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Title: Kept for the Master's Use
Author: Frances Ridley Havergal
Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31647]
Language: English
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Kept for
the Master’s
Use
By
Frances Ridley
Havergal
Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company
Copyrighted 1895, by Henry Altemus.
HENRY ALTEMUS, MANUFACTURER,
PHILADELPHIA.
[3]
CONTENTS.
- I. Our Lives kept for Jesus, 9
- II. Our Moments kept for Jesus, 26
- III. Our Hands kept for Jesus, 34
- IV. Our Feet kept for Jesus, 46
- V. Our Voices kept for Jesus, 51
- VI. Our Lips kept for Jesus, 66
- VII. Our Silver and Gold kept for Jesus, 79
- VIII. Our Intellects kept for Jesus, 91
- IX. Our Wills kept for Jesus, 96
- X. Our Hearts kept for Jesus, 104
- XI. Our Love kept for Jesus, 109
- XII. Our Selves kept for Jesus, 115
- XIII. Christ for us, 122
[5]
PREFATORY NOTE.
My beloved sister Frances finished revising the
proofs of this book shortly before her death on
Whit Tuesday, June 3, 1879, but its publication
was to be deferred till the Autumn.
In appreciation of the deep and general sympathy
flowing in to her relatives, they wish that its
publication should not be withheld. Knowing her
intense desire that Christ should be magnified,
whether by her life or in her death, may it be to
His glory that in these pages she, being dead,
‘Yet speaketh!’
MARIA V. G. HAVERGAL.
Oakhampton, Worchestershire.
[7]
KEPT
FOR
The Master’s Use.
[8]
Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days;
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and ‘beautiful’ for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart; it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, ALL for Thee.
[9]
CHAPTER I.
Our Lives kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my life, that it may be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.’
Many a heart has echoed the little song:
‘Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee!’
And yet those echoes have not been, in every case
and at all times, so clear, and full, and firm, so
continuously glad as we would wish, and perhaps
expected. Some of us have said:
‘I launch me forth upon a sea
Of boundless love and tenderness;’
and after a little we have found, or fancied, that
there is a hidden leak in our barque, and though we
are doubtless still afloat, yet we are not sailing with
the same free, exultant confidence as at first. What
is it that has dulled and weakened the echo of our
consecration song? what is the little leak that hinders
the swift and buoyant course of our consecrated
life? Holy Father, let Thy loving spirit
[10]
guide the hand that writes, and strengthen the heart
of every one who reads what shall be written, for
Jesus’ sake.
While many a sorrowfully varied answer to these
questions may, and probably will, arise from touched
and sensitive consciences, each being shown by
God’s faithful Spirit the special sin, the special
yielding to temptation which has hindered and
spoiled the blessed life which they sought to enter
and enjoy, it seems to me that one or other of two
things has lain at the outset of the failure and disappointment.
First, it may have arisen from want of the simplest
belief in the simplest fact, as well as want of
trust in one of the simplest and plainest words our
gracious Master ever uttered! The unbelieved fact
being simply that He hears us; the untrusted word
being one of those plain, broad foundation-stones
on which we rested our whole weight, it may be
many years ago, and which we had no idea we ever
doubted, or were in any danger of doubting now,—‘Him
that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast
out.’
‘Take my life!’ We have said it or sung it before
the Lord, it may be many times; but if it were
only once whispered in His ear with full purpose of
heart, should we not believe that He heard it?
And if we know that He heard it, should we not
believe that He has answered it, and fulfilled this,
our heart’s desire? For with Him hearing means
heeding. Then why should we doubt that He did
verily take our lives when we offered them—our
[11]
bodies when we presented them? Have we not
been wronging His faithfulness all this time by
practically, even if unconsciously, doubting whether
the prayer ever really reached Him? And if so, is it
any wonder that we have not realized all the power
and joy of full consecration? By some means or other
He has to teach us to trust implicitly at every step
of the way. And so, if we did not really trust in
this matter, He has had to let us find out our want
of trust by withholding the sensible part of the
blessing, and thus stirring us up to find out why it
is withheld.
An offered gift must be either accepted or refused.
Can He have refused it when He has said,
‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out’?
If not, then it must have been accepted. It is just
the same process as when we came to Him first of
all, with the intolerable burden of our sins. There
was no help for it but to come with them to Him,
and take His word for it that He would not and did
not cast us out. And so coming, so believing, we
found rest to our souls; we found that His word
was true, and that His taking away our sins was
a reality.
Some give their lives to Him then and there, and
go forth to live thenceforth not at all unto themselves,
but unto Him who died for them. This is
as it should be, for conversion and consecration
ought to be simultaneous. But practically it is not
very often so, except with those in whom the bringing
out of darkness into marvellous light has been
sudden and dazzling, and full of deepest contrasts.
More frequently the work resembles the case of the
[12]
Hebrew servant described in Exodus xxi., who,
after six years’ experience of a good master’s service,
dedicates himself voluntarily, unreservedly,
and irrevocably to it, saying, ‘I love my master; I
will not go out free;’ the master then accepting and
sealing him to a life-long service, free in law, yet
bound in love. This seems to be a figure of later
consecration founded on experience and love.
And yet, as at our first coming, it is less than
nothing, worse than nothing that we have to bring;
for our lives, even our redeemed and pardoned lives,
are not only weak and worthless, but defiled and
sinful. But thanks be to God for the Altar that
sanctifieth the gift, even our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself! By Him we draw nigh unto God; to
Him, as one with the Father, we offer our living
sacrifice; in Him, as the Beloved of the Father, we
know it is accepted. So, dear friends, when once
He has wrought in us the desire to be altogether
His own, and put into our hearts the prayer, ‘Take
my life,’ let us go on our way rejoicing, believing
that He has taken our lives, our hands, our feet, our
voices, our intellects, our wills, our whole selves, to
be ever, only, all for Him. Let us consider that a
blessedly settled thing; not because of anything we
have felt, or said, or done, but because we know
that He heareth us, and because we know that He
is true to His word.
But suppose our hearts do not condemn us in
this matter, our disappointment may arise from another
cause. It may be that we have not received,
because we have not asked a fuller and further
[13]
blessing. Suppose that we did believe, thankfully
and surely, that the Lord heard our prayer, and that
He did indeed answer and accept us, and set us apart
for Himself; and yet we find that our consecration
was not merely miserably incomplete, but that we
have drifted back again almost to where we were
before. Or suppose things are not quite so bad as
that, still we have not quite all we expected; and
even if we think we can truly say, ‘O God, my heart
is fixed,’ we find that, to our daily sorrow, somehow
or other the details of our conduct do not
seem to be fixed, something or other is perpetually
slipping through, till we get perplexed and distressed.
Then we are tempted to wonder whether
after all there was not some mistake about it, and
the Lord did not really take us at our word, although
we took Him at His word. And then the
struggle with one doubt, and entanglement, and
temptation only seems to land us in another. What
is to be done then?
First, I think, very humbly and utterly honestly
to search and try our ways before our God, or
rather, as we shall soon realize our helplessness to
make such a search, ask Him to do it for us, praying
for His promised Spirit to show us unmistakably
if there is any secret thing with us that is hindering
both the inflow and outflow of His grace to
us and through us. Do not let us shrink from
some unexpected flash into a dark corner; do not
let us wince at the sudden touching of a hidden
plague-spot. The Lord always does His own work
thoroughly if we will only let Him do it; if we put
our case into His hands, He will search and probe
[14]
fully and firmly, though very tenderly. Very painfully,
it may be, but only that He may do the very
thing we want,—cleanse us and heal us thoroughly,
so that we may set off to walk in real newness of
life. But if we do not put it unreservedly into His
hands, it will be no use thinking or talking about
our lives being consecrated to Him. The heart that
is not entrusted to Him for searching, will not be
undertaken by Him for cleansing; the life that
fears to come to the light lest any deed should be
reproved, can never know the blessedness and the
privileges of walking in the light.
But what then? When He has graciously again
put a new song in our mouth, and we are singing,
‘Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who like me His praise should sing?’
and again with fresh earnestness we are saying,
‘Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee!’
are we only to look forward to the same disappointing
experience over again? are we always to stand
at the threshold? Consecration is not so much a
step as a course; not so much an act, as a position
to which a course of action inseparably belongs.
In so far as it is a course and a position, there must
naturally be a definite entrance upon it, and a time,
it may be a moment, when that entrance is made.
That is when we say, ‘Take’; but we do not want
to go on taking a first step over and over again.
[15]
What we want now is to be maintained in that position,
and to fulfil that course. So let us go on to
another prayer. Having already said, ‘Take my
life, for I cannot give it to Thee,’ let us now say,
with deepened conviction, that without Christ we
really can do nothing,—‘Keep my life, for I cannot
keep it for Thee.’
Let us ask this with the same simple trust to
which, in so many other things, He has so liberally
and graciously responded. For this is the confidence
that we have in Him, that if we ask anything
according to His will, He heareth us; and if
we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we
know that we have the petitions that we desired of
Him. There can be no doubt that this petition is
according to His will, because it is based upon
many a promise. May I give it to you just as it
floats through my own mind again and again, knowing
whom I have believed, and being persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I have committed unto
Him?
Keep my life, that it may be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Keep my moments and my days;
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Keep my hands, that they may move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Keep my feet, that they may be
Swift and ‘beautiful’ for Thee.
Keep my voice, that I may sing
Always, only, for my King.
[16]
Keep my lips, that they may be
Filled with messages from Thee.
Keep my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.
Keep my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.
Keep my will, oh, keep it Thine!
For it is no longer mine.
Keep my heart; it is Thine own;
It is now Thy royal throne.
Keep my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Keep myself, that I may be
Ever, only, ALL for Thee.
Yes! He who is able and willing to take unto
Himself, is no less able and willing to keep for
Himself. Our willing offering has been made by
His enabling grace, and this our King has ‘seen
with joy.’ And now we pray, ‘Keep this for ever
in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of
Thy people’ (1 Chron. xxix. 17, 18).
This blessed ‘taking,’ once for all, which we
may quietly believe as an accomplished fact, followed
by the continual ‘keeping,’ for which He
will be continually inquired of by us, seems analogous
to the great washing by which we have part
in Christ, and the repeated washing of the feet for
which we need to be continually coming to Him.
For with the deepest and sweetest consciousness
[17]
that He has indeed taken our lives to be His very
own, the need of His active and actual keeping of
them in every detail and at every moment is most
fully realized. But then we have the promise of
our faithful God, ‘I the Lord do keep it, I will
keep it night and day.’ The only question is, will
we trust this promise, or will we not? If we do, we
shall find it come true. If not, of course it will
not be realized. For unclaimed promises are like
uncashed cheques; they will keep us from bankruptcy,
but not from want. But if not, why not?
What right have we to pick out one of His faithful
sayings, and say we don’t expect Him to fulfil
that? What defence can we bring, what excuse can
we invent, for so doing?
If you appeal to experience against His faithfulness
to His word, I will appeal to experience too,
and ask you, did you ever really trust Jesus to fulfil
any word of His to you, and find your trust
deceived? As to the past experience of the details
of your life not being kept for Jesus, look a little
more closely at it, and you will find that though you
may have asked, you did not trust. Whatever you
did really trust Him to keep, He has kept, and the
unkept things were never really entrusted. Scrutinize
this past experience as you will, and it will
only bear witness against your unfaithfulness, never
against His absolute faithfulness.
Yet this witness must not be unheeded. We
must not forget the things that are behind till they
are confessed and forgiven. Let us now bring all
this unsatisfactory past experience, and, most of all,
the want of trust which has been the poison-spring
[18]
of its course, to the precious blood of Christ, which
cleanseth us, even us, from all sin, even this sin.
Perhaps we never saw that we were not trusting
Jesus as He deserves to be trusted; if so, let us
wonderingly hate ourselves the more that we could
be so trustless to such a Saviour, and so sinfully
dark and stupid that we did not even see it. And
oh, let us wonderingly love Him the more that He
has been so patient and gentle with us, upbraiding
not, though in our slow-hearted foolishness we have
been grieving Him by this subtle unbelief, and
then, by His grace, may we enter upon a new era
of experience, our lives kept for Him more fully
than ever before, because we trust Him more simply
and unreservedly to keep them!
Here we must face a question, and perhaps a difficulty.
Does it not almost seem as if we were at
this point led to trusting to our trust, making everything
hinge upon it, and thereby only removing a
subtle dependence upon ourselves one step farther
back, disguising instead of renouncing it? If
Christ’s keeping depends upon our trusting, and
our continuing to trust depends upon ourselves, we
are in no better or safer position than before, and
shall only be landed in a fresh series of disappointments.
The old story, something for the sinner to
do, crops up again here, only with the ground
shifted from ‘works’ to trust. Said a friend to me,
‘I see now! I did trust Jesus to do everything
else for me, but I thought that this trusting was
something that I had got to do.’ And so, of
course, what she ‘had got to do’ had been a
[19]
perpetual effort and frequent failure. We can no
more trust and keep on trusting than we can do
anything else of ourselves. Even in this it must
be ‘Jesus only’; we are not to look to Him only to
be the Author and Finisher of our faith, but we are
to look to Him for all the intermediate fulfilment
of the work of faith (2 Thess. i. 11); we must ask
Him to go on fulfilling it in us, committing even
this to His power.
For we both may and must
Commit our very faith to Him,
Entrust to him our trust.
What a long time it takes us to come down to the
conviction, and still more to the realization of the
fact that without Him we can do nothing, but that
He must work all our works in us! This is the
work of God, that ye believe in Him whom He has
sent. And no less must it be the work of God that
we go on believing, and that we go on trusting.
Then, dear friends, who are longing to trust Him
with unbroken and unwavering trust, cease the
effort and drop the burden, and now entrust your
trust to Him! He is just as well able to keep that
as any other part of the complex lives which we
want Him to take and keep for Himself. And oh,
do not pass on content with the thought, ‘Yes,
that is a good idea; perhaps I should find that a
great help!’ But, ‘Now, then, do it.’ It is no
help to the sailor to see a flash of light across a
dark sea, if he does not instantly steer accordingly.
Consecration is not a religiously selfish thing. If
it sinks into that, it ceases to be consecration. We
[20]
want our lives kept, not that we may feel happy,
and be saved the distress consequent on wandering,
and get the power with God and man, and all the
other privileges linked with it. We shall have all
this, because the lower is included in the higher;
but our true aim, if the love of Christ constraineth
us, will be far beyond this. Not for ‘me’ at all but
‘for Jesus’; not for my safety, but for His glory;
not for my comfort, but for His joy; not that I may
find rest, but that He may see the travail of His soul,
and be satisfied! Yes, for Him I want to be kept.
Kept for His sake; kept for His use; kept to be His
witness; kept for His joy! Kept for Him, that in
me He may show forth some tiny sparkle of His
light and beauty; kept to do His will and His work in
His own way; kept, it may be, to suffer for His sake;
kept for Him, that He may do just what seemeth
Him good with me; kept, so that no other lord
shall have any more dominion over me, but that
Jesus shall have all there is to have;—little enough,
indeed, but not divided or diminished by any other
claim. Is not this, O you who love the Lord—is
not this worth living for, worth asking for, worth
trusting for?
This is consecration, and I cannot tell you the
blessedness of it. It is not the least use arguing
with one who has had but a taste of its blessedness,
and saying to him, ‘How can these things be?’ It
is not the least use starting all sorts of difficulties
and theoretical suppositions about it with such a
one, any more than it was when the Jews argued
with the man who said, ‘One thing I know, that
whereas I was blind, now I see.’ The Lord Jesus
[21]
does take the life that is offered to Him, and He
does keep the life for Himself that is entrusted to
Him; but until the life is offered we cannot know
the taking, and until the life is entrusted we cannot
know or understand the keeping. All we can do is
to say, ‘O taste and see!’ and bear witness to the
reality of Jesus Christ, and set to our seal that we
have found Him true to His every word, and that
we have proved Him able even to do exceeding
abundantly above all we asked or thought. Why
should we hesitate to bear this testimony? We
have done nothing at all; we have, in all our
efforts, only proved to ourselves, and perhaps to
others, that we had no power either to give or keep
our lives. Why should we not, then, glorify His
grace by acknowledging that we have found Him so
wonderfully and tenderly gracious and faithful in
both taking and keeping as we never supposed or
imagined? I shall never forget the smile and emphasis
with which a poor working man bore this
witness to his Lord. I said to him, ‘Well, H., we
have a good Master, have we not?’ ‘Ah,’ said he,
‘a deal better than ever I thought!’ That summed
up his experience, and so it will sum up the experience
of every one who will but yield their lives
wholly to the same good Master.
I cannot close this chapter without a word with
those, especially my younger friends, who, although
they have named the name of Christ, are saying,
‘Yes, this is all very well for some people, or for
older people, but I am not ready for it; I can’t say
I see my way to this sort of thing.’ I am going to
[22]
take the lowest ground for a minute, and appeal to
your ‘past experience.’ Are you satisfied with
your experience of the other ‘sort of thing’? Your
pleasant pursuits, your harmless recreations, your
nice occupations, even your improving ones, what
fruit are you having from them? Your social intercourse,
your daily talks and walks, your investments
of all the time that remains to you over and above
the absolute duties God may have given you, what
fruit that shall remain have you from all this? Day
after day passes on, and year after year, and what
shall the harvest be? What is even the present return?
Are you getting any real and lasting satisfaction
out of it all? Are you not finding that
things lose their flavour, and that you are spending
your strength day after day for nought? that you
are no more satisfied than you were a year ago—rather
less so, if anything? Does not a sense of
hollowness and weariness come over you as you go
on in the same round, perpetually getting through
things only to begin again? It cannot be otherwise.
Over even the freshest and purest earthly
fountains the Hand that never makes a mistake has
written, ‘He that drinketh of this water shall thirst
again.’ Look into your own heart and you will
find a copy of that inscription already traced,
‘Shall thirst again.’ And the characters are being
deepened with every attempt to quench the inevitable
thirst and weariness in life, which can only be
satisfied and rested in full consecration to God.
For ‘Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart
never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.’ To-day
I tell you of a brighter and happier life, whose inscription
[23]
is, ‘Shall never thirst,’—a life that is no
dull round-and-round in a circle of unsatisfactorinesses,
but a life that has found its true and entirely
satisfactory centre, and set itself towards a
shining and entirely satisfactory goal, whose brightness
is cast over every step of the way. Will you
not seek it?
Do not shrink, and suspect, and hang back from
what it may involve, with selfish and unconfiding
and ungenerous half-heartedness. Take the word
of any who have willingly offered themselves unto
the Lord, that the life of consecration is ‘a deal
better than they thought!’ Choose this day whom
you will serve with real, thorough-going, whole-hearted
service, and He will receive you; and you
will find, as we have found, that He is such a good
Master that you are satisfied with His goodness,
and that you will never want to go out free. Nay,
rather take His own word for it; see what He says:
‘If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their
days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.’
You cannot possibly understand that till you are
really in His service! For He does not give, nor
even show, His wages before you enter it. And He
says, ‘My servants shall sing for joy of heart.’ But
you cannot try over that song to see what it is like,
you cannot even read one bar of it, till your nominal
or even promised service is exchanged for real
and undivided consecration. But when He can
call you ‘My servant,’ then you will find yourself
singing for joy of heart, because He says you shall.
‘And who, then, is willing to consecrate his service
this day unto the Lord?’
[24]
‘Do not startle at the term, or think, because
you do not understand all it may include, you are
therefore not qualified for it. I dare say it comprehends
a great deal more than either you or I
understand, but we can both enter into the spirit of
it, and the detail will unfold itself as long as our
probation shall last. Christ demands a hearty consecration
in will, and He will teach us what that
involves in act.’
This explains the paradox that ‘full consecration’
may be in one sense the act of a moment, and in
another the work of a lifetime. It must be complete
to be real, and yet if real, it is always incomplete;
a point of rest, and yet a perpetual progression.
Suppose you make over a piece of ground to
another person. You give it up, then and there,
entirely to that other; it is no longer in your own
possession; you no longer dig and sow, plant and
reap, at your discretion or for your own profit. His
occupation of it is total; no other has any right to
an inch of it; it is his affair thenceforth what crops
to arrange for and how to make the most of it. But
his practical occupation of it may not appear all at
once. There may be waste land which he will take
into full cultivation only by degrees, space wasted
for want of draining or by over fencing, and odd
corners lost for want of enclosing; fields yielding
smaller returns than they might because of hedgerows
too wide and shady, and trees too many and
spreading, and strips of good soil trampled into
uselessness for want of defined pathways.
Just so is it with our lives. The transaction of,
[25]
so to speak, making them over to God is definite
and complete. But then begins the practical development
of consecration. And here He leads on
‘softly, according as the children be able to endure.’
I do not suppose any one sees anything like
all that it involves at the outset. We have not
a notion what an amount of waste of power there
has been in our lives; we never measured out the
odd corners and the undrained bits, and it never
occurred to us what good fruit might be grown in
our straggling hedgerows, nor how the shade of our
trees has been keeping the sun from the scanty
crops. And so, season by season, we shall be sometimes
not a little startled, yet always very glad, as
we find that bit by bit the Master shows how much
more may be made of our ground, how much more
He is able to make of it than we did; and we shall
be willing to work under Him and do exactly what
He points out, even if it comes to cutting down a
shady tree, or clearing out a ditch full of pretty
weeds and wild-flowers.
As the seasons pass on, it will seem as if there
was always more and more to be done; the very
fact that He is constantly showing us something
more to be done in it, proving that it is really His
ground. Only let Him have the ground, no matter
how poor or overgrown the soil may be, and then
‘He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her
desert like the garden of the Lord.’ Yes, even our
‘desert’! And then we shall sing, ‘My
beloved has gone down into His garden, to the
beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to
gather lilies.’
[26]
Made for Thyself, O God!
Made for Thy love, Thy service, Thy delight;
Made to show forth Thy wisdom, grace, and might;
Made for Thy praise, whom veiled archangels laud:
Oh, strange and glorious thought, that we may be
A joy to Thee!
Yet the heart turns away
From this grand destiny of bliss, and deems
’Twas made for its poor self, for passing dreams,
Chasing illusions melting day by day,
Till for ourselves we read on this world’s best,
‘This is not rest!’
CHAPTER II.
Our Moments kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my moments and my days;
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.’
It may be a little help to writer and reader if we
consider some of the practical details of the life
which we desire to have ‘kept for Jesus’ in the
order of the little hymn at the beginning of this
book, with the one word ‘take’ changed to ‘keep.’
So we will take a couplet for each chapter.
The first point that naturally comes up is that
which is almost synonymous with life—our time.
And this brings us at once face to face with one of
our past difficulties, and its probable cause.
[27]
When we take a wide sweep, we are so apt to
be vague. When we are aiming at generalities
we do not hit the practicalities. We forget that
faithfulness to principle is only proved by faithfulness
in detail. Has not this vagueness had
something to do with the constant ineffectiveness
of our feeble desire that our time should be devoted
to God?
In things spiritual, the greater does not always
include the less, but, paradoxically, the less more
often includes the greater. So in this case, time is
entrusted to us to be traded with for our Lord. But
we cannot grasp it as a whole. We instinctively
break it up ere we can deal with it for any purpose.
So when a new year comes round, we commit it with
special earnestness to the Lord. But as we do so,
are we not conscious of a feeling that even a year is
too much for us to deal with? And does not this
feeling, that we are dealing with a larger thing than
we can grasp, take away from the sense of reality?
Thus we are brought to a more manageable measure;
and as the Sunday mornings or the Monday mornings
come round, we thankfully commit the opening
week to Him, and the sense of help and rest is renewed
and strengthened. But not even the six or
seven days are close enough to our hand; even
to-morrow exceeds our tiny grasp, and even to-morrow’s
grace is therefore not given to us. So we
find the need of considering our lives as a matter of
day by day, and that any more general committal and
consecration of our time does not meet the case so
truly. Here we have found much comfort and help,
and if results have not been entirely satisfactory,
[28]
they have, at least, been more so than before we
reached this point of subdivision.
But if we have found help and blessing by going
a certain distance in one direction, is it not probable
we shall find more if we go farther in the same?
And so, if we may commit the days to our Lord,
why not the hours, and why not the moments? And
may we not expect a fresh and special blessing in
so doing?
We do not realize the importance of moments.
Only let us consider those two sayings of God about
them, ‘In a moment shall they die,’ and, ‘We shall
all be changed in a moment,’ and we shall think
less lightly of them. Eternal issues may hang upon
any one of them, but it has come and gone before
we can even think about it. Nothing seems less
within the possibility of our own keeping, yet
nothing is more inclusive of all other keeping.
Therefore let us ask Him to keep them for us.
Are they not the tiny joints in the harness through
which the darts of temptation pierce us? Only give
us time, we think, and we should not be overcome.
Only give us time, and we could pray and resist,
and the devil would flee from us! But he comes
all in a moment; and in a moment—an unguarded,
unkept one—we utter the hasty or exaggerated word,
or think the un-Christ-like thought, or feel the un-Christ-like
impatience or resentment.
But even if we have gone so far as to say, ‘Take
my moments,’ have we gone the step farther, and
really let Him take them—really entrusted them to
Him? It is no good saying ‘take,’ when we do not
let go. How can another keep that which we are keeping
[29]
hold of? So let us, with full trust in His power,
first commit these slippery moments to Him,—put
them right into His hand,—and then we may trustfully
and happily say, ‘Lord, keep them for me!
Keep every one of the quick series as it arises. I
cannot keep them for Thee; do Thou keep them
for Thyself!’
But the sanctified and Christ-loving heart cannot
be satisfied with only negative keeping. We do not
want only to be kept from displeasing Him, but to
be kept always pleasing Him. Every ‘kept from’
should have its corresponding and still more blessed
‘kept for.’ We do not want our moments to be
simply kept from Satan’s use, but kept for His use;
we want them to be not only kept from sin, but kept
for His praise.
Do you ask, ‘But what use can he make of mere
moments?’ I will not stay to prove or illustrate
the obvious truth that, as are the moments so will
be the hours and the days which they build. You
understand that well enough. I will answer your
question as it stands.
Look back through the history of the Church
in all ages, and mark how often a great work and
mighty influence grew out of a mere moment in the
life of one of God’s servants; a mere moment, but
overshadowed and filled with the fruitful power of
the Spirit of God. The moment may have been
spent in uttering five words, but they have fed five
thousand, or even five hundred thousand. Or it
may have been lit by the flash of a thought that
has shone into hearts and homes throughout the
[30]
land, and kindled torches that have been borne
into earth’s darkest corners. The rapid speaker
or the lonely thinker little guessed what use
his Lord was making of that single moment. There
was no room in it for even a thought of that. If
that moment had not been, though perhaps unconsciously,
‘kept for Jesus,’ but had been otherwise
occupied, what a harvest to His praise would have
been missed!
The same thing is going on every day. It is
generally a moment—either an opening or a culminating
one—that really does the work. It is not
so often a whole sermon as a single short sentence
in it that wings God’s arrow to a heart. It is seldom
a whole conversation that is the means of
bringing about the desired result, but some sudden
turn of thought or word, which comes with the
electric touch of God’s power. Sometimes it is
less than that; only a look (and what is more momentary?)
has been used by Him for the pulling
down of strongholds. Again, in our own quiet
waiting upon God, as moment after moment glides
past in the silence at His feet, the eye resting upon
a page of His Word, or only looking up to Him
through the darkness, have we not found that He
can so irradiate one passing moment with His light
that its rays never die away, but shine on and on
through days and years? Are not such moments
proved to have been kept for Him? And if some,
why not all?
This view of moments seems to make it clearer
that it is impossible to serve two masters, for it is
evident that the service of a moment cannot be
[31]
divided. If it is occupied in the service of self, or
any other master, it is not at the Lord’s disposal;
He cannot make use of what is already occupied.
Oh, how much we have missed by not placing
them at his disposal! What might He not have
done with the moments freighted with self or
loaded with emptiness, which we have carelessly
let drift by! Oh, what might have been if they
had all been kept for Jesus! How He might
have filled them with His light and life, enriching
our own lives that have been impoverished by the
waste, and using them in far-spreading blessing
and power!
While we have been undervaluing these fractions
of eternity, what has our gracious God been doing
in them? How strangely touching are the words,
‘What is man, that Thou shouldest set Thine heart
upon him, and that Thou shouldest visit him every
morning, and try him every moment?’ Terribly
solemn and awful would be the thought that He
has been trying us every moment, were it not for
the yearning gentleness and love of the Father
revealed in that wonderful expression of wonder,
‘What is man, that Thou shouldest set Thine heart
upon him?’ Think of that ceaseless setting of
His heart upon us, careless and forgetful children
as we have been! And then think of those other
words, none the less literally true because given
under a figure: ‘I, the Lord, do keep it; I will
water it every moment.’
We see something of God’s infinite greatness
and wisdom when we try to fix our dazzled gaze
[32]
on infinite space. But when we turn to the marvels
of the microscope, we gain a clearer view and
more definite grasp of these attributes by gazing on
the perfection of His infinitesimal handiworks.
Just so, while we cannot realize the infinite love
which fills eternity, and the infinite vistas of the
great future are ‘dark with excess of light’ even to
the strongest telescopes of faith, we see that love
magnified in the microscope of the moments,
brought very close to us, and revealing its unspeakable
perfection of detail to our wondering sight.
But we do not see this as long as the moments
are kept in our own hands. We are like little
children closing our fingers over diamonds. How
can they receive and reflect the rays of light, analyzing
them into all the splendour of their prismatic
beauty, while they are kept shut up tight in
the dirty little hands? Give them up; let our
Father hold them for us, and throw His own great
light upon them, and then we shall see them full
of fair colours of His manifold loving-kindnesses;
and let Him always keep them for us, and then we
shall always see His light and His love reflected in
them.
And then, surely, they shall be filled with praise.
Not that we are to be always singing hymns, and
using the expressions of other people’s praise, any
more than the saints in glory are always literally
singing a new song. But praise will be the tone,
the colour, the atmosphere in which they flow;
none of them away from it or out of it.
Is it a little too much for them all to ‘flow in
ceaseless praise’? Well, where will you stop?
[33]
What proportion of your moments do you think
enough for Jesus? How many for the spirit of
praise, and how many for the spirit of heaviness?
Be explicit about it, and come to an understanding.
If He is not to have all, then how much? Calculate,
balance, and apportion. You will not be able
to do this in heaven—you know it will be all praise
there; but you are free to halve your service of
praise here, or to make the proportion what you
will.
Yet,—He made you for His glory.
Yet,—He chose you that you should be to the
praise of His glory.
Yet,—He loves you every moment, waters you
every moment, watches you unslumberingly, cares
for you unceasingly.
Yet,—He died for you!
Dear friends, one can hardly write it without
tears. Shall you or I remember all this love, and
hesitate to give all our moments up to Him? Let
us entrust Him with them, and ask Him to keep
them all, every single one, for His own beloved
self, and fill them all with His praise, and let them
all be to His praise!
[34]
Chapter III.
Our Hands Kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my hands, that they may move
At the impulse of Thy love.’
When the Lord has said to us, ‘Is thine heart
right, as My heart is with thy heart?’ the
next word seems to be, ‘If it be, give Me thine
hand.’
What a call to confidence, and love, and free,
loyal, happy service is this! and how different will
the result of its acceptance be from the old lamentation:
‘We labour and have no rest; we have
given the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians.’
In the service of these ‘other lords,’ under
whatever shape they have presented themselves, we
shall have known something of the meaning of having
‘both the hands full with travail and vexation
of spirit.’ How many a thing have we ‘taken in
hand,’ as we say, which we expected to find an
agreeable task, an interest in life, a something
towards filling up that unconfessed ‘aching void’
which is often most real when least acknowledged;
and after a while we have found it change under our
hands into irksome travail, involving perpetual vexation
[35]
of spirit! The thing may have been of the earth
and for the world, and then no wonder it failed to satisfy
even the instinct of work, which comes natural
to many of us. Or it may have been right enough
in itself, something for the good of others so far as
we understood their good, and unselfish in all but
unravelled motive, and yet we found it full of
tangled vexations, because the hands that held it
were not simply consecrated to God. Well, if so,
let us bring these soiled and tangle-making hands to
the Lord, ‘Let us lift up our heart with our hands’
to Him, asking Him to clear and cleanse them.
If He says, ‘What is that in thine hand?’ let us
examine honestly whether it is something which He
can use for His glory or not. If not, do not let us
hesitate an instant about dropping it. It may be
something we do not like to part with; but the
Lord is able to give thee much more than this, and
the first glimpse of the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus your Lord will enable us to count
those things loss which were gain to us.
But if it is something which He can use, He will
make us do ever so much more with it than before.
Moses little thought what the Lord was going to
make him do with that ‘rod in his hand’! The
first thing he had to do with it was to ‘cast it on
the ground,’ and see it pass through a startling
change. After this he was commanded to take it
up again, hard and terrifying as it was to do so.
But when it became again a rod in his hand, it was
no longer what it was before, the simple rod of a
wandering desert shepherd. Henceforth it was
‘the rod of God in his hand’ (Ex. iv. 20), wherewith
[36]
he should do signs, and by which God Himself
would do ‘marvellous things’ (Ps. lxxviii. 12).
If we look at any Old Testament text about consecration,
we shall see that the marginal reading of
the word is, ‘fill the hand’ (e. g.
Ex. xxviii. 41;
1 Chron. xxix. 5). Now, if our hands are full of
‘other things,’ they cannot be filled with ‘the
things that are Jesus Christ’s’; there must be emptying
before there can be any true filling. So if we
are sorrowfully seeing that our hands have not been
kept for Jesus, let us humbly begin at the beginning,
and ask Him to empty them thoroughly, that
He may fill them completely.
For they must be emptied. Either we come to
our Lord willingly about it, letting Him unclasp
their hold, and gladly dropping the glittering
weights they have been carrying, or, in very love,
He will have to force them open, and wrench from
the reluctant grasp the ‘earthly things’ which are
so occupying them that He cannot have His rightful
use of them. There is only one other alternative,
a terrible one,—to be let alone till the day
comes when not a gentle Master, but the relentless
king of terrors shall empty the trembling hands as
our feet follow him out of the busy world into the
dark valley, for ‘it is certain we can carry nothing
out.’
Yet the emptying and the filling are not all that
has to be considered. Before the hands of the
priests could be filled with the emblems of consecration,
they had to be laid upon the emblem of
[37]
atonement (Lev. viii. 14, etc.). That came first.
‘Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head
of the bullock for the sin-offering.’ So the transference
of guilt to our Substitute, typified by that
act, must precede the dedication of ourselves to
God.
‘My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.’
The blood of that Holy Substitute was shed ‘to
make reconciliation upon the altar.’ Without that
reconciliation we cannot offer and present ourselves
to God; but this being made, Christ Himself
presents us. And you, that were sometime
alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of
His flesh through death, to present you holy and
unblamable and unreprovable in His sight.
Then Moses ‘brought the ram for the burnt-offering;
and Aaron and his sons laid their hands
upon the head of the ram, and Moses burnt the
whole ram upon the altar; it was a burnt-offering
for a sweet savour, and an offering made by fire unto
the Lord.’ Thus Christ’s offering was indeed a
whole one, body, soul, and spirit, each and all suffering
even unto death. These atoning sufferings,
accepted by God for us, are, by our own free act,
accepted by us as the ground of our acceptance.
Then, reconciled and accepted, we are ready for
consecration; for then ‘he brought the other ram;
the ram of consecration; and Aaron and his sons
[38]
laid their hands upon the head of the ram.’ Here
we see Christ, ‘who is consecrated for evermore.’
We enter by faith into union with Him who said,
‘For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also
might be sanctified through the truth.’
After all this, their hands were filled with ‘consecrations
for a sweet savour,’ so, after laying the
hand of our faith upon Christ, suffering and dying
for us, we are to lay that very same hand of faith,
and in the very same way, upon Him as consecrated
for us, to be the source and life and power of our
consecration. And then our hands shall be filled
with ‘consecrations,’ filled with Christ, and filled
with all that is a sweet savour to God in Him.
‘And who then is willing to fill his hand this
day unto the Lord?’ Do you want an added
motive? Listen again: ‘Fill your hands to-day
to the Lord, that He may bestow upon you a blessing
this day.’ Not a long time hence, not even to-morrow,
but ‘this day.’ Do you not want a blessing?
Is not your answer to your Father’s ‘What
wilt thou?’ the same as Achsah’s, ‘Give me a blessing!’
Here is His promise of just what you so
want; will you not gladly fulfil His condition? A
blessing shall immediately follow. He does not
specify what it shall be; He waits to reveal it. You
will find it such a blessing as you had not supposed
could be for you—a blessing that shall verily make
you rich, with no sorrow added—a blessing this
day.
All that has been said about consecration applies
to our literal members. Stay a minute, and look
[39]
at your hand, the hand that holds this little book as
you read it. See how wonderfully it is made; how
perfectly fitted for what it has to do; how ingeniously
connected with the brain, so as to yield that
instantaneous and instinctive obedience without
which its beautiful mechanism would be very little
good to us! Your hand, do you say? Whether it
is soft and fair with an easy life, or rough and strong
with a working one, or white and weak with illness,
it is the Lord Jesus Christ’s. It is not your own
at all; it belongs to Him. He made it, for without
Him was not anything made that was made, not
even your hand. And He has the added right of
purchase—He has bought it that it might be one of
His own instruments. We know this very well, but
have we realized it? Have we really let Him have
the use of these hands of ours? and have we ever
simply and sincerely asked Him to keep them for
His own use?
Does this mean that we are always to be doing
some definitely ‘religious’ work, as it is called?
No, but that all that we do is to be always definitely
done for Him. There is a great difference. If the
hands are indeed moving ‘at the impulse of His
love,’ the simplest little duties and acts are transfigured
into holy service to the Lord.
‘A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.’
George Herbert.
A Christian school-girl loves Jesus; she wants to
please Him all day long, and so she practices her
[40]
scales carefully and conscientiously. It is at the
impulse of His love that her fingers move so steadily
through the otherwise tiresome exercises. Some
day her Master will find a use for her music; but
meanwhile it may be just as really done unto Him
as if it were Mr. Sankey at his organ, swaying the
hearts of thousands. The hand of a Christian lad
traces his Latin verses, or his figures, or his copying.
He is doing his best, because a banner has
been given him that it may be displayed, not so
much by talk as by continuance in well-doing.
And so, for Jesus’ sake, his hand moves accurately
and perseveringly.
A busy wife, or daughter, or servant has a number
of little manual duties to perform. If these are
done slowly and leisurely, they may be got through,
but there will not be time left for some little service
to the poor, or some little kindness to a suffering or
troubled neighbour, or for a little quiet time alone
with God and His word. And so the hands move
quickly, impelled by the loving desire for service or
communion, kept in busy motion for Jesus’ sake.
Or it may be that the special aim is to give no occasion
of reproach to some who are watching, but
so to adorn the doctrine that those may be won by
the life who will not be won by the word. Then
the hands will have their share to do; they will
move carefully, neatly, perhaps even elegantly,
making every thing around as nice as possible, letting
their intelligent touch be seen in the details of
the home, and even of the dress, doing or arranging
all the little things decently and in order for Jesus’
sake. And so on with every duty in every position.
[41]
It may seem an odd idea, but a simple glance at
one’s hand, with the recollection, ‘This hand is
not mine; it has been given to Jesus, and it must
be kept for Jesus,’ may sometimes turn the scale in
a doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from certain
temptations. With that thought fresh in your mind
as you look at your hand, can you let it take up
things which, to say the very least, are not ‘for
Jesus’? things which evidently cannot be used, as
they most certainly are not used, either for Him or
by Him? Cards, for instance! Can you deliberately
hold in it books of a kind which you know
perfectly well, by sadly repeated experience, lead
you farther from instead of nearer to Him? books
which must and do fill your mind with those ‘other
things’ which, entering in, choke the word? books
which you would not care to read at all, if your
heart were burning within you at the coming of
His feet to bless you? Next time any temptation
of this sort approaches, just look at your hand!
It was of a literal hand that our Lord Jesus spoke
when He said, ‘Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth
Me is with Me on the table;’ and, ‘He
that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the
same shall betray Me.’ A hand so near to Jesus,
with Him on the table, touching His own hand in
the dish at that hour of sweetest, and closest, and
most solemn intercourse, and yet betraying Him!
That same hand taking the thirty pieces of silver!
What a tremendous lesson of the need of keeping
for our hands! Oh that every hand that is with
Him at His sacramental table, and that takes the
memorial bread, may be kept from any faithless
[42]
and loveless motion! And again, it was by literal
‘wicked hands’ that our Lord Jesus was crucified
and slain. Does not the thought that human
hands have been so treacherous and cruel to our
beloved Lord make us wish the more fervently
that our hands may be totally faithful and devoted
to Him?
Danger and temptation to let the hands move at
other impulses is every bit as great to those who
have nothing else to do but to render direct service,
and who think they are doing nothing else. Take
one practical instance—our letter-writing. Have
we not been tempted (and fallen before the temptation),
according to our various dispositions, to let
the hand that holds the pen move at the impulse to
write an unkind thought of another; or to say a
clever and sarcastic thing, or a slightly coloured
and exaggerated thing, which will make our point
more telling; or to let out a grumble or a suspicion;
or to let the pen run away with us into flippant
and trifling words, unworthy of our high and
holy calling? Have we not drifted away from the
golden reminder, ‘Should he reason with unprofitable
talk, and with speeches wherewith he can do
no good?’ Why has this been, perhaps again and
again? Is it not for want of putting our hands
into our dear Master’s hand, and asking and trusting
Him to keep them? He could have kept; He
would have kept!
Whatever our work or our special temptations
may be, the principle remains the same, only let us
apply it for ourselves.
[43]
Perhaps one hardly needs to say that the kept
hands will be very gentle hands. Quick, angry
motions of the heart will sometimes force themselves
into expression by the hand, though the
tongue may be restrained. The very way in which
we close a door or lay down a book may be a victory
or a defeat, a witness to Christ’s keeping or a
witness that we are not truly being kept. How can
we expect that God will use this member as an instrument
of righteousness unto Him, if we yield it
thus as an instrument of unrighteousness unto sin?
Therefore let us see to it, that it is at once yielded
to Him whose right it is; and let our sorrow that
it should have been even for an instant desecrated
to Satan’s use, lead us to entrust it henceforth to
our Lord, to be kept by the power of God through
faith ‘for the Master’s use.’
For when the gentleness of Christ dwells in us,
He can use the merest touch of a finger. Have we
not heard of one gentle touch on a wayward shoulder
being the turning-point of a life? I have known
a case in which the Master made use of less than
that—only the quiver of a little finger being made
the means of touching a wayward heart.
What must the touch of the Master’s own hand
have been! One imagines it very gentle, though
so full of power. Can He not communicate both
the power and the gentleness? When He touched
the hand of Peter’s wife’s mother, she arose and
ministered unto them. Do you not think the hand
which Jesus had just touched must have ministered
very excellently? As we ask Him to ‘touch our lips
with living fire,’ so that they may speak effectively
[44]
for Him, may we not ask Him to touch our hands,
that they may minister effectively, and excel in all
that they find to do for Him? Then our hands
shall be made strong by the hands of the Mighty
God of Jacob.
It is very pleasant to feel that if our hands are indeed
our Lord’s, we may ask Him to guide them,
and strengthen them, and teach them. I do not
mean figuratively, but quite literally. In everything
they do for Him (and that should be everything
we ever undertake) we want to do it well—better
and better. ‘Seek that ye may excel.’ We
are too apt to think that He has given us certain
natural gifts, but has nothing practically to do with
the improvement of them, and leaves us to ourselves
for that. Why not ask him to make these
hands of ours more handy for His service, more
skilful in what is indicated as the ‘next thynge’ they
are to do? The ‘kept’ hands need not be clumsy
hands. If the Lord taught David’s hands to war and
his fingers to fight, will He not teach our hands, and
fingers too, to do what He would have them do?
The Spirit of God must have taught Bezaleel’s
hands as well as his head, for he was filled with it
not only that he might devise cunning works, but
also in cutting of stones and carving of timber. And
when all the women that were wise-hearted did spin
with their hands, the hands must have been made
skilful as well as the hearts made wise to prepare
the beautiful garments and curtains.
There is a very remarkable instance of the hand
of the Lord, which I suppose signifies in that case
[45]
the power of His Spirit, being upon the hand of a
man. In 1 Chron. xxviii. 19, we read: ‘All this,
said David, the Lord made me understand in writing
by His hand upon me, even all the works of
this pattern.’ This cannot well mean that the Lord
gave David a miraculously written scroll, because,
a few verses before, it says that he had it all by the
Spirit. So what else can it mean but that as David
wrote, the hand of the Lord was upon his hand,
impelling him to trace, letter by letter, the right
words of description for all the details of the temple
that Solomon should build, with its courts and
chambers, its treasuries and vessels? Have we not
sometimes sat down to write, feeling perplexed and
ignorant, and wishing some one were there to tell
us what to say? At such a moment, whether it
were a mere note for post, or a sheet for press, it is
a great comfort to recollect this mighty laying of a
Divine hand upon a human one, and ask for the
same help from the same Lord. It is sure to be
given!
And now, dear friend, what about your own
hands? Are they consecrated to the Lord who
loves you? And if they are, are you trusting Him
to keep them, and enjoying all that is involved in
that keeping? Do let this be settled with your
Master before you go on to the next chapter.
After all, this question will hinge on another, Do
you love Him? If you really do, there can surely
be neither hesitation about yielding them to Him,
nor about entrusting them to Him to be kept. Does
He love you? That is the truer way of putting it;
[46]
for it is not our love to Christ, but the love of
Christ to us which constraineth us. And this is
the impulse of the motion and the mode of the
keeping. The steam-engine does not move when
the fire is not kindled, nor when it is gone out; no
matter how complete the machinery and abundant
the fuel, cold coals will neither set it going nor
keep it working. Let us ask Him so to shed
abroad His love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us, that it may be the perpetual
and only impulse of every action of our daily life.
Chapter IV.
Our Feet kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my feet, that they may be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.’
The figurative keeping of the feet of His saints,
with the promise that when they run they
shall not stumble, is a most beautiful and helpful
subject. But it is quite distinct from the literal
keeping for Jesus of our literal feet.
There is a certain homeliness about the idea which
helps to make it very real. These very feet of ours
are purchased for Christ’s service by the precious
drops which fell from His own torn and pierced feet
upon the cross. They are to be His errand-runners.
[47]
How can we let the world, the flesh, and the
devil have the use of what has been purchased with
such payment?
Shall ‘the world’ have the use of them? Shall
they carry us where the world is paramount, and
the Master cannot be even named, because the mention
of His Name would be so obviously out of
place? I know the apparent difficulties of a subject
which will at once occur in connection with this,
but they all vanish when our bright banner is loyally
unfurled, with its motto, ‘All for Jesus!’ Do
you honestly want your very feet to be ‘kept for
Jesus’? Let these simple words, ‘Kept for Jesus,’
ring out next time the dancing difficulty or any
other difficulty of the same kind comes up, and I
know what the result will be!
Shall ‘the flesh’ have the use of them? Shall they
carry us hither and thither merely because we like
to go, merely because it pleases ourselves to take
this walk or pay this visit? And after all, what a
failure it is! If people only would believe it, self-pleasing
is always a failure in the end. Our good
Master gives us a reality and fulness of pleasure in
pleasing Him which we never get out of pleasing
ourselves.
Shall ‘the devil’ have the use of them? Oh no,
of course not! We start back at this, as a highly
unnecessary question. Yet if Jesus has not, Satan
has. For as all are serving either the Prince of
Life or the prince of this world, and as no man can
serve two masters, it follows that if we are not serving
the one, we are serving the other. And Satan
is only too glad to disguise this service under the
[48]
less startling form of the world, or the still less
startling one of self. All that is not ‘kept for
Jesus,’ is left for self or the world, and therefore
for Satan.
There is no fear but that our Lord will have
many uses for what is kept by Him for Himself.
‘How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad
tidings of good things!’ That is the best use of
all; and I expect the angels think those feet beautiful,
even if they are cased in muddy boots or
goloshes.
Once the question was asked, ‘Wherefore wilt
thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings
ready?’ So if we want to have these beautiful feet,
we must have the tidings ready which they are to
bear. Let us ask Him to keep our hearts so freshly
full of His good news of salvation, that our mouths
may speak out of their abundance. ‘If the clouds
be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the
earth.’ The ‘two olive branches empty the golden
oil out of themselves.’ May we be so filled with
the Spirit that we may thus have much to pour out
for others!
Besides the great privilege of carrying water from
the wells of salvation, there are plenty of cups of
cold water to be carried in all directions; not to
the poor only,—ministries of love are often as much
needed by a rich friend. But the feet must be kept
for these; they will be too tired for them if they
are tired out for self-pleasing. In such services we
are treading in the blessed steps of His most holy
life, who ‘went about doing good.’
[49]
Then there is literal errand-going,—just to fetch
something that is needed for the household, or
something that a tired relative wants, whether asked
or unasked. Such things should come first instead
of last, because these are clearly indicated
as our Lord’s will for us to do, by the position
in which He has placed us; while what seems
more direct service, may be after all not so directly
apportioned by Him. ‘I have to go and buy
some soap,’ said one with a little sigh. The sigh
was waste of breath, for her feet were going to
do her Lord’s will for that next half-hour much
more truly than if they had carried her to her
well-worked district, and left the soap to take its
chance.
A member of the Young Women’s Christian
Association wrote a few words on this subject,
which, I think, will be welcome to many more than
she expected them to reach:—
‘May it not be a comfort to those of us who feel
we have not the mental or spiritual power that
others have, to notice that the living sacrifice mentioned
in Rom. xii. 1 is our “bodies”? Of course,
that includes the mental power, but does it not
also include the loving, sympathizing glance, the
kind, encouraging word, the ready errand for
another, the work of our hands, opportunities for
all of which come oftener in the day than for the
mental power we are often tempted to envy? May
we be enabled to offer willingly that which we have.
For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted
according to that a man hath, and not according to
that he hath not.’
[50]
If our feet are to be kept at His disposal, our
eyes must be ever toward the Lord for guidance.
We must look to Him for our orders where to go.
Then He will be sure to give them. ‘The steps
of a good man are ordered by the Lord.’ Very
often we find that they have been so very literally
ordered for us that we are quite astonished,—just as
if He had not promised!
Do not smile at a very homely thought! If our
feet are not our own, ought we not to take care of
them for Him whose they are? Is it quite right to
be reckless about ‘getting wet feet,’ which might
be guarded against either by forethought or afterthought,
when there is, at least, a risk of hindering
our service thereby? Does it please the Master
when even in our zeal for His work we annoy
anxious friends by carelessness in little things of
this kind?
May every step of our feet be more and more
like those of our beloved Master. Let us continually
consider Him in this, and go where He would
have gone, on the errands which He would have
done, ‘following hard’ after Him. And let us
look on to the time when our feet shall stand in the
gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, when holy feet
shall tread the streets of the holy city; no longer
pacing any lonely path, for He hath said, ‘They
shall walk with Me in white.’
‘And He hath said, “How beautiful the feet!”
The “feet” so weary, travel-stained, and worn—
The “feet” that humbly, patiently have borne
The toilsome way, the pressure, and the heat.
[51]
‘The “feet,” not hasting on with wingèd might,
Nor strong to trample down the opposing foe;
So lowly, and so human, they must go
By painful steps to scale the mountain height.
‘Not unto all the tuneful lips are given,
The ready tongue, the words so strong and sweet;
Yet all may turn, with humble, willing “feet,”
And bear to darkened souls the light from heaven.
‘And fall they while the goal far distant lies,
With scarce a word yet spoken for their Lord—
His sweet approval He doth yet accord;
Their “feet” are beauteous in the Master’s eyes.
‘With weary human “feet” He, day by day,
Once trod this earth to work His acts of love;
And every step is chronicled above
His servants take to follow in His way.’
Sarah Geraldina Stock.
Chapter V.
Our Voices kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.’
I have wondered a little at being told by an experienced
worker, that in many cases the voice
seems the last and hardest thing to yield entirely to
the King; and that many who think and say they
[52]
have consecrated all to the Lord and His service,
‘revolt’ when it comes to be a question of whether
they shall sing ‘always, only,’ for their King. They
do not mind singing a few general sacred songs,
but they do not see their way to really singing
always and only unto and for Him. They want to
bargain and balance a little. They question and
argue about what proportion they may keep for
self-pleasing and company-pleasing, and how much
they must ‘give up’; and who will and who won’t
like it; and what they ‘really must sing,’ and what
they ‘really must not sing’ at certain times and
places; and what ‘won’t do,’ and what they ‘can’t
very well help,’ and so on. And so when the question,
‘How much owest thou unto my Lord?’ is
applied to this particularly pleasant gift, it is not
met with the loyal, free-hearted, happy response,
‘All! yes, all for Jesus!’
I know there are special temptations around this
matter. Vain and selfish ones—whispering how
much better a certain song suits your voice, and
how much more likely to be admired. Faithless
ones—suggesting doubts whether you can make the
holy song ‘go.’ Specious ones—asking whether
you ought not to please your neighbours, and
hushing up the rest of the precept, ‘Let every
one of you please his neighbour for his good to
edification’ (Rom. xv. 2). Cowardly
ones—telling you that it is just a little too much to expect
of you, and that you are not called upon to wave
your banner in people’s very faces, and provoke
surprise and remark, as this might do. And so
the banner is kept furled, the witness for Jesus is
[53]
not borne, and you sing for others and not for
your King.
The words had passed your lips, ‘Take my
voice!’ And yet you will not let Him have it;
you will not let Him have that which costs you
something, just because it costs you something!
And yet He lent you that pleasant voice that you
might use it for Him. And yet He, in the sureness
of His perpetual presence, was beside you all the
while, and heard every note as you sang the songs
which were, as your inmost heart knew, not for
Him.
Where is your faith? Where is the consecration
you have talked about? The voice has not been
kept for Him, because it has not been truly and unreservedly
given to Him. Will you not now say,
‘Take my voice, for I had not given it to Thee;
keep my voice, for I cannot keep it for Thee’?
And He will keep it! You cannot tell, till you
have tried, how surely all the temptations flee when
it is no longer your battle but the Lord’s; nor how
completely and curiously all the difficulties vanish,
when you simply and trustfully go forward in the
path of full consecration in this matter. You will
find that the keeping is most wonderfully real. Do
not expect to lay down rules and provide for every
sort of contingency. If you could, you would miss
the sweetness of the continual guidance in the
‘kept’ course. Have only one rule about it—just
to look up to your Master about every single song
you are asked or feel inclined to sing. If you are
‘willing and obedient,’ you will always meet His
guiding eye. He will always keep the voice that is
[54]
wholly at His disposal. Soon you will have such
experience of His immediate guidance that you will
be utterly satisfied with it, and only sorrowfully
wonder you did not sooner thus simply lean on it.
I have just received a letter from one who has
laid her special gift at the feet of the Giver, yielding
her voice to Him with hearty desire that it
might be kept for His use. She writes: ‘I had
two lessons on singing while in Germany from our
Master. One was very sweet. A young girl wrote
to me, that when she had heard me sing, “O come,
every one that thirsteth,” she went away and prayed
that she might come, and she did come, too. Is
not He good? The other was: I had been tempted
to join the Gesang Verein in N——. I prayed to
be shown whether I was right in so doing or not.
I did not see my way clear, so I went. The singing
was all secular. The very first night I went I
caught a bad cold on my chest, which prevented me
from singing again at all till Christmas. Those
were better than any lessons from a singing master!’
Does not this illustrate both the keeping from and
the keeping for? In the latter case I believe she
honestly wished to know her Lord’s will,—whether
the training and practice were needed for His better
service with her music, and that, therefore, she
might take them for His sake; or whether the concomitants
and influence would be such as to hinder
the close communion with Him which she had
found so precious, and that, therefore, she was to
trust Him to give her ‘much more than this.’ And
so, at once, He showed her unmistakeably what He
would have her not do, and gave her the sweet
[55]
consciousness that He Himself was teaching her
and taking her at her word. I know what her passionate
love for music is, and how very real and
great the compensation from Him must have been
which could thus make her right down glad about
what would otherwise have been an immense disappointment.
And then, as to the former of these
two ‘lessons,’ the song she names was one substituted
when she said, ‘Take my voice,’ for some
which were far more effective for her voice. But
having freely chosen to sing what might glorify the
Master rather than the singer, see how, almost immediately,
He gave her a reward infinitely outweighing
all the drawing-room compliments or concert-room
applause! That one consecrated song found
echoes in heaven, bringing, by its blessed result,
joy to the angels and glory to God. And the memory
of that song is immortal; it will live through
ages to come, never lost, never dying away, when
the vocal triumphs of the world’s greatest singers
are past and forgotten for ever. Now you who have
been taking a half-and-half course, do you get such
rewards as this? You may well envy them! But
why not take the same decided course, and share
the same blessed keeping and its fulness of hidden
reward?
If you only knew, dear hesitating friends, what
strength and gladness the Master gives when we
loyally ‘sing forth the honour of His Name,’ you
would not forego it! Oh, if you only knew the difficulties
it saves! For when you sing ‘always and
only for your King,’ you will not get much entangled
by the King’s enemies, Singing an out-and-out
[56]
sacred song often clears one’s path at a
stroke as to many other things. If you only knew
the rewards He gives—very often then and there;
the recognition that you are one of the King’s
friends by some lonely and timid one; the openings
which you quite naturally gain of speaking a
word for Jesus to hearts which, without the song,
would never have given you the chance of the word!
If you only knew the joy of believing that His
sure promise, ‘My Word shall not return unto Me
void,’ will be fulfilled as you sing that word for
Him! If you only tasted the solemn happiness of
knowing that you have indeed a royal audience,
that the King Himself is listening as you sing! If
you only knew—and why should you not know?
Shall not the time past of your life suffice you for
the miserable, double-hearted, calculating service?
Let Him have the whole use of your voice at any
cost, and see if He does not put many a totally unexpected
new song into your mouth!
I am not writing all this to great and finished
singers, but to everybody who can sing at all.
Those who think they have only a very small talent,
are often most tempted not to trade with it for their
Lord. Whether you have much or little natural
voice, there is reason for its cultivation and room
for its use. Place it at your Lord’s disposal, and
He will show you how to make the most of it for
Him; for not seldom His multiplying power is
brought to bear on a consecrated voice. A puzzled
singing master, very famous in his profession, said
to one who tried to sing for Jesus, ‘Well, you have
not much voice; but, mark my words, you will
[57]
always beat anybody with four times your voice!’
He was right, though he did not in the least know
why.
A great many so-called ‘sacred songs’ are so
plaintive and pathetic that they help to give a
gloomy idea of religion. Now don’t sing these;
come out boldly, and sing definitely and unmistakeably
for your King, and of your King, and to
your King. You will soon find, and even outsiders
will have to own, that it is a good thing thus to show
forth His loving-kindness and His faithfulness (see
Ps. xcii. 1-3).
Here I am usually met by the query, ‘But what
would you advise me to sing?’ I can only say that
I never got any practical help from asking any one
but the Master Himself, and so I would advise you
to do the same! He knows exactly what will best
suit your voice and enable you to sing best for
Him; for He made it, and gave it just the pitch
and tone He pleased, so, of course, He is the best
counsellor about it. Refer your question in simplest
faith to Him, and I am perfectly sure you will
find it answered. He will direct you, and in some
way or other the Lord will provide the right songs
for you to sing. That is the very best advice I can
possibly give you on the subject, and you will prove
it to be so if you will act upon it.
Only one thing I would add: I believe there is
nothing like singing His own words. The preacher
claims the promise, ‘My word shall not return unto
Me void,’ and why should not the singer equally
claim it? Why should we use His own inspired
[58]
words, with faith in their power, when speaking or
writing, and content ourselves with human words
put into rhyme (and sometimes very feeble rhyme)
for our singing?
What a vista of happy work opens out here!
What is there to prevent our using this mightiest
of all agencies committed to human agents, the
Word, which is quick and powerful, and sharper
than any two-edged sword, whenever we are asked
to sing? By this means, even a young girl may be
privileged to make that Word sound in the ears of
many who would not listen to it otherwise. By
this, the incorruptible seed may be sown in otherwise
unreachable ground.
It is a remarkable fact that it is actually the
easiest way thus to take the very highest ground.
You will find that singing Bible words does not excite
the prejudice or contempt that any other words,
sufficiently decided to be worth singing, are almost
sure to do. For very decency’s sake, a Bible song
will be listened to respectfully; and for very
shame’s sake, no adverse whisper will be ventured
against the words in ordinary English homes. The
singer is placed on a vantage-ground, certain that
at least the words of the song will be outwardly respected,
and the possible ground of unfriendly
criticism thus narrowed to begin with.
But there is much more than this. One feels the
power of His words for oneself as one sings. One
loves them and rejoices in them, and what can be
greater help to any singer than that? And one
knows they are true, and that they cannot really return
void, and what can give greater confidence
[59]
than that? God may bless the singing of any
words, but He must bless the singing of His own
Word, if that promise means what it says!
The only real difficulty in the matter is that
Scripture songs, as a rule, require a little more practice
than others. Then practise them a little more!
You think nothing of the trouble of learning, for
instance, a sonata, which takes you many a good
hour’s practice before you can render it perfectly
and expressively. But you shrink from a song, the
accompaniment of which you cannot read off without
any trouble at all. And you never think of
such a thing as taking one-tenth the pains to learn
that accompaniment that you took to learn that
sonata! Very likely, too, you take the additional
pains to learn the sonata off by heart, so that you
may play it more effectively. But you do not take
pains to learn your accompaniment by heart, so
that you may throw all your power into the expression
of the words, undistracted by reading the notes
and turning over the leaves. It is far more useful
to have half a dozen Scripture songs thoroughly
learnt and made your own, than to have in your
portfolios several dozen easy settings of sacred
poetry which you get through with your eyes fixed
on the notes. And every one thus thoroughly mastered
makes it easier to master others.
You will say that all this refers only to drawing-room
singing. So it does, primarily, but then it is
the drawing-room singing which has been so little
for Jesus and so much for self and society; and so
much less has been said about it, and so much less
done. There would not be half the complaints of
[60]
the difficulty of witnessing for Christ in even professedly
Christian homes and circles, if every converted
singer were also a consecrated one. For
nothing raises or lowers the tone of a whole evening
so much as the character of the music. There
are few things which show more clearly that, as a
rule, a very definite step in advance is needed beyond
being a believer or even a worker for Christ.
Over how many grand or cottage pianos could the
Irish Society’s motto, ‘For Jesus’ sake only,’ be
hung, without being either a frequent reproach, or
altogether inappropriate?
But what is learnt will, naturally, be sung. And
oh! how many Christian parents give their daughters
the advantage of singing lessons without
troubling themselves in the least about what songs
are learnt, provided they are not exceptionally
foolish! Still more pressingly I would say, how
many Christian principals, to whom young lives
are entrusted at the most important time of all for
training, do not give themselves the least concern
about this matter! As I write, I turn aside to refer
to a list of songs learnt last term by a fresh young
voice which would willingly be trained for higher
work. There is just one ‘sacred’ song in the
whole long list, and even that hardly such a one as
the writer of the letter above quoted would care to
sing in her fervent-spirited service of Christ. All
the rest are harmless and pleasing, but only suggestive
of the things of earth, the things of the
world that is passing away; not one that might
lead upward and onward, not one that might touch
a careless heart to seek first the kingdom of God,
[61]
not one that might show forth the glory and praise
of our King, not one that tells out His grace and
love, not one that carries His comfort to His weary
ones or His joy to His loving ones. She is left to
find and learn such songs as best she may; those
which she will sing with all the ease and force
gained by good teaching of them are no help at all,
but rather hindrance in anything like wish or attempt
to ‘sing for Jesus.’
There is not the excuse that the songs of God’s
kingdom, songs which waft His own words to the
souls around, would not have answered the teacher’s
purpose as well. God has taken care of that. He
has not left Himself without witness in this direction.
He has given the most perfect melodies and
the richest harmonies to be linked with His own
words, and no singer can be trained beyond His
wonderful provision in this way. I pray that even
these poor words of mine may reach the consciences
of some of those who have this responsibility, and
lead them to be no longer unfaithful in this important
matter, no longer giving this strangely divided
service—training, as they profess to desire, the
souls for God, and yet allowing the voices to be
trained only for the world.
But we must not run away with the idea that
singing sacred songs and singing for Jesus are
convertible terms. I know by sorrowful personal
experience that it is very possible to sing a sacred
song and not sing it for Jesus. It is easier to have
one’s portfolio all right than one’s heart, and the
repertory is more easily arranged than the motives.
[62]
When we have taken our side, and the difficulties
of indecision are consequently swept away, we have
a new set of more subtle temptations to encounter.
And although the Master will keep, the servant
must watch and pray; and it is through the watching
and the praying that the keeping will be effectual.
We have, however, rather less excuse here
than even elsewhere. For we never have to sing
so very suddenly that we need be taken unawares.
We have to think what to sing, and perhaps find
the music, and the prelude has to be played, and all
this gives quite enough time for us to recollect
whose we are and whom we serve, and to arouse to
the watch. Quite enough, too, for quick, trustful
prayer that our singing may be kept free from that
wretched self-seeking or even self-consciousness,
and kept entirely for Jesus. Our best and happiest
singing will flow when there is a sweet, silent undercurrent
of prayerful or praiseful communion
with our Master all through the song. As for
nervousness, I am quite sure this is the best antidote
to that.
On the other hand, it is quite possible to sing
for Jesus without singing a sacred song. Do not
take an ell for the inch this seems to give, and run
off with the idea that it does not matter after all
what you sing, so that you sing in a good frame of
mind! No such thing! And the admission needs
very careful guarding, and must not be wrested into
an excuse for looking back to the world’s songs.
But cases may and do arise in which it may be right
to gratify a weary father, or win a wayward brother,
by trying to please them with music to which they
[63]
will listen when they would not listen to the songs
you would rather sing. There are cases in which
this may be done most truly for the Lord’s sake,
and clearly under His guidance.
Sometimes cases arise in which we can only say,
‘Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are
upon Thee.’ And when we honestly say that, depend
upon it we shall find the promise true, ‘I
will guide thee with Mine eye.’ For God is faithful,
who will not suffer you to be tempted above
that ye are able, but will, with the temptation, also
make a way (Gr. the way) to escape, that ye may
be able to bear it.
I do not know why it should be so, but it certainly
is a much rarer thing to find a young gentleman
singing for Jesus than a young lady,—a very
rare thing to find one with a cultivated voice consecrating
it to the Master’s use. I have met some
who were not ashamed to speak for Him, to whom
it never seemed even to occur to sing for Him.
They would go and teach a Bible class one day,
and the next they would be practising or performing
just the same songs as those who care nothing
for Christ and His blood-bought salvation. They
had left some things behind, but they had not left
any of their old songs behind. They do not seem
to think that being made new creatures in Christ
Jesus had anything to do with this department of
their lives. Nobody could gather whether they
were on the Lord’s side or not, as they stood and
sang their neutral songs. The banner that was
displayed in the class-room was furled in the drawing-room.
Now, my friends, you who have or may
[64]
have far greater opportunities of displaying that
banner than we womenkind, why should you be
less brave and loyal than your sisters? We are
weak and you are strong naturally, but recollect
that want of decision always involves want of
power, and compromising Christians are always
weak Christians. You will never be mighty to the
pulling down of strongholds while you have one
foot in the enemy’s camp, or on the supposed
neutral ground, if such can exist (which I doubt),
between the camps. You will never be a terror to
the devil till you have enlisted every gift and
faculty on the Lord’s side. Here is a thing in
which you may practically carry out the splendid
motto, ‘All for Jesus.’ You cannot be all for Him
as long as your voice is not for Him. Which shall
it be? All for Him, or partly for Him? Answer
that to Him whom you call Master and Lord.
When once this drawing-room question is settled,
there is not much need to expatiate about other
forms of singing for Jesus. As we have opportunity
we shall be willing to do good with our pleasant
gift in any way or place, and it is wonderful what
nice opportunities He makes for us. Whether to
one little sick child or to a thousand listeners, according
to the powers and openings granted, we
shall take our happy position among those who
minister with singing (1 Chron. vi. 32). And in
so far as we really do this unto the Lord, I am
quite sure He gives the hundred-fold now in this
present time more than all the showy songs or self-gratifying
performances we may have left for His
sake. As we steadily tread this part of the path of
[65]
consecration, we shall find the difficulties left behind,
and the real pleasantness of the way reached,
and it will be a delight to say to oneself, ‘I cannot
sing the old songs;’ and though you have thought
it quite enough to say, ‘With my song will I please
my friends,’ especially if they happen to be pleased
with a mildly sacred song or two, you will strike a
higher and happier, a richer and purer note, and
say with David, ‘With my song will I praise Him.’
David said also, ‘My lips shall greatly rejoice when
I sing unto Thee, and my soul, which Thou hast
redeemed.’ And you will find that this comes true.
Singing for Jesus, our Saviour and King;
Singing for Jesus, the Lord whom we love!
All adoration we joyously bring,
Longing to praise as they praise Him above.
Singing for Jesus, our Master and Friend,
Telling His love and His marvellous grace,—
Love from eternity, love to the end,
Love for the loveless, the sinful, and base.
Singing for Jesus, and trying to win
Many to love Him, and join in the song;
Calling the weary and wandering in,
Rolling the chorus of gladness along.
Singing for Jesus, our Life and our Light;
Singing for Him as we press to the mark;
Singing for Him when the morning is bright;
Singing, still singing, for Him in the dark!
Singing for Jesus, our Shepherd and Guide;
Singing for gladness of heart that He gives;
Singing for wonder and praise that He died;
Singing for blessing and joy that He lives!
[66]
Singing for Jesus, oh, singing with joy;
Thus will we praise Him, and tell out His love,
Till He shall call us to brighter employ,
Singing for Jesus for ever above.
Chapter VI.
Our Lips kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my lips, that they may be
Filled with messages from Thee.’
The days are past for ever when we said,
‘Our lips are our own.’ Now we know that
they are not our own.
And yet how many of my readers often have the
miserable consciousness that they have ‘spoken unadvisedly
with their lips’! How many pray, ‘Keep
the door of my lips,’ when the very last thing they
think of expecting is that they will be kept! They
deliberately make up their minds that hasty words,
or foolish words, or exaggerated words, according
to their respective temptations, must and will slip
out of that door, and that it can’t be helped. The
extent of the real meaning of their prayer was
merely that not quite so many might slip out. As
their faith went no farther, the answer went no
farther, and so the door was not kept.
Do let us look the matter straight in the face.
Either we have committed our lips to our Lord, or
[67]
we have not. This question must be settled first.
If not, oh, do not let another hour pass! Take
them to Jesus, and ask Him to take them.
But when you have committed them to Him, it
comes to this,—is He able or is He not able to keep
that which you have committed to Him? If He is
not able, of course you may as well give up at
once, for your own experience has abundantly
proved that you are not able, so there is no help for
you. But if He is able—nay, thank God there is
no ‘if’ on this side!—say, rather, as He is able,
where was this inevitable necessity of perpetual
failure? You have been fancying yourself virtually
doomed and fated to it, and therefore you have
gone on in it, while all the time His arm was not
shortened that it could not save, but you have been
limiting the Holy One of Israel. Honestly, now,
have you trusted Him to keep your lips this day?
Trust necessarily implies expectation that what we
have entrusted will be kept. If you have not expected
Him to keep, you have not trusted. You
may have tried, and tried very hard, but you have
not trusted, and therefore you have not been kept,
and your lips have been the snare of your soul
(Prov. xviii. 7).
Once I heard a beautiful prayer which I can never
forget; it was this: ‘Lord, take my lips, and speak
through them; take my mind, and think through
it; take my heart, and set it on fire.’ And this is
the way the Master keeps the lips of His servants,
by so filling their hearts with His love that the outflow
cannot be unloving, by so filling their thoughts
that the utterance cannot be un-Christ-like. There
[68]
must be filling before there can be pouring out;
and if there is filling, there must be pouring out,
for He hath said, ‘Out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh.’
But I think we should look for something more
direct and definite than this. We are not all called
to be the King’s ambassadors, but all who have
heard the messages of salvation for themselves are
called to be ‘the Lord’s messengers,’ and day by
day, as He gives us opportunity, we are to deliver
‘the Lord’s message unto the people.’ That message,
as committed to Haggai, was, ‘I am with you,
saith the Lord.’ Is there not work enough for any
lifetime in unfolding and distributing that one message
to His own people? Then, for those who are
still far off, we have that equally full message from
our Lord to give out, which He has condensed for
us into the one word, ‘Come!’
It is a specially sweet part of His dealings with
His messengers that He always gives us the message
for ourselves first. It is what He has first told us
in darkness—that is, in the secrecy of our own
rooms, or at least of our own hearts—that He bids
us speak in light. And so the more we sit at His
feet and watch to see what He has to say to ourselves,
the more we shall have to tell to others. He
does not send us out with sealed despatches, which
we know nothing about, and with which we have no
concern.
There seems a seven-fold sequence in His filling
the lips of His messengers. First, they must be
purified. The live coal from off the altar must be
laid upon them, and He must say, ‘Lo, this hath
[69]
touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away,
and thy sin is purged.’ Then He will create the
fruit of them, and this seems to be the great message
of peace, ‘Peace to him that is far off, and to
him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal
him’ (see Isa. lvii. 19). Then comes the prayer,
‘O Lord, open Thou my lips,’ and its sure fulfilment.
For then come in the promises, ‘Behold, I
have put My words in thy mouth,’ and, ‘They shall
withal be fitted in thy lips.’ Then, of course, ‘the
lips of the righteous feed many,’ for the food is the
Lord’s own giving. Everything leads up to praise,
and so we come next to ‘My mouth shall praise
Thee with joyful lips, when I remember Thee.’
And lest we should fancy that ‘when’ rather implies
that it is not, or cannot be, exactly always, we find
that the meditation of Jesus throws this added light
upon it, ‘By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit
of our lips, giving thanks to’ (margin, confessing)
‘His name.’
Does it seem a coming down from the mount to
glance at one of our King’s commandments, which
is specially needful and applicable to this matter of
our lips being kept for Him? ‘Watch and pray,
that ye enter not into temptation.’ None of His
commands clash with or supersede one another.
Trusting does not supersede watching; it does but
complete and effectuate it. Unwatchful trust is a
delusion, and untrustful watching is in vain. Therefore
let us not either wilfully or carelessly enter into
temptation, whether of place, or person, or topic,
which has any tendency to endanger the keeping of
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our lips for Jesus. Let us pray that grace may be
more and more poured into our lips as it was into
His, so that our speech may be alway with grace.
May they be pure, and sweet, and lovely, even as
‘His lips, like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling
myrrh.’
We can hardly consider the keeping of our lips
without recollecting that upon them, more than all
else (though not exclusively of all else), depends
that greatest of our responsibilities, our influence.
We have no choice in the matter; we cannot evade
or avoid it; and there is no more possibility of our
limiting it, or even tracing its limits, than there is
of setting a bound to the far-vibrating sound-waves,
or watching their flow through the invisible air.
Not one sentence that passes these lips of ours but
must be an invisibly prolonged influence, not dying
away into silence, but living away into the words
and deeds of others. The thought would not be quite
so oppressive if we could know what we have done
and shall be continuing to do by what we have
said. But we never can, as a matter of fact. We
may trace it a little way, and get a glimpse of some
results for good or evil; but we never can see any
more of it than we can see of a shooting star flashing
through the night with a momentary revelation
of one step of its strange path. Even if the next
instant plunges it into apparent annihilation as it
strikes the atmosphere of the earth, we know that
it is not really so, but that its mysterious material
and force must be added to the complicated materials
and forces with which it has come in contact,
[71]
with a modifying power none the less real because
it is beyond our ken. And this is not comparing
a great thing with a small, but a small thing
with a great. For what is material force compared
with moral force? what are gases, and vapours, and
elements, compared with souls and the eternity for
which they are preparing?
We all know that there is influence exerted by a
person’s mere presence, without the utterance of a
single word. We are conscious of this every day.
People seem to carry an atmosphere with them,
which must be breathed by those whom they approach.
Some carry an atmosphere in which all
unkind thoughts shrivel up and cannot grow into
expression. Others carry one in which ‘thoughts
of Christ and things divine’ never seem able to
flourish. Have you not felt how a happy conversation
about the things we love best is checked, or
even strangled, by the entrance of one who is not
in sympathy? Outsiders have not a chance of
ever really knowing what delightful intercourse we
have one with another about these things, because
their very presence chills and changes it. On the
other hand, how another person’s incoming freshens
and develops it and warms us all up, and seems
to give us, without the least conscious effort, a sort
of lift!
If even unconscious and involuntary influence is
such a power, how much greater must it be when
the recognised power of words is added!
It has often struck me as a matter of observation,
that open profession adds force to this influence,
on whichever side it weighs; and also that it
[72]
has the effect of making many a word and act,
which might in other hands have been as nearly
neutral as anything can be, tell with by no means
neutral tendency on the wrong side. The question
of Eliphaz comes with great force when applied to
one who desires or professes to be consecrated altogether,
life and lips: ‘Should he reason with unprofitable
talk, and with speeches wherewith one
can do no good?’ There is our standard! Idle
words, which might have fallen comparatively
harmlessly from one who had never named the
Name of Christ, may be a stumbling-block to inquirers,
a sanction to thoughtless juniors, and a
grief to thoughtful seniors, when they come from
lips which are professing to feed many. Even intelligent
talk on general subjects by such a one may
be a chilling disappointment to some craving heart,
which had indulged the hope of getting help, comfort,
or instruction in the things of God by listening
to the conversation. It may be a lost opportunity
of giving and gaining no one knows how
much!
How well I recollect this disappointment to myself,
again and again, when a mere child! In
those early seeking days I never could understand
why, sometimes, a good man whom I heard preach
or speak as if he loved Christ very much, talked
about all sorts of other things when he came back
from church or missionary meeting. I did so wish he
would have talked about the Saviour, whom I wanted,
but had not found. It would have been so much
more interesting even to the apparently thoughtless
and merry little girl. How could he help it, I
[73]
wondered, if he cared for that Pearl of Great Price
as I was sure I should care for it if I could only find
it! And oh, why didn’t they ever talk to me about
it, instead of about my lessons or their little girls
at home? They did not know how their conversation
was observed and compared with their sermon
or speech, and how a hungry little soul went empty
away from the supper table.
The lips of younger Christians may cause, in their
turn, no less disappointment. One sorrowful lesson
I can never forget; and I will tell the story in hope
that it may save others from causes of similar regret.
During a summer visit just after I had left
school, a class of girls about my own age came to
me a few times for an hour’s singing. It was very
pleasant indeed, and the girls were delighted with
the hymns. They listened to all I had to say about
time and expression, and not with less attention to
the more shyly-ventured remarks about the words.
Sometimes I accompanied them afterwards down
the avenue; and whenever I met any of them I had
smiles and plenty of kindly words for each, which
they seemed to appreciate immensely. A few years
afterwards I sat by the bedside of one of these girls—the
most gifted of them all with both heart and
head. She had been led by a wonderful way, and
through long and deep suffering, into far clearer
light than I enjoyed, and had witnessed for Christ
in more ways than one, and far more brightly than
I had ever done. She told me how sorrowfully and
eagerly she was seeking Jesus at the time of those
singing classes. And I never knew it, because
I never asked, and she was too shy to speak first!
[74]
But she told me more, and every word was a pang
to me,—how she used to linger in the avenue on
those summer evenings, longing that I would speak
to her about the Saviour; how she hoped, week after
week, that I would just stretch out a hand to help
her, just say one little word that might be God’s
message of peace to her, instead of the pleasant,
general remarks about the nice hymns and tunes.
And I never did! And she went on for months, I
think for years, after, without the light and gladness
which it might have been my privilege to bring to
her life. God chose other means, for the souls that
He has given to Christ cannot be lost because of
the unfaithfulness of a human instrument. But she
said, and the words often ring in my ears when I am
tempted to let an opportunity slip, ‘Ah, Miss F., I
ought to have been yours!’
Yes, it is true enough that we should show forth
His praise not only with our lips, but in our lives;
but with very many Christians the other side of the
prayer wants praying—they want rousing up even to
wish to show it forth not only in their lives but with
their lips. I wonder how many, even of those who
read this, really pray, ‘O Lord, open Thou my lips,
and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.’
And when opened, oh, how much one does want
to have them so kept for Jesus that He may be free
to make the most of them, not letting them render
second-rate and indirect service when they might be
doing direct and first-rate service to His cause and
kingdom! It is terrible how much less is done for
Him than might be done, in consequence of the
specious notion that if what we are doing or saying
[75]
is not bad, we are doing good in a certain way, and
therefore may be quite easy about it. We should
think a man rather foolish if he went on doing work
which earned five shillings a week, when he might
just as well do work in the same establishment and
under the same master which would bring him in
five pounds a week. But we should pronounce him
shamefully dishonest and dishonourable if he accepted
such handsome wages as the five pounds, and yet
chose to do work worth only five shillings, excusing
himself by saying that it was work all the same, and
somebody had better do it. Do we not act something
like this when we take the lower standard,
and spend our strength in just making ourselves
agreeable and pleasant, creating a general good impression
in favour of religion, showing that we can
be all things to all men, and that one who is supposed
to be a citizen of the other world can be very
well up in all that concerns this world? This may
be good, but is there nothing better? What does it
profit if we do make this favourable impression on
an outsider, if we go no farther and do not use the
influence gained to bring him right inside the fold,
inside the only ark of safety? People are not converted
by this sort of work; at any rate, I never
met or heard of any one. ‘He thinks it better for
his quiet influence to tell!’ said an affectionately
excusing relative of one who had plenty of special
opportunities of soul-winning, if he had only used
his lips as well as his life for his Master. ‘And how
many souls have been converted to God by his
“quiet influence” all these years?’ was my reply.
And to that there was no answer! For the silent
[76]
shining was all very beautiful in theory, but not one
of the many souls placed specially under his influence
had been known to be brought out of darkness
into marvellous light. If they had, they must
have been known, for such light can’t help being
seen.
When one has even a glimmer of the tremendous
difference between having Christ and being without
Christ; when one gets but one shuddering glimpse
of what eternity is, and of what it must mean, as
well as what it may mean, without Christ; when
one gets but a flash of realization of the tremendous
fact that all these neighbours of ours, rich and poor
alike, will have to spend that eternity either with
Him or without Him,—it is hard, very hard indeed,
to understand how a man or woman can believe
these things at all, and make no effort for anything
beyond the temporal elevation of those around,
sometimes not even beyond their amusements!
‘People must have entertainment,’ they urge. I do
not find that must in the Bible, but I do find, ‘We
must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.’
And if you have any sort of belief in that, how can
you care to use those lips of yours, which might be
a fountain of life to the dying souls before you,
merely to ‘entertain’ them at your penny reading
or other entertainment? As you sow, so you reap.
The amusing paper is read, or the lively ballad recited,
or the popular song sung, and you reap your
harvest of laughter or applause, and of complacence
at your success in ‘entertaining’ the people. And
there it ends, when you might have sown words
from which you and they should reap fruit unto life
[77]
eternal. Is this worthy work for one who has been
bought with such a price that he must say,
‘Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all’?
So far from yielding ‘all’ to that rightful demand
of amazing love, he does not even yield the fruit of
his lips to it, much less the lips themselves. I cannot
refrain from adding, that even this lower aim
of ‘entertaining’ is by no means so appreciated as
is supposed. As a cottager of no more than average
sense and intelligence remarked, ‘It was all so
trifling at the reading; I wish gentlefolks would
believe that poor people like something better than
what’s just to make them laugh.’ After all, nothing
really pays like direct, straightforward, uncompromising
words about God and His works and word.
Nothing else ever made a man say, as a poor Irishman
did when he heard the Good News for the first
time, ‘Thank ye, sir; you’ve taken the hunger off
us to-day!’
Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord;
what about ours? Well, they are all uttered before
the Lord in one sense, whether we will or no; for
there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, Thou, O
Lord, knowest it altogether! How solemn is this
thought, but how sweet does it become when our
words are uttered consciously before the Lord as
we walk in the light of His perpetual presence!
Oh that we may so walk, that we may so speak, with
kept feet and kept lips, trustfully praying, ‘Let the
meditation of my heart and the words of my mouth
[78]
be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my
Strength and my Redeemer!’
Bearing in mind that it is not only the words
which pass their lightly-hinged portal, but our literal
lips which are to be kept for Jesus, it cannot
be out of place, before closing this chapter, to suggest
that they open both ways. What passes in
should surely be considered as well as what passes
out. And very many of us are beginning to see
that the command, ‘Whether ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,’ is
not fully obeyed when we drink, merely because
we like it, what is the very greatest obstacle to that
glory in this realm of England. What matter that
we prefer taking it in a more refined form, if the
thing itself is daily and actively and mightily working
misery, and crime, and death, and destruction
to thousands, till the cry thereof seems as if it
must pierce the very heavens! And so it does—sooner,
a great deal, than it pierces the walls of our
comfortable dining-room! I only say here, you
who have said, ‘Take my lips,’ stop and repeat
that prayer next time you put that to your lips
which is binding men and women hand and foot,
and delivering them over, helpless, to Satan! Let
those words pass once more from your heart out
through your lips, and I do not think you will feel
comfortable in letting the means of such infernal
work pass in through them.
[79]
Chapter VII.
Our Silver and Gold Kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.’
‘The silver and the gold is Mine, saith the
Lord of Hosts.’ Yes, every coin we have
is literally our ‘Lord’s money.’ Simple belief of
this fact is the stepping-stone to full consecration of
what He has given us, whether much or little.
‘Then you mean to say we are never to spend
anything on ourselves?’ Not so. Another fact
must be considered,—the fact that our Lord has
given us our bodies as a special personal charge,
and that we are responsible for keeping these bodies,
according to the means given and the work required,
in working order for Him. This is part of
our ‘own work.’ A master entrusts a workman
with a delicate machine, with which his appointed
work is to be done. He also provides him with a sum
of money with which he is to procure all that may be
necessary for keeping the machine in thorough repair.
Is it not obvious that it is the man’s distinct duty
to see to this faithfully? Would he not be failing in
[80]
duty if he chose to spend it all on something for
somebody else’s work, or on a present for his master,
fancying that would please him better, while
the machine is creaking and wearing for want of a
little oil, or working badly for want of a new band
or screw? Just so, we are to spend what is really
needful on ourselves, because it is our charge to do
so; but not for ourselves, because we are not our
own, but our Master’s. He who knoweth our frame,
knows its needs of rest and medicine, food and
clothing; and the procuring of these for our own
entrusted bodies should be done just as much ‘for
Jesus’ as the greater pleasure of procuring them for
some one else. Therefore there need be no quibbling
over the assertion that consecration is not
real and complete while we are looking upon a
single shilling as our own to do what we like with.
Also the principle is exactly the same, whether we
are spending pence or pounds; it is our Lord’s
money, and must not be spent without reference to
Him.
When we have asked Him to take, and continually
trust Him to keep our money, ‘shopping’ becomes
a different thing. We look up to our Lord for
guidance to lay out His money prudently and
rightly, and as He would have us lay it out. The
gift or garment is selected consciously under His
eye, and with conscious reference to Him as our
own dear Master, for whose sake we shall give it,
or in whose service we shall wear it, and whose own
silver or gold we shall pay for it, and then it is all
right.
But have you found out that it is one of the secrets
[81]
of the Lord, that when any of His dear children
turn aside a little bit after having once entered
the blessed path of true and conscious consecration,
He is sure to send them some little punishment?
He will not let us go back without a sharp,
even if quite secret, reminder. Go and spend ever
such a little without reference to Him after you have
once pledged the silver and gold entirely to Him,
and see if you are not in some way rebuked for it!
Very often by being permitted to find that you have
made a mistake in your purchase, or that in some
way it does not prosper. If you ‘observe these
things,’ you will find that the more closely we are
walking with our Lord, the more immediate and
unmistakeable will be His gracious rebukes when we
swerve in any detail of the full consecration to
which He has called us. And if you have already
experienced and recognised this part of His personal
dealing with us, you will know also how we
love and bless Him for it.
There is always a danger that just because we say
‘all,’ we may practically fall shorter than if we had
only said ‘some,’ but said it very definitely. God
recognises this, and provides against it in many departments.
For instance, though our time is to be
‘all’ for Him, yet He solemnly sets apart the one
day in seven which is to be specially for Him.
Those who think they know better than God, and
profess that every day is a Sabbath, little know
what floodgates of temptation they are opening by
being so very wise above what is written. God
knows best, and that should be quite enough for
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every loyal heart. So, as to money, though we
place it all at our Lord’s disposal, and rejoice to
spend it all for Him directly or indirectly, yet I am
quite certain it is a great help and safeguard, and,
what is more, a matter of simple obedience to the
spirit of His commands, to set aside a definite and
regular proportion of our income or receipts for
His direct service. It is a great mistake to suppose
that the law of giving the tenth to God is merely
Levitical. ‘Search and look’ for yourselves, and
you will find that it is, like the Sabbath, a far older
rule, running all through the Bible,[1]
and endorsed, not abrogated, by Christ Himself. For, speaking
of tithes, He said, ‘These ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone.’ To dedicate the
tenth of whatever we have is mere duty; charity
begins beyond it; free-will offerings and thank-offerings
beyond that again.
First-fruits, also, should be thus specially set
apart. This, too, we find running all through the
Bible. There is a tacit appeal to our gratitude in
the suggestion of them,—the very word implies
bounty received and bounty in prospect. Bringing
‘the first of the first-fruits into the house of the Lord
thy God,’ was like ‘saying grace’ for all
the plenty He was going to bestow on the faithful Israelite.
Something of gladness, too, seems always implied.
‘The day of the first-fruits’ was to be a day of
rejoicing (compare Num. xxviii. 26 with
Deut. xvi. 10, 11).
[83]
There is also an appeal to loyalty: we
are commanded to honour the Lord with the first-fruits
of all our increase. And that is the way
to prosper, for the next word is, ‘So shall thy
barns be filled with plenty.’ The friend who first
called my attention to this command, said that the
setting apart first-fruits—making a proportion for
God’s work a first charge upon the income—always
seemed to bring a blessing on the rest,
and that since this had been systematically done, it
actually seemed to go farther than when not thus
lessened.
Presenting our first-fruits should be a peculiarly
delightful act, as they are themselves the emblem
of our consecrated relationship to God. For of
His own will begat He us by the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His
creatures. How sweet and hallowed and richly
emblematic our little acts of obedience in this matter
become, when we throw this light upon them!
And how blessedly they may remind us of the
heavenly company, singing, as it were, a new song
before the throne; for they are the first-fruits unto
God and to the Lamb.
Perhaps we shall find no better plan of detailed
and systematic setting apart than the New Testament
one: ‘Upon the first day of the week let
every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath
prospered him.’ The very act of literally fulfilling
this apostolic command seems to bring a blessing
with it, as all simple obedience does. I wish, dear
friends, you would try it! You will find it a sweet
reminder on His own day of this part of your consecration.
[84]
You will find it an immense help in
making the most of your little charities. The
regular inflow will guide the outflow, and ensure
your always having something for any sudden call
for your Master’s poor or your Master’s cause. Do
not say you are ‘afraid you could not keep to it.’
What has a consecrated life to do with being
‘afraid’? Some of us could tell of such sweet and
singular lessons of trust in this matter, that they
are written in golden letters of love on our memories.
Of course there will be trials of our faith in
this, as well as in everything else. But every trial
of our faith is but a trial of His faithfulness, and
is ‘much more precious than gold which perisheth.’
‘What about self-denial?’ some reader will say.
Consecration does not supersede this, but transfigures
it. Literally, a consecrated life is and must
be a life of denial of self. But all the effort and
pain of it is changed into very delight. We love
our Master; we know, surely and absolutely, that
He is listening and watching our every word and
way, and that He has called us to the privilege of
walking ‘worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.’
And in so far as this is a reality to us, the identical
things which are still self-denial in one sense, become
actual self-delight in another. It may be
self-denial to us to turn away from something
within reach of our purse which it would be very
convenient or pleasant to possess. But if the
Master lifted the veil, and revealed Himself standing
at our side, and let us hear His audible voice
asking us to reserve the price of it for His treasury,
[85]
should we talk about self-denial then? Should we
not be utterly ashamed to think of it? or rather,
should we, for one instant, think about self or self-denial
at all? Would it not be an unimaginable
joy to do what He asked us to do with that money?
But as long as His own unchangeable promise
stands written in His word for us, ‘Lo, I am with
you alway,’ we may be sure that He is with us, and
that His eye is as certainly on our opened or half-opened
purse as it was on the treasury, when He
sat over against it and saw the two mites cast in.
So let us do our shopping ‘as seeing Him who is
invisible.’
It is important to remember that there is no
much or little in God’s sight, except as relatively
to our means and willingness. ‘For if there be
first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that
a man hath, and not according to that he hath
not.’ He knows what we have not, as well as what
we have. He knows all about the low wages in
one sphere, and the small allowance, or the fixed
income with rising prices in another. And it is not
a question of paying to God what can be screwed
out of these, but of giving Him all, and then holding
all at His disposal, and taking His orders about
the disposal of all.
But I do not see at all how self-indulgence and
needless extravagance can possibly co-exist with
true consecration. If we really never do go without
anything for the Lord’s sake, but, just because
He has graciously given us means, always supply
for ourselves not only every need but ‘every
notion,’ I think it is high time we looked into
[86]
the matter before God. Why should only those
who have limited means have the privilege of offering
to their Lord that which has really cost them
something to offer? Observe, it is not merely
going without something we would naturally like to
have or do, but going without it for Jesus’ sake.
Not, ‘I will go without it, because, after all, I can’t
very well afford it;’ or, ‘because I really ought to
subscribe to so and so;’ or, ‘because I daresay I
shall be glad I have not spent the money:’ but, ‘I
will do without it, because I do want to do a little
more for Him who so loves me—just that much
more than I could do if I did this other thing.’ I
fancy this is more often the heart language of those
who have to cut and contrive, than of those who
are able to give liberally without any cutting and
contriving at all. The very abundance of God’s
good gifts too often hinders from the privilege and
delight of really doing without something superfluous
or comfortable or usual, that they may give
just that much more to their Lord. What a pity!
The following quotation may (I hope it will),
touch some conscience:—‘A gentleman once told
us that his wine bill was £100 a year—more than
enough to keep a Scripture reader always at work
in some populous district. And it is one of the
countless advantages of total abstinence that it at
once sets free a certain amount of money for such
work. Smoking, too, is a habit not only injurious
to the health in a vast majority of cases, and,
to our mind, very unbecoming in a “temple of the
Holy Ghost,” but also one which squanders money
which might be used for the Lord. Expenses in
[87]
dress might in most people be curtailed; expensive
tastes should be denied; and simplicity in all habits
of life should be a mark of the followers of Him
who had not where to lay His head.’
And again: ‘The self-indulgence of wealthy
Christians, who might largely support the Lord’s
work with what they lavish upon their houses, their
tables, or their personal expenditure, is very sad to
see.’[2]
Here the question of jewellery seems to come in.
Perhaps it was an instance of the gradual showing
of the details of consecration, illustrated on page
21, but I will confess that when I wrote ‘Take my
silver and my gold,’ it never dawned on me that
anything was included beyond the coin of the
realm! But the Lord ‘leads on softly,’ and a good
many of us have been shown some capital bits of
unenclosed but easily enclosable ground, which
have yielded ‘pleasant fruit.’ Yes, very pleasant
fruit! It is wonderfully nice to light upon something
that we really never thought of as a possible
gift to our Lord, and just to give it, straight away,
to Him. I do not press the matter, but I do ask my
lady friends to give it fair and candid and prayerful
consideration. Which do you really care most
about—a diamond on your finger, or a star in the
Redeemer’s kingdom, shining for ever and ever?
That is what it comes to, and there I leave it.
On the other hand, it is very possible to be fairly
faithful in much, and yet unfaithful in that which
is least. We may have thought about our gold and
[88]
silver, and yet have been altogether thoughtless
about our rubbish! Some have a habit of hoarding
away old garments, ‘pieces,’ remnants, and odds
and ends generally, under the idea that they ‘will
come in useful some day;’ very likely setting it up
as a kind of mild virtue, backed by that noxious
old saying, ‘Keep it by you seven years, and you’ll
find a use for it.’ And so the shabby things get
shabbier, and moth and dust doth corrupt, and
the drawers and places get choked and crowded;
and meanwhile all this that is sheer rubbish to
you might be made useful at once, to a degree
beyond what you would guess, to some poor
person.
It would be a nice variety for the clever fingers
of a lady’s maid to be set to work to do up old
things; or some tidy woman may be found in almost
every locality who knows how to contrive
children’s things out of what seems to you only fit
for the rag-bag, either for her own little ones or
those of her neighbours.
My sister trimmed 70 or 80 hats every spring for
several years with the contents of friends’ rubbish
drawers, thus relieving dozens of poor mothers who
liked their children to ‘go tidy on Sunday,’ and
also keeping down finery in her Sunday school.
Those who literally fulfilled her request for ‘rubbish’
used to marvel at the results.
Little scraps of carpet, torn old curtains, faded
blinds, and all such gear, go a wonderfully long
way towards making poor cottagers and old or sick
people comfortable. I never saw anything in this
‘rubbish’ line yet that could not be turned to good
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account somehow, with a little considering of the
poor and their discomforts.
I wish my lady reader would just leave this book
now, and go straight up-stairs and have a good
rummage at once, and see what can be thus cleared
out. If she does not know the right recipients at
first hand, let her send it off to the nearest working
clergyman’s wife, and see how gratefully it will be
received! For it is a great trial to workers among
the poor not to be able to supply the needs they
see. Such supplies are far more useful than treble
their small money value.
Just a word of earnest pleading for needs, closely
veiled, but very sore, which might be wonderfully
lightened if this wardrobe over-hauling were systematic
and faithful. There are hundreds of poor
clergymen’s families to whom a few old garments
or any household oddments are as great a charity
as to any of the poor under their charge. There
are two Societies for aiding these with such gifts,
under initials which are explained in the Reports;
the P.P.C. Society—Secretary, Miss Breay, Battenhall
Place, Worcester; and the A.F.D. Society—Secretary,
Miss Hinton, 4 York Place, Clifton. I only
ask my lady friends to send for a report to either of
these devoted secretaries; and if their hearts are not
so touched by the cases of brave and bitter need that
they go forthwith to wardrobes and drawers to see
what can be spared and sent, they are colder and
harder than I give Englishwomen credit for.
There is no bondage in consecration. The two
things are opposites, and cannot co-exist, much less
[90]
mingle. We should suspect our consecration, and
come afresh to our great Counsellor about it, directly
we have any sense of bondage. As long as
we have an unacknowledged feeling of fidget about
our account-book, and a smothered wondering what
and how much we ‘ought’ to give, and a hushed-up
wishing the thing had not been put quite so
strongly before us, depend upon it we have not said
unreservedly, ‘Take my silver and my gold.’ And
how can the Lord keep what He has not been sincerely
asked to take?
Ah! if we had stood at the foot of the Cross, and
watched the tremendous payment of our redemption
with the precious blood of Christ,—if we had
seen that awful price told out, drop by drop, from
His own dear patient brow and torn hands and feet, till it was
ALL paid, and the central word of eternity was uttered,
‘It is finished!’ should we not have been ready
to say, ‘Not a mite will I withhold!’
My Jewels.
‘Shall I hold them back—my jewels?
Time has travelled many a day
Since I laid them by for ever,
Safely locking them away;
And I thought them yielded wholly.
When I dared no longer wear
Gems contrasting, oh, so sadly!
With the adorning I would bear.
‘Shall I keep them still—my jewels?
Shall I, can I yet withhold
From that living, loving Saviour
Aught of silver or of gold?
[91]
Gold so needed, that His gospel
May resound from sea to sea;
Can I know Christ’s service lacketh,
Yet forget His “unto Me”!
‘No; I lay them down—my jewels,
Truly on the altar now.
Stay! I see a vision passing
Of a gem-encircled brow:
Heavenly treasure worn by Jesus,
Souls won through my gift outpoured;
Freely, gladly I will offer
Jewels thus to crown my Lord!’
From Woman’s Work.
[1]See
Gen. xiv. 20, xxviii. 22;
Lev. xxvii. 30, 32;
Num. xviii. 21;
Deut. xiv. 22; 2 Chron. xxxi. 5, 6, 12;
Neh. x. 37, xii. 44, xiii. 12;
Mal. iii. 8, 10; Matt. xxiii. 23;
Luke xi. 42;
1 Cor xvi. 2; Heb. vii. 8.
[2]Christian Progress, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26.
Chapter VIII.
Our Intellects kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.’
There are two distinct sets of temptations
which assail those who have, or think they
have, rather less, and those who have, or think they
have, rather more than an average share of intellect;
while those who have neither less nor more
are generally open in some degree to both. The
refuge and very present help from both is the same.
The intellect, whether great or small, which is committed
to the Lord’s keeping, will be kept and will
be used by Him.
[92]
The former class are tempted to think themselves
excused from effort to cultivate and use their small
intellectual gifts; to suppose they cannot or need
not seek to win souls, because they are not so clever
and apt in speech as So-and-so; to attribute to want
of gift what is really want of grace; to hide the one
talent because it is not five. Let me throw out a
thought or two for these.
Which is greatest, gifts or grace? Gifts are
given ‘to every man according to his several
ability.’ That is, we have just as much given as
God knows we are able to use, and what He knows
we can best use for Him. ‘But unto every one of us
is given grace according to the measure of the gift
of Christ.’ Claiming and using that royal measure
of grace, you may, and can, and will do more for
God than the mightiest intellect in the world without
it. For which, in the clear light of His Word,
is likely to be most effectual, the natural ability
which at its best and fullest, without Christ, ‘can
do nothing’ (observe and believe that word!), or
the grace of our Almighty God and the power of
the Holy Ghost, which is as free to you as it ever
was to any one?
If you are responsible for making use of your
limited gift, are you not equally responsible for
making use of the grace and power which are to be
had for the asking, which are already yours in
Christ, and which are not limited?
Also, do you not see that when there are great
natural gifts, people give the credit to them, instead
of to the grace which alone did the real work, and
thus God is defrauded of the glory? So that, to
[93]
say it reverently, God can get more glory out of a
feeble instrument, because then it is more obvious
that the excellency of the power is of God and not
of us. Will you not henceforth say, ‘Most gladly,
therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that
the power of Christ may rest upon me’?
Don’t you really believe that the Holy Spirit is
just as able to draw a soul to Jesus, if He will, by
your whisper of the one word, ‘Come,’ as by an
eloquent sermon an hour long? I do! At the
same time, as it is evidently God’s way to work
through these intellects of ours, we have no more
right to expect Him to use a mind which we are
wilfully neglecting, and taking no pains whatever to
fit for His use, than I should have to expect you to
write a beautiful inscription with my pen, if I would
not take the trouble to wipe it and mend it.
The latter class are tempted to rely on their
natural gifts, and to act and speak in their own
strength; to go on too fast, without really looking
up at every step, and for every word; to spend
their Lord’s time in polishing up their intellects,
nominally for the sake of influence and power, and
so forth, while really, down at the bottom, it is for the
sake of the keen enjoyment of the process; and
perhaps, most of all, to spend the strength of these
intellects ‘for that which doth not profit,’ in yielding
to the specious snare of reading clever books
‘on both sides,’ and eating deliberately of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
The mere mention of these temptations should
be sufficient appeal to conscience. If consecration
is to be a reality anywhere, should it not be in the
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very thing which you own as an extra gift from
God, and which is evidently closest, so to speak, to
His direct action, spirit upon spirit? And if the
very strength of your intellect has been your weakness,
will you not entreat Him to keep it henceforth
really and entirely for Himself? It is so good
of Him to have given you something to lay at His
feet; shall not this goodness lead you to lay it all
there, and never hanker after taking it back for
yourself or the world? Do you not feel that in
very proportion to the gift you need the special
keeping of it? He may lead you by a way you
know not in the matter; very likely He will show
you that you must be willing to be a fool for His
sake first, before He will condescend to use you
much for His glory. Will you look up into His
face and say, ‘Not willing’?
He who made every power can use every power—memory,
judgment, imagination, quickness of apprehension
or insight; specialties of musical, poetical,
oratorical, or artistic faculty; special tastes for
reasoning, philosophy, history, natural science, or
natural history,—all these may be dedicated to Him,
sanctified by Him, and used by Him. Whatever
He has given, He will use, if we will let Him.
Often, in the most unexpected ways, and at the
most unexpected turns, something read or acquired
long ago suddenly comes into use. We cannot foresee
what will thus ‘come in useful’; but He knew,
when He guided us to learn it, what it would be
wanted for in His service. So may we not ask Him
to bring His perfect foreknowledge to bear on all
[95]
our mental training and storing? to guide us to
read or study exactly what He knows there will be use
for in the work to which He has called or will call us?
Nothing is more practically perplexing to a young
Christian, whose preparation time is not quite over,
or perhaps painfully limited, than to know what is
most worth studying, what is really the best investment
of the golden hours, while yet the time is not
come for the field of active work to be fully entered,
and the ‘thoroughly furnishing’ of the mind is the
evident path of present duty. Is not His name
called ‘Counsellor’? and will He not be faithful to
the promise of His name in this, as well as in all
else?
The same applies to every subsequent stage. Only
let us be perfectly clear about the principle that
our intellect is not our own, either to cultivate, or
to use, or to enjoy, and that Jesus Christ is our real
and ever-present Counsellor, and then there will be
no more worry about what to read and how much
to read, and whether to keep up one’s accomplishments,
or one’s languages, or one’s ‘ologies’! If
the Master has need of them, He will show us; and
if He has not, what need have we of them? If we
go forward without His leading, we may throw away
some talent, or let it get too rusty for use, which
would have been most valuable when other circumstances
arose or different work was given. We must
not think that ‘keeping’ means not using at all!
What we want is to have all our powers kept for
His use.
In this they will probably find far higher development
than in any other sort of use. I know cases
[96]
in which the effect of real consecration on mere
mental development has been obvious and surprising
to all around. Yet it is only a confirmation of what
I believe to be a great principle, viz. that the Lord
makes the most of whatever is unreservedly surrendered
to Him. There will always be plenty of
waste in what we try to cut out for ourselves. But
He wastes no material!
Chapter IX.
Our Wills kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my will, oh, keep it Thine,
For it is no longer mine.’
Perhaps there is no point in which expectation
has been so limited by experience as this.
We believe God is able to do for us just so much as
He has already done, and no more. We take it for
granted a line must be drawn somewhere; and so
we choose to draw it where experience ends, and
faith would have to begin. Even if we have trusted
and proved Him as to keeping our members and
our minds, faith fails when we would go deeper and
say, ‘Keep my will!’ And yet the only reason we
have to give is, that though we have asked Him to
take our will, we do not exactly find that it is altogether
His, but that self-will crops up again and
[97]
again. And whatever flaw there might be in this
argument, we think the matter is quite settled by
the fact that some whom we rightly esteem, and
who are far better than ourselves, have the same
experience, and do not even seem to think it right
to hope for anything better. That is conclusive!
And the result of this, as of every other faithless
conclusion, is either discouragement and depression,
or, still worse, acquiescence in an unyielded
will, as something that can’t be helped.
Now let us turn from our thoughts to God’s
thoughts. Verily, they are not as ours! He says
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think. Apply this here. We ask
Him to take our wills and make them His. Does
He or does He not mean what He says? and if He
does, should we not trust Him to do this thing that
we have asked and longed for, and not less but
more? ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?’
‘Hath He said, and shall He not do it?’ and if He
gives us faith to believe that we have the petition
that we desired of Him, and with it the unspeakable
rest of leaning our will wholly upon His love,
what ground have we for imagining that this is
necessarily to be a mere fleeting shadow, which is
hardly to last an hour, but is necessarily to be exhausted
ere the next breath of trial or temptation
comes? Does He mock our longing by acting as I
have seen an older person act to a child, by accepting
some trifling gift of no intrinsic value, just to
please the little one, and then throwing it away as
soon as the child’s attention is diverted? Is not
the taking rather the pledge of the keeping, if we
[98]
will but entrust Him fearlessly with it? We give
Him no opportunity, so to speak, of proving His
faithfulness to this great promise, because we will
not fulfil the condition of reception, believing it.
But we readily enough believe instead all that we
hear of the unsatisfactory experience of others! Or,
start from another word. Job said, ‘I know that
Thou canst do everything,’ and we turn round and
say, ‘Oh yes, everything except keeping my will!’
Dare we add, ‘And I know that Thou canst not do
that’? Yet that is what is said every day, only in
other words; and if not said aloud, it is said in
faithless hearts, and God hears it. What does
‘Almighty’ mean, if it does not mean, as we teach
our little children, ‘able to do everything’?
We have asked this great thing many a time,
without, perhaps, realizing how great a petition we
were singing, in the old morning hymn, ‘Guard
my first springs of thought and will!’ That goes
to the root of the matter, only it implies that the
will has been already surrendered to Him, that it
may be wholly kept and guarded.
It may be that we have not sufficiently realized
the sin of the only alternative. Our wills belong
either to self or to God. It may seem a small and
rather excusable sin in man’s sight to be self-willed,
but see in what a category of iniquity God puts it!
(2 Pet. ii. 10). And certainly we are without excuse
when we have such a promise to go upon as,
‘It is God that worketh in you both to will and to
do of His pleasure.’ How splendidly this meets our
very deepest helplessness,—‘worketh in you to
will!’ Oh, let us pray for ourselves and for each
[99]
other, that we may know ‘what is the exceeding
greatness of His power to usward who believe.’ It
does not say, ‘to usward who fear and doubt;’ for
if we will not believe, neither shall we be established.
If we will not believe what God says He
can do, we shall see it with our eyes, but we shall
not eat thereof. ‘They could not enter in because
of unbelief.’
It is most comforting to remember that the grand
promise, ‘Thy people shall be willing in the day of
Thy power,’ is made by the Father to Christ Himself.
The Lord Jesus holds this promise, and God
will fulfil it to Him. He will make us willing because
He has promised Jesus that He will do so.
And what is being made willing, but having our
will taken and kept?
All true surrender of the will is based upon love
and knowledge of, and confidence in, the one to
whom it is surrendered. We have the human
analogy so often before our eyes, that it is the more
strange we should be so slow to own even the possibility
of it as to God. Is it thought anything so
very extraordinary and high-flown, when a bride
deliberately prefers wearing a colour which was not
her own taste or choice, because her husband likes
to see her in it? Is it very unnatural that it is no
distress to her to do what he asks her to do, or to go
with him where he asks her to come, even without
question or explanation, instead of doing what or
going where she would undoubtedly have preferred
if she did not know and love him? Is it very surprising
if this lasts beyond the wedding day, and if
year after year she still finds it her greatest pleasure
[100]
to please him, quite irrespective of what used to be
her own ways and likings? Yet in this case she is
not helped by any promise or power on his part to
make her wish what he wishes. But He who so
wonderfully condescends to call Himself the Bridegroom
of His church, and who claims our fullest
love and trust, has promised and has power to work
in us to will. Shall we not claim His promise and
rely on His mighty power, and say, not self-confidently,
but looking only unto Jesus—
‘Keep my will, for it is Thine;
It shall be no longer mine!’
Only in proportion as our own will is surrendered,
are we able to discern the splendour of
God’s will.
For oh! it is a splendour,
A glow of majesty,
A mystery of beauty
If we will only see;
A very cloud of glory
Enfolding you and me.
A splendour that is lighted
At one transcendent flame,
The wondrous Love, the perfect Love,
Our Father’s sweetest name;
For His Name and very Essence
And His Will are all the same!
Conversely, in proportion as we see this splendour
of His will, we shall more readily or more
fully surrender our own. Not until we have presented
our bodies a living sacrifice can we prove
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what is that good, and perfect, and acceptable will
of God. But in thus proving it, this continual presentation
will be more and more seen to be our
reasonable service, and becomes more and more a
joyful sacrifice of praise.
The connection in Romans xii. 1, 2,
between our sacrifice which He so graciously calls acceptable
to Himself, and our finding out that His will is acceptable
to ourselves, is very striking. One reason
for this connection may be that only love can
really understand love, and love on both sides is at
the bottom of the whole transaction and its results.
First, He loves us. Then the discovery of this
leads us to love Him. Then, because He loves us,
He claims us, and desires to have us wholly yielded
to His will, so that the operations of love in and
for us may find no hindrance. Then, because we
love Him we recognise His claim and yield ourselves.
Then, being thus yielded, He draws us
nearer to Him,[3]
and admits us, so to speak, into
closer intimacy, so that we gain nearer and truer
views of His perfections. Then the unity of these
perfections becomes clearer to us. Now we not
only see His justice and mercy flowing in an undivided
stream from the cross of Christ, but we see
that they never were divided, though the strange
distortions of the dark, false glass of sin made them
appear so, but that both are but emanations of
God’s holy love. Then having known and believed
this holy love, we see further that His will
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is not a separate thing, but only love (and therefore
all His attributes) in action; love being the primary
essence of His being, and all the other attributes
manifestations and combinations of that
ineffable essence, for God is Love. Then this will
of God which has seemed in old far-off days a stern
and fateful power, is seen to be only love energized;
love saying, ‘I will.’ And when once we really
grasp this (hardly so much by faith as by love
itself), the will of God cannot be otherwise than
acceptable, for it is no longer a question of trusting
that somehow or other there is a hidden element of
love in it, but of understanding that it is love; no
more to be dissociated from it than the power of the
sun’s rays can be dissociated from their light and
warmth. And love recognised must surely be love
accepted and reciprocated. So, as the fancied
sternness of God’s will is lost in His love, the stubbornness
of our will becomes melted in that love,
and lost in our acceptance of it.
‘Take Thine own way with me, dear Lord,
Thou canst not otherwise than bless;
I launch me forth upon a sea
Of boundless love and tenderness.
‘I could not choose a larger bliss
Than to be wholly Thine; and mine
A will whose highest joy is this,
To ceaselessly unclasp in Thine.
‘I will not fear Thee, O my God!
The days to come can only bring
Their perfect sequences of love,
Thy larger, deeper comforting.
[103]
‘Within the shadow of this love,
Loss doth transmute itself to gain;
Faith veils earth’s sorrows in its light,
And straightway lives above her pain.
‘We are not losers thus; we share
The perfect gladness of the Son,
Not conquered—for, behold, we reign;
Conquered and Conqueror are one.
‘Thy wonderful grand will, my God!
Triumphantly I make it mine;
And faith shall breathe her glad “Amen”
To every dear command of Thine.
‘Beneath the splendour of Thy choice,
Thy perfect choice for me, I rest;
Outside it now I dare not live,
Within it I must needs be blest.
‘Meanwhile my spirit anchors calm
In grander regions still than this;
The fair, far-shining latitudes
Of that yet unexplorèd bliss.
‘Then may Thy perfect, glorious will
Be evermore fulfilled in me,
And make my life an answ’ring chord
Of glad, responsive harmony.
‘Oh! it is life indeed to live
Within this kingdom strangely sweet,
And yet we fear to enter in,
And linger with unwilling feet.
‘We fear this wondrous rule of Thine,
Because we have not reached Thy heart;
Not venturing our all on Thee,
We may not know how good Thou art.’
Jean Sophia Pigott.
[3]‘Now ye
have consecrated yourselves unto the Lord, come
near’ (2 Chron. xxix. 31).
[104]
Chapter X.
Our hearts kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my heart; it is Thine own;
It is now Thy royal throne.’
‘It is a good thing that the heart be established
with grace,’ and yet some of us go on as if
it were not a good thing even to hope for it to
be so.
We should be ashamed to say that we had behaved
treacherously to a friend; that we had played
him false again and again; that we had said scores
of times what we did not really mean; that we had
professed and promised what, all the while, we had
no sort of purpose of performing. We should be
ready to go off by next ship to New Zealand rather
than calmly own to all this, or rather than ever
face our friends again after we had owned it. And
yet we are not ashamed (some of us) to say that we
are always dealing treacherously with our Lord;
nay, more, we own it with an inexplicable complacency,
as if there were a kind of virtue in saying
how fickle and faithless and desperately wicked
our hearts are; and we actually plume ourselves on
the easy confession, which we think proves our
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humility, and which does not lower us in the eyes
of others, nor in our own eyes, half so much as if
we had to say, ‘I have told a story,’ or, ‘I have
broken my promise.’ Nay, more, we have not the
slightest hope, and therefore not the smallest intention
of aiming at an utterly different state of
things. Well for us if we do not go a step farther,
and call those by hard and false names who do
seek to have an established heart, and who believe
that as the Lord meant what He said when He
promised, ‘No good thing will He withhold from
them that walk uprightly,’ so He will not withhold
this good thing.
Prayer must be based upon promise, but, thank
God, His promises are always broader than our
prayers. No fear of building inverted pyramids
here, for Jesus Christ is the foundation, and this
and all the other ‘promises of God in Him are
yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us.’
So it shall be unto His glory to fulfil this one to us,
and to answer our prayer for a ‘kept’ or
‘established’ heart. And its fulfilment
shall work out His glory, not in spite of us, but
‘by us.’
We find both the means and the result of the
keeping in the 112th Psalm:
‘His heart is fixed.’
Whose heart? An angel? A saint in glory?
No! Simply the heart of the man that feareth the
Lord, and delighteth greatly in His commandments.
Therefore yours and mine, as God would
have them be; just the normal idea of a God-fearing
heart, nothing extremely and hopelessly beyond
attainment.
[106]
‘Fixed.’ How does that tally with the deceitfulness
and waywardness and fickleness about which
we really talk as if we were rather proud of them
than utterly ashamed of them?
Does our heavenly Bridegroom expect nothing
more of us? Does His mighty, all-constraining
love intend to do no more for us than to leave us
in this deplorable state, when He is undoubtedly
able to heal the desperately wicked heart (compare
verses 9 and 14 of Jeremiah xvii.),
to rule the wayward one with His peace, and to establish the fickle
one with His grace? Are we not ‘without excuse’?
‘Fixed, trusting in the Lord.’ Here is the
means of the fixing—trust. He works the trust in
us by sending the Holy Spirit to reveal God in
Christ to us as absolutely, infinitely worthy of our
trust. When we ‘see Jesus’ by Spirit-wrought
faith, we cannot but trust Him; we distrust our
hearts more truly than ever before, but we trust our
Lord entirely, because we trust Him only. For,
entrusting our trust to Him, we know that He is
able to keep that which we commit (i. e. entrust)
to Him. It is His own way of winning and fixing
our hearts for Himself. Is it not a beautiful one?
Thus ‘his heart is established.’ But we have not
quite faith enough to believe that. So what is the
very first doubting, and therefore sad thought that
crops up? ‘Yes, but I am afraid it will not remain
fixed.’
That is your thought. Now see what is God’s
thought about the case. ‘His heart is established,
he shall not be afraid.’
[107]
Is not that enough? What is, if such plain and
yet divine words are not? Well, the Gracious
One bears with us, and gives line upon line to His
poor little children. And so He says, ‘The peace
of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus.’ And
again, ‘Thy thoughts shall be established.’ And
again, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose
mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in
Thee.’
And to prove to us that these promises can be
realized in present experience, He sends down to
us through nearly 3000 years the words of the man
who prayed, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God,’
and lets us hear twice over the new song put by the
same Holy Spirit into his mouth: ‘My heart is
fixed, O God, my heart is fixed’
(Ps. lvii. 7, cviii. 1).
The heart that is established in Christ is also established
for Christ. It becomes His royal throne,
no longer occupied by His foe, no longer tottering
and unstable. And then we see the beauty and
preciousness of the promise, ‘He shall be a Priest
upon His throne.’ Not only reigning, but atoning.
Not only ruling, but cleansing. Thus the throne is established
‘in mercy,’ but ‘by righteousness.’
I think we lose ground sometimes by parleying
with the tempter. We have no business to parley
with an usurper. The throne is no longer his
when we have surrendered it to our Lord Jesus.
And why should we allow him to argue with us for
one instant, as if it were still an open question?
[108]
Don’t listen; simply tell him that Jesus Christ is
on the long-disputed throne, and no more about it,
but turn at once to your King and claim the glorious
protection of His sovereignty over you. It is
a splendid reality, and you will find it so. He will
not abdicate and leave you kingless and defenceless.
For verily, ‘The Lord is our King; He will
save us’ (Isa. xxxiii. 22).
Our hearts are naturally— | God can make them— |
Evil, | Heb. iii. 12. | Clean, | Ps. li. 10. |
Desperately wicked, | Jer. xvii. 9. | Good, | Luke viii. 15. |
Weak, | Ezek. xvi. 30. | Fixed, | Ps. cxii. 7. |
Deceitful, | Jer. xvii. 9. | Faithful, | Neh. ix. 8. |
Deceived, | Isa. xliv. 20. | Understanding, | 1 Kings iii. 9. |
Double, | Ps. xii. 2. | Honest, | Luke viii. 15. |
Impenitent, | Rom. ii. 5. | Contrite, | Ps. li. 17. |
Rebellious, | Jer. v. 23. | True, | Heb. x. 22. |
Hard, | Ezek. iii. 7. | Soft, | Job xxiii. 16. |
Stony, | Ezek. xi. 19. | New, | Ezek. xviii. 31. |
Froward, | Prov. xvii. 20. | Sound, | Ps. cxix. 80. |
Despiteful, | Ezek. xxv. 15. | Glad, | Ps. xvi. 9. |
Stout, | Isa. x. 12. | Established, | Ps. cxii. 8. |
Haughty, | Prov. xviii. 12. | Tender, | Ephes. iv. 32. |
Proud, | Prov. xxi. 4. | Pure, | Matt. v. 8. |
Perverse, | Prov. xii. 8. | Perfect, | 1 Chron. xxix. 9. |
Foolish, | Rom. i. 21. | Wise, | Prov. xi. 29. |
[109]
Chapter XI.
Our love kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.’
Not as a mere echo from the morning-gilded
shore of Tiberias, but as an ever new, ever
sounding note of divinest power, come the familiar
words to each of us, ‘Lovest thou Me?’ He
says it who has loved us with an everlasting love.
He says it who has died for us. He says it who
has washed us from our sins in His own blood. He
says it who has waited for our love, waited patiently
all through our coldness.
And if by His grace we have said, ‘Take my
love,’ which of us has not felt that part of His very
answer has been to make us see how little there was
to take, and how little of that little has been kept
for Him? And yet we do love Him! He knows
that! The very mourning and longing to love
Him more proves it. But we want more than that,
and so does our Lord.
He has created us to love. We have a sealed
treasure of love, which either remains sealed, and
then gradually dries up and wastes away, or is unsealed
[110]
and poured out, and yet is the fuller and not
the emptier for the outpouring. The more love we
give, the more we have to give. So far it is only
natural. But when the Holy Spirit reveals the love
of Christ, and sheds abroad the love of God in our
hearts, this natural love is penetrated with a new
principle as it discovers a new Object. Everything
that it beholds in that Object gives it new depth
and new colours. As it sees the holiness, the
beauty, and the glory, it takes the deep hues of
conscious sinfulness, unworthiness, and nothingness.
As it sees even a glimpse of the love that
passeth knowledge, it takes the glow of wonder and
gratitude. And when it sees that love drawing
close to its deepest need with blood-purchased pardon,
it is intensified and stirred, and there is no
more time for weighing and measuring; we must
pour it out, all there is of it, with our tears, at the
feet that were pierced for love of us.
And what then? Has the flow grown gradually
slower and shallower? Has our Lord reason to
say, ‘My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,
and as a stream of brooks they pass away’? It is
humiliating to have found that we could not keep
on loving Him, as we loved in that remembered
hour when ‘Thy time was the time of love.’ We
have proved that we were not able. Let this be
only the stepping-stone to proving that He is able!
There will have been a cause, as we shall see if
we seek it honestly. It was not that we really
poured out all our treasure, and so it naturally
came to an end. We let it be secretly diverted into
other channels. We began keeping back a little
[111]
part of the price for something else. We looked
away from, instead of looking away unto Jesus.
We did not entrust Him with our love, and ask
Him to keep it for Himself.
And what has He to say to us? Ah, He upbraideth
not. Listen! ‘Thus saith the Lord, I
remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love
of thine espousals.’ Can any words be more tender,
more touching, to you, to me? Forgetting
all the sin, all the backsliding, all the coldness,
casting all that into the unreturning depths of the
sea, He says He remembers that hour when we first
said, ‘Take my love.’ He remembers it now, at
this minute. He has written it for ever on His infinite
memory, where the past is as the present.
His own love is unchangeable, so it could never
be His wish or will that we should thus drift away
from Him. Oh, ‘Come and let us return unto the
Lord!’ But is there any hope that, thus returning,
our flickering love may be kept from again failing?
Hear what He says: ‘And I will betroth thee unto
Me for ever’ And again: ‘Thou shalt abide for
Me many days; so will I also be for thee.’ Shall
we trust His word or not? Is it worthy of our acceptation
or not? Oh, rest on this word of the
King, and let Him from this day have the keeping
of your love, and He will keep it!
The love of Christ is not an absorbing, but a radiating
love. The more we love Him, the more
we shall most certainly love others. Some have not
much natural power of loving, but the love of Christ
will strengthen it. Some have had the springs of
[112]
love dried up by some terrible earthquake. They
will find ‘fresh springs’ in Jesus, and the gentle
flow will be purer and deeper than the old torrent
could ever be. Some have been satisfied that it
should rush in a narrow channel, but He will cause
it to overflow into many another, and widen its
course of blessing. Some have spent it all on their
God-given dear ones. Now He is come whose
right it is; and yet in the fullest resumption of
that right, He is so gracious that He puts back an
even larger measure of the old love into our hand,
sanctified with His own love, and energized with
His blessing, and strengthened with His new commandment,
‘That ye love one another, as I have
loved you.’
In that always very interesting part, called a
‘Corner for Difficulties,’ of that always very
interesting magazine, Woman’s Work, the question
has been discussed, ‘When does love become idolatry?
Is it the experience of Christians that the coming
in of a new object of affection interferes with entire
consecration to God?’ I should like to quote the
many excellent answers in full, but must only refer
my readers to the number for March 1879. One
replies: ‘It seems to me that He who is love
would not give us an object for our love unless He
saw that our hearts needed expansion; and if the
love is consecrated, and the friendship takes its
stand in Christ, there is no need for the fear that it
will become idolatry. Let the love on both sides
be given to God to keep, and however much it may
grow, the source from which it springs must yet be
greater.’ Perhaps I may be pardoned for giving,
[113]
at the same writer’s suggestion, a quotation from
Under the Surface on this subject. Eleanor says to
Beatrice:—
‘I tremble when I think
How much I love him; but I turn away
From thinking of it, just to love him more;—
Indeed, I fear, too much.’
‘Dear Eleanor,
Do you love him as much as Christ loves us?
Let your lips answer me.’
‘Why ask me, dear?
Our hearts are finite, Christ is infinite.’
‘Then, till you reach the standard of that love,
Let neither fears nor well-meant warning voice
Distress you with “too much.” For He hath said
How much—and who shall dare to change His measure?
“That ye should love as I have loved you.”
O sweet command, that goes so far beyond
The mightiest impulse of the tenderest heart!
A bare permission had been much; but He
Who knows our yearnings and our fearfulness,
Chose graciously to bid us do the thing
That makes our earthly happiness,
A limit that we need not fear to pass,
Because we cannot. Oh, the breadth and length,
And depth and height of love that passeth knowledge!
Yet Jesus said, “As I have loved you.”’
‘O Beatrice, I long to feel the sunshine
That this should bring; but there are other words
Which fall in chill eclipse. ‘Tis written, “Keep
Yourselves from idols.” How shall I obey?’
‘Oh, not by loving less, but loving more.
It is not that we love our precious ones
Too much, but God too little. As the lamp
A miner bears upon his shadowed brow
Is only dazzling in the grimy dark,
And has no glare against the summer sky,
[114]
So, set the tiny torch of our best love
In the great sunshine of the love of God,
And, though full fed and fanned, it casts no shade
And dazzles not, o’erflowed with mightier light.’
There is no love so deep and wide as that which
is kept for Jesus. It flows both fuller and farther
when it flows only through Him. Then, too, it
will be a power for Him. It will always be unconsciously
working for Him. In drawing others to
ourselves by it, we shall be necessarily drawing them
nearer to the fountain of our love, never drawing
them away from it. It is the great magnet of His love
which alone can draw any heart to Him; but when
our own are thoroughly yielded to its mighty influence,
they will be so magnetized that He will
condescend to use them in this way.
Is it not wonderful to think that the Lord Jesus
will not only accept and keep, but actually use
our love?
‘Of Thine own have we given Thee,’ for ‘we love
Him because He first loved us.’
Set apart to love Him,
And His love to know;
Not to waste affection
On a passing show;
Called to give Him life and heart,
Called to pour the hidden treasure,
That none other claims to measure,
Into His belovèd hand! thrice blessèd ‘set apart’!
[115]
Chapter XII.
Our Selves kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my self, that I may be
Ever, only, all for Thee.’
‘For Thee!’ That is the beginning and the
end of the whole matter of consecration.
There was a prelude to its ‘endless song,’—a
prelude whose theme is woven into every following
harmony in the new anthem of consecrated life:
‘The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for
me.’ Out of the realized ‘for me,’ grows the
practical ‘for Thee!’ If the former is a living root,
the latter will be its living fruit.
‘For Thee!’ This makes the difference between
forced or formal, and therefore unreasonable service,
and the ‘reasonable service’ which is the beginning
of the perfect service where they see His
face. This makes the difference between slave work
and free work. For Thee, my Redeemer; for Thee
who hast spoken to my heart; for Thee, who hast
done for me—what? Let us each pause, and fill
up that blank with the great things the Lord hath
done for us. For Thee, who art to me—what?
[116]
Fill that up too, before Him! For Thee, my
Saviour Jesus, my Lord and my God!
And what is to be for Him? My self. We talk
sometimes as if, whatever else could be subdued
unto Him, self could never be. Did St. Paul forget
to mention this important exception to the ‘all
things’ in Phil. iii. 21? David said:
‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me,
bless His Holy Name.’ Did he, too, unaccountably forget
to mention that he only meant all that was
within him, except self? If not, then self must be
among the ‘all things’ which the Lord Jesus Christ
is able to subdue unto Himself, and which are to
‘bless His Holy Name.’ It is Self which, once His
most treacherous foe, is now, by full and glad surrender,
His own soldier—coming over from the
rebel camp into the royal army. It is not some
one else, some temporarily possessing spirit, which
says within us, ‘Lord, Thou knowest that I love
Thee,’ but our true and very self, only changed
and renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost.
And when we do that we would not, we know that
‘it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me.’ Our true self is the new self, taken and
won by the love of God, and kept by the power
of God.
Yes, ‘kept!’ There is the promise on which we
ground our prayer; or, rather, one of the promises.
For, search and look for your own strengthening
and comfort, and you will find it repeated in every
part of the Bible, from ‘I am with thee, and will
keep thee,’ in Genesis, to ‘I also will keep thee
from the hour of temptation,’ in Revelation.
[117]
And kept for Him! Why should it be thought a
thing incredible with you, when it is only the fulfilling
of His own eternal purpose in creating us?
‘This people have I formed for Myself.’ Not ultimately
only, but presently and continually; for He
says, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me;’ and, ‘He that
remaineth, even he shall be for our God.’ Are you
one of His people by faith in Jesus Christ? Then
see what you are to Him. You, personally and individually,
are part of the Lord’s portion (Deut. xxxii. 9)
and of His inheritance (1 Kings viii. 53,
and Eph. i. 18). His portion and inheritance
would not be complete without you; you are His
peculiar treasure (Ex. xix. 5); ‘a special people’
(how warm, and loving, and natural that expression
is!) ‘unto Himself’ (Deut. vii. 6). Would you
call it ‘keeping,’ if you had a ‘special’ treasure, a
darling little child, for instance, and let it run wild
into all sorts of dangers all day long, sometimes at
your side, and sometimes out in the street, with
only the intention of fetching it safe home at night?
If ye then, being evil, would know better, and do
better, than that, how much more shall our Lord’s
keeping be true, and tender, and continual, and
effectual, when He declares us to be His peculiar
treasure, purchased (See 1 Pet. ii. 9, margin) for
Himself at such unknown cost!
He will keep what thus He sought,
Safely guard the dearly bought;
Cherish that which He did choose,
Always love and never lose.
I know what some of us are thinking. ‘Yes; I
[118]
see it all plainly enough in theory, but in practice I
find I am not kept. Self goes over to the other
camp again and again. If is not all for Jesus, though I have
asked and wished for it to be so.’ Dear friends, the
‘all’ must be sealed with ‘only.’
Are you willing to be ‘only’ for Jesus? You have
not given ‘all’ to Jesus while you are not quite
ready to be ‘only’ for Him. And it is no use to
talk about ‘ever’ while we have not settled the
‘only’ and the ‘all.’ You cannot be ‘for
Him,’ in the full and blessed sense, while you are partly
‘for’ anything or any one else. For ‘the Lord hath
set apart him that is godly for Himself.’ You see, the
‘for Himself’ hinges upon the ‘set apart.’
There is no consecration without separation. If you are
mourning over want of realized consecration, will
you look humbly and sincerely into this point?
‘A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse,’ saith
the Heavenly Bridegroom.
Set apart for Jesus!
Is not this enough,
Though the desert prospect
Open wild and rough?
Set apart for His delight,
Chosen for His holy pleasure,
Sealed to be His special treasure!
Could we choose a nobler joy?—and would we, if we might?[4]
But yielding, by His grace, to this blessed setting
apart for Himself, ‘The Lord shall establish thee an
holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto
thee.’ Can there be a stronger promise? Just
[119]
obey and trust His word now, and yield yourselves
now unto God, ‘that He may establish thee to-day
for a people unto Himself.’ Commit the keeping
of your souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful
Creator, being persuaded that He is able to
keep that which you commit to Him.
Now, Lord, I give myself to Thee,
I would be wholly Thine,
As Thou hast given Thyself to me,
And Thou art wholly mine;
O take me, seal me for Thine own,
Thine altogether, Thine alone.
Here comes in once more that immeasurably important
subject of our influence. For it is not what
we say or do, so much as what we are, that influences
others. We have heard this, and very likely
repeated it again and again, but have we seen it to
be inevitably linked with the great question of this
chapter? I do not know anything which, thoughtfully
considered, makes us realize more vividly the
need and the importance of our whole selves being
kept for Jesus. Any part not wholly committed,
and not wholly kept, must hinder and neutralize
the real influence for Him of all the rest. If we
ourselves are kept all for Jesus, then our influence
will be all kept for Him too. If not, then, however
much we may wish and talk and try, we cannot
throw our full weight into the right scale. And
just in so far as it is not in the one scale, it must be
in the other; weighing against the little which we
have tried to put in the right one, and making the
short weight still shorter.
[120]
So large a proportion of it is entirely involuntary,
while yet the responsibility of it is so enormous,
that our helplessness comes out in exceptionally
strong relief, while our past debt in this matter
is simply incalculable. Are we feeling this a little?
getting just a glimpse, down the misty defiles of
memory, of the neutral influence, the wasted influence,
the mistaken influence, the actually wrong
influence which has marked the ineffaceable although
untraceable course? And all the while we
owed Him all that influence! It ought to have
been all for Him! We have nothing to say. But
what has our Lord to say? ‘I forgave thee all that
debt!’
Then, after that forgiveness which must come
first, there comes a thought of great comfort in our
freshly felt helplessness, rising out of the very thing
that makes us realize this helplessness. Just because
our influence is to such a great extent involuntary
and unconscious, we may rest assured that if we
ourselves are truly kept for Jesus, this will be, as a
quite natural result, kept for Him also. It cannot
be otherwise, for as is the fountain, so will be the
flow; as the spring, so the action; as the impulse,
so the communicated motion. Thus there may
be, and in simple trust there will be, a quiet rest
about it, a relief from all sense of strain and effort,
a fulfilling of the words, ‘For he that is entered
into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own
works, as God did from His.’ It will not be a
matter of trying to have good influence, but just of
having it, as naturally and constantly as the magnetized
bar.
[121]
Another encouraging thought should follow. Of
ourselves we may have but little weight, no particular
talents or position or anything else to put into
the scale; but let us remember that again and again
God has shown that the influence of a very average
life, when once really consecrated to Him, may outweigh
that of almost any number of merely professing
Christians. Such lives are like Gideon’s three
hundred, carrying not even the ordinary weapons
of war, but only trumpets and lamps and empty
pitchers, by whom the Lord wrought great deliverance,
while He did not use the others at all. For
He hath chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty.
Should not all this be additional motive for desiring
that our whole selves should be taken and kept?
I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be
for ever. Therefore we may rejoicingly say ‘ever’
as well as ‘only’ and ‘all for Thee!’
For the Lord is our Keeper, and He is the Almighty and the
Everlasting God, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. He will never change
His mind about keeping us, and no man is able to
pluck us out of His hand. Neither will Christ let
us pluck ourselves out of His hand, for He says,
‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days.’ And He
that keepeth us will not slumber. Once having
undertaken His vineyard, He will keep it night and
day, till all the days and nights are over, and we
know the full meaning of the salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time, unto which we are kept
by His power.
[122]
And then, for ever for Him! passing from the
gracious keeping by faith for this little while, to
the glorious keeping in His presence for all eternity!
For ever fulfilling the object for which He
formed us and chose us, we showing forth His
praise, and He showing the exceeding riches of
His grace in His kindness towards us in the ages
to come! He for us, and we for Him for ever!
Oh, how little we can grasp this! Yet this is the
fruition of being ‘kept for Jesus!’
Set apart for ever
For Himself alone!
Now we see our calling
Gloriously shown.
Owning, with no secret dread,
This our holy separation,
Now the crown of consecration[5]
Of the Lord our God shall rest upon our willing head.
[4]Loyal Responses, p. 11.
Chapter XIII.
Christ for Us.
‘So will I also be for Thee.’—Hos. iii. 3.
The typical promise, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me
many days,’ is indeed a marvel of love. For
it is given to the most undeserving, described under
the strongest possible figure of utter worthlessness
[123]
and treacherousness,—the woman beloved, yet an
adulteress.
The depth of the abyss shows the length of
the line that has fathomed it, yet only the length of
the line reveals the real depth of the abyss. The
sin shows the love, and the love reveals the sin.
The Bible has few words more touching, though seldom
quoted, than those just preceding this wonderful
promise: ‘The love of the Lord toward the children
of Israel, who look to other gods, and love
flagons of wine.’ Put that into the personal application
which no doubt underlies it, and say, ‘The
love of the Lord toward me, who have looked away
from Him, with wandering, faithless eyes, to other
helps and hopes, and have loved earthly joys and
sought earthly gratifications,—the love of the Lord
toward even me!’ And then hear Him saying in
the next verse, ‘So I bought her to Me;’ stooping
to do that in His unspeakable condescension of
love, not with the typical silver and barley, but
with the precious blood of Christ. Then, having
thus loved us, and rescued us, and bought us with
a price indeed, He says, still under the same figure,
‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days.’
This is both a command and a pledge. But the
very pledge implies our past unfaithfulness, and
the proved need of even our own part being undertaken
by the ever patient Lord. He Himself
has to guarantee our faithfulness, because there
is no other hope of our continuing faithful. Well
may such love win our full and glad surrender,
and such a promise win our happy and confident
trust!
[124]
But He says more. He says, ‘So will I also be
for thee!’ And this seems an even greater marvel
of love, as we observe how He meets every detail
of our consecration with this wonderful word.[6]
1. His Life ‘for thee!’ ‘The Good Shepherd
giveth His life for the sheep.’ Oh, wonderful gift!
not promised, but given; not to friends, but to enemies.
Given without condition, without reserve,
without return. Himself unknown and unloved,
His gift unsought and unasked, He gave His life
for thee; a more than royal bounty—the greatest
gift that Deity could devise. Oh, grandeur of love!
‘I lay down My life for the sheep!’ And we for
whom He gave it have held back, and hesitated to
give our lives, not even for Him (He has not asked
us to do that), but to Him! But that is past, and
He has tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful
reserve, and has graciously accepted the poor little
fleeting breath and speck of dust which was all we
had to offer. And now His precious death and His
glorious life are all ‘for thee.’
2. His Eternity ‘for thee.’ All we can ask Him
to take are days and moments—the little span given
us as it is given, and of this only the present in deed
and the future in will. As for the past, in so far as
we did not give it to Him, it is too late; we can
never give it now! But His past was given to us,
[125]
though ours was not given to Him. Oh, what a
tremendous debt does this show us!
Away back in the dim depths of past eternity,
‘or ever the earth and the world were made,’ His
divine existence in the bosom of His Father was
all ‘for thee,’ purposing and planning ‘for thee,’
receiving and holding the promise of eternal life
‘for thee.’
Then the thirty-three years among sinners on this
sinful earth: do we think enough of the slowly-wearing
days and nights, the heavy-footed hours,
the never-hastening minutes, that went to make up
those thirty-three years of trial and humiliation?
We all know how slowly time passes when suffering
and sorrow are near, and there is no reason to suppose
that our Master was exempted from this part
of our infirmities.
Then His present is ‘for thee.’ Even now He
‘liveth to make intercession;’ even now He
‘thinketh upon me;’ even now He ‘knoweth,’ He
‘careth,’ He ‘loveth.’
Then, only to think that His whole eternity will
be ‘for thee!’ Millions of ages of unfoldings of all
His love, and of ever new declarings of His Father’s
name to His brethren. Think of it! and can we
ever hesitate to give all our poor little hours to His
service?
3. His Hands ‘for thee.’ Literal hands; literally
pierced, when the whole weight of His quivering
frame hung from their torn muscles and bared
nerves; literally uplifted in parting blessing. Consecrated,
priestly hands; ‘filled’ hands
(Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9,
[126]
etc., margin)—filled once with His
great offering, and now with gifts and blessings ‘for
thee.’ Tender hands, touching and healing, lifting
and leading with gentlest care. Strong hands, upholding
and defending. Open hands, filling with
good and satisfying desire
(Ps. civ. 28, and cxlv. 16).
Faithful hands, restraining and sustaining. ‘His
left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth
embrace me.’
4. His Feet ‘for thee.’ They were weary very
often, they were wounded and bleeding once. They
made clear footprints as He went about doing good,
and as He went up to Jerusalem to suffer; and
these ‘blessed steps of His most holy life,’ both as
substitution and example, were ‘for thee.’ Our
place of waiting and learning, of resting and loving,
is at His feet. And still those ‘blessed feet’ are
and shall be ‘for thee,’ until He comes again to
receive us unto Himself, until and when the word
is fulfilled, ‘They shall walk with Me in white.’
5. His Voice ‘for thee.’ The ‘Voice of my beloved
that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister,
my love;’ the Voice that His sheep ‘hear’ and
‘know,’ and that calls out the fervent response,
‘Master, say on!’ This is not all. It was the literal
voice of the Lord Jesus which uttered that one
echoless cry of desolation on the Cross ‘for thee,’
and it will be His own literal voice which will say,
‘Come, ye blessed!’ to thee. And that same tender
and ‘glorious Voice’ has literally sung and will
sing ‘for thee.’ I think He consecrated song for
[127]
us, and made it a sweet and sacred thing for ever,
when He Himself ‘sang an hymn,’ the very last
thing before He went forth to consecrate suffering
for us. That was not His last song. ‘The Lord
thy God ... will joy over thee with singing.’
And the time is coming when He will not only sing ‘for
thee’ or ‘over thee,’ but with thee. He says
He will! ‘In the midst of the church will I sing
praise unto Thee.’ Now what a magnificent glimpse
of joy this is! ‘Jesus Himself leading the praises of His
brethren,’[7] and
we ourselves singing not
merely in such a chorus, but with such a leader!
If ‘singing for Jesus’ is such delight here, what
will this ‘singing with Jesus’ be? Surely song may
well be a holy thing to us henceforth.
6. His Lips ‘for thee.’ Perhaps there is no part
of our consecration which it is so difficult practically
to realize, and in which it is, therefore, so needful
to recollect?—‘I also for thee.’ It is often helpful
to read straight through one or more of the Gospels
with a special thought on our mind, and see how
much bears upon it. When we read one through
with this thought—‘His lips for me!’—wondering,
verse by verse, at the grace which was poured into
them, and the gracious words which fell from them,
wondering more and more at the cumulative force
and infinite wealth of tenderness and power and
wisdom and love flowing from them, we cannot but
desire that our lips and all the fruit of them should
[128]
be wholly for Him. ‘For thee’ they were opened
in blessing; ‘for thee’ they were closed when He
was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And whether
teaching, warning, counsel, comfort, or encouragement,
commandments in whose keeping there is
a great reward, or promises which exceed all we ask
or think—all the precious fruit of His lips is ‘for
thee,’ really and truly meant ‘for thee.’
7. His Wealth ‘for thee.’ ‘Though He was rich,
yet for our sakes He became poor, that ye through
His poverty might be made rich.’ Yes, ‘through
His poverty’ the unsearchable riches of Christ are
‘for thee.’ Seven-fold riches are mentioned; and
these are no unminted treasure or sealed reserve,
but all ready coined for our use, and stamped with
His own image and superscription, and poured
freely into the hand of faith. The mere list is wonderful.
‘Riches of goodness,’ ‘riches of forbearance
and long-suffering,’ ‘riches both of wisdom
and knowledge,’ ‘riches of mercy,’ ‘exceeding
riches of grace,’ and ‘riches of glory.’ And His
own Word says, ‘All are yours!’ Glance on in
faith, and think of eternity flowing on and on beyond
the mightiest sweep of imagination, and realize
that all ‘His riches in glory’ and ‘the riches of
His glory’ are and shall be ‘for thee!’ In view of
this, shall we care to reserve anything that rust doth
corrupt for ourselves?
8. His ‘treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ ‘for
thee.’ First, used for our behalf and benefit. Why
did He expend such immeasurable might of mind
[129]
upon a world which is to be burnt up, but that He
would fit it perfectly to be, not the home, but the
school of His children? The infinity of His skill
is such that the most powerful intellects find a lifetime
too short to penetrate a little way into a few
secrets of some one small department of His working.
If we turn to Providence, it is quite enough
to take only one’s own life, and look at it microscopically
and telescopically, and marvel at the
treasures of wisdom lavished upon its details, ordering
and shaping and fitting the tiny confused bits
into the true mosaic which He means it to be. Many
a little thing in our lives reveals the same Mind
which, according to a well-known and very beautiful
illustration, adjusted a perfect proportion in the
delicate hinges of the snowdrop and the droop of its
bell, with the mass of the globe and the force of
gravitation. How kind we think it if a very talented
friend spends a little of his thought and
power of mind in teaching us or planning for us!
Have we been grateful for the infinite thought and
wisdom which our Lord has expended upon us and
our creation, preservation, and redemption?
Secondly, to be shared with us. He says, ‘All
that I have is thine.’ He holds nothing back, reserves
nothing from His dear children, and what we
cannot receive now He is keeping for us. He
gives us ‘hidden riches of secret places’ now, but
by and by He will give us more, and the glorified
intellect will be filled continually out of His treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. But the sanctified
intellect will be, must be, used for Him, and only
for Him, now!
[130]
9. His Will ‘for thee.’ Think first of the
infinite might of that will; the first great law and the
first great force of the universe, from which alone
every other law and every other force has sprung,
and to which all are subordinate. ‘He worketh all
things after the counsel of His own will.’ ‘He
doeth according to His will in the army of heaven,
and among the inhabitants of the earth.’ Then
think of the infinite mysteries of that will. For
ages and generations the hosts of heaven have
wonderingly watched its vouchsafed unveilings and
its sublime developments, and still they are waiting,
watching, and wondering.
Creation and Providence are but the whisper of
its power, but Redemption is its music, and praise
is the echo which shall yet fill His temple. The
whisper and the music, yes, and ‘the thunder of
His power,’ are all ‘for thee.’ For what is ‘the
good pleasure of His will’? (Eph. i. 5.) Oh, what
a grand list of blessings purposed, provided, purchased,
and possessed, all flowing to us out of it!
And nothing but blessings, nothing but privileges,
which we never should have imagined, and which,
even when revealed, we are ‘slow of heart to believe;’
nothing but what should even now fill us
‘with joy unspeakable and full of glory!’
Think of this will as always and altogether on our
side—always working for us, and in us, and with
us, if we will only let it; think of it as always and
only synonymous with infinitely wise and almighty
love; think of it as undertaking all for us, from the
great work of our eternal salvation down to the
momentary details of guidance and supply, and do
[131]
we not feel utter shame and self-abhorrence at ever
having hesitated for an instant to give up our tiny,
feeble, blind will, to be—not crushed, not even
bent, but blent with His glorious and perfect
Will?
10. His Heart ‘for thee.’ ‘Behold
... He is mighty ... in heart,’ said Job
(Job xxxvi. 5, margin). And this mighty and
tender heart is ‘for thee!’ If He had only stretched
forth His hand to save us from bare destruction, and said,
‘My hand for thee!’ how could we have praised
Him enough? But what shall we say of the unspeakably
marvellous condescension which says,
‘Thou hast ravished (margin, taken away) my
heart, my sister, my spouse!’ The very fountain
of His divine life, and light, and love, the very
centre of His being, is given to His beloved ones,
who are not only ‘set as a seal upon His heart,’ but
taken into His heart, so that our life is hid there,
and we dwell there in the very centre of all safety,
and power, and love, and glory. What will be the
revelation of ‘that day,’ when the Lord Jesus promises,
‘Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and
ye in Me’? For He implies that we do not yet
know it, and that our present knowledge of this
dwelling in Him is not knowledge at all compared
with what He is going to show us about it.
Now shall we, can we, reserve any corner of our
hearts from Him?
11. His Love ‘for thee.’ Not a passive, possible
love, but outflowing, yes, outpouring of the real,
[132]
glowing, personal love of His mighty and tender
heart. Love not as an attribute, a quality, a latent
force, but an acting, moving, reaching, touching,
and grasping power. Love, not a cold, beautiful,
far-off star, but a sunshine that comes and enfolds
us, making us warm and glad, and strong and bright
and fruitful.
His love! What manner of love is it? What
should be quoted to prove or describe it? First
the whole Bible with its mysteries and marvels of
redemption, then the whole book of Providence
and the whole volume of creation. Then add to
these the unknown records of eternity past and the
unknown glories of eternity to come, and then let
the immeasurable quotation be sung by ‘angels and
archangels, and all the company of heaven,’ with all
the harps of God, and still that love will be untold,
still it will be ‘the love of Christ that passeth
knowledge.’
But it is ‘for thee!’
12. Himself ‘for thee.’ ‘Christ also
hath loved us, and given Himself for us.’ ‘The Son of
God ... loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Yes,
Himself! What is the Bride’s true and central
treasure? What calls forth the deepest, brightest,
sweetest thrill of love and praise? Not the Bridegroom’s
priceless gifts, not the robe of His resplendent
righteousness, not the dowry of unsearchable
riches, not the magnificence of the palace
home to which He is bringing her, not the glory
which she shall share with Him, but Himself!
Jesus Christ, ‘who His own self bare our sins in
[133]
His own body on the tree;’ ‘this same Jesus,’
‘whom having not seen, ye love;’ the Son of God,
and the Man of Sorrows; my Saviour, my Friend, my Master,
my King, my Priest, my Lord and my God—He says,
‘I also for thee!’ What an ‘I’!
What power and sweetness we feel in it, so different
from any human ‘I,’ for all His Godhead and
all His manhood are concentrated in it, and all
‘for thee!’
And not only ‘all,’ but ‘ever’
for thee. His unchangeableness is the seal upon every attribute;
He will be ‘this same Jesus’ for ever. How can
mortal mind estimate this enormous promise? How
can mortal heart conceive what is enfolded in these
words, ‘I also for thee’?
One glimpse of its fulness and glory, and we feel
that henceforth it must be, shall be, and by His
grace will be our true-hearted, whole-hearted cry—
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, ONLY, ALL for Thee!
[6]The
remainder of this chapter is printed in a little penny
book, entitled,
I also for Thee, by F. R. H., published by
Caswell, Birmingham, and by Nisbet & Co.
[7]See A. Newton on the
Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. ii. ver. 12.
[135]
SELECTIONS FROM
MISS HAVERGAL’S LATEST POEMS.
An Interlude.
That part is finished! I lay down my pen,
And wonder if the thoughts will flow as fast
Through the more difficult defile. For the last
Was easy, and the channel deeper then.
My Master, I will trust Thee for the rest;
Give me just what Thou wilt, and that will be my best!
How can I tell the varied, hidden need
Of Thy dear children, all unknown to me,
Who at some future time may come and read
What I have written! All are known to Thee.
As Thou hast helped me, help me to the end;
Give me Thy own sweet messages of love to send.
So now, I pray Thee, keep my hand in Thine;
And guide it as Thou wilt. I do not ask
To understand the ‘wherefore’ of each line;
Mine is the sweeter, easier, happier task,
Just to look up to Thee for every word,
Rest in Thy love, and trust, and know that I am heard.
[136]
The Thoughts of God.
They say there is a hollow, safe and still,
A point of coolness and repose
Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell
Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell,
Which the bright walls of fire enclose
In breachless splendour, barrier that no foes
Could pass at will.
There is a point of rest
At the great centre of the cyclone’s force,
A silence at its secret source;—
A little child might slumber undistressed,
Without the ruffle of one fairy curl,
In that strange central calm amid the mighty whirl.
So, in the centre of these thoughts of God,
Cyclones of power, consuming glory-fire,—
As we fall o’erawed
Upon our faces, and are lifted higher
By His great gentleness, and carried nigher
Than unredeemèd angels, till we stand
Even in the hollow of His hand,
Nay, more! we lean upon His breast—
There, there we find a point of perfect rest
And glorious safety. There we see
His thoughts to usward, thoughts of peace
That stoop in tenderest love; that still increase
With increase of our need; that never change,
[137]
That never fail, or falter, or forget
O pity infinite!
O royal mercy free!
O gentle climax of the depth and height
Of God’s most precious thoughts, most wonderful, most strange!
‘For I am poor and needy, yet
The Lord Himself, Jehovah, thinketh upon me!’
‘Free to Serve.’
She chose His service. For the Lord of Love
Had chosen her, and paid the awful price
For her redemption; and had sought her out,
And set her free, and clothed her gloriously,
And put His royal ring upon her hand,
And crowns of loving-kindness on her head.
She chose it. Yet it seemed she could not yield
The fuller measure other lives could bring;
For He had given her a precious gift,
A treasure and a charge to prize and keep,
A tiny hand, a darling hand, that traced
On her heart’s tablet words of golden love.
And there was not much room for other lines,
For time and thought were spent (and rightly spent,
For He had given the charge), and hours and days
Were concentrated on the one dear task.
But He had need of her. Not one new gem
[138]
But many for His crown;—not one fair sheaf,
But many, she should bring. And she should have
A richer, happier harvest-home at last.
Because more fruit, more glory and more praise
Her life should yield to Him. And so He came,
The Master came Himself, and gently took
The little hand in His, and gave it room
Among the angel-harpers. Jesus came
And laid His own hand on the quivering heart,
And made it very still, that He might write
Invisible words of power—‘Free to serve!’
Then through the darkness and the chill He sent
A heat-ray of His love, developing
The mystic writing, till it glowed and shone
And lit up all her life with radiance new,—
The happy service of a yielded heart.
With comfort that He never ceased to give
(Because her need could never cease) she filled
The empty chalices of other lives,
And time and thought were thenceforth spent for Him
Who loved her with His everlasting love.
Let Him write what He will upon our hearts,
With His unerring pen. They are His own,
Hewn from the rock by His selecting grace,
Prepared for His own glory. Let Him write!
Be sure He will not cross out one sweet word
But to inscribe a sweeter,—but to grave
One that shall shine for ever to His praise,
And thus fulfil our deepest heart-desire.
The tearful eye at first may read the line,
‘Bondage to grief!’ But He shall wipe away
[139]
The tears, and clear the vision, till it read
In ever-brightening letters, ‘Free to serve!’
For whom the Son makes free is free indeed.
Nor only by reclaiming His good gifts,
But by withholding, doth the Master write
These words upon the heart. Not always needs
Erasure of some blessèd line of love
For this more blest inscription. Where He finds
A tablet empty for the ‘lines left out,’
That ‘might have been’ engraved with human love
And sweetest human cares, yet never bore
That poetry of life, His own dear hand
Writes ‘Free to serve!’ And these clear characters
Fill with fair colours all the unclaimed space,
Else grey and colourless.
Then let it be
The motto of our lives until we stand
In the great freedom of Eternity,
Where we ‘shall serve Him’ while we see His face,
For ever and for ever ‘Free to serve.’
Coming to the King.
2 Chronicles ix. 1-12.
I came from very far away to see
The King of Salem; for I had been told
Of glory and of wisdom manifold,
[140]
And condescension infinite and free.
How could I rest, when I had heard His fame,
In that dark lonely land of death from whence I came?
I came (but not like Sheba’s queen), alone!
No stately train, no costly gifts to bring;
No friend at court, save One, that One the King!
I had requests to spread before His throne,
And I had questions none could solve for me,
Of import deep, and full of awful mystery.
I came and communed with that mighty King,
And told Him all my heart; I cannot say,
In mortal ear, what communings were they.
But wouldst thou know, go too, and meekly bring
All that is in thy heart, and thou shalt hear
His voice of love and power, His answers sweet and clear.
O happy end of every weary quest!
He told me all I needed, graciously;—
Enough for guidance, and for victory
O’er doubts and fears, enough for quiet rest;
And when some veiled response I could not read,
It was not hid from Him,—this was enough indeed.
His wisdom and His glories passed before
My wondering eyes in gradual revelation;
The house that He had built, its strong foundation,
Its living stones; and, brightening more and more,
Fair glimpses of that palace far away,
Where all His loyal ones shall dwell with Him for aye.
[141]
True the report that reached my far-off land
Of all His wisdom and transcendent fame;
Yet I believed not until I came,—
Bowed to the dust till raised by royal hand.
The half was never told by mortal word;
My King exceeded all the fame that I had heard!
Oh, happy are His servants! happy they
Who stand continually before His face,
Ready to do His will of wisest grace!
My King! is mine such blessedness to-day?
For I too hear Thy wisdom, line by line,
Thy ever brightening words in holy radiance shine.
Oh, blessèd be the Lord thy God, who set
Our King upon His throne! Divine delight
In the Beloved crowning Thee with might,
Honour, and majesty supreme; and yet
The strange and Godlike secret opening thus,—
The kingship of His Christ ordained through love to us!
What shall I render to my glorious King?
I have but that which I receive from Thee;
And what I give, Thou givest back to me,
Transmuted by Thy touch; each worthless thing
Changed to the preciousness of gem or gold,
And by Thy blessing multiplied a thousand fold.
All my desire Thou grantest, whatsoe’er
I ask! Was ever mythic tale or dream
So bold as this reality,—this stream
Of boundless blessings flowing full and free?
Yet more than I have thought or asked of Thee,
Out of Thy royal bounty still Thou givest me.
[142]
Now I will turn to my own land, and tell
What I myself have seen and heard of Thee.
And give Thine own sweet message, ‘Come and see!’
And yet in heart and mind for ever dwell
With Thee, my King of Peace, in loyal rest,
Within the fair pavilion of Thy presence blest.
‘Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether
in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.’—2 Sam.
xv. 21.
‘Where I am, there shall also my servant be.’—John xii. 26.
The Two Paths.
Via Dolorosa and Via Giojosa.
[Suggested by a Picture.]
My Master, they have wronged Thee and Thy love!
They only told me I should find the path
A Via Dolorosa all the way!
Even Thy sweetest singers only sang
Of pressing onward through the same sharp thorns,
With bleeding footsteps, through the chill dark mist,
Following and struggling till they reach the light,
The rest, the sunshine of the far beyond.
[143]
The anthems of the pilgrimage were set
In most pathetic minors, exquisite,
Yet breathing sadness more than any praise;
Thy minstrels let the fitful breezes make
Æolian moans on their entrusted harps,
Until the listeners thought that this was all
The music Thou hadst given. And so the steps
That halted where the two ways met and crossed,
The broad and narrow, turned aside in fear,
Thinking the radiance of their youth must pass
In sombre shadows if they followed Thee;
Hearing afar such echoes of one strain,
The cross, the tribulation, and the toil,
The conflict, and the clinging in the dark.
What wonder that the dancing feet are stayed
From entering the only path of peace!
Master, forgive them! Tune their harps anew,
And put a new song in their mouths for Thee,
And make Thy chosen people joyful in Thy love.
Lord Jesus, Thou hast trodden once for all
The Via Dolorosa,—and for us!
No artist power or minstrel gift may tell
The cost to Thee of each unfaltering step,
When love that passeth knowledge led Thee on,
Faithful and true to God, and true to us.
And now, belovèd Lord, Thou callest us
To follow Thee, and we will take Thy word
About the path which Thou hast marked for us.
Narrow indeed it is! Who does not choose
The narrow track upon the mountain side,
With ever-widening view, and freshening air,
[144]
And honeyed heather, rather than the road,
With smoothest breadth of dust and loss of view,
Soiled blossoms not worth gathering, and the noise
Of wheels instead of silence of the hills,
Or music of the waterfalls? Oh, why
Should they misrepresent Thy words, and make
‘Narrow’ synonymous with ‘very hard’?
For Thou, Divinest Wisdom, Thou hast said
Thy ways are ways of pleasantness, and all
Thy paths are peace; and that the path of him
Who wears Thy perfect robe of righteousness
Is as the light that shineth more and more
Unto the perfect day. And Thou hast given
An olden promise, rarely quoted now,[8]
Because it is too bright for our weak faith:
‘If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend
Days in prosperity, and they shall spend
Their years in pleasures.’ All because Thy days
Were full of sorrow, and Thy lonely years
Were passed in grief’s acquaintance—all for us!
Master, I set my seal that Thou art true,
Of Thy good promise not one thing hath failed!
And I would send a ringing challenge forth,
To all who know Thy name, to tell it out,
Thy faithfulness to every written word,
Thy loving-kindness crowning all the days,—
To say and sing with me: ‘The Lord is good,
His mercy is for ever, and His truth
Is written on each page of all my life!’
Yes! there is tribulation, but Thy power
[145]
Can blend it with rejoicing. There are thorns,
But they have kept us in the narrow way,
The King’s Highway of holiness and peace.
And there is chastening, but the Father’s love
Flows through it; and would any trusting heart
Forego the chastening and forego the love?
And every step leads on to ‘more and more,’
From strength to strength Thy pilgrims pass and sing
The praise of Him who leads them on and on,
From glory unto glory, even here!
Only for Jesus.
Only for Jesus! Lord, keep it for ever
Sealed on the heart and engraved on the life!
Pulse of all gladness and nerve of endeavour,
Secret of rest, and the strength of our strife.
‘Vessels of Mercy, Prepared unto Glory.’
(Rom. ix. 23.)
Vessels of mercy, prepared unto glory!
This is your calling and this is your joy!
This, for the new year unfolding before ye,
Tells out the terms of your blessed employ.
[146]
Vessels, it may be, all empty and broken,
Marred in the Hand of inscrutable skill;
(Love can accept the mysterious token!)
Marred but to make them more beautiful still.
Jer. xviii. 4.
Vessels, it may be, not costly or golden;
Vessels, it may be, of quantity small,
Yet by the Nail in the Sure Place upholden,
Never to shiver and never to fall.
Isa. xxii. 23, 24.
Vessels to honour, made sacred and holy,
Meet for the use of the Master we love,
Ready for service, all simple and lowly,
Ready, one day, for the temple above.
2 Tim. ii. 21.
Yes, though the vessels be fragile and earthen,
God hath commanded His glory to shine;
Treasure resplendent henceforth is our burthen,
Excellent power, not ours but Divine.
2 Cor. iv. 5, 6.
Chosen in Christ ere the dawn of Creation,
Chosen for Him, to be filled with His grace,
Chosen to carry the streams of salvation
Into each thirsty and desolate place.
Acts ix. 15.
Take all Thy vessels, O glorious Finer,
Purge all the dross, that each chalice may be
Pure in Thy pattern, completer, diviner,
Filled with Thy glory and shining for Thee.
Prov. xxv. 4.
[147]
The Turned Lesson.
‘I thought I knew it!’ she said,
‘I thought I had learnt it quite!’
But the gentle Teacher shook her head,
With a grave yet loving light
In the eyes that fell on the upturned face,
As she gave the book
With the mark still set in the self-same place.
‘I thought I knew it!’ she said;
And a heavy tear fell down,
As she turned away with bending head,
Yet not for reproof or frown,
Not for the lesson to learn again,
Or the play hour lost;—
It was something else that gave the pain.
She could not have put it in words,
But her Teacher understood,
As God understands the chirp of the birds
In the depth of an autumn wood.
And a quiet touch on the reddening cheek
Was quite enough;
No need to question, no need to speak.
Then the gentle voice was heard,
‘Now I will try you again!’
And the lesson was mastered,—every word!
Was it not worth the pain?
[148]
Was it not kinder the task to turn,
Than to let it pass,
As a lost, lost leaf that she did not learn?
Is it not often so,
That we only learn in part,
And the Master’s testing-time may show
That it was not quite ‘by heart’?
Then He gives, in His wise and patient grace,
That lesson again
With the mark still set in the self-same place.
Only, stay by His side
Till the page is really known.
It may be we failed because we tried
To learn it all alone,
And now that He would not let us lose
One lesson of love
(For He knows the loss),—can we refuse?
But oh! how could we dream
That we knew it all so well!
Reading so fluently, as we deem,
What we could not even spell!
And oh! how could we grieve once more
That Patient One
Who has turned so many a task before!
That waiting One, who now
Is letting us try again;
Watching us with the patient brow,
That bore the wreath of pain;
Thoroughly teaching what He would teach,
Line upon line,
Thoroughly doing His work in each.
[149]
Then let our hearts ‘be still,’
Though our task is turned to-day;
Oh let Him teach us what He will,
In His own gracious way.
Till, sitting only at Jesus’ feet,
As we learn each line
The hardest is found all clear and sweet!
Sunday Night.
Rest him, O Father! Thou didst send him forth
With great and gracious messages of love;
But Thy ambassador is weary now,
Worn with the weight of his high embassy.
Now care for him as Thou hast cared for us
In sending him; and cause him to lie down
In Thy fresh pastures, by Thy streams of peace.
Let Thy left hand be now beneath his head,
And Thine upholding right encircle him,
And, underneath, the Everlasting arms
Be felt in full support. So let him rest,
Hushed like a little child, without one care;
And so give Thy belovèd sleep to-night.
Rest him, dear Master! He hath poured for us
The wine of joy, and we have been refreshed.
Now fill his chalice, give him sweet new draughts
[150]
Of life and love, with Thine own hand; be Thou
His ministrant to-night; draw very near
In all Thy tenderness and all Thy power.
Oh speak to him! Thou knowest how to speak
A word in season to Thy weary ones,
And he is weary now. Thou lovest him—
Let Thy disciple lean upon Thy breast,
And, leaning, gain new strength to ‘rise and shine.’
Rest him, O loving Spirit! Let Thy calm
Fall on his soul to-night. O holy Dove,
Spread Thy bright wing above him, let him rest
Beneath its shadow; let him know afresh
The infinite truth and might of Thy dear name—
‘Our Comforter!’ As gentlest touch will stay
The strong vibrations of a jarring chord,
So lay Thy hand upon his heart, and still
Each overstraining throb, each pulsing pain.
Then, in the stillness, breathe upon the strings,
And let thy holy music overflow
With soothing power his listening, resting soul.
A Song in the Night.
[Written in severe pain, Sunday afternoon,
October 8th, 1876, at the Pension Wengen, Alps.]
I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
From Thine own hand,
The strength to bear it bravely
Thou wilt command.
[151]
I am too weak for effort,
So let me rest,
In hush of sweet submission,
On Thine own breast.
I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
As proof indeed
That Thou art watching closely
My truest need;
That Thou, my Good Physician,
Art watching still;
That all Thine own good pleasure
Thou wilt fulfil.
I take this pain, Lord Jesus;
What Thou dost choose
The soul that really loves Thee
Will not refuse.
It is not for the first time
I trust to-day;
For Thee my heart has never
A trustless ‘Nay!’
I take this pain, Lord Jesus;
But what beside?
‘Tis no unmingled portion
Thou dost provide.
In every hour of faintness
My cup runs o’er
With faithfulness and mercy,
And love’s sweet store.
[152]
I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
As Thine own gift;
And true though tremulous praises
I now uplift.
I am too weak to sing them,
But Thou dost hear
The whisper from the pillow,
Thou art so near!
’Tis Thy dear hand, O Saviour,
That presseth sore,
The hand that bears the nail-prints
For evermore.
And now beneath its shadow,
Hidden by Thee,
The pressure only tells me
Thou lovest me!
What will You do without Him?
I could not do without Him!
Jesus is more to me
Than all the richest, fairest gifts
Of earth could ever be.
But the more I find Him precious—
And the more I find Him true—
The more I long for you to find
What He can be to you.
[153]
You need not do without Him,
For He is passing by,
He is waiting to be gracious,
Only waiting for your cry:
He is waiting to receive you—
To make you all His own!
Why will you do without Him,
And wander on alone?
Why will you do without Him?
Is He not kind indeed?
Did He not die to save you?
Is He not all you need?
Do you not want a Saviour?
Do you not want a Friend?
One who will love you faithfully,
And love you to the end?
Why will you do without Him?
The Word of God is true!
The world is passing to its doom—
And you are passing too.
It may be no to-morrow
Shall dawn on you or me;
Why will you run the awful risk
Of all eternity?
What will you do without Him,
In the long and dreary day
Of trouble and perplexity,
When you do not know the way,
And no one else can help you,
And no one guides you right,
And hope comes not with morning,
And rest comes not with night?
[154]
You could not do without Him,
If once He made you see
The fetters that enchain you,
Till He hath set you free.
If once you saw the fearful load
Of sin upon your soul;
The hidden plague that ends in death,
Unless He makes you whole!
What will you do without Him,
When death is drawing near?
Without His love—the only love
That casts out every fear;
When the shadow-valley opens,
Unlighted and unknown,
And the terrors of its darkness
Must all be passed alone!
What will you do without Him,
When the great white throne is set,
And the Judge who never can mistake,
And never can forget,—
The Judge whom you have never here
As Friend and Saviour sought,
Shall summon you to give account
Of deed and word and thought?
What will you do without Him,
When He hath shut the door,
And you are left outside, because
You would not come before?
When it is no use knocking,
No use to stand and wait;
For the word of doom tolls through your heart
That terrible ‘Too late!’
[155]
You cannot do without Him!
There is no other name
By which you ever can be saved,
No way, no hope, no claim!
Without Him—everlasting loss
Of love, and life, and light!
Without Him—everlasting woe,
And everlasting night.
But with Him—oh! with Jesus!
Are any words so blest?
With Jesus, everlasting joy
And everlasting rest!
With Jesus—all the empty heart
Filled with His perfect love;
With Jesus—perfect peace below,
And perfect bliss above.
Why should you do without Him?
It is not yet too late;
He has not closed the day of grace,
He has not shut the gate.
He calls you! hush! He calls you!
He would not have you go
Another step without Him,
Because He loves you so.
Why will you do without Him?
He calls and calls again—
‘Come unto Me! Come unto Me!’
Oh, shall He call in vain?
He wants to have you with Him;
Do you not want Him too?
You cannot do without Him,
And He wants—even you.
[156]
Church Missionary Jubilee Hymn.
‘He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be
satisfied.’—Isa. liii. 11.
Rejoice with Jesus Christ to-day,
All ye who love His holy sway!
The travail of His soul is past,
He shall be satisfied at last.
Rejoice with Him, rejoice indeed!
For He shall see His chosen seed.
But ours the trust, the grand employ,
To work out this divinest joy.
Of all His own He loseth none,
They shall be gathered one by one;
He gathereth the smallest grain,
His travail shall not be in vain.
Arise and work! arise and pray
That He would haste the dawning day!
And let the silver trumpet sound,
Wherever Satan’s slaves are found.
The vanquished foe shall soon be stilled,
The conquering Saviour’s joy fulfilled,
Fulfilled in us, fulfilled in them,
His crown, His royal diadem.
Soon, soon our waiting eyes shall see
The Saviour’s mighty Jubilee!
His harvest joy is filling fast,
He shall be satisfied at last.
[157]
A Happy New Year to You!
New mercies, new blessings, new light on thy way;
New courage, new hope, and new strength for each day;
New notes of thanksgiving, new chords of delight,
New praise in the morning, new songs in the night,
New wine in thy chalice, new altars to raise;
New fruits for thy Master, new garments of praise;
New gifts from His treasures, new smiles from His face;
New streams from the Fountain of infinite grace;
New stars for thy crown, and new tokens of love;
New gleams of the glory that waits thee above;
New light of His countenance, full and unpriced;
All this be the joy of thy new life in Christ!
Another Year.
Another year is dawning!
Dear Master, let it be
In working or in waiting,
Another year with Thee.
[158]
Another year of leaning
Upon Thy loving breast,
Of ever-deepening trustfulness,
Of quiet, happy rest.
Another year of mercies,
Of faithfulness and grace;
Another year of gladness
In the shining of Thy face.
Another year of progress,
Another year of praise;
Another year of proving
Thy presence ‘all the days.’
Another year of service,
Of witness for Thy love;
Another year of training
For holier work above.
Another year is dawning!
Dear Master, let it be
On earth, or else in heaven,
Another year for Thee!
[159]
New Year’s Wishes.
What shall I wish thee?
Treasures of earth?
Songs in the springtime,
Pleasure and mirth?
Flowers on thy pathway,
Skies ever clear?
Would this ensure thee
A Happy New Year?
What shall I wish thee?
What can be found
Bringing thee sunshine
All the year round?
Where is the treasure,
Lasting and dear,
That shall ensure thee
A Happy New Year?
Faith that increaseth,
Walking in light;
Hope that aboundeth,
Happy and bright;
Love that is perfect,
Casting out fear;
These shall ensure thee
A Happy New Year.
[160]
Peace in the Saviour,
Rest at His feet,
Smile of His countenance
Radiant and sweet,
Joy in His presence!
Christ ever near!
This will ensure thee
A Happy New Year!
‘Most Blessed For Ever.’
(Though the date of these lines is uncertain, they are chosen as a
closing chord to her songs on earth.)
The prayer of many a day is all fulfilled,
Only by full fruition stayed and stilled;
You asked for blessing as your Father willed,
Now He hath answered: ‘Most blessed for ever!’
Lost is the daily light of mutual smile,
You therefore sorrow now a little while;
But floating down life’s dimmed and lonely aisle
Comes the clear music: ‘Most blessed for ever!’
From the great anthems of the Crystal Sea,
Through the far vistas of Eternity,
Grand echoes of the word peal on for thee,
Sweetest and fullest: ‘Most blessed for ever.’
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