Bible Commentaries

Coming to Christ

John 6:2

That word "because" opens the door to a thousand reasons. Every man who does follow Christ follows him for some reason of his own. Woe to the soul that has no Christ, but one that is outward, appointed by some skilled hand, preached by some eloquent tongue, imposed by some lofty authority. That is not Christ at all. Any John 6:12

You can easily recall the many discourses which you have heard upon these simple and useful words. The picture is vivid: the thousands have partaken of the bounty of Christ, and when the feast is finished Jesus says, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost": sweep up all the crumbs, pick up all the fallen pieces, leave nothing behind for beast or bird. Our fathers and our mothers have preached to us upon these beautiful words, and many admirable sentiments they have inferred from the incident which children can understand and admire. What lectures we have heard upon gathering up the fragments! Economists have said, Gather up all the odd moments of time; never have any spare moments that you do not know how to use: when there is a little break in the continuity of your labour commit to memory some portion of Scripture, or some verse of poetry, or some words of a foreign language which you are anxious to learn and to speak. Never be idle; if you add up all your spare moments you will find in the course of the year that probably they will amount to days; be very economical of time, be very miserly of periods of five minutes and half-hours: gather up the fragments that nothing be lost. And we have said, Well done, economist; what thou hast said, thou hast well said. Then the motherly economist has come in upon us and said, "Waste not, want not," and she has chosen for her trencher one that bears that motto carven on its hospitable edges. "Waste not, want not": throw nothing away; if you have cut too much bread and cannot eat what you have cut, be careful to treasure the remainder, you will want it in an hour or two, and pick up all the crumbs, and throw no one to hungry dog or waiting bird; take care of the littles, and things that are great will take care of themselves; take care of the pence, and the pounds will manage on their own account. And we have heard the sweet old mother say all this, and have felt in our hearts that (excepting the dog and the bird) she was speaking words of truth and wisdom. Then she has said to her little seamstresses, Take care of all the little pieces, pick up all the thread ends, store away all the little cuttings; you can make something of them by-and-by—pincushions and dolls" frocks; there is no telling what you may do with these little pieces: gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

Have we a word to say against all this economy? Only this, that when it is proposed to base it upon this text it is nonsense. It is very good in itself; we all need to learn something of that economy, but we must not base it upon this particular Scripture. Hence the difficulty of using single texts; hence the mischief that is wrought by many poor teachers that would build a denomination upon a semicolon. If we turn to the Revised Version we shall find a change which has been pointed out by the Very Rev. the Dean of Llandaff, himself one of the revisers, as important, showing the meaning of the text to be infinitely larger than the trifling economy which has prided itself on its own ignorance. "Gather up the broken portions that remain, that nothing be lost." "Fragments" is displaced by the word "portions," and to the word portions is attached the word "broken." "Gather up the broken portions that remain, that nothing be lost." Look at the word "broken": we have seen in Mark that Jesus took the bread, the loaves, and brake them; we have seen in Luke that the word "brake" is also used as denoting the action of Christ: now we read, "Pick up all the broken portions that remain, that nothing be lost." See the picture: observe the breaking hands of Christ: the loaves grow under his touch; he breaks until he is surrounded by heaps and piles and hills of bread; and still he breaks, and still the multitudes continue to eat, and when the feast is over he says, Pick up the broken portions that remain, that nothing be lost. Not, Gather up your leavings, but, Gather up my treasures; not, Sweep up your crumbs, but, Take care of the unsearchable riches of your Lord. All that we have heard of the little economy was neat and thrifty and domestic, but it is not authorised by this text; this verse shows the larger truth. There is no need to waste our crumbs or our leavings, but what Christ is teaching is that he has laid up treasures for ever, and we have to carry them with us wherever we go. What a different view is this! We started with economy, we end with faith; we began by keeping thrift-boxes (the thief heard of them, and took them all away one night), we end by keeping our treasures where moth and rust doth not corrupt, where thieves do not break through nor steal. I shall have enough, not because I have swept up the crumbs, but because God has broken bread enough to keep his universe through all the ages of eternity: only the universe must take care of the broken portions; that is where thrift comes in, the great thrift, the noble economy. We have had occasion to point out and denounce the miserable prudence of some people, the little nibbling mouse-like activity and industry and thrift and prudence of some small natures that always end by some act of glaring imprudence. You watch a man who is too prudent, neatly prudent, prudent on a small scale, and that man will die an open palpable fool; at the last, when nearing fourscore, he will do some deed that will topple him over, and the world will laugh at his mouse-like prudence. There is another prudence, the larger, grander philosophy, the faith that lives in God, and that says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, because the Lord is my Shepherd. That prudence will grow, that wisdom will be justified of her children; and many who trembled because of momentary eccentricity will live to see the day that he who trusted most in God had broken portions to eat that the world knew not of, the world did not give, and the world cannot take away.

Observe how characteristic this action is of the whole method of providence. God never gives just enough. If he does, tell me where. The calculator who is wise says, To-morrow month fifty guests will come to my table: for their satisfaction what shall I provide? The fare is detailed, totalised, pronounced sufficient, a little is thrown in for foam—what is the tankard unless it foam up high above its own level? That is supposed to be hospitality. With certain obvious qualifications it is what it claims to be. When does God give just enough, so that there is nothing to spare? I refer you to all you know of nature: is there just sunlight enough to last the little day and to creep to bed by? Does the one side of the earth say, I could have done with a million more beams, but they were not to be had, because the other side of the globe needed them? Why, God rains whole oceans of light upon the globe that the globe cannot retain; the little globe-vessel cannot hold the wine of the sunlight: down it comes in river and torrent, and Atlantic and Pacific—on and on—and running away over the sides of this too-little vessel to fill other globe-goblets with its largess of glory. When are there just enough leaves to cover the bare shoulders of winter, so that the Lord says, If I had more leaves I would clothe that little bare corner, that small bleak crag, but my ivy ran out, my grass was insufficient; I might have spared one flower, but that would have been all I could have done? Why, he wastes more blossoms than arithmetic can count. As for the leaves, have you numbered them? Have you had daylight enough to count the leaves upon one great oak? and what are these snowflakes under the tree? Shed blossoms! He could have clothed another globe with them as large as the globe we live upon. When does God "brake" in nature just enough? Whenever he has broken in personal providence just enough it was not an indication of his want, but a proof that he was educating and chastening our lives. He has not always entrusted us with the broken portions; he has seen that now and again we could not be trusted with them, and therefore he has had to be his own treasurer. God has had to take care of his own promises; the Lord hath not allowed all the angel promises to come and sing to us at once, but he has sent them one after another, each with his little John 6:15

These words enable us to come to some just understanding of the place of force in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a common saying amongst ourselves that some men have greatness thrust upon them. From all such men Jesus Christ separates himself, knowing that what is done by force or compulsion may by force or compulsion be undone. So he would not have a kingdom that was forced upon him, nor would he be forced upon a kingdom. Wonderful words are written upon the blood-red banner of this king. Read some of them: "Put up thy sword into the sheath." "My kingdom is not of this world." "He took upon him the form of a servant." "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Are these kingly words? Is it the place of a king to stand outside and to knock? Jesus would not be a John 6:35

The subject is clearly, Bread and Water. You call these common things, and my object will be to show that their commonness is not a defect, but an excellence; that their very excellence has occasioned their commonness; and that their commonness corresponds to a common want in the constitution of mankind. I will take the simple idea of bread and water, and apply it socially in the first place, and trace it upward to its highest and divinest meaning.

Let us look in upon the greatest feast ever spread for the refreshment and delight of kings. All delicacies shall be there that can be found in wood and air and sea; the richest wines shall sparkle and foam and glow upon the sumptuous board; and the fragrances arising from this luxurious feast shall excite and regale the appetite of hungry men. Now what have we there? What is the fundamental idea? What is the nucleus of the abounding and tempting feast? Surprising as it may seem, the whole thing is but an adaptation of bread and water! It is bread and water decorated; bread and water more or less adulterated; bread and water supposed to be at their best as to refinement, and richness, and power of gastronomic temptation and satisfaction. And if you could follow the sated guests into their privacy you would hear them say, in effect, "All this fine living is well enough now and then, but only now and then, after all; let us have something plain and substantial;" in a word, let them have bread and water. What is this prodigious art of the high cook? He is bound, like other popular slaves, to produce something fresh; without novelty he sinks into a common baker; a new relish may mean a new fortune; a new gravy may give him a country house and a footman; a new adaptation of an omelette may enable him to start a shooting box,—but it is bread and water that he works upon; bread and water are the basis of his fortune. He lives by mystifying the public, and mightily laughs at the trick by which he has made men think that bread crumbs have some connection with far-off spice groves and Ceylon breezes. Offer your guests plain bread and water, and they will not often call your way; but dress up the bread and water, torture them, colour them, spice them, and they will praise the delicacy and excellence of the viands. But bread and water survive! These are the things that cannot be shaken. Empires of soups and entries, wines and liqueurs, rise and fall, but the steady old friends bread and water remain as the unadorned and ever wholesome gifts of God. Ay, poor cook, clever trickster, half a creator, under all thy enchantments and wizardries there are the plain bread and water; disguise them, bribe them, paint them, and wreathe around them all manner of cunning ornamentation, they are but bread and water. The image and the superscription are the cook"s, but the bread and water themselves are God's! Name the dishes that delighted Babylonian gluttons, and rehearse the menu which made the Egyptian gourmands smack their sensual lips. You cannot; these are forgotten delights, paste-boards that perished in the fire; but bread and water come steadily along the ages, over the graves of empires and the ashes of royalty, having escaped the tortures of the crudest cooks, and shown themselves to be the primary and necessary gifts of God.

Well, the application of this is obvious in higher spheres of life, such, for example, as the culture and satisfaction of the intellect. Reading and writing are the bread and water of the mind. Give a child the power of reading and writing, and let him do the rest for himself; it is worth doing (at least some of it), and let him find it out and he will value it the more. Your duty is done in giving the reading and the writing, the intellectual bread and water. But fine cookery is imitated in fine intelligence and with like results in some cases, namely, mental indigestion and ill-health. Hence, we have imperfect French, caricatured German, and murdered music, and the native tongue and the native history are passed by as quite secondary, if not beneath contempt. It is better to chatter French in a way which nobody can understand than to speak good plain exact English, is it not? We must be fine at all costs. We must have a few knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, even if we have not a bed to sleep upon. We must be able to say, Parlez-vous Francais, even if we cannot pay our debts. When will people learn to prize bread and water? When will they see that it is better to know a little well, than to know next to nothing about a great deal? Oh, when? This is not a little matter; it is a matter of great importance, from the fact that it is an index of character. We do not laugh at a man whose learning ends at the multiplication table; but we may laugh with grim amusement at a man who speaks hotel French and then spells October with a "h." Give your children intellectual bread and water without grudging, that is to say, give them a thorough grounding in the beginnings and elements of knowledge, and let them do the rest for themselves.

These illustrations prepare the way for the highest truth of all, namely, that Jesus Christ is the bread and water without which we cannot live. He never says he is a high delicacy, a rare luxury, a feast which the rich alone can afford; he says that he is bread and water, he likens himself not to the luxuries, but to the necessaries of life, and in so doing he shows a John 6:68

You know too well that we are all tempted—sometimes tempted severely—to give up religious faith and Christian hope. The hand which grasps religious treasures is not always equally strong. In dealing with the state of things which usually attends this painful experience, I intend to raise this most practical question: Suppose we give up the Christian faith, what shall we have instead? Wise men are bound to look at consequences. They do not trust themselves to the John 6:35, etc

The subject is clearly, Bread and Water. You call these common things, and my object will be to show that their commonness is not a defect, but an excellence; that their very excellence has occasioned their commonness; and that their commonness corresponds to a common want in the constitution of mankind. I will take the simple idea of bread and water, and apply it socially in the first place and trace it upward to its highest and divinest meaning.

Let us look in upon the greatest feast ever spread for the refreshment and delight of kings. All delicacies shall be there that can be found in wood and air and sea: the richest wines shall sparkle and foam and glow upon the sumptuous board; and the fragrances arising from this luxurious feast shall excite and regale the appetite of hungry men. Now what have we there? What is the fundamental idea? What is the nucleus of the abounding and tempting feast? Surprising as it may seem, the whole thing is but an adaptation of bread and water! It is bread and water decorated; bread and water more or less adulterated; bread and water supposed to be at their best as to refinement, and richness, and power of gastronomic temptation and satisfaction. And if you could follow the sated guests into their privacy you would hear them say, in effect, "All this fine living is well enough now and then, but only now and then, after all; let us have something plain and substantial," in a word, let them have bread and water. What is this prodigious art of the high cook? He is bound, like other popular slaves, to produce something fresh; without novelty he sinks into a common baker; a new relish may mean a new fortune; a new gravy may give him a country house and a footman; a new adaptation of an omelette may enable him to start a shooting box,—but it is bread and water that he works upon; bread and water are the basis of his fortune; he lives by mystifying the public, and mightily laughs at the trick by which he has made men think that bread crumbs have some connection with far-off spice groves and Ceylon breezes. Offer your guests plain bread and water, and they will not often call your way; but dress up the bread and water, torture them, colour them, spice them, and they will praise the delicacy and excellence of the viands. But bread and water survive! These are the things that cannot be shaken. Empires of soups and entrees, wines and liqueurs, rise and fall, but the steady old friends bread and water remain as the unadorned and ever wholesome gifts of God. Ay, poor cook, clever trickster, half a creator, under all thy enchantments and wizardries there are the plain bread and water; disguise them, bribe them, paint them, and wreathe around them all manner of cunning ornamentation, they are but bread and water; the image and the superscription are the cook"s, but the bread and water themselves are God's! Name the dishes that delighted Babylonian gluttons, and rehearse the menu which made the Egyptian gourmands smack their sensual lips; you cannot; these are forgotten delights, paste-boards that perished in the fire; but bread and water come steadily along the ages, over the graves of empires and the ashes of royalty, having escaped the tortures of the crudest cooks and shown themselves to be the primary and necessary gifts of God.

Well, the application of this is obvious in higher spheres of life, such, for example, as the culture and satisfaction of the intellect. Reading and writing are the bread and water of the mind. Give a child the power of reading and writing and let him do the rest for himself; it is worth doing (at least some of it), and let him find it out and he will value it the more. Your duty is done in giving the reading and the writing, the intellectual bread and water. But fine cookery is imitated in fine intelligence and with like results in some cases, namely mental indigestion and ill-health. Hence, we have imperfect French, caricatured German, and murdered music, and the native tongue and the native history are passed by as quite secondary if not beneath contempt. It is better to chatter French in a way which nobody can understand than to speak good plain exact English, is it not? We must be fine at all costs. We must have a few knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, even if we have not a bed to sleep on. We must be able to say, Parlez-vous Franaise even if we cannot pay our debts. When will people learn to prize bread and water? When will they see that it is better to know a little well, than to know next to nothing about a good deal? O when? This is not a little matter, it is a matter of great importance, from the fact that it is an index of character. I do not laugh at a man whose learning ends at the multiplication table, but I may laugh with grim amusement at a man who speaks hotel French and then spells October with an h. Give your children intellectual bread and water without grudging, that is to say, give them a thorough grounding in the beginnings and elements of knowledge, and let them do the rest for themselves.

These illustrations prepare the way for the highest truth of all, namely, that Jesus Christ is the bread and water without which we cannot live. He never says he is a high delicacy, a rare luxury, a feast which the rich alone can afford; he says that he is bread and water, he likens himself not to the luxuries but to the necessaries of life, and in so doing he shows a wisdom, a reach of mind, a grasp of human nature, which should save him from the attacks of malignant men. An adventurer would not have seen in metaphors so humble a philosophy so profound. Adventurers like big words and glaring figures; they speak great swelling words of vanity; they search heaven and earth for effective figures; they disdain the sling and the stone. Not so with Jesus Christ; he is Bread, he is Water, he is Light, he is the Door, he is the Shepherd, and these words, so simple, stretch their meaning around the whole circle of human life, and by their choice alone is the supreme wisdom of Jesus Christ abundantly attested.

Let us go further into this matter by a little detailed inquiry and illustration.

1. Man needs Jesus Christ as a necessity and not as a luxury. You may be pleased to have flowers, but you must have bread. Christ presents himself as exactly fulfilling this analogy. Our whole life is based on one or two simple but necessary lines; we must have food, we must have shelter, we must have security. But into how many glorifications have all these simple necessaries passed! We have just spoken about food. Now look at shelter, how styles of architecture have grown out of that idea! We talk of Doric, and Grecian, and Gothic; of Norman arches and Corinthian capitals; and indeed we have a long and perplexing nomenclature, all coming out of the fact that man must have a place to go into when the weather is rough and when sleep is needed. Out of the need of shelter has come the science or art of architecture! Is this wrong? Most certainly not. It is a trait of civilisation. It is a sign of refinement and progress. But let an architect of high fancy be called in to build you a house, he gives you a fine elevation, a noble porch, a splendid dome; but in the fever of his fancy he has forgotten the foundations, overlooked the drainage, omitted the joists, and made no provision for the escape of the smoke. How then? Of what avail is it that there is much elaboration of cunning masonry on the front of the house? You could have done without the stone faces above the mullions, but you cannot do without the chimneys and the joists. It is exactly after the bearing of this analogy that Jesus Christ has often been presented in preaching and in books. He has been offered as an ornament merely. He has been preached as the most curious and entertaining of all riddles. He has been treated as the successor of Plato, or Solon, or Seneca. In this way, generally indeed intended to be respectful, the whole purpose of his coming into the world has been overlooked. He has not been presented as bread and water, or the very first and most indispensable necessity of life; he has been treated as a phenomenon; cabineted as a rarity in human history; labelled as a remarkable specimen; and in this way even some of his admirers have ignorantly betrayed and dishonoured the Lord. Jesus is not a phenomenon, he is bread: Christ is not a curiosity, he is water. As surely as we cannot live without bread we cannot live truly without Christ; if we know not Christ we are not living, our movement is a mechanical flutter, our pulse is but the stirring of an animal life. It is in this way, then, that Jesus Christ is to be preached. It is even so I would preach him now, I would call him the water of life; I would speak of him as the true bread sent down from heaven; I would tell men that it is impossible to live without him; I would say, with heightening passion, with glowing and ineffable love, that he only, even the holy Christ of God, can satisfy the hunger and the thirst of the soul of man. In this way I claim a distinct vocation as a preacher. I am not one amongst many who try to do the world good; as a Christian preacher, or a preacher of Christ, I offer the only thing that can vitally and sufficiently touch the world's condition, and thus the position of the Christian preacher is absolutely without similitude or parallel, in that the choice he offers is life or death, salvation or ruin, heaven or hell.

2. What has been the effect of omitting to declare Christ simply as bread and water? Leaving the simplicity of Christ we have elaborated theological sciences, established and promulgated with solemn sanctions the most intricate creeds; we have worked out a very high and cunning symbolism; we have filled the church with incense, with garments of many colours and many significances, ceremony after ceremony we have contrived; we have called councils, synods, and congresses; we have constituted splendid hierarchies, with mitres and crooks, and clothing precious with gold and glaring with ardent colour. All this have we done, O Son of God, though thou didst call thyself bread and water! We have gathered around thee liturgies and suffrages and gowns and bands and surplices and chants and censers and albs and stoles and chasubles, though thou didst call thyself Bread and Water! We have drawn a long and often mutinous procession of reverends and most reverends and right reverends and very reverends, and doctors and deans and eminences and holinesses and suffragans and novices and licentiates, though thou didst call thyself bread and water! Horrible, indeed, and quite infinite is the contemptibleness of all this, and shall I not even say the sin? Suppose some inquiring stranger looking on and asking, What does all this mean? I should answer, not without sharpness and indignation, It means that man is a fool, and that he prefers vanity to truth. This is not the Saviour. This is not the way to God. This is not the door of heaven. This is incubus and rubbish and abomination. Christ is bread; Christ is water; Christ is the one answer to thy difficulties, the one healer of thy wounds, the one Saviour of thy soul. Oh, but the curse of this mischief is terrible to contemplate! Poor souls are left to believe that they can only get to Christ by seeing ministers and priests and bishops, by learning catechisms, by swallowing dogmas they neither understand nor appreciate, and by listening to the mumbling and muttering of certain ecclesiastical men in livery. Oh the horribleness! Oh the blasphemy! Is not the devil laughing the while and filling his cruel hand with additional prey? My friend, man eager to know the truth, Christ is bread; Christ is water; he is nigh thee; take the pure Bible and read it for thyself, read it in solitude, read it with earnest desire to know its living claim upon thyself, and thou shalt see the Lord, and feel the Cross, and eat the heavenly bread.

3. History furnishes a most graphic confirmation of these views. John Stuart Mill says, "Let rational criticism take from us what it may, it still leaves us the Christ." Exactly so; it still leaves us the bread and water! It still leaves us all we want. It takes away all human conceits and decorations, and it leaves the living bread. It mortifies the theological cook and confectioner, it humbles the decorator of tables, but it leaves the living water! Theological revolutions have come and theological revolutions have gone; timid souls have trembled as if the sanctuary had been destroyed, but when the noise has passed and the cloud has rolled off, behold the bread and water remain, and Welcome is written on the tables of the Lord! Men cannot get rid of Christ simply because they cannot get rid of themselves. Marvellous is it to watch how the Lord allows the chaff to blow away, but saves every grain of the precious wheat; and quite marvellous, too, is it to see how some nervous people think that the wheat is lost because the chaff has been scattered by the wind. The Lord will lose nothing. Society revolutionises itself, but society still lives. Theologies, eastern and western, wear themselves out, but the bread and water are still there, incorruptible and unlimited. Do we fear the dissolution of the earth because an owl's nest has fallen? Will the sun not rise tomorrow because a candle has been blown out? Bethink thee, faithless soul, they are but accidents that change, the essentials abide,

I fancy we should change our standpoint in viewing all the revolutions and disasters that occurred within the limits of Christendom. Hitherto we have thought of them as the results of intellectual pride or spiritual insubordination. We have mourned over men as fallen creatures because they have risen against the systems in which they were reared. But possibly we are wrong. It may be Christ himself who is at work. He is the great Revolutionist. This may be Christ's own way of clearing off the rubbish which has been piled upon his holy name. Christ pulls down papacies and hierarchies and rituals, that he may show that these are not needful, that all human contrivances are departures from his Divine simplicity, and that he wishes to be known through all ages and amongst all men as the Bread and Water of human souls. He knows that our temptation is to make more of externals than of realities, hence he turns his providence against us, hurls down our cathedrals and temples and ministers, and says he will be known only as Bread and Water, not as a compound of coloured and poisonous confection. O the deceitfulness of the human heart in this matter of serving Christ! We tell lies to ourselves about it. We talk about enriching our services, ennobling our architecture, educating our ministers, creating universities, founding endowments, originating retreats of elegant leisure for the production of technical literature. Rubbish, all of it! Christ asks nothing of the kind at our hands. He prefers his own Spirit, to our culture. "It is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," saith the Lord. "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting." What, then, are we to do? "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Thus we are driven back to simplicity; our "culture" is thrown down and dashed to pieces as a potter's vessel, and nothing stands but the bread and the water, the first verities, the essential graces, of the Lord's Christ.

I care not how rich our music, how noble our architecture, how imposing our method of worship, if all this be kept strictly in its proper place. I love beauty; I am moved to passion and heroism by inspiring music; I would make the Lord's house glad with every expression of love; but this done, I would write on the doorposts, on the roof, and on every panel, the words of Jesus: "In this place is one greater than the temple." I prefer knowledge to ignorance, but I prefer holiness to either. Culture, when not a chattering and fussy prig, may be right noble and even majestic; but nothing is so cold as culture, and nothing so mean, when not inflamed and impassioned by the Spirit of Christ. Today the pulpit is in danger of being killed by miscalled culture. Men think that because they have been to college five years they ought to be preachers, which is as logical as to say that a man who has driven an omnibus five years ought to be able to take a ship across the Atlantic. The Lord continually dashes these culture-pots to pieces like a potter's vessel, by making preachers of his own, and clothing them with mysterious but most beneficent power.

We must go back to bread and water, Our dainties must be given up. Our habits are too luxurious; we arc killing our souls with sweet poisons; we are, by our fabrications and masonries and fine fancies, exalting ourselves above the Lord; so I would call myself back to the simplicity of Christ, and find all I want in his grace and truth.

Prayer

Almighty God, we have come up out of the world into the church, a holy and chosen place, to make mention of thy goodness, to recall thy mercies, to meditate upon thy word and to have our spiritual strength renewed. We have also come up to the Cross that we may have our sins taken away, not by ministry of man, nor by ceremonial of church, but by the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We bless thee that the Cross is more than our guilt—that the blood of Christ abounds where our sin abounded once, and that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of man, the King, is able to destroy our sin and to cause it to be remembered no more for ever. We love the Saviour—we love him most when our torment is intolerable: it is then we see what he really did as the atonement and the propitiation for the sins of the world. We love his words—we love the tones of his voice, we love the smiling of his gentle face: but oh what words can tell the depth and passion of our love when we see our sin as it really is, and we feel our helplessness, and then behold the outstretched Priest, the dying Sacrifice. It is then our hope returns, and then doth our heart glow with fire from Heaven.

We rejoice that we care for thy word and for thy worship: this feeling elevates our whole nature, brings up our entire strength to its finest energy, and enables us with triumph, with holy scorn, to stand above the temptations and the lures of this world and all that is lowest in our own life, and to seize the enjoyments and securities of heaven. Thy word clears the future—it levels the hill that keeps away from our vision the delights and the beauties of the Coming Land. It levels up the deep places and overbridges the yawning chasms and gulfs, that we may reach towards the heavenly and eternal. Lord, evermore show us the meaning of thy word—may it be to us a word of ever-enlarging significance. We can never fully realise all its purpose—its sacredness will be an eternal mystery; still may we be drawn forward by that great, kind, loving word to some deeper knowledge and some higher excellence.

We are tired of ourselves—the world is a weariness to us—its prizes are deceits, its delights are mockeries: it draws us forward by many a fascination only that it may sting us with many a disappointment. Behold the earth under our feet is hollow as a tomb that is waiting to enclose the living. There is nothing true but God: there is nothing lasting but thy light—there is nothing sufficient but thy grace. Thou hast placed us in this world of beginnings and shadows and alphabets—forbid that we should regard it as the only world; help us to look upon it as a porch to the universe, the opening of the infinite spaces and liberties of thy kingdom. And thus seizing the present, we shall hold it with a light hand, and reserve our veneration and our loyalty for things eternal and complete.

We desire as heads of houses to bless thee: bread has been upon our table and our cup has overrun. Thou hast defended our habitations, thou hast been merciful to every member of the household; the master and the servant bless thee, the old man and his grandchild thank the same God. Receive therefore our homage as heads of houses, members of families, fathers, mothers, children, servants—may we unite in singing high Psalm , may our hearts find an outgoing in the same hallowed supplication. Wherein we have suffered, help us to see the Lord's hand in it: suffer us not to look upon our disappointments as complete in themselves: may we look upon life as a whole, see the relation of its various parts, feel that no one member of it is complete in itself—may we measure all things by the eternal, may we desire the decisions and judgments of God, and not the conclusions of our own false understanding. Help us in all things to resign our life, our will, our work into thy hands, thou King of kings, thou Lord of lords.

Whether our days be few or many we cannot tell—we would not know. The Son of Man must come when he pleases, not when we desire: may we be ready for his coming with welcomes, with the entire hospitality and bounding delights and desires of our expectant souls, so that he may have a full incoming into the habitations of our hearts. We put all our concerns into thine hands—the letter difficult to answer, the appeal for which we have no present response, the sorrow for which we have not yet found a balm, the tears that scald us in their running, the life that is ebbing away, the business that seems to be receding from us notwithstanding our patience and industry—we put our whole case into thine hands, saying, "Undertake for us, lead us as thou wilt."

Now let us continue thy praise with increasing delight, search into the mysteries of thy word as men search in fields in which pearls are hidden, in which silver is to be found,—and thus may the morning worship and meditation make us strong for the contests and the endurances of the coming week. Amen.