A Frightened Disciple by N. Y. Evan.

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 4, 1858

A Frightened Disciple.

By N. Y. Evan.

He was frightened by a cloud! The precious privileges of the Sabbath would commence in an hour or two. But that cloud! It did not look good-natured. There was no thunder or lightning about it, but then there might be water, and if there was, and if it should let the travelers below know it by an actual descent of the drops, and he should happen to be one of that number, how lamentable! He was wet! It was a terrific thought! I have read of an ancient disciple who was "a night and a day in the deep," and a good soaking he must have got by it. And he was not frightened either. It would take more than there was in all the ocean to frighten him. But the danger, not very pressing either, of a little sprinkling, did the work for the man I am noticing, and therefore I do not think a man could pitch a biscuit over the moral distance between him and Paul.

A supposition frightened him. The hour of prayer-meeting was approaching. It was in his mind to go, but a supposition started up, like a serpent out of the grass. "I may be called on to pray. I do not feel like it. I do not think I could offer a prayer in my present state. My heart does not sympathize in such business. I believe I will not go." The supposition stalked like a frightful specter before him. It palsied his purpose, and his seat was vacant at the meeting for prayer. I believe many have been frightened from such meetings in the same way. I should like to see a group of them give, each in his turn his views of the passage, "Men ought always to pray and not faint."

Hard words gave our disciple a fright. Wicked men know how to use this species of artillery against faithful saints, and the disciple in my eye had it tried on him. And I was sad at the result. It made him droop. He was evidently alarmed, for he took some things back, both true and good, which he had said, and shrunk from doing others which the Bible and conscience both urged him to do. I wish he could have had a campaign with Paul. Hard words, like flint upon steel, did but strike out the fire in the good old soldier's soul; they roused him as nettles would a lion, not to give hard words back again, but to love and pray the more for his enemies, and to go the more zealously onward in his Master's cause. If hard words could have frightened Paul, he would have been in a fright the most of the days of his Christian life; but I will thank the man that will show me the instance in which they gave alarm.

A proposed charitable collection gave our disciple something of a fright. It was thought that he bore such a relation to One who had sent him word that "it was more blessed to give than to receive," and who had set the example of the blessedness of giving, in that "he gave himself for us;" it was thought the disciples would have felt that such a relation to such a giver would have made charitable giving a very pleasant affair, and that there could have been nothing frightful about it. But it seems that any blessedness in giving, to say nothing about more, was not a matter he well understood, and the example of his Lord was to him but a dimly seen star, and in fact not often in its horizon at all. Hence he was uneasy if a collection or contribution-box was on a pilgrimage in his vicinity. I never heard that he made a bodily escape in terror on any such occasion, but his soul had wings, and fled from the object whose claims were presented. And if his soul was as empty as the charity-box would be, if all were like him, a very small pair of wings would suffice to carry so small and empty a soul from the region of benevolence.—N. Y. Evan.