Do All for Christ by Ca

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 1, 1877

Do All for Christ.

By Ca

The celebrated Charles Simeon of Cambridge kept a portrait of Henry Martyn hanging over his fire-place. It was always in sight. Looking up at it he used to say, “What an expression of countenance! No one looks at me as he does. He seems always to be saying, Be serious; be in earnest; don't trifle.” Then bowing toward the sweet, thoughtful face, Simeon would add, “and I won't trifle.”

So fellow-Christian, there is hung up, by the divine Spirit, a picture before our eyes. It is the heavenly countenance of our blessed Saviour. The traces of the sorrow in the garden, of the agony on the cross, are yet written on that visage, “marred more than any of the sons of men.” The serenest patience sits on that face; and it yearns with a love stronger than death. Holiness dwells there, which cannot look upon sin save with abhorrence.

And that face of Jesus seems ever to be saying to us “Live for me. Whatever ye do, do it unto me.” When we sit alone and dejected, the countenance comes up near to us, and says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Lo! I am with you always.” When we are tempted to sin, the face rebukes us with the words, “Wound me not in the house of my friends.” And when we have come back ashamed and disgraced from a cowardly desertion of his cause in the hour of trial, oh! how that look upbraids us as he seems to say, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” Sometimes a poor, needy servant of God comes to us for a word or deed of sympathy or for a gift to his necessities. Selfishness begins to mutter about interruptions, and the “many calls,” and the “no end of cases of charity.” But the down-looking Jesus says, “Do it unto me.”

What a sacredness this imparts to every work of Christian love! What a glory it throws around the humblest object of Christian charity! And then, too, what a stupendous crime against Christ is any wrong done to those in whom he dwells, and whom he makes his representatives.

As I sit in this study, this morning, I seem to see a face of divine loveliness looking down on me from the walls and saying—Write all these truths for me. Feed my lambs. Save those souls committed to thee by my gospel and for my glory. As the Sabbath-school teacher lays down his paper and hurries off to his class, he will meet the blessed Saviour beside his seat and hear him say, Whatsoever ye do for the least of these, ye do for me.

Yea more. When a Christian leaves the sanctuary or the communion-table, and goes to his counting-room shall he be less a Christian there than he was in the house of God, or at the family altar? No! For there is an invisible Saviour beside him there, saying, “Provide things honest in the sight of all men”—“Let not your good be evil spoken of;” you are my representatives. Do Christian men of business always remember this? Do they always so keep their ledgers that they would be willing to have their Master audit the accounts? When the church member wrings out the last dime from an unfortunate debtor, does he do it for Christ? When he rents his property for dram-shops or brothels or haunts of vice—when he drives a sharp bargain with misfortune or inexperience, does he do it for the honor or for the shame of his Sabbath professions? Ah! my friends; it is not only from the study-walls of pastors, but from the walls of every shop, counting-room, and hall of justice and legislation, that the countenance of the all-holy Jesus is looking down and saying, Do all for me.—Ca