mother, who was to be left childless and alone! Not the young husband, who was walking the floor with clinched hands and rebellious heart! Not — there was only one other; and at tliis moment he looked up from the book he had been playing with, unnoticed by them all, and asked gravely, —

" Is my mamma doin' to die ? "

Then, without waiting for an answer, he sped from the room, and up-stairs as fast as his little feet would carry him. Friends and neighbors were watching by the sick one. They wonderingly noticed the pale face of the child as he climbed on the bed and laid his small head on his mother's pillow.

" Mamma," he asked in sweet, caressing tones, "is you 'fraid to die?"

The woman looked at him with swift intelligence. Perhaps she had been thinking of this.

" Who told you, Charlie ? " she asked faintly.

''Doctor an' papa an' gamma — everybody," he whispered.

"Mamma, dear 'ittle mamma, doan' be 'fraid to die, 'ill you ? "

"No, Charlie," said the young mother, after one supreme pang of grief, " no ; mamma won't be afraid."

Jus' shut your eyes in 'e dark, mamma ; teep hold m}^ hand, an' when you open 'em, mamma, it'll be all light there."

When the family gathered awe-stricken at the bedside, Charlie held up his little hand.

" Hush ! My mamma's doin' to sleep. Her won't wake up here any more."

And so it proved. There was no heart-rending farewell, no agony of parting ; for when the young mother woke she had passed beyond, and, as Baby Charlie said, " It was all light there."

So every dweller in the King's country shall find the light stronger than the darkness. As Susan Coolidge sings again : —

" Grief is strong, but joy is stronger; Night is long, but day is longer; When life's riddle solves and clears, And the angels in our ears Whisper the sweet answer low (Answer full of love and blessing), How our wonderment will grow At the blindness of our guessing. All the hard things we recall, Made so easy — after all.

Earth is sweet, but heaven is sweeter; Love complete, but faith completer; Close beside our wandering ways, Through dark nights and weary days, Stand the angels with bright eyes; And the shadow of the cross Falls upon and sanctifies All our pains and all our loss ; Though we stumble, though we fall, God is helping — after all.

Sigh, then, soul, but sing in sighing, To the happier things replying; Dry the tears that dim thy seeing. Give glad thoughts for life and being; Time is but the little entry To eternity's large dwelling; And the heavenly guards keep sentry. Urging, guiding, half compelling; Till, the puzzling way quite pa^. Thou shalt enter in at last."

The atmosphere of the King's country is one of reverence and thanksgiving. Conscience is master there, but not a morbid or despairing conscience. Instead, a conscience comforted by the assurance of divine sjanpathy and love. The psalms of David contain the spiritual biography of an intense nature, who, through great trials and sorrows, scarred and wounded by many sins, came at last to dwell in peace in the

King's country. What splendid strains sometimes swell out from David's harp, when his soul is exalted at the thought of the transformation God has wrought in him, a sinful, erring, weak man; when he reflects on the power that has brought him back to the delicious, childlike feeling of trust and joy and love, in which he is cleansed from the dirt and stain of bitter warfare with temptation and sin, and finds himself at last rejoicing in the heavenly communion ! There is nothing grander in human language than some of these outbursts. Hear one of them ; I am sure it will tell the story of many other lives : " I waited patiently for the Lord ; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God."

Let us cherish as we would life itself, for it is more valuable than life, that sensitiveness and tenderness of conscience that is characteristic of life in the King's country.

In Coleridge's story of the "Ancient Mariner"

we read how the captain of a ship shot an albatross that had followed them through a long and prosperous voyage, after which the wind ceased to blow, and the ship stood still in a dead calm under the equator, until death relieved the sufferings of all the crew. In their superstition they attributed these sufferings to the shooting of the albatross, and, in token of their bitter resentment, they hung the dead bird around the captain's neck as a punishment. Whatever may be the meaning the poet intended, it is surely true that conscience, like a bird of hope, guides safely the human life so long as she is cherished and obeyed ; but conscience wounded and dead means a body of death and despair around the neck of its murderer. It does not appear from Coleridge's poem that there was any enmity toward the albati'oss on the part of the captain ; it was a mere wanton use of his cross-bow because the bird presented the nearest object for his skilL Alas ! is it not true that men sometimes shoot and kill, in mere thoughtlessness, the conscience that is the best friend and guide of life? You that would be dwellers in the

LIFE m THE king's COUNTRY 41

King's country, cherish with every possible tenderness the record of Himself which God has put in your breast.

Service is the standard of honor in the King's country. The Master said that the standard among His disciples should be entirely different from that of the w^orld. The world honors the strongest, the richest, the successful, and they are the ones who are waited upon and served and ministered to. But Christ declares that in the King's country the greatest is the one who is the greatest servant. ''Whosoever of you wdll be the chiefest, shall be servant of all."

One may trace the frontiers of the King's country in every land, in every town and city, in every social circle, in every home, by the exhibition, or the lack of it, of this spirit of brotherly service. How it glorifies all common life where it prevails ! The other day, in one of our cities, two small boys signalled a streetcar. When the car stopped, it was noticed that one boy was lame. With much solicitude the other boy helped the cripple aboard, and, after telling the conductor to go ahead, returned to the sidewalk. The lame boy braced himself up in his seat so that he could look out of the car window, and the other passengers observed that at iiitervals the little fellow would wave his hand and smile. Following the direction of his glances, the passengers saw the other boy running along the sidewalk, straining every muscle to keep up with the car. They watched his pantomime in silence for a few blocks, and then a gentleman asked the lame boy who the other boy was. My brother," was the prompt reply. "Why does he not ride with you in the car?" was the next question. " Because he hasn't any money," answered the lame boy sorrowfully. But the little runner — running that his crippled brother might ride — had a face in which sorrow had no part, only the gladness of a self-denying soul. O my brother, you who long to do great service for the King and reach life's noblest triumph, here is your picture — willing to run that the crippled lives may ride, willing to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ — that is the spirit of the King's country.

All about us are men and women who are being swallowed up in temptation and sin, wkom we can save if that divine spirit of service possess our souls. Did you ever see the firemen, when rescuing men and women from the burning building, and the ladder would not reach those that were in peril, when, in the dreadful emergency, a fireman stood on the top rung of the ladder, added his own length, and made of himself a human ladder, over which the imperilled men and Avomen climbed down into safety? Often brave firemen have done that. So, brothers, if you and I shall breathe in its purity the atmosphere of the King's country, we shall with all joy bare our shoulders to carry the burdens of the tempted and weak.

In this divine atmosphere of the Christ-land, it is possible to have the sweetest fellowships that human souls may know. Some one well says that fellowship is something too precious to be built merely upon a common study or a common taste. The foundations needed for such a temple are nothing short of character, reverence, and love. The college friend, or even the messmate of the camp, if he have drifted into habits gross and carnal, can find in the association no more than a momentary tie connecting him with the old-time friend whose character has grown more spiritual through the years. All the symbolism of the lodge, all the charms of a common secret and a common interest, cannot make real brothers of men who have contrasted moral codes, or opposed conceptions of duty, or antagonistic hopes about the life to come. All other fellowships are artificial and found to be perishable ; but Christian fellowship is founded in common character and a common love, and is more lasting than life itself.