* A, H. Moncur Sime.
464 WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING
these in their work, how much more is it essential with well-doers in theirs ! ^
2. The time of reaping. — In due season we shall gain our victory and His, and we shall reap our harvest. The months before the ingathering may often seem long and wearisome, and verily be heart-breaking things, but God's " seasons " are not always measurable by our forecastings, even though the harvest is pledged by His oath and His promise. We shall reap the growth effectuated by His Holy Spirit, though we may not always understand the nature of the gracious sheaves that we are bringing in our bosom. We cannot calculate the hour or the nature of our triumph, but we know that the word of God stands sure, and that the due season draws nigh. We know that we shall reap if we faint not.
Let us not forget that God must be the judge of the " due time." We are often in a hurry; God never is. Perhaps the greatest miracle in Christ's life is that He should wait thirty years before performing a miracle. He bided His time. Undue haste pays the penalty of speedy decay. Did we know all the reasons as God knows them we should always approve of His seeming delay. How few converts, apparently, there were in Christ's personal ministry ! but one sermon on the day of Pentecost brings three thousand to Jeeue' feet. Soon the number increased so rapidly that Luke ceases to give us figures. Carey and his companions must labour seven years before the first Hindu convert is baptized. Judson must toil on until the churches grow disheartened, and everything but his own faith and God's promise fails. In a single recent year eighteen thousand are baptized in connexion with work on these same foreign fields ! These things are not accidental. They have their reasons. We cannot always trace the law. God can. Let us do our duty, and leave the result with Him.
^ It is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of men that, in proportion to the time between the seed sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit ; and that generally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be the witnesses of what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success.*
* W. S. Kelynack. * Ruskin, Seven Lamps ^ Arehttectvrt.
GAL. VI. 9 465
My new-cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare ;
By my own work, before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer.
If there be good in that I wrought, Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine :
Where 1 have failed to meet Thy thought, I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.
One instant's toil to Thee denied
Stands all Eternity's offence, Of what I did with Thee to guide.
To Thee, through Thee, be excellence.
Who, lest all thought of Eden fade, Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain,
Godlike to muse o'er his own trade, And Manlike stand with God again.
The depth and dream of my desire.
The bitter paths wherein I stray, Thou knowest who hast made the fire,
Thou knowest who hast made the clay.
One stone the more swings to her place
In that dread Temple of Thy Worth- It is enough that through Thy grace I saw naught common on Thy earth.
Take not that vision from my ken;
Oh, whatsoe'er may spoil or speed. Help me to need no aid from men,
That I may help such men as need ! *
3. The condition of reaping. — We have an encouraging promise. But a condition is also suggested. We must not faint. We must persevere to the end. There must be no repining, no retreating, no fainting. We enlist for life, for eternity indeed. The dew of youth, the vigour of manhood, and the wisdom of age must be consecrated to well-doing. It is " to them who by patient con- tinuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality," that the promise of blessedness is given.
* Rudyard Kipling. 2 COR. & GAL. — 30
466 WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING
Slothfulness in the summer may frustrate all the labour of the spring ; and may even in the harvest of life have lost the gain of summer. The last few paces of our field may be perhaps the heaviest ; but those who give up now might as well have left all the rest undone.
^ One of the sterling virtues in practical life is continuance — continuance through all obstacles, hindrances, and discouragements. It is unconquerable persistence that wins. The paths of life are strewn with the skeletons of those who fainted and fell in the march. Life's prizes can be won only by those who will not fail. Success in every field must be reached through antagonism and conflict.^
■ff Euskin, in a letter written to his Oxford tutor after he had left the University, gives an account of what he did not learn there. He says his teachers should have said to him, when he was an undergraduate, " In all your studies, we have only one request to make you, and that we expect you scrupulously to comply with : That you work with patience as well as diligence, and take care to secure every step you take : we do not care how much or how little you do — but let what you do, be done for ever." ^