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STRENGTH FOR TRIAL.

BY REV. JOSEPH M. ROGERS,*

Pastor Franklin St. Church, Lansing.

"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.

To how many bruised and bleeding hearts have these words come with comfort and healing! To the dying have they spoken peace, and to the living have they brought consolation in dire affliction. Perhaps they have too generally been applied to the one purpose of comforting the grieved and sorrowing hearts in times of distress. Was this the purpose of the Savior in uttering them? Was it only to comfort them in view of his coming departure from them? While their hearts were truly sorrowful, may he not have thought it necessary to encourage and fortify them in view of the great

Joseph M. Rogers was born at Brunswick, Maine, May 7, 1855. Educated in Bowdoin College, he engaged in business and in teaching in Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. In 1888 he became Prof. of Mathematics in Gale College, Wis., and then its President. Pursuing theological studies in private, and being ordained to the ministry 1891, his first pastorate was the Church of the Redeemer, Manistique, Mich., 1892-97; then Franklin St. Church, Lansing, 1897-.

work which he was leaving them to do, and, therefore, gave them the reasons why they should be strong and bold to remain and labor and wait? While I have no desire to take away the comfort which these words may have for sorrowing hearts, I prefer now to bring the note of courage and strength to your listening ear in your struggles and trials of to-day's work.

"Let not your hearts be troubled," i. e., agitated, distressed, tossed about. Even as the waters of the sea are troubled by the winds above until they become the very symbol of restlessness, uncertainty and inconstancy, so are our hearts tossed about by fears and the storms of life until we become restless, uncertain and inconstant. We forget that we are to "be strong and of a good courage," and that the promise is ours, "I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee." Does not the world need most strong, self-centered, purposeful, courageous lives? And why may we not think that this is the main purpose of this exhortation-to show why we may be strong in our Christian life? As the Christ had much work for the early disciples to do which needed an enduring, brave and stable character behind it, so the work of the kingdom to-day needs the same type of purposeful and courageous men and

women.

But how can we of to-day transform ourselves with the resolute, determined men of faith and action, before whom difficulties vanish and fears melt away? My brother, you will do it even as the men of old did, by taking into your heart these words-" Be not troubled," i. e., " be strong and of a good courage," because

1. "Ye believe in God." The revised version gives us the marginal translation in the imperative mood, "Believe in God." And the weary and discouraged hearts sadly reply, "We do, we always have." But let

us honestly question ourselves how we believe. Simply in an intellectual fashion? Merely to know that there is a God, and that somehow everything is in his hands? Let us remember that Christ taught us to say "Our Father," and that we are to believe in him just the same way that our children do in us, having confidence that our wants will be supplied, our future provided for, and that we shall never pass out of his thought and plan. There is no more need for our "anxious thought" about our needful things than there is for our children to fret in fear concerning their food and clothing and other comforts. Our Father's thought extends to the place where we shall live, the people we are to influence, and the surroundings which shall enable us to grow up into that which may be approved of him. "Your Father knoweth" your situation and will withhold no needful thing." Have confidence, then, in him and rest in sweet assurance of his loving thought. But sometimes we have difficulty in making God, even "Our Father," seem near to us. In his infinitude our minds place him at a distance and, therefore, the Christ says,

2. "Believe also in me." Though he be Son of God we can understand his intensely human life and feel that he brings himself very near to us in it. "He hath borne our sorrows," and "is acquainted with grief." As we follow him in his life among men we see his loving compassion and tender sympathy. We remember that he left no suffering cry unanswered, and none who came to him were turned away unhelped. He interprets the Father to us. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" and through him we can draw near the Father with serener confidence and love. We can call to mind his sources of strength, his constant habit of prayer, his reliance upon the Father's power, his serene confidence that, as he was doing the work