To My Younger Brethren | Page 8

showing His
members the way, the only way, to maintain a life among men and for
men which shall be full of good for them, because itself ever filled with
the life and presence of God.
TESTIMONY OF LUCIUS VON MACHTHOLF.
From a leaflet which came long ago into my hands, I quote the
experience of a German Christian, eminently successful in spiritual
work; a passage which will illustrate and bring home my appeal in this
whole matter:--
"When Lucius von Machtholf was asked how he carried on religious
intercourse with individuals, he wrote:--'I know no other tactics than
first of all to be heartily satisfied with my God, even if He should
favour me with no sensible visible blessing in my vocation. Also to
remember that preaching and conversation are not so much my work as
the outcome of the love and joy of the Holy Ghost in my heart, and,
afterwards, on my lips. Further, that I must never depend upon any
previous fervour or prayers of mine, but upon God's mercy and Christ's
dearly-purchased rights and holy intercession; and cherishing a burning
love to Christ and to souls, I must constantly seek for wisdom and
gentleness.... Finally, I would guard myself from imagining that I know
beforehand what I should say, but go to Christ for every good word I
have to speak, even to a child, and submit myself to the Holy Spirit, as

the Searcher of hearts, who, knowing the individuals I have to do with,
will guide and teach me when, where, and how to speak.
"'Be always following, never going before. It were better to be sick in a
tent under a burning sun, and Jesus sitting at the tent door, than to be
enchanting a thousand listeners where Jesus was not. Be as a
day-labourer only in God's harvest-field, ready to be first among the
reapers in the tall corn, or just to sit and sharpen another's sickle. Have
an eye to God's honour, and have no honour of your own to have an eye
to. Lay it in the dust and leave it there. Never let your inner life get low
in your search for the lives of others.'"
I dare to say that this quotation contains no mere "counsels of
perfection," but principles which are indispensable for the Minister of
Jesus Christ who would be not only reputable, popular, and in the
superficial sense of the word successful, but--what his dear Master
would have him be for His work. And the blessed spirit it suggests and
exemplifies is a thing which cometh not in "but by prayer" and by at
least such fasting as takes the shape of a most watchful secret
self-discipline. When von Machtholf speaks of "never depending on
previous prayers" it is obvious what he means; not that prayer should
not precede work, but that nothing should satisfy the worker short of a
living and present trust in a living and present Lord. But that trust is the
very thing which is developed, and prepared, and matured, in the life of
genuine secret intercourse, in which the Lord is dealt with as man
dealeth with his friend, and gazed upon and (I may reverently say)
studied in His revealed Character, till the disciple does indeed "know
whom he has believed," "who He is that he should believe on Him."
"My soul shall be satisfied ... when I remember Thee, when I meditate
on Thee, in the night watches," [2 Tim. i. 12; John ix. 36; Ps. lxiii. 5, 6.]
aye, and in the Morning Watch also.
URGENT PRESENT NEED TO MAINTAIN SECRET DEVOTION.
I know not how to get away from this subject; not only because of its
intense connexion with the most blissful experiences of the believing
soul, but because of its unspeakably important bearing on the work of
the Ministry, the Ministry of our own time and of my reader's own

generation. Never was there a period when the cry for enterprize and
practical energy was louder; and God knows there is occasion enough
for the cry, and for the answering resolve. But never was there a time
when the need was greater to distinguish true from false secrets of
energy, and to be content with nothing short of the deepest and most
divine as our ultimate secret. Do you not well know what I mean? Is
there not far and wide in the "Christian world"--I do not speak now of
the exterior regions of avowed scepticism or indifference--a tendency
to merge the whole idea of religion in that of philanthropic benevolence,
and thereby to draw inevitably the idea of philanthropy downward in
the end into its least noble manifestations? Is it not a fashionable thing
to regard the Christian Ministry, for example, as a useful and