210. Say So

Say So

Psa_107:2 : ’93Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’94

An overture, an antiphon, a doxology is this chapter, and in my text the Psalmist calls for an outspoken religion, and requests all who have been rescued and blessed no longer to hide the splendid facts, but to recite them, publish them, and, as far as possible, let all the world know about it. ’93Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’94

There is a pitiful reticence which has been almost canonized. The people are quite as outspoken as they ought to be on all subjects of politics, and are fluent and voluble on the Philippine question and bi-metalism and tariffs, high and low and remodeled, and female suffrage, and you have to skilfully watch your chance if you want to put into the active conversation a modest suggestion of your own; but on the subject of divine goodness, religious experience, and eternal blessedness they are not only silent, but boastful of their reticence. Now, if you have been redeemed of the Lord, why do you not say so? If you have in your heart the pearl of great price, worth more than the Kohinoor among Victorian jewels, why not let others see it? If you got off the wreck in the breakers, why not tell of the crew and the stout lifeboat that safely landed you? If from the fourth story you are rescued in time of conflagration, why not tell of the fireman and the ladder down which he carried you? If you have a mansion in heaven awaiting you, why not show the deed to those who may by the same process get an emerald castle on the same boulevard? By the last two words of my text the Psalmist calls upon all of us who have received any mercy at the hand of God to stop emulating the asylums for the dumb, and in the presence of men, women, angels, devils, and all worlds, ’93say so.’94

In these days, thousands of ministers and private Christians are wondering about the best ways of starting a revival of religion. I can tell you a way of starting a revival, continental, hemispheric, and world-wide. You say a revival starts in heaven. Well, it starts in heaven, just as a prosperous harvest starts in heaven. The sun must shine and the rains must descend, but unless you plow and sow and cultivate the earth you will not raise a bushel of wheat or a peck of corn between now and the end of the world. How, then, shall a universal revival start? By all Christian people telling the story of their own conversion. Let ten men and women get up next week in your prayer-meeting and, not in a conventional or canting or doleful way, but in the same tone they employ in the family or place of business, tell how they crossed the line, and the revival will begin then and there, if the prayer-meeting has not been so dull as to drive out all except those concerning whom it was foreordained from all eternity that they should be there.

There are so many different ways of being converted that we want to hear all kinds, so that our own case may be helped. It always discourages me to hear only one kind of experience, such as a man gives when he tells of his Pauline conversion’97how he was knocked senseless and then had a vision and heard voices and after a certain number of days of horror got up and shouted for joy. All that discourages me, for I was never knocked senseless and I never had such a sudden burst of religious rapture that I lost my equilibrium. But after a while a Christian man got up in some meeting and told us how he was brought up by a devout parentage and had always been thoughtful about religious things and gradually the peace of the Gospel came into his soul like the dawn of the morning’97no perceptible difference between moment and moment’97but after a while all perturbation settled down into a hope that had consoled and strengthened him during all the vicissitudes of a lifetime. I said, ’93That is exhilarating; that was my experience,’94 and so I was strengthened.

In another prayer-meeting a man got up and told us how he once hated God, and went through all the round of iniquity, until we were all on nettles lest he should go too much into the particulars, but one day he was by some religious power hurled flat, and then got up a Christian and had ever since been going around with a Bagster Bible with large flaps under his arm, a floating evangelist. Well, under this story many are not helped at all, for they knew they never hated God and they were never dissolute. But after a while some Christian woman arises and says, ’93I have nothing extraordinary to tell; yet I think the cares of life, the anxieties about my children, and two graves opened in our family plot made me feel the need of God, and weak and helpless and heartbroken, I flung myself upon his mercy, and I feel what the Bible calls the ’91peace of God which passeth all understanding,’92 and I ask your prayers that I may live nearer to the Christ who has done so much for me.’94 I declare that before that woman got through we were all crying, not bitter tears, but tears of joyful emotion, and in three days, in that neighborhood, all the ice had gone out of the river in a springtime freshet of salvation. ’93Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’94

I have but little interest in what people say about religion as an abstraction, but I have illimitable interest in what people say about what they have personally felt of religion. It was an expression of his own gratitude for personal salvation which led Charles Wesley, after a season of great despondency about his soul, and Christ had spoken pardon, to write that immortal hymn:

Oh, for a thousand tongues, to sing

My great Redeemer’92s praise.

It was after Abraham Lincoln had been comforted in the loss of ’93Tad,’94 the bright boy of the White House, that he said: ’93I now see as never before the preciousness of God’92s love in Jesus Christ, and how we are brought near to God as our Father by him.’94

What a thrill went through the meeting in Portland, Oregon, when an ex-attorney-general of the United States arose and said: ’93Last night I got up and asked the prayers of God’92s people. I feel now perfectly satisfied. The burden is rolled off and all gone, and I feel that I could run or fly into the arms of Jesus Christ.’94

What a record for all time and eternity was made by Gellacius, the play-actor, in the theatre at Heliopolis. A burlesque of Christianity was put upon the stage. In derision of the ordinance of baptism a bath-tub, filled with water, was put upon the stage, and another actor, in awful blasphemy, dipped Gellacius, pronouncing over him the words, ’93I baptize thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’94 But coming forth from the burlesqued baptism, he looked changed and was changed, and he cried out to the audience, ’93I am a Christian; I will die as a Christian.’94 Though he was dragged out and stoned to death, they could not drown the testimony made under such awful circumstances, ’93I am a Christian.’94 ’93Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’94

What a confirmation would come if all who had answers to prayers would speak out! If all merchants who have been in tight places because of hard times would tell how, in response to supplication, they got the money to pay the note. If all farmers in time of drought would tell how, in answer to prayer, the rain came just in time to save the crop. If all parents who prayed for a wandering son to come home would tell how, not long after, they heard the boy’92s hand on the latch of the front door.

There lingers on this side of the river that divides earth and heaven, ready at any time to cross over, the apostle of prayer for this century, Jeremiah Calvin Lanphier, the founder of the Fulton Street prayer-meeting, and if he should put on his spectacles and read this, I salute him as more qualified than any man since Bible times in demonstrating what prayer can do. Dear Brother Lanphier! The high heavens are full of his fame. That Fulton Street prayer-meeting which he founded has been a place where people have asked for prayer and answers to prayer have been announced and the throb of that great heart of supplication has thrilled not only into the heavens, but clear around the world. More than any spot on earth, that has been the place where the redeemed of the Lord said so!

Let the same outspokenness be employed toward those by whom we have been personally advantaged. We wait until they are dead before we say so. Your parents have planned for your best interests all these years. They may sometimes, their nervous sys-tem used up by the cares, the losses, the disappointments, the worriments of life, be more irritable than they ought to be, and they probably have faults which have become exasperating as the years go by. But those eyes, long before they took on spectacles, were watching for your welfare, and their hands, not as smooth and much more deeply lined than once, have done for you many a good day’92s work. Life has been to them more of a struggle than you will ever know about, and much of the struggle has been for you, and how much they are wrapped up in your welfare you will never realize. Have you by word or gift or behavior expressed your thanks? Or if you cannot quite get up to say it face to face, have you written it in some holiday salutation? The time will soon pass and they will be gone out of your sight and their ears will not hear and their eyes will not see. If you owe them any kindness of deed or any words of appreciation, why do you not say so? How much we might all of us save ourselves in the matter of regrets if we did not delay until too late an expression of obligation that would have made the last years of earthly life more attractive. The grave is deaf and epitaphs on cold marble cannot make reparation.

In conjugal life the honeymoon is soon past, and the twain take it for granted that each is thoroughly understood. How dependent on each other they become, and the years go by and perhaps nothing is said to make the other fully understand that sense of dependence. Impatient words sometimes come forth and motives are misconstrued and it is taken as a matter of course that the two will walk the path of life side by side until about the same time their journey shall be ended; but some sudden and appalling illness unloosens the right hands that were clasped years before at the altar of orange blossoms, the parting takes place, and among the worst of all the sorrows is that you did not oftener, if you ever did at all, tell her or tell him how indispensable she was or how indispensable he was to your happiness, and that in some plain, square talk, long ago, you did not ask for forgiveness for infirmities and neglects, and by some unequivocal utterance make it understood that you fully appreciated the fidelity and re-enforcement of many years. Alas! how many such have to lament the rest of their lives, ’93Oh, if I had only said so!’94

My subject takes a wider range. The Lord has hundreds of thousands of people among those who have never joined his army because of some high ideal of what a Christian should be or because of a fear that they may not hold out or because of a spirit of procrastination. They have never publicly professed Christ. They have as much right to the sacraments and as much right to all the privileges of the church as thousands who have for years been enrolled in church membership, and yet they have made no positive utterance by which the world may know they love God and are on the road to heaven. They are redeemed of the Lord, and yet do not say so. Oh, what an augmentation it would be if by some divine impulse all those outsiders should become insiders. I tell you what would bring them to their right places, and perhaps nothing else will. Days of persecution! If they were compelled to take sides as between Christ and his enemies, they would take the side of Christ, and the faggots and the instruments of torture and the anathemas of all earth and hell would not make them blanch. Martyrs are made out of such stuff as they are. But let them not wait for such days as I pray to God may never come. Drawn by the sense of fairness and justice and obligation, let them show their colors. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!

This chapter from which I take my text mentions several classes of persons who ought to be outspoken; among them all those who go on a journey. What an opportunity you have, you who spend so much of your time on rail-trains or on shipboard, whether on lake or river or sea! Spread the story of God’92s goodness and your own redemption wherever you go. You will have many a long ride beside some one whom you will never see again, some one who is waiting for one word of rescue or consolation. Make every rail-train and steamer a moving palace of saved souls. Casual conversations have harvested a great host for God. There are many Christian workers in pulpits, in mission stations, in Sabbath schools, in unheard-of places who are doing their best for God, and without any recognition. They go and come and no one cheers them. Perhaps all the reward they get is harsh criticism or repulse or their own fatigue. If you have ever heard of any good they have done, let them know about it. If you find some one benefitted by their alms or their prayers or their cheering word, go and tell them. They may be almost ready to give up their mission. They may be almost in despair because of the seeming lack of results. One word from you may be an ordination that will start them on the chief work of their lifetime.

A Christian woman said to her pastor, ’93My usefulness is done. I do not know why my life is spared any longer, because I can do no good.’94 Then the pastor replied, ’93You do me great good every Sabbath.’94 She asked, ’93How do I do you any good?’94 and he replied, ’93In the first place, you are always in your seat in the church, and that helps me; and in the second place, you are always wide awake and alert, looking right up into my face, and that helps me; and in the third place, I often see tears running down your cheeks, and that helps me.’94 What a good thing he did not wait until she was dead before he said so!

There are hundreds of ministers who have hard work to make sermons because no one expresses any appreciation. They are afraid of making him vain. The moment the benediction is pronounced they turn on their heels and go out. Perhaps it was a subject with the presentation of which he had taken special pains. He sought for the right text and then did his best to put the old thought into some new shape. He had prayed that it might go to the hearts of the people. He had added to the argument the most vivid illustrations he could think of. He had delivered all with a power that left him nervously exhausted. Five hundred people may have been blessed by it, and resolved upon a higher life and nobler purposes. Yet all he hears is the clank of the pew door or the shuffling of feet in the aisle or some remark about the weather, the last resort of inanity. Why did not that man come up and say frankly, ’93You have done me good’94? Why did not some woman come up and say, ’93I shall go home to take up the burden of life more cheerfully’94? Why did they not tell him so? I have known ministers, in the nervous reaction that comes to some after the delivery of a sermon with no seeming result, to go home and roll on the floor in agony.

But to make up for this lack of outspoken religion there needs to be and will be a Great Day, when amid the solemnities and grandeurs of a listening universe God will ’93say so.’94 No statistics can state how many mothers have rocked cradles and hovered over infantile sicknesses and brought up their families to manhood and womanhood and launched them upon useful and successful lives and yet never receive one ’93thank you’94 that amounted to anything. The daughters became queens in social life or were affianced in highest realms of prosperity; the sons took the first honors of the university and became radiant in monetary or professional spheres. Now the secret of all that uplifted maternal influence must come out. Society did not say so; the church did not say so; the world did not say so, but on that day of all other days, the Last Day, God will say so.

There are men to whom life is a grind and a conflict, hereditary tendencies to be overcome, accidental environments to be endured, appalling opposition to be met and conquered, and they never so much as had a rose pinned to their coat lapel in admiration. They never had a song dedicated to their name. They never had a book presented to them with a complimentary word on the fly-leaf. All they have to show for their lifetime battle is scars. But in the Last Day the story will come out and that life will be put in holy and transcendent rhythm and their courage and persistence and faith and victory will not only be proclaimed but rewarded. ’93These are they that came out of great tribulation and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.’94 God will say so!

We miss one of the chief ideas of a Last Judgment. We put into the picture the fire and the smoke and the earthquake and the descending angels and the uprising dead, but we omit to put into the picture that which makes the Last Judgment a magnificent opportunity. We omit the fact that it is to be a day of glorious explanation and commendation. The first justice that millions of unrewarded and unrecognized and unappreciated men and women will get will be on that day, when services that never called forth so much as a newspaper line of the finest pearl type or diamond type, as the printers term it, shall be called up for coronation. That will be the day of enthronement for those whom the world called ’93Nobodies.’94 Joshua, who commanded the sun and moon to stand still, needs no Last Judgment to get justice done him, but those men do need a Last Judgment who at times, in all armies, under the most violent assault, in obedience to command, themselves stood still. Deborah, who encouraged Barak to bravery in battle against the oppressors of Israel, needs no Last Judgment to get justice done her, for good men and women for thousands of years have clapped her applause. But the wives who in all ages have encouraged their husbands in the battles of life, women whose names were hardly known beyond the next street or the next farmhouse, must have God say to them, ’93You did well! You did gloriously!’94 God will say so.

And now I close with giving my own personal testimony, for I must not enjoin upon others that which I decline myself to do. Born at Boundbrook, New Jersey, of a parentage as pious as the world ever saw, I attest before earth and heaven that I have always felt the elevating and restraining influence of having had a good father and a good mother, and if I am able to do half as well for my children as the old folks did for me I will be thankful forever. The years of my life passed on until, at about eighteen years of age, I felt the pressure of eternal realities, and after prayer and religious counsel I passed into what I took to be a saved state, and joined the church, and I attest before earth and heaven that I have found it a most helpful and inspiring association. I like the companionship so well that I cannot be satisfied if I have a day less of it than all eternity. After graduating at collegiate and theological institutions, I had the hands of ten or twelve good men put upon my head in solemn ordination, at Belleville, New Jersey, and I attest before earth and heaven that the work of the gospel ministry has been delightful, and I expect to preach until my last hour. Many times I have passed through deep water of bereavement, and but for the divine promise of heavenly reunion I would have gone under, but I attest before earth and heaven that the comfort of the gospel is high, deep, glorious, eternal. Many times have I been maligned and my work misrepresented; but all such falsehood and persecution have turned out for my advantage and enlarged my work, and I attest before earth and heaven that God has fulfilled to me the promises, ’93Lo! I am with you always,’94 and ’93The gates of hell shall not prevail against you.’94

For the cheer of younger men in all departments, let me say you will come out all right if you mind your own business and are patient. The assault of the world is only being rubbed down by a rough Turkish towel and it improves the circulation and makes one more vigorous. While the future holds for me many mysteries which I do not pretend to solve, I am living in expectation that when my poor work is done, I shall go through the gates and meet my Lord and all my kindred who have preceded me’97a precious group whom I miss more and more as the years go by’97and I attest before earth and heaven that the glories of the heavenly world illumine my pathway. In courts of law the witness may kiss the Bible or lift his right hand in oath, but as I have often kissed the dear old Book, I now lift my right hand and take oath by him that liveth forever and ever that God is good and that the gospel is a mighty consolation in days of trouble and that the best friend a man ever had is Jesus and that heaven is absolutely sure to those who trust and serve the blessed Redeemer; to whom be glory and dominion and victory and song and chorus of white-robed immortals, standing on seas of glass mingled with fire. Amen and amen!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage