TJ It is said that the engineer who planned the Brooklyn bridge — one of the most colossal triumphs of scientific skill in the world — was a bed-ridden invalid ; and that with the help of a telescope he watched the bridge grow into shape day by day from his couch of paralysis and pain. He triumphed because the great thought in a fragile frame was conjoined with all but exhaustless capital and the illimitable labour that capital could bring into the field.2
I cannot do it alone,
The waves run fast and high, And the fogs close chill around,
And the light goes out in the sky; But I know that we two Shall win in the end — Jesus and I.
I cannot row it myself,
My boat on the raging sea; But beside me sits Another
Who pulls or steers with me, And I know that we two Shall come safe into port — His child and He.
Coward and wayward and weak,
I change with the changing sky ; To-day so eager and brave,
To-morrow not caring to try; But He never gives in, So we two shall win — Jesus and I.
Strong and tender and true,
Crucified once for me ! He will not change, I know,
Whatever I may be ! But all He says I must do,
Ever from sin to keep free. We shall finish our course And reach home at last —
His child and He.
1 Phillips Brooks, Life, 53. 2 T. G. Selby.
The Teacher's Great Text.
Literature.
Abbott (L.), Signs of Promise, 111,
Alexander (S. A.), The Christianity of St. Paul, 123.
Bell (C. L>.), The Name above Every Name, 165.
Burrell (D. J.), The Morning Cometh, 67.
Church (R. W.), Village Sermons, iii. 9.
Clark (H. W.), Meanings and Methods of the Spiritual Life, 121.
DawsoD (W. J.), The Comrade Christ, 261.
Dudden (F. H.), Christ and Christ's Religion, 17.
Fraser (J.), Parochial Sermons, 259.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Image of God, 42.
Jenkinson (A.), A Modern Disciple, 49.
Jones (W. B.), The Peace of God, 243.
Lee (R.), Sermons, 464.
Liddon (H. P.), Sermons on Some Words of St. Paul, 51.
„ Sermons on Special Occasions, 220.
Mabie (H. C), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 197. Maclaren (A.), Christ in the Heart, 157.
„ Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 39.
Maurice (F. D.), Lincoln's Inn Sermons, v. 206. Moore (E. W.), The Christ-Controlled Life, 207. . Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 50. Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 103. Raleigh (A.), Quiet Besting Places, 272. Robertson (S.), The Bope of Hair, 71. Scott (C. A.), Christian Character Building, 25. Trench (R. C), Shipwrecks of Faith, 62. Van Dyke (H.), Manhood, Faith and Courage, 237. Vaughan (C. J.), University Sermons, 170. Westcott (B. F.), The Bible in the Church, 141.
„ Social Aspects of Christianity, 1.
Christian Age, xxviii. 146 (Beecher) ; xxxii. 114 (Fisher). Christian World Pulpit, xv. 56 (Snell) ; xxv. 373 (M'Cree) ; xxxvi. 385
(Liddon) ; xlviii. 68 (Varley) ; lxii. 86 (Banks). Keswick Week, 1905, p. 164 (Moore).
The Teacher's Great Text.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble ; each man's work shall be made manifest ; for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire ; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. — i Cor. iii. 11-13.
1. The vivid imagination of St. Paul puts before us here an important truth in a picturesque form. Two workmen are building side by side. One builds a palace, the other a hovel. The materials which one uses are gold and silver, for decoration ; and for solidity costly stones, by which is not meant diamonds and emeralds and the like, but valuable building material, such as marbles and granites and alabaster. The other employs timber, dry reeds, straw. No doubt in Corinth, as in all ancient cities, side by side with the temples shining in marble and Corinthian brass were the huts of the poor and of slaves built of such flimsy materials as these. Suddenly there plays around both buildings a great fire, the fire of the Lord coming to Judgment. The marbles gleam the whiter, and the gold and the silver flash the more resplendently, whilst the tongues of light leap about them ; but the straw hovel goes up in a flare ! The one man gets wages for work that lasts, the other man gets no pay for what perishes. He is dragged through the smoke, saved by a hair's breadth, but sees all his toil lying there in white ashes at his feet.
TJ The building, if it be really of gold, silver, and precious stones, is not destroyed. It becomes rather, in due course, the foundation on which the new superstructure is reared. Is not that the meaning of the somewhat difficult lines in Browning's " Aristophanes' Apology " ? —
And what's my teaching but — accept the old, Contest the strange ! acknowledge work that's done, Misdoubt men who have still their work to do! Keligions, laws and customs, poetries,
92 THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT
Are old ? So much achieved victorious truth ! Each work was product of a lifetime, wrung From each man by an adverse world: for why? . He worked, destroying other older work Which the world loved and so was loth to lose. Whom the world beat in battle — dust and ash! Who beat the world, left work in evidence, And wears its crown till new men live new lives, And fight new fights, and triumph in their turn.1