^ J7~ ffirfyrieA SERMONS BY Retf. Charles ,/Wery Jlolmes, D. D, LL. D. OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. .6' <*' PITTSBURGH. PA. : JOSEPH HORNER, 524 PENN AVENUE. METHODIST BOOK DEPOSITORY. [the library OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON COPYRIGHT, 1897. BY GEORGE S. HOLMES. Percy F. Smith Printing and Lithographing Company, Pittsburgh, Pa. CONTENTS. PAGE Rev. Charles Avery Holmes, D. D. , LL. D 3 Sermon I. II. Timothy, 1:12 8 Sermon II. Exodus, 3:14 19 Sermon III. John, 8:58 29 Sermon IV. Revelation, 22:21 39 Sermon V. Genesis, 45:27 51 Sermon VI. John, 12:24 59 Sermon VII. Psalm 3:4 70 Sermon VIII. I. Timothy, 3:14, 15, 16 81 Sermon IX. Genesis, 9:13 91 Sermon X. Galatians, 6:17 97 Sermon XI. Judges, 1:15 107 Sermon XII. I^uke, 2:15 113 Sermon XIII. Luke, 2:28 121 Sermon XIV. Deuteronomy, 33:25 128 Sermon XV. Matthew, 6:28 136 Sermon XVI. I. Corinthians, 11:20 148 Sermon XVII. Revelation, 19:3 152 Sermon XVIII. Isaiah, 22:24 162 Sermon XIX. John, 11:48 170 Sermon XX. Nehemiah, 6:11 181 Sermon XXI. Hebrews, 13:13 191 Sermon XXII. Numbers, 23:10 199 Sermon XXIII. II. Corinthians, 8:9 , 212 Sermon XXIV. Amos, 8:11 225 Sermon XXV. John, 14:12 237 Sermon XXVI. Deuteronomy, 1:25 249 Sermon XXVII. Job, 14:10 and II. Corinthians, 5:8 256 Sermon XXVIII. I. Corinthians, 15:26 265 Sermon XXIX. Matthew, 25:31, 32, 33, 34 275 Sermon XXX. I. Thessalonians, 4:18 284 Sermon XXXI. I. Thessalonians, 2:4 295 « REV. CHARLES AVERY HOLMES, D. D., LL. D. Charles Avery Holmes, son of Rev. George S. and Mary Steelman Holmes, was born in Middletown, Washington County, Pennsylvania, on the Second day of June, 1827. His father was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he followed in the same line. He was thoroughly educated, being early trained by his father to diligent habits of study. In the year 1844, being then only seventeen years of age, he grad- uated from the Western University at Pittsburgh. From that institution he received the degree of 1,1,. D. in 1893—the degree of Doctor of Divinity having been conferred upon him many years previously by Waynesburg College. Under the ministry of his father, he was converted, when less than twelve years of age, and united with the Church in Steuben- ville, Ohio. The soundness of his conversion was beyond all doubt or question, and the power of it remained with him all through life. In 1847, when he was twenty years old, he was received into the Pittsburgh Conference, and began his work in the ministry. In that work he continued without a break until the time of his death. The various charges which he served in his ministry, and the years for which he was appointed to them, were as follows : 1847, Ohio Circuit (as junior preacher, with Rev. J. J. Moffitt as his senior colleague) ; 1848, Smithfield Circuit, Ohio (as junior preacher, with Rev. Wm. Tipton as his senior colleague) ; 1849- 50, Cadiz Circuit (as junior preacher, with Rev. J. J. Moffitt as his senior colleague); 185 1, Coshocton; 1852-53, South Street Church, Steubenville ; 1854, Wellsburg, West Virginia ; 1855-56, 3 Washington, Pennsylvania ; 1857-59, Presiding Elder of Wash- ington District; 1860-61, Christ Church, Pittsburgh; 1862-63, Presiding Elder of Uniontown District ; 1864-66, Smith- field Street Church, Pittsburgh ; 1867-68, President of Iowa Wesleyan University, and Pastor of Main Street Church, Mount Pleasant, Iowa; 1869-71, Sewickley, Pennsylvania; 1872-73, North Avenue Church, Allegheny ; 1874-76, Grace Church, Harrisburg ; (March), Pine Street Church, Williamsport 1877 ; 1877 (October), and 1878, Trinity Church, Louisville, Kentucky; 1879, Washington, Pennsylvania ; 1880-82, Butler Street Church, Pittsburgh ; 1883, First Church, Oakland, California ; 1884-86, Presiding Elder of Pittsburgh District, Pennsylvania ; 1887-90, Union Church, Allegheny ; 1891-93, Arch Street Church, Allegheny ; 1894-96, Beaver. He was a delegate to the General Conferences of i860, 1864, 1868 and 1872. He was a member of the General Book Com- mittee of the Church from 1864 to 1868, and a member of the Board of Education from 1872 to 1876. On the fourteenth of November, 1850, he was married to Tempe, daughter of William Tingley, of Cadiz, Ohio. Never did man have more perfect wife ; and his home and family were constantly in the heart and the mind of Dr. Holmes. Noted as he was as a man of fame and good works, one of the most distin- guishing features of his character was his loving devotion to his wife and children. And when, on the twenty-fifth of August, 1889, he saw the partner of his life precede him to the home beyond, it was with the memory of a life of truest affection upon earth that he looked forward to the reunion of the life which is in Heaven. Dr. Holmes was a man of unusual strength of character. " He was firmness itself, wherever principle was involved. But he was inexpressibly tender toward all whom he could serve. Gen- erous beyond all measure, liberal and broad-hearted, as he was, he could not tolerate the thought of wrong. He was kind and char- itable with the erring ; but meanness in any form he thoroughly despised. None ever heard him make special profession of his own in religious life, nor declare any goodness in attainment himself ; and none who knew him failed to recognize the fact that he was ' ' an intensely religious man who ' walked with God. ' Extremely unselfish, his life was devoted to the interests of others and not to his own. Of himself he thought last of all. Constant in his ministry to all who suffered or were in want, and open-handed and open-hearted to all who met him in the wide circles of friend- * ship, he fairly won for himself the reputation of a ' man of love. His was the superiority of a righteous man to fear of any kind. Neither frown nor threat could swerve him from his prin- ciples. No force of opposition was ever great enough to make him tremble. In the dark days of our National history, his voice was ever heard in support of the flag of his country ; and his labors in behalf of his country, when his life was imperilled by what he said and did, gave him fame as one who counted deeds of loyalty superior to thoughts of personal safety. In matters of political and religious interest and principle, he was outspoken and positive in support of what he deemed the right. But, while earnest and forcible in his uncompromising support of that in which he believed, he was ever courteous and generous toward all honest opponents. And it was no uncommon thing for those who had honestly differed with him, to become his warm friends and admirers. Possessed of remarkable intellectual gifts, and a life-long student, he was essentially a scholar. His acquaintance with the world of literature was a profound intimacy. His reading was wide and universal. What he read, he remembered ; and he had a wonderful faculty for adapting and making use of what he acquired in study. A natural orator, he cultivated all his graces, and was a speaker of unusual eloquence and force. He was a master of the art of enunciation. With a voice powerful, but delightfully controlled and modulated, sweet, persuasive and con- vincing, he never failed to attract and interest and impress his hearers. Although always a ready speaker, never failing for thought or its verbal expression on the most sudden emergency or demand for speech, he invariably gave careful preparation to every subject and occasion upon which he knew that he was to speak. He deemed every occasion worthy of the best that he could do. And his habits of study and practiced memory equipped him for those times when he was called upon for public utterance without previous notice. The sermons contained in this volume are selected from the large number which he wrote in full. They are printed from his manuscripts, word for word as he wrote them, without change of any kind. There has been no work for an editor, and no altera- tions have been made. The one difficulty encountered, has been in the matter of choosing from the immense wealth of sermonic pro- ductions which he left in his desk—each sermon seeming equally worthy of publication with all the others. These which are printed were all delivered in the regular course of his work in the ministry. The sermon which closes this collection is the last one preached by him. It was on Sunday morning, February twenty-eighth, 6 1897, that he delivered it. Ill for more than a year, and much of the time suffering extreme weakness and great pain, he had re- mained at his work. For some time he had seemed to be in some ways improving in health, but was growing weaker. Upon the morning named, he stood in his pulpit at Beaver, Pennsylvania, and preached as usual, with no thought that he was finishing his work. When within a few minutes of the close of the sermon, he suddenly became so weak that he was compelled to stop. In a few moments the sense of faintness had passed from him ; but from that hour on he lost strength, and in two weeks his life had worn out and he had gone to his eternal rest. Monday morning, the fifteenth of March, 1897, at twenty minutes before four o'clock, he quietly passed in sleep from this world to the world in which there is neither pain nor weakness.