The Kings Cup-Bearer | Page 5

'As thy day so shall thy strength be.'
Even in most unlikely and unfruitful soil God can make His plants to
grow and flourish. Where I am, and as I am, and with exactly the same
surroundings as I now possess, God can bless me, and give me grace to
serve and to glorify Him. If I do not become a flourishing plant, it is
not my position that is to blame, it is because I will not seek that grace
which the Lord is ready to give me. 'Ye have not, because ye ask not.
Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.'
CHAPTER II.
The King's Table.
It was midnight in London, in the year 1665. The houses were closed
and barred, but strange lurid fires were lighted in every street, a stifling
odour of burning pitch and sulphur filled the air, and from time to time
came the heavy rumble of wheels, as a terrible cart, with its awful load,
passed by in the darkness of the night. With the cart came a cry; so loud,
so clear, so piercing, that it could be heard in all the closed houses of
the street. 'Bring out your dead, bring out your dead!' Then, one door
after another was hurriedly opened, and from the plague-stricken
houses one body after another was brought out, and was thrown hastily
into that awful dead cart.
Bring out your dead! what a solemn, terribly solemn cry! How it must
have filled with awe and dread all who heard it! And if that call were
repeated, if the holy angels of God were to go through the length and
breadth of our land, and, stopping before each house, were to cry to
those within, 'Bring out your dead, bring out your dead,' not your dead
bodies, but your dead souls; bring out all in your house who are not
alive unto God, who are dead in trespasses and sins, how many would
have to be carried out of our houses? Should we ourselves be left
behind? Are we alive or dead?
The angels have not yet come to sever the dead from the living, but the
time for that great separation is drawing daily nearer, when the Son of

man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His
kingdom all things that offend; all the loathsomeness of death, and
decay, and impurity shall be collected by angel hands, and, we read,
they shall cast them, not into a vast pit such as was dug in London in
the time of the plague, but into a furnace of fire, there shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth.
Surely, then, it is worth while to find out whether our soul is alive or
dead. What test then shall we use? How shall we settle the matter
clearly and definitely?
There is one thing, and one thing only, which proves that a man has life.
A man apparently drowned is brought out of the water. He does not
speak, or see, or move, or feel. He is rubbed and warmed, but no sign
of life can be perceived. Can we therefore conclude that the man is
dead? Nay, we will put him to the test. Bring a feather, hold it before
his mouth, watch it carefully, does it move? A crowd of anxious
bystanders gather round to see. Soon a cry of joy is heard, the feather
moves. The man lives, for he breathes, and the breath in him is the
unmistakable sign of life.
How then shall I know if my soul lives? Does it breathe? That is the
all-important question. But what is the breath of the soul? The breath of
the soul is prayer. As the old hymn says--
'Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, The Christian's native air.'
Saul of Tarsus, with all his outward religion, was a dead soul, till the
Lord met him and gave him life. What then is the first thing we find
Saul doing? 'Behold he prayeth.' As soon as he is alive, he breathes, he
prays.
Here then is the test for us to apply to our own souls. Do I know
anything of real prayer? Do I love to hold communion with my God?
Am I ever lifting up my heart to Him? If I live in the atmosphere of
prayer, then I am alive unto God; if, on the other hand, I feel prayer a
weariness, and know not what it is for my heart to hold unseen
intercourse with my Lord, then indeed I am dead in sin, having no

breath, and I have consequently no life.
Nehemiah, the great Rab-shakeh, was a living soul, for he loved to pray.
No sooner had he heard the sad news about