The exceeding worth of joining the church . elf after the evil day, who had hebeen living as a secret disciple, would havepermanently fallen away. In the Church,the expectation and the faith of others makethe wheels of purpose and love go round,when the power within us for the time hasfailed. We recover ourselves, and live infuture time, to give, like Peter of old, goodproof of our fidelity. Alone, a mans own purpose as a matter offact, becomes vagrant and feeble. The ne-cessity of making public ones purpose to fol-low Christ, lies in the fact that alone and insecret a man cannot hold fast his
The exceeding worth of joining the church . elf after the evil day, who had hebeen living as a secret disciple, would havepermanently fallen away. In the Church,the expectation and the faith of others makethe wheels of purpose and love go round,when the power within us for the time hasfailed. We recover ourselves, and live infuture time, to give, like Peter of old, goodproof of our fidelity. Alone, a mans own purpose as a matter offact, becomes vagrant and feeble. The ne-cessity of making public ones purpose to fol-low Christ, lies in the fact that alone and insecret a man cannot hold fast his faith. Belonging to an army, many a soldier hasendured every travail, even weakness beenglorified by high loyalty, who had he beenfighting alone would have forsaken the some evil day, his heart and his flesh wouldhave failed. In actual experience even veteransoldiers are enrolled and are not left to the \ i8 ] Public Confession Elsewhere perils of their own timorous caprice. Great isthe soldier who is caught up in the established. Great is the soldier who is caught up in the established and common loyalty of his corps — a bigger and an intenser thing than his ozvn vacillating weakness. and common loyalty of his corps, a bigger andan intenser thing than his own vacillatingweakness. Save for this, few soldiers wouldstand. If a nation should engage in war onthe basis of secret and individual soldiering, itby this course would doom its most right-eous cause and all its agony of sacrifice to [ 19 ] The Exceeding Worth of Joining the Church failure, while by united action it might bringeven a base purpose to triumph. The Church,in insisting upon open and definite identifi-cation with it, does just what the army has the the same serious earnestness, itknows the same secret, has shared the sameexperience, and has for insistence upon pub-licity the same reasons. This is the secret of all glorified life. Inthe family we put behind the individual, theloyalty and love o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectchristianlife, bookye
