and has done more; he has, to his eternal disgrace, manufactured a quotation from his own head, which never did occur in my works or words. The pulpit has become dishonoured; it is esteemed as being of very little worth and of no esteem. Ah! we must always maintain the dignity of the pulpit. I hold that it is the Thermopylae {a} of Christendom; it is here the battle must be fought between right and wrong — not so much with the pen, valuable as that is as an assistant, as with the living voice of earnest men, “contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” In some churches the pulpit is put away; there is a prominent altar, but the pulpit is omitted. Now the most prominent thing under the gospel dispensation is not the altar which belonged to the Jewish dispensation, but the pulpit. “We have an altar, of which they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle!” that altar is Christ; but Christ has been pleased to exalt “the foolishness of preaching” to the most prominent position in his house of prayer. We must take heed that we always maintain preaching. It is this that God will bless; it is this that he has promised to crown with success. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” We must not expect to see great changes nor any great progress of the gospel until there is greater esteem for the pulpit — more said of it and thought of it. “Well,” some may reply, “you speak of the dignity of the pulpit; I take it, you lower it yourself, sir, by speaking in such a style to your hearers.” Ah! no doubt you think so. Some pulpits die of dignity. I take it, the greatest dignity in the world is the dignity of converts — that the glory of the pulpit is, if I may use such a metaphor, to have captives at its chariot wheels, to see converts following it, and where there are such, and those from the very worst of men; there is a dignity in the pulpit beyond any dignity which a fine mouthing of words and a grand selection of fantastic language could ever give to it. “The poor have the gospel preached to them.”
10. II. Now, the next translation is, THE TRANSLATION OF GENEVA, principally used by Calvin in his commentary; and it is also the translation of Thomas Cranmer, whose translation, I believe, was at least in some degree moulded by the Geneva translation. He translates it thus: — “The poor receive the gospel.” The Geneva translation has it, “The poor receive the glad tidings of the gospel,” which is a tautology, since glad tidings mean the same thing as gospel. The Greek has it, “The poor are evangelised.” Now, what is the meaning of this word “evangelised?” They talk with a sneer in these days of evangelical drawing rooms and evangelicals, and so on. It is one of the most singular sneers in the world; for to call a man an evangelical by way of joke, is the same as calling a man a gentleman by way of scoffing at him. To say a man is one of the gospellers by way of scorn, is like calling a man a king by way of contempt. It is an honourable, a great, a glorious title, and nothing is more honourable than to be ranked among the evangelicals. What is meant, then, by the people being evangelised? Old Master Burkitt, thinking that we would not easily understand the word, says, that as a man is said to be Italianised by living among the Italians, adopting their manners and customs, and becoming a citizen of the state, so a man is evangelised when he lives where the gospel is preached and adopts the manners and customs of those who profess it. Now, that is one meaning of the text. One of the proofs of our Saviour’s mission is not only that the poor hear the Word, but are influenced by it and are gospelised. Oh! how great a work it is to gospelise any man, and to gospelise a poor man. What does it mean? It means, to make him like the gospel. Now, the gospel is holy, just, and true, and loving, and honest, and benevolent, and kind, and gracious. So, then, to gospelise a man is to make a rogue honest, to make a prostitute modest, to make a profane man serious, to make a grasping man liberal, to make a covetous man benevolent, to make the drunken man sober, to make the untruthful man truthful, to make the unkind man loving, to make the hater the lover of his species, and, in a word, to gospelise a man is, in his outward character, to bring him into such a condition that he labours to carry out the command of Christ, “Love your God with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself.” Gospelising, furthermore, has something to do with an inner principle; gospelising a man means saving him from hell and making him a heavenly character; it means blotting out his sins, writing a new name upon his heart — the new name of God. It means bringing him to know his election, to put his trust in Christ, to renounce his sins, and his good works too, and to trust solely and wholly upon Jesus Christ as his Redeemer. Oh! what a blessed thing it is to be gospelised! How many of you have been so gospelised? The Lord grant that all of us may feel the influence of the gospel. I contend for this, that to gospelise a man is the greatest miracle in the world. All the other miracles are wrapped up in this one. To gospelise a man, or, in other words, to convert him, is a greater work than to open the eyes of the blind; for is it not opening the eyes of the blind soul that he may see spiritual matters, and understand the things of heavenly wisdom, and is not a surgical operation easier then an operation on the soul? Souls we cannot touch, although science and skill have been able to remove films and cataracts from the eyes. “The lame walk.” Gospelising a man is more than this. It is not only making a lame man walk, but it is making a dead man who could not walk in the right way walk in the right way ever afterwards. “The lepers are cleansed.” Ah! but to cleanse a sinner is greater work than cleansing a leper. “The deaf hear.” Yes, and to make a man who never listened to the voice of God hear the voice of his Maker, is a miracle greater than to make the deaf hear, or even to raise the dead. Great though that be, it is not a more stupendous effort of divine power than to save a soul, since men are naturally dead in sins, and must be quickened by divine grace if they are saved. To gospelise a man is the highest instance of divine miracle, and remains an unparalleled miracle, a miracle of miracles. “The poor are evangelised.”
11. Beloved, there have been some very precious specimens of poor people who have come under the influence of the gospel. I think I appeal to the hearts of all of you who are now present, when I say there is nothing we more reverence and respect than the piety of the poor and needy. I had an engraving sent to me the other day which pleased me beyond measure. It was an engraving simply but exquisitely executed. It represented a poor girl in an upper room, with a lean-to roof. There was a post driven in the ground, on which was a piece of wood, standing on which were a candle and a Bible. She was on her knees at a chair, praying, wrestling with God. Everything in the room had on it the stamp of poverty. There was the poor coverlet to the old stump bedstead; there were the walls that had never been papered, and perhaps scarcely whitewashed. It was an upper story to which she had climbed with aching knees, and where perhaps she had worked away until her fingers were worn to the bone to earn her bread at needlework. There it was that she was wrestling with God. Some would turn away and laugh at it; but it appeals to the best feelings of man, and moves the heart far more than does the fine engraving of the monarch on his knees in the grand assembly. We have had recently a most excellent volume, the Life of Captain Hedley Vicars; it is calculated to do great good, and I pray God to bless it; but I question whether the history of Captain Hedley Vicars will last as long in the public mind as the history of the Dairyman’s Daughter, or the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. The histories of those who have come from the ranks of the poor always lay hold of the Christian mind. Oh! we love piety anywhere; we bless God where coronets and grace go together; but if piety in any place does shine more brightly than anywhere else, it is in rags and poverty. When the poor woman in the almshouse takes her bread and her water, and blesses God for both — when the poor creature who has not where to lay his head, yet lifts his eye and says, “My Father will provide,” it is then like the glow worm in the damp leaves, a spark the more conspicuous for the blackness around it. Then religion gleams in its true brightness, and is seen in all its lustre. It is a mark of Christ’s gospel that the poor are gospelised — that they can receive the gospel. True it is, the gospel affects all ranks, and is equally adapted to them all; but yet we say, “If one class is more prominent than another, we believe that in Holy Scripture the poor are most of all appealed to.” “Oh!” say some very often, “the converts whom God has given to such a man are all from the lower ranks; they are all people with no sense; they are all uneducated people that hear such-and-such a person.” Very well, if you say so; we might deny it if we pleased, but we do not know that we shall take the trouble, because we think it is no disgrace whatever; we think it is rather to be an honour that the poor are evangelised, and that they listen to the gospel from our lips. I have never thought it to be a disgrace at any time. When any have said, “Look, what a mass of uneducated people
