THE VENGEANCE OF COMPROMISE.

      A writer in a recent number of the Metropolitan hits off a familiar fact with a few words when he says, "The pulpits, the editorial rooms, the halls of Congress, are filled with men who don't know what they think because their power of thought has been weakened by compromise and repression." It is certain that no man can compromise truth and conviction with impunity. That course swiftly avenges itself, and the vengeance is terrible--all the more so because the man does not commonly realize what has come over him. It is simply this, that he comes to the place that he no longer knows definitely what he believes. The lines have been lost, and he believes anything, everything, or nothing, as the mood may be upon him. He does not take himself seriously, for he is dingy aware of the hollowness of his own professions and the shallowness of his beliefs. He has sold out, and now he owns nothing; he has trifled with light and it turned to dusk and darkness; he professed not to see and became blind; he loved not the truth and fell under the spell of delusion. From all which good Lord, deliver us! It is better to suffer than to lose vision of truth and right.

CHRISTIAN NATIONS?

      "For 1900 years," says Mr. Eliot, ex-President of Harvard University, "the ethics of Jesus of Nazareth have been in the world, but have had no effect to prevent or even reduce the evils of war, the greatest of the evils which afflict mankind." But for every thrust against truth there is a parry; and the brief and complete reply to this fling (one of many in which the scholarly Mr. Eliot has seen good to indulge) came not, as one might have expected, from a religious source, but from the snappy and thoroughly worldly little magazine, Life. "One can't reasonably complain," says Life, "That a medicine is no good when the patient doesn't take it. Governments have never adopted Christian ethics. Individuals have and with good results. Even in this war individuals are kind and humane."--That is enough said. [50]

      But them are religious papers, preachers, people, who have not the insight this humorous journal of the world evinces. They talk of "Christian nations," and ask one another in dismay whether perhaps Christianity has not collapsed, and the gospel has proved a failure, and such like talk. Why, no! "The firm foundation of the Lord standeth, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his." The nations and the kingdoms of this world am not His: they know it and He knows it. But elect from every nation, born of water and of the Spirit, are His people who from the heart, have accepted Jesus as Lord.

WE KNOW NO MAN AFTER THE FLESH.

      "Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh." And why not? Because in that the Lord Jesus Christ died for us, we all died with Him and through Him. And the sequel is that as he was raised from the dead so we also rose with him. For this cause we do not rate our brother in Christ according to his descent, his nationality, his family, his worldly prestige or possession. We know him now as a child of God in Christ Jesus, destined to be conformed to the Lord's image. For "if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things have passed away; behold they are become new." And even though we have known Christ after the flesh--as the world beholds Him and knows Him; the carpenter from Nazareth; the Prophet from Nazareth; the great Teacher; the great Model; and (the Lord pardon the blasphemy) "the supreme religious Genius," and whatever else the world calls Him and sees in Him;--yet, now we know Him so no more. To us He is the Son of God, the sacrifice of our sins, crucified, risen from the dead, the Lord and Saviour, our Life and our Hope. (2 Cor. 5:14-17).

JUDGING GENTLY.

      The longer I live the more I perceive that the kindest and most merciful judgment we can pass upon our fellow men is apt to be the justest also; not perhaps from the standpoint of absolute justice (from which none of us are able to judge) but in view of our own human limitations. And is it not a fact that God, seeing He dealt with us in grace, binds it upon us to deal in grace and mercy with our fellow-men? For though it may sometimes be required to speak of a man's evil, he specially enjoins upon us that we should "speak evil of no man." And what a reason he gives! "For we ourselves once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." And how were we delivered out of that sort of life? Without interference from the outside we never could have been. Does the rushing current stop before it reaches the precipice of Niagara? Does the fire's fierce flame desist before it has devoured what is within its reach? Does the law of gravitation swerve to show mercy to [51] a falling body? "BUT--when the kindness of God our Savior, and His love toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out upon us richly; that being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Tit. 3:2-7). If God has so dealt with us, shall we not manifest grace toward our fellow-man?

WHAT THE FLESH CAN NOT DO.

      There is a sore problem laid before the children of God and they have often bungled on both sides of it in trying to solve it: how to stand up for truth and right, and yet not forget love and kindness; how to be just and yet hold fast mercy; how to fight and yet maintain the meekness and gentleness of Christ; how to be angry in righteous indignation, yet sin not by mingling selfish irritation and malice into our zeal for truth and right. Who is sufficient unto these things? The wisdom from above, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit alone can meet the dilemmas. Truly, "they that are in the flesh cannot please God," and since we are all in the flesh except the Spirit of God dwell in us; we walk after the flesh whenever the Spirit of God does not control us. Let us begin anew--and wherein we have failed,

--this also will the grace of God cover.

THE GREATEST MARVEL.

      That God puts patient labor on a man in whom evil and good are strongly and strangely blended, with evil predominant; that God meets a man where he really stands rather than where he ought to stand, and begins to reach out after him while he is afar off to draw him unto Himself; and that God will condescend to work through and with an imperfect instrument--these facts, in view of what God is, seem to me the greatest marvel of all.

SHALL WE CONTINUE IN SIN?

      For all that, God's goodness makes for righteousness. If where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. (Rom. 5:20) it is not that we should continue in sin that grace may abound, but that, being dead to sin we should live unto righteousness. I fear that view of the grace of God which does not make me determinedly opposed to wrong doing, and I am sure that that conception of God's love which does not make me hate and dread sin above everything, is a delusion and snare of Satan; and only that hope is not a lying dream which will make a man purify himself even as Christ is pure. (1 John 3:1-3). For who is God's good friend but the man who stands with Him against all He hates, and for all He wants and loves? And all the mercies [52] and lovingkindness of God are given us not to make us careless about sin, but to win and deliver and keep us from It forever.

WHERE ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

      Difficulties and obstacles may bar our way mountain-high, and all the outlook seem hopeless. But when we kneel to pray all things begin to look possible. For there we come in touch with One to whom nothing is impossible. What is it God can not do? What is it God will not do that is right and good? A child of God on his knees--that is the picture of a human being in touch with Omnipotence. What my not come of that! No wonder.

      No wonder he tries every possible way to keep God's child from praying by suggesting doubts and fears, by, inertia and heaviness, by over-filling their time with tasks and duties. For God's servant learns to pray, Satan has an invincible, irresistible factor to contend against; and on the other hand God has an outlet of His power, an instrument and channel through which to exercise His might. For "with God all things are possible."

["Words in Season." Word and Work 9 (February 1916): 50-53.]

      The electronic version of R. H. Boll's "Words in Season" has been produced from microfilm of Word and Work for 1916.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions. Emendations are as follows:

            Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 50:     "That a medicine [ "that a medicine
 p. 53:     satan has [ Satan has
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 27 January 2002.
Updated 22 June 2003.