A Season of Consecration
By S. H. Lane
Several years ago, when the week of prayer was first instituted among our people, the leading thought occupying the minds of those who appointed the season, was to set apart a period of time in which all might enjoy the privilege of drawing near to God by fully consecrating themselves to his service anew each year. It was seen that should such be the case, selfishness would receive a stunning rebuke; and as this should occur, benevolence would bud, blossom, and mature into gifts to the cause of God; and it was wisely decided that the foreign missionary fund would be the most fitting receptacle into which the golden fruit should fall. The plan has been so successful that there is danger of our looking at the results, and not to the cause which produced it. The result has been thousands of dollars, which, through the blessing of the Lord, have carried the truth to thousands in the fields beyond. The cause of this influx of means has been devotion and consecration to God. Some have urged the importance of the result, rather than the consecration productive of it; and as a sequence some have been tempted to think the week of prayer is a scheme to raise means. We can not for a moment harbor the idea that those who have had the work in charge have been actuated by such a motive. Being situated so they could and did see and feel our lack of power to warn the world of its impending doom, and realizing that this power is to be secured only through devotion and consecration to the Lord, they did, and I trust we all may, realize that a week of drawing near the Lord would result in an increase of spiritual power, which will be productive of laborers and means to forward the work. When one gazes upon the wonderful Capitol building at Washington, or on the grand houses of Parliament in London, and considers the significance attaching itself to Congress and Parliament, and the power lodged in these legislative bodies, he is astonished; yet all this dwindles into insignificance compared with the responsibility that rests on those who are commissioned to carry the gospel of the kingdom to all nations, and through its saving influence prepare a people to meet and greet the King in his beauty. Earthly courts endeavor to enact laws to administer justice and equity, but the legislators being erring mortals, their best laws are defective, and sometimes laws are based in selfishness, and enforced through policy, and then work hardships for the people. Not so with the gospel of Christ; for “it is the power of God unto salvation,” and in it are contained the highest lessons of honor, liberty, wisdom, and justice. Fortunate are those who enjoy the blessed privilege of engaging in spreading the gospel of peace when nations are angry, when the political heavens are overcast and heavy with dark war clouds, when greed is blighting benevolence, when sensuality is defaming virtue, and men are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Intensity of action has seized all earthly affairs. We view it in the remarkable zeal manifested in the accumulation of wealth. In order to gain it, men resort to questionable methods. The war spirit is raging intensely, so much so that we behold the spectacle at the present time of nearly half a million men facing each other in deadly array, and with shot and shell hurled from the most recently invented death-dealing machines, sweeping each other by thousands into eternity. The only true remedy for this terrible state of human affairs is the divine gospel of peace as embodied in the last message of mercy before the close of probation. The dove of peace may seemingly hover over peace congresses, but with her keen eyes she can but discern to her grief the dark war clouds concentrating to form a cyclone so terrible in its force that eventually it will sweep peace from the face of the earth, and terminate in the battle of Armageddon. Earnestness, born of heaven, should now take possession of God’s people. Every sermon should be founded in present truth, marked with seriousness, and delivered in cheerfulness. Every prayer should constitute an earnest, solemn appeal to heaven for divine aid to make every advance move in the cause effective in the salvation of precious souls. Every meeting should be characterized with consecration, and our time, talent, and means should be laid on the altar of sacrifice, to be used as the Lord may direct. Shall not each meeting of the week of prayer be of this blessed nature? As we shall listen to the readings, let us not think they are written for the purpose of raising means. They will lay before us the necessities of the fields, which is highly proper, as no one can understandingly donate unless he is informed concerning the demands of the field. We should remember, however, that15money, like sunshine, is the gift of God. It can not bless the many unless distributed. Hoarded, it benefits no one. Like the loaves and fishes in the hand of the Saviour, it multiplies. The little lad who listened with thousands of others to Jesus as he spoke on the mountainside near the Sea of Galilee, might have kept his five barley loaves and two small fishes to himself, and as far as he was concerned, about five thousand men besides women and children would have returned from the meeting hungry; but as the lad gave his little to Christ, he and thousands of others went home well fed, and blessed spiritually. In like manner, if we give as did the lad, we shall not only be blessed ourselves, but cause thousands of others to share the blessing. When we all are fully consecrated to the Lord, sanctified through the truth, and are happy in his imparted righteousness, and full of that faith which purifies the heart, then the eighty thousand dollars requested to aid in the spreading of the truth will soon be raised; it will come as the result of these Christian graces. May the Lord bless us with consecrated lives and liberal hearts, and may we ever realize that to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man.