EVANGELICAL SERMON.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8929, 20 October 1894, Page 2

EVANGELICAL SERMON.

XII.—THE LAMP ON THE STAND.

[Copyright.]

-m+m Br Rev. Wattisi Birch. Neither do men light a lamp, and pat it Dnder the bushel, but on the stand; and it Civeth light unto all that are in the hoase. —Matthew v., Iβ, 16 JR.V.) After supper the family and several neighbours assemble to hear a traveller's tale, and in the middle of the room a stand four or five feet high bears the carefully trimmed lamp whose brilliance, subdued by a thin silken veil, gives a pleasant light to all that are in the house. Like that lamp we should blesa those with whom we have to do. , L.—Where Shall we Shise? {I) In our present niclu. Ideal angels are only in pictures, bat while the reality without wings may occasionally be seen in detached suburbs, you generally find one in every street where houses are jammed like matches in a box. Earthen-lamps of God, you wonder why you cannot "get oa" in the world. Inferior men are advanced, yet you remain in the ranks. Other women not so amiable and less beautiful are wedded to wealth, irhile you and your comparatively poor mate, God bless him ! have to struggle to make both ends meet. Why ? Because God wants a light to shine from the earthly aogel who stands iv your shoes. Aβ His sun blesses the earth, so He lights you to cheer the world around you, aud He may keep • you there until needed - to glorify the home »bove. You are wheie God and men need yon, like the hospital built near the crowded poor, the lighthouse on the rocks, and the life-buoy near the sea. Shine on. (2) In the darkness. Here is a slave taction. "Lot 23, Bob Higgs, a«e 39, sft Bin, 12»t, sound in wiud and limb." He is a coloured maD, who on Sundays is a lay preacher, on week days a handy Jack of all trades, and for fifteen years has been allowed by his master to hire himself oat, the slave usually paying four dollars a week for that privilege, and keeping himself and his old mother into the bargain ; bub at the master's death, the executor realises the property. The horses from the stables have been cleared off, and the human beipgson the estate now mount the block one by one in front of a crowd who moisten the gronnd with tobacco juice, " Lot 23, gentlemen, the finest nigger God ever made ! Bob, my man, shake yourself up; open your mouth; there, gentlemen, look ab his perfect teeth ! Pull off your shirt—there, gentlemen, look at this chest, these firm musetee, these splendid loins, without any useless fat, these limbs, an Apollo in black ? " " Two hundred dol, thanks!" "Three." "Three fifty dol!" repented several times. " You ■ball see him run ; gentlemen, make way. There, .Bob, in honour of your dead master, show what you can do—to the hotel door and back—now !" " Look, gentlemen; Wind perfect; the grandest nigger on God A'mighty's earth!" "Four hundred. , ' ••Four twenty-five." " Four fifty." "Four seventy." " Five , hundred." " Going! going! Five twenty-five." "Five forty." •'Five forty-five." "Five fifty; five fifty ! any advance ? five fifty dol! five hundred and- fifty dollars! Going! going!" *' Please masaa, massa !" " Bob, you idiot, you should know better than interrupt business; what is it ? what have you there?" He has taken a bag from an inside pocket in his shirt, which still lies on the block, hands it to the auctioneer, and says, in a -broken, husky voice, " Massa,' I'se been saving ill dis y/ere money sin , I went put on hire, and I bids five hunner an , sixty dollars for myael' 1" The buyers are excited, and while some cty "Bravo, Bob!" others spit oat more tobacco juice, saying, " Darn it; bat those notes belong to the estate !" Holding the bag, the auctioneer bends to speak with the acting solicitor, and, legally instructed, turns over the bag to him. He prooeads, •• Gentlemen, we must be righteous and obey the law; as we were ! Bub is a valuable nigger, a money-making property; five fifty; five hundred and fifty dollars V' Lot 23 is kneeling on the block with his face buried in his hands. "Come, come, Bob r ; we are proud of you !" Gives him a smart .slap on the back. "Stand up, you darn'd fool!". Lot 23 stands up. "Now, gentlemen, for the last time, going! Five fifty; five fifty." ««Six hundred; six hundred dol'j six hundred dollars! any advance ? six—hundred—dol—iars ! six-fifty; six-fifty dol" (repeated several times).. "The last time; this splendid nigger,.true as steel, sound as a bell, none toTbeat him under heaven! Gentlemen, £hiß is a chance which seldom comes before you! Now is the time ! Six-fifty, going. Six-seventy— hundred dol! Any advance? Tho last time!" Breathlees silence. " Seven hun-dred dol-lars ! Going! Going!.. Seven hun , dol!. Any mdvance ? Go-ing ! Goo-ing ! Gone !" (The auctioneer settles matters with the, "lucky buyer" who tells his purchase to, be ready in half an hoar; and goes to join the others who are liquoring up at the cost of the estate. " Lot 23 " finishes dressing himself and creeps Into the shed behind the flour barrels, where he groans and weeps before God. Ah t Bob, my brother;. those tears and sobs keep your heart from breaking. But heaven and earth has been moved to set you free ! Yes, thank God, you are Creel , '•• ~.- ' ■ . So men and women Who are in moral or spiritual- slavery long to free themselves from gambling, cheating, drink, or worse; but, alter abortive attempt* to free themselves, they despair and go on in slavery until death comes, perhaps, in their case mercifully, to release their weary souls. Iβ it an unpardonable sin to hope that in heaven I may be " told off " to bear a cup of ■ cold water to some of these ? But, surely, our present life is the lamp stand from which God expects us to chine freedom into their souls. Iv a large shed near the house where I lived in Egypt, au ox, named Akquah, for several years had turned the windlass to draw water from a deep well, which made the poor creature blind. In compassion, every day I gave Akquah luscious green stuff ordered specially for him, and talked to him as to a weary friend. He knew my step, and brightened up at my touch on hie face. Sometimes when the work was done the blind creature would follow mc, holding his head on -one side to make it easier to guide him by his ear; and when I came away he seemed to understand, and sighed, w if he meant to say, " I shall be all alone now, turning in the dark till the end !•' The tears I. dropped on his poor old face, maVj perhaps,. be the memory of a human friend until his work is done. But, Jikewwe, many human beings, both rich and poor, have a grinding daily round of mental or physical toil; they cannot onderatand it; they are in the dark ; they < do not know God; they have no sympatbetidfriend ! Witb good intentions others are in slavery to hereditary, acquired, or forced evil; while some snffer from aj grieved, lonely or wounded heart. Topass the Pecksniffs and Cbadbands through (he gate into Abraham's,, bosom and cast these enslaved ones into deeper darkness is not gospel. Sinking with hunger, Lazarus daily desired the crumbs thrown to dogs; butt ia the other world, he and all similar despairing ones shall find in God a Friend. When they know this, they will kneel down and pray to Him now, and receive pardon and peace. Iβ Christ the only one who can deliver the captive and heal the broken in heart? No; Hβ will repeat Himself in you. Do not say the game is scarcely worth the candle. In the broken jar may we not grow a rose ? While disciples' bold aloof, does not the thief on the other cross publicly own Jesus as Lord and Christ?. True, this woman is the .Magdalene; yet, when holy men forsake their Master, she stands at a distance in such a position that Hβ may see her iookef pity and tears of love. So in every fallen woman is there not la trembling spark divine? In ■i yonder wandering boy and this prodigal ton, is there not some lingering trace of God? During the past sad winter I have been privileged to feed and shelter upwards of five nundred destitute men called "swaggers" and "loafers," and in all witb whomThave <K>me into touch I have found some resentWance to Christ, microscopic, perhaps, but still reminding one of Him—> that poor ragged man knecla in the mud to help] to uplift a fallen hone; saves a little child from the wheel of a tram ; bands a piece of his bread to a lost dog; stoops to pick up a worm and puts it over the fence ; as he rests near the gate, removes a stone which hurts the violet; under the tree in the park lends his blanket to the poorer loafer who coughs hisjuie away j insists oa being lowered into

! EVANGELICAL SERMON. ,

M - ■ ■ —- the well, with its loose dangerous sides, to rescue the mau on whom the earth has fallen, and who afterwards dies in hie arms; twenty of them offer to woik a day extra in your streets without wages to make up the time for sick and worn out strangermates in our Refuge ; and when thsy have gone from my care and Authority cries " Move on!" they move on—and die. Ail these men can be s*ved; and Christ, therefore, wishes your lamp and mine to shine on them and all other poor ones. If, however, they are lost through your neglect do you mean to say that God will order them to move on into hell ? Such a thought libels Him and ought to shame you. Oh, bishops, parsons and churches, of a truth He will hold you responsible for their doom! The British "Ringarooma" runs on a coral reef, and half-a-dozea steamers are sent to help her ; bat is the costly ship more dear to God than the poorest Bob of slave times, or the most broken-down man of our Plains ? Thousands of human beings aYe on ttie rocks of sin and in the slouch of despair; shall we leave them to sink ? No, no; a thousand times, No; in the darkness, let us stand by them until the dawning of their day. IL —How and Whes to SniNE. (1) In our faith. As a suffering child strikes the breast which feeds him, so some men blame God for failures and pains. But to the world let us picture His care in our patient confidence. " Though we are slain, yet will we lovingly trust our Liord !" (2) In deeds. Tae divinest service is not lip-worship in temples, but reverence in spirit aud goodness of life; not fasting from meat, but self-deuial which acts justly to all men ; not class isolations of a church, bat kinship to everyone in need; not acting as lordly master, bub ministering servant " to all that arti in the house. ,, 3. In the dutij tliat lies next us. How painful to hear modern leaders prate about •'the democratic future" when they uukiudly -refuse to put a drop of oil in to-day's creaking wheel ! Are they nob nineteenth century pnests and Levites who pass by dyiug men at their fees? Shame oa these future idealists who will not help to lift off the burdens wnich crush the human heart today. They do not yet know the God who would have us be a present help in time of need. 4. In a perfect spirit. With my friend, the late Re\\ C. H. Spuxgeon, I once spent a week in Veuice, and saw three remarkable pictures. This is one. Robbed/ woucded and half-dead, with blood oozing from under his hair, the merchant hears a step and lifie his hand for help ; bub, inspired with lofty thoughts of the temple-service where he goes to worship God, the holy priest crosses the road to shut the dying man from sight. Under the picture is the word "Unfinished! ,, In the second, the merchant has fainted. On his way home from the' temple, the jovial Levite observes the poor man, and coming nearer, exclaims, "I am indeed sorry lor thee, my brother ! but what can I do ? My dinner is waiting at Jericho; I must away !" The corner of this picture bears the words, *' Also unfinished !" The third shown a man of another creed and nation kneeling to. bandage the wounds of the merchant, bearing him to the- inn, making himself responsible for his board and lodging, and as he gives money to the host, I notice a mark on his hand as if a nail had been driven through. This canvas says, " Finished ! So may I follow Thee, my Lord, who once laid down Thy life for mc!" __—■-■■-