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
