Christian Responsibility.
By Bible Banner
ONE cannot read the history of the church in which is enrolled the names of the noble army of the martyrs, without being struck with the fitness of Jesus' testimony, that his disciples must bear the cross; that they must confess him even to the loss of life; that in the world they should have tribulation, while they should also have his abiding, unspeakable peace to the actual facts of their experience. It might seem to human judgment like a harsh and bitter sacrifice that Christ requires, but history shows that it has been required, and faith joyfully says what Christ has providentially required is right and best, as well as what he has recorded in written requirement. This joyful resigning of worldly position, influence, ease, honor, and soon life itself, for the sake of Jesus and his truth, is most strikingly illustrated in the case of Luther, Esch, Voes, or Thorn. The further sacrifice of wealth and family, with life, can be read in the case of many others, while, who of Christian heart has not wept at the sorrowful tale of the death of John Rogers, who for principle, for devotion to the Lord and his word, while he had not wealth, was ruthlessly torn away from a wife and nine children? To require this resignation of everything we hold dear, is not cruel on the Lord's part, because he makes himself so supremely sweet to us, and he assures us of the enjoyment of a blessed reunion with our friends, and the possession of real wealth and rest in the resurrection of life, and the kingdom of God. But a lesson that comes to us is, the contrast between the martyr spirit of the past ages and our disposition who inherit the religious privileges which the martyrs bled to secure for us. Thanks be to God, men cannot come in cruel wrath and drag us from our bed to the inquisition, and the stake of burning, or the death by drowning. There is no way that we can be the peers and companions of the tortured and slaughtered saints, except in our own voluntary devotion of ourselves to tedious and wearing and abundant labor for the good of others, in our denying ourselves to the extent of want and suffering, while we devote the money we could otherwise spend on our own comfort, to the relieving of the needy, caring for the sick, sending the gospel in living missionary and fruited messenger to distant lands and to the unsaved near our doors. How many of the martyrs of our day suffer the privation of a day's fasting and real hunger now and then, in their poverty even, as well as when they only feel poor, so that they may devote the money saved in want to helping insure the stability of their church, and of the cause devoted to spreading the knowledge of the truth and of salvation among the benighted of the earth. Multitudes of professed Christians who adorn the sepulchers of the martyrs to-day, are themselves drying up spiritually for the lack of the martyr spirit. They feel no responsibility to maintain important measures of truth, and means of proclaiming it, at least not at any real cost of privation, or hunger, or want. Where in our days are the children of the martyrs? Would the martyrs know them as their children? Are we not pigmies beside those giants for Christ? Well, there are a few, even in this ease-loving and time-serving age, who will spend and be spent willingly, who will stand in the breach for the defense and extension of the truth, and provide for its success if it costs them real want and labor, and will be glad to be in fellowship with their Lord as near as may be in his sweat of blood, and with his martyrs in their sacrifice for men's enlightenment and salvation.—The Bible Banner.