Quiet Talks on Service

by S. D. Gordon

Better turn your gown, and readjust your hat, for the sacrifice involved will give a new beauty to the spirit looking out through your face. And real folks will not be able to get past the beauty of face to the incidentals of your apparel. Wear your derby another season, and get your shoes half-soled, and some deft mending done. Let that extra horse go to other buyers, and the automobile be picked up by somebody who has not yet mined any of the fine gold of sacrifice. The coming rainy day will never be able to use up all that some folks are salting down for it.

And yet some folks, many folks, should be spending more on their bodies and giving less. The giving should never intrench upon the strength of one's personality. That is a treasure to be sacredly guarded. All the power of one's life, in serving, in giving, in praying, in speaking, and in personal contact, the power of all roots down in the personality. The safe rule, and the only safe rule, is to decide such questions with the knee-joint bent, and the door shut, and the spirit willing. A strong will played upon by the Holy Spirit, mellowed by emotions that have been moved by the need, and held steady by a disciplined judgment must attend to loosening the purse-strings.

But the one fact being emphasized here just now is that the element of sacrifice must be in the giving if it is to be effective. Sacrifice was the dominant factor in God's giving of His Son, real sacrifice. It was dominant in Jesus' giving of His own self and His life, keen cutting sacrifice. Who will follow in their train? Whoever will, will be getting a post-graduate course in financiering and in multiplying of values. He will be astonished at the results working out, and most astonished at the final disclosures.

Keeping out of circulation more than one's wants, properly adjusted, call for is poor financiering. For that which is held back is not earning anything. All beyond one's needs should be out in circulation for the Master in His campaign for a world. Yet nowhere is there finer chance or greater need for the play of keen judgment than in deciding that question of need. Mistakes are made on both sides. It looks very much as though the most serious mistakes are being made on the side of too little sacrifice or none. Yet clearly some serious mistakes are made on the other side too. But no one may criticise another. Each must decide for himself. In the judgment of charity we are to presume that each is doing what he thinks right and best. We are, none of us, the keeper of our brother's purse.

A Living Sacrifice.

There is a simple story told that contains its truth in its very naturalness and simplicity. It reveals a bit of the real life ever going on all around us unnoticed. A minister in a certain small town in an eastern state received from the home mission board of his church a letter asking for a special offering for a needy field in the West. With the letter was literature setting forth the need. The call appealed to him and with good heart he prepared a special sermon, calling the attention of his people to the great need.

Sabbath morning came and he preached the sermon. But somehow it did not just seem to hook in. That banker down there on the left looked listless, and yawned a couple of times behind his hand. And the merchant over on the right, who could give freely, examined his watch secretly more than once. And so it was with a little tinge of discouragement insistently creeping into his spirit that he finished, and sat down. And he remained with head bowed in prayer that the results might prove better than seemed likely, while the church officers passed down the aisles with the collection plates.

Meanwhile something unseen by human eye was going on in the very last pew. Back there, sitting alone, was a little girl of a poor family. She had met with a misfortune which left her crippled. And her whole life seemed so dark and hopeless. But some kind friends in the church, pitying her condition, had made up a small fund and bought her a pair of crutches. And these had seemed to transform her completely. She went about her rounds always as cheery and bright as a bit of sunshine.

She had listened to the sermon, and her heart had been strangely warmed by the preacher's story of need. And as he was finishing she was thinking, "How I wish I might give something. But I haven't anything to give, not even a copper left." And a very soft voice within seemed to say very softly, but very distinctly, "There are your crutches." "Oh," she gasped to herself as though it took away her very breath, "my crutches? I couldn't give my crutches; they're my life." And that strangely clear voice went on, so quietly, "Yes--you could--and then some one would know of Jesus--if you did--and that would mean so much to them--He's meant so much to you--give your crutches." And her breath seemed to fail her at the thought. And so the little woman had her fight all unseen and unknown by those in the church. And by and by the victory came. And she sat with a beautiful light in her tearful eyes, and a smile coming to her lips, waiting for the plate to get to her pew.

And the man with the plate came down the aisle to the end. It seemed hardly worth while reaching it into the last pew. Just little Maggie sitting there alone, with her one foot dangling above the floor. But with fine courtesy he stopped and passed the plate in. And Maggie in her childlike simplicity lifted her crutches, and tried rather awkwardly to put them on the collection plate. Quick as a flash the man caught her thought, and with a queer lump in his throat reached out and steadied her strange gift on the plate.