absorbing thought of mankind, may be seen from the anxious brow and
hurried step of the merchant, the feeble frame and the hollow cheek of
the student, the brawny arm and vigorous tread of the laborer; yea,
the skeleton fingers of the lowly seamstress, as she mingles her very
life’s blood with her daily toil, and sings alike the “Song of the
Shirt,” and the Dirge of the Sewer. Neither is it alone common to the
city of the living; its intrusive front has even invaded the solemn
silence of the city of the sleeping dead.
Though prattling childhood and hoary-headed age, the lordly rich and
the needy poor, there dwell side by side, how great is the contrast
between the places of their abode! Over the one rises the proud
monument, on whose cold front are written in letters of gold the names
and deeds of the dead. The simple rose, with its blushing purity,
planted by the hand of affection, and watered by the tears of love,
sweetly blooms above the other. In what beautiful numbers has the poet
sung:
“Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
“Can storied urn or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?”
* * * * *
“WHO SHALL BE THE GREATEST?”
No. 2.
MEN are ambitious of the esteem of those who are prominent in the
eyes of the world on account of their wealth, their greatness, their
learning.
How fond we are of the notice of the rich! How we strive to win their
approbation! How we labor to gain their interest! How highly prized,
how exaggerated, how boasted of, their slightest attentions. We will
lick the very dust from the feet of _wealth_, and refuse to shake the
honest hand of _poverty_. With what amazing sycophancy do we bow our
heads at the footstool of him who has been mighty in battle, or great
in the councils of the nation! And then the learned! How we out-Boswell
Boswell himself, in picking up the crumbs which fall from their tables.
In their august presence the world-worshipper prostrates himself in the
dust of humility, and looks up to them for a smile with that air of
servility with which the dog turns his face to the eye of his master
for a crust of bread.
_Men are Ambitious of Wealth._
The son of some poor cottager is charmed by the glitter and glare
of riches. His father’s cottage soon becomes too small for his
accommodation; the narrow confines of the little farm cramp too much
his swelling expectations. He leaves the home of his childhood, the
friends of his youth, and enters the busy, bustling marts of commerce.
No stone, however heavy, is left unturned; no task is too burdensome,
no difficulty too great, for the accomplishment of his heart’s desire.
Toilsome labor, assiduous application, penurious economy, a heart
steeled alike against the cries of want, the claims of his Maker, are
called into requisition for the furtherance of this one mighty object.
Visions of beautiful and boundless fields—of coffers overflowing with
gold, of princely mansions, flit across his disordered imagination
during the silent watches of the night. The more fuel he adds, the
stronger the passion burns.
As the shipwrecked mariner, driven at the mercy of the winds and waves,
seeks to quench his burning thirst by drinking the briny element
which surrounds him, only to find that his thirst is increased rather
than diminished, so does man find his desire for wealth increase with
each successive gain. Soon his ledger becomes his Bible, his bank his
sanctuary, his gold the god at whose shrine he bows morning, noon and
night.—When he has reached the dregs of his existence, when his body
is wasted by disease, weakened by age, when enfeebled Reason sits
tottering on her throne, how bitter must be his thoughts when they
revert to the hearts he has left all crushed and bleeding, to the
homes all deserted and destroyed.—He then begins fully to realize
the fact that he has been in the constant pursuit of an ever-receding
_ignis-fatuus_, which dazzled only to destroy him. He has betrayed the
noblest principles of the human heart for the sake of filthy lucre:
like Judas, madly dashes the occasion of his misery to the ground, and
frequently goes forth and hangs himself.
* * * * *
“WHO SHALL BE THE GREATEST?”
No. 3.
_Men are Ambitious of Distinction._
AS the child with uplifted hand and eager look chases the bubble which
its tiny lips have fashioned, only to find that it vanishes into thin
air as soon as it is grasped, so does man, seemingly but a child in
understanding, spend days and nights of laborious toil in pursuit of
the bubble Distinction.
The heart of some youthful aspirant is fixed with a burning desire
for the gaudy tinsel of distinction, with which the name of some
hero in life’s battle is clothed. He abandons the cheerful fireside
and genial society of home, and chooses for himself some arduous
profession. Every energy is bent towards this one great object of his
life. Every faculty of mind and body is rendered subservient to this
“heart’s desire.” Hours which Nature has allotted to rest, are spent
in unwearied application. He finds himself not only burning the oil of
his midnight lamp, but the oil of the very lamp of life itself. He soon
finds that the race is not _always_ to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong—that “there is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them
as we may.”
As one competitor after another passes him, lean-faced Envy whispers
words of malice in his ready ear, so that him whom he once loved he
then despises.
As Themistocles could not sleep because of the deserved honors of
Melviades, so do the _deserved_ honors of his rivals drive peace from
his side, repose from his couch.
Every _laurel_ which crowns their brows becomes a _thorn_ in _his_
pillow. Anxiety for the future, dissatisfaction with the present,
remorse for the past, embitter his lonely hours. Long-deferred hope
makes his heart sick. And then he comes to the pass of death.
“Another followed fast,
And a book was in his hand,
Filled with the flashes of burning thought,
That are known in many a land;
But the child of Genius quailed to hear
Death’s pitiless demand.
“_Here that book cannot enter with thee,
For the bright flash of Genius is nothing to me._””
He presses into the unknown night alone, leaving behind him the sad
warning to those who come after him—LOVE NOT THE PRAISE OF MEN MORE
THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD. (John 12: 43.)
It may seem that we have painted the lovers of wealth and distinction
in colors too deep and dark. They, however, are intended as the
background from which true nobility and true greatness shall stand
forth with greater beauty and loveliness.
He who is conscious of possessing powers capable of benefiting his
fellow man, and spends his time and talents in inglorious ease, is
guilty of sinful self-indulgence. It is not ours, like the stupid
rustic, to sit still and wait until the stream passes by in order that
we may cross, but rather stem the current and breast its billows. If
we succeed, then success has been gained where it is always surest and
sweetest, in the discharge of duty. We have sacrificed no principle;
we have stooped to no mean act; our gold is not stained with the blood
of trampled-on innocence; our reputation has not been gained in the
pathway of shame.
If we fail, then we are encouraged by the thought that we have done
what we could. (Mark 14: 8.)
In reply to a letter from a young man in which the following sentence
occurred,—
“If I know my own heart, I ask not wealth or honor; but to do good and
to communicate, (Heb. 13: 16) is the object of my life,”—a successful
Christian merchant thus wrote:
“The object of your life as you explain it, is the noblest on the face
of the earth; and although it will not bring you worldly wealth and
ease, it is sure of much higher reward both here and hereafter. _Press
forward. Never lose sight of it._ Be very thankful that God has thus
called you to his service, and show Him your gratitude by consecrating
yourself wholly to Him. I think I have lived long enough to _know_
that your choice, or the service to which you are called, is not only
the noblest, but in fact, the only service worth a man’s living for
at all. How many failures do we see in the lives of the ambitious and
the great, notwithstanding advantages of the highest distinction. _But
bankruptcy with a genuine child of God is impossible._ HIS LIFE CANNOT
BE A FAILURE.
That there are and have been numberless persons, the object of whose
lives was to advance Christ’s Kingdom and add to the happiness of
their fellow-men, we have abundant testimony. The names of Howard,
of Wilberforce, of McCheyne, of Henry Martyn, of Hedley Vicars, of
Brainerd Taylor, of Harlan Page, of noble-hearted Daniel Baker, the
pioneer of the cross in the wilds of Texas, of many others, of whom the
world is not worthy, stand out in the boldest prominence. Yea, such
men are to be seen around us every day. In the pulpit, at the bar, in
the counting-room of the merchant, in the shop of the mechanic, at the
bedside of the sick and dying, fearing neither the death-breathing
pestilence, nor the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
Shall it not, then, be ours to follow in their footsteps? Is there any
pleasure so great as the pleasure of doing good?
_Who shall be the greatest?_ Not in worldly honors, but in the
measureless wealth of disinterested kindness, and the unfading honors
that cluster around the Cross of Christ.
Longfellow beautifully sketches the upward and onward career of a youth
who, despite the warnings of the aged, the entreaties of the young,
wound his weary way up the steep sides of one of the Alps mountains
only to make his grave beneath the cold snow of the topmost peak.
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ’mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
EXCELSIOR.
“Beware the pine tree’s wither’d branch
Beware the awful avalanche!”
This was the peasant’s last good-night,—
A voice replied, far up the height,
EXCELSIOR.
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
EXCELSIOR.
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device—
EXCELSIOR.
There, in the twilight cold and grey,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
EXCELSIOR.
* * * * *
THE POOR CONSUMPTIVE.
* * * * *
A COLPORTEUR SKETCH.
“IS this the place where a princess dwells,
A favored daughter of the King of kings?
Within their humble and contracted cells,
Do heavenly spirits wave their guardian wings?”
STRETCHED on a bed of painful sickness there lay a woman in the last
stages of consumption. Pale-faced poverty was an inmate of the hovel in
which she dwelt. The broken panes of glass, the bare floor, the large
cracks in the wall, the scanty covering, carefully thrown over the bed,
all plainly bespoke the absence of the very necessaries of life. As I
entered the door, my heart throbbed hurriedly when my eyes caught the
destitution, the misery, the wretchedness, which surrounded me. Several
children, from six to fourteen years of age, were in the room—some
of them lying together on the floor, others seated on the remnant of
a chair, while one little fellow, with matted hair and unwashed face,
scowled at me from behind a door, as if he thought me an unwelcome
visitor. The children had evidently been long neglected. No voice of
love had often fallen on their ears; no smile of affection had cheered
their loneliness. Their lives had been made up with scenes of want and
wretchedness. Their minds were like gardens all overgrown with noxious
weeds. But few seeds of truth had been sown in their little hearts by
the hand of kindness, and their little voices had never sung the sweet
notes of “Happy Day,” or “The Sabbath-school.”
But let me not forget the quiet sufferer, who, with such calm
composure, has all this time been lying in unbroken silence. Her
days are almost numbered. Consumption, that fell destroyer of human
hopes, has long been gnawing at her heart-strings. The cord of life
is worn almost to its last thread. Her hollow cheek, her wasted form,
her sunken, death-glazed eye, all tell me that the cold, clammy hand
of Death is gradually chilling her life-blood. She breathes with
difficulty, for her lungs are too far gone to perform their functions.
Now and then a hacking cough seems as if it would rend her frail
chest to pieces. In her feeble hand she holds a fan, with which she
is endeavoring to cool her burning brow. Its faint fluttering is but
the counterpart of the almost fainter fluttering of life, as it hovers
round her heart.
I sat for several moments quietly gazing on the wan and wasted features
of the poor sufferer, before I could summon the resolution to say a
word. I finally broke the solemn silence which filled the desolate
chamber, by telling her that I sympathized very deeply with her in the
suffering through which she had to pass.
I then asked her, if God should see fit to call her away from earth,
did she think she was prepared for so awful a change. She feebly
whispered “Yes.”
“What is then to become of your unprotected children?”
“God will take care of them.”
“Do you think it right that _you_ should suffer so much, while others
are in the enjoyment of countless blessings?”
“Perfectly.”
“Shall I read a portion of God’s Word, and pray with you?”
“If you please, sir.”
She reached her arm under the pillow and drew forth a Bible. Oh! how
precious a thing it is, in the hour of death, to pillow one’s weary
head on the precious promises of that blessed Book!
I slowly turned its sacred pages till I reached the fourteenth chapter
of John—that chapter of blessed memory, which has soothed the troubled
spirits of so many dying souls—after reading which, I knelt at her
bedside and united with her in prayer. When I arose from my knees, her
eyes were melted to tears, and a calm and holy peace rested on her pale
and emaciated face.
Reader, it was a precious season to my own soul. God grant that the
influences of that scene may never depart from me. My heart was
cast down in humility, in penitence, as I remembered how often I
had rebelled against God’s holy law. The unbidden tear was quietly
trickling down my own cheek as I left that Bethel—that house of God.
Since writing the above, “The Poor Consumptive” has sweetly fallen
asleep in Jesus.
* * * * *
“WHAT I LIVE FOR.”
“I LIVE for those who love me,
For those who know me true;
For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit too;
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the Future in the distance,
_And the good that I can do_.”
WE are told that a word, when it has fallen from the lips, never dies
away; that the sound goes on widening and widening throughout the
immensity of space.
Such are our lives. The acts which we do, the words which we utter,
are exerting an untold influence for good or for evil. They are
moulding, silently but certainly, the character of those by whom we
are surrounded, for weal or for woe. Their influence extends even to
eternity.
Fellow Christians! impressed with this solemn thought, let our heart’s
desire be to minister to the wants of the sick and dying, to carry
the glad tidings of salvation to the hovels of ignorance and poverty,
to cheer the homeless orphan, to console the friendless widow; for by
so doing, we shall surely gain our reward both in this world and that
which is to come. Let us do what we can to dry the tear of sorrow, to
gladden the heart of the laborer in his long hours of lonely toil; do
what we can by precept, by prayer, by example, by toilsome labor, to
win souls to Jesus Christ. Who had not rather be the means of saving
one soul, than obtain all the riches or receive all the honors the
world can furnish?—
* * * * *
THE LAST SERMON OF THE SEASON.
“WHAT a thought! The last opportunity I shall ever enjoy of making my
peace with God; the last time I shall ever listen to the glad tidings
of salvation; the last time I shall hear from the sacred desk the
earnest entreaty, Come to Jesus; the last time I shall ever sing the
songs of Zion!”
Such were the thoughts which rushed wildly through the mind of a young
man as his unwilling feet lingered on the steps of the house of God. He
was leaving that house with a heart at enmity with his heavenly Father.
Again and again had he put off for a convenient season the eternal
interests of his never-dying soul. Long, long had Satan pacified his
restless conscience by whispering in his ear that to-morrow would be
time enough. To-morrow after to-morrow had come and gone, yet he was
farther from salvation than he had ever been.
The minister’s earnest entreaty, a conviction of the awful eternity
which awaited him if he died in his sins, pressed with burning weight
upon his thoughts. He seemed to be held fast by some resistless power.
“Perhaps it may be the last night of the season of salvation; God only
knows. I will arise and go to my Father,” thought he to himself. He
sought the minister; went with him to his study; and there, by the aid
of God’s Spirit, trusts he gave himself to his Saviour.
Fellow sinner, this may be the last night of the season of salvation
to you. Will you not come to Jesus? Father and mother, brother and
sister, those that love you tenderly, all join in the entreaty, _Come
to Jesus_. He is a precious Saviour; he is a willing Saviour; he is an
able Saviour. Then will you not come and cast your burden of sin upon
him? He has never turned away one soul. “Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat;
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
* * * * *
“WILL NOBODY SAVE ME?”
“NOTHING in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked come to thee for dress:
_Helpless_, look to thee for grace;
Vile, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”
DURING the burning of the Richmond theatre, in 1811, a gentleman who
had nobly endangered his own life in endeavoring to rescue others from
the jaws of the devouring flames, was seen to leap from one of the
topmost windows to the ground. So severe was the fall, he was unable
to move an inch. Above him stood the tottering wall, ready to fall and
crush him to death. He looked around him; not a soul was near. From the
depths of his agony, he cried out, “_Will nobody save me?_” The cry
fell on the ear of a sturdy negro, who rushed to him, and bore him away
in his strong and brawny arms to a place of safety.
Such is the case with the sinner. When he finds that of himself he can
do nothing, that God’s angry vengeance is tottering above his head,
that no one is near to save him, then it is that he cries, “_Will
nobody save me?_” The cry comes to the waiting ear of his blessed
Saviour, and He bears him away in His arms of love to His Father’s
bosom.
* * * * *
A SABBATH IN THE COUNTRY.
THERE is something to me peculiarly pleasant in a country Sabbath. No
rattle of carts, no bustle of crowds, no hum of voices, disturb the
calm and holy quietude of the hallowed day. Cattle are quietly grazing
on grassy meadows, or sleeping in the refreshing shade; the irregular
tinkle of the sheep-bell falls sweetly on the ear; the plough stands
motionless in the unfinished furrow; the little songster trills from
some swinging bough its morning song. The household dog seems to know
it is a day of peaceful rest. His voice is hushed in silence. The
clouds glide calmly across the heavens; the rays of the Sabbath sun
rest sweetly on the face of nature. A dreamy, delightful serenity
hovers over all the land. The incense of prayer rises from many a
family altar, and the accents of praise tremble on many a lip.
Let us go up to the house of God. How different from our city churches!
Perhaps it is some venerable building whose foundation was laid by men
to whom the faces and forms of a Samuel Davies, or William Wilson, were
familiar; perhaps remains of the foundation erected for the protection
of God’s people against savage cruelty still linger around it; perhaps
marks of the Indian’s bullet have not yet been effaced from its rude
stone walls. Let us cross its threshold. No stained glass softens the
rays of light, no cushioned pew invites you to a seat, no costly pulpit
meets your eye; no beautiful fresco will draw your attention from the
minister or the word of God. Every thing is as plain, as practical, as
solid, as the men who first worshipped beneath its roof, but who now
sleep beneath the waving grass of the adjoining cemetery.
One by one the congregation begin to enter and take their seats. They
reverently bow their heads and seek the aid of God’s Spirit to enable
them rightly to understand and apply the truths to which they shall
listen. Many and varied are the personages which draw the attention.
One is a venerable elder: time has not dealt gently with him; his brow
is furrowed, his cheek wrinkled, and he totters feebly to his seat
beneath the weight of many years, and a life of laborious toil. Though
the fires of life are well nigh gone out, hope burns brightly in his
heart, and beams forth from his eye. The assurance that his Redeemer
liveth, is the rod and staff on which he leans for support. Another is
a young man. His step is firm, his frame robust. He has not seen the
snows of more than twenty winters. His countenance wears a thoughtful,
solemn air. He is thinking of God, of heaven, of eternity. He has not
come to the house of God because it is his custom, to see a friend,
or to while away an hour. His is a nobler object. It is to worship
God, to obtain instruction which shall lead his steps in the ways of
righteousness, the paths of peace. At his side sits his mother—“he is
the only son of his mother, and she a widow.”
But another form, of dignified, yet gentle, demeanor, enters the door.
The placid features of his face, the mildness of his eye, point him
out as “the man of God.” His appearance is such as at once to attract
the attention. He is very tall, perhaps above six feet. His person is
quite spare. He is slightly bowed with age, and as he feebly walks
down the aisle, you almost involuntarily rise from your seat as if to
do him reverence. He has long been a laborer in his Master’s vineyard.
For more than half a century has he proclaimed the glad tidings of
salvation from the same pulpit which he now occupies. His mind easily
reverts to the time when the whistle of the red man’s bullet was liable
at any moment to disturb the worship of God’s people; when the hardy
pioneers of Christ and His kingdom came up to the house of God with
muskets lashed to their backs. The thriving village in which he now
resides was then almost a wilderness; cattle grazed, and corn grew in
the fertile valleys from which now rises the populous city. The wild
Alleghanies, then the home of the beasts of the forest, now daily echo
with the rattle of the stage coach; and the shrill whistle of the
locomotive has made the panther and the bear to seek shelter in the
more distant West. He is one of a very few of the links which bind
the Virginia of the present with the Virginia of fifty years ago. His
few remaining silver locks are combed back from a forehead of fine
proportions. He enters the sacred desk; bows his head and supplicates
the assistance of God’s Spirit. He rises; “Let us worship God,” falls
tremblingly from his lips, and the whole congregation rise to their
feet. With earnestness, with simplicity, he invokes the presence of Him
with whom is the residue of the Spirit. He then slowly turns to that
beautiful old hymn, so dear to God’s people—
“Whilst Thee I seek protecting power!
Be my vain wishes stilled;
And may this consecrated hour
With better hopes be filled.”
So distinct is his enunciation that his voice falters on every
syllable. Every heart trembles in unison with his, and many an eye is
dimmed with the unbidden tear. From almost the entire congregation
rises up a united song of praise. One voice after another catches it
up, till there is scarcely one which does not join in the melodious
hymn.