^^re We in the Succession ?
By Rev. J. H. Jowett, D. D.
Here, then, is a principle. The Gospel of a broken heart demands the ministry of bleeding hearts. If that succession be broken, we lose our fellowship with the King. As soon as we cease to bleed we cease to bless. My brethren are we in this succession? Does the cry of the world's need pierce the heart, and ring even through the fabric of our dreams? Do we "fill u p " our Lord's sufferings > with our own sufferings, or are we the unsympathetic ministers of a mighty passion? I am amazed how easily I beocme callous. I am ashamed how small and insensitive is the surface which I present to the needs and sor- rows of the world. I so easily become enwrapped in the soft wool of self-in- dulgency, and the cries from f ar and near cannot reach my easeful soul. " W h y do you wish to r e t u r n ?" I asked a noble young missionary who had been invalided home: ' ' Because I can't sleep for thinking of them! " But, my breth- ren, except when I spend a day with my Lord, the trend of my life is quite an- other way. I cannot think about them because I am so inclined to sleep! My brethren, I do not know how ai)y Chris- tian service is to be fruitful if the ser- vant is not primarily baptized in the spirit of a suffering compassion. We can never heal the needs we do not feel. Tearless hearts can never be the heralds
of the passion. We must pity if we would redeem. We must bleed if we would be the ministers of the saving blood. Are we m the succession? Are we shedding our blood? Are we filling up ' ' that which is behind of the suffer- ings of Ch r i s t ?" They are doing it among the heathen. It was done in Uganda, when that handful of lads, hav- ing been tortured, and their arms cut on, and while they were being slowly burned to death, raised a song of tri- umph, and praised their Saviour in the fire, "singing till their shriveled tongues refused to form the sound. ' They are doing it in China, the little remnant of the decimated churches gathering here and there upon the very spots of butcnery and martyrdom, and renewing their covenant with the Lord. They are "filling up that which is be- hind of the sufferings of Christ." They are doing it among the missionaries. James Hannington was doing it when he wrote this splendidly heroic word, when he was encountered by tremen- dous opposition:. " I refuse to be disap- pointed;; I will only p r a i s e !" James Chalmers was doi,ng it when, after iong years of hardship and difficulty, he pro- claimed his unalterable choice: " R e- call the twenty-one years, give ine~ back all' its experience, give me ; its ship- wrecks, give me its standings in' the face of death, give it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again with spears fly- ing about me, with the club knocking me to the ground—give it me back, and I will still be your missionary!" Arc we in the succession?
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