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LIGHT AN EMBLEM OF JOY IN GOD.

MARCH 29.

Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.

LIGHT is a beautiful emblem of happiness and joy. We at once, by a kind of instinctive association, connect with it the idea of cheerfulness and pleasure; and that of melancholy and mourning, with darkness. This is so natural, so accordant with universal figure, that it is, I suppose, common to all languages. It occurs frequently in Scripture: "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." "If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness shall be as the noon-day." "The light _ of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him." The "light of God's countenance" is the cheering influence of his favour; and to express the uninterrupted joy of the heavenly state-the absence of those alternations of gladness and gloom that characterize the present life, it is beautifully said, "there shall be no night there." It is "the inheritance of the saints in light." The heavenly city seen by John in the vision of God, had "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof."

The

Light may express the joy in God which a true penitent feels on forgiveness. The forgiveness of sin scatters the gathering tempest of wrath which our iniquities interpose between God and us. angry elements wear a dark and frowning aspect. But when God says, "I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; return unto me for I have redeemed thee;" immediately the fair face of heaven again appears, and the rainbow of the covenant shines over the skirts of the departing storm. Without pardon, the conscience can have no peace. It is lashed with a scourge from an invisible hand, and finds a secret rack under every pillow which seems to promise a secret repose. But as soon as the soul receives forgiveness of sin, its anguish is allayed, and its wounds are healed.

Let our joys centre in God. Creature joy, like the house built upon the sand, shakes at every blast; and a storm of sickness, poverty, and disgrace sweeps it all away. Let but a finger ache, let but a gourd wither, let but a fellow creature frown, and there is an end of all this joy at once. But joy in God, like the house built upon a rock, stands undemolished, unshaken, by the greatest outward desolations. Those disasters that quite ruin all other joy, do not at all affect our joy in God. Let a believer be never so poor, never so sickly, never so slighted by the world; let him lose what he will, so long as he can keep his hold on God, none of these things move him; and you may hear him sing, with all the exultation of a prophet, "Although the fig-tree do not blossom, and there be no fruit in the vine; though the labour of the olive fail, and the fields do yield no meat; though the flocks be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stall; yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation." Other joys must end in death-and may, and very often do, end before ;-but joy in God improves by adversity-grows brighter and stronger at the approach of death-and it will flourish in full perfection, when earth and earthly joys shall totally disappear.

our abuse oF GOD'S PARENTAL CHARACTER.

MARCH 30.

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If I am a Father where is mine honour ?—The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance,

THE christian Scriptures delight to represent God under the attractive title of Father. He is not susceptible of wrath, hatred or revenge. He has no short interval of tyranny, and can never be the foe of his children. He is benignant and just, merciful and impartial, forgiving and wise, powerful and sympathetic. He is no austere master, requiring what can not be performed, or delighting in the slavish terrors of his subjects. He is love. His highest pleasures consist in communicating happiness. He is a reasonable governour, a tender parent, a patient friend, a kind judge, rejoicing in his works, aiding truth, reclaiming folly, shewing indulgence to the refractory, encouraging the backward and rewarding the pious. To fix in men's minds these ideas of God, was one main design of Christ's mission and labours.

These sublime consolatory truths are abused by our sin. Sin is unhappiness. It is contempt of God-it is treachery to Christ. What insensible, ungrateful and abandoned creatures must we be, were we less anxious to do the will of God, because it is the will of the tenderest parent!-Because God is so kind, because love is essential to his nature, because his sole view in whatever he enjoins is simply our felicity, shall we abuse his benefits, disregard his injunctions, and refuse him our obedience ?-Because he is so equitable, as to require nothing of us for which we have not capacities and means, shall we neglect that for which we are expressly endowed? Because he has patience with our infirmities, shall we commit iniquity, shall we wilfully transgress ?-God forbid that we should ever render ourselves guilty of such a perversion of the most consoling truths. Let us rather rejoice in the high and holy assurances of grace and salvation. Let us deem it our meat and drink to do our Father's will-let us think of him without terrour, lean on him with filial confidence, pray to him in holy boldness, regarding him as our eternal well wisher, loving him with all our hearts, conducting ourselves by kis benevolent intentions, and striving to prove our gratitude by an unbroken sacrifice of living devotion. Without these dispositions and a corresponding conduct, we can never establish our filiation; and never attain the appointed rewards of true christianity.

It may be set down as a moral axiom, that love to God will more powerfully restrain us from sin and impel us to good, than the principle of fear. Fear degrades the mind; and as a principle of action, is worthy of being felt only towards a capricious, partial and passionate master. God is not to be bribed by external homage, or won by flattering presents; the semblances of piety will not stand a single glance of his searching eye. He is satisfied with no offerings or substitutes. He requires truth, equity, intrinsic worth, genuine holiness and heart felt devotion.

It follows, therefore, that whenever we sin, we offend against God's tender and benign dispositions towards mankind.

All, all I throw, an offering at thy feet—

Accept that homage, Being Infinite!

98

RECOLLECTION OF DEPARTED WORTH.

MARCH 31.

She hath done what she could.

Ir is delightful to dwell on departed worth. It is a religious duty. The day on which the death of a valued friend occurred, is forever holy with us; and on each anniversary of it, our imagination calls up the departed image in that freshness, which almost makes it live again. While on earth, we gather about the good with a sacred impulse; and when one is called to "go up higher,' our minds follow the ascending spirit and we consider it ever afterwards as part of the treasure we have laid up in heaven.

Has death taken from you a good mother? you know the bitter'ness of grief; you feel a void which nothing earthly can fill up. We can have but one mother. If you are not made better by her loss, her death is a moral lesson which has fallen short of its great purpose. Let us dwell on her virtues. To be remembered with affection, she required only to be known. Your recollection of her is connected with a look, a tone, a manner, a temper and a kindness peculiarly her own. With what tenderness did she anticipate your wants, and with what promptness did she provide for them-how watchful over your conduct, and how sympathetic in your sickness. Was you in errour? there shew as tow in you again to truth-was you in doubt? there she was to guide you-was you in affliction? there she was to point out the sources of consolation.-In her domestic character she was thoughtful, uniform and energetic. In her care for others, she seemed to forget herself. To her relatives she was faithful, conciliating and benevolent--and to all she was kind, generous and free. Her religion was practical. Resembling the beloved disciple, a severe creed would have made her wretched; for she loved the good of every nation. Her mind appeared alive to every thing gentle, tender and ennobling. She could tolerate no views which did not directly purify, invite, console and exalt the mind. She loved truth, whether it beamed in nature, or was reechoed by revelation. She loved the works of God because they displayed benignity; and mankind, because God's voice of love was heard in their bosoms. She would say, 'it is hard to walk the earth and get no soiling on one's garments.' Yet her faults were rather the shades of virtue. She took her Saviour's character from his sermon on the mount, and believed he came to practice among men the good will he learned from above. She learned thence that beneficence was the golden thread to be woven through the texture of her life. She beheld in religion a herald of peace, a messenger of mercy, a prompter of charity. She beheld in God, all truth, purity and power, the everlasting friend of all his children; and in Jesus Christ, a Redeemer, faithful, unwearied and divine. She thought intemperance, covetousness, pride, injustice and cruelty, can never have mansions prepared for them in heaven. In short,

she practised on the belief, that to be Christ's she must have his spirit.--She loved the house of God and the ordinaces of christianity; and after an impressive discourse, how attractive and venerable has she appeared on returning home-her face, (like Moses' coming down from the holy mount,) with the beamings of the divine presence still remaining on her countenance.-You must be on earth what she was, if you would be hereafter what she is.

CRUELTY TO THE ANIMAL CREATION.

APRIL 1.

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He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.-His tender mercies are over all his works.

THE season is now approaching when, the animal as well as vegetable kingdom, is to be operated upon by renovating warmth. How wonderful is the hand of God! Not an insect is on the wing, not a fly tries its young pinions in the air, or testifies its joy in its gratuitous activity; not an animal gambols in the excess of its spirits; not a fish leaps from the water in its frolicks; not a bird offers its notes of praise on the altar of the morning-in short, not a living thing moves on the earth, through the air, or in the water, which does not demonstrate that consoling text, 'his tender mercies are over all his works.' If God is so careful of his creatures, shall we treat them with unconcern, with cruelty and murder? Have we in reckless haste and in passionate wantonness, a right to destroy that exquisite organization which his hands have wrought? Has he created only for us to annihilate ?-Granting the right over all creatures given to man at first, I would protest unreservedly against that unfeeling treatment and that thoughtless waste of animal life, which continues to disgrace every community. Because man had given to him the lower orders of creation, shall he assume the liberty of unlimited destruction or rash oppression? Nature has given them rights, and they are sacred, for they are from God. Why should it be thought less inhuman to crush to death a harmless insect, whose offence is that it eats, than the lamb whom no one could kill unnecessarily. Yet the former is done without the least check of compassion. Is every creature below man contemptible? let us remember that→

-the poor beetle, that we tread upon

In corporeal suff'rance feels a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

The sensations of insects are exquisite to a surprising degree. The millepedes, for instance, rolls itself round upon the slightest touch; and the snail gathers in her horns upon the least approach of your hand. Are not these indubitable indications of their sensibility; and is it any evidence of ours, that we are not therefore induced to treat them with a more sympathizing tenderness ?—There is a general claim of kindness which every species of creatures has a right to from us. This fact ought to be impressed on childhood. I am far from believing, that the early delight children take in tormenting insects and domestic animals, is proof of innate cruelty of temper. It can be perfectly explained on other principles; but they may by unrestrained indulgence get to disregard all suffering but their own. The supreme court of judicature at Athens, punished a boy for putting out the eyes of a bird which had unhappily fallen into his hands. Birds are the ornament of creation, and he who needlessly kills one, while he thereby gives birth to a thousand destructive insects, is guilty of offending God.

While I grant to man the right of aliment and self-defence, I would have him never forget the great limits of natural justice, and as the animals are given into our care, they are to be objects of our compassion, and never the sport of our cruelty. They are the recipients, of heaven's benevolence and they should be of ours.

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LORD'S SUPPER.

APRIL 2.

Do this in remembrance of me.

THE Lord's supper is a social repast commemorative of Jesus and the benefits we receive from him. One errour connected with it is, the supposing a formal preparation requisite to a worthy participation. If I accidentally came in upon a company celebrating the memory of an honoured friend, how gladly would I take part; and how absurd would be my refusal to do so, because I previously knew nothing of it. We should be always ready to remember our benefactors. The above errour supposes the need of a gratitude which is not permanent, but which is to be got up for the occasion, and dismissed immediately afterwards.

--

Another errour is, to suppose the supper has a tendency to reconcile God to us. God is already reconciled. He has no hostile vindictive dispositions towards mankind. He will show mercy to his returning children. He will not judge them with rigour, but in lenity. No rites, prayers or exercises can reconcile God to us; can make him more kind, equitable, just or merciful towards us than he ever has been in this world, and will be in the next. The supper may reconcile us to God, it may prevent our being indifferent, ungrateful, distrustful and disobedient to him; it may, as a means, lead us to reflection, reformation and holiness. When it has been the occasion of awakening our minds to reverential, confiding and filial sentiments towards God, a practical faith in Jesus Christ, and a warm love towards our fellow men, it has accomplished its part in the work of reconciliation.

Another errour is, that the supper secures the forgiveness of sin. He must form human conceptions of the Deity who imagines him won by momentary good actions or promises, to account us righteous while we are wicked. God does not forgive the sins we retain, however much we may confess them. Certain solemn occasions and stated religious vows are empty before God, if not followed by their fruits. True repentance is another phrase for actual amendment; and this only contains the conditions of forgiveness. So long as we persist in our sin, nothing can indemnify us against its penalties. Sin is a disease. The most compassionate and skilful physician cannot remove the disease, if we refuse to do that by which health is recovered. The supper is a means; and we must expect from it only what we make it afford. Our minds are the active agents the efficacy is with us and this efficacy is very great when the supper is celebrated as it should be.

Another errour is, to consider the supper as incomprehensible and mysterious. Reading is a means of knowledge; thinking is a means of intellectual strength; public worship is a means of piety and holiness, and the supper, in the same way, is a means of faith and brotherly love and is there any thing mysterious in these?

Led to the table by the light of christian truth, let us remember Jesus Christ as a martyr, witnessing a good confession before Pontius Pilate, and sealing it with his blood; as an example, enduring the severest tortures and being faithful unto death; as a conquerer, triumphing over every moral enemy; as a Redeemer, ratifying by his life the truths of his gospel, and as an intercessor, continuing in heaven the offices of love began below.