in the school of affliction. They only who walk in the fiery furnace are
counted worthy the companionship of the Son of God. The modes of their
discipline are various as are their circumstances and peculiar traits,
but in one form or other stern trials have proved them all. They partake
of the holiness of the Lord, because they have first endured the
chastening of his love. They are filled with righteousness, because they
have known the pangs of spiritual hunger and the extremity of thirst.
They abound, because they have been empty. They are heavenly-minded,
because they have first learned in the bitterness of their spirits how
unsatisfying is earth. They are firmly anchored by faith, because
frequent tempests and threatened shipwreck have taught them their need.
The Master himself was made perfect through suffering, and with his
baptism, must they who would follow him closely, be baptized.
While Hannah was undergoing at Ramah the discipline which wrought in her
such noble qualities, there dwelt in Shiloh one of kindred spirit, who
was called to endure even severer tests, inasmuch as that which should
have constituted her happiness, was evermore the bitterest ingredient in
her cup; what might have been her purest joys became her greatest
griefs. She was a wife, but only in name. Of the serenity and bliss
which attend on true wedded love she was deprived. Her bridal pillow was
early planted with thorns, which henceforth forbade all peace. She was a
mother, but her children were to be partakers of their father's shame,
disgraced, and doomed to early death or lives of wickedness and woe. She
seemingly enjoyed abundant privileges, but her trials as a child of God
were deeper than all others. She dwelt on sacred ground, but alas!
herein lay the secret of her sorrow. Had her home been among the
thousands in the outer camps, it had not been so sadly desecrated. Her
husband was the High Priest's son, and daily performed the priest's duty
among holy things. Had he been a humble member of Dan or Naphtali, his
crimes had not been so heinous. She lived under the shadow of the
tabernacle; had her abode been farther from the sacred enclosure, she
had not been daily witness to the heaven-daring deeds which made men
abhor the offering of the Lord, and called for vengeance on her nearest
and dearest. Her food was constantly supplied from the sacred offerings;
had it been procured in ordinary ways, she had not been a partaker with
those who committed sacrilege.
No trifling vexations, no light sorrows were hers; and as might be
expected, her virtues bore their proportion to the purifying process to
which she was subjected. Disappointed in her earthly hopes, she clung to
her God, and fastened her expectations on Him. Humiliated in her human
relations, she aspired to nothing henceforth but His honor and glory.
Wounded in heart, her wealth of love despised, lonely, deserted, she
sought in Him the portion of her soul, and her lacerated affections
found repose and satisfaction, without the fear of change in His
unchanging love.
It is often so ordered in the Providence of God, that those who have
borne the yoke in their youth, live to see days of comparative quietude
and exemption from trouble. Hannah, after the birth of Samuel, appears
to have passed the remainder of her life in peace and prosperity. But
the nameless woman whose memorial we record had no respite. Her life was
a life of endurance, and she was cut off in the midst of her days by a
most fearful and agonizing stroke.
Israel was as usual at war with the Philistines. The army had pitched
beside Eben-ezer, "And the Philistines put themselves in array against
Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the
Philistines." Alarmed and distressed by this defeat, the Israelites
vainly imagining that wherever the ark of God was, there He would be
also with his favoring presence, sent up to Shiloh to bring from thence
the sacred symbol. With great pomp and solemnity it was borne by the
Priests and Levites, and uproarious was the rejoicing as it entered the
camp, but no account is given of the feelings of those who remained near
the deserted tabernacle. Did the aged Eli forbode that the awful event
which should signal the fulfillment of prophetic woe against his family
was about to befall? Did the abused wife dream that she should behold no
more her husband's face? We know not what of personal apprehension
mingled with their trouble, but we do know that with trembling hearts
these faithful servants of God awaited tidings of the ark of his
covenant. How portentous soever might be the cloud which hung over their
own happiness, they deemed it of small importance in comparison with the
honor of Jehovah. The messenger came, but who shall portray the scene
when he rendered his tidings!
* * * * *
In a darkened chamber, whither death, clothed in unwonted horrors, has
suddenly come for the fourth victim of that doomed family, lies the
subject of our meditations, panting under his iron grasp. The
afflictions of her life are now consummated. The husband of her youth,
his follies and faults against her, now are forgotten in the bitter
thought that _he is dead_, has gone unrepentant to the bar of God to
give account of his priesthood--her venerable father-in-law alone, with
no friend to cheer his dying agonies, has also departed from earth--her
people are defeated in battle, and worse than all, the ark of God is
fallen into the hands of the uncircumcised Philistines--who doubtless
glory as if Dagon had conquered the invincible Jehovah. What to her are
the pangs and throes under which her tortured body labors? She heeds
them not. Pitying friends endeavor to rouse her from her dying lethargy,
by the most glad tidings a Hebrew woman could learn, "Fear not; for thou
hast borne a son!" But she answers not. Shorter and shorter grows her
breath--nearer and nearer she approaches the eternal shore. But she is a
mother, and though every other tie is sundered, and she is dying of the
wounds which the cruel breaking of those heart strings has caused, she
feels one cord drawing her to her new-born child, and asks that he may
be brought. It is too much! Why was he born? No cheering thought comes
with his presence. Nor joy nor honor are in store for him. Call him
Ichabod, (without glory) she gasps with feeble accents, "for the glory
is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken." A moment more and
her freed spirit is in His open presence, who she deemed was forever
departed from her people.
* * * * *
Christian friend, you who are walking through desert places, and perhaps
fainting under the heavy hand of God, let not your heart fail you.
Shrink not back from the path, though it seem beset with thorns. Some
good is in store for you. Affliction, indeed, is not for the present
joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable
fruits of righteousness. If, like the mother of Ichabod, you learn to
forsake the turbid waters of earth for the Fountain of eternal love--if
you make the Lord your portion, you will not in the end be the loser,
though wave on wave roll over you and strip you of every other joy. No,
not even if at length your sun shall set in clouds impenetrable to
mortal vision. A glorious cloudless morning lies beyond, and you shall
be forever satisfied with Him who has chosen you in the furnace of
affliction.
"Then rouse thee from desponding sleep,
Nor by the wayside lingering weep,
Nor fear to seek Him farther in the wild,
Whose love can turn earth's worst and least
Into a conqueror's royal feast;
Thou will not be untrue, thou shall not be beguiled."
* * * * *
Original.
FEMALE EDUCATION--PHYSICAL TRAINING.
BY REV. S. W. FISHER.
I have presupposed three things in reference to education. The field
which it covers is also three-fold--the body, the intellect, and the
heart.
The body is the living temple of the soul. It is more than a casket for
the preservation of the jewel; it is more than the setting of the
diamond; it is more even than an exquisitely-constructed dwelling
wherein the soul lives, and works and worships. It is a living,
sensitive agent, into which the spirit pours its own life, through which
it communes with all external nature, and receives the effluxes of God
streaming from a material creation. It is the admirable organ through
which the man sends forth his influence either to bless and vivify, or
to curse and wither. By it, the immortal mind converts deserts into
gardens, creates the forms of art, sways senates, and sheds its plastic
presence over social life. The senses are the finely-wrought gates
through which knowledge enters the sublime dome of thought; while the
eye, the tongue, the hand, are the instruments of the Spirit's power
over the outer world. The soul incarnate in such a body, enjoys a living
medium of reciprocal communication between itself and all things
without. Meanwhile the body itself does not arrive here mature in its
powers; nor does it spring suddenly from the imbecility of the infant to
the strength of the man. By slow development, by a gradual growth, in
analogy with that of a tree whose life is protracted, it rises, after
years of existence, to its appointed stature. Advancing thus slowly, it
affords ample time for its full and free development.
In this physical training, there are two points of special importance.
The first is the removal of all unnatural restraints and the pressure
of unhealthy customs; the second, is the opportunity, the motive and the
habit of free exercise in the pure air of heaven. These, as causes of
health and fine physical development, are interwoven as are their
opposites. In the progress of society from barbarism to refinement, it
has often been the case that men, in departing from what was savage,
have lost that which was natural; and in their ascent from the rude have
left behind that which was essential to the highest civilization. In
escaping from the nakedness of the barbarian, they have sometimes
carried dress to an extreme of art which renders it untrue to nature and
productive of manifold evils. In ascending from the simple and rude
gastronomy of the savage, they have brought the art of cookery to such
an excess of luxury as to enervate society by merely factitious
appetites. In the formation of habits of life, social intercourse and
amusements adapted to a refined state, they have introduced many things
at war with the healthful development of both body and mind. The manly
exercises of swimming, skating, riding, hunting, ball playing; the
bracing walk in storm and sunshine; the free ramble over hill and dale,
all adapted to develop an independent, self-relying character; with the
occasional reunion where wit, science, healthful industry and serene
piety shed their benedictions; associating that which is free and bold
with the refined and sacred; all these are, in many cases, displaced by
frivolous and less healthful excitements. Our girls and boys,
prematurely exalted into young gentlemen and ladies, are tutored by
dancing masters; their manners disciplined into an artificial stiffness;
and the free developments of an open nature formed under the genial
influence of truly polite parents--the finest discipline in the
world--arrested by the strictures of a purely conventional regimen, in
which the laws of health and the higher spiritual life seem never to
have been consulted.
With such a physical training, associated with a corresponding education
of the mind and heart, they are ripe for the customs and fashions of
life in harmony therewith; and totally averse to the purer, manlier and
nobler duties and pleasures of a better state of society. To dress and
exhibit themselves; to crowd the saloon of every foreign trifler, who,
under the abused name of art, and for the sake of gold, seeks to
minister to us those meretricious excitements which associate themselves
with declining states and artificial forms of life; to waste the most
precious hours of night, set apart by the God of nature for repose, in
dancing, eating, drinking, and revelry, follow naturally enough upon
such training. Then in the rear, come disease of body and mind, broken
constitutions and broken hearts; and last of all, with grim majesty,
death, prematurely summoned, avenges this violation of the laws of
nature upon the miserable victims, and quenches the glare of this
brilliant day in the darkness of the tomb. How utterly different is such
training and such modes of life consequent upon it, from those which are
dictated by a thorough understanding of our nature and the great
purposes of our existence. For in all these things we shall find there
exists a connection sufficiently obvious between the right education of
the spirit and the body; and that so strong is their mutual influence as
to render it of great importance to care for them both in harmony with
each other. Then shall we regard the perfection of the form and the
vigor of our bodily powers. Casting away whatever did not consist with
the health and finer developments of the physical system, we should
pursue that course of education which best prepared the body for its
grand work as the living agent of the spirit.
In considering physical training it is allowable for us to look both at
beauty and intellectual power. A noble form in man; a fine, beautiful,
healthful form in woman, are desirable for their outward influence.
Created susceptible of deep impressions from external appearances, it is
neither religion nor good sense to undervalue them. That men generally
have over-estimated their worth, is a reason why we should reduce them
to their true position, and not sink them below it. The palace of the
soul should befit its possessor. And as God has taken pleasure in
scattering images of beauty all over the earth, and made us susceptible
of pleasure therefrom, it is right that in the education of our
children we should seek for the unfolding of the noblest and most
beautiful forms. Shall we beautify our dwellings; adorn our grounds with
plants, flowers, and trees of various excellence; improve the breed of
our cattle, and yet care not for the constitutions and forms of those
who are on earth the master-pieces of divine wisdom and the possessors
of all this goodly heritage? Most of all, however, as the agent of the
spirit, should we seek to rear our children in all healthful customs and
invigorating pursuits. It is possible, indeed, that a mind of gigantic
powers may sometimes dwell in a feeble frame, swayed to and fro by every
breath of air. But we are sure that such a physical state is the source
of manifold vexations, pains and loss of power. It is a state which the
possessor never covets; which oppresses him with the consciousness of an
energy he is forbidden to put forth, and a force for moving the world
crippled by the impediment of a frail body. For the full discharge of
all the duties of life; for the affording to our mental powers a fair
field for their action; and especially for the education and advancement
of succeeding generations, it is indispensable the vigor of the body
should correspond to the vigor of the intellect, so far as to constitute
the one the most efficient agent of the other. It has rarely been taken
into view, that, aside from the personal benefits of health in the
greater power of present action, the intense intellects and feeble
frames of one generation are a ruinous draft upon both the physical and
mental powers of that which succeeds. A race of overwrought brains in
enfeebled bodies must be recruited from a more healthful stock, or their
posterity will, in time, decline into idiocy or cease from the earth.
The process of degeneracy, by an infallible law, will pass from the body
to the intellect; and the descendant of a Luther or a Bacon go down to
the level of the most stupid boor that drives his oxen over the sands of
southern Africa.
* * * * *
Original.
INORDINATE GRIEF THE EFFECT OF AN UNSUBDUED WILL.
I called on a friend a few months since, who for a full year had been
watching with maternal solicitude over an invalid daughter still in the
morning of life, upon whom had been lavished all the fond caresses of
parental love and tenderness. Every advantage which wealth, and the
means of education could impart to qualify her for happiness in this
life had been hers--nor had her religious culture been entirely
overlooked.
In her father's family there had been little effort made to instill into
the minds of their children the principles of holy living, and it was
felt that there was but little necessity to give them habits of
self-denial or self-reliance.
This daughter, notwithstanding her happy childhood in having all her
wants anticipated, and upon whose pathway the sun had shone most
brightly, was now, like an unsubdued child, under a most painful
infliction of the rod of God.
Two years previous to this time, during a revival of religion, she
publicly covenanted to walk in all the statutes and ordinances of God's
Word and house, blamelessly. Thus was she married to Christ, and she
then felt, and her friends felt, that she had chosen Christ to be the
guide of her youth.
But how could she be expected, never having had her will thoroughly
subdued, or been called to bear any yoke or burden, fully to understand,
or to realize what was implied, or required in becoming a disciple of
Christ, so that she could at once fully adopt the language,
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow thee,
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be."
Just one year from her espousal to Christ the village of ---- was all
excitement, on an occasion which had called the young and the
middle-aged to the house of her father,--the wealthy Mr. G----, when
this lovely daughter was to be united in marriage to the accomplished,
the graceful, the pious Mr. L----, a universal favorite with persons of
all ages and ranks. A short time previous to his union to the young and
beautiful belle of ----, he had, under most favorable auspices,
commenced a lucrative business in the city of ----.
Immediately after the nuptial ceremony, Mr. L---- accompanied his bride
to the Falls of Niagara, that favorite place of resort on such memorable
occasions. They were now all the world to each other. Alas, how utterly,
for a time, did they overlook the injunction, "Little children, keep
yourselves from idols." Nor did they for once even dream how insensibly
the streams of God's bounty and goodness were withdrawing their hearts
from the fountain of all blessedness and perfection.
On their return from this delightful excursion, this envied young
husband was soon found at his post of business, surrounded by numerous
friends all eager to aid and encourage him on in his preparations to
welcome to his home and his heart, his darling "wife." Oh, how sweet to
him did that treasured name sound, when greeted by his young friends,
and the question was asked, "How is your _wife_?" "When do you expect
your _wife_?" Never, he felt, was there another more truly blessed.
How sudden must have been the transition, for the summons came, as it
were, in a moment, "The Master has come, and calleth for thee." Young
Mr. L---- had been in the city but two days, when retiring to his bed,
he was suddenly siezed with a bilious attack, and in a few brief hours,
even before his friends could reach his bed-side, he was wrapped in the
habiliments of the grave. His last faint farewell was uttered in hurried
and broken accents, just as he expired, "Tell her that Jesus makes me
willing"--"makes me willing."
In his ready, cheerful, and manly willingness to obey the Master's call,
though so sudden, we see the blessed influence of early parental
discipline--absolute unconditional submission to parental authority.
Truly this was a most sad and unexpected reverse for that youthful and
happy bride. Her face at once became as pale and almost marble-like, as
the icy hand of death had made that of her husband's. No wonder if this
world should now seem to her as a barren wilderness. No wonder if her
thoughts, for a time, should brood mournfully over the words, "Lover and
friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness."
No wonder if to her desolate heart, solitude, and gloom, and the grave,
should, for a season, be her chosen themes of contemplation. She does
well to grieve. There is nothing wrong in the mourner's tears. We have
the example of Jesus in such an expression--tears are Nature's own sweet
relief. It is safe--yes, it is well to bleed when our limbs are taken
from our side.
But let such as mourn remember, in all cases of bereavement, it is God,
whose discipline is strictly parental, hath done it, and "He doeth all
things well." How sad it is when the bereaved, who are not called to
mourn as those who have no hope, allow their thoughts to find a lodgment
only in the grave. How widely different had been the condition of this
youthful mourner, if, instead of shutting herself up in her chamber,
taking to her bed, chiefly, for a full year refusing to be
comforted--had she dwelt more upon that touching "farewell" to her,
receiving it as a beam of light and love from the spirit land, inviting
her to the contemplation of heavenly themes. Had she rather considered
her departed companion as _favored_ in this early call to glory,--had
she considered the passage in Isaiah 57:1, "The righteous are taken away
from the evil."--why did she not meekly and penitently reflect, that as
God does not willingly afflict, he must have had some special design in
this severe chastisement upon her. Had her mind been open to
conviction--had she been bowed down under a sense of sin--would she not
have inquired whether the blessed Saviour, perceiving the lurking danger
there was to this young couple, from a disposition to find their heaven
upon earth, to seek their chief happiness in each other, had not with
the voice of love and tender compassion said to her husband, "The Master
hath need of thee, come up hither." Had her heart been right with God,
as she contemplated her departed friend in his new-born zeal to honor
and glorify his Redeemer, flying on swift wings to perform Heaven's
mandates, would she not resolve, by the grace of God, to emulate him in
his greater efforts to save lost souls, for whom Christ died? Were not
the same motives set before her, by his death, to seek a new and holy
life? Was not the same grace--the same strength proffered to her, which,
if accepted and improved aright, would have enabled her to deny
herself--to take up her cross and to follow Jesus whithersoever he might
see fit to lead her?
But, alas, this was in nowise her happy experience. On the contrary, she
turned away from the consolations proffered to her in God's blessed
Word, and by his Holy Spirit, and in the teachings of that last touching
"farewell."
May we not suppose that her husband, on finding himself liberated from
the trappings of earth, from sin and temptation, as his thoughts would
naturally revert to the friends he had left behind--finding his chosen,
bosom friend, a mere clod of clay, sunk down in a state of hopeless
misery and sorrow, at his loss, having no sympathy with him in his new
and blessed abode, and in his more exalted employments and purer
enjoyments, would he not rather bless God, more ardently, that he was so
quickly removed from such chilling, blighting earth-born influences as
she might have exerted over him?
Oh, that this youthful mourner might now hear that voice of God to his
chosen people, "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough--turn you
northward." God grant that the past time of her life may suffice that
she has "wrought the will of the flesh." We most earnestly commend to
her prayerful contemplation the last words of our blessed Saviour to his
disciples, "In my Father's house are many mansions." I go to prepare _a
place_ for you--just such a mansion--such a place as each ransomed soul,
by improving the discipline of God--by holy and self-denying efforts in
this life, to do his will, is fitted to fill, and enjoy.
And so it will ever be with the heirs of salvation, while they remain in
a world of sin and temptation. They are daily and hourly working out
their salvation with fear and with trembling, while God is working in
them to will and to do of his good pleasure. The improvement which is
made of afflictions has a great deal to do in this process.