579
December 1929
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
shakable faith in the loyalty and devotion of mankind to a worthy cause will survive. L ove is D eathless Things are valued in this life according to their com mercial, moral, or spiritual worth. Not infrequently things are valued according to their enduring qualities. Age lends value to trifles. Some things are of great price be cause they endure the tests of time. Acacia wood was used in the construction of the Ark because the elements could not affect it, nor could the centuries decay it. The cedars of Lebanon are said to stand the storms of a thou sand winters, and in this lies their chief value. As man comes to understand his true nature and destiny, he places highest in the scale of values those things that are least subject to change—things that endure the tests of time, and outlive the wreckage of centuries. There are few elements in human life that do not per ish with the years that mark the milestones of our qarthly pilgrimage. Honors and friendships fade and fail as the fading and falling leaf. Chiseled monuments and marble statues crumble under time’s gentle but withering touch, In the morning of a new-born world, even faith will be lost in sight, and hope in fruition; but love, the one factor that gives meaning to home, church and state, shall out live the elements of time, the creations of men, the con flagrations of worlds; and as one fair as the morning, clear as the sun, and with the dew of youth upon her brow, she shall remain to bless the redeemed of all ages, and impart to them immortality. '«Bfc years later—when the new style was born in prayer. The efforts were stumbling and halting, but the results brought the sweetest satisfaction we had ever known. Gradually the chapters opened like beautiful flowers before \ the warmth of the morning sunshine; the divisions, illustra tions, and the story, opened up just as Dr. White had said they would, and today it seems impossible and. un natural to preach otherwise than to “give them a chapter.” We should be ungrateful if we failed to say that the acceptance of this godly advice, given persistently to a more or less shallow preacher, has brought most fruitful and far-reaching results. With the old style of preaching, topical or textual, it was a rare experience to address larger groups outside of our own parish, but with the expository method a new ministry is ours. The Great Overseer seemed all at once to thrust us out in every direction : State C. E. Conventions, numerous County Conventions, Denominational Conferences, and others suddenly began to accord us the great honor of a placé on their program. During the month this is written we have had the untold privilege of “giving a chapter’’ to four great Christian Endeavor gatherings, with an atten dance in the thousands. We have always felt that siich invitations were ordered by our God. We bega'n to note the source from which they came; always from spiritual groups who love the Word. We were entirely overlooked by the Rotarians, Kiwanis and other splendid secular or ganizations. Perhaps we had no message for them ; we starve between Sundays. Wherever God’s man will ex-
way to search his heart and discover to him his true se lf: “Peter, dost thou love me with a love that finds expres sion in loyalty, honor and devotion?” And he who re membered his recent shameful failure, replied: “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I am fond of thee.” While the Master failed to find the higher love, He was not wholly disappointed in His disciple, nor was He to be thwarted in His purpose to build grandly in and through him. Before he finished his eventful life, Peter proved himself worthy of his Lord; and in his death a sublime devotion was shown as he willingly embraced a cross that stood at the end of his earthly pilgrimage. T h e S tate The mighty host of the silent dead who fell on the field of strife, bear mute but eloquent testimony to the fact that “for love of country”-men are willing to sacrifice all—home, health, and even life itself—to preserve the priceless and precious things for which their fathers died. This love of country, so dominant and so deathless in the human breast, has called forth such loyalty to a leader, such allegiance to a cause, and such daring in the hour of danger, as to make men seem almost more than human. The story of unselfish service and sacrifice in order that the state might be perpetuated and preserved, has filled our libraries with records of great and noble deeds. So long'as men reveal such love for their native soil as was shown at Marathon, at Gettysburg and Verdun, an un In these months when the newly appointed President o f the Bible Institute is being introduced to the readers of T h e K in g ’ s B usiness , the following unsolicited testi mony by a Los Angeles pastor may throw some added light upon Dr. W. P. White’s helpful personality. S URING the fall of 1922 the Grace Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles invited Dr. White to con- |® duc t a two-weeks Bible Conference. To many of iflithe members the conference was a spiritual land- iM mark, but to the writer, as pastor of the church, c it meant the revolutionizing of his whole ministry. Those long earnest discussions with that man of God! How he labored with the young minister as we differed in our opinion as to the best method of preaching the Un searchable Riches! Not long out of the seminary, and unfortunately winner of a few minor oratorical contests, we clung obstinately to our ambition to be the modern Apollos, giving the Scripture in homeopathic doses, but mingled with large portions of the water of rhetoric. “Bailes, just forget your oratory, give those dear people a CHAPTER of the Word, and just EXPOUND it.” More than thirty years of Christian experience was be hind the quiet voice, yet we could not see it. We did not want a new style of preaching, even though we real ized that somewhere there was a lack. Dr. White soon was gone to other fields, but his barbed message never left us. Never satisfied; always the voice, “Give them a CHAPTER!” Then the day came—four
'âs> aì» “Give Them a Chapter!” gfe>
A T estimony B y S tanley H. B ailes (Moderator o f Los Angeles Presbytery)
Made with FlippingBook HTML5