"U"

934. Unchanging Love From Gethsemane to Golgotha, along the blood-besprinkled road, you see proof that having loved his own he loved them to the end. Not all the pains of death could shake his firm affection to his own. They may bind his hands, but his heart is not restrained from love; they may scourge him, but they cannot drive out of him his affection to his beloved; they may slanderously revile him, but they cannot compel him to say a word against his people; they may nail him to the accursed tree, and they may bid him come down from the cross, and they will believe on him, but they cannot tempt him to forsake his work of love; he must press forward for his people's sake until he can say, "It is finished."

935. Unction, Preaching with

I wonder how long we might beat our brains before we could plainly put into words what is meant by preaching with unction! yet he who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears soon detects its absence; Samaria, in famine, typifies a discourse without it; Jerusalem, with her feasts of fat things, full of marrow, may represent a sermon enriched with it. Everyone knows what the freshness of the morning is when orient pearls abound on every blade of grass, but who can describe it, much less produce it of himself? Such is the mystery of spiritual anointing; we know, but we cannot tell to others what it is. It is as easy as it is foolish to counterfeit it, as some do who use expressions which are meant to betoken fervent love, but oftener indicate sickly sentimentalism or mere cant.

936. Unemployed Christians A Greek historian desired very intensely to say a word about the people of the city where he was born. He felt he could not write his history without saying something of his own native place, and accordingly he wrote this—"While Athens was building temples, and Sparta was waging war, my countrymen were doing nothing." I am afraid there are too many Christians, of whom, if the book were written as to what they are doing in the Church, it would have to be said, they have been doing nothing all their lives.

937. Ungodly, Fearful Picture of the

Think ye for awhile what the ungodly man's life is! I can only compare it to that famous diabolical invention of the Inquisition of ancient times. They had as a fatal punishment for heretics, what they called the "Virgin's Kiss." There stood in a long corridor the image of the Virgin. She outstretched her arms to receive her heretic child; she looked fair, and her dress was adorned with gold and tinsel, but as soon as the poor victim came into her arms the machinery within began to work, and the arms closed and pressed the wretch closer and closer to her bosom, which was set with knives, and daggers, and lancets, and razors, and everything that could cut and tear him, till he was ground to pieces in the horrible embrace; and such is the ungodly man's life. It standeth like a fair virgin, and with witching smile it seems to say, "Come to my bosom, no place so warm and blissful as this;" and then anon it begins to fold its arms of habit about the sinner, and he sins again and again, brings misery into his body, perhaps, if he fall into some form of sin, stings his soul, makes his thoughts a case of knives to torture him, and grinds him to powder beneath the force of his own iniquities. Men perceive this, and dare not deny it; and yet into this virgin's bosom they still thrust themselves, and reap the deep damnation that iniquity must everywhere involve.

938. Union at the Cross The Churchman, laden with his many forms and vestments; the Presbyterian, with his stern covenant and his love of those who stained the heather with their blood; the Independent, with his passion for stern liberty, and the separateness of the churches; the Methodist with his various intricate forms of church government, sometimes forms of bondage, but still forms of power; the Baptist, remembering the ancient pedigree and the days in which his fathers were hounded even by Christians themselves, and counted not worthy of that name—they come, they come! Multitudes of opinions divide them; they see not eye to eye; here and there they will have a skirmish for the old landmarks; and rightly so, tor we ought to be jealous, as Josiah was, to do that which is right in the sight of the Lord, and neither decline to the right hand or to the left. But, to the cross! To the cross! To the cross! and then, all weapons of internecine war being cast aside, we are brethren, fellow-comrades in blessed evangelical alliance; we are prepared to suffer and to do for his dear sake. Forward then, Christians, to the point of union! Much as I value thorough reformation in times of peace, little care I for aught beside the cross in the day we defend our coasts, or when the hosts go forth to battle.

939. Unity of Life

Find a drop of water glittering in the rainbow, leaping in the cataract, rippling in the rivulet, lying silent in the stagnant pool, or dashing in spray against the vessel's side, that water claims the kinship with every drop of water the wide world over, because it is the same in its elements; and even so there is a unity of the Spirit which we cannot imitate, which consists in our being "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," bearing in us the Holy Ghost as our daily quickener, and walking in the path of faith in the living God. Here is the unity of spirit, a unity of life, nature working itself out in love.

940. Unsaved, Incapable of Enjoying Religion

Alphonse Karr tells a story of a servant-man who asked his master to be allowed to leave his cottage and sleep over the stable. What was the matter with his cottage? "Why, sir, the nightingales all around the cottage make such a 'jug, jug, jug' at night, that I cannot bear them." A man with a musical ear would be charmed with the nightingale's song, but here was a man without a musical soul who found the sweetest notes a nuisance. This is a feeble image of the incapacity of unregenerate man for the enjoyments of the world to come, and as he is incapable of enjoying them, so is he incapable of longing for them. But if you and I have grown out of all taste for the things of sin and time, and are sighing for holy, godly joys, we have therein an evidence that God has wrought in us by his grace, and will continue to do so till we are made perfect and immortal.