The Worlds Great Sermons, Volume 10 | Page 6

the kingdom of heaven. For it is
perfectly certain--and you will not misunderstand me--that to enter
heaven a man must take it with him.
You will see then why temper is significant It is not in what it is alone,
but in what it reveals. This is why I take the liberty now of speaking of
it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a
revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever
which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble
escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a
sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropt involuntarily
when off one's guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred
hideous and unchristian sins. For a want of patience, a want of kindness,
a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all
instantaneously symbolized in one flash of temper.
Hence it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the
source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die
away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids
out, but by putting something in--a great love, a new spirit, the spirit of
Christ. Christ, the spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens,
purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a
chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner
man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men.
Christ does. Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus." Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once
more, that this is a matter of life or death. I can not help speaking
urgently, for myself, for yourselves. "Whoso shall offend one of these
little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of
the sea." That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that
it is better not to live than not to love. _It is better not to live than not to
love._
Guilelessness and sincerity may be dismissed almost without a word.
Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. And the possession of
it is the great secret of personal influence. You will find, if you think
for a moment, that the people who influence you are people who
believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but in

that other atmosphere they expand, and find encouragement and
educative fellowship. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this
hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who
think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil,"
imputes no bad motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction
on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What
stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is
to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon
see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. For
the respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man
has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of
what he may become.
"Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." I have called
this sincerity from the words rendered in the Authorized Version by
"rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, were this the real translation,
nothing could be more just. For he who loves will love truth not less
than men. He will rejoice in the truth--rejoice not in what he has been
taught to believe; not in this Church's doctrine or in that; not in this ism
or in that ism; but "in the truth." He will accept only what is real; he
will strive to get at facts; he will search for truth with an humble and
unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But the
more literal translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a
sacrifice for truth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there
read, "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth," a
quality which probably no one English word--and certainly not
sincerity--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the
self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others' faults; the
charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but
"covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see
things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared
or