EARNESTNESS.
Another word for earnestness is enthusiasm. The Scriptural equivalent
is zeal. It means putting our whole heart into whatever we are doing.
It is a sweeping, resistless energy, which carries everything before
it, like a river in full flood. Its nature is well expressed in the
saying of the old huntsman, "Throw over your heart, and your horse will
soon follow."
Earnestness is not to be confounded with noise, vehemence, or outward
demonstration.--It is often exceedingly quiet and undemonstrative.
Notice when the machinery of an engine is standing still, how the steam
makes a great noise as it issues from the safety-valve, but when the
vapor is turned into the cylinder and is used in driving the engine all
that thundering sound disappears. It does not follow that there is no
steam. It is going in another direction, and doing its appropriate
work. It is a great mistake to imagine that enthusiasm and what is
called _fuss_ are identical. The most enthusiastic men are often the
quietest. No one can doubt the enthusiasm of a man like Livingstone.
He had enthusiasm for science, for philanthropy and for religion. It
was unflagging; yet not a boast, not a murmur escaped his lips. He did
the thing he meant to do, and made no noise in doing it.
Earnestness is often regarded with suspicion and condemned.--It is the
fashion with many to sneer at it. It is often alone, and then it is
not respectable. It is often in excess, and is therefore ineffective.
It is often disturbing to the sleepiness of others, and is therefore
hated by them. Our Lord was an enthusiast in the eyes of the
Pharisees. St. Paul was an enthusiast to Festus. The early Christians
were enthusiasts to the pagan world because they turned it upside down.
The martyrs and confessors of all times have been regarded as
enthusiasts by those of their own time who were not in sympathy with
them. An enthusiast is called by many a fanatic, and a fanatic in the
eyes of some is a most dangerous member of society.
All the great leaders of the world have been men in earnest.--Emerson
says truly that "every great and commanding movement in the annals of
the world is the triumph of enthusiasm." Our civil and religious
liberties we owe to enthusiasts for freedom. The enthusiasm of
Columbus gave us America; the enthusiasm of Knox reformed Scotland; the
enthusiasm of Wesley regenerated English religious life; the enthusiasm
of men like Garibaldi and Cavour and Mazzini has made in our own time a
new Italy. These men were all denounced in their day, cold water was
thrown on all their projects, but their burning earnestness carried
them on to triumph. The scorned enthusiast of one generation is the
hero of the next.
Earnestness is a great element in securing success in life.--A
well-known writer and preacher, Dr. Arnot, tells that he once heard the
following conversation at a railway station between a farmer and the
engineer of a train: "What are you waiting for so long? Have you no
water?" "Oh, yes, we have plenty of water, but it is not boiling." So
there may be abundance of intelligence and splendid machinery, and all
the appliances that help to success, but what is wanted is intense
boiling earnestness. We have a good illustration of the power of
earnestness in speaking. One man may say the right thing, and say it
in a pleasing and cultured manner; every phrase may be well placed,
every sentence polished, every argument in its proper place. Another
man may have no elegance of diction, his words may be unpolished, his
sentences even ungrammatical, and yet he may move a great multitude, as
the leaves of the trees are moved by the wind, through the intense
earnestness and enthusiasm by which he is possessed. We see the same
thing in Christian effort. The organization of a church may be
perfect, its resources may be large, and it may have in its service an
army of able and well-disciplined men; but without enthusiasm and
burning zeal its efforts are powerless and come to nothing. When, as
at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon a church in tongues of
fire, then there is quickening, and souls are gathered in. No man has
ever had a supreme influence over others without more or less
enthusiasm in his nature.
There are three directions we may give in regard to earnestness or
enthusiasm.
1. _Respect it in others_.--Do not join with those who regard it as
something that is not respectable. It is always preferable to what is
cold and formal. Life is better than death, and when there is life
there is energy and earnestness. Even when enthusiasm takes forms that
we cannot altogether approve of, it is worthy of respect. "Next to
being Servetus who was burnt," said one, "I would have been Calvin who
burnt him." That was a strong way of saying that zeal is a beautiful
thing in itself, though "zeal that is not according to knowledge" is
not good. We may not approve of many of the opinions and methods of
Francis Xavier, the great missionary and saint of the Roman Church, but
we cannot fail to admire his burning zeal in the cause of Christ, and
look with something like awe on his high-souled devotion to the work of
an evangelist. He was swept on by an enthusiasm that never failed, and
which carried him over obstacles that would have daunted any ordinary
man. The Puritans were denounced by many good people of their time,
and the great preacher, Dr. South, delivered a sermon against them,
entitled "Enthusiasts not led by the Spirit of God." But we all know
how great the men were, and how great a work they did through the very
enthusiasm that he condemned. "It is better," according to the
proverb, "that the pot should boil over than not boil at all." The
word enthusiasm literally means filled, or inspired, by God, and the
meaning of the word may teach us how noble a thing enthusiasm is in
itself, and how worthy it is of admiration and respect.
2. _We should cultivate it in ourselves_.--It is a virtue, like all
others, that can be cultivated. (_a_) By resolutely setting our face
against doing anything in a languid and half-hearted way. If a thing
is worth doing, it should be done "with all our might." (_b_) By
studying the lives of great men. When we do so we catch something of
the earnestness that inspired them. This is perhaps the best result of
reading biography. We feel how noble was the enthusiasm of the heroes
of the past, and how, by means of it, they were able to do great
things, and to march on to victory. (_c_) By associating with those
who are in earnest. There is nothing so contagious as enthusiasm, and
when we come in contact with those who live under the impulse of grand
ideas, something of their force and power is conveyed to ourselves.
The great soul strengthens the weak soul. While the solitary coal on
the hearth will go black out, when it is heaped up with others it
springs into a blaze.
O ever earnest sun!
Unwearied in thy work,
Unhalting in thy course,
Unlingering in thy path,
Teach me thy earnest ways,
That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
O ever earnest stars!
Unchanging in your light,
Unfaltering in your race,
Unswerving in your round,
Teach me your earnest ways,
That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
O ever earnest flowers!
That with untiring growth
Shoot up and spread abroad
Your fragrance and your joy,
Teach me your earnest ways,
That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
O ever earnest sea!
Constant in flow and ebb,
Heaving to moon and sun,
Unchanging in thy change,
Teach me thy earnest ways,
That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
HORATIUS BONAR.
3. _We should carry earnestness into our religious life_.--This above
all. There are many who tolerate earnestness in other things, but who
look upon it as dangerous in connection with religion. It is regarded
as of very questionable value, and spoken of with doubt and suspicion.
Let a man become earnest in prayer, earnest in work, or rise in any way
above the dead level in which so many are content to rest, and he will
be often spoken of in tones of pity, sneered at as a fanatic, or
denounced as an impostor. This suspicion with which earnestness in the
Church of Christ is often regarded may be accounted for. (_a_) There
has been a vast deal of zeal in the Church about religion which has not
been zeal for religion: about matters of ritual, Church government, and
the like. (_b_) Zeal has been often expended in contentions about
small points of doctrine; often about those very points which are
shrouded in mystery. (_c_) Zeal has been often manifested in the
interest of sect and party rather than of Christ. (_d_) Zeal has often
taken persecution for her ally, and wielded among men the weapons of
earthly warfare. For these reasons its appearance in the Church is
often regarded as we might regard the erection in a town of a gunpowder
magazine which, at any moment, might produce disorder, ruin, and death.
_Yet Scripture regards earnestness in religion as
essential_.--Indifference and lukewarmness it regards as hateful (Rev.
iii. 15, 16). It calls us to a solemn choice and to a lifelong
service. Its heroes are those who lived in the spirit of Brainerd's
prayer, "Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God."
There is an allegory of Luther which may be quoted here. "The devil,"
he says, "held a great anniversary, at which his emissaries were
convened to report the results of their several missions. 'I let loose
the wild beasts of the desert,' said one, 'on a caravan of Christians,
and their bones are now bleaching on the sands.' 'What of that?' said
the devil; 'their souls were all saved.' 'I drove the east wind,' said
another, 'against a ship freighted with Christians, and they were all
drowned.' 'What of that?' said the devil; 'their souls were all
saved.' 'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said
a third, 'and I succeeded, and left him so.' Then the devil shouted,
and the night stars of hell sang for joy."
There are three spheres of religious life in which earnestness should
be specially shown.
1. _In prayer_.--This is specially inculcated in the two parables of
our Lord, the "unjust judge" and "the friend at midnight," and in His
own words, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you." One, it is said, came to
Demosthenes, the great orator, and asked him to plead his cause. He
heard him without attention while he told his story without
earnestness. The man saw this, and cried out anxiously that it was all
true. "Ah!" said Demosthenes, "I believe you _now_." The earnest
prayer is the prevailing prayer.
2. _In sacrifice_.--This is in all life the test of earnestness. The
student giving up time for the acquisition of knowledge; the merchant
giving up his hours to the pursuit of business; the explorer braving
the heat of the tropics and the cold of the arctic regions in his zeal
for discovery. It is the same in religion. We must count all things,
with St. Paul, "as loss, that we may win Christ, and be found in Him."
3. _In impressing others_.--It is "out of the heart that the mouth
speaketh," and power to impress others is given only to those who do so
with a full heart, and who are consumed with a burning zeal for the
salvation of souls. These are they whom God has, in all ages, blessed
in the conversion of men.