IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.

Sermons Preached in Marlborough College.

I-STANDING BEFORE GOD.

DEUT. xxix. 10.

“Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God."

So spake Moses, the strong and patient servant of God, in one of those powerful addresses with which the Book of Deuteronomy is filled. They were uttered at the close of the wanderings in the wilderness, when the prophet was already old; but as the one hundred and twenty years of his marvellous life had not dimmed his eye or abated his natural force, so neither had the cares and sorrows of a dread responsibility quenched the fire of his words or the force of his convictions. Disappointed of the high reward for which his soul had longed, suffered only to see the Holy Land which he had once hoped that his feet should tread, he still remained faithful and tender, and wavered neither in his allegiance to God nor in his love to man. Unselfish to the last, the old chieftain summoned around him the children of his heart; and as the captains of the tribes, and elders, and officers, and all the men of Israel, nay, even their little

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ones, and the hewers of wood and drawers of water, sat listening at his feet, he reiterated again and again, in language which must have smitten their hearts like the thunders of Sinai, the blessings and curses, the sanctions and prohibitions of the fiery law! And then, inviting them to bind their souls with a sacred covenant, he prefaces it with these words of solemn import: “Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God."

Intense in their significance-fresh in their solemnity ---as when Moses uttered them to the listening multitudes on the farther shores of Jordan, the echo of those warning words rolls to us across the centuries. They express the formative principle, the regulating conception, the inspiring impulse of every greatly Christian life. The very differentia of such a life, that is, its distinguishing feature,-is this, that it is spent always and consciously in the presence of God.

"It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,

Towards which Time leads us, and the will of heaven.
All is if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."

And in proportion to our faith is the vividness and reality wherewith, like Moses, we see God-like Enoch walk, like Abraham converse, like Jacob wrestle with Him, like Elijah thrill to the inward whisper of His still small voice. There are, indeed, some eyes so dim that they catch no gleam of His Presence; some ears so dull that they never hear the music or the thunder of His voice; and there are moments when even to the best of men He seems silent or far off. But when the eyes are opened by prayer and penitence, when the ear is purged by listening humbly for the revelation of His will, then all life, all nature, all history, are full of Him.

Then, Conscience, speak she never so faintly, becomes His articulate utterance. Then Experience, seem it never so perplexing, is but the unknown pattern which He is weaving into the web of our little lives. Then even amid the crash of falling dynasties, and the struggles of furious nations, we see His guiding hand. Then the great open book of the universe reveals Him on every page, while, legibly as on the tables of Moses, He engraves His name upon the rock tablets of the world; and clearly as on the palace wall of Belshazzar, He letters it in fire amid the stars of heaven, in flowers among the fields of spring. But whether we see or see not, whether we hear or hear not, whether conscience and life be voiceful to us or silent, assuredly He is and He speaks to us; assuredly not this day only, but every day, we stand each and all of us before the Lord our God.

I. Let us first strive, my brethren, to recognise the fact, and then to consider its consequences. By recognising the fact I mean that we should endeavour to impress it on our thoughts; to make it not only theoretical, but intensely practical; to realize it as the principle of action, to build upon it as the basis of life. Oh, on this first Sunday of a new half-year let every one of us, from the oldest to the youngest, strive to feel and know that God is; that He is the rewarder of all them that diligently seek Him; that every sin we commit is committed in His presence; that His eye is always upon us, never slumbering nor sleeping: in the busy scenes of day about our path; in the silent watches of the night about our bed. Who, my brethren, whether in defiance or in terror, whether in prosperity or in despair, ever succeeded in concealing himself from God? Adam in his shame and nakedness strove to hide himself among the garden trees, and that Voice called him forth. Cain

would have fled from Him into the land of exile, but even there he felt the branding finger upon his brow. Hagar despaired of Him, and lo, His angel of mercy shone before her at the Beerlahairoi. Jonah rose to flee from Him in ships of Tarshish, and met Him in the shattered vessel, on the tempestuous sea. He flashed upon the dreams of Jacob, in a vision of forgiveness, as he slept on the rocky stairs of the steep hill-side. "Whither," sang David the guilty adulterer, David the weeping penitent, "whither shall I go then from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I go then from Thy presence? If I climb up to heaven, Thou art there; if I go down to hell, Thou art there also; if I take the wings of the morning and abide in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall guide me."

Yes, "Thou, God, seest me!" And when we have felt this truth, how does the thought affect us? what is its meaning for us? Does it inspire us with love, or with hatred? with comfort, or with despair?

II. (1.) Our first lesson from it, my brethren, is a sense of warning. Surely there is a warning--for the forgetful a startling, for the guilty a terrible, even for the good man a very solemn warning, in the thought that not only our life in its every incident, but even our heart in its inmost secrets, lies naked and open before Him with whom we have to do. When we remember that He, who chargeth even His angels with folly, and in whose sight the very heavens are not clean, is always with us; that the very loneliest solitudes are peopled with His presence; that walls do not hide, nor inner-chambers conceal us from Him; that the deepest curtains of secrecy and midnight are to Him transparent as the blaze of noon, are we indeed so pure and innocent, is the

white robe of our baptism so utterly unstained, that there is no warning for us in that thought? If the Gadarenes, anxious for their swine, could flock to Christ to entreat that He would depart out of their coasts; if even St. Peter, troubled by the sudden apocalypse of His tenderness and power, could fall at His feet, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord;" must there not be a similar repugnance and alarm in every willingly sinful soul? Oh if there be such alarm in your soul, be warned in time. If you hate, if you are terrified by the thought of God's perpetual presence, then be sure that there must be some deep disharmony in your being, and be sure that, while this continues, you cannot be fulfilling the law of your creation, you cannot be at peace with God.

(2.) But we, my brethren, are Christians; it ought not to be so, I trust that it is not so, with us, for to all who have learnt to love and to trust in God, the thought that we stand before Him involves not only a sense of warning, but, secondly, a sense of elevation, of ennoblement. It is a sweet and a lofty doctrine, the highest source of all the dignity and grandeur of life. It is the very thing which distinguishes us from the beasts that perish. They, so far as we know, feel no responsibility, rise to no worship, attain no knowledge, cherish no hope for the future, and but a dull, blind memory of the past; until, their unimmortal but sinless destiny being accomplished,

But man, how different a life is his!

"How noble

in reason how infinite in faculty in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like.