A Superior Race

There can be no comparison between a soaring seraph and a crawling worm. Christian men ought so to live that it were idle to speak of a comparison between them and the men of the world. It should not be a comparison but a contrast. The believer should be a direct and manifest contradiction to the unregenerate. The life of a saint should be altogether above, and out of the same list as the life of a sinner.

If we were what we profess to be, we should be as distinct a people in the midst of this world, as a white race in a community of Ethiopians—there should be no more difficulty in detecting the Christian from the worldling than in discovering a sheep from a goat, or a lamb from a wolf.

The lost world should be rebuked by our unworldly, unselfish character. There should be as much difference between the worldling and the Christian, as between hell and heaven, between destruction and eternal life. As we hope at last that there shall be a great gulf separating us from the doom of the impenitent, there should be here a deep and wide gulf between us and the ungodly in the present.

The purity of our character should be such, that men must take knowledge of us that we are of another and superior race.

There should be a ring of true metal about our speech and lifestyle, so that when a brother meets us, he can say, “You are a Christian, I know, for none but Christians speak like that, or act like that.” “You also were with Jesus of Nazareth, for your speech betrays you.”

Alas! the Church is so much adulterated. God grant us more and more to be most clearly a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we may show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

C.H.S.