THE

EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1884.

THE REV. DR. PARKER.

WE have been so earnestly requested to supply some notice each month to accompany the excellent likenesses which are so admirably executed in the Evangelical by the new photographic process, that we have consented so to do. The likeness this month is a speaking one, as the term is, although its subject, the Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D.-Minister of the City Temple, and Chairman this year of the Congregational Unionneeds not any introduction on our part. With an American as well as English fame, Dr. Parker's name is well known also in Canada and Australia, as well as in Great Britain, and we rejoice to know that our Magazine will be eagerly sought for this month by many who wish to secure a well-executed and striking likeness of him. To few men is it given to be as popular as a writer as a speaker. But since 'Ecce Deus' appeared, 'The Paraclete,' 'The Inner Life of Christ,' 'Apostolic Life,' 'Tyne Child,' and other works, have been widely read by a great multitude of readers.

We are all eagerly looking forward to the address from the Chair this month, and we know that we shall not be disappointed. Dr. Parker, in his speech at the Autumnal Meeting of the Union last year, only stimulated the thirst for a more copious draught of truth and eloquence in 1884; and we trust that the inspiration from above may fill his soul, and give to his lips winged words of grace and help for us all. We are thankful beyond measure to know that, owing very largely to the wisdom of Mr. James Spicer, and the manly earnest endeavour and kind-heartedness of Mr. Guinness Rogers, some differences of feeling between brethren which had existed have been quietly and entirely removed, and that we may now look forward to the May Meetings of 1884 as a season of holy unity as well as of high-toned Christian service. Perhaps the Editor

of this Magazine may be allowed himself, as sharing in the recent communications which have restored ancient friendships, to say, that to Congregationalists it is a matter of sincere and supreme gratification that the Union of 1884 will not be an irony upon its name, but an evidence that, as of old, 'Charity never faileth.'

With fervent prayers for a baptism of the Spirit on the assembly whose meetings are so near at hand, may we not believe and hope that the occasion will be one when, to use St. Paul's words, Christ shall be magnified'?

THE EDITOR.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE UPON THOSE WHO DEPRECIATE OR REJECT IT.

BY THE REV. J. HIRST HOLLOWELL.

THE number of persons who are Christians does not represent all that is Christian in the 'world. In a previous paper we endeavoured to show that the highest phases of morality depend upon the presence or the influence of religious doctrine. The subject was then considered, however, chiefly in relation to the virtue of self-sacrifice, which, it was contended, would be best understood and best practised by those who had received the idea and the spirit of it from communion with a Divine Saviour. But the argument might have been applied, as we believe, to all other aspects of conduct. At the same time, it may be admitted that numbers of persons are to be met with who, though not decided Christians in belief, are often found to act in what is little to be distinguished from a Christian spirit. As far as we can trace their motives, we find them to be such, in many instances, as the religion of our Lord requires.

Now this fact has seemed to some observers to contain within itself the refutation of the opinion here maintained, and it no doubt sometimes tends to weaken the Christian convictions of young people, and of those who are involved in the difficulties of religious speculation. But surely, if looked at more narrowly, this prevalence of semi-Christian moral sentiment among the better class of unbelievers proves the very opposite of what they take it to establish. They assume that when men have rejected, or when they no longer hold with conviction, the creed of Christians, every quality of their temper and life can be ascribed to causes extraneous to Christianity. But this is too much. A Jew who has been resident all his days in London, may reject the Christian

religion as completely as his ancestors in Russia or Germany rejected it. But is every social and moral characteristic of this man and of his family to be regarded as disconnected in its origin with the influence of London society? Is he a pure, unadulterated product of the Hebrew religion? Certainly not. The British metropolis is too considerable a factor to be left out of the account.

It is the same with Christianity. The evidence of its truth would lack an element of prime value if this Divine religion were found to affect the character of its professors alone. The solar centre, once in position in space, will influence the remotest as well as the nearest members of its system. And the introduction of Christianity into the world was the establishment of a great centre of spiritual light and energy among men, from the influence of which not even the worst and most wilfully blind of them could quite escape. The souls who group themselves nearest to the Incarnate One-nearest to the centre-will of course pass most rapidly and perfectly under the influences which that centre radiates. The highest moral life will be the fruit of the most intimate communion with the Highest. In a mysterious way we come to know our duty best, to love it most sincerely, and to be most patient under its strain, when we know a holy God, when the love of God has become our supreme affection, and when the worship of God is constantly refreshing the motive-power of our being. And the faith in God which is exercised by a Christian is especially rich in moral energy. To him God is not merely the Supreme. He is a Saviour. The revelation which constitutes the Gospel has not been made in didactic sentences, but in a Divine Person. To this Person it was that the first Christians came to find acceptance with God, and to receive 'power to become the sons of God.' And to this same Lord every Christian is taught to look as the source-and therefore for the sustenance-of the true life of the soul now. The vigour of the moral life of the Christian man is felt to depend upon communications of power from God-communications that are coincident with the exercise of faith and with an attitude of ceaseless prayer.

The Christian, then, is in a position immeasurably higher than that of the most admirable man of the world.' The most successful of the many unconscious imitators of the grace of Christian life are at a disadvantage. They do not drink of the well, but of some shallow and mingled stream far below the spring. They cannot feel, as the Christian may feel, that all duty is summarised and idealised in the love of Christ. They are devoid of the awe-inspiring conviction, which can never be wholly absent from the Christian's breast, that all our conduct towards

men is personally experienced by that ascended Prince Who is one day to judge the world. They cannot be sure, as the Christian is sure, that the motives under which men habitually act on this earth are tending to stamp ineffaceable marks upon their mind and character for this world and also for the world to come.

All this must be held to be undeniable. But it proves much more than the superiority of the Christian; it also makes it certain that he will exercise a silent but very extraordinary influence, both of a restraining and of a formative kind, upon his fellows, whether they share his convictions or not. Those who stand in this solemn and awful relation to the Father and to the Crucified Saviour must, in the proportion of their numbers and of their faith, be the most potent moral force known to the world. Their doctrines cannot be the doctrines of dead men, but will be the doctrines of living souls. Let those doctrines be passionately held, and such men must be the apostles, the examples, the teachers, the moral gladiators of their age.

Imagine only that this faith has penetrated every European nation, and that immense numbers of the most active and conspicuous of the people have, with varying degrees of faithfulness, yielded themselves to the checks and spurs of a faith so unrivalled, and what is more natural than that the entire level of modern society should be raised-critics, opponents, and the lapsed classes themselves alike experiencing a benign change from the upheaval? This is exactly what is taking place all around us, and it goes nearly the whole way to explain the respectability of much of the current scepticism.

The sun freckles the faces of many who are not fieldlabourers. The salt breath of the sea reaches not a few inland places. Scents of new-mown hay are blown into the alleys of Fleet Street in summer time, and greet the newspaper men as they leave their offices at daybreak. Valleys are made green for husbandmen who have done nothing to draw the water from the hills. The Roman spirit has touched the minds of millions who are unversed in the laws and history of Rome. And so, where Christ is not named, the presence of His Spirit may sometimes be detected. There is honour paid to truth which is something like an ignorant worship of Christ. Men are found willing to efface themselves of whom we should least expect it. We find men ignorantly worshipping Christ in their interest in the poor, in their contempt for a life of ambition, in their unconquerable persistency in worthy undertakings, in their spirit of charity. They would be startled if they were to be told that they were engaged in Christ's service, and yet, unconsciously and unwillingly, this is so.

One day a gentleman, passing along the streets of an American city, was arrested before the window of a print-shop by a remarkable portrait there exposed for sale. It was a face expressive of great decision and wonderful purity. He bought it, although it bore no name, for his delight in the type of manhood it represented. He hung it in his parlour, and there it remained for months before he discovered that it was the portrait of a man then held to be most dangerous and worthy of imprisonment—a man who had vexed the public tranquillity by his wild harangues against a wealthy class and an old institution of the country. It was the face of a man whom the owner of the picture had himself detested. It was William Lloyd Garrison, advocate of negro emancipation! The picture was at once removed from the walls of the parlour. It was not safe to have even the lineaments of that man in one's house. But there was one thing the gentleman could not do-he could not efface the feelings of admiration and reverence which Garrison's face had enkindled in his mind.

And this seems to me to be in close resemblance to the relation in which many persons stand to Christ. They would not like to be called Christians, and yet the spell of Christ is upon them. The type and ideal after which they are striving has come to them from the despised Nazarene. Their search after moral sweetness and harmony would prove a very bootless quest if the hearts of men were not already possessed of that transcendent image which is the brightness of the Father's glory.' Christ has surrounded them with an atmosphere in which every good instinct and purpose thrives, and after growing stronger and purer for breathing it, they proceed to congratulate themselves, and to theorise very extensively, upon the intrinsic virtue of human nature. It is easy for them to deny Christ's name, but it is beyond their power to remain uninfluenced by the spirit with which He has baptized the world.

The Prince of Wales and one of the Royal Dukes arrived one evening at the House of Commons and took their seats over the clock, just as the attention of members and of strangers had been well secured by a powerful speaker below the Liberal gangway. There was an earnestness quite unconventional in the manner of the member. Indeed, had one's eyes been shut and the place forgotten, the deep, pleading tones of voice might have produced the belief that one was listening to a very faithful preacher. It was the style of a preacher moving his hearers with earnest exhortation. The Princes exchanged looks of inquiry. Who could this man be? A preacher from the north of Ireland had been returned to the new Parliament. Could it be that Reverend M.P.? No! the speaker was found