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1910 Faith And Healing Charles Reynolds Brown

• Contents Review

• Faith and Health BY CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN

  AUTHOR OF “THE YOUNG MAN’S AFYAIHS,” “THE SOCIAL MESSAGE OP THE MODERN PULPIT,” “THE MAIN POINTS,” AND “THE STRANGE WAYS OP GOD”

  NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

  PUBLISHERS

  THE HEALING MIRACLES OF CHRIST

  MODERN FAITH CURES

  THE PROS AND CONS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

  THE HEALING POWER OF SUGGESTION

  Tnn EMMANUEL MOVEMENT

  THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH

  THE CHURCH AND DISEASE

  THE wise man, were he alive to-day, could slightly amend his original statement and feel quite sure of winning general assent -“ Of the making of health books there is no end.” We find issuing from the press a steady stream of volumes written, some in support of and some in opposition to “Christian Science,” “The New Thought,” “The Emmanuel Move­ment,” “The Power of Suggestion,” and all the other forms in which a widespread popular interest is manifesting itself. The endeavor in these pages has been to bring together in a single volume and in simple language some of the main arguments which may be properly advanced in this general con­tention, and to indicate in briefer compass the line along which, in the judgment of the author, genuine progress may be expected in seeking increased physical efficiency through the aid of mental and spiritual forces.

  The larger part of the material in the sixth chapter was formerly used in a little booklet entitled “The Gospel of Good Health,” pub­lisiied by The Pilgrim Press, Boston, in its “Envelope Series,” and it is republished here by their kind permission. It has been freely retouched.

  IT is highly suggestive that in the Greek New Testament the word translated in cer­tarn passages “to save is translated in other passages “to heal” or “to make whole.” This would seem to indicate that the ultimate purpose of both these restorative processes is the same. Salvation is wholeness, soundness, complete­ness of life. And conversely, for a man to be truly “in good health” means not only that his digestion, circulation and other bodily functions are all working properly, but that he is also upright, aspiring and useful.

  The one word applied to both processes also points back to the common source of heal­ing energy. The psalmist of old sang praises to his Lord who had forgiven all his iniquities and healed all his diseases. He was sound in his philosophy, for in the last analysis it is one and the same divine energy which operates upon the body and upon the soul. It is one divine energy which operates, now utilizing thoughts and desires, impulses and confi­dences; now utilizing fresh air and pure water, wholesome food and chemical sub­stances, useful exercise and congenial employ­ment. In either case we have the same divine energy at work restoring, up-building and completing the life according to a purpose eternally beneficent.

  It is natural, therefore, it is inevitable, that the relations between religion and medicine should be close. It is altogether fitting that the pastor who ministers to the moral life, which in turn reacts upon physical health, and the physician who ministers to the body, which in turn reacts upon the formation of character, should be on sympathetic and cor­dial terms, each one doing his own work, and each one doing it better if he attempts only that for which he is adapted and trained. In these chapters I hope to indicate clearly how these two arms of a common service to human well-being may best be maintained in those forms and relations which shall be most ad­vantageous to the people who are to profit by such a combined ministry The Saviour of the soul is known also as the Great Physician. It is not inappropriate, therefore, in considering the relation of re­ligion to health to speak first of those acts in His life which are known as His healing miracles. It is inaccurate and unfair to define a miracle as “a violation of law,” or as a piece of magic introduced, no one knows how, for the amazement of the people. A miracle is a result wrought by divine power according to laws which at present lie outside the field of ordinary experience. In what we call the operation of natural law we find when we look closely “a divine purpose moving steadily across the ages, keeping its appointments with foreseen human needs” and ministering to them with differences of administration, but in the same abiding spirit of intelligent help­fulness. And in those events called miracu­lous, .we find this same divine energy mani­

Biography in old Religious Encyclopedia

Making Life Better Elwood Worcester 1933

Gifford, Sanford.
THE EMMANUEL MOVEMENT :
(BOSTON, 1904-1929) :
THE ORIGINS OF GROUP TREATMENT AND THE ASSAULT ON LAY PSYCHOTHERAPY / SANFORD GIFFORD.
Harvard University Press, 1997, c1996.
Not Reviewed yet by Your Host/Editor
but I cant want to read this one

Chambers, Francis T. Francis Taylor b. 1897.
The Drinker's Addiction : Its Nature and Practical Treatment

The Glass Crutch By Jim Bishop

Clinbells book has very good chapter on Emmanuel Movement

Counterfeit Miracles BB Warfield Mind Cure

Sermons and studies by Godley Men By Charles Reynolds Brown

Joanah

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK at Jonah! It is almost tragic that one of the noblest of the shorter books in the Bible should be known chiefly for its reference to a whale. And the whale only appears in two short verses of that book - he did not have one of the leading roles. He was scarcely more than a bit of stage setting in that drama of disobedience. Yet for some reason Jonah and the whale are always named together, like David and Jonathan or Romeo and Juliet.

The little book was never meant to be history. If the author of it were alive today, he would be amazed and amused by the fact that men, lacking in the sense of humor and in the sense of perspective, still argue themselves hoarse over the question as to whether any whale would have a mouth large enough to swallow a man alive, and over the further question as to whether a man could live for three days in the inside of a whale and there compose a poetical prayer, as this man is said to have done. Foolish arguments against the possibility of such an occurrence have been met by other arguments still more foolish to prove that God, being omnipotent, can do anything he likes.

The book of Jonah is a sermon cast in the form of a parable, like the Parable of the Prodigal Son or the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It stands here in the Bible not among the historical books but among the Minor Prophets, which are made up of fragments of sermons.

This is the story. The word of the Lord, one of those commanding spiritual impulses, came to Jonah saying, Go to Nineveh and call upon the people to forsake their evil doing.

But Jonah did not want to go. He was a Jew and the Ninevites were Gentiles. Jews had no dealings with Gentiles. The Ninevites can go to the bad for all I care, Jonah may have said to himself - he felt that they were on the way. Nineveh was to the east - he turned his back upon duty and started west on a ship bound for Tarshish, which was in Spain.

Then there came a frightful storm and the sailors feared that their ship was going down. They cried every man to his god. They felt that the god of the sea was angry with them for some reason, and they wanted a human scapegoat to be offered to that angry deity. They cast lots to see who should be it. By some skillful manipulation, it may be, the lot fell upon Jonah. The sailors promptly threw him overboard, and at once the sea ceased from its roaring. The storm was over. Apparently the god of the sea was satisfied with the offering they had made, and troubled them no more.

But the Lord had mercy on this disobedient prophet. He prepared a great fish to swallow him and this kept him from being drowned. There in the belly of the whale, Jonah repented of his weakness in running away from his duty and prayed forgiveness. The Lord heard his Prayer and at the end of three days the whale spit Jonah out on dry land.

Then he went straight to Nineveh and called upon the wicked to forsake their ways and the unrighteous men their thoughts, and turn to the Lord. The whole city, from the king to the scavenger, the story says, was converted. The king laid aside his Purple and clothed himself in sackcloth and ashes, asking forgiveness for his sins. So the fierce anger of Jonah's deity was changed into merciful forgiveness.

Now that is not history - it was never meant to be. Entire cities are not converted to righteousness in that wholesale fashion. But it is good preaching - He spake many things to us in parables.

Here is the teaching of that splendid parable! When a man runs away from his duty, he gets into trouble. The trouble is here portrayed according to a certain habit of mind. The ancient Hebrews were afraid of the sea. They were land animals - they developed no maritime commerce as did their neighbors the Phoenicians. In the Hebrew vision of Paradise in the last book of the Bible, we read, There was no more sea. In that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelt righteousness there was no salt water. If the sailors of that day had really believed it, they would not have wanted to go there - it would not have been heaven for them with no salt water in sight. But that was the way the Hebrews felt about it, and for the disobedient Jonah to be cast overboard into a raging sea was a terrible fate.

Now that principle is just as true today as it ever was. When any man, anywhere, runs away from his duty, he finds himself in trouble. Sometimes right off, sometimes later - the Lord does not settle all of his accounts every Saturday night or at the end of each month. He never forgets anything, however. Sometimes the trouble takes one form, sometimes another - the chariots of the Lord, which ride men down when they are doing wrong are twenty thousand. He has all kinds of ways to combat evil doing.

We are caught and held in the grip of a great moral order from which there is no more escape than there is from the power of gravitation. Whenever we get off the rails, we get hurt. Any man who turns his back on Nineveh, which represents duty, and sails for Tarshish, which represents disobedience, is in for trouble.

In the second place, when a man is sorry for his wrong doing and is ready to do better, he finds deliverance. It is not necessary to drag in all of those sea serpents and other monsters of the deep with mouths wide enough to swallow a man alive, in order to make the truth plain. How funny men have been in getting wrought up over the size and habits of the fish in the Mediterranean - they have missed the whole point of the story!

This man in the parable cast his prayer for deliverance in poetical form. The waters compassed me about and the billows went over me. My soul fainted within me until my prayer came unto thy holy temple. I said, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and I will pay that which I have vowed. His prayer was heard, and he was set upon his feet on solid ground where he could go straight for that neglected duty in the. city of Nineveh.

How sound and true all that is! This is the gospel according to Jonah, and in some of its features it is the same gospel that we find later in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Every man of us has turned aside from the right way and has followed too much the devices and desires of his own heart. We have done those things which we ought not to have done and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and that is all there is about it. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But if we confess our sins, He the God of Jonah and of John and of Jesus - is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The highest moment in a man's career, Oscar Wilde wrote when he was in Reading jail for his own wretched wrongdoing, may be the moment when he kneels in the dust and beats upon his breast and tells all the sins of his life. God be merciful to me a sinner - when a man utters that prayer sincerely, he is forgiven. When he is sorry for his wrongdoing (as Jonah was) and is ready to do better, he finds deliverance.

In the third place, God's mercies are universal. When this Jew went to Nineveh, his very presence there declared that God had granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life, just as we find it set forth later in the book of Acts. It took a surgical operation and a sheet let down from heaven, full of all kinds of animals, to get that truth into Peter's head. He finally rose to it and said to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that heareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. Thy prayers and thine alms are acceptable to God. But here was Jonah saying the same thing five hundred years, more or less, before Peter was born. The timeliness of this great truth in that day is apparent. Israel was refusing her larger mission to the outside world. She was failing to function as a Messianic nation in whose unfolding life all the nations of earth should be blessed. She was becoming narrow, bigoted, selfish, intent on saving her own soul, letting the devil take Nineveh if he liked. And when Israel refused to do her duty, there came the exile to Babylon.

Jeremiah, the leading prophet of that day, said that a great dragon had swallowed Israel up. You see at once the broad scope of this little book of Jonah. God's mercies, even in that far off time, were not confined to the Jews.

The book teaches the universal love of God. Go to Nineveh! Go everywhere! Go into all the world and disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of that Infinite Mercy which is above all! God so loved, not the Israelites nor the Methodists nor the Episcopalians nor the One Hundred per Cent Americans, as they like to call themselves - God so loved the world, the whole of it, Nineveh, Calcutta, Shanghai as well as New York, London, and Rome, that he gave his only begotten Son to be the Lord and Savior of them all.

It was one of their limitations that some of the Jews learned to think of themselves quite as highly as they ought to have thought, What nation hath statutes and judgments so righteous as this law? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have heard? Has God ever assayed to take him such a nation out of the midst of another nation, by signs, by wonders and by war, by a mighty band and an outstretched arm? What nation hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God unto us in all things that we call upon him for? They were on exceedingly good terms with themselves. And there are others - the people of the United States of America, for example, in the days of their unparalleled material prosperity.

There is peril as well as privilege in feeling that one's own country is a nation favored of heaven. Unless our advantages are held in trust, unless we regard ourselves as good stewards of the mercies of God for the service of interests wider than our own well being, we too are in danger. If we become like that hated Pharisee, thanking God that we are not as other nations are, we shall go down to our houses unblest. The nation that plumes itself upon its superiority loses out.

It is only by that wise investment of one's best in unselfish action that any man or any nation can rise. It is the duty of the church of God not to stand aloof, pleased with its reverent worship and its spiritual culture -it too must concern itself with Nineveh and Babylon. It must insist that all the activities of this world, not merely worship and charity but business and politics, education, recreation, and all the rest, shall become kingdoms of our God, ruled by the spirit that was in Christ.

Finally, Jonah had a further lesson to learn about follow-up work. Nineveh was a great city, sixty miles in circumference. It was spread out widely like London, or Los Angeles, which bids fair to annex all the outlying territory in southern California. In that city of Nineveh there were one hundred and twenty thousand children, not old enough to know the difference between their right hands and their left. This meant a population of a million or more. In all that teeming multitude not a single individual is called by name or described as possessed of any particular distinction. It was the mute appeal of those monotonous crowds of plain people which moved the Lord to send them a prophet with a message of help.

But even his experience in the sea had not transformed Jonah into a worthy messenger of the Most High. He still had in his heart an ugly remnant of contempt for foreigners. He approached that needy city denouncing it for its evil doing. Forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed, he said. Then he stood off watching the sky and waiting for the fire and brimstone to burn them up. But it did not come.

Then this man, who was never quite large enough for his job, became vexed. This far reaching executive clemency of the Lord seemed to discredit him as a prophet of disaster. The fact that the Lord had shown himself merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in kindness, seemed to give the lie to the red-hot message of condemnation which Jonah had delivered. Forty days and Nineveh was not destroyed, because the people had repented of their evil doings and had been forgiven. Then the angry prophet flung himself upon the ground and wished that he might die.

There is a delicate bit of humor in the quiet reproof which the Lord gave him in that hour. Doest thou well to be angry? Why so hot, little man? Are you disappointed because your preaching has been so effective that all the people in the city have turned from their evil ways? Are you vexed because it seems too good to be true?

The love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind. Gentiles though they were, God had shown Himself able to release them from the mastery of evil. Why was not this man on his feet singing a Te Deum? By that further parable of the gourd, which grew up almost in a night to shield the tired prophet from the heat of the sun, the Lord taught him the beauty of compassion.

The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;

We do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Read that book of Jonah again! Forget all about the great fish. It was never meant to hold the center of the stage. It is only a bit of furniture in the background of that scene in the drama of redemption. When Macbeth is being played, how foolish men would be to fall into an angry discussion about some bit of bric-a-brac in the castle at Inverness and forget the tragedy of that crime committed by a guilty man and a guilty woman against their guest, against their king, against their God!

Study here the goodness and the severity of God. To those who persist in disobedience to His gracious purpose, severity; but to those who are penitent and willing to do better, a merciful redemption which saves even unto the uttermost all those who put their trust in him. That is the message of the book of Jonah.

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he (1 Samuel 16:11-12).

ARE HERE all thy children? is the question, and the answer is Practically all. There is the youngest, but he is a negligible quantity and does not count. He is keeping sheep along with the hired servants. It was never thought for a moment that the man of God, the venerable Ruler and Judge, who had evidently come to Bethlehem on an important mission, would want a lad like that. Perhaps if Jesse, the practical farmer, the sheik of his village, had been questioned concerning this youngest son of his, he would have described him as a peculiar lad, unlike his brothers, dreamy and romantic, doing all manner of extraordinary things in his spare hours and even while he kept the flock. David was most evidently the unappreciated genius of his home. Unlike Joseph, he was not even his father's favorite. There is no story more skillfully told in the pages of the Old Testament than the story of his appearance. There is the old judge and prophet - breaking his heart, as you would say, over the disappointment concerning Saul, an intense patriot in every drop of his blood, aroused from his grief by the Voice which he has been accustomed to hear and obey ever since the night long ago when it awoke him from his sleep in the temple, now bidding him go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king for Israel.

The whole picture is vividly brought before us in the chapter: Samuel's fear of Saul, the first time he has shown it; the fear of the Bethlehemites at his coming, as though it were to expose and punish some crime; the summoning and inspection of Jesse's sons; the wrong impulse of Samuel as Eliab appears before him (as faithfully related as his unworthy fear), an impulse corrected by the inner voice, for even a Prophet's impulses may need correction and his instinct may mislead him. As though Israel had not had enough of mere height and strength, of inches and muscle! One by one the sons of the old chief of Bethlehem pass before the man who is God's messenger, and none of them will pass muster. Still the prophet is seeking what he cannot find. Then, after some haste and confusion the expected man appears, and I do not know a more dramatic appearance on the page of Old Testament history, looked at from the interior of the prophet's mind. He has come to look for the future king, and he finds him in the neglected and overlooked youngest son. There is the silent and puzzled group patiently or impatiently waiting. Only one man knows for what. And there breaks upon it this rustic youth, fresh from the field, bearing with him the scent of the sheepfold, with ruddy locks and parted lips, and the great eyes of a poet full of wonder. And even as he enters it is revealed to Samuel that this is the future king, and the voice to which he has been accustomed to render implicit obedience says, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

So David appears suddenly, and from the moment that he appears he captivates us who read the narrative- while for the history, the troubled history of the chosen people, his coming is as the dawn of a new day. For a long time the day will be stormy and doubtful, he, however, is the sun of Israel's hope, and it is of the manner and meaning of his rising that we have to speak.

I

We must look at the matter from Israel's point of view. The first king is a failure. The worst fears of Samuel are confirmed, his hopes are disappointed. With all the evident latent power in him, Saul has not risen to the opportunity. There has been a battle in his breast - a battle that goes on in the breasts of all of us between God's will and self-will, and self-will has conquered. He is not going to be God's instrument, as the man who will rule Israel must be. And the first thing that I bring to you as the fruit of reflection on this situation is that God's purposes are not ultimately and finally foiled by one man's disobedience. By his self-will Saul may delay, hinder, and injure the Divine purpose, But God has many alternatives. His resources are not soon exhausted. If one man will not do a thing, another will be chosen, and the consideration applies to Churches and nations and individuals. Great possibilities clustered about the beginning of Saul's reign, and great promise attended its first days, Because he failed, God would not give up the idea of a king who would reign under Him. Life would be insufferable if one man had it in his power to thwart and overthrow the purposes of God for a whole people and for all time. You may block the way so far as you are concerned, but your power to do so will soon be over, and there are other men to come.

Mordecai's words to Esther are memorable in this connection: If thou altogether hold thy peace at this time, then shall deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed; and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? So it may come to all of us. If thou wilt not do the will of God then thy way will be covered with shame, but some other instrument will be prepared who, with the help of God's hand, will perform the enterprise. Saul is a failure, but the word to Samuel is, I have provided Me a king. The question is, Why is not the king produced at once? And if the answer to that be: To attempt that would spell revolution - the question again is, Then why anoint the man? The answer to that may be, partly for Samuel's sake, for the comfort of his sorrow, and partly for David's, that there may come to this ignored and despised man some suggestion, at least, that God has a high purpose and destiny for him.

As to what actually happened the record is somewhat confused. The probability is that Samuel's anointing of David was taken by Jesse to mean his choice for the school of the prophets; the probability is that he went back with Samuel, and that it was from thence that the reputation of his great capacity reached the court of Saul (1 Sam. 16:18). One reason, therefore, for the early anointing may be found in the necessity that both Samuel and David should know and be preparing to carry out the Divine purpose.

And if you take that view, then what a conception it presents to you of the overruling and patient providence of God. Things are going from bad to worse in the kingdom, and Samuel is crying out in grief and alarm; but God has His other king in reserve and in training, first by his shepherd life, then at court, then on the battlefield, then as the leader of an intrepid and desperate band of outlaws. So, unspeakably the greatest man in Israel, richly dowered, musician, author, warrior, administrator, is tested in the fiery furnace of adversity through long years before he comes to his own. And all this time affairs in the nation are in a tentative condition and, as it seems to me, at least, the door is left open for the self-willed king to return, and all this time the nation is growing more weary of its first assay in the direction of monarchy. The lesson that should come to us all out of it is that when to our much tried faith God seems to be doing nothing, He is busy planning, thinking, unresting, working, and all for our good.

II

We regard the matter from David's point of view. I said a good deal some Sundays ago on God's choice of men as indicated in the anointing of Saul. One thing I may repeat here, viz., that they fall on men who are not dreaming about them. We may most certainly say this of David. Indeed, through the whole of his life before he becomes king he impresses you with the fact that he is devoid entirely of personal ambition as he is devoid of jealousy. There is no scheming for the crown, no shadow of disloyalty to the reigning monarch. All through the troubled years which intervene between the first anointing and his accession he seems willing to leave his life in God's hands; and though here and there his faith fails him and he gives way to gloomy fears, there is never any attempt, so far as we know, to take his affairs into his own hands and to control the will of God. I spoke just now of Divine patience. Surely we may say, considering the long years of David's testing, that he furnishes us with one of the most conspicuous examples in history of human patience. Under the grossest and most galling injustice he never loses his temper with Saul, never harbors resentment, and never cherishes a disloyal thought. If you want an example of patience under provocation you have one of the finest here that history can show you.

I must point out to you, from a somewhat different standpoint, that he furnishes you with an example of the fact that real worth is discovered, and the men for whom God has some work to do are found out. The history of humanity abounds with examples of this kind. Of men who were apparently effectually buried; born in obscure places, kept down and kept back by their seniors and their supposed superiors, pursued by the jealous hatred of those who dreaded them as rivals; misrepresented and maligned by unscrupulous enemies, and yet holding on their way and ultimately conquering, because they were faithful to duty, and their strength and their trust were in God. Could a man have been more effectually buried than David was? Everything against him. The scullion of the family, relegated to the most despised tasks, and kept at them even when great occasions came. A buried genius! What chance was there for him? Yet you see him, in that obscure place all out of sight, imperiling his life for the sake of the sheep and saying nothing about it. And you see that all the power in the world cannot ultimately keep him back. You see through all his life, so full of vicissitudes, the providence of God marvelously steering his course, turning evil into good, and making, what is adverse, a means of shaping him for the high destiny to which he has been called.

And if I might dare to say it in these materialistic days, I would say it very emphatically, that no man need fear that he will come to his appointed lot in the end. What is needed to ensure it is not plotting and scheming and pushfulness, but a faithful discharge of present duty and a patient steadfast trust in God.

The behavior of David once more is marked by sweet modesty. Not only is his modesty indicated by contentment with his lot before Samuel anoints him, but afterwards. Whatever he knows of the purpose of anointing there is no assumption, none of the egoism that makes even an able man an abhorrence to his neighbors. After a little interval he goes on with his sheep keeping as though nothing had happened, exhibiting no vanity, giving himself no airs. Probably if you could get at his heart you would find him perfectly happy at that lowly work and desiring for himself nothing better. We are all of us disposed to pity people of genius put to work that is far below their gifts -

The gems of purest ray serene,
The flowers that live to blush unseen
And waste their sweetness on the desert air.

I want to express my own conviction that the sweetness of a human life is not wasted anywhere. The life of Jesse's servants and of his sheep were made the better for David's sweetness, and both sheep and servants were sorry when be was called away. And what is more, he was probably never happier than in those dear days when he watered his father's flock at the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate. And what I would say, if I dare, to people who know that they have genius or think they have - preachers, writers, workers - is display your genius where you are, pour it out on lowly folk and common work. It is the man who does that in all the modesty of his soul to whom, if be be worthy, the providence of God will some day say, Come up higher.

III

One other great principle and fact seems to me to be illustrated by this incident, viz., that God is seeking for men who will fulfill His purposes and do His will. Taking human life through, you are disposed to exclaim, How rarely He finds that which He seeks! How frequently men for whom God designs great things are unready when the call to them comes. Looking at human life through the medium of the history of Israel, how often men fail and disappoint God. How often, when they get into a position as Saul did, a great position with great possibilities, they fail to do God's will in it. Little bits of His will they will do, but the whole of it! How rarely you will find a man devoted without reservation to the will of God. What a strain of perversity and distrust and self-will there is in our human nature! Here are men sore and resentful because they cannot get into a great position in law, in literature, in commerce, in the holy ministry. And here are men who, when they have got these develop vanity and pride and selfishness and folly and the characteristics that make human life hideous. The great thing that God was seeking in Israel was a man who would do all His will. He has been seeking such men ever since through all the weary centuries. He seeks them still, Shall He find them in us? In
position lofty and lowly, in work called secular or sacred, in obscurity
or prominence, who will be plastic to the Divine hand, amenable to the holy guidance, obedient to the heavenly vision?

The path of him who will say yes will not be easy, but you do not want an easy path. It will be far better - a path lighted up with the glory of the approbation of God. He is waiting for those who will say, in the spirit of Jesus, it will be sweeter than the music of angels: I delight to do thy will, O my God.