James 1:25 But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work… Were you to stand at the door of many of our churches, and ask the people as they came out what had been the subject principally dealt with, or the point aimed at by the discourse they had just been listening to, how many would be able to give an intelligible and satisfactory answer? In a large number of cases even the text is, I fear, forgotten before the ascription is reached. Only a short time ago a friend of mine was preaching in one of our cathedral churches. As he was going to select for his text a prominent passage in one of the portions for the day, he thought it expedient to inquire of the clerk, "What did the Canon preach from this morning?" The clerk became very pensive, seemed quite disposed to cudgel his brain for the proper answer; but, somehow or other, he really could not think of it just then. But there were all the men of the choir robing in the adjacent choir vestry; he would go and ask them. Accordingly the same question was passed round the choir, and produced the same perplexity. At length the sagacious clerk returned with the highly explicit answer, "It was upon the Christian religion, sir!" I think those good people must have needed a reminder as to how we should hear, don't you? (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. |
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