DISCOURSE XLII.

WILLIAM ARTHUR, D. D.

Less than two years ago our attention was attracted to an article in a daily paper, which ran thus:

"Mr. Arthur is no doubt very favorably known to many of our readers as the author of 'The Successful Merchant.' To some he may also be known as the eloquent preacher. To all we think we may promise pleasure of a high character, in listening to his efforts in the pulpit and on the platform." Curiosity was excited to see and hear this "eloquent preacher"—a curiosity which was afterward gratified. Mr. Arthur—now Doctor-has since come among us, and taken his departure. With multitudes the recollection of his visit lingers as a sweet remembrance. To some of such, and to others whose interest has been awakened by his presence this side of the Atlantic, the following facts may not be unacceptable.

Dr. Arthur was born in the County of Antrim, Ireland, in the year 1819. At an early age he was converted to God, and joined the Methodist society in the town of Westport, situated on the shores of Clew Bay, which, if not one of the most beautiful, is at least one of the most magnificent bays in the world. He received his literary training in a classical school in Mayo, and at the early age of eighteen was sent to the Wesleyan Theological Institute at London. After finishing his theological course, he was sent out by the British Conference as a missionary to the Mysore country, in India. On the voyage he mastered the grammar of the Canarese language, the dialect of the people to whom he was going to preach; and was enabled, at the expiration of three months after he reached the station, to preach to the natives in their own tongue.

While engaged in his missionary labors, so intense was his application, that his eye-sight failed him, and for four years he was entirely unable to read, and for three more, only occasionally. After his return to England he published his first work, entitled "Mission to Mysore," an octavo volume of upward of five hundred pages, which has been regarded as a valuable contribution to the cause of Christian missions. Subsequently, as his sight was restored, he was stationed from time to time on different London circuits, and afterward at Paris and Boulogne, in France. During his appointment in Paris, the Revolution of 1848 began, and he remained at his post, like a faithful sentinel, all through that excitement. After his term of service expired in Paris, he returned to England, and in the course of a year or two was appointed one of the general secretaries of the Mission House in London.

At the time that a movement originated among the Methodists of Ireland in regard to the destitution of that country, produced by emigration and other causes, and it was resolved that something should be done by way of raising funds for the

purpose of enabling the Conference to establish missions and schools, and to send out Bible-readers throughout the length and breadth of the land, Dr. Arthur was wisely selected, with Rev. Mr. Scott, to visit this country to aid the undertaking. The invitation was accepted, and the following autumn they landed on our shores. The mission was highly successful; and while here Dr. Arthur received the kindest attention, not only from his own, but from other denominations. Since his return to England, he has been acting as one of the secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society.

Besides "The Successful Merchant"-a very interesting and instructive biography of Mr. Budget Dr. Arthur has published a book, entitled "The Observance of the Sabbath," addressed to Lord Stanley, and containing animadversions on his speech. The work has already passed through many editions. Through the influence of friends it was sent to every member of Parliament, and to all the ministers of the kingdom of Scotland. An article from the pen of Mr. Arthur appeared in the "London Quarterly," which was for a time attributed to Mr. Ruskin, the learned author of a work on architecture and other subjects. From the beginning he has been identified with "The London Young Men's Christian Association," as one of its presidents, and, until his health failed, has been one of its regular lecturers. A popular little book called "Arthur in America," has been published in this country, containing a biography, and several lectures, addresses, etc. "The Tongue of Fire" is also another very valuable publication of Dr. Arthur. It treats of the true power of Christianity, and with very marked ability.

Dr. Arthur is one of the most brilliant and popular preachers of the day. His preaching happily combines logic, and rhetoric, and unction. In personal appearance he is rather under size, with a broad forehead, thinly over-topped with hair, a small keen eye, and benignant look. His manner in the pulpit is highly animated, but his whole style and bearing are eminently chaste, dignified, and attractive.

We received from Dr. Arthur, while here, encouragement to expect a discourse expressly for this work. As it has failed to reach us, probably owing to ill health, we take a part of the conclusion of his "Tongue of Fire," which, with a very slight change in its form, answers to a set discourse. We have seen nothing from his pen that does him better justice; and its weighty suggestions and "words that burn," are eminently befitting the days in which we live.

THE GIFT OF POWER.

"But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”— LUKE, χχίν. 49.

In the application of any instrument, no error can be more fatal than one that affects the source of power. To recur to a familiar illustration, any reasoning upon explosive weapons which assumed elasticity to be the source of power, must lead completely astray. If this is to be noted in all things, it is especially to be noted in what affects the regeneration of the world. In merely natural processes, persons proposing to affect the sentiments of mankind, must depend largely on their influence, their

wealth, and their facilities. Christians frequently permit themselves to fall into a state of mind in which the want of all or any of these is taken to be fatal to their prospects of success, and the acquisition of them to be the first step toward making any impression. But wealth, influence, and facilities, however great, never yet secured results in the spiritual conversion of men; while the most notable triumphs of Christianity have often been gained in the total absence of them all.

Others, or the same men at different times, would rather allow their hopes to rest on order, talent, or truth. But neither are these the source of power. Order is as necessary in Christianity as are bones, ligaments, and skin in a man; talent is as necessary as brain, and truth as blood. But you may have all these, and have a paralytic; ay, have them all, and have but a corpse. You must have both the breathing spirit and that indescribable something that we call "power." Indeed, the order of the Christian church ought to be such, her outward framework so constructed, that she shall not be as a building, which, though it looks more cheerful when there is life within, yet will stand when there is none; but rather as a body, which falls the moment the spirit forsakes it, and tends to decomposition. No church ought to be otherwise constructed, than in entire dependence on the presence of the living Spirit in all her ministerial arrangements. Her frame ought to answer to no definition that would suit an inorganic body; but to answer exactly to the celebrated definition of an organic one; namely, "that wherein every part is mutually means and end." The pervading presence of the Spirit should be assumed, so that, if it be absent, the pains of death shall instantly take hold upon her, and the cry be extorted, "Lord, save, or I perish!"

I. Here, then, first, is the true SOURCE OF POWER.

Recall to mind that most wonderful silence of ten days-that long, long pause of the commissioned church in sight of the perishing world. Never should the solemnity of that silence pass from the thoughts of any of God's people. It stands in the very fore-front of our history-the Lord's most memorable and affecting protest beforehand-that no authority under heaven, that no training, that no ordination could qualify men to propagate the gospel, without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Each successive day of those solemn and silent ten, the perishing world might have knocked at the door of the church, and asked, "What waitest thou for, O bride of the ascended bridegroom? Why dost thou not say, 'Come? Why leavest thou us to slumber on uncalled, unwarned, unblessed, whilst thou, with thy good tidings, art tarrying inactive there? What waitest thou for ?" and every moment the answer would have been, "We are waiting to be 'endued with power from on high; we are waiting to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

This is the one and the only source of our power. Without this, our

wealth, influence, facilities, are ships of war and ammunition without guns or men; our order, talent, truth, are men and guns, without fire. We want in this age, above all wants, fire, God's holy fire, burning in the hearts of men, stirring their brains, impelling their emotions, thrilling in their tongues, glowing in their countenances, vibrating in their actions, expanding their intellectual powers more than can ever be done by the heat of genius, or of argument, or of party; and fusing all their knowledge, logic, and rhetoric into a burning stream. Every accessory, every instrument of usefulness, the church has now in such a degree and of such excellence as was never known in any other age; and we want but a supreme and glorious baptism of fire to exhibit to the world such a spectacle as would raise ten thousand hallelujahs to the glory of our King.

Let but this baptism descend, and thousands of us who, up to this day, have been but common-place or weak ministers, such as might easily pass from the memory of mankind, would then become mighty. Men would wonder at us, as if we had been made anew; and we should wonder, not at ourselves, but at the grace of God which could thus transform us.

Suppose we saw an army sitting down before a granite fort, and they told us that they intended to batter it down: we might ask them, "How ?" They point to a cannon-ball. Well, but there is no power in that; it is heavy, but no more than half a hundred, or perhaps a hundred, weight: if all the men in the army hurled it against the fort, they would make no impression. They say, "No; but look at the cannon." Well, there is no power in that. A child may ride upon it, a bird may perch in its mouth; it is a machine, and nothing more. "But look at the powder." Well, there is no power in that; a child may spill it, a sparrow may peck it. Yet this powerless powder, and powerless ball, are put into the powerless cannon-one spark of fire enters it; and then, in the twinkling of an eye, that powder is a flash of lightning, and that ball a thunderbolt, which smites as if it had been sent from heaven. So is it with our church machinery at this day: we have all the instruments necessary for pulling down strongholds, and O for the baptism of fire!

II. AS TO THE WAY IN WHICH THIS POWER MAY BE OBTAINED, here we have only to recall the lesson of the Ten Days-" They continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." Prayer earnest, prayer united, and prayer persevering, these are the conditions; and, these being fulfilled, we shall assuredly be "endued with power from on high." We should never expect that the power will fall upon us just because we happen once to awake and ask for it. Nor have any community of Christians a right to look for a great manifestation of the Spirit, if they are not all ready to join in supplication, and, "with one accord," to wait and pray as if it were the concern of each one. The murmurer who always

accounts for barrenness in the church by the faults of others, may be assured that his readiest way to spiritual power, if that be his real object, lies in uniting all, as one heart, to pray without ceasing.

Above all, we are not to expect it without persevering prayer. Prayer which takes the fact that past prayers have not yet been answered, as a reason for languor, has already ceased to be the prayer of faith. To the latter, the fact that prayers remain unanswered, is only evidence that the moment of the answer is so much nearer. From first to last, the lessons and example of our Lord all tell us that prayer which can not persevere, and urge its plea importunately, and renew, and renew itself again, and gather strength from every past petition, is not the prayer that will prevail.

When John in the Apocalypse saw the Lamb on the throne, before that throne were the seven lamps of fire burning, "which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth ;" and it is only by waiting before that throne of grace that we become imbued with the holy fire; but he who waits there long and believingly will imbibe that fire, and come forth from his communion with God, bearing tokens of where he has been. For the individual believer, and, above all, for every laborer in the Lord's vineyard, the only way to gain spiritual power is by secret waiting at the throne of God for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Every moment spent in real prayer is a moment spent in refreshing the fire of God within the soul. We said before, that this fire can not be simulated; nothing else will produce its effects. No more can the means of obtaining it be feigned. Nothing but the Lord's own appointed means, nothing but "waiting at the throne," nothing but keeping the heart under "the eyes of the Lamb," to be again, and again, and again penetrated by his Spirit, can put the soul into that condition in which it is a meet instrument to impart the light and power of God to other men.

When a lecturer on electricity wants to show an example of a human body surcharged with his fire, he places a person on a stool with glass legs. The glass serves to isolate him from the earth, because it will not conduct the fire-the electric fluid: were it not for this, however much might be poured into his frame, it would be carried away by the earth; but when thus isolated from it, he retains all that enters him. You see no fire, you hear no fire; but you are told that it is pouring into him. Presently you are challenged to the proof-asked to come near, and hold your hand close to his person; when you do so, a spark of fire shoots out toward you. If thou, then, wouldst have thy soul surcharged with the fire of God, so that those who come nigh to thee shall feel some mysterious influence proceeding out from thee, thou must draw nigh to the source of that fire, to the throne of God and of the Lamb, and shut thyself out from the world-that cold world, which so quickly steals our fire away. Enter into thy closet and shut to thy door, and there, isolated, "before the throne," await the baptism; then the fire shall fill