Sermon by Russell H. Conwell
Sunday Evening, May 28, 1916
Grace Baptist Church

My text this evening is in the 20th Chapter of First Samuel, the 18th verse:

"Then Jonathan said to David: Tomorrow is the noon moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty."

The reason why David was missed is something that is worthy of the attention of every man and woman. It contains a great truth.

A man is known by the company he don't keep; and he is also known by the things he don't do. We often speak of the converse of that statement, but we do not emphasize this.

Now David was missed because he was hated by bad men. This was to his credit, to the honor of his position as a young man. He left his home and all hopes of future promotion when he had the promise that he should be made the head of the nation, that he should be made King. But he left it all. It is a great thing, young men and women, to be hated by bad men. Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. Woe unto you when you have no enemies, because no man can be right without sometimes crossing the track of those who are wrong.

David was hated by the politicians; by those wild and savage, those brutal and barbarous tribes along the shores of the Mediterranean. He was hated by them all, for they had tried to rob him, they had tried to murder his people; and no one is injured so much as he who injures another. No man hates a transgressor so much as the transgressor hates his victim. Palestine hated all Israel and all the Jews, and especially hated this young man. To be hated by bad men is a great accomplishment for a young man.

George B. Angell started the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and he loved the beasts of the field, and the dogs and the cats, and the horses, and he seemed to have a sympathy for them beyond anything I have ever seen; and very frequently in my law office I was called upon to represent the Society when people were arrested for brutal treatment of their animals—and George B. Angell was the most hated man in Boston. And after he had carried on that campaign for about ten years he was despised by all the people who had been arrested, and by their friends, and he was feared by all those who did not take care of their animals, and he was in the disfavor of a certain class of people whom he had offended. One day Wendell Phillips, in introducing him on a public occasion to speak for the Society, said: "Those who love animals and defend them cannot be defended by animals, but they are attacked by men; and let it be said to Brother Angell's credit that he has more enemies in Boston than any other man I know, and all those enemies are among the worst classes of the city." What a great credit it was to say that of George B. Angell.

It has not been ten years since Anthony Comstock carried on his great campaign in the city of New York against obscene literature, and the low, and the wicked, and the vile of that great city hated Anthony Comstock, and his views were held up to contumely and insult, and he was often mobbed on the streets. Yet what was it to him to be mobbed for a cause such as he represented!

A short time ago Detective Burns was the most unpopular man in the whole country, because he arrested so many men under various circumstances, and all their friends and all parties connected with them were deeply prejudiced against him; and it took Detective Burns years to overcome those enemies which have arisen against him among the criminal classes of this country.

Time was when Washington was so unpopular that there was open talk about impeaching him as President of the United States. He was accused by politicians as a mere schemer, a man whose word could not be trusted; a man who misused public funds. And yet the men who accused him, when you study the history of their lives, you will find, were a wicked, low class; many of them ended in the penitentiary, and some of them murdered other people, as was the case with Aaron Burr. George Washington was hated, and it is to his honor that we speak of it. He was hated by bad men.

I remember Lincoln's unpopularity at a time when he was endeavoring to make compromises with the Southern States in order to settle the war; when he was in favor of extreme forbearance, and the people of the North as well as of the South seemed to be opposed to that merciful measure; and Lincoln then hardly dared go down the street for fear of a mob attacking him.

On these Memorial Days, when we especially bring to mind characters like that of Abraham Lincoln, let us learn the great truth that he who is hated of bad men will be honored of God.

I remember walking over the fields in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, and seeing the homestead of Lucy Stone Blackwell, that great woman advocate of women's rights and that advocate of liberty of every kind for men and women, and it brought to my mind how strangely Christ used that girl in West Brookfield. She was a person of high and noble impulses, of pure mind, of culture and intellect, and she behaved herself like a lady almost at every point. But she did a very unladylike thing—so the local people there thought. There was a colored boy who worked around the railroad station at West Brookfield, and while a boy had his arm crippled and he went out to pick berries, and the white boys and girls also went out into the berry field, and the white boys began to pelt this colored boy with stones and sticks, and little Lucy Stone Blackwell, though small then, saw the injustice of the attack by the wicked white boys upon this defenseless, crippled colored boy and she went out with a pail half full of berries and smashed it over the head of one of the white boys about to throw a stone. From that day on to the end of her life she was honored by America as one of the most lovely of women. I spoke this morning of Lucretia Mott, and she was one of the most loved of women. She gained attention everywhere and the respect even of the worst classes of people; but Lucy Stone Blackwell had the enmity of people because of her fierce, open, brave attacks against all things that were wrong, and an illustration that comes to my mind is found in the love letter which her husband before their marriage wrote to her mother, and in that letter Mr. Blackwell said:

"I love her for the enemies that she has made."

I remember hearing, not long ago, of a boy before the Sherman House in Chicago some years ago. He was the only child of a widow, and he was obliged to earn his living by selling papers. But he was greatly disliked by the other newsboys because he went to evening school to learn something and they did not, and he attracted the other newsboys' jealousy for that reason. Another reason why he was disliked was that he often spoke of his mother. The boys made sport of him for being a "mother's boy" and of being tied to his mother's apron strings.  Sometimes they invited him to smoke, then they asked him to play craps. But he would not do either. Because he would not do any of those things that newsboys so often do which are wrong he was disliked by them, and they would not speak to him. When he became Miss Willard's stenographer he was disliked, because he determined in that office to be the very best stenographer in the place. He was so accurate, he was so careful, he was so conscientious and worked often so long after hours that he became very unpopular. All the other stenographers would leave promptly at 5 o'clock, but he would often stay until half past five, and was assailed before the labor unions. He was so faithful, doing his duty to the full, that he became very unpopular. When he was in college he was at the head of the class because he always had his lessons thoroughly prepared. He was often referred to as  authority when any questions between professor and students arose, and he has been for years the head of the State University of West Virginia. He has been known as the youngest of all our college presidents.

But David was missed not only because he had done his work well and because wicked men were against him, but he was missed because he had so many people dependent upon him.

J. H. Patterson, of the National Cash Register Company. of Dayton, Ohio, made himself at one time the most unpopular of men by trying to do good. When he started in business he started out with the purpose of employing many people; he determined to be of more use to his employes than to simply give them wages. So one day he desired to clean up that section of Dayton near his factory, and he went around personally and called on the people, asking them if they would not clean up their front yards and back yards, in order that the town might be more sanitary. Some of them complied with his wishes and others said it was none of his business, and were offended. But he determined to bring them to time. He secured a photographer to go around the places where the fences were down and the gate was hanging on one hinge and where the rubbish was scattered around the yard, and took a picture of each one of those places and exhibited the pictures as a disgrace to the city of Dayton. It made him exceedingly unpopular for the time; and if you will go to that great factory, one of the largest on earth, supporting so many families, sending so many children to school, supporting so many churches in the worship of God, you will find there the spirit of the love of mankind which Mr. Patterson put into it.

When a man enters any political undertaking he must expect to have enemies. You cannot be mayor of a city without having enemies; because for every office you will have many people applying. Consequently, you will have 559 disappointed out of every 560 applicants. Where you keep one friend to whom you gave the position, you will have 559 enemies among those who were disappointed in not getting the place. The President of the United States has that difficulty to contend with from those who seek office, both in his own party and by those of the opposing party. He who goes into any public office must make up his mind that he is going to meet with strong, unjust opposition; he must expect it, must be prepared to contend with it and contend with it in a reasonable fraternal way.

Religious undertakings, the reforms for the good of the people in the uplift of their worship, have immediately met with criticism, for all forms of opposition arise in religious work. There is no time when men seem to be so willing to deceive, and lie, and steal, and even murder, as in religious bigotry. Nothing is more bitter, without going back to the days of the inquisition, than the superstitious disagreement over some unimportant question.

David was especially missed because so many people depended on him. What a beautiful picture to see husband and father going away from home in the morning, taking his dinner pail, standing at the door, bidding the child good-bye, leaving his advice and his kiss, turning down the street, and then to watch them looking after him. They are going to miss him all day. They will anxiously wait until evening time comes to hear his returning footsteps and see his face. They will come to the front hall to meet him when he comes home, because they have missed him. Oh, man or woman, is there no one to miss you after you go away from home? If there is no one on hand to welcome you when you come home in the evening, to welcome you with a kiss of love when you enter the door, your fate is a sad one. How sweet a thing it is to be missed, and what a duty it is to our Christ and to God that we should live that life from which we will be missed. Oh, the bread winners of the world, who go out to work for their families—their wives and their children! When death comes to them, and the coffin is carried to the cemetery, and the family returns to the darkness of that home, oh, how he is missed! Yet, if we die, and are not missed, we have no claim to eternal life.

There were many dependent upon David, and the ambition of his life in the hope to be a ruler was that he might have power to gather around him many men and their families of the nation dependent upon him.

I have been very much interested in the life of Sir Thomas Lipton. He is known best, perhaps, in this country by the fact that he contended for the cup in the great yacht races in New York. But Sir Thomas Lipton's early ambition was to be an employer of other people. Am I addressing young men now with life before you, not over 35 years of age, who are working for some one else, complaining about your wages and about the poor position you occupy ? You should be an employer! There are many people who are employers now who had less opportunity than you have had, and you should not be in your situation tonight—you should be an employer. Sir Thomas Lipton is said to have been a young man in the city of New York who came over from Scotland to seek his fortune. He sought for work. Lord, pity the man who has struggled for weeks for work and has found it not! Nearly 16 years of age, he stood there on John street, in New York, in front of a little grocery store. He had no means to go in and buy the bread he saw in that window; he was so tired that his limbs would no longer carry him, and he sat down in front of that store, homeless, friendless, out of work. The good man, seeing him there as he closed his store, gave him a piece of bread. He walked away and sat outside all night. But on that night he said, "Lord, give me the opportunity to furnish poor men with work!" The ambition came to him then and there. God must have put him through that experience for some purpose; God must have put it into his mind to help the men who were out of work, and God's providence led him back to Glasgow, where his father assisted him somewhat, and where he worked very late and long in a little grocery store in that city. His desire was to employ people. He had such a passion for it that his father hardly dared trust him to carry on the business, for fear of his paying away all his money to the people he employed. But he was wise enough and careful enough to recognize the fact that he must take care of his own capital if he is going to employ more men. He opened one store after another, never making any large profits for himself; but now he has stores in all parts of the world. He owns a great tea plant in Ceylon, and he has owned, they tell me, the very store before which he stood on that dark night, hungry and wanting something to do. He is one of the wealthiest men of the world, yet he employed all his capital all the time for the further enlargement of his business with the desire ever to employ as many men as possible.

Leland Stanford, who endowed the great Leland Stanford University in California, is another illustration of this thought of David. He was born, I think, in New York, and was living in Vermont when he conceived the idea that he would like to give employment to all the school boys who went home with him. He went to his father and urged the father to employ those boys, and his father said to him: "If you want to employ those bright boys, I will give you a chance to do so yourself. I wish to have this piece of land cleared of timber so that I can cultivate it; I will give you the lumber and you may sell it, and you may bring to aid you all the boys you choose, only they must know that I am not responsible for their wages." Those young men began to clear that ground. They cut 1800 ties for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. He employed seventeen of the boys, and they worked together like grown men. He cleared only $18.50. But that was the foundation of his great wealth. For a little later than that he went to California, and there he adopted the same plan; so that whenever the poor miners came to the city and wanted work he tried to furnish all these poor fellows with work. He realized that the great need in their city life was something to do. That work was enlarged until he had 4000 men under his employ; and when the time came that California must be kept in the National Union or go to the Southern Confederacy, congress voted to aid in building the Pacific railroads. He saw the opportunity to employ a great many people on that railroad, and it was on the 10th of May, 1869, that he stood at the junction of the Central Pacific Railroad, out at Ogden, where they gave him one spike of gold, another one of silver and another one of iron, representing the Three States centering at that point, and he drove down the last three spikes of that great connection between the East and the West. What a great privilege it was for him to return home, having given constant employment to 50,000 people. It did his heart good, and brought considerable profit to himself. It enabled him to give a million of dollars to endow the Leland Stanford University.

It was in Wilbraham, Mass., where my brother and I had to live in the attic of an old, unfurnished farm house, with the rafters of the roof all bare and with only a gable window at one end of the house. When we went there to "board ourselves" we had a little stove, on which we had to cook our own cornmeal, and we found it necessary to have a table. The good old man who owned the place said there was a rough old table in the garret we might have. We brought out the old table, which consisted of one board on three legs, and when we sat down for the first time to eat our cornmeal my brother noticed the name of Charles Pratt carved upon that table. It appeared that Charles Pratt had boarded at the same place when he went to school there, boarded in the same attic. When I was called upon to address the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, a few weeks ago, I went into the hall where hangs the picture of Charles Pratt, the great benefactor of Brooklyn. I was standing before it, and there was a sketch of his biography. He had only one year of education at Wilbraham Academy. How it connected the threads of history back to "Charles Pratt" in that old attic! He could only afford to go to school one year. He went to the library in Boston and there studied evenings such books as he could get; and he secured a very thorough education, after all. But he had a passion for employing men. He wanted to employ the boys and girls, and it was such a passion with him that he sought for places where he had no interest to secure employment for them, and he employed personally as manv people as he could in connection with his own grocery business in Watertown. Mass. Afterward he went into the production of oil and became one of the millionaires of that day, and established the Pratt Institute, in order to give all the people the advantage of a practical education. They are doing there now for Brooklyn what the Temple University is doing for Philadelphia. As I stood there and looked on that portrait, I thought how Philadelphia also was indebted to Charles Pratt for employment of its people in five of the great industries today in which he took much stock in order to furnish men with work.

Charles Pratt, when he died, was greatly missed. The city of Brooklyn went into deepest mourning; on the street corners they whispered his name; over 6000 of his employes stopped work for the day and wore crepe upon their arms. He was greatly honored and loved, because he furnished people with work, and was one of the greatest philanthropists of the world.

David, in the third place, and about this I spoke last Sunday night, was missed because he was "sincerely loved." Oh, how Jonathan loved him! Loved him with a sublimer affection than a woman. He was greatly beloved by men and honored by them for what he had already done, and more for the promise of what he was to be. Even Jonathan told him, in the chapter I have just read, that he was to be King, and Jonathan was willing to take a second place.

I stood one day in that great palace where William of Orange was assassinated. Few statesmen or warriors were ever so adored. The people of Netherlands, when William of Orange was killed, were so filled with woe, they missed him so sadly, they loved him so much, that they could not work. The historian of the Siege of Leyden said that for days the people could not work; that they wept and could not eat—they missed their loved prince of Orange so much. He had led them through great religious trials and persecutions. He had guided them with kindness, tenderness and unselfishness, and he was consequently missed beyond any citizen of that great Netherland nation. No citizen of the world, except Abraham Lincoln, was ever missed like William of Orange.

I sat on a platform in a town in New Jersey the other day with Mr. Cattell, who order to get into that line, pass that coffin ham Lincoln in Independence Square, Philadelphia, and stood there all night, in and look upon the face of the martyred President. I stood by that coffin before it reached Philadelphia, when it was opened in Washington. Men came up to that coffin with trembling hands, and when they looked upon the face of that great man they burst into tears and loud wails—men and women fainted, filled with grief because of the loss of "Old Abe," "Father Abraham," the true leader of the whole nation, loved in the South as well as in the North, because he was so just and reasonable to the South. Dying as he did, at the time he did, he was wept for in almost every Northern home and in every Southern home. If they did not weep, they treated his memory with profound respect.

Oh, to be missed! It is one of the great blessings of life to come to the end of it and to be so loved that one will be deeply missed. Why do I speak of this life of David? Because it is a great illustration from the Old Testament of what Christ teaches in the New. It brings out the life of the benefactor, the one who has helped his fellowmen—the life of him who lives not for self, but for others. It teaches that he who lives that life wins the favor of Almighty God.

I want to say it with more emphasis than I said it last week, especially to the young men and women: Will you be missed for your goodness? Will you be missed by those who are dependent upon you for your help? By those who love you? If you were taken away tomorrow, how much would you be missed? If you say you would be but little missed, then turn your mind to greater things. Determine to be of more service under God, and for Jesus Christ's sake live that life that will in the years to come unroll and develop into that fullness, so that when you die people will weep; when you die people will stand still and long be sad.

Oh, to live in this life so that you will be missed when you are gone, for the very fact that you are missed will carry your influence on through the ages. Christ, when that the memory of Him remains in mighty power, increasing in power through the ages. That kind of life is the life that counts for this world as well as for the He left this world, was missed—so missed life to come.

Sermon by Russell H. Conwell
Sunday Evening, February 13, 1916
Grace Baptist Church

Scripture passages in brackets ([]) added by me.

In the two last verses of the 7th Chapter of Ecclesiastes is the wise observation in which the preacher says:

"That which my soul seeketh I find not; one man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I found not."Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."

[Ecclesiastes 7:28-29]

The whole nation, during the last week, has been celebrating the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and it furnishes an excellent opportunity for one to point a moral or to apply a lesson of the Gospel. It is a very interesting thing, and a very profitable thing to read what the great editors and the great authors of the country write concerning that singular character, Abraham Lincoln. But it is very confusing to see how they differ in their estimate of the man, or the reasons they give for the place he holds in the esteem of the American people.

It is an interesting thing to find that such a character, one who never joined the church, who never made what people sometimes call an open profession of religion, should now be a hero of the church, and his principles accepted as principles of genuine Christianity.

It appears to me that the one man in a thousand for whom the preacher was looking is found in Abraham Lincoln but not because he differs from other men. It would be very useless for me to turn your attention again to this great man if it were not for the fact that the lesson can be very helpful.

When a man attempts by poetry or oratory, or song, to put a man like him far up high on a pedestal, as though no man could ever approach him, they do a great deal of harm instead of good, and are disheartening those who might follow his footsteps if they were encouraged to do so. I am not one of those who believe that Abraham Lincoln was so far above all the other men or was so different from other men that he could not be imitated now. I believe he can be followed.

I lived in a day of great excitement in the Civil War, when every side of Abraham Lincoln's character was brought under the microscope of public opinion, and I heard what was said against him, and I heard what people who underestimated him said, and I have lived these fifty years now, and we are finding that the confused mind is becoming more and more clarified with each succeeding year. His influence grows, and his words are stronger now than they were when he died. His great speech at Gettysburg has become now the example of the highest form of oratory, and yet at the time it was delivered it received little applause.

Why is it that his liberation of the slaves, which has become an inspiration to lovers of liberty the world over, at the time it was done, was regarded merely as a military necessity? I have asked this question of myself, thinking that you, with this Spiritual advice, might take a clear view which one should take of such a character, not for the purpose of entertainment or for discussion, but to point a Gospel lesson pure and simple.

Abraham Lincoln did not differ so much from thousands of other men. There are certain circumstances in this life which made him an excellent example of that in which he did differ from common men, and if I were to say to the young men who hear me speak or who may read my words that Abraham Lincoln was a strange, peculiar, God-given genius, and that when his image was cast, "the mould was broken." and that there never could be or never was another like Abraham Lincoln, I am simply saying to the young men, "It is of no use for you to try." But if, on the other hand, we take that reasonable view of the life of Abraham Lincoln that he was like other men, but especially used by the Providence of God, and that there are many things in his life worthy of imitation, we have furnished an incentive to the rising generation. This ought always to be done. There is only one character that was ever on earth, that should be held up above the ambitions of young men and women.

This text that I read confuses people. But it is a statement which I may put in other words—that God made the first perfect man, and that since that day there has not been found a woman who has reached that standard in her attempt to make herself over into the image; and that since that day there has been found one man in all the thousands, and there has not one single woman been found who has been able to imitate that uprightness which God created in man in the first place. It seems to say that men have a right, by their manner of independence, to make themselves over into something else which they desire to be. I am like that preacher, I have never found a man that can build up the ideal figure and imitate the perfect uprightness of the Second Adam. They have all failed, so far as I can see.

Abraham Lincoln felt that he was not a perfect man. Why should we think so, when an age is passed and his enemies are silent, and his friends have become more enthusiastic about him; when we have reached that state as a nation where we can extol him and worship him as the Chinese do their ancestors. The lesson that comes down to us through the years is that he was the nearest to that ideal manhood, perhaps, in his closing years of any known American. There may have been a more perfect character of whom we did not hear, but Abraham Lincoln is an encouragement to every young man in this—that nearly every young man today has more advantageous circumstances in life than Abraham Lincoln ever had.

Abraham Lincoln inherited nothing above the trials of life from his parents in body, mind and spirit. Abraham Lincoln's race was that poor white race of Kentucky which has been found there in the years since. You may have read, or may have seen, if you have traveled in the South, those "poor whites," lazy people, that lie around the grocery stores and who drink, who chew tobacco and swear and shoot each other occasionally when they have their family feuds. These poor white people of Kentucky remain, in a measure, something the same as they were in the days of Abraham Lincoln. But those men of the mountains, with valleys deep, with precipices steep, often made characters of a certain rugged, noble kind. Abraham Lincoln inherited nothing from his father and mother for which we need claim praise. Less from his father than from his mother. It reminds me of Henry Ward Beecher saying of his church composed of eighteen members, that seventeen of them were women and the other was nothing. Abraham Lincoln was something. But his father was nothing. Abraham Lincoln inherited no money; he did not come into the world in possession of any funds with which to start himself in life, or with which he could secure an education. I want to say to the young men who hear me, or who read what I am saying, that you have many advantages which Abraham Lincoln did not possess, Abraham Lincoln had no culture; he had no opportunity to go to school, and up to the time he was 19 years of age. As a boy he could not read or write, or scarcely scrawl his name. He had been brought up to hew wood and do odd jobs of various kinds, and lay around the grocery stores up to that time. He had consequently no helps such as men now have to make himself a great man. He therefore lacked that culture and lacked that education; and he had many special misfortunes to hold him back which you do not have.

He lived with his stepmother. His good mother, whom he remembered as a child, died early in life, and the poor boy was left to wander about, and oftentimes he had to live on crusts of bread, and his lazy, useless old father married again, and he had a stepmother. His stepmother was always unusually kind, and was indeed a help to him. But neither was she a cultivated person. While she knew more than his own mother, as far as reading, writing and books were concerned, yet she was of that low intellectual grade of Kentucky poor whites. There are no young men in all my acquaintances that have the disadvantages that he had. I don't believe in this Temple tonight any one can think of a boy 20 years of age that has the disadvantages which characterized Abraham Lincoln. So I say, it is encouraging to boys to find out that one, worse off than they, and having a father of less account than theirs, has risen to this high station and is receiving the encomiums of the world.

He was chastened in his youth—chastened by sorrow—sorrow of the deepest kind. Loss of his mother I have already mentioned and you have read his history and I need not detail it. It was sad. It left that grief over his childhood that went on down through the years. But perhaps the greatest chastening was that he was broken-hearted over the love of a woman. He was of that decisive character, a man who could love with a great heart, but I do not believe that he loved more than other men have loved; I do not believe that his admiration for her whom he intended to marry was more sincere than other men; I do not believe that he would have sacrificed more than you would sacrifice for the one you love. But to that life there came a chill, and he, instead of leading her to the altar, followed her, broken-hearted to the grave, and that first great stroke of sorrow just chastened that boy; broke him down, reduced him to a state of grief and carelessness of life that seemed never to have left him entirely. He never came out of it even in the dignity of the work he had to do.

He lived in poverty all those years—indeed, he lived in poverty until he went to Congress, and even then he gave away so much of his small salary that he was oftentimes reduced to debt. He was always poor.

He was chastened by defeat; by some very bitter defeats—not only defeats concerning marriage in his first and deepest love—not only there, but he was defeated again and again in his attempt to do something for hmiself. He tried to carry on a store, and he was very soon so in debt that he was obliged to go out and split rails to pay up. When he closed up his store, he was elected captain of a military company in the Black Hawk war, and before he saw any service the company was ordered to disband, and he enlisted as a private soldier. It is not often that we find a man is "promoted" from captain to private. But it was the history of Abraham Lincoln, and young men may have had like experiences in other directions, and it may have done them good.

Then he determined to study law. As a lawyer he had no wide education, no wide reading. I do not see how any person could ever engage Abraham Lincoln as a lawyer when he first opened his office in Springfield, Illinois. His office was in a very poor building, the windows were broken, some of the portions of the doors were split, and they said his office was never kept very neat, for not many came to it, and he was obliged to sleep in it himself.

Today we ask the young men of our country to look at this character, which now stands before our country, whose monuments rise in almost every public square and park, and whose life and actions have filled libraries. Look at him, young men! Look! Your chance is far better than his! You have far greater talents than he had. You live in a time when the doors of progress are open, and you live in an hour when men can rise, and rise rapidly to attention and success.

What was it that made Abraham Lincoln great? He was great; his influence was great. We must all admit that. But what was it that made him great—without special intelligence, or money, without education, culture or friends! What was it that led him to become the central figure in our history, where he did certain deeds that impressed the ages? It is reasonable for us to discuss, in view of the Scriptural illustration, what it was that made him one great man.

Many a disciple of Christ has tried to find in Abraham Lincoln a proof of the truth of his own creed, and maybe prove the tenets of his own church. But nevertheless, the great fact remains, that Abraham Lincoln, while he was in the habit of attending church, and while he read the Bible, and while he read religious books, and while he gave religious advice, never allied himself in any close way with any one denomination of Christians. He kept himself aloof for the time. It does not seem to have been because of any choice on his part. It seems to have been a kind of modest under-estimation of himself, or a sense of his weakness, or lack of culture or money, that kept him from uniting with any Christian church. Yet as a Christian he was one of God's ideal men. He was nearer to it than any American ever known. He was an upright man; uprightness was the peculiar characteristic of Abraham Lincoln.

Now, a man may praise other men who have great gifts—men who have wrought with wonderful imagination in poetry; we may praise great scientific men, great inventors—men who have read the stars, the great statesmen who steer the government through perilous waters, we may praise those men because of some one individual invention or achievement, all of them prominent, and all of them deserving a great place. But in Abraham Lincoln there was that ideal aggregation of all the best traits of human character, making him one, great, round and noble figure, to which the world could look and give its praise; because it lacked the inventions that make up the character of many men.

A man may be a great inventor in words, or a great inventor in machinery, and because of that invention receive great praise. Why is it that Mr. Edison is not holding the same position in the estimate of the world that Abraham Lincoln held? It is not because Edison has less opportunities than Abraham Lincoln had, many helpful inventions and opportunities have aided him; but Abraham Lincoln had no inventions to aid him. Some may write books. There may be Whittiers and Longfellows, and they may write books that attract the attention of men and women, and the admiration and love of the world, but that invention might be an outside invention, something outside of themselves which they have done. But in the life of Abraham Lincoln there does not seem to be any one special thing which brought him to the place he occupies. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation and gave freedom to the slaves, and that's about all you emphasize of him. If you study his history and try to find some mighty, gigantic outside thing, or invention, which he did to attract attention to himself you do not find it. He was too modest and lacked money to do it. There are no great issues in his life to which he ever could or did go. He was an ideal man, such as the great writer of Ecclesiastes is trying to suggest to us.

He also tries here to suggest the ideal woman. I wonder what that ideal of his was ? It does not seem to appear on the surface, although there are many places where he speaks of woman's characteristics. The last Chapter of Ecclesiastes presents a most wonderful picture of a certain woman of a certain race, in a certain place, with certain traits, and that is a wonderful ideal.

The ideal man, as God made him is upright, and the word uprightness, when we get back to the Hebrew, covers quite an extensive vocabulary. "Uprightness" means a man of a good heart. O, that's the foundation of human greatness, a great, loving, good heart. And that made Abraham Lincoln a great man, with the help of prayer to God. Abraham Lincoln was a man of prayer. Whether he went to church or not; or read often the Bible or not; whether he believed in this creed, or that or the other, one thing is sure that continually, like Washington, he was a man of prayer. He believed in prayer and felt that his prayers would be answered as well as other people's who went to church more than he did. He was a "good-hearted" man. O that means so much!

Milton could write the most wonderful poetry that was ever penned by man. But he had a weak character. Nelson could say, "England expects every man to do his duty," and that phrase rang all over the world, and yet he could be a libertine, and when we look at many of our great men, even our own Franklin, we see some things that we mention under our breath. We find in every great man who has done some great thing or invented some great thing, some great defect of character. It is said that every great man has some peculiar weakness, and that is true very largely. If you find any man prominent in one way he always has some weakness. But Abraham Lincoln's character was an all-around good character. You do not find any man to assault his motives for moral uprightness. You could not expect to find in the time that Abraham Lincoln lived any man who declared him to be dishonest. He was "Honest Old Abe," and he was a great man because he had a good heart, and he was strictly honest and honorable. He was an ideal man, then, in his heart, and being an ideal, Christian hearted man, believing in the teachings of Jesus and praying unto God for help in times of distress, he developed that all-around character, so that you may put up the moral statue of Abraham Lincoln upon the pedestal of City Hall and go around it and examine it with every kind of microscopic instrument, and you will not find a flaw in that great, living, moral character, and that is the character that the Bible is ever endeavoring to build up. God seems to show His hand in His determination to build up mankind into this perfect uprightness, of which the prophets had found only one in a thousand. It is to make men like Abraham Lincoln that the Scripture itself is intended. It is for that that we are ever to preach and teach and insist. He was a thoroughly honest good man.

He was characterized by one other faculty and that was wisdom; the wisdom that is mentioned in Proverbs; the wisdom that is mentioned by Jesus Christ; that broad, every day application of common sense. That is real wisdom. Man may search into philosophy and go deep into all kinds of experiments; he may discover some; he may invent something and call the attention of men to himself, but real wisdom is wisdom like that of Abraham Lincoln, that sees every day some good in every man. He was a man who could recognize good in his enemies as well as in his friends; who ever exercised his every day common sense; who showed us that we ought to be forgiving to those who despitefully use us. The ideal man is the man who makes no unnecessary enemies, and who, if he has enemies, tries to look upon that man in the same way as he would upon a friend. Abraham Lincoln's life was a special exposition of that disposition of forgiveness and brotherly kindness. The kind position he took with reference to the people of the South was stich as to bring down upon him the condemnation of those who supported Wendell Phillips. I knew him personally, and he often privately said bitter things against Abraham Lincoln because Mr. Lincoln spoke kindly of the South, and spoke of the people of the South as friends and never as enemies. In one of his great speeches he said, "They are not our enemies; they are our friends," and because he approached the slavery question with common sense he had both sides and both extremes often opposed to him. He proposed, before the war began, that the government should raise money and buy the slaves and set them free. The North considered that the greatest possible foolishness and oppression, forgetting how many millions might be spent in the war, how many would go to death, and how great would be the depression in all the after years. They did not exercise common sense. But Abraham Lincoln looked out upon the whole field, and regarded the Southern people as mistaken friends, and as friends who were mistaken, he proceeded with his whole heart, and with a kindly spirit and determination, to do precisely right, in bringing about the triumph of the cause of the Union, and when he was assassinated by a foolish fanatic, there was put a martyr's crown upon his life, that called attention to it so distinctly that it impressed its mark upon the ages as nothing else could do. So martyrs are ever honored, almost worshipped. When Abraham Lincoln was murdered, with his good heart, his excellent intentions, his broad common sense, his statesmanship, his death put God's seal upon those characteristics of the man who brought about the return of the South to the Union, through a teachiing which has made them a solid glorious and permanent part of this great nation.

Abraham Lincoln was an upright man such as cannot be made by clothing; such as cannot be made by money, but which is made only by building upon the foundation of Christian faith, upon a large and loving heart. That heart had been broken, and having been broken it is fair to assume that God made him sufifer, in order that he might be a better instrument for bringing about peace and prosperity to this great nation, and the setting up of a great people whose ideal he should be. Abraham Lincoln's faith and broad common sense showed him that this nation should lead all the nations of the earth in bringing them all up to that standard of Christian tellowship and brotherly love, where each should do unto the other as he would have the other do to him.

These, then, are the great characteristics in the life of Abraham Lincoln, his every day sound judgment; his great, loving soul; his prayers to God and his faith in the ultimate triumph of right. With malice toward none, but with love for all, Abraham Lincoln set his faith in God, believing that righteousness would prevail, and that at last truth would triumph. That makes a great character. A small character that lives within its own narrow limits, thinks that all is going to the bad; that evil is everywhere extant, that the good are ever crushed and the wicked are ever prosperous, takes a small, uncommonsense view of life. But Abraham Lincoln was a broad character, who, having faith that all things were working together for good in the sight of God, and that somehow evil would be crushed and righteousness would prevail, became the giant man that he was, and his great influence came, not from the fact that he was a great statesman or a great soldier, or a great scientist, or a great scholar, or great in any one invention, but because of that all-pervading, permanent good character and broad common sense, that sublime purpose in life which goes with sincere faith in God.

BENEDICTION

O Lord! We read that Thy kingdom shall be found on earth with the men and women whose hearts are pure, and who love their fellowmen and reverence Thee. O Lord! we thank Thee for Abraham Lincoln's great life, in that his heart was full of sympathy for the suffering and the needy, full of sweet humanity. We thank Thee for his broad wisdom, guiding him into channels of usefulness. Lord, raise up thousands more of men like Abraham Liricoln. We ask that benediction, and ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

From the book, Sermons for the Great Days of the Year, 1922, George H. Doran Company (public domain). Scripture passages in brackets ([]) added by me.

This afternoon in the wonderful address of Professor Cobern I was reminded of the walk of the disciples to Emmaus, after the burial of Jesus Christ. When He had revealed Himself to them, they said one to another:

“Did not our hearts burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?” [Luke 24:32, KJV]

I heard a gentleman, as he went out of the church Last week, say to another: “What are you going to do for Easter?”

When I heard each ask the other that question I began to ask myself the question: “What is the proper observance of Easter? What is the best and wisest thing for any man to do with an occasion like that?” Then I thought of what the disciples did for Easter, and the great lesson returned to me.

Among the disciples of Jesus were Simon and Cleopas, intimate friends, perhaps dwelling in the same house, perhaps partners together in business. The scene opens with their leaving Jerusalem after the sorrowful crucifixion, after the burial of the body, and returning to their native village.

If there is anything that is sad, if there is anything that tries the pride of a man, it is to go to his native place after failure, to go among his old neighbors who never thought he would amount to much, to go among his own playmates who thought he was foolishly aristocratic and too ambitious when he went away and left them to make a venture upon something in the city. Then to go back after all their insinuations, and after all their jealousies, to confess that life is a failure! Such was the case with Simon and Cleopas. It is a sad experience even at the best to confess one’s failure, even to one’s friends.

I remember on the second day of the great fire in Boston seeing two young business men as they met at the corner where their store had stood. I was standing not far from them when they met. One had been away traveling as a salesman, and had gotten home after he had heard of the fire. It continued through two days and a half. He had hoped their store would be saved. They met there at the corner. The smoke still covered the heavens, though the fire was under control, after having burned some twenty acres of the best of Boston. As they met their lips trembled, and the younger man took hold of the shoulder of the elder man, his partner, and said: “Bill, is it all gone?” Bill said: “Yes; it is all gone. You see here all there is left. The insurance, of course, will be lost for the companies must fail, and so it is all gone.” The younger said: “How can I go back home and tell them it is all gone?”

They walked away, and I wondered how they could go home. I afterwards learned from inquiries of a neighbor living in their suburban town that they did go home, and that they told their families that all had been lost. It was one of those bitter experiences in life that are rare, but so acute that they burn their way into the heart of a man.

The condition of those two business men was very similar in its psychological phase to the condition of Cleopas and Simon when they were going back home after the crucifixion of Christ. There is no doubt but what when they first told their village people that they were determined to go out and follow that new Rabbi from Nazareth, and become teachers, and take up the profession of teaching His gospel to the world, their neighbors all laughed at them, and their family thought it was a foolish thing to do. Now they must come home utterly broken and confess that it is all lost, that He was not the Rabbi they expected, that He was not the King they hoped to find, that all their time had been wasted, and there was no more gospel to be preached.

They had lost Jesus. When a man loses Him after once having had a glimpse of Him, how terrible is the after experience of life. Paul and Peter put it so strongly that after once men have tasted of Jesus, once they have known the’ way of life; that is, after they have had a near view of it, if then they fall away they become like the swine that returns to the mire. Then they go far down. The wonder is that Cleopas and Simon did not have such a revolting sense of rebellion against God, against man, and everything that was good, as to have swept into the extreme of bitterness, and perhaps, of crime.

Poor men who lose Jesus, that lose their confidence in Christianity, that lose their hope in God. I know of no more barren soul than the man who has been a member of the church, nominally so—half-hearted—who did not get wholly into Christ; who did not surrender his whole life to his Savior, and consequently stood on the edge all the time, not completely over into the spiritual kingdom of the church of Christ; who found some fault with his neighbor, or discovered something that was wrong or dishonest in some other member of the church, and standing in that critical relation it was his disposition, of course, to criticize everything that everyone else did. When he has finally become convinced that his own experience is not deep enough to warrant him to believe that there is much to religion, then he sees and criticizes what all other people are doing who belong to the church. He finally makes up his mind to abandon it, and there is not a worse wreck comes upon the shores, not a more terrible derelict floating in the seas tonight than that abandoned soul that has given itself to reckless drifting to its own fate. Oh, to be over in the kingdom, fully landed in Christ, that there may be no possible return.

Simon and Cleopas seem to have been in the middle ground; that they believed in Christ in a sense, not with all their heart and with all their soul, but thought Him to be a great rabbi, a great teacher, a wise man who would make an excellent king for Jerusalem. But now He was in the tomb. He had been slain as a malefactor, and the disgrace of his death was upon them all, and they would rather die than live.

Oh, to come home without Jesus! Probably every one of us have returned sometime from a funeral, and re-entered the darkened home, and felt, “He is gone for all time.” How strange it all is! How, without Christ, without a positive hope in the future, without a certain belief that in eternity awaits a reunion, there is an awful gloom in the soul as it struggles and struggles to overcome the depression of the horrors of that time of returning from the grave.

They were returning home from the grave. They had lost faith in Christ, and, of course, they had lost faith in God, and in the goodness of man, and Jesus was sorry for them. What a precious comfort there is in the thought that after His resurrection, when He was evidently in His resurrection body, retaining only sufficient appearance of the earthly body to convince His disciples that He was the same person, in that body which came through the doors without opening them, that was transferred instantly like angels from one point to another, then He appeared unto His disciples as an angel of God might appear to you or to me.

Jesus was sorry for them, and when they were walking on their way home, dreading to meet their friends, and thinking of the disgrace throughout life of the fiasco in which they had had a part, He drew nigh to them. Notice that He does not reveal Himself, as He talks to them, and they have somehow a feeling in their hearts that they did not expect, a comfort they could not have believed possible, an interpretation of the Scriptures on which they had never looked before.

I thought when Professor Cobern was speaking this afternoon with reference to the archaeology of the New Testament, of a little incident that occurred when I was in Jerusalem years ago. There was a dear, good old monk who attached himself to me when I was a correspondent of a London paper, and he cared for me with a fidelity, grace, and fatherly spirit that was one of the most lovable things in human experience. He went with me almost everywhere; he was full of every kind of information concerning the history of the land. Often we sat in Gethsemane’s garden when the moon came up, and he described the scenes in Gethsemane when Christ suffered there, and when Jesus went to the disciples and found them sleeping. This good old monk one morning said to me: “How would you like to walk to Emmaus?” I said: “I do not know where it is.” He replied: “It is pretty well established now where it is. It is only a walk, of about eight or nine miles. You are young and strong, and I am used to it. Now let us walk to Emmaus.” So in the morning, right after breakfast the old monk came, bringing an extra staff with him. We trudged off together towards Emmaus. We went down into the somewhat depressed, flat country for a mile or two from the wall of Jerusalem, then we clambered up the hill, quite steep, and when we had come to the top he turned back, and said: “You can now see Calvary and Golgotha,” and the crosses must have been in plain sight when those two disciples were going back home. If they turned around and looked, they could have seen the crosses probably remaining there after the bodies had been taken down. He said: “You can see the wall of Jerusalem here for about seven miles.” We turned every little while to catch a glimpse of a tower of Jerusalem, or of the Mount of Olives beyond. Throughout the whole journey the old monk was full of reasonable tradition. He said: “Now here is the spot where Jesus is said to have joined them, apparently coming up the valley where another path entered this.”

The old monk stopped me and said: “Do you know what the Greek word for ‘burn’ means in its most classical use, as, ‘Their hearts did burn within them?’” I said I did not recall what the Greek word was. He said it was a compound word meaning “a fireplace, a home fire, or a fire in the home.” He wrote upon a card afterwards what he thought was the proper translation of it, and I went to my Greek lexicon and I found that it is used in that way. In the classics they used the word here translated as “burn”; it meant a “fireplace feeling,” a burning of the heart. The good old monk opened up the Scriptures to me as he said: “The feeling of peace in the hearts of Simon and Cleopas was like unto the feelings of those who sit around their home fire in the midst of their family circle.”

What a definition that was of the coming of Christ—a hearthstone feeling. Now then read it: “They said one to another, did not we have a ‘fireplace feeling’ within our hearts while He talked with us by the way?” Going home to the loved ones, going to the fire where they had sat in youth, where the children had been brought up, where they sat evenings to read, where they cooked their food, and where they brought out their dishes for their meals. The “home feeling” of one who, after a day of toil goes home, where the world is shut out, and only his wife and children are there! He sits down by the fire to read some good book, or to tell some tale to his children, and there in the soft glow of that evening light he feels within his heart that restful, domestic peace, which could only represent the peace of God which passeth all understanding [see Philippians 4:7, KJV].

It was a wonderful experience to me to go to Emmaus, to find the place where the old monk said their houses stood, and the gateway where the gate was swinging where Jesus stopped and “made as though He would go further.”

When I came back to Jerusalem I recalled an experience of not many years before, that which made this illustration so impressive. It is personal, but I cannot think of a better illustration. In Somerville, Mass., I was nominated by the regular party for membership in the legislature. I was just beginning the practice of law, and was ambitious as other young men are ambitious for distinction, for honor, for fame, and for office. Being nominated by the regular party which had always had a very large majority within the memory of men, I felt sure of my election. I went to my old father and mother, and told them I was nominated and was going to be elected to the legislature. No doubt about it at all.

But a committee came to my house one night, which undoubtedly represented an opponent, and asked me how I stood “on the temperance question.” I told them I was out and out for the abolition of the saloon. They said: “Well, that will defeat you. You would better change your principles, or say nothing about it, or else the other man will get in.” I answered, “I cannot possibly do that. I believe the saloon is a curse. If I must say something about that, all that you can say from me is that I am against every saloon in the city, and wish they were utterly abolished, and that I should use my influence in the legislature to that end if a law came up for that purpose.” It cost me so much to say that. It was a fierce struggle.

I went to the polls, and remained at a house that was near by all day. Men came and voted, and I saw my friends coming and going. When the time came to close the polls and count the ballots I was invited to wait in the office of the town hall for the declaration of the vote. When the vote was counted I found I was defeated by twenty-three votes. I was defeated. Broken so that I felt my sorrow was in darkness, and I went out weeping in spite of my attempts at self-control.

I walked down the dark street alone, for as soon as it was known I had been defeated every friend left me. That is the experience of every politician. There was no one to go home with me after I had been defeated. Before that they had made many a kind speech, gave all sorts of dinners, and voiced all kinds of praise in the press and other places. But just as soon as I was defeated not one followed me when I walked down the long street to the corner, and then down the hillside to my humble wooden house.

I sat down by the little grate fire. My wife was in the kitchen, as she did the housework then, and she came out with my little baby in her arm. She expected, of course, that I was coming in triumph, and thought I had been elected, but when she heard me weeping and saw that I would not take any notice of the child, she knew that I was defeated. She knelt down beside my chair to throw her arms around my neck, and cried on my shoulder, and pushed our little baby into my lap. My tears fell on his face until he cried, and 1 had to get up and lay him in his crib. I went back to my seat, oh, so broken and defeated, and my wife, with her arms again around me, said: “Russell, it may be the best thing in the world. Think how you have not been home through all this campaign. Last week you were not home until after 11 o’clock a single night, and you were called out even on Sunday. I have scarcely seen you since you were nominated. I think, anyhow, we will be happier here in our little home if you are not elected. Let the other man take the responsibility. It may be a good thing that you were defeated.” Well, while I did not believe it, while I hated the advice, yet with those arms around my neck, the firelight burning, and the little child sleeping in the crib over there, I could not help but feel what the old monk had said: “The home-fire feeling,” the peace of soul which comes in the presence of the domestic fire.

If a man can go home on Easter day with a clear conscience, having nothing of which to be ashamed, no matter how he has been defeated, and if there he finds some loving heart to give him a tender reception, and to cheerfully hold up his spirits through his defeat, he is after all a blessed man. He has not lost. I have never regretted the experience of that night.

A welcome home was related to me by a Confederate soldier whom I met down in Alabama last week. He said he went home from the war with a wooden leg. On his way home he was hopping along from one place to another, and occasionally some man with a mule would help him on his way. He had no other way of getting home. The surrender at Appomattox had left them all to go South, and so he started to walk home to Alabama. He went up the front entrance to the old plantation house where he had lived before the war, and his family were still there, and one or two of the colored servants had remained. But as he went limping on his wooden leg, and he so worn, so dirty, so ragged, up to the house from which he went forth on a beautiful steed with such triumph, he said: “The horror of going into my own home was worse than the terrors of the battlefield.” But he said they saw him coming, and they ran out, his two children and his wife, and they caught him by the arm, pulled him down, kissed him, and hugged him, and went rejoicing into the house. Although he had been defeated, and felt all the woes of a patriot who loved his state and felt that he had been unjustly defeated, yet as he said: “When I sat down by the fire, and they brought me some pone cake and butter, there by the light of my own hearth I rested for a little while after four years of service in the army, and there came a peace to me after all, in which I said: ‘Is it not all lost.’ I have my family, and I can go on yet.” He had his house, as many did not, and a little portion of a farm left to him free. To go into that home and be welcomed by those who sympathized with him, and to feel that they believed in him although all the rest of the world did not, was, after all, a compensation more than to be president of the United States, and better than to be a king.

Oh, the joy of that heart that goes into its own citadel, into its own palace—that humble little home of two or three rooms, and sits down by the fire, believed in by those who sit by him, and who love him! They have no word of criticism for him. They have only encouragement. Their eyes are so filled with love they cannot see anything else but truth, hope and goodness about him. To be believed in, and to sit by one’s domestic circle makes up for all the losses that can come to any man.

How did the Pharisees spend Easter? What kind of an Easter was that to those who had murdered the Son of God, who had sold Him for a “mess of pottage,” indeed? How did they feel? They had money. Oh, yes, but what is money compared with this firelight heat, this fireside rest, this burning of the heart in the presence of Christ? What was their money to them but a curse!

The thought is precious that Professor Cobern brought out with reference to the equity of God’s dealings with men. He never takes from us one thing without giving us something else in its place, if we only had the grace to see it. He never shuts one door to us without opening another, and if we only had the grace to fall in with His will and turn around and look the other way, we would see the open door every time.

A young man studying for the ministry asked my advice only last Sabbath. He said the doors seemed to shut before him. Men have told me whenever I have related my experience, that they had the same, that God always opens another door whenever He shuts one. This young man had hoped to support himself in a certain position, and when he found the door was shut he turned away in an angry mood, and I told him to pray to God and look in other directions, and then the other door would open immediately. God always deals with those who love Him in that way.

Sometimes we have to be given pain to know the best things. I did not mean to speak again of my personal experience. My father was a very severe man, a very decided man. He never showed any emotion, yet he was kind and considerate, and provided for us well. Sometimes I felt: “I wish I had a father like some other father. I wish I had a father who would take me upon his knee. I wish I had a father who would read to me. I wish I had a father who would say a word of encouragement to me when I had done the best I could, and obeyed him and served him. I wish I had some one to say things to me like other fathers said to their boys.”

One day I fell from the barn beams upon the floor, and was very severely hurt, though no bones were broken. I was brought in pale and unconscious. Then my busy father awoke. When the thought that he might have lost his child came to him he became the tenderest nurse I ever had. Mother or sister could not compare with father. Father’s fingers were so tender, his hand so careful, and he could entertain me so nicely. He sat by my bed, and ate meals with me. He had never done all this before. I had found a father by falling from the beams of the barn. I would fall again to find another friend like that.

When Cleopas and Simon had lost their Christ, as they thought, and were on their way home, it opened up to them an avenue of spiritual relation to spiritual things about which they seemed to understand so little. Remember Christ was in the spirit, not in the body. You cannot call this human magnetism. He was in the spirit, and when He influenced their spirits, when He awakened that ambition in their hearts it was done by spiritual communication. It was done as Christ communicates with you now by the soul. In soul communication nothing, certainly, could be called mental or material.

God’s teaching balances everything in some way. If you lose in this place, and you trust in God, you will find it in another. It is all the time being arranged by some mysterious law of God. Be it in our domestic life, in our church life, in our business life, or national life, or in our worship, God is making adjustments all the time to compensate. Cleopas and Simon had the richest compensation for what seemed lost by that presence of Christ, and in the assurance of His everlasting peace. The good old monk said that he thought Cleopas was overpaid for all he had lost. It had been more than made up by that peace of God.

On that Easter day they were the happiest of men. Christ revealed himself, and their hearts burned within them with that domestic rest of conscience and of peace, the best possible way to observe Easter.

Are you going to observe Easter near to Christ? Are you going to stand in such a relation to Him that He will come and influence you spiritually, and bring to you that firelight of domestic peace which cometh only to the heart that is at rest with God? Listen to Him now, tonight, and resolve that you will not pass that Easter day until you are safely in the ark of God. Resolve that you will not pass that sacred time in the history of the year without being openly fully committed to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. For to you as to His disciples He would say now, as He comes in the Spirit to you just the same way He came to them then: “My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you [John 14:27, KJV]. My peace, the peace of God which passeth all understanding [Philippians 4:7, KJV], shall be yours.”