Weariness in Well-Doing

And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.—Galatians 6:9.

1. St. Paul had been amongst these Galatians. He had planted the gospel amongst them, and formed their churches, and knew how zealous they were at the outset for the glory of Christ; and so beloved was he amongst them that if necessary they would have taken out their very eyes for him; but he had heard that a change had come over them. He had to say to them: “Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” He knew there were many who had begun to grow weary, and that there was a possibility of many more growing weary and fainting, and consequently the cause of Christ beginning to decline; therefore he wrote them this Epistle, and in these closing verses, in this pathetic and impressive way, said: “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” With that perfect courtesy of which the Apostle was such an example, he identifies himself with the people to whom he is writing. He supposes for the moment that he might be inclined to the very same failing, which he perceived in them. He is identifying himself with them as subject to the same passions and feelings, so he does not say, “Do not ye be weary in well-doing,” but he says, “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

2. Let us grasp what the Apostle really does say. This is the same St. Paul who includes in the catalogue of his own trials “in weariness and painfulness and watchings.” There is physical fatigue, and mental fatigue, and spiritual fatigue. Your ardent, eager worker is not denied his hours of depression when he is a tired man. More precious to Him who sees in secret, perhaps, are some tears of disappointment than the equanimity of him whose high hopes have never been disappointed because he never had any high hopes to disappoint. Did not Christ Jesus know weariness of body and heaviness of soul? No Christian is exempt from these feelings but he to whom the thought of the Kingdom is a pleasant, pious speculation, and never a sacred burden on the heart; to whom the prayer for it is never an agony, and the care for it never a cross. St. Paul knew all this and more; for he knew the inward discouragements also. He knew the deception and instability of his own heart. He knew the tempting voices of ease and pleasure, the luxuries of the intellectual life, and the indolence with which the flesh is so curiously sympathetic. And to be up and at it, day in and day out, unrecognized and unrewarded, nobody apparently wanting you or your help or your message, or caring much whether you come or go, labour of body and agony of soul expended seemingly to so little purpose—he knew all this, and, knowing it, stood and cried, “In doing beautiful things be not guilty of the crowning baseness of cowardice, tiring, fainting, deserting the divinest life, hope and service—the one thing worth doing, the one life worth living. Do not play the coward, in baseness of heart abandoning the doing of good and beautiful deeds.” This is St. Paul’s adjuration to the Christian Church.

I wish it were possible by any conceivable turn of the English phraseology to give the exact force of this epigrammatic saying, “Let us not be weary in well-doing.” I can, perhaps, partially explain it by saying that a frequent antithesis in Greek is between καλὸς and κακὸς, what is good and what is bad, or, more strictly, what is beautiful and what is base. These two words are used antithetically in this epigram. “In doing beautiful things let us not be base,” would be, of course, a very weak equivalent, though it would preserve some of the literal form of the saying. But this word “to be base” is the technical word for to turn coward, to lose heart, and so to tire at some hilly or difficult ground because of a weakness and infirmity of heart. In doing the beautiful in life let us not turn coward, let us not lose heart. That is the true meaning, although, as you will infer, little or nothing of the striking epigrammatic form is preserved. This word “to be base” or “to turn coward” is a tribute to the belief that the crowning typical baseness is cowardice, the flagging, fainting, tiring of the soul. I quarrel altogether with the translation “to be weary.” To be weary in our well-doing is a luxury denied to nobody. The baseness is in the cowardice, it is in the losing heart. It is in the wearying of it, if you like, although I cannot altogether assent even to that translation, for I have known men and women a little weary of it all—the strain and the struggle and the disappointment of “doing good”—who, nevertheless, are quite untainted by the baseness of cowardice, who have never lost hope or heart, who are still prepared under dark skies to plod and plod with a quiet, unfaltering resolution that unsuccess cannot discourage, until their long day’s work is done, and the welcome signal comes for home and sleep.1 [Note: C. S. Horne, The Rock of Ages, 77.]

No one should think that sensitiveness to fear debars him from the grace and helpfulness of courage, or that a sanguine readiness to take things easily is any safeguard against cowardice. For this δειλία, or cowardice, like faith, its great antagonist, is not ultimately evinced in feeling one way or another, but in action. It is evinced whenever a man declines a task which he believes, or even suspects uncomfortably, that he was meant to face; whenever he looks along the way of faith, and thinks it will ask much of him, and takes the way of comfort and security—the way where he can be sure of continuous company and indisputable common sense. It may appear either in action or in refusing to act, according as the demand of faith is for patient waiting or for prompt advance; but the central wrong of it is the withholding of the service, the self-sacrifice, a man was born and bred and trained to render; it is the sin of “the children of Ephraim,” who, “being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.” We can see sometimes in history or in fiction how a man seems prepared for and led up to the great opportunity of his life; something is asked of him, some effort, some renunciation, some endurance, which is not asked of others. He may say that if he refuses he is not making his own life easier than the lives of thousands round him seem quite naturally and undisturbedly to be; but he sinks thenceforward far below them if he does refuse.2 [Note: Francis Paget, Studies in the Christian Character.]

It was not in the open fight

We threw away the sword,

But in the lonely watching

In the darkness by the ford.

The waters lapped, the night-wind blew,

Full armed the Fear was born and grew,

And we were flying ere we knew

From panic in the night.3 [Note: Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills, 232.]

I

A Caution

“Let us not be weary in well-doing.”

1. We understand by weariness in well-doing weariness under all those duties and claims and responsibilities which a religious (in our case, a Christian) life lays upon us. To the Christian, life brings one long demand—upon his substance, or his time, or his patience, or his love, or his faith. He recognizes this demand in his home, in his church, in his fellow-creatures, not to speak of the peremptory demands which his own soul makes upon him.

It stares at us out of history and experience as one of life’s greater ironies that warnings against intermittent work, faint-hearted work, have to be uttered principally against the highest form of work done from the purest and least selfish of motives. You might reasonably think that the lower drudgery would be the first to pall, the drudgery that is merely selfish in its scheme and scope. You might say, Let light and air, space and beauty, into your manner of life, and it is good-bye to all apathy and listlessness. But worldliness is everlastingly shaming us. Is there any labour so assiduous, any toil so unintermittent, as that which is inspired by the very meanest and earthliest of motives, dross of self-interest unmixed with any higher metal of beneficence and disinterested desire? It seems as if life’s common prose were a subject of more commanding and abiding interest than life’s loftiest poetry. It seems that, if you narrow a man’s outlook to four walls, you will get more out of him of constant, unbroken work than if you give him the full horizon and the unlimited firmament and the sunlight and beauty of the world. The world being what it is, it is harder to live above it than to live down at its level. Sporadic goodness is common enough; men rather like than otherwise to find some relief or recreation in an act of benevolence. But it is like going to the sea-side, or having a day in the country. It is an occasional luxury, the too frequent repetition of which would destroy its charm. To make this higher service a life instead of an experiment, normal and natural instead of accidental and occasional—this was the purpose and mission of Jesus.

Some one has compared our undertakings and purposes to that great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The head was of fine gold—so are the beginnings of most men’s plans. Nothing is too costly, no labour too great. The breast and the arms are of silver. Interest begins to slacken; their views of possible success are modified; they have less exalted notions of what they are going to do. Lower still the silver has become brass—bright as the golden head, but not real, not genuine. They go on with the work, and it looks the same, but it is brass, not gold. The feet are part iron and part clay. Dreary ending to a work so nobly begun—what a picture of imperfection, a gradual deterioration, gold first, clay last! Such is the spiritual life of many who did run well. Such is the well-doing of many who started with high purposes to work for God. And now their life is jaded, cold, half-hearted. “Weary in well-doing” sums up their interior as well as their exterior life.1 [Note: A. L. Moore, From Advent to Advent, 95.]

(1) A religious man feels that he is where he is, and he is what he is, not for his own sake so much as for the sake of others. He is here to help and bless the world. The great discovery of Christianity was this, that human life might be made better, sweeter, more wholesome; in the words of Scripture, that the world might be saved. And as Christians we should rejoice in the besetting duties of life, in its unremitting calls and claims upon us. Not to rejoice in this life of ours is to be weary. We are weary when we feel our duties to be dry; when we feel the claims of Christian love and brotherhood troublesome and against the grain. We are weary when we are indolent at the summons of faith or hope or love. We are weary in those hours when we do not like to think how much sorrow and how much need there is in the world and round about us, and that we might do something to reduce the bulk of human misery.

In weariness we seek to reduce our exertions to the lowest possible point. Weary men soon find out how little they may do, the least they may do. Retrenching our liberalities, we are feeling charity irksome; resigning one office after another with ingenious pleas, we are becoming weary in service. Ever striving to bring our Christian life down to the lowest standard is proof positive of decaying conviction and enthusiasm. The whole-hearted man asks, “How much can I be, give, do?” The weary man asks, “How little?” In weariness men magnify trifles. Dr. Livingstone tells that the Africans are sometimes afflicted by a singular disorder which causes them in passing over a straw to lift up their feet as if they were passing over the trunk of a tree. Weariness is a similar malady; it makes great efforts to overcome trifling and imaginary obstructions. The grasshopper is a burden. Weariness is seriously offended by the veriest trifles, by a word, or a look, or by the lack of a word or look which really means nothing.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, Studies in Christian Character, i. 75]

What does The Slough of Despond mean in the allegory? Christian himself answers, tracing his misadventure to fear. It is the despondency of reaction which, if it become permanent, may deepen into religious monomania. It is to some extent physical, the result of overstrained nerves, so that “the change of weather” mentioned may be taken quite literally. A clear air and a sunny day are great aids to faith, and there are many, like Robertson of Brighton, whose fight with depression is brought on by rainy seasons. Thus it is not only sharp conviction of sin that we have here, but a state of hopelessness and weariness of spirit whose causes are very composite. All the evil side of life flows into it. Every sinful memory and unbelieving thought increases it. Bunyan’s reticence adds to his power here as elsewhere, for by not defining it more particularly he leaves each reader with a general symbol which he can fill in with the details of his own experience. Dr. Whyte reminds us that Christians are partly responsible for this slough. The Christian life is sometimes described in such a way as to make one think that there is no use trying; and there are many, like Widow Pascoe in Dan’l Quorm, who express a melancholy resignation in such phrases as “trusting Him where they cannot trace Him.” These are the chronic folk of the slough, who dwell so near its banks as to be spiritually bronchitic with its exhalations. This is bad enough; but when despondency comes to be regarded as a virtue, and happy faith in God as presumption, then the slough has become a place of sin as well as of misery. Humility, doubtless, is derived from humus; but as the quality of a living soul it must mean on the ground, not in it. Nor does it mean grovelling either, but standing on the ground. The voice Ezekiel heard still calls to all men, “Son of man, stand upon thy feet.”2 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 20.]

(2) Over and above those demands for our love and sympathy which our religion makes, there is the fundamental requirement of God that we ourselves be pure and holy in our own inward parts. That is another region in which weariness always threatens us. We may know what it is to be impatient of the regular duties of the religious life—to feel public worship an interference with our natural indolence, and so to think less of public worship, and to imagine some other way of spending the Sabbath would be better, because we would like some other way—as if we had not to suspect our likes rather than be guided by them. Then, to speak of more intimate things, we may know what it is to hurry through our prayers, feeling a certain irksomeness in what—if we were as we should be—is “the great love the Father hath bestowed upon us” to call Him Father, and to speak to Him as children. We may know what it is to put off the facing of private moral questions; we may know what it is to resent the perpetual demand for goodness, for seriousness, for self-examination, for religion, for restraint and abstinence and prayer.

At the Interpreter’s House, the fourth scene is the fire at the wall. Here life is seen in a new aspect, chosen in order to bring out the spiritual forces of good and evil which are at work upon it. The scientific definition of life as the “sum total of the functions which resist death” is strikingly applicable here. This view, which Professor Henry Drummond expounds so eloquently in his Natural Law in the Spiritual World, is exactly that of Bunyan’s figure. Life is a wasting thing, a waning lamp, a dying fire. And just as, in the natural world, there are many diseases and accidents which threaten to hasten the decay and violently end the resistance to it, so there are in the spiritual world agencies such as temptation, discouragement, and many others, which tend to extinguish the inner fire. These are all summed up in the figure of Satan casting water upon the flames. Yet the wonderful fact is that the flame is not extinguished. There are lives known to us all which seem to have everything against their spiritual victory—heredity, disposition, circumstances, companions—yet in spite of fate their flame burns on. The secret is that Christ is at the back of the wall, and there is no proof so wonderful as this of the reality of Jesus Christ as an agent in human life. Besides the two main agents there are plenty of human ones at work for both these ends. Some people are for ever throwing cold water upon the fires of the soul, devil’s firemen, whose trade seems to be that of discouraging. Others, and these are the blessed ones of the world, pour in upon the flagging spirit the oil of good cheer and hope.1 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 61.]

2. Why are we weary? There are many temptations to weariness. Let us touch upon a few of the most frequently encountered.

(1) Some of the hindrances arise from within, and are connected with the state of our own hearts. Although it should be our earnest desire and prayer that the God of peace may “sanctify us wholly,” and that our whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be thoroughly and harmoniously consecrated to the service of Christ, yet every believer knows, to his loss and to his lamentation, that he is sanctified “but in part”; that there is a law in his members warring against the law of his mind; that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and that these are contrary the one to the other. Instead, therefore, of making any steady progress in the way of well-doing, he finds himself drawn as it were in different directions; swayed hither and thither by the conflict of opposing principles which is going on within him. He is like a kingdom divided against itself, and sometimes feels as if he had two distinct and discordant natures struggling in his bosom. It is true that—

Evil into the mind of god or man

May come and go, so unapproved, and leave

No spot or blame behind.

But even where no “spot” is left, its confusing influence is felt; and hence his inward experience is often but a chaos of antagonistic purposes and conflicting inclinations. There is generally such a wide difference between his aims and his actings that he always finds reason to be dissatisfied with himself. The good that he would, he does not; the evil he would not, that he does. And of this he is always sure, that when he would do good, evil is present with him, hindering his higher resolutions, and hanging to the skirts of all his better designs, until he is often constrained to cry out, with the Apostle, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Sometimes the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak; at other times the spirit is weak while the flesh is strong; and between the various impediments arising from these sources, the believer’s progress is so grievously interrupted, that he is, at certain seasons, apt to sink into a state of utter discouragement.

I would have gone; God bade me stay:

I would have worked; God bade me rest.

He broke my will from day to day,

He read my yearnings unexpressed

And said them nay.

Now I would stay; God bids me go:

Now I would rest; God bids me work,

He breaks my heart tossed to and fro,

My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk

And vex it so.

I go, Lord, where Thou sendest me;

Day after day I plod and moil:

But, Christ my God, when will it be

That I may let alone my toil

And rest with Thee?1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Christ Our All in All (Poetical Works, 242).]

(2) When a man grows “weary in well-doing,” it may be the effect of a false modesty. As he thinks of how very much misery, sin, want there is in the world, he may say, “After all, how little I can do. What is my little when compared with the infinite need of the world?” And so, from a genuine feeling of how much there is to be done in the world for Christ, we may actually let ourselves off with doing nothing. Yet surely one great principle of our religion is just this—to believe in the infinite power for good, in the infinite future of the Christlike behaviour of every one. And in any case, we have only our duties. We only know what Christ asks of us: it is not for us to know what will become of our deed, or how Christ will arrange for what we cannot overtake. We know the parable of the leaven in the meal. We know that the few loaves which Christ blessed and broke fed five thousand, besides women and children.

Two men met upon a steamer during a Scotch excursion and they talked with interest of many things, among others of Sunday schools. “To tell the truth,” said one, “I am not very enthusiastic about that kind of work. I was a teacher for many years, and after all I seem to have done no good.” “Well, I do believe in Sunday school work,” said the other. “As a lad I received life-long influences for good in my old class at school;” and he named the school with which he had once been connected. “Were you there,” cried the other; “that was where I taught. Were you there in my time? My name is ——” “And I was your scholar. I remember you now.” The younger man gave his name, and memories succeeded each other concerning that old school unforgotten by both. There, side by side, stood the teacher, who believed he had done nothing, and the man he had influenced for life.1 [Note: Expository Times, i. 12.]

In the early morning, when the dew was bright on the grass, a child passed along the highway, and sang as he went. It was spring, and the ferns were unfolding their green fronds, and the hepatica showed purple under her green fur. The child looked about him with his eager happy eyes, rejoicing in all he saw, and answering the birds’ songs with notes as gay as their own. Now and then he dropped a seed here and there, for he had a handful of them; sometimes he threw one to the birds; again he dropped one for the squirrels; and still again he would toss one into the air for very play, for that was what he loved best. Now it chanced that he passed by a spot where the earth lay bare, with no tree or plant to cover its brown breast. “Oh!” said the child, “poor place, will nothing grow in you? here is a seed for you, and now I will plant it properly.” So he planted the seed properly, and smoothed the earth over it, and went his way singing, and looking at the white clouds in the sky and at the green things unfolding around him. It was a long, long journey the child had to go. Many perils beset his path, many toils he had to over-pass, many wounds and bruises he received on the way. When he returned, one would hardly have known, to look at him, that he was still a child. The day had been cruelly hot, and still the afternoon sun beat fiercely down on the white road. His clothes were torn and dusty; he toiled on, and sighed as he went, longing for some spot of shade where he might sit down to rest. Presently he saw in the distance a waving of green, and a cool shadow stretching across the white glowing road; and he drew near and it was a tree young and vigorous spreading its arms abroad, mantled in green leaves that whispered and rustled. Thankfully the child threw himself down in the pleasant shade, and rested from his weary journey, and as he rested he raised his eyes to the green whispering curtain above him and blessed the hand that planted the tree. The little green leaves nodded and rustled and whispered to one another: “Yes! yes! it is himself he is blessing. But he does not know, and that is the best of all!”2 [Note: Mrs. Laura Richards, The Silver Crown.]

(3) In the very attempt at doing good we come across so much evil of which we had never dreamt. Evil is one thing looked at from a distance; it is quite another when we get into close proximity with it. The angel of light is anything but an angel when we come face to face with him. Novitiates in Christian service come to their work with bright dreams, grand expectations, only to find that life is a series of disillusionments. Fighting evil plays sad havoc with our cheap optimism, delivers us from our flippancy, convinces us that our rose-water schemes are utterly impracticable, and that our work is no mere child’s play.

Suppose we are of those who have made the great choice, have been converted, as some would say. Well, thank God, we have made a good beginning; but is the conflict won? Wait for the end. You have met the enemy, and by the grace of God you have beaten him. Henceforward your life on earth will be a series of conflicts, unless you grow weary and faint. Persevere, and you will know why the life of Christ’s followers is called a struggle or a race. You will begin to understand why the most experienced veterans are most cautious and circumspect; you will begin to know that you may not despise any help that God has given you. All the exultation and satisfaction which you felt at your first victory will have gone—given way to the silent earnestness of him whose every muscle is strained in his efforts to win the victory.1 [Note: Aubrey L. Moore.]

(4) The ingratitude of those we strive to help is a common cause of weariness. Ingratitude is as common as it is detestable. Almost all nations have voiced their sense of the sin of ingratitude in striking proverbs. “Eat the present, and break the dish,” says the Arabic proverb. The Spanish says, “Bring up a raven, and it will peck out your eyes.” “Put a snake in your bosom, and when it is warm it will sting you,” says the English proverb. The world is ungrateful. It lives on God’s bounty, and yet refuses to own His power or to accept His love. “Where are the nine?” asked Christ; and there is a tone of indescribable sadness in His question. We have all felt the deadening influence of ingratitude. Our warm sympathy has flowed out in words and deeds of helpfulness, and that sympathy has been so chilled by the ingratitude and unworthiness of those we helped that it has flowed back to paralyse our hearts. But we must do good from higher motives than to secure the gratitude of those benefited. We must do it for its own sake and for Christ’s sake. He laid down His life for us when we were unthankful. Thank God, there are some who are grateful. We have seen the tear of gratitude tremble in the eye, and when it was wiped away we have seen the light of hope sparkle there. A word of kindness has banished from some weary heart and sorrowful home weeks of sadness, and has opened a future of hopefulness. Do not become morose. Do not say that gratitude is a forgotten virtue. A cynic is almost as bad as an ingrate. Indeed, cynicism and ingratitude are kin to each other. In many cases your words and deeds of well-doing are bearing precious fruit in the changed homes and the redeemed lives of men, women, and children, who shall rise up to call you blessed.

Gratitude, however, is sometimes felt and expressed, as the following incident illustrates. “When I first learnt to know her she had a little cottage on a high road, the great Bath road of many tramps. It had been the lodge of an abandoned manor house, and was, of course, close to the gateway. There she tamed her tramp men, and made them friends. Every man who came had a table and chair under shelter; the plainest, simplest food; materials for mending his clothes, tea or cocoa to drink, her smile, her wonderful eyes upon his, her open heart and word. Never a thing was stolen from her doors, her wide windows; never a penny did she give; but many a man begged leave to chop wood for her, to dig in her garden—some little thing to show what she had done for him.”1 [Note: W. S. Palmer, in Michael Fairless: Her Life and Writings, 5.]

(5) Another temptation to weariness arises from the apparent want of success attending our labours. It is but natural that we should look for some results from our efforts and, within certain limits, this feeling is not only natural, but lawful and right. We should be apt to sink altogether if we had reason to believe that we were labouring in vain, and spending our strength for naught; and hence it very seldom happens that the Lord leaves His servants without some tokens of success. But still there are times when these tokens are so poor and scanty that we are ready to say with the disciples, “We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.” But we should never forget that the Word of the Lord will not return unto Him void—that it shall accomplish the thing which He pleaseth, and prosper in the end whereto He sends it. And what is true of the preaching of the Word, is true of every other way in which we seek to promote our Master’s work. If we are guided by His counsel and actuated by His Spirit, we cannot fail to be successful, whether we see it or not. No good word is ever wasted, no good deed is ever lost.

Publicans and sinners, when we read about them in the New Testament, are poetical; but publicans and sinners, when we meet them in the present century, are very prosaic people, there is nothing poetical about them at all; and we get tired of trying to do anything for them. We start out in life with an impression that everybody wants to be better, that the ignorant want to learn, that the vicious people want to be virtuous, that the idle people want to work. But we do not undertake to do good work on that notion more than a week before we find that we are mistaken. The tramp comes to us, and is very sure that he wants work; give him some work, and he has not worked twenty-four hours when he wants some other job. The drinking man we get hold of, and we are sure that he wants to reform, and he is sure that he wants to reform. We get him up out of the gutter, and in a week we go out, and he is down in the gutter gain, and we say, “It’s no use; it is too hard work.”1 [Note: Lyman Abbott.]

In the church at Somerville, New Jersey, where I was afterwards pastor, John Vredenburgh preached for a great many years. He felt that his ministry was a failure, and others felt so, although he was a faithful minister preaching the gospel all the time. He died, and died amid some discouragements, and went home to God; for no one ever doubted that John Vredenburgh was a good Christian minister. A little while after his death there came a great awakening in Somerville, and one Sabbath two hundred souls stood up at the Christian altar espousing the cause of Christ, among them my own father and mother. And what was peculiar in regard to nearly all of those two hundred souls was that they dated their religious impressions from the ministry of John Vredenburgh.2 [Note: The Autobiography of T. De Witt Talmage, 17.]

Some years ago an orphan obtained a humble position in a bank through the kindness of a friend. His friend said to him: “All I will ask of you is that you should be the first to come and the last to go, and that you should never refuse extra work.” The lad went on faithfully, but for years no one seemed to observe him. He had the work, but not the thanks. Then a day came when he was promoted, and he is climbing the ladder now. He had faith to believe and to go on and the harvest came. Many give over, and all their lives are a disappointment.1 [Note: W. R. Nicoll, Sunday Evening, 131.]

3. Now, lastly, what is the cure for weariness?

(1) To prevent this evil there must be increased consecration. We must renew our engagement to be the Lord’s. The weariness of religious exercises can be removed only by waiting upon Him who will renew our strength. The loss of personal interest in spiritual things can be restored only by communion with Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The hyacinth will flourish for a while in a vase of water, but if it is to perpetuate itself, to bring forth fruit and seed, it must be restored to its native soil. And so your Christian life, left to itself, without any of its usual elements of growth, may for a time seem to put forth beautiful blossoms under the impetus it has received; but in order to grow vigorously and bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, it must be planted anew in the soil of faith and love in Christ Jesus from which it sprang.

There is a way by which most of us may get back our eagerness for God’s service, and get it back immediately. It is by remembering our sins or some particular wrong-doing, from the guilt of which we trust to God to hold us pardoned. No other method so suddenly makes a man—a man who has had some such history—real, and brings him to his knees with a full heart. “My sin is ever before me”—weariness passes immediately at that thought. For the proof one has that God has really forgiven him his sins and has accepted him, is that he himself is now serving God, that he has now given himself to God. And if for a moment he discovers himself reluctant and disobedient towards God, does it not mean for such a man that the old things are back upon him once more, the old sin, the old fear, the old desolation of soul? In a moment the whole life of such a man becomes keen towards God, and altogether willing. He feels bound to Christ by an awful yet blessed secret. And after the sudden anguish has passed his heart is filled to breaking with new fresh love and gratitude. “Lord, what wouldst Thou have ne to do.”1 [Note: J. A. Hutton, The Fear of Things, 184.]

Lord, many times I am aweary quite

Of mine own self, my sin, my vanity—

Yet be not Thou, or I am lost outright,

Weary of me.

And hate against myself I often bear,

And enter with myself in fierce debate:

Take Thou my part against myself, nor share

In that just hate.

Best friends might loathe us, if what things perverse

We know of our own selves, they also knew:

Lord, Holy One! if Thou who knowest worse

Shouldst loathe us too!2 [Note: R. C. Trench, Poems, 147.]

(2) It is because in trying to do the best we can it often seems, as regards direct and immediate effects and with reference only to a limited period of time and a limited portion of human society, as if we were contending against nature itself, that we are apt to lose heart in well-doing. To prevent this consequence taking a narrow view of things, the best that can be done is to take a wider view, namely, that development, progress, is the law human life and society, though the process may seem to be, and point of fact is, slow and unequal. In trying to do the best we can in, in never losing heart in the business, we are partners with he Eternal in accelerating that process, however it may seem that our effort and endeavour is for the time unavailing and abortive. However it may seem to be fighting against nature and the course of things, it is in reality, and in a wider view, working out the eternal order, to keep on trying to do our best in the face of all difficulties and reverses. That is a view of things to the truth of which history is a witness. There is progress, though it is slow. To take that view, and to give it the place which it ought to hold in all our thoughts, is the best provision that can be made by us against the great calamity of losing heart in well-doing.

Of course the world is growing better; the Lord reigns; our old planet is wheeling slowly into fuller light. I despair of nothing good. All will come in due time that is really needed All we have to do is to work—and wait.1 [Note: J. G. Whittier, in Life, by S. T. Pickard, ii. 673.]

I do not make much of “Progress of the Species,” as handled in these times of ours; nor do I think you would care to hear much about it. The talk on that subject is too often of the most extravagant, confused sort. Yet I may say, the fact itself seems certain enough; nay we can trace-out the inevitable necessity of it in the nature of things.2 [Note: Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship.]

II

An Encouraging Promise

“We shall reap, if we faint not.”

1. The certainty of reaping.—We feel that nothing less than such a declaration is necessary, in order to raise us above so much that sometimes makes true Christian well-doing morally impossible. But this declaration, grasped as a special word of God by the hand often so worn and weary, is also perfectly sufficient, in spite of all that threatens or oppresses us, to make us “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” The good, much little, which in God’s name and power we are permitted to accomplish here, what is it else than sowing? and can that sowing ever be too much, when we can reckon on an abundant and joyful harvest? Yes, reckon; for the word of God, which lies before us is faithful and worthy of all acceptation. The farmer sows with quiet industry, although his prospect of the joy of harvest is far from certain. When but a few days divide the grain from the sickle, the tempest or the hail-shower may suddenly annihilate his fairest hopes. But the labourer for the Kingdom of God not only hopes, but is assured through faith that his harvest is perfectly guaranteed through the power and faithfulness of the Lord.

There is a true but somewhat disheartening word, that one sows and another reaps. We sow and our successors reap. This is well, but it is not the whole. We shall reap; we shall discover one day that all the good seed we have sown has sprung, and our one sorrow will be that we did not sow more diligently. As for the apparent frustration and delay, we shall look back in the world to come along the track of tears, and see the rainbow of God upon it, and perceive that by these disappointments and defeats He was interpreting to us all the while the wonder of the secret life.

Some of us have learned what it means to continue in well-doing without weariness, but we have not learned along with that to look for the harvest. We think that lesson has been forced upon us. Our patient continuance in well-doing has gained us no praise, our service of love has been requited by indifference, or even persecution, by those on whom it has been lavished. “That is the harvest of well-doing,” we say, with perhaps a touch of bitterness. “If we are to continue in it, it will not be in the hope of harvest, but solely for the sake of the well-doing itself.” “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” asked our Master. Nay, verily! And neither shall we gather thorns of grapes. The fruit of patience is not disappointment; the result of endurance in well-doing is not bitterness; the harvest of love is not pain. Foolish and faithless that we are! God and nature never brought forth such a harvest from such seed. The harvest of well-doing is the harvest of the realization of our highest hopes, a harvest of pure and never-failing joy, a harvest of all-satisfying love. In due season, for the seasons haste not nor lag for all our impatience, we shall reap that harvest if we faint not.1 [Note: A. H. Moncur Sime.]

A joiner takes two pieces of wood, and with infinite care glues them in position. But unless he follows up his perseverance with patience, his working with waiting, he will make a sorry cabinet. The husbandman tends his vine, pruning and purging it day after day as he alone knows how. But unless he “waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it,” he will never cut one luscious bunch of grapes. A sculptor moulds his clay; day and night he toils strenuously and hard. But before his dream is realized, days of waiting for that clay to harden must follow nights of working at that clay to shapen. A small group of politicians, amongst whom was William Pitt, were busy in conversation, when somehow or other the subject of their talk turned, and a discussion arose as to which was the quality most needed in a Prime Minister. “Eloquence,” said one; “Knowledge,” suggested another; “Toil,” was the opinion of a third. “No,” said Pitt, who had learned from experience,” it is patience.” Carpenter, farmer, sculptor, minister: to join wood, to grow grapes, to mould a statue, to govern a country—if patience is a great essential with these in their work, how much more is it essential with well-doers in theirs!1 [Note: W. S. Kelynack.]

2. The time of reaping.—In due season we shall gain our victory and His, and we shall reap our harvest. The months before the ingathering may often seem long and wearisome, and verily be heart-breaking things, but God’s “seasons” are not always measurable by our forecastings, even though the harvest is pledged by His oath and His promise. We shall reap the growth effectuated by His Holy Spirit, though we may not always understand the nature of the gracious sheaves that we are bringing in our bosom. We cannot calculate the hour or the nature of our triumph, but we know that the word of God stands sure, and that the due season draws nigh. We know that we shall reap if we faint not.

Let us not forget that God must be the judge of the “due time.” We are often in a hurry; God never is. Perhaps the greatest miracle in Christ’s life is that He should wait thirty years before performing a miracle. He bided His time. Undue haste pays the penalty of speedy decay. Did we know all the reasons as God knows them we should always approve of His seeming delay. How few converts, apparently, there were in Christ’s personal ministry! but one sermon on the day of Pentecost brings three thousand to Jesus’ feet. Soon the number increased so rapidly that Luke ceases to give us figures. Carey and his companions must labour seven years before the first Hindu convert is baptized. Judson must toil on until the churches grow disheartened, and everything but his own faith and God’s promise fails. In a single recent year eighteen thousand are baptized in connexion with work on these same foreign fields! These things are not accidental. They have their reasons. We cannot always trace the law. God can. Let us do our duty, and leave the result with Him.

It is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of men that, in proportion to the time between the seed sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be the witnesses of what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success.2 [Note: Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture.]

My new-cut ashlar takes the light

Where crimson-blank the windows flare;

By my own work, before the night,

Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought,

Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine:

Where I have failed to meet Thy thought,

I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.

One instant’s toil to Thee denied

Stands all Eternity’s offence,

Of what I did with Thee to guide,

To Thee, through Thee, be excellence.

Who, lest all thought of Eden fade,

Bring’st Eden to the craftsman’s brain,

Godlike to muse o’er his own trade,

And Manlike stand with God again.

The depth and dream of my desire,

The bitter paths wherein I stray,

Thou knowest who hast made the fire,

Thou knowest who hast made the clay.

One stone the more swings to her place

In that dread Temple of Thy Worth—

It is enough that through Thy grace

I saw naught common on Thy earth.

Take not that vision from my ken;

Oh, whatsoe’er may spoil or speed,

Help me to need no aid from men,

That I may help such men as need!1 [Note: Rudyard Kipling.]

3. The condition of reaping.—We have an encouraging promise. But a condition is also suggested. We must not faint. We must persevere to the end. There must be no repining, no retreating, no fainting. We enlist for life, for eternity indeed. The dew of youth, the vigour of manhood, and the wisdom of age must be consecrated to well-doing. It is “to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality,” that the promise of blessedness is given.

Slothfulness in the summer may frustrate all the labour of the spring; and may even in the harvest of life have lost the gain of summer. The last few paces of our field may be perhaps the heaviest; but those who give up now might as well have left all the rest undone.

One of the sterling virtues in practical life is continuance—continuance through all obstacles, hindrances, and discouragements. It is unconquerable persistence that wins. The paths of life are strewn with the skeletons of those who fainted and fell in the march. Life’s prizes can be won only by those who will not fail. Success in every field must be reached through antagonism and conflict.1 [Note: J. R. Miller.]

Ruskin, in a letter written to his Oxford tutor after he had left the University, gives an account of what he did not learn there. He says his teachers should have said to him, when he was an undergraduate, “In all your studies, we have only one request to make you, and that we expect you scrupulously to comply with: That you work with patience as well as diligence, and take care to secure every step you take: we do not care how much or how little you do—but let what you do, be done for ever.”2 [Note: E. T. Cook, The Life of Ruskin, i. 81.]

Weariness in Well-Doing

Literature

Benson (E. W.), Living Theology, 129.

Blair (H.), Sermons, i. 379.

Brown (J. B.), The Sunday Afternoon, 295.

Horne (C. S.), The Rock of Ages, 77.

Hutton (J. A.), The Fear of Things, 172.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Easter to Ascension Day, 211.

Macgilvray (W.), The Ministry of the Word, 145.

Macmillan (H.), The Spring of the Day, 289.

Moore (A. L.), From Advent to Advent, 87.

Nicoll (W. R.), Sunday Evening, 127.

Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 33.

Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 85.

Raleigh (A.), Rest from Care and Sorrow, 172.

Reynolds (H. R.), Notes of the Christian Life, 334.

Service (J.), Sermons, 92.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxiii. (1877), No. 1383.

Watkinson (W. L.), Studies in Christian Character, i. 73.

Christian Age, xliv. 162 (L. Abbott).

Christian World Pulpit, xliii. 83 (D. Burns); xlvii. 3 (G. G. Bradley); lv. 265 (C. Gore); lviii. 250 (A. H. M. Sime); lxviii. 329 (H. H. Henson).

Churchman’s Pulpit: St. Mark, St. Philip, and St. James, xiv. 393 (H. F. R. Compston).