{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12529/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12529","id":"gutenberg_12529","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12529","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life","Christianity"],"text":"QUIET TALKS ON SERVICE\n\nby\n\nS. D. GORDON\n\nAuthor of \"Quiet Talks on Power\" and \"Quiet Talks on Prayer\"\n\n1906\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n\nPersonal Contact with Jesus: The Beginning of Service\nThe Triple Life: The Perspective of Service\nYokefellows: The Rhythm of Service\nA Passion for Winning Men: The Motive-power of Service\nDeep-Sea Fishing: The Ambition of Service\nMoney: The Golden Channel of Service\nWorry: A Hindrance to Service\nGideon's Band: Sifted for Service\n\n\n\n\nPersonal Contact With Jesus: The Beginning of Service.\n\n\n\n    The Beginning of an Endless Friendship.\n    An Ideal Biography.\n    The Eyes of the Heart.\n    We are Changed.\n    The Outlook Changed.\n    Talking with Jesus.\n    Getting Somebody Else.\n    The True Source of Strong Service.\n\n\n\n\nPersonal Contact With Jesus: The Beginning of Service.\n\n(John i:35-51.)\n\n\n\nThe Beginning of an Endless Friendship.\n\n\nAbout a quarter of four one afternoon, three young men were standing\ntogether on a road leading down to a swift-running river. It was an old\nroad, beaten down hard by thousands of feet through hundreds of years. It\nled down to the river, and then along its bank through a village\nscatteringly nestled by the fords of the river. The young men were\nintently absorbed in conversation.\n\nOne of them was a man to attract attention anywhere. He was clearly the\nleader of the three. His clothing was very plain, even to severeness. His\nface was spare, suggesting a diet as severely plain as his garments. The\nabundance of dark hair on head and face brought out sharply the spare,\nthoughtful, earnest look of his face. His eyes glowed like coals of living\nfire beneath the thick, bushy eyebrows. He talked quietly but intensely.\nThere was a subdued vigor and force about his very person.\n\nOne of the others was a very different type of man. He was intense too,\nlike the leader, but there was a fineness and a far-looking depth about\nhis eye such as suggests a gray eye rather than a black. His hair was\nsofter and finer, and his skin too. In him intensity seemed to blend with\na fine grain in his whole make-up. The third man was a quiet,\nmatter-of-fact looking fellow. He did not talk much, except to ask an\noccasional question. The three men were engaged in earnest conversation,\nwhen a fourth man, a stranger, came down the road and, passing the three\nby, went on ahead.\n\nThe leader of the three called the attention of his companions to the\nstranger. At once they leave his side and go after the stranger. As they\nnearly catch up to him, he unexpectedly turns and in a kindly voice asks,\n\"Whom are you looking for?\" Taken aback by the unexpected question, they\ndo not answer, but ask where he is going. Quickly noticing the point of\ntheir question, he cordially says, \"Come over and take tea with me.\"\n\nThey gladly accepted the invitation, and spent the evening with him. And\nthe friendship begun that day continued to the end of their lives. Both\nbecame his dear friends. And one, the fine-grained, intense man, became\nhis closest bosom friend. He never forgot that day. When he came years\nafter to write about his hospitable friend, found that afternoon, he could\nremember every particular of their first meeting. We must always be\ngrateful to John for his simple, full account of his first meeting with\nJesus.\n\n\n\nAn Ideal Biography.\n\n\nHis simple story of that afternoon contains in it the three steps that\nbegin all service. They looked at Jesus; they talked with Jesus; forever\nto the end of their lives they talked about Him. Here are the two personal\ncontacts that underlie all service, that lead into all service. The close\npersonal contact with Jesus begun and continued. And then personal contact\nwith other men ever after. The first always leads to the second. The power\nand helpfulness of the second grow out of the first.\n\nThere is a little line in the story that may serve as a graphic biography\nof John the Herald. There could be no finer biography of anybody of whom\nit could be truly written. It is this: \"Looking upon Jesus as He walked,\nhe said look.\" He himself was absorbed in looking. Jesus caught him from\nthe first. He was ever looking. And he asked others to look. His whole\nministry was summed up in pointing Jesus out to others.\n\nHe was ever insisting that men look at Jesus. Looking, he said \"look.\"\nHis lips said it, and life said it. John's presence was always spelling\nout that word \"look,\" with his whole life an index finger pointing to\nJesus. If we might be like that. Every man of us may be in his life, in\nthe great unconscious influence of his presence, a clearly lettered\nsignpost pointing men to the Master. All true service begins in personal\ncontact with Jesus. One cannot know Him personally without catching the\nwarm contagion of His spirit for others. And there is a fine fragrance, a\ngentle, soft warmth, about the service that grows out of being with Him.\n\nThe beginning of John's contact with Jesus that day, and Andrew's, was in\nlooking. Their friend the herald bid them look. They found him looking.\nThey did as he was doing. Following the line of his eyes, and of his\nteaching too, and of his life, they looked at Jesus. And as they looked\nthe sight of their eyes began to control them. They left John and\nquickened their pace to get nearer to this Man at whom they were looking.\nThere never was a finer tribute to a man's faithfulness to his Master than\nis found in these men leaving John. They could not help going. They had\nbeen led by John into the circle of Jesus' attractive power. And at once\nthey are irresistibly drawn toward its center.\n\nThe basis of the truest devotion and deepest loyalty to Jesus is not in a\ncreed but in Himself. There must be creeds. Whatever a man believes is of\ncourse his creed. Though as quickly as he puts it into words he narrows\nit. Truth is always more than any statement of it. Faith is always greater\nthan our words about it. We do not see Jesus with our outer eyes as did\nthese men in the Gospel narrative. We cannot put out our hands in any such\nway as Thomas did and know by the feel. We must listen first to somebody\ntelling about Him.\n\nWe listen either with eyes on the Book, or ears open to some faithful\nmutual friend of His and ours. What we hear either way is a creed,\nsomebody's belief about Jesus. So we come to Jesus first through a creed,\nsomebody's belief, somebody's telling: so we know there is a Jesus, and\nare drawn to Himself. When we come to know Himself, always afterwards He\nis more than anything anybody ever told us, and more than we can ever\ntell.\n\n\n\nThe Eyes of the Heart.\n\n\nLooking at Jesus--what does it mean practically? It means hearing about\nHim first, then actually appealing to Him, accepting His word as personal\nto one's self, putting Him to the test in life, trusting His death to\nsquare up one's sin score, trusting His power to clean the heart and\nsweeten the spirit, and stiffen the will. It means holding the whole life\nup to His ideals. Aye, it means more yet; something on His side, an\nanswering look from Him. There comes a consciousness within of His love\nand winsomeness. That answering look of His holds us forever after His\nwilling slaves, love's slaves. Paul speaks of the eyes of the heart. It is\nwith these eyes we look at Him, and receive His answering look.\n\nThere are different ways of looking at Jesus, degrees in looking. Our\nexperiences with Jesus affect the eyes of the heart. When this same John\nas an old man was writing that first epistle, he seems to recall his\nexperience in looking that first day. He says \"that which we have _seen_\nwith our eyes, that which we _beheld_.\"[1] From seeing with the eyes he\nhad gone to earnest, thoughtful _gazing_, caught with the vision of what\nhe saw. That was John's own experience. It is everybody's experience that\ngets a look at Jesus. When the first looking sees something that catches\nfire within, then does the inner fire affect the eye and more is seen.\n\nYou have been in a strange city walking down the street, looking with\ninterest at what is there. But all at once you are caught by a sign that\ncontains a familiar name, and at once a whole flood of memories is\nawakened.\n\nThe little Jericho Jew peering down from the low out-reaching sycamore\nbranch was full of curiosity to see the Man that had changed his old\nfriend Levi Matthew so strangely. But that curiosity quickly changes into\nsomething far deeper and more tender as Jesus comes to abide in his own\nhome.\n\nThat lonely-lifed, sore-hearted woman on the Nain road looked with\nstartled wonder out of those wet eyes of hers as Jesus begins talking to\nher dead son. What love and faith must have been in her looking as Jesus\nwith fine touch brings her boy by the hand over to her warm embrace again!\n\n\n\nWe are Changed.\n\n\nLooking at Jesus _changes us._ Paul's famous bit in the second Corinthian\nletter has a wondrous tingle of gladness in it. \"We all with open face\nbeholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed from glory to\nglory.\"[2] The change comes through our looking. The changing power comes\nin through the eyes. It is the glory of the Lord that is seen. The\nglorious Jesus looking in through our looking eyes changes us. It is\ngradual. It is ever more, and yet more, till by and by His own image comes\nout fully in our faces.\n\nWe become like those with whom we associate. A man's ideals mold him.\nLiving with Jesus makes us look like Himself. We are familiar with the\nwork that has been done in restoring old fine paintings. A painting by one\nof the rare old master painters is found covered with the dust of decades.\nTime has faded out much of the fine coloring and clearly marked outlines.\nWith great patience and skill it is worked over and over. And something of\nthe original beauty, coming to view again, fully repays the workman for\nall his pains.\n\nThe original image in which we were made has been badly obscured and faded\nout. But if we give our great Master a chance He will restore it through\nour eyes. It will take much patience and a skill nothing less than divine.\nBut the original will surely come out more and more till we shall again be\nlike the original, for we shall _see_ Him as He is.\n\nThe old German artist Hoffmann is said to visit at intervals the royal\ngallery in Dresden, where he lives, to touch up his paintings there. Even\nso our Master, living in us, keeps touching us up that the full beauty of\nHis ideal may be brought out.\n\nHow often a girl growing up into the fullness of her mature young\nwomanhood calls out the remark, \"You are growing more and more like your\nmother.\" And the similar remark is heard of a young man developing the\ntraits and features of his father.\n\nThere is a law of unconscious assimilation. We become like those with whom\nwe go. Without being conscious of it we take on the characteristics of\nthose with whom we live. I remember one time my brother returned home for\na visit after a prolonged absence. As we were walking down the street\ntogether he said to me, \"You have been going with Denning a good deal\"--a\nmutual friend of ours. Surprised, I said, \"How do you know I have?\" He\nsaid, \"You walk just like him.\" What my brother had said was strictly\ntrue, though he did not know it. Our friend had a very decided way of\nwalking. As a matter of fact, we had been walking home from the Young\nMen's Christian Association three or four nights every week. And\nunconsciously I had grown to imitate his way of walking.\n\nThat sentence of Paul's has also this meaning, \"We all with open face\n_reflecting_ as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed.\" We stand\nbetween Him and those who don't know Him. We are the mirror catching the\nrays of His face and sending them down to those around. And not only do\nthose around see the light--His light--in us, but we are being changed all\nthe while. For others' sake as well as our own the mirror should be kept\nclean, and well polished so the reflection will be distinct and true.\n\n\n\nThe Outlook Changed.\n\n\nLooking at Jesus _changes the world for us._ It is as though the light of\nHis eyes fills our eyes and we see things all around as He sees them. Have\nyou ever gone out, as a child, and looked intently at the sun, repressing\nthe flinching its strength caused and insisting on looking? You could do\nit for a short time only. It made your eyes ache. But as you turned your\neyes away from its brilliance you found everything changed. You remember a\nbeautiful yellow glory-light was over everything, and every ugly jagged\nthing was softened and beautified by that glow in your eyes. Looking at\nthe sun had changed the world for you for a little.\n\nIt is something like that on this higher plane, in this finer sense. That\nmust have been something of Paul's thought in explaining the glory of\nJesus that he saw on the Damascus road. \"When I could not see for the\nglory of that light.\" The old ideals were blurred. The old ambitions faded\naway. The jagged, sharp lines of sacrifice and suffering involved in his\nnew life were not clearly seen. A halo had come over them.\n\nI recall a bit of a poem I ran across in an old magazine somewhere. It was\none of those vagrant, orphan poems with fine family lineaments that find\ntheir way unfathered into odd corners of papers. It told about a man\nriding on horseback through a bit of timber land in one of the cotton\nstates of the South.\n\nIt was a bright October day, and he was riding along enjoying the air and\nview, when all at once he came across a bit of a clearing in the trees,\nand in the clearing an old cabin almost fallen to pieces, and in the\ndoorway of the cabin an old negress standing. Her back was bent nearly\ndouble with the years of hard work, her face dried up and deeply bitten\nwith wrinkles, and her hair white. But her eyes were as bright as two\nstars out of the dark blue, it said.\n\nAnd the man called out cheerily, \"Good-morning, auntie, living here all\nalone?\" And she looked up, with her eyes brighter yet with the thought in\nher heart, and in a shrill keyed-up voice said, \"Jes me 'n' Jesus, massa.\"\nBut he said a hush came over the whole place, there seemed a halo about\nthe old broken-down cabin, and he thought he could see Somebody standing\nby her side looking over her shoulder at him, and His form was like that\nof the Son of God.\n\nHow poor and limited and mean her world looked to him as he rode up. But\nhow quickly everything changed as he saw it through her seeing of it. With\nthe keen insight into spirit things so often found in such simplicity\namong her race, she had gotten the whole simple philosophy of life. Her\nworld was changed and beautiful in the loneliness of the woods by reason\nof her Master's presence.\n\nThis removes the commonplace at once clear out of one's life. There is no\ndrudgery nor humdrum nor hardship, because everything is for Jesus, and\nseen through His eyes. Whatever comes in the pathway of his work is\ngladdest joy, whether an obscure narrow round of home work or shop or\nstore, or leaving home for a strange land far across the sea with a\npeculiarly uncongenial spirit atmosphere. Contact with Jesus, seeing Him,\nchanges all for us.\n\n\n\nTalking with Jesus.\n\n\nThese two men in the story went from their first looking into closer\ncontact. They looked at Jesus. Then they talked with Jesus. It was at His\nown request. He wanted them. He wanted their friendship and their help.\nHaving started, it was easy for them to go. Having seen, they naturally\nwanted more. At least two hours they talked, maybe longer. Judging by what\nthey did as soon as they got away, it was a most wonderful talk for them.\n\nThis Jesus took them at once. His face, His presence, His talk, Himself\nfilled all their sky. Everything swung around into a new setting. He was\nits center. All things began to adjust themselves for these men about\nJesus. He was irresistible to them. These two men went through some most\ntrying experiences as a result of the friendship formed that evening hour,\nbut these counted not in the scale with _Him_. They never got over the\ntalk with Him that twilight hour.\n\nThat two hours' talk lengthened out into many another during the years\nimmediately after. They got into the habit of referring everything to Him,\nand of judging everything by what He would think. It was so clear to the\nend of their lives. For a little over three years did they keep Him by\ntheir side actually, physically. But the habit of keeping Him there was\nfixed for all the longer after years. The looking at Jesus and talking\nwith Jesus ever went side by side clear to the end of the years.\n\nIt will be so. Getting a good look at this Master draws one off into the\nquiet corner with the Book to listen and talk and learn more. And out of\nthis naturally grows (if one will give a little attention to good\ngardening rules) the habit of talking with Him all the time. In the thick\nof the crowd, in the solitude of one's duties, with hands full of work,\nthe heart talks with Him and listens, and sometimes the tongue talks out\ntoo. Our common word for it is prayer. Prayer precedes true service, and\nproduces it, and sweetens it. Only the service that grows up naturally out\nof this personal contact with Jesus counts and tells and weighs for the\nmost.\n\n\n\nGetting Somebody Else.\n\n\nThese two men went away from Jesus that evening only to come back with\nsome others. They went from talking with Him to talking with others for\nHim. Their personal contact was the beginning of their service. This is\none of the famous personal work chapters. There are three \"findeths\" in\nit. Andrew findeth his brother Peter. That was a great find. John in his\nmodesty doesn't speak of it, but in all likelihood he findeth James _his_\nbrother. Jesus findeth Philip and Philip in turn findeth Nathaniel, the\nguileless man.\n\nThat word findeth is very suggestive, even to being picturesque. It tells\nthe absence of these other men. Their whereabouts might be guessed, but\nwere not known. There was in the searchers a purpose, and a warmth in the\nheart under that purpose. As Andrew looked and listened he said to\nhimself, \"Peter must hear this; Peter must see this Man.\" And perhaps he\nasks to be excused and, reaching for his hat, hastens out to get his\nbrother and bring him back to the house. He wants more himself, but he'll\nget it with Peter in too. And so it would be with John likely.\n\nPeter had to be searched for. Most men do. He was probably absorbed with\nall his impulsive intensity in some matter on hand. May be Andrew had to\npull quite a bit to get him started. But he got him. Andrew was a good\nsticker: hard to shake him off. His is a fine name for a brotherhood of\npersonal workers. And when Peter once got started he never quit going. He\nstumbled some, but he got up, and got up only to go on. Most men need some\none to get them started. There's need of more starters, more of us\nstarting people moving Jesus' way.\n\nI think the memory of this evening's work with Peter must have come back\nvery vividly to Andrew one morning a few years afterwards. It's up on the\nhills of Judea, in Jerusalem. There's a great crowd of people standing in\nthe streets, filling the space for a great distance. There are some\nthousands of them. They are listening spellbound to a man talking. It is\nPeter. And down there near by, maybe holding Peter's hat while he talks,\nis Andrew. His eyes are glowing. And if you might listen to his heart\ntalking, I think you would hear it saying softly, \"I'm so glad I brought\nPeter that evening I met Jesus.\" Peter's talk that day swung three\nthousand men and women over to Jesus. Somebody has said that if Peter were\ntheir spiritual father, certainly Andrew was their spiritual grandfather.\nAnd I think God reckons the thing that way, too.\n\nThere is a great deal of good talk these days about regenerating society.\nIt used to be that men talked about \"reaching the masses.\" Now the other\nputting of it is commoner. It is helpful talk whichever way it is put. The\nGospel of Jesus is to affect all society. It _has_ affected all society,\nand is to more and more. But the thing to mark keenly is this, the key to\nthe mass is the man. The way to regenerate society is to start on the\nindividual.\n\nThe law of influence through personal contact is too tremendous to be\ngrasped. You influence one man and you have influenced a group of men, and\nthen a group around each man of the group, and so on endlessly.\nHand-picked fruit gets the first and best market. The keenest marksmen are\npicked out for the sharpshooters' corps.\n\n\n\nThe True Source of Strong Service.\n\n\nOne morning with a friend I walked out of the city of Geneva to where the\nwaters of the lake flow with swift rush into the Rhone. And we were both\ngreatly interested in the strange sight which has impressed so many\ntravellers. There are two rivers whose waters come together here, the\nRhone and the Arve, the Arve flowing into the Rhone. The waters of the\nRhone are beautifully clear and sparkling. The waters of the Arve come\nthrough a clayey soil and are muddy, gray, and dull. And for a long\ndistance the two waters are wholly distinct. Two rivers of water are in\none river-bed, on one side the sparkling blue Rhone water, on the other\nthe dull gray Arve water, and the line between the two sharply defined.\nAnd so it continues for a long distance. Then gradually they blend and the\ngray begins to tinge all through the blue.\n\nI went to the guide-book and maps to find out something about this river\nthat kept on its way undefiled by its neighbor for so long. Its source is\nin a glacier that is between ten thousand and eleven thousand feet high,\ndescending \"from the gates of eternal night, at the foot of the pillar of\nthe sun.\" It is fed continually by the melting glacier which, in turn, is\nbeing kept up by the snows and cold. Rising at this great height, ever\nbeing renewed steadily by the glacier, it comes rushing down the swift\ndescent of the Swiss Alps through the lake of Geneva and on. There is the\nsecret of purity, side by side with its dirty neighbor.\n\nOur lives must have their source high up in the mountains of God, fed by a\nceaseless supply. Only so can there be the purity, and the momentum that\nshall keep us pure, and keep us _moving_ down in contact with men of the\nearth. And we must keep closer to the source than is the Rhone at Geneva,\nelse the streams flowing alongside will unduly influence us. Constant\npersonal contact with Jesus is the beginning ever new of service.\n\n\n\n\nThe Triple Life: The Perspective of Service.\n\n\n\n    On An Errand for Jesus.\n    The Parting Message.\n    A Secret Life of Prayer.\n    An Open Life of Purity.\n    An Active Life of Service.\n    The Perspective of True Service.\n    A Long Time Coming.\n\n\n\n\nThe Triple Life: The Perspective of Service.\n\n(Luke ix:1-6; x:1-3, 17; John xx:19-23; Matthew xxviii:18-20.)\n\n\n\nOn An Errand for Jesus.\n\n\nYou remember there were four times that Jesus picked out a group of men,\nand sent them on a special errand. About the middle of the second year of\nHis public life, He chose out twelve men and commissioned them for a\nspecial bit of work. Six months before the tragic end, He chose seventy\nothers and sent them out in twos into all the places He was planning to\nvisit Himself. It was a remarkable campaign for carrying the news which He\nwas preaching into all the villages of that whole country through which\nHis journey south lay.\n\nThen the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten resurrection day, under\nwholly changed conditions, He again commissions ten men of that first\ntwelve. Things had radically changed with Jesus. And there had been a bad\nbreak in the loyalty of these men. Two of their number are absent. Judas\nhas gone to his own place, and Thomas was not there that evening. His\nabsence cost him a week of doubting and mental distress. Ten of the old\ninner circle are commissioned anew. And then do you remember the last time\nthey were together? It was about six weeks later, on the rounded top of\nthe old Olives Mount, the eleven men with the Master. Four times He\ncommissioned a group of men for some service He wanted done.\n\nThere are two things in these four commissions that make them alike. The\nsame two things are in each. The first thing is this: they are bidden to\n\"go.\" That ringing word \"go ye\" is in, each time. \"As the Father hath sent\nMe even so send I you.\" It is a familiar word to every follower of Jesus\nthen, and now, and always. A true follower of His always is stirred by a\nspirit of _\"go.\"_ A going Christian is a growing Christian. A going church\nhas always been a growing church. Those ages when the church lost the\nvision of her Master's face on Olives, and let other sounds crowd out of\nher ears the sound of His voice, were stagnant ages. They are commonly\nspoken of in history as the dark ages. \"Go\" is the ringing keynote of the\nChristian life, whether in a man or in the church.\n\nThe second thing found always in each of these commissions is this: they\nwere qualified, or empowered to go. Whom God calls He always qualifies.\nWhere His voice comes His Spirit breathes. If there has come to you some\nbit of a call to service, to teach a class, or write a special letter, or\nspeak a word, or take up something needing to be done. And you hesitate.\nYou think that you cannot. You are not fit, you think, not qualified. The\nthing to do is to do it.\n\nIf the call is clear go ahead. Need is one of the strong calling voices of\nGod. It is always safe to respond. Put _out_ your foot in the answering\nswing, even though you cannot see clearly the place to put it _down_. God\nattends to that part. Power comes _as we go_.\n\n\n\nThe Parting Message.\n\n\nJust now I want to talk with you a bit about the last one of these\ncommissions, the Olivet commission. I do not know just what day it was\ngiven or at what hour. But I have thought it was in the twilight of a\nSabbath evening. There's a yellow glow of light filling all the western\nsky running along the broken line of those hills yonder, and through the\ntrees, and in upon this group of men standing.\n\nHere in full view lies little Bethany fragrant with memories of Jesus'\npower. Over yonder, those tree tops down in a bit of valley with the\nbrook--that is _Gethsemane_. And farther over there is the fortress city\nof _Jerusalem_. And just outside its wall is the bit of a knoll called\n_Calvary_. Here under these trees every night that last week of the\ntragedy Jesus had slept out in the open, with His seamless coat wrapped\nabout Him. This is the spot He chooses for the good-by word. It is full of\nmost precious, fragrant memories.\n\nHere is the man who has been Simon, but out of whom a new man was coming\nthese days, Peter, the man of rock. And here are John and James, sons of\nfire and of thunder, sons of their mother. And there, little Scotch\nAndrew. At least our Scotch friends seem to have adopted him as their very\nown. And close by his side is his friend with the Greek name, Philip. And\nhere the man to whom Jesus paid the great tribute of naming him the\nguileless man.\n\nAnd the others, not so well known to us, but very well known to Jesus, and\nto be not a whit less faithful than their brothers these coming days. But\nsomehow as you look you are at once irresistibly drawn past these to\n_Him_--the Man in the midst. The Man with the great face, torn with the\nthorns, and cut with the thongs, but shining with a sweet, wondrous,\nbeauty light.\n\nIt is the last time they are together. He is going away; coming back soon,\nthey understand. They do not know just how soon. But meanwhile in His\nabsence they are to be as He Himself would be if He remained among men.\nThey are to stand for Him. And so with eyes fixed on His face they look,\nand listen, and wonder a bit, just what the last word will be.\n\nWhat would you expect it to be? It was the good-by word between men who\nwere lovers, dearest friends. The tenderest thing would be said and the\nmost important. The one going away would speak of that which lay closest\ndown in His own heart. And whatever He might say would sink deepest into\ntheir hearts, and control their action in the after days.\n\nHe had been talking to them very insistently, about an hour before, down\nin the city, about _waiting there_ until the Holy Spirit came upon them.\nAnd that word has fastened itself into their minds with newly sharpened\nhooks of steel points. Now He talks about their being His witnesses, here\nat home among their own folks, and out among their half-breed Samaritan\nneighbors, whom they didn't like, and then--with eyes looking yearningly\nout and finger pointing steadily out--to the farthest reach of the planet.\nAnd now, as He is about to go, this is the word that comes from those\nlips:\n\n    \"All power hath been given unto Me.\n      Therefore go ye,\n    And make disciples of all nations.\"\n\n\n\nA Secret Life of Prayer.\n\n\nThere are four things in that good-by word. Three are directly spoken, and\none is not spoken, but directly implied. First is this, your chief work is\nto win men. That is directly said. The second is implied--it is the\ntoughest task you ever undertook. That is implied in this that it will\ntake more power than they have. A power that only He has. A supernatural\npower. And we all know how true that is. Of all luggage man is the hardest\nto move. He _won't_ move unless he _will_. Every man of us that has ever\ntried to change somebody's else purpose knows how impossible it is unless\nby the inward pull. You simply _cannot_ without the man's consent. The\nthird thing is this: I have all the power needed. The fourth this: _You_\ngo.\n\nAnd the Master meant to tell them, and to tell us, this: that a man should\nlead a triple life, three lives in one. We sometimes hear of a man leading\na double life in a bad sense. In a good sense, every one of us should be\nliving a triple life, three distinct lives in one. The first of these\nthree lives is this: _a secret life, lived with Jesus, hidden from the\neyes of men_. An inner life of closest contact with Him, that the outside\nfolks know nothing about.\n\nNotice again the four statements in that good-by word. Your chief concern\nis to win men. It is the toughest task you ever undertook: it will take\nsupernatural power. I have all the power you need. Instinctively you feel\nas though the fourth thing should be, \"I will go.\" That would seem to be\nthe logical conclusion. \"No,\" Jesus says, \"_you go_.\" Plainly if we are to\ndo something taking supernatural power, and we haven't any such power of\nourselves, there must be the closest kind of contact with the source of\npower. The man who is to go must be in the most intimate contact with the\nMan who has the powers needed in the going.\n\nAnd this is simply a law of all life, given to us here by life's greatest\nPhilosopher. The seen depends upon the secret always. The outer keys upon\nthe inner. The life that men see depends wholly upon the life that only\nthe Master sees. David had power to slay the lion and bear in secret, away\nfrom the gaze of men, before he had power to slay the giant before the\nwondering eyes of two nations. The closet becomes the swivel of the\nstreet.\n\nIn crossing the ocean there are two great dangers to be dreaded and\nguarded against, aside from the storms that may arise. The greater of\nthese is an abandoned ship. One that through some stress of storm has been\nleft by the sailors in the attempt to save their lives. It is most\ndangerous because it sends no warning ahead of its presence. In crossing\nthe Atlantic by the more northern routes the other danger is from the\nicebergs that may be met in the steamer's path. If a fog obscure the\nlookout the boat is slowed down, and a man kept busy with line and\nthermometer taking the temperature of the water. The iceberg is kindlier\nthan the derelict, in the chill it sends out. The presence of the danger\ncan so be detected, and measures taken to avoid it.\n\nBut the great danger here is not simply in the huge mountain of ice that\nyou see looming up against the sky, great as that is. It is in the unseen\nice. Hidden away below is a mountain of ice twice as large and heavy as\nthat seen above the water's surface. The danger lies in the terrific force\nof a blow from this hidden pile that would crush the strongest steel\nsteamer, as I might crush an egg-shell in my fingers.\n\nWe all admire the beauty of the trees that rear their heads, and send out\ntheir branches, and make the world so beautiful with their soft green\nfoliage. But have you thought of the twin tree, the unseen tree that\nbelongs to these we see? For every tree that grows up and out with its\nbeauty and fruit there is another. The twin tree goes down and out.\n\nSometimes, as far as this we see goes _up_, the other goes _down_; as far\nas the branches go out so far do the underneath branches go out,\nsometimes farther. This unseen tree is ever busy drawing moisture, and\nfood from the soil and sending it, ceaselessly sending it, up to the upper\ntree. The beauty and fruitfulness above are because of this secret life of\nthe tree.\n\nI remember as a boy going to the bathroom in our home one day to draw some\nwater. But none came. There were a few drops, and some sputtering--there's\nvery apt to be sputtering when there is nothing else--but no flow of\nwater. And I wondered why. Soon I found that the main pipe in the street\nwas being fixed, and the water had been cut off at the curb. There was\nwater in the pipe clear from the curbstone up to the spigot, but I could\nnot get it because the reservoir connection under the ground had been\nturned off.\n\nI have met some people since then that made me think of that. There is a\nreservoir of water, clear and sweet, with which they have had connection,\nand are supposed still to have. But when some thirsty body comes up for a\nbit of refreshment, there's some sputtering, some noise, may be a few\nstray drops--but no more. And folks seem thirstier because they were\nexpecting a cool, satisfying drink that never came.\n\nI think I know why it is so. The secret connection with the reservoir has\nbeen tampered with. There _must_ be the secret contact with Jesus\ncultivated habitually if there is to be a sweet, strong outer life. And\nnot cultivated by hothouse methods. Such plants won't stand the chilly air\noutside the glass-house. Cultivated by natural, simple contact with Jesus,\nover His Word, habitually, until everything comes under the influence of\nthat secret life.\n\nOne day a man was standing on a busy downtown thoroughfare in Cleveland\nwaiting for a car. There was a thick, dirty wire hanging down from the\ncross arm high up of the wire pole. He happened to stop there. And\nabsorbed in thought, he mechanically put out his hand and took hold of the\nwire. Instantly a look of intense agony came into his face. His arm, and\nwhole body began twisting and writhing. Then he fell to the ground\nlifeless. The dirty-looking wire had direct connections with the\npower-house. It was throbbing with a strong current. It was a \"live\" wire.\n\nSome men who have seemed quite unattractive in the light of some modern\nstandards have been found on touch to be charged with a life current of\ntremendous power. And some others, outwardly more attractive, have been\nfound to be as powerless as a dead wire. And some there have been, and\nare, very winsome and attractive in themselves, and charged with the life\ncurrent too. The great thing is the secret connections carefully\nmaintained with the source of power.\n\nThere must be the closest kind of touch with God if His plan through us\nfor a planet is to carry out. We do not run on the storage battery plan,\nbut on the trolley plan, or the third rail. There must be constant full\ntouch with the feed wire or rail. And that \"must\" should be spelled in\ncapitals, and printed in red, and triply underscored.\n\nA man _must_ plan for the bit of quiet time daily, preferably in the early\nmorning, alone with Jesus; with the door shut, the Book open, the spirit\nquiet, the mind alert, the knee bent, the will bent too. If it be\nresolutely _planned_ for it can be gotten in every life. If not planned\nfor with a bit of red iron in the will, it will surely slip out. And the\nman will surely slip down.\n\nHere is found the spirit in which a man may live all the day long,\nwherever his feet may tread, in the fierce competition of trade, or in the\ndeadly enervation of some society circles. Out of such a man shall\nbreathe, all unconsciously to himself, an atmosphere fragrant as a\nmountain breeze over a field of wild roses. This is the first life Jesus\nbids us live.\n\n\n\nAn Open Life of Purity.\n\n\nThe second life we are to live is the exact reverse of this. It is indeed\nthe outer side of this: _an open life of purity lived among men for\nJesus_. Note again the logic of that good-by word. Your chief business is\nto be down there in the thick of the crowd, winning men out of the dust\nand dirt up into a new life of purity. It is the hardest job any man ever\nundertook. It is practically impossible unless you have a power quite more\nthan human. Jesus quietly says, \"I have the power that will do it.\"\n\nAgain you feel that He must say next, \"_I_ will go.\" The thing must be\ndone. It is the one thing worth while. It will require a power we haven't.\n_He_ has it. You feel as though _He_ must do the going. \"No,\" He says,\nwith great emphasis. \"_You_ go. You be I; you live my life over again,\ndown there among men.\" The \"Ye\" and \"Me\" in that sentence are meant to be\ninterchangeable words.\n\nHe is asking us to live His life over again among men. No, it is more than\nthat. He is asking us to let Him live His life over again in each of us.\nThe Man with the power that men can't resist would reach out to them\n_through us._ He would be touching them in us. Jesus said, \"As the Father\nhath sent Me, even so send I you.\" He said again, \"He that hath seen Me\nhath seen the Father.\" Jesus embodied the Father to men. He asks us to\ntake His place and embody Himself to men.\n\nPaul understood this thoroughly. In writing to the friends throughout\nGalatia, whom he had won up to Jesus, he says, \"I have been crucified\nwith Christ.\" There is an old dead \"I.\" \"Nevertheless I live.\" There is a\nnew living \"I.\" \"Yet not I--the old I--but Christ liveth in me.\" _He_ was\nthe new I. There was a new personality within Paul. I never weary of\nrecalling what Martin Luther said about that verse in the comment he made\non Galatians. You remember he said, \"If somebody should knock at my\nheart's door, and ask who lives here, I must not say 'Martin Luther lives\nhere.' I would say 'Martin Luther--is--dead--Jesus--Christ--lives--here.'\"\n\nI wonder if any of us has ever been taken for Jesus. I wonder if anybody\nhas ever _mistaken_ any of us for Him. You remember, He used to move among\nmen after the resurrection, and while they would feel the gentle\nwinsomeness of His presence and talk, they did not recognize Him. Has\nsomebody run across you or me sometime, and been with us a little while,\nand then gone away saying to himself, \"I wonder if that was Jesus back\nagain in disguise. He seemed so much like what I think Jesus must have\nbeen--I wonder.\"\n\nWell, if it were so, of course we would not be conscious of it. A\nJesus-man is never absorbed in thinking about himself. He is taken up with\nJesus, and with folks. A man is always least conscious of the power of his\nown presence and life. Everybody else knows more about it than he does.\nPlainly this is the Master's plan for each of us. And more, it is the\nresult when He is allowed free sway.\n\nThe controlling principle of His life was to please His Father. The\npervading purpose and passion was to win men out and up. The\ncharacteristics of His life were purity, unselfishness, sympathy, and\nsimplicity. We are to be as He. He was the Father to all the race of men.\nEach of us is to be Jesus to his circle.\n\nPlease notice I'm not talking about lips just now but about lives. The\nlife is the indorsement of the lips. It makes the words of the lips more\nthan they sound or seem. Or, it makes them less, sometimes pitiably less,\nlittle more than a discount clerk ever busily at work. The words ever go\nto the level of the life, up or down. Water seeks its level persistently.\nSo do one's words, and they find it more quickly than the water, for they\ngo _through_ all obstructions. And the life is the leveler of the words,\nup or down.\n\nSo far as this second life is concerned a man's lips might be sealed, and\nhis tongue dumb, but his life in its purity and simplicity, its\nunselfishness and sympathetic warmness will ever be spelling out Jesus.\nAnd He will be spelled out so big and plain that the man hurriedly\nrunning, or lazily creeping, or half blind in a cloud of dust, will be\nstopping and reading. If there were but more re-incarnations of Jesus how\nfolks would be coming a-running to Him.\n\nDo you remember that prayer in blank verse of the old Scottish preacher\nand poet and saint, Horatius Bonar? He said:\n\n    \"Oh, turn me, mould me, mellow me for use.\n    Pervade my being with Thy vital force,\n    That this else inexpressive life of mine\n    May become eloquent and full of power,\n    Impregnated with life and strength divine.\n    Put the bright torch of heaven into my hand,\n    That I may carry it aloft\n    And win the eye of weary wanderers here below\n    To guide their feet into the paths of peace.\n    I cannot raise the dead,\n    Nor from this soil pluck precious dust,\n    Nor bid the sleeper wake,\n    Nor still the storm, nor bend the lightning back,\n    Nor muffle up the thunder,\n    Nor bid the chains fall from off creation's long enfettered limbs.\n    _But_ I can live a life that tells on other lives,\n    And makes this world less full of anguish and of pain;\n    A life that like the pebble dropped upon the sea\n    Sends its wide circles to a hundred shores.\n    May such a life be mine.\n    Creator of true life, Thyself the life Thou givest,\n    Give Thyself, that Thou mayst dwell in me, and I\n    in Thee.\"\n\n\n\nAn Active Life of Service.\n\n\nThe third life is _a life of active service, of aggressive earnestness in\nwinning men._ I say aggressive. That word does not mean noise and dust,\nshuffling of feet, and bustling confusion. It means rather the steady,\nsteady movement of the sun which noiselessly, dustlessly, moves onward,\nhour after hour, day in and day out, regardless of any storms, or\ndisturbances. It means the quiet, peaceful, but resistless uninterrupted\nmovement of the moon rising night after night, and going through its\ncircle of action. Earnestness means the burning of the inner spirit. Its\nfires dim not, for they are fed continually from secret sources.\n\nThis third life is spoken of directly: \"Go ye and make disciples.\" The\ngoing is to be continued until folks farthest away have heard. Some people\nare bounded by the horizon of the town where they live, some by the\nparticular church to which they belong, some the denomination, some the\nstate, or even the nation. Jesus fixes the horizon of His follower as that\nof the world. Jesus was visionary. He talked about all nations, a race, a\nworld.\n\nAll are to go. They are to go to all. Some may be made wholly free, by\narrangement with their fellow-followers, to give their full strength and\ntime to the direct going and telling. These are highly favored in\nprivilege. Some of these may go to deserted darkened places in the home\nland. Some may go to the city slum, which in its dire need is of close kin\nto the foreign-mission land. These are yet more highly favored in\nprivilege.\n\nSome may go to those far distant lands where Jesus is not known, where the\nneed of Him is so pathetically great. These are the most highly favored in\nthe privilege of service accorded them. Many others have been left free of\nthe necessity of earning bread and home and clothing and so have a rare\nopportunity of devoting themselves to the going, as the Spirit of Jesus\nguides. Many are given the talent to earn easily, and so, if they will,\nmay give much strength to service.\n\nThe great majority everywhere and always are absorbed for most of the\nwaking hours of the day in earning something to eat, and something to\nwear, and somewhere to sleep. Yet where there is the warm touch with Jesus\nthere will come the yearning for purity, and the life of service. With\nthese as with all there may be the service, strong and sweetly fragrant.\nThere is always some bit of spare time, with planning, that can be used in\ndirect service in church, or school, or mission. And the secret life of\nprayer will give a steadiness that will guard against the over-use of\none's strength.\n\nThere can be a personal going to some in words tactfully spoken. There is\nthe life of sweet purity and gentle patience always so winsome, that\nspeaks all the time in musical tones to one's circle. There is an\nenormous, unconscious aggressiveness about such a life. Then there can be\nthe going through gold. And the entire planet can be brought under one's\nthumb of influence through the strangely simple power of prayer.\n\nI have been running across some new versions of this last word of Jesus. A\nsort of re-revisions they are. I have not found them in the common print,\nbut printed in lives, the lives of men. The print is large, chiefly\ncapitals, easily read. These lives are so noisy as to quite shut out what\nthe lips may be saying. There are variations in these translations.\n\nSometime the message is made to read like this: \"All power hath been given\nunto Me, therefore go ye, and make--coins of gold--oh, belong to church of\ncourse--that is proper and has many advantages--and give too. There are\nadvantages about that--give freely, or make it seem freely--give to\nmissions at home and abroad. That is regarded as a sure sign of a liberal\nspirit. But be careful about the _proportion_ of your giving. For the real\nthing that counts at the year's end is how much you have added to the\nstock of dollars in your grasp. These other things are good, but--merely\nincidental. This thing of getting gold is the main drive.\"\n\nPlease understand me, I never heard any of these folks talk in this blunt\nway with their _tongues_. So far as I can hear, they are saying something\nquite different. But what their tongues are saying is made indistinct and\nblurred by some noise near by.\n\nOther translations I have run across have this variation: \"Make a place\nfor yourself, in your profession, in society. Make a comfortable\nliving;--with a wide margin of meaning to that word 'comfortable'--belong\nto the church, become a pillar, or at least move in the pillar's circle,\ngive of course, even freely in appearance, but remember these are the dust\nin the scale, the other is the thing that weighs. All of one's energies\nmust be centered on the main thing.\"\n\nMay I ask you to listen very quietly, while I repeat the Master's own\nwords over very softly and clearly, so that they may get into the inner\ncockles of our hearts anew? \"All power hath been given unto Me; therefore\ngo ye, and _make disciples of all nations_.\" These other translations are\nwrong. They are misleading. _The one main thing is influencing men for\nJesus_.\n\n\n\nThe Perspective of True Service.\n\n\nIt is not the only thing by any means. There is a multitude of things\nperfectly proper and that must be done and well done. But through all\ntheir doing is to run this one strong purpose. These other things are\ndetails, important details, indispensably important, yet details. The\nother is the one main thing toward which the doing of all the others is to\nbend and blend.\n\nPlease mark keenly that there are three lives here; three in one. The\nsecret life of prayer, the open life of purity, the active life of service\nNot one, nor the other, not any two, but all three, this is the true\nideal. This is the true rounded life. And note sharply that this gives the\ntrue perspective of service. The service life grows up out of the other\ntwo. Its roots lie down in prayer and purity. This explains why so much\nservice is fruitless. It isn't rooted. There is no rich subsoil.\n\nIt seems to be a part of the hurt of sin that men do not keep the\nproportion of things balanced, and never have. In former days men shut\nthemselves up behind great walls that they might be pleasing to God. They\nshut out the noise that they might have quiet to pray. They thought to\nshut out the sin that they might be pure, forgetting that they carried it\nin with them.\n\nIn our day things have swung clean over to the other extreme. Now all is\nactivity. The emphasis of the time is upon doing. There is a lot of\nrunning around, and rushing around. There is a great deal of activity that\nseems inseparable from dust. The wheels make such a lot of noise as they\ngo around. _Doing_ that does not root down in the secret touch with\nJesus, may be quite vigorous for a time, but soon leaves behind as its\nonly memory withered up branches. This is a _practical_ age, we are\nconstantly told. Things must be judged by the standard of usefulness. That\nis surely true, and good, but there is very serious danger that the true\nperspective of service be lost in the dust that is being raised.\n\nThe imprint of this disproportion or lack of proportion can even be found\nin the theological teaching of long ago and now. At one time religion was\ndefined as having to do with a man's relation to God. That was emphasized\nto the utter hiding away of all else. In our own day the swing is clear\nover to the other side. Definitions of religion that make everything of\nhelping one's brother and fellow, are the popular thing. There seems to be\na sort of astigmatism that keeps us from seeing things straight. Though\nalways there have been those that saw straight and lived truly.\n\nMark keenly that true touch with God always brings the longing to be pure,\nand the loving of one's fellow. The nearer one gets to God the nearer will\nhe find himself getting to men. Often we find ourselves getting new\nwonderful glimpses of God as we are eagerly helping somebody. Up seems to\ninclude out, as though the line that drew us up to God led through men.\nYet with that always goes the other fact that touch with God makes one\nlong to be alone with Him.\n\nThere are always the three turnings of a true life, upward, inward,\noutward. Upward to God, inward to self, outward to the world. The more one\nknows God the keener is the longing to get off with Himself alone, the\ndeeper is the yearning to be pure, and the stronger is the passion to help\nothers regardless of any sacrifice involved.\n\n\n\nA Long Time Coming.\n\n\nThere is an old story that caught fire in my heart the first time it came\nto me, and burns anew at each memory of it. It told of a time in the\nsouthern part of our country when the sanitary regulations were not so\ngood as of late. A city was being scourged by a disease that seemed quite\nbeyond control. The city's carts were ever rolling over the cobble-stones,\nhelping carry away those whom the plague had slain.\n\nInto one very poor home, a laboring man's home, the plague had come. And\nthe father and children had been carried out until on the day of this\nstory there remained but two, the mother and her baby boy of perhaps five\nyears. The boy crept up into his mother's lap, put his arms about her\nneck, and with his baby eyes so close, said, \"Mother, father's dead, and\nbrothers and sister are dead;--if _you_ die, what'll I do?\"\n\n\nThe poor mother had thought of it, of course, What could she say? Quieting\nher voice as much as possible, she said, \"If I die, Jesus will come for\nyou.\" That was quite satisfactory to the boy. He had been taught about\nJesus, and felt quite safe with Him, and so went about his play on the\nfloor. And the boy's question proved only too prophetic. And quick work\nwas done by the dread disease. And soon she was being laid away by strange\nhands.\n\nIt is not difficult to understand that in the sore distress of the time\nthe boy was forgotten. When night came, he crept into bed, but could not\nsleep. Late in the night he got up, found his way out along the street,\ndown the road, in to where he had seen the men put her. And throwing\nhimself down on the freshly shoveled earth, sobbed and sobbed until nature\nkindly stole consciousness away for a time.\n\nVery early the next morning a gentleman coming down the road from some\nerrand of mercy, looked over the fence, and saw the little fellow lying\nthere. Quickly suspecting some sad story, he called him, \"My boy, what are\nyou doing there?--My boy, wake up, what are you doing there all alone?\"\nThe boy waked up, rubbed his baby eyes, and said, \"Father's dead, and\nbrothers and sister's dead, and now--_mother's_--dead--too. And she said,\nif she did die, Jesus would come for me. And He hasn't come. And I'm so\ntired waiting.\" And the man swallowed something in his throat, and in a\nvoice not very clear, said, \"Well, my boy, I've come for you.\" And the\nlittle fellow waking up, with his baby eyes so big, said \"I think you've\nbeen a long time coming.\"\n\nWhenever I read these last words of Jesus or think of them, there comes up\na vision that floods out every other thing. It is of Jesus Himself\nstanding on that hilltop. His face is all scarred and marred, thorn-torn\nand thong-cut. But it is beautiful, passing all beauty of earth, with its\nwondrous beauty light. Those great eyes are looking out so yearningly,\n_out_ as though they were seeing men, the ones nearest and those farthest.\nHis arm is outstretched with the hand pointing out. And you cannot miss\nthe rough jagged hole in the palm. And He is saying, _\"Go ye.\"_ The\nattitude, the scars, the eyes looking, the hand pointing, the voice\nspeaking, all are saying so intently, _\"Go ye.\"_\n\nAnd as I follow the line of those eyes, and the hand, there comes up an\nanswering vision. A great sea of faces that no man ever yet has numbered,\nwith answering eyes and outstretching hands. From hoary old China, from\nour blood-brothers in India, from Africa where sin's tar stick seems to\nhave blackened blackest, from Romanized South America, and the islands,\naye from the slums, and frontiers, and mountains in the homeland, and from\nthose near by, from over the alley next to your house maybe, they seem to\ncome. And they are rubbing their eyes, and speaking. With lives so\npitifully barren, with lips mutely eloquent, with the soreness of their\nhunger, they are saying, \"You're a long time coming.\"\n\nShall we go? Shall we _not_ go? But how shall we best go? By keeping in\nsuch close touch with Jesus that the warm throbbing of His heart is ever\nagainst our own. Then will come a new purity into our lives as we go out\nirresistibly attracted by the attraction of Jesus toward our fellows. And\nthen too shall go out of ourselves and out of our lives and service, a new\nsupernatural power touching men. It is Jesus within reaching men through\nus.\n\n\n\n\nYokefellows: The Rhythm of Service.\n\n\n\n    The Master's Invitation.\n    Surrender a Law of Life,\n    Free Surrender.\n    \"Him.\"\n    Yoked Service.\n    In Step With Jesus.\n    The Scar-marks of Surrender.\n    Full Power Through Rhythm.\n    He Is Our Peace.\n    The Master's Touch.\n\n\n\n\nYokefellows: The Rhythm of Service.\n\n(Matthew xi. 25-30; Luke x:1, 17, 21-24.)\n\n\n\nThe Master's Invitation.\n\n\nIt was about six months before the tragic end that Jesus sent out\nthirty-five deputations of two each. He was beginning that slow memorable\njourney south that ended finally at the cross. These men are sent ahead to\nprepare the way. By and by they return and make a glad exultant report of\nthe good results attending their work. Even the demons had acknowledged\nthe power of Jesus' name on their lips.\n\nAs He was listening Jesus looked up, and said, \"Father, I thank Thee.\" And\nthen, as though He could see those great crowds to whom they had been\nministering in His name, He said, \"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are\nheavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of\nMe; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your\nsouls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.\"\n\nThere are two invitations here, \"come\" and \"take.\" There are two sorts of\npeople. Those who are tugging and straining at work, and carrying heavy\nburdens, and then those who have received rest, and are now asked to go a\nstep farther. There are two kinds of rest, a given rest, and a found rest.\nThe given rest cannot be found. It comes as a sheer out gift, from Jesus'\nown hand. The found rest cannot be given, may I say? It comes stealing its\ngentle way in as one fits into Jesus' plan for his life.\n\nMany folks have accepted the first of these invitations. They have \"come\"\nto Jesus, and received sweet rest from His hand. But they have gone no\nfarther. At the close of that first invitation there is a punctuation\nperiod, a full stop. Some of the old schoolbooks used to say that one\nshould stop at a period and count four. Well, a great many people have\nfollowed that old rule here, and more than followed. They have stopped at\nthat period, and never gotten past it. I want just now to ask you to come\nwith me as we talk together a bit about this second invitation, \"Take My\nyoke.\"\n\nJesus used several different words in tying people up to Himself. There is\na growth in them, as He draws us nearer and nearer. First always is the\ninvitation \"Come unto Me.\" That means salvation, life. Then He says,\n\"Follow Me,\" \"Come after Me.\" That means discipleship. \"Learn of Me\"\nmeans training in discipleship. \"Yoke up with Me\" means closest\nfellowship. \"Abide in Me\" leads one out into abundant life. \"As the Father\nhath sent Me, even so send I you,\" means living Jesus' life over again.\nAnd then the last \"Go ye\" is the outer reach of all, service for a world.\n\n\n\nSurrender a Law of Life.\n\n\nJust now we want to talk together over this little three-worded sentence\nfrom Jesus' lips, \"Take My yoke.\" What does it mean? Well, that word yoke\nis used in all literature outside of this book, as well as here, to mean\nthis: surrender by one and mastery by another one. Where two nations have\nfought and the weaker has been forced to yield, it is quite commonly\nspoken of as wearing the yoke of the stronger nation. The Romans required\ntheir prisoners of war to pass under a yoke, sometimes a common cattle\nyoke, sometimes an improvised yoke, to indicate their utter subjugation.\nThese Hebrews to whom Jesus is speaking are writhing with sore shoulders\nunder the galling yoke of the Romans. One can imagine an emphasis placed\non the \"My.\" As though Jesus would say, \"You have one yoke now; change\nyokes. Take _My_ yoke.\"\n\nThere is too a higher, finer meaning to this surrender when by mutual\narrangement and free consent there is a yielding of one to another for a\npurpose. And so what Jesus means here is simply this--_surrender_. Bend\nyour head down, bend down your neck, even though it's a bit stiff going\nyour own way, and fit it into this yoke of mine. Surrender to Me as your\nMaster.\n\nAnd somebody says, \"I don't like that. 'Surrender!' that sounds like\nforce. I thought salvation was _free_.\" Will you please remember that the\nprinciple of surrender is a law of all life. It is the law of military\nlife, inside the army. Every man there has surrendered to the officers\nabove him. In some armies that surrender has amounted to absolute control\nof a man's person and property by the head of the army. It is the law of\nnaval service. The moment a man steps on board a man-of-war to serve he\nsurrenders the control of his life and movements absolutely to the officer\nin command.\n\nIt is the law in public, political life. A man entering the President's\ncabinet, as a secretary of some department, surrenders any divergent views\nhe may have to those of his chief. With the largest freedom of thought\nthat must always be where there are strong men, yet there must of\nnecessity be the one dominant will if the administration is to be a\npowerful one. It is the law of commercial life. The man entering the\nemploy of a bank, a manufacturing concern, a corporation of any sort, in\nwhatever capacity, enters to do the will of somebody else. Always there\nmust be the one dominant will if there is to be power and success.\n\nAnd then may I hush my voice and speak of the more sacred things very\nsoftly and remind you of this. Surrender is the law of the highest form of\nlife known to us men. I mean wedded life. Where the surrender is not by\none to the other, but by each to the other. Two wills, always two wills\nwhere there is strong life, yet in effect but one. Two persons but only\none purpose.\n\nAnd so you see, Jesus, the Master, the greatest of earth's teachers and\nphilosophers, is striking the keynote of life when here He asks us to\nsurrender freely and wholly to Himself as the autocrat of our lives. He\nasks us to bend our strong wills to His, to yield our lives, our plans,\nour ambitions, our friendships, our gold, absolutely to His control.\n\n\n\nFree Surrender.\n\n\nAnd if you still do not like the sound of that word surrender. It has a\nharsh sound that grates upon your nerves. Will you please notice the first\nword of that little sentence--\"Take.\" Jesus does not say in sharp, hard\ntones, \"Come here; bend down; I'll _put_ this yoke on you.\" Never that. If\nyou will, of your own glad accord, freely, winsomely _take_ the yoke upon\nyou--that is what He asks. In military usage surrender is _forced_. Here\nit must be _free_. Nothing else would be acceptable to Jesus.\n\nWhen our commissioners went a few years ago to Paris to treat with the\nSpaniards, the latter are said to have desired certain changes in the\nlanguage of the protocol. With the polished suavity for which they are\nnoted the Spaniards urged that there be made slight changes in the\n_words_: no real change in the meaning, they said, simply in the verbiage.\nAnd our Judge Day at the head of the American Commissioners, listened\npolitely and patiently until the plea was presented. And then he quietly\nsaid, \"The article will be signed _as it reads_.\" And the Spaniards\nprotested, with much courtesy. The change asked for was trivial, merely in\nthe language, not in the force of the words. And our men listened\npatiently and courteously. Then Mr. Day is said to have locked his little\nsquare jaw and replied very quietly, \"The article will be signed as it\nreads.\" And the article was so signed. That is military usage. The\nsurrender was forced. The strength of the American fleets, the prestige of\ngreat victory were back of the quiet man's demand.\n\nBut that is not the law here. Jesus asks for only what we give freely and\nspontaneously. He does not want anything except what is given with a\nfree, glad heart. This is to be a _voluntary_ surrender. Jesus is a\nvoluntary Saviour. He wants only voluntary followers. He would have us be\nas Himself. The oneness of spirit leads the way into the intimacy of\nclosest friendship. And that is His thought for us.\n\nDo you remember those fine lines, \"The quality of mercy is not\n_strained_\"--if the thing be forced through a strainer, there is no mercy\nthere--\"it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place\nbeneath.\" Only what the warm current of His love draws out does Jesus\ndesire from us. It is to be a _free_ surrender.\n\n\n\n\"Him.\"\n\n\nAnd if you still knit your mental brows, and shrug your shoulder. The\nthing hasn't yet shaken off the harshness you have been clothing it with.\nPlease notice the second word of that sentence--\"My.\" \"Take _My_ Yoke.\"\nMay I say gently but frankly that I would not surrender the control of my\nlife to any of you who are listening so kindly. And I surely would not ask\nthat I should be the autocrat of any of your lives. But--when--_Jesus_\ncomes along. The Man with the marvelous face all torn and scarred, but\nwith that great, soft, shining light. I do not know just how all of you\nfeel. I can guess how some of you feel. But I know one man who cannot\nrespond too quickly and eagerly. The only thing to do is to make the will\nas strong as it can be made, and then to use all of its strength in\nsurrendering eagerly to this matchless Man Jesus. Doubtless many of you\nknow fully that same eagerness, and maybe more.\n\nI remember a simple story that twined its clinging tendril lingers about\nmy heart. It was of a woman whose long years had ripened her hair, and\nsapped her strength. She was a true saint in her long life of devotion to\nGod. She knew the Bible by heart, and would repeat long passages from\nmemory. But as the years came the strength went, and with it the memory\ngradually went too, to her grief. She seemed to have lost almost wholly\nthe power to recall at will what had been stored away.\n\nBut one precious bit still stayed. She would sit by the big sunny window\nof the sitting room in her home, repeating over that one bit, as though\nchewing a delicious titbit, \"I know whom I have believed and am persuaded\nthat He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that\nday.\" By and by part of that seemed to slip its hold, and she would\nquietly be repeating, \"that which I have committed to Him.\"\n\nThe last few weeks as the ripened old saint hovered about the border land\nbetween this and the spirit world her feebleness increased. Her loved\nones would notice her lips moving. And thinking she might be needing some\ncreature comfort they would go over and bend down to listen for her\nrequest. And time and again they found the old saint repeating over to\nherself one word, over and over again, the same one word,\n\"Him--_Him_--Him.\" She had list the whole Bible but one word. But she had\nthe whole Bible in that one word. Did she not? This is a surrender to\n_Him_, the Man of the Book. The Man of all life.\n\n\n\nYoked Service.\n\n\nThey tell me that on a farm the yoke means service. Cattle are yoked to\nserve, and to serve better, and to serve more easily. This is a surrender\nfor service, not for idleness. In military usage surrender often means\nbeing kept in enforced idleness and under close guard. But this is not\nlike that. It is all up on a much higher plane. Jesus has every man's\nlife planned. It always awes me to recall that simple tremendous fact.\nWith loving strong thoughtfulness He has thought into each of our lives,\nand planned it out, in whole, and in detail. He comes to a man and\nsays, \"_I know_ you. I have been _thinking_ about you.\" Then very\nsoftly--\"I--_love_--you. I _need_ you, for a plan of Mine. _Please_ let\nMe have the control of your life and all your power, for My plan.\" It is a\nsurrender for service.\n\nIt is _yoked_ service. There are two bows or loops to a yoke. A yoke in\naction has both sides occupied, and as surely as I bow down My head and\nslip it into the bow on one side--I know there is _Somebody else_ on the\nother side. It is yoked living now, yoked fellowship, yoked service. It is\nnot working _for_ God now. It is working _with_ Him. Jesus never sends\nanybody ahead alone. He treads down the pathway through every thicket,\npushes aside the thorn-bushes, and clears the way, and then says with that\ntaking way of His, \"Come along with Me. Let's go together, you and I.\"\n\nA man got up in a meeting to speak. It was down in Rhode Island, out a bit\nfrom Providence. He was a farmer, an old man. He had become a Christian\nlate in life, and this evening was telling about his start. He had been a\nrough, bad man. He said that when he became a Christian even the cat knew\nthat some change had taken place. That caught my ear. It had a genuine\nring. It seemed prophetic of the better day coming for all the lower\nanimal creation. So I listened.\n\nHe said that the next morning after the change of purpose he was going\ndown to the village a little distance from his farm. He swung along the\nroad, happy in heart, singing softly to himself, and thinking about the\nSaviour. All at once he could feel the fumes coming out of a saloon ahead.\nHe couldn't see the place yet, but his keen trained nose felt it. The\nodors came out strong, and gripped him.\n\nHe said he was frightened, and wondered how he would get by. He had never\ngone by before, he said; always gone in; but he couldn't go in now. But\nwhat to do, that was the rub. Then he smiled, and said, \"I remembered, and\nI said, 'Jesus, you'll have to come along and help me get by, I never can\nby myself.'\" And then in his simple, illiterate way he said, \"_and He\ncome_--and _we_ went by, and we've been going by ever since.\"\n\nAh, the old Rhode Island farmer had found the whole simple philosophy of\nthe true life. Our Yokefellow is always there alongside. Every temptation\nthat comes to us He has felt the sharp edge of, and can overcome. Every\nproblem, every difficulty, every opportunity He knows, and is right there,\nswinging in rhythmic step alongside. It's yoked living and yoked service.\n\n\n\nIn Step with Jesus.\n\n\nThen please mark keenly that this surrender is for _surrendered_ service.\nNo free-lancing here. No guerrilla warfare, no bushwhacking. There seems\nto be quite a lot of that, in this army. Some earnest folks are very busy\n\"helping God out,\" regardless of the general movement of the whole army.\nAnd a great help they are too--they _think_. It would be difficult to see\nhow God would ever get along without them--they _seem_ to think. Poor\nfolks, they have gotten so covered with the dust made by their own feet\nthat they've completely lost track of things. There is a Lord to this\nharvest. There is a great Commander-in-chief to this campaign. He has the\nwhole campaign for a _world_ carefully planned out. And each man's part in\nit is planned too. He knows best what needs to be done. He sees keenly the\nstrategic points, and the emergencies. If only He could but depend on our\nears being trained to know His voice, and our wills trained to simple,\nfull obedience, how much difference it would make to Him. Simple, full\nstrong obedience seems to take the keenest intelligence, the strongest\nwill, and the most thorough discipline.\n\n    \"Just to ask Him what to do,\n          All the day.\n    And to make you quick and true\n          To obey.\"[3]\n\nThis surrender is for glad, obedient surrendered service.\n\nAnd note too that it is for _training_ in service. They tell me that\nwhere cattle are yoked for work it is usual to put a young restive beast\nwith an old, steady-going animal. The old worker sets the pace, and pulls\nevenly, steadily ahead, and by and by the young undisciplined beast\ngradually comes to learn the pace. That seems to fit in here with graphic\nrealness. So many of us seem to be full of an undisciplined unseasoned\nstrength. There are apt to be some hard drives ahead, and then pulling\nback with a sudden jerk, and side lunges this way and that. There is\nsplendid strength, and eager willingness, but not much is accomplished for\nlack of the steady, steady going regardless of rocks or ruts.\n\nJesus says, \"Yoke up with Me. Let's pull together, you and I.\" And if we\nwill pull steadily along, content to be by His side, and to be hearing His\nquiet voice, and _always to keep His pace_, step by step with Him, without\nregard to seeing results, all will be well, and by and by the best results\nand the largest will be found to have come. And remember that as on the\nfarm, so here, the yoke is always carefully adjusted so that the young\nlearner may have the easier pulling.\n\nBut it is well to put in this bit of a caution. If a man put his head into\nthe yoke, and then _pull back_--well, there'll be a man with a badly\nchafed, sore neck in that neighborhood, and oil will be in demand. The\none safe rule is swinging straight ahead, steady, steady, without even\nstopping to decide if the plow has cut properly, or if it is worth while.\n\n\n\nThe Scar-marks of Surrender.\n\n\nThen Jesus adds this: \"Learn of Me.\" I used to wonder just what that\nmeans. But I think I know a part of its meaning now. You remember the\nHebrews had a scheme of qualified slavery.[4] A man might sell his service\nfor six years but at the end of that time he was scot-free. On the New\nYear's morning of the seventh year he was given his full liberty, and\ngiven some grain and oil to begin life with anew.\n\nBut if on that morning he found himself reluctant to leave, all his ties\nbinding him to his master's home, this was the custom among them. He would\nsay to his master, \"I don't want to leave you. This is home to me. I love\nyou and the mistress. I love the place. All my ties and affections are\nhere. I want to stay with you always.\" His master would say, \"Do you mean\nthis?\" \"Yes,\" the man would reply, \"I want to belong to you forever.\"\n\nThen his master would call in the leading men of the village or\nneighborhood to witness the occurrence. And he would take his servant out\nto the door of the home, and standing him up against the door-jamb would\npierce the lobe of his ear through with an awl. I suppose like a\nshoemaker's awl. Then the man became not his slave, but his bond-slave,\nforever. It was a personal surrender of himself to his master; it was\nvoluntary; it was for love's sake; it was for service; it was after a\ntrial; it was for life.\n\nNow that was what Jesus did. If you will turn to that Fortieth Psalm,[5]\nfrom which we read, you will find words that are plainly prophetic of\nJesus, and afterwards quoted as referring to Him. \"Mine ears hast Thou\nopened, or digged or pierced for me.\" And in the fiftieth chapter of\nIsaiah,[6] revised version, are these words likewise prophetic of Jesus.\n\"The Lord God hath _opened_ mine ear, and _I was not rebellious, neither\nturned away backward._ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to\nthem that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and\nspitting.\"\n\nAnd the truth is this. May the Spirit of God burn it deep into our hearts.\n_Jesus was a surrendered Man._ Stop a bit and think into what that means.\nJesus is the giant Man of the human race, thought of just now as a man,\nthough He was so much more, too. In His wisdom as a teacher, His calm\npoised judgment, the purity of His life, the tremendous power of His\npersonality in swaying man, He clear overtops the whole race of men. Now\nthat Master Man, that giant of the race, was a surrendered Man. For\ninstance run through John's Gospel, and pick out the negatives on His\nlips, the \"nots.\" Not His own will, nor His own words, nor His own\nteaching, nor His own works.[7] Jesus came to earth to do Somebody's else\nwill. With all His giant powers He was utterly absorbed in doing what some\nOne else wished done. And now this giant Man, this surrendered Man, says,\n\"You do as I have done. Learn of Me: I am wholly given up to doing My\nFather's will. You be wholly surrendered to Me, and so together we will\ncarry out the Father's will.\"\n\nSome one of a practical turn says, \"That sounds very nice, but is it not a\nbit fanciful? The lobe of Jesus' ear was not pierced through, was it?\" No.\nYou are right. The scar-mark of Jesus' surrender was not in His ear, as\nwith the old Hebrew slave. You are quite right. It was in His cheek, and\nbrow, on His back, in His side and hands and feet. The scar-marks of His\nsurrender were--are--all over His face and form. Everybody who surrenders\nbears some scar of it because of sin, his own or somebody's else.\nReferring to the suffering endured in service Paul tenderly reckons it as\na mark of Jesus' ownership--\"I bear the scars, the _stigmata_, of the Lord\nJesus.\" Even of the Master Himself is this so.\n\nAnd that scarred Jesus whose body told and tells of His surrender to His\nFather comes to us. And with those hands eagerly outstretched, and eyes\nbeaming with the earnestness of His great passion for men, He says, \"Yoke\nup with Me, please. Let Me have the control of all your splendid powers,\nin carrying out our Father's will for a world.\"\n\n\n\nFull Power through Rhythm.\n\n\nThen Jesus, with a sweep, gathers up all the results in a single sentence,\n\"Ye shall find rest unto your souls.\" Some one may be thinking, \"I do not\nfeel the need of rest or peace so much. I am hungry for power.\" Will you\nplease notice that Jesus is going to the very root of the thing here.\nThere must be peace before there can be power. _You_ shall find peace.\n_Others_ shall find power. You will be conscious of the sweet sense of\npeace within. Others will be conscious of the fragrant power breathing out\nof your life, and service, and your very person.\n\nThese things, peace and power, are the same. They are different movements\nof the same river of God. The presence of God in fine harmony with you,\nthat it is that brings the sweet peace. And that too it is that brings the\ngracious power into the life. The inward flow of the river is peace. The\noutward flow of the same stream is power. There cannot be power save as\nthere is peace. There is nothing that hinders and holds back power as does\nfriction. That is true in mechanics: a bit of friction grit between the\nwheels will check the full working of the machinery. A small nut fallen\ndown out of place will completely stop the machine and bring all of its\npower to a standstill.\n\nThis is _heart_ rest. The heart is the center, the citadel of the life.\nWhen the heart rests all is at rest. If the citadel can be captured the\noutworks are included. It is a _found_ rest. It comes quietly stealing its\nsoft way in as you go about your regular round of life. Just where you\nare, in the thick of the old circumstances and conditions, there comes\nbreathing gently into your very being the great fragrant peace of God. You\nfind it coming in. There is all the zest of finding.\n\nIt is rest _in service_. To many folks those two words \"yoke\" and \"rest\"\nhave seemed to jar, as though they did not get along well together. But\nthey do. The jarring is not in them but in our misunderstanding of them. A\nyoke, we have thought, means work. Rest means quitting work; no more need\nof work. But that is a bit of the hurt of sin that gets so many things\nwrong end to.\n\n    \"Rest is not quitting\n       The busy career;\n     Rest is the fitting\n       Of self to its sphere.\"[8]\n\nTrue rest is in the unhurried rhythm of action. Have you thought of when\nyour heart rests? It does not stop, of course, while life lasts. But it\nrests. It rests between beats. A beat and a rest. A throb of power and a\nmoment of perfect rest. A mighty motion that sends the warm red life\nthrough all the intricate machinery of the body; then quiet composed rest.\nThe secret of the immeasurable power of this organ we call the heart lies\njust here. There is enough power in a normal human heart to batter down\nBunker Hill Monument if it could be centered upon it. The secret of that\npower is in the rhythm of action that combines motion with rest. We call\nrhythm of color, beauty. Rhythm of sound is music. Rhythm of action is\npower.\n\nI have often stood as a boy on the streets of old Philadelphia, and\nwatched a gang of foreign laborers at work. As a rule they could speak\nonly the language of their own fatherland. There would be a gang-boss to\ndirect their movements. Perhaps it was a huge stone to be moved, or a\npiece of structural iron, or a heavy rail to be torn up. The ends of their\ncrowbars were fitted under the thing to be moved. Then they waited a\nmoment for the gang-boss to give the word. He would say, \"heave ho!\"\n\nThen all together they would sing \"heave ho,\" and push. And a \"heave ho,\"\nand push; a \"heave ho,\" and a push. They made perfect music. There was\nalways a small crowd gathered, watching and enjoying the simple music.\nTheir work was easier because done rhythmically. This, of course, is the\nsimple philosophy that provides music for soldiers on march. The men can\nwalk much longer, and farther, with less fatigue if they go to the sound\nof music.\n\nThe story is told of the contracts for some bridge-building in the Soudan\nbeing carried off by American bidders. Their competitors in the bidding\nspecified a year's time or so, for the work. The Americans agreed to do it\nin three months. They were awarded the contract, and to the others'\nsurprise had the work completed within the specified time.\n\nOne of the contractors who had bid for the job on the basis of a year's\ntime said afterwards to the successful contractor, \"I wish, if you\nwouldn't mind doing so, you would tell me how you ever got that work done\nin so short a time with those undisciplined Soudanese natives for\nworkmen. I have had them on other contracts and I know I couldn't have\ndone it. How did you ever do it?\"\n\nAnd the American, whose blood was British a generation or two back, and\nfarther back yet Teutonic, smiled as he quietly said, \"We had a band of\nnative musicians playing the liveliest music they knew within earshot of\nevery gang of laborers, while our gang-bosses kept them steadily at work.\"\n\nRhythm is the secret of power. Full rhythm is possible only where there is\nfull obedience to nature. The man in full sweet harmony with God in all of\nhis life knows the stilling ecstasy of peace, and the marvelous outgoings\nof real power. You shall find within your heart the great stilling calm of\nGod, as steadying as the rock of ages, as exhilarating as the subtle\nfragrance of flowers, and as restful as a mother's bosom to her babe.\n\n\n\nHe is Our Peace.\n\n\nBut there is something here finer yet by far than this. Everything God\nprovides for us is personal. There is always the personal touch and\npresence. Do you remember that during the earlier days of the recent war\nwith Spain this occurrence frequently took place? In the Caribbean waters\na Spanish merchantman would be overtaken by an American warship. A few\nshots were sent over the bows of the merchantman with a demand for\nsurrender. And then the Spanish flag was seen to drop from the\nmerchantman's masthead in token of surrender.\n\nThen this was the method of procedure. A prize crew, consisting of an\nofficer with a few ensigns, was lowered from the American boat, pulled\nacross, and taken aboard the captured boat. The moment the prize crew\nstepped aboard they were masters of the boat in their government's name.\nTheir presence signified the surrender of the foreigner, and the forced\npeace now between the two boats.\n\nOn a much higher plane this is what takes place with us. There has been\nflying at my masthead a flag with a big I upon it. As quickly as I drop it\nin token of my surrender to Somebody else, a prize crew is sent aboard to\ntake possession, and assume control. Who is the prize crew? The Holy\nSpirit, whom Jesus the Master sends to represent Himself. He steps aboard\nat once.\n\nHe paces the deck as the ship's Master. His presence is peace. \"He is our\npeace.\" \"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, _peace_.\" And while He\noccupies the captain's quarters, with full cheery obedience on board,\nthere is ever the fine aroma of peace everywhere, and the fullness of\npower.\n\n\n\nThe Master's Touch.\n\n\nOne morning a number of years ago in London a group of people had gathered\nin a small auction shop for an advertised sale of fine old antiques and\ncurios. The auctioneer brought out an old blackened, dirty-looking violin.\nHe said, \"Ladies and gentlemen, here is a remarkable old instrument I have\nthe great privilege of offering to you. It is a genuine Cremona, made by\nthe famous Antonius Stradivarius himself. It is very rare, and worth its\nweight in gold. What am I bid?\" The people present looked at it\ncritically. And some doubted the accuracy of the auctioneer's statements.\nThey saw that it did not have the Stradivarius name cut in. And he\nexplained that some of the earliest ones made did not have the name. And\nthat some that had the name cut in were not genuine. But he could assure\nthem that this was genuine. Still the buyers doubted and criticised, as\nbuyers have always done. Five guineas in gold were bid, but no more. The\nauctioneer perspired and pleaded. \"It was ridiculous to think of selling\nsuch a rare violin for such a small sum,\" he said. But the bidding seemed\nhopelessly stuck there.\n\nMeanwhile a man had entered the shop from the street. He was very tall and\nvery slender, with very black hair, middle-aged, wearing a velvet coat. He\nwalked up to the counter with a peculiar side-wise step, and without\nnoticing anybody in the shop picked up the violin, and was at once\nabsorbed in it. He dusted it tenderly with his handkerchief, changed the\ntension of the strings, and held it up to his ear lingeringly as though\nhearing something. Then putting the end of it up in position he reached\nfor the bow, while the murmur ran through the little audience, \"Paganini.\"\n\nThe bow seemed hardly to have touched the strings when such a soft\nexquisite note came out filling the shop, and holding the people\nspellbound. And as he played the listeners laughed for very delight, and\nthen wept for the fullness of their emotion. The men's hats were off, and\nthey all stood in rapt reverence, as though in a place of worship. He\nplayed upon their emotions as he played upon the old soil-begrimed violin.\n\nBy and by he stopped. And as they were released from the spell of the\nmusic the people began clamoring for the violin. \"Fifty guineas,\" \"sixty,\"\n\"seventy,\" \"eighty,\" they bid in hot haste. And at last it was knocked\ndown to the famous player himself for one hundred guineas in gold, and\nthat evening he held a vast audience of thousands breathless under the\nspell of the music he drew from the old, dirty, blackened, despised\nviolin.\n\nIt was despised till the master-player took possession. Its worth was not\nknown. The master's touch revealed the rare value, and brought out the\nhidden harmonies. He gave the doubted little instrument its true place of\nhigh honor before the multitude. May I say softly, some of us have been\ndespising the worth of the man within. We have been bidding five guineas\nwhen the real value is immeasurably above that _because of the Maker_. Do\nnot let us be underbidding God's workmanship.\n\nThe violin needed dusting, and readjustment of its strings before the\nmusic came. Shall we not each of us yield this rarest instrument, his own\npersonality, to the Master's hand? There will be some changes needed, no\ndoubt, as the Master-player takes hold. And then will go singing out of\nour persons and our lives, the rarest music of God, that shall enthrall\nand bring all within earshot to the Master-musician.\n\n\n\n\nA Passion for Winning Men: The Motive-power of Service.\n\n\n\n    A Day off.\n    Moved with Compassion.\n    Counting on Us.\n    The Secret of Winsomeness.\n    \"As the Stars.\"\n    The Finest Wisdom.\n    Three Essentials.\n    A Blessed Library Corner.\n    \"Two Missing\"--\"Go Ye.\"\n\n\n\n\nA Passion for Winning Men: The Motive-power of Service.\n\n(Mark vi:30-34.)\n\n\n\nA Day off.\n\n\nOne morning toward the end, in the midst of His busiest campaigning, Jesus\nwas very tired. It is one of the touches of His humanness. So He said to\nHis disciples, \"Let us take a day _off_.\" And they could see the sense of\nit. They were tired too. So they got a boat, and boarded her, and set\nsail, and headed out across the lake. And meanwhile a crowd of people had\ncome down to the beach to be talked to, and healed, and helped in various\nways.\n\nAnd you can just see the look of disappointment in their faces as they\nsay, \"Why, He's going away.\" And for a few moments they stand there\nutterly dejected. Then somebody--for a long while I have thought it was a\nwoman--somebody with eyes keenly watching the direction of the boat, said,\n\"I believe He's going so and so\"--naming a place across the lake--\"let's\nrun around the head of the lake, and meet Him when He gets out.\"\n\nAnd the crowd was taken with that. And they ran--literally _ran_--around\nthe head of the lake. And as they went they spread the word, \"The Master's\ngoing so and so. Come along with us.\" And the people came eagerly out of\nthe villages and cross-roads. And the crowd thickened and the longer way\naround in distance proved the shorter way there in time. For by and by\nwhen Peter ran the nose of the boat into the sand on the other side, and\nthe Master got out for _a day off_, there were five thousand men, maybe\nten thousand people waiting to receive Him.\n\nDo you think that Peter scrooged down his eyebrows, and in a jerky voice\nsaid, \"They might have given Him _one_ day to Himself. Can't they see He's\ntired?\" Do you think that likely John chimed in, with that fire in his\nvoice which the after years mellowed and sweetened but never lost,--\"Yes,\nhow inconsiderate a crowd is!\" _Do_ you think so? _I_ do. Because they\nwere so much like us. But _He_--the most tired of them all--\"_was moved\nwith compassion_,\" and spent the whole day in teaching, and talking\npersonally, and healing. And then when they had gone He went off to the\nmountain for the quiet time at night He could not get in the daytime.\n\n\n\nMoved with Compassion.\n\n\nThere is a great word used of Jesus, and by Him, nine times[9] in these\nbrief records, the word _compassion_. The sight of a leprous man, or of a\ndemon-distressed man, _moved_ Him. The great multitudes huddling together\nafter Him, so pathetically, like leaderless sheep, eager, hungry, tired,\nalways stirred Him to the depths. The lone woman, bleeding her heart out\nthrough her eyes, as she followed the body of her boy out--He couldn't\nstand that at all.\n\nAnd when He was so moved, He always did something. He clean forgot His own\nbodily needs so absorbed did He become in the folks around Him. The\nhealing touch was quickly given, the demonized man released from his sore\nbonds, the disciples organized for a wider movement to help, the bread\nmultiplied so the crowds could find something comforting between their\nhunger-cleaned teeth.\n\nThe sight of suffering always stirred Him. The presence of a crowd seemed\nalways to touch and arouse Him peculiarly. He never learned that sort of\ncity culture that can look unmoved upon suffering or upon a leaderless,\nhelpless crowd. That word compassion, used of Him, is both deep and\ntender in its meaning. The word, actually used under our English means to\nhave the bowels or heart, the seat of emotion, greatly stirred.\n\nThe kindred word, sympathy, means to have the heart yearning, literally to\nbe suffering the same distress, to be so moved by somebody's pain or\nsuffering that you are suffering within yourself the same pain too. Our\nplain English word, fellow-feeling, is the same in its force. Seeing the\nsuffering of some one else so moves you that the same suffering is going\non inside you as you see in them. This is the great word used so often of\nJesus, and by Him.\n\nThere never lived a man who had such a passion for men as Jesus. He lived\nto win them out of their distressed, sinful, needy lives up to a new\nlevel. He _died_ to win them. His last act was dying to win men. His last\nword was, \"Go ye and win men.\" And His first act when He got back home,\nall scarred and marred by His contact with earth, was to send down the\nsame Spirit as swayed Him those human years to live in us that we might\nhave the same passion for winning men as He. Aye, and the same exquisite\ntact in doing it as He had.\n\nI said the last act was dying to win men. And you remember that even in\nthe act of dying, He forgot the keen pain of body, and the far keener pain\nof spirit, to turn His head as far as He could turn it, and speak the\nword to the fellow by His side that meant the difference of _a world_ to\nhim. Surely it was the ruling passion with Him to win men, strong in\ndeath, aye, strongest in death, and finding its strongest expression in\nHis death.\n\n\n\nCounting on Us.\n\n\nSomebody has supposed the scene that he thinks may have taken place after\nJesus went back. The last the earth sees of Him is the cloud--not a rain\ncloud, a _glory_ cloud--that sweeps down and conceals Him from view. And\nthe earth has not seen Him since. Though the old Book does say that some\nday He's coming back in just the same way as He went away, and some of us\nare strongly inclined to think it will be as the Book says in that regard.\n\nBut--have you ever tried to think of what took place on the other side of\nthat cloud? He has been gone down there on the earth thirty-odd years.\nIt's a long time. And they're fairly hungry in their eyes for a look again\nat that blessed old face. And I have imagined them crowding down to where\nthey may get the first glimpse of His face again. And, do you know, lately\nI have been wondering, with the softening of awe creeping into the\nthought, whether--the Father--did not come the very first of them all\nand--touch His lips up to where--the _scars_ were in Jesus' brow and\ncheeks--yes, His hands--and His feet, too. Tell me, you fathers here\nlistening, would you not have done something like that with _your_ boy,\nunder such circumstances?\n\nYou mothers, wouldn't you have been doing something like that with your\nboy? And all the fatherhood of earth is named after the fatherhood of\nheaven, we're told. And with God fatherhood means motherhood too, you\nknow. I do not _know_ if it were so. But I think it's likely. It would be\njust like God.\n\nBut this friend I speak of has supposed that, after the first flush of\nfeeling has spent itself--the way _we_ speak of such things done here, the\nMaster is walking down the golden street one day, arm in arm with Gabriel,\ntalking intently, earnestly. Gabriel is saying,\n\n\"Master, you died for the whole world down there, did you not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You must have suffered much,\" with an earnest look into that great face\nwith its unremovable marks.\n\n\"Yes,\" again comes the answer in a wondrous voice, very quiet, but\nstrangely full of deepest feeling.\n\n\"And do they all know about it?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! Only a few in Palestine know about it so far.\"\n\n\"Well, Master, what's your plan? What have you done about telling the\nworld that you died for, that you _have_ died for them? What's your plan?\"\n\n\"Well,\" the Master is supposed to answer, \"I asked Peter, and James and\nJohn, and little Scotch Andrew, and some more of them down there just to\nmake it the business of their lives to tell others, and the others are to\ntell others, and the others others, and yet others, and still others,\nuntil the last man in the farthest circle has heard the story and has felt\nthe thrilling and the thralling power of it.\"\n\nAnd Gabriel knows us folk down here pretty well. He has had more than one\ncontact with the earth. He knows the kind of stuff in us. And he is\nsupposed to answer, with a sort of hesitating reluctance, as though he\ncould see difficulties in the working of the plan, \"Yes--but--suppose\nPeter fails. Suppose after a while John simply _does not_ tell others.\nSuppose their descendants, their successors away off in the first edge of\nthe twentieth century, get _so busy about things_--some of them proper\nenough, some may be not quite so proper--that _they do not_ tell\nothers--_what then?_\"\n\nAnd his eyes are big with the intenseness of his thought, for he is\nthinking of--the _suffering,_ and he is thinking too of the difference to\nthe man who hasn't been told--\"what then?\"\n\nAnd back comes that quiet wondrous voice of Jesus, \"Gabriel, _I haven't\nmade any other plans--I'm counting on them_.\"\n\n\n\nThe Secret of Winsomeness.\n\n\nThat's a bit of this friend's imagination, it's true. But--it's the whole\nGospel story, through and through. Jesus has made that plan. He has not\nmade any other plan. He's counting on us, each of us, each in his own\ncircle, in his own way, as comes best, most natural to him tactfully,\nquietly, earnestly--simply that, but all of that. And--if--we\nfail--Him--let me be saying it very softly so the seriousness of it may\nget into the inner cockles of our hearts--if we _fail Him_, just that far\nwe make _Jesus' dying a failure_ so far as concerns those whom we touch.\n\nYes, I know that sounds very serious. I'd rather not be saying it. I'm\n_sure_, by the Book, it is so. And so, do you see the genius--may I use\nthat word very reverently of Him who was a man and far more than man--the\ngenius of His plan? He sent down the same Spirit that swayed Him those\nhuman years to live in us, and control us, that we might have the same\nfine passion for men as He, and the same exquisite tact in winning them as\nHe had.\n\nIt must be a _passion_; a fire burning with the steady flame of anthracite\nfed by a constant stream of oil. If it be less we will be swept off our\nfeet by the tides all around, or sucked under by their swift current. And\nmany a splendid man to-day is being swept off his feet and sucked under by\nthe tides and currents of life because no such passion as this is mooring\nand steadying and driving his whole life.\n\nIt must be a passion for _winning_ men; not driving nor dragging,\n_drawing_. Not argument nor coercion but warm, winsome wooing. Today the\nsun up yonder is drawing up toward itself thousands of tons' weight of\nwater. Nobody sees it going, except perhaps in very small part. There's no\nnoise or dust. But the water rises up irresistibly toward the sun because\nof the winning power in the sun for the water. It must be something like\nthat in this higher sphere. A winsomeness in us that will win men to us\nand through us to the Master.\n\n\"Oh! well,\" some one says, \"if you put the thing that way you'll have to\ncount me out. I'm not winsome that way.\" Well, maybe you need not have\nbothered to say it. We could easily know that without your saying it. We\nare not winsome this way, any of us, of ourselves. But when we allow this\nJesus Spirit to take possession of us He imparts His winsomeness. For the\nreal secret of a transfigured life is a _transmitted_ life. Somebody else\nliving in us, with a capital S for that Somebody, looking out of our\neyes, giving His beauty to our faces, and His winningness to our\npersonality.\n\n\n\n\"As the Stars.\"\n\n\nThe language used in the Scriptures for this sort of thing is full of\nintense interest. Some time ago I was reading in the old prophecy of\nDaniel. I was not thinking of this matter of winning men but simply trying\nto get a fresh grasp of that wonderfully fascinating old bit of prophecy.\nAnd all at once I came across that gem in the last chapter. I knew it was\nthere. You know it is there. Yet it came to me with all the freshness of a\nnew delightful surprise. \"They that are wise shall shine with the\nbrightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as\nthe stars forever and ever.\"[10]\n\nFour times in those last two chapters of Daniel it refers to those that\nare \"wise\"; literally, those that are _teachers_. Those who have\nthemselves learned the truth and are patiently, faithfully, winsomely\ntelling and teaching others. The word used for influencing the others is\nfull of practical picturesque meaning. \"They that _turn_ many.\" As if a\nman were going the wrong way on a dangerous road. And _I know_ it's the\nwrong way. There's a sharp precipice ahead. But he is going steadily on,\nhead down, all absorbed, not noticing where the road leads.\n\nI might go up to him, and strike him sharply on the shoulder to get his\nattention, and say, \"See here, you're going the wrong way; can't you see\nthe danger ahead there? Come this way,\" with a vigorous pull. I have\nsometimes seen that done, in just that way. And if the man is an American,\nor an Englishman, or a German,--we're all very much alike,--he will say\ncoldly, \"Excuse me. I think I can take care of myself. Thank you. I'll\nlook out for this individual.\"\n\nOr, I might slip gently up to the man, and get my arm in his, and begin to\nturn, very gently at first, and turn, and turn, and then turn some more,\nand then farther around still, and walk him off the other way. You will\nhave to get _close_ to a man to do that. Some folks never do. And you'll\nhave to be at least half-way decent in your life to get close. Some folks\nnever can. And you will need to be warm enough all the time inside, to\nmelt through the icy cloak of indifference beneath which his heart may be\nwrapped up. But I can tell you this: the old world where you and I live is\nfairly hungry at its heart, with an eating hunger for turners of that\nsort.\n\nAnd the promise of that old prophetic bit is this: \"They shall _shine_.\"\nYou know everybody wants to shine. It is right to be ambitious, with a\nright ambition. But if any of you are ambitious to shine in some other sky\nthan this, in your profession, in social life or in some firmament lower\nthan this, may I gently make this suggestion to you? Do your best shining\n_now_. Get on the brightest shining surface possible now. For this is your\nshining time. This is the sky-time for that sort of thing. It won't last\nlong, I must tell you frankly. And at the end a bitter biting at your\nheart.\n\nI am fond of watching a display of fireworks on a Fourth of July night.\nPerhaps the night is clear, the sky full of stars, bright and sparkling. A\nsky rocket is sent off. It goes up with a rush and a noise. There is a\ndash of many colored beautiful fire-stars. And a murmur of admiration from\nthe crowd. For a few moments you can see nothing as you look up but this\nhandful of fire-stars. The clear quiet stars beyond are eclipsed for a\nnarrow circle of space, and for a few moments of time.\n\nIt doesn't last long. A small fraction of a minute at the most. Then it's\nall over. And all that is left is a charred stick that sticks in the mud,\nnobody knows where, nor cares. But look up yonder, the stars you could not\nsee a moment ago for these momentary ones are shining more brightly than\never by contrast,\n\n    \"... And singing as they shine.\n    The hand that made us is divine.\"\n\nYou shine in the lower skies if you will. And of course you will if you\nwill. You will do as you will to do. But, at the end--a charred stick, a\nbad taste in your mouth, a sharp tugging at your heart. And the story's\ntold. The last chapter's ended. The book is shut. But they whose one\nabsorbing ambition it is to turn others to righteousness may not shine\nmuch here in earth's skies. And they may a bit, and it recks precious\nlittle either way. But they _shall_ shine as the stars, as bright and as\nlong.\n\nIt does not mean Atlantic coast stars. It means desert stars, Babylonian\nstars, where one can see so many more than here. They shake their wondrous\nfire-light down into your face, and fairly dazzle your eyes. You \"shall\nshine as the stars,\" as bright and as long.\n\n\n\nThe Finest Wisdom.\n\n\nJames, the head of the Jerusalem Church, closes up his letter to the\ndispersed Jews with this same word as Daniel uses. He would have all to\nwhom he is writing understand that he that _turns_ another from the wrong\nway will save a soul from death and hide away out of sight and reach a\nmass of sin.[11] The old world needs more saving societies and saving\nindividuals of this sort.\n\nWe have gotten great skill in saving dollars. Men give their whole\nstrength and time to that. There is something much higher, infinitely\nhigher, saving souls, rescuing lives, treasuring up precious men and\nwomen. These people, James says, are famous for their use of the fine\ncloak of charity. They make the best use of it in hiding away beyond any\nchance of being found a great mass of ugly, crooked, poisonous sins.\n\nThe man with the reputation of being the wisest man gives a special\ndefinition of wisdom. The old version runs, \"he that winneth souls is\nwise.\"[12] This is a great statement from Solomon's pen. He had searched\ninto all the avenues of men's pursuits. He was a great experimenter.\nEverything was put to a personal test. He amassed wealth beyond all\nothers. He delved into the fascinations of intellectual delights, of deep\nintricate philosophies and problems.\n\nHe knew the subtle appeal to strong men that there is in deftly handling\nand controlling men, personally and in large numbers. He had tasted the\nrich wines of pleasure as had few. This is his conclusion: the wise man is\nhe that gives his strength with all of its fine-grained cunning to wooing\nmen back, through the old Eden gate, up to the tree of life.\n\nThis is the finest fruitage any life can yield. This will be to the bearer\nof it a tree of life giving twelve crops of fruits, a crop of every month,\na perennial, alike in heat and frost, in storm and drought, and with a\npeculiar healing quality in its green leaves for all men.\n\nThe revised version gives a fine turn to this old bit, exactly reversing\nthe first statement. \"He that is wise winneth souls.\" The old philosopher\nsays that here is the real test of wisdom. He that is a wise man gives the\ncream of his thought and wisdom to personal influence with men. He thinks\nthe thing best worth while is drawing a man through the inner reach upon\nhis thinking and affections and will away from the impure and ignoble and\ndeceptive up into touch with his first Friend.\n\nAnd he finds too that nothing he has ever undertaken calls for a finer\nplay of all his powers at their best. All the diplomacy and fineness and\ntact and keen management at his command will be called upon. He must be a\nwise man to do such work. It is no fool's errand this. It demands the best\nin the best.\n\nThere is no body of men more keen or skilled in the handling and\ninfluencing of men, than the politicians. And I use the word in its fine\nmeaning, as well as in its cheaper meanings. As democracy has won its way\nincreasingly among the governments of earth these politicians have\nincreased in number and in influence. Great measures of government have\ndepended on their skill in manipulating men. Rarest subtlety and\nadroitness and rugged honesty have blended in the strongest of these\nleaders.\n\nThe fishing simile so commonly used in the winning of men over to one's\nside is a peculiarly attractive, a matchless simile. And all of this\nhandling of men has often been for personal ends, often for wholly selfish\nends, often for strong national ends. Almost never has it been for the\nbenefit of the man being won, save at times very remotely.\n\nBut Jesus would have us become skilled diplomats in winning men for their\nown sakes. Getting them to climb the hills for the sake of the air and\nview they will get, and enjoy. We are to win strong men full of life and\nvigor and manly force up into touch with their Friend, Himself.\n\nThere is too a most attractive winsome phrase on the Master's lips at the\nclose of that fishing story in Luke's fifth chapter,[13] \"From henceforth\nthou shall _catch_ men\" is the reading. But the revised margin gives this\nadded bit of color: \"Thou shalt take men alive.\" They should get, not dead\nfish, but living men. Men full of vigor and life--thou shalt have power\nto sway these and induce them up to the highlands of a new life.\n\n\n\nThree Essentials.\n\n\nThere are three simple essentials here for the man who would be following\nhis Master fully. The first is that a man shall surrender himself wholly\nto Jesus as a Master. That so Jesus may have the full control of all.\nMaybe some one thinks, \"There is that strong word surrender again. Cannot\nI help a man be better without going so far as that word seems to imply?\"\n\nWill you kindly notice that the Spirit of Jesus _fills_ the surrendered\nman? And it is only as that Spirit does fill and sway that there can be\nany such passion for men as Jesus had, and, too, the fine tact that He\nalways used. This is the first simple indispensable essential.\n\nThe second is this: a bit of quiet time alone with Jesus daily over His\nWord. The door should be shut. Outside things shut outside. And one's self\nshut in alone with the Master. This is not a good thing--merely. I am not\nrecommending it to you. I am saying very much more. It is an _essential_\nthing with every one who would follow the Master simply and fully. It is\ntime spent in coaling up, taking out the dead ashes, and readjusting the\ndrafts, so the fires will be kept burning steadily and clearly. This is\nthe second great essential.\n\nThe third essential is this: a purpose, deep-seated, rock-rooted,\nunderlying every other purpose, taking precedence of every other, of\ntrying to win others, one by one, bit by bit, over to knowing Jesus\npersonally. I say \"trying.\" I like that word. There may be some blunders,\nsome bad steps, some untactful work. But these will not turn one aside\nfrom this purpose but simply make him more determined to become skilled in\nthis finest art.\n\nI mean something like this. Here is a young woman moving in a social\ncircle, just as bright and winsome as God meant every young woman to be.\nAnd as she moves about, she is thinking--no, it is thinking itself out,\nunderneath in her subtle sub-consciousness,--\"How can I drop the word\nhere, and touch there, and leave the light impress here, that shall count\nwith these lives for my Master?\"\n\nHere is a man transacting business with another. And even while he is\ndealing with figures, and contract terms, he is thinking,--no, again,--it\nis so deeply rooted in that the thought, like the fine trendils of a\nplant, is ever weaving itself intangibly but surely into the web of his\npassing mental operations, \"How can I tactfully leave the impress here,\nperhaps speak the direct word, that shall be a doorway for Jesus into\nthis life?\"\n\n\n\nA Blessed Library Corner.\n\n\nI think I might tell you best just what I mean by a bit from a real life.\nThe bit that has been such a real inspiration to myself. It is about a\nfriend of mine, a business man, with large responsible interests, keen and\nshrewd in his business dealings, a very earnest Christian man, with a\ndelightful, winning personality, and I am grateful to say who was a warm\nfriend of mine. He is in the presence of his Master now. He was a man much\nmy senior in years, who helped me very greatly. Whenever we chanced to\nmeet in our travels I would drop my affairs as far as I could to spend all\nthe time possible with him, both for the delight of his presence, and for\nthe practical help he always was. The last time we were ever together was\nin Columbus, Ohio. We met there to attend an anniversary meeting of the\nYoung Men's Christian Association, in Dr. Gladden's Church, on the Capitol\nSquare. And Monday morning before taking our trains away in different\ndirections we went for a drive, to get the air, and talk a bit. I made the\nsuggestion of driving, for I knew I would get something from him. And I\nwas right. I did get something that I never forgot, and never shall.\n\nAs we were driving, and talking, by and by, in a little lull of the talk,\nhe said very quietly, \"Gordon, do you know what I have been doing lately?\"\nAnd I said, \"No.\" \"Well,\" he said, \"it's been the delight of my life,\" and\nI could see the gleam of light in his eyes. And I said, \"Tell me what it\nis that has been such a pleasure to you.\" And he said, \"Well, I will.\"\nThen he went on in a very taking way he had to tell this simple story. And\nhe was speaking as to a friend, for he was very modest, and would not have\nspoken of the thing; except to _help_; that would always bring anything he\nhad.\n\nHe said when he was at home--he travelled much--he would think about the\nyoung men whom he knew who were not Christians. Splendid men, some of\nthem; full of power; clubmen, some of them. But who did not know Jesus\npersonally. And he would think, \"Now there's such a man. I wonder what's\nhis easy side of approach.\" And he would think about him, and pray some\nabout him. And then make an opportunity to ask him up to his home for\ndinner some evening. His position in the city would make any young man\nfeel honored with such an invitation.\n\nHe said to me, \"We have a pleasant time at the dinner table with the\nfamily, and afterwards, a bit of music and so on. Then,\" with a quiet\nsmile he said, \"I ask him into my library corner, my little study den,\nand by and by we come to close quarters. I tell him what I'm thinking\nabout. I tell him what a Friend Jesus is. And how it helps to have Him in\nall of one's life as a Friend and Master. Then I ask him softly if he\nwon't let Jesus be his Friend.\"\n\nHe said, \"I try to be as tactful as though I were selling a contract of\ncars. Though there's a fine reverence here that never gets into business\ntalk. And then if it seems good, without causing him any embarrassment, we\nhave a bit of prayer together. Not always, but often.\" And he said to me,\nwith a tender eagerness in his voice, \"Gordon, it's been the _delight_ of\nmy life to have man after man accept Jesus in my library corner.\"\n\nAnd I looked at him. We were driving along the busiest block of the\nbusiest street in Columbus. The Capitol building on this side. And the old\nNeil Hotel on this. And all around us were the electrics, and wagons and\ncarriages; so much noise and dust. And there that man sat by my side so\nquiet, with his eyes dancing as they looked off at something I could not\nsee. And if ever Moses' face shined or Stephen's, his did that morning.\n\nI was caught as I looked. That was the _delight_ of his life. Not his\nmoney, nor his business, nor his social relations, though he took keen\ninterest in all of these, but this. And the sound of his voice, and the\nsight of his face that morning, seemed to kindle the fires in my heart\nthat I might, in my own way, as came best to me, be doing something of\nthat same sort. That is what I mean by a deep-seated purpose, under every\nother, to try to win men.\n\nI was telling this story one night to some people in his state, not\nthinking that I was within maybe two hundred miles of his home. And as the\naudience was dismissed I saw a man coming up the aisle toward the pulpit,\napparently to meet me. So I went down his way. He looked like a business\nfellow, with a clean-cut way about him, and a strong manly face. Before we\nmet I noticed something glistening in his eye, and yet a smile across his\nlips.\n\nAnd he _gripped_ my hand. I can feel that grip now. And he half-blurted\nout, \"_I'm_ one of those fellows! And there are a lot of us that are\nthanking God with full hearts for that man's library room.\" And the grip\nof that hand seemed to make the fires within burn just a bit stiffer.\n\nIn an after conversation this friend told me how he had wanted to be a\nChristian, but didn't seem to know just how. And nobody had ever spoken to\nhim about it, he said, though so often he had wished somebody would. There\nare a great many just like him in that.\n\n\n\n\"Two Missing\"--\"Go Ye.\"\n\n\nSame years ago I was a guest at a small wedding dinner party in New York\nCity. A Scotch-Irish gentleman, well known in that city, an old friend,\nspoke across the table to me. He said he had heard recently a story of the\nScottish hills that he wanted to tell. And we all listened as he told this\nsimple tale. I have heard it since from other lips, variously told. But\ngood gold shines better by the friction of use. And I want to tell it to\nyou as my old friend from the Scotch end of Ireland told it that evening.\n\nIt was of a shepherd in the Scottish hills who had brought his sheep back\nto the fold for the night, and as he was arranging matters for the night\nhe was surprised to find that two of the sheep were missing. He looked\nagain. Yes, two were missing. And he knew which two. These shepherds are\nkeen to know their sheep. He was much surprised, and went to the out-house\nof his dwelling to call his collie.\n\nThere she lay after the day's work suckling her own little ones. He called\nher. She looked up at him. He said, \"Two are missing\"--holding up two\nfingers--\"Away by, Collie, and get them.\" Without moving she looked up\ninto his face, as though she would say, \"You wouldn't send me out again\nto-night?--it's been a long day--I'm so tired--not again to-night.\" So her\neyes seemed to say. And again as many a time doubtless, \"Away by, and get\nthe sheep,\" he said. And out she went.\n\nAbout midnight a scratching at the door aroused him. He found one of the\nsheep back. He cared for it. A bit of warm food, and the like. Then out\nagain to the out-house. There the dog lay with her little ones. Again\nhe called her. She looked up. \"Get the other sheep,\" he said. I do not\nknow if you men listening are as fond of a good collie as I am. Their\neyes seem human to me, almost, sometimes. And hers seemed so as she\nlooked up and seemed to be saying out of their great depths--\"Not\n_again_--to-night?--haven't I been faithful?--I'm so tired--not again!\"\n\nAnd again as I suppose many a time before, \"Away by, and get the sheep.\"\nAnd out she went. About two or three, again the scratching. And he found\nthe last sheep back; badly torn; been down some ravine or gully. And the\ndog was plainly played. And yet she seemed to give a bit of a wag to her\ntired tail as though she would say, \"There it is--I've done as you bade\nme--it's back.\"\n\nAnd he cared for its needs, and then before lying down again to his own\nrest, thought he would go and praise the dog for her faithful work. You\nknow how sensitive collies are to praise or criticism. He went out and\nstooped over with a pat and a kindly word, and was startled to find that\nthe life-tether had slipped its hold. She lay there lifeless, with her\nlittle ones tugging at her body.\n\nThat was only a dog. We are men. Shall I apologize for using a _dog_ for\nan illustration? No. I will not. One of God's creatures, having a part in\nHis redemption. That was to save sheep. You and I are sent, not to save\nsheep, but to save _men_. And how much then is a _man_ better than a\nsheep, or anything else!\n\nAnd our Master stands here to-day. Would that you and I might see His face\nwith the thorn marks of His trip to this earth. He points out with His\nhand. And you can't miss a peculiar hole in its palm. He says, \"There are\n_two missing_--aye, more than two--that you know--that you touch--that you\ncan touch--that I died for--go _ye_.\"\n\nShall we go? For Jesus' sake? Yes, for men's sake; splendid men, befooled\nabout Jesus, who can get Him only through us in touch with Him--for men's\nsake, in Jesus' great Name.\n\n\n\n\nDeep-Sea Fishing: The Ambition of Service.\n\n\n\n    A Water Haul.\n    Living up in the Spirit Realm.\n    Saved to Serve.\n    Ambition in Service.\n    Use What You Have.\n    Expectancy in Service.\n    Jesus Went into the Deeps.\n\n\n\n\nDeep-Sea Fishing: The Ambition of Service.\n\n(Luke v:1-11.)\n\n\n\nA Water Haul.\n\n\nJesus was very fond of the outdoors. The Gospels have a woodsy smell. He\ntaught in the synagogues, but He seemed to prefer the open air. He would\ngo out on a country road, or down by the beach of the Galilean lake, and\nthe people would eagerly gather around Him, and He would talk to them. One\nmorning He had gone down to the lake shore. The people crowded in about\nHim and He commenced as usual to talk to them.\n\nBut so eager were they not to miss a word that they pressed in about Him\nvery close. He was standing with His back to the water likely, and the\npeople seemed likely to crowd Him over into the water. So He looked around\nfor something to do. He was ever practical to the point of being\nmatter-of-fact. A practical idealist was Jesus, _the_ practical Idealist.\nPeter was down there, just a short distance off, with his partners and\ncrew in their fishing boats, cleaning up after the night's haul. Lifting\nHis voice a little, Jesus called out, \"Peter, will you pull around here,\nplease.\"\n\nAnd Peter did. And Jesus, stepping into the boat, sat down, and went on\ntalking to the people. Interruptions never seemed to disturb Him. He\nseemed to regard them in the light of possible index fingers pointing out\nthe next thing to be done. Every missionary, foreign and home, has to get\npractised in just that, while holding steady to his underlying purpose.\n\nWhen He had finished talking, He turned to Peter and said quietly, \"Launch\nout into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.\" And Peter smiled\nat the very idea, as he said, \"Master, we've been out the whole night, and\nhaven't caught a thing, nothing but a water haul, but\"--with a thoughtful\nearnestness taking the place of the critical smile--\"if you say so, of\ncourse we will.\" And the Master said so. And now they can't handle the\nhaul.\n\nI want to bring to you anew this old word of command from Jesus' lips:\n\"Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.\" These\nmen in the story had failed. They had gone out the evening before\nintending and expecting to bring home a fine haul of fish for the\nCapernaum or the Bethsaida market. They came back with nothing for the\nnight's work but tired muscles and torn nets. This message is for men who\nhave failed, or who have seemed to fail. There is no failure to an earnest\nman. A man cannot fail without his own consent. Every seeming failure is\nthe seed of a coming success to earnest men.\n\nIf any of us have seemed to fail, our boots have lead in them, and our\nhearts are heavy too, for lack of success--this message is for us, \"Launch\nout, and let down.\" Failure is very apt to breed discouragement. Your\nclothing seems damp and heavy with the dew of a fruitless night.\nOftentimes the best thing for that is action. Mix yourself with the action\nof boats and nets and men. That's the Master's word here.\n\n\n\nLiving up in the Spirit Realm.\n\n\nThere are three facts that group about the message of Jesus in this story.\nAnd those same three facts need to group themselves in bold outline about\nour using of it, too. The first is this: there was _contact with Jesus as\na Master_. That must come in, and come in strong, before there can be any\nright using of this word of command.\n\nThere needs to be the first contact when a man turns over the control of\nhis life to Jesus as Master. There needs to be close contact that the\nMaster's plan of service may be clearly seen and faithfully started upon.\nThere must be continual contact that so His mastery may control and guide\nat every step.\n\nThe second fact is this: obedience to the Master's word. Obedience, mind\nyou, whether the thing you are told to do seems a likely thing to do or\nnot. Here with the fishermen there were some things that pulled the other\nway. They had been out all night and failed. The very sense of failure\nstrong within them was against obedience. Discouraged men seldom succeed\nat anything. And there was a very unlikely chance ahead. The time for\nfishing with them was in the night. Failure behind, and a poor chance\nahead! Yet they obeyed.\n\nIf Peter had acted the way some modern folks do he would have said\nsomething like this: \"You'll excuse me, Master, for saying it; but--this\nis no time to fish in these waters. Pardon me, sir, I have no doubt you\nknow about carpentering. But _I'm a fisherman_. When it comes to yokes and\nplows I'll gladly yield to you. But fishing--you see, I've been fishing\never since I was a boy. Maybe up around Nazareth, in the brooks and ponds\nup there, you can catch something in daylight, but not down here.\"\n\nI have heard many people talking that way. But Peter didn't. Aren't you\nglad he didn't? He stumbled often. He talked foolishly to Jesus more than\nonce, but not this time. He obeyed. It was against his habit, against his\nideas of what was best, but the message was clear and he obeyed it. Happy\nis the man who listens to the inner Voice, learns keenly how to hear\ndistinctly and accurately, and obeys. Faith is never contrary to reason,\nbut it is frequently _higher up_. The spirit realm is the highest.\n\nA man should reach up _through_ his bodily life, _through_ a keen, strong\nintellectual perception and grasp, up into the spirit realm and abide\nthere. Many a man of splendid ability and earnestness never shakes off his\nintellectual scaffolding in the upward building. It remains to hamper and\nmar. Through a mastered body, and a disciplined mind, up to the spirit\nlevel is the full swing. Obedience to the clearly discerned voice of\ncommand from the Master is the one pathway of full power.\n\nThe third fact was sure to follow these two. It came last. There were\nunexpectedly large results. There always will be where the first two facts\nare faithfully gotten in.\n\n\n\nSaved to Serve.\n\n\nThere is a growth in this message of Jesus. There are four steps up and\nout. First comes the plain call to _service: \"Launch out_.\" This is the\nringing service call. It is a familiar word to a follower of Jesus. He was\nalways saying, \"Go ye.\" To every man He said first of all, \"Come.\" Then,\nas quickly as a man came, the word was changed to \"go.\"\n\nI like greatly the motto of the Salvation Army. It must have been born for\nthose workers in the warm heart of the mother of the Army, Catharine\nBooth. That mother explains much of the marvelous power of that\norganization. Their motto is, \"_Saved to Serve_.\" Some seem to put the\nperiod in after the first word. That's bad punctuation and worse\nChristianity. We are saved to be savers. There is needed the divine Savior\nand the human saver. Only he who has been saved can help save somebody\nelse. The tingle of experience in the blood attracts men.\n\nThe Master says, \"Launch out.\" Get down into the thick of the fight. One\nshould not unwisely wear out his strength. But on the other hand, it's\nbetter to wear out than to rust out. You'll last longer, and any loss of\nstrength is to be preferred to the loss through yellow, eating rust. A\nminister noted for his striking way of putting truth was preaching upon\nthe words that were spoken of Paul and his companions: \"These that have\nturned the world upside down are come hither also.\"[14] He said there were\nthree points to his sermon: first, the world was wrong side up; second, it\nhad to be gotten right side up; third, _we're the fellows to do it_. That\nis the first note of this message, _we_ are the fellows to do it.\n\n\n\nAmbition in Service.\n\n\nThe second step in this ringing call to service is this: _ambition_ in\nservice. \"Launch out _into the deep_.\" The shore waters are largely\nover-fished. Out in the deeps are fish that have never had smell or sight\nof bait or net. Here, near shore, the lines get badly tangled sometimes,\nand committees have to be appointed to try to untangle the lines and\nsweeten up the fishermen.\n\nAnd the fish get very particular about the sort and shape of the bait.\nSome men have taken to fishing wholly with pickles, but with very\nunsatisfactory results. The fish nibble, but are seldom landed apparently.\nAnd just a little bit out are fish that never have gotten a suggestion of\na good bite.\n\nThere are deeps all around. One might fairly give an inward personal turn\nto the word. There are _personal deeps_ that have not yet been sounded.\nThere are untouched deeps in prayer, in Bible study, and in the winning of\nothers. There are deeps in acquaintance with Jesus, in purity of life, in\nsacrifice and in giving whose bottom no greasy lead has yet touched. \"Out\ninto the deep,\" comes that quiet intense inner voice of Jesus spoken into\none's innermost heart.\n\nThere are the great _deeps in service_ waiting our coming. Roundabout\nevery church is a fringe of deep, sometimes a deep fringe and broad, of\nthose practically untouched by the warm message of Jesus; and around every\nChristian Association of men and of women. In the heart and on the edges\nof every village and town and city unfathomed deeps lie; deeps in a man's\nown state, deeps in our land, great untouched deeps in the world.\n\nWherever there is a man who has not felt the warm side of the story of\nJesus' dying there is a deep. Wherever a group of such can be found is a\ndeep increased in depth by the number in the group. Wherever the great\ncrowds are gathered together to whom no word at all has come, neither by\npersonal touch nor printed page nor any other wise, there is the deepest\ndeep. With a deep glow in His eyes as He speaks the word, and the\ntenderness and softness of deep emotion, and the earnestness of one who\nhas Himself been in the deep Jesus says anew to us to-day, \"out into the\n_deep_.\"\n\nWe are to be ambitious in service. Jesus was ambitious. He reached out for\nall, those nearest, those farthest. He talked of all nations, of a world.\nHis follower must have a long reach to keep up. That word ambition has\nbeen much abused. It has been used much in connection with selfish\nself-seeking, until that meaning has become almost its whole meaning in\nthe thinking of many people. But with the purpose dominant in Jesus we can\nproperly use it in its old literal meaning. Originally it simply meant\ngoing around, being used in the sense of going out among people soliciting\ntheir favor or their votes.\n\nIt has the fine vitality of that word \"go\" in it. That for which a man is\nambitious decides the quality of the word. A pure, holy purpose makes the\nintense reaching for it pure and holy too. An intense reaching out to the\nfarthest reach of the Master's word, that finds expression in the dominant\nspirit of the life, in the service, in the giving, the sacrificing, the\npraying--this is the true ambition.\n\nPaul uses three times a word that has the force of our word ambition.[15]\nThe American Revision uses ambition in the margin for it. In advising the\ngroup of followers in Thessalonica he says, \"_Study_ to be quiet.\" The\npractical force of the phrase there is this: be ambitious to be\nunambitious in the world's abused meaning of ambitious. In writing the\nsecond time to the friends at Corinth where his motives had been much\ncriticised he said, \"I make it my aim (or ambition) to be well-pleasing\nunto Him.\"\n\nAnd later, in writing to the Christians at Rome, whom he had never seen,\nhe said that he had made it his aim or had been ambitious to preach the\nGospel where nobody had yet gone. The literal meaning of the word he uses\nis something like this, striving from a love of honor. And we may find a\nfine meaning in that which was doubtless used otherwise.\n\nIt was a matter of honor with Paul to do as he was doing. And he would\nhave the honor of having fully carried out his Master's wish. He coveted\nearnestly the honor of being always pleasing to his Master both in life\nand in the sort and reach of his service. Here are Paul's three ambitions:\nto be wholly free of the fires of worldly ambitions; to be well-pleasing\nto Jesus, his Lord; to reach out beyond, where nobody had yet gone with\nthe story of Jesus' dying and living again.\n\nPaul was obeying Jesus. Jesus said to those fishermen on Galilee's waters,\n\"Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.\" Paul\nsaid, \"I have steadily made it the one thing I drove hard at in service,\nto get out beyond all other lines and nets to where nobody has yet gone.\"\n\n\n\nUse What You Have.\n\n\nThe third step in this service-call is this: _practicality in service_:\n\"Let down your nets.\" I can imagine Peter saying, \"Master, if we had known\nyour plans for this morning, I would have sent up to Tyre for the newest\npatented nets, or down to Cairo. These nets of ours have been patched and\npatched. They are so old.\" The Master says, \"Let down _your_ nets.\"\n\nThere is a very common delusion that holds us back from doing something\nbecause we are not skilled in doing it. \"Let the pastor speak to that\nyoung man; I can't do it very well.\" \"I can't teach very well; let some\none else take that class.\" The Master says, \"Use what you have.\" Do your\nbest. Your best may not be _the_ best, but if it be your best, it will be\nGod-blest, and always bring a harvest.\n\nUse what you have. Do not despise the stuff God put into you. Train and\ndiscipline it the best you can, and use it. And in using it you will be\ntraining it. The best training is in _use_. Brains and pains and prayer\nare an irresistible trinity. When the gray matter and the finger tips and\nthe knees get into a combination great results always come.\n\nThe old Hebrew farmer Shamgar had only a long ox-goad with which to prod\nhis beasts in the field. The traditional enemy, the Philistine, comes up\nover the hill. Shamgar's neighbors have taken to their heels. But Shamgar\nis made of different stuff. He asks a man hurrying by, \"How many do you\nthink there are?\" And the man calls out, \"About six hundred, I should\nsay.\"\n\nShamgar sets his jaws together hard, gets a fresh grip on his ox-goad,\ndigs his heels into the ground for a good hold, and mutters to himself, \"I\nguess they are about four hundred short.\" And he smites, left and right,\nup and down, hip and thigh, with his strange weapon. And a great victory\ncomes to the nation under its new leader.\n\nDavid had only a leather sling, home-made likely, and a few smooth stones\nout of the running brook. He had skill in slinging stones, a keen trained\neye, a steady nerve, a practiced arm, and well-knit muscles. But what were\nthese against a giant almost twice his height and years, and armed to the\nteeth? Yet the ruddy-faced stripling had something better yet along with\nhis sling and stones and skill. He had a simple trust in God. He had a hot\nprotest in his heart against the slandering of God's people by this\nheathen giant. He _combined_ all he had, sling, stones, skill, and faith,\nand the laughing, sneering giant is soon under his feet, and feeling the\nedge of his own sword. \"Let down your nets.\" Use what you have.\n\nThere was a woman living down by the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea a\ngood while ago. Her heart had been touched by God, and ever after beat\nwarm for others. But what could _she_ do? She couldn't make speeches, nor\nwrite papers for the missionary society, nor preside over its meetings.\nShe seemed to have one special gift. She could sew. She could do plain\nsewing and overcast, cross-stitch and hem-stitch. I suppose she knew the\nherring-bone-stitch and feather-stitch, and other sorts too.\n\nAnd so she just busied herself finding out poor folks who needed clothing,\nsome women too hard-worked to care for their children's clothing. And she\nsewed for them. She was a seamstress for Jesus' sake to all the needy\nfolks she could find. I expect she stuck pretty closely to the plain\nstitching, though likely as not she would put in some of the fancy too to\nplease the people she was winning to her Master.\n\nAnd she sewed the story of Jesus, and the heart of Jesus, into coats and\nskirts and such. All through Joppa her message went into homes not\notherwise open perhaps. And the women read the story of her heart in the\nstitches and they found Jesus through her needle. She used what she had.\nAnd the women of the church have rightly honored her name in their\nsocieties.\n\nBut mark keenly this: while using to the full, and faithfully, just what\nyou have, there must needs be utter dependence upon God. Not what you\nhave, nor what you can do, but Somebody _in_ what you have, and _through_\nwhat you do. Notice, \"Their nets were _breaking_.\" They were to use their\nnets, but the power was somewhere else. As we are made up, there\nfrequently needs to be a breaking before the glory of God is revealed. It\nneed not be so, necessarily.\n\nYet as a matter of fact most people have to stub their toes and then go\nstumbling down with a clash, measuring their length on the earth, and\ngetting some scars that stay before they can be mightily used. So many\nstrong wills are strong enough to be stubborn, but not strong enough to\nyield. Gideon's pitchers had to be broken before the lights flashed out\nand brought panic to the enemy.\n\nIt was when the alabaster box was broken that its fine fragrance filled\nthe house, and spread out into all the world. Somebody prayed, \"O Lord,\ntake me, and break me, and make me.\" That is the usual order as a matter\nof fact. Yet if the strength of stubbornness that must be broken down to\nchange its direction, were but swung God's way at once--But most folks\nthat have been greatly used have some of this sort of scars. Utter\ndependence upon God's strength in doing God's service is the lesson of the\nbreaking nets.\n\n\n\nExpectancy in Service.\n\n\nThe climax of this message of Jesus is in its end: \"Let down your nets\n_for a draught_.\" There is to be _expectancy in service_. Ideas of\ndraughts changed that day. \"Peter, what would you call a good draught?\"\n\"Well,\" the old fisherman says, as he sits stitching up the holes in his\nnets, \"after last night I think if we got a boat half full it wouldn't be\na bad haul.\" \"Andrew, what's a draught?\" And Andrew says, \"I think after\nthis water haul we've had, a haul of holes, Peter hits it pretty close.\"\n\n\"Master, how much is _a draught_?\" And His answer comes back over the\nwater, \"Twice as much as you are able to take care of, and then more.\"\nThey filled that boat, sent for another, filled that, and then didn't land\nall they had caught.\n\nHow much do you reckon a draught in your life, in your church, in your\nmission, your field, _how much_ are you _saying_?--\"Master, what is your\nreckoning of a draught here in this man's life, out here in this field of\nservice?\" And from this Galilean story there comes back anew to our hearts\nthe Master's reply, \"Twice as much as you have planned for, and then\nmore.\"\n\nExpectancy is the eye of faith. Faith always has a watch-tower. When\nElijah went to the tiptop of Carmel to pray, he was careful to send his\nservant to watch the sea. Prayer is faith looking up. Expectancy is faith\nlooking out.\n\n\n\nJesus Went into the Deeps.\n\n\nAnd so to every one of us to-day comes afresh that ringing command,\n\"Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught.\"\n\n    \"'Launch out into the deep;'\n      The awful depth of a world's despair;\n    Hearts that are breaking and eyes that weep;\n      Sorrow and ruin and death are there.\n    And the sea is wide;\n      And its pitiless tide\n    Bears on its bosom away.\n      Beauty and youth,\n    In relentless ruth,\n      To its dark abyss for aye.\n    But the Master's voice comes over the sea,\n      'Let down your nets for a draught for Me.'\n    And He stands in our midst,\n      On our wreck-strewn strand.\n    And sweet and loving is His command.\n      His loving word is to each, to all.\n    And wherever that loving word is heard,\n      There hang the nets of the royal Word.\n    Trust to the nets, and not to your skill;\n      Trust to the royal Master's will.\n    Let down the nets this day, this hour;\n      For the word of a king is a word of power,\n    And the King's own word comes over the sea,\n      Let down your nets for a draught for Me.'\"\n\nThere is a last word that comes up insisting to be said. It is this: Jesus\nwent down into the deeps for us. Deeper deeps than we know or ever shall\nHe sounded with the line of His own life on our behalf. He got badly\nscarred that night of darkness. It is this scarred Jesus who earnestly\nasks us to come along after Him so far as we can. His voice with a\ntenderness of love wrought into it on the cross says to us, \"Launch out\ninto the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.\"\n\n\n\n\nMoney: The Golden Channel of Service.\n\n\n\n    Touching a Limitless Circle.\n    Peculiar Effects of Money.\n    Jesus' Law for the Use of Money.\n    Foreign Exchange.\n    Gold-Exchanged Lives.\n    Spirit Alchemy.\n    The Fragrance of the Life in the Gift.\n    Sacrifice Hallows and Increases the Gift.\n    A Living Sacrifice.\n\n\n\n\nMoney: The Golden Channel of Service.[16]\n\n(Luke xvi:1-18.)\n\n\n\nTouching a Limitless Circle.\n\n\nThere is an inky shadow over the home of God. There is a sharp pain\ntugging at the heart of God. It's a family matter; a family disgrace. One\nof God's family has gone off from the home circle and made a bad mess of\nthings. Such an affair is always a source of great grief, especially where\nthe family is an old one, with fine blood. And here the family is of the\noldest, and the blood the best. The Father feels the sharp edge of the\nknife of disgrace very keenly. The hearth fire of God is lonely for the\none gone away.\n\nAll of that Father's great love and rare wisdom have centered and blended\non a plan for winning the estranged member of His family back home, of his\nown free glad accord. The other members of His family have gazed with\nawe-touched faces upon the marvels of that plan. Its tenderness, its\ndepth, its wondrous love-wisdom have excited their deepest admiration\nwhile they watch breathlessly to see the outcome.\n\nThat prodigal is our own splendid planet. Some of us down here have gladly\nwelcomed the Father's plan and the Father's Son. His Son is His plan. But\nmost of us don't seem to understand the Father. And that is hard on Him.\nAnd the greater number of us, by far the greater number, haven't even\nheard of the Father's plan or of His Son, and have lost the memory of His\nloving voice calling. He is always calling. And everyone hears that\ncalling voice. But very many do not recognize it as the Father's.\n\nIn great tenderness the Father's plan for winning all includes the help of\nthose already won. Through His Son first, and then through His sons,\nnewborn, reborn, He is reaching out His warm, eager hand to all. He\nbreathed His own Spirit upon His Son. He breathes that same Spirit upon\neach of us who will, that so we may, each of us, touch all the others with\nthe touch of God.\n\nFive great touches of God there are, each charged with a mighty current of\npower. The fragrant life-touch, the musical voice-touch, the warm\nservice-touch, the potent golden-touch, the secret, subtle prayer-touch.\nThe first three of these are limited to a narrow circle, the circle of the\nimmediate personality. The last two are limitless. They are like our own\nspirits. They reach directly, resistlessly, clear out through the personal\ncircle as far as the spirit reaches, even around the whole circle of the\nplanet.\n\nJust now for a little while we want to talk together about one of these,\nthe potent yellow golden-touch. The word service has been thought of quite\ncommonly as referring to certain restricted things that one may do for\nanother. It has a broader meaning too. Whatever we do to help another is\nservice. Not merely the direct activities, but praying and giving are\nservice of most potent influence. Money supplies a channel through which\none may reach most intimately to others, near by and around the world. It\nis the golden channel of service.\n\n\n\nPeculiar Effects of Money.\n\n\nMoney is queer stuff. The opposites meet in it so strikingly. It may be\nthe most cruel, exacting tyrant. It may be the most faithful, intelligent\nservant. If it come into a man's life unaccompanied by a high, controlling\nmotive power, it has most peculiar effects upon him. It often wrinkles up\nhis face, and ties hard knots in the wrinkled lines. It can dwarf a warm\nhand into a cold, hard, muscle-bound fist. It drains the warm blood from\nthe heart, and dries all the sweet, fragrant dew out of the spirit. The\nhand suffers much. It is often stricken with a sort of palsy while in the\npocket, and cannot be withdrawn. Sometimes there is a violent cramp, or a\nsort of pen paralysis that prevents the signing of the name--to certain\nsorts of checks.\n\nBut if, on the other hand, it come into a man's possession accompanied by\na pure unselfish motive that _controls_, it comes the nearest to\nomnipotence of anything we handle. Gold of itself seems to have the\npuckering quality of a green persimmon. The green fruit will contract the\nmouth to its smallest proportions. And unmellowed gold acts in the same\nway upon the mouth of the pocket.\n\nThis is true of all gold and of all pockets. There are no exceptions. The\nonly possible way of effecting a change is to let a stronger power come in\nand counteract the contracting power. Gold has the greatest contracting\npower of any earthly substance. Its only sufficient counteractant is God.\nGod has the greatest expanding power known to angels or men. Gold\ncontracts. God expands. If God be the dominating motive power in a man's\nlife, then does gold come the nearest to omnipotence of any tangible\nthing. It takes on the quality of Him who breathes upon it.\n\n\n\nJesus' Law for the Use of Money.\n\n\nJesus gives us the simple law for the right use of money. It is in that\nsixteenth chapter of Luke. He is talking about the dishonest overseer of a\nwealthy man's estate. His dishonest practices have been discovered, and he\nis required to make a final settlement preliminary to his being\ndischarged. He has evidently been living extravagantly, for the loss of\nposition threatens him with beggary. Distressed to know what to do he hits\nupon a farther extension of his dishonest practices, and uses the position\nhe is about to lose to buy up friends for his coming days of want.\n\nAs he tells the story Jesus adds this comment: \"for the sons of this world\nare for their own generation wiser than the sons of light.\" Practically\nthey go on the supposition that the present generation is the only one.\nFor the short space of years making up their own generation they are wiser\nthan the sons of light. But for the long space of all coming generations\nthey are the rankest fools. That is included by contrast in Jesus' words.\nThe man who in his use of money thinks only or chiefly of the years making\nup his own present life is--a fool. The man who takes into his reckoning\nnot only the present generation, but all coming generations, in disposing\nof his money is the shrewd financier.\n\nThen occurs the sentence[17] that contains a wonderfully simple statement\nfor the keen, wise use of gold. The old version runs like this: \"Make to\nyourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they\nmay receive you into everlasting habitations.\" The revised version, both\nEnglish and American, reads this way: \"Make to yourselves friends by means\nof the mammon of unrighteousness that when _it_ shall fail they may\nreceive you into the eternal tabernacles.\"\n\nI have ventured to make a rather free translation that I feel sure is true\nto the words here in their connection and that gives in simple English\njust what Jesus means. \"Make to yourselves friends by means of money,\nwhich the unrighteous world reckons riches, that when it fails they may\nreceive you,\" and so on. Money is not riches. The world commonly has been\nbefooled into thinking that it is. Perhaps we have not all quite escaped\nthat delusion. And money is not unrighteous. It is neither righteous, nor\nunrighteous. It gets its moral quality from the man owning it for the time\nbeing. It is as he is. It takes on the color of its ownership.\n\nMake to yourselves friends by means of the money that comes into your\ncontrol that when it fails they may receive you. That is to say, exchange\nyour money into the kind of coin that is current in the kingdom of God.\nExchange your gold into _lives_. That is the sort of coin current in the\nhomeland. This yellow stuff we call riches they use for paving stones up\nin the homeland. Would that we might get it under our feet down here,\ninstead of being ruled by it.\n\nThe current coin of heaven is lives of men. And that too will be reckoned\nthe precious metal when the Kingdom of God comes to the earth. Exchange\nyour money into _men_; purified, uplifted, redeemed men. Buy letters of\ncredit that will be good in the homeland, and in the coming Kingdom days\non the earth, if you would be wealthy.\n\n\"That when it fails,\" Jesus says with fine discernment. Money will fail.\nThere is an end to the power of gold in itself. Money will be bankrupt\nsome day. It has enormous buying power now. Some day its buying power will\nbe all gone. Then it will take the place of cobble-stones. Yet it would\nseem to be a failure there unless some new hardening process had been\nfound for it. Better use it while it has power of purchase. Better not be\ncaught with much of the yellow stuff sticking to you when the true values\nare being settled. It'll all be dead loss then; dead stock, not worth the\nspace it occupies.\n\nYou remember the very old story of the wealthy man who died. And in a\ngroup of people talking together somebody asked the usual question, \"How\nmuch did he _leave_?\" And a wise man in the company replied tersely,\n\"Every cent; didn't take a copper along.\" That story is apt to provoke a\nsmile. But, do you know, it is sadder than it is witty. The man had gained\ngreat wealth. He must have been endowed with some force and talent to do\nthat. His whole life and strength and talent had been devoted to making\nmoney and hoarding it. That money was the whole output of the man's life.\nThen he died and the whole output of his life was left behind. He passed\nout of this life stripped to the skin. Into the other world, where wealth\nis reckoned otherwise than in gold, he entered a sheer pauper. The\npurchasing power of his wealth stopped at the line of departure out of\nthis world. _It failed_.\n\n\n\nForeign Exchange.\n\n\nExchange your gold into men. Buy up some of the kind of coin they use in\nthe homeland, so that you may have some wealth when you get there. Suppose\nyou should be over on the continent of Europe, shopping in Berlin. You buy\nsome goods in a store and lay down upon the counter a twenty-dollar gold\npiece in payment. The salesman would say, \"What sort of money is this?\"\nand you would likely say, \"That is good American gold, sir.\" And he would\nprobably reply, \"I have no doubt that is true, and that it is good money.\nBut it is not the sort we receive here. You will have to go to the bankers\nand get it changed into German marks and then I'll be pleased to complete\nthis sale.\" And so you would be obliged to do if you had not thought to\nprovide yourself with German money.\n\nThere are some people that will have an experience like that after a\nwhile, I'm thinking. Some one thinks that that is not a very likely\nillustration. A man going to Europe would provide himself with proper\nmoney to use. Maybe it is not a very good illustration for _Europe_. But\nhow about some other strange lands to which folks go? There seem to be\nseveral people who expect to go to a strange country, and yet do not\nprovide any of its recognized coinage before going.\n\nHere is a man who gets through his life down on the earth, and goes out\ninto the other life. Judging by the whole tenor of his life he will\nattempt to take some of his belongings with him. Indeed so much are these\nbelongings a part of his very life that they seem inseparable from him.\nHere he comes up to the gateway of the upper world. He is lugging along a\nfarm or two, some town lots, and houses, and a lot of beautifully engraved\npaper, bank stock and railroad bonds and other bonds. They are absorbing\nhim completely as he puffs slowly along.\n\nAnd as he gets up to the gateway, the gateman will say, \"What's all that\nstuff?\" \"_Stuff!_\" he will say, astonished; \"this is the most precious\nwealth of earth, sir. I have spent my whole life, the cream of my strength\nin accumulating this.\" \"Oh, well,\" the reply will be, \"I have no doubt\nthat is so. I am not disputing your word at all. But that sort of thing\ndoes not pass current up in this land. That has to be exchanged at the\nbankers' offices for the sort of coinage we use here.\"\n\nThe man looks a little relieved at this last remark. The other talk has\nsounded strange, and given him a queer misgiving in his heart, as he\nlistened. But \"banker\" and \"exchange\"--that sounds familiar. The ground\nfeels a bit steadier. He picks up new spirit. \"Where are the bankers'\noffices, please?\" he asks eagerly. \"They are all down on the earth,\" comes\nthe quiet answer. \"You must do your exchanging before you get as far up as\nthis. That stuff is all dead loss now. You can't take it back to the\nbankers' now, and it is of no value here. Just leave it over on that dump\nheap there outside the gate, and come in yourself.\" And the man comes in\nwith a strangely stripped and bare feeling.\n\nWhat we get and keep for the sake of having, we lose, for we leave it\nbehind. What we give away freely for _Jesus'_ sake, for men's sake, we\nwill find by and by we have kept, for we have sent it ahead in a changed\nform.\n\nThere will be a strange readjustment of values on the other side. Some\nmen of splendid strength have spent it in accumulating earth's wealth.\nThey give, even freely it seems to be, in very large amounts. Yet be it\nkeenly marked the sum given by these men always bears a small proportion\nto what is kept.\n\nOthers there are of equally splendid strength, and fine powers, who have\nbeen spending that strength in influencing men. Their passion seems to\nhave been for _men_, for men's _selves_, for men's _lives_. The great bulk\nof their strength and time has been deliberately given to this. And some\nthat have not understood have thought such conduct strange, a sort of fad\nwith these men. But when values are readjusted by the standards of the\nfinal clearing house, some who have been very wealthy down here will be\nreckoned among the very poor. And some who have been reckoned poor will be\nfound to be the shrewdest of investors. They will be the millionaires of\nthe Kingdom time and in the homeland. I do not mean _dollar_-millionaires,\nbut _life-millionaires._ The standard of wealth in the homeland is\n_lives_, not dollars.\n\nAnd some too there will be, and not few in numbers, who have given of\ntheir strength in business pursuits to the making of money, as the Spirit\nhas guided them, or to whom it has been left in trust by others, and who\nhave been steadily investing the wealth that has come in the _lives of\nmen_. Some folks ought to be getting better acquainted at the foreign\nexchange desk in the banks where this sort of business is done.\n\nThere are a good many banks that make a specialty of this sort of foreign\nexchange. The great Church Boards, the International Committee of the\nYoung Men's Christian Associations, the American Committee of the Young\nWomen's Christian Associations, the individual churches and associations,\nand the Bible Societies are a few of the better known of the banks having\na large exchange business of this sort.\n\nTheir methods of business have been very thoroughly systematized for the\nconvenience of investors. In almost every pew of a church may be found\nlittle deposit envelopes, mediums of exchange. There are weekly\nopportunities for making deposits. And the handling of the money has been\nso thoroughly systematized, too, that, as a rule, a very small proportion\nis taken up in keeping the banks running, the great bulk passing directly\nout to the designated place of use.\n\n\n\nGold-Exchanged Lives.\n\n\nJesus says that our money in its new form will be waiting our arrival on\nthe other side. The men and women into whose lives we have been\nexchanging it will be eagerly looking for us as the ship pulls into port.\nWhen you get through with your life down here--it will be a long life, I\nhope--you will go up and into the homeland. And--I suppose--at the first\nyou will have eyes and heart for nobody but _Jesus_. My mother used to say\nto me, \"I have thought that I would like to have a talk with Moses, and\nwith Elijah, and with John and Paul, but\"--with the quick tears of deepest\nemotion filling her dark eyes--\"I have never been able in my thinking of\nit, _to get past Jesus yet_.\" Even so it will be, no doubt, with all of\nus.\n\nBut this word of Jesus' own suggests that as you go in you will find some\none coming eagerly up with outstretched hands and such a glad face to meet\nyou. And he will say, \"Oh! I have been looking forward so eagerly to\nmeeting you; welcome.\" And you will say, \"Well, this is very kind of you.\nBut, pardon me, I can't just recall your face. Where was it I knew you? in\nNew York?\"\n\nAnd he will say, with a flush of earnest feeling, \"Oh, no! I never saw New\nYork. And I never saw you before. My home was over in the heart of China.\nOur lives were very miserable there. There was a great tugging at my heart\nthat nothing seemed ever to ease. But one day a stranger came into our\nvillage, with some little books, and as we gathered about him he talked\nto us about _Jesus_, and you can never know how that story of Jesus came\nto me, and how much it meant. My whole life was changed, and my home and\nour village were changed. And since coming up here I have learned that it\nwas _through you_ that that man came, and I want to thank you. Next to\nJesus I think you're the best friend I have.\"\n\nAnd you will be thinking, \"I'm so glad I gave that money. I had to pinch\nquite a bit, but that's nothing compared to the joy of this.\" And as that\nis flashing swiftly through your thought, here is somebody else eagerly\npressing up, with the same word of welcome, and a face with such a glad\nlight the sight of which is alone quite enough to even up any sacrifice.\nAnd you will say maybe, \"And where did I meet you? are you from China,\ntoo?\"\n\nNo, this one is from a western frontier settlement where the home\nmissionary had gone, and now this one elbowing by her with the same\nlightened face is from the mountain section of the South. And so they come\neagerly up from many places where you have never been in person but where\nyou have gone potentially through your money. That is what Jesus means.\nMake to yourselves friends by means of money which the unrighteous world\nreckons riches, that when it fails they may welcome you eagerly into the\nhomeland. Exchange your gold into lives.\n\n\n\nSpirit Alchemy.\n\n\nThere is a divine alchemy whereby money may be transmuted into redeemed,\npurified, uplifted lives. There is another alchemy whereby men, made of\nfinest gold in the image of God, may be transmuted into the basest metals.\nWhen Moses coming down from the presence of God saw the shocking sight of\nthe people worshiping a calf made of gold, he reproached Aaron for\npermitting it. Do you remember Aaron's answer? He had the gift of speech,\nyou remember, an easy, smooth way of explaining things. Yet in the light\nof the recited facts the answer seems rather lame. It needs a crutch to\nsteady it up. He said, that he had put in the gold and--\"_there came out\nthis calf_.\"\n\nA great many men might fairly make use of Aaron's explanation. They have\nput into the crucible of life their gold, themselves, God's finest gold\nintrusted to their hands. And under their manipulation what has come out\nis as a vealy, callow calf, a bull calf at that too, scrub stock, fit only\nfor the ax.\n\nThere is the other, the divine alchemy whereby a man may put in the gold\nintrusted to his handling and there shall come out _lives_, sweet, strong,\nfragrant lives, made anew in the image of their Maker.\n\n\n\nThe Fragrance of the Life in the Gift.\n\n\nIt is a part of the peculiar potent value of money that there can be a\npractical transfer of personality through its use. For instance I have a\nfriend whose heart burned to go to a foreign mission field for service\nthere. But the physician said it would not be wise for her to go. Yielding\nto his expert judgment, she still yearned to be of service there. In the\nprovidence of God she became intrusted with large wealth. And so she\narranged to have a man go in her stead to China, she caring for all the\nexpense involved, while he was so left wholly free for the service.\n\nTell me, was that not a practical transfer of her personality to the point\nof service where he is engaged? Then she arranged for another, and\nanother, and yet others. It is not only a transfer of personality in\npractical results, but a duplication of personality, and a triplication,\nand more. For she is busy in her home circle, while her representatives\nare busy elsewhere through the influence of her action.\n\nA young woman, graduate of a western college, developed much talent in\nspeaking to other young women of the Christian life. Her public service\nwas much blessed in the lives of large numbers of women. She had no\nwealth, but was dependent upon her efforts for a livelihood. Another young\nwoman, in the East, came under the warm spell of her personality and\nspeech. And her life was blessedly revolutionized by that spell. Her own\nheart burned to be doing something of the sort for her sisters out over\nthe land.\n\nBut she seemed not to have gifts of that kind. Yet she had been intrusted\nwith large means. And so she said to her new friend whom God had so\ngraciously blessed to her own life, \"Let us be partners together. I will\nso gladly give what I have, that you may be wholly free to give to others\nwhat you have brought to me.\" And so it was arranged. And the one woman\ngives of the gold of her inheritance while the other gives her life and\nher special gift. The one in her home pays and prays. The other goes\nconstantly here and there, and lives are ever transformed through the\nSpirit of God resting upon her.\n\nIs not that a practical transfer of personality? and duplication of\npersonality, too? Is not this young woman whose own actual personality\nremains, in the gracious providence of God, in her home, is she not going\npotentially about from place to place winning her sisters up to the\nhighlands of the best living? It surely is so.\n\nAnd these two are but illustrations of the many who have come to\nunderstand Jesus' law for the right use of money. And there are to be many\nmore as the days go by, doing just that sort of thing. And let those of us\nwho have not been intrusted either with the large amount of money, or\nwith the large power to earn, remember that the _amount_ involved does not\naffect the law of results. All who have felt the blessed contagion of the\nMaster's example will give freely of what is in store, whether much or\nlittle.\n\nThose whose giving is in smaller amounts by our bulky way of reckoning\nvalues, may still be making that same blessed transfer and doubling their\nown capacity for service through the agency of their gold. For the gold\ngiven represents the life that gives. And the gift takes on the quality\nand power and fragrance of the life that gives it. I have sometimes\nthought that there seems to be a peculiar potency in the smaller gifts,\nthat represent as they so often do the greatest, most devoted sacrifice.\nCould we trace the intricate crossings of the lines of influence in the\nweb of life, we would be awed many times at the potency of the giving that\nis small in amount but tinted red with the life-blood of sacrifice.\n\nIt should be remembered that through this strange stuff called money there\nis a double transfer of personality going on all the time. Men are\nconstantly transferring themselves into gold, in a perfectly proper way. A\nman gives his labor, and at the end of a specified period he gets a\ncertain amount of money. That money represents himself. It is himself for\nthat length of time. That is the first transfer of manhood in money. It is\ngoing on all the time. It is necessarily so, for so we get our food, and\nclothing, and home.\n\nThen there is the re-transfer of this money into some other form. As we\nchoose to use this money, so we are re-transferring ourselves into what\nforms we will. The money is the transition state of ourselves. We pass\nthrough it out into the exchange of life. We reveal ourselves in the way\nwe pass it out. In no way does a man reveal the true inner self more. And\nif perchance we let it, or some of it, lie and gather rust, there we are,\nsome part of us being covered with rust.\n\n\n\nSacrifice Hallows and Increases the Gift.\n\n\nBut there is more yet to be said here. The great blending of the spirit\nforces with gold comes out wondrously in this: that _sacrifice hallows\nwhat it touches_. And under its hallowing touch values increase by long\nleaps and big bounds. Here is a fine opportunity for those who would\nincrease the value of gifts that seem small in amount. Without stopping\nnow for the philosophy of it, this is the tremendous fact.\n\nPerhaps the annual foreign missionary offering is being taken up in your\nchurch. The pastor has preached a special sermon, and it has caught fire\nwithin you. You find yourself thinking as he preaches, and during the\nprayer following, \"I believe I can easily make it fifty dollars this year.\nI gave thirty-five last time.\" You want to be careful _not_ to make it\nfifty dollars, because you can do that _easily_. If you are shrewd to have\nyour money count the most, you will pinch a bit somewhere and make it\nsixty-two fifty. For the extra amount that you pinch to give will hallow\nthe original sum and increase its practical value enormously. Sacrifice\nhallows what it touches, and the hallowing touch acts in geometrical\nproportion upon the value of the gift.\n\nBetter turn your gown, and readjust your hat, for the sacrifice involved\nwill give a new beauty to the spirit looking out through your face. And\nreal folks will not be able to get past the beauty of face to the\nincidentals of your apparel. Wear your derby another season, and get your\nshoes half-soled, and some deft mending done. Let that extra horse go to\nother buyers, and the automobile be picked up by somebody who has not yet\nmined any of the fine gold of sacrifice. The coming rainy day will never\nbe able to use up all that some folks are salting down for it.\n\nAnd yet some folks, many folks, should be spending more on their bodies\nand giving less. The giving should never intrench upon the strength of\none's personality. That is a treasure to be sacredly guarded. All the\npower of one's life, in serving, in giving, in praying, in speaking, and\nin personal contact, the power of all roots down in the personality. The\nsafe rule, and the only safe rule, is to decide such questions with the\nknee-joint bent, and the door shut, and the spirit willing. A strong will\nplayed upon by the Holy Spirit, mellowed by emotions that have been moved\nby the need, and held steady by a disciplined judgment must attend to\nloosening the purse-strings.\n\nBut the one fact being emphasized here just now is that the element of\nsacrifice must be in the giving if it is to be effective. Sacrifice was\nthe dominant factor in _God's_ giving of His Son, real sacrifice. It was\ndominant in _Jesus'_ giving of His own self and His life, keen cutting\nsacrifice. Who will follow in _their_ train? Whoever will, will be getting\na post-graduate course in financiering and in multiplying of values. He\nwill be astonished at the results working out, and most astonished at the\nfinal disclosures.\n\nKeeping out of circulation more than one's wants, properly adjusted, call\nfor is poor financiering. For that which is held back is not earning\nanything. All beyond one's needs should be out in circulation for the\nMaster in His campaign for a world. Yet nowhere is there finer chance or\ngreater need for the play of keen judgment than in deciding that question\nof need. Mistakes are made on both sides. It looks very much as though the\nmost serious mistakes are being made on the side of too little sacrifice\nor none. Yet clearly some serious mistakes are made on the other side\ntoo. But no one may criticise another. Each must decide for himself. In\nthe judgment of charity we are to presume that each is doing what he\nthinks right and best. We are, none of us, the keeper of our brother's\npurse.\n\n\n\nA Living Sacrifice.\n\n\nThere is a simple story told that contains its truth in its very\nnaturalness and simplicity. It reveals a bit of the real life ever going\non all around us unnoticed. A minister in a certain small town in an\neastern state received from the home mission board of his church a letter\nasking for a special offering for a needy field in the West. With the\nletter was literature setting forth the need. The call appealed to him and\nwith good heart he prepared a special sermon, calling the attention of his\npeople to the great need.\n\nSabbath morning came and he preached the sermon. But somehow it did not\njust seem to hook in. That banker down there on the left looked listless,\nand yawned a couple of times behind his hand. And the merchant over on the\nright, who could give freely, examined his watch secretly more than once.\nAnd so it was with a little tinge of discouragement insistently creeping\ninto his spirit that he finished, and sat down. And he remained with head\nbowed in prayer that the results might prove better than seemed likely,\nwhile the church officers passed down the aisles with the collection\nplates.\n\nMeanwhile something unseen by human eye was going on in the very last pew.\nBack there, sitting alone, was a little girl of a poor family. She had met\nwith a misfortune which left her crippled. And her whole life seemed so\ndark and hopeless. But some kind friends in the church, pitying her\ncondition, had made up a small fund and bought her a pair of crutches. And\nthese had seemed to transform her completely. She went about her rounds\nalways as cheery and bright as a bit of sunshine.\n\nShe had listened to the sermon, and her heart had been strangely warmed by\nthe preacher's story of need. And as he was finishing she was thinking,\n\"How I wish I might give something. But I haven't anything to give, not\neven a copper left.\" And a very soft voice within seemed to say very\nsoftly, but very distinctly, \"There are your crutches.\" \"Oh,\" she gasped\nto herself as though it took away her very breath, \"my crutches? I\ncouldn't give my _crutches_; they're my _life_.\" And that strangely clear\nvoice went on, so quietly, \"Yes--you _could_--and then some one would know\nof Jesus--if you did--and that would mean so much to them--He's meant so\nmuch to you--give your crutches.\" And her breath seemed to fail her at the\nthought. And so the little woman had her fight all unseen and unknown by\nthose in the church. And by and by the victory came. And she sat with a\nbeautiful light in her tearful eyes, and a smile coming to her lips,\nwaiting for the plate to get to her pew.\n\nAnd the man with the plate came down the aisle to the end. It seemed\nhardly worth while reaching it into the last pew. Just little Maggie\nsitting there alone, with her one foot dangling above the floor. But with\nfine courtesy he stopped and passed the plate in. And Maggie in her\nchildlike simplicity lifted her crutches, and tried rather awkwardly to\nput them on the collection plate. Quick as a flash the man caught her\nthought, and with a queer lump in his throat reached out and steadied her\nstrange gift on the plate.\n\nAnd then he turned back and walked slowly up the aisle toward the pulpit,\ncarrying the plate in one hand and steadying the crutches on it with the\nother. And people commenced to look. And eyes quickly dimmed. Everybody\nknew the crutches. _Maggie_--giving her _crutches_! And the banker over\nhere blew his nose suddenly and reached for his pencil, and the merchant\nreached out to stop the man returning up his aisle.\n\nAs the pastor stood with his eyesight not very clear to receive the\nmorning's offering, he said, \"Surely our little crippled friend is giving\nus a wonderful example.\" Then the plates were called back toward the\npews. And somebody paid fifty dollars for the crutches, and sent them back\nto that end pew. When the offering was counted up it contained several\nhundred dollars. And the little girl, crippled in body but not in any\nother way, hobbled out of church the happiest little woman in the world.\n\nShe had recognized and obeyed the inner voice. That was the simple\nexplanation of her giving. And her gift, small in itself, _touched with\nsacrifice_, became worth several hundred dollars in its earning power. And\nthe original investment was returned for its usual service. And her gift\nhas been increasing in its earning power as its recital has reached other\nhearts, and the end is not yet. I do not know just where Maggie is now.\nBut I do know that she will be a greatly surprised woman some day when she\nfinds out what God has done with her sacrifice-hallowed gift. She\nrecognized and obeyed the inner Voice. That is the one law of giving, as\nof all living.\n\n\n\n\nWorry: A Hindrance to Service.\n\n\n\n    Fear Not.\n    A Fence of Trust.\n    A Lord of the Harvest.\n    Do Your Best--Leave the Rest.\n    Anxious for Nothing.\n    Thankful for Anything.\n    Prayerful about Everything.\n    A Steamer Chair for His Friend.\n    He Has You on His Heart.\n    Paul's Prison Psalm.\n    He Touched Her Hand.\n\n\n\n\nWorry: A Hindrance to Service.\n\n(Psalm xxxvii:1-11; Matthew vi:19-34, Philippians iv:6-7. American\nRevision.)\n\n\n\nFear Not.\n\n\nThere is nothing commoner than worry. Everybody seems to worry. Men worry.\nWomen worry. It is commonly supposed that women worry more than men. I\ndoubt it. After watching both pretty closely under all sorts of\ncircumstances I doubt it. Yet if it be true that woman does worry the\nmore, I think it is because, being more sensitively organized, she is more\nkeenly alive to the issues involved and to the responsibilities of life.\nPoor people worry. Those with enough money to be easy worry. And those\nwith the largest wealth seem to worry too. Busy folks worry. And so do the\nidle. The cultured and scholarly touch elbows with the ignorant here.\n\nAmericans are supposed to be specialists in worrying. The name\nAmericanitis has been given to a certain run-down condition of the nerves.\nWell, we may possibly have set the pace, and may be making new records.\nBut certainly there are plenty of pushing followers. Our Canadian\nneighbors seem not to be wholly strangers to worry. Nor our British and\nDutch forbears. The European continentals, and those of the East nearer\nand farther off seem to be good or bad at worrying. It is a characteristic\nof the race everywhere, the difference being merely in the degree. It\nseems inbred in man.\n\nThere are two \"don't-worry\" chapters in this old Bible, one in the Old\nTestament and one in the New. In the Old Testament is the Thirty-seventh\nPsalm with its oft-repeated \"fret not.\" The word under that English phrase\n\"fret not\" is significant. It is so blunt as to sound almost like a bit of\nAmerican slang. Literally it means \"don't get hot.\" The New Testament has\nthe sixth chapter of Matthew with Jesus' own words. One should be careful\nhere to note the better reading of the revision. The old version says\n\"take no thought,\" and that has been misunderstood by many who have not\nthought about its meaning. The newer translations are truer to the meaning\non Jesus' lips. Do not take _anxious_ thought, \"be not anxious.\" But apart\nfrom these two chapters there is a phrase running through these pages\nclear through the whole Book, a phrase shot through, piercing everywhere,\neven as the glorious sunlight pierces through the thick cloud and fog. I\nmean the phrase \"fear not.\" All worry roots down its tenacious tendrils\nin fear.\n\n\n\nA Fence of Trust.\n\n\nIt will help to understand just what worry is. It is always an advantage\nto get an enemy clearly defined and keep it so, so you can hit it harder,\nand make every blow tell on a vital part of its anatomy.\n\nWorry is not concern, but distress of mind. Some one said to me at the\nclose of a talk on worry, \"some folks ought to worry more.\" Of course he\nmeant that some people should bear their share of the responsibilities of\nlife, instead of selfishly and lazily shirking them. There is a proper\nconcern about matters for which we are responsible. A man never makes a\ngood speech unless there is a feeling of concern, of apprehension lest\nthere be failure in that for which he is pleading. A strong sensitive\nspirit feels the responsibility and does the best to meet it. Worry is\nmental distress. It is sinking under the sense of responsibility. It is\n_yielding_ to the fear that there may be failure, instead of gripping the\nlines and whip and determining to ride down the chance of its coming.\n\nSometimes worry is carrying to-morrow's load with to-day's strength;\ncarrying two days in one. It is moving into to-morrow ahead of time.\nThere is just one day in the calendar of action; that's to-day. Planning\nshould include a wide swing of days; wise planning must. But action\nbelongs to one day only, to-day.\n\n    \"Build a little fence of trust\n      Around to-day;\n    Fill the space with living work\n      And therein stay;\n    Look not through the sheltering bars\n      Upon to-morrow;\n    God will help thee bear what comes\n      Of joy or sorrow.\"\n\n    \"Live for to-day, to-morrow's sun\n      To-morrow's cares will bring to light,\n    Go like the infant to thy sleep\n      And heaven thy morn shall bless.\"\n\n\n\nA Lord of the Harvest.\n\n\nSometimes worry is carrying a load that one should not carry at all. I\nthink it was Lyman Beecher who said that he got along very comfortably\nafter he gave up running the universe. Some good earnest people are\ngreatly concerned about the way things in the world are going, I'm obliged\nto confess to some pretty serious blunders there. It seemed to me that\nthere was so much to be done, so many people needing help, so much of\nwrong and sin to fight that I must be ever pushing and never sleeping. I\nhad to sleep of course; but all my burden, which meant the burden of the\nworld's need as I saw it, was lugged faithfully to bed every night. There\nwas a lot of pillow-planning. But I found that the wrinkles grew thick,\nand the physical strength gave out, and yet at the end of vigorous\ncampaigning there _seemed_ about as much left to do as ever.\n\nThen one day my tired eyes lit upon that wondrous phrase, \"the lord of the\nharvest.\" It caught fire in my heart at once. \"Oh! there is a _Lord_ of\nthe harvest,\" I said to myself. I had been forgetting that. He is a Lord,\na masterful one. He has the whole campaign mapped out, and each one's part\nin helping mapped out too. And I let the responsibility of the campaign\nlie over where it belonged. When night time came I went to bed to sleep.\nMy pillow was this, \"There is a _Lord_ of the harvest.\"\n\nMy keynote came to be _obedience_ to Him. That meant keen ears to hear,\nkeen judgment to understand, keeping quiet so the sound of His voice would\nalways be distinctly heard. It meant trusting Him when things didn't seem\nto go with a swing. It meant sweet sleep at night, and new strength at the\nday's beginning. It did not mean any less work. It did seem to mean less\nfriction, less dust. Aye, it meant better work, for there was a swing to\nit, and a joyous abandon in it, and a rhythm of music with it. And the\nundercurrent of thought came to be like this: There is a _Lord_ to the\nharvest. He is taking care of things. My part is full, faithful,\nintelligent obedience to Him. He is a Master, a masterful One. He is\norganizing victory. And the fine tingle of victory was ever in the air.\n\n\n\nDo Your Best--Leave the Rest.\n\n\nI knew a mother one of whose sons was not a Christian man, and not of good\nhabits. She was a devoted true Christian woman, bearing her part in life's\nservice with fine faith and a keen sweet spirit. The children were all\nChristians but this one, her first-born, the beginning of her strength.\nThe thought of him troubled her much. She prayed fervently, and used her\nbest endeavor, and the years grew on without change. And her face showed\nthe burden upon her fine spirit. We would talk together about her son, and\npray together, but her brow remained clouded.\n\nThen I marked a change. The lines of tension in her face relaxed. A new\nquiet light came into her eye. There seemed a gentle intangible, but very\nsure, peace breathing about her. And I knew there was no change in him. So\none day in conversation I ventured to ask about the change. And I shall\nalways remember the gentle voice and the quiet strength with which she\nsaid, \"I have given him over to my Father. And I know He will not fail\nme. I am still praying, of course, as ever, and I am _trusting_ for him.\"\nShe had been carrying a load that she should not have been carrying. And\nnow while the mother-heart was still concerned as much as ever, the sense\nof assured victory brought the change in her spirit.\n\nSometimes worry is fretting over past mistakes; it is chafing about what\nwe do not understand, or about plans of _ours_ that have failed. A good\ndeal of worry comes from pride and over-sensitiveness. The roots here, it\nwill be noticed, of all alike are down in our own failures, our own\nselves. And there would be cause for more worry if we had only ourselves.\nBut we have _a Father_.\n\nA very great deal of worry is wholly due to physical causes. Overworked\nnerves always see things distorted. Huge phantom shapes loom up before us.\nOverwork always makes a sensitive spirit worry, and worry usually makes us\noverwork until we drop from exhaustion. When the cause is here, there are\nsome simple _human_ helps. Some--a good bit--of _God's_ fresh air will\nwork wonders. Even good people seem unchangeably opposed to _God's_ air,\nand insist on breathing old, worn-out, used-up second-hand air. God would\nbe greatly glorified if housekeepers and church sextons were given a\npractical course in the use of fresh air, God's air. With that should be\nsimple food, and simple dress, and abundant sleep, and simple standards of\nlife.\n\nWorry is utterly _useless_. It never serves a good purpose. It brings no\ngood results. \"Which of you can by being anxious add a single span to the\nmeasure of his life?\" Jesus asks in that sixth of Matthew. But much more\ncan be said. _It brings bad results_. The revision brings out the clear,\nsimple meaning of the Thirty-seventh Psalm, eighth verse. The old version\nseems a bit puzzling, \"Fret not thyself in anywise to do evil.\" The\nrevision reads, \"Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil doing.\" The\nresults of worrying are always bad. The judgment is impaired. One cannot\nthink so clearly nor see so clearly. The temper is ruffled. The door is\nquickly opened to worse things.\n\nIt is _sinful_ to worry. For the Master repeatedly commands us, \"Be _not_\nanxious.\" It helps to get a habit labeled correctly. Here to tack on\n\"sinful\" in block letters, black ink, white paper, so as to get greatest\ncontrast is a decided help. And worrying is a reproach upon Jesus. Let the\nGentiles, the outsiders, the people who have not taken Jesus into their\nlives, let them worry if they _will_. But _we_ must not. For we have\n_Jesus_. Let these who leave Him out grow crow-toes, and deeply-bitten\nwrinkles, and turkey-foot markings. Without Him how can they help\nthemselves? But we folk who have _Jesus_ should have smoothly rounded\nfaces, the lines all filled up and ironed out. It reproaches Jesus before\nfolks for us to be as they are in this regard.\n\nOut of the midst of a great pressure of work, with a body tired out, Dr.\nCharles F. Deems, the busy pastor of The Church of The Strangers in New\nYork City, wrote these lines years ago:\n\n    \"The world is wide,\n      In time and tide,\n    And God is quick;\n      Then _do not hurry_.\n\n    \"That man is blest,\n      Who _does his best_,\n    And _leaves_ the rest;\n      Then _do not worry_.\"\n\nA man should do his _best_. There should be no _shirking_. Yet I need\nhardly say that here, because shirking people, lazy people do not worry.\nThey haven't enough snap about them to worry. But it steadies one to put\nthe thing just as Dr. Deems put it. \"_Do your best, and_, then _leave_ all\nthe rest to God.\" And when sleep time comes, sleep.\n\n\n\nAnxious for Nothing.\n\n\nLikely as not some one will say, \"We knew all that before. But how are we\ngoing to quit worrying? That's what we need to be told.\" Well, I can tell\nyou. Sometimes a man speaks cautiously, but here one can speak with great\npositiveness. There are three simple rules how not to worry. They are\ninfallible. I heard of a society whose purpose it was to cure worry. There\nwere _thirty-seven_ rules, I think. It would worry some of us a good bit\nto memorize any such length of instruction as that. The remedy seems to be\non a high shelf. And in standing up on a chair and reaching there is some\ndanger that the chair may tip over and the last state not be an\nimprovement on the first.\n\nBut here are three very simple rules, easy to follow, and they will never\nfail. They are not my rules, that is, not of my making, or I might not be\nspeaking so positively. They are given by the blessed Holy Spirit, through\nour dear old friend Paul. In Philippians, chapter four, verses six and\nseven, are the words that contain the rules: \"In nothing be anxious; but\nin everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your\nrequests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all\nunderstanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.\"\n\nThe first rule is this, _anxious for nothing._ In other words, _don't_\nworry. Deliberately refuse to think about annoying things. Set yourself\nagainst being disturbed by disturbing things. Say to yourself, it is\nuseless, it has bad results, it is sinful, it is reproaching my Master, I\n_won't._ That is the first simple rule.\n\n\n\nThankful for Anything.\n\n\nThe second helps to carry out the first. It is this, _thankful for\nanything._ Thanksgiving and praise are always associated with singing.\nWhen you feel the worry mood creeping on--it is a mood that attacks\nyou--when it comes sing something, especially something with Jesus' name\nin it. These temptations to worry are from the Evil One. He can come in\nonly through an _open_ door. Remember that. Yet the open doors seem\nplenty. Even when we trustingly and resolutely keep every door of evil\nshut the circle in which we move will open doors upon us. Singing\nsomething with Jesus' name in it sends him or any of his brood off\nquickly. They hate that Name of their Conqueror. They get away from the\nsound of it as fast as they can.\n\nA friend was calling upon another and began pouring out a stream of\npersonal woes. This had gone wrong, and this, and this other would go\nwrong. Everything was wrong. And her friend, who knew her quite well, had\nher get a pencil and paper and asked her if possibly there was _one_ thing\nfor which she could be thankful. Reluctantly from her lips came the\nmention of some particular thing for which she felt indeed grateful. Then\na second was gradually recalled, and then more. And as the train of\nthought grew on her she suddenly asked, \"Why was I so despondent when I\ncame in? Everything seems so changed.\"\n\nIt's a fine thing to go about one's work singing some hymn with praise in\nit, and with Jesus' name in it. And if singing may not always be allowable\nunder all circumstances, you can _hum_ a tune. And that brings up to the\nmemory the words connected with it. I know of a woman who was much given\nto worrying. She made it a rule to sing the long-meter doxology whenever\nthings seemed not right. Ofttimes she could hardly get her lips shaped up\nto begin the first words. But she would persist. And by the time the\nfourth line came it was ringing out and her atmosphere had changed without\nand within.\n\nThis was David's rule. He said: \"Thy statutes have been my songs in the\nhouse of my pilgrimage.\"[18] He is not speaking of the time when he was\nacknowledged king over both Judah and all Israel, when the fortress of\nJerusalem was his own capital. No, he is talking of the earlier days of\nhis _pilgrimage_. When he was being hunted over the Judean fastnesses by\nKing Saul. When with his band of faithful men he was ever fleeing for his\nlife. He slept in caves and dens or out in the open, and always with one\neye open. There he used to sing God's praises. A messenger would come\nbreathlessly in some morning with the news that Saul was just over yonder\nravine with a thousand men. And as David planned what best to do, and\narranged his men, he would be singing.\n\nMaybe he would sing that Twenty-third Psalm:\n\n    \"For Thou art with me; and Thy rod\n    And staff me comfort still.\"\n\nOr, maybe sometimes,\n\n    \"To Thee I lift my soul;\n      O Lord, I trust in Thee:\n    My God, let me not be ashamed\n      Nor foes triumph o'er me.\"\n\nOr, likely, he often sang:\n\n    \"The Lord's my light and saving health;\n      Who shall make me dismayed?\n    My life's strength is the Lord; of whom\n      Then shall I be afraid?\"\n\nOr if perhaps Ezra wrote this psalm it takes one back to his weary,\ndangerous journey over from Babylon to Jerusalem and the very difficult\nwork he was undertaking in Jerusalem in reorganizing the life of the\npeople again. He used to sing on the way, and through all his\ndifficulties.\n\nIt is a great rule.\n\n    \"When the day is gloomy\n      Sing some happy song;\n    Meet the world's repining\n      With a courage strong.\"\n\nSome one asked me if whistling would do. She was a busy housewife and said\nthat was her rule. I have gone to singing myself. But maybe whistling is\njust as good. I'm inclined to favor giving it a place within the range of\nthis rule.\n\nThere's a bit of deep, simple philosophy here. Music is divine. There is\nno music in the headquarters of the enemy. He has used it a great deal on\nthe earth. That's a bit of his cunning. But he always has to steal it from\nGod's sphere, and work it over to suit his own crafty purposes. Music,\nsinging, is an open doorway for the Spirit of God to come in, and come in\nanew and move freely. Its sweet harmonies found their birth in the\npresence of God where sweetest harmonies reign. Lovers of music should be\nlovers of God, for He is the one great Master-musician.\n\nWhen Elisha was asked to prophesy victory for Israel over the enemy at one\ntime, he refused. He was not in harmony with this king nor his associates.\nHis spirit refused to respond to their request. But at their urgent\nrequest he yielded, and called for a musician. And as the strains of music\nfell upon his ear and entered into his spirit he felt the divine presence\nand influence anew. We should use the musician more in our days of\nbattle. And God has wonderfully provided every one of us with a music-box\nof sweet melodies. If we would only open the lid, and let frequent use\nwear off the rust, and sing His praise more. In music God speaks to us\nanew with great power. This is the second rule, _thankful for anything_.\n\n\n\nPrayerful about Everything.\n\n\nThe third rule helps to make both first and second effective. These three\nare closely interwoven. They always work together. Each suggests the other\ntwo. They are an interwoven trinity. The third is this, _prayerful about\neverything_. There are some unusually fine bits from the old Book to help\nhere. Referring to the discipline which God's love makes Him use, David\nsays: \"For His anger is but for a moment: His _favor_ is for _a lifetime_.\nWeeping _may_ come in to lodge at even, but joy cometh in the\nmorning.\"[19] There _may_ be weeping. There _shall_ be joy. Weeping won't\nstay long.\n\nThere's a morning coming, always a morning coming, with the sunshine and\nthe chorus of the birds. Love's discipling touch that seems at the moment\nlike anger is only for a moment. (The printer wanted to change that word\ndiscipling to disciplining; but God's tenderness comes to us anew when we\nrealize that _disciplining_ with its sharp edge means the same as\n_discipling_ with its softer warmer touch.) The loving favor is for\nalways, a lifetime of eternal life.\n\nAgain David says, \"Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall _sustain_\nthee.\"[20] The margin explains that the thing that weighs as a burden is\nsomething God has given us. He has sent it or allowed it to come. He has\nstrong purpose in all He does. Here the promise is not that the burden\nwill be removed, but that He will pick up both you and your burden into\nHis arms and carry both. Many a man has praised God for the burden that\nmade him know the tender touch of strong arms.\n\nThe same thing is repeated in the Sixty-eighth Psalm[21] with tender\nvariations. \"Blessed be the Lord who day by day beareth our burden.\"\nProbably Peter knew a good bit about this subject. His temperament was of\nthe impulsive sort that knows quick squalls at sea. But he had learned how\nto ride through them undisturbed to the calmer waters. He says, \"Casting\nall your anxiety upon Him because He careth for you.\"[22] The force of the\nFrench version is said to be \"_unloading_ your anxiety upon Him.\" Back the\ncart up, tilt it over, let down the tail-board, let it all slip out over\nupon Him. The literal reading of that last half is, \"_He has you on His\nheart_.\"\n\n    \"Is not this enough alone\n    For the gladness of the day?\"\n\nBut many of us have an inner feeling that some matters are too small, too\ntrivial to take to God. We will take the great things, the serious things\nto Him and find the help needed. But it seems childish almost to be\nbothering the great God about trifling details, we are apt to think. We\nare even annoyed with ourselves to think that we have allowed such petty\nthings to make us lose our balance and control. We want to underscore and\nitalicize this fact: _if a thing is big enough to concern you, it is not\ntoo small for Him \"because He has you on His heart_.\" For _your_ sake He\nis eager to help in anything, however small in itself it may seem.\n\nIndeed it is the little things that fret and tease and nag so. The big\nthings are more easily handled. But the little insectivorous details that\nwill not down! Have you ever had this experience? You have retired on a\nhot summer night, tired and heavy with sleep. You are almost off when a\nmosquito that in some inexplicable way has eluded all screens and nettings\ncomes singing its way about your face. It is just one. It seems so small.\nIf it were only big enough to hit, something worthy of one's strength. But\nthe mean little nagging specimen seems to elude every effort of yours.\nMaybe you take calm, deliberate measures to end its existence, but\nmeanwhile you are thoroughly aroused and lose quite a bit of the sleep you\nneed.\n\nJust such a mosquito warfare do the little cares make upon one's strength,\nfrittering it away. It cannot be too insistently repeated that whatever is\nbig enough to cause me any thought is not too small for my God. He is\nconcerned because I am concerned.\n\n\n\nA Steamer Chair for His Friend.\n\n\nIt helps immensely here to recall the necessary qualities of a great\nexecutive, one who is concerned about the conduct of large affairs. There\nare two great qualities absolutely needful in any one occupying such a\nposition. There must be the ability to grasp the whole scheme involved,\nand to keep one's finger upon every detail, as well. God is a great\nexecutive, _the_ great executive of the universe. He planned the vast\nscheme of worlds making up the universe, and every detail. The whole\nuniverse in its immensity, and the intricacy of its movements, is kept in\nmotion by Him. And every detail down to the smallest, the falling of one\nof the smallest birds, is ever under His thoughtful eye and touch. And He\nis our God. He has each of us on His heart.\n\nWe may learn of God by looking at man, made in His image. A story is told\nof a merchant well known on both sides of the water, illustrating this.\nHis business interests are very extensive, with great stores in three of\nthe world's great cities. He has displayed great genius for controlling\nthe details of his vast enterprise. It is said that at one time when his\nbusiness was developing its greatness, this was his habit. He would come\nto a clerk's desk unexpectedly and, sitting down quietly, note the\ntransactions that came along. Here was a sales slip; three yards of\ncalico, seven cents per yard, twenty-one cents; a bolt of tape, three\ncents, total twenty-four cents; cash fifty cents, twenty-six cents change.\nHe would very quietly note the calculations, and call attention to any\ninaccuracies.\n\nHe might stay there a half-hour. Then he was away again. It was never\nknown when he might come, nor where. He was always marked for his genial\ncourtesy toward all his employees. That was his habit for years, I am\ntold. His talent for details amounts to positive genius. And with this\ngoes the ability to originate and build up and keep ever growing his vast\nbusiness operations. And this man is but one of a very large class in our\nday of specialized organization. This faculty of controlling both the\nwhole, and each detail, is a bit of the image of God in these men. Only\nman is ever less than God. The best organization slips sometimes,\nsomewhere. But God never fails. Each of us is personal to Him. He can\nthink of each as though there were no other needing His thought, and He\ndoes.\n\nA little incident is told of George M\u00fcller of Bristol, England. He is the\nman who taught the whole world anew how to trust God. Poor in his own\nholdings, he expended millions of dollars in caring for orphans,\nsupporting missionaries, and distributing printed truth. He never asked\nany man for money nor made any needs known. He trusted God for all and for\neach. The two thousand and more orphans, and the cutting of his quill pen\nwere alike subjects of prayer with him.\n\nAt one time, in the course of his missionary travels around the world, he\nwas embarking on an ocean voyage. He was an old man at the time, and\naccompanied by a young man who attended to the details of travel. After\nthey had boarded the steamer his companion came up hurriedly to say that\nthe steamer chair for Mr. M\u00fcller's use was not on board and he could not\nget any trace of it. It would of course be a very necessary convenience\nfor the steamer trip. Mr. M\u00fcller inquired if the proper notice had been\nsent to have it on board. Yes, all had been done that should have been\ndone. And now the time was very short.\n\nMr. M\u00fcller breathed a quiet prayer, and then said to his companion not to\nbe disturbed, that he felt sure it would be on hand in time. The attendant\nwent off again to see what could be done, came back evidently annoyed at\nthe possibility of his elder distinguished companion being inconvenienced.\nBut Mr. M\u00fcller quieted him with the assurance that the chair would come.\nThey stood at the side rail above, overlooking the dock.\n\nAt the very last moment, just as the hawsers were about to be thrown off,\nand the gang plank pulled away, a truck of luggage was hurriedly run on\nboard, and on top of the pile the friends watching above could plainly see\na steamer chair with G. M. marked on it. Mr. M\u00fcller, standing in his group\nof friends, looked up past them and quietly said, \"Father, I thank Thee.\"\nWas God in that simple occurrence? He surely was. He was concerned that\nHis faithful friend should have the chair for his bodily comfort. Man's\narrangements seemed in danger of slipping. His overruling touch was put in\nfor His friend's sake. A chair wasn't too small for God because it was for\nHis friend, Mr. M\u00fcller.\n\n\n\nHe Has You on His Heart.\n\n\nI got a similar story from Dr. James H. Brookes of St. Louis, a number of\nyears ago while in his home over night. It was about J. Hudson Taylor,\nfounder of the China Inland Mission, who had learned through many years of\ntrusting how faithful God is. Mr. Taylor had been speaking in Dr. Brookes'\nchurch, and was to go to a town in southern Illinois to speak at the\nSabbath services. Saturday morning they went down to the railroad station\nto get the train, and stepped into the station just as the train was\npulling out at the other end. There was no possible chance of catching it.\nIt seemed all the more exasperating that they could see the train moving\naway out of reach.\n\nDr. Brookes of course felt much chagrined. Mr. Taylor being a stranger in\nthe country, and the guest of Dr. Brookes, had trusted his arrangements.\nInquiries were quickly made about other trains. But there would not be\nanother train out that way until night. And as they were questioning and\ntalking the station-master said, \"There's that train over there; it runs\ninto Illinois and crosses another road down to where you want to go. They\nare supposed to make connections, but they never do.\" Dr. Brookes said he\nwent off to make further inquiries, and coming back in a few moments was\nsurprised to find Mr. Taylor standing on the rear platform of the train\nthat never made the connection.\n\nHe said, \"Why, Mr. Taylor, that won't make the connection.\" And Mr.\nTaylor smiled and in his very quiet way said, \"Good-bye, Doctor, my Father\nrunneth the trains.\" That seemed to sound well for a sermon. But to Dr.\nBrookes' misgivings there came again the quiet \"Good-bye, Doctor, my\nFather runneth the trains.\" After starting Mr. Taylor explained the\nsituation to the conductor, the importance of his engagement, and of\nmaking the desired connection, hoping the trainman might be of some\nservice. The man hoped he would get the train, but said it was very\ndoubtful as they rarely did. Mr. Taylor thanked him, and sat quietly\npraying.\n\nWas the connection made? As Mr. Taylor's train pulled in the other was\nstanding at the station. The conductor said, \"Well, there it is, but I\ndidn't expect it.\" There was quite enough time to get across the platform\nwithout hurrying and into the other train when it moved off. Was God in\nthat? I have no difficulty at all in understanding that He was. What\nconcerned His friend, in a strange land, on an errand for Himself surely\nconcerned Him. What concerns any trusting child of His concerns Him, for\nHe has us on His heart.\n\nI recall a personal experience in Boston one summer day. It was a very hot\nday. I was to meet my mother and sister in the North Union station, where\nwe were to take a train out. I had their tickets. I reached the station\nfrom my errands, hot and tired and with my head aching, ideal conditions\nfor worry. As I stepped into the station I realized at once that our\nappointment to meet was not very definite. For the large station was\ncrowded. There was not much time before our train would go. And I\ncommenced to be agitated, which is a gentler way of saying worried. What\n_would_ I do? It would be extremely inconvenient, especially for my\nmother, to miss the train. And the time was short, and--and--.\n\nYou see I was not a _graduate_ in this don't-worry school. I'm not yet;\nstill studying; expect to enter for post work when I do graduate. The\nschool is still open; open to all; instruction given _individually_ only;\nthe Teacher has had long _experience_ Himself on the earth, in the thick\nof things.\n\nWell, I said as I stood a moment in the thick crowd, \"Master, you know\nwhere they are. Please take me to them. Maybe I should have been more\ncareful about the appointment, but I was tired at the start. Please--thank\nyou.\" And in less time than it takes to tell you I met them right in the\nthick of the great crowd. And I felt sure that Peter got his putting of it\nstraight when he said of the Master, \"_He has you on His heart_.\"\n\n\n\nPaul's Prison Psalm.\n\n\nDid Paul follow his own rules? The best answer to that is this little\nfour-chaptered epistle where the rules are found. Philippians is a prison\npsalm. The clanking of chains resounds throughout its brief pages. At one\nend is Philippi; at the other Rome. Here is the Philippian end. In the\ninner dungeon of a prison, dark, dirty, damp, is a man, Paul. His back is\nbleeding and sore from the whipping-post. His feet are fast in the stocks.\nHis position is about as cramped and painful as it can be. It is midnight.\nPaul would be asleep for weariness and exhaustion, but the position and\nthe pain hinder.\n\nDoes no temptation come to him? He had been following a _vision_ in coming\nover to Philippi. This is a great ending to the vision he's been having.\nDid no such temptation come? Very likely it did. But Paul is an old\ncampaigner. He knows best what to do. He begins singing. His music is\npitched in the major too. Most likely he is singing one of the old Hebrew\npsalms that he knew by heart. It was a psalm of praise. That is one end of\nthis epistle.\n\nAt the other end Paul is a prisoner at Rome. As he sits dictating his\nletter, if he gets tired and would swing one limb over the other for a\nchange, a heavy chain at his ankle reminds him of his bonds. As he reaches\nfor a quill to put a loving touch to the end of the parchment, again the\nforged steel pulls at his wrist. That is the setting of Philippians, the\nprison psalm. What is its key word? Is it patience? That would seem\nappropriate. Is it long-suffering? More appropriate yet. Some of us know\nabout short-suffering, but we are apt to be a bit short on long-suffering.\nThe keyword is _joy_, with its variations of rejoice, and rejoicing.\n\nAnd notice what joy is. It is the cataract in the stream of life. Peace is\nthe gentle even flowing of the river. Joy is where the waters go bubbling,\nleaping with ecstatic bound, and forever after, as they go on, making the\nchannel deeper for the quiet flow of peace. Paul had put his no-worry\nrules through the crucible of experience. He follows the Master in that.\nThese three rules really mean living ever in that Master's presence. When\nwe realize that He is ever alongside then it will be easier to be\n\n    Anxious for nothing,\n    Thankful for anything,\n    Prayerful about everything.\n\n\n\nHe Touched Her Hand.\n\n\nOne morning on waking, a woman charged with the care of a home began\nthinking of the day's simple duties. And as she thought they seemed to\nmagnify and pile up. There was her little daughter to get off to school\nwith her luncheon. Some of the church ladies were coming that morning for\na society meeting, and she had been planning a dainty luncheon for them.\nThe maid in the kitchen was not exactly ideal--yet. And as she thought\ninto the day her head began aching.\n\nAfter breakfast, as her husband was leaving for the day's business, he\ntook her hand and kissed her good-bye. \"Why,\" he said, \"my dear, your hand\nis feverish. I'm afraid you've been doing too much. Better just take a day\noff.\" And he was gone. And she said to herself, \"A day off! The idea! Just\nlike a _man_ to think that I could take a day off.\" But she had been\nmaking a habit of getting a little time for reading and prayer after\nbreakfast. Pity she had not put it in earlier, at the day's very start.\nYet maybe she could not. Sometimes it is not possible. Yet _most times_ it\nis possible, by planning.\n\nNow she slipped to her room and, sitting down quietly, turned to the\nchapter in her regular place of reading. It was the eighth of Matthew. As\nshe read she came to the words, \"And _He touched her hand_, and the _fever\nleft her_; and she arose and ministered unto Him.\" And she knelt and\nbreathed out the soft prayer for a touch of the Master's hand upon her\nown. And it came as she remained there a few moments. And then with much\nquieter spirit she went on into the day.\n\nThe luncheon for the church ladies was not quite so elaborate as she had\nplanned. There came to her an impulse to tell her morning's experience.\nShe shrank from doing it. It seemed a sacred thing. They might not\nunderstand. But the impulse remained and she obeyed it, and quietly told\nthem. And as they listened there seemed to come a touch of the Spirit's\npresence upon them all. And so the day was a blessed one. Its close found\nher husband back again. And as he greeted her he said quietly, \"My dear,\nyou did as I said, didn't you? The fever's gone.\"\n\n\n\n\nGideon's Band: Sifted for Service.\n\n\n\n    God Wants the Best.\n    God's Use of Weak Things.\n    Call for Volunteers.\n    A Willing People.\n    Courageous Volunteers.\n    Irresistible Logic.\n    Hot Hearts.\n    God Still Sifting.\n\n\n\n\nGideon's Band: Sifted for Service.\n\n(1 Corinthians i:18-31; Judges vi and vii.)\n\n\n\nGod Wants the Best.\n\n\nSalvation is for all. Service is for those chosen for it. All _may_ serve.\nThat all do not is simply because service requires qualities which all do\nnot have. Yet, again, all may have them who will, for the required\nqualities are _heart qualities_. And every one of us can cultivate the\nheart qualities. There is special service, chiefly of leadership,\nrequiring brain qualities as well as heart. But the Master attends to the\nchoosing of men for such service.\n\nAnd where His spirit has touched human hearts there will be a glad doing\nof just what service He appoints. It will be an honor to do just what He\nasks because He asks. What it may happen to be will be a small matter in\nitself. It is for Him, at His desire, and that is full enough to bring out\nthe best we have.\n\nOur old Tarsus and Antioch friend and leader has written a special word\nabout this matter of being chosen for service. It is in his first letter\nto the recently organized church at Corinth. It is really his second\nletter, for he seems to have written one before it that has not been\npreserved.[23] There were some very serious matters in this new church\nrequiring strong treatment by its much-loved founder. Among them was one\nabout service.\n\nThere were some who had gifts in service that seemed more attractive and\ndesirable than others had, it might be said more showy. And their\nbrethren, not free from the old worldly spirit, were envious and jealous.\nAnd these who had such gifts were not free from a boasting spirit.\nFactions or parties had arisen as a result. It was the bad world spirit of\ncompetition and rivalry in among Christ's followers where it should never\ncome, yet where it still does come. In writing this letter Paul throughout\nblends great plainness and common sense with great tenderness.\n\nIn the beginning of his letter he calls attention to the fact that there\nare not many among them of those who were reckoned by the world's\nstandards as wise or mighty or noble. On the contrary, in choosing His\nleaders God had purposely chosen those reckoned by the world's standards\nfoolish that He might show plainly the shallowness of what they deem wise.\nAnd so things reckoned weak had been chosen to give the conception of\nwhat true strength is. And things even base, and despised, and not counted\nat all had been used that so men might learn the God-standards of wisdom\nand strength and honor and of what is worth while. The purpose being that\nmen should quit glorying in themselves and glorify Him from whom\neverything had come, and was ever coming.\n\nThe passage has oftentimes been quoted as though God prefers weakness;\nnever put so bluntly as that perhaps, but plainly meaning that. That of\ncourse is not true. God wants the best we have. He needs the best. And for\nleadership often His plans must wait till a man of the sort needed can be\ngotten. And gotten frequently means broken, shattered, and then made over\nwholly new, that the native strength may be used according to true\nstandards.\n\nJacob was chosen rather than his elder brother Esau, not because of\nJacob's goodness but because of Esau's weakness. God was narrowed to these\ntwo grandsons in carrying out the promise to Abraham. Jacob was\ncontemptible in his moral dealings, but he had qualities of leadership\nwholly lacking in his brother. His moral character was a serious\nhindrance. God had to handle him heroically before He could get the use of\nhis stronger mental equipment. Jacob had to get a bad throw-down before he\nwould be willing to let God have His way. His body must be weakened\nbefore his mental power would yield. That was the weakness of his\nstubbornness. Stubbornness is strength not strong enough to yield.\n\n\n\nGod's Use of Weak Things.\n\n\nIt is true that over and over again God has used men utterly weak and\nfoolish and despised in the light of life's common standards. He wants men\nof the best mental strength, of the finest mental training, and He uses\nsuch when they are willing to be used, and governed by the true\nGod-standards of life. But talent seems specially beset with temptation.\nThe very power to do great things seems often to bewilder the man\npossessing it. Wrong ambition gets the saddle and the reins and whip too,\nand rides hard.\n\nFrequently some man who had not guessed he had talent, born in some lonely\nwalk of life, without the training of the schools, is used for special\nleadership. It takes longer time always. Early mental training is an\nenormous advantage. Carey the cobbler had mental talents to grace a\nCambridge chair. It took a little longer time to get him into shape for\nthe pioneer work he did in India. Duff's training gave him a great\nadvantage.\n\nBut God is never in a hurry. He can wait. What He asks is that we shall\nbring the best we have natively, with the best possible training, and let\nHim use us absolutely as He may wish. And always remember that every\nmental power is a gift from Him; that actual power in life must be through\nHim only; and that mental gifts are not serviceable save as they are ever\ninbreathed by His own Spirit.\n\nThis word of Paul's finds most graphic illustration in the book of Judges.\nJudges should be put alongside of the first chapter of First Corinthians.\nIt is a series of pictorial illustrations of what Paul is saying there.\nThese two books, Joshua and Judges, side by side in the Old Testament\nstand in sharpest contrast. The keynote of Joshua is victory; of Judges\ndefeat. There's music in both, but contrasted music. Joshua rings with\nsongs in the major key, triumphant, militant, joyous, victorious.\n\nThe music of Judges is in the minor, sad and weeping, with the harps\nhanging on the willows. Joshua is upon the mountain top with sun shining\nand air bracing and outlook inspiring. Judges is down in the valley\nbottoms, dark and gloomy, and depressing. Yet Judges has bright spots, and\nhas spurts of good music interspersed. It is a study in lights and\nshadows, bright lights, and dark shadowings, but with the blacker tints\nintensifying and overcoming the others.\n\nThere are here seven striking illustrations of God's use of strange\nunusual means, such as are reckoned weak and trivial. A _left-handed_ man\nuses that peculiarity to get a great victory and eighteen years of freedom\nfor the nation.[24] A farmer with as homely a weapon as an _ox-goad_\ndelivers his people from oppression.[25] Men came to be so scarce, that is\nmen that were men enough to take their true place as leaders, that a\n_woman_ had to step into the breach, and assume leadership. But the\nstudent of history and of modern times is used to that. The result was\ngreat victory, and a forty years' rest from the nation's enemies.[26]\n\nA _nail_ or _tent-pin_, only a wooden peg, in the hands of a woman with a\nhammer helps to make the enemy's defeat more decisive.[27] _Three hundred_\nyoung men with _pitchers and trumpets_ completely rout the three armies of\nthree nations, and bring another deliverance.[28] Another time _a piece of\na millstone_ shoved over the wall by a woman turns the tide of battle\nfavorably.[29] And as contemptible a thing as the _jawbone of an ass_ in\nthe hands of one strong man is used to slay a thousand men.[30]\n\n\n\nCall for Volunteers.\n\n\nIt is of one of these, one of the most striking of these, that we are to\ntalk together awhile; the graphic story of Gideon and his band of three\nhundred young fellows. Things were in bad shape in the nation; about as\nbad in every way as they could be. This time it was the Midianites who\noverran the land, and held the leaderless people in most abject slavery.\nWith them were joined two other nations, the Amalekites and the Children\nof the East. When the crops were almost ready to harvest, these raiders\nswooped in in great numbers and destroyed all the crops and drove away all\nthe stock.\n\nThey harried the Israelites so that life was made very miserable for them.\nThey were forced to flee from their farms and take refuge in caves and\ndens and the fastnesses among the hills. Then, as usual, when they got\ninto bad shape the people remembered God, and cried for help, and, as\nusual with Him, He at once forgave them and planned another great\ndeliverance.\n\nFirst of all Gideon the leader is chosen out, and put through a bit of\nschooling. That is a fascinating story of great helpfulness. Then this\ntrained young leader gathers his band of helpers. And we want to mark\nkeenly how these three hundred men were sifted out of the thousands for\nservice. They were sifted out. They sifted themselves out. In that army\nof thousands were just three hundred who had the needed qualifications for\nthe bit of service God wanted done.\n\nLook over the gathered thousands: which are the chosen three hundred? No\nman knew. They didn't know themselves until the tests came. They chose\nthemselves out by the way they stood the three tests applied. Even so is\nGod ever sifting out men for service. The more difficult the service, the\nhigher the grade of leadership needed, the severer the test. The testing\nboth reveals the qualities, and in part makes them.\n\nThe first quality these men had was _willingness._ They were all\n_volunteers_. When the call came they rallied to the leader's side. Gideon\nsent runners, criers, out throughout that whole section. They went first\nto his own family clan, then to his tribe, then to three neighboring\ntribes. They said that God had called upon Gideon to lead a movement\nagainst the Midianites and their allies and he wanted every man to come\nand help. The messengers went swiftly through the whole territory of these\nneighboring tribes, arousing the men to action and calling for volunteers.\n\nA good many did not respond to the summons. Some were simply indifferent.\nThey could not help hearing the call, but there was no response without or\nwithin. No change of expression in the eye or face. They went right on in\ntheir heavy, dull way as though they hadn't heard. They were utterly\nindifferent to the call. Some were reluctant. They stopped and listened,\nbut with a heavy slant backwards to their bodies. Their heels bore most of\ntheir weight. It was a good idea to get up such a movement, the enemy\nought to be driven back and out, but--but--and their eyes are half shut\nalready.\n\nSome criticised. Who was Gideon? A young upstart! trying to push himself\nforward as a leader. He had no skill or experience. And the people had no\nweapons. The enemy had stolen everything of the sort away. And they were\nclear outnumbered. There wasn't a ghost of a show. It would only make bad\nmatters worse. This young upstart Gideon would soon be sorry enough when\nhe butted his head against the experienced Midianite leaders.\nAnd--and--and--there they are talking, criticising, but not responding to\nthe call. Such critics seldom respond, and helpers criticise in a very\ndifferent way. It takes less brain to criticise unwisely, captiously, far\nless than to help. Almost any hare-brain can tear a thing to pieces. And\nnothing is commoner than just such criticism.\n\nSome ridiculed. \"Ha! ha! ha! Gideon going to be national leader; ha! ha!\nha! And whip the enemy. Ridiculous! Absurd!\" And some were outrightly\nopposed. They objected. The people would be aroused, their hopes awakened\nonly to be dashed. The whole thing was wrong, for it was impossible. And\nthese men tried to keep others from going.\n\n\n\nA Willing People.\n\n\nBut many came. A crowd of volunteers came hurrying from farms and caves,\nbringing such weapons probably as they had been able to keep in hiding.\nThey were willing to respond. It was a motley crowd, no doubt. There were\nthirty-two thousand of them. These four tribes had once numbered as many\nas one hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred fighting men. And at\nanother, later, enumeration they had two hundred and twelve thousand men\nof war age. Their numbers may be smaller now, though possibly not. It\nlooks as though only a small minority of all had responded, maybe one in\nsix or so.\n\nThese men had the first great qualification for service, they were\nwilling. They were actively willing. They willed to come down to the front\nand help fight the enemy, and deliver their nation. It is a great quality\nthis of being willing. That prophetic One Hundred and Tenth Psalm mentions\nthis as the great characteristic of those who shall rally about God's King\nin a coming day of power. God reckons our service not by our ability but\nby our willingness.[31]\n\nWhatever is given out of a warm, willing heart is eagerly accepted by\nHim. The Hebrew tabernacle was constructed of free-will offerings. The\npeople came willingly with their offerings and left them for Moses' use.\nSome brought gold and silver, some finely woven tapestries and silks. Here\nwas one poor woman who wanted to give but had very little. So she went out\nto her little flock of goats whereby her living came to her, and cut off a\nbig bunch of goat's hair, and then with much pains dyed it red.\n\nAnd then one day she went up to where they were presenting their gifts and\ntimidly laid her bunch of goat's hair on the pile of offerings, and\nquietly, quickly slipped away. It seemed very small on that pile of gold\nand silver and richly-colored weavings. But it was the gift of her heart.\nThey had to have goat's hair as well as gold. And her offering was\nacceptable because it came from a willing heart. Willingness is a heart\nquality. It is the heart volunteering.\n\n    \"Our wills are ours to make them Thine.\"\n\nThis was the first test. Thirty-two thousand out of four tribes stood this\ntest. Gideon's army had one great qualification at the start.\n\n\n\nCourageous Volunteers.\n\n\nNow these men are put to a second test. The next morning God surprised\nGideon by telling him that he had too many men. If a victory was given\nthem with so many men they would feel that they had done the thing\nthemselves. They would grow so large as to shut God out of their\nlandscape. There would be no getting along with them. Each man would feel\nthat he was the essential factor. They would go back to the homefolks to\ntell of themselves. God seems to know us folk down on the earth fairly\nwell.\n\nNow He would lessen their numbers, but in doing it He will pick out the\nbest. The men are encamped on the hillsides overlooking a valley. Across\nthe valley to the north lay the encamped armies of three nations. They\nwere a vast host. They were spread out as thick as the grasshoppers of\nEgypt had been years before. Everywhere you looked there they were\nswarming.\n\nGideon spoke to his men. He said, \"Gentlemen, Fellow-Israelites, there is\nthe enemy. Take a good look at them.\" And his followers looked, and as\nthey looked some of them began to get scared. They had not realized just\nwhat was involved. Their footwear seemed to grow too large. They were\nshaking in their boots. And their eyes grew big and their faces white\nunder the tan.\n\nThen Gideon said, \"Now, every man of you that thinks it can't be done--I\nwish you would get right out of this, and go back home.\" And he watched.\nAnd I imagine even Gideon shook a bit inside as he watched. They\ncommenced to move away in squads, in scores, in fifties. Great gaps were\nleft in the mob of men. Here is a fellow standing, looking. He thinks, \"It\nlooks pretty bad, sure enough; but then, I suppose, if God is planning--\"\nhello, the fellow by his side has gone, and on this other side too--\"I\nguess I'd better go too.\" And off he goes. Fear is very contagious. There\nis great power in feeling a man by your side. And two-thirds of them\ndisappear over the hills.\n\nThe motto of these disappearing men was this: \"It can't be done.\" They\nmust have organized themselves into a society to perpetuate their own\nidea. If so the society has shown great vitality. Many of its members\nabide with us until this day. No, probably they didn't organize. They\ndidn't have enough gumption to. And such a sentiment grows like a weed\nwithout any cultivation.\n\nI recall a certain town in Ohio where I had gone to talk about an\nenlargement and re-vitalizing of the Young Men's Christian Association.\nThousands of young men in the place needed just such help as that\norganization is supposed to provide. I outlined the plan to a clergyman.\nHe said it was a good plan, there was great need, the thing should be\ndone, \"but,\" he said, with an air of settling the thing, \"it can't be done\nin _this town_.\"\n\nAmong others I talked with a business man. He listened attentively,\napproved the plans, agreed upon the great need, and then settling back in\nhis chair with the same air of finality, used exactly the same words, with\nthe same emphasis, \"It can't be done in _this town_.\" I got that same\nreply from several men that day. And I said to myself, \"They are right; it\ncan't be done _with them_; but it can be done without them.\" And it was.\n\n\n\nIrresistible Logic.\n\n\nBut there remained ten thousand. These men by their staying said, \"It\nought to be done. What ought to be done can be done. What can be done _we_\ncan do. What we can do we _will_ do.\" Here is another man standing looking\nat that vast host across the valley. He is thinking that it is a desperate\ncase, but he thinks of God's call through Gideon. Just then he notices\nthat his neighbor on the left has taken to his heels, and on his right\nalso. That shakes him for a moment. His heels say, \"You go too.\" His heart\nsaid, \"No, stay.\" He obeyed his heart. He said, \"I'll stay if I stay\nalone.\"\n\nThat was the stuff in these remaining ten thousand. They stood a double\ntest in remaining, the desperate situation seen in the presence of such an\nenormous army, and the desertion of their fellows. They had _courage_;\nnot only willingness but courage. Courage is a heart quality. Courage is\nthe heart fighting. It faces fearful odds and keeps right straight ahead\nregardless.\n\nA prize was offered once for the best definition of \"pluck.\" The\ndefinition that won the prize said, \"Pluck is fighting with the scabbard\nafter the sword is broken.\" What a picture in a single sentence! The man\nis fighting with might and main in the thick of the enemy, up and down,\nparry and thrust, and just about holding his own, when suddenly, without a\nmoment's warning, the blade snaps close up to the hilt. The game's up now\nsurely. This accident decides the day. _Maybe_--for _some_ men. But not\nfor this fellow. He simply sets his jaws a bit firmer as, quick as\nlightning, he grabs the scabbard by his side and fights with it.\n\nSuch a man can't be whipped. He doesn't know when he is whipped. And the\nman who doesn't know when he is whipped, never _is_ whipped. No man can be\nwhipped without his own consent. I said courage is a heart quality. These\nten thousand were not chicken-hearted nor downhearted. They were\nlion-hearted, stout-hearted. They had hearts of oak.\n\nIt was a keen stroke of generalship on Gideon's part that sent the timid,\ndiscouraged ones back home. Nothing is more demoralizing than the presence\nof such people. And there was no discipline much finer for those who\nremained than to feel their fellows leaving them. It's hard to be left by\nthose who have been in touch. It is hard to stand alone.\n\nThere is no harder test of character than that. And too there is no finer\nthing to make character. Think how the fiber of those ten thousand\ntoughened and strengthened as they _stood_ there, with men on every side\nhurrying away. This was the second test. But the men who can stand testing\nare growing fewer. Thirty-two thousand men were willing. Only a third of\nthem are both willing and courageous. These men are more than volunteers.\nThey have seen the foe. Their fiber has stood the test, and toughened in\nthe test. They are _courageous_ volunteers.\n\n\n\nHot Hearts.\n\n\nBut there is a third test. God comes to Gideon and says, \"You have too\nmany men yet, Gideon.\" And Gideon's eyes bulge out a bit. Too many! Yes,\nthis is to be a quality fight. No common fighting here. God works best\nwith the men who come nearest to having His own thought of things. Numbers\ndon't count. You can't count men for service. You must weigh them, and\nfeel the firmness of their fiber.\n\nThere is a little running brook down the valley. Gideon gives an order to\nhis men to advance a bit. And he watches them. Most of them as they come\nto the water stretch out leisurely on the ground and putting their mouths\nto the water take a good long drink, and another, and again. They seem to\nsay by their action, \"Well, there's some tough work ahead, but we must\ntake care of ourselves. A man must look out for number one. We must not\nget unduly stirred up over the thing. We're not fighting yet.\"\n\nBut one fellow comes along with a quick, nervous step, and his eye still\non the enemy. He is all on tenter-hooks. His eye flashes fire. He reaches\ndown with a quick movement and gathers up some water in his hand, up to\nhis mouth, and hurries on. Then a second fellow, and a third, and more.\nGideon is watching. As each of these comes along he calls him off to one\nside. When the whole number of men have passed the brook there are just\nthree hundred of the hot-hearted, intense-spirited fellows.\n\nGod said, \"Gideon, keep these men; send the others back.\" These thousands\nsent back were sturdy men. They would make good fighters in many a\ncampaign, but they would not do for this higher kind of campaigning\nplanned for that day. The little band remaining had stood a third test,\nthey were willing, and courageous, _and enthusiastic_.\n\nEnthusiasm is the heart _burning_. These fellows had spring and snap to\nthem. Yet it was a _tempered_ spring and snap, the sort that would last.\nBy their action at the brook they said, \"If there's fighting to be done,\nlet's do it quickly; let's go at the enemy with a vim and a rush. Oh! let\nus at them.\"\n\n\n\nGod Still Sifting.\n\n\nYet, mark you, their enthusiasm was _seasoned_. It grew _under fire_, or\npractically so, in the presence of the danger. There is always an\nabundance of the green article of enthusiasm, but it's not worth much for\nsteady ditch-work. There is a sort of wood enthusiasm, apple-wood. You\nknow how apple-wood burns in a fire. It catches quickly, throws out a good\nmany sparks, makes a loud crackling noise, but doesn't last long.\n\nThere is another sort, a soft-coal enthusiasm. It's better than wood. But\nit needs a lot of attention continually to keep a steady fire. Then\nthere's the hard-coal enthusiasm that will burn steadily and faithfully by\nthe hour. Yet no kind, mark you, will run long without fresh fuel. We need\nin our service more of the seasoned enthusiasm.\n\nIt has been said of General Grant that one great reason for his success as\na soldier was in his coolness. While the fighting and firing were hottest\nhe sat on his horse quietly, coolly watching, listening, and giving his\norders. And much of his power has been attributed to that quality. Well,\nif coolness is a qualification for success in Christian service there\nseems to be a large number of persons splendidly qualified. They are cool\nall the time; cool as icebergs at the North Pole; cool from the topmost\nlayer of hair to the bottommost cuticle--about certain things.\n\nWe want coolness of head such as General Grant had and hotness of heart\nsuch as he had, too. The ideal combination is a cool head and a hot heart.\nThe head should resemble a refrigerator, and the heart a flaming furnace.\nThere is one bother, however, among many people. Either the coolness of\nthe head works down too much and affects the heart, and that is bad, or,\nelse the heat of the heart gets up into the head, and a hot head is always\nbad.\n\nYet there is a sure key to preserving the poise between the two. It is in\nthe quiet time daily with Jesus, over the Book, with the knee bent, and\nthe ear keen, and the spirit quiet. In that time there comes, and comes\never more, the calmness for the brain, and the fresh fuel for the heart,\nand new steadiness for the will that holds all under its strong hand.\n\nMany difficulties will yield only to fire. When you cannot reason your way\nthrough a problem, or a difficulty, or into a man's heart, _burn_ your\nway through. Nothing can withstand fire. It is very remarkable that the\nsymbol used most for God in the Bible is fire. A man never amounts to\nanything until he catches fire.\n\nThe proportions are worth noticing here. Thirty-two thousand were\n_volunteers_. A third of that number are _courageous_ volunteers. About a\nthirty-third of these, less than a hundredth of the original, are\n_hot-hearted, courageous_ volunteers.\n\nThis is Gideon's Band; three hundred young men fresh from the farm, who\nwere _willing_, and _courageous_, and _hot-hearted_, all heart qualities.\nThey stood every test. They had faced a foe that humanly they had no\nchance to overcome, and because of God's call they were not only willing,\nand stout-hearted, but intense in their desire to get at the fighting.\n\nThen under Gideon's leadership they were well fed, and organized; they\nproved individually faithful in the thick of the fight, and they pushed\npersistently on even when bodily tired out. And the nation knew a great\nvictory over its enemies, and a time of prosperity for years after.\n\nGod is still sifting men for service. He will use gladly every man who is\nwilling to be used. When a man stands the first test well, there comes a\nsecond. That, stood well, means others. These are our promotion tests. He\nlets those who stand all testings into the thickest of the fight and up to\nthe highest heights of victory.\n\nMaster, help us to endure every test as seeing Him who is invisible.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n[1] 1 John i:1.\n\n[2] 2 Corinthians iii:18.\n\n[3] Frances Ridley Havergal.\n\n[4] Exodus xxi:2-6, Leviticus xxv:39-43; Deuteronomy xv:12-18.\n\n[5] Psalm xi:6-8; Hebrews x:5-7.\n\n[6] Isaiah 1:4-6.\n\n[7] John v:19, 30; vi:38, 57; vii:16-17, 28; viii:28, 29.\n\n[8] John Sullivan Dwight.\n\n[9] Mark i:41; Matthew ix:36; Mark vi:34 (with Matthew xiv:14);\nMatthew xx:34; xv:32; Mark v:19; Luke vii:13; x:33; xv:20\n\n[10] Daniel xii:3.\n\n[11] James v:19.\n\n[12] Proverbs xi:30.\n\n[13] Luke v:10.\n\n[14] Acts xvii:6.\n\n[15] 1 Thessalonians iv:11; 2 Corinthians v. 9, Romans xv:20.\n\n[16] Attention is directed to a strong helpful address on \"Money,\" by Rev.\nA. F. Schauffler, D.D., in \"The Student Missionary Appeal,\" published by\nthe Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.\n\n[17] Luke xvi:9.\n\n[18] Psalm cxix:54.\n\n[19] Psalm xxx:5.\n\n[20] Psalm lv:22.\n\n[21] Psalm lxviii:19.\n\n[22] I Peter v:7.\n\n[23] 1 Corinthians v:9-12.\n\n[24] Judges iii:15-30.\n\n[25] Judges iii:31.\n\n[26] Judges iv:4-16; v:1.\n\n[27] Judges iv:17-24.\n\n[28] Judges vi and vii.\n\n[29] Judges ix:50-57.\n\n[30] Judges xv:15-20.\n\n[31] 2 Corinthians viii:12.","title":"Quiet Talks on Service","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":42516}