The Crown of Thorns | Page 9

would have
become of that group of want, and helplessness, and agony? Suppose
Christ had remained in the brightness of that vision forever, -- himself
only a vision of glory, and not an example of toil, and sorrow, and
suffering, and death, --alas! For the great world at large, waiting at the
foot of the hill -the groups of humanity in all ages; -- the sin-possessed
sufferers -- the caviling skeptics; the philosophers, with their books and
instruments; the bereaved and frantic mourners in their need!
So, my hearers, wrapped in the higher moods of the soul, and wishing
to abide among upper glories, we may not see the work that waits for
us along our daily path; without doing which all our visions are vain.
We must have the visions., We need them in our estimate of the world
around us, --of the aspects and destinies of humanity. There are times
when justice is balked, and truth covered up, and freedom trampled
down; -- when we may well be tempted to ask, "What is the use of
trying to work?" --when we may well inquire whether what-we are
doing is work at all. And in such a case, or in any other, one is lifted up,
and inspired, and enabled to do and to endure all things, when in steady
vision he beholds the everliving God, --when all around the injustice,
and conflict, and suffering of the world, he detects the Divine Presence,
like a bright cloud overshadowing. O! then doubt melts away, and
wrong dwindles, and the jubilee of victorious falsehood is but a peal of
drunken laughter, and the spittings of guilt and contempt no more than
flakes of foam flung against a hero's breast-plate. Then one sees, as it
were, with the vision of God, who looked down upon the old cycles,
when a sweltering waste covered the face of the globe, and huge,
reptile natures held it in dominion; -- who beholds the pulpy worm,
down in the sea, building the pillars of continents; --so one sees the
principalities of evil sliding from their thrones, and the deposits of
humble faithfulness rising from the deep of ages. Our sympathy, our

benevolent effort in the work of God and humanity, how much do they
need not only the vision of intellectual foresight, but of the faith which,
on bended knees, sees further than the telescope!
And alas! for him who, in his personal need and effort, has no margin
of holier inspiration --no rim of divine splendor - -around his daily life!
Without the vision of life's great realities we cannot see what our work
is, or know how to do it.
But such visions must be necessarily rare and transient, or we shall
miss their genuine efficacy. We must work in comparative shadow,
without the immediate sight of these realities; and only in the place of
our rest, -- rest for higher efforts and a new career, --only there may we
have their constant companionship, and build their perpetual
tabernacles.

THE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT.
But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.
LUKE xxiv. 21.
In the accounts of the disciples, contained in the New Testament, there
is no attempt to glorify them, or to conceal any weakness. From the
first to the last, they think and act precisely as men would think and act
in their circumstances; -they are affected just as others of like culture
would be affected by such events as those set forth in the record. And
the genuineness of their conduct argues the genuineness of the
incidents which excited it. The divine, wonderworking, risen Jesus, is
the necessary counterpart of the amazed, believing, erring hoping,
desponding, rejoicing fishermen and publicans. This stamp of reality is
very evident in the instance before us. The conduct and the feelings of
the disciples are those of men who have been involved in a succession
of strange experiences. For a little while they have been in communion
with One who has spoken as never man spoke, and who has touched
the deepest springs of their being. He has lifted them out of the narrow
limits of their previous lives. From the Receipt of Customs, and the
Galilean lake, he has summoned them to the interests and awards, the
thought and the work, of a spiritual and divine kingdom. At first
following him, perhaps they hardly knew why,. conscious only that he
had the Words of Eternal Life, the terms of this discipleship have
grown into bonds of the dearest intimacy. Their Master has become

their Companion and their Friend, and their faith has deepened into
tender and confiding love. But still, theirs has been the belief of the
trusting soul, rather than the enlightened intellect. From the fitness of
the