Page images
PDF
EPUB

who has done a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored up a fund of "Christian experience" to ensure the same result again. What you are conscious of is "the glory of the Lord."

And what the world is conscious of, if the result be a true one, is also "the glory of the Lord." In looking at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or think of it, but only of what it reflects. For a mirror never calls attention to itself—except when there are flaws in it.

That this is a real experience and not a vision, that this life is possible to men, is being lived by men to-day, is simple biographical fact. From a thousand witnesses I cannot forbear to summon one. The following are the words of one of the highest intellects this age has known, a man who shared the burdens of his country as few have done, and who, not in the shadows of old age, but in the high noon of his success, gave this confession-I quote it with only a few abridgments-to the world:

"I want to speak to-night only a little, but that little I desire to speak of the sacred name of Christ, who is my life, my inspiration, my hope, and my surety. I cannot help stopping and looking back upon the past. And I wish, as if I had never done it before, to bear witness, not only that it is by the grace of God, but that it is by the grace of God as manifested in Christ Jesus, that I am what I am. I recog nize the sublimity and grandeur of the revelation of God in his eternal fatherhood as one that made the heavens, that founded the earth, and that regards all the tribes of the earth, comprehending them in one universal mercy; but it is the God that is manifested in Jesus Christ revealed by his life, made known by the inflections of his feelings, by his dis course, and by his deeds it is that God that I desire to con

fess to-night, and of whom I desire to say, 'By the love of God in Christ Jesus I am what I am.'

"If you ask me precisely what I mean by that, I say, frankly, that more than any recognized influence of my father or my mother upon me; more than the social influence of all the members of my father's household; more, so far as I can trace it, or so far as I am made aware of it, than all the social influences of every kind, Christ has had the formation of my mind and my disposition. My hidden ideals of what is beautiful I have drawn from Christ. My thoughts of what is manly, and noble, and pure, have almost all of them arisen from the Lord Jesus Christ. Many men have educated themselves by reading Plutarch's "Lives of the Ancient Worthies,' and setting before themselves one and another of these that in different ages have achieved celebrity; and they have recognized the great power of these men on themselves. Now I do not perceive that poet, or philosopher, or reformer, or general, or any other great man, ever has dwelt in my imagination and in my thought as the simple Jesus has.

[ocr errors]

"For more than twenty-five years I instinctively have gone to Christ to draw a measure and a rule for everything. Whenever there has been a necessity for it, I have sought— and at last almost spontaneously-to throw myself into the companionship of Christ; and early, by my imagination, I could see him standing and looking quietly and lovingly upon There seemed almost to drop from his face an influence upon me that suggested what was the right thing in the controlling of passion, in the subduing of pride, in the overcoming of selfishness; and it is from Christ, manifested to my inward eye, that I have consciously derived more ideals, more models, more influences, than from any human character whatever.

me.

"That is not all. I feel conscious that I have derived from the Lord Jesus Christ every thought that makes heaven a reality to me, and every thought that paves the road that lies between me and heaven. All my conceptions of the progress of grace in the soul; all the steps by which divine life is evolved; all the ideals that overhang the blessed sphere which awaits us beyond this world-these are derived from the Saviour. The life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.

"That is not all. Much as my future includes all these elements which go to make the blessed fabric of earthly life, yet, after all, what the summer is compared with all its earthly products-flowers, and leaves, and grass-that is Christ compared with all the products of Christ in my mind and in my soul. All the flowers and leaves of sympathy; all the twining joys that come from my heart as a Christian -these I take and hold in the future, but they are to me what the flowers and leaves of summer are compared with the sun that makes the summer. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of my better life.

“When I read the Bible, I gather a great deal from the Old Testament, and from the Pauline portions of the New Testament; but after all, I am conscious that the fruit of the Bible is Christ. That is what I read it for, and that is what I find that is worth reading. I have had a hunger to be loved of Christ. You all know, in some relations, what it is to be hungry for love. Your heart seems unsatisfied till you can draw something more toward you from those that are dearest to you. There have been times when I have had an unspeakable heart-hunger for Christ's love. My sense of sin is never strong when I think of the law; my sense of sin is strong when I think of love-if there is any difference be

me.

tween law and love. It is when drawing near the Lord Jesus Christ, and longing to be loved, that I have the most vivid sense of unsymmetry, of imperfection, of absolute unworthiness, and of my sinfulness. Character and conduct are never so vividly set before me as when in silence I bend in the presence of Christ, revealed not in wrath, but in love to I never so much long to be lovely, that I may be loved, as when I have this revelation of Christ before my mind. "In looking back upon my experience, that part of my life which stands out, and which I remember most vividly, is just that part that has had some conscious association with Christ. All the rest is pale, and thin, and lies like clouds on the horizon. Doctrines, systems, measures, methods-what may be called the necessary mechanical and external part of worship; the part which the senses would recognize this seems to have withered and fallen off like leaves of last summer; but that part which has taken hold of Christ abides."

Can any one hear this life-music, with its throbbing refrain of Christ, and remain unmoved by envy or desire? Yet till we have lived like this we have never lived at all.

ILES

G

EORGE ILES, an American literarian, the son of an English soldier, was born in Gibraltar, June 20, 1852. In 1887, after a residence of thirty years in Montreal, he removed to New York. From 1876 to 1896 he was a constant contributor to the "Popular Science Monthly," and one of his articles, "A Class in Geometry," was republished as a little book in 1894. His "Art of Large Giving," which reviewed the most famous American benefactions, appeared in the Century Magazine' for March, 1897. During 1892, at the request of Mr. Charles A. Dana, he wrote for the New York "Sun " a series of illustrated articles on invention and discovery, which also appeared simultaneously in a number of leading newspapers throughout the Union. This line of work was continued by Mr. Iles in "Flame, Electricity, and the Camera," issued in London and New York in 1900, and commended by the late John Fiske as the most fascinating volume he had read in ten years. In this work Mr. Iles depicts the varied applications of electricity, and proves that its mastery is comparable with that of flame as a leap in human power and interpretation. In critical quarters his book is regarded as the most original and telling American contribution to the philosophy of development.

[ocr errors]

For some years Mr. Iles took a leading part in bringing trustworthy literary guidance to the service of readers and students. In 1890 he edited, Jointly with Mr. R. R. Bowker, "The Reader's Guide to the Literature of Economic and Political Science; in 1895, with the aid of Mrs. Augusta H. Leypoldt, he brought together 2,100 titles as "A List of Books for Girls and Women and their Clubs," abounding in excellent critical notes. Two years afterward he edited an annotated bibliography of fine art. A work published in 1901, and entitled "A Guide to the Literature of American History," exemplified his methods for the appraisal of literature more fairly and fully than any preceding attempt.

Mr. Iles's address, here presented, was delivered before the American Library Association at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 9, 1901. As a result of his plea there is some likelihood that a Library Institute, such as he suggested, may soon take form in Washington or New York, to promote the interests of American libraries as a whole, to further in every feasible way the acceptance by all the people of the best and most helpful literature.

Pursuing a plan long entertained, Mr. Iles is now drafting the chapters of a work on invention and discovery, choosing examples from their recent history, and treating his themes with the philosophical breadth of "Flame, Electricity, and the Camera."

(10816)

« PreviousContinue »