Ancient Prophets - Brengle, Samuel Logan

Chapter 1 – THE ANCIENT PROPHETS

For about sixty years I have been reading the Bible, and for nearly fifty I have been reading it through regularly, steadily, consecutively, year after year.

When I have finished Revelation, I turn back to Genesis and begin over again, and day by day read my chapter or chapters with close and prayerful attention and never without blessing. In this way the Book has become very familiar, but not stale. It is ever new, fresh, illuminating, just as bread and water and sunshine, and the flowers and birds and mountains and seas, and starry heavens are ever new and fresh and inspiring.

The sweet stories (and there are no stories so sweet as Bible stories), the sordid stories (and there are none more sordid), the nobilities and the brutalities, the saintliness and the sin, the chastity of Joseph and the shameful, cruel rape by Amnon; the drunkenness of Noah and the sobriety of the Rechabites; the slaughter of innocent birds and beasts for the sins of men, and the slaughter of Canaanites for their own sins;

The drunkenness and incest of Lot, the chaste restraint of Boaz; the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; the deliverance of Samaria; the cleansing of Naaman of his leprosy, and the smiting of Gehazi with the dread disease; the dastardly wickedness of David followed by his deep penitence as expressed in the fifty-first Psalm, and the dog-like fidelity and devotion of Uriah rewarded only by the seduction of his wife and his pitiful murder; the duplicity and treachery of Absalom, the devoted love of Jonathan; the flaming zeal and despondency and trembling and the triumphant finish of Elijah; the horrid doom and death of Ahab, and painted, powdered Jezebel; the afflictions and dialogues and deliverance of Job; the fall of plotting, rapacious Haman, and the exaltation of Mordecai; the single-eyed devotion of Nehemiah outwitting the wiles of relentless foes and treacherous brethren; the faith and courage of Daniel and his three friends; the swift, sure blow that humbled proud, despotic Nebuchadnezzar, and the overthrow and death of drunken Belshazzar; the storm, the fish, the gourd, the worm, the blistering sun and hot wind With which God gave kindergarten lessons to bigoted, angry Jonah, and His tender mercy to the little children and cattle of Nineveh; the jealousies and envies and contentions of the disciples who each desired to be greatest in the Kingdom of Jesus as they, in their carnal childishness, pictured what that Kingdom would be; the love of Thomas who proposed to go to Jerusalem and die with Jesus, and his stubborn refusal to believe in the resurrection of Jesus unless he could put his fingers into the print of the nails and thrust his hand into his riven side, and the kindly, sure way in which Jesus met the distracted, honest, loving doubter;  the swearing and lying of Peter, and his bitter tears of sorrow; the penitent plea of the dying thief on the cross, his death and the glad wonderment of his awakening in Paradise to find Jesus awaiting him there with tender welcome; the awful fate of false Ananias and Sapphira dropping into Hell from the greatest holiness campaign the world has ever known; the stoning of Stephen; the conversion of Paul; the strange apocalyptic mysteries and imageries of Revelation – all these speak to me in a divine voice with comfort, reproof, correction, admonition, instruction.

Line upon line, precept upon precept, in picture, in parable, in story, in history, biography, drama, tragedy, poetry, song, and prophecy, I hear God in tender entreaty, in patient instruction, in wise rebuke, in faithful Warning, in sweetest promise, in sharp, insistent command, in stern judgment and final sentence, making known to us men His mind, His heart, His holiness, His wisdom, love, and grace.

I see God uplifting the oppressed, the fallen, the lowly, the penitent, and setting them on high and casting down from their thrones and seats of pomp and power the proud, the rich, the arrogant, the mighty. My daily reading has again brought me into company with the great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Malachi, and others, and I live again with them in the midst of the throbbing, tumultuous, teeming life of old Jerusalem, Samaria, Egypt, and Babylon.

These prophets are old friends of mine. I have lived with them before, and they have blessed me a thousand times, kindled in me some of their flaming zeal for righteousness, their scorn of meanness, duplicity, pride, and worldliness, their jealousy for the living God; their fear for those who forget God and live as though He were not; their pity for the ignorant, the erring, the penitent; their anxiety for the future of their people; their courage in denouncing sin and calling men back to the old paths of righteousness.

I stand in awe as I note their intrepidity, their forgetfulness of self in denouncing sin and facing the contempt, the scorn, and then the wrath of princes, priests, and kings. Tradition tells us Isaiah was finally thrust into a hollow log and ‘sawn asunder. ‘ They counted not their lives dear unto themselves. They were ‘moved by the Holy Ghost.

They yielded themselves up for service, suffering, or sacrifice as His instruments. They were surrendered men, selfless men, devoted as soldiers unto death, if needs be, that they might save the nation, and if not the nation, then a remnant who clung to the old paths, who would not bow the knee to Baal, who would not yield to the seductions of fashion and the spirit of the times.

They were men of the age, but they lived and wrought mightily for the Ages. They were men of the times, and their message was meant for their times; but it had timeless value because they lived in God and wrought for God and spoke only ‘as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

‘ They were not party men. They could not be used by ambitious or designing men for partisan purposes. They were diffident men by nature. They shrank from the prophetic office. They did not seek it. It was thrust upon them. God called them, and they went forward under divine constraint. Listen to Jeremiah’s story of his call: ‘Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

But he shrank from the great task and its fearful responsibility and pleaded: ‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. ‘Say not I am a child, ‘ said the Lord in reply, ‘for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee. But God did not send him forth at his own charges and in his own strength. He Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 4 never does so send forth His prophets. He equips them. He humbles them until there is no conceit or strength left in them, like Daniel in Babylon and John on Patmos, and they cry out, as did Isaiah: ‘Woe is me! for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. . . . Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, ‘ and then He empowers them. And as the Lord touched the lips of Isaiah with living fire, so He touched Jeremiah: ‘The Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth. ‘ That was his equipment for his great and solemn and dangerous office.

Then the vastness of this man’s mission was unfolded to him: ‘See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms’ – this lad, who never left the little land of his birth, except when dragged down to Egypt against his prophetic protest by murderous, fugitive Jews! Set over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out’ the rank growth of evil, ‘to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, ‘ every high and vicious thing ‘ that exalted itself against the knowledge of God: to build and to plant. ‘ ‘Thou therefore gird up thy loins, . . and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. It is a fearful thing to shrink in fear from the face of man and fall before the frown of God, but that was the alternative set before this young prophet. Speak boldly and feel the strength of the everlasting arms girding you about. Slink away from the face of man and be confounded by the Almighty! It was not a joyous, rose-strewn path the prophets trod.

It was perilous, lonely, blood-stained, ambushed by malignant foes, by entrenched monopolies of vested interests, confronted by established custom and the unquestioned practice of kings and princes, priests and people. He was to set himself in opposition to the nation and the nations. Oh, the loneliness of it! The danger! The thankless task! ‘For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee. ‘ Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 5 What a spectacle – a lone man, a child, against the world! ‘And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee. ‘ Ah, I see! He is not alone.

They that be with him are more than all that are against him. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us? ‘The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them. Hallelujah The prophets were lone, diffident men, but they had access to God; the key to secret resources of exhaustless power and wisdom and grace was given them. They were equipped with God – God the Holy Ghost. He moved them and they spoke, and their message reverberates through all time, judges all men and nations, and illuminates all history.

Many students of prophecy think the prophets have put into our hands a God-given telescope, through which we can peer into the future and foresee the course of all coming history to the utmost bounds of time, and they prepare elaborate charts and write no end of books and make learned mathematical calculations, and often fix dates for the end of all things, but I have never been helped, but rather confused, in trying so to interpret the great prophets. Their value to me ever since God sanctified me has appeared to consist not in the light they throw upon generations yet unborn, but the light they throw upon my own generation. I want help to interpret my own times. It is just because their messages came from God and are timeless that they are so timely. Their prophecies are meant to enable me to understand the present, to recognize my own duty, to interpret the will and ways of God to the men of my own generation, and to guide the steps of the youth of the next generation to fitness for their solemn, unknown tasks. Beyond that, if I see at all, it is but dimly.

There is an element of foretelling in the messages of the prophets, but the infinitely greater element was that of forthtelling, revealing God Himself, His character, His holiness; speaking for God and His everlasting righteousness that is in eternal and deadly antagonism to all unrighteousness and sin; His benevolence, His everlasting love that yearns and woos and waits and seeks the erring and the sinful, and forgives the penitent soul: the restoring, the redeeming Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 6 God, who is also a God of judgment, ‘a consuming Fire. And it is in the light of this revelation of God’s character, His nature, His mind and heart, His will and ways, that I see my duty, that I interpret the meaning of my own day, and the problems of my own generation, and am in some measure enabled to forecast the future.

And this view of the supreme meaning and value of the prophets for our day seems to me to harmonize with Paul’s statement of the great purpose of Scripture: ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, ‘ he writes, ‘and is profitable, ‘ not for the gratification of curiosity concerning the distant future, but ‘for doctrine (teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works’ in this his day and generation.

I fell into a nest of Spiritualists once, and the most timely answer I could make to their pretensions I found in the ancient prophecy of Isaiah and in the words of Jesus. Listen to Isaiah replying to the Spiritualists of Jerusalem twenty-five hundred years ago: ‘And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards (mediums) that peep and mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? Should the living seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony (to the Bible): If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them’ (Isaiah viii. 19, 20).

And this is matched by the words of Jesus in relating the conversation between Abraham in Heaven and Dives in Hell. Dives wanted Lazarus sent to his brethren upon earth to warn them to so live that they would not come to him in Hell; Abraham replied, ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead’ (Luke xvi. 31). My soul is shocked and shamed often by the immodesty of fashionable women, but I find that Isaiah was confronted by the same lack of modesty in his day. In Isaiah iii. i6 to 23 he gives a description of the fashionably dressed girls and women of old Jerusalem that reads as though h had just come from Paris, London, or New York.

There was an entrenched liquor traffic in their day, and those faithful prophets, messengers of Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 7 God, watchful shepherds of the souls of men, flamed in indignation against the drunkard and the bootlegger. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink: that continue until night, till wine inflame them And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe (orchestra) and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord. . .. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge. . .. Therefore Hell hath enlarged her self, and opened her mouth without measure and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth (in such self-indulgence and wickedness) shall descend into it. ‘ So wrote Isaiah.

‘Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness.

‘ So wrote the old prophet, Habakkuk, of the ancient bootlegger. Have we problems in The Salvation Army? Are we confronted by vice and sin in our city? Is evil triumphant and injustice and wickedness entrenched in high places in the State? We shall find light on every problem in the messages of the prophets, and we shall find help and strength in company with them, for they walked with God and lived and spoke and suffered and died for Him. Listen to Habakkuk’s prayer: ‘O Lord, I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid; O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years . . . remember mercy. His heart was nearly broken by the sin and injustice and wickedness he saw all around him, and he longed for a revival. And then faith in the almightiness, the goodness of God, and the final triumph of holiness kindles in him, and he shouts out: ‘The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. His faith enables him to triumph in God. And when the cup of the wickedness of the people is full, and the judgment of God falls upon them, and the desolating scourge of the Assyrian invasion sweeps over the land and leaves it Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 8 wasted and bare, he sings: ‘Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my Salvation. The Lord God is my strength. ‘ They lived in a day when light was dim. They had no completed Bible. Jesus had not yet come. The cross had not yet been uplifted with its bleeding, redeeming Victim.

The bars of the tomb had not yet been broken, and the iron doors of death had not swung open that the light of the resurrection might stream through. Pentecost had not yet come. But they believed in the ‘Mighty God, the everlasting Father, ‘ and they believed Him to be ‘the Prince of Peace, ‘ and that upon His shoulders rested all government, and that ‘of His government and peace there shall be no end’; that however high sin might vault it should be cast down, it should not finally triumph; that however deeply entrenched and strongly garrisoned about injustice and arrogance and pride might be, yet they should be rooted out, pulled down, and trampled in the dust.

But though they flamed like fire heated sevenfold against sin, they had hearts as tender as a little child, and they wept for sinners, and breathed out promises as gentle as light falling on the eyes of sleeping babes. It was God, the Holy One, in these devoted, yielded men that flamed against iniquity, that sobbed and wept over the desolations sin wrought, and gave promises that still fall into our hearts with Heaven’s own benediction.

O Jeremiah, brother of mine, friend and comrade in this ministry of judgment and mercy, this proclamation of the ‘goodness and the severity of God, ‘ how I thank thee, and thank God for thee, as across centuries and millenniums thou dost still whisper into my listening ears and my longing heart those sweet words: ‘The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. ‘ I am a lonely man, and yet I am not lonely. With my open Bible I live with prophets, priests, and Ancient Prophets – Chapter One 9 kings; I walk and hold communion with apostles, saints and martyrs, and with Jesus, and mine eyes see the King in His beauty and the land that is far off.

Chapter 2 – WHY I WANTED MY WIFE TO BE MY WIFE

It was my pleasant privilege once to be entertained for several days in the home of some Swedish friends. The family consisted of husband and wife and three exceptionally bright and lovely children. He was a strong, manly fellow who had made his way to the front rank in his chosen work by sheer force of character, industry and ability. She was a happy little wife who did her own housework, rejoiced in her husband’s success, and mothered the children with wise and loving care. One morning at breakfast, in the most charming broken English, she told me the one test by which she decided the fate of several suitors, and by which she was assured that in her husband she had at last met her heart’s mate with whom she could gladly and unfalteringly link her life for better or for worse till death. During her childhood in her old-fashioned, economical Swedish home she had to darn stockings and socks, something she disliked very much to do, but which unwittingly was developing in her a selective instinct which was finally to bring her great joy.

When she had grown into the radiant beauty of young womanhood, and young men began to pay her attention, each appeared as a prospective husband, and to each she applied this test: ‘Would I be willing to darn his socks? and in each instance there was a revulsion of feeling that settled the fate of the young man, until she met him who was to be her husband. When she applied the test to him, her heart leaped with joy at the prospect. She felt she would gladly spend her life darning his socks, and she longed to begin at once on whole bureau drawers full of them. 

She did not tell, and possibly she could not tell, what it was in him that made him to differ from all others. But something in his presence or person unlocked a treasure-store of love and sacrificial devotion in her heart that made her sure that of all men he was the one to whom she could commit herself without doubt or fear. It was what she discovered in herself quite as much as what she found in him that made her certain. When Lincoln made his call for volunteers my youthful father heard and responded to the call, left his girl – wife and baby boy and went off to the war, and at the Siege of Vicksburg paid the last full tribute of devotion to his country, while the young widowed mother wept and the little boy looked on with wide-eyed and uncomprehending wonder. He had been an ideal husband, and for three years had made mother supremely happy. Never once did he speak a cross word or show to her other than the most tender and chivalrous devotion.

The memory of his love was ever with her, and as I grew she would hug me to her heart and tell me how happy my father had made her, and then she would add, as she looked me straight in the eyes: ‘And some day my boy will make some little woman unspeakably happy. So naturally I came to feel that that was part of the mission of my life, one of the objects of my being, to make some one little woman happy; while to injure a woman, to mar her life and blast her happiness seemed to me, and still seems, the supremest cursedness and treason against the most sacred rights and claims of humanity.

From mother I unconsciously got a high ideal of gentle sweetness and purity, and all womanly virtues which adorn a home and make it a haven of rest and a center of inspiration and courage and noble ambition. Then one day at school word came to me, Quick! Come home; mother is dying! When I got home mother was dead. The love light had fled from her beautiful eyes, but a smile was on her sweet face. They buried her, but her spirit was with me and the memory of her sweet, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Two 3 womanly character was enshrined deep in my heart, and in all my boyish loves and dreams it was sweetness and purity rather than flashing beauty and wit that kindled tender emotions within me. My wife must be gentle and sweet and pure of heart. This I gathered unconsciously from my mother.

Following mother’s death, I prepared for college, and spent four years in a co-educational university in the Middle West. What a bevy of lovely girls surrounded me there! We frolicked and flirted and picnicked, and were as frank and open and wholesome in our relations with each other as brothers and sisters, but my heart was lost to none of them. Two of them were as beautiful as any picture Sargent ever painted, but they were frivolous. One had the most wondrous eyes and the most perfect complexion I ever saw, with masses of lovely hair, and a form that would have graced a ducal palace; she was intellectual, also, but it was Lady Clare Vere de Vere transplanted to the Ohio Valley: Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, Dead perfection, no more. Another was very charming, but she lacked depth of character, I thought, and was too petite.

Yet another was rich in character, one of the best students I ever knew, and one of the finest of women, but stiff in manner, and there was an irregularity about her features that I regretted. (In the callow years of young manhood very small defects, which may not be defects at all, and would probably be unnoticed by older and wiser men, may cause ‘Cupid’s darts to miss the mark. ) My intellectual awakening was slow, and I do not think these four years quite completed the process, but I was sufficiently awakened to see and feel that my wife must have a range of vision and thought beyond the neighborhood in which we might live, else I could not be happy with her. She must be educated, must know books, have some knowledge of the world’s best thought, and the culture that only this can give. 

I was not myself deeply religious, though I was a member of the Church, taught in the Sunday school, sang in the choir, and worked in the College Y. M. C. A. , but I missed in all those lovely girls a religious conviction and influence which I now see I needed and craved, and should have heartily welcomed from any one of them. Young men may appear careless concerning matters religious, but I am persuaded from a rather wide acquaintance and experience that they do not resent but respond promptly, though it may at first be jauntily, or for a time silently, to the gentle spiritual touch of the young woman who has vital spiritual knowledge, and who is frank and natural and modestly courageous in the expression of her convictions, who appeals to everything that is best in them, who shames everything that is false and morally wrong. In these things young men are often more willing to be led than to take the lead, and here, if they would, young women could often gain a commanding and gracious and life-long influence over young men, an influence which would be welcomed as guiding, restraining, and inspiring, and greatly longed for and needed in the midst of fierce temptations to which young men are ever subject.

It was while continuing my professional studies in an Eastern university that the conviction possessed me that my wife must not only have sweet womanly virtues, be adorned with refinement and the culture of the schools, but that she must be genuinely religious, must love God and His law supremely, for without this I realized we should fail in the highest fellowship. With this love and loyalty to God abounding, I knew then that her love and loyalty to me could not fail. Indeed, I came not through any experience, but through awakened spiritual insight, to distrust the permanency of a human love that is not replenished and enriched by the overflow of a Divine love, and a loyalty that is not purified and reinforced by the reverential fear and love of God. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Two 5 Where this fear and love abide there can be no failure. ‘Many waters cannot quench love’ kindled and fed from this central and exhaustless fire. But where could I find such a woman? Solomon was a very wise man and had a very wide marital experience, and he said, ‘A prudent wife is from the Lord.

‘ If she is from the Lord, why not ask Him for her? Why not pray to Him to find her? And this I did. Marriage is a Divine institution, is surrounded by Divine sanctions, and should be entered into with a sense of its Divine character and responsibilities and blessings, which, abused, can turn into the most fateful curses; therefore God’s blessing and guidance should be sought in every step that leads to it. The year I went East to study, three girls from one of the leading Women’s Colleges of America went abroad to see Europe, and in London, to their utter surprise and joy, they found the Lord in The Salvation Army. One of them He had chosen for me. To her heart of sweet womanly graces, and to her culture, He added His grace and spirit.

Two years later we met, and I fell in love – I lost my heart. Here she was, the sweet, gracious, cultured woman, filled with God’s love, one my head and my heart approved, and for whose dear sake I had denied myself in lonely hours of fierce temptation, though I had not seen her face, and for whom I had prayed and watched and waited. At an appropriate time, not then being able to see her, I wrote and told her all, and she sent me the sweetest letter – and the bitterest – that I ever had. She said she wept at the pain it must give me, and she felt that my love and union with me would put the crown upon her womanhood, but there were obstacles in the way obstacles which she feared were insuperable. She then Ancient  generously mentioned two others, with either of whom she thought I might be happier than with her. At her invitation I met them, and they were lovely women, but to my mind they were ‘as water unto wine, ‘ and I pressed my suit in spite of obstacles. One day she gave me an anonymous little book. I read it with the deepest interest and emotion, not once suspecting who had written it, and when I learned it was her book I loved her none the less.

On another day we were driving among the beautiful hills around her home, and some occasion arose that led her to tell me of a nameless baby, a little child of lawless passions and the night, whose tender life was wasting away through the ignorance and lack of care on the part of its girl- mother. She coaxed the girl to let her have the baby for awhile, and took it home and kept it for months, nursing it back to rosy health and dimpled sweetness; and as she talked about that baby I felt that in her heart were the germs of the richest and tenderest mother-love, and for this I loved her all the more, for I felt that if I ever had a wife I wanted one who would not shun but welcome motherhood with great and solemn joy. On yet another day we stood by the piano in her father’s home, when suddenly she turned, slipped out into the hall, and left me. My eyes followed her and my whole heart went out after her. I did not want to die for her, but to live for her. I wanted to put my arms about her, to comfort her, provide for her, protect her, bear her burdens, be her shield, and receive every blow of adversity or sorrow or misfortune that might befall her. I no longer thought of what she might bring or give to me, but only of what I might give to and suffer for her. And then and there, at last, I had found and entered the pure world of sacrificial love and utter devotion reached by the little wife of my Swedish friend – the world in which alone I could fulfill my mother’s prophecy. 

The key that will open a Yale lock was made for the lock, and the woman who can open the inmost treasure-store of a man’s heart, and can bring forth the refined gold of unselfish love, was made for that man, and by this I knew that she, who for twenty-eight wonderful and blessed years was my wife, and became the happy mother of my children, was God’s woman for me. And that is why I wanted my wife to be my wife!

Chapter 3 – THE COST OF SAVING SOULS

Some years ago a young woman-Officer wrote the Colonel in command of a Continental Territory telling him she meant to resign if she could not get souls saved. But she did not resign. A pastor, famous for the revivals which swept his churches and moved the communities where he labored, was sent to a big church in New York city. As he walked into a gathering of ministers, he heard them whispering among themselves ‘He will find New York different. It is the graveyard of revival reputations. And right there he resolved and publicly declared that there should be a revival in his church or there would be a funeral in his parsonage. Little faith sees the difficulties and often accepts defeat without a fight. Great faith sees God and fights manfully against all odds, and though the enemy apparently triumphs, wins moral and spiritual victory, as did Christ on Calvary, and as did the martyrs who perished in flame. What could be more complete to doubting hearts and the eyes of unbelief than the defeat of Christ on the cross, or of Cranmer and Ridley in the fire! And yet it as then that their victory over the enemy was supreme.

The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of conquest. When Paul, filled with passionate love for Christ, whom he had persecuted, and burning with eager desire to save men with the great Salvation that had reached him, went forth to evangelize the Roman Empire, the Jews everywhere confronted and hunted him with the same deadly hate and murderous opposition that he had once shown to the Jerusalem Christians; while every city he entered reeked with unmentionable vices and reveled in licentious idolatries. He had no completed Bible, no religious Press, no missionary organization behind him to ensure his support, and the very name of Christ was unknown, while Caesar was honored as a god. 

The wealth, the learning, the philosophy, the political power, the religions, the vested interests of the world and the age-long habits, passions, and inflamed appetites of men were all opposed to him. Don Quixote’s valorous attack on windmills did not appear more absurd than Paul’s assault on the sin, the corruption, the entrenched evils of the world of his day with no other weapon than his personal testimony and the story of a crucified, resurrected Jewish peasant Carpenter, whom he heralded as the Son of God and the Saviour and Judge of the world, before whom all men, from the Emperor to the lowest slave, must some day appear to be judged for his deeds and be rewarded with eternal bliss or doomed to endless shame and woe. Paul died, but he won souls. Immeasurable difficulties faced the Wesleys when they and Whitefield began their career that quickened Christendom.

The clergy were, as a class, utterly unspiritual, given over to drinking, horse-racing, and fox-hunting with the gentry; the educated classes were, in large measure, skeptical and licentious, while the lower classes, in the cities, were only too often debased and drunken, and found their pleasures in cock-fighting and racing dogs on Sundays. But in the midst of these desolate and desperate conditions the Wesleys started the greatest revival that had been known since the Apostolic Age, and snatched souls by the myriads from the very jaws of Hell. And amid conditions almost, if not equally, as dark and forbidding, the Founder of The Salvation Army began and carried on his work that has directly touched and won millions of souls and an even larger number indirectly, quickening the faith and lifting the spiritual level of the whole Christian world, and touching with soul-saving power and life-giving hope great heathen populations in many lands. But none of these world-embracing, epoch-making revivals began in a large way.

Paul usually made an address and gave his testimony in a synagogue – a small meeting-place of the Jews –until he was excluded, and then he went up some home or room that was opened to him. This was followed by house-to-house visitation, often after a day’s work at tent making. The Wesleys began in the same humble way, and so did the Founder. Great revivals among God’s people and awakenings among the ungodly never begin in a great way. They begin as oak trees begin. There is nothing startling and spectacular about the beginning of an oak tree.

In darkness, in loneliness, an acorn gives up its life, and the oak, at first only a tiny root and a tiny stem of green, is born out of the dissolution and death of the acorn. So revivals are born, so souls are won, so the Kingdom of God comes. Some one, no longer trying to save himself or to advance his own interests, dies – dies to self, to the world, to the praise of men, to the ambition for promotion, for place, for power, and lives unto Christ, lives to save men, and the awakening of sinners comes; souls are born into the kingdom of God, they rally round their leader and in turn become soul-winners. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, ‘ said Jesus. And so He ‘endured the cross, despising the shame, ‘ and died that He might win souls, save men, and ‘bring many sons unto glory. ‘ ‘If any man serves Me, let him follow Me, ‘ said Jesus. Let him lose his old life, his old ambitions, his old estimate of values for My sake, My cause, and the souls he would win and for whom I died. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. ‘ That is the way to become a soul-winner; that is the price that must be paid. The Master could find no easier way, and He can show no easier way to us. It is costly. But shall we wish to win eternal and infinite values cheaply? For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. ‘ What joy? The joy of having the Father’s approval and of saving souls from eternal death and of ‘bringing many sons unto glory.

And shall we hope to share that joy by some cheap service that calls for no uttermost devotion, no whole burnt-offering, no final and complete sacrifice? Not Ancient Prophets – Chapter Three 4 otherwise has any man ever become a soul-winner. We may move upon the surface of men’s lives, we may touch their emotions, we may lead them to easy, non-sacrificial religious exercises and activities, and think we are saving souls, but we do not really win them until we constrain them to follow us, as we follow Christ, through death – death to sin, death to the flesh and the world, into newness of life unto Holiness. This was Paul’s way. I go bound in the Spirit not knowing what shall befall me save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus‘ (Acts xx. 22-24). It was not easy for Paul. He counted the cost. He paid the price. He turned neither to the right hand nor the left.

He marched straight forward. He was commissioned ‘to open men’s eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Christ. And he adds: ‘I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. ‘What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ, yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. It is as we thus count all things but loss and so win Christ that we are empowered to win souls. This is the standard we must set for ourselves, and to which we must woo and draw by the compulsion of love and faithful teaching and example our younger comrades. The Psalmist, in his penitential prayer, cried to God for a clean heart and a right spirit, for the joy of Salvation, and the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Then, ‘ said he, ‘will I teach transgressors Thy ways: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. ‘ David felt that if he would effectively teach and convert sinners his heart must be pure, his spirit must be right. So then the cost of winning souls  includes the price that must be paid for a pure heart. I must be clean, my spirit must be right, I must hold back no part of the price, I must bring all the tithes into God’s storehouse, if I would be a soul winner. He that winneth souls is wise, ‘ wrote Solomon. Then, if I would be a soul-winner, I must pay the price of wisdom. Wisdom cannot be bought with silver and gold. It cannot be passed on like an inheritance from father to son. It cannot be learned, as we learn mathematics or the sciences, in schools and colleges.

It comes only through experience in following Christ. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. He who wants wisdom must not shrink from suffering. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat, ‘ wrote Paul. Suffering did not daunt him. Abuse and neglect did not embitter him. When his converts were turned against him, he wrote: ‘I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you. . . And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. . .. We do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. A man with that spirit is full of wisdom, the wisdom of God, the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy, ‘ and he wins souls. His life, his example, his spirit, his speech are compelling, and he wins and knits men to Christ.

The soul-winner must not despise the day of small things. It is better to speak to a small company and win a half-dozen of them to the Saviour, than to speak to a thousand and have no one saved or sanctified, though they all go away lauding the leader and exclaiming, Wasn’t the Meeting grand! ‘ Some years ago I went to a large city, where we owned a Hall seating nearly a thousand people, and where I thought we had a flourishing Corps. The Officer and his wife had unusual ability, but had become stale and spiritually lifeless. Where hundreds should have greeted me, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Three 6 fifty tired, listless people were present, twenty of whom were unkempt children. When I rose to give out the first song, there were three Song-Books among us, one of which was mine.

The Officer ran off downstairs to pick up a few more books, and while we waited I was fiercely tempted to walk off the platform and leave the place, telling him I would not spend my strength helping a man with no more spirit and interest than he manifested. Then I looked at the people before me – tired miners, poor and wearied wives, and little, unshepherded children – peering at me with dull, quizzical eyes as though wondering whether I would club them or feed them, give them stones or bread for their hunger. And my heart was swept with a great wave of pity for them – ‘sheep without a shepherd. And I set myself with full purpose of heart to bless and feed them, to save them, and in the next six days the big Hall was crowded and we rejoiced over ninety souls seeking the Saviour. The true soul-winner counts not his life dear unto himself. He gives himself desperately to his task, and there are times when, as Knox prayed, ‘Give me Scotland, or I die, ‘ so he sobs and cries, ‘Give me souls, or I die. ‘ That New York pastor had a revival in the church. There was no funeral in the parsonage. Day and night he cried to God for souls. Every afternoon he was out visiting the people in their homes, their offices, their shops. He climbed so many stairways that he said if they had been piled one on the other they would have taken him well up toward the moon. For a month or more he devoted his mornings to study of the Bible, to reading the biographies of soul- winners, books on revivals, revival lectures and sermons, revival songs, and revival stories and anecdotes. He saturated his mind and heart with the very spirit of revivals. He looked into the grave, into Hell, into Heaven.

He studied Calvary. He meditated on eternity. He stirred up his pity and compassion for the people. He cried to God for the Holy Ghost, for power, for faith, for wisdom, for fervor and joy and love. He waked up in the night and prayed and planned his campaign. He enlisted such members of his church as were spiritual to help him. When he won a man for Christ he enlisted him as a helper in the fight, and God swept the church with revival fire, and hundreds were won to Christ. Hallelujah! Oh, how unfailing is God. However present and ready to help is Ancient Prophets – Chapter Three 7 the Holy Ghost! How surely is Jesus present where men gather in His name! That woman-Officer to whom I have referred did not resign. One night, as she closed the Meeting, she asked the Soldiers to remain with her for a short while. Then she opened her heart to them. She told them of her letter to the Colonel. She said she could not continue in the work unless she could see souls saved. Many drunkards were in the city. The streets were infested by them. Their homes were being ruined, their wives neglected, and they were hastening to Hell because of the drink.

Would not the comrades remain and spend an hour in prayer with her and for her, and for the Salvation of souls, and especially of the drunkards of the city? They stayed, and for an hour they prayed, and God heard and drew nigh, and Jesus was in the midst. After the next public Meeting she again requested the Soldiers to remain, and again they prayed for an hour or more, and Jesus was there. And after every public Meeting for a week or ten days, or more, the Soldiers stayed with the Officer and prayed, and Jesus was in the midst. And then one night, somewhat to their surprise – strange that we should be surprised at answered prayer – the worst drunkard in the city, with several of his pals, came to the Meeting and was converted; then his whole family was won, and they all became Soldiers. In a brief time twelve drunkards were converted, and lo! that woman had a blessed revival on her hands, and not only were sinners converted, but an Officer was saved to The Army. We may be sweet singers, eloquent and moving preachers, skillful organizers, masters of men and assemblies, wizards of finance, popular and commanding leaders, but if we are not soul- winners, if we do not make men and women see the meaning and winsomeness of Jesus, and hunger for His righteousness and purity, and bow to Him in full loyalty, then one thing, the chief thing for an Army Officer, we lack. And yet that one thing is within the reach of us all if we live for it, if we put it first, if we shrink not from the cost. We may be, we should be, Oh, we shall be at all cost, winners of souls!

Chapter 4 – ‘RETIRED’

There is no discharge in that war. ‘They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing. ‘Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life. ‘ When I was a little lad, time went by so slowly and the years seemed so long, that I felt I should never be a man. But I was told that the years would not seem so long when I got into my teens. So I waited in hope, and after what seemed a century or two I reached my teens, and sure enough the years tripped by a bit more quickly. Then I got into my twenties, and they sped by yet more swiftly, and I reached the thirties and speedily passed into the forties, and almost before I had time to turn around I found myself in the fifties, and about the time I hoped to catch my breath the wild rush of years carried me into the sixties, and now I’m bracing myself for the plunge into the abyss of RETIREMENT! But is it an abyss? Will it swallow me up, and shall I be lost in its dark and silent depths? Is it not rather a sun-kissed, peaceful slope on the sunset side of life where my often over-tasked body can have a measure of repose, and my spirit, freed in part from the driving claims of the War, can have a foretaste of the Sabbath calm of eternity? Well, I shall soon know, for abyss or sunlit slope, it is just ahead of me, and in a very little while I shall look into ‘The War Cry’ and the ‘Disposition of Forces’ and find my name in the list of those who are RETIRED. However, I am Not distressed in the least about this, but I am thinking about it and laying spiritual anchors to windward against that day. I know that Jesus said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

But I am sure He did not mean that literally, for if so, we should never buy coal by the ton or lay money by for taxes or a new suit of clothes. What He meant was that we  should take no anxious thought. We should not worry and fret about tomorrow. Now the best way I know to avoid anxious thought is to take calm, prayerful forethought. So I am taking forethought against the day of my retirement.

I am praying for grace and wisdom for that time, and already I am considering what seem to me to be possible dangers, and arming my spirit in advance against them. I believe in preparedness. Jesus said, ‘Be ye also ready. ‘ So I watch and pray and prepare, that I may not be found wanting. I don’t want to lose the dew from my soul. The dew of the morning passes away: but there is also the dew of evening – I do not want to miss that. Sunset is often as glorious as sunrise, and when the sun goes down ‘the eternal stars shine out. ‘ Often the splendor of the night is more wonderful than that of the day. The sun reveals the little things the flowers and grasses and birds and hills and sea and mountains – these are little. But the larger things – the immensities of the heavens with their flashing meteors, their silvery moons, their star-strewn depths sown thick with flaming suns – these are the great things, and they are hidden by the garish light of day, but revealed by the kindly darkness of night. So I suspect the greater glories, the surpassing splendors of the spiritual world, are yet to be revealed to me as the sun of this life begins to sink beneath western hills. ‘At eventime it shall be light. Hallelujah I do not expect to fold my hands and sit in listless idleness or vain repining when I am retired.

There will still be abundant work for my head and heart and hands. I shall probably not be so active on the Field, or be ‘going to and fro in the earth’ on long campaigns as in the past. But I hope to pray more for my comrades who are on the Field and in the thick of the fight. There will be plenty of knee-work to do; and we have need of knee-workers more than ever, for this kaleidoscopic age – electric, restless, and changeful as the wind-swept sea – does not lend itself to prayer, the prayer that gets into close grips with God and the great wants of men, and brings down Heavenly resources to meet vast earthly needs. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Four 3 I shall meditate more, at least I hope to, and read and ponder my Bible more, and try to match its wondrous truths with life, the life I still live and must live, and by its light try to interpret the life that surges all around me and manifests itself in the great movements, the triumphs and agonies and birth throes of men and nations. Oh, it will be a fascinating study! I shall find plenty to do. If I can’t command a Corps or a Division, or take part in councils, or lead on great soul-saving campaigns, I can talk to my grocer and doctor and letter-carrier about Jesus crucified and glorified, and the life that is everlasting. I can wear my uniform and go to my Corps and testify, and can still take an interest in the children and young people, and maybe out of the books of my experience find some helpful life lessons for them. And in doing this I shall hope to keep my own spirit young and plastic and sympathetic. I don’t want to become hard and blind and unsympathetic toward youth, with its pathetic ignorance and conceit, its spiritual dangers, its heart-hunger, and its gropings after experiences that satisfy, its eager haste and its ardent ambitions. Then there are letters I can write to struggling Officers on the Field – letters of congratulation for those who are winning victory; letters of sympathy and cheer for those who are being hard pressed by the foe; letters to missionary Officers in far-off heathen lands; letters to those who are bereaved, who sit with empty arms and broken hearts in the dark shadows and deep silence beside open graves where I, too, have sat, whose heartache and deep grief I know, who in vain long For the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still; letters to those who in pain and weariness and possible loneliness are nearing the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where only the Good Shepherd can go with them every step of the way, but where some word of hope and cheer may still reach them from a comrade who thinks of them in love and ceases not to pray for them. 

The thought of Retirement does not frighten me, nor cause me to repine, nor kindle resentment in me. Indeed, my long and somewhat heavy and exacting campaigns have left me frequently for a time so weary that my body has cried out, ‘Here, now, you have driven me long enough; I am out of breath, exhausted, wearied half to death, tired down to the ground. I want you to retire. ‘ But then my spirit has risen up and cried out, ‘Not a bit of it. Don’t think of retirement! I’m not weary. I’m just learning how to fight. I’m getting my second wind. I want to die in the thick of the conflict on the field, at the battle’s front, sword in hand, with my boots on. ‘ So there is my problem. Retirement will give my body a breathing spell, but I am studying how to satisfy my spirit and give it worthy employment, with scope to fly and run and walk and not grow weary (Isaiah xl. 3′). Well, I shall find a way! Paul did, and Bunyan, and blessed and beloved old John on Patmos. Paul was sent to prison, but he talked to his guards and won them to Christ, and by and by there were ‘saints in Caesar’s household. ‘ And, Oh, those prison letters! Why, we should have missed some of the most precious portions of the Bible if Paul had not been forced into retirement through his prison experiences. I am glad he did not sit down and curse his fate and find fault and let his hands hang down and his knees grow feeble. But he still wrought on and made the years of retirement supplement and complete the labors of his active years. John found work in his retirement. Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, ‘ said Joel. But John, in his old age, banished to the Isle of Patmos, swept by wintry seas, reversed the order of Joel and saw visions. ‘I saw, ‘ ‘I heard, ‘ wrote John. What did he see? I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it. ‘ ‘I saw a new Heaven and a new earth. ‘I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from. God out of Heaven. ‘ ‘I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. ‘ What did he hear? I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He Ancient Prophets – Chapter Four 5 will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ‘He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. One day I went through the book of Revelation and noted the things John saw, and the things John heard. And it occurred to me that God is no respecter of persons, but is eternally the same, and if John had visions and heard angelic voices in retirement, may not I? Bunyan the tinker did. In his filthy jail, surrounded by ignorance and vileness, in poverty and distress, oppressed by hard confinement, he caught visions of Heaven and Hell and delectable mountains and angelic hosts that made his retirement so fruitful as to feed the whole Church of God for ages upon ages. Even poor blind old Samson, sent into dark and bitter retirement through his sin, at last groped his way back to God and wrought havoc among the enemies of the Lord and of his people and accomplished more in his death than in his life. So when I am retired I shall not sulk in my tent, nor repine, nor grumble at my lot. Nor shall I seek a secular job to while away my time. For years I resisted God’s call to preach.

My heart was set on being a lawyer. But against my protest and stubborn resistance was God’s insistent call. And since ‘the gifts and calling of God are with repentance, ‘ and since ‘a dispensation of the Gospel has been committed to me, ‘ I shall ‘carry on’ and do with my might what my hands find to do, and do so with joy and good cheer. But My soul, be on thy guard, Ten thousand foes arise; The hosts of sin are pressing hard To draw thee from the skies. Ne’er think the battle won, Nor lay thine armour down; The fight of faith  will not be done Till thou obtain the crown. Oh, my soul, Be sober, then, be vigilant; forbear To seek or covet aught beyond thy sphere: Only be strong to labor, and allow Thy Master’s will to appoint the where and how. Serve God: and winter’s cold, or summer’s heat, The breezy mountains or the dusty street, Scene, season, circumstance, alike shall be His welcome messengers of joy to thee; His Kingdom is within thee! Rise, and prove A present earnest of the bliss above. And rejoice, Oh, my soul! for – In the hour of death, after this life’s whim, When the heart beats low and the eyes grow dim, And pain has exhausted every limb – The lover of the Lord shall trust in Him. When the will has forgotten the lifelong aim And the mind can only disgrace its fame, And man is uncertain of his own name The power of the Lord shall fill this frame.

When the last sigh is heard, and the last tear is shed, And the coffin is waiting beside the bed, And the widow and child forsake the dead – The angel of the Lord shall lift this head. For even the purest delight may pall, And power must fail and pride must fall, And the love of the dearest friends grow small. But the glory of the Lord is all in all. Hallelujah!

Chapter 5

AS WITH SONS’ ‘If ye endure chastening, ‘ wrote the Apostle to the Hebrews – and that word ‘chastening’, means child-discipline for purposes of training – ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is be whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement (or discipline), whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons’ (Hebrews xii. 7, 8). If I should turn to the Commentaries of Matthew Henry, Adam Clark, Jamieson, Fawcett, and Brown, or others, I should probably find some wise and useful comments on these verses. But life itself will furnish the best and most instructive comment to the man with opened eyes, who observes, meditates, thinks, and remembers the chastenings of his own youth. For some days I have been an amused and deeply interested observer of the chastening or discipline of one of my little grandsons who is not yet a year old. He is almost bursting with ‘pep. He simply bubbles over with life. One of his chief joys is to get into his bath.

It is perfectly delicious to watch him as he kicks and coos and gurgles and splashes water all over himself and any one who comes near, and blinks when water pops into his eyes, and revels in one of the chief joys of his young life. But how the little ignoramus does loath being undressed and redressed before and following his bath! He kicks and flourishes his arms in impatient protest, cries and objects in all manner of baby ways, while his insistent mother ignores all his objections, not asking what he likes, putting on him such clothes as she thinks best, plumps him into his baby-carriage, and wheels the rosy little rogue out on to the porch for his morning nap in the sunshine and soft spring winds. All this to him is chastening, discipline, training. It is not severe, it is gentle and wise, but to him much of it is ‘grievous. ‘Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, ‘ writes the Apostle, ‘but grievous: nevertheless afterward’ – let us note this ‘nevertheless afterward’ and Ancient Prophets – Chapter Five 2 give thanks and be humble – ‘nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

The baby will learn slowly, but surely, through this unwavering process that he must submit to rightful authority and superior wisdom, and that not that which is at present pleasant, but that which is right and good must come first; then some day he will discover that all this ‘grievous’ insistence of his unyielding mother was but the expression of wise, thoughtful, sacrificial love. God dealeth with you as with sons. ‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. ‘Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For He maketh sore, and bindeth up; He woundeth, and His hands make whole’ (Job v.17, 18). If his father and mother are wise, their chastening, or discipline, will grow with the growth and unfold with the unfolding of this baby boy.

They will probably often find themselves sorely perplexed, their hearts will be searched, and they will discover that their own minds and spirits are being disciplined, chastened, in ways that to them are for the present ‘grievous. But if they are humble and prayerful and patient and trustful, and always putting the right and the good first, they will find that while they discipline the child, God in love is training them, and bringing them into intimate, understanding fellowship with Himself in His great and sore travail to save and train a fallen race that wants its own way and prefers pleasure to righteousness. And, if they are wise, they will note that God is just as insistent in disciplining them as they are in disciplining their baby boy, and for the same reason – for their good. As the baby gets older the discipline at times may have to be sterner and more severe. If he will yield to their word, happy will he be; but if he will not be guided by word, then it may be necessary to use the rod. ‘The rod and reproof give wisdom, ‘ wrote Solomon, ‘but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. ‘ I do not know that I can improve upon Solomon; he mentions the rod before reproof, but I would suggest reproof before the rod. Gentle measures should first be used. The Lord pleads with His people. ‘Be ye not as the horse and the mule,  which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle. He has a better, gentler way: ‘I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye, ‘ He says (Psalm xxxii. 8). How tender and gracious God is! And how often I have seen a wise mother counsel her child and guide it with her eye. But the child that will not be so guided should be taught by sterner ways.

It is not true love that withholds proper discipline from the child. ‘He that spareth the rod hateth his son, ‘ wrote Solomon, ‘but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes’ (Proverbs xiii. 24). ‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. ‘God dealeth with you as with sons. Let us learn from the Heavenly Father how to be true fathers and mothers. ‘Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying’ (Proverbs xix. 18). Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul ‘(Proverbs xxix. 17). For ‘Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. ‘ (Proverbs xxii. 15). That parent receives at last the highest and deepest affection of the child, who has exercised the kindest, wisest, yet firmest and most unvarying control of the child. But firmness must be balanced by justice, or the child will be embittered and made into a sullen rebel. My sweet mother was kind, but she was not invariably firm. After my father’s death she was left alone with me, her tiny boy, and all the wellsprings of her deep love and tender affection flowed around me, and often when she should have been firm and unbending she yielded to melting tenderness, of which I was quick to take advantage. I do not remember it, but she herself told me that I would have been spoiled had she not married again and found in my stepfather a counterpoise to her tenderness. He was firm and unbending, and I stood in awe of him, much to my profit. He had a boy near my own age, and as between us he meted out discipline in even measure. But while he was firm with us, I felt in my boy-heart that he was not always just. He was hasty. He would fly into a passion. He was not patient, and did not always take time to find out all the facts, and at times I was embittered, and might have been spoiled by him as surely as by mother’s fondness, had their methods not in a measure balanced each other. They both needed a finer, firmer self-control to wisely discipline growing boys. My sweet, lovely mother needed to firmly control the tenderness of her feelings and the floods of her affection, while he needed to control the unthinking quickness of his snap judgments and the nervous and passionate haste of his explosive temper. But while he punished us boys sometimes when I was conscious we did not deserve it, yet he missed us sometimes when we did, so betwixt and between we got about what on the whole we deserved, and I have no quarrel in my memory with his dealings, but only gratitude and affection, and a deep wish that in some way after all these scores of years I could repay the debt I owe him. But it is to my darling mother I owe my deepest debt of love and gratitude.

As I grew older, her gentleness and tenderness became the most powerful instrument of discipline to my wayward spirit, just as grace is more mighty to break and re-fashion hard hearts than law, and Mount Calvary more influential for redemption than Mount Sinai. Can Eternity blot out the memory and remove the ache in my heart caused by a look she gave me when I was but a lad of thirteen years? My stepfather, I felt, had been unfair in a demand upon me one day, and I flamed inwardly with resentment, when my mother and a lady friend appeared, and all my pent-up wrath exploded in hot, angry words about my stepfather. Mother tried to get me to be silent, but I was too angry. I blurted out all that was in my heart. I had my say. But that night, as I went to kiss mother good-night, as I always did, she gave me a look of grief and pain that has stayed by me for more than half a century. Her loved form has mouldered beneath green grass and daisies and the rain has beaten upon, and snows of over half a hundred winters have shrouded her grave in their mantling whiteness, but the chastening pain that entered my heart from her wounded heart with that look is with me still; and to this day, after all these years, I can shut my eyes at any time and see the pained, grieved look in the lovely eyes of my dear mother. If parents have trained their children so wisely as to hold their deep affection, while commanding their highest respect, there will come a time when a look will be weightier than law, and the character of the loved and esteemed parent will exert a greater authority to mould and fashion the child in righteousness than anything the parent can say or do. The commanding authority and chastenings of law must yield to the more penetrating and purifying self-discipline imposed by the recognized faith and hope and love of the parent, the disappointing of which the child feels will bring the deepest and most abiding pain to his own heart. This is God’s way. ‘God dealeth with you as with sons! There was a time when Jesus turned and rebuked Peter with sharp, incisive words: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan; thou savourest not the things that be of God, ‘ but at last the character and spirit of Jesus had so far mastered Peter that a look sufficed to break his heart. Peter in a panic of fear denied Jesus, cursed and swore, ‘I know not the Man, ‘ ‘And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew, ‘ and Jesus ‘turned, and looked upon Peter’; that was all, but it was sufficient. ‘Peter went out, and wept bitterly, ‘ and never till his dying day could Peter forget that look. It broke his heart, and ‘the sacrifices of God are a broken heart.

‘ This is the final triumph of all the chastenings of God’s love. Once He has thus broken us He can henceforth guide us with His eye. Happy shall we be when we come to look upon the perplexing, painful, and harassing things of life, the ‘grievous’ things, as well as the plain and pleasant things, as instruments in the hands of our heavenly Father for the chastening, polishing, perfecting of our character and the widening of our influence. John Bunyan’s enemies offered to release him from prison if he would preach no more, but he replied that he would let moss grow over his eyes before he would make such a promise, so they kept him in that filthy Bedford jail among the vilest criminals for twelve weary years. They thought  to stop his ministry, but they only made his ministry age long and world-wide, for during those years he meditated, dreamed, rejoiced, and wrote his undying ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.

The limitation imposed upon him in prison by man was God’s opportunity to liberate his mental and spiritual powers. Paul would have been lost and unknown to us in the dimness of antiquity, were it not for his letters written from prison. Nero put him in chains, and shut his body up in a dungeon, and through this limitation God liberated his influence for all time and for the whole race. It is a law that liberation comes by limitation. We die to live, we are buried to be resurrected, we are chastened to be perfected. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out. ‘

Chapter 6 – THE SEAMLESS COAT OF JESUS

Jesus never pitied Himself, nor did He seek the pity of any man. One day He asked His disciples, ‘Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? ‘ ‘John the Baptist, ‘ replied one ‘Elijah, ‘ said another. ‘Jeremiah or one of the prophets, ‘ answered a third. ‘But whom say ye that I am? ‘ He asked. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, ‘ replied ever-ready Simon Peter. At last their eyes had pierced through the veil of His humanity, the disguise of His lowly village ancestry, and His humble occupation as a carpenter, and recognized the King, King Eternal, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. The splendor of His Being, before which seraphim and cherubim, angels and archangels veil their faces, was so accommodated to their poor eyes and minds that their eyes were not blinded and they were not afraid. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, ‘ said Jesus, ‘for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father which is in Heaven. ‘ The secret was out! The Son of God, the Eternal Word, ‘full of grace and truth, ‘ was made flesh and was in the world, dwelling among men. But the secret must not just yet go further, so ‘He charged His disciples that they should tell no man that He was Jesus the Christ. ‘ It must not be bruited abroad. He must draw the veil yet closer about Himself, that only sincere, humble souls might know Him, and that the sin of men might run its course, and its malignity and utter enmity to God might be revealed in their treatment of Him, the well-beloved, only begotten Son of the Father. From that time forth Jesus began to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised  the third day. ‘ Such statements, it should seem, would have dumbfounded the disciples. But not Peter; his poor, dull mind was roused and his tongue loosed, and he took Jesus ‘and began to rebuke Him, saying: Be it far from Thee, Lord (‘pity Thyself’ is the marginal reading), this shall not be unto Thee. But Jesus did not pity Himself, and He would have none of Peter’s pity nor worldly counsel and comfort. Get thee behind me, Satan, ‘ said He to Peter, ‘thou art an offense unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. But while Jesus would not pity Himself, nor even permit Peter to counsel pity, yet what, humanly speaking, could be more pathetic than the scene at the Cross, when He, the most loving and devoted of the sons of men, and the poorest, was stripped of His only suit of clothes, His only earthly possession, and nailed nude to the Cross to die, while those who crucified Him divided the poor little bundle of clothes among themselves and cast lots for His seamless coat? His coat without seam, that must not be rent! Think of that careless, cruel soldier stalking about in the coat of Jesus! What a picture! But while the soldiers, for their own selfish purpose, spared the seamless coat that day, how often has it been rent since then, and that by those who profess to know and love Him. I like to think of that first society of His people, which we now speak of as the Early Church, as the seamless robe of Jesus. It enshrined His spiritual presence. He clothed Himself with it as with a garment. Through its members He, the risen Christ, was still seen by the children of men. He was revealed in its spiritual life.

To the wonder-struck multitude on the day of Pentecost, amazed at the glowing, fire-baptized disciples, and inquiring, ‘What meaneth this? while ‘others, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Six 3 mocking, said, These men are full of new wine, ‘ Peter replied: ‘This Jesus whom ye crucified hath God raised up, whereof we are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. The radiant, joy-filled, fearless, conquering life of the Early Church was the life, the presence of Christ, in its members. It is not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me, ‘ wrote Paul. And ‘When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. ‘ He was made manifest in the activities of the Early Church. ‘Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? asked Peter of the Jerusalem crowd after healing the lame man at the temple gate called Beautiful.

The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus . . and His name through faith in His name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. What they did, they did by the power of Christ working in and through them, as the branch brings forth fruit by the power of the vine from which comes its life. But most surely was He seen and known in and by the love which His disciples had one for the other. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, ‘ said Jesus, ‘If ye have love one to another. ‘ While they loved ‘they were of one heart! ‘ and so long as they were of one heart, they were of one mind. ‘ Their unity began in the heart and extended to the head, and worked itself out in deeds of loving fellowship and service. Many of them even sold their possessions and had all things in common, so great was their love for the Saviour and for each other. Like the coat of the Master, the infant Church was ‘without seam, woven from the top throughout. The first rent in the seamless robe came when Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, sought credit for a love and generosity of which their wretched hearts were destitute, by pretending to give all when they were holding back part of the price of their sold possession.

A wider rent was threatened when the Grecians began to murmur against the Hebrews ‘because their widows were neglected in the daily ministrations. ‘ But this was wisely and promptly arrested by the action of the Apostles in appointing ‘seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, ‘ to look after that business. The rending of this seamless robe can always be traced back to lack of love. The great heresy of the ages is not manifested so much in false doctrine as in failing love and consequent false living. Faith is lost when love leaks out and living becomes selfish. Heresy begins in the heart, not in the head. The heretic of the early Christian society was the loveless schismatic. ‘I hear there are divisions’ (‘schisms, ‘ margin) ‘among you, ‘ wrote Paul to the Corinthians, ‘and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies ‘ (‘sects, schismatics ‘) ‘among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. In the tenth chapter of 1st Corinthians, Paul gives us examples of what befell God’s ancient people, the Church in the wilderness, and he says: ‘These things were our example. . . All these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. As we study the history of Israel we see, as in type, the things we must do and avoid doing if we would save ourselves and guard the heritage God has given us. Again and again we see the rending or attempted rending of the seamless robe of the Ancient Church. Sometimes it was through envy and jealousy that the rending was attempted.

On one occasion Miriam and Aaron would have rent the seamless robe. They spoke against their brother, Moses: ‘Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath He not spoken also by us? ‘ But the Lord was listening. ‘The Lord heard it . . . and the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, ‘ and lo! ‘Miriam became leprous, white as snow. Korah and Dathan would have rent the robe, but again with sure and swift judgment God acted as umpire, and Korah and Dathan perished in Ancient Prophets – Chapter Six 5 their presumption. Again the rending was attempted by Absalom through unholy ambition. By flattering words and fair promises he sought to steal the hearts of the men of Israel, only to perish in his deceit and pride and have his name handed down through the ages and spit upon as a synonym of unfaithfulness and basest treachery. A fatal rending was finally occasioned by the supercilious pride of those in authority, against which God Himself took up arms. When Rehoboam, turning from the advice of wise old men, listened to the haughty counsel of his young nobles and declared his little finger should be thicker than the loin of his father, ten tribes forsook him, and the seamless robe of the Ancient Church of Israel was fatally and finally rent asunder and is not yet mended, for to this day the ten tribes are known as the ‘lost tribes. ‘ What the oily duplicity of Absalom failed to accomplish the insolent arrogance of Rehoboam brought to pass.

A further rending was caused by the shameless, sinful neglect of those who should have shepherded the sheep. Jeremiah and the lesser prophets weep and lament and bitterly protest against those who fleece and scatter the sheep instead of feeding and shepherding them, causing the people of God to wander and perish for lack of humble oversight and loving care. Paul found partiality, favoritism, and a partisan spirit endangering the unity of the seamless robe in Corinth: while at Ephesus he foresaw danger arising from the perversity of those who selfishly sought leadership, and he forewarned them in his farewell address of this danger. Listen! Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God which He hath purchased with His own Blood. For I know ‘ – Oh, the pity of it! – ‘I know that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them’ – rending the seamless robe, to gratify their own lust for Ancient Prophets – Chapter Six 6 leadership I think of The Salvation Army as a seamless robe of the Master, beneath whose unrent folds in all lands cluster unnumbered multitudes. Little children, unspoiled as yet, but compassed about with innumerable perils, are there, looking to The Army for the bread of Eternal Life whereby their souls shall live, for guidance amid hidden and treacherous snares, and for protection from lurking and watchful foes.

Adolescent boys and girls are there, with all their inexplicable moods and trying tempers, their day dreams, their pride and foolishness, their loyalty and rebellions, their ardor and despair, their hopes, their loves, their fun and laziness, their humility, conceit, strange insight, and hasty judgments, their sensitiveness and abysmal ignorance; there they are beneath the folds of this seamless Salvation Army robe of the Saviour. Straying girls and wronged women are there: great sinners, terrible criminals, hopeless outcasts, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, are there. Widows and orphans, husbands and wives bearing burdens of toil and care and anxiety, are there. Aged people, with white hair and feeble steps and dim eyes, are there. The heathen are coming under its world-wide sheltering folds, and for the sake of all these who look trustingly to it for safety and shelter, it must not be rent. For sixty years sinister eyes have watched to see it rent in twain. Futile attempts have been made by some to rend it, and they have torn off a bit here and there.

But the robe still spreads its ample and ever-expanding folds over the nations. It must not be rent, and yet it may be unless we ‘serve the Lord with all humility of mind, ‘ and in honor prefer others before self, remembering Paul’s exhortation to his Philippian brethren ‘Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory: but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Let us keep in mind the prayer of Jesus just before the shame and suffering of Pilate’s judgment hall and the tragedy of the Cross. I pray for them . . that they all may be one; Ancient Prophets – Chapter Six 7 as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. . . I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect In one: and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me ‘ (John xvii. 21, 23). If ever this seamless coat is rent, then in the solemn words of the Redeemer: ‘Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. ‘

Chapter 7 – RECENT ACTS OF THE HOLY GHOST

Someone has said that ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ should have been called ‘The Acts of the Holy Ghost, ‘ because it is here that His personality, who is the ‘other Comforter, ‘ whom Jesus promised, and His work and leadership are made manifest and shown large. And to show that He still works and leads, and makes men triumphant and glad as in those far-away days of the Apostles, as in the days of Wesley, and the early days of The Army, I want to pass on portions of two letters I have recently received, one from an Officer and one from a young Soldier, one from the Pacific Coast and the other from the Atlantic seaboard: ‘My DEAR COLONEL, I feel I must write and tell you, knowing you will be interested, that on May 3rd of this year God wonderfully sanctified me. Though for many years I had claimed the Blessing, through the preaching of a wonderful man of God, I was shown that there were still carnal propensities dwelling in my heart. I have felt for some time that there was something wrong with my experience. I was not making the progress along spiritual lines I wanted to make, nor was I seeing the success I wanted to see.

That night I saw it all, and though it took me nearly a week to pray through, on the 3rd of May the work was really accomplished in my heart. What a wonderful peace filled my soul! I never experienced anything like it before. I really received the Holy Ghost that afternoon. He still abides. As I see my experience now it is like this: About fourteen years ago I claimed the experience and have gone on ever since thinking I had the Blessing, but the Devil simply duped me. Though Ancient Prophets – Chapter Seven 2 God came to my help when I taught the experience, I was just duped, for I had never really died to sin, and really never knew “the old man” to be crucified until the above date. But now, thank God there is something more than thinking, than work is done. When a man faces his unsatisfactory experience courageously, willing to know the worst about himself, and sets himself to pray before the Lord and to ‘pray through, ‘ the Holy Ghost will surely come, and having come will abide. Hallelujah! But before He can come in to abide, ‘the old man’ must be crucified and put off. In closing his letter this brother writes ‘I presume you will remember me as a Lieutenant at A_____ when you visited that place thirteen years ago.

I remember this incident that occurred at that time. You gave me some letters to put in the post office, and stood at the door while I mailed them. I remember distinctly looking at them to see to whom they were addressed. While it was not a sin against God, it was a sin against you and a very great breach of good manners. I want to apologize and ask your pardon. I do not admit that the brother sinned against me, but rather against his own conscience; and this is a fine illustration of the delicacy and tenderness of conscience the Holy Spirit begets, and how courteous and considerate of each other He would make us! And it is because of failure to obey the Spirit in such minor matters that many people are so spiritually coarse and unlovely, or so lean and barren in soul. The little foxes spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes. ‘ The other comrade writes: My DEAR COLONEL, I have been praying for you. As for me, I have entered into a new experience with Jesus. He has lifted me on to a higher plane and showed me things that I never saw before; more light, more love, more peace, more joy, and a better victory. I have discovered many things about the Devil. It was God’s will that I should go through such dark experiences as I wrote you about before. The Lord did not leave me, but He showed me the reality of the Devil and his tricks. (Ephesians vi. 11. ) That certainly was “The Slough of Despond, ” but I came out more than conqueror, Hallelujah! The Devil surprises me by his perseverance. He is never discouraged. If he can’t get the big things, he will try for the small ones.

He is putting up a hard fight, but what can he do? The more I fight the stronger I become and the more I love Jesus. I can’t describe to you my experience with Jesus. It is glorious, Hallelujah! He pays me special visits, sometimes in shouting and jumping and the overflowing of the spirit; and sometimes in calmness with a shower of tears. But, Oh, how sweet those tears are! He does not leave me alone, although sometimes I think He does, but I find Him hiding behind that trouble, which He turns into a Blessing later. My heart is flooded with light, love, peace, and joy, and sometimes it is so overflowing that I can’t bear it and do not know what to do with myself. Oh, what a change! It began about the time of our correspondence, when you were in C______, and it is still going higher.

The best is yet to come. Hallelujah! I do not know that I ever saw any one who had greater darkness and difficulties than this second writer. When I first met him about a year and a half ago, he was full of doubts and questionings and trouble and seemed almost hopelessly in the dark. Again and again he seemed about ready to give up entirely, but with help and encouragement he kept on praying, reading, seeking, and now he has found and his joy is almost too big for utterance. If people who are not satisfied in their experience would take time to ‘pray through, ‘ they would find their dark tunnels leading out into a large place and into broad day. Jesus still lives and keeps ‘watch above His own’ who hunger to be right, and He pours out the Holy Spirit upon every one who obeys Him and seeks Him with all the heart. But before we can be filled we must be emptied. Before we can have the ‘life more abundant, ‘ we must die to sin. The ‘old man ‘ must be crucified and put off before Jesus can abide in our hearts and satisfy the hunger of our souls. Are you satisfied, my comrades? If not, begin right now and stir up yourself to seek until you have found. Rouse yourself. Find a secret place and pray, and pray again, and yet again, and you shall ‘pray through ‘ and be satisfied. I know, for I have prayed through. I know, for Jesus has said: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find: Knock, and it shall be opened unto you, ‘ And what Jesus has said is true. And what the Lord has done for these two writers, He waits and longs to do for you. He is no respecter of persons, and ‘now is the accepted time. Say to Him as did Charles Wesley: In vain Thou strugglest to get free, I never will unloose my hold; Art Thou the Man who died for me? The secret of Thy love unfold Wrestling, I will not let Thee go, Till I Thy name, Thy nature know. Yield to me now, for I am weak, But confident in self-despair Speak to my heart, in blessing speak; Be conquered by my instant prayer: Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move, And tell me if Thy name is Love. And you will soon be crying out as did Wesley: ‘Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me; I hear Thy whisper in my heart The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Pure universal Love Thou art: To me, to all Thy mercies move, Thy nature and Thy name is Love.

Chapter 8 – THE SPECIAL CAMPAIGNER

I ‘And He gave some . . . Evangelists. ‘ For many years now my own work has been the work of an evangelist or campaigner. For five years, long before I met The Army, I resisted the Lord’s call to preach. I wanted to be a lawyer and enter politics. To my youthful mind – foolish, darkened, proud, ambitious – all the supreme prizes of life lay in that direction. I respected preachers, but not their job; it looked small to me, not a man’s size. But at last a woe, a solemn, inescapable, eternal woe faced me if I preached not, and I surrendered. Then I discovered that there were prizes, position, and places of power in the ministry. But the job of the Evangelist seemed to me to be beneath the dignity of a full-orbed man. Then one day, when in an agony of desire for purity of heart and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, God graciously sanctified me. The Holy Spirit took possession of my yielded, open heart. Christ was revealed in me, and a great passion for the saving and the sanctifying of men burned within me. About that time a multimillionaire had built one of the finest churches in my native State, and the congregation through him was looking for a pastor.

To my surprise I found that the vice-president of my old university had recommended me, and one day I received a call to the pastorate of that Church. I was elated. I felt that God Himself had opened a great door of opportunity and of usefulness to me. While still considering this call, I went three hundred miles to a holiness convention to sit under the ministry of some great teachers whose books had blessed me. Then God laid His hand upon me, and I knew that I was not to accept the call to that Church, and lo! I found that which I had least esteemed, had most despised, was the work to which God called me, and for which He had set me apart. I must be an Evangelist. I felt ordained to this. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Eight 2 I was young, unknown, in debt for a part of my education. I had no one to advise me. I was utterly alone and had no assurance that any Church would welcome my evangelistic services. But on my knees I talked it over with the Lord as I would with an earthly friend, and by faith into evangelistic work I plunged. Doors opened and I saw many souls saved and sanctified, and from that work, within ten months, I was led into The Salvation Army, where I found myself in London, blacking boots, scrubbing floors, selling ‘War Crys, ‘ as a Cadet in the International Training Garrison. After receiving my Commission, I returned to the U. S. A. and had command of three Corps, two Divisions under a Provincial Commander, and was Provincial Secretary or Chancellor of the two principal Metropolitan Provinces in that country, with Headquarters in Chicago and New York. But God’s ‘gifts and calling are without repentance, ‘ and the inner urge to do the work of an Evangelist was ever with me. The worst storm that ever struck us in America had overtaken The Army.

Our ranks were broken. Our people were full of distress and anxious questionings. Our battle-line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, three thousand miles long, was in confusion, and I felt, when in my office, a consuming desire to get out on the Field, to meet our people face to face, to hearten, reassure and cheer, to exhort, to teach, to lead them, distraught and sore perplexed, into ‘the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ, ‘ and to win sinners to the Saviour. One day I sought and obtained an audience with the Consul, asked her if I might speak to her about myself and my work as I would of any Officer, and then told her my convictions. Within three months I was appointed National Spiritual Special, and for about thirty years now I have been a Campaigner. It has not been an easy job. It has oftentimes been lonely and wearying to the point of exhaustion.

It has taxed my mind, challenged my will and utmost devotion, drunk up my spirit, drained me to the dregs till there seemed to be no virtue left in me, and I have had to slip away into solitude, like my Master, to the mountains, for quiet communion, for the replenishing of exhausted reserves of power and the renewing of all life’s forces. It has been a fight but not a defeat, Hallelujah! I have not been forsaken! His presence has not failed me. He has assured me that the Ancient Prophets – Chapter Eight 3 battle was not mine but His, and He has called on me to trust Him and be not afraid. Again and again I have heard His whisper in my heart: ‘Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Be steadfast, unmovable. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Sometimes the whisper has been sweet and full of comfort as the tender, cooing voice of a mother to a weary, distressed child; and sometimes it has been sharp and imperative as the staccato notes of a military command on a field of battle. I have not been mollycoddled. I have never been for an instant permitted to think I was God’s pet, and that I could expect special favors from Him. He has called me to share His cross, and to endure hardness as a good Soldier, not pleasing myself, not entangling myself with worldly interests or affairs that did not concern me, but to attend strictly to the work He has given me to do. And now, out of some thirty years of experience as a Campaigner, let me write.

II When they sought him where he had last been seen, all they could find was a small streak of ashes; he had been consumed by the flood of flame which swept over the doomed city, burning to ashes in five hours 69,000 houses that in five minutes had been cast to the ground by the heaving earth. He was an exporter of silk, a wealthy Parsee from India, with great warehouses in Yokohama. One month before the earthquake and fire, the Swedish Officer, who told me this story, had visited him in his office asking for a donation to help The Salvation Army in its work for sailors in that city. He listened to the Officer’s plea, and then replied: ‘If you can tell me one thing you Officers of The Salvation Army do which has not as its ultimate object the winning of men to Christ, then I will give you a liberal donation. But you cannot do it; you wear uniform, you march the streets, you carry banners, you beat drums and blow instruments, you conduct Meetings, you open Shelters and Soup Kitchens, you build Citadels, conduct Training Colleges, Rescue Homes, Men’s Shelters, publish books and papers and solicit money for just one object– to help you win men to Christ and make them followers of Him. I do not believe in Christ. I do not need your Christ. I am rich, but I will give you nothing. ‘ A month later the earthquake, the all-consuming fire and the poor little handful of ashes! The proud, self-complacent Parsee had grasped the central purpose of The Salvation Army. All its Officers and workers have or should have this supreme object always in full view. But while there is one spirit and one object, there are manifold ministries to express that spirit and secure that object. There are ‘some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Some serve tables as did Stephen, Philip, and others; and some give themselves wholly to the ministry of the word and prayer, as did Peter and the other Apostles (Acts vi. 1- 8). But all have one object to attain – the winning of souls from sin through faith in Christ, and the binding of them in vital union to Christ, and making them channels of His saving grace to others. The Evangelist or Campaigner is the man who probably more directly than any other labors to accomplish this great work. The Corps Officer, the Divisional Commander, the Departmental Officer, the Commissioner, has many executive and administrative duties which do not bear so directly upon the saving of men as does the work of the Campaigner. Their work is a vitally essential work in preparing the way for and conserving the work of soul-winning, but much that they do bears only indirectly upon the Salvation of men. The Campaigner’s work, however, is direct, immediate, unchanging. This one thing he does. The burden of caring for the flock, of collecting and administering finance, of erecting buildings, of directing affairs, does not fall upon him as upon others. His sole burden, his one responsibility, is for the souls of men. It is a secret burden, a responsibility which is laid upon him and which he assumes in the silence and secret place of his own soul.

It is elusive, known and measured only by God and himself. It cannot be measured by a yard stick. It cannot be weighed on man-made scales. It cannot be tabulated in statistics. The Campaigner belongs to a Divine order, just as the prophet and the Apostle. He has a Divine calling. His gift is a Divine bestowment, and he himself is one of God’s gifts to men. And He gave some – Evangelists’ – counterparts of The Salvation Army Campaigner, who is the Ancient Prophets – Chapter Eight 5 Evangelist of the New Testament and whose sole business is the saving of men, the perfecting of the saints and the building up of the body of Christ on earth, which is composed of all true Christians. If we judge the importance of his work in the mind of God by the place Paul assigns him when he mentions the various orders of ministry, then he stands next to the Apostles and Prophets and before the pastor and teacher. When we consider his work we will see that this relationship is perfectly logical. He receives the revelation, the good news of God’s love and plan of Salvation through faith in Christ from Apostles and Prophets, and then by bold and loving presentation of this revelation, this good news, he saves men and turns them over to the pastor to be shepherded, and to the teacher to be instructed in the things of God. His great work is not the training of souls but the saving of them; having accomplished this work he passes on to other fields of labor. He does not erect the building, he provides the material; or, to change the figure, he lays the foundations, others build thereon. He is a fisher of men: his business is to catch them. He is a reaper of souls on the world’s vast harvest fields; that is his one work, and to that he should give himself with great joy and full and unwearied devotion.

He may have other gifts, and, if so, he should not neglect them but cultivate them to the full and make them contribute to and support his God- given gift and calling as an Evangelist. He should not minify his calling. He should not vex and discourage himself by comparing it with that of other men, with that of the Divisional Commander and Commissioner who handle great affairs, control great commands, and direct their own appointments within their commands, as I knew one Special do, much to his own distress and the crippling, in some measure, of his splendid powers. The Campaigner should magnify his office. It is true that he is a lone man without authority to command and direct others and administer great business, and at times he may be oppressed with a feeling of his own insignificance. But he has spiritual authority, the authority which eternal Ancient Prophets – Chapter Eight 6 truth bestows and with which God clothes chosen workers who work and labor in the power of the Holy Ghost. However small he may feel within himself, he must not minify his office. His work is vital.

It is God-ordained, and he is walking in the footsteps of the Master who, without any semblance of worldly power, or man-made authority, was the first Campaigner. His one weapon is ‘the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. His enduement of power for his work is none less than God the Holy Ghost. The Almighty Holy Ghost goes with him to hearten, to guide, to give him insight and wisdom and courage, boldness in attack, patience in difficulty, and faith and hope in the blackest night. However lonely at times he may feel, he is not alone, ‘never, no, never alone. He must stir up his faith and recognize the Divine Presence, humbly acknowledge his dependence, boldly claim Divine help, and draw freely upon the Divine resources placed at the disposal of his faith. III It is the Campaigner himself, and not the details of his campaign, about which I write. Probably no two Campaigners if left to themselves would plan a campaign exactly alike. Personally, I have never attempted anything spectacular, although I would not discourage this in others. Pageants, spectacular marches and uniforms, striking subjects, special music, all may be most useful to reach the crowd. Cottage Prayer Meetings and Half Nights of Prayer before a Campaign, with personal visitations, announcements, and invitations, I have found most helpful. They stir up interest and a devout, prayerful, expectant spirit that make victory assured.

The Campaigner cannot make this initial preparation himself. The Divisional Officer, the Corps Commander, Locals and Soldiers, should do this work in advance of the Campaign, and if they do it with heart and soul, and their own hearts are prepared for the visitation of the Spirit, victory is already in sight. In all my campaigns it is this preliminary work and this heart preparation for which I have pleaded, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Eight 7 and for which I have in secret prayed. IV 1. The Campaigner must spend time and give all diligence to the preparation of his own heart. If his own heart is broken, he can then break the hearts of others. If his heart is aflame, he can kindle a flame in other hearts. A striking program, a brilliant address, a beautiful song may dazzle the crowd and play on the surface of their emotions, but it is only the passion of the Cross that will bring them in contrition and brokenness of heart to the Cross. Other things are important, but this preparation of the heart is the one thing without which all other things are empty and vain. The Founder always blamed himself if he did not succeed. It is true that other factors are at work for or against the campaign, and the Campaigner should not be too quick to assume all the blame of failure. We know there were places where the Master could do not mighty works, because unbelief frustrated Him.

And so it may be with the Campaigner. But usually, if he is warm and tender, joyous and bold, and ‘full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, ‘ no man will be able to stand before him. Results rich and enduring will reward his labor (Joshua i. 5). The Campaigner must study to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. God is not a hard Master, but He will not, cannot, lightly approve us. We must not presume on His good will: but with all watchfulness and diligence so work that He can approve, and that our hearts will not condemn, but will reassure us. 2. The Campaigner must exercise his spiritual sense lest, having eyes to see, he see not, and having ears to hear, he hear not. He must have eyes that pierce through appearances: that can see the horses and chariots of fire where others see only the arrogant, encircling hosts of Syria. He must have ears to hear the assuring voice of his Captain, and distinguish it from the voices of self-interest, of expediency, and of the fiend who sometimes simulates, and is ‘transformed into A an angel of light. ‘ The Apostle speaks in commendation of those ‘who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. ‘ But beyond discernment of good and evil, the Campaigner must have eyes to see victory where others see foredoomed defeat. The smallest crowd may have immeasurable possibilities in it. A Luther, a Wesley, a William Booth, may be looking out through the eyes of some little child or some awkward, shy, or mischievous, adolescent boy. An Elizabeth Fry, a Catherine Booth, or a Hannah Ouchterlony may spring forth from the chrysalis of some reserved girl who listens with rapt attention. Personally, I seldom speak to a congregation without thinking that I may be addressing directly or indirectly some one who shall yet be a prophet of the Highest, a herald to nations. Possibly I have been somewhat influenced by the results of my first sermon in my first appointment as a young preacher.

In that first service two people, a young man and a young woman, yielded to Christ, were saved, and the young man, principal of the public school, preached for me before the end of the year and went later as a missionary to India. Sometimes we reach them indirectly. We get some nobody saved and God uses that nobody to reach somebody who becomes ‘Great in the sight of the Lord. Let us have no hesitancy in permitting our spiritual imagination to reinforce our faith and enkindle our hope and so sustain our courage in the face of massed and mocking foes and threatened defeat. 3. The true Campaigner is a humble man. He seeks nothing for himself. He is willing for others to carry off the so-called prizes of this life. He is not a lord over Christ’s heritage; he is a shepherd of the sheep, ‘an ensample to the flock. ‘ He holds no dominion over the faith of his brethren, but he is a helper of their joy (2 Corinthians i. 24). Like John the Baptist, he is quite willing to decrease, if only Christ increases; his joy is that of the friend of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29, 30). Like Paul he is jealous over his comrades with a godly jealousy, desirous above all things to espouse them to one husband and present them as a chaste virgin to Christ; and he fears lest by any means that old serpent who beguiled Eve through his subtlety, should corrupt them from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians xi. 2, 3).

And like Epaphras, he labors fervently in prayer that they  may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (Colossians iv. 12). 4. Finally, this lonely man, coming to a Division and Corps, with no power to command, but only to preach and pray, to help and inspire and to seek the lost, should be received as the messenger of God, and supported by love and prayers and understanding sympathy and helped in his mission in every possible way, that Christ may be glorified, souls won, little children gathered into the fold, and all comrades quickened and sanctified.

Chapter 9 – MUST YOU BE FED WITH A SPOON?

I I am watching with much interest and some personal profit the development of my grandchildren. They are a luxury to my old heart; but, like all children, they are somewhat of a problem as well as a joy to their parents. At first, when brought to the table, they were fed with a spoon, but one day the spoon was put into their tiny hands and they were permitted to feed themselves. I was fascinated. Plunge would go the spoon into the porridge or apple sauce and come up at various and sundry angles and start on a wobbling journey to the sweet, wee, wide-open mouth. Sometimes it would hit and sometimes it would miss. If it reached the open mouth, well. Its contents were soon lost in the dark ‘little red lane’ below. But if it missed, or if there were miscalculation as to time, and the mouth closed before the spoon arrived, it was awesome. The little mouth closed on air, and another plunge and wobbling effort was made. The bib and plate and platter were often a fearsome sight, and the small face was often battered and buttered in a way that was a joy to behold, but they were learning. It was the only way they could learn. They could not always be fed with a spoon by others. They must feed themselves, and some day they may have to feed others. But their first lesson is to feed themselves. Of course, their food is all prepared for them by other hands. But the day will come when they will not only have to feed themselves, but they may have to prepare their own food. But before the food can be prepared, it must be found.

The farmer must cultivate the soil and raise wheat and corn. The fisherman must catch the fish. The horticulturist must grow the fruit. The herdsmen must raise the cattle and sheep. And it is just possible that in some far-oft day these children must not only feed themselves, and prepare the food, but go out and find the food to prepare and eat; or they may toil for the money with which to buy of those who have labored to produce. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Nine 2 The feeding of men is a complex process, which we may live a lifetime without considering, but which is most instructive and humbling to consider. II Can you feed your own soul, or must you still be fed? Do you prepare your own soul-food, or do others prepare it for you? Do you labor for it, or do others give it to you? ‘I will guarantee I can send the worst kind of a backslidden Officer to the Corps at W. , and in three months the Soldiers will have prayed for him and helped him, and loved him and gotten him so blessed that he will be on fire for God and souls. So said young Divisional Commander Thomas Estill, as reported to me the other day by an old Officer who knew him in those days of long ago, when we were returning from the graveside of our friend and comrade, the Commissioner. Those Soldiers were no longer spiritual babies that had to be fed with a spoon. No doubt they had vigorous spiritual appetites, and enjoyed a meal of ‘strong meat ‘ prepared for them. But they were no longer dependent. They were independent. They were no longer babes in Christ. They had ‘exercised their senses’ and become spiritual men and women, able to feed themselves; able to prepare their own food; able to work and forage for themselves and find their own food. And not only so, but they were able to feed others.

If their Officers did not give them suitable soul-food, then they fed the Officers. If nobody blessed them, then they rose up in their splendid spiritual manhood and womanhood and blessed somebody else, and so blessed themselves. Like the widow of Sarepta, who divided her poor little handful of meal and her few spoonsful of oil with Elijah, and found the meal and oil unwasting through months of famine, so they gave of their spiritual food to more needy souls, and found themselves enriched from God’s unfailing supplies. I know one of the finest Bands in the U. S. A. , composed of a splendid group of Soldiers, who for years would not have, and for ought I know to this day, will not have, as Bandsman, one who has  not the Blessing of a Clean Heart. We want our Band to be not only a Combination of musical instruments, but also of harmonious hearts. We want to produce melody from our hearts as from our instruments. We cannot have discord in our Band.

We must have sweetest harmony. And so, before a man was admitted as a member of the Band, he must not only give evidence that he could play an instrument, but that he could live peaceably, humbly, lovingly, loyally with his comrades. They were prepared to pray with him and lead him into the blessed experience of Holiness, of perfect love, of purity and power, and then gladly accept him as a comrade in the Band. They could feed themselves and others too. And that Band became a great spiritual influence in that city and famous for a hundred miles around. One day Paul came to Corinth and found a certain Jew and his wife, Priscilla, and because he was of the same trade he lived with them and worked, for they were tent-makers, just humble, lay people. But they later moved to Ephesus, and then one day, Apollos, an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures, came to the city, fervent in spirit and speaking and teaching diligently the things of the Lord. He was a great orator, teacher, and preacher. But this humble tent-maker and his wife had learned more from Paul than Apollos knew, so they invited him home to dinner with them, ‘and expounded unto him the way of the Lord more perfectly. ‘

Read the story in Acts xviii. 1, 2, 24-28. Aquila and Priscilla had learned to feed themselves and others too, even such a man as Apollos, eloquent, burning with zeal and mighty in the Scriptures. They must have had fullness of love and very gracious ways, and a divine tact to approach a great man like that and lead him into fullness of blessing. Oh, for an army of soldiers like that! III We found ourselves sitting together after the Meeting on our way to our lodgings. ‘ I was at the penitent-form, ‘ said he. 

‘Were you? I missed you and wondered where you were. I had seen him sitting down in the audience while the Commissioner poured out his heart in a torrent of searching truth upon the crowd. There was a look on his face that puzzled me. I was not sure whether defiance, cynicism, questioning, indifference, or soul-hunger was revealed in that look. When the Prayer Meeting began every head was bowed, but he sat erect with that puzzling look in his face intensified. People were melting and flowing down to the penitent-form, but still he sat erect, open-eyed, apparently unmoved. I knelt to deal with seekers, and when I looked again he was gone, and not till after the Meeting did I learn that he had been to the penitent-form.

‘Yes, I was at the penitent-form. An old Officer came and asked if he could help me, but I told him, “No, I want to be left alone. ” I was vexed; half angry. ‘ ‘Angry! What were you angry about? ‘ ‘Well, while I listened to the Commissioner, I wondered, “Why don’t our leaders feed us young fellows? They don’t have Meetings with us. Why don’t they help us? “‘ I had up to that time thought of him as a youngster. He belongs to the younger set of Officers. I had known him since he was a small lad, and I had always thought of him as a young man, but when he called himself a ‘young fellow’ my mind turned a somersault. I looked at him and asked, ‘How old are you? ‘ ‘Thirty-five. ‘ ‘And you have been married thirteen years and have a family of children, the oldest of whom is twelve. You are not a young fellow. You are a middle-aged man. And you want your leaders to feed you. But that is not what you need. You need to feed yourself. Your leaders cannot tell you anything you do not know. But do you diligently practice what you know? You don’t pray enough. You do not search the Scriptures and feed on the Word of God as you should. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

” Is not that your trouble? Do you deny yourself as you should? Do you search for soul-food in good books? Or do you not spend more time reading the sporting page of the morning and evening papers, than you spend over your Bible and books that would enrich your mind and heart? Are you not starving yourself and waiting for some one to come and feed you, when you should be feeding yourself? I knew a Field Officer who, when I first met him, was sodden with drink. But within a few days he was saved and sanctified. Shortly after he became an Officer, and then got himself a small, but choice library of the most deeply spiritual books. He would sit up till after midnight reading, praying, and meditating on what he read, until in a short time I marveled at him. His mind was all alert, his soul was on fire and his mental and spiritual equipment was a joy to those who knew him. He labored for spiritual food, and grew in mental and spiritual stature and in favor with God and man. And he was soon able to feed others. Whenever I met him he wanted to talk on spiritual things. His grasp of doctrine, his knowledge of Scripture and the literature of Holiness, and his intimate acquaintance and communion with God delighted and refreshed me. He was an ordinary country boy, but he became extraordinary by the diligence with which he sought fellowship with God, and the eagerness with which he hunted for truth from books and from experienced comrades, and the loving zeal with which he sought to impart the truth to other souls about him. Officers should feed their Soldiers; Commissioners and Divisional Commanders should feed their Officers.

But both Officers and Soldiers should learn to find spiritual food and to feed themselves. ‘Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared, ‘ said wise old Nehemiah (Nehemiah viii. 10). Ancient Prophets – Chapter Nine 6 Learn to feed yourself, and not only so, but to share your soul-food with yet needier souls, and so you shall know no soul-famine, but be ‘fat and flourishing. ‘

Chapter 10 – FIRST THINGS FIRST

One of the outstanding ironies of history is the utter disregard of ranks and titles in the final judgments men pass upon each other. And if this be so of men, how much more must it be so of the judgments of God. Nero and Marcus Aurelius sat upon the throne of Rome clothed with absolute power and worshipped as gods, but what a difference! Nero, a monster of iniquity and utter cruelty, execrated of all men Aurelius, a vigorous administrator and benign philosopher, writing meditations which the wise and learned still delight to read and ponder and which, after two millenniums, are a guide to safe and useful living. Washington and Napoleon were two great statesmen and military leaders. But what a difference!

One a ruthless conqueror, building a glittering and evanescent empire on an ocean of blood, dying an exile on a lonely isle with a character for heartless selfishness which sinks lower and yet lower every year in the estimation of all right thinking men. The other refusing a crown, but laying the firm foundations of a State destined to be infinitely greater than Napoleon’s empire, and dying at last honored by his former foes, with a character above reproach, revered and beloved of all men. John and Judas were two Apostles. But what a difference! One was a devil betraying his master with a kiss for a paltry handful of silver, and getting to himself a name that is a synonym for all infamy and treachery. The other pillowed his head on the Master’s bosom, and with wide, open eyes was permitted to look deep into Heaven, behold the great white throne and Him that sat upon it, the worshipping angel-hosts, the innumerable multitudes of the redeemed, the glory of the Lamb that was slain, and the face of the everlasting Father; while his name became a synonym for reverence and adoring love. This summing up and final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank and title a man has borne or the office he has held, but only for the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart.

The haughty patricians of Rome doubtless passed by with contemptuous indifference or scorn as the scarred, hooked-nose Jewish prisoner, Paul, with sore eyes and wearied feet, went clanking by in chains to the dungeon, but their names have perished, while his name is enshrined in millions of hearts and embalmed in colleges, in cathedrals and cities, and libraries of books are reverently written about his character, his sufferings, and his work.

Who remembers the Lord Bishops of England in Bunyan’s day? But what unnumbered Christian hearts have turned with tears of deepest gratitude and tenderest affection and sympathy to the humble, joyous, inspired tinker, who, from the filthy, verminous Bedford jail, sent forth his immortal story of Pilgrim fleeing from the city of Destruction, and with hopes and fears, and tears and prayers, and sighs, and songs, pressing on over hills of difficulty, through sloughs of despond, past bewitching bowers of beguiling temptations and giants of despair and castles of doubt, till at last he beholds the delectable mountains, views not far away the city of the great King, hears the music of celestial harpers harping on their harps of gold, and, passing through the swelling river, is received with glad welcome on the other shore! These men whom history acclaims, posterity reveres, and God crowns are the MEN WHO PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST.

To no living men and women is it more important than to us of The Salvation Army, that first things should have first place always in all our thoughts and plans, our affections, and activities. And what shall be first with us? Many hands stretch out toward us, and many voices plead with Ancient Prophets – Chapter Ten 3 us for first place. Which shall have the primacy? Which shall have our last thoughts when falling asleep at night and our first thoughts on awaking in the morning? There are many things that make so subtle and apparently so reasonable an appeal, that if we do not watch and pray and keep in the Spirit, they will without right usurp first place, and we shall someday wake up and find that we have been bowing down to an idol instead of the living God. 1 We may put our work first. Is it not commanded, ‘Do with thy might what thy hands find to do? And are we not exhorted to be ‘not slothful in business’? And are we not assured that ‘a man diligent in his business shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men? Is not our work God’s work? And can anything equal it in importance? Are we not warned that if we are careless we shall be cursed? If we are slothful, our talent shall be taken from us, given to another, and we ourselves cast out into outer darkness as wicked and slothful servants, where we shall fruitlessly weep and gnash our teeth. Is not our work the building of God’s kingdom on earth, the rescue of men from sin and its eternal woe? Yes, yes, yes, it is all that, and no words can express the infinity of its importance. But it must not have first place.

If it does, we ourselves shall be lost. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. ‘ Solemn words these, spoken by the Master. Many years ago I was billeted with one of the most brilliant and capable Staff Officers I have known. We had had a great Meeting that night and got to bed late and wearied, but, according to my custom, I was up early next morning, seeking God, reading my Bible, and praying. The blessing of the Lord came upon me and I burst into tears. My comrade woke up and found me praying, weeping, rejoicing. He was much moved, and confessed to me that he did not often Ancient Prophets – Chapter Ten 4 realize that he had found God when praying, and explained that he was so busy, so pressed with his work, so absorbed and fascinated with it, that when he prayed his mind wandered to things he should do during the day, and so he seldom got into real touch and fellowship with God. I earnestly warned him of the danger this meant to his own soul and eventually to his work, the dryness and spiritual barrenness that must come upon him if, through the multiplicity of cares and the pressure of work, God was crowded out or pushed into the background of his life.

He admitted the truth of all I said, but he still put his work first. He rose rapidly in rank and important command, then suddenly dropped out of The Army over some trifling matter, and has long been dead. Did his exceptionally bright and promising career end in darkness because he failed to put first things first? I have feared so. 2 It is possible for an Officer to so far lose sight of first things that he comes at last to do much if not all his work with an eye to his own promotion and his future career. He may become embittered toward his leaders and jealous toward his comrades if he is not promoted as rapidly as others, or if his appointments do not correspond to what he or his wife considers his merits. It is a most subtle danger, and through it many an Officer’s splendid spiritual career has come to an end, while he still went on in a perfunctory performance of his official duties, beating time, moving but not progressing, doing no vital and lasting work for God and souls; of whom it could be written, ‘Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. ‘ I have met Officers who spent more time repining and complaining and inwardly rebelling about not being promoted than they did in studying and working and fitting themselves for the work that promotion would thrust upon them. For men to search their own glory, is not glory, ‘ wrote Solomon, but such men quite overlook such texts as that, and while they may attain the desire of their heart, they miss the glory that God gives. Personally, an awful fear has shaken me at times in the thought that a man may get in this world Ancient Prophets – Chapter Ten 5 all the honor and glory that he seeks, and find in the next world that there is nothing further coming to him, like a man who draws his salary in advance and at the end of the week or month or year has nothing to receive.

Abraham said to the rich man ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things’; and there was nothing due to him in that new world to which his soul had been so suddenly snatched away. He had not put first things first, and he who proudly scorned the poor beggar Lazarus at his gate now found himself an eternal pauper and beggar in Hell. 3 An Officer may gradually put his family first. It has been said that until forty-five a man says, ‘What can I do to advance myself? After forty-five he says, ‘What can I do to provide for and advance my children? ‘ But to an Officer this may become a deadly snare. Sometimes it is the wife and mother whose ambition or anxiety overrides the sober judgment of the father and husband, and he bends before her insistence and falls from his splendid integrity and devotion to God’s cause. Oh, the pity of it! ‘He that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me, ‘ said Jesus. 4 A man may put his own culture first. This is not a widespread danger among us, and yet it may become to some a very subtle danger. Study, reading, travel, the cultivation of the mind and the gratifying of taste, may lead to the neglect of God’s work and the drying up of the fountains of spiritual power.

Personal culture is not to be despised, but rather coveted. The better informed, the wiser and more cultivated we are, provided we are dedicated wholly to God and set on fire with spiritual passion, the more effectually can we glorify God and serve our fellow-men. It is true that ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But He also chose Moses, educated in all the learning of Egypt – Moses, the most cultured man of his age; and Paul, educated at the universities of Tarsus and Jerusalem, for the great work of the ages.

Not many such has God chosen, because not often do such cultured men choose Christ and the Cross. But God can and does use culture, when dedicated wholly to His service, and we should not despise it, but covet it and take every legitimate opportunity to secure it. But woe to the man who puts it first in his thought and effort. God will laugh at him and pass him by and give his crown to some little illiterate nobody who loves, and trusts, and shouts, and sings, and knows nothing among men but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and counts not his life dear unto himself that he may win the souls for whom the Savour died. If we would put first things first, we must be ready at any moment to lay aside our books, our music, our studies, our business, our own pleasure and profit, to save souls.

The Founder, on the train in Switzerland, was writing an article when members of his Staff called him to look at the Alps towering upward into the blue heavens, gleaming in white, majestic splendor, but his heart and mind were so absorbed with his work and the greater splendors of the spirit, and of redeeming love, that he would hardly lift his eyes from the work in which he was lost. Again and again I have had to practice this kind of stern self- denial in my world travels if I would keep first things first. Museums which house the symbols of a nation’s history and the products of its genius and labor are a medium of culture. I once spent two weeks within two or three stone-throws of one of Europe’s national museums, and passing it on several occasions, longed to run in and spend some time among its strange and ancient treasures. But a mighty work of the Spirit was going on, my time was short, and hungry souls so thronged me, both in the Meetings and between Meetings, that I had to deny them or deny myself the pleasure and instruction I might have found in that treasure-house of science and art and natural wonders. To some it might have made no  appeal. To me it did, but it was denied in order that first things might have first place, and any regret for my loss is swallowed up in the joy of my greater gain and the gain of those precious souls to whom I ministered.

This demand that first things shall have first place in The Army and in religion is not simply a demand of the spiritual life, but of all life, of every profession and activity. The soldier must not entangle himself with the secular affairs of life. The lawyer must make law his mistress and give her his full devotion. The physician must put the profession of healing before all business or pleasure. The student must deny himself and hold everything secondary to his studies. The true lover must forsake all others for her who is enshrined in his heart’s best affections. What, then, shall be first in our thoughts, our affections, our life? That must be first, the loss of which is the loss of all. To lose God is the sum of all loss. If we lose Him we lose all. If we lose all and still have Him, we shall in Him again find all. ‘What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ, ‘ wrote Paul. ‘Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, . . . for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And yet this poor man, persecuted, hated, hunted, stripped of all things, cries out to his brothers in like poverty: ‘All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. ‘ Hallelujah! Seek ye Me, and ye shall live, ‘ is God’s everlasting plea to you and me. Uzziah sought God’ – and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper – ‘he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God. ‘ In these words what a grim, revealing glimpse we have down the long, dim vista of three millenniums into the secret of that old king’s glory and doom! And ‘they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Many years ago I heard the Founder, in an impassioned plea to his people to wait on God, cry out, ‘Men are losing God every day, and I should lose Him if out of my busy life I did not take time every day to seek His face. And in a letter quoted by Harold Begbie, he wrote: ‘I wish I could have a little more time for meditation on eternal things. I must not let my soul get dried up with secular affairs, even though they concern the highest earthly interests of my fellows. After all, soul matters are of infinite importance and are really most closely concerned with earthly advantages. ‘ If it was so with King Uzziah and with our revered Founder, it is so with us, O my comrades! These men, though dead, yet speak to us; and though they came back to us as Dives besought Abraham that Lazarus might come back with warning to his brethren, yet they could have no other message, they could not speak otherwise. They have spoken their final word, and to me, at least, it is the word of the Lord. When thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek, ‘ wrote the Psalmist. Thou, O Christ, art all I want, More than all in Thee I find. Let us pray!

Chapter 11 –    ‘GOD IS FAITHFUL

A devout little woman wrote me a letter from Texas recently and said, ‘My text for today is, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust (unrighteous) in the least is unjust (unrighteous) also in much” (Luke xvi. 10). ‘

What searching words are these of the Saviour! They should give us pause. They should set us to searching and judging ourselves, and this searching should enter into all departments of our life, and this judgment should be as before God’s eyes, it should be unsparing — far more so than our judgment upon our neighbors. When we judge them we may do ourselves and them great harm and injustice, and bring upon ourselves judgment and condemnation, for we are bidden not to sit in judgment upon others. ‘Judge not, ‘ said Jesus. ‘Who art thou that judgest another? ‘ wrote the Apostle. But if we candidly and impartially judge ourselves we may thereby do ourselves and others great good, and so escape the judgment of God, for if we would judge ourselves, ‘ and so correct ourselves, ‘we should not be judged, ‘ Wrote Paul (1 Corinthians xi. 31). ‘Faithful in that which is least. ‘ What are some of the least things? Jesus was talking about business and money. Are we faithful in the use of money? Of our own money, and of The Army’s money entrusted to us? Personally, I have for many years felt that one- tenth of all I had belonged to God. Some have said to me, ‘You have given yourself to God, why give Him your money? A most distinguished Christian leader said that to me one day, and I confess I was deeply surprised, if not shocked. I ask others to give, and I should feel myself utterly faithless if I did not give freely to my Master’s cause and to His poor as I am able.

Are we faithful in the use of our time? Do we gather up the minutes for some useful employment, for prayer, for reading, for visiting? Some Officers and Soldiers waste much time after Meetings  at night which they should spend in bed, and then they waste much time in bed in the morning when they should be up studying, praying, rejoicing, and attending to the duties of the day. Are we faithful in the matter of speech? Little words are slipping out through the portals of our lips continually. Are they words we should say in the presence of Jesus? I was much struck recently as I read Psalm xii. 4. God had a controversy with these people over their words, and they proudly and insolently replied, ‘Our lips are our own: who is Lord over us? ‘The tongue is a little member, ‘ wrote the Apostle James. Are we faithful in its use, or careless, thoughtless, foolish, wicked? For every idle, harmful word we shall have to give an account, we shall be brought into Judgment, said the Master. Oh, how important that we be faithful in our speech. Are we faithful in the use of eye and ear and hand and foot? Are we faithful with ourselves, with our hearts, our consciences, our imaginations? Do we live as in God’s sight, seeking always to do the things that please Him, so that we have the sweet, silent whisper in our hearts – ‘My beloved child in whom I am well pleased? To ‘the well-beloved Gaius’ the Apostle John said, ‘Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest’ (3 John 5), and if you and I do likewise, some day a greater than John will say to us, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

Chapter 12 – THE BIBLE AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

I Man does not discover God. God reveals Himself to man. God seeks men before men seek God. God reveals His wisdom and power through nature. He reveals His Holiness through conscience. He reveals His hatred of sin through His judgments. He reveals His redeeming love through faith. We see the power of God in the starry heavens, the storm-swept sea, the flooding, rushing river, the lofty mountains, the flaming volcano, the devastating tornado, the silent forces resistlessly lifting mighty forests from tiny seeds, and holding them aloft in columnar strength and beauty against wind and storm from century to century. We see the wisdom of God in the marvelous adaptations of nature; the adaptation of the eye to light and color, of the ear to sound, of the nose to odors, of the tongue to flavors, of the skin to heat and cold, of the thumb and fingers set ever so aptly against each other, of the organs of digestion, of peristaltic and cardiac action, of plant and animal, of man and woman, of mother and child.

We see the redeeming love of God in Christ, in His works of pity and mercy, but most clearly in His atoning death on the cross. But all this manifold unveiling and revelation of Himself God sums up in His Word. He declares Himself in the Scriptures, and therein we see Him as though reflected in a perfect mirror. The Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the Word of the Lord, ‘ we read (1 Samuel iii. 21). He declares His power, His wisdom and knowledge, His Holiness and righteousness, His mercy and everlasting love, His redeeming purpose and plan, in His Word. And this Word is Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twelve 4 It was this that happened to Martin Luther as on his knees he painfully climbed the stairway in St. Peter’s, Rome, when the still small voice sounded in his soul: ‘Now the just shall live by faith. Scales dropped from the eyes of his soul, God’s kindly purpose and way of Salvation by faith was seen, and the Scriptures flamed with new and spiritual meaning, and became the passionate study of his remaining years. It was this that happened to Augustine, the brilliant young rhetorician and libertine of Carthage, as deeply convicted of sin and spiritual impotence, he walked in his garden. He heard a voice in his inner ear, saying, ‘Take and read, ‘ and taking up Paul’s Epistle to the Romans he read: ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Instantly his inner being flamed with spiritual light. The chains of his fleshly lusts and evil habits fell off, the dungeon doors of his soul flew open, and he walked out into the broad day of God’s deliverance and Salvation, and the Scriptures henceforth were ‘the man of his counsel. ‘ The Word of the Lord to man came in searching experiences and travailings of spirit as God drew nigh to men and revealed His will, His name, and nature to them. It ‘came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, ‘ writes Peter; and he assures us that it is ‘a more sure word of prophecy: whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts’ (2 Peter i. 19-21). Ezekiel says: ‘The word of the Lord came unto me. ‘ ‘The word of the Lord came unto me, ‘ wrote Jeremiah. ‘Now the Lord had said unto Abraham’ (Genesis xii. 1). 

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee’ (Jeremiah xxxi. 3). There has been much questioning and debate about the nature and extent of Biblical inspiration. Some Bible lovers maintain that every word was given by inspiration, while others have argued that the writers chose their own words in which to express the thoughts and revelations welling up within them. But a thoughtful study seems to plainly show that some of the words were given while others were chosen by the writers. Paul was troubled with a thorn in the flesh, and three times prayed for deliverance from it. Then Jesus spoke to him, and Paul gives us His very words, which translated read: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. These words so assured and satisfied and inspired Paul that he cried out: ‘Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. ‘ There is no reason to suppose that these exact words were put into Paul’s mouth. It is sufficient to know that the words of Jesus thrilled and cheered and inspired him into glad submission to the will and purpose of God in his affliction, and in his joy and satisfaction his heart overflowed with devotion to his Lord and found verbal expression in these words. One day the Psalmist was so filled with the sense of God’s forgiving love and provident care that his whole soul bubbled over in song, and he cried out: ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. These words are the words of the writer, but they are written in the glad sense of all God’s tender care and goodness and redeeming love, out of a heart that is inspired by the ever- present Holy Spirit to adoring worship and praise. The words are the words of the writer, but the rich experience and deep feelings and adoring wonder from which they flowed are the work and inspiration of the Holy One of Israel.

Hallelujah! ‘I know the Bible is inspired, ‘ wrote a great soul-winner, ‘because it inspires me. And so it does to everyone who, wholly devoted to Christ and simply trusting, is filled with the Spirit. It speaks as the very voice of God. God is in the word and ‘the words . . . are spirit and life. ‘ The manner and extent of inspiration may always be a matter of debate, but the fact of inspiration is the joy and strength of every ‘twice-born’ soul. II ‘The poor ye have always with you, ‘ said the Master, and we must wisely and adequately minister to their pitiful and crying words. But it is equally probable that the feeble-minded and the weak will be ever with us. And Paul has exhorted and instructed us to comfort and support them and to be patient. But there is another class, the chronic seekers who, times without number, come to the penitent- form, who seem to be tramping, tramping for ever on an endless treadmill, who are with us and need wise and patient help as much or more than any other class of people. They have been to the penitent-form so often that many Soldiers and Officers have lost interest in them, and have Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twelve 7 but little, if any, hope for them. But they are a challenge to our faith, our love and pity, our patience, our spiritual intelligence and resourcefulness.

We must not let them perish in full view, and we must not let them slip away from view and perish in the night. They belong to us. They are our charge, and, if possible, we must win them and lead them into a joyful experience of Salvation and perfect love. We need to take ourselves in hand in dealing with them, for possibly their failure is an evidence of our weakness of faith, our lack of burning, compassionate zeal, or of our spiritual and mental ignorance, poverty, laziness. We need to do some sober, hard thinking, some real praying, and ‘stir up the gift of God’ within us, if we are to fathom their deep needs and help them. Personally, I fear that in many instances it is the faulty, hasty way they are dealt with at the penitent-form that in part, if not wholly, accounts for their miserable failures.

A thousand times I have trembled for seekers as I have seen people dealing with them, who I have feared needed help themselves. In the old days, when my hearing was more acute, I seldom let any one leave my penitent- form without dealing with him myself. It was a great tax upon my time and strength, but my heart would not rest in peace until I had done my utmost to lead each one into light, and into the sweet and assured rest of faith. I felt I must make full proof of my ministry, and I judged of its acceptance with God and its harmony with His truth, His principles and Spirit, by its fruits in joyously saved and sanctified souls. III ‘Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully (negligently), and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood, ‘ wrote Jeremiah. And ‘He that winneth souls is wise, ‘ said Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twelve 8 Solomon. Several years ago I was campaigning in a splendid city in which is located the Territorial Headquarters of The Army for that country. It is a Salvation Army City. In it are many flourishing Corps and Army Institutions which command the respect and high regard of the citizens of both high and low degree. In two Corps in residential sections of the city I conducted Meetings which were largely attended, and in which people responded promptly to my invitations. Then I went to the down-town, Central Corps at the Territorial Headquarters. Here, too, the crowds were large and attentive, but it was next to impossible to get any one to the penitent-form except as a result of the most dogged personal dealing and persuasion. To me this was a sore disappointment, for I always feel that if I preach the truth in love, luminously, pointedly, persuasively, with constant reliance upon the Holy Ghost, the people will promptly yield to my invitations, and if they do not do so I feel the trouble must be with my spirit or manner of preaching. Almost invariably many do respond.

But not so at this Corps. I had been there on two different occasions before when the people seemed much more responsive, and I wondered at the present hardness. After I had preached and poured out my heart upon the people, Officers and Soldiers promptly began to ‘fish, ‘ but it was only after long effort that they would lead any one to the penitent- form. This continued for several Meetings, and I was greatly perplexed. I noticed that those who came did not seem to be broken in spirit. There were no tears, but neither was there any levity. Usually there was a hard, set look on the faces of those who came, which seemed to say, ‘Well, if I must, I will, but I feel it is useless to come. Nothing will happen. ‘ I noted further that as soon as one knelt at the penitent-form some Soldier or Officer would rush to his side and enter into conversation with him, and in a few minutes would look up and say, ‘He is all right, ‘ and the man would rise up with the same hard, set look on his face and take his seat. There was no tear in the eye, no light on the face, nothing that indicated that he had met with Jesus and found a great deliverance and peace. On inquiry I found that most of those who were coming to the penitent-form were well known to the Officers and Soldiers, and had been forward again and again.

Loud trumpeting and singing in the Prayer Meeting may keep up a lively interest, but they sadly interfere with my hearing, so that it is most difficult for me to deal with seekers. (I wish we might have stringed instruments instead of brass in our Prayer Meetings. ) I tried to find out how these people at the penitent-form were being dealt with, and I discovered that they were usually asked one or two questions, then they were told to obey God and trust, asked if they would do so, and when they said they would they were declared to be ‘all right, ‘ got on their feet and sent to a seat, as dead and hopeless, apparently, as when they came. In some instances where their weaknesses and failures were well known they were dealt with in a severe, unsympathetic way which seemed to me anything but helpful, and quite unbecoming from one who felt that he himself had been hewn from the rock and lifted out of miry clay. A sinner saved by grace must be careful how he deals with a fellow-sinner, lest, like Moses, he finds he has displeased the Lord. Finally, a Soldier came to the penitent-form, and not only threw himself down at the form, but upon and over it in a way that seemed to me to indicate hopelessness. I took my Bible and knelt beside him, and I soon found out that he had come there again and again, that his trouble was fleshly sin, that he loathed himself, but felt powerless when temptation was upon him; that he was eager to break away from his sin, but that he was its servant (John viii. 34; Romans vi. 16), its bond slave, and it mocked his struggles and good resolutions to quit it and be free.

I felt, I saw, that hitherto he had been led to make resolutions and promises and told to trust in Christ, but that he had never been made to really see Christ as his Lord, his Redeemer, his Saviour, who was Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twelve 10 down with him on his battlefield, and this I felt I must make him see, and to this I set myself with prayer and full purpose of heart. I told him he had been trusting to the strength of his own resolutions, in which there is no strength, and that he would surely fall again unless he found the Lord. We ‘are kept by the power of God through faith. Faith is the coupler that links us on to God and His power. If the link fails the power cannot operate in us. We must believe, and keep on believing, if we are to be kept. He saw it. He felt he must have God’s power, God’s presence, else he would fall again and fall for evermore. When I was assured that he realized this, I then opened my Bible and said to him, ‘You have made promises to God, now let us see what promises God makes to you. And we read together: ‘God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans v.8). Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound‘ (v.20). ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace’ (vi. 14). If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (‘John i. 9). In these promises he saw God’s love for him in spite of his sin, and his face began to brighten; and from lolling over the penitent-form hopeless and seemingly as spineless as a jelly fish, he began to straighten up; it was as though a new backbone were entering into him.

Then I sought to show him how God promises to enter the battle with him against his sins and mocking, gripping habits, and we read: ‘Fear thou not ‘ (Isaiah xli. 10). ‘You have been afraid, haven’t you – afraid you would fall? You are afraid now, are you not? ‘ I asked him. ‘Oh, yes! I have been afraid and I am now afraid, ‘ he replied. ‘But listen, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee. ” ‘This is God’s promise to you, my brother. He says, ” I am with thee. ” Do you not see that you are not alone? He is on the battlefield, He is in the thick of the fight with you. In the darkness of Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twelve 11 the night, in the glare of the day, when alone or in the throng, He is with you. Do you not see it? Will you, do you, believe it? ‘ And he began to see. “Be not dismayed. ” When temptation assails you, when the enemy comes mocking and threatening, you are not alone, my brother. Be not dismayed; for I am thy God. ‘He is your God, call upon Him, trust Him, and laugh at your foe in the name of the Lord, as the stripling David laughed at and defied Goliath. I will strengthen thee. Hitherto you have fallen because you were weak, but see, read it, believe it, God says, “I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee. ” ‘You wouldn’t fall into your shameful sin if some strong, true, trusted friend were by your side, would you? And note, God is with you! and He says He will help you. Away with your fears! Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. ” ‘Will you trust Him? Will you cast to the winds your fears and henceforth go into every battle believing that God is with you, that Almighty strength is pledged to you, that help is at hand, and that you shall be upheld? Will you lift your eyes to the Lord and trust instead of trembling and quailing when the enemies of your soul assail you? ‘ It was a joy to see my man. He looked, he read. Light burst upon him and beamed in his face. He seemed to be looking into the face of God. He straightened up like a man. ‘I see, Oh, I see! I will, I do trust Him, ‘ and with thanksgiving he arose in the power of the Spirit, and through the remainder of that campaign he was radiant, and I trust he so remains to this day, and so he does if he obediently, believingly fights with the ‘sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. He saw the face of his Divine Kinsman, Redeemer, and heard the voice of the everlasting Father in the Word, and life and power and joy and peace flowed into him as he believed. How do we get acquainted with God? By the work of the Holy Spirit in our minds and hearts as we penitently, obediently believe.

But what are we to believe? We are to believe what He has said – ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might be in you, and that your joy might be full, ‘ said Jesus. His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world through lust’ (2 Peter i. 3, 4).

If we want to be strong, we must live ‘by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, ‘ said Jesus, as the Devil thrust sore at Him. ‘And when He had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my Lord speak; for Thou hast strengthened me, ‘ said Daniel (Daniel x. 19). And how was he strengthened? By the revelation of God through His Word. How is a little child quieted, assured, and filled with peace in the night? By the presence and word of father, of mother. And so we are assured, and made strong, ‘made perfect and throughly furnished unto all good works, ‘ through ‘all Scripture given by inspiration of God, ‘ and brought to our remembrance and applied to our need by the Holy Ghost, as we believe. Let us feed our people with the sincere milk of the Word ‘and they will grow thereby, ‘ and they shall not tremble before the face of any mocking foe, but ‘one shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight. While others debate about the inspiration of the Word, let us eat it, drink it, preach it, and live thereby, and we shall live in the power of ‘an endless life. ‘ Hallelujah! It is still, as in the days of Job and the Psalmist, ‘sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’ to those who believe and obey it, and ‘more to be desired than necessary food. ‘ The Bible Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries.

Happiest they of human race To whom God has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way. And better had they ne’er been born Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. So wrote Sir Walter Scott. And when dying he said to his son-in-law, ‘Bring me the Book. ‘ ‘Which one, sir? ‘ asked the son-in-law. ‘There is but one, ‘ replied the dying man. ‘Bring me the Bible. ‘

Chapter 13 – WHOM DO YOU TRUST, YOURSELF OR CHRIST? I have had experience enough to know that feelings do not count for much, and I do know that deep down in my heart there is a peace and sense of security that were not there when I was at your meetings last week. But I feel that my sense of security and faith are waiting to be tried before I can be quite sure of myself. So wrote an exceptionally bright young comrade to me in a recent letter, and in those words are revealed a halting and mixed faith and a subtle temptation of the ‘old Accuser! Of course, our ‘faith and sense of security ‘ are always being tried, and we should not ignore, but should quietly and confidently welcome such trial, for it is by the trial of faith that patience with the long, and often, stern disciplines of life is wrought in us and our character is perfected. James in the very second verse of his epistle begins with this common experience, and says: ‘My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations (trials): knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. . .. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (trial): for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.

‘ James gets happy over this and exhorts his brethren to ‘count it all joy’ to be tried. Not that the trial itself is pleasant, but the result is glorious. And Peter tells us that in the midst of our rejoicing over present Salvation through faith, we may, ‘for a season, if need be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ’ (I Peter i. 6, 7). So this young comrade’s feeling that her ‘ faith and sense of security ‘ will be tried is reasonable Thirteen 2 and normal, but her phrase – ‘before I can be quite sure of myself’ – reveals the halting and mixed faith and the subtle Tempter. He is slyly turning her eyes and her faith from Jesus to herself. ‘You can’t be sure of yourself, ‘ he whispers, and imperceptibly almost she looks at self instead of ‘unto Jesus. We are never to be sure of self, but quietly, unwaveringly sure of our Redeemer and Lord. We shall be tried, but we shall not be left alone. As He was with the three Hebrew boys in Nebuchadnezzar’s seven-fold heated furnace, so He will be with us (Daniel iii. 25). ‘I am with thee… I am thy God; I will strengthen thee… I will uphold thee ‘ (Isaiah xli. 10), is his ringing assurance. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee’ (Hebrews xiii. 5). There hath no temptation (trial) taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ (I Corinthians x. 13).

Our blessed Lord Himself in the days of His flesh was ‘in all points tempted as we are, ‘ He is ‘touched with the feelings of our infirmities’ and He is ‘able to succor us, ‘ and He will succor us, if instead of looking unto self and trembling in the presence of the mocking enemy, with his army of fears and doubts, we look courageously and humbly, in the name of Jesus, unto our Father who is ‘the Lord God of hosts. We are to face our fears in His name, and rout our enemy by an appeal to the all-sufficient merits of the Blood shed for us, by glad testimony, and by a consecration that welcomes death rather than doubt and denial (Revelation xii. 10, 11). Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, ‘ said Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ‘but if He does not, we will not deny Him, we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image, O king. ‘ We will burn, but we will not bow.

They loved not their lives unto the death. That is consecration, and that is a firm basis for unwavering faith. They were not trusting in themselves, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Thirteen 3 but in the living God, and deliverance came. Hallelujah! It is the enemy of all souls who tempts us to look forward fearfully to some wholly indefinite trial that may never come, before we can walk in confident peace. Trials may come, they will come, but our Lord will be there with abundant grace when they do come, if, moment by moment looking unto Him, we go forward in His strength. It is one of the ‘wiles of the Devil ‘ (Ephesians vi. 11) to haunt us with nameless, shadowy fears of tomorrow. It is his way to weaken faith and turn our eyes from our Lord. They may come, and they may not, but whether they come or not, we are not alone, and we must not fear, though the temptation to fear may be present. ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, ‘ said battle-hardened, mocking Goliath to little David. Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, ‘ said David; ‘but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee, ‘ said David. The Lord was David’s shield. He kept the Lord in front of him. I have set the Lord always before me ‘ (Psalm xvi. 8), he wrote long years after, and Goliath could not reach him without first encountering the Lord.

And when the Philistine champion drew nigh to meet David, the lad ran to meet him, and slew him in the name of the Lord. That is the way to face fears and spiritual enemies and doubts and temptations. Face them ‘in the name of the Lord of hosts. ‘ Run to meet them, but put no confidence in yourself, only as you are ‘strong in the Lord and the power of His might. ‘ Paul knew, as few men do, what trouble and danger are. He said, ‘the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me. But, ‘ he added, ‘none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus’ (Acts xx. 23, 24). And again he wrote, ‘I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus‘ (Romans viii. 38, 39). His confidence was wholly in the changeless character and love of his Lord, therefore he trembled in the presence of no man, nor any combination of trials that might overtake him. Hallelujah!

Chapter 14 – A WORD TO THOSE WHO ARE GROWING OLD

In one of my recent Meetings a dear sister, who has been serving the Lord and walking in the Light for many years, confessed with tears that her joy was not what it used to be. In her youth joys were rapturous, leaping up like springing fountains and singing birds.

A verse of Scripture would suddenly stand out with its assuring message and fill her with gladness, and songs in the night welled up from her glad heart, but now she says she often has heaviness of spirit, and the way seems to get harder. And while she feels sure that she is accepted of God, yet she is not enjoying what she once enjoyed.

God forbid that I should offer any false comfort or, through lack of faith, limit His power to fill us with the rapturous joys of youth as we grow older. But is it reasonable for us to suppose that this should be so? In youth as we waited upon the Lord we found our spiritual strength renewed, and we ‘mounted up as with wings of eagles. In middle age as we wait upon the Lord, we find our strength renewed and we ‘run and are not weary. In old age, as we wait upon the Lord, our strength is renewed, but we must now ‘walk and not faint. None of the natural senses are as keen in old age as in youth.

The appetite for food, the joy in society, the rapturous friendships of youth do not continue quite the same through the years, and may it not be so spiritually? It is true that the Apostle says while the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed day by day. But is not the joy in some measure, at least, modified by the sobering experiences of the years? The river that started as a bubbling, leaping, laughing brook in the mountains, often rushing in torrents through narrow and precipitous ways, gradually widens and deepens and flows peacefully and without noise as it nears the sea.

May it not be so in our spiritual life? Is not the river of God’s peace flowing through the hearts of the aged a deeper and richer experience than the exuberant joys at the beginning of the spiritual life? Prophets –

The pressing infirmities of the flesh, and the gradual decay of memory and other powers, may account for some of the apparent loss of joy in those who are growing old. The enlarged knowledge of the malignant, massive, stubborn powers of evil may have a sobering effect upon the mind which, if not watchfully guarded against and met with quiet, steadfast faith, may tend to lessen joy. If our children do not serve God with the ardor we wish, or souls for whom we pray do not at once get saved, or the work of God which is dear to our hearts languishes, the Devil may tempt us to doubt or repine, and so our joy is quenched. What steps can be taken to prevent or arrest the failure of joy? I. Aged people should still stir up the gift of God that is in them as we stir up a fire that is burning low.

Frequent seasons of prayer, singing and humming through old songs, with an active exercise of faith, will help to keep the joy-bells ringing. I am a rather poor sleeper, and only recently in the small hours of the night, before the birds were singing, I found myself wide awake, and to bless my own soul and control and guide my thoughts without disturbing others, I softly, in almost a whisper, sang, ‘I need ‘Thee, Oh, I need Thee, ‘ and my heart was strangely warmed and blessed as I sang. 2. Again, old people are not wise to spend too much time considering the joys of long ago and comparing them with present emotions. They should live in anticipation of joys yet to come rather than dwell upon joys that are past. God’s storehouse is not exhausted. For those who love and follow Jesus, ‘the best is yet to be. Paul said that he forgot the things behind and, looking forward, he pressed like an eager racer toward the things that are before. Those who keep looking backward instead of forward are likely to stumble and miss the joys that spring up round about them. It is not well to be comparing the present with the past, but we  should each moment seek to exercise full and glad faith in our Lord for the present and the future. He has a portion of joy for us now.

But the ineffable glory and blessing and joy are yet to come, when we see Him face to face and hear Him say, ‘Well done, come! We must keep our eyes on Jesus, looking unto Him, the Author and the Finisher of our faith. We must look away from the seen things to unseen, eternal things; to the purpose and covenant of God in Christ, steadfast and sure; to His promises, great and precious, shining like stars for ever and assuring us of God’s interest in us. We should carefully count up our present mercies and blessings and give thanks for them. It may be better with us than we think. John Fletcher said that he at one time became so eager for what he had not yet received, that he failed to rejoice and enjoy the things God had already given him.

That is an almost certain way to lose what we have. It is well, it is indeed a duty, to stretch out for the things before, but we must not forget to give God thanks and enjoy the things He now gives us. In feeble health we may not be able at all times to realize all we have to be glad about. There may be deep and at times prolonged depression of spirit arising from physical causes. The body and soul are near neighbors, ‘ said the Founder, ‘and they greatly influence each other. Elijah was physically exhausted when he got under that juniper tree and wanted to die, but God let him sleep, awaked him, and gave him a simple meal of bread and water, let him sleep again, and again waked and fed him and let him live in the open, in sunshine and fresh air, and so revived him, gave him a man’s work to do, and took him to Heaven in a chariot of fire. All God’s resources were not exhausted because Elijah was depressed and exhausted. The best was yet to be with Elijah! Simple food, fresh air and sunshine, labor and rest are still important for old people, if they wish to keep a happy experience. Finally, old people should still go to the house of God and mingle with God’s people. It was in Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fourteen 4 the temple that aged Simeon and Anna the prophetess found the little Lord Jesus.

And the Psalmist sang, if not from his own experience, then from observation of others and in assured faith ‘Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing: to show that the Lord is upright’ (Psalm xcii. 13-15) Hallelujah! When darkness seems to veil His face, I rest on His unchanging grace; I dare not trust the sweetest frame But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Chapter 15 – ANSWERING ATHEISM

A wide knowledge of history tends to sanity, to sobriety, and correctness of judgment of men and events, if we have seen God in history. We need such knowledge to give us perspective, to steady us, to save us from sharp judgments, to insure us against cocksureness on one hand and despair on the other. Without this wide, long view, we are like a tiny boat on a tempestuous sea, tossed like a ship on the waves, but with it we are more like a great ship that rides serenely over the billows.

To the casual observer the experience of the race seems tidal, always flowing and ebbing like the tides of the sea; or forever moving in a circle, getting nowhere, evermore coming back from whence it started, like the rivers rising out of and returning to the sea. The One far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves, and the slow but sure workings of Providence and the unfailing purpose and process of the Divine government are hidden from him.

When I was a child on the wide, bare, unprotected prairies of the Middle West, black clouds and fierce thunderstorms filled me with anxious fears and vague terror, but as I grew to manhood I saw them as a part of a vast and ordered whole, and they lost their power to create panic in me. Once, when sick and prostrated in health, I was thrown into a state of mental and spiritual anxiety, amounting almost to torture, by the nation-wide excitement over a great prize-fight.

I felt our American civilization was only veneered barbarism, and for a time it seemed to me that we were reverting to, and were to be swallowed up by, brutal, sensuous paganism; then, on my knees praying, I remembered the days when a thousand gladiators fought each other to the death in the Coliseum, or battled and struggled with and were devoured by wild beasts to make a Roman holiday, while the mobs of the city by the hundred thousand, headed by the Emperor, Senators, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fifteen 2 philosophers, noble ladies, and all the elite gloated over the cruel, bloody scene. Then in deep reverence and gratitude and glad trust I gave God thanks, as I saw how far He had led us on and was still leading, from those ghastly pleasures, those merciless days. When I was a child the Civil War was raging; soldiers marched and counter-marched through our peaceful little valley and village; armies stormed and thundered across the land; proud cities were besieged and starved and fell before conquering hosts; fathers, brothers, sons were perishing in bloody combat, in fetid swamps and prison camps; homes were vanishing; funeral bells were ever tolling, tolling; mothers, sisters, wives, and orphans were ever weeping, weeping; the foundations of the social order seemed to be crumbling, and men turned their thoughts to the apocalyptic portions of Scripture and tried to interpret the times by their symbolisms, and turned their eyes to the clouds in expectation of the Saviour’s bodily appearing, longing for Him to come and work out the Salvation which man himself, abasing his pride and yielding to the lordship of Jesus, under the leadership of the sanctifying Spirit, must work out for himself and his, or perish.

It was years before the light of history enabled me to escape this bald interpretation of apocalyptic symbols and walk in quietness and peace and close attention to daily duty, while a world quaked and trembled in unparalleled hurricanes of war, assured that ‘the heavens do rule, ‘ and ‘a Watcher and a Holy One ‘ in the heavens was interested in our perplexity and sore travail, and would guide us through the storm and tempest, purified and chastened, to a haven of peace. History is repeating itself in spirit among us, and a society, a very militant society, for the propagation of Atheism has recently received letters of incorporation from the legislators of New York, and also an anti-Bible Society has been incorporated. And for its first year’s budget it is asking for $83,000, and offering life membership for $1,000. Its avowed object ‘is to discredit the Bible, ‘ to ‘make known its human origin, evolutionary formation, and its discreditable history; expose its immoral and barbaric contents; and lay bare its anti-scientific, anti-liberal, and irrational teachings. ‘ Such is its program. It proposes to show that ‘the Bible is the work of man. ‘  ‘The falsification by deliberate mistranslation is the sole basis of orthodoxy. ‘ ‘The inhuman character of the Bible – God shall be offered in evidence against the Book. ‘The Bible patriarchs shall be shown to be a set of unmatched moral monsters. ‘ ‘The spirit of injustice and intolerance dominate the Bible. ‘The Sermon on the Mount consists mainly of romantic sentimentalism unrelated to reality. ‘ The Bible is inimical to civilization. It must and shall be discredited.

‘The American anti-Bible Society has no religious tests for membership, except disbelief in the Bible as divinely inspired. ‘ Help us free America from Bible-bondage. ‘ These are some tid-bits from its bulletin or manifesto. The Society for the Propagation of Atheism has already enlisted many young people and students, and societies of ‘damned souls, ‘ as they dub themselves, are flourishing in many of our schools and colleges. It is all a part of a nationwide, world-wide movement, awash of wide, sweeping waves of Atheism gushing forth from the heart of the Russian Revolution, something that The Army and all lovers of our Lord and of the Bible will have to face and possibly come into close and desperate grips with in the near future. If these gentlemen were better acquainted with history, they might not be so cocksure of discrediting the Bible and banishing God from His throne.

If we are acquainted with history we shall not be uncertain as to the final issue, but neither will we sit down in a fool’s paradise and think we can drive back the waves of mocking, irresponsible, desperate unbelief by witty retort, by smart rejoinder, or by learned and masterly debate. How shall we reply to their denial of the Divine elements of the Bible? How shall we prove it to be God-inspired? Is it a subject of proof or of faith? How can I be sure of it for myself, and how can I prove it to others? Paul says, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, ‘ but that is an assertion, not a proof. It still has to be proved, if it can be. I had studied the various arguments for the inspiration of the Bible by theologians, and since I had from my infancy up accepted the Bible as God’s Book, they confirmed my unquestioning Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fifteen 4 faith. But there came a time when I needed more than learned arguments to prove it to me.

And not until God Himself came to my help was I wholly, invincibly convinced. That which finally established my faith in the divinity of the Bible was opened eyes, an inner illumination of my own soul, which enabled me to behold wondrous things all through its sacred pages. Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law, ‘ prayed the Psalmist. The Book is largely sealed to men with unanointed eyes and self- satisfied, or world- satisfied, hearts, and from men who turn from the paths of rectitude and ‘stumble at the word, being disobedient. The pastor of the church of Laodicea became lukewarm as a result of getting rich and increasing in goods until he felt he had need of nothing; but knew not that he was ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. ‘I counsel thee, ‘ said Jesus, ‘to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see (Revelation iii. 5-18). The Book was sealed to him, and the revelations of the Lord were hidden from him, because of the self-imposed blindness or dimness of his spiritual eyes.

The final blessing that Jesus gave His disciples just before He ascended from them was the blessing of this inner illumination of opened eyes. ‘Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures’ (Luke xxiv. 45). The sun does not need learned astronomical treatises to prove its existence, nor a candle of man’s making to enable it to be seen. All it needs is that men should have eyes to see. It is its own evidence. So the Bible carries in itself its evidences of inspiration. ‘I know the Bible is inspired, ‘ said a great soul-winner, ‘because it inspires me. What the sun is in the world of material things, that the Bible is in the world of spiritual things. It is a lamp to the feet, a light Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fifteen 5 unto the path of men whose spiritual eyes are open, and who will resolutely follow where it leads. Let us notice some of the assertions of the Book and find if they can be proved, not by argument but by life, by experience, for the Bible is but a venerable and curious bit of ancient literature to be read for pleasure or to gratify curiosity, if it does not answer to the deep needs of life, the hunger of the soul, the fears, the hopes, the aspirations, the questionings of the spirit in man. Man shall not live by bread alone, ‘ said Jesus, ‘but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. ‘ Does the Bible feed the soul of man? All the saints and soldiers of Jesus of all the ages have been nourished and have lived on the Word of God. I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food, ‘ said Job. How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth, ‘ wrote the Psalmist. ‘More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Thy words were found, and I did eat them, ‘ said Jeremiah. And Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. ‘ Does the Bible help men to live finer, cleaner, saintly lives? It certainly does. The man who receives the word of God into his heart will stop sinning. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee, ‘ wrote the Psalmist. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy word. ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Does the Bible offer hope to the sinner? The man who has wasted his life, scorned the voice of conscience, turned his back on light and goodness and God? It is the only Book in the world that does. It, and it alone, tells of a redeeming God, a Saviour from sin, a loving Heavenly Father who waits to welcome sinners. ‘God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fifteen 6 sinners. ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Ten thousand times ten thousand sinners saved by faith in the Saviour revealed in the Bible will testify to the truth of those words.

Does the Bible offer succor to tempted men and women? Does it comprehend our need? It does as no other book in the world does. It reveals an elder Brother who enters into the fellowship of our temptations. ‘For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted ‘ (Hebrews ii. 18). ‘For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin ‘ (Hebrews iv. 15. ) ‘God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ (1 Corinthians x. 13). Does the Bible have any word for the toilers and burdened people of earth, the perplexed, the careworn? It does, sweet words of comprehension and assurance such as can nowhere else be found: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. ‘ Has the Bible any word for the persecuted, the maligned, the oppressed? Listen: ‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for their’s is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in Heaven. ‘From Heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death. Has the Bible any word for those who are sore afflicted? He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath He hid His face from him; but when he cried unto Him, He Ancient Prophets – Chapter Fifteen 7 heard. ‘If we suffer we shall also reign with Him. ‘For our light affliction worketh for us, ‘ worketh what? worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. Hallelujah! For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Has the Bible a word for those whose eyes are dim with tears? ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. ‘ For those who are in pain? Neither shall there be any more pain. ‘ Has it any word about the far future? Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. ‘And God shall wipe away all tears . . . and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. ‘ 1. How can I prove the inspiration of the Bible? By the way it answers to the heart of man.

The key that fits an intricate lock was evidently made for that lock. The Bible meets me at every point of my moral and spiritual need; it fits my heart’s intricate needs as the key fits the lock, and I doubt not, I exult to know that the Divine Hand that fashioned me gives me the Book, and His heart that loves me pours itself with fathomless comforts into my heart through the Book; but I cannot prove to you the divinity of the Book any more than I can prove to you that the sun is shining, that honey is sweet, that the song of the bird is melodious. The inspiration of the Bible is proved by experience, not by logic. Meditate therein day and night’ to obey, ‘to do according to all that is ‘written therein, ‘ and you shall know, you shall taste its sweetness, behold its wonders, and hear in its words the whisperings of the everlasting Father to the heart of His child. How shall I prove to others, to those who question, who doubt, who deny, that the Bible is a God-given, God-inspired Book? Shall I go to history, science, archaeology for proof? Yes, at the proper time and to the right people.

But the most convincing proof of the inspiration of the Bible that I can offer to an unbeliever is a redeemed life, lived in the power and sweetness of the Spirit; a life that matches the Bible; a life of love, of prayer and faith and devotion; a life of joy and peace and patience and sweet goodwill to all men; a life full of good works matching a glad testimony to the saving, sanctifying, keeping power and ever living presence of the Lord Jesus; a life like that of a Convert from Heathenism, whose heathen neighbors said of him ‘There is no difference between him and the Book. He was a living Bible known and read of them all, and they saw and felt in him inspiration.

He was inbreathed, indwelt of God, and through him they recognized inspiration in the Book. Redeemed lives, drawing light and strength and inspiration from and matching the inspired Book are the unanswerable proofs of its inspiration. Sir Wilfred Grenfell, of Labrador, tells us that when a student in the University in England he lived with a professor who was a lecturer on the evidences of Christianity. This lecturer was in frequent controversy with infidels, but never converted one of them. They would meet in public debate, each supported by his friends and followers, who were confirmed in their opinions, but there was no changing of sides, no converts were made. It was heady, a rivalry of wits, a struggle for mastery, an intellectual fisticuffs to no profit. But one day one of the most doughty of these infidel debaters was stricken with fatal illness. His friends had no words of comfort, and left him to himself. Then a sweet, humble sister-Salvationist stepped in and nursed the dying man. She could not and she did not argue with him, but she revealed to him a redeemed, Christlike life. Love was in her face, tenderness was in her touch, grace was on her lips, peace and joy in Jesus radiated from her, and lo! what encyclopedic knowledge which puffeth up, and vast learning and brilliant argument and eloquent speech had failed to do, a humble, inspired life did do. He was converted and died in the faith. 

An infidel challenged a man of God to debate about religion. I accept your challenge on this condition, ‘ replied the man of God, ‘that I bring one hundred men with me to testify what faith in Christ has done for them, and you bring one hundred men to testify what atheism has done for them. ‘ The challenger was nonplussed, withdrew the challenge, and there was no debate. Meek and lowly, but glad and bold witnesses, who witness by lip and life and shining look, are the strongest, the unanswerable proof of the inspiration of the Book by which they live. The final proof will be given when the risen Jesus appears with crowns and thrones and kingdoms, honour, glory, and immortality for those who have believed and loved and followed Him to the end, and opens the dark gates of doom and banishes into ‘indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish every soul of man that doeth evil. ‘

Chapter 16 – THE LORD’S OWN PRAYER

One day at a certain place, we are told, the disciples were with Jesus when He was praying, and after He had ceased – I wonder how long He prayed and what was the burden of His prayer? – one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. He did not say, teach us how to pray, but ‘teach us to pray. It was not the manner of praying he desired to be taught, but simply to pray. And this Jesus did, both by what He said, and even more by what He did – by His example.

They often found Him praying, and that taught them to pray as no words or exhortations could teach them. However, Jesus responded to this request, and taught them a prayer which wherever it is known at all is known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer. ‘ But it is rather the disciples’ prayer. It is a prayer He gave them to use, voicing their needs and their desires. The Lord’s Prayer, the prayer of Jesus addressed to the Father as our Great High Priest, the prayer in which He poured out the desires of His heart for the Father’s glory and His fellowship in that glory and in which He voiced His longings for the disciples then with Him, and for us and for all who should believe on Him, the prayer which no doubt constitutes the substance of His ceaseless and eternal intercession for His disciples of all time and everywhere, is recorded in John xvii.

That is peculiarly the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus had said to Mary at the wedding in Cana, when she told Him of the empty wine vessels, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. To His brethren who were skeptical of His claims, and who would hasten Him to Jerusalem, there either to prove or discredit Himself, He said, ‘My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready. . .. Go ye up unto this feast. My time is not yet full come. ‘ When the Jews were angered at Him, John explains that as Ancient Prophets – Chapter Sixteen 2 yet ‘No man laid hands on Him because His hour was not yet come. But finally, when His pauseless but unhasting ministry was drawing to a close, and He had come up to Jerusalem for the last time, Greek worshippers said to Philip, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus. ‘ When this was told to Him, He answered, ‘The hour is come. Then with His disciples He went into the upper room and ate the Passover Feast, ate of the Paschal Lamb which ever since that dread night when the Destroying Angel passed over Egypt had pointed in type to Him, the great Antitype, God’s Lamb, whose Blood should cleanse from all sin and shelter from the Destroyer all who believed. After supper He arose, girded Himself and washed the disciples’ feet, showing them by a kindergarten lesson what, through their dullness and hardness of heart, His words had failed to teach them, that he who would be greatest among them must be, and would gladly be, ‘servant of all. After this object-lesson in lowly, loving service, He spoke tender words to them, words of warning, of comfort, of command, of instruction and encouragement. He unfolded to them the Person and Mission of the ‘Other Comforter, ‘ who should come to them when He was gone, assured them that while He was going away, yet He would come again, He would not leave them comfortless or orphans. While absent in body, He would yet be present in Spirit. If they but loved Him and kept His commandment to love one another, they should have with them evermore His manifested presence, His spiritual presence, in their hearts and minds, made possible and real through simple, obedient faith; they should be loved by the Father, and He and the Father would come to make their abode, their mansion, with them and in them. His joy should be in them, and their joy should be full. He warned them that the world would hate them because it hated Him, and because they were His friends and not of the world.

He told them they should be persecuted and have sorrow, but added, ‘Your sorrow shall be turned into joy; your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. ‘ They were to be so identified with Him, ‘so mixed up with Jesus, ‘ as a quaint old friend of mine once said, that His union with the Father, and the love wherewith the Father loved Him, His joy, His tribulation, and His triumph and victory should be theirs. They should share in all that was His. If they loved Him, trusted Him, bore His cross, and shared His sufferings, they should share His glory. If they labored and toiled with Him in tears, they should shout with Him at the ingathering of the sheaves and be jubilant in the Harvest Home.

If they sorrowed with Him, they should also joy with Him. He was going to prepare a place for them, and He would come again and receive them that they might be where He was. He would not be in Heaven and leave them behind. It was His farewell address, recorded by John in chapters xiii. to xvi. It was the final lecture and tender, searching charge to these Cadets of His own choice and training, who were soon to be commissioned and sent forth to conquer a hostile world by their testimony and sacrificial devotion and love, and turn it upside down. He had spoken at length to His humble disciples, and now He lifted His eyes to Heaven and spoke to the Father. He prayed, and this He did as naturally and as familiarly as He had spoken to His lowly followers. He said, ‘Father, the hour is come’; the fateful hour for which He had girded himself and waited, the hour to which without pause and without haste he had pressed forward, the hour to which He had looked from the beginning of His ministry, yea, to which He had looked from of old, from the dawn of time when the morning stars sang together, yea, to which He had looked from the deeps of timeless Eternity. It was the zero hour of the moral world, of the spiritual universe. The zero hour in the great battle  for the souls of men, the hour when our Kinsman-Redeemer was to ‘go over the top, ‘ go over alone, ‘for of the people there was none with Him’; go over and die, die for us, die that we might live and never die. It was the hour of His utter humiliation, when all His glory was stripped from Him and laid aside, and He who knew no sin was made sin for us, and ‘numbered with the transgressors, ‘ ‘wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, ‘ chastened for our peace, and stricken that we might be healed. Step by step He had descended from infinite heights of glory and honour and power to infinite depths of weakness and reproach and shame. He, the infinitely pure and innocent One, came and united Himself with us as a man and stood in our place, and took upon Himself our guilt, our sin, our shame, our curse. ‘He was made a curse for us.

‘ ‘He was made sin for us. He emptied Himself of His divine, eternal majesty and ‘took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. ‘ This was the hour to which He had looked, to which He had at last come, and for the agony, the loneliness, the shame of which He was now, and had been from the beginning, girding Himself. But before the dread and awful stroke of this hour fell upon Him, His thoughts turned to His poor, ignorant, weak, imperfect disciples, and with a love that knew no bounds – that forgot self, forgot the shame and agony soon to be poured out upon Him without stint like an ocean flood, even forgot, or for a time ignored, the glory so soon to follow on His return to the bosom of the Father and the bliss of Heaven – He remembered them and prayed for them. If we wish to know His thought for us, the fullness of blessing He wishes to bestow upon us, the completeness and intimacy of the union into which He wishes to enter with us, and the intimacy of the union and fellowship we are to have with the Father; if we wish to know how His purposes  of world-conquest are to be accomplished; if we wish to know the high estate, the glory, to which He purposes to lift us, we should ponder this prayer, make it a daily study, and co-operate with Him for its fulfillment. He is not now talking to His lowly disciples. He is not commanding and charging them, He is talking to the Father for them, voicing their needs, considering their dangers, pleading their weakness, and with supplications and intercessions seeking for them boundless blessings that should make them kings and priests unto God, lifting them infinitely above the paltry pomp and fading glory of all the kings and governors and mighty men of earth.

And through them in answer to this prayer are to flow all the streams and rivers of His grace, and be accomplished all the redemptive purposes of His sacrificial life and death here upon earth, and His risen life and resurrection power revealed from Heaven. He is the Vine, they are the branches. Through them His beauty is to be made manifest, the beauty of Holiness; and in them His fruit is to be found, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the life that is eternal, the fruit which is ‘love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, ‘ and ‘against which there is no law. ‘ The petitions of this prayer are few. He first prays for Himself, prays that the Father will glorify Him that He in turn may glorify the Father, prays that He may again be glorified with the glory that was His with the Father ‘before the world was, ‘ and this petition was heard and considered, and we see the beginning of the abundant answer when the Angel strengthened Him during the agony and bloody sweat of the Garden, after which, with lamb-like submission and serene, unfailing meekness and patience, He calmly faced the mockery and shame of Herod’s men of war and Pilate’s judgment hall, and the deeper and final agony and desertion of the Cross. We see it further answered in His resurrection from the dead, whereby, says the Apostle, He was indubitably ‘declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead ‘ (Romans i. 4). And we see a yet further and fuller answer when on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost was outpoured in His name, and His lowly disciples became living flames of love and Holiness and power divine.

And we see the continuing answer to this petition in every triumph of the Gospel, in every penitent sinner born into the kingdom, and every child of God sanctified, in every hymn of praise sung, and every true prayer offered in His name. We see it in the light of His Cross shining across centuries and millenniums and gradually irradiating the dark places of all life, and the spread of His gospel from that narrow little circle in Jerusalem to all the continents and isles of earth. And as He is glorified, so is the Father. Then He prays for His disciples whom the Father has given Him, prays that they may be kept from the evil that is in the world. While He was with them in the world He had kept them. ‘The Lord God is a sun and a shield. ‘ He had been their sun. He had lightened their way, and they had walked in His light and had not stumbled out of the way.

He was their shield. He had defended them against wily men and yet more wily devils. No enemy had been able to pluck out of His hand any save Judas, who sold himself to the evil one for a handful of silver. But now He was leaving them, and they would be exposed to the wiles of the evil one, who would subtly approach them as an ‘angel of light, ‘ or rush upon and assail them ‘as a roaring lion, ‘ and make battle against them like ancient archers with fiery darts of accusation, of doubts and fears and perplexities. And they would be beset by the relentless hostility of the world. The bigotry and hate of the Jews, the proud scorn and fierce persecutions of cruel and idolatrous nations would be poured out upon them. They were as sheep in the midst of wolves. Great and constant would be their danger, measureless would be their need, therefore he prays, Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are. ‘ He does not pray that they may be caught up out of the world and away from the evil, but that in the midst of it they may be kept through HIS name. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee, ‘ prayed the Psalmist. ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it Ancient Prophets – Chapter Sixteen 7 and is safe, ‘ said Solomon. ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! moaned and cried a sorely tempted ex-drunkard, and at the Name the spell of the temptation was broken and he was kept through that Name. They were His little, defenseless ones, very dear to Him, and He wanted them kept for their own sakes. But they were also His representatives; as the Father had sent Him into the world, so He was now sending them into the world. They went forth in His name, with His word, on His business, and only as they were kept would the purpose of His life and death be fulfilled. To this end He further prayed, ‘Sanctify them. Set them apart, consecrate them to Thyself and to Thy service, seal them and make them holy, not only ‘keep them from the evil that is in the world, ‘ but save them from the evil and corruption that is in their own hearts.

Make them clean. Refine them as with fire. Purify them until no spot of sin remains upon them, until they are ‘all glorious within. ‘ ‘Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. Let Thy truth search them till they are wholly conformed to Thy nature and Thy will, until their lives match Thy truth and in them the truth lives incarnate, walks among men. Not for these alone, however, did He pray, but for all who should through their word believe on Him. His thought was girdling the globe and embracing the ages. Wherever and whenever a penitent, trembling soul believed on Him through their word, that soul came within the desire and purpose of this prayer. He wanted them all to be one, bound up in one bundle of life, one as He and the Father are one, that they might be the habitation of God upon earth, and that the world seeing this might believe on Him. Faith in Him depended on the brotherly love and unity of His disciples. So it did, and so it does to this day.

When there is unity there is faith. Where there is division there is doubt. Thousands believed and a multitude of priests were obedient to the faith after Pentecost when the disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost and were of one mind and heart. But when this unity of faith and love was lost, the Dark Ages followed, and darkness and unbelief always follow loss of love and unity. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Sixteen 8 ‘The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one, ‘ said He. The religion of Jesus is social. It is inclusive, not exclusive. We can have the glory only as we are united. We must be one in spirit with our brethren. Let division come, and the glory departs. Let the unity of brotherly love continue, and the glory abides. O my comrades, let us beware of the leakage of love, of the loss of the spirit of unity, of the subtlety and snare and death of the spirit of distrust and division ‘I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou has loved Me. In this world the disciples of Jesus are the home of God, and that home is to be filled with sweet accord, not discord. He wants us to be ‘Perfect in one, ‘ and then the world, the poor, proud, foolish, wicked world, shall not only believe, but know that Jesus was the sent of the Father, and that the love of the Father is outpoured upon His disciples as it was upon Himself. What responsibility this places upon us to foster the unity of the Spirit, and to beware of the pride and jealousy and envy and suspicion and unholy spirit of lordship that leads to division – let us be content to wash each other’s feet and be ambitious only to be ‘servants of all. In conclusion He prays, ‘Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. ‘ Hallelujah! O my soul, thou who hast wandered in darkness and grubbed in sin and hast been plucked from the mire, shall yet be lifted from the dunghill and seated with Him upon His throne, and shall stand amid the blinding splendor and behold the glory before which angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, veil their faces and fall as dead. Toil on, O my soul! If thou labor for Him, thou shalt also reap with Him.

He is not unrighteous to forget thy work and labor of love, and He will not fail to reward abundantly thy patience of hope. Thy labor is not in vain in the Lord. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Sixteen 9 If thou art called to suffer with Him, O my soul, count it all joy. Do not repine. Fear not. Faint not. Thou shalt reign with Him. He has so promised. And He will remember. He will not forget His own word upon which He has caused thee to hope. (Psalm cxix. 49. ) If thou dost love Him who died for thee, who entrusts His honour and His cause to thee, prove thy love, O my soul, by feeding and watching over His lambs and sheep. Love thy comrades as He has loved thee, and as He laid down His life for thee, so, if needs be lay down thy life for the brethren, and so shall all men know that thou art His disciple. And He shall see of the travail of His soul for thee and be satisfied. O what wonder! How amazing! Jesus, glorious King of kings, Deigns to call me His beloved, Lets me rest beneath His wings! All for Jesus, resting now beneath His wings. All for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my being’s ransomed powers; All my thoughts and words and doings, All my days and all my hours. All for Jesus, all my days and all my hours. And when the days and hours of time are no more, then Eternity, Eternity with Him, my Redeemer, Lover, Friend, in the glory that excelleth and that hath no end. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen!

Chapter 17 – THE WORST DRUNKARD IN TOWN GOT SAVED LAST NIGHT AND

– Many years ago I was visiting Riverside, California, for a brief campaign, and was met at the train by the Captain in charge at about ten o’clock in the morning. His face was glowing as he said to me: ‘We got the worst old drunkard in town saved last night; and I have seen him twice this morning, and he is doing fine. ‘ How could the poor old drunkard do otherwise, with a Captain bubbling over with faith, love, and good cheer, following him up like that! Don’t forget, he saw the old saved drunkard twice the next morning. ‘Twice’! That is the way new-born babies are cared for, and that is the way to care for new-born souls. This Officer came east to Pennsylvania; and a Spiritual Special visited his Corps, had about fifty Converts, and the Captain did not lose one, but enrolled them all as Soldiers.

On another occasion he labored until after midnight with a drunkard, and then carried him to his lodging- place on his back. The proprietor of the lodging-house refused to receive him, but the Captain carried the chap upstairs to his room, put him to bed, followed him up; and made a Salvation Army Blood-and-Fire Soldier out of him. On the way home that night, long after midnight, the Captain had to cross a great irrigation ditch, and when he came to the bridge he heard a splash and a groan. Rushing forward he found a man’s feet sticking up, but his head under the bridge and under the water. He pulled the man out of the water and got the water out of him, prayed with him, got him saved, and the man became an earnest Christian. The poor fellow in a fit of discouragement was trying to commit suicide. This Captain is now a Lieut. -Colonel, and a Divisional Commander; and is still passionately seeking souls, and looking after Converts. I would like to commend to all my comrades on the Field a re-reading of the life of the Angel Adjutant; and call to your special attention the faithful way in which she watched for souls, and shepherded her Converts. She was a good shepherd and ‘the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. ‘ New Converts need care just as new babies do. Many years ago I was taken off of my Provincial Campaigns and put in charge of the Chicago No.1 Corps; and was Commanding Officer for three weeks while awaiting the arrival of the Officer who had been appointed to the Corps. One night a man fifty years of age was converted.

He had been a builder and contractor but had met with reverses, and in his discouragement came to The Army and yielded to the Lord Jesus Christ. I took special interest in him; gave him a word of cheer, and a hearty handshake in every Meeting, but one night he failed to come, and I was anxious. I could not call to see him that night, but I did write him a little note, before going to bed, and enclosed a little tract. I told him how greatly I missed him, expressed my hope that he was well, and urged him to look unto Jesus if he were passing through any temptation, and told him I was praying for him and looked forward to seeing him the following evening. And, sure enough, he was present the next night, and then he told me how he had been passing through a fierce temptation the day before, and was just about to give up and go back to his old life, when my letter with the little tract came with its message of love and faith, ‘and that, ‘ said he, ‘saved me. He became a Soldier and for years was a devoted Christian and worker for the Lord. The little note and tract and a two cent stamp saved him. If the flock is to be preserved, the lambs must be shepherded. If babies are to live, they must be nursed with tender care. If the world is to be saved, we must have Converts and they must be guarded with sleepless vigilance, and followed with ceaseless and loving care.

Chapter 18 – AN OPEN LETTER TO A YOUNG MAN SEEKING SPIRITUAL HELP

My dear Comrade, Your letter has just now reached me, and I hasten to reply. You say: ‘I have sought and found Holiness many times, but the longest I have been able to keep it was seven weeks, ‘ and then you mention some besetting sin against which you have struggled for five years. Let me ask, did you yield to this besetting sin? And then feeling condemned, did you come to the penitent-form seeking a Clean Heart? If so, you have probably made the great mistake so many make of claiming heart purity, when what you received was the peace of pardon. If I fall into sin, I must first confess my sin with a penitent heart and trust for pardon through reliance upon the Blood of Jesus, and if I do this the peace of pardon will fill my heart, but I must not mistake this for Sanctification.

When I am pardoned I am then called to consecrate my redeemed life to God, and when I wholly consecrate myself to Him who has loved me out of my sins, my guilt, my condemnation, I must trust Him to purify my whole being, to sanctify me wholly and fill me with the Holy Spirit. And if I believe, He can and will do the wonder work of grace in me. He will make me holy; He will perfect me in love; He will fill me with passion for His glory, so that I sing from my heart: Take my love, my Lord, I pour At Thy feet, its treasure store; Take my life and it shall be Ever, only, all for Thee. And with joy I sing: The Blood, the Blood is all my plea; Hallelujah! for it cleanses me.  You speak of keeping the Blessing seven weeks. How did you keep the Blessing so long? Was it not by walking with the Blesser? If your attention is fixed upon the Blessing instead of the Blesser; if you think of Holiness as separate from the Holy Spirit, you will lose all. If you fail to recognize, honour, love, trust, and obey the Blesser, you lose the Blessing, just as you lose the beauty of the rose when you turn your eyes from the rose, or the sweetness when you take away the honey, or the music when you lose the musician. Why and how did you lose the Blessing after seven weeks? Was it not because under stress of temptation you took your eyes off the Blesser? You forgot the sweet, sacred presence of the Blesser. and turning from Him you yielded to sin, or you doubted, and then the enemy robbed you of the Blessing. ‘Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. ‘ When temptation came you should have said, ‘Get behind me, Satan. ‘ You should have resisted the Devil, and drawn nigh to God. The Blesser was there.

The Holy Spirit was present. The infinitely loving Redeemer, with all His redemptive power, was with you, but you forgot Him, and so lost the Blessing. You should have turned to Jesus in love and loyalty and trust, and said, ‘O Lord, I am Thine; keep me! I trust Thee. I love Thee. I praise Thee, and I will not fear mine enemy. ‘ If you had done this, you would not have lost the Blessing. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from thee. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to thee. ‘ That is the way, and I know of no other way of victory. In that way, and that way only, I have been getting victory for nearly half a century, and in that way you can get victory, and get it quickly, and get it always. Hallelujah You are discouraged. You wonder if you can ever gain and keep the victory. You can, bless God! You can. The victory is at the door now. The Victor is at the door. Open and let Him in, and victory is yours. Drop on your knees now, just now, and tell Him all; then trust Him, thank Him, praise Him, whether or not you have any great feeling. Just keep on trusting, thanking, praising, and obeying Him, and peace and victory will come. Keep your eyes on Jesus, and guard yourself against the beginnings of temptation and sin.

Keep your mind pure. Fill it with clean thoughts, loving thoughts, and holy affections. Lift your thoughts above fleshly and low things to spiritual levels. Sing songs and make melody in your heart to the Lord. Deal promptly and sternly with your eyes and your ears. Turn away your eyes from beholding evil, and your ears from listening to evil. Make a covenant with your eyes as did Job. Stand on guard at eyegate and eargate lest sin get into your heart through those gateways. Sin does not leap upon us fully armed. It steals in through a look, a swift, silent suggestion or imagination, but love and loyalty to Jesus will make you watchful and swift to rise up and cast out the subtle enemy. Do this and you shall live, and live victoriously. Often drop on your knees or lift your heart in secret prayer, and do not forget to mingle thanksgiving with your prayers. You do not praise God enough. Begin now. Thank Him now and praise Him, for He is worthy, and you are much behind in this sweet duty. When you wake up in the morning ask Him for some verse of song to cheer you through the day, and find some verse of Scripture upon which to stay your mind. Finally, seek to pass some of your blessing on to some other soul, as the widow of Sarepta shared her bit of oil and handful of meal with Elijah and found it multiplying through the months of famine. So will you find your blessings multiplying as you share them with others.

Chapter 19 – THE MYSTIC UNIVERSE IN MY BACKYARD

I but open my eyes – and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined full fronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, and in the clod. – Browning Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortes when, with eagle eyes, He stared at the Pacific. – Keats – I am discovering a universe in my back-yard. I am not sure that I lived so intimately with my darling little wife as I have for forty years lived with St. Paul. Far more constantly and intimately than he lived and traveled with his friend Barnabas and his young lieutenants, Silas, Titus, Epaphroditus, and Timothy, has he lived, traveled, slept, and talked with me, only I did the sleeping. I never found him napping. At any hour of the day or night he was waiting wide-awake and ready for me.

A text in John’s first Epistle and another in his Gospel proved to be the open door to my soul, leading into the holy of holies, into the experience of cleansing, and the spiritual vision and inward revelation of Christ. But I think Paul has been my greatest teacher, my mentor, my most intimate spiritual guide. But one thing I have not found in him – a love of Nature. Some of his biographers think he had no such love. He traveled by sea and land, among great mountain passes in Cilicia, through the mountains of Macedonia, and over the Balkan hills, over the blue Mediterranean, and among the lovely isles of Greece. But never once does he in any of his Epistles mention the wonders of Nature, the splendor of sky or sea, or the glory and majesty of mountains, the beauty of flowers, or the flight of birds, except in his discussion of the resurrection of the body that springs from the sown seed, and the difference in the glory of one star from another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the  stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. ‘ The fact that there is such glory he admits, but there is nothing to indicate that he was ravished by that glory. Still, we have no right to say that he was not. He was writing Epistles to his Converts and the churches upon infinitely important ethical and spiritual subjects, and there was no occasion for him to enter into rapturous description and comments upon the wonders and beauty of nature. But in my forty years of intimate communion with him I have never once been inspired by him to look for the blinding glories of the passing days and seasons, or the pop and splendor of star-lit nights. But not so when I turn to Job, to the Psalms of David, the Proverbs and Songs of Solomon, and the sweet talks and parables of Jesus.

There we see the sparrows feeding from the Heavenly Father’s hand, the ravens and the young lions and every creeping thing looking to Him for daily food, the fox fleeing from enemies to his hole, the conies among the rocks, the wild goat among mountain crags, the nesting bird, the busy ant, the swarming bees, the neighing war-horse, the spouting whale, the bridal lilies, the rose of Sharon, green and smiling meadows, still waters, ice, snow, and hoar frost, the glowing fire, tempestuous wind and billowing seas, the lowering sky of the morning threatening rain and storm, the red sky of the evening presaging fair and smiling weather. The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. The vast deeps of the heavens are the tabernacle of the sun, ‘which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race, ‘ and the race-course compasses the whole circle of Heaven, and the whole creation in one vast antiphonal choral harmony praises God. So David sings. But the suggestions, and beauty, and wonder, and mysticism in nature to which Paul has never turned me, but to which Jesus, and Job, and David, and Solomon pointed me, I am now finding in large measure in my tiny back-yard. In the deep, dark, underground crowded railway of New York, roaring along beneath the great Ancient Prophets – Chapter Nineteen 3 city and plunging beneath the broad and lordly Hudson River, late at night after attending Meetings and lecturing Cadets, early one January, I became chilled and waked up in the middle of the night to find my head and throat inflamed with a heavy cold. I spent two days and a half in bed under the doctor’s care, and then crawled out and went to Chicago, where a four days’ whirlwind campaign awaited me.

The Territorial Commander, all his staff at T. H. Q. , and all Officers of all departments in the great city and Division, and a host of Cadets and Soldiers, welcomed me, and for four days I gave myself without stint to the Meetings. Once, for the first time I could remember, I feared my chest would fail me, as I gasped for breath while speaking to the Cadets. Oh, those Meetings! They were times of Heaven upon earth. At the last session with the Cadets, which continued from 3 to 7 p. m. , the whole place seemed lit up by the reflected glory on their young faces. At last, weary and happy, I boarded a train late at night for Texas. The temperature outside was zero, the snow was knee deep, and there was no heat in our car.

I sat and shivered in my sweater, winter overcoat, and a big cape, and finally went to bed with my clothes on, still to shiver. When we got to Texas I was aching in all my bones. For three weeks I fought on, and then the ‘flu’ claimed me, and for the next three weeks I was in bed, and for the next few weeks among pine woods trying to get back my strength. Presently I came home, but could not walk the length of a city block without panting and gasping for a long breath. My doctor examined me, and then sat down silent and stern, looked at me, and then lectured me: ‘You have gone to the edge of the abyss. Stop now or you will stop with a crash from which you will find it hard, if not impossible, to recover. If you take my advice, you will stop for six months. He had warned me at other times, but I had not always listened to him, had laughed at him, and gone my own way, but somehow I felt he was right this time, and I would fail to heed him at a dread risk. The Commander was informed, and she graciously granted me all the time needed to rest and  recuperate. The General heard about it and wrote me: ‘After so many years of toil, you no doubt need a pause. ‘ He further advised me to go to the wilderness, away from the roaring city and the crushing crowds, and yield myself to the things peculiar to the wilderness for a complete change, and suggested the Rocky Mountains. What a joy that would be, if Mrs. Brengle were only here to go with me. But go alone, among strangers, not well, weak and listless, unfit to walk, unable to climb – that was different. A further exhaustive physical examination revealed an impoverished state of my blood, not pernicious, but sufficiently grave for the doctors to say that I must keep in the sunshine and open air, live largely on green vegetables, and rest. For nearly thirty years, by day and night, summer and winter, through long hours I had labored for souls, sung and prayed and preached in crowded, steaming, ill-ventilated Halls, pleading with souls and dealing with penitents in an atmosphere so depleted of oxygen and poisoned that every pore of my body, every lung cell and red blood corpuscle cried out for fresh air, and now I have turned to my back-yard to get what I need. It has been waiting for me for ten years. I saw no beauty in it that I desired it. But it holds no grudge, and welcomes me now and never hints at my lack of appreciation and my past neglect.

A clump of yellow and blue iris is in one corner, a flowering shrub that has never bloomed for eight years and may be cast out as an unprofitable cumberer of the ground, is at one side, a rambler rose bush, now preparing to burst into a blaze of pink flame, and a crab-apple tree, which I believe botanists say is a relative of the rose, occupy the center of the yard, and a few square yards of green grass sprawl around iris and shrub and tree. Just outside the border of my back-yard on one side is a big oak tree, and on another side a maple tree, and they cast cool shadows over the grass when the sun is hottest. Some distance away are a few other oak trees. One belongs to a robin and some English sparrows.

Another belongs to two young grey squirrels, who have bound themselves together by matrimonial ties and only yesterday built a nest for their prospective family in the fork of their tree out of leaves and twigs which they cut with their sharp teeth from tips of the far-reaching branches. Yesterday one of them slyly visited the tree which belongs to the robin and sparrows. He watched cautiously and climbed quickly. There were some nests up there he hoped to find defenseless. But a sparrow’s keen eyes spied him, and she sent out a far-reaching S. O. S. , and from every quarter sparrows came, and then a robin. The entente was perfect. And then I heard fierce, shrill war cries and witnessed an aerial battle as thrilling after its kind as any fought over the forts and forests and fields of France. I laughed at the mischievous cunning and daring of the little robber, but I confess my sympathies were all with the allied forces. They chattered and screamed, and dashed upon him with sharp beaks and rending little claws; they came from above and all sides, swift and sure, until he turned ignominiously and fled to escape with whole ears and unimpaired eyes.

The little grey rascal! It was wilderness epic. The trees are glorious. They are not so large as their forefathers, but I think of them as the heirs of all the ages, and as I look at their broad-reaching limbs and into their deep-green foliage, they suggest the dark, solemn, whispering, primeval forest that once clothed this continent with its sheen like a great green ocean. Right here the red Indian, the bear, the deer, the skulking panther roamed only twice as long ago as the lifetime of men now living. Swift and speeding automobiles, and loud, rumbling trucks rush past my back-yard, and I hear thundering trains and factory whistles not far away, but here in this wee enclosure, partly in fact and partly in imagination, I am living a wilderness life.

An ocean of fresh air, fifty miles deep, laves me in its waves that beat upon all the shores and isles of seas, and the mountains and plains of all continents; and sunshine beams ninety million miles long unerringly find me with their life- giving rays. Ancient Prophets – Chapter Nineteen 6 I would like to tell you about the ants, and the big, fierce horse flies, and the little flowers among the grass, so tiny and so shy as scarcely to be seen, which I have discovered in my backyard. The grass, to the little creatures who live among its spires and tangled masses, is a forest as vast and mysterious as the great forests that have disappeared before the ruthless onslaughts and march of man. They live and hunt their prey, and make love, and bring forth their young, and flee their enemies, and live their short little lives among the green aisles and shadows of the grass, and know nothing of the greater world that arches above them, with its strifes and loves and labor, and aspiration, and sin and shame and redemption. The astronomers tell us that, so far as they can judge, there are many sidereal universes. The heaven of heavens is full of them. But if that is so, if there are many universes of the infinitely great in the vast abysses of space, then I am sure there are many universes of the infinitely little in my backyard, as dear to God as those composed of flaming stars; and if health and strength can be found in the wilderness of plain or forest, or on mountain or sea, I believe it can be found among the teeming wonders, the mystic universes, and in the ocean of air and sunshine I find in my backyard. O Lord, I worship amid the wonders of Thy creation, and give Thee thanks for a contented mind and the wealthy heritage of my little back yard. Amen.

Chapter 20 – THE FRANKNESS OF JESUS

Jesus was not a whisperer. No one ever saw Him close to His neighbor’s ear, looking stealthily around lest someone should overhear what He was going to say. He stood upright, looked men squarely and kindly in the eye, and spoke what He had to say right out, boldly, frankly, that the whole world might hear; and when He did speak privately to His disciples, He told them to shout it from the housetops. ‘Truth fears nothing but concealment, ‘ said an old Church Father, and Jesus spake only the truth. ‘To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness unto the truth. ‘ ‘What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops, ‘ said He. It was against the Jewish law to spread dangerous doctrines secretly and the punishment was death (Deuteronomy xiii. 6).

This the High Priest and leaders of the Jews had a right to inquire into, indeed it was their duty to do so, according to their law, though they had no right to make Jesus convict Himself. However, that was not possible, for He had boldly preached His doctrine before priest and scribes as well as His disciples and the common people, and He answered the High Priest: ‘I spake openly to the world: I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. ‘ This refers to His doctrine, but can it not be given a far wider meaning? Was not His whole life an open book? Was not all His conversation such as could be proclaimed openly to the whole world? There was nothing dark and hidden about Jesus. He was and is the Light of the world, and He welcomed the light. He entered into no secret cabals and councils. He belonged to no clique or party faction. I really do not believe He would have joined a secret society, for two reasons. First, because if there was anything wrong and dark about it His pure spirit, His guileless soul would have revolted and denounced and withdrawn from it, and second, because if there was anything good in it, His generous spirit, His loving soul, overflowing with pity and goodwill, would never have been content till the whole world knew about it and had the privilege of sharing in its benefits.

A good thing that He could not offer to share with all men would have ceased to be a good thing to Jesus. An astute Frenchman once said to our Founder: ‘General Booth, you are not an Englishman, you’re a citizen of the world. You belong to Humanity. ‘ And in this the General was like his Master. Jesus belonged to the world. He was the ‘Son of Man, ‘ the Son of Mankind, of humanity. No party could claim Him. Thomas Jefferson wrote: ‘If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. It was this generous, open, world-wide, selfless spirit of Jesus that made Him so frank in all His speech, so that at the end of His life and His brief, but complicated, ministry, in which His enemies had sought in every way to provoke and entrap Him, He could say, ‘In secret have I said nothing. ‘ And now He wants us to ‘follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth who, when He was reviled, reviled not again: when He suffered, he threatened not. ‘ If we do this we shall not be talebearers, we shall not listen to, nor pass on gossip, nor be whisperers. ‘A whisperer separateth chief friends, ‘ said Solomon; and again he said: ‘Where there is no talebearer (Whisperer, margin) the strife ceaseth. ‘ And Paul linked up ‘Whisperers ‘ — people who go about saying things in secret that they are afraid to say out boldly to everybody — I say Paul linked them up with fornicators, murderers, backbiters, and haters of God. (See Romans i. 29, 30. ) And when he feared lest he should have trouble with his corps in Corinth, ‘whispering’ was one of the accursed things he particularly feared. People who speak in secret what they are afraid to speak openly, wrong their own souls, weaken their own character, and corrupt themselves, while those who listen are filled with suspicions and dislikes, destroying the beautiful spirit of brotherly love, which is open-faced, frank and generous and saving in its power.

It quenches the spirit of prayer, and faith in God and man languishes Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twenty 3 and possibly dies; for faith can live and flourish only in an atmosphere of frankness, of kindness and good will.

Chapter 21 – OUR MOTHERS – THOUGHTS FOR MOTHERS’ DAY

How fitting, how beautiful, that a day should be set aside by the nation and the nations to do honour to that vast army of delicate soldiers, infinitely greater in numbers than the men who fought in the Great War, that numberless host whose sentinel watch is never done, whose arms are never laid down, whose warfare permits of no discharge, and in which there is never an armistice until they fall on the field of battle – the great army of mothers.

We hail them today and do them honour. They are a sacrificial host, the great givers and sufferers of the race. We never see a strong man striding forth in his strength for whom some mother has not suffered and given of her strength. We never see a blooming girl with rosy cheeks and laughing eyes and bewitching curls for whom some mother has not gradually faded and given of her own bloom and beauty and youth. They bleed that we may be blessed; they keep watch that we may take rest and sleep; they suffer and oft-times die that we may live. Our mothers are our comforters in sorrow and the healers of our hearts when they are hurt. When the little child cries with loneliness in the dark and still night, and sobs and moans, and reaches out little hands and arms, it is for mother. When it is hurt it runs to mother and finds in her kiss its balm, and in the warmth and tenderness of her encircling arms its comfort for all fear and grief, and healing for every wound. When the big, foolish, awkward boy has a problem that perplexes, a hunger to satisfy, a shame to confess, or a triumph to announce, he goes to mother, for she will understand. 

When the strong man is wearied by the toil and strife of life and his heart is harassed by uncertainties and doubt, he turns to mother and mother’s God. And when at last death wrestles with a man and tightens its icy fingers upon him, and mocks him and claims him for its own as his strength fails, how often his thoughts turn to mother! When stern old Thomas Carlyle lay dying, he was asked if there was anything he wanted; turning his face to the wall, the granite of his Scotch heart broke up, and the old man sobbed: ‘I want ma mither. ‘ In the hour of death his heart turned as a little child to his mother. Here is the might and the responsibility of motherhood. She can hold her children to goodness and God, not by force, but by affection, not by the compulsion of command, but by the compulsion of high and holy character. I have been asked how mothers can hold their boy and keep them in paths of rectitude and godliness, and I can only reply to such questioning mothers ‘You will help your boys, not so much by what you say as by what you are and what you do. Command their respect, their admiration, and their love by loftiness and firmness of character, by patient steadfastness in well doing, by sweetness of spirit, by gentleness and graciousness of speech, by the power of the Spirit of Christ abiding ungrieved in your cleansed heart, and though they may for a time wander away from you, yet unseen chains still bind them to you, and they will return, drawn back by mysterious cords of love and reverence.

Abraham Lincoln’s mother died when he was only eight years old, but at the height of his fame and power he said, “All I am I owe to my angel mother. ‘ I had just passed my fifteenth birthday and was away at school when one day the first telegram I ever received was handed me. I read, ‘Come home, come quickly, mother is dying! ‘ and when I got home she was dead. For the next twelve years I had no home. I went off to school and college, but I received no home letters. When holiday time came I saw the other students trooping to the train with laughter, for they were going home; but I stayed behind, for no home awaited me. But my mother’s sweet face was ever before me.

Her lovelit eyes were ever turned upon me, so it seemed to me, and if ever I was tempted to evil, grief and reproach seemed to fill her eyes, while I could see love and sweet joy beaming in her face and from her eyes when I resisted the temptation. Indeed, her memory and influence were like a presence ever before and about me, and like a flaming shield between me and youth’s temptations. And I have known many a boy whose love and high and tender regard and reverence for his mother were like a pillar of fire and cloud to guide and protect him by day and by night. One boy I intimately know wrote to his mother and told her she was to him as ‘A piece of God, a dear little piece of God. ‘ And every mother should be to their boys and girls as ‘A piece of God, a dear little piece of God. ‘ And so she may be if she loves God with all her heart and seeks in all her words and ways to represent Him to her children. Some mothers are not worthy of the love and respect of their children.

A little orphaned boy was committed to one of our Children’s Homes, and in its sweet and sacred atmosphere he was convicted of sin, but he said: ‘I can’t get saved. When my mother was dying, I spit in her face. Her wickedness had reproduced itself in her little boy, and strangers had to undo the deadly work wrought in his poor little child heart by her sin. It is religion pure and undefiled that crowns motherhood. The glory of motherhood is the glory of sacrifice. A little lad noticed that tradesmen presented his mother with a bill for service. So a happy thought wakened within him and he presented a bill: ‘Mother debtor to Tommy’ – Minding the baby ……………. s.0 d.6 Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twenty-One 4 Chopping and bringing in wood … s.0 d.9 Mailing letters for a week …… s.1 d.0 Going to the shop …………… s.0 d.6 TOTAL… s.2 d.9 and this he laid on her plate at the table. Mother looked at it, smiled, and then grew serious. At the next meal Tommy found a bill at his plate: ‘Tommy debtor to Mother’ For caring for him through years of infancy …………….. s.0 d.0 For nursing him through two dangerous illnesses ………. s.0 d.0 For getting his meals for him for ten years every day ………. s.0 d.0 For washing and mending his clothes …………………. s.0 d.0 TOTAL…. s.0 d.0 Poor Tommy! When he read it the long sacrifice and unwearied devotion of mother dawned upon him, and with tears in his eyes he threw his arms around his mother and begged pardon for his thoughtlessness. The glory of motherhood is the glory of unfailing patience. The father of John and Charles Wesley said to Susanna, the mother, one day: Mother, why do you tell Charles the same thing over twenty times? She quietly replied: ‘Because nineteen times won’t do. ‘ Oh, the patience of mothers!

The glory of motherhood is the glory of unwavering faith and undying hope. A mother dedicated her baby to God, and in prayer felt a conviction and assurance that he would preach the Gospel. But instead of giving his heart to God, he fell into sin, and instead of preaching, he became a drunken infidel lawyer, mouthing infidelity. But the mother still prayed and believed and hoped on. One day she was sent for and told that he was dying of delirium tremens. She went quietly to his home, saying, ‘He is not dying. He will live and yet preach the Gospel. ‘ And live he did and preach the Gospel he did like a living flame of fire; and years after his sweet granddaughter, too, preached the Gospel in The Salvation Army. The glory of motherhood is the glory of self forgetful unselfishness. A Salvation Army mother with six sons and daughters in The Army Work lay dying. Her youngest daughter, a Cadet in the Training Garrison, hastened to her side, but the saintly mother said ‘Dear, I shall be cared for. I dedicated you, and God has called you to His work. Return to the Training Garrison and continue your studies. We shall meet in the Morning at home in Heaven.

The dying mother forgot herself in her love for Christ and her holy ambition for her child. The glory of motherhood is the glory of love that never faileth. Some time ago I was in a city where is located a great State’s prison. In my Meetings I noticed a sweet-faced, tiny woman with silvery hair and the peace of God in her face. One Sunday we went to the great prison for a service with the prisoners and she was there. Her boy – I think he was her only boy — had wandered away from home, fallen in with evil people, and was shut in behind the grim prison walls. When the little mother heard the heart-breaking news, all the tender love of her heart for her wayward boy burst into flame, and she left her home in the north and came to this city to live, that she might be near her son. And every Sunday she went to the prison to see him, seeking to win him back to goodness and God.

You can never wear it out, mother-love is strong; It will live through sin and shame, hurt and cruel wrong; Even though the world revile and your friendships die, Though your hands be black with sin, she will hear your cry, And she’ll love you and forgive. Such is the glory of all true mothers, and for them we give praise to God, and to them we give the tribute of our reverence and tenderest affection. The bravest battles that were ever fought, Shall I tell you where and when? On the maps of the world you’ll find them not, They were fought by the mothers of men. Nay, not with the battle or cannon’s shot, With sword or nobler pen; Nay, not with the eloquent words or thought >From the lips of wonderful men; But deep in a walled-up woman’s heart, A woman that would not yield, But bravely and silently bore her part, Lo, there is the battlefield. No marshalling of troops, no bivouac song, No banners to gleam and wave, But Oh! these battles they last so long, >From babyhood to the grave.

Chapter 22 – JESUS TRAINING PAUL

We learn from the Gospels how Jesus, in the days of His flesh, trained the twelve. We learn from the Acts and Paul’s Epistles how the risen and glorified Jesus trained Paul. This paper is a fragmentary study of that training and of some of Paul’s struggles, inner conflicts, and fears out of and through which he was trained to triumph by obedient faith. His experience was not one of ceaseless calm. Storms swept over him. It was not one of perpetual open vision. He was compelled to walk by faith and not by sight. He was sent forth to be a pathfinder; and no path-finder treads an easy way, whether it be across trackless wastes of sand and sea, through the tangled jungles of a tropic forest, or the denser, darker jungles of base, idolatrous superstitions and bloody and licentious rites, or the claims of a cold, self-satisfied, arrogant, petrified priesthood. Paul was treading a way that no man had trod before him. He had turned his back on all his teachers, all the traditions of his people and was carrying the gospel to the heathen, and what he spoke and wrote he learned from no man.

A strange, glorious, Divine experience had come to him on the road to Damascus and in the street called Straight. But it had to be interpreted, and he found no interpreter. For three years, out in the solitude of Arabia and in the silences of the night, he wrestled with his problems and the Lord illumined him, and he began to see new meanings in the ancient Scriptures. They ceased to be a binding, deadening letter, and became life and spirit. His mind was liberated as from chains. God ceased to be simply the God of the Jews, a national God. He was the Heavenly Father to whom all men are dear, and the Lord Jesus Christ was not simply a Messiah for one people, a Military Conqueror, winning and building up His Kingdom by the power of His sword. He was ‘the Desire of all Nations, ‘ bringing spiritual deliverance to all men, not with sword and battle and ‘ garments rolled in blood, ‘ but by the shame and power of the cross, winning His Kingdom not by the slaughter of His enemies, but by becoming ‘the suffering Servant ‘ of all. In Paul’s Epistles, and especially in his Epistle to the Romans, we find many quotations from the Psalms and the old prophets, and these quotations are portions of the ancient scriptures into which the Holy Spirit was flashing new meanings to the mind of Paul, and they became the sheet anchor of his faith when storms swept over his soul and bitter enemies denounced his claims to be an Apostle. One day his call came.

The risen Jesus spoke to him and appointed him the Apostle to the Gentiles. He wanted to stay at home and preach to his own people, but the Lord said: ‘They will not receive thy testimony concerning Me. But Paul argued back: ‘Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee: and when the blood of Thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. ‘ Surely, thought Paul, they will, they must, receive my testimony. Little did he yet know the willful stubbornness and fierce bigotry of unbelief. But the call was insistent ‘Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles, ‘ and Paul ‘was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. ‘I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake, ‘ said Jesus to Ananias, when he sent him to the blinded Saul that he might receive his sight ‘and be filled with the Holy Ghost. ‘ Little did Paul know what lay before him in the untrodden future. That was graciously hidden from him as from you and me. There is a threefold ministry to which we are called: the ministry of service, the ministry of sacrifice, and the ministry of suffering. Some men seem called and fitted for one and some for another, but Paul was called and chosen to each and all of these ways of ministering the Gospel to his fellowmen. ‘Great things’ he suffered. Great sacrifices were demanded of him. Immeasurable toil and great and insistent cares pressed ceaselessly upon him. Body, mind, and soul were each taxed to the limit in his great task. It was not always by some open vision or cheering voice, but often by the things he suffered that his Master taught and fashioned him. Once in Asia some great trouble befell him, and he writes:

We were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who delivered us from so great a death. ‘ In such manner Jesus trained and developed the faith of Paul and taught him to trust only in God. Could he not in some easier way have taught Paul to trust? Possibly, but He chose this way, and it must have been the best way. Paul was strong and self- reliant, and like Jacob at Jabbok, whose thigh was disjointed, he had to be broken to become ‘as a prince’ and have ‘power with God and with men. In his letter to his Thessalonian converts he exhorts them to ‘comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. ‘ How did Paul, with his trained and master mind, learn to be ‘gentle’ with the ‘feeble-minded’ ‘as a nurse cherisheth her children’? How, with his passionate, aggressive nature, did he come to put his strength at the disposal of the ‘weak’? How, with his impetuous and fiery spirit, did he ever become ‘patient toward all’? Like his Master, who, in the days of His humanity, ‘learned obedience by the things which He suffered, ‘ so Paul was trained and so he learned from Jesus in the school of suffering. We see how latent lightnings in his soul could flash and leap forth like a thunder-bolt in his retort to the High Priest who had commanded him to be smitten on the mouth: ‘God shall smite thee, thou whited wall for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law? It is true that when rebuked for so speaking to the High Priest, he meekly replied: ‘I wist not, brethren, that he was the High Priest for it is written, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of Thy people. ” But would Jesus have retorted as did Paul? When He was smitten by an officer because of His perfectly reasonable answer to the High Priest, Jesus quietly said: ‘If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou Me? ‘ Who am I that I should presume to judge Paul? I dare not judge him.

I love him too tenderly; I have lived with him too intimately for over forty years; I am too greatly awed by his sacrificial life, his lofty character, his Christ-like spirit, to attempt to pass judgment upon him, but if in that retort he fell below the standard of the Master, how is his spirit to be made meek and lowly as the Master? I, Paul, myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, ‘ he wrote the Corinthians. How did he learn this meekness and gentleness of Christ? There is but one way. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, ‘ said Jesus, ‘ ‘for I am meek and lowly in heart. Paul came to Jesus, took upon him the yoke of Jesus, received the spirit of Jesus, and submitted whole-heartedly without murmuring and complaint or self-pity to the discipline of Jesus, and so learned his lessons. >From that day Jesus met him, on the Damascus road, he was no longer ‘kicking against the pricks. ‘ He might stand stoutly up against a traducer, but he bowed instantly at the word of Jesus. The carnal mind which is enmity against God, ‘ went out of him for ever, and he followed Jesus with the passionate ardor of the perfect lover and the docility of the slave of love. Inbred sin is that something within that leads a man to selfishly seek his own way instead of God’s way, his own pleasure instead of God’s pleasure; that exalts itself, that frets and repines or stubbornly resists in the presence of God’s will. From all this Paul was set free.

That was ‘the law – the power – of sin and death, ‘ and with that he had painfully and hopelessly struggled, until he felt that he was like the ancient Etrurian murderer, who, for punishment, was chained face to face, chin to chin, limb to limb, to his dead, rotting, putrefying victim, and he cried out ‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body? But meeting Jesus, believing on Jesus, casting himself in self despair upon Jesus, yielding to Jesus, Paul exultingly cries out: ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. ‘ His heart was pure of sin, but purity is not maturity. 

Purity comes instantly when the surrendered, pardoned soul intelligently and gladly, in simple faith, yields all its redeemed faculties and powers in an utter, unconditional, irreversible dedication to its Lord. But the ripe mellowness, the serene wisdom, the Christlike composure of maturity can only come through manifold experiences as we walk with Jesus in service, in sacrifice, and suffering, and learn of Him. Paul’s spirit had to be disciplined, and he had much to learn as well as much to suffer. When Jesus commissioned him, He said: ‘I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen’ – the things he had already learned – ‘and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee. So the teaching and training and maturing of Paul began and continued through the years until at last he could write: ‘The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. ‘ His Lord did not spare him, but He never failed him. And so out of wide experience and intimate knowledge Paul could write letters that were the revelation of the plan, the purpose, the mind, the character of God in Christ; letters that have come down across two thousand years and are still as sweet and fresh and life-giving as clear waters from everlasting springs, bubbling up in deep, cool valleys, fed by eternal snows from great mountains. Jesus meant, and Paul felt, that his experiences were not for himself alone. Through him Jesus was teaching the whole Church for all time – teaching you and me.

When in Paul’s sore trials and tribulations his faithful Lord comforted him, he says that it was that he might comfort others with ‘the comfort wherewith he was comforted of God. ‘ For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and Salvation… or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and Salvation. ‘ We may be sure that when Paul writes he writes out of experience. When he wrote to those he loved at Ephesus, ‘put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil, ‘ we rest assured that he had first-hand knowledge of those wiles and the hopelessness of any defense unless panoplied in ‘the whole armour of God. When he writes, ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, ‘ there flashed into his memory some dark and lonely, painful and prolonged period when the arch-enemy of his soul, ‘the accuser of the brethren, ‘ plied him with questionings and doubts and fears and forebodings for the future and accusations for the past, until his harassed soul seemed to him like some soldier on the field of battle, who was the target of archers who had dipped their darts in pitch and flame, and against which darts his only defense was his shield, the shield of faith.

These darts would quench their flame in his life blood, if he did not manfully use this shield; but against it they fell harmless. In the first of his letters, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, he reminded them that in spite of the painful and shameful and dangerous treatment he received at Philippi: ‘We were bold in our God to speak unto you the Gospel of God with much contention. ‘ Bold. But listen. In one of his letters, his Epistle to the Ephesians, written from Rome, where, he says, he is ‘an ambassador in bonds, ‘ he asks for the prayers of his brethren ‘That I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. ‘ Do we not get a hint from this of the temptation from which he suffered, and against which he girded himself and asked the sympathetic help of his brethren? He was old and worn, bruised and scarred, chained in prison and surrounded by relentless foes, and he was tempted to timidity and cowardice in preaching his gospel. Dear old Paul. Like his Master and ours, ‘he was tempted in all points as we are. ‘ But he fought on and triumphed. It is no sin to be tempted. It is sinful to yield. Paul did not yield, and so he remained in the school of Christ, and so Christ trained him.

It was out of such manifold experiences that he could write with an assurance that has reassured myriads of tempted, harassed souls: ‘There hath no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. ‘ Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twenty-Two 7 Paul had mountain peak and paradisiacal experiences, but he also had hours of depression. How could it be otherwise, unless miracles had periodically been wrought for his deliverance? Jesus would not turn stones into bread to satisfy His own hunger after forty days of fasting. And in training Paul, He did not pet and pamper and so spoil him. Heroes, martyrs, world- conquerors, saints, are not made that way. Who are these arrayed in white robes before the throne? And whence came they? asked John in the Apocalypse. ‘These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb, ‘ was the answer. Paul had great tribulation, and how could he escape the depression of reaction, when bruised from beatings and stonings, smarting and bleeding from cruel whippings, when hungry and thirsty, pinched with cold, and exhausted from shipwreck and long and painful journeys? Add to these physical hardships his constant ‘care of all the churches, ‘ his anxiety for his poor, persecuted converts in far-off heathen cities; add further his constant danger from relentless enemies, who followed him from city to city; and, finally, add to all these the hellish darts of Satan, and we get some conception of the infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses in and through which Jesus trained, disciplined, beautified, enriched, perfected, and matured the spirit of Paul, until he gloried and took pleasure in his infirmities, for in these it was revealed to his faith, rather than in his own native strength, and powers, did the power of Christ rest upon him. He says, ‘I have learned’ – and learning is a process often prolonged and painful – ‘I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased ‘ – old-time Salvationists, from force of circumstances, had to learn that lesson, but Paul adds: ‘I know how to abound’ a very difficult lesson, and one very dangerous not to learn – ‘everywhere and in all things I am instructed’ – still in the school of Christ – ‘both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me. ‘ Hallelujah! Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, And he bears a ladened breast, Full of sad experience moving Towards the stillness of his rest.

I see Thy school is not an easy one, O Christ, and I would learn of Thee. Train me, teach me. Dost Thou reply to me as to James and John: ‘Ye know not what ye ask? ‘ Still, O Lord, train me, discipline me, teach me. Dost Thou ask, ‘Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? Thou knowest, O Lord, I trust Thy love and Thy wisdom, and into Thy hands I commit my spirit; so, teach me, train me, that I, with Paul, may ‘know Thee and the power of Thy resurrection and the fellowship of Thy sufferings ‘ – ‘the fellowship of Thy sufferings. That I may ‘comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that I may be filled with all the fullness of God’ and thereby ‘show to this generation Thy strength, and Thy power to every one that is to come. ‘

Chapter 23 – WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE SALVATION ARMY?

There are some questions always being asked and never fully answered, for the simple reason that only Omniscience knows the answer, and Omniscience is not disposed to answer questions which can be solved in measure by diligent attention to the spirit and principles revealed in the Bible, and the final answer to which is largely contingent upon our good behavior, our humility, our loyalty to truth and love, our unswerving allegiance to Jesus, and our diligence in keeping His commandments and walking in His footsteps.

I have recently been asked what I think about the future of The Salvation Army. This is an old question, about as old as The Army itself. It was going the rounds when I joined The Army over forty years ago, and some one has been asking it ever since. Both friends and foes of The Army have asked it. Officers and Soldiers whose lives and whose families have been linked up and entwined with The Army have asked it; and I doubt not our leaders have pondered over it and given it their profoundest and most anxious thought. It is a question which those who love God and the souls of men can hardly avoid. With some it is a purely academic question. They would like to solve the question for intellectual satisfaction. Others, mere busybodies, would pry into the future, like many who are curious to know all about the affairs of their neighbors, that they may have something about which to gossip.

It is not a matter of vital interest to them. Indeed, they are of that large class of people who have no vital interest in anything. They are like the lying woman in Solomon’s day who stole another woman’s baby, but had so little real interest in the baby that she was willing to have it cut in two rather than to acknowledge her theft and lie. With others it is a painfully practical question. Their hearts are in The Army. It is as dear to them  as life. They are bound up in the bundle of its life.

They have sacrificed every other interest for it. They are given over to it soul and body, and have dedicated not only themselves, but their children also to it. They can paraphrase the ancient Psalmist’s declaration of his devotion to Jerusalem ‘If I forget thee, O Salvation Army, let my right hand forget her cunning. ‘If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not The Salvation Army above my chief joy. They feel that the highest interests of the Kingdom of God upon earth are bound up with The Army, an the coming and establishment of the Kingdom are in large measure dependent upon its spiritual life and prosperity. There are some people who are cocksure that they know the answer. There are optimists who see nothing but the most rosy future for The Army. But there are pessimists who prophecy its imminent disruption and dissolution.

Many years ago, just after a tour that had taken me round the world, an old Officer asked me with a quizzical look: ‘Are you going to leave The Army ship before she sinks? I assured him that from a rather wide range of intimate observation I saw no signs that the ship was seriously leaking, or likely to sink, but that even if I did, as an Officer my business was to stick to the ship and do all in my power to save it, or go down with it and its precious freightage of the souls of men and women and little children. ‘The hireling fleeth when he seeth the wolf coming. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. ‘ And the true Officer gives his life for The Army and the souls who are in its keeping. Doubters and timid souls have been prophesying the end of The Army from its very beginning, but still it lives and prospers. But what will be its future? Will it continue to live and prosper? Or has it fulfilled its mission?  Like a great bridge hung upon two buttresses, so The Army is buttressed upon God and man. Is it God’s Army? Did He inspire and gird and guide William Booth when, with heart aching for sinful men and spirit aflame for the glory of God and the honour of Christ, he stepped out on Mile End Waste and began the work that has developed into The Salvation Army? Is God for us, or against us, or indifferent to us? I can sing for myself His love in time past forbids me to think, He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink; Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review Confirms His good pleasure to see me quite through. But can I be so confident for The Army? His guidance, His overruling Providence, His gracious and mighty deliverances in the past are unmistakable, are on record, known and read of all men who care to read. He has overshadowed The Army with a pillar of cloud and fire as surely as He did ancient Israel; He has gone before and opened the ‘two leaved gates of brass, ‘ as He did for Cyrus, and empowered Army Officers and Soldiers and made them more than conquerors, as He did the Apostles and saints of the Early Church; but do all these wonders of His favor and grace give assurance for the future? Is The Army sacrosanct? Are we favorites and pets of the Almighty? This leads us to the second point of dependence. If God is for us, and I fully believe He is, does not that insure our future? The future of The Army depends not only upon God – I say it reverently and in His fear – but also upon man, upon men, upon you and me and all who have to do with The Army. ‘Hear ye me, ‘ cried the prophet Azariah, ‘Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The Lord is with you, while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you: but, ‘ and here is warning for us to heed, for here lurks danger, ‘but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you. And this is a timeless prophecy, eternally true, and not of private interpretation, as true today as it was three millenniums ago; as true of The Army, of you and of me, as it was of ancient Judah and Benjamin  and their king Asa; and it is ‘written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world have come. ‘ Let us search our hearts, order our lives, and be admonished. In so far in the past as we have sought God with our whole heart, walked in His ways, and lived and wrought in the spirit of our Lord and Master He has been with us, preserved us, prospered the work of our hands, fulfilled the desires of our hearts, and blessed us in the presence of our enemies. Can we still confidently expect His favor for the future? Yes, and only, if we continue to abide in Him and fulfill the conditions that have permitted Him to pour benedictions upon us in the past.

And what are these conditions? I think we shall find them expressed in the closing ministry of Jesus and of Paul. Of our Lord in those closing days of His ministry when preparing His disciples for His departure, and the days when they must stand alone without His incarnate presence, and lay the foundations and build the church and give it the living example and word that would guide it through storm and stress of agonizing pagan persecutions, of worldly allurements and seductions, of subtle philosophizings, of pain and poverty, of indifference and scorn, and the dangers of wealth and power and wide acclaim. Of Paul in his later ministry; his farewell address to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, and his prison letters to the churches and his young friends and lieutenants, Timothy and Titus.

The warnings, the exhortations, the example, the close and intimate instructions of our Lord given to His disciples in the last few closing months and days and last night of His ministry, and His High Priestly prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, show us the plain path in which we must walk, if the future of The Salvation Army is to be happy and prosperous and its great promise come to ample fulfillment. And what were the example and teachings of the Master in these fleet, closing days? As He drew near the cross His disciples thought He was drawing near to a throne and crown, Ancient Prophets – Chapter Twenty-Three 5 and they were each ambitious and contentious for first place and highest honors.

But He told them plainly that He should be rejected of men and crucified. Then Peter rebuked Him: ‘Pity Thyself – be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee. ‘ But He rebuked Peter and replied: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. It was not an unusual sight in the Roman Empire to see a line of men following a leader, each bearing a cross on his way to crucifixion. This was the picture He would have them visualize. They were to follow Him, their Leader, each bearing his own cross, not seeking to save his life, but ready to lose it for His sake and for the sake of the brethren. ‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. So mightily at last did this teaching grip the early disciples and fire their spirits, that they actually coveted martyrdom and ran upon death with joy.

In this they may have swung to an extreme, but if The Salvation Army of the future is to prosper and win spiritual triumphs, we must follow the Master, not seeking first place or power, but glorying in the cross. This was the secret of Paul. He was the pattern disciple. He had sat at the feet of Jesus and learned of Him until he could write: ‘What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; neither count I my life dear unto myself; that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus. . .. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. ‘ 1. If the future of The Salvation Army is to be spiritually radiant and all conquering, we must not simply endure the cross, but glory in it. This will arrest the world, disarm Hell, and gladden the heart of our Lord. 2. We must ‘by love serve one another. We are following Him who ‘came not to be ministered – unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. We, too, must give our lives for others, shrinking from no service, holding ourselves ever ready to wash the feet of the lowliest disciple.

We must still prove our discipleship by our love one for the other. It is not enough to wear the uniform, to profess loyalty to Army leaders and principles, to give our goods to feed the poor and our bodies to be burned. We must love one another. We must make this the badge of our discipleship. We must wrestle and pray and hold fast that we do not lose this. The Army is so thoroughly organized and disciplined, so wrought into the life of nations, so fortified with valuable properties, and on such a sound financial basis, that it is not likely to perish as an organization, but it will become a spiritually dead thing if love leaks out. Love is the life of The Army. ‘If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. But if love leaks out we shall lose our crown, we shall have a name to live and yet be dead. We may still house the homeless, dole out food to the hungry, punctiliously perform our routine work, but the mighty ministry of the Spirit will no longer be our glory. Our musicians will play meticulously, our Songsters will revel in the artistry of song that tickles the ear, but leaves the heart cold and hard. Our Officers will make broad their phylacteries and hob-nob with mayors and councilmen and be greeted in the market-place, but God will not be among us.

We shall still recruit our ranks and supply our Training Garrisons with Cadets from among our own Young People, but we shall cease to be saviors of the lost sheep that have no shepherd. If the future of The Salvation Army is to still be glorious, we must heed the exhortation: ‘Let brotherly love continue. We must remember that all we are brethren and beware lest through leakage of love we become like the wicked of whom the Psalmist wrote: ‘Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son (Psalm l. 20), and find our hearts full of strife and bitter envying where the love that suffereth long and is kind should reign supreme.

This is that for which Jesus pleaded on that last night before His crucifixion: ‘This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. This is that for which Paul pleaded and labored: And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men… to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in Holiness before God... at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ‘ (1 Thessalonians iii. 12, 13).

This is that to which Peter exhorted the universal church: ‘Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently; … And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins ‘ (1 Peter i. 22; iv. 8). 4. How else but by fullness of love for one another can we fulfill those supernatural requirements expressed by Paul and Peter? For more than forty years I have pondered and prayed over those two brief and searching words of Paul: ‘Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love: in honour preferring one another, ‘ ‘Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. These are lofty spiritual heights scaled only by those in whose pure hearts burns selfless love. In so far as this spirit rules in our hearts God can work with us and bless us, and the spiritual triumphs and glory of The Army for the future are assured. But in so far as these graces of the Spirit in us fail, so far will The Army as a spiritual power in the earth fail. Akin to these words of Paul are those of Peter: ‘The elders which are among you I exhort. . . Feed the flock of God, . . . not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre (or rank or power), but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility. Nothing will so certainly insure the prosperous and happy future of The Army as this spirit, and I am persuaded that nothing other than this can insure it. This is the life, the pulsing, eager, satisfying, and yet ever unsatisfied, outreaching, world embracing life of The Army. Organization and Government are important, vastly important, for the direction and conservation of the activities of the life; but without the life the Organization is a bit of mere mechanism and the government is a pantomime.

Finally, in closing, let me recommend to my comrades the world over, for prayerful study and meditation, Paul’s farewell address to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, recorded in Acts xx. 17- 35. Over and over again and again, through more than four decades, I have read and pondered that address, and prayed that the spirit that was in Paul might be in me and in all my comrades, for this is the spirit of Jesus. This is that for which He prayed on that last night of His agony as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. And this is that, and that alone, which can and will insure the victorious and happy future of our world-wide Army.