Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/S
SABBATH.
There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week.
There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week.
Tell me how a professor spends his Sabbaths, and I will tell you in what state his soul is spiritually considered.
The law of the Sabbath is the key-stone of the arch of public morals; take it away, and the whole fabric falls.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.
O day of rest! How beautiful, how fair,
How welcome to the weary and the old!
Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly care!
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be.
Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.
We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day, or Christian Sabbath; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recreations; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God.
Nothing draws along with it such a glory as the Sabbath. Never has it unfolded without some witness and welcome, some song and salutation. It has been the coronation day of martyrs—the first day of saints. It has been from the first day till now the sublime day of the church of God; still the outgoings of its morning and evening rejoice. Let us then remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
The longer I live the more highly do I estimate the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel towards those who impress its importance on the community.
I have, by long and sound experience, found that the due observance of the Sabbath day, and of the duties of it, have been of singular comfort and advantage to me. The observance of the day hath ever had joined to it, a blessing upon the rest of my time; and the week that hath so begun hath been blessed and prosperous to me.
SACRAMENT.
He who receives a sacrament does not perform a good work, he receives a benefit.
Sacraments, ordained of Christ, are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession; but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good-will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.
SALVATION.
The truth is the Tree of Life knows no seasons. High up among its branches spring warbles all the year; and they are only the poor pensioners underneath who count the months, and tell an autumn and a winter.
Brethren, understand that the gospel is a gospel which brings a present salvation; and try to feel that it is not presumption, but simply out of the very fundamental principle of it, when you are not afraid to say, "I know that my Redeemer is yonder, and I know that He loves me."
The waters of salvation, welling forth from the mercy-seat above, have descended in copious floods to refresh and bless the earth. And will you refuse to drink of the river of life which flows full and free before you, proffering health and gladness to your famished soul, because you cannot discover every thing pertaining to its source, far, far away in the recesses of the Eternal Mind?
What hinders that you should be a child of God? Is not salvation free? Is not the invitation to it flung out to you on every page of the New Testament? Is not Christ offered to you in all His offices? and are you not welcome to all His benefits if you want them? Is not the Holy Spirit promised to them that ask Him? Nothing can hinder you from being a Christian, but your own worldly, selfish, proud, obstinate, unworthy, and self-righteous heart.
We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.
The condition of salvation is that kind of belief in Jesus Christ which authenticates itself in repentance for the past and in an amendment of life for the future.
This makes salvation great—I shall know how great, when I can measure the distance between the eternal and the perishable, omnipotence and feebleness, immortality and death.
The shipwrecked passenger who grasps an oar does something, but if the possession of that oar leads him to reject the hand which would draw him on board, it is worse than useless. If your church-going, if your reputable life, has the effect of saying to the Saviour, "No, thank you; I can float," the publicans and vilest sinners may get to heaven before you. But oh, rest not till those everlasting arms are around you, and although the cold brine may still drip from your garments, though your limbs may still be torpid and powerless with that long exposure on the deep, still the moment you clasp that outstretched arm of mercy, you have come in contact with what will never let you go.
None shall be saved by Christ but those only who work out their own salvation while God is working in them by His truth and His Holy Spirit. We cannot do without God; and God will not do without us.
"But what can mortal man do to secure his own salvation?" Mortal man can do just what God bids him do. He can repent and believe. He can arise and follow Christ as Matthew did.
Grant that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is God's truth, and I know not in what way you can escape the doctrine that there is salvation only in Christ. From the liberality which says every body is right—from the charity which forbids you to say any body is wrong—from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth, may the good Lord deliver you.
It is the greatness of salvation, that proves the utter ruin that must follow its neglect.
And is not this a great salvation, great in its simplicity, great in its comprehensiveness, which thus meets the every necessity of the guilty and helpless; and which, arranged for creatures whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leaves them not till elevated to the very summit of dignity?
Joseph Hart was by the free and sovereign grace and Spirit of God raised up from the depths of sin and delivered from the bonds of mere profession and self-righteousness, and led to rest entirely for salvation in the finished atonement and perfect obedience of Christ.
It is God's purpose to save—to save His people from their sins, to purge out of them all hypocrisy, falsehood, injustice, and make of them honest men, true men, just men—men created anew after His likeness. And this is the meaning of His salvation; and is the only salvation worth having, for this life or the life to come.
SANCTIFICATION.
Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
Can we doubt that God acts immediately in the soul? that He so acts as to make it die to self? that, after having subdued the grosser passions, He attacks all the subtle resources of self-love within, especially in those souls who have without reserve delivered themselves up to the operations of His grace?
It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image in sanctifying us.
When God lifts you up into the arms of His grace and renews your nature, there is a new force, a new love, and therefore a new man. But this new life must take on the hardness of habit, must be entrenched in your being by habitual exercise, or the old yesterday will be back upon you and supreme again.
SCIENCE.
All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death.
But when science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of theology, and sets up its own conception of the order of nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of its best friends.
Our abiding belief is that just as the workmen in the tunnel of St. Gothard, working from either end, met at last to shake hands in the very central root of the mountain, so students of nature and students of Christianity will yet join hands in the unity of reason and faith, in the heart of their deepest mysteries.
Believe in God, and bid all knowledge speed. Sooner or later the full harmony will reveal itself, the discords and contradictions disappear.
Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in His universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne.
What are the sciences but maps of universal laws, and universal laws but the channels of universal power; and universal power but the outgoings of a universal mind?
Science is a good piece of furniture for a man to have in an upper chamber, provided he has common sense on the ground floor.
Holding then to science with one hand—the left hand—we give the right hand to religion, and cry: "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things, more wondrous than the shining worlds can tell." Obedient to the promise, religion does waken faculties within us, does teach our eyes to the beholding of more wonderful things. Those great worlds blazing like suns die like feeble stars in the glory of the morning, in the presence of this new light. The soul knows that an infinite sea of love is all about it, throbbing through it, everlasting arms of affection lift it, and it bathes itself in the clear consciousness of a Father's love.
It is better to inspire the heart with a noble sentiment than to teach the mind a truth of science.
SECURITY.
He who stands upon his own strength will never stand.
When life has been well spent; when there is a conscience without reproach; when there is faith in the Saviour; when there is a well-founded hope of heaven, there can be nothing that should disquiet us.
When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all.
How easy it is for men to be swollen with admiration of their own strength and glory, and to be lifted up so high as to lose sight both of the ground whence they rose, and the hand that advanced them.
The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be the wisest.
Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. Moses failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord.
SELF-DENIAL.
There never did, and there never will exist any thing permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.
One never knows a man till he has refused him something, and studied the effect of the refusal; one never knows himself till he has denied himself. The altar of sacrifice is the touchstone of character. The cross compels a choice for or against Christ.
Self-denial must reach beyond gross and undoubted sins.
Sacrifice alone, bare and unrelieved, is ghastly, unnatural, and dead; but self-sacrifice, illuminated by love, is warmth and life; it is the death of Christ, the life of God, the blessedness and only proper life of man.
Contempt of all outward things, which come in competition with duty, fulfills the ideal of human greatness. This conviction, that readiness to sacrifice life's highest material good and life itself, is essential to the elevation of human nature, is no illusion of ardent youth, nor outburst of blind enthusiasm. It does not yield to growing wisdom. It is confirmed by all experience. It is sanctioned by conscience—that universal and eternal lawgiver whose chief dictate is, that every thing must be yielded up for the right.
In heaven, we shall never regret any sacrifice however painful, or labor however protracted, made or performed here for the cause of Christ.
Nothing is really lost by a life of sacrifice; every thing is lost by failure to obey God's call.
They that deny themselves for Christ shall enjoy themselves in Christ.
The sweetest life is to be ever making sacrifices for Christ; the hardest life a man can lead on earth, the most full of misery, is to be always doing his own will and seeking to please himself.
Take thy self-denials gaily and cheerfully, and let the sunshine of thy gladness fall on dark things and bright alike, like the sunshine of the Almighty.
Whoever will labor to get rid of self, to deny himself, according to the instructions of Christ, strikes at once at the root of every evil, and finds the germ of every good.
That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.
Which do you think of most, your interest or your duty? Can you sell all for the pearl of great price? Are these the natural breathings of your heart: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done?" Is the cause of Christ your concern, the dishonor of Christ your affliction, the cross of Christ your glory? If so,you are not strangers to the spirit of self-denial.
Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me. This is war, not peace. It is battle declared against the world, the flesh, and the devil. In me said Christ, "ye have peace,"—not in the world; there is no promise of it there.
The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and accepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient support of all goodness; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevitable sorrows of a devoted life.
The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome.
Self-denial is the result of a calm, deliberate, invincible attachment to the highest good, flowing forth in the voluntary renunciation of every thing that is inconsistent with the glory of God or the good of our fellow men.
The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial.
SELFISHNESS.
Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there.
Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?
A man as he goes down in self, goes up in God. It is interesting to trace this in the experience of the apostle Paul, as gathered from his Epistles. In the year of our Lord 59, he is the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God. In the year of our Lord 64, after four years more of growth in grace, he is "less than the least of all saints." But in the year of our Lord 65, and not long before he was about to receive his crown in heaven, he is "the chief of sinners."
I hold, in truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
If we desire to do what will please God, and what will help men, we presently find ourselves taken out of our narrow habits of thought and action; we find new elements of our nature called into activity; we are no longer running along a narrow track of selfish habit.
O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection.
A man is called selfish, not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves.
We can neither change nor overpower God's eternal suffrage against selfishness and meanness.
Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself.
The selfish man cuts away the sand from under his own feet, he digs his own grave; and every time, from the beginning of the world until now, God Almighty pushes him into the grave and covers him up.
Alas! how many souls there are full of self, and yet desirous of doing good and serving God, but in such a way as to suit themselves; who desire to impose rules upon God as to His manner of drawing them to Himself. They want to serve and possess Him, but they are not willing to be possessed by Him.
It is self-love and its offspring self-deception, which shut the gates of heaven, and lead men, as if in a delicious dream, to hell.
Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.
If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.
If we look only to self even in spiritual things, it is still selfishness though possibly on a somewhat higher plane than before.
There is a sickly habit that men get of looking into themselves, and thinking how they are appearing. We are always unnatural when we do that. The very tread of one who is thinking how he appears to others becomes dizzy with affectation. He is too conscious of what he is doing, and self-consciousness is affectation. Let us aim at being natural. And we can only become natural by thinking of God and duty, instead of the way in which we are serving God and duty.
We are too much haunted by ourselves; we project the central shadow of ourselves on every thing around us. And then comes in the gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. Redemption is this—to forget self in God.
I am not sure that it is best for us, once safe and secure on the Rock of Ages, to ask ourselves too closely what this and that experience may signify. Is it not better to be thinking of the Rock, not of the feet that stand upon it?
Less, less of self each day,
And more, my God, of Thee!
Think about yourselves; about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay to you, what people think of you; and then to you nothing will be pure. May God keep our hearts pure from that selfishness which is the root of all sin.
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and Divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and outward, vehement transgression; but it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency.
God has nothing to say to the self-righteous. Unless you humble yourself before Him in the dust, and confess before Him your iniquities and sins, the gate of heaven, which is open only for sinners, saved by grace, must be shut against you forever.
You can always tell when a man is a great ways from God—he is always talking about himself, how good he is. But the moment he sees God by the eye of faith, he is down on his knees, and, like Job, he cries, "Behold I am vile."
Those who err in one direction, always take care to let you know that they are quite free from error in the opposite direction. A boorish man thanks God very loudly that he is not insincere—nobody having ever thought of accusing him even of that small and wretched approach to politeness, which is sometimes flavored by insincerity.
Never have I greater reason for suspicion than when I am particularly pleased with myself, my faith, my progress, and my alms.
For when man comes to front the everlasting God, and look the splendor of His judgments in the face, personal integrity, the dream of spotlessness and innocence, vanishes into thin air; your decencies and your church-goings and your regularities and your attachment to a correct school and party, your gospel formulas of sound doctrine—what is all that, in front of the blaze of the wrath to come?
Let us pray God that He would root out of our hearts everything of our own planting, and set out there, with His own hands, the tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits.
A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces, as by gross sins; and that is, when a man doth trust in these as his righteousness before God, for the satisfying His justice, appeasing His wrath, procuring His favor, and obtaining his own pardon.
If there be ground for you to trust, as you do, in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did from the fall of man to prepare the way for it, is in vain. Consider what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, that all those things were done so needlessly; when, instead of all this, He might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily.
What self-righteous persons take to themselves, is the same work that Christ was engaged in when He was in His agony and bloody sweat, and when He died on the cross, which was the greatest thing that ever the eyes of angels beheld. Christ could accomplish other parts of this work without cost; but this part cost Him His life, as well as innumerable pains and labors. Yet this is the part which self-righteous persons go about to accomplish for themselves.
Regret not that which is past; and trust not to thine own righteousness.
You trust in your own doings to appease God for your sins, and to incline the heart of God to you. Though you are poor, worthless, vile, and polluted, yet you arrogantly take upon you that very work for which the Son of God became man; and in order to which God employed four thousand years in all the great dispensations of His providence, aiming chiefly to make way for Christ's coming to do this work. This is the work that you foolishly think yourselves sufficient for; as though your prayers and performances were excellent enough for this purpose. Consider how vain is the thought which you entertain of yourself. How must such arrogance appear in the sight of Christ, whom it cost so much? It was not to be obtained even by Him, so great and glorious a person, at a cheaper rate than His wading through a sea of blood, and passing through the midst of the furnace of God's wrath.
To depend partly upon Christ's righteousness and partly upon our own, is to set one foot upon a rock and another in the quicksands. Christ will either be to us all in all in point of righteousness, or else nothing at all.
You that trust in your own righteousness, arrogate to yourselves the honor of the greatest thing that even God Himself ever did. You seem not only sufficient to perform Divine works, but such is your pride and vanity, that you are not content without taking upon you to do the very greatest work that ever God Himself wrought. God's works of providence are greater than those of creation. To take on yourself to work out redemption, is a greater thing than if you had taken it upon you to create a world.
SELF-SURRENDER.
Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just as God pleases, with respect both to your outward and inward state.
O Lord! take my heart, for I cannot give it; and when Thou hast it, O! keep it, for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself, for Jesus Christ's sake.
If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacrifice of ourselves to His good pleasure, desiring only to love Him and to forget ourselves. He who thus loses his soul shall find it again with eternal life.
There is but one way in which God should be loved, and that is to take no step except with Him and for Him, and to follow with a generous self-abandonment every thing which He requires.
Love so amazing, so Divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
We must surrender our whole being to Christ Jesus, and cease to live any longer in ourselves, that He may become our life; that being dead, "our life may be hid with Christ in God."
Here it is that the Spirit teaches us all truth; for all truth is eminently contained in this sacrifice of love, where the soul strips itself of every thing to present it to God.
We have communion in Christ's sufferings as we die with Him unto self, and rise with Him to our proper life—the life of self-surrender to the will of God.
"Cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me." This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet.
I have just put my soul as a blank into the hand of Jesus, my Redeemer, and desired Him to write on it what He pleases; I know it will be His image.
O God, the creature knows not to what end Thou hast made Him; teach him, and write in the depths of his soul that the clay must suffer itself to be shaped at the will of the potter.
SIMPLICITY.
The greatest truths are the simplest,
And so are the greatest men.
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed to be simple is to be great.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are they who are stripped of every thing, even of their own wills, that they may no longer belong to themselves.
God would behold in you a simplicity which will contain so much the more of His wisdom as it contains less of your own.
True simplicity regards God alone; it has its eye fixed upon Him, and is not drawn toward self; and it is as pleased to say humble as great things. All our uneasy feelings and reflections arise from self-love, whatever appearance of piety they may assume. The lack of simplicity inflicts many wounds. Go where we will, if we remain in ourselves, we shall carry everywhere our sins and our distresses. If we would live in peace, we must lose sight of self, and rest in the infinite and unchangeable God.
He sows June fields with clover, and the world
Broadcasts with little common kindnesses.
The plain good souls He sends us, who fulfill
Life's homely duties in the daily path
With cheerful heart, ambitious of no more
Than to supply the wants of friend and kin,
Yet serve God's higher love to human hearts;
Giving a secret sweetness to the home,
The hidden fragrance of a kindly heart,
The simple beauty of a useful life,
That never dazzles, and that never tires.
Simpler manners, purer lives; more self-denial; more earnest sympathy with the classes that lie below us, nothing short of that can lay the foundations of the Christianity which is to be hereafter, deep and broad.
Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention—purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God,—purity apprehends and tastes Him.
As to our friend, I pray God to bestow upon him a simplicity that shall give him peace. Happy are they indeed who can bear their sufferings in the enjoyment of this simple peace and perfect acquiesence in the will of God.
If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of the Lord.
If you wish to be like a little child, study what a little child could understand—nature; and do what a little child could do—love.
SIN.
Sin is essentially a departure from God.
Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God.
The Greek word for wickedness is lawlessness.
Sin is the insurrection and rebellion of the heart against God; it turns from Him, and turns against Him; it takes up arms against God.
He that hath slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God.
Sin is an awful fact. It beggars description. Like the shirt of Nessus, it burns one alive. As that poisoned garment ate away the muscles of the victim in his vain attempt to rid himself of it, so sin will destroy the power of him who becomes its victim. Eternal death is eternal sin; sin through all the ages.
Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. And what wonder? Thou hast insulted His holy majesty; thou hast bereaved Him of beloved children; thou hast crucified the Son of His infinite love; thou hast vexed His gracious Spirit; thou hast defied His power; thou hast despised His grace; and in the body and blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot His matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing which we also hate.
Retribution, atonement, grace, redemption, a great perdition, a great salvation, a great and Divine Saviour, all become credible when there is truly realized the idea of sin. They all rise as it rises in the moral estimate; they all fall as it falls. When it goes out, they become incredible.
The God of truth declares, that all have sinned; the broken law cries for vengeance against transgressors, and by it is the knowledge of sin; conscience, God's deputy in every man's bosom, tells him he is guilty; the reign of death, and the groans of the creatures round about us, all bear testimony that there is such a thing as sin in the world.
I learn the depth to which I have sunk from the length of the chain let down to up-draw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery for restoration.
There is the seed of all sins—of the vilest and worst of sins—in the best of men.
No sin is small. It is a sin against an infinite God, and may have consequences immeasurable. No grain of sand is small in the mechanism of a watch.
St. Augustine used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves.
Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness; and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick-bed with thorns, and rack our sinking spirits with despair.
Misery follows sin; sin itself is misery; and the soul that sinneth dies of course, without any means taken to put that soul to death; though Divine interference would be indispensable to prevent the consequences following the cause.
God, save us from ourselves! We carry within us the elements of hell if we but choose to make them such. Ahaz, Judas, Nero, Borgia, Herod, all were once prattling infants in happy mother's arms.
Lord, pardon what I have been, sanctify what I am, and order what I shall be, that Thine may be the glory, and mine the eternal salvation.
He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater.
The fact is that sin is the most unmanly thing in God's world. You never were made for sin and selfishness. You were made for love and obedience.
There are burdens which are bad and blameworthy, and these it is our duty at once to cast away. Such a burden is the evil conscience, from which the true deliverance is the cross of Christ; such a burden is the easily besetting sin, from which the sanctifying Spirit sets free the vigilant and prayerful Christian.
Yes, every sin is a mistake, and the epitaph for the sinner is, "Thou fool."
Sin works by no set methods. It has a way of ruin for every man, that is original and proper only to himself. Suffice it to say that, as long as you are in and under its power, you can never tell what you are in danger of. This one thing you may have as a truth eternally fixed, that respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it on to the bitter end, and there is ignominy eternal.
To please ourselves with a notion of gospel liberty, while we have not a gospel principle of holiness within to free us from the power of sin, is nothing else but to gild over our bonds and fetters, and to fancy ourselves the inmates of a golden cage. There is a straitness, slavery, and narrowness in sin; sin crowds and crumples up our souls which, if they were freely spread abroad, would be as wide and as broad as the whole universe. No man is truly free, but he that has his will enlarged to the extent of God's own will, by loving whatever God loves, and nothing else.
Sin is a state of mind, not an outward act.
Sin, without strong restraints, would pull God from His throne, make the world the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship.
Sin murders the soul. Its withering, blasting curse is not exhausted in this life, but goes with us into eternity, to be perfected and perpetuated there. "The wages of sin is death"—death to all spiritual life now, and an immortality of pain and tears and despair. "The sting of death is sin;" the weeping and wailing of the judgment will be sin; and sin will be the ever-gnawing worm and the quenchless fire.
The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries.
Every burning tear, every harrowing fear, every festering grief, every corroding care, every shooting pain, every piercing remorse; the sighs and moans of lazar-houses reeking with putrefaction and death; the shrieks and wails and clanking chains in hospitals swarming with maniacs; and the curses and blasphemies of dungeons where guilt rots and raves—these, all these, are but feeble reverberations of those dismal truths, "Sin reigns unto death." "Death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
That is the bitterest of all,—to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.
And O when the whirlwind of passion is raging,
When sin in our hearts its wild warfare is waging,
Then send down Thy grace, Thy redeemed to cherish;
Rebuke the destroyer; "Save, Lord, or we perish."
Multitudes are lost by cherishing some secret sin, that is not only hidden from others, but, from want of searching their own hearts, even from themselves.
The essence of all wickedness is a forsaking of God.
Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart.
The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.
Though the scorpion be little, yet will it sting a lion to death; and so will the least sin the sinner, unless pardoned by the blood of Christ.
Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come.
Nature has no promise for society, least of all, any remedy for sin.
You cannot stay the shell in its flight; after it has left the mortar, it goes on to its mark, and there explodes, dealing destruction all around. Just as little can you stay the consequences of a sin after it has been committed. You may repent of it, you may even be forgiven for it, but still it goes on its deadly and desolating way. It has passed entirely beyond your reach; once done, it cannot be undone.
Though sin may be in the Christian, yet it hath no more dominion over him; he hath an unfeigned respect to all God's commandments, making conscience even of little sins and little duties.
Sin is to be overcome, not so much by maintaining a direct opposition to it, as by cultivating opposite principles. Would you kill the weeds in your garden, plant it with good seed; if the ground be well occupied, there will be less need of the labor of the hoe. If a man wished to quench fire, he might fight it with his hands till he was burnt to death; the only way is to apply an opposite element.
The deliberate and habitual practice of any form of dishonesty or immorality is impossible to one who follows Christ.
A believer is far more apt to be burdened with a sense of sin, and to feel the fear of it in his own character than an unbeliever; because if we are carried along the stream we fear nothing, and it is only when we strive against it, that its progress and power are discernible.
If, in proportion as our minds are enlarged, our hearts purified, and our consciences cultivated, our abhorrence of wrong and aversion to it increases, what must be the moral indignation of the infinite and holy God against wrong-doers?
As for our own faults, it would take a large slate to hold the account of them; but, thank God, we know where to take them, and how to get the better of them.
From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, good Lord, deliver us.
Presumption has many forms; and it is worth considering, whether a great and good Being would most disapprove the presumption which expected too much from His goodness, or the presumption which dared positively to disbelieve His promise.
When a sinner has any just sense of his condition, as alienated from a holy God, he will not be apt to think of the unpardonable sin.
Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred and strayed from Thy ways, like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore Thou those who are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen.
SINCERITY.
Sincerity and truth form the basis of every virtue.
Be what thou seemest; live thy creed;
Hold up to earth the torch divine;
Be what thou prayest to be made;
Let the great Master's steps be thine.
Try how much of the word of God you can understand, and what is more, try how much you can practice. A sincere wish and purpose to do the will of God, will be your best way to know the mind of God.
True emotions and sincere words never perish. The great heart of humanity gladly receives and embalms every true utterance of the humblest of its offspring.
The surest, as the shortest way, to make yourself beloved and honored, is to be, indeed, the very man you wish to appear.
Judge thyself with the judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with the judgment of charity.
I cannot find in Scripture that any one ever got to heaven merely by sincerity, or was accepted with God if he was only earnest in maintaining his own views. Sincerity cannot put away sin.
Let every man examine his own sincerity, for every man must bear his own burden—the burden of his own sin—unless he has transferred it to the appointed Saviour.
SONG.
The best days of the church have always been its singing days.
Make His praise glorious.
If you and I shall, like the believing shepherds, watch and long for His appearing, one day we, too, shall hear a music grander and sweeter even than the song of angels, when the great Composer shall transpose all the strains of earth from the minor into the major, when the wail of nature shall give way to the glad harmony of the everlasting jubilee.
Dear friends, have you begun to sing the "new song?" Loved ones are singing it in the heavenly home, and we may sing it here; and by and by we shall join them, gaze with them on the risen, glorified Lord, and our voices will mingle in the "new song" "unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever."
SORROW.
Most of the Beatitudes which the Infinite Compassion pronounced have the sorrows of earth for their subject, but the joys of earth for their completion.
Sorrow is only one of the lower notes in the oratorio of our blessedness.
How fast we learn in the day of sorrow! Scripture shines out in a new effulgence; every verse seems to contain a sunbeam, every promise stands out in illuminated splendor; things hard to be understood become in a moment plain.
Marah is always near the mercy-seat, and right across the bitter spring we can join hands with Jesus.
Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the cages of birds when we wish to teach them to sing?
When we feel how God was in our sorrows, we shall trust the more blessedly that He will be in our deaths.
It is not in the bright, happy day, but only in the solemn night, that other worlds are to be seen shining in their long, long distances. And it is in sorrow—the night of the soul—that we see farthest, and know ourselves natives of infinity, and sons and daughters of the Most High.
From the very summit of his sorrows, where he had gone to die, Moses, for the first time in his life, caught a view of the land of Canaan. He did not know, as he went over the rocks, torn and weary, how lovely the prospect was from the top. In this world, it frequently happens that when man has reached the place of anguish, God rolls away the mist from his eyes, and the very spot selected as the receptacle of his tears, becomes the place of his highest rapture.
There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.
Vital is the relation between earthly sorrow and eternal satisfaction. The travail to which God's saints are subjected results in the birth of nobler natures and more sanctified spirits. Pain always promotes progress, and suffering invariably ensures success.
I really believe if, instead of shutting ourselves into our sorrows and keeping all the light of heaven out of our souls, we opened them to receive Him, Christ would so come to us that the season of our deepest grief and anguish would become one of the richest and most precious of our whole lives.
Sorrows humanize our race;
Tears are the showers that fertilize this world.
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
Since Thou on earth hast wept,
And sorrowed oft alone,
If I must weep with Thee,
My Lord, Thy will be done!
As the Christian's sorrows multiply, his patience grows, until, with sweet, unruffled quiet, he can confront the ills of life, and, though inwardly wincing, can calmly pursue his way to the restful grave, while his old, harsh voice is softly cadenced into sweetest melody, like the faint notes of an angel's whispered song. As patience deepens, charity and sympathy increase.
Earth may embitter, not remove.
The love divinely given;
And e'en that mortal grief shall prove
The immortality of love,
And lead us nearer heaven.
If man were sufficient for man, there would be no need for religion. If there were no evils from which man could not rescue his brother, there would be no need for a Saviour; if no sorrows under which man could not sustain his fellow man, there would be no need of a Divine Comforter. But it is a grief, a care like yours, which makes religion a reality. Carry it to the throne of grace, and see if there you do not find mercy to pardon and grace to help in time of need.
Not till the everlasting day break, and the shadows flee away, and the Lord Himself shall be our light, and our God our glory, can we do without the cloud in the sunshine, the shade of sorrow in the bright light of joy, and the curtain of night for the deepening of the sleep which God gives His beloved.
SOUL.
The human soul is like a bird that is born in a cage. Nothing can deprive it of its natural longings, or obliterate the mysterious remembrance of its heritage.
The universe, vast, beautiful, magnificent, as it is, cannot content the soul, but rouses it to more majestic thoughts. The wider view it takes of what is material, the more impatient it becomes of all material bonds. The sublimer the prospects which are opened by the universe, the more the spirit is impelled to ascend to a still sublimer being. Forever it aspires towards an infinite and immutable One as the ground of all finite and mutable existences. It can rest in His Omnipotence alone as the source, centre, sustainer, determiner of all forces.
There is a remedy for every wrong and a satisfaction for every soul.
The strongest love which the human heart has ever felt has been that for its Heavenly Parent. Was it not then constituted for this love?
As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard.
Oh! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak.
Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul; He is the very Sabbath of the soul.
Every thing here, but the soul of man, is a passing shadow. The only enduring substance is within. When shall we awake to the sublime greatness, the perils, the accountableness, and the glorious destinies of the immortal soul?
It is only when we see in human souls, taken as germs of power, a future magnitude and majesty transcending all present measures, that we come into any fit conception at all of Christ's mission to the world.
Go and try to save a soul, and you will see how well it is worth saving, how capable it is of the most complete salvation. Not by pondering about it, nor by talking of it, but by saving it, you learn its preciousness.
You can throw yourselves away. You can become of no use in the universe except for a warning. You can lose your souls. Oh, what a loss is that! The perversion and degradation of every high and immortal power for an eternity! And shall this be true of any one of you? Will you be lost when One has come from heaven, traveling in the greatness of His strength, and with garments dyed in blood, on purpose to guide you home—home to a Father's house—to an eternal home?
Two things a master commits to his servant's care—the child and the child's clothes. It will be a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master's return, "Sir, here are all the child's clothes, neat and clean, but the child is lost." Much so of the account that many will give to God of their souls aud bodies at the great day. "Lord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it."
We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.
The saddest of all failures is that of a soul, with its capabilities and possibilities, failing of life everlasting, and entering upon that night of death upon which morning never dawns.
As ravens rejoice over carrion, so infernal spirits exult over the sod that is dead in sin.
SPEAKING FOR CHRIST.
It may be a very little thing for you to say to a young man the few words that turn him from the way of ruin, and win him back to life and hope. It may be a very little thing to you; but it is every thing to the young man.
A kind word spoken for Christ may create a wider vibration in eternity than the grandest sermon by the greatest preacher.
A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.
O Christians! are you willing to walk the streets of heaven, and have no one greet you there? Would you be willing to go yourselves inside the gates and never have a soul to greet you and say, "I thank God for the kind words of sympathy and love you spoke on earth?"
To speak for Him will be our impulse. No matter how timid, nervous, self-diffident, we are in ourselves, as we touch His pierced and royal hand, we shall be instantly masterful and strong.
Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.
It is a bad sign when a new-born babe has not lungs enough to make itself heard over the whole house. It is equally a bad symptom when the new convert is born dumb, and cannot find his voice to praise God audibly.
SPIRITUALITY.
It is for all who are personally united to Christ to cultivate a contemplative and sanctified spirit. So far from being secular and sordid, they should be sacred and spiritual, having their lives hid with Christ in God, and their whole natures absorbed in the knowledge and love and service of the Saviour.
As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead soul inherit heaven. The soul must be resurrected in Christ.
The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.
SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION.
There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason; but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world—how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense.
The fact is those root-truths on which the foundations of our being rest, are apprehended not logically at all, but mystically. This faculty of spiritual apprehension, which is a very different one from those which are trained in schools and colleges, must be educated and fed, not less, but more carefully than our lower faculties, else it will be starved and die, however learned and able in other respects we may become.
He who never looks up to a living God, to a heavenly presence, loses the power of perceiving that presence, and the universe slowly turns into a dead machine, clashing and grinding on, without purpose or end. If the light within us be darkness, how great is that darkness!
The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth—they, and they only.
It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven.
What is it to make progress in religion? Progress is not only action but moving onward. A door turning upon its hinges is in a state of motion, but it never advances. A chariot moving upon wheels is not only in motion, but goes onward. The conduct of some persons in religion resembles the former—there is action, but no advancement; they move, but it is on hinges, not on wheels.
Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.
You are born supernaturally through faith, by the grace of God, into the kingdom of righteousness; but you are born a little babe, that is all; and if you make any progress from that point on, it must be by work, by sacrifice, by the practice of Christian virtues, by benevolence, by self-denial, by resisting the adversary, by making valiant war for God and against sin; and on no other basis, am I authorized in giving you a hope that you may come to manhood in Christ Jesus.
Voices of the glorified urge us onward. They who have passed from the semblances of time to the realities of eternity call upon us to advance. The rest that awaits us invites us forward. We do not pine for our rest before God wills it. We long for no inglorious rest. We are thankful rather for the invaluable training of difficulty, the loving discipline of danger and strife. Yet in the midst of it all the prospect of rest invites us heavenward. Through all, and above all, God cries, "Go forward!" "Come up higher!"
There is perhaps no truer sign that a man is really advancing than that he is learning to forget himself, that he is losing the natural thoughts about self in the thought of One higher than himself, to whose guidance he can commit himself and all men.
Almighty God, who through Thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; we humbly beseech Thee, that as by Thy special grace preventing us, Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Progress, in the sense of acquisition, is something; but progress in the sense of being, is a great deal more. To grow higher, deeper, wider, as the years go on; to conquer difficulties, and acquire more and more power; to feel all one's faculties unfolding, and truth descending into the soul,—this makes life worth living.
To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life.
O how deceived we are, when we suppose we are advancing, because our vain curiosity is gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect! Be humble, and expect not the gifts of God from man!
The modern Christian does not retire into a cell to pray, but goes about doing good. He thus avoids the risk of narrowness, which attends the man who desires only to do the "nearest duty." But there is a danger here also, that of shallowness. The man who is always giving, never receiving; always helping others, and never feeding his own soul, is in danger of becoming empty.
The life of a godly man is like a river, not like a stagnant pool or a dead sea. It is ever in motion, sometimes sparkling in the sunbeam, and sometimes shivering in the clouds; sometimes chanting through scenery as beautiful as Eden, and sometimes moaning through districts of miserable desolation; sometimes clear as the day, and sometimes black as the night. Still it is ever moving to its ocean destiny—progress is its law, infinitude is its home.
As the reflections of our pride upon our defects are bitter, disheartening, and vexatious, so the return of the soul towards God is peaceful and sustained by confidence. You will find by experience how much more your progress will be aided by this simple, peaceful turning towards God, than by all your chagrin and spite at the faults that exist in you.
A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah! what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.
If a man is not rising upward to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downward to be a devil.
SUCCESS.
While the man before had climbed, on sharp, flinty precipices, slippery, abysmal; in darkness, seen by no kindred eye,—amid the brood of dragons; and his heart many times was like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his extreme need; yet he climbed and climbed, gluing his footsteps in his blood; and now behold, Hyperion-like, he has scaled the height, and on the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war! What a scene and new kingdom for him; all bathed in auroral radiance of Hope; far-stretching, solemn, joyful; what wild Memnon's music, from the depths of nature comes toning through the soul raised suddenly out of strangling death into victory and life!
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.
SUFFERING.
There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stoop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the least half of the lesson earth has to give.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven.
No flower can bloom in paradise which is not transplanted from Gethsemane.
The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face.
Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys—sickness destroying the flavor of them all—did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him—this is all.
Suffering is my gain; I bow
To my Heavenly Father's will,
And receive it hushed and still;
Suffering is my worship now.
Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children; He chastens them in love; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise.
Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them.
He hears thy faintly sobbing breath,
He marks each quivering limb;
He drank a cup for thee alone—
Child! drink it now with Him.
Toil on, O weary, way-worn sufferer! bear up, O crushed and sorrowing heart! thy bed of pain, thy silent heroism, thy patient Christian walk, thy resignation, and thy grief, glow all unconsciously to thee with winning radiance, and fill the world with life's sweetest fragrance—as bruised flowers with perfume do the air.
He knows the bitter, weary way,
The endless striving day by day,
The souls that weep, the souls that pray
He knows!
He knows! Oh thought so full of bliss!
For though on earth our joy we miss,
We still can bear it, feeling this,—
He knows!
He knows; O heart take up thy cross,
And know earth's treasures are but dross,
And He will prove as gain our loss!
He knows.
In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL
We the Sunday-school workers, what are we but the church at work? The Sunday-school is the church in futuro. Our recruits come almost wholly from the training classes of the Sunday-school. The Bible, the open Bible, the studied Bible, the Bible in the heart is the only hope of our land to-day.
The hope of the nation and of Christendom, and of the lands called heathen, alike is to be found in the indoctrination of little children in the knowledge of God's truth; for the missionaries will tell you that the adult heathen population of to-day are to die heathen; the minister will tell you that the adult, virtually heathen population of Christian lands to-day are to die in that condition, unless God showers down altogether unprecedented grace—with only such occasional exceptions as confirm this general and terrible law. If this be so, the hope of Christianity is in childhood. Towards childhood must be directed the work of the sappers and miners of the church. Here is the weak point of the enemy's fortress. Here let the breach be made, and his topmost turret shall be laid now.
Let the Sunday-school for the children teach Christ first, Christ last, Christ in the middle, Christ all the time. And the school that shall be so single-eyed for the Master, shall have the full beam of His eyes which smile as the sun shining in its strength ever upon them.
One of the brighest and most touching pictures in the whole gospel narratives is that of Jesus taking the little children up and folding His arms about them, putting His hands upon them and blessing them. This is the warrant and the best inspiration of Sunday-school work, and this suggests the secret of success. We must take up the children, and fold them in our arms, in an embrace of tenderness and Christly love, then we shall win them to Christ and heaven.
The conditions of success in teaching are these: First, devotion to Christ; second, love for souls; third, earnest work; fourth, concentration; fifth, importunate prayer; sixth, fitness; seventh, the Holy Spirit's influences.
It is a grand thing to train the human mind in the academy and in the college and university to great intellectual achievements. It is a grand thing for you to leap, as it were, by the lightning of your thought, from crag to crag of discovery. It is well to make paths for tender feet through the morasses and over the mountains of study. These bring honor and power. But it is also well to remember that the diplomas of colleges and universities can never bring pardon for sin; that all the scholarships and all the titles in the world can never bring peace to the dying. Oh, brethren, it is this discipleship with the Man of Galilee who trod the wine-press alone, and carried His cross up Calvary's hill; this discipleship with the man Christ Jesus, that constitutes the moral and spiritual power in our work. That power it is yours to impart to the children under your care. Aye, this is grander than all human achievements.
Bring the little ones to Christ, Lord Jesus, we bring them to-day, the children of our Sunday-schools, of our churches, of the streets. Here they are; they wait Thy benediction. The prayer of Jacob for his sons shall be my prayer while I live, and when I die: "The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."
Begin in prayer; continue in prayer; end in prayer. All the help that we have in the conversion of the children comes from God. We cannot convert their souls, but God can by the influence of His Spirit. When we study our lessons, let us go first for illumination to God, that we may so impress it on the minds and hearts of those we are teaching, that they may bring forth fruit for salvation; that they may see our earnestness—see that our desire is for their conversion. Let us pray individually for each one of our scholars.
Learn to teach the children to look at this world as a beautiful symbol of Jesus; every thing, Jesus; Christ, all; Christ, in all. So shall you educate the imaginations of the children to receive, and their memories to retain and to use, that Christian truth; and you yourself shall be lifted up, as on angel's wings, to see with John things which are unspeakable, but which the sanctified imagination realizes.
Oh, be assured, fellow teachers, that there is no time in life so favorable to sound conversion as early childhood.
To live a godly life is the best way to light up a lesson that the teacher can possibly employ.
Let us see to it that in our schools, as far as possible, every week, some lessons from Scripture, in the language of the Scripture are learned.
The teacher should use illustrations for the better teaching of the lesson, and never to fill up time, to amuse the class, or to display his own genius.
It is quite likely that the modern contrivances for making Sunday-schools amusing have given them a distaste for the more solemn services of the sanctuary. If so, the amusement is a sin. The schools should feed the church. Children ought to be led by one into the other, exposed to the preaching of the gospel, taught the ways of God's house, and brought up under its influence, with all its hallowed and elevating influences.
The more you study the lessons as the word of God speaking to you by the Holy Ghost, and the more you come to believe in direct answers to prayer, the more efficacious will be your teaching by word and example upon the hearts and lives of others.
The primary principle of education is the determination of the pupil to self-activity—the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself.
Be assured, my dear Anne, that it is only by taking our lesson from God and doing the will of God, that we can either please Him in time, or be happy with Him in eternity.
SUPERSTITION.
Superstition is a senseless fear of God; religion, the pious worship of God.
The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home.
Superstition is but the fear of belief—religion is the confidence.
SYMPATHY.
The capacity of sorrow belongs to our grandeur, and the loftiest of our race are those who have had the profoundest sympathies, because they have had the profoundest sorrows.
Lord, from success, its noise and glare,
And often shallow life,
Guide me to where Thy soldiers lie,
Faint, wounded in the strife;
Give me a brother's heart, I pray,
To watch and help the weak to-day.
We often do more good by our sympathy than by our labors. A man may lose position, influence, wealth, and even health, and yet live on in comfort, if with resignation; but there is one thing without which life becomes a burden—that is human sympathy.
Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it; so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting His praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul.
There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more—there is action. The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look; it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help.
Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation,—if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy—if you would pour something beyond common-place consolation into a tempted heart—if you would pass through the daily intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact which never inflicts pain—if, to that most acute of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor, you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer—being tempted.
I ask Thee for a thankful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes,
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.