THE

DUTY OF USING ONE'S LIFE FOR OTHERS.

SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 20, 1868.

Nov 20 1968

"WHO gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."-Titus ii. 14.

"WHO gave himself for us." We are familiar with the expression that Jesus Christ gave his life for man. I would not take any thing away from the meaning and magnitude of the act of dying; but I should be glad to give more emphasis and power to the fact that Christ gave his life as much while he was living as while he was dying, and that to give life may mean either to use it or to lay it down. To yield up life to disease, to old age, to any of the ordinary influences which destroy human life; to do it reluctantly; to fight against it, and strive for life-this has no moral meaning. Death is a part of the organic condition of creation; and dying has no moral force unless it becomes voluntary. A man may accept death as a testimony to his faith; or, as a better alternative than betraying a trust; or, in the defense of a cause, a family, or a country. This is heroic. It is the highest single action which a man can achieve. It is retrospective and inclusive of all the great reasons which make life desirable. When one consents to die, he does not consent simply to take the pain of death-for that usually is very little. In half the deaths there is no more pain than in falling asleep. It is seldom that men do not suffer in single days or weeks, while pursuing their avocations,. as much or more uneasiness and pain, fourfold, than death inflicts. In some cases death is preceded by great suffering; but these cases are exceptional. Commonly it is balm, not anguish. Indigestion, and its train of horrors; neuralgia, and its warp and woof of fiery threads; rheumatism, and many other ills that are common to man, are a hundred-fold harder to bear than dying. It may be said, generally, that life suffers, and death soothes. The moral worth, then,

of dying, is by no means to be measured by its suffering, as if to take on so much suffering was an act of transcendent heroism.

It is that which one gives up, also, that in part is to enter into the moral estimate of a voluntary dying. For to die willingly, and for a reason, is to offer the sum total of life, and all its hopes, joys, and aspirations, to that reason. All pleasures of life, all innocent enjoyments, all affections, all honors and inspirations, all things which one would count riches in life, are voluntarily given up when we give, not yield life. In this view, dying is really the offering a sacrifice of one's living-that is, of all the elements which make life desirable; and the moral significance of the act is to be measured by the value of life, in all its pursuits, honors, enjoyments, and dignities, to the victim.

But you have noticed, in the passage whence we have taken our text, that it is said that Christ gave, not his life, but himself. He gave himself in dying; but he also gave himself in living. All his life was a giving. Although, comprehensively viewed, it was a single gift, yet it was a continuous gift, developing in every direction. It was a multiple force, ever varying. It was one prolonged giving of himself away to others. For he lived not for himself. He sought not his own. He did not employ his reason, nor his moral sentiments, nor his active forces, nor his time, nor his power, for himself. IIe honored his Father, and sought the welfare of men. And the three years, or nearly three, that preceded his death, were in some respects a far more remarkable gift than was the death itself. And in the case of our divine Lord, he gave himself both while living and while dying.

It is true that there entered into the death of Christ other elements than those which belong to any, even the greatest, man's death; that there were in it avowed, though unexplained, relations to the invisible world, and to moral influences. I believe that the death of Christ had some influence that was far different from any thing which we appreciate, and other than any thing that we know. What it is I can not tell. It is declared simply as a fact, and left there. These influences men dying do not need. It is not necessary that in their death for others they should have a relation to the universe, as Christ had. The salient fact which we put forward is this: that Christ gave himself, living and dying, for the world. He used his life for others. as really as he laid it down for them. He gave his life while it was in his own keeping, as really as when it was taken away from him. And the gift of Christ is the gift in its totality, in all the variations of his experience. Though on some accounts the tragic circumstances of his death lift it up into conspicuity, though by reason of man's fears and man's education there is given to it a sombre importance

that belongs to no single act of his life, yet I think we become clearer in our moral perceptions, and finer in our nature, and learn not only not to disesteem that part of Christ's example, but also to go back and give far more emphasis to the other part, and to lift up the daily conversations, the daily patience, the daily love, the ten thousand fidelities which belong to so great a life, carried wholly for its benefit upon others, and not at all for his own mere personal conve nience or gain. We learn to give to this an emphasis which it lacks too often.

So the lesson to be derived, it seems to me, from many of the descriptions of Christ's gift of himself, is a lesson to be pondered in regard to the use of our lives, rather than in regard to their termination. We give our life best, not when we die, but while yet we are living.

It is true that men often give their lives in some sense as Christ did; but the more obvious and the more common and attainable imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ is that which seeks to imitate his life, rather than his death. No man can give his life for the world as Christ did. Though a man may give his life for the world, no man can stand sinless; but he did. No man is related to God as was the Saviour. From no man reaches out those threads which connect him with the spiritual and invisible realm as Christ was connected with it. What the other-side influence was I have said we do not know; but that there was one we are told. And this we can not have. Here is a grand official difference. There is a universal character belonging to the influence of the death of Christ which does not and can not belong to that of any man. Yet, in so far as moral influence is exerted by one's death on his fellow-men, it is possible, though in a far lower sphere, and in a far less degree, that we should follow and imitate our Lord by giving our life for one another.

Every patriot who is sacrificed, on account of the heroic fidelity of his life, to the public weal; every martyr whose blood is shed as a seal and witness of that holy faith by which he would illumine and bless the world; every prisoner lingering in dungeons, and, with long dying, suffering unseen and forgotten by the multitudes for whose welfare his life is spent ; every man who goes forth to lands of fever and malaria, and to early death, knowing that he carries religion, civilization, and liberty to the ignorant, at the price of his own life, and cheerfully dies in the harness there, where men, being most degraded and thankless, are on that very account more needful of this very sacrifice of some one-all these, and all others whose death is brought about by persistent adhesion to the welfare of men, follow their Lord not less really because the sphere is lower and narrower. They follow their Lord in death, and through death. For, does not the little

five-year-old child follow his father because it requires three of his little footsteps to measure a single stride of his father? He follows him in speech, though he prattles. He follows him, though it be in weakness, and more slowly and wearisomely. And all who willingly yield life for the sake of a moral cause, or a beneficent influence, follow their Lord and Master just so far as these things are concerned. And so, too, in their humbler sphere, do all those follow Christ who cheerfully put their life in jeopardy, or offer it up in the fulfillment of their public duties.

Every humble watchman, guarding the peace of the city, and its property, who falls down bleeding under the brutal strokes of thieves or burglars; every faithful policeman, who, to preserve the public peace, is slain in neighborhood tussles or public riots and brawls, is a martyr to duty, and to public duty. Nor should the obscurity of their name lead us lightly to esteem this great gift, which they offer to society, of life.

There are men of wealth in New-York, honored, because prosperous, who heap up riches, and hoard them, and live in a magnificent selfishness. They use the whole of society as a cluster to be squeezed into their cup. They are neither active in any enterprise of good, except for their own prosperity, nor generous to their fellows. They build palaces, and fill them sumptuously; but the poor starve and freeze around about them. No struggling creature of the army of the weak ever blesses them. And yet their names are heralded. They walk in specious and spectacular honor. Men flatter them, and fawn upon them. Dying, the newspapers, like so many trumpets in procession, go blaring after them to that grave over which should be inscribed the text of Scripture, "The name of the wicked shall rot." But in his very ward, and right under the eaves of his dwelling, walks an honest and faithful policeman, who guards him and all his neighbors. And when villainy grows bold and defiant, and this faithful man is attacked, and falls wounded, and dies, a moment's shock, a morning paragraph, is all the honor that is given to this obscure hero, who did all that man can do. He gave his life for the peace of the city; and, dead, he is a monument of honor to that city more than scores and thousands that live. How much greater is he than the cocooned rich man! How much nobler is his death than the whole gorgeous uselessness of the selfish millionaire !

In this class of noble martyrs who give their lives for others, I rank, also, all those gentle nurses who wear out in sick-rooms, watching the suffering, and undermining their own health, for the sake of children, of brothers, of sisters, of companions, of parents. They exemplify the truth which is symbolized by that bird mythical which plucks feathers from its own breast to make the nest soft for its young.