The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific CircleChautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Religion
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
Somebody says, “How about the profession of this thing?” The Bible
don’t say anything about it. That is a matter for your individual
judgment. Your wife will find out about it if you find it. When I hear
a man say hallelujah very loud, I want to know always how much he pays
toward the Gospel. When I hear a man say he is very happy, or holy, I
want to know how he lives at home, how he carves the beefsteak. Abram
did not hang out any sign, but he became so powerful that the kings
all around wanted to make an alliance with him. If you are keeping
step with the best ideal, it will show in the carefulness and kindness
of your replies, in the grasp of your hand, in the intelligence and
sweetness of your face. O, my friends, may I entreat you to set this
before your eyes? I believe it is the ideal of God for man. “Walk
before me, and be thou perfect.” He will help you as my father helped
me to pull the boat. He will help you as every good, kind and gentle
mother helps her child. He will help you every time. It will not be a
flash and then over. He will make you happy, joyful and independent by
day and night. Never mind the circumstances, you will be wrapped in
arms so soft and hovered in a love so deep, it will not leave a desire
in your souls unsatisfied; there will be such choral harmonies within,
that the babel tongues of this world will not overpower them.
Some one may say, “But, Mr. Adams, how?” I say in a word, go to God
and ask him, get yourselves humble; be truly penitent; be honest
and sincere. Lay your hand in the hand of the Lord. You need not
hypothecate any experience. You can not tell whether you are going to
live long or not, but you can live with your hand in his.
If a sinner has heard me this day, he knows that this life is the life
he wants. I spoke to a sinner the other day, “John, why don’t you give
your heart to God?” “Oh,” said he, “I am sick of you Christians.” Said
I, “Don’t you think there are Christians in the world?” “Well, that
is a hard question.” “But, don’t you think there are Christians?”
“Well,” said he, “I am not going back on my old mother.” “Didn’t you
promise her to be a Christian?” “Yes, I believe I did.” “Why don’t
you do it?” “Why there are so and so that owe me. I don’t want any of
their Christianity, but I believe your kind of Christianity is true.”
I believe John will give his heart to God. That is the kind that
everybody wants. Nobody wants these poor, barren, lean kind, but we
want this royal kind, that which fits and satisfies the feeling of our
hearts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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