It is not necessary by quotations from the biographies
of eminent ministers to prove that seasons of fearful prostration have
fallen to the lot of most, if not all of them. The life of Luther might
suffice to give a thousand instances, and he was by no means of the
weaker sort. His great spirit was often in the seventh heaven of exultation,
and as frequently on the borders of despair. His very death-bed was
not free from tempests, and he sobbed himself into his last sleep like
a great wearied child. Instead of multiplying Gases, let us dwell upon
the reasons why these things are permitted why it is that the children
of light sometimes walk in the thick darkness; why the heralds of the
daybreak find themselves at times in tenfold night.
Is it not first that they are men? Being
men, they are compassed with infirmity, and heirs of sorrow. Well said
the wise man in the Apocrypha, (Ecclus xl. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-8) "Great
travail is created for all men, and a heavy yoke on the sons of Adam,
from the day that they go out of their mother's womb unto that day that
they return to the mother of all things—namely, their thoughts and fear
of their hearts, and their imagination of things that they wail for,
and the day of death. From him that sitteth in the glorious throne,
to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes; from him that is
clothed in blue silk, and weareth a crown, to him that is clothed in
simple linen—wrath, envy, trouble, and unquietness, and fear of death
and rigour, and such things come to both man and beast, but sevenfold
to the ungodly." Grace guards us from much of this, but because
we have not more of grace we still suffer even from ills preventible.
Even under the economy of redemption it is most clear that we are to
endure infirmities, otherwise there were no need of the promised Spirit
to help us in them. It is of need be that we are sometimes in heaviness.
Good men are promised tribulation in this world, and ministers may expect
a larger share than others, that they may learn sympathy with the Lord's
suffering people, and so may be fitting shepherds of an ailing flock.
Disembodied spirits might have been sent to proclaim the word, but they
could not have entered into the feelings of those who, being in this
body, do groan, being burdened; angels might have been ordained evangelists,
but their celestial attributes would have disqualified them from having
compassion on the ignorant; men of marble might have been fashioned,
but their impassive natures would have been a sarcasm upon our feebleness,
and a mockery of our wants. Men, and men subject to human passions,
the all-wise God has chosen to be his vessels of grace; hence these
tears, hence these perplexities and castings down.
Moreover, most of us are in some way or other
unsound physically. Here and there we meet with an old man who could
not remember that ever he was laid aside for a day; but the great mass
of us labour under some form or other of infirmity, either in body or
mind. Certain bodily maladies, especially those connected with the digestive
organs, the liver, and the spleen, are time fruitful fountains of despondency;
and, let a man strive as he may against their influence, there will
be hours and circumstances in which they will for awhile overcome him.
As to mental maladies, is any man altogether sane? Are we not all a
little off the balance? Some minds appear to have a gloomy tinge essential
to their very individuality; of them it may be said, "Melancholy
marked them for her own;" fine minds withal, and ruled by noblest
principles, but yet most prone to forget the silver lining, and to remember
only the cloud. Such men may sing with the old poet (Thomas Washbourne.)
"Our hearts are broke,
our harps unstringed be,
Our only music's sighs and groans,
Our songs are to the tune of lachrymœ,
We're fretted all to skin and bones."
These infirmities may be no detriment to a man's
career of special usefulness; they may even have been imposed upon him
by divine wisdom as necessary qualifications for his peculiar course
of service. Some plants owe their medicinal qualities to the marsh in
which they grow; others to the shades in which alone they flourish.
There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun.
Boats need ballast as well as sail; a drag on the carriage-wheel is
no hindrance when the road runs downhill. Pain has, probably, in some
cases developed genius; hunting out the soul which otherwise might have
slept like a lion in its den. Had it not been for the broken wing, some
might have lost themselves in the clouds, some even of those choice
doves who now bear the olive-branch in their mouths and show the way
to the ark. But where in body and mind there are predisposing causes
to lowness of spirit, it is no marvel if in dark moments the heart succumbs
to them; the wonder in many cases is—and if inner lives could be written,
men would see it so—how some ministers keep at their work at all, and
still wear a smile upon their countenances. Grace has its triumphs still,
and patience has its martyrs; martyrs none the less to be honoured because
the flames kindle about their spirits rather than their bodies, and
their burning is unseen of human eyes. The ministries of Jeremiahs are
as acceptable as those of Isaiahs, and even the sullen Jonah is a true
prophet of the Lord, as Nineveh felt full well. Despise not the lame,
for it is written that they take the prey; but honour those who, being
faint, are yet pursuing. The tender-eyed Leah was more fruitful than
the beautiful Rachel, and the griefs of Hannah were more divine than
the boastings of Peninnah. "Blessed are they that mourn,"
said the Man of Sorrows, and let none account them otherwise when their
tears are salted with grace. We have the treasure of the gospel in earthen
vessels, and if there be a flaw in the vessel here and there, let none
wonder.
Our work, when earnestly undertaken, lays us open
to attacks in the direction of depression. Who can bear the weight
of souls without sometimes sinking to the dust? Passionate longings
after men's conversion, if not fully satisfied (and when are they?),
consume the soul with anxiety and disappointment. To see the hopeful
turn aside, the godly grow cold, professors abusing their privileges,
and sinners waxing more bold in sin—are not these sights enough to crush
us to the earth? The kingdom comes not as we would, the reverend name
is not hallowed as we desire, and for this we must weep. How can we
be otherwise than sorrowful, while men believe not our report, and the
divine arm is not revealed? All mental work tends to weary and to depress,
for much study is a weariness of the flesh; but ours is more than mental
work—it is heart work, the labour of our inmost soul. How often, on
Lord's-day evenings, do we feel as if life were completely washed out
of us! After pouring out our souls over our congregations, we feel like
empty earthen pitchers which a child might break. Probably, if we were
more like Paul, and watched for souls at a nobler rate, we should know
more of what it is to be eaten up by the zeal of the Lord's house. It
is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are
not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices,
whose lot is to be consumed; we are to spend and to be spent, not
to lay ourselves up in lavender, and nurse our flesh. Such soul-travail
as that of a faithful minister will bring on occasional seasons of exhaustion,
when heart and flesh will fail. Moses' hands grew heavy in intercession,
and Paul cried out, "Who is sufficient for these things?"
Even John the Baptist is thought to have had his fainting fits, and
the apostles were once amazed, and were sore afraid.
Our position in the church will also conduce to
this. A minister fully equipped for his work, will usually be a
spirit by himself, above, beyond, and apart from others. The most loving
of his people cannot enter into his peculiar thoughts, cares, and temptations.
In the ranks, men walk shoulder to shoulder, with many comrades, but
as the officer rises in rank, men of his standing are fewer in number.
There are many soldiers, few captains, fewer colonels, but only one
commander-in-chief. So, in our churches, the man whom the Lord raises
as a leader becomes, in the same degree in which he is a superior man,
a solitary man. The mountain-tops stand solemnly apart, and talk only
with God as he visits their terrible solitudes. Men of God who rise
above their fellows into nearer communion with heavenly things, in their
weaker moments feel the lack of human sympathy. Like their Lord in Gethsemane,
they look in vain for comfort to the disciples sleeping around them;
they are shocked at the apathy of their little band of brethren, and
return to their secret agony with all the heavier burden pressing upon
them, because they have found their dearest companions slumbering. No
one knows, but he who has endured it, the solitude of a soul which has
outstripped its fellows in zeal for the Lord of hosts: it dares not
reveal itself, lest men count it mad; it cannot conceal itself, for
a fire burns within its bones: only before the Lord does it find rest.
Our Lord's sending out his disciples by two and two manifested that
he knew what was in men; but for such a man as Paul, it seems to me
that no helpmeet was found; Barnabas, or Silas, or Luke, were hills
too low to hold high converse with such a Himalayan summit as the apostle
of the Gentiles. This loneliness, which if I mistake not is felt by
many of my brethren, is a fertile source of depression; and our ministers,
fraternal meetings, and the cultivation of holy intercourse with kindred
minds will, with God's blessing, help us greatly to escape the snare.
There can be little doubt that sedentary habits
have a tendency to create despondency in some constitutions. Burton,
in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," has a chapter upon this cause
of sadness; and, quoting from one of the myriad authors whom he lays
under contribution, he says—"Students are negligent of their bodies.
Other men look to their tools; a painter will wash his pencils; a smith
will look to his hammer, anvil, forge; a husbandman will mend his plough-irons,
and grind his hatchet if it be dull; a falconer or huntsman will have
an especial care of his hawks, hounds, horses, dogs, &c.; a musician
will string and unstring his lute; only scholars neglect that instrument
(their brain and spirits I mean) which they daily use. Well saith Lucan,
"See thou twist not the rope so hard that it break." To sit
long in one posture, poring over a book, or driving a quill, is in itself
a taxing of nature; but add to this a badly-ventilated chamber, a body
which has long been without muscular exercise, and a heart burdened
with many cares, and we have all the elements for preparing a seething
cauldron of despair, especially in the dim months of fog—
"When a blanket wraps
the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamped
in clay."
Let a man be naturally as blithe as a bird, he will
hardly be able to bear up year after year against such a suicidal process;
he will make his study a prison and his books the warders of a gaol,
while nature lies outside his window calling him to health and beckoning
him to joy. He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather,
the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the
woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the
wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing
and his soul grows heavy. A day's breathing of fresh air upon the hills,
or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods? umbrageous calm, would sweep
the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who
are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the
wind's face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen
to the body, which is next best.
"Heaviest the heart
is in a heavy air,
Ev'ry wind that rises blows away
despair."
The ferns and the rabbits, the streams and the trouts,
the fir trees and the squirrels, the primroses and the violets, the
farm-yard, the new-mown hay, and the fragrant hops—these are the best
medicine for hypochondriacs, the surest tonics for the declining, the
best refreshments for the weary. For lack of opportunity, or inclination,
these great remedies are neglected, and the student becomes a self-immolated
victim.
The times most favourable to fits of depression,
so far as I have experienced, may be summed up in a brief catalogue.
First among them I must mention the hour of great success. When
at last a long-cherished desire is fulfilled, when God has been glorified
greatly by our means, and a great triumph achieved, then we are apt
to faint. It might be imagined that amid special favours our soul would
soar to heights of ecstacy, and rejoice with joy unspeakable, but it
is generally the reverse. The Lord seldom exposes his warriors to the
perils of exultation over victory; he knows that few of them can endure
such a test, and therefore dashes their cup with bitterness. See Elias
after the fire has fallen from heaven, after Baal's priests have been
slaughtered and the rain has deluged the barren land For him no notes
of self-complacent music, no strutting like a conqueror in robes of
triumph; he flees from Jezebel, and feeling the revulsion of his intense
excitement, he prays that he may die, lie who must never see death,
yearns after the rest of the grave, even as Caesar, the world's monarch,
in his moments of pain cried like a sick girl. Poor human nature cannot
bear such strains as heavenly triumphs bring to it; there must come
a reaction. Excess of joy or excitement must be paid for by subsequent
depressions. While the trial lasts, the strength is equal to the emergency;
but when it is over, natural weakness claims the right to show itself.
Secretly sustained, Jacob can wrestle all night, but he must limp in
the morning when the contest is over, lest he boast himself beyond measure.
Paul may be caught up to the third heaven, and hear unspeakable things,
but a thorn in time flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, must
be the inevitable sequel. Men cannot bear unalloyed happiness; even
good men are not yet fit to have "their brows with laurel and with
myrtle bound," without enduring secret humiliation to keep them
in their proper place. Whirled from off our feet by a revival, carried
aloft by popularity, exalted by success in soul-winning, we should be
as the chaff which the wind driveth away, were it not that the gracious
discipline of mercy breaks the ships of our vainglory with a strong
east wind, and casts us shipwrecked, naked and forlorn, upon the Rock
of Ages.
Before any great achievement, some measure
of the same depression is very usual. Surveying the difficulties before
us, our hearts sink within us. The sons of Anak stalk before us, and
we are as grasshoppers in our own sight in their presence. The cities
of Canaan are walled up to heaven, and who are we that we should hope
to capture them? We are ready to cast down our weapons and take to our
heels. Nineveh is a great city, and we would flee unto Tarshish sooner
than encounter its noisy crowds. Already we look for a ship which may
bear us quietly away from the terrible scene, and only a dread of tempest
restrains our recreant footsteps. Such was my experience when I first
became a pastor in London. My success appalled me; and the thought of
the career which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, cast
me into the lowest depth, out of which I uttered my miserere and
found no room for a gloria in excelsis. Who was I that
I should continue to lead so great a multitude? I would betake me to
my village obscurity, or emigrate to America, and find a solitary nest
in the backwoods, where I might be sufficient for the things which would
be demanded of me. It was just then that the curtain was rising upon
my life-work, and I dreaded what it might reveal. I hope I was not faithless,
but I was timorous and filled with a sense of my own unfitness. I dreaded
the work which a gracious providence had prepared for me. I felt myself
a mere child, and trembled as I heard the voice which said, "Arise,
and thresh the mountains, and make them as chaff." This depression
comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my
ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before
it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a
prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer
coming of my Lord's richer benison. So have far better men found it.
The scouring of the vessel has fitted it for the Master's use. Immersion
in suffering has preceded the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Fasting gives
an appetite for the banquet. The Lord is revealed in the backside of
the desert, while his servant keepeth the sheep and waits in solitary
awe. The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the
towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent forth
before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn.
The mariners go down to the depths, but the next wave makes them mount
to the heaven: their soul is melted because of trouble before he bringeth
them to their desired haven.
In the midst of a long stretch of unbroken labour,
the same affliction may be looked for. The bow cannot be always
bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep
to the body. Our Sabbaths are our days of toil, and if we do not rest
upon some other day we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow
and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Hence the wisdom and compassion
of our Lord, when he said to his disciples, "Let us go into the
desert and rest awhile." What! when the people are fainting? When
the multitudes are like sheep upon the mountains without a shepherd?
Does Jesus talk of rest? When Scribes and Pharisees, like grievous wolves,
are rending the flock, does he take his followers on an excursion into
a quiet resting place? Does some red-hot zealot denounce such atrocious
forgetfulness of present and pressing demands? Let him rave in his folly.
The Master knows better than to exhaust his servants and quench the
light of Israel. Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather
fresh strength. Look at the mower in the summer a day, with so much
to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labour, is he a sluggard?
He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe,
with "rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink." Is that idle music?
is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mown while he
has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening
his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength
to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him.
Even thus a little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the
good cause. Fishermen must mend their nets, and we must every now and
then repair our mental waste and set our machinery in order for future
service. To tug the oar from day to day, hike a galley-slave who knows
no holidays, suits not mortal men. Mill-streams go on and on for ever,
but we must have our pauses and our intervals. Who can help being out
of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts
of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the very sea pauses
at ebb and flood; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and
man, even when exalted to be God's ambassador, must rest or faint; must
trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigour or grow prematurely
old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall
do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation,
may suit spirits emancipated from this "heavy clay," but while
we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and
serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender
conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for awhile,
but learn from the experience of others the necessity and duty of taking
timely rest.
One crushing stroke has sometimes laid the minister
very low. The brother most relied upon becomes a traitor. Judas
lifts up his heel against the man who trusted him, and the preacher?s
heart for the moment fails him. We are all too apt to look to an arm
of flesh, and from that propensity many of our sorrows arise. Equally
overwhelming is the blow when an honoured and beloved member yields
to temptation, and disgraces the holy name with which lie was named.
Anything is better than this. This makes the preacher long for a lodge
in some vast wilderness, where he may hide his head for ever, and hear
no more the blasphemous jeers of the ungodly. Ten years of toil do not
take so much life out of us as we lose in a few hours by Ahithophel
the traitor, or Demas the apostate. Strife, also, and division, and
slander, and foolish censures, have often laid holy men prostrate, and
made them go "as with a sword in their bones." Hard words
wound some delicate minds very keenly. Many of the best of ministers,
from the very spirituality of their character, are exceedingly sensitive—too
sensitive for such a world as this. "A kick that scarce would move
a horse would kill a sound divine." By experience the soul is hardened
to the rough blows which are inevitable in our warfare; but at first
these things utterly stagger us, and send us to our homes wrapped in
a horror of great darkness. The trials of a true minister are not few,
and such as are caused by ungrateful professors are harder to bear than
the coarsest attacks of avowed enemies. Let no man who looks for ease
of mind and seeks the quietude of life enter the ministry; if he does
so he will flee from it in disgust.
To the lot of few does it fall to pass through such
a horror of great darkness as that which fell upon me after the deplorable
accident at the Surrey Music Hall. I was pressed beyond measure and
out of bounds with an enormous weight of misery. The tumult, the panic,
the deaths, were day and night before me, anti made life a burden. Then
I sang in my sorrow—
"The tumult of my
thoughts
Doth but increase my woe,
My spirit languisheth, my
heart
Is desolate and low."
From that dream of horror I was awakened in a moment
by the gracious application to my soul of the text, "Him hath God
the Father exalted." The fact that Jesus is still great, let his
servants suffer as they may, piloted me back to calm reason and peace.
Should so terrible a calamity overtake any of my brethren, let them
both patiently hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God.
When troubles multiply, and discouragements
follow each other in long succession, like Job's messengers, then, too,
amid the perturbation of soul occasioned by evil tidings, despondency
despoils the heart of all its peace. Constant dropping wears away stones,
and the bravest minds feel the fret of repeated afflictions. If a scanty
cupboard is rendered a severer trial by the sickness of a wife or the
loss of a child, and if ungenerous remarks of hearers are followed by
the opposition of deacons and the coolness of members, then, like Jacob,
we are apt to cry, "All these things are against me." When
David returned to Ziklag and found the city burned, goods stolen, wives
carried off, and his troops ready to stone him, we read, "he encouraged
himself in his God;" and well was it for him that he could do so,
for he would then have fainted if he had not believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. Accumulated distresses increase
each other's weight; they play into each other's hands, and, like bands
of robbers, ruthlessly destroy our comfort. Wave upon wave is severe
work for the strongest swimmer. The place where two seas meet strains
the most seaworthy keel. If there were a regulated pause between the
buffetings of adversity, the spirit would stand prepared; but when they
come suddenly and heavily, like the battering of great hailstones, the
pilgrim may well be amazed. The last ounce breaks the camel's back,
and when that last ounce is laid upon us, what wonder if we for awhile
are ready to give up the ghost!
This evil will also come upon us, we know not
why, and then it is all the more difficult to drive it away. Causeless
depression is not to he reasoned with, nor can David's harp charm it
away by sweet discoursings. As well fight with the mist as with this
shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding hopelessness. One affords
himself no pity when in this case, because it seems so unreasonable,
and even sinful to be troubled without manifest cause; and yet troubled
the man is, even in the very depths of his spirit. If those who laugh
at such melancholy did but feel the grief of it for one hour, their
laughter would he sobered into compassion. Resolution might, perhaps,
shake it off, but where are we to find the resolution when the whole
man is unstrung? The physician and the divine may unite their skill
in such cases, and both find their hands full, and more than full. The
iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our
spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back; and
when that hand is seen we cry with the apostle, "Blessed be God,
even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and
the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that
we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 2 Cor. i. 3, 4. It
is the God of all consolation who can—
"With sweet oblivious
antidote
Cleanse our poor bosoms of that perilous stuff
Which
weighs upon the heart."
Simon sinks till Jesus takes him by the hand. The
devil within rends and tears the poor child till time word of authority
commands him to come out of him. When we are ridden with horrible fears,
and weighed down with an intolerable incubus, we need but the Sun of
Righteousness to rise, and the evils generated of our darkness are driven
away; but nothing short of this will chase away time nightmare of the
soul. Timothy Rogers, the author of a treatise on Melancholy, and Simon
Browne, the writer of some remarkably sweet hymns, proved in their own
cases how unavailing is the help of man if the Lord withdraw the light
from the soul.
If it be enquired why the Valley of the Shadow of
Death must so often be traversed by the servants of King Jesus, the
answer is not far to find. All this is promotive of the Lord's mode
of working, which is summed up in these words—"Not by might nor
by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Instruments shall
be used, but their intrinsic weakness shall be clearly manifested; there
shall be no division of the glory, no diminishing the honour due to
the Great Worker. The man shall be emptied of self, and then filled
with the Holy Ghost. In his own apprehension he shall be like a sere
leaf driven of the tempest, and then shall be strengthened into a brazen
wall against the enemies of truth. To hide pride from the worker is
the great difficulty. Uninterrupted success and unfading joy in it would
be more than our weak heads could bear. Our wine must needs be mixed
with water, lest it turn our brains. My witness is, that those who are
honoured of their Lord in public, have usually to endure a secret chastening,
or to carry a peculiar cross, lest by any means they exalt themselves,
and fall into the snare of the devil. How constantly the Lord calls
Ezekiel "Son of man"! Amid his soarings into the superlative
splendours, just when with eye undimmed he is strengthened to gaze into
the excellent glory, the word "Son of man" falls on his ears,
sobering the heart which else might have been intoxicated with the honour
conferred upon it. Such humbling but salutary messages our depressions
whisper in our ears; they tell us in a manner not to be mistaken that
we are but men, frail, feeble, apt to faint.
By all the castings down of his servants God is glorified,
for they are led to magnify him when again he sets them on their feet,
and even while prostrate in the dust their faith yields him praise.
They speak all time more sweetly of his faithfulness, and are the more
firmly established in his love. Such mature men as sonic elderly preachers
are, could scarcely have been produced if they had not been emptied
from vessel to vessel, and made to see their own emptiness and the vanity
of all things round about them. Glory be to God for the furnace, the
hammer, and the file. Heaven shall be all the fuller of bliss because
we have been filled with anguish here below, and earth shall be better
tilled because of our training in the school of adversity.
The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul-trouble.
Count it no strange thing, but a part of ordinary ministerial experience.
Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that
all is over with your usefulness. Cast not away your confidence, for
it hath great recompense of reward. Even if the enemy's foot be on your
neck, expect to rise amid overthrow him. Cast the burden of the present,
along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the
Lord, who forsaketh not his saints. Live by the day—ay, by the hour.
Put no trust in frames and feelings. Care more for a grain of faith
than a ton of excitement. Trust in God alone, and lean not on the reeds
of human help. Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing
world. Never count upon immutability in man: inconstancy you may reckon
upon without fear of disappointment. The disciples of Jesus forsook
him; be not amazed if your adherents wander away to other teachers:
as they were not your all when with you, all is not gone from you with
their departure. Serve God with all your might while the candle is burning,
and then when it goes out for a season, you will have the less to regret.
Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are. When your own emptiness
is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you
ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord. Set small store by present
rewards; be grateful for earnests by the way, but look for the recompensing
joy hereafter. Continue, with double earnestness to serve your Lord
when no visible result is before you. Any simpleton can follow the narrow
path in the light: faith?s rare wisdom enables us to march on in the
dark with infallible accuracy, since she places her hand in that of
her Great Guide. Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather
yet, but it is all provided for by our covenant Head. In nothing let
us be turned aside from the path which the divine call has urged us
to pursue. Come fair or come foul, the pulpit is our watch-tower, and
the ministry our warfare; be it ours, when we cannot see the face of
our God, to trust under THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS.
Author
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 - 1892) was a noted
English Baptist minister who preached to throngs of people in the Metropolitan
Tabernacle in London, which seated six thousand people. His success
and popularity were due in a large measure to his natural gift of oratory
and his thoroughly Biblical expository sermons.
This article is taken from Spurgeon's marvelous book,
Lectures to My Students which is a compilation of his addresses
delivered to the students of The Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle
from 1856. Spurgeon said of this college,
In the Pastors' College definite doctrines
are held and taught. We hold by the doctrines of grace and the old
orthodox faith, and have no sympathy with the countless theological
novelties of the present day, which are novelties only in outward
form: in substance they are repetitions of errors exploded long
ago. Our standing in doctrinal matters is well known, and we make
no profession of latitudinarian charity, yet we find no failure
in the number of earnest spirits who rally to our standard, believing
that in truth alone can true freedom be found. (p. iv)
