Week-day religion

Contents

PAGE

I. — What is your Life? 7

II. — Getting Help from the Bible 17

II. Getting Help From The Bible

/"OFTENTIMES young Christians say, "I can- ^-^ not find the beautiful things in the Bible, nor can I acquire a taste or relish for it. I want to love it and to use it so as to receive help from it, but it does not open its riches to me. I appreciate the wealth and beauties which others find in it and point out to me, but when I look for them they do not discover themselves to me. After I have read a chapter and found nothing beautiful or helpful, another will read it and point out the sweetest bits of beauty and the rarest words and suggestions of comfort and helpfulness, not one of which I had seen. They seem to have hidden from me, like coy birds amid the branches, but when another came they flew out, and in their shining plumage sat on the boughs or perched on his shoulder and sang snatches of heavenly song. I read the book, but I confess that it yields me no honey, no food, no wine of life."

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It is quite possible that this experience is more common than we think or than many are honest enough to confess. There are few, if any, who find in the Bible all the beauty and blessing that lie in its pages. Not one of us gets from it the utmost possible of help, and no doubt most of us in our reading pass by many rare and precious things which we fail to see at all.

Yet it surely need not be a sealed book to any one. It does not aim to hide its good things away so that men cannot easily find them. It is not intended to be a book that great scholars only can understand. No doubt a knowledge of the Ianguages in which the Bible was originally written explains many an obscure passage and resolves many a difficulty, yet it is not a book for the learned alone, but for the unlettered and the little children as well. In proof of this we have only to remember that oftentimes those who find the richest treasures and the sweetest joys in the Scriptures are not the greatest scholars and the grandest intellects, but God's little ones, strangers to the world's lore and ignorant of its wisdom.

Very much depends upon the spirit with which we come to the Bible. In the minds of many Protestants there is almost as much superstition regarding this sacred book as there is among Romanists regarding the crucifix or rosary. Soldiers entering a battle fling away their cards and put Bibles in their pockets. They feel that they are safer then. Many think if they read a certain portion every day, though they give no thought to the meaning, that they have done a holy service and are safe for the day. But the mere reading of so many chapters does no one any good. It would be as well to say Latin prayers and fumble over a string of beads for ten minutes. To receive blessing from the Bible it must be read thoughtfully w r ith inquiry and meditation. It must be allowed to read itself into our heart and life.

As to the method of reading, several suggestions may be made. It is important to have a good copy of the Bible, well bound, with clear, plain type and with references. On many passages there is no commentary so helpful as the reading of the references. Scripture interprets Scripture. Hence, a copy without references is shorn of much of its value. We want a copy, too, that will last for many years. A book is like a friend; it grows familiar and confidential with use. At first shy and distant, it lets us into its heart after we have long pored over its pages. It opens of itself to the choicest chapters, and it seems to carry its sweetest secrets on the surface for us. A Bible that we have long used seems to say things to us w T e never hear from a strange or new book. Besides, it is good to mark our Bible as we read it. Any precious passage that we find may be indicated on the margin by some sign or by drawing a line about it or under the sacred words. Thus we write our own spiritual history on the pages of our Bible. These marks are memorials, also, showing where we once found blessing — stones set up to mark our Bethels and Peniels and Ebenezers. A book thus read, and holding on its pages such treasures, becomes in a few years inestimably sacred and precious. Hence the importance of having at almost any cost the very best copy of the Bible that can be obtained — one that can be used for a lifetime. No one can afford to dispense with the old-fashioned way of reading the Bible through consecutively. It is well to do this every year. Some open at random and read whatever comes under their eye, without method or plan. Others read over and over a few favorite passages. In both cases large portions remain neglected and are never read at all. Reading the whole volume in course, in regular daily portions, we become familiar with every part, and discover the very richest things in places where we least expected to find any beauty or blessing.

But in addition to this it is well to pursue other special methods. Topical reading is excellent. We select a subject and by the aid of concord ance, reference and text-book find out all the passages in the whole Scripture which speak of it or throw any light upon it. Thus we learn what are the doctrines of the Bible. In this way we may bring all the teachings of men to the bar of God's truth ; we may verify the doctrines of the Church; we may refer all questions that arise in our own minds as to belief or as to duty to the infallible test ; and thus we shall build our personal creeds, not on the formulated statements of theologians, but on the simple words of inspiration.

In the daily life of each one there arise peculiar questions and experiences on which we want light or in which we need counsel and guidance. These should be taken at once to the divine word. Thus we bring the book of life into our daily history. We make it our counselor, our lamp, our guide. This leads to another method of reading and study which is very profitable and which yields great help.

The habit of having a verse for the day has also been adopted by many and has been a source of great comfort. Either out of the morning's chapter or selected in some other way, let one verse be taken, fixed in the mind, and carried all through the busy day in thought and meditation. It will often prove a fountain of water, a bright lamp or a rod and staff before the day comes to a close. It is impossible to estimate the influence of a simple passage thus held all day in the thoughts. It keeps us from sin. It is a living impulse to duty. It is an angel of comfort in sorrow. Then its influence, as it pours its soft, pure light all through the life hour after hour, is full of inspiration, and purifies, cleanses and sanctifies.

So much for methods. Still more important is the spirit in which we read. We must come to it as to the oracles of God, infallible and authoritative. We must hear the voice of God in its words. Then we must come in the spirit of docility, ready to be taught. Some read it, not to learn what they ought to believe, but to find in it what they themselves do believe already, to have their opinions confirmed or their conduct justified. Only those who come as little children, with teachable spirits, to hear what God will say, and ready to accept it however it may clash with their own opinions and preferences, can find the Bible an open book disclosing to them its most precious things.

It must also be read thoughtfully, slowly and patiently. Many of its richest gems lie deep and must be digged for. It is not so much a flowergarden as a mine. There is a great deal of hurried, superficial reading which skims over the surface, which pauses to weigh no word, take in no thought, apply no lesson, and which leaves no impression, not even a memory, behind. Such readers must use a marker, or they will read the same chapter over and over without knowing it.

Then it is necessary to read the Bible not alone to know the will of God, but that we may do it. If it is not the guide of our life, it is nothing to us. Its truths are to be applied. If we read the beatitudes, we are to compare ourselves with their divine requirements and seek to be conformed to them. If we come upon a word that rebukes any habit or spirit of ours, we are straightway to make the needed amendment. We are to accept its promises, believe them, and act as believing them. We are to allow its comforts to enter our hearts and support us in sorrow. There is nothing written in the Bible merely for ornament or beauty. Every word is practical. There is no truth in it that has not some bearing upon actual living. When we come to it eager to know how to live and ready to obey its precepts, we shall find it opening to us its inmost meaning.

We are told that the Bible must be spiritually discerned. Only a spiritually-minded reader finds the truest and best things in it. We must bring to it a certain kind of knowledge. This is true in all departments of life. Many persons never see anything lovely in nature. They will stand amid the most picturesque landscapes, walk amid the rarest flowers and witness the most gorgeous sunset splendor without a thrill of pleasure or an expression of admiration. They have no sympathy with nature. There are many who will pass through a grand art-gallery rich with paintings and statuary, and see nothing to seize their attention, while others will spend days in enthusiastic study of the works of art that are stored there. Some knowledge of art and an interest in it are necessary to the appreciation and enjoyment of paintings and statues. In like manner, he that would find the beautiful things in the Scriptures must have a mind and heart prepared for it. Hence the more of the divine life we have in our souls, the more will the sacred pages reveal to us. It is not so much intellectual acumen and fine scholarship that we need as spiritual culture, love for Christ and the warmth of devotion.

A young lady purchased a book and read a few pages, but was not interested in it. Some months afterward she met the author, and a tender friendship sprang up, ripening into love and betrothal. Then the book was dull no longer. Every sentence had a charm for her heart. Love was the interpreter. So to those who do not know Christ personally the Bible seems dry and uninteresting. But when they learn to know him and to love him all is changed ; and the deeper their love for him becomes, the more do the sacred pages glow with beauty and light.

It is good to store away in our hearts, all along the bright years of youth, the precious truths of God's word. In visiting the Mammoth Cave they placed lamps in our hands before we entered. It seemed a very useless and needless thing to carry these pale lights while we walked in the full blaze of noonday. But we moved down the bank and entered the cavern's mouth. Quickly the splendor of daylight faded out, and then the lamp-flames began to shine brightly. We soon found how valuable they were, and how necessary. Without them we should have been lost in the thick gloom and in the inextricable mazes of the cave. So God's promises and comforts may not seem needful to us in the brightness of youth and in the days of health and gladness. They may then seem to shine with but a pale light. But as we move on we shall pass into shadows — the shadows of sickness, of trial, of disappointment, of sorrow — and then their beauty and splendor will shine out and prove the very joy and strength of our souls.

III. Practical Consecration

" I used to chafe and fret when interrupted in favorite pursuits, but I have learned that my time all belongs to God, and I just leave it in his hands. It is very sweet to use it for him when he has anything for me to do, and pleasant to use it for myself when he has not." — Mrs. Prentiss.

A GREAT deal of our talk about consecration -*--**- is very vague and visionary. We are told that we should make an unreserved transfer of ourselves to Christ, and we want to do it. We wish to keep nothing back from him. We adopt the formula of consecration when we connect ourselves with the church. We use the liturgy of consecration continually in our prayers, saying over and over again — sincerely enough, too — that we give ourselves wholly to Christ. We sing with glowing heart and flowing tears the rapturous hymns of consecration, and yet, somehow, we are not wholly consecrated to Christ. Saying it, praying it, singing it, ever so honestly and with ever so endless repetition, we are still painfully conscious of failure in fact, and we become discouraged, sometimes even doubting altogether the reality of our conversion because we cannot consciously keep ourselves on the altar.

One trouble is that the consecration we aim at is emotional rather than practical. Then another is that we try to accomplish too much at once. We attempt to make over all our life, in its endlessly varied relations, and all our present and future, once for all in a single offering, and then it seems to our limited experience that that should be final. The spirit and intention are right enough, but the fact is that in actual life such consecration is quite impracticable. Theoretically it is correct, but in experience it will always be found vague and unsatisfactory. The only truly practical consecration is that which seeks to cover the actual present. However fully we may have given ourselves to Christ at conversion, it will avail nothing unless we renew it with each separate act and duty as it presents itself to us.

Consecration may be greatly simplified and may be made intensely practical if we bring it down to a daily matter, attempting to cover no more

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than the one day, and if we each morning formally give the day to the Lord, to be occupied as he may wish, surrendering all our plans to him, to be set aside or affirmed by him as he may choose.

For example, I seek in the morning to give myself to my Master for that day, saying, " Take me, Lord, and use me to-day as thou wilt. I lay all my plans at thy feet. Whatever work thou hast for me to do, give it into my hands. If there are those thou wouldst have me help in any way, send them to me or send me to them. Take my time and use it just as thou wilt." I think no farther on than to-day. I make no attempt to give months and years to Christ. Why should I, before they are mine ? I have this one brief day only, and how can I consecrate that which I have not yet received?

This formula of consecration is a transfer of one's plans and ambitions into the hands of Christ. It is a solemn pledge, too, to accept the plans of the Master for the occupation of the day, no matter how much they may interfere with arrangements we have already made, or how many pleasant things they may cut out of the day's programme. We will answer every call. We will patiently submit to every interruption. We will accept every duty. We will go on with the work which seems best to us if the Master has nothing else for us to do ; but if he has, we will cheerfully drop our own and take up that which he clearly gives instead.

So, sometimes, the very first one to come to me in the golden hours of the morning, which are so precious to every student, is a book-agent, or a man with fountain-pens or stove-polish, or perchance only a pious idler who has no errand but to pass an hour, or it may be one of those social newsvenders who like to be the first to retail all the freshest gossip. Interrupted thus in the midst of some interesting and important work, my first impulse is to chafe and fret, and perhaps to give my visitor a cold welcome, not hiding my annoyance. But then I remember my morning consecration. Did I not put my plans and my time out of my own hands into my Master's ? Did I not ask him to send me any work he had for me to do, and to make use of me in ministering to others as he would ? If I was sincere and would be loyal to my words, must I not accept this early caller as sent to me for some help or some good which it is in my power to impart to him ? If I would carry out the spirit of my consecra-

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tion, I must neither chafe, nor fret, nor manifest any annoyance at the interruption, nor do aught to give needless pain to my visitor.

I have an errand to thee, O man my brother ! What it is I know not. Perhaps here is a heavy heart that I can cheer by a few kindly words. I cannot buy anything. I cannot give up an hour to hear my friend recount, for the hundredth time, the story of his past exploits. I cannot listen to the wretched gossip which my mischievous visitor wants to empty into my ear ; and yet may I not have an errand to each? It may be that I can send my literary friend away with a little bit of song in his heart. He came from a very dreary home this morning. He is poor. He has gone from house to house, only to have door after door rudely shut in his face. He is heavy-hearted, almost in despair. He greatly needs money, which perhaps I cannot give to him, but he needs far more. Just now a brother's sympathy — which I can give — and a kind, cordial reception, a few minutes' patient interest shown in listening to his story, a few encouraging words, any suggestion or help I may be able to give, will do him more good than if I were to buy a book in the usual unchristian way in such cases. Or may I not be able to drop some useful word into the ear of the idler or of the gossipmonger which may be remembered? I must, at least, regard my visitor as sent to me with some need that I can supply, or wanting some comfort or blessing which I can impart.

Or the errand may be the other way. He may have been sent to me with a benediction. All duty is not giving ; we need to receive as well. We ought to get some good from every one we meet. God can oftentimes teach us more by interrupting our quiet hours and by setting all our pet plans aside than if he had left us to spend the time over our book or in our work.

Let us at least beware that we do not bow out of our door with fretted frown one whom God has sent to us either with a message or a benediction for us, which must be carried on to some other, since we reject it. For even in these prosaic days Heaven sends angels, though they may come unawares, not wearing their celestial robes, but disguised in unattractive garb.

Such a simple consecration is easily understood, and becomes very practical as we carry it out in life. It deals with living in its details, and not in the mass — in the concrete, and not merely in the abstract. It is not theory alone, but practice also.

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And it seems easier to give just one short day at a time than to try to span far-stretching years in our consecration. A day is a short reach. We can bear almost any burden or interruption for so brief a period. Then it gives a holy meaning to the common week-day routine of work and contact with other lives to live in this simple way. All work is divinely allotted, and the voice of our loving Lord is heard calling us at every turn. It imparts a sacredness to all our meetings — even our most casual meetings with others. There is no chance that the eternal God does not guide. You have an errand to every one who comes in your path, or he has an errand to you. You may be very weary, but if there is a call for Christlike ministry you must obey it. You may have your wrapper and slippers on after a hard day's work, and outside it may be dark and stormy. But no matter ; either you must withdraw your morning's consecration, or you must follow the voice that calls you to deeds of mercy and love.

If we learn well this lesson, it takes the drudgery out of all duties. It lifts up the commonest intercourse of life into blessed service at Christ's feet. It makes us patient and gentle when dealing with the most disagreeable people. It imparts a high, a divine, motive to all friendship and companionship. It teaches us patience amid the interruptions and disarrangements of our plans. It disciplines our wayward wills in little things and brings them into subjection to Christ. It takes the frivolity out of our conversation. It makes us ever watchful of our influence over others and of our treatment of them. It makes us ever ready and eager both to receive and impart help and blessing. Then it makes consecration to Christ not a dim, far-away, merely theoretical thing, but a living, practical experience which charges all life with meaning, and which takes hold of the most commonplace things in our prosaic week-day routine, transforming them into beautiful ministries around the feet of God.

IV. Helps For Worried Week-days

" If only we strive to be pure and true,

To each of us all there will come an hour When the tree of life shall burst into flower, And rain at our feet the glorious dower Of something grander than ever we knew."

T~¥TE have only successfully acquired the art of ^ " living a Christian life when we have learned to apply the principles of religion and enjoy its help and comfort in our daily life. It is easy to join in devotional exercises, to quote promises, to extol the beauty of the Scriptures ; but there are many who do these things whose religion utterly fails them in the very places and at the very times when it ought to prove their staff and stay.

All of us must go out from the sweet services of the Sabbath into a week of very real and very prosaic life. We must mingle with people that are not angels. We must pass through experiences that will naturally worry and vex us. Those about us, either wittingly or unwittingly, annoy and try us. Many a young Christian must mingle with those who do not love Christ. Every one meets many anxieties and worries in ordinary week-day life. There are continual irritations and annoyances.

The problem is to live a beautiful Christian life in the face of all these hindrances. How can we get through the tangled briers which grow along our path without having our hands and feet torn by them ? How can we live sweetly amid the vexing and irritating things and the multitude of little worries and frets which infest our way, and which we cannot evade?

It is not enough merely to get along in any sort of way, to drag to the close of each long, wearisome day, happy when night comes to end the strife. Life should be a joy, and not a burden. We should live victoriously, ever master of our experiences, and not tossed by them like a leaf on the dashing waves. Every earnest Christian wants to live a truly beautiful life, whatever the circumstances may be.

A little child, when asked what it was to be a Christian, replied, " For me to be a Christian is to live as Jesus would live and behave as Jesus would behave if he were a little girl and lived at our house/' No better definition of practical religion could be given. Each one of us is to bear himself just as Jesus would if he were living out our little life in the midst of its actual environment, standing all day just where we stand, mingling with the same people with whom we must mingle, and exposed to the very annoyances, trials and provocations to which we are exposed. We want to live a life that will please God, and that will bear witness on its face to the genuineness of our piety.

How can we do this ? We must first recognize the fact that our life must be lived just in its own circumstances. We cannot at present change our surroundings. Whatever we are to make of our lives must be made in the midst of our actual experiences. Here we must either win our victories or suffer our defeats. We may think our lot hard and may wish it were otherwise, that we had a life of ease and luxury, amid softer scenes, with no briers or thorns, no worries or provocations. Then we should be always gentle, patient, serene, trustful, happy. How delightful it would be never to have a care, an irritation, a cross, a single vexing thing !

But meanwhile this fact remains — that our aspiration cannot be realized, and that whatever our life is to be made, beautiful or marred, we must make it just where we are. No restless discontent can change our lot. We cannot get into any elysium merely by longing for it. Other persons may have other circumstances, possibly more pleasant than ours, but here are ours. We may as well settle this point at once and accept the battle of life on this field, else, while we are vainly wishing for a better chance, the opportunity for victory shall have passed.

The next thought is that the place in which we find ourselves is the place in which the Master desires us to live our life.

"Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident: It is the very place God meant for thee."

There is no haphazard in this world. God leads every one of his children by the right way. He knows where and under what influences each particular life will ripen best. One tree grows best in the sheltered valley, another by the water's edge, another on the bleak mountain-top swept by storms. There is always adaptation in nature. Every tree or plant is found in the locality where the conditions of its growth exist, and does God give more thought to trees and plants than to his

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own children? He places us amid the circumstances and experiences in which our life will grow and ripen the best. The peculiar discipline to which we are each subjected is the discipline we severally need to bring out in us the beauties and graces of true spiritual character. We are in the right school. We may think that we would ripen more quickly in a more easy and luxurious life, but God knows what is best; he makes no mistakes.

There is a little fable which says that a primrose growing by itself in a shady corner of the garden became discontented as it saw the other flowers in their gay beds in the sunshine, and begged to be removed to a more conspicuous place. Its prayer was granted. The gardener transplanted it to a more showy and sunny spot. It was greatly pleased, but there came a change over it immediately. Its blossoms lost much of their beauty and became pale and sickly. The hot sun caused them to faint and wither. So it prayed again to be taken back to its old place in the shade. The wise gardener knows best where to plant each flower, and so God, the divine Husbandman, knows where his people will best grow into what he would have them to be. Some require the fierce storms, some will only thrive spiritually in the shadow of worldly adversity, and some come to ripeness more sweetly under the soft and gentle influences of prosperity whose beauty rough experiences would mar. He knows what is best for each one.