Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

feelings, he would sometimes resort to confession for relief, though

it were confession without repentance

"The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree

I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."

The family is a SCHOOL. The parent is the natural teacher. A good, devoted, praying mother is the best teacher in the world. The parental appointment is from God.-Deut. vi. 7. The mother of Dwight, supplying the lack occasioned by his father's immersion in business, diligently instructed her little Timothy in all right knowledge, and what a gift did Mary Dwight bestow on the Church of God! "Her school-room was the nursery," says his biographer, and "a great proportion of the instruction which he received before he arrived at the age of six years, was at home with his mother." Happy child, and happy, too, the child who can not only say: "I was tender, and only beloved in the sight of my mother," but can add : "He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thy heart retain my words: keep my commandments and live." Happy the father, who can say to his children: "Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding." Speak not of wealth, of rich legacies, of ample estates, of abundant profits. This merchandise is better than that of silver and gold. It is the wealth of knowledge, the legacy of wisdom, the inheritance of truth and righteousness. Oh, what prayer and pains-taking are necessary on the part of parents to do that great work of EDUCATION, a word of which it may be truly said, that its comprehensiveness is seldom comprehended! Education entire of the body—the mind-the imagination—the judgment—the moral faculties—the principles-the HEART, which is the seat and source of all that constitutes the final immortality of our being. Wide and sad is the neglect of this duty. How many thousands in this land are trained to a career of guilt and shame! It is by patient, repeated, long-continued strokes on the marble, that the sculptor eliminates at length the beautiful statue that seems almost to live and breathe. Consummate art and industry alone can reach the point of impressive excellence. The parent is the sculptor of souls. Every stroke is for immortality.

You are a worker in mind. May the Spirit of God help you. Oh, if we seek to be taught of Him; if we give all diligence to learn how to discharge these high duties, we shall obtain help of God.

Some further thoughts on this subject will be presented in a subsequent number.

Original.

THE POWER OF A MOTHER'S FAITH.

BY A PASTOR.

In a beautiful country-seat, on the banks of the Hudson, and not a hundred miles north of the City of New York, resided a family of wealth and refinement. God had blessed them greatly with the good things of this life, and they might have said with truth, they had all that heart could wish. I lived near them, but in comparative seclusion, the quiet and almost unknown pastor in the village that lay back from the river, embosomed in the hills, and watered by a mountain stream, that found its way by the church door to the river.

This family, of whom I am speaking, spent the most of the year in the country, living only for three or four of the coldest months in the city; preferring the freedom and air of our hills to the bricks and walls of the metropolis.

Their children were growing around them as plants, and promising, by their pleasing manners and well-ordered ways, to be comforts to their parents. They had early, after establishing their residence there, invited me to visit them, and I soon discovered that there was in their house just the society that I had often felt the need of, and I made free to enjoy it. Here was wealth, refinement, and all the charms that these could shed upon the social circle, and the house was the abode of that delightful peace, so congenial to every right heart. I felt at home, from the moment I entered its doors.

Yet it does not seem to me probable that all the wealth in the

world, and the accomplishments which wealth can procure, would have made this home what I found it to be. Wealth

may make a palace, but wealth cannot make a home. There is something wanting that money cannot buy. And it was here.

Mr. Winchester was a man of business, and had made the world the great object of his pursuit. He did not even profess to be a Christian, though he was an upright man, who respected in others that to which he laid no claims for himself; and he was pleased to know that Mrs. W. was, in the highest sense of the word, religious. It was her piety that shed this charm over the domestic circle, and rendered this house not merely the elegant abode, but the sacred and delightful home.

The children, of whom there were three, were brought up under her eye. Business called Mr. W. daily to the city, and the instruction of these was guided with maternal solicitude. She had the joy of seeing her children growing up with good habits, and promising to be useful.

I began to write, for the sake of speaking of a scene that I shall never forget; impressed on me by the sorrows of years, and, doubtless, good for me, though even now it is not to be mentioned without bitterness of soul. Mrs. W. died within two years after I learned her worth. The scene in that house I could not describe, yet there are reasons why it would be well to attempt it. Her call to die was sudden. The fever was rapid and violent, and was soon brought to a fatal crisis. I was in the chamber when death came. The husband was inconsolable. He had no trust in the Saviour in that hour of anguish. He loved his wife, tenderly, passionately, and had never thought she would die. It came like a thunderbolt in a clear sky, and struck him down. He lay on the bed by her side, and she wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him, and prayed him, with her wasting breath, to trust in her Saviour, and he would find peace. And then she called those three children to her side, and beginning with the eldest, nine years old, she put her hands on his head as he buried his face in her bosom, and commending him to God, she gave him a charge that will follow him to his dying day. How earnestly she did plead with him to give his young heart to

Christ, and grow up to love and honor him! And then she took the next, who was but six, and her only daughter, and poured out upon her such benedictions as God loves to seal with his Spirit. There was love and faith, with prayers and tears. The little one, but two years old, was nestling by her side, and she gave him to God in such strains as dying mothers only use, in "praying for the babes they leave behind them in the world."

When this was done, she was ready to depart. She alone was calm and peaceful, while all the rest of us wept. It seemed impossible that she was so soon to be taken from us, so suddenly; and yet the evidence was not to be resisted, and we yielded to the just but painful dispensation. She died that night.

Years have passed away-fourteen years last summer-and the time that has since elapsed has tested the power of early maternal faithfulness, and the power of a mother's prayer. The family still occupy their elegant house on the river. The oldest son is in business, a man of piety and honor; the companion of his father, and a useful member of society. Mary is a member of my church, but I suppose I shall lose her soon, as she is going to a home of her own in the city; an arrangement that I do not like, but her happiness seems to be centred in it. The youngest is fitted for college, a boy of bright hope, and I trust he will meet his mother in heaven.

This is a simple sketch, but it shows the ground of encouragement that mothers have, to be faithful to their children. They may not live to see the fruit of their labors, but they have the promise. And years after they are dead and gone, the promise will be fulfilled. And they will in heaven rejoice with the angels over the answer to their prayers.

THE late Dr. Grosvenor being at the funeral of Dr. Watts, a friend said to him, "Well, Dr. Grosvenor, you have seen the end of Dr. Watts, and you will soon follow; what think you of death?" Think of it!” replied the doctor; "why, when death comes, I shall smile upon death, if God smiles upon me."

66

THE FAMILY ABOVE.

BY CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON.

"Millions of infant souls compose the Family above."

"And they brought young children unto him, that he should touch them;" or, as Matthew has it, "that he should put his hands on them and pray; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God."

SEE, then, the King of kings take up, in succession, these children in his arms, and lay his hands upon them-the ancient and solemn manner of blessing among the Jews. Surely this was no vain show, nor did the Messiah pour forth his prayer into the air, or pronounce his blessing in vain. And what should he request for them, but that they might be received among the number of the sons of God? For let us hear it again-What were the precise terms in which he had invited their approach? "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." Who, then, would, or who dare shut the gate upon those, or even neglect them, whom the Saviour will not permit to be forbidden? As parents, oh! what could you desire more than this? Millions of infant souls, it seems, compose the Family above; and assuredly, in point of number, such souls must form no insignificant proportion of the celestial millions. Regret not now, my reader, for one moment, that nothing is here said of the parents of these children, either as to their character or motives, or whether those who brought them even sustained this relation; for with regard to Scripture, as Mr. Boyle said, its very silences are teaching. It is with the children, with the species as such, we have here to do; and, blessed be the Saviour! they actually form the foreground of this picture. Though never registered among the denizens of this little world, that is now of small account indeed, "for of such is the kingdom. of God." The whole species are safe, and beyond the reach of woe.

Surely, then, I scarcely need to remind Christian parents,

« AnteriorContinuar »