SERMON. Joshua xv: 19.—“HE GAVE HER THE UPPER SPRINGS, AND THE NETHER SPRINGS." The land of Canaan had been It is a romantic incident. divided among the tribes of Caleb had asked and obtained from Joshua the city of Hebron, and had driven out from it the three sons of Anak, and had made the ancient city the capital of a great tribe. South of Hebron was a strong fortress known as Kirjathsepher, or the city of books. This place was greatly desired by Caleb, and he promised that he would give his daughter in marriage to the man who should take it. The double prize was won by his kinsman, Othniel, the son of Kenaz. In the bride's dowry was a south land, the dry and thirsty plains and hills which reach towards the frontier of the desert. The young wife tried to persuade her husband to ask a better field. He felt the delicacy of the request, or thought that in her he was sufficiently rewarded for his prowess, or perhaps had more confidence in the daughter's influence with her father. Her manner betrayed her desire, and Caleb said, "What wouldest thou?" She said, "Give me a blessing; thou hast given me a dry south land; give me also the well-watered field." "And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs." That is, he gave her the field which contained the higher and lower springs, and which was made green and fruitful by them. It is a striking use of words which thus makes the waters stand for the field; which fixes upon that which gives value to the land, and makes it represent the land. I have ventured in bringing this incident to this service to enlarge it into a parable. The meaning is this: that the worth of a field depends upon its upper and its nether springs. We have divine authority for this enlargement. Our Lord said, "The field is the world." The field over which we are looking as we stand together here is that part of the world which with grateful and loving hearts we call our country. The three and a half million square miles of land which make up our national domain are not in themselves the country which we love and serve. Fifty millions of men, growing to other millions, are the country, and men constitute the State. But men must be sustained and their well-being promoted. The tree of life is not in them. The land must give them bread; yet they cannot live by bread alone. The heavens must give them grace and truth; yet they cannot live by these alone. They must be nourished and strengthened from above and from below. The field must have its upper and its nether springs. This land of ours has both. Both are a free gift. Our millions of men are between the ground and God. It is a goodly land. Its riches are attracting and retaining the inhabitants of many climes. That part of the land which is prominently in our mind to-night is drawing the multitudes to itself. They go out seeking bread from its prairies and treasure from its mines. They turn from the old communities to find a place where enterprise and ambition will be rewarded, and the young man can make a name, and the poor man a fortune. Men and women wander forth to build towns and States beyond the great rivers. From other lands where poverty is a hopeless burden and a certain bequest, where manhood is oppressed and finds no deliverance, men cross the seas with dreams of liberty and wealth which may not be realized, but with strong arms and sturdy hearts which will make houses for themselves and homes for their children, and help to build the nation. They are coming to our shores, they are pressing westward in throngs which seem to have no limit. There is room. In spite of our fears, we shall not be crowded if the sons of Shem dwell in the tents of Japhet. There is room enough for them all in a land whose middle meridian grazes the edge of Alaska. In our recent accession of territory we are coming back to the beginning, if it be true, as we are now told by some, that the cradle of the race was within the Arctic Circle, "where our possessions lie," and our North abuts upon the Garden of Eden. It is a land well watered by its nether springs. Bread and gold, liberty and opportunity abound. It has been truly described by one who never saw it: "For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." There are many who are looking toward our broad fields to see what they can get from them. There are some who are looking to see what they can give to them. Those gather around the lower waters. These sing the song of Israel," Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it: The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the congregation with their staves." The Church of God, to which this land is given in trust, is to open the upper springs, that m.en may have grace and truth. The work is well advanced in the older States. It is begun in the new. It demands a spirit of enterprise which shall make this work keep pace with the eager life into which it is to enter. Energy, courage, patience are to mark its design and its labor. The church should not consent to be outstripped in a race in which it started first. Dropping these figures, what are our churches to do in the land? They are to be churches in the land and through the whole land; and to fulfil the purpose whereunto they were created. They are to stand for Christ, and to be the body for his Spirit. They are to minister to men; to teach the truth; to declare duty; to proclaim mercy; to bring men to God and eternal life. Every where they are to point men to the cross of the world's Redeemer. They are to give the Bible to men, and to persuade them to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. They are to preach the gospel publicly, and from house to house; to gather the old and the young where they can be taught, and to furnish them with good reading and with the means of using it. They are to make the homes of the people Christian, with the family altar at the centre; to see that schools are established and maintained; to found colleges and libraries, and to promote intelligence and virtue, and provide for their continuance. They are to instruct men in their duties one to another, and to the country in which they have a part; to make good men, good neighbors, good citizens. They are to teach the larger charity, which embraces the world in its thought, "beginning at Jerusalem." For all this the churches are to be in the land, to bring the people into them, to make their presence felt wherever there is a man to feel. For man's sake, and the land's, and the Christ's, this is to be done. Now abideth humanity, patriotism, Religion, and the greatest of these is Religion. Fifty millions of people to-day and so many of them distant from us! How can we do this work thoroughly? Great as the work is, so great is the power to do it. The influence of a man, thoroughly furnished, heartily in earnest, who has nothing else to do, long as he may live, but to be the witness to the Christ and the messenger of his mercy, cannot be estimated. As the man is so is his strength;" and this man is alive and awake. This man has been trained for this work. The school has taught him, and the world. He embodies the two parables of the Lord, by the leaven becoming a saint, and by the seed a missionary. He has attained to the independence which the hero needs. He defies circumstances and sometimes finds the defiance real. But he is equal to the time. When they threatened Bishop Selwyn that his supplies should be withheld, he answered that if he had no income, his twelve years in New Zealand had shown him the best places for finding fernroots, and the haunts of birds and fishes; that he could dig or beg, and was ashamed of neither! This was the man of whom the English sailor said, that it was enough to make a man a Christian to see the Bishop handle a boat. This man of ours is sturdy and strong. If need be, he can burrow with his children and his books in the side of a hill, and rejoice that he is counted worthy of it. He can turn from the gold which lies before his apostolic feet, by the same will which could find gold where other men enrich themselves. His scholarship, his piety, his manhood are ours. With him we count the braver woman who suffers and sings at his side. They have been found of God and taken from the nets which might have entangled their feet, and made fishers of men. Like the first apostles they have been called and they have answered. In them the divine purpose has been embodied, that the work of God might be done in the land. This man, under 1,150 nanes, has told the good news of God to 2,659 congregations in the last year. To-morrow you will hear the story of his work, and be grateful, not surprised. Such a man forbids surprises. Besides this more than thousand-fold man, we have three thousand other men who have nothing to do but the work of Christ's ministers and are ordained thereunto. We have nearly 4,000 churches, which, with their schools and societies, must be reckoned |