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Quiet Christians

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 46.

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Quiet Christians

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

It is natural for the human heart to love display and noise and notoriety. The man who can talk the loudest and make the wildest gestures on election day, is the man that the crowd will listen to and applaud. The woman that is able to make a sensation, is too often the popular woman. The young lady whose costumes are the showiest, whose diamonds are the largest, and whose bracelets and bangles jingle at every movement, is the one whom the world turns its silly head to look at and admire.
Every age has produced its full quota of these noisy people, and always will, to the end of time. They lived and flourished in the days of Moses,—flourished until the Lord Himself took matters into His own hands.
I suppose there was a time when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were popular men,—a time when they made much noise, when their voices were often heard in the camp of Israel. But neither noise nor popularity saved them when God said to Israel, “Get you up from about the tabernacle” of these men. O, what a cry of horror and dismay rose to heaven from lips white with terror and voices hoarse with agony, as the gaping earth opened her mouth upon them! In vain!
David had a remarkable experience with noisy people, in the matter of Goliath, the loud-voiced champion of the Philistines. The men of Israel were afraid of him because of his enormous size and his loud, boastful, daring manner. The Philistines believed in him for the same reason. But neither the size nor the angry bellowing of the giant availed against the sling of the youthful shepherd.
Coming down a little farther in the stream of time, we see the lofty heights of Carmel aswarm with the noisy, screaming, shouting prophets of Baal. Round about the mountain on every side are the upturned faces of the famine-stricken multitude. There is only one man in the entire concourse who is quiet,—one voice that is calm. The frenzied priests, bedaubed with blood and shrieking like demons, leap up and down upon their altar like wild beasts. They imagine that their noisy demonstrations will bring the fire from heaven. And so from morning till noon and from noon until time to offer the evening sacrifice, they shout and foam and cut themselves with knives. But the silent and brassy heavens above Mount Carmel witness the performance of their thankless task, with face silent and unmoved.
At last, as the brazen sun dips its molten rim in the cooling waters of the Mediterranean, a quiet man clad in simple dress steps forward. There is no outcry—no noisy demonstration. A few earnest words, a reverent lifting of the eyes toward heaven, a sigh, an expectant hush, and lo, from the far-off zenith flashes a dazzling light! The waiting sacrifice is consumed, and even the very water in the trenches is licked up by the tongues of flame.
We remember the story of the maid who brought her masters much gain by prophesying. But the spirit that possessed her was not the “meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”
Methinks I can hear her wild, shrill voice ringing up and down the narrow streets of old Philippi. Everybody’s attention is attracted. Higher and higher sounds the weird, wailing voice of the servant of Belial. Hour after hour and day after day it continues. “Surely,” reason the cunning masters of the maid, “surely, these humble men, whoever they are, will be greatly flattered by this attention; and not only that, but without doubt they will give us money for advertising them so thoroughly and so loudly.”
We know the sequel, and we remember the anger and humiliation of the disappointed masters of the maiden.
Now all these examples go far toward proving—if proof is necessary—that the Spirit of the Lord has little in common with the spirit of noise and disorder or turbulent commotion.
Ah, the meek and quiet spirit, the spirit that seeks not its own, “is not easily provoked,” the spirit that dwells in the hearts of those who “study to be quiet,” that they “may lead quiet and peaceable lives,”—this is indeed the spirit to be wooed and won by the followers of Him of whom it was said, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.”
O these quiet Christians! I am glad, glad that there are a few of them left yet. I never knew one of them to scream and shout at his horses or growl at the hired man. I never heard one of them go about proclaiming his own goodness or his own piety, nor relating noisy stories illustrative of his own godliness.
The quiet Christian is not necessarily a brilliant man nor a witty woman,—not of necessity a man or a woman whose fame has reached even to the confines of his or her own city. The quiet Christian may or may not be a man of great brain, but he must possess a large heart and a gentle spirit.
As we think of this, how many of us will be reminded of some unpretending, quiet, loving heart, now stilled forever, and of some mild, unassuming character, the luster of whose brightness can not be dimmed by the hand of time!
Ah, these are they who “shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”!
MRS. L. D. AVERY-STUTTLE.