TESTIMONY BY MANNER OF LIFE, NOT BY DISPLAY OF WORKS

^[p. 257] TESTIMONY BY MANNER OF LIFE, NOT BY DISPLAY OF WORKS

I believe that all effective testimony is in proportion to the effect of the word on oneself. No matter what I say, or what is the greatness of my services, the moral weight or testimony is determined by my own manner of life. I might give half my goods to feed the poor. I might give my body to be burned, and yet be deficient in love. It is a busy day, and it is possible to be seen of men, but this is not “light”. If thine eye is single, thy whole body shall be full of light, or — thy whole body is luminous! I think you will find everywhere that the tendency is to effect a testimony by works rather than by individual manner of life. “One thing is needful”. Mary sitting at the Lord’s feet was learning of Him. She is unseen except to her Lord, and when she acts the house is filled with the odour of the ointment. Be assured that the greater the outward display, the less is the inward power. The former is often rested in to make up for the latter. Men may be deceived by it, but the Lord is not. I believe that in preaching the gospel, and in everything, the less ostentatious we are the better. The Holy Ghost is invisible to the world; God could not make any one conspicuous in the world where His Son was rejected. I see — and I dread it — the way in which individual devotedness is supplanted by display of collective activity.

May you be exemplary from your personal devotedness; your great testimony has been in your individual path, and the more personally devoted you are the greater will be your testimony.