RELIGION IN THE WORKSHOP.
There is no error in religion more common or more deadly, than to
put the means for the end. So rarely does man regard aright the
great object of the soul's pursuit, that he is ready to repose
supinely upon something done, without ever solemnly inquiring
whether he has reached the right result by doing it, or only been
deceived by a semblance and a form.--We read the Word of God, and
think that it can accomplish what only He of whom it tells can
achieve. We hold certain doctrines, and because we hold them firmly,
we hasten to the conclusion that we actually possess the blessings
which these doctrines reveal or imply. Or finally, the intellect of
some is filled with truth in its loftiest forms; but there it lies,
exercising no influence upon the life. It quiets the conscience,
but it does not sanctify the soul; and the anomaly of a spiritual
creed side by side with a carnal life is thus frequently found among
men--the worst of all heresies, the most deadly of all deceptions, a
repetition of Chorazin and Bethsaida.
THE CHIEF END OF REVELATION.
Now, it can never be made too plain that revelation, with all that
is glorious in it, is only a means to an end. Even the death of
Christ, solitary as it stands in its moral grandeur, among the
events of the universe, was only a means--the end was /God's glory
in man's holiness/. To bring a clean thing out of an unclean; to
transmute enmity against God into love to him, or wounds and bruises
and noisome sores into the beauty of holiness--behold the grand
result aimed at alike in the life and the death of the Son of God.
By dying he did accomplish other results, and the influence of that
death is felt to the utmost verge of creation, as we know it is
felt among the angels on high. But still it is the /grand result/
we should ever aim at, and that is, deliverance from sin in its
condemnation, its pollution, and its power: "This is the will of
God, even our holiness."
THE CHRISTIAN WORKMAN.
Now, this simple truth may serve as a guide or an ally in every
sphere of life, but specially so in that sphere which we are now to
contemplate, or the Bible in the Workshop. And an incident recorded
in the Christian Scriptures will at once shed light upon the subject.
On more than one occasion the apostle Paul had to work with his
hands to earn his daily bread.[14] Though the care of all the
churches was upon him; though the enmity of the prejudiced, and
the persecution of those who had the power, tried to bear him down,
he was yet amid it all, a man of handicraft and hard labour--he
could sit down with Aquila in his workshop, and there engage in
manual labour for his livelihood, with all the zeal of his noble
and indomitable nature. He at least was not one of those who think
that idleness and indolence can dignify man's position. He was not
one of those who would deem themselves degraded by being useful. He
knew that man is born under a decree to work. He therefore wrought;
and just as this man of God, when it was his duty, put forth all
the powers of his intellect and soul in reasoning before Festus, or
Felix, or King Agrippa, did he put forth the powers of his body in
making tents in the workshop of his friend at Corinth. Enough for
Paul, if he was where the Lord wished him to be, or engaged in
what the Lord gave him to do; and without one feeling either of
degradation or of discontent, he bore the toils of the body as well
as exerted the activities of the mind; he both taught and practised
the lesson, "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." He
felt that every man must be a worker, either with mind, or body, or
both. The last was his alternative; and we know that in some cases
the night was added to the day, ere he could complete his allotted
task. Sinew, and muscle, and bone, in Paul's case, were dedicated
to the service of God, as well as a mental power which could not
be gainsaid, except by the bigot's ever ready argument--the dungeon,
the chain, or death.
A WORKSHOP--
With this high model in view, then, let us now enter a workshop,
and accost some of those who are there. Our object is to show how
the Bible should preside among them, to protect the character from
pollution--the soul from peril. Remembering that Christian worth
does not depend on lofty birth or brilliant powers, but on a heart
right with God, and his long-lost image restored to the soul,
consider how that image may become more and more vivid, if it be
indeed stamped on us by the Spirit.
ITS OCCUPANTS.
And, first, not a few of those with whom we associate in the
workshop, are snares to the soul of the very direst kind. We
find that infidelity which is often the result of utter ignorance,
there rampant and rife. We often see vice rioting in the life, and
shutting the heart against the truth. A soul in which religion is
felt and loved, will hear what it deems sacred blasphemed, and in
self-defence, it may be constrained to contend for the faith once
delivered to the saints. Some of those who are thus tried can tell
of the mental anguish to which they are exposed--of the snares which
are laid for them on the right hand and on the left--the heroism
which is needed to contend, perhaps single-handed, against a crowd
of gainsayers, who know of no pleasure but the pleasures of sin,
or care for no truth but such as relates to gross and material
things. As the body is oppressed and dies amid mephitic vapours,
the soul grows sick and like to die amid scenes like these. It
has to maintain a constant struggle for existence, as the natives
of some portions of India maintain a constant warfare with the
inhabitants of the jungle--the boa, the lion, or the tiger. Men
long neglected by those who should have consulted for their better
interests; men long viewed as only so much animal machinery, to be
used as long as it can drudge, and then heartlessly cast aside; men
long treated as if they had neither souls to save, nor an eternity
to provide for, have too often sunk so far that they threaten to
take revenge upon society, by trampling out every vestige of truth
that can be found in the places of their exhaustion and toil.
Now, amid perils like these, surely the man who cares for his soul
has just the more need to cleave close to the only power which
can give him the victory--and that power is Christ. Every ungodly
gainsayer should be to that man an object of pity, like that of
the Redeemer to our fallen world. Every blasphemer, every infidel,
every man who has given himself up to the slavery of passion, and
dethroned at once his reason and his God, should be an object of
tender compassion to the soul of the Christian beside him. While
sporting with their own ruin, such men should be like another, and
another, and another call to all who know the truth, to show by
their life at least, what a Christian, or what Christianity is--how
true it is that
"We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;"
and the following counsels may help some earnest spirit in that
arduous work.
THE SABBATH-DAY.
I.[*5] The most godly occupant of a workshop will be the least
surprised to hear us say, Next to the Bible, prize the Sabbath-day,
and let no man rob you of its sacred rest. You will thus find it a
tower of strength to the soul.
While we look around us, we everywhere see the blessed results of
the Sabbath rest when properly employed, the woeful consequences
of its sacred hours encroached on, whether by the drudgery of toil
or the debasement of licentiousness. See that home where domestic
comfort dwells, where well-ordered decorum reigns, and where the
parent and the child have alike their part assigned to them from day
to day. Be sure that the Sabbath is there observed; the very peace
which prevails around you in that abode, is a portion of the Sabbath
itself spread over the week.[15]
But see that other home where squalid wretchedness, perhaps unholy
riot, reigns. See children neglected, see character lost, see
poverty bringing woe in its train--a woe which is gradually rising
like an ingulfing[*6] tide upon the inmates, till at last they are
steeped to the lip in misery. See a wife worse than widowed amid the
brutalities of that home; or, more degrading still, see her uniting
with her guilty partner in godless revelry, till, like the meeting
of fires, the two together waste and consume every vestige of
what is pure, and lovely, and of good report. Now, while you gaze
upon that scene, be sure that the sacred hours of the Sabbath are
disallowed[*7] there; they are squandered in licentiousness, and
perverted into the means of ruin. In brief, the Sabbath is there
trodden under foot. The ungodliness of the week grows deeper and
darker on the Lord's own day, because the abuse of the best things
turns them into the worst; and accumulated crime, like a swollen
river, sweeps the inmates at last, some to prison, some to an
hospital, some to exile, some to death.
GALILEO'S FIRMNESS.
And these, and a thousand similar cases, warn us in the workshop to
prize the day of rest. It frees the sons and daughters of toil for
a little from the burdens of earth. It braces their mind for the
struggle with sin throughout the week. It enables them to clothe
themselves with the armour of righteousness on the right hand and
on the left. It affords an opportunity for anchoring the soul to the
Rock of Ages. If employed as it ought to be, that day, which is not
ours, but the Lord's, who claims a seventh portion of our time as
peculiarly his own, will arm the mind for meekly but resolutely
putting away at once the wiles and the assaults of the godless. "I
know in whom I have believed," may be the reply of the godly artizan
to all the gainsayers; and he may thus proceed upon his way as
a believer, as unmoved either by the scorn or the assault of the
infidel or the licentious, as Galileo was unshaken amid all the
persecutions of popery, when he told the world the true theory of
the skies. In a word, with the Bible open before us, and the mind
of God for our standard there, he is at once the strongest and the
happiest Christian who has best learned to practise what John taught
by his example, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day."
THE CHURCH OF THE OUTCAST.
Now, we put that counsel first, because unless it be religiously
acted on, all else will be vain. At the same time, we are now in
circumstances for putting this matter to a practical proof upon a
large scale. In various cities of the empire, there are churches
formed well-nigh exclusively of those who, a few years ago, had no
man who cared for their souls, and who had not learned to care for
themselves. They were therefore, familiar with sin. It was their
sport, or rather their daily work, to do mischief. Some of them
were at once corrupt and corrupting. But out of these very souls
there have been formed the goodly spectacle of earnest worshippers,
counted by hundreds, and characterized by all the aspects of
devoutness.
And, what is it that has achieved these results? How does it happen
that instead of the thorn the fir-tree has come up; instead of the
brier, the myrtle? and how does the desert blossom as the rose? Who
will hesitate to reply, that had it not been for the Sabbath, with
all that is blessed and all that is hallowing in its exercises, such
effects could never have been produced? From day to day, nay, from
hour to hour, pains and prayer were needed. From hour to hour, the
men of faith who put their hands to that work, had to depend on the
blessing which comes from God only. But these blessings came in rich
abundance on the Lord's own day; and now it can be said of this man
and that man, formerly an outcast from the decencies of life, that
he is born of the Spirit, clothed and in his right mind, by the
Spirit's blessing on his truth proclaimed. In the light of eternity,
such men are ennobled.
TRUE NOBILITY.
Now, what raised them from their degradation, is yet more able to
keep us from falling; and sure we are, that were there but one man
in a workshop who knew how to prize and profit by the Lord's day,
he could, single-handed, keep his ground at once against taunts,
against malice, and against all persecution. On that day our God
leads us, if we will let him, into his pavilion; He teaches us
where to hide from "the strife of tongues," and it is thus that
true nobility is imparted even to him
"Who ploughs with pain his native lea,
And reaps the labour of his hands."
II. Where it is our daily business to earn our bread by the
sweat of our brows in the workshop, it should be one of our first
and most resolute endeavours, to make sure that the truth which
Jesus brought from heaven to earth is deeply planted in our hearts
and souls.--There are tender plants which thrive and bloom, or bear
luxuriant fruit, if sheltered well, but which wither and die if
exposed to the biting blast for a night; and there is a parallel
to that in religion. In kindly or in genial exposures it may thrive,
and put forth its blossoms or bear fruit; but in many a workshop it
is exposed to the rudest blasts that blow.
INFIDELITY--
One would try to crush it; he hates it because it will not let him
sin. Like that profligate man who wished Keith's Evidences from
Prophecy destroyed, "because they were so convincing;" many cry,
Away with the Word of God, for the same reason that the Jews cried,
Away, away with the Son of God--because it rebukes their iniquity.
ITS ROOT.
And another wishes the Word of God put down, because he remembers
its effects upon his soul in earlier years, when a godly parent
tried to impress it on the conscience and the heart. He has now
cast these instructions behind his back. He has learned to sin with
a high hand; and as the sight or the sounds of the truth re-awaken
his old concern, he is eager to drive it from his presence. The very
sight is a sting to his conscience. A single clause may be like a
death-knell, and that man hates it with a perfect hatred. That is
the root of much of the infidelity which is now so rife--not the
want of proof, but the evil heart of unbelief; not mere ignorance,
but the preference of sin to holiness.
Or a third among our fellow-workmen may be one who has known
some signal hypocrite. That pretender sought, perhaps, to promote
some sinister object by a religious profession. Perhaps he prayed;
perhaps he was a reprover of other men's sins; perhaps he was an
eager advocate for sound doctrine, and would endure no departure
from it--yet, after all, he may be unmasked as a mere pretender. It
may be discovered at length that he was all the while living in sin,
concealed, but long continued, such as to indicate that his religion
was a pretence, and his strictness that of a Pharisee. Now, having
discovered the hollowness of that man's pretensions, some gladly
rush to the conclusion that all religion is a pretence; they
greedily grasp at the conviction, because it favours their own
licentiousness, that "there is none righteous, no, not one."
Religion in every form is therefore regarded as an offence, or
discarded as an imposture.
Or, in the workshop beside us, we may find some other man who
affects to be scientific. He knows a little of Geology, and is able
to overthrow Moses and the Bible. He is acquainted with the secrets
of Chronology, and thinks that there are far older histories--older
by many thousands of years--than the records of Scripture pretend
to be. Or that man has heard a little of Ethnography, and because
he is ignorant, he thinks it can be proved that all the dwellers on
the earth did not spring from Adam and Eve. Or perhaps his learning
takes the direction of tracing the Vestiges of Creation, and he
concludes that man can create--generally, that creatures can make
each other, and that God is therefore unnecessary. These, and
similar pretensions of science, falsely so called, may have taken
hold of some minds around us, and amid the multitude of such
assailants, who are bold, as streams are brawling, in proportion
to their shallowness, it may not be always easy to be steadfast
and unmoveable.
But to render us unmoveable--to arm us against such assailants
--nothing will suffice, till Christ dwell in our hearts by faith;
till his truth be /our property/; till the Saviour be a Saviour, and
pardon a pardon, /to us/. A religion which has merely been handed
down to us by our fathers, will not stand the rude shock of such
assaults as have been named. We need to be rooted and grounded in
the truth. We require a better and a deeper teaching than man's.
It must be a fixed conviction in our soul, that religion does not
consist in observing mere forms or seasons, however devoutly. Christ
must dwell in the heart, just as the blood must be in the body, and
circulate there as a vitalizing power.
THE PANOPLY.
On this subject we cannot be too urgent. While there is absolutely
no panoply but truth, our convictions need to be reinforced by
the feeling, that it is not toil that degrades man; it is not hard
labour that ranks him among the lower orders; it is sin. Adam, in
innocence, had to work, and that did not degrade him. But he sinned,
and that laid him in the miry clay. Paul the apostle had to work,
and felt no dishonour in it. The only dishonour which he knew, was
rebellion against God; and if we would resist the temptations which
assail us from without or from within, we need to make sure that
we are on the Lord's side; that his truth is in our hearts; that
it keeps watch in our souls, ready to sound an alarm, and summon
us to action against every enemy. Without that, surrounded as we are
in the workshop with clouds of enemies, we shall be like the willow
wand before the blast, and driven of the wind and tossed; but with
the grace of God in the soul, we may be strong in the Lord and the
power of his might; we may beat back our assailants--some have won
them to their cause. No power but truth, we repeat, will ever make
us steadfast. Some invest our "cottage homes" with the attractions
of poetry, and tell that
"Fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves."
But it is not poetic embellishments--it is nothing factitious in
man's lot--it is the simple truth of God uniting to Christ, that
elevates or ennobles the soul.
BAPTISMAL SUPERSTITION.
There are some dark-souled tribes in Africa, whose whole religion
consists in charms and incantations. By means which we need not
tarry to describe, they try to ward off what they reckon evil, or
to obtain what they reckon good. Now, strange as it may appear,
that folly is native to the mind of man. The very same tendency
which makes a degraded savage trust to a charm, makes some who
are not savages trust to rites, and ceremonies, and forms. One
man concludes that he and his children are born again, or made the
children of God, by the mere fact that they were baptized--that
is, by a ceremony. Another thinks that his soul is right, because
he worships among Christians. A third concludes that all is well,
because the sacrament of the Supper has been administered to him;
that rite is to many a soul what the extreme unction of popery is--a
charm, an incantation, and nothing more. Now, while that is the only
form of religion in man's soul, he will prove the ready victim of
the snares and entanglements of the workshop. If the truth of God be
not rooted in the heart, no man can stand. We repeat it, and repeat
it--there is only one power that can either make us steadfast or
keep us so--the grace of God in truth; and the man who confides
in aught else for conquest, is already tottering to his fall.
OUR ALLIES.
Observe, however, we disown no right ally in this holy warfare.
All knowledge that deserves the name--science as far as it can be
acquired--should be acquired by every occupant of the workshop, and
some memorable examples of success in its culture could be named.
These, and all that can either strengthen or expand the mind, should
be cultivated to the uttermost of our power; but with all these,
the mind may become an easy prey to baseless delusions, unless
the wisdom which comes from above be our guide. While we hold
our convictions firmly, we must hold them as God's truth, and in
God's strength, or they will soon be wrung from our grasp. To be
self-reliant is in some respects a duty which we owe to ourselves;
but yet to trust to our own resources, our own wisdom or strength,
is the high way to shame and confusion at the last. We are prepared
to resist and to triumph only when we have on the whole armour of
God. If we try to realize a Saviour's love, we have a sure defence;
but whatever would withdraw us from that holy influence, whether
it be the deceitful heart within, or an ensnaring world without,
is just like the smoke from the abyss--it is loaded with darkness
and death to the soul.
HUMAN DEVICES.
There is a canoe floating lazily on the waters of the St. Lawrence.
All is bright on either side; and forests which nothing but the
wild beast or the tempest has disturbed for centuries, wave in
the plenitude of summer richness. In that canoe there is a boatman
asleep, and the gentle gliding of his little craft is fitted rather
to rock than to rouse him. Gradually, however, the river flows
more rapidly. The boat, with its sleeping cargo, feels the suction,
and now rushes with increasing velocity along. Its agitation at
length rouses the sleeper, but it is too late. His skiff feels
the resistless power of the current; and, amid wild gesticulations,
he plunges into an abyss where his very fragments are destroyed.
And similar results are seen in the moral world, when men permit
themselves to be drawn within the suction of that current which is
sweeping so many down to ruin for ever.
SECULARISM.
Were it needful further to enforce this subject, we might refer to
the ever-varying forms of delusion which heady and selfish men often
obtrude on the notice of their fellow-workmen. Even in the course
of a single generation we may count scheme after scheme--Utopian
reforms--charters--new distributions of property or power--all
designed to enlist men's sympathies in favour of some dream-like
project, only to plunge its abettors into a deeper abyss than
before. The most recent of these assumes the name of /Secularism/.
It has for its object the abolition of Christianity, and all that
relates to the soul. One of its leading maxims is, "The precedence
of the duties of this life over those pertaining to another world;"
and, by the advocacy of such opinions, the system and its supporters
adapt themselves to all that is low and grovelling in the fallen
soul. They beguile the unwary, and make an easy conquest of those
who have no religion but that of their country or their fathers. Or
another dogma of the system is, that "the atonement of Christ is
unsatisfactory as a scheme, and immoral as an example;" and by
such tenets men would tear up the foundation on which the hopes
of mortality repose: they proudly but blindly sport with their own
ruin, and glory in lowering themselves to the level of the beasts
which perish.
THE HEAVENLY ANTIDOTE.
Now, against such satanic schemes, there is no safeguard but
one--the truth as it is in Jesus, planted in the heart by his
Spirit, and tended there by his grace. Our religion, or what we
call religion, will perish like flax before the flame, when such
deceivers assail, unless we have felt the truth in its power, and
know, in spite of all opposition, that it /can/ guide, /can/ purify,
/can/ bless the soul. What more congenial to man than to be told
that he need not care much about his soul? What can throw open the
door for indulgence so widely as to be assured that we need not
prepare for hereafter--that earth is all? What can more perfectly
pamper the selfishness of man than to be told that "spiritual
dependence may lead to material destruction?" Hence the danger of
such bold blasphemies. They find an ally, and often a ready welcome,
in the heart of man; and hence also the necessity of getting hold
and keeping hold of the heavenly antidote to all such delusions.
That antidote is the truth--the truth of God felt in the heart, and
guiding the life; and with that in our possession, we repeat /in our
possession/, we may humbly take up the great Reformer's eulogy, and
say, "I will not fear the face of man." God and man, this world and
the next, are alike provided for in the Word; and when we learn to
welcome all God's revelation, we shall be guided into every good and
holy way.
THE COWARDICE OF SIN.
III. A third counsel for our guidance in the workshop is, briefly
--Be consistent. Never forget that the man who tries to be a
Christian to-day, and complies with the enticements of sinners
to-morrow, is one who is easily despised. The ungodly are lynx-eyed
to mark his inconsistency, and prompt enough to pour contempt upon
him. A single rash act, a single rash word, may inflict a wound upon
the soul, or a blemish upon the character, from which it will not
easily recover; nay, like a moral palsy, it may strike us with
weakness and timidity for life. If we would be Christians at all, we
must be Christians always. Then by the grace of God we are safe, and
it would be pleasant to tell of some who have thus resisted the tide
of iniquity which broke against them in the workshop, or silenced
the abundance of abuse.--The sinner is, by a necessary law, a coward.
He fears God, though he will not own it; he fears conscience, and
tries to trample it out as a dangerous spark; he fears perdition,
though he seems to be stout against it; and, moreover, he fears a
humble, living, consistent Christian, though he pretends only to
despise him. The sinner, we repeat, is a coward, by a necessary law.
Terror is part of the wages of sin; and though sinners in crowds be
courageous, /alone/ they are timid and discomposed. They shrink from
the glance of a good man's eye; in their secret heart they fear him
with a fear which in some cases passes into love.
A MORAL PESTILENCE.
Now, the knowledge of that should make the believer bold and firm.
By consistency he will subdue--he may be the means of winning some
from the error of their ways. He will generally find some Aquila
with whom to associate as he works. His God will raise up some
like-minded companion with whom he can take sweet counsel; and if
that believer will seek to keep alive in his memory, in the workshop
and everywhere, the conviction, that there is only one really
formidable thing in all God's world, /that is sin/, he will be made
more than a conqueror. Swayed by that deep conviction, the occupant
of the workshop may often be vexed, as Lot was in Sodom; but,
appealing to the Wonderful, the Counsellor, strength will be
supplied according to his day, while conscience is kept unsullied
and at peace. The squalid victim of sin will be a beacon. The bold
blasphemer will be an object of utmost pity. The Secularist, and
all who give earth precedence to heaven, or man to God, or sin
to holiness, will be shunned as a moral pestilence; and the felt
necessity of being much at the fountain, amid all these sources of
contamination, may turn the workshop into a Bethel. We could tell
of more than one instance in which that has been the case.
ANALOGIES.
IV. As it is not our object to enter into details, but mainly to
submit such general suggestions as Christian wisdom may enable men
to apply as occasion requires, we need scarcely say--At once, and
resolutely, put away all the sinful compliances which may be common
in the business which you pursue. There are usages, there are
expressions, there are pretexts in many departments which pure
principle would at once put down, and let the workman of integrity
disown such things. The commonness of a sin only makes it worse;
and instead of pleading that as a reason for compliance, it is, in
truth, a reason for our instant recoil. And never take up the words
which are common on the lips of some, that they may cover their
iniquity, although the veil be thin: "An honest man cannot live
now--that is, we must employ finesse, or fraud, in order to obtain
a livelihood, or clear our way through the world." Such a statement
is a slander against the truth; it is dishonouring to the God of
truth, and the very reverse of it is true. But write it deep upon
the conscience, that "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,
than a stalled ox and strife," and be assured that godliness has
the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is
to come. Be poor, but be not unprincipled. Sit down to very humble
fare, rather than harbour an angry conscience. When sinners entice
you, do not consent, whatever be the bribe. Holding fast your
integrity, in the strength of your God, he will redeem his promise,
"Bread shall be provided, and water made sure," and "Better is the
little that a good man hath, than the riches of many wicked."
Would you struggle for your life were you suddenly to fall into a
stream or the sea? You would: then will you calmly sink to rise no
more for ever, as regards the soul? Would you repel the attack of
a robber were he to invade the midnight silence of your home? You
would: then with equal earnestness, but in almighty strength, repel
the invader--the man that would be the assassin of your soul. Would
you refuse to let the oppressor plant his foot on the happy island
of your home? You would hasten, I believe, to sweep him from our
borders. Then, with equal heroism, defend the freedom which the Son
of God bestows--freedom from the bondage of sin, from its pollution
and its curse.
TOKENS FOR GOOD.
Nor should it be forgotten for the encouragement of the sons of
toil, that there is in our day a gradual approximation of the
classes of society. The spreading of education, and the attempts
of one class to benefit another, are bringing men more closely
together, to link them, as we have seen, in more brotherly concord.
There may still be the scowl of defiance from the lawless, and plots
on the part of the disaffected, while on the other hand, there are
still some remains of a class fast verging to extinction, who would
doom the people to hopeless ignorance and toil. But these are nearly
obsolete notions, and men are more cordially walking together now,
like those who are agreed. In the brief space of a quarter of a
century, the hopes of philanthropists once deemed Utopian, have
been turned into realities; and while the doctrine of Christ is
thus adorned, men's sorrows are soothed, their souls are blessed.
Many other counsels might be added to those now advanced. We might
say--In the workshop avoid all high debate. It never leads to
edification; it often occasions the loss both of our temper and
our cause. "Be always ready to give to every one that asks it, a
reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." Be as
ready to protest against all that is hostile to the soul and the
happiness of man. But contention about religion is often its death;
and we would rather say, Hold in your mouth as with a bridle when
the wicked are before you. Let /the life/ argue for the Saviour and
his cause, far more than the lip. In that way, men will be compelled
to take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus. The life
of a Christian is always the most conclusive argument and the most
solemn appeal. "Study to be quiet, and to do your own business,
and to work with your own hands," and let the contentious bite and
devour, without retaliation from you.
We might farther say--Be diligent. Above all, be diligent for Christ.
It is thus that his people learn to put on armour of proof against
all temptation. They redeem the time. They try to do all in the name
of Christ, and he becomes like walls and bulwarks round about them.
If you will learn to be a "miser of moments," you may grow rich for
eternity.
THE TEMPTER A REPTILE.
Or we might say--When temptations come, remember that ere the first
tempter succeeded, he had to become a reptile; and he that would
tempt you is by that act a degraded being. He is to be shunned as
an offence; as debased himself, and therefore anxious to debase.
Such men may sell their souls for woe, but surely "in vain is the
snare set in the sight of any bird--" will you follow the example
of a self-destroyer?
Or we might add--Be not deceived by any of the pretexts which
cunning men adopt to beguile and ensnare. On the one hand, they
flatter /the working/ classes, as if all were idle except the
inmates of the workshop; but you know that it is not so. What Paul
said to the Colossians concerning his own doings, is true of many
still: "I toil, agonizing," he said, "with the energy of Christ." On
the other hand, men speak of the lower orders as if /you who toil/
were they. But the really low are the men who live in idleness and
sin. It is not toil, it is guilt that lowers or degrades us; and
that conviction should be rooted in all our minds.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
But enough. Let the men of handicraft and hard labour cling close
to the Bible, for it alone can ennoble and purify. Before its light,
let all grow pale; before its wisdom, let all appear foolish.--As
we approach the mighty Alps, other objects begin to seem small or
diminutive; and after our eyes have been familiarized with those
majestic masses, what formerly appeared grand seems now reduced to
littleness.--Let it be so in the moral world. Before the majestic
truth of God, let every human being do obeisance, like the sheaves
of his brothers to the sheaf of Joseph; and when we are like-minded
with our God, we shall be strong in his strength, and happy with his
peace. We cannot be always in his house--our daily toils forbid it;
but we should be always in his Spirit; and that is light, that is
strength, that is a passport for man to glory.
Upon a subject so full of interest as the moral condition and
prospects of those who spend their days in workshops, we should not
perhaps be contented with merely announcing general rules, however
sound or scriptural they may be. It is commonly supposed that the
humble men who are so employed are cut off from the nobler outlets
for philanthropy, or from those higher walks in which some move and
do great deeds before the world's view. But no mistake can be more
unfounded. The mighty Maker of heaven and earth has debarred no man
from doing good, if man himself be inclined; and some of the noblest
benefactors of our land or race, have been found among the very
classes too commonly supposed to be doomed only to toil. We waive
all reference to those who, by their inventions, even while engaged
in manual labour, have extended the resources of our empire, and
added to the riches of our globe. We pass by those who have risen
from among the sons of handicraft to take rank among our lawgivers,
our nobles, and other signalized men. We point to only two examples
not less illustrious as benefactors than they were humble in their
sphere.
HARLAN PAGE.
HARLAN PAGE was born at Coventry, in Connecticut, in the year
1791, and was taught by his father the trade of a house-joiner.
He received a good common education. For twenty years and more he
lived without much concern regarding his soul, but in the year 1813,
"the one thing needful" really became an object of earnest pursuit.
Such was his anxiety and distress on account of sin, that he had
frequently to retire from his work to pray. On journeys he often
felt constrained to withdraw to some thicket for a similar purpose;
and on one occasion, after he had begun to teach a school, his
sense of his lost condition as a sinner became so intense, that
he felt that he could not again leave the throne of grace till
the controversy with his Maker was closed. There, in the darkness
of midnight, and under the guidance, none can doubt, of the Holy
Spirit, he consecrated himself to the Redeemer, not merely in the
confidence of pardon and acceptance, but with the determination
to live and labour to promote His glory in the salvation of the
perishing. "When I first obtained hope," he said on his dying bed,
"I felt that I must labour for souls. I prayed, year after year,
that God would make me the means of saving some."
"BEHOLD HE PRAYETH."
And his prayer was signally answered. Never did Page lose an
opportunity of holding up the lamp to souls. By letters, by
conversation, by tracts, by prayers, by appeals and warnings, as
well as by a holy and an earnest example, did he try to reclaim
the wandering or edify the believer. In factories, in schools, and
elsewhere, did this mechanic labour, and only the mighty power of
grace can explain how one so humble could achieve so much: his life
is a speaking comment on the words, "God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath
God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things
that are." "Our faith in eternal realities is weak," he cried,
"and our sense of duty faint, while we neglect the salvation of
our fellow-beings. Let us awake to duty, and while we have a tongue
or pen, devote them to the service of the Most High, not in our own
strength, but with strong faith and confidence in him."
LOVE TO SOULS.
Now, the record of this man's life shows that no day was allowed
to pass without something done for the good of others' souls. What
Page mainly aimed at was the conversion of the unconverted; and
the extent to which he was honoured may be viewed as at once an
encouragement and a reproof. His own soul was all aglow when he
heard of one after another brought to the Saviour. While he wept
over men's impenitence, he exulted when he heard they had welcomed
the call. He tried to win the young and warn the old, and his
pleadings with sinners were sometimes most pathetic. "Shall neither
man nor God," he said to one, "hear from your lips, 'O my sins,
my sins, I fear they will ruin my soul for ever?' Shall no prayer,
'God, be merciful to me a sinner,' break from your heart?" "You are
now in an awful crisis," he said to another. "Your eternal all may
depend on the course you take. The Lord has taught you by his Spirit
that you are a wretched, perishing sinner. You feel that you have
no preparation for heaven, and see nothing before you but eternal
woe. O, my friend, /there is a refuge/. The Lord Jesus invites,
in melting strains, 'Look to me, and live; come unto me, and find
rest!' O go to Him /now/, as you value your precious, your immortal
soul."
A SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
At other times Page was brief and sententious, but solemn.
Seeing four youths, for example, on one occasion employed in some
thoughtless course, he accosted them, and drove this laconic warning
like a nail into their conscience, "Prepare to meet thy God!"--and
it was blessed. In a word, he sowed beside all waters, and the
increase was proportioned to his faith. All this took place
amid bodily weakness and daily toil, insomuch that his ailments
obliged him at last to seek a change of occupation, and he for
some time taught a school during the winter seasons. One hundred
and ninety-five pupils passed through the hands of Page in that
character. The history of seventy of them is unknown; but of the
remaining one hundred and twenty-five, eighty-four are thought to
have given evidence of conversion, and six became preachers of the
gospel. In another place, fifty-eight were supposed to have been
brought to Christ by his instrumentality. Such was the blessing
which made him and others rich and added no sorrow.
Nor need we wonder. So intense was the ardour of Page in dealing
with souls, that he has been known even in sleep to suppose that he
was expostulating with them, and to awake in tears of earnestness
and pain. Knowing that every child of the fallen Adam must either
be born again, or never see God, he made that the burden of all his
endeavours, his prayers, his struggles, and tears. To labour for
that became a portion of his very being; and he died as he had
lived, beckoning all around him to follow him to be for ever with
the Lord.
Here, then, is a man in humble life, without any adventitious aid,
without any learning, for many years the occupant of a workshop, yet
living, labouring, dying to win souls to Christ. He was, indeed, a
sweet savour of Christ wherever he went; and should not the example
of Harlan Page summon many in his own sphere to go and do likewise?
Does it not prove, that if we have the grace of God in our heart,
it is not rank, or wealth, or learning, or power, but a willing mind,
and consecration to Christ, his cause and glory, that are required to
accomplish great things? Let our artizans imbibe the spirit of Page,
and then they may be honoured as he was; it may be inscribed upon
their tombstones as it was upon his, "He ceased not to warn every
one night and day with tears."
JOHN POUNDS.
JOHN POUNDS was another benefactor to society who deserves to be
held in perpetual remembrance. He was born at Portsmouth in the
year 1766. By the fracture of a limb, he was forced to change
his employment as a shipwright for that of a shoemaker, or rather
shoe-mender, for he never rose to the rank of a maker, and as the
occupant of a "weather-boarded tenement" in his native town, John
divided his time between his awls and deeds of active benevolence.
A cripple himself by his accident, he had also the charge of a
decrepit nephew; and the boy for some time divided the attention of
Pounds with a number of tame birds which he kept from affection or
for amusement. By exercising his ingenuity and benevolence at once,
he succeeded in restoring some degree of soundness to his nephew: he
then undertook to teach him to read; and that led him to seek some
companion for his ward and pupil, under the wise impression that the
one would stimulate the other, and the progress of both be promoted.
His pupils gradually increased in number: his love of teaching grew
upon him, and the work soon knew no limits but those of John's very
humble abode. It was about six feet wide by eighteen in length;
and in that apartment did Pounds, surrounded by his scholars, ply
his double avocation of cobler and schoolmaster. The progress of
the scholars was as diverse as the employments of the master; but
he bore all with gladness. He had his eye upon each outcast in
the group, and by his expertness he showed that he was a born
teacher--his gift lay in training.
A LOWLY PHILANTHROPIST.
As Pounds rose in popularity, the applications for admission to
his seminary increased; and with a remarkable but wise instinct,
he selected "the little blackguards" in preference to others, that
he might enjoy the pleasure of breaking them in like the wild ass's
colt. Some he would allure to his school by such poor bribes as he
could command; and though his labours were unrequited, though he had
not the means of purchasing school-books, but taught the alphabet
from handbills and fragments of old volumes, yet some hundreds of
persons owed all the learning they ever acquired to this facetious,
devoted, and humble philanthropist. He helped to keep down the
calendar of crime, and sent not a few into life possessed of
acquirements sufficient to impart respectability in their sphere,
who, had it not been for John Pounds, the founder of Ragged Schools,
might have become the pests or the plunderers of society.
MAN'S RUIN AND RISE.
Such, then, is another instance of philanthropy, in one of the
humblest of mankind. After this, why wait for some costly apparatus
for doing good? Why delay the attempt to make the world better,
however humble our sphere may be, when we see one so lowly, yet so
honoured--so poor, yet making so many others rich? Nay, with the
grace of God in the heart, and love to souls as its invariable
attendant, be it the felt duty, the privilege, the resolute vow
of all, even in the workshop, to seek to convert some sinner from
the error of his ways, and thereby hide a multitude of sins.--As
one wanders over the Seven Hills of Rome, he may often pick up a
marble fragment of a frieze, a portion of a capital, a volute, or
a triglyph, telling of the grandeur which once was there, when the
palace of the Cæsars crowned more than one of the hills, and the
"Golden House" of Nero formed the glory of the whole. And, in like
manner, amid the ruins and the /debris/ of our fallen nature, we
sometimes find what reminds us of its primal glory, and of the depth
to which it has fallen; and yet assuring us, that fallen though it
be, it may not have fallen for ever. Benefactors to humanity, like
Harlan Page and John Pounds, occupy that rank among men.
SERVING THE LORD.
There is no weariness to him who works for Christ: he is willing to
spend and be spent. No sullen drudgery is his, as if work were only
a doom--nay, rather cheerful work from a glad, emancipated spirit,
and joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That sweetens toil;
that braces the arm; that nerves man's spirit for all that can ever
come; and even his daily work, as a husbandman, or an artizan, is
thus spiritualized into a service to his God.