The great scholar is not a person who has a multiplicity of interests in life, who dips into this, looks at that, tastes one enjoyable thing after another. I have known these sort of people and I know the single minded intensity of thought and labor which makes them. We are apt to think of the very learned as unemotional, dull; far from it. No one would ever do such work without a dominating passion, an all absorbing thirst driving him. The person who can say ‘one thing I know’ is a person who gets things done. It is the person who says ‘I know the world is round’ who gets in a boat and sails around it. It is the person who says ‘I know there is a way to the top of the mountain or to the Pole’ who gets there. It is the person who says ‘I know I can succeed in this job’ who does succeed.’
And the one who succeeds (if the word may be allowed) in Christian life is not the person with a variety of religious opinions, but the person who knows, really knows—one thing. It is real conviction which is, I think the ‘one thing’ lacked by so many people; they are interested, they are sympathetic, they are fairly well informed, but they cannot say ‘I know’.
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