The Best Robe

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.” — LuKE xv. 2.2.

From the excellent glory came the voice “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. Obedient to that voice we listen to the Lord Jesus, and we learn the mind of God. We learn His graciousness, His forgivingness. His all-comprehending care and kindness; and taken by the hand we are introduced into His presence, and are taught to say, Abba, Father. Owing to our sinfulness we are very unbelieving, and therefore it takes a long time to learn the lesson; but, encouraged by so kind an intercessor, the experiment is repeated and repeated, till, enriched by faith, awe ripens into filial reverence, and tormenting fear is cast forth by perfect love.”’

We obey God when we listen to Jesus; and Jesus says, ‘’ Suffer the little children to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” If we ourselves have come to love the Saviour, it should be our great effort to endear Him to our children; and the way in which He has taught us to think and feel about God, is the way in which we should try to get them to think and feel towards our Father who is in heaven.

* Matt. xvii. 5, xviii. 22, vi. g; Gal. iv. 6 j i John iv. 18.

The very effort will be a great blessing to ourselves. You who are a Christian parent will acknowledge that of all your educators your own children have proved the most influential, and you will allow that to a thoughtful man the true finishing school is his own family. Even although a preacher of the word or a doctor of divinity, you here find the tables turned; and with the watch which you must set upon your lips, and the faultless conduct you are expected to maintain, you find yourself once more under tutors and governors; the solitary pupil in the centre of an acute and observant faculty; a scholar posed by the Gamaliels at your feet; a puzzled Solomon whose queen of Sheba has just descended from the nursery with dolls and hard questions. And it is well. Your turn is too abstract. With you the truths of Revelation are too much the propositions in a system or the tenets of a creed: the little child has no turn for abstractions; to him these doctrines are the sayings of God, or they are nothing; and rather than live in a pale ghost-land of dogmas, he will impersonate attributes and propositions; like the apostle, will clothe in flesh and blood, Faith, Hope, and Charity; like the Psalmist will give life to Veracity and Mercy, and be glad to see sundered friends, like Righteousness and Peace, embracing one another. And it is well to see truth through the limpid eye of childhood, before the life has gone out, before the glory has gone off, but just as it comes from God; and in concert with such unsophisticated students it is good to open up a text and let out the fragrance and the sweetness which in the handHng of conventional exegetics are so apt to be sacrificed for the sake of the structural anatomy. Above all, it is well to have such an incentive to personal consistency. In one sense idealists, children are also realists; but nominalists they never are. They will not mistake words for things, nor accept profession in lieu of practice. You are sometimes forced to say —

“The man
Is worthy, but so given to entertain
Impossible plans of superhuman life.
He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf,
He has to mount a stool to get at them;
And, meantime, lives on quite the common way,
With everybody’s morals.’”^

In such transcendental ethics children have no faith, and the only lesson which impresses them is the one brought down to their own level — the lesson which is lived. If you want them to be truthful, you must never ‘’ use lightness “yourself, nor make a promise which you have no intention to fulfil. If you wish them to be fair and honourable in their transactions with one another, the court of appeal must judge righteous judgment and show no respect of persons. If you would like them not to lose their temper, you must keep your own. ‘’ Walk before me, and be thou perfect,” was God’s charge to Abram; and ‘’ I will walk within my house with a perfect heart,” was the Psalmist’s resolution; and success in the one * Aurora Leigh, p. 216.

sphere is a good test of sincerity in the other; for next to the All-seeing Himself, there are no observers so perspicacious and so candid as those little ones whom it is so woful to offend. Let therefore the living God be to you what you desire and pray that He should be to them: your fear and your dread, and yet your exceeding joy; your Guardian and Guide; your Father and Friend.

Wonderful is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes prospering parental effort, sometimes with small outward advantage in the way of example or instruction, in many an infant mind He has enkindled a sweet and most natural piety; and although, as too often happens, blown out in the world’s rough weather, so that for successive years there is nothing left but the smouldering wick — the smoking flax of unavailing regret and abortive resolutions — when the set time comes He has only to take the begrimed and battered lamp, and pouring in new oil, with benignant afflatus breathe over it, till, like an incorruptible seed, the feeble spark, the fiery germ, flame up a burning and a shining light; whilst other and happier instances occur, in which the good work has experienced no marked interruption, but the fair promise of childhood has strengthened into youthful piety, and manly decision, and mature devotion: instances like Josiah and Timothy, like Jeremiah and John the Baptist; instances like Melancthon, where, early sanctified, the clear intellect and calm loving heart grew equably together; instances like John Livingstone, where, never having tasted aught else than that the Lord is gracious, some experience of His terrors had to be entreated as a favour; instances like that described in the touching lines —

“O God! who wert my childhood’s love,
My boyhood’s pure delight,
A presence felt the livelong day,
A welcome fear at night; —

I could not sleep unless Thy hand

Were underneath my head.
That I might kiss it, if I lay

Wakeful upon my bed.

And quite alone I never felt, —

I knew that Thou wert near,
A silence tingling in the room,

A strangely pleasant fear.

With age Thou grewest more divine,

More glorious than before;
I feared Thee with a deeper fear.

Because I loved Thee more.” *

Whilst such examples are a great incentive to pious teachers and parents, the other class may well encourage those who go forth to the far country and try to reclaim the prodigal. Even amongst those who have sinned the worst and sunk the lowest, there are few who cannot recal a better time, and not a few can recal a good and hopeful beginning. In one respect yours is a great advantage. You were not born a heathen. Your childhood was not a religious blank, nor was your infant

* F. W. Faber.

imagination filled with hideous pagods; but in “the Lord your Shepherd,” in the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” you looked up and saw a Pity and Protection which it is still touching to remember. Although so sadly fallen, there was once a time when you seemed not far from the kingdom, and degraded though you be, you can still recal a father s house and the beauty of its holiness. At the same time, your case is very critical. Grace resisted, advantages abused, are but a deeper condemnation, and if you die impenitent and unsaved, in the day of judgment It will be more tolerable for pagans than for you.

These latter years have been godless. They have been given to self-seeking and the pursuit of pleasure; in the language of Scripture, they have been spent in “working the will of the flesh and of the mind.’^ But although you have forgotten God, He has not lost sight of you. Even amidst the riotous living His grieving eye has followed you, and the sore destruction, which your sins provoked, long-suffering grace withheld. And now there is in the far country a famine. Health has failed; your post or employment Is lost; a dear friend, the desire of your eyes, has been taken away; and amidst the solitary musings of this desolate season, a still small voice keeps passing up and down the chambers of memory, and, in tones not unfamiliar, it recals the happier time. It is the voice of God. It says, ‘’ Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslldlngs;” and if you are wise you will at once arise and go.

You would fain arise, you say, but you cannot. You are in the arms of a giant. You are in the grasp of a strong and terrible temptation, which holds you fast and will not let you go. You have tried to escape, but it was sure to rush after you like an armed man, and strike you down, and carry you captive once more.

A mournful admission! and yet, if you are in earnest, you need not despair. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. When Alfieri’s literary ambition was effectually aroused, the great obstacle to progress was a worthless companion. Such was the sorcery of this man’s society, that books and vows withstood in vain; and scholarship, patriotism, literary distinction, would have been ignobly forfeited, had it not been for the iron will which a noble incentive supplies. Chained to his desk, at least bound to his chair, and with his hair cropped so as to cut off communion with the fashionable world, he pursued his studies, and in a few weeks the frenzy was thoroughly conquered. Hard was the fight, but it gained the laurel crown. Your aim is higher. More important interests cannot be conceived than those which your present infatuation imperils. Glory, honour, and immortality are now in your offer; God’s friendship here, and eternal life hereafter; and of all the wild exchanges which have ever been made since Esau sold the land of promise for a mess of pottage, yours will be the wildest, who for these mean and momentary delights cast away the joys of a deathless duration. Nor is there any need. For a hard conflict, a Hfe-or-death struggle, there may possibly be need; but there is no need for surrender. Stronger than Satan is the Son of God, and a struggle in His strength is sure to prevail; and as you would not have life’s remainder degraded, embittered; as you would not blush to meet that noble army of martyrs who resisted unto blood, striving against sin; as you would not in a lost eternity be the derision of devils and the victim of ceaseless self-upbraidings, — entreat the merciful help of the Most High, and from this moment forward shun the path of your destroyer; or should he from cunning ambush spring on you unawares, cry mightily to God, who is able to deliver, with a mind made up, that rather than sin it is good to suffer, it would be gain to die.

Says another, “I have arisen; at least I think I have. I would fain come to the Father, but I know not the way. It is now a long time since I first felt anxious about my state; but although I have never missed my prayers, and have read the Bible and many good books, I do not feel as if I had made much progress. I have no love to God, no enjoyment of religion. I sometimes despair of ever getting to the Father’s house, and I often feel as if, after all the pains I have taken, I had been only wandering up and down in the far country.”

All that we are told of the prodigal is, “He arose, and came to his father.” We are not told how many days or weeks were spent on the way home; but in the case of some it has proved a long and toilsome pilgrimage. From the moment that Augustine arose and left the swine-troughj it was six years before he found himself in the Father’s house; and fleeing from the wrath to come, energetic natures like Luther and Bunyan had to fight their path through months of toil and terror, and before they came to peace with God were wearied in the greatness of their way.

In such instances sovereign wisdom overruled for good the sharpness of the ordeal, the tedium of the journey; just as in the long-run it proved all the better for Israel that the fortnight’s march from Egypt to Canaan spread out into forty years. But if the traveller is ignorant or wayward — if he has no clear idea of the route, or wastes his time in desultory episodes and refuges of lies — a narrow interval may yield space sufficient for a weary irksome wandering.

And truly it is a narrow interval which divides the Father and the prodigal, the Saviour and the sinner. One day when Joseph Milner, the church historian, was preaching at Ferriby, near Hull, there was present in the audience a man fifty years of age, who had led a life of great and open wickedness. The. sermon was from the text, ‘’ The hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” The conscience of the old profligate was awakened. His life had been spent in doing evil, and at the prospect of the coming judgment he trembled. Of a Saviour he never thought, for he felt that sins like his could never be forgiven; and he could only wish that the race had been extinguished in Noah’s flood, so that he himself had never been. Weeks passed in misery. He tried to repent. He tried to soften that hard heart of his; but all in vain: it lay ‘’ like a ball of iron “within him. At last he called on the preacher, and as well as he could described his feelings. Mr. Milner listened, and then replied: ‘’ We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. In Christ’s stead we pray you, be ye reconciled to God.” He then added: ‘’ I now stand in St. Paul’s place, and I beg you to believe this invitation. I beg you to accept the pardon of all your sins, which Christ has purchased for you, and which God freely bestows on you for His sake.” William Howard stared. “Dear sir, how can I believe that God should invite a sinful wretch like me to be reconciled to him?” and although Mr. Milner pointed out the passage, and explained how God’s ways are not as our ways, he was by no means satisfied. He thought Mr. Milner’s copy of the Bible could hardly be correct; but when he went home, and in his own Testament read the self-same words, he sank into a sort of swoon of blissful wonder. Here on the one side was a hell-deserving wretch, a horrible transgressor: there on the other was the God of grace opening heaven’s door and inviting him to enter. That night was spent in singing the praises of the Saviour who had purchased his pardon, and the holy humble walk of his ten remaining years was another illustration of the truth, “■ There Is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”

Said one of our Scottish worthies, “I have seen a great wonder to-day. I found a woman in a state of nature, I saw her In a state of grace, and now she Is in a state of glory.” Were It given to every one to apprehend as clearly and appropriate as eagerly the blessings within their reach as this poor woman to whose bed-side the steps of the minister were directed, there would be few joyless lives, few tortuous, tiring, self-repeating pilgrimages. ‘’ I am the way,” says the Lord Jesus. “No man cometh to the Father but by me.” As soon as you place yourself in the Saviour’s hands, you are practically home. Faith in Christ is peace with God.

Some people once lived in a happy isle, but for their misdeeds were banished. The place of their exile, however, lay within sight of their former home. They could look across the channel and discern the beach, with its border of golden sand and the hills beyond, with their emerald slopes and cool snow-capped summits. Occasionally, too, in the stiller weather, they could hear voices from that land: the shout of happy playmates; the tinkling tune of browsing flocks, or the mellow peal summoning to welcome worship. Their own was a land of emptiness. From the brackish bog sprouted a few dingy weeds, and the glairy stems, or mallows among the bushes, were the food of the gaunt inhabitants. Few had any desire to leave, or any hope of bettering their condition. One exception we may notice. He was a thoughtful character. With those deep melancholy eyes, which take so much for granted, and which seldom kindle to the fullest — for they have looked the world through and through, and seen an end of all perfection — glimpses of a noble soul could at times be caught, as it climbed to the window of his wan and wistful countenance. Many an eager glance did he direct towards the Blessed Isle. Fain would he reach it. One morning, on waking, it struck him that the opposite coast was unusually near: so low was the tide that perhaps he might ford it, or at all events swim. So down through the swamp and over the dry shingle he posted; and then across the sad and solid sand, off which the gentle wavelets had folded, right athwart the wet stones and crackling fuci, where tiny streams of laggard water and crustaceans tumbling topsy-turvy in their crawling haste were trying to overtake the ocean: till abruptly met by the rising tide, he found to his dismay that, deep as was the ebb, the channel still was deeper. Disappointed here, he by-and-by bethought him of another plan. Westward of his dwelling the coast-line stretched away in successive cliffs and headlands, till it ended in a lofty promontory, which in its turn seemed to abut against the Happy Isle. Thither he made up his mind that he would take a pilgrimage. With slopes and swells, zigzags and windings, it turned out much farther than it looked; and when at last, foot-sore and staggering, he got to the summit, instead of a bridge to the Better Land, he found it a dizzy cliff, with the same relentless ocean weltering at its base. Baulked in this final effort, he went down and flung himself on the rocks and wept. It was during this paroxysm of vexation, that looking up he noticed a little boat, with whose appearance he was familiar. He was a little surprised to see it there, for he remembered that it used to ride exactly opposite his own habitation; although, belonging to no one in particular, and not having brought any of the commodities they cared for, he and the other inhabitants had never paid it much attention. Having now nothing else to do, he looked at it eagerly and somewhat wonderingly. It neared him. It came close up to the rocks where he was seated. It was a beautiful boat, with snowy sail and golden prow and a red pennon flying. There was one on board, and only one. His raiment was white and glistening, and his features were such as could only have come from the Happy Isle. “Son of man,” he said, “why weepest thou? “‘’ Because I cannot reach yonder blessed region.” “Couldst thou trust thyself to me?” The pilgrim looked, first at the little skiff and then at its benignant pilot, and said, “I can.” With that timid Yes, he stepped on board, and like a sunbeam, so swift, it bore him away from that dismal coast; and ere he could believe it, he was a denizen of the Happy Isle, breathing its immortal air; at home amidst its loveliness, and numbered with its citizens.

The happy isle is peace with God; the blessed state which man when sinless occupied. The dreary land is the state of alienation from the living God, in which, with joyless acquiescence, so many are living. And the little skiff — the only means of passing over from the one region to the other — is the atonement, the intercession of Jesus Christ. It is not by the headland of reformation that you will be able to attain the peace which passeth understanding; nor will you be able to ford the channel even when the tide of worldliness and sin runs lowest. Your repentance, your self-amendment, will not suffice; but peace with God is a gift from God, and He who bought it with His blood, in the gospel brings it to your door. Be thankful. You cannot build your own bridge, nor swim the great gulf: be thankful for the transporting medium divinely provided and divinely sent. Be thankful for this ark of salvation and its friendly pilot. That pilot is the true Elder Brother, and to trust yourself to Him is to make the instant transition from the far country to the Father s arms. There, and in His royal resources, you will find amply supplied all which you this moment lack: the robe of a spotless righteousness; the ring which tells of a restored inheritance; and shoes, the badge of freedom, ‘’the preparation of the Gospel of peace,” with joyful alacrity winging the feet, and enabling you to walk at liberty.