LEADING SOULS TO CHRIST.
Hark! through Nature's vast cathedral,
Blended echoes ever rise,
Swelling in a mighty anthem
To its overarching skies.
Every great and noble action
Is re-echoed o'er and o'er;
Life itself is but an echo
Of the lives that were before.
Our daily life ought to be an echo of the life of Christ. Just as God
is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto man
his trespasses, so the great aim of the Christian ought to be to lead
souls to Jesus. The Rev. Dr. W. M. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle,
tells the story of how, when Hector was going to his last battle, and
his wife Andromache accompanied him as far as the gates of the city,
they were followed by a nurse carrying in her arms their infant child.
When he was about to depart, Hector held out his hands to receive the
little one, but, terrified by the burnished helmet, and the waving
plume, the child turned away and clung, crying, to his nurse's neck. In
a moment, divining the cause of the infant's alarm, the warrior took
off his helmet and laid it on the ground, and then, smiling through his
tears, the little fellow leaped into his father's arms. Now, similarly,
Jehovah of hosts, Jehovah with his helmet on, would frighten us weak
guilty ones away; but in the person of the Lord Jesus He has laid that
helmet off, and now the guiltiest and the neediest are encouraged to go
to His fatherly embrace and avail themselves of His support.
Under date of February, 1875, Mrs. Knowles writes that she has been
successful, during the past two months, in bringing many persons to
attend church, and a number of children to the Sabbath-schools; and she
adds:
"I am much encouraged by the attention paid to the reading of the
Scriptures. I have also made many hearts glad by supplying their
families with food and clothing, and at some places where I have not
given anything, and have referred to it, I have been answered with:
"'You have done a great deal for us by teaching us to trust in the
Lord.'"
Thought ought to operate between two limits--the one of time, the other
of eternity.
The Sabbath-school and the Church are inseparably linked with earth and
heaven. "Train up a child in the way it should go, and when it is old
it will not depart from it." The first book put into my hand when a
boy, in the public school of my native land, was the Bible. And the
first book I had to study in the Sabbath-school was the Shorter
Catechism. These two books have exerted a benign and salutary influence
on my whole life. Now, what the study of mathematics is to the
intellect by disciplining and imparting the power to reason
consecutively, thus tranquillizing the judgment by furnishing
demonstrative knowledge, even so the sermons heard in the House of God,
and the lessons taught in the Sabbath-school, and all the outward
spiritual truth conveyed to the heart of the hearer, quickens the soul
into newness of life; hence the injunction of the Apostle:
"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He
is faithful that promised;)
"And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love, and to good
works:
"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of
some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the
day approaching.
"For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of
the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.
"But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries.
"He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three
witnesses."
Her chief delight was to lead men, women, and children to the house of
God. It does not seem strange, therefore, when we find the foregoing
emphatic declaration in her diary: "_I am much encouraged by the
attention paid to the reading of the Scriptures._" This is the glorious
result of getting people first to attend to the means of grace in the
sanctuary on the Lord's day. How greatly cheered she must have been in
her work to hear the welcome words: "_You have done a great deal for us,
by teaching us to_ TRUST IN GOD."
What is God's estimate of those who trust in Him? Here the mind is
forever set at rest. He proffers innumerable blessings to those who
_confide_ in Him, and we will, right now and here, give our attention to
a few of the many precious promises by which God richly entertains his
children:
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee;
because he trusteth in thee; trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the
Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength."--Isa. xxvi. 3-4.
"He that putteth his trust in me, shall possess the land, and inherit
my holy mountain."--Isa. lvii. 13.
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord
is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth
out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her
leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit."--Jer. xvii. 7-8.