the glib, flippant sort who has never tasted deeply of human misery. The old hymn writers thought the Chris- tion life to be serious business. They were bidding their souls be on guard and would have them stretch every nerve and press with vigor on. They would not be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease. They envisioned a fight and a struggle and they would give all diligence to make their calling and election sure. They made it life’s supreme concern to walk circumspectly; they worked at it and prayed over it and were profoundly concerned lest they be castaways. They were burdened over the plague of their hearts and the poverty of their souls. They were burdened over the state of the church and the plight of the world. Ezekiel’s man with the inkhorn would have marked them because they did mourn for the abomina tion of their generation. (Dear friend, if you are set in a somber key, God can use you. He starts with- the bass in stringing His instru ments and today He has all too few serious souls to offset the high pitched piping of our time. Turn your tenden cies to good account. You will be in the company of Jeremiah weeping over his people and Paul willing to be accursed that Israel might be saved . . . and the Lord Himself with His heart broken for us all. And what shall we say of Augustine and Rutherford and McCheyne and Fletcher and Fox and all that immortal host who truly passed the time of their sojourning here in fear?) Surely this present hour is not conducive to levity among God’s colony still here on earth. The crisis de mands appropriate conduct and we had better be at our godliest as we thread our way through these days. Sober ness becomes the children of light and while Mr. Fear ing should not be afraid as to his acceptance at last he may well fear God in his sojourning .now.
tremulous” and the pilgrim who quakes in his boots, whatever else he may be guilty of, will not likely rush into the rash and precipitate sins that so often ensnare the bold and venturous traveler. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and pass the time of our sojourning here in fear. Mr. Fearing may be afraid of the wrong things but even at that he will leam more readily the right kind of fear than he who boasts of no fear at all. According to Bunyan, God was very good to Mr. Fear ing and when the poor soul got to the river where he thought he should be drowned forever and so never see that Face with comfort that he had come so many miles to behold, no such thing happened. Instead, the water of the river was lower than ever and he went over “ not much above wetshod.” And dear Alexander MacLaren with his matchless sermon on “ The Witness of the Spirit!” He is very patient with Mr. Fearing. “ There are none so far away from false confidence,” says he, “ as those who tremble lest they be cherishing it . . . There may be, and there often is, the combination of a real confidence and a false diffidence, the presence of faith, and the doubt whether it be present.” Now the real trouble with such fearful ones is that they have a misplaced fear. They are fearful about the wrong things. I have already hinted at it: they should cease worrying about their acceptance and cultivate the godly fear of our texts. We have only to commit the keeping of our souls, unto the faithful Creator, our Lord will keep all we commit unto Him against that day. But we do well to exercise another kind of fear, not dread but a holy and reverent fear of God. The man who lives that way is far nearer the spirit of the New Testament than
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