That Shineth More and More.
“The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Prov. iv, 18. This teaches that the law of the Christian's life is progress. The light does not shine more and more upon a bower in which the believer lies down to sleep, but on a path. Hence, he is to be traveling always, to be pressing toward the place to which the path leads. A path is made to facilitate progress—to induce and enable people to go somewhere. Paths are not surveyed and graded for men to lounge in. The Christian life is a way—a course. We are to “run” in it “with diligence,” and as we run, we find it brightening with new beauty. The figure here is in harmony with all the teachings of the Bible on this subject. God is ever saying to his people, “Go forward.” He has more glorious revelations for them, but they must climb up higher in order to receive them. A man starts in a deep valley that is filled with mists and vapors, to ascend a mountain. He is told that in the path which winds up and around it, he will have splendid scenery. He climbs awhile, gets above the densest of the mist, sees a beautiful but comparatively limited landscape. He enjoys it for a time, but growing weary, asks,—“Where are those broad and glorious visions that were promised me? I am on the mountain—I am in the path.” “Yes but you are not using the path. It was made not merely to bring you to this point, but to the top of the mountain. From every point there is a new view, and from the summit, the widest and noblest of all. Keep on climbing.” Alas! how many Christians are like this traveler. They come to Christ. They receive and rejoice in the first beams of his light. Sweet is the dawn of hope in their hearts. But they sit down contented with this. They have found salvation, and why trouble themselves about anything beyond? But they soon find that this hope becomes dim and unsatisfactory. They get into darkness, because they forget that God gave these first rays only to encourage them to go on toward their source—to get nearer and nearer to the true light—to the Sun of Righteousness, that they may enjoy more and more of him. A stationary Christian is a contradiction in terms. You might as well talk about a resident pilgrim, or a follower that stands still. When we are called by the Master, he not only says, “come unto me,” but “follow me.” If we come, and then do not follow, it is evident that we have not given him the whole heart. Do you want to have peace as a river—to have light that shines more and more, walk on in the path of life; be ever adding “to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.” You cannot embrace a more fatal error than that religion is like a diamond, perfect and finished when we receive it, and only to be treasured up until we die, and then presented as our ticket of admission into Heaven. One or two of the parables, as that of the pearl of great price, and the treasure hid in the field, might seem to teach this. But the object in them is only to show the value, and not the nature of salvation. In other parables, as well as in many exhortations, the idea here suggested is set before us with great force and earnestness. Suppose that a friend should bring you a young tree and say, you plant this in good ground, and cultivate it, it will bear for you beautiful blossoms and luscious fruit, and it will bear more and more every year. You take the scion, admiring it and rejoicing in its possession. You set it out in some corner of your lot where the ground is hard, and an overhanging roof keeps off from it both the sunshine and the showers, and then when it tries to put forth a few sickly leaves, you go and pick them off. Treating the tree thus, you wonder that you do not have the blossoms and the fruit that were promised. Alas, how forgetful and foolish you are! You have not complied with any of the conditions. You not only fail to cultivate the tree, but refuse to let it grow. There are Christians who seem to be just so forgetful and foolish. They are told to grow in grace, but they make no effort to cultivate piety. They give to religion the hardest, coldest, and shadiest place in their hearts. They think only about Christ for a few moments at night, when they are too weary and sleepy to think of anything else. The best hours, the best energies are given to the world, and then they wonder that they do not have all the peace and joy that are promised to the faithful followers of the Saviour.—Herald & Recorder.