SERMON S.

I.

THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS.

John iv. 23: "THE HOUR COMETH, AND NOW IS."

HIS remarkable phrase is used twice by our Mas

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ter, once in regard to the true worship of the Father, which he declares to be coming, and to be already present; and, again, in regard to those who are in their graves hearing his voice: they shall hear it, he says, and they hear it now. In somewhat the same way, he says of the harvest of faith which his disciples are to gather in, It will be harvest-time in four months, you say. Look! I see the harvest ready to be gathered now.

This blending of future and present is in the very nature of prophecy, which sees what is coming in what now is; which sees the fruit in the flower, the flower in the bud; which sees the action to be in the motive which now is at work; which perceives that an idea is potent enough to develop itself into a long series of actions; which recognizes the antitype in its type; and, in one lightning-flash of spiritual

perception, sees a whole landscape leaping out of the darkness of the future into the momentary illumination of the present.

There is a future of which we know nothing till it has arrived there is another future, which we know before it comes. Some things can be foreseen almost as if they were seen. Some things are here already, potentially, before they are here actually, are here in their seeds and roots, before they are here in their fruits and results. "There is a field of grain," says the farmer. "Grain!" you reply. "I see nothing there: there is only black earth."-"Yes," the farmer answers: it is sown with grain." When the seed is there, the grain is virtually there.

Therefore we celebrate the birthdays of great men, regarding each of them as the seed of a great future. We keep the 22d of February, and close our banks, fire cannon, listen to orations, because, on that day, a little child was born, in whose coming came the deliverance of America from European vassalage. Fifty years passed from the birthday of the child before he did his work; but we celebrate not the day when the work was done, but the day when the child was born to do it. The whole nation goes back to the cradle of George Washington, and says, "The hour comes, and now is, when America shall be free." So we celebrate Christmas, the birthday of Christ. So all Christendom goes, on that sacred morning, with the Eastern Magi, to offer its gifts of grateful love to the little unconscious infant. So, in Catholic prayer

books to-day, we find prayers addressed to the infant Jesus; that is, prayers to a purely ideal being, — to a being who does not exist: for surely there is no infant Jesus now! Yet so clearly do we see that the essence of a great event is not in the thing done, but in the power which is to do it, that, when Christ is born, we regard Christianity as established.

With the same ideal tendency, the same disposition to put the idea of a thing above the actual thing, we keep the 4th of July as the day of National Independence. But we did not become independent on the 4th of July, 1776: we became independent not till some years after that. All that was done on the 4th of July was the enunciation of the idea of independence. The purpose, the resolution, the determination, were born that day: so we celebrate the birth of Independence on that day.

There are some things, no doubt, which are not here till they are accomplished; but other things are really here when they are begun. That which depends on outward circumstances, on contrivances, on outward force, or will, is not here till the circumstances take place. The discovery of America, the invention of printing, the landing of the Pilgrims, carry their chief importance in the events themselves, not in the idea lying back of them. But every thing which depends on spiritual insight and moral purpose virtually comes when the truth is seen and uttered, when the moral purpose is declared. When Martin Luther fixed his paper against the door of Wittenberg

Cathedral on the Eve of All-Saints, 1517, the Reformation came. We date the Reformation from that day; not from the day when the reformers agreed upon their creed at Augsburg, in 1530. When the idea is born, the events flowing from that idea are born.

In fact, there are certain truths which are so commanding and convincing, that, when they are once seen and uttered, certain consequences are already logically certain. Such truths are so adapted to the human reason, conscience, and heart, that they must be accepted sooner or later. Such truths are mighty powers introduced into human affairs, which will produce inevitable consequences. No matter what is the resistance of unbelief, the obstinacy of prejudice, the bitterness of opposing interests, the rage of party madness; no matter what falsehood, calumny, slander, assail their champion, — these truths are mighty, and must prevail, though it may be, as the poet describes it, by means of —

"A friendless conflict, lingering long
Through weary day and weary year."

The prophets of the Old Testament were men to whom God gave the favor of seeing the future in the present; of seeing the hour which was coming, as if it were already arrived. Standing on the mount of vision, they overlooked the large panorama of the future; they saw the waving forests near at hand, the blue valleys below, the fields farther on waving with grain, the rivers winding like lines of light through the distance, the pale sea on the horizon, the