friends; seeking their company not for their wealth
and place, but rather because of their deepest need and danger; not for
their gaiety, but for the abounding joy you would fain make known to them
out of your own heart-store: then I should say again: "If any of them
that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go,"--_go_!

But beware of compromises,--that specious temptation not to make religion
disagreeable. It can never be really that if it is the true thing,--a
burning fire, a shining light,--but some one has well said: "When
religion loses its power to repel, it loses also its power to attract."
It must be intense, active, clear enough to do both. "The disciple is
not above his Master. If they have called the Master of the house
Beelzebub, how much more them of his household"![25]

And it is only as an uncompromising servant of the Lord Jesus, that you
can ever hope to do anything for him. On all days, in all places, you
must count yourself on duty and under orders. You cannot pledge a man in
the wine cup to-night, and to-morrow plead with him to escape for his
life. You cannot join in the "foolish talking and jesting, which are not
convenient," [26] and afterwards reason of "righteousness, temperance,
and judgment to come": or if you do, people will not listen. You will
find that, like Lot, you have "lost your spiritual credit." "He seemed
as one that mocked, to his sons-in-law."

"I had dined every week all winter with Dr. ----," said a lady to me,
"and never guessed that he was a clergyman till yesterday!" Johnson said
of Burke, that "you could not stand with him five minutes under a gateway
in a shower of rain, without finding out that he was an extraordinary
man,"--and how long shall it take people to learn that you are a
Christian?--one bought back from slavery, called to be a saint, heir of a
kingdom? Ah, how ready men are to parade their worldly honours; their
orders of merit and badges of bravery; but leave their Christian colours
at home, and hide their uniform with a pair of the world's overalls!
Alas!--"If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself
for battle?" [27]

Yes, if you can go into mixed society as the Lord went, then go. But
otherwise, for your own enjoyment, a different model is set.

"Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus
was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made
him a supper; a