{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4323/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4323","id":"gutenberg_4323","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4323","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Pilgrim Holiness Church -- Controversial literature","Sanctification"],"text":"Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Heart-Cry of Jesus\n\n\nBY BYRON J. REES,\n\n\nAuthor of \"Christlikeness,\" \"Hulda, the Pentecostal Prophetess,\" and\n\"Hallelujahs from Portsmouth, Nos. 2 and 3.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION.\n\nTO MY MASTER, EVEN CHRIST.\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nTHE NEED OF THE DAY.\n\n\nThe saying, \"Necessity is the mother of Invention,\" finds nowhere a\nmore vivid illustration of its truth than in the publishing enterprises\nof the modern Holiness movement. The onward movement of the Holy Ghost\nalong Pentecostal lines, convicting of depravity, creating a\nclean-reading public, and endueing with power both pulpit and pew, has\nresulted in a constant and growing demand for full-salvation\nliterature. Tens of thousands of pulpits do an active business on both\nthe wholesale and retail plan, with science and philosophy as stock in\ntrade. Famishing congregations are proffered the bugs of biology, the\nrocks of geology, and the stars of astronomy until their souls revolt,\nand they demand bread and meat.\n\nTHE NEED BEING SUPPLIED.\n\nThe great soul-cry is being met and answered by the publication and\ndistribution of soul-feeding, spirit-inspiring, health-giving Holiness\nbooks and papers. God is raising up writers and editors from whose pens\npour melted truths, to the edification and blessing of thousands.\n\nTHE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK.\n\nIn this little book we have a production in which the author has made\nlittle attempt at the elucidation of doctrine or the waging of\ncontroversy, but in great simplicity and directness he has presented\nthe truth with a view to helpfulness, desiring to introduce really\nhungry souls into the Canaan life, and provide a well-loaded table of\nrich provisions for those who are already \"in the Land.\"\n\nREADERS WILL BE REFRESHED.\n\nWe believe that there is a warmth, fervor and glow about the pages of\nthis volume which will be most refreshing to many, many readers. May\nthe Holy Spirit put His seal upon it and give it an extensive\ncirculation.\n\nSETH C. REES.\n\nPROVIDENCE, R. I., NOVEMBER 15, 1898.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nWHAT IS SANCTIFICATION?\n\n\nNo one who accustoms himself to the observation of spiritual tides,\nwinds and currents can be ignorant of the fact that the devout men and\nwomen of the present are earnestly inquiring, \"What is sanctification?\nWhat does holiness mean?\" They are demanding of the pulpit and of the\nchurch editor something more than the time-worn and moth-eaten excuses\nfor not teaching a deeper work of grace. The \"seven thousand\" who have\nnot \"bowed the knee\" to the modern Baals are insisting that, if God's\nWord teaches entire sanctification for the disciple of Christ\nobtainable by faith now, they must possess themselves of this heavenly\ngrace.\n\nTHE AUTHOR'S DESIRE.\n\nIt is with the purpose and hope that some seeking heart may be helped\nthat these pages are penned. The author has purposely avoided all\ncontroversial matter. We would not assume the role of the doctrinaire\neven were we capable of it. \"Not controversy, not theology, but to save\nsouls,\" as Lyman Beecher said when dying.\n\nTHE NEED OF SPEED.\n\nThis book has been written in the midst of laborious and unceasing\nrevival work. For this reason there has been no time to polish\nsentences nor improve style. The object has been to get the truth to\nthe people in plain language, and to do it with despatch, for the time\nis short, and men are being saved or damned with electric speed.\n\nTHE BUZZARD AND VULTURE.\n\nThe buzzard and the vulture will find food if they look for it, but\nwith them we are not concerned. We are, however, terribly in earnest to\nhelp hungry souls to a place of blessing and power.\n\nMay God take these leaves and make them \"leaves of healing,\" if not for\n\"nations,\" at least for individuals.\n\nBYRON J. REES.\n\nNOVEMBER 14, 1898.\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  DEDICATION\n  INTRODUCTION\n  PREFACE\n  CHRIST'S PRAYER\n  CHAPTER    I. A Word in the Prayer\n  CHAPTER   II. Some Errors\n  CHAPTER  III. Those for Whom Christ Prayed\n  CHAPTER   IV. Christ's Prayer Answered\n  CHAPTER    V. Christian Unity\n  CHAPTER   VI. Fearlessness\n  CHAPTER  VII. Responsiveness to Christ\n  CHAPTER VIII. Soul-Rest\n  CHAPTER   IX. Prayerfulness\n  CHAPTER    X. Success\n  CHAPTER   XI. Growth in Christliness of Life\n  EXPERIENCE\n\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST'S PRAYER:\n\n\"SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH THE TRUTH; THY WORD IS TRUTH.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nA WORD IN THE PRAYER.\n\n\nCHRIST'S WORDS.\n\nAll who really love Christ love His words. They may not always fully\nunderstand their meaning, but they never reject any of them. The very\nfact that any word has been on the lips of Christ and received His\nsanction, gives it a sound of music to all who are truly disciples of\nthe Nazarene.\n\nMOTHER'S WORDS.\n\nThe words that your mother used frequently--are there any words quite\nthe same to you? She may be resting under the solemn pines of a silent\ncemetery, but, to this hour, if anyone uses one of her favorite words,\ninstantly the heart leaps in answer, and the mind flies back to her,\nand the fancy paints her as you knew her in the garden or at the\nfireside or by the window. It lies in the power of a single word to\nmake the eyes fill and the throat ache because of its association with\nthe voice of a queenly mother.\n\nA MAN'S TESTIMONY.\n\nThus it is with Christ and HIS words. It matters not where we meet the\nword, if it is Christ's we are touched and made tender. An aged man\nstands in a prayer-meeting in a bare and cheerless hall, and says in\nbroken and faltering voice, \"The dear Lord has blessedly SANCTIFIED my\nheart,\" and like a flash the room lightens, and the whole place seems\nchanged and made cheery. The heart cries, \"That is my Master's word,\"\nand the entire being is attentive and interested.\n\nJESUS' LIFE DEAR.\n\nYes, to the really regenerated soul everything connected with Jesus is\ndear. The place of His birth, the land of His ministry, the garden of\nHis agony, the mount of His crucifixion, the Olivet of His ascension,\nall these are illumined with a peculiar and special light. The mind\ndwells lovingly on His parables, ponders deeply His sayings, lingers\ntenderly over His words.\n\nWE WELCOME THE WORD.\n\nWe will NOT therefore shrink from the Word of our Lord: \"Sanctify.\" It\nmay have been stained by the slime of some unworthy life, or soiled by\nthe lips of men who prated about sanctification, but knew nothing of\nits nature; yet, for all that, since the word is Christ's we hail its\nenunciation with gladness.\n\nCHRIST'S BURDEN.\n\nThe high-priestly prayer of Christ was distinctively for the disciples.\nIndeed, He SAYS: \"I pray not for the world.\" That is to say, the\ndisciples need a peculiar and special work of grace, one which must\nfollow, not precede, conversion, and therefore not to be received by\nthe world. In this prayer the loving Master revealed to His immediate\ndisciples, and to those of all ages and climes, the burning desire of\nHis heart concerning His followers. The petition ascends from His\nimmaculate heart like incense from a golden censer, and it has for its\ntone and soul, \"Sanctify them through thy truth.\" His soul longed for\nthis work to be completed quickly. During the last days of His ministry\nHe talked frequently of the coming Comforter. He admonished them to\n\"tarry\" until an enduement came to them. He knew that unless they were\nenergized with a power, to which they were as yet strangers, their work\nwould be worse than futile.\n\nHE PRAYED FOR SANCTIFICATION.\n\nIt is for the SANCTIFICATION of the disciples that Christ prayed. He\ndid not ask that they might fill positions of honor and trust; He knew\nthat there is no nobility but that of goodness. It was more important\nthat the early preachers should be holy men than that they should be\nrespected and honored. He did not pray for riches for them; He knew too\nwell the worthlessness of money in itself. He did not desire for them\nthrones, nor culture, nor refinement, nor name.\n\n    \"'Tis only noble to be good.\n     True hearts are more than coronets,\n     And simple faith than Norman blood.\"\n\nSo Jesus prayed that these men who had for three years been His daily\nand constant companions should receive an experience which should make\nthem INTENSELY GOOD; not \"goody-goody,\" which is very different, but\nheartily and wholly spiritual and godly.\n\nTHE MEN WE LOVE.\n\nThe men whose names are brightening as the ages fly, were not men who\nwere always free from prejudices and blunders. They were not men, as a\nrule, from university quadrangles nor college cloisters. They were not\nthe wise, nor the erudite, nor the cultivated, nor the rich. They were\nthe good men. Brilliant men tire us; wits soon bore us with their\ngilt-edged nothings, but men with clean, holy hearts, fixed\nconvictions, bold antipathies to sin, sympathetic natures and tender\nconsciences never weary us, and they bear the intimate and familiar\nacquaintance which so often causes the downfall of the so-called\n\"great\" in one's estimation.\n\nTHE PERSONAL TOUCH.\n\nWe may forget an eloquent sermon pilfered from Massillon, but we will\nnever forget a warm handclasp and a sympathetic word from an humble\nservant in God's house. Jesus never went for the crowds--he hunted the\nindividual. He sat up a whole night with a questioning Rabbi; talked an\nafternoon with a harlot who wanted salvation; sought out and found the\nman whom they cast out of the synagogue, and saved a dying robber on an\nadjacent cross. We do not reach men in great audiences generally. We\nreach them by interesting ourselves in them individually; by lending\nour interest to their needs; by giving them a lift when they need it.\n\nSANCTIFIED FISHERMEN.\n\nJesus with divine sagacity knew that if these untutored fishermen were\nto light up Europe and Asia with the torch of the gospel they must have\nan experience themselves which would transform them from self-seeking,\ncowardly men to giants and heroes.\n\nTHE CARNAL MIND.\n\nWhile the true Christian loves Christ and His words, while his higher\nand more spiritual nature says \"Amen\" to the Lord's teaching, yet it\nmust not be forgotten that the \"carnal mind\" which remains, \"even in\nthe heart of the regenerate,\" is \"enmity against God.\" There is a dark\nSOMEWHAT in the soul that fairly hates the word \"sanctification.\"\nTheologians call it \"inbred sin\" or \"original depravity\"; the Bible\nterms it the \"old man,\" \"the old leaven,\" \"the root of bitterness,\"\netc. Whatever its name it abhors holiness and purity, and though the\nregenerate man loves Christ and His words, he does so over the vehement\nprotest of a baser principle chained and manacled in the basement\ndungeon of his heart.\n\nGEORGE FOX.\n\nThe devout of all churches recognize the existence of an inner enemy\nwho bars the gate to rapid spiritual progress. George Fox, the pious\nfounder of the Friends' Society, said in relation to an experience\nwhich came to him: \"I knew Jesus, and He was very precious to my soul,\nbut I found something within me which would not always keep patient and\nkind. I did what I could to keep it down, but it was there. I besought\nJesus that He would do something for me, and when I gave Him my will He\ncame into me and cast out all that would not be patient, and all that\nwould not be sweet, and that would not be kind, and then He shut the\ndoor.\"\n\n\"SIN IN BELIEVERS.\"\n\nJohn Wesley preached a sermon on \"Sin in Believers\" which is extant and\nwidely read. All churches recognize it in their creeds, and all have\nprovision in their dogmas for its expulsion before entrance into\nheaven. The Catholics provide a convenient Purgatory; other\ndenominations glorify Death and ascribe to it a power which they deny\nto Christ; while still others rely on growth to cleanse from all sin\nand get us ready for the glory-world. The Bible, however, with that\nsublime indifference to all human opinions and theories becoming in\ndivine authority, reveals a SALVATION FROM ALL SIN HERE AND NOW.\n\nThe word sanctify means simply \"to make holy\" (L., sanctificare =\nsanctus, holy, + ficare, to make). The work of sanctification removes\nall the roots of bitterness and destroys the remains of sin in the\nheart.\n\nUNREASONABLE ANTAGONISM.\n\nWhat sound sense can there be in antagonizing a blessing which is\nnothing more or less than cleanness--mental, moral and physical\ncleanness. The kind of character that would wittingly fight holiness\nwould object to a change of linen.\n\nA CHURCH IN JERSEY.\n\nThe eagerness with which truly devout people welcome the preaching of\nfull salvation is refreshing. It was the writer's privilege to hold an\neight-day meeting with a church in Central New Jersey. The church was\nin excellent condition, for the pastor, a godly and earnest man, had\nfaithfully proclaimed justification and its appropriate fruits. Nearly\nall the members were praying, conscientious and zealous Christians.\nWhen, at the first meeting, which was the regular Sunday morning\nservice, the experience of sanctification was presented, over one\nhundred persons arose, thus signifying their desire for the precious\ngrace!\n\nOPEN THE ALTAR!\n\nThe language of the child of God is, \"Does God want me sanctified? Then\nopen the altar for I am coming.\" He does not tarry; he does not higgle\nand hesitate; he makes for the \"straw pile\" if in a New England camp;\nthe \"saw-dust\" if down South; the \"altar rail\" if in a spiritual\nchurch; to his knees at any rate, for God's will he desires and must\nhave. Thank God he can have it!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSOME ERRORS.\n\n\nTHE BEAR-SKIN.\n\nSatan is very busily engaged in destroying and misrepresenting God's\nbest experiences. He slanders the work of God in order that His\nchildren may not come into their inheritance. The \"bear-skin\" frightens\nthe would-be seeker and keeps him out of the Canaan land.\n\nROSENTHAL.\n\nDarkness hates light. The Prince of Darkness dreads truth and light,\nfor he knows that if God's children ever see sanctification as it is,\nthere will be a general stampede for consecration. If the public really\nbelieved that Rosenthal would play the piano in Infantry Hall on a\ncertain evening, and that there would be no charge for admittance,\nSouth Main street would be black with people hours before the doors\nwere opened. If the church really believed that God would let them into\nan experience where sonatas and minuets and bridal marches and\n\"Mondnacht\" and the \"Etude in C sharp minor\" would be heard all the\ntime, and free of charge, all the bishops and the big preachers and\nlittle evangelists and exhorters and ministers would be besieged by a\ngrand eager throng of people, crying with one accord, \"What must I do\nto be sanctified?\" Lord, hasten the day!\n\nTHE DEVIL STIRRED.\n\nWhen a man is awakened and says, \"What is sanctification anyway?\" then\nthe devil bestirs himself to silence the soul's questionings. Blessed\nis the man who will not be satisfied with anything short of \"Thus saith\nthe Lord.\" Hound the lies of hell to their covert; run down the false\nreports, and determine the truth.\n\nA CHIMERA.\n\nOne of the lies which Satan is fond of circulating is that\nsanctification is a life free from temptation. When this is announced\namong those who are awakened on the subject, immediately there is a\ngreat cry, \"I don't want to hear any more about sanctification.\" One\nwould think by the excitement aroused that people are actually afraid\nlest they should by some manner of means be deprived of the privilege\nof being tempted. Let all such allay their fears. Jesus was tempted\neven on the pinnacle of the temple, and we will never be above our\nLord, and may well expect temptation until we pass from this\nworld-stage to the other land. No responsible Christian student teaches\nany such chimera as a life without temptation obtainable now.\n\nA DIFFERENCE.\n\nPersonally, we have never heard anyone make such a claim. What we do\nteach, and, better still, far better, WHAT GOD PROMISES, is an\nexperience where we need not YIELD to temptation. There is a\ndifference, vast and important, between being tempted and yielding to\ntemptation.\n\nA TEMPTED PREACHER.\n\nA man is en route from New York to the West via the Pennsylvania\nRailroad. The express stops at a junction in the mountains. He leaves\nthe car and walks up and down on the platform enjoying the view. Near\nthe station is a park. Beautiful flowering shrubbery, shell walks,\nivy-clad piles of rocks, splashing fountains, majestic shade trees and\nwell-kept turf make the place attractive. Beyond the pretty village a\nwooded mountain rises toward the bluest of skies, enticing to a stroll\namid the beauties of a forest. The preacher is strongly tempted to stop\nover a day and enjoy a brief rest. Then he thinks of his word, given in\ngood faith, to be in a certain place at an appointed hour; he remembers\nthe souls which God might save through the sermon which he is expected\nto preach the next evening. He is tired and jaded and worn. Would he\nnot be justified in telegraphing that he would not come until a day or\nso later than expected? It is a stout temptation; but when the\nblack-faced porter shouts, \"All aboard,\" and the bell rings he walks\ninto the hot and dirty car and continues his tiresome journey. Does not\nthe reader see that a temptation to rest is very different from\nstopping and breaking an engagement and disappointing an audience?\n\nA CHARMING COMPANION.\n\nOn life's express we are all liable to temptation. We are solicited to\ntarry, but we are so intent on our destination, and especially are we\nso charmed with our travelling Companion, that we bid farewell to\nfountain, and gravelled walks, and towering mountains and push on to\nthat city.\n\nWHO TEACHES FANATICISM?\n\nAnother misrepresentation, the circulation of which Satan delights to\nfurther, is that sanctification is an experience in which we can not\nsin, and when through this idea men lift their hands in horror and\ndesist from seeking this precious grace, all hell chuckles with real\nsatisfaction. But who teaches such fanaticism? Life is always a\nprobation. The will is free. The Bible teaches this truth, and we\nbelieve it. The holiest saint on earth may, IF HE CHOOSE, sin and go to\nhell. Everything hangs upon the choice. Thank God we NEED not fall.\nFalling is possible, but not necessary.\n\nNOT A DAY-DREAM.\n\nA third evil report is that sanctification is an impracticable\nday-dream, unfit for everyday life and the common round of duties. \"It\nis,\" so it is said, \"all very well for ministers, and class leaders,\nand superintendents of Sunday-schools, and people who are not very busy\nin life to get sanctification, but it will not stand the strain and\ntension to which it would be subjected in some lives.\" But \"God is no\nrespecter of persons,\" and what He will do for one of His children He\nwill do for all. And then, if we only knew it, sanctification is just\nsuited to the life of trial and perplexity.\n\n\"BILLY\" BRAY AND CARVOSSO.\n\nIf there is a man to be found who has to labor hard all day and has a\nlife full of care, sanctification is just the experience he needs. Read\nthe life of Mrs. Fletcher, and see how sanctification can help a woman\nwith multitudinous domestic cares. Study the lives of \"Billy\" Bray and\nWilliam Carvosso, and remember that it was sanctification which helped\nthese men in their difficulties. If there is a soul anywhere filled\nwith unspeakable sorrow, shivering alone in the dark, the brightest\nlight that can come to that stricken soul is full salvation. No matter\nhow sharp the thorn, nor how galling the fetter, sanctification turns\nthe thorn into oil, and the fetter into a chain of plaited flowers.\n\nCLANS.\n\nIt is said by some that sanctification makes people \"clannish.\"\nClannish is a word with a rather offensive taste on the tongue, and is\naltogether too harsh a word to apply to that congregative instinct that\nmakes pure-minded persons crave the fellowship of kindred spirits.\nThere is nothing intentionally exclusive about the holiness movement.\nIf a man is shut out it is because he shuts himself out; if he does not\nfeel at home in a full salvation service it is because he has not yet\nobtained full salvation.\n\nBROWNING CLUBS.\n\nMen who share great truths and principles in common find in each\nother's presence and fellowship great help. Admirers of Browning form\n\"Browning Clubs\"; foot-ball men gather themselves into \"associations\";\nministers meet in \"Monday meetings\"; Christians organize \"churches\"; is\nit to be thought strange if people who are sanctified wholly delight to\nmeet for conference and mutual help?\n\nTHE SPLITTING OF THE CHURCH\n\nA few uninformed persons say that \"holiness splits the church.\" But\nthis is false. When men love God with all their heart and their\nneighbors as themselves, nothing can separate them. If, however, people\nof different sorts and kinds, some saved and some unsaved, are in one\norganization, it will not require anything much to make them differ in\nopinion. The real ecclesia, the genuine church, is not so easily split.\nOne of our most brilliant and spiritual holiness writers has remarked\nin pleasantry that the anxiety of some in regard to the splitting of\nthe church would lead one to think that there was something inside\nwhich they were afraid would be seen in case of a cleavage.\n\nKEEP TO THE BIBLE.\n\nKeep to the Bible idea of sanctification. Let not the adversary dupe\nyou and frighten you from its quest and obtainment. Begin now; seek,\nsearch, pray, consecrate, believe, and soon the blessing will fall upon\nyour waiting soul.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHOSE FOR WHOM CHRIST PRAYED--\"SANCTIFY THEM.\"\n\n\nCONVERTED MEN.\n\nThe men for whom Christ prayed were converted men, and were living in\njustified relation to God. In proof of this statement, let the reader\nstudy the context carefully.\n\nA CLOUDLESS SKY.\n\nIn the sixteenth chapter of St. John, the one immediately preceding the\nsacerdotal prayer, the conversation which is recorded would be\nimpossible were the disciples conscious of guilt. One can not read\nthose sublime verses without the irresistible conviction that the\ndisciples' sky of soul-consciousness was blue and cloudless. There is\nno hint in Christ's discourse that these men are \"of the world,\" but\nrather it is taken for granted that they are children of God and heirs\nof the kingdom.\n\nA SPECIFIC STATEMENT.\n\nIt is the sheerest folly for one to maintain that the conversion of the\ndisciples did not occur prior to Pentecost. If words mean anything,\nJesus made a specific statement to the contrary. \"Rejoice,\" says He,\n\"that your names are written in heaven.\" In His prayer He says to His\nFather: \"They have kept Thy word\"; \"they are Thine\"; \"I pray for them,\nI pray not for the world.\" Notice the distinction which He makes\nbetween \"them\" and \"the world.\" These men are picked men. They are very\ndifferent from the great unpardoned, sinful throng outside the\nkingdom--they are CHRISTIANS.\n\nTHE CHAMBER OF BLESSING.\n\nA very good evidence of the genuineness of the conversion of the\ndisciples was their painstaking care to follow out minutely the\ndirections of their ascended Lord. He had prayed for their\nsanctification; they desired it. He had spoken of a coming Comforter,\nand they eagerly awaited His advent. He had said, \"Tarry in Jerusalem\nuntil\" His arrival, and they conscientiously met in an \"upper room\" for\na ten-day prayer-meeting. \"Farewell! friends; farewell! memory-haunted\nsynagogues; farewell! sacred temple; farewell! long-bearded priests;\nfarewell all! we must go to prayer: our Lord said that we should be\nsanctified.\" And thus in long line the one hundred and twenty file up\nthe stairs to the Chamber of Blessing. There is no lightness, no\njesting, no quibbling, no bickering; all are serious, terribly in\nearnest, intent on \"the promise of the Father.\" There is Peter,\nimpulsive and eager, whole-hearted and enthusiastic; there is the meek\nand quiet Mary, who sat at Jesus' feet at the old home in Bethany;\nthere is the child-like saint, the devout and spiritual John; there is\nthe repentant woman of Magdala; and there are many others who betake\nthemselves to that sacred place--\"the upper room.\" One all-engrossing\nthought fills their minds. \"The promise of the Father which ye have\nheard of me. The promise of the Father! The promise of the Father! O,\nwhen will He come? We would know more about our departed Lord. He is\ngone from us. Our hearts are torn and bleeding and lonely. Jesus said,\n'He shall testify of me.' Would that He would come now!\"\n\nWHY ONLY THE FEW?\n\nBut why are there only one hundred and twenty? Was it not into\nJerusalem that Christ entered riding over a cloak-carpeted way amid the\ndeafening shouts of \"Hosanna\"? Did He not teach and instruct and heal\nhundreds, if not thousands, in and about Jerusalem? Was He not lionized\nat times by an admiring public? Yea, truly; but one may admire Christ\nand yet not love Him. There are many who at some \"hard saying\" refuse\nto walk with Him. Thousands who have a keen appreciation of \"loaves and\nfishes\" shrink from \"leaving all\" and following Jesus. A great\nconcourse is drawn and held spell-bound by a naive, graceful, eloquent,\nartless preacher who uses \"lilies,\" and the \"grass of the field,\" and\nthe \"sower\" of seed, and the \"sparrow\" in the air to enforce his truth.\nBut one may be interested, and yet not be saved.\n\nTHE AESTHETIC ELEMENT.\n\nIn some people religion appeals to the aesthetic nature, and to that\nonly. They festoon the cross with flowers, but never think of dying on\nit. They are charmed by Gothic churches filled with \"dim, religious\nlight.\" The waves of music from the great; sounding organ awe their\nsouls and fill them with a pensiveness which they mistake for\nrepentance. Pointed arches, sculptured capitals, fretted altars,\nswinging censers, burning candles, white-robed choir-boys, errorless\norder in church service--these auxiliaries influence them so strongly\nin their sense of the beautiful that they think, \"Surely I love God.\nWhy, of course I love God.\" But to love God involves something\npractical. It means something more than mere profession. It means\nrugged self-denial, Spartan heroism, perhaps the loss of an \"arm\" or\nthe \"plucking out of an eye.\" Base must have been the soul which was\nnot attracted by One who \"spake as never man spake\"; low-minded the man\nwho did not see in Him imperishable beauty and refinement of soul; but\nah! discipleship means far more than that. Christ had flown up to\nheaven. Who now will prove his love for Him by obeying His commands?\nWho will tarry in Jerusalem awaiting the coming Spirit, and then, the\nComforter having come, be ready to \"Go into all the world, discipling\nall nations\"? Answer: All who are truly children of God. The preaching\nof sanctification is the touchstone by which the genuineness of\nconversions can be tested. The truly living \"hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness\"; the dead do not \"bother their heads about a second\nblessing.\"\n\nTHE STEAMER \"PURITAN.\"\n\nLet us illustrate: It was fifteen minutes until the schedule time for\nthe \"Puritan\" of the \"Fall River Line\" to leave her New York pier. The\nevening was warm, and the usual crowd filled the decks. Many had come\non board to see their friends off for Newport, Bar Harbor and \"the\nPier.\" Passengers and their friends sat in groups and chatted, talked\nabout the trip, the weather, the situation at Santiago, the flowers\nthey held, the concert by the orchestra. It was impossible for an\nobserver to determine just who were passengers and held tickets, and\nwho were merely bidding farewell to their friends. Suddenly an officer\nin gold-braided cap and blue uniform appeared, and cried out with an\nauthoritative voice and a look of command, \"All ashore who are going\nashore! All ashore who are going ashore!\" Immediately there were hasty\nhand-clasps and hasty good-byes, and a large part of the company\nmarched quickly down the stairs and across the gang-plank. Those who\nwere left held tickets and were \"going through.\"\n\nTHE STAMPEDE FOR SHORE.\n\nIn a revival of religion it is often a matter of considerable\ndifficulty to determine the genuinely converted. In the confusion of\nlarge altar services, and the crush of great congregations, who are the\nsaved? No man can tell. Many are moved by sympathy for their friends.\nOthers are charmed by the congregational singing and the music of the\norgan. Many see that the revival is bound to go, and, like Pliable,\nthey are swept along for a time with it. But there appears in this\nmixed company a man with the stamp of divine authority upon his brow,\nthe gold braid of full salvation on his helmet, the dialect of Canaan\non his tongue and the air of official appointment about his person:\n\"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord! All ashore who are going\nashore! All ashore who are going ashore!\" Immediately \"there is no\nsmall stir.\" Some leave the boat by way of the gang-plank carping at\nthe words of the officer and arguing as they go; some in great haste\nvault the balustrades and railings and leap for the pier; still others\nclimb out the windows of staterooms and run screaming toward the\nnearest ladder which will enable them to leave the \"good ship Zion.\"\nGradually quiet is restored. The company is smaller, and of whom is it\ncomposed? The genuinely converted. What are they doing? They are asking\nthe nearest officer how soon the boat leaves for New England. \"When can\nI be sanctified wholly? O, pray for me! I want the blessing now!\" They\nare \"going through.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nCHRIST'S PRAYER ANSWERED.\n\n\nGOD LISTENS.\n\nWhen Christ opens His mouth, God bows down His ear. \"I know that thou\nhearest me always.\" The disciples did not wait long until they were\nbaptized with the Holy Ghost. Christ's prayer found audience and the\nanswer was not long delayed.\n\nHEART CLEANSING.\n\nThe baptism with the Spirit which was administered to the one hundred\nand twenty effected their sanctification. The cleansing of their hearts\nwas one of the effects of the out-pouring of the Spirit. Sanctification\nand the baptism with the Spirit are therefore coetaneous--they take\nplace at the same time.\n\nPETER'S PROOF.\n\nThis is proven by an inspired statement made by Peter. Referring to the\nGentiles he says that God \"put no difference between them\" and us Jews\nwho were sanctified at Pentecost, \"purifying their hearts by faith.\"\n\nTHE MANNER OF CLEANSING.\n\nThere need be no confusion as to the manner of cleansing. Jesus prayed,\n\"Sanctify them THROUGH THY TRUTH.\" It is by means of the truth preached\nof and read, that we first hear of a full deliverance from all sin. It\nis \"through the truth\" that we learn of God's willingness as well as\nHis power to sanctify. If it had not been for THE BLOOD, Jesus could\nnever have guaranteed the coming of the Comforter; the blood is \"the\nprocuring cause\" of all the blessings which we receive. Everything\ncomes through the atonement. FAITH is the human condition necessary for\nthe cleansing of the soul; so that, in a very important sense, we are\nsanctified by faith. THE DIVINE OMNIPOTENT HOLY GHOST is the immediate\nagency of heart-cleansing. He is the baptizing element administered by\nChrist the Divine Baptizer: \"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nFIRE!\n\nIt would be well for us to notice some of the characteristics of the\nPentecostal anointing. John the Baptist, minister of the gospel and\npreacher of genuine regeneration, said of Jesus that \"he should baptize\nwith the Holy Ghost and fire,\" thus using a most powerful symbol to\ncharacterize the nature of the work of the Holy Ghost. Everyone is\nfamiliar with the action of fire; it burns everything combustible with\nwhich it comes in contact.\n\nCONSEALED SERPENTS.\n\nWe submit that no one can tell just how much there is in the heart that\nneeds to be consumed. There are things dormant in the unsanctified\nheart of which the man never dreams. There are serpents coiled in\nballs, and vipers spitting poison, and centipedes, and fat blinking\ntoads, and vampires, and lizards, and tarantulas, that we never suspect\nof being in the soul. But they are there.\n\nTHE EMBRYOS OF CRIME.\n\nIt is God's mercy that says, \"Be ye holy,\" for He knows that unless we\nget cleaned out and purified the inner reptiles will poison us to\ndeath. Every unsanctified man carries in his bosom the seeds of all\npossible crimes, the embryos of all black actions. There are times when\nwe half believe that something of the kind is true. Did you ever stand\nby the cage of a lion and watch his restless pace and feel that you had\nsomething in you kindred to him? Many a man has gazed into the green\neyes of a wild beast and trembled, feeling a similarity of nature.\nEvery son of Adam feels the beast stir in him at times, until Pentecost\neradicates the bestial principle.\n\nSMOULDERING EMBERS.\n\nThe embers from which hell-fire is kindled smoulder in the unsanctified\nheart. It is dangerous to attempt to build a Christian character over a\nlatent volcano. A once active volcano becomes inactive. The lava cools,\nthe ashes settle, and the smoke drifts away. An enterprising farmer\ncovers a considerable space of the once fiery volcanic field with fresh\nearth carted from a fertile valley. All goes well for a year or two.\nThe garden prospers, the vegetables are most encouraging, and the\nproduce is abundant. But one morning the farmer notices that smoke is\nissuing from the crater at the summit of the mountain. The sky blackens\nand red flames flash amid the clouds of smoke. The land is shaken with\nearthquakes. Suddenly, right in the middle of his verdant field, a\ngreat red-lipped chasm opens and blue flames leap upwards and surge\ntoward the sky. His crops are blasted with the \"fierce heat of the\nflame,\" and the work of years is wrecked in a moment.\n\nBLUE FLAMES OF GEHENNA\n\nNo permanent Christian life can be built upon the foundation of an\nunsanctified heart. For a time the graces of the Spirit may seem to\ngrow, but in some sad hour the surface will split open and the man will\nleap back aghast at the blue flames of Gehenna, which singe his brows\nand blacken his cheeks.\n\nTHE PROPHET AND PRINCE.\n\nAn old white-haired prophet and a gay young prince are in conversation.\nThe aged man bows his head upon his staff and weeps.\n\n\"For what are you weeping, old man?\"\n\n\"Ah, I am thinking of the black and dastardly crimes you will commit\nwhen you have once become king.\"\n\n\"Is thy servant a dog, a ruthless town whelp, that he should do such\nthings?\"\n\nPROPHECY FULFILLED\n\nBut years roll on and the young man is king, and his hands are stained\nwith crime, and the old man's predictions come true. God had given the\naged saint a view of the boy's breast, and he saw the embryonic seeds\nof sin which, if allowed to remain, would sprout and produce a fruitage\nof evil deeds.\n\nTHE BROKEN FLOWER\n\nThe secret of the downfall of many a brilliant character is a bosom\nsinfulness little expected to be in existence. No man saw the black and\nugly thing but it was there. A lady had a tall and graceful plant. The\nflowers were white and beautiful and all the town said, \"What a fine\nflower!\" One day a storm swept across the garden. One plant was\ninjured; it was the one which people had admired and praised. Filled\nwith grief, the lady stooped to examine the stem, and found that it had\nbeen pierced by a worm-hole. The insect had worked silently and\nsecretly. No one saw him cutting into the heart of the tall and\nmagnificent flower, but in a storm, under a test severe and protracted,\nthe stem snapped and the choice beauty of the garden was a thing of the\npast.\n\nTHE WORM IN THE HEART.\n\nIt is the worm in the heart with his relentless and resistless tooth,\nwhich weakens the character. Under severe and protracted temptation the\nwill snaps and yields, and the beautiful life is a wreck and fit only\nfor the dump of the Universe.\n\nSTUMPS AND ROOTS.\n\nThere are many roots, hidden roots, which bury themselves deep in the\nsoil of the heart. They extend far below clear cerebration, twisting\nand twining themselves in \"the fringe of consciousness.\" It takes the\nfire of the Holy Ghost to follow them deep into the ground and destroy\nthem. It used to be a pastime of the boys in eastern Ohio to pile great\nheaps of brush upon huge stumps in newly-cleared land. All the long\nOctober day they would toil, raising a stack of dry limbs upon the\nstump which needed to be removed. In the evening when twilight came and\nthe stars shone out, they would light the brush and watch the flames\ngreedily devour the pile. In the morning when the lads returned to the\nscene of the fire, no sign of the stump was to be seen. Looking closely\nthey saw great holes as large at the top of the ground as a man's body,\nand tapering to a small point as they went deep into the earth. The\nfire had found the huge roots, and had tracked them into their retreats\nand consumed them.\n\nFIRE OF PENTECOST.\n\nWe pile the brush of time and talents and money and name and self upon\nthe altar, and the fire of Pentecost, which God sends as He sent to\nMount Carmel of old, will destroy not only the brush, but the roots of\nsin, one and all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nCHRISTIAN UNITY.\n\n\nA COMMON PLATFORM.\n\nOne of the results spoken of by Christ in His prayer, and brought about\nby sanctification, is Christian unity--\"that they all may be one.\"\nThere is but one remedy for sectism and bigotry, and it is found in the\nanswer to Christ's petition. When Pentecost comes to us we are all\nlifted upon one grand common platform and shake hands and shout and\nweep and laugh and get so mixed up that a Presbyterian can not be\ndistinguished from a Methodist, nor a Friend from an Episcopalian\nvestryman.\n\nFALSE UNITY.\n\nWe have heard much about the organic union of churches. Many great and\ngood men have looked forward with sanguine hopes to the day when we\nshould do away with denominations. In a few cases two churches of\ndifferent sects have united and worshipped in one congregation. But the\ncauses of such unity are frequently far from gratifying. In D----the\nMethodists and Primitive Methodists clasp hands and join forces because\nthey can thus make one preacher do the work which two formerly\nperformed. In K----the Baptists and Presbyterians unite because the\nthirteen members of one church and the seven of the other feel lonely\nin their great refrigerators and are inclined to make friends and\npreserve life. The cold is most intense. In the far North the weather\nis sometimes so severe that wild beasts, ordinarily hostile both toward\neach other and man, crowd close together near the campfire of the\nexplorer.\n\nWith many churches it is \"unite or die!\" The mallet of the auctioneer\nthreatens the steeple-house, the young folks are off \"golfing\" or\n\"hiking,\" and the gray-beards, lonely and terror-stricken as they see\nchurch extinction approaching, favor \"a union of forces with some other\nchurch.\" In the church magazines of the next month appear sundry\narticles on \"the broad and liberal spirit of the nineteenth century\nchurch.\" \"A large catholicity is taking the place of the old fogyism of\nformer days,\" scribbles the hack-writer.\n\nTHE \"MILKSOP'S\" THEORY.\n\nIn a few cases large congregations have united. When we behold it our\nhopes rise, but they are doomed to early blight by a careful study of\nthe situation. The cause of denominationalism is the tenacious clinging\nto faith and doctrines. Whether or no we ought to all believe precisely\nalike about non-essentials, one thing is sure, the man who does not\ncleave to some faith, heart and head and brain and blood, is worthless\nin Christ's army. Milksops may be ornamental, they are certainly not\nmilitant, and God wants soldiers. The man who does not know what he\nbelieves, and the man who says \"it does not matter what one believes if\none is only sincere,\" are more despicable than the Yankees who burned\nwitches in Salem. Better that a man be \"narrow\" than that he be so\n\"broad\" as to take in \"the devil and all his angels.\" Out upon our\nfolly when we barter away the truth of God for a flimsy, tissue-paper\nbond of so-called \"fellowship\"!\n\nCHRISTIAN ONENESS.\n\nThere is a unity, however, and to it Christ referred, which does not\nconsist in uniformity of creed but in oneness of heart. When we are\ntruly sanctified the non-baptizing Quaker, and the trine immersionist,\nand the High Church Episcopalian, and the foot-washing Tunker, and the\nMethodist, and the Baptist, and the Congregationalist all unite in one\nfar-reaching melodious chorus,\n\n    \"HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD!\"\n\nDISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED.\n\nSanctification destroys sticklerism for non-essentials and the lust for\nfine distinctions in dogmatics. It slays the doctrinaire and makes a\nred-hot revivalist out of him. The purified soul takes the Bible for\nhis \"credo\" and loves God's children of whatever name with a generosity\nthat overtops every inadequate consideration. The sanctified are united\nby a common cause and a common experience. Opinions may differ as to\necclesiastical polity or the mode of baptism, but the white cord of\nsanctification is \"the bond of perfectness\" which makes them one\nbundle. Yale and Cornell are rivals with their \"eights\" and \"shells\" on\nAmerican Hudson, but men from both colleges join forces to beat the\nBritishers at Henley. Holiness people of every church unite to \"push\nholiness.\"\n\nTHE SPOKES AND THE HUB.\n\nWhen the glorious grace of full salvation is experienced, love for\nChrist is increased and intensified. Everyone wants to magnify Him and\nlive close to Him: and as we get close to Him, the Hub, the distance\nbetween us, the spokes, is lessened.\n\nTHE D.D. AND THE NEGRO.\n\nA D.D. and a negro meet on a Mississippi River boat. They fall into\nconversation. The doctor speaks of the Lord. The negro's eyes fill and\nhe says, \"You know my Savior?\" and they shake hands and weep and shout.\nWhy this community of feeling between men of such diverse stations in\nlife? Both possess the blessing of entire sanctification.\n\nVARIOUS SECTS\n\nThe writer has had the privilege of preaching in churches of different\ndenominations in the work of special evangelism, but never has he known\nthe falling of Pentecostal fire to fail to burn up sectarianism. It is\nno easy matter to find out from the preaching of our holiness preachers\nunder what denominational flag they sail. Full salvation obliterates\nthe fences which separate the people of God and makes them really \"one\nin Christ Jesus.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nFEARLESSNESS.\n\n\nPETER THE FEARLESS.\n\nThere was a man among the one hundred and twenty \"upper room believers\"\nin whom Pentecost effected a most apparent and almost spectacular\nchange. It was Peter. We remember him as the man at whom the young girl\npointed her finger and laughed. We recall that he was so cowardly that\nhe denied his Lord on the spot, swearing that he did not know Him.\nBehold this same Peter on the day of Pentecost. He is charging home the\nmurder of Christ. Fear is gone, and gone forever. He faces men and does\nnot flinch an iota. Carnality, the source of cowardice, has been\nremoved, and the weakling is turned into a Lord Nelson for bravery, and\na Savonarola for faithfulness to men's souls.\n\nSHALL WE TREMBLE?\n\nFear of man is one of the most illogical things in the world. Men sell\nthe blood of Jesus and hope of heaven and eternal happiness because of\n\"what people say.\" Think of it, afraid of a man who will die and be\nhurried under ground before he rots! Frightened at a thing dressed in a\nlong black coat and a white cravat with a golden-headed cane and a tall\nhat and a frown; a thing which will stop breathing some fine day and\nthe worms will eat! Shall I tremble when an ecclesiastical Leo utters a\nroar? Shall I halt and stammer because a top-heavy lad from a\ntheological seminary, hopelessly in love with himself, scowls at the\nword \"sanctification\"?\n\nQUEER COURAGE.\n\nThere are some who bolster their courage by saying ostentatiously, \"I\ndon't care what folks say,\" but their very vehemence shows that they DO\ncare a very great deal. We boys all remember how we used to whistle\nwhen we passed a graveyard after dark to show we \"weren't afraid\"; and\nhow hard it was to keep our mouths puckered and how shaky our legs felt!\n\nAFRAID TO BREAK STEP\n\nThe folks we are afraid of are afraid of us. What a situation! A great\nregiment of people marching straight down to hell, everyone afraid to\nbreak step for fear the others will laugh! That is precisely the\ncondition of nearly every sinner.\n\nCOURAGE OF THERMOPYLAE\n\nSanctification takes away the shrinking timidity and puts in a courage\nlike that at Thermopylae. There was once a young man who, previous to\nhis sanctification, was so timid that he frequently stayed away from\nchurch for no other reason than that he feared God might ask him to\ntestify. He enjoyed meetings and loved to hear preaching, but the very\nidea of testimony would frighten him almost ill. Now he frequently\naddresses many hundreds and never feels the slightest embarrassment.\n\nUNMASK PRURIENCY.\n\nThe ministry is sadly in need of a blessing which will give it courage\nto attack sin of all kinds and degrees. We need men who will rip the\nmask off the putrid face of corruption and pronounce God's sentence\nupon it; who will lift up the trap-door of the cess-pools of men's\nhearts and bid them look within at their own slime and filth; who will\n\"cry aloud and spare not,\" though the infuriated cohorts of bat-winged\ndemons snarl and shriek.\n\nSPEAK PLAINLY.\n\nThere will be a day when men will curse us because we have not preached\nmore plainly. You can call a spade \"a spade\" or you can designate it as\n\"an iron utensil employed for excavating purposes,\" but if you want\nfolks to understand what you are driving at use the shorter term.\n\nSHOOTING OVER MEN'S HEADS.\n\nThere is too little plain Anglo-Saxon preaching. We shoot far over the\nheads of our congregations and do not even scar the varnish on the\ngallery banister. We dwell on the points of distinction between\nCalvinism and Arminianism when the greater part of our people do not\nknow the difference between an Arminian and an Armenian, and some good\nold sister thinks we are preaching on the cruelty of the Turks. Here I\nam discussing \"The Dangers of Imperialism\" and \"The Anglo-American\nFriendship,\" while men are starving for the Bread of Life! Brethren in\nthe ministry, let us be less anxious about the syllogistic accuracy of\nour sermons and be more eager to help men live right and quit sin and\ngo to heaven.\n\nTHE PULPIT CANNON.\n\nThere are many sins which few men have the courage to antagonize in\npublic. Theoretically the pulpit is supposed to cannonade all sin of\nevery variety and species, but, alas, it is usually too cowardly. The\nSpirit-filled man fears no one from Sandow down to Tom Thumb, from a\nplug-hat Bishop to a little pusilanimous dude preacher.\n\nGHASTLY CRIMES.\n\nIt is not that ministers are unawares of the prevalence of black and\nghastly crimes, but that they dare not speak openly against them. Too\nmany are contaminated with evil and involved in guilt for the preacher\nto voice with impunity the truths which burn in his soul. He knows only\ntoo well that if he dares assert his manhood and exercises the\nprerogative of Christ's minister, the retribution will be swift and\nterrible, viz: ejectment from his pastorate!\n\nMURDER\n\nHow ominous is the silence concerning murder. And yet the land is\nswarming with crimson-handed murderers and murderesses. Many of them\nare members of our \"best churches\" and move in the most select society.\nSome of them read with animation the responses in church service and\nrepeat the Lord's Prayer with the greatest gusto. A few--not many, we\ndevoutly trust--talk about \"sanctification.\" Poor, deluded, hoodwinked\nsouls! they are blinded by Satan. Their hands are red with blood, and\ntheir hearts are black as hell. Were they to ever approach the heaven\nof which they sanctimoniously prate, they would be met at the gate with\nthe curse of murdered infants who never saw the light.\n\nINFANTICIDE\n\nIf there is a pitiable sight in all God's great universe, if there is a\nscene over which angels shed tears and demons shriek laughter, it is an\nold cruel-eyed mother, who has seared her conscience and sinned away\nall noble womanliness and blasted her own soul, whispering into the\nunsoiled ears of her daughter the way in which to murder her own\noffspring; and if there is a hot hell, such a mother will make her bed\nin it.\n\nPOODLE-DOGS.\n\nThe duties and cares of maternity are too irksome, and so the women who\nmight be the mothers of John Wesleys and Fenelons and Metchers and\nInskips and Cookmans are petting poodle-dogs and rat-terriers.\n\nTHE VITRIOL OF WRATH.\n\nHow many preachers dare speak in clarion tones what religion and\nscience concur in asserting concerning vice? But know ye by these\npresents, all of Adam's race, that what depraved humanity pronounces\nall right and harmless, the Almighty God who whirls the worlds will\ncorrode and scald with the burning vitriol of His wrath, and woe! woe!\nwoe! to the man or woman with whom is found sin.\n\nGILT-EDGED FRAUDS.\n\nAny tyro knows who drowned Morgan, but the clergyman who \"opens up\" on\nMasonry is a curiosity. Why, how can the ministers say anything when\nthey are the chaplains of these gilt-edged frauds called \"lodges\"? It\ndoes not take much calculation to show that an institution which spends\nthree dollars in giving away one has no right to exist. Some of the\nmore weak-minded and puerile of the clergy are doubtless in fear lest\ntheir \"tongues should be torn out by the roots and their hearts buried\nin the rough sands of the seashore.\" Brave men are not so easily scared.\n\nBOLOGNA SAUSAGE.\n\nSecretism in itself is suspicious. Solon said that he wanted his house\nso constructed that the people could see him at all hours and thus know\nhim to be a good man. A system which is so built that the public is\nkept in the dark is entitled to the attention of a Pinkerton. Bologna\nsausage made in a factory at the door of which is a huge sign, \"No\nAdmittance,\" may be all right, but you can not make people think so.\n\nTHE ENTERTAINMENT.\n\nThere are few preachers so foolish and illogical as to believe that the\nentertainment plan is the best way to raise money for church work, yet\nscarcely one of them declares his honest straight-forward conviction\nabout it. Now and then a Hale, more daring than the rest, writes a\nremonstrative article for the Forum, but the great mass keep quiet. A\nPentecostal ministry will wheel its guns into position and load and\nfire into the supper and festival crowd notwithstanding the voices of\nobjectors.\n\nHEROISM.\n\nWhatever may be the matter under consideration the sanctified man dares\nanything right. God is with him, and he feels His presence. Right is\nright, and by the grace of God he will stand by it though all the world\nhowl and roar.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRESPONSIVENESS TO CHRIST.\n\n\nA COAL AND A FLAME.\n\nAmong the results of the coming of the Comforter is an increase in warm\npersonal love for Jesus. Conversion plants divine love (agape) in the\nheart, but sanctification quickens and intensifies it. Conversion drops\na coal into the breast; the fuller grace fans it into a flame.\n\nSOUNDING STRINGS.\n\nThere is a place in experience where Christ's voice sets the whole\nbeing vibrating. The soul is so in tune with Him that the cadences of\nHis tones fill the soul with a tremor of glee and gladness. If you sing\nthe scale in a room where there is a piano the corresponding strings of\nthe instrument will sound. Thus it is with Jesus and the sanctified\nsoul. When Christ speaks the heart answers spontaneously.\n\nREGENERATION\n\nRegeneration does much for us. But there is that even in the heart of\nthe regenerate which is antagonistic to Christ. The whole man does not\nsay instinctively, \"Thy will be done\"; yet there is something within to\nwhich the Lord can appeal. Consult Peter. He tells us of \"exceeding\ngreat and precious promises by which we become partakers of the Divine\nnature.\" We \"take a part\" (partakers) of the divine Shekinah into our\nhearts. We are not only \"adopted\" but born of God, and by a divine\nheredity we possess His character.\n\nSAMUEL.\n\nWe see this beautifully illustrated in the case of Samuel. Given in\ncovenant to God from his birth, and early taught the word of the Lord,\nhe possessed the changed heart and the attuned ear. When God's voice\nfell out of the skies that night something in Samuel heard what aged\nand mitred Eli could not hear. Eli had the theory and reasoned out who\nthe speaker must be, but the heart of Samuel awoke intuitively at the\nsound of that voice.\n\nTHE VOICE FROM THE SKY.\n\nAs Jesus taught in the temple God spoke, and many whose ears were dull\nbecause their hearts were hard and unchanged said, \"It thundered.\"\nOthers saw that something extraordinary had occurred and admitted that\n\"an angel spoke to Him.\" But the disciples whose \"names were written in\nheaven,\" and who had regenerated hearts, knew it was the voice of God.\n\nTHE FLINTY WORLD.\n\nBut while the child of God is in sympathy with God he must be\nsanctified wholly to be fully, constantly and completely responsive to\nChrist. Jesus wants a bride who will live His life with Him and enter\ninto all His plans and sorrows, ambitions and trials, aims and\npurposes. There are many people who are glad Jesus died for them who\nknow nothing about \"suffering with Christ.\" Yet the Bible is filled\nwith allusions to it. The Heavenly Bridegroom wants a companion who\nwill understand Him. This cold, hard, flinty, wicked world does not.\n\"He came unto His own and His own received Him not.\" He knocked at the\ndoor of His own vineyard and the husband-men said, \"Come, let us kill\nthe Son.\" The divine Lord hungers for some one who will not misjudge\nHis purposes nor impute to Him base motives.\n\nTHE UNAPPRECIATED.\n\nWe have all seen people who were never appreciated. Those who were near\nto them by blood and kindred always thought them strange and visionary.\nWhat a sad thing if Christ's bride does not appreciate His aims for the\nworld, His sorrow over perishing souls, His heart-ache over dying men!\n\"The fellowship of His sufferings\"--what can it mean? It means that we\nmourn over the sin in the world which makes Christ weep; sob over the\nevil that makes Him hang His fair head and groan. It means that ever\nand always we shall look at things from the Christ standpoint.\n\nTHE SHEEP AND THE SHEPHERD.\n\n\"My sheep know [recognize] my voice,\" says the Shepherd. He states the\nprinciple that \"sheep\" always hear when He speaks. \"Lambs\" may be at\ntimes mistaken as to the voices that cry in the soul, but Christians\nwhose experience entitles them to the designation, \"sheep,\" do not err\nas to the speaker. Watch a good shepherd collect his flock at evening.\nEvery sheep knows him. It is getting dark, and the quiet animals are\nbusily feeding in the fragrant clover, but the tender cadences of the\nvoice of their guide and protector pierce their delicate ears and enter\ntheir gentle hearts, and the white flock comes bounding toward the\nshepherd. A sportsman in golf suit and plaid cap and with a fine\nbaritone voice may call earnestly, but \"a stranger will they not\nfollow.\" The shepherd holds the key to their confidence, and no one\nelse can unlock the door to their love.\n\nCHRIST HAS THE KEY.\n\nChrist has the key to our hearts. He stands in the dusk of evening in\nthe falling dew and sends His sweet voice out across the billowing\nfields of clover, and all His sheep leap toward \"the Good Shepherd.\"\n\nTHE COW AND THE SUNSET.\n\nSanctification brings out the power of appreciation in the soul. What\nGod does for you fills your soul with gratitude, and you can get\nblessed any time of day or night by simply reflecting on the mercies\nand lovingkindnesses of the Lord. The natural human heart does not\nappreciate God, and sees nothing especially lovely in Him. A cow and\nthe man who owns the cow may stand side by side and look at the same\nsunset. The cow sees a big splotch of crimson and gold; the other sees\none of God's sky-paintings, and is inspired to holy living and\nself-denial and fidelity to the Master. You must have a \"sunset nature\"\nto appreciate a sunset, and you must be sanctified wholly to see in\nChrist a beauty and loveliness which no Murillo and no Raphael and no\nDel Sarto have yet put on canvas.\n\nTHE LOVELY CHRIST.\n\nO the lovely Christ! How the heart aches to go to Him! We get so\nhomesick for Jesus. People are so dull and uninteresting and vapid and\nstupid--so precisely like ourselves--we get weary of the world and its\nemptiness, and yearn to fly away to be with the spotless Christ and\nlive in that\n\n    \"Undiscovered country, from whose bourne\n     No traveller returns\"\n\nSome day, thank God! the Bridegroom will step out upon the balcony of\nheaven and look at us and speak to us in a tone inaudible to all but\nourselves, and our souls will bound with rapture and the earthen vessel\nwill crumble and we will spread snowy pinions and wing our flight up to\nthe presence of our soul's King!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nSOUL-REST.\n\n\nAN EFFECT.\n\nOne of the beatific effects of the cleansing of the heart from all sin\nis soul-rest. It always accompanies the glorious experience of entire\npurity.\n\nFACIAL INSCRIPTIONS.\n\nThis poor tired world of ours needs rest. Study the faces of the people\nyou meet in the streets, in the markets, in the cars, in the churches,\nand there is one word NOT written on them, and that word is \"Rest.\" You\nwill find many other words written on them. On some faces you see\n\"Selfishness\" in crabbed, crooked letters; on others \"Lust\" in\nbold-faced type; on others \"Gluttony\"; on others, \"Self-Conceit\"; on\nothers, \"Craftiness\"; and on through a thousand unworthy legends; but\nthe one thing which makes life worth living is not found except among\nthe sanctified.\n\nVAMPIRES AND BATS.\n\nIt is wonderful how elusive rest is. You may search for it all your\ndays and grow gray and haggard, and sit down in the evening of life\nwith the vampires circling about you and be forced to confess, \"I have\nnot found rest!\" You may retire from business and say, \"I will spend my\ndeclining years in peace,\" but as the sun goes down the bats come out\nand flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your\naffrighted face. If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr.\nFaust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog\nyour steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a\nMephisto who will never leave you.\n\nTHE SEEDS OF ANARCHY.\n\nSome Christian people seek rest in changing preachers, but there is\nnothing in that to bring it. You may leave the minister who thumps the\ndesk and listen to a man with a nasal twang, but you are still restive\nand unsatisfied. You think the reason your peace of soul is disturbed\nis that Mrs. Garrulous talked about you, or that the weather is rainy\nand disagreeable, or that the meetings are dull, or that people are\nselfish. The real reason is that you have a restlessness in your heart\ncharacteristic of inbred sin. You possess the seeds of dissatisfaction,\nand lawlessness, and anarchy, and nothing but holiness of heart will\nexpel them.\n\nTHE OCEAN DEPTHS.\n\nDown in the unfathomed depths of old Ocean there is no movement, no\ndisturbance. Gigantic \"Majesties\" and \"Kaiser Wilhelms\" and \"Oregons\"\nand \"Vizcayas\" plow and whiten the surface; tempests rage and\nEuroclydons roar and currents change and tides ebb and flow, but the\ngreat depth knows no ripple. It is said that down there the most\nfragile of frail and delicate organisms grow in safety. In the depths\nof the sanctified heart there is no storm and no breaker. Trials may\ncome and leave white scars; billows may beat and surges may roll, and\nwater-spouts and tornadoes may make the upper sea boil with anguish and\nsorrow and grief, but deep in the heart there is calm. There the\ndelicate graces of the Spirit thrive and luxuriate. Great, soulless,\niron-keeled, worldly institutions and sharp-prowed cutters may ride\nover your sensibilities, but the inner placidity is unbroken.\n\nTHE ETERNAL SABBATH.\n\nGod's plan is to rest us so we can work for Him with ease and success.\nHe institutes an everlasting Sabbath in the spirit that we may be\nceaseless in sanctified activities. If a man is always jaded and tired\nhe can not take hold of his work with much enthusiasm.\n\nSPIRITUAL POISE.\n\nThere is no mistaking the man or woman who has found the second rest.\nThere is a poise of spirit and a sweet serious balance of soul which\ncan not be counterfeited. The preacher who appreciates spirituality\nsees no sight more beautiful than the serene, calm faces of auditors\nfrom whose souls the tempests have been cast. Life's toils and\ndistractions and disappointments have all been negatived by the power\nof the all-conquering Christ.\n\nA SCENE AT ALLENTOWN.\n\nThese words are being written in the city of Allentown, Pa., where the\nwriter is spending ten days in a series of Pentecostal services. Last\nevening we saw a symbol of the rest Christ gives. We strolled along the\neast bank of the Lehigh River about half an hour after sunset. All the\nwestern sky was beautiful with an afterglow. The water of the river,\nsilver near the shore and golden toward the west, was as still as the\nface of a mirror. The trees on the shore leaned over perfect pictures\nof themselves. The hills, which fell back gracefully from the valley,\nwere covered with cloaks of gold and vermillion and emerald, and not a\nleaf stirred in the evening air. Far up the river the tiny bell of a\ncanal-mule tinkled drowsily. On the veranda of a little cottage a young\nmother crooned a lullaby to a slumbering child, and a little bird in a\nthick grove called, \"Peace! Peace!\"\n\nCALM.\n\nIf God can make so beautiful a scene in the physical world, what can He\nnot make in the spiritual? Thank God! He can excel anything the natural\neye ever beheld. He can hang the soul with paintings and turn the\n\"River of Life clear as crystal\" through it, and fill the chambers of\nthe heart with lullabies and the song of birds crying, \"Peace!\" If\nthere are times when we are awed and charmed by\n\n    \"All the beauty of the world\"\n\nlet us remember that what we see is only a type of the grandeur and\nglory and splendor He will put in our spirit-nature if we but permit\nHim to sanctify us and cast out the storms and tempests.\n\nTHE PAIN OF SYMPATHY.\n\nWhile we may possess and enjoy \"the second rest\" here and now, we need\nnot forget that another is promised to us. We get weary physically\nsometimes here. The days frequently seem long and trying. There are\nhours and hours of labor, and nights and nights of toil, but, thank\nGod! we can say at each sunset, \"I am one day nearer rest.\" For while a\nsanctified man is always at rest spiritually, he can not rest\nphysically to much satisfaction. In his dreams he can see the white,\ndrawn faces of the doomed, and hear the wild uncouth shriek of the\ntormented. He remembers with horror that one hundred thousand souls are\nrolled off into Eternity while the earth makes one revolution! He\nthinks of cheerless homes, and torn and bleeding hearts, and wives\nwaiting for the sound of unsteady steps, and children friendless and\nhungry, and figures leaping from bridges, and shaking hands holding\npoison, and maniacs behind the bars glaring with wild eye-balls through\ndishevelled hair! And he leaps from the couch with the cry, \"O the pity\nof it all!\" And he can not be still, he can not be idle, but is\nconstrained to do his utmost by word and pen to save a sinking,\ngurgling, drowning humanity.\n\nWHEN IT IS ALL OVER.\n\nBut one day it will all be over. Soon we shall all have preached our\nlast sermon and prayed our last prayer and spoken our last word. Our\nlives will soon have passed into history. That blessed hour will soon\nbe here in which we shall \"lay down the silver trumpet of ministry and\ntake up the golden harp of praise.\" Hallelujah, it is coming! it is\ncoming! Praise the Lord!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nPRAYERFULNESS.\n\n\nDELIGHT IN PRAYER.\n\nThe precious grace of entire sanctification brings to the heart a\nprayerful spirit. Prayer becomes the normal occupation of the soul. One\nis surprised to discover that while it was formerly difficult, if not\nirksome, to pray at times, now one prays because it is delightful and\neasy.\n\nDE RENTY.\n\nMany of us have been surprised to read in the biographies of pious men\nand women that they frequently spent hours in prayer. But the\nsanctified man understands all that now. He can readily believe that De\nRenty heard not the voice of his servant, so intent was he gazing into\nthe Father's face. He does not doubt that Whitefield in his college\nroom was \"prostrate upon the floor many days, praying for the baptism\nwith the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nJ.W. REDFIELD.\n\nThe writer remembers of reading when just a child the thrilling life of\nJohn Wesley Redfield. There was nothing which struck the boy-reader\nwith greater force than the prayerfulness of the man. It awed him, and\nmade him long to enjoy such an experience as would make prayer so\ndelightful. In the golden experience of sanctification he found that\nprayer was delightsome and blessed. Such is the uniform testimony of\nall who have been cleansed from depravity and anointed with the Holy\nGhost.\n\nPRAYER HAS ITS ANSWER.\n\nGod means true prayer to have audience. We can not understand how God\ncan vouchsafe to us such tremendous effects as He asserts shall follow\nprayer. We can not defend prayer philosophically; but either \"he that\nasketh receiveth,\" or the Bible is misleading and untrustworthy.\n\nTRUE PRAYER.\n\nBut what is \"true prayer\"? In the first place, it is prayer which says,\n\"Thy will be done.\" If we pray selfishly, \"asking amiss,\" we can hope\nfor no answer. We will get no hearing. We must ask with the thought,\n\"What is the Father's will? What does He consider best?\"\n\nDESPERATION.\n\nTrue prayer must be earnest. It was the IMPORTUNATE widow that was\nheard, and it is the importunate seeker that never fails of an answer.\nIf when sinners, backsliders, or believers come to the altar they would\npray with earnestness and desperation, there would be a far larger PER\nCENT. of them who would go away fully satisfied. God never gives great\nblessings to indifferent people. When He sees a man in an agony of\ndesire and longing, then He hastens to gladden his heart with an answer.\n\nFAITH.\n\nPrayer must be full of faith. James makes this clear to us. \"Let him\nask in faith nothing wavering.\" God cannot bestow a blessing upon us if\nwe doubt Him. If a neighbor doubts your character, how much of your\nheart do you let him see? If a fellow-preacher imputes selfish motives\nto your acts, how often do you go to him and pour your heart out to\nhim? But those who believe in us--how frequently we run to them, unlock\nour hearts and tell them all! It is thus with God. If we believe His\nword, if we are sure of the veracity of His promise, and are\nconfidently expecting an answer, He will not, can not disappoint us.\n\nTHE FORGIVING SPIRIT.\n\nThere must be in us a forgiving spirit if our prayers are to be heard.\nForgiveness of our enemies precedes blessing for ourselves. \"If ye\nforgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive\nyour trespasses.\" If I am bitter in my heart toward any creature, God\ncan not but be deaf to all my cries. If I nourish hatred, or meditate\nrevenge, or plot the downfall of any man, my prayers are vain; yea, all\nmy hope in Christ is futile!\n\nGOSSIPING PREACHERS.\n\nO that God may send us all the prayerful blessing! It is better that we\npray than that we discuss politics or talk \"shop,\" or gossip or jest.\nIf we preachers and evangelists at camps and conventions would pray\nmore instead of getting in groups and talking about a world of\nnothings, our sermons would mean full as much to those whom we address.\n\nUNBROKEN CONNECTION.\n\nSanctification makes it possible for us to \"pray without ceasing.\" The\nindwelling Paraclete keeps the heart in a constant spirit of prayer, so\nthat at all hours and in all places prayers ascend. Communication is\nkept up between the heart and the throne of Grod. No snows break the\nwires. No floods wash away the poles. From the pulpit, from the\nsidewalk, from the counter, from the railway coach, from the sick bed,\nan ever-steady stream of prayer is kept up. They may befoul our names,\nbut they can not stop our praying. They may \"cast us out as evil,\" and\nmay deny us pulpit privileges, and take away our salaries, but prayer\nand praise they can not stifle nor hinder.\n\nINCENSE AND THUNDER.\n\nThe prayers of God's people are sweet to Him. \"With much incense\"\nburning in a golden censer (Rev. viii. 3) they float to His throne. But\nnotice the effect of the prayers of saints. Not only is there a silence\nof an half-hour but \"voices and thunderings and lightnings and an\nearthquake\" are observed in the earth. The children of God, if they but\npray and believe, can pull spiritual fire and earthquakes down upon\nearth and effect great things for God and His Church.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nSUCCESS.\n\n\nSUCCESS INTENDED.\n\nNothing is clearer in the Acts of the Apostles than that the disciples\nafter Pentecost had success in gospel service. Everywhere they went God\nrained fire upon their Word and sanctioned the truth which they\npreached by tremendous moral and spiritual upheavals.\n\nB. T. ROBERTS.\n\nBishop Roberts has put the matter of success very succinctly: \"If the\nlawyer must win his case and the doctor cure his patient in order to be\nsuccessful, the minister and worker must save souls if they in their\ncalling are to be said to be successful.\" But alas, saving souls is\nprecisely what we are not doing. Thank God! there is here and there a\nman who stands out as a soul-saver. But the average minister is not\ndistinguished for revivalism so much as proficiency in making a church\nsocial a \"blooming success.\"\n\nFALLEN SAMSONS.\n\nWe all want to seem to succeed. We shun and dread the appearance of\nfailure. When a church begins to rot instead of grow it is natural for\nus to do our utmost to find out some way of excusing the retrogression\nwithout admitting our failure to reach men with the gospel. There are\nevangelists, who in the palmy days of their power had wonderful,\nheaven-gladdening revivals, who have ceased to wield \"the sword of the\nLord and of Gideon,\" and, in order to cover their spiritual nakedness,\nare forced to resort to finger-raising, card-signing methods for\nstuffing and expanding \"the big revival.\" There is no more sobbing, no\nmore desperate praying, no more shouting; all is \"decent and in order,\"\nas well it may be, for all is dead.\n\nQUESTION OF EVANGELISM.\n\nHonor to soul-saving! Show us the man who wins men to our Master, that\nwe may clasp his hand and look into his face. Right here hangs all the\ndiscussion about evangelism. If the evangelist gets men soundly and\nscripturally converted and sanctified, let us bid him Godspeed! If he\nonly amuses them and deals in paltry three-cent sensationalism, away\nwith more of the same sort of stuff which we already have in so many\npastors!\n\nTHE DIVINE RECIPE.\n\nOne thing is certain: God intends success and only success for His\npeople. If, as His children, we fail, it must be because we have not\nfollowed the divine recipe for power and accomplishment. It was because\nthe one hundred and twenty obeyed Christ and tarried at Jerusalem that\nGod used the early Church to whip the Roman Empire.\n\n\"HOW TO SUCCEED\"\n\n\"How to Succeed,\" used as the title for a book, will make any book\nsell, though it be as dry as a patent-office report. People want to\nknow how to succeed in the world. How strange then that ministers and\nchurches who are brilliant and conspicuous failures should shun the\npreaching of Pentecost--the one cure for failure and the sole guarantee\nof success.\n\nEMPTY COMFORT.\n\nHow many times some of us have sighed over our inefficiency! How\nfrequently, in default of apparent results, we have been forced to\nconsole ourselves with the thought that we are \"sowing seed\" and that\nthere will be an abundant harvest at no distant date! Thank God! there\nis success for us all. Pentecost will give it to us.\n\nJOHN THE BAPTIST.\n\nWe do not mean by success financial opulence. A man may be a success\nand yet as poor as John the Baptist lunching on dried locusts and\nhoney-comb. One may be as wealthy as Croesus and yet be an awful\nfailure. A church may be rich and increased with goods and incur the\nLaodicean curse.\n\nPADDED STATISTICS.\n\nNeither does success mean a great and highly-trumpeted statistical\nreport to lug to conference. Some of our most inspiring \"successes\" are\nall right on paper, but in reality they are stuffed and padded\nscandalously. No, success in Christian work is to \"turn many to\nrighteousness,\" save souls, and secure the sanctification of believers.\nIf we do not see such results following our labor, we have either\nmissed God's plan as to our selection of a field or we are not living\nin the present enjoyment of the Pentecostal Baptism.\n\nTHE EPOCHAL EXPERIENCE.\n\nThe preachers and evangelists who have won great successes in the\ncalling of sinners to repentance have almost without exception\ntestified to having received an \"enduement\" or \"anointing\" subsequent\nto their conversion. The Caugheys, the Moodys, the Whitefields, the\nWesleys, the Foxes, the Earles, though in some instances they have not\nbelieved in holiness according to the Wesleyan view, have all had an\nepochal event after which their work and works were effective and\nstartling.\n\nTHE EFFECT OF PENTECOST.\n\nPentecost coming to a mission-worker will fill his heart with\nenthusiasm and energy, and give him a host of jewels washed from the\nmire and shining like meteors. The same experience coming to a mechanic\nwill fire him with a love for Jesus and a solicitude for souls that\nwill make him pray and fast and weep and work for his fellow-laborers,\nfor his neighbors, and for his friends. The Spirit coming to a gifted\nsinger will cause her to consecrate her voice, like Rachel Winslow in\nSheldon's \"In His Steps,\" so that with holy melody she will reach\nhearts hitherto hard and untouched.\n\nTHE PASSION FOR SOULS.\n\nOne of the conditions of success in soul-saving is a passion for the\nsalvation of immortal men and women. Full salvation always brings this,\nand as long as a worker lives in its plentitude and enjoyment he is\nconsumed with a burning, longing, panting thirst for souls.\n\nTHE GIGANTIC LANDSLIDE.\n\nThe ministers of early Methodism and early Quakerism were not of the\nsort who congregate in groups and discuss the relative desirability of\nvarious appointments. They did not spend their leisure in jesting,\npunning and guffawing, but in praying, studying, and working, for even\ntheir vacations were turned into days of toil. They spent their all in\none endeavor--to save men from a yawning Pit and a lurid Hell. Nowadays\nwe live in perpetual relaxation and recreation. Smooth, insipid\npreachers talk to shallow, giddy audiences, and the whole thing is on a\ngigantic landslide. Lord, save! or death and damnation are sure.\n\nTHE UNCERTAIN FAITH.\n\nThere can be no successful denial of the assertion that real\nsoul-absorbing earnestness in religion is dying out. We sometimes mock\nat the Herculean labors of men like Owen, and Baxter, and Calvin, and\nEdwards. But though these men were perhaps more or less legalistic and\nat times a little narrow, yet one thing is sure, they made religion the\nbusiness of life, and went at it with zest, enthusiasm, and\ndetermination. Your modern \"Christian\" has \"certain intellectual\ndifficulties\"; is \"not fixed in belief concerning Socinianism\"; does\n\"not like the old idea of the Atonement\"; in fact, is in a state of\nfusion so far as his belief and faith are concerned. Men do not give\ntheir life's blood for matters in which they have only a half-faith.\nBut when one is convinced that men are dying in the dark and that their\nsalvation depends in a measure on one's activity and fidelity, then one\nis hot with zeal and fire from hat to heel and set to working for God\nand eternal souls.\n\nWEEPING OVER CHORAZIN.\n\nThis is the explanation of the zeal of men who are \"burning for Jesus.\"\nThis is the reason men so frequently wear out in short order after they\nare sanctified. They are dipped in fellowship with Christ's sorrow, and\nbeholding Him weeping over modern Capernaums and Chorazins their hearts\nare melted at the sight, and they speed away to preach the gospel of\nthe lovely Son of God.\n\nSANCTIFIED SUCCESS.\n\nNo wonder success comes to the sanctified man. Indwelt by the Shekinah,\nfilled with the Holy Ghost, his whole being energized with power and\nforce, \"whatsoever he doeth prospers.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nVISITS OF ANGELS.\n\n\nDESCRIPTIVE PSALM.\n\nThe ninety-first Psalm is a painstaking description of the blessings\nand benefits bestowed upon the man that \"dwelleth in the secret place\nof the Most High.\" Without doubt the entire chapter should be taken as\na photograph of the sanctified man. Among other things, this fortunate\nand favored person is told that he is to have angelic guards and\nministers who will protect him and keep him \"in all his ways.\"\n\nGOD'S OWN.\n\nThe sanctified are in a peculiar sense God's own, and all the resources\nof heaven are pledged to their protection. All the fire companies of\nthe firmament will turn out to extinguish a fire if it kindle on God's\nsaints. If need be, Jehovah will empty His balm jars but the wounds of\nwarriors shall be healed. Angels are detailed for our protection:\nheavenly visitants hover near us lest the fires of affliction destroy\nus.\n\nUNDERSTANDING CHRIST.\n\nThe moment the soul is sanctified, it begins to understand Christ in a\nnew and delightful sense. It is given unto it to not only sit at His\nfeet in the temple, but to groan with Him in Grethsemane. It\nunderstands Him, and, in suffering, is \"as He is in this world.\"\n\nA DARK HOUR.\n\nIt was a dark, dark hour for the Master. He had been praying a long\nwhile, perhaps for several hours. The place was one familiar to Him.\nMany a night after a long, wearisome day of teaching in the temple, He\nhad labored painfully up the slope of the Mount of Olives in search of\nthe quiet of \"the Garden.\" Here the Savior had His oratory. Sometimes\nthe disciples were with Him; at other times He was alone.\n\nA NIGHT OF CRISIS.\n\nBut this night was a night of crisis. The old olive trees, in all their\ncenturies of life, had never witnessed so intense a struggle as that\nwhich took place on the night of His passion. Alive to all the pathos\nof the hour, awake to all the gravity of the situation, sensitive to\nthe slightest breath, He prays to \"the Father\" with that desperation in\nwhich the flight of time and the doings of the world are all forgotten.\n\nUNCERTAINTY.\n\nThere was much about the hour which made it a painful one. There was,\nfirst of all, an uncertainty concerning the will of \"the Father.\" With\na great cry the lonely Christ fell to the ground: \"If it be thy will\nlet this cup pass, nevertheless\" let thy will, whatsoever it is, \"be\ndone.\" Evidently He was not at that time really sure what the plan of\n\"the Father\" was in regard to Him.\n\nA BITTER CUP.\n\nUncertainty is a fearful test, when it comes to the soul of a man of\ngreat and energetic purpose. So long as there is no doubt about the\ncourse to be taken, so long as the plan is plainly revealed, it is easy\nfor a courageous man to advance. But to such a one uncertainty is like\na shock to the body, palsying the form and changing a strong arm into a\nnerveless, useless stick of bone and tissue. A cup may be very bitter,\nsalt with the brine of tears and hot with the fire of vitriol, and yet,\nif all the ingredients in that cup are known to him who drinks it,\ngrief has not reached its superlative. Socrates' duty was plain to him.\nHemlock was in the cup, and he knew it. But the liquor with which God\nfills the tumblers of His people is brewed from a thousand elements.\n\nA TEST.\n\nTo trust in the dark, to believe in a rayless midnight, to cling to a\nthread well-nigh invisible, to say \"Amen\" to God when one has no idea\nof the greatness of the meaning of \"His will,\" that is the supremest\ntest of loyalty.\n\nTHE NIGHT PICKET.\n\nThe night picket stationed far out from the camp has need of much\ngreater courage than the soldier in battle ranks rushing on toward the\nenemy. The man at the lonely picket post, cloaked in darkness, is\nguarding against uncertainty. He can not tell at once whether a dark\nobject is a dangerous spy or a browsing Brindle. Sounds must be noted\nand sorted lest the enemy steal up to the slumbering army and destroy\nit. The snapping of twigs, the low whistle of a bird, the groan of the\nwind, the murmur of a waterfall must all be listened to with care.\n\nEVIL TIDINGS.\n\nIt is suspense and a nameless dread and fear that sap many a mind and\nheart. Moments of breathless expectancy of evil tidings are like years\nin the life, bringing ashes to the hair, lines to the cheek and\nlistlessness to the eye.\n\nTHE PALLED FACE.\n\n\"Be sure you are right, then go ahead,\" said Tennesseean Crockett; but\nsupposing that one can not \"be sure\" of anything except the love of\nGod, supposing that one looks out through the tangled limbs of the\nolive trees of a Gethsemane to a sky studded with pitiless stars,\nsupposing that the future is obscure and the present black as Styx,\nsupposing that even the face of the Father Himself is palled and\ncurtained--then must one be content to trust and only trust.\n\nTHREE DISCIPLES\n\nThere was another cause for pain in \"the Garden.\" The three disciples,\nwhom He had chosen to accompany Him in His dark and lonely vigil, slept\nas He prayed. We can bring ourselves to overlook the negligence and\napathy of Nicodemus and Lazarus and Simon the leper and Zaccheus and\nthe crowds who had merely heard Him preach. We are willing perhaps to\nexcuse eight of the twelve for their drowsiness--perchance they did not\napprehend the full meaning of the hour to the Master. But there were\nthree disciples to whom Christ had ever laid bare His heart. With Him\nthey stood in the death chamber in the house of Jairus. To them it was\ngiven to behold \"the vision splendid\" on the mount of transfiguration,\nand these alone Jesus chose to enter into the fellowship of his Garden\nsufferings.\n\nNO EXCUSE.\n\nThese men did not nod and sleep ignorant of Christ's need of them. With\nthat tender confidence with which a truly great and colossal man\nsometimes honors his friends, He had said, \"My soul is exceeding\nsorrowful, even unto death.\" He had warned them with the words, \"Watch\nand pray lest ye enter into temptation,\" and yet they slept!\n\n\"OUR OWN AFFAIRS.\"\n\nIt must have been a keen disappointment to Jesus to find His most\ntrusted friends so indifferent to His needs. Is there anything in life\nsadder than the discovery that our own affairs are really only our own\naffairs? We had thought that they were our friends', as well as our\nown. We had supposed that our griefs were theirs also, but when\nGrethsemane comes into our lives, and we writhe and twist among the\ngnarled and knotted roots, when we turn with blanched, tear-sprinkled\nfaces to our chosen James and trusted Peter and beloved John to gasp in\ntheir ears the story of our agony, we hear only the heavy breathing of\nsound sleepers.\n\nCOLD, HARSH FACT.\n\nIf there is a sharper pang than this, man's heart has not found it. We\nare by nature social beings. We crave fellowship and love and sympathy,\nand it is so hard for us to realize that our choicest friends are\nreally \"asleep\" to our heart cries and heart interests. The cold, harsh\nfact can be believed but slowly. Even the Lord seemed to find it hard\nto convince His own heart that the John who had leaned at supper upon\nHis breast, was resting while his Master was sweating blood. He prayed\nawhile and then, as if to see whether it was indeed true that no one\nwatched to help Him, \"He came and found them sleeping.\" Sad, cruel\ndisappointment, and yet is it so rare that any one of us has not felt\nits sadness and cruelty?\n\nAN ANGEL.\n\nBut while men forgot the Nazarene and His troubles, Grod did not\nforget. The Father was not negligent nor careless. \"There appeared an\nangel unto him from heaven strengthening him.\" The night was not too\ndark for the angel to find Jesus, and the night of our troubles is\nnever too thick and black for the angels to find us. The paths of \"the\nGarden\" may be grown up in weeds, the rough, scabeous limbs of the\ntrees may hang close to the ground, the driving clouds may hide the\nmoon and stars, but some celestial messenger will search us out and\nfind us.\n\nIN MANY FORMS.\n\nGod has many angels, and they come in many forms. Sometimes the\nsolitary sufferer sees only a tiny flower, but love is in the flower,\nand he knows he is not utterly forgotten. It may be only an hand clasp,\nbut warmth and sympathy are in it, and behold it is straightway \"an\nangel strengthening him.\" Perchance it is a letter with a foreign\npostmark, but in it is nectar and ambrosia for a drooping spirit. Or\nthe angel may come enveloped in a text of Scripture or flying on the\nwings of the music of some old hymn, such as:\n\n    \"Fear not! I am with thee.\n      Oh, be not dismayed,\n    For I am thy God!\n      I will still give thee aid.\"\n\nIn whatever role the angel may come, God sent him, and his mission is\none of blessing and encouragement.\n\nHEAVENLY VISITANTS.\n\nWe can well afford to suffer in the darkness, alone and uncomforted, if\nangels will but visit us. John Bunyan can well be content in Bedford\ngaol, if God but puts a dream in his head and heart that will last in\nthe memories and characters of men, when the sun is a burned-out cinder\nand the stars are dying ash heaps. We can well be satisfied to have\nsorrows unutterable and griefs inexpressible, if heavenly visitants\nwill but come to us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nGROWTH IN CHRISTLINESS OF LIFE.\n\n\nMAKING A BOTCH.\n\nOne may have a clean, pure heart and yet be far from possessing a\nmatured Christian character. A man may love God with all his heart, and\nyet not be wise in his selection of the things that will always please\nGod. Frequently the preacher may come down from the pulpit having made\na horrible botch of his attempt to serve God in the ministry. He may\nfeel the fact keenly, and be even more conscious of it than any of his\nhearers. And yet that preacher may have a heart as white as Gabriel's\nwing and a soul full of love to God and man. But as time goes on, and\nhe lingers repeatedly at the feet of Christ in prayer, God will show\nhim how he can serve Him more effectively and without the objectionable\nfeatures.\n\nUNJUST CRITICISM.\n\nThe fact that purity is not maturity has given rise to misapprehension\non the part of many people. Indeed, many of God's dear children have\nbeen misjudged and condemned because they did not have in addition to\npure hearts sound and solid judgment. As soon as a man professes the\nblessing of perfect love, the sharp-eyed critics of the neighborhood\nlook out for \"perfect sense,\" and \"perfect manners,\" and \"perfect\nlife,\" and when the subject of observation fails to meet the\nexpectation of the aforesaid critics, there is a great hue and cry that\n\"Sister A. or Brother B. has not got what is professed,\" when God knows\nthey HAVE got JUST what they profess--namely, perfect love, full\nsalvation. The Lord has never guaranteed a perfect head to any man that\nbreathes. We will make mistakes as long as we hang around this old\nworld, and it is injustice to exalted spirits who have this precious\ngrace, and an insult to the God who gave the grace, to condemn\nsanctification because those who profess it are not angels, but simply\nmen and women cleansed and filled with the Spirit.\n\nREPEATING MISTAKES.\n\nBut while God makes allowance for our weakness and our frailty, we\nought not to expect Him to indulge us in avoidable and needless errors.\nWe made a mistake. Very well. We knew no better than to make it. But\nnow that we do know better, we have no business repeating it. And right\nalong here comes a great expanse of territory which holiness people\nneed to cover. Here there is infinite room for advancement and progress.\n\n\"THE IMITATION OF CHRIST\"\n\nThomas A'Kempis wrote a wonderful book on \"The Imitation of Christ.\"\nThe failure in so many quarters in becoming Christlike is due to the\nfalse method pursued. First, get a Christlike heart, and then let that\nheart govern your life and actions. \"Work OUT your own salvation,\" said\nPaul, \"for it is God that worketh IN you.\" Precisely! God puts a holy\nheart into a man's breast, and his business from thence on is to bring\nhis life into line with the heart. The old life-habits may cling to him\nfor a time, but it is the business of the sanctified soul to free\nitself from all that Jesus would not do were He on earth. Imitation of\nChrist comes after sanctification, and not before. You simply can not\nimitate Jesus if you have a reptile heart in you. If you have a filthy\nmind you will talk \"smut\" and think \"smut\" in spite of yourself. You\nmay hide your bad self from the world, but your wife, or your husband,\nor your family, those who are acquainted with you intimately, know that\nyou are base and coarse.\n\nDANTE.\n\nA glutton may stand and look at the thin, austere, ascetic face of\nDante and say within himself, \"I will be a Dante,\" but all the world\nknows that in a few hours he will be gourmandizing as swinishly as\nbefore. And men look at the beautiful Jesus held up in Unitarian\npulpits and resolve to act like Him, and go right on being selfish, and\nproud, and deceitful, and devilish. There must be a moral miracle,\nthere must be a spiritual upsetting and overturning, before a carnal\nheart can begin to imitate the pure and spotless Son of God.\n\nKINDNESS.\n\nAfter we are sanctified, we ought to imitate Christ in kindness. How\nkind He was! Where did He abuse anyone? He preached the truth, but He\nnever maligned any of His auditors.\n\nTHE \"LITTLE THINGS\"\n\nIt is the \"little things\" that make up the mosaic of life. Our friends\nknow us, not by the speeches we deliver, nor the sermons we preach, nor\nthe books we write, but by the tones of our voices, and the letters we\npen, and the words we use in daily life. Introduce kindness into a\ndiscordant family and how Eden-like the home becomes! Why are we not as\nconsiderate and polite to those who are all the world to us as we are\nto strangers and neighbors? Christlike kindness would fill our hearts\nwith thoughtfulness for those about us. It would bid us carry a torch\nto many a darkened life, and incite us to share the burden pressing\nupon many an aching shoulder.\n\nTRUE HUMILITY.\n\nChrist had great charity for the faults of those with whom He was\nassociated. How He bore with the dull and almost stupid disciples! How\nHe bears with us in our worse and more inexcusable blockheadedness!\nAnd, if He is so charitable and patient with our faults, how ought we\nto be with others? There comes a time in our lives when we are simply\nastonished that people pay any attention to us at all. We are so\nconscious of our short-comings, and so keenly aware of our mistakes,\nthat it seems to us that surely no one is quite so blundering and\nfallible as we are. How easy it is then to bear with one another!\n\nLOOKING-GLASS HUMILITY.\n\nWe ought to work humility out into our lives. Jesus lived an humble\nlife--a life of the truest and deepest humility. Not a humility\nconscious of itself and ever gazing at itself through the fancied eyes\nof others, but a humility that was real and unaffected.\n\nA CHRISTLIKE MAN.\n\nThe writer has in mind a man of deep and earnest piety, a scholar, a\nsuccessful preacher and author. With all his learning and scholarship\nhe is as humble as a child, and one can not look at him without\nfeeling, \"There is a Christ-man.\" Often as the pen flies quickly across\nthe page, or as the lips are moving in the delivery of a sermon, or as\nan altar service is in progress, the slight, thin figure of that man\nflashes to the brain, and the eye grows dim and the heart-prayer rises,\n\"Lord, make me an humble man.\" There are so many great men, eloquent\nmen, learned men, dignified men, but so few humble men. God, increase\ntheir number in the land!\n\nACTIVITY.\n\nAnother thing in Jesus' life which sanctified people ought to learn to\nimitate was His activity. His days, and even His nights, frequently,\nwere filled with service. After long days of teaching and preaching, He\nwould seek out some quiet nook and spend the still and lonely hours of\nnight in prayer to the Father.\n\nTHE INDIVIDUAL VISION.\n\nMen who come into close touch and communion with Christ are impelled\nirresistibly to earnest and ceaseless service. They see needs which no\none else seems to see. They hear the plaintive voices of dying men, and\nthe tearful cries of despondent women, and the helpless moans of\nunloved children. They have visions which others never understand, and\ndream of things with which their dearest friends can not sympathize.\nThey have given their all that they may know Christ, and He has\nrewarded them by disclosing His heart to them. They know why His face\nis tearful, and His voice is filled with sadness. They know why He is\n\"a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.\" They are baptized into a\nbaptism of love for souls, and compassion for the sorrowing, similar to\nthat in which He is plunged. It is for this reason that men hear the\nvoice of God calling them away from the hearth-stone out into the\ndesolate earth.\n\nST. TELEMACHUS.\n\nSt. Telemachus heard the voice of God, and straightway \"followed the\nsphere of westward wheeling stars,\" and journeyed on to Rome muttering,\n\"The call of God! The call of God!\" Not on a foolish errand did he go,\nfor, after his visit to the Eternal City, gladiatorial combats ceased.\n\n\"HE THAT WARRETH\"\n\nBrethren, be true to Christ. Let not even those who love you best draw\nyou from a steadfast purpose to spend your life and all for the\nGalilean. Flee ease and luxury and comfort, and impose hard tasks upon\nyourselves. Your friends may seek to hinder you with cries of, \"Rest!\nTarry!\" but like Christian in Bunyan's dream stop your ears and go\nquickly on your journey.\n\nTHE HOME COMING.\n\nSome day your little service will be complete. Your sun will set. The\nwest will be filled with beauty, and the birds will twitter softly in\nthe trees as you trudge the last mile into the City; and as the shades\ndeepen, and the air grows chill, the Master Himself will meet you, take\nyou to His heart, wipe the tear from your cheek, the dust of the road\nfrom your brow, and the sorrow from your heart, and lead you to the\ncourt, where with those whom you love, and those who love you, Eternity\nwill be spent in the light of His pure and shining face.\n\n\n\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\n\nTHE VALUE OF TESTIMONY.\n\nIt has pleased God to place in our hands two weapons by which we are to\novercome Satan--\"the blood of the Lamb, and the word of our testimony.\"\nIt was the narrated experiences of the people of God, and the modest\ndeclarations of the saving power of Christ, which convicted me of my\nneed and led me to seek the grace of God. Very briefly, therefore, I\nwill sketch God's dealings with my own soul.\n\nEARLY PRAYER.\n\nI was born September 30th, 1877, at Westfield, Indiana. My parents were\nboth ministers in the Society of Friends, and I can not remember When I\nfirst began to pray, for my mother taught me to go to God with\neverything, even when a very small child. When I was five and a half\nyears of age we moved to Walnut Ridge, Indiana, where there was a\nFriends' meeting of more than ordinary size and activity. It was here\nthat my conversion took place. I remember the event as distinctly as if\nit were yesterday.\n\nCONVICTION.\n\nI always prayed at the family altar, and that was an institution which\nwas never neglected for anything in our home, and I had never omitted\nmy evening devotions; but one summer day while playing by myself under\nthe trees in the front yard, a great fear came upon me lest I had never\nhad a change of heart. Though less than six years old, I had sat in the\n\"gallery\" behind my father as he preached too often to be ignorant of\nthe necessity of the new birth. It was a perfect day, but conviction\nsettled upon me more and more deeply, and a dark shadow seemed to take\nthe brightness from everything. Unable to endure the heartache any\nlonger, I ran into the house and sat down with my father and mother,\nwaiting in silence for some time. Finally I asked them if I had \"ever\nbeen converted,\" told them I \"wanted to be,\" and immediately we knelt\nin prayer. How I did weep, and how badly I felt! I can see the back of\nthat little sewing-rocker now swimming in my tears. (I wonder where\nthat rocking-chair is now! The last I knew it was in California, having\nleft us at an auction--an occasion not unfamiliar to most of\npreacher-families.) They told me to pray, and I prayed with all my\nheart. If ever there was a little boy who felt that he was a great\nsinner, I was the boy. I remembered all the things I ever did that I\nknew were wrong. My boyish wickednesses, things that seem a rather\nabsurd lot now in the light of the sins of the average lad of six that\nI know to-day, caused me great pain. Soon peace came, and what\nhappiness! When I went out doors again the very birds twittered with\nincreased gladness, and the sky seemed a far deeper blue, and the grass\nand flowers rejoiced with me in my new-found experience.\n\nRETROGRESSION.\n\nWould God I had retained my simple faith in Jesus! But it was not long\nbefore I wandered away from Christ, and the life of prayerfulness and\nobedience. For years my religious experience was most unsatisfactory. I\nwas under frequent convictions, and knew that the Spirit was striving\nwith me persistently, but I hardened my heart and would not yield\ncompletely to God. As I look back at those years of restlessness and\nrebellion, I recall with gratitude the forbearance and long-suffering\nof a now sainted mother. How she carried her proud, stubborn boy on her\nheart, and how she held onto God's skirt and tugged away until He\nanswered.\n\nTHE STRIVING OF THE SPIRIT.\n\nDuring the winter of 1891-1892 I became almost wretched on account of\nconviction. The Holy Ghost fairly dogged my steps and whispered in my\near at every turn. There were many things which He used to convict me\nof--my unfaithfulness and aridity of soul and life. My junior year at\nOak Grove Seminary is distinctly remembered as a time of continuous\nconviction and unrest. Now and then I would find peace and comfort for\na time, but they remained only for a time. I kept up secret devotions\nvery carefully. I never missed my daily prayers, but my life was\ninconsistent and God-dishonoring. The lives of real Christians rebuked\nme, and the mockery of my empty profession haunted me like a spectre.\n\nRECLAMATION.\n\nIn the summer of 1892 I began to seek God earnestly, and was not long\nin finding pardon and reclamation. No sooner was I at peace with God\nthan I began to hunger for holiness. O, how my heart longed for full\nsalvation! I saw much about me that was an indication that there was an\nexperience enjoyed by some of which I was not possessed. My mother's\ncalm, victorious life, and her constant unwavering Christian faith,\nconvicted me. I was proud and selfish, and hypersensitive and\nambitious. She was restful, contented, loving, meek. How frequently I\ngave way to some temptation, and how mortified I was to be so\nhumiliated by the Adversary.\n\nHUNGER FOR HOLINESS.\n\nMany of the members of my father's church at Portsmouth had an\nexperience of freedom and liberty which I craved. In July my father, my\nmother, and I spent a couple of days at Douglas camp-meeting. I\nremember so well every incident of the trip--my deep unrest as we\nentered the grounds, my aversion to certain \"boisterous persons\" who\nsaid \"Bless the Lord\" so frequently, my disrelish for food, my dislike\nof taking a front seat in the audience. Two old sisters sat facing the\npreacher one evening. Their faces were full of joy, and they seemed to\noverflow with joy and spiritual exhilaration. I inwardly said, \"I wish\nI had an experience like they seem to have.\" I made up my mind I would\nseek. I can not recall a word of the sermon. I do not think I heard it\nat the time--my mind was so full of an inward struggle.\n\nCANDIDATE FOR SANCTIFICATION.\n\nWhen the call was made, I went forward and consecrated myself and all\nmy hopes and desires and longings and all to God. How in the world I\nhad ever acquired so low a desire I do not know, but my chief ambition\nhad been to be a professor of science in some college. But the Lord put\nme through a series of questions:\n\n\"Will you be my property henceforth?\"\n\n\"Yes, Lord.\"\n\n\"Are you willing that people should call you a 'holiness crank'?\"\n\n\"Yes, Lord.\"\n\n\"Supposing I should ask you to shout, would you?\"\n\n\"I would do my best at it.\"\n\n\"Will you give up all your plans and be a one-horse preacher of\nholiness if I want you to?\"\n\nAh, here was a rub, indeed. Preaching was precisely what I did not\nrelish. Anything rather than that. I had visions of small salaries, and\ncountry churches, and long, cold rides. I had seen the life of the\npreacher ever since I could remember. I debated the question. Then I\nanswered, \"Yes.\" The audience was singing:\n\n    \"Here I give my all to Thee--\n      Friends and time and earthly store.\n    Soul and body then to be\n      Wholly Thine forever more.\"\n\nThey told us seekers to raise our hands if we meant it. I meant it, so\nup went a hand. Instantly faith got an answer, and the witness came,\nand I knew that I was sanctified wholly.\n\nA DULL SCHOLAR\n\nBut I was a dull scholar, and had to learn many lessons after my\nJordan-crossing. Owing to my failure in definite testimony, my\nexperience suffered partial eclipse, and my last year at Oak Grove was\nmore or less dark and unhappy. I was much helped, however, by the\nreading of holiness books sent me by a sanctified music-teacher, who\nhad interest enough in me to write me real Fenelon letters and keep me\nsupplied with holiness reading. During the summer of 1893 I was more\nfully established in the grace, and in the autumn began to preach.\n\nTHE ABIDING CHRIST.\n\nI have frequently erred in judgment, and made most stupid blunders, but\nthe perpetual spring experience of full salvation has been my greatest\ncomfort and blessing. The abiding Christ gives zest and spice to life,\nand makes the ministry of holiness delightful and joyous.\n\nGOD ALWAYS ANSWERS.\n\nGod has blessed my ministry, and given me success. It is all of Him.\nWhat a wonderful God we have! He never leaves us. I have called upon\nHim when preaching, and He has always answered. I have cried to Him in\nhours of loneliness and discouragement, and He has replied like a\nflash. I stood by a cot and watched a saintly mother slip away to the\n\"undiscovered bourn,\" and He did not fail me. Hallelujah! He can not\nonly sanctify, but He can preserve, sustain and keep. Whatever may come\nto us, Christ will not forsake us. As we look down the vista of years\nto come, and remember that life is swift and serious, we can only lean\nhard on the Son of God and push on, confident that His promise, \"Lo, I\nam with you alway,\" can not fail. Praise the Lord!\n\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"The Heart-Cry of Jesus","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":18146}