Part 8

Again, we must be willing to obey His godly motions, as the collect has it, and that with a prompt and willing obedience. This is not always easy or agreeable. One of His offices is to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come. He does not always prophecy smooth things, by any means, nor does he always apply sweet balms. On the contrary, He is a kind but stern surgeon, who wounds to heal, and gives bitter tonics instead of soothing syrups. It is not altogether pleasant to be told that some favorite habit is a sinful indulgence; that some yielding to the customs of society is conformity to the world; some laxity of doctrine, on which we have perhaps prided ourselves as showing our liberality, is a cowardly surrender of God's truth. Nevertheless must the Heavenly monitor be obeyed, and that promptly. Otherwise His voice will grow fainter and fainter and fainter, till it ceases to be heard at all. Nay, it is possible to drive away the Heavenly visitor altogether, and then woe unto us. We had better lose every earthly friend than to be forsaken of the Holy Spirit.

It is to be feared that many Christians do not realize as they ought the blessed fact of the real literal indwelling of the Holy Ghost. They read in the Bible such words as these: "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." (St. John xiv. 17.) "We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God." (1 Cor. ii. 12.) They feel as if it were a kind of presumption to take these promises to themselves—as if the real presumption did not lie in doubting, instead of believing God's word. They read such words as these: "The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God." (Rom. viii. 16.) Yet they feel no assurance of their adoption, but go through life, as it were, with a rope round their necks instead of walking freely as God's children should, for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (1 Cor. iii. 17.)

But some one says: "I should be only too glad to obtain this blessed assurance of salvation, but I do not know how. What is the way?" The way is as plain as are all God's ways in things of practical importance to us. You have but to put out your hand and take what is freely offered you.

A vessel sailing to Brazil once saw a barque flying a signal of distress, and bearing down on her, asked what was the matter. "For God's sake, give us water! we have not had a drop for three days," was the cry from the distressed vessel. The answer was instant. "Let down your bucket and draw it up, man! You are in the mouth of the Amazon." These poor creatures had been dying of thirst for three days, though they were sailing on the greatest stream of fresh water in the world, because they had lost their reckoning and did not know where they were. So it too often is with the disciple. He walks in the midst of unnumbered blessings. The stream of living water flows at his side; the tree of Life grows beside it; yet he is hungry and thirsty, just because he will not take the things which are freely offered of God. "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established." (Isa. vii. 9.)

Ps. lxiii. Gal. v.

_FIFTH SATURDAY IN LENT._

_THE USE OF COMFORT._

"SURELY there can be no question about that!" I hear some one say.

"The use of comfort is to make people comfortable." That is one use, no doubt, but not the only nor the principal one. It is to be feared, however, that many sincerely devout people take this view of the matter. In spiritual as in worldly matters we are prone to think far too much of our own enjoyment. Some good people, indeed, measure their spiritual condition by their enjoyment. If they are happy, they think all is well with them. This is not always a safe test. We may be glorying in a very mistaken estimate of our own spiritual condition, as did the Corinthian Church, when St. Paul wrote them. "Your glorying is not good." They were mightily puffed up in their own esteem, while they were tolerating among them the vilest sins, such as even the idolatrous Gentiles were ashamed of. (1 Cor. v. 1-8.)

The use of comfort is to strengthen us for the work which God gives us to do. "The God of all comfort comforteth us in all our tribulation," writes St. Paul; and why? "That we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." (2 Cor. i. 3, 4.) We are comforted that we may be able to console others, just as we are taught in order that we may teach others.

Dear fellow-sufferer, if in your sick-room your Lord has sent you a blessing, cannot you contrive to send that blessing on to some other sufferer? He has sent you, let us say, a cheering message by a book or paper. Can you not pass it on to some one else? He has given you a cheering thought. Can you not give a friend or attendant the benefit of it? Some one brings you a pattern for embroidery or knitting. It will do you all the more good if you use it to make a Christmas gift for some other invalid who does not enjoy as many pretty things as yourself. A lady of my acquaintance once received from a wealthy and generous friend a box of very fine forced strawberries. She sent a part of them to an old lady in a charitable institution, whose failing appetite could hardly be tempted to take food at all. The sight of a dish of strawberries in March was such a wonder that it led her to eat quite a good meal; and a year afterwards she spoke with delight of "those beautiful berries your mother sent me." I mention this as a specimen of the way a kindness may be passed on. I believe that act of thoughtful kindness prolonged for several years a useful life.

There are those who carry an atmosphere of comfort with them wherever they go. They may not be very brilliant or very accomplished, but every one is glad to see them. They have something pleasant to say. Such a person does not tell a rheumatic patient of her grandmother who was unable to feed herself for years, or suggest to one suffering from a surgical operation that people in such circumstances almost always go into a decline. (I have known of these very things being done more than once.) I once suffered for several months from the effects of a cat's bite, and I suppose that more than half the people to whom the story was told said, "I should think you would be afraid of hydrophobia!" With a nervous or apprehensive person the effect might have been serious. Oh how many heartaches and tears would be saved to invalids, if those who visit them would try to think of something pleasant and cheering to say!

God sends us comfort, not that we may sit down and selfishly, enjoy it, but that we may be strengthened for the work which is still before us, whether that work be active doing, or patient suffering, or quietly waiting on His will. Comfort is not an end, but a means, and it is much more likely to last if we use it in this way, than if we sit idly down to enjoy it. The Lord gives to all his children blessed seasons of rest and enjoyment. As the twenty-third Psalm says, He makes them to lie down in green pastures, and feedeth them by still waters. But He does not always keep us there. He sets before them many a hill to climb, many a dark valley to pass through, before we reach the land of Beulah, and the Celestial city. But the Holy Ghost, which is the comforter, will always abide with us, and we can truly say "In the multitude of sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." (Ps. xciv. 19.)

Ps. xxxvii. Heb. xii.

_FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT._

_THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD._

IT has been said, and I think truly, that almost any government is better than none. A good government is an unspeakable blessing—not always appreciated, I fear, by those who have never lived under any other. Think for a moment what it is to dwell under a rule where every one's rights are safe; where no one can be punished, except openly, and by due process of law; where every poor man's house is his castle; where, amid the excitement of a hotly contested election, women and children walk the streets in absolute safety: and then contrast this state of things with one in which no man, great or small, feels himself secure; where any man or woman may be torn from home and friends and thrown into prison or sent into life-long exile, with no chance of redress, and knowing that the nearest and dearest friends are utterly ignorant of the fate of husband or wife, father or mother. It seems to me a pity that those who complain so bitterly of the few abuses of a good and free government, should not for a little while try the tender mercies of a bad one.

The best government, however, being as it is the work of man, is liable to imperfection in its constitution, or abuse in its administration. How happy, then, is he who lives under a ruler who can and will do no wrong. Such a ruler is the Lord our Governor. The best of earthly governments can only legislate for classes, and even beneficent laws often bear hardly on individuals; but God's rule is that of a father, who sees in each person not only a subject, but a child; who knows the needs of each one better than himself, and who grudges His children no innocent pleasure. Is it any wonder that the Church teaches us to pray for the rule of such a sovereign as a blessing?

In translating this collect from the Latin original, the reformers have substituted the words "Thy people" for "Thy family," thinking, probably, that the word corresponded better with the idea of government. But, after all, a family needs a stable and just government as much as a state, and it is as a family that the Lord rules his people. The state lays down an inflexible rule, to which every citizen is expected to conform; but a wise parent does not act in this way. She studies the disposition of each child, and has a different system for each one, corresponding to its temperament and needs. So it is with God's government. To Him there are no "masses." He does not drive His flock like a mercenary drover, but "He calleth His own sheep by name and leadeth them out." (St. John x. 3.) He is to each one what He is to no other. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Rev. ii. 17.)

The state punishes offenses against the laws with rigid severity, and very rightly. The security of the honest citizen demands such action. But it has no thanks and no praise for the obedient and loyal subject. He has but done what was expected of him. The loyal subject of God's government, on the contrary, has the satisfaction of knowing that his ruler sees his obedience, and is gratified with it. Like Enoch, he has this testimony, that he has pleased God. God notes the first effort of a little child as well as the crowning sacrifice of an Abraham, and rewards the poor negro Sunday-school teacher, trying in imperfect English to tell the little he knows about God and the Bible to some one more ignorant than himself, as He does a St. Paul preaching to the polished Athenians on Mars Hill. Surely there must be, to the believer, wonderful joy and strength in the thought that what he does gives pleas—to his Heavenly Father.

There is no escaping from the government of God. A man who is dissatisfied with the rule of the United States, or who by crime or misdemeanor has brought himself within reach of its penalties, may go and live somewhere else; but there is no getting out of this universe, which God rules in every corner. Neither can he escape by denying God's authority, or making light of His claims. The earthly commonwealth admits no such excuse; much less the Heavenly. The man may rebel furiously. He may wish that it were possible even to pull down the great Ruler from His throne. It makes no difference. He has no choice but to submit at last, but he "has" the choice as to whether his submission shall be that of the criminal on his way to the scaffold, or the glad obedience of the loving child who has full confidence in his father's justice and love.

Ps. xcvii. Phil. i.

_FIFTH MONDAY IN LENT._

_CÆSAR'S HOUSEHOLD._

THE Lord's government, as we have seen, is that of a parent, in that He legislates, not for masses, but for individuals; and His object, in all that He does and leaves undone, is to make His children better and in the long run happier. The views and plans of the wisest parent are necessarily bounded by a very limited horizon, but the Lord sees the lives of His children from their first beginning—not indeed to the end, for there is no end, but to the farthest reach of eternity—and He legislates for them in "the whole of their duration," as President Edwards has it. It is perhaps for this reason, speaking with reverence, that Christians often find themselves in about the last places they themselves would have chosen as likely to conduce to growth in grace. We are apt to fret at this, and to think we could do somewhere else. We think if we could only attend such and such a church, or live in some other place, or attend such and such classes, we could do so much better; and, very possibly, we neglect the work that God has given us for something which is not our work at all.

There is a passage in the Epistle to the Philippians which at first sight may appear to mean very little, but which seems to me very suggestive. St. Paul, writing from his prison at Rome to the church at Philippi, says, "All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Cæsar's household." (Phil. iv. 22.)

Surely this was a very strange place in which to look for saints—about the last place, humanly speaking, in which we should be likely to find them. The Cæsar was Nero—a name which has become a synonym for lust, cruelty, and rampant folly of every kind; and his court was just what we should expect the court of such an emperor to be. It was the very central resort of informers, men and women practiced in every namable and un-namable wickedness of that vile age. One would as soon have looked for the bliss of Paradise in the foulest Pool of Dante's hell, as for saints in such a household, especially when the profession of the Christian faith involved no little danger to liberty and life. The persecution of Christians had not at that time reached the height to which it attained afterwards; nevertheless, every Christian was looked upon with suspicion and contempt. Their great teacher and apostle was a prisoner, chained night and day to a soldier who watched him, and his imprisonment was more than likely to end in an ignominious death. Yet, in spite of these opposing circumstances, there were saints in Cæsar's household, and, it would seem, not a few.

It seems to me that we may all learn a good lesson from this short passage. We are so apt to lay our shortcomings to the account of circumstances, which is, in fact, laying them at the door of Providence. "If I were not so much engrossed in business," says John. "If I had not so many family cares," says Jane, "I might do some Church work." "There is no pleasure in going to church and Bible class here," says another. "If I only lived in the city! We cannot expect to do much in a place like this," I heard a Christian man say. "If we had a first-class preacher and a good quartette choir we might do something." As if the gift of the Holy Spirit depended on a fine preacher and a fine choir! But we do more than this: we lay upon circumstances the blame of our own heart sins. We should not be irritable and fretful, only that there is so much to annoy us. We should not make unkind remarks and tell scandalous stories about our neighbors, only that every one does so; and so on to the end of the chapter.

No Christian will deny, if asked the question out and out, that his Father in Heaven has ordered, or at the least permitted, the circumstances of his life. Say that we are placed in a country parish, where there is little or no enthusiasm for any good cause, and where most of the parishioners think they have done their duty nobly when they have helped to keep their pastor on the outside verge of starvation, instead of the inside. Well, He places us there because He has work for us there—some work which no one could do so well as you or I. Let us try to find out what that work is, and to do it faithfully. We shall grow in grace ourselves, and no one can do that without benefiting others.

Or He has put one of His chosen ones in a place where he has no Christian sympathy—perhaps among unbelievers and scoffers. Take courage. Bad as they may be, they are probably saints themselves, compared to the men and women with whom they of Cæsar's household were brought in daily contact. You may have good work to do among them. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. When the Rev. Mr. Lowder entered the district of St. Peter's, in the east of London, there were not a dozen Christian men in the parish. He was hooted and pelted in the street, and on one occasion a ring of his friends had to fight for his life against a howling mob of ruffians. Every other house was a house of ill-fame; when he died, after twenty-three years' service, there was not one such to be found in the parish; and by the streets where he had been stoned and all but murdered, he was carried to his burial through throngs of weeping men and women, hundreds of whom walked miles to see him laid in the grave.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. But, then, the leaven must be living and warm. Frozen yeast is no good, as every housewife knows. "I got my father and mother to come to church last Sunday," said a dear little child with sparkling eyes. "It was so nice!" He had been laboring for that result for months. He would have been one of the saints in Cæsar's household. And I have no doubt that those saints found there, were of a pretty robust and earnest description. "They" would hardly have stayed away from the gathering in St. Paul's cabin on the first day of the week because they had not the latest fashion in gown or sandal, or even to hear the court poet recite his ode, or to learn the last news from Gaul or Britain. (2 Kings v.; 1 Peter ii.)

A part of this chapter was printed in the "Kalendar."

_FIFTH TUESDAY IN LENT._

_THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD._

AS has been noticed before, the reformers, in translating this collect from the original Latin, saw fit to render the word that is to say, household or family, by "people," thinking probably that the word corresponded better to the idea of government. It is perhaps difficult to see the aptness of the change, since, as has been observed, a family certainly needs governing quite as much as a state.

In three other places is the Church of God spoken of as a family. In the collect for Good Friday we beseech God to behold "this His family." In that for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, we ask Him "to keep His Church and household in His true religion;" and again, on the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity, we beg Him to keep His household, the Church, in continual godliness. The great Church catholic, then, is to be thought of, not only as God's kingdom, but as His family. It is under this latter aspect that I wish now to consider it.

A family is not "a fortuitous concourse of atoms." It consists of a number of members, either related by blood or united by a common purpose. Now the very idea of a member is that of a part of some organization differentiated or set apart for some office for which it is specially fitted by structure or position, or both. The very simplest living creature—the very germ cell from which the lowest seaweed is produced—has its parts so distinguished, and the higher we rise in the scale, the more striking are the differences. The family is an organism, and it follows that every member of the same has his own "vocation and ministry," which nobody can fulfill as well as himself. "The Lord has chosen him." (1 Chron. xxviii. 10.) He has appointed his place and set his task before him. Surely this is a great honor.

The great trouble is that the member thus appointed does not see his work, and he does not see it, for the most part, because he will not. Perhaps he thinks his appointed task too humble. He thinks it beneath his capacity. He is too often like a certain little girl who was set by her mother to watch that the bread did not run over, but who thought it would be much finer to run the sewing machine. The result may easily be imagined. A woman who wished to undertake some Church work was invited to begin by taking a class from the infant room. She declined, saying that she would feel herself to be throwing away her time teaching such ignorant little ones. She was allowed to try a class of grown-up girls. She soon found out her mistake. She complained that the girls were always asking questions and making remarks, and at last she threw up the work in disgust, and there was the end of her aspirations after Church work. If she could only have had something congenial, she said, it would have been different.

Another church-member was fired with enthusiasm on hearing an eloquent missionary sermon. She only wished that she could go out to Africa. That would, indeed, be worth while. But when it was suggested that she might give of an abundant wardrobe to help fill a missionary box, she rejected the idea with some tartness. She did not take so much pains with her things, to give them to a common negro preacher's wife!