Newspaper Page Text
July 17, 1912] T H E I
HIS TWO COMMANDS.
I heard a voice beBide me low and Bweet,
The voice of One with thorn-crowned head and
pierced feet,
And from the turmoil of the raging years,
And from the pressure of my blinding tears,
His torn hands beckoned (to a peaceful Home,
I heard Hds clear voice calling to me, "Come!"
Thon T honi*H vni'Poa onlllnrr
| Wvm - .w.-uvu voi tiug ii vili aiai9
Where sin and death and speechless anguish are.
I heard the wall of those who strive in vain,
Hungry and thirsty, naked and in pain.
"My little ones they are," He murmured low,
And took my hand and whispered, "We will go!"
Takamatsu, Japan Lois Johnson Erickson.
SEEKING THE BEST.
J. H. JOWETT, D. D. THE PRESBYTERIAN, TORONTO.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman
seeking goodly pearls." This sentence
gives us one great characteristic of the
kingly life, for the inhabitants of the Kingdom
of Heaven are the kingly men and women. They
move in great stateliness through the Word of
God. They are distinguished by humility and
<ugmiy, ny a certain retirement, which is allied
with the most mysterious glory. Great images
are used to suggest the greatness of their character.
They move in impressive lordship and
liberty. They are kings and priests unto God.
And here I say is one of their distinctions;
they are seeking goodly pearls.
And so the kingly life is a life in quest of
big things. Every one is painfully familiar
with the temptation to fritter away life in interests
that are small and mean. There are
many Scriptural types of the wasteful and belittled
life. There are those who spend their
strength in seeking money. The concentrated
purpose of their days is a quest for gold.
They are zealous for artificial gems and they
miss the goodly pearls. Judas Iscariot had the
priceless privilege of communion with his Lord.
He had the incomparable glory of living with
the Master day by day?the opportunity of
entering into the "inheritance of the saints in
liorht 9' onrl V? a ?-1 ? --- 11
?0..?, ub u3vu ma privilege in tne quest
for money, and all that he got out of his supreme
advantage was thirty pieces of silver.
He missed the pearls.
And here is another Scriptural type described
as "lovers of pleasure more than lovers
of God." They sought the transitory rather
than the eternal. They were most intent upon
the carnal than the divine. They went out
seeking rockets and ignoring dawns. All that
they got from life was a transient Hash. They
missed the goodly pearl.
Here is another from the Scriptural gallery
of disastrous failures. "Demas has forsaken
me, having loved this present evil world."
Think of that man's opportunity! lie had the
privilege of the fellowship of the Apostle Paul,
but he "loved the garish day," and he preferred
glamour to serenity and a loud sensation
to an ideal friendship. The world offered
a Bohemian hour, and he took it, and the end
thereof was found in the white, cold ashes of
moral defeat. Thus life is frittered away on a
thousand trifles, and at the end of the restless
quest we have no pearls.
Now the big things of life belong to the realm
of spirit and character. It is in the region of
the soul that we find the pearls. The really
goodly things, the big things are inside and not
outside the man. The big thing is not luxury,
but contentment.; not a big house, but a big
satisfaction; not accumulated art treasures,
but a fine, artistic appreciation; not a big library,
but a serene studiousness; not a big estate,
but a large vision. The big things are
not "the things that are seen, but the things
' " *
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
that are not seen." "Seek peace and ensue
it." "Seek the things that are above." "Seek
ye first the Kingdom of God and Llis righteousness."
Such are the goodly pearls.
But the quest of the kingly man is not only
for the big things?it is for the bigger things
among the big, and for the biggest among them
all. The merchantman was not only in search
of goodly pearls; he discriminated among the
values of pearls, and he knew when he had
found "one pearl of great price." There are
gradations of value even among good things.
There are pearls and better pearls, and the true
king in life is known by his pursuit of the best.
Knowledge is a good thinir. the masterv nf thp
secrets of the visible world; wisdom is a better
thing, the possession of fine judgment and delicate
intuition, of moral and spiritual discernment.
Acquaintance is a good thing; friendship
is a better thing; love is the best thing.
The respect of others is a good thing; self-respect
is a better thing; a fine, untroubled conscience
is the best thing. Love for our lovers
is a good thing; love for our neighbors is a
'better thin?r? Iava 1?*
0 7 v vui cuciiuc? tilts uwi
thing. These are pearls and they are pearls
of great price. And so this, I say, is a mark
of the children of the kingdom. They are always
in quest of something beyond. "Not as
though I had already attained, either were already
perfect, hut I press on." There is ever
a height beyond, a better pearl still to win.
"Glories upon glories hath our God prepared
for the souls that love Him one day to be
shared." Such is the aim of the kingly quest.
It is in search of the goodliest among the goodly
pearls.
Now let us look at the quality of the quest.
A kingly man is "like unto a merchantman."
Then the pearls are not found by the loafer, by
the mere strolling fiddler along life's way. "We
are to have the characteristics of business men,
even when we are engaged in the affairs of the
Highest. If only we assume that requirement
as an essential condition of the Kingdom of
Heaven, a thousand religious failures will be at
once explained. The majority of us are about
as little like merchantmen in our religious life
as could be very well conceived. And yet this
is the Master's demand. We are to be businesslike
in our search for pearls. And if we are to
be business-like what will be some of our characteristics
?
First of all, we shall have breadth of outlook.
A good merchant has an eye for the
markets, for fresh opportunities in new fields.
He watches drifts and tendencies, movements
of population, and he is the alert friend of
every new discovery. His eyes roam over wide
areas in quest of new openings to push his
trade. And so it is the kingdom of heaven.
The man of the kingly life must seek his pearls
in many markets and over widp fiplHs Hp
must seek them in worship and in prayer and in
praise. He must look for them in the crowded
places of human fellowship. He must search
the wide expanse of literature. He must busy
himself with the treasures of history. He must
be curious in the bright domain of wit and humor.
He must be wakeful even on the battlefield,
when he is in combat with hostile forces,
as well as in the quieter places of human service
and communion. He must assume that
anywhere and everywhere he may find a goodly
pearl. So he must have an eye for markets
at every hour of the day and amid all the
change and varieties of human experience. This
he must do if he would be a "merchantman
seeking goodly pearls."
And, secondly, he must have the ability to
fix attention on details. The vision of a merchantman
is not only telescopic. "He lets
U T H (843) 5 ^
nothing escape him." He knows the weight
and force of apparent nothings; he knows the
value of seeming trifles. He often finds his
treasure in things that other men despise or
throw away. He is very inquisitive when he
finds apparent waste, if by chance he may turn
it into gold. So must it be in the quest for the
goodly pearls of the Kingdom. We must give
keen attention to the neglected trifles of life.
Lowly duties must he carefully scanned. Small
disappointments must he examined as though
they were dark caskets containing possible treas
ure. Even commonplace courtesies must not be
scouted, but must be regarded as a possible
hiding place of priceless gems. The Master
Himself described the man of fine quest as being
"faithful in that which is least." He does
little things in a great way, and he makes
great discoveries in doing them.
Thirdly, the kingly life must be distinguished
by method and order. A fine business man
must have method in his work. He has not
only principles, he has rules; he has not only a
general system, he has a detailed order. Men
who have no method are soon compelled to
close their doors. We do not stroll carelessly
into any treasure that is worth havintr. And
that is why so many of us are very poor in the
things of the Kingdom. We have no order and
method, and the work of one hour is undone by
the hour that succeeds it. Look at our prayers.
How unmethodical and disorderly! Are
they likely to find any pearls! Look at our
worship. How little intelligent quest is in it!
Is it likely to discover any pearls? Look at our
service. How careless it often is and how pointless
and unprepared! There are abundant
signs that even our Lord Himself regulated His
life and refused to allow it to frivol away in
indefinite purpose and desire.
Lastly, the man in search of goodly pearls
must be distinguished by decision. A competent
merchantman knows when to act, and at
the decisive moment he acts with command
ing promptness. He watches circumstances
when they are ripening, and at the proper moment
he plucks the fruit. There are times in
a business man's life when promptness requires
great courage. There is a demand for risk
and speculation and untried enterprise, and
timidity would let the promising circumstance
go by and lose its bounty. So is it in the Kingdom
of Heaven. Here, too, there are "tides
in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood,
lead on to fortune." It is a great thing to
know when the hour is ripe for decision. It
is one of the fine arts of living to know when
to act upon an impulse, and when to accept
the hints of emotion as the signs of a favoring
gale. Here again our Lord is our example. He
was very patient, but He was always very decisive.
No one could move Him before the appointed
time. No one could stop Him when He
said, "The hour has come." Such is to be
rnc quality of our quest. We are to be like
merchantmen, broad in outlook, vigilant for
detail, intelligent in method and decisive in
action.
With such a spirit we shall undoubtedly discover
the goodly pearls, and we shall discover
the best of all, "the pearl of great price." But
for that pearl we may have to sell many others.
What are we prepared to give for it? What
are we ready to surrender?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small.
Love go amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.
There is no book that will repay time spent on
its pages as will the word of God.?F. B. Meyer.