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MR. SPURGEON once said to his people: “Many church members think that if they do nothing wrong and make no trouble they are all right. Not at all, sir, not at all. Here is a chariot, and we are all engaged to drag it. Some of you do not put out your hand to pull; well, then, the rest of us have to labor so much the more, and the worst of it is, we have to draw you also. While you do not add to the strength which draws, you increase the weight that is to be drawn. It is all very well for you to say, “I do not hinder you.” You do hinder, and you cannot help hindering. If a man’s leg does not help him in walking, it certainly hinders him. Oh, I cannot bear to think of it. That I should be a hindrance to my own soul’s growth is bad indeed; but that I should stand in the way of the people of God and cool their courage and dampen their ardor—my Master, let it never be! Sooner let me sleep among the clods of the valley than be a hindrance to the meanest work that is done for thy name.”

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— January, 1884 —