“Without a recognition
You passed Him yesterday—
Jostled aside, unhelped, his mute petition—
And calmly went your way.
“Oh, dreamers, dreaming that your faith is keeping
All service free from blot,
Christ daily walks your streets, sick, suffering, weeping,
And ye perceive him not.”
Those certainly seem strange words which our Lord says he will speak on the judgment-day to the multitudes before him. We are taught elsewhere that faith in Christ is the vital thing in determining one’s eternity, yet Christ himself, in portraying the judgment, says not a word about believing on him or confessing him. Those who are welcomed to the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, covered the shivering and cold, visited the sick and cared for the prisoner. Are we, then, to reverse our cherished evangelical belief that men are saved by faith, and not by works? May we not say that the good deeds here described are the fruit of grace in the heart? We are not saved by our own ministries of love; but if we are saved, these are the acts we will perform.
Our Lord’s words show us the kind of Christian life we should live in this world. We say we love Christ and he t ells us that we must show our affection for him in kindnesses to his friends. Then he goes farther and puts himself before us, to be served and helped as if personally in every needy and suffering one who comes to us: “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat… I was sick, and ye visited me.” — “When saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee?… When saw we thee sick… and came unto thee? — “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Page 1