Part 24 (1/2)

Such a pulpit never startles the people with the horrors of an undone eternity. No strong meat, but only pap, flour and water, mostly water. The church prayer-meeting is attended only by a few gray heads who have been in the habit of going there for twenty years, not because they expect any arousing time or rapturous experiences, but because they feel only a few will be there, and they ought to go.

The minister is sound. The members.h.i.+p sound. The music sound. If, standing in a city of a hundred thousand people, there are five or ten conversions in a year, everything is thought to be ”encouraging.” But Christ says that such a church is an emetic. ”Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”

My friends, you had better warm up or freeze over. Better set the kettle outside in the atmosphere at zero, or put it on the altar of G.o.d and stir up the coals into a blaze. If we do not, G.o.d will remove us.

Christian men are not always taken to heaven as a reward, but sometimes to get them out of the way on earth. They go to join the tenth-rate saints in glory; for if such persons think they will stand with Paul, and Harlan Page, and Charlotte Elizabeth, they are much mistaken.

When G.o.d takes them up, the church here is better off. We mourn slightly to have them go, because we have got used to having them around, and at the funeral the minister says all the good things about the man that can well be thought of, because we want to make the funeral as respectable as possible. I never feel so much tempted to lie as when an inconsistent and useless Christian has died, and I want in my final remarks to make a good case out for the poor fellow. Still, it is an advantage to have such a man get out of the way. He is opposed to all new enterprises. He puts back everything he tries to help. His digestion of religious things is impaired, and his circulation is so poor that no amount of friction can arouse him.

Now, it is dangerous for any of you to stay in that condition. If you cannot be moved, G.o.d will kill you, and He will put in your place those who will do the work you are neglecting.

My friends, let all arouse! The nearness of our last account, the greatness of the work to be done, and the calls of G.o.d's word and providence, ought to stir our souls. After having been in the harvest field so long it would be a shame in the nightfall of death to go home empty-handed. Gather up a few gleanings from the field, and beat them out, that it may be found that Ruth had at least ”one ephah of barley.”

CHAPTER LXVII.

THORNS.

The Christian world has long been guessing what Paul's thorn in the flesh was. I have a book that in ten pages tries to show what Paul's thorn was not, and in another ten pages tries to show what it was.

Many of the theological doctors have felt Paul's pulse to see what was the matter with him. I suppose that the reason he did not tell us what it was may have been because he did not want us to know. He knew that if he stated what it was there would have been a great many people from Corinth bothering him with prescriptions as to how he might cure it.

Some say it was diseased eyes, some that it was a humped back. It may have been neuralgia. Perhaps it was gout, although his active habits and a spa.r.s.e diet throw doubt on the supposition. Suffice to say it was a thorn--that is, it stuck him. It was sharp.

It was probably of not much account in the eyes of the world. It was not a trouble that could be compared to a lion or a boisterous sea. It was like a thorn that you may have in your hand or foot and no one know it. Thus we see that it becomes a type of those little nettlesome worries of life that exasperate the spirit.

Every one has a thorn sticking him. The housekeeper finds it in unfaithful domestics; or an inmate who keeps things disordered; or a house too small for convenience or too large to be kept cleanly. The professional man finds it in perpetual interruptions or calls for ”more copy.” The Sabbath-school teacher finds it in inattentive scholars, or neighboring teachers that talk loud and make a great noise in giving a little instruction.

One man has a rheumatic joint which, when the wind is northeast, lifts the storm signal. Another a business partner who takes full half the profits, but does not help earn them. These trials are the more nettlesome because, like Paul's thorn, they are not to be mentioned. Men get sympathy for broken bones and mashed feet, but not for the end of sharp thorns that have been broken off in the fingers.

Let us start out with the idea that we must have annoyances. It seems to take a certain number of them to keep us humble, wakeful and prayerful. To Paul the thorn was as disciplinary as the s.h.i.+pwreck. If it is not one thing, it is another. If the stove does not smoke, the boiler must leak. If the pen is good, the ink must be poor. If the editorial column be able, there must be a typographical blunder. If the thorn does not pierce the knee, it must take you in the back. Life must have sharp things in it. We cannot make up our robe of Christian character without pins and needles.

We want what Paul got--grace to bear these things. Without it we become cross, censorious and irascible. We get in the habit of sticking our thorns into other people's fingers. But G.o.d helping us, we place these annoyances in the category of the ”all things that work together for good.” We see how much shorter these thorns are than the spikes that struck through the palms of Christ's hands; and remembering that he had on his head a whole crown of thorns, we take to ourselves the consolation that if we suffer with him on earth we shall be glorified with him in heaven.

But how could Paul positively rejoice in these infirmities? I answer that the school of Christ has three cla.s.ses of scholars. In the first cla.s.s we learn how to be stuck with thorns without losing our patience. In the second cla.s.s we learn how to make the sting positively advantageous. In the third cla.s.s of this school we learn how even to rejoice in being pierced and wounded, but that is the senior cla.s.s; and when we get to that, we are near graduation into glory.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

WHO TOUCHED ME?

There is nothing more unreasonable and ungovernable than a crowd of people.

Men who standing alone or in small groups are deliberate in all they do, lose their self-control when they come to stand in a crowd. You have noticed this, if you have heard a cry of fire in a large a.s.semblage, or have seen people moving about in great excitement in some ma.s.s-meeting, shoving, jostling and pulling at each other.

But while the Lord Jesus had been performing some wonderful works, and a great mob of people were around Him, shoving this way and that way, all the jostling He received evoked from Him no response.

After a while I see a wan and wasted woman pressing through the crowd. She seems to have a very urgent errand. I can see from her countenance that she has been a great sufferer. She comes close enough to put her finger on the hem of Christ's garment, and the very moment she puts her finger on that garment, Jesus says: ”Who touched me?”