in a manger; thus born, that in all ages he might be known as the
brother and friend of the poor. And surely, it seems but appropriate to
commemorate his birthday by an especial remembrance of the lowly, the
poor, the outcast, and distressed; and if Christ should come back to our
city on a Christmas day, where should we think it most appropriate to
his character to find him? Would he be carrying splendid gifts to
splendid dwellings, or would he be gliding about in the cheerless haunts
of the desolate, the poor, the forsaken, and the sorrowful?"
And here the conversation ended.
* * * * *
"What sort of Christmas presents is Ella buying?" said Cousin Tom, as
the waiter handed in a portentous-looking package, which had been just
rung in at the door.
"Let's open it," said saucy Will. "Upon my word, two great gray blanket
shawls! These must be for you and me, Tom! And what's this? A great bolt
of cotton flannel and gray yarn stockings!"
The door bell rang again, and the waiter brought in another bulky
parcel, and deposited it on the marble-topped centre table.
"What's here?" said Will, cutting the cord. "Whew! a perfect nest of
packages! oolong tea! oranges! grapes! white sugar! Bless me, Ella must
be going to housekeeping!"
"Or going crazy!" said Tom; "and on my word," said he, looking out of
the window, "there's a drayman ringing at our door, with a stove, with a
teakettle set in the top of it!"
"Ella's cook stove, of course," said Will; and just at this moment the
young lady entered, with her purse hanging gracefully over her hand.
"Now, boys, you are too bad!" she exclaimed, as each of the mischievous
youngsters were gravely marching up and down, attired in a gray shawl.
"Didn't you get them for us? We thought you did," said both.
"Ella, I want some of that cotton flannel, to make me a pair of
pantaloons," said Tom.
"I say, Ella," said Will, "when are you going to housekeeping? Your
cooking stove is standing down in the street; 'pon my word, John is
loading some coal on the dray with it."
"Ella, isn't that going to be sent to my office?" said Tom; "do you know
I do so languish for a new stove with a teakettle in the top, to heat a
fellow's shaving water!"
Just then, another ring at the door, and the grinning waiter handed in a
small brown paper parcel for Miss Ella. Tom made a dive at it, and
staving off the brown paper, developed a jaunty little purple velvet
cap, with silver tassels.
"My smoking cap, as I live!" said he; "only I shall have to wear it on
my thumb, instead of my head--too small entirely," said he, shaking his
head gravely.
"Come, you saucy boys," said Aunt E., entering briskly, "what are you
teasing Ella for?"
"Why, do see this lot of things, aunt! What in the world is Ella going
to do with them?"
"O, I know!"
"You know! Then I can guess, aunt, it is some of your charitable works.
You are going to make a juvenile Lady Bountiful of El, eh?"
Ella, who had colored to the roots of her hair at the _expose_ of her
very unfashionable Christmas preparations, now took heart, and bestowed
a very gentle and salutary little cuff on the saucy head that still wore
the purple cap, and then hastened to gather up her various purchases.
"Laugh away," said she, gayly; "and a good many others will laugh, too,
over these things. I got them to make people laugh--people that are not
in the habit of laughing!"
"Well, well, I see into it," said Will; "and I tell you I think right
well of the idea, too. There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of
the year, in getting things that nobody wants, and nobody cares for
after they are got; and I am glad, for my part, that you are going to
get up a variety in this line; in fact, I should like to give you one of
these stray leaves to help on," said he, dropping a ten dollar note into
her paper. "I like to encourage girls to think of something besides
breastpins and sugar candy."
But our story spins on too long. If any body wants to see the results of
Ella's first attempts at _good fairyism_, they can call at the doors of
two or three old buildings on Christmas morning, and they shall hear all
about it.
EARTHLY CARE A HEAVENLY DISCIPLINE.
"Why should these cares my heart divide,
If Thou, indeed, hast set me free?
Why am I thus, if Thou hast died--
If Thou hast died to ransom me?"
Nothing is more frequently felt and spoken of, as a hinderance to the
inward life of devotion, than the "cares of life;" and even upon the
showing of our Lord himself, the cares of the world are the _thorns_
that choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
And yet, if this is a necessary and inevitable result of worldly care,
why does the providence of God so order things that it forms so large
and unavoidable a part of every human experience? Why is the physical
system of man arranged with such daily, oft-recurring wants? Why does
his nature, in its full development, tend to that state of society in
which wants multiply, and the business of supply becomes more
complicated, and requiring constantly more thought and attention, and
bringing the outward and seen into a state of constant friction and
pressure on the inner and spiritual?
Has God arranged an outward system to be a constant diversion from the
inward--a weight on its wheels--a burden on its wings--and then
commanded a strict and rigid inwardness and spirituality? Why placed us
where the things that are seen and temporal must unavoidably have so
much of our thoughts, and time, and care, yet said to us, "Set your
affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. Love not the
world, neither the things of the world"? And why does one of our
brightest examples of Christian experience, as it should be, say, "While
we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are
not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
that are not seen are eternal"?
The Bible tells us that our whole existence here is a disciplinary one;
that this whole physical system, by which our spirit is enclosed with
all the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, and wants which form a part
of it, are designed as an education to fit the soul for its immortality;
and as worldly care forms the greater part of the staple of every human
life, there must be some mode of viewing and meeting it, which converts
it from an enemy of spirituality into a means of grace and spiritual
advancement.
Why, then, do we so often hear the lamentation, "It seems to me as if I
could advance to the higher stages of Christian life, if it were not for
the pressure of my business and the multitude of my worldly cares"? Is
it not God, O Christian, who, in ordering thy lot, has laid these cares
upon thee, and who still holds them about thee, and permits no escape
from them? And as his great, undivided object is thy spiritual
improvement, is there not some misapprehension or wrong use of these
cares, if they do not tend to advance it? Is it not even as if a scholar
should say, I could advance in science were it not for all the time and
care which lessons, and books, and lectures require?
How, then, shall earthly care become heavenly discipline? How shall the
disposition of the weight be altered so as to press the spirit upward
towards God, instead of downward and away? How shall the pillar of cloud
which rises between us and him become one of fire, to reflect upon us
constantly the light of his countenance, and to guide us over the sands
of life's desert?
It appears to us that the great radical difficulty is an intellectual
one, and lies in a wrong belief. There is not a genuine and real belief
of the presence and agency of God in the minor events and details of
life, which is necessary to change them from secular cares into
spiritual blessings.
It is true there is much loose talk about an overruling Providence; and
yet, if fairly stated, the belief of a great many Christians might be
thus expressed: God has organized and set in operation certain general
laws of matter and mind, which work out the particular results of life,
and over these laws he exercises a general supervision and care, so that
all the great affairs of the world are carried on after the counsel of
his own will; and in a certain general sense, all things are working
together for good to those that love God. But when some simple-minded,
childlike Christian really proceeds to refer all the smaller events of
life to God's immediate care and agency, there is a smile of
incredulity, and it is thought that the good brother displays more
Christian feeling than sound philosophy.
But as life for every individual is made up of fractions and minute
atoms--as those things which go to affect habits and character are small
and hourly recurring, it comes to pass that a belief in Providence so
very wide and general, is altogether inefficient for consecrating and
rendering sacred the great body of what comes in contact with the mind
in the experience of life. Only once in years does the Christian with
this kind of belief hear the voice of the Lord God speaking to him. When
the hand of death is laid on his child, or the bolt strikes down the
brother by his side, _then_, indeed, he feels that God is drawing near;
he listens humbly for the inward voice that shall explain the meaning
and need of this discipline. When by some unforeseen occurrence the
whole of his earthly property is swept away,--he becomes a poor
man,--this event, in his eyes, assumes sufficient magnitude to have come
from God, and to have a design and meaning; but when smaller comforts
are removed, smaller losses are encountered, and the petty, every-day
vexations and annoyances of life press about him, he recognizes no God,
and hears no voice, and sees no design. Hence John Newton says, "Many
Christians, who bear the loss of a child, or the destruction of all
their property, with the most heroic Christian fortitude, are entirely
vanquished and overcome by the breaking of a dish, or the blunders of a
servant, and show so unchristian a spirit, that we cannot but wonder at
them."
So when the breath of slander, or the pressure of human injustice, comes
so heavily on a man as really to threaten loss of character, and
destruction of his temporal interests, he seems forced to recognize the
hand and voice of God, through the veil of human agencies, and in
time-honored words to say,--
"When men of spite against me join,
They are the _sword_; the hand is thine."
But the smaller injustice and fault-finding which meet every one more or
less in the daily intercourse of life, the overheard remark, the implied
censure, too petty, perhaps, to be even spoken of, these daily recurring
sources of disquietude and unhappiness are not referred to God's
providence, nor considered as a part of his probation and discipline.
Those thousand vexations which come upon us through the
unreasonableness, the carelessness, the various constitutional failings,
or ill-adaptedness of others to our peculiarities of character, form a
very large item of the disquietudes of life; and yet how very few look
beyond the human agent, and feel these are trials coming from God! Yet
it is true, in many cases, that these so called minor vexations form the
greater part, and in many cases the only discipline of _life_; and to
those that do not view them as ordered individually by God, and coming
upon them by specified design, "their affliction 'really' cometh of the
dust, and their trouble springs out of the ground;" it is sanctified and
relieved by no divine presence and aid, but borne alone and in a mere
human spirit, and by mere human reliances, it acts on the mind as a
constant diversion and hinderance, instead of a moral discipline.
Hence, too, come a coldness, and generality, and wandering of mind in
prayer: the things that are on the heart, that are distracting the mind,
that have filled the soul so full that there is no room for any thing
else, are all considered too small and undignified to come within the
pale of a prayer, and so, with a wandering mind and a distracted heart,
the Christian offers up his prayer for things which he thinks he _ought_
to want, and makes no mention of those which he _does_. He prays that
God would pour out his spirit on the heathen, and convert the world, and
build up his kingdom every where, when perhaps a whole set of little
anxieties, and wants, and vexations are so distracting his thoughts,
that he hardly knows what he has been saying: a faithless servant is
wasting his property; a careless or blundering workman has spoiled a lot
of goods; a child is vexatious or unruly; a friend has made promises and
failed to keep them; an acquaintance has made unjust or satirical
remarks; some new furniture has been damaged or ruined by carelessness
in the household; but all this trouble forms no subject matter for
prayer, though there it is, all the while lying like lead on the heart,
and keeping it down, so that it has no power to expand and take in any
thing else. But were God known and regarded as the soul's familiar
friend, were every trouble of the heart as it rises, breathed into his
bosom; were it felt that there is not one of the smallest of life's
troubles that has not been permitted by him, and permitted for specific
good purpose to the soul, how much more would these be in prayer! how
constant, how daily might it become! how it might settle and clear the
atmosphere of the soul! how it might so dispose and lay away many
anxieties which now take up their place there, that there might be
_room_ for the higher themes and considerations of religion!
Many sensitive and fastidious natures are worn away by the constant
friction of what are called _little troubles_. Without any great
affliction, they feel that all the flower and sweetness of their life
have faded; their eye grows dim, their cheek care-worn, and their spirit
loses hope and elasticity, and becomes bowed with premature age; and in
the midst of tangible and physical comfort, they are restless and
unhappy. The constant under-current of little cares and vexations, which
is slowly wearing on the finer springs of life, is seen by no one;
scarce ever do they speak of these things to their nearest friends. Yet
were there a friend of a spirit so discerning as to feel and sympathize
in all these things, how much of this repressed electric restlessness
would pass off through such a sympathizing mind.
Yet among human friends this is all but impossible, for minds are so
diverse that what is a trial and a care to one is a matter of sport and
amusement to another; and all the inner world breathed into a human ear
only excites a surprised or contemptuous pity. Whom, then, shall the
soul turn to? Who will feel _that_ to be affliction which each spirit
feels to be so? If the soul shut itself within itself, it becomes
morbid; the fine chords of the mind and nerves by constant wear become
jarring and discordant; hence fretfulness, discontent, and habitual
irritability steal over the sincere Christian.
But to the Christian that really believes in the agency of God in the
smallest events of life, that confides in his love, and makes his
sympathy his refuge, the thousand minute cares and perplexities of life
become each one a fine affiliating bond between the soul and its God.
God is known, not by abstract definition, and by high-raised conceptions
of the soul's aspiring hours, but known as a man knoweth his friend; he
is known by the hourly wants he supplies; known by every care with which
he momentarily sympathizes, every apprehension which he relieves, every
temptation which he enables us to surmount. We learn to know God as the
infant child learns to know its mother and its father, by all the
helplessness and all the dependence which are incident to this
commencement of our moral existence; and as we go on thus year by year,
and find in every changing situation, in every reverse, in every
trouble, from the lightest sorrow to those which wring our soul from its
depths, that he is equally present, and that his gracious aid is equally
adequate, our faith seems gradually almost to change to sight; and God's
existence, his love and care, seem to us more real than any other source
of reliance, and multiplied cares and trials are only new avenues of
acquaintance between us and heaven.
Suppose, in some bright vision unfolding to our view, in tranquil
evening or solemn midnight, the glorified form of some departed friend
should appear to us with the announcement, "This year is to be to you
one of especial probation and discipline, with reference to perfecting
you for a heavenly state. Weigh well and consider every incident of your
daily life, for not one shall fall out by accident, but each one is to
be a finished and indispensable link in a bright chain that is to draw
you upward to the skies!"
With what new eyes should we now look on our daily lot! and if we found
in it not a single change,--the same old cares, the same perplexities,
the same uninteresting drudgeries still,--with what new meaning would
every incident be invested! and with what other and sublimer spirit
could we meet them? Yet, if announced by one rising from the dead with
the visible glory of a spiritual world, this truth could be asserted no
more clearly and distinctly than Jesus Christ has stated it already. Not
a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father. Not one of them is
forgotten by him; and we are of more value than many sparrows; yea, even
the hairs of our head are all numbered. Not till belief in these
declarations, in their most literal sense, becomes the calm and settled
habit of the soul, is life ever redeemed from drudgery and dreary
emptiness, and made full of interest, meaning, and divine significance.
Not till then do its grovelling wants, its wearing cares, its stinging
vexations, become to us ministering spirits, each one, by a silent but
certain agency, fitting us for a higher and perfect sphere.
CONVERSATION ON CONVERSATION.
"For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment."
"A very solemn sermon," said Miss B., shaking her head impressively, as
she sat down to table on Sunday noon; then giving a deep sigh, she
added, "I am afraid that if an account is to be rendered for all our
idle words, some people will have a great deal to answer for."
"Why, Cousin Anna," replied a sprightly young lady opposite, "what do
you mean by _idle words_?"
"All words that have not a strictly useful tendency, Helen," replied
Miss B.
"I don't know what is to become of me, then," answered Helen, "for I
never can think of any thing useful to say. I sit and try sometimes, but
it always stops my talking. I don't think any thing in the world is so
doleful as a set of persons sitting round, all trying to say something
useful, like a parcel of old clocks ticking at each other. I think one
might as well take the vow of entire silence, like the monks of La
Trappe."
"It is probable," said Miss B., "that a greater part of our ordinary
conversation had better be dispensed with. 'In the multitude of words
there wanteth not sin.' For my own part, my conscience often reproaches
me with the sins of my tongue."
"I'm sure you don't sin much that way, I must say," said Helen; "but,
cousin, I really think it is a freezing business sitting still and
reflecting all the time when friends are together; and after all I can't
bring myself to feel as if it were wrong to talk and chatter away a good
part of the time, just for the sake of talking. For instance, if a
friend comes in of a morning to make a call, I talk about the weather,
my roses, my Canary birds, or any thing that comes uppermost."
"And about lace, and bonnet patterns, and the last fashions," added Miss
B., sarcastically.
"Well, supposing we do; where's the harm?"
"Where's the good?" said Miss B.
"The good! why, it passes time agreeably, and makes us feel kindly
towards each other."
"I think, Helen," said Miss B., "if you had a higher view of Christian
responsibility, you would not be satisfied with merely passing time
agreeably, or exciting agreeable feelings in others. Does not the very
text we are speaking of show that we have an account to give in the day
of judgment for all this trifling, useless conversation?"
"I don't know what that text does mean," replied Helen, looking
seriously; "but if it means as you say, I think it is a very hard,
strait rule."
"Well," replied Miss B., "is not duty always hard and strait? 'Strait is
the gate, and narrow is the way,' you know."
Helen sighed.
"What do you think of this, Uncle C.?" she said, after some pause. The
uncle of the two young ladies had been listening thus far in silence.
"I think," he replied, "that before people begin to discuss, they should
be quite sure as to what they are talking about; and I am not exactly
clear in this case. You say, Anna," said he, turning to Miss B., "that
all conversation is idle which has not a directly useful tendency. Now,
what do you mean by that? Are we never to say any thing that has not for
its direct and specific object to benefit others or ourselves?"
"Yes," replied Miss B., "I suppose not."
"Well, then, when I say, 'Good morning, sir; 'tis a pleasant day,' I
have no such object. Are these, then, idle words?"
"Why, no, not exactly," replied Miss B.; "in some cases it is necessary
to say something, so as not to appear rude."
"Very well," replied her uncle. "You admit, then, that some things,
which are not instructive in themselves considered, are to be said to
keep up the intercourse of society."
"Certainly; some things," said Miss B.
"Well, now, in the case mentioned by Helen, when two or three people
with whom you are in different degrees of intimacy call upon you, I
think she is perfectly right, as she said, in talking of roses, and
Canary birds, and even of bonnet patterns, and lace, or any thing of the
kind, for the sake of making conversation. It amounts to the same thing
as 'good morning,' and 'good evening,' and the other courtesies of
society. This sort of small talk has nothing instructive in it, and yet
it may be _useful_ in its place. It makes people comfortable and easy,
promotes kind and social feelings; and making people comfortable by any
innocent means is certainly not a thing to be despised."
"But is there not great danger of becoming light and trifling if one
allows this?" said Miss B., doubtfully.
"To be sure; there is always danger of running every innocent thing to
excess. One might eat to excess, or drink to excess; yet eating and
drinking are both useful in their way. Now, our lively young friend
Helen, here, might perhaps be in some temptation of this sort; but as
for you, Anna, I think you in more danger of another extreme."
"And what is that?"
"Of overstraining your mind by endeavoring to keep up a constant, fixed
state of seriousness and solemnity, and not allowing yourself the
relaxation necessary to preserve its healthy tone. In order to be
healthy, every mind must have variety and amusement; and if you would
sit down at least one hour a day, and join your friends in some amusing
conversation, and indulge in a good laugh, I think, my dear, that you
would not only be a happier person, but a better Christian."
"My dear uncle," said Miss B., "this is the very thing that I have been
most on my guard against; I can never tell stories, or laugh and joke,
without feeling condemned for it afterwards."
"But, my dear, you must do the thing in the testimony of a good
conscience before you can do it to any purpose. You must make up your
mind that cheerful and entertaining conversation--conversation whose
first object is to amuse--is _useful conversation_ in its place, and
then your conscience will not be injured by joining in it."
"But what good does it do, uncle?"
"Do you not often complain of coldness and deadness in your religious
feelings? of lifelessness and want of interest?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Well, this coldness and lifelessness is the result of forcing your mind
to one set of thoughts and feelings. You become worn out--your feelings
exhausted--deadness and depression ensues. Now, turn your mind off from
these subjects--divert it by a cheerful and animated conversation, and
you will find, after a while, that it will return to them with new life
and energy."
"But are not foolish talking and jesting expressly forbidden?"
"That text, if you will look at the connections, does not forbid jesting
in the abstract; but jesting on immodest subjects--which are often
designated in the New Testament by the phraseology there employed. I
should give the sense of it--neither filthiness, nor foolish talking,
nor indelicate jests. The kind of sprightly and amusing conversation to
which I referred, I should not denominate foolish, by any means, at
proper times and places."