What can shake thy sure repose?

There is a provision in the Mosaic law
against offering to the Lord a deformed ram
or a sick ewe. Shall we offer to him any bet-
ter, our hours of drowsiness, and reserve the
wide-awake ones for the Board of Trade? By
all means remember the evening prayer of
childhood, but keep even a little clearer the
ringing words of Isaiah, "Awake ! Awake ! O
Zion! Put on thy strength! Shake thyself
from the dust !"

2. ^^You in your little corner and I in mine/^
The words suggest the little reed organ in the
primary room and the eager chorus of youthful



CARRIED OVER LIABILITIES 107

voices, Happy the church to which they sug-
gest nothing else ! Sometimes they inevitably
suggest something by no means so inspiring-
a lack of real cooperation between members
and societies, so that whatever prosecution of
the work there is is a case of you in your
"little corner and I in mine." It may be a case
of too many Caesars who care more about being
first in the little Alpine village of some par-
ticular branch of work than second or third in
the larger Rome. It may be simply the lack
of a common vision which results in the differ-
ent organizations Of the church moving like
a group of camp followers, instead of march-
ing with the orderly swing of an army. With-
out the thought of the larger whole they fre-
quently duplicate, compete, and tread on one
another's toes and even work at cross pur-
poses. The result is a sad loss of energy and
momentum. One of Kipling's finest stories
is that of "the ship that found herself." In
it he puts what is his one great message — the
victory of discipline and organization over
individualism and anarchy. The ship is mak-
ing her first voyage and the different parts
assert themselves in clamorous voices, each
claiming its right to pull its own way and



108 FARES, PLEASE!

complaining of the other parts. Finally a new
voice speaks, which none of the parts recog-
nize. It is the voice of the ship herself, the
larger whole to which the parts belong. 