• She 
 TASK 
 ► GOLDEN !? 
 
 QUAYLE 
 
 PS 
 
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 INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
 of - NORTH AMERICA n 
 
 I11FIFTH AVENUE -NEW -YORK: CITY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/taskgoldenOOquay 
 
The Task Golden 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 
 
 INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
 OE NORTH AMERICA 
 hi Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 
Price, s cents each; 50 cents per dozen 
 $2.75 per hundred 
 
The Task Golden 
 
 By William A. Quayle 
 
 JT IS worth while to be in the great Church 
 
 of the great God, steering for a great 
 eternity. To get hold of a thing that is big 
 enough to get hold of us is magnificent, but to 
 go winking and blinking around about little 
 things is not worth the winks and the blinks. 
 To get hold of the sea and tuck your fingers 
 into its mane, and to feel it leap and fight, 
 and to hold your seat and ride it to the shore! 
 That is worth while ! But who is going to keep 
 us to our immortality? Who is going to keep 
 us to our greatness? Who is going to look 
 after our vastnesses, and tell us with insistent 
 voice that we are sublime ? Who is going to 
 tell us that death does not count, if we live a 
 right life? To point the finger at the majesty 
 we are and the majesty we are to be? 
 
 Looking After Our Immortality 
 
 There are many to help us look after our 
 mortality — the grocer will help us, and the 
 doctor, and shoe merchant, and statesman 
 and educator— all these and more will help us. 
 But who is going to help us to look God- 
 ward ? Who is going to help us to look after 
 our everlastingness ? The preacher. He is 
 the man who will help us. He is the man to 
 keep us in tune with the infinite. He is the 
 man who, though he may not be the most 
 learned, has heard in his own heart the death- 
 less music, and pitches the tune for us; for 
 what people need is: 
 
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THE TASK GOLDEN 
 
 The Tune of Everlastingness 
 
 When men say: “Preach on the things of 
 the day; on things that people are thinking 
 about during the week,” I never do; because 
 folks think of those things themselves and do 
 not need my help. So on Sunday I take up 
 the harp of life and smite its strings with what 
 little might I have, and try to make men dream 
 of deathlessness. For the thing the preacher 
 is after is to get hold of men’s souls, that they 
 may know that life leads a long distance and 
 that the run is very far, and very glorious. 
 
 O my soul, canst thou make the run? 
 Canst thou win the race? Who is going to 
 get thee to the summit of the sky, and back 
 behind the stars ? Who is going to get thee 
 over where the angels stay; where Christ 
 walks the road every day and brings a morn- 
 ing to every shadowy night? Who is going 
 to get thee there ? It is the preacher who will 
 help you, and so the preacher is the most 
 manifest majesty of all men. 
 
 Preachers 
 
 Think of the men you have had preach to 
 you; who lifted you up until you fell on 
 the Outstretched Hand, and caught the foot 
 of the cross of God. Men utterly human 
 and grandly divine. One such preacher 
 came to me, put his hand on my shoulder 
 and said, “God wants you.” And I came 
 up the aisle of the schoolhouse; not to the 
 chancel— there wasn’t any — only the diction- 
 ary — and bowed there. The wjnd was wild 
 
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THE TASK GOLDEN 
 
 that night! It was as stormy as the wide 
 sea, the storm that beat upon that prairie 
 schoolhouse. It blew as it did on the Sea 
 of Galilee. But Christ walked on the Sea 
 and came to me and said, “My boy, what do 
 you want?” And I said, “I want Thee, O 
 Christ.” And he said, “Lo, I am here!” 
 
 Talking of God in Dreams 
 
 There isn’t anybody who ever drew breath, 
 who can wing the arrow of golden words 
 beautiful enough for the preachers of God. 
 Though they have small salaries and large 
 families and few belongings and scant wealth, 
 they have God. In their dreams they talk 
 about God. Said an aged minister, “I am 
 old, and have been retired for years, and 
 cannot preach; but sometimes in the night 
 I awaken myself from sleep because I dream 
 that I am preaching;” and his voice was as 
 wistful as a mother’s calling the name of her 
 dead daughter. If you ever heard that you 
 will never forget it. 
 
 Thank God for the preachers who thought 
 so little of themselves because they thought 
 so much of Christ! Thank God for the 
 preachers who visit everybody, and do not 
 know that there are lowly people in the world 
 and think that there are only high people, 
 because Christ died for all; who say to every- 
 one, “Brother, Christ spoke your name in 
 my ear and He said that He knew you. Come 
 over to Him, come over!” 
 
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THE TASK GOLDEN 
 
 Climbing the Stairs 
 
 I was a guest in a preacher’s home. His 
 wife was a minister’s daughter, and soon we 
 were talking about her father and mother, 
 and she told me a sweet and beautiful story: 
 Her mother was dying with inflammatory 
 rheumatism, and they moved her from room 
 to room down-stairs, because the pain was so 
 terrible that she could not remain long in 
 one place. One day she asked to be taken 
 up-stairs, and her daughter said, “Mother, 
 we cannot take you up-stairs; the doctor 
 says that the least jar might send the rheu- 
 matism to your heart. You would die on 
 the stairs.” But she would not turn back 
 and panted her way up-stairs to a little 
 room with only one small window; and when 
 they expostulated with her for taking the 
 poorest room in the house she smiled. 
 
 The Little Attic Window 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and the little 
 window looked straight back through the 
 church to the pulpit so that, while lying in 
 bed propped up on the pillows, she could 
 see her husband come into the pulpit and 
 preach. She had climbed the stairs in jeopardy 
 of her life that she might see her husband 
 climb into the pulpit, stand behind the holy 
 desk and open the Holy Book; and she lay 
 there smiling. The next morning through 
 that attic window she saw the Great White 
 Throne and heard her Saviour’s welcome, 
 “ Well done.” 
 
 8 
 
THE TASK GOLDEN 
 
 O Church of our supreme love, watch your 
 minister climb into the pulpit and open the 
 Holy Book! Climb the stairs with him and, 
 peradventure, he will so open the truth of 
 God that mortality shall be swallowed up 
 of life, things little shall look large, and the 
 glory of God shall come into your heart. 
 Follow your preacher into the pulpit so that 
 he may know that somebody is hungry to 
 see him and hear him and love him. And 
 by and by, when he is clean tired out, give 
 him a chance to rest awhile, and say to him: 
 “ Beloved, sit down and wait a while, until 
 you are summoned to climb the stairs into 
 the arms of God.” 
 
 The Lost Word 
 
 A story by Henry Van Dyke, “The Lost 
 Word,” tells that in the early Christian days 
 a man of superior ability and accomplishment 
 turned his back on God and went his own way. 
 Then came a time when his child was dying, 
 and he groped for a word — a great healing, 
 helpful word, but he couldn’t catch it. If 
 he could command it, he could have his 
 child and happiness back again. So he went 
 around crying, “The Lost Word! The Lost 
 Word!” At last, when his strength was 
 spent, and he could cry no more, there came 
 a man of God, who leaned over and whispered, 
 “The name is ‘Christ.’” The lost word was 
 “Christ.” Yes, and the lost word still is 
 “Christ” — and it is the minister who tells 
 it to us. This is The Task Golden. 
 
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THE TASK GOLDEN 
 
 We are not seeking for the preacher an 
 easy old age. We are trying to give him a 
 vigorous, undistracted young age, in which to 
 teach and preach and live the gospel. He is 
 the propagator of immortality and the 
 guardian of morality. There is no might 
 known to history that can keep the republic 
 alive but the gospel, and there is only one 
 ground that can grow permanent virtue — 
 that is the Church of God. We have the 
 brains; but brains never kept the world 
 alive, never made anyone worthily great. 
 It is virtue that rules the world; and the 
 church’s business is to help men to be good. 
 Righteousness is the price the world must 
 pay for life. Love and goodness alone will 
 keep it alive, and God is to make the world 
 good through the church, by the preacher. 
 The future as well as the present needs virtue, 
 needs God, for glorious virtue is necessary 
 to the continuance of democracy. There is 
 one institution alone whose sole business is 
 to keep the world living in virtue — the Church 
 of God; and for this task the preacher is the 
 church’s Indispensable Man. His is The 
 Task Golden. 
 
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