Front matter (continued 2)

One more experience awaited Jeremiah—deportation. So far as we know, it was the closing experience of his life. The dauntless soul had not been suffered to die in the pit. Patriotic men who realized the folly of letting an unselfish, high-minded citizen perish so terribly, and who realized, too, the desirability of preserving alive so wise a counselor, secured permission from the vacillating king to take rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the pit. "Put now these rags and worn-out garments under thine arm-holes under the cords," they said, "and Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords." Once again he was in his position of responsibility as God's messenger. In that position he held fast to his faithfulness.

Then came his final experience. Judah had passed through trial upon trial. Jeremiah had shared in her trials, never running away from them, but always bearing his full brunt of burden and loss. Then he was forced to go away from the land of his love and his tears to Egypt! He did not wish to go. He assured those who headed the movement that it was folly to go. But they took him with them, and carried him, like a captive, off to a foreign land.

All this would have meant little to some men, but to Jeremiah it meant everything. Jerusalem and the land of Judah were dear to his heart. He had lived for them, spoken for them, suffered for them, and well-nigh died for them. In older years the land of one's birth and of one's sacrifices becomes very dear. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" Into that deportation we cannot follow him. We only know that up to the very last minute in which we see him and hear his words, he was unceasingly true to his God, and true to the people around him, loving his Master and loving his brethren, with an unfailing devotion.

But this we do know, ignorant as we are whether he died naturally or was stoned to death, that in after years this Jeremiah became among the Jews almost an ideal character. They saw that all his words predicting the destruction of the holy city and the captivity were fulfilled. They learned to revere his fidelity. They even called him "the greatest" of all their prophets. They well-nigh glorified him. In times of war and difficulty they used his name wherewith to rouse halting hearts to bravery and to lead the fearful into the thick of perilous battles.

Here, then, is a life that came to its best and developed its best under difficulties. "Best men are molded out of faults." So was this man molded to his best out of faults of hesitation and unwillingness and impatience. No one knows the best use we can make of ourselves but the One who created us and understands our possibilities.

In the struggle against difficulties we have Christ's constant sympathy. Were not estrangement, threatening, disdain, imprisonment, and deportation His own experiences? And did not they come in this same order? And does not He realize all the stress through which a soul must pass that would fight its contest and advance to its best? Certainly He does. And when He lays a cross upon us, it is that through our right spirit in carrying that cross we may become sweeter in our hearts and braver in our lives, and thus change our cross into a very crown of manliness and of usefulness.

To many a man there is no object in this earth that so appeals to his admiration as a person who makes the best of himself under difficulties. We may well believe that to Christ likewise there is no human being so prized and admired as he who advances to his best through the conquest of difficulties.

The Need of Retaining the Best Wisdom.

CHAPTER VI.

The Need of Retaining the Best Wisdom.

No one can read the story of Solomon's life, as given in the Bible and as given in eastern writings, without wonder. That story in the Bible is amazing; that story in the historic legends of Persia, Abyssinia, Arabia, and Ethiopia is still more amazing. It is said of Solomon that "those who never heard of Cyrus, or Alexander, or the Cæsars have heard of him," and that "his name belongs to more tongues, and his shadow has fallen farther and over a larger surface of the earth than any other man's. Equally among Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan nations his name furnishes a nucleus around which have gathered the strangest and most fantastic tales."

Almost at the beginning of his public activities he made a prayer to God that may well be the prayer of every one. In a dream God appears to him, asking what he most wishes God to confer upon him. Humbly and earnestly he asks for a discerning mind—a mind capable of distinguishing between good and evil. He passes by long life, passes by wealth, passes by victory over enemies, and he asks only for such understanding as shall enable him to know the right from the wrong.

We cannot call this prayer a surprise to God, but we can call it a delight to Him. There are very many kinds of wisdom, but in God's judgment, the best wisdom is that which always discriminating between the good and the bad, the true and the false, the permanent and the fleeting, prefers the good, the true, and the permanent. It surprises us that Solomon was wise enough to make the desire for discrimination the one petition of his heart. He was comparatively young, he was inexperienced in life's responsibilities, he was at the threshhold of what promised to be a great, almost a spectacular career. Most men, under such circumstances, given the opportunity of asking for anything and everything they pleased, would have said, "Give me many, many years of mental growth; give me much, very much material wealth; give me great and constant triumphs over all who in any way oppose me." But Solomon asked only for a discerning mind that could see the difference between right and wrong, and in asking that, he asked for the best wisdom any human life can ever have.

Solomon had other kinds of wisdom. How they came to him we do not know. Perhaps he was born with a large degree of mother wit and with a very strong mental grasp. Perhaps his father, himself a thoughtful man and a brilliant writer, provided the best teachers that wealth could procure for his son. Perhaps his mother, who had eager ambition for her son, constantly urged him on to large intellectual development.

Explain his case as we may, the facts are that he had scientific wisdom. He knew nature so well that careful writers have even called him "the father of natural science." He knew trees, from the lordly cedar-tree that graced Lebanon to the little hyssop that springs out from between the stones of a wall, as I once saw it in an old well near Jerusalem. He knew beasts of the field, fowls of the air, animals that creep on the ground, and fishes that swim in the water. Such is the brief résumé by the Scriptures of his acquaintance with nature. The legends of the East add that he could interpret the speech of beasts and birds, that he understood the hidden virtues of herbs, and that he was familiar with the secret forces of nature.

He had also literary wisdom. He was a beautiful, trained, and forceful writer. The seventy-second Psalm, beginning "Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son," is ascribed to him. So is the one hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm, opening with the words, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Much of the book of Proverbs is written by him or compiled by him—a book whose concise, striking, intelligent, helpful utterances are a monument of literary skill. Ecclesiastes, with its philosophical dissertations on the fleeting and disappointing elements of human life, is also assigned to him. So is the Song of Solomon, which breathes a wealth of poetical fervor, that understood and applied spiritually, is as sweet as the voice of the meadow lark soaring skyward in the light and beauty of a summer day. Yet these writings are only a part of what he produced. His songs were a thousand and five, his proverbs not less than three thousand. What we have in the Bible simply suggests the variety and power of his literary style, the force and sagacity of his sound sense, the brilliancy and fitness of his practical wisdom. Solomon's words are such that to this day, in this land, and in every land of the earth, they are competent to teach prudence, economy, reverence for parents, self-protection, purity, honesty, and faithfulness to duty. The boy that learns them and carries them with him as a vital principle of being and of conduct will move unsoiled and unhurt wherever he may go. The home that places them at its center and reveres them will be cheerful and brave. The grown man that carries them with him into every detail of business and care will be upright and beautiful.

The wisdom of Solomon was commercial as well as scientific and literary. He recognized the advantages of trade. He extended it. He sent ships so far away to the east that passing through the Red Sea out into the Indian Ocean they brought back the treasures of Arabia and India and Ceylon—gold and silver and precious stones; nard, aloes, sandalwood, and ivory; apes and peacocks. He sent other ships along the Mediterranean coasts to the north, where Hiram, king of Tyre, lived, and then to the west, out between the gates of Hercules, past the present Gibraltar, up the Atlantic Ocean to the north until they touched at southern England, at Cornwall, where they found the tin which, combined with copper, formed the bronze for armor and for all so-called "brazen" furniture. Not alone through ships of the sea did he seek out the best treasures of all the accessible earth and beautify Jerusalem with them, but also through ships of the desert—camels—did he do the same. He caused the great caravan routes of the day to pass through Jerusalem, and he levied duties on the objects transported from Damascus on the north to Memphis on the south, and from Tadmor in the east to Asia Minor in the west. He put himself into contact with all the thought and purposes of other nations than his own, he learned what their kings and queens, their merchants, their sailors, their writers, were saying and doing, and thus he brought home to his mind the leading ideas of his time. His knowledge of men, of methods, and of enterprise became vast.

Nor did his wisdom stop with commerce; it included government also, and was political. He took the throne at a time when government was weak, or almost disorganized. David's last years were years of physical disability, wherein he could not curb the rebellious spirits that were gaining influence in many quarters. Solomon, upon his assumption of rule, judiciously subdued all rebellion of every kind, united the entire kingdom, and started that kingdom upon the period of its greatest glory. He made treaties that bound adjacent principalities to him and caused them to pay tribute. He held such power that nations did not care to fight with him, and so he became a king of peace. He laid taxes on his own people that brought in large revenue. It was indeed the golden period of Israel.

The effect of Solomon's wisdom was great and extensive. His reputation went far and wide. People made long journeys to see him, ask him questions, and honor him. Even one like the Queen of Sheba came with a great retinue, up through the desert, past village and town, to bring him costly gifts and talk with the man who knew so much. His influence became pervasive. It entered into the legends of people who never saw him, and became so fixed a part of those legends, that those legends, repeated until to-day, still sound his praise. He was known in tent and in palace as the wisest man that had ever lived, and the most exaggerated statements were made and received of his insight into the mysteries of the spirit world and his power to control the supposed spirit forces of the air. His wealth became almost incredible. Nothing like it has ever been known—not in the time of the Roman emperors, nor in the time of to-day. The fabulous magnificence of Mexican and Peruvian kings helps us to realize Solomon's glory. "The walls, the doors, the very floor of the temple, were plated with gold, furnishing gorgeous imagery for John's description of heaven." Two hundred targets and three hundred shields of beaten gold were held by the guard through whose lines Solomon passed to the temple or to his house of the forest. His throne of ivory, as were its steps, was overlaid with plates of gold. All his drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest were of pure gold, none were of silver. He was able to make the temple the costliest structure for its size the world has ever seen. Hundreds of millions of dollars went into its erection and decoration. When to-day the traveler visits Baalbec and sees stones over seventy feet in length and fourteen in width and in depth—stones quarried, conveyed, raised up into high walls and securely masoned there; when to-day the traveler sees the golden jewelry gathered from ancient Grecian graves and placed on exhibition in Athens; and when to-day the traveler examines the massive work done in Egypt, whose ruins are overpowering in their grandeur, and seeing these stones, jewelry, and structures remembers that Solomon knew all the skill, wealth, and buildings of the whole Mediterranean world, then he can understand how Solomon, with his resources, built a city like Palmyra, and a house of worship like the temple, and made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem.

Ah, if this Solomon, so brilliant and so powerful, so "glorious," as Christ called him, could only have preserved the best wisdom all through his years, whose name—except Christ's—would be comparable to his!

He asked God for the wisdom that discerns between the good and the evil. God answered that prayer and gave him such wisdom. How clearly he saw at the first! If two women came to him, each claiming to be the mother of a little child, and asking for the child's possession, how skilful he was in ordering that the child be cut in twain in their presence, thus causing the true mother to cry out in love for her child and then giving her the child unhurt. The traditions of the east—some of them perhaps once a part of those lost books mentioned in the Bible, The Book of the Acts of Solomon, The Book of Nathan the Prophet, The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, The Visions of Iddo the Seer, tell again and again how quiet and accurate Solomon's perception was in distinguishing real flowers from artificial, in distinguishing girls from boys though dressed alike, and in deciding case after case of legal perplexity. He did have a discerning heart when, in his early days, he knew who his enemies were and he crushed them, who his true counselors were and he listened to them, what his supreme duty was and he built God's house, what his sinful heart needed and he shed the blood of atonement for it. It was discernment when, though he made his own house rich, he made God's house richer; when he counted his gift of millions of dollars to God's honor a delight; and when he would let neither knowledge nor pleasure nor pomp nor glory withdraw his supreme affection from God.

Would that he had always continued as he was! Would that he had remembered that the prayer offered to-day for a blessing in character must be offered again to-morrow if that blessing in character is to be retained! Prayer is not so much a momentary wish as a continuous spirit. His momentary wish and the resolve that sprang from it were at the time all that God or man could desire. A mind distrustful of its own omniscience, humbly waiting on God for discernment, is the wisest of all minds. That mind was once in Solomon, but not always. When grown to maturity he talked philosophy, still he was wise. But when he came to act upon his philosophy, he was unwise. He failed to discern between the value and the curse of wealth. He became a lover of money for money's sake. He laid taxes on the people that they could not endure. He treated them no longer as a father, but as a master. He ceased to distinguish between the beauty and the disease of luxury. He built gardens and palaces, and made displays, not with the thought of any praise they would be to Jehovah, or to the establishment of God's people on a sound financial and political basis, but for the honor and recognition that would come to him. He became a captive to the love of magnificence and to the desire for display. He made marriages that were matters of state expediency and were not matters of heart conviction, and thus put himself under the influence of those whose religious purposes were wholly opposed to his own. He filled his palaces with women whose presence indeed was a great indication of Oriental affluence, but whose presence was a menace to clear vision of integrity, and was a woeful example to the nation. He grew blinder and blinder to fine perceptions, not alone of what was good in taste, but of what was right in principle. He became so broad in his religious sympathies that he seemed to forget that there can be but one living and true God. He even went after "Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcar, the abomination of the Amonites." And as a last blind act of folly, he even raised within sight of God's holy temple "an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon, in the hill that is before Jerusalem." What men like Daniel would not do, what men like Shadrach would not do, what martyrs in after days, asked to say the simple word "Cæsar" and throw a grain of corn on an heathen altar, would not do, though death awaited them, Solomon did. He gave up the fine distinction between the true and the untrue, between God and idolatry, between divine principle and human expediency. And with this loss of the best wisdom came loss of manliness, loss of peace, and loss of the favor of God. Wealth, power, luxury, praise, glory, were still about him, but he had made the most serious of all serious mistakes. Later he recognized his mistake. We hope that he repented, genuinely repented, of his mistake, and before his death turned back to God and the best wisdom. But whether he died repentant or unrepentant Solomon is the man who is forever the example of unparalleled wisdom and of ruinous folly—of ruinous folly because his wisdom failed to retain the element of the discerning mind.

Here, then, is a lesson: "With all thy getting, get understanding." Life is not a best success, whatever else it may have in it, unless it draws fine lines of separation between good and evil. The wealth and learning and glory of the wide world cannot make up for a lack of sensitive conscientiousness. The study and ambition of life must be applied to the securing and retaining of fine powers of moral discrimination if we are to be truly wise. Every one can have this discerning mind, at least to such a degree as shall enable him to avoid the fearful mistake of palliating evil and of becoming enslaved to evil. A little child may in this respect be wiser than the oldest man; the simple peasant may be safer than the most cultured scholar. Not even libraries of knowledge can save the character of the man whose vision of good and evil is blunted.

Youth is the time to make this prayer for true wisdom—when life's decisions are first opening before us. Youth is the time when God can best answer and when God cares most to answer prayer for the discerning mind. We need to start upon our careers with hearts exceedingly sensitive to the least variation from right. As the gunner cultivates his aim and notes his least deviation from the true line to the target, so should we cultivate clearness of moral perception. We need the "practiced" eye and the "practiced" heart, for safe judgment.

"The grand endowment of Washington," wrote Frederic Harrison, "was character, not imagination, not subtlety, not brilliancy, but wisdom. The wisdom of Washington was the genius of common sense, glorified into unerring truth of view."

Almost the same tribute can be paid to Victoria. When, six months after her accession, Victoria drove to the House of Parliament, there was not a hat raised nor a voice heard. But when sixty years later her jubilee was held, such pæans of admiration and love swelled in London's streets as never before had greeted any sovereign's ears—and all because the people saluted in Victoria's person the discrimination that had shunned vice, corrected abuses, exalted integrity, and glorified religion.

What every one needs, Washington, Victoria, and all—and what every one should crave—is such wisdom, as all through life shall keep him from confusing moral principles and shall make him see, choose, love, and follow the best.

The Best Possession.

CHAPTER VII.

The Best Possession.

What is the best possession a human life can have? Judging from the efforts made to secure wealth, fame, and power, the answer would seem to be that they—wealth, fame, and power—are the best possessions any one can have. Observant and thoughtful people know, however, that such possessions do not necessarily nor ordinarily make their owners happy. They therefore argue that there must be better possessions than these. So they say, eloquence is perhaps the best possession, or knowledge is, or ability to do great deeds or express great thoughts is. But the wisest book that has ever been written says that something not yet mentioned is the best possession, and says that that something makes life the happiest, and even makes it the holiest. That something, in the language of the Bible, is love. The man that in his heart has love, true, pure, lasting love, has the best possession that can be secured.

It is for this reason that Jonathan is such an inspiring character. The story of his life, hastily viewed, seems almost incidental, but scholarly examination of it shows that its light and gladness are in marked contrast to the darkness and sorrow in the careers of Saul and David. The story of Jonathan's life has probably done more to suggest and arouse the unselfish devotion of man to man, than any story, apart from that of the Christ, that has ever been told. If we wish to find one who really had the best possible possession, Jonathan is that one, a man whose heart was bright, whose deeds were noble, and whose death was glorious.

Jonathan was a physical hero. He had both muscular strength and muscular skill. The way he could throw a spear and shoot an arrow made him famous. He had rare courage. Assisted only by his armor-bearer he once made an attack upon a whole garrison at Michmash, slaying twenty men within a few rods and putting an entire army to flight. He had great self-control. Found fault with by his father because in an hour of weariness he had tasted honey—in ignorance of his father's wish to the contrary—he opened his breast to receive the death penalty vowed by the father, and stood unmoved until the soldiers cried to Saul that the deed of blood must not be done. He was no weakling. Rather he was a mighty man, able to command military forces and call out their enthusiasm. Men rallied about him for hazardous undertakings, saying, "Do all that is in thy heart; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart." In the field or in the court he was equally acceptable. His father, the king, had implicit confidence in him, and took him into all his counsels. In the language of poetry, he was "swifter than an eagle, he was stronger than a lion." Israel might well look forward to the day when this stalwart, inspiring, wise son should succeed his father and be their king. His name, in time of battle, would be a terror to their foes.

But better than Jonathan's strong arm and clear intellect and winsome personality was his loving heart. He never had read Paul's description of love as given in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, nor had he read Henry Drummond's exposition of love as "The Greatest Thing in the World," nor had he ever seen the devoted character of Christ, nor known any of the beautiful examples of love created by the Gospel. He was living in a selfish age—an age of strife and tumult and blood—and still his whole being seemed pervaded by that love which is "unselfish devotion to the highest interests of others." Such love was his joyous and abiding possession.

The first time we have an opportunity of reading his inmost heart is when David, having slain Goliath, stands before Saul, holding Goliath's head in his hand. Here we see the generosity of love. It was an hour when every eye was turned from Jonathan and centered upon an unknown stripling who had carried off the honors of the day by a startling and brilliant deed. Hitherto Jonathan had been the national hero; now he was to be set aside, and David was everywhere to come into the foreground. How should all this transfer of honor affect Jonathan? Should it sour him, making him look askance on this new competitor for the public recognition, and influencing him to send back David to his father's flocks, away from further opportunity for martial deeds? Any such method would be what is called "natural." Men usually try to get rid of competitors. They do this in business and in games. Opera singers often keep back, if they can, the voice that once heard will supersede their own voice in popular favor. We do not like to have another outshine us. Praise is sweet. People hate to lose it. Plaudits transferred to another leave a painful vacancy in the ordinary soul. We crave favor, and when that favor passes from us to rest upon another we are severely tried. Many a man has thought himself kindly dispositioned until he found that some one else was obtaining the recognition previously so secure to him, and then to his own surprise he has found himself grudging the other that recognition. How much of the unhappiness of human life comes from the fact that persons do not speak to us or of us as they do of others! How apprehensively many people protect their place—social, political, or commercial—lest another shall in any wise encroach upon it! Jonathan might easily have recognized that, so far as his interests were concerned, it was far better that David should be dismissed to the sheep pastures than allowed to stay near the court.

But in spite of what Jonathan recognized, Jonathan's heart warmed to David. By the time he had heard the story of David's home and family, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. The interests of David became his interests. He wished David to succeed. Praises of David sounded sweet in his hearing. He showed such wish to have David stay right there, at the heart of the nation's capital, where people could see him and honor him, and where David could have new opportunity for public service, that Saul would not let David go back to the distant and quiet pastures. Jonathan even made a covenant with David, promising to be his friend and helper. To show the sincerity of that covenant, or rather in the expression of that covenant, Jonathan took off his robe and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle—stripped himself of them—and gave them to David. Jonathan wished David to be ready for possible opportunities of military success, and therefore he armed him with his own chosen and well-tried weapons.

So their friendship began. It was a friendship that was all "give" on one side and all "take" on the other. There never was a clearer illustration of what love is than the relation between Jonathan and David. It is always said that "Jonathan loved David," but no emphasis is placed on David's love for Jonathan. David appreciated Jonathan, but Jonathan loved David, and loving him, unceasingly aided him. "I call that man my friend," a noble poet declared, "for whom I can do some favor." Love exists only where costly kindnesses are conferred upon another.

Turner, England's honored painter, exemplified love when he was on a committee on hanging pictures for exhibition in London and a picture came from an unknown artist after the walls were full. "This picture is worthy; it must be hung," he said. "Impossible; the walls are full now," others asserted. Quietly saying "I will arrange it," Turner took down one of his own pictures and hung the new picture in its place.

The second scene of Jonathan's devotion to David reveals the protection of love. David's life was in danger. Saul, jealous of David's popularity, desired to be rid of David. He even wished to kill him. He let his servants know his wish. David was encompassed by peril. What would Jonathan do now? When others were turning against him, would he also turn against him? The current was all setting one way. Any kindness to David would now be in direct opposition to a ruler's will and to the sentiment of the court. Interest in another often becomes luke-warm under such circumstances. "There is no use of resisting the tide of events," people say. They therefore leave the man that is down to himself and to his fate. How lovers fall away in the hour of disgrace and danger! How difficult it becomes to speak favorably of a man when every other is condemning him! In periods of excitement when the motives of men are called into question and innuendo is in the air, how reluctant we are to avow our confidence and try to still the cries of opposition.

But what was the effect of this situation on Jonathan? His heart warmed all the more to the imperiled man whose one crime was that he was a deliverer to Israel. Jonathan delighted much in David. Jonathan revealed to David Saul's purpose to kill him. Jonathan provided for David's immediate safety and took means to anticipate his future safety. Then he went to the king and plead for David. That was a splendid piece of work. It was much as John Knox plead with Mary, Queen of Scots, for Scotland. She did not wish to hear Knox's words. She was bitter against Scotland and Scotland's religion. He risked much in venturing into her presence and interceding. But he loved Scotland and Scotland's religion. He would rather die than have Scotland suffer, and so he braved Mary's tears and entreaties and commands, and he spoke for Scotland. Love is a very expensive thing; it often summons us to surrender our personal ease, and surrender, too, our closest comradeships. It may cost us obloquy, it may cost us loss of standing with king and court, it may cost us the disdain of the world, but cost what it might, Jonathan plead for David's safety, and temporarily secured his wish.

Later the love of Jonathan was to be subjected to a more subtle and more difficult test. It was to be called upon for self-effacement. Saul's misdemeanors and incompetences had so weighed on Saul's mind that Saul actually hated the David whose conduct was always irreproachable; Saul's mind, too, at times had lost its balance, and he had done the insane acts of a madman toward David. Saul, now half-sane and half-insane, was irrevocably determined to kill David. He learned that Samuel had quietly anointed David as king, and that David in due time would succeed to the throne! Saul's heart was aflame with bitterness—the bitterness that is born of chagrin and envy. David knew of that bitterness, and knew that Saul's persistent enmity left but a "step between him and death." Then it was that Jonathan ventured to interview his father and see whether his father's hatred could not in some way be appeased and David's safety be secured.

But with the first revelation of Jonathan's interest in David came an outburst from Saul that showed the utter implacability of Saul's rage. Saul even tried to inflame Jonathan's temper, charging him with perversity and rebellion, and with acting undutifully; and then, when he hoped that Jonathan was excited, he introduced the thought, "This David, if you let him live, will seize the throne which is yours as my son and heir! Will you suffer David to live and take your throne?" It was an appeal to Jonathan's envy, and that appeal touched on the most delicate ambition of Jonathan's heart. What a fearful thing envy is! History is full of its unfortunate work. It hurts him who cherishes it as well as him against whom it rages. Cambyses killed his brother Smerdis because he could draw a stronger bow than himself or his party. Dionysius the tyrant, out of envy, punished Philoxenius the musician because he could sing, and Plato the philosopher because he could dispute, better than himself. "Envy is the very reverse of charity; it is the supreme source of pain, as charity is the supreme source of pleasure. The poets imagined that envy dwelt in a dark cave; being pale and lean, looking asquint, abounding with gall, her teeth black, never rejoicing but in the misfortune of others, ever unquiet and anxious, and continually tormenting herself."

When such an appeal to envy as that subtly made by Saul to Jonathan comes to most human hearts they are conquered by it. Few, very few, men hail the rise of the sun that pales their own star. But Jonathan could not be overpowered by this appeal, however wilily the king drove it home. He stood true to David, though by so doing he imperiled his own life. For with his quick perception of Jonathan's fixed adherence to David, Saul hurled his javelin at his own son's breast and would have slain him on the spot.

In the days that followed this stormy interview, when the king's wrath against David was still at white heat, and when one turn of Jonathan's hand could have ended all possible rivalry between himself and David for the throne, Jonathan sought David, said gladly to him, "Thou shalt be king in Israel, and I shall be next unto thee," and saying this, made a new covenant of love that should bind themselves and their descendants to all generations!

I know not what others may think, but as for me, nothing in this world is sweeter, stronger, nobler, than an unselfish friendship. We have used and misused the word "love" so often that we have dragged it down from its high meaning. We have flippantly passed it over our lips when by "love" we meant mere interest, or sympathy, or fondness, or even a mental or a physical passion. We have belittled it and even smirched it in the mire. But next to the word "God" it is the greatest word of human life, and is associated with God as no other word is. The man that can and will prove a generous, unselfish, devoted friend is the highest type of man. The man that can cherish a sweet, uplifting love that is beyond the reach of envy, and that will lay down every treasure but itself for another, is the noblest specimen of manhood that can be produced. More and more it becomes clear that genuine devotion to the highest interests of others is the solution of the world's social problems. Love makes its owner happy. It is a giver and a sustainer of joy. There is no bitterness in its root and no acid in its fruit. By nature it is the sweet, the healthy, the sane. The absence of love always means the presence of the selfish, or of the vain, or of the proud, or of the self-seeking, or of the cruel. Envy is a thorn in the soul. Love is content and cheer, a radiant flower whose perfume is refreshingly fragrant.

To the very end of his days Jonathan stood true to David. He accomplished what might seem to many an impossible task, but what by his accomplishment of it is shown to be possible. He was true to two persons whose interests were opposite, proving a friend to each. He loved his father. He knew his father's weaknesses. They tried him seriously. When his father threw the spear at his head, and maligned his mother, and charged him with ingratitude, his whole being was stirred; he went out from his father's presence "angry." But that anger was merely a temporary emotion. He soon realized his duty to his father. He returned, placed himself at his father's hand, continued to be his adherent, counselor, and helper, went with him as one of his lieutenants to the battle on Gilboa, and fought beside him until he fell dead at Saul's side!

There is nothing weak in this character of Jonathan. Let him who can reproduce it. Christ said of John the Baptist, "There hath not been born of women a greater than he," because John, free from envy, was so full of love that he rejoiced to see Christ come into a recognition that absolutely displaced John. By these words of Christ John is made to loom up as no other character of his day. Jonathan was John's prototype—a massive man, a man of momentum, a man of absolute fearlessness, whose virtues were crowned by his generous, protecting, self-effacing love. No wonder that when word reached David that Jonathan had been slain in fierce battle his heart poured out the greatest elegy of history—an elegy that has been sung and resung for thousands of years—"How are the mighty fallen! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished!" Noticeable it is that the supreme elegy of the Old Testament is on the man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, Jonathan; and that the one elegy of the New Testament pronounced by Christ, is likewise on the man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, John the Baptist. The greatest possession any one can have is a loving heart—a heart that generously recognizes worth in another and tries to make place for that worth; a heart that guards another's interests, even though such guarding costs intercession; a heart that gladly surrenders its own advantage that another may advance to the place which might be its own.

No one can tell another how and when the heart of love should show itself. All that can be told is this: "Let any one be pervaded by love as Jonathan was, and in that one's home, in that one's business, and in that one's pleasures God will provide him occasion upon occasion for living that love." The love that a man gives away is the only love his heart can retain. The man that has such a heart of love has the sweetest, happiest, gladdest possession that can be obtained on earth or in heaven. All the money in the world leaves a man poor if his heart is bitter. All the poverty that can come to a man finds him rich if his heart is glad and strong. Love is the only possession that a man can carry with him to heaven and always keep with him in heaven. He lives for eternity who lives for love.

Using Aright Our Best Hours.

CHAPTER VIII.

Using Aright Our Best Hours.

Every writer who has described what we call opportunity has insisted upon the necessity of seizing opportunity as it flies. We are told that there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at its proper moment leads us on to fortune. It is also asserted that once at least there comes into every one's life a special hour which used aright has much to do with assuring his permanent welfare.

Universal experience bears witness to the truthfulness and force of these sayings. Every human being who has studied the history of the race is aware that now and then decisive hours come to his fellows, and according as those hours are used to advantage or to disadvantage, is the success or failure of his fellows. We know this fact applies also to ourselves. All our hours are not the same hours, either in their nature or in their possibility. Some hours are special hours when, for one reason or another, crises are present; if we meet these hours aright we advance, if we fail to meet them aright we fall back.

Such hours are the supreme opportunities of our entire existence: the hours when duty appears more clear than is its wont, or hours when the heart is strangely moved toward the good, or hours when a new and very uplifting sense of God's presence is felt. It is not asserted that such hours are equally bright and glorious to every one. They may not be bright at all. They may be dull and heavy. But they bring us a conviction of what is right, a sense of obligation to do the right, and an assurance that God's way is the way our feet should tread. Given any such hour, whether it be on the mountain or in the valley, and a man has his best hour. All other hours, as we plod or play, may be good, but the hour when a soul is brought face to face with duty and with God is the best hour in that particular period of our life.

It was simply and only because Jacob used aright his best hours that he rescued his name from disgrace and crowned it with glory. If ever a man started in life handicapped by unfortunate characteristics and unfortunate environments Jacob was such a man. One of the modern sculptors, George Grey Barnard, has a life-sized marble, showing what he names "Our Two Natures," two men, one the good and one the evil, coming out of the same block of stone, and struggling, each to see which shall gain the ascendancy over the other. Such two natures are in every one; but they appear with special prominence in Jacob. The question of his life was, Which is to conquer, the good or the evil? The struggle of the good for ascendancy was prolonged and severe. It was a struggle in which there were disgraceful defeats, but in which there was also a persistency of purpose and a reassertion of effort whereby the good finally triumphed. And this triumph, it may safely be asserted, was secured through the use Jacob made of a few supreme hours in his life.

When we first begin to notice Jacob, we see him participating in the deception of his aged and almost blinded father, Isaac. We do well, in studying that deception, to bear in mind that the mother, before Jacob's birth, had been told that Jacob should inherit his father's blessing. So she had probably taught Jacob that this blessing belonged to him, and that she and he were justified in securing it in any way they could. And we do well also to bear in mind that the mother recognized a certain undeveloped but capable fitness in Jacob for this blessing, a fitness that Esau lacked. Esau was a lusty, out-of-doors, happy-going man who would not control his appetites, and who, however pleasant he might be to have around when merry-making and sport were in the air, was not prudent enough and judicious enough to be the head of a great people. Rebekah, and Jacob, too, may have felt that it would be the height of family folly to leave the family blessing with Esau, who probably in a short time would squander it; it ought, therefore, to be diverted from him. Besides, the age was one in which fine distinctions between right and wrong, as we to-day see these distinctions, were not clear. We thus can understand some of the reasoning which lay back of the fraud practiced on Isaac when Jacob made believe that he was Esau bringing the desired venison, and so secured the blessing.

But we do not mean to justify the deception. It carried—as every sin carries—fearful consequences, and those consequences affected all of Jacob's future life. As he had deceived his father, again and again his children deceived their father. Even immediately upon its perpetration Jacob's life became endangered. He was obliged to flee from enraged and threatening Esau. Then it was that Jacob, at nightfall, coming alone to rocky Bethel, and lying down to sleep—a wrong-doer, a fugitive, homeless, friendless, and in peril—had his dream. He saw heaven opened over him, with angels ascending as it were by a ladder to God and then descending by that ladder from God to his resting-place. The dream bore in upon his mind certain thoughts. One was, that God had not forsaken him, but was with him. Another was, that God was ready to forgive him for his sin and bless him. And still a third was, that God would take even his life and so use it, if he should be consecrated to Him, that he, Jacob, should some day come back to Bethel as its owner and be the head of that people through whom the whole world should be blessed. And a fourth thought was, that however long the delay in fulfilling the promises, God certainly would fulfil them, and He would watch over Jacob until they were fulfilled.

As Jacob awaked from his dream those four thoughts were in his mind: of God's presence, of God's forgiveness, of God's call, and of God's protection. Up to this time the hour of this awakening was the best hour of his life. Thoughts stirred in his heart different in degree and different in quality than any he had ever had. There came a new sense of the wonderful love of God. What had he done to deserve it? Nothing. Why should not the heavens be closed, and be dark and forbidding to a defrauder like himself? That certainly was what one like himself might expect. Did not the cherubim drive sinful Adam and Eve out of the garden, and stand with flaming sword forbidding their return? But here was God appearing in mercy, assuring of His readiness to pardon transgression, and calling upon the wrong-doer to repent, to be earnest, and to make his life a benediction rather than a curse. Here, too, was God pledging His unfailing aid to Jacob if Jacob would struggle toward success!

What should Jacob do with these thoughts? He might have brushed them away from his heart as he brushed away the morning dew from his eyes, and thus immediately have banished them. He might have pondered the thoughts for a day or two, being softened and comforted by them, and then let them pass out of his mind forever. Many men have acted in such ways. A wicked man opened a letter from his mother, and with the sight of her penmanship there came to him the memory of all her interest in his purity, integrity, and godliness. He crushed the letter in his hand and threw it into the fire burning on the hearth. But another man, many another man, though moved by good impulses, and even touched to the quick by them after a while has let such impulses glide away from his heart and carry with them their helpfulness. That is what Darwin says that he did. The thought of God came to him now and then in special hours of his earlier life, but he did not hold fast to it, he let it escape, and the thought of a personal God who watches over and blesses never became the cheering possession of his soul.

But it was not so with Jacob; and because it was not so, hope of betterment dawned upon his character. He valued the thoughts that had come to him. He was awed. Awe, or reverence, is the originating spring of worthy character. His was not a simple mind easily affected. Jacob was a cool, calculating, careful, worldly-wise man, almost the last type of man that finds it easy to be awed. But to him—with whom money and sheep and slaves and retinue were now and were long afterward to be very prominent objects of ambition—there was a feeling that, after all, God and God's blessings are the supreme things of life. So he did not let the awe of the hour pass unimproved. He acted on that awe. He then and there as best he could confessed God and his faith in Him, raising a pillar of stone in God's name and anointing it with oil in significance that the spot upon which it stood was consecrated to God. Thus he erected the first of all those tabernacles, temples, synagogues, churches, cathedrals, chapels, that have been a testimony to faith in God all over the earth. And then, as though an outward thing was not enough, but some inner thing of character was now required, he vowed a vow—the best vow probably that he, with his idea of God and of money, knew how to vow. He vowed that if God who had thus shown him his opportunity and duty would be true to His promises and would take care of him as covenanted, he, Jacob, would uphold the worship of God and would give a tenth of all he might ever obtain unto God.

That vow laid hold on Jacob's life. It began to work a change that only many, many years advanced toward completion. But it began the change. When a soul, in a best moment of life, seeing duty clearly, or beholding a new revelation of God, crystallizes the emotions thus aroused by a vow that consecrates its dearest treasures to God, then the soul has taken its first step toward strong and beautiful character. Here it was that Esau failed. He seems to have had more traits that men would name attractive than had Jacob. An open-hearted, open-handed, out-spoken man, rough but kind and generous and ready, he at life's beginning appeared to have more in his favor than this grasping, secretive brother. When Esau's best hours came—hours when the sense of his own misdeeds rankled in his heart and when he was aware that repentance and reformation and a new application to duty should be his—he felt his situation deeply; he even, as a man of his temperament could do, shed tears of grief over his mistakes and losses. But he did not realize with awe the gravity of his situation, nor did he turn to God and to duty with a softened, chastened spirit, and vow his life in devotion to God. Jacob's right use of his best hours set Jacob's face towards God and character. Esau's wrong use of his best hours set Esau's face away from God and character.

But Jacob's life needed, as every life needs, more than one best hour. Off in Haran where he dwelt for twenty years he was among heathen people. As he served seven years for Leah and seven years for Rachel and six years beside, he preserved many of the ideals and purposes that came to him in the morning hour at Bethel, but not all of them. These purposes seem to have kept him from idolatry and to have given him patience and fortitude and prolonged endurance. Laban treated him deceivingly and unkindly. Jacob showed much self-control and much generosity. Laban's flocks increased beneath Jacob's care until Laban became a very rich man. If a lamb or a sheep was injured in any way Jacob bore all the expense connected with its hurt or its death. Had Laban recognized the value of his services, then perhaps Jacob would not again have come under the power of his own crafty, calculating, money-making propensities. But Laban treated Jacob like a slave, and Jacob retaliated with meanness. He speciously secured from Laban a large proportion of Laban's cattle, and with his wealth thus gathered started away from his angry master toward the old-time Bethel, that somehow was always in his memory. There was a sense in which he deserved every sheep and goat and servant that he had: he had earned them all; they ought by right of service to be his. But in another sense he had tricked Laban and was going away with ill-gotten gains.

Now is to come the second great crisis in his life. Jacob is to venture into the country where Esau is, Esau who for years has been cherishing hatred against Jacob. Hatred cherished sours and becomes malice. Esau was a difficult one to meet—fierce, strong, and determined. It was then that another great hour came to Jacob. To the east he had parted company with Laban, who had become reconciled to Jacob and who had given him his farewell blessing. To the west, where Bethel lay and whither his heart called him, is Esau. How shall he meet Esau? He does now what seems, from the night at Bethel, to have become more or less of a custom with him; he consults God. He lays the situation as it lies in his mind before God. He thus tries to see the situation as it actually is when seen in the presence of One who is omniscient. As he thus studies the situation he deems it wise to send ahead, in relays, goodly parts of his flocks, which, as they pass Esau, should be announced as gifts to Esau. It is the same cool, calculating Jacob still at work. Then he sends forward all his family and all his cattle, over the Jabbok, toward the country where Esau is. This done he remained behind alone.

Again it was the night-time. There was darkness, the darkness that often is so conducive to earnest thought and clear vision of the right. Light is indeed essential that men already in the path of duty may walk safely therein, but the path of duty itself is more often discovered when we look out of darkness than when we stand in the sunlight.

It was a time of uncertainty and almost of fear on Jacob's part—a time of heart searching in view of the past and of hesitation in view of the present. Such a time can come only to one who has ceased being a mere child and has entered into the experiences of manhood. The great questions of the nature of God and of the protection of His providence stirred in Jacob's heart. His had been a sinful career. Still he had repented, and repenting had grown in grace. But even yet his faith was fearful and his trust hesitant. Was God really on his side? Would this God, the God that had promised to bring him back to Canaan and give him a place there, surely preserve him? Then it was, while these questions were throbbing within him, that in the darkness one like a man grappled with him in wrestling. Should he be faint-hearted and cowardly, distrusting God's promise of protection, and let this stranger throw him, kill him, and so forever end the possibility of God's fulfilling His promise? Or should he lay hold of God's promise to sustain him, and do his best to throw this stranger, and thus preserve his life and accomplish his mission? It was a decisive time. Luther had such a time the night before the Diet of Worms, when he had to wrestle with the thought "Shall I be distrustful of God's providence and recant to-morrow, or shall I hold fast to my faith in God and stand by the truth to-morrow?" Hamilton had such a time the night before he decided that he would be burned at the stake rather than deny the truth. Such times come into many lives, when great questions about a right or a wrong marriage, a right or a wrong business, a right or a wrong amusement, must be decided.

Jacob would not surrender to fear! He would trust God to continue his life. He therefore relaxed no hold on the stranger, but wrestled with him as best he could. Then came the revelation. The stranger simply touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and by that touch put it out of joint! Here was an Almighty One wrestling with him! Jacob realized that God had come to him! With that revelation, even in his weakened condition, he clings the closer to the stranger; he will hold on to God. "Let me go, for the day breaketh," cries the stranger. "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," Jacob replies. Jacob cleaves to God. Jacob longs for God's blessing. He has found God very near to him. He will avail himself of His nearness. The face of God is turned upon him in love. He will not let this hour go without getting from it all the inspiration and help he can obtain.

And he did obtain the best blessing that ever came to his life—the blessing that assured him his character was to be completely changed, and made beautiful and strong for God. Christ once said to a weak, impulsive, oft-falling man: "Thou art Simon, son of Jonah"—that is, the "listening" son of a weak "dove," unreliable, changeable, frail—"thou shalt be Peter"—that is, a "rock," firm, stable. Christ thus indicated that he would make of weak Simon a resolute, trustworthy Peter, as He did. Just so God in this hour said, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob"—the "supplanter," the tricky, the calculating—"but Israel"—a "prince of God," a man that has power with God and men, a man that even prevails with God and men!

What a benediction that was, one of the choicest in all history! No higher designation could be promised to such a man as Jacob had been, than "Israel"! I would rather—under God and for God—have that name given me by God than any other name that can be named upon a weak, frail man: "Israel"—a man who can prevail with his fellows and with God for human good!

All this came about because Jacob used aright his best hours; because when God was near him, he held on to God; because when he was discouraged and heavy-hearted and the prospect was dark, he trusted God; because when he was weakened and brought low, he would not let God go unless He bless him. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," Job said. "Even if God will not deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, still we will not disobey Him," said the three prisoners at Babylon.

Henceforth in Jacob's life there would still be vicissitudes. Troubles, responsibilities, disappointments, sorrows, needs, would come. His children did not always treat him aright. Joseph was mourned as dead. Benjamin was taken from him to Egypt. He had cares and burdens, as all men must have them, until life's end. But the thought of God became increasingly precious to him year by year; his spirit sweetened and softened; his memory was full of the loving kindnesses of God, and his hope laid hold on a blessed future. Down in Egypt as he draws nigh to death he triumphantly speaks of "God, before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, and the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." He died a man of God, honored in his day, and honored since—a man who had such faith in the promises that he charged Joseph to carry his body to the Holy Land and bury it there where the Christ was to come. He started life with most unfortunate traits of character and in most unfortunate surroundings of environment, but he came off a victor, not a perfect man, but a successful man, a man whom we may well praise, a man who preserved the faith and blessed the world, and all because he made a right use of his best hours.

Where the highest thoughts are in the air, where the holiest persons gather, where the loftiest influences of God's Holy Spirit breathe, there we do well to go. There we do well to stay. Any voice that calls us nearer God should be followed, any motion of our heart toward duty should be obeyed. God is sure to send us, one and all, special hours in which His wishes are clear to our understandings and His promises are reassuring to our wills. Those are the golden hours of existence. Even God can provide no better. If we use these best hours aright, our whole moral nature is changed, and the weakest of us becomes a mighty "prince of God."

Giving Our Best to God.

CHAPTER IX.

Giving Our Best to God.

God asks every man to give to Him his best. It is God's way, God's undeviating way with each individual to say to him, "Whatever in yourself or in your possessions is best, that I ask you to devote to Me."

Students of God, in all ages, have recognized this fact. They have understood that a human life cannot wholly follow God unless all the holdings of that life are consecrated to God. They have also understood that a man's "all" includes his best, and that unless that best is God's, the man's real heart and the man's strongest purposes are not God's.

Abraham realized these truths. Accordingly, when Abraham, pondering his personal relation to God, asked himself whether he was a perfectly devoted man, the thought of his son Isaac crept into his mind. Isaac was his only real son. He dearly loved him. He was the supreme treasure of his heart. Abraham's hopes centered in Isaac. His ambitions and his joys were bound up in that son and in that son's life.

Was Abraham willing to give to God his best treasure, his Isaac? That was the question Abraham found himself called upon to face. In facing it he was affected by the theories of consecration that prevailed among the surrounding nations. Those theories asserted that consecration meant sacrifice—that to consecrate a lamb to a god meant to slay the lamb upon the altar of that god, and that to consecrate a child to Jehovah would mean to slay the child upon the altar of Jehovah.

As he thought on these things and knew God wished him to give to Him his best, there came to him a conviction that spoke to his heart with all the authority of the voice of God. "Abraham, if you are ready to give Me your best, you will take Isaac, your son, your only son, whom you love, and in Moriah offer him there for a burnt-offering."

That was the most searching command that could have entered his soul. It asked of him the sacrifice of the dearest object of his life.

Nobly, even sublimely, did he meet the test. Believing, according to the ideas prevalent about him, that perfect devotion to God and to God's kingdom called him to lift his fatherly hand and plunge the knife of death into the heart of his child, Abraham lifted his hand for the sacrifice. In that act God, who ever stood ready to correct Abraham's misconception of method, had evidence that before Him was an absolutely loyal soul. Here was one who to all generations might deservedly be called, "The father of the faithful." Accordingly, with the man who would give Him his best and who thus became a worthy example for all mankind, God made a covenant; "In Abraham and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed."

This impressive scene heads the very beginning of the salvation of the race. It is the prelude to the definite record of the world's redemption. It ushers in that line of history that starting with Abraham advances through a chosen people until a Christ is come and in Him and through Him and for Him all people are asked to give their best to God and to the world's help.

What is a person's best? Sometimes the question can easily be answered. In Malachi's time, when people were bringing their offerings to the temple, and those offerings were the blind, the lame, and the sick of the flock, it was evident that these imperfect creatures were not the best. The best were the clear-eyed, the strong-limbed, and the vigorous-bodied sheep that were left at home. Of two talents or five talents or ten talents, all in the possession of the same owner, it is clear that the ten talents are the best. The thing that to a man's own heart is the dearest is to him his best. The thing that for the world's betterment is the most helpful is to that world the man's best. Usually these two things are the same thing; a man's dearest treasure consecrated to the world's uplift is the best thing he can give to the world's good. Whatever carries a man's undivided and enthusiastic heart into usefulness is the best that he can offer to God and to God's world.

For a man is at his best when in utter self-abnegation his heart is enlisting every power of mind and body in devotion to a worthy cause. Moses was good as a shepherd. The rabbins love to tell of his protection of sheep in time of danger and of his provision for them in time of need. But Moses was at his best when, under God's call, he conquered his fear and reluctance, resolved to do what he could to rescue Israel from cruel Pharaoh, and throwing his heart into the effort, undertook the redemption of his race. Joshua was good as a servant and as a spy, but he was at his best when he took the lead of armies, won glorious victories, and wisely administered government. Paul was good when he sat at the feet of Gamaliel and studied well, and when, grown older, he was an upright citizen of Judea, but Paul was at his best when, under the inspiration of a cause that inflamed his whole life, he pleaded on Mar's Hill, wrote to Roman saints, and triumphed over suffering in prison.

It is not easy for a youth to know what is his best. He is uncertain of his aptitudes. He is not sure that he has special aptitudes. His marked characteristics have not become clear to his own eye, if they have become clear to the eyes of others; nor does he understand what power is latent in his distinctive characteristics, whose existence he is beginning to suspect. Such a youth need not, must not, be discouraged and think he has no "best." He has a "best" that in God's sight individualizes him, a "best" that God wishes consecrated to him. Whatever is most precious to that youth, whatever he least likes to have injured and most likes to have prosper, that is the element of his life that he should lay at God's feet. If the most treasured possession of his being is thus given to God, God in the due time will develop its aptitudes. He will provide a place or an hour when those aptitudes shall be given opportunity. No Moses—competent for mighty tasks—is ever allowed to remain unsummoned, provided such competency is wholly given to God. There are many marvels in human history, but no marvel is greater than the coming of the hour of opportunity to every man to do his best and to reveal his best. It is not so much a question of what is our best, as it is whether we are willing to consecrate the thing we prize most to the service of God's world.

That world needs our best. The problems of human society and the wants of men can never be met by the cheap. What costs the giver little, accomplishes little with the receiver. Skin deep beneficences never penetrate beyond the skin of those helped. The woes of the world lie far beneath the skin. When we study them, we are amazed by their depth; we see how futile many of the efforts of mankind to relieve them are. The failure of so many of these efforts causes some souls to question whether it is possible for any one ever to relieve humanity's needs. That question will always suggest a negative answer, so long as the superficial, the secondary, and the merely good are brought to the relief of mankind. It is only when the best that an individual can give or society can provide is offered men that men will be redeemed.

The existence in our world to-day of so much sin and sorrow is most significant. It exists and will continue to exist so long as we bring anything less than our best to its help. There was no cure for the lepers of Palestine so long as men threw them coins that they could easily spare, gave them food that cost them little self-denial, and said under their breath, "How pitiable those lepers are!" But when One came who gave Himself for them, who risked being put out of synagogue and temple and all society by touching them, who even ceremonially defiled Himself with their defilement, and thus did the best He possibly could do for them, the lepers were healed.

The best men in the world are not too good for the world's needs. The streets of cities and the lanes of towns will never be purified by any instrumentalities of usefulness that are less than the best. The heathen world has not a village in which the wisest, noblest, purest man or woman will not have to battle hard before the work to be done can be done. Inexpensive apparatus may avail where operations are simple, but the most expensive apparatus that can be found is required where operations are intensely complicated.

It sometimes seems as though even intelligent people had not comprehended these facts. They talk of the foolishness of casting pearls before swine. But the woes of humanity are not the woes of swine. They are the woes of men and women in bondage to wrong—and pearls are none too good to set before them that thereby the beauty of life may be seen by them and thereby that earthly condition of society whose every gate is one single pearl of purity, may be desired by them. If in a home we cannot be a comfort to the sorrowful, or in a school be an inspiration to the laggard, or in business be a cheer to the discouraged, without giving the very best out of our hearts that we can give, how shall we expect that the great mass of evil congested in dense centers and compacted through ancient custom, will ever be purified, unless we take the best resources we can command, in ourselves and in others, and bring those best resources face to face, yes, heart to heart, to that mass of evil. The world will never be saved until we offer our Isaacs upon the altar of its needs.

That world deserves our best. We never can repay to this world the good this world has done us. The richest man on the earth is the most heavily indebted to his fellows. All our knowledge, culture, and safety are gifts from others. Our schools are the product of men who for a hundred generations have thought and labored for us. "Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus. Every novel is a debtor to Homer." The more of treasure any man has, the more of toil others have borne for him. The best elements of our homes, our business, and our civilization reach us through the tears and blood of others. Were the man who has two hundred millions of dollars to attempt to meet his indebtedness to the world by the expenditure of that sum in charities, he would not begin to discharge his indebtedness. Every single benefit we enjoy cost many men their best.

The nobler our type of manhood the gladder we are to acknowledge this indebtedness and the gladder we are in our present place and time to give our best for others.

Something of fineness and of greatness is lacking in the person who thinks himself above his neighbors and their needs. The better and the larger a man becomes, the readier he is to declare himself a brother to suffering humanity and to feel that no sacrifice he can make of himself is too costly if thereby he can elevate others. It is "angelic" to be a ministering spirit sent forth to minister to those who may be made heirs of salvation.

The highest examples possible to our emulation confirm this theory of the gift of the best. Christ Himself withheld not any treasures He possessed, but He gave them all and gave them cheerily for foolish humanity. He laid upon the altars of the world's need His best wisdom, His best power, His best glory. He even laid upon that altar His own precious life, and He laid it there, in all its spotlessness, subject to the very curses of men.

So, too, did the Father unhesitatingly give His best for the world's welfare. He gave His Son, His only begotten Son, in whom He was well pleased, to save the lost. He gave that Son to any and to every pain involved in the cheering of the sorrowful and the strengthening of the weak. Not even from Gethsemane, no, nor from Calvary, did He withhold His best. What Abraham was ready to do, but what God spared him from doing, that God Himself did—and God's Isaac was stretched upon the cross and died there a sacrifice.

It is the gift of the best that touches the heart of the recipient. Superficial kindnesses are impotent, but kindnesses that involve the surrender of the giver's treasures sway the soul of the recipient. This is not always true, but it is true as a principle. "They will reverence My Son." Yes, though they pay no heed to mere servants and prophets, and though some unappreciative men slay even the Son, other men, the great multitude of men, when they realize that the Son is God's best possession, and realize that in His gift of Christ God exhausts the treasury of His heart, will reverence His Son. The cross is sure to win the whole world to God, because the cross stands for God's gift of His best. God's way of doing good should be our way. It is the only way that has assurance of success. Our wisest learning, our best possessions, our choicest scholars, our dearest children, our brightest hours, our largest abilities—all must be given to the service of humanity, if the needs of humanity are to be met.

Look where we will, the souls of men are waiting for help. Thousands upon thousands of lives will not suffice to provide this help. Millions upon millions of dollars may be expended, and still, in this land and in other lands, there will be the destitute, the afflicted, and the enslaved. It was not Abraham's gift of his sheep nor of his shekels that made him the forerunner of the Christ, but it was his gift of Isaac. Our gift of the best alone will put us in line with Abraham and Christ, and make our service a power for salvation.

Only a large-hearted life will give its best to God. Small hearts cling to their best treasures. Achan puts God's name on every object found in fallen Jericho excepting the most valuable; that he hides in his tent. Saul devotes to Jehovah all the cattle conquered from the Ammonites but the best; those he reserves for himself. It was the mark of the greatness of her nature that when to the widow there came a man of God asking for food, and her meal was only enough to bake a cake for her son and herself ere they died, she took that meal, obedient to what she considered to be a call from God, and made of it, her best, her all, a cake for the man of God. God honored that gift and paid back into her own life the blessing of His unfailing provision. He always honors any such gift. A man like Joseph gives his best and keeps giving his best to God all his days, and God never suffers Joseph to lose his spiritual vigor. But if Solomon only gives his best in his early life, and withholds his best in his later life, that later life becomes weak and meager.

The proof to which God put Abraham is the most soul-searching proof that ever comes into human lives. If we answer to it as did Abraham, we are immediately brought into a new and sweeter relation to God. God withholds no blessing from him who offers Him his best. God enters into a dearer and closer fellowship with such an one. He declares to him that His name is "Jehovah-Jireh," "The Lord will provide," assuring the man that though he does make great sacrifices for God, God will provide for him abundantly more than he has thus sacrificed. The young ruler went away from Christ sorrowful when he declined to give Christ his best, but no soul ever can be sorrowful that gives its best to Christ. "You shall have a hundred-fold more in this world and in the world to come life everlasting." It was because the disciples gave their best to Christ that they became so efficient in his service. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Accordingly Paul became mighty to the upbuilding of the kingdom of his Master and was always joyous.

Let every one look into his life and find his best. "What is it I prize most? What is it that gives me largest place among my fellows?" Then let every one consecrate that best to God. That best may be the enthusiasm of our youth, or the wisdom of our maturity, or the wealth of our age. It may be a child in our home, or our hope of advancement, or some special attractiveness we possess. Whatever our best may be, God asks us to consecrate it to Him. Whoever so consecrates his best will find God dearer, life sweeter, and service richer than ever before.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

The word repentence on page 149 was changed to repentance.