PHILIP GIDDINGS by Philip Giddings

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 24, 1910

PHILIP GIDDINGS

By Philip Giddings

Morsels

PHILIP GIDDINGS

An ounce of deed is worth more than many pounds of creed. To treat your neighbor kindly has more value than treatise; “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” than mere exegesis. When Luke made “the former treatise” of the Master, it was with what “Jesus began both to do and teach.” Let treatment precede treatise. A child lives months before he speaks; walks before he talks. “Take heed unto thyself,” precedes “unto the doctrine;” “for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”

“How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.” Isa. 52:7. The feet are the lowest part of our body, but feet upon the mountains are beautifully higher than the head in the valley. God’s footmen are higher than the “heady and highminded.” God’s footmen are higher than those who ride in the valley.

To sleep on Christ’s floor is higher up than man’s bedstead, because man’s highest story lies far below God’s first floor. “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Ps. 84:10. The lowest place with God is more than palace. What seems “foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Just at the entrance of the optic nerve where vision would be expected to be most acute, it is obtuse. The blind spot is next that of best vision.

Next to Israel’s lighted camp was Egypt’s—in darkness that could be felt. “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, . . . for, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” Isa. 60:1, 2. The hour nearest to light is darkest. Dipping in the same dish were Judas and Jesus. You and I may sit with God’s people, hearing “what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord,” knowing his will, approving the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, having the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law, and yet all these things be unto us as merely “a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument” (Eze. 33:30-32; Rom. 2:18-20),—pleasant sounds to which we give no sense, an ear-through-ear-into-air religion rather than an ear-to-heart; the form of things more excellent, showing an outfit without its infit; like Judas, bodily beside Christ, with no Christ inside,—no hope of glory, but of shame as great as was the opportunity for glory. The depth to which we fall, as well as the force of our fall, is measured from its height.

What seems is not always what’s seen, since wolves are sometimes robber-robed in sheep’s wool; “the hand of Esau,” but the handicraftiness of a Jacob.

Care beforehand is better than cure afterward. Better mind than have to mend.

To stern Duty’s last trumpet-call to service and sacrifice, do not simply listen, but enlist!

Roseau, West Indies.