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lightness in the whole range of what we call conduct ; in three- fourths, therefore, at the very lowest computation, of human life. The only doubt is whether we ought not to make the range of conduct wider still, and to say it is four-fifths of human life, or five-sixths. But it is better to be under the mark than over it ; so let us be content with reckoning conduct as three-fourths of human life.1
III.
The Assurance.
•' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
There are four ways in which this verse has been regarded. Some say that the words are fiction : that they were never spoken by the Lord ; that they were born in another man's mind ; that they have no vital relationship with the thought and purpose of Jesus, and therefore we should employ a penknife and cut them out. The second statement made concerning them is that the report is accurate, but the claim presumptuous. We are told that, like all other great leaders of men, the Nazarene had moments of unillumined ecstasy. There were times when, like Mohammed, like Luther, like John Wesley, He lost the true perspective and purpose of things. Or, to put it more plainly, these are the words of a fanatic, and due allowance must be made for exaggeration. Then there is a third way. The words were certainly spoken, but they were never intended to be taken literally. They are symbolic and figurative, and we must beware not to spoil them by getting away from the symbolism. We must exercise the imagination and in- terpret them upon the purely human plane. The fourth way is this : that the words are simply, naturally, literally and gloriously true ; that the Master said them ; that He meant just what He said, that He — Jesus the Christ, a personal, conscious, intelligent presence — is for ever abiding with His disciples, sharing all the difficulties of the pilgrim road, par- ticipating in their triumphs right away to the end of the world. That is the witness, the overwhelming witness, of the Christian Church.
1 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, chap. i.
448 CHRIST'S PARTING CHARGE
1. What then do the words signify? First of all, they promise a personal presence. The assurance of Jehovah's presence — " certainly I will be with thee " — is repeated ever and again in the histories and oracles of the Old Testament. To Jacob, to Moses, to Joshua, to the Judges, to Jeremiah, to Israel in the land of exile it was vouchsafed as the seal of pardon or as the pledge of guidance and of needed strength. But the promise then must have seemed vague and uncertain. Jehovah was far away, unseen, an awful Judge and King. The Incarnation transfigures man's whole conception of God's nearness to him. Christ speaks as Friend to friend, loving and loved. The promise is Divine as of old, but now it is human also. The Speaker we know has had His part in flesh and blood, in toils and temptations, in life and death.
^| George Eliot said that the Lord Jesus, when He was upon earth, gave a sort of impulse to the race, and that impulse remains to our own day and, therefore, He lives. It is some- thing like an engine, shunting on the railway. The engine gives the train a sudden impact and then stops. And the trucks continue on the strength of the impact given, while the engine remains dead. And, says George Eliot, and all who believe in her teaching, it is perfectly true that He is with us now in a dumb, vague, blessed impulse. Is that your Jesus ? If I may recall my illustration of the train, I will tell you of my Jesus. When the Lord came and put Himself on the train He went with it, and He is with it now. " I am with you, not merely as some dumb, contributory impulse, a dying dynamic ; I am with you a living presence, conscious, intelligent, knowing you and offering the powers of the Infinite to save you and to complete the plan of your life, and lift you into a life of holiness with God." 1
2. It is an abiding presence: "I am with you alway." The Lord, using the simple idiom of His native tongue, says " all the days." The pledge is precise and detailed. It goes hand in hand with the Church into all the vicissitudes of her long and perilous journey. It has never been withdrawn or modified. The history of the Christian centuries is the record of its fulfil- ment. It is ours to-day — this critical day of the Church's life — to make us courageous in face of difficulty and calm in the midst of controversy.
1 J. H. Jowctt.
ST. MATTHEW xxvm. 18-20 449
That word " alway " separates Him from every other teacher the world has ever seen. If you want to know how infinite is the separation, take down the biographies of some of the superlatively great leaders of the human race. Listen to their last words, and when you have their message in your ears come back to this, and you will feel that you are in another world. Take that great book of Plato in which he describes the last few moments when Socrates is leaving his disciples. It is a beautiful picture, tragic, pathetic, winsome. But you never find Socrates even whispering that when he has left his disciples he will remain with them, a personal attendant spirit among them. Take the Apostle Paul himself — next to the Lord, perhaps, the greatest man among men — and read his Second Epistle to Timothy, where you get his almost farewell word : " I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth " — I will remain with you ? Not a sug- gestion of it. The great men of our race do not come within an infinite distance of suggesting that they will remain among their disciples. This makes the Lord unique: "Lo, I am with you alway."