feet may be firm

still breast high.

upon it even while the waves are

Such be the peace in Christ which shall make all of our lives strong through all their struggle, until at last we enter into that rest which remaineth for the people of God.

VIII.

COME AND SEE.

66 Philip saith unto him, 'Come and See."" JOHN i. 46.

TWICE in the same chapter these same words, "Come and See," are spoken. Once they are the reply of Jesus to two of John's disciples, who having heard John speak of Him, are following Him, and when He turns and sees them ask Him, "Rabbi, where dwellest thou?" Again, they are the words of Philip, who having himself become the disciple of Jesus, findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Then Philip saith unto him, Come and see." And these words, thus twice repeated, are characteristic words of Christianity. They have a ring about them that belongs to all our religion. "Come and see!" They invite inquiry. They proclaim a religion which is to have its own clear tests, which it invites every one to use. It is an open faith. It will do nothing in a corner. It will be recognizable in its workings by men's ordinary perceptions. I need not remind you, if you know your Bibles, how common such appeals are everywhere. "Try the spirits whether they be

K

of God." "Prove all things." "Go and tell what things ye see and hear." "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." There are institutions that shut their doors and windows, and say to the world of ordinary men, "You can know nothing of what goes on in here. If you come in you must come in blindfold, and let yourself be led, and examine nothing. There are no tests within your power-you must just be blind and obey." Christianity, however she may have been misrepresented sometimes, has no such tone as that; but everywhere she throws the doors of her secret places, of her most sacred doctrine and her holiest character, wide open, and cries to all men as to beings who in the healthy use of their human faculties are capable of judging, "Come and see." In that call she strikes the keynote of intelligent, and so of truly devout religion.

It is the necessity of Christianity thus to appeal to the observation of men. She openly declares that she seeks certain moral results of which men are able to judge. Think how Christ came into the world bringing the mysterious life of a higher world with Him! He told plainly what He came for. It was to renew men's spiritual life. It was to make men better. It was to save His people from their sins. There were profounder and more mystic aspects of salvation, subtle and exalted experiences, serene and sacred emotions, into which He offered to lead His followers, where the ordinary eyes of men were not prepared to follow them; but every statement of His purpose involved this as preliminary to everything beside. That His disciples should first of all become

different men in those things which other men could see and understand, that they should be braver, truer, humbler, purer. A pure philosophy or a pure mysticism, dealing only in abstract thought or feeling, has no test for ordinary men. They cannot tell whether it is true or false. But a religion which must make men's lives different, must change characters, or be a failure, has to be always open to men's judgment. It has to work its miracles in the light. It has to take its man or its generation, and standing out on a platform where there can be no concealment and no jugglery and to say, "See, I will make this man into this different man. I will make this bad man into this good man ;" and all the world knows whether the experiment succeeds or fails. The test is in the hands of every man who knows the difference between good living and bad living. She cannot fall back upon certain unintelligible experiences, certain unseen changes which she says have taken place in her subject but do not show themselves upon the outside. If they do not show themselves on the outside they are unreal. They are such in their very nature that if they are real they must show themselves on the outside. If the magician stands before me on the stage and points to a lion or a dog and says, "I will change this brute into a man," I have the test in my own eyes. It will not do for him to say while I see the brute still standing brutishly there, "Oh, but the substance is changed too deep for you to see, and that the old form remains the same is nothing." A changed form must betoken the changed substance. I must see the upright figure

and watch the intelligent eye, and hear the articulate voice of manhood, or it is no man there is no miracle. So Christianity by its very necessity is compelled to be judged of men.

I should like to speak to-night of some of the general principles of truth-seeking and truth-getting, first in themselves, and then in their relation to Christianity. It is the subject that is suggested by this invitation to observation and experiment, this "Come and see" of the convinced disciple, Philip.

There are, then, two great methods by which men arrive at the knowledge of truth. One is the method of authority and the other the method of experience. I know what I know either because some one has told me of it, or because I have observed it for myself. To say nothing of the comparative trustworthiness of the two methods, everybody can feel the superior vividness of the second. What I see for myself is so much more real and vital than what I hear from another. The best teacher is always he who says, "Come and see." The brilliant lecturer on the laws of light stands at his desk, and in the choicest and clearest English describes to me the action or the composition of the ray, and I think I know all about it; but suddenly he turns to his instrument and makes me see the ray of light doing its action or unfolding into its constituents, and my knowledge is of a new sort. The method of authority has been changed for the method of experience. We are like the Samaritans who said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard Him ourselves."