Do not be a spy on yourself.  A man who goes down the street thinking of himself all the time, with critical analysis, whether he is doing this, that, or any other thing,—­turning himself over as if he were a goose on a spit before a fire, and basting himself with good resolutions,—­is simply belittling himself.—­’LECTURES ON PREACHING.’

Many persons boil themselves down to a kind of molasses goodness.  How many there are that, like flies caught in some sweet liquid, have got out at last upon the side of the cup, and crawl along slowly, buzzing a little to clear their wings!  Just such Christians I have seen, creeping up the side of churches, soul-poor, imperfect, and drabbled.—­’ALL-SIDEDNESS IN CHRISTIAN LIFE.’

No man, then, need hunt among hair-shirts; no man need seek for blankets too short at the bottom and too short at the top; no man need resort to iron seats or cushionless chairs; no man need shut himself up in grim cells; no man need stand on the tops of towers or columns,—­in order to deny himself.—­SERMON-’Problem of Joy and Suffering in Life.’

Copyrighted by Fords, Howard and Hulbert, New York, 1887.

SERMON

POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL

TEXTS:  Luke iv. 17-21, Matt. xi. 2-6

Here was Christ’s profession of his faith; here is the history also of his examination, to see whether he were fit to preach or not.  It is remarkable that in both these instances the most significant indication that he had, both of his descent from God and of his being worthy of the Messiahship, consisted in this simple exposition of the line of his preaching,—­that he took sides with the poor, neglected, and lost.  He emphasized this, that his gospel was a gospel of mercy to the poor; and that word “poor,” in its most comprehensive sense, looked at historically, includes in it everything that belongs to human misery, whether it be by reason of sin or depravity, or by oppression, or by any other cause.  This, then, is the disclosure by Christ himself of the genius of Christianity.  It is his declaration of what the gospel meant.

It is still further interpreted when you follow the life of Christ, and see how exactly in his conduct he interpreted, or rather fortified, the words of the declaration.  His earliest life was that of labor and poverty, and it was labor and poverty in the poorest districts of Palestine.  The dignified, educated, and aristocratic part of the nation dwelt in Judea, and the Athens of Palestine was Jerusalem.  There Christ spent the least part of his life, and that in perpetual discussions.  But in Galilee the most of his miracles, certainly the earlier, were performed, and the most of his discourses that are contained bodily in the gospels were uttered.  He himself carried out the declaration that the gospel was for the poor.  The very miracles that Christ performed were not philosophical enigmas, as we look at them.  They were all of them miracles of mercy.  They were miracles to those who were suffering helplessly where natural law and artificial means could not reach them.  In every case the miracles of Christ were mercies, though we look at them in a spirit totally different from that in which he performed them.