g Clergymen (soon to be seniors) who
shall conspicuously combine the best forms of practicality with an
unmistakable chastened personal spirituality which is seen to be "the
pulse of" their busy "machine." And if the spirituality is to be indeed
genuine (away with it if it is anything but genuine to the centre), if
it is to be quite different on the one hand from a thing of artificial
phrases, and on the other from merely formulated and regulated
devoutness, I am deeply sure that its only secret and preservative is a
fully-maintained secret walk with God.

"GOD, I THANK THEE."

"I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." [SN:
Rev. iii. 17.] Such was the thought and word of the Laodicean long ago.
Is it not in effect the thought, if not the word, of not a few hard
workers and energetic enterprizers now? "What do I want with the dialect
of 'Christian experience'? What have I, with all these irons in the
fire, and a strong hammer and a strong hand with which to strike them,
what have I to do with 'old-world faiths' about sin and salvation, about
grace and conversion, about pardon and justification? What have I so
pressingly to do with much prayer, save in the form of much work? God, I
thank Thee that I am a worker; let it be for others to dive into
spiritual secrets, if it is good for them to do so."

"THOU KNOWEST NOT."

I would not overdraw the picture. And the words I have put into a
possible mouth are words which, if I heard, I hope I should hear with
every wish to judge them fairly and to see where any truth lay in them.
But none the less I am sure that those words not unjustly represent a
type of thought widely prevalent among even ministerial workers, and
that it is a type of thought pregnant with disaster for Christian work.
"Thou knowest not that thou art poor"; "I counsel thee, to buy of Me";
"I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the
door I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me." [Rev. iii.
17, 18, 20.] So said Jesus Christ to the Laodicean. And though it may
seem paradoxical to compare a man involved in the rush of modern "Church
work" with the Laodicean, the comparison may not be always far astray,
nor the words of the Lord in Rev. iii. 18 out of place accordingly. To
be "neither cold nor hot" towards _Him_ is all too possible for us,
alas, even when "the irons in the fire" are most numerous, and even when
they are being most briskly hammered.