THE KING’S BUSINESS
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The puny gnat with its incessant buzz can make the lion, monarch of the forest, lash his sides with the foam of his own wrath; so Timothy’s noble sensitive soul is stung in spite of him self by those miserable mosquitoes- of incarnate annoyance. Their very pettiness is a provocation, and this Hymenaeus-Philetus party had be come a scourge in the congregation’s side, a thorn in the minister’s eye. Timothy is reaping the tares that ev ery servant of Christ has to reap in his harvest of faithful dealing, and a bundle of bitterness sometimes they are. The crop is sometimes a thistly one to gather. The bright ideal of Timothy’s dear old ordination day has disappeared like the glowing saffron of sunrise in a close cloud of dank, chilling mist. The castle building of his sanctified imagination has crashed to pieces at his feet, and he feels well nigh choked with the dust and the stour of the fall. Poor sad Timo thy tonight, ill of the ministerial sore heart! “The flesh hath no rest, trou bled on every side; without fighting; within fears; nevertheless God that comforteth those that are cast down comforteth thee now by the coming of—a letter! Behold at the door a messenger from “Paul the aged,” Paul the devoted, Paul the prisoner, Paul the brave, the great, the good Apostle, Paul thy heart-fond father in the faith. Here are the great sprawling characters of his well- known hand. ' Read with swimming eyes his crooked inscription, “To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy and peace—peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” “Cheer up,” runs the letter, “I have heard of thy trouble, but no strange thing has happened thee. It comes to one, it comes to all, it comes to me, it came to the Master Him self. When I returned to Jerusalem from Damascus, and was terribly
pressed on every side, Peter told me how one day, as the Lord spake of this very eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, many of His disciples were offended, and with an gry murmurings went back and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, ‘Will ye also go away?’ And Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words' of eter nal life, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And what did Jesus answer but this, ‘Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a Devil?’ Some have left thee, Timothy, and in leaving thee have left Christ. They went out because they were never.of. The chaff hath fled with the rush of the winds, but look at thy feet, the pile of rich feed remains on the granary floor of thy ministry! Blessed be God, His chil dren are with thee. True, the most of them are humble and poor, but they are rich in the faith that brings the hundred per cent of the increase of Christ. On sick beds and in gar rets they are—nay, not so! Their place is in the very portals of the King’s palace. The sons and daugh ters of the Lord Almighty are with thee, the saints are with thee, God is with thee, never fear. Oh, my son Timothy, take thy harp from the wil low and string it to the highest halle lujah. Dissension and division and desertion around thee, ‘Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’ Fall alone will the never up, depart alone will the never come. Only the unconvert ed and the carnal have gone, and rather thank God for the remarkable deliverance and the disappearance of all the dirt. The people of God are yet thy people, where thou lodgest,
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