in the storms o f life we need
"IT h a v e n o f a n c y but the one thing needful is a brand-new experience of God among His people. I do not care what your favorite name for it may be. We have named it a-plenty, but most of us have never known it. The filling of the Spirit, full surrender, con secration, the victorious life, perfect love, revival—what ever you call it—most of us don’t have it. Too much of our orthodoxy is correct and sound but it is like words without tune, statues without songs. It does not stir the wells of the heart. It has lost its hallelu jah, it is too much like a catechism, not enough like a camp meeting. We may smile at our spiritual forbears, call some of them primitive and antiquated, but they had a vividness and vitality, a fervor and fire, that makes us look like fireflies beside their flaming witness. We need a heart-warming like Wesley knew that evening on Aldersgate Street. We need to find what Fletcher reached when, after wearying all hours of the night seeking peace, his eyes fell upon a signpost read ing, “Cast thy burden on the Lord” (Ps. 55:22). We may have it in a motto on the wall but the Word hung up in the house is one thing and the Word hidden in the heart is another. We need to learn with Frances Ridley Havergal, worn out with heart-searching and wrestling with sin that “the blood of Jesus Christ . . . cleanseth us from all sin,” I John 1:7, is the key that unlocks the gate of bondage and sets the spirit free. I do not mean that we are to copy their experiences. For one it may be as cyclonic and tempestuous as Fin ney’s dramatic meeting with the Lord. For another it may be as serene as an autumn sunset, as with A. B. Earle when a sweet heavenly peace filled his soul and a calm, childlike trust took possession of his whole being. We may rise from our knees singing “Onward, Chris tian Soldiers” like a camp-meeting Methodist; or we may feel so subdued that we can only whisper “Abide With Me.” But whatever form it takes, we need a fresh meet- name for it
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