"_His compassions fail not: they are new every morning._"
--LAMENTATIONS iii. 22-33.
We have not to live on yesterday's manna; we can gather it fresh to-day.
Compassion becomes stale when it becomes thoughtless. It is new thought
that keeps our pity strong. If our perception of need can remain vivid, as
vivid as though we had never seen it before, our sympathies will never
fail. The fresh eye insures the sensitive heart. And our God's compassions
are so new because He never becomes accustomed to our need. He always sees
it with an eye that is never dulled by the commonplace; He never becomes
blind with much seeing! We can look at a thing so often that we cease to
see it. God always sees a thing as though He were seeing it for the first
time. "Thou, God, seest me," and "His compassions fail not."
And if my compassions are to be like a river that never knows drought, I
must cultivate a freshness of sight. The horrible can lose its horrors.
The daily tragedy can become the daily commonplace. My neighbour's needs
can become as familiar as my furniture, and I may never see either the one
or the other. And therefore must I ask the Lord for the daily gift of
discerning eyes. "Lord, that I may receive my sight." And with an always
newly-awakened interest may I reveal "the compassions of the Lord!"
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John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England in 1864. Jowett's father had arranged for him to begin working as a clerk for a lawyer in Halifax, but the encouragement of his Sunday school teacher, Mr. Dewhirst, turned Jowett's heart toward the ministry.
After theological training at Edinburgh and Oxford, Jowett assumed the pastorate of the Saint James Congregational Church. His six effective years of ministry brought him to the attention of the Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, England, on the death of their pastor. For the next fifteen years the church grew and prospered. Their pastor's vision led them to increase their efforts to bring people to Christ. In 1917, the mayor of Birmingham said the church had changed the town with "crime and drunkenness having decreased."
Jowett came to America for the first time in 1909 to address the Northfield Conference founded by D. L. Moody. While in America he preached twice at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. The church immediately asked him to come as its pastor. Jowett refused, having received a petition, signed by more than 1,400 members of his church in England, begging him to stay. The Fifth Avenue Church called him again, and then a third time. Finally Jowett concluded that this was God's leading for his life. He assumed the pastorate in 1911.
Although his preaching style was not dynamic (he read all of his sermons), the depth of his knowledge, the clarity of his language, and the power of his life commanded respect. Attendance at the church which had dropped to 600 on Sunday morning rose to 1,500. Lines up to half a block long formed, waiting for unclaimed seats. Jowett began preparing his Sunday sermons on Tuesday, following a meticulously detailed schedule.
When G. Campbell Morgan resigned the Westminster Chapel in London in 1917, Dr. Jowett once again crossed the ocean to take a new church. This would be his final pastorate. Declining health forced him to give up preaching in 1922, and his death in 1923 took from the world one of its most gifted and dedicated preachers.