PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 5
James Hastings · 172,846 words · 178 reading sections
Section 121
^ Example is one of the most important of instructors, though it teaches without a tongue. Precept may point the way, but it is silent, continuous example, conveyed to us by habits and living with us, that carries us along. Good advice has its weight, but without the accompaniment of a good example it is of com- parati…
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* W. Lindsay Alexandei', Christian Thought and fVork, 268. The Buying and Selling of the Truth. SM Literature. Farindon (A.), Sermons, ii. 373. Greenhough (J. G.), in Great Texts of the Old Testament, 19. Gregg (J.), Sermons and Lectures, 67. James (F. H.), in Voysey's Sermons, xv. (1892), No. 42. Jeffrey (J.),…
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2. There are three kinds of truth. That is to say, truth is to be sought in three different spheres of life. (1) First there is civil truth, which exists and prevails in all the civil business of society — the truth which man speaks to man : " Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour." Th…
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root of sin, it extinguisheth all lusts, it maketh us tread under foot pleasure and honour and wealth ; it rendereth us deaf to the noise of this busy world, and blind to that glaring pomp which dazzleth the eyes of others. Hdc prceeunte seculi fiuctus calcamus : " It goeth before us in our way, and through all the sur…
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PROVERBS XXIII. 23 333 Think ye 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking? This is intuition ; but it does not come miraculously ; there has been a long preparation for it in the race and often also in the individual. ^ A modern philosophic…
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PROVERBS XXIII. 23 335 splendid." These brilliant addresses were discourses on some ecclesiastical or theological topic, which had become matter of current interest. And a few days after they had been read in St. Mary's College, you might often find them in some Eeview or Magazine. But they were always stimulating : a…
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1 Bishop W. Boyd Carpenter. ' Life and Letters o/ Jamet Hinton, 206. PROVERBS xxiii. 23 337 3. The price we have to pay often amounts to the heart's blood. It is not only truth in the sense of knowledge that we want, but, above all, truth, in action, in our relationships to each other, in our relation to God ; and fo…
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* J. Wai'schauer, The Way of Understanding, 97. • A. Farindon, Sermons, ii. 43L PROVERBS XXIII. 23 339 salutes; but the seller is often sent off with a churlish "No." In the moral and spiritual market, however, it is hard to buy and easy to sell. There are always numerous buyers bidding against each other in their e…
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Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling. If once a man has come empty-handed to the mercy of God in Christ ; if day by day he stretches out these same empty hands to the Giver of life ; if his heart has tasted of the fulness awaiting him beyond the voices of the market and the pledges of the world — th…
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PROVERBS XXX. 8 347 this there is a perfectly undisguised appreciation of ownership and its solid satisfactions : to be out of the reach of carking care, of sordid anxieties, so that a man may have his energies free for something else than the dreary struggle to make ends meet — this is, in the frankest manner, held u…
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PROVERBS XXX. 8 349 creatures such an easy prey to it that labour or painful effort was an experience it never knew. Its only enemies were its prey; and these enemies were altogether powerless to resist it, while its food was always superabundant. And so the ichthyosaurus died out. It died of too much ease. Its extinc…
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(2) Poverty fosters bitterness. The poor are tempted to blaspheme; not always, perhaps, against Him whom they call "God," but against the Divine order of the universe which permits so fearful a thing as starvation or want. The world seems all wrong. Man is hard and cold, and the very universe seems cold and hard as wel…
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1. Agur pleads for the golden mean, neither poverty nor riches. It is true that he may serve God in either, but he will serve Him best in that middle state in which he is neither poor nor rich. And it is in this fact that we find the warrant for this prayer of Agur. It is but a lawful desire to wish to serve the Lord u…
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We are, after all, not mere driftwood. We cannot change the flow of the stream, it is true, but we can battle against it ; and there are many matters in which we can effectually act in a spirit contrary to the spirit of the world. We can sometimes soften the rivalry which is the world's great principle. We can often ac…
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1 E. H. Eland. =« J. M. E. Ross. Eternity in the Heart. m . i^' ,f Literature. Allon (H.), in Harvest and Thanksgiving Services, 17. Beeching (H. C), The Grace qfj^piscopacy, 130. — ';^'' "^^5 ^^0°^^ (P-). Twenty Sermons. 2M7).'-:^ " Jj^ Calthrop (G.), in CTinst, 12. "^^ <5" Campbell (D.), The Roll-Call of Fai…
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ECCLESIASTES iii. ii 363 L The Sense of Beauty. *' He hath made everything beautiful in its time." Beauty is the most elusive and analysable thing that enters within the range of our perceptions. We have the idea of the beautiful, but we can never say just why any particular thing is to be pronounced beautiful, or …
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\ Wordsworth was convinced (and he gave his whole life to preaching the lesson) that to find joy in the sights and sounds of Nature actually fed a man's heart, and disposed him to the good life. In the well-known lines written on revisiting the banks of the Wye after an interval of five years, he expressed what he him-…
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II. The Capacity for the Infinite. " He hath set eternity in their heart." The doctrine of immortality does not seem to be stated in the Book of Ecclesiastes, except in one or two very doubtful expres- sions. And it is more in accordance with its whole tone to suppose the Preacher here to be asserting, not that the …
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Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong. And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. ^ If you came across a piece of gold reef in the midst of a peat bog you could do no other than infer that it had been iDrought there by some ancient flood from some great system to which it truly belonged, or e…
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372 ETERNITY IN THE HEART place, between him and his occupation, there is a gulf of dispro- portion. He is subjected to these alternations, and yet bears within him a repressed but immortal consciousness that he belongs to another order of things, which knows no ^'icissitude and fears no decay. He possesses stifled an…
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This is the marvellous thing, that there is something in the heart of man constantly and successfully contradicting the sight of the eyes. For the eyes of man — and no one realized this more intensely than the Preacher — are weary with the sight of the things that fade and die. From the first time they look out upon th…
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Work was ordained before the Fall, and, this being so, it must be a necessity of life, for in those happy days there was no super- fluity. The man who is for ever absorbing and never spending in work must either cease to live or live viciously. When Alexander conquered the Persians he said he learnt among other things …
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* T. A. Seed, John and Mary Fletcher, 108. ' Letters on Church and Religion of William Ewart Gladstone, ii. 164. 382 DO IT WELL AND DO IT NOW 11. With thy Might. "Do it with thy might." 1. " Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," is a homely proverb of the 'practical man. The most successful workers…
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^ Olive Schreiner, in one of her weird " Dreams," tells the parable of an artist who painted a beautiful picture. On it there was a wonderful glow which won the admiration of all compeers, but which none could imitate. The other painters said, " Where does he get his colours from ? " They sought rare and rich pigments …
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* J. R. Illingworth, Divine Transcendence, 205. ECCLESIASTES ix. lo . 387 reaper " who Dever sits down to rest, holds on its way. We see it. We know it. We are sure that this will happen to ourselves. We stand as if upon precipitous ground, slipping away. And this brief, uncertain life is all the time we have to sow …
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2. The earliest comment on the passage is that of Ben Sira, who. in a maxim of his, extant only in Chaldee, observes, " Strew thy bread upon the surface of the water and on the dry land, and thou shalt find it in the end of days." It will be observed in this earliest comment upon the verse that the difficulty of consid…
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The Precept. "Cast thy bread upon the waters.** There can be little doubt that this admonition applies to the deeds of compassion and beneficence which are the proper fruits of true religion. In times of famine, in cases of affliction and sudden calamity, it is a duty to supply the need of the poor and hungry. Almsgiv…
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(2) Bountifulness should distinguish beneficence. The crumbs which fall from the rich man's table, the scraps which are doled out at the servant's door, are not to be here accounted of. " The ^ J. Robertson, Lady Blanche Balfour, 25. ECCLESIASTES xi. i 397 liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall…
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ECCLESIASTES xi. i 399 and generous administration, whatever may be the response of His creatures. He makes His sun to shine upon the evil and the good, His rain to descend upon the just and the unjust, despite the thanklessness of the far greater portion of those who are so richly and undeservedly blessed. How largel…
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^ There is a certain beauty and power in the life that is lived and the labours that are wrought with a distant aim in view. There is no such thing as labour for remote ends in the brute creation, but in man you find it, and nothing distinguishes man from man more than the capacity to foresee and work toward a far-dist…
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Tulloch (J.), Some Facts of Religion and of Life, 232. Vincent (M. R.), God and Bread, 189. Christian World Pulpit, vii. 20 (W. Spensley); xxxiii. 149 (J. J. S. Perowne). Churchman's Pulpit : Twenty -filth Sunday after Trinity, xiii. 470 (C. Lowell). After that the Judgment. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth ; a…
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I. The Joy of Youth. •' Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth." God does not grudge us joy. God's own life is a life of joy. Although His life is a life of calm, unruffled joy, yet it is a life of joy none the less. It is not the calm of stagnation; it is not the calm of a life in which there is nothing to move it. It …
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4ii AFTER THAT THE JUDGMENT will to believe," as Professor James puts it so forcefully; it is this that constitutes the power of idealization. What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me : A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. ^ Isaac D'Israeli said, " Almost everything great has been done b…
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^ There is always the temptation of youth to think that, because things are lawful one cannot have too much of them. Charles Lamb tells us, in one of his delightful essays, of certain people who set a house on fire in order that they might enjoy the rapture of eating roast sucking-pig. That is very much like the action…
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We can see, therefore, what a powerful antidote to this temper would be furnished by the truth of a righteous judgment. Once lodge firmly the truth that men are moving on through all the hard and bitter and unjust conditions of their time to a supreme tribunal, and you have made it impossible to believe that the world …
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Christian World Pulpit, Ixxii. 311 (W. S. Swanaon); Ixxviii. 101 (R. H. Wray). Timely Remembrance: Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. — Eccles. xii. i. All the books, both of the New Testament and o…
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2. The remembrance of God should inspire youth with a sense of its responsibility and opportunity. The French have a saying, " If youth but knew and age had power." It is almost a proverb, so deep and full of wisdom is its sad truth. If youth but knew that youth is their spring ! If youth but knew that they are shaping…
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(2) It is in youth that we can offer a generoits devotion of self. — It is easy to see how dishonourable it is to ofifer to God the blind and lame and sick instead of the healthy and vigorous part of our lives ; yet we may feel it the more if we compare that which we sacrifice to God with what God sacrificed for us. Wh…
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^ Shortly after entering his ninety-fourth year, Dr. Martineau wrote to his friend Rev. W. Orme White: "In the romantic moods of early enthusiasm the fancy took me that half my present age would amply test even a slippery soul and might well limit our desire of an eligible probation. Am I not reasonably humbled, then, …
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Such a tide as moving seems asleep. Too full for sound and foam. When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.^ Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel'…
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I. A Right Feeling towards God. To fear God is to have a heart and mind rightly affected towards Him. It is to have scriptural and realizing views of His being and perfections, of His holy law and government, of His redeeming grace and mercy. It is to know, to reverence, and to love Hira, as He is in Christ. Hence it…
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^ Perfect love does, indeed, cast out fear ; for if we loved God perfectly, we should love Him always, and sin would never tempt us. And, therefore, it is in the love of God that the formula of harmony must be sought. Even when conscious of our own sin, conscious of our self-alienation from God, and the discord that it…
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ECCLESIASTES xii. 13 439 and his attitude to it is one of obligation or duty to realize it. It is not something to be got or to be done, but to be or to become. It is to be sought not without, but within ; it is the man himself, in that true or essential nature, in the realization of which is fulfilled his duty.^ III…
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£CCLESIASTES XII. 13 441 Him ? I tell you : through a means which He has established by which we can love Him freely, and without the least regard to any profit of ours: we can be useful, not to Him, which is impossible, but to our neighbour. To show the love we have to Him, we ought to serve and love every rational c…
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446 SEPARATED LOVERS mother, an only daughter, and two brothers. The father is not mentioned and presumably was dead, since the brothers appear as the natural guardians of their sister. The family were possessors of vineyards and gardens. The girl was remarkable for beauty and grace, and possessed a fine voice. She ha…
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Christian faith to waive its claim to a symbol so well adapted to its ends. " Nothing in nature," says Emerson, " is exhausted in its first use. . . . When a thing has served an end to the utter- most, it is wholly new for an ulterior service." Air is given us to breathe, but who shall blame us if we also frame it into…
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PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL. — 29 450 SEPARATED LOVERS submission and faithful following. And while the Hebrew temple and sacrifice and priesthood have passed away as the shadows of better things, the Hebrew thought of a Shepherd-God will live for ever.^ 2. The shepherd devotes himself to the sheep. He leads them to pastu…
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^ Jowett says, " We should speak of conscience, duty, obliga- tion, not of development and evolution; because we desire to strengthen that side of man which raises him above nature, not that which identifies him with it." And the real glory of God the Shepherd can only be seen when we do justice to our human liberty. A…
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^ I am in no doubt whatever of the loving intention of the Father to me. His very frail and wilful child. Sin and doubt and fear very often overcome me, and I know how little reason I give to others to be recognized as a Christian; but I do recognize Christ as my Lord and master, and would keep His will, if I could ; a…
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Yes, He is mine! and nought of earthly things, Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power, The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings. Could tempt me to forego His love an hour. Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that's thine! Go ! I my Saviour's am, and He is mine. The good I have is from His stores supplied…
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Before the dawn the darkest hour, The blank and chill before the flower! Beauty prepares this background gray Whereon her loveliest tints to lay. Ah, patience I ere we dream of it. Spring's fair new gospel will be writ. Look up ! Good only can befall While heaven is at the heart of all!* > J. G. Greenhough. ^ Lucy La…
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4. Nor does the influence of spring come only to the body As we breathe the soft new air, and see the green cloud gather on the trees, a thousand memories come back ; life is re-lived from the first primrose gathering in childhood to the wonder and joy of last year, when we looked up through the snow of a roof of apple…
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PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL. — 30 466 SPRING-TIME hope come. Nature, quickened in Christ out of her long winter sleep, shall move to him across those ages of separation which sin has made, his true bride, speaking to his heart the music of a long-forgotten language, waking in him the buried instincts of love, calling him t…
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He would utterly be contemned.— Song of Songs viii. 6, 7. LiTEEATURE fumishes no eulogy of love more splendid than this. Some of the clauses have passed into proverbs, and are often upon the lips. Such language as this has been adopted as their own by those ardent souls with whom piety is a passion, and for whom the l…
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I know that while in Heaven He stands No tongue can bid me thence depart^ II. The Steength of Lovb. *' For love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the grave." 1. The meaning of this clause is obscured by the translation. The word " jealousy " should be " love " — love regarded in its ardour and inexorable fo…
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^ Dante says, in one of the finest passages of the Purgatorio, that it is love that evokes individuality and compels it to its highest and best, and in so doing draws it home to God. The whole of the Divine Comedy is, in fact, the allegorical story of the poet's own salvation through the upward reaching power of a grea…
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Among all the delights how fair And how passing pleasant is love. Even Shakespeare's miraculous fabric of Sonnets and Plays, resplendent with a thousand lights on human thought and feeling, gives no indication of the higher teaching of the Canticle. With the exception of Dante, the Brownings, and a few others, poets i…
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* C. W. Lepper, The Bridegroom and His Bride, 240. SONG OF SONGS viii. 6, 7 481 What God requires is that we first take His gift, His unspeakable gift, and then lay ourselves without reserve at the feet that once bled for us. If we do, all else will follow. " First they gave their own selves to the Lord." This is the…
683 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.