BIBLE TALK.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8476, 6 May 1893, Page 2

BIBLE TALK.

Sermon.

SERIES No. 18. Subject—" Our Easter." " If ye then be risen in Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.'—Ooloasians iii. 1. Stenographic Report of Mr Worthisgton's Liiele Talk at the Temple of Truth, Easter Sunday, Atril 2nd, 1893. None of you have come here, I am positive, wita the idea that you are going to receive the stereotyped Easter thought. No one comes here with the expectation that he or she is going to receive the sentimental side of religious interpretation; if they did so, they would be disappointed. This is the great gala day lor Christendom throughout the world ; a day of days in ail her transcendent, and august career, a day full of flowers, of processions, of musicextraordinary ; a day replete with au atmosphere of -_-)t:m_-aa:i-m which, when tomorrow comes, aud the flowera have withered, the music has ceased, and the processions have been disbanded, leaves nothing but a memory, a beautiful picture, a traditional association. Out of the glamour of sentiment, away from that false concept of a mighty and sublime truth, above and beyond the limitations of this little human definition, I would take your mind- this morning.

The day has been associated with the resuscitation of the phy&ieal body of our Lord Jeaus Christ ; I have no purpose to direct your thought to that this morning. Five years of Easter .Sunday- have lapsed into the history of tho p—at, since the event which is commemorated to-day took place. Five years oi Easter Sunday, have -lifted into the past, and man stands to-day fettered by the same law ot sin aud flesh arid death by which he wa_ bound when these celebrations began. So far as the celebration is concerned, man is to-day no better off than he would be had that resurrection sever taken place, to the world to-day our Lord Jesus Christ is as dead as though he had never been resurrected 1900 years ago. Why is this '' It is because we have had no interpretation of Easter, and so we stand .to-day before the necessity of resurrecting Easter itself. We stand to-day confronted with the necessity of taking from its grave the very Easter that this day commemorates.

What, then, is Easter ': If the idea of Easter be the development of man spiritually ib must be taken from the realm of religious sentiment, and moved into the centre of human consciousness, and made a general fact, rather tlian an isolated event, a limited experience So long as the Christ ia confined to a religious radius, so long as we must search for the Christ in religion and nowhere else, so long are we robbed of tbe purpose of the resurrection, so long are we defeated of that which is embodied in it. The Christ, so far from being the Jesus, the flesh man, must be turned directly about, and that Jesus, that flesh man, must be recognised as tne human concept or representative of the Christ. We must understand that the extraordinary mistake that has confounded these two words is the initial error thab has misled us in all our interpretations.

Jesus, I say, is the human concept of the Christ, the human representative of the Christ ; the Christ is the universal spiritual thought of God, tbe Christ is the epitome and ultimate of perfection in every realm of thought. Now the moment that we can comprehend this, the moment that we con take this Easter, the figure that has been dressed in these unbecoming and ill-fitting garments of religious sentiment, aud recognise its hidden beauty and meaning for mankind; the moment that we can separate it from the falsehood and semblance that has surrounded it,' and move it into the realm- of every thought and experience in life, that moment the resurrection will have life and import, it will be to us a release and a refuge. Is it possible for us to take that great object lesson, and connect it with every affair and circumstance in life ? Is it possible to look at every person, circumstance, and environment in life, and hail ib'with these words, " Thou art tae Christ ? " If so we may obtain an Easter that will be of some benefit to us. _ The creed-bound idea of Easter has had wrested from it every farthing of thought that it contained; it has been served to us hob and cold, warmed and rehashed, until we know every word they are going to utter when tbey stand up to speak regarding it, Now Easter mus»t be moved from that imprisonment, ib mutt be released from that bondage into the universal application of this great fact; the Christ in everything must be realised, the Christ in all things most be italicised, tha Christ everywhere must be resurrected. Conservative religion has taken this Christ, and pub it iuto the stilling sepulchre 61 narrow-iniudechiesss, ib has rolled bhe stone of religious bigotry against the door, and sealed ib with the spirit of intolerance. Mankind has been stationed as the soldiers guarding the sepulchre ; the soldiers of a false spirituality, of a traduced and betrayed agnosticism, the soldiers of an atheism as gross and material as paganism. These stand there and watch the entombed body of the Christ. These narrow limitations must be burst open, this grave of tradition must be broken into, and the released majesty of the Christ be brought forth to clothe mankind in its right mind. This is the reason why the Church, with all its processions and its formula;, with all its music and its glamour, making drunk its followers with the mesmerism of a false interpretation, this is why the efforts of the Church are all partial and one-sided. The Church militant can never become the Church triumphant, until this sepulchre is made to give up its dead, until mankind has a daily Easter. What is that? What can I mean by saying that mankind must have a daily Easter ? I mean an Easter that stands in every human experience, and releases the Christ; so long as we confine that Christ'to religion, so long as we hold him there, he cannot influence commerce, society, domestic life. The Christ is the universal fact, and he must be brought out of the realm of religion, into the realm of everyday habit. How shall we do this? First, we will spiritualise commercial life ; then, we will spiritualise domestic life; and these two ■will spiritualise religion. Too long -c.c have consented to leave the Christ, which is man's manhood, man's divinity, too long we have consented to leave it in the hands of agents, trustees, stewards, the priest, the clerk and A spiritual commercial life is a good and excellent thing; a spiritual religious life is a grand and beautiful thing; a spiritual domestic life ia a sublime and godlike thing. Now, when I realise thab I Have little or nothing to do with the resurrection of the Nazarene, bub that I have everything to do with my own resurrection ; when I understand that the great lesson of Easter to mc is thab I must be resurrected, that my thought must come out of its entombed ostracism and imprisonment, that ray manhood must come out and breathe the divine atmosphere of its power, and that my life must be clothed with the gerius of the Christ before Easter has any meaning for mc; when I realise this, then Easter will itself have been resurrected, and not until then.

There are three phases in life, three Standpoints and standards in life, by, through, and from which everything we look at is seen, and these are deter__ir_ing factors as to our relation to life. There is, in the first place, the spiritual standpoint from which to look at life; there is the agnostic standpoint from which to regard it: and there is the atheistic standpoint from which we may survey it. Now, from one of these three standpoints, all the world is reading, con-templ-.ting, analysing, and seeking to harmonise human existence.

The man who has a spiritual standpoint from which to regard and study all his surroundings, soon becomes in tune with these surroundings, he soon becomes master of them, and realises that oub of chaos he may resurrect order, out of disaster he may wrench victory, out of seeming confusion and discord he is capable of producing harmony. There is a positive, capable element in his thought that controls. On the other hand, the agnostic standpoint of thought is suspicious of everything. _ Did you know that there are in business these three elements, and these only? Did you know that the euccessful man in business, and by

Sermon.

the word successful I do not mean what yoa may understand in the first expression of that word, did you know, I say, that the successful business man is the man who sees business through the spiritual lens 7 Did you know that the man who is unsuccessful in business, whose paper is rated low, who has a questionable standard in the mind of the world, is agnostic in the quality of his thought, not a3 to religion, but as to bnsiness ? Did you know that the atheistic thought in business is that which invites bankruptcy, and ruin, and disaster, that it is the grosser and more material element in its worst, poorest and weakest form ? It is true. When we understand that every man in business, and every woman in the world, who is studying life, is looking at it through oue of these three lenses—the spiritual, the agnostic or the atheistic—we shall be able to differentiate the conditions of the world, to separate men and effects, and understand the relations of the one to the other.

What is producing the sin, the suffering, the confu_ion, and the seeming defeat all over the world is, that the sepulchre is closed, that the Christ is entombed, and that the paid soldiery of human ignorance is standing guard, lest this spiritual thought be released, and set in power upon its throne. Our spiritual thought is either asleep under the bolt and bar of human ignorance, or awake to its impending peril, it is either drowsy or alert. In the degree that it is awake, we possess the power to speak the message "Peace, be still" to the wave of human sorrow, confusion, and discord. Just as we have resurrected this Christ within ourselves, in the consciousness of who we arc, in the consciousness of the power that belongs to us by virtue ot who we are, and in the consciousness of our responsibility to ourselves and mankind at large to administer that power and preach through it, just iv that degree are we awake, just in that degree is onr consciousness alive to the spiritual element of thought • that controls. The spiritual thought must be nursed, developed, practised ; the agnostic thought must be denied, overcome, and put away; and the atheistic thought or impulse must be stilled absolutely, and put- out as a negation. When this is done, the stone may be rolled from the sepulchre that entombs our Christ, and onr Easter may become a practical fact. If the world at large this morning might receive into its consciousness the fact that the reason Easter comes and goes as a tradition, a memory, an observance, and has no practical effect or bearing on life, is because we have searched for the Christ nowhere bub in the realm of religion, and in' the affairs of commerce, of society, and of domestic life we have never looked for him, or thought or dreamed of finding or resurrecting the Christ, if this coald be apprehended by the world, we should make au enorinou3 stride to bring in tbe kingdom of God.

Imagine, if you can, going in to an agent who has charge of church property to lease, and endeavouring to convince him that the teaching of the Christ must be observed in his business transaction regarding the lease of that property. Imagine, if you can, the respectable quality of religion that tits in the pew, that has paid its endowment towards the establishment of religion, being confronted next week wibh the proposition thab into its business, into its transactions of pounds, shillings, and pence, ib must admib the Christ of God to stand sponsor for its conduct. Imagine the consternation that would follow such a thought.

The Christ is an unknown quantity in the commercial world, an unknown quantity in the business practice of the world, and it is a much .sadder thing to _ay, that ib is an unknown quantity in domestic life. Think of looking at each separate member of your family with the declaration, "Thcuartthe Christ, the son of the living God," think of standing at the grave where anger is sentinelled, where hate and malice are standing to imprison the Christ, and saying, " Thou art the Christ."

• Oh! for a practical apprehension of this Easter thought. Oh ! for a breaking of the marble jaws of the sepulchres of the world in which the Christ is entombed, for a release of that majestic presence, that magnificent beauty, that wide and godlike altruism, that perfect sbandard thab shall measure ourselves by him. Oh! if thab might burst upon the consciousness of the world; if, out of the night of ignorance that holds it with bolt and bar in the grave, there might come the glory of the Christ, the divine man in every man, having cast aside the cerements of the tomb, we should see men walking in the majesty of his power, in the beauty of the thought that says—Love fulfils all law; meeting every aggression, every instrument aimed at him, with the love that resists not, the love.that foils nob, the love that thinfceth no evil, thab is not puffed up, that vaunbeth not itself, that seeketh nob its own, bub knows thab in the great unit of God, every fraction and all separateness is lost.

Oh ! if we might grasp that thought with hands that would not let it go, if we might kneel before the shrine of this Christ iv obedient submission to the law, and understand that the cross speaks to us not the language of a sentimental tradition, but of godlike beauty and power, as it says— Humanity must suffer; humanity, so long as it is believed in, must go to the crucifixion, humanity must see in this the emblem, the instrument by which ib is sacrificed and surrendered. If we might get these lessons from this day and its story, then Easter would be resurrected itself, aud we would go into the world tomorrow holding the word " He is risen."

Now no man can know or understand what I am saying, until the resurrection has taken place in himself; the Christ within must be resurrected before you can see him without; you cannot make "the declaration of his presence in your brother, uutil you have discovered him in yourself. Then, when he is found, the " liberty wherewith Christ has made us free " comes to us, and arms us with the power to carry it to every other man, and we hear the song of angel voices, over and over again proven to bo true, " Peace on earth, and goodwill toward men." . God, the only Life ; Spirit, the only Substance; Love, the only Law.—[Advt.]