USA > Virginia > City of Staunton > City of Staunton > The First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, Virginia > Part 11
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The Good Book says, "The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance." It is for God alone to make the remembrance of the righteous "everlasting," we are doing what we can to-day to make it at least lasting. How long will this window last ? Shall it be fifty years, a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand years ? I pledge you that we shall take it into sacred keeping and resolve that it shall out- last everything else in this school except its name. If by the wear and tear of time, these walls, which have already stood for nearly a hundred years, should fall and it should become necessary to build another chapel, we would build it to fit that window. If by the pro- gress of invention the houses we now use should become as antiquated as cave dwellings are compared with them, the problem for the future architect will be to build his structure in harmony with this graceful relic. If by the further progress of invention, houses may be dispensed with and architecture itself become a relic or a lost art, the genius which works this transformation in the modes of human living must also devise some way to preserve what is dear to human sentiment and make some casket for this jewel, for what this woman hath done must be told for a memorial of her.
Again we receive the window as a suggestion-the inauguration of a movement, the first of a group of monuments. Already the happy thought has taken root of erecting another here in honor of the full graduates of the Seminary. I believe I am in a position to say that when a young woman has mastered the university course in this institution and has enrolled herself among the full graduates, she deserves a monument of her own for the capacity and the indomitable perseverance and courage she has shown in that achievement.
We shall also want a window that in a pecular sense shall be the companion of this one, a memorial of Miss Agnes McClung, whose lofty character and wide acquaintance contributed dignity and fame to the undertaking at the outset, whose sanctified wisdom helped to build the school, whose motherly influence and sympathy radiated to the whole circle of girls that gathered about her and who at her death bequeathed her earnings to the endowment.
We should also perpetuate the name of the Rev. Mr. Baily who first conceived the thought of founding the school, to whose judicious
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and faithful labors we owe the inception of it, and of whom we have now no other memorial than the portrait which adorns the parlor walls.
Speaking of our debts of gratitude suggests that there are some words which should be spoken of the distinguished gentleman who so ably and touchingly presented this window to us on behalf of the alumnæ. We feel to-day more than ever before how much we owe Miss Mary Julia Baldwin and the Mary Baldwin Seminary to the sagacity of Mr. Waddell. He was one of those who rocked the cradle of the Seminary in its infancy, for he was one of Mr. Baily's co-laborers and one of the first contributors to the foundation. It was his penetration that first discovered Miss Baldwin's fitness for the responsible position of principal. What though he was not at first aware of the full value of his discovery ; what though he mistook for only an unusual order of talent what afterwards proved to be no mean order of genius, it was he who made the suggestion that she be called to this great trust. From that time to the day of her death, he was her chosen, intimate and trusted adviser. It is true she did not always follow his advice, but it is true that she almost always did. And when she did not follow his advice, she always respected it and always used it in forming her own opinions. He could not always restrain what he often thought was her too daring enterprise, but many a time did he save her from the opposite extreme of despondency to which her temperament rendered her peculiarly liable. The result is that to-day the impress of his judgment and his loving heart is seen on everything connected with this institution.
And now on this occasion he has added the crown to all his long services by the admirable address with which he has presented this memorial window. Without the slightest jealousy of the fame of his great protege, without extravagant pride in his great discovery, with a glowing admiration, with the moderation of truth, with the accuracy of the trained historian, and with the skill of an artist he has placed before us a pen picture of Miss Baldwin, in lieu of any photograph or any portrait by the artist's brush. I feel that the sentiment of the Seminary will not be fully gratified and our minster abbey will not be complete in its array of monuments till loving and reverential hands shall have placed somewhere in this chapel an imperishable memorial to Mr. Joseph Addison Waddell.
If I may for a few moments rob him of his office as the represen- tative of the alumnæ and presume to speak for both them and the Seminary, I would say that every heart craves for him the most gra- cious benedictions of God. We pray that he may live many years to love this school and labor for it and pray for it, that his remaining .
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years may be the happiest and most fruitful of his life and that there may be light for him at the eventide.
Once more and briefly we receive the window as an education and an inspiration. It is said that in those cities of the old world where are gathered the most numerous and the best specimens of art in museums and galleries and exposed in open parks and market places, the people themselves who live in the constant contemplation of these ideals of beauty, at length conform themselves to the models in face and figure. So we have placed here in this room, that is used as both a chapel and a study hall, this object which gathers into itself all that is romantic in chivalry, all that is inspiring in history, all that is refining in educa- tion and all that is saving and ennobling in religion as these were represented in the person of Miss Baldwin. As the young ladies shall pursue their studies and conduct their worship in the presence of it, we shall trust that they will gradually be molded to the image unto which she attained and that each in her own measure may reflect the character of Miss Baldwin as every dew drop reflects the whole image of the sun.
On behalf of the Seminary, then, I accept this memorial presented by the alumnæ, and I tender to them our congratulations upon the completion of this noble undertaking and our thanks for their costly and exquisite contribution to the adornment of this hall.
Staunton, Va., May 24, 1901.
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CHAPTER XIII
THE REV. JAMES A. QUARLES, D. D., LL. D.
D R. QUARLES, whose sermon follows, was born in Cooper County, Missouri, April 30, 1837. He was educated at Westminster College, in Missouri, the University of Virginia, and Princeton Theological Semi- nary. After serving as pastor of churches in Lexington and Saint Louis, Mo., he became president of Elizabeth Aull Seminary, at Lexington, Mo. In 1886 he was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Va., which position he continued to hold until his death, in 1907.
During these last twenty years, in which he lived within the bounds of the Presbytery of Lexington, there were few ministers in it who preached in as many of its churches or had as wide an acquaintance with its member- ship as Dr. Quarles. There were few if any more widely and greatly loved and whose preaching was so much enjoyed. He took great delight in thus serving the churches and mingling with the people. It was quite common for him to walk to his appointments, even when they were many miles distant. He was a man of scholar- ship and extensive reading, and genial and affectionate in disposition, and always preached interestingly and with unction.
It is eminently proper that a sermon from Dr. Quarles should have a place in this memorial volume. He supplied the pulpit of the First Church very frequently, and no where was he more beloved or his preaching more highly appreciated than here. The particular sermon inserted here is a fair specimen of his preaching and gives a cor-
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rect idea of his style. It is thoroughly characteristic of the man, who was himself so deeply imbued with the love of which it discourses and who was so lovable. It is also interesting because it is the last sermon he ever preached for us.
" God is Love."-I John VIII : 4-16 .*
I hesitate to deliver the message with which I am charged to-night; not that there is aught in it that is dis- agreeable to the speaker, or that will prove unwelcome to the hearer. I shrink because these lips are unworthy bearers of the message and tremble with diffidence as they undertake to utter it. No painter has ever yet attempted to put the sun upon the canvas; the pigments are not to be found on earth that can display its glory, nor the eye with strength to gaze upon its dazzling radiance. There are some thoughts which you master, that are like the sapling, which you can encircle with the grasp of your hand. There are other thoughts which master you, that are like the giant redwood of California, which you vainly try to encompass with the widest embrace of your arms. Some are foothills which you easily climb; others are Mt. Everest in the Himalayas, whose summit no human foot has trodden; at whose base one pauses in reverent admira- tion. Sir Henry Drummond has written on what he calls "The greatest thing on earth "; to-night we are to con- sider that which is not only the greatest thing on earth, but also the greatest thing in heaven.
When the command came from the Master, whose servant I am, that I should bear this message to you, I looked into His revealed Word to find that expression of it which seemed most richly freighted with the truth, so that the text might be a sermon in itself, and leave nothing for the speaker beyond its simple, loving utter-
*Sermon preached extemporaneously in the First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, Va., Sunday evening, March 22, 1903 ; and written out since at the request of Mr. Arista Hoge, Deacon and Treasurer of the Church.
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ance. I opened the Book, and, turning over its pages, from cover to cover, I found them luminous with the message; some less bright perhaps, but others glowing with an effulgence like that which irradiates the throne and makes it to finite vision a blinding light that is inac- cessible. My eye was caught and held by such passages as these: "He poured out His soul unto death "; "I have loved thee with an everlasting love"; "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have com- passion on the son of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee"; "God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"; "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends "; "That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and heighth and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." Any one of these would do, and would more than fill our powers of reverent compre- hension. There is another text, chosen to be placarded upon the walls at our Centennial Exposition, as a rich epitome of the Gospel, that, when the nations should come together at that bazaar of civilization and festival of freedom, each one might read in his own vernacular, his mother's tongue, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life "; and this indeed would admirably serve our purpose.
As, however, the message is the most glorious truth on earth or in heaven, we are not content until we are sure that we have found its simplest, sublimest utterance as given by inspiration; the greatest truth should have the sublimest expression. Longinus, a Greek critic of the second Christian century, in a review of the world's literature as he knew it, calls to our attention the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis, as he read it in
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the Greek, "Γευέοδα φως και εγένετο, " "Light, be, and light was "; and he comments appreciatively upon its terse expressiveness. But we are concerned to-night with the sublimest utterance of the grandest thought ever revealed to man. We find it, strange to say, in an anony- mous letter believed to have been written by a fisherman, and addressed to no particular person. Indeed, how appropriate this is; for all individuality would narrow it, and all human distinction would degrade it. So it comes to us the more directly from the throne and from the mind and heart of Him who sits upon it; through the ministry of the humble Galilean, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Twice within the limits of a single chapter, the fourth of his first epistle, in verses eight and sixteen, he declares, "GOD IS LOVE "; three short words, three single sounds; three syllables are all that is needed for the utterance of a truth, which no angel has ever fathomed and which eternity can never exhaust nor fully display.
The Scriptures tell us that God is powerful, but never that God is power; that God is truthful, but never that God is truth; that God is wise, but never that He is wisdom; that God is just, but never that He is justice; but they do tell us twice that God is Love.
No man can paint the sun; no human eye can gaze upon it without being blinded by its glory. Even when in eclipse we must darken the glass through which we dare to fix our eyes upon it. Otherwise we must content our- selves with mere glimpses at its brilliance. So it must be as we essay to-night to enter the Holy of Holies, and stand before the Shekinah, the manifested presence, the revealed heart of God; glimpses are all that we may hope to get of that love which passeth knowledge. We shall take three posts of observation from which to catch these glimpses as best we may.
1. We estimate love by the source from which it comes, from the character, the nature of the lover. Love is
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never a despicable thing; in the humblest there is some- thing sacred in it. You do not despise the love of your dog, your horse, your servant; he that does is unworthy to own dog, or horse, or servant; he that does shows himself more ignoble than dog, or horse, or servant. The humblest that loves is better than the highest that does not love.
Nevertheless we graduate love from the dignity of the lover. We rate the affection of a friend, a brother, a sister, a wife, a husband higher than that of a dog, a horse or a servant. So we put a higher value on the love of father and mother, and teacher, and pastor, because of their relative or official superiority to us. How pleased we should be did we know that the most honorable man, the loveliest woman in our community regarded us with a tender, affectionate interest. Still more should we appre- ciate the fact to be assured that we possess the love of the greatest man, the highest dignitary, the most worthy per- son on the earth. It pleases us more than this to believe that there are those in heaven, now kings and priests unto God, our sainted mothers, who feel for us an affection- ate regard and are waiting to welcome us home.
But between the highest angel in heaven and throne there is an infinite distance. If Michael, the archangel, is a creature, and not, as some conjecture, the Son of God Himself, then even he, though the highest of finite beings, is infinitely lower than God whom he worships even as do we. The love that fills our thoughts and hearts to-night does not come from the finite, shallow depths of any created spirit, but descends from the inaccessible heights of the throne itself, the infinite and eternal Jehovah, "who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast; who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and to whom its in- habitants are but as grasshoppers; who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to
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dwell in; who taketh up the isles as a very little thing, to whom the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are coun- ted as the small dust of the balance";
"The God that rules on high, That thunders when He please, That rides upon the stormy sky, That manages the seas, This awful God is ours, Our Father and our love."
'Tis He, even He, who assures us that He is love, that His nature, His very heart, is love.
II. Another standard by which to estimate the pre- ciousness of love is the object on whom it is bestowed. As the Father thinks upon the coequal Son, "the effulgence of His glory and the very image of His substance," we do not wonder that the full tide of His love should flow forth in admiring appreciation, though to our finite thinking it is infinitely deep beyond our highest conceptions. When that divine love passes the infinite barriers and fixes itself upon Michael, the archangel, and his companions, pure, sinless spirits, that kept their first estate of holiness, we can see the fitness of the affection in the moral worthiness of its objects. We can understand why that love, radia- ting from the throne, bathes with its blessings the spirits of the just made perfect, the holy patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, godly men and women, a multitude that no man can number, in their robes made white, as with golden crowns and palms of victory, they ascribe ''blessing and honor, and glory, and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.". These happy inhabitants of heaven, holy even as God is holy, dwelling in the city wherein there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, whose very streets are of transparent gold, clear as crystal, ever breathe the at- mosphere of love, because it is the air of heaven issuing from the heart of God.
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We do wonder, however, when this love of God, native to heaven and specially at home there, should come to this earth, this speck in the universe, this workshop of Satan, this home of sin. On whom does it rest here ? On the innocent infant, nestling in its mother's arms and yet unflecked by stain of personal sin? Yes, it blesses the babe. On the pure, virtuous woman, born and bred within the hallowing shelter of a home, where she has been shielded from contact with the vileness to be found without? Yes, it blesses the virtuous woman. On the stalwart moral hero, who braves the demons of tempta- tion and comes forth the triumphant victor, panoplied with truth and righteousness? Yes, it blesses the moral hero. On the faithful pastor, the sincere preacher of the cross, on the godly mother in Israel, on the patient, pray- ing teacher in the Sunday School, on the generous giver to every cause that is good, on the gentle nurse that strokes and bathes the fevered brow through the midnight watches, on the hand that feeds and clothes and shelters the poor, on the missionary that carries the gospel to tor- rid, darkest Africa? Yes, it blesses one and all of these.
But does it come to the careless, stumbling, back- slidden Christian, who has forgotten his first love, who has gone back to the fleshpots of Egypt? Yes, God says, "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee." God loves the poor, backslidden, incon- sistent Christian, and blesses him with the cheering words: "Return unto Me and I will return unto you; I will heal your backslidings; I will love you freely; for a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will
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I gather thee; in overflowing wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer."
But surely this is as far as the love of God can go. On the sinner, the habitual sinner, the willing sinner, the unrepentant sinner, the disbelieving sinner, the wicked sinner, the depraved, degenerate sinner, the outcast sin- ner, we think God pours the vials of His wrath without stint and without ceasing. But does He? Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God, for in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. As we read His life, we find that there was but one class of persons whom he condemned and chastised with scorpion sting of His wrath. Read that terrific arraignment in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, that seven times repeated denuncia- tion, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees-Hypocrites; woe unto you, ye blind guides; ye fools and blind; ye blind guides ; thou blind Pharisee; ye serpents, ye off- spring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?" Here we see something of what is meant by "the wrath of the Lamb"; and its objects are not the harlots and the outcasts, but the self-righteous, hypocritical, respectable, official, leading members and officers of the church.
Is the worst man, the worst woman in Staunton here in this house of God to-night? I would that you were, for I have a message from the God of heaven, from the Lord Jesus Christ to you, and through you to every one of us. Every good man, who has been blessed with a good mother, or sister, or wife, or daughter, knows that women as a rule are purer, better than men. Sheltered, protected, untried, untempted, with a more delicate, refined, moral fibre, woman has retained most of the primeval purity of Eden. The more exalted the height the deeper the plunge into the abyss below. When woman falls, she sounds the depths of depravity. Probably the vilest wretch in Staun-
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ton is a woman. So it was in Palestine when Jesus was here among men. We are told that He did not hold him- self aloof from the common people, that He ate with publi- cans and sinners, that He allowed the harlot to wash His feet with her tears and to wipe them with the hairs of her head .*
But there was one person in Palestine in His day who was the vilest of the vile. Possibly at first the victim of man's treachery; but, yielding to temptation, she fell; and, like Satan, when she fell, she did not stop in her headlong plunge until she had reached the lowest sink of human wickedness. We are told that Mary of Magdala had seven devils; seven in the Scriptures is a symbol of fullness, and so we know that Mary, the famed harlot of Magdala, was filled with the spirit of the devil, that she was a fiend incarnate, who had probably led many a man astray and had broken the heart of mothers and of wives. We are prone to think that Jesus treated her as we would have done ; that such purity as His would not have walked in the path which she had polluted with her filthy steps ; that He would have drawn His vesture close about Him as she passed, that He might not be defiled by touching the hem of her garments. But not so with Jesus. Does the doctor refuse to attend upon the patient wrestling with a mortal malady? Does the mother tear from her heart the fibers of affection for her truant boy and banish his image from her memory? Can we doubt the love of Jesus for the sinner, for the worst of sinners? Can we, whose sins have been forgiven, into whose unlovely and unloving hearts the stream of Jesus' love has flown, can we doubt His grace to our fellow sinners? Paul felt himself less than the least of all saints, nay, the chief of sinners ; and so, brethren, you and I feel that the love which could
*It is thought by some that this sinful woman in the house of Simon, the Pharisee, was none other than Mary of Bethany ; by others, that it was Mary of Magdala ; and still others think that she and Mary of Bethany and Mary of Magdala were all one and the same person. These are interesting conjectures.
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come to us, even to us, miserably, utterly, unworthy as we know ourselves to be, cannot, will not hesitate to reach to any degree of human wickedness.
We know that the love of Jesus did not shrink; when He saw the soul of Mary in the deepest depth of the cess- pool of iniquity, putrified, disgusting as it was. He did not falter as He plunged His almighty, loving arm into the filthy ooze and brought up the immortal soul hidden there, and cleansed it with the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Henceforth "she loved much, for she was much forgiven"; and when the easter morn had come and the risen Lord had triumphed over hell and the grave, it was to Mary of Magdala that He appeared, and to her, not to Peter, nor to John, was given the privilege of first heralding the risen Redeemer; and to-day Mary, from whom Jesus cast seven devils, is one of the crowned queens of heaven, stationed near the throne, where her loving and beloved Saviour sits, holding the sceptre of universal power.
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