Standards of Life and Service

by Thomas Henry Howard

That is a very definite thing done, and it illustrates the central idea of the verse which I have read to you.

Some time ago I went with The General to Stockholm, where the Swedish Officers were gathered together for their annual Congress. At the close of the Councils I asked an Officer how he liked the Meetings, and what the result would be. He replied, 'Commissioner, it's just like this. It is as if The General during these days builded an altar, and to-night we all climbed upon that altar offering ourselves a sacrifice unto God, and the fire came down and sanctified the offering.'

The true worship and service of God—it need not be told—involves sacrifice. If any one here feels that religion is all a question of how much he can get out of God by saying so many prayers or offering so many donations, he has a totally wrong conception of what it is. I know that there are many who regard their vows to God very lightly. They seem to think they can get through their religion without much self-denial. Religion of that sort, however, is worth nothing either to those who possess it or to the Lord whom they profess to serve. Without self-sacrifice, without self-denial, religion comes to nothing, or, at any rate, amounts to very little.

I do not desire that you should imitate the senseless practices prevailing in some countries, where the people are allowed to build their hopes of Salvation upon penance and self-torture. And yet we are sometimes put to shame by the things we hear and see.

A short time ago I received a letter from a young Officer in India. After describing some pleasing scenes, he said, 'One sees some awful things out here. I saw a man the other day literally walking upon nails. It made me shiver. He imagined that by this he could save his soul. With what passion I wished that man could only understand that other nails were pierced in other feet for him! But you see how in earnest the people here are about their religion, and in all these things they are seeking for Salvation.'

There are not many who are prepared to do what that poor Indian devotee did. They are a long way off that. But unless they are prepared to include sacrifice in their religion, they are not on the lines either of their Lord's example or their Lord's words. The cross, the following, the denial of self, the Calvary path, cannot be excluded from the life of Christ's follower.

Whilst true service must always be a spiritual thing, do not imagine it is something merely 'in the mind'. I have heard it talked about in the same way as a doctor talked to a poor lad who had his thumb crushed in a machine.

'Don't shout, my poor boy', he said. 'Don't you know I feel it as truly as you do?'

'Perhaps so,' replied the boy; 'but you feels it in your mind, and I feels it in my thumb!'

Sacrifice is often talked about by some people who feel it perhaps as much as the doctor felt the crushed thumb, being largely a matter of sympathy, without the actual hurting.