The Manly Stuff
by C.T. Studd
Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time for waiting is
past! The hour of God has struck! War is declared! In God's holy name let us
arise and build! 'The God of Heaven, He will fight for us,' as we for Him. We
will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the
gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we
fear? Before the whole world, aye, before the sleepless, lukewarm, faithless,
namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our
all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His
joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die
trusting only in our God than live trusting in man. And when we come to this
position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in
sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and
dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of
daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.
Christ's call is to feed the hungry, not the full; to save the lost, not the
stiff-necked; not to call the scoffers, but sinners to repentance; not to build
and furnish comfortable chapel, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to
rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped
prayers and artistic musical performances, but to raise living churches of souls
among the destitute, to capture men from the devil's clutches and snatch them
away from the very jaws of hell, to enlist and train them for Jesus and to make
them into an almighty Army of God. But this can only be accomplished by a
red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Ghost religion, where neither Church
nor State, neither man nor traditions are worshipped or preached, but only
Christ and Him crucified. Not to confess Christ by fancy collars, church
steeples, or richly embroidered altar cloths, but by reckless sacrifice and
heroism in the foremost trenches.