INTRODUCTION. BY REV. LEMUEL B. BISSELL.* Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Monroe, Mich. John Knox on his death bed said: "I know that many have complained of my too great severity; but God knows that my mind was always void of hatred to the persons of those against whom I thundered my severest judgments." As his body was lowered into the grave, Nov. 26th, 1572, the Earl of Morton uttered these words: "Here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man; who hath been often threatened with dagge and dagger, but yet hath ended his days in peace and honor." Three hundred years after his burial, Dr. W. M. Taylor says of him: "Caution was never one of Knox's distinctive excellences; your merely cautious men are of very little service to their generation or to the world." John Knox was the father of Presbyterianism in Scotland. He was a man of faith, because he was a man of prayer; he was a man of prayer because he was a man of faith. He prayed "Give me Scotland or I die; and the queen said: "I fear the prayer of John Knox more than the combined armies." Such prayer goeth * Mr. Bissell was born in Ahmednagar, India, Dec. 20, 1853. Graduated from Western Reserve College 1876, and from Yale Divinity School 1880. He ministered to the Congregational church, Memphis, Mich., 1880-1882; Presbyterian church, Caro, Mich., 1882-1890, and Monroe, Mich., 1890———— not out but from faith, and such faith cometh not but by prayer. "Have faith in God.-Ye believe in God, believe also in me.-He, the Holy Ghost, shall take of mine and shall show it unto you, and shall lead you into all truth." This most blessed Trinity was the foundation of his character as a man and as a preacher. It is the truth that has made Christian heroes in all ages of the world. "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." The preaching for to-day needs this background. Isaiah spake of the public teachers of Israel, saying: "His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain." God forbid that to-day this reproach should rest upon the pulpit of Christendom, or upon any portion of it. Fearless preaching is demanded by present social conditions, though it be not wanted by present social beings. The messenger of God has his message from God. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of heaven, not of earth; and the citizenship of earth is to be transformed into the citizenship of heaven. The twofold preaching of Paul appears in: "Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men;" and, "We beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." These two he combines in the one verse, "Behold the goodness and severity of God." God is a God of peace; he is also a God of war. "The Lord of Hosts is his name." Christ is the peacemaker; he is also the sword bringer. "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer," preceded, and will always precede "Let us have peace." The most heroic soldiery brings the most desirable peace. "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable." He who is constantly fighting is intolerable; but he who never dares to fight is contemptible. I may surrender my rights, but I may never surrender my trusts; and every human being is a trustee. To refuse a battle because it will do more harm than good, is both right and wise; but to surrender a trust because you are too much of a coward to fight, is both sin and folly. Don't meddle with thistles if you can help it; but grasp them with courageous vigor, if at all. Let love nerve your arm. Strike for a purpose. Let the purpose consecrate the blow. When the purpose is accomplished, declare peace. Don't fire blank cartridges. He who is always quarreling, never fights. He who fights only for God and humanity, never quarrels. The worst possible symbol on a preacher's coat of arms is an interrogation point. Many a man brilliant in conception, fertile in resource, energetic in action, has failed, because, unstable as water he could not excel. No one is courageously firm who is always doubting as to himself and his work. Believe in yourself and in your work, because you believe in God who has given you both yourself and your work. Elijah's motto before Queen Jezebel should be the preacher's motto before the world, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand." So stood John Knox before the Queen of Scotland. What he did for Scotland he did in fourteen years. 'Tis not a long life, but a heroic life that is needed. The children have inherited their father's trait. Presbyterianism in Scotland has not known what it was to bow to friend or foe in the matter of conviction. And from two such contemporaries as John Knox and John Calvin, Presbyterianism has gone to the ends of the earth and found many a St. John who has been a very Son of Thunder in the world. As Carlyle says: "If hero mean a sincere man, why may not every man be a hero?" And Whittier writes: "Deem not helm and harness The sign of valor true; Peace hath higher tests of manhood In an article to the Independent on the "Trials and Triumphs of the Preacher," Dr. Howard Crosby wrote: "Success with a godly minister is found, not in amassing a fortune or achieving a great name, but in seeing the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ built up under his efforts. The conversion of a soul to God, or the marked advance in faith on the part of a believer is the minister's triumph. It is for this he speaks from his pulpit, teaches in his class and visits among his flock. It is only the bogus preacher, the charlatan, who makes a parade of rhetoric, seeks admiration for his eloquence, courts notoriety and subsidizes the press. Verily he has his reward. He is classed with the famous play actors and gains the applause of the multitude. That is what he sought, and that is what he gets. His triumph is the seal of his unworthiness." These plain words of eight years ago are most timely still. "Preaching to the times" is a just demand of the times. It is an example set by prophets and apostles who "served their own generation, and fell on sleep," and before whom the present-day condition of their age always stood. The industrial, social and political, as well as ecclesiastical disorders received unfailing reproof at their hands. But the never-lost-sight-of aim was to lead the soul to repentance, or to advance it in the faith. The Presbyterian preaching of the sixteenth century was nothing if it was not a condemning in the name of the Lord of the current sins in Church and State, and a heroic effort |