I PETER II. 21
99
bitter essence in the Cup of a Divine Person, but is distributed in the earthly vessels of ordinary people, and we stand aghast at the lot of the victims. Were our vision purged and power given us to detect spiritual effects, then we would understand, and cease to complain. We would see the hard crust of human nature broken up, and the fountain of fine emotion unsealed ; the subtle sins which sap the vigour of character eliminated, and the unconscious virtues brought to bloom. Before the widespread, silent, searching appeal of the suffering, each in his appointed place, the heart of the race grows tender and opens its door to goodness.^
It was the Sea of Sorrow; and I stood At midnight on the shore. The heavy skies Hung dark above; the voice of them that wept Was heard upon the waters, and the chill. Sad going of a midnight wind, which stirred No wave thereon. And I was there alone To face that dreadful sea: I felt the cold And deathly waters touch my feet, and drew A little back, and shuddered. Yet I knew That all who follow Christ must suffer here. "Master," I said, with trembling, in the night. With voice that none but He would note or know, So hoarse and weak — " 0 Master, bid me come ! If on these woeful waters I must walk. Then let me hear thy voice thereon, that so I may not die, before I reach Thy feet, Of loneliness and fear."
I listened there, With breathless longing by that solemn sea, Till through the curtains of the night I heard His own voice calling me — that voice which draws His children through the flood and through the fire To kiss His feet ; and at the Master's word I left the shore, forth walking on the dim And untried waters, there to follow Him Who called me, and there to see His face.'
1 J. Watson, The FoUer's Wheel, 150. « B. M., Tlie Sea of Sorrow.
The Ethics of the Atonement.
Literature.
Bonar (H.), Godls Way of Holiness, 48.
Brown (C), Trial and Triumph, 89.
Calthrop (Q.), Pulpit Recollections, 133.
Clayton (C), Stanhope Sermons, 432.
Eyton (R.), The True Life, 49.
Gray (J. M.), Salvation from Start to Finish, 33.
Groser (W. H.), Outlines for my Class, 80.
Hall (J. v.), The Sinner's Friend, 27.
Hamilton (J.), Works, iv. 217.
Harris (H. B.), Heart Purity, 61.
Horton (R. F.), How the Gross Saves, 41.
Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., ii. 286.
Meyer (F. B.), Tried by Fire, 105.
Moinet (C), The " Good Cheer" of Jesus Christ, 33.
Mortimer (A. G.), Life and its Problems, 119.
Mozley (J. B.), Sermons Parochial and Occasional, 278.
Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 3.
Pierson (A. T.), The Hopes of the Gospel, 86,
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vi. 345,
Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 242.
Simpson (J. G.), Christian Ideals, 263,
Spurgeon (C, H,), Metropolitan TabernacU Pulpit, xix. (1873) 649 j zlviii.
(1902) 361 ; 1, (1904) 277. Thomas (W. H. G.), The Apostle Peter, 197. WeUs (J.), Bible Echoes, 137, Wood (W, S.), Problems in the New Testament, 147. Christian World Pulpit, xlvi. 170 (Goodrich) ; xlvii. 245 (Brooks) ; Ixxi.
261 (Martin). Churchman's Pulpit : Good Friday and Easter Even : vii. 36 (Vaughan). Clergyman's Magazine, New Ser., i. 241 (Mozley). Homiletic Review, xxxi. 320 (Brooks). Ktswick Week, 1899, p. 84 (Webb-Peploe).
i
^ The Ethics of the Atonement.
Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having^ died unto sins, might live unto righteousness. — i Pet. ii. 24.
There is no subject so surrounded with difficulty and so fruitful of misrepresentation as the one which Passion Sunday suggests — the Atonement effected for us by Christ on the Cross. No thoughtful man can fail to be struck by the intense moral diffi- culties which its ordinary and naked presentment involves, and even when he has forced his way beyond them to some more rational standpoint, he still sees only a little light that is ever shading into mysterious darkness. If there is any subject which demands in a Christian teacher reverence and modesty, and a profound conviction that he " knows in part," and that " he sees through a glass darkly," it is surely this. At the best our stand- point of knowledge is like a little island floating in a sea of mystery.
There are many devout and intelligent Christians to whom it no longer appeals. They may still hold it as an article of their creed, but it is no longer the vital centre of their faith. It is at best a profound mystery, which they must accept but can never hope to understand.
Yet, as we read the New Testament, we feel that to the first Christians the Atonement was not a puzzle, but a revelation. To Paul and John and Peter it was not an intellectual fog, but a glorious flood of light cast upon the fundamental facts of life. The Word of the Cross might be a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek ; but to them it was " the power of God and the wisdom of God."
This thought penetrates the First Epistle of Peter. It will
out, even when we least expect it, even when to minds void of