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CONVERSATIONS 

WITH 

CHRIST 



BISHOP NEWMAN 



KKaQ0«BBS56HM0M 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. ________ Copyright No. 

T£TN* 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



! 



Conversations 

with Christ 



By 

John Philip Newman, D.D., LL.D. 

Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church 



Member of the London Society of Biblical Archaeology ; Author 

of "Thrones and Palaces of Babylon and Nineveh ; " "From 

Dan to Beersheba ; " " Christianity Triumphant ; " 

"Supremacy of Law ; " etc., etc. 



Press of 
EATON & MAINS 

New York 



TWO COPIES HtCElVED, 



Library of Ce figr ?9« % -&] $ ^P 

APR ] i 1800 

Kegnttr of Copyright* 



60071 



Copyright, 1900, by 

Mrs. J. P. Newman 
Saratoga, N. Y. 



SECOND COPY, 



DEDICATED 



The Honorable Matthew G. Emery 

The President of the Board of Trustees of the 
Metropolitan Memorial Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, Washington, D. C. 

from its organization, and the only surviving trustee of the 
original Board 

He was an honorary pallbearer at Bishop Newman's 
funeral, Saratoga. July 8, 1899 



INTRODUCTION 



EXECUTIVE MANSION. 

WASHINGTON^ 



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The following is the last official invitation proffered 

BISHOP NEWMAN. 

It was beautifully embossed and forwarded to San 
Francisco, California, his episcopal residence, but did not 
reach Saratoga (his summer home) until after he had 
passed from earth. It reads thus : 



The United States Government Building, 
Chicago. 

To Bishop John P. Newman. 
Greeting : 

The people of Chicago request the honor of your 
presence to assist the President in the ceremonies of lay- 
ing the corner stone of the United States Government 
Building in that city, on Monday, October ninth, eighteen 
hundred and ninety-nine. 

John P. Tanner, Carter H. Harrison, 

Governor of Illinois. Mayor of Chicago. 

Charles U. Gordon, William P. Williams, 
Chairman Gen. Com. Secretary Gen. Com. 

Peter Stenger Grosscup, Thos. C MacMillan, 
Chairman Inv. Com. Secretary Inv. Com. 



CONTENTS 



CHRIST'S CONVERSATIONS: 

PAGE 

I. With the Doctors and with His Mother 17 

II. With the Pharisees Touching His Age 25 

III. With Satan 49 

IV. With His Friends 73 

V. With a Lawyer 97 

VI. With a Rich Nobleman 123 

VII. With a Woman 145 

VIII. With the Sadducees 167 

IX. With a Dying Man 185 

X. With Spirits 207 

XI. On Heaven . .. 227 

XII. With Twelve Apostles 251 



No one can adequately analyze the character of Christ. 
Even St. Paul, in all the grandeur of his diction, could 
not. We must leave the equation with the Almighty. 



Christ's biography would have to be written with an 
alphabet, the alpha of which no human voice ever re- 
peated, the omega of which no mortal tongue would 
ever know how to speak. 



" Jesus Christ the same yesterday and forever." 




THORWALDSEN'S STATUE OF CHRIST. 

This was taken from the original statue 



STATUE OF CHRIST 



I j*ROM Bishop Newman's journal we take 
-^ the following paragraph : " In Rome, hard 
by the Capitoline Hill, is a little church, and in 
that church is one of the most marvelous prod- 
ucts of the chisel. It is Thorwaldsen's statue 
of Christ. Into his studio he brought a piece of 
Parian marble, which was without form or come- 
liness. Folding his arms upon his breast, he 
looked upon that uncomely marble, and in his 
mind there was the ideal of a marble Christ, 
such as never was in the imagination of any 
other artist ; then with chisel and hammer he 
began his work. At first the work was rough, 
but as the sculptor advanced hope inspired 
genius to the finishing touches. When the 
form was finished, half doubtful of his success, 
he threw a canvas over it. He must have a test, 
when it occurred to him to call his little girl, 
whom he had brought up in the admonition of 
the Lord — but had never seen the statue : sud- 



14 Statue of Christ 

denly unvailing the figure, he caught the little 
girl in his arms, and asked, ' My child, who is 
that?' The blue eyes of the little one gazed 
with rapture upon the marvelous piece of statu- 
ary, and then folding her tiny hands in adoring 
admiration, exclaimed, ' I do not know exactly, 
my father, but it seems so like our Saviour!' 

" It is a wonderful work and fills the world of 
art with admiration. 

" The veritable Christ was in touch with the 
child life. 

" If, therefore, I would help to enthrone Christ 
in the world, I must first enthrone him in my 
own heart and life, and thus become a living, 
walking, talking Christ." 




This portrait has never before appeared. It is taken from the large oil 
painting by Theodore Pine in the gallery of portraits in the chapel at i» 
Fifth Avenue, New York City. At the age of fifty-eight years 



SALUTATION 



C^ REAT men are distinguished for their 
.X conversations. The eminent expounders 
of law, philosophy, and religion have been col- 
loquial in their best estates. The colloquies of 
Zoroaster contain the substance of all that was 
taught by that wonderful man. It was the 
habit of the venerable Buddha to sit beneath 
the shade trees of India and converse with his 
disciples, and the contents of the sacred books 
of the Buddhists are the expressions of those 
interviews. In familiar intercourse with his 
followers Confucius taught his moral and 
philosophical theories, now esteemed divine 
throughout the Celestial Empire. And the 
classical scholar recalls the dialogues of Plato 
in the Academy, the face-to-face discussions of 
Socrates in the Agora, the sayings of Aristotle 
of Stageira, and the discourses of the peripatetic 
philosophers who taught their pupils in the 
streets of Athens and along the highways of 
Greece. 

More than a hundred interviews between 
Christ and the people are recorded by his four 
biographers. Some are brief — a question and 
an answer ; others were continued for a night. 



1 6 Salutation 

They were held with kings, priests, and judges ; 
with friends and foes; with scoffers and inquirers; 
with individuals and multitudes; with God, 
angels, and devils. These writers have trans- 
mitted to us six hundred and twenty of his 
discourses ; some brief like a monosyllable, as 
"Go," "Come," " Ephphatha ; the longest 
contains two thousand four hundred and thirty- 
nine words. Not less than three hundred and 
thirty-one addresses were made to him, many 
of them of a word, as " Master," " Legion," 
" No ; " and one of a hundred and thirty-four 
words, which fell from the lips of his astonished 
friends whom he chanced to meet on the way 
to Emmaus. More than a hundred questions 
were asked him, full of thoughts common to us 
all, relating to his origin, age, person, charac- 
ter, and mission ; others to human duty, char- 
acter, destiny, life, death, and immortality ; not 
a few of them projected far into the future, to 
angels, good and bad ; to our departed friends, 
where are they, their employment, and their 
return to us. Such questions have vexed the 
souls of the wisest and best of our race, and 
vex us to-day. Would that he had answered 
them. Did he throw more light on these dark 
problems than another? Dear friends, give 
me your thoughtful, prayerful attention in the 
following- conversations: 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 
CHRIST 



i 



Christ's Conversations with the Doctors 
and with His Mother 

" My son, I have sought thee sorrowing." 

" How is it that ye sought me ? " — Luke ii, 48, 49. 

" Both hearing them and asking them questions." — Luke ii, 46. 

Some master mind is yet to give to the world 
a monograph upon the intellect of Christ. The 
splendor of his moral character has thrown 
into the shade the magnificence of his intellec- 
tuality. At the time his parents brought 
him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, 
St. Luke writes, the child grew, and waxed 
strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the 
grace of God was upon him. Later St. John 
writes that even his enemies said : "Never spake 
man like this man." St. Paul declares that "in 
him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 

knowledge;" and again to the Corinthians: 
2 17 



Conversations with Christ 

"Cast down imaginations and every high thing 
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of 
God, and bringing into captivity every thought 
to the obedience of Christ." What a mono- 
graph it would be could one be devoted to the 
thought life of Jesus! In his discourses and 
parables and conversations he condensed all 
truth and illustrated all virtues and vices. 

Professor Sayce, in his recent work on "The 
Monuments," has made the bold statement that 
the age of Moses was the most intellectual in 
the history of the world. The best of the 
Greeks were accustomed to go to the Univer- 
sity of On, on the banks of the Nile, when 
Egypt was the intellectual center of the world. 

It is equally true that Palestine was re- 
nowned for its universities. There was one 
at Jerusalem, one at Safet, and one at Tiberias. 
The one in Jerusalem was the most renowned. 
It is a thought as beautiful as true that 
St. Paul, John the Baptist, John the beloved 
disciple, and the young Messiah were con- 
temporaries ; and we have good reason for as- 
serting that they were all students in the uni- 
versity at Jerusalem. St. Paul sat at the feet 
of Gamaliel and was in the department of 
law, while the other three were students of 

rabbinical jurisprudence. 
18 



Conversations with Christ 

The boy Jesus was not inclined to return to 
Nazareth with his parents, and was subsequent- 
ly found, after three days, in the temple sitting 
in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them 
and asking them questions, and all that heard 
him were astonished at his understanding and 
answers. Would that somewhere amid buried 
or hidden archives these questions and answers 
might come to the light of our day inscribed on 
parchment, scroll, or papyrus ! 

His was a miraculous birth; his mother 
was a Jewish virgin, his father was God. Born 
in the reign of Herod the Great, his birthplace 
was Bethlehem, a quiet little Jewish city nes- 
tling amid the everlasting hills. At the age of 
eight days he was circumcised, and received 
his significant name Jesus the Saviour of man- 
kind. Thirty-two days thereafter he was car- 
ried to Jerusalem and presented to the high 
priest, according to the Levitical law. 

Twelve years now passed away, and we 
again hear of Jesus and the holy family. We 
are indebted to St. Luke for this fragment of 
history in the form of a biographical sketch. 
His parents, thoroughly Jewish in their faith 
and profound in their religious convictions, 
annually visited Jerusalem to celebrate the 
passover. Whether Jesus had gone with 



Conversations with Christ 

them on former occasions is not stated. 
But on the anniversary of his twelfth 
year he accompanied themi, and after they 
had remained, according to the Jewish custom, 
eight days in the city, the family in company 
with a vast caravan of travelers returned to 
Nazareth. Probably Joseph and Mary had 
reached Shiloh, a good day's journey from the 
Holy City, when, as the shades of night gath- 
ered around them, Mary turned to inquire for 
her darling boy, her only child, but he was 
missing. It is customary in the East in these 
caravans for the women to journey by them- 
selves and the men by themselves. Perhaps 
Mary, looking around among the women 
and not seeing Jesus, supposed he was with 
his father among the men. Joseph, looking 
around among the men and missing Jesus, 
supposed that he was with Mary's kinsfolk. 
But, alas! as they reached Shiloh — memo- 
rable in its history as connected with Eli and 
Samuel — as the shades of night came upon 
that ancient village, they with the profoundest 
solicitude inquired for their son. What a 
moment of anxiety must it have been for 
Joseph and Mary, especially for the latter! 
Have you ever lost a child? If you have, 
you can rise to a conception of the keen so- 

20 



Conversations with Christ 

licitude and the deep anxiety felt by those 
parental hearts. The next day they retraced 
their steps, and on the third day, entering the 
temple, there with other children sat the 
youth Jesus, a boy of twelve summers, listen- 
ing to the Jewish rabbis expounding the law, 
and in turn asking questions. Certainly he 
was not there as a catechumen; he was not 
there merely as a learner, for it is evident that 
his mind was more thoroughly and richly 
stored with biblical knowledge than those 
rabbis whose phylacteries were broad and 
who boasted of their intimate acquaintance 
with the Holy Scriptures. Wondrous scene 
indeed ! Were those rabbis ignorant that they 
needed instruction from a youth of such tender 
years? Were they sufficiently humble to re- 
ceive wisdom from such a boy? Josephus re- 
cords it himself. He says that when but four- 
teen years old the Jewish priests together with 
the rabbis were accustomed to come to 
his house to inquire of him touching 
the important questions as to the Jewish 
law and worship. If this be true, then 
we may suppose that those rabbis were not 
humble, but that they were weak-minded and 
ignorant. Among these Jewish rabbis stood 
this fair-haired boy. His answers to their 



Conversations with Christ 

questions arrested their attention, and the in- 
terrogations that he put to their understand- 
ings confounded them and elicited their ad- 
miration. There his parents found him. In 
a gentle voice and in a gentle manner Mary 
for the first time chided him. Did she ever 
again have occasion to chide him? I trow not. 
How gentle his reply to his mother ! No frown 
was upon his brow, no excitement in his voice, 
hut speaking with clearness and directness, 
he said : "I have been in my Father's house. 
Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business? I have been here among these Jew- 
ish rabbis unfolding to them the law and the 
prophets. It is my Father's business, and I 
have been in his house." This is the first con- 
versation of Jesus recorded in the Bible. In 
this one laconic sentence he bequeathed to the 
world the grandest truth ever uttered: the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man. 

22 



" With thee conversing, I forget all time." 
Line 29, Book IV. —Milton. 



" The perfection of conversation is not to play a regu- 
lar sonata, but, like the ^Eolian harp, to await the inspira- 
tion of the passing breeze." — Burke. 



"With him sweet converse I maintain ; 

Great as he is I dare be free ; 
I tell him all my grief and pain, 

And he reveals his love to me." 

— Rev. John Newton. 



God doth talk with man." — Deuteronomy. 



J will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. 

— Psalms. 



Conversations with Christ 



II 

Christ's Conversation with the Phar- 
isees Touching His Age 

"Before Abraham was, I am." — John tfiii, 58. 

This conversation took place in Jerusalem 
on the Temple Area, within Solomon's Porch, 
hard by the treasury, where in the early morn- 
ing the Master sat and beheld the rich and the 
poor casting in their offerings to the Lord. 
The scene was worthy this memorable event. 
The glorious temple of God was the most mag- 
nificent ever dedicated to divinity. Covering 
a thousand feet from the Jews' Wailing Place 
to the Golden Gate, and fifteen hundred feet 
from the Tower of Antonia to the Ophel Wall, 
on the south, it was inclosed with white mar- 
ble galleries three hundred feet high; and 
within this splendid inclosure were cloisters for 
the priests, courts for the women, for the men, 
and for the strangers ; and in the center thereof 
stood the holy shrine wherein God conversed 
with mortal man. 

The Master had spent the previous night on 
the Mount of Olives, and he "who had not 
25 



Conversations with Christ 

where to lay his head" had rested somewhere 
within its friendly bowers. When the morning 
dawned he returned to the city and entered the 
holy temple. A sad scene was presented to his 
gaze. A mob of men brought to him a woman 
taken in a crime. He did not defend her in her 
sin, but turned upon her accusers with terrible 
rebukes; one by one the lecherous wretches 
withdrew from his presence, and the poor vic- 
tim of their passions stood alone before him. 
With a divine compassion, all his own, he said 
to the erring girl, "Go, sin no more." 

It was on this occasion that he wrote ; it may 
have been the only time ; and this time he 
wrote upon the pavement of the Temple Area. 
Would that that writing had been preserved 
for our eyes to read! 

His enemies were now fully aroused. They 
had been disquieted, confused, dispersed; but 
they soon rallied in the person of the Phari- 
sees, who at that time represented the most 
wealthy and influential portion of the Jewish 
commonwealth. They gathered around him 
in clamorous multitudes and demanded his au- 
thority for his mission, his utterances, and his 
works. They accused him of self-glorification ; 
that he had placed himself upon a pedestal of 

renown and demanded that all men should pay 
26 



Conversations with Christ 

him homage. His answer angered them to 
fury. He claimed to be the "only begotten Son 
of the Father;" that he possessed the sources 
of endless life; and that "If any man keep my 
saying, he shall never die." Quick as spark 
from smitten steel the Pharisees caught the 
expression and said: "Now we know that thou 
hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the proph- 
ets are dead. Whom makest thou thyself? 
•Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou 
seen Abraham?" Then Christ rose in the 
majesty of thought and declared his preexist- 
ence : "I proceeded forth and came from God; 
neither came I of myself, but God sent me." 
"Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and was 
glad" — an immense truth! Abraham's body 
had been in the cave of Machpelah more than 
two thousand years, and for the Master to say 
that Abraham had seen his day, who had been 
on the earth less than thirty-three years, seemed 
preposterous. It was an immense claim ; a vast 
stretch of faith demanded of his people. The 
climax was in sight. The Pharisees pressed 
him harder, and then Christ advanced to the ul- 
timate truth, saying, "Before Abraham was, 
I am." This is the Hebrew equivalent of eter- 
nal self-existence, like the answer that God 

made to Moses, "I am that I am." 

2 7 



Conversations with Christ 

If Christ did not come from beyond the 
grave, what is he to us more than any other 
good and wise man ? Humanity needed a vis- 
itation from the unseen world; some one 
to flood the world with light touching the 
future life, that state of deathless love, whither 
our disembodied friends are, for whose society 
we yearn with that "hope that springs immor- 
tal in the human breast." Our Lord's preex- 
istence is the most satisfying assurance of our 
immortality. Send us a messenger from out 
the unseen has been the cry of all the ages. 
Have we heard from beyond the grave? is the 
greatest of questions. Socrates was wont to 
say to his disciples, "Go search for a charmer 
who can charm away death," conscious of the 
insufficiency of his own teachings. Confucius 
said in his dying moments, "A sage shall come 
from the West." And to comfort his friends 
in the hour of death Zoroaster promised that 
Sosiosh — Messiah — would come to abolish 
death and bring immortality to light. 

We draw presumptive arguments from mind 
and matter. Out of entology we make deduc- 
tions to sustain our belief. Justice and mercy 
seem to demand an eternal period for the law 
of compensation, to vindicate the ways of God 

to man, and readjust the relations of man to 
28 



Conversations with Christ 

man, and man to the Supreme. All have enter- 
tained this belief. We quote from the best and 
wisest of philosophers, and sing the "hymns of 
the ages," whose refrain is immortality. Yet 
doubt will not down. Some one must come 
from the spirit world. 

Christ's preexistence is the corner stone of 
immortality. Limit his existence from the 
manger, and his assurance of our future state 
weighs no more than the speculations of the 
classic philosophers. But accepting as a fact 
his reply to the Pharisees, that he had lived in 
the eternal past, that his incarnation was the 
manifestation of God in the flesh, that he came 
to "bring life and immortality to light," he is 
then to us the truest and sweetest of teachers. 
Why do we cling to the story of Mount Tabor 
with deathless tenacity — the reappearance of 
Moses and Elijah? Why are we spellbound 
under the revelation of St. Paul's temporary 
translation into the "third heaven?" Why 
are the visions of Patmos so entrancing to our 
imaginations and affections? These are the 
confirmations of the Lord's reply to the Phar- 
isees in this great conversation. How beauti- 
ful the words of John the Baptist, "He that 
cometh after me is preferred before me ; for he 

was before me." He was six months younger 
29 



Conversations with Christ 

than John. How sublime the declaration of 
St. John, "In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God. The same was in the beginning with 
God.'' How conclusive the saying of St. Paul. 
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday" — in all the 
past; "to-day" — in all the present; "and for- 
ever" — in all the future. These are the three 
grand divisions of time. 

Three prophets were inspired to anticipate 
the coming of this illustrious One who would 
lift the veil of our future. Micah sings of 
him, "Whose goings forth have been from old, 
even from everlasting." Daniel calls him the 
"Ancient of days." Isaiah beholds the "Won- 
derful Counselor, the mighty God, the ever- 
lasting Father." He claimed these descriptive 
prophecies, and when the Pharisees declared, 
4 'Thou art not yet fifty years old," he replied, 
"Before Abraham was, I am." And what else 
did he say of himself to those in conversation 
with him ? "Ye are from beneath ; I am from 
above. Ye are of this world ; I am not of this 
world." "I came down from heaven, not to do 
mine own will, but the will of him that sent 
me." "And now, O Father, glorify thou me 
with thine own self, with the glory which I 

had with thee before the world was." How 
30 



Conversations with Christ 

magnificent! He could truly say: "I was in 
the bosom of the Father Almighty; alone with 
him before creation; I heard him speak, and it 
was done; command, and it stood fast. I was 
with him when he called matter into being, 
glowing with the white heat of his power, 
and when he imparted the impulse to the vast 
body of primordial matter which sent it on its 
first revolution; I saw him light the stars and 
kindle the exhaustless fires of the sun ; I beheld 
the first day and the first night, the first year 
and the first procession of seasons, with thq 
first flower that bloomed, and the first bird that 
sang ; I heard the 'morning stars sing together 
and all the sons of God shout for joy.' I was 
there when he called the first archangel into 
existence and the first seraph to do his bidding. 
I was with him in Eden when he made Adam, 
and when Eve leaped full-grown from his side. 
And I was the contemporary of all the ages 
since man fell. I became his surety, and my 
Spirit has never left this earth, which I shall 
redeem. I tread the summits of the ages. I 
was in the ark with Noah, with Abraham on 
the plains of Mamre, with Moses in the wilder- 
ness, with Samuel in the temple, with David in 
his battles, with Solomon in his dreams, with 
Isaiah in his visions of glory, with Daniel on 
31 



Conversations with Christ 

the banks of the Ulai; I was the 'form of the 
fourth' in the furnace with the three Hebrew 
children, and with Gabriel in the annunciation 
to Mary my mother." 

The incarnation of Christ is one of his many 
epiphanies to mankind, and the grandest of 
them all. The Old Testament is his biography. 
He came to his friends in the dreams of the 
night, in the visions of the day, in a "burning 
bush,''' in the "still small voice," in the guise 
of a weary traveler, in the majestic form of an 
angel. His appearance as a man is only an- 
other guise. His epiphanies continue, and will 
probably appear until he appears in glory. One 
year after his ascension he appeared to St. 
Stephen, "standing at the right hand of God ;" 
three years later to St. Paul on the way to 
Damascus; and thirty-two years thereafter to 
St. John on Patmos, where he renewed the 
sweet friendship of yore. His friends under- 
stood him to claim that he is the contemporary 
of the ages. St. John applies Isaiah's vision to 
Jesus. "Our fathers drank of that spiritual rock 
that followed them, and that rock was Christ." 
"Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them 
tempted him, and were destroyed of serpents." 
Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater 
riches than the treasures of Egypt. 



Conversations with Christ 

The appearance of Divinity to talk and walk 
with man is cardinal in the creeds of the ages. 
The avatars of Vishnu are claimed to be in- 
carnations. The rationalists of China hold 
that their founder is an embodiment, and as- 
sert that eighty years passed between his con- 
ception and birth, and that when born his hair 
and beard were white, and hence his name, 
Laots — the "Old Boy." The Shintoists of 
Japan believe that in the distant past one of the 
inferior gods came to earth, married a mortal 
woman, and of that marriage was the first 
Mikado. This belief runs through classic his- 
tory. Alexander the Great claimed divine pa- 
ternity, which caused the separation between 
the parents of the renowned Macedonian. 

What is the genesis of this idea of the in- 
carnation? Older than Rome, older than 
Egypt, older than Babylon, it is as old as Eden. 
It cheered the broken heart of Eve ; it was the 
hope of Noah ; it quickened the steps of Abram 
on his westward journey. Its first historic 
record is in the Pentateuch, which anticipates 
by five hundred years the sacred writings of 
any other religion known to mankind. 

No greater injustice was ever perpetrated 
against history than the boast of modern infi- 
delity that there are sacred writings extant 

3 33 



Conversations with Christ 

which anticipate the utterance of this blessed 
truth, and that by many centuries ; whereas all 
history is in proof that the oldest expres- 
sion of alphabetic writing is the Decalogue, 
in the Pentateuch, which gives Moses a mar- 
gin of hundreds of years over the Zend-Avesta 
of the Persians, the Five Kings of the Chinese, 
and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists. All the 
beautiful truths contained therein can be traced 
to this central source of religious truth, held 
by the people of God. Under the reign of 
Solomon his merchants sailed all seas and 
traversed all continents and carried with them 
copies of their holy books. Africa's queen 
came to the Holy City and returned with the 
promise of the Messiah. John carried the 
glad tidings into the Euphratean valley eight 
hundred years before our era ; a hundred years 
later the Hebrew captives peopled that famous 
valley; a century thereafter Daniel was in Baby- 
lon, and then in Persia, and one hundred and 
fifty years subsequently Esther was queen of 
the Persian empire. In B. C. 320 Ptolemy 
Lagus transported one hundred thousand He- 
brews into Egypt, and Seleucus Nicator built 
thirty cities in Asia, by Jewish captives, whose 
distinguishing faith was the incarnation of our 
Lord. 

34 



Conversations with Christ 

This better view of Christ's presence on our 
earth is in harmony with our better revelations 
of the paternity of God. It is impossible for 
us to suppose for a moment that the heavenly 
Father would abandon his human children to 
struggle in doubt and darkness, uninformed of 
his will, character, and government during four 
thousand years ; and then, as if he had aroused 
himself from this long sleep of cruel indiffer- 
ence, he sent his Son into the world. But how 
apparent is his tenderness and regardfulness 
of our souls when we behold his "only begotten 
Son" treading the summits of centuries as they 
pass in review before the Father Almighty. 

Some overzealous defenders of Christianity 
contrast the age of the advent with the subse- 
quent condition of the world, and ascribe this 
better estate of man to the coming of the Lord. 
Justice, kindness, and power impatiently ask 
why he delayed his advent. Such defenders 
forget that the grand characters in our sacred 
books lived centuries before the Messiah came, 
who were the offspring of his power, the prod- 
ucts of his grace, and the embodiment of him- 
self, who inspired their thoughts, animated 
their virtues, and made them the light of the 
world. Where in our own era shall we 
find nobler characters than Joseph and Moses 

35 



Conversations with Christ 

among the rulers, Samuel and Daniel among 
the prophets, Hannah and Ruth among the 
mothers ? The age of his advent was not worse 
than the world has been since. Art and learn- 
ing had culminated in glory. Law had held 
universal empire. Comforts multiplied under 
Augustus. It was the time of the sweetest 
poets, most brilliant orators, most profound 
philosophers. True, it was a century of moral 
degeneracy, but not more so than the Dark 
Ages, a night of a thousand years from the ex- 
tinction of the Western empire to the fall of 
Constantinople, when popes were monsters and 
emperors were butchers, when murders, rob- 
beries, and incest in high places filled the cal- 
endar of each day. France under Louis XI 
was as cruel and profligate, and Spain under 
Philip II was as base and bloody, and England 
under Richard III was as corrupt and pol- 
luted, as Rome under Caesar Augustus. 

One of the crimes of modern infidelity, a 
crime against reason and history, is the claim 
that Christ is an evolution, a product of ante- 
cedent conditions. An evolution mania has 
smitten the intellect of our age, and it is as- 
sumed that there is an evolution of worlds, 
minerals, plants, animals, of art, science, gov- 
ernment, and religion. This craze will have 
36 



Conversations with Christ 

its day ; some new fad will take its place, when 
all that is true and grand in the science of ev- 
olution will receive the approval of reason and 
piety. If evolution means anything when ap- 
plied to personality and character, it means a 
precedence and the persistent survival of the 
fittest. But in the history of the world there 
are immense gaps — periods of light and pe- 
riods of darkness. Evolution demands an un- 
broken series from the inferior to the superior, 
whereas the history of our race is made up of 
progressions to a point of exhaustion. The il- 
lustrious characters who have illuminated our 
history have appeared without an antecedent 
and departed without a subsequent. What had 
preceded Homer to produce a Homer, or Sol- 
omon to produce a Solomon, or a Luther to 
produce a Luther ? Such men are heaven-born ; 
coruscations from the throne of the Eternal, to 
light up the human intellect and quicken the 
universal conscience, and standing on the sum- 
mits of the receding centuries, they shouted, 
"The morning cometh." 

What was there in the antecedent condition 
of the world in general or in the Jewish com- 
monwealth in particular for six hundred years 
prior to the advent to produce the Christ, so 
pure, so wise, so exalted? If we go backward 
37 



Conversations with Christ 

along his ancestral lines for thousands of years, 
we shall fail to discover his prototype in the 
lines thereof; we will find in the three times 
fourteen generations murderers, adulterers, 
liars, rebels, idolaters; yet the splendor of his 
moral character challenged the admiration of 
the world, and the judicial verdict was, "I find 
no fault in this man." He astonished the schol- 
ars of Jerusalem by the wealth of his knowl- 
edge; they engaged him in conversation and 
demanded the source of his learning, and re- 
luctantly confessed, "Never man spake like this 
man." Familiar with all the intricacies of the 
traditions of the elders and with the civil and 
religious jurisprudence of his countrymen, he 
met them at every point in controversy and 
covered them with confusion by the cogency 
of his replies. He drew illustration and argu- 
ment from nature, and ever with scientific ac- 
curacy. He touched nature on every side, and 
nature responded. His works were the creden- 
tials that he is the "Ancient of days," who had 
heard the music of the spheres when the morn- 
ing stars sang together. 

No other Christ can satisfy my soul. He 
must be preexistent ; he must inhabit the praises 
of eternity; he must come traveling down the 

everlasting ages of the Godhead and tell me of 
38 



Conversations with Christ 

a world beyond this "vale of tears." All other 
arguments for my soul's immortality are abso- 
lutely worthless without this. This alone is 
all-sufficient. Assured of this blessed certitude, 
I care not whether Moses and Elias came to 
Mount Tabor, or whether Paul was caught up 
into the third heaven and heard things not 
lawful for men to speak, or whether modern 
spiritualism is fact or fancy, but with this 
certitude then I am prepared to believe and 
accept all other manifestations. 

The religious evolutionists of our day as- 
sume that Christianity is the outgrowth of 
Judaism, and that Judaism is the outgrowth 
of a primitive nature- worship. How plausible 
this assumption! But studies in comparative 
religion and discoveries in biblical archaeology 
are in proof that pure monotheism preceded 
Moses and is the form of faith in all the earlier 
religions of mankind. Nature-worship is a de- 
generacy from the worship of nature's God, 
when men substituted the heavenly bodies, once 
held as symbols, for God himself. Judaism is 
not a growth, but an organization, to prepare 
the world for the coming of the Messiah, and 
Christianity is the realization of all the types 
and prophecies of the preliminary system. 
Christianity and Judaism are parts of one great 
39 



Conversations with Christ 

whole. Because a man builds a mansion and 
is the first to occupy it is not proof that the 
mansion produced the man; nor does first oc- 
cupancy prove that he did not build it. The 
Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the biog- 
raphy of Christ. 

There is something captivating in this theory 
of development; it seems to explain so many 
difficulties, and is so gratifying to the pride of 
our understanding. The arguments advanced 
in its support have such a show of reason. The 
crimes of the Church, the oppressive laws of 
Christian nations, and the sectarian persecu- 
tions which have prevailed in each century are 
quoted as primary evidence that Christianity is 
at best an imperfect development, and that so- 
ciety will advance to a better future of ethical 
culture when these evils will cease. The alle- 
gations are true, but the conclusions are false. 
The Church is human ; Christianity is divine. 
Light is one thing, and the telescope is another 
thing; the former is perfect, the latter may be 
imperfect. The Church is the medium through 
which Christ is manifested to the world; the 
medium is often so imperfect that we have but 
a distorted view of its divine Founder. The 
Christian religion is no more responsible for 

the oppressive laws and the persecutions waged 
40 



Conversations with Christ 

by so-called Christian nations than is literature 
responsible for its prostitution to the vilest pur- 
poses by some literary men. Shall we reject 
the masters of the English classics because cer- 
tain writers for fame or funds degrade the high 
art of composition? 

Nor is there logical force in the assumption 
that Christianity is a human growth because 
some men outside the Church have been the 
advocates of great and generous ideas. Were 
the religion of our Lord confined to sects or 
creeds or Church organizations, there would be 
point and pith in the proposition ; but it perme- 
ates society far beyond the confined limits of 
its professed disciples. It has friends within 
and friends without, as it has foes within and 
foes without. It is not too much to affirm that 
every sentiment of justice, every principle of 
law, every Godlike charity, by whomsoever and 
wheresoever advocated, may be found in the 
Bible, and can be traced to it as to a primal 
source. 

And what was the final issue of this heated 
and prolonged conversation between Christ and 
the Pharisees on the preexistence of our Lord ? 
How intense the excitement! How vehement 
the replies! What elevation of thought, dig- 
nity of language, and consciousness of truth on 
41 



Conversations with Christ 

the part of the "Ancient of clays" in contrast 
with the limited views, the astute repartee, the 
rabbinical subterfuge of the Pharisees! Fol- 
low this celebrated conversation to the end as 
each in turn asserts or denies : 

Christ: "I am the light of the world." 

Pharisees: "Thou bearest record of thyself; 
thy record is not true." 

Christ: "The Father that sent me beareth 
witness of me." 

Pharisees: "Where is thy Father?" 

Christ: "If ye had known me, ye should have 
known my Father also. I go my way, and 
whither I go, ye cannot come." 

Pharisees: "Will he kill himself?" 

Christ: "Ye are from beneath; I am from 
above." 

Pharisees: "Who art thou?" 

Christ: "Even the same that I said unto you 
from the beginning. He that sent me is with 
me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I 
do always those things that please him." 

Great excitement followed these lofty, holy 
declarations. There was commotion in the 
throng of listeners who had heard the conver- 
sation. Yielding to the truth of his replies, 
"many believed on him," to whom he turned 

and addressed them thus : "If ye continue in 
42 



Conversations with Christ 

my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; and 
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free." 

Pharisees: "We be Abraham's seed, and 
were never in bondage to any man : how sayest 
thou, Ye shall be made free?" 

Christ: "I know that ye are Abraham's 
seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word 
hath no place in you." 

Pharisees: "Abraham is our father." 

Christ: "If ye were Abraham's children, ye 
would do the works of Abraham. But now ye 
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the 
truth, which I have heard of God : this did not 
Abraham." 

Pharisees: "We be not born of fornication; 
we have one Father, even God." 

Christ: "If God were your Father, ye would 
love me : for I proceeded forth and came from 
God. Ye are of your father the devil, and the 
lusts of your father ye will do : he was a 
murderer from the beginning, and abode not 
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. 
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his 
own : for he is a liar, and the father of it. And 
because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." 

Pharisees: "Say we not well that thou art a 
Samaritan, and hast a devil?" 
43 



Conversations with Christ 

Christ: "I have not a devil; but I honor my 
Father, and ye do dishonor me. Verily, ver- 
ily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, 
he shall never see death." 

Pharisees: "Now we know that thou hast a 
devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets ; and 
thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall 
never taste of death. Art thou greater than our 
father Abraham, which is dead ? and the proph- 
ets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?" 

Christ: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to 
see my day : and he saw it, and was glad." 

Pharisees: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, 
and hast thou seen Abraham?" 

Christ: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Be- 
fore Abraham was, I am." 

The conversation ends in tumult. The 
Pharisees, enraged by their defeat in argument, 
resort to violence. They rend the air with 
curses; they rush upon him; they tear up the 
stones of the streets to stone him to death. 
See that Jewish mob, those Pharisees with 
their phylacteries, often seen on the corner of 
the street making long prayers to be seen of 
men; see them pick up the stones and hurl at 
his sacred head. 

But he was not there; he had vanished; 
he had dematerialized in their very presence. 
44 



Conversations with Christ 

He had this wondrous power of invisibility. 
This was the only kind of miracle Jesus per- 
formed to defend himself. Once in Nazareth 
and three times in the Holy City, St. Luke 
says of the Nazareth mob, "He passing through 
the midst of them went his way." St. John 
says of the Jerusalem riot, "He went out of the 
temple, going through the midst of them, and 
so passed by." He did not fly in fear, but his 
familiar saying was, "My hour is not yet 
come." He always had this marvelous power. 
He could appear and disappear at will. He 
belonged to two worlds. From the bosom of 
the everlasting Father he came and dwelt on 
earth thirty-three years; and at death passed 
into the heavens for three days; returned and 
lived with his earthly friends forty days, and 
then ascended to his invisible throne, whence 
he will come again with all his holy angels. 
45 



" Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw 
nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." 

— James. 



" Let your conversation be without covetousness." 



" Ye have heard of my conversation in time past." 

— Paul. 



"Among whom also we all had our conversation in 
times past." — Paul to the Ephesians. 



" And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conver 
sat ion of the wicked." — Pete?'. 



Conversations with Christ 



III 
Christ's Conversation with Satan 

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, 
Satan." — Luke iv, 8. 

They had known each other in the spirit 
world. In those happier days one was on the 
throne of his Father, adored by angelic hosts ; 
the other was chief among the angels, a prince 
to the King immortal. In his primal estate 
the tempter was a glorious being, one of the 
"firstborn sons of light," who shouted for joy 
when the "morning" stars sang together." Of 
splendid intellect, he outranked all his fel- 
lows in the brilliancy of his endowments. He 
was more majestic than Gabriel, more power- 
ful than Michael, and blazed in beatific vision 
before the throne of the Supreme. When he 
"kept not his first estate, but left his own habi- 
tation" and descended to earth, he appeared as 
"lightning falling from heaven." How mag- 
nificent ! The test of his loyalty to the throne 
of the universe was to remain in the heavenly 
sphere assigned him. But a knowledge of a 
new creation on our earth, of beings in the 

4 49 



Conversations with Christ 

''image of God," had excited his ambition, and 
he descended to our Eden. What a descent! 
In the twinkling of an eye he was changed 
from an angel to a devil I He never left our 
planet, and is now as ever the "prince of this 
world." 

The splendor of his mind is seen in the con- 
summate ingenuity of his plans. He solicits 
to sin with the promise of some reward. The 
wisdom of the serpent is the symbol of his 
genius, and the strength of the lion is the 
measure of his power. He is monarch of all 
he surveys. This world is his dominion, and 
he claims the right to offer it to another. The 
elements obey his command. He is the "prince 
of the power of the air." "The fire of God fell 
from heaven" at his invocation and consumed 
the flocks of Job; at his call the "winds came 
from the wilderness," and smote the good 
man's house to the death of his sons ; disease, 
poverty, and death are in his awful retinue. 
His disguises are many; now a serpent and 
anon an "angel of light;" he comes as a friend 
to relieve hunger, as an inquirer for the Mes- 
siah, as a proprietor to offer a world for an 
alliance. 

The Master never failed to recognize the 

tempter's personality as prince of devils. He 
50 



Conversations with Christ 

knew that he was not conversing with an im- 
aginary foe, and the ordeal through which he 
was soon to pass was neither an allegory nor 
a vision, nor a mental struggle, nor the off- 
spring of human passions and circumstances, 
but a conflict with the chief of evil spirits of 
immense power and intense individuality. He 
did not seek this conversation, for he would not 
be the author of his own temptation; nor did 
he dread the onset, for devils were subject un- 
to him. They knew him, called him by name, 
prayed to him, and obeyed him whenever he 
commanded them to "come out of the pos- 
sessed." As angel spirits attended him, so devil 
spirits dreaded him. He often told his friends 
that as there are good men and bad men, so 
there are good angels and bad angels. He up- 
held the charmed story of angelic visitations 
to patriarchs, to the shepherds of Bethlehem, 
and the splendid mission of Gabriel to Daniel 
in Babylon and to Mary in Nazareth ; and also 
the visit of Satan to Job, of his quarrel with 
the archangel Michael "about the body of 
Moses," and of his "desire to have Peter to 
sift him as wheat." He taught that angelol- 
ogy and demonology are parts of a great 
whole, the two great testaments of the moral 
universe; that as good angels are "ministering 
Si 



Conversations with Christ 

spirits," so bad angels come to men in human 
form, control their thoughts, and influence 
their destiny. He ever acted and spoke as 
one living in the foci of three worlds — of an- 
gels, of devils, of men. He could pray to his 
Father for seventy-two thousand angel-war- 
riors. He could say to the prince of devils, 
"Get thee hence," and when he approached 
lesser demons they cried out, "Hast thou come 
hither to torment us before our time?" He 
ever lived where these three worlds impinge, 
and held in his right hand the "keys of 
Hades." He boldly ascribed all the evil in the 
world, whether of sin against God or crime 
against man, to Satanic power, and thereby 
lifted the crushing responsibility from human 
nature, which is subject to temptation. 

The scene of this conversation is the west- 
ern side of the valley of the Jordan, amid the 
solitudes of Ouarantania — the Mountain of the 
Forty — the days of the temptation. Neither 
Apelles with his brush nor Burke with his 
pen could sketch the dreary aspect of this for- 
bidden spot. The hills are broken into a thou- 
sand rugged peaks, and their color is a mixture 
of a dull yellow, red, and white; the depres- 
sions are dry and stony, and on that blighted 

soil there is neither shrub nor flower nor blade 

52 



Conversations with Christ 

of grass. It is desolation with nothing to re- 
lieve; no bird banquets the ear with its music, 
no flower charms the eye with its hues or de- 
lights the smell with its perfume, and no foun- 
tain sparkles in the sunlight or bubbles to 
slake the traveler's thirst. The rocks seem 
scorched with the fires of hell. Over it the 
vulture flies, and on its accursed cliffs prowl 
the jackal by day and the hyena by night. It 
is now as in the past the den of thieves; and 
the tourist of to-day, on his way from Jerusa- 
lem to Jericho, can see the robber Bedouin 
peering from behind some peak with rifle lev- 
eled at the passing wayfarer ; for he who goes 
down to Jericho now as of yore "falls among 
thieves." Hard by the roadside are broken 
walls, fragments of an arch, and deep vaults 
which mark the site of the inn to which the 
Good Samaritan carried the robbed and 
wounded traveler shunned by the priest and 
Levite. This was the chosen abode on earth 
for the devil and his angels, counterpart of 
Pandemonium. Hither the Spirit led the Son 
of God to converse with the Prince of Dark- 
ness. 

After great triumphs come great trials. The 
Master had just been proclaimed the Messiah 

of God by the greatest of the prophets. It was 
53 



Conversations with Christ 

a grand scene. From the base of Quarantania 
to the banks of the Jordan extends the vast 
and fertile plain of Jericho. Beyond the river 
rise the trans-Jordanic range, massive and sol- 
emn, from whose summits Moses passed to 
his reward. Between plain and mountain 
flows the Jordan, from the fountains of 
Banios to the basin of the Dead Sea. After all 
the people had been baptized the Master pre- 
sents himself to be inducted into his high- 
priesthood. The honor was too great for the 
Baptist, and he declines, but yielding to the 
rightful claims upon his ministry, he officiates 
at the inauguration of the Messiah. Impress- 
ive and grand, it far excelled all the corona- 
tions of earth. The heavens open ; a dove from 
the groves of paradise hovers above him; a 
voice from out the excellent glory proclaims, 
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." What rapture fills his soul when 
once more he hears his Father's voice, attest- 
ing his mission of truth and duty, whose be- 
neficent influence would go forth as the beams 
of the morning. 

The time of this conversation is uncertain. 

One of his biographers intimates that the 

temptation followed immediately the baptism; 

another gives us an itinerary covering many 

54 



Conversations with Christ 

days, during which Andrew and Peter, Philip 
and Nathanael,and St. John were called. "And 
the third day there was a marriage in Cana of 
Galilee, and Jesus was called, and his disci- 
ples." These writers pay little attention to 
chronology and the continuity of events; they 
record facts and leave to us the historical con- 
nection. The language of the tempter sug- 
gests that the Master had put forth claims to 
the Messiahship and the people had received 
him. It may have been a year after the bap- 
tism when Jesus was in the height of his fame. 
"His fame went throughout all Syria, and 
there followed him great multitudes of people 
from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from 
Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond 
Jordan." He had mingled in the festivities of 
the people; had attended their weddings, and 
often accepted invitations to dine with the pub- 
licans. He was present at a "great feast" in 
the house of his friend Matthew, who had in- 
vited a "great company of publicans and oth- 
ers." These festive scenes and applauding 
multitudes gave currency to the rumor that, 
unlike the Baptist, who fasted oft and was 
abstemious, the Messiah was called "glutton- 
ous, and a winebibber." He must now with- 
draw from these exciting influences and give 
55 



Conversations with Christ 

fresh proof of his divine mission. There is 
an awful power in St. Mark's saying, "The 
Spirit driveth him into the wilderness," and 
"He was with the wild beasts." There is a 
sublime solemnity in another expression, 
"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
wilderness to be tempted of the devil." It is 
not an impulse nor a rage of passion that 
sweeps him on with whirlwind energy. There 
is deliberation; the place is chosen; the object 
is announced, "To be tempted of the devil." 
As the Spirit of the Lord had transported 
Philip from the valley of Roses, where he had 
baptized the eunuch, to Azotus, on the shores 
of the Mediterranean thirty miles away, so now 
the same Spirit withdraws the Master from 
scenes of excitement to the solitudes of Quar- 
antania. It was common for him to withdraw 
from the society of his friends and spend the 
night alone in prayer ; and at times he requested 
them to leave him and permit him to journey 
alone. Sometimes his whereabouts was un- 
known, and the people would inquire, "Where 
is he ? What think ye ; will he not come to the 
feast?" But it is unlikely that he would with- 
draw in the midst of his great career and his 
whereabouts remain unknown for forty days 

and forty nights, a perplexity to his friends 
56 



Conversations with Christ 

and a wonder to the people. There is a man- 
ifest propriety in the continuity of events in 
his life — his birth, preparation, baptism, temp- 
tation, public ministry, trial, crucifixion, resur- 
rection, and ascension. And while St. John 
intimates an intervening period, yet there is a 
naturalness in the long-occupied notion that 
from the fullness of the joy and glory of the 
inauguration by the Baptist, the dove, and the 
Father's voice, he should pass into the wilder- 
ness and contend with that same fallen angel 
who had triumphed over Adam in Eden. 

As this fallen angel has the power of trans- 
formation, and sometimes appears as an "an- 
gel of light" to deceive the very elect, it is 
probable he comes to the Messiah in the barren 
wilderness as a friend, perhaps an inquirer in 
the form of the high priest of Jerusalem. How 
courteous his inquiry, "If thou be the Son 
of God." The voice from heaven proclaimed 
that Sonship, and it is not now questioned nor 
denied, only proof is requested. The fast had 
gone on through forty days and forty nights, 
and now nature claims recuperation. "He was 
afterward an hungered." The divine power 
which had sustained him in the fast is with- 
drawn, and, like any man, he felt the pangs of 
hunger followed by physical exhaustion, nerv- 

57 



Conversations with Christ 

ous prostration, and mental lassitude, incident 
to the fast and mental struggle with this ac- 
complished tempter. Around him on all the 
hills in that wilderness are siliceous accretions, 
in shape and color like the little loaves of 
Eastern bread as if petrified. "Command that 
these stones be made bread." Taking one in 
his hand, he presents it to the hungry Messiah, 
and perhaps reminded him of the manna that 
fell in another wilderness, and of the ravens 
that fed Elijah in the neighboring vale by the 
brook Cherith, and of the angels who spread a 
table for the same prophet on the burning 
sands of Arabia. Where are the ravens and 
where the angels now ? Must the Son of God 
perish with hunger? What an appeal to his 
knowledge and power as the chemist of all 
nature! "Convince me and relieve yourself 
by this display of your lofty claim." The 
tempter had come in the crucial moment. The 
mental tension of forty days with devils had 
rendered him oblivious to hunger, for there is 
an oblivious power in excitement which ren- 
ders the soldier in battle unconscious of his 
wounds. But the reaction came at last; all 
the assaults on the mind had been resisted, and 
now the attack on the senses is made. "Eat 

and live" is the tempting suggestion. 

58 



Conversations with Christ 

How intently the Master must have gazed 
upon his solicitor to evil ! He did not deny his 
hunger, nor did he deny his power to trans- 
mute the stones into bread, nor did he deny his 
Father's care for him. He declared that the 
soul is of more value than the body; that the 
satisfaction of our physical appetites is less 
pleasurable than the satisfying joy of the spirit ; 
that we have a higher nature whose supreme 
delight is doing the will of the Lord. He does 
not refer to his divine nature, but attests his 
humanity, and relates to all men. "Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He 
did not say that God shall not live, for he was 
tempted and triumphed as a man; and as a 
man he asserts his preference for the word of 
God, the command and promise of his Father. 

How wonderful the answer! Yet the reply 
is the occasion for the second temptation. He 
had proclaimed his trust in God; that trust is 
now assailed. He does not argue the point; 
concedes it. "Thou hast refused to gratify 
your palate, and that on holy ground. How 
dost thou know that thou art the Son of God? 
How do the people know it? Stories of your 
wonderful bzrth may be fables; the dove and 
the voice at your baptism may have been illu- 
59 



Conversations with Christ 

sions. Come to the pinnacle of the temple, 
300 feet high, and I will gather all the people 
thither to see you. Cast yourself down; 
God will give his angels charge over you. You 
are unknown ; you will be popular as the Mes- 
siah of God. How subtle the suggestion ! 
What a challenge to his pride, ambition, and 
vanity! Can anything search the heart more 
keenly? What is more tempting to the wise 
than to question their wisdom? What an in- 
sult it was to his noble soul, "If thou be!" 
What a world of mystery there is in that mon- 
osyllable "if!'' "I do not say that thou art not 
the Son of God, but if thou be the Son of God, 
cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall 
give his angels charge concerning thee ; and in 
their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any 
time thou dash thy foot against a stone." 

On the eastern side of Jerusalem Herod the 
Great reared a magnificent marble gallery; it 
rose in splendor 300 feet high. The great 
Temple Area on which stood the temple was 
1,000 feet from east to west and 1,500 feet 
from north to south. Around this splendid 
area was this great gallery of glory, a series of 
galleries, and on the highest, 300 feet high, 
was the promenade, and there the people of the 

Holy City were wont to linger and look down 
60 



Conversations with Christ 

into the deep valley of the Kidron, and out on 
the Mount of Olives, the valley of the Jordan, 
and Mount Pisgah beyond. Here stood the 
Messiah when tempted to suicide. What a 
spectacle! "I will appoint the day; all Jerusa- 
lem will assemble in the valley below, and on 
the declivities of Moriah, and on the acclivities 
of Olivet; and as thou leapest the angels will 
appear and bear thee up. Then all the people 
will hail thee as the immortal Shiloh." What 
a sequence in these temptations — first to appe- 
tite, then to presumption, now to death ! This 
was an assault upon the whole system of means 
to ends, upon the correlative duties, that we 
are to act when duty calls, and that in the in- 
terest of humanity ; that we are not to attempt 
to walk the sea unless duty calls; that we are 
not to expose ourselves contrary to nature's 
laws unless necessity requires ; that we are ever 
to live in harmony with nature, and never ex- 
pect divine aid outside of law. Law is God. 

And what was the answer? "It is written 
again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
God." To save a ruined world the Messiah 
could step from mountain top to mountain top 
around the world, or tread the oceans as mar- 
ble paths, but he must not tempt the Highest. 

Presumption is a crime against nature. 
61 



Conversations with Christ 

A second journey is now proposed. The 
assault on the appetite has failed, and that on 
pride has failed, but success may attend an 
appeal to the "last infirmity' of noble minds." 
What an astute logician is the tempter! The 
third solicitation comes from the second, as the 
second came from the first. Does he transform 
himself into the person of the Roman procon- 
sul, Pontius Pilatus, governor of Judea, whose 
ambitious dreams had tempted him to imperial 
dominion ? It was a plot rather than a posses- 
sion. It was a proposed alliance for the con- 
quest of the world. It was a suggestion along 
the line of the Messiah's mission. "Thou art 
poor, here is wealth ; thou art a prince without 
a dime ; a king without a kingdom ; a Messiah 
without a disciple. Thou hast come to estab- 
lish the kingdom of the brotherhood of man, 
the highest form of humanity, the noblest 
civilization with its retinue of purity and hope, 
of peace and happiness, of power and glory. 
Let us form a holy alliance. Let us cross the 
Jordan and stand where Moses stood, on the 
mountains of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah. Ti- 
berius Claudius Nero is old and infamous, 
dreaded by the Senate and hated by the people ; 
he is now in retirement on the island of Capri, 

and has abandoned his empire to the detestable 
62 



Conversations with Christ 

Sejanus. Behold his empire of one hundred 
and twenty millions of people, washed on the 
east by the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the 
west by the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 
and stretching far into Africa to the Mountains 
of the Moon. Behold this vision of the Roman 
world, and beyond are Persia and India, China 
and Japan. O, thou Nazarene, pretended Mes- 
siah, join me in this alliance; seize the scepter 
of Rome, place Caesar's crown upon thy brow, 
and thou shalt have the kingdom of this world 
and the glory thereof. It is possible. Once I 
gave the whole world to Alexander of Mace- 
don, who seized Greece, took all Asia Minor, 
subdued the land of the Sphinx and pyramids, 
occupied Jerusalem, conquered all Syria, all 
the valley of the Euphrates, and the whole of 
Persia to the banks of the Indus, and pro- 
claimed, T am master of the world.' There 
is but one condition — acknowledge my suprem- 
acy; 'All these things will I give thee, if thou 
wilt fall down and worship me.' ' 

How seemingly proper and beneficent the 
offer! The world to be the Messiah's without 
an army of missionaries or a procession of 
martyrs. But the condition was appalling; it 
was the sanction of Satan's rebellion in heaven ; 
it was the worst form of idolatry — devil- wor- 
63 



Conversations with Christ 

ship. All the indignation of the Messiah's 
righteous soul was kindled, and it burned like 
a mountain on fire. The tempter stands naked 
before him. It is the devil; the mask has 
fallen ; the transformation vanishes ; he who be- 
guiled Adam is revealed. The Messiah com- 
mands, "Get thee hence, Satan; begone, thou 
condemned spirit, begone." Once more he 
quotes from the law, "For it is written, Thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
shalt thou serve." 

The conversation ends. But the Messiah 
never forgot that terrible interview. He re- 
called it often. He would say to the tempted 
people: "I was tempted by the prince of this 
world to enter into an alliance with him; he 
appealed to my ambition to worship him, and 
all kingdoms should be mine. Had I yielded, 
a world would have been lost. What shall it 
profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ?" 

What followed? "Behold, angels came and 
ministered unto him." They had been watch- 
ing the conflict, but dare not interfere, and will 
not appear till devils depart. "They minis- 
tered unto him." They spread a table for him 
in the wilderness, as in the days of Elijah. 

They embraced him and shouted, "Thou hast 
64 



Conversations with Christ 

won, won for humanity!" How serene his 
spirit! How profound the repose of his great 
soul when conscious that he had done what 
Adam failed to do, but might have done ! 

How striking the comparisons and the con- 
trasts between these two great historic char- 
acters of the world ! Both were Federalists — 
each the head of a race, the old and the new; 
one was a living soul, the other a conquering 
spirit; the first was the "figure of him that was 
to come." Both were tempted to sin by the 
same tempter. Both were to fast as a test of 
probation ; one from a particular food, the other 
for a particular season. In each case the point 
of attack was the appetite; in the one a new 
relish, a fresh sensation ; in the other to satisfy 
hunger before the appointed time. Both were 
tempted to ambition ; one to be "wise" — what 
is more comely than wisdom? the other to be 
rich, to "gain the whole world." Both were 
faultless — a perfect body, an unclouded intel- 
lect, a spotless moral nature. Behold the con- 
trasts ! A garden of delights, whose virgin soil 
was carpeted with living green, adorned with 
flowers of every hue and sweetest odor, 
studded with trees whose multiplied fruits de- 
lighted the eye and gratified the taste, in whose 

boughs lived and sang in ravishing notes birds 
5 65 



Conversations with Christ 

of exquisite plumage, under skies forever 
friendly, where zephyrs breathed perennial 
summer, and rivers flowed in majesty, and 
fountains sent forth pearly spray flecked with 
rainbow beauty; and wherein every want was 
supplied, every desire gratified, every wish de- 
lighted; wherein health was perpetual, youth 
immortal, the mind clear as a cloudless sky, the 
conscience at peace, the heart sweet with love, 
and marriage a sacrament. How different 
from a lonely wilderness, wherein neither 
shrub grows nor flower blooms, nor birds sing, 
nor fountains flow ; where the rocks are 
scorched with eternal fires; the desolation is 
supreme under burning skies in summer, and in 
winter the maddened winds howl like ten thou- 
sand furies — fit place for the devil and his an- 
gels to tempt the Saviour of mankind. 

How short the struggle in Eden, perhaps 
not a day, but one assault at that; but in 
Quarantania assault after assault through forty 
days, the weakest point first assailed — the pang 
of hunger, that fevers the brain, unnerves the 
system, and disqualifies for persistent effort. 
Around one was an atmosphere of absolute 
purity. No corrupt public opinion constrained 
his action, and no long and fearful history of 

the world of manifold crimes and miseries to 
66 



Conversations with Christ 

weaken his faith. But to the other the world 
was a lazaretto of moral pollution, and for 
thirty years he had been subjected to the so- 
ciety of impure beings, and behind him were 
forty centuries of wars, idolatry, and inhu- 
manity, depressing to his spirit and dishearten- 
ing to his merciful mission. To one was com- 
mitted the easier task to perpetuate the purity 
of his race by his ever obedience; the mission 
of the other was to recover a lost race. One 
has to hold the fort, the other has to take. It 
was the folly of the first Adam to hold a par- 
ley with the tempter, and argue the command 
of God to justify his disobedience; but the an- 
swer of the second Adam was a quick, positive 
refusal, backed by a scriptural quotation to 
strengthen his resistance. Then came the cul- 
mination. One yields and is driven from 
paradise; the other resists and is "received up 
into glory." Christ reverses what Adam did 
and did what Adam failed to do. Then came 
the angels, came to both, but how different the 
object of their coming! They came to Eden 
and found an empty paradise, for "God drove 
out the man, and he placed at the east of the 
Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming 
sword which turned every way to keep the way 

of the tree of life." But how joyous was their 
67 



Conversations with Christ 

mission to the wilderness! "Behold, angels 
came and ministered unto him," and the "wil- 
derness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom 
as the rose." 

The conversation ends, but not its lessons. 
They are immortal. And what are they? 
There is no sin in temptation; it is a compli- 
ment to virtuous manhood; it supposes that 
there is resident virtue of which the tempted 
may be bereft. The totally depraved are 
never tempted; they can descend no lower. 
The refinement of temptation tallies with the 
refinement of character. He who was without 
sin, in whom was no guile, was "tempted in 
all points like as we are." There is no virtue 
without probation. Angels and men are tested. 
All the celestial ones have proved their right to 
happiness and glory by resistance. Liberty is 
power to stand and power to fall, an awful 
power, but becoming one made a little lower 
than God. No one can be proud of virtue not 
his own. The throne of the Creator is not sur- 
rounded by automatons to chant doxologies. 
Free himself, the Christ respects those who are 
free to do his will. Because he could have 
yielded, there is force in his temptation, power 

in his example, honor in his resistance. 
68 



Conversations with Christ 

Man can do what Christ did. "Because 

thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also 

will keep thee in the hour of temptation, by 

using the Master's saying, 'Get thee behind me, 

Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou 

savorest not the things that be of God, but 

those that be of men.' ' And all can say with 

the Messiah, "The prince of this world cometh 

and hath nothing in me. I have overcome the 

world." 

69 



" Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles : 
that, whereas they speak against us as evil doers, they may 
by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God." 

—Peter. 



"We may not be able to perform all the high religious 
duties demanded by the law of the Lord, but we can 
place our feet in Christ's footprints and illustrate by a 
well-ordered life and godly conversation that we have 
been with Jesus and learned of him." —J. P. N. 



Conversations with Christ 



IV 

Christ's Conversation with His Friends 

"He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, 
the Son of'man, am?" — Matt, xvi, 13. 

It was the third year of his public career. 
It was the period of rejection. It was the time 
when his unpopularity was apparent to all. He 
was now an outlaw. A price had been placed 
upon his head. He was a fugitive from the 
commonwealth of Israel. He had found an 
asylum in the dominion of a pagan prince. 
The scene was on the upper Jordan, twenty 
miles north from the Sea of Galilee. The old 
town was called Caesarea Philippi in honor of 
Caesar Augustus, the emperor, and Philip the 
tetrarch, of the house of Herod. The famous 
old city stood at the base of the primordial 
Hermon, with winter on its brow, spring in its 
lap, and summer at its feet. From ten of the 
perennial and largest fountains in the world the 
waters of the Jordan gush forth flowing south- 
ward to the little Lake Huleh, on whose shores 
Abraham had contended in battle, and nine 
miles farther they form the beautiful Lake Ti- 
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Conversations with Christ 

berias. Among such scenes of mingled beauty 
and grandeur, of river and lake, of gorge and 
mountain, the Saviour sojourned in exile. 
Never an extensive traveler, never going south 
beyond Bethlehem, nor westward farther than 
Tyre and Sidon, nor to the eastward of the Jor- 
dan except to Bethabara, where John had 
baptized, nor to the north but to Csesarea 
Philippi — a limited but constant traveler, "who 
went about doing good." There had been 
many vicissitudes in his wonderful life. There 
were fluctuations in the public mind. Now the 
people would crown him King of Israel, and 
anon they would banish him to heathen lands. 
In strange alternations his ears were banqueted 
with hosannas and then terrified with the awful 
cry, "Crucify him, crucify him." He was now 
alone with the twelve. Once before he had 
turned to them and said, "Will ye also go 
away?" They had followed him through good 
report and evil report. He had instructed 
them as had no other religious teacher, and dis- 
played before them a power over nature that 
had eclipsed the wonders of the past. They 
had experienced a beautiful soul-rest while in 
his society, but there was a mental rest for 
which they sighed. It was no longer an open 
question with them whether the soul can repose 
74 



Conversations with Christ 

undisturbedly in Christ when the intellect is 
confused with conflicting opinions, filled 
with anxious doubts, and the judgment hesi- 
tating to accept the evidence furnished. While 
Christianity is the noble religion of the sensi- 
bilities, soliciting our affections, animating our 
hopes, stimulating our faith, inflaming our zeal, 
and cheering us with prospects enchanting and 
lovely, yet it does this by an intellectual eleva- 
tion imparted from on high, with thoughts sug- 
gested by angels and spirits, or words spoken 
by accredited messengers. The time had come 
for Christ to give to the twelve this mental rest. 
He initiated this conversation by a question 
intensely personal, the correct answer to which 
would startle the world. He had prepared 
their minds to receive the assertion of a great 
truth by warning them against the errors of the 
day, and had prepared himself for the occasion 
by spending the previous night in prayer. In 
that historic group were his three confidential 
friends, Peter, Tames, and John; Philip, the 
lovable; Nathanael, the scholar; and Thomas, 
the skeptic; Simon Zelotes, Andrew of Beth- 
saida, and James, afterward Bishop of Jerusa- 
lem ; Thaddeus, or Lebbeus, Judas or Kerioth, 
and Matthew, collector of customs ; with these 

standing around him in a semicircle he begins 

75 



Conversations with Christ 

the conversation. As if an angel had whis- 
pered, each felt the greatness of the hour, big 
with the destiny of a world. The question he 
propounded seemed casual and superficial. 
They were men of the people; they knew the 
public mind ; they had thought much and heard 
all. They were now to witness for the people 
and report to him the impressions made by 
his words, his miracles, and his character. 
It was not prompted by pride, for he had none 
to gratify; nor curiosity, for he was without 
vanity; nor ambition, for he had no worldly 
plans to execute; nor revenge, for he was the 
"friend of all, the enemy of none." Inspired 
by the noblest impulse, he would correct false 
impressions and impart truth, and thereby en- 
large the sphere of goodness. The purpose of 
the question was to make the twelve the cus- 
todians of a claim which would lead to dun- 
geons and to thrones, to his execution on 
Calvary, and to their martyrdom in many 
lands, and ultimately to his coronation on the 
throne of the universe and to their exaltation 
to the right hand of his majesty on high. 
"Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, 
am ?" They recited the rumors of the day, the 
variety of impressions made. All the people 
conceded the mystery of his being, and all were 
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Conversations with Christ 

perplexed where to place him — among good 
men or bad men or deceived men, and whether 
to call him creation or creator, devil or angel. 
The rumors reported were highly honorable. 
It was an honor to be called John the Baptist, 
prophet of the prophets, hero of heroes, martyr 
of martyrs; or Elijah, who had anointed kings 
and went to heaven in a chariot of fire ; or Jere- 
miah, whose "eyes were a fountain of tears;" 
or one of the unnamed immortal prophets, per- 
haps Samuel or Isaiah or Daniel. This must 
have gratified his great soul, but it did not 
satisfy. How passing strange that after three 
years of his wonderful ministry, declaring 
truths older than time, vast as eternity, change- 
less as God; living a sinless life, without 
reproach and irreproachable; performing won- 
ders on mind and matter, on land and sea, and 
blessing all who had accepted him gladly, yet 
in all that medley of opinions no one called him 
the Messiah of God. 

A soul less great would have abandoned his 
mission and given up a world, ungrateful and 
unbelieving, to "believe a lie that it might be 
damned." 

The conversation goes on. All that had 
been said in question and answer was prelim- 
inary to a final question and a final reply. That 
77 



Conversations with Christ 

twelve must answer for themselves, profess 
their faith, and reveal their convictions. Had 
they answered for themselves as they had for 
the people, the "world's whole destinies might 
have been changed, the Saviour would have 
failed in his mission, Christianity never have 
been, and Christendom unknown to history." 
It was a supreme moment. Was there not 
silence in heaven? Angels and redeemed 
spirits awaited their response with untold 
anxiety, not unlike that which had been expe- 
rienced for the return of Moses and Elias from 
the summit of Tabor. Never was the verdict 
of twelve men awaited with such deep concern. 
The mission of Jesus lay with the disciples. 
Had they been his disciples in vain ? Had the 
diversified rumors which they had recited to 
him unsettled their belief ? They had reached 
a period in human life of the highest moral 
grandeur. Immortal glory or eternal shame 
depended on. their confession. Were they to 
sink back into the obscurity from which they 
had been elevated, and into oblivion, from 
which there would be no recall, or rise to 
imperishable renown, in the "glorious com- 
pany of the apostles" and the "noble army of 
the martyrs?" 

Turning to these twelve jurors upon whose 

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Conversations with Christ 

verdict the fate of a new epoch was suspended 
and the welfare of. our whole race depended, he 
put the heart-searching, the momentous, the 
all-embracing interrogation, "But whom say ye 
that I am?" Each word had a vital emphasis 
and a sublime significance. The first word 
separates them from the whole population of 
Palestine, from the Hebrew commonwealth, 
from the Jewish Sanhedrin, with all its learned 
rabbis and anointed priests. There is an awful 
grandeur in this isolation, from which the brav- 
est of the brave might shrink, but from which 
there is no release. "Ye" have seen me in the 
glory of my power over all nature, when winds 
and waves obeyed me, when disease fled from 
my presence, when the dead returned to life at 
my command. "Ye" have heard my words 
of wisdom, as "never man spake." "Ye" have 
seen the sinlessness of my life, the beauty of 
my spirit, the charity of my works. "Whom 
say ye that I am?" And the sublimity of the 
interrogation was in the questioner, who 
claimed to be Prophet, Priest, and King, 
greater than Moses, greater than Aaron, 
greater than Solomon. 

We confess our sympathy with the twelve. 
They were to decide against a nation, their 
own nation, and in favor of one man, the "man 
79 



Conversations with Christ 

Christ Jesus." They were to be a unit in their 
belief on a stupendous fact, on which there was 
to be no difference of opinion. Yet in all the 
ages men have differed in their opinions touch- 
ing this many-sided fact. After three years 
of a wonderful ministry of words and deeds the 
Master had failed to produce this unity of faith. 
Did he attempt an impossibility? The origin 
of human opinion is difficult of solution. We 
are made to differ. Such is the constitution of 
the human mind, such the process by which 
men reach conclusions, such the variant factors 
in the equation, that the best and wisest of men 
differ on the most beneficent of subjects. Great 
men differ as to the best form of government, 
whether monarchial or republican; whether 
education should be coercive or should be left 
to parental dictation; whether public morality 
should be constrained by civil law or spring 
from private virtue. If men differ on ques- 
tions purely secular, involving the happiness of 
a whole community and relating to all man- 
kind, it is not surprising that they hold variant 
views on the duties, obligations, and priv- 
ileges of religion. The wisest of men are not 
agreed as to God, the primal cause of all 
things, as to the grounds of religious belief, 

whether eternal fitness or the greatest good, or 
80 



Conversations with Christ 

the divine will, and whether Christianity is the 
product of a civilization of four thousand years 
and destined to be superseded by a higher civil- 
ized life. 

The sources of our opinions are a beautiful 
speculation, and as important as interesting. 
One man is the echo of another, and can give 
no other reason for the faith that is in him than 
the same is held by another. Others are so 
constituted that from sheer pride of under- 
standing and love of distinction they agree with 
no one else; they lift themselves on a pedestal 
of isolation to be the "observed of all ob- 
servers;" they prefer opposition right or 
wrong, for Christ or against him. And there 
is a psychological source of belief. A man is 
a Universalist because of his nature ; such is the 
quantity of the "milk of human kindness" flow- 
ing through his veins he sees but one side of 
Jehovah — his mercy. Another is made of 
sterner stuff, and is a Calvinist, whose rever- 
ence for God's sovereignty is gloomy and un- 
merciful, and he would believe in hell if there 
is no hell. Universalism and Calvinism are 
idiosyncratic. A man's temperament colors 
his devotions, whether simple as a Quaker's or 
imposing as a papist's. Birth and education 
are powerful factors in the origin of our reli- 



Conversations with Christ 

gious views. Had John Wesley been born in 
Arabia and in youthhood been the companion 
of Mohammed, he would have followed the 
crescent rather than the cross. In natural en- 
dowments the founder of Methodism and the 
founder of Islamism were not unlike; the for- 
mer excelled the latter in scholarship, but there 
is little difference in the splendor of their in- 
tellects. Each was the leader of men; both 
had the genius of organization, and through 
untold centuries their influence on the world 
will remain. There are so many similar inci- 
dents in their childhood, in the society into 
which they were thrown, and in happenings on 
their journeys into distant lands ; and they were 
reformers by aspiration and philanthropists by 
inclination. Many a good man has publicly 
thanked God that he was born in a Christian 
land. Had John Knox and Ignatius Loyola 
exchanged the conditions of their childhood, 
Loyola would have been the vehement icono- 
clast of popery and Knox the father of the 
Jesuits. Had John Stuart Mill been the son 
of Howard, the Christian philanthropist, he 
would have been the defender of Christ, and 
not his prosecutor. Some have risen above the 
environments of parentage and the direction of 

education, and have issued into a Christian life 
82 



Conversations with Christ 

from infidel homes, and others have emerged 
into the light of the glorious Gospel out of the 
darkness of paganism. These are exceptions. 
The law of the kingdom is conversion in child- 
hood. Christianity draws her mighty hosts 
from Christian schools; the Sabbath school is 
the nursery of the church. "All thy children 
shall be taught of the Lord" is the secret of 
the tenacious existence of the Hebrew people, 
and the fountain of the life of the Christian 
Church is that saying of the Master, "Suffer 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not; for of such is the kingdom of God." 

Such facts demand of us a larger sympathy 
with those who differ from us in their belief. 
The Messiahship of Christ is the largest subject 
ever addressed to the human intellect. It is 
transcendent. It may be apprehended as a 
revelation, but never comprehended as a fact. 
It may be received as rational, but can never 
be discovered. It is a communication from 
the spirit world. This was St. Peter's bless- 
ing, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for 
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 
but my Father which is in heaven." 

This was not the first announcement of this 
truth of truths. All through his public minis- 
try he had declared his Messiahship and had 
83 



Conversations with Christ 

accepted the declaration thereof made by 
others. At the beginning of those three event- 
ful years he had heard with complaisant ac- 
quiescence the confession of Nathanael, "Thou 
art the Son of God; thou art the King of 
Israel." Twice in the second year of his min- 
istry he had permitted the twelve to declare the 
same truth : once on the night of that storm at 
sea, when he chided the winds and like little 
children they went to sleep, when the affright- 
ed sailors said, "Of a truth, thou art the Son of 
God;" and again in the time of that reverse 
when many of his disciples went back, when he 
turned to the twelve and said, "Will ye also go 
away?" and when St. Peter spoke for all, 
"Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the 
words of eternal life; and we believe and are 
sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the 
living God." And twice in that same year 
he himself had asserted his Messiahship : to the 
woman of Samaria in those notable words, "I 
that speak unto thee am he ;" and to the man 
whose sight he had restored, "It is he that 
talketh with thee." 

But this is what with propriety may be 

called the official assumption on the part of 

Christ of the Messiah's rights and titles, and on 

the part of the Church the official confession of 

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Conversations with Christ 

this central truth of Christianity. The signifi- 
cance of the blessing is that St. Peter's utter- 
ance is a heavenly inspiration, a revelation, an 
illumination, a convincement, a persuasion, all 
these to the same person or one or the other 
according to the intellectual and spiritual con- 
dition of the individual. As an original truth 
the Messiahship is indiscoverable by man; it is 
a conception remote from the function and 
power of the imagination. The conception 
belongs to the divine mind. God only can 
think God incarnate. It is one of the medita- 
tions of the infinite intellect. It is the dream 
of God, like his dream of creation. It is the 
strongest proof of the divine origin of Chris- 
tianity. Neither prophet nor apostle claims 
priority of discovery or originality of concep- 
tion. All yield to the heavenly revelation. 
From the beginning there were intimations, 
hints, in symbol, type-vision, prophecy, and ex- 
pectation, but no claim to origination. That 
is a great saying by St. Paul to the Corinthians, 
"No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by 
the Holy Spirit." This is true in the abstract; 
no created intelligence is equal to the concep- 
tion. Without controversy great is the mys- 
tery of godliness, "God manifested in the 
flesh." There is no room for controversy. 
85 



Conversations with Christ 

The intellect should be receptive and not con- 
ceptive. And in the concrete there is to be an 
intellectual illumination, to every "one that 
cometh into the world;" arid there is to be a 
divine persuasion, "He shall testify of me." 
Unitarianism is mental inability, an unwilling- 
ness to receive what is undiscoverable. This 
was the fatal mistake of Arius of Alexandria in 
the fifth century; of Socinus of Italy in the 
fifteenth century; and Riddle of England a 
century later, the authors in succession of 
Arianism — superangelic ; Socinianism — super- 
human; Unitarianism — human. What a de- 
scent ! Error is always downward. 

This conversation is illustrious for two im- 
mortal confessions — the first by St. Peter, the 
second by our Lord. The apostle's confession 
was to the Messiah; the Messiah's confession 
was to the world, through the faith of the 
twelve. This was the formal organization of 
the Christian Church. Hitherto his adherents 
were camp followers, attracted by the "loaves 
and fishes," by the last debates of attack and 
repulse, and by the beautiful mystery of his per- 
sonality, and who forsook him when offended 
at his teachings and the fierce onset of his 
enemies. But hereafter his friends must form 

an orderly society with the right to rule and 
86 



Conversations with Christ 

the duty to obey. In this conversation with 
the twelve he lays the foundation of his 
Church in himself, and declares that "upon this 
rock I will build my Church." This was dear 
to those with whom he conversed. He used an 
old biblical figure to represent certainty and 
firmness. "The Lord is my rock," sings 
David, and thirty years after the ascension 
St. Peter wrote, "Behold, I lay in Zion, for a 
foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious 
corner stone, a sure foundation." Both Christ 
and St. Peter quote that ancient psalm as ap- 
plicable to the Messiah, "The stone which the 
builders refused is become the headstone of the 
corner." Having compared his new dispen- 
sation to a temple, there is a beautiful propriety 
in representing the administration thereof 
under the figure of the "keys of the kingdom of 
heaven," a very old symbol for knowledge to 
communicate and authority to teach, "Woe 
unto you, lawyers ! for ye have taken away the 
key of knowledge; ye enter not in yourselves, 
and them which were entering in ye hindered." 
And the noble figure is carried to the orderly 
possession of the temple and the deportment of 
those who worship therein, hence authority was 
given to "bind," or approve; and to "loose," or 
disapprove. 

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Conversations with Christ 

These august words were addressed to the 
twelve. No special honor was conferred on 
Peter which the others did not equally share. 
He was the spokesman on this memorable oc- 
casion, as were others on other occasions: 
"John answered him, saying, Master, we saw 
one casting out devils in thy name, and he fol- 
loweth not us; and we forbade him;" "Philip 
saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and 
it sufficeth us;" "Judas saith unto him, Lord, 
how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto 
us, and not unto the world?" St. Peter's pri- 
macy is a fact and a fiction. It is a fact, as was 
the superiority of Athanasius among debaters 
in the council of Nicaea, of Luther among the 
Reformers, of Wesley in the Holy Club at 
Oxford, but a fiction as to headship over all his 
brother apostles. Our Lord's half-brother, 
James the Less, was Bishop of Jerusalem and 
president of the first Christian Council. As a 
writer he is inferior to St. Matthew and St. 
John in matter and manner. Twice he was 
made answerable for his ministerial utterances, 
and was rebuked for dissembling; he alter- 
nated between courage and cowardice, between 
bravado and denial. St. John was the better 
Christian, and was the chosen guardian of the 
blessed Virgin. St. Peter's glory was after 



Conversations with Christ 

his conversion at Pentecost, and his martyr- 
dom is proof of the change. 

What visions of triumphs rose before the 
twelve when the Master said, "The gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it." In the council 
chamber, in the gates of the city of the wicked, 
conspiracies may be plotted against the Church 
of the Messiah, but they shall not prevail ; the 
Church of the rock shall outlast empires and 
kingdoms, to the last generation of man. A 
magnificent future allures them to duty and 
inspires them to do and to dare. Palaces invite 
them; thrones await them. They are the 
allies of the greatest of conquerors; all nations 
will call him blessed ; his name is to be great 
and held in everlasting remembrance. It was 
a moment of ecstasy; they shouted for joy; 
the future seemed clothed with the actuality of 
the present. 

This remarkable conversation continued for 
six days and filled all hearts with sorrow by 
another unexpected revelation. Out of this 
sunlight of joyous hope and exultant con- 
templation the Master led his friends into the 
gloom of the cross and the darkness of the 
tomb. He had organized his Church, an- 
nounced its cardinal truth, and invested the 
twelve with the authority to preach the word 



Conversations with Christ 

and administer discipline. Now he felt con- 
strained to reveal to them his death, burial, and 
resurrection. "From this time forth began 
Jesus to show his disciples how that he must go 
unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the 
elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be 
killed, and be raised again the third day." 
Like unto this he had said in a conversation to 
his Greek visitors, "Except a grain of wheat 
fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone; 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." The 
path of glory leads through the tomb, a reve- 
lation to Jew and Greek. In earlier conversa- 
tions he had intimated this by reference to 
Jonah and the whale, but now he speaks with- 
out parable or figure of speech. Whatever 
was the amazement and disappointment of the 
others, the ebullient nature of Peter broke 
forth, and as the Greek is, "he called him to 
order;" "Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall 
not be unto thee." His inconsiderate impetu- 
osity had transformed him into a tempter, 
like the evil one who sought in the wilder- 
ness to dissuade Jesus from his holy mis- 
sion. What a transformation! Was it sym- 
pathy? Was it unbelief? Was it failure 
to understand the necessity for a suffering 

Messiah? Like his countrymen, would he 
90 



Conversations with Christ 

have only a Messiah triumphant? Shall the 
conversation end in a fatal dispute? Has the 
apostle so soon repudiated his noble confession ? 
Would that some artist had photographed 
Jesus when "he turned" and with withering 
glance and terrible rebuke said to him whom he 
had called "blessed/' "Get thee behind me, 
Satan;" out of my sight thou tempter; "thou 
art an offense unto me." It was a moment of 
unspeakable grief to Christ and of mortification 
to Peter. The twelve never forgot that mo- 
ment. Peter made no reply, but was left alone 
in his shame, while the Master continued the 
conversation alone with the twelve, insisting on 
the utter and final renouncement of all earthly 
good, and even life itself ; that no one could be 
his disciple who would not "deny himself and 
take up his cross and follow me." He was ex- 
acting to the last degree. No other religious 
teacher ever demands so much of his friends, 
such undivided loyalty, and none ever repays so 
largely and richly in the life that now is and in 
that which is to come. 

Six days after the commencement of this 
conversation at Csesarea Philippi the same was 
renewed on the summit of Mount Tabor. St. 
Peter's confession must be confirmed by some 

extraordinary manifestation, and the Master's 
91 



Conversations with Christ 

claim vindicated by the transfiguration of his 
person, by the presence of visitors from out the 
unseen, and by the voice of God himself. The 
journey to this sacred mountain occupies three 
days, a distance of sixty miles. The route they 
took was either via Tiberias to the village of 
Deburich or by the Vale of Fejas, along the 
seashore and through the Fejas Mountains. 
The scene is one of unrivaled beauty. Two 
thousand feet above the sea, the ascent is 
through groves of terebinths, flowery beds, 
dells of stately oaks, glades of grass, and fra- 
grant shrubs. The view from the summit is 
one of extraordinary grandeur, from which are 
seen the mountains of Samaria, the long ridge 
of Carmel,the Bay of Haifa, the plain of Akka, 
the hills of Galilee, the lofty peak of Safed, the 
Horns of Hattin, the majestic form of Her- 
mon, the trans- Jordanic walls of Moab, the 
banks of the Jordan, and, nearer, the slopes of 
Gilboa, the glorious plain of Esdraelon, on 
whose verdure-clad border are Shunem, Nain, 
and Endor. Such was the landscape that 
gladdened the eye of the Master on that recog- 
nition day. It was sunset and in the dark- 
ness of the approaching night; the gates of 
heaven opened, and the excellent glory shone 

forth. Nine of the twelve were excluded 
92 



Conversations with Christ 

from the scene, and they, like us, were to be- 
lieve what they did not see. Doubtless Peter's 
anger had subsided, and he had forgotten the 
sting of his Lord's rebuke. , He and the 
two brothers, James and John, were to behold 
the majestic occurrence and reveal it to the 
world. High up on the northern slopes, far 
away from the haunts of men, is a lovely glade 
inclosed by oaks and adorned with flowers, 
where all nature breathes a sense of repose, 
and where a holy quiet reigns undisturbed. 
The view of the blue sky is unobstructed, and 
there in the "stilly night," watched by the 
stars, the "Son of the living God" conversed 
with Moses and Elias touching "his decease 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem;" 
the "fashion of his body was altered, and his 
raiment was white and glistering," and "there 
came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is 
my beloved Son, hear him." 
93 



Such as be of upright conversation." — Psalms. 



" Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me : and to him that 
ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation 
of God." — Psalms. 



" Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among 
you ? let him show out of a good conversation his works 
with meekness of wisdom," — -James. 



Conversations with Christ 



V 
Christ's Conversation with a Lawyer 

" Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God : 
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God 
be with him." — John iii, 2. 

History records three memorable inter- 
views at night. A thousand years before 
Christ the king of Israel stole silently away 
from his sleeping hosts to consult the Witch 
of Endor. Descending the declivities of Gil- 
boa, he passed over the plain of Esdraelon to 
the neighboring hamlet of Endor, where he 
sought the presence of the sorceress to com- 
fort his troubled soul. To the surprise of witch 
and warrior the greatest of the prophets sud- 
denly came from the spirit world. Clad in his 
ancient robes, Samuel appeared to King Saul 
as he had in other days, and startled both with 
the demand, "Why hast thou disquieted me, 
to bring me up?" It was a rebuke; but the 
troubled king replied, "I am sore distressed; 
the Philistines make war against me. God is 
departed from me, and answereth me no more, 

neither by prophets nor dreams. Therefore I 

7 97 



Conversations with Christ 

have called thee, that thou mayest make known 
unto me what I shall do." The prophet re- 
called the past; reproved his royal visitor for 
his many omissions of duty; foretells his de- 
feat and death in these pathetic words, "To- 
morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." 
The interview ends. Samuel disappeared from 
earthly vision. Saul returns to his embattled 
hosts. The day dawns on the heights of Gil- 
boa. The battle is renewed, and that night 
king and prophet meet in the spirit world. 

In 1807, on the night of the 25th of June, 
two of the famous men of our century met on 
a raft in the river Niemen opposite Tilsit, in 
Prussia. It was half-past one o'clock in the 
morning. On the shore on either side of the 
river were the contending armies. The raft 
was anchored in midstream. By torchlight 
boats approached the place of meeting; in one 
was Napoleon the First ; in the other was Alex- 
ander the First of Russia ; as they landed can- 
non boomed, soldiers shouted. Two hours 
were spent in conversation that night on that 
raft. The details of the interview are un- 
known, but historians say that the august per- 
sonages met to "change the map of Europe." 
They were marvelous men; one, the greatest 

military genius of his age, astute in statecraft, 
98 



Conversations with Christ 

unscrupulous in conscience, splendid in intel- 
lect; the other, every whit the soldier, an em- 
peror of whom Russia is justly proud. They 
parted. The map of Europe was changed; it 
has been many times since; it will be many 
times to come. 

In the first year of the public ministry of 
Jesus there occurred in Jerusalem a midnight 
interview of more importance than to regain 
the fortunes of a kingdom, and of greater 
value to mankind than to rearrange the polit- 
ical destinies of a continent. The conversation 
was between a lawyer of venerable age, of high 
5 reputation, a ruler, a member of the Sanhe- 
J drin, of masterful intellect, and of immense 
wealth; and the professed Messiah, the wisest 
of teachers, the Saviour of the world, who was 
in his thirty-first year, and who had that day 
inaugurated his public ministry in the capital 
of the nation by a series of astounding mir- 
acles. It was Christ's first visit to Jerusalem 
as "Prophet, Priest, and King." When a 
child he had been carried there by his mother 
in obedience to a ceremonial law, and at the 
age of twelve "he was found in the temple, sit- 
ting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
them and asking them questions." His first 
public visit to the Holy City marked an epoch 
99 



Conversations with Christ 

in the history of the world. It was a high day 
in the glorious city. From the valleys and the 
mountains of Palestine, from the islands of the 
sea, from every province of the Roman em- 
pire, the Jews had gathered to celebrate the 
grandest festival of a national character. Not- 
less than two millions had come ; they crowded 
the city, and their white tents covered the 
Mount of Olives. It was proper that the 
Teacher of mankind should appear at this focal 
point in the history of his people. He had 
nothing to disguise ; he had everything to pub- 
lish. He might have gone into the city when 
the ordinary population were pursuing the or- 
dinary duties of life, but selecting this most 
august period in the calendar of the common- 
wealth, he suddenly appeared. His first act 
was to cleanse the temple, which had been de- 
filed by petty hucksters of "sacred wares," and 
greedy money changers of small coins, who 
were driving their bargains under the pretext 
of providing the sacrifices for the people. Had 
they confined themselves beyond the sacred 
precincts of the temple, their trade was legit- 
imate. Doves, sheep, and oxen were required 
as offerings by the ceremonial law, and the 
same law demanded a yearly tribute from 
every Israelite to be paid in the half shekel of 



Conversations with Christ 

silver, which the foreign pilgrim from many 
lands must purchase at a charge of five per 
cent for the foreign coin of heathen countries. 
The offense was not so much in the business 
as the place profaned by this commerce. These 
traders had invaded the Court of the Gen- 
tiles, consecrated to the worship of the Most 
High, the house of prayer for all nations. This 
irreverence excited the righteous scorn of the 
young Messiah, and his noble indignation 
burned like a mountain on fire. Having driven 
out the bleating sheep and lowing herd, which 
had filled the temple with filth and stench, he 
turned to the money changers, overthrew their 
counters, scattered their heterogeneous coins 
on the marble pavement which they had pro- 
faned, and commanded, "Take these things 
hence ; make not my Father's house a house of 
merchandise." This was passing bold. Had 
he come from the king or the high priest, there 
would have been at least the semblance of au- 
thority; had he descended from the sky in the 
sight of the multitude; had the silver trump- 
ets of the sanctuary proclaimed his coming; 
but he came unheralded, unattended with royal 
retinue or martial pomp ; he came as a pilgrim 
in the crowd of pilgrims that thronged all the 
avenues to the Holy Citv, and at once claimed 



Conversations with Christ 

his rights as the Messiah and assumed his au- 
thority as the "Son of God." There was no 
resistance; hucksters and brokers were intim- 
idated; conscience smitten, they fled his pres- 
ence, and only the "rulers" had courage to ask 
him, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing 
that thou doest these things?" His reply was 
a mystery, "Destroy this temple, and in three 
days I will raise it up." Had he pointed to the 
magnificent temple, yet unfinished, which had 
occupied forty-six years in building, he had 
power to do it ; but he referred to the death and 
resurrection of his body, the future and final 
abode of God, the enshrinement of the She- 
kinah. Then turning to the afflicted multitude, 
"many believed in his name when they saw the 
miracles which he did." 

Among the attentive observers of the mir- 
acles of that day was an eminent lawyer, whose 
name is forever associated with that of the 
Messiah. His majestic bearing and venerable 
appearance and the high position he held in the 
supreme court of the nation attracted the at- 
tention of all and did not fail to meet the eye 
of Jesus. His immense wealth and well-known 
liberality had passed into a proverb. All Jeru- 
salem were familiar with one of such distinc- 
tion, and strangers from Rome and the utter- 

102 



Conversations with Christ 

most parts of the earth present at the great 
national festival saluted him as he passed 
through the streets or mingled with the devout 
worshipers in the temple on Mount Moriah. 
Tradition has preserved for our day the tokens 
of his vast fortune. It is said that on the wed- 
ding day of his only daughter he covered her 
bridal bed with gold coin, and it was currently 
reported that he could support the whole pop- 
ulation of Jerusalem for a period of ten years. 
There is a well-founded tradition that during 
a great paschal gathering, when the water in 
the city failed, he went to a citizen on whose 
land were twelve wells, and asked permission 
to draw therefrom for the benefit of the pil- 
grims. Permission, was granted on condition 
that the wells should be restored with water on 
the coming clay from the going down of the 
sun. The condition was accepted. Good men 
prayed, and the friendly heavens poured down 
abundance of rain ; but ere the wells were filled 
the sun went down, and the Shylock demanded 
the forfeiture that had been pledged. In the 
confidence of the beloved counselor the people 
were called to prayers, and in answer thereto 
the sun again burst forth in glory. 

The night of that memorable day came on 

apace; the stars looked silently down; and the 
103 



Conversations with Christ 

paschal moon rose in splendor on the heights 
of Olivet. All nature was hushed, and not a 
sound was heard save the chant of the Levites 
within the sacred fane. Anxious in mind and 
troubled in spirit, the lawyer left his mag- 
nificent abode, and passing out of St. Stephen's 
Gate, he descended the declivities of Moriah, 
crossed the little stone bridge that spans the 
Kidron, and silently ascends the Mount of Ol- 
ives. Thither the young Messiah had gone 
after the excitement of the day. In some of 
its embowered retreats he had found a resting 
place for the night, attended by only one dis- 
ciple, his personal friend, the beloved St. John. 
The lawyer approached, and through the cour- 
teous eloquence of his honorable profession he 
compliments the Messiah in the most deferen- 
tial language, and the conversation begins : 
" Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come 
from God : for no man can do these miracles, 
except God be with him." There was nothing 
of timidity in this midnight approach, for it 
had been an immemorial custom for profound 
jurists to meet in the silence of the night to 
discuss fundamental principles of constitution- 
al law. It was on the night of the day on which 
he had witnessed the miracles of Jesus which 

evinced his alacrity and courage; he did not 

104 



Conversations with Christ 

wait for a more "convenient season," but 
sought the great Galilean in his retreat ; he did 
not wait till the dawn, when the excited mul- 
titude would throng the young Teacher to see 
his works and listen to the gracious words 
from his lips. He would see him alone to un- 
burden his heart and increase his faith. His 
first question was the measure of the light he 
had received. He did not say more; he could 
not say less. He had been enlightened by a 
Teacher whose wisdom was more than human, 
who "spake as never man spake." True to his 
legal profession, he assigns the reason for the 
faith that is with him ; "for no man can do the 
works which thou doest, except God be with 
him." "I cannot say that thou art the Mes- 
siah of whom Moses and the prophets did 
write, but I esteem thee the greatest of teach- 
ers ; I cannot say that the miracles of to-day in- 
dicate inherent power, but are the credentials of 
a delegated power." It was a noble confession ; 
miracles had been wrought, and on this fact 
he presumed to seek the interview. He does 
not touch the Messiahship; his convictions are 
not equal to that large subject; sufficient unto 
the day is the light thereof. "Walk in the 
light," much or little, and thou shalt have fel- 
lowship with the Father. The lawyer's first 
105 



Conversations with Christ 

question is the expression of high caution and 
thorough honesty. 

Christ accepts the invitation to the conver- 
sation. He was not offended at the partial 
truth. He is not an exacting dogmatist. He 
is less concerned about the creed than the hun- 
ger of the human soul. He is pleased with the 
frank confession of the aged lawyer, and re- 
veals a spiritual condition which he could 
remedy. He does not engage in argument to 
prove his Messiahship from prophecy or by 
new miracles. 

Christ's answer is very remarkable. There 
is no relevancy in the reply. It is strangely 
abrupt and excites surprise. The answer is 
appropriate. The lawyer's conscience is 
troubled, and the young Teacher applies the 
remedy, "Except a man be born again, he can- 
not see the kingdom of God." It is not an 
evasion. Is it a lost opportunity to give the 
world an unanswerable argument that he is 
"God manifested in the flesh?" No proof 
could be clearer than he is more than man; 
it was expression of his adequate knowl- 
edge of human nature ; that "he needed not that 
any should testify of men, for he knew what is 
in man ;" that he could "minister to a mind dis- 
eased." 

106 



Conversations with Christ 

The venerable inquirer was surprised. His 
question was fair, direct, logical, and he had 
good reason to expect a corresponding re- 
sponse, learned and satisfactory. It related to 
the "desire of nations," the dream of the 
world, the expectation of his people. For four 
thousand years poets had sung, seers had seen, 
prophets had foretold, priests had symbolized, 
and God had promised that Shiloh would come. 
As an expounder of the law and interpreter of 
the sacred books he knew the time of fulfill- 
ment had come. Who is this great teacher and 
wonder-worker? Is he Messiah? 

His national pride was touched; he was of- 
fended. He was not ignorant of the meaning 
of the sense of the figure in the response. It 
is as old as his nation; its application is re- 
stricted to heathen converted to Judaism, but 
is offensive when applied to him, a Pharisee, a 
ruler, a member of the Sanhedrin. It has a 
higher significance not familiar to the legal 
mind, a spiritual intent not a revelation to his 
hearer. He is a literalist and thinks of his 
physical birth. But it is the central truth of 
the new kingdom, the re-creation of the soul 
into the image of the Creator. In his incred- 
ulous amazement he asks, "Can a man be born 

when he is old?" 

107 



Conversations with Christ 

Christ takes no notice of the question and 
gives no answer to the impossible question, ex- 
cept in calm dignity he unveils the spiritual 
meaning of his reply, "That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of 
the Spirit is spirit." In all his "conversations" 
the Master adapted himself to the capacity of 
the hearer. To the multitude he employs par- 
ables. In the mustard seed is the significance 
of the kingdom of heaven. In the falling spar- 
row is the care of Providence. In the lilies of 
the valley is the beauty of holiness. He is 
now in contest with a mighty intellect capable 
of grasping naked truth, of discussing original 
propositions ; yet the most astute minds appre- 
ciate apt illustrations. At that moment the 
wind is heard in the branches of the olive 
trees, and the Teacher calls attention to the 
sound thereof, and utters a scientific fact, "The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou near- 
est the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is everyone 
that is born of the Spirit." And he throws 
his great soul in the monosyllable "so." The 
invisible wind adumbrates the unseen opera- 
tion of spiritual forces on man's higher nature, 
but the effects of the wind are apparent to all 

our senses; and so the transforming results of 
108 



Conversations with Christ 

heavenly influences are cognizant to all. He 
intensifies the light now dawning on his listen- 
er's mind by another figure. As water cleanses 
the body, so the Spirit purifies the soul — "Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit." 
This is his first announcement that in all the 
coming ages the sacrament of baptism would 
be the initiatory rite to his new society of true 
believers and the symbol of a purified heart. 

Amazed at the doctrine of the new dispen- 
sation, the astonished lawyer inquires, "How 
can these things be?" He is now the philoso- 
pher and would know the process of the 
mighty change. His imagination is alert and 
pictures the difficulties involved in the proposi- 
tion when applied to men of all nations, creeds, 
and conditions. He doubts the possibility and 
questions both the doctrine 'announced and the 
figures employed. There is a touch of severity 
in the Master's answer. Only twice in his re- 
corded life did he indulge in irony, and this is 
the first. Half sorrowful and half reproving 
he asks, "Art thou a master in Israel, and 
knowest not these things?" The great lawyer 
is silent. Was it the silence of umbrage or of 
conscious ignorance ? He says no more, but is 
honored with the first discourse by the founder 

of the new system of faith and power destined 
109 



Conversations with Christ 

to claim the attention of all nations in all the 
ages. And this conversation is the more mem- 
orable because it is the first time in our Lord's 
public ministry, and the only time, where he 
discoursed in detail and fullness on the great 
doctrine of regeneration. All his subsequent 
conversations centered here, and is minute and 
lengthy in this interview because he had for a 
listener a master mind capable of apprehen- 
sion. He now speaks to all men and for all 
time. It should be no longer a mystery to 
confuse the mind, but a fact of personal con- 
sciousness. It is the eradication of evil ten- 
dencies, the habitual mastery of all virtues 
over opposite vices, the impartation of spiritual 
strength to respond to the requisition of the 
divine law, and the restoration of our moral 
nature — affections, will, and conscience — to 
what it was in the creation. This is a revela- 
tion to the lawyer, and he now discovers that 
he had misapprehended the Messiah's lan- 
guage and fell short of his meaning. He had 
thought of natural faith, hence the question, 
"How can these things be?" He failed to per- 
ceive that human nature is perverted nature, 
and that Christ's mission is reconstruction on 
the original model, the restoration to man's 
primal condition, with every passion and ap- 



Conversations with Christ 

petite gratified within the limitations of nat- 
ural law. In answer to his question the great 
Teacher replied, "We speak that we do know, 
and testify that we have seen; and ye receive 
not our witness." He stands for nature and 
vindicates the integrity of the intellect and of 
the senses. "We know" expresses the certain- 
ty of our mental operations; "have seen" justi- 
fies the reliableness of our physical senses. He 
speaks representatively in behalf of all his fol- 
lowers. His pure nature needed no rectifica- 
tion. "He is without sin," and creates a new 
expression for all his people whose regenera- 
tion is a conscious fact; and by the other ex- 
pression, "We have seen," relates to himself 
personally in observing the operations of the 
Holy Spirit on the human soul, and the mani- 
festations thereof in practical life. All his 
people are witnesses to the latter in charities 
to man and devotion toward God, and testify to 
what they know and what they see in daily life. 
The lawyer is silent, but a good listener. His 
silence betokens unbelief, and a mild rebuke is 
given, "If I have told you earthly things, and 
ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell 
you of heavenly things ?" He verifies his abil- 
ity to reveal "heavenly things" as he did to 
believing Nathanael, to whom he declared, 



Conversations with Christ 

"Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the 
angels of God ascending and descending upon 
the Son of man." If the silence of the eminent 
lawyer is due to his anxiety to hear about the 
Messiahship of the Galilean, his wish is now 
gratified, as if he said : "You are good enough 
to say, 'Thou art a teacher come from God; 
for no man can do these miracles that thou do- 
est, except God be with him ;' I now assert my 
divinity by disclosing to you the fact that I 
descended from heaven ; I came from the 
bosom of the everlasting Father; I am older 
than the angels. True, I am only thirty-one 
years old, and was born not five miles from 
here; my mother is Mary, chosen to be the 
mother of my humanity, yet in the spirit I trod 
the eternities and immensities of the Almighty ; 
'No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he 
that came down from heaven, even the Son of 
man which is in heaven.' ' How these words 
startle the learned Jew ! With what wonder 
he gazes upon one who claims to be an inhab- 
itant of the unseen world ! He continues the 
conversation and intensifies his hearer's sur- 
prise by saying, "I reveal to you another secret ; 
I am the only man who came into the world 
to die; all other men were born to live; my 
mission is to die : 'As Moses lifted up the ser- 

112 



Conversations with Christ 

pent in the wilderness, even so must the Son 
of man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have eternal 
life.' ' He links himself with the mighty past, 
and declares himself the significance of every 
symbol, the substance of every type, the ful- 
fillment of every prophecy in all Jewish his- 
tory. The imagination falters to picture the 
amazement of Nicodemus; language is inad- 
equate to express the wonderment of his mind. 
The mystery expands, the excitement deep- 
ens when the Teacher connects his death on 
the cross with the love of God : "For God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." The 
sublime mystery of the atonement is now re- 
vealed; the speaker is the paschal "Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world ;" he is Isa- 
iah's "suffering Messiah ;" he is Daniel's "An- 
cient of days;" he is Malachi's "Lord of hosts." 
By a continuity of thought sublime as the 
claim is original the divine Teacher is assert- 
ive of his rights. He does not argue ; he de- 
clares; he will agree with his enemies and 
confirm his claims by words and works unan- 
swerable, but now he is declarative of truths 

symbolized and preintimated through four mil- 
8 113 



Conversations with Christ 

lenniums. He opens to the wondering- mind of 
the lawyer the supreme condition of eternal 
life; "He that beiieveth on him is not con- 
demned: but he that believeth not is con- 
demned already, because he hath not believed 
in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 

The night wears on. The prevailing dark- 
ness suggests another figure. The wind that 
was sighing in the olive branches had sug- 
gested the invisible movements of the Holy 
Spirit on the human soul, so the prevailing 
darkness is the emblem of the mental and 
moral condition of him who is unconverted. 
"This is the condemnation, that light is come 
into the world, and men loved darkness rather 
than light, because their deeds were evil." 
This is not a reflection on the night visit of 
Nicodemus, but an impressive illustration of 
the effects of sin. His subsequent life demon- 
strated that his soul had been illuminated and 
that he was the first convert made by our Lord. 

The conversation ends. They part at mid- 
night. The paschal moon shines through the 
branches of Olivet. Nicodemus hastens to his 
palatial home in the sacred city; the Saviour 
retires to rest in some chosen grove. 

Two years pass away — years of incessant 

traveling, from the Jordan to the Mediterra- 
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Conversations with Christ 

nean, from Jerusalem to Csesarea Philippi, up 
and down the valley of the Jordan, along the 
shores of the Mediterranean, through all the 
villages of central Palestine, "he went about 
doing good." The great revolution was on. 
Multitudes followed him. His teachings en- 
tranced the people. His miracles were his 
credentials. The whole Jewish commonwealth 
was aroused. Tumult followed tumult. The 
priesthood denounced him, while the "common 
people heard him gladly." The voice of bitter 
hate rang out from the Sanhedrin. Conspir- 
acies were plotted. A price was set upon his 
head. Pharisee and Sadducee, lawyer and Le- 
vite, engaged him in debate. They said he is 
mad, an emissary of the devil, a deceiver of the 
nation, in league with the Romans, a malefac- 
tor, and should die. But children hailed him 
with shouts of hosanna; women ministered 
unto him: the poor blessed him; the afflicted 
testified to his healing power. His popularity 
waxed and waned ; now all forsook him but the 
"chosen twelve," and anon the excited multi- 
tude would crown him their king. These 
things led to the inevitable. Officers were dis- 
patched to arrest him, but returned to the court 
and answered, "Never spake man like this 

a violent de- 
115 



Conversations with Christ 

bate ensues; the judges denounce the people, 
and in their anger declare, "This people know- 
eth not the law." That court was composed of 
seventy judges, whose distinguished members 
were priests, scribes, and lawyers, and when 
organized had a president, vice president, and 
a master to expound the law. Caiaphas is now 
the presiding judge, astute, crafty, bitter, 
ready for the crucifixion. The young Messiah 
has two friends on the bench — Joseph of Ari- 
mathea, an "honorable counselor, a rich man, 
who was also Jesus's disciple;" and Nicode- 
mus, who had seen his miracles and had spent 
a night with him in conversation. Both had 
watched his public movements with liveliest 
interest. The courage of Xicodemus was now 
equal to his learning, and inspired the question, 
"Doth our law judge any man, before it hear 
him, and know what he doeth?" The Messiah 
had not been arrested; there was no prisoner 
at the bar ; no defense is offered ; an unanswer- 
able question is asked by a fellow-judge. The 
court is furious; his discipleship is suspected; 
he is taunted with the question, "Art thou also 
of Galilee? Search, and look; for out of Gal- 
ilee ariseth no prophet." The reply is too pas- 
sionate to be judicial. It is expressive of the 

old quarrel between Jew and Samaritan, ex- 
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Conversations with Christ 

pressive of contempt of a small Galilean vil- 
lage — "Can any good thing come out of Naz- 
areth?" What a reply for the dispensers of 
justice to give! This prejudice had perme- 
ated the highest ranks, for even the scholarly 
Nathanael had asked that question when Philip 
brought him to the Messiah. Nicodemus re- 
plied, "Out of Galilee came Hosea, son of 
Beeri, and Nahum, the Elkoshite, and Jonah, 
who saved Nineveh, and Barak, the deliverer, 
and Anna, the prophetess, who had seen the 
Lord, and Elijah, who anointed kings, was 
translated in glory, and who appeared with 
Moses on Tabor to witness to this greatest of 
Galileans." The court adjourned, and with 
a keen touch of irony the historian adds, "And 
every man went unto his own house." 

Another year comes and goes. The end 
draws nigh. Such, violent public commotions 
must culminate. The opposition increases. 
The young Teacher's withering denunciations 
and the burning anathemas that fell from his 
lips in the very court of the temple, and in the 
hearing of scribe and Pharisee, aroused the 
wrath of the Sanhedrin to volcanic fury, which 
broke forth with death-dealing power. The 
traitor and his thirty pieces of silver; Geth- 

semane and its agonizer ; Calvary and its cross, 
117 



Conversations with Christ 

appear above the horizon. The faltering 
moon of the last passover shines upon the il- 
lustrious sufferer amid the somber olives of the 
garden of his agony. He is arrested ; all night 
long he is in the hands of the mob. The morn- 
ing comes. The court convenes. Caiaphas 
presides. At the bar stands the prisoner 
crowned with thorns and bound. In pompous 
and solemn language the judge exclaims, "I 
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us 
whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the liv- 
ing God." Without fear or hesitancy the an- 
swer is made : "Thou hast said : nevertheless I 
say unto thee, Hereafter shall ye see the Son 
of man sitting on the right hand of power, and 
coming in the clouds of heaven." 

Joseph and Nicodemus are on the bench. 
They exchange glances with the Saviour, but 
are powerless to save him. It may be that 
Nicodemus is deterred from making any de- 
fense when he recalls the words of the Messiah 
to him in that midnight conversation, "As 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up." 
Witnesses are examined against him, but none 
in his favor. The case is submitted to the 
court. "What think ye?" "He is guilty of 

death," is the stern reply. The verdict is not 
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Conversations with Christ 

unanimous, for the record is that Joseph and 
Nicodemus "consented not to the counsel and 
deed of them." They follow him into Pilate's 
judgment hall and hear him speak these re- 
markable words : "To this end was I born, and 
for this cause came I into the world, that I 
should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone 
that is of the truth heareth my voice." The two 
counselors are now joined by a third friend, 
and St. John, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nic- 
odemus are steadfast to the end. They were 
helpless to rescue, but powerful to believe. 
The trial is ended; the awful tragedy is over; 
Christ is dead. The two counselors recall the 
prophecy, "He made his grave with the wicked, 
and with the rich in his death; because he had 
no violence, neither was any deceit in his 
mouth." They boldly go to Pilate and claim 
permission to bury their friend. Joseph 
brought the finest linen for the shroud, for the 
seamless robe, woven by the loving hands of 
Mary and Martha, had been torn from the cru- 
cified body and gambled away by the Roman 
soldiers ; and Nicodemus brought one hundred 
pounds of spices for the embalmment; and the 
two friends carried the body to the peaceful 
grave. Not far from Calvary Joseph owned a 

garden, and in the garden was a new tomb 
119 



Conversations with Christ 

hewn out of the solid rock, which he had de- 
signed for himself that he might be buried near 
the Holy City : "Now in the place where he was 
crucified there was a garden '; and in the garden 
a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet 
laid. There they laid Jesus therefore because 
of the Jews' preparation day ; for the sepulcher 
was nigh at hand." It was the burial of a king 
by these princely disciples. 

120 



" Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as 
silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by 
tradition from your fathers." — Peter. 



" But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye 
holy in all manner of conversation." — Peter. 



"Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in con- 
versation, in charity, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.' 

— Timothy. 



Conversations with Christ 



VI 

Christ's Conversation with the Rich 
Nobleman 

" For he was very rich." — Luke xviii, 23. 

"Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may 
have eternal life ? " " And Jesus said, If thou wilt be perfect, 
go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven : and come and follow me." 
— Matt, xix, 16, 21, 

The scene of this conversation is beyond 
Jordan, in a section of country rich in fertility, 
beautiful in scenery, memorable in history. It 
was called Decapolis, signifying the ten cities 
of the kingdom which were centers of culture 
and of power, and wherein were the elements 
of Phoenician, Assyrian, and Arabian civiliza- 
tion with Greek culture and Roman power. 
Palestine, which is between the Jordan and the 
Mediterranean, never excited the admiration 
or the lust of Rome, but the region of country 
beyond the Jordan, extending far away to the 
Euphrates, and northward to Damascus, was a 

section attractive to the Roman eye, where are 
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Conversations with Christ 

now ruined temples, commercial monuments, 
indicating the wealth of architecture and the 
genius displayed in beautifying that portion of 
the country. There is Damascus, the gem of 
the Orient, the oldest city in the world, a city of 
perennial youth. Damascus never dies. It 
has been besieged time and again, and occu- 
pied by a succession of rulers, but is always 
young. Its gardens are laved by the Abana, 
and from out these gardens the pleasure seeker 
beholds the snowy peaks of the Lebanons, while 
far away to the eastward stretches a fertile 
country to the borders of the valley of the Eu- 
phrates. Whether the Saviour went so far 
north as Damascus is not settled. One thing- 
is true, that he passed into Perea, in whose 
cities he performed most remarkable miracles, 
and delivered discourses which of themselves 
would render him immortal as a religious 
teacher. He was rudely treated in Judea, was 
expelled from Samaria, treated with contempt 
by the people of Nazareth, and in a moment 
of sadness he turned away from the central sec- 
tion and passed the Jordan into this newer 
region for his ministry. The Pharisee was 
always present, never left him, ever on the 
watch, lying in wait to entrap him. He was 

the constant enemy of Jesus Christ. The Sad- 

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Conversations with Christ 

dncee met him in argument, and was content, 
but the Pharisee pursued him with the utmost 
diligence and with a determination to frustrate 
the purpose of his mission. 

In these wealthy populous commercial cen- 
ters he encountered his ancient foe. The 
Pharisees proposed to him a legal question, but 
one which involved the social institutions of the 
day, entering into the domestic life of the 
people. They attempted to pit Moses against 
Christ, by introducing the subject of marriage 
and that of divorce; they challenged his de- 
cision touching the legal relations of domestic 
life, and especially the permission which Moses 
had given for divorce. Always superior in 
argument, detecting at once not only the weak 
point in the statement of an enemy, but relying 
on the eternal principles of the divine govern- 
ment, and profoundly familiar with all the as- 
sertions of the Mosaic Scriptures, he explained 
to them the conditions on which the permission 
was given by Moses ; and then by a single sen- 
tence restored marriage to its primal purity 
and its ancient beneficence. The answer was 
overwhelming. The enemy was dismayed and 
retired. Plow bold and strange the contrasts 
in the ministry of Jesus Christ! When these 
lecherous and voluptuous enemies had retired 
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Conversations with Christ 

there came into his presence pure and beauti- 
ful motherhood, women bearing in their arms 
their tender offspring, presenting their chil- 
dren to Jesus for his benediction. Folding them 
in the arms of his tenderness as a shepherd 
would carry the lambs of his flock, he blessed 
them — whatever that may mean, it must mean 
much — pronouncing a personal blessing on 
them, and through them on the childhood of 
the race; then he declared one of the greatest 
of all the truths of his kingdom, that "of such 
is the kingdom of heaven." Not "like unto 
such ;" but "these children constitute my king- 
dom," and whatever may be the rejection on 
the part of the adult portion of the human race, 
as two thirds of the race pass away in child- 
hood, my disciples in the world to come will 
outnumber them as the sands on the shore and 
the stars in the sky. "Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." 

Then came another contrast. A young man, 
sometimes called "the nobleman," again spoken 
of as "a ruler," perhaps a ruler of the syna- 
gogue, came rushing from the crowd, came 
with an alacrity and delight, his impetuosity 
indicating his earnestness, and the kneeling 
posture he assumed his reverence, and com- 
menced a conversation by, "Good Master, 
126 



Conversations with Christ 

what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" alto- 
gether the most momentous question to be pro- 
pounded and the most difficult to answer. And 
what was it that had touched him ? The answer 
of the Saviour to the Pharisees, the cogency of 
his argument, the sting of the rebuke, the purity 
of his assertion touching married life, the resto- 
ration of the oldest institution known to man 
to its pristine purity and beauty, or the tender- 
ness of the Saviour for little children? These 
may have touched his heart, excited his admi- 
ration, opened to him a new vision of this mar- 
velous man, given him an insight into the 
depth of his nature, and awakened within him 
this desire to know where rest could be found. 
Yet the young ruler was met with a re- 
buke. One would suppose that the Saviour 
would have received him in the spirit of the 
reverence with which he had knelt before him ; 
but the very expression he used was a reflec- 
tion upon Christ. He said, "Good Master" 
that is, "Good Rabbi, good Teacher." The 
Saviour could not compromise his dignity. 
His original goodness, a goodness allied to the 
goodness of the Father Almighty, could not 
permit such a compromise without a rebuke, 
and while it was not intended, it was his right 

as a religious teacher to defend the truth at all 
127 



Conversations with Christ 

times. There is but one good — the Supreme 
Good. Why use that term in this indefinite 
manner, and apply it to me as you would ap- 
ply it to any rabbi? Rather remember that 
the Supreme Good is enthroned on the circle of 
the heavens, absolutely good without limita- 
tion, without mixture of evil. The Saviour 
was ever directing man away from himself to 
the Father Almighty. When he commanded 
men to be perfect, "Be perfect as your Father 
in heaven." When he commanded men to be 
holy, "Be holy as your Father in heaven." So 
when this ruler calls him "Good" he points him 
to the Supreme Good of the skies. But as a 
true religious teacher he leaves him not under 
the sting of this rebuke, and the answer is, 
"Keep the commandments." The response is : 
I have. I have observed them from my 
youth up. I revere Moses as the great law- 
giver; I am familiar with the story of Mount 
Sinai ; the commandments are written on the 
palms of my hands; they are my phylacteries; 
they are inscribed upon my brow; with in- 
dustry and carefulness T have observed them to 
the letter. What lack I yet? I want eternal 
life. I am conscious that my life here is tran- 
sitory; that it is fragile as a flower; fickle as 

the winds; inconstant as a dream. This legal 
128 



Conversations with Christ 

obedience which I have rendered has not 
brought repose to my soul. I need another 
touch — something else; I have come to thee." 
There was a self- justification in the statement 
of this ruler, doubtless correct, or the Saviour 
would have disclosed to him his hypocrisy. 
Certainly a remarkable case for a man to say 
that from youth to manhood he had observed 
those commandments which enter into the very 
constitution of human life, touching life, 
property, fame, purity, and love. But the 
Master said, "If thou wouldest be perfect" — 
wouldest be complete, for that is the real 
rendering of that term when applied to man — 
if thou wouldest be complete, something else is 
needed; "sell that thou hast, and give to 
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven: and come and follow me." I do not 
wonder that he demurred ; but then he was not 
acquainted with his own heart. There are 
two universal propositions in the saying of 
the prophet, that "the heart is deceitful and 
desperately wicked." It may not be desper- 
ately wicked, but it is ever deceitful. The 
most difficult study of man is man. The 
hardest thing to compass is oneself. It re- 
mains one of the questions in psychology, as in 

mental philosophy, that in self-deception what 
9 129 



Conversations with Christ 

part of a man deceives, and what part is de- 
ceived? There is contradiction in the term. 
It is almost incomprehensible; yet such is the 
play upon ourselves that ' whether by false 
reasoning or the viciousness of our imagi- 
nation, there is a part of ourselves deceiving 
the other part, and the part deceived is led cap- 
tive by the part that plays the deceiver. The 
Saviour knew this; observed that this person 
was under this strange delusion, and it was 
his mission to uncover the heart. Why has 
Christ such a hold upon humanity, greater 
than any other religious teacher known to 
us? He tells us "what oft was thought, but 
ne'er so well expressed." He does not hold 
up the mirror to nature, but uncovers nature; 
discloses all the intricacies of the human heart. 
He is always pouring out personal experiences, 
and always discoursing upon the thought-life 
of mankind. Next to him the two men that 
have exerted the largest influence on the 
thought of the world, and who to-night are 
swaying their metal scepters over the race, are 
two men that did in a lesser degree a similar 
thing — Solomon and Shakespeare. Take 
from them this strange magic power of por- 
traying man as he is, disclosing the hypocri- 
sies on the one hand, and the repealing ex- 
130 



Conversations with Christ 

cellencies on the other; take from their writ- 
ings these remarkable characteristics, and they 
would be weak as other men. So the Master 
in this case is dealing with the intricacies of 
the human soul, as the physician of the mind, 
knowing all its faculties, knowing how to ap- 
proach it, how to touch the imagination or 
the judgment, how to excite the conscious- 
ness, how to stimulate the affections. He deals 
with this as a wise physician. This ruler 
did not know his besetting sin. The Master 
advances by proposing to him the human side 
of the Ten Commandments. He knew the re- 
sponse, but the response should be the key to 
his heart, the exponent of his character, the 
cranny through which the celestial light 
should flow to all the hidden chambers of his 
soul. Had the Saviour proposed to him the 
divine side of the Decalogue, there would have 
been no response, but, like a wise teacher, he 
lays down those propositions which could be 
accepted, and then pushing forward to the 
other side, to the divine side, of the Decalogue, 
he lets in a flood of light. For this man was 
guilty of the violation of the first command- 
ment, "Thou shalt have no other God beside 
me." The idol is that which receives the full- 
ness of our affections, whether for personal 
131 



Conversations with Christ 

gratification, for the extension of power over 
the thought and volition of man, or for the su- 
periority of riches. In one man it may be 
wealth ; in another, pleasure ; in another, glory. 
Take the three great English statesmen of one 
hundred years ago. Had Fox come to Christ 
and asked him/ 'What shall I do to inherit eter- 
nal life?" Jesus would have replied to him as 
he replied to the young Jewish ruler, "Sell 
that which thou hast, and give to the poor, and 
follow me." Had the elegant and majestic 
Pitt come to him and said, "Master, what 
shall I do to inherit eternal life?" he would 
have said, "Tear from thy brow the chaplet of 
this world's glory and hang it upon my cross." 
Fox cared not for fame ; he loved wealth. Pitt 
poured contempt upon wealth, but he thirsted 
for glory. Had Chesterfield come to the Mas- 
ter and said, "What shall I do to inherit eter- 
nal life?" Christ would have said nothing 
about wealth, nothing about glory, but would 
have said unto him, "Regulate thy passions 
and appetites according to the requirements of 
the divine law; pleasure is thy ruling passion; 
it is as God to thee." 

How intense is this conversation between 
Christ and the young man, and, with the in- 
tensity, how great the interest ! We may fancy 
132 



Conversations with Christ 

the lines of thought in the one and in the 
other, for doubtless all the conversation is 
not recorded, and we are allowed to read be- 
tween the lines to supply, as it were, the ellip- 
sis; and one can readily see that this young 
ruler might have said, "My life compares 
favorably with those that are most devout;" 
and the answer from Christ would have been, 
"True, for two straight lines are two straight 
lines the world over. White is white, whether 
on the equator or in the tropics. Honesty on 
the part of the moralist is no different from 
honesty on the part of the most devout saint 
under the sky; domestic fidelity, patriotism, 
philanthrophy, all these natural virtues are the 
same whether in the church or out of the 
church, whether included in sainthood or man- 
hood." It is not possible for the unaided 
mind, unilluminated by the Holy Spirit, to 
distinguish between what is real morality, 
segregated from piety, and piety that elevates 
morality to the dignity of acceptability with 
God. One may fancy that he was confused 
when the answer came, "One thing thou lack- 
est." And the answer in his mind evidently 
was that "the rewards of providence encourage 
me that what I have done is acceptable to 
heaven, for these rewards come to me on the 
i33 



Conversations with Christ 

right hand and on the left ; my vast possessions 
— the product of industry, of frugality, of 
economy — all these vast possessions come to 
me in obedience to law as the rewards of that 
obedience, and how is it possible that I need 
anything more than rendering this legal obe- 
dience?" So the mind deceives itself; so the 
heart refuses the fullness of the light ; so many 
a man to-day, taking his prosperity, running 
along certain lines, contents himself, and 
fancies his sainthood. But the answer comes 
clearly as a sunbeam that certain rewards 
come to certain deeds, no matter by whom they 
are performed; that we live under a general 
religion and subject to general laws, and that 
these laws are administered in justice; that 
where a law is observed there reward follows. 
There is a physical morality, and the reward is 
health, evenness of temper, sweetness of life. 
There is an intellectual morality where the 
mind is calm and the garniture beautiful, 
where all the powers work harmoniously, and 
there comes the wealth of knowledge on which 
the soul feeds. There is a commercial mo- 
rality which secures credit and fame in commer- 
cial circles, where a man's word is esteemed 
as good as his bond. There is a domestic mo- 
rality, the virtue that sweetens home, that 
134 



Conversations with Christ 

beautifies the fireside, that makes wife and 
children like so many angels. There is the 
morality of patriotism that elevates a man in 
the estimation of his fellow-men, whereby he 
consecrates his energy to the good of the pub- 
lic. These moralities may exist in groups 
or may exist in segregation. God has or- 
dained in the constitution of nature that wher- 
ever a law is observed, whether in association 
with other laws or separated from other laws, 
obedience shall be rewarded. It is difficult for 
a man who prides himself on his morality, 
looking upon these rewards as so many tokens 
of heaven's favor to him, to realize that he is 
a child of wrath, and that after all he is but 
treasuring up wrath against the day of 
wrath. This seems to be a great fact, that we 
are rewarded as far as we go; but then the 
thought in the Saviour's mind with this young 
man was this : "Go higher, and you shall have 
a higher reward. Your character consists of 
negations, beautiful and invaluable in them- 
selves, but there is a lack of the positive ele- 
ment that will make you a companion with the 
Highest and open to you those joys which 
come from association with the Invisible and 
the Eternal. " There is an expression of a 
love that demands utterance in devotion, that 
i35 



Conversations with Christ 

seeks communion with the Unseen, that brings 
rest to the troubled soul. Go up higher, be- 
yond the duties you have already performed, 
to God your Creator; perform your vows to 
him, love him with all your heart, make him 
supreme in your motives, your purposes, your 
aspirations, and a new light will unfold, and 
this light will billow all over your soul, and 
you will be transfigured by the excellent glory, 
and this world will be to you a Tabor. 

There is something gross in the concep- 
tion of men who pride themselves on the cor- 
rectness of their moralities; in the exaltation 
of the human at the expense of the divine. 
The grossness is that you exclude the Father 
Almighty from the center of your affections. 
You have no altars that burn with holy fire, 
no incense of praise to ascend to the throne of 
the Almighty. 

The Master leaves not this young man in 
doubt. He knows his trouble. He sees his 
supreme satisfaction in the things which he 
possesses, and hence he demands that he shall 
be a philanthropist. Perhaps there is no part 
of the Saviour's teachings so basely misrepre- 
sented by a certain class of ecclesiastics and 
so generally misunderstood by the rank and file 

of churchgoing people as this conversation 
136 



Conversations with Christ 

with the rich young ruler of Perea. Cer- 
tainly this is not a suggestion of voluntary 
poverty, as supposed by St. Anthony of Alex- 
andria, the founder of Roman Catholic 
monkery, and who taught that there was 
virtue of compulsory indigence. Nothing of 
the kind; the Saviour's discourse to his dis- 
ciples on riches, following this conversation 
with the young man, is all against the idea. 
It is not possible for him to go against the 
whole tenor of Scripture, for the Scripture 
everywhere holds out the promise of this 
world's goods to those who observe the eter- 
nal laws of industry, economy, and enterprise. 
Everywhere in Scripture wealth is promised. 
The power to acquire wealth is esteemed a 
natural endowment, as the endowment of the 
poet or the philosopher or the orator. It is 
asserted that these temporal blessings shall 
come to those who observe these fundamental 
laws. It is not possible for the Saviour to 
have demanded poverty of the young ruler, be- 
cause he knew, as we all know, that wealth has 
a mission, and that when consecrated to the 
noblest purposes the largest good follows. 
How were it possible for Christianity to ad- 
vance in its great mission, in the diffusion of 
knowledge, in the publication of the Scriptures 
137 



Conversations with Christ 

into all languages; how were it possible to 
rear temples of piety, houses of mercy, schools 
of learning ; how were it possible to send evan- 
gelists to the dark corners of the earth to 
preach Jesus and him crucified, without 
wealth consecrated to these noble ends? The 
cry in favor of poverty is the cry of crime, 
against the constitution of the Church and 
the organic law of Christianity. The Roman 
Catholic Church has uttered this cry by which 
her membership is kept poor, while the ecclesi- 
astical powers have been enriched. The dif- 
ference between the Roman Catholic Church 
and the Protestant Church is this, that the 
wealth of the Romish Church is in the priest- 
hood, while the wealth of the Protestant 
Church is in the laity. Advantage has been 
taken of this misrepresentation of the 
Saviour's teachings in favor of voluntary 
poverty as an essential virtue in Christian 
character, and indispensable to the complete- 
ness of the Christian life. Christ must ever 
stand forth to our admiration that he did not 
ask the young ruler to give his money to him. 
He does not say, "Sell that which thou hast 
and give it to me," but, "Sell that which thou 
hast, and give to the poor; not at once, but 

become a philanthropist; engage in this vast 
138 



Conversations with Christ 

mission akin to the mission of the statesman 
and the scholar, wherein intellect and char- 
acter are consecrated to the welfare of man- 
kind; then thou shalt be my disciple." 

There was no prejudice in the mind of 
Christ to wealth. If he himself was poor, it 
was to come down to the lowest and most de- 
graded of human nature. Some of his friends 
were rich. Zaccheus was his friend, and a 
rich man. He does not hesitate to say to that 
rich Pharisee, "I will dine with thee." Nico- 
demus and Joseph of Arimathea were his 
personal friends and followers, and were men 
of immense wealth. He never turned his 
back upon men because of wealth so long as 
they had character behind their wealth — char- 
acter that excited his favor and commanded 
his attention. He does not say that the rich 
man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, 
but declares that wealth unconsecrated is an em- 
barrassment, is an impediment. Were I a man 
of the business world, I would not hesitate to 
devote all my time and energies to the accumu- 
lation of fortune. I would be first to rise in 
the morning and last to retire at night. I 
would be familiar with the market in all parts 
of the world; I would know the condition of 

all forms of finance; I would stretch out my 
139 



Conversations with Christ 

arms and grasp the continents and the islands 
of the sea; no man should excel me in the ac- 
cumulation of fortunes. I would pile fortune 
on fortune; I would aspire to have the wealth 
of a Croesus. Duty to God and duty to hu- 
manity would demand of me such enterprise, 
such energy, in the accumulation of wealth. 
And it would not be hard for me to enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. If the entrance were 
no larger than the eye of a needle, I would be 
sure of my entrance, for that wealth should not 
be accumulated for its love, or for the power 
that issues therefrom, or for the gratification 
that might come therefrom, but it should be 
placed on the altar of humanity, to bless the 
poor, to enlighten the ignorant, to advance 
Christian civilization, to roll back the tide of 
evil, to assuage grief, to dissipate sorrow, to 
fill the world with purity, intelligence, and 
happiness. Wealth thus consecrated would 
have the benediction of God and the smile of 
angels. 

It is usually supposed that this youth was 
lost. There is no authority for it. Two 
things relieve the thought; first, his sorrow. 
The sorrow was born of the light that came to 
his mind. He turned away sorrowful; he 

had great possessions. It was a revelation 
140 



Conversations with Christ 

that produced a sorrow that worked repent- 
ance. The curtain is dropped; he disappears 
from view. Dante has no right to suppose that 
he saw his shade in the infernal regions. 
Some draw conclusions from scriptural 
facts without authority. It is enough for us 
to know that the Saviour looked upon him and 
loved him. Let us hope that he responded; 
that he went forth on this higher mission 
of philanthropy to bless many; that many 
will rise up and call him blessed. 

And how applicable is this conversation 
to you, my friends; for there are men who 
gather within sacred walls Sabbath after Sab- 
bath who are resting upon their morality ; who 
have made no public profession of their faith 
in Jesus Christ. They are not separated from 
the world. Whatever may be their interior 
life, the external life is against the profession 
of religion. Do you, my friend, boast of your 
morality? But there is something higher. 
Here are two vines; the shade, the bark, the 
leaf, are the same. One has fruit, luscious 
fruit; the other only leaves. There is the 
moral man ; here is the Christian. You are at 
sea ; you would take soundings ; perhaps there 
are dangers ahead. Here are two cables, 

both alike in texture, in strand, in tenacity. 
141 



Conversations with Christ 

Throw them overboard ; get your soundings. 
One reaches the bottom; the other does not. 
The difference is not in their nature, but in 
the length of the cable. What you need, my 
friend, is to advance higher. Ascend to the 
throne of the Eternal; give God the suprem- 
acy of your love, and enshrine him there; a 
new life will come to you, and your soul will 

be filled with divine repose. 
142 



" If any obey not the word, they also may without the 
word be won by the conversation of the wives." 

— Peter. 



" Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what 
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation 
and godliness ? " — Peter. 



" Remember them which have spoken unto you the 
word of God : whose faith follow, considering the end of 
their conversation." — Paul. 



Conversations with Christ 



VII 

Christ's Conversation with a Woman 

" Then saith the woman of Samaria unto Jesus, How is it 
that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman 
of Samaria ? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samari- 
tans." — John iv, 9. 

This is one of the most important conversa- 
tions recorded in the New Testament between 
Christ and any of the people. It was the in- 
auguration of two of the greatest revolutions 
known in the annals of time. It required im- 
mense courage on the part of the Saviour, 
clearness of vision, strength of decision, fixed- 
ness of purpose, and a consciousness of power 
adequate to consummate the glorious work. 
One was a revolution in favor of catholicity, 
the other was a revolution for the elevation of 
woman. These are necessarily linked, whether 
in this our age or in the age in which the Mas- 
ter lived ; and it is not therefore surprising that 
the Master seized this opportunity, though ap- 
parently incidental, to make these two stupen- 
dous suggestions to a woman. It was the 

highest compliment that he could pay woman 
10 145 



Conversations with Christ 

to suggest to her changes so radical in the so- 
cial and ecclesiastical condition of the world. 
Had the suggestion been to a philosopher or a 
jurist or a statesman, our surprise would be 
excited ; but to pay the compliment to a woman, 
and she a social outcast, reveals a phase of the 
Saviour's life and teachings which we are not 
wont to find in the New Testament. 

Catch all the incidents in this colloquial in- 
terview. Let us first consider the scene, then 
the persons, then the grand conclusions. At 
that time Palestine was divided into two sec- 
tions — Judea and Samaria. Judea extended 
from Beersheba to Bethel; Samaria from 
Bethel to the entering in of Hamath. Judea 
was occupied by the tribes of Judah and Ben- 
jamin, whose tribeships coalesced in his day. 
The other section of the country, called Sa- 
maria, originated in the reign of Solomon, 
particularly after his death, by the revolt of the 
ten tribes. During the reign of his successors 
these tribeships were subdued by the Assyri- 
ans. The people of the country were carried 
into the valley of the Euphrates, and colonists 
from the Assyrian empire were substituted in 
their places. In consequence of the dissolution 
of the country the wild beasts of the Jordan 

and of the mountains returned to their native 
146 



Conversations with Christ 

abode, and the people cried to the king of the 
Assyrians for help from the local gods. The 
Assyrian king being a polytheist, sent a Jew- 
ish priest from his empire to intercede with the 
God of the country. The colonists became 
Jews by this means, and in remembrance of it 
they established a rival kingdom, and a rival 
shrine on Mount Gerizim. Mount Gerizim is 
on the west side of the valley of the Shechem, 
on the opposite side is Mount Ebal. The 
vale between them is a mile wide. Less than 
two miles up the valley is Shechem proper, now 
known as Nablous. Perhaps there is no spot 
in Palestine so historic as this small valley. 
It is the scene of the journey of Abraham 
when coming from Chaldea ; there Jacob rested 
a while and purchased a parcel of ground for 
his flocks, whereon he excavated a well; and 
four hundred years afterward thither came 
Joshua with the triumphant Israelites to rat- 
ify the law. Ascending the slopes of Gerizim 
on the west side, certain priests pronounced the 
blessings while other priests from the slopes of 
Ebal declared the curses of the law. 

As time passed on the valley became the 
center of Roman civilization and the rival 
shrine of the Samaritan Jews. Between the Sa- 
maritans and the Hebrews there was neither 
147 



Conversations with Christ 

brotherhood nor fellowship. Whatever might 
have been the feelings of the Samaritans there 
was the most intense hatred cherished and ex- 
ercised toward them by the people of southern 
Palestine. There is a tradition that the Jews 
of Judea were so bigoted toward the Samar- 
itans, and hated them with such intensity, that 
they gathered into the Temple Area three hun- 
dred priests, with three hundred trumpeters, 
and three hundred scholars to curse the Samar- 
itans with all the maledictions in the law of 
Moses. The Samaritans were excommunicated 
in the name of Jehovah by the most terrible 
imprecations the human imagination could in- 
vent. Jews and Samaritans were not permit- 
ted to eat together, to bargain or to marry to- 
gether. Sectional hatred was intense. What 
a bold reformer was Christ — himself a Jew — 
to denounce the prejudices of his country and 
to stoop to hold communion with a people so 
thoroughly despised ! But never did a braver 
heart beat in a human breast than that which 
throbbed in the bosom of Jesus of Nazareth: 
his cheek was never blanched with fear; he 
never quailed in the presence of a foe. With a 
majesty of self-possession, he was calmest when 
most in peril, strongest when most opposed. 

He made no ado in the inauguration of his re- 
148 



Conversations with Christ 

forms, sounded no trumpets, but quietly laid 
down his principles, announced the fact, and 
then permitted the leaven to work until the 
whole lump should be leavened. This is the 
characteristic of the true reformer — beginning 
at the bottom, he laid the foundation broad 
and strong. 

This woman met him at the well at Sychar, 
called Jacob's well, at high noon. Discovering 
that he was a Jew, she expressed her surprise 
that he would so far forget himself and his re- 
ligion and the traditions of his country to ask 
drink of a woman of Samaria. But there was 
an underlying purpose in this, that when she 
pointed to the mountain of her ancestors and 
said, "We worship on Mount Gerizim," Christ 
immediately announced the fact that the time 
would come that there should be neither wor- 
ship there nor in Jerusalem, as national shrines; 
but wherever man in spirit and in truth wor- 
ships the Father Almighty that worship would 
be acceptable. 

It is hard for us living nineteen hundred 

years from that event, surrounded as we are 

with religious liberty and largely delivered 

from bigotry, to appreciate the importance of 

this announcement and the courage it required 

to make it under the circumstances; but 
149 



Conversations with Christ 

prophecy has become history. In the greatness 
of his soul the Master said: "Hereafter the 
universe shall be my Father's house of prayer. 
Gerizim may crumble to dust,' and Mount Mo- 
riah may disappear from the vision of the 
world, but wherever the humble worshiper of 
the true and living God shall tread the earth 
or sail the ocean there shall he be accepted by 
my Father which is in heaven." 

But we can account for the strong inclina- 
tion on the part of nations to have national 
shrines. It has been so in the ages past; it is 
so now among the Egyptians, the Romans, and 
the Greeks; and now among the Japanese, the 
Chinese, the Hindus, and the Mohammedans. 
It is not so among the Christians, except among 
the Romanists. But as Christianity with its lib- 
erality spreads throughout the world, even that 
centralization on the banks of the Tiber will 
cease to be a fact and the sovereign pontiff of 
Rome will be esteemed as he should be, simply 
a Christian bishop, not of mankind, but of 
those who are identified with his communion. 
It was, however, a great change in the history 
of the world for the Saviour to say to the peo- 
ple, "It is not necessary for you to turn your 
face to Jerusalem or toward Samaria when you 

worship, nor is it necessary for you to make 

150 



Conversations with Christ 

long pilgrimages to religious shrines. Wor- 
ship where you are. I am wherever I am 
sought; the universe is my house of prayer." 
How sublime the Saviour appears to us stand- 
ing forth the iconoclast of that bigotry which 
has done so much to injure religion! It has 
limited human sympathy; diverted the ener- 
gies of those who would do good. What 
strifes it has engendered! What fires of con- 
tention it has kindled ! But the time must come 
when the liberalizing spirit of Christianity 
shall obliterate the last traces of paganism; 
when that higher and better Spirit of the Lord 
shall reign in all the Churches; when there 
shall be no dominance in one or the other; but 
the grand thought shall seize the Christian 
Church that outside of all denominationalism 
there is the Church of the living God; greater 
than the Roman Catholic Church, greater than 
the Baptist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian or 
Greek, is the Church of God made up of true 
worshipers who fear him and accept Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Here is the announcement, 
therefore, that Jesus would have his people 
recognize goodness under any name and wher- 
ever found — sympathy with human effort to 
produce goodness and under whatever banner 
that may be made. Here is the declaration 
151 



Conversations with Christ 

that whatever may be the denominationalism 
his Spirit is the test of character; and where his 
Spirit is not, whatever may be the sacerdotal 
robes or the jewel tiara, or the loud-sounding 
professions, or the soundness of creeds, or the 
wisdom of ecclesiastical polity, down with 
them all before this majestic Spirit of Christ, 
"Wherever my Spirit is seen, in the high or 
low, there I am, and there I am to be recog- 
nized." Years must pass before we shall rec- 
ognize this greater truth. But it is in the at- 
mosphere; it is coming on apace. Its precious 
breath ever and anon comes to cool our souls. 
When it comes we will look with shame upon 
the record of the past; future generations will 
rise with astonishment at our bigotry, as we 
now rise in astonishment at that of the Jews 
and of the Samaritans. 

It was indeed an immense revolution that 
Jesus inaugurated, himself a Jew, but not a 
Jew in the sense in which Washington was an 
American, or Wellington an Englishman, or 
Napoleon a Frenchman ; but a Jew simply from 
descent, because to that people were committed 
the oracles of God; he was too broad to be a 
national Jew; he was the most coextended man 
known to the race; the only religious teacher 
that ever gave to mankind the definition of 



Conversations with Christ 

neighbor, and that to embrace every human 
being on the face of all the earth. 

And this was whispered in the ear of a wom- 
an, and she a social outcast; not known for 
her literary attainments, for the brilliancy of 
her intellect, for her wealth, for her social in- 
fluence, but from the record an outcast. Yet 
this great reformer appealed to the better self- 
womanhood. He realized that under the curse 
of crime there was a nature that was sensitive, 
and that would respond to his touch. He 
thought that whatsoever might be the exterior 
degradation of a human being somewhere 
in the constitution of that being there was a 
chord touched by his masterful hand that would 
respond to the long-lost music of Eden and 
chime with the music of the skies. It is an 
immense lesson for us to learn, to appeal to the 
better self of mankind. He evidently knew 
her character, and he disclosed that character 
by issuing a command, "Go call thy husband." 
Some say because it was not proper for him to 
converse with a woman in the absence of her 
husband, but he thus gently yet firmly dis- 
closed her character himse'f; in other words, 
informed her that he knew her history. "I 
have no husband," she said. "Thou hast well 
said, I have no husband. For thou hast had 
153 



Conversations with Christ 

five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is 
not. thy husband." 

In those days successive polygamy pre- 
vailed, and by a shameful practice a marriage 
contracted to-day was broken to-morrow, and 
thus by those successive practices the baser 
passions were gratified and the social fabric 
toppled to its fall. It was of great importance 
that this divine reformer should take up arms 
against an evil that filled society that had the 
sanction of the great, the wise, and the pow- 
erful in many generations. He did it, and he 
did it bravely, kindly, firmly. The woman 
confessed her sin, but he did not turn away 
from her. He was not afraid of pollution. 
He was not afraid to come in contact with the 
guilty, and the shamelessly so. What a brave 
spirit he was when he met these fallen daugh- 
ters of Eve; with what tenderness he treated 
them ; how he dared to rise as their defender — 
not of their vices, but of their rights ! When 
those judicial priestly hypocrites of the temple 
brought a poor creature before him he said to 
the woman, "Go, sin no more." That was his 
remedy. "I will forget the past; I will cover 
it." All that Christ asks of man or woman is 
to start from this point. This is his regenera- 
tion, the new birth, the new life. "I care not 
154 



Conversations with Christ 

what the past records against thee are ; go, sin 
no more." 

That restored the woman, gave her a new 
life, a social elevation to become an influential 
factor in society — an immense change ! What 
glorious courage ! We have no such cour- 
age in this our day. Vice in man and vice 
in woman are considered two things. Such 
are the base and heartless standards in society 
that this criminal discrimination is made be- 
tween the polluted man and the polluted wom- 
an. One is accepted, and the other is rejected. 
But the Lord Jesus, appreciating individual 
rights as well as possessions, said to the wom- 
an, "Go, sin no more." With what tender- 
ness he treated Mary of Magdala ! There are 
Jewish traditions to the effect that she was a 
person of extraordinary beauty, immense for- 
tune, great influence, but terribly afflicted. He 
made her a disciple ; received her as a compan- 
ion. Who wonders that she was last at the 
cross and first at the tomb? Who wonders 
that he rewarded her fidelity, loyalty, and love 
by a mission of good to human beings — "Go 
tell my brethren that I am risen from the 
dead?" Who of this age and generation 
among all the philanthropists would have 

the courage to follow the example of Jesus in 

i55 



Conversations with Christ 

this regard? Condone a man, condemn a 
woman, is the false morality of this sinful age. 
No braver defender of woman ever appeared 
than Christ our Lord. How tenderly he 
treated her ! How he exerted his power to heal 
her! With what respect he addressed her! 
How he lifted her to companionship, friend- 
ship, discipleship ! 

Out of this great revolution has come wom- 
an's present elevated position. You, however, 
cannot appreciate the magnitude of this rev- 
olution unless you recall the condition of the 
world and the obstacles with which the Sav- 
iour had to contend at that time. At that very 
time and in the Jewish nation itself woman 
was a thing. Polygamy was universal under 
the head of successive divorce, and woman 
was degraded. Rome swayed her mighty 
scepter over the fairest portions of the world, 
but under its splendid civilization woman was 
not esteemed an individual; her individuality 
was not recognized. No voice had she in the 
government of the family; the father was the 
sole authority. He claimed the children. He 
had supreme control over her property; by 
marriage she lost all family rights, and could 
bequeath nothing ; she was looked upon as sis- 
ter to her own children, and her husband's 
156 



Conversations with Christ 

adopted daughter. She married a master who 
had power over her life. ,At her trial he was 
the presiding judge. Such was Rome in juris- 
prudence touching woman, and yet Christ in 
the very presence of the Roman proconsul of 
Palestine, the representative of the Caesars, 
dared to inaugurate this great revolution. He 
restored marriage to its original state of pu- 
rity, and opposed both kinds of polygamy, si- 
multaneous and progressive. He declared 
that marriage is a state rather than an act; an 
institution rather than a law; that marriage is 
not a convenience nor a business transaction 
nor a personal contract; that it is a civil rite, 
founded on a religious institution ordained by 
the Almighty. That it is neither an accident 
nor a human device; nor merely a civil rite, 
but founded on equal rights for the protection 
of childhood, and to create a sweet companion- 
ship in society and multiply human happiness. 
He was bold to assert that marriage is indis- 
soluble except for one cause, and thereby gave 
permanence to the institution. 

And what was the Roman opinion of wom- 
an? Of Gaius, who, after all, must be re- 
garded as the father of Roman jurisprudence 
—think of this eminent man who was in his 
glory in the days of Antonius Pius, who ex- 
i57 



Conversations with Christ 

cused woman's degradation "because of her 
levity of mind." Think of Cicero, the elo- 
quent, who assigned the reason "because of her 
infirmity of purpose." Think of Seneca, some- 
times called grand old Seneca, who stigma- 
tized "woman as a foolish wild creature, in- 
capable of self-control." And it was Cato who 
was accustomed to say, "Slacken the rein on 
woman and you will afterward strive in vain 
to check the mad career of that unreasoning 
animal." No marvel that Cato committed sui- 
cide. A man who thus esteemed woman de- 
served to die. In the best days of the Roman 
empire divorce was the end of marriage. 
Cicero repudiated Terentia, and having mar- 
ried Publili, he divorced her and with her 
fortune paid his debts. Now recall the mag- 
nificent courage of Christ to stand up against 
a hundred and twenty millions of people, repre- 
senting the highest culture and the most im- 
posing cult of the age, and daring to elevate 
woman to her true position. 

It is true the Greeks had passed out of pow- 
er, but then Greek civilization continued with 
that of the Roman, and the ideas of the 
Greeks still prevailed; while it is true that 
among the Greeks woman was not degraded as 

among the Romans, yet she was the slave of 
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Conversations with Christ 

her husband; she was reared in ignorance and 
doomed to domestic drudgery. She was not 
permitted to sit at table with her husband's 
friends. It was Plato, sometimes called "the 
divine," who said that marriage is a "physico- 
political institution." Ah! Plato, alas, you 
make marriage physical, not domestic, nor so- 
cial, nor moral. What was the opinion of the 
best of the Greeks as to woman? Homer deals 
much in marriages, but without a trace of the 
sentiment of love. He sings of Hector and 
Andromache, of Menelaus and Helen, but 
without love. Telemachus tells his mother not 
to speak in the presence of man. It was 
Hesiod, eight hundred years before Christ, who 
said, "Women are a cursed brood and the 
chief scourge of mankind." Eschylus, one of 
the three great tragic poets of Greece, said, 
"Woman is the chief scourge of the state and 
home." It is an old tradition that Socrates 
daily thanked the gods that he had been born 
neither a slave nor a woman. Female culture 
was confined to women of low repute, as in- 
dicated by the intercourse between Socrates 
and Theodata, Plato and Aspasia. What pic- 
tures for an artist! Plato at the feet of As- 
pasia, and Mary Magdalene at the feet of 

Christ. 

159 



Conversations with Christ 

Now look at the changed condition of wom- 
an and of Christianity. What did Christ do 
for Roman womanhood? Under the discipline 
of the early Church woman was protected in 
her rights of marriage. She was among the 
most heroic confessors for Christ, and became 
a recognized factor in the Church. Whatever 
may be the world's opinion of the conversion 
of Constantine the Great, we must accord to 
him the glory, for immediately on his acces- 
sion he restored his mother to the throne. His 
father had banished Helen and had taken The- 
odora to his arms; but Constantine said, "My 
mother will return and sit by my side upon the 
throne of empire/' It was this son of Helen 
who spread Christianity through the East. In 
the Pandicts of Justinian is the first legislative 
expression under Christianity of the elevation 
of womanhood, and to all that she has attained 
was born of that Christian command. This 
was the beginning of that merciful legislation 
which now prevails, after a long and desperate 
struggle against prejudice, custom, and law. 
Let us recall Priscilla and the eloquent 
Apollos, Paula and St. Jerome, the historian, 
Monica and St. Augustine, the great, and what 
was the influence of Christianity upon Grecian 

womanhood? Recall Phebe, the bearer of in- 
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Conversations with Christ 

spired letters written by St. Paul, and Lydia of 
Thyatira, and the magnificent vindication of 
the duality of marriage by the apostle Paul in 
his letters to the Greek churches. 

It is the boast of some to praise the treat- 
ment of women under Teutonic civilization. 
It is true that Teutonic chivalry was born of 
noble impulses, yet through all the settlements 
of the Teutons there was the deepest oppres- 
sion, for woman was a slave. She had no 
rights, The slayer of a mother was fined six 
dollars. The slayer of a woman too old or too 
young to be a mother was fined two dollars. 
The unfaithful wife was driven nude through 
the streets and beaten with rods by her hus- 
band. The husband was an absolute tyrant. 
He could put out the eyes and break the limbs 
of a wife. Among the Teutons wives were 
purchased. The wife was a mate to her lord, 
sitting at his feet at meals ; she was the slave 
of his whims. He could sell, punish, or slay 
her, and his song was : 

I will be master of what is mine own ; 

She is my goods, my chattels ; she is my house, 
My household stuff, my field, my barn, 
My horse, my ox, my ass, my everything. 

And what did Christianity do for the Teu- 
tonic tribes? It preserved whatever was ex- 

II 161 



Conversations with Christ 

cellent in the civilization thereof — the price- 
lessness of virtue, for that was a fact ; and rev- 
erence for woman as a prophetess, and con- 
fidence in her in times of great public peril. It 
gave monogamy for polygamy; broke the tyr- 
anny of the husband ; rescued the wife from the 
shambles, and made her man's companion. 
Look at Christian womanhood in Germany to- 
day, and recall the distinguished writers, the 
illustrious missionaries, and the wives who 
have graced palaces and honored every posi- 
tion in life. 

Now look at the condition of woman under 
the best religions of the East. Buddha is 
lauded to the skies as great and good; but he 
divorced his wife, Yosodhara, and forsook her 
and his child. He did not permit woman to 
enter his new society till twenty-five years after 
he began his mission, and then only as a nun; 
and twice he refused admission to his foster 
mother, because it would give occasion to 
speak against his institutions, and she was per- 
mitted to enter the community after an inter- 
cession of forty years, and then through the 
importunities of the good Ananda. He held 
out one hope for woman, that through the 
process of transmigration she might become a 

man in the next world. For centuries woman 
162 



Conversations with Christ 

in India has been an outcast. Widowhood 
was esteemed a crime, and the birth of a 
daughter was regarded the cause of lamenta- 
tion. And has woman's condition been desir- 
able under Brahmanism? The infanticide of 
girlhood and the immolation of widowhood 
indicate the fearful degradation that has pre- 
vailed in that fair land. In some parts of In- 
dia two thirds of the female children were 
strangled or drowned; and it is estimated that 
more than a thousand widows were burned to 
death in a given year. The Shastra says that 
she must revere her husband as she would a 
god; when in his presence she must keep her 
eyes upon him to receive his commands. When 
he speaks she must be silent. If she speaks un- 
kind to him, she must be divorced without de- 
lay; when he is dead she must burn on his 
funeral pyre. 

And is woman's condition better in China 
under the teachings of Confucius? All his- 
tory is in proof that she is proscribed and other- 
wise degraded; and Confucius laid it down as 
a law that she could be divorced if she talked 
too much. And has Mohammed done better 
for woman? It was one of his favorite say- 
ings that "women are the whips of the devil. 

Trust neither a king nor a horse nor a woman. 
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Conversations with Christ 

Men shall have the preeminence above woman. 
Congratulations when a son is born; condo- 
lence when a daughter comes into the world." 
Say what you may about all these religious 
systems; it is a historic fact that in all those 
antichristian lands the female half of the hu- 
man race is degraded under an inhuman su- 
perstition. 

But what has Christ done for womanhood 
in all those countries? The missionary has 
rescued childhood from infanticide and wid- 
owhood from the burning pyre, and demanded 
that woman shall be recognized as man's equal — 
"God's first, best gift to man." And just in 
proportion as this great revolution which 
Christ inaugurated in Samaria is accepted, 
woman is elevated to companionship with man 
and to all her rights as an individual. 

Woman should be a revolutionist. It is too 
much to expect of man's hardier nature, but 
not too much to expect that under the soften- 
ing influences of the teachings of Christ that 

this recognition will be a sublime fact. 
164 



" But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, 

Can those who have loved forget ? 
We call, but they answer not again — 

Do they love — do they love us yet ? 
We call them far through the silent night, 

But they speak not from cave nor hill ; 
We know — we know that their land is bright, 

But say, do they love there still ? " 



[Cicero's apostrophe to his daughter.] 

" Thou, my daughter, now separated from me, not de- 
serting me, but sometimes looking back, lead me where I 
may yet enjoy the conversation and sight of thee." 



" Only let your conversation be as it becometh the 
gospel of Christ." — Paul. 



Conversations with Christ 



VIII 

Christ's Conversation with the Saddu- 

cees — Have we Heard from Beyond 

the Grave? 

" God is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all 
live unto him." — Luke xx, 38. 

At the time of this conversation the Jew- 
ish nation was divided into three branches 
ecclesiastically — the Essenes, the Pharisees, 
and the Sadducees. The Essenes were spir- 
itualists, predestinarians, mystics. They pre- 
tended to discover truth between the lines, and 
to spiritualize all the literal statements in the 
Bible. They were a harmless people, exact in 
their morality, good citizens, noble in their 
charities, sincere in their devotions, and it is 
supposed by some that Christ belonged to this 
branch of the nation, or, in other words, large- 
ly sympathized with it. We have no authority 
for this; it is a supposition. The Pharisees 
were by far the most numerous, popular, pow- 
erful portion of the Jewish nation. Centuries 
before they had separated from the rest of 

their countrymen to maintain in greater purity 

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Conversations with Christ 

and majesty the divine law. They came forth 
in a time of degeneracy, and determined to 
maintain the Mosaic institutions as the hope 
of the Jewish commonwealth. They had a 
vision that that commonwealth was for all 
time; and in that vision they were correct, for 
it was not the purpose of the Almighty that 
that commonwealth should pass away at the 
coming of the Messiah, but rather that that 
nation should have received Christ, and Christ 
should sanctify it by his presence and his doc- 
trines. And what a magnificent nationality it 
would have been, with its sanitary provisions, 
with its wise jurisprudence, with its domestic 
regulations, with all things essential to a na- 
tional life under the guidance of the divine 
Teacher ! 

The word Pharisee is from a Hebrew word 
which signifies "to separate," and in the word 
is the history of this branch of the Jewish peo- 
ple. But the priestly, aristocratic, domineer- 
ing — the materialistic, the earth and time lov- 
ing portion of the Jewish nation — were the 
Sadducees. They were the descendants from 
Zadok, it is said, and they followed the teach- 
ings of Antigonus, who denied certain essen- 
tial things held by the Pharisees and taught by 

Christianity. They were the materialists of 
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Conversations with Christ 

the day, as the Pharisees were the ritualists. 
These Sadducees were the rationalists, and yet 
they were the priests. They were the descend- 
ants of Aaron ; they stood nearest to the altar ; 
they entered the Holy of Holies. The Sad- 
ducees wore the Urim and Thummim, and pre- 
tended to hold communion with the Invisible. 
Yet they were heterodox; they were apostate; 
they lived for the time. They are another ex- 
ample of the fact that priests have been the 
greatest benefactors and vilest malefactors in 
the annals of time ; for, while priests have been 
the guide of princes and nations, the illumina- 
tion of homes, and the consolation of the suf- 
fering, yet priests have been guilty of all the 
crimes known in the criminal code. They 
have conspired against nations ; they have in- 
stituted rebellions; they have created insur- 
rections; they have inflamed the passions of 
the people to fly to war ; they have overthrown 
kingdoms; they have placed the crown of au- 
thority upon the unworthy; they have per- 
petrated treason, committed murder, and 
their record of crime is altogether the most 
ghastly and damnable in the annals of time. 
The priesthood does not make the man; the 
man makes the priesthood. The priesthood is 

a function ; it is a calling, a position of power, 
169 



Conversations with Christ 

and yet the influence of that power for weal or 
woe depends upon the incumbent. It is there- 
fore one of the great truths of Christianity, 
and especially of Protestant Christianity, that 
the people are greater than the Church, greater 
than the priesthood; that private judgment is 
a sacred fact, and that the laymen of the 
Church are to exercise their judgment upon 
the clergy as to what the clergy teach and what 
the clergy do, whether their life comports with 
the sublime principles of Christianity, and 
whether the utterances of their lips are in har- 
mony with the teachings of Jesus; and just in 
proportion as this the great Protestant truth — 
the right of private judgment and the right 
and authority of the laity — gains dominance 
in society the priesthood is pure, full of char- 
ity, found within the limits of sobriety, and are 
benefactors. 

Think! this conversation was with the 
priesthood of Jerusalem, with the Sadducees, 
the descendants of Aaron, and these persons 
denied three essential things characteristic of 
the Jewish faith, and taught anew by the Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ. In the first place, they de- 
nied the existence of angels, one of the most 
familiar truths in the Old Testament — scarce- 
ly a book in the Old Testament in which there 
170 



Conversations with Christ 

is not a record of the visitation of angels to 
men. From the Garden of Eden on to the 
final annals of the sacred canon by Mal- 
achi, these angelic visitors came— came daily, 
came in the common concerns of life, came to 
widows, came to orphans, to peasants, to 
princes, to priests, .and came for individuals 
and for nations. It is a record as well 
avouched as any record we have, and to elim- 
inate angelic visitations from the Old Testa- 
ment would be the annihilation of the Old Tes- 
tament. It is not for me to account hew this 
handful of Jewish teachers could stand up be- 
fore the multitude of a nation and deny a fact 
so palpable, and call in question the existence 
of those beings who are numbered by millions, 
who were said to be as flames of fire, who 
stand in the presence of Jehovah, who have 
aims, who have missions, who exert a positive 
influence upon the thought and upon the char- 
acter of mankind ; and yet such is the fact, my 
friends. Strange indeed it is. We cannot ac- 
count for it. It may go to explain the strange 
contradictions in the Church of to-day against 
certain great luminous facts that are palpable 
in the experience of many. 

Then the next truth that they denied was 

the resurrection of the dead. They came to the 
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Conversations with Christ 

Saviour with a puzzling question, and a puz- 
zling question may be the synonym of a dif- 
ficulty. Many a man has lost the balance of 
his faith by a question which is puzzling in its 
character — puzzling to him — and which he has 
allowed to grow into a difficulty. The best com- 
mentators deny the fact that was stated. They 
said there were seven brethren who, according 
to the Levitical law, married in succession the 
same woman. This is what they stated, but 
the commentators deny the fact. The Sad- 
ducees should have said to the Master, "sup- 
posing." They should have hypothecated the 
case instead of asserting it as an historical 
fact. So they quote to him the law of Moses, 
with no respect for Moses, no respect for the 
truth they were using. But they supposed 
that they could propound a question to the 
great Teacher which he could not answer. So 
they say, "In the resurrection whose wife shall 
she be?" There is no tartness in the Saviour's 
reply, no bitterness whatever. You observe 
that when he replies to the Pharisees there is 
an acrimony. Whatever you can say against 
the Sadducees you cannot say they were hypo- 
crites. The Pharisees were. They made 
broad their phylacteries ; they stood at the cor- 
ners of the streets and made long prayers, and 
172 



Conversations with Christ 

hence he withered them with his denuncia- 
tion; he split their dignities with the thunder- 
bolts of his wrath; he excoriated them with 
the words of his displeasure. But these Sad- 
ducees are treated differently, and he said un- 
to them, "Ye do err, first, not knowing the 
Scriptures, and, secondly, not knowing the 
power of God." And then in his quiet, gentle 
way he goes on to explain to them how they 
have erred ; that marriage belongs to earth and 
time ; that whatever may be the atmosphere of 
love beyond the provisions of affection, the 
mutuality, the reciprocity of the affections 
formed on earth and time, yet marriage as an 
institution cannot be translated from this life 
to the next ; that it is within the limits of what 
we call "time" from the cradle to the grave. 
Hence provision is made in the organic law of 
the Scriptures that, in case of death, the sur- 
vivor is released from the bands and the bonds 
of matrimony, a clear indication that marriage 
itself is temporary. So the Saviour says, "Ye 
do err as to this, for they that shall be ac- 
counted worthy to obtain that* world neither 
marry nor are given in marriage." A revela- 
tion ! A complete answer, an unexpected repli- 
cation. These men were confounded. They 
had evidently hypothecated this case with the 
173 



Conversations with Christ 

greatest skill and care, but the Saviour with a 
single sentence destroys the splendid fabric 
which their logical acumen had created. 

But he does not leave them there. He then 
goes on to say that they who shall obtain that 
world are like unto the angels. In what sense ? 
Angels are separate creations. We come into 
existence under a different law, under the law 
of generation, but these angelic beings are 
called forth. They have no birth ; they have 
no youth ; they have no manhood, no old age. 
They are creations. The only thing analogous 
in them to us is growth, the expansion of the 
intellect, the acquisition of knowledge, the un- 
folding of a likeness more and more to the 
likeness and the image of God. They are like 
unto the angels in this respect. Those angels 
never know what it is to say, "Father/' or 
"Mother," or "Brother," or "Sister." The 
law of consanguinity in all their angelic re- 
gions is unknown ; each one stands forth sub- 
lime in individuality, with all the attributes of 
a person, a separate, sublime creation, as in 
the case of the first man and the first woman 
of our own race. So thou shalt be like unto 
them, imperishable, having the elements of im- 
mortality. They neither marry nor are given 

in marriage. The Saviour does not deal ruth- 
174 



Conversations with Christ 

lessly with domestic affections. He was al- 
ways tender of them. He knew that they were 
part of the constitution of our very being, that 
the welfare of society was involved therein, 
and that to cherish, to unfold them, were nec- 
essary to the well-being of the race. He does 
not deal ruthlessly with those; and it is barely 
possible that he more than intimated that these 
domestic affections should find higher realiza- 
tions in the world to come, realizations of a 
sweeter union. To be sure, the language that 
we shall employ there will be very different 
from that which we employ here, for when 
you shall meet the wife of your choice, the 
wife of your youth, you may say, "This zvas 
my wife," not "is;" and she will say, "This 
zvas my husband," not "is;" and when you 
shall meet your son, "This zvas my son," not 
"is;" so that the grammatical expression must 
be changed, because we shall be like unto the 
angels which are in heaven. And there must 
be immense advantage in this abolition of the 
domestic relations, for those relations in life 
which have not contributed to human happi- 
ness, where there has been the want of con- 
geniality and sweet companionship, whether 
from disparagement of intellectuality or other 

circumstances; death shall dissolve such band 

i75 



Conversations with Christ 

and bonds, and we shall be like unto the an- 
gels. And then the Saviour goes on to declare 
that these men err in another thing; they hav- 
ing denied the existence of spirits, they were 
materialists, and consequently they eliminated 
spirituality from the universe, asserting that 
whatever there was of life was confined to this 
poor earth; that beyond its limitations there 
was no other being but the Jehovah. Whether 
they were pantheists is not stated. Of course 
they could not deny — at all events they did 
not deny — the existence of a Supreme Being, 
but they left him in sublime and perpetual 
solitude. No angel breathed seraphic poetry 
in his presence, swept the harp in his divine 
ear, or separated the ether that fills the entire 
space between the worlds. God, solitary upon 
the throne of his universe, looking down upon 
this poor little earth, finding here beings cre- 
ated not in his image, but created for a mo- 
ment, fragile as a flower, fickle as the winds, 
destined to live for a day, whose life shall be 
a song or a groan and pass away. Was there 
ever a sadder conception of solitude, either in 
poetry, in romance, in philosophy, than this of 
the disciples of Zadok, of the followers of An- 
tigonus? Now the Saviour turns upon them 

and declares that they are mistaken in this. 
176 



Conversations with Christ 

Having asserted, first of all, the possibilities 
of the resurrection — that is, the standing up, 
the going forth — and, secondly, the existence 
of angels, then he says, "Ye do err, not know- 
ing the scriptures," and turns to the great 
fact that on Mount Sinai the Almighty said 
unto Moses, "X am the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" — not 
the God of their miserable dust that was in the 
cave of Machpelah, embalmed or unembalmed. 
For why should he be the God of a handful of 
dust? It would be unworthy of his dignity, 
of his power. You say that he was the God 
of the men who trusted in him — a beautiful 
thought ; but then it is a trust that is past mor- 
tal vision. But nay, more than this, "I am the 
God of the living Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
I am the God of the living, for all live unto 
me. I am not the God of the dead." Were 
the doctrines of the Sadducees true, what an 
immense graveyard God Almighty would own 
— the biggest graveyard in the conception of 
man ! But nothing of the kind ; he owns no 
graveyard; "Let the dead bury their dead." 
With him life is everything; all life is the ex- 
pression of his own purpose, and he is not the 
God of the dead. These men are not dead; 

thev are living — an immense truth ! The 

* 12 177 



Conversations with Christ 

Saviour brought forth a truth that has been 
the illumination of the world ; that has soothed 
many a dying saint; that has filled the heart 
of the martyr with holy ardor and inspired 
his courage with the arduousness that en- 
abled him to meet death in holy triumph. And 
this is in harmony with the whole teaching 
and tenor of Scripture, for everywhere it is 
taught in the Bible that life is immortal. I 
am aware that it is sometimes said that the 
Old Testament is a blank on this great sub- 
ject of immortality, of a future state; and yet, 
my friends, if I were to construct an argument 
for immortality out of the Bible, I would pre- 
fer to go to the Old Testament rather than the 
New, for the Old Testament is a daily record ; 
it is an itinerary of the communion of two 
worlds and the coming and the going of the 
angels, and the coming and the going of those 
that had dwelt here and passed to their re- 
ward. What a sublime testimony is that 
touching Enoch, who "walked with God, and 
was not, for God took him!" What a tre- 
mendous fact is the translation of Elijah, 
passing into the skies in a chariot of fire! 
What a revelation of the invisible world was 
that to the young man with Elisha, on the 

mountains of Samaria, when the old prophet 

178 



Conversations with Christ 

prayed, "Lord, open his eyes, open the eyes of 
the young man;" and presently he saw the 
mountains filled with the horses and chariots 
of the Lord! And then what a beautiful de- 
scription it is on the part of the psalmist, 
"Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suf- 
fer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt 
show me the path of life; at thy right hand 
are pleasures for evermore." Nothing can be 
more definite ; nothing can be more exact with- 
in the compass of language, above every argu- 
ment and every truth. What a statement is 
that in Ecclesiastes, "Then shall the dust re- 
turn unto the earth as it was disorganized, and 
then shall the spirit return unto the God who 
gave it." Nothing can be more exact, nothing 
more definite. And so all through the Old 
Testament is found this great idea of two 
worlds meeting, this coming together of the in- 
habitants of the tomb, and if it is said that 
too little is recorded, when the ancients died, 
touching their future state, the answer is sim- 
ply this, that nowhere in the Old Testament 
do you find a patriarch or prophet construct- 
ing an argument to prove the existence of God, 
for it was a fact daily received touching the 
last hours of these illustrious ones, and such 

was the prevalent and universal faith that it 
179 



Conversations with Christ 

was a matter of course that they had passed 
to the realms of the blessed. Then when we 
come to the New Testament, Christ was life 
and immortality brought to light. The il- 
lumination of the past is intensified, and the 
Saviour stands forth as the great Teacher of 
eternal life. I do not wonder that some live 
in rapture over this great thought, living and 
listening to the footfalls on the boundaries of 
another world. I do not wonder that Bishop 
Clark of the Methodist Episcopal Church de- 
votes a page of his book on The meaning of 
Immortality to this coming together of two 
worlds. I am not surprised that in the most 
tender and beautiful hymns in the hymnology 
of all the Churches — Greek, Roman Catholic, 
or Protestant — this great truth runs through 
them all like a golden thread. I am aware that 
the cry to-day is for one to come from the Un- 
seen. Well, one has come, and what better off 
are you ? I have asserted here that Jesus Christ 
had a preexistence. Supposing we cannot 
prove that; yet after his resurrection he re- 
turned. He went, he came back ; he lived forty 
days with us, and after forty days he ascended 
in the presence of five hundred of his friends. 
Two years thereafter he came back and ap- 
peared to Saul of Tarsus, and Saul was so sure 
1 80 



Conversations with Christ 

of the manifestation that he called him Lord; 
thirty-five years thereafter Jesus came back to 
John on the isle of Patmos, and he has been 
coming back since, and there are persons in our 
day who have received visitations from Christ. 
There is a Jewish rabbi in this city who has 
been visited twice by Christ, according to his 
own testimony. But O, you skeptics ! O, you 
materialists! Sadducees! you people who be- 
lieve that book so full of angelic visitations, 
so full of the communion of the saints on 
earth and in heaven — you rob yourselves of 
one of the truest and the sweetest joys because, 
as you say, it has been perverted by Christ, per- 
verted by those who were tricksters, perverted 
by those who deal in legerdemain, who are 
deft in sleight of hand. You are ever rob- 
bing yourselves of the sweetest and the truest 
joy because of its perversion. There is no 
truth in all Christianity that has not been per- 
verted. It is only for you to have the dis- 
crimination and the courage to stand by the 
truth, whether that truth has been perverted or 
not, and derive therefrom all the consolation 
possible. I believe there may come a time in 
your history that Jesus Christ will appear to 
you as he did to Saul of Tarsus. You are 

worth just as much to him. Your intellect 
181 



Conversations with Christ 

may not be so grand, your mission may not 
be as noble, but your soul is just as valu- 
able and worthy of such a visitation. Here, 
then, is the great truth the Saviour brings 
forth. It is a triple truth, asserting, first, the 
existence of angels; and, secondly, asserting 
the immortality of human affections amid the 
desolation of domestic ties; and, thirdly, de- 
claring the existence of spirits, or of that great 
spirit world into which we are all so soon to 
enter. Enter! have no fears, my friend, have 
no fears. I wish you had my faith; I wish I 
could impart it to you. That other world is 
as real to me as the city of Washington is, 
without a shadow of a doubt, without a mo- 
ment's eclipse of my faith. Great consolation ! 
It sustained me when I have been down to the 
river of death time and again, and I expect, 
when the final hour comes, that it will sustain 

me, sustain me to the last. 
182 



" The dying thief said unto Jesus, 'Lord, remember me 
when thou comest into thy kingdom." — Luke. 



" To the blind man whose eyes he had opened — when 
he asked, Who is the Son of God, Jesus answered, 
Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with 
thee." — John, 



" Enoch walked with God : and was not ; for God took 
him." — Moses. 



" I have been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet 
no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." — Paul. 



" Walking, talking, and seeing the Lord signifies being 
with and accompanying him." 



Conversations with Christ 



IX 
Christ's Conversation with a Dying Man 

" And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day 
shalt thou be with me in paradise." — Luke xxiii, 43. 

The argument for immortality as put forth 
by the Christian Church is an assertion that 
man is complex, in his composition, com- 
pounded of the material and the immaterial; 
in other words, that he has what we call a 
''body" and a "soul." Whatever these 
terms may mean, they represent to us two 
units. This proposition, which obtained so 
long, has been disputed in all the ages, some- 
times by greater numbers, sometimes with 
greater vehemence. The opposition at times 
has been so great as to characterize the age as 
"materialistic." You have doubtless observed 
the periodicity of doctrines, or of mental con- 
ditions relative to doctrinal truths. If this, 
for instance, is a materialistic age, the next 
may be a spiritualistic age, the next may be 
materialistic, the next spiritualistic. It is 
not possible for us to account for these 

tides in human thought and human belief. 
i8.s 



Conversations with Christ 

There is mystery touching the origin of hu- 
man thought and its expression as to this be- 
lief. Thus, this thought really consists of great 
cycles. One thing, however, is true, that the 
Scriptures everywhere go upon the accepted 
proposition of these two units of the universe, 
and upon this assertion rests the Bible. If you 
could prove there is but one unit, whether that 
unit is spiritual or material, you would over- 
throw the Bible. It is immaterial to me, as a 
logician, whether you can disturb my faith in 
the existence of the body or the existence of 
the soul. There are persons who assert that 
there is no such thing as matter; they say it 
is ideal. For instance, that clustered column, 
it is asserted, is not there; that you are not 
here, and that that clustered column is in my 
thoughts, and you are only intellectually pre- 
sent to me. they would advance the theory 
so far as to assert that joy is a thought, that 
pain is a thought — and I have often wished it 
were; I would very soon get rid of the 
thought. So you observe there are two ex- 
tremes; persons denying the existence of mat- 
ter — and such persons are infidels so far as 
that denial goes; they contradict the Bible, 
and I would contend as vehemently with a man 

who asserts that there is no such thing as 
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Conversations with Christ 

a human body as I would with a man who as- 
serts that there is no such thing as a human 
soul. Now, take the testimony of the sacred 
writers and see how steadfastly they adhere 
to this great thought of two units. For in- 
stance, take the psalmist; the man who lived 
and sang a thousand years before Christ came 
into the world, "Thou wilt not leave my soul 
in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one 
to see corruption.'' The soul is one unit, the 
holy one or the body is another unit. "Hell" 
here signifies the place of departed spirits ; 
while "corruption" is equivalent of the grave. 
Then he sings, "Thou wilt show me the path 
of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at 
thy right hand there are pleasures for ever- 
more." How clear the Saviour was ! I called 
your attention to this great subject in the pre- 
vious conversation relating to the Sadducees, 
who were materialists. How pronounced 
he is touching the units in this passage, 
"Fear not they which kill the body" — 
one unit — "but are not able to kill the soul, 
but rather fear him which is able to destroy 
both soul and body in hell." Soul and "body" 
are the units. Man is a compound of the two, 
while God is of one superior to man. So he 

savs, "God is not the God of the dead, but of 
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Conversations with Christ 

the living." Then St. Paul says "We are al- 
ways confident, knowing that while at home in 
the body, we are absent from the Lord. We 
are confident and willing rather to be absent 
from the body and to be present with the 
Lord." Nothing can be more definite 
more simple. Then he says, "I knew a man 
in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether 
in the body or whether out of the body" — that 
is, whether this man (he is not now using the 
common place "soul") — "but whether this 
man was in the body or out of the body I 
cannot tell. God knows. Such a one was 
caught up into the third heaven." Here is 
a recognition of the two units, and here also 
is the great fact of levitation, of human 
beings passing through the air; as Enoch 
and Elisha were translated, as Philip was 
caught up by the Spirit, as Peter passed 
through the barred doors of his prison and 
entered into the house of his friends. And it 
was said of this man Paul "that he was caught 
up into paradise and heard unspeakable words 
which is not lawful to utter" — paradise — which 
is equivalent to the intermediate state — and 
then he went into the third heaven, which is 
the abode of the blessed God. This man was 
sane or he was not. You charsre him with in- 



Conversations with Christ 

sanity; then much of your New Testament is 
of no value to the world. To say that this man 
was mistaken in this great assertion — a secret 
that he had maintained for fourteen years — is 
to call in question his conversion, and all other 
assertions touching his religious life. And 
then, having had this glorious vision, having 
been on the other side, he says, "For I am in 
a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart 
and to be with Christ, which is far better." 
Here the word "strait" signifies a difficulty. 
It is not meant direct. I am surrounded with 
difficulties. I am influenced by my associ- 
ations 011 earth, and I am attracted by the fe- 
licities of the skies, and therefore I am in a 
strait betwixt two; and his desire is to depart 
and to be in the immediate presence of Christ. 
So St. John says, "I saw under the altar the 
souls of them that were slain, for the word of 
God and for the testimony which they held." 
These martyrs' spirits were in the other world. 
How simple and yet how emphatic is St. 
Peter! "As long as I am in this tabernacle I 
stir up you to remembrance, knowing that 
shortly I must put off this tabernacle;" and 
then immediately follows the great visit which 
he experienced on Mount Tabor. The years 

had passed, yet it was a great reality to him, 
189 



Conversations with Christ 

and he said, "Very many years ago I was on 
Mount Tabor with the Lord, and there be- 
held his glory, and there came those from the 
other world." These old Bible writers knew 
what they were about. There was no equivo- 
cation, no doubt, no hesitancy. Some of you 
Christians ought to be ashamed of yourselves; 
you are not worthy of the name of Christians 
because of your doubts touching immortality 
and a future state. For we know Scripture 
has an atmosphere of certainty, of certainty 
beyond a doubt, and consequently that in that 
certainty was born a heroism, a heroism that 
bade defiance to martyrdom in the most ter- 
rific form. And you will never reach the cen- 
ter of peace, of divine repose, in this life until 
your faith culminates like the faith of those 
grand men of Bible times, believing in a 
future life with the same certainty that you 
believe in London, New York, or Jerusalem. 
How wonderful the assertion of the Saviour to 
this dying man! How wonderfully the con- 
firmation of this great truth is brought out! 
Pie himself is in the agonies of what we call 
"death." On one hand was a man who had 
rejected him ; on the other was one who ac- 
cepted him. It matters not what a man has 

been so that he turns with fullness of heart to 
190 



Conversations with Christ 

Jesus Christ, breaks off his vicious life, com- 
mences anew. This conversion, this starting 
point for heaven, was made under the most 
disadvantageous circumstances. This dying 
man, it is said, was a youth who had been led 
astray by the inveterate culprit upon the left. 
It is said that this tender youth came to him- 
self, and when he beheld the calmness of Jesus 
amid the agonies of the cross he exercised his 
faith and said, ''Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom." It is said 
that this was an expression of his faith in the 
Messiah's temporal reign. Be it so; never- 
theless, it was faith, for faith may gather 
around a historic error; faith may be expressed 
in an error touching the religion that has been 
taught another; the wood and the stubble will 
be burned while the essential thing, namely, 
faith, standing the test of fire, will live forever. 
So now, supposing that this dying thief exer- 
cised faith in the temporal kingdom of Jesus 
Christ, yet it was faith, and that faith was ac- 
cepted, and the Master immediately responded, 
"To-day" — do not wait for the coming of the 
Messiah's kingdom — "to-day thou shalt be 
with me in paradise." It was then between 
twelve and three o'clock, for it was, according 

to the Roman computation of time, the ninth 
191 



Conversations with Christ 

hour when the Saviour expired. The Roman 
did not expire until three hours after three, 
or until six 'clock, and yet the Master said, 
"To-day — ere the sun goes down, ere the gates 
of Jerusalem are closed — to-day, thou shalt be 
with me in paradise — not thy body, for thy 
body shall be thrown to the dogs or buried in 
some Potter's field. My body shall have 
honorable sepulture, because, though my 
death is with the wicked, my burial shall be 
with the rich. Thy body shall go to decay, 
but thou — all that belongs to the man, in the 
integrity of thine intellect, in the grandeur of 
thy individuality, all that is sensitive, all that 
is capable of thought, all that is susceptible 
of sensation, shall be with me in paradise." 
How remarkable that the history of the world 
opens with a garden and that the last utter- 
ance of the Messiah was touching a garden, for 
"paradise" is a Persian word which signifies "a 
place of delight." So he said to this sufferer, 
"Thou shalt be with me to-day." The false 
interpretation of the text is, "I say unto thee 
to-day" — there they place the comma — "thou 
shalt be with me in paradise. But this is the in- 
terpretation of the soul-sleepers, a class of people 
who say that between death and the resurrec- 
tion there is a state of unconsciousness. Conse- 
192 



Conversations with Christ 

quently they use great impropriety of punctu- 
ation, and they change the position of the 
comma, and place it as I have said. To do 
this would disturb the whole tenor of Scrip- 
ture; to do this would eliminate from the Old 
and New Testaments the grandest utterances 
touching immortality, but the true rendering 
is, "I say unto thee, to-day, ere the sun goes 
down, thou, man, shalt be with me in para- 
dise." There is something forbidding in a 
dying scene. I have stood at the bedside of 
so many. Some were unconscious, and had 
been unconscious for days; others, ere the last 
respiration, smiled upon me and pressed my 
hand. I have seen the beloved wife, as the 
last breath escaped, kiss tenderly the noble man 
who in youth had led her to the bridal altar. 
So I do not wonder that Bishop Butler draws 
an argument in his Analogy, saying we 
possess these powers up to the very moment of 
death, and there is no reason why we may not 
assert that we possess them thereafter. But 
then we stand and watch one die, and we ob- 
serve the respirations grow more rapid and 
shorter. The physician feels the pulse, 
places his hand upon the heart — he says, "He 
is gone." No sensation — the eyes have be- 
come glassy, coldness gathers on the brow. 

13 193 



Conversations with Christ 

What is gone? Nothing that is palpable. It 
is more than going to sleep. We look around 
and see nothing taking its flight. We do not 
open the windows to let something out. There 
is nothing so tempting to materialism as such 
a scene as this, and to one who is not thought- 
ful or who is not grounded in his faith in 
Revelation a dying scene brings no strength to 
one who would believe in immortality. What, 
then, must the soul do in such an extremity? 
It must gather up strength in this regard and 
assert that substance is the only reality in the 
universe — substance and not form. The earth 
has form, but it is not the form that holds the 
earth intact ; it is substance, and that substance 
is what we call cohesion. We cannot see co- 
hesion nor can we taste or feel cohesion, but 
let it be disturbed and this earth would dis- 
appear, would become as dust, and fly into 
immeasurable space. I hold in my hand a 
magnet. I bring it in contact with steel fil- 
ings, and I see those filings leap up to it as 
children to the arms of maternity. I look at 
that magnet ; it has form, but I say, "Where 
is thy substance?" — the mysterious power. 
Thou canst impart that power, and I place a 
piece of steel against it, and part of itself has 

been separated therefrom, but it is the sub- 
194 



Conversations with Christ 

stance and not the form. So I pass into the 
universe and see this great and magnificent 
system of worlds, but these are but forms of 
the substance, and that substance is God Al- 
mighty; for the only force in the universe is 
substance, and the only substance that has 
force is spirit, and the force that guides the 
planets and holds them intact is spirit. There 
is no other force known to man but spirit. So 
the soul gathers up itself, and when it asks, 
''Where is the spirit of my departed one?" 
the answer comes, "As I cannot see the sub- 
stance of the magnet, or the cohesion which 
holds the earth together, or God himself, so it 
is unreasonable for me to suppose that I can 
see that immaterial substance which we call 
spirit, to designate it or to distinguish it from 
what we call matter." In common parlance, 
we ignore the deductions of materalistic sci- 
ence; and it is amusing to hear these materi- 
alistic scientists lecture on materialism. They 
use a usus loquendi which contradicts their 
very assertions. For instance, when they 
speak of the body they always use adjectives, 
and when they speak of the mind they 
always use verbs. One thing about 
them is that they either know gram- 
mar too well or they have got too much 
195 



Conversations with Christ 

sense to speak of mind by adjectives and 
body by verbs, because they know that what we 
call the activities and the energies belong to 
mind. So we say that man "thinks," and man 
"remembers," and man "loves," and man 
"hates," and man "fears," and man "hopes." 
These are verbs, these are the energies. 
Whether we speak of the body as long or 
short, or fat or lean, or handsome or ugly, 
or fair or otherwise, such are the ad- 
jectives we use. Everywhere you find them 
— in poetry, in history, in theology, and in 
science. What problems these materialists are 
called to solve! What questions they are 
called to answer! But they never do answer 
them, and they never solve the problems. For if 
it be true that what we call mind is the product 
of organism, we are bound to discover a pro- 
portionate growth and decay in the one and in 
the other, but there are so many evidences — 
so many illustrations rather — of the mind out- 
lasting the body. When the physical system 
is really a wreck then the mind flows forth in 
all its splendor. Take for instance Wesley 
at his advanced age of 88, when so feeble that 
he could scarcely move from his chair to his 
bed, yet the utterances of that wonderful man 

are remembered to-day by the Christian 
196 



Conversations with Christ 

Church. It is only fair, therefore, to assert, 
if the mind is the product of the physical or- 
ganism, and that the brain secretes thought 
as the liver secretes bile, that the decay of the 
body should be the decay of the mind ; and it is 
only fair to conclude that every little man 
should have a little soul and every big man a 
big soul. But it is not so, for some of these 
men who stand six and seven feet and weigh 
three hundred pounds are fools, while some who 
do not measure up to more than four feet and 
carry a little body weighing one hundred 
pounds are philosophers. Then it is an argu- 
ment worthy of our consideration that the phy- 
siologists have established a fact that has not 
been contradicted, namely, that by the law of 
attrition the particles of the system are passing 
off. It must be so when we consider the 
amount of food daily received. The trans- 
mutated particles, transmuted into blood and 
muscle and nerve and bone, must have a place, 
and these dispel the old material; and what 
is true of these hands and these limbs is true of 
the human brain. The mathematicians have 
attempted to ascertain how many impressions 
may be made upon the brain in the phenomena 
of memory; they have estimated about eight 
thousand impressions in a square inch. They 
197 



Conversations with Christ 

say, therefore, that the phenomena of 
memory is only impression upon the brain. 
But then the physiologists, say that the brain 
changes as well as other portions of the body, 
and it is for them to explain how the transfer 
is made from the old to the new, so that the 
recollections of the past may not die. The 
truth is that one of the strongest arguments 
in favor of the grand old doctrine of the 
Bible touching the two units is drawn from 
memory itself. And then the imagination — 
memory's sister — comes to the aid of the great 
truth, and while memory looks back, the im- 
agination looks forward; and the imagination 
anticipates the future, and that future becomes 
a realization. For, if it be true that the 
brain receives impressions, and that, after all. 
the brain is memory, how shall we account for 
the imagination, which is not impressed by 
anything that has occurred, but which really 
conceives of the future, a statue of bronze or 
marble or a magnificent cathedral? And then, 
waiving all this, do you not know there is no 
such thing in the world either as memory or 
imagination without attention, and there is 
no such thing in the world as attention without 
will? Will is the substance of the intellect, 
the embodiment of the human soul. Such 



Conversations with Christ 

may be your absorption of thought that the 
old clock that stands in the corner of the 
homestead may strike and you not hear it, 
and there may be sweet music from one that 
is dear to you, but it may make no impression ; 
or a picture may be placed before the eye and 
leave no image upon the retina, and all this be- 
cause there is no attention. When a man com- 
plains to me of a feeble memory the answer 
to him is, "You have a feeble attention." 
Memory is always in proportion to attention, 
and attention is always in proportion to will. 
A man who has immense will power has a re- 
tentive memory, for he who has a retentive 
memory has the power of concentration of 
attention. Now, sir, I ask you as a scien- 
tist, I ask you as a philosopher, how is it that 
the phenomena of memory and of the im- 
agination are dependent, first, upon attention, 
and attention depends upon will, and the will 
— volition of the mind — resolves to do a thing? 
I can remember the most difficult of all things. 
I can so concentrate my mind that within 
twenty-four hours I can commit to memory 
every word of an oration that will require two 
hours to deliver. I can so concentrate my at- 
tention by will force that by glancing at a 

single passage once that passage is transferred 
199 



Conversations with Christ 

to my mind, and there is no force in the uni- 
verse that can erase it. How true is it, my 
friends, that nature comes to us confirming 
these great words of the Master to the dying 
man. For there is universal desire and uni- 
versal belief and universal conscience. When 
I say universal desire I mean the desire is 
never satisfied; and this is illustrated in the 
life of Plerschel, who first had a small tele- 
scope, and then desired a larger one, and then 
a larger one, and his desire became simply 
boundless. It is a great fact in nature that 
wherever there is this instinct that instinct has 
a correlate. The Almighty never deals in 
frauds or in cheats. He always harmonizes, 
and the study of the harmonies of the universe 
is one of the most beautiful facts within the 
range of thought. Take, for instance, that 
universal principle that wherever there is in- 
stinct there is the correlate. Where there is 
a fin there is water ; a win©- there is air ; an ear 
there is sound; where there is instinct in a 
bird to migrate there is always a country to 
which it migrates; and as the season comes 
around so you see the birds flying either to the 
south or to the north. What a cruel monster 
God Almighty would be to place in these 

birds the instinct to migrate north or south, 
200 



Conversations with Christ 

and yet to disappointment, and have no north 
or south where they might go ! What a cruel 
monster he would be to place in our souls a 
desire to live forever, and yet at last to cheat 
us! Where there is this desire there must be 
the correlate, the provision for immortality. 
And how universal belief comes to us ! The 
few Sadducees were materialistic because they 
were content with life. There has never 
been a nation of atheists, never can be. 
There has never been a nation of materialists, 
never can be. And then you take universal 
conscience — how it bears testimony to this 
great truth ! For the materialistic scientist 
of the day must explain to me the phenomena 
of conscience — why it is that they have ap- 
prehensions of the future, whether just or 
otherwise. When Solomon said, "The 

wicked flee when no man pursueth," he simply 
uttered a universal truth, and Shakespeare 
took that up, and said in a new translation 
that "conscience makes cowards of us all." 
What an immortal passage Shakespeare has 
given us in his dream of King Richard, where 
eleven ghosts appear — where the ghosts of 
Prince Edward, and the ghost of Clarence, 
and the ghost of Grey, and the ghosts of 

others come to King Richard. 
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Conversations with Christ 

"Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow," 
said each spirit ; and then the king says : 

O! coward conscience, how thou dost afflict me ! 
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. 
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 
What do I fear? myself? There's none else by : 
Richard loves Richard ; that is, I am I. 
Is there a murderer here ? No. Yes, I am : 
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why : 
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself? 
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore ? For any good 
That I myself have done unto myself? 

no ! alas I rather hate myself 

For hateful deeds committed by myself! 

1 am a villain : yet I lie, I am not. 

Fool, of thyself speak well : fool, do not flatter. 
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree ; 
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree. 
All several sins, all used in each degree, 
Throng to the bar, crying all — Guilty ! guilty ! 
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me ; 
And if I die, no soul shall pity me : 
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself 
Find in myself no pity to myself? 
Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd 
Came to my tent ; and every one did threat 
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard. 

Such is the great translator of conscience. 
And this is universal. Whence, my friends, 
this dread of death, if when thou art dead, 
thou art in the land of silence, where no 



Conversations with Christ 

voice is heard, no tear is shed, no soul is dis- 
turbed; whence thy fearful forebodings and 
why dost thou shrink back from death? 
Why not welcome it as an eternal sleep, as 
the soother of all thy woes, as the winding 
up of that moth-eaten garment we call life? 
Nay, nay ; the Almighty Creator has implanted 
in thy breast this prophet of the future, and 
amid thy dreams of glory, thine hours of dis- 
sipation, thy life on earth and time, this 
prophet rises and in his sternness points thee 
to the future and whispers, "Let me sit heavy on 
thy soul to-morrow" — to-morrow, in eternity. 
And so, my friends, the divine Master utters 
a great truth when he says to the dying man, 
"To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." 
The Saviour is sustained by the universal de- 
sire and faith and conscience of mankind, sus- 
tained by philosophy, sustained by our de- 
sires and by our hopes. And remember, my 
friends, this concluding truth, that evolution 
and involution are always coincident; that 
there can be no such thing as evolution 
without a prior involution; that you cannot 
get out of a thing what a thing does not con- 
tain; and your theory of evolution is worse 
than vanity — it is the merest cheat in God's 

creation — unless you can rise to the noble 
203 



Conversations with Christ 

conception that somewhere has been deposited 
in man that which is capable of the unfolding 
and the bringing out. So I discover a new 
thought in hope and fear and joy and faith, 
and therefore I say that there has been that 
which has been involved placed in that which 
comes forth. O then, sons and daughters of 
immortality, men and women destined to live 
forever, I beseech you to listen to the conver- 
sation of Jesus to the dying man, and when it 
shall be thy turn to pass out of the body, and 
he shall come to thy couch, may he whisper to 
thy soul, 'To-day thou shalt be with me in 

paradise." 

204 



" Carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy 
God." — Moses. 



" Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak ; and hear, O 
earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as 
the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small 
rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the 
grass." — Moses. 



"The hand of the Lord was upon me; and he said 
unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain and I will talk 
with thee." — Esekiel. 



"Out of the throne proceeded voices." 

— Revelation of St. John. 



Conversations with Christ 



X 



Christ's Conversation with the Spirits 
on Mount Tabor 

"And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my be- 
loved Son, hear him." — Mark ix, 7. 

"O for a glint of the unseen world!" was 
the expression of an eminent and despondent 
spirit. In this conversation there is more than a 
glint ; the appearance of two historic characters 
familiar with the earth and well known in 
time; a fact rather than a fiction; a reality 
rather than a vision, it silences every doubt 
and satisfies the hope of the true believer. 

The scene, the persons, and the purpose of 
this glorious epiphany claim our faith. The 
glory of Mount Tabor is the transfiguration 
of our Lord. Anxiously I sought to identify 
the spot of that marvelous event that I might 
look into the same serene heavens from which 
came the voice of approval and in which ap- 
peared Moses and Elias. High up on the 
northern slopes, far away from the ruins of the 
ancient village, is a lovely glade inclosed with 

oaks and adorned with flowers. Shut in from 
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Conversations with Christ 

the world, all nature breathed a sense of re- 
pose, and a holy quiet reigned within. The 
view of the blue sky was unobstructed, and 
there in the ''stilly night," watched only by 
the stars, the Son of God held converse with 
two heavenly visitants touching "his decease 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," 
and as a preintimation of his glorified body 
after his ascension "the fashion of his counte- 
ance was altered and his raiment was white 
and glistering." For nearly sixteen centuries 
this beautiful mountain had been regarded as 
the veritable scene of an event full of joy and 
hope. Rising two thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, the prospect from the summit 
is one of extraordinary grandeur. The eye 
sweeps over the mountains of Samaria, the 
long ridge of Carmel, the Bay of Haifa, the 
plain of Akka, the hills of Galilee, the lofty 
peak of Safed, the Horns of Hattin, the majes- 
tic form of Hermon, the gray Avails of Moab, 
with the dark line of vegetation defining the 
banks of the Jordan ; while nearer are the 
slopes of Gilboa, the rocks of Duhy, and the 
glorious plain of Esdraelon, like one unbro- 
ken sea of verdure, with its borders dotted 
with the hamlets of Jezreel, El-Fuleh, Shu- 

nem, Nain, and Endor. Tabor is second only 
208 



Conversations with Christ 

to Olivet in religious interest among all the 
sacred mountains. Separated from the sur- 
rounding hills, excepting on the northwest, it 
stands out alone, having its base swept by the 
magnificent plain of Esdraelon. Its shape 
changing with the standpoint of the beholder, 
the aspect is one of extraordinary beauty. 
Viewed from the heights of Carmel it resem- 
bles a truncated cone ; seen from the northern 
hills of Galilee it appears like one of the pyr- 
amids of Egypt ; seen from the mountains of 
Samaria it resembles a segment of a great cir- 
cle ; while from the summit of Jebel ed-Duhy 
and from the plain below it is not unlike a ter- 
raced mound or a woodland park. From base 
to summit on the east and north it is covered 
with noble oaks and beautiful terebinths, not 
densely like a forest, but like open glades be- 
tween oaken proves, adorned with grass and 
strewed with pheasant eyes, anemones, and 
amaranths. Its summit is an oblong area, half 
a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, bro- 
ken into charming vales and hillocks, enhan- 
cing the delights of the spot. Here is the 
scene of this memorable conversation. 

And who were these celestial visitants? In 
that illustrious group were six persons — Peter, 

James, and John, who had witnessed the res- 
14 209 



Conversations with Christ 

urrection of Jairus's daughter, and subsequent- 
ly the Saviour's agony in the garden. Two 
of the six were visitants from the heavenly 
world, and rising above all in glory was the 
only begotten Son of God. Where in the his- 
tory of the world has there been a convoca- 
tion the subject of which was the most impor- 
tant that could occupy the attention of men and 
angels? Other subjects are of deep import 
to the present condition of humanity. Had 
Plato and Socrates and Aristotle met on that 
memorable mount, they would have conversed 
on philosophy. Had Bacon and Newton and 
Franklin met there, they would have discussed 
the advancement of science. Had Alexander 
and Caesar and Napoleon there assembled, the 
subject of their conversation would have been 
empire. But how insignificant are all these 
compared with the salvation of a world ! Mo- 
ses and Elijah and Christ met to converse on 
death, ordinarily a ghastly, forbidding sub- 
ject; on death, not in the ordinary sense, but 
in a sense never before known to man. 

Who were these celestial neighbors? One 
was Moses, the representative of the divine 
law, the chosen leader of Israel, the writer 
of the Pentateuch, whose departure from earth 
was on Mount Nebo. The other was Elijah, 



Conversations with Christ 

the representative of the holy prophets, great- 
er than Samuel, more significant than Isaiah, 
more renowned than Daniel. To him God had 
appeared as to none of the other prophets. 
He had been fed by the ravens; he had raised 
the dead ; in answer to his prayers the heavens 
became as brass and again melted with abun- 
dant rain. He reproved kings and anointed 
those whom Providence had appointed to 
thrones. He had founded schools for the 
young prophets, who called him "father." As 
the greatest of prophets he was the teacher 
from God to man. When his work was done 
he tasted not death, but was borne away to 
the skies in a chariot of fire. 

How remarkable that these should have 
come? Why not Abel, who suffered as the 
first and typical sacrifice for sin? Or Abra- 
ham, the father of the faithful? Or Melchiz- 
edek, king of Salem? But there was a mani- 
fest propriety in the coming of Moses and 
Elijah. Like our Lord, both had fasted forty 
days and forty nights; both had stood on the 
holy mount with God; both had been removed 
from earth in a mysterious manner; both were 
representative men. One had been absent from 
earth fifteen hundred years, the other nine 
hundred years. They retained their names, 



Conversations with Christ 

and their personal identity is beyond question. 
And what was the purpose of their appear- 
ance? In an event so imposing we must look 
for a purpose worthy of a God. It was the 
solemn and formal abolition of the prophetic 
dispensation, and the impressive installation 
of Christ into his triple office of prophet, 
priest, and king. To him all the types had 
pointed. From him all the laws received their 
inspiration, and he was to be crowned greater 
than the great. It was an ocular confirmation 
of Christ as the Messiah, and the preintima- 
tion of his future glory. This was for the 
Church in all coming ages. 

This interview illustrates the profound in- 
terest which departed saints take in the suf- 
fering and glorified Christ. They were in 
their heavenly estate on the guarantee of Je- 
sus. They came to talk with him about his 
death, soon to occur in Jerusalem. They were 
a delegation from the skies to ascertain if all 
who are in glory are forever safe. The atone- 
ment had not been made. Christ had not ac- 
complished his mission. There was anxiety 
in heaven. Had the Saviour failed in his 
vicarious work, all those spirits who had 
passed into the realms of light would have had 
no claim to retain their thrones or their 



Conversations with Christ 

crowns. Could the Saviour endure the terri- 
ble ordeal of the cross ? He was the only man 
who had come into the world to die. All 
others come to live. These delegates would re- 
turn with an affirmative answer. Was their 
appearance to relieve the Saviour's own mind? 
Was his intellect overshadowed by a doubt of 
his ability to pay the ransom for the human 
race? In the garden he had prayed, "Let this 
cup pass from me," but in a supreme moment 
his great soul rallied and his noble expression 
was, "Not my will, but thine, be done." Je- 
sus could find no one on earth to whom he 
could unbosom himself and who could fully 
comprehend him on this great subject. He 
had attempted it on a former occasion, but his 
chosen friend, St. Peter, had replied, "Be it far 
from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee." 
St. Peter's puny "shall not" quotation is put 
over against Jehovah's omnipotent "shall." 
He needed this sympathy and strength from 
these heavenly visitors. His death was of such 
high import that these messengers spoke of 
"his decease which he should accomplish at 
Jerusalem." 

What did they say? Their conversation 
related to the nature, the circumstances, and 

the results of that great tragedy which within 
213 



Conversations with Christ 

a year would transpire on Mount Calvary. It 
is fair to conclude that, as all the incidents of 
that tragedy have been portrayed in prophecy, 
these incidents were recited in advance in all 
their detail — his rejection by the Jewish na- 
tion; the last supper with his friends; the be- 
trayal by Judas ; the thirty pieces of silver ; the 
Potter's field; the garden of agony; the mid- 
night arrest; the denial by Peter; the stead- 
fastness of St. John; the judgment seat occu- 
pied by the high priest Caiaphas; the judgment 
hall of Pilate; the dispatch of the prisoner to 
King Herod; the scourging; the insults; the 
bufferings; the mock royalty; the imprison- 
ment for a night; the dream of Pilate's wife; 
the attempt of the judge to dismiss the case; 
the bitter cry of the Jews, "Crucify him;" the 
procession to Calvary; the nailing of the vic- 
tim to the cross ; the sympathy of all nature 
with the sufferer; the bitter salutation of the 
enemies; the fidelity of his mother and the 
other women who had followed him to the 
crucifixion ; the final struggle ; the paean of tri- 
umph, "It is finished!" And we may suppose 
that these beautiful spirits were not content 
with the rehearsal of the tragical incidents of 
the event, but continued the conversation to 

the Saviour's descent into Hades to preach to 
214 



Conversations with Christ 

all the human souls from Adam to the present 
time who had passed out of the body and en- 
tered the invisible world; then of his resurrec- 
tion, the frequent epiphanies to his friends that 
he had risen as he had said ; his sublime ascen- 
sion amid the shouts of his friends and the re- 
joicing of the angels and of the spirits made 
just, on the right hand of God his Father. 
What a conversation ! Did they ask in the ques- 
tion, "Canst thou endure this ordeal; are we 
safe in our heavenly estate? What reply shall 
we give to the countless millions that await 
our return in heaven?" 

What a relief to his own great soul to be 
assured of this profound interest in the skies, 
and of his own confidence that his mission 
would be a sublime realization ! How this in- 
terview prepared him for the severity of the 
conflict before him ! No wonder that his 
countenance was resplendent with glory and 
that his garments were white and glistering! 
Such must have been the import and the tenor 
of this memorable conversation. We are not 
informed how long it lasted — doubtless late 
into the night, for his three disciples had fallen 
asleep; "And when they were awake, they saw 
his glory, and the two men that stood with 

him. And it came to pass as they departed 

215 



Conversations with Christ 

from him Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is 
good for us to be here : and let us make three 
tabernacles ; one for thee, and one for Moses, 
and one for Elias. . . . While he thus spake, 
there came a cloud, and overshadowed them : 
and they feared as they entered into the cloud. 
And there came a voice out of the cloud, say- 
ing, This is my beloved Son : hear him. And 
when the voice was past, Jesus was found 
alone." How boundless must have been the 
joy of Moses and Elias! They carried the 
good news to the skies. What a welcome they 
must have received as they exclaimed, "He 
shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
satisfied:" and "for the joy that is set before 
him he will endure the cross, despise the 
shame, and come up hither and sit down at the 
right hand of the throne of God." 

One of the most conspicuous and constant 
truths contained in the Bible is a record of the 
visit of men and angels from the other world. 
There is scarcely a book in the Old Testament 
in which there is not a word of the visitation 
of some angel to men, from the Garden of 
Eden on to Malachi. These celestial neigh- 
bors are represented as coining daily, coming 
in the common concerns of life, to widows, to 

orphans, to peasants, to princes, to priests. 
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Conversations with Christ 

They came in behalf of individuals and of na- 
tions. It is a record as well avouched as any 
record extant. To eliminate angelic visita- 
tions from the Bible would be the annihilation 
of the Scriptures. Were I to construct an ar- 
gument that two worlds impinge, that there 
is constant communication between our earth 
and the heavenly land, I would go to the Scrip- 
tures. How sublime the vision touching 
Enoch, who walked with God, and was not, 
for God took him ! How tremendous is the 
fact of Elijah's translation, who passed to 
the skies in a chariot of fire! What a revela- 
tion of the visible world was that of the young 
eyes," and presently he saw the mountains 
when the old prophet prayed, "Lord, open his 
eyes," and presently he saw the mountains 
filled with the horses and chariots of Israel ! 
How beautiful the language of the psalmist 
when he sings, "Thou wilt not leave my soul 
in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to see corrup- 
tion. Thou wilt show me the path of life; at 
thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." 
Language cannot be more definite. What a 
statement that is in Ecclesiast.es, "Then shall 
the dust return to the earth as it was; and the 
spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 

Nothing can be more exact. And the New 

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Conversations with Christ 

Testament is a luminous commentary upon the 
Old. Therein the Saviour is represented as 
bringing life and immortality to light. I do 
not wonder that some live in rapture on this 
great thought, living and listening to the foot- 
falls on the boundaries of another world. It 
is not surprising that the most eminent writers 
have devoted their learning and expressed 
their faith in vindication of this consoling 
truth. This tender and beautiful thought runs 
like a golden thread through the hymnology 
of all Churches — Greek, Papal, Protestant. It 
is true that the cry of to-day is for some one 
to come from the Unseen. One has come. The 
preexistence of Christ is the most glorious fact 
connected with his mission. He had always 
lived in the heavenly world. He came to dwell 
with our race thirty-three years; he returned 
to his primeval abode. After three days hf 
reappeared to his friends. He lived among 
them forty days, and then under the law of 
levitation he ascended into the heavens in the 
presence of five hundred of his friends. Two 
years thereafter he appeared to Saul of Tar- 
sus, who preferred to die a martyr than to deny 
this glorious epiphany. After an absence of 
thirty-five years he returned to his friend St. 

John on the isle of Patmos, exclaiming, "I am 
218 



Conversations with Christ 

he that was dead, but am alive for evermore." 
And from that day to this he has been return- 
ing to earth when the interests of his kingdom 
demanded such appearance. How strange it 
is that people who profess to believe the 
Bible — so full of angelic visitations, so replete 
with the record of the communion of the saints 
on earth and in heaven — should rob them- 
selves of this truest and sweetest joy ! What 
a strange skepticism, what a logical incon- 
sistency, to suppose that this is a record run- 
ning through four thousand years, but that the 
communication between the two worlds was 
suspended nineteen centuries ago ! If these 
spiritual visitations were necessary for the ad- 
vancement of truth and the consolation of the 
pious in the ages that have passed, they are 
none the less necessary in this our day. 

Christ is the great Teacher not only of the 
immortal life, but also of the profound inter- 
est entertained and manifested by the whole 
realm of spirit existence and inhabitants of the 
unseen world ! How exact and certain he was 
in expressions touching that world ! To a dy- 
ing man he said, "To-day thou shalt be with 
me in paradise." How remarkable a fact — 
the history of the world opens with a garden, 

and the last utterance of the Messiah was 
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Conversations with Christ 

touching a garden, of paradise, a place of 
delights ! 

There was a time when people living on the 
shores of the Mediterranean fancied that that 
sea really was the limit of the earth. They 
were accustomed to stand hy the columns of 
Hercules and see the waters flow thereon. 
Now and then came a shrub, sometimes a 
flower, occasionally a dead body, and for cen- 
turies they said, ''There is nothing outside of 
the Mediterranean — nothing beyond." They 
fancied that the two currents, one running out 
and the other running in, performed a revo- 
lution, or a circular current, and this was their 
explanation of what they saw; but at last a 
brave mariner pushed his boat through the col- 
umns of Hercules and beheld the broad At- 
lantic, whose waters lave Albion's white cliffs 
and wash America's enlightened shores. So 
the materialists of to-day, standing by the 
Mediterranean of life, say there is nothing 
beyond; but anon some flower of paradise 
appears, some branch from the tree of life, 
some Moses and Elijah pass these columns to 
astonish the people who live on the shores of 
this inland Mediterranean with the truth that 
there is a vast Atlantic of life and immor- 
tality beyond. The materialists of Greece were 

220 



Conversations with Christ 

accustomed to say that the music is in the 
harp, but Socrates replied that the music is in 
the harper. The harp strings may be suscep- 
tible of musical vibrations and the atmosphere 
of musical sounds. The harp may be broken 
and the music cease, but the harper may re- 
ceive a new harp and sweep new strains there- 
from. So with Socrates, the human body is a 
harp, but the harper is within. You may de- 
stroy this human harp, but the harper shall 
have a new instrument on which he can play 
immortal music to banquet the ears of the 
divine Redeemer. 

In this conversation on Mount Tabor the 
Saviour lifted the curtain to give us an inside 
view of the society of the blessed. These two 
men represent two classes — Moses the disem- 
bodied and Elijah the embodied. Their per- 
sonal identity was without a doubt. Though 
separated by vast differences of time and space, 
yet their recognition was beyond question. 
These are sublime thoughts, great facts. We 
can never be other than ourselves, more than 
ourselves, less than ourselves. Moses must 
always be Moses, Elijah must always be 
Elijah. They appeared in glory. 

Their appearance was not more remarkable 
than the great change in the appearance of our 

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Conversations with Christ 

Lord, he himself a man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief; and of his personal ap- 
pearance Isaiah said, "He hath no form nor 
comeliness; and when we shall see him, there 
is no beauty that we should desire him. He 
is despised and rejected of men; a man of sor- 
rows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid 
as it were our faces from him ; he was de- 
spised, and we esteemed him not." "His 
visage was so marred more than any man, 
and his form more than the sons of men." 
And now behold the contrast! "The fashion 
of his countenance was altered, and his rai- 
ment was white and glistering." His trans- 
figuration body differed from his resurrection 
body. The latter bore the marks of the cruci- 
fixion in hands, and feet, and side; and his 
raiment was the familiar garb seen so often 
by his disciples. But now all is changed ! His 
great soul shines out through his solar coun- 
tenance, and his seamless robe, travel-stained 
and dust-covered, becomes white and glister- 
ing, as if new from the wardrobe of the skies. 
This was the prefiguration of his ascension 
body, which in the moment of ascension from 
earth to heaven passed the glorious transfor- 
mation, the elimination of the earthly and the 
mortal, and the manifestation of that atten- 



Conversations with Christ 

uated.body which is the inner residence of the 
soul, and is housed within this tangible and 
mortal body in which we appear to the sons of 
men. It is an old idea, and may be as true as 
old, that within our exterior bodies there is 
an interior form like the imponderable sub- 
stances in the universe, as like electricity, mag- 
netism, which passes from the exterior body 
in the hour and article of death. This is the 
spiritual body of which St. Paul had a vision. 
And it is a suggestion by St. Paul that we shall 
have a spiritual body of such attenuated mat- 
ter that can be fashioned after our Lord's most 
glorious body. Here is the realization thereof. 
It is not possible for us to conceive of our 
continued relations to the material universe 
without some material medium of communi- 
cation with our environment. Such are all the 
revelations of that unseen world descriptive of 
the blessed as recorded by the inspired writers. 

Behold the glorious change! 
223 



" I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the 
name of the Lord." — Psalms. 



" I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this 
fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with 
you in my Father's kingdom." — Matthew. 



" And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the 
twelve apostles with him." — Luke. 



" Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave 
to them. . . . And he took the cup, and when he had 
given thanks, he gave it to them." — Mark. 



And Jesus said this do in remembrance of me." 

— Luke, 



" After supper Jesus said : A new commandment I 
^ive unto you, That ye love one another." — John. 

15 



Conversations with Christ 



XI 

Christ's Conversation with His Dis- 
ciples on Heaven 

" And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, 
and receive you unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may 
be also." — John xiv, 3. 

It is a serious question how far a future 
state can be substantiated independent of rev- 
elation. There are thinkers in the Church who 
hold that, independent of the Bible, it is not 
possible to furnish sufficient evidence that will 
be satisfactory. For instance, the argument is 
drawn from the development of the mind, but 
the fact that in the midst of development life 
terminates seems to be a proof that the soul 
ends its existence with the life of the body; 
and the argument drawn from man's boundless 
desire is met by the fact that the desire to live 
is natural and yet not gratified. So one by one 
the arguments from nature and Providence are 
dispensed with by those severer thinkers touch- 
ing this great subject. But it seems to me fair 

to conclude that the Bible is but the confirma- 

227 



Conversations with Christ 

tion of a great truth that is coextensive with the 
history of the race and prevalent with all na- 
tions. That is a great truth that Jesus Christ 
came to bring life and immortality to light; 
as if this truth had been obscured by doubt, and 
it was necessary for him to remove the dark- 
ness and let the light of personal assertion 
shine thereon. One thing, however, is true; 
that the great thought of a future state is com- 
mon with the race and characteristic of all re- 
ligions. It is therefore no marvel that he 
should, as it were, revel in this central thought ; 
nor is it remarkable that on the eve of his de- 
parture from the world it should be the fruitful 
theme of conversation with his nearest and 
best friends. Christ was an intense lover, an 
intense friend. His friendship was pure, ex- 
alted, abiding. There never was such a friend 
on the face of the globe. His friendship was 
permanent as it was beneficent. He was not 
easily estranged from those taken into his con- 
fidence by rumors or by errors or by false steps, 
for he knew that these were the frailties of 
mankind; and therefore he could pardon a 
Peter; he might have pardoned a Judas. At 
all events he overlooked the foibles and, we 
might say, the sins of his disciples, because of 

the constancy of his love for them. There is 
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Conversations with Christ 

an exquisite beauty in that passage that he 
"loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus," and 
while it is true he had but few friends — few in 
the sense of being confidential — yet to these he 
manifested a wealth of love that has no par- 
allel in the friendships of this world. And it 
is not, therefore, surprising that he desires to 
carry this friendship into a new life. So on 
the eve of his departure, knowing that Calvary 
was then casting its shadow upon him, and his 
friends anticipated the separation, he said to 
them, "Let not your hearts be troubled." A 
strange exhortation ! Who could help being 
troubled on being separated from such a teach- 
er, such a friend, such a Saviour, who sympa- 
thized with all their troubles, who was wise to 
counsel, strong to aid? And especially when 
these men had abandoned everything to es- 
pouse his cause — had left home, and friends, 
and fortune — had accepted the ignominy inci- 
dent to a new religion, and had shown eternal 
fealty to that cross which was the symbol of 
reproach and shame? No marvel that they 
were troubled; but had his religion been the 
most popular, as it was the most benevolent, 
the idea of being separated from one so spot- 
less in his purity, so wise in his counsels, so 

benevolent in his acts, was sufficient to cast a 
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Conversations with Christ 

cloud over the sky of the mind and to trouble 
the human spirit. It is not strange, therefore, 
that he introduces the exhortation, "Do not be 
troubled." He must have had a powerful rea- 
son for it. Did he then design to say to us 
that lamentation for the dead was wrong? 
Did he wish to convey to us that we should 
reach that mental and spiritual condition that 
when standing over a dying friend we would 
have but the feelings of parting with one who 
was to cross the ocean and return again. Per- 
haps, and it may be, when you and I shall rise 
from this earth state, from this world of low 
affections and aspirations, that we may reach 
that higher and better condition. Why was it 
not just as natural for him to be troubled in 
leaving his friends, and why might not they 
say to him, "Let not your heart be troubled?" 
But he would change our conception of the 
word death ; he would introduce a new idea to 
soothe a troubled spirit; and to remove the 
ruggedness and terribleness of the dying hour 
he instituted a new phrase, and called death 
sleep, at first rejected by his disciples, because 
misunderstood. As we awake from the slum- 
ber of night, so death is but a slumber from 
which we are to awaken. But the Church is 

not ready for this thought. A few have 
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Conversations with Christ 

reached it; a few have followed the Master so 
closely, taken in his spirit, exercised his faith, 
that they can look upon the form of a de- 
parted one as they can look upon one in sweet 
sleep; for the faith goes beyond the casket, 
and beyond the shroud, and traces the shining- 
path of the ascended spirit to the realm of 
light, and hears the voice coming from the 
skies, "To-day thou art with me in paradise." 
It will be a long time, my friends, before you 
will reach this. Death is something horrible 
to you. Death is the king of terrors; some- 
thing to be dreaded to the last degree, whether 
in childhood or youth or old age; something 
for tears and lamentations and mourning. 
But when the fuller life of Christianity shall 
come to us then shall come the realization of the 
words of the apostle, " I am in a strait betwixt 
two, having a desire to depart and be with 
Christ." There is something of intense sub- 
limity in the expression, "I go to prepare a 
place for you." The common interpretation is 
that heaven did not exist prior to this, and that 
the Master has gone to prepare heaven. 
What an absurdity! Have you ever allowed 
yourselves to think for a moment that there 
had been no heaven prior to this? Certainly 

this is not the thought. Then others have 
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Conversations with Christ 

suggested that the Saviour desired to teach 
that he was going to fit up a new world for the 
redeemed inhabitants of this; and thus they 
make heaven a place rather than a state. 
Doubtless it may be a Ubi — it may be a place — 
but the true scriptural conception of heaven 
is that it is a state, and that Swedenborg ut- 
tered the truth, though a half truth, when he 
said it was a state. He should have added the 
other, namely, a Ubi, or a place. But the 
true interpretation of this old and tender and 
beautiful passage is, "I go to prepare a place — 
that is, I go to Calvary, and there I die for man- 
kind, and by my death and suffering I prepare 
a state of happiness for all that believe in 
my name; and if I go to Calvary, and there 
die, and my body enters the tomb and my spirit 
enters the spirit world, I will come again;" 
and in less than three days he came again, came 
from the spirit world, came from the tomb, 
and came to his friends, and they beheld him, 
they walked with him, conversed with him, 
dined with him, embraced him, followed him to 
the summit of the Mount of Olives; from which 
he ascended to glory. How remarkable there 
were no tears shed when they saw his ascending 
form. No lamentations awakened the echoes of 

the Mount of Olives; no need of the Saviour 
232 



Conversations with Christ 

sending down in thunder tones, "Let not your 
heart be troubled." What a contrast ! What 
a transformation had come upon these people! 
Forty days before it was necessary for him to 
nerve their courage by saying, "Let not your 
heart be troubled." Now, having had the 
proof, they behold him ascend to glory, and 
they shout his ascension, and they return, it is 
said, with great joy. It is not possible for 
you, my friend, to read that record as it is, 
in its minuteness and directness, and amplitude 
and power; — it is not possible for you to read 
this twofold record without realizing the 
wonderful transformation that came upon 
these people when they had realized a future 
state as an actuality. In this beautiful thought 
of the perpetuity of friendship he brought out 
the great thought of the indestructibility of in- 
dividuality. If it could be proved that the old 
Hindu doctrine is true that at death all souls 
are absorbed into the divinity as drops of 
water into the ocean, then certainly it were not 
worth our while to discourse on heaven or to 
consider the perpetuity of human and Christian 
friendships. But you as an individual must al- 
ways be an individual, always a unit in the 
units of the universe, always a person with 
your personal characteristics, always yourself, 
233 



Conversations with Christ 

never more or less than yourself, never other 
than yourself. God must always be God; 
Gabriel must always be Gabriel; Abraham 
always Abraham; Paul always Paul; Luther 
always Luther; Wesley always Wesley; Cal- 
vin always Calvin; Washington always Wash- 
ington ; and there is no power in the universe to 
destroy individuality unless the power is tanta- 
mount to annihilation. But if God retains his 
individuality, and the angels theirs, why not we? 
We are but pilgrims and strangers here, travel- 
ers to another and a better world. So with this 
indestructible individuality there must come 
the indestructibility of our mental powers. 
Memory must be immortal, and there is a great 
truth in that utterance of Abraham to the rich 
man, "Son, remember;" and if memory is 
immortal, then certainly the evidences of earth 
and time are carried into the future. So with 
the. other mental powers, imagination and judg- 
ment and reason, and so also with what we 
call the sensibilities, the freedom of the will, 
the office of the conscience, and the tendency 
of the affections, for there must never come 
a time in your eternity when you will cease to 
be a free agent ; in other words, when you will 
cease to exercise the high prerogative of a 
volitional being. It is a fallacy, and worse than 
234 



Conversations with Christ 

a fallacy, for you to suppose that, whether in 
heaven or in hell, there can come a time when 
your will shall be destroyed. So there is no 
such thing as the destruction of conscience, 
either to approve or to disapprove, or the de- 
struction of the human affections touching 
those we love. This indestructibility of indi- 
viduality, therefore, rises up before us as one 
of the grandest of truths. No matter how 
small you may be in your personality, limited 
in your intellectual capacity, it must be an in- 
finite thought, an infinite joy to you that you 
must always be yourself. We are ever bound 
by personal identity. Indeed, personal 
identity enters largely into criminal jurispru- 
dence, in human government, and whatever 
may be the changes of the exterior man, the 
recognition of the perpetuity of identity of the 
mind that has committed the crime is a great 
fact in criminal law. When it shall be your 
privilege, as it has been mine, to go to the 
Yosemite, gaze with rapture upon the 
bridal veil ; behold it descending in the ut- 
most beauty from the overhanging rocks ; look 
at the zephyrs as they play with the spray and 
spread the same out as a bridal veil of Mechlin 
lace. Then look at the sunbeams as they 
dance on spray and water, thus acting or form- 
2 35 



Conversations with Christ 

ing as prisms, producing the seven colors of 
the bow of promise. Look at the rainbow. 
How it abides ! There it is ; all its colors are 
distinct; but then the water is always falling, 
always falling. There may be a change, 
change in the waters, but there is the perpetuity 
of the light, or of the bow of promise. And it is 
to us a great fact growing out of the assertion 
of the Saviour that "where I am, there ye may 
be also," that he proposes to secure this eternal 
restoration of association and this perpetuity of 
friendship. Has it ever occurred to you that 
during the days of his flesh he was always giv- 
ing back the dead to the people? He gave 
Lazarus back to his sisters, gave the son of the 
widow of Nain back to his mother, gave the 
beautiful damsel on the shores of Gennesaret 
back to her parents — always giving back the 
dead. What a disproportion of charity and 
of wisdom were it to confine these gracious 
gifts to these few persons, when the g-reat 
heart of humanity is constantly sighing and 
aching for those that have passed away. What 
he did in these few instances he proposes to 
do universally, if we accept him as our personal 
Teacher and our divine Redeemer, and this is 
how he brings out in his discourses the 

social life of heaven. He compares it to a 
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Conversations with Christ 

great banquet. And then this idea of per- 
sonal identity and the indestructibility of in- 
dividuality is ever occurring to him, and he 
is ever saying that we shall sit down with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these old 
patriarchs, bearing their names, retaining their 
characters — sit down with them in the king- 
dom of heaven. For he knew, as we should 
know, that if there be reunion of the blessed 
in disguise, then death is an eternal separation; 
and when we assign to the grave the form 
of the dear one we must say farewell, a long- 
farewell, farewell forever. No matter 
whether there is immortality or not, that does 
not satisfy the soul or meet the argument if 
there is no recognition beyond the grave. Then 
the grave, or death, is an eternal separation; 
for what will it avail me if perchance in some 
of the happy groves of paradise I wander 
with my mother and know her not ; if I sweep 
a harp of joy beside my father and know not 
him, a stranger to me? I may take him for 
an angel, I may take her for a seraph, but 
O when wandering through those groves, 
or sweeping those harps of delight, if I 
know that I stand by my father, or wander 
with my mother, what a new rapture comes to 

my soul ! The simple question is, is heaven to 

237 



Conversations with Christ 

be a land of strangers — total, absolute stran- 
gers — or is it to be a place of exalted society, 
the reunion of long-parted ones and the beauti- 
ful recognition of personal identity? If you 
and I are not to know each other, then how are 
we to know Christ? For the law of personal 
identity and of recognition touches him as 
well as it does my parents or any of my friends. 
What right have I to suppose that I will know 
him as the Saviour of the world and my per- 
sonal Redeemer if I cannot know my precious 
mother and my honored father? Those who 
assert the opposite of this blessed recognition 
make an assertion that proves too much, that 
sweeps too far. To me and to you it is a great 
fact that were we deprived of this knowledge 
of our friends, we would be bereft of nine 
tenths of all the knowledge that we possess. 
Sum up the knowledge that you have to-night 
of human life and human affairs, and that 
knowledge gathers round some friend, some 
person, and is closely associated with personal 
identity. Then are we to enter heaven in ig- 
norance, bereft of knowledge, and all that we 
have acquired on earth and time to be of no 
service to us? Or rather, are we to enjoy the 
fruition of the knowledge obtained here 

through those that are dearest to our heart's 
238 



Conversations with Christ 

best memories? Some of the pleasantest mo- 
ments of life are in the social circle, not in 
publicity, not amid human applause, but when 
surrounded with those that we can trust and 
those who are true to us. How the hours 
glide by ! How eye looks into eye ; how soul 
responds to soul ! What heaven there is in 
these beautiful conversations as of yore ! Take 
the sum total of human happiness, and is it 
not largely social ; first domestic, and then 
social? What a small percentage of the enjoy- 
ment of human life is in what we call society, 
in the amusements of everyday life; but what 
a larger percentage, and that of the most ex- 
quisite enjoyment, is where friend holds fel- 
lowship with friend. If there is one cause why 
death sends a chill to our soul, it is the de- 
privation of the society of those with whom 
we have taken sweet counsel together. Now, 
it seems to me a law of nature, or rather a pro- 
vision of nature, as it is a great truth in 
revelation, that the affections with which we 
are endowed are to have their consummation 
in another and a better world. Like some 
stately tree riven asunder by the ethereal fires 
or torn by the tornado from its mountain 
fastenings, death comes and separates us and 
the affections are riven and torn, for in our 
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Conversations with Christ 

gentler moments these affections are like the 
tendrils that cling and entwine around some 
sturdy oak. I have forborne to destroy an 
old tree because of the beautiful vine that had 
gathered around the old but useless trunk. 
The affections of the human heart have not 
their consolation in this life. The events of 
life are so severe at times that these affections 
are interrupted. The Almighty can never 
tantilize his creatures. I took occasion to 
say that wherever there is an instinct there is 
the correlate, and so wherever there is a hu- 
man love there is an object corresponding 
thereto. The Saviour brings out this great 
thought. He loved me ; this love is deep, per- 
petual ; these affections are not for earth and 
time, but "where I am, ye shall be also." 
Hence the society of heaven is to be beauti- 
ful and exalted. There Abraham shall meet 
his Sarah; there David shall meet his Jona- 
than ; there Paul shall meet his Timothy ; there 
Luther shall meet his Melanchthon; there 
Wesley shall meet his Whitefield ; "Where I 
am, ye shall be also." "Shall we know each 
other there?" There is no skepticism in that 
hymn, and yet while it is a charming psalmody, 
and the music itself is so quieting and soothing 

to the soul, I fear the very question itself 
240 



Conversations with Christ 

awakens doubt. But there is no truth that is 
so brought out in the religious and mytholo- 
gies of the world as the great truth of eternal 
recognition. I like to read my Homer, grand, 
heroic old theologian of the faith of nature! 
There is more true theology in him than in ten 
thousand poets of the present time — listening 
to the voice of nature, embalming in poetic lan- 
guage the true sentiments of the soul. How 
he describes the descent of Ulysses into the 
regions of the dead, and among the persons 
whom Ulysses beholds is his mother. 

There as the wondrous vision I survey'd, 
All pale ascends my royal mother's shade : 
A queen, to Troy she saw our legions pass ; 
Now a thin form is all Anticlea was ! 
Struck at the sight I melt with filial woe, 
And down my cheek the pious waters flow. 

And then with despair he exclaims, after he 
had extended his arms to embrace her : 

Thrice in my arms I strove the shade to bind, 
Thrice through my arms she slipp'd like empty wind. 

Then he exclaims : 

Fly'st thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly moan? 
Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn ! 
Is it, ye powers that smile at human harms ! 
Too great a bliss to weep within her arms ? 

His mother then explains to him that when life 
leaves the bodv all are such as he finds her: 

16 241 



Conversations with Christ 

No more the substance of the man remains, 
Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins : 
This the funereal flames in atoms bear 
To wander with the wind in empty air : 
While the impassive soul reluctant flies, 
Like a vain dream to these infernal skies. 

And then the old epic poet goes on to describe 
Ulysses's interview with Agamemnon and 
Ajax and Sisyphus and Tantalus and Hercules. 
Agamemnon holds with him a long conversa- 
tion, Hercules also says a few words. And thus 
this great master of the poetic world of the 
past brings out a truth that finds its parallel 
in the teachings of Jesus and of the apostles. 
How great and blessed, therefore, is this 
social view of heaven. I do not wonder that 
we sigh for its friends and long for its associ- 
ations, for I suppose the majority is there and 
there for evermore. The Saviour then brings 
out this great truth that ''where I am, ye shall 
be also," and he said to his disciples, "The way 
I go, ye know;" and they were surprised and 
responded, "We know not whither thou goest." 
That sharpened their eyes, flashed truth upon 
their understanding, lifted the veil, as it were, 
and prepared them for the wonderful scene 
of his ascension, and they shouted for joy. 
To me it is a great truth that those who pass 

from this world and join the Saviour enter 
242 



Conversations with Christ 

into the same employment with him, employ- 
ing their time for the good of the race. Per- 
haps the grandest aspect of Christ in his as- 
cended condition is that he is man's Mediator, 
pleading for our race, presenting his wounded 
hands and side to the Father Almighty as the 
ground of intercession and the ground of 
mercy to be exercised by the Almighty. What 
an exalted employment! Not there singing 
psalms, not there offering prayers, but he is 
there engaged in this sublime work of lifting 
you and me from the sins of earth and time. 
How grand, therefore, is this better aspect 
of heaven to be associated with him in this 
great missionary work. Heaven to me is the 
largest missionary field in the world, and you 
saints who hope that when you die your last ef- 
fort will be made, your last prayer offered, 
and your last solicitude for souls expressed — 
if you desire such a heaven, go to it! I pre- 
fer not such a state of holy indolence, of re- 
ligious inactivity, but rather I prefer that 
aspect of the spiritual world as represented by 
the Saviour, touching the angels, that they are 
ever watching the sinner, waiting for him to 
turn from the error of his ways, so that they 
can carry the glad tidings on high that one 
more sinner repents. To my mind there is 
243 



Conversations with Christ 

i 

no grander aspect of the whole spiritual world 
than this, that there is the most profound 
knowledge, the most infinite knowledge, on 
the part of that spiritual world touching us ; 
that there is the deepest solicitude, and there is 
the constant effort, the exercise of an undying- 
energy, to rescue us here from our sins and 
from our errors. The ministry of angels is 
not definite, but it is necessary for us to re- 
ceive the great assertion as taught by the Sav- 
iour that the angels come to us to whisper 
thoughts, to awaken emotion, to diffuse gra- 
cious influence over the mind. You and I have 
sometimes experienced suddenly a presence, 
not a visible presence, but a power. Certainly 
all of us have experienced the afflatus of the 
Holy Ghost; how he has come upon us, how 
he has transformed us; what moral and in- 
tellectual elevation is given, so that the whole 
being has been enlarged, expanded, and made 
powerful ! So you and I have felt the presence 
of some one. Many a young man in the mo- 
ment of temptation has been arrested from that 
temptation by the thought of mother. Take 
all the actions of his mind, all the thoughts 
up to that moment, and by no principle of 
mental philosophy can you ascertain how the 

thought of mother could come to his memory, 

244 



Conversations with Christ 

but it flashed in the soul, and that broke the 

charm of the tempter, and the young man was 

made free by the ministry of that sainted one. 

Let us therefore believe in the activity of 

heaven, in this great missionary work here, 

associating ourselves forever with the Saviour 

and with the holy angels. Such is Christ's 

idea of heaven, that it is a permanent place; 

that it is an exalted state ; that it is a heaven of 

activity; that is the abode of reunited ones, 

of exalted society; and then it. is the place of 

the highest intellectuality conceh^able, for that 

is a marvelous saying by the writer of the 

Apocalypse that when those blessed ones are 

contemplating the character of God they shout 

out, "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord 

God Almighty !" It seems to me that a new and 

better conception of heaven is to come to the 

Church, and the sooner it comes the better — 

when we shall grasp it as a great reality, as a 

sublime fact, as a place of development and of 

activities. Then certainly it will not be a land 

of dreams or a land of shadows or a land of 

hope-so' s, but it will come to us with the reality 

that Europe comes to us; it will come to us 

with the reality that the sunbeams come from 

the fountain of the sun day after day, and 

when this great reality shall take hold of the 
245 



Conversations with Christ 

faith of the Church then shall come an up- 
lifting, lifting us up above this world of trials 
and of temptation. This, then, is the great 
truth, my friends. Take it to your hearts; 
accept it as coming from Jesus. It is insepa- 
rable from his teachings : "If I go away, I will 
come again," and "I go to prepare a place for 
you, that where I am, ye may be also." Let us 
pledge each other before God and his holy 
angels that we will so deport ourselves, so con- 
fide in Christ by the living faith, so bear his 
honored cross, that we will meet him there. 
Meet there ! Shall we know each other there ? 
Supposing we must see him and meet him 
there? Does that make him unhappy? Will 
that make the angels unhappy? Will that 
make you unhappy? What right have you 
to meddle with the execution and administra- 
tion of the divine justice? Some of the old 
divines have suggested that a blissful oblivion 
will come upon the spirit. I want no blissful 
oblivion; I prefer to look at the manifestation 
and administration of divine justice. No 
matter who is the victim; it is immaterial to 
me, for God must always do right, and that 
right must always be prompted by his infinite 
love and enveloped by his goodness. I want to 

say that it is enough for me to comprehend 
246 



Conversations with Christ 

this great and blessed truth that all may be 

there, and that it is your privilege to know 

your friends and be with your friends, and the 

great question is whether you will thus resolve, 

by the grace of Jesus Christ, to accept this 

glorious truth, and have him say, "Come up 

higher ; where I am, ye shall be also." 
247 



" So then after the Lord had spoken unto them he was 
received up into heaven." 



" We will walk in the name of the Lord our God for 
ever and ever." — Micah. 



" By faith in Christ I walk with God ; 

With heaven, my journey's end, in view ; 
Supported by his staff and rod, 

My road is safe and pleasant too." 



" Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked 
with us by the way ? " — Luke. 



Our conversation is in heaven." — Paul. 



Conversations with Christ 



XII 

Christ's Conversation with the 

Twelve Apostles at the Last 

Supper 

" Go ye into the city ; . . . and say ye to the goodman of 
the house, . . . Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat 
the passover with my disciples ? " — Mark xiv, 13, 14. 

There is an old tradition, that comes from 
the early fathers of the Christian Church, that 
this conversation between Christ and his 
twelve apostles at the last supper occurred 
in the town residence of Joseph of Arimathea, 
His* ordinary abode was in Arimathea, a 
beautiful village of gardens and vineyards 
thirty miles northwest of Jerusalem on the 
road to Joppa. It was the birthplace of the 
prophet Samuel. Joseph is represented as a 
citizen of immense wealth. He was a mem- 
ber of the Sanhedrin, and as such was one of 
the supreme judges of the nation. He was 
present at the trial of our Lord, and of him it 
is said, "The same had not consented to the 
counsel and deed of them." He himself 
waited for the kingdom of God. As a su- 
preme judge his palace and tomb were in the 
251 



Conversations with Christ 

national capital. He was one of the personal 
friends of Christ, who had the courage to 
request the dead body of the Saviour to be 
interred in his own tomb. All the terms em- 
ployed by the Master in giving directions to 
Peter and John where the last supper should 
be indicate the personal friendship of our 
Lord and this eminent jurist. He is called the 
"goodman of the house," and the guest-cham- 
ber is requested ; the two disciples were known 
to the servant who was met carrying a pitcher 
of water, and who conveyed their message to 
the lord of the mansion. And it is another 
evidence of the lofty courage of Jesus that he 
selected Jerusalem, the "City of the Great 
King," now more than ever crowded with de- 
vout Jews coming to the passover from all 
parts of the world, wherein to meet his friends 
for a feast national in its character but per- 
sonal in its application. 

"Where wilt thou that we go and prepare 
that thou mayest eat the passover?" 

"At Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha, 
whose brother was raised from the dead, where 
Simon the leper was healed, where the alabas- 
ter box of precious ointment was broken to 
anoint Jesus for burial, and where thou wert 

ever welcome." 

252 



Conversations with Christ 

He had solemnly turned away from the Holy 
City only two days before; would he go there 
again and expose himself to his enemies? 
But he was the King of Israel, and would as- 
sert his right to celebrate the passover in the 
place appointed by the law for the feast. 
Turning to his chosen messengers, he said, 
"Go ye into the city, . . .and say to the good- 
man of the house, Where is the guest-chamber, 
where I shall eat the passover with my dis- 
ciples?" That guest-chamber was destined to 
be forever memorable; for therein the risen 
Christ appeared to his astonished friends, and 
to them he showed his feet, hands, and sides ; 
it was the upper room to which the five hundred 
returned with joy and gladness after the as- 
cension of our Lord; and therein ten days 
after that glorious event the promised Com- 
forter descended in tongues of fire on the 
heads of the apostles. 

Leonardo da Vinci has given us an immortal 
picture of the last supper. When all was 
ready there was a contention who should oc- 
cupy the seat of precedence. It was the old 
strife revived. The Master heard the con- 
tentious murmurs, and rising from his seat of 
honor, rebuked the same with an act of hu- 
mility never to be forgotten by assuming the 
253 



Conversations with Christ 

office and performing the work of a slave. 
The impetuous Peter objected, but the Master 
gave him his choice between submission and 
rejection. 

The feast is resumed; the passover is 
duly celebrated, and is supplemented by the 
Eucharist, commemorative of the Saviour's 
death. Holding in his hand a piece of the 
paschal unleavened bread, he broke it and 
said, "This is my body which is given for 
you ;" and then holding in his hand the pas- 
chal cup filled with the red wine used at the 
feast, he said, "This cup is the new testament 
in my blood, which is shed for you." These 
are symbolical terms used by Christ, and mean 
that the bread represents his flesh and the wine 
his blood. 

Thrice he referred to Judas, and so defi- 
nitely that disguise was impossible; but when 
he said, "One of you shall betray me," all was 
excitement, for the loyalty of each was im- 
peached. "Lord, is it I?" was the question of 
each. Even Judas had the effrontery to join 
in the interrogation. The anxiety of the com- 
pany is relieved when the Master said, "The 
hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on 
the table, and he who receiveth the sopped 
bread from my hand is the traitor." The ex- 

254 



Conversations with Christ 

posed traitor now retires from the company of 
the true disciples with the Master's request 
ringing in his ears, "That thou doest, do 
quickly." Judas departs, and Christ exclaims, 
"Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is 
glorified in him." 

St. John is the sacred historian of the last 
supper, and records the events thereof in the 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of 
his gospel. Mark and Luke were not present, 
and Matthew simply recorded the Eucharistic 
feast; but St. John's seat is next to Christ, 
and leaning upon his bosom, is permitted to 
hear all that was said. 

The conversation lasted late into the night, 
and was resumed at intervals throughout 
forty days. After Judas withdrew and all 
was silent the Saviour began his valadictory 
to those he loved. He announced his depar- 
ture, and that none could accompany him. St. 
Peter wondered why he could not go with the 
Master, for he had been his companion in all 
his trials through three years, and was ready 
to die, if necessary, with him; but he was re- 
minded of the trial that awaited him. 

The crowing of the cock in the morning will 
announce a threefold denial, and that with 
oaths, that he had never known him. This re- 
255 



Conversations with Christ 

vealed to the man that he had not known him- 
self. The company was sad and needed con- 
solation and the promise of the Comforter to be 
an unfailing guide. "Let not your hearts be 
troubled," is one of our Lord's golden sentences 
that have cheered the living and the dying for 
nineteen centuries, and will to the last syllable 
of recorded time. His prediction of Peter's de- 
nial and the flight of the eleven when the Master 
had yielded to the arrest had filled all hearts 
with inexpressible sadness, and this was deep- 
ened by the picture of the dangers and trials 
which awaited them in spreading his religion in 
all lands; while he was with them they had 
no fear of harm. All was not clear to St.. 
Thomas, who wanted assurance that Christ 
himself is the way. St. Philip had listened, 
but could not understand that if Christ could go 
to the Father, why he could not also see the 
Father. This was childlike simplicity, to which 
the Saviour replied, "He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father also, for I am the highest 
revelation of God, for I and the Father are 
one.'' A deeper question occurred to St. Thad- 
deus, a brave but reverent soul, who could not 
understand how Christ could manifest himself 
unto the world and exclude himself from all 

men. How can Christ show himself as the 
256 



Conversations with Christ 

King immortal and invisible and not be seen 
by all men? His mind is illuminated by 
the revelation of the soul communion with the 
Father Almighty. To illustrate these hidden 
sayings the p^_sence and power of the third 
person in a lorable Trinity is promised to the 
Church and also to all believers. 

To make all plain the great Teacher em- 
ploys the figure of the union of the vine and 
its branches to show the mutual and recipro- 
cal relation of the Infinite One with a hu- 
man soul. Such redeemed spirits become the 
abode of God over all and blessed for ever- 
more. 

Then true to himself as the great Teacher 
of the world, he cannot leave his friends with- 
out a reminder that all these exalted promises 
are conditioned on personal love to him and 
obedience to his command, which is the high- 
est expression of the fidelity of a disciple. 
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you." I do not ask of you cathedrals or 
palaces or pilgrimages to my tomb, but 
I leave you this sacramental cup, and as 
often as ye drink of it "do it in remembrance of 
me." I do not expect that the bread and wine 
that you shall use at this memorial feast shall 

be changed by miraculous power into my 
17 257 



Conversations with Christ 

flesh and my blood, but to be symbols of my 
being, and as a perpetual reminder of me I 
institute this holy sacrament for your com- 
fort. It is to be a memorial feast and a 
sign of fellowship. As the ancient feast in 
the temples of all religions, this shall an- 
nounce the social nature of my people and the 
universal brotherhood of mankind. As 
bread and wine are the common elements of 
food, and as all are pensioners on the all- 
Father, so this sacrament of my death will re- 
call these great facts; and as the elements are 
too simple to be venerated, they are only me- 
morials of my love. As the bread and wine 
are to be masticated and then assimilated into 
the substance of your bodies, so you are to live 
in me, and thus to remind you of your union 
with me. In this higher sense you are to 
eat my flesh and drink my blood and draw 
from me a perpetual life. You thereby become 
part of me, to love me as you love yourself, 
and this is the expression of the highest per- 
sonal devotion. 

When traveling in the far East I heard of 
an old tradition that Christ was a perfect hu- 
manity, having in himself the sturdier virtues 
of the man and the gentler virtues of the 

woman, and therefore could sympathise with all 
258 



Conversations with Christ 

the human race. There was something 
quite feminine in his farewell to his disciples, 
"Do this in remembrance of me." Do not 
forget me, but hold me in your memory. He 
knew that ingratitude and forgetfulness are the 
twin vices of human nature. One of the 
greatest kings was rebuked because he had 
forgotten the God in whose hand was his 
breath (Dan. v, 23). As the Infinite One 
had called upon the young to remember their 
Creator in the days of their youth, so the 
Master commits his precious Gospel to the 
memory of his apostles and through them to 
mankind. He asks for no enduring mauso- 
leum, no column of brass or marble, no sacred 
shrine, but a mental act so simple and natural 
that the king on his throne and the beggar at 
his gate can comply therewith. Sometimes 
we are invited to "reason together;" some- 
times to "judge that which is right," but here 
we are requested to "remember." All our in- 
tellectual faculties have their appropriate work 
— the imagination is to conceive divine truth; 
reason is to investigate its claims ; the judg- 
ment is to decide the value of its evidence; 
the understanding to comprehend the obliga- 
tion imposed; and memory is to record the 
past and perpetuate its claims. "Do not for- 
259 



Conversations with Christ 

get me," is the request of each of us. The 
Master herein reveals the common desire of 
us all, and we leave to others some token of 
remembrance. Jesus requested us to partake 
of a morsel of bread and a drop of wine, the 
memorials of his death. 

What other of our mental faculties could 
be chosen in preference? How vast its re- 
ceptive capacity. Confirmed by authentic 
facts, Cyrus could call by name each soldier in 
his vast army; Mithridates could speak to the 
subjects of each of the twenty-three nations 
of his empire; Seneca could recite two thou- 
sand verses in their order. Cranmer and 
Ridley could repeat the New Testament, and 
Lawson of Scotland the whole Bible. Memory 
is not necessary to our perception or conscious- 
ness, but is to our progress in any department 
of life. Without it the past would be a 
blank and generalization an impossibility. 
And more than any other of our mental powers 
the joys of heaven and the sorrows of hell will 
be enhanced by memory. 

The interview was soon to end, for he in- 
forms them that "hereafter I will not talk 
much with you: but I will send the Comfor- 
ter, who will bring all things to your remem- 
brance, whatsoever I have said unto you." The 
260 



Conversations with Christ 

Saviour then offered a prayer, fervent and 
touching, wherein he speaks as a God, then im- 
plores as a dependent man, then as the Medi- 
ator of his people. He intercedes as the 
High Priest of his nation for himself, his apos- 
tles, and then for his disciples, that they might 
live in peace and concord. Then the company 
chanted the well-known paschal psalm recorded 
in the Psalter, comprising the 113th psalm and 
the five immediately following, so appropriate 
to the occasion. 

The night is far spent. The hymn, the 
prayer, and the discourses had occupied the 
hours. The command is given, " Arise, let 
us go hence, the prince of this world cometh, 
and hath nothing in me." "Nothing in me." 
What a triumph ! How serene his soul ; but 
conscious of his victory. 

The hour of parting arrived. Taking 
leave of the goodman of the house, the com- 
pany adjourned to meet in the Garden of Geth- 
semane, to the eastward of the Holy City. 
Passing along the Tower of Antonia, wherein 
was Pilate's judgment hall, and out of St. 
Stephen's Gate, one of the best known gates of 
the city wall, the company slowly descended 
the declivities of Mount Moriah to the bed of 

the Kidron, crossing that ancient rivulet over 
261 



Conversations with Christ 

a stone bridge they had often crossed to a 
garden of somber olive trees that cast their 
shadow in the light of the paschal moon. 
Thither the Master was wont to retire for 
prayer. The night was clear and the moon 
was bright and the springtime air was balmy. 
He requested his eleven friends to tarry 
while he withdrew a stone's cast and kneeled 
down and prayed. He coveted solitude to 
be alone in prayer with his Father. His 
prayer is recorded, and was for submission to 
the purpose of his mission, a mental condition 
he had not yet attained. He had resisted 
Satan and conquered all his foes, but this was 
a victory yet to be achieved. He was to con- 
sent to die for the sins of the world. He 
had power to lay down his life by his own free 
will. There was no power in the universe 
that could take it from him. Could he at- 
tain to the willingness essential to the atone- 
ment? He was not afraid to suffer or to 
die, but could willingly offer himself a sacri- 
fice for the sins of the world ; such was his 
agony in the struggle that "his sweat was as 
it were great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground." In his more than human ef- 
fort "there appeared an angel unto him 

from heaven, strengthening him. And be- 
262 



Conversations with Christ 

ing in agony he prayed more earnestly." Then 
came the triumph of his soul, "Not my will, 
but thine, be done." Going to where his weary 
friends were fast asleep, sleeping for sorrow, 
he said to them, "Why sleep ye? rise and 
pray, lest ye enter into temptation." The 
sacred stillness of the hour was broken by the 
intrusion of Judas and a multitude to arrest 
him. His friends were ready to defend him, 
and one of them smote off the ear of the serv- 
ant of the high priest; but the Master asked 
those who had come to arrest him, "Suffer ye 
thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed 
him." His only defense was, "Be ye come out, 
as against a thief, with swords and staves? 
When I was daily with you in the temple, ye 
stretched forth no hands against me: but this 
is your hour, and the power of darkness." 
The eleven friends who spent the night with 
him at the paschal feast, and who heard his 
words of wisdom, all forsook him and fled. 
Two followed the crowd to the palace, John 
and Peter; the former was known to the high 
priest, and through his intercession Peter was 
admitted within the gates. It was a trying 
night to our Master, who was arraigned be- 
fore four judges, insulted, buffeted, mocked, 

scourged, imprisoned, and in the morning was 
263 



Conversations with Christ 

crucified between two thieves that he might 
be considered the worst of the three. 

Three days of suspense followed. The 
fishermen went to their nets and the tax- 
gatherer to his receipt of customs; but the wom- 
en lingered near where the body of the cru- 
cified was being exposed. But soon all were 
thrilled with the shout, "He is risen ! He is 
risen!" Angels in shining garments were 
seen in the empty tomb. Mary of Magdala, 
and Joanna, and the mother of James, and 
other women had seen him; Peter and John 
had been to the empty sepulcher. Two trav- 
elers had met him on the way to Emmaus 
and supped with him. He had appeared to 
ten of his friends in the upper room where 
he had eaten the last supper with them ; then to 
Peter, who thrice denied him; and to Thomas, 
who had demanded to see his wounded side and 
pierced hands and feet; and to others on the 
seashore of Gennesaret, where they dined to- 
gether. Two of the eleven received special 
attention in the conversation on the Galilean 
shore. St. Peter had denied him thrice, and 
thrice he was required to confess his Lord. 
Attention is called to St. John to gratify the 
inquiry of St. Peter. The Master's words had 

been misinterpreted, and it was necessary 

264 



Conversations with Christ 

that Jesus should explain his meaning. The 
impression that St. John would never die was 
a false one and our Lord corrected it. 

All the appearances of the Saviour to his 
apostles are not fully recorded, but from in- 
timation we may infer that many other con- 
versations were held between him and these 
eleven confidential friends. This interview 
on the shore of the Sea of Galilee was pre- 
dicted with much minuteness by the Master 
and expected by his friends. "But after I 
am risen again I will go before you into Gali- 
lee," was his cheering promise to his disciples. 
The angels seen in the empty tomb by the wom- 
en were commissioned to repeat the promise, 
"Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is 
risen from the dead; and behold, he goeth 
before you into Galilee; there shall ye see 
him." Immediately the Lord himself ap- 
peared to these holy women and said, "Be not 
afraid, go tell my brethren that they go into 
Galilee, and there they shall see me:" "Then 
the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, 
into a mountain where Jesus had appointed 
them." Our English word "then" implies 
subsequently, for this was not their first inter- 
view, but one of many. 

The last and most memorable conversation 

265 



Conversations with Christ 

between Christ and his apostles occurred on 
the fortieth day of his earthly career, on 
the day of his ascension from the Mount of 
Olives. Capernaum, in the north, Bethany, 
in the south, and Olivet, opposite to Jerusa- 
lem, "City of the Great King," are to be re- 
called for his greatest discourses, his mightiest 
miracles, and his most glorious triumphs. 
His ascension is recorded by the four evan- 
gelists. The description by St. Luke in the 
gospel and in the Acts is fullest, while Mat- 
thew, Mark, and John record the fact. St. 
Paul quotes from the Psalms, and St. Peter de- 
clares his exaltation and the subjection of 
angels and all powers forever subject to him. 
The ascension was the appropriate consumma- 
tion of his mission on earth. He was a 
native of the skies. He had a glory with the 
Father before the foundation of the world. 
It was the proper disposition of his bodily 
scene. Had he remained on our earth and 
died again, we could not call him conqueror 
of death. What favored spot could have 
been his abode? His ascension was the 
crowning proof of his divine mission. There 
was no room for him here. It was the pledge 
of our humanity to the skies. He must as- 
cend. Like all the events of his life, this was 
266 



Conversations with Christ 

also foretold. "Go tell my brethren, I ascend 
unto my Father, and your Father." Pentecost 
was a proof of the fact. "Behold, I send the 
promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye 
in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endowed 
with power from on high." 

How and where did the Master spend the 
forty days between his resurrection and as- 
cension? St. Luke gives us an accurate and 
detailed account of the last six days of the 
Saviour's earth life. Would that he had given 
us an itinerary of these illustrious forty days. 
Levitation and gravitation were both equally 
subject to his will. Did he remain on the 
earth he had redeemed? Did he mingle with 
his chosen friends, or did he pass frequently 
to his heavenly home? There are intimations 
recorded that he remained with his mother 
and the blessed women who had attended him 
in his journeyings, and his chosen disciples, 
and those of the five hundred who included the 
eleven apostles, the seventy disciples, the 
virgin mother, Mary of Magdala, Salome, 
Lazarus and the two sisters of Bethany, Si- 
mon, the restored leper; the Bartimeus of 
Jericho, Joseph of Arimathea, and with Nico- 
demus, who had defended Christ at his trial. 

"He led them out as far as to Bethany." To 
267 



Conversations with Christ 

the southeast is an isthmus connecting two of 
the prominent peaks of Olivet; and from this 
spot the traveler of to-day looks down upon 
the quiet hamlet five hundred yards below 
the summit. It is a Sabbath day's journey 
from St. Stephens's Gate, out of which the 
triumphal procession passed. Bethany was 
ever dear to the Master, and it was the last 
of earth that met his enraptured gaze. What 
a thrilling moment to him and to the five hun- 
dred who accompanied him. "He lifted up 
his hands and blessed them." And what a 
benediction to give and receive ! "He was 
carried up into heaven.' 1 What an angelic 
escort! "And they worshiped him." How 
devout their emotion ! How appropriate 
their act! How natural the question of 
the angels, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand 
ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, 
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall 
so come in like manner as ye have seen him go 
into heaven." And the joy of his departure 
is one of the wonderful proofs of his ascen- 
sion. "And they returned to Jerusalem with 
great joy," not weeping at the departure of 
their Lord and Saviour, but "were continually 

in the temple praising and blessing God." 
268 



" Christ, the Alpha and Omega of the Bible — the be- 
ginning- and end of the law ; the sum and substance of 
the Gospel — the author and finisher of our faith. To 
him all eyes should turn, all hearts aspire, all prayer be 
made, all glory given. For him the prophets waited ; 
around him gathered the devout of the earth, and from 
him came forth the redemption of our fallen race. He 
was the seer's vision, the poet's song, the priest's arche- 
type, the prophet's burden, the apostles' theme.'' 

— /. P. N. 



" Remember it is ours to illustrate a living, walking, 
talking Christ. Call in mind Thorwaldsen's statue of 
Jesus, and his little girl, who, when she first gazed upon 
it from her father's arms, said, ' Papa, it looks so like my 
Saviour.' Strive to resemble Christ so closely that the 
world may say Christians look like him — Jesus — whom 
they have been with, and learned of him." —J. P. N. 



" Keep in mind, dear readers, the links in the chain of the 
preceding conversations and weld them into your own life 
as I have them in my life." — J. P. N. 



St. John says of the words and sayings of Jesus : 
" There are also many other things which, if they should 
be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be written." 



WORKS OF 
Mrs. JOHN P. NEWMAN. 



"Mother, Home, and Heaven." Illustrated. 

Price, Full Morocco, $4.50. Cloth, - - $2.50 

" Dewdrops and Sunshine." Price, - - .75 

"Triple Key." Price, - - - - - 75 

"The White Stone." Leatherette Cover. Price, .25 

" Pearl of Pearls." Leatherette Cover. Price, .25 

"St. John— the Prisoner of Patmos." 

Price, --------.25 

" Aurora Borealis ; or, Icebergs of Green- 
land." Price, - .20 



The avails from the sales of the above works go toward 
Mrs. Newman's " Bible Readers' Fund." 



OTHER W&RKS 

OF 

•Bishop JOHN P. NEWMAN. 



" Thrones and Palaces of Babylon and 

Nineveh." Price, $2.50 

"From Dan to Beersheba." Price, - - 1.50 

" The Supremacy of Law." Price, - - 1.00 

"Evenings with the Prophets." Paper 

Cover. Price, ------ .25 

" Christianity Triumphant." Paper Cover. 

Price, -------- .15 

"America for Americans." Paper Cover. 

Price, - - .10 

The avails from the sales of the above works go toward 
Bishop Newman's " Educational Fund." 



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