March 20
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeWednesday after Septuagesima Sunday
As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. And it was so from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day. I SAMUEL xxx. 24, 25.
AND it is indeed a statute and an ordinance for the true Israel, the Church of God, unto this day, that those who work quietly in their everyday duties, waiting till their Lord shall call them to something more active, shall share alike with such as He is already so employing. S. John Baptist was as much a burning light when he was by himself in the wilderness as when he was teaching the people or rebuking Herod. You may be as much burning lights in your home circle as if you were risking your lives in a plague or wearing yourselves out in a hospital. As much burning lights, mind; I do not say as shining. S. John was not a shining light in the wilderness. The shining is the reward of the burning. It may come, sooner or later, in this world, that we may be blessed with the power of showing that we are able and willing to do God service; but if not, it will come in the next. "They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." This truth, that we must burn before we can shine, that we must take up our own cross before we can help others, that we must have the trouble and then the comfort, is so necessary to be believed that we can scarcely begin reading the Bible before we find it. In the 1st chapter of Genesis we are told, "The evening and the morning were the first day." Yes, so God has ordered it: the evening must come before the morning, the self-denial before the consolation, the trouble before the joy.