f I sat a little while ago in one of the chambers of the National Gallery, and my attention was caught by the vast miscellaneous crowd as it sauntered or galloped through the rooms. All sorts and conditions of people passed by — rich and poor, the well-dressed and the beggarly, students and artisans, soldiers and sailors, maidens just out of school and women bowed and wrinkled in age ; but, whoever they were, and however un- arresting may have been all the other pictures in the chamber, every single soul in that mortal crowd stopped dead and silent
» G. W. B. EusseU.
GENESIS IV. 9 145
before a picture of our Saviour bearing His cross to the hill. And when the Church is seen to be His body — His very body : His lips, His eyes, His ears, His hands, His feet. His brain, His heart : His very body — and when the Church repeats, in this her corporate life, the brave and manifold doings of Judaea and Galilee, she too shall awe the multitude, and by God's grace she shall convert the pregnant wonder into deep and grateful devotion.*
IT How far we are from reaching the Christ ideal ! James Russell Lowell was a poet, a statesman, a man of the world. You know his poem, " A Parable " :
Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see How the men, My brethren, believe in Me."
Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of Him; And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, He saw His own image high over all. But still, wherever His steps they led. The Lord in sorrow bent down His head; And from under the heavy foundation-stones, The Son of Mary heard bitter groans.
"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?"
Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man. And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin. These set He in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem. For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said He, " The images ye have made of Me ! "
U. The Missionary Duty of the Church.
1. There is another aspect of Church life. Christ Himself has laid the responsibility of missionary service upon the Church, and therefore there cannot be sound and healthy life in the Church where it is ignored. We must think of the word " missionary " in
» J. H. Jowett
GEN.-NUM. — 10
146 AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?
its true sense, — it matters not whether we apply it to work at home or abroad — the Church must go out " to seek and to save that which was lost."
We have found in the Old Testament the blackest picture of a brother's sin. We can find in the New Testament a very different picture. Andrew, the First Apostle, has always been chosen as the illustrative type of a missionary because he brought his brother to Christ. The two brothers, thus placed in juxta- position, show the completely different (and yet by no means unusually different) view which two men could take of the relations and duties of brotherhood. Just as the stars shine brightest on a dark night, so the dark background of Cain's selfishness and jealousy serves to enhance the brilliance of Andrew's conduct, whose first thought was to find his brother and to make him the sharer of his own happiness.
Complete as is the difference between the light and dark, and complete as is the contrast between the action of these two men, the essence of the difference between the careers of the Apostle and the fratricide lay in this one point — a matter which men are used to look upon as very much a question of degree, and influenced immensely by differing circumstances — the way in which they respectively regarded brotherhood as a relationship entailing, or not entailing, certain natural duties. "Am I my brother's keeper ? " said Cain, and when he asked that question, he seemed to take it for granted that he had made a defence of himself to which no exception could possibly be taken. "Where is Abel thy brother? ... I know not: am I my brother's keeper?" seemed unanswerable. But with Andrew it was just the opposite. His first thought, on making the great discovery of Christ, was to make his brother the partner of his good fortune : ** He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias."
A brother's heart had Andrew. Joy beyond All joy to him, the promised Christ to find: But heavenly joy may not to duty blind; He cannot rest, his bliss is incomplete Till Simon sits with him at Jesus' feet, — His brother then by more than natural bond.*
^ G. T. Coster.
GENESIS IV. 9 147
2. Missions! Christianity alone could give birth to them Men may be disposed to disparage them, but have they ever seriously reflected what civilized Europe would have given to pagan populations, if Christian missionaries had not been there ? Alas ! what would it have brought to them ? Eifles and other fire-arms wherewith to destroy each other; brandy and opium, to brutalize and to degrade ! But amongst those European conquerors, in the very refinement of their vices more barbarous than their victims, there are those who have at heart a strange love. They come to these pagans. They tell them of the Father in heaven who loves them, and of brothers on earth who wish to save them. They relate to them the marvellous history of the love of the Son of God. They are persecuted. They are reviled. They may be murdered. But soon, on the earth watered by their blood, Christian Churches are seen to flourish. It is thus that the net of the gospel, formerly borne by twelve fishermen of Galilee, finds its extremities meet after having compassed the whole earth.