Editorial April 15, 1905 Issue

The Pall of Ineffectiveness

John B. Willis

Nothing is more depleting to one's energy, more dampening to enthusiasm, or more discouraging to hope, than an abiding sense of spiritual inadequacy. Many a brave heart has borne up against its depressing influence, in definitely, through the sustaining consciousness that his highest conviction of duty was being honored, and the story of such an unavailing heroism would be rightly named, — An Epic of Tears.

Human life, at its best, means ceaseless endeavor, and it were pitiful indeed if, at any moment of the struggle, we were denied the sustaining and stimulating consciousness that, despite all, we are winning. Such moments are experienced, however, and as, with many, they have grown into years, the heart-history has become tragic. The artifices of pride and prejudice often prompt to the explanations of an attempted self-deception, but there is abundant reason for thinking that this saddening sense of inefficiency is felt by the great majority of Christian workers in all lands to-day. Evidence of the fact may be gathered from many sources, and notably from current religious literature. The following frank confession, which we have recently quoted from an exchange, is fairly representative. "No thoughtful person can contemplate the immense expenditures of sincere and earnest labor and of money in Christian work to-day, and the utterly inadequate results therefrom, without a feeling that there is a serious error, somewhere. May it not be that the followers of Christ are not only sapping their energies and resources by their divisions, but are rendering complete success impossible by failure to comply with the fundamental condition on which Christ himself hung the triumph of his gospel?"

We are entirely sure that this questioning thought embraces very little if any doubt respecting the truth of the teachings of Christianity. Men believe in the presence and power of God, and in the spiritual sovereignty of the life and words of Christ Jesus, but the confidence and joy of a well-grounded assurance is lacking, and for the reason and that the promised overcoming is not realized. Christian laymen as well as leaders are dissatisfied and distressed, and rightly so, with the meagreness of the results attending conscientious Christian effort. This increasing discontent is one of the most encouraging aspects of the situation; for however lamentable our failures, their frank recognition always brings a promise of betterment to the aspiring. The uncovering of error in honest thought presages its overthrow, and Christian workers, both as individuals and as organized bodies, do well to deepen their sense of the contrast between what is, and what ought to be, and enlarge and establish their understanding of their privilege and power as the ambassadors of Christ. Said Joshua to Israel, "One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you;" for you;" and Paul, speaking to the early Christians, in yet more comprehensive terms, of the believer's spiritual adequacy, said, "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God."

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