“Duty calls, but I have no Feeling.”
“I HAVE no feeling on the subject of religion, and therefore I can do nothing. Of the truth of Christianity I have no doubt; of its infinite importance to me personally I am fully persuaded. But as for making any decision, which will bind me to the immediate duty of prayer and other kindred duties, I never can, until I have some feeling on the subject to begin with. It’s but solemn mockery, the very idea of which I cannot tolerate.” So said an impenitent friend of mine, a few days since, who had spent some forty years in sinful neglect of God. I was urging him, with all the powers of persuasion which I could call into exercise, to decide that question of questions:— “Shall it henceforth be your will, to do all God’s will?” Conscience was pressing the obligation of a full consent that God shall reign; a devoted Christian wife was making full proof of the power of sanctified, tender affection for a beloved husband; aye, and more than all, the Spirit—the last messenger sent from heaven to save the lost, was working within him mightily to will and to do God’s will—to do it without condition and without compromise. When I first spoke to him on the subject, he seemed instantly to be deeply agitated. He quickly turned his face from me, and stood looking out of the window, as if wishing to see some one in the street, but in reality, to calm and conceal the deep heavings of a restless heart. Tears unbidden flowed freely. And yet his plea was, “I can’t pledge to do what God requires, for I have no heart in it. As for being a hypocrite, I never will.” In the same community are numbers of others who persist in disobedience, on the same plea—no feeling! This friend, of whom I speak, was assured that the requisite to please God, is not a given kind nor degree of emotion, but simply this: sincere, honest obedience. A full consent to be any thing, and do anything which God requires, as honestly as you know how. It was said to him:— “If you need a more hearty interest and deeper emotion, the only way to get them, is to fix your thoughts upon God—his character and claims, and move right onward in the path of duty. If you need any thing of God, honestly ask it. If he requires you to do any thing, do it. Such a course will deepen and perpetuate the flow of feeling in the heart. But to refuse to decide, when God calls for decision—to stand still when he says, “Go forward!” is only fitted to make the heart as bleak and barren as the snow-clad mountains around us. At last, he said: “Feeling or no feeling, henceforth duty is mine! God is right and I am wrong. Saved or lost, I will call upon his name!” With123this purpose fully formed, he went from the evening lecture to his fireside. There he called upon the name of the Lord in the presence of his household. He said that it seemed to him that every passage of scripture, which he had ever read was pressing him, like a mill-stone, to yield to God. It was the joyful crisis. Salvation came to that house. When willing to consent that God shall be God, he had no occasion to complain of any lack of emotion, Reader, are you waiting for more feeling before you begin to serve Jesus Christ? Then let me ask, 1. Are you sure that more feeling is needed? You may not be aware of the depth of your present emotions. 2. Are you taking the only course, which is fitted to soften your emotions? Refuse to pray, and you may never feel. Continue to disobey, and you will not only never feel as you wish to; you will never enter heaven. Consent at once to do all the will of God.—Ob. Evangelist.