“The body is not one member, but many” (I. Cor. xii. 14).
We have a friend who has a phonograph for his correspondence. It consists
of two parts. One is a simple and wonderful apparatus, whose sensitive
cylinders receive the tones and then give them out again, word for word,
through the hearing tube. The other part is a common little box that
stands under the table, and does nothing but supply the power through
connecting wires.
Now, the little box might insist upon being the phonograph, and doing the
talking; but if it should, it would not only waste its own life but
destroy the life of its partner.
Its sole business is to supply power to the phonograph, while the latter
is to do the talking. So some of us are called to be voices to speak for
God to our fellow-men, others are forces to sustain them, by our holy
sympathy and silent prayer. (Some of us are little dynamos under the
table, while others are phonographs that speak aloud the messages of
heaven.)
Let each of us be true to our God-given ministry, and when the day comes
our work will be weighed and the rewards distributed.