Ledyard, on being summoned before the Geographical Society of Great Britain was told they desired him to visit and do certain work in Africa. After enumerating the perils, the exposure, the hard work, they asked when he could be ready to start. “To-morrow morning,” was the reply. The learned men were astonished. They thought it would take weeks and months to get ready. But God requires even greater promptness than Ledyard’s. He asks, “to-day.” There’s not a moment that has not a work assigned to it, and if neglected it is left undone forever. Like a ship at sea, with compass gone, the boy loses his bearings. It is by the velocity with which a ball is shot from a cannon that it is kept from the ground. It is by a peculiar law that electricity will keep to the wire till it reaches a break, and thus an active Christian boy will keep at the Master’s work until life ends. He will be a Samuel, saying: “Here am I,” (2 Sam. 3:5) and a Paul, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6).
EQUIPMENT.
God not only calls us to work, but He also has a definite work, and equips every worker with ability to do that work. It is not sufficient to testify of being saved and a willingness to be used by God. No. God has something especially for every Christian to do. As surely as we have named the name of Jesus, so surely have we been called to do His service,—a service that is for each one just as definite as for any who have lived before us. We may not be able to do what we would like, but we can do a great deal more than we do for the Master. It is not always—
—“the good thing we accomplish, but the better thing we plan,
Not achievement but Ideal, is the measure of the man.”
There was a boy who led thousands to Christ. He was converted under somewhat peculiar circumstances, and owed the beginning of his religious life largely to the influence exerted upon him by the silent performance of an act of religious duty on the part of a room-mate and fellow-apprentice. This boy’s early years were such as to produce a very unquiet conscience, but the claims of religion continued to assert themselves in his soul amid all his irregularities of conduct. At last he began to have longings for a better life. Sometimes on a Sabbath he would go away by himself and pray. “I wanted to be a Christian,” he said, “but knew not how. I prayed that the Lord would raise up someone in the house to be my guide. I am sure I was sincere in this, and now came the turning point of my life. The gentleman with whom I lived was in need of money, so he took another apprentice for the sake of the premium. This youth had been religiously educated. The apprentices all slept in the same room. The first time this boy lodged with us he knelt down by his bed and prayed in silence. The thought instantly occurred to me as I looked with surprise on the youth bending before God, that there was the answer to my prayer. So it proved. I became acquainted with him and with boyish simplicity he told me the love of Jesus. It was not long before the light of the Gospel shone in my heart.” This boy that did his duty so silently and unconsciously is not known to us, but the boy he led to Christ and who became such a great soul-winner was the eloquent Henry James.
Joel Stratton was a poor, unlettered young man, but he led the great temperance worker John B. Gough to Jesus. It was a kind word and a hearty handshake that brought the white-headed, clear-brained, sweet-spirited, silver-tongued Bishop Simpson to Christ. Robert Eaglen is unknown but for one thing. One day standing up in meeting he attempted to preach the gospel. Before him was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, of whom the great evangelist Richard Knill once said: “That voice will be heard by thousands.” Knill exacted a promise from him, that when he preached in Rowland Hill’s great chapel in London, he would announce the hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way.” This boy heard Eaglen give out the text, “Look unto Me, and, be ye saved.” (Isa. 45:22). Then he caught the eye of the speaker looking at him as he cried, “Look! Look! Look! only look and be saved.” Through that sermon Charles Spurgeon became a Christian. At sixteen he preached his first sermon. At nineteen he was placed on trial as a candidate for a pastorate. He was greeted by an audience of two hundred persons to hear the first sermon, but before his three months’ trial was over, the twelve hundred sittings were all taken, and within a year the house was enlarged. The Royal Surrey Garden Music Hall was then engaged while a larger tabernacle was being built. Ten and twelve thousand people flocked to hear him. Rich and poor, lords and laborers sat at his feet. Men said, “What a brilliant meteor.” But he proved to be a fixed star. He wrote many books, built orphanages until five hundred children were sheltered, erected a college and did a vast amount of good. Great honor is his, but how great that of Robert Eaglen who led him to Jesus.
ONE BOY’S WORK.
Mrs. Phoebe Palmer once told of a boy in England who went to his pastor and asked him if there was something he could do for the Lord. The pastor said, “Why, I don’t know. I do not think you are capable of teaching a class, and hardly old enough to be a judicious tract distributor. I don’t know what you can do.” “Seems to me,” said the boy, “there ought to be something for us boys to do.” The pastor thought a moment and then he asked, “Is your seat-mate in school a Christian?” “No, sir, I think not.” “Then go to work, as the Lord shall show you how, and get him converted. Then take another and another. I cannot tell you exactly what to do, but if you pray, the Saviour will show you how to get them saved.” Some months after when Mrs. Palmer was holding meetings in that place, this boy was lying very ill. The doctors gave him up to die. His father went to the afternoon meeting, and coming home, the boy roused up and asked: “Was Ned Smith at the meeting this afternoon?” “Yes, my son.” “Did he give his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ?” “No, I think not.” “Oh, dear,” said the dying boy, “I thought he would.”
The next day his father again went to the meeting. When he came home the son asked him the same question and expressed the same disappointment that his friend was not converted. The third day he asked the same question and received a different answer. “Yes, Ned gave his heart to the Saviour this afternoon.” “I am so glad,” was the answer. After his death, his parents opened a little box he kept near him, and found a piece of paper with forty boys’ names written upon it. The first one was his seat-mate at the time when he went to the pastor and asked for something to do for the Lord; the last name was that of Ned Smith. Every boy on the list was converted. He had taken them one by one in faith and prayer, giving them books to read, showing them texts of scripture, taking them to church and talking to them about their sins and how Christ would forgive them, and the whole forty had been converted through his efforts.