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- Herausgeber: Darolt Books
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
It may be that this little book will be accepted of the Master and sent by him on a mission of helpfulness to some struggling lives. The aim of this book is to show how doctrine should become life; how promises should be rod and staff in the climber's hand; and how the Sunday-life should pour itself through all the week-days, making every hour bright with the radiance of heaven. It is dedicated to those who sincerely want to follow all the Scriptural precepts; and to realize in their own experience, all the joys, inspirations and comforts of true religion, and to fulfill in this world the meaning of life in all its splendor and possibility.
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PREFACE
DEDICATORY
It may be that this little book will be accepted of the Master and sent by him on a mission of helpfulness to some struggling lives.
It is now laid humbly at his feet with this simple hope. Its aim is to help young Christians especially, to take the religion of Christ out of closet and sanctuary and creedand get it into their daily lives of toil, temptation and care! Perhaps none of us get the best that we might get from our relation to Christ.
Perhaps none of us, if any, live as well as we believe. The moralities that we knowwe do not follow. The helps that are put into our handswe do not use when we are climbing the hard, steep paths, or staggering under the burdens of life. The comforts that religion givesdo not comfort us in sorrow.
Many of us think of Christianity as a system of doctrine and worship onlyand too little as a life. The aim of this book is to show how doctrine should become life; how promises should be rod and staff in the climber's hand; and how the Sunday-life should pour itself through all the week-days, making every hour bright with the radiance of heaven. It is dedicated to those who sincerely want to follow all the Scriptural precepts; and to realize in their own experience, all the joys, inspirations and comforts of true religion, and to fulfill in this world the meaning of life in all its splendor and possibility.
What Is Your Life?
"A sacred burden is the life you bear.
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly;
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly;
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal you win."
What one thinks about life, what conception he has of that strange thing called existence particularly what he thinks of his own individual lifeis a most vital matter! Life is noble or ignoble, glorious or grovelingjust as a right or wrong, a high or a low, conception is nourished in the heart. No man builds higher or betterthan his plans. No artist surpasses in marble or on canvas the beauty imaged in his soul, and no one's life can rise in grandeur above the thoughts of life which live in his heart.
No conception is true or worthywhich does not consider life in its eternal perspective; not as cut off and limited by the bounds of earthly existencebut as stretching away into immortality and vital at every point with important relations and solemn responsibilities. We are more than mere animals. Our lives are not little separate atoms of existence, each one complete in itself and independent of all other atoms. He plans very shortsightedly, who has no outlook from his hut in his narrow island-home in the great wide sea, and who sees no existence for himself beyond the stoppage of his heart's pulsesthat strange experience which men call death.
We can only learn to live worthilywhen we take into our view, and plan all the unending years that lie beyond the grave. We need a vivid and masterful consciousness of our personal immortality. A man who sees but a few bits of rock chipped from El Capitan, and a few dried leaves and faded flowers plucked from the trees that grow in that wondrous valley, has no true conception of the grandeur of the Yosemite. And no more just conception of human existence in its fullness and vastnesshas he who sees only the little fragment of broken, marred and shattered yearswhich are fulfilled on this earth. We must try to see life as sweeping away into eternityif we would grasp its meaning and have a true sense of its grandeur or realize its solemn responsibility.
There are streams among the mountains which, after flowing a little way on the surface in a broken current, vexed and tossing, amid rocks, over cascades, through dark chasmssink away out of sight and seem to be lost. You see their flashing crystal no more. But far down the mountain, amid the sweet valley scenesthey emerge again, these same streams, and flow away, no longer tossed and restlessbut quiet and peaceful as they move on toward the sea.
Just so, our restless, perplexed lives roll in rocky channels a little way on the earth and then pass out of sightand it seems the end. But it is not the end. Leaping through the dark cavern of the grave, they will re-appear, fuller, deeper, grander, on the other side, vexed and broken no longerbut realizing all the peace, joy and beauty of Christ; and thus they will flow on forever! This is no poet's fancy, no Utopian dream of a golden age, no mere picture of imagination. Life and immortality are brought to light in the gospel. Since Christ has risen againdeath is abolished, and to everyone who believes in him, there is the certainty of an endless life of blessedness in his presence and service. We only begin to livewhen the consciousness of immortality breaks upon our hearts.
Then there is another element in every true conception of life, which is equally essential. No life hangs in mid-air, without relations, connections or attachments, without dependences and responsibilities. A man may not tear himself out of the web of humanity and pass all his years on some solitary island in the sea, cutting every tie, casting off all responsibility, living without reference to God or man, law or dutyand fulfill in any sense the true meaning of life.
In every direction there are cords of attachment which reach out and bind every fragment of humanity fast in one great web; and these attachments are inextricable. We may ignore thembut we cannot break one of them. We may be disloyal to every one of thembut we cannot cut one thread of obligation.
A little reflection will show us what these connections are. Where did we come from? What is the origin of this life we bear about with us? What are our relations to God the Creator? Our life sprang from his hand. Not only sobut it is continually dependent upon him. No more does the trembling leaf hang upon the bough and depend upon it for support and very lifethan does every human life hang upon God, depending upon him for life and support and for its momentary existence.
Then, as we think of ourselves as Christians, this thought is infinitely deepened. What is a Christian life? We are accustomed to say that it is a life redeemed by Christ's death. More closely defined, it is a life that is taken up out of the ruin of sinand attached to the life of Christ. Apart from himmen are but dead and withering branches, having no life; but when attached to himthey become living branches covered with leaves and fruit.
As we think of it, we see Christ as the one great central Life of the worldand ourselves living only in him, our little fragment of being, utterly dependent upon him for every beauty, blessing and hope. We live only in him. He takes our sinsand gives us his righteousness. He takes our weaknessand unites it, like a branch grafted upon a tree, to his own glorious fullness of strength. Our emptinesshe attaches to his divine completeness, Our lives feed upon him, and are in every sense dependent upon him. We have nothing and we are nothing which we do not receive from him. Out of this relationship, come the most binding and far-reaching obligations to Godobligations of gratitude, praise, trust, obedience, service.
Our life is not in any sense our own. Its purpose is not fulfilled unless it is lived to accomplish the end for which it was created and redeemed. We begin to study the Scriptures and to ask what is the chief end of life, and we have not to read between the lines to find the answer. Everything has been made by godwith some design. Even a grain of sand has its uses. It helps build up the mountain, or it forms part of the great wall that holds the sea in its place, or it helps by its infinitesimal weight to balance the system of worlds. A drop of water has its purposes and uses. Creeping into the bosom of the drooping flower, or sinking down to its roots, it revives it. It may help to quench the thirst of a dying soldier. It may paint a rainbow on the clouds. It may help to float great ships or add its little plash to the chorus of ocean's majestic music.
And if such minute things have their purposehow grand must be the end for which each human life was made!
We think further, and we find a wondrous network of attachments binding our little fragments of beingto the great web of life around us. There are a thousand relationships which link us to our fellow-men: to home, to church, to country, to society, to truth, to humanity, to duty; and every one of these connections implies responsibility. Obligations touch our lives on all sides. Duties come to us from every point. Every human relationship is solemn with its weight of responsibility.
We think again, and we find that we are in a world in which our minutest actsstart results that go on forever! The little ripple caused by the plash of the boy's oar in the quiet baygoes rolling on and on until it breaks on every distant shore of the ocean! The word spoken in the air causes reverberations which go quivering on forever in space; and these scientific facts are but feeble illustrations of the influences of human actions and words in this world.
This fact charges every moment with most intense interest! The very air about us is vital, and carries the secret pulsations and the most unconscious influences of our lives far abroad; and not only sobut these influences sweep away into eternity. There is not a moment of our life, which does not exert a power that shall be felt millions of ages hence. There is something about the vitality and the immortality of human influence, that is fearful to contemplate, and that makes it a grandly solemn thing to live, especially when we remember that these qualities belong to the evilas well as the good of our lives.
"The deeds we do, the words we say,
Into thin air they seem to fleet;
We count them ever past
but they shall last;
In the dread judgment they
And we shall meet!"
We think once more, and we find that life has another attachmentforward to the judgment bar of God! "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ!" Romans 14:10.
We must render account for all the deeds done in the body. We read more deeply into the divine revelation, and learn that this accountability extends to all the minutest acts and words and thoughtswhich drop from hand and lip and heart, as we move along through life. It even reaches to the unconscious influences that breathe out from us, like the fragrance of a flower. We must meet our whole life again before God's throne, and give account not only for what we have done, evil and goodbut also for all that we ought to have donefor the undeveloped possibilities of our lives and their unimproved opportunities.
It is in the light of such facts as thesethat we must regard the life that is given to each of us. It is indeed a sacred burden! It is no light and easy thing so to liveas to fulfill the end for which we were made and redeemed. Life is no mere child's play! Every moment of it is intensely important, and charged with eternal responsibility. It is when we look at life in this waythat we see our need of Christ. Apart from himthere can be only failure and ruin. But if we give ourselves to him, he takes up our poor perishing fragment of being, cleanses it, puts his own life into itand nurtures it for a glorious immortality!
Under a plain marble monument sleeps the dust of one of God's dearest children, Mary Lyon, who gave her life to his cause in unwearying service, until its last power was exhausted. Cut in the stone that marks her last resting-place is this memorable sentence from her own lips, which tells the secret of her consecration, "There is nothing in the universe that I fearexcept that I may not know all my duty, or may fail to do it." With such a sense of personal responsibility pressing upon the heart at every moment, life cannot fail to be beautiful and well rounded here, and to pass to a coronation of glory hereafter!
Getting Help from the Bible
Oftentimes young Christians say, "I cannot 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 itbut it does not open its riches to me. I appreciate the wealth and beauties which others find in it and point out to mebut when I look for themthey do not reveal 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 branchesbut when another came they appeared, and in their shining plumage sat on the boughs or perched on his shoulder and sang snatches of heavenly song. I read the bookbut I confess that it yields me no honey, no food, no wine of life!"
It is quite possible that this experience is more common than we thinkor than many are honest enough to confess. There are few, if any, who find in the Bibleall the beauty and blessing that lie in its pages. Not one of us gets from itthe utmost possible of help; and no doubt most of us in our readingpass by many rare and precious things which we fail to see at all.
Yet it surely need not be a sealed book to anyone. It does not aim to hide its good things awayso that men cannot easily find them. It is not intended to be a book which great scholars alone can understand. No doubt a knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was originally written explains many an obscure passage and resolves many a difficultyyet it is not a book for the learned alonebut 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 intellectsbut 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 cardsand 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 meaningthat they have done a holy service and are safe for the day. But the mere reading of so many chapters each daydoes no one any good! It would be as well to say Latin prayersand fumble over a string of prayer-beads for ten minutes. To receive blessing from the Bibleit must be read thoughtfully, with inquiry and meditation. It must be allowedto 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 heartafter 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 we never hear from a strange or new Bible.
Besides, it is good to mark our Bible as we read it. Any precious passage that we findmay be indicated on the margin by some sign or by drawing a line around it or under the sacred words. Thus we write our own spiritual historyon the pages of our Bible. These marks are memorials, also, showing where we once found blessingstones 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 costthe very best copy of the Bible that can be obtainedone 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 thingsin places where we least expected to find any beauty or blessing!
But in addition to thisit is well to pursue other special methods. Topical reading is excellent. We select a subject and by the aid of concordance, 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 mento 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 dutyto the infallible test; and thus we shall build our personal creeds, not on the formulated statements of theologiansbut on the simple words of Scripture.
In the daily life of each one, there arise peculiar questions and experiences on which we need 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 lifeinto 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 instruction and comfort. Either out of the morning's chapter, or selected in some other waylet 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 Scripture 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 houris full of inspirationand purifies, cleanses and sanctifies.
So much for methods. Still more important, is the SPIRIT in which we read. We must come to the sacred Scriptures, 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 believebut to find in it what they themselves do believe already, to have then 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 preferencescan find the Bible an open book, disclosing to them its most precious things.
The sacred Scriptures must be read thoughtfully, slowly and patiently. Many of its richest gemslie deep, and must be dug for. It is not so much a flower-gardenas a gold-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 superficial readers may read the same chapter over and overwithout realizing it!
Then it is necessary to read the Bible not only to know the will of Godbut that we may DO it. If it is not the guide of our lifeit 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 attitude of ourswe are straightway to make the needed amendment. We are to accept its promises and precepts, believe them, and obey them. We are to allow its comforts to enter our hearts and support us in sorrow. There is nothing written in the Biblemerely for ornament or beauty. Every word is practical. There is no truth in itwhich has not some bearing upon practical living. When we come to it eager to know how to live and ready to obey its preceptswe 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 mind-set. This is true in all departments of life. Many people 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 splendorwithout 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 statuaryand 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 itare necessary to the appreciation and enjoyment of paintings and statues.
In like manner, he who 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 soulsthe more will the sacred pages reveal to us. It is not so much intellectual acumen and fine scholarship that we needas spiritual culture, love for Christ and the warmth of devotion.
A young lady purchased a book and read a few pagesbut 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 net know Christ personally, the Bible seems dry and uninteresting. But when they learn to know him and to love himall is changed; and the deeper their love for him becomesthe 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 youththe precious truths of God's Word. In visiting the Mammoth Caves, 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 would have been lost in the thick gloom, and in the inextricable mazes of the cave.
Likewise, God's promises and comforts, may not seem needful to usin 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 shadowsthe shadows of sickness, of trial, of disappointment, of sorrowand then their beauty and splendor will shine out and prove the very joy and strength of our souls.
Practical Consecration
"I used to chafe and fret when interrupted in favorite pursuitsbut 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 doand pleasant to use it as I desire, when he has not." Elizabeth 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 Christand 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 againsincerely enough, toothat 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 atis emotional rather than practical. Another trouble 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 enoughbut the fact is that in actual life, such a 'one-time consecration' is quite impracticable. Theoretically it is correctbut in experience it will always be found vague and unsatisfactory. The only truly practical consecration, is that consecration which seeks to cover the actual present. However fully we may have given ourselves to Christ at conversion, it will avail nothingunless 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 practicalif we bring it down to a daily matter, attempting to cover no more 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 himas 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 today as you will. I lay all my plans at your feet. Whatever work you have for me to dogive it into my hands. If there are those you would have me help in any waysend them to me or send me to them. Take my time and use it just as you will." I think no farther on than today. 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 program. 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 usif the Master has nothing else for us to do; but if he has, we will cheerfully drop our own plans, 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-seller, 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 news-venders 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 timeout of my own handsand 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 consecration, I must neither chafe, nor fret, nor manifest any annoyance at the interruption, nor do anything to give needless pain to my visitor.
