CONVERTS' PROBLEMS - No III - HOLINESS.

The following, practical, short article first appeared in "The Local Officer" (Volume IX No 7) printed in July 1906. Simple, to the point and effective! I love the plural in the title - the article assumes many converts! Today we'd probably put the apostrophe before the 'S' (how sad).

CONVERTS' PROBLEMS.

No III - HOLINESS.

THE convert, especially if he has not been brought up within the sound of Army teaching, soon begins to enquire about the holiness which he finds the subject of so much of the Officers' talk and the Soldiers' testimonies. Sometimes he grasps it at once; in other cases he finds it "after many days."

The Penitent-form Sergeant will have to be very practical if he is to be of use to the searcher at the eleven o’clock Sunday meeting or Friday evening meeting. He will find himself kneeling by the side of people perhaps more learned than he is, seeking greater light; and will also be called upon to declare plainly to others that what they want is salva­tion before they go a step further.

There is much that cannot at once be comprehended about holiness; beautiful to talk over; and yet to bring it down to earth it just means having the heart right with God.

A man gets his sins forgiven and knows the past is "under the blood"; but what about the future? Is he to be a conqueror, an overcomer, "immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord"; or is he to be a weakling, up today and down tomorrow, always crying out "Oh! Wretched man that I am, I love the evil I flee from, and and every now and then it catches me!” It all depends on whether there is a heart-whole surrender to God; and a being filled, in return, with that spirit which gives rise to right action.

People come to the penitent-form - ­altar is the right word in their case - with a vague idea that by some instantaneous process they will be converted into angels. The best man who ever lives will never be an angel till he gets to Glory, but he may do the will of God on earth as the angels do it in Heaven.

That is holiness; doing the will of God; not your will, but His; living so that you have a conscience void of offence; and loving God so that you have no. love for sin.

Possessing that holiness you may be buffeted, storm- tossed, bewildered, pained, bereaved, brought into dire straits of poverty and ill-health, but never betrayed into the sin which surely over takes and overcomes the man who being cleansed of his leprosy gees off to his companions without thinking any more about the blessed One who cleansed him.

The man at the altar, fresh from a terrible lapse into sin, needs salvation, when he says he is after holiness! Tell him so! Get him to lay down his sin once for all, to cry to God for the power to hate it, to believe that God gives him strength to take his enemies of lust, drink, and worldliness by the neck and pound the life out of them with the clubs of faith and prayer, and he will assuredly pass out of the troubled waters, where Christ has met him in the darkness of the tempest, into the sunlit ocean of full salvation.

The trembling soul who is giving up all to God at the altar, only needs prompting to say "I dare! Lord!" to enter into such a rapture of soul as shall make Heaven more real than earth!

Up with the weeds! Tear down your idols! Throw open the doors of your heart and the King of Glory will come in.

The Penitent-form Sergeant can safely talk like that, as circumstances require; and afterwards may counsel patience, courage, perseverance, a pressing onward, and a high standard stopping nowhere short of perfection -in brief, the holiness set forth, as what God expects from his people, from cover to cover of the bible.