THE BURNING LAMP. those numerous and obstinate enemies of our happiness there is no asylum, that the general law admits of no exception, and that if there is some kind of inequality between man and man during life, the last moment makes all equal. We have then even now, or shall soon have, need to be consoled. If I may so speak, we shall require some happiness to oppose to the inevitable unhappiness. On the approach of darkness mere human prudence seems to cry, "To your lamps, if you have any !" We may try to console ourselves by the idea of our innocence; we may say to ourselves that the dreadful blow we have just received is not caused by any fault of ours, or even any imprudence. But besides that this salve cannot be applied to the wounds we have made with our own hands, our conscience interdicts this consolation. Though we have not deserved such or such a suffering we have deserved to suffer, and our most insolent murmurings cannot absolutely close our ears against the voice of truth which cries, "Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" Now, then, if you can forget all this, deck yourselves for some instants in an imaginary innocence. If the fault is not on your part, it is on the part of God. God is unjust if you are not so; and as there cannot be injustice with God, your saying this is as much as to say that God exists not. Is this what you call a consolation? Is it not, on the contrary, gall added to the vinegar, and affliction to the afflicted? 231 is it for any one who has not received the lamp of Jesus Christ, the divine Wisdom, has anticipated this conviction; and on his part we say to you, mortals, who know what life is, Put oil in your lamps, and light them. Let your lamps become, according to the expression which we have used, lamps of faith, hope, and love. The light of life is not happiness, but consolation; not what we see, but what we do not see; and, to tell the whole truth, not what we receive, but what we give. According to the full meaning of Against the ills of life we may invoke philosophy. our Lord's word, "It is more blessed to give than to But here philosophy is only the sounding name of a receive." The brightness of our life consists in bevery vulgar thing. After turning it in a thousand lieving, hoping, loving. In believing-that is, in shapes, all it can say is, that the world is so made that feeling assured of the Father, amid the manifestaour complaints will not make it different, that it is tions of his anger. In hoping-that is, in laying hold, far better to bear what we cannot change, and that amid the ruins which gather round us, of the kingour cries only increase our sore. Here habit knows dom which cannot be moved. In loving-that is, in as much as philosophy; and it is not very honourable substituting for the care for our own happiness a care to human wisdom, after many windings of a less or for the happiness of others, or, more generally, to greater length, to end at a stupid resignation. All place the centre of our life without us; for, properly true consolation is joy; here there is not, there cannot speaking, it is only in this that love consists. be joy. All true consolation should elevate, but this degrades us. Ought we not, in the name of our dignity as well as on behalf of our happiness, to seek other consolations? We may say to ourselves that all is not lost, and exhort ourselves to draw relief from what still remains of happiness. This is still philosophy. The mind may thus calculate, but it does not. Until man, in another school than that of philosophy, has recognised his utter unworthiness, he sets no value on what is left to him, but thinks only of what he has lost. Each of us has only to consult his own experience to learn how far in this direction the injustice, ingratitude, and presumption of man can go. I have no wish to blazon its incredible excesses. I confine myself to say, To whom is the consolation sufficient? To whom is it any consolation? All consolation is joy; here, then, where is the joy? All consolation should fill up the vacuity which is made in the life and in the heart; where is the vacuity so filled? Go and say to the man of the world, "This friendship lost is only one friendship less; this child of whom death has just bereaved you is not your only child; or, if the only one, you have still friends; or, if all is gone, you have still yourself; think not of what is gone, but of what remains, for you might have nothing, others have nothing, and you might fall to their level." You are aware, brethren, how he will answer. Besides, how does this consolation apply to life as a whole? Life, so taken, satisfies nobody; nobody, I mean, among those who are reduced to the mere light of philosophy. Will you go and say to them," Come, here, in place of the lost life, is another?" Where is this life in exchange? Where And beware of abstracting from this treble flame any one of its rays; above all, think not that the strongest faith and hope would suffice for happiness without love. The gospel which has said that faith and hope are nothing without love, nothing either for happiness or for perfection, the gospel would contradict you; your own conscience, your own experience, would contradict you. What have been the true moments of happiness in your life? Are they not those in which you have forgotten yourselves for others? On these occasions has not the intimate relation between happiness and love been instantaneously revealed to you? What your too sure recollections thus disclose to you, does not your reason also disclose? Love, which is the happiness of God him. self, must also be the supreme felicity of the being whom God has made in his own image. Every other happiness is unworthy of this being, and does not satisfy him. Selfish enjoyments leave a void; love alone fills and nourishes. Vulgar happiness requires to receive, and has never received enough; love requires to give, and has never given enough. Sacrifices exhaust the one and maintain the other; and while the first would gain nothing by gaining the world, the second grows rich upon its very losses. Faith and hope are of value only because they conduct to love; and the soul would dispense with believing and hoping, if without hoping and believing it were possible to love. Even the happiness of being loved would be incomplete without the happiness of loving; and if the love of God is infinitely precious to man, it is, be assured, by giving place to it, and constraining it, so to speak, to return love for love. The crowning grace of God, the last expression of his love, the sum of the gospel, the end of the work of redemption in regard to us, is not to be loved, but to love. It is when we love that all is accomplished; it is when we love that our salvation is realised. Love is the sovereign good, and therefore in affliction it is also the sovereign consolation. Still more than faith, still more than hope, does it lend to the light of our lamp its liveliest and brightest beams. But, on the other hand, faith and love open the heart to Divine love. By virtue of faith and hope our heart becomes a new heart, becomes at once capable of loving with a pure love all that ought to be loved, and of not succumbing under the ills which spring from our condition and from love itself. Let us not separate that which is inseparable, let us not abstract any of the elements of consolation; let us repeat, that in this world as it has become, in life as it is now constituted, the light of our darkness, the happiness of our woe, consists in a faith founded on God himself-in a hope which looks to him-in a love which ascends to him that it may thence descend again on mankind and take them all into its embrace. What ought to delight you, dear brethren, in the consolations, or rather in the joys of the gospel, is, that they have no need of the aid either of pride or of time, and that they combine in the soul of the sufferer both strength and mildness. When I see mildness without strength, I say to myself, The man is nullified, his internal springs are broken; these are not the proper results of religion. When I see strength without mildness, I say, Here is no consolation, no joy-for joy softens; truth, therefore, is not here. But he who has embraced Jesus Christ by faith, he who in desert climes has again found a Father, he will in grief be at once mild and strong. For what is at once milder and stronger than faith, hope, and love? In the hour of trial expect not from him either lifeless submission or haughty rudeness. He is what man ought to be, armed with courage and adorned with humility-erect before fortune, on his knees before God. With the oil of the word, with the flame of the Spirit, make the lamp of your soul illuminate your darkness. This I address to you who yet know not the dispensation of God in the gospel, to you who know it to no purpose, because your heart is not yet touched. Equal to each other in misfortune, subject to the same vicissitudes, you appear in another point of view very different, since there is between you the difference between ignorance and knowledge, or, as we should perhaps say, between faith and unbelief. Is this difference as great as it appears? Neither of you believes this, if faith is nothing less than the life in the soul. What, it will be said, is the lamp without the oil? But what is the oil without the flame? Does he who has oil without flame see better than he who as yet has neither oil nor flame? And cannot the Supreme Giver give at once both oil and flame? I thus see better what it is that unites you than what it is that separates you; and I commend you both to the Father of the spirits of all flesh, praying that in pity to your wants he would give to both of you what is necessary to the one the knowledge of his gospel and Christian convictions; to the other that life of the Spirit which alone converts the convictions of the intellect into a true and effectual faith. There will you, for the first time, find light-in other words, joy and happiness; for in Jesus, embraced by faith, resides abundance of consolation, fulness of happiness, to supply the future as the past. To say the whole in two words, you will there receive the assurance of being loved, and the power of loving. What more is necessary? What is beyond? What more can be desired, or what more will be vainly desired either by him who is loved or him who loves? What void can remain in the heart or life where there is intimate communion, unchangeable intercourse with the heavenly Father? What darkness will not disappear before so pure and bright a day? What doubt, what fear, what regret, what desire, can tyrannize over a heart which has God in its favour, and which, to speak more properly, possesses and carries him within. When you say that God has raised it to love, do you not say every thing? Love which is stronger than death is stronger than the whole world. In the climate in which we live the twilight precedes and announces night, and we may, during this interval, prepare torches or lamps. But there are zones in which night, instead of climbing up to the heaven gradually, seizes on it at once, and envelopes all living creatures in sudden darkness. It is with life as with these regions. In human life misfortune comes even more suddenly than darkness in the countries of which I speak. It is for the most of the time an evening without a twilight. The splendour of day falls at once into the dark gloom of night. We suffer without having foreseen it, without having been prepared for it by a decline of happiness, and hence naturally suffer more. Without any thing to break the fall, we tumble to the bottom all bruised and broken. O what bitterness, what trouble, what internal tempest, when the greatest felicity and the deepest misfortune were the one yesterday and the other to-day! What magic words will communicate at once mildness and strength to him whom glory enveloped yesterday and shame to-day-to another who was yesterday the most envied, and to-day is the most wretched of fathers-to another whom all hopes yesterday intoxicated, and against whom to-day a sudden and incurable infirmity closes all the avenues to future fame? Will he learn to-day what he knew not yesterday? Will it be possible to console him if previously unfurnished with consolation? Therefore we have reason to say, Light your lamps. But if the Spirit of God himself is the flame of our lamps, does it belong to us to light them? Who can light them but God only? This objection is refuted by its own consequences. For it would extend step by step to all our duties, and there being no longer any power, there would no longer be any duty. Let us not distinguish between what we can and what we cannot do. For if any thing is above our strength, every thing is above our strength; and if any thing is within our reach, all things are. Let us say frankly and boldly that man can do nothing, and that he can do every thing-nothing without God, and every thing with God. All the morality of the gospel rests upon these two foundations. Without God I am insufficient for the least of my duties; with God I am capable of all, even the greatest, even of the duty which includes all others-I mean the duty of lighting the lamp. And this is the reason why Jesus Christ, who might have said, "The Spirit of God will light your lamps," has gone further, and said, "Light your lamps." In speaking in this way, apparently he knew that we could light them. We can, before as after, believe on his word; but, after as before, we say with St Paul, "I did so; yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. The Christian soul unites inseparably the feeling of responsibility with the feeling of dependence. We say then, without scruple, to you whose lamps are not yet burning, Kindle your lamps; and in order to kindle them we commend you to the gospel, interpreted by your conscience-to your conscience, enlightened by the gospel. But you who have kindled them, have you nothing to do? Are you henceforth sheltered from trial? Have you not, on the contrary, in your character of Christians, particular afflictions to foresee? Or perhaps you think that your lamps, once kindled, will burn of themselves, and LOSING ONE'S TEMPER. never possibly be extinguished. It is written, however, "Quench not the Spirit;" your lamps then may be extinguished. It is written," Stir up the gift that is in you;" it is thus necessary to keep this flame constantly alive. It is necessary incessantly to lay up a store of happiness for the days of misfortune, and of joy for the hours of sadness. It is necessary to nourish at the bottom of your hearts faith, hope, and love. For this, under the Divine blessing, three means are at your disposal; namely, contemplation, prayer, and good works. Might I not add, "and these three are one?" By contemplation, I understand the contemplation of Jesus Christ. It is not an effort of thought, though thought is inseparable from contemplation. No; it is a simple, filial, assiduous look to Jesus Christ; I say not to his doctrine, but to Jesus Christ; for Jesus Christ, and not Christianity, is our object, our good, our life. To contemplate Jesus Christ; to live with Jesus Christ; to keep society with Jesus Christ; to withdraw to Jesus Christ; to be accompanied by his memory and encircled by his presence; to look to him as the faithful spouse looks to her husband; to refer to him all our thoughts and all our designs, and fill with him our mind and our soul: this is the primary means, or rather the whole means, for it carries with it all the rest. To pray, that is, to expect nothing except from God, and to expect every thing of God; to keep our soul incessantly open before him; to lay open before the Father, whom Jesus Christ has restored to us, our wants, our fears, our difficulties; to place ourselves continually in his hands; to accept, by anticipation, whatever it may please him to dispense; to groan before him under a sense of our weakness; to deposit at his feet the burden of our sins; to sigh in his pre'sence after the gift of a new heart; to place ourselves under the rays of his light, under the dew of his grace; with all the humility of indigence to solicit an asylum under his roof, a place at his hearth; to take shelter under his mercy, and gain warmth upon his heart: such is the grace of graces. No wind, no storm will extinguish the lamp of him who prays. In fine, to act, to abound in works of righteousness and charity, without intermission to fill both our heart and our life, into which the world persists in wishing to penetrate, and by this constant and happy pre-occupation in welldoing to leave no place, no moment, no occasion for evil; to unite thus more and more with Jesus Christ by resembling him, to breathe the air of heaven beforehand, and have a foretaste of the pure joys of eternity; to feel as with the hand the reality of that moral order, that kingdom of God invisible to so many eyes; to walk in some measure by sight in the darkness of this world; in one word, to obey in order to know, and serve in order to love: such is the third means that is proposed to you. So long as you use it fear not lest the flame of your lamp become feeble or extinct, lest consolation fail you in the hour of affliction. "By this," says St John, speaking of the works of love," by this you shall know that you are of the truth, and shall assure your hearts before God." LOSING ONE'S TEMPER. BY MRS MARY GRAHAM. I was sitting in my room one morning, feeling all "out of sorts" about something or other, when an Worphan child, whom I had taken to raise, came in with a broken tumbler in her hand, and said, while her young face was pale, and her lip quivered: "See, ma'am ! I went to take this tumbler from the dresser, to get Anna a drink of water, and I let it fall." 233 I was in a fretful humour before the child came in and her appearance, with the broken tumbler in her hand, didn't tend to help me to a better state of mind. She was suffering a good deal of pain in consequence of the accident, and needed a kind word to quiet the disturbed beatings of her heart. But she had come to me in an unfortunate moment. "You are a careless little girl!" said I, severely taking the fragments of glass from her trembling hands-" A very careless little girl, and I am displeased with you!" I said no more; but my countenance expressed even stronger rebuke than my words. The child lingered near me for a few moments, and then I was sorry in a moshrunk away from the room. ment, that I had permitted myself to speak unkindly to the little girl; for there was no need of my doing so, and moreover she had taken my words, as I could see, deeply to heart. I had made her unhappy without a cause. The breaking of the tumbler was an accident likely to happen to any one, and the child evidently felt bad enough about what had occurred, without having my displeasure added thereto. If I was unhappy before Jane entered my room, I was still more unhappy after she retired. I blamed myself and pitied the child; but this did not in the least mend the matter. In about half an hour, Jane came up very quietly, with Willy, my dear little curly-haired angel-faced boy, in her arms. He had fallen asleep, and she had, with her utmost strength, carried him up stairs. She did not lift her eyes to mine as she entered, but went with her burden to the low bed that was in the room, where she laid him tenderly, and then sat down with her face turned partly away from me, and with a fan kept off the flies and cooled his moist skin. Enough of Jane's countenance was visible to enable me to perceive that its expression was sad. And it was an unkind word from my lips that had brought| this cloud over her young face! "So much for permitting myself to fall into a fretful mood," said I mentally. In future, I must be more watchful over my state of mind. I have no right to make others suffer from my own unhappy temper." Jane continued to sit by Willy and fan him; and every now and then I could hear a very low sigh come up, as if involuntarily, from her bosom. Faint as the sound was, it smote upon my ear, and added to my uncomfortable frame of mind. A friend called, and I went down into the parlour, and sat conversing there for an hour. But all the while there was a weight upon my feelings. I tried, but in vain, to be cheerful; I was too distinctly aware of the fact, that an individual, and that a motherless little girl, was unhappy through my unkindness; and the consciousness was like a heavy hand upon my bosom. Some who read this may think that I was very weak, to let a hastily uttered censure against a careless child trouble me. What are a child's feelings? I have been a child; and, as a child, have been blamed severely by those whom I desired to please, and felt that unkind words fell heavier and more painfully sometimes than blows. I could therefore understand the nature of Jane's feelings, and sympathize with her to a certain extent. All through the day, Jane moved about more quietly than usual. When I spoke to her about any thing, which I did a little kinder in voice than I ordinarily used, she would look into my face with an earnestness that rebuked me. Towards evening I sent her down stairs for a pitcher of cold water. She went quickly and soon returned with the pitcher of water, and a tumbler on a waiter. She was coming towards me, evidently using more than ordinary caution, when her foot tripped against something, and she stumbled forward. It was in vain that she tried to save the pitcher. Its balance was lost, and it fell over, and was broken to pieces at my feet, the water dashing upon the skirt of my dress. The poor child became instantly as pale as ashes, and the frightened look she gave me I shall not soon forget. She tried to speak and say that it was an accident, but her tongue was paralysed for the moment, and found no utterance. The lesson I had received in the morning served me for purposes of self-control now; and I said instantly, in a mild voice: "Never mind, Jane; I know you couldn't help it. I must tack down that loose edge of the carpet. I came near tripping there, myself, to-day. Go and get a floor-cloth, and wipe up the water as quickly as you can, while I gather up the broken pieces." The colour came back instantly to Jane's face. She gave me one grateful look, and then ran quickly away, to do as I had directed her. When she came back, she blamed herself for not being more careful, expressed sorrow for the accident, and promised over and over again that she would be more guarded in future. The contrast between both of our feelings now, and what they were in the morning, was very great. I felt happier for having acted justly and with due self-control; and my little girl, though troubled on account of the accident, had not the extra burden of my displeasure to bear. The air is full of farewells to the dying, Let us be patient! these severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions We see but dimly through the mists and vapours; What seem to us but dim, funereal tapers, There is no death! what seems so is transition; Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, She is not dead-the child of our affection- Where she no longer needs our poor protection, In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing . And though at times, impetuous with emotion The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient! and assuage the feeling By silence sanctifying, not concealing, CONFESSIONS OF A SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHER. BY H. C. KNIGHT. the last hour of the business day, in canvassing not only their liabilities for this world, but in taking an account of stock for the world to come. Better, far better," I said to myself, as I sat and reflected upon the incidents just related, "better, THE two young merchants had withdrawn to the far better is it, in all our relations in life, to main-counting-room, where they used often to spend alone tain a calm exterior, and on no account to speak harshly to those who are below us. Angry words make double wounds. They hurt those to whom they are addressed, while they leave a sting behind them. Above all should we guard against a moody temper. Whenever we permit any thing to fret our minds, we are not in a state to exercise due self-control; and, if temptation comes then, we are sure to fall." RESIGNATION. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. THERE is no flock, however watch'd and tended, There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, "I have thought," began Kent, in reply to his companion, when a tap was heard at the countingroom door, which was almost immediately followed by the entrance of Mr Smith. "Well! what are you upon?" he asked, taking off his hat, smoothing back his hair, and sinking into the seat offered him by Anderson. "We are discussing unmanageable boys," answered Anderson," and rather an unmanageable subject we find it." 66 Exactly so!" exclaimed Smith. "Well, I have one to dispose of." CONFESSIONS OF A SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHER. "You have come then to the wrong place." "To the right one," rejoined Smith, looking towards Kent. "Mr Kent, I have a lad to put into your Sabbath-school class: can you take another?" "Fourteen are as many as I can conveniently accommodate and look after;" but he thought how soon poor Austin's place might be vacated, and answered. "I will try perhaps. Who is he?" "To be honest, he is a hard case, a very hard case." Here Mr Smith entered into some account |of him, and ended by saying "I thought, Mr Kent, if you would take charge of him it would be a capital thing! a very capital thing, besides relieving me of considerable anxiety. You have a flourishing Bible class, I think." 235 it nearly six weeks ago! and we can't seem to decide on another. They say, they have studied all the question-books in existence. I've been promising to hunt up a knew one; but I don't know how it is, I hav'n't found the time yet. But the worst of it is, they don't come. I confess I like punctuality; this being tied up in a Sabbath-school with only two or three scholars does not suit my taste." "Do you have teachers' meetings?" "Really "-Mr Smith paused and recollected"really I can't tell. We do have them, I am certain; but how often, I do not seem to remember. You see, I am not always present myself, and so fail to hear the notices, if notices are given, and I believe they are. But there, the teachers' meetings are not "That depends upon what you mean by flourish well attended." ing," said Kent. "Do you ever visit your scholars ?" "I do in principle, but I find it exceedingly difficult to get time for such business. The idea is excellent! scholars must be hunted up, especially in cities, but one can't find time for every thing. Don't you find it so,Mr Kent ?" "I do," answered Kent, "but we ought to find time for every duty which we undertake." "Flourishing! Why I call punctual attendance flourishing, Mr Kent. The fact is, there are eight composing my class; sometimes I have six present, sometimes five, sometimes two, and often none-then, you may suppose, it does not look particularly flourishing. Well, it's just so throughout our Sabbath-school-every now and then it dwindles down and goes into a regular consumption. Then we all set to, to prop it up; we get up a pic-nic, or a Sabbath-school celebration, or some such affair; they come in on all hands and we have grand times; speeches, resolutions, original hymns, and all that; the Sabbath-school is all alive; children and teach-sponsible as you have represented yourself to me,” ers crowd in, and it looks really warming up, flourishing?" "Well, what then?" "Why, in two or three months' time it is all flat again, and there is not zeal enough to thaw the sunny side of a snow-bank. The fact is, I begin to question as to Sabbath-schools." Smith nodded his head, and looked extremely wise. "Is it not just so, Anderson ?" "Our school keeps up pretty well," answered Anderson, who was at the desk sealing some let ters. "In regard to what do you question Sabbath-schools, Mr Smith?" asked Kent, looking directly at the visitor. "Why, in regard to their expediency. Do they do much good after all? if they do, I confess, for one, that I don't see it. This boy, for example, has been to the Sabbath-school ever since he could lisp. He knows enough, but he is no better for all that, seldom in the class, slips through your fingers, at least he is seldom there when I am." "Are you not always there?" asked Kent. "Why no, not invariably; I always calculate to go, but somehow I do not always get there. My class is, in truth, old enough to take care of themselves occasionally. We all need change sometimes. Why, Mr Kent, off and on I have been a teacher these fifteen years; and now I begin to think it is most time to give up, and let the younger ones come in." "What do your class study?" questioned Kent. "That is a question, Mr Kent. We have just got through a question-book-let me see, we got through "Ahem-yes-certainly; but about the Sabbathschool there does not seem to be an interest in it. It is getting to be an old thing to the scholars." "I think I should begin to question Sabbath-schools also, if every teacher were as unfaithful and irre said Anderson, who did not always measure his words towards people that were disagreeable to him; and Mr Smith happened to be one of that number. He then took his surtout from its accustomed peg, and excused his departure on the ground of letters for the mail. Pleased and flattered by the attention of his hearers, and the marked interest shown by Mr Kent's questions, Smith was altogether unprepared for Anderson's conclusions. He untwisted his feet from right to left, and from left to right, twitched his ear, and looked deprecatingly towards Mr Kent, who quickly came to his aid by saying, "I am glad to talk this matter over; there are undoubtedly imperfections in the Sabbath-school, which need rectifying." "Yes, yes, exactly so !" cried Mr Smith, interrupting the speaker with a grateful acquiescence, "so do I, Mr Kent! I am glad to hear you say so. So do I! Great imperfections! It does not accomplish what it ought to do. Nursery of the church, some call it. A very disorderly nursery, I am thinking." "Ah, but you have not heard me out," said the young merchant, smiling at Mr Smith's eagerness. "May not all these imperfections be removed, or at least greatly obviated, by a deep genuine interest in his work, on the part of every Sabbath-school teacher?" "That's what I say exactly, Mr Kent. There is a want of interest on the part of both teachers and scholars!" exclaimed Smith. Anderson now left, to the great apparent relief of the visitor. "The former proprietors of your establishment did an excellent business, did they not ?" asked Kent. |