The Grace of Life by Mrs. O. Annette Harris

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 26, 1856

The Grace of Life.

By Mrs. O. Annette Harris

BY MRS. O. ANNETTE HARRIS.

[The following article we take from the Northern Christian Advocate, of August 22. There is too much truth in it to be overlooked, and we are glad to find such an article in the same paper where Mr. Slaughter and others have made such an effort to annihilate the great truth of “no eternal life, or immortality out of Christ.” “Dead churches” and their “dandyish” ministers, with plenty of “tinsil garnish” and theatrical “essays”—called sermons—have received a just rebuke in this article. Bible Examiner.]

THIS is the great preservative principle, which holds a renovated heart steady to a previously formed purpose to meet the demands of Christianity. It was this that disposed the soul to the undertaking, and imparted the requisite energy, for the beginning of that life from the dead, so mysterious, and, yet so real, that we never doubted its nature; even when the mists of temptation obscured our spirit-vision with a gloom akin to what the world calls despair; that desolation, from which unaided humanity seeks deliverance in suicide. That calm, unembarrassed faith that stood the test—that proved God true when all else was untrue—that always opened an azure sky and a meridian sun, after the terrible tempest-cloud—for it was only a cloud—at each additional triumph, cemented a new layer in the rock-foundation of our hope.

The grace of life is always near, even when total abandonment seems inevitable; its facilities and unearthly fortitude unsecured, only because the simple conditions were unmet. O, to be hearty in our confidence—to be clear in our apprehension of what God is, and of his proposition for us, and then to be childlike in our ventures upon him!

How pre-eminent is this grace in its inate, unchanging purity. It is unlike any other principle we know of—only like God. Creeds and dogmas, philosophic and finely arranged systems of theology, may become corrupt—may assimilate to the errors of their time, but this grace never. It is a vital element always, everywhere, though sometimes rendered inoperative. Pretended religions have in every age arisen, tower-like, seeming pharoses in the benighted world; but there was no clear, unflickering illumination, only a sort of meteoric, dazzler wave, and a deep night would have been, if truth had not been in the world; but the glow-worm’s lamp went out and the sun shone still. The pulsating immortality embossomed in the system of Jesus of Nazareth was wanting; there was no soul, no healthful organization, no element of success.

Even truly Christian organizations, that is, those based upon the holy doctrines of the Cross, which hold this grace an inoperative principle, existing merely in a doctrinal recognition, so far as regards their legitimate, paramount object, are but a nullity. No, they are not so harmless as a cypher; not passive merely. There is no such innocence attaches to their character. It is nothing less than a selfish appropriation—a mocking monopoly of a grand channel of influence—sacred to truth—belonging exclusively to Jehovah. Were the question open for debate at the Judgment, What made Infidelity so rife in the world, from what invisible fount it derived its sustenance—its force, the answer might once come welling up from the abode of damned millions, “Dead churches”? professions heartless as the last smiling kiss of Judas! Life and energy they have, but it is the terrible stirring force which comes with the decomposing process; which turns over, distorts, and throws from side to side, the dead in the channel! It is the Lucifer exaltation, which invites worldly patronage to magnificent forms—that gild the rude cross with garnish tinsel of earthly splendor, and decks its bleeding Christ with the gorgeous butterfly paraphernalia of the mode! The world—the intelligent manhood of a lost race, looks at the caricature and shakes its head. The enlightened atheist smiles sarcastically, and passes on to the hell he would have believed in, and shunned, had he seen the Bible proposition a practical thing. He sought a demonstration of Christianity, in its popular phase in the great world; just where he should have found it, but never did. He knew not that its Divinity was enshrined in rude sanctuaries of rustic villas and forest glades, away from the fine, pretty-fashion world—where, perchance, a simple worship might be tolerated, if it was “down town”—That its flame burned on heart-altars, in simple, unlettered souls—here, because unembarrassed by adventitious false aid. That here dwelt the holy Ark of the Covenant, and here the Mercy Seat, where might be solved the wondrous problem of the Divine forbearance, That stays the avenging sword, And holds a reckless world in life, That here existed a true representation of Jesus—that MODEL CHARACTER—but so awkwardly, so grotesquely stage-acted beneath the massive, heaven-towering dome, where “The rich-toned organ echoes peal on peal—” its soft worship attempting to ascend to the dizzy height of the eagle’s eyrie, but is lost in the dim grandeur of fluted columns, frescoes, and crimson cushions—where delicately slippered feet, press yielding cushions, and beautifully jeweled, snowy hands, twirl with a modest sacrilege, the Book of Life. Just here, hell-bound gentlemen and ladies may, in romantic leisure, give ear to a “portion in due season” of an elaborate essay upon the Progress of the Age, or some other progress—say a dry disquisition upon matters and things in general—by a dandyish, titled emanation from a modern school of doubtful divinity. The grace of life dwells here only in bound books and in the yellow-covered catechisms in the basement—the only place where incipient fashionable church-goers ever learn who made them, and who died for them; for if the finished, upper-ten metropolitan declaimer—I will not call him preacher—ever attempts an impartation of intelligence in this direction, it is so splendidly metamorphosed, that the hearer was only dazzled by the fixings—and never got at the simple truth, what he must do to be saved, which brings the Grace of Life.