T[ There has come to you some bit of a call to service, to each a class, or to write a special letter, or speak a word, or take up something needing to be done. And you hesitate. You think that you cannot. You are not fit, you think ; not qualified. The thing to do is to do it. If the call is clear, go ahead. Need is one of the strong calling voices of God. It is always safe to 1 P. M'Adam Muir. »T. Adamson, The Spirit of Power, 41.
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20 POWER FOR WITNESS
respond. Put out your foot in the answering swing, even though you cannot see clearly the place to put it down. God attends to that part. Power comes as we go.1
2. The witness must also be suitable to time and circumstances. It is now acknowledged that the twentieth-century Christian can think only the thought of the twentieth century ; hence it is a delusion to think that we men of to-day can hold quite the same belief as the Christian of the first century or the Christian of the sixteenth century. Mr. A. J. Balfour has done good service in making it plain that Eeligious Knowledge is subject to the same change and development as all other knowledge. " The fact that theological thought follows the laws which govern the evolution of all other thought, that it changes from age to age, largely as regards the relative emphasis given to its various elements, not inconsiderably as regards the substance of those elements them- selves, is a fact written legibly across the pages of ecclesiastical history." Bearing this truism in mind, we shall understand that the measure of the present vitality of our religion is its power to readjust its conceptions, and to readapt its institutions to their environment. The religious teacher of to-day must be ready to bring out of his treasury things new as well as old ; he must never be weary of translating into the current idiom the thoughts of old, but he must also be ever ready to welcome the fresh voices of later wisdom. And while in no way disparaging the partial formulae in which men of old expressed their faith, we must beware lest we regard our own view of truth as final.
Tf Matthew Arnold well expressed the modern spirit when he wrote : " An age which has its face towards the future, and in which men are full of plans for the welfare of the world, is not an age that has lost its faith. Its temper of mind is constructive ; it is eager for new institutions, keen for new ideas, and has already a half- belief in a future in which all things will be new." With these hopeful words ringing in our ears, let us attempt to face the religious problems of the present age.2
Not clinging to some ancient saw;
Not master'd by some modern term ;
Not swift nor slow to change, but firm : And in its season bring the law.
1 S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 37. 2 G. F. Terry.
ACTS i. 8 21
Meet is it Chances should control Our being, lest we rust in ease: We are all changed by still degrees,
All — but the basis of the soul.
3. The life of witnessing is not one of easy self-complacency, still less of morbid emotionalism, but of constant unobtrusive earnestness amid the commonplace work of the world. To witness truly we must be "doers of the word and not hearers only," we must live lustrous lives, we must be valiant for the truth and wrestle bravely with individual and national sin, we must strengthen the feeble knees and encourage fainting hearts.
^j When some one asked Sir Joshua Eeynolds how long it had taken him to paint a certain pi ture, he answered, " All my life." "If I omit one day's practice," Eubinstein is reported to have said, " I know it the next day, the critics know it the day after, and the public the day after that." If, then, it be true that —
The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night;
how is it to be supposed that it can be otherwise with great Christians ? Our Lord bids us " strive to enter in at the strait gate," literally, to agonize to do it ; and St. Paul declares : " By the grace of God I am what I am," yet immediately addB, " and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they all." So in this matter of witnessing he will succeed best who takes most pains.1
^ The man who witnesses for the Master to-day has not to face outward danger or brave a martyr's death. But with the age of persecution the difficulties of the Christian life have not passed away. In maintaining in the unambitious routine of humble duties a spirit of Christian cheerfulness and contentment — in the constant reference to lofty ends amid lowly trials — there may be evinced faith as strong as that of the man who dies with the song of martyrdom on his lips. It is a great thing to love Christ so dearly as to be ready to die for Him : but it is often a thing not less great to be ready to live for Him. To do this effectively demands not a little effort on our part. Those who have the best right to speak have been unanimous in their