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CHAPTER VII.

THE PULPIT AND POLITICS.

HRISTIANITY, in its inmost essence, is neither a system of abstract doctrines nor a collection of philosophical principles or logical propositions, but a moral force brought into being for the sole purpose of inspiring the human heart with noble impulses and holy aspirations. It is a religion whose great, central object is to make man perfect and symmetrical in all the different parts of his life. Its aims are eminently simple and practical. Its characteristic products are holiness, truth, virtue. It always looks, with a keen, unflinching eye, towards goodness or character. It is a huge mistake to suppose that the chief design of the Gospel is to deliver men from the punishment of sin, and prepare them for an eternity of bliss beyond the grave. It certainly does secure these precious blessings for all who come under its power; but its first and, we were almost going to say, only object is to qualify us for the discharge of the manifold duties of the life that now is, having in the background, as it were, the promise of the life that is to come. We are delivered from the dominion of sin that we may live unto God. Religion, then, produces right living, and, properly speaking, nothing more. It seeks to develop in us the elements of true manhood. To be a Christian is to be a man in the fullest sense of the term, possessing a complete, well-rounded character. Many there

are who imagine that they have got religion simply because they are members of the Church, and exhibit some degree of proficiency and regularity in the performance of their distinctively religious duties; or, in other words, because they listen to sermons, and sit at the Lord's table, and go through a certain number of forms and ceremonies, and contribute so much of their substance towards the maintenance of sacred ordinances. To them religion is an affair of Sunday merely, to be put on and taken off with their Sunday clothes. But the Biblical conception of religion is essentially and in every point different from this. The Book lays its supreme stress upon character. It insists upon the strictest morality in all who profess the name of Christ. "God is light," it says, "and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." No man has got religion, therefore, unless religion has got him, and got him so thoroughly as to mould and colour his whole nature and conduct, and make him in every respect a better, holier man. A good Christian ought to be a good husband, a good father, a good neighbour, a good citizen, careful, on all occasions and in all circumstances, to honour and magnify the Divine Name.

This conception enables us to view life from a different standpoint, and it clothes life itself with a dignity that does not usually attach to it. It takes away from it all vulgarity and grossness, and exalts it in all its parts. In our common, unsanctified speech we make frequent use of the words sacred and secular, or profane; but religion annihilates the secular or profane from our vocabulary, and pronounces all things sacred. Life is one, and every department of it should be holy, divine, consecrated. Prayer, preaching, hymns, music of all kinds, all earthly avocations, commerce, farming, all forms of manual labour-all things whatsoever that are pure, and honest, and true should be included in the sublime category of sacred things. Is not that the teaching of God in His Holy Word? In fact, is not the whole Bible a mighty protest against the secularisation of anything that bears upon its face the impress of truth and righteousness? We have not as yet attained to such a glorious state; but

does not the trend of history encourage us in the hope that we shall soon find ourselves in it? Let us ponder these glowing words of the Hebrew prophet:-"In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem, and in Judah, shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts ; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein; and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord." The world in which we live is God's sanctuary; and we are called upon to worship Him continually in this vast and glorious temple. Behind the counter, at the writing-desk, amid the wild tumult and confusion of the busy mart, at the political club, as well as in the family and the church, there should be an altar whereon to offer living sacrifices unto the Most High. God should be invited to preside over every form of human activity, so that the whole of life may be permeated by a subtle and sublime inspiration.

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Hitherto religion has had a confined, narrow, sided meaning, which has prevented it from exerting its full power and influence upon the world. It has been regarded as having to do exclusively with man's immortality. If in some way it made him feel comfortable at the prospect of death, if it enabled him to believe that God would give him unbounded felicity in the Unseen Holy, if it gave him courage to sing triumphantly in the midst of heavy trials and sore afflictions, it was thought to have fulfilled all its promises and exhausted all its blessings. Indeed, there are many among us now who are deluded by the thought that it is simply a specific against the fear of hell, and a prompter of the hope that lays hold of the promise of heaven. To be religious, then, means to travel in the assurance of hope towards a blissful immortality, to believe and trust in the forgiving mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and to think and meditate upon spiritual realities. This notion prevails to an alarming extent; but its whole tendency is to lead astray and degrade the men who hold it. Religion, in its original and proper sense, is as broad as humanity, touching and sanctifying life at every point, operating upon and through

every faculty of the soul, and giving tone and character to every action. It pervades the mind, and qualifies it for every function. Every duty which we are required to perform as members of society should be steeped in the spirit of religion. All work ought to be Christian work, and all sorts of duties religious duties. The making of a watch, the constructing of a steam-engine, the manufacturing of cloth and all other stuff, sowing and reaping, the attending to the myriad details of every-day life, the conducting of business in its innumerable branches and shapes-every one of these apparently secular and temporal duties should be so elevated, and hallowed, and etherealised as to stretch out into and irradiate the very eternities. Such infinite enlargement, such grand, majestic glorification of our otherwise small and dull human life, is not a delusive dream of the night, but a glorious possibility-yea, in millions of cases, an accomplished fact. Religion lifts everything into the realm of the infinite. It invites us to worship in the Temple of Immensity; and everything done in the atmosphere of this Sanctuary is at once baptised into the name of Eternity. There is now, then, nothing small, nothing mean, nothing secular-everything has eternal, infinite bearings and consequences: everything is transfigured, supernaturalised, and caused to shine with heavenly, God-like lustre, similar to that illumination observed in the days of yore on the Sacred Mount!

If men would believe in this universal applicability of religion, what a changed world we would soon have; what transformations, and upliftings, and purifications would almost at once be accomplished; what grand meanings and lofty inspirations would be instilled into the outmost and most insignificant forms of activity. The secular element would then be for ever banished from the universe. Even politics would be born again from above. A man could then go down to the hustings, and stand up there as a representative of the Almighty, gazing the while with uplifted, radiant countenance, into the unlimited spaces above, beyond! Voting would be transformed into an act of worship. A Voice would be heard continually whispering in every true man's ear, "What God hath cleansed, that call

not thou common." Oh! happy, blissful time, hasten on! On bended knees we are fervently praying and earnestly toiling for thy coming; and we know that thou art already being borne hitherward on the wings of celestial breezes !

It is to be feared, however, that the majority of Christian people are not yet ripe for such a state of things. They do not seem to know that life and life's concerns are capable of such a mighty transformation; that religion is in its very nature adapted to consecrate and magnify every thought, every word, and every action; that it is the very mission of Christianity to make God and God's character universally regent in the world. Their dream is that religion is one thing and morality another, quite distinct and different; that godliness concerns one department of life and politics another, the two departments being divided by a wall, the pulling down of which would be an act of sacrilege and blasphemy; that the spiritual and the natural, the heavenly and the earthly, the sacred and the secular should be kept carefully apart, as having nothing in common the one with the other; and that it is always a sign of degeneracy and apostacy when the Church tampers with the State and talks politics. Surely the dream is innocent of all substance and reality, but men are so fond of hugging their dreams that they will not so easily let go of this. There are ministers of the Gospel who would burn at the stake rather than have anything whatsoever to do with public or political questions. These savour so strongly of the world that only men of the world ought to be allowed to touch them; Christians do at their infinite peril.

Is it not time that the Church should shake itself from the dust and lift its voice like a trumpet against such fatal heresies? Are there no men within its bounds in whose hearts the fire of truth burns with such intensity as to compel them to make a firm stand for the honour of Religion? Has no one the courage to speak out against the superstitious irreverence and false pietism of these modern times? The supreme cry of the age is for men of profound earnestness and bold hearts, who will venture out into the streets and lanes of the wide world and preach a gospel of all-reaching and all-conquering power-men of catholic views, and broad sympathies, and intrepid, dauntless heroism, who have

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