Poodle-dogs.

The duties and cares of maternity are too irksome, and so the women who might be the mothers of John Wesleys and Fenelons and Metchers and Inskips and Cookmans are petting poodle-dogs and rat-terriers.

The vitriol of wrath.

How many preachers dare speak in clarion tones what religion and science concur in asserting concerning vice?  But know ye by these presents, all of Adam’s race, that what depraved humanity pronounces all right and harmless, the Almighty God who whirls the worlds will corrode and scald with the burning vitriol of His wrath, and woe! woe! woe! to the man or woman with whom is found sin.

Gilt-edged frauds.

Any tyro knows who drowned Morgan, but the clergyman who “opens up” on Masonry is a curiosity.  Why, how can the ministers say anything when they are the chaplains of these gilt-edged frauds called “lodges”?  It does not take much calculation to show that an institution which spends three dollars in giving away one has no right to exist.  Some of the more weak-minded and puerile of the clergy are doubtless in fear lest their “tongues should be torn out by the roots and their hearts buried in the rough sands of the seashore.”  Brave men are not so easily scared.

Bologna sausage.

Secretism in itself is suspicious.  Solon said that he wanted his house so constructed that the people could see him at all hours and thus know him to be a good man.  A system which is so built that the public is kept in the dark is entitled to the attention of a Pinkerton.  Bologna sausage made in a factory at the door of which is a huge sign, “No Admittance,” may be all right, but you can not make people think so.

The entertainment.

There are few preachers so foolish and illogical as to believe that the entertainment plan is the best way to raise money for church work, yet scarcely one of them declares his honest straight-forward conviction about it.  Now and then a Hale, more daring than the rest, writes a remonstrative article for the Forum, but the great mass keep quiet.  A Pentecostal ministry will wheel its guns into position and load and fire into the supper and festival crowd notwithstanding the voices of objectors.

Heroism.

Whatever may be the matter under consideration the sanctified man dares anything right.  God is with him, and he feels His presence.  Right is right, and by the grace of God he will stand by it though all the world howl and roar.

CHAPTER VII.

Responsiveness to Christ.

A COAL AND A FLAME.

Among the results of the coming of the Comforter is an increase in warm personal love for Jesus.  Conversion plants divine love (agape) in the heart, but sanctification quickens and intensifies it.  Conversion drops a coal into the breast; the fuller grace fans it into a flame.