List thee, Christian! The voice of the Master is not drowned by the din of business. The claims of religion are not abated by your hurry, and stress of occupation. The still small voice that bids you to be at work to-day for God is peremptory. What though you are pressed with care. Religious duty is care's great cure. What though the car of business drags heavily? it is by prayer and heavenly hope that the wheels are to be kept in motion.
Go to work to-day in the vineyard. God has need of you now. When your convenience serves, he will have done with you. He will not accept the service of your leisure hours. Religion's great aim and triumph are realized in the subjection of the 'change to the closet, of the bank to the Bible. What is religion worth that can flourish only as weeds do in a desolate and untilled field? What is that principle worth that cannot withstand the least pressure of worldly solicitation?
Go work to-day. Now, when labor is a cross; now, when your example will be valuable; now, when the world should know your principles; now, when the mass are trying to serve God and Mammon, go work for God, and you can do something worthy of your vows. What does the cause of Christ need more than examples of that religion which makes a place for the prayer meeting and the lecture in every week's calendar, and which shuts the door of the closet upon the world, until God is worshiped? The greatest attainment of life is to use this world without abusing it—to attend manfully to every claim of business, to breast with heroism every storm of commercial embarrassment—to do one's best in whatever circumstances may develop, and at the same time, to live out the Christian, by a course of daily usefulness. To be at the same time a good business man and a warm-hearted disciple—to care for every interest of religion amidst all secular cares—to lay a stone on Zion's walls with every accession of worldly fortune, this is true Christianity. Nor will any principle of living ensure men from the snares of covetousness, and the deep pit of commercial dishonesty, except those simple rules of living which the Gospel prescribes for all times.
Go work to-day. Seek out some humble labor of love. It may save you from falling. Invite some interruption of your excessive worldliness. Call in160some umpire who shall put down the false and ruinous claims of Mammon.
Have a religion which can live and be honored abroad as well as at home; in busy seasons as in dull times; in the afternoon as in the morning; when prosperity fans, as when adversity baffles your progress. Seek a cure of your religious distempers by going to work to-day for God!