Let the Dead Bury their Dead.
By J. Clarke
THESE were the words of Jesus, when one of his disciples expressed a wish to show his regard for a parent. Our Lord would not have checked or re-proved the risings of filial affection; but the proba-bility is that the son wished to go and attend to his aged parent's wants, until he should die, or during the remainder of his parent's life; but Jesus had more important work for this disciple; viz., to preach the gospel. Luke ix, 60. We infer fairly from the language used, that the parent was dead in trespasses and sins, and he had other relatives who were also dead in sin. Let them therefore attend to the wants of thy father, but do thou go preach the gospel. What are earthly things compared with heavenly? I think we may learn much from this direction of Jesus to his disciple. Are we engrossed with the world, and entering with them into its cares and vexa-tions? Are their troubles our troubles? Are their sorrows, or their joys, ours? Do we love the things they love, and hate what they hate? Is our conver-sation mainly upon worldly affairs, and do we with pleasure enter into discourse with worldly people, and pass the merry jest, or the lively repartee, and the witty saying with them? Then truly, are we not dead too? Surely life has no love for death. If we were among the dead literally, we should feel much solemnized at the sight; so now if we are alive in Christ, and dead to the world, we shall be solemn-ized in view of the moral death around us. As far as spiritual life is concerned, we are among corpses; our very path is lined with their bones, bleaching as it were in the sun. They laugh and scoff at the idea of moral death, but the living need no monitor to say, The dead are here; the moral at-mosphere tells the tale. But do we realize the true state of the case? Do our hearts sicken in view of the moral death every where around us? Do we sigh and cry for the abominations of the earth? True it is that if we live in this sense, we shall feel pain-fully conscious of the presence of death in the same sense; and if we can view with apathy or indifference the ruined condition of mankind, it is a mark of death within our own bosoms. No; the true child of God retires to mourn in secret places, for those who make a mock of sin. Would it were not so; but sin has left its stain upon our race, moral death prevails, and poor man knows it not; no, he laughs at the idea of such a thing, and rushes onward, and downward, heedless of God and his law. But this is so; it is no overdrawn sketch. We are here among rebel mankind, ourselves plucked as it were from the fire, still among dangers, among foes, who thirst for the blood of the saints. What is our duty in the present time? Shall we not divorce ourselves from earth, and lay up our treasure in heav-en? O, let us take the Saviour's words into our hearts, and obey his injunction, "Let the dead bury their dead." True, we may not be called literally to leave home and friends to find in the wide world a salary of hardships and sufferings, as did the apostle Paul, but we are just as truly called to come out of the world, and have our conversation in heaven, as he was; we may not be called to a total non-inter-course with those about us; on the contrary it is our duty to minister to their happiness, as far as is consistent, and to be on terms of social intercourse as neigh-bors and relatives; but let us by our deportment and conversation, manifest to them that our hearts are in heaven, and our treasures too, if indeed they are there. Shall we flatter them with hopes of safety, while they tread the path to hell? We may do so by our care-less, indifferent deportment alone, even though our words may not say so. Let the world do its own voting and fighting; let the world do its own tattling; let them have the short-lived joys of earth, so soon to fade; let them converse upon politics, and party strifes; let them frequent the public walks, the bar-room, the the-atre and the law-office, and there mix in carnal delights; but let the children of the light walk in the light. O yes, "let the dead bury their dead;" but "blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season."