THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S The age of Church organization and Church machinery is not an age noted for elevated and strong personal piety. Machinery looks for engineers and or ganizations for generals, and not for -saints, to run them. The simplest or ganizations may aid purity as well as strength; hut beyond th a t narrow limit organization swallows up the individual, and is careless of personal purity; push, activity, enthusiasm, zeal for an organ ization, come in as the vicious substi tutes for spiritual character. Holiness and all the spiritual graces of hardy culture and slow growth are discarded as too slow and too costly for the prog ress and rush of the age. By dint of machinery, new organizations, and spiritual weakness, results are vainly ex pected to be secured which can only he secured by faith, prayer, and waiting on God. The man and his spiritual character is what God is looking after. If men, holy men, can be turned out by the easy processes of Church machinery readier and better than by the old-time pro cesses, we would gladly invest in every new and improved patent; but we do not believe it can be done. We adhere to the old way-—the way the holy proph ets went, the King’s highway of holi ness. Praying men are God’s chosen lead ers. The distinction between the lead ers th a t God brings to the front to lead and bless His people, and those leaders who owe their position of leadership to a worldly, selfish, unsanctifled selec tion, is this: God’s leaders are pre eminently men of prayer. This dis tinguishes them as the simple, Divine attestation of their call, the seal of their separation by God. Whatever of other graces or gifts they may have, the gift and grace of prayer towers above them all. In whatever else they may share or differ, in the gift of prayer they are one. . . . Praying men are the safety of the
13 Church from the materialism th a t is af fecting all its "plans and polity, and which is hardening ita life-blood. The insinuation circulates as a secret, dead ly poison th a t the Church is not so de pendent on purely spiritual forces as it used to be—th a t changed times and changed conditions have brought it out of its spiritual straits and dependencies and put it where other forces can bear it to its climax. A fatal snare of this kind has allured the Church into world ly embraces, dazzled her leaders, weak ened her foundations, and shorn her of much of her beauty and strength. Pray ing men are the saviours of the Church from this material tendency. They pour into it the original spiritual forces, lift it off the sand-bars of materialism, and press it out into the ocean depths of spiritual power. Praying men keep God in the Church in full force, keep His hand on the helm, and train the Church in its lessons of strength and trust. a » M THE HOliT SPIRIT A city full of churches; Great preachers, lettered men! Grand music, choirs and organs, If these all fail, what then? Good workers, eager, earnest, Who labor hour by hour, - But where, oh where, my brother, Is God’s Almighty power? It is the Holy Spirit, That quickeneth the soul; God will not take man-worship, Nor bow to man’s control. No human innovation, No skill, or worldly art, Can give a true repentance, Or break the sinner’s heart! We may have human wisdom, Grand singing; great success. There may«be fine equipment, But these things do not bless. God wants a pure clean vessel, Anointed lips and true, A man filled with the Spirit, To speak His message through.
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