The Secret of Power

“A /TY beloved friend D. L. Moody is not a XT J. genius. He has no scholastic culture. For many years he sold boots and shoes in Chicago. His power lies in his simple-hearted devotion to Christ. “This one tiling he does.” He saturates his mind with the Word of God, he seeks the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and then he throws himself into the work of doing good, seizing the first opportunities that offer and laboring with those whom God puts in his way. At a London prayer -meeting I met Henry Varley, the “London Butcher,” a man who once kept his butcher’s stall during the week, and preached Jesus Christ to the masses on the Sabbath. His work so grew upon him that he has laid aside his cleaver and his butcher’s frock, and devotes his whole time to preaching the Gospel among London’s one million of ignorant people. Varley is not a genius, either. He has no diploma from Eaton or Oxford. Yet hundreds of scholarly graduates from the old universities fall far behind the converted butcher in successful winning of souls to Christ. His power lies in his fervid zeal, and his prodigious earnestness to save souls.

And what is true of D. L. Moody and of Henry Yarley is also true of that remarkable man of faith, George Muller, who has gathered nearly ten thousand children into his orphan-houses at Ashley Down (near Bristol). I went one hundred miles to see George Muller, and reached Bristol just as his evening prayer-meeting was closing in “Bethesda Chapel.” The audience were retiring. I went in by a back-door, and saw Mr. Muller standing behind the pulpit and talking with a poor boy. The lad seemed to be telling his story to the great, simple-hearted philanthropist; and as the good man listened he took down a memorandum on a card. I stood and looked at the beautiful tableau for some time — Muller and the poor boy laying their heads and hearts together. The countenance of Muller is benevolence itself. He is not a man of brilliant powers; he has some “crotchets,” and does not believe in denominational systems and usages. But he has a tremendous faith in God, and in saving men by the power of love. His faith, too, works in common-sense methods. He is a capital manager and the very furthest possible from the mere enthusiast. Those headlong visionaries who have tried to imitate him, without his sagacity and devout waiting on God, have failed most wretchedly.

We might go on and multiply the cases of men and women like these, and like Harlan Page, and Sarah Martin, and Carvosso, and Elizabeth Fry, and Father Mathew, the temperance apostle. Theirs was heart -power. They loved God and their fellow-creatures. They loved the Divine Jesus, and humbly sought to imitate him by “going about doing good.” Their vocation was not to write treatises, or to utter profound or novel theories. Their only talent was the talent for doing good; their only gift was the gift of the Holy Spirit, which taught them what to do and how to do it.

Now there is a blessed encouragement in studying the lives and usefulness of such persons. For the great mass of Christian people are not geniuses. Men and women of great intellect and profound culture are the small minority. If the world must wait to be saved by them alone, then it is doomed to perish. But there are good people enough in this wicked world to-day to revolutionize it, if they would only consecrate what they have and what they are to Jesus Christ, as the Pages and Mullers and Sarah Martins have done. If each individual Christian would only try to imitate Christ, the millennial era would dawn, and the “apostolic church” would be once more realized.

The great truth to be taught nowadays is that every member of Christ’s flock is called to Christ’s service, in some way or method. The humblest have a share in the work, and may have a share in the glory at the final day of coronation. That individual church in which the “rank and file” are all seeking the Spirit, and living lives of personal consecration to Christ is more likely to be a powerful church than if it had a Whitfield or a Chalmers for its pastor. The need of the hour is not for more geniuses and scholars in the pulpit, but for more personal piety and consecration among the masses of God’s people.

There is prodigious power in single-hearted love of Christ, and honest determination to do all the good that we can to a fellow-sinner. The secret of power is in Christ dwelling in us. It requires no genius, or erudition, or social rank to possess this blessed gift. A man of very moderate talents becomes a leading man in the Church or in society as soon as Christ gets complete hold of him. I can

point to more than one plain, modest, moderately-endowed Christian who has attained to a great propelling power in the community simply from the momentum of his godliness. He follows Christ so steadily and so zealously that he carries others with him by his sheer momentum. Great as is the result of what he aims to do, he does still more by his unconscious influence. His face shines from intercourse with God, though, like Moses, he may be in happy ignorance of its shining.

This is the power we need in our churches. Happy is that church that hath it in the fullest measure! Blessed be that pastor who can do the most to promote it!