Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882
General Articles.
By Mrs. E. G. White
The Ark Restored.
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
WHEN it was proposed among the Philistines to return the ark to its own land, there were some who stood ready to oppose the plan. Such an acknowledgment of the power of Israel's God would be deeply humiliating to the pride of Philistia; some way to evade it was eagerly sought. Many urged that none would dare risk their lives in removing that which had brought such destruction upon the land. Still others denied that their calamities had been caused by the ark, and protested against surrendering so famed a trophy.
The "priests and diviners," whose counsel had been sought on this occasion, admonished the people not to imitate the stubbornness of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and thus bring upon themselves still greater afflictions. A plan in which all concurred, was now proposed, and immediately put in execution. The ark, with the golden trespass-offering, was placed upon a new cart, thus precluding all danger of defilement; to this cart, or car, were attached two kine, upon whose necks a yoke had never before been placed. Then, their calves having been tied up at home, the cows were left free to go wherever they pleased. If the ark should thus be returned to the Israelites by the way of Beth-shemesh, the nearest city of the Levites, "then," said the Philistines, "the God of Israel hath done unto us this great evil; but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us."
No sooner were the kine set free than they turned from their young, and, lowing as they went, took the straight road to Beth-shemesh. Guided by no human hand, the patient animals kept on their way. The Divine Presence accompanied the ark, and it passed safely on to the very place designated.
It was now the time of wheat harvest, and the men of Beth-shemesh were reaping in the valley. With great joy they beheld the ark approaching; and when the kine of their own accord stopped near a great stone, some of the Levites present offered them up as a sacrifice to the Lord, the cart itself being used as fuel for the burnt-offering.
The lords of the Philistines, who had followed the ark to the border of Beth-shemesh, and had witnessed its reception, now returned to Ekron. The plague had ceased, and they were convinced that their calamities had been a judgment from the God of Israel.
The men of Beth-shemesh quickly spread the glad tidings that the ark was in their possession, and the people from all the surrounding country flocked to welcome its return. The ark had been placed upon the stone which first served for an altar, and before it additional sacrifices were offered unto the Lord. Had the worshipers, with penitence and humiliation, put away their sins, the divine blessing would have attended them. But they were not faithfully obeying the law of God; hence, while they rejoiced at the return of the ark as a harbinger of good, they could have no true sense of its sacredness as the repository of that law. Instead of preparing a suitable place for the reception of the ark, they permitted it to remain in the harvest-field. As they continued to gaze upon the sacred chest, and to talk of the wonderful manner in which it had been restored, they began to conjecture wherein lay its peculiar power. At last, overcome by curiosity, they removed the coverings and ventured to open it. Their joy was quickly changed to mourning.
All Israel had been taught to regard the ark with awe and reverence. When required to remove it from place to place, the Levites were not to so much as look upon it. Only once a year was the high priest permitted to behold the ark of God. The heathen Philistines had not dared even to remove its coverings. Angels of Heaven, unseen, ever attended it in all its journeyings. The irreverent daring of the people at Beth-shemesh aroused the anger of the Lord, and a great number were instantly destroyed.
The terror of the survivors was equaled only by their former presumption. Yet they were not led by this judgment to repent of their sin, but only to regard the ark with superstitious fear. Eager to be freed from its presence, yet not daring to remove it, the Bethshemites sent a message to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, inviting them to take it away. They consented, and the ark was accordingly removed.
The spirit of irreverent curiosity still exists among the children of men. Many are eager to investigate those mysteries which infinite wisdom has seen fit to leave unrevealed. Having no reliable evidence from which to reason, they base their theories on conjecture. The Lord has wrought for his servants and for the upbuilding of his cause at the present day as verily as he wrought in behalf of ancient Israel; but vain philosophy, "science falsely so called," has sought to destroy faith in the direct interposition of Providence, attributing all such manifestations to natural causes. This is the sophistry of Satan. He is asserting his authority by mighty signs and wonders in the earth. Those who ignore or deny the special evidences of God's power, are preparing the way for the arch-deceiver to exalt himself before the people as superior to the God of Israel.
Many accept the reasoning of these would-be wise men as truth, when in fact it undermines the very foundations which God has laid. Such teachers are the ones described by inspiration, who must become fools in their own estimation, that they may be wise. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. By those who are guided only by human wisdom, the simplicity of his mighty workings is called foolishness. They think themselves wiser than their Creator, when in fact they are victims of finite ignorance and childish conceit. It is this that holds them in the darkness of unbelief, so that they do not discern the power of God, and tremble before him.
Though the ark had brought judgments both upon the inhabitants of Philistia and of Beth-shemesh, yet the men of Kirjath-jearim welcomed it with joy. They knew that while it was a precursor of wrath to the transgressor of God's law, it was the pledge of divine favor to the obedient and faithful. With solemn gladness they brought it to their city, and placed it in the house of Abinadab, a Levite. This man appointed his son Eleazer to take charge of it, to see that it was kept from injury or pollution. Thus it remained for many years.
The Israelites as a nation still continued in a state of irreligion and idolatry, and as a punishment they remained in subjection to the Philistines. During this time Samuel, who was already recognized as a prophet, visited cities and villages throughout the land, seeking to turn the hearts of the people to the God of their fathers. He faithfully set before them the claims of the divine law and their sin in transgressing its precepts, the long-suffering and mercy of God, and his assurance of favor to those who confess and forsake their sins.
These efforts were not without good results. The hearts of the faithful were encouraged, and apostates were led to return to the Lord. The mirror of God's law, held up before the sinner, gives him a correct view of his own character. The greater the reverence felt for that law, the keener will be the sense of condemnation on account of sin. Every willful transgression is an act of rebellion against its Author. Every one who assumes this attitude, is by his practice saying to the people, "The requirements of God are exacting and severe, a yoke of bondage. Let us break this yoke from off our necks, and be at liberty."
The law of God was not given to the Jews alone. It is of world-wide and perpetual obligation. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Its ten precepts are like a chain of ten links. If one link is broken, the chain becomes worthless. Not a single precept can be revoked or changed to save the transgressor. While families and nations exist; while property, life, and character must be guarded; while good and evil are antagonistic, and a blessing or a curse must follow the acts of men—so long must the divine law control us. When God no longer requires men to love him supremely, to reverence his name, and to keep holy the Sabbath; when he permits them to disregard the rights of their fellow-men, to hate and injure one another—then, and not till then, will the moral law lose its force.
'AS ONE WHOM HIS MOTHER COMFORTETH.'
By E. Norman Gunnison
"As one his mother comforteth "
In sadness and unrest,
As one who lays his weary head
Upon his mother's breast,
And findeth there a tenderness,
The truest and the best,
So God, our God! we look to thee,
When earthly cark and care,
And all the petty ills of life
Seem more than we can bear,
Laying our head upon thy breast
We find our comfort there.
"As one his mother comforteth "
When darkness fills the skies,
And shadows overbrood the way
Before the doubting eyes,
Looks forth, and sees a better land
In which his future lies;
So God, our God! we look to thee
When storms of life assail,
And mercy hides her heavenly face
Behind a shrouding veil,
Through all the storms and darknesses
We see thy love prevail.
"As one his mother comforteth,"
Oh tender words of grace!
In which a hidden soul of love
The weary heart may trace,
And find a sweetness in the words
For all our fallen race.
So God, our God! we turn to thee
In darkness and unrest,
And find the one who comforteth
Upon his loving breast
Above our earthly comforters,
The truest and the best.
—E. Norman Gunnison.
Pen-and-Paper Piety
By Thomas Fuller
How easy is pen-and-paper piety, for one to write religiously! I will not say that it costeth nothing; but it is far cheaper to work one's head than one's heart to goodness. Some, perchance, may guess me to be good by my writings, and so I shall deceive my reader. But, if I do not desire to be good, I most of all deceive myself. I can make a hundred meditations sooner than subdue the least sin in my soul. Yea, I was once in the mind never to write more for fear lest my writing at the last day prove records against me. And yet why should I not write, that, by reading my own book, the disproportion betwixt my lines and my life may make me blush myself (if not into goodness) into less badness than I would do otherwise. That so my writings may condemn myself; that so God may be moved to acquit me. — Thomas Fuller.
The Sinner's Wages.
By C. W. Stone
BY PROF. C. W. STONE.
Our next proposition is, that after the Judgment the wicked will be punished on this earth. Where should they be punished if not where they commit their crimes? If a man commits murder in Vermont he is not taken to New Hampshire to be hung; but he expiates his crimes within the same dominion in which it was committed. Will God take men to the moon to punish them? To what globe will they be taken? Where is located that burning lake of fire into which we have been taught our impenitent friends have gone? Ah! the Bible nowhere locates it, nor speaks of it—it does not yet exist.
There is no text which says that the wicked shall ever leave this world; but there is one that proves our proposition. "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner." Prov. 11:31. The Universalist will say, that means in this life. I reply, it does not say so. It simply shows where, and not when, rewards and punishments shall be realized. Let us look at the idea that it is in this life that men receive punishment for their sins. We admit that men suffer much in consequence of sin; but between consequence and punishment there is a wide difference. An incendiary burns a poor man's house. The poor man suffers as a consequence. If the incendiary is not discovered he does not suffer; if he is, he suffers as a punishment. But to the point. Here is a poor invalid. He is a devoted Christian. He suffers from pain and poverty. Opposite lives his rich neighbor, a profane, selfish, ungodly man. He is surrounded with plenty, he has all that heart could wish. He takes his ease, and fares sumptuously every day. Now I ask, is this sinner receiving his punishment as he goes along? Truly Solomon declared what we have all seen illustrated, when he said, "There be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." Eccl. 8:14. But Prov. 11:31 declares that both classes shall be rewarded in the earth. We have seen that it is not in this life; therefore it must be in the next.
This conclusion is in harmony with the words of Christ in John 5:28, 29. "For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Thus the rewards of both classes are to be given after the resurrection. Peter states very plainly that the wicked shall be punished in the earth. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Pet. 3:7. That is to say, The same fire in which the wicked shall meet their punishment is to melt and purify the earth in the great day of the Lord; and he states that in that day "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Verse 8. When the elements of this old earth are thus melted, then will truly exist that lake of fire in which the impenitent will expiate their crimes, their violations of God's law.
In that fire the wicked will be utterly consumed, reduced to ashes. If a man be caught in a burning building, he is soon smothered in the flames, and burned to ashes with the falling timbers around him. These same bodies are coming up from the grave in the resurrection; the wicked, to the resurrection of damnation (John 5:29), whose fate it will be to suffer the second death. Therefore, when the wicked are found in the flames of that mighty conflagration, there is but one result to be looked for, namely, that they shall be burned up like the man in the burning building.
This conclusion is also plainly stated in the Bible. Jude says that the cities of "Sodom and Gomorrah ... are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Verse 7. And Peter says that God turned "the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that should after live ungodly." 2 Pet. 2:6. Christ says that the wicked shall be punished in everlasting fire, or eternal fire, the words eternal and everlasting coming from the same Greek word. Matt. 25:41. From these texts we learn, 1. That the wicked are to be punished in fire like that which God rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah. 2. That they were made an ensample to them that should after live ungodly; that is, just as they were burned up, so will the ungodly finally be consumed. 3. That they were reduced to ashes. And we are driven to the conclusion that the wicked will be a process precisely similar be reduced to the same condition; and this is just what the prophet Malachi declared more than two thousand years ago: "For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "And ye [the righteous] shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts." Mal. 4:1, 3.
Were I called upon to state in unequivocal terms the utter destruction of the wicked, and could I choose wisely from the strongest terms in the language, I do not suppose that I should be able in as few words to state the doctrine with any more force than it is given in the inspired language of Malachi. We notice that he compares the wicked in that day to stubble. Other Bible writers also compare them to the most combustible substances. Let us notice some of their statements.
"While they be folden together as thorns they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry." Read Nahum 1:1-10. That would be very strange language for the prophet to use if he intended to teach eternal misery.
John the Baptist compared the wicked to chaff, and said of Christ, "he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matt. 3:12. Chaff is easily burned. But some who seem unwilling to part with the doctrine of eternal torment, take refuge under the term unquenchable. Now it appears to me that it would make little difference what kind of fire one should put chaff into; the chaff would be burned up in any case. I think that the term unquenchable is used expressly to teach that the combined hosts of the wicked with the devil and his angels to aid them will be unable to quench, or put out, that fire; and thus the text warrants their utter destruction. The Saviour compares the wicked to tares. Matt. 13:38. He says as men burn these obnoxious weeds at harvest time, so shall the wicked be burned in the end of the world. See verse 30, 38-42. In John 15:6 he compares them to withered branches, which men gather, and cast into the fire, to burn them.
The psalmist compares them to the fat of lambs. "But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." Ps. 37:20. The Jews could readily comprehend this illustration, for often did they see the fat of lambs consumed by the fires on the altar of burnt offerings. We all know how very certainly such a substance will burn if put into the fire. In just that manner shall the wicked burn. Fearful fate of the sinner! Who would not give all he possesses to be released from being burned at the stake, were this a punishment awaiting him tomorrow? And, yet, with the certainty of the Judgment before us, the longer inheritance the servants of God on one hand, and the wages of sin—to be burned alive on the other hand, the careless sinner continues to break God's law, and the lukewarm professor, with oars at rest, floats down the current that will soon dash him on the deadly rocks below. But to-day there is mercy. Christ loves you, he died for you, and he will gladly plead your cause with the Father. The Father loves you—"he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. He who has done this for us, will in no wise turn away those who come to him through faith in his Son.
These texts which speak of the burning up of the wicked do not, as some would argue, refer simply to the body, while the soul is to survive, and suffer eternally. In the first place the Bible nowhere teaches that there is an intelligent entity or an immortal soul, that survives the death of the body. Our text says, "The wages of sin is death." I read in Ezekiel 18:4, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." We learn from Isa. 10:18 that the wicked be destroyed, "both soul and body." God has never endowed us with sufficient vitality to endure his wrath as our opponents say the wicked are to do to all eternity, and yet does God propose to exercise that wrath so long. Thus he says: "For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made." Isa. 57:16. The simple fact is that men have gotten up a theory of punishment which nobody can stand, or, more properly, a punishment which would require a continuous miracle, to enable the wicked to endure it, for endure it they must eternally. This text promptly forbids the entertainment of an idea so dishonoring to a holy God.
The destiny of the wicked is that they shall be brought to nothing, so far as existence as intelligent beings is concerned. Jeremiah says, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing." Jer. 10:24. But the fury of his anger is to be poured out upon the wicked. Isaiah says of the wicked, "They shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee; they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought." Isa. 41:11, 12. "Shalt not find them." If they were to exist forever in plain sight of the righteous, as we have been taught, it would not be difficult to find them. But, "they shall be as though they had not been." Obad. 16. God's anger will cease in their death. "For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction." Isa. 10:25. "For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." Ps. 37:10. No place even for the eternal misery of the wicked.
After that great burning day in which the wicked are to be destroyed, the earth having been melted in the fervent heat, shall come forth a "new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:13. Rev. 20:14, 15; 21:1. This new earth shall be the abode and heritage of the redeemed, and Christ, their King, shall dwell with them. Rev. 21:2-5. "The meek shall inherit the earth." Ps. 37:11; Matt. 5:5.
Then, when the cursings of the wicked shall have been hushed for eternity in the second death, —then, when not a discordant note shall mar the grand symphony—then shall saints and angels and all creation raise a song of universal joy and adoration to the great God and to the Redeemer of men. John in holy vision heard the notes of that great anthem. "And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Rev. 5:13.
Would you join in that happy chorus? "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Repent toward God, for you have sinned against him; then look to Jesus—"look and live."
No Use for It.
When Dr. Legge, of the London Missionary Society, had been working for some time in Hongkong and had obtained a number of converts, it seemed to be time to have the Westminster Catechism translated, and he got the help of his preacher and teacher to put it into Chinese. The work proceeded very nicely until they came to Question 20, the answer to which is:—
"God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a redeemer."
The preacher began it, but threw down his pen, with the words: "I can't translate that." "Why not?" asked Mr. Legge. "Because," said he, "we have been preaching that anybody might come and be saved, and this says that only those can who have been elected. I can't translate this."
In telling the story, Dr. Legge concludes by saying: "I put the Catechism upon a shelf and there it stays." When Dr. Burns, the distinguished Free Church of Scotland missionary to China, was once asked, "What do you do with Calvinism in China?" He replied, "I don't say anything about it. The Chinese don't need it." And we believe he was himself a genuine Calvinist, as well as a grand evangelist.—Independent.
Irreligious Religious Habits
EVERY religious habit gone through irreligiously, ministers to harden the heart and deaden the evidence of things not seen.
Clean Money.
As a godly merchant lay upon his dying bed, he spoke to his children of the little property which he had acquired and was leaving behind him. "It is not much," said he, "but there is not a *dirty shilling in it."
There is such a thing as clean money. It may be earned by diligence in business, by honest labor of hand or mind, or by the severest toils in occupations which are not esteemed as either easy or genteel; but there is money, even in the purses and coffers of many who profess to be followers of Christ, which all the waters of Jordan could not make clean. There are the wages of unrighteousness, the gains of ungodliness, the hoarded spoils wrung from the thin hands of the poor and needy; there are revenues from the traffic in strong drink; there are rents paid to church members for places that are used as traps and pitfalls to ensnare unwary men; there are gains acquired in a thousand ways which are blackened with the stain of sin and with the curse of God. Thousands on thousands have thus laid up wealth which shall curse them in life and in death; which shall ensnare their children and beguile them to their ruin; and which shall finally eat their flesh as it were fire, when the Judge who standeth before the door shall come to make inquisition for blood, and to punish the ungodly in the last great day.
O man of earth, as you look upon your gains and treasures, as you count your hoards and estimate your possessions, ask yourself the question, Is this clean money? and decide that as God shall give you grace and help, nothing which you possess shall deserve the curse that follows the wages of unrighteousness, the gains of those who know not and fear not God.—The Armory.
A Talk About Talking.
THERE has been a time when conversation was considered an accomplishment worthy of cultivation, but the newspapers and circulating library are helping us to read ourselves into a silent race, and conversation is almost relegated to a place among the lost arts.
The ability to converse well is rare. Few have the scintillating wit of Sheridan; not many are endowed with the genial flow of spirits and the dramatic and picturesque power of Scott; and where can be found the genius that can hold his listeners spell-bound by the magic of his words like Coleridge?
Some one has said that no particular method or rule can be applied to talking; yet the brilliant Madame de Stael studied conversation as an art, and she could so intoxicate an audience with the wine distilled from thought as to make it unconscious of a thunder-storm raging without.
An attempt to imitate any great converser would only end in failure, but an adaptation of good points to one’s own individual power and the observance of certain obvious requirements would surely lead to some success.
How to talk and of what, are questions of importance in this connection. We are forbidden to talk “shop,” yet if one cannot speak of what he knows, how much does he contribute to general knowledge?
A monologue is not conversation. Good conversation is illumined by “brilliant flashes of silence”—pauses in speech are “like rests in music; sounds following silence are always sweetest.”
Etiquette demands polite listening as well as agreeable talking. Swift’s maxim was to talk as many half minutes as possible, but never talk more than half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to strike in. Questions are a stimulus to conversation. Bacon says, “He that questioneth much, shall learn much, and content much.”
Argument and satire hold no place in pleasant converse.
Sound discourse based on a knowledge of a subject, or desire for it, enlivened by wit and appropriate anecdotes, is most entertaining.
See the picture the Sage of Concord draws: “In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes given to which the memory goes back in barren hours.
Do not bottle up brilliant ideas for the sake of letting them off with a “pop” in a magazine article; remember, “a pleasant thought repeated becomes a loaf whereby a multitude is fed.” To steer safely between the Scylla of egotism and the Charybdis of self-distrust is necessary to successful conversation; minuteness of detail on unimportant subjects is to be avoided, and, to quote Emerson again, “There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, rational mortals, namely, their distempers.”
The Bible gives the best general rules for conversation. “Let your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.” “Speak evil of no man.” “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying.” “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” “By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.”—Northwestern Christian Advocate.
The Gospel and Modern Thought
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The learned tell us that the nineteenth century requires advanced thought. I wish the nineteenth century was over. I have heard it bragged about so much that I am sick of the nineteenth century. We are told that this is too sensible a century to need or accept the same gospel as the first, second, or third centuries. Yet these were the centuries of martyrs, the centuries of heroes, the centuries that conquered all the gods of Greece and Rome, the centuries of holy glory. And all this because they were the centuries of the gospel; but now we are so enlightened that our ears ache for something fresh, and under the influence of another gospel, which is not another, our beliefs are dwindling down from Alps to ant-hills, and we ourselves from giants to pigmies. We will want a microscope soon to see Christian faith in the land, it is getting to be so small and scarce.—Spurgeon.
Affliction Beneficial.
By Cuyler
To ALL who are wondering why a loving God has subjected them so often to the furnace, my only answer is that God owns you and me, and he has a right to do with us just as he pleases. If he wants to keep his silver over a hot flame, until he can see his own countenance reflected in the metal, then he has a right to do so. It is the Lord, it is my loving teacher, it is my heavenly Father; let him do what seemeth him good. He will not lay on one stroke in cruelty or a single one that he cannot give me grace to bear. Life's school-days and nights will soon be over. Pruning-time will soon be ended. The crucibles will not be needed in Heaven.
So, to all my fellow-sufferers who are threading their way through the tunnels of trial, I would say: Tighten your loins with the promises and keep the strong staff of faith well in hand. Trust God in the dark. We are safer with him in the dark than without him in the sunshine. He will not suffer thy foot to stumble. His rod and his staff never break. Why he brought us here we know not now, but shall know hereafter. At the end of the gloomy passage beams the heavenly light. Then comes the exceeding and eternal weight of glory!—Cuyler.
HOPE.
NEVER despair! The darkest cloud
That ever loomed will pass away;
The longest night will yield to dawn,
The dawn will kindle into day.
What if around thy lonely bark
Break fierce and high the waves of sorrow;
Bend every oar—there's land ahead,
And thou wilt gain the port to-morrow.
When fortune frowns, and summer friends,
Like birds that fear a storm, depart,
Some, if the breast have tropic warmth,
Will stay and nestle round thy heart.
If thou art poor, no joy is won,
No good is gained by sad repining.
Gems buried in the darkened earth
May yet be gathered for the mining.
“Acquainted With Grief.”
There are some of us who have tasted sorrow; we have perhaps at times known bitter grief, and look back upon a day of bitter anguish, or a night when a horror of great darkness sat upon our souls. But our griefs were transient; we did not become accustomed to sorrow in a day, or acquainted with sadness in an hour. But of him who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, who tasted the bitterness of earthly sorrow, and bore our sins in his own body on the tree, it was said, “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
He knew what grief was. By day and by night he shared its bitter companionship; year after year he bore upon his heart the burden of human sorrow, human anguish, and human guilt. He endured misunderstanding, misrepresentation, reproach, betrayal, desertion, scorn, shame, mockery, crucifixion, and death. He measured the heights of human anguish, and sounded the depths of human woe. He was “acquainted with grief;” and having become acquainted with our sorrows, he offers to make us acquainted with his eternal joys. How mighty the change, how rich the privilege! But how vast the price the Saviour paid, when, that he might bring many sons to glory, he, as the Captain of their salvation, was made perfect through sufferings, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, and by the grace of God tasting death for every man.
“Oh, for such love let rocks and hills
Their lasting silence break !
And all harmonious human tongues
Their Saviour’s praises speak.”
—The Christian.
The Time to be Pleasant.
"Mother's cross!" said Maggie, coming out into the kitchen with a pout on her lips. Her aunt was busy ironing, and she looked up and answered Maggie: "Then it is the very time for you to be pleasant and helpful. Mother was awake a great deal in the night with the poor baby."
Maggie made no reply. She put on her hat and walked off into the garden. But a new idea went with her. "The very time to be helpful and pleasant is when other people are cross. True enough," thought she, "that would do the most good. I remember when I was sick last year, I was so nervous that if any one spoke to me, I could hardly help being cross; and mother never got cross or out of patience, but was just as pleasant with me! I ought to pay it back now, and I will." And she sprang up from the grass where she had thrown herself, and turned a face full of cheerful resolution towards the room where her mother sat soothing and tending a fretful teething baby. "Couldn't I take him out to ride in his carriage, mother? It's such a nice morning," she asked.
"I should be so glad if you would!" said her mother. The hat and sacque were brought, and the baby was soon ready for his ride. "I'll keep him as long as he's good," said Maggie, "and you must lie on the sofa and take a nap while I am gone. You are looking dreadfully tired!"
The kind words and the kiss that accompanied them were almost too much for the mother, and her voice trembled as she answered: "Thank you, dear, it will do me a world of good too. My head aches badly this morning." What a happy heart in Maggie's bosom as she trundled the little carriage up and down on the walk. She resolved to remember and act on her aunt's good word: "The very time to be helpful and pleasant is when everybody is tired and cross." — Well-Spring.
Religious Scolding.
THERE is truth in the following extract, which is worthy of consideration :—
"No man was ever scolded out of his sins. The heart, as corrupt as it is, and because it is so, grows angry if it be not treated with some management and good manners, and scolds again. A surly mastiff will bear, perhaps, to be stroked, though he will growl even under the operation ; but if you touch him roughly, he will bite. There is no grace that the spirit of self can counterfeit with more success than a religious zeal. A man thinks he is fighting for Christ, but is fighting for his own notions. He thinks he is skillfully searching the hearts of others, when he is only gratifying the malignity of his own, and charitably supposes his hearers destitute of all grace, that he may shine the more in his own eyes by the comparison. One thing, in the meantime, is certain : the folly and feuds of the professed disciples of the gospel, have been more dangerous to its interests, than all the avowed hostilities of its adversaries."