because the sun is too hot or because it looks a little like rain. Others
balk if the wind blows a little or if they do not feel just as good as
they have felt at other times. Some go along with a profession till new
light comes to them, but are unwilling to walk in it. They stop attending
meeting or quit professing or try to go on with a profession and not
measure up. In any of these cases they are balkers.

Do not be a balker. If there is work to be done, do it. If there are
sacrifices to be made, make them. If there is persecution to bear, bear
it. If there are difficulties to be overcome, overcome them. If there are
hard places to pull through, pull through them. If you can fill only a
minor place, fill it well. If you have trials and difficulties and
discouragements, pull through anyway. Do not be a balker. If you have
acquired the habit already, quit it. Get down to business and pull your
share. And do not try to pull independently; pull with the rest of God's
people. All pull together. "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no
pleasure in him."

TALK FIFTY-EIGHT. SPONGES AND WATERING-CANS

It was Jesus' custom to draw spiritual lessons from the things surrounding
him and by some similitude impress upon his hearers a profitable truth; so
we may get many valuable thoughts from the simple things of every-day
life. The articles mentioned in the heading bring to my mind pictures of
two classes of people.

The most noticeable feature of a sponge is its power of absorbing a liquid
and retaining it within itself. If dipped in or placed in contact with a
liquid, it will absorb several times its weight. Some people are like
sponges. They go to meeting and drink in the truth time after time. They
love it. It delights their hearts. They love the singing, the preaching,
the testimonies, and the prayers. They absorb and absorb, but, like the
sponge, they give out nothing. The sponge gives up what it has taken in
only when it is subjected to pressure. So it is with these human sponges.
While they love to listen, they have to be urged to do anything. They
testify only when they feel duty-bound to do so or when they are urged by
somebody else. They rarely pray in meeting. They are among the last in all
such things. To go where a congregation are mostly sponges is to find a
few having all to do and to find a dull, insipid meeting. Wet sponges will
not burn. Neither will the fire of God burn in a congregation of sp