Published Weekly. Price $1.50 a year, or 5 cents single copy (Being a continuation of Unity Pulpit, Boston) Entered at the Post-office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter NOV 9 1900 MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. SERMONS AND ESSAYS. Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873 $1.00 The Religion of Evolution. Belief in God. 176 pages. 253 pages. 1876 Beliefs about Man. 130 pages. Beliefs about the Bible. The Modern Sphinx. 160 pages. 1883 The Religious Life. 212 pages. 1885. Signs of the Times. 187 pages. 1889 Helps for Daily Living. 150 pages. 1889 Life. 237 pages. 1890 Four Great Questions Concerning God. 86 pages. 1891. Paper. The Irrepressible Conflict between Two World-Theories. 1.50 1.00 1880 1.00 1881 1.00 1.00 1882 1.00 206 pages. 1883 1.00 1.00 200 pages. 1884 1.00 1.00 .25 Cloth 1.00 Paper. .50 The Evolution of Christianity. Is this a Good World? 60 pages. 1893. Paper Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Messiah Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 272 Congress St.. Boston, Mass. 104 East 20th St., New York. DROUGHT IN NATURE AND IN HUMAN LIFE. I HAVE chosen as a text the words to be found in the seventeenth chapter of the first book of Kings, the seventh verse, "And it came to pass that after a while the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land." Those of you who are familiar with the Old Testament history will recall the fact that Elijah, the prophet, was one of those men so stern, so uncompromising in his opinions and convictions, that he frequently brought himself into opposition to the rulers of his people, who stood for the established order of things which his new and advanced ideas would disturb. He expressed his opinions freely to the king, and then was obliged to flee for safety to the wilderness. And here it is said that the angel appeared to him, and told him that God would take care of him, the ravens would bring him food morning and evening, and he would drink of the brook which flowed near by the place of his retreat. And then the story says that by and by the brook dried up for lack of rain. You are aware that in countries like Palestine — like some parts of our own land where there are practically but two seasons in the year, the wet and the dry, the sunshiny and the rainy seasons - this phenomenon of brooks or of streams of larger size drying up is no uncommon thing. While the brooks flow, the country is fair. I have seen these things in California, and in some of the States or Territories of the Middle West. While the brooks run, the birds sing, grasses carpet the fields and make beautiful the mountain sides, flowers blossom and are fragrant, shrubs break into leafage and are green, the whole country is lovely there is beauty, there is life, there is fertility, so long as the fountains do not dry up, so long as the brooks run and sing. But when the rains fail and the heavens, as the old verse is "become as brass," when the sun glares pitilessly down upon the earth that longs to be shadowed by cloud, then the time of desert appears, the brook dwindles in its bed until by and by it is dry, and that which it would be impossible to ford early in the spring, now a child can pass without wetting his feet. And everything grows brown and dead, the flowers wither, the leaves fall,- all nature takes on an appearance of desolation: drought has taken possession of the country because the fountains are unfed and the streams no longer run. You are familiar with these facts in nature. They are not perhaps important enough for me to spend any special time upon beyond this mere matter of suggestion. So I turn now to analogous facts in human nature and human life. There are men who, as they get older especially, grow arid. Their natures seem to harden. There are no running, rippling, musical brooks any longer. There is no verdure in their lives, no beautiful blossoms and fragrant flowers, no song-birds, no brightness, no cheer. And there is a common impression on the part, at least, of a great many people that this is what it means to leave boyhood and grow old. I once, in Boston, preached a sermon on "How to grow Old." One of my best friends came to me during the following week, and said he wished I would preach a sermon some time on "How not to grow Old." I do not know how to preach that. In the literal sense of the word, we must grow old. That doom is upon us, and the shadow at the end. The practical question-the only practical question for us is whether the brooks of our lives shall dry up, and our nature become hard and desolate, or whether we shall keep fresh and fair and tuneful and bright to the end. One of the most beautiful poems that Wordsworth ever wrote is his "Ode on Immortality." I am not quite sure what his own personal belief may have been, but this poem is based on the idea of reincarnation. Whether that was really his belief I do not know, or whether he simply used it for the purposes of his poem. I wish to read you a few extracts from it, exquisite in their beauty, it seems to me; but my purpose is to illustrate this theory which Wordsworth teaches here, and which is, to my mind, far too common : "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. And then a little later he says: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, |