2 Samuel 3
Riley2 Samuel 3:33
, THE Sermon preached in the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, May 29th, 1898, immediately following Mr. Gladstone’s decease.“Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel” (2 Samuel 3:38).THE words of our text were the words of David on the occasion of the death of Abner, the mighty warrior.Since they were first uttered they have never had profounder occasion for employment than when William E. Gladstone fell. In fact, their first utterance did not lend to them the weight that is in them when employed with reference to the Prince who has just breathed his last in Hawarden Castle, for Abner was no match for “the grand old man”.“He is gone then! The good old man is gone. We shall never see his snowy locks again, nor his placid countenance, nor his old horse and gig jogging by.
Peter Cooper is dead”! Parton says that these words of a neighbor expressed the feelings of all the people of New York city and state, when Cooper died.
Flags were placed at half-mast from the Hudson to the Great Lakes, and from the St. Lawrence to the Allegheny, and a nation mourned because the “good old man was gone”.But every nation of the earth has occasion to put its flag at half mast now, for he was not only one of England’s greatest statesman, but, as we believe, one of the world’s greatest Christians. His death is not a national loss only. It is a loss to all nations the earth around.For ninety years, lacking one, this individuality has been in the world; and for almost seventy years of this time a colossal figure calling the attention of all nations to himself.It is marvellous what great names that single life touched. Sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourn, Lord Russell, Palmerston, Earl of Shaftsbury, old King William the 4th, John Bright, Charles Spurgeon, Cardinal Manning, Disraeli, Lowe, Cobden, and scores of others of his own nation, while the Williams of Germany and Prince Bismarck; Napoleon of France and Gambetta; Garibaldi and Mazzini of Italy, and the whole early line of American statesmen and presidents, with men of letters and of science known the world around; and yet Gladstone was the Saul of all this period—from his shoulders and upward, greater than his contemporaries.It cannot be profitless then for us to study some of the secrets of his success.In reading contributions from many pens touching his noble name, four things impressed me, and I put them in order before you, for reflection.HIS NATIVE ABILITYBrain power was his birthright. He was fortunate in his father—a man of no mean attainments, through whose veins there coursed pure Scotch blood; and we are agreed that the world has known little better than this same blood.Dr.
Lorimer, who was himself a Scotchman, in an address said that the Scotch were a fine people and they themselves appreciated it; and illustrated by a story of an old Scotchman who was reminding a friend of his that Scotland had produced more than her share of the world’s greatest men. The friend, somewhat irritated by the comparison, said, “If you Scotch are such an excellent people, why don’t you all go back to your own land and make it what you would like to have it become?” “Ah, weel”, said the Scotchman, “that would be veri gude for Scotland, nae doubt; but it would be mighty hard on the rist of the world”.The elder Gladstone, William’s father, was a famous Liverpool merchant, who himself sat for some years in Parliament, honored by his confederates.
There may be good luck in store for some people, but the child born to honorable and vigorously thoughtful parents has in his nativity the best luck that will ever befall him, and that luck will likely be wrapped up in the baby brain.Somebody asked a great painter, whose colors and touches were the fascination of art critics, and the envy of competitors, “With what do you mix your paints?” and he instantly answered, “With brains”.At Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, Gladstone discovered his inheritance to his associates, and we are told distinguished himself greatly as a speaker in the Oxford Debating Society; wrote so well in the Eton Miscellany that some of the productions still live; and graduated from Oxford in 1931 as a double first class.This morning I said that Charles Spurgeon did not squander his youth. He was not among those foolish youths who fling away the best period of life, sowing wild oats, and expecting to reap good grain. This can be equally claimed of William E. Gladstone’s early life. He was no patron of wine rooms. He was no associate of lewd women.
He was no frequenter of gambling houses. He was no social beau whose evening engagements with the belles left little or no opportunity for self-improvement.
He was no cigarette fiend whose self-indulgence was destroying his physical and mental manhood, and so undermining both as to unfit him for war.On the contrary, young Gladstone gave himself early to the serious things of life and proved the truth of Scripture, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27).Never would he have lived 89 years had he spent his early days as some young men are now spending theirs. Never would he have had the physical endurance, nor the mental acumen, that made three hour and even five hour speeches possible. Never would he have been the master of a dozen professions, the author of many volumes, the executor of England’s finance, the Premier of England’s politics, and the power above the throne, had he wasted his youth by self-indulgence and debauch.Sometime ago I read that not less than fifty abandoned wrecks were drifting about in the track of trans-Atlantic travel, endangering the vessels that go from continent to continent, and the paper went on to suggest that every evil habit formed in youth becomes such a threatening hulk, and though it may remain largely submerged in unconsciousness, never ceases to be a danger to passing immortals.The godless youths of this hour will never be Gladstones. But that boy who, by his birth, has come into good brain, and by his conduct is conserving his energies and consecrating them to noble ends has a right to hope for promotion to the pedestal of honor. But every drink of the intoxicating cup drowns the prospect. Every gratification of the lusts of the flesh digs for that prospect a grave; and every dishonorable act of youth prophesies an ignoble age.Gladstone came early into office and honor.
He was but 22 when he contested the Burgh of Newark in the Conservative interest, and was elected; and seven years later, when but 29, Macauley described him as “the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories”. The rule is that the man destined to office and honor comes at least into the earnest of both early in life.
If by the time we are thirty we have wrought little or nothing, the future for us is dark enough.We have heard that Socrates learned music late in life; that Plutarch began to study Latin when past seventy, and Cato Greek at 80, and Theophrastus commenced his greatest work on philosophy at 90. But even these men had made their mark in other lines while young; and the world will not forget that Alexander came to the throne at 20; that Raphael was an illustrious painter at 17; that Michael Angelo had called the attention of Lorenzo the Magnificent to himself at 16; that Byron wrote his “Hours of Idleness” at 19, and Pope his “Essay on Criticism” at 21, while Bryant was famous at 22 and Pitt was Prime Minister at 24, and Macauley was in Parliament before he was 30, and Napoleon Bonaparte commanding the army of Italy before he reached 27; that Whitefield, Wesley and Spurgeon were great preachers before their beards were grown and that the world’s greatest geniuses were dead before they came to the forties, including Raphael and Poe, and Keats and Shelley, Alexander the Great and Robert Burns, and Byron; and our lamented Prof. Henry Drummond scarce past that middle point when the end came; while Christ Himself, God’s Son, saw but thirty-three summers.If the life of Gladstone has in it any inspiration to noble living its first suggestion is this, “Let no man despise thy youth”. Redeem the early days, bear the yoke now, for a serious youth means a sweet old age; a sensible employment of the early time gives promise of honor in the later life.But a second thing that impressed me was—HIS ENERGYIt seems to have been the energy of conviction. No man can put all into life without entertaining with reference to it a profound conviction.W. T.
Stead used to speak of “the might of Gladstone’s convictions”, as amounting to almost a faith in his infallibility, and talked of him as being “controlled by the consciousness of an absolute moral rectitude”. No man ever amounted to much who did not entertain the same consciousness.
No man can utilize his hours in thought and labor, as every hour ought to be utilized, until he becomes convinced that life is a serious business, and that for the same, he must render an account.Gladstone felt, as our great Dr. Judson expressed himself, that he had but one life to live and that he must make the most of that; felt as great men commonly feel, if we may judge them by what they do.It is reported that a younger, and in some respects, more talented brother of Burke’s, after having listened to one of that statesman’s great speeches in Parliament, said to a friend, “I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talents of our family, but then I remember, when we were at play, he was always at work.”Gladstone’s energy was also the energy of custom. He laid his plans to work. Labor was no haphazard experience with him. About fourteen hours out of every twenty-four he gave to unremitting toil.In talking with W. T.
Stead he said that seven hours sleep was his fixed allowance, and added with a smile, “I should like to have eight. I hate getting up in the morning, and hate it the same every morning.
But one can do everything by habit, and when I have had my seven hours sleep, my habit is to get up.” How many men might have known greater success in the world, but for yielding to indolence, who can tell!Young Americans have learned from our own Edison what consecration to work can accomplish. Twenty-one hours out of the twenty-four he often works, when occasion demands it. Years ago, according to the Ladies’ Home Journal, he was called to Chicago, and after taking the train at Jersey City, he set himself to the solution of one of his problems, and was soon in a deep study. The next thing he heard was the voice of the porter crying out, “Chicago”. Edison turned to a fellow-passenger with the remark that the porter must be joking, but it proved to be no joke for the twenty-four hours had gone by. The other people had slept eight or nine hours while Edison was so absorbed in the solution of his problem that he had not seen his fellow-travellers retire or arise, nor noticed that they had eaten three meals.We do not use this illustration to endorse it as the custom of life.
With most men, such habits would injure their health. But we do employ it to impress, if possible, this thought, that the great geniuses of this world are simply men whose custom it is to work.
Jesus Christ Himself said, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me”. There was a holy necessity, arising out of the profoundest conviction, that expressed itself in the Master’s custom of work; and even Mr. Edison, in his habit of missing meals and forgetting to sleep, has the great Master’s example for his defense, for the Son of God often did the same.While, as we have said, William E. Gladstone was born with good brain power, the genius that has made him at once philosopher, theologian, author and statesman, is the genius of hard work.Stead said, “Mr. Gladstone was one of the most tireless of workers; the coil of that tremendous energy never seemed to run down.”You see your lesson young man!HIS MORAL COURAGEMore than any other statesman, he consulted conscience and God. Our own Abraham Lincoln is said to have spent each day much time in prayer to be guided through the stormy scenes of the civil war.
But in times of peace, as well as in the hours of conflict, prayer was Gladstone’s custom. And what God’s Spirit seemed to suggest marked the line by which he steered his life.
Enemies have accused him of being hypocritical and self-seeking, but after 89 years were gone the common people throughout England and America, if not throughout the world, have come to believe that he was a conscientious man.Napoleon was great, but unprincipled; Webster was great, but selfishly ambitious; Gladstone was greater than either, because his courage was moral; it found its first risings in conviction of right, a conviction to which he was faithful at whatever cost. He said himself, “No man has ever committed suicide so often as I.” What he meant was, when all things seemed to be against certain propositions, he had championed them, because he believed them to be right; and when his personal popularity depended upon his taking a certain course, his conscience had driven him, scores of times, in exactly the opposite direction.One consequence of this was many changes of view. Truly Gladstone was the mugwump of his century. He commenced his political career a Conservative of the Conservatives, a Tory of the Tories; he finished a friend of the common people, a Liberal of the Liberals. He commenced his political career a Protectionist; he finished it a Free Trader, having convinced his country that such a commercial policy was right in itself and for the common good. He commenced his career a High-churchman; he finished it as the noblest friend of the Non-conformists.
He commenced his career as a member of the social aristocracies; he concluded it as the champion of the oppressed. Whatever may be the opinion of others, I cannot refrain from expressing a profound conviction that in every one of these points his change marked his progress into larger light and truer human fellowship, and stronger loyalty to his Lord.In speaking of these changes he said, “I was educated to regard liberty as an evil.
I have learned to regard it as a good. That is a formula which sufficiently explains all the changes of my political convictions”.In Chicago, I knew a man who used to be a member of the Illinois State Militia, and at that time he was unregenerate and godless. There were strikes that came in the time of his service, and he said to me, “I stood forth, gun in hand, ready to shoot down those rebels against the social order; and not a few times I said to the boys, being a sergeant, Line up here now, and put your finger on the trigger, and if these men do not be quiet, lay them low. They are common cattle anyhow. The life of one office man yonder is worth more than twenty such as these”. Now that he is a Christian, and consecrated, his views are altogether changed.
In every man, he sees the immortal; in every bosom there beats the heart of his brother, and he would die more quickly for the oppressed than for aristocrats.That is the change that came over Gladstone, and that is a change that accompanies progress in the Christian life, the final end of which is principle versus party. It was a serious thing for Gladstone to leave his party, but it was a step in the counsels of God.
It was a thing of great sacrifice when Wendell Phillips walked away from the tenets of slave-favoring New England and declared for abolition, but it was a thing of moral courage, and of such absolute right that the angels in Heaven rejoiced as much as his parents mourned, and his old aristocratic associates sorrowed. One of the lessons that the favored of this world are indisposed to learn is Burn’s line, “A man’s a man for a’ that”.We are familiar with the story of Creon, the Greek slave who worshipped beauty, and out of a marble block chiseled a group of figures that appeared in the Art Exhibit at Athens, in the Agora. Pericles presided and Aspasia sat at his side. Phidias, Socrates, Sophicles and other renowned men stood near him, and all agreed upon this group, for whose creation no author was named. At last they dragged Cleone, sister of the slave into their presence, and tried to compel her to tell who the author was, and when she would not, ordered her to the dungeon. Then Creon came forward and said, “Oh, Pericles, forgive and save the maid.
She is my sister. I am the culprit.
The group is the work of my hand, the work of a slave.” The crowd jeered and cried, “Send him to the dungeon then, to the dungeon, for he had no right to surpass his masters.” But Pericles rising said, “As I live, no! Behold that group! Apollo decides by it that there is something higher in Greece than an unjust law. Not to the dungeon, but to my side bring this young man”. And that day the Athenians learned that among the lowly the great may be found, and when Aspasia placed the crown of olives on Creon’s brow, and tenderly kissed his affectionate sister, they saw the meaning of Burn’s line, “A man’s a man for a’ that”. Of all the traits of Gladstone’s character that made him great, few stand forth so prominently today as his justice to the lowly, as well as the high; the strength of his convictions for all mankind.We tell, with pardonable American pride, of how President Lincoln took off his hat and bowed to a colored ex-slave in Richmond, Va., but we forget to practice the virtue we have approved.
Most of us have not the moral courage to count the girl in the shop, in the kitchen, the sister she is, our equal; and the most of us have not enough Christian grace to see in the girl in the slums, or the poor staggering sot of the saloon, the sister and brother that by our help they might become.Gladstone’s greatness was gentle. His politics rested upon the base of principle, and his religion resulted in his eloquent pleas for the oppressed of all lands.HIS FAITHThis, of course, is the sublimest of the elements that entered into the man.
In it is found the climax of his character, the secret of his conduct, the surety of his temporal or eternal success.His faith was simple in statement. He was no self-appointed philosopher seeking to befog the intellect of his fellows and impress upon them that he was some superior one. He had no sarcasm for the sacred Scriptures, no jest about Jesus the Son of God, no graceless speeches concerning the great God of the universe. The Bible was the Book of his counsel, Jesus Christ his Saviour from sin, the Holy Ghost his guide, and God his eternal Father, the embodiment of eternal love.Years since, in Denver, Colorado, a smart young fellow said to Dr. Kerr Tupper, “The greatest intellects do not believe in the Bible, nor accept Jesus Christ as God’s Son”, and when Pastor Tupper asked him who were the greatest intellects, after much straining of his mind he remembered Gladstone, and was surprised to hear that Gladstone was a Christian. In order to convince him perfectly, Dr.
Tupper wrote to Mr. Gladstone and told him the story of this young man, and forthwith there came a reply from the great statesman saying, “All I am, all I have, all I hope for the future is indissolubly bound to my faith in Jesus Christ as God’s Son”.This faith was also strong in sentiment.
It dominated the thought of Gladstone. It determined his daily conduct. It furnished the foundation to his character.W. T. Stead states that “Mr. Gladstone is unshaken in his assent to what he regards as the eternal verities; and his faith is firmer than that of all the bishops in all the churches.”If the statement was too strong, it stood for what Mr. Stead had seen illustrated in the life of Gladstone, his country-man, for were not his books expressions of his faith, almost every one? When he wrote “The Impregnable Rock of the Holy Scriptures,” he voiced only what he felt.
And how far the faith of this greatest man influenced the thought of the civilized world, Christward, who can tell? Huxley and Darwin he handled with ungloved fingers, showing that what they called “the precision of science” failed before the verities of God’s holy Scriptures, and that they shall vanish away— but God’s Word will stand.It is no small thing that the weakest and most buffeted Christian in all the world is able now to point to that grandest man of the last century and say, “Know you not that Gladstone believed God, accepted Jesus Christ His Son as Saviour from sin, and the Bible as the Book inspired from cover to cover, making eternal foundation for the faith of man”?That faith was sublime in its effect. The man Gladstone himself was its first result, and his future state its final consequence. What he was, we know. What he is no mortal mind can conceive. But we have found exceeding comfort in what he felt just when the great change that swept him from time into eternity was coming on.
Over his bed for years there had hung a motto, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee”. Every morning for years he has spent some time in Bible study and prayer.
Every Sabbath for years, he has given up to worship and service, often preaching himself to great audiences. When his son entered the ministry, it was the father’s joy. When his family became Christians, one by one, there was rejoicing in Hawarden akin to that joy they had in Heaven, and when the time of his death drew on, he said sweetly to those who drew about the place of his rest, “This is only a final test, beloved, before my triumph”. A little while afterward, when the end was nearer, he turned to those about him and said, “It is well, the way grows brighter, —brighter!” The great man was going from the scenes of earth-life, where he had served so sweetly, and been crowned with such incomparable success toward the scenes of the Heaven-life, where he was to receive a crown of life and enter once for all into the eternal light.I told you once the story of the old pilot who passed away not long since in Boston. Like Gladstone, he had lived a long time and for nearly years he had held a pilot’s commission, and in all that time had been piloted by Jesus Christ. As he was passing away, his face brightened and he started up with the expression, “I see a light!” His friends thought he was wandering, and that he imagined himself at sea, and they asked, “Is it the Highland light?” “No”. “Is it the Boston light?” “No.” “Is it the Minot light?” “Oh, no,” he said, “it is the light of glory.
Let the anchor go,” and the anchor slipped, and the old pilot stood before Him, who took him into His arms and presented him without spot and blemish before His Father, saying, “See, here is one washed in My Blood! I claim the Light of Life for him.”