[1]

BY

FRANK BEARD

REPRODUCED BY A NEW PROCESS
FROM THE ARTIST’S ORIGINAL DRAWINGS
AND ENGRAVED BY
THE SPECTROTYPE COMPANY, CHICAGO.

PUBLISHED BY
THE RAM’S HORN PRESS
153 LaSALLE STREET . CHICAGO
U. S. A.

For years and years the pen of the caricaturist was in the exclusive service of the secular and humorous press. There it often did good work as the champion of social and political reform. Nast, Gillam and Beard, in their several fields of pictorial journalism, have laid the nation and the world under deeper obligations than it will soon be able to repay. One of that famous trio, however, not being content with his success in merely amusing men, or at best in directing their thoughts to the foibles of politics, and society, sought to enlarge his usefulness by consecrating his pen and his genius to the betterment of the religious conditions of the race and hoped thereby to bring men to a better understanding of themselves and their Maker.

It was Frank Beard, who, first among the great artists, used the pen of caricature as a champion of Christian living and Christian reform. He could have found no better opportunity to exercise his talent and distribute its effects broadcast than in the pages of The Ram’s Horn, that wonderful weekly paper which far and near is now known as “the miracle of modern journalism.” For nearly three years Mr. Beard has given The Ram’s Horn a full page cartoon each week and it is Fifty of the Best of these Pictures which now appear in the pages of this volume.

The highest hopes of Mr. Beard and of The Ram’s Horn will be accomplished if, by the publication of these pictures, stronger emphasis is laid upon the fact that Christ is the foundation of the church, and good citizenship is the foundation of the state, and that the only great foe to the former is Unbelief, and as for the latter no good citizenship is possible so long as it remains in an unholy league with the licensed saloon.

By Faith the walls of Jericho fell down flat.    Hebrews xi:30.

At a long blast with the ram’s horn the walls of the city shall fall.    Josh. vi:5.

Fifty loud blasts from The Ram’s Horn will be found in this book of Cartoons. At their reverberating peal may the walls of Mammon, Rum and Unbelief fall shattered in the dust.

THE RAM’S HORN,

Chicago, U. S. A.

The church can scarcely be said to be somnolent. It is awake and active. But its activities are too frequently spent in affairs that do not relate to its mission which is to fight the hosts of sin in a wicked world. The giants of iniquity stalk forth boldly. They find the church not in battle but in the tents, feasting and drinking, planning for dime socials and not for war against sin. Oh that some modern David would soon step forth and teach us that it is not shields nor armor nor tall steeples nor worldly expedients that are to win the day. It is faith in God. That is what gave aim and speed to the stone that slew Goliath, and it is what will give efficacy now to work and prayer.

[5]

It was fortunate that the Savior did not build his church upon a perishable foundation. When in answer to his inquiry Peter said, Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God, Jesus had a corner stone for an edifice whose summit would reach the stars and whose base would be as broad as creation. The church is founded upon a fact and that fact is the historic Christ. No lever of human assumption bolstered by conceit has ever moved that corner stone the breadth of a hair. The church of Jesus is founded upon the impeccable, the faithful, the everlasting Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Touch not the walls of Truth which surround Zion. They are impregnable.

[7]

Hard and exacting is the toil of the preacher. Especially so in these years when a cultured and enlightened pew demands the religious discourse presented in the best form and embellished with the adornments which modern art and literature supply. A preacher who yields to the extreme demands of modern thought, however, will soon find himself abandoning the true and best source of sermon material and will begin to forage in the desert fields of literature to find sustenance for an impoverished mind. Many such a preacher, tired and heartless, would find instant relief if he would but burn the human aids to the manufacture of artificial sermons and turn to the rich mines of truth which still lie unexplored in the sacred word. Back to Christ is the call of a starving world which is now shepherdless and unfed.

[9]

The preachers are not alone guilty of levying tribute from the world in carrying on the work of the gospel. There are church organizations which might be numbered by the thousands, the wealth of whose membership would in each congregation exceed a million dollars, but they seem unable to buy a church organ or a pulpit bible without getting up a bazaar or a Church Fair. The same Jesus who drove the money changers from the house of prayer, sits in sad judgment upon the church which turns its sacred chamber into a market place or into a scene of rank levity and low grade amusement.

[11]

There were but few gifts recorded in the bible which were large enough to attract the attention of Christ. They were not large but they all implied sacrifice, they represented the utmost that the giver could bestow. When the widow bashfully pushed her little mite into the collection box she little dreamed that her offering weighed more than all the gold and precious treasure that lay stacked in the safety deposit vaults of Jerusalem. If God has a cordial contempt for anybody in the world, we suspect it is for the man who, having made a fortune, gives ostentatiously a part which is insignificant in proportion to the amount which he retains to minister to his own comfort and ease.

[13]

One cannot square accounts with God on any other basis than complete surrender, whether of the will or of wealth. “What lack I yet?” asked the rich young man who prided himself extravagantly on his moral life. Go, said Jesus, sell your estate and give the proceeds to the needy. We have no evidence that this young Jew got his money in any but an honest method, and if his way to salvation lay along the path of complete surrender what shall those do who derive their riches by corrupting law makers and by defeating justice, and by cornering products and raising the price of food?

[15]

Law and justice hold an accessory to a crime liable to punishment as strictly as they hold the principal. Indeed oftentimes it is the wily accessory who is the more guilty, because from his cowardly place of retreat he directs the plot which may result in physical peril to the one who carries it through. Is not likewise the man who rents his property to evil uses equally if not more guilty than the one who boldly assumes the responsibility of carrying on an indecent traffic therein. There would be a thinning of the ranks of respectability if public sentiment should face every Dives who is a silent partner in the tenements of sin and say, Thou art the man whom we hold guilty and responsible for this murder and this poverty and this vice.

[17]

Scarcely a schoolboy has reached fifteen and has not heard of that ancient victim of Fate who toiled daily year in and year out in the effort to get a huge stone above the top of a mountain. Each morning he found it again at the foot, and so his task continued monotonous, endless, futile, vain. Just so with the modern Champions of Unbelief. They toil and sweat and push at Infidelity’s inert boulder, they fancy they make progress, and sometimes they do, but in their pathway there stands the granite block of Truth bearing aloft in defiant beauty the cross of sacrifice. Against this, Egotism and Unbelief can make no headway. It is a Vain Task.

[19]

Genuine life loves motion, energy, enterprise, destination. It cannot stand still nor lie dormant; it cannot go in a circle even, it must have a goal and a destiny. For this reason Agnosticism can never be the philosophy for this human race, because it is a ship without steam or sail and it will use neither oars nor rudder. It is content to lie upon the spacious ocean of Eternity, tossed by doubt, fascinated by Fate pursuing, indifferent as regards companionship or success. A cheerless, lonely drifting vessel on a sea that has no shores and no haven.

[21]

The home is the holy of holies where angels love to dwell. Its sacred precincts are more inviolate than the inner sanctuary of Israel’s temple. God has made it the ark of his covenant between himself and his children from generation to generation. It is the oracle and fount for instruction in religion and morals and patriotism. It is the altar where holy fires of ambition and inspiration and enthusiasm are kindled. And yet there are those, and sometimes there are women, who see no opportunity for deep pleasure or high duty at the home fireside, but must find it in outside engagements, in pursuit of baubles of worldly place or social distinction. This is not woman’s sphere. Her hand belongs not on the throttle of this world’s busy life, but on the cradle, where character begins to take form. There she belongs and there she may sit to mold the future of two worlds. Only of such will it be said:

[23]

Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a lonely island, furnishes a picture of woe and desolation which it would be difficult to exaggerate, and yet, through his invention and enterprise, frugality and foresight, he transformed inhospitable shores into a garden of plenty. He conquered nature, by reason of his kindly acts even the wild animals learned to love him and the ferocious savages gave him their trust. In strong contrast to him is the man who heaps opulence upon greed and by his selfishness separates himself from the companionship of men. Faith, Hope and Love, once his attendants, he has allowed to perish. Eternity surrounds him. Opportunity is wrecked, and no ship will ever again come near his lonely island. The poorest man in the world is the man who has the means to purchase everything but has lost his capacity for enjoying anything.

[25]

It takes more than money to make a man wealthy. Godliness with contentment is great gain, says the bible, and therein is the secret of a rich and happy life. Contentment is a prerequisite of happiness and no man can come into contentment until every aspiration of his nature is satisfied. The deepest aspiration that lodges in the human soul is the longing for that contentment and rest which salvation bestows. No one is really rich, therefore, until salvation is found, and if it be discovered, after heroic sacrifice and struggle, after plunging through temptation and peril, the joy of triumph will be that much the greater and when temptation has been conquered by faith and works, then Salvation makes one truly the Richest Man in the World.

[27]

There are two tenants who seek to occupy every human heart and make it their place of residence. One of them is the Spirit of Good, the other is the Spirit of Evil. Jesus Christ is the personification of one; Satan is the personification of the other. It is within the power of every one to say whether his spiritual castle shall be the abode of righteousness and truth or whether it shall be the foul dwelling of sin and falsehood. If, perchance, the latter, by accident or unwatchfulness or even by our deliberate choice, has obtained control of our affections we may through the help of God cast out the unworthy tenant together with all his chattels of pride, envy, intemperance and their kindred brood, and turn over the House of Man-Soul to that other spirit whose mark thenceforth will adorn the door plate as a pledge that the dwelling will be forever impregnable against the assaults of sin.

[29]

Columbia has need of ships of war but she has need also of watchfulness within, lest, in looking for enemy abroad, she forget that in her very borders there are dark-browed assassins lying in ambush ready to slay her and take Justice and Liberty captive. No evils threaten greater menace to the nation than those which are embodied in the rum traffic and in corporate bribery. The serpent trail of each is seen in council chambers and senate halls. They work in the dark and they work stealthily. They are traitors and public foes. They should be destroyed.

[31]

During four hundred and more years this continent has been the melting pot for the population of the Eastern hemisphere. For three-fourths of that time the yearly infusions of raw metal was so slight that it was not hard to compound them with the native stock and preserve the high character of American citizenship. But when alien immigration pours its stream of half a million yearly, as has frequently been done during the last decade, and when that stream is polluted with the moral sewage of the old world, including its poverty, drunkenness, infidelity and disease, it is well to put up the bars and save America, at least until she can purify the atmosphere of contagion which foreign invasion has already brought.

[33]

When that famous submarine reef known as Hell Gate was blown out of the waters of Long Island Sound, the world echoed with rejoicing to learn that what had been a menace and a barrier to vessels and to commerce was blasted into fragments never to return. There is a greater Hell Gate which with its infinite submarine and subterranean tunnels honeycombs our social structure. The saloon is the dreadful barrier to commerce and prosperity, as well as a menace to health and peace. In spite of the fact that its awful traffic bears the approving stamp of our government, the time will come when this great thing, whose foundations are laid in hell, will be blown skyward by the power of public sentiment mightily aroused and intellectually directed.

[35]

The controllers of the liquor traffic understand their business. They know that they are sending an army of drunkards each year to an untimely grave and to take the place of these fallen victims, they must gain recruits from the hosts of youth. But the Rum haunts are too hideous to beguile one of tender years. There must be less offensive sins offered to bridge that long leap from innocence to iniquity, from the home hearth to the dram shop. Therefore, the rum-seller goes in league with the vendor of cigarettes, and base literature, and evil pictures, and questionable games and entertainments. At last the youthful victims of these plotters find themselves on the threshold of ruin. Every avenue through crime and vice leads at last to the open saloon.

[37]

It would be easy to destroy the liquor traffic were it not for its power in politics. This is so apparent to the men who manage it that they make it their first business to engage in politics and lay candidates for office under obligations by making generous contributions to the campaigns of each party. Therefore, whenever a cry of robbery or murder goes up from the licensed saloon and the government grabs bayonet and ballot and runs to the rescue, the political managers immediately step forth and intervene. Don’t Shoot, they both cry; Let him rob and ruin. He is a friend of mine and he has a license.

[39]

The influence of the saloon in politics is not entirely due to the political boss who makes the gin-mill his headquarters. He would be powerless for harm were it not for the infinite multitude of so-called respectable voters who degrade their intelligence and dignity by working and voting shoulder to shoulder with social outlaws. Under a false notion of fealty these men subject their neck to the party collar and go to the polls yoked with ignorance and crime, and at the heels of some low-browed political dictator they sacrifice their country’s weal on the altar of partisan allegiance.

[41]

More than one man has been hanged for doing what he did not mean to do. When anyone under the influence of liquor commits a crime it is no longer an extenuation or defense to say that he was not responsible. This is so because it is a matter of human experience that if one sets a match to gunpowder it will explode and if one pours liquor down his throat he is filling his brain with the seeds of malice, hate and murder. Many a man has scoffed at such a statement at twelve o’clock at night, but has seen awful proof of its truth, when, awakening at nine in the morning he recovers from a fatal debauch and sees the work of his own drunken and murderous hand.

[43]

Concerning the work of the saloon there is but one verdict which can be rendered by intelligence and patriotism. Ten thousand times ten thousand times it has been brought before the bar of Justice and there charged and proved with being responsible for the vast majority of poverty, crime and disease which infest the race. Nevertheless, so deeply is this blighting curse intrenched in our laws and government that our courts are compelled, even if unwilling, to protect a traffic which by common agreement is a universal bane. Knowing this, the saloonist seeks refuge under the cloak of the law, and there insolently defies us to assail him.

[45]

“Spike that gun,” was an order bravely executed by a young English officer and his command, at the battle of Inkerman, which gallant feat probably decided the fate of the day. Satan has planted his batteries for the destruction of the American home, and from every saloon in the land the wicked bombardment goes on, day and night, year after year, and every hour of every day some new house is sighted for destruction. Shall this cruel and desolating fire upon the American home forever continue? God forbid! “Spike that gun!” is the word of command that has gone forth to the great temperance host. “Spike that gun!” is the shout that rings out all along the lines of the great home protection army as they rush to the final charge. “Spike that gun!” shall be our battle cry until the last battery of hell has been silenced and every home in our land is safe from this desolating fire.

[47]

Life is a journey and as pilgrims we tread its pathway, resting now and then for refreshment or ease. It is during these periods of rest that Satan employs every art to wrest from the traveler his dearest possession, his crown of life, which secures him an ample entrance to the heavenly city beyond. Folly, which represents the sensuous pleasures of the world, is employed to display her gaudy charms in order that the eye of the wayfarer may be turned aside and give Satan the opportunity to snatch the coveted treasure. At such moments let the Christian keep his crown before his eye, nor let him look back at the allurements and false pleasures which he has left behind. For, as a reward for this vigilance, a crown of life is assured him, one that is imperishable and brilliant and that fadeth not away.

[49]

At the brink of Niagara where the mists rise above tons of water which fall two hundred feet below, there is a rainbow seen almost constantly when the sun is shining, and within the circle of color some have seen the form of a beautiful maiden. One who was in a boat above the falls might see this entrancing vision and drop his oars and gaze rapturously, until, all unconscious, his boat glides over the brink and to destruction. The Christian also is in danger of such a fate. The world offers beauty and pleasure, and in such fascinating forms that it takes resolute will to keep from dropping the oars and drifting with the current of temptation and letting the good boat, which would save us, glide over the precipice into sin and into death.

[51]

The resolute faith that enabled Daniel to face the den of lions is at the command of any child of God today, and nothing else will avail as an armor and defense when the ravenous beasts of passion, appetite, covetousness and revenge attack us in temptation’s hour. The source of strength in such emergencies is a childlike faith in God and the fount of that faith is His Holy Word. In the security which faith inspires, the den of torture and trial becomes luminous as the Mount of Transfiguration to those who resist evil and dare to stand true.

[53]

Of all the pictures which memory paints on the heart none is so indelible as that of the hour of evening prayer when, at mother’s knee, we paid our first vows to God and pledged our lives to purity and truth. This picture has become the saving beam of light which has shot across the dark career of many who after a night’s revelry, and alone with conscience, refuse to drink further of sin’s deadly potion, but look back upon that early scene of innocence, and resolve to make it again a real experience. Although Remorse is the remaining guest of a night of sin, there is also the confident token of an angel of hope ever ready in the chamber of repentant despair.

[55]

There are days in everybody’s life when he sits alone with Conscience. The world and its undeserved blame or praise is shut out of that silent chamber. With his truthful guest the man of rags and the man of millions, the woman of toil and the woman of ease, must hold weekly if not daily and hourly communion. At these times the picture of the real self is thrown upon the vivid background of years. Now the false-hearted or boastful or proud will see and hear admonitions that would not be brooked from preacher or friend. True character divested of conventional habiliments of conduct through which the eyes of men can not peer, will stand bleak, ragged and forlorn. “Paint me as I am,” cried Cromwell, in righteous rage when the artist began to paint out of his portrait a slight disfigurement of his face. This he did though he knew that his portrait would go down through generations and thus perpetuate his ungainly visage. Who of us can say to conscience, “Paint me as I am though the world sees and the future sees me, let not my real self be hidden!”

[57]

Here is a picture of universal application, though all do not indulge the same sin as the man here shown—endeavoring to cover his greed by showing to the world the monument of a college professorship endowed by his gifts or money. The world may be deceived in part, but what of his own conscience? He can not hide from himself his true nature and he forgets that God is ever at his side, judging not the act but the motive, never mistaken in His estimate, rejoicing at the good, sorrowing for the bad, but all-seeing and ever-seeing.

[59]

Paul was not “a self made man,” for he said, “I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.” That was his claim, and it is in pleasing contrast with those individuals whose boast is that their successful careers are monuments of their own endeavor. Crowned with pride, clothed with the tattered rags of self-righteous egotism, with garments a patch work of shabby gentility, such men divide their worship between their unworthy selves and the idol of Mammon which they draw in their train. The track over which they glide in such confident security is slippery and treacherous. Based simply upon reputation it is full of breaks and seams into which any moment the unsuspecting egotist may plunge.

[61]

The invitations which God has extended for men to come into His kingdom are all broad and generous. “Every one,” and “whosoever,” these are the key words of His gracious command. And yet the summons to a better life and to future bliss is not entirely unqualified or unconditional. No man can with confidence approach the portals of heaven with a proud heart or with unclean lips or with hands stained with sin. The gate of heaven is high, but narrow. It will not admit the evidence of any worldly possession and by no means of the fruits of self-love or base ambition or sensuality, covetousness, pride or deceit. The strait gate is big enough for any sinner, but it is too small to admit his sins.

[63]

It is a solemn thought that life has no ending, but that some day there will be a season of harvest and a time of accounting, when each man must render a report of his stewardship and be rewarded or punished for the deeds done in the body. In that dread hour of settlement there will be no respect of persons. The rich and the poor, the great and lowly, must subject their moral natures to the same inflexible standard. The winnowing fan of God’s justice will spare not the proud nor powerful. They will all go to their own place. The chaff from the wheat, the sheep from the goats will be forever separate.

[65]

Death has no terror for the child of God. Neither the damp sod nor the granite tomb can hold the free spirits of the children of faith. We commit them to the earth and shed the parting tear and are too prone to fancy that the cold ground holds the object of our love; but it is only the cast-off covering of the soul that we bury. The real self, the indestructible and everliving spirit, has been caught up into heaven and long before the hearse and the cortege of weeping friends have left the tomb, the glad song of the departed one has swelled that of the angelic host in the refrain, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

[67]

Parsimony often walks under the name of prudence, and stinginess may try to palm itself off as thrift. The man who puts aside the widowed and orphaned, by the plea that he is laying in store for a rainy day, takes extreme hazards with Fate. Her hand even now draws aside the curtains which reveal his destiny. The rainy day comes sooner than he thinks and his mortal remains are carried to the grave unattended by the sad procession of any whose distress he might have lifted. Holdfast is forever held in the tomb of his loneliness and misery. He sadly misread life’s great lesson, that it is far better to give than to receive. He never knew that he was his brother’s keeper. He lived for self and died as he lived. Although nominally religious such men as Holdfast never learn that

[69]

Wherever the tide of human life flows very deeply and swiftly, there shipwreck is most frequent and we place Rescue Missions at these points. But do we ever think of there being rescue missions in the skies? Could we scan the far battlements of heaven we might, perhaps, see them lined with hosts of angels watching and waiting to descend to the rescue of some tender child whom it were better to snatch away to scenes of glory, than leave it in an atmosphere that reeks with moral contagion. It was such a scene as appears on the page opposite that Isaiah saw when he wrote “He shall gather the lambs with his arm and shall carry them in his bosom.”

[71]

Great hearts are the quickest to be touched by the appeals of childhood. It is an evidence of Christ’s greatness, that he delighted not in the patronage and intercourse of the influential and mighty, but sought the friendship and love of children. Their credentials to His favor are not based upon race, or station, creed or complexion. Their frankness, their innocence, their simplicity, place them in nomination and his great heart immediately responds to those traits. “Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Unless ye become as a little child (in frankness and simplicity and innocence) ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

[73]

On the water the disciples did not recognize the Master. In the synagogue, or the highway, or at the table, they would have known him instantly, but in the unusual scene on a stormy Galilee, his presence brought alarm instead of solace. Christ may come to us when and where and how we least expect him. It will not be strange if amidst the storm, which modern science has engendered, and in which the brave gospel ship is rocking, Christ himself should come to the frightened student of His word and say, “It is I, be not afraid.” If this be true, then, science will shed its dazzling light upon his own sacred person and we shall see him more nearly as he is.

[75]

Knock! Knock! Knock! Since childhood’s youngest day there has been a loving guest waiting at the door of our heart’s chamber. Long years we have heard that gentle, patient, persistent knock! knock! knock! Long ago it was louder, distincter, clearer, because, now we have passed from quiet, restful childhood into the loud and stirring world. Nevertheless, into business, into politics, into society, even into sin, that faithful Friend has followed us and is bound, still if possible, to gain admittance to our lives. But we are absorbed, indifferent, and, in a word, too busy. We also have another guest who has our ear. Therefore, keep out! No admittance! Life closes! Eternity dawns, and we begin to hear, not the knock, knock, knock of our unwelcome guest, but the clank, clank, clank of the chains of bondage which our new master is forging.

[77]

In the midst of life we are in death, in the midst of joy we are in sorrow and in the midst of luxury we are in want. There are more kinds of luxury than those which mere wealth can bring, and there are kinds of want as many—luxury is a state of abundance, whether of wealth, or books, or intellect, or privileges beyond our personal need. Want is a state of poverty of clothes, or food, or of physical or mental necessities of whatever sort. It is a fact that one half of the world possesses that which the other half needs. The poor need the assistance of the rich in matters of physical comforts and counsel. The rich need the meekness and patience which are the soonest found in the lowly cottage or the pauper’s hut. The world will reach its ideal state when every one, as his brother’s keeper, will vie with each other in a wholesale interchange of fellowship and goods. The barrier to this glad consummation is the selfish indifference with which one half of the world works and worships. It is blind to the constant presence of want which has claims to be paid. Until these debts to duty are discharged worship will be a mockery and religion a hollow show.

[79]

Few lives there are upon whose page sooner or later there is not written the record of a tragedy. It may come in the loss of a friend, or a parent, or a wife or husband, or a child. It may come in the wreck of a fortune or the stranding of a worldly ambition. Some day while pursuing a peaceful voyage the cry will go forth, “Breakers ahead,” and in spite of our vigilance and our prayers the stout ship will founder and we will be cast upon untrodden shores of duty and experience. It is in such emergencies as these that the Christian has resources that the man of the world knows not of. Unlike Crusoe he does not turn his desperate gaze toward the half-sunken ship if perchance he may regain some of its stores. He recalls rather those sweet promises of God which await redemption in the hour of need. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” He remembers that and forthwith in the midst of his extreme peril and helplessness he cries: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Psalms 121:1–2.

[81]

No name by which the Savior is known brings Him into such close and tender relations with His people as that of Shepherd. “I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine.” As members of the fold of Christ we are guaranteed His loving care and solicitous protection. “But other sheep I have which are not of this fold.” By that He means that His shepherding care extends over the entire world, and no bruised or fallen lamb exposed to the rocks and hardships of the wilderness, can ever get beyond the Shepherd’s patient search. No winds can be too harsh, no storms too angry, no mountain steeps too treacherous to defeat his patient will to reclaim the lost. Though by ignorance we fall into error and violate his commands, though by willfulness we transgress His law and traverse the road of disobedience, though the lamp of our innocence be shattered and the light of our hope fades away in desolation and despair, the Shepherd comes to us and calls, “Son, daughter, give me thine heart.”

[83]

Debt is one of the most disturbing and harassing factors in human experience. It sows nettles in the pillow of poverty, and even the merchant, farmer and banker pursue a weary existence when they are compelled to live under the shadow of overhanging indebtedness. How many hearts would be lightened today if by some magic stroke their books of debit and credit were balanced and for once they could feel and know that they owed no man anything. The weight which financial indebtedness imposes is comparable only with the weight which the debts of sin heap upon us. As we think of the sins of envy, and of malice, and of hatred, falsehood, deceit and cupidity, which our conscience has been justly charging up against us since early years, the load becomes all but intolerable. At this moment the great Debt Payer steps upon the scene. He presents a check in payment of the entire amount. It is payable to our order. He says, “Endorse this and your account with sin is square.” As an evidence of our love and faith we write our names with confidence and boldness across the back of the check and step forth into life with new hope and new determination.

[85]

Every soul has its calvary and that crucial hour in each life will witness the peaceful, forgiving, trustful spirit that was seen in Jesus, or it will witness the hateful, furious appalling dissolution that came to the unrepentant companion of his cross. “Follow me,” he cries from the scene of his crucifixion. “Follow me through the carpenter shop of Nazareth and the sick room of Nain and the street riots of Capernaum and the tears of Gethsemane.” We should expect no share in the fruits of Christ’s death, unless we participate in the work of his life. The cross is a meaningless symbol until we approach it over the pathway of humility, trust, self-denial and obedience.

[87]

What life is at all fruitful in success and the joy that attends it unless that life has constantly in view a purpose and pursues it with fidelity and hope. Likewise how can our race achieve its best endeavor unless it lives under the constant purpose to achieve a certain goal. Human life must have an object of existence that is worthy of its high endowments. The only objects which are worthy of our pursuit are Purity, Peace and Truth, and the only embodiment which the world has ever known of these supreme things was Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore we look toward his second coming with confidence and longing. As the embodiment of our highest aspirations he will be the fulfillment of all our desires. At his approach the clouds of uncertainty, ignorance, superstition, distrust, doubt and despair will vanish.

[89]

Some great man of old once declared that words were the only things that live forever. If this is true of the words of men, how much more so is it of the Word of God, the affirmation, the promise, the pledge, of the great I am. Its foundations of adamant are anchored in eternal truth, against its base the angry assaults of bigotry and unbelief will be driven in vain. Its walls will stand four square when the ancient landmarks of dogma, formalism and ecclesiasticism lapse into ruin and decay. Though the earth and starry worlds wax old like a garment, the Word of God which represents his faithfulness and the Cross of Christ which represents his Love, will stand impregnable amid the wreck of worlds.

[91]

There is a giant cliff on the bank of the Hudson river opposite the military post of West Point. This rugged promontory has been the target for rifle practice for almost one hundred years. Tons of lead have been poured against its stubborn side and there is no apparent rift or seam in the granite walls. In a similar way the Word of God and the Truth of God have been the target for hostile attack for hundreds and thousands of years. Agnosticism, scholasticism and unbelief have trained their destructive batteries upon the most cherished promises of God and upon the earnest belief of his people, but thus far without effect. The signs are that now their munitions of war are exhausted, their ammunition is gone. In dismay they see the conquering hosts of Jehovah

[93]

All of human experience is not contained in seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling. The five senses are not the boundaries of human knowledge. Humanity is endowed with higher faculties than these. If one chooses to live on a plane higher than that of the brute he may experience emotions and aspirations that are higher than those of the animal kingdom. He may also rise still higher and think the thoughts of God. To do so, however, one must approach God in the proper attitude and in a manner consistent with His being. God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. They that approach the throne of mercy in any other manner, whether in vaunting conceit or by impertinent inquisition, will find the heavens a brazen canopy that will send back the echo of their prayers. The starry skies reveal no beauty to those who cover their telescopic lens with a flannel rag, and God’s revelation contains no word of promise to those who cloak it with their own conceit.

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So universal has the authority and influence of Jesus Christ become that it is no longer possible to dispute his sway by resort to argument. In the court of final appeal men are forced to confess that he is the most matchless character, the most loving and forgiving and patient man of history. The majority of us are compelled to admit that such rare traits would be impossible in a life that was less than divine. But there are men who see no loveliness in him and if they can not attack by argument they must attack him by abuse. They resort to ridicule, blasphemy and falsehood, and though the spectacle thus presented is one that shocks the finer sense in almost every human heart, nevertheless there are those who will pay a liberal admission to see this performance enacted.

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One is apt to forget that the way of eternal life is the way of nature; that the system of rewards and punishments which God has provided for holiness and for sin is in strict accord with the laws of nature. We are all aware of the fact that we cannot sin against nature with impunity. If we do violence to any of her laws we must make prompt and strict payment for the offense. The proof of this is seen everywhere; in the bent form, the hair prematurely gray, the halting figure and the wrecks of manhood and womanhood that cross our path daily. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. If he sows the seeds of dissipation, he will surely reap a harvest of disease, want, sorrow and misery. If he sows the wind he will reap the whirlwind.

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Every man has two natures. Under the influence of one he descends to the carnal and base, under the influence of the other he ascends to the spiritual and noble. It is within the power of any man to pursue the former or the latter. To assist him in achieving the latter he is offered a model or a pattern by which he may work. With this pattern in his eye, any one, however misshapen in mind or heart, may work out for himself a moral image, grand, perfect and enduring. In the person of Christ, God has shown us what a man ought to be, and he will never be satisfied until we approach that ideal.

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It is claimed by many observers that a two-horse wagon has never gone where the Bible did not go first. It is certainly a significant fact that international commerce has everywhere followed in the wake of the gospel. The intrepid missionary invaded the wilds of China, India, Madagascar and the islands of the southern sea long before the trading ships of the merchants dared to enter their ports. Everywhere the foul and ravenous beasts of tyranny, ignorance and superstition have retired at the introduction of the glorious light of the cross. Christianity has blazed the pathway and civilization has followed. Now the rainbow arch of the gospel spans the continents and seas, from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strands, and we seem to hear the glad shout of ten million ransomed souls who sing with the ancient Psalmist, “The entrance of thy word giveth Light.”

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