T H E K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S
698
the boy members of the church. In that section of country meat was very scarce, and the natives ate rats as well as other small animals. This boy had no money to give, but gave the rats that they might be sold and the money be used for the Lord’s work. This gift meant that for several meals he would have no meat to eat and would have as his only fare the coarse native bread. When God’s people in this highly favored land reach a point of sacrifice equal to that of the African boy, it will soon be seen that the treasuries of the Lord will over flow and that there will not be room enough to receive them. Shall we be behind the African boy in liberality? What can we sacrifice for God? Perfect Obedience “ To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). A story is told of a great captain who, after a battle, was talking over the events of the day with his officers. He asked them who had done the best that day. Some spoke of one man who had fought very bravely, and some of an other. “No,” he said, “ you are all mis taken. The best man in the field today was a soldier who wak just lifting up his arm to strike an enemy; but, when he heard the trumpet sound a retreat, checked himself, and dropped his arm without striking the blow. That perfect and ready obedience to the will of his general is the noblest thing that has been done today.”
Atonement Acts 20:28
John Muir told a story of a living .example of the atonement which he heard of among the Indians of Alaska. An old chief sacrificed himself for his tribe. There had been a war all summer be tween two strong tribes. One old chief saw that unless it stopped soon and his people had a chance to lay in their win ter supply of berries and salmon they would starve; so he went out under a truce flag to ask the chief of the other tribe to stop and go home, telling him thé reason for this request. The other chief said that his tribe would not stop fighting, because ten more of his men had been killed than of the enemy. Then the chief said tô him: “ You know that I am a chief. I am worth ten of your men. Kill me in place of them, and let us have peace.” This sacrificial request was granted, and there in front of the contending tribes the old chief was shot. When Mr. Young and Mr. Muir came to this tribe, they said: “ Yes, your words are good. The Son of God, the Chief of chiefs, the Maker of all the world, must be worth more than all mankind put together; there fore, when His blood was shed, the sâl- vation of the world was made sure.”— W. L. Stidger.
AW AY WITH CREEDS ’ HE arch-enemy of truth has invited us to level our walls, and take i J away our fenced cities. He has cajoled some true-hearted, but weak-headed, believers to advocate this crafty policy. “ Away with creeds and bodies of divinity.” This is the cry in our day. Ostensibly it is reverence for the Bible, and attachment to charity which dictates the clapiorous denunciation; but at the bottom it is hatred of definite truth, and especially of the doctrines of grace, which has suggested the absurd cry. As Philip of Macedon hated the Grecian orators, because they were the watch dogs of the flock, so these wolves desire the destruction of our doctrinal formularies that they may make havoc of the souls of men by their pestilent heresies— Spurgeon.
Made with FlippingBook Annual report