Christ, in the third place, from the master motive of the Savior's
constraining love. "The love of Christ constraineth us"--forces
us along, carries us away as with the impetuosity of a torrent,
or rather as when cool heavens and favoring air speed the vessel
steadily to the haven. Love is at once man's most powerful motive
and his highest inspiration, both in the life that now is and that
which is to come. From love to Christ spring the most devoted
obedience, the most untiring efforts in His service. There are
other springs of action, I know, by which men are influenced
to a profession of religion. Interest can occasionally affect
godliness from sordid aims, and behave itself decorously amid the
respectabilities of the temple-going and almsgiving religion; but it
will give its arm to any man that goes down to the house of Rimmon;
and if there is a decree that at the sound of all kinds of music
they are to fall down before another image which has been erected in
the plains of Dura, they will be the most obsequious benders of the
knee. Men sometimes practise obedience under the influence of fear.
A sudden visitation, a prevailing epidemic, an alarming appeal, will
strike into momentary concern; but when the indignation is overpast,
and the craven soul has recovered from its paroxysms of terror,
there will often be a relapse into more than the former atrocities
of evil. Convictions of duty may and sometimes will induce a man,
like an honest Pharisee of the olden time, to observe rigidly the
enactments of the law; but there will be no heart in his obedience,
and no holy passion in his soul; but let the love of God be shed
abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him, let there be
a perception of love in God, let there be sight of the Crucified as
well as of the cross, and there will be disinterested, and cheerful,
and hearty obedience. Zeal for God will become at once a passion and
a principle, intensifying every purpose into ardor, and filling the
whole soul with vehemence of absorbing desire. This is the emotion
from whose natural and inevitable outflow the apostle vindicates
impassioned zeal.
Opinions are divided as to whether the constraining love spoken of
in the text refers to Christ's love to us or to our love to Him,
which the sense of His love has enkindled in the soul. I do not
think we can go far wrong if we take both meanings, inasmuch as no
principle of exposition is violated, and as we need the pressure of
a combination of motive, that we may be zealously affected always
in this good thing. Ye, then, if there are any of you here who
need rousing to energy in the service of Christ, think of His love
to you; how rich its manifestations, and how unfeigned; how all
other love of which it is possible for you to conceive shrinks in
the comparison! There have been developments in the histories of
years of self-sacrificing affection, which has clung to the loved
object amid hazard and suffering, and which has been ready even
to offer up life in its behalf. Orestes and Pylades, Damon and
Pythias, David and Jonathan, what lovely episodes their histories
give us amid a history of selfishness and sin! Men have canonized
them, partly because such instances are rare, and partly because
they are like a dim hope of redemption looming from the ruins of
the fall. We have it on inspired authority, indeed, "Greater love
hath no man than this"--this is the highest point which man can
compass, this is the culminating point of that affection which man
can by possibility attain, the apex of his loftiest pyramid goes
no higher than this--"greater love hath no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friend; but God commendeth his love
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." A
brother has sometimes made notable efforts to retrieve a brother's
fortunes, or to blanch his sullied honor; but there is a Friend that
sticketh closer than a brother. A father has bared his breast to
shield his offspring from danger, and a mother would gladly die for
the offspring of her womb; but a father's affection may fail in its
strength, and yet more rarely a mother's in its tenderness.
And "can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have
compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I
not forget thee." O Jesus of Nazareth, who can declare Thee? "Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his
Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Think of that love--love
which desertion could not abate--love which ingratitude could not
abate--which treachery could not abate--love which death could not
destroy--love which, for creatures hateful and hating one another,
stooped to incarnation, and suffered want, and embraced death, and
shrank not even from the loathesomeness and from the humiliation
of burial; and then, with brimming eye, and heart that is full of
wonder: "Why such love to me?" you will indeed be ungrateful if you
are not stirred by it to an energy of consecration and endeavor,
which may well seem intemperate zeal to cool reckoners with worldly
wisdom.
Then take the other side of the argument; take it as referring to
your love to Christ, which the sense of His love has enkindled in
the soul. The deepest affection in the believing heart will always
be the love of Jesus. The love of home, the love of friends, the
love of letters, the love of rest, the love of travel, and all
else, are contracted by the side of this master passion. "A little
deeper," said one of the veterans of the first Napoleon's old
guard, when they were probing in his bosom for a bullet that had
mortally wounded him, and he thought they were getting somewhere
in the region of the heart--"a little deeper and you will find
the Emperor." Engraven on the Christian's heart deeper than all
other love of home or friends, with an ineffaceable impression that
nothing can erase, you find the loved name of Jesus. Oh! let this
affection impel us, and who shall measure our diligence or repress
our zeal? Love is not bound by rule; there is no law that can bind
it; it is never below the precept, it is always up to the precept,
but it always has a margin of its own. It does not calculate,
with mathematical exactitude, with how little of obedience it can
escape penalty and secure recompense; like its Master it gives in
princely style; it is exuberant in its manifestations; there is
always enough and to spare. And if meaner motive can prompt to
heroic action--if from pure love of science astronomers can cross
the ocean familiarly, and dare encounter dangers, just that they may
watch in distant climes the transit of a planet across the disc of
the sun--and if botanists can travel into inhospitable climes and
sojourn among inhospitable men, only to gather specimens of their
gorgeous flora--and if, with no motive but love of country, and no
recompense save bootless tears and an undying name, a Willoughby
could sacrifice himself to blow up a magazine, and a Sarkeld could
fire the Cashmere Gate at Delhi, surely we, with obligations
incomparably higher, with the vows of profession on our lips, with
death busy in the midst of us, and souls going down from our
doors into a joyless and blasted immortality, ought to present our
life-blood, if need be, for the cause of Christ, and for the good
of souls. Let the scoffers spurn at us as they will; we are far
superior to such poor contumely. Heaven applauds our enthusiasm, and
we vindicate it in the apostle's words: "If we be beside ourselves,
it is to God; and if we be sober, it is for your cause."
HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC
_A Most Suggestive and Practical Self-Instructor_
BY GRENVILLE KLEISER
Author of "Power and Personality In Speaking," Etc.
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Mechanics of Elocution Previous Preparation
Mental Aspects Physical Preparation
Public Speaking Mental Preparation
Selections for Practise Moral Preparation
Preparation of Speech
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HOW TO DEVELOP
POWER AND PERSONALITY
IN SPEAKING
BY GRENVILLE KLEISER
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Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as
printed.
Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
original text.