XIV.

WHY WE SHOULD SERVE CHRIST.

THE life of a Christian is a life of love from the beginning to the end. St. John tells us "we love him because he first loved us." The Greek words "we love" are not in the indicative but in the subjunctive, making this an exhortation, "Let us love him because he first loved us." Our hearts must be conscious of a personal love toward Christ before we can love him. It is possible to serve Christ as a duty rather than as a privilege. We do many things under the idea that God expects it of us, and we are afraid to resist his will. So long as we love Christ merely because he loves us, our motives are actually selfish. God appeals to this self-love in our heart, but only that through it he might lead us up to better things. When we begin to recognize the claims of God we may, like Moses, have "respect unto the recompense of the reward"; but a passionate love for Jesus must follow after we have stretched our hands to embrace him

as the Saviour we require. The true ground of love to Christ is the excellence of his own character, apart from the question whether we are to be benefited or not. The highest ground of exhortation to love Christ is not the benefits which we are to receive, but because his character is infinitely worthy of love. So thought Francis Xavier:

"I love thee, O my God! but not
For what I hope thereby;

Nor yet because who love thee not
Must die eternally.

I love thee, O my God! and still
I ever will love thee,

Solely because my God thou art,
Who first hast loved me.

"For me to lowest depths of woe
Thou didst thyself abase;

For me didst bear the cross, the shame,
And manifold disgrace;

For me didst suffer pains unknown,

Blood sweat and agony,

Yes, death itself,-all, all for me,

For me, thine enemy.

"Then shall I not, O Saviour mine!
Shall I not love thee well?

Not with the hope of winning heaven,

Nor of escaping hell;

Not with the hope of earning aught,

Not seeking a reward,

But freely, freely as thyself

Hast loved me, O Lord!"

XV.

HERESY TRIALS.

HERESY trials have been few and far between in our theological history. Lyman Beecher's trial stands first, and that record should be kept sacred in our history, along with the history of the burning of witches in Salem and the hanging of Quakers on Boston Common, to show to what bigoted extremes the selfstyled defenders of orthodoxy can go. Albert Barnes was compelled to give up his pulpit for a time because some passage was found in his splendid commentaries which was construed into teaching a disbelief in a limited atonement. The church remembers that trial with the blush of shame. David Swing was ruthlessly driven from the pale of the church because he said things that did not square with the exact phrases of the Westminster Confession. That trial was a spiritual calamity to Chicago. The majority to bring Dr. Briggs to trial was not brought about by the clergymen, but by the vote of laymen dis

tinguished mainly for inquisitorial dictation. Parliamentary decorum was disregarded in a fashion that would disgrace a political caucus. I do not indorse all the views of Dr. Briggs. My pulpit is an orthodox carriage, from which I do not believe in firing a heterodox gun. But the trouble is that every man considers his doxy orthodoxy. I believe that free research and free speech is the sacred right of the pulpit, and individuality of thought in religion the immortal principle of Protestantism. The Westminster divines were as much divided as the New York Presbytery on the Articles in the Confession of Faith, and the things that they carried were carried by a mere majority, with strong protest against them. Shall what they did more than two hundred years ago constitute the spectacles through which we are to look upon our Bibles to-day? The man for the hour is not he who lives to defend the Thirty-nine Articles or the Five Institutes, but he who lives to make this world wiser, holier and happier. The creeds of the middle ages have no more to do with the Christianity of Christ than the battle of Marathon had with the defeat of Benjamin Harrison. The minister who gets into a raging fever of passion because one of his brethren dared to express an opinion not indorsed by the church fathers

(church grandmothers!) is certainly a queer being to live in this progressive age. Just so long as the church busies herself punishing men for having an opinion there will be indifference to religion, and the world will shrug its shoulders at the clergy and say with Dean Swift: "There are three sexes-men, women and preachers." Animosities among the followers of the Prince of Peace! What an inconsistency! How unfortunate it is for Christianity for her ministers to spend year after year in wrangling, when in New York City alone there are three hundred and forty-five thousand souls as unreached by the Gospel as are the blackest blacks in blackest Africa. The forces of iniquity are presenting a solid, compact front, while Christian men debate, wrangle and quarrel about non-essentials. Now this thing must stop. Public sentiment is against it, and the man who starts unnecessary discussion upon theological points acts wrongly. Its direct tendency is to prevent the conversion of souls. It serves to distract the thoughts of those who might otherwise become serious, and leads them into fruitless discussion. It tends to separate men who would otherwise love each other. Oh, for a divine voice to utter the command, "Peace, be still!"