CONTINUANCE
‘Continue in the faith.’
Will he stand? That is almost the first question asked about young converts. Asked sometimes by friends anxiously, sometimes by foes sneeringly; and no wonder.
I. Continuance is the test of reality.—‘Time will show,’ says the proverb, and the proverb is right. It is not enough to begin well; there must be a patient continuance in well-doing.
II. Continuance is necessary to success.—No good or great work has ever been accomplished without perseverance. The man who is discouraged by the first rebuff will never make much progress.
III. Continuance is necessary even for safety.—A man may be wrecked within a ship’s length of the lighthouse. The ill-starred Eurydice was in sight of harbour when she went down. Travellers have been found dead before to-day in the snows of the great St. Bernard within a few yards of the refuge.
IV. Continuance is specially needed in the higher levels of Christian experience.—It needs much grace to claim the faith-position in a risen Christ—to take a full salvation.
Rev. E. W. Moore.
Illustration
‘ “Near the summit of Mount Washington,” says an American writer, “is a rude cairn of stones that marks the spot where a young lady, who was overtaken by the darkness without a guide, died of exposure and nervous fright! The poor girl was within pistol-shot of the cabin of the ‘tip-top,’ its cheering light was just behind the rocks; yet that short distance cost her her life.” Even so it is in the Christian life. The soul that seems to start, but does not continue, may be at last picked up dead just outside the gateway of the Father’s house.’