^ J. Brierley, Life and the Ideal, 74. ^ Autoliography of Dr. Talmage, 156,
PSALM XXIII. 2, 3 419
to propagate vital religion," As a means of revival, the import- ance of praise is coming to be recognized more and more by all good men.^
Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds, The diff'ring world's agreeing sacrifice ;
Where Heaven divided faiths united finds : But Prayer in various discords upward flies.
For Prayer the ocean is, where diversely
Men steer their course, each to a sev'ral coast;
Where all our interests so discordant be
That half beg winds by which the rest are lost.
By Penitence when we ourselves forsake 'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven ;
In Praise we nobly give what God may take. And are, without a beggar's blush, forgiven.^
(4) Then there is the communion of saints, in all its breadth, including not only our converse one with another, but our whole intercourse and fellowship in worship and service — communion marked by sympathy, love, joy, and full of spiritual impulse and strength.
^ " I believe in the Communion of Saints." That cannot mean a very lukewarm interest in their welfare. If the body of Christ is one, and one of the members suffer, all suffer. Infantile and poorly educated as the Church in Uganda doubtless is, yet not a few children of God here have shown a strength of faith and resistance unto blood which their fellow-believers in Europe, to-day at least, know little or nothing of. I cannot but think that their heroism deserves the commendation of all true men of God throughout the world. It must be remembered, too, what their fellows are still suffering on account of the faith. All the evils of persecution, so vividly pictured in the end of Hebrews xi., are being bravely, yet meekly, endured to-day.^
3. What are the methods which God employs in this moral restoration of our souls ?
(1) He begins at the very beginning. — Deep down in the heart of every man, wearied and weakened by sin, lies the instinct that
^ J. Culross, God's Shepherd Care, 65.
' Sir W. Davenant, Gondibert, Canto vi. ' Mackay of Uganda, 824,
420 REST, REFRESHMENT, RESTORATION
for him restoration can come only through beginning life again at the very beginning ; and Christ is worshipped to-day by men as their Saviour, because He has a gospel and a power to satisfy this instinct. He said to men, come back and begin again at the beginning, and, trusting Him, they found they could. He did not do this in the merely negative way in which His Gospel has sometimes been misrepresented. He did not only say, Thy sins are forgiven thee ; live out the rest of thy life, sparingly with the dregs thy prodigal past has spared thee. Nor only, Thou art free, go thy way. He did not leave men where their life had run to sand. He led them back to where life was a fountain. Some- times He did this in the simplest way. When the woman who had sinned was left alone with Him, He did not only say, " Neither do I condemn thee," and so get rid of her. He added, " Go and sin no more." What an impossible order for poor mortals to receive ! Yet to hear Christ say it is not only to hear the command but to feel its possibility. And why ? Not because the soul is overborne by a magical influence, which works without respect to her own powers ; but because Christ makes her feel that in forgiving her God infects her with His own yearning for her purity, constrains her faculties by His love, enlists her will among the highest forces of the Universe, and the purest person- alities of her own kind, and above all trusts her — there is no more natural or moral power in all the Universe than that of trust — trusts her to do her best in the discipline and warfare that await her; trusts her to be loyal to Him, and trusts her capacity to overcome.
(2) He aivakens in us the conscience of the infinite difference between obedience and disobedience. — If we carefully read the Gospels, we shall find that next to revealing the Father, our Lord insisted most upon the infinite difference between obedience and disobedience. On this His words are always stern and frequently awful. " Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time. Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement : but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgement." Can we, however sleepy or dull of conscience we may be, however
PSALM XXIII. 2, 3 421
self-indulgent or flattered by the world — can we listen to words like these without a startling restoration of the soul ? Yet it is not only the Lord's words but Himself who restoreth our soul. How He lived, even more than what He said, is our conscience. You know the plausible habit we all slide into of giving ourselves this or that indulgence because it is within our right, or because the tempter said it was natural. Then there rises before us the figure of the Son of God tempted even thus in the wilderness. And immediately we have power to see that a thing is not right to do merely because we can do it, or because it lies along the line of our natural appetites. And our soul is restored as nothing else could have restored it.