Is conscience burdened with a sense of guilt, the guilt of sins "long past and gone," or of sins recent and fresh? Beware of its poison in this state of mind. For I may seek restoration-yea, restoration by the blood of Christ, through the Spirit of Christ-earnestly, diligently seek it, and yet seek it upon ground far too selfish. I may seek it almost entirely FOR MY OWN PEACE, comfort, and enjoyment, and with very poor, low, inadequate views of that matchless goodness, benignity, compassion, tenderness, grace and love, against which I have sinned. I may seek it rather for the quieting of a disturbed and angry conscience, than with the upright, filial, penitent desire of once more enjoying the favour of God, and walking with him as a child. I may seek it under a practical forgetfulness, that nothing less than such a restoration would deserve the name of restoration at all-and that the cross of Jesus is but the way to a Father's bosom. You cannot, dear friends, too highly value the private means of grace-secret prayer, reading the Word, quiet meditation. And yet there may be a selfish resting in these very things, and a stopping short of God Himself in the use of them. For as conscience would be wounded if these things were utterly neglected, so may it be, in a sense, quieted in the doing of them— forgetting that they are but means to an end, not the end itself. You can scarcely too much esteem the public means -the worship of God on the Lord's Day, the ministry of the Gospel, whether on that day or in the week— and yet there is no small danger of a selfish use of them. There is a danger of resting in these things, and not in God Himself—their great end. Yea, there is a danger of too exclusively considering them as channels of enjoyment, and forgetting that they are also tests of obedience; that my attendance on them is not MERELY for my own spiritual good-precious as that must ever and ought ever to be, in my eyes-but chiefly and especially FOR THE DIVINE GLORY; that this is my highest, my chiefest aim, my loftiest purpose; that in waiting on Him, in all these things, I humbly do it, that I may declare my allegiance to Him, my subjection to his pleasure, my submission to his will, before the world, before sleepy professors and slumbering saints. I am not ignorant, of the difficulties which a residence in a great city often throws in a man's way, of the claims of family duty, nor of the obstacles which mere exhaustion creates in frames of perishing clay. All that I can suggest is, let not selfishness give the answer to the question which they may propose, as to What is the will of God in these matters? Before you decide, let it be duly remembered that your example is a talent; that as your presence is a stimulus to others, so your absence is a depression. Before you decide, let it be asked, Is there no blessing to be expected in a week-day service? Are there no blessings connected with united prayer? Is the business of Christ's kingdom upon earth of no importance? Are there no sympathies to be stirred up in reference to the city in which I live, the world in which I dwell? Am I never to mingle with my poorer brethren, in habits of social regard and affectionate intercourse ? And yet, dear readers, supposing that all this were duly acted out, it forms but a very small and partial developement of the grand principle which I plead for, and which, I pray, may be the great prevailing principle of your lives and of mine-which is nothing short of a supreme love to God in Christ, shewing itself in a real delight in Him, and in ALL honest, filial, unreserved aims to obey and please Him in ALL THINGS, Col. i. 9, 10. This is holiness-this is happiness. And in order to this, our very dwelling place must be Calvary. It is only there, it is only in the Son of his love, we can truly see God, rest in Him, love Him, delight our souls in Him. There and only there may you and I live. There may we tell Him all our wants-thence may He communicate all his grace, in ALL his means, in ALL our paths, every day, and through every day. Such is GodGod in Christ, our God-that in all real contact with Him there is blessing. In prayer and in praise; in repentance, bitter as it sometimes is; in self-denial, however much it may try us; in every real attempt to serve Him, to spread his Name among sinners, to stir up his saints to a greater spirituality. There is blessing in every sacrifice that we make-in every cross that we endure. Then in ALL these things may we seek that blessing. There and only there may you and I die. Yea, there, and only there-whence alone springs up the glorious hope of seeing and delighting in God for ever. J. H. E. I'VE HAD NO SABBATHS! [A Clergyman who visited the Driver of a London Omnibus just before his death, says, "On speaking to him of his preparation for another world, he looked in my face with a touching expression which I shall never forget, and said faintly, 'Sir, I've had no Sabbaths!'"] I'VE HAD NO SABBATHS! I have not known A call to rest, in the Church bells' tone; In the drought of the summer, 'mid dust and heat; I urged my steeds on the public way; As the long week circled they wrought my will, Alike we laboured, those brutes and I; They lived to suffer, to work, to die; A being scorning time's stint and bound, Had a briefer respite than theirs might ask; Of the jarring wheels, came the Church bells' toll. I saw the thousands who thronged to pray, I had a Home; but in vain for me At the verge of midnight, to sleep till morn; Uncursed with the drunkard's guilt and share. Oh! maddening drink are the draughts that flow To kill fatigue and to stifle woe! And mad are they who for drunken greed Will give the bread that their babes should feed; The day of my labour is gone, is past, And never be missed from its whirl and fray : But my soul is filled with a shuddering dread, For the hopeless gathering of thorn and weed, Oh speak! and tell me yet once again |