Again, we have here an example of instinctive shrinking from the personal application of broad truths.
Agrippa listened, half-amused and a good deal interested, to Paul as long as he talked generalities and described his own experience. But when he came to point the generalities and to drive them home to the hearer's heart it was time to stop him. That question of the Apostle's, keen and sudden as the flash of a dagger, went straight home, and the king at once gathered himself together into an attitude of resistance. Ah, that is what hundreds of people do! You will let me preach as long as I like--only you will get a little weary sometimes--you will let me preach generalities ad libitum. But when I come to And thou? then I am rude' and inquisitorial' and personal' and trespassing on a region where I have no business,' and so on and so on. And so you shut up your heart if not your ears.
And yet, brethren, what is the use of toothless generalities? What am I here for if I am not here to take these broad, blunt truths and sharpen them to a point, and try to get them in between the joints of your armour? Can any man faithfully preach the Gospel who is always flying over the heads of his hearers with universalities, and never goes straight to their hearts with Thou--thou art the man! Believest thou?
And so, dear friends, let me press that question upon you. Never mind about other people. Suppose you and I were alone together and my words were coming straight to thee. Would they not have more power than they have now? They are so coming. Think away all these other people, and this place, ay, and me too, and let the word of Christ, which deals with no crowds but with single souls, come to you in its individualising force: Believest thou? You will have to answer that question one day. Better to face it now and try to answer it than to leave it all vague until you get yonder, where each one of us shall give account of himself to God.'
