صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

such as accords with the Gospel of Christ, he may be sure that he has not a right scriptural faith.

SELF-EXAMINATION.

Am I anxious to serve God? Am I watchful to do his will? Am I seeking for his grace, that I may become pure in heart? Am I using the means by which his grace may be obtained? such as private prayer, public worship, observance of God's sacraments and ordinances. Am I really desirous of obtaining that grace, that I may be enabled to live as a follower of Christ, as one dedicated to Him, and pledged to be his faithful soldier and servant? "Faith worketh by Love:" have I this evidence of my faith, that I desire to love God, with all my heart, and mind, and soul, and strength? When all things are prosperous with me, do I praise God for his goodness to me; and do I seek and pray to be kept from the temptations with which the world surrounds me, and which seek to draw my soul from the love and service of God? And, when tried by adversity, when affliction and distress are my portion, can I trust in God? Can I see that it is a Father's hand that smites me? And can I commit myself wholly to Him, assured that He knoweth what is best for his people, and that He will make all things work together for good to them that love Him?

And he that loveth God will love his brother also." A fellow-Christian is called a brother, Christians are exhorted to "love as brethren." I must ask myself, then, Is selfishness, is violence, is anger put away from me? Is all malice, all inward feeling of unkindness, removed? Do I consult my neighbour's good, his interest, his happiness, his temporal and spiritual benefit? Am I strictly honest, and upright, and fair, and open in all my dealings? Is my temper brought in subjection to the heavenly spirit of the Gospel? Are my words and my thoughts such as mark a follower of the pure, and patient, and spotless Jesus? Teach me, O Lord, thus to search myself: do Thou search me, and try me; and show me wherein I offend, and lead me in the right way. Give me a right and saving faith; for I know that works of obedience and love do "spring out necessarily of a

true and lively faith, insomuch that by these a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by the fruit 1."

1"

V.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.
"Our Father, which art in heaven."

It is now some years ago that, as I was walking at a late hour through rather a remote part of my parish, I passed a neat pretty cottage, in which lived a young woman, for whom I had long been interested. She had married about five years before; and when naturally looking forward to the enjoyment of much happiness, it had pleased God to visit her with a severe affliction, and to take from her the husband who was her chief earthly comfort; and from that time a great change had taken place in her. She had been before full of life and merriment, but afterwards she was scarcely ever seen to smile, and rarely spoke excepting when obliged; and her only remaining delight seemed to be her little girl, who was nearly four years old. I had been told, however, a short time previous to the visit I am about to relate, that she had lately appeared more comfortable. She had often been seen with her Bible before her, and had now and then been known to speak to her neighbours of the necessity of religion,—a subject which before her husband's death she had never seemed to consider very deeply; and in consequence I became anxious to talk to her, and determined to take advantage of the present opportunity. I was on the point of knocking at the door, when a sound within made me pause, and I plainly heard a child's voice repeating part of the Lord's prayer. This made me feel still more interested in the young woman; but not wishing to disturb her at that moment, I walked up and down in front of the cottage till I thought I had given her sufficient time to put her little girl to sleep, and then gently asked if I might be allowed to enter. The request was granted directly, and there was almost a smile on her face as she saw me; but she was looking pale and ill, and I could clearly see the effects of grief in every feature.

1 Twelfth Article of our Church.

Wishing to make her feel at ease with me, I began talking to her about her child, and told her how pleased I had been in hearing her teach her to pray to God while she was so young. Yes, Sir," she said; "I was always taught to pray myself; and at a time when I did not care for religion at all, I never liked to go to bed without saying my prayers, though I am ashamed to say that my thoughts were often about a great many other things; and now it is the chief comfort I have left me. And so, Sir, I wish to bring up my child to do the same." "And did you always repeat the Lord's prayer?" I asked. "Yes, Sir, always; and so I do now, though I use other prayers besides." "And can you tell me," I continued, "the real meaning of all you say when you repeat the Lord's prayer?" Mary looked as if she did not quite know what to reply; and I therefore asked her to think over the words, and then tell me if she understood them all. She was silent for a few moments, and then answered, "I do not think, Sir, that I do quite know what they all mean." "That is very likely," I said: "will you let me talk to you a little about this prayer? and then perhaps you will be able to understand it better." "Thank you, Sir," she replied, "it would be very kind of you if you would give yourself the trouble." "I shall not think it any trouble," I answered, "if I can make it plain to you. You of course know whom it is you are praying to when you repeat these words." "Yes, Sir; to God." "But," I said, "the first words which you use are not, as in many other prayers, oh, Lord God,' or Almighty God,' but our Father.' Can you tell me why that is?" Mary did not seem inclined to answer, though she listened attentively, and I went on. "This prayer," I said, "was given us by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour and Redeemer, who came into the world and suffered a great deal of pain and misery, and at last died upon the cross to save us from the punishment due to our sins. Now if Jesus Christ had not done this, we should never have learnt to call God our Father; for we could never have thought of Him but as an all-powerful and all-holy being, whom we were continually offending, and therefore whose anger we had to fear. We could not for a moment have looked

upon

Him

as a Father, to be loved as we love our earthly fathers. But now that our Lord has atoned for the sins of the world, our situation is quite different, and all baptized Christians who receive in faith the offers of the Gospel, and are seeking to serve God, may look upon Him now as a merciful Father, and He allows them to be called his children. Do you not see, therefore, Mary, why, in the prayer which Christ himself has taught us, we should address God as our Father, and really feel towards Him as such?" Mary looked in my face when I asked this question as if she wished to speak but was afraid; but when I pressed her to tell me whether she understood me clearly, she said, "Yes, Sir; only that we cannot feel towards God as we do to our earthly fathers, He is so high above us, and we can never see Him." "He is, indeed, high above us," I replied; "but when He is pleased to call us his children, that at once brings us near to Him; and though we cannot see Him now, yet we can see all his goodness and his mercy, and may look forward to knowing Him more fully in another world. Let me ask you one question. Supposing your little girl were suddenly to be struck blind and yourself dumb, and that you were both to continue so for the next four or five years; and supposing that all that time you were to watch over her with the greatest care, and give her every thing she could want to make her happy, and listen to all her wishes, and because you could not speak were to write letters to be read to her, telling her how much you loved her, and teaching her all her duty; should you not think it very strange if she were to say she could not love you because she could not see you? Yet this is the case with our heavenly Father and ourselves: every thing we have comes from Him; every danger we are preserved from is the result of his care; and the Holy Scriptures are the letters sent to us from Him to tell us of his love and of that greatest of all proofs which He has given of it in sending his only-begotten Son to die for us. Do you not see that this is true?" "Yes, Sir," answered Mary, "but-," and here she stopped. "But what," I asked,pray do not be afraid to speak to me freely,—what is your difficulty now?" "God sends us many more trials

[ocr errors]

than our earthly parents," she replied in a low voice, whilst her eyes filled with tears. "And therefore you think, I said, that He cannot love us as they do; but the Bible speaks very differently: it says, 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,' and that if we endure chastening God dealeth with us as with sons 1;' and instead of his being unlike our earthly parents, it is the way in which all persons deal, or ought to deal, with their children. Do you not, for instance, constantly give your little girl medicine when she is ill, though she dislikes it very much? do you not punish her, or ought you not to punish her, when she does wrong, in the hope of her improvement? and do you think that God can be less wise than man? When we are careless and indifferent to religion, He sends us sickness to make us think; when we are too anxious about the things of this world, He sends us poverty to make us look forward to another; and when we love our earthly friends too well, He takes them from us, that we may learn to lean upon Him alone. We may not be able to think of all this at the moment we are suffering, but it is not the less true. Now do you see more plainly than you did before the many reasons we have for calling God our Father?" "Yes, Sir," was the reply; and this was said without hesitation." And yet," I continued, "I have hardly spoken at all of the greatest of all proofs which we have of the love of God, even that which He gave us when He sent his Son to die for us, and which is sufficient in itself to convince us that He loves us as his children, because I wished rather to remind you of the every day marks of his affection, which we are perhaps more likely to forget; for when we read of this one great event in the Bible, we are very willing to own that it is a sign of his infinite mercy, but if some slight trial should come upon us afterwards, we are immediately unmindful of it, and are ready to say that God does not love us, whilst in fact these trials are quite as much intended for our benefit and to make us happy as the greatest prosperity can possibly be; indeed, far more so."

I do not think Mary at that moment entirely agreed with me, for her head was full of the thought of the hus

1 Hebrews xii. 5. 7.

« السابقةمتابعة »