May 4

"And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell."—Hebrews 11:32.

THE time would fail me to tell.

Ah, then, the saints, the confessors, the martyrs, the conquerors, are more in number than I sometimes suppose. In my moods of accidie and gloom, my seasons of pessimism and despair, I imagine and say that Satan is getting the victory in the world, and that Christ has few faithful servants and few good soldiers. But I am wrong. The Lord has His hidden ones; He never leaves Himself without many witnesses. And if the arrowy sleet and hail were to assail them again, they would not be found wanting. Wherefore, let mine be a more hopeful spirit. "Good is an hundred, evil is one"; and what Edward Gibbon wrote of the Republic is true of the kingdom of my God—its arms may be defeated in battle, but they always are victorious in war.

The time would fail me to tell.

Indeed, there is no cause to prolong the story. Much as Christ's real and steadfast followers have differed one from another, their resemblances have been far more than their differences. They all entered by the gate of faith. They all trod the way of obedience. They all sought the city which hath the foundations. Is their Redeemer mine? Is their experience mine? Is their mother-country mine? Am I near of kin with Abraham, with Moses, with the women who received their dead raised to life again, with those of whom the world was not worthy, because their eyes and mine are fixed together on Jesus, the same yesterday and to-day and for ever? The languages of earth are many, the language of heaven is one.