An Extract

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 10, 1858

Selected for Review.

An Extract.

The vicious affections, like noxious weeds, sprout up and increase of themselves but too naturally; while the graces of the christian temper, exotics in the soil of the human heart, like the more tender productions of the vegetable world, though the light and breath of heaven must quicken them, require on our part constant and assiduous care. But so far from their being earnestly sought for, or watchfully reared, with unremitted prayers for that divine grace, without which all our labors must be ineffectual, they are suffered to droop and die almost without an effort to preserve them.

Way being thus made for the unobstructed growth of other tempers, the qualities of which are very different, and often directly opposite, these naturally overspread and quietly possess the mind.

True christians are walking "by faith and not by sight." This state of mind contributes, if the expression may be allowed, to rectify the illusion of vision, to bring forward into nearer view those eternal things which, from their remoteness, are apt to be either wholly overlooked, or to appear but faintly in the utmost bounds of the horizon, and to remove backward, and reduce to their true comparative dimensions, the objects of the present life, which are apt to fill the human eye, assuming a false magnitude from their vicinity.

The true christian knows from experience that the former are apt to fade from the sight, and the latter again to swell on it. He makes it therefore his continual care to preserve those just and enlightened views which, through divine mercy, he has obtained. Not that he will retire from that station in the world which Providence seems to have appointed him to fill; he will be active in the business of life, and enjoy its comforts with moderation and thankfulness, but he will not give up his whole soul to them, they will be habitually subordinate in his estimation to objects of more importance.

The awful truth has sunk deep into his mind, "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal," and in the tumult and bustle of life, he is sobered by the still small voice which whispers to him, "The fashion of this world passes away." This circumstance alone must, it is obvious, constitute a vast difference between the habitual temper of his mind, and that of the generality of nominal christians, who are almost entirely taken up with the concerns of the present world. They know indeed that they are mortal but they do not feel it. The truth rests in their understanding and cannot gain admission into their hearts.

This speculative persuasion is altogether different from that strong practical impression of the infinite importance of eternal things, which, attended with a proportionate sense of the shortness and uncertainty of all below, while it prompts to activity from a conviction that "the night cometh when no man can work," produces a certain firmness of texture, which hardens us against the buffetings of fortune, and prevents our being very deeply penetrated by the cares and interests, the good and evil of this transitory state. Thus this just impression of the relative value of temporal and eternal things maintains in the soul a dignified composure through all the vicissitudes of life. It quickens our diligence, yet moderates our ardor; urges us to just pursuits, yet checks any undue solicitude about the success of them, and thereby enables us in the language of scripture, "to use this world as not abusing it," rendering us at once beneficial to others and comfortable to ourselves.