For the Hope of the Promise.
By H. Clay Trumbull
"I STAND here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God." The man, even in our day, who really believes that God will do as he has promised, will be counted fanatical, if not foolish, by many of his Christian friends. They all value the promise; but only now and then one is ready to rest down on it as sure of fulfillment in his particular case. If a man trusts God to provide for himself and his family in material things, and to guide him in all his business affairs, he is said by some to lack business prudence. If he trusts God to avenge him when he is wronged, or to preserve his good name when he is falsely accused, he is spoken of as wanting in courage or spirit. If, when he is bereaved or afflicted, he receives it all as the loving chastisement of a Father's hand, and refuses to shut himself up to grief and repinings, he is possibly looked at as destitute of fine feelings, and as cold-hearted if not unnatural. If he gets his view of the promised return of our Lord from the Bible, rather than from the commentaries or the newspapers, he may be numbered among visionary theorists. Any Christian who accepts God's promise as sure, and acknowledges it as fulfilled to himself in his need, must expect to be accused for this hope's sake, even by some who profess to serve God day and night in hope of that same promise.—H. Clay Trumbull.