423
B u s i n e s s
T h e K i n g ’ s
October 1932
(5»* m m Ls/rom THE KING’S TABLE . . . By T he E ditor
est courts of Christian tribune, but what we, the rank and file, have to do is to remember that Christ is but a day old, born today as well as twenty centuries since, living today as certainly as He lived when He walked in Jewry and did miracles in Galilee. But we have let Him out of our grip, we have allowed Him to pass us unnoticed, we talk more about ancient history instead of testifying to present ex perience. Christ is now living. The gospel is as mighty today as it ever was. The human heart is unchanged. The disease of the heart needs the exact remedy which is found in the gospel, and if we faithfully and lovingly preach and live what we know of inspired truth, the hearts of men will own our call of God and our ministry by tongue and pen, and life shall not fail without some noble recognition and response. e could take you to many scenes that would show the infinite profitableness of faith in God. We would not withdraw the flowered curtain, behind which sinful life drinks its poison cup. We would take you to houses that have been desolated by misfortune and show you the prof itableness of religion in the sweet patience which it has wrought in that heart. We would take you to the house of affliction, where youth has been turned into old age by long continued pain, and show how the fire had left the gold and consumed only the dross. We would take you to men who once were the curse and terror of society, and show you the light of Christian intelligence in their coun tenances and the love of Christian charity in their actions. We would take you to the chamber where the good man meets with the last enemy, and as he smiles at the so-called king of terrors and passes upward to the quiet and holy place, calm, fearless, exalted, we would say, “ Behold, the profit which comes of knowing and loving the Saviour of the world!” Patience T 1 othing refines the soul so much as the exercise of willing, uncomplaining, rejoicing patience—to be prepared that tomorrow should be as monotonous as today, and to know that for the next year there will be no change in our solitariness and weakness, but that we shall still be living under the same gray sky and be blown upon by the same cold, cruel wind, and yet to say, “ Seeing this is God’s do ing, it is best; He will turn this pain to good uses; He will make this weariness an opportunity for deepening our spiritual knowledge, and for encouraging and sustaining our spiritual vitality.” Thus faith grows. Not to know God’s plans and yet to believe God; to have no information extending beyond the immediate moment and yet to be sure that all will be right at the last, is to grow in faith and to become solid at the center. The only right spirit, in relation to divine providence, is to acknowledge the mys tery, to bow before it, to wait patiently for God. O Chris tian, we are in God’s school, and school will soon close! Let us learn all the lessons well. It Pays u u
“ Be of Good Cheer, for I Believe God ” his is an “ Apostle’s Creed.” It is a short, but pregnant one. Paul risks everything upon it. There is not room in it for qualification, for reserve, or for subtle suppres sions which destroy the energy and the pith and the mystery of faith. It is a dewdrop, holding within its comparative smallness of form all the mystery and all the meaning of the sea. Paul uttered it in extremity, when there appeared to be no God. He said it in an empty house, nothing left but the bare walls, and the walls reeling, trembling, shak ing under a shock of uncontrollable power. That is a good time to profess your creed. It may be that we cannot ex press our true creeds when all is going well—when we are in splendid health, when we are not surrounded by any danger, when we have no unpaid bills and a sufficient in come. Under such circumstances, what creed can a man have? Under such circumstances, a man does not hold himself. He is a doll on the lap of luxury. It is when a man is torn limb from limb, mocked, spat upon, cursed, that he knows what he really believes. Here is where Christian ity seems to the world to have lost power. It has become a fine subject for argument, a subtle conundrum, a depart ment of transcendental metaphysics, a thing which only cunning minds can comprehend, and trained tongues can adequately express. It is no longer to the world a heroic faith, a great utterance of conviction, a heart so full that it cannot speak, a mind so mad that it cannot settle itself down to the prison of logical and pedantic forms. When trouble is near we have a good deal less argument and a great deal more prayer. What would be thought of your children if they made it their business to write essays upon their father every week, and if they were to justify their essay writing by the protestation that it was needful to have “ intelligent concep tions of fatherhood” ? Do you not think that the gray haired father would smile to see his little child commencing an essay on the “ Psychology of my Father,” on “ The Mar velous Methods Adopted by my Father in the Government of his Family,” on “ The Various Faculties of my Father and the Mystery of their Exercise” ? His old wrinkled face would smooth itself out with a great, broad smile if he saw the poor little toiler dipping his pen to round off into rhetorical completeness a sentence that would precisely describe “ the method o f my father’s government.” He would rather have one great big hug than all the essays the infant scribe could write, one great all-round hug than the finest metaphysical analysis which the infantile psychologist could perpetrate. Oh, let us go back to the simplicity of faith and quit our nonsense! The Christ of Today he church has lost her inspiration, her weight, her spiritual philosophy. She is content to have a Christ two thousand years old. The church is today defending the Christ o f the first century instead of living the present Christ who is now praying for her. The historical argu ment will never cease to have its own proper value; docu mentary evidence must always be valuable in the very high
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