their scabbards, and a rush have been made to the spot whence the
warning note proceeded, for thus writes Nehemiah: "He that sounded the
trumpet was by me; and I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and
to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are
separated upon the wall, one from another. In what place therefore ye
hear the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for
us!"
Even such a scene of active, earnest labour is around us now,
realized by faith; in the midst of an opposing world, surrounded by
difficulties, encompassed by snares, the labourers for God are raising
the walls of the spiritual Zion. The Word of the Lord is their trumpet
call, bidding them quit themselves like men and be strong; to fight
against their own besetting sins, and at the same time to be ready for
every labour of love, and especially such labours for souls as are
typified by the building of the wall of Jerusalem, that city of the
great King.
There is something delightful and exhilarating in the feeling of
working together, combining in efforts for God. The labourers are
indeed engaged on different parts of the wall, they may be "one far
from another," yet is there a union of purpose between them, and the
trumpet at any moment may call them to union in action. Not all are fit
for the same kind of work; some are employed but to clear away rubbish,
others are laying the strong, deep foundations, those prepare mortar,
these hew stones, the work of many shows no visible result, whilst
beneath the busy hands of their brethren the wall rises with marvellous
rapidity. But all are helping in the building for God, and when the
bulwark is completed, the glorious task done, how joyfully may the
weakest of the workers exclaim: "I, even I, was a labourer too!"
Yes—on this building there is room for the efforts, not of the pastor
alone, but of the "people;" not of the men alone, but the women; nay,
even of the feeble little child. Something will be found for each
to do, if all combine together. And how inspiriting is the feeling
of brotherhood and sisterhood between those engaged in working for
God! We may regard the great and successful efforts of some highly
distinguished Christian, as a Jewish child, bringing but a few pebbles
to add to the wall, may have regarded the giant strength of some
Samson, heaving up to its place a huge mass, which the boy's feeble
arms could not have stirred. The child would admire and rejoice in
the strength of the man; and, if humbled, yet not discouraged, by its
contrast with his own weakness, would do the little which he could do
with the cheering thought, "I, even I, am a labourer too!"
Oh, how far preferable the humblest kind of spiritual work, to the
shame of standing all the day idle, while God's people are anxiously
toiling around us for Him!
There are very many ways in which we may help to raise the wall of our
Zion. Missionary labour amongst heathen abroad and heathen at home
is the most lofty kind of building work. The earnest clergyman, the
ragged-school teacher, the Bible-woman, the Christian visitor to the
haunts of poverty and the dens of sin, are those "directly" engaged in
raising stone upon stone. Such need refreshment, encouragement, help;
and to give it to them for the sake of the cause is "indirectly" to
forward the building.
There is one way in which we can, as it were, bring our little
contribution of mortar to fix the stones, which, though a way neglected
by many, is beyond the strength of but few—by "the circulation of
religious literature." There is, indeed, judgment required in the
choice of religious works for such distribution. The mortar should in
itself be good, and be "laid" on, not carelessly "thrown" on; but no
great courage is usually required, except by novices in the work. In
nineteen cases out of twenty, the book or tract which is courteously
offered is civilly received, and sometimes thankfully and eagerly
accepted.
A Protestant lady, just before entering a French church to see the
interior, gave a tract to an old woman who chanced to be near the door.
On the lady's leaving the church, the woman—who was doubtless a Roman
Catholic—returned the tract, which she probably regarded as heretical
trash. The lady, whose English companion did not sympathize with her
tract-giving, took back the despised paper with a little feeling of
embarrassment, which instantly passed away as a man held out his hand
for what the woman had rejected, so that the lady had merely to pass
the tract from the one to the other.
Travellers, while in search of health or amusement, would do well to
remember that valuable opportunities may be afforded to them, when thus
casually meeting with those whom they never again may see, of helping
to build the wall of Zion. They are not likely to behold any effect of
their work here; but labour for God, with faith and prayer, is "not in
vain in the Lord."
Would that reflection on this subject would induce every reader who
may glance at this little volume to form a prayerful resolution never
to let "one day" pass without doing something, be it ever so little,
towards raising the spiritual wall! How cold is our zeal, how careless
our efforts, compared to those of the Jews under Nehemiah! "They" did
not sit quietly in their homes, buried in studies, or absorbed by
business, while the din of earnest work was going on around them, or
the blast of the trumpet summoned all true sons of Abraham to do brave
battle for the right. The nobles thought it an honour to be engaged
in the work; the governor himself set an example of devoted energy in
it. It was a day of triumph for Nehemiah and his companions when their
glorious work was finished; when, in the words of the leader, "all our
enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these
things, and were much cast down in their own eyes, for they perceived
that this work was wrought of God."
But what will be the joy of those who have toiled for Christ, and in
His strength, when they gaze on the jasper wall of "the holy Jerusalem,
descending out of heaven from God," wherein those shall dwell who,
ransomed and pardoned by the Saviour, have loved, lived, and laboured
for Him! The trumpet in the hand of the archangel shall sound then no
summons to conflict. And when the blessed review the time of their
sojourn upon earth, with all its mingled trials and blessings while
God's work was slowly rising to completion, will it not be one of their
sweetest joys then to be able to say, "Unworthy as I was of a privilege
so glorious, I, even I, was a labourer too!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XXXVI.
Writing Table of Zacharias.
THOUGH mentioned but once in Scripture, there are circumstances which
invest the writing table of Zacharias with peculiar interest, as on
it may be said to have been traced the first written sentence of the
Gospel—the fulfilment of the words of the angel, with the name of him
of whom the prophet Isaiah had foretold, that he should be "a voice
crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord."
As soon as Zacharias had written the words, "His name is John," what a
thankful utterance of joy burst from the lips of the aged father! He
that had been dumb now spake—his mouth was opened at once to prophesy
and to praise. Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, as his
venerable wife had been before, and rejoiced in the Day-spring from
on high, that was rising to give light to them that had long sat in
darkness and in the shadow of death.
As the rosy clouds, flushed with his upward beams, seem to cradle
the rising sun, so we find, at the first advent of the Sun of
Righteousness, a holy radiance brightening the latter days of four
aged saints, who were chosen, as it were, to reflect the first rays of
coming glory, and bear witness to the Messiah.
First Elisabeth, then her aged husband, afterwards the venerable Simeon
and Anna, gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of the coming blessing to
all them that looked for redemption in Zion. The song of the one seems
to have been appropriate to all: "Lord, now let Thy servant depart
in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." With these saints,
indeed, was the hoary head a crown of glory, for it was found in the
way of righteousness.
The spirit of wisdom granted to these four aged believers reminds us of
the words of the poet—
"Both worlds at once they view,
Who stand upon the threshold of the new;"
and lead us to reflect upon some of the privileges of a holy old
age. When an aged Christian lady was once speaking of the different
generations in a family, she remarked, "It is like a ladder—happy
those who are near the top!" The observation contrasts strikingly with
Moore's melancholy regrets for departed youth, and gloomy views of
advancing age—
"Dim lies the path to death before me."
Age is commonly described by the expression, "descending into the vale
of years:" with Christians, it should rather be, mounting towards
the height of Pisgah; not going "down" into darkness, but "up" into
light—nearer to God, and nearer to Heaven.
Thus it was with the four New Testament saints on whom we are
reflecting; and the privilege which was granted to them, of witnessing
to God's truth and rejoicing in His salvation, seems to be the especial
portion of "aged" believers in every generation of mankind.
The old in years can, in a peculiarly forcible manner, witness to the
truth and faithfulness of God.
"I have been young, and now am old," said David, "yet have I not seen
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."
"Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth," cried the
venerable Joshua; "not one thing hath failed of all the good things
which the Lord your God spake concerning you."
Such words had additional weight from the very fact that those who
uttered them were aged. When the old tell of the goodness of God—His
power to sustain in trouble and to guide in difficulty—they speak, not
merely of what they believe, but what they have "experienced." The
respect due to the aged is enforced by the command of the Most High:
"Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the
old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord."
The law is general; but never do we more strongly feel its force than
when the hoary head has the halo of piety around it—when the old man,
like Zacharias, stands up as a witness for God. His feeble broken
accents may then have more power than the most fervid eloquence of the
young, to lead the heart to trust in the love of Him who so fulfils His
promise:
"Even to your old age I am He, and even to hoar hairs will I carry
you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will
deliver you."
But if age has its privileges, it has also its own peculiar trials,
especially in the case of the childless, and those who are encompassed
with many infirmities. Solomon calls theirs "evil days, . . . when thou
shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; . . . when the keepers of the
house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the
grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the
windows be darkened, . . . and fears shall be in the way, . . . and the
grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail." How touching
and how true a picture is here given of decrepit age, bowed down with
feebleness and infirmity! When loneliness is added to all this—when
the childless man has outlived all the companions of his youth, and
the years of his long life have been marked out by gravestones—how
deeply does he claim the sympathy and compassion of his brethren and
sisters in the Lord! He may have a long, tedious time of waiting by the
banks of Jordan, while they who were behind him press on before him;
and though the prospect on the other side of "the narrow stream" be
ineffably fair, on this side it is indeed a dry and barren wilderness
to him.
But there is divine love even in the decree that so often weakens the
powers and dims the faculties of the aged. Very beautiful is the simile
used by a departed authoress, * when, alluding to the decay of sight
and hearing which is natural to extreme old age, she remarks, that God
acts towards His feeble servants as a tender mother towards her child
as the time for rest approaches she draws the curtain to shut out the
light, and stills every sound in the chamber, that, the outer world
excluded, her beloved may more quietly sink into slumber. We may draw
out the parallel further. When the memory ceases to retain its grasp
upon what were once objects of interest, what is it but the same loving
Parent gently taking from the child the toys of life's little day as
the evening shades fall around, and laying aside whatever might keep
the mind restless and awake?
* Mrs. Gaskell. I quote from memory.
God's love is remembered when the things of earth are forgotten. Who
has not heard of the Christian, aged and dying, whose memory had so
failed that he knew none of the friends around him, not even the wife,
so fondly beloved; but when he was asked, "Do you know the Lord Jesus?"
That name was so deeply imprinted in the heart and memory that the
erasing of all besides left it but more distinctly legible, and the
saint, in his second childhood, exclaimed, "Precious Saviour! He is my
only hope." So, to pursue the simile, though the light was darkened and
the room stilled, and all that had once delighted the senses was put
away, God's child felt beneath him the everlasting arms, and knew the
voice of the Parent hushing him to that sleep from which the same voice
should awake him to life and to joy in the dawn of the everlasting day.
Such are a few thoughts suggested by a relic of the aged Zacharias, the
saint well stricken in years, whose latter days were, we doubt not,
his brightest and best. We know nothing of the struggles of his youth
or the efforts of his manhood; but we know that the angel's visit and
the message from God—the father's rejoicing, and the prophetic hymn
inspired by the Holy Spirit—were reserved for the evening of a life
which had been devoted to the service of God.
[Illustration]
XXXVII.
The Manger.
IT is in no spirit of vain superstition that we regard this cradle
of an incarnate God. Were the very manger in which Mary laid her
heavenly Babe to be placed before our bodily eyes, we should not dare
to fall down and worship it. But it is well that faith should linger
by the manger of Bethlehem, and endeavour there to gain a more vivid
perception of the amazing condescension of Him who came to visit us
in great humility. While, therefore, with the shepherds, we adore
the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, let us
attempt to raise our thoughts to the divine nature of Him who, in His
poverty and His helplessness, appears to us here so truly human.
"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." There was no room
for Him in the inn. In one sense we might say that there was no room in
the world for One:
"Whom heaven cannot contain,
Nor the immeasurable plain
Of vast infinity enclose and circle round."
For, while we rejoicing cry, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is
given," we must also with awe remember that "His name shall be called
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father."
Let us glean from the Scriptures a few from the many proofs that He who
was very Man was also very God; that the Babe who lay in the manger
was one with Him who filleth the throne of Heaven. Unless we keep this
"central truth" steadily before us, we shall have a very faint idea of
the love and grace implied in the words, "who for us men, and for our
salvation, came down from heaven."
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made
by Him." Such is the sublime commencement of the Gospel of the beloved
disciple, upon whom rested the Spirit of Truth.
John had probably been present when the lips of the persecuted Jesus
of Nazareth uttered the mysterious sentence, "I and My Father are
One;" and he heard from the risen Saviour that revelation of Himself,
"I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." Here was the Lord of
Heaven, repeating His own solemn declaration, uttered when He abode
upon earth—that declaration for which the Jews would have stoned Him as
a blasphemer—"before Abraham was, I AM." In that mysterious sentence,
Christ assumed to Himself that incommunicable name by which God made
Himself known unto Moses as the eternal Deity, to whom the past and the
future form but one everlasting present. Eternity, it has been said, is
the lifetime of God.
St. Paul also bears witness to Him who lay in the manger of Bethlehem,
as the Creator and Preserver, as well as the Saviour of the world.
"God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He
hath appointed Heir of all things; 'by whom also He made the world:'
who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His
person, and 'upholding all things by the word of His power,' when He
had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high." St. Paul quotes from the Psalms the testimony of the
Eternal Father to the dignity of the Redeemer: "Unto the Son He saith,
'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever!'"
Micah the prophet witnessed of Him who was to be born in Bethlehem,
that "His goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." Zechariah,
in a passage, part of which our Lord Himself quoted, exclaims: "Awake,
O sword, against My Shepherd, and against 'the Man that is My Fellow,'
saith the Lord of hosts smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be
scattered." This is He who, "being in the form of God, thought it not
robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and
took upon Him the form of a Servant,—" yea, even that of a feeble
Infant, lying in a manger, in an obscure corner of the world which He
Himself had created.
Such a mystery as this the understanding of man cannot grasp; but faith
meekly receives it, and reason bids us acknowledge, that He whose
sacrifice was to be of "infinite" merit must needs Himself be infinite;
that no created being could possibly have made satisfaction for the
sins of a whole world, the redemption of which is a work as marvellous
as was its first creation.
But nowhere do the marvels of that creation strike us with more
overpowering force than when we muse on them beside the manger of
Bethlehem. Let us consider Him who deigned to become a mortal Babe in
the single attribute of power, as displayed in launching into space
this globe in which we live, on which He stooped for a while to dwell,
and which, as compared with the heavenly bodies around it, is but as a
grain of dust in the universe created by Him by whom "all things were
made."
Though the giving motion to our world was but a comparatively "small"
exercise of such power, how overwhelmingly great it appears when set
before us in the scientific page! Let us make an extract from "The
Christian Philosopher": *
"However rapidly a ball flies from the mouth of a cannon, it
is the flight of a body only a 'few inches' in diameter . . .
The earth contains a mass of matter equal in weight to at least
2,200,000,000,000,000,000,000, or more than two thousand trillions
of tons, supposing its mean density to be only about two and a half
times greater than water. To move this ponderous mass a single inch
beyond its position were it fixed in a quiescent state, would require
a mechanical force almost beyond the power of numbers to express. The
physical force of all the myriads of intelligences within the bounds of
the planetary system, though their powers were far superior to those of
men, would be altogether inadequate to the production of such a motion.
How much more must be the force requisite to impel it with a velocity
'one hundred and forty times swifter than a cannon-ball, or sixty-eight
thousand miles an hour,' the actual rate of its motion in its course
round the sun! . . . The ideas of 'strength' and 'power' implied in the
impulsion of such enormous masses of matter through the illimitable
tracts of space are forced upon the mind with irresistible energy far
surpassing what any abstract propositions or reasonings can convey,
and constrain us to exclaim, 'Who is a strong Lord like unto Thee?
Thy right hand is become glorious in power! The Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!'"
* By T. Dick, L. L. D.
And it was He whose Word could thus launch forth, and for thousands
of years keep the world and the other planets whirling round the sun
at a speed that baffles thought to conceive, it was He who deigned to
inhabit a human form so helpless that a woman's weak arms were needed
even to lift Him out of the manger in which that woman had laid Him!
The thought is overpowering, we can but prostrate our souls in silent
adoration. Well might the angels, bending over the manger, desire to
look into such a mystery; "God was manifest in the flesh"!
O blessed Redeemer, when even a faint glimpse of the riches of Thy
glory falls on the mental eye, it seems to dazzle and blind; and yet,
for our sakes, Thou didst become poor, so poor that the stable was Thy
first earthly dwelling-place, and Thy cradle this manger! Grant unto
us, feeble worms, the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may be able
to comprehend, at least in part, "what is the breadth, and length,
and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge;" that love which is infinite as Thy power, and everlasting
as Thy existence!
[Illustration]
XXXVIII.
The Apostles' Net.
THERE is a danger, especially to imaginative minds, when meditating on
Scripture, to allegorize what ought to be taken literally, to lose the
clear outlines of fact in a haze of fancy. May we be watchful against
this! But the Bible is full of types and emblems, and many objects of
which we read in Scripture naturally form themselves into such.
The miraculous draught of fishes is at once a fact and an allegory;
the fishes were types of souls; something far beyond a mere present
supply of food was betokened by the abundance in which these fishes
were caught by the apostles. That such was the case is evident from the
Saviour's promise, "I will make you fishers of men." The net therefore
appears to us as a type of what St. Paul calls "the foolishness of
preaching," by which it has pleased God "to save them that believe;"
and it may not be unprofitable to us to pause for awhile by that net,
and to consider some of the characteristics in which it resembles the
teaching of the gospel by the ministers of God.
Two especially suggest themselves to the mind; its imperfection in
itself, and its power when blessed by the Lord.
This net before us is twined of the same homely material as that of
other fishermen, the hemp has undergone the same rough process of
manufacture, toil-hardened hands have with patient labour formed every
knot in its meshes, there is nothing in its appearance to charm the
senses or attract the eye. Yet we do not turn from it because the web
is not silken; we look not—care not for brilliancy of dye in the net
which enclosed the miraculous draught. But how strangely critical are
many amongst us in regard to the preaching of the Word! A blemish in
style, a defect in pronunciation will sometimes mar the effect of an
earnest discourse. The net must be silken to attract us; truth, when
homely, too often offends. The ear and taste must be satisfied, though
heart and conscience be left untouched!
Then, again, the net is not only of common material, but it requires
both cleansing and repairing; we read of the apostles both as washing
and mending their nets. Here the application of the lesson seems to be
rather for the minister than his flock. The popular preacher, to whose
words hundreds—thousands listen with rapt attention, who feels his net
heavy with the richest of prizes, needs constantly to remind himself
of the weakness and imperfection of the instrument which the Lord is
deigning to bless. It was when the apostles were drawing in a multitude
of fishes "that their net brake." When in the midst of their successes,
servants of God suddenly feel their net breaking, when their physical
or mental powers are crippled, so that they need to beckon to their
partners that they should come and help them, is not this sign of the
imperfection of their noblest talents sent to them lest they should
fall into the sin of pride, and, albeit unconsciously, "sacrifice unto
their net, and burn incense unto their drag;" rest complacently in
those powers which at any moment might fail?