And this, to conclude, also gives a Christian strength and encouragement in his work. The thought that God is near us, the feeling that He is working with us, gives an impulse, a force which nothing else can impart. To rise in the morning with that sense of divine presence, that God sees all our endeavors, is to take up one's work with an entirely different mood than where that feeling is missing. Nor are we then easily discouraged; it gives us renewed inspiration, the courage required for long, steady, earnest work.
We have considered a glorious truth of Christian doctrine from the lips of Him who never exaggerated, never erred. Lay hold of it, believe it, not languidly, but as a power in your lives, and be happy in such belief. Amen.
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.--_1 Tim. 6, 20._
Everything in this world is liable to be spoiled. There is nothing safe against the doings of corruption. The holiest things are often perverted, the richest flowers blasted in their bud. Man himself, as the Psalmist tells us, was made but a little lower than the angels, but his glory was soon tarnished, and he frequently sinks a little lower than the brute. There is none, though he appear as a veritable saint among men, who is beyond the reach of danger. And it is so also with religion.
Beautiful as is religion, and pure as it is, coming from the mind and bosom of God, it is liable to be spoiled in the hands and hearts of its professors. Such at least is the teaching of the text and the testimony of experience. Just like the crystal mountain stream in its course from the virgin spring down to the ocean gathers some of the unclean and filthy deposits of the shores it washes, so the waves of religion, in flowing through many lands and hearts, have taken up some of their noxious and poisonous ingredients; while purifying and refreshing the earth, the noble river contracts some of its corruptions. The Jews, for instance, had a pure religion, communicated to them by the patriarchs and prophets, but heathenish elements were continually mingling with it. Moloch and other hideous idols would now and then stand in the very presence of Jehovah's temple, and the priests of Baal oft took the place of the sons of Aaron. When Christ came, the Jewish religion was exceedingly tainted and corrupted with Gentileism and other defiling influences. The Christian religion in its turn has fared no better, starting out on the pure basis of its divine Master's directions; but it has been subject to the same influences. It was given to the world as a plain, simple system. But when kings and emperors began to take it into favor, magnificent outward ceremonies were instituted, privileged orders were appointed; bishops and other high authorities were set up, claiming extraordinary power, and at last what started as Christianity became little more than baptized heathenism. Masses, penances, and confessionals took the stead of Christ and His righteousness. In place of the old heathen gods were placed patron saints. Venus of the Greeks became Mary of the Christians. The true glory of the Church was gone, until God in His mercy turned back the tide to His own Revelation and Book, the Holy Bible. That was in the days of the Lutheran Reformation. But that did not settle matters; the soil of misguided religion and of man's perverted opinion has been defiling, and is still defiling, its pure and holy waters. It need not be. Christianity is as simple as simplicity can be, its teaching is as clear as is the sunlight in its noonday radiancy; but, of course, it must be guarded, protected against corruption on the part of man's delirious and sickly reason.