Remembering Christ's Words

They fear not life’s rough storms to brave, Since thou art near and strong to save; Nor shudder e’en at death’s dark wave,

Because they cling to thee.
Blest is my lot whate’er befall 5
What can disturb me, who appal;
While, as my strength, my rock, my all,

Saviour, I cling to thee?

Charlotte Elliott.

Memory is a wonderful faculty. It is a hand that writes down on an invisible scroll a record of all the things we do, all the thoughts that pass through our mind, all the impressions that are made upon us. Memory is meant to give us great pleasure. It would gather into the storehouses of the soul all the precious things of the passing years and keep them there forever. The joys of childhood are thus treasured, to shed their sweetness on the life in the times of toil, care and sorrow, which come in the later years. The glad things in the days of youth and sunshine are stored away to become lamps

237 to shine when it grows dark outside, or to be like singing-birds in the bosom when earth’s music is hushed.

It is wonderful how sweet memories of better days mitigate the sorrows and pains of life when misfortune or trial has stripped off the things that gave joy. There is a story of a young man who was informed that in a few months he must become blind, and who instantly set out to find and look upon the loveliest things in the world, that in his days of darkness he might have the memories of the beautiful scenes to cheer him.

Thus memory may help us to prepare for times of sorrow by gathering up the sunshine and storing it away in our heart. The great coalfields in the earth are only memories of wonderful ages in the past, when vast forests and dense masses of vegetation grew and fell into the ground and were covered up and there held in store for service in these later ages. Now the treasured sunshine lights and warms our homes. Like service does memory perform when it holds in its storehouses the beautiful things of life’s bright summer days, to give light and warmth when winter comes with its long nights and its cold and storm.

But memory stores up the bitter with the

238 sweet. If we live negligently, carelessly, sinfully, we lay up recollections which can cause only sorrow, pain and shame. The secret of a happy life is a well-watched past. Every to-day is the harvest of yesterday. The only way to make to-morrow’s memories rich and sweet is to live to-day a pure, obedient, gentle, unselfish, helpful life.

There is an exhortation which says, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus.” To remember in this sense, is also to keep, to do, to obey. It does one little good merely to remember the words which Christ speaks, and not to take them into the heart and life. There is not a line of truth in the Bible which is not meant in some way to affect the life and character. Bible teachings are the gleams of heaven’s light touching the earth. There is not a truth in the Bible which, if received into the heart, will not leave its impress in some way upon the spirit, the life, the disposition, the conduct, the character.

What becomes of all the sermons? Many of tls hear at least two every Sabbath. Every sermon ought to be a message from God. The preacher is God’s messenger, or he is nothing. If he speaks only his own words and does not speak for God, he is not a preacher. They

^39 must be words of life, too, which he speaks. “The words that I speak unto you,” said Jesus, “they are spirit, and they are life.”

God’s word is compared by the great Teacher to seed. What follows when the sower goes over his field and scatters his good seed upon the ground? He seems to be only throwing it away. But in each of the little golden grains is a secret of life, that, when the seed becomes soft in the earth, puts out a little point, a tiny sprig, which becomes by and by a stem that shoots up into a stalk of wheat. In the season of harvest the field bears its burden of golden grain.

Jesus tells us what becomes of the sermons. Not all the good seed grows into its appropriate harvest. There are four different ways of receiving the good seed. There are wayside hearers. The ground is trodden down into hardness by many passing feet, until it cannot receive the seed. The golden grains fall upon it, but lie there uncovered and the birds come and take them away. There are stony-ground hearers. A thin layer of surface-soil receives the seed and at once it springs up. But the hot sun blazes down on the place, the thin soil is soon dried, and the green shoots are soon withered and dead. There are the thorny-ground hearers. The soil is good, rich and deep, and

240 the seed grows luxuriantly. But the ground contains also roots of briers and thorns, and the same rich soil which produces rapid growth in the wheat, fosters also the quicker growing of these briers and thorns, and the wheat is soon so choked that only poor, starved, shriveled grains form on the stalk, none of them growing to perfection. There is also good ground, untrodden, deep-ploughed, clean of the roots .of other things. On this soil the seed grows into luxuriance and the harvest waves at length — many times the sowing being reaped from the field.

What becomes of the seed depends on the soil. What becomes of the sermons depends on the hearers. There are hearts like the wayside, trodden down by passing feet, so that no holy word or thought of God finds entrance into them. There are rocky hearts, emotional, promising well for a little while, but not enduring temptation and trial. There are thorny hearts in which grow the roots of other things that choke out the divine seeds. No fruit of the Spirit ripens to anything beautiful in them.

This parable tells what comes of a great deal

of the holy seed that is scattered on the earth.

Nothing comes of it. The birds get it; the

heat withers it; briers and thorns choke it.

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But there are also hearts that receive the words of truth, keep them, nourishing them into growths which yield a rich harvest.

We must not forget that all this hearing of the truth leaves a record. There has been invented a curious little machine which, when placed in the rear of a railway-car, registers on a strip of paper every motion of the car, every curve of the track, every unevenness, every decayed or sunken sleeper, every fragment of the history of the train’s movement, from the moment it starts till it stops. There is something in each human life that, in like manner, registers all that goes on in the life, every day, every year. It marks all our privileges and opportunities. It tells of every sermon we hear, every good word that falls upon our ear, every shining upon us of the face of Christ, every call to duty, every warning and exhortation, every touch upon our life by the hand of Christ, every influence of friendship, and it also shows our response to all these influences. It is well that we consider what kind of autobiography we are writing these passing days. What does memory enshrine of the words of Christ which we have heard? None of us know how these living words have wrought in our lives. If it were possible to obliterate from our character all that

242 they have done in us, we should then see what we owe to them. The sun is not so much to the planets as these words of Christ are to our lives.

Think of the comfort we have gotten in sorrow, the light that has made our darkness bright with hopes and has filled our night with stars. Think of the lines of beauty which the words of Christ, like the pencils of a great artist, have left in our lives. We never shall know in this world all that the words of Christ have done in us and tor us. Then we cannot know what shall be the influence of these words, repeated by us, on others who may hear them.

“Never a word is said

But it trembles in the air,
And the truant voice has sped

To vibrate everywhere;
And perhaps far off in eternal years
The echo may ring upon our ears.”

Perhaps we have resisted the influence of Christ’s words in our lives. Some of us grieve over the stained pages, the blotted lines, the failures to be sweet in the time of provocation, to be patient in trial. Christ understands it all. He knows how the lesson has been missed. But he is also our Teacher. He says, “Come unto me; iearn of me,” and he never grows impatient

243 of our slow-learning, even of our failures. Here is a little story with a lesson. A teacher says:

He came to my desk with a quivering lip —

The lesson was done. “Dear teacher, I want a new leaf,” he said:

“I have spoiled this one.” In place of the leaf so stained and blotted, I gave him a new one all unspotted,

And into his sad eyes smiled —

“Do better now, my child.”

I went to the Throne with a quivering soul —

The old year was done. ‘* Dear Father, hast thou a new leaf for me?

I have spoiled this one.” He took, the old leaf stained and blotted, And gave me a new one all unspotted,

And into my sad heart smiled —

“Do better now, my child.”

Remembering Christ’s words sweetens the life. It keeps the thoughts always fragrant. A drawer was opened and a delicious perfume stole out and filled the room. A grain of musk in the drawer was the secret of it all. So the words of Christ, hidden in a human heart, sweeten all the life. A writer tells the story of a young girl whose spirit grew so wondrously beautiful and gentle, the secret being that one little verse of Scripture was lying like a rich

244 odor in her heart, — “Whom not having seen, ye love.” If we let the word of Christ dwell in us richly it will pour sweetness through all our life, into our thoughts, feelings, affections and emotions, until our whole being is saturated with the rich fragrance. There is no other secret of true, noble, Christ-like character.

There is another Bible “Remember.” This time it is a prayer to God, asking him to remember the word on which he had caused his servant to hope. Of course God could never fail to remember any word he has spoken on which any of his children have trusted. We forget too easily the words of the Lord Jesus; but he never forgets a promise he makes.

Men often make promises on which others depend, perhaps staking all their interests and their happiness upon the assurance given to them, only to find at last that the promise has been forgotten. We have all known instances in which one person took another’s word, believed what he said, accepted his assurance, giving it implicit confidence — only to learn at length that there was nothing substantial in the promise. But God’s least word is true and eternal. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” said Christ. When a soul takes any word of Christ and builds

245 a fabric of hope upon it, resting on it, believing that it will be fulfilled, sooner might the stars fall from heaven than that God should forget or fail to fulfill his promise.

In days of war, while the army rested, a bird came and built her nest on the pole of the emperor’s tent. When it was time for the army to move, the mother bird was sitting on her eggs. The emperor gave command that the royal tent should be left standing, that the bird might not be disturbed, till her young were hatched and were old enough to fly. The bird had trusted him, building her nest, in his tent, and he would not disappoint her trust. If we put our confidence in any word of God, building our hope upon it, he will honor our trust, and his word shall be as an eternal rock. It is not possible that any hope that rests in a divine promise shall ever be pat to confusion or be disturbed in its confidence.

“He was better to me than all my hopes, He was better than all my fears; He made a bridge of my broken works

And a rainbow of my tears. The billows that guarded my sea-girt path

But carried my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march,
I can lean on his love for the rest.
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There is light for me on the trackless wild,

As the wonders of old I trace, When the God of the whole earth went before

To search me a resting-place.
Never a watch on the dreariest halt

But some promise of love endears; I read from the past that my future shall be

Far better than all my fears.”