In a moment of profound emotion, when our Lord contemplated the near approach of the last tragedy in his life, he said: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."
Accordingly, it was but little more than a month after the scenes of Calvary before Jerusalem was filled with a harvest of men and women who were born into the Christ-life, and were living and acting in his spirit.
At the feast of Pentecost Jerusalem was full of strangers, devout Jews from every nation under heaven, and three thousand in one day bowed at the feet of the Jesus whom they had crucified. The chief priests were enraged and terrified, for everywhere the Apostles of this crucified Jesus, inspired with a supernatural courage, were working miracles and preaching with an energy even more overcoming than that of the Master. Jesus had been among them but as one man; he had come back as twelve men, every one of whom was full of him, working his works and preaching him with overwhelming power.
It is most impressive to read in the Book of Acts howPeter and John were called before Annas and Caiaphas—the very tribunal before which Jesus so lately stood, the tribunal before which Peter denied him and John stood in trembling silence. Now these same men face high priests and elders with heads erect and flashing eyes, and say:—
"If we be this day examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, be it known unto you that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, doth this man stand before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner; neither is there salvation in any other."
"If we be this day examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, be it known unto you that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, doth this man stand before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner; neither is there salvation in any other."
We can imagine the dismay of the Sanhedrim when such men and such sermons met them at every corner. The record says that, perceiving the boldness of Peter and John, and knowing that they were unlearned men, they marveled, and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus!
It is not likely that the high priest had forgotten the recent time when Jesus stood bound before him. Evidently even then his manner had inspired a secret misgiving awe; and here were these disciples now looking and speaking just like him, with the same certainty, the same majesty. It was Jesus of Nazareth returning in his followers. It was a terror to them all. But we are told the word of God grew and prevailed, the converts increased in crowds daily, "a great company of the priests were obedient" to the word. Of course persecution raged. To confess Christ was to lose place, patronage, and daily bread. The Christians, in their new joy, met this by throwing all their worldly possessions into a common stock and apportioning support to each.
There were rich men like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and many others, and we read of men who sold all they had and laid the money at the Apostles' feet. Thusthose who daily were thrown out of employment for Christ's sake were supported and relieved. A great financial and administrative business grew up out of this state of things, and we are told that there arose a murmuring among the foreign-born Jews that their widows were neglected in the apportionment of aid.
The Jews have been in all ages a trading nation. Palestine was a little country situated in the very heart of the ancient civilized world. It was a centre of emigration. Colonies of Jews, bearing their religion, their synagogue, their national zeal, had foothold and maintained Jewish worship in almost every leading city of Greece and Rome. They were called, according to their country, Greeks or Romans, while as to religion and race they were Jews.
It appears that the proportion of Greek-born Jews among the converts was so great as to warrant the appointment of seven deacons, all of whom bear names which show their Grecian origin. Stephen was evidently a noted man among them. He is described as full of faith and the Holy Ghost. For aught we know, Stephen may have been one of those Greeks who, during the last week of Christ's life in Jerusalem, came to his disciples, saying, "Sir, we would see Jesus." He may have been among the first-fruits of that harvest which Christ then foresaw when he said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." He seems to have been of a nature peculiarly receptive and lovely—a beautiful medium through whom the Christ-spirit could reveal itself. If he had been in Jerusalem at the time of Christ's death, and witnessed the scenes of Calvary, we may well believe what a fervor was enkindled in his soul, and with what zeal he devoted himself to him. His activity was not confined to the temporal ministrations which were committed to him. He is described as "full of faith and power, and doing great miracles." He maintained the cause of Jesus in word aswell as deed. Certain leaders in a Jewish synagogue, of Greek extraction like himself, who still clung to Jewish prejudices, disputed with him, and we are told they were not able to resist the wisdom and power with which he spoke. A tumult was stirred up, and Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrim, and stood in the place where his Master had stood before him. Again, as before, it was the Jewish national pride and bitterness that were arrayed against him. Stephen had shown the glories of that new spiritual kingdom which Christ was bringing in, where there should be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ should be all in all. So the accusation was formulated against him:—
"We have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us."
"We have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us."
The High Priest probably felt that now he had got a leading Christian at advantage. He would meet now and expose this sect that threatened to overthrow their country and destroy their venerable religion. He said to Stephen, with a semblance of moderation and justice, "Are these things so?"
There was a pause, in which Stephen seems to have been so filled by the vision of the glory and beauty of the new life which was opening before the world, that he could not speak. It is said:—
"And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."
"And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."
Then began that noble speech, evidently the speech of a Greek-born Jew, who had studied the Hebrew history from a different standpoint from the Rabbins. It is clear from the fragment of this address that it was designed to show, even by their past history, that God's dealings with his people had been irrespective of the temple of Jerusalem and the worship there. He dwelt on God's calling ofAbraham, his sojourn in Canaan before he possessed it; of God's suffering the chosen race to sojourn in Egypt; of Moses, born and nurtured in a Gentile court, and educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians. This man, who lived to the age of forty years as an Egyptian prince, begins to offer himself as a guide and teacher to his oppressed people, but they reject his mission with scorn. Then comes the scene of the appearance of Jehovah for their rescue and the appointment of Moses to accomplish their deliverance, and he drives home the parallel between Moses and the rejected Jesus.
This Moses, whom they refused, saying, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge?" the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer. "This is that Moses who said, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me: him shall ye hear." He then shows how the Jewish nation disobeyed Moses and God, and turned back to the golden calf of Egypt. He traces their history till the time of the building of the temple, but adds that "the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet: Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord. Hath not my hand made all these things?" We may imagine the fervor, the energy of this brief history, the tone, the spirit, the flashing eye that gave point to every incident. It was perfectly evident what he was coming to, what use he was going to make of this recital—that the Jews were not God's favoritesper se; that they were and always had been an ungrateful, rebellious people; that God had chosen them, in spite of their sins, to be the unworthy guardians and receivers of a great mission for the whole world; that the temple was not a necessity, that it came late in their history, and that God himself had declared his superiority to it. It was easy to see that he was coming round to the mission of Jesus, the prophetwhom Moses had predicted, and whom they had rejected as they did Moses. But there was evidently a tumult rising, and Stephen saw that he was about to be interrupted, and therefore, suddenly, leaving the narrative unfinished, he breaks forth:—
"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost—as your fathers did so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They slew them which prophesied the coming of that Just One of whom ye have been the betrayers and murderers; who have received the law by the dispensation of angels and have not kept it."
"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost—as your fathers did so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They slew them which prophesied the coming of that Just One of whom ye have been the betrayers and murderers; who have received the law by the dispensation of angels and have not kept it."
These words were as coals dropping upon naphtha. They were cut to the heart; they gnashed on him with their teeth; they raved round him as wild beasts who collect themselves for a deadly spring.
"But he, full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God."
"But he, full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God."
There was something in his rapt appearance, his pale, upturned face and eager eyes, that caused a moment's silence.
In a voice of exultation and awe he said:—
"Behold! I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."
"Behold! I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."
The Son of man!—the very words that Christ had used when he stood before Caiaphas about fifty days before, when he said, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven!"
There was a frantic shriek of rage. The court broke up and became a blind, infuriate mob. All consideration was forgotten in the blind passion of the hour. Though they had no legal right to take life without a Roman sentence, they determined to have the blood of this man, cost what it might.
They hurried him out of the city with curses and execrations. The executioners stripped off their outer garments to prepare for the butchery, and laid them down at the feet of a young zealot named Saul of Tarsus.
There are many paintings of this scene in the galleries of Europe. We may imagine him, pale and enraptured, looking up into the face of that Jesus whom he saw in glory, and as they threw him violently down he cried, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Rising to his knees, wounded and bleeding, he added, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." And then, says the narrative, "He fell asleep."
The sweetness and tenderness of this expression shows more than anything else how completely the faith of Christ had conquered death. Christians spoke of death simply as a sleep. And here amid the hootings and revilings of a mob, the crash of stones and insult and execration, nothing could hinder Christ's beloved from falling asleep. At peace within, with a heaven of love in his soul, he pitied and prayed for the wretched creatures who were murdering him, and passed to the right hand of Jesus—the first who had sealed his testimony with his blood.
Thus was sown again the first perfected seed of the new wheat which rose from the grave of Christ! Jesus was the first whom the world ever saw praying with his dying breath for his murderers; and Stephen, who had risen to the same majesty of denunciation and rebuke of sin which characterized his master, was baptized into the same tenderness of prayer for the miserable mob who were howling like wild beasts around him. Heavenly love never shrinks from denouncing sin; but it has a prayer for the sinner ever in its breast, and the nearer it comes to the higher world the more it pities this lower one.
But though the orator was crushed the cause was not lost.
Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, had only to reach forth and touch that Saul of Tarsus who stood consenting to his death, and he fell down at his feet trembling, crying, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
The noble work which Stephen had begun, the message of universal love to Jew and Gentile, passed from the hands of dying Stephen to the living Paul, who from that hour spoke the sentiment that must be the animating spirit of every true lover and follower of the Master's footsteps: "I am crucified with Christ; and now it is no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me."
"Why should these cares my heart divide,If Thou, indeed, hast set me free?Why am I thus, if Thou hast died—If Thou hast died to ransom me?"
"Why should these cares my heart divide,If Thou, indeed, hast set me free?Why am I thus, if Thou hast died—If Thou hast died to ransom me?"
Nothing is more frequently felt and spoken of, as a hindrance to the inward life of devotion, than the "cares of life;" and even upon the showing of our Lord himself, the cares of the world are the thorns that choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
And yet, if this is a necessary and inevitable result of worldly care, why does the providence of God so order things that it forms so large and unavoidable a part of every human experience? Why is the physical system of man arranged with such daily, oft-recurring wants? Why does his nature, in its full development, tend to that state of society in which wants multiply, and the business of supply becomes more complicated, and requiring constantly more thought and attention, and bringing the outward and seen into a state of constant friction and pressure on the inner and spiritual?
Has God arranged an outward system to be a constant diversion from the inward—a weight on its wheels—a burden on its wings—and then commanded a strict and rigid inwardness and spirituality? Why placed us where the things that are seen and temporal must unavoidably have so much of our thoughts, and time, and care, yet said to us, "Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. Love not the world, neither the things of the world"? And why does one of our brightestexamples of Christian experience, as it should be, say, "While we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal"?
The Bible tells us that our whole existence here is a disciplinary one; that this whole physical system, by which our spirit is inclosed with all the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, and wants which form a part of it, are designed as an education to fit the soul for its immortality; and as worldly care forms the greater part of the staple of every human life, there must be some mode of viewing and meeting it, which converts it from an enemy of spirituality into a means of grace and spiritual advancement.
Why, then, do we so often hear the lamentation, "It seems to me as if I could advance to the higher stages of Christian life, if it were not for the pressure of my business and the multitude of my worldly cares"? Is it not God, O Christian, who, in ordering thy lot, has laid these cares upon thee, and who still holds them about thee, and permits no escape from them? And as his great, undivided object is thy spiritual improvement, is there not some misapprehension or wrong use of these cares, if they do not tend to advance it? Is it not even as if a scholar should say, I could advance in science were it not for all the time and care which lessons, and books, and lectures require?
How, then, shall earthly care become heavenly discipline? How shall the disposition of the weight be altered so as to press the spirit upward towards God, instead of downward and away? How shall the pillar of cloud which rises between us and him become one of fire, to reflect upon us constantly the light of his countenance, and to guide us over the sands of life's desert?
It appears to us that the great radical difficulty is anintellectual one, and lies in a wrong belief. There is not a genuine and real belief of the presence and agency of God in the minor events and details of life, which is necessary to change them from secular cares into spiritual blessings.
It is true there is much loose talk about an overruling Providence; and yet, if fairly stated, the belief of a great many Christians might be thus expressed: God has organized and set in operation certain general laws of matter and mind, which work out the particular results of life, and over these laws he exercises a general supervision and care, so that all the great affairs of the world are carried on after the counsel of his own will; and in a certain general sense, all things are working together for good to those that love God. But when some simple-minded, childlike Christian really proceeds to refer all the smaller events of life to God's immediate care and agency, there is a smile of incredulity, and it is thought that the good brother displays more Christian feeling than sound philosophy.
But as life for every individual is made up of fractions and minute atoms—as those things which go to affect habits and character are small and hourly recurring, it comes to pass that a belief in Providence so very wide and general is altogether inefficient for consecrating and rendering sacred the great body of what comes in contact with the mind in the experience of life. Only once in years does the Christian with this kind of belief hear the voice of the Lord God speaking to him. When the hand of death is laid on his child, or the bolt strikes down the brother by his side, then, indeed, he feels that God is drawing near; he listens humbly for the inward voice that shall explain the meaning and need of this discipline. When by some unforeseen occurrence the whole of his earthly property is swept away,—he becomes a poor man,—thisevent, in his eyes, assumes sufficient magnitude to have come from God, and to have a design and meaning; but when smaller comforts are removed, smaller losses are encountered, and the petty every-day vexations and annoyances of life press about him, he recognizes no God, and hears no voice, and sees no design. Hence John Newton says, "Many Christians, who bear the loss of a child, or the destruction of all their property, with the most heroic Christian fortitude, are entirely vanquished and overcome by the breaking of a dish, or the blunders of a servant, and show so unchristian a spirit, that we cannot but wonder at them."
So when the breath of slander, or the pressure of human injustice, comes so heavily on a man as really to threaten loss of character, and destruction of his temporal interests, he seems forced to recognize the hand and voice of God, through the veil of human agencies, and in time-honored words to say:—
"When men of spite against me join,They are the sword; the hand is thine."
"When men of spite against me join,They are the sword; the hand is thine."
But the smaller injustice and fault-finding which meet every one more or less in the daily intercourse of life, the overheard remark, the implied censure, too petty, perhaps, to be even spoken of, these daily recurring sources of disquietude and unhappiness are not referred to God's providence, nor considered as a part of his probation and discipline. Those thousand vexations which come upon us through the unreasonableness, the carelessness, the various constitutional failings, or ill adaptedness of others to our peculiarities of character, form a very large item of the disquietudes of life; and yet how very few look beyond the human agent, and feel these are trials coming from God! Yet it is true, in many cases, that these so-called minor vexations form the greater part, and in many cases the only discipline of life; and to those that do not viewthem as ordered individually by God, and coming upon them by specified design, "their affliction 'really' cometh of the dust, and their trouble springs out of the ground;" it is sanctified and relieved by no divine presence and aid, but borne alone and in a mere human spirit, and by mere human reliances; it acts on the mind as a constant diversion and hindrance, instead of a moral discipline.
Hence, too, come a coldness, and generality, and wandering of mind in prayer: the things that are on the heart, that are distracting the mind, that have filled the soul so full that there is no room for anything else, are all considered too small and undignified to come within the pale of a prayer and so, with a wandering mind and a distracted heart, the Christian offers up his prayer for things which he thinks he ought to want, and makes no mention of those which he does. He prays that God would pour out his spirit on the heathen, and convert the world, and build up his kingdom everywhere, when perhaps a whole set of little anxieties, and wants, and vexations are so distracting his thoughts, that he hardly knows what he has been saying: a faithless servant is wasting his property; a careless or blundering workman has spoiled a lot of goods; a child is vexatious or unruly; a friend has made promises and failed to keep them; an acquaintance has made unjust or satirical remarks; some new furniture has been damaged or ruined by carelessness in the household; but all this trouble forms no subject matter for prayer, though there it is, all the while lying like lead on the heart, and keeping it down, so that it has no power to expand and take in anything else. But were God known and regarded as the soul's familiar friend, were every trouble of the heart as it rises breathed into his bosom, were it felt that there is not one of the smallest of life's troubles that has not been permitted by him, and permitted for specific good purpose to the soul, how much morewould these be in prayer! how constant, how daily might it become! how it might settle and clear the atmosphere of the soul! how it might so dispose and lay away many anxieties which now take up their place there, that there might be room for the higher themes and considerations of religion!
Many sensitive and fastidious natures are worn away by the constant friction of what are called little troubles. Without any great affliction, they feel that all the flower and sweetness of their life have faded; their eye grows dim, their cheek care-worn, and their spirit loses hope and elasticity, and becomes bowed with premature age; and in the midst of tangible and physical comfort, they are restless and unhappy. The constant undercurrent of little cares and vexations, which is slowly wearing on the finer springs of life, is seen by no one; scarce ever do they speak of these things to their nearest friends. Yet were there a friend of a spirit so discerning as to feel and sympathize in all these things, how much of this repressed electric restlessness would pass off through such a sympathizing mind.
Yet among human friends this is all but impossible, for minds are so diverse that what is a trial and a care to one is a matter of sport and amusement to another; and all the inner world breathed into a human ear only excites a surprised or contemptuous pity. Whom, then, shall the soul turn to? Who will feel that to be affliction which each spirit feels to be so? If the soul shut itself within itself, it becomes morbid; the fine chords of the mind and nerves by constant wear become jarring and discordant; hence fretfulness, discontent, and habitual irritability steal over the sincere Christian.
But to the Christian that really believes in the agency of God in the smallest events of life, that confides in his love, and makes his sympathy his refuge, the thousandminute cares and perplexities of life become each one a fine affiliating bond between the soul and its God. God is known, not by abstract definition, and by high-raised conceptions of the soul's aspiring hours, but known as a man knoweth his friend; he is known by the hourly wants he supplies; known by every care with which he momentarily sympathizes, every apprehension which he relieves, every temptation which he enables us to surmount. We learn to know God as the infant child learns to know its mother and its father, by all the helplessness and all the dependence which are incident to this commencement of our moral existence; and as we go on thus year by year, and find in every changing situation, in every reverse, in every trouble, from the lightest sorrow to those which wring our soul from its depths, that he is equally present, and that his gracious aid is equally adequate, our faith seems gradually almost to change to sight; and God's existence, his love and care, seem to us more real than any other source of reliance, and multiplied cares and trials are only new avenues of acquaintance between us and heaven.
Suppose, in some bright vision unfolding to our view, in tranquil evening or solemn midnight, the glorified form of some departed friend should appear to us with the announcement, "This year is to be to you one of especial probation and discipline, with reference to perfecting you for a heavenly state. Weigh well and consider every incident of your daily life, for not one shall fall out by accident, but each one is to be a finished and indispensable link in a bright chain that is to draw you upward to the skies!"
With what new eyes should we now look on our daily lot! and if we found in it not a single change,—the same old cares, the same perplexities, the same uninteresting drudgeries still,—with what new meaning would every incident be invested! and with what other and sublimerspirit could we meet them? Yet, if announced by one rising from the dead with the visible glory of a spiritual world, this truth could be asserted no more clearly and distinctly than Jesus Christ has stated it already. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father. Not one of them is forgotten by him; and we are of more value than many sparrows; yea, even the hairs of our head are all numbered. Not till belief in these declarations, in their most literal sense, becomes the calm and settled habit of the soul, is life ever redeemed from drudgery and dreary emptiness, and made full of interest, meaning, and divine significance. Not till then do its groveling wants, its wearing cares, its stinging vexations, become to us ministering spirits, each one, by a silent but certain agency, fitting us for a higher and perfect sphere.
"It is a beautiful belief,That ever round our headAre hovering on viewless wingsThe spirits of the dead."
"It is a beautiful belief,That ever round our headAre hovering on viewless wingsThe spirits of the dead."
While every year is taking one and another from the ranks of life and usefulness, or the charmed circle of friendship and love, it is soothing to remember that the spiritual world is gaining in riches through the poverty of this.
In early life, with our friends all around us,—hearing their voices, cheered by their smiles,—death and the spiritual world are to us remote, misty, and half fabulous; but as we advance in our journey, and voice after voice is hushed, and form after form vanishes from our side, and our shadow falls almost solitary on the hillside of life, the soul, by a necessity of its being, tends to the unseen and spiritual, and pursues in another life those it seeks in vain in this.
For with every friend that dies, dies also some especial form of social enjoyment, whose being depended on the peculiar character of that friend; till, late in the afternoon of life, the pilgrim seems to himself to have passed over to the unseen world in successive portions half his own spirit; and poor indeed is he who has not familiarized himself with that unknown, whither, despite himself, his soul is earnestly tending.
One of the deepest and most imperative cravings of the human heart, as it follows its beloved ones beyond the veil, is for some assurance that they still love and care for us. Could we firmly believe this, bereavement would lose half its bitterness. As a German writer beautifully expresses it, "Our friend is not wholly gone from us; we see across the river of death, in the blue distance, the smoke of his cottage;" hence the heart, always creating what it desires, has ever made the guardianship and ministration of departed spirits a favorite theme of poetic fiction.
But is it, then, fiction? Does revelation, which gives so many hopes which nature had not, give none here? Is there no sober certainty to correspond to the inborn and passionate craving of the soul? Do departed spirits in verity retain any knowledge of what transpires in this world, and take any part in its scenes? All that revelation says of a spiritual state is more intimation than assertion; it has no distinct treatise, and teaches nothing apparently of set purpose; but gives vague, glorious images, while now and then some accidental ray of intelligence looks out,—
"like eyes of cherubs shiningFrom out the veil that hid the ark."
"like eyes of cherubs shiningFrom out the veil that hid the ark."
But out of all the different hints and assertions of the Bible we think a better inferential argument might be constructed to prove the ministration of departed spirits than for many a doctrine which has passed in its day for the height of orthodoxy.
First, then, the Bible distinctly says that there is a class of invisible spirits who minister to the children of men: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation?" It is said of little children, that "their angels do always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven." This lastpassage, from the words of our Saviour, taken in connection with the well-known tradition of his time, fully recognizes the idea of individual guardian spirits; for God's government over mind is, it seems, throughout, one of intermediate agencies, and these not chosen at random, but with the nicest reference to their adaptation to the purpose intended. Not even the All-seeing, All-knowing One was deemed perfectly adapted to become a human Saviour without a human experience. Knowledge intuitive, gained from above, of human wants and woes was not enough—to it must be added the home-born certainty of consciousness and memory; the Head of all mediation must become human. Is it likely, then, that, in selecting subordinate agencies, this so necessary a requisite of a human life and experience is overlooked? While around the throne of God stand spirits, now sainted and glorified, yet thrillingly conscious of a past experience of sin and sorrow, and trembling in sympathy with temptations and struggles like their own, is it likely that he would pass by these souls, thus burning for the work, and commit it to those bright abstract beings whose knowledge and experience are comparatively so distant and so cold?
It is strongly in confirmation of this idea, that in the transfiguration scene—which seems to have been intended purposely to give the disciples a glimpse of the glorified state of their Master—we find him attended by two spirits of earth, Moses and Elias, "which appeared with him in glory, and spake of his death which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." It appears that these so long departed ones were still mingling in deep sympathy with the tide of human affairs—not only aware of the present, but also informed as to the future. In coincidence with this idea are all those passages which speak of the redeemed of earth as being closely and indissolubly identified with Christ, members of his body, of his flesh and his bones. It isnot to be supposed that those united to Jesus above all others by so vivid a sympathy and community of interests are left out as instruments in that great work of human regeneration which so engrosses him; and when we hear Christians spoken of as kings and priests unto God, as those who shall judge angels, we see it more than intimated that they are to be the partners and actors in that great work of spiritual regeneration of which Jesus is the head.
What then? May we look among the band of ministering spirits for our own departed ones? Whom would God be more likely to send us? Have we in heaven a friend who knew us to the heart's core? a friend to whom we have unfolded our soul in its most secret recesses? to whom we have confessed our weaknesses and deplored our griefs? If we are to have a ministering spirit, who better adapted? Have we not memories which correspond to such a belief? When our soul has been cast down, has never an invisible voice whispered, "There is lifting up"? Have not gales and breezes of sweet and healing thought been wafted over us, as if an angel had shaken from his wings the odors of paradise? Many a one, we are confident, can remember such things—and whence come they? Why do the children of the pious mother, whose grave has grown green and smooth with years, seem often to walk through perils and dangers fearful and imminent as the crossing Mohammed's fiery gulf on the edge of a drawn sword, yet walk unhurt? Ah! could we see that attendant form, that face where the angel conceals not the mother, our question would be answered.
It may be possible that a friend is sometimes taken because the divine One sees that his ministry can act more powerfully from the unseen world than amid the infirmities of mortal intercourse. Here the soul, distracted and hemmed in by human events and by bodily infirmities, often scarce knows itself, and makes no impression onothers correspondent to its desires. The mother would fain electrify the heart of her child; she yearns and burns in vain to make her soul effective on its soul, and to inspire it with a spiritual and holy life; but all her own weaknesses, faults, and mortal cares cramp and confine her, till death breaks all fetters; and then, first truly alive, risen, purified, and at rest, she may do calmly, sweetly, and certainly, what, amid the tempests and tossings of life, she labored for painfully and fitfully. So, also, to generous souls, who burn for the good of man, who deplore the shortness of life, and the little that is permitted to any individual agency on earth, does this belief open a heavenly field. Think not, father or brother, long laboring for man, till thy sun stands on the western mountains,—think not that thy day in this world is over. Perhaps, like Jesus, thou hast lived a human life, and gained a human experience, to become, under and like him, a saviour of thousands; thou hast been through the preparation, but thy real work of good, thy full power of doing, is yet to begin.
But again: there are some spirits (and those of earth's choicest) to whom, so far as enjoyment to themselves or others is concerned, this life seems to have been a total failure. A hard hand from the first, and all the way through life, seems to have been laid upon them; they seem to live only to be chastened and crushed, and we lay them in the grave at last in mournful silence. To such, what a vision is opened by this belief! This hard discipline has been the school and task-work by which their soul has been fitted for their invisible labors in a future life; and when they pass the gates of the grave, their course of benevolent acting first begins, and they find themselves delighted possessors of what through many years they have sighed for—the power of doing good. The year just past, like all other years, has taken froma thousand circles the sainted, the just, and the beloved; there are spots in a thousand graveyards which have become this year dearer than all the living world; but in the loneliness of sorrow how cheering to think that our lost ones are not wholly gone from us! They still may move about in our homes, shedding around an atmosphere of purity and peace, promptings of good, and reproofs of evil. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses, whose hearts throb in sympathy with every effort and struggle, and who thrill with joy at every success. How should this thought check and rebuke every worldly feeling and unworthy purpose, and enshrine us, in the midst of a forgetful and unspiritual world, with an atmosphere of heavenly peace. They have overcome—have risen—are crowned, glorified, but still they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters, and in every hour of darkness their voice speaks to us: "So we grieved, so we struggled, so we fainted, so we doubted; but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen, we have found—and in our victory behold the certainty of thy own."
"A little child shall lead them."
One cold market morning I looked into a milliner's shop, and there I saw a hale, hearty, well-browned young fellow from the country, with his long cart whip, and lion-shag coat, holding up some little matter, and turning it about on his great fist. And what do you suppose it was?A baby's bonnet!A little, soft, blue satin hood, with a swan's-down border, white as the new-fallen snow, with a frill of rich blonde around the edge.
By his side stood a very pretty woman, holding, with no small pride, the baby—for evidently it wasthebaby. Any one could read that fact in every glance, as they looked at each other, and then at the large, unconscious eyes, and fat, dimpled cheeks of the little one.
It was evident that neither of them had ever seen a baby like that before.
"But really, Mary," said the young man, "isn't three dollars very high?"
Mary very prudently said nothing, but taking the little bonnet, tied it on the little head, and held up the baby. The man looked, and without another word down went the three dollars—all the avails of last week's butter; and as they walked out of the shop, it is hard to say which looked the more delighted with the bargain.
"Ah," thought I, "a little child shall lead them."
Another day, as I was passing a carriage factory along one of our principal back streets, I saw a young mechanic at work on a wheel. The rough body of a carriage stood beside him, and there, wrapped up snugly, all hooded and cloaked, sat a little dark-eyed girl, about a year old, playing with a great, shaggy dog. As I stopped, the man looked up from his work, and turned admiringly towards his little companion, as much as to say, "See what I have got here!"
"Yes," thought I; "and if the little lady ever gets a glance from admiring swains as sincere as that, she will be lucky."
Ah, these children, little witches, pretty even in all their faults and absurdities. See, for example, yonder little fellow in a naughty fit. He has shaken his long curls over his deep blue eyes; the fair brow is bent in a frown, the rose leaf lip is pursed up in infinite defiance, and the white shoulder thrust angrily forward. Can any but a child look so pretty, even in its naughtiness?
Then comes the instant change; flashing smiles and tears as the good comes back all in a rush, and you are overwhelmed with protestations, promises, and kisses! They are irresistible, too, these little ones. They pull away the scholar's pen, tumble about his paper, make somersets over his books; and what can he do? They tear up newspapers, litter the carpets, break, pull, and upset, and then jabber unheard-of English in self-defense; and what can you do for yourself?
"If I had a child," says the precise man, "you should see."
He does have a child, and his child tears up his papers, tumbles over his things, and pulls his nose like all other children; and what has the precise man to say for himself? Nothing; he is like everybody else; "a little child shall lead him."
The hardened heart of the worldly man is unlocked by the guileless tones and simple caresses of his son; but he repays it in time, by imparting to his boy all the crooked tricks and callous maxims which have undone himself.
Go to the jail, to the penitentiary, and find there the wretch most sullen, brutal, and hardened. Then look at your infant son. Such as he is to you, such to some mother was this man. That hard hand was soft and delicate; that rough voice was tender and lisping; fond eyes followed him as he played, and he was rocked and cradled as something holy. There was a time when his heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to questionings of God and Jesus, and been sealed with the seal of Heaven. But harsh hands seized it; fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon it; and all is over with him forever!
So of the tender, weeping child is made the callous, heartless man; of the all-believing child, the sneering skeptic; of the beautiful and modest, the shameless and abandoned; and this is what the world does for the little one.
There was a time when the divine One stood on earth, and little children sought to draw near to him. But harsh human beings stood between him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah, has it not always been so? Do not even we, with our hard and unsubdued feelings, our worldly and unspiritual habits and maxims, stand like a dark screen between our little child and its Saviour, and keep even from the choice bud of our hearts the sweet radiance which might unfold it for paradise? "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not," is still the voice of the Son of God; but the cold world still closes around and forbids. When, of old, disciples would question their Lord of the higher mysteries of his kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in heaven. Thatgentle teacher remains still to us. By every hearth and fireside Jesus still sets the little child in the midst of us.
Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that faith which unlocks heaven? Go not to wrangling polemics, or creeds and forms of theology, but draw to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear, trusting eye the lesson of eternal life. Be only to thy God as thy child is to thee, and all is done. Blessed shalt thou be, indeed, "when a little child shall lead thee."
Silently, with dreamy languor, the fleecy snow is falling. Through the windows, flowery with blossoming geranium and heliotrope, through the downward sweep of crimson and muslin curtain, one watches it as the wind whirls and sways it in swift eddies.
Right opposite our house, on our Mount Clear, is an old oak, the apostle of the primeval forest. Once, when this place was all wildwood, the man who was seeking a spot for the location of the buildings of Phillips Academy climbed this oak, using it as a sort of green watch-tower, from whence he might gain a view of the surrounding country. Age and time, since then, have dealt hardly with the stanch old fellow. His limbs have been here and there shattered; his back begins to look mossy and dilapidated; but, after all, there is a piquant, decided air about him, that speaks the old age of a tree of distinction, a kingly oak. To-day I see him standing, dimly revealed through the mist of falling snows; to-morrow's sun will show the outline of his gnarled limbs—all rose color with their soft snow burden; and again a few months, and spring will breathe on him, and he will draw a long breath, and break out once more, for the three hundredth time, perhaps, into a vernal crown of leaves. I sometimes think that leaves are the thoughts of trees, and that if we only knew it, we should find their life's experience recorded in them. Our oak! what a crop of meditations and remembrances must he have thrown forth, leafing outcentury after century. Awhile he spake and thought only of red deer and Indians; of the trillium that opened its white triangle in his shade; of the scented arbutus, fair as the pink ocean shell, weaving her fragrant mats in the moss at his feet; of feathery ferns, casting their silent shadows on the checkerberry leaves, and all those sweet, wild, nameless, half-mossy things, that live in the gloom of forests, and are only desecrated when brought to scientific light, laid out and stretched on a botanic bier. Sweet old forest days!—when blue jay, and yellowhammer, and bobolink made his leaves merry, and summer was a long opera of such music as Mozart dimly dreamed. But then came human kind bustling beneath; wondering, fussing, exploring, measuring, treading down flowers, cutting down trees, scaring bobolinks—and Andover, as men say, began to be settled.
Stanch men were they—these Puritan fathers of Andover. The old oak must have felt them something akin to himself. Such strong, wrestling limbs had they, so gnarled and knotted were they, yet so outbursting with a green and vernal crown, yearly springing, of noble and generous thoughts, rustling with leaves which shall be for the healing of nations.
These men were content with the hard, dry crust for themselves, that they might sow seeds of abundant food for us, their children; men out of whose hardness in enduring we gain leisure to be soft and graceful, through whose poverty we have become rich. Like Moses, they had for their portion only the pain and weariness of the wilderness, leaving to us the fruition of the promised land. Let us cherish for their sake the old oak, beautiful in its age as the broken statue of some antique wrestler, brown with time, yet glorious in its suggestion of past achievement.
I think all this the more that I have recently come across the following passage in one of our religious papers.The writer expresses a kind of sentiment which one meets very often upon this subject, and leads one to wonder what glamour could have fallen on the minds of any of the descendants of the Puritans, that they should cast nettles on those honored graves where they should be proud to cast their laurels.
"It is hard," he says, "for a lover of the beautiful—not a mere lover, but a believer in its divinity also—to forgive the Puritans, or to think charitably of them. It is hard for him to keep Forefathers' Day, or to subscribe to the Plymouth Monument; hard to look fairly at what they did, with the memory of what they destroyed rising up to choke thankfulness; for they were as one-sided and narrow-minded a set of men as ever lived, and saw one of Truth's faces only—the hard, stern, practical face, without loveliness, without beauty, and only half dear to God. The Puritan flew in the face of facts, not because he saw them and disliked them, but because he did not see them. He saw foolishness, lying, stealing, worldliness,—the very mammon of unrighteousness rioting in the world and bearing sway,—and he ran full tilt against the monster, hating it with a very mortal and mundane hatred, and anxious to see it bite the dust that his own horn might be exalted. It was in truth only another horn of the old dilemma, tossing and goring grace and beauty, and all the loveliness of life, as if they were the enemies instead of the sure friends of God and man."
Now, to those who say this we must ask the question with which Socrates of old pursued the sophist: What is beauty? If beauty be only physical, if it appeal only to the senses, if it be only an enchantment of graceful forms, sweet sounds, then indeed there might be something of truth in this sweeping declaration that the Puritan spirit is the enemy of beauty.
The very root and foundation of all artistic inquiry lieshere. What is beauty? And to this question God forbid that we Christians should give a narrower answer than Plato gave in the old times before Christ arose, for he directs the aspirant who would discover the beautiful to "consider of greater value the beauty existingin the soul, than that existing in the body." More gracefully he teaches the same doctrine when he tells us that "there are two kinds of Venus (beauty); the one, the elder, who had no mother, and was the daughter of Uranus (heaven), whom we name the celestial; the other, younger, daughter of Jupiter and Dione, whom we call the vulgar."
Now, if disinterestedness, faith, patience, piety, have a beauty celestial and divine, then were our fathers worshipers of the beautiful. If high-mindedness and spotless honor are beautiful things, they had those. What work of art can compare with a lofty and heroic life? Is it not better to be a Moses than to be a Michael Angelo making statues of Moses? Is not the life of Paul a sublimer work of art than Raphael's cartoons? Are not the patience, the faith, the undying love of Mary by the cross, more beautiful than all the Madonna paintings in the world. If, then, we would speak truly of our fathers, we should say that, having their minds fixed on that celestial beauty of which Plato speaks, they held in slight esteem that more common and earthly.
Should we continue the parable in Plato's manner, we might say that the earthly and visible Venus, the outward grace of art and nature, was ordained of God as a priestess, through whom men were to gain access to the divine, invisible One; but that men, in their blindness, ever worship the priestess instead of the divinity.
Therefore it is that great reformers so often must break the shrines and temples of the physical and earthly beauty, when they seek to draw men upward to that which is high and divine.
Christ says of John the Baptist, "What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold they which are clothed in soft raiment are in kings' palaces." So was it when our fathers came here. There were enough wearing soft raiment and dwelling in kings' palaces. Life in papal Rome and prelatic England was weighed down with blossoming luxury. There were abundance of people to think of pictures, and statues, and gems, and cameos, vases and marbles, and all manner of deliciousness. The world was all drunk with the enchantments of the lower Venus, and it was needful that these men should come, Baptist-like in the wilderness, in raiment of camel's hair. We need such men now. Art, they tell us, is waking in America; a love of the beautiful is beginning to unfold its wings; but what kind of art, and what kind of beauty? Are we to fill our houses with pictures and gems, and to see that even our drinking cup and vase are wrought in graceful pattern, and to lose our reverence for self-denial, honor, and faith?
Is our Venus to be the frail, ensnaring Aphrodite, or the starry, divine Urania?
At a certain time in the earlier ages there lived in the city of Laodicea a Christian elder of some repute, named Onesiphorus. The world had smiled on him, and though a Christian, he was rich and full of honors. All men, even the heathen, spoke well of him, for he was a man courteous of speech and mild of manner.
His wife, a fair Ionian lady but half reclaimed from idolatry, though baptized and accredited as a member of the Christian Church, still lingered lovingly on the confines of old heathenism, and if she did not believe, still cherished with pleasure the poetic legends of Apollo and Venus, of Jove and Diana.
A large and fair family of sons and daughters had risen around these parents; but their education had been much after the rudiments of this world, and not after Christ. Though, according to the customs of the church, they were brought to the font of baptism, and sealed in the name of the Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost, and although daily, instead of libations to the Penates, or flower offerings to Diana and Juno, the name of Jesus was invoked, yet thespiritof Jesus was wanting. The chosen associates of all these children, as they grew older, were among the heathen; and daily they urged their parents, by their entreaties, to conform, in one thing after another, to heathen usage. "Why should we be singular, mother?" said the dark-eyed Myrrah, as she bound her hair and arranged her dress after the fashion of the girls in thetemple of Venus. "Why may we not wear the golden ornaments and images which have been consecrated to heathen goddesses?" said the sprightly Thalia; "surely none others are to be bought, and are we to do altogether without?" "And why may we not be at feasts where libations are made to Apollo or Jupiter?" said the sons; "so long as we do not consent to it or believe in it, will our faith be shaken thereby?" "How are we ever to reclaim the heathen, if we do not mingle among them?" said another son; "did not our Master eat with publicans and sinners?"
It was, however, to be remarked, that no conversions of the heathen to Christianity ever took place through the means of these complying sons and daughters, or any of the number who followed their example. Instead of withdrawing any from the confines of heathenism, they themselves were drawn so nearly over, that in certain situations and circumstances they would undoubtedly have been ranked among them by any but a most scrutinizing observer. If any in the city of Laodicea were ever led to unite themselves with Jesus, it was by means of a few who observed the full simplicity of the ancient faith, and who, though honest, tender, and courteous in all their dealings with the heathen, still went not a step with them in conformity to any of their customs.
In time, though the family we speak of never broke off from the Christian Church, yet if you had been in it, you might have heard much warm and earnest conversation about things that took place at the baths, or in feasts to various divinities; but if any one spoke of Jesus, there was immediately a cold silence, a decorous, chilling, respectful pause, after which the conversation, with a bound, flew back into the old channel again.
It was now night; and the house of Onesiphorus theElder was blazing with torches, alive with music, and all the hurry and stir of a sumptuous banquet. All the wealth and fashion of Laodicea were there, Christian and heathen; and all that the classic voluptuousness of Oriental Greece could give to shed enchantment over the scene was there. In ancient times the festivals of Christians in Laodicea had been regulated in the spirit of the command of Jesus, as recorded by Luke, whose classical Greek had made his the established version in Asia Minor. "And thou, when thou makest a feast, call not thy friends and thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, and the maimed, and the lame, and the blind, and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
That very day, before the entertainment, had this passage been quoted in the ears of the family by Cleon, the youngest son, who, different from all his family, had cherished in his bosom the simplicity of the old belief.
"How ridiculous! how absurd!" had been the reply of the more thoughtless members of the family, when Cleon cited the above passage as in point to the evening's entertainment. The dark-eyed mother looked reproof on the levity of the younger children, and decorously applauded the passage, which she said had no application to the matter in hand.
"But, mother, even if the passage be not literally taken, it must mean something. What did the Lord Jesus intend by it? If we Christians may make entertainments with all the parade and expense of our heathen neighbors, and thus spend the money that might be devoted to charity, what does this passage mean?"
"Your father gives in charity as handsomely as any Christian in Laodicea," said his mother warmly.
"Nay, mother, that may be; but I bethink me now of two or three times when means have been wanting for the relieving of the poor, and the ransoming of captives, and the support of apostles, when we have said that we could give no more."
"My son," said his mother, "you do not understand the ways of the world."
"Nay, how should he," said Thalia, "shut up day and night with that old papyrus of St. Luke and Paul's Epistles? One may have too much of a good thing."
"But does not the holy Paul say, 'Be not conformed to this world'?"
"Certainly," said the elder; "that means that we should be baptized, and not worship in the heathen temples."
"My dear son," said his mother, "you intend well, doubtless; but you have not sufficient knowledge of life to estimate our relations to society. Entertainments of this sort are absolutely necessary to sustain our position in the world. If we accept, we must return them."
But not to dwell on this conversation, let us suppose ourselves in the rooms now glittering with lights, and gay with every costly luxury of wealth and taste. Here were statues to Diana and Apollo, and to the household Juno—not meant for worship—of course not—but simply to conform to the general usages of good society; and so far had this complaisance been carried, that the shrine of a peerless Venus was adorned with garlands and votive offerings, and an exquisitely wrought silver censer diffused its perfume on the marble altar in front. This complaisance on the part of some of the younger members of the family drew from the elder a gentle remonstrance, as having an unseemly appearance for those bearing the Christian name; but they readily answered, "Has not Paul said, 'We know that an idol is nothing'? Where is the harm of an elegant statue, considered merely as a consummate work of art?As for the flowers, are they not simply the most appropriate ornament? And where is the harm of burning exquisite perfume? And is it worse to burn it in one place than another?"
"Upon my sword," said one of the heathen guests, as he wandered through the gay scene, "how liberal and accommodating these Christians are becoming! Except in a few small matters in the temple, they seem to be with us entirely."
"Ah," said another, "it was not so years back. Nothing was heard among them, then, but prayers, and alms, and visits to the poor and sick; and when they met together in their feasts, there was so much of their talk of Christ, and such singing of hymns and prayer, that one of us found himself quite out of place."
"Yes," said an old man present, "in those days I quite bethought me of being some day a Christian; but look you, they are grown so near like us now, it is scarce worth one's while to change. A little matter of ceremony in the temple, and offering incense to Jesus, instead of Jupiter, when all else is the same, can make small odds in a man."
But now, the ancient legend goes on to say, that in the midst of that gay and brilliant evening, a stranger of remarkable appearance and manners was noticed among the throng. None knew him, or whence he came. He mingled not in the mirth, and seemed to recognize no one present, though he regarded all that was passing with a peculiar air of still and earnest attention; and wherever he moved, his calm, penetrating gaze seemed to diffuse a singular uneasiness about him. Now his eye was fixed with a quiet scrutiny on the idolatrous statues, with their votive adornments—now it followed earnestly the young forms that were wreathing in the graceful waves of the dance; and then he turned toward the tables, loaded with every luxury and sparkling with wines, where the devotionto Bacchus became more than poetic fiction; and as he gazed, a high, indignant sorrow seemed to overshadow the calmness of his majestic face. When, in thoughtless merriment, some of the gay company sought to address him, they found themselves shrinking involuntarily from the soft, piercing eye, and trembling at the low, sweet tones in which he replied. What he spoke was brief; but there was a gravity and tender wisdom in it that strangely contrasted with the frivolous scene, and awakened unwonted ideas of heavenly purity even in thoughtless and dissipated minds.
The only one of the company who seemed to seek his society was the youngest, the fair little child Isa. She seemed as strangely attracted towards him as others were repelled; and when, unsolicited, in the frank confidence of childhood she pressed to his side, and placed her little hand in his, the look of radiant compassion and tenderness which beamed down from those eyes was indeed glorious to behold. Yet here and there, as he glided among the crowd, he spoke in the ear of some Christian words which, though soft and low, seemed to have a mysterious and startling power; for one after another, pensive, abashed, and confounded, they drew aside from the gay scene, and seemed lost in thought. That stranger—who was he? Who? The inquiry passed from mouth to mouth, and one and another, who had listened to his low, earnest tones, looked on each other with a troubled air. Erelong he had glided hither and thither in the crowd; he had spoken in the ear of every Christian—and suddenly again he was gone, and they saw him no more. Each had felt the heart thrill within—each spirit had vibrated as if the finger of its Creator had touched it, and shrunk conscious as if an omniscient eye were upon it. Each heart was stirred from its depths. Vain sophistries, worldly maxims, making the false look true, all appeared to rise and clearaway like a mist; and at once each one seemed to see, as God sees, the true state of the inner world, the true motive and reason of action, and in the instinctive pause that passed through the company, the banquet was broken up and deserted.
"And what if their God were present?" said one of the heathen members of the company, next day. "Why did they all look so blank? A most favorable omen, we should call it, to have one's patron divinity at a feast."
"Besides," said another, "these Christians hold that their God is always everywhere present; so, at most, they have but had their eyes opened to see Him who is always there!"
What is practically the meaning of the precept, "Be not conformed to the world"? In its every-day results, it presents many problems difficult of solution. There are so many shades and blendings of situation and circumstances, so many things, innocent and graceful in themselves, which, like flowers and incense on a heathen altar, become unchristian only through position and circumstances, that the most honest and well-intentioned are often perplexed.
That we must conform in some things is conceded; yet the whole tenor of the New Testament shows that this conformity must have its limits—that Christians are to be transformed, so as to exhibit to the world a higher and more complete style of life, and thus "prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
But in many particulars as to style of living and modes of social intercourse, there can be no definite rules laid down, and no Christian can venture to judge another by his standard.
One Christian condemns dress adornment, and the whole application of taste to the usages of life, as a sinful wasteof time and money. Another, perceiving in every work of God a love and appreciation of the beautiful, believes that there is a sphere in which he is pleased to see the same trait in his children, if the indulgence do not become excessive, and thus interfere with higher duties.
One condemns all time and expense laid out in social visiting as so much waste. Another remembers that Jesus, when just entering on the most vast and absorbing work, turned aside to attend a wedding feast, and wrought his first miracle to enhance its social enjoyment. Again, there are others who, because some indulgence of taste and some exercise for the social powers are admissible, go all lengths in extravagance, and in company, dress, and the externals of life.
In the same manner, with regard to style of life and social entertainment—most of the items which go to constitute what is called style of living, or the style of particular parties, may be in themselves innocent, and yet they may be so interwoven and combined with evils, that the whole effect shall be felt to be decidedly unchristian, both by Christians and the world. How, then, shall the well-disposed person know where to stop, and how to strike the just medium?
We know of but one safe rule: read the life of Jesus with attention—study it—inquire earnestly with yourself, "What sort of a person, in thought, in feeling, in action, was my Saviour?"—live in constant sympathy and communion with him—and there will be within a kind of instinctive rule by which to try all things. A young man, who was to be exposed to the temptations of one of the most dissipated European capitals, carried with him his father's picture, and hung it in his apartment. Before going out to any of the numerous resorts of the city, he was accustomed to contemplate this picture, and say to himself, "Would my father wish to see me in theplace to which I am going?" and thus was he saved from many a temptation. In like manner the Christian, who has always by his side the beautiful ideal of his Saviour, finds it a holy charm, by which he is gently restrained from all that is unsuitable to his profession. He has but to inquire of any scene or employment, "Should I be well pleased to meet my Saviour there? Would the trains of thought I should there fall into, the state of mind that would there be induced, be such as would harmonize with an interview with him?" Thus protected and defended, social enjoyment might be like that of Mary and John, and the disciples, when, under the mild, approving eye of the Son of God, they shared the festivities of Cana.