* J. E. McFadyen, The Divine Pursuit, 155.
* Mgr. Fenton, in The Life of Cardinal Vaughan^ i. 91.
ST. JOHN IX. 4 415
Lord, send us forth among Thy fields to work ! Shall we for words and names contending be,
Or lift our garments from the dust we see, And all the noonday heat and burden shirk ? The fields are white for harvest, shall we stay
To find a bed of roses for the night.
And watch the far-off cloud that comes to sight, Lest it should burst in showers upon our way ? Fhng off, my soul, thy grasping self, and view
With generous ardour all thy brothers' need ;
Fling off thy thoughts of golden ease, and weed A corner of thy Master's vineyard too.
The harvest of the world is great indeed, 0 Jesus ! and the labourers are few.^
II.
How We must Work.
1. It must he God's work. — Much has been said in these days as to work. Some of the most piercing and emphatic voices which the century has heard have made work the keynote of their message, proclaiming it as at once the end of man's being and the gospel of his deliverance. So far, there is no fault to be found with them, for anything that will wake men and shame men out of idleness must be good. But, after all, work for the mere work's sake is a doubtful evangel to preach. It is true that inactivity has its sins, but it is true that work has its own sins also. There are those who work till their work carnalizes them, and their being becomes sense- bound and earth-bound, dense as the clods that they break in their fields, mechanical as the wheels that they turn in their mills, shrivelled as the parchments that they study in their office-rooms. No, there is nothing that is necessarily elevating, nothing that is necessarily purifying, nothing that is necessarily acceptable, in work. Work may be done that is wrong work ; work that is right may be wrongly done ; and the only reception for which the workman is toihng may be this: " Unfaithful and unprofitable servant, who hath required these things at thy hand ? " But here is a text for the labourer, both defining the scope of his tasks and ennobling and sanctifying ^ Martha Perry Lowe.
4i6 A TIME TO WORK
their nature: "I must work the works of him that sent me." That is, " What I do, I will do because God has assigned it, and I will do it, too, because God will therein be glorified, His character unfolded, His purpose proclaimed, and His gospel adorned among men." And with that as our great guiding principle we have all that we need. It contains the secret of labour's redemption, it yields the germ and the pledge of labour's reward.
^ It may be questioned whether any work of fiction ever produced so tangible an effect as the impetus which Uncle Toms Cabin gave to the destruction of American slavery. The author's account of the matter was characteristically simple : " I did not write it ; God wrote it." ^
^ I too could now say to myself : Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name ! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee : out with it, then. Up, up ! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day ; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.^
2. To do God's work we must have received His Spirit. — We cannot do God's works unless we have received His Spirit and accepted His will as the law of our lives so as to have become fellow-workers with Him. It is only those who surrender their hearts in faith and love to God, only those in whose souls God savingly works by His Holy Spirit, who can truly labour in God's service. Otherwise than through regeneration there is no possi- bility of becoming one of His workmen. His works are spiritual works which can be performed only by spiritual men. If we have not repented of our sins and turned from them to God ; if we have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ ; if we have not come under the influence of the Holy Spirit; then, no matter how diligently and strenuously we may toil, or how useful our exertions may seem to ourselves or others, the works we do are not the works which God would have us to do, for they are not done in dependence on His Spirit.
1 G. W. E. Russell, AfterthaughtSy 70.
2 Carlyle, Sartor Eesarhts, bk. ii. ch. x.
ST. JOHN IX. 4 417
III.
When We must Work.
1. Chrisfs interpretation of the "day." — Christ uses the language of urgency. His Divine mission must be fulfilled in the brief space of His " day " of opportunity, or not fulfilled at all. We gain a glimpse of our Lord's view of His own career. He, like all His brethren, worked under the hard conditions of risk and uncertainty. His " day " was a short one. The life of Jesus in the world had ended when most human lives may be said to be but beginning. It is, indeed, true that His earthly career is but an episode in His warfare against evil, but it is no less true that it is the supreme episode on which hung the issue of men's redemption. After the Passion the conditions of Christ's life changed ; there was no longer any opportunity for the perform- ance of those works by which, in terms of human experience, the character of the unseen, unknown Father might be discovered to human view. The life of Christ constitutes the revelation of God, and that revelation is adequate and faithful as that life is perfect.