March 25

"Unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon."—Luke 4:26.

IN my own day Jesus is moving me to jealousy by those who are no people. There are widows of Zarephath and lepers of Syria who may put me to shame.

East and West and North and South the heathen are pressing into the kingdom of heaven. From the snow-wastes, from the tropical forests, from the islands that wave their palms in the far Antipodes, they are rising up and claiming their inheritance in the redeeming grace of God. And it may be that I, who have been nurtured from my youth among "pulpits and Sabbaths," am refusing to enter in through my unbelief.

East and West and North and South the heathen are growing steadily and swiftly up to the stature of Christ's fulness. Such stories of devotion and consecration and martyrdom come to me from Madagascar, from Uganda, from China. And I am careless about my holiness, my spirituality, my self-sacrifice. I grope and stumble in the valley, while they stand in God's sunshine on the far mountain-summits.

East and West and North and South the heathen are becoming envoys and ambassadors of the King of kings. There are some thirty-six thousand Protestant missionaries in the world, and thirty thousand of these are men and women who were once sunk in paganism themselves. Having freely received, they freely give. And I—I with my larger spiritual culture and my richer opportunities—am doing little or nothing for Him who laid down His life for me.

Let me rouse myself from my slumber, lest Sidon and Syria condemn me in the Judgment.