UNSEEN SERVICE by Mrs. H. P. Booth

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 17, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 46.

UNSEEN SERVICE.

By Mrs. H. P. Booth

The true ideal of an accepted servant of the Master, must be in harmony with the requirements of the needed service. The conditions of time and place, the amount and quality of effort to be bestowed, and the limitation or possession of ability to render full conformity with loyal allegiance to all demands, are duly considered. Absolute, voluntary surrender, the unmantling of self, the deliberate consciousness of not being one's own, having been bought with a price not estimated by earthly possessions, must be realized by him who would yield to the essential, attainable, allotted labor.

Such is, and has been, all these Christian ages, not only the ideal, but the real, which has written its open history of the effective unseen service of self-renunciation—complete immolation of self on God's altar. The spiritual being attained, spiritual works brought their results. Indifference to the world's attractions, with all its luxuries and allurements for evil, gave added force to the possessed riches of faith, and thereby gained entrance to the hidden lives of the children of poverty, making them, too, beautiful in living trust for those things which shall be.

These being the true principles, every believer may know the joy of accepted service, gained through the Unseen, who is able to supply all needs.

Earnest souls, wrestling in spirit for the victory, attained the fitness through which the metal of martyrs shone forth; and the same supply is still plentiful in the market of heaven. “Come ye, buy, . . . without money and without price.” Isa. 55 : 1. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” 1 Cor. 2 : 12,13.

Never was the need of these things greater in the world than now—just now. A mighty work is to be done: a living witness is to be borne. Shall not the unseen service of His children be visibly manifested to all whom He has created for His glory, unto the might and honor of His kingdom?

MRS. H. P. BOOTH.

New Orleans, La.