but go ahead and do as God bade him, then Peter goes on to carry out the
Divine direction. Then the church, aghast, as usual, at anything new--
always down upon a measure, whether good or bad, if it has the _awful
quality of being new_--was down upon it. This new church, which had only
just itself been brought to God by a set of _new measures_, is down
upon Peter, and they call him to the council to answer for his conduct.

He tells them all about it in the truthful simplicity of a man of
God, and, thank God, they bad sense enough--yes, and love enough,
charity enough, to accept his explanations, and to glorify God. Would
to God we could get as much sense and charity in these days!

A lady writes to me, only the other day, of her husband, saying that
he sympathises with outside work, but contends that there is
everything one wants in the church; and another contends that there
is everything everybody wants somewhere else, and so they are down
upon all the Peters that dare to do anything out of the jog-trot
line. You may reason ever so urgently, and show them that all these
old measures are not enough for everybody, that there is a great mass
of outlying population which they do not reach--the Gentiles of this
generation; you may show them that these Gentiles are without the
Holy Ghost, that they are not cleansed, that they are yet common and
unclean; you may show them that these new measures of yours are quite
as lawful as their old measures, and that, probably, they would be a
great deal more useful, and, moreover, that they have been borne in
upon you by the Holy Ghost, and that you feel as if there were a fire
in your bones urging you to go and try them, but they will not hold
their peace and glorify God, but will loose their tongues and villify
you.