SPEAKING WELL OF THE LORD.
By Laura C. Hutchins
Bro Smith: I have felt for some time a desire to respond to the call for articles for the Review, but like some persons in prayer-meeting or like ministers who at times labor through a sermon without the expected aid of the Spirit, I seem to have nothing to say; that is, I seem to have lost the freedom which I usually feel when I write. Just now I thought I would leave the matter with the Lord. I raised my heart to God, mentally exclaiming, Lord if thou hast a word for me to speak, give it me, nevertheless not my will but thine—or similarly. Immediately taking the little work by Mrs. Phebe Palmer entitled The Way of Holiness with marks by the way, I opened to the following passage. It was suggested that although my own thoughts may be barren, yet I may transcribe the words of Mrs. P. and perhaps the Lord will bless them to some one else as he does to me.—She says: “I have met with some friends on the heavenly way of late in whom I have been much interested, especially at our recent camp-meeting. One Mr. M. pastor of a Congregational church I shall doubtless ever remember from the manner in which the Lord made him instrumental in communicating a lesson which has been greatly blessed to me. I met him first on the morning of the day at a social meeting in one of the tents where Jesus was eminently present. He spoke with such power and sweetness of the deep things of God as conveyed a conviction to the hearts of the friends of Jesus, that the secret of the Lord was with him. At noon he came to our tent and to my surprise and sorrow saluted me thus: ‘Well Mrs. ——, If I should say something very good about you I should be praising you, should I not?’ Contemplating a religious compliment, which I most conscientiously disapprove, and disappointed that I had as I conceived made miscalculations in reference to the depth of his knowledge in the things of God, I looked up at him reprovingly and with evident displeasure said, ‘I suppose it would be called so.’ He hesitated a moment, long enough to let me form enduring conceptions of the trial, and then with childlike sweetness said, ‘Let us speak good of God.’ Then turning to the company with a beseeching look and tone he added, ‘Come let us all speak well of the name of the Lord; he has done much for us; he will not be offended for he hath said, whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.’ Many scriptural exhortations to praise the Lord were then brought forward and we had a blessed season in speaking well of the name of the Lord. I have not been perplexed in any degree with the temptation since, that I was talking about myself when I am telling what the Lord has done for me. I feel that praising the Lord is by far the most effectual way of disclaiming the work which some, untaught in the things of God might conceive to be inherent good in the creature; and I have since felt and cherished an increased longing to communicate to the praise of God the work of his Spirit on my heart. “The proper principle of humility has thus by the trial been brought with such tangibility within my grasp as to leave a continual and blessed certainty on my mind that God has indeed given me the grace of perfect humility. I joyfully acknowledge it to the glory of his grace. If God has given it, it is his gift. I have not given it to myself. O how much I love to praise his name! Well may the poet say,—
> Eternity's too short
> To utter all his praise.”