PREACHED BY R. S. Storrs, D.D., IN CHURCH of the PilgrIMS, BROOKLYN.

THE words of the Scripture to which I shall invite your attention you will find in Acts x: 20:

Arise, therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.

Doubting nothing! That is the secret of liberty, of efficiency, of success in every work which is undertaken by men: a confidence in the practicability, in the value of the work, in the Divine authority which imposes it upon us as an obligatory work, and in the Divine providence and power which will bring it to a successful performance. It is the secret of success, of enthusiasm in any secular enterprise. You see it in the inventor who is perfectly certain of the combination of instruments by which he is to accomplish a certain result-a result which is of value and importance to mankind. Nothing can hinder his endeavor, nothing can obscure or dampen his enthusiasm, because he is certain of ultimate success.

You see it in the teacher who knows that he has a truth to communicate to men, a truth which it is of importance to them to apprehend and to understand, who is not groping among uncertainties as he speaks it, who is not vaguely feeling after conjectures while he utters it, who is able to affirm it to others, because he has it affirmed in his own intelligent and intuitive spirit the principle which he is declaring to the world. Kepler said, God has waited so many centuries for an observer of the heavens, I can wait for years for an interpreter of those observations. And every man who as certainly knew that he had apprehended truth and had it conveyed to others has been reinforced, inspired by this confidence, and gone to his work doubting nothing. See it in the soldier who knows, because he knows the commander, that the order which has been given is wise, practicable, needful; that no life will be

*Owing to lack of time we are compelled to print our report of this sermon without securing its revision by Dr. Storrs. The report, however, is made by Geo. E. Miles, reputed one of the best stenographers in New York.-ED.

wasted which can be saved, and no endeavor commanded which is not indispensable to the great resuit. See it in the sailor who trusts his clock and his compass, and is absolutely certain that the sun, of which he takes the meridian observation, will not tell him a lie, but will point out exactly the point on the ocean where the ship at that moment is; and he goes on his course, after his observation, doubting nothing, knowing where he is as exactly as if the commerce of nations had built at that very spot a beacon and had labelled it in immense letters of light in all the languages of the world: "This is at such a point on such a meridian.' He knows as certainly as he could know then, when he has caught the ray of the sun upon his instrument, where he is on the ocean, which to others seems pathless and intricate. Everywhere, then, this confidence is the condition of enthusiasm and of success, and in Christian enterprises, precisely as in secular enterprises, it is a confidence not merely in the usefulness of the work, but in the Divine authority which connects itself with that work, and the Divine care and the Divine affection, the Divine impulse which attend us in our endeavors to perform it. It was precisely this, you observe, that Peter felt within himself when the messengers came to him from Cornelius the centurion. Except for the vision which had been given him, and out of which this confidence was flashed upon his spirit, except for the almost audible voice of the Spirit which accompanied and interpreted the vision to him, he would hardly have been ready to go upon this errand. The distance itself was something, between Cæsarea and Joppa. To be called by a Roman, and to answer that call, to a Jew like Peter was not in itself an agreeable thing. There was a vagueness in the errand which might have well stirred apprehension in his mind. The Roman centurion, whom he did not know, sending servants and soldier to him to come into his presence, and the mere separation from the duties which he was, day by day, accomplishing at Joppa, must have been itself objectionable to him, so that he unquestionably would have hesitated, very probably would have refused to go, except for the vision which had come to him beforehand preparing him to go, and for the voice which, as I said, had interpreted that vision to his mind. But, in consequence of this, he recognized the call which was made upon him by the servants and soldier sent by the centurion as the call of God. They were not bearing merely a message from the Roman officer: they were bearing a requirement from the Author of the world, from the King of the Church, from Him to whom Peter was supremely responsible and unto whom he had to render an account. And so the message in writing, if it were in writing, or as spoken, if thus it were spoken, was to him as real a message from the Most High as if it had been

articulated in public; and he went, nothing doubting, and in consequence of his going the Church passed safely that first and greatest crisis in its history, the importance of which we scarcely recognize oftentimes-that crisis at which it was determined whether it was to be a mere sect of Jews, like the Sadducees or the Pharisees, or whether it was to be in its administration a world-wide kingdom for all mankind. Peter, chief of the apostles, Peter himself, thoroughly impregnated with the Jewish prejudice, taught by this vision, admonished by this voice of the Spirit, went and with the power which had been given to him opened the door of the Church for the first time to the entrance of a Roman; and from that moment the door never has been shut. Peter himself doubted afterward, in the characteristic reaction of his impetuous spirit, whether the Jew could receive a Gentile and eat with him unless the Gentile submitted to the Mosaic ritual. But at this point he went, doubting nothing, and, by his action under the inspiration of God, made the world free to enter into the Church of Christ; for if a Roman centurion could come he who had been trained to war, he who was the official representative of the haughty and dominating empire, now crushed, he who represented the power that, by and by, was to sweep Jerusalem itself in blood and fire from the face of the earth-if he could enter the Church of Christ, then how much more the peasant, the herdsman on the hills of Galatia, or the merchant, or the teacher, or the scholar, or the women of Greek cities, of Thessalonia, of Athens, of Corinth! Any one could come after the door had been opened wide enough to admit the entrance of this Roman officer.

There is not one of us in this house to-day on whom have come the blessings of the Gospel, who have received directly or indirectly the privilege and the Divine impulse, which come from the Church of Christ, who is not indebted to that instruction and impulse given Peter by the vision and voice. So he went, doubting nothing; so he accomplished the errand, great, momentous and far-reaching in its effects, upon which he had been sent. There come often questions of duty to individual Christians or to churches now concerning which they wish that they, also, could have instruction like that which was given to the apostle-a vision in their sleep, a voice almost articulate and audible, of the Divine Spirit instructing them what to do. Work to which they appear sometimes to themselves to be called by God is difficult and dangerous and costly. There are arguments for it, there are arguments arising in their minds. against it. The Christian conscience of those with whom they are most intimately associated is not wholly, definitely and decisively settled in regard to it; and so they confuse themselves in perplexities of mind, judging of this argument

and that, balancing the reasons for and the reasons against, until, perhaps, the opportunity has passed away, and they cannot accomplish that which at the outset would have been easy to them. I suppose in our Christian experience we have met many such instances where we questioned and hesitated, consulted and argued concerning the question whether we were under obligations to accomplish a certain work or not, until the time for performing it had gone and we could not do it if we would. A thoughtful and sensitive Christian spirit will, therefore, desire intensely always-especially in such emergenciessome certain test, some sure criterion by which it may know whether God has appointed a work for it or not; and there are such. We do not see the visions in our sleep, we do not hear the articulating voice of the Spirit, but there are certain indications, when a work is appointed for us and it is our duty to take it up, which are as intelligible, which are to the thoughtful spirit as impressive as even a voice would be, for these indications still remain to us, and one or two of these I will bring to your thoughts this morning.

In the first place, a work identifies itself as probably a part of the plan of God which we are to accomplish. When it concerns His glory in the earth through the conversion and sanctification of the human soul, properly it is then connected with the plan of God, and the part of that plan which we are to accomplish, the opportunity being given. I do not mean to say that Christian duty in the world in respect of enterprise and of generous giving, of thoughtful consideration and of powerful pathos is restricted to those efforts which aim directly at the religious instruction and conversion of men; on the other hand, there are multitudes of interests in society which are, at least, subordinately and incidentally connected with this, but which seem to stand at quite a distance from it, concerning which also we are under continual obligation-not to our fellow-men merely, not to ourselves merely, but to God-to give them whatever of aid and furtherance it is possible for us to give. Enterprises that seek the intellectual culture of mankind, the founding of a library, the building up of schools and institutions of learning, the circulation of a true and enlightening literature; enterprises which seek to further the secular and social interests of the community; enterprises that concert for the public welfare in the matter of health, in the matter of public order, in the matter of just and liberal government; patriotic enterprises which seek to advance and establish the well-being of a nation-all these, and many others of a like nature, are as obligatory upon the Christian as a duty which immediately concerns the instruction of men in religious truth. Every stone in the wall has its office to accomplish. A man who is building a cathedral cannot say: "I

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will make it all of statues. I will expend my whole strength and skill and resource on the spire, making it of the delicate gothic stone open-work that shall leap like a song into the sky." He must have the solid foundations at the base-underground. He must have the rough stone built up into the rocky wall, into the solid and sustaining buttress, into the tower that carries the spire lightly into the air, because itself must be solidly founded. Every institution that seeks the public welfare and seeks to promote intellectual culture, true knowledge among men, social interest, social attachment, patriotic interest and patriotic feeling, is thus fundamentally connected-as basis and part of the wall-with the religious endeavors which at last shall rest upon them all and be sustained by them. And, therefore, Christian duty is never narrow; it is as wide as the interest of man; it concerns his physical well-being as well as his spiritual; it concerns his social and intellectual advancement as well as his immediate connection of the spirit with God. But it concerns all these as connected with and tributary to those which are higher than us, for that is the spiritual plan of God in the earth to bring men into holiness, and happi ness that springs from holiness, through fellowship with His own Spirit incorporated with His Son and revealed by His Holy Ghost. For that He preserved the race after it had fallen; for that He sent prophet and seer and songster; for that He sent His Son into the world that He might make men partakers of His holiness-not of an austere and rigorous morality merely, not of sentimental holiness merely-of His holiness, sweet and tender and mighty. That He might make men partakers of that holiness Christ came into the world, and for the same end the Spirit comes, and for the same end the Church exists. It is by that holiness that God holds the rocks in their consistency; it is this aim of transformation of man into the likeness of God that built the mountains, that hollowed the basins of the seas and keeps the ocean at its level. Everything terrestrial exists, with reference to that which is spiritual, immortal, in fellowship with the soul of God; so that by and by it may range the starry spheres in the likeness and the love, in the wisdom and the might of God, so that immortality shall open to it its gates of light and peace. This is the spiritual plan of God. When any work, then, contributes directly necessarily to that and is indispensable to the furtherance of that, when it meets us directly in our path, we may be inwardly persuaded-unless reasons to the contrary showing it not to be specially binding upon us are evident and unanswerable—that it is a part of the work which God assigns so us. Out of this comes missionary impulse, out of this came the apostolic order. Why was it, can anybody explain, that Peter should give himself to that work of toil, privation, peril, when every opportunity was open to him for a