ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE AND CHRISTIAN ENJOYMENT. 47 little Alice, and bent over her cradle to catch every whisper she uttered, I saw that she must die. I was almost frantic. I held her wasted hand in mine, and felt the last ebbings of life. She was gone-I was childless!" "I tremble now when I think what were my emotions at this time. God forgive me for cherishing them. For days, weeks, my heart refused to bow, and I know of no sin of my whole life for which I am so deeply penitent as for this. But the Spirit of God, I trust-I know—at length kindly removed the veil from my eyes, and showed me that it was almighty love that severed my idol from my embrace. I saw it, oh, how clearly! Tears, which till then had refused to flow, came to my relief. I was melted, subdued. I was not only reconciled to my loss, but I blessed God that his hand had inflicted the stroke; and thousands of times since, I have looked back upon this bereavement as one of the richest blessings that heaven ever bestowed upon me; for I can, with sincerity, I trust, utter the language of the Psalmist: 'Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy word."" The Casket. ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE AND CHRISTIAN ENJOYMENT. We cannot agree with Dr. Young, that "it is impious in a good man to be sad," though we are satisfied that much of his sadness might often be easily banished. One mode of doing this, is active benevolence. "Assurance," says President Edwards, "is not to be obtained so much by self-examination, as by action." The assertion is equally true of Christian enjoyment, which flows from this assurance. This was the course adopted by Howard the philanthropist. His rule for shaking off trouble was, "Set about doing good. Put on your hat, and go and visit the sick and the poor in the neighbourhood;-inquire into their wants, and minister to them;-seek out the desolate and the oppressed, and tell them of the consolations of religion. I have often tried this method," he adds, "and have always found it the best medicine for a heavy heart." The prescription is a good one; and others as well as Howard, may find a remedy for trouble in active benevolence, -in going about doing good. This will dissipate that sickly and morbid sensibility which broods in secret sadness over real or imaginary sorrows,-which so often obscure the brightness of the good man's days, and shuts out from his soul the cheering light of heaven. This, if in vigorous exercise, will leave us no time for the indulgence of gloomy reveries, or desponding forebodings. This will call forth those sympathies of our nature which are most conducive to our enjoyment as social beings. This will show us the reality and extent of our own blessings, by their contrast with the woes of others. This will multiply our positive pleasures, and will sweeten them with all that joy which flows from the thought that we have rendered others happy. This too, by its very exercise, will afford more and more of that evidence of piety which is found in the zealous and faithful discharge of duty, and thus also will increase our en joyments. This, in short, if performed in a right spirit, is active holiness, with which, in the economy of Providence, happiness is ever connected. So it has ever been found, in every age of the world. Howard-to whom allusion has been made-in the early part of his manhood was very much disposed to gloom and despondency; and he did not gain habitual cheerfulness, but by doing good. Paul did not win the full assurance of his title to a bright inheritance in the skies by musing in sadness upon his secret sorrows. It was when ocucpied with active usefulness, that he attained to a clear and cloudless hope of his acceptance with Christ. And many a desponding mourning child of God, by imitating the apostle's active benevolence, might realize, in his own experience, much of the apostle's exalted Christian enjoy ments. "Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief? Or is thy heart oppressed by woes untold? Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief? Pour blessing round thee, like a shower of gold. 'Tis when the rose is wrapt in many a fold, Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there Its life and beauty; not, when all unrolled, Leaf after leaf, its bosom rich and fair Breathes freely its perfumes, throughout the ambient air. Rouse to some work of high and holy love, And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; Shalt bless the earth; while, in the world above, The good by thee begun shall onward flow, In many a branching stream and wider grow. The seed, that in these few and fleeting hours Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow, Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, And yield thee fruits divine, in heaven's immortal bowers." THOUGHTS AND MAXIMS. If any person solicit thee to ease or deliver thyself by a breach or wound of thy conscience, he is about to clip of that lock wherein, next under God, thy strength lieth.-Sir M. Hale. Nothing so much converts the pillars of the church into reeds shaken with the wind, as the desire of their own glory. Ecolampadius. He who serves God in order that he may enjoy something else than God, actually worships, not God, but that which he desires to obtain.-Augustine. Holy Scripture is a garden and also a paradise; it abounds in flowers, which not only yield fragrance, but also bear fruit for the nourishing of the soul. They who study the Scriptures aright are like men who dig deep in search of metals in the bowels of the earth; they look for the bed where the metal lies, and break every clod, and sift and examine the whole, in order to discover the ore.-Chrysostom. The exact transition from the natural coldness and indifference of the human heart towards God, to a sincere and heartfelt love, is generally concealed; the observer is like the geologist who passes from a sterile granite region to a fertile alluvion; the change of formation is obvious and decided enough, but the actual point of junc tion is concealed by the coverings of soil and vegetation.-Jacob Abbott. The presumptuous intermeddling of worldly unsanctified spirits with ecclesiastical concerns, has been the source of almost every error in doctrine, and enormity in practice, that has deformed the profession of Christianity.-Robert Hall. Many ministers are more chargeable with concealing truth, than affirming direct errors, with not properly building the house than wilfully pulling it down.Witherspoon. Uneducated mind is educated vice.Beecher. A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.-Pope. He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.-Tillotson. Reason requires culture to expand it. It resembles the fire concealed in the flint, which only shews itself when struck with the steel.-Gerdil's Reflections. ODD MINUTES. If any man were to sum up the number of minutes which are wasted, some in arriving too early at an appointment, some in the ten minutes before dinner, others in the intervals of various avocations, and many in the simple question of "Well, and what shall we do?" they would generally make up the aggregate of a short life in themselves. We do not here allude to the hours mispent in useless occupation, and which are sometimes worse than wasted, because the occupations bring results which mere idleness could not do, but to those minutes which are actually passed in doing nothing. This is really an extraordinary anomaly in life, since time is considered by each one as his best treasure; many live by its proper use; all regret the quickness of its passage, yet everybody neglects it; and most persons spend their lives in attempting to increase its rapidity, at the very moment they are dreading its end. These odd minutes, and quarters of hours, are like the corn left by the reaper, when he makes up his sheaves-only that they are so completely wasted that no one can glean them. Every man, therefore, aye, and woman too -for women's time is quite as valuable as men's, whatever we lords of the creation may say should contrive to be his own gleaner of these stray moments; and though they may not turn to much advantage in THE IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS. the great amount of his time, he will find that the proper use of them will produce very profitable thoughts, and lay up many pleasant reminiscences. Those moments and quarters of hours are looked upon as nothing separately-- but add them together; sum them up; and at the end of only one year we should be frightened at their amount; and be astonished at the immense portion of our lives which they occupy. The difficulty, we know, that people find, is what to do with these odds and ends of time—and this period is passed in saying "What shall I do?" and comes to an end before the determination. We would advise everybody to have some general work, either of thought or action on hand, not connected with the general business of their lives-some under current of occupation—to which they could always turn in those periods, which the want of punctuality in others, or the intervals of our own more serious occupations, afford. DEATH. 49 THE life of man is the inccessable walk of time, wherein every moment is a step and pace to death. Even our growing to perfection is a progress to decay. Every thought we have is a sand running out of the glass of life. Every letter that I now write is something cut off from the measure of my being here. When the affections are glued to the world, death makes not a dissolution, but a fracture; and not only separates the soul, but tears it away. So the pain and the hazard are more. He is a happy man that lives so, as death at all times may find him at leisure to die. It were a shame for me, being a Christian, and believing Heaven, to be afraid of removing from earth. In resolving thus, I shall triumph over other casualties. All things that we fear here, we fear as steps that descend us towards our graves, towards non-existence and deprivation. When we get the victory over this great terror, all the small ones are conquered in it. Great cities once expunged, the dorps and villages will soon come in of themselves.-Feltham. Parental Monitor. THE IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS. The tendency of mankind to underrate the importance of little things, has ever been manifest to observing minds. Hence many of the sage maxims of our "proverbial philosophy," such as "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves;" "Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves." The principle is established by all past experience, that he who would be rich, must treat the pence with respectful regard; he who would be wise, must improve the minutes; he who would succeed in any enterprise, must bestow careful attention upon the minute details, the little things embraced in that enterprise. This law of success embraces every sphere of action, and few have been the failures, in any undertaking, which may not be traced to its violation. If careful attention to minute details, and a wise estimate of the importance, of little things, form an essential, though often unrecorded, part of the history of every suc cessful enterprise pre-eminently is this true of the heaven-appointed mission intrusted to the mother. Yet how often is this truth overlooked by those whom it most deeply concerns. How often do mothers lament in the aggregate, what they entirely overlook in the detail. A mother will lecture her child at night, upon the evil of indulging in indolent habits, when, during the day, she has not presented to his mind one motive calculated to stimulate him to persevering industry. She will inveigh against his careless and disor derly habits, in the mass, while each individual instance of indulgence in such habits is suffered to pass unnoticed. To illustrate this too common, yet fatal error, we will suppose an instance. A mother laments the manifestations of a growing spirit of selfishness in her son. She sees him continually sacrificing the convenience and happiness of others on the alter of his own selfish gratification, and her heart is pained. She admonishes him, in general terms, of the evils of selfishness, of its unhappy effects upon himself and others, and endeavours to impress upon his 50 THE RIGHT FOR ITS OWN SAKE. mind the duty of a benevolent regard for the happiness of his fellow men. She seeks the blessing of God upon her admonitions, and prays that her son may be baptized with the spirit of gospel benevolence, and learn to "do to others as he would that they should do to him." Perhaps she wonders that her prayers are not heard, as she waits, in vain,to see a change for the better of her son. Now why are not her efforts crowned with success? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he failed to bless that mother while using the proper instrumentalities to develope in her son right moral habits? By no means. The truth is, the proper means have not been employed. What would such a mother think of the husbandman who should only plough his field, and then fold his hands, expecting the dew and rain of heaven to accomplish the rest; or having put in the seed should leave it to be choked with weeds, and then wonder why his harvest is not as plentiful as that gathered in by his neighbours ? But the course she adopts, in the field of moral culture, much resembles this. In making use of admonition, she has used only one of the instrumentalities God has placed in her hands for the moral training of her child. Let her look back but a single day, and she will doubtless find many golden opportunities for inculcating lessons of practical benevolence, which she has neglected. And why neglected? Probably because she has never seriously estimated the important bearing of little things, in shaping the character, and forming the habits of her child. Perhaps her child has been expressing his admiration of some noble act of disinterested benevolence. What an opportunity was then presented to impress upon his mind the beauty and worth of benevolence which prompted the act, and urge upon him the importance of making it his own principle of action, contrasting it with the base principle of selfishness, which he too often permits to govern him. It may be she has promised him some personal gratification as the reward of diligence in study or labour, when for this she might have substituted the permission to carry some little luxury to the chamber of sickness, or perform some act of kindness to the suffering. The pleasure which such little benevolent ministrations never fail to bring to the heart of a child, would have given him a practical exemplification of the truth, "that it is more blessed to give than receive ;" and thus one decisive blow would have been struck at the root of his selfish habits. Or he has performed some act of kindness which has cost him no little self-denial, and she has failed to notice it with look or word of approbation. THE RIGHT FOR ITS OWN SAKE. "James, you must not get over that fence," said Mrs. Mason to her son, who was with her on a visit to her sister, Mrs, Ward; "it is not right that you should do so." "I know it, mother; I am only going to look over,' said James. "You had better get down," said Mrs. Mason. James did so at once. The fence in question separated the yard in which James was playing from a peach orchard, which the owner had forbidden any one to enter. The trees were loaded with fine ripe peaches, and James thought that he would climb to the top of the fence and look at them. He had no thought whatever of taking any of them. He knew it would not be right. Still he was wise in promptly following the advice of his mother It caused him to avoid temptation. We are not only to resist temptation, but to avoid it whenever duty will permit. "I observe sister," said Mrs. Ward, "that you never say anything to your son about the consequences of disobedience." "I have taught him the fact, that sin will be punished; but I have avoided making mention of the penalty every time that I gave a command. I do not think it wise to be dwelling constantly upon the penalty of disobedience. I think it interferes with the developement of the true principle of obedience. It makes the impression upon the mind of the child, that obedience is to be rendered solely to avoid the penalty of disobedience. That impression I deem a very unhappy one.” "Suppose you tell him he must not do a thing, and he asks you the reason why he must not ?" "I should judge from the circumstances of the case, whether it was best to give him a reason or not. I have laboured to teach him the fact that a thing, is wrong is a sufficient reason why he should not do it. I have always gone upon the assumption that I could give no higher reason, why he should do a thing than the fact that it is RIGHT. I believe we are to teach our children that they are under obligation to do right, and avoid doing wrong, irrespective of the reward in the one case, and the penalty in the other." |