The World's Great Sermons, Volume 06: H. W. Beecher to Punshon
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 06: H. W. Beecher to Punshon
Sermons
But, further, in availing yourself of this divine resource amidst
the daily exigencies of life, why should you wait always for the
periodic season and the formal attitude of prayer? The heavens are
not open to the believer's call only at intervals. The grace of
God's Holy Spirit falls not like the fertilizing shower, only now
and then; or like the dew on the earth's face, only at morning and
night. At all times on the uplifted face of the believer's spirit
the gracious element is ready to descend. Pray always; pray without
ceasing. When difficulties arise, delay not to seek and obtain at
once the succor you need. Swifter than by the subtle electric agent
is thought borne from earth to heaven. The Great Spirit on high is
in constant sympathy with the believing spirit beneath, and in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the thrill of aspiration flashes
from the heart of man to God. Whenever anything vexes you--whenever,
from the rude and selfish ways of men, any trials of temper cross
your path--when your spirits are ruffled, or your Christian
forbearance put to the test, be this your instant resource! Haste
away, if only for a moment, to the serene and peace-breathing
presence of Jesus, and you will not fail to return with a spirit
soothed and calmed. Or when the impure and low-minded surround
you--when, in the path of duty, the high tone of your Christian
purity is apt to suffer from baser contacts, oh, what a relief to
lift the heart to Christ!--to rise on the wings of faith--even
for one instant to breathe the air of that region where the
Infinite Purity dwells, and then return with a mind steeled against
temptation, ready to recoil, with the instinctive abhorrence of a
spirit that has been beside the throne, from all that is impure and
vile. Say not, then, with such aid at your command, that religion
can not be brought down to common life!
In conclusion, let me once more urge upon you the great lesson
on which we have been insisting. Carry religious principle into
everyday life. Principle elevates whatever it touches. Facts lose
all their littleness to the mind which brings principle and law
to bear upon them. The chemist's or geologist's soiled hands are
no sign of base work; the coarsest operations of the laboratory,
the breaking of stones with a hammer, cease to be mechanical when
intellectual thought and principle govern the mind and guide the
hands. And religious principle is the noblest of all. Bring it to
bear on common actions and coarse cares, and infinitely nobler even
than the philosophic or scientific, becomes the Christian life.
Live for Christ in common things, and all your work will become
priestly work. As in the temple of old, it was holy work to hew
wood or mix oil, because it was done for the altar-sacrifice or the
sacred lamps; so all your coarse and common work will receive a
consecration when done for God's glory, by one who is a true priest
to His temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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