162
THE K I N G ’ S B U S I NE S S now uttered with such impotence once thrilled through men as they fell from those lips; the appeals which now grate like a chime of cracked bells once car ried multitudes before them. In days gone by, many rose up to bless this man as a messenger of God; today his words are as a tale twice told. Per haps, conscious of the loss of the real power, he endeavors to compensate for it by a greater force of physical ora tory, spurring himself to impetuosity, swelling to lofty and solemn impressive ness; but it is only as when a ship in a calm makes her sails bulge by rolling: they flap and rustle; but there is no strength in them, as when, filled by the silent wind, they bore the vessel on ward. Strange Fire An English newspaper contained a headline as follows: “ PREACHER ON FIRE IN THE PULPIT!” Now you would naturally think you were going to read of a great revival that had broken out. Some preacher has cut loose from philosophy and has started in to preach the Gospel. Some preacher has received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. But how disappointed to read that a certain minister carried in his pocket some potash pellets and some safety matches. Pellets and matches started business on their own account and set the preacher on fire while he wa s preaching. The preacher reas sured his congregation and sought re fuge in the vestry where a doctor at tended his injuries. At any rate, let us take the head line for a heart searcher. Are we ON FIRE? Will the stuff we are preach ing start a fire anyway? Then away with it. It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” “ He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” It was Pentecost that made the apostolic church the greatest missionary force since Christ.
At that time he explained his ambition as a preacher, which was to concen trate his whole strength upon the proc lamation of the Gospel from the pulpit. “ Many people in the congregation,” he wrote, “ wish simple Bible preaching. Now I feel that I have a great deal more sympathy with this class of peo ple than I had. I have learned, I shall never unlearn the lesson that after all our sole power lies in the true, simple, sincere, setting forth of the Living Christ, and I abjure for ever more all the rubbish of intellectual preaching. I would rather serve out slops for the people to live upon than lumps of stone cut into the form of loaves.” For over forty years, Maclaren occu pied the same pulpit, and in this quota tion from one of his early letters lies the secret of the permanency and the breadth of his appeal. Get Down to Business A clergyman, observing a poor man by the road breaking stones with a pick axe, and kneeling to get at his work better, made the remark, “ Ah, John! I wish I could break the stony hearts of my hearers as easily as you are break ing those stones.” The man replied, “ Perhaps, master, you do not work on your knees.” Is This You? Absence of power is sometimes so clear, that the soul that has come to the house of God seeking bread, pain fully feels that it is getting but a stone; and never is that feeling so painful as when all that ought to attend upon spiritual power is there,— the truth well understood and well stated, all the lineaments and outward forms that would lead us to expect life,— but, when we draw near, there is no breath in it. Sometimes one may see that this soul less thing is not a wax figure which never breathed, but a corpse from which the life is gone. The truths
Made with FlippingBook Online document