The Church has an answer, but it is not always ready to give it. The Church is sometimes taken aback by the world's moral or religious questions, because it does not appreciate the world's moral or religious difficulties.
Sad, were the question to go up from Edom, " Watchman, what of the night?" and the answer to come back from Judah, " * Night,' did you say ? we are scarcely aware that there is a night ! " With one class, that, then, is the reason of the absence of reply— want of perception of the difficulty. And for another class, the reason may be that, while feeling the pressure of the difficulty, they have not obtained a solution for themselves. That is just as sad. Sad, were outsiders to appeal to us, doubting and looking to us for faith, ignorant and looking to us for knowledge, to find that the faith and knowledge they
i66 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
look for are absent — never truly possessed, or if once in a fashion possessed, now well-nigh vanished. Sad, we say, were the question to arise from Edom, " Watchman, what of the night ? " and the answer from Judah to be this, " The truth is, we are brothers in blindness ; in spite of position, in spite of profession, we know as little as yourselves."
iii. The Answer of the Church.
The answer of the Church is twofold,
1. Throughout her history there have been both night and morning. There is a rhythm everywhere here on earth. Things vary and alternate. We have day and night, summer and winter; we sleep and we wake, we have youth and age, we live and die. Tides ebb and flow ; moons wax and wane ; the flowers have yearly their resurrection and their death, " The morning cometh and also the night."
Nations rise and fall. Greece cultivates the garden, and Kome breaks down all her hedges ; Eome builds walls, and the Goth scales them ; patriots purchase liberty, and by and by the people throw their liberty away. And thus, in human history, the continual variation and alternation go on. " The morning cometh and also the night."
The Church goes down into Egypt, and she is ransomed; again, she is bound with fetters and borne to Babylon. She has palmy days, and then days of adversity. She knows revival, and soon reaction and depression follow. Her Eeformation grows to rationalism, her noblest Puritanism to prudishness and politics. The church of the parish falls cold and dead, and the chapels become the centres of spiritual light and life ; anon the chapel is made the club-house of petty interests in the village, and life and work revive in the church. The dawn of civilisation seems to break on heathen Africa when the pioneer missionary touches its shore, and ere long civilisation casts darker shadows there than those of heathendom's midnight. So true it is that " The morning cometh and also the night " !
2. Yet the night is far spent and the day is at hand. Many forms of wrong, cruelty, and vice are impossible now which were possible and even common before the Sou of God
\IAH 167
and Son of Man dw ^mong us ; nay, even before the Reformation carried t) ^h Europe a light by which such deeds of darkness wei jproved. The individual man may stand little higher, wh x in v?isdom or in goodness, than of old ; but the r umber men capable of high thoughts, noble aims, and lives devotee the service of truth and righteousness, is incomparably larger The world took long to make, and may take still longer to rei ke ; but its re-creation in the image of God is just as certain 3 its creation.
(1) We see the .pproach of the day in matters of faith. There never was a t me in human history when men were so loyal to the landmarl^s of truth. There never was a time when the blessed Bible was entrenched in so many faithful hearts. True, there are controversies. God be praised ! The worst that can ever befall the Christian Church is stagnation. The Kingdom of God is not likely to suffer from any investigation of its truth. To be sure, there are heretics and schismatics. They perish by the way and their work serves to strengthen the battlements of truth, as coral insects toiling in unknown depths leave their bones as a contribution to the continents of cominsr ages. The truth had never so many stalwart friends as it has this day.
(2) We see it in social and ethical life. Ideals are higher than ever. Character means more. The character of Jesus stands out more distinctly as the Exemplar of morals. His incomparable portrait is the touchstone of character. More is expected of men than ever before in human history. More is expected of kings, of politicians, of merchants, of the average man. Compare the dignitaries of our time with those of a few centuries ago : Queen Victoria with Elizabeth, the President of the French Eepublic with Louis the Grand, Gladstone with Machiavelli, President Harrison with our continental governors, the citizen, the country gentleman, the ordinary church-goer or the non-church-goer, with those of a hundred years ago. I say ideals are higher and men more eager in striving after mem. There is more respect for common honesty, for chastity and temperance, for benevolence. Many of the vices that were common have disappeared from public view.