THE GLORIES OF THE I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the House of the I THE Psalmist's words express, I am sure, your sentiments. It was not, I can well believe, without a pang that you tore yourselves last Sunday from the old fabric, externally far statelier than this, in which for seventy-two years, since 1835, you and your fathers have been wont to worship. But you knew that that church was doomed. Its site was required for the extension of an institution 2 which the city and the nation needed, and which has (we fervently trust), by God's blessing, a long career of everincreasing usefulness before it. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ-of Him who is at once the Creator and the Light of the world-cannot but wish well to the cause of Education. Long before the civil powers concerned themselves with any branch of the instruction of the young, the Church of Christ (obeying His command to teach all nations 3) took an intelligent and active interest in schools; and no single branch of the Church can boast in some respects of a better record in regard to this than our National Church of Scotland. The sanctuaries founded by our earliest Christian teachers-notably, S. Ninian's Whithorn, and S. Columba's Iona-were not simply homes of worship, they were also schools and seminaries, training-places for those who were to carry 1 Preached in the new Parish Church of S. Paul's, Glasgow, on the morning of Sunday, September 1, 1907 (being the first Sunday after its Dedication). 2 The Technical College, Glasgow. 3 S. Matt. xxviii. 19. F on the work of their mighty founders. They were centres whence was to go forth the two-fold stream of faith and knowledge whence (as Dr. Johnson in a sentence of immortal eloquence observes) savage clans and roving barbarians' were to derive' at once 'the benefits of civilisation, and the blessings of religion.' Even in the evil days which immediately preceded the Reformation there still were men in high places in the Scottish Church who remembered, and who carried on, this glorious tradition of her earliest apostles. The Founders of our Scottish Universities-Bishop Wardlaw of S. Andrews, Bishop Turnbull of Glasgow, Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen, and the admirable prelate who left the money with which King James VI was able to establish the University of Edinburgh, Bishop Reid of Orkney-if their thought was, first of all, for the training of the clergy—were anxious at the same time to promote learning generally; they cared for letters and philosophy, for law and medicine, and for such science as then existed, as well as for divinity. Our post-Reformation leaders, on both sides, Knox and Melville, Archbishop Spottiswood and Bishop Patrick Forbes, were of the same mind in this respect; and if in our own University (so long and so closely connected, under the great ministry of Dr. Jamieson, with this congregation) a trace survives of its churchly origin in the first rank among its teachers being assigned by statute to the Professor of Systematic Theology, yet its two most conspicuous glories are (1) that under its protection James Watt was enabled to perfect those inventions which have revolutionised the intercourse of nations; and (2) that among its teachers it can reckon Adam Smith, the illustrious founder of the science of Political Economy. Let Glasgow flourish by the Preaching of the Word.' Nothing has been invented which can supersede the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ either as a way of moral salvation or as an instrument of intellectual culture. But we cherish no jealousy towards what is sometimes called secular knowledge. Moses was not harmed by acquiring the learning of Egypt, nor Daniel by the lore of Babylon. We cannot but wish the Technical College, now grown so great, and growing still so rapidly, all the increase which it needs, and all the success it can attain. You cannot grudge the sacrifice, either of noble building or sweet associations, which its enlargement has required of you. You cheerfully gave up to it the site it needed. But you are glad to be settled here; and that your feet once more are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem. I doubt not that the Technical College, for whose benefit you gave up that sacred site, recognises the trial that it meant to you, and wishes, and will wish, you good luck in the Name of the Lord. There is none knows better than the thoughtful student of Natural Science, that this subject in itself, however useful, and however vast, is quite inadequate to human needs. Material prosperity is but a poor thing, if the soul be naked and the heart be void. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.1 It is for the dispensing of this Word of God that this church is built-a sure word which cannot be gainsaid, the everlasting Gospel of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who is Himself the Living Word, which was in the beginning, which was with God, and was God, which, in the fullness of the times, was made flesh and dwelt among us,3 being conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. As long as He is preached in this hallowed house (and I am well sure that your new minister will carry on the lines of Dr. Jamieson and Dr. Paton, and preach unto you Jesus always, faithfully, boldly, lovingly), as long, I say, as Christ is preached within these walls, so long will this modest sanctuary minister to needs of the human soul, deeper, more powerful, more touching far, than anything which Natural Science, at its highest reaches, can pretend to offer. 1 S. Matt. iv. 4. 2 S. John i. I. 3 S. John i. 14. II I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord. The And the Glad for several reasons-first of all, because it is the house of the Lord. It is a comfort (is it not?) that if your new church lacks something of the classic grace which characterised its predecessor, if its advantages are those rather of increased convenience for some new developments of Christian enterprise than of external beauty-yet surely it is not one whit less sacred than the old one. What is it that is the true glory of a sanctuary? It is not stone and lime. It is not architectural elegance. It is not its plate and ornaments, even were they of solid gold. Whether is greater, asked our Saviour, the gold of the Temple; or the Temple that sanctifieth the gold? glory of a church is that THE LORD IS THERE. Lord is here; according to His most true promise, In all places where I do record My Name I will meet with My people to bless them. There will I meet with the children of Israel and the Tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. The Lord is here, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to receive your praises, to hear your prayers, to answer them out of His holy place, to accept your grateful offerings, to instruct you of His Word and Holy Spirit, to receive your children at the font of Baptism, to accept the Memorial of Christ as ye do this in remembrance of Him, to feed you with the hidden manna; to bless you as (in His fear and in obedience to His blessed laws) you enter into the bands of holy matrimony; to support you against temptation, to comfort you in times of sorrow, to hallow into humble thanksgiving each joy that He bestows; to admit you by a Divine mystery into closest fellowship with the Father and the Son, through the Holy Ghost; to arm you for your conflict with the last enemy, and to bid you depart in peace, because your eyes have seen His salvation. 1 S. Matt. xxiii. 17. 2 Exod. xxix. 43. In this house I will give peace. They shall not be ashamed that wait on Him. The believer's pillow may be hard and stony: the night around him may be dark and dreary; he may be laden with the consciousness, and the consequences, of his own transgression; but if he comes to this House in a true seeking of the Lord, he shall not seek in vain. Jacob's dream shall be fulfilled to him in glad experience. He shall see it for himself. He shall cry with the awakened Patriarch: This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.1 It was so to the Jews of the old Jerusalem. It is so to Christians all over the world. Not on that mountain only, nor yet at Jerusalem, but wherever the true worshipper worshippeth the Father in spirit and in truth! 2 Wherever the two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus! Temple blessings are now the privilege of Christians in every land. The picture drawn by the last of the Old Testament Prophets is, through the grace of Christ, exhibited in every Christian sanctuary: From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, Thy Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense and the pure offering are offered unto My Name3the incense of prayer, perfumed with Jesus' merits: the pure offering of the Broken Bread which is the communion of His Body, of the Cup of Blessing which is the communion of His Blood.4 These new-built walls enclose you, brethren, in a House of God. The Lord is in His holy Temple, that you may pour out your hearts before Him and find Him a refuge for you. He is here, to speak to you by His Word and Spirit. Jesus will be here at every Communion to make Himself known unto you in the breaking of bread. This is the first, and this is the true glory of our churches— that they are, in very deed, the Lord's house: that when, in obedience to the Spirit and the Bride, we bend our steps up towards their courts, and enter their gates with S. John iv. 21-23. 3 Malachi i. II. 1 Genesis xxviii. 17. 5 S. Luke xxiv. 35. |