1. The topics of Christian conversation are as varied as the experiences of the Christian life. But these are sure to be leading topics, all centring in the Unspeakable Gift.
(1) His Name. — We can image the men of Malachi's day who feared the Lord saying, " There are fearful blasphemers abroad. Men speak and act as if truth were a lie, and righteousness a dream. ' Where is the promise of His coming ' ? they cry scorn- fully, as we proclaim Him; while we wait and watch for His judgments, and still He stays His hand. But there is a righteous Lord reigning in the heart of all this discord and confusion. There, through the gloom, His burning eye seems glowing on us. Yes! He is there, living, reigning, until all that resists Him is crushed beneath His feet. Sin He hates, and will confound; purity He loves, and will glorify. Stand fast then ; be strong and of a good courage. Let men laugh or scorn as they will, the Lord our God is a holy Lord, and will magnify His holiness in us and before mankind."
(2) His Power. — His holiness, they would say, is not a name, a word ; it is an infinite force. His awful power will make it a reality before these mockers and scorners, who are but as the chaff which is driven before His breath. With all the pomp of His power He is prepared to uphold our witness, and to vindicate our faith. And were there not moments when for them, too,
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the veil lifted, and they saw ranged round them the gleamin» cohorts of God's angels? Earth would seem to them at such moments but as an ant-hill of petty and malignant schemers; while around, above, beneath them, filling the infinite spaces, were the glorious powers of the Lord.
(3) His Promises. — In dark nights the stars are most blessed guides. And in sad seasons, when earth and heaven are buried in gloom, the earnest few gaze on the stars which peer faintly through the darkness, and watch — oh, how earnestly ! — for the breaking of the day. What God hath said is then most moment- ous. God is veiled from us. We see Him not ; has He left the world to be the devil's own empire ? weary, has He gone, and abandoned it to its doom ? And then the stars of promise shine forth. Light stored for dark hours is treasured for us in the promises, and men draw it thence to glow and shine. Those who pore alone over the promises, when all around them is wrapped in gloom, become stern and fanatical. These men "spake one with another," and a strength which had a heart of love in it, entered into their souls.
(4) His Truth. — Can God suffer Himself to be mocked by the world's folly and wickedness ? The promises ! Where are the seals ? " Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things." In the depths of the buried ages those stars were led forth that man at last might rejoice in them. He made man to be king on the throne of the creation. Will He suffer the devil finally to defile and deface his crown ? " He keepeth truth for ever." He made earth, He made heaven, for His children, and children He will have to inhabit them. Through struggle, sacrifice, anguish, death, He has sought and found them ; He will never lose them more. The " agony and bloody sweat " are the seals of His promises ; the breadth and depth of that suffering and sacrifice is the measure of the immutability of His truth.
^f Truth is not ours to bate and pare down. Truth is God's ; it has God's majesty inherent within it, and it will convert the souls of men, even when it seems rudest and most repelling; and it will do so for this one reason — because it is God's truth, and because we through the grace of God have boldness and faith to put our trust in it.1
1 F. W. Faber, Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects, i. 368.
486 RELIGIOUS CONVERSATION
T[ In course of the speech which he delivered in the House of Commons on the Bradlaugh question on 26th April, 1883, Mr. Gladstone used these words : " Truth is the expression of the Divine mind, and however little our feeble vision may be able to discern the means by which God may provide for its preservation, we may leave the matter in His hands ; and we may be sure that a firm and courageous application of every principle of equity and of justice is the best method we can adopt for the preservation and influence of truth." 1
2. But there are cautions to be observed.
(1) We must be careful not to allow religious conversation under common circumstances to run into argument. Argument is very right in its proper place ; but argument requires a calm- ness which is seldom found without some previous preparation of the mind. If conversation — such as it usually is — grows argu- mentative, it is almost certain to lead on to what is not only useless, but unfavourable to the eliciting of truth, rather, indeed, to much that is really unchristian, and which will afterwards be cause of much regret.