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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1899)
184 man than to make trouble, and to kindle a flame especially between two good men and between two friends, and then when the fire is burning, the mean wretch warms his hands at it. Now is the chance, they said, and we will go to John. “John,” they said, “what about Jesus now? Thou didst say He was the Messiah. Thou didst tell people to honor him. They are honor- ing Him. Unless you are mistaken, your own disciples are leaving you and going to Jesus. What about Jesus now?’ Have you ever, this in a paren- thesis, have you ever seen good in a man, when other people have not seen it? Have you ever prophesied that that man is going to succeed, and to take a high place, and have you seen him take a higher place than you, while you fell into the shadow! And then did you feel exactly toward the man as before? That is a severe test of character. You praised him before, when you found reason; now when he is higher than you, are you still praising him? JOHN’S ANSWER. They didn’t understand John. They measured John by their own petty, miserable pharisaical souls, full of envy, bitterness and. jealousy. And John turned onthem. ‘‘Now,” he said, “TI will prove my case out of your own mouths. Did I not say He was greater! Am not I right, and is not He greater than I ever imagined? I tell you He is the bridegroom.” O, patheticimage! Here is a man who denied himself the chief good of life, of earthly life, which is a pure woman’s love. He denied himself that. For him there was no woman’s love, no children, no home. Do you think he didn’t feel that? Why did he speak about the bridegroom? “He is the bridegroom,” he said, “and I, what am I? I am the bride- groom’s man, finding all joy in his foot- steps. Does He increase? That is right, let him be greater every day. Do I decrease? That is right, let me be forgotten—the bridegroom’s friend!”’ How can you tempt a man like that? The highest arrow of fiery temptation you fly, falls low beneath the feet of such an heroic and magnanimous spirit. That is John. But he died. He had a work to do and he did it. He had to tell Herod of a sin and he did it. Of all the con- temptible wretches in Holy Scripture, and I do not even except Judas Iscariot (the character of Judas is quite a prob- lem at times), Herod Antipas stands alone in the New Testament. He was the son of a great and a bad‘man. For himself he kept his father’s vices and had none of his father’s ability. He offered the last insult to the Arabian princess, his wife, and carried on a disgraceful in- trigue in his parents’ house He be- headed John the Baptist, because he was afraid of John; he was afraid of people, of ghosts; afraid of everything but sin and God. He was a little, petty, mis- erable Nero; a bundle of mean vices. John had finished his work with Jesus, but while confined he lifted up his voice against Herod Antipas. Then, of course, what happened was inevitable. You cannot terrify John, and Herod could not-answer John, and therefore he put him into prison and sentenced him to death. If a man tells the truth, the man who is condemned by that truth wants, if possible, to put him to death. : : A CAGED EAGLE. So John landed’ in prison. strong nature and a wealth of moral power, difficult perhaps to appreciate. But I daresay that here, in this Uni- versity, with your distinguished, and splendidly distinguished athletic train- ing, you will be able to enter into the spirit of John. John was virtually a Bedouin of the deserts; a man who did not live in houses, but in the open air; “a man whose whole body was in a high state of physical training. You take that man out of the open air and put him in - a dungeon. He has lost now all this fresh air; the sight of the water running over the ford of Jordan—he has lost the sound of the birds at the side of the banks; the sight of the rising and set-. ting sun; his lungs lose their power; the confinement acts upon the soul. He is utterly miserable, restless; and then his soul gets into trouble, and I don’t wonder at it. . felode °)6 ARI IVEIN GE 118 455.a-. As he sits in the dungeon without fresh air and without exercise, as he sits. there a caged eagle—and a tragical, miserable pitiable thing is a caged eagle—he begins to ask questions. Here am I, and I don’t regret that I am here, for I told the truth and I don’t mind if I am here, if the kingdom of God is succeeding! And I don’t care if I must suffer. But what about Christ? I hear that He is in Galilee and that He is not suffering. He is eating and drinking with publicans and sinners. He is associating with Phari- sees and rulers. John didn’t mind, if he put his body down on the road to make a smooth place for the chariot of God to go over, but why should he be in a dungeon and Jesus be living at ease in Galilee? If Jesus raised the standard, John would follow him and die with him. Why was Jesus living as he was living and why was he in the dungeon? I offer no apology, as some people do from the pulpit sometimes—and I think I have read these apologies in books—for this, as you may call it, lapse of faith, in John. lose faith? Elijah himself lost faith once and Jesus was once crying, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me’’? He was only right to be cast down. For if a man is not cast down, when he sees iniquity on a throne and right- eousness in a dungeon; if he is not cast down when the world is gaining and the kingdom of God is losing, and if, under these circumstances, he doesn’t ask “‘where is God?” then I don’t think he cares much about righteousness and. the things of God. It was because John didn’t care two straws about himself, but did care about the kingdom, that he was concerned. He said to Jesus: “Master, have I made a mistake? I believe that Thou art the Messiah. If Thou art the Messiah, tell me and I am satisfied. But don’t leave me in doubt in this dungeon, at the-close of my life, when I have given everything I have to the kingdom of God.” When Jesus John, he paid a noble tribute to John. If Jesus had been sending a message to some of us ordinary men, it would not have been couched in the same terms. He would have said: “My servant, do not be cast down, because thou art in a dungeon; for thy time is short. Do not lose hope, for thou shalt soon have thy reward, and in the meantime thou hast my sympathy.” That is the way an ordinary man is cheered up. We can’t stand dungeons long. We cannot help feeling sorry about ourselves when we do not succeed. Ordinary people feel like that? But Jesus did not send a message like that to John. What did John care about dungeons? He didn’t care about anything except the king- dom of God! Jesus said: “I answer your heart. I don’t mind your fetters, I answer your heart. I send you back upon Isaiah, your favorite prophet and mine.” Jesus said: “Tell John what you have seen. Tell him you have seen sick men made whole; you have seen bad men made good;. the beginning of a new state that will be far greater than the Roman empire, a state that will stand in the strength of love and righteousness. Tell him that. What more? Nothing more, that’s enough for John, I know my servant. There will be no more dungeons, no more complaints when you carry back my message.” THE TRIBUTE OF JESUS. And as He sent them away carrying this message, He paid a high tribute to the nobility of John’s character. It seems as though Jesus could not con- tain himself. I do not want you to think I am exaggerating. He could not contain himself, when He thought of that man. You know our Lord never allowed Himself to fall or rise, however you may call it, into rhetoric; always speaking simply and plainly and very seldom using rhetorical meanings to excite attention or passion. But on two occasions He did so, and it seems to me deliberately; once in His terrible invective against the Pharisees—‘“Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees”; and the other time when He delivered the eulogy of John. The first was the pas- sion of detestation. The second, the passion of admiration. There is great art in his eulogium, for Jestis deliberately set himself to work the people up into a white heat What if he did sent the message to. shouted out: WE Ea cee ee over John the Baptist. He looked at the people. They used to go a long distance to hear John. He was the ideal of their hearts. He looked at them and he said: ‘Whom did ye go out to see?” And there was a silence over all the people. “Did ye go out to see a reed, like one of the reeds on the banks of the Jordan, shaken by every little puff of popular applause; beaten down by every storm of popular disapprobation?” Then He _ paused. There are questions that need no an- swer. There are questions that come back with a rebound of answer from the heart. John a reed! John was a mighty water, like the flood of Jordan that washed the reeds away. John was a mighty wind, before which even Scribes- and Pharisees bent. All the people lifted up their heads and every man straightened himself, and every man looked at his neighbor and all seemed to say fnside of their hearts, “Amen! That is John!” And then as I take it, there is a pause. And Jesus begins again. “Whom did ye go out to see? A man in soft clothes, like one of Herod’s perfumed courtiers, who lie on ivory couches and wear the purple and eat fine banquets and live luxuri- ously?” A ‘pause again. Then the people saw John rise before them, with his rough garb, eating his loathsome locust food, lying on his earthen bed, with his thin worn face, the very type of self-abnegation. Why I think you know there were tears in the hearts of all the people. They thought of this man, who had literally lifted them in his arms and carried them to the very gates of the kingdom of God by the sacrifice of everything that was dear to him. A man in soft clothing? Then the real John stood up, and the people said to themselves, ‘““Amen! that is John! that is John!” Jesus was not yet done. He began again. He wanted them to feel all he had to say; but the people, as I read the story, could not stand it longer. This was unendurable. He had so inflamed the hearts of the people that they could not keep quiet and a man “Whom did we go to seer A prophet! a prophet!”- And from a different place came the cry of “a prophet, a prophet,” and from an- other place, “a prophet, a prophet,” and from still another, “a prophet,” and from all through the throng, the one word rang. The greatest name you could give a man, in comparison with which the name of priest can not be mentioned, nor the name of king, nor even the name of statesman. The _ greatest name—Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, all prophets. Then Jesus looked at the people. He was almost satisfied, but not quite. “A prophet? You are right. But greater than any prophet. The prophet saw me afar off, but this man ran before my face. The prophets suffered for me, but this man laid himself down that my chariot might roll over his body.” There will be people who shall know more than John—they will have su- periority of knowledge, but, said Jesus, a man will not be born who will be greater than John in character, and superiority of character is the crown of life. Do you take in the worthiness of that judgment? Do you understand what that means? There is Herod, a king, a powerful man. The oppress- ing splendor of his palace stretched its long shadow across Galilee. Do you see it? Are you envious? Do you envy to-day any modern Herod in his splendor and wealth and power? There is John without a home, without a friend, in a dungeon, about to die, at the bidding of a wanton, and to be buried out of sight. You see him? A man who devoted himself to the great- est things of God, putting self aside, content to do God’s bidding. Which would you rather be? What would any man of Galilee have said if you had asked him? What would you have said? Would you rather stand. in Herod’s shoes, or in the shoes of John © the Baptist? Who has succeeded, John the Baptist or Herod Antipas? What would you have said? Would you rather have been upstairs with Herod in the banquet hall or downstairs with John in the dungeon? There is only one judgment upon that. We can make no mistake about the past, for the judgment has been given by the judge of the whole world. Who succeeded? Why, the Son of God rose off his throne that day, because he could not sit in quietness—he rose from his throne in an absolute enthu- siasm of delight and approbation and pronounced judgment upon John the Baptist. When Jesus said the greatest among men, the light of Heaven filled that dungeon, though John did not see it, and the walls of the dungeon passed away, and over his modest, unconscious, self-regardless life, the angels of AI- mighty God stood—I do not say in ad- miration of Him, but I will say in holy and beautiful approbation. Whe Evening Meeting. It was practically impossible for any but undergraduates to get into Dwight Hall in the evening. And students who were not very forehanded could find no seats. At this service Dr. Watson was introduced by Prof. George P. Fisher, who is his host in New Haven, as fol- lows: PROF. FISHER’S INTRODUCTION. I am sure, gentlemen, that we regard it as particularly kind of Dr. Watson, after a long and very tempestuous voy- ‘age, not only to undertake the services in the Chapel this morning, but to meet with us and to speak to us here to-night. There are various ties that unite us with our friend who is present with us. There is the tie which binds the reader to the author. But authors are of very different sorts. There are many writers of books whom we honor but for whom we have no other feeling, perhaps. There are other writers whom we honor and love; who put their hearts into their books, as well as their minds, and to whom, therefore, we always feel that we are bound by the ties of affec- tion. Then, through Dr. Watson, we are connected with a band of men, a small band of men, in Scotland (or all, or nearly all of them are Scotchmen by birth) who know how to unite the Evangelical faith, in its true character, with the representation of it that is adapted to the minds of men now, and to bring it home to the bosoms and the business of those to whom it is ad- dressed. You have all heard of Mr. Drum- mond, whose life has been written by Prof. George Adam Smith, whom we shall have the pleasure of hearing, many of us, deliver a course of lectures in the Divinity School, a few weeks hence. It is this group of men who inspire us with a special interest and regard. But Dr. Watson does not come to us now as a stranger. He comes back to us as a son of Yale, enrolled on the list of our alumni, and it is a grateful thought, I am sure, to all of us, that he is one of this great and wide-spreading brotherhood of Yale men. But I must not detain you. You have come to hear him, and not me, I have now the pleas~ ure of introducing to you Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson’s “talk to the boys’ was very direct and earnest and he held the most minute attention of all. He spoke as follows: Professor, Dr. Dwight, and Gentle- men: Before I say a few words upon the subject that I thought this even- ing might not be unsuitable, I should like to acknowledge with gratitude the very courteous and more than courte- ous, and very cordial introduction of my revered friend the Dean of the Divinity Faculty, to whose kindness I owed so much more than two years ago when I had the honor to lecture in that Faculty. May I say in all sincerity that the de- gree which I received from this Uni- versity I count as a very great distinc- tion, and that from time to time, espe- cially in the Summer time when your compatriots visit Liverpool and are present in considerable numbers in my own church, I take the opportunity— as we wear ‘hoods in the pulpit—I take the opportunity of wearing from time to time the Yale Divinity hood. It is now thoroughly familiar to my people, and it always enables me to stand in my vestry, at least an inch higher, when | am shaking hands with someone from the other side of the Atlantic, to be able to say that I am a Yale man. Often it happens that my visitor is also a Yale man and then there is what you might call a celebration. And when he is good enough to go home with me for dinner, we go over
