Crown and Glory of the Church of God.

I think it exceedingly wrong when I hear exhortations made to young
people, "Quit your service as domestics, and come out into spiritual
work.  Business men, leave your shops.  Workmen, give up your
trades.  You cannot serve Christ in that calling, come away from it
altogether."  I beg to say that nothing will be more pestilent than
such advice as that.  There are men called by the grace of God to
separate themselves from every earthly occupation, and they have
special gifts for the work of the ministry; but ever to imagine that the
bulk of Christian people cannot serve God in their daily calling, is to
think altogether contrary to the mind of the Spirit of God.  If you
are a servant, remain a servant.  If you are a waiter, go on with your
waiting.  If you are a tradesman, go on with your trade.  Let every
man abide in the calling wherein he is called, unless there be to him
some special call from God to devote himself to the ministry.  Go on
with your employment, dear Christian people, and do not imagine
that you are to turn hermits, or monks, or nuns.  You would not
glorify God if you did so act.  Soldiers of Christ are to fight the
battle out where they are.  To quit the field, and shut yourselves up
alone, would be to render it impossible that you should get the victory.
The work of God is as holy and acceptable in domestic service, or in
trade, as any service that can be rendered in the pulpit, or even by
the foreign missionary.  We thank God for the men specially called
and set apart for his own work; but we know that they would do
nothing unless the salt of our holy faith should permeate the daily life of
other Christians.  You godly mothers, you are the glory of the Church
of Christ.  You hard-working men and women, who endure patiently
"as seeing him who is invisible," are the crown and glory of the Church
of God.  You who do not shirk your daily labour, but stand manfully
to it, obeying Christ in it, are proving what the Christian religion was
meant to do.  We can, if we are truly priests unto God, make our
everyday garments into vestments, our meals into sacraments, and
our houses into temples for God's worship.  Our very beds will be
within the veil, and our inmost thoughts will be as a sweet incense
perpetually smoking up to the Most High.  Dream not that there is
anything about any honest calling that degrades a man, or hinders him
in glorifying God; but sanctify it all, till the bells upon the horses shall
ring out, "Holiness to the Lord," and the pots in your houses shall be
as holy as the vessels of the sanctuary.
                                                       C. H. Spurgeon