Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

bers and influence. A church may be made up of men of wealth, men of intellect, men of power, high-born men, and men of rank and fashion; and being so composed, may be in a worldly sense a very strong church. There are many things that such a church can do. It can launch ships and endow seminaries. It can diffuse intelligence, can uphold the cause of benevolence, can maintain an imposing array of forms and religious activities. It can build splendid temples, can rear a magnificent pile, and adorn its front with sculptures, and lay stone upon stone, and heap ornament upon ornament, till the costliness of the altar shall keep any poor man from entering the portal. But, my brethren, I will tell you one thing it cannot do-it cannot shine. It may glitter and blaze, like an iceberg in the sun, but without inward holiness it cannot shine. Of all that is formal and material in Christianity, it may make a splendid manifestation, but it cannot shine. It may turn almost everything into gold at its touch; but it cannot touch the heart. It may lift up its marble front, and pile tower upon tower, and mountain upon mountain; but it cannot touch the mountains, and they shall smoke; it cannot do Christ's work in man's conversion. It is dark in itself, and cannot diffuse light. It is cold at heart, and has no overflowing and subduing influences to pour out upon the lost. And with all its strength, that church is weak, and for Christ's peculiar work worthless. And with all its glitter of gorgeous array, it is a dark church-it cannot shine.

"On the contrary, show me a church, poor, illiterate, obscure, unknown, but composed of praying people, they shall

be men of neither power, nor wealth, nor influence; they shall be families that do not know one week where they are to get their bread for the next; but with them is the hiding of God's power, and their influence is felt for eternity, and their light shines and is watched, and wherever they go there is a fountain of light, and Christ in them is glorified, and his kingdom advanced. They are his chosen vessels of salvation, and his luminaries to reflect his light."-Vol. I. p. 70.

A BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE TO A

WIFE.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH was married early in life, before he had attained fortune or fame, to Miss Catherine Stuart, a young Scotch lady, distinguished more for the excellence of her character than for her personal charms. After eight years of happy wedded life, during which she became the mother of three children, she died. A few days after her death, the bereaved husband wrote to a friend, depicting the cha racter of his wife in the following terms: "I was guided," he observes, "in my choice only by the blind affec tion of my youth. I found an intelligent companion and a tender friend, a prudent monitress, the most faithful of wives, and a mother as tender as children ever had the misfortune to lose. I met a woman, who, by the tender management of my weaknesses, gradually corrected the most pernicious of them. She became prudent from affection; and though of the most generous nature, she was taught frugality and economy by her love for me. During the most critical period of my life, she preserved order in my affairs,

from the care of which she relieved me. She gently reclaimed me from dissipation; she propped my weak and irresolute nature; she urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been useful and creditable to me; and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my heedlessness or improvidence. To her I owe whatever I am; to her whatever I shall be. In her solicitude for my interest, she never for a moment forgot my feelings, or my character. Even in her occasional resentment, for which I but too often gave her cause, (would to God I could recall those moments!) she had no sullenness nor acrimony. Her feelings were warm and impetuous, but she was placable, tender, and constant. Such was she whom I have lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast together, and moulded our tempers to each other; when a knowledge of her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, and before age had deprived it of much of its original ardour. I lost her, alas! the choice of my youth, the partner of my misfortunes, at a moment when I had the prospect of her sharing my better days."

qualities and lively temperament, but who made no pretensions to religion. As I rose to take leave, she said, 'I am going to the city next Tuesday, but shall return the same day, and have invited a few friends to visit us; will you come?' I gladly accepted the invitation, and we parted.

"In a few hours she was taken suddenly ill, her symptoms grew more alarming, and she was told she could not live. I went in to see her. The expression of her countenance was that of the deepest agony. She was crying to God for mercy. I have not thought of my soul, but have lived for time,' she said, and it is right I should receive the doom that awaits me.' Not a ray of hope beamed on the dark cloud that surrounded her. She would not hear of mercy. In this state of despair, with her mental powers in vigorous exercise, crying aloud in anguish of soul, she died. On Tuesday, the day she had set, she was carried into the city for burial."

Is not such a fact enough to arouse any one who is delaying repentance, neglecting the calls of mercy, and abusing Gospel light, to seek the salvation so freely offered in the Gospel?

AFFECTING SCENE.

"I HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF MY A PASTOR, Rev. E. K. F., details the

[blocks in formation]

circumstances of a visit to the dying bed of an aged sinner in Rhode Island, who, to his tender inquiry if he had an interest in Christ, replied with great agitation and weeping, "When I was a young man, I was under deep religious impressions. I felt it my duty to be a Christian; but I was young. I deferred until a future time, and here I am without a hope. Sir, will you pray for me?" In this state of mind he died.

Biography.

SOME ACCOUNT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY OLD WOMAN.

On the day on which the census was taken last year, died Mrs. JANE HERDMAN, of Stagshawbank, near Hexham, at the astonishing age of 106 years. The writer, being also one of the enumerators, having been made acquainted with this case of extreme longevity, and judging that she could not survive much longer, in the February of last year thought it worth while walking about ten miles to have an interview with the old dame. He found her seated by the fireside, supported in part by a bar across the front of her chair. She had the appearance of being quite as old as was reported, her features bore the peculiar impress of extreme age-the receding mouth, the approximating nose and chin-yet she had 66 toddled about the doors" till within a few months, when a fall disabled her. Fearing to tire her with much talk, yet desirous of hearing her own statement respecting her age, the question was distinctly put, "How old are you?" to which she answered, "A hundred and six at Candlemas," which term had just gone by. Indeed she could not be much less, as she had a widowed daughter in the house with her in her 84th year; a hale and active

woman.

Refraining from saying much to her, Mrs. Herdman presently rallied, and of her own accord began reciting several lengthy portions of scripture, both from the Old and the New Testament; amongst others the prayer of Habbakkuk, and the parable of the ten virgins; but particularly, and with emphasis, the 23rd psalm, in the Scottish version.

Gathering from statements made in conversation, that some of these, and the verses especially, had been learnt by heart in very tender years, there appeared good reason to believe that this beautiful inscription had been made on the human memory a century ago, and there it remained, and was audibly and correctly repeated a hundred years after. Surely we may learn from this the importance of storing the youthful mind with scriptural treasures, which, like seed cast upon the waters, may be found after many, many days. Long after the faculty had lost its power over facts of recent occurrence, did it continue to supply from its ancient cells, the salutary stores which had been deposited there in the joyous days of infancy. Truly a fine thing it is, and a rare, to hear a centenarian say,

"Goodness and mercy, all my life,

Have surely followed me;" and pleasant it was to hear one who had survived all her contemporaries, and nearly all the succeeding genera tion, still tenderly recurring to the scenes of her early youth; and in particular dwelling on the alleged excellencies of her parents, themselves at the time in their vigour.

Jane Hudson (Mrs. Herdman's mai den name) had been born in the district of North Tyne, near Fallstone, in Northumberland, and had been brought up amongst Presbyterians, who form a considerable portion of the popula tion in localities so near the Scottish border. This form of religion extensively prevails in the district referred

to, and in various small towns and villages there are churches of this order of long standing. We wish we could speak more favourably of them as churches diffusing the light of life, and their ministers as alive to the responsibility of their office. We fear in too many cases the stipend and the manse occupy too much the mind of the minister; whilst cold formality, notwithstanding a scriptural creed and considerable head knowledge, characterizes the people.

Jane Hudson's parents, from being farm servants, came to keep a country alehouse, in a district too where contraband spirits were diffused. It must be difficult, if at all practicable, to maintain the life of religion in any measure amid such an occupation as that of a public-house, yet we have known several professing Christians make the hazardous experiment. Members, and even deacons of churches, have been found carrying on the sale of deleterious drinks, and have persuaded themselves they were in the path of duty. We believe they were blinded in their judgment, and themselves great sufferers by the pernicious traffic. In the case of the subject of this obituary, she married and removed to Stagshawbank, the far-famed site of one of the greatest fairs in the north of England, where the long continued

with her family to participate, in connection with farming occupations, in the calling or traffic to which she had been brought up. Old age had however long laid her aside from any active participation in that business or any other. In her character we have not found much to admire, beyond the remains of esteem for the Bible and other good books, which had been implanted in her earliest years; not many exemplary traits, beside the commendable habit of frequent quotations from the Holy Scriptures and devotional treatises. On being asked if she entertained a comfortable hope at the end of her long pilgrimage, of being received into "the house of the Lord for ever," her answer was not just what one could have wished to hear, but rather indicated presumption; she said,

[ocr errors][merged small]

Popery.

ROME AND THE BIBLE.

WE are utterly amazed at the way in which some people talk on the subject of Popery, representing it as one of the many sections of the Church of Christ, when there is nothing of Christ about

J. R.

it at all. Its very name shows that it is the reverse of all that is Christian, or that belongs to Christ,-that it is not only in a state of opposition to his kingdom, but of the bitterest enmity

against his person! Its name is descriptive of its nature. Is it not designated Anti-Christ ? that is, a thing in all respects at variance with Christhostile to Christ! Call Popery what you will, therefore, but call it not a section of the Christian Church. It is no more that than a section of the heavenly world. The spirit which rules in it is not the Spirit of God, but the spirit of the Evil One. One fact ought to be decisive of the character and the claims of Popery and its priesthood. Throughout the whole world, do not its priests array themselves against the Word of God? To the utmost of their power, do they not labour to prevent the circulation of the Sacred Scriptures, which alone are able to make men wise unto salvation? Were their power equal to their will, would there be in the hands of the people a single copy of the Old and New Testaments? Now, this one fact, in our judgment, suffices for their condemnation. To oppose the Bible is to oppose everything good. To withhold the Bible is to withhold from a perish ing world the bread of life. The priests are fully aware that the Bible and Popery are wholly incompatible with each other, and that they cannot coexist. A faithful preacher of the doctrines of the Bible is justly a dreaded object to the priesthood, but the Bible itself is still more an object of their aversion. Not only does it supply them with materials for demolishing the citadel of Antichrist, but in itself it is a power, wherever it finds a place in the hands of a sane man. Many of the most noted converts to the Christian faith-and among them the immortal Luther himself-have been made directly by the perusal of the

inspired pages, without note or comment.

[ocr errors]

The Rev. Dr. Wilkes, Independent Minister, of Montreal, in a recent meeting, gave several instances of the effects of the Bible in Canada. A colporteur once came to a Catholic, and asked him if he would buy a Bible. No, I don't want your Bible; I have my priest, and that is enough." "Well, don't get angry; shall I not read a chapter out of the Bible ?" Yes." So he read the chapter and went on his way. Ten years afterwards a man came to a missionary and asked him most searching and intelligent questions about the Bible. He stated that a colporteur had come to him, read a chapter of the Bible, and one verse stuck into his mind. He tried to shake it out, but could not. Then he went to a priest, who told him to dismiss the subject at once, but this he could not do. At last he procured a New Testament, and studied it. Hence his visit to the missionary. The result was his conversion, which was to be traced back to the simple reading of a chapter in the New Testament.

Cases of this description are supplied in every country. We have a curious illustration of the quickening power of the Book of books, in the life of a Spanish monk. The narrative proceeds:

"On my way I passed through Thiers. I did not meet any of my countrymen there; yet I think it will not be uninteresting to give a short account of the manner in which that place was reformed, and the zeal of those who forsook the yoke of Rome to enlist under the standard of the Gospel.

"Two years before, the state of the

« ForrigeFortsæt »