THE KING’S BUSINESS
1076
I could reach the township living, but . . . . He knows what terrors tore me . . But I didn’t . . . But I didn’t. I went down the other side.” So I have chosen this scripture and this chapter with its five great things: (More- head) The great description with which it begins; the great renunciation which the apostle makes (giving up all to win Christ); the great acquisition (to know Him and the power of His resurrection) ; and great aspiration (words of my text). Good motto for an individual and for a church. It is the motto of Livingstone in different words. Livingstone, when he broke fresh ground among the Bakhatlas, wrote the London Missionary Society explaining what he had done and express ing hope of their approval. At the same time he professed willingness to go any where they wished to send him—“any where, provided it be forward.” 1. A D iscontented P resent. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended.” In Henry Van Dyke’s story, “The Lost Word,” Hermas, in return for a dream bestowed, promises never again to name Christ of Christmas and when the name was taken from him, an excruciating throb of pain thrilled through his body. So, I’ve thought, if man were confined to present tense and could not Say “tomor row” ; if the memory of yesterday were obliterated, the hope of tomorrow ban ished, and only the work of today were left; if man had no ancestors, no posterity, and only himself, today; how sad it would be! Such is the fate of the man hemmed in by the narrow doors of Present Tense. Now, of course, today is mine to live. I cannot talk about the future my father made, or live on my son’s reputation. I must live today, but must I be content with today? Am I to sit down and fold my hands and say, “This is all I ask ?” Must I take a lease of ninety-nine years on side- street? No, I hope to move to Avenue. Must I bargain to do business in a 2x4 for aye? No, I hope to have a depart-
today’s plan was shattered? “I always have tomorrow,” either in this world or else where. There is always a clean page in front of me; always an open door greets me in the morning; always a fresh path calling, “Walk with me today. I will lead you from rosy dawn to burning noón-day, then to golden sunset and mystic twilight, and then I will bid you adieu and leave you to God and the silence of night.” This, then, is the essence of Paul’s pro gram: declaring war on his environment; pulling a curtain over his past, and run ning from it like an Eastern mother from her leprous child; and then—best of all— not running blindfolded or with handcuffed arms, but reaching forward to his goal, so that if he falls in the race, he will fall with his hand forward, dying fighting. The blessing of discontent! The blessing of a good forgettery! The blessing of a com pelling vision! Kipling puts it well for us in his poem “The Explorer” : “ ‘There’s no sense in going farther—it’s the edge of cultivation.’ So they said* and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my crop, Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station, Tucked away below the foothills, where the trails run but and stop. (Man satisfied with its present, but soon comes appealing future) - “ ’Till a voice, as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes O’er one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated—‘Go: Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges— Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!’ So I went, .worn out of patience; never . told my nearest neighbors. (Man cuts loose from past and surroundings) •“Then Í knew, the while I doubted—knew His hand was certain o’er me. Still—it might be self-delusion—scores of better men had died—
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