Page images
PDF
EPUB

Have you ever seen a daughter, herself, perhaps, timid and helpless, watching the decline of an aged parent, and holding out with heroic fortitude to anticipate his wishes, to administer to his wants, and to sustain his tottering steps to the very borders of the grave ?

But in no relation does woman exercise so deep an influence, both immediately and prospectively, as in that of mother. To her is committed the immortal treasure of the infant mind. Upon her devolves the care of the first stages of that course of discipline, which is to form, of a being perhaps the most frail and helpless in the world, the fearless ruler of animated creation, and the devout adorer of its great Creator. Her smiles call into exercise the first affections that spring up in our hearts. She cherishes and expands the earliest germs of our intellects She breathes over us her deepest devotions. She lifts our little hands, and teaches our little tongues to lisp in prayer. She watches over us, like a guardian angel, and protects us through all our helpless years, when we know not of her cares and her anxieties on our account. She follows us into the world of men, and lives in us, and blesses us, when she lives not otherwise upon the earth. What constitutes the centre of every home? Whither do our thoughts turn, when our feet are weary with wandering, and our hearts sick with disappointment? Where shall the truant and forgetful husband go for sympathy, unalloyed and without design, but to the bosom of her, who is ever ready and waiting to share in his adversity or his prosperi ty. And if there be a tribunal, where the sins and the follies of a froward child may hope for pardon and forgiveness this side heaven, that tribunal is the heart of a fond and devoted mother.

Necessity of a pure national Morality.—BEECHER.

THE crisis has come. By the people of this generation, by ourselves, probably, the amazing question is to be decided, whether the inheritance of our fathers shall be preserved or thrown away; whether our Sabbaths shall be a

delight or a loathing; whether the taverns, on that holy day, shall be crowded with drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble worshippers; whether riot and profaneness shall fill our streets, and poverty our dwellings, and convicts our jails, and violence our land, or whether industry, and temperance, and righteousness, shall be the stability of our times; whether mild laws shall receive the cheerful submission of freemen, or the iron rod of a tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves. Be not deceived. Human nature in this state is like human nature every where. All actual difference in our favour is adventitious, and the result of our laws, institutions, and habits. It is a moral influence, which, with the blessing of God, has formed a state of society so eminently desirable. The same influence which formed it is indispensable to its preservation. The rocks and hills of New England will remain till the last conflagration. But let the Sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of God be abandoned, the govern ment and religious instruction of children neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to flow, and her glory will depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her, and the munition of rocks will no longer be her defence.

If we neglect our duty, and suffer our laws and institutions to go down, we give them up forever. It is easy to relax, easy to retreat; but impossible, when the abomination of desolation has once passed over New England, to rear again the thrown-down altars, and gather again the fragments, and build up the ruins of demolished institutions. Another New England nor we nor our children shall ever see, if this be destroyed. All is lost irretrievably wher the landmarks are once removed, and the bands which now hold us are once broken. Such institutions and such a state of society can be established only by such men as our fathers were, and in such circumstances as they were in. They could not have made a New England in Holland; they made the attempt, but failed.

The hand that overturns our laws and temples is the hand of death unbarring the gate of Pandemonium, and letting loose upon our land the crimes and miseries of Hell. If the Most High shoull stand aloof, and cast not a sirgle

ingredient into our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative wo. But he will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open controversy with him, he will contend openly with us. And never, since the earth stood, has it been so fearful a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living God. The day of vengeance is at hand the day of judgment has come; the great earthquak, which sinks Babylon is shaking the nations, and the waves of the mighty commotion are dashing upon every shore. Is this, then, a time to remove the foundations, when the earth itself is shaken? Is this a time to forfeit the protection of God, when the hearts of men are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are to come upon the earth? Is this a time to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of his buckler, when the nations are drinking blood, and fainting, and passing away in his wrath? Is this a time to throw away the shield of faith, when his arrows are drunk with the blood of the slain? to cut from the anchor of hope, when the clouds are collecting, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and thunders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in the heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, and every mountain, sea and island is fleeing in dismay from the face of an incensed God?

Value of religious Faith.-BUCKMINSTER.

WHO would look back upon the history of the world with the eye of incredulity, after having once read it with the eye of faith? To the man of faith it is the story of God's operations. To the unbeliever it is only the record of the strange sports of a race of agents as uncontrolled as they are unaccountable. To the man of faith every portion of history is part of a vast plan, conceived ages ago in the mind of Omnipotence, which has been fitted precisely to the period it was intended to occupy. The whole series of events forms a magnificent and symmetrical fabric to the eye of pious contemplation; and, though the dome be in the clouds, and the top, from its loftiness, be indiscerni

ble to mortal vision, yet the foundations are so deep and solid, that we are sure they are intended to support something permanent and grand. To the sceptic, all the events of all the ages of the world are but a scattered crowd of useless and indigested materials. In his mind all is darkness, all is incomprehensible. The light of prophecy illuminates not to him the obscurity of anciert annals. He sees in them neither design nor operation, neither tendencies nor conclusions. To him the wonderful knowledge of one people is just as interesting as the desperate ignorance of another. In the deliverance which God has sometimes wrought for the oppressed, he sees nothing but the fact; and in the oppression and decline of haughty empires, nothing but the common accidents of national fortune. Going about to account for events according to what he calls general laws, he never for a moment considers, that all laws, whether physical, political or moral, imply a legislator, and are contrived to serve some purpose. Because he cannot always, by his short-sighted vision, discover the tendencies of the mighty events of which this earth ha been the theatre, he looks on the drama of existence around him as proceeding without a plan. Is that principle, then, of no importance, which raises man above what his eyes see or his ears hear at present, and shows him the vast chain of human events, fastened eternally to the throne of God, and returning, after embracing the universe, again to link itself to the footstool of Omnipotence?

Would you know the value of this principle of faith to the bereaved? Go, and follow a corpse to the grave. See the body deposited there, and hear the earth thrown in upon all that remains of your friend. Return now, if you will, and brood over the lesson which your senses have given you, and derive from it what consolation you can. You have learned nothing but an unconsoling fact. No voice of comfort issues from the tomb. All is still there, and blank, and lifeless, and has been so for ages. You see nothing but bodies dissolving and successively mingling with the clods which cover them, the grass growing over the spot, and the trees waving in sullen majesty over this region of eternal silence. And what is there more ?

Nothing.-Come, Faith, and people these deserts! Come, and reanimate these regions of forgetfulness! Mothers! take again your children to your arms, for they are living. Sons! your aged parents are coming forth in the vigour of regenerated years. Friends! behold, your dearest connexions are waiting to embrace you. The tombs are burst. Generations long since in slumbers are awakening. They are coming from the east and the west, from the north and from the south, to constitute the community of the blessed.

But it is not in the loss of friends alone, that faith furishes consolations which are inestimable. With a man of faith not an affliction is lost, not a change is unimproved. He studies even his own history with pleasure, and finds it full of instruction. The dark passages of his life are illuminated with hope; and he sees, that although he has passed through many dreary defiles, yet they have opened at last into brighter regions of existence. He recalls, with a species of wondering gratitude, periods of his life, when all its events seemed to conspire against him. Hemmed in by straitened circumstances, wearied with repeated blows of unexpected misfortunes, and exhausted with the painful anticipation of more, he recollects years, when the ordinary love of life could not have retained him in the world. Many a time he might have wished to lay down his being in disgust, had not something more than the senses provide us with, kept up the elasticity of his mind. He yet lives, and has found that light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. The man of faith discovers some gracious purpose in every combination of circumstances. Wherever he finds himself, he knows that he has a destination-he has, therefore, a duty. Every event has, in his eye, a tendency and an aim. Nothing is accidental, nothing without purpose, nothing unattended with benevolent consequences. Every thing on earth is probationary, nothing ultimate. He is poor-perhaps his plans have been defeated-he finds it difficult to provide for the exigencies of life-sickness is permitted to invade the quiet of his household-long confinement imprisons his activity, and cuts short the exertions on which so many depend-something apparently unlucky mars his best plans

« PreviousContinue »