Points of Departure
He way of life is straight. It does not wind about. It does not make a zigzag path. Our experience in passing through the world is variable. To-day we have joy, to-morrow sorrow. Now the road runs in the sunshine, again it takes us into the storms. We pass through a thousand vicissitudes every year — health, sickness, pleasure, pain, ease, hardness, prosperity, adversits gain, loss; but all the while the path of duty is direct, straight as an arrow’s flight. Yet in every life there are points at which it is easy to depart, when there are strong temptations to turn aside. There are certain points, too, at which many persons do turn aside. The first leaving of home is a time full of dan- Home is a warm sanctuary of love. Especially is a true Christian home a place of
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sacred fellowship. Many of the departures from the right path date from the day when a boy leaves his mother and goes out into the world, where, henceforth, he will not have her guidance.
Going away to school is for many a time of danger. The life of the old home begins to seem narrow when young people are out in their new environment and look back upon it. It is laughed at and represented as not up to date. Its habits of pra-er, for example, are sneered at. Many young people find a serious testing waiting for them the first night in the boarding school or dormitory, when the retiring hour comes. Will they keep up the old home habit of kneeling by the bedside in prayer .f Many battles are fought at that hour — many fought, how many sadly lost! Marriage is another time of danger. It is a time of joy. It ought to be a time of blessing. It ought to be the gate into a life of ideal beauty. Nothing good that has been learned in the years before should be lost when two young people leave their old homes and enter [78] pointjS of ^tpavtmt
a home of their own. Every beautiful thing they have been taught to do they should continue to do in the holy life they now begin together. It is told of a Christian girl recently married, that the first evening the young couple were in their own house, when they were sitting down to their first meal, the wife quietly said: “In my old home we never began a meal without first either bowing our heads and asking grace, or having a silent grace. It must be the same in my home.” So the two reverently bent their heads and sought God’s blessing on their first meal. That is the way it always should be when two Christian young people begin their life together. Sometimes this beautiful custom is not observed, and the event is grieved over by angels as a point of departure from God. Sometimes prosperity proves to be a point of disaster to a life. The man who in the days of bare and pinched living, when there was no luxury, and sometimes was want, was faithful to God, when money increases and life grows sumptuous, forgets God and turns away from [79] the divine commandments. Or sometimes adversity brings defection. Most people have the impression that trouble always makes people better. The other day, one speaking of a man whose life for a number of years has been very bad, said, “I have been praying God that he might become sick or might have some great sorrow, for I think that would save him.” But it might not — it might lead him still farther away from God. Bereavement, which ought to soften hearts and sweeten lives, has sometimes failed to bring the mourner nearer to Christ, or to restore faith and prayer in the home. Sickness has ofttimes left one less prayerful than he was before, and with a life less beautiful. One said the other day in talking to a friend, “I have given up God.” The friend spoke of prayer. “You have not given up prayer .^^ Do you not pray any more? “” No,” the person replied,” I used to be an earnest Christian, but five years ago I had a great disappointment, a crushing sorrow. While it was imminent, I prayed God most earnestly to save [80]
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me from the calamity. He did not do it, and I have never believed in him nor prayed to him since. I do not think God cares.” The losing of a friend may prove the occasion of turning aside. Moses said to his people in his farewell address, “I know that after my death, ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn yourselves from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days.” The day a strong, guiding friend was taken away has proved to many the beginning of departure from God. A man with a great temptation said to his friend, who was trying to help him in his struggle toward a better life, “If I could only live with you, or even come to you always when I am tempted I could live nobly and worthily.” The friend said, “Come to me any hour, day or night, when you need me, when you feel the temptation coming on, and we will talk and pray together.” For several years he went often to his friend and lived bravely, not once failing. Then the friend died, and almost at once the man sank [81] away into sin and failure. He had depended too much upon the human friend and not enough on Christ.
There is not a day which does not bring some opportunity or occasion of turning aside. Business is right, if it be a right business, but continually men are tempted to depart from the right way in business. Owen Wister, in one of his books, sa^s, “The American had rather be rich than good, and he is having his wish.” Pleasure is right. Our Master wants us to enjoy ourselves, but there are good people who are led away from God by pleasure, perhaps by its excess, perhaps by its charm, its enamoring. God is driven out of many hearts by amusements, which perhaps are altogether harmless in themselves. It is in the absorption that the danger is.
What in all life is more sacred than friendship.’^ Of course friendships are sometimes formed with unworthy people, and these cannot but lead away- from God. There are friendships which one cannot have and main- [82] pointjS of J^zpattmt
tain friendship with Christ. Such friendships never can help one into true and noble life. But pure, true and worthy friendships may also become the means of turning lives away from God. It should not be so. When two Christians love each other their love should make their lives purer, richer, better. But sometimes a friendship becomes so intense, so absorbing, so satisfying that it leads to the forgetting of God. Only the other day one said: “Before I was married I loved Christ and was active in his service. I was so happy with my husband, however, after my marriage, that my need of Christ seemed to grow less and less, and soon, instead of an hour for my Bible and prayer, only a few hurried moments were given, and after a while Christ was left out of the day altogether.” Too often this is the story.
There is another way also in which our dearest friends may become hinderers of our Christian life. Jesus says in one place, that in certain experiences, a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He is referring to [83]
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persecutions for his sake. There is another way, however, in which this may become true. Our dearest friends may unwittingly become our enemies, doing us the gravest harm. Their love for us may tempt us to slacken our love for Christ. We remember how Peter, in his intense love for Jesus, sought to keep him from doing his Father’s will. When Jesus told his disciples that he must be crucified, Peter sought to hold him back from his cross and cried, “Lord, this shall not be unto thee!” Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Thus Peter’s friendship was doing Satan’s work — lem.pting Jesus. There are friends who, because of their love, seek to dissuade those they love from service for Christ that demands sacrifice. Thus love may become a peril, and lead men to turn aside from complete consecration. A Christian mother has been known to keep her son from becoming a missionary, causing him to turn aside from the life to which the ]Iaster had called him. A young Christian wife has been known, by her love for her husband, [84 1 yoinw of J^tpattutt
to influence him to give up his devotion to Christian work and to cease his self-denying service.
Turning aside in whatever line of life usually begins in a small and imperceptible way. No one turns entirely away from right in a moment. When one seems to depart suddenly from close following of God to complete desertion, there has always been a slow and gradual departure preceding the final breaking. The first turning was so slight that it was scarcely noticeable. It was only an imperceptible relaxing in the stringency of obedience. Still, it was a departure, and what is once given up is never reclaimed, and next week there is a still further relaxing. Take the matter of honesty. A man’s simple promise is as good as his note. After a time he begins to be a little less exacting with himself. He has debts and he neglects to pay them on the day they are due. He begins to be less watchful in his business dealing. In a few months he is quoted on the street as unreliable, then as slow, and at last as a man [85]
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who will pay only under compulsion. His turning away was gradual. He failed in a trifling matter and did not catch himself up, and now his one-time splendid name for honesty is gone.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a word which explains this process. The writer says we ought to give earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them. Drift is just the word. The boat is not moored and drifts out to sea. Lives continually fall into some current and drift away. They are not quite so conscientious in their habits as they were last year — drifting. They are not quite so loving as they were, not so patient, a little more irritable, not so kindly, so forbearing, so sweet in spirit, so ready to serve — drifting. It is the beginning of the departure against which we need to guard. “Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left,” is the word of caution. That is, do not deviate in the most minute degree from the right. It is the beginning of evil we need to avoid if we [86]
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would never reach the final step. It is the Kttle deflection against which we must watch if we would never find ourselves in open rebellion against the right. A little girl was overheard telling her mother about a naughty child that grew naughtier and naughtier till at last he struck God. It is thus always that sin makes its progress. It begins only with a shade of departure, but ends in defiant rebellion.
The safety of Christian life depends on the avoidance of the first steps away from God. To make this course really effective, we must take it in a positive way. Instead of being satisfied with not growing less beautiful in Christian life, we should seek to make ever a progress toward higher, better things. We can always live better than we have yet done. We can make to-morrow better than to-day. Not one of us has reached the possibilities of our lives in attainment and achievement. Scientists tell us of certain birds which in their wild state do not sing, but which have in their throats fine song muscles, showing [87 1 that if they had had favorable environment, they might have been good singers. There is no one who has not more life muscles than he has learned to use. We have capacities for obedience, forsemce, for beautiful living, for usefulness, which lie undeveloped in us. Instead of letting ourselves slacken in the doing of our duty, we should set ourselves ever a higher work and every day add a line to the quahty of our life and the worthiness of our character. There is a little prayer in an old Psalm which would lift us ever upward. “Lead me in the way everlasting,” it runs. The way everlasting leads ever toward God.
TButlDfng again te f ome HHm ^’Hurt as it may, love on, love forever;
Love for lovers sake, like the Father above, But for whose brave-hearted Son we had never Known the sweet hurt of the sorrowful love.”