PART VI.

LESSONS, PERTINENT AND PRACTICAL.

“With arm in arm the forest rose on high, And lessons gave of brotherly regard: Mercy stood in the cloud with eye that wept Essential love, and from her glorious bow Bending to kiss the earth in token of peace, With her own lips, her gracious lips which God Of sweetest accent made, she whispered still, She whispered to revenge, ‘Forgive, Forgive.’”

“Silence had a tongue; the grave, The darkness, and the lonely waste had each A tongue, that ever said, ‘Man, think of God, Think of thyself, think of Eternity.’”

POLLOK.

A CENTURY ago London was thrown into excitement by the shock of an earthquake. In the streets, and for six miles round the city, slight undulations were plainly perceptible. Houses were shaken, so that parts of them fell down; and ships in the river Thames were loosened from their moorings. Numbers of the terrified inhabitants flocked into Hyde Park, which, being a vast area unencumbered with buildings, was supposed to afford a less perilous position for the people than they could find elsewhere, in the event of their being overtaken by the dreaded catastrophe. Whitfield happened to be in London at the time, when the minds of the citizens were agitated by intense and distracting fears; and with an eloquence, which was surpassed only by his zeal, endeavoured to improve the terrific event by making it the occasion of appropriate religious appeals. One night he addressed a vast concourse in the Park, and while the people pressed together to hear him under the open sky—and the silence of the scene, the bright stars overhead, the dim shadow of the speaker, like some impalpable visitant come on a warning mission from the other world, and the occurrence which had brought them together contributed to the effect of his discourse,—he with his almost superhuman voice which with mysterious intonations rolled into men’s ears, and moved their hearts as with an earthquake, described to them the terrors of the last day, and exhorted them to flee from the wrath to come. Could a Whitfield now, in 1851, gather around him in the same spot the concourse attracted there under such different circumstances, he might with a little exercise of his ingenious powers of adaptation, with a slight effort of his talent for extracting spiritual lessons from passing incidents, address his auditory on duties of infinite moment, taking as a suggestive text one of the bearings of the festival of art already noticed in these pages; namely, its hopeful tendency to produce reconciliation and peace among the nations of the world. We can fancy such a preacher at the quiet hour of eventide—the sky, clear azure, with a few fleecy clouds—the emerald-like tree-tops bathed in the rays of the setting sun, and scarcely moved by the gentle air—all nature seeming to repeat the angel’s song, “on earth peace, good-will toward men;” we can fancy him lifting up his voice to tell the crowd, softened and soothed by surrounding influences, that professing as they do to meet in national friendship, and to celebrate a feast of brotherly love, there are some other obligations to peace and reconciliation which come still nearer to their homes and hearts.

Failing the preacher—apart from the helpful influence of the scene imagined—and debarred the aid of that sympathy which thrills through a crowd when touched by the living voice of a loving fellow-man, we would attempt for a moment, through the medium of this little book, to enforce on the individual reader two methods of improving the present event suggested on slight reflection.

1. The professed character, and what we fain hope to be the spirit, of the gathering, suggest a duty which concerns us in our domestic relations.

Men, some of them not long ago, in arms against each other, we see now on terms of amity. Perhaps the Austrian meets in the park the Italian he has faced in the field—the Turk, the Egyptian at whom he aimed his scimitar—the veteran Frenchman, the British soldier with whom he grappled at Waterloo—but enemies or aliens no longer, they pass, if they do not recognise each other, as friends. This congress on pacific terms, with a cordial understanding, is a spectacle on which the eye loves to linger, and over which the heart of the philanthropist dilates with hope. Now, does not this festival, without any far-fetched application, seem to say to every one of us, as members of a family, that surely at this time consistency is added to the other grounds of duty which require us to cultivate towards those related to us by nature an unsuspicious temper, a frank and open disposition, a desire to conciliate where differences have arisen, and a determination to cement where cordiality prevails? Should not each endeavour to make his home—whether mansion or cottage, hall or hut—a sanctuary sacred to peace and concord? Should not each man now more than ever aspire to the fulfilment of the office and the enjoyment of the benediction described and pronounced by the Divine Teacher of love, “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” Unseemly and inconsistent is it, while we are inviting foreigners to forget past enmities, to consign to oblivion by-gone strife, for any of us to allow domestic jealousies and heart-burnings to torment our breasts, which should be full of domestic charities and sympathies. While thousands, of different colours, climes, and costumes, join to bury the hatchet of strife under the Hyde Park elms, let those who own a common parentage, who in childhood sat on the same knee, and were nursed in the same bosom, or whose relationship, though not so intimate, is far from remote, between whom, alas, differences have sprung up, seek by mutual concession to arrive at a better understanding, and thus render the present year memorable in their domestic annals. It would be a beautiful incident to associate with this bright passage in the history of the world a few lines relating to reconciliation and love, where private strifes had embittered hearts intended by nature and providence to be ever one.

The religion of Jesus Christ, as it is intended to bring together the nations of the earth in amity, is also meant to bind together the inmates of a home in friendship. Wherever its laws are submitted to, and its spirit imbibed, there peace must reign, and the domestic circle be a refuge from strife. The gospel teaches lessons above all others suited to this end. It points the master to God, the model of fatherly government, and bids him remember that he has a Master in heaven. It speaks to the husband, and points to Jesus Christ, bidding the husband love his wife “as Christ loved the church.” It speaks to the parents, and charges them to train up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” It speaks to sons and daughters, commanding them to honour their father and mother, and “obey them in the Lord.” It speaks to servants, and tells them to “be obedient to such as are their masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.” In this great world of strife what should be so peaceful as a Christian home? Amidst the storms which rock life’s ocean, where shall we find a harbour if not there? While divisions are rife, where shall we find union, if not among the branches from a common parentage? Scenes of domestic purity, innocence, and love there are to be met with in many of the homes of our land, over which religion has thrown its shield, where a happy exemption from the evils which tear society in pieces is enjoyed; where surely some relic is to be found of what Eden was; where the parent’s care, like a deep-rooted tree, spreads out its graceful branches, while the children’s love, like fragrant and flowery creepers, twists and curls tenacious tendrils around the venerable stem, “recompensing well the strength it borrows with the grace it lends,” and the dew of God’s blessing, and the sunshine of God’s smile, fall upon them one and all. Happy scenes these, which Jesus visits as he did the feast at Cana, and the home at Bethany, teaching such families out of his own word, sanctifying them by his gracious Spirit, guiding them by his perfect example, protecting them by his mighty power, comforting them by his unfailing sympathy, and preparing them for a better home of which he gives them glimpses as they read the Bible and kneel together at the footstool of God’s throne. Through faith in the gospel, and prayer for the grace of Him who is its source and life, these scenes might be greatly multiplied: and who but must desire it, and strive for its promotion, so that while this year we invite the nations to meet as a family, the family may meet as the brethren of Christ and the children of God.

2. The character and spirit of the gathering suggest a farther lesson connected with our individual interests and our spiritual relations.

Would we fain look on the present year as sacred to reconciliation and peace? let each one inquire whether he has ensured the enjoyment of those blessings in their most precious and enduring forms! It is a fact, to which the consciousness of most thoughtful men bears witness, that in connexion with the intellectual harmony of their nature, there is sad discord in their moral experience. The heart is divided against itself—its little world is full of rebellion and strife, torn in pieces by intestine war, like an empire in the anarchy of an interregnum, even as that clear-sighted Hebrew, looking at himself in the radiance of a light which fell from heaven, most plainly saw, and mournfully confessed, when he cried, to his and our true Lord and Maker, “_unite_ my heart to fear thy name!” That inward confusion indicates the rejection of a Divine law of order, and that fact explains the secret of many a man’s misery. The material world out of which he gathers the triumphs of art, and the intellectual power by which he achieves his victories over the physical, are in a state of unvarying subjection to law, and hence the admired results of his formative genius and taste; but he himself, the innermost and moral self, is out of harmony with law. Hence the disorder and trouble which human beings carry with them everywhere, amidst the harmony and order of external nature; which, with a still small voice, reproves them for their disobedience. Some lead mournful, miserable lives; they strive to be happy, but happiness flies from them. All kinds of expedients are adopted to secure inward peace; but these all fail. The disappointed ones still try. Again cheated of the prize, they try—it is in vain. And do you not know the secret of your sorrow? You lay it perhaps on circumstances, or friends, or on the world, or on nature, or on God. You invent causes and miss the right one. Here it is lying within yourself, in your own heart and will. Your inward life is not under the rule of the great God. His laws run in one direction, and carry happiness with them. Your soul rushes in an opposite direction, and dashes against these laws. The collision is your misery and ruin. “You stretch out your hand against God, and strengthen yourself against the Almighty. You run upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers.” Man’s heart, divided against itself, throwing off the yoke of law, is at emnity with God. Divine relations are disturbed. The bonds which alone could bind safety and peace to the human soul, by binding that soul to the omnipotent and loving Father of all, are ruptured and destroyed; and thus, giving up its Guide and Guardian, the wandering child is left to battle with storms in the dark ocean of evil over which it strives to push its bark. How can there be security to a creature who breaks away from God? How can that bosom be at peace in which there is no love to him? His law has sanctions, as all effectual and perfect law must ever have—pain and trouble therefore follow disobedience here and hereafter. “The wages of sin is death.”

Such being the facts of the case, the first desire of all should be to secure reconciliation with God, with law, with conscience. The gospel, and it only, reveals the method of this reconciliation. It teaches us that there is redemption in Jesus Christ; that God has set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins; that whoso believeth in him is justified; that there is no condemnation to them that are in him; that he is our peace; that to as many as receive him he gives power to become the sons of God; that being made sons they receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father; that his people are renewed and sanctified through his Spirit, that dwelleth in them; that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit; and that having access by faith unto this grace wherein we stand, they rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

This Divine reconciliation, inward order, and holy peace are our best qualifications for seeking to promote domestic reconciliation, national order, and the world’s peace. They are the proper preparatives for all usefulness, private and public—for all works of love towards our fellow-men. For how inconsistent it is to think of binding up the wounds of a family, curing the ills of the commonwealth, or bringing a divided world together—while the very soul, dreaming of these achievements, is a spectacle of sorrow to unseen beings; inasmuch as it is engaged in an impotent warfare against its God, and is bleeding under fatal injuries inflicted on itself in a struggle so unutterably awful and insane. Fraternity! concord! union! These beautiful words come with a melancholy and mocking sound from any lips but those which have prayed for union with God, concord with law, and fraternity with a holy obedient universe. How touching also, even to tears, is it to think that any of the minds so richly gifted by the Creator should devote themselves through life to artistic and intellectual toils, for the sole purpose of bringing into fair proportion and symmetry rude heaps of matter, or confused elements of thought—while their own nature, in itself and its highest relations, is left “without form, and void,” like the primeval deep, its face covered over with darkness.

These blessings to which we have referred alone can satisfy. Other things, however fair and good—success in the formation of the beautiful, and even the production of the beneficent, leave a consciousness of want until the human spirit be reconciled to itself and God. The soul wonders why the cup in which it has mixed such sweet ingredients should yet be dashed with bitterness; but so it must be while the vessel itself retains the wormwood of its spiritual enmities. Let the cup be cleansed; let the moral nature be renewed and purified by a reconciling faith in the One Mediator; and then shall the man, however disappointed before, find himself blessed above all mortal blessedness.

These blessings too are of an enduring character. It were to tell an oft-told truth, if we described the limited existence of all works of art and genius; if we reminded the reader of the crumbling touch of time, and pointed him to the all-enveloping ruins of the last day, when “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all the works that are therein shall be burned up.” But these common themes are as indisputable and awful as they are common: nor should any one forget them as he looks on the palace of _glass_—(how forcibly symbolic is that word)—and on the manifold structures, possessions, and achievements of men. In contrast with such brittle objects, how strong in enduring strength is that spiritual good to which, in the conclusion of this volume, we direct, with intense desire and hope, the thoughts of every reader. “The world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” The Divine favour, so plainly promised to such, is an inheritance exempt from the condition of time, change, and mortality. It is a treasure brought down to us from another world, and will be carried back there by him who finds it. In the silent musings of eternity the soul, reconciled to God through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, will be able to look back with unspeakable satisfaction on a course through this world, in which the only thing not doomed to perish with itself was secured and appropriated. “I could not stay in that earth,” will be the reflection of so happy a spirit. “I saw but a little while what it had within it of the beautiful and the sublime in God’s works, and in the works which God enabled man to accomplish; I left them there to perish, and on the last day I saw them perish: but in my passage I discerned, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, something better than all that they signified to me. I seized the Pearl of great price and have brought that away.” {161} On the other hand, how inexpressibly dreadful must be the recollection of the opposite class of human souls,—of all unreconciled, unregenerate, earthly, sensuous, and even merely intellectual ones,—who will be for ever tortured with the accusation of their own mortifying and fatal folly, because they will have passed through a world of perishable objects with _only one_ thing imperishable, and in striving to enjoy them forget that, and after a life of toil, ambition, and hope, came away with _nothing_.

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FOOTNOTES.

{14} “The internal columns are placed twenty-four feet apart, while the external ones have no more than eight feet (a third of twenty-four) of separation; while the distance between each of the transept columns is three times twenty-four, or seventy-two feet. This also is the width of the middle aisle of the building: the side aisles are forty-eight wide, and the galleries and corridors twenty-four. Twenty-four feet is also the distance between each of the transverse gutters under the roof; hence the intervening bars, which are at once rafters and gutters, are necessarily twenty-four feet long.”

{54} See an interesting lecture on the British Empire, by the Rev. Wm. Arthur.

{91} Bishop Thirlwall’s History of Greece.

{94} Lines from Longfellow’s Belfry of Bruges and Nuremberg are here blended.

{103} Cyrene was a Greek colony.

{104} Life of St. Paul, by Conybeare and Howson, p. 32.

{110} Robert Hall.

{122} Douglas, Advancement of Society, p. 151.

{161} See Foster’s Discourses, second series, p. 128. The passage is an imitation, indeed partly a quotation, of one of his.