THE MINISTRY OF ENCOURAGEMENT
by J. R. Miller. Therefore, encourage
one another and build each other up, just as, in fact, you are
doing. 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 5, Verse
11. But encourage one another daily,
as long as it is called to-day, so that none of you may be hardened
by sin's deceitfulness. Hebrews, Chapter 3, Verse 13.
Nothing is more worthwhile in this world than encouragement. No mission is more divine than
the encouragers. In no other way can we do more
good than by going about speaking words of encouragement and cheer. In Westmeel, near Antwerp, there
is a convent of Catholic Trappist monks, who represent a strangely
perverted conception of Christianity. There are thirty-six monks who
live together under the vow of perpetual silence. They dress
in rough sackcloth, with ropes about their waists, their heads
shaven, and their beards uncut. They live on bread, sour milk,
and vegetables. They sleep on hard boards and
spend their days in frigid and solemn silence. If a visitor
speaks to one of these monks, the monk draws his hood closer
about his head and moves away. Each day he walks in the garden,
and looks into a grave opened, and ready for the one of the
company who is first to die. This, it is claimed, is a high
ideal of Christian living. This order of monks suppose that
they are illustrating, in a lofty way, the holiness and beauty
of Christianity. But the New Testament teaches
no such living as that. Jesus Christ did not live such
a life. He did not walk about in silence. He was the sunniest of men. He was ready to give cheer to
all he met. He taught his followers to let
their light shine on the world's darkness. He would have us hide
within our hearts our cares and sufferings, and give out only
blessings and gladness. Yet there always have been those
who pervert the teachings of Christ, in this matter of cheerful
living, and make their religious life dreary and disheartening. Instead of being helpers of the
faith and joy of others, they are hinderers, Instead of making
others stronger for struggle, for burden-bearing, and for duty,
they make it harder for them to do their part. It is reported
that during the siege of Ladysmith a civilian was arrested, tried
by court-martial, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment for
being a discourager. The man would go about saying
disheartening words to the armed men on duty. He struck no blow
for the enemy. He was not disloyal to the country. But he was a discourager. It was a critical time. The fortunes
of the town and its brave garrison were trembling in the balance.
Instead of heartening the men on whom the defense depended
and making them braver and stronger, he put faintness into their hearts
and made them less courageous. The court-martial adjudged it
a crime to speak disheartening words at such a time. And the court-martial was right.
There are men in every community who are continually doing the
same thing. They go about everywhere as discouragers. Happy is that church which has
not one such discourager on its roll. Discouragers are often
good and upright people, perhaps active in many ways, but they
never see the hopeful side of the church's life. If you talk
to them of something that is encouraging, growing enthusiastic
in narration, they will come in with their dismal, but, and
dampen your ardor with questions or suppositions meant to discount
your hopefulness and quench the flame of your enthusiasm. They
are never known to say a word of hearty, unqualified approval
of anything. There is always some fly in the
ointment. The minister is a faithful man,
but, if he would only preach more thus and thus, he would
do greater good. Then he is not as faithful a
pastor as he might be. The church seems to be prospering.
There are many additions to it from time to time. The financial
reports are good. But there is something not altogether
satisfactory. Such is their outlook on everything
in the church life. These church people never imagine
that they are disloyal to their spiritual home. They would not
dream of overtly hurting the church. They think they are among
its most faithful and useful members. But all the while, they
are making it harder for every other member they speak to to
continue loyal and earnest. They are lessening the pastor's
influence and robbing him of power. They are putting discouragement
into the heart of everyone they meet. Such members are real enemies
of Christ. If an ecclesiastical court-martial
could inflict upon them some sort of punishment which would
cure them of their grievous fault, it would be a blessing to many
people, and the Church would have reason to rejoice and thank
God. But not in churches only are
discouragers found. They are everywhere. Businessmen
meet them continually. They are always saying disheartening
words. They discount all prosperity.
They are prophets of evil wherever they go. The sweetest happiness
has some alloy for them. If they made only themselves
wretched by their miserable pessimism, there would be less need to trouble
ourselves. If they persisted in being unhappy
themselves, we could not help it, and if that were the end
of it, we might accord them the privilege without regret. They
are messengers of discouragement to every one they meet. They
stir up discontent wherever they move. Like the unhappy civilian
above, they go among those who are carrying burdens, cares,
and responsibilities, and, by their depressing talk, make them
less able to endure, less heroic and strong for struggle. Thus
their influence works ill to every one around them. But the
other men who had explored the land with him answered, We can't
go up against them. They are stronger than we are.
So they spread discouraging reports about the land among the Israelites. The land we explored will swallow
up any who go to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the
descendants of Anak. We felt like grasshoppers next
to them, and that's what we looked like to them. Then all the people
began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Numbers chapter
13 verses 31 to Numbers chapter 14 verse 1. At some point in
the Alps, the guides warn tourists not to talk, nor sing, nor even
to whisper, lest the reverberation of their words in the air may
start an avalanche from its poise on the mountain, and bring it
down upon the villages and homes in the valley. There are men
and women who are carrying such loads of duty, anxiety, or sorrow,
that the slightest addition to the weight would crush them.
They are battling bravely against odds. They are holding out under
great pressure, sustained by a trembling hope of getting through,
at last, successfully. They are bearing up under a burden
of difficulty or trouble, comforted by the expectation that in the
end their darkness will turn to light. But everything is in
the balance. Then along comes one of these
gloomy discouragers. He has no perception of the fitness
of things. He lacks that delicate, sympathetic
feeling which enables men of a finer grain and a nobler quality
to enter into the experience of others, and put strength into
their hearts. He discovers the trouble through
which his friends are passing, but, instead of speaking a word
of cheer, to help them to be victorious, he talks in a pessimistic
or disheartening way, which makes their difficulties seem greater,
their burdens heavier, and their sorrows altogether hopeless. It is hard to be patient with
such people, for they are really enemies of human happiness. They
make life immeasurably harder for every one they meet. They
take the brightness out of the sunniest day, the blue out of
the clearest sky, and something of the gladness out of the happiest
heart. Then they make work harder for
every toiler, and pain keener for every sufferer. There ought
to be a law making it a crime for one man to discourage another,
and affixing severe penalties to every violation of this law. how much better it would be if,
instead of being discouragers, we would all learn to be encouragers
of others. The value of words of cheer is
incalculable. There is an old story of a fireman
who was climbing up a ladder amid smoke and flame, trying
to reach a high window, to rescue a child from a burning building. The man had almost gained the
window, but the heat was so intense, and the smoke so blinding, that
he staggered on the ladder, and seemed about to turn back. The
great crowd below was watching him with breathless interest,
and seeing him waver and hesitate, began to cheer him. This nerved
the fireman anew for his heroic task, and in a moment the brave
fellow had entered the house and soon returned, saving the
child. It is cheer that people need,
not discouragement, when they are fighting a hard battle. Men
who give us only their doubts and fears are misanthropists. True philanthropy brings us hope
and heartening. The truest helpers of others
are those who always have words of exhortation and inspiration
to speak, who always are encouragers.