Workers for Christ Unsanctified – Charles Spurgeon

IT is very possible for a man to get to dislike the very religion which he feels bound still by force of custom to go on teaching to others. “Is that possible?” says one. Alas! that it is. Have you never heard of the flower-girl in the streets? What is her occupation? I dare say some girls like her have passed by and seen her with a great basket full of violets, and said, “What a delightful occupation, to have that fragrant grant smell forever near to one!” Yes, but there was one girl who sold them, and said she hated the smell of violets. She had got to loathe them, and to think that there was no smell in the world so offensive, because they were always under her nostrils all day, and taken home to her little scanty room at night, and having nothing but violets around her, she hated them altogether. And I do believe that there are persons without the grace of Christ in their hearts who keep on talking about grace and mercy, and practicing prayer, and yet in their heart of hearts they hate the very fragrance of the name of Jesus, and need that there should come upon them an awakening out of their sleep of presumption and hypocrisy, to make them know that, though they thought they were the friends of God, they were, after all, his enemies. They were mere keepers of other men’s vineyards, but their own vineyards had gone to ruin.