| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 3 |
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Evermore other voices are calling. The solicitations are not always nor usually to gross sins. With many people such temptations would have no power. The voices of the stranger are seductive. They are imitative of the voice of Christ himself. Instead of inviting the Christian to gross immoralities, to flagrant and outspoken opposition to Christ, or to any form of manifest disloyalty to him, they solicit his interest in something that seems altogether right. It is an attractive voice and winning that the Christian hears. Surely it is the Shepherd’s! Yet if the heart be altogether true to Christ, it knows that it is not the Master’s voice. The knowledge is instinctive – perhaps no reason can be given for the feeling, and yet the conviction is indubitable: “That is not my Shepherd’s voice.”
It may not be easy to give such marks of the Shepherd’s voice as to enable the Christian to know infallibly whether the solicitations that come to him are indeed from Christ. But there are certain characteristics which always distinguish his calls. There is a story that once there came to the cell of a saintly monk one who knocked and asked for admittance. His mien was lordly and majestic. “Who art thou?” asked the saint. “I am Jesus,” was the answer. There was something in the voice and manner of the visitor, however, which made the monk suspect that he was not the Holy One he claimed to be. “Where is the print of the nails?” he asked. Instantly the stranger turned and fled away. It was Satan – not Christ. Nothing is Christ or of Christ which does not bear this mark.
Said another saint: “There are many hands offered to help you; how shall you know the right one? Because in the centre of the palm there is the scar of a wound received long since, but now glorious with light, according to the saying, ‘He had rays coming out of his hand.’” Every one who comes, however gracious his coming may be, however friendly and winning his voice, however like Christ he may appear, must be subjected to this test: If there is no print of the nail in the hand offered to you it is not a hand you should receive – it is a stranger who is claiming the Shepherd’s place.
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