Still will we trust, though earth seem dark and dreary,
And the heart faint beneath His chastening rod, Though rough and steep our pathway, worn and weary, Still will we trust in God !
Our eyes see dimly till by faith anointed.
And our blind choosing brings us grief and pain; Through Him alone, who hath our way appointed. We find our peace again.
Choose for us, God, nor let our weak preferring
Cheat our poor souls of good Thou hast designed: Choose for us, God ! Thy wisdom is unerring, And we are fools and blind.
So from our sky the night shall furl her shadows.
And day pour gladness through her golden gates; Our rough path lead to flower-enamelled meadows, Where joy our coming waits.
Let us press on: in patient self-denial.
Accept the hardship, shrink not from the loss; Our guerdon lies beyond the hour of trial. Our crown beyond the cross.^
^ Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 10. » W. H. Burleigh.
144 THE CHOICE OF A MASTER
III.
There are only Two Masters to choose between.
1. God will accept no divided allegiance. He will have from us all or nothing in the way of service. " No man," says our Lord, " can serve two masters " (Matt. vi. 24). The alternative, as Joshua put it to Israel, was between the One True God and some of the many false gods of that age ; the alternative for us, in the matter of service, is between sin and Christ. Our choice lies between these two only. Servants to the one or the other we must be.
Thou canst not choose but serve; man's lot is servitude; But this of choice thou hast, a bad lord or a good.^
^ We may engage in a thousand pursuits. There is always
one of two great ruling principles which guides our thoughts,
words, and actions, and gives a distinct and peculiar colouring
I kf our whole life. And it is from these two dominating powers
Mihat we have to choose — God or the devil, the love of virtue or
the love of vice.
^ I remember so well, soon after my conversion, the exercise of mind I went through in 1844. I was ambitious and deter- mined to get on in my profession, and I felt the three or four seasons of reading and prayer that I had set aside each day were a great hindrance to me in the way of military studies, and that if my mind was always so full of religious thought and reading I could not hope to make a name for myself. So the question came plainly before my mind, " Shall I choose to live to God, and keep up all this reading and prayer (which I felt needful because of my sinful, unruly heart), or lessen these exercises and apply myself to get on in the service ? " I have never regretted the choice God helped me to make, and I believe He gave me great blessing in consequence, and has not even allowed me to fall behind my contemporaries in a professional point of view, but, as you know, has always prospered me in my work, and preserved me through perils.^
. . ^ Many lives which reach different goals start together in the
l/closest intimacy. The characters of two lads, who are side by
side in the same home or in the same school, are akin, and there
^ Archbishop Trench.
* Sir John Field, Jottings from an Indian Journal, 127.
JOSHUA XXIV. 15 145
is no apparent reason why they should not have the same value in the world. The possibilities, humanly speaking, are inter- changeable. They sing from the same book, bow in prayer on the same hearth-stone, and show the same susceptibility to good impressions. For years their lives run parallel in the same church, the same business house, the same city. But after a while they get more or less apart. One is strict, conscientious, diligent in good works. The other loves society, grows lax in his habits, neglects the house of God. Their sympathies flow in diametrically opposed channels. One pours out his life on a foreign soil in the service of the Cross ; the other dies on the scaffold or in a convict prison.^
■[j The river Amazon and the chief tributary of the river Plate rise within a few hundred yards of each other, and the Indians often drag their canoes from one stream to the other over the intervening strip of land. For many miles the little rivers run in parallel channels, and it often seems as though they might unite into one. At last a little knoll or ridge is reached, and the waterways diverge. It is difficult to judge what issues are involved in this turning-point, for it gives complexion to the entire map of South America, and it has put the stamp of destiny upon some great empires. These two rivers never come within sight of each other again, and empty themselves into the sea more than a thousand miles apart.
2. One may say, " I do not know on whose side I am, it is so difficult to tell what is truth and what is false." But we are not required to settle difficult questions in casuistry : we are asked to take a side when we see that there are two sides and only one of them can be taken. It is not a choice of the intellect ; it is a choice of the will.