1.J 06. Love, a Power-Giving Element.

Love, a Power-Giving Element. But there are other things. No I _^e_caii_jlejd with the hearts of men as he ought, unless he has the sympathy which is given by- love** I have always been struck with the apostle’s notion as to quality and quantity of feeling. If he charges you to be hopeful, it is to be very hopeful. It is not enough for you to be right. You must be very largely right; each particular good must be carried up to its ideal form. Thus, we are not only to be fruitful, but we must abound in fruitfulness, as a vine, bearing so much that clusters have to be cut away to make room for those that remain. We do not know what Christian qualities are until we see them in their larger forms. Suppose we knew nothing about apples except as we had seen them grown in Siberia, what could we say about pound pippins? Suppose you only sec those poor, mean, and barren qualities that often are called Christian experiences, what would you know about the depths, the beauty, the freshness, and the power that are in a true man, who is built after the model of Jesus Christ, who is conscious of his strength, who is free, who is profuse, generous, and abundant? God is in him; and men sec God more nearly than they can by their own meditation, when they see a man like that. You may have benevolence as a pale stream; of moonbeams shining into your study window, and^ you may sit and write your thin sermons in the light of that pale, speculative benevolence, but it will not do. When our Master was approaching the last part of his life, when the cloud threatening the future was already over him, when he stood near to the grave, he said to his disciples, in that moment of preternatural anguish, “ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” It always filled me with admiration that Christ not only had peace for himself, but enough to share with his disciples, “My peace I give unto you.” Brethren, every quality that goes to make manhood you must have in excess, as the brooks have their treasures, making haste to empty themselves, to give room for that which is coming on behind. You must have enough benevolence, not only for yourselves, but for your congregation also, to pervade and to fill them. This is what you ought to live for, and this is what is meant by living a godly life, producing not ideas alone, not arguments only, but living, loving manhood, doctrine in living forms. It is what men ought to seek for in their closet and in their daily conversation.

I feel provoked when I see how young Christians often try to build themselves up into a Christian 1) life by social meetings, so called. They get into an uncomfortable room; they sit stiff and dumb. Some one opens a Bible, and reads a chapter; then some body turns around, kneels down, and makes a prayer; then another chapter, and then they sing. They all have an awful responsibility, and all wish they felt something. They get up, look solemn, and go out.

They move off regularly, methodically, and mechanically to their several businesses; and that is trying to grow in grace! You might just as well expect to make a shady forest in your garden with the bean-poles you had cut and set out in the spring, as to make a Christian man by such a course as that.

It lacks juice, and its juice lacks sugar. There is no grace, there is no reality to it. There is nothing in! it that God loves, and certainly you do not like it. When the power of the Holy Ghost comes clown upon men, they grow up into such experiences as those which ring so grandly through the cathedral of the Bible. You arc called to liberty, to a larger life. You are called to more manliness, to love, to fervour, to joy!

What you need, to make your ministry successful in dealing with men, is that wonderful power which a true, large, and fruitful benevolence gives. Here is a little penurious whipster of a man, as it were, made up of that which was left, a mere biscuit after the loaf. You hear the neighbours say he is “ the smallest specimen of a man in this neighbourhood.” But if you, a minister of Christ’s gospel, look upon him, there is that in him which ought to make your heart yearn and swell towards him. Christ died for him, and eternity has registered his name.

Simple as he is, poor as he is, thin as he is, unsatisfactory as lie is, though he were “but a sand-bank among rich soils, it is for you to find a way of culture that shall bring forth some beauty out of the very barrenness of his nature. Your heart should sympathize with him in such a way that you can say, “ I will add to him what he lacks; I will shine into him and warm him, I will brood over him and will help him. I will do it myself.” Lay down your life for him. Give him something of your life.

Then, again, there is a suspicious man, who is always seeing people’s faults. He rejoices in ini quity, and carries it as a peddler does his pack. He likes to sit down in the corners and retail it. Nothing is so spicy to him. He smacks his lips over it.

He comes to you and says, “ You have heard about the old deacon up there,” and so on. He goes around the village. He is a turkey-buzzard among men, picking up carrion and feeding on it. Everybody despises him and hates him, except the man who loves. lie feels like a physician going into an hospital and finding a patient there who is a mass of disease. If he were searching for a painter’s model, he would not look at such a man. But, going there as a healer, he will try what he can do to relieve the sick man. You can manage these morally f diseased men if you only love them. It is your | business to strike such warmth into a bad man as to make him believe that you are working for his good. You must make him “ cotton “ to you and be glad to see you, so that he will lay aside his deviltry when you go near him. Probably he will not believe in you at first, and may suspect there is some deceit in it all. He will watch you, and will “ summer and winter “ you. But, follow him up, and by-and-by there will be a chance when there can be no mistake as to your motives.

I had a man in my parish in Indiana, who was a very ugly fellow. He had a wife and daughter who were awakened during the revival which was then working; and, while visiting others who needed instruction, I went to see and talk with them. He heard that I had been in his house, and shortly afterwards I passed down the street in which he lived. He was sitting on the fence; and of all the filth that was ever emptied on a young minister’s head, I received my share. He threw it out, right and left, up and down, and said everything that wan calculated to harrow my pride. I was very wholesomely indignant for a young man. I said to my self, “ Look here, I will be revenged on you yet.”

He told me I should never darken his door again, to which I responded that I never would until I had his invitation to do so. Things went on for some time. I met him on the street, bowed to him, spoke well of him, and never repeated his treatment of me to any one. We constantly crossed each other’s paths, and often visited the same people. I always spoke kindly of him. Very soon he ran for the office of sheriff, and then I went out into the field and worked for him. I canvassed for votes; I used my personal influence. It was a pretty close election, but he was elected. When he knew I was Working for him, I never saw a man so utterly perplexed as he was. He did not know what to make of it. Ho came to me one (Lay, awkward and stumbling, and undertook to “make up,” as the saying is. He said he would be very glad to have me call and see him. I congratulated him on his election, and of course accepted his overtures; and from that time forth I never had a faster friend in the world than he was. Now I might have thrown stones at him from the topmost cliffs of Mount Sinai, and hit him every time; but that would not have done him any good. Kindness killed him. I Avon his confidence.

Now, your congregation will be full of sluggish people. Somebody must bear with those dull and stupid ones. You will find, what is a great deal worse, people who know everything, and yet know nothing. You cannot teach them anything. They are conceited snips of men, who are rushing up to you, and taking on airs in your presence, and you feel like smacking them, as you would a black fly or a mosquito. But somebody has to bear with them. If Christ died for the world, he died for a great many ordinary folks; and if we are Christ’s we must do the same thing. I defy you to do this on a plan, or a purpose, or “ on speculation,” if I might say so. You have to do it because there is that in your heart which makes you brother to such men. You have to say, “ He is worth bearing with.

I would better surfer in his place than let him suffer.

He must be enlarged. He must be augmented, and made more a man in Christ Jesus.”

Then, again, you have obstinate men whom you cannot start, men who are unreasonable. There is nothing in the long nm that can withstand a wise tenderness, a gentle benevolence, and a sympathy that melts the heart by a genial fervour, and which is continued in season and out of season, in sickness and in health, year in and year out. Nothing can withstand that. How is the soil disintegrated?

First, the ground is broken down by the grinding of the frost, then come the warmth of spring, the mellow rains, and then the after-sunshine. In such ways must a minister work first by attrition, and then by the geniality of his own soul. You can make soil out of almost anything, if you will only give your time to it.* LOVE, THE KEY-XOTE OF PULPIT-WORK.

There are also some specialties in this true Christian love and sympathy that bear upon the pulpit. In the first place, the whole cast of your thought and the subjects with which you deal are to bear tho impress of this good news: that God is love, and that God so loved the world that he gave his Son to die for it; and that Christ so loves the world that, having died for it, he now sits at the right hand of God, a risen Saviour, to live for it.

* “ But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: so\ being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you. I not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto V us. For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night \ and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children.” 1Th 2:7-11.

If you preach justice alone, you will murder the gospel. If you preach conscientiously, as it is called I if you sympathize with law and with righteousness as interpreted by the narrow rule of a straight line j if you preach, especially, with a sense of vindictive retribution I do not care who the criminals arc you will fail of your whole duty. There must be justice, and punitive justice, of course; but, after all, “ Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord. It is a quality so dangerous to handle that only infinite love is safe in administering it. No mortal man should dare to touch it, for it is a terrible instrument. You are to administer all the great truths, the most rugged truths, in the spirit of the truest sympathy, benevolence, and love.