Christian Life A Growth

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they be in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:14-16).

A strong religious tendency, without definite aim, without sufficient positive knowledge, without practical duties, is found in our day, as it has been in every age.  Moral endowments are as natural as artistic talents, or intellectual gifts; and many men, with strong moral endowments, feel the want of religion, and yet wander after its blessings, without profit and without comfort.  As an artist, in the age of a school like the Byzantine, hungers for, and strives after, a higher experience, utterly unable to feed his mind, or direct it aright, so a nature that has strong moral feelings seeks up and down, here and there, going from one faith to another, from one doctrinal system to another, in the hope of finding that after which the soul craves, only to supplant an old hunger by a new one.  Such natures, like those that have been long sick, sometimes come to have a morbid appetite for a new remedy; and they fly from dream to vision, from ordinance to doctrine, from dogma to mysticism, from ethics to emotion, and feed in every pasture, and fatten in none.  They train in every sect, and prove every form of association, from the absolute plainness of Quaker simplicity to the gorgeous superfluity of the Roman worship; and, after all, they are restless, hungry, dissatisfied.

Now, the Apostle departs such from unsatisfying fickleness, and exhorts them to a stable life.  And, surely, there never was a time in the history of the world when this exhortation had more scope and penitinency than now.  For the whole community is filled with men who have strong religious desires, but who are yet unsettled, wandering, and fickle.

I. The Christian life, as the Apostle presents it to such natures, is a process of development of conduct and character.  Christian life is not a rounded experience.  It is not a mere sudden and completed transaction.  It is not a thing which, once having possessed himself of it, a man wears, as, once having bought a diamond, he wears that. Christian life is a condition of growth and development.  And personal training is the whole end and aim of doctrine, and association, and influence in this life.

11. Jesus Christ is the supreme model and center to which every effort for training and development is directed.

Ill.  Love is the transcendent and master influence by which this practical aim is to be nourished, guided, and completed.  This is the Apostolic remedy for religious uncertainty, for moral fickleness, for that large class of cases in the community of men of moral ideas, with strong hunger, but without definite opinions; with more doubts than convictions; with a keen, critical ability, but without assimilating power, or power to reduce the vague and imaginative to the definite and practical.

Let me, then, repeat this masterly prescription, which is the cure for this kind of moral ailment.  First, it is personal growth in mainly practical piety - Second, it is the development of character upon the pattern - Christ Jesus; and, Thirdly, it is a development and growth by the ministration and potency of love, or the highest emotive element. In the actual unfolding of Christian life all these elements are united; they are consentaneous.  But just as although, in the process of nutrition in the human body the work of the stomach, of the heart, of the liver, of the secretary and excretory organs, is, comprehensively considered, one work; yet, when we come to teach concerning these various parts of the physical constitution, it is necessary that they should all be considered separately and in series; so, although in the actual facts of life the things which I have put in three classes go on together, yet, in teaching of them, I must analyze and treat them one by one.

I propose, this morning, to treat only the first point, namely, that Christian life is a practical growth.

The Scripture, I know, sometimes represents it differently.  It represents Christian life as a deliverance; and, therefore, it represents the Christian as one that has been long in prison, or slavery, and is being delivered, set free.  The idea would seem to be that a man who is delivered by the Holy Ghost from sin is a complete Christian.  It is represented, sometimes, as a translation from darkness to light.  It is represented, sometimes, as a recreation by the power of God, the old being changed and the new taking the place of it.  These are all critical elements, and they sometimes are the very criteria and pivotal points of Christian experience.  But when the whole work is described in the New Testament, as in our text, then it is described as a gradually unfolding state, a progressive upbuilding, a practical education, with all the moods and tenses, with all the needs, and with all the characteristic processes that belong to any education.

A perfect education, for instance, of the body, means the education of every one of its organs, and each of its parts, not only individually, but cooperatively.  The eye is educated, the ear is educated, the tongue is educated, the hands are educated, every muscle in the body is educated - each part is educated separately; and then cooperatively, they are educated and developed to trades, to arts, to various functions.  And so, Christian education means the developing, the strengthening, the skillful using of every part of our mental constitution, according to the laws of Christ's Kingdom. If we are becoming Christians, or are to become Christians, the imagination, the moral sentiments, the affections, the passions, the appetites, every part that goes to constitute the human soul, is to receive the Divine stimulus, then, fashioning itself on the pattern of Christ Jesus, every part is to be unfolded, augmented. And then the various parts are to be taught cooperative life, which is a great scheme of inward development and education. And though sometimes, by luminous experiences, through it this education begins, if a man's has great points where it seems as though the whole destiny O life is determined by the event of an hour, or a day; yet, these are critical facts, and they are the specifics of which the other is the generic - namely, that the true education of a man is the education of every part of the human soul, and that that education is to be upon the pattern of Christ Jesus.  This brings the thought to the ordinary intelligence of men, and conforms it to reason.

Many suppose that, when one becomes a Christian, by some mysterious power the soul is sent ballooning upward, and that when it comes down it is different from what it was.  What reason there is for a change they do not know; but they have a vague impression that a man comes to be a Christian by having certain penetrating feelings, certain joys, certain experiences to which he has not been accustomed.  The fact that a man knows how to sing, and did not; that he knows how to rejoice, and did not; that he knows how to pray, and did not, is taken as evidence that he is a Christian.

It is true that men are sometimes even caught up to the seventh Heaven, and that they suddenly learn how to sing, and rejoice, and pray; but, after all, these are but specific steps in something that is greater than either of them taken separately - namely, Christian education, according to the rational, intelligent, well apprehended New Testament description.  It is the deliberate education of all the parts of the soul, in their own nature, acting cooperatively, with the purpose of building a perfect man in Christ Jesus.  No matter whether Christian life begins with great impetus, or not; no matter whether there are stinging or exhilarating sensations at the threshold; no matter whether the man seems to himself like one saved out of the midnight of horror, or the abyss of distress, or like one awaking in the morning, scarcely to know when the sun brought the twilight in; no matter what is the special experience; it may be one or another of these, or it may comprehend them all - but the characteristic thing in being a Christian is the education of every part of the soul upon the model of Christ Jesus.  It is accompanied with high feeling in some, and with low feeling in others; with more of practice in some, and with more of reflection in others; with more of moral feeling in some, and with more of social feeling in others; but whether it comes with more that is secular or more that is spiritual, with more that is ideal or more that is factual and common sense, with more that is philosophical or more that is ethical, it matters not; for all these elements are under the influence of the Holy Ghost: the schoolmaster that is bringing every man, according to the range and nature of his own being, into the condition of a perfect man in Christ Jesus.

The education of any one of the faculties of the human mind has vast range.  Take a man's reason.  Consider how much is regarded as needful to its development.  To prepare the boy for college it is thought to be necessary that he should study three, or four, or five years, at the academy.  Four years additional training are given him in college. And at every stage of his progress, during all these years, it is said to him, "You are merely disciplining your understanding; you are simply learning how to use your reason." And then he is kept two or three years in a law school, a theological school, or a medical school, in order that he may acquire the power of using the instruments of his particular profession.  It requires from six to ten years to discipline the reason.

Now, it is easier to discipline the reason than to discipline the moral feelings; and if it requires so much to discipline the reason, how much more must it require to discipline the moral feelings!  If religion is putting every part of the soul to school; if the higher, the intermediate, and the lower parts of a man are to be schooled and perfected upon the model of Christ Jesus, what a field of labor there is, and how much work there is to be done!

If there are any who think that Christians are made as eagles are, let them correct their notions.  The egg is laid, the mother bird broods it, and, when it is hatched, it is an eagle.  Though it is only an eaglet, it needs not education, but simply growth; and it is as much an eagle the day it is hatched, as when it first swoops for its prey, or five years afterwards.  It is no more an eagle when it is ten years old than when it is five years old, or one year old.  It is born into eagle ship.  But no man is born into Christian life.  That is a thing into which a man may ultimately come, by laborious and immensely detailed education.

You shall hear men say that they were born into the Kingdom of Christ in a revival of religion.  They were born into the Kingdom of Christ just as Columbus was born into America!  He saw the shore; but look at the maps that he and those who were with him made when they thought they had discovered America.  It would make you laugh to see them.  What did they know of the coastline, of the rivers, or of the mountains of this vast continent?  All these had to be explored. Men think they are born into the Kingdom of Christ - and when they experience religious joy and comfort they think they are saved.  Saved? I hope they are going to be saved; but if they are, it will be through much tribulation.

What would you think of a child that should go into ecstasies the moment he stepped into a school house, and his name was entered on the master's list, and say, "Thank God, I have got my education"? Got his education simply because he has seen the inside of a building where education is imparted?  It will not be long before the arithmetic, and the grammar, and the master's ferule on the back of both of them, will teach him another lesson!

Persons have great distress, that distress is followed by great joy; and then they say, "I am a Christian." They are told, "You must not think that you will always be happy - you will have your doubts and fears", and that is about all the idea they have on the subject - that they are Christians, and that they will have doubts and fears. Now, God has made you schoolmasters over the hardest of schools to manage - namely, yourselves.  Your reason; your social nature; the faculty of love in you; your appetites and passions - all these are to be educated, and you are to put them to school to the Lord Jesus Christ, and make them learn, and harmonize them into cooperative knowledge and life.  And when a man has been born again really, he has been born like a babe in the cradle, so that he has all his years before him to fill up with appropriate developments of manhood.

I do not say this to undervalue the first experiences of religion, but to teach you that they are only the rising light, after which comes a long day of toil.  God has created men, and the world in which they live, in such relations that all this work of educating the whole mind upon the pattern of Christ Jesus can be done, not by any use of what are called "means of Grace," but by volition, and by the performance of all those duties which human life imposes upon you while you are in this world.  This work of development and education is to be the result of social conduct, of business energy, and of the institutions of the family, the school, and the Church.  In short, human life and human society are just as much Divine institutions for the development of piety as the Church itself.  God has a moral educating purpose in the ordinary flow of daily life, by which, as a general thing, men can grow into the pattern of Christ Jesus.

This purpose takes in Christian education.  Nor would I have you suppose that I undervalue special influences, or what may be technically called Church and religious influences.  All these are such indispensable instruments that, if it were not for them, I do not see how the other things would avail.  But, with these as rudders, or as head lights, or as inspirations, God also employs care, and work, and trouble, and joy, and daily duty, and secular things.  All the elements that touch a man work together for his good.  In other words, God has means of Grace besides those that are in chief, if I may so say.  The Bible, Ministers, Churches, and Christian influences these are the general officers - but God has Prophets at work for us in this holy warfare, in every thought, in every duty, in every care, in every rising up, in every sitting down, of human life.  They are commissioned to take care of God's people, and educate them into men in Christ Jesus - and not merely in things that are agreeable, but also in things that are disagreeable; not merely in things that are easy, but also in things that are hard.

Men often judge of God's providence, in its relation to their Christian life, by the nature of their experience, as regards its pleasantness or unpleasantness.  If they are settled just as they want to be, and they have just about as much as they need, they feel that there is a benignant Providence that is overruling events for their good.  But under such circumstances a man grows selfish, and bulges out; and God sees that he is a vessel in the sanctuary with a great dent in it; and he takes that kettle to the brazier, who with hammer commences the work of beating in that dent; and out cries the suffering metal, "Lord, why is this?  I thought you were in favor of me, and were going to do me good, but, behold, you are subjecting me to the most excruciating torture!"

Your prosperity bulges you out; and then adversity is God's correcting hammer by which you are set right.  God is going to do you good; but He will do it by restraining you when you are going wrong, as well as by encouraging you when you are going right.  God works in antagonisms all the time.

Such a breadth is there to this work that it comprehends the education of the thought, of the moral sentiments, of the affections, of every part of a man's nature; and if it is a work that is being carried on in part by moral and spiritual influences, and just as much by secular and providential influences, that are inherent in the nature of society, and that are organic in the structure and relations of this world, then how vast a work is it!  No man can complete it in a day, or in a year.  It is a work which extends the whole earthly life; and when that life has passed away, the work will not be done.

I plant many seeds in my garden from which I do not look for blossoms the year that I plant them.  Yet I nourish them and transplant them; and when the days of November commence to cut them down, I take them up, roots and all, and hide them in a dark frost proof dwelling for the winter.  There they rest till the spring comes, when I go and take those buried roots and stems, and bring them forth out of their grave, and put them into a better soil.  And before September comes round in the second year of their growth they will do what they had not time to do in the first.  It takes two summers to get a blossom on many plants.  It takes I know not how long a series of summers to develop the highest blossom and the truest fruit that we can bear.  God takes us from this life, and hides us in the grave; and then, in His good time, transplants us in another soil.  The work is not done in this life.  It is not done when you are converted, or when you are happy, or even when you have gone on in the Christian course for forty years.  Such is the pattern of that work which God is carrying forward, such is the majesty of that manhood which He means shall yet flame in glory in us, that He cannot accomplish His purpose in the narrow compass of our present life; so He buries us over the winter of death, and then puts us in a better soil and a better summer to take our next growth.  And what there is beyond these "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive", but, doubtless, there are to be serial developments, infinite, endless.

Do you say that I am destroying your notions of Christianity?  It is by no means my desire to do so. I want, rather, to augment them.  I do not want to make being a Christian less.  I want to give you an idea of Christian character and life that is broader, richer in detail, vaster in scope, more beautiful in realization, and more abundant in fruit.  It is a great deal more to be a Christian than you have been accustomed to think. There is a reality in it.  There is such a thing as being harmonized upon Christ, in the understanding, in the moral sentiments, in the affections, in the will, and in the practical life; and this is a real work, worthy of angelic ambition.  It is a work that may well occupy man, with all his time, with all his power, with all his conscious and unconscious influences, during his whole life.  It cannot be given too early, and it cannot roll on too late.

This comprehensive work of soul building, or soul growth, goes on under two great comprehensive laws - that of continuity, and that of periodicity.  There is no great principle in nature which relates to human life, coming towards which you shall not find another contradictory principle.  I suppose the human mind, in its whole structure, is made up of opposite balancing faculties.  And there is not, in the whole schedule of doctrines, one that has not a doctrine over against it.  These doctrines, if they are pushed together, quarrel; but if they are kept apart, they no more quarrel than the spokes of a wheel, which, converging, find the hub at the center, and rest in it, without interfering with each other.  Take the doctrine of man's dependence upon God, and the doctrine of man's individual liberty.  You can make them fight, if you want; but they are both true, and they do not need to fight.  Take the doctrine of the necessity of helping men, and the doctrine that men must not be helped.  They are both true, and they will not quarrel, unless they are pushed together. All through the round of investigation men are acting under opposite laws.  And so Christian life is developed by a law of continuity, of steady growth, and also by a law of periodicity.  Man grows continually; and no man can grow all the time, without intervals of rest.  There are these contradictions at the outset. Look at it a little.

It is true that in the mind no faculty can have absolute restlessness. The mind comprehensively may be at work all the time; but I suppose it would ruin a man to take one faculty, and let it act on a single point without cessation for twelve hours.  I believe it would create inflammation of the brain, and destroy the mind.  Indeed, where there is a continuous action of any one faculty, which cannot be helped, and there is a perpetual dwelling upon one thought, the doctors call it by the name monomania; which implies the habit of doing one thing incessantly.  The mind is so made that it cannot act in one direction all the time without being injured - and to compel it to act thus is to disorganize it and make it crazy.  And any faculty to act healthfully must act, not continuously, but with alternate stoppings for repose, during which other faculties act in its place, or in harmony with it.

If you will take the trouble to analyze the action of your own mind, you will see how it is.  First comes thought.  Then there is observation. That is followed by reflection.  And reflection is carried on sometimes by analogies, and sometimes by cause and effect.  Thus the faculties, and combinations of faculties, that act, are constantly changing, and resting each other.  So that, while there is continued action in the mind taken comprehensively, there is periodicity of action as regards each faculty.

And as it is with the faculties, so it is with the departments of the mind.  Our character is being built in the department of high religious feeling; but that is only one department of the mind; it is only one portion of that training which is necessary to make a full character. It is as important that you should be trained intellectually as that you should be trained morally, and it is as important that you should be trained socially as that you should be trained morally or intellectually, if you wish to attain to perfect manhood.  I do not mean that there is not a difference in the relative value of these different departments; but I mean that, if there is to be symmetry of character, all of them are necessary.  I do not say that there are not some wheels in a watch that are of more value than others; but there is not one wheel in a watch that I can take out and leave the watch good for anything.  Admit that there is more power in the mainspring than in the pointers; but take the pointers off, and what good does the watch do? They are passive, they do not do anything except as they are acted upon; but they interpret the result of the operation of the machinery: thus performing an office which is indispensable to the usefulness of all the other parts.  Though they are in some respects of less value than the mainspring, yet they belong to an organized whole whose efficiency depends upon keeping intact every part, no matter how small or apparently unimportant.

In Christian character, it may be, relatively speaking, that the moral functions - faith, hope, conscience, and love stand higher on the scale than social affection, taste, and the lower forms of human reason but if Christian character is to be complete, it must include them all.

Suppose a painter, in painting a man's face, should omit the hair and the eyebrows, saying, "A man can live without hair, and I paint only the important features," and should represent simply the mouth, the eyes, and the nose; what sort of a picture would he make?  Absurd as such a thing would be in art, how much more glaring would be the absurdity, in drawing the portrait of the soul, of leaving out any part of it! Religious culture carries with it everything.  All the parts are required to make the whole on this ideal - Christ Jesus.

When, then, we are educating men to be Christians, Sunday, the Sanctuary, all those truths by which they are lifted up from the visible into the invisible, and by which faith, and hope, and joy are excited, are a part of the instruments to be employed in the work; for, the moment you get home from attendance upon religious worship, you say, frequently, "I am amazed that the services of the Church fade so soon from my mind.  I am ashamed of myself.  I thought I should carry with me every holy influence which I there felt, and here I am, in an hour, with my mind absorbed by secular things.  It seemed to me, when I sat before the sacred table this morning, that I never should be rid of the deep impressions that I had. Why, my friend, you ought to be rid of them.  It is not the law of successful growth that any class of feelings should be long continued.  When you are in the Sanctuary, you should have the feelings that the Sanctuary naturally produces; and when you are at home, you should have those feelings which are naturally experienced there.  One of these places is as much an appointed instrument of God for your education as the other; and it is in accordance with the law of periodicity to which I have referred that one class of feelings should subside and give place to another class, that these should subside and give place to still another class, and so on. And if you discharge your duties aright in worldly affairs, you will be better prepared, by-and-by, to resume moral thought and feeling. The mind, to be perfectly educated, must dwell sometimes on secular things, sometimes on social matters, and sometimes on moral subjects - and on these sometimes comprehensively, and sometimes in minute detail.  All these elements are right, if they are rightly employed, and they are a part of that great work by which God is educating everything that is in man, and preparing him to be a man in Christ Jesus.

Suppose a man should reason in the physiology of the body, as many persons reason in spiritual physiology.  Suppose a man should attempt fidelity to his physical constitution in the same way that many attempt fidelity to their souls?  Suppose a man should say to himself, "Life is the duty of the body, and eating is an indispensable condition of growth"; and should eat, and, having satisfied his hunger, should say, "I have eaten for nearly an hour, and I no longer crave food, but I feel it to be my duty to go on eating, that I may build up the body.  I do not see how I can eat any more - and yet, it seems to me that it would be a delinquency to cease eating"?  Stop one moment.  What is eating, but a process of taking in materials for the building of the body?  As far, therefore, as the body can use these materials, it is right to eat; but further than that it is not right.  What is thinking?  It is eating.  Then, as long as you can think with good results, think, but no longer.  What is prayer?  It is soul eating.  As long as the food of prayer does you good, pray, but when it ceases to do you good, stop praying.  It is no more a sin to stop praying under such circumstances, than it is to stop eating when you cease to be hungry.  But men seem to have a superstitious notion that they must keep their religious nature eating all the time. Why, see how much the body is occupied.  Do you know that one third of your life is put to death for the sake of maintaining the other two thirds?  One third, or one fourth of a man's hours, according to his habits, are plunged into the death of sleep.  There lies the old body, powerless; and there lies the towering mind, locked up, and under the dominion of the angel of darkness.  Where now is the father beloved? Where now is the eloquent orator?  Where now is the friend whose society you esteem?  Go and look at him.  There is nothing of him.  He neither sees, nor hears, nor smiles, nor moves.  He simply snores through his six, or seven, or eight hours, as dead as the bed that he lies on. But is there a single nerve in his body that is not filling up?  Is there a fiber that is not receiving its food?  Is not the whole process of animal growth going on?  The man has worked himself tired; and, if he is healthy, he is gaining strength as fast while he is sleeping as when he is awake.  And, after he wakes up, is he not performing the duty of life when he washes, when he bathes, and when he engages in vigorous exercise, so as to come into the day fresh and strong?  For a man needs to do by himself what we do by metals.  There is heat in them, but it is latent; and in order to bring it out we are obliged to pound them, and subject them to much friction.  There is power in man, but it is under the skin; and in order to bring it out he must expose himself to violence, and exercise a good deal.  Many and many a man would be twice as much a man, if he had more physical hardships to endure.  And all that expenditure of time which is given to the development of strength in a man is a part of the growth of the body.  There is the time for work, and a man gives himself up to that work; but at an appropriate interval comes the time for rest, and the rest is as important as the work; and when he goes home, and gives himself up to the endearments of love, to frolicking with the children, to the ten thousand radiant joys of domestic experience, these are as much a part of his life as the work. It takes all right things through all moods and tenses, to make a man's life.  The events of all the hours of the twenty four sleeping and waking, resting and working, laughing and crying - go to constitute the experience of the day.

And so, precisely, is it with Christian life.  Some think they are Christians when their conscience is up.  I hope they are; but a man may be a Christian when his conscience is down.  Some think, today, that they are Christians because they have such joy inspiring thoughts.  Tomorrow they have sorrowful thoughts, and they think that they are not Christians. But having sorrowful thoughts is no reason why a man is not a Christian.  When you experience joy, God has one part of your character under training; and when you experience sorrow, he has another part of your character under training.  Today joy is working on you, and tomorrow sorrow is working on you; and sorrow is as much God's instrument of growth as joy.  You do not like it as well as you do joy, but it is as essential to your development as joy.  Your growth requires the employment of all instruments - not merely smooth ones and soft ones, but rough ones and hard ones.  Everything that goes to stir a man up and develop every part of him, God brings into requisition in educating him. It takes all things, employed in succession, to carry on religious life; and it is as really being carried on in lower forms, in minor experiences, and in painful ones, as the processes of nature are being carried on in the midst of storms and darkness.

But there is, over and above the law of rest and activity, a law of periodicity in Christian growth.  It is not ordinarily given to men to make a steady and uniform development.  Men grow as nature grows, by fits and starts.

I have around my little cabin in the country a dozen or so of rhododendrons.  Broad leaved fellows they are.  I love them in blossom, and I love them out of blossom.  They make me think of many Christians.  They are like some that are in this Church.  Usually they come up in the spring and blossom the first thing, just as many persons come into Christian life.  The whole growth of the plants is crowded into two or three weeks, and they develop with wonderful rapidity; but after that they will not grow another inch during the whole summer.  What do they do?  I do not know, exactly; they never told me - but I suspect that they are organizing inwardly, and rendering permanent that which they have gained.  What they have added to growth in the spring they take the rest of the season to solidify, to consolidate, to perfect, by chemical evolutions, and when autumn comes, the year's increase is so tough that, when the tender plants that laughed at these, and chided them, and accused them of being lazy, are laid low by the frost, there stand my rhododendrons, holding out their green leaves, and saying to November and December, "I am here as well as you." And they are as green today as they were before the winter set in.

Now, I like Christians that grow fast this spring, and hold on through the summer, and next spring grow again.  I like Christians that, having grown for a time, stop and organize what they have gained, and then start again.  I like periodicity in Christian growth.  And that reproach which Christians so often heap upon themselves and each other, because they are not constant and steady in their development, frequently arises from a want of knowledge of the method by which God builds up human character.

When the Lord made ants, He made them to go along with short and oft repeated steps; but when the Lord made rabbits, He made them to jump and stop, jump and stop, jump and stop.  And I think it is so with Christians.  Some run with small steps, and keep running.  Others take long springs, and rest between them.  And these last get over as much ground as the first.  And it matters not whether a man goes by bursts, by flights, by springs, by short steps, or by crawling like a worm, if, at appropriate points, he stops, and, asking himself, "Am I comprehensively viewed, growing?" And finds that he is.  It is immaterial whether growth is periodical or continuous, if the same result is attained in one case as the other.  It is the average development of character and experience, and not the special modes by which they are reached, that a man is to look at.  There are seeming religious decadences which are only changes in the mode of Christian development.  It is sometimes thought that a Church does not grow except in times of revival.  I must dissent from that view.  I frequently think that we grow more when we have not a revival in our Church than when we have one.  A revival is one means of growing in religion; but there is a style of work that does not require a revival for its accomplishment, which is just as indispensable to Christian life as any other. Some reject the revival part of religious growth, and believe only in the continuous part.  Their criticism is wrong on the opposite side. Both things are right and proper, if they are not forced out of their appropriate place.  Man was made on a more comprehensive pattern than most persons are willing to admit; and growth in Christ Jesus requires a work so voluminous, and so protracted in time, that naught but the Spirit of God can consummate it.  And as forests grow, from summer to summer, according to the supervising law of the seasons, so men grow, and become cedars of Lebanon, as it were, in accordance with the law of human development in this world.

Let me say one or two words in application.

The experience in many men of what they call reconversion is a genuine experience.  And yet they may not have been the less truly converted before.  I think there are many persons that are converted, as it were, as boats go on canals.  They run along on one level till they understand all about that level, and are familiar with all the scenery that is visible from it; and by-and-by they come into a lock.  There the water is let in beneath them, and they rise; and as they rise they are banged and scraped against the sides.  At length they get upon another level.  And then they see what they did not think of before they went into that lock of sorrow, and distress, and troubles, that lifted them up higher.

When many persons are shut up in the chamber of sickness, and it seems as though their life was being taken out of them, they are in God's lock of troubles, with God's waters under them, buoying them up.  And when they have been carried up to a higher level, they look back, and say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted.  Now I am higher than I was before, and I have a more comprehensive view of the course over which I am traveling." And when they come to another lock, they go through the same experience again.  They feel the turbulent flood under them, and they are swayed to and fro, and are subjected to great suffering.  But soon they find themselves on a still higher level, along which they sail until they come to yet another lock, which carries them up once more.  And so God's locks lift them from level to level.

A man is converted, and he comes into the Church.  He is fit to be in the Church because he is so bad, and has found it out.  For a man that is lame in the leg, and half blind, and deaf, and without the power of digestion - is not he just the man that ought to be in the hospital, if he knows what his condition is, and wants to get well?  The work of many persons during the first four or five years that they are in the Church must be to make up for what you got in the family - an early Christian education; and when, after two or three years have passed away there comes another revival, a new descent of the Holy Ghost into their hearts, they say, "Brethren, I thought I was converted several years ago; but I was not, and God has converted me now." They go on from that point five or ten years longer, when they are lifted up again, and then they say, "Twice I have been fooled; at two different times I supposed I was converted; but now my conversion is real." No, you were not deceived either time.  You were converted when you started in the Christian life, later you were converted again, and now you have been converted the third time.

It would not do you any hurt, brethren, if you were converted two or three times over.  Blessed be God, that there are these laws and provisions of periodicity, by which, from time to time, a man is lifted up to a higher state, in which he can travel on with new and more favorable circumstances, and with an enlarged vision.  God is lifting us faster than we know, and educating us better than we will admit.  All these things - the head, the heart, the soul, the body, all parts of the man - are, one after another, and in harmony, educating us, to make the manhood of the soul in Christ Jesus.

Brethren, if you have learned Christian life partially, augment your ideas respecting it.  Do not consider it to be merely Church life.  It reaches everywhere.  It comprehends street life, home life, shop life, full life, empty life, every phase of life.  All things work together for the good of those that God is going to save.  The taste, the understanding, the will, all parts of the human constitution, come under a special education; and when God has carried them through many many years, at last death comes.  But it does not tell you what it is going to do.  There is to be a glorious translation, a blessed transplantation; but what you will be, or what your condition will be, in the Kingdom of God, you never will know till you get there.

Brother, you are not my brother in faults.  That in you which is Divine is brother to me.  All in Heaven and on earth are related to me by that in which they resemble Christ.  Hail to that day when we shall tear away these disguises, and stand in our purified and glorified state, wondering at our own beauty, at each other's beauty, and at the glory of God, who is all, and in all!