Somebody showed it the way.
An example was put before it. A stick was thrown in, and the iron imitated it. O, the power of a godly example!
Let us who work among the ungodly show them the way to live. Let the churches move over the places where the degraded lie. We shall never lift them while we remain in our beautiful churches and chapels. Only this week we saw the iron made to swim, by the personal contact of ministers and well-dressed people taking hold of the street folk, and cheerily inviting them into God’s house. A man may be only “a stick” when in the pulpit; but in hearty personal dealing with the degraded, he may be one who can make the iron to swim.
* * * * *
“LIVE IT.”
A good man, the other day, was advising Ministers to preach more on the doctrine of “Entire Sanctification.” One of them replied,
“Let us live it, that is the best way to preach it.”
Perhaps both were right; one thing is certain, that the way to make the doctrine more popular is, to have more of those who believe it to “live it.” We might greatly increase the number of preachers, for every Christian might preach. Women as well as men, we might preach every day, for every duty would be a pulpit, and every trial an oration. No one would complain the sermons were too long; for all people are willing that you should never cease to do them good. What say you reader! Will you enter the ranks of this Ministry?
V. THE BATTLE OF THE BEANFIELD.
2 Samuel, xxiii, 11, 12.
What a picture is here! A field of ripe beans, just ready for the harvest, and then the leaves and pods all blood-stained or trampled down! Those Philistines liked to fight rather than to work, preferring plunder to ploughing, so they would cross the border and carry away the results of the farmer’s toil. But they made a mistake in coming where Shammah lived!