"No, I Clistian man."
"Do you play cards?"
"No, I Clistian man."
He was engaged, and proved to be a capable servant. By and by the lady gave a bridge-party, with wine accompaniments. The Chinaman did his part acceptably, but the next morning he appeared before his mistress.
"I want quit," he said.
"Why? What is the matter?"
"I Clistian man. I told you so before; no heathen; no workee for 'Melican heathen."
These heathen brothers of ours are not fools. They are a keen lot. They judge our religion by us who profess it, as we do with them and theirs. There may come a wide-spread practical disbelief, or lack of belief, that there is any practical power in Christ to change a man's life, and really control his actions. And it will be a perfectly logical conclusion from what they find in us Christian nations as a whole.
Death or Deep Water.
And then there are some mighty bad dangers on the other side—our side. If it be true that every generation needs the Gospel, it is just as true that every generation of Christians needs to give the Gospel. It is the very life of a Christian to give himself out in earnest service for others. The man who is failing there has started on the down grade in his Christian life. If we lose the spirit of "go" we have lost the very Christian spirit itself. A disobedient church will become a dead church. It will die of heart failure.