Glass BMASOl Book >H ?7 LiOS!{ ; I86'3 % *M M-Q TO BE KEFi. ^ £ , N - H. ~^s^- LIFE IN EARNEST. Printed by Ballantyne & Company, Edinburgh. LIFE IN EARNEST. fefr %zttim$ ON CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY AND ARDOUR. NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS ; FERVENT IN SPIRIT ; 5ERVING THE LORD. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. NEW EDITION. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 1863. - L^lX^i ~*p- ****** \ ft 1 TO THE lu'riufecggtort artti Congregation OF THE NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH, REGENT SQUARE. My dear Friends, In the absence of sufficient personal intercourse, I felt desirous of sending to your several homes a word in season at the open- ing of this year ; and, as an appropriate re- membrancer at such a time, I have selected the following familiar Lectures. In printing them I thought it best to retain the homely style in which you first made their acquaint- vi Dedication. ance a few Sabbaths ago.* Should others not like such plainness of speech, I can at least cal- culate on your toleration. And here, my friends, were it not the restrain- ing thought that colder eyes than yours may look upon these pages, there are many things I would like to say. I would like to commemorate some of the mercies which have crowned the three years and a half during which we have wor- shipped together ; and I would like to give you some idea of my own affection for you. To the elders for counsel never asked nor adopted in vain — to both elders and deacons for days and portions of the night devoted to labours of love, which but for their painstaking could never have been accomplished — to the self-denying teachers of the Sabbath school and of the week- evening class — and to all who have contributed their willing aid in various schemes of useful- ness — I would tender a pastor's warmest grati- tude. And I would like to mention with thanks- giving to God two things which have made my own heart often glad — the harmony of our * They were delivered as part of a Course of Lectures on the Romans, on the morning and evening of Sabbaths, Nov. 17, and 24, and Dec. 1, 1844- Dedication. vii Church, and the happiness of your abodes. Seldom does a day transpire without seeing as much in-door comfort and tranquillity — as much mutual affection of heads of families, and pa- rents and children, and brothers and sisters — with so evident an aspect of God's blessing on many homes, as are an unspeakable delight to me. Does not God's goodness in this respect often strike yourselves, and make you sing the twenty-third psalm ? " My table thou hast furnished In presence of my foes ; My head thou dost with oil anoint, And my cup overflows. " Goodness and mercy all my life Shall surely follow me ; And in God's house for evermore My dwelling-place shall be." And in some measure the result of domestic piety and peace, I here record with gratitude, our congregational harmony. Sure enough we have hitherto dwelt together in unity ; and as I can truly say for my brethren, your office-bearers, that our anxiety is your edification, so has your "order" been our "joy." But whilst the acknowledgment of God's goodness is the delightful employment of a viii Dedication, closing year, it is no less incumbent, with an opening year, to consider what more we can do for the God of our mercies in the days to come. As a Church, we have congregational duties, and each member of the Church has personal duties. Let your minister remind you of some of these. i. Let this new year be a year of greater activity. Be diligent in your proper callings, in seeking personal improvement, and in doing good. Ply your daily employments in a Christian spirit, doing nothing by constraint or grudgingly, but adorning the doctrine of God your Saviour by your patient, sprightly, and thoroughgoing industry. Seek personal improvement. Give yourselves to the reading of instructive and religious books ; and when friends meet let them strive to give the conversation a profitable turn, and one which may minister to the use of edify- ing. The Young Men's Society is an incentive to study and an outlet for the results of reading ; and those young men who are desirous of mutual improvement should all be members of it. Engage in some direct effort to do good. Seek to leave the world the better for your sojourn in it. Whatever you attempt, endeavour to do it so thoroughly, and follow it up so resolutely, Dedication. Ix that the result shall be ascertained and evident. And in your attempts at usefulness, be not only- conscientious but enthusiastic. Love the work. Redeem the time. Remember that the Lord is at hand. 2. Let this new year be a year of greater liberality. There are some objects to which of late you have given very largely ; and there are those amongst you who give to every object freely, and with a self-denying generosity. But by a little systematic forethought and contriv- ance, begun now and carried through the year, many might double their contributions without at all abridging their real enjoyments. The maxim, " I can do without it," if all Regent Square acted on it for a single year, might build a school or send out a missionary. If all the money which you children spend on cakes and toys, and which we grown-up people spend on play-things and parties, were put into the Lord's treasury, we should have as much as we wanted for all our congregational purposes, and a great deal over to help our neighbours. And whilst some are striving how much they can do, let others strive how much they can give to the cause of Christ this year. Those who excel in x Dedication. the one are likely to excel in the other : for just as those who have too little faith to give, have usually too little fervour to work ; so the hardest workers are usually the largest givers. 3. Let this be a year of greater spirituality. As the holy Joseph Alleine wrote from Ilchester prison to his flock at Taunton, " Beloved Chris- tians, live like yourselves ; let the world see that the promises of God, and privileges of the gospel, are not empty sounds, or a mere crack. Let the heavenly cheerfulness, and the restless diligence, and the holy raisedness of your conversations, prove the reality, and excellency, and beauty of your religion to the world." Aim at an elevated life. Seek to live so near to God that you shall not be overwhelmed by those amazing sorrows which you may soon encounter, nor surprised by that decease which may come upon you in a moment, suddenly. Let prayer never be a form. Always realise it as an approach to the living God for some specific purpose ; and learn to watch for the returns of prayer. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly. That sleep will be sweet and that awaking hallowed, where a text of Scrip- ture, or a stanza of a spiritual song, imbues the last thoughts of consciousness. See that you make Dedication. xi progress. See that when the year is closing, you have not all the evil tempers and infirmities of character which presently afflict you ; but see to it that, if permitted to set up the Ebenezer of an- other closing year, you may be able to lookback on radiant spots where you enjoyed seasons of spiritual refreshing and victories over enemies heretofore too strong for you. Happy new year ! if its path should prove so bright and its progress so vivid, that in a future retrospect your eye could fix on many a Bethel and Peniel along its track, and your grateful memory could say, " Yonder is the grave where I buried a long-besetting sin, and that stone of memorial marks where God made me to triumph over a fierce temptation through Jesus Christ. Yonder Sabbath was the top of the hill where I clasped the cross and the burden fell off my back ; and that communion was the land of Beulah, where I saw the far-off land and the King in his beauty." My dear friends, it is a blessed thing to know the Saviour, to feel that your soul is safe. You have been in a ship when it entered the harbour, and you have noticed the different looks of the passengers as they turned their eyes ashore. There was one who, that he might not lose a xii Dedication. moment's time, had got everything ready for landing long ago ; and now he smiles and beckons to yonder party on the pier, who, in their turn, are so eager to meet him that they almost press over the margin of the quay ; and no sooner is the gangway thrown across than he has hold of the arm of one, and another is triumphant on his shoulder, and all the rest are leaping before and after him on their home- ward way. But there was another, who shewed no alacrity. He gazed with pensive eye on the nearer coast, and seemed to grudge that the trip was over. He was a stranger, going amongst strangers ; and though sometimes dur- ing the voyage he had a momentary hope that something unexpected might occur, and that some friendly face might recognise him in regions where he was going an alien and an adventurer ; no such welcoming face is there, and with re- luctant steps he quits the vessel, and commits himself to the unknown country. And now that every one else has disembarked, who is this unhappy man whom they have brought on deck, and whom, groaning in his heavy chains, they are conducting to the dreaded shore ? Alas ! he is a felon and a runaway, whom they Dedication. xiii are bringing back to take his trial there ; and no wonder he is loath to land. Now, dear brethren, our ship is sailing fast. We shall soon hear the rasping on the shallows, and the commotion overhead, which bespeak the port in view. When it comes to that, how shall you feel ? Are you a stranger, or a convict, or are you going home ? Can you say, " I know whom I have believed ?" Have you a Friend within the veil ? And however much you may enjoy the voyage, and however much you may like your fellow-passengers, does your heart sometimes leap up at the prospect of seeing Jesus as He is, and so being ever with the Lord ? The Lord send you a happy, a holy, and a useful year ! Accept this little token of your pastor's wish to help your faith and joy ; and believe me Your ever-affectionate Minister, James Hamilton. January i, 1845. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE INDUSTRY, I LECTURE II. INDUSTRY, ....... l6 LECTURE III. AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS, . . . .32 LECTURE IV. A FERVENT SPIRIT, . . . . . • 47 LECTURE V. THE THREEFOLD CORD, 63 LECTURE VI. A WORD TO EACH AND TO ALL— CONCLUSION, . 8 1 NOTES, 107 INDEX, .111 LECTURE I. INDUSTRY. ' Not slothful in hzcsiness." — Rom. xii. n. Two things are very certain, — that we have all got a work to do, and are all, more or less, in- disposed to do it : in other words, every man has a calling, and most men have a greater or less amount of indolence, which disinclines them for the work of that calling. Many men would have liked the gospel all the better if it had entirely repealed the sentence, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread," — had it proclaimed a final emancipation from industry, and turned our world into a merry playground or luxurious dormitory. But this is not what the gospel does. It does not abolish labour ; it gives it a new and a nobler aspect. The gospel abolishes labour much in the same way as it has abolished death ; it leaves the thing, but changes its nature. The gospel a hidnstry. sweetens the believer's work : it gives him new motives for performing it. The gospel dignifies toil : it transforms it from the drudgery of the workhouse or the penitentiary, to the affec- tionate offices and joyful services of the fire- side and the family circle. It asks us to do for the sake of Christ many things which we were once compelled to bear as a portion of the curse, and which worldly men perform for selfish and secondary reasons. " Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Children, obey your parents in all things,, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ." The gospel has not superseded diligence. " Study to be quiet and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. If any man will not work, neither let him eat." It is men- tioned as almost the climax of sin, " And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house ; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy-bodies, speaking things which Actinice. they ought not ; " as, on the other hand, the healthy and right-conditioned state of a soul is, " Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." I. This precept is violated by those who have no business at all. By the bounty of God's providence, some are in such a situation that they do not need to toil for a subsistence ; they go to bed when they please, and get up when they can sleep no longer, and they do with themselves whatever they like ; and though we dare not say that theirs is the happiest life, it certainly is the easiest. But it will neither be a lawful life nor a happy one, unless it have some work in hand, some end in view. Those of you who are familiar with the shore, may have seen attached to the inundated reef a creature, whether a plant or animal you could scarcely tell, rooted to the rock as a plant might be, and twirling its long tentacles as an animal would do. This plant-animal's life is somewhat monotonous, for it has nothing to do but grow and twirl its feelers, floating in the tide, or folding itself upon its foot-stalk when that tide has receded, for months and years together. Now, would it not be very dismal to be trans- formed into a zoophyte ? Would it not be an awful punishment, with your human soul still in you, to be anchored to a rock, able to do nothing but spin about your arms or fold them 4 Industry. up again, and knowing no variety, except when the receding ocean left you in the daylight, or the returning waters plunged you into the green depths again, or the sweeping tide brought you the prize of a young periwinkle or an invisible star-fish ? But what better is the life you are spontaneously leading ? What greater variety marks your existence than chequers the life of the sea-anemone ? Does not one day float over you after another, just as the tide floats over it, and find you much the same, and leave you vegetating still ? Are you more useful ? What real service to others did you render yesterday ? What tangible amount of occupation did you overtake in the one hundred and sixty-eight hours of which last week consisted? And what higher end in living have you than that polypus ? You go through certain mechanical routines of rising, and dressing, and visiting, and dining, and going to sleep again ; and are a little roused from your usual lethargy by the arrival of a friend, or the effort needed to write some note of ceremony. But as it curtseys in the waves, and vibrates its exploring arms, and gorges some dainty medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly the same round of pursuits and enjoyments with your intelligent and immortal self. Is this a life for a rational and responsible creature to lead ? II. But this precept is also violated by those The Swallow. 5 who are diligent in trifles, — whose activity is a busy idleness. You may be very earnest in a pursuit which is utterly beneath your preroga- tive as an intelligent creature, and your high destination as an immortal being. Pursuits which are perfectly proper in creatures destitute of reason, may be very culpable in those who not only have reason, but are capable of enjoy- ments above the range of reason itself. We this instant imagined a man retaining all his consciousness transformed into a zoophyte. Let us imagine another similar transformation ; fancy that, instead of a polypus, you were changed into a swallow. There you have a crea- ture abundantly busy, up in the early morning, for ever on the wing, as graceful and sprightly in his flight as he is tasteful in the haunts which he selects. Look at him, zigzagging over the clover field, skimming the limpid lake, whisking round the steeple, or dancing gaily in the sky. Behold him in high spirits, shrieking out his ecstasy as he has bolted a dragon-fly, or darted through the arrow-slits of the old turret, or performed some other feat of hirundine agility. And notice how he pays his morning visits, alighting elegantly on some house-top, and twittering politely by turns to the swallow on either side of him, and after five minutes' conversation, off and away to caii for his friend at the castle. And now he has gone upon his 6 Industry. travels, gone to spend the winter at Rome or Naples, to visit Egypt or the Holy Land, or perform some more recherchi pilgrimage to Spain or the coast of Barbary. And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad ;— charming climate— highly de- lighted with the cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus ; — locusts in Africa rather scarce this season ; but upon the whole much pleased with his trip, and returned in high health and spirits. Now, dear friends, this is a very proper life for a bird of the air, but is it a life for you ? To flit about from house to house ; to pay futile visits, where, if the talk were written down, it would amount to little more than the chattering of a swallow ; to bestow all your thoughts on graceful attitudes and nimble movements and polished attire ; to roam from land to land with so little information in your head, or so little taste for the sublime or beautiful in your soul, that, could a swallow publish his travels, and did you publish yours, we should probably find the one a counterpart of the other ; the winged traveller enlarging on the discomforts of his nest, and the wingless one on the miseries of his hotel or his chateau , you describing the places of amusement, or enlarging on the vast- ness of the country and the abundance of the game, and your rival eloquent on the self-same things. Oh ! it is a thought, not ridiculous, The Book of Remembrance. 7 but appalling. If the earthly history of some of our brethren were written down ; if a faithful record were kept of the way they spend their time ; if all the hours of idle vacancy or idler occupancy were put together, and the very small amount of useful diligence deducted, the life of a beast of the field or a fowl of the firma- ment would be a truer one — more worthy of its powers and more equal to its Creator's end in forming it. Such a register is kept. Though the trifler does not chronicle his own vain words and wasted hours they chronicle them- selves. They find their indelible place in that book of remembrance with which human hand cannot tamper, and from which no erasure save one can blot them out. They are noted in the memory of God. And when once this life of wondrous opportunities and awful advantages is over — when the twenty or fifty years of pro- bation are fled away — when mortal existence, with its facilities for personal improvement and serviceableness to others, is gone beyond recall — when the trifler looks back to the long pilgrim- age, with all the doors of hope and doors of usefulness past which he skipped in his frisky forgetfulness — what anguish will it move to think that he has gambolled through such a world without salvation to himself, without any real benefit to his brethren, a busy trifler, a vivacious idler, a clever fool ! 8 Industry. III. Those violate this precept who have a lawful calling, a proper business, but are sloth- ful in it. When people are in business for themselves, they are in less risk of transgressing this injunction ; though even there it sometimes happens that the hand is not diligent enough to make its owner rich. But it is when engaged in business, not for ourselves, but for others, or for God, that we are in greatest danger of neglect- ing this rule. The servant who has no pleasure in his work, who does no more than wages can buy or a legal agreement enforce ; the shopman who does not enter zealously into his employer's interest, and bestir himself to extend his trade as he would strive were the concern his own ; the scholar who trifles when his teacher's eye is elsewhere, and who is content if he can only learn enough to escape disgrace; the teacher who is satisfied if he can only convey a decent quantum of instruction, and who does not labour for the mental expansion and spiritual well-being of his pupils, as he would for those of his own children ; the magistrate or civic functionary who is only careful to escape public censure, and who does not labour to make the com- munity richer, or happier, or better for his ad- ministration ; the minister who can give his energies to another cause than the cause of Christ, and neglect his Master's business in minding his own ; every one, in short, who per- Sloths and Somnambulists. 9 forms the work which God or his brethren have given him to do in a hireling and perfunctory manner, is a violator of the divine injunction, " Not slothful in business." There are some persons of a dull and languid turn. They trail sluggishly through life, as if some painful viscus, some adhesive slime were clogging every move- ment, and making their snail-path a waste of their very substance. They do nothing with that healthy alacrity, that gleesome energy which bespeaks a sound mind even more than a vigor- ous body ; but they drag themselves to the inevitable task with remonstrating reluctance, as if every joint were set in a socket of torture, or as if they expected the quick flesh to cleave to the next implement of industry they handled. Having no wholesome love of work, no joyous delight in duty, they do everything grudgingly, in the most superficial manner, and at the latest moment. Others there are, who, if you find them at their post, you will find them dozing at it. They are a sort of perpetual somnambulists, walking through their sleep ; moving in a con- stant mystery ; looking for their faculties, and forgetting what they are looking for ; not able to find their work, and when they have found their work not able to find their hands ; doing every- thing dreamily, and therefore everything con- fusedly and incompletely ; their work a dream, their sleep a dream, not repose, not refreshment, io Industry. but a slumberous vision of rest, a dreamy query concerning sleep ; too late for everything, taking their passage when the ship has sailed, insuring their property when the house is burned, locking the door when the goods are stolen — men whose bodies seem to have started in the race of exist- ence before their minds were ready, and who are always gazing out vacantly as if they ex- pected their wits were coming up by the next arrival. But, besides the sloths and the som- nambulists, there is a third class — the day- dreamers. These are a very mournful, because a self-deceiving generation. Like a man who has his windows glazed with yellow glass, and who can fancy a golden sunshine or a mellow autumn on the fields, even when a wintry sleet is sweeping over them, the day-dreamer lives in an elysium of his own creating. With a foot on either side of the fire — with his chin on his bosom, and the wrong end of the book turned towards him, he can pursue his self-complacent musings till he imagines himself a traveller in unknown lands — the explorer of Central Africa — the solver of all the unsolved problems in science — the author of some unprecedented poem at which the wide world is wondering — or something so stupendous that he even begins to quail at his own glory. The misery is, that whilst nothing is done towards attaining the greatness, his luxurious imagination takes its Day-dreamers. 1 1 possession for granted, and with his feet on the fender, he fancies himself already on the highest pinnacle of fame ; and a still greater misery is, that the time thus wasted in unprofitable musings, if spent in honest application and downright working, would go very far to carry him where his sublime imagination fain would be.* To avoid this guilt and wretchedness, i. Have a business in which diligence is law- ful and desirable. There are some pursuits which do not deserve to be called a business. ^Eropus was the king of Macedonia, and it was his favour- ite pursuit to make lanterns.t Probably, he was very good at making them ; but his proper busi- ness was to be a king, and therefore the more lanterns he made, the worse king he was. And if your work be a high calling, you must not dissipate your energies on trifles, on things which, lawful in themselves, are still as irrele- vant to you as lamp-making is irrelevant to a king. Perhaps some here are without any specific calling. They have neither a farm nor a mer- chandise to look after. They have no household to care for, no children to train and educate, no official duties to engross their time ; they have an independent fortune and live at large. My * See Note A. t Quoted in "Todd's Students' Guide," (chap, v.) — a book which no zealous student will read without being animated by its vigorous tone, and instructed by its wise and practical sug- gestions. 12 Industry. friends, I congratulate you on your wealth, your liberal education, your position in society, and your abundant leisure. It is in your power to be the benefactors of your generation ; you are in circumstances to do an eminent service for God, and finish some great work before your going hence. What that work shall be I do not attempt to indicate ; I rather leave it for your own investigation and discovery. Every one has his own line of things. Howard chose one path, and Wilberforce another ; Harlan Page chose one, and Brainerd Taylor another. Mrs Fletcher did one work, Lady Glenorchy another, and Mary Jane Graham a third. Every one did the work for which God had best fitted them, but each made that work their business. They gave themselves to it ; they not only did it by the by, but they selected it and set themselves in earnest to it, not parenthetically, but on very purpose— the problem of their lives — for Christ's sake and in Christ's service, and held themselves as bound to do it as if they had been by Himself expressly engaged for it. And, brethren, you must do the same. Those of you who do not need to toil for your daily bread, your very leisure is a hint what the Lord would have you to do. As you have no business of your own, He would have you devote yourselves to His business. He would have you carry on, in some of its manifold departments, that work which He Scabiosa Succisa. 13 came to earth to do. He would have you go about His Father's business, as He was wont to be about it. And if you still persist in living to yourselves, you cannot be happy. You cannot spend all your days in making pincushions, or reading newspapers, or loitering in club-rooms and coffee-houses, and yet be happy. If you profess to follow Christ, this is not a Christian life. It is not a conscientious, and so it cannot be a comfortable life. And if the pincushion or the newspaper fail to make you happy, remem- ber the reason : very good as relaxations, ever so great an amount of these things can never be a business, and "wist ye not that you should be about your Father's business ? " 2. Having made a wise and deliberate selec- tion of a business, go on with it, go through with it. Persevering mediocrity is much more respectable and unspeakably more useful than talented inconstancy. In the heathery turf you will often find a plant chiefly remarkable for its peculiar roots ; from the main stem down to the minutest fibre, you will find them all abruptly terminate, as if shorn or bitten off, and the quaint superstition of the country people alleges, that once on a time it was a plant of singular potency for healing all sorts of mala- dies, and therefore the great enemy of man in his malignity bit off the roots, in which its virtues resided. This plant, with this odd 14 Industry. history, is a very good emblem of many well- meaning but little-effecting people. They might be denned as radicibus prcejnorsis, or rather inceptis succisis. The efficacy of every good work lies in its completion, and all their good works- terminate abruptly, and are left off un- finished. The devil frustrates their efficacy by cutting off their ends ; their unprofitable history is made up of plans and projects, schemes of usefulness that were never gone about, and magnificent undertakings that were never carried forward ; societies that were set agoing, then left to shift for themselves, and forlorn beings who for a time were taken up and instructed, and just when they were beginning to shew symptoms of improvement, were cast on the world again. But others there are, who, before beginning to build, count the cost, and having collected their materials, and laid their foundations deep and broad, go on to rear their structure, indifferent to more tempting schemes and sublimer enterprises subsequently sug- gested. The man who provides a home for a poor neighbour, is a greater benefactor of the poor than he who lays the foundation of a stately almshouse, and never finishes a single apartment. The persevering teacher who guides one child into the saving knowledge of Christ and leads him on to established habits of piety, is a more useful man than his friend Persistency. 15 who gathers in a roomful of ragged children, and after a few weeks of wanting zeal, turns them all adrift on the streets again. The patriot who set his heart on abolishing the slave-trade, and after twenty years of rebuffs and revilings, of tantalised hope and disap- pointed effort, at last succeeded, achieved a greater work than if he had set afloat all pos- sible schemes of philanthropy, and then left them, one after the other, to sink or swim. So short is life, that we can afford to lose none of it in abortive undertakings ; and once we are assured that a given work is one which it is worth our while to do, it is true wisdom to set about it instantly, and once we have begun, it is true economy to finish it. LECTURE II. ".Not slothful in Business." — Rom. xii. n. This morning we saw how this precept is vio- lated by various descriptions of persons ; by- those who have no business at all, and those whose business is only an active idleness ; and finally, by those who, having a lawful business, a good and honourable work assigned them, do it reluctantly or drowsily, or leave it altogether undone. There are some who have no business at all. They are of no use in the world. They are doing no good and attempting none ; and when they are taken out of the world, their removal creates no vacancy. When an oak or any noble and useful tree is uprooted, his removal creates a blank. For years after, when you look to the place which once knew him, you see that some- The Uprooted Oak. 1 7 thing is missing. The branches of adjacent trees have not yet supplied the void. They still hesitate to occupy the place formerly filled by their powerful neighbour ; and there is still a deep chasm in the ground — a rugged pit, which shews how far his giant roots once spread. But when a leafless pole, a wooden pin is plucked up, it comes clean and easily away. There is no rending of the turf, no mar- ring of the landscape, no vacuity created, no regret. It leaves no memento, and is never missed. Now, brethren, what are you ? Are you cedars, planted in the house of the Lord, casting a cool and grateful shadow on those around you ? Are you palm-trees, fat and flourishing, yielding bounteous fruit, and making all who know you bless you ? Are you so useful, that were you once away, it would not be easy to fill your place again, but people, as they point to the void in the plantation — the pit in the ground — would say, "It was here that that brave cedar grew : it was here that that old palm-tree diffused his familiar shadow and showered his mellow clusters ? " Or are you a peg — a pin— -a rootless, branchless, fruit- less thing, that may be pulled up any day, and no one ever care to ask what has become of it ? What are you doing ? What are you contri- buting to the world's happiness, or the Church's glory ? What is your business f 1 8 Industry. Individuals there are who are doing some- thing, though it would be difficult to specify what. They are busy ; but it is a busy idle- ness : — "Their only labour is to kill the time, And labour dire it is, and weary woe. They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow. This soon too rude an exercise they find — Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw, Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined, And court the vapoury god soft-breathing in the wind." * They think that they are busy, though their chief business be to get quit of themselves. To annihilate time, to quiet conscience, to banish care, to keep ennui out at one door, and serious thoughts out at the other, are their hardest occupation. And betwixt their fluttering visits and frivolous engagements, their midnight diversions, their haggard mornings, and short- ened days, their yawning attempts at reading, and sulky application to matters of business which they cannot well evade ; betwixt mobs of callers and shoals of ceremonious notes, they fuss and fret themselves into the pleasant belief that they are the most worried and over-driven of mortal men. It is possible to be very busy, and yet very idle. It is possible to be serious about trifles, and to exhaust one's energies in doing nothing. It is possible to be toiling all * Castle of Indolence. Forced Labour. 1 9 one's days in doing that which, in the infatuation of fashion or the delirium of ambition, will look exceedingly august and important, but which the first flash of eternity will transmute into shame and everlasting contempt. Then, among those who have really got a work to do, whose calling is lawful or some- thing more, perhaps a direct vocation in the service of God, there are three classes who vio- late the precept of the text — those who do their work grudgingly, or drowsily, or not at all — the sloths, the somnambulists, and the day- dreamers. Some do it grudgingly. They have not a heart for work ; and of all work, least heart for that which God has given them. In- stead of that angelic alacrity which speeds in- stinctively on the service God assigns, — that healthy love of labour which a loyal and well- conditioned soul would exhibit, — they postpone everything to the latest moment, and then go whimpering and growling to the hated task as if they were about to undergo some dismal pun- ishment. They have a strange idea of occupa- tion. They look on it as a drug, a penalty, a goblin, a fiend, something very fierce and cruel, something very nauseous ; and they would gladly smuggle through existence by one of those side paths which the grim giants, labour and industry, do not guard. Others again, who do not quite refuse their 20 Indtistry. work, put only half a soul into it. They have no zeal for their profession. They somehow scramble through it ; but it is without any noble enthusiasm, any appetite for work, or any love to the God who gives it. If they are intrusted with the property of others, they cannot boast as Jacob : " In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night ; and my sleep de- parted from mine eyes. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of mine hands." If in- trusted with the souls of others, they cannot reckon up " the abundant labours, the often journeyings, the weariness and painfulness, the watchings, the hunger and thirst," the perils and privations which, for the love of his Master and his Master's work, the apostle of the Gentiles joyfully encountered. If scholars, they are con- tent to learn the lesson, so that no fault shall be found. If servants, they aspire to nothing more than fulfilling their inevitable toils. And if occupying official stations, they are satisfied with a decent discharge of customary duties, and are glad if they leave things no worse than they found them. They are hireling, perfunc- tory, heartless, in all they do. Their work is so sleepily done that it is enough to make you lethargic to labour in their company ; and, before they go zealously and wakefully to work, they would need to be startled up into the day- light of actual existence — they would need to be The Land of Drowsy-head. 2 1 shaken from that torpor into which the very sight of labour is apt to entrance them. Oh, happier far to lose health and life itself in clear, brisk, conscious working — to spend the last atom of strength, and yield the vital spark itself in joy- ful, wakeful efforts for Him who did all for us — than to drawl through a dreaming life, with all the fatigue of labour and nothing of its sweet- ness ; snoring in a constant lethargy ; sleeping while you work, and night-mared with labour when you really sleep. And, besides the procrastinating and perfunc- tory class, those are " slothful in business" who do no business at all. And there are such persons — agreeable, self-complacent, plausible persons — who really fancy that they have done a great deal because they have intended to do so much. Their life is made up of good purposes, splendid projects, and heroic resolutions. They live in the region which the poet has described : — " A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer's day." They have performed so many journeys, and made so many discoveries, and won so many laurels in this aerial clime, that life is over, and they find their real work is not begun. Like the dreamer who is getting great sums of money in his sleep, and who when he awakes opens his 22 Industry. till or his pocket-book almost expecting to find it full, the day-dreamer, the projector awaking up at the close of life, can hardly believe that after his bright and glorious visions, he is leav- ing the world no wiser, mankind no richer, and his own home no happier for all the golden pros- pects which have flitted through his busy brain. "What a blessed world it were, how happy and how rich, if all the idlers were working, if all the workers were awake, and if all the projectors were practical men ! I trust, my friends, that many among you are desirous to be active Christians. Perhaps the following hints may be helpful to those who wish to serve the Lord by diligence in business : — i. Have a CALLING in which it is worth while to be busy. There are many callings in which it is lawful for the Christian to " abide." He may be a lawyer like Sir Matthew Hale, or a physician like Haller, Heberden, and Mason Goode. He may be a painter like West, or a sculptor like Bacon, or a poet like Milton and Klopstock and Cowper. He may be a trader like Thornton and the Hardcastles, or a philo- sopher like Boyle and Boerhaave. He may be a hard-working artisan like the Yorkshire Black- smith and the Watchmaker of Geneva ; or he may toil for his daily bread like the Happy Waterman, and the Wallsend Miner, and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and many a do- Diversity of Gifts. 23 mestic servant of humble but pious memory. And the business of this ordinary calling, the disciple of Christ must discharge heartily, and with all his might. He must labour to be emi- nent and exemplary in his own profession. He should seek, for the sake of the gospel, to be first-rate in his own department. But over and above his ordinary calling as a member of society, the believer has his special calling as" a member of the Church. He has a direct work to do in his Saviour's service. Some who now hear me have so much of their time at their own disposal, that they might almost make their call- ing as members of Christ's Church the business of their lives. And each who is in this privi- leged situation should consider what is the par- ticular line of things for which his taste and talents most urgently predispose him, and for which his training and station best adapt him. The healthiest condition of the Church is where there is a member for every office, and where every member fulfils his own office ; * where there are no defects and no transpositions, but each is allowed to ply to the utmost the work for which God has intended him ; where New- ton writes his Letters, and Butler his Analogy ; where, in the leisure of the olden ministry, Matthew Henry compiles his Commentary, and where, in the calm retreat of Olney, Cowper * Rom. xii. 3-8. 24 Industry. pours forth his devotional melodies ; where Venn cultivates his corner of the vineyard, and Whitefield ranges over the field of the world ; where President Edwards is locked up in his study, and Wilberforce is the joy of the drawing-room; where the adventurous Carey goes down into the pit, and the sturdy arm of Fuller deals out the rope ; where he who min- isters waits on his ministering, and he that teacheth on teaching, and he that exhorteth on exhortation, and he who has wealth gives liber- ally, and he who has method and good management rules diligently, and he who can pay visits of mercy pays them cheerfully. And if the Lord has given you an abundance of un- occupied leisure, He has along with it given you some talent or other, and says, " Occupy till I come." Find out what it is that you best can do, or what it is which, if you neglect it, is likely to be left undone. And whether you select as your sphere of Christian usefulness, a Sabbath class or a ragged school, a local prayer-meeting or a district for domiciliary visitation — whether you devote yourself to the interests of some evangelistic society, or labour secretly from house to house, — whatever line of things you select, make it your "business." Pursue it so earnestly, that though it were only in that one field of activity, you would evince yourself no common Christian. Golden Dust. 25 2. Make the most of time. Some have little leisure, but there are sundry expedients, any one of which, if fairly tried, would make that little leisure longer. (1.) Economy. — Most of the men who have died enormously rich, acquired their wealth, not in huge windfalls, but by minute and care- ful accumulations. It was not one vast sum bequeathed to them after another, which over- whelmed them with inevitable opulence ; but it was the loose money which most men would lavish away, the little sums which many would not deem worth looking after, the pennies and half-crowns of which you would keep no reckon- ing, — these are the items which year by year piled up, have reared their pyramid of fortune. From these money-makers let us learn the nobler " avarice of time." One of the longest and most elaborate poems of recent times,* was composed in the streets of London by a physician in busy practice, during the brief snatches of time when passing from one patient's door to another. And in order to achieve some good work which you have much at heart, you may not be able to se- * Good's translation of Lucretius. A similar instance of literary industry is recorded of Dr Burney, the musician. With the help of pocket grammars and dictionaries, which he had taken the trouble to write out for his own use, he acquired the French and Italian languages when riding on horseback from place to place to give his professional instructions. 26 Industry. cure an entire week, or even an uninterrupted day. But try what you can make of the broken fragments of time. Glean up its golden dust ; those raspings and parings of precious duration, those leavings of days and remnants of hours which so many sweep out into the waste of ex- istence. And thus, if you be a miser of moments, if you be frugal and hoard up odd minutes and half-hours and unexpected holidays, your care- ful gleanings may eke out a long and useful life, and you may die at last richer in existence than multitudes whose time is all their own. The time which some men waste in superfluous slum- ber and idle visits and desultory application, were it all redeemed, would give them wealth of leisure, and enable them to execute undertakings for which they deem a less worried life than theirs essential. When a person says, " I have no time to pray, no time to read the Bible, no time to improve my mind or do a kind turn to a neighbour," he may be saying what he thinks, but he should not think what he says ; for if he has not got the time already, he may get it by redeeming it. (2.) Punctuality. — A singular mischance has occurred to some of our friends. At the in- stant when He ushered them on existence, God gave them a work to do, and He also gave them a competency of time ; so much time, that if they began at the right moment, and wrought The Lost Minutes. 27 with sufficient vigour, their time and their work would end together. But a good many years ago a strange misfortune befell them. A frag- ment of their allotted time was lost. They can- not tell what became of it, but sure enough it has dropped out of existence ; for just like two measuring-lines laid alongside, the one an inch shorter than the other, their work and their time run parallel, but the work is always ten minutes in advance of the time. They are not irregular. They are never too soon. Their letters are posted the very minute after the mail is made up ; they arrive at the wharf just in time to see the steamboat off; they come in sight of the ter- minus precisely as the station-gates are closing. They do not break any engagement nor neglect any duty ; but they systematically go about it too late, and usually too late by about the same fatal interval. How can they retrieve the lost fragment, so essential to character and comfort ? Perhaps by a device like this : suppose that on some auspicious morning they contrived to rise a quarter of an hour before their usual time, and were ready for their morning worship fifteen minutes sooner than they have been for the last ten years ; or, what will equally answer the end, suppose that for once they omitted their morn- ing meal altogether, and went straight out to the engagements of the day ; suppose that they arrived at the class-room or the workshop or the 28 Industry. place of business fifteen minutes before their natural time, or that they forced themselves to the appointed rendezvous on the week-day, or to the sanctuary on the Sabbath-day, a quarter of an hour before their instinctive time of going, all would yet be well, This system carried out would bring the world and themselves to syn- chronise ; they and the marching hours would come to keep step again, and, moving on in har- mony, they would escape the fatigue and jolting awkwardness they must experience when old Father Time puts the right foot foremost and they advance the left ; their reputation would be retrieved, and friends who at present fret would begin to smile ; their fortunes would be made ; their satisfaction in their work would be doubled ; and their influence over others and their power for usefulness would be unspeakably augmented. (3.) Method. — A man has got twenty or thirty letters and packets to carry to their several destinations ; but instead of arranging them beforehand, and putting all addressed to the same locality in a separate parcel, he crams the whole into his promiscuous bag, and trudges off to the West End, for he knows that he has got a letter directed thither. That letter he de- livers, and hies away to the City, when, lo ! the same handful which brings out the invoice for Cheapside contains a brief for the Temple, and Busy Men and Men of Bustle. 29 a parliamentary petition, which should have been left, had he noticed it earlier, at Belgrave Square. Accordingly, he retraces his steps and repairs the omission, and then performs a transit from Paddington to Bethnal Green ; till in two days he overtakes the work of one, and travels fifty miles to accomplish as much as a man of method would have managed in fifteen. The man who has thoroughly mastered that lesson, "A place for everything, and everything in its own place," will save a world of time. He loses no leisure seeking for the unanswered letter or the lost receipt ; he does not need to travel the same road twice ; and hence it is that some of the busiest men have the least of a busy look. Instead of slamming doors and ringing alarm- bells, and knocking over chairs and children in their headlong hurry, they move about deliber- ately ; for they have made their calculations, and know what time they can count upon. And just as a prodigal of large fortune is obliged to do shabby things, whilst an orderly man of moderate income has always an easy look, as if there were still something left in his pocket — as he can afford to pay for goods when he buys them, and to put something into the collecting- box when it passes him, and after he has dis- charged all his debts has still something to spare — so is it with the methodical husbanders and the disorderly spendthrifts of time. Those 30 Industry* who live without a plan have never any leisure, for their work is never done : those who time their engagements and arrange their work be- forehand can bear an occasional interruption. They can reserve an evening hour for their families ; they can sometimes take a walk into the country, or drop in to see a friend ; they can now and then contrive to read a useful book, and amidst all their important avocations they have a tranquil and opulent appearance, as if they still had plenty of time. (4.) P7'07iiptitude. — Every scene of occupa- tion is haunted by that " thief of time," pro- crastination ; and all his ingenuity is directed to steal that best of opportunities, the present time. The disease of humanity, disinclina- tion to the work God has given, more fre- quently takes the form of dilatoriness than a downright and decided refusal. But delay shortens life and abridges industry, "just as promptitude enlarges both. You have a certain amount of work before you, and in all likelihood some unexpected engagements may be super- added as the time wears on. You may begin the work immediately, or you may postpone it till evening, or till the week be closing, or till near the close of life. Your sense of duty insists on its being done ; but procrastination says, u It will be pleasanter to do it by and by." What infatuation ! to end each day in a hurry, and Pro7iifititnde. 3 1 life itself in a panic ! and when the flurried evening has closed, and the fevered life is over, to leave half your work undone ! Whatever the business be, do it instantly, if you would do it easily : life will be long enough for the work as- signed if you be prompt enough. Clear off arrears of neglected duty ; and once the dis- heartening accumulations of the past are over- taken, let not that mountain of difficulty rise again. Prefer duty to diversion, and cultivate that athletic frame of soul which rejoices in abundant occupation ; and you will soon find the sweetness of that repose which follows fin- ished work, and the zest of that recreation in which no delinquent feeling mingles, and oil which no neglected duty frowns. LECTURE III. AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS. " Serving the Lord" — Rom. xii. n. "Serving the Lord." The believer is the happy captive of Jesus Christ ; he has fastened on himself Immanuel's easy yoke, the light burden and delicious chains of a Saviour's love ; and though Christ says, " Henceforth I call you no more servants," the disciple cannot give up the designation ; there is no other term by which, at times, he can express that feeling of intense devotedness and self-surrender which fills his loyal bosom. " Truly, O Lord, I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid." And far from feeling any ignominy in the appel- lation, there are times when no name of Jesus sounds sweeter in his ear than "Jesus, my Lord! Jesus, my Master!" and when no designation more accords with his feeling of entire devotedness than a servant of Jesus 11 Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " 33 Christ, the Lord's bondsman. There are times when the believer has such adoring views of his Saviour's excellency, and such affecting views of his Saviour's claims, that rather than refuse one requirement, he only grudges that the yoke is so easy that he can hardly perceive it, the burden so light that he can scarcely recognise himself as a servant. . He would like something which would identify him more closely with his beloved Saviour, some open badge that he might carry, and which would say for him, " I 'm not ashamed to own my Lord." If Christ would assign to him some task dis- tinct and definite — if Christ would only give him out of His own hand his daily work to do — he would like it well ; and ceasing to be the ser- vant of men, he would fain become the servant of Jesus Christ. And going to the Saviour in this ardent mood of mind, and saying, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" the Saviour hands you back the Bible. He accepts you for His servant, and He directs you what service He would have you to perform. The Book which He gives you is as really the directory of Christ's servants as is the sealed paper of instructions which the commander of an expedition takes with him when he goes to sea, or the letter of directions which the absent nobleman sends to C 34 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. the steward on his estates, or the servant in his house. The only difference is its generality. Instead of making out a separate copy for your specific use, indicating the different things which He would have you to do from day to day, and sending it direct to yourself, authenticated by His own autograph, and by the precision and individuality of its details evidently designed for yourself exclusively ; the volume of His will is of a wider aspect and more miscellaneous character. It effectually anticipates each step of your individual history, and prescribes each act of your personal duty ; but intermingling these with matters of promiscuous import, it leaves abundant scope for your honesty and ingenuity to find out the precise things which your Lord would have you to do. Had it been otherwise, had there been put into the hand of each disciple, the moment he professed his faith in Christ, a sealed paper of instructions, containing an enumeration of the special ser- vices which his Lord would have this new disciple to render, prescribing a certain number of tasks which He expected that disciple to perform, and specifying the very way in which He would have them done ; in proportion as this directory was precise and rigid, so would it cease to be the test of fidelity, so would it abridge the limits within which an unrestricted loyalty may display itself. As it is, the direc- The Directory. 35 tory is so plain that he who runs may read ; not so plain, however, but that he who stands still and ponders will find a great deal which the runner could not read. It is so peremptory, that no man can call Jesus Lord without doing the things which it commands ; but withal so general, as to leave many things to the candour and cordiality of sound-hearted disciples. It is precise enough to indicate the tempers and the graces and the good works with which the Saviour is well-pleased, and by which the Father is glorified ; but it nowhere fixes the exact amount of any one of these, short of which Christ will not suffer a disciple to stop, or beyond which He does not expect a disciple to go. The Bible does not deal in maximums and minimums ; it does not weigh and measure out by definite proportions the ingredients of regenerate character ; but it specifies v/hat these ingredients are, and leaves it to the zeal of each believer to add to his faith, not as many, but as much of each of these things as he pleases. Firmly averring on the one hand, that without each and all of these graces a man cannot belong to Christ ; it, on the other hand, omits to specify how much of each a man must be able to produce, before Jesus say to him, " Well done, good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." The Bible announces those qualities which a man must 36 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. have, in order to prove him born from above ; but it does not tell what quantity of each he must exhibit, in order to secure the smile of his Master, and an abundant entrance into His heavenly kingdom. By this definiteness on the outward side it leaves no room for hypocrisy ; but by this indefiniteness on the inner side it leaves large place for the works and service and faith and patience, the filial enterprise and free- will offerings, of those who know no limit to their labours, except the limit of their love to Christ. You will observe that at the time when you become a disciple of Christ, your Lord and Master takes the whole domain of your employ- ments under his own jurisdiction. He requires you to consecrate your ordinary calling to Him, and to do, over and above, many special things expressly for Himself. Whatsoever you do, in word or deed, He desires that you should do it in His name, not working like a worldling and pray- ing like a Christian, but both in work and prayer, both in things secular and things sacred, setting Himself before you, carrying out His rules, and seeking to please Him. One is your Master, even Christ, and He is your Master in every- thing, — the Master of your thoughts, your words, your family arrangements, your busi- ness transactions, — the Master of your work- ing time, as well as of your Sabbath-day, — the Lord of your shop and counting-room, as well Compensation Pendulum. 37 as of your closet and your pew, — because the Lord of your affections, the proprietor of your very self besides. The Christian is one who may do many things from secondary motives — from the pleasure they afford his friends — from the gratification they give to his own tastes and predilections — from his abstract convictions of what is honest, lovely, and of good report ; but his main and predominant motive, that which is paramount over every other, and which, when fully presented, is conclusive against every other, is affection for his heavenly Friend. One is his Master, even Christ, and the love of Christ con- straineth him. Look, now, at the advantages of a motive like this. See how loyalty to Christ secures dili- gence in business — whether that be business strictly religious or business more miscellaneous. 1. Love to Christ is an abiding motive. It is neither a fancy, nor a sentiment, nor an evan- escent emotion. It is a principle — calm, steady, undecaying. It was once a problem in mechan- ics, to find a pendulum which should be equally long in all weathers — which should make the same number of vibrations in the summer's heat and in the winter's cold. They have now found it out. By a process of compensations they make the rod lengthen one way as much as it contracts another, so that the centre of motion is always the same : the pendulum swings the 38 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. same number of beats in a day of January as in a day of June ; and the index travels over the dial-plate with the same uniformity, whether the heat try to lengthen, or the cold to shorten, the regulating power. Now the moving power in some men's minds is sadly susceptible of sur- rounding influences. It is not principle, but feeling, which forms their pendulum-rod ; and according as this very variable material is affected, their index creeps or gallops, they are swift or slow in the work given them to do. But principle is like the compensation-rod, which neither lengthens in the languid heat, nor shortens in the brisker cold ; but does the same work day by day, whether the ice-winds whistle, or the simoom glows. Of all principles, a high-principled affection to the Saviour is the steadiest and most secure. Other incentives to action are apt to alter or lose their influence alto- gether. You once did many things for the sake of friends whose wishes expressed or understood were your incentive, and whose ready smile was your recompence. But that source of activity is closed. Those friends are now gone where your industry cannot enrich them, nor your kindness comfort them. Or if they remain, they are no longer the same that once they were. The magic light has faded from off them. The mysterious interest which hovered round them has gone up like a mountain mist, and left them in their Popularity. 39 wintry coldness or natural ruggedness ; no longer those whom once you took them to be. Or you did many things for fame ; and you were well requited for a winter's work when the hosanna of a tumultuous assembly, or the paean of a newspaper paragraph proclaimed you the hero of the hour. But even that sort of satis- faction has passed away, and, meagre diet as these plaudits always were, you stand on the hungry pinnacle, and, like other aspirants of the same desert-roaming school,* you snuff; but alas ! the breeze has changed. The popular taste, the wind of fashion, has entirely veered about ; and, except an occasional tantalizing whiff from the oasis of a receding popularity, the sweet gust of its green pastures regales you no more. Or you used to work for money — for lite- ral bank-notes and pieces of minted metal. Yes, mere money was your motive. And you would sit up till midnight, or rise in the drowsy morn- ing, to get one piece more. And so truly was this money your chief end — " Where the trea- sure is, there will the heart be also" — do you not feel as if your money-safe were the metro- polis of your affections ? Where your money is, is not your heart there also ? Were your for- tune to clap its wings and fly away, would not you feel as if your happiness had flown away ? Have not your very thoughts got a golden tinge? * Jer. xiv. 6. 40 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. and, tracing some of this Sabbath's meditations back to their source, would you not soon land in the till, the exchange, the counting-room ? Is not gold your chiefest joy ? But have not flashes of truth from time to time dismayed you ? "What am I living for ? For a make-believe like this ? for a glittering cheat which (in the way that I am using it) will be forgotten in heaven or felt like a canker in hell ? How shall I wake up my demented self from this spell-dream, and seek some surer bliss some more enduring joy For grant that I shall be buried in a coffin of gold, and commemorated in a diamond shrine, what the happier will it make the me that then shall be ? " And even without these brighter convic- tions, without these momentary breaks in the general delirium of covetousness, do you not feel a duller dissatisfaction occasionally creeping over you and paralyzing your busy efforts ? " Well — is this right ? This headlong hunt of fortune, is it the end for which my Creator sent me into the world ? Is it the highest end for which my immortal self can live ? Is it the best way of bestowing that single sojourn in this probation- world, which God has given me ? And what am I the better ? Am I sure that I myself am the happier for it ? Dare I flatter myself that, in bequeathing so much money, I bequeath to my children consolidated happiness, a sure and . certain good, an inevitable blessing ? " And Money-making. 41 such intrusive thoughts, whose shadows, at least, flit across most serious minds, are very- damping to effort — very deadening to diligence in business. Merely serving your friends, in mere pursuit of fame, merely seeking a fortune, you are in constant danger of having all motive annihilated, and so all effort paralyzed. But whatever be the business in hand, from the veriest trifle up to the sublimest enterprise ; from binding a shoe-latchet to preparing a highway for the Lord ; if only you be conscious that this is the work which He has given you to do, you can go on with a cheerful serenity and strenuous satisfaction ; for you will never want a motive. And it is just when other motives are relaxing into languor, that the compensation we spoke of comes into play ; and the constraining love of Christ restores the soul and keeps its rate of activity quick and constant as ever. The love of Christ is an abiding motive, and can only lose its power where reason has lost its place. No man ever set the Lord before him and made it his supreme concern to please his Master in heaven, yet lived to say, " What a fool am I ! What a wasted life is mine ! What vanity and vexation has Christ's service been ! Had I only my career to begin anew, I would seek another master and a higher end." * The Lord Jesus ever lives, and never changes ; and therefore the * See Life of Rev. Henry Venn, under a.d. 1785. 42 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. believer's love to his Saviour never dies. Grow- ing acquaintance may bring out new aspects of His character ; but it will never disclose a reason why the believing soul should love Him less than it loved at first. Growing acquaintance will only divulge new reasons for exclaiming, " Worthy is the Lamb ! " and fresh motives for living not unto ourselves, but unto Him that loved us and gave Himself for us. 2. Love to Christ is a motive equal to all emergencies. There is a ruling passion in every mind ; and when every other considera- tion has lost its power, this ruling passion re- tains it influence. When they were probing among his shattered ribs for the fatal bullet, the French veteran exclaimed, " A little deeper and you will find the emperor." The deepest affec- tion in a believing soul is the love of its Saviour. Deeper than the love of home, deeper than the love of kindred, deeper than the love of rest and recreation, deeper than the love of life is the love of Jesus. And so, when other spells have lost their magic, when no name of old endearment, no voice of onwaiting tenderness, can disperse the lethargy of dissolution, the name that is above every name, pronounced by one who knows it, will kindle its last animation in the eye of death. And when other persua- sives have lost their power ; when other loves no longer constrain the Christian ; when the True Loyalty. 43 love of country no longer constrains his patriot- ism, nor the love of his brethren his philan- thropy, nor the love of home his fatherly affec- tion, the love of Christ will still constrain his loyalty. There is a love to Jesus which nothing can destroy. There is a leal-heartedness which refuses to let a much-loved Saviour go, even when the palsied arm of affection is no longer conscious of the benignant form it embraces. There is a love, which amidst the old and weary feel of waning years renews its youth, and amidst outward misery and inward desolation preserves its immortal root ; which, even when the glassy eye of hunger has forgot to sparkle, and the joy at the heart can no longer mantle on the withered cheek, still holds on, faithful to Jesus, though the flesh be faint. This was the love which made Paul and Silas, fatigued and famished as they were, and sleepless with pain, sing praise so loud that their fellow-prisoners heard and wondered. This was the love which burned in the apostle's breast, even when buffeting the Adriatic's wintry brine, and made the work which at Rome awaited him beam like a star of hope through the drowning dark- ness of that dismal night. This was the love which thawed his pen, when the moan of autumn winds made him miss the cloak he left at Troas, and impelled him to write to Timothy a testamentary entreaty to "hold fast" the 44 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. truths which were hastening himself to martyr- dom. Devotedness to Christ is a principle which never dies, and neither does the diligence which springs from it. Dear brethren, get love to the Lord Jesus, and you have everything. Union to Jesus is salvation. Love to Jesus is religion. Love to the Lord Jesus is essential and vital Chris- tianity. It is the mainspring of the life of God in the soul of man. It is the all-inclusive germ, which involves within it every other grace. It is the pervasive spirit, without which the most correct demeanour is but dead works, and the seemliest exertions are an elegant futility. Love to Christ is the best incentive to action — the best antidote to idolatry. It adorns the labours which it animates, and strengthens the friendships which it sanctifies. It is the smell of the ivory wardrobe — the precious perfume of the believer's character — the fragrant mystery which only lingers round those souls which have been to a better clime. Its operation is most marvellous ; for when there is enough of it, it makes the timid bold, and the slothful dili- gent. It puts eloquence into the stammering tongue, and energy into the withered arm, and ingenuity into the dull, lethargic brain. It takes possession of the soul, and a joyous lustre beams in languid eyes, and wings of new obedi- ence sprout from lazy, leaden feet. Love to Love to Christ. 45 Christ is the soul's true heroism, which courts gigantic feats, which selects the heaviest loads and the hardest toils, which glories in tribula- tions, and hugs reproaches, and smiles at death till the king of terrors smiles again. It is the aliment which feeds assurance — the opiate which lulls suspicions — the oblivious draught which scatters misery and remembers poverty- no more. Love to Jesus is the beauty of the believing soul ; it is the elasticity of the willing steps, and the brightness of the glowing counte- nance. If you would be a happy, a holy and a useful Christian, you must be an eminently Christ-loving disciple. If you have no love to Jesus at all, then you are none of his. But if you have a little love — ever so little — a little drop, almost frozen in the coldness of your icy heart — oh ! seek more. Look to Jesus, and cry for the Spirit till you find your love increasing ; till you find it drowning besetting sins ; till you find it drowning guilty fears — rising, till it touch that index, and open your closed lips — rising, till every nook and cranny of the soul is filled with it, and all the actions of life and relations of earth are pervaded by it — rising, till it swell up to the brim, and, like the apostle's love, rush over in a full assurance — "Yes, I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin- cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 4.6 An Eye to the Lord Jesus. other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." " Let troubles rise, and terrors frown, And days of darkness fall , Through Him all dangers we '11 defy, And more than conquer all." LECTURE IV. A FERVENT SPIRIT. "Fervent in spirit," — Rom. xii n. The description of work which a man performs will depend very much on the master whom he serves ; but the amount and quality of that work will depend as much on the mood of mind in which he does it. The master may be good ; and the things which he commands may be good ; but unless the servant have an eager willing mind, little work may be done, and that little may not be well done. This is the glory of the gospel. It not only invites you to be the disciples of a Saviour, whose requirements are as worthy of your most strenuous obedience as He himself is worthy of your warmest love ; but it undertakes to give you the energy and enterprise which the service of such a Master demands. Besides assigning a good and hon- ourable work for your "business," and Him 48 A Fervent Spirit. whom principalities and powers adore for your Master, the gospel offers you the zealous mind which such a work requires, and which such a Master loves. But what is a fervent spirit ? i. It is a believing spirit. Few men have faith. There are few to whom the Word of God is solid, to whom "the things hoped for" are substantial, or " the things unseen " evident. There are few who regard the Lord Jesus as living now, or as taking a real and affectionate charge of His people here on earth. There are few who yet expect to see Him, and who are laying their account with standing before His great white throne. But the believer has got an open eye. He has looked within the veil. He knows that the things seen are temporal, and that the things unseen are eternal. He knows that the Lord Jesus lives, and that though un- seen He is ever near. He may often forget, but he never doubts His promise ; " And lo ! I am with you always." This assurance of his ascending Saviour, every time he recalls it, infuses alacrity, animation, earnestness. The faith of this is fervour. "Yes, blessed Saviour ! art Thou present now? and seest Thou Thy disciple trifling thus ? Is the book of remem- brance filling up, and are these idle words and wasted hours my memorial there? And art Thou coming quickly and bringing Thy reward, St Peter. 49 to give each servant as his work shall be ? and is this my ' work ? ' Lord, help mine unbelief. Dispel my drowsiness. Supplant my sloth, and perfect Thy strength in me." 2. A fervent spirit is an affectionate spirit. It is one which cries Abba, Father. It is full of confidence and love. Peter had a fervent spirit, but it would be hard to say whether most of his fervour flowed through the outlet of adoration or activity. You remember with what a burst of praise his first epistle begins, and how soon he passes on to practical matters : — " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." "Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands." " The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder." * And as in his epistle, so in his living character. His full heart put force and promptitude into every movement. Is his Master encompassed by fierce ruffians ? Peter's ardour flashes in his * 1 Peter, commencement of chaps, i. ii. iii. v. D 5