Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-06-25

remains to be urged or demanded as first
requirement Isl, that We be found faithful.
The readers to whom the apostle was writing
were becoming divided into petty sections,
pulled up with self-conceit against each 9TH
or, and engaged in bitter rivalry because of
their admiration of the powers and success
of particular leaders after whom they chose
to call themselves Our leader ia more suc-
cessful than yours, the one party said to the
other. He is occupied with better part of
the work than yours. He knows better how
to proclaim the messages and how to per-
suade his hearers. He is great man, worth
listening to and worth following. He L. an
energizing force in the kingdom of God.
We ourselves are better than yo5 are because
we move after him. But the apostle answers
to these proud and self-satisfed words of
theirs: Your rivalry is folly, because your
judgment is based upon misconcsptfon of
are not leaders at all. They have done moth
ing which gives THIN the least claim to this
title. They have no proper superiority the
one to the other. They are, on the other
hand, servants only and stewards. Their
work is not their own it is Gods. Their
part in the work is not their own, except SO
far as 1t Is assigned to them of God. Who
shall determine which part is greekd or
more Important What could the yferer of
the field accomplish without the planterl
What would the man who laydp the founda-
ton be worth If no one should follow him to
build upon it the sQperstructure? Nay,
moreover, what would he the Significance of
the work of either<of the two unless God
formed the plan Of the building, or gave the
secret poweFyof increase to the seeda No
you are asking for greatness and success
when you should be asking for faithfulnees.
These men are under. servants, whose work
is not self-appointed, but allotted to them by
kf
them is-and the only question-whet
they are faithfully trying to do what he ass
signs to them as their task, and to do it in
the place and manner in which he would
have it done.
Ny young friends, this is the second
thought which you may take to yourselves
with reference to your own lives also. You
mistake the great question as you go out
from this place if you ask first Of all for
success, or distinction in the world or power
over men. These things are not life. They
are of the eternal, but life is within you.
They may be denied you, though your plans
may be wiser and your labors more abun-
dant, and your natural gifts of higher or
der, than those of others who attain them.
Circumstances utterly unforeseen, and alto
gether beyond your ability to control them,
may SO defect your purposes aud your hope
that the brightness of the opening of your
career so far as worldly honor is concerned,
may. pass later on into deep darkness and
disappointment. You may die-some of
your number viii certainly die-before the
possibility of life's outward rewards shall
come to yon. Life cannot be in the outward
rewards therefore. 1t must be in something
that you are sure of if you Faithfully seek
for it, and something which will come to you
if you are worthy of its coming, whether
you die at thirty or seventy. But SO soon as
you realize the truth that, whatever and
wherever your work May be, your life is a
A1,oAk ,11-5
one thing to be inquired after respecting it.
The career which you decide upon for your
self, if you rightly choose it, is in reality APP
pointed by God. You are charged to enter
upon it as if thus appointed for you, with q
sense of your obligation to God, and to move
forward in it to the carrying out of his pur-
pose. The question for you to ask, as you
thus move forward, is: Am faithful to the
obligations resting upon me9 Am / trying
to discharge the duty which belongs to me
as an under-servsnt of the divine master!
The plan of the work is in his knowledge
and keeping The work itself only Is mine.
must do it faithfully while am allowed to
continue in it. But I am not responsible for
success, which may be denied me, or may
fail in thousand ways which are beyond
the limits of my ordering, or for. the final
results which can only be secured by that
union of all forces and all efforts which he
only who sees the end from the beginning
And this way of thinking of the matter
my friends, is the only way, if We are to go
forward into the coming years peacefully as
well as actively. The place to which you or
I, or any educated man may be called, is
greater than we are. The work belonging to
bearings, and in its wide range of influence
for the present and the future, rises into a
significance, and grandeur even, which
sometimes Expresses us with sense of our
weakness and incompetency. We must pass
out of it before it is half accomplished; al
gun. Success in the entire range of the plan
of working is wholly beyond our powers.
If success were the demands laid upon us we
could never move peacefully. But when we
look at life, as the apostle did, as a stewards
ship, aud the duty belonging to it as faith
into the most energetic and heroic action of
the soul, and the man becomes full OF inten-
sest earnestness for present duty, while he Is
at the same time full of q calm trust and
hope for the future. The issues of the hour
and its work in the time to come, he ia as
snred, are not for him to determine; yet he
may be confident that the are In the great
plan of which his working is . part. IF he
is faithful as a steward he has the conscious
ness that the only requirement resting upon
him Is fulfilled.
In connection with the two thoughts all
ready considered it is interesting to notice
the manner in which the apostle looked at
his own faithfulness. It is evident that he
did not make it the business of his life, or
intend to make It such, to be continually ex.
amining himself, as If for q judicial and
final decision as to whether he was faithful
much less to allow others to assume this pre-
rogative with respect to him-but rather, on
the other hand, to be ever so earnestly striv-
ing to have true faithfulness in all things,
that he world be at no time conscious of
any fault or failure of duty. The apostle
had genuine Christian constituencies with
respect to the decisions of his own mind as
to what he was doing and with respect TO
the views of others also. But he had at
the same time Christian Independence of
both, and he commends this to other men.
Our work, my young friends, as we have
already intimated, Is to be fulfilled In re-
sponsibility to God. We are to make eve
~ effort, so far as we understand the OPP
portunities and the possibilities, to do that
to which he summons MS. We are tothink /
carefully, and plan carefully and conscien- |
tiously, as We undertake to discharge the
duties of our stewardship. We are TO ask |
ourselves the question, from time to time,
whether we are doing all that we can and
in the best way. We are 70 take the adj \
vice and consider the judgmentB of others
IN many cases, 30 far as they may be re-
lated to us in our working, and we may be
rightly sensitive to their opinions of our
selves or our conduct. But we are, in
sense and that the deepeat and highest
sense, to be independent men. The very
fundamental fact of our individual stew
that each one of us IL
called of God TO particular sphere of ac-
tiyity different from that of others, in
wolves inIitself the prosperity, and even, as
we may say, the necessity of this indepen-
denee. Men who are as near to each other |
as Paul and AppolIos-men engaged in 9 |
common work, and yet not in the same
section of it-may, and often must be, so
far separated In their thoughts and special 1
energies that one of them will not appreei-
ate the demands which come upon the 9TH |
er's life, or the best methods of accom- /
plishing the results for which the efforts of 4
the other are put forth. The lesson taught 1
to every man by his experience and obssr- |
walton as he moves on IN his career is that, /
in the minute and multitudinous divisions /
of service and labor which the most suc- /
cessful progress of The world requires, the !
worker in one line of action cannot know
all that the worker in another line must Il
know and think of, and thus that the lat
ter must have a large freedom from re-
sponsibility to the former. : If therefore the
earnest worker stays his course or turns it,
Of kfnco nE