Part 26 (2/2)
But this is not our strongest plea. We could pile them up, plea upon plea, and not exhaust the number which press and urge one to write. We pa.s.s them all, and go to the place where the strongest waits: G.o.d's Glory is being given to another. This is the most solemn plea, the supreme imperative call. ”Not mere pity for dead souls, but a pa.s.sion for the Glory of G.o.d, is what we need to hold us through to victory.”
”I am the Lord, that is My Name, and My Glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.” But the men He made to glorify Him take His Glory from Him, give it to another; _that_, the sin of it, the shame, calls with a low, deep under-call through all the other calls. G.o.d's Glory is being given to another. Do we love Him enough to care? Or do we measure our private cost, if these distant souls are to be won, and, finding it considerable, cease to think or care? ”Is it nothing to you, all ye that pa.s.s by? Behold and see”--=”They took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull . . . where they crucified Him.” . . . ”Herein is love.” . . . ”G.o.d so loved the world.”
. . .= Have we petrified past feeling? Can we stand and measure now? ”I know that only the Spirit, Who counted every drop that fell from the torn brow of Christ as dearer than all the jewelled gates of Paradise, can lift the Church out of her appreciation of the world, the world as it appeals to her own selfish l.u.s.ts, into an appreciation of the world as it appeals to the heart of G.o.d.” O Spirit, come and lift us into this love, inspire us by this love. Let us look at the vision of the Glory of our G.o.d with eyes that have looked at His love!
We would not base a single plea on anything weaker than solid fact.
Sentiment will not stand the strain of the real tug of war; but is it fact, or is it not, that Jesus counted you and me, and the other people in the world, actually worth dying for? If it is true, then do we love Him well enough to care with the whole strength of our being, that to-day, almost all over the world, His Glory is being given to another?
If this does not move us, is it because we do not love Him very much, or is it that we have never prayed with honest desire, as Moses prayed, ”I beseech Thee, show me Thy Glory”? He only saw a little of it. ”Behold there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pa.s.s, while My Glory pa.s.seth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with My hand while I pa.s.s by.” And the Glory of the Lord pa.s.sed, and Moses was aware of something of it as it pa.s.sed, but ”My face shall not be seen,” And yet that little was enough to mark him out as one who lived for one purpose, shone in the light of it, burned with the fire of it--he was jealous for the Glory of his G.o.d.
And we--”We beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”; and we--we have seen ”the light of the knowledge of the Glory of G.o.d in the face of Jesus Christ.”
”While My Glory pa.s.seth by I will . . . cover thee . . . My face shall not be seen.” ”But we all with open face, reflecting, as in a mirror, the Glory of the Lord, are changed”--Are we? Do we? Do we know anything at all about it? Have we ever apprehended this for which we are apprehended of Christ Jesus? Have we seen the Heavenly Vision that breaks us down, and humbles us to hear the Voice of the Lord ask, ”Who will go for Us?” and strengthens us to answer, ”Here am I, send me,” and holds us on to obey if we hear Him saying ”=Go=”?
”I beseech Thee, show me Thy Glory!” Shall we pray it, meaning it now, to the very uttermost? The uttermost may hold hard things, but, easy or hard, there is no other way to reach the place where our lives can receive an impetus which will make them tell for eternity. The motive power is the love of Christ. Not our love for Him only, but His very love itself. It was the mighty, resistless flow of that glorious love that made the first missionary pour himself forth on the sacrifice and service. And the joy of it rings through triumphantly, ”Yea, and if I be poured forth . . . I joy and rejoice with you all!”
Yes, G.o.d's Glory is our plea, highest, strongest, most impelling and enduring of all pleas. But oh, by the thought of the myriads who are pa.s.sing, by the thought of the Coming of the Lord, by the infinite realities of life and death, heaven and h.e.l.l, by our Saviour's cross and Pa.s.sion, we plead with all those who love Him, but who have not considered these things yet, consider them now!
Let Him show us the vision of the Glory, and bring us to the very end of self, let Him touch our lips with the live coal, and set us on fire to burn for Him, yea, burn with consuming love for Him, and a purpose none can turn us from, and a pa.s.sion like a pure white flame, ”a pa.s.sion for the Glory of G.o.d!”
Oh, may this pa.s.sion consume us! burn the self out of us, burn the love into us--for G.o.d's Glory we ask it, Amen.
”Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing . . . Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto Him.”
APPENDIX
Some Indian Saints
THERE was one--he has joined the company of Indian saints in glory now--the poet of the Mission, and our friend,--one so true in all his ways that a Hindu lad observing him with critical schoolboy eyes, saw in him, as in a mirror, something of the holiness of G.o.d, and, won by that look, became a Christian and a winner of souls. Some of the n.o.blest converts of our Mission are the direct result of that Tamil poet's life.
There is another; he is old, and all through his many years he has been known as the one-word man, the man of changeless truth. He is a village pastor, whom all the people love. Go into his cottage any time, any day, and you will find one and another with him, and you will see the old man, with his loving face and almost quite blind eyes, bending patiently to catch every word of the story they are telling, and then you will hear him advising and comforting, as a father would his child. For miles round that countryside the people know him, and he is honoured by Hindus and by Christians as India honours saints.
I remember once seeing the poet and the pastor together. They belonged to widely different castes, but that was forgotten now. The two old white heads were bent over the same letter--a letter telling of the defection of a young convert each had loved as a son, and they were weeping over him. It was the ancient East living its life before us: ”O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son!” But what made it a thing to remember in this land of Caste divisions, even among Christians, was the overflowing of the love that made those two men one.
There are others. Money, the place it holds in a man's affections, is supposed to be a fair test of character. We could tell of a lawyer who is losing money to-day rather than touch unrighteous gains; of a doctor who gives to his church _till he feels_, and travels any distance to help the poor who cannot pay; of a peasant who risks a certain amount of injury to his palms rather than climb them on Sunday; and in many an old-world town and village, dotted about on the wide red plain, we have simple, humble, holy people, of whom the world knows nothing--pastors in lonely out-stations, teachers, and workers, and just ordinary Christians--who do the day's work, and s.h.i.+ne as they do it. We think of such men and women when we hear the critic's cry, and we wish he could know them as they are.
It is these men and women who ask us to tell it out clearly how sorely our Indian Church needs your prayers. They have no desire to hide things. They speak straighter than we do, and far more strongly, and they believe, as we do, that if you know more you will pray more.
LONDON: MORGAN AND SCOTT
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