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BY REV. HENRY A. NELSON, D.D., PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ST. LOUIS, MO.

THE GENTLENESS AND THE ENERGY OF CHRISTIANITY.

"AND James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder."-MARK 3: 17.

"Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved."JOHN 13: 23.

WHEN we think of John as "the beloved disciple"—when we figure him to us, leaning on Jesus' breast, at the supper-we are apt to conceive of the meekest, and gentlest, and loveliest of the twelve. The artists who undertake to delineate the countenances of the apostles, and of their Lord, are wont to give to John a countenance of almost feminine mildness. There is somewhat in the writings of John, and in his history, which justifies the imputing to him of unusual gentleness. The frequent address, "My

little children," in his epistles, and his reïterated entreaty to Christians to "love one another;" his modesty and sensibility in alluding to himself, in his Gospel, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved,' together with our knowledge of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and our idea of the character that would win that place in his affection-all these conspire to divest our idea of John of every harsh and unlovely attribute, and to clothe it with every thing winning and amiable.

Yet we should greatly err if we were to conceive of him as of a soft and feeble character, or as deficient in the solid elements of manliness. He was one of the two brothers whom Jesus named "sons of thunder," a designation certainly indicative of the utmost force and energy of character.

That they were both naturally of a somewhat impulsive and fiery temper, may be inferred from the narration in Luke 9:51-56. From that, it appears that when the inhabitants of a certain village refused hospitality to their Master, their impulse was to call down fire from heaven, to consume them.

That they were naturally ambitious, seems evident from their desire to sit one on the right hand, and the other on the left, of the Lord, when he should be established on the seat of his kingly power. Mark 10: 35.

In short, it is evident that they needed to have their fiery impulses curbed, and their aspiring disposition repressed, by the example and instructions of their Lord.

Limiting our view to John, of whom the Scriptures give us the more full account,. it seems to be evident that, under the training of Christ, he came to possess, in a very eminent degree, the meek gentleness and the resolute energy, which, being combined, constitute the best Christian character; and I call your attention to the character of this individual for the purpose of presenting to your contemplation the gentleness which belongs to Christian character, in its proper combination with the energy which equally belongs to it.

I. We will consider some things in Christianity that are adapted to give gentleness to the character.

1. The view which it gives a person of himself. This, you know, is any thing but flattering. The Christian estimate, the Bible estimate of human character is such, that when any person appropriates it to himself, he finds all the pride of his spirit abased and mortified. He sees that he has nothing on which to value himself, nothing with which he can lift himself up. He must go down to a very low place, must consent to be estimated at a very low rate. When a person comes to possess the proper spirit of Christianity, he willingly takes that low place, and makes that low estimate. Now you very well know how opposite to Christian

gentleness is pride. He who is puffed up with a high estimate of himself, is likely to bear himself sternly, if not roughly, towards his fellow-creatures. He has a high opinion of what is due to him from other people, and he has little disposition to relax his claims, or to waive the enforcement of them. He is likely to be too much occupied with this, to give much consideration to what is due from himself to others; and he certainly is likely to have too little sense of his own deficiencies, to be very kind or forbearing towards those who give him occasion to find fault with them. On the contrary, you can see that such humility as belongs to evangelical religion such a low estimate of one's self as the Bible teaches to make, and as he does make whose heart has embraced its teachings-will very much restrain from a high and haughty bearing towards others, from all overbearing treatment of them. A person who has seen and felt his unworthiness before God, is likely to make a moderate estimate of what is due to him from his fellow-creatures; and when he clearly sees that they fail to render him the respect and consideration which are his due, the consciousness of his own shortcomings (if not towards them, at least towards God) will greatly temper his censures of them, and the methods by which he will endeavor to bring them to their duty. He who has learned to offer, in the true spirit of it, the petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;" who has felt (as experimental knowledge of Christianity will make one feel) his need of forgiveness, and has learned thus to ask for it, will surely be lenient towards the delinquencies of others. Christian humility certainly tends to promote gentleness.

2. I mention next the view which Christianity gives of God and of eternity. Not only is a person who has felt "the powers of the world to come" apt to feel that the paltry interests of time are not worth contending for, but habitual contemplation of eternal realities, and of Him who "inhabiteth eternity," will so awe and elevate the spirit, that it will have the utmost disrelish for contention. Scarcely can such an one be induced to contend for any thing except the sacred matters of truth and of conscience.

Have you never noticed the influence upon the mind of such high and noble contemplations, to soothe its irritableness, and to hush all its turbulence, and to disincline it to all dissension and controversy? Have you never observed how hard it is to provoke or excite persons to contention in the presence of sublime objects, or while they are under the influence of sublime ideas? Would it not be strange if two persons should quarrel while gazing together at the cataract of Niagara, listening to its solemn roar, and feeling its solemn tremor? Is it possible to retain anger when you stand at a window, watching the coming up of a storm; or at the foot of cliffs, that lift themselves ruggedly up to the sky; or on the shore of the ocean stretching away beyond the utmost

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reach of vision, endlessly rolling in its waves, and ceaselessly lifting up its voice?

Christianity, studied, believed, embraced, experienced, causes the soul to dwell habitually in the presence of sublimer objects than these, and under the influence of nobler contemplations. That glorious Being, who is "from_everlasting to everlasting," whose power and knowledge are infinite, and whose whole character is of superlative excellence-Eternity, in all its incomprehensible vastness, and with all its amazing interests-Redemption, with all the inaccessible hight of its principles, and all the unfathomable depth of its mercy, and all the unimaginable reach of its effects such are the themes which Christianity unfolds in its divine records, and to the contemplation of which the experience of it leads the mind. Can a mind which dwells amid such objects, and upon which such influences distill, fail to be made gentle?

3. The character of Christ, as it is delineated in the Scriptures, and as the Christian contemplates it, is calculated to promote gentleness. He is exhibited as "the Lamb of God"-not only a spotless victim, fit for the sacrifice, but dumb and unresisting, when led to slaughter. In the Gospel narrative the Christian sees Jesus conscious of possessing "all power in heaven and in earth," able to summon angelic legions to his help and service, yet yielding to his captors; submitting to all their rudeness and all their cruelty; withholding not his face from shame and spitting, his head from smiting, nor his person from the scourge, and the nails, and the spear. Is there in all true history, or in all the sphere of ideal heroism, a more admirable spectacle? The Christian not only trusts in the efficacy of Christ's sufferings, to atone for his sins, but he reads in his New Testament, that "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."

Can the Christian have that Scripture passage in his memory, and faith in that redemption in his heart, and that divine model of behavior in his eye, and not be won to imitation of it? and yet not so much to conscious and designed imitation, as to unconscious assimilation? For the examples of those with whom we are in sympathy do not affect us merely so far as we purposely endeavor to imitate them. Our feelings and our character are molded by an influence of which we are not conscious, that is even more ef fective. The Christian, truly loving Christ, having his heart opened to the influence which beams from all Christ's life and character, and by contemplation of him, holding himself under that influence, is assimilated to him more than himself perceives; and sometimes, in the higher degrees of this experience, he is like Moses, whose face shone with a light which he wist not of.

Nor is it only in death that Christ exhibited his lamb-like spirit. His whole life beams with the same mild radiance. He went about doing good. He delighted to comfort the mourners, and to bind up the broken-hearted-to speak words of peace and encouragement to the penitent, and to take up little children in his arms.

See him in the cottage at Bethany, with Mary sitting at his feet -see him at the gate of Nain, with his hand on the young man's bier-see him in the court of the temple, alone with the erring woman, when her conscious-smitten accusers have all gone away, mildly dismissing her with the gentle admonition, "Sin no more" see him on the hight of Olivet, weeping over the doomed city of his people see him among the crowd of miserable wretches, on whose maimed or diseased bodies he is exercising his healing power-see him breaking the bread for the hungry multitude, on whom he has compassion-see him, alone with his twelve, when the fickle crowd have deserted him, asking in the plaintive tones. of solicitous friendship: "Will ye also go away?"

Surely all the Christian's converse with his Saviour tends to give him a gentle and amiable character.

We pass to the other branch of our subject, and consider,

II. Some things in Christianity that are adapted to give energy to the character.

1. Look at the objects of effort which it presents-all that is involved in one's own eternal salvation-and all that tends to the well-being of mankind and the glory of God.

One's own salvation, as Christianity proposes it, is not the gaining of a title to heavenly bliss hereafter, by submitting to come rite of priestly performance, or to some austerities of priestly imposition; nor by any bargained work, whereby such title is to be purchased. It is, after gratefully and believingly accepting as a free gift, that title, written in blood, to gird one's self for a race, and arm one's self for a warfare, the strenuous prosecution of which will engage all the highest powers of one's being, through the whole period of his earthly existence. One has to conquer all his depraved inclinations-to correct all his wrong habits, stiff and gnarled as some of them may be, like the crooks in a stubborn oak. One has to withstand innumerable temptations from without, addressing themselves to corrupt nature within--temptations that come from society, from politics, from the world, in all the endless diversity of its forms-an army of bad influences, ordered and marshaled by the prince of evil. The serious, resolute endeavor to become what Christianity requires you to be, faithfully availing yourselves of all the divine helps which Christianity offers you, and duly improving them, is one that will task your best powers to the utmost, and stimulate them to the very best development.

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