CHAPTER XXV. Be a Church Member

BE A CHURCH MEMBER

There are in the United States about seven hundred different kinds of lodges, chapters and orders, but not one of them can take the place of the church, or do the work this institution was designed to do. The church is divine, all other organizations man’s creation. The latter are temporary, the former eternal.

Sometimes the word church is ill-defined. It is used to designate a sect or a place of worship. Instead of this, however, it is a people, and a redeemed people, though used in this connection with people and place. Jesus designated the church nucleus as those whom God had given Him out of the world. The first cabinet officers were illiterate fishermen who were taught at the feet of Jesus, a school infinitely more important than any college to-day. So true is this that every sceptical antagonist, whether possessed of the learning and genius of Voltaire, the brass and audacity of Paine, the polished eloquence of Hume, or the wealth and dignity of Bolingbroke, has had to bow before it and concede that it is all-powerful. And this, because its founder Jesus Christ is the center of attraction and the predominating influence.

WHY BOYS DO NOT GO.

Many boys absent themselves from church. Their excuses are without number and many of them without sense. Burdette, the Christian humorist, asks: “So you are not going to church this morning, my son? Ah, yes, I see. ‘The music is not good;’ that’s a pity! That’s what you go to church for, is it? And ‘the pews are not comfortable.’ That’s too bad! the Sabbath is a day of rest, and we go to church for repose. The less we do through the week, the more rest we clamor for on Sabbath. ‘The church is so far away; it is too far to walk, and I detest riding in a street-car, and they’re always crowded on the Sabbath.’ This is, indeed, distressing! Sometimes when I think how much farther away heaven is than the church, and that there are no conveyances on the road of any description, I wonder how some of us are going to get there. And ‘the sermon is so long always.’ All these things are, indeed, to be regretted! I would regret them more sincerely, my boy, did I not know that you will often squeeze into a stuffed street-car, with a hundred other men, breathing an odor of whisky, beer and tobacco, hang on a strap for two miles, and then pay fifty cents for the privilege of sitting on a rough plank in the broiling sun for two hours longer, while in the intervals of the game a scratch band will blow discordant thunder from a dozen misfit horns right into your ears, and come home to talk the rest of the family into a state of aural paralysis about the ‘dandiest’ game you ever saw played on that ground.”

WHAT CHURCH GOING DID.

Ah, my boy, you see what staying away from church does. It develops a habit of lying. There isn’t one man in a hundred who could go on the witness stand and give, under oath, the same reasons for not going to church that he gives to his family every Sunday morning. My son, if you didn’t think you ought to go, you wouldn’t make any excuses for not going. No man apologizes for doing right.

A young man from the country went to New York to engage in business. The first Sunday he visited the old Wall Street church, and was invited by Robert Lenox, the president of the Bible Society, to a seat in his pew. The next morning he went to buy leather to start shoe-making. When he asked for credit, the merchant asked: “Did I not see you yesterday in Mr. Lenox’s pew?” “I don’t know, sir; I was at church, and a kind gentleman asked me to sit in his pew.” “Yes, young man, that was Robert Lenox. I’ll trust anyone that Mr. Lenox invites into his pew. You need not trouble yourself about references. When the goods are gone, come and get more.” “The attendance at church that Sunday,” said this young man in after years, “was the means of my becoming a prominent successful merchant, and contributor to the support of God’s house.”

A humble brickmason who confessed Christ united with His people. Rising in meeting, he stated the reason that prompted him to this step. “I used to think,” he said, “that I could be as good out of the church as in it. I felt that I was moral and upright and had as clean a character as the next man; but one day while walking by a building under construction, I happened to see a new but dirty brick lying in the road useless and neglected. ‘There,’ said I to myself, ‘are you, Henry Crane, thinking you are as good a brick out of the church as if you were in it. But you are of no account to anybody, and nobody cares anything for you. You are lying around in everybody’s way, and nobody cares to step over you; they all tread you down into the mud as if you were a stone. If you were built into the wall, as you ought to be, you would amount to something, and have an honest man’s place. Then you would be of some use.’ So I made up my mind that I would not be like that brick any longer. That is why I have come out on the Lord’s side and joined the Lord’s people, that I may be built into the wall and have a place in the building of God.”

WHY ATTEND AND UNITE WITH THE CHURCH?

To attend and be a member of a church should be considered a pleasure rather than pain, a privilege rather than duty. Some boys go because they are compelled by parents who are members. They laugh and talk, instead of worshipping God. Without a blessing they enter the sacred place, without a blessing they leave.

The most sacred entrance to the Kremlin, in Moscow, is called the “Redeemer Gate,” because there is hung in it a picture of the Saviour—a picture of great sanctity. Even the Emperor has to uncover his head as he passes through this gate. The passage under the gate is long, but even in a terrific snow storm every one is compelled to uncover his head. It is said that when Napoleon refused to take his hat off while passing before the sacred picture, a sudden gust of wind took it off for him. God’s House is sacred. There He manifests Himself, having declared, “Ye shall reverence My Sanctuary: I am the Lord.” (Lev. 19:30). And Jesus said: “My House shall be called the House of prayer.” (Matt. 21:13).

The blessedness derived from attending and uniting with the church exceeds the blessedness of everything else. God’s Word approves it. Nehemiah said, “We will not forsake the House of our God.” (Neh. 10:39). David said, “How amiable are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! my heart longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Ps. 84:42). Paul exhorts not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” (Heb. 10:25).

It is at church where God says: “There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.” (Ex. 25:22). It is there God provides a spiritual feast of good things for the soul. “He brought me,” said Solomon, “to the banqueting house and His banner over me was love.” (Cant. 2:4). It is here He reveals His glory: “I will glorify the House of My glory,” (Isa. 60:7) said God. Jesus declared, “There am I in the midst.” (Matt. 18:20). Because of this General O. O. Howard stood the scoffs and sneers at West Point, and said: “I gripped my Bible, shut my teeth and went for my mother’s and Jesus’ sake.”

To unite with the church is proper and profitable. It is one of the ways of confessing Christ. That beautiful character, Henry Drummond, united with the church at twelve. How interesting to read his first experience in taking part in meeting. “In prayer,” he wrote, “I trembled in voice and all through. Voice seemed not my own. I had outlined the prayer during the afternoon, but didn’t remember it.” Little by little however he became a man who had great liberty in addressing God and pleading with man.

Many men who live without uniting with the church do not want to die out of it. When the great shipbuilder John Roach was struck with a mortal illness, he said. “I want to be received into the church.” Let any Christian boy consider carefully that out of seven millions of young men in this land, only two-thirds attend church and only one-twelfth belong, and he will say with General Grant when baptized by Bishop Newman, “O that I might live for years, that I might show the joys of being a consistent member of the church.” Church relationship, my boy, creates holy desires and aspirations, augments power for doing good, throws a magic uplifting influence around others and extends the kingdom of Christ on earth.

RESULTS OF CHURCH RELATIONSHIP.

The results of church relationship are too numerous to mention. To be a church member glorifies God, enlarges influence, and leads others into the broad fields of usefulness, where God can own and bless.

In “Darkest Africa,” a great man did a great work, through loving and uniting with God’s people in youth. In a little village of Scotland, stood an old church, whose pastor had preached therein for many years. One Sunday morning he was accosted by one of his deacons, whose face wore a very resolute but distressed expression. “I came early to meet you,” he said, “I have something on my heart to say to you, Pastor. There must be something radically wrong in your preaching and work; there has been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he only a boy.”

The old minister listened. His eyes moistened and his thin hand trembled on his broad-headed cane. “I feel it all,” said he, “I feel it, but God knows that I have tried to do my duty, and I can trust Him for the results.” “Yes, yes,” said the deacon, “but ‘by their fruits ye shall know them.’ (Matt. 7:20). One new member seems to me a rather slight evidence of true faith and zeal. I don’t want to be hard; I have had this matter on my heart and I have only done my duty in speaking plain.” “True,” said the old man, “but ‘charity suffereth long and is kind: beareth all things, hopeth all things!’ (1 Cor. 13:4, 7). Ay, there you have it: ‘hopeth all things!’ I have great hopes of that one boy. Some seed that we sow bears fruit late, but its fruit is generally the most precious of all.”

The old minister went into the pulpit with a grieved and heavy heart, and closed his discourse with dim and tearful eyes. He wished that his work was done forever and that he was at rest under the blooming trees in the old churchyard. He lingered in the church after the rest were gone. He desired to be alone. The place was sacred and inexpressibly dear to him. It had been his spiritual home from his youth. Before this altar he prayed over the dead forms of bygone generations, and had welcomed the children of succeeding ones; and now to be told that his work was no longer owned and blessed!

No one remained, no one? “Only a boy.” He watched the trembling man. His soul was filled with loving sympathy. He went to him, and laid his hand on his black gown. “Well, Robert?” said the minister. “Do you think if I were willing to work hard for an education, I could ever become a preacher?” “A preacher?” “Perhaps a missionary.” There was a long pause. Tears filled the eyes of the minister. At length he said, “This heals each ache in my heart, Robert. I see the divining Hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a preacher.”

Some few years ago there returned to London from Africa an aged missionary. His name was spoken with reverence. When he went into an assembly the people rose; when he spoke in public there was a deep silence. Princes stood uncovered before him, nobles invited him to their homes, and on one occasion he was presented with a sum of five thousand guineas in recognition of his great services. He had added a province to the church of Christ on earth; he had brought under the gospel influence the most savage of African chiefs; had given the translated Bible to strange tribes; had enriched with valuable knowledge the Royal Geographical Society, and had honored the humble place of his birth, the old Scottish church, the United Kingdom and the universal missionary cause.

Who was the boy? Who was the minister? The latter is forgotten. He sleeps beneath the trees in the humble place of his labors, but men remember his work because of what he was to that one boy, and what that boy was to the world. “Only a boy that had joined the church,” but that boy was the great missionary Robert Moffatt. Had he neglected church and mingled with bad company and formed bad habits, what a great work would have been left undone, what an obscure life he would have lived, and the name so universally known would never have been uttered with reverence as it is now!

BEE HUNTING.

Of hunting bees, one writer has said that the manner of catching them is very ingenious. He puts a piece of honeycomb into a box. Then he catches a bee and covers him within the box. As soon as the fright of the prisoner is overcome, he moves about, tastes the honey and is satisfied. The prison becomes a home. Being loosed, he finds his way back to the hive and in a little time returns, bringing others with him. He has told the secret story of his find to his former associates, and they in turn follow him back until the bee-hunter’s box is filled with a swarm of bees. This is God’s appointed way of building up His church and saving the race. He first reveals Himself to one soul, entrancing him with His love and thrilling his soul with the joys of salvation. This one, having tasted the sweetness of forgiveness and the joy of hope, goes to another, narrating his experience and discovery, and he in turn finds another, until one by one he brings them into the great church hive. Andrew brings Peter, (John 1:41) Philip brings Nathaniel, (John 1:45) Joel Stratton brings Gough, Robert Eaglen brings Spurgeon, and you, some other boy.

O, my boy, attend church regularly. If you are not a member, become one. Then tell the story of Jesus and His love. Seek to bring others to church, for if the House of God is the Gate to Heaven, what must Heaven be? If the songs of Zion, the gospel preached and prayers offered are cheering and helpful, what must it be to be in the presence of Him who is the key-note of all songs; the sum and substance of all truth, the way, and the life? Can you not say:

“I love Thy church, O God; Her walls before me stand, Dear as the apple of Thine eye, And graven on Thy hand.

For her my tears shall fall; For her my prayers ascend; To her my cares and toils be given, Till toils and cares shall end.”