05.03. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour
by John MacDuff, 1895
A treasury of godly wisdom, suitable for personal or family devotions.
He who goes about whining all day long about some imaginary drawbacks in the sphere which Providence has assigned him—when all the while he is situated so much better than thousands around—is a suicide of his own happiness! He is also impeaching the faithfulness of the Supreme Ordainer and Disposer.
One half of life’s enjoyment is eaten out by this sinful craving after what cannot be obtained—the desire for something supposed to be better. Yes, but when "the better" is reached, there is the yearning for an imagined "better" still. This is
If in these days there be one household demon more than another which needs to be exorcized—it is the demon of discontent!
Oh, for the spirit of Paul—poor and lonely prisoner in Rome as he was—an apparent bankrupt in all that the world deems wealth and affluence—yet who could make this entry in his letter to his Philippian friends—"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. At the moment I have all I need—more than I need!"
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How many there are with whom the labor of long years is a failure! They are engaged building some favorite edifice, material or mental, literally or figuratively. They dream not that it rests on shifting sands, or on the edge of a muffled volcano!
A teacher bestows his fondest assiduous care on a pupil—a young life full of high intellectual promise. A sudden illness comes and sweeps him away!
A parent lavishes his tenderest love and affections, thought and time and money, in raising his child; but, by-and-by, the life of his prodigal son, is to the parent, worse than death.
Yes, often are fondest hopes, best laid plans, glad aspirations, thwarted; the glowing visions of success clouded with misfortune—calamity—ruin—the grave!
Not so with imperishable riches—"the hope laid up for you in heaven"—bliss beyond the accidents of capricious fortune, bonds that can know no dissolution. "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!" Psalms 73:26
"If I have not love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2
What a magic spell there is in love!—the absolute devotion of a beautiful soul that loses itself in the hallowed mission of radiating peace and joy and sympathy all around.
Many dull, unsusceptible ears, when other charmers have failed to charm, have been arrested and won by the music of kindness. By it . . .
old-age renews its youth,
sick pillows are smoothed,
burdens are eased,
tears are turned into smiles,
dirges are turned into songs.
Love is, of all magical charms, the most irresistible.
Love is
"If I have not love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2
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This most beautiful grace
"All of you, clothe yourselves with humility." 1 Peter 5:5
You who are young, with life’s hopes and hazards, its risks and failures before you, let the possession of
Beware of rash, self-assertive ways, petty jealousies, sinister dealings; above all, tampering with servile vices which may end in their tyrannical sway.
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What an unhappy phase and condition of soul that of the chronic grumbler!—moping over petty troubles, magnifying worries; to use the common but expressive figure, "making mountains of molehills"; seeing no sunshine in existence, while, in reality, there are only a few clouds floating on an otherwise clear horizon!
Poorly will such be able to grapple with life’s real and sterner troubles when they come.
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"Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." Ephesians 4:32
In vain had Ahab disguised himself. He was borne in his chariot bleeding from the fray—for "an Aramean soldier randomly shot an arrow at the Israelite troops, and the arrow hit the king of Israel between the joints of his armor!" 1 Kings 22:34
No, not in the true sense of the word "randomly."
That heathen marksman was only an instrument in accomplishing the fulfillment of "the word of the Lord which He spoke by the mouth of Elijah the prophet." A Greater had feathered the fatal shaft, and sent it home!
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"A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out." Matthew 12:20
Never deal too harshly with those who, in some unguarded, unsuspected moment, have fallen out of the ranks, or by their own folly or cowardice have been
Eternal summer canopies the soul which is at peace with God. Happy those who are thus
Trust—what is it?
Go to that child’s couch when the storm is raging, moaning among the tree-tops and strewing branches on the lawn, the blackened sky echoing with the artillery of heaven. A parent’s hand draws the curtain and smoothes the ruffled pillow;
Such is the trust and confidence of His children inspired by their Heavenly Father in the hour of anxiety and dismay, "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His children shall have a place of refuge." Proverbs 14:26
"From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love,
In a gigantic piece of machinery the small wheels have their place and purpose as well as the large ones. God gives His weak ones work to do, for which even His strong ones are unequal.
In the tumult and discord of human
Thousands live their whole life for
"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." Hebrews 5:7
There are three distinct pictures given us of the tears of Jesus.
We see Him weeping in the family, with the sisters of Bethany. We see Him weeping on the mount of Olivet over a ruined city. We see Him, last of all, weeping in the moonlit shades of Gethsemane—but now it is "strong crying and tears"—
As the sheep of His pasture, He has allotted our portion for us.
What divine philosophy there is in the Apostle’s injunction, "Be content with such things as you have; for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Hebrews 13:5
"The boy became so hungry that even the husks he was feeding the pigs looked good to him." Luke 15:16
Garbage could not stop the rage of hunger in the "far country."
"I will go home to my father!" Luke 15:18
"You have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." I know not a more wondrous incident in Bible story—Omnipotence overcome with the pleadings of weakness;
As the bleakest field is ennobled by the sunshine, so, in spite even of hampered circumstances and adverse surroundings, that soul must be radiant, which enjoys an habitual response to the prayer—"Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance!"
"He made all the stars—the Bear, Orion, the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky." Job 9:9
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Matthew 10:29-30
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"He will not break the bruised reed; He will not quench the smoking flax." Matthew 12:20
See the Prophet Elijah, so recently a hero of heroes, confronting, unabashed, the savage yells of Ahab’s myrmidons and the crowd of Baal priests, now seated, with moping countenance, under the desert juniper-tree or amid the rocks of Horeb—away from duty;
Does Jehovah take him at his word? Does He leave or commission the desert whirlwind to extinguish the expiring flame of former consecration? No! "What are you doing here, Elijah? Go, anoint Jehu; go, anoint Hazael. Back to your appointed work and labor. I will yet make you a burning and shining light in Israel."
Whether it be
"You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth." 2 Kings 19:15
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness." Galatians 5:22
How it smooths furrows from the brow!
How it raises the soiled blossoms of the battered flower!
How it carries music to the heart of the lonely and sorrowful, and makes old age for the moment forget its infirmities!
Many a little child has thus proved a seraph in human form!
"Be kind and compassionate to one another." Ephesians 4:32
"Clothe yourselves with humility." 1 Peter 5:5
The greenest, tenderest, loveliest graces are
"Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Colossians 3:12
Past faintings and falterings and failures
"But one thing I do: Forgetting the past, and straining toward what is ahead" Php 3:13
Let
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"Be content with such things as you have." Hebrews 13:5
"My own vineyard I have neglected." Song of Solomon 1:6
Let us accept the allotments of Divine Providence—our varied spheres in life—at the hands of Him who fixes the bounds of our habitation.
How many there are who have a strange, perverse satisfaction in looking out from their window, with longing eyes, on one or other of the varied modern shapes which Naboth’s vineyard assumes! Their soliloquy is—’Were it mine, what a vintage I would have there! What oil and wine I would have from these grapes and olive trees; and what a prudent and bountiful use I would make of them, which their present possessor never does!’
God says to such—’No,
By Him the mite is accepted; and the heart—when there is no mite to give.
The marvels and triumphs of the printing-press have now made accessible to peasant and laborer, the wondrous blessing of Christian literature! Neither Croesus nor Plato—the two old-world representatives of wealth and thought—had a library to compare with what is readily available to us.
Let the young especially prize this splendid inheritance, making it alike a privilege and obligation to devote some hours to reading and garnering mental stores. Let them
sloth,
frivolity,
idleness,
voluptuous ease and degrading passion.
"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:16
"You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with
Why walk through life with an aspect of sadness, as if religion and gloom are identical? Every true believer should have in this world, his foretastes of coming bliss.
Sips, at the Fountain here.
There, "
How the love of nature survives and lingers despite of the decrepitude of age, growing indeed stronger as years advance, and taking no heed of the dimming eye!
It recalls the testimony of a gentle poet—"It seems to me, the world was never so beautiful as now, when I am about to leave it."
"Be glad; rejoice forever in
It is a poor religion—
True religion is an active, transforming principle. Salvation is a present triumph over the forces of evil and powers of temptation. It aspires after obedience to the divine will—assimilation to the divine image and character in its truth and purity and love.
Yes, that is a stinted utilitarian faith—the faith of the Koran rather than of the Gospel—whose hopes and prospective blessedness are all for an eternal sensual paradise.
Listen to the bell, warning off submerged rocks and perilous whirlpools. Beware of tampering with the fine edge of conscience, and blunting moral perceptions. These are like the
Do not mope with morbid spirit over
"I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more!" Hebrews 8:12
Who among us, in the retrospect of existence, have not the memories of unworthy thought and unworthy deed, it may even be of
Happy those who have
Each of our lives is a plan of God. Let us be thankful for the thought that our own plans—crude, faulty, mistaken, sometimes sinful—are not infrequently counteracted and superseded by His. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" Jeremiah 29:11
Often in the retrospect of
God is a God of equity. He will exact according to what a man has, not according to what he has not. He will not look for figs or grapes where He has only given common herbs. He will not expect pounds where He has only given pence—talents where He has only given mites. If we have little—limited and restricted means and opportunities—let us remember it is because He has withheld more.
"Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." John 4:13
Gospel streams provided for the refreshment of God’s pilgrims, are, on the other hand, fed from the eternal glaciers—the hills of heaven. They are fullest when all others are emptiest.
"He will refresh her as a river in the desert and as the cool shadow of a large rock in a hot and weary land." Isaiah 32:2
"I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 41:18-19
How it would, with us, hallow every season of prosperity; how it would take the sting from every season of sorrow, and the bitterness from every trial, to have at all times the sublime consciousness that
"Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:20
"Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." Ephesians 4:32
At death there is no interruption in the continuity of life. It is simply
God’s love of the loveless is
"When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5:6
"While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
"For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son." Romans 5:10
"My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine." Matthew 26:39
What a contrast between the unselfish consecration of Jesus in His great work and ministry on earth, an the selfishness and self-seeking so often characteristic of the race for whom He died!
There are many in this world, embarked in gigantic enterprises. Stand in one of our busiest thoroughfares; see the crowd hurrying past, each with deep-furrowed lines of care on his brow. These are builders; not builders in stone or steel, but figuratively rearing some huge pyramid with unremitting labor.
One is toiling at the Pyramid of Riches—tier on tier riveted with silver and golden clamps.
Another is engrossed with the Pyramid of Ambition—heedless of the intervening work that he may reach more speedily the coveted summit, and crown it with Fame blowing her bronze trumpet.
Another is busy at some Intellectual Pyramid (choicest of all), raising piles of mental treasure—laborious thought.
How few among these could say with an honest heart, "I have no ulterior motive in all my labors. I have no selfish interests to subserve—I am doing it all, neither for the good of myself nor my family, but for others."
It would be a happier world if the use and design of our pyramids had not been like those of Egypt—built to glorify himself while living, and to cover his dust after death.
Different, how different, was the retrospect of Jesus! "Christ pleased not Himself." Unselfishness in its noblest type and form was the characteristic of His Redemption. From the infancy in Bethlehem’s cradle, to the expiring prayer on the bitter tree, all was the purest unselfishness of a loving heart. "He saved others, Himself He would not save!" On His cross was engraved, not the superscription of earth’s boasted heroes—"He died fighting for His friends"; but, "
"One who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens." Hebrews 7:26
When one sees, so often and so painfully, the shortcomings and imperfections of the best of people—how far they fall beneath even their own aspirations—irresolution and inconsistency, indolence, self-seeking, and vainglory in some; lack of patience, lack of courtesy, lack of zeal, lack of love and sympathy in others; in a word, the too evident traces of fallible and fallen human nature—how it magnifies the
As we all thus mourn, too truly and self-consciously, our defects and deficiencies, our blots and failures—what a wonderfully inspiring thought is that given by John, that the day is coming when perfection shall be attained! "Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, and we can’t even
imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when He comes we will be like Him!" 1 John 3:2
How varied are the types and temperaments of the human family—from the nervous to the lethargic!
Let us make ample allowances for those not cast in the same mold as ourselves, and kindly recognize those who may not share our
This lesson is embraced in the Apostle’s widely inclusive exhortation, "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." 1 Peter 3:8
Many of the world’s old religions and philosophies are
Greece had her Mysteries, with their esoteric doctrines. But these could shed no real ray of light on the awful problems of life and of the future. The longed-for "mystery hidden from ages and generations" was fully revealed and manifested in the person and words of Incarnate Wisdom—"I came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.":
"Don’t let anyone lead you astray with empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the evil powers of this world, and not from Christ." Colossians 2:8
Love-shafts
God’s words are not bolts of volcanic fire, but golden arrows—
Unexpected calamity, sudden death, as we have seen this week within palace walls, comes often like an lightening-bolt from the calm blue of the heavens; or like the earthquake shock when all is lapsed in security, when birds are singing and fields are waving with plenty.
"Prepare to meet your God!" Amos 4:12
"There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God." Deuteronomy 29:29
You say, "Interpret the mystery."
"For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9
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The true friend is not the honeyed flatterer. He who possesses the hall-mark of that noblest of relationships is rather the confidential adviser, or, it may be, the faithful censor, who, with delicate tact and yet bold freedom, can point out the peril or shortcoming to which we ourselves are blind—the undiscovered weak joint in the armor.
Inestimable is the worth of such outspoken, unselfish, trusted sincerity; faithful the wounds of such friends.
You have often seen, in the sky of opening summer, the struggle between sun and cloud. One or other comes off at last victorious. Is it to be sun or cloud with you? Is the higher or lower nature to conquer? Is it to be the ground turned into a crop of noxious weed—the thorn and the thistle? or that which gives birth to fragrant flower and golden grain? Is the future to be purity or passion, loyalty to God or
God has His own methods of mysterious dealing and discipline. He can make that chamber of suffering a Bethel. A ladder is ofttimes there set between earth and heaven, traversed by the angels Faith, Resignation, Hope, and Peace.
A lurking assassin
Envy is the basest of human passions. It might well be impersonated as
The Bible speaks of envy as one of a dastard, unlovely triad—"envyings, murders, drunkenness."
It is a miniature hell wherever the foul fiend of envy has been allowed to intrude. Hence no nobler moral victory, yet no more difficult one can there be, than exorcizing this demon of the abyss, tortured and maddened by the sight of goodness it cannot reach, its impotence to tear the wreath honorably won from brows better and worthier than its own, and turn it into ashes.
"From envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, Lord, deliver us!"
Words are impalpable couriers of good or evil. They may be
There is a true and deep philosophy in
"From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help." Psalms 130:1
It seems contradiction and paradox, but
"Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord; point out the right road for me to follow." Psalms 25:4
Unfold and interpret for me
What! these hours of a limited, vanishing existence
How easy, how gracious, on the other hand, is "that most excellent gift of love!" While it "seeks not its own," it is a deposit paid back in compound interest. No other forces of the soul can compensate for the lack of love. Amiability and courtesy, benevolence and sympathy, outlive the more heroic virtues.
"In her tongue is the law of kindness." Proverbs 31:26
"Not my will, but Your will," is
I like to think of the perpetuity of moral and spiritual influences.
Let none say, "There is no work for me to do, in my limited and restricted sphere. I cannot aspire to a position of conspicuous usefulness. I am no Asahel, swift-footed in the race. I am dwarfed in means, destitute of all claims to intellect. I am but a common soldier in the great army—a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water."
Accept the assigned position. Never despise nor minimize "the power of littles." Do what you can. God asks no more, and expects no more. With Him, lowly work is worship. Only, what you do, do it heartily, cheerfully. Be not repelled by the smallness and insignificance of the mite you cast into the treasury.
You can teach a child its letters. You can read to a poor invalid. You can carry a ray of sunshine with you into the hospital ward. You can send a posy of violets or rosebuds to the bedside of the invalid. You can give a word of heart cheer to the struggling youth, and aid him in entering the stern battle of life. You can indite a letter of wise counsel and warning to the tempted child of poverty, and help to fetch back the prodigal from his or her wanderings.
You can do the most Godlike and Christlike thing in the world—that which needs neither purse nor learning—
"Who has despised the day of small things?"
"A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17:17
You cannot force a half-hearted friendship into life. Where there is incongruity of character, feeling, and ways, let it simply lapse into acquaintanceship; and if even this be an effort, let it, without either violence or discourtesy, die a natural death.
"There is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,
The Jerusalem Pharisee is not extinct. He has his true representative and descendant in our time. He still in spirit makes broad his phylactery. He has his trumpet sounded before him. He has his unctuous shibboleths. He is punctilious in creed and tradition. He refuses to speak to a Samaritan.
Yet that man’s inner life and home, as was the case with his ancient prototype, confute and confound his pretensions. There, he is often cold, cynical, selfish, moody, morose, imperious. He would keep all the world right, but he is himself like the sepulchers he whitewashes. It is outer garnish and no more. God save the Church, from such a travesty as this! Oh for genuine, transparent, unmistakable reality!
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,
"The knowledge of the
Doctrine is nothing, dissociated from deed.
Abstract truth is poor, compared to living principle.
The tiny glowworm and the shining star
The eye of the Almighty takes in at a glance—
"He covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the green grass grow in mountain pastures." Psalms 147:8
"He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name." Psalms 147:4
Remove the Bible from school and university
God help this nation if it be drifting to secularism! Our people may be made giants in intellect; but severed from the religious element, divorced from religious training, the chances are they may become demons in depravity!
Where, moreover, are remedy and panacea to be found for the anguished heart in its time of sorrow?
Philosophy and science, noble factors as they are, can never heal the wounds of humanity, erase the furrows from the woe-worn brow, or light up the shadows of the final valley. They can never curb the madness of the nations, subjugate the demon of war, and "ring in the thousand years of peace."
How SELF in its protean shapes—
self-will,
self-seeking,
self-elation,
self-assertion,
leaves its dents and stains on the shield of faith! Happy the day when
Old Testament history
Taking the
Here is his Bethel—the rough, stony pillow of hardship and suffering; but it is at the base of a heavenly ladder, passing up and down which are angels of consolation.
Here is a Marah—the bitter pool of sorrow, but wherein the divine healing Tree is cast.
Here are Palms and Wells of Elim, symbolic both of shadow and refreshment in pursuing life’s wilderness march.
Here he has reached Rephidim, also with its double emblem and significance; the combination of the two factors in the believer’s life—the active and the passive—work and prayer—Joshua fighting in the valley; Moses, Aaron, and Hur in supplication on the mountain summit.
Here is the gloomy border-river; but through its flood the true Ark of the Covenant precedes the hosts of Israel, conducting in safety to the land of promise.
We can write over all, "They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness." The last of these memories is sung in heaven—"They went through the flood on foot—there did we rejoice in Him!"
The Christian’s heart should be a holy altar, and his life a living sacrifice.
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as
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"Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the desert and hit the house on all sides.
The wind is often contrary, and God means it to be so.
"He let loose the east wind from the heavens and led forth the south wind by His power." Psalms 78:26
"He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from His storehouses." Psalms 135:7
"And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him." Luke 15:20
"Be completely humble and gentle." Ephesians 4:2
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We need not always be on the outlook to do great services.
"Since God chose you to be the holy people whom He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Colossians 3:12
"Finally, all of you should be of one mind, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds." 1 Peter 3:8
"All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful." Psalms 25:10
"Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds." Psalms 36:5
"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow!" James 4:14
Life consists of
What is earth’s greatest joy and privilege?
"Comfort, comfort my people," says your God. "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and that her sins are pardoned." Isaiah 40:1-2
"He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." 2 Corinthians 1:4
The old, the weak, the decrepit, the bedridden
How prone we are presumptuously to calculate on the continuance of life! "My pulse is vigorous. My eye is undimmed. My natural strength is unabated. The race is to the swift—I am one of them. The battle is to the strong—I am one of them.
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes! James 4:13-14
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In your moments of deepest darkness and alienation, never lose sight of the truth that God is your Father. The prodigal, in his season of dejection and despair, speaks of his "Father" still.
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Those who
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These myriad stars in their luster, have been spoken of in poetry as "sparks from God’s anvil." There is a defect in the figure. Sparks, brilliant as they are, are momentary, evanescent scintillations—a flash of atoms, which die in the darkness and are seen no more.
The starry host of heaven are glorious worlds, which move, not capriciously, but in obedience to great cosmic laws—tenants of a realm, not of confusion, but of design and order. Let science speak of this as "laws of nature." Call, rather, these thronged illimitable spaces—the domain of a thinking, living, intelligent Creator and Sustainer; replete with evidences of His sovereignty and omnipotence.
No modern speculations, be what they may, can ever dim the brilliancy of those gems in the Almighty’s diadem!
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"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times."
"No!" Peter insisted. "Not even if I have to die with you! I will never deny you!" Matthew 26:34-35
Look at Peter! Who stronger than he? the honored and trusted Companion of Incarnate Love, filled with sincere loyalty to the gracious Master. "What! others may deny You, but I—never! Never shall ’traitor’ be branded on my brow, or the guilty denial tremble on my lips!"
See, before long, the presumptuous boaster in an anguish of remorseful tears, a moral and spiritual shipwreck. "How the mighty have fallen!"
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We wish that ministers of Christ, who wield the marvelous power of the pulpit, instead of pursuing, Sunday after Sunday, the round of purely doctrinal sermons, would understand the necessity of sympathetically
To neglect prayer is
"Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart." Colossians 4:2
To the true Christian,
"Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from all their toils and trials!" Revelation 14:13
Commonplace, everyday experiences
"The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him." Psalms 32:10
God is with His people, not only in the crisis-hours and great emergencies of life, but in its
"Just as the mountains surround and protect Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds and protects His people, both now and forever." Psalms 125:2
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:20
We are walking on a muffled volcano—faint mutterings are heard in the hollow beneath our feet. Happy those patriots, philanthropists, governments, that can wisely read the signs of the times, help to open safety-valves to prevent the sudden and, when it comes, uncontrollable outburst—maddened forces direr than Nature’s direst.
Strange that the jets of sulphurous smoke here and there polluting the moral atmosphere carry with them so little premonition. We seem to have no eye but for the green grass, the enamel of flowers; smothering prophecies of disaster. Other words of Scripture have a political as well as a spiritual meaning—"When they are saying, Peace, peace—then sudden destruction comes!"
Helpless seafarers! indulging in mirth and song, when their ears should be open to the roar of the breakers!
Let us beware of an
authenticated by . . .
living faith,
loving word,
gentle deed,
generous service.
That mountain rivulet, released from the iron shackles with which winter has bound it, goes onward, singing in concord of sweet sounds, to the sea—its final goal of rest. It owes its emancipation to the beams of the sun of early spring.
Picture of the Sun of Righteousness, shining on frigid hearts, waking up slumbering forces, melting icy indifference, reviving generous impulses, transforming life into a joyous, beneficent stream, whose waters find at last their haven—home and rest in the ocean of Infinite Love!
Posthumous influence! There can surely be nothing more solemnizing than this—that a man may continue to live on—no, does live on—asfter death, either as a curse or a blessing! Happy those who survive to make
"You, O God, have purified us like silver melted in a crucible." Psalms 66:10
As the olives must be crushed for the oil to flow; as the grapes must be bruised in the wine-press that the vats may be filled; as the gold comes out refined from the furnace—so,
"I have refined you in the furnace of suffering." Isaiah 48:10
God is permitting us to work the shuttles of life apparently as we may. But He,
"He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth." Daniel 4:35
"I am the Lord who heals you." Exodus 15:26
Christ was the true Jehovah Rophi. What diverse crowds flocked to this Divine Physician of old, and "He healed them all"! No numbers baffled Him; no variety bewildered Him. The inquiring Nicodemus; the rash Peter, boisterous as the waves of the sea; the loving and meditative, yet impulsive John; the
strong-willed, skeptic Thomas—each had a niche in the Great Living Temple.
Penitents crept abashed to His feet, and wept out their shame and sorrow. Blind men on the wayside called aloud for help. Lepers in piteous tones—outcasts, spurned and evaded by all others—claimed Him, and found in Him a brother. Hearts crushed and broken with bereavement were in His presence conscious of a combined sympathy and power which dried their tears and restored their "loved and lost."
There was thus response in His bosom to
There is
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me." Matthew 25:40
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"Enoch walked with God"—the epitome of the Christian life.
At the first moment of
Lashed, like the drowning mariner, to
"Hold me up, and I shall be safe!" Psalms 119:117
Now anyone who builds on that foundation may use
There is a variety of work, and of capacity for work, in the Christian Church.
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"My Father!" That is
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Who does not esteem the manifold teachings of Nature?
Who does not love . . .
her forest haunts, tremulous with music;
her flowers, swinging their censers of incense;
the brooks and streams and birds her choristers;
the blue dome of heaven her magnificent canopy?
What a sanctuary of holy thought!
"The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display His marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known." Psalms 19:1-2
The inheritance of the believer
From that dull, dead block of marble, there is evoked by the artist’s tools a form radiant with beauty.
No! not, as we have said, "angels." The Lord of angels delegates this work to no subordinates. And when the shaping and molding and fashioning are completed, the legend is inscribed—"Made perfect through suffering!"
"Each with his assigned task." Mark 13:34
Never let us quarrel at the lowliness of our tasks or the limitations of
The violet blushing unseen in the woods does not envy the cedar with its evergreen foliage or the oak with its giant limbs and mighty shadow. It is content to occupy its assigned place, away, it may be, amid the loneliness of forest aisles.
God has given to each of us our positions and appointed our tasks—humble as well as conspicuous, lowly as well as mighty. Little-hearts as well as Great-hearts are "ministers of His to do His pleasure."
How it would soothe in trouble, nerve for duty, make difficulties easy and crosses light, elevate above the fretting anxieties of life and lead to calm unmurmuring submission, were we able
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Happy the nations who are exempt from "
Never is responsibility greater than that of rulers who, in wanton recklessness, nurture the war-spirit. "The roll of conquering drum" is no music in the ears of the widow and the orphan. Well may the cry ascend to heaven to exorcize the foul fiend—the direst curse that can visit a country or afflict humanity.
"Give peace in our time, O Lord!" The day will surely come when, with sheathed sword and reversed spear, the prayer will no longer be heard, because no longer needed, "Scatter the nations who delight in war!" Psalms 68:30
We are all sculptors, with the soft, pliant, formative clay molding into shape our own futures—
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Sad the case of those who had the possibilities of a good and useful existence, but have lived fatally and hopelessly given up to . . .
sloth, or
flippant pleasure, or
engrossing selfishness.
Those fugitive, precious moments we are forgetting and wasting, cannot be recovered.
Death will dissolve many a ’fairy vision’ that has lured and charmed us. Death will sweep down many ’flimsy cobwebs of earth’ that we have laboriously weaved—poor tawdry things we have so often clung to and clutched!
sometimes penal,
sometimes disciplinary,
most often remedial,
always loving.