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Show 4 that here we have come short of duty and of realizing our privilege, thereby shortening the arm by which we might wield a long sought power for a more widely diffused influence. Where are we taught by observation and experience to look for recruits in this missionary work more surely than to those who have been taught and consecrated by the prayers of faith in the days of their past? And almost without exception have the active, efficient workers, both at home and abroad, received their impulse to the work in answer to such prayers. We have all heard of the good man who said he was perfectly willing to perform a certain work, if he was convinced it was his duty, but he would defy any man to convince him of that. So we are reminded by these chosen words with which we entered upon our theme, that to be willing to hear the Lord say go, is more than to be willing to go, for it implies a posture of waiting and listening lest we lose the word which the Lord should speak to us. Willing is a laden word. God knows how much it means. Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac. David had it "in his heart to build an house unto the Lord," and though the act was not required of the one, nor permitted of the other, yet it was "counted to them for righteousness." Not all the willing hearts have been sent by the Master to the front in this work of missions, for the same spirit and consecration are the qualifications accepted and used by him in that part of the work which must be done at home. The privileges of life membership, then, are its duties; the honors of life-membership its fidelity to those duties; the significance of life-membership is to know, to do and to be much in this service to which our Savior gave his last command and his last promise. Chicago. JVoman's Board of Missions of the Interior, Sg Dearborn St., Chicago, |