Part 5

To the Christian the right hand of the Lord means even more than it did to the Jew, for it is there that his Saviour is enthroned, and ever remains, to make intercession for him. Saint Stephen was vouchsafed the vision of his risen Lord, thus placed, no doubt, to strengthen him for his coming trial, and there shall we all see him who are counted worthy to attain to the first resurrection.

"To think," said an aged saint to whom I had just been reading the Bible, "to think that I shall see Jesus at the right hand of God! Oh, if I might but once touch His hand!"

The very thought lighted up her plain face with a smile which made it beautiful.

God is our defense. All the Scriptures are full of the thought, but especially the Psalms. God will help the poor and needy, and will set him at rest. (Ps. lxii. 6.) "The Lord is my stony rock, and my defense, my Saviour, my God and my might, in whom I will trust; my buckler, the horn also of my salvation, and my refuge." (Ps. xviii. 2.) "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me." (Ps. xxiii. 4.)

And so again and again we have our Heavenly Father's promise to defend His children against all their enemies, both spiritual and temporal. True, we must walk through the wilderness of this world, but we need not walk alone. True, we walk in the midst of enemies, yet "they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings vi. 16), and if our eyes were opened, like those of the prophet's servant, we should, like him, see the angel hosts sent for defense. We may, nay we must, hunger and thirst, but the Lord will cause waters to break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. (Isa. xxxv. 6.) We need be afraid of none of its terrors. The light will break forth and the sun will rise, and show the ground covered with manna for our refreshment.

The thought of our God as a defense and shield should be a help and comfort to those Christians who are troubled with fears. There are those, especially among invalids, whose lives are made a burden to themselves and others by needless fears. They are afraid of lightning, of fire, of robbers, of they know not what. They feel as if every thunderbolt had a special commission for them; as if every blast of wind were a destroying angel. These fears are often merely nervous symptoms, but even then they are very much under the control of the patient. Let me say to such an one, Do but think, do but try to realize to yourself the fact that the Lord's right hand is stretched out to be your defense in all dangers—that He will defend thee under His wings, and thou shalt be safe under His feathers. Consider that the darkness is no darkness to Him, but the night is as clear as the day. (Ps. cxxxix. 11.)

"When first before the mercy-seat Thou didst thine all to Him commit, He gave thee warrant from that hour To trust His mercy, love, and power."

Are not these terrors, then, an affront to Him, as implying a distrust in His plighted word? Dismiss them, then! Send them back to the darkness where they belong, and let your motto be, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest: for it is Thou, Lord, that makest me dwell in safety." (Ps. iv. 8.)

Ps. xci. St. John xiv.

_THIRD MONDAY IN LENT._

_OUR ENEMIES._

WE have seen that the collect we are considering has its foundation, like all the prayers that we learn at the knee of our mother, the Church, in the promises of God's word, and are therefore sure to be answered in some way. Observe, however, that it is nowhere said in the Bible that we are not to meet with adversities. Nay, we are told the express contrary. All His life long our Master endured hardship and trouble; and the servant is not above his Master. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," says our Lord to His apostles, but He graciously adds: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (St. John xvi. 33.)

What are those enemies which the Christian has to dread, and against which he has special need to pray for deliverance?

Here, again, our Lord leaves us in no doubt. "Fear not them which kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul" (St. Matt. x. 28); and again, "Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do." (St. Luke xii. 4.) This shuts out all that class of terrors of which I spoke in the last chapter. The cruelest murderer, the most destructive storm or earthquake, the most noisome pestilence, can only kill that which must die at any rate—which brought its death-warrant with it when it came into the world. They cannot destroy the real man or woman; nay, all their forces combined cannot deprive him of the very least of those things which God hath prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. ii. 9); nor of one moment of that eternal life which God hath given us in His Son. (1 John v. 11.)

Clearly, then, the enemies we have to fear are those which assault and hurt the soul, and which, unless steadfastly resisted, are able to make our way dark and perilous, if not to deprive us of that inheritance which has been prepared for us. It is they whom we are to combat with all our force, and against whom we must specially ask our great Defender to stretch out His right hand. Yet even here we must not show ourselves coward and craven. We are soldiers of Christ. Let us never forget that. Every battle is fought for Him, every victory is a victory over His enemies as well as our own. He will never leave us to struggle alone, but is always with us, though we cannot always perceive Him. Let us, then, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, knowing that His Father, who gave us to Him, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck us out of His hand. (St. John x. 29.)

Our spiritual enemies may all be classed under three heads—the world, the flesh, and the devil. Against these we are to fight manfully and to the death, never laying down our arms, never relaxing our vigilance, and, even though apparently beaten for the time, never giving up, till our Great Commander shall see our warfare accomplished, and call us home. It is the Christian's paradox that there is no peace except in war. If we give up the contest, we become slaves; and though our conquerors give us all the goods they have to bestow in this life, they do but treat us as cannibals treat their prisoners—fattening them, that they may devour them at last.

Hab. ii. St. Luke xii.

_THIRD TUESDAY IN LENT._

_THE WORLD._

EVERY general strives to know all that he can about his enemy, his nature and position, his powers and resources, and tries to foresee the plans of that enemy's attack, that he may be able to meet and frustrate them. Let us, then, inquire a little into the nature of those foes which beset our homeward path, and which would, if they could, hinder us from reaching the rest prepared for us in our Father's house. First of all, what is meant by the world?

The world means all that outside of ourselves which is alienated from and opposed to God, which is governed by and devoted to the things which are temporal, and ignores, if it does not hate, the things which are eternal. It is very wise in its own eyes; yea, according to its own canons, and from its own standpoint, wiser than the children of light. It is dreadfully in earnest in the things which it pursues, though those things may be of the most frivolous description. It gets into all sorts of places, alas even into the Church itself, running here and there for meat, and grudging if it be not satisfied, which, indeed, it never is. It is a severe master to its votaries, exacting the hardest and the most exclusive services and the most cruel sacrifices, and rewarding them at last with husks and rags.

The world puts on many disguises. To one it comes under the name of business, demanding of its slave that he shall give up everything else for the pursuit of money. It does not make this demand of every man at the beginning, and in so many words. No, it is more cunning than that. It tells him that it is his duty to provide for his family, not only needful food and clothes and the means of education, but a fine house in a fashionable quarter, and as many luxuries as his neighbor possesses. It makes him press hard on those who labor for him, and exact much work for little pay. It makes him rent tenements to men and women which are not fit for pigs to live in, and grudge the smallest outlay for the health and comfort of his tenants. It makes him plan and scheme to add a few thousands more to his useless millions, by raising the price of fuel and food to the poor man. By and by, the world has done with him. He speculates a little too rashly, and his wealth goes as it came. Or God says to him, "Thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee!" and he goes forth from the visible and unreal to the invisible and real, a shivering, hungry, naked soul, homeless to all eternity. And that world for which he has toiled and sacrificed misses him as much as he missed the consumptive girl who breathed the foul air of his factory till her young life was poisoned, and she dropped at her machine, and went home to die.

The world comes to a woman with a family of little ones, and bids her leave these immortal pledges of God's love to servants, to learn their very prayers from alien lips, and spend her nights in amusements, and her days in planning for the nights. It exacts of her that she shall risk her health and blunt her sense of delicacy by immodest and insufficient clothing. It tell her that these things are necessary, a debt that she owes to society, and whispers that she can make up for all that needs an atonement, by putting on a sober dress and going to church regularly in Lent, or by giving about the fiftieth part of what her dress costs in charity.

To another woman, the world comes in sober attire, with a housewifely apron and a bunch of keys. It has another bait for this one, who would not attend a ballet for the world, and looks with horror on a game of cards. This woman's world is her house-keeping, and she can see nothing else. She would feel herself disgraced forever, if her neighbor put up more cans of fruit or gave more kinds of cake to her company than herself. Talk to her of the sewing-school or the district visiting society, and she will tell you of her anxieties about the doing up of her lace curtains. Tell her of the needs of the heathen, at home or abroad, she may listen politely, but her duty, she says, is to her own family, and she cannot do anything to help you because her dining-room chairs are quite out of fashion, and she must have new ones. Ask her to see that her little daughter has her catechism learned for Sunday-school, and she will tell you, as she sews the elaborate and costly trimming on the child's dress, that she has no time.

We are in bondage to the world so soon as we let the seen and temporal, no matter in what shape it comes, blind us to the unseen and eternal. We are in cruel bondage when we let the fear of what the world may say about us lead us to do what we know to be inconsistent with our baptismal vows and our loyalty to our Lord. We are slaves to the world when we allow any of the things which live in time and perish with time to possess our hearts to the exclusion of those things which belong to eternity. It is true, that as long as we are on the earth, the things of earth must claim much of our attention. Thank God! all these things may be made holy by an honest intention. But we cannot serve God and mammon, and he who tries to do so will in the end find himself deserted of both, and left to himself, that worst of all fates, from which may God in His mercy keep us all!

Psalm lxxiii. St. Luke xvi.

_FOURTH WEDNESDAY IN LENT._

_THE FLESH._

WHO and what are the enemies that come to us under this name?

All those pleasures and pursuits which appeal only or chiefly to our senses; to our earthly and mortal natures; to that carnal mind which St. Paul tells us is not, and by its very nature cannot be, subject to the law of God. The enemies of the flesh are all the more dangerous because they appear under the disguise of friends—of things harmless, and even necessary, in themselves. They are like slaves, serving their masters in deed, but with secret enmity, always watching their chance to rebel, and the cruelest of tyrants when they gain the mastery. Just because we cannot do without them, we need to guard against their abuse.

How much money is wasted every year upon table luxuries, which the consumers would be as well or better without! How many become such slaves to certain articles of food and drink that they find it almost impossible to do without these things, though they know, on the best authority, that health is being injured by their use! How many are vexed and put out of temper if their bodily comfort is invaded in the smallest degree! More than once have I seen the comfort of a whole table-full destroyed, and the meal rendered distasteful, by some one person, who persisted in finding fault with everything set upon the board.

It may seem at first sight a singular statement, that invalids need especially to maintain a strict watch over themselves in the matter of indulgence in eating and drinking, but I believe it is true. There is perhaps more excuse to be made for them than for most others, because they are, perforce, obliged to think a good deal of the matter; but for this very reason they need to guard themselves against dwelling too much on it, and against harmful self-indulgence. I have seen invalids keep themselves in a chronic state of discomfort, and consequent fretfulness, by eating too much. And it is an odd circumstance, though one well-known to doctors and nurses, that these very people are often fully convinced that they eat little or nothing.

Invalids are often led to injure themselves by an inordinate use of the drugs and stimulants prescribed by physicians. They find the use of such remedies followed by pleasant sensations, and take them many times when they are not really needful; and are so made the opium drunkard, the chloral drunkard, and not infrequently the whisky drunkard as well. I use the word advisedly. The man who lives upon laudanum, the woman who indulges in morphine or chloral, is just as much a drunkard as the man or woman who gets tipsy in the corner saloon, and usually an even more hopeless case. The whisky drunkard will often admit that he is such; the opium drunkard never.

The remedy for all these evils is to be found in one word—temperance. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." (1 Cor. ix. 25.) The word "temperance" has come to be used in such a confined sense, that we are in danger of forgetting its larger application. We are to be temperate in all things; that is, we are to use them in such moderation as that they shall do us good instead of harm, and to have the mastery over our appetites, so we shall command them, and not they us.

I have been speaking of such things as are in themselves harmless, and even useful, but there are other temptations which come under the head of "the flesh," and to which the word "temperate" does not apply, because the soldier of Christ has no right to touch them at all. Such are all those indulgences which tend to blunt the moral sense, and to arouse bad thoughts and passions. These things often come to us under very pretty disguises of art, literature, and the like.

I have known a Christian read a vile book, hardly fit for a decent kitchen fire, excusing himself on the ground of the beautiful style—as if one should take poison because it was presented in a finely carved bowl. Christian women go to see other women—young girls, as precious in God's sight as their own daughters—exhibit themselves on the stage in shamelessly indecent dresses and dances. Yes, and they come away and express a virtuous horror of the poor creatures, who are not half as bad as themselves, inasmuch as they are working hard for a living, and not for idle amusement. A shamelessly wicked woman comes among us, and people who profess and call themselves Christians go to see and applaud her on the stage, because, forsooth, it is "an education in art."

In all such matters there is but one rule for the Christian—"touch not, taste not, handle not." Give the enemy no admission under any pretense, however specious. Nobody was ever hurt by letting a doubtful pleasure alone. Our carnal nature will in itself make us trouble enough without any help. By God's grace we can keep it in subjection, but how can we expect that grace, how dare we ask for it, if we run willfully into temptation?

Ps. xvii. 1 Cor. x.

_FOURTH THURSDAY IN LENT._

_OUR GHOSTLY ENEMY._

IT seems rather the fashion, just now, to deny the existence of Satan as a person at all. I suppose nothing could please him more than to be so denied. "I don't believe in a personal devil," said a lady in a Bible class; "I believe in a principle of evil." When asked to define what she meant by a principle of evil, it appeared that she had no very clear idea of the matter herself. The simple truth is that there is as much proof of the personality of Satan as of the Holy Spirit, and a believer in the Bible may as reasonably deny one as the other. Our Lord always speaks of him as a living, thinking, active being, as in St. John viii. 44, St. Matt. xiii. 19 and 39, and many other places. Try substituting the words "principle of evil" in these passages, and see what sense it will make. Satan is perhaps the most active member of that famous old firm "the world, the flesh, and the devil," in which indeed there are no silent partners. He is always ready to back the others, and, what is still worse, he has a secret ally in every heart, who, though crushed and kept under, is always trying to open correspondence with its old friend. He does not come to us in hideous disguise of hoof and horn, as the old painters have depicted him. None but a fool would do that; and he is no fool as concerns the ends he would compass. "The devil knows many things," says the Arab proverb, "because he is very old." He knows how to put on many disguises, and can on occasions transform himself into an angel of light.

Pride and anger, envy, hatred, and malice, are usually the sins specially attributed to Satan; but there is one class of sins which are particularly his own. I refer to lying in all its branches, to evil-speaking, slander, detraction, and the like. "When he speaketh of a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it," says our Lord. (St. John viii. 44.) Slander is his business and delight. He is "the accuser of our brethren" (Rev. xii. 10), and the patron of them that do the like.

This matter of evil-speaking is one that deserves grave consideration. It is a common and crying evil. There are probably few—I wish I dared say no—professing Christians who will deliberately invent a slander, but how many are there who will repeat one without a thought, and that of a fellow church-member, with whom they have perhaps knelt at the Lord's table only the day before. Mrs. A. hears a tale of shame concerning a young girl, which, if true, would be enough to blight the young thing's character forever. She does not know if it be true or false; perhaps she does not know the person by sight; but it is a piece of news, and for the dear delight of telling a story she repeats it—never, be it observed, without some slight addition, for few people can repeat a thing exactly as they hear it. Mrs. A. does not think that in so repeating a slander she is making herself responsible for it, but such is the case, and God will hold her so if man does not. She may think herself a very good woman at the very time that she is doing Satan's dirtiest work for him. It is not necessary that slander should always be put into direct words. An insinuation, a lifting of the hands and eyes, nay, silence itself, may and often does say more than words.

"A lie has a thousand legs, while the truth has but two," says the Eastern proverb. No matter how often a false statement is repeated, there is always some one to believe it and repeat it. Here is a notable instance. Some one once said that "every sixpence given to the heathen cost a dollar to send it." It is an utterly false statement, and has been proved so a dozen times; yet it is constantly repeated, and meets the missionary worker at every turn. "I have never cared to have anything to do with Mrs. N., since she was found out taking goods from G.'s store," said a person of one who was a fellow church-member. "But that was entirely disproved," said I, indignantly; "it was shown plainly that Mrs. N. simply took another parcel for her own—a mistake anyone might make." "Oh well, I never heard that!" was the reply. "It was an odd mistake, anyhow!" I suppose this story will be repeated to Mrs. N.'s discredit for years to come, and not one in twenty who hears it will hear the refutation.