Marching Orders, No. VIII

“Talk ye of all His wondrous works.” — Psalm cv. 2.

I wonder how many of us have observed this among our marching orders! And how many of us have been obeying it? Think of the last month, for instance, with its thirty days; on how many of those days did we talk of all His wondrous works? And if we did so at all, how much less did we talk about them than about other things!

Just consider what a power in the world talking is! Words dropped, caught up, repeated, then ventilated, combined, developed, set brains and pens to work; these again set the tongues to work; the talking spreads, becomes general, public opinion is formed and inflamed, and the results are engraven in the world’s history. This is what talking can do when exercised about the affairs of “the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” And we, who have been translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, — we have tongues too, and what have we been talking about? How have we used this same farspreading power? Only suppose that for every time each English-speaking Christian had talked about the day’s news of the kingdoms of this world, he had spent the same breath in telling the last news of the kingdom of Jesus Christ to his friends and casual acquaintances! Why, how it would have outrun all the reports and magazines, and saved the expense of deputations, and set people wondering and inquiring, and stopped the prate of ignorant reviewers who “never heard of any converts in India,” and gagged the mouths of the adversaries with hard facts, and removed missionary results and successes from the list of “things not generally known!”

God intends and commands us to do this.

We often quote “All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy saints shall bless Thee.” That sounds tolerably easy; but what next? “They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy power.” Is this among the things that we ought to have done and have left undone? Are we not verily guilty as to this command? ’ * Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!”

Perhaps we say we have kept it; we have had sweet converse with dear Christian friends about the Lord’s kingdom and doings, and surely that is enough? No! Read further; there is not even a full stop after “talk of Thy power.” It goes on to say why, and to whom; “To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.” Not just talking it over among our like-minded friends, exchanging a little information maybe: but talking with purpose, talking so as to make known what great things our God is doing, not gently alluding, but making the sons of men know things that they did not know were being done. Some very intelligent and well educated “sons of men“’ do not seem to know that there is such a thing as “His kingdom “at all; and whose fault is that? They do not and will not read about it, but they could not help the “true report” of it reaching their ears if every one of us simply obeyed orders and talked, right and left,” of the glory of Thy kingdom,” instead of using our tongues to tell what we have just seen in the newspapers.

But the bottom of not talking is generally the not having much to talk about. When our Lord said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” He knew what was in man better than we know ourselves. We don’t give ourselves the trouble to fill our hearts so that they cannot help overflowing. If we gave even the same time to supplying our minds with the telling, yes and thrilling facts, happening day by day in His kingdom, that we give to the “other things” reported in papers and periodicals, we should quite naturally talk of all His wondrous works. We should want to tell people what we had read and heard, not stale news picked up accidentally months ago, but something interesting from its very freshness in our own minds. When we have just read of a remarkable political event, or military victory, don’t we forthwith talk about it? And if the next person we meet has not heard of it, do we hesitate to tell him all we know about it on the spot? It does not look as if we cared very much about our glorious Captain when we are not sufficiently interested in His latest victories in the mission field even to talk about them, especially to those who know nothing at all about them.

Now! what can we find, even in this month’s magazine, which we can tell and talk about to those who have not read it? Begin at once!