PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 2
James Hastings · 195,735 words · 204 reading sections
Section 61
If The one thing needful — whether we seek the love of God or of man — ^is unfaltering courage, that quality which alone places great things within our reach.^ ^ When William Wilberforce was brought to Christ, he went with fear and trembling to his friend, the great statesman of the day, William Pitt, to tell him of t…
1,069 wordsSECTION 62Section 62
158 AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE Independence and isolation may be nothing better than stoic egotism. A man may separate himself from his fellows through self-conceit alone. Pope has a couplet which says of certain persons — They so despise the crowd, that should the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong. Aga…
1,046 wordsSECTION 63Section 63
^ Joshua's words have had a long and active life. Not only are they enshrined imperishably in the Book of God ; they are frequently to be seen as a watchword in our modern homes, amidst the stir and movement of our life to-day, inscribed perhaps on card or tablet, and hung where the visitor cannot help seeing them, in …
932 wordsSECTION 64Section 64
Now I think of all achievements 'tis the least To perpetuate the species; it is done By the insect and the serpent, and the beast. But the man who keeps his body, and his thought, Worth bestowing on an offspring love-begot, Then the highest earthly glory he has won, When in pride a grown-up daughter or a son Says " Tha…
917 wordsSECTION 65Section 65
(1) He is a holy God. — The Scriptural idea of the holiness of God has a wider sweep than we often recognize. It funda- mentally means His supreme and inaccessible elevation above the creature; which, of course, is manifested in His perfect separation from all sin, but has not regard to this alone. Joshua here urges th…
1,026 wordsSECTION 66Section 66
2. Of the actual extent of her influence, of her relation in particular to the northern tribes, of the cause which immediately determined her to proclaim a rising against the Canaanites, we really know nothing. She summoned Barak, her fellow-tribes- man, to advance from Kedesh, in the extreme north of the country, upon…
949 wordsSECTION 67Section 67
* G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. 172 THE SIN OF MEROZ and may come in like a flood : and in the great day of Arma- geddon he at least would not be found unready or unarmed.^ 2. There are many people always who are in the community and in the world whit Meroz was in Palestine. For there is an everlasting struggle going…
954 wordsSECTION 68Section 68
^ I know no nobler words, no loftier human standard, no more sublime ideal for the present juncture, than the masterpiece of literature with which Abraham Lincoln enriched the political library of the United States. The War of Secession was drawing to a close, and that great man, in whose character were combined the hi…
927 wordsSECTION 69Section 69
^ We may be too ready to identify the political interests of the nation, as they appear to ourselves, with the cause of God. We are all naturally disposed to elevate our personal judgment in practical affairs into a standard of essential right, like George iii., who confessed that "since he had no wish but the prosperi…
920 wordsSECTION 70Section 70
* Bishop A. F. W. Ingram. JUDGES V. 23 179 activities and relationships of life. In the language of Deborah, we are summoned " to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty." (1) No one will question the duty of the Church in the evan- gelization of the world. The Church is bidden go into all the world and prea…
914 wordsSECTION 71Section 71
^ Bishop A. F. W. Ingram. ^ Prebendary Eyton. JUDGES V. 23 181 3. Notice the phrase that is used: "the help of the Lord." Does God require help ? Does the Lord require the help of feeble and fallible men ? No. What does He need ? Does He need our prayers ? Does He need our services of praise ? No. He needs nothing fr…
966 wordsSECTION 72Section 72
2. Another reason is false humility. — Now, humility is good when it stimulates, it is bad when it paralyses the active powers of a man. It may do either. We have noble examples of humility as a stimulus; the sense of weakness making a man all the more ardent to use all the strength he has. But if conscious weakness ca…
984 wordsSECTION 73Section 73
^ Robert Kelly Weeks. i86 THE SIN OF MEROZ light of such excited feelings, and to suppose that Meroz drew on itself, not merely the invective of Deborah, but also the dis- pleasure and condemnation of a Eighteous God ? No doubt, " Curse ye Meroz " is always out of place on the lips of falUble men ; only supernatural…
1,120 wordsSECTION 74Section 74
3. The tone, no doubt, is not the tone of Christ. We will admit that about religion Deborah, the judge of Israel, had much still to learn. But one sometimes feels that it is fortunate there was a Deborah, that her imperfection has a value of its own. In the very ancient days, when life was simple, broad, and spontaneou…
926 wordsSECTION 75Section 75
Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small. They ground Meroz to powder so small that nothing remains to mark the spot whereon it stood. ^ The curse meant something like that pronounced by Joshua upon the man who should rebuild Jericho — that he should lose all his children between the layin…
908 wordsSECTION 76Section 76
Let us look at the text in two ways, first as it applies to Samson, and second as it applies to the Christian. I. Samson's Loss. " The Lord was departed from him." So God had once been there. His Spirit had dwelt in Samson's heart, and in no small measure. But now God had left Samson. Well, what difference did it m…
1,049 wordsSECTION 77Section 77
^ Charles Brown, in Youth and Life, 202. 198 UNCONSCIOUS LOSS i And it was not only without the help of the people but in j spite of them that Samson had to deliver the land. The /) Israelites, instead of flocking to Samson's standard and seconding his effort to throw off the Philistine yoke, bound him and gave h…
1,111 wordsSECTION 78Section 78
2. And what was the result? His._yiel.ding meant^an^ immediate loss^ j^_^ow^rJ_,,^ml^^'^'£o^ on^^might think, whether the heaH of the Hebrew judge were adorned with locks that hung to his broad shoulders, or were closely shorn ? His strength surely lay in his mighty sinew and muscle. But this is just the naturalistic r…
901 wordsSECTION 79Section 79
i. The Backslider. 1. What is backsliding? It is a falling from grace. But let us look at it psychologically. The man has been " born again," and the new-born soul is feeling its way along a course absolutely new to itself. It faces a trackless area, and everything is strange. Under these conditions of inexperience, e…
1,039 wordsSECTION 80Section 80
3. " The Philistines be upon thee." The degradation of char- "^^ acter may go on quite unconsciously, and it is only when some / ^ S. J. stone. Poems and Hymns, 103. 2 -^^ -^^ Punshon. 2o6 UNCONSCIOUS LOSS crisis arises in a man's life that he becomes aware that his moral strength has departed from him. ^ I remembe…
907 wordsSECTION 81Section 81
* W. Scott Palmer. 2o8 UNCONSCIOUS LOSS But the gift may be different from these. We put these from us. They do not concern us. But the gifts are very varied. Let us take one as an example which we do not generally regard in that light — the gift of prayer. If we steadily make use of this capacity, small as it may b…
1,015 wordsSECTION 82Section 82
It is so in mental things. The freshness of intellectual vigour seems preserved to some men long beyond the wonted span of working years; but a time comes to the strongest when the climax of power has been reached and passed, when the old freshness of delight in new aspects of familiar things no longer exists, when the…
900 wordsSECTION 83Section 83
brightness to the most darkened life, which does not refuse to shine on the most benighted soul. And what he sought, he found. Slowly his hair grew, and with it slowly returned his strength ; as health comes slowly back to the man who has been shattered by disease or accident ; as spiritual vigour slowly returns to…
902 wordsSECTION 84Section 84
The book has an ofiice in the Bible not unlike that which God has given to the flowers in the world of nature; it softens, it 2i8 A WOMAN'S CHOICE sweetens, it soothes. And as God has greatly cared for His flowers, so He has greatly cared for this book. Its Maker has made it very beautiful.^ ^ A recent Gongregationa…
933 wordsSECTION 85Section 85
^ A. Lewis. 220 A WOMAN'S CHOICE of its form simply — though even in our English Version it sounds like a sweet and noble music — but because it expresses, in a worthy form and once for all, the utter devotion of a genuine and self -conquering love. It is the spirit which informs and breathes through these melodious …
930 wordsSECTION 86Section 86
In this world's strange vanishing show, The one truth is Loving. 0 sister, the dark cloud that veils All life lets this rift through to glorify future and past. "Love ever — love only — love faithfully — love to the last." 2. Htr love to God. — Naomi knew the true God. When the cold, senseless, dumb, dead idols of Moa…
973 wordsSECTION 87Section 87
^ Here we have the resolution of Ruth portrayed in lively Colours ; so that if we consider her Sex, a Woman ; her Nation, a Moabite; one may boldly pronounce of her what our Saviour did of the Centurion, " Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." ^ ^ Love is the thoughtful outgoing o…
937 wordsSECTION 88Section 88
(3) Determination. — "Naomi saw that Euth was stedfastly minded." And it was no less than the plain truth, as her whole after-life declared. Euth went as far as she knew how when she said : " The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." St. Paul lifts our assurance to a higher point: "For …
935 wordsSECTION 89Section 89
^ Haman being offended with Mordecai, as if it had been but leane and weak revenge to spit his spight upon one person, hated all the Jewes for Mordecai's sake : the mad Beare stung with one Bee, would needs throw downe the whole Hive. But cleane con- trarie, Naomi had so graciously demeaned her selfe, that Euth for her…
925 wordsSECTION 90Section 90
* Anna Bunstou, The Porch of Paradiu, 25. RUTH I. i6, 17 231 be than religion ? It is religion that makes our earthly friend- ships eternal ; love, which is the soul of friendship, is the fruit of religion. " Beloved, let us love one another : for love is of God ; for every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth…
902 wordsSECTION 91Section 91
^ A certain beadle had fancied the manse housemaid, but was at a loss for an opportunity to declare himself. One day — a Sunday — when his duties were ended, he looked sheepish, and said, " Mary, wad ye tak a turn, Mary ? " He led her to the churchyard, and pointing with his finger, got out, " My fowk lie there, Mary ;…
917 wordsSECTION 92Section 92
Round her eyes her tresses fell, Which were blackest none could tell, But long lashes veil'd a light, That had else been all too bright. ^ Hugh Macmillan. RUTH 11. 4 239 And her hat, with shady brim, Made her tressy forehead dim; — Thus she stood amid the stocks, Praising God with sweetest looks: — Sure, I said, He…
909 wordsSECTION 93Section 93
RUTH II. 4 241 acknowledged the sameness of their human nature and the same- ness of their wants and destinies. And we cannot imagine that this kindly custom, any more than the sitting down together of master and servant at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the church, and partaking together of the holy symbols, l…
938 wordsSECTION 94Section 94
^ It is related of Sir Ealph Abercrombie, the hero of Aboukir, that, mortally wounded, he was carried on board one of his ships and a soldier's blanket placed under his head. He expressed relief, and then asked whose blanket was at his head. "Only a soldier's blanket," was the reply. "Whose blanket, did you say ? " he …
934 wordsSECTION 95Section 95
Boaz, as we see in the course of the whole narrative, was habitually a devout man. He set the Lord always before his eyes, and acknowledged him in all his ways ; and therefore it was a perfectly natural thing for him to introduce God's Name into the midst of his ordinary pursuits. He felt that it was by God's blessing …
914 wordsSECTION 96Section 96
The Call of Samuel. And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, Speak : for thy servant heareth.— i Sam. iii. lo. 1. For Samuel a great change was necessary and imminent. Up to this moment he had lived largely in the energy and motive- power of his mother's intense re…
921 wordsSECTION 97Section 97
2. There have been times when thoughts like these involved men in serious perplexity as to the compatibility of Divine election with the freedom of the human will. And great caution was then needed in their treatment. But our age, as a whole, has reacted from all such tendencies ;:,and our danger lies in the very oppos…
913 wordsSECTION 98Section 98
We'll trim our broad sail as before, And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore ! ^ II. The Time of the Call. 1. "Samuel was laid down to sleep, and the Lord called ^ Samuel." God calls men at unlikely times. The child is gone to * Oliver Wendell Holmes. 256 THE CALL OF SAMUE…
911 wordsSECTION 99Section 99
DEUT.-ESTH. — I J 258 THE CALL OF SAMUEL our conscience, it matters not, so that we feel it to be a command.^ 2. Let us think of some of the ways in which the call of God may come to us. (1) In nature. — Are there not days when the mountains and the hills break forth before us into singing, and the trees of the fie…
957 wordsSECTION 100Section 100
^ A great sorrow — like any other possession — is a great trust. The very magnitude of a great calamity or grief confers in itself the privilege of exception, and, in the measure in which it brings " detachment," it brings that true mastery of self without which — ^no matter how much else we may attain — our lives must…
904 wordsSECTION 101Section 101
Cast by that far white gleam, And I tremble at the murmur Of one mote in the mighty beam, As the everlasting squadrons Their fated influence shed. While the vast meridians sparkle With the glory of their tread. That constellated glory The primal morning saw. And I know God moves to His purpose, And still there is …
957 wordsSECTION 102Section 102
Blessed be Thou for all the joy My soul has felt to-day ! Oh, let its memory stay with me, And never pass away ! I was alone, for those I loved Were far away from me; The sun shone on the withered grass, The wind blew fresh and free. * Life and Letters of F. J. A. Ilort, i. 35. I SAMUEL HI. lo 265 Was it the sm…
1,014 wordsSECTION 103Section 103
2. Attachment. — It is a call to our life's work, a call to labour ; but first it is a call to God. It is a common mistake to regard our work as leading us to God, rather than God as leading us to our work. But the latter is the true order of vocation. God calls us to Himself, and then sends us to labour in His vineyar…
927 wordsSECTION 104Section 104
Though the shore we hope to land on Only by report is known. Yet we freely all abandon, Led by that report alone; And with Jesus Through the trackless deep move on. * CoUlard of ike Zambesi, 98. 270 THE CALL OF SAMUEL (.2. If we have heard Him speak in this way, how have we received His Word ? Perhaps with joy at fi…
903 wordsSECTION 105Section 105
The Stone of Help. DEUT.-ESTH. — 18 Literature. Davies (J. LI.), Spiritual Apprehension, 329. Dick (G. H.), The Yoke and the Anointing, 187. Humberstone (W. J.), The Cure of Care, 83. James (J. A.), Sermons, iii. 189. Jerdan (C), Gospel Milk and Honey, 89. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Deuteronomy-1 Samuel, 283.…
926 wordsSECTION 106Section 106
That " hitherto " is the word of a mighty faith. It includes as parts of one whole the disaster no less than the victory. The Lord was helping Israel no less by sorrow and oppression than by joy and deliverance. The defeat which guided them back to Him was tender kindness and precious help. He helps us by griefs and lo…
919 wordsSECTION 107Section 107
(1) Divine help is conditioned on prayer. " And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. . . . And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of 28o THE STONE OF HELP the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel too…
1,024 wordsSECTION 108Section 108
IT Last summer I sojourned for a few days in a village situated on the northern slopes of the Ochils. While there I heard frequent reference made to a curious stone called the " Ebenezer Stone," said to exist in a lonely spot far up among the hills. I resolved to see it, and set off one beautiful day, along with some f…
966 wordsSECTION 109Section 109
^ Are there not battlefields in our life which have been the scenes of our disgraceful defeat? Are there not stones in the walls of our houses which have looked on and beheld our abominable and shameless sin, our irritability, our jealousy, our hot unkind and cruel words, things which, as we remember them to-day, fill …
904 wordsSECTION 110Section 110
And o'er the road that now is dark and dreary, This soul, made buoyant by the strength of rest, ^ C H. Spurgeon. I SAMUEL VII. 12 287 Shall walk untired, shall run and not be weary, To bear the blessing that has made it blest. 2. The Present. — Those pillars, the sacraments, the songs of praise to which past mercies…
928 wordsSECTION 111Section 111
"little lad" who is with him, and as the boy runs forward to 391 292 FRIENDSHIP pick up the arrow, his master cries after him the words agreed upon as a message of danger, and as soon as the arrow has been recovered sends him away with his weapons. " And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place toward…
1,013 wordsSECTION 112Section 112
"More than my brothers are to me," — Let this not vex thee, noble heart! I know thee of what force thou art To hold the costliest love in fee. But thou and I are one in kind, As moulded like in Nature's mint; And hill and wood and field did print The same sweet forms in either mind. For us the same cold streamlet c…
972 wordsSECTION 113Section 113
^ Henry David Thoreau, 113. ' S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W, Eoberlsoji, 187. 2 SAMUEL I. 26 297 He that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.* ^ Eobertson …
1,143 wordsSECTION 114Section 114
' Lord Avebury, Peace and Happiness, 182, 2 q_ Silvester Home. 300 FRIENDSHIP (3) It provides Gomradesliip. — A friend is the best of all comrades in the work and warfare of life, the most serviceable, the most trustworthy, the least likely to be deluded by irrelevant considerations. "A man cannot speak to his son, b…
1,032 wordsSECTION 115Section 115
IF Jonathan is a pious man as well as a righteous one. He believes the Lord's messages that He has chosen David to be king, and he submits ; seeing that it is just and right, and that 2 SAMUEL I. 26 303 David is worthy of the honour, though it be to the hurt of him- self and of his children after him. It is the Lord'…
993 wordsSECTION 116Section 116
^ Cardinal Newman, in his beautiful sermon on "Love of Eelations and Friends," remarks on the apparent strangeness of the fact that the Son of God should have thus "had a private friend." "This shows us," he says, "first, how entirely He was a man, as much as any of us, in His wants and feelings ; and next, that there …
907 wordsSECTION 117Section 117
Symonds (A. R.), Sermons, 360. Wilson (J. M.), Sermons preached in Clifton College Chapel, 2nd Ser., 6G. Christian World Pulpit, ix. 155 (Bull) ; xxii. 332 (Coster) ; Ixxi. 107 (Scott-Holland). Chivrch Pulpit Year Boole, 1904, 181 (Currie). Churchman's Pidpit : Sixth Sunday after Trinity, x. 353 (Jones), 354 (Symon…
915 wordsSECTION 118Section 118
4. The story of David possesses a fascination which is not equalled even by that of St. Paul. This is due in some degree to the Book of Psalms, which furnishes the simplest and most complete devotional exemplar that we possess. It is due, also, no doubt, to the idyllic beauty of the shepherd's earliest story — to the r…
900 wordsSECTION 119Section 119
Self is the flint and steel, and the idol is the spark; The spark indeed may be quenched by water, But how shall water quench the flint and steel ? ^ Take, for instance, temper. That is a common sin enough. There are thousands of households wrecked by the ungovernable irritability of an individual. He cannot restrai…
950 wordsSECTION 120Section 120
^ Inn Dmna Coolbrith. 3i8 THOU ART THE MAN that he did some way or other delude himself : and this could not be with respect to the crimes themselves, they were so manifestly of the grossest kind. What the particular circum- stances were, with which he extenuated them, and quieted and deceived himself, is not related…
965 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.