Now pour effectual prayers
And strongly speak for thee.
If you would die like our dear Brother Knowles, in the Lord, then to-day behold His wounded hands and side. We have all sinned against God and abused His mercy; but, oh, let us to-day consecrate ourselves to Christ, and like the prodigal son say, "I will arise and go to my father." Christ is our great representative before the throne. Oh, that He would ever teach us to offer this prayer:
Lord God of Hosts, my prayer hear;
O Jacob's God, give ear!
See God, our shield, look on the face
Of thine anointed dear.
I tell you, my friends, we do not want any new school theology. The holy religion of our fathers is good enough for me. Here it is a loving father, a crucified and triumphant and pleading saviour for us poor, miserable and helpless sinners, and a Home beyond the flood.
I will arise now and go about the city, in the streets, on the cars, in the workshop, on the ship, on the sea and land where-ever God may guide my wandering footsteps through each perplexing path of life. And I will seek Him whom my soul loveth.
They rest from their labors and their works do follow them. The Psalmist says that our strength is labor and sorrow. The more we toil for Christ and His church the more we honor Him and become fruit-bearers. By a constant course of activity and devotedness for the welfare of fallen humanity, the capacities of the soul are greatly enlarged, and we apprehend more fully the fact that God hath put the treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man. Sometimes, too, our good will be evil spoken of and attributed to selfish motives. We may be traduced by tongues which neither know our faculties nor our person. 'Tis but the rough road that virtue must go through. We must not allow any discouragements or censure to retard our aggressive work, remembering constantly that the Master was accused of having a devil, and that he cast out devils by the power of Beelzebub. Oh, what wrong ideas men have of the great work of saving souls. What prejudices, what indifference, what neglect, what lukewarmness have the true servants of Christ to encounter as they earnestly toil in transplanting souls into the vineyard of the Lord.