A Christian's Staying Power

A rosus?t Christian was the apostle James. There is a tradition that he prayed until his knees were as hard as the knees of a camel, and that the good people in Jerusalem vied with each other in touching the hem of his robe. From Jerusalem he sent out an epistle to his dispersed brethren which reads like the bulletin of a field-marshal, and the opening sentences have the ting of a bugle. ‘Hail, brethren!’’ he exclaims, ‘‘count it all joy when ye fall into manifold trials, knowing that the proof of your — faith worketh patience. And let patience have its perfect work.’’ ‘The Greek word here translated ‘‘patience’’ literally signifies staying: then it came to mean persistent endurance, whether in active exertion or under acute suffering. It is the staying power of the rower in a boat-race, of the warrior in a fierce battle charge, and of the porter weighed down by a heavy burden.

Patience, which is one of the grandest of the Christian graces, is often dwarfed into a mere stoical submission akin to that of a savage tortured at the stake. What passes for patience with some people is rather a callousness of heart. Under severe trials the sensibilities have become as callous as the horny hands of a furnace-man in handling hot iron. A widow, who after the death of her husband had lost two children, said to her pastor, ‘‘ That first gri “made such a huge hole in my heart that it has never held any sorrow since that time.’’ From such sullen apathy which is past feeling the superb staying power of a true Christian is as far removed as faith is from blind credulity. Our blessed Lord was keenly sensitive to suffering, but how unflinchingly he endured the severe strain of dealing with the sick and the suffering, the bigoted and the ungrateful! Homeless, he never complained; under the vexations of his crude disciples and irritating opponents he never lost temper; the most fiendish assaults of his persecutors never wrung a murmur from his lips. His silence was

Riss sublimer than any other man’s utterances. At the end of his life of humiliation he leaves only a handful of acknowledged followers, calmly assured that out of that little band of disciples would germinate the Christianity which shall yet dominate the globe! Patience had its perfect work with him. It is one of the most Christly qualities in a well-developed religious life.

I have been watching the careers of young men by the thousand in this busy city for over thirty years, and I find that one chief difference between the successful and the failures lies in the single element of staying power. Permanent success is oftener won by holding on than by sudden dash, however brilliant. The easily discouraged who are pushed back by a straw are all the time dropping to the rear, to perish or be carried along on the stretcher of charity. They who understand and practise Abraham Lincoln’s homely maxim of ‘‘pegging away’’ have achieved the solidest success. It was the honest boast of an eminent New Yorker that the first

dollar he ever earned was for hammering down Newly Enlisted. 7 9 paving stones in the street, and that went to the - captain of the sloop who brought him a penniless youth to the city. Oliver Wendell Holmes’ couplet describes in a rather coarse and carnal fashion what is vital Christian grace:

“Stick to your aim; the mongrel’s hold may slip,

But crowbars can’t unloose the mastiff’s grip.”

If staying power is indispensable in all secular pursuits, it is even more so in the spiritual life. Young converts come into our churches by platoons, especially in seasons of revival. Many fall into the fatal delusion that the main thing is done; whereas it is only begun. They have enlisted for Christ; they have, if genuine converts, won the first battle. But the life-campaign is yet before them. The hardest fighting, my young brother, will not be with the hostile forces in a wicked world, but with your own self. To stand the sneers of scoffers requires some courage; to resist the undercurrents of temptation requires the strong anchorage of godly principle. But the mastery of yourself is the great achievement. To hold temper in perfect control, to keep base passions subdued, to keep your powers and purposes true and straight to the one purpose of serving, obeying, and honoring Jesus Christ — this is the secret of a strong Christian life. The Revised Version of the New Testament brings out this idea beautifully in the passage ‘‘In your patience ye shall win your souls.”’ Before you can win anybody else’s soul to Christ you must ‘‘win’’ yourown. ‘This can only be accomplished by steady conflict with sin, by completely joining your weakness to the almighty strength of your Saviour. Christ’s mastery of you will give you self-mastery.

Paul did not claim to be a perfect man; but he had a prodigious staying power. ‘‘I keep my body under,’’ he exclaims. As a boxer who is in a sharp encounter, he constantly beats down with steady and sturdy blows the unruly appetites and lusts. The moment that a Christian lets the carnal nature get the upper hand he is overthrown. Nor can he hold down the “fold man’’ of sin except as he holds to Christ and is held by him. Let every young convert

ey le carefully and squarely count the cost of a vigorous, successful Christian life; it need not discourage or appall him; yet he will be pretty sure to become an early deserter unless he equips himself for a life-campaign under the Captain of his salvation.

Impatience is the prevailing sin of the times; impatience to be suddenly rich, impatience under restraint, impatience with slow and thorough processes. A Christian character is no more to be finished in a day than was one of Thorwaldsen’s statues. You have got to learn patience by some sharp disappointments. You have not learned the prime secret of acceptable prayer if you have not learned to ‘‘wazt quietly on the Lord.’’ We cannot either scold or tease our Heavenly Father into granting our desires, Faith has nothing to do with fretting, either under a hard lot or under the delays of prayed-for blessings. Patient prayer is powerful prayer. If thou hast come into Christ’s school, submit to his lessons and his tasks; one of them is — ‘Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’’

This virtue of holding on is absolutely indispensable to all successful Christian work. How many volunteers are constantly dropping out of our Sabbath-school teacherships and out of mission work as soon as the novelty is off! How many ministers are begging for release from ‘‘hard fields,’’ some of them ready to run when God may be just ready to send the shower to start the seed they have sown! Too much of the Christian labor in our land ends in a spasmodic spirt of enthusiasm. ‘‘ Well-doing’’ comes to nothing unless there be ‘‘ patient continuance’? in it. Brethren, let us remember that Christian patience is not only a waiting on God, it isa steady working for God. Christ in us is the only staying power. ‘The soldier who stands fire to the last shot wins the victory. And up yonder they who are arrayed in the white robes are they who ‘‘came out of great tribulations.’’ ‘‘ Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus!”’

BRIGHT CHRISTIANS.