Our Father In Heaven--Moral Obligations and Religious
Duties--Impiety of Professed Christians--Deficiency of Religious
Gratitude--Gratitude makes Life Cheerful--Religion gives Joy to
Life--Love, the Seed of Religion--The Religion of Christ--Woman's
Heart a Natural Shrine--Religion fit for all Conditions--Love for
the Unseen--Personal Acquaintance not necessary for Love--The Idea
of God Spontaneous--It is the Unseen we Love--Life well lived is
Glorious.
We propose a few thoughts in the present Lecture to young women upon
their _Religious Duties_. The theme is a rich one. Any consideration of
our relations and duties to the great Father of all, the Lord Almighty,
the primal source of being and blessing, is replete with moral grandeur.
God is a great and glorious word, expressive of all infinities, all
perfections, all glories, word of all words, in power and grandeur above
all. It should inspire us with reverence. The thought of that
incomprehensible Being, which we mean by this word, should ever impress
us with moral solemnity. And when we associate with this majestic Being
the idea of Father, clothe him in a Father's love, fill him with a
Father's care and benignity, he appears to us infinitely lovely and
attractive as well as infinitely great and good. It is no common thought
that gives to the universe of spiritual creatures a Father, that binds
them all in one family with God as the head, that mingles in the great
cup of universal existence of which countless millions of sentient
beings are daily partaking, the sweetness of a father's goodness; that
sees that goodness in the shining sun and falling shower, in the starry
firmament and the little flower, in the sweep of worlds and the drop of
dew, in the waving grain and the bubbling spring, in the changing
seasons and the still, calm moments as they fly, in the great race of
men, and in the individual members thereof. We often say "Our Father in
Heaven," but we seldom think of the majesty of the expression, nor the
glorious beauty of the thought it conveys. God's grandeur is as much in
his love as his power, as much in his goodness as his wisdom. He is as
sublime in his Fatherhood as in his supremacy. The ocean of his
tenderness is as deep as the mountain of his holiness is high. God, in
his character, sweeps over the infinite spaces of principle and gathers
in the infinite perfections of all characteristics of good. It is to
such a Being that we owe our existence and all that makes it blessed and
blissful. When we think of the earth as our present home, so wisely
arranged, so beautifully adorned, and of heaven as our final and
immortal scene of growing joy and blessedness; when we think of our own
wonderful powers of mind and heart, and the objects of love and thought
about us upon which to exercise them, progressive, immortal, Godlike in
their nature; when, added to these, we think of the Bible with its
blessed and elevating relations, its love of truth, its mines of
wisdom, its moral sanctions, and, more than all, its Divine Redeemer,
our Pattern Friend, Brother, and Saviour, we can not well fail to be
impressed with the infinite excellency of Him from whom we have received
such rich benefactions.
And when we think that all this is done for us of his own unpurchased
love, our obligations to our Divine Father become clear to our moral
perceptions. We then see that we have religious duties to perform,
duties which press upon us at all seasons and places, duties which we
must perform, or stand before the great white throne of Eternal Love
convicted of deep and dark ingratitude. We have received every thing,
and have the promise of every thing, and have given nothing. We have
been loved with an infinite affection, and have the promise of its
everlasting continuance, and yet many of us have not returned the poor
affections of our feeble finite hearts. We have been over-arched with
the firmament of immortal goodness all our lives long, and have the
promise that it shall span us forever, and yet we have drank in but
little of its life and light. We have fed on the bounties of a benignant
Providence and have scarcely returned an emotion of genuine
thoughtfulness. Here we are; God is all the time doing for us; and we
are thoughtless of his favors and indifferent to his holy friendship. He
strives to impress us with his greatness, but we scarcely seem to
recognize the entreaties of his love or the munificence of his bountiful
hand. Through His love he pleads in the earnest eloquence of a divine
life and a perfect heart for us to bow in love at the feet of Jesus;
but even those of us who profess to do so are cold in our love and weak
in our resolutions. The world has stolen away our hearts. Evil
associates have corrupted our good manners, and we are irreverent,
sensuous, even in the house of God. To illustrate our impiety: suppose
you, by some accident, had been cast away on some lone island,
barrenness reigned around you; cold winds beat against you; alone and
desolate you stood exposed to every element without and a prey to every
want within. The sea in its wild fury roared around you. No living being
heard your cries; no heart beat in sympathy with yours. Now, suppose in
your distress a good spirit of the island should speak to you, out of a
cell or cloud, and ask your wants; and should lead you into a beautiful
temple, and tell you it was yours; should feed and clothe you; should
surround you with beauty and comfort, furnish you with friends, and make
every thing delightful so far as another could do for you, what kind of
feelings ought you to entertain toward the good spirit? If you should
forget him in your enjoyments, should abuse his gifts, should make him
the subject of jest and sport, and blaspheme his name, would you not, in
your thoughtful moments, despise yourself for your ingratitude? And yet
this good spirit, in the supposed case, would not do for you a tithe
your heavenly Father is doing for you every day; for life, and breath,
and powers, all natural as well as spiritual things, we receive at his
hand.
Few things are more base than an ungrateful spirit. If we do a favor
either to a friend or stranger, and get no response of gratitude, we
feel that something is wrong in his heart. Ingratitude we name among the
most hateful feelings that ever darken the fallen heart of humanity. It
is the parent of innumerable vices. It is a cold, Satanic mood of mind,
suggestive of numberless forms of evil. And yet, unless I greatly
mistake, there is much ingratitude in all our hearts. We eat, and forget
the Hand that feeds us. We wear, and heed not the Adorner of our
persons. We admire our bodies, and offer not an emotion of praise to the
grand Architect of the universe and its beauty. We rejoice in our
strength and comeliness, scarcely thinking that we owe it all to the
Divine love. We delight in our domestic relations and affections, and
often grow eloquent in praise of the sweet emotions of delicious joy
which rise within us, half forgetting that they are all gifts from the
gracious Divinity.
We grow proud in the might of our minds, and vain of our works, bloating
often to the bursting point, claiming all the glory to ourselves,
awarding little or none to God. This is lamentably true to an alarming
extent. It is true of youth as well as manhood. Though youth is brimful
of good impulses and quick affections, it is sadly deficient in
religious gratitude. It is right that young people should enjoy the good
things of life and the world, should make merry with each other, and
even be gay amid the profusion of natural gaiety about them, but in
doing so they need not and should not be unmindful of their good Father
in heaven. First in their affections, highest in their joyful adoration
should He stand. God is a parent. In this light should He be regarded.
To be grateful to a parent for favors received does not interfere with
the natural buoyancy of the heart. To love a parent does not make less
active and cheerful the love we bear others, nor gloom our lives with
one single cloud. The young woman who loves her father with an earnest
affection, will not love any body else less, but more. The young man who
loves his mother with his whole soul, who at all times and places, amid
all pleasures and amusements, retains her image in his heart of hearts,
and turns to her ever as the refreshing fountain of his sweetest joy, is
none the less capable of loving all his fellow-men. On the contrary, the
love he bears his mother will be the seed from which will grow a grand
tree of love, the branches and freshness of which will fill his whole
heart and beautify his whole life. If a young man loves his mother
truly, he is safe for a good life. In the end his love will conquer all
and bear off the crown of victory. So of a young woman. This love of
parents is among the healthiest and noblest feelings of the heart. It
seems to be the germinating point of both affection and virtue. It is
both a guard against evil and an inspiration to good. It is more than
simple love, such as we bear others. It is mingled with gratitude. And
as we grow older, gratitude becomes the stronger feeling. And as
gratitude assumes the supremacy, the feeling becomes sweeter and holier.
It assumes a religious nature. It is baptized at the fountain of
religion. And instead of glooming life, it because it is the power of
love. "God is love." It is simple as the story of love in the human
heart. "The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein." All can
easily learn how to love God. Ask the Saviour, and he will say, "Love thy
Father." This is the burden of the glorious sermon of His life. If we
love the Father, it must be in Christ. He has shown us the Father.
Through no other name under heaven is the Father given. By no other can
we come to the Father, for no other has shown him. Christ is the only
way open. How simple, how beautiful--"Love thy Father, and thou shalt be
saved"--saved from darkness and sin!
Christ is the same as God speaking to us; it is God through Christ
saying, "Love me, and thou shalt be blest." It is as though a good
father said to his child, "Love me, and thou shalt be a good and happy
child." The child that loves the Father will obey the Father's voice of
wisdom, and be good as he is great. Love of the parent is the seed of
virtue. Love of God is the seed of religion. It is full of gratitude,
humility, meekness; it is self-sacrificing, forbearing, merciful;
burdened with the sweet spirit of forgiveness. The love of God is the
central love sending out its influence through the whole heart and life.
Who loves God is saved from hatred, impiety, from all intentional wrong.
His heart is made the receptacle of a principle of eternal love, and
hence of "eternal life." 'This love molds and modifies the character;
checks the impulses; sways the passions; subdues enmity; elevates the
affections; gives the ruling loves to truth, to heaven, makes it more
cheerful and bright. It sweetens the whole heart and sheds a moral and
affectionate influence through the whole mind.
Similar to this love of parents, and growing out of it, should be our
love to God. Him we should regard as our parent. As such we should
always think of Him. In all our works, and walks, and joys He should be
present in our minds as our Father. Sweet shall be our thoughts of Him.
Cheerfully should we meditate upon His wonderful works and ways. Gladly
should our hearts praise Him and our souls commune with him. His
commands should inspire us with holy delight. All our life should be
made radiant with the inspiring thoughts of our Father. His matchless
love and marvelous wisdom should make us feel like little children,
happily yet adoringly and gratefully receiving the gifts of parental
goodness. With such a love as this growing in our hearts and shining in
our lives, how good and happy must we be! And yet this is religion. Love
thy Father in heaven, is the full command. All else grows out of this.
We can not love our fellows unless we love our Father. This is the sum
of all Christ's teachings. He gave us the Father. "Show us the Father,
and it sufficeth us." Before Christ, the Father was not known. God had
only partially revealed himself. The glory of the full revelation was
reserved for the immortal and immaculate Son. To know or love the Father
is eternal life. This is the religion of the Saviour--this the religion
of redemption. Salvation is in it. It is the power of God to God; gives
its sanction to virtue; adorns the mind with the graces of godliness;
sweetens the heart with amenities of goodness, and dignifies the soul
with a spiritual assimilation to the Father. Man thus becomes a
spiritual child of God. He is by a nature a natural child, and he is
thus by grace or love made a spiritual child. Under the power of this
love the world assumes a new aspect; it becomes a secondary object, good
in its place, but only a means of spiritual improvement. Life becomes
sublime in its great ends and eternal results. The soul of man becomes,
at least in prospect, a glorious and eternal thing, often darkened by
error and polluted by sin, but the object of God's love and care and the
Redeemer's solicitude, progressively unfolding its powers and putting on
its beauties under the sunshine of the All-seeing eye. And the race of
men become the children of the great and loving Father, whose care and
smiles no figures shall number, no ages wear out. This is the religion
we believe the Saviour inculcated among men, which was the power of God
unto salvation, the central and all-powerful idea of which is love. This
is the religion in which thousands are this day rejoicing and living
lives which are the brightest ornaments of humanity. And this is the
religion which we offer to our youthful friends as the only cure for
sin-sick humanity--the only safe guide through life--the only hope and
strength of youth, manhood, and old age. We have not a separate religion
for youth, nor a distinct religious life for them to live different from
the old. It is the beauty of true religion, as of true love, that it
lasts through all seasons. It is to grow by, live by, and die by; and,
what is more, to rise through endless ages by. We understand this to be
an eternal religion. Who becomes truly religious here, learns so much of
heaven, walks so far in the celestial road. A truthful, religious life
is the first step _in_ heaven, not _to_ heaven. Christ calls it the
kingdom of heaven. Without the principles of religious love no woman's
character is perfect, or so perfect as it may be. However learned,
refined, or cultured she may be by art and society, if her soul is not
baptized in this religious love, this love of the Father, she lacks the
most essential beauty of spiritual womanhood. If she is not grateful to
God, not in love with his glorious perfections, she is yet low and
worldly. Her soul is bound in the chains of sense. It is this religion
which adds the finishing touch of excellency to woman's character. It is
this which makes her divine. In her best estate she is only earthly till
this has wrought its redeeming work within her. To be blessed as she may
be to make her life good and spiritually grand, she should begin early
this devotion to the Father. Her heart should in early youth turn its
face to its God and look up in sweet and grateful adoration. Woman's
heart is the natural shrine of religion; and this shrine should be
dedicated while she is young. In cheerful confidence she should give her
soul to her Father in heaven. The earlier she does it, the truer and
happier will be her life. It is a sad mistake that religion is
depressing and saddening to youth. "It is the soul's calm sunshine and
the heartfelt joy." It is good for youth as for old age--as good to
rejoice as to mourn by. It is as much for sunshine as for shade. He who
has the most of it is the lightest-hearted man.
It is as fitting for the marriage altar as for the burial scene. It is
calculated as much to elevate and gladden the cheerful heart as to
relieve and bless the sorrowful one. Woman in all her relations has an
especial need of religion to sustain her. Her pathway is beset with
trials. She loves and must love her friends. These, one after another,
are separated from her by the customs or accidents of society, or the
stern hand of death; sickness and misfortune must come upon her. Her
soul is sensitive, and she feels keenly the severing of love's dearest
ties. Nowhere else can she find a balm for her aching heart but in the
bosom of the Father. If her heart is spiritualized by a holy religious
love, there will come to her ministering spirits in the hopes and joys
of religion which will bring relief.
Oh, if I could impress on the young female mind the importance of this
subject, I should do the world a benefit we could not estimate. Think of
a woman all through life shedding about her the genial influence of true
religion. From early youth to latest age she is an evangel of peace and
love. Her steps are marked with deeds of charity; her life is radiant
with goodness. She loves her Father, and, loving him, she loves his
children; and, loving them, both her and her heart grow large and her
soul strong and beautiful. Her life is a song of praise. Men love to do
her secret homage, and in many a heart she is surnamed "angel."
Why should any woman think to live without religion? Oh, how sad is her
life without it--how dark her death! It is only in religious love that
the future becomes bright, and hope changes to cheerful faith. I have
presented woman's religious duty in a simple form of love to God. I have
not time to speak of its detail, nor the means of cultivating this love
and growing in the Divine grace; these are given in the sublime yet
simple words of Jesus of Nazareth. To him I refer you for light to guide
you.
I wish to speak a little of an objection that often comes up to the view
of the subject I have taken. It is this: "How can we love a being we
have not seen? a Father we have not known? a God we can not comprehend?"
The objection is a strong one in many minds, and for such I will show
how it looks to me.
Our daily experience tells us that we can love beings we have never
seen. I doubt not that every American loves Washington. His name is dear
to us all. His character and life are our boast and admiration. Not more
should we love him if we had seen him and known him well. It is his
_character_ that we have and not his person. His character is as clear
and glorious to us as it was to his compeers. It thrills us as
delightfully and moves upon us as powerfully as it did upon them. It is
a glory hung around the name of America to which the world looks with a
reverent and admiring joy. To tell me that I can not love Washington
would be to rob me of the highest pride I feel in my country. I love
him for what he was in the day of his earthly glory, the man of all
majesty, the pride of all nations. I love him for what he did, for the
life of spotless virtue and magnificent wisdom and goodness. He lived
for the good of his country and the world. I love him for the tall angel
of light that he now is, and the celestial richness of the glory that
streams from his brow. I know I love him, and no philosophy or
skepticism can cheat me out of that love.
I could name a hundred characters that have lived in the past and now
live in heaven that I know I love in the same way. I love them as really
as I do my personal friends, and love them in proportion to the
greatness and goodness I see in them. I may say the same of many living
men and women. Speaking from my own experience, I should say that I can
love goodness, worth, all that is lovable in character as well as in a
being that I have not seen as one that I have. I have known of people
who have an earthly father living that they have never seen, and whom
they love with a deep and rich fervency of affection. I have known of
children whom poverty or accident has separated in infancy from their
mother, and who cherished for that unknown, far-off maternal friend a
sacred and deathless love. They have meditated hours, days, and weeks on
the sad separation and the sweet, holy bosom from which they drew the
breath of life. In well-formed minds this love grows up with their
growth and strengthens with their strength. The idea of parentage
awakens love in the heart. The relation is so near and dear it can not
be otherwise in good and cultured minds. Then we can love a father whom
we have not seen. We all know that the idea of God is a spontaneity in
the human mind. Though God may be incomprehensible and his ways past
finding out, he is still so much within and around us that we can not
keep the thoughts of him out of our minds. We know, too, that thousands
do love Him with a deathless love who can comprehend him no better than
we. We may infer from this that we can love Him also.
But when we think of His character, its infinite loveliness, its
unfathomable depth of love, and wisdom, and holiness, it seems to me
that the impossibility is in not loving him. How can we help loving him?
Add to this that He is our Father, out of the depth of whose being we
were born, and that he loves us with an unspeakable and eternal love,
and the attraction to love him becomes still stronger. Then think how
much He has done for us; how he has given us our parents and friends,
and all the dear and delightful objects of life, thought, and hope; and
more than this, has given us Jesus, and with him the glorious Gospel,
revealing an immortal life and a glorious inheritance beyond the Jordan
of death. These benefactions of His love make his character appear
infinitely attractive, so that the wonder would seem to be that any
should fail to love him.
It seems clear that the Father may be none the less loved on account of
his being unseen. We are constituted to love things unseen. And if we
scan it closely we shall find that we really love nothing else.
Character worth, virtue, goodness, love, wisdom, knowledge, science,
philosophy, religion, are all unseen. So the charm about a person that
makes us love him is unseen. Indeed, it is the unseen we love, and
nothing else. We are spiritual beings, and made for spiritual exercises.
Our nature is exactly adapted to the love and worship of an unseen God.
When we do not do it we are acting contrary to our nature. We deny
ourselves as well as God when we do not love and adore him. Is it proper
for youth to do so? By no means. All youth, and especially young women,
should feel that so long as they neglect their religious duties they
neglect the most important concerns of their eternal existence. They are
not ephemeral, but eternal creatures. Their relation to God and each
other are eternal ones. They are on the sea of being--turn back they can
not. God is above and around them, and always will be. The sooner they
love Him, the better it will be for them. To love Him is spiritual life;
to love him not is death.
It is a glorious thing to live life well. They can not do it without
religion. Woman is scarcely woman unless the great principle of love
guides her. That principle, directed toward God and man, is the sum
total of the Christian religion. Let every young woman so direct it that
her whole life may be radiant with the light and deeds of love.
Lecture Thirteen.