l^qu^atl|p& by Irtm to 
 
 tl^f Sltbrarg of 
 
 Prinrrtott Slliwlngtral S^^mmar^ 
 
 BV 4531 ,M5 1897 
 Miller, J. R. 1840-1912. 
 In his steps 
 
IN HIS STEPS 
 
 A Book for Young Christians 
 
 BY 
 
 J. R. MILLER, D.D. 
 
 Author of "Week-Day Religion," "Home-Making, 
 "Silent Times," etc. 
 
 "Wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the 
 earth, there have I coveted to set my foot too."— Mr. 
 Standfast. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1885, 1897, by The Trustees of 
 
 The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
 School Work 
 
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 
 
 THE object of this little book is to help 
 young Christians as they begin their new 
 life. It contains merely a few suggestions 
 and counsels by an older brother who has 
 gone a little farther on the way, who has 
 experienced some of the difficulties and 
 dangers and learned a little of the help 
 Christ is ready to give to those who will 
 accept it. 
 
 This book has been prepared specially to 
 meet the desire of pastors and sessions who 
 wish to give to those whom they receive into 
 the Church a suitable manual of instruction 
 and help. Thousands of copies of the 
 former edition have been given in this way. 
 The book may be found suitable also for 
 teachers to put into the hands of young 
 people in their classes who wish to begin the 
 Christian Ufe. 
 
 This nev' edition contains much new 
 matter, and the whole book has been care- 
 fully revised. 
 
 J. R. M. 
 Philadelphia. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — Uniting with the Church . . 7 
 
 II. — Beginning Well 14 
 
 III. — The Christian Life: The Ideal 20 
 
 IV. — Living for God: Consecration 27 
 
 V. — Meeting Temptation: Conflict 36 
 
 VI. — Working for Christ : Service . 44 
 
 VII. — Helps: Personal Prayer ... 53 
 
 VIII.— Helps : The Bible 64 
 
 IX. — Helps : The Church and its Ser- 
 vices ^. 75 
 
 X. — Some of the Duties 90 
 
 XL— Growing in One's Place : Provi- 
 dence 97 
 
 XII. — Preparation for Trial .... 104 
 
 5 
 
IN HIS STEPS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Uniting with the Church. 
 
 nrO unite with the church is to take one's 
 place among the followers of the Master. 
 It is a pubhc act. It is a confession of Christ 
 before men. It is not a profession of superior 
 saintliness ; on the other hand, it is a distinct 
 avowal of personal sinfulness and unworthi- 
 ness. Those who seek admission into the 
 church come as sinners, needing and accept- 
 ing the mercy of God and depending upon 
 the atonement of Christ for the forgiveness 
 of their sins. 
 
 They come confessing Christ. They have 
 heard his call, " Follow me," and have re- 
 sponded. Uniting with the church is taking 
 a place among the friends of Christ ; it is 
 coming out from the world to be on Christ's 
 side. There are but two parties among men. 
 " He that is not with me is against me," said 
 Jesus. The church consists of those who 
 
 7 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 are with Christ. This suggests one of the 
 reasons why those who love Christ should 
 take their place in the church. By so doing 
 they declare to all the world where they 
 stand and cast all the influence of their life 
 and example on Christ's side. 
 
 Secret discipleship fails at this point. 
 However much we may love Christ, how- 
 ever intimate our fellowship with him may 
 be, however sincere our friendship for him, 
 he misses in us the outspoken loyalty of a 
 true confession which proclaims his name in 
 its every breath. Secret discipleship hides 
 its light and fails to honor Christ before men. 
 
 Uniting with the church is a declaration 
 that one has joined the company of Christ's 
 disciples. Disciples are learners. Young 
 Christians have entered the school of Christ 
 — have only entered it. They do not profess 
 to have attained perfection ; they profess 
 only to have begun the Christian life. 
 
 Jesus took his first disciples into his school 
 and for three years taught and trained them. 
 He made known to them the great truths of 
 Christianity which he had come to reveal — 
 truths about God, about his kingdom on the 
 earth, about duty. Then he taught them 
 how to live. 
 
 In like manner the disciples of Christ who 
 enter his church now become his scholars. 
 They may be very ignorant, but this is no 
 8 
 
Uniting with the Church. 
 
 reason why they should not be admitted to 
 the school of the great Teacher. They 
 should not wait to increase their knowledge 
 before they become his disciples. The very 
 purpose of a school is to take those who 
 are ignorant and teach them. 
 
 But one condition of admittance as a 
 scholar is, a desire to learn and a readiness 
 to be taught. Of the first Christians, after 
 the day of Pentecost, it is given as one of the 
 marks of new hfe in them, that they con- 
 tinued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching. 
 They were eager to learn all they could hear 
 about Jesus, and therefore they lost no oppor- 
 tunity of listening to the teaching of the 
 apostles, who had been with Jesus for three 
 years. Young Christians should always be 
 eager to learn. This is one of the objects 
 of church membership. 
 
 In different ways is this instruction given. 
 A Christian home should be a school of 
 Christ. The Christian mother is Christ's first 
 apostle to her children who should learn 
 from her lips the great lessons of life. Home 
 teachings come first when the mind is open 
 and the heart is tender and sensitive to 
 impressions. The Sabbath-school is designed 
 to do an important work in teaching the 
 young the truths of Christianity. The pastor 
 is a teacher. He has been trained to be an 
 instructor of others in knowledjre of God 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 and in the way of life. He expounds the 
 vital truths of the Scriptures and also inter- 
 prets them for daily life. The private read- 
 ing of the Bible is another way of learning 
 the things we need to know to make us wise 
 unto salvation. 
 
 But knowledge is not all. Even Bible 
 knowledge is not all, does not alone make 
 one a good Christian. One might know all the 
 great facts and doctrines of the word of God, 
 might be a profound Bible scholar and a 
 wise theologian, and yet not be an advanced 
 or even a growing Christian. We are to 
 learn to live Christ as well as to know the 
 truths about Christ. Jesus in his teachings 
 makes a great deal of obedience. We are his 
 friends if we do whatsoever he commands 
 us. We are to learn to be patient, meek, 
 gentle, long-suffering, compassionate. We 
 are to learn to be humble, kindly-affectioned, 
 unselfish, truthful, sincere. 
 
 Young Christians enter Christ's school to 
 be trained in all the qualities which make up 
 the true Christian life. Jesus is not only the 
 teacher, — his life is the text-book which we 
 are to study. Part of his mission to this 
 world was to show us in himself what a true 
 and complete human life is. He was sinless, 
 and he realized the full beauty of obedience 
 to the divine will. We are to look to his life 
 to learn just how to live, the kind of charac- 
 
Uniting with the Church. 
 
 ter we are to seek to have, the meaning of 
 the lessons which his words set for us. We 
 are in the school of Christ to be trained in 
 all Christian hfe and duty. 
 
 The lessons the Bible sets for us we are to 
 learn to live out in common life. Every 
 word of Christ sets a copy for us, as it were, 
 and we are to learn to write it in fair and 
 beautiful lines. For example, it is not 
 enough to learn from the Beatitudes that 
 certain qualities are praised by the great 
 Teacher ; we are to get the Beatitudes into 
 our own life as quickly and as perfectly as 
 we can. So of all the teachings of Christ — 
 they are not for knowing merely, as one 
 learns the fine sayings of favorite literary 
 writers ; they are for living. They are to 
 become lamps to our feet and lights to our 
 path, and they are to be wrought into the 
 web of our character. The object of the 
 church in this training of disciples is well 
 expressed in the words of St. Paul, — " for the 
 perfecting of the saints, unto the work of 
 ministering, unto the building up of the body 
 of Christ : till we all attain unto the unity of 
 the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
 of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fullness of 
 Christ." 
 
 This thought of the church as the school 
 of Christ and of young Christians as enter- 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 ing the school, is very suggestive. We are 
 not to expect perfection, but we have a right 
 to expect an increasing knowledge of spiritual 
 things and also spiritual growth in all the 
 qualities which belong to Christian character. 
 We should become more patient, more lov- 
 ing, more unselfish, more helpful, more faith- 
 ful in all duty, more like Christ. 
 
 Uniting with the church brings its duties. 
 It allies us with Christ and makes us co- 
 workers with him. We are not to think 
 merely of what the church may do for us, 
 but also of what we may do for the church. 
 Church loyalty is a mark of true and whole- 
 some Christian life. One need not be a 
 narrow sectarian to be a good church mem- 
 ber ; but one will always be the better Chris- 
 tian for being entirely devoted to his own 
 church and enthusiastic in all its hfe and 
 work. Anything that weakens a man's 
 loyalty to his own particular church hurts 
 his spiritual life and lessens his usefulness 
 as a Christian. 
 
 In many ways church members may serve 
 their church. They should be interested in 
 all its work of saving souls and promoting 
 the cause of Christ. They should regularly 
 attend its services. They should contribute 
 for its support. They should study its inter- 
 ests and seek in every way to extend its in- 
 fluence. They should keep the church in 
 
Uniting with the Church. 
 
 their prayers, daily making supplication for 
 it. They should bring to it always the best 
 they have to bring, not of gifts and service 
 only, but also of love and personal help- 
 fulness. 
 
 It is a high privilege to be a church mem- 
 ber, and one who has such honor should 
 seek to be worthy of it, as the church is the 
 body of Christ in this world. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Beginning Well. 
 
 A GOOD beginning is half. Many people 
 spend the latter part of their years in cor- 
 recting the errors of the earlier part, and by 
 the time they are ready to live the end has 
 come. A good beginning at once turns all 
 the energies into the right channels. No 
 golden years need then be wasted in unlearn- 
 ing false lessons, in revising unwise or im- 
 practicable plans or in retracing one's steps. 
 
 Many a career of brilliant possibilities is 
 marred by a wrong beginning. There are 
 mistakes of early life which men never get 
 over. A bad foundation has caused the 
 wreck of many a noble building. Inade- 
 quate preparation for a business or a calling 
 leads, at the best, to impaired success, and 
 most frequently results, in the end, in utter 
 failure. 
 
 These principles apply in Christian life. 
 It is of the utmost importance that we start 
 well. Many Christians walk in doubt and 
 shadow all their days, never entering into 
 rich joy and peace, because at the beginning 
 14 
 
Beginning Well. 
 
 they failed to realize the blessedness of the 
 privileges to which, as children of God, they 
 are entitled. Many others never attain any- 
 thing noble and beautiful in Christian hfe 
 and character because at the beginning they 
 did not wholly disentangle themselves from 
 their old life and fully consecrate themselves 
 to Christ. 
 
 A good beginning, therefore, involves two 
 things — clearness and definiteness of aim, 
 with intelligent views of the nature and 
 meaning of the Christian life ; and com- 
 pleteness of consecration. 
 
 Many men fail in life because they have 
 no settled purpose, no well-defined plan. 
 They have no goal set before them which 
 with all their energies they strive to reach. 
 There is in their mind no clear and distinct 
 idea toward which they struggle. They 
 merely drift on the current, and are borne 
 by it whithersoever it flows. They are not 
 masters in life, but poor slaves. They con- 
 quer nothing, but are the mere creatures of 
 circumstance. Such lives, however, are 
 unworthy of intelligent beings endowed with 
 immortal powers, and they never reach any 
 high degree of nobleness or success. 
 
 No sculptor touches the marble until he 
 
 has in his mind a definite conception of his 
 
 work as it will appear when it has been 
 
 finished. He sees a vision before him of a 
 
 IS 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 very lovely form, and then sets to work to 
 fashion the vision in the stone. No builder 
 begins to erect a house until a complete plan 
 embracing every detail has been adopted. 
 Before he strikes a stroke he knows precisely 
 what the finished structure will be. No one 
 would cut into a web of rich and costly cloth 
 until he had before him the pattern of the 
 garment he would make. In all work on 
 material things men have definite aims before 
 they begin their work, and know precisely 
 what they intend to produce. 
 
 But in life itself and in living, in charac- 
 ter-building, in destiny-shaping, many fail 
 to exercise such wisdom. Multitudes never 
 give one earnest thought to such questions 
 as these: "What is my hfe ? For what pur- 
 pose is it intrusted to me ? What ought I 
 to do with it ? What should be the great aim 
 of my existence ? What should I strive to 
 be and to do?" Thousands live aimlessly, 
 having no true sense of the responsibility of 
 living, never forming an earnest, resolute 
 purpose to rise to any noble height or to 
 achieve any worthy thing. An immortal life 
 should have its aim ever shining before it 
 bright and clear as a star in the heavens. 
 To grow up as a plant — without thought or 
 purpose — is well enough for a plant, and God 
 clothes it and shapes it into marvelous beauty; 
 but men with undying souls and measureless 
 i6 
 
Beginning Well. 
 
 possibilities should have a purpose worthy 
 of their immortality, and should strive with 
 heroic energy to attain it. 
 
 In entering the Christian life there should 
 be a clear aim. We should know definitely 
 what this new life is which we have now to 
 live. With but vague ideas of the meaning 
 of a Christian life — its ideal, its requirements, 
 its privileges, the duties which belong to it — 
 no one can begin well. All is vague and 
 misty, and while it is so we cannot put any 
 purpose or energy into our life. We need to 
 understand the new relations into which we 
 come as children of God, in order that we 
 may realize the privileges of our position. 
 We need to have a clear conception of the 
 final aim of all Christian attainment and 
 aspiration, in order that we may strive 
 toward it. We need to know what is re- 
 quired of a Christian toward his God and 
 toward his fellow men, in order that we may 
 faithfully and intelligently perform all . our 
 duties. We need to know the conditions of 
 Christian Hfe — its needs, its dangers — in 
 order that we may avail ourselves of the 
 necessar}' helps provided for us. Thus a 
 clear and intelligent aim is essential in be- 
 ginning well as a Christian. 
 
 The other essential thing in beginning well 
 is the devotion and consecration of ourselves 
 to the new life we have chosen. A good 
 8 17 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 ideal is not enough. One may aim an arrow 
 with perfect accuracy, but the bow must also 
 be drawn and the cord let fly if the arrow is 
 to reach the mark. A vision in the brain is 
 not enough for the sculptor : he must hew 
 and chisel the marble into the form of his 
 vision. The architect's plan is only a pic- 
 ture, and there must be toil and cost until 
 the building stands complete in its noble 
 beauty. 
 
 A good aim is not all of a Christian life. 
 It is nothing more than an empty dream 
 unless it be wrought out in Godlike character 
 and Christlike ministry. Every earnest Chris- 
 tian looks much at the glorious Master, and, 
 as he looks, visions of wondrous beauty fill 
 his soul — glimpses of the loveliness of Christ ; 
 and he must then seek with patient yet in- 
 tense purpose to reproduce these heavenly 
 visions in his own life. 
 
 Many people have sublimest aspirations 
 and wishes — and even form their aspirations 
 and wishes into intentions and resolves — who 
 yet never take a step toward realizing them. 
 Mere knowing what it is to be a Christian 
 makes no one a Christian ; many perish with 
 the glorious ideal shining full and clear 
 before their eyes. Merely seeing the beauty 
 of Christ, as it is held before us for our copy- 
 ing, will never fashion us into that beauty. 
 Our knowledge must be wrought into life. 
 i8 
 
Beginning Well. 
 
 The image our souls see must be fashioned 
 into character. Our good intentions must 
 take form in daily deeds. Knowing God's 
 will, we must do it with willing heart and 
 diligent hand. 
 
 " Make my mortal dreams come true 
 With the work I fain would do ; 
 Clothe with life the weak intent : 
 Let me be the thing I meant; 
 Let me find in thy employ 
 Peace that dearer is than joy ; 
 Out of self to love be led, 
 And to heaven acclimated, 
 Until all things sweet and good 
 Seem my natural habitude," 
 
 19 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Christian Life: The Ideal. 
 
 WHAT is it to be a Christian? What is 
 that change which, wrought in a natural 
 man, makes him a Christian man ? What 
 are a Christian's new relations to God and to 
 his fellow men ? What is Christian char- 
 acter ? How should a Christian live ? What 
 is the pattern on which his life should be 
 fashioned ? If we would make our Christian 
 life what it ought to be, we must find plain, 
 clear answers to these questions. 
 
 A Christian is one who believes on Christ. 
 He has intrusted his whole life, with its sin, 
 its guilt, its ruin, its need its security for 
 eternity, its redemption, cleansing and trans- 
 formation, to the hands of the mighty Saviour, 
 the strong Son of God. A Christian is there- 
 fore a saved one, a redeemed one — saved, 
 redeemed, by Christ. He is no longer guilty 
 and condemned : he is acquitted, justified, 
 restored to such relations before God that he 
 is as if he had never sinned, so fully are his 
 sins put away. He is God's lost and wander- 
 20 
 
The Christian Life : The Ideal. 
 
 ing child brought home, received, reconciled, 
 restored to all a child's privileges. 
 
 But this is not all ; it is not merely a change 
 of relations. Those who beheve on Christ 
 are born again, the Scriptures say — born from 
 above, born of God ; that is, there is a new, 
 a divine, life in the regenerated soul. Christ 
 speaks of it as a well of water in the believer 
 springing up into everlasting life. The result 
 is shown in new affections, new desires, new 
 hopes, new aims. Forgiveness of sins is not 
 enough. A man's lies and dishonesties may 
 be forgiven ; but, if that is all, he is still a 
 liar and dishonest. God's forgiveness re- 
 generates. A Christian life is the setting up 
 of the kingdom of God in a human heart. 
 
 A child was troubled at the thought that 
 heaven was so far away, and was perplexed 
 to know how he could ever get up to that 
 bright home. His mother explained to him 
 that heaven must first come down to him — 
 must first enter his heart. A Christian is one 
 into whose heart the spirit of heaven has 
 entered. The new life is like that they live 
 in heaven. We are taught to pray, " Thy 
 will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." 
 The one place in all the earth in which it 
 most concerns each Christian to see that 
 God's will is done as it is in heaven is in his 
 own individual heart. 
 
 If we are truly born again, the life of 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 heaven has really begun within us. It may- 
 be very feeble in its beginning, like one little 
 seed only, planted in a garden ; but the one 
 seed is from heaven, and the new life in us 
 has truly begun. " That which is born of 
 the Spirit," said the Master, "is spirit." It is 
 the life of the Spirit in a human soul. Paul 
 put this truth in a very striking way when he 
 said, "I hve; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
 me." Our Lord said a Christian is "a 
 branch " of the true Vine. This suggests 
 what Christian life and character should be 
 before the world. Every true Christian is a 
 new incarnation. Christ showed the world in 
 his own person the hfe of the invisible God. 
 No human eye ever saw God in his glory ; 
 no one could ever have seen him had not 
 Christ come down and in a plain, simple, and 
 real, human life which men could see and 
 understand, lived out the divine life which in 
 its glory men could neither see nor under- 
 stand. He interpreted the invisible things of 
 God in act and phrase which the common 
 people could read. He said, when he was 
 asked about God, " Look at me and see God, 
 I and my Father are one. He that hath seen 
 me hath seen the Father." 
 
 In Hke manner, in his own small measure, 
 every one truly a Christian is an incarnation 
 of God, and should be able in humility to 
 say, " Look at me, and you will see a dim 
 
The Christian Life: The Ideal. 
 
 but faithful representation of God." This 
 puts a very solemn responsibility on every 
 Christian. He represents God in this world, 
 and is to live in such a way that from his hfe 
 men shall learn the truth about God. If 
 Christ lives in us, men must see Christ in our 
 faces and hear him in our words and learn 
 of him in our acts. 
 
 The ideal of Christian life is therefore the \ 
 likeness of Christ. That is the pattern shown 
 in the mount after which we are to strive to 
 fashion our life. 
 
 As we study Christ in the Gospels there 
 rises up before us the vision of his matchless 
 beauty. We go over the chapters, and we 
 find one fragment of his lovehness here and 
 another there ; and as we read the story 
 through to the end beauty after beauty ap- 
 pears, until at length we see a full vision of 
 the Christ which, though imperfect by reason 
 of the imperfectness of our nature, yet truly 
 represents to us the image of our blessed Re- 
 deemer. This is the pattern we are to follow 
 in fashioning our hves. This is the vision 
 we are to seek to carve into reality in our 
 own character. All our acts we are to bring 
 to the example of Christ, testing each one 
 by that infallible standard. 
 
 The Gospels should be studied by the young 
 Christian as a builder studies the architect's 
 drawings, that every minutest detail may be 
 23 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 exactly reproduced so far as in a faulty and 
 sinful human life the character and conduct 
 of the faultless and sinless Jesus can be re- 
 produced. The perfect pattern is ever to be 
 held before us for imitation, and as we look 
 at it glowing in all its marvelous beauty, yet 
 far above us and beyond our present reach, 
 we are to comfort ourselves and stir our 
 hearts to the noblest efforts and highest at- 
 tainments by the thought, " That is what 
 some time I am going to be." However 
 slow may be our progress toward that perfect 
 ideal ; however sore the struggles with weak- 
 ness and sin ; however often we fail, — we are 
 never to lose sight of the distant goal nor 
 cease to strive and press toward the mark. 
 Some day, if we are faithful to the end and 
 faint not, we shall emerge out of all failure 
 and struggle, and, seeing Jesus as he is, shall 
 be fully transformed into his blessed image. 
 
 Such is the aim of the Christian life. " We 
 shall be like him " — that is the final destiny 
 of every redeemed life. This should be in- 
 spiration enough to arouse in the dullest soul 
 every sluggish hope and every slumbering 
 energy, and to impel to the highest effort and 
 the most heroic struggle. This assurance 
 should perpetually shine like a bright star 
 beyond the fields of toil and battle, forbid- 
 ding discouragement in any temporary fail- 
 ure or defeat and cheering all faintness and 
 24 
 
The Christian Life: The Ideal. 
 
 weariness into buoyant strength and enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 This goal of blessedness is not to be reached 
 at one bound: it is the work of long and 
 painful years, and the progress is slow and 
 the transformation gradual and almost im- 
 perceptible. 
 
 *' Heaven is not gained by a single bound, 
 But we build the ladder by which we rise 
 From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
 And we mount to its summit round by round." 
 
 It will help us, in striving after the per- 
 fected beauty, to remember that we can best 
 attain it by carving each moment's hne with 
 care. God gives us life by days and hours, 
 not by months and years. The way to have 
 his purpose for us fulfilled in us is to fill each 
 minute with simple faithfulness. Doing God's 
 will for one moment not only lights the path 
 for the next, but prepares us for its responsi- 
 bility. Charles Kingsley said, " Do to-day's 
 duty, fight to-day's temptation, and do not 
 weaken or distract yourself by looking for- 
 ward to things which you cannot see, and 
 could not understand if you saw them." 
 
 Character is a mosaic in which each day 
 has its little stone to set ; we need but to look 
 well to the days as they come, and to print 
 on each its record of beauty, and the whole 
 will be beautiful in the end. This living sim- 
 
 25 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 ply by the day is one of the royal secrets of a 
 beautiful life which every young Christian 
 should learn. 
 
 A life thus lived, each day made beautiful 
 with the beauty of holiness and of useful- 
 ness, will in the end give a record of duty 
 well done, of work completed, of blessings 
 left behind at each step, and a character 
 transfigured by the indwelling divine Spirit 
 and the outworking of love until it shines in 
 the full likeness of Christ himself. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Living for God : Consecration. 
 
 IT is not enough to cut loose from the old 
 life : the young Christian must enter the 
 new life. Leaving the service of one master, 
 he must enlist in that of another. Withdraw- 
 ing his heart's affections from one class of 
 objects, he must fix them upon another class. 
 Ceasing to do evil, he must also learn to do 
 well. No longer a servant of sin, he must 
 become a servant of righteousness. Mere 
 repentance is not enough ; giving up one's 
 wicked ways is but half of conversion : there 
 must also be a devotement of the life to 
 Christ. The heart cannot be left empty. 
 
 "When St, Boniface had hewn down the 
 sacred oak worshiped by the savages in the 
 tangled forests of Germany, he did not stop 
 with destroying it, but when it was felled 
 built out of its fallen and splintered frag- 
 ments the chapel of St. Peter, and in the 
 room of the worship of Thor the Thunderer 
 left the worship of Christ the crucified. ' To 
 replace is to conquer ;' and the theology of 
 27 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 the forests fled back abashed before the the- 
 ology of the cross." 
 ^ When we break with the world, we must 
 straightway bow before Christ; indeed, we 
 can be freed from the dominion of the old 
 master only by the coming into our hearts 
 of the new. The only way we can turn from 
 sin is by turning to Christ. He then be- 
 comes, first, Deliverer and Saviour ; after- 
 wards, King and Lord. As such he must be 
 accepted, and the whole allegiance of the 
 life should instantly be transferred to him. 
 
 This is conversion ; it is going over to 
 Christ fully, wholly, freely and for ever. It 
 is not merely attaching ourselves to the 
 church : it is attaching ourselves to Christ. 
 It is not merely entering upon a good moral 
 life — pure, honest, clean ; not merely en- 
 gaging in active Christian work : it is the 
 acceptance of Christ, first as a personal Sa- 
 viour, then as a personal Lord. It is coming 
 to Christ himself, believing on him, following 
 •\^him, loving him, obeying him. 
 
 It is important that the young Christian 
 shall understand this, and that his devotion 
 to his Lord shall be real and complete. No 
 man can serve two masters. It will not do to 
 try a divided allegiance. True consecration 
 carries all over to Christ. 
 
 For one thing, this means holiness : " Ye 
 are not your own, for ye are bought with a 
 28 
 
Living for God : Consecration. 
 
 price: therefore glorify God." Holiness 
 means separation for God. The life which 
 belongs to Christ must be kept from sin. 
 The hands which are held up in prayer and 
 that take the sacramental emblems must not 
 touch any unclean thing. The lips which 
 speak to God, sing his praise and pronounce 
 his name must not be stained by any sin- 
 ful or bitter words. The heart which is the 
 dwelling place of the Holy Spirit must not 
 open to any thought or affection that would 
 defile God's temple. The feet which Christ's 
 pierced hands have washed must not walk 
 in any of sin's unhallowed paths. A con- 
 secrated life must be holy. 
 
 Unholiness is very subtle. It creeps in 
 when we are not aware. It begins in the 
 heart. At first it is but a thought, a moment's 
 imagination, a passing emotion, or a desire. 
 Hence the heart should be kept with unre- 
 mitting diligence. Only pure and good 
 thoughts should be entertained. It is in the 
 thoughts that all life begins. All acts are 
 thoughts first. Our thoughts build up our 
 character as the coral insects build up the 
 great reefs. As a man thinketh in his heart 
 so is he. If we are to keep ourselves un- 
 spotted from the world as we pass through 
 its foul streets, we must see to it that no 
 unholy thing is for a moment tolerated in our 
 heart. A crime stains one's name before 
 29 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 the world ; a sinful thought or wish stains 
 the soul in God's sight and grieves the di- 
 vine Spirit within us. 
 
 But the keeping of the life unspotted is not 
 the whole of living for God : there must be 
 service also. When young Christians are 
 received into the church they profess to dedi- 
 cate themselves and all they have — time, 
 talents, money, every power of body, soul, 
 and spirit — to the service of Christ for ever. 
 This means that they will no longer claim 
 mastership over themselves ; that henceforth 
 they are Christ's servants ; that they will live 
 for Christ only all the days ; that they will 
 listen at each step for his command and 
 promptly obey it ; that they will devote all 
 their possessions to him, using them for him 
 and at his bidding ; and that they will em- 
 ploy their talents and influence to advance 
 his kingdom. 
 
 Daily duty in the common relations of life 
 is as much part of a true consecration as are 
 praying, reading the Bible, and attending 
 church services. If the heart be given to 
 Christ, the whole life is holy. We do not live 
 two lives — one religious and one secular — 
 after we become Christians. We are always 
 to do God's will, and it is as much his will 
 that we should be diligent in business as that 
 we should be fervent in spirit. 
 
 30 
 
Living for God : Consecration. 
 
 " The trivial round, the common task, 
 Would furnish all we ought to ask — 
 Room to deny ourselves, a road 
 To bring us daily nearer God." 
 
 When young persons yet in school become 
 Christians, they are not to drop their secular 
 studies and read the Bible all the time : they 
 are to go on with their lessons — only with 
 new motives, for Christ now — faithfully using 
 every moment, diligently striving to get the 
 greatest possible benefit and improvement 
 from their education to fit them for the life 
 and work before them. When religion makes 
 a pupil less diligent, less studious, less earn- 
 est, there is something wrong. When a 
 young man in a trade or business gives him- 
 self to Christ, unless his occupation is sinful 
 he is ordinarily called to continue in it, car- 
 rying his Christian principles into it and do- 
 ing business now for Christ, 
 
 Secular work is not unholy. All duty is 
 sacred in God's sight. The hands of Jesus 
 swung the ax and pushed the plane, and he 
 pleased the Father just as well then as when 
 he was praying and reading the Scriptures. 
 Paul's hand sewed upon tents, and he was 
 just as near to God when thus at work as 
 when he was preaching in the synagogue. 
 
 Of course the motive of life is changed 
 when we truly belong to Christ. Self comes 
 down from the throne and we do everything 
 31 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 for the Master: "Whether ye eat, or drink, 
 or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
 God." We train our powers to greater effi- 
 ciency that we may be more useful in Christ's 
 work. We live carefully that in the smallest 
 things we may honor him. We seek in- 
 creased influence that we may do more to 
 bless the world and advance the glory of 
 Christ's name. The world is reading our 
 lives, and it reads no other Bible ; we must 
 make sure, therefore, that our daily actions 
 spell out a true gospel, so that no one who 
 sees us may ever get from us a wrong thought 
 of Christ or a wrong sense of his religion. 
 
 We do not understand one half the bless- 
 ing to others and the influence for religion 
 there is in simply being good. We struggle 
 to be active and to do many things. We 
 run everywhere to work for Christ. We 
 think that unless we are always doing some- 
 thing, or talking to somebody, or holding a 
 meeting somewhere, or visiting the poor or 
 the sick, we are not useful. We make a mis- 
 take. There is no other such power for real 
 usefulness and helpfulness, no other such 
 glorifying of God, as in simple goodness. 
 Holy life itself is highest service. 
 
 Hence there should be in every young 
 
 Christian the most conscientious watchfulness 
 
 over the early growths of spirituality in his 
 
 own heart. These growths are tender and 
 
 32 
 
Living for God : Consecration. 
 
 easily destroyed, like the young plants which 
 the gardener keeps in his conservatory 
 through the winter and cool spring days. 
 
 The whole matter of heart-culture requires 
 the utmost dihgence. All life, business and 
 social as well as religious, must be made to 
 contribute to it. We should form our friend- 
 ships and choose our amusements with refer- 
 ence to their effect on our heart-life. Some 
 one has given this true test, whose applica- 
 tion should be wide as life itself: " Whatever 
 weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness 
 of your conscience, obscures your view of 
 God or takes off the relish of spiritual things 
 — in short, whatever increases the authority 
 of your body over your mind — that is sin to 
 yoii, however innocent it may be in itself." 
 
 A life so regulated, so watched, so ruled by 
 conscience and by the word and Spirit of 
 God, will grow into a living power of real 
 holiness the value of whose ministry will be 
 incalculable in its silent pervasive influence. 
 
 '' Birds, by being glad, their Maker bless ; 
 By simply shining, sun and star ; 
 And we, whose law is love, serve less 
 By what we do than what we are." 
 
 There is still another part of all true con- 
 secration : besides living a pure and good 
 life, and besides doing all our daily work for 
 Christ, we should also embrace every oppor- 
 3 33 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 tunity of doing good to others in Christ's 
 name and for his sake. There are needy 
 and suffering ones all about us, and we are 
 to do Christ's errands to these, performing for 
 them the ministries of kindness and mercy 
 which he would render if he were here in 
 person. There are weak and fainting ones 
 about us who find Hfe hard and who need 
 sympathy and help. To all these we have 
 errands of love ; we should share their 
 burdens and put strong, sustaining arms 
 about them in their weakness. 
 
 A life for Christ must always be a life of 
 love, of usefulness and of helpfulness. No 
 true Christian lives for himself. We have 
 our model in him who came " not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister." We need 
 not wait for great opportunities — these come 
 but rarely ; the common days are full of 
 opportunities for little kindnesses, thoughtful- 
 nesses, and unselfishnesses, and in order to 
 write bright records for ourselves we have 
 only to seize these and stretch out our hands 
 to render the ministries to which God thus 
 invites and calls us. Doing the thing that 
 Christ himself would do if he were precisely 
 in our place — that is the rule for Christian 
 living. 
 
 Thus consecration becomes very real. It 
 is living for God, day by day, hour by 
 hour. It is nothing strained or unnatural; 
 34 
 
Living for God: Consecration. 
 
 it does not wrench us out of our place nor 
 disturb our relationships unless they are sin- 
 ful ; it is the simple living out in true devo- 
 tion to Christ, in unquesdoning obedience 
 and in quiet faithfulness, the life he gives, 
 in whatever sphere our lot may be cast. 
 
 3S 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 
 
 THE experience of temptation is universal. 
 Every life must grow up amid unfriend- 
 ly and opposing influences — some of them 
 subtle and insidious, like miasma in the air ; 
 some of them fierce and vi^ild, like the blast 
 of storm or the rush of battle. Much is 
 said in sermons about the solemn nature of 
 death ; yet really it is not half so perilous a 
 thing to die as it is to live. No child of God 
 was ever lost, or even harmed, in the experi- 
 ence of dying. 
 
 " The grave itself is but a covei-ed bridge 
 Leading from light to light through a brief dark- 
 ness." 
 
 But life is full of peril. To live truly we 
 must battle day by day. Satan is no medi- 
 aeval myth, but an actual foe, powerful, 
 cunning, treacherous, terrible. Danger lurks 
 in every shadow. 
 
 The question in life is not how to escape 
 temptation, but how to pass through it so as 
 36 
 
Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 
 
 not to be harmed by it. Christ's way of 
 helping us is not by keeping us out of the 
 conflicts. This would leave us forever weak, 
 untried, undisciplined. The price of spiritual 
 attainment and culture is struggle. Jesus 
 himself was made perfect through suffering. 
 All the best things in life — the only things 
 worth obtaining — lie beyond fields of battle, 
 and we can get them only by overcoming. 
 It would be no kindness to us were God to 
 withdraw us into some sheltered spot when- 
 ever there is danger, or if he were to fight 
 our battles for us, thus freeing us from all 
 necessity to struggle. 
 
 " He who hath never a conflict hath never a victor's 
 palm, 
 And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest 
 and calm." 
 
 We must meet temptation, and we must 
 fight. Not to fight is to lose all. Nor is 
 there really any need for yielding. The 
 weakest child may move unharmed through 
 the sorest strifes. It is possible to meet the 
 strongest temptations and not be hurt by 
 them. It has been done. Men have met 
 the fiercest enemies, the most unrelenting 
 oppositions, passing through the hottest 
 flames, and have come out, like the Hebrew 
 children from the king's furnace, without 
 even the smell of fire on their garments. 
 37 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the weakness of 
 human nature unhelped and unsustained, 
 there still is no need for any trembhng soul 
 to faint or to fail in the strife. 
 
 There is a divine Helper who himself went 
 into the thickest of the struggle and passed 
 through it unharmed. He was " in all points 
 tempted like as we are, yet without sin " — 
 that is, he met all life victoriously ; and 
 because he was thus victorious he is able, not 
 only to understand human struggles and to 
 sympathize with every one who is tempted, 
 but also to give "grace to help in time of 
 need." We have the assurance that the faith- 
 ful God will not suffer us to be tempted above 
 that we are able ; but will with the temptation 
 make the way of escape, that we may be able 
 to endure it. 
 
 There is, therefore, a way of so living in 
 this world as not to suffer harm in even the 
 fiercest temptations — to pass through them 
 and not be touched by them. There is even 
 a way of so meeting temptations as to get 
 benefit and blessing from them. An apostle 
 said, " Count it all joy when ye fall into mani- 
 fold temptations ; knowing that the proof of 
 your faith worketh patience;" "Blessed is 
 the man that endureth temptation : for when 
 he hath been approved, he shall receive the 
 crown of life, which the Lord promised to 
 them that love him." 
 38 
 
Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 
 
 Rightly meeting and victoriously resisting 
 puts new fiber into the soul. The Indians say 
 that when a warrior kills a foe the spirit of 
 the vanquished enemy enters the victor's 
 heart and adds to his own strength. This is 
 true in spiritual warfare. We grow stronger 
 through our struggles and victories. Each 
 lust conquered, each evil subdued, adds to 
 the strength of our soul. 
 
 The question, then, is how to meet tempta- 
 tion so as to overcome it, and thus win the 
 blessing there is in it. We must remember, 
 first of all, that we are not able in ourselves 
 successfully to fight our battles. If we think 
 we are, and go forth in our own name and 
 strength, we shall fail. Life is too large, and 
 its struggles and conflicts are too sore, for the 
 strongest human power unaided. 
 
 We must settle it once for all that we can 
 conquer only in the name and by the help of 
 the strong Son of God. We may come off 
 the field more than conquerors, but only 
 through him that loved us. We can pass 
 safely through all the fierce dangers of this 
 world and be kept unspotted amid its sin and 
 foulness, but only if we have with us him 
 who is able to guard us from stumbling and 
 set us before the presence of his glory without 
 blemish in exceeding joy. Self-confidence in 
 temptation is fatal folly. 
 
 Then we must be sure that the temptation 
 39 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 we are meeting really lies in the path of our 
 duty — that God calls us to meet it. Some 
 temptations must be overcome by avoidance, 
 by not meeting them. We pray each morn- 
 ing, "Lead us not into temptation;" we 
 must, then, be sure that we are following our 
 Father's leading when we enter any way of 
 temptation. Only when the temptation comes 
 in the path over which the divine Guide takes 
 us, have we the assurance of protection in it. 
 
 Lord Macaulay tells us that at the siege of 
 Naumur, while the conflict was raging, 
 William, prince of Orange, who was giving 
 his orders under a shower of bullets, saw with 
 surprise and anger among his staff officers 
 Michael Godfrey, the deputy governor of the 
 Bank of England. He had come to the king's 
 headquarters on business, and was curious to 
 see real war. 
 
 "Mr. Godfrey," said King WilHam, "you 
 ought not to run these hazards. You are not 
 a soldier ; you can be of no use to us here." 
 
 " Sir," answered Godfrey, " I run no more 
 risk than Your Majesty." 
 
 "Not so," said William. " I am where it 
 is my duty to be, and I may without pre- 
 sumption commit my hfe to God's keeping ; 
 but you — " 
 
 Before the sentence was finished a cannon- 
 ball laid Godfrey dead at the king's feet. 
 
 The king's words were true, and the truth 
 40 
 
Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 
 
 is just as applicable to temptations and spirit- 
 ual dangers as to the perils of war. When 
 duty calls us into any place, we are safe : 
 God will protect us ; but otherwise we venture 
 without any promise of shelter. We must 
 face danger only when God and duty unmis- 
 takably lead. 
 
 Then, when we find ourselves in the pres- 
 ence of temptation, we must not forget that 
 we have something to do ourselves in getting 
 the victory. Men and devils may tempt us, 
 but men and devils cannot force us to yield. 
 We are sovereigns in our choices while the 
 right and the wrong stand before us. Other 
 wills than ours may seek to influence us — 
 may plead, entreat, persuade — but they can- 
 not compel. 
 
 We cannot avoid being tempted, but we 
 ought to avoid yielding to temptation. Luther 
 used to say, " We cannot keep the birds from 
 flying round our heads, but we can prevent 
 them building their nests in our hair." We 
 cannot keep temptations away from our ears 
 nor prevent them whispering their seductive 
 words close by us, but we can hinder them 
 making their nests in our hearts. 
 
 We are not to be passive in this matter. 
 We must not expect God to fasten the door 
 and hold his hand upon the lock. The shut- 
 ting and opening of the door is our part of 
 the responsibility. Even God himself will 
 41 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 never come into our heart unless we volun- 
 tarily open it to him. Christ stands without 
 and knocks, waiting with all his wealth of 
 love and all his power to bless until we bid 
 him welcome. We with our frail weakness 
 can keep even Omnipotence outside. So, as 
 divine grace cannot enter to do us good un- 
 less we open, neither can satanic evil enter 
 to work ruin in our souls without our consent. 
 We are doorkeeper of our own heart. Thus the 
 final responsibility is with ourselves. Hence 
 our duty in temptation is unwavering resist- 
 ance — an unreversible "No ! " to every solici- 
 tation to sin. If we settle this point, we have 
 learned one of the greatest lessons in spiritual 
 warfare — "having done all, to stand." 
 
 Besides this, nothing more is needed but 
 faith and prayer. When the temptation 
 comes in the path of duty, and when we re- 
 sist it with unflinching determination, we may 
 with simple confidence commit the keeping 
 of our life to God. No evil can ever harm 
 us if we cleave unfalteringly to Christ: " He 
 shall give his angels charge over thee, to 
 keep thee in all thy ways." Still better : 
 "The Lord is thy keeper." 
 
 There come times in every life when all we 
 can do is to shut our eyes and let God lead 
 us. Indeed, in all hours of darkness and 
 danger, this is our privilege and our duty ; 
 and if we thus commit our way to God, he 
 43 
 
Meeting Temptation: Conflict. 
 
 will bring us safely through the last peril and 
 the last struggle into the light and joy of 
 victory on the heavenly plains. 
 
 Then it will be seen that it has been no 
 misfortune that we have had to fight sore 
 battles on the earth. Old war-veterans are 
 not ashamed of their scars — they are marks 
 of honor ; they tell of wounds received in 
 battling for their country. In heaven the sol- 
 dier of Christ will not be ashamed of the 
 scars he has gotten in his warfare for his 
 Lord on the earth ; his crown will be all the 
 brighter for them. They will shine as the 
 King's medals, decorations of honor — "the 
 marks of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 When an army marches home from a 
 victorious field, it is not the bright, clean, un- 
 torn flag that is most wildly cheered, but the 
 flag that is pierced, riddled and torn by the 
 shot and shell of many a battle. So in the 
 home-coming in glory it will not be the man 
 who bears fewest marks of suffering and 
 struggle and fewest scars of wounds re- 
 ceived in Christ's service who will be wel- 
 comed with the greatest joy, but the man 
 who bears the marks of the sorest conflicts 
 and the greatest sufferings for the honor of 
 his Lord and for his kingdom. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Working for Christ: Service. 
 
 pVERY truly consecrated life has been 
 made over to Christ with all its powers. 
 Faith implies full surrender: "Ye are not 
 your own ; " "Ye are Christ's." Christ owns 
 us first by right of creation, then by right of 
 purchase ; and we acknowledge his owner- 
 ship and all that it includes when we accept 
 him as our Saviour and Lord. The first 
 question, therefore, of the new-believing 
 heart is, "What shall I do, Lord?" We 
 want to begin to work for our new Master. 
 
 " Be thy best thoughts to work divine addressed; 
 Do something — do it soon — with all thy might : 
 An angel's wings would droop if long at rest, 
 And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest," 
 
 We belong to Christ ; we are his slaves — that 
 is the word St. Paul used so much, and with 
 such a thrill of joy as he thought of the honor 
 it denoted. He was Christ's slave. "Whose 
 I am, and whom I serve," was his working 
 creed. "Thy will, not mine," is henceforth 
 44 
 
Working for Christ : Service. 
 
 the only true law of life for us. We are to 
 wait at each step for Christ's bidding. Our 
 very thoughts must be brought into captivity 
 to him. 
 
 This ownership covers and embraces all 
 hfe. A heart of love for Christ makes the 
 sweeping of a room, the ploughing of a field, 
 the sawing of a board, the making of a gar- 
 ment, the selling of a piece of goods, the 
 minding of a baby, all actions as fine as the 
 ministry of angels. 
 
 One way of working for Christ, therefore, 
 is to be diligent in the doing of life's common 
 daily tasks. The true giving of ourselves to 
 God exalts all of life into divine honor and 
 sacredness. Nothing is trivial or indifferent 
 which it is our duty to do. We are never to 
 neglect any work, however secular it may 
 seem, in order to do something else which 
 appears to be more religious. There are 
 some people who would be better Chris- 
 tians if they paid more heed to their own 
 daily business, attended fewer meetings and 
 did less religious gossiping. Ruskin says, 
 "Neither days nor lives can be made holy 
 by doing nothing in them. The best prayer 
 at the beginning of a day is that we may not 
 lose its moments ; and the best grace before 
 meat, the consciousness that we have justly 
 earned our dinner." 
 
 We need a religion which puts itself into 
 45 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 everything we do. The old shoemaker was 
 right when he said that when he stands 
 before the great white throne God will ask, 
 " What kind of shoes did you make down on 
 the earth?" We must do all our work for 
 the judgement day, our common everyday 
 tasks as well as our religious duties. The 
 carpenter must get his religion into the 
 houses he builds, the plumber into his plumb- 
 ing, the tailor into his seams, the merchant 
 into his sales. All our work we must do for 
 God's eye. 
 
 But, besides this living of the whole life for 
 Christ, there is specific work for him in which 
 every Christian has a part to perform. Every 
 one who is saved should do something toward 
 saving others. The first thought of a truly 
 saved person is of some friend or friends who 
 are still in peril ; and the first impulse of a 
 renewed heart is to try to bring these lost 
 ones to the Saviour. The cause of Christ in 
 this world needs assistance in many ways, 
 and it is the will of the Master that this cause 
 should be advanced, not by the ministry of 
 angels, not by Christ himself immediately 
 and directly, but by his people — those whom 
 he has redeemed and saved. The story of 
 salvation must be told by lips that have first 
 uttered the cry for mercy. The lost must be 
 won by the love of hearts that have first been 
 broken in penitence. The divine blessing of 
 46 
 
Working for Christ : Service. 
 
 salvation must be carried in earthen vessels 
 to the perishing. 
 
 Every Christian has something to do for 
 Christ in this world. The fullest hands must 
 make room for some little part of the Mas- 
 ter's work. Even the child that loves Christ 
 may at least carry a cup of the water of life 
 to some thirsty soul. 
 
 Every Christian should be deeply imbued 
 with the missionary spirit. A portion of the 
 responsibility for carrying the news of salva- 
 tion to every creature rests on each follower 
 of Christ. In these days of missionary 
 activity there is no one who cannot do some- 
 thing to help send the gospel to heathen 
 lands. Every young Christian should con- 
 sider himself, from the moment of his con- 
 secration to Christ, a debtor to all men, near 
 and far, who are not yet saved, and in prayer 
 and work and gift he should seek to pay that 
 debt to the last atom of his ability. 
 
 In nearly every church there are mis- 
 sionary organizations for the cultivation of 
 the missionary spirit, the diffusing of infor- 
 mation and the gathering of money for the 
 work of missions. Every young Christian 
 should be identified with one of these organi- 
 zations, thus imbibing the missionary spirit 
 and preparing for active interest and service 
 in the cause. 
 
 There is also very much sorrow and suffer- 
 47 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 ing in this world, and every Christian should 
 do all in his power to comfort the sorrow and 
 alleviate the suffering. Here, as in all things, 
 Jesus himself is our example and his life is 
 our pattern. We represent him in this world. 
 He has gone away to heaven, but he has left 
 his people here to carry on his work. 
 
 Here is a wide field for Christlike and 
 most helpful ministry. What we need for it 
 is a spirit of sympathy and kindness that 
 shall never fail. We may not be able to do 
 much to relieve those who are troubled : we 
 certainly cannot work miracles as Christ did ; 
 but we may have a heart of love which shall 
 manifest itself toward every one in a spirit 
 of patient gentleness and kindly thoughtful- 
 ness. 
 
 Sincere sympathy is oftentimes better than 
 money. People in distress generally need a 
 friend more than they need gift or miracle. 
 God sends to earth no angels whose ministry 
 leaves more benedictions of joy, of help, of 
 inspiration, of uplifting, of restoring, than 
 are left by the ministry of the angel of true 
 human sympathy. 
 
 For this service we need only to have in 
 us the true spirit of Christ, a spirit of unself- 
 ish love, and then blessing will flow from 
 our life even without effort or purpose, 
 unconsciously, as fragrance pours from a 
 flower, as hght streams from a lamp. 
 48 
 
Working for Christ : Service. 
 
 " As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
 Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 
 So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul. 
 All heaven's own sweetness seems around it 
 thrown." 
 
 Christ did other kinds of work, but it was 
 the same spirit that wrought in all his min- 
 istry. He taught the people; he scattered 
 the words of truth ; he lifted up his voice 
 against wrong and sin ; he sought the lost 
 and led them back to the Father ; he went 
 to the cross in the room of sinners. In all 
 forms of personal ministry we are to strive 
 to follow in his steps. The golden seeds of 
 heavenly truth which his lips dropped we are 
 to seek to scatter everywhere in life's desert- 
 fields. 
 
 The very best thing we can do for people 
 in this world of sin and sorrow is to get the 
 words of Christ into their hearts. It is like 
 scattering flower seeds on the black lava beds 
 about the fiery mountain's base — in the crev- 
 ices the seeds will root and grow, and sweet 
 flowers will bloom by and by. Christ's 
 words are living seeds from which spring up 
 heavenly plants to beautify and bless bleak 
 and dreary hves over which sin's fires have 
 rolled. The tiniest hand and the weakest 
 can scatter these seeds in some bare spot 
 where they will grow. 
 
 It is the little things that all of us can do 
 
 4 49 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 in Christ's name which in the end leave the 
 largest aggregate of blessing in the world. 
 We need not wait to do great and conspic- 
 uous things. One Amazon is enough for a 
 continent, but there is room for a million 
 little rivulets and purling brooks. A life that 
 every day gives its blessing to another and 
 adds to the happiness of some fellow being 
 by only a word of kindness, a thoughtful act, 
 a cheering look, or a hearty hand-grasp, does 
 more for the world than he who but once in 
 a lifetime does some great thing which fills 
 a land with his praise. Nothing that is done 
 for Christ is lost. The smallest acts, the 
 quietest words, the gentlest inspirations that 
 touch human souls, leave their impress for 
 eternity. 
 
 Then, while we are giving out blessings to 
 help and to enrich other lives, we are receiv- 
 ing also into our own heart. The words of 
 the Master are literally true: "It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive." He did 
 not say it is more pleasant, more agreeable, 
 but more blessed. The song we sing to cheer 
 a weary spirit echoes back new cheer into 
 our own soul. The sacrifice we make to 
 help one in distress leaves us not poorer, but 
 richer. Love's stores are not wasted by giv- 
 ing — the more we give, the more we have. 
 The way to grow rich in the treasures of 
 kindness and affection is to show kindness 
 50 
 
Working for Christ : Service. 
 
 and affection to all who need. If we find 
 our spiritual life languishing, its resources 
 growing less, the true way to refresh it is 
 not by closer economy in giving out to others, 
 but by greater generosity. 
 
 " For the heart grows rich in giving: 
 All its wealth is living grain ; 
 Seeds which mildew in the garner, 
 Scattered, fill with gold the plain. 
 « « « « * 
 
 " Is the heart a living power? 
 
 Self-entwined, its strength sinks low ; 
 It can only live in loving ; 
 And by serving love will grow." 
 
 In every living church there are various 
 organized forms of Christian activity ; in 
 some one or more of these every member 
 should be engaged. Let the young Christian 
 at once choose the particular class of work 
 in which he decides that it is best for him to 
 engage, and promptly identify himself with 
 the organization, society or band which has 
 in view the special work he has selected. 
 There should not be one idle Christian in any 
 church. One of the most withering curses 
 uttered in the Scriptures is against uselessness 
 — against those who come not up to the help 
 of the Lord against the mighty. 
 
 Thus Christian work is not only a duty, 
 but a means of grace. It is not the rest of 
 inaction to which Christ calls us, but the rest 
 
 SI 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 of loving service. Every power of our being 
 we should give to him to be used. Every 
 gift we possess should be employed in doing 
 good. That day is a lost day in which we do 
 nothing to bless some other life in the name 
 of Christ. 
 
 " Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
 Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly : 
 Labor ! all labor is noble and holy ; 
 Let thy good deeds be a prayer to thy God." 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Helps: Personal Prayer. 
 
 \yE all need helps in our Christian life. 
 Of course, all the help we require we 
 can find in God. His is the almighty arm 
 on which we should ever lean in our weak- 
 ness ; his is the infinite life from whose full- 
 ness we should ever draw for the refilling of 
 our own exhausted life-pitchers ; his is the 
 light that should ever shine upon our dark- 
 ness for cheer, for comfort, for guidance, for 
 joy. God is all we need. 
 
 But we cannot see God with these mortal 
 eyes ; we cannot feel his bosom when we 
 need to lean upon it; we cannot hear his 
 voice when we listen for the word he may 
 have to speak ; we cannot carry our empty 
 pitchers up to heaven, where God dwells, to 
 have them refilled. We are like vines torn 
 off the trellis and trailing on the ground 
 amid the dust and the weeds, and we cannot 
 lift ourselves up to twine about the unseen 
 supports which God's grace provides. We 
 need something to help our dull senses — 
 S3 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 something we can see or hear or touch ; 
 something to interpret to our souls and bring 
 near to them the spiritual things of divine 
 love ; something to which the tendrils of our 
 hfe can chng, and which will hft them up 
 and fasten them on the invisible realities of 
 the spiritual world. And in loving mercy, 
 in condescension to our weakness and spirit- 
 ual dullness, God has provided for us such 
 helps as we need. He brings us his bless- 
 ings in ways that are adapted to our earthly 
 state and capacity. He puts the rich sup- 
 plies of his heavenly grace in cups from 
 which we can drink, and sets them low 
 down where we can reach them. 
 
 One of the helps which God has provided 
 is prayer. Without prayer no Christian life 
 can exist. There are other spiritual helps 
 from the want of which we may suffer, but 
 without which we may' still live near to God ; 
 but to give up prayer is to die. 
 
 Why should we pray ? Because God is 
 our Father and we are his children. It would 
 be a most undutiful, unfilial, ungrateful child 
 who should live in a good and beautiful 
 home, enjoying its comforts, blessed by its 
 love, and who should never have anything to 
 say to the father whose heart and hand make 
 the home, and who provides its comforts and 
 pleasures. 
 
 We should pray, also, because we need 
 54 
 
Helps: Personal Prayer. 
 
 things which we can get only by prayer. 
 Some things we can pick up with our hands 
 in this good world of our Father's, or buy 
 with our money, or receive through our 
 friends ; but there are things which we can 
 get only directly from God himself, and only 
 by asking him for them. He alone can for- 
 give our sins; and unless we are forgiven, 
 hfe is not worth living. He alone can give 
 us a new heart ; and unless we have a new 
 heart, we can never enter heaven. He alone 
 can give us grace to live a good and holy life 
 and keep us from sinking back into sin. He 
 alone can help us to fight life's battles and 
 come out victorious at the end. He alone 
 can lead us through death's valley to glory. 
 Indeed, we can do nothing without God. 
 The leaf quivering on the bough is not more 
 dependent upon the tree for its greenness and 
 life than are we dependent upon God for 
 our very existence and for all blessings. 
 We must pray or perish. 
 
 But may we pray ? We look up, and we 
 see no face in the heavens, no eye gazing 
 down — nothing but sky and clouds or stars. 
 We speak and then listen, but no answer 
 comes to us : all is silence about us. Is 
 there really any one to hear ? Or if there is, 
 will he hear ? 
 
 There are millions of people on the earth, 
 and there are millions of other worlds besides 
 55 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 this. Astronomers tell us that our globe, if it 
 were suddenly destroyed, would not be more 
 missed in God's vast universe than one leaf 
 which you might pluck off a wayside bush 
 would be missed from all the leaves on all 
 the trees and forests of the earth. It may be 
 that, like our planet, these other countless 
 worlds have their millions of inhabitants. 
 Will God hear the cry of one person among 
 so many? Does he take notice of indi- 
 viduals? Does he have particular thought 
 and care for each one ? 
 
 The Bible plainly answers these questions. 
 It tells us that God is our Father ; that he 
 loves us, not merely as a race, but as indi- 
 viduals — loves us each one with a peculiar 
 personal affection, as a human father loves 
 each one of his children though he have 
 many ; that he thinks of us, giving to the 
 smallest, humblest of us particular thought 
 and care, watching over us, listening for our 
 cry, ready always at any moment to give the 
 help we need and seek. 
 
 A little child fancied that when she began 
 to pray, God asked all the angels to stop 
 singing and playing on their harps while he 
 listened to her prayer until she said "Amen ! " 
 She was not far wrong in her fancy. God 
 does not need to hush the angels' songs to 
 hear a child's prayer ; but he hears it, never- 
 theless, amid all the noises of this great 
 56 
 
Helps : Personal Prayer. 
 
 universe, just as truly and clearly as if every 
 other voice were hushed. 
 
 One of the psalms represents God as in- 
 clining his ear to the suppliant on the earth 
 to hear his cry, as a man bends down so as 
 to bring his ear close to one who speaks, that 
 he may catch every word. In another psalm 
 are these remarkable words : " He hath 
 looked down from the height of his sanc- 
 tuary ; from heaven did the Lord behold the 
 earth ; to hear the groaning of the prisoner," 
 The Bible is full of just such human repre- 
 sentations of God's interest in his children on 
 the earth, and of his loving attention when 
 they cry to him. We may pray, therefore : 
 there is One to hear us. 
 
 Hoiv shall we pray so as to be heard and 
 to receive help ? For one thing, there must 
 be real desire in our hearts. Forms of 
 words do not make prayer: we must want 
 something, and must realize our dependence 
 upon God for it. Then we must come to him 
 as his children. It was Christ himself who 
 taught us to pray to " Our Father which art 
 in heaven." If we have the true child-spirit 
 which the using of this invocation implies, 
 we shall make our requests with confidence, 
 believing that our Father loves us and will 
 deny us nothing that is for our good. 
 
 Of course, we must remember that God 
 knows better than we do what is best for us, 
 57 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 and we must be willing, even when our 
 desires are strongest and most impetuous, to 
 say, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine, 
 be done." We must let our Father decide 
 whether the thing we ask is the thing we 
 need. The thing we want might be poison 
 to our life ; if so, God will not give it to us, 
 but, instead, will give us grace to do without 
 it, which is an answer to our desire, and a far 
 better answer than the thing we sought. 
 
 Prayer should also be earnest. Two of 
 our Lord's parables were spoken to impress 
 this duty. If an unjust judge could be so 
 moved by importunity, how much more will 
 the loving heart of the heavenly Father yield 
 to repeated supplication ! The man at whose 
 door the friend knocked at midnight gave 
 the loaves, not because it was his friend who 
 asked them, but because the friend would not 
 go away without them. God is not moved 
 by such low motives, but the parable is meant 
 to show the power of persevering importunity 
 in prayer. God wants to see his children 
 in earnest ; he loves to hear from suppliants 
 the burning words which tell of intense 
 desire. One fervent, impassioned " I will 
 not let thee go, except thou bless me" has 
 more power with God than whole years of 
 cold, heartless, formal prayer. 
 
 Of course, importunity must not become 
 rebelliousness : in the greatest intensity of 
 58 
 
Helps : Personal Prayer. 
 
 our praying we must ever be ready to 
 acquiesce in God's will. Importunity has 
 its limits. It may at length become evident 
 that God does not want to give us what we 
 desire ; then we should cease to plead, with 
 submissive faith accepting our Father's re- 
 fusal. Thus our Lord himself in the garden 
 was importunate, but from first to last he 
 deferred all to his Father's will ; and after 
 having prayed three times he ceased to 
 plead, taking the cup held out to him. Paul 
 was importunate in pleading for the removal 
 of the thorn which so troubled him, but, like 
 his Master, he also was acquiescent; and 
 after pleading three times he too ceased to 
 urge his plea. 
 
 There is little danger that we ever too 
 earnestly or importunately press our desires 
 for spiritual good, either for ourselves or for 
 others. We know it is always God's will to 
 give us more grace, to make us holier and 
 purer, to bring out in us more clearly the 
 features of the divine image, to give us more 
 of his Holy Spirit : these are always bless- 
 ings ; but in prayer for temporal things it is 
 safer and wiser to ask humbly and with diffi- 
 dence, laying our desires at God's feet, with- 
 out anxious pressure, without too much 
 urgency, trustfully submitting all to his un- 
 erring wisdom. 
 
 The true aim in living is not to grow rich, 
 59 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 to be clothed in earthly honor, to have mere 
 worldly happiness and freedom from suffer- 
 ing and loss, but rather to grow rich in 
 spiritual graces, to be made more and more 
 like Christ and to live out God's purpose and 
 plan for our life. By far the noblest thing 
 for us always is God's will. That means 
 perfect beauty and perfect good. Anything 
 else is marring and blemish. 
 
 When shall we pray ? When the spirit of 
 prayer is in the heart, there is little need to 
 say just how or when prayer should be 
 offered. Still, there must be habits. Merely 
 to trust to the feeling or desire, and to have 
 no fixed time for devotion, praying only 
 when the heart prompts, is not safe. The 
 end would be a prayerless life. The lamps 
 in the temple burned continually, but they 
 were trimmed and refilled every day. The 
 flame of devotion in a Christian heart should 
 never go out, but this lamp too must be re- 
 plenished continually. 
 
 Certainly, there should be a season of 
 secret prayer at the opening, and again at the 
 close, of every day. " In the morning it 
 seems a hem and border to each day's life, 
 and in the evening it brings down the dew on 
 the spirit, to wash off the stain and dust, and 
 to feed and refresh." In the morning the 
 day lies before us with its unforeseen and 
 untried experiences. It may bring painful 
 60 
 
Helps : Personal Prayer. 
 
 duty, sore struggle, hard task, keen suffering, 
 sharp temptation, or perhaps death. How 
 can we go out into the opening day which 
 may have such experiences for us, without 
 seeking the guidance and help of God ? In 
 the evening we bring the day's history for 
 review. There are sins to be forgiven ; there 
 is work to be blessed ; there are thanks to be 
 spoken for mercies ; there is weariness to be 
 refreshed ; there is hunger to be fed. Then, 
 as we go into the darkness and defenseless- 
 ness of the night, there is protection to be 
 invoked, and new life for a new day. 
 
 We need to watch always that our prayers 
 are real, fresh from our heart, and that they 
 never degenerate into mere formalities, words 
 without desires, petitions without wishes and 
 without faith. True prayer is talking to God 
 as one talks to a friend ; mere words are 
 empty mockeries. We pray best in secret 
 when we tell out our soul's deepest wants in 
 the simplest phrases. As we grov; in Chris- 
 tian life prayer becomes more and more real 
 to us. 
 
 Dr. Phelps says, " Three stages of growth 
 are commonly discernible respecting prayer 
 in the Christian consciousness. They are, 
 prayer as a resource in emergencies, prayer 
 as a habit at appointed times, and prayer as 
 a state in which a believer lives at all times." 
 In this last and highest development, stated 
 6i 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 times of prayer are not abandoned, but the 
 heart does not limit itself to these in com- 
 muning with God. The spirit of devotion 
 overflows the fixed hours of prayer and holds 
 fellowship with God continuously. Even the 
 busiest hours of work are brightened by 
 many a moment of heavenly communion. 
 This is what is meant by walking with God. 
 Men talk to him while at their work, in ejacu- 
 lations of prayer. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis says, "God alone is a 
 thousand companions ; he alone is a world 
 of friends. That man never knew what it 
 was to be famihar with God, who complains 
 of the want of friends while God is with him." 
 It is this state of constant and unbroken 
 communion with God toward which we should 
 all strive. 
 
 Let the life of the closet flow out into all 
 the busy hours of the busiest days. It will 
 be a defense for us amid temptations. It will 
 give us power in Christian service. It will 
 hallow all our influence. It will make holy 
 and pure every nook and cranny of our life. 
 It will give us peace in the midst of dangers. 
 It will hold us apart from the world and near 
 to God wherever we go. Like the beloved 
 disciple, our habitual place will then be on 
 the bosom of Jesus, and our earthly spirit will 
 become filled with the brightness and the 
 sweetness of his love. 
 62 
 
Helps : Personal Prayer. 
 
 Thus prayer is indeed the Christian's very 
 vital breath. To cease to pray is to cease to 
 live. The gate of prayer is never shut. We 
 should keep the path to it well trodden. We 
 can there find help in all weakness, light in 
 all darkness, comfort in all sorrow, compan- 
 ionship in all loneliness, friendship in all 
 heart hunger. If we know how to get help 
 in prayer, we need never fail at any point in 
 hfe ; for then all God's might of love is ever 
 back of our weakness, as the great ocean is 
 back of the little bay. 
 
 63 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Helps: The Bible. 
 
 A NOTHER indispensable help in Christian 
 Hfe is the Bible, In prayer, we talk to 
 God ; in the Bible, God speaks to us. The 
 first disciples heard the words of divine truth 
 as they dropped directly from the lips of the 
 great Teacher. They could bring their ques- 
 tions right to him, and he would answer 
 them. They could ask him what he wanted 
 them to do, and he would tell them. When 
 they were in sorrow, the words of comfort 
 fell, warm and tender, from the very lips of 
 the Son of God into their sad hearts. One 
 of his friends sat at his feet and listened 
 reverently and lovingly to his instructions ; 
 another leaned his head on the Lord's bosom 
 and whispered his confidential questions and 
 received answers ; an inquirer came by night 
 to him and had a long talk with him about 
 the way to be saved. 
 
 Those were wonderful days when God 
 himself was on this earth in human form, 
 speaking in the tones of actual human speech 
 64 
 
Helps: The Bible. 
 
 the words of life, and answering men's ques- 
 tions with his own lips. We cannot any 
 more hear the divine voice as men heard it 
 then. Yet God still speaks. We can still 
 bring our questions, and he will answer them. 
 We can still sit at the Teacher's feet and hear 
 his words. We can still rest our head on 
 his bosom in our sorrow and listen to his 
 assurances of love. We can still ask him 
 how to be saved, and get a plain, clear 
 answer. God speaks to men in his written 
 word. 
 
 The question is how to get help from the 
 Bible. We know the help is there. Others 
 find it, and we see their face glow or the tears 
 glisten in their eyes as they read its pages. 
 But somehow it does not open to us as it does 
 to others. We cannot say, " Oh how love I 
 thy law ! it is my meditation all the day." 
 We try to make ourselves love the Bible and 
 to find its words sweeter than honey and 
 more precious than gold ; but, to be perfectly 
 honest, we do not love it, nor do we find in 
 it either the honey or the gold. Yet we know 
 that the sweetness and the richness are there 
 if only we could find them. How may we 
 read the book so that it will open to us 
 and show us its wondrous treasures of light, 
 of love, of comfort, and of help ? 
 
 For one thing, we must rid ourselves of 
 all superstitious notions about the Bible. It 
 S 65 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 is not a talisman. Merely having a Bible in 
 one's possession or on one's person will 
 neither drive away evil nor bring good. 
 Soldiers entering battle sometimes throw 
 away their cards and put their Bible into 
 their pocket : they imagine that then they 
 will be safer in danger; but a Bible in a 
 soldier's pocket is in itself no more protec- 
 tion than a pack of cards. Nor, if he has it 
 in his pocket only, will it be of any more use 
 to him if he is killed in battle. The mere 
 owning of a Bible or having one in the house 
 does no one any good. It would be just as 
 well to wear a crucifix or to nail a horseshoe 
 over the door. We must get clear of super- 
 stitious impressions respecting the holy word. 
 
 We must remember, also, that the mere 
 reading of a certain portion of the Bible 
 every day will not make us wise unto salva- 
 tion, nor purify our heart, nor give us com- 
 fort in sorrow, nor put a staff into our hand 
 to help us along life's rough, steep paths. 
 The Bible does not yield its blessing to such 
 reading. 
 
 Then, further, it is not enough to under- 
 stand the words, or even to memorize them. 
 There are many people who have many 
 Bible texts at their tongue's end who never 
 get any real help from them, nor make any 
 practical use of them. There are those who 
 know the promises and can quote them to 
 66 
 
Helps: The Bible. 
 
 others, who are not able to apply one suitable 
 promise to their own personal needs, and 
 who get no benefit for their own lives from 
 the texts they remember. Hiding the Bible 
 in the memory is not all that is necessary to 
 make its treasures of help availing. 
 
 Just what is the office of the Bible with 
 reference to our personal life ? There are 
 books which it is necessary merely to read : 
 they have no office or errand to us beyond 
 the pleasure or instruction which their pages 
 may impart as we go over them. We listen 
 to a lecture on astronomy, and we hear many 
 interesting things about the sun, the planets, 
 or the stars. We believe what we hear, and 
 we may remember the facts ; but it is not 
 expected that the knowledge of these scien- 
 tific facts will make any change in our con- 
 duct or character to-morrow. If we are in 
 trouble, these truths will not comfort us. 
 We cannot pillow our heads upon them in 
 sorrow. If we are perplexed about duty, we 
 shall not get any light from them, — the stars 
 are too far away and too cold. The same is 
 true of all similar knowledge ; our whole 
 duty with regard to it is to receive it and to 
 lay it up among our mental treasures. 
 
 But there is more than this to be done with 
 
 the truths of the Bible. They are the words 
 
 of God, and as such they are meant to be 
 
 obeyed. They reveal to us invisible things 
 
 67 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 — things which no natural human eye can 
 ever see — and we are to beheve in these un- 
 seen things as eternal realities and to live 
 with reference to them. Every truth in the 
 Bible has a practical bearing upon life in 
 some of its phases. The Bible is therefore a 
 book for life, not merely for knowledge. 
 
 An illustration or two will make this plain. 
 The first word that comes to the inquirer is, 
 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 shalt be saved." It is not enough to know — 
 even to understand — this word. It calls for 
 an act — the committing of the soul, utterly 
 and forever, for salvation, for life, for glory, 
 into the hands of the only Redeemer and 
 Saviour. — "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart." It is easy to memorize 
 these words, but that is not all we are ex- 
 pected to do with them. They have their 
 proper outcome only when they draw out our 
 heart's holiest affections and fasten them 
 upon God in loyal, consecrating devotion. — 
 " This is my commandment, That ye love one 
 another." The sentiment, men say, is admi- 
 rable. It is extolled by many on whose 
 heart and life it makes no impression what- 
 ever. No doubt the "sentiment" is very 
 beautiful, but its true office is intensely prac- 
 tical — to kindle in every Christian heart a 
 deep, generous, unselfish affection which 
 
 68 
 
Helps: The Bible. 
 
 shall bind and hold together all believers in 
 a common and holy brotherhood. 
 
 To make proper use of such words as these 
 we must not only understand them and 
 admire them as ethical teachings, but must 
 also submit our life to them, to be in- 
 fluenced, moulded, colored, and directed, by 
 their requirements— that is, we are to receive 
 them as God's words of command to us and 
 obey them accordingly. We are using the 
 precepts and counsels of the Scriptures aright 
 only when we are implicitly, unquestioningly, 
 and loyally, walking in the way they mark 
 out for our feet. 
 
 The true outcome of the Bible as a book 
 of commands is a holy personal life and a 
 Christlike personal character. The way, 
 then, to get help from the book is to come to 
 it as to Christ himself, asking what he would 
 have us to do, and then, as we read, submit- 
 ting our life to every word's impact and 
 influence. Thus the Bible will become to us 
 a personal guide — the voice of Christ, ever 
 saying, "This is the way;" the hand of 
 Christ, ever leading us in right paths. 
 
 There is another class of Bible words — the 
 promises. These do not so much call for 
 active obedience as for implicit belief and 
 restful trust. They contain assurances of 
 divine help and blessing in certain circum- 
 stances. They tell us of things which we 
 69 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 cannot see. Thus they call for the exercise 
 of faith, and therefore it is not easy to make 
 them available. Many who are faithful in 
 performing every required duty fail to get 
 such help from God's promises in the hours 
 of darkness as these promises are intended 
 to give. 
 
 How can Bible promises be made available 
 in times of need ? How can we get from 
 them that help which they are intended to 
 give us in living? We must recognize and 
 accept them as the sure and faithful words of 
 God — words that will be fulfilled to the letter 
 in the experience of every child of God who 
 rests upon them. They must be hidden in 
 the heart and kept always ready for instant 
 use. Then, when the need comes for which 
 these promises make provision, they must be 
 personally appropriated and trusted in as 
 God's fresh and explicit words of assurance 
 to his loved ones. 
 
 It is, in fact, only in the experiences of real 
 need that the value of the divine promises 
 can be realized. One may greatly admire a 
 lifeboat as he looks at it hanging in its place 
 above the ship's deck on a fair morning, but 
 its true worth he does not know until the ship 
 is going down and the lifeboat is his only 
 hope of rescue. It is so with Bible promises. 
 We do not know their worth until we enter 
 upon the experiences in which we are help- 
 70 
 
Helps: The Bible. 
 
 less without them. We may admire them 
 when all is fair and calm about us, but it is 
 only when the shock of the tempest is on us 
 and our earthly trusts are shattered that we 
 can realize the value of the trusts which have 
 God's arm underneath them. It is only 
 when our path leads down into some dark 
 gorge of trial where no earthly sunbeams fall 
 that we learn the worth of the lamps of 
 heavenly promise. 
 
 Thus the Bible is a book for life, and only 
 when we submit our life to it can we get its 
 help. The hungry heart will always find 
 the bread. The sincere and simple-hearted 
 seeker after truth will always find the truth. 
 The submissive spirit will receive guidance. 
 The beheving soul will find the arm of the 
 Eternal under every word of promise. 
 
 As to the manner of reading the Bible, but 
 few suggestions may here be given. The 
 heart is the great matter : if the heart be 
 right, God's Spirit will guide, and will not 
 only open the treasures of the Scriptures and 
 reveal their sweetness, but will also open the 
 reader's eyes to behold the wondrous things 
 that the sacred book contains. 
 
 The Bible should certainly be read every 
 day ; our soul as well as our body needs 
 daily bread. It should be read, too, in con- 
 nection with secret prayer : the two exercises 
 mutually help each other. Devotion without 
 71 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 the word to feed upon is inadequate for our 
 soul's needs, and without prayer the Bible 
 does not open to us nor yield the blessing 
 we seek. We should always keep the Bible 
 lying open on the closet table. 
 
 With regard to the method, the Bible may 
 be read in course, or read by books, or read 
 by topics, or read to meet the needs of the 
 day, or read fragmentarily without order or 
 plan. Some persons read the Bible through 
 every year. Too many read without system 
 or method of any kind, beginning wherever 
 the book opens ; and as a result they read 
 certain portions many times over, but leave 
 whole sections unread and unexplored. 
 Every intelligent Christian should seek to 
 become familiar with all parts of the Bible, 
 and therefore it is well to read it through 
 regularly in order. 
 
 Besides this, however, it is well to read 
 also by topics, searching the volume through 
 with concordance and text book, to know 
 what the Holy Spirit teaches on all phases 
 of a particular subject. It is profitable, too, 
 to read single books, if possible at one sit- 
 ting. This is especially helpful to the under- 
 standing of the Epistles. As experience 
 ripens and the book becomes more familiar, 
 it is pleasant and helpful to turn each day to 
 passages that meet the peculiar needs of the 
 day. Young Christians will usually find it 
 72 
 
Helps: The Bible. 
 
 profitable to begin with the stor)^ of Christ in 
 the Gospels, studying the life and words of 
 the Master until their hearts are filled with 
 thoughts and memories of him whose life is 
 their pattern and whose words are to guide 
 their steps. 
 
 The system of international Sabbath-school 
 lessons affords an excellent opportunity for 
 thorough and consecutive Bible study. In 
 seven years the student is carried through 
 the whole book. Of course many parts of 
 it are not taken up in the lessons ; but if the 
 portions thus omitted between the Sabbath 
 sections are carefully read each week, the 
 entire Bible will be gone over in the seven 
 years. The daily "home readings" indi- 
 cated in connection with the lessons form in 
 themselves an excellent Bible-reading course 
 covering every day in the year. For most 
 young people there is perhaps no better 
 system of Scripture study than that which 
 follows the order of the Sabbath-school 
 course — the lessons, the home readings, the 
 connecting portions, and the references. If 
 this is closely and conscientiously followed, 
 day after day and year after year, it will in 
 the end yield a full, intelligent and systematic 
 knowledge of the word that makes wise unto 
 salvation. 
 
 But, in whatever order the Bible may be 
 read, let it surely be read. There are now so 
 73 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 many commentaries and other writings upon 
 the Scriptures that we are in danger of read- 
 ing a great deal about the Bible, while the 
 book itself is neglected. It is important that 
 we search the Scriptures themselves. Then 
 each one should search for himself. It is 
 not enough to take the golden findings that 
 another has dug out: we must dig for 
 ourselves. 
 
 Above all, we must pray for light while we 
 read, that we may discover the precious things 
 which God has stored away in his word ; and 
 we must pray for submission, that we may 
 be able to yield our life to every influence 
 of the truth ; and we must pray for faith, that 
 we may be able to realize the invisible things 
 of God which the holy word reveals, and get 
 their support and their blessing for our soul. 
 
 74 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Helps : the Church and its Services. 
 
 DESIDES the help received in private de- 
 votion, every young Christian needs the 
 aid which the pubhc services of the church 
 are designed to afford. We were not made 
 to hve alone. We lean upon and cling to 
 each other "like traihng flowers that grow by 
 interlacing." The necessities of our being 
 require companionship. Mind grows and 
 develops best in contact with other minds. 
 One log will not burn alone. In a sense God 
 himself is all we need, and in communion 
 with him every want of our soul is met : 
 
 " Yea, through life, through death, through sorrow 
 and through sinning. 
 He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed." 
 
 Yet the glory is so great, the splendor is so 
 dazzling, that we need human hands to bring 
 the divine blessing down to us. Besides, the 
 heart does not rise to its highest fervor in the 
 solitude of the closet. Our warmest feelings 
 of devotion are drawn out when we unite 
 75 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 with others in associated service. The con- 
 sciousness that a whole congregation of wor- 
 shipers about us is moved by the same 
 emotion that we experience, whether it be 
 gratitude, confession of sin, or prayer for 
 mercy, deepens the emotion in us. 
 
 Then there are special promises to those 
 who unite in the services of God's worship. 
 In times of great defection particular mention 
 was made by the prophet of those "who 
 feared the Lord and spake often one to 
 another." It was said that "the Lord heark- 
 ened, and heard it, and a book of remem- 
 brance was written before him." Jesus gave 
 a special promise of answer to prayer when 
 his people shall agree in asking, implying 
 that, as added strands make the cable 
 stronger, so added hearts make the supplica- 
 tion more avaihng. He also gave a definite 
 promise of his own presence where even two 
 or three of his disciples shall meet together 
 in his name. 
 
 There is no doubt that there are blessings 
 which we can obtain in the public worship, 
 where many hearts mingle their homage and 
 their prayers, which we cannot find in secret. 
 Private devotion is indispensable and cannot 
 be replaced by the public services ; yet, in 
 addition to all the aid we can get in our 
 religious life in secret prayer and Bible read- 
 ing, we need, and cannot afford to neglect, 
 76 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 public worship. To do so is to deprive our- 
 selves of one of the greatest helps in Qiris- 
 tian life. 
 
 We can better understand the nature of the 
 help we may receive from the church services 
 if we have definite conceptions of die objects 
 of public worship. 
 
 One object is to honor God by bringing to 
 him our heart's homage. This element of 
 worship is one that needs to be strongly 
 emphasized. Many persons have the impres- 
 sion that the sermon is the most important — 
 even the all-important — feature of the service. 
 Too little is made of the devotional part. 
 The error is a grave one. In die divine 
 intention the primary object in public relig- 
 ious service is to worship God, to bring to 
 him our heart's love and adoration, our grati- 
 tude and our confession, and to renew before 
 him our personal consecration. 
 
 Another object in the pubhc service is 
 instruction. The minister has been trained 
 to be an expounder of the word of God. He 
 has spent years in preparation for his work. 
 He devotes the golden hours of every day to 
 special study and thought, so as to be able 
 each Sabbath to bring to his people and 
 clearly and impressively put before them 
 some important truth of Holy Scriptures. 
 The people come to the church to be in- 
 structed in things concerning God's character 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 and will and concerning their own needs and 
 duties. 
 
 A third object in the pubHc service is spir- 
 itual growth and culture. We learn about 
 God's character, that we may adore and 
 worship him more fervently ; about his will, 
 that we may obey him more implicitly ; 
 about his promises, that we may trust him 
 more confidently ; about our duty, that we 
 may do it more faithfully. The object of 
 worship, also, so far as its influence upon 
 ourselves is concerned, is the spiritual bless- 
 ing and strength that come from communion 
 with God and the opening of the heart in 
 the warmth of his presence. 
 
 These public services are designed, there- 
 fore, and adapted to impart help to the 
 sincere worshiper. No one can spend an 
 hour in God's presence, looking up into his 
 face and occupied with thoughts of him to 
 the exclusion of worldly thoughts, and not 
 experience a cleansing of heart and a kin- 
 dling of soul which will prove a great enrich- 
 ing of the life. All that is good in us receives 
 quickening and new impulse in such an 
 atmosphere ; all that is evil is checked and 
 repressed. 
 
 The influence of fellowship in worship 
 
 with other Christians is also of great profit. 
 
 We are lifted up on the tide of spiritual 
 
 emotion. Our affections are purified. The 
 
 78 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 bonds of Christian love are strengthened. 
 There is the benefit, also, derived from the 
 instruction in God's word which we receive. 
 Now we are warned against some danger ; 
 now some sin in us is rebuked ; now it is 
 a word of comfort which comes to cheer us 
 in sorrow ; now it is a new thought about 
 God, the unveiling to us of an attribute in 
 his character, which draws out in us fresh 
 adoration and love ; now it is a call to some 
 neglected duty. 
 
 Besides all these benefits, there is the 
 renewal of spiritual strength which we find 
 in the house of God : " They that wait upon 
 the Lord shall renew their strength." Life 
 wastes our vigor. Its duties and struggles 
 exhaust us. The Sabbath services bring us 
 again into communion with God, and the 
 emptied pitchers are refilled. No one can 
 spend an hour in God's house in true and 
 sincere worship and not be better and 
 stronger for it for many days. 
 
 How to get from the church services the 
 help they have to give to us is one of the 
 most important practical questions in Chris- 
 tian life. 
 
 It is quite possible to attend these services, 
 even with commendable regularity, and yet 
 receive but little spiritual profit. There is 
 no holy atmosphere in the house of God that 
 is necessarily medicinal or tonic to our soul. 
 79 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 There is no filtration of grace into our life 
 that goes on without agency of our own 
 while we sit with shut heart in our soft pew in 
 the sanctuary and dream through a service. 
 Forms of worship, whether plain or elaborate, 
 are empty without the sincere homage and 
 faith of a loving heart. They carry up to 
 God just what we put into them ; they bring 
 to us from God just what with prayer and 
 faith we draw out of them. 
 
 Two persons may sit side by side and take 
 part outwardly in the exercises of devotion, 
 yet from one there will rise to God pure 
 incense and an acceptable offering, and from 
 the other the empty mockery of a heartless 
 and formal service ; the one worshiper goes 
 away strengthened and blessed, and the 
 other carries away nothing but an empty 
 hand and a cold, unblest heart. Whatever 
 the forms of public service may be, the heart 
 must be truly engaged or the worship will be 
 vain and unprofitable. 
 
 To make this chapter as helpful as possible 
 to young Christians, a few definite practical 
 suggestions are offered. 
 
 To begin with, thoughtful preparation for 
 church services will greatly increase their 
 profitableness to those who engage in them. 
 The very best ordinary preparation is a 
 season of private devotion before going to 
 the house of God. The heart is thus cleansed 
 80 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 of its worldly thoughts, is opened and warmed 
 toward God, and is in a suitable condition to 
 enter earnestly and reverently into the acts 
 of public worship. 
 
 A reverent approach toward and entrance 
 into God's house are further aids to blessing 
 in the services. We should at least re- 
 member that we are going to meet God, and 
 should know and consider well on what 
 errand we are going — to worship him and 
 receive help for our own Hfe, if we have any 
 real errand at all — and should have our 
 expectations aroused in anticipation of com- 
 munion with God and his people, and our 
 heart eager with desire for the holy meeting. 
 
 Many persons enter God's house with as 
 little thoughtfulness and seriousness as if it 
 were a concert or a literary entertainment 
 they had come to hear. Such persons are 
 not prepared either to render acceptable 
 worship or to receive needed help in the 
 service. We shall find in God's house and 
 in his ordinances just what we are spiritually 
 prepared to find. God must be in the heart, 
 or we shall not see God in the exercises of 
 worship. We shall never find in the sanc- 
 tuary that which we do not seek and want to 
 find. If we enter careless and indifferent, 
 with no spirit of devotion, we shall carry 
 away no blessing. If we come with longing 
 and earnest desire to meet God and lay our 
 6 8i 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 burdens at his feet, to rest and refresh our- 
 selves in his presence, and to receive new 
 strength from him for duty, we shall find all 
 we wish. 
 
 Another condition of help is earnest per- 
 sonal interest in each part of the service. 
 There is no blessing in our being merely 
 among true worshipers and in the presence 
 of God. A throng was close about Jesus one 
 day, but one only of them all was healed ; 
 she was healed because she reached out her 
 trembling finger and in faith touched the hem 
 of Christ's garment. The multitude thronged, 
 but only one touched him. This history may 
 be repeated any Sabbath in any congrega- 
 tion. While many crowd close about Christ, 
 only those will receive blessing who touch 
 the hem of his robe. 
 
 Even in public services we do not worship 
 in companies, but as individuals. One sitting 
 close beside us may hold delightful commu- 
 nion with God and receive rich spiritual 
 refreshment, while our heart remains like a 
 dry, parched field ; in the midst of the 
 showers, yet receiving not one drop of rain 
 from the full, overhanging clouds. No matter 
 what others may or may not do or receive, 
 our business in God's house is personal. 
 There is blessing there for us if we will take 
 it. Suppose the minister is a. little dull and 
 the service a little wearisome ; yet is not God 
 82 
 
.The Church and its Services. 
 
 present ? The blessing is not in the minister 
 nor in the service, but in God himself, who is 
 ready ahvays to dispense to the tired and the 
 hungry the rest and the bread they crave. 
 
 Then, after the service, we should go away 
 thoughtfully and reverently as we came. 
 The custom which prevails in some churches 
 of lingering a moment in silent prayer after 
 the benediction is very beautiful and impres- 
 sive. Let the last minute be spent looking 
 into God's face for a parting benediction. 
 
 Church^aisle sociability, so often com- 
 mended, no doubt has its pleasant side, but 
 it certainly has its disadvantages and its 
 grave dangers. We may without spiritual 
 harm greet one another cordially and affec- 
 tionately in quiet tones as we pass out, but 
 too often the conversation runs either into 
 criticism of the preacher and the sermon, or 
 off on trivial and worldly themes. The con- 
 sequence is, that the good seed sown is 
 picked up and devoured by the birds before 
 it has had time to root. We would better go 
 away, quietly pondering the great thoughts 
 which the service has suggested to us, seek- 
 ing to deepen in our heart the impressions 
 made and to assimilate in our life the truths 
 of God's word which have fallen upon our 
 ears. 
 
 From the church gate back again to the 
 closet whence we set out is the best walk to 
 83 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 take after the service has closed. A few 
 moments of secret prayer will carry the bless- 
 ings of the sanctuary so deep into our hearts 
 that thereafter they will be part of our very 
 hfe. 
 
 A special word may fitly be spoken of the 
 Lord's Supper and of the way in which we 
 can get help from it. In the minds of many 
 people a great deal of unnecessary mystery 
 hangs about this ordinance. That which sets 
 it apart from other services is that it is a 
 memorial feast appointed by Christ himself, 
 in which our thought and faith are helped 
 by visible elements that represent to us the 
 great spiritual facts of our redemption. 
 
 The help this service gives is not different 
 from that received from other ordinances, 
 unless it be that the use of the visible sym- 
 bols brings Christ and his sacrificial work 
 more vividly before our dull eyes than where 
 words only are used to picture the same 
 truths. In this sense it is a greater aid to 
 faith than a sermon or a hymn ; but, as in all 
 worship, so in the communion, the blessing 
 comes, not from the ordinance itself, but 
 from Christ. 
 
 How, then, can we get from the Lord's 
 Supper the help it has to give ? Only by 
 finding the way to Christ and submitting our 
 heart to the tender influences of his love. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is a memorial ; we 
 84 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 should remember Christ as we come to his 
 table. It is a memorial especially of Christ's 
 sufferings and death : we should recall his 
 humiliation, his obedience, his agony, his 
 crucifixion, and think of the love that led 
 him voluntarily to make himself an offering 
 for sin. But memories alone will not bless 
 us, — there must be appropriating faith. 
 "Broken foryoti," said the Master; "Broken 
 for ;//t' " should be faith's answer. 
 
 There should be in the heart of the sincere 
 Christian no more dread in going to the 
 Lord's Supper than in going to any other 
 service. St. Paul's word '* unwortJiily'' — 
 which has been misunderstood by so many 
 — has reference entirely to the manner in 
 which persons observe the ordinance, not to 
 the persons themselves. 
 
 The Corinthians to whom St. Paul was 
 writing made it a common feast, with revel- 
 ing — even with drunkenness. Of course, 
 any one who would observe it in such a way, 
 or any one who would sit at the table without 
 really loving Christ, without believing on him, 
 without truly worshiping him and submitting 
 to him, or who would act irreverently or 
 with levity, would be "guilty of the body 
 and blood of the Lord." But in the apostle's 
 word there is not the slightest allusion to 
 those who feel themselves unworthy, yet who 
 are sincere and true disciples of Christ. A 
 8^ 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 sense of personal unworthiness is part of all 
 true faith in Christ. 
 
 " Not worthy, Lord, to gather up the crumbs 
 
 With trembhng hand that from thy table fall, 
 A weary, heavy-laden sinner comes 
 
 To plead thy promise and obey thy call." 
 
 If the heart be sincere, if the trust in Christ 
 be true though trembling, and the obedience 
 loyal though imperfect, we have the same 
 right to come boldly to the Lord's Table as to 
 prayer or any other ordinance. We can sin 
 in any act of worship by formality, by insin- 
 cerity, by levity, by want of heart, and we 
 can sin in the same ways in receiving the 
 Lord's Supper. In partaking of this sacred 
 memorial feast we need to be sure only that 
 we are truly in living union with Christ, that 
 we are trusting him alone as our Saviour and 
 following him faithfully as our Lord, and that 
 we come to his table with a sincere desire to 
 meet him and to seek blessing from him. 
 
 The young Christian should never stay 
 aw^y from the Lord's Supper when it is 
 celebrated in the church of which he is a 
 member. If he is conscious of sin and 
 failure, let him make humble confession and 
 start anew. The Lord's Supper will help 
 him to do this. We cannot afford to miss 
 this ordinance. The weaker we are, and the 
 more unworthy, the more do we need it. 
 86 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 Besides, it is in a peculiar sense a Christ- 
 confessing ordinance : we take our place at 
 his table, and thus witness to the world that 
 we are his. His honor therefore demands 
 that we should never absent ourselves when 
 his people thus confess him. 
 
 There are other church services which 
 have their large possibilities of help for young 
 Christians. Among these are weekly meet- 
 ings for prayer. From Sabbath to Sabbath 
 is a long stretch when the way is hard, when 
 distractions are many, and when the battles 
 are sore. The prayer meeting is a little oasis, 
 midway. It is a place specially for the re- 
 freshment of Christians. Every young disciple 
 should put it down among his positive weekly 
 engagements. We cannot afford to miss it 
 if we are at all earnest in our desire to be 
 strong and noble Christians. 
 
 The Sabbath-school is another of the 
 church services which no young Christian 
 should miss. It is not for children only : it 
 ought to be a Bible school for the whole 
 church, with its classes of young men and 
 young women, and of old people with dim 
 eyes and gray heads. It is on God's word 
 that we all need to feed more and more. It 
 will make us strong. It will lead us in right 
 paths. It will beautify our character. It 
 will put into our hand the sword of the 
 Spirit for battle with temptation. It will pre- 
 87 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 pare a pillow for our head in sickness and 
 sorrow. It will at the last guide us through 
 the valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 In most churches there is a Christian 
 Endeavor or other young people's society. 
 This is really a training school for young 
 Christians. They have an opportunity of 
 learning to take part in church services. 
 They can begin here in a very humble and 
 easy way and in a sympathetic atmosphere, 
 and by practice can overcome their natural 
 timidity, until at last they can rise and speak 
 with freedom in any meeting. It is well for 
 many young Christians to unite with a young 
 people's society for the sake of the training 
 they will receive, not only in the prayer 
 meetings, but also in the work of the society. 
 
 We need the church services. We can- 
 not neglect them and not suffer harm and 
 loss. Whenever the church bell summons 
 us to the house of God, we should gladly 
 respond. We should become church-goers 
 by habit. We should reverently enter the 
 gates of the sanctuary. We should worship 
 God in sincerity and in truth. We should 
 come away thoughtfully and with prayer. 
 
 Then in the busy days which follow will 
 come the proofs of the helpfulness and bless- 
 ing that our lives have found in the services. 
 The food that is eaten to-day is the strength 
 of the laborer, the eloquence of the orator. 
 
The Church and its Services. 
 
 the skill of the artisan, to-morrow. The 
 spring sunshine and rain that fall upon the 
 dry, briery rose bush reappear in due time in 
 fragrant, lovely roses. And sincere and true 
 worship in the quiet of the sanctuary will 
 show itself in the beautiful character, the 
 sweetened spirit, the brightened hope, the 
 truer, better living and the holier consecra- 
 tion of the days of toil and struggle that 
 come after. 
 
 89 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Some of the Duties. 
 
 IT is a high attainment to be a good church 
 member. One must first be a good Chris- 
 tian. Without this, church membership counts 
 for nothing in the hfe of the person. We must 
 always put first things first. We must join 
 Christ before we join the church. Church 
 membership will not save us. 
 
 But when we have taken Jesus Christ as 
 our Saviour and Lord, and have consecrated 
 our life to him, the next privilege we enjoy is 
 that of uniting with his church. This in- 
 volves duties which the young Christian 
 should be ready to perform and responsibil- 
 ities which he should humbly accept. 
 
 One of these is a continuous and consist- 
 ent confession of Christ. We speak of 
 uniting with the church as confessing Christ. 
 It is a sacred moment when a company of 
 young people stand up in the presence of 
 their friends and make their first public con- 
 fession of Christ. Then they sit down at the 
 Lord's Table, and receive their first Holy 
 
Some of the Duties. 
 
 Communion. They have now confessed 
 Christ before men. Their act is very beauti- 
 ful. The Master, looking on this band of 
 young Christians in these moments of their 
 solemn commitment of themselves to him, is 
 pleased with their consecration and with their 
 promise to be his and to follow him fully and 
 forever. 
 
 This is a confession of Christ, but it is not 
 all of the confession ; it is only the begin- 
 ning of it. Those who have made this public 
 avowal, have thus set themselves apart for 
 God. They are not their own. They have 
 taken a new master. Their confession of 
 Christ henceforth should be continuous. " If 
 ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my 
 disciples," said Jesus to beginners. Indeed 
 it is the life of the common days among men 
 that tests the reality and sincerity of the first 
 confession. It is easy to stand up in the 
 midst of a company of Christians, all sympa- 
 thetic and friendly, and say, " I am a Chris- 
 tian ; " it is not so easy, however, on the 
 play ground, in the office, in the social 
 gathering, in the place of business, in the 
 presence of those who are unsympathetic 
 and unfriendly, to say, "I am a follower of 
 Christ." Yet this is what is expected and 
 required of those who have declared them- 
 selves Christians. 
 
 The daily confession need not be made 
 
In His Steps, 
 
 always in words, but it is to be made in the 
 life. Those who belong to Christ must walk 
 worthy of their Master. Their conduct, 
 wherever they go, must be such as will please 
 him and meet with his approval. They 
 must do nothing and say nothing that will 
 bring dishonor on the name they bear. 
 They represent Christ in the world — "As the 
 Father hath sent me, even so send I you," 
 he said to his first disciples. 
 . A young girl when received into the church 
 was asked what it would be for her to be a 
 Christian. She replied, " I suppose it will be 
 to do what Jesus would do and behave as 
 Jesus would behave, if he were a little girl 
 and lived at our house," No better answer 
 could have been given. One of our duties 
 as church members is to do what Jesus would 
 do and to behave as he would behave if he 
 were precisely in our place and our circum- 
 stances. We carry in our life not only the 
 honor of the church but the honor of Christ, 
 and we should never fail. 
 
 There are important and specific duties 
 which every member owes to his church. 
 Some of these have already been indicated 
 in another chapter of this book. One word, 
 faithfulness, will cover them all. We often 
 speak of persons belonging to the church. 
 The phrase is very suggestive. If we belong 
 to the church, we owe it our best love, our 
 92 
 
Some of the Duties. 
 
 best life, our best service, our best influence 
 and help. 
 
 Nothing but the will of God should keep 
 us away from the meetings of the church. 
 Then, being present at the services is not 
 enough. We should earnestly and heartily 
 participate in these services. Very chilling is 
 the influence of those worshipers who sit in 
 indifferent silence while joyous hymns are 
 being sung, who keep their eyes wide open 
 and are busy gazing over the house during 
 the prayers, who pay no heed to Scripture 
 lesson or sermon, and who take no interest 
 whatever in any of the parts of worship. 
 The ideal church member will be earnest 
 and fervent in his devotions and deeply in- 
 terested in all the services. Enthusiasm is 
 contagious, and the influence of one warm- 
 hearted worshiper upon others in a congre- 
 gation is very great. 
 
 The social life of a church is important. 
 There are churches which have the reputa- 
 tion of being cold, unsocial, unsympathetic. 
 Strangers come and go, but find no warmth, 
 no human interest, no kindly welcome. No 
 one offers them a friendly hand. Then there 
 are churches which are known as sociable, 
 where strangers receive hearty greeting and 
 are made to feel at home. The atmosphere 
 of the meetings is full of cordiality and hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 93 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 One of the duties of church membership, 
 therefore, is to exercise the spirit of love 
 toward all fellow members and toward all 
 who enter the church. Jesus said that all 
 men should know his disciples by their love 
 one for another. This was wonderfully true 
 of the first Christians, after the day of Pente- 
 cost. They had all things in common. The 
 rich shared with the poor. The strong helped 
 the weak. The world had never seen such 
 love before — there had never before been 
 such love. " Behold how these Christians 
 love one another!" heathen men said in 
 their wonder. 
 
 So should it be in every Christian church. 
 The members should live together as one 
 family. When one is glad all should rejoice. 
 When one is in sorrow all should be touched 
 with the feeling of grief. They should bear 
 one another's burdens. Such a church is a 
 true home for souls. The weary, the tempted, 
 the baffled, the defeated, the sorrowing, the 
 friendless, turn to it with hunger and yearn- 
 ing, as they would turn to Christ himself if 
 he were here. 
 
 Every member should do his part to make 
 his church such a Christly refuge. One 
 brusque, unsocial person may greatly hinder 
 the prevalence of the spirit of love and 
 hospitality in a church. It takes the hearty 
 help of every one to make a church at all 
 94 
 
Some of the Duties. 
 
 points and to all who come within its doors, 
 a place of cordial, hospitable love. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into further detail 
 as to the particular duties of church members. 
 They owe their church generous support, and 
 every young Christian should begin at once 
 to do his part in giving. The church boards 
 are organized for the purpose of receiving 
 money for the specific objects which they 
 represent and then of carrying on the branch 
 of work that belongs to them. Every church 
 member's privilege is to help these various 
 approved causes as he may be able to do, as 
 God prospers him. 
 
 Every well-organized church has its depart- 
 ments, with its societies, bands and guilds, its 
 Sabbath school, its young people's meetings, 
 its work among the poor. No one need 
 lack the opportunity to do something — there 
 is a place for every grade of ministry and 
 every kind of service. Even the youngest 
 member can find something to do and a 
 chance to be trained for larger work in years 
 of more strength and experience. 
 
 It is not easy to be a good church member 
 — it is not easy to be useful and helpful any- 
 where. It requires the denial, the oblitera- 
 tion, of self. If we are in the church to be 
 served, to receive attention, to be helped, to 
 get promotion, to seek office, to reap benefit 
 in any way for ourselves, we shall fail of the 
 95 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 blessing and good we might receive. The 
 true spirit seeks, hke the Master, not to be 
 ministered unto but to minister. 
 
 This means that we must be ready always 
 to give up our own convenience in order to 
 do a kindness to another, to deny ourselves 
 in any matter, that we may relieve or assist 
 one who needs our help. It means that we 
 must have patience with the weak and the 
 stumbling, and be ready always to help a 
 " fainting robin back unto his nest again." 
 It costs to be such a church member, but no 
 price is too great to pay for the privilege of 
 fining well such an honored place in the 
 kingdom of our Master. 
 
 We need not fear about reward. Such 
 love always yields its own reward. The 
 reward for good serving is more serving, 
 more unselfish serving. We need not hope 
 for ease as reward for sacrifice, nor for a time 
 of self-indulgence after our time of self- 
 denial. But the opportunity to do more and 
 greater good is always the best compensation 
 for any good we may have done. 
 
 True, there is heaven at the end — but 
 neither will heaven be a place of ease and 
 rest ; it too will be a place of service. " God 
 will give each of us a star for a workshop by 
 and by," but still the life will be all love, and 
 love always serves. 
 
 96 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 Growing in One's Place : Providence. 
 
 JVl ANY people imagine that they could live 
 very much better if their circumstances 
 were different. In their failure to live a 
 noble and worthy life they find comfort in 
 laying the blame on some infelicity or hard- 
 ness in their lot. 
 
 This is very foolish. For one thing, it 
 does no good. Blaming circumstances will 
 not change them. After all, they are our 
 circumstances, and we must live out our life 
 in the midst of them. Besides, God in his 
 providence has put us just where we find our- 
 selves, and unless we claim to be wiser than 
 God, we must conclude that we are in the 
 right place — at least, that it is quite possible 
 for us to live a true Christian life where we 
 are. 
 
 " Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident : 
 It is the very place God meant for thee ; 
 And shouldst thou there small scope for action 
 
 see, 
 Do not for this give room to discontent, 
 Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent 
 In idly dreaming how thou mightest be." 
 
 7 97 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 God does not choose for us the place 
 where we can have the most pleasant time, 
 with the least friction and the fewest weights 
 and encumbrances. Life on the earth is a 
 school, and he puts us where we shall receive 
 the best training. The easier place might 
 be more comfortable, but the harder place 
 does the more for us — makes the more out 
 of us. 
 
 Some people think that if they could get 
 away from others and live alone they would 
 be better Christians. Men irritate them, 
 tempt them, stir up the evil that is in them, 
 excite them. But men do not grow best in 
 solitude and apart from others. The good- 
 ness that is good only because there is no 
 friction, no provocation, nothing to try it, is 
 scarcely worth the name. Life needs life to 
 school it and develop it. 
 
 The old monks were wrong in their idea of 
 Christian living when they supposed that they 
 could reach a higher state of holiness by 
 withdrawing from men and dwelling alone. 
 God's plan is to set the solitary in families 
 rather than to separate families into solitari- 
 ness. We all need to be sometimes alone. 
 There should be hours when we enter into 
 our closet and shut the door, that we may 
 look in upon our own heart and hold com- 
 munion with God ; but the closet is not to be 
 our abiding place. 
 
Growing in One's Place. 
 
 " Hark, hark ! a voice amid the quiet intense ! 
 
 It is thy duty waiting thee without. 
 
 Rise from thy knees in hope, the half of doubt; 
 A hand doth pull thee : it is Providence : 
 Open thy door straightway and get thee hence ; 
 
 Go forth into the tumult and the shout ; 
 
 Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about. 
 Of noise alone is born the inward sense 
 Of silence, and from action springs alone 
 The inward knowledge of true love and faith." 
 
 We owe duties to others. To live only for 
 one's self, though the aspiration be purely for 
 holiness, is contrary to the spirit of true dis- 
 cipleship. Our duties to others are as mani- 
 fold and as diversified as the varying phases 
 and conditions of life's reciprocal relations. 
 We are debtors to all men, far and near. 
 God wants us on the earth to fulfill these 
 duties. We are to serve him not by pure 
 devotion apart from men, but in relations. 
 Those who leave society and flee to the 
 cloister simply run away from their chief 
 mission. We are not left in this world after 
 conversion merely to pray and praise ; God 
 wants us to be useful, to do his work, to run 
 his errands, to help his needy, suffering ones, 
 to train children for his service, to fight his 
 battles. 
 
 " What are we set on earth for? Say to toil, 
 Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines 
 For all the heat o' the day till it declines, 
 And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 
 God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 
 To wrestle, not to reign. . , . 
 
 99 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 So others shall 
 Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand 
 From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave 
 
 cheer, 
 And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 
 The least flower with a brimming cup may stand 
 And share its dewdrop with another near," 
 
 Nor is it alone for the sake of others that 
 God has appointed us to Hve out our hfe 
 among men rather than apart and alone ; it 
 is for our own sake as well. We grow best 
 amid other lives. People are means of 
 grace to us. It may seem to us that if we 
 could get away from society we should escape 
 many temptations and be able to live nearer 
 to God. But we would then miss the blessing 
 which comes from struggle and victory. 
 Heaven and its honors are for "him that 
 overcometh." Not to enter the struggle is 
 to fail of the white robe and palm of the 
 victor. The best things in life are not found 
 along flowery walks, but in the fields of con- 
 flict. There are qualities in us that can be 
 developed only in struggle. To find easy 
 places away from the strife of battle is to lose 
 the discipline that makes grand character. 
 
 We grow best under the pressure of duty, 
 where we are compelled to think of others 
 and serve them. There are those who 
 imagine that if they could get away from 
 men and from absorbing contacts with other 
 lives they could live better. They could then 
 
Growing in One's Place. 
 
 enjoy unbroken communion with God. But 
 this is not the divine ordinance for a human 
 hfe. Love to God does not stand alone as 
 life's single duty ; love to man is always 
 joined with it, and the two duties are so inter- 
 twined that neither can be performed without 
 the other. We cannot love God and not love 
 our fellowmen ; we cannot serve God and 
 not serve our brother. 
 
 Sometimes we imagine that if we could get 
 away from business cares, household burdens, 
 and social obligations, we could be better 
 Christians. It seems to us that these duties 
 are not favorable to spiritual culture, and that 
 we could be holier and could hve more as 
 Christ lived if we were freed from their 
 exacting and absorbing claims. But this is a 
 mistake. It is in the doing of these common 
 duties that our powers are best developed. 
 God puts the new hfe into our heart, but we 
 must work it out into strength and beauty, 
 and there is no way to do this but by exercise. 
 If we would develop the love of our heart, 
 we must love people; the sentiment must 
 take practical form ; the seed germ must be 
 cultivated ; and for this no mere cloister 
 culture will do. If we would learn patience, 
 there is no school but in experiences that 
 require us to exercise patience. 
 
 Jesus said that rank among his disciples is 
 won by serving, that he who serves most is 
 
 lOI 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 chief: we can gain this spiritual eminence 
 only by filling our place in the midst of 
 human needs and sufferings, where contin- 
 ually the pressure is upon us, calling for 
 service. The serving must be real serving 
 of actual living people; no fine sentiment 
 alone will exalt us. Good feelings and dis- 
 positions, of whatever kind, can become 
 part of the fiber of life only when they are 
 wrought out in experience. Spiritual graces 
 cannot be cultivated in the abstract. Char- 
 acter is more than sentiment : it is sentiment 
 incarnated, grown into life and reality. 
 
 Instead therefore of being hindrances to 
 the development of our Christian hfe and 
 character, our relative duties are in the largest 
 measure helpful. To tear ourselves out of 
 our place among men in order to get rid of 
 these duties would be to leave whole fields 
 of our nature uncultivated and many of the 
 richest possibilities of our regenerated life 
 undeveloped. The common duties that the 
 daily round brings to our hand, although 
 they may seem to be far from spiritual in 
 their influence, and may seem to draw us off 
 from communion with God by keeping us 
 absorbed in and occupied with earthly tasks, 
 are to us really not hindrances, but rich 
 means of grace. We grow best Godward 
 when we are serving best manward, in 
 Christ's name and for his sake. 
 
Growing in One's Place. 
 
 Therefore, in the cultivation of the Chris- 
 tian life, we can do nothing better than attend 
 with fidelity and diligence to the duties that 
 belong to us in our varied relations. The 
 head of a family should take up promptly, as 
 the first biddings of his new Master, his duties 
 as a husband and father, performing them 
 with new faithfulness and tenderness and with 
 the new motive in his heart of love to Christ. 
 On becoming a Christian a child in the home 
 should accept as the " Father's business " 
 for him at present his duties of obedience 
 and honor to his earthly father and mother. 
 The will of God for brothers and sisters 
 beginning to follow Christ is to render to 
 each other all the sweet and helpful ser- 
 vice of patient, unselfish love that belongs 
 to their sacred relationship. 
 
 We are called to walk with God, but not 
 ordinarily by withdrawing from among men. 
 We are to walk with God in the place to 
 which he has assigned us. We are called 
 to be holy, but holiness is not some vague, 
 nebulous thing, some abstract condition of 
 soul attained apart from common practical 
 life. Holiness is obedience to duty, and no 
 one can be holy and neglect the service to 
 his fellow men which his relationships im- 
 pose upon him. 
 
 103 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Preparation for Trial. 
 
 HTRIAL lies somewhere in every one's path. 
 To the young it may seem far off, and 
 even thinking of it may be unwelcome. 
 " Why should we stain the blue of our skies," 
 they ask, " with anticipations of trouble that 
 may not come for years ?" We are specially 
 commanded by our Lord himself not to take 
 anxious thought for any to-morrow. The 
 true rule of a life of trust is to live by the 
 day. 
 
 " Make a little fence of trust 
 
 Around to-day ; 
 Fill the space with loving works, 
 
 And therein stay ; 
 Look not through the sheltering bars 
 
 Upon to-morrow : 
 God will help thee bear what comes. 
 
 If joy or sorrow." 
 
 Yet there is a sense in which even in their 
 happiest days the young should anticipate 
 trial. The man whose garners have been 
 filled from this year's golden harvest should 
 not be anxious about next year's bread, but 
 104 
 
Preparation for Trial. 
 
 he must forecast his future wants by sowing 
 in time to have another harvest. We need 
 not sadden our days of joy by anticipations 
 of coming sorrow, but we ought, even in our 
 sunniest hours, to be preparing for the times 
 of gloom, so as to be in readiness for them 
 when they come. We ought in our plenty 
 years to store away provision to feed upon 
 in the famine years that will follow. We 
 ought in the glad springtime, amid plenty, 
 to sow the seeds whose fruit we shall need 
 in the dreary autumn. In the pleasant 
 summer days, when we have no need for 
 fuel, we ought to gather the wood which by 
 and by we shall want for our winter fires. 
 
 The attendants went through the train at 
 midday and lighted the lamps in the cars. 
 It seemed a strange and altogether useless 
 thing to do, and many facetious remarks 
 regarding it were made by the passengers. 
 But soon the train rushed into a long, dark 
 tunnel, and then the lighting of the lamps 
 appeared no longer either a strange or a 
 useless thing; nor was their light despised. 
 It may seem idle and unnecessary now to 
 the young and joyous to hang up lamps- of 
 comfort in their hearts, while the sun of 
 earthly blessing shines brightly upon them 
 and while their path lies amid the flowers and 
 through smiling valleys ; but there are dark 
 places farther on, unseen as yet — unsuspected 
 105 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 even — into which they may plunge suddenly 
 without time or opportunity to find the lamps 
 of comfort and light them, and in which they 
 will be left in utter darkness if they have 
 made no provision in advance. But if, while 
 they moved along in the brightness, they 
 have wisely prepared for the dark passage, 
 then the lamps will pour their grateful light 
 about them and cheer the gloom. 
 
 There is a wide difference between being 
 anxious about coming troubles and being 
 prepared beforehand for troubles that may 
 come. The former is a sin ; the latter is a 
 duty. Those only can truly live in quiet 
 peace, without anxiety, who have already 
 made preparation for anything that may come 
 to them. No one can find real pleasure on 
 the sea in the calmest weather who is not 
 confident that the ship on which he is carried 
 has been built and rigged for the fiercest 
 tempest that may arise. No one can enjoy 
 life in the fullest measure who is not prepared 
 for sudden death. And no one can get the 
 best out of joy and gladness who has not 
 made provision for sorrow. 
 
 What preparation can we make in advance 
 for trial ? For one thing, there are certain 
 great foundation truths which, if firmly laid 
 in our minds, will prove abiding sources of 
 comfort in any trial that may come. One is 
 the Christian doctrine of providence. There 
 1 06 
 
Preparation for Trial. 
 
 is no chance in this universe; there are no 
 accidents. God's government extends to 
 "all his creatures and all their actions." 
 
 " Know well, my soul, God's hand controls 
 
 Whate'er thou fearest ; 
 Round him in calmest music rolls 
 
 Whate'er thou hearest. 
 What to thee is shadow to him is day, 
 
 And the end heknoweth. 
 And not on a blind and aimless way 
 
 The spirit goeth." 
 
 So personal and minute is God's care that 
 amid all the vast and complicated affairs of 
 the universe not one of us is overlooked or 
 forgotten, nor are the smallest interests of 
 the least and humblest of us allowed to 
 suffer. 
 
 The firm fixing in our minds of this great 
 truth prepares us to receive without doubt or 
 alarm whatever God may send, and sweetly 
 and trustfully to submit to his will. 
 
 Preparation may also be made in times of 
 joy and gladness for the days of trial, by fill- 
 ing our hearts with the truths of the Scrip- 
 tures. The wise virgins were not left in 
 darkness when their lamps had burned out, 
 because they had a reserve of oil in their 
 vessels. If we have a store of divine prom- 
 ises and consolations hidden in our heart 
 during the sunny days, we shall never be left 
 in darkness, however suddenly the shadow 
 IC7 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 may fall upon us. Words of Scripture in 
 which we have never before seen any special 
 comfort will then shine out with bright luster, 
 like stars when the sun has gone down, pour- 
 ing heavenly light into our souls. God will 
 then speak to us in his own words, and we 
 shall hear his voice of love and be cheered 
 and strengthened by the assurances he gives. 
 We shall find among the treasured comforts 
 the very help we need — a staff to support us 
 in the rough path, a lamp to lighten the bit 
 of dark road, an arm to lean upon if we are 
 weak and faint, a hand to guide if we do not 
 know where to go, a word of hope if we are 
 cast down, a bosom to rest upon if we are 
 weary and crushed, a balm of healing if our 
 hearts are wounded or broken. 
 
 There is consolation in the Bible for every 
 possible experience of sorrow ; and if we but 
 have the divine words laid up in our heart, 
 we shall find them as we need them, and 
 they will sweeten our Marahs for us. They 
 will come to our aid at the right moment, 
 and will prove God's very angels to us with 
 their light and their help. 
 
 " When the sun withdraws his light, 
 Lo ! the stars of God are there ; 
 Present hosts unseen till night — 
 Matchless, countless, silent, fair." 
 
 The same is true of preparation for meet- 
 io8 
 
Preparation for Trial. 
 
 ing temptation. This is best made by storing 
 the heart with the commands and promises 
 of God's word, which may be brought out in 
 the hour of need and made available for 
 defense. When our Lord was tempted, he 
 made use of the words of divine truth in 
 resisting the tempter. If we would meet and 
 overcome temptations, we must follow the 
 example of our Master. But to do this we 
 must have the Scripture words hidden in our 
 heart, ready for use at any moment of need 
 or danger. Our Lord did not open his 
 parchment roll at that moment, find, and then 
 read, the divine sentences which drove the 
 tempter away. He had pondered the holy 
 book in the quiet days before the enemy 
 tried him, and had its words stored in his 
 heart, ready for instant use when the hour 
 of need came. 
 
 In Holman Hunt's great picture " The 
 Shadow of Death," which represents Jesus as 
 a young man in the carpenter's shop stretch- 
 ing himself at the close of a weary day, and 
 with his outspread arms making the shadow 
 of a cross on the wall, there is a minor feature 
 that is full of suggestion. On a shelf is a 
 collection of books in the form of rolls, such 
 as were in use in those days. They represent 
 the library Jesus used — the books of the Holy 
 Scriptures. They are there in the shop where 
 he worked, suggesting that in his leisure 
 109 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 moments he turned to them to ponder their 
 great truths and store away their principles 
 in his memory and in his heart. No doubt 
 the picture truly represents the daily habit 
 of his life in those quiet years when he was 
 preparing for his great public work. Thus it 
 was that when the tempter came there was 
 no need for feverish haste in preparing for 
 defense. The weapons were ready, and the 
 victory was easy. 
 
 From this example of Jesus we should 
 learn to prepare in advance for temptation 
 by filling our hearts in the days of youth and 
 early life with the truths of God's word. The 
 soldier cannot learn the art of war when the 
 battle is upon him ; if he is not already 
 trained he can only suffer defeat. When the 
 tempter has come, there will be no time to 
 search out texts with which to ward off his 
 blows ; but if we have the sacred words 
 treasured in our heart, it will be easy to 
 draw them forth, as arrows from a quiver, 
 for use at any moment of danger. 
 
 Another preparation for trial is a close walk 
 with God. Nothing adds more to the bitter- 
 ness of any grief than the memory of a 
 careless or a sinful life ; while nothing allevi- 
 ates the pain of affliction so much as the 
 remembrance of faithfulness in duty and the 
 consciousness of divine approval. If our 
 habitual daily life has been near to God, we 
 
Preparation for Trial. 
 
 have no trouble in finding God when in some 
 sore stress we greatly need him ; but if we 
 have been living far from God in the bright 
 days, neglecting our devotions and our duties, 
 it takes a long time, when trial comes, to get 
 into such close fellowship with God that we 
 can receive the tender personal comforts 
 which he imparts to those who in intimate 
 friendship lean upon his breast. 
 
 Our habitual treatment of our friends in 
 the season of unbroken fellowship has very 
 much to do with the comfort we shall get 
 when we are called to mourn the loss of 
 these friends. If we have been unkind, 
 selfish, thoughtless, or harsh ; if we have 
 failed in any duty to them ; if we have caused 
 them pain or trouble ; if we have wronged 
 or injured them in any way, — no fullness and 
 richness of divine comfort will altogether 
 take away the pang from our heart when we 
 stand by the cold clay and it is too late to 
 ask or to receive forgiveness. But if we 
 have been faithful and true to our friends in 
 all ways ; if we have been thoughtful and 
 kind ; if we have let our love flow out in fond 
 expression and unselfish ministry, — when 
 they leave us our sorrow at the loss may be 
 no less sore, but it will have no bitterness in 
 it. Loyal and tender friendship is a prepara- 
 tion for sorrow ; its memory is a sweetener 
 of bereavement. 
 
In His Steps. 
 
 To all of us sorrow will come in some form 
 or other. But we may so lay up in store the 
 resources of comfort that in whatever way it 
 may come, in whatever measure or however 
 suddenly, we shall not be crushed by it, but 
 shall welcome it as God's angel and receive 
 the message our Father sends to us in it and 
 the benediction it brings to us from heaven. 
 
 " Count each afifliction, whether light or grave, 
 God's messenger sent down to thee. 
 
 Do thou 
 With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow, 
 And ere his shadow cross thy threshold, crave 
 Permission first his heavenly feet to lave." 
 
 In God's plan for each life one step is 
 always designed to prepare for the next. 
 One day's faithfulness lifts up to the next 
 day's duty and fits for the next day's trial. 
 Faithfulness — simple faithfulness — each hour, 
 each moment, is all that is necessary to pre- 
 pare for any future. Then, at the end, such 
 a life will stand approved and complete, 
 ready for the crowning, at the feet of Him 
 who is Redeemer, Lord, Pattern, Helper, and 
 Friend. 
 
Date Due 
 
 ^? 3 W 
 
 
 
 
 ") ',' ■ ' ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^igUlpMi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f)