What, courage from companionship with the past? The pessimist says, "Impossible! The past was so much better than the present. See how the country is going to the dogs!" and they point to the revelations of dishonesty in high places. "There were no such blots on our records when the country was young."
A public man gave an effective answer to such croakers when he said:
"As we go on year by year reading in the newspapers of the dreadful things that are occurring; wicked rich men, wicked politicians and wicked men of all kinds, we are apt to feel that we have fallen on very evil times. But are we any worse than our fathers were? John Adams, in 1776, was Secretary of War. He wrote a letter which is still in existence, and told of the terrible corruption that prevailed in the country; he told how everybody was trying to rob the soldiers, rob the War Department, and he said he was really ashamed of the times in which he lived. When Jefferson was President of the United States it was thought that the whole country was going to be given over to French infidelity. When Jackson was President people thought the country ruined, because of his action in regard to the United States Bank. And we know how in Polk's time the Mexican War was an era of rascality and dishonesty that appalled the whole country."
It is a mistake to look back a generation or two and say, "The good old days were better than these." In the address already referred to the speaker continued:
"Only thirty years ago, on my first visit to California, I went with a friend to the mining district in the Sierras. One summer evening we sat upon the flume looking over the landscape. My friend was a distinguished man of great ability. In the distance the sun was setting, reflecting its light on the dome of the Capitol of the state, at Sacramento, twenty miles off. He turned to me and said suddenly: 'I would like to be you for one reason, that you are thirty years younger than I am, and they are going to be thirty of the greatest years the world has ever seen.' He is dead now, but his words were prophetic. He and I used to talk about how we could send power down into the mines. An engine would fill the mine with smoke and gases, and yet we must have power to run the drills, etc., using compressed air. How easy to-day, just to drop a wire down and send the power of electricity! At that time there was but a single railroad running across the continent, which took a single sleeping car each day. Look at the difference now, with six great trunk lines sending out more than a dozen trains, and more than a hundred sleeping cars each day."
Students of American history know something of the fears of early adherents of the United States Government lest the republic prove a failure, and of the threats of doubters and disaffected citizens to do their best to replace the republic by a monarchy. But comparatively few realize how great were the fears, and how brazenly the prophecies were spoken.
An examination of "The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson," the collection of private memoranda made by the patriot when he was successively Secretary of State, Vice-President, and President, discloses the fact that some of the gravest of these fears were held by those high in authority, and that the prophecies of evil came from men who were leaders in the nation.
On April 6, 1792, President Washington, in conversation with Jefferson, "expressed his fear that there would, ere long, be a separation of the Union, that the public mind seemed dissatisfied and tending to this." On October 1, 1792, he spoke to the Secretary of his desire to retire at the end of his term as President. "Still, however, if his aid was thought necessary to save the cause to which he had devoted his life principally, he would make the sacrifice of a longer continuance."
On April 7, 1793, Tobias Lear, in conversation with Jefferson, spoke pessimistically of the affairs of the country. The debt, he was sure, was growing on the country in spite of claims to the contrary. He said that "the man who vaunted the present government so much on some occasions was the very man who at other times declared that it was a poor thing, and such a one as could not stand, and he was sensible they only esteemed it as a stepping-stone to something else."
On December 1, 1793, an influential Senator (name given) said to several of his fellow Senators that things would never go right until there was a President for life, and a hereditary Senate.
On December 27, 1797, Jefferson said that Tenche Coxe told him that a little before Alexander Hamilton went out of office, he said: "For my part I avow myself a monarchist; I have no objection to a trial being made of this thing of a republic, but, . . . etc."
On February 6, 1798, it was reported to Jefferson that a man of influence in the Government had said, "I have made up my mind on this subject; I would rather the old ship should go down than not." Later he qualified his words, making his statement hypothetical, by adding, "if we are to be always kept pumping so."
On January 24, 1800, it was reported to Jefferson that, at a banquet in New York, Alexander Hamilton made no remark when the health of the President was proposed, but that he asked for three cheers when the health of George III was suggested.
On March 27, 1800, the Anas record: "Dr. Rush tells me that within a few days he has heard a member of Congress lament our separation from Great Britain, and express his sincere wishes that we were again dependent on her."
On December 13, 1803, Jefferson told of the coming to President Adams of a minister from New England who planned to solicit funds in New England for a college in Green County, Tennessee. He wished to have the President's endorsement of the project. But "Mr. Adams . . . said he saw no possibility of continuing the union of the States; that their dissolution must take place; that he therefore saw no propriety in recommending to New England men to promote a literary institution in the South; that it was in fact giving strength to those who were to be their enemies, and, therefore, he would have nothing to do with it."
One who reads bits like these from Jefferson's private papers appreciates more fully some of the grave difficulties that confronted the country's early leaders; he rejoices more than ever before that the United States emerged so triumphantly from troubled waters until, little more than a century after those days of dire foreboding, it was showing other nations the way to democracy; he takes courage in days of present doubt and uncertainty, assured that the country which has already weathered so many storms will continue to solve its grave problems, and will be more than ever a beacon light to the world.
"Look at the World," is the advice David Grayson gives to those who follow him in his delightful essays on Great Possessions—possessions that cannot be measured with a yardstick or entered in the bank book. This is his cure for all the trials and vexations that come in the course of a busy life. For how can a man remain unsettled and morose and distressed when he is gazing at the broad expanse of the sky, studying the beauty of the trees, or listening to the mellow voices of the birds? How can the wanderer in field and forest forget that God is love?
Some people think that to drink in the glories of nature they must go to the mountains, or seek some other far-away spot. Mistake! The place to enjoy God's world is just where one is, and the time is that very moment. This was the lesson taught so impressively by Alice Freeman Palmer, when she described the little dweller in the tenements who resolved to see something beautiful each day, and who, one day, when confined to the house, found her something in watching a rain-soaked sparrow drinking from the gutter on the tin roof. And this was the thought in the mind of Mr. Grayson when he said:
"I love a sprig of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass drawn slowly from its sheath, or a twig of the birch that tastes like wintergreen."
Hamlin Garland, in "A Son of the Middle Border," has told the story of his boyhood on an Iowa farm. He knew how to enjoy the sights to which so many are blind:
"I am reliving days when the warm sun, falling on radiant slopes of grass, lit the meadow phlox and tall tiger lilies to flaming torches of color. I think of blackberry thickets and odorous grapevines, and cherry-trees and the delicious nuts which grew in profusion throughout the forest to the north. The forest, which seemed endless and was of enchanted solemnity, served as our wilderness. We explored it at every opportunity. We loved every day for the color it brought, each season for the wealth of its experiences, and we welcomed the thought of spending all our years in this beautiful home where the wood and the prairie of our song did actually meet and mingle. . . . I studied the clouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed vessels which hung upon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie chickens as they began to come together in winter flocks, running through the stubble in search of food. I stopped now and again to examine the lizards unhoused by the shares, . . . and I measured the little granaries of wheat which the mice and gophers had deposited deep under the ground, storehouses which the plow had violated. My eyes dwelt enviously on the sailing hawk and on the passing of ducks. . . . Often of a warm day I heard the sovereign cry of the sand-hill crane falling from the azure throne, so high, so far, his form could not be seen, so close to the sun that my eyes could not detect his solitary, majestic, circling sweep. . . . His brazen, reverberating call will forever remain associated in my mind with mellow, pulsating earth, spring grass and cloudless glorious May-time skies."
Henry Fawcett lived at about the same period in a rural district in England. He, too, delighted to ramble in the fields. One day, when he was out hunting with his father, an accidental gunshot deprived him of his eyesight. But the boy would not think of shutting himself away from the joys of nature which meant so much to him. "I very soon came to the resolution to live, as far as possible, just as I had lived before. . . . No one can more enjoy catching a salmon in the Tweed of the Spey, or throwing a fly in some quiet trout stream in Wiltshire or Hampshire."
In the story of the life of John J. Audubon an incident is told that shows how the greatest joy can be found in what seems like one of the most ordinary things in the life of the forest—the nesting of the birds:
"He became interested in a bird, not as large as the wren, of such peculiar grey plumage that it harmonized with the bark of the trees, and could scarcely be seen. One night he came home greatly excited, saying he had found a pair that was evidently preparing to make a nest. The next morning he went into the woods, taking with him a telescopic microscope. The scientific instrument he erected under the tree that gave shelter to the literally invisible inhabitants he was searching for, and, making a pillow of some moss, he lay upon his back, and looking through the telescope, day after day, noted the progress of the little birds, and, after three weeks of such patient labor, felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and the sacrifice by the results he had obtained."
When a boy David Livingstone laid the foundation for the love of the open that helped to make his life in Africa a never-ending delight. "Before he was ten he had wandered all over the Clyde banks about Blantyre and had begun to collect and wonder at shells and flowers," one of his biographers says.
Not far away, also in Scotland, Henry Drummond spent his boyhood. He, too, knew the pleasure of wandering afield. He liked to go to the rock on which stands grim Stirling Castle, and look away to the windings of the crooked Forth, the green Ochil Hills, and, farther away, Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, and Ben Ledi, the guardians of the beautiful Highland lochs. He was never weary of feasting his eyes on them. In later years he would go back to the scenes of his boyhood, climb to the Castle, and, looking out on the beautiful prospect, would say "Man, there's no place like this; no place like Scotland."
Bayard Taylor first made a name for himself by his ability to see the things that many people pass by, and to describe them sympathetically. But he, also, in boyhood days learned the lesson that paved the way for later achievements. He was not six years old when he used to wander to a fascinating swamp near his Pennsylvania home. If the child was missed from the house, the first thing that suggested itself was to climb upon a mound which overlooked the swamp. Once, from the roof of the house, he discovered unknown forests and fresh fields which he made up his mind to explore. Later, in company with a Quaker schoolmaster, he took long walks, and thus learned many things about the trees and plants. When he was twelve he began to write out the thoughts that came to him in this intimate study of nature.
In far-away Norway Ole Bull had a like experience. At an early age he began to be on familiar terms with the silent things about him. The quality of his later work was influenced by the grandeur of the scenery in which he lived. To him trees, rocks, waterfalls, mountains, all spoke a language which demanded expression through the strings of his violin; he turned everything into music. His biographer says:
"When, in early childhood, playing alone in the meadow, he saw a delicate bluebell moving in the breeze, he fancied he heard the bell ring, and the grass accompanying it with most exceptionally fine voices."
John Muir, who later wrote of the great Sequoias of California and the glaciers of Alaska, when a boy of ten found delight in scenes of which he wrote as follows:
"Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness! Everything new and pure in the very prime of spring, when nature's pulses were beating highest and mysteriously keeping tune with our own! Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together."
There is something missing in the life of one who cannot enter into the feelings of a boy like Muir or Taylor or Drummond. And when such a boy grows up, the gap in the life will be more conspicuous than ever.
Think of the poverty of the stranger to whom a traveler, feeling that he must give expression to his keen delight in the autumn foliage, said, "What wonderful coloring!" "Where?" came the reply. "Oh, the trees! Well, I'm not interested in trees. Talk to me about coal. I know coal."
Some people insist that it is impractical moonshine to speak of making a companion of God, that folks who talk about such things are dreamers, far removed from touch with the cold reality of daily life.
Then how about the nephew of whom Dr. Alexander MacColl told at Northfield? He was surely a practical man. For four years he had been in the thick of the fighting in France. Yet at the close of one of his letters to his uncle he said: "I hope when the war is over that I may be able to spend a month somewhere among the hills. I often think that if more people in the world had lived among such hills as we have in Scotland there would have been no world war."
"When I came yesterday afternoon, and saw again the glory of these hills," was Dr. MacColl's comment, "I found myself sharing very deeply in that feeling of my good nephew, and wishing that more people in the world had known what it is to commune with God in the silences."
That fine young Scotchman would have known how to take a college student who, while having a country walk with a friend, was explaining the reason for his belief in God and his trust in Him. As he concluded his message he pointed to a large tree which they were passing, saying as he did so, "God is as real to me as that tree."
He had a right to say such a thing, for he not only believed, but he was conscious that God was with him, his Companion wherever he went. This being the case, prayer became for him the simplest and most natural thing in the world. God was by his side; then why should not he talk to God, by ejaculation as well as by more formal utterance? Yet his talks with God never became formal. They were always intimate and confidential—like the approaches of Principal John Cairns, the famous Scotch minister. His biographer tells of a time when he was at the manse of a country minister in whose church he was to preach next day. The minister's wife withdrew to get a cup of tea for the old man, leaving her little boy there. By and by she heard a strange, unaccustomed sound, as it seemed to her under such conditions. And as she listened and looked, she saw that the old man was kneeling with the boy. It had seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to speak to his Great Friend about his little friend.
Dr. Arthur Smith was like that with God, and his son Henry took after him. One January day in 1905 the father reached New York from China and sought his son. They went to a hotel room to bridge the time of absence by "a tremendous lot of back conversation," as the son wrote to the mother. But before they had any chance to talk of other matters the father said, "Come, boy, let's have a prayer." "Wasn't that just like him?" Henry asked his mother.
A minister who was spending his vacation in the northern woods was called in to see a dying lumberman. Before leaving the visitor prayed with the sick man, and suggested that he pray for himself. The objection was made that it was useless to pray—God understood a man's trials, and He knew what was wanted before a request was made. The minister asked him if he didn't know what his children needed before they asked him, if he didn't know they were disappointed or troubled; yet didn't he wish to have them talk over these things with him?
The man thought a moment. Then he said, "Do you think that would be prayer—just for me to lie here and tell God what He knows already—how it hurts, and all my disappointment, and my anxiety for the future of my children and my wife—and everything—just to tell Him?"
"I think it would," said the minister. "I think it would be prayer of a very real kind."
One who had learned that prayer is not a mere formal exercise, to be dreaded and postponed, has said:
"Pray often—in bits, with a persistency of habit that betrays a childlike eagerness and absorption. Rise up to question God as children do their earthly parents—at morning, noon and night and between times. Ask Him about everything. Be with Him more than with all other persons. Acquire the home habit with Him. Be a child in His hands. Do not fear lest He be too busy to listen, or too grown up to care or to understand. Just talk to Him, in broken sentences, half-formed with crude wishes; in foolish chatter, if need be. Make the Heavenly Father the center of your life, the source and judge of all your satisfactions. Be sure to let Him put you to bed, waken you in the morning, wait on you at table, order your day's doings, protect you from harm, soothe your disquiet, supply all your daily needs."
Such a prayer is good, not only when one is sick, but when one is well and busy with the affairs of daily life. A clergyman has told of a visit to London during which he called on a merchant whom he had met in America. At the business house he was told that he could not see the merchant, as it was steamer day, and orders had been given not to disturb him. But when the card was taken up, the merchant appeared, his face beaming with pleasure. After a moment's greeting the visitor offered to go away, but the merchant took him into his office, and said:
"I am very glad you have called. I would not have had you fail. I am very busy, but I always have a moment for my Lord. I have a little place for private prayer. You must come in with me, and we shall have a season of prayer together."
Busy, but not too busy for prayer, longing to see his friend, but eager to spend the ten minutes of the call in prayer with that other Friend who made the brief visit worth while!
In telling this incident, one writer on the subject of prayer has said:
"Several, perhaps many merchants in one of our large cities have fitted up for themselves dark, narrow, boxlike closets, whither, each by himself, they are wont to retire for a few minutes at times, during the pressure of the day's business, for the refreshment of soul, which they find they really need in communion with God. One of these men is reported to have said: 'On some days, if I had not that resort, I believe I should go mad, so great is the pressure.'"
Dr. Purves once told an incident of the distinguished scientist, Professor Joseph Henry, as given him by one of Dr. Henry's students. "I well remember the wonderful care with which he arranged all his principal experiments. Then often, when the testing moment came, that holy as well as great philosopher would raise his hand in adoring reverence and call upon me to uncover my head and worship in silence, 'because,' he said, 'God is here. I am about to ask God a question.'"
To Mary Slessor of Calabar, whom the Africans learned to love devotedly, prayer was as simple and easy as talking to a friend in the room. "Her religion was a religion of the heart," her biographer says. "Her communion with her Father was of the most natural, most childlike character. No rule or habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child to its father when she needed help and strength, or when her heart was filled with joy and gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real to her, so near, that her words were almost of the nature of conversation. There was no formality, no self-consciousness, no stereotyped diction, only the simplest language from a quiet and humble heart. It is told of her that once, when she was in Scotland, after a tiresome journey, she sat down at the tea table alone, and, lifting up her eyes, said, 'Thank you, Father—ye ken I'm tired,' in the most ordinary way as if she had been addressing her friend. On another occasion in the country, she lost her spectacles while coming from a meeting in the dark. She could not do without them, and she prayed simply and directly, 'O Father, give me back my spectacles!' A lady asked her how she obtained such intimacy with God. 'Ah, woman,' she said, 'when I am out there in the bush, I have often no other one to speak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him. . . .'"
"I just talk to Him!" There is the secret of getting and keeping close to the Father, the most worth-while Companion we can possibly have with us on country walk, on vacation excursion, amid business perplexities, in the desert or in the thronged city street, when the days are crowded with burdens, or when the time of rest after work has come.
Try Him and see if it is not so.
A man had planned a three-day trip with care. On paper everything looked promising for a combination of business and pleasure that would make these days stand out in the record of the year.
In the morning he would go to Washington. There he would have opportunity to see in one of the Departments a man whose help in an emergency would prove invaluable. At four in the afternoon he would leave for Cincinnati. By taking the train he would miss a bit of scenery at Cumberland, which he had hoped to see. This could not be helped, however, for by the train he would be set down in Cincinnati in good season for the important one-day session of a committee, the primary object of the trip.
To be sure, he would have to miss another important committee meeting at home, unless he should forego the Washington stop. But would it not be worth while to miss one of the meetings when he did not see how he could well arrange for both?
The ticket was bought and reservation was made. Then interruption number one came. Most unexpectedly there was a call from a neighbor to render such a service as can be given but once in a lifetime. Yet that difficult service must be rendered at the moment when, according to program, he would be taking the train for Washington.
Of course there could be no question as to his course. Instead of going to Washington and seeing the man with whom conference would mean so much, he must take train by a route more direct. This would enable him to reach Cincinnati in season for the committee meeting; and it would enable him also to attend the committee meeting at home which he had decided to put aside for the sake of the Washington opportunity.
After serving his neighbor and attending the home meeting—this turned out to be so important that to miss it would have been little short of a calamity—the direct train for Cincinnati was taken, though not without a sigh for the lost opportunity in Washington.
Yet the sigh was forgotten when on that train he became acquainted with three fellow-passengers who gave him some new and needed glimpses of life.
A study of time tables showed him that he could return by way of Washington, and could have two hours for the interview there on which he had counted so much, before the hour came for completing the homeward journey.
After a successful committee meeting in Cincinnati, the importance of which proved to be even greater than had been anticipated, the train for Washington was taken at the Cincinnati terminal. At the moment this train was due to leave, there drew in on an adjoining track cars from which weary, anxious-looking passengers alighted. "What train is that?" was the question that came to his lips.
"Number two, boss," the porter replied. "Left Washington at four yesterday afternoon. She's ten hours late, 'count of that big wreck down in the mountains."
And that was the train he had planned to take after finishing his business in Washington! If he had taken it, what of his touch with the Cincinnati meeting?
In thankful spirit, and with the resolve renewed for the ten thousandth time that he would cease to question God's wisdom in thwarting his little plans, he went to his berth. First, however, he included in his evening prayer a petition that the train might not be late in reaching Washington, since the time there would be short enough, at best.
Three hours later he roused with the start that is apt to come with the intense silence that marks a long night wait of a train between stations. The delay was so prolonged that soon the time table showed the loss of three hours.
There was one consolation, however: he would be able to pass during hours of daylight through the incomparable mountains of West Virginia.
The unexpected blessing was forgotten when the train drew into the Washington station so near the close of the afternoon that the traveler thought he might as well go home at once. Later on, he might be able to make a special trip to the Capital. "And I might have finished my program without all that expense and trouble," he thought.
But while he was there he decided he would call on the telephone the man in the department whom he wished to see. He told the man of his late train and his disappointment.
"Perhaps it is just as well," was the word from the other end of the wire. "I have been afraid that the time set aside for our work this afternoon was altogether too short. What do you say to coming to me the first thing in the morning? Then we can devote to our program all the time that proves necessary."
So he remained overnight. The evening gave him the chance he had sought for a year to spend an evening consulting authorities at the Congressional Library. Next morning the real business of the stopover was attended to. Then he learned why it would have been impossible to receive the afternoon before the attention he received during the morning hours. He knew, too, that it would have been out of the question to seek a second interview on the same business; therefore he would have had to rest content with the results of the first conference.
The time came to take the train for the final stage of the journey. On that train his seat-mate, a man he had never seen before, perhaps never would see again, gave him a number of bits of vital information on the very business that had led him to Washington!
Is it worth while to ask God to look out for the everyday needs of His people?
Two men were going around the marvelous horseshoe curve on the Tyrone and Clearfield Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad when one called the attention of his companion to the most picturesque part of the way.
"I was looking at that precipice when I had my first understanding of the fact that the Bible is a personal message; that I had the right to appropriate its words to my own life.
"It was the summer following the end of my final year in college. A few months earlier I had reluctantly yielded to the urging, first of my physician, then of a nerve specialist, by turning my back on college at the vital portion of the year. They told me that if I persisted in remaining they would not answer for the consequences; they said I had applied myself unwisely to my books until my brain was in revolt. 'It is a grave question if you will ever be able to take the professional course to which you have been looking forward,' the specialist said. 'One thing is certain, however: if you do not do as you are told you will not do any real brain work the rest of your days.'
"That scared me, for my heart was wrapped up in my plans for the future. I felt that life would not be worth while without some sort of active brain work. So I gave myself to a real bit of vacation. For months I cut myself loose from all books except the little copy of the Testament and Psalms which I carried with me more for form's sake than for any other reason, I fear. Daily as I tramped here and there in the wilds I read a verse or two, more because I thought I ought to do this than because I had any idea of receiving help.
"Toward the close of the summer I submitted myself to a specialist who shook his head, at the same time declaring that it was doubtful if even yet I could go on with my plan. He wouldn't say it was impossible for me to do brain work, but he urged that the probabilities were against me. A second specialist told me the same thing.
"So I faced the future as all summer long I had feared to face it. Finally my mind was made up to turn my back on professional studies. When the decision was made a suggestion came that I go into the mountains of Pennsylvania to investigate opportunity for a sort of work that I might do.
"The journey was begun. As we left Tyrone to climb the mountains my spirits sank lower and lower. I rebelled against the idea of taking the offered opening. How I longed to enter professional school in two weeks! But I dared not do it. To be sure, the physicians said that they saw no reason why I should not, though they feared the result. Why not try it? I had used all available means for restoration of the brain to the old-time keenness. Yet it would be awful to try and fail. No, I did not dare.
"So I was in the depths when my hand touched the pocket Testament and Psalms. Mechanically the book was opened, probably because of the unconscious realization that the daily portion had not yet been read. But listlessness was gone in an instant when my eyes fell on the words of Psalm 37:5:
"'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.'
"At first the words dazed me. Then I said: 'That's for me, and I'll do it! I've spent the summer as the doctors said I must. Surely I am warranted in committing myself unto the Lord in just the way the Psalm says. Of course I can't be sure that the result of going back to school will be precisely what I hope; but I can trust, and do my best. Then if the attempt results in failure, I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I am following Him to whom I have committed my way.
"Some of my friends thought it was folly to begin my professional course. Can you imagine my joy when, from the day school opened, I had no recurrence of my trouble? Of course I was very careful until I could feel sure of my health."
"How do you explain your ability to go on with your studies?" his companion asked.
"I am not trying to explain it," was the reply. "But without question the assurance that came to me with that text from the Psalm, the assurance that God is my God and that I have a right to count on Him, made me strong to face things to which I had been unequal only a few months before.
"And is it strange that I have often wondered if there would have been any breakdown in college, if I had only known a little sooner of the strength that waits for those who, while putting forth their own utmost endeavor, at the same time count on God's unfailing strength?"
Isn't it strange that so many Christians while believing, theoretically, in the reality and trustworthiness of God's promises, do not have the same sort of practical belief in Him which they show in the promise of their bank to pay them, on demand, the sum written down in their book of deposit?
And banks have been known to fail in keeping their very limited promises, while God has never failed in keeping His unlimited assurances of blessing.
For so many the strange delusion that God's promises are not to be counted on in the same literal sense as the promises of our associates persists through life, but there are fortunate Christians who have their eyes opened to the truth. And what a difference the knowledge makes to them!
F. B. Meyer told in one of his public addresses of the transformation wrought for him when his eyes were opened to the truth. As a boy of thirteen he had been a student at Brighton College. He was timid and sensitive, and the older students soon learned that they could make his life a burden to him. With a sigh of relief he went home at the end of the first week of school. On Sunday, however, the thought that he must return came to him with oppressing force. How could he stand up against the older students? He was idly turning the pages of his Bible when he came to the 121st Psalm. "How voraciously I devoured it!" he said. "How I read it again and again, and wrapt it round me! How I took it as my shield! And the next day I walked into the great expanse in front of the college so serene and strong. It was my first act of appropriating the promises of God."
Three years later the student was agonizing because he wanted to be a minister, yet feared to plan for the work because his voice was weak, and he feared that he would not have the courage to speak. He had been asking God to show him His will, and to help him in his difficulty. Then he found Jeremiah 1:7, and read it for the first time. "With indescribable feelings I read it again and again, and even now never come on it without a thrill of emotion," he said of his experience. "It was the answer to all my perplexing questionings. Yes, I was the child; I was to go to those to whom He sent me, and speak what He bade me, and He would be with me and teach my lips."
Another man, who had learned to accept literally God's promise, "Ask, and it shall be given unto you," wrote gratefully of his experience:
"My life is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer. For physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvelously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make up life and my poor service, I can testify with a full and often wonder-stricken awe that I believe God answers prayer. I know God answers prayer. Cavillings, logical or physical, are of no avail to me. It is the very atmosphere in which I live and breathe and have my being, and it makes life glad and free and a million times worth living."
A worker among his fellows in India stated the ground of his belief in God's promise to supply the needs of his people. The sentence was written while he was at home on furlough:
"Whatsoever you ask, believe that you have received it, and you shall have it. The belief is not the denial of a fact, but rather the assurance that the petition is in accordance with God's will, and that He is as disposed to give as we to receive; our reception of the gift depends on our holding on to His will. Now the practical question is, What is God's will? Am I conforming to it? Through lack of faith am I failing to receive and appropriate for myself and Satara what I and Satara need? Is it God's will that I should return and that there should be better paid work? More of it? More school-houses? New houses for workers?"
A few days later he added to these notes the word "Yes." His faith enabled him to claim God's promise.
A Christian young man in Japan was accustomed to stand at the entrance to the park in Tokyo, offering Bibles and preaching the Gospel. Years passed, and he saw no results of his work. Yet he believed in Him who had promised that His name should be exalted among the heathen. At length a Testament was bought by a young man to whom the words of John 3:16 brought life and joy. He went back to the old man from whose hand he had received the book, and told him that he had become a Christian. The man was overcome with joy.
"Ten years," he said, "I have been selling New Testaments here at the park gates, and you are the first who has ever come to tell me you were helped."
But throughout those ten years the faithful worker was sustained by his belief in the faithfulness of Him who had promised to bless him in his work. He knew that God would not fail him.