Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 18:69 (Jan 1861)
Article: The Christian Law Of Self-Sacrifice
Author: Samuel Harris

BSac 18:69 (Jan 1861) p. 143

The Christian Law Of Self-Sacrifice1

Samuel Harris

It is a German legend, that the emperor Charlemagne comes from his grave, every spring, to bless the land. Up and down the Rhine he walks, flinging his blessing on gardens, vineyards, and fields, to make the seed spring up and to multiply the vintage and the harvest. So the departed good, in the reformations which they effected, in the principles which they taught, in the institutions which they founded, reappear in the scenes of their life-long interest, to quicken every healthful growth, and multiply the ingathering of human joy. And as this Seminary sends out its successive classes, each year scattering its handful of true seed-corn, in the hope that “the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon,” it is its venerable fathers who reappear, in their abiding influence, and fling their blessing on the churches that they loved and served.

Meeting you, brethren of the Society of Inquiry, as another class are leaving the investigations of your Association for their life-work, our minds naturally go forward, in sympathy, to the coming toils and trials which, as yet, you inadequately understand. In the divine words are mingled joy and sorrow: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Why, with this promise of sheaves gathered with joy, the vision of tears watering seed sown? Are deeds of beneficence fecundated only when steeped in tears? So, at least, the fact commonly is. Beautiful the vision of a long life in the unruffled enjoyment of

BSac 18:69 (Jan 1861) p. 144

wealth, honor, and refined culture, issuing, through a placid old age, serene into eternity. Not usually such the lives of the world’s prophets; but oftener lives of conflict, privation, and peril: the ambition for preeminence satisfied only as Paul’s was: “In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.” You turn with your perplexity to the New Testament, and there find the law of sacrifice propounded by the Lord, as the imperative condition of discipleship: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” What then? Is Christianity a system of asceticism? Is humanity only to be denied and crushed by the redemption which promises its perfect development? Does God delight in the sufferings of those who serve him? Is it in indifference to goodness that he leaves the benefactors of men to suffer? These questions touch a topic fundamental in your life-work. Let us pause before you leave these peaceful halls; le...