(4) If we can say " We have found the Messiah," it is now, as
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of old, enough. John in the desert, Andrew on the morrow aftei meeting the Eedeemer, did not look like the men who were to initiate nothing less than the spiritual conquest of the world. But one truth, seriously believed and proclaimed with the accents of sincerity, will go a great way with any single soul. If, indeed, we have found the Messiah, not merely in a literature, not merely as an explanation of existing institutions, not merely as the centre of much thought and activity in this our time and day, not merely as an historical personage that must needs be recognized by intelliorent men, — if we have found Him for ourselves, found Him as a still living friend, found Him in our prayers, found Him in our Bibles, found Him in our efforts to conquer deep-seated evil within us, found Him in our intercourse with His living servants, found Him in the appointed Sacrament of His love, — if we have found Him as the pardoner of sin and as the conqueror of sin, then we have motives enough and to spare for working fo^r the evangelization of others, for bringing all whom we can to that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, to such ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there may be no place left either for error in religion or for viciousness in life.
3. Society must find Christ. The conception of Christ as the Saviour of individuals only is insufficient for the fulfilling of prophecy or the solution of historic problems. The institutions of men must be saved as truly as individual souls. The Christian design for the world is not an anarchy of good individuals. And it is as society finds Christ that it rejoices in the exhilarating pulsations of a diviner life than the older dispensations ever dreamed of. Modern civilization, so far as it is virtuous, philan- thropic, and high-principled, is the result of Andrew's discovery. And one of the great needs of our age is to extend the beneficent influence of this discovery. The spirit of Christ claims dominion over all life, and the principle of Christ's own life must be the principle of the home, the shop, the school, the court, and in the work of every department of our many-sided activities. It is as men realize this, and practise it, that the time is hastened when the new Jerusalem shall descend out of heaven from God, having peace for its walls, righteousness for its foundations, and love for its law.
ST. JOHN I. 40-42 105
^ There is a great deal of good talk these days about regener- ating society. It used to be that men talked about " reaching the masses." Now the other putting of it is commoner. It is helpful talk whichever way it is put. The Gospel of Jesus is to affect all society. It has affected all society, and is to do so more and more. But the thing to mark keenly is this, the key to the mass is the man. The way to regenerate society is to start on the individual. The law of influence through personal contact is too tremendous to be grasped. You influence one man and you have influenced a group of men, and then a group around each man of the group, and so on endlessly. Hand-picked fruit gets the first and best market. The keenest marksmen are picked for the sharpshooters' corps.^
II.
A Gkeat Enthusiasm. " He first findeth his own brother Simon."
Andrew does not dream of keeping his great discovery to himself. His first thought is to tell it to his brother Simon. He is full of it — can think or talk of nothing else. His eye flashes, his face shines, his voice rings with the music of it. " Simon, we have found Christ."
^ I like greatly the motto of the Salvation Army. It must have been born for those workers in the warm heart of the mother of the Army, Catherine Booth. That mother explains much of the marvellous power of that organization. Their motto is, " Saved to Serve." ^
1. There is no joy known to human hearts so glorious, so imperative — breaking down all strongholds and through all restraints — as the joy of a heart in its first gladness in finding the Lord and knowing the forgiveness of sins. As Morley Punshon, the famous English preacher, said, there was joy in the breast of the sage of Syracuse when he shouted aloud his glad " Eureka " in the hearing of the people who deemed him mad ; there was joy in the soul of Sir Isaac Newton when the first conception of the law of gravitation burst upon his thought as he sat under his orchard tree ; there was joy in the heart of Columbus in that moment of triumph over doubt and mutiny, when the tiny land-birds settled
» S. D. Gordon, Quiet Tcdks on Service, 29. « lUd. 141.
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upon the sails of his vessel, bearing upon their timid wings the welcomes of the new world ; there is joy for the gold-finder, when he sees the precious ore shining in his gold-pan; joy for children when new marvels of the world open on their vision ; joy for the poet when he sends through the world a glad thought that stirs the pulse of mankind ; but none of these can compare with the joy of the ransomed sinner who can clasp his brother's hand and say, " Come, brother, we have found the Lord."