396
September 1932
T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
through strange lips, even more unwilling than those of Balaam of old. Account otherwise, if you can, for the fact that one of the greatest of all our modern scoffers at Holy Writ, H. L. Mencken, editor of the American Mercury, wrote: The New Testament offers precise and elaborate specifications of the events preceding the inevitable end of the world, and a fair reading o f them must lead any ra tional man to conclude that those events are upon us. If the Bible is really the W ord o f God, as we are assured not only by the Council o f Trent, but also by all the principle Protestant authorities, and even by the Supreme Court o f the United States, then it is as plain as day that the human race is on its last legs. The argument is excessive ly persuasive—-in truth, completely unanswerable. Even thus, in the strange, mysterious ways of God, the caustic, derisive pen of a sneering infidel was forced un wittingly to follow in the way of the pens of the “ holy men of God” who “ spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” ! My First Convert ow my heart leaped for joy when I heard the tidings of my first convert! I could never be satisfied with a full congregation, and the kind expressions of friends; I longed to hear that hearts had been broken, that tears had been seen streaming from the eyes of penitents. How I did rejoice, as one that findeth great spoil, over one poor labor er’s wife who confessed that she felt the guilt of sin, and had found the Saviour under my discourse on Sunday after noon! . . . I remember well her being received into the church and her dying, and going home to .heaven. She was the first seal to my ministry and, I can assure you, a very precious one indeed. No mother was ever more full of happiness at the sight of her first-born son. Then could I have sung the song of the Virgin Mary, for my soul did magnify the Lord for remembering my low estate, and giving me the great honor to do a work for which all gen erations should call me blessed, for so I counted the conver sion of one soul.— C harles H addon S purgeon . Thirteen Methodist Parsons HiRTEEN Methodist parsons away back in 1752 (among them the Wesley brothers, John and Charles) signed a covenant which every modern minister might well hang on his study wall or paste in his hat. The solemn agree ment as published in the United Presbyterian, is as fol lows : It is agreed by us whose names are underwritten : 1. That we will not listen to or willingly inquire after any ill concerning each other. 2. That if we do hear any ill of each other, we will not be forward to believe it. 3. That as soon as possible we will communicate what we hear by speaking or writing to the person concerned. 4. That till we have done this, we will not write or speak a syllable of it to any other person whatsoever. 5. That we will not mention it, after we have done this, to any other person. 6. That we will not make any exception to any of these rules, unless we think ourselves absolutely obliged in con ference so to do. Such a policy, if faithfully carried out by clergy and laymen alike, would eliminate a majority of the strife that dishonors the name of the Lord and His church today.
“ is to be conscious o f none!” David was conscious of his: “ Have mercy upon me, O God, . . . For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me . . . De liver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: . . . A broken and a contrite heart, O Goa thou wilt not despise” (Psa. 51:1, 3, 14, 17). Yes, yes! The sin that is unto death, the sin that brings the drop of the curtain, the sin that ushers in the judgment of even a merciful God on a world He fain would save is the utter loss of a moral consciousness. The fact that the great masses of the people, yea, even the shepherds of the flocks “ can’t see any harm” —yes, that is death! Even so it was when “ the house of Israel” plunged to its doom. Even so it will be when the house of the Gen tiles shall fall. When the vast concourses of humanity, to gether with their “ blind [spiritual] guides” once “ call evil good, and good evil; . . . put darkness for light, and light for darkness; . • . put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20), then shall “ hell enlarge herself and open her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth [‘merrily’ ] shall descend into it,” and “ the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness” (Isa. 5:14, 16). When purity is mocked and impurity is glorified, when sin is coddled upon the bosom and righteousness is trampled under the feet, then judgment knocks at the door. M iserably T hey Go To H ell When we rounded that street corner in Los Angeles the other night, and the “merrily-we-go-to-hell” crowd came out upon the street, wife said to me, “ Do you see their faces ? Look at them—anything but merry!” She was right. Wherever there was the trace of a smile, it seemed, oh, so empty— like a smile that sought to hide a heart hungering for it knew not what. Most of those faces were sad, sad, sad! After all, humanity never goes to hell “ merrily.” It may start “ merrily.” But—the ending? Inquire of a famous prodigal son about that. In the beginning, there was wine to excite and beauty to invite, wit to amuse and music to please, love to gratify and flesh to satisfy. But follow on to the end of the trail. Behold a bundle of rags wrapped about a blackened.soul, groaning in misery, hunger, loneliness and despair, crawling its way through the fence into a swinesty, vainly hoping but act ually unable to even honestly “ fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.” “ Riotous living” may have been the beginning. Rotten living was certainly the ending. Real, lasting joy is ever a “ fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). A British laborer, returning from Russia shortly after the revolution, said: “ No one in Russia ever smiles.” Nor do they smile now. “ The three hundred miles of the Red Riviera,” says Mr. H.-R. Knickerbocker, “ are popu lated by the only Russians who smile. I watched a room ful of workmen playing pocket billiards in Samara. Dur ing twenty-five minutes, not one man smiled. This is one of the profoundest characteristics of the Communist atti tude toward life.” A famous globe-trotter writes: “ I have been in every land on which the sun shines. Nowhere among women have I ever seen a single happy, hopeful face where the gospel of Jesus Christ has not been preached.” Where women are not happy, men are not. Oh, the sadness of unbelief! Yet, why smile in the night? A M odern B alaam S ignificantly P rophesies It is a deeply solemn fact that if His own prophets re fuse to proclaim the great prophetic truths that warn the world of the closing age, God will force the warning
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