In spiritual activity, as in all other matters, it is a good rule
to begin at the beginning. How many, in trying to learn some of the
sciences—say geology, for example—have disdained the use of hand-books
for the mastering of the elements, and, plunging at once into some
elaborate treatise, which presupposed familiar acquaintance with the
rudiments, have felt themselves unable to understand it, and have
thrown up the whole study in disgust! Now, it is just thus many do in
Christian work. They begin at the wrong place, and so they speedily
become discouraged. Work from the center out, and the radii of your
influence will go out to every point of the circumference; but if,
leaving your own proper center, you take your station somewhere on the
circumference, your labor will produce very little result. Now, home is
the center of every man’s sphere; and it is there he must begin to work
for Jesus. Let the husband begin with the wife, and the wife with the
husband; the parents with the children; and the children, where need
is, lovingly and humbly, with the parents; the brother with his sister;
and the sister with her brother. Then, when the home sphere is filled
up, let your life’s influence flow over, and seek to benefit those with
whom you are coming into daily business contact. Thus the branches of
your vine will “run over the wall,” and your sphere will widen ever
with your endeavors.
“Oh yes!” you will say to me, “that may be all very true. But it is
far more difficult thus to begin at home than to commence abroad. I
would rather teach a class in the mission-school than to speak to my
own family about Jesus. I would almost sooner address a meeting than
make a private appeal to my brother or my sister.” But why is this?
Surely it can not be because you love those who are nearest to you less
than you do those who are farther away! Can it be because you would
get more prominence and honor among men, by working abroad, than you
could secure by laboring at home? Or is it because you are conscious
that your home conduct would destroy the influence of any teachings
on which you might venture there? You know best. But whatever be its
cause, let me beseech you to revise your whole procedure, and make
home the headquarters of your effort. Can it be that there are here a
wife and husband who have never had one hour of heart communion with
each other on this all-important matter? If there be, may God himself
in some way break that silence that has sealed their tongues; and let
us all rest assured that the truest revival of religion will be gained
when our church members are resolved to test what shall be the result
of beginning to labor thus for Christ at home.
We are making far too little in these days of the Church in the
house. We are waiting for our children to be converted by outside
influences, when, if we were to look at the matter rightly, it should
be our ambition to be ourselves the leaders of our sons and daughters
to the Lord. Some years ago I read an account of the manner in which
a cold church was stirred into warmth and vitality; and as it bears
directly on the point to which I am now referring, I will take the
liberty of introducing it here. At one of the conference meetings, a
simple man, not remarkable for fluency or correctness of speech, made
an appeal something to the following effect: “I feel, brethren, real
bad about the people who don’t love the Lord Jesus Christ here in our
own neighborhood. We’re not as we ought to be, that’s very certain,
but it’s hard work rowing against the stream. We find that out when we
talk to men about religion on Sunday who haven’t any religion all the
week. They don’t mind us. And just so with the young folks. Their minds
all seem running one way. Now, what’s to be done? Not much with the
grown folks, for they aren’t controlled by us, and we can only drop a
word now and then, and pray for them. But here’s our own children. I
have four boys, and only one of them comes to the communion with his
mother and me. And I don’t think I have done my duty to those younger
boys. They love me, and God knows I love them; but I kind o’ hate to
speak to them about religion. But rather than see them go farther
without my Jesus for their Jesus, I’m going to ask them to join him.
I’m going to pray with them; and if I can’t tell them all they want to
know, why, our minister can. Brethren, I’m going to try to turn the
stream for my boys. Home is the head of the river. I mean to begin
to-night. Won’t some father do like me with his boys, and give me his
word out?” Scarcely had he seated himself, when, one after another,
some thirty people pledged themselves, saying, “I’ll do the same at my
house;” and the pledge was kept. In a short time the minister’s labors
began to tell as they had never done before. The influence spread, but
there was no excitement. On the occasion of the communion service,
from family after family, one and another came to enroll themselves
among the followers of Jesus, and nearly every one that came was under
twenty-five years of age. So, through revived home effort, the work
of God was stimulated both in the church and in the neighborhood. My
friends, this witness is true, “Home is the head of the river.” Is
there no one here to-night who will join in the resolution made by
that earnest man, and say, “By the grace of God I’ll do the same at my
house?”
Notice, finally, that in following this plan of working for Christ we
may, all unconsciously to ourselves, be the means of introducing to
Jesus one who will be of far more service than ever we could have been.
It was Simon Peter whom Andrew brought to Christ. We do not hear much
in the New Testament of Andrew’s after-history, but if he had never
done anything else than lead his brother to the Lord, it was worth
living for just to do that; and when we get to heaven, we shall see
that the lustre of Peter’s crown casts special radiance on Andrew’s
face. When we read of the conversions on the Day of Pentecost; of the
heroic protest before the council; of the conversion of Cornelius; and
above all, when we peruse those two precious letters which Peter has
indited, let us not forget that, humanly speaking, but for Andrew,
Peter would not have been himself a Christian. Doubtless, God could
have called him by some other instrumentality, but he made use of
Andrew to teach us the lesson that, in doing the good that lies at our
hands, we may at length really do more for the Church than we could
have effected by more ostentatious effort in other places. Let the
lowly and timid, therefore, take courage. They may not have shining
talents or commanding position, yet by working where they are they may
be honored in bringing to Jesus some who shall take foremost places
in the Church, or become leaders in some missionary or evangelistic
movement.
Many of the greatest men the Church has known have been converted
through the agency of individuals all but unknown. A humble dissenting
minister, whose name was scarcely heard of a few miles from his
manse, was honored to be of signal service to Thomas Chalmers in the
crisis-hour of his history; and I have heard Mr. Spurgeon tell how he
was led to the Lord by a sermon preached by an unlettered man in a
Primitive Methodist chapel.
Some of the greatest theologians the Church has ever seen, and some
of the most useful ministers who have ever lived, have been made and
molded by so common a thing as a mother’s influence. Robert Pollok,
whose “Course of Time” used to be a household book throughout Scotland,
said once of his poem, “It has my mother’s divinity in it.” Mother,
will you take note of that? Many a time you have regretted that you
could not take part in any public work for Christ, by reason of the
bond that held you to your boy. Regret no more, but bring that boy to
Christ, and he will live to do his own work and his mother’s too; and
when the crown is placed upon his head its diamonds will flash new
glory upon your countenance.
The sum of what we have been saying, then, is this: that each of us
should begin to do all that he can, where he is, for Christ. But if
we would succeed in that effort, we must be sure that we have already
found him for ourselves. A minister had preached a simple sermon upon
the text, “He brought him to Jesus;” and as he was going home, his
daughter, walking by his side, began to speak of what she had been
hearing. She said, “I did so like that sermon.” “Well,” inquired her
father, “whom are you going to bring to Jesus?” A thoughtful expression
came over her countenance as she replied, “I think, papa, that I will
just bring myself to him.” “Capital!” said her father, “that will do
admirably for a beginning.” This, brethren, is the true starting-point.
We must be good, if we would do good. Bring yourselves to Jesus,
therefore; and, as iron by being rubbed upon a magnet, becomes itself
magnetic, so you, being united to Christ, will become partakers in his
attractive power, and will draw men with “the cords of a man,” which
are also “the bands of love.”
[_April 29._]