Wakefield

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  “In some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as truth, of a man—let us call him Wakefield—who absented himself for a long time from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very uncommon, nor, without a proper distinction of circumstances, to be condemned either as naughty or nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from the most aggravated, is perhaps the strangest instance on record of marital delinquency, and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found in the whole list of human oddities. The wedded couple lived in London. The man, under pretense of going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upward of twenty years. During that period he beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn Mrs. Wakefield. And after so great a gap in his matrimonial felicity—when his death was reckoned certain, his estate settled...

Must it even be fed?

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J. Edwin Orr tells of meeting a “pastor describing the war between the Old and New Natures, concluding that the Old Nature could not be defeated in this life. He quoted a well-known story of a Hopi Indian, giving his testimony in a meeting crowded with braves and squaws. The big man told his audience that, before his conversion, he used to go to town on Saturday night and get drunk, and then his big black dog used to bite everybody. After Jesus Christ came into his life, He gave him a great white dog, which liked to help everybody. But now the two dogs, fought against each other. A chief sitting on the front seat asked the important question: ‘Which dog winning?’ Said the brave, after careful reflection: ‘Whichever dog I feed the most!’

I expected the pastor to say: ‘That’s a picture of a carnal Christian!’ Instead he said that it was a picture of a Christian until the day of his death.

So I sought out the preacher, and spoke with him in this way: ‘There are some Christians who say that we can shoot the old black dog dead, but they agree that we can raise another black pup; so let’s not bother about that. But don’t you believe that it is possible to chain the old black dog up to keep him from doing damage? And don’t you believe that it is possible not to feed the old black dog at all?’

J. Edwin Orr, Chapter 10, “Sanctification Threefold.” Full Surrender.

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