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VOICES FROM THE THRONE;

"H,

GOD'S CAIiLS TO FAITH AND OBEDIENCE.

REV. JAMES COOKK SEYMOUR,

Author of " Thf Kicer o/ Lift."

^fa®^

TORONTO:

METHODIST BOOK AN[) ITIUJSHIXG HOUSE,

78 * 8i KIN(; STRKKT |.;\.ST,

1881.

A WORD OF EXPLANATION.

-25-

^^HE iiiiii of tliis little lidok is to iticscnt, in as rloar,
"^ coiMincliciisivc, and fonihlc iimnntT as I could, and
in a connected and very luief form, the ^Mcat salvational
truths of the (iospel, and some of tli(! stronj,'est motives to
a lile of faith antl earnest, active piety. Some of the chiof
forms of error now prevalent, and some of the principal
dangers and duties of the Clniri'li at the pr.'sent time, are
kept in view all alon<,^ In a word, I have written this
book to helj) to save souls, to arouse the peo[tle of God to
greater holiness imd usefulness (myself among the rest), and
to glorify ( Jod. ,

I dedicate it to the I.oiU), and fervently pray that Ho may
bless it to every one who may read it.

JAMES ('. SEYMOUR.

Markham, February, 1881.

C()NTi;.\TS.

I. TlIK CHKAT KIN(i 7

H. WOIILDS OX WORLDS i«j

III. Tin; OVKHSIIADOWINC I'KKSKNcK '2^

IV.— THK KiNCS SOX -.ii

V. TH K « i i! KAT It KVOLL'TION ..... , h

VI. lifk;s thtk aim tjo

Vn.~ THE SALVATION AH.MV 74

VIIL TlIK IICSII (>K TLMK 87

IX. TIIK DAV OF |)(K».M pr.

X.-~-I)EKrs OF WOK 10.-,

XI. TlIK LAND OF I'.LISS 117

X 1 1 -STHAN( ; i: i; kfi( ; ks 125

XIII.-WELCOME FOK ALL 139

VOICES FROM Tin; THRONE.

CHAPTKK 1.

THE OKEAT KlSd.

VKRV unlA'licver in <'nn\ ami tin- Hil»K',
lias a cretMl of liis own : and it" a cit't'il
is wanted tliat is terril»iy ilo^niiatic.
and tt>iTil)lv liai'd to Indii'V*-, anyol' tlir
intid(!l cieeds — and tli«'ir name is legion
— will serve tlie purpose.
It may l>e hard to Ixdicve that tlirre is a (Jod,
but it is a million times harder to helieve that
there is none. It is ahout as difKcult to accept
the doctrines of our modern A^'nostic material-
ists. These Agnostics — know-notlnng people —
who, when it conies to believing in a Personal
God, pretend they know nothing, and can know

IJt' •*'■

V(»|( i;s FkoM TIIF. rHI{(>NK.

!ii

notlnnj^- ; y»'t, in i«'s|)L'ct to tliuir own niutciial-
istic ideas, ihv.y aw no longer Ajjiiostics, l»ut
Ovodics, who picti'ii 1 to know nearly cvcrv-
tliinj,^ an<l insist on tlio acc.e|ttanc(' of tlioir set
of (loetrinrs to tlieexelusion of all otlieis. Look
at sonie of tlir articles in tlir Kvohitionist creed.
Our Ai;-nostic (lo^iiiatists insist tliat physical
facts are the only facts in all the universe; tliat
are woi'thy of tlu' least consideration, if theie
ai'e any facts in mental phenomena, oi- in the
spiritual and r(.'ligious history and experience of
mankind, they are not worth noticin;^'. Tliey
are quite certain that tliere is no sucli ihiny as
free-will or choice of action on the part of man
— all his actions, whether of mind or hody, are
undei' tlie same physical law of necessity tliat
makes a stone fall to the earth, or two ^ases
cliemically unite. Tliev re«iuire us to believe
that there is no such thing in nature as intelli-
gent design ; as, for instance, the eye was never
madi' to see nor the ear to hear. The or«lei", nv-
rangement and adaptation that we see, iniply no
such thing as design, pui-pose or plan. All has
come by matter working itself out in "fortuitous
variation." Furthermore, as the main plank in
their d<jctrinal platfoini, that there is nothing in
the structure, arrangement, and government of

I'»n; (iUKAT KlNf;.

th»' pliysical universr, or in the ro^^non of mental,
moral un<l spiritual phenomena, tliat re<juiivs or
even indieates tlie existence of a supreme intel-
lii'ence. If Me exists, He has «riven no sij^n of
it — H«' is Unknown : an<l it is impossihle for
man to appreciate His existence — foi* He is Un-
knowahle.

These wise philosopliers assure us, tliat proto-
plasmic slime, or some original elements of mat-
ter, have evolved or made all the forms of heing
we know anvthin*^ of — material, mental, morr,.',

»' ~ lit

or spiritual : and this is accomplished hy the
very simple and easily understood () process of
nuitter chaiii-in'^ itself from " incoherent liomo-
geniety, to coherent heterogenity, through con-
tinuous diti'erentiations."

And finally, the Agnostic is (piite positive that
this wonderful slime, which has worked such
marvels, has in it such " potency and promise "
of unheard-of things yet, that the world need
not trouble itself much about the evidence of
any connected chain of indisputable facts, run-
ning up to the beginning of things, but can rest
assured of the truth of all these doctrines,
chieHy on the authority of the emphatic asser-
tions of the Agnostics themselves.

Talk about doL'uiatism after this I Wliere

VOICES FROM THK THl{(hNK,

could tliere be found doctrines more thoroughly
irrational and ai)siird than tliese — so scjuarcly
contradictoi'y of unii\iesti()iia])le facts — so infi-
nitely difficult to believe, and which confiont
the human intellect with such tyrannical and
outrageous demands ?

Likewise, every infidel system that rejects the
Bible, necessarily and imperiously insists on our
faith in some such domnas as the followiniij : —
That God has left mankind from the first with-
out any revelation of truth and duty — any dis-
covery of man's true nature and destiny, or of
God's will, such as the Bible and the Bible alone
contains — that the Bible-writers were conscious
deceivers and impostors, or dreamy enthusiasts
— that the so-called facts of Scripture, are no
facts at all, but forgeries or fancies — that the
precepts of the Bible, though the purest and
most sublime ever delivered to mankind, are only
an impious frau<l — that although the Scripture-
writers knew, or ought to have known, the
fraudulent nature of their teachings, yet they
strangely acted in harmony with them all their
after lives, and that often amitlst the most
terrible sufferincjs — that althouo^h over fifteen
hundred years were occupied in writing the
Bible, and every imaginable facility existed for

THE GREAT KING.

the exposure of its fraudulent character, yet the
fraud was never found out all that time ; and
although for eighteen centuries more, every kind
of investigation has been going on by friends
and foes alike, the sham has not been exposed
yet, but still continues to deceive the vast ma-
jority of the most enlightened nations of man-
kind. That although the influence of the Bible,
more than all other influences combined, has
purified human character and human society,
yet it is nothing after all but a piece of decep-
tion, and the most gigantic imposture, too, that
ever was in the world, as it comes in the name
of God, and deals decisively with every conceiv-
able human interest for this life and the next.
And all this, it is insisted, shall be believed,
without any adei^uate proof whatever ; but
chiefly because these wise philosophers themselves
authorize us to believe; their own boM and
vehement assertions beintr the chief, if not the
only foundation, they are al)le to give us for our
faith.

To ])e capable of accepting as true any such
preposterous dogmas, betrays a capacity for
credulity not easily measured. Any one infidel
doctrine of the sort puts a strain on the believ-
ing powers of the mind immeasurably more

VOICES FROxM THE THRONE.

severe than can ever be required in accepting
the whole tliat is ever asked for the inspired
truth and authority of the Scriptures.

It is not pretended that the believer in God
and in the Bible may never encounter difficulties
— nor is it anything to l»e wondere<l at if he
does — but all his difficulties are but arit-hills
that can be reasonably and honourably sur-
mounted ; but those of the Atheist and Intide!
are Alpine mountains that can only be scaled by
the abnegation of reason itself, and the adoption
of endless inconsistencies and the most gigantic
absurdities.

There is, indeed, one living and true (iod ; but
it is a remarkal)le fact, that there is no attempt
made in the Holy Scriptures to furnish an ex-
haustive account of the Divine Being.

God is presented to us as a Being, of whom
we may know something; but whom, with our
present faculties, w^e cannot fully compiehend.
This is reasonable, for it is clear that finite minds,
like ours, could not possibly fathom an infinite
mind like His. This, at once, lifts our conception
of the Divine nature and glory \'astly above all
the ideas of God as reflected in the heathen
mythologies, ancient or modern. The notion of
God in all these is essentially human. He is

rii I

THE GREAT KTNCJ.

1 •"»
lo

for the most part, the impersonation of luinian
nature, and often in its greatest weaknesses and
hlackest vices.

The Scriptural idea of God is something grand
and sul)lime in the highest degree. His very
names are a revelation of infinite greatness and
glory. God is the great 1 AM, self-existing, ab-
solutely independent, all-sufficient in Himself,
unchangeable and eternal. He is Jehovah — the
Being alone in whom the essential idea of the
highest existence concentrates. The Almighty,
whose power knows no limit. The (h-eator, who
alone is the originating cause of the universe,
and all it contains. The Lord, the adorable
Being by whom all things consist, the foundatiim
that sustains all matter and all mind. The Most
High, the only Potentate, supreme above all
beings and all things.

God is an infinite Spirit, whose presence is
everywhere, who never had a beginning, whose
duration can never end, and whose nature is al)-
solutely and eternally unchangeable. His in-
finite mind comprehends all things, and His
wisdom can never err. His purity is absolutely
perfect, His majesty unspeakably glorious, and
His bliss without measure oi- limit. But this
wonderful Being, concerning whom such over-

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

powering thoughts are revealed, is further pre-
sented to us in the sweet light of a Father, a
Redeemer, a Saviour, a Comforter, a Friend. All
these inconceivably great and tremendous attri-
butes are exercised, in respect to us, with a
justice which can show no partiality, a faithful-
ness and truth which can never swerve, a long-
suffering and forbearance which endures to the
last extremity, a generous bountifulness which
ever deals with lavish hand, a goodness that
embraces every need and every needy thing, a
mercy that ever melts into boundless streams of
compassion, and a Love that ever rules with
Imperial tenderness and aL-conquering sway, in
all the amplitude of that eternal Heart. The
very ability to conceive such thoughts as these
is the highest glory of mind itself. It lifts men,
even the meanest savages, immeasurably above
the most intelligent of the brute creation who
are incapable of such thoughts, and above the
most cultured sages of heathenism in any age,
who never knew such a God as this.

The thought of such a glorious God acts like
the sun shining on the dark corners of the earth.
It sheds most precious light on a thousand dark
problems, which otherwise must lie hidden in
inextricable and confounding mystery. It har-

THE (J HEAT KING.

monizes with, and overtops, the most expanded
notions we have, or ever can have, of the mag-
nificence of the physical universe, it is just the
field where mind can find the most satisfying
exercise of its loftiest soarings, and profoundest
searchings, and it is above all things, just what
man's heart needs in its unutterable and irrepres-
sible yearnings. All our wealth — intellectual,
moral, spiritual — concentrates in that infinitely,
precious word — God. That word wakes the glad
symphonies of the heavenly throng. It is a melo-
dious joy that resounds, as nothing else can, in
millions of human souls, and it will yet call forth
the responsive outbursts of praise, foreseen in the
Apocalyptic vision — " And every creature which
is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the
earth, and such as are in the sea, heard I saying,
' blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be
unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb for ever and ever.' "

CHAPTKR ][.

WORLDS OX WORr.DS,

REATION is a revfilation of God. It
reveals God in His works, as the Bible
reveals Him in His Word. The one
shows us His hand, the othei* His
heart. These are two sister-revela-
tions — or rather they are husband and
wife, whom God Himself hath joined together
in one. They must not be — they cannot be sun-
dered or set against each other. There can be
no real contiict of testimony concernini' God, be-
tween the true facts of iiature, and the true
teaching of Scripture. Conflicting testimony,
in appearance, has often l)een paraded, but it is
always the offspring of ignorance an<l j^'rversity
— and ever will be.

Were it possible for men to search out fully the

WOKLDS ON' WORLDS.

real facts of natural science, and to understand
fully what the Word of God really does teach,
there would be the blending of the most magnifi-
cent and harmonious light, not a ray of w^hich
would fail to illuniinate to us the glories of the
Godhead. Neither should we be discouraged in
prosecuting so difficult, but so noble a search as
this. What marvellous progress has been made,
ev^en within a century or two, in the knowledge
and elucidation of the Scriptures ! These deep
mines of eternal truth have yielded stores of
treasure to the enterprising and courageous
toilers of these later times, quite unknown to
the generations of the past. So also in natural
science. Men of science, who after all, are but
the prophets of God, working in the sphere
assigned them by the Great Master, have pene-
trated deep into the mysteries of nature, and
with a boldness, persistency, and success, wor-
thy of the highest admiration, have enormously
enlarged our knowledge of the physical universe.
And with what result has this twofold investi-
gation been going on ? There is not a thoroughly
established fact in natural science but is in
agreement with the thoroughly understood
teachings of the Bible. And as these two lines
of independent, and, on the whole, honest en-

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

quiry will be pursued — and they will be, with
ever intensifying keenness — may we not predict
for future generations that these labours of
friends and foes alike, will, in the end but greatly
enlarge, and render far more just and right
men's views of the ever-blessed God ? We be-
lieve it will be so.

We must not measure God by what we see
of Him in nature, any more than by what we
read of Him in Scripture. They are both but
imperfect and partial revelations of God. In the
Bible, God has told us only something of Him-
self — in creation He has show^n us only something
of Himself. We may well believe that God's
power certainly could make far greater worlds
than either the eye or telescope of man can dis-
cover. His skill could devise far more lovely and
complex forms of being than any that exist. His
all-seeing eye reaches behind all worlds and all
space itself. His goodness could develop far
brighter illustrations than any the physical uni-
verse now contains. Not only could all this be
but it is not unlikely that it may be. And yet
the views of God, as seen in His creative works,
are glorious indeed. The grandeur of God's
thoughts impresses us in the extent of these
wonderful works. What countless worlds are

WORLDS ON WORLDS.

scattered through space ! Who can imagine
their splendour, their magnitude, the extent of
space they fill ! Every year, we approach some
of these worlds nearly 200 millions of miles, and
they are no larger in appearance ; we recede
that distance from theui, and they appear no
less. What suns and systems s])read themselves
before our naked eye ; but what vaster ones
there doubtless are, whose light travelling on
from the beginning, has never reached us yet !
Our earth itself, but an atom — a speck in this
mighty congregation of spheres — yet is the
grandeur of God everywhere written on its
l)row. In the streaming light, the swelling
mountains, the sweeping winds, the resounding
ocean, the flowing rivers, the waving forests,
the wide-spread plains. W^hat a notion of the
power of God is in the thought that, at His
word, this earth and all those starry worlds
sprang into existence ? He spake, and it was
done. He commands, and they still stand fast ;
each held firm in its existence, and in its pro-
per path of duty, by His simple will. The
beauty of God is reflected in the loveliness of
the light, the charm of the lan<lscape, the flash
of the gem ; in the diversified forms of animal
and vegetable life, where are some, like the

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

.11 '

bounding antelope, whose movements are grace
itself ; or the blushing rose, or gorgeous lily,
whose adorning surpassed that of King Solo
mon in all his glory. The .skill of God is seen
not oidy in the vast framework of nature — in
the construction, disposition, arrangement and
harmonious working of the mightiest worlds —
but in th(; very same things, as seen in the
humblest insect or lowliest vegetable. And what
wisdom is everywhere manifest ! God has made
nothing in vain. There is not a world in the
universe but has its special place to occupy,
and specific purpose to fulfil ; neither is there
a blade of grass nor a grain of sand. Every-
where, too, there are evidences of the opera-
tion of One, and of only one Supreme mind.
These are seen, not in a dull and monotonous
uniformity — but in an essential unity — pre-
.served amidst an ever-varying and boundless
variety. And through all, there shine forth the
unmistakable signs of an intentional goodness —
the benevolent purposes of God. It might have
been a pain for the eye to see, the ear to hear,
or the limb to move ; but God has made them
pleasures. The light does not rush from
the heavens bringing the glare of noonday
in an instant, but steals upon us, soft and

WORLDS ON WORLDS.

tender as a mother's kiss, Th«' air carries
into the lim^^s, not streamlets of noxious
gases, but of vivifying oxygen. Tlie I'ivers pur-
sue the ocean, tracing their pathway in verrhire
and fertility. The wi<lespread ocean is kept
bright and pure iiy striving winrls and sporting
waves. The beasts for th«* most part an* liarm-
lessand useful — it is only tlie few tliat resemble
the venemous reptile or tn-acherous tiger. The
trees and herbs that are poisonous are scarce ;
while the earth is clothed with vegetation, grate-
ful to the eye, giving delightful shade, and
affording nutritious and pleasant food. The
mountains are not generally belching volcanoes,
but the peaceful and nurturing homes of the
w^orld's rivers of life. The earth itself is firm
beneath our feet, and not, as it might have been,
forever trembling in the convulsions of earth-
quakes. It is the goodness of God that has
made such benevolent arrangeinents in nature —
the goodness of Him " whose mercy is over all
His works." But it is in man himself wx dis-
cover the brightest revelation of God as seen in
His creative works. Man is a .sort of universe
in himself, and in some respects a greater uni-
verse than the world of nature. Even his bodily
frame is the most wonderful mechanism of the

VOICES FROM THE TTfRONK.

ffii !

Divine hand. There is no form of majesty and
beauty in this world that will bear the least
comparison with the foiin and face of man.
Even oiw most exalted conceptions and imagin-
ings of heavenly forms, are all based on the model
of the human body ; but his body is nothing to
his mind. This is the image and likeness of
God. By this he is linked with the higher and
the highest intelligences. By this God has en-
throned him as the lord of nature, and by this
his conquests over the forces of matter are
achieved and maintained. That mighty donunion
of mind we have seen vastly extended, even in
our own time, in the subjugation of the power of
steam, which man has hitched to the car of the
world's commerce ; in the capture of the light-
ning flash, which obediently wafts man's v/ishes
to the furthest ends of the earth ; in the perfecting
of that greatest marvel of all — the printing-press
— by which the thoughts of one man's soul, in a
few hours, may be imprinted on the souls of
millions with more than sun-painted accuracy.
Neither may we doubt that future generations
will witness far greater discoveries and improve-
ments than we have ever known ; since the
march of mind, like the course of a great river,
flows ever increasingly onward. Neither must we

WORLDS OX WORLDS.

2.S

forget that man is not now what he once was.
His normal condition of power and glory, when
lie came from his Maker's hand, has largely faded
away. Sin has impoverished and ruined him,
yet he is great .still, even in his ruins —
as many remains of the mighty cities and em-
pires of old are great still, though their original
.splendour has long passed away. The glory of the
Great Architect of the universe is further seen in
what mu.st be after all the chief object of crea-
tion. It cannot be t^ at to .show forth the Divine
character for God's own sake, He made the
worlds — for that was unneces.sary ; but for the
sake of His intelligent creatures, for whom it
was necessary. God has graciously condescended
to share the joys of being with His creatures,
but He desires to complete their happiness by
teaching them His own glorious nature and
character. The Bible teaches us that this world
was made for man — and it is evident it was so.
Everytliing goes to show that this world is the
cradle of man's existence — the school where he
is to receive his elementary instruction and ex-
perience in regard to his great Father in heaven,
and a preparation for a future and higher life.
This view of the subject casts a still richer and
more glorious light on God's creative works.

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

U :'i

Mark what a history reveals itself ! A true evo-
lution by far more majestic than any our modern
philosophei'.-; have spoken of. Here we see why
God did not l)rin<:f man into heincj soonei' — the
home of the infaiicy of his existence was not
ready for liim. It needed those processes of pre-
paration so hriefly yet so comprehensively
sketched in the first chapter of Genesis. Ele-
mentary matter, under the forming Hand of its
Great Creator, needed to be brought into con-
sistence and shape, and the great outlines of our
mundane system established. The first and
lowest forms of life — the foundation and support,
as it were, of all the rest, e(hiced ; the lights set
up as regulators of times and seasons. The higher
forms of animal life in the ocean and on the
land called into being ; and not until the early
and terrific revolutions by which the earth's
crust was formed, had subsided ; not until the
earth was fully stocked with all necessary living
things and the whole furniture, so to speak,
placed in the home, was man called to occupy
it.

His occupancy of earth during the whole
period of time will be but a brief stage in the
progress that will still lead to higher development
of excellence, not only in man himself, but in the

WORLDS OX WOIU.DS.

material universe ; and thus God works out for
the world, from elementary beginnings, a career
of constant and glorious progression, keeping
ever in view, the wisest and noblest of ends, and
leading upwards to an altitude of splendour and
glory, which imagination pictures in wain.

Oh, as we tread the hallowed courts of God's
great Temple, ]ot it be with a reverent step ; let
everything speak to us, as it surely is meant to
do, of the High and Holy One, in the presence
of wdiose works we stand ; and as our hearts
throb with adoring love, let us with the hea^'enly
worshippers break forth in joyous ascriptions
of praise — " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honour and power. For Thou hast
created all things, and for Thy pleasure they
are, and were created."

-^.'

-^—

CHAPTER III.

THE OVERSHADOWING PRESENCE.

HE Word of God declares that " God
hatli prepared His throne in the
heavens, and His Kingdom ruleth over
(dl ;" and to suppose anything else
would be incredible. To suppose that
God created all things and afterwards
left everything to itself, would imply that matter
possesses inherent powers of self-control and
adaptation, and the very highest moral qualities
that distinguish the Eternal Mind itself ; it would
imply the gravest rejection on the character
of God Himself as less reasonable and careful
than the creatures He has made ; it would imply
that the universe, where everything strikingly
exhibits the presence of order, arrangement, and
unity of purpose, was conducted without the

THE OVERSHADOWIXG PRESENCE.

slightest reference to these things, or by a blind
chance, which either means that there is some
sort of irregular superintending Power, or it
means nothing at all.

How God conducts the affairs of the uni-
verse may be an interesting enquiry ; but it
is not so essential as that He does do it. That
there are laws which He himself has established,
and by which He works, is in harmony with the
intelligence and wisdom of His own nature ;
but that He is inexorably bound by those laws
and can never set them aside for any purpose,
however great or beneficent, would be to make
His own laws a greater power in the universe
than He is Himself.

This providential oversight of God is all-
embracing. It extends equally to the passage of a
planet through space, and the flight of a bird
through the air — to the regulation of an angel's
mission, and the life-work of a bee. It weighs
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a
balance, and every mote in the sunbeam as well.
It watches ceaselessly over the interests of the
highest archangels, and etjually so over the low-
liest reptiles. It shapes the history and destiny
of nations, and holds in control the least, as well
as the greatest, affairs of individual men. That

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

loving oversight of our Father above feeds the
sparrows and watches their fall, and it counts
the very hairs in the l)eliGver's head, the sighs
that escape his heart, the tears of sorrow that
fall from his eyes ; it takes cognizance of all
his wants, and makes ample provision for their
supply.

That there are "niystevies in God .5 providen-
tial management is undeniable, and it would be
more marvellous still if there were none. The
unsearchableness of God, whether in His nature
or His conduct, accounts sufficiently for the
greatest mysteries that may occur in any and in
every field of obsi.Tvation, If we could find out
God to perfection, we could solve all the mys-
teries in the universe ; but until we can do that,
we must be content to dwell in the presence of
a great many mysteries. If we bear in mind
that the great thing in this life is our moral
renovation and discipline and education, in view
of an eternal life beyond, and that this is to be
completed within the very short time we are
permitted to stay here, it will help to explain a
great many otherwise mysterious providences.
We must remember that God has endowed us
with faculties developed just so far as suits a
state of trial or probation. Our outward cir-

THE OVERSHADOWING PRESENCE.

cumstances are likewise specially adapted to
such a condition The Bible itself is but a
revelation expressly adapted to beings whose in-
tellectual and moral nature is imperfect, and in
course of training for a far nobler and more
perfected state of existence. Our position in
relation to the material universe is the same.
We have no faculties for investigating more than
a limited area of God's great works and ways,
and if we had these faculties we could not use
them. We dwell in a corner of the universe,
and like a man in a valley, the view from our
point of observation is necessarily circumscribed
and partial. At best, we can only know in part.
We see a portion of God's administrative schemes
which date back thousands of years before we
were born, and which will yet require probably
thousands of years more before they are fully
ripened. It is not possible — it is not necessary
— we should now comprehend all the great and
wonderful purposes of (Jod, which are designed
to run throughout the whole course of His ad-
ministration, and which are included in the life
and experience of every individual ; but it is of
prime importance to us to learn and practise
that trust in God's wisdom and love, so befitting

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

.1 %

I- lili

'm ^^

i !

our present state of trial, and so indispensable
to our eternal happiness.

There are doubtless many things charged to
the inscrutable ways of God which more truly
ought to be set to the account of the wilful
ignorance and wicked perversity of man. There
are many so-called mysterious dispensations that
are no mysteries at all, but can be easily ac-
counted for on rational and moral grounds.
There are things mysterious to us in youth, whose
explanation God makes clear enough to v.s when
we get older ; and by-and-by in heaven God will
pour celestial light on our darkest and most
pci'plexing problem ;.

Even our limited knowledge and observation
on earth teaches us how wisely and righteously
(iod does truly govern all things. It is impos-
sible not to see all around us, ten thousand signs
of the operation of a wise and benevolent
Superintending Providence. On no other prin-
ciple whatever can we account for the regularity
of the seasons, the j^eriodical supply of food, the
inter-dependence of creatures on each other, the
continuance and preservation of the weakest
forms of life, and multitudes of phenomena
obsorvable everywhere, all bearing the same
i i>- . ny, . ,.

THE overshadowtnt; presence.

What, too, is the history of nations, but chiefly
the expansion of God's ideas and plans in the
government of the world. I'hey have been
raised up, or permitted to be, for purposes of
instruction, or warning, or liojje, to other genera-
tions and ages ; and when their specific purpose
has been fulfilled, they have been succeeded by
others, whose existence and work may have been
for widely difierent ends, but equally useful in
the general designs of the Great Administrator
of all.

And thus standing, as we do to-day, on the
favored mount of observation, we can prolong
our vision backward through those thousands of
years that are past, and see through all those
vast changes a steady current of good things
towards us, and enriching us, on whom the ends
of the earth have come, with far greater trea-
sures of knowledge, and Avisdom, and incentives
to duty, than any generations ever before [)os-
sessed. So, also, within the still narrower circle
of our own brief lives, how much can we discov-
er to vindicate God's dealings with us ^ Who of
us can recount the daily mercies of the long past
— the years of health — the full supplies of bread
— the comforts and luxuries of our lives ^ When
we think of the blessings of Christian parentage ;

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

I ■ :

of civilized life, with its sweet amenities ; of
Christian society, with its still sweeter converse ;
when we think of the perils from which we
have been shielded, and the pleasures we have
shared, and the merciful pilotage through life's
rough voyage, that somehow has never failed
us — where are we to look for the explanation of
it all, hut to the loving hand of God, which has
ever been upon us for good ?

And even those darker scenes of pain and
grief and suffering through which we have
passed, were not what they seemed — the rushing
upon us of ruthless foes — but the disguised visits
of our real friends. The providence of God has
transmuted the base metal of our afflictions into
the pure gold which we willingly place among
our most treasured spiritual riches. Those very
trials that w^ere to us so painful and so inex-
plicable, through the grace that sanctities, have
smoothed and polished us, refined and softened
our hearts; have made us gentler and more tender;
and, above all, have loosened the unlawful ties
that bound our hearts all too closely to this
world, and have drawn our souls in trustfu^ love
far nearer to God and heaven.

We can understand quite enough of God's
providential administration to justify our joyful

THE OVERSHADOWlNYi PRESENCE. 33

and most undisturbed confidence in Him in
those things we do not understand, and which
He has, for the wisest reasons, left for the pre-
sent unexplained.

Let us delight to trust God, not in the spirit
of an indolent fatalism, or of a rash presump-
tion, but in the spirit of reverent, obedient love

iir

^^^nS6

U'i'

^:.ti

CHAPTER IV.

THE KINGS SON.

EDEMPTION is especially a revela-
tion of the infinite love and mercy of
God. " God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son."
That there was such triumphant love
and tenderness in God's great heart,
neither creation nor Providence could at all ade-
quately declare ; but the story of Redemption
overwhelmingly does. That story carries us
back to the beginning, grows upon us unceas-
ingly through all time, and swells into an ocean
of eternal mercy for evermore.

The first human being came from God's crea-
tive hands, the perfection of beauty; the last and
most exquisite embodiment of God's skill, power
and goodness. His body w^as a form of heavenly

THE KIXO's SON.

:\n

grace and majesty, his inind was the peer of
angels, his lieart beat with a seraphic purity and
love. But in one fatal hour all was changed.
He failed to stand the te^^t of fidelity and loyalty
to God wliieh had heen appointed him, as an ac-
countable, moral agent, and a> still within the
limits of his prol)ation. That violation of God's
command on the part of our first parents, simple
as it may seem, yet contained every element of
rebellious iincjuity. It was the deadly seed, cap-
able of producing all the wickedness which has
ever since spread through tlie world. The sun
of man's glory had set. Sin's fatal grasp now
encircled him. . Its cruel power had already
sealed the doom of his l>ody as the victim of the
loathsome dissolution of the ;n^ve. His glorious
intellect, it shrivelled into meanness, enveloped
in darkness, and perverted deeply. It kindled
in his heart a very hell of corruption and misery.
Sin, at a stroke, smote him down from his
throne of intellectual and moral glory and hap-
piness — cut him off from the favour and presence
of God — stamped him as the enemy of his
Maker — alienated from liim the friendship of all
the holy intelligencies of heaven — and allied him
to the hateful demons of tlie pit — blasted all his
prospects for the present or future, and left him

VOICES FROM TFIE THRONE.

Jill

to perish, helplessly and hopelessly, in the ever
deepening darkness of a misery that knew
neither abatement nor end.

What was to be done ? And here arises the
mystery of mysteries. Difficulties on difficul-
ties here crowd upon each other, as we face
that terrific question, — How could God be just,
and yet the justifier of ungodly man ?
Whether the mind of men or angels will ever
fully sound the depths of that wisdom and love
wrapped up in the answer God has actually given
to this (question, we know not ; but there are
some things that seem tolerably clear to our
feeble powers of compreliension. To have per-
mitted man to suffer all the necessary results of
his own evil ways, might have been in accord-
ance with the stern demands of infinite justice,
but certainly not in accordance with the mercy
of a God, whose very nature is Love. To have
pardoned and passed l)y man's sin in the arbi-
trary exercise of the Divine prerogative of mercy,
would have been an exhibition of weakness, as
degrading to the character of God, as tlie holy
and righteous Monarch of the universe, as it
would have been disastrous in its moral effects on
all the intellectual beings He had made. The su-
preme authority of law must be preserved un-

THE KINGS SON.

impaired, the supreme dominion of mercy must
have its full sway unhindered. Who will under-
take to fulfil these conditions of salvation ( " J,"
said the Son of God; " J, who am rich with the
eternal «^dories of the Godhead, will hecome poor,
that fallen man may he made rich. I will stoop
down to wretchedness and dust, that these guilty
worms may rise. I will make myself of no re-
putation, and tak(; upoji me the form of a servant,
and being found in fashion as ji man, will humble
myself and Vu'come obedient unto death, even
the death of tlie cro.ss. T will die, as an atone-
ment for the sins of mankind- -as an expiation of
the I'ighteous wrath of Divine Justice. 1 will
sati.sfy all that infinite justice can claim. I will
open the Hood-gat(?s of mercy wide enough for
the most boundless streams of salvation to flow
upon the human race." That glorious ofler was
acccepted. And now dawned the first ray of the
light of life on the flrst guilty pair. " The seed
of the w^oman — the comini:: incarnated Redeemer
of mankind — shall indeed bruise the serpent's
head." Down throufjh the intervening acfes,
that blessed hope of fallen man brightened con-
stantly. It fired the songs of the Hebrew
bards — it gu.shed in the living streams of pro-
phetic description — it was fore-shadowed in

•r^mm

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

every historic scene — its symbols re-appeared in
each successive age — it was anticipated in every
bleeding sacrifice.

In the fulness of time, the world's Deliverer
came — and such a Deliverer 1 Such a character
and life, as every succeeding generation of men
have been studying, with ever-growing wonder
and delight and love, and will to the end of
time. The unmistakable signs of the Divine
glory of Christ were not wanting all through His
earthly career. At his birth, a starry guide led
the Magi to the spot where his infant form was
cradled, and angel bands burst from the mid-
night sky in rapturous songs of praise. At the
opening of His mission, the heavens parted
above His head, and a voice from the Heavenly
Throne, acknowledged Him as God's well-beloved
Son, while the plenitude of the Holy Ghost filled
His being. At His bidding, the boisterous winds
and raging waves of Galilee at one time lay
still, at another made for His feet a pathway of
adamant.

His touch was the instant cure of the foul
leprosy, the palsied limb, the chronic plague. As
the few loaves and fishes received his benedic-
tion, they grew into a full repast for hungry
thousands. His all-penetrating glance surveyed

THE KINGS SON.

the dej^ths of the most secret thoughts of men.
At His word, the cowering legions of devils re-
leased their deadly grasp of human souls, and
slunk away ; while that same voice a"Woke the
sleeping dead, and restored to the widow her
only son, and to Mary and Martha their only
brother. On the mount, the veil of His flesh
could no longer restrain the divine Majesty
within, and it streamed forth in overpow^ering
splendour. On His cross, the sun refused to
shine, and mourned for hours in darkness ;
while the earth shook in horror, the rocks clave
apart, and the dead sprang to life from their
dusty sepulchres. The grave could not detain
Him. His divine energy overthrew its barriers,
and He rose again ; while all heaven's hosts
broke forth into loud halle'ujahs as He ascended ;
the King of Glory entered once more those
pearly gates, and sat down again on that throne
where it was His right to reign. He was God
indeed — the Great I AM, manifest in the flesh —
God blessed for evermore.

But Christ was man as truly as He was God.
He WPS man, with all the instincts, sensibilities,
sympathies, and sinless infirnnties of human
nature ; and, as a man. He presented to the
world the only instance it has ever seen of a

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

iii, I

if;

IHII

spotless and perfect human character. In him
there was no deficiency and no excess. From the
lirst breath he drew in Bethlehem to the last on
Calvary, there was no moral imperfection in
Him. Never was there a life more human, more
public, more severely scrutinized yet could no
man convince Him of sin ; neither was there in
Him the least fault in the eye of God. And
what words of wisdom fell from those lips ! He
was truth itself. In Himself was verified and
fulfilled the prophecy, and prom.ise, and type,
and shadow of the long past ; and gathering up
these scattered materials of truth of all by -gone
times, He builds them into a glorious temple of
doctrine which surpassed and superseded all
other, and which can never be surpassed and su-
perseded itself — doctrines, whose power of intel-
lectual and moral elevation are absolutely illimit-
able, and against which the gates of hell can never
prevail. But we are chiefly drawn toward that
deep Divine tenderness of heart, that overflowing
love of Christ, which, in Him, far exceeds all
other qualities. We see it in Him when, as a
gentle boy, His love for His mother constrained
Him to com ult her wishes as a sacred duty ; and
again, amidst his dying agonies on the cross, to
find for that now forlorn mother a home and a

THE KINGS SON.

friend for her remaining days. We see it in
Him, as He takes np the little children in His
arms, puts His hands upon them, and blesses
them. Tender compassi(m starts the tears from
His eyes as He beholds tlie heart-broken sisters
of Bethany, and the desolation of their once
happy home ; and it sends them streaming down
His clieeks as He sits on Olivet, and surveys
the lovely Jerusalem, whose awfal doom His
prophetic eye sees fast hastening on. That
lovinf'" s-^'j^ippfhy broke forth afresh day by day,
as those diseased, deformed, distressed, down-
trodden nniltitudes eagerly thronfjed around
Him, and sought from Him that blessed relief,
which they had sought everywhere else in vain.
But above all, it is through the humiliation and
sorrows of Christ that we can look into the
depth of that marvellous love, He cherished for
our race.

We labour in viiin to imagine the extent of
humiliation and saffering involved in the Hon of
God, becoming iDc^inate at all in human form,
even under the ii^st favoured circmiistances.
What a change for an angel of God, accustomed
to the glory, the beauty, the purity, the peace,
the ineffable joy, the unfettered freedom, the
glad exercise of vast powers, the sweet intluence

VOICES FROM THE TVIRONE.

II!

of innumerable kindred spirits ; and, more than
all, the undimmed presence of the great Jehovah,
to descend to the prison-house of our weak clay,
even though as an earthly monarch and sur-
rounded with all the pleasures and greatness this
world could afford ! An angel doing such a thing
were as nothing to Christ doing it. The Lord
Jesus has done that indeed, but O ! how much
more ! •

When He came, had all t • ''-"y-beils of
earth pealed forth His pra'so, had .; emperors
of earth contended who should do Him honour,
had the riches and glory of the world been laid
at His feet, had the Jews and Gentiles vied with
each other in their eagerness to believe in Him,
to accept His teaching, and obey His holy laws ;
had his life been one short joyful triumphal
march, even then no human lanfj^uacje could de-
pict the condescending love or the honour thus
done our race. '

But how different from all this was Christ's
experience ! When He first saw the light it was
in a stable, and in a manger where oxen fed.
The food He ate was won at Joseph's workbench,
where, too, there is little doubt that Jesus the
carpenter worked for many a year. As a foot-
sore and weary pedestrian, He traversed for

THE KINGS SOX.

years the mountains and vales of Palestine ; and
His one triiim]ihal procession saw Him seated on
a borrowed ass. The foxes had their holes, and
the birds of tlie air their nests, but the Son of
man oftentimes had not where to lay His head.
Thirsty, He begged a drink of water from a
foreigner ; hungry, He sought food on the fig-
tree and found none. His disciples had left their
fishinof-tackle on Galilee to follow Him, and one
of them valued His life's-blood at thirty piece^.
of silver. All the property He left for the soldiers
to divide were His soiled, blood-stained clothes ;
while a sepulchre — the gift of benevolence — re-
ceived His lifeless remains. What must have
been the grief of His sensitive soul at the heart-
less indifference, the stolid unbelief, the super-
cilious contempt, which greeted Him all through
His career ! The very race whom God had
honoured and blessed far above all other human
beings, for two thousand years, and who, at this
moment, were being exalted by His presence
among them to a pinnacle of deathless glory,
found it hard to discover means of showin$jf how
emphatically they despised, rejected, and scorned
Him.

But the closing scenes of that career reveal an
accumulated force of malignity on the part of

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

His enemies, and an aggregated sum of agonies,
which rolled their tumultuous waves through
His soul, See Him in Gethsemane's bloody
sweat, as He prays and ponders on that execrable
indignity of Judas, and the ripening plots of earth
and hell. Conscious of an innocence as spotless as
the throne of God, yet is He seized as a felon,
and that at the instigation of His own professed
apostle. Dragged before the tribunal of
Oaiaphas, He then met the gaze of men who
looked upon Him as the ferocious tiger looks
upon its prey. Hurried thence to the bar of Pilot,
He found that vacillating wretch, who there dis-
pensed the laws of heath* 1.1 P ^me, a more
righteous judge than the men who sat in the
seats of Moses and Aaron. Sentenced to death,
through the sheer force of the shouts and threats
of a frenzied rabble, with whom the murderer
Barabbas was a saint compared with Jesus, He
is delivered over to every species of indignity
anu torture.

Those savage soldiers, drilled in merciless
cruelty on a hundred bloody fields, show to-
wards Him the same brutality of nature as the
treacherous beast that paws with its victim be-
fore it devours it.

It was not enough for His tender flesh to be

THE KING S SON.

torn with the hideous lash ; they clothe Him
in mockery in a robe of royal scarlet, with a
reed for a sceptre and a thorny crown, striking its
horny points deep into His brow ; with jeers and
laughter they bend the knee, and sp4,y, " Hail,
King of the Jews 1" while they strike Him on the
head and spit in His face. Led forth to the
place of skulls, and in the company of ■ felons,
they crucified Him — that is, they put Him to
death, which combined more of shame, exposure,
contempt, ignominy, and lingering torture than
any other — a kind of death which every Roman
citizen and Jew regarded as an eternal disgrace,
and which was reserved for slaves, and those
only whose crimes were of the meanest and mc^t
abominable description.

Hanging in mortal agony on that accursed tree,
He was poured out like water, and all His bones
were out of joint. His strength was dried up like
a potsherd, and His tongue clave to His jaws. He
inight tell all His bones. They looked and stared
upon Him. But the sufferings of His body were
as nothing to the agony of His soul. With what
anguish did He see and hear that raging multi-
tude ; those human dogs, that compassed Him
about ; those strong bulls of Bashan, that beset
Him on every side, gaping upon Him with their

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

)■ ■
■■. 1

i: I
1. i

i ; 'r s I

i 'i

mouths, as ravening and roaring lions ! With
what exquisite torture did He hear those
mockers, with an ingenuity all infernal, turn
His very confidence in Clod against Himself I
as He saw them shooting out their lips, and
shaking their heads, as they said, " He trusted in
the Lord, that He would deliver Him ; let Him
deliver Him, if He delight in Him." With
what sad sensations of heart n\ust Christ have
contemplated all this diabolical malignity, as
the return men made for all His condescension,
benevolence, and love !

Can we doubt, either, that, in these terrible
hours, all the power;^ of darkness, all the hatred
of the pit, was let loose on that wonderful
sufFel'er, whom Satan well knew was the
mightiest foe of sin and hell in the universe ?
More fearful still, and more than all other
agonies, was the withdrawal, for a time, of His
Father's face. That mysterious darkening now^
interposed between His soul and that sweet
beaming love that had ever shone upon Him
from the heavenly Throne, and extorted from
Him, His most heart-rending cry of all — " My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?"
As if it was necessary that the Sin-Bearer must
feel in the deeps of His soul, the righteous and

Mi:'

THE KINGS SOX.

holy wrath of Gofl against sin. Christ's suffer-
ings, as far as man can discern, constitute a com-
plete circle, which includes every conceivable
form of sorrow which an innocent being could
endure ; but as it was expiatory suffering — a
sacritice which atoned for the sins of the human
race — it doubtless had elements of intensity in
it which we cannot gauge, and of which we can
know nothing.

And in what manner did Jesus undergo all
this for us ? With a fortitude that never quailed,
with a meekness that never murmured, wdth a
patience and forbearance that no provocation
could irritate ; and with a perseverance that
never paused until He could cry out — " It is
finished ;" and through it all, and above it all,
with a love that nothing could sour or alienate
or diminish ; a love for man that glowed all the
more intensely as the fiery furnace of His
sufferings grew hotter ; and, just as His accumu-
lated agonies were tearing asunder His nature,
that love sent forth its last and grandest outgush
from His heart — a prayer for His murderers —
" Father, forgive them ! "

Love — infinite, measureless, all-embracing,
eternal — is the secret of this wonderful story.
Love for us perishing sinners, was the mighty

■

P f h

■j 'J

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

magnet that drew the Saviour to earth. Love
S' t Him to the poor to make them rich, to the
helpless and weak that He might be their
strength, to the outcast and forlorn that they
might have at least one all-powerful Friend.
Love led Him wherever there was human grief,
that He might assuage and heal it. Love nerved
His soul as He struck, with resistless might, at
the deadly foes that had wrought all the ruin of
our race — sin and hell. And by love He con-
quered ; and what a victory — or rather what a
congregation of victories ! Christ's enemies
seemed indeed to have effected His complete and
irrecoverable overthrow, but it was their own.

Poor Judas rejoiced for a moment in the shining
silver — the wages of his perfidy — but it burnt his
soul like molten lead ; the thought of that inno-
cent blood gnawed him, as with the jaws of
hell, and hurried him to his own place.
Pilate, whose craven heart was terror-stricken
at the mention of an accusation to Caesar, and
to avert that dreaded alternative, delivered up
the Innocent, but in vain, for soon he was on
his way to face the Emperor's wrath, a speedy
banishment and a disgraceful death. That
very Roman power, under whose authority
Christ was murdered and by whose soldiers he

THE KING S SON.

was mocked, from that day was doomed to a
decline and fall which was not to end until
all its mighty legions were swept away, and
the irreat iron fabric — the wonder and terror of
the world for so manv centuries — w^as reduced
to endless desolation. The 4fews had slain Christ
in bitter mortification at the colhipse of their
selfish lust of national power and wealth and
grandeur, under their <'Xp','Cted Messiah; and that
they might still maintain tJieir temple and wor-
ship, their place an<l nation ; but ah'eady the
avenging Nemesis had .stretcl»ed over their city
and nation the destroying .sword ; and in a few
years, that glorious temple was left with not one
stone upon another, and tliat city visited with a
scourge which, in all the lii.st/)ry of sieges, wars,
and bloodshed, is utterly without a parallel ;
while for eighteen centuries since, the Jew^s
have wandered over th«^ earth without either
place or nation.

Christ's tragic end seemed the death-knell of
truth and virtue and goodness ; but it was then,
indeed, that pride and .selfi.shness w^ere most
emphatically humbled, and humility and self-
sacrifice most emphatically exalted — that meek-
ness and forbearance were made more chivalrous
than the boldest earthly courage — that patient
4

\i ifi

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

suffering for righteousness' sake became a patent
of nobility more illustrious than the loftiest title
ever worn by man. There, indeed, all the tinsel
greatness of this world dwindled to nothing ;
while the true and lastino- liches and orlories of
purity and fidelity, and truth and love, shone
forth with the most captivating beauty and the
most unfading splendour. It seemed the deci-
sive climax of sin's dominion ; it was its real and
eternal overthrow. In the death of Christ there
was discovered a new world of mercy and salva-
tion. Wrath was appeased, justice satisfied,
God reconciled, the most heinous sins made par-
donable, the most utter vileness removable,
perfect deliverance held out to the greatest slave
of sin, blessed hopes to tlie most despairing soul,
mighty strength to the weakest, and sweetest
joys to the most wretched, and everlasting bless-
edness, instead of woes that could never end.

Christ's death, too, seemed the grandest vic-
tory of death itself ; but it was then and there
alone that death indeed was abolished. The
reign of that king of terrors ceased as Jesus died
and rose again. It was then that life and im-
mortality were brought to light ; and as the
Redeemer lay in the grave, it was made there-
after but a resting-place, where the bodies of

THE kino's son.

fatent
t title
tinsel
,hing ;
fies of
shone
id the
> deci-
al and
t there
salva-
itisfied,
de par-
ovable,
st slave
[ig soul,
weetest
bless-
end.
3st vie-
there
The
us died
md im-
as the
t there-
:)dies of

His saints sliall softly sleep awhil«' ; and as He
rose afjain, it was their sure <'iiaraiitoe that they,
too, shall yet awake to glory everlasting.

Satan, too, through whom the poison of sin
had lirst bc'ii instilled into our worM, hy whom
the tianies of evil had been fanm'(l, and whose
areh-plot had now been a})paiently crowned with
such complete success — Satan, jubilant over
that agonized Sufferer withtiie grim Joy of hell
— yet it was his hour of doom in which Christ
planted His conquering heel on that serpent's
head, and whose crushing powder will never cease
until he is cast into the lake of fire to rise no
more forever.

Blessed Jesus ! With what faltering words
can we descril'e such a character as was His, such
.1 work as He did, such love as He showed forth.
And shall we ask what place the Lord Jesus
should hold in the confidence and love of man-
kind \ From the heights of His mediatorial
throne, whither He has gone to plead inces-
santly our cause, He looks into our hearts, and
asks : " What think ye of Christ ?" How can
we turn away from that loving gaze ? How can
w^e resist such love as His ? Surely we cannot
chime in with those who would deny His name,
exclude Him from their thoughts, and, if pos-

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

sible, from the very world He suftered to re-''
deem. Oh, we cannot thus crucify our precious
Saviour afresh, and put Him to an open shame.
Nay, rather let our right hand forget its cun-
ning, and let our tongue cleave to the roof of
our mouth, if we forget Thee, dearest Saviour —
if we prefer not Thee above our chief joy.

to re-'
•ecious
shame.
s cun-
foof of
aour —

y- - -

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT REVOLUTIOX.

HE salvation bouglit by the redeeming
blood of Christ opens heaven in the
human soul. Cod makes man His
living temple, where He manitests
His presence, power, and love. And
how that arising of the Son of Right-
eousness within man's heart discovers the disas-
trous, deep, and widespread efi'ects of sin ! If
we would form a just estimate of human de-
pravity, we must look within the human heart
— we must know something of the condition of
that xast internal kingdom where our moral
capabilities are at work. It is there the springs
of action are found — ^the head(|uarters of our
being — whence issue the mandates of the soul,
which crystallize into words and deeds. Nor

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

*: ;h

can we tell all that may be in the heart by what
is visible in the life, no more than we can
measure the extent of a volcano's internal fires
by the occasional overflow of lava on its sides —
no more than we can estimate the warlike capa-
bilities of a fort by the occasional discharge of
some of its guns. There may be latent evils slum-
bering in the soul, which only await a sufficient
occasion, and a sufficient provocation, to draw
them forth ; and nxich there are. The Divine
Word has said the heart of man is enmity
against God — is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked ; and although the soul,
in the darkness of its sin, mav be unable
to see or believe this dreadful truth, yet when
the light of salvation enters, it Ijecomes start-
lingly and distressingly visible.

It is no wonder that this insight into our
desperate and totally depraved condition
awakens within us the most poignant anguish.
The terrifying contrast appears between the
foulness we have been cherishing and the purity
we have been rejecting — between our treatment
of God and His of us. A painful consciousness
seizes us that we have had a Father to whom
we owe our existence, with all its joys, its facul-
ties, its possibilities, wh'^iii we have not acknow-

THE GREAT REVOLUTION.

what
re can
1 fires
ides —
3 capa-
Lrge oi
s slum-
ifficicnt
) draw
Divine
enmity
o-s, and

\Q soul,

unable
t when

;s start-

nto our
;ondition
anguish,
the
lie purity

eatment
oiousness
bo whom
its facul-

acknow-

l^een

ledged and reverenced, but rejected and dis-
obeyed — one w^Jiose loving care for us has far
exceeded that of a mother ; but whom we have
spurned away from us in malicious rebellion — a
Saviour whose unspeakable love and sacrifice has
awakened no grateful response within us, no
enthusiastic affection, no willing obedience ; but
on the contrary we have repaid all His tears,
and blood, and sorrow, by cruel unbelief, and by
swelling the ranks of His enemies. Ah, it is
this that cuts us to the heart ; it is this that
overwhelms us with a sense of our moral mean-
ness, our base ingratitude, our wickedness so
transparently hideous, that our conscience cries
out, and well it may, " Behold, I am vile," —
" God be merciful to me a sinner."

But the Spirit of God, thus mercifully con-
vinces us of sin, for the same reason that the
good and skilful physician makes first his
searching diagnosis, that his patient may be the
more thoroughly, and the more speedily healed.
Blessed, indeed, are those whom God thus makes
to mouiTi, for He means that they shall be com-
forted. But how is this comfort to be attained ?
How shall the troubled heart find that peace
with God, for which it sighs ? And here again
do we see the condescension of Divine grace,

Hi!

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

I :

adapting itself to the possibilities of our nature.
God has not suspended our acceptance with Him-
self, on the condition that we discharge ex-
tremely difficult 01* impossible duties. Man-made
systems of salvation always impose conditions
of that kind. They insist on the performance
of duties, for which the natural man has no
moral powers, as is the case in all self-righteous
systems ; or the expiation of sin, through fearful
and prolonged sufferings of body, which, even
were they effectual, millions could never under-
go, or the making of distant pilgrimages and the
offerings of costly oblations for which the vast
majority of mankind have neither the oppor-
tunity nor the means. But God's plan is simple,
available and practicable to those of all ages,
sexes, conditions in life, to every variety of
human beings, and in every variety of circum-
stances, and in every age and period of time, to
the end of the world. Paul's memorable reply
to the convicted Philippian jailor, is God's all-
comprehending answer to every anxious en-
quirer after salvation — " Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." It is
faith, and faith alone, that is the connecting
link between our distracted, guilty souls, and a
reconciled God.

iture.
Him-

e ex-

-made

itions

■ %

mance

las no

bteous

[earful

, even

under-

,nd the

le vast

oppor-

^^^^H

simple,

11 ages,

ety of

circum-

iime, to

^^^He''-'

e reply

d's all-

)us en-

e Lord

^^H

" It is

meeting

=i, and a

THE GREAT REVOLUTION. 57

But the question comes back from many an
eager enquirer, " What is it to believe in Christ
unto salvation ? " There are what we may call
different kinds or degrees of beUef. There is an
historic belief in (Hirist, which is slmph^ a bare
intellectual opinion or assent to the truth of the
New Testament record, a good deal as we believe
in an^" other authentic history, and with a some-
what similiar effect upon our character, affections,
or lives ; that is, not necessarily any at all, or an
effect imperceptibly small. Such a faith . is ut-
terly too weak to fulfil the mighty claims of
Christ upon our souls, or to sustain and satisfy
the soul itself in its wrestlings after God and
heaven.

There may be a stronger persuasion of this
kind that more fully realizes the great saving
ends that Christ had in view, and more vividly
perceives the plan of salvation as wrought out
by the Redeemer of men ; but neither can this
be saving faith, for it is only at best but an in-
tellectual recognition of the truth, and does not
necessarily touch the real citadel of the soul, the
conscience, the affections and the will. It is
with the heart man belie veth unto righteousness.
Neither is every persuasion that does move the
heart, true saving faith. Felix, under the

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

«ii

I f]..

■51 If

powerful preaching of Paul, as he reasoned of
righteousness, temperance and a judgment to
come, was so far convinced of the truth, and his
heart so far affected by it, that he " trembled,"
but he was no true believer. And Satan him-
self is as perfect an example of an intellectual
believer as the universe contains ; and, moreover,
feels the tremendous power of truth so deeply
that he too " trembles." Neither is it faith that
saves, even when the most powerful l)e]ief in the
truth is combined with the most pungent con-
viction of sin, as was the case with the Philip-
pian jailor, who still cried out — " What must I
do to be saved ^. " and to whom the Apostle re-
plied — " Believe." He had not believed savingly.
The fullest intellectual acceptance of the truth,
and the most heartfelt consciousness of sin, still
lack an essential element of true faith — and
what is that element ? It is trust — it is the
decisive act of the soul, by which it rests for sal-
vation on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. There
is a wide and vital distinction here. It is one
thing to cherish even the most sincere and hearty
regard for your guest, it is another thing to open
wide your door, and bid him welcome to all the
hospitality of your home. It is one thing for
a besieged city, surrounded by the king and his

THE GREAT REVOLUTION.

led of
nt to
id his
bled,"

him-
ectual
•cover,
leeply
\\ that
in the
it con-
Philip-
must I
,tle re-
vingly.

truth,
in, still
h — and

is the
for sal-

There

is one
I hearty
to open

all the
ling for

and his

armies, to profess, however honestly, all possible
regard for that monarch, it is quite another
thing to open to him the gates, to lay down the
weapons of war, and submit to his authority.
It is one thing for a traveller in the desert, dying
of thirst, to see the cool, sparkling water, to be-
lieve in its powers to quench his thirst and save
his life, and to long for it as only a thirsty man
can — it is (|uite another thing for him to lift it
to his lipH and drink, until he thirsts no more.
Even so, the faith that brings salvation into
the soul receives Christ, bv the deliberate act of
the will, opens wide the door of the heart, and
accepts Him joyfully, as our Prophet, whose
teaching we fully receive, and to whose laws we
willingly yield obedience; as our Great High
Priest, on whose all-atoning blood we actually
rest for present pardon and peace; ast)ur King, in
whose power, love, and faithfulness, we repose a
firm confidence, and under whose authority we
completely subject ourselves. It is the mighty
grasp of the whole soul on the unfailing promises,
the immutable faithfulness of the eternal God.
Such an act of decisive and resolute dependence
on God, Abraham, and Moses, and David, and
those other illustrious Old Testament believers,
not only professed themselves ivilling to do, but

' yi

'111

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

actually did do. So also did the Syro-Phcenician
woman, the centurion of Capernaum, blind
Bartimeus, the penitent thief, the eunuch of
Ethopia, Saul of Tarsus, the three thousand on
the day of Pentecost, and the long roll of the
saved in the apostolic time, and all that hav^e
been saved since. Such a faith, and such only,
is anything like worthy of God, whose single
word is a surer foundation than all the heavens
and all the earth. And such a faith can, and
ought to be exercised in God by multitudes, who
find little dithculty in exercising a faith a good
deal like it, in the common relations and business
of life. Are not these elements of faith, belie ving-
assurance, and acting-trust, plainly visil)le in the
child in its mother's arms, the wife in her hus-
band's home, in the merchant at the bank, who
takes imhesitatingly thousands of mere promises
for solid gold — yes, and in multitudes of self-
righteous men and procrastinators, who are fixed
in the persuasion, that there is somehow a good
hope for them, and rest contentedly in the house
they have built for themselves upon the sand ?■
God has made this act of firm reliance on the
atoning merits of Christ's blood, as the grand
condition of our acceptance into IJis favour, and
there is the highest wisdom and propriety in His

THE GREAT REVOLUTION.

Lician
blind
;h of
id on
f the
have
only,
single
avens
[1, and
^, who
I o-ood
isincss
eving-
in the
r hus-
V, who
omises
f self-
[3 lixed
a good
house
sand ?
on the
errand
ar, and
in His

■"^s

doing so, even as it appears to our imperfect
apprehension. Surely, we might well suppose
that God would provide some way, in which our
souls could most powerfully deny that there is
saving virtue in anything else but Jesus cruci-
fied ; and bv which we niioht set our most em-
phatic seal of recognition on the all-suticient
merits of Christ's sacrificial death. Such an
act of trust in Christ's blood gives us this oppor-
tunitv.

It is reasonable that, in return for such mar-
vellous love as that of Jesus Christ, there be
some possible act by which man may most ade-
(juately express his overpowering sense of grati-
tude. God has shown us precisely how that can
best l)e done, by this simple act of soul-reliance
on that astonishing love of Christ. Such a faith
as this, [it the same time, is a death-blow to
pri(k' and selfishness, wliich are the reigning cor-
ruptions in the human soul. It is also some-
thing witliin reach of the simplest child, the
meanest intellect, and the poorest man in the
world, while it is equally well adapted to the
greatest and noblest of the human race.

Such an act of faith brings us, at once, into sav-
ing contact with Christ ; as when the afflicted
woman touched the hem of Christ's garment, the

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

i;l

' (

I'll i

healing virtue of Christ's saving energy flows
into our souls. That free and full pardon of sin,
which God was before quite willing to give, he-
eause of the atonement made by Christ, He now
does give and writes it consciously on our hearts.
At the same time the Holy Spirit works a change
within us of the most delightful and glorious sort.
Deep as sin has struck its deadly fangs into our
nature, the saving grace of God follows after,
and everywhere that sin has abounded in our
souls, grace there begins much more to abound.
New faculties are not created, but there is the
creation of a new and blessed use of those we
have. The understanding sees, in an altogether
new light, the detestable character of sin, the real
loveliness of holiness, of God and heaven. The
judgment is delivered from the warping bias (jf
evil, and enthroned injustice and righteousness.
The conscience becomes a sens' '^ive monitor, a
vigilant sentry on the outlook of the soul. The
will turns round and steers for heaven. The
ati'ections enkindle with holy fires. Old things
have truly passed away, and all things truly be-
come new. That good Spirit expels the old
enmity, and sheds the sweet love of God abroad
in our hearts. The old nest of corruptions is
swept out, and the heart is washed and made

THE GREAT REVOLUTION.

flows

f sin,

3, be-

now

earts.

lange

s sort.

io our

after,

in our

>ound.

is the i^

se we '^

getber ,
le real

Tbe

jias of

Lisness.

'':Vk

itor, a

. The

The

things

ily be-
bhe old

abroad

tions is

1 made

clean in the blood of the Lamb. The old
tyranny of sin is smitten down, and the reign of
King Jesus and holiness is .set up. The old war
of the passions with (}(A, and truth, and puiity,
comes to an end, and we have peace with (Jod
through our Lord Jesus Christ. The old misery
gives place to a new joy that is unspeakable and
full of glory. Where the old despair brooded,
hope springs up, blooming with immortal pros-
pects. The old downward tendency, leading
constantly onward to eternal ruin, is reversed,
and we begin to climb the majestic heights of
holine.ss and heaven. We are born again,
ac([uire a new nature, rejoice in new moral and
spiritual powers, «iraw hreath in a new atmos-
phere of holiness, break forth with new voices
of prayer and prai.se, taste truly the blessed
waters of Life and nourishing milk of the Word,
and begin a new life, with new and blessed rela-
tionships on every liand. We are no longer slaves
of sin and Satan, but the free-born citizens of
Christ's commonwealth ; no longer the children
of wrath, but the beloved .sons and daughters
of the Lord Almighty ; no longer enemies of
God, but reconciled to Him throuf^h the blood
of His dear Son ; no longer outcasts and pro-
digals, but in our Heavenlv Father's arms, and

iin

*■

'I'l

VOICES fr(jm the thkoxe.

heart and home ; no longer excluded fioiii a
share in the vast possessions of onr Father in
heaven, but made heirs of (lod and joint heirs
with Jesus Christ. Oiu* fellow-man is no longer
our natural enemy, hut every man is henceforth
a brother ; the world is no longer the chief good
of our existence and ambition, but a momentary
si^^^e; whence we may successfully step into a
far higher and nobler life. This is a revolution,
grander by far than any other ; than all the
romantic and mighty revolutions of history. It
astonishini^ (iliects as have often been seen in the
after-lives of converted men and women. It is
is such a change as this, that has produced such
this that is the invariable starting-point in the
history of that \'ast army of distinguished saints
of Ood, whose lives and actions have left such
widespread and permanent blessings to man-
kind ; a legacy more valuable than all else that
human efibrt of the past lias l)equeathed to pos-
terity.

And this glorious renewal of the soul in
righteousness and true holiness, Christ's precious
blood has made free to all men ; free as the
sunshine that bathes the world ; free as the
gushing streams or the encircling air ; so com-
plete and full in its operations, as not to ceas

THE GREAT RKVOLUTIOX.

roin a
ther in
t heirs

longer
cet'orth
A fTOod
lentary
) into a
olution,
all the
)ry. It
II in the
. It is
ted such
it in the

d saints

ft such
to nian-

•Ise that
1 to pos-

soul in
precious
e as the
t as the
so com-
to ceaif '

until sin is destroyed, and the soul shines forth
in the full-orhed beauty of a perfected holiness ;
and which canbe realized 7ioiv ; for this instant
wherever there is a penitent, believing soul in
the act of trusting Christ f«n* all His mercy, there
Christ will be found in the act of liestowinc: all
His great salvation, and bestowing it consciously,
for the Spirit of God, and our own delighted
consciousness, will unite their testimony that we
are the children of God.

Thou adorable Father of mercy, accept of
our feeble thanksgiving for the wondrous gift of
Thy dear Son. We beseech Thee to help us
now, even this moment, to embrace, wdth all our
hearts, that blessed Saviour, and to trust in His
merits for pardon and peace w^ith Thee. O be
pleased to pour upon us Thy Holy Spirit, that
we may be born from above, and sanctified to
Thy holy service, and made meet for the inherit-
ance of Thy saints in light. Grant us speedily
these infinite mercies, for Thy great Name's
sake. Amen.

CHAPTER VI.

LIFES TRLrE AIM.

REGENERATED soul is not imme-
disiely transplanted to the paradise
above. That might appear to us a
most desirable and safe change ; but
God has arranged it otherwise, and
with the same wisdom and love that
marks all His steps, He detains us here for a
longer or shorter time. As, with the infant just
born, there is much to be undergone before the
maturity, the instruction, the usefulness of a
really successful life can be achieved, so with
the infant Christian ; he has, generally, many a
battle to fight, many a lesson to learn, much im-
portant work to do, before he is ready for the
everlasting mansions above. Our life on earth
has not much in it to make a complete paradise

; I

LIFES TRUE AIM.

lot imme-
e paradise
ar to us a
lange ; but
;rwise, and
d love that
here for a
infant just
V,efore the
ihiess of a
d, so with
ly, many a
1, much im-
idy for the
fe on earth
ete paradise

— such a perfect and permanent state of happi-
ness as the human heart so strongly craves ; but
it has plenty in it to make it a grand school of
discipline and t^lucation — a most fitting place,
wher<i character is formed, and n>atui'ed, and
tested, and shown to the world before it disap-
pears to sunnier climes. If, therefore, the
Christian's pathway does not always lead througli
flowery meads and under the brightest skies,
and amidst the sweetest symphonies and the
most delicious ease — if, instead, he has often to
fight like a soldier, toil like a labourer, and
sometimes suffer in the spirit of a martyr, there
need lie no surprise, as it is all in harmony with
God's merciful designs in his present life, and
His Itenevolent purposes in regard to the future.
The Christian life is unquestionably, and of
riecesfitv, a constant contention with difficulties
and advt'rsaries all along. Our spiritual Inrth
itself takes place amidst the throes of an agoniz-
ing struggle with all manner of opposing evils.
We have a relentless foe from beneath, whose
fiendish eyes are ever watching us, and whose
malignant and tireless cunning seeks every ad-
vantage to seduce us to ruin. We live in a
world the chief current of whose thoughts,
desires, and dispositions rushes wildly away from

■enrta^^ancaaif

ill

!.■

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

God and goodness and purity ; and worse than
either of these is our own nature — the body —
with its imperious demands, its distressing weak-
nesses and sufierings, its powert'nl appetites and
passions ; and the soul, even tliough renewed by
the grace of God, yet, in the earlier stages of its
Christian career especially, is still so prone to
turn aside from righteousness, so weak and sus-
ceptible of evil. Add to this, the calamities, the
disappointments, the heart-i'cnding sorrows of
separation and death, to which Christians are
exposed ecpuilly with all other human Vjeings,
and we have certaiidy enough to try the stout-
est heart. To an entjuircr after salvation, or a
young Christian, all this may seem rather dis-
couraging ; and yet, in looking at this somewhat
formida])le aspect of a Cristian life, Ave must not
forget that this is the darkest side ot it, and,
moreover, the only dark side there is at all in
the whole history of a Christian, in either time
or eternity. A great deal, too, of all these pain-
ful experiences people are certain to have to
undergo, whether they are C'liristians or not ;
and a host of tribulations are the sure
heritage of ungodly siiniers, which the Christian
entirely escapes, and which are fr.r v/orse than
anything he ever has to experience. It is true

LIFES TRUE ATM.

that in the world the Christian will have tribu-
lation ; but it is also true, in a far nnore terrible
sense, that the way of transg-rcysors is hard.
There is a powerful inspiration in the true
nobility and real heroism of this struo-gle with
evil. The Christian fights on the side of truth
a^^ainst falsehood, purity against moral corrup-
tion, mercy against cruelty, love against hatred
freedom against oppression, Christ and lieaven
airainst Satan and hell. It is true, he is amonfj
the numerical minority, for it is still but the
few who follow Christ's standard in this world ;
and the many are, as yet, marshalle'l under the
black banners of sin and Satan: but his work
is all the more chivalrous for that. In present-
ing a bold and manly froiit to all these myrmi-
don forces of e\'il, he becomes a hero of far
noblei' type than those who fought on the
plains of Marathon, or in the Pass of Therjno-
pyhe.

The Christian fights not foi' the paltry in-
terests of some shadowy throne of earth, but for
the imperial interests of Christ, the King of
kings ; not to gain the trifling and transient
honours and possessions of this world, but to
secure an unfading crown of righteousness and
an enduring patrimony in the skies. And it is

iiiil

ifii

'^'l! I

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

on these battlefields, in tlie midst of all these
struggles, toils, and sufferings, that every noble
quality of Christian manhood is developed. Here
we learn to deny ourselves willingly, to take up
our cross cheerfully and follow Christ loyally
wherever He leads us on. Here we learn to
stand firm under the severest assaults of the
enemy, to obey promptly the most difficult com-
mands, to endure without murmuring the
severest trials, and undertake unhesitatingly the
heaviest toils. It is, indeed, a most precious
trial this, more so than of gold, though tried in
the tire ; for God here shows us the inherent
weakness of ourselves — the omnipotent strength
we have in Him — the malignant power of sin,
the far mightier power of grace — the dross of
evil that would still so tenaciously adhere to
our souls — the triumphant virtue of Christ's
blood, that can cleanse us from all unrighteous-
ness — the utter vanity and deception of all
things temporal — the sterling worth of eternal
realities. And as years roll by, we accumu-
late a ripening experience, full of hallowed
and inspiriting memories of battles won, and
work done for Christ ; and even our mistakes
and failures become to us precious monitors of
wisdom and hope for future use. Whatever may

LIFES TRUE AIM.

these
noble
Here
ke up
)yally
irn to
of the
b coin-
o- the
.■ly the
reeious
ried in
iherent
length
of sin,
ross of
lere to
Christ's
hteoiis-
of all
eternal
Lccuinii-
allowed
on, and
iiistakes
litors of
ver may

happen, the faithful Christian can lose nothing ;
while his whole Christian nature daily grows
more confirmed, established, strengthened, and
settled, and his victories become more fully as-
sured and more easily won.

The struggles and trials and sorrows specially
incident to a Christian's life, it may undoubt-
edly be hard to undergo ; but it will be far
harder for us to do without them, and ever see
the kingdom of heaven. There is no other road
that leads to a softened, chastened, well-rounded,
polished, completed and strong Christian cha-
racter — a character that truly reflects Christ's
lovely image as in a glass, and a character which
furnishes to the world one of its choicest and
most indispensable benedictions.

And what helps God has graciously provided
us in this work ! We have His own Holy Spirit,
whose mighty energies are our strength, whose
loving hands hold us up, whose infallible wis-
dom is our directory, whose sleepless vigilance
is our watcli-guard, whose sanctifying grace
makes all things work together for our good,
and whose sweet consolations allay our pain, and
lift up in joy our drooping hearts.

We have the Word of God, a sword so quick
and powerful that, if well used, it will cut through

IMtii

VOICKS FROM THE THRONE.

IHI

■M. .(

! I

the thickest armour of the foe, and put to flight
the very stoutest armies of the alien. We have
the throne of grace, where the door of access is
always open, and God's great ear always atten-
tive — all His resources available in response to
our simple prayer of fpjth ; where, quicker than
the lightning's flash along the telegraphic line,
we may send our message to the skies, and God's
heart is moved and His mighty arm stretched
out to save.

We have the Church of God, like a blessed
oasis in the desert, where we may sit in the cool-
ing shade, drink of the living waters, and refresh
our jaded spirits in the precious ordinances of
the sanctuary, and in the soul-reviving com-
munion of His saints. We have the grateful
sympathies and inspiring examples of the noble
army of Christ's living soldiers, whose com-
panionship in arms we now share, and with
whom we are daily marching to victory and to
heaven, as well as of those, whose warfare is
passed and final victory gained, and who, from
the skies, are beckoning us onward.

We have the Sabbath, a weekly refuge from
the strife and weariness and grovelling of earth,
and a bright promise and delicious foretaste of,
and most hopeful preparation for, the rest that

LIFES TRUE AIM.

ehave
cess is
atten-
)nse to
sr than
ic line,
1 God's
[•etched

blessed
le cool-
refresh
nces of

com-
rrateful
noble

;e
d

com-

with

and to

rfare is

10, from

ge from
)f earth,
taste of,
est that

reniainetli for the people of God. And we have
the present enjoyment of the sweetest happiness
that the human heart can taste this side of
heaven — tlie hapi)in('S8 of doino' irood.

O f?

And oil, witli what intense earnestness and de-
votion should we give ourselves to this, our great
life-woi'k ! With what tenacity should we cling
to the bleeding side of Jesus; with what un-
conqueraltle wrestlings should we labour to ob-
tain from God the richest and highest experience
of the Christian life — the very strongest faith,
the very brightest hope, the most perfect love !
With what unwavering fortitude should we stand
forth as witnesses of Christ in the very midst of
the 'most crooked and perverse generation.? of
sinners, among whom God has set us as his
beacon-lights ! With what self-forgetfulness, and
wakeful remembrance of the necessities of a dying-
world, should we trea<l in the footsteps of our
Divine Master ! With what con.suining zeal and
holy ambition should we strive to enter ourselves
through the strait gate of life, and what stren-
uous efforts should we put forth to lead others
there too !

'f I

CHAPTER VII.

THE SALVATION ARMY.

HERE can he no <loul)t tliat tlie re-
ligion of Christ is God's many-sided
remedy for all the sins and sorrows
that afflict the human race. Then
why has not the world been more
fjenerallv converted to Christ before
this ? There are many reasons. The very
genius of Chiistianity forbids its progress, ex-
cept on conditions that are of difficult realization.
It is of all systems the most intolei'ant of evil, —
the most radical in its enmity to all the darling
sins of the human heart. It flourishes only on
the wreck and ruin of every species of evd.

Other systems of religion, such as pagan sys-
tems of all sorts, Mohammedanism, and degene-
rate forms of Christianity — like Romanism —

THE SALVATION ARMY.

are all compromises, more or less, with the selfish-
ness, and pride, and lusts, to which man's fallen
nature clings so fondly. This will very largely
accovmt for the widespread and l(jng-con-
tinued hold that these false ystenis have had
on maid<ind. But Christianity allows no com-
promises of this kind. It aims at nothing short
of the highest ideal of purity, and insists on the
most thorougli subjugation of our inner-being
to the dominion of Christ.

T'lis very lofty purity of its aims lias ever
made it a shining mark foi' Satan's most tiery
darts, and has often provoked the desperate and
malignant opposition of fallen humanity.

We must not forti'et that, in its earliest his-
tory, everything that violence and persecution
could possibly do for its total extermination was
done, and that almost uninterruptedly for several
centuries. The strength of the world's mightiest
forces was employed to the utmost for this pur-
pose ; and the bloody harvests of martyrdom,
reape<l times almost without number, seemed
again and again to have nearly swept it from the
face of the earth. For man}- ages, the Chris-
tianity of the most of the world was so adul-
terated with heathenish elements and so over-
loaded with merely hvnnan accretions, as seen in

il M

it 1.

wjOTAata: i»i¥«JKHU

•I

7()

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

-ill

both the Gicck and Latin Churche.s, that its true
character was wretchedly oV).scured and its vital
power most sadly diminished. Look in,*: at our
own times, there are many grave and soirowful
causes for the slow extension of the New Testa-
ment religion in the world. The old enmity,
which produced the opposition just adverted to,
is still rampant in the world. Satan has not
changed, though his methods may be diflerent.
The depravity of the human heart is still the
same, thouo'h its hostility to ti-uth and i'Oo<lness
may run in new-found channels. There aie still
hideous fabrics of heathenish superstition — like
the Buddhism of China and the Pantheism of
India, beside the more enlightened imposture of
Mohammed — which powerfully fascinate the car-
nal instincts of mighty millions of the human
race. A large part of the so-called Christianity
of the world, such as Romanism, is still only a
gross caricature of real Christianity, and con-
veys to mankind an utterly false impression
of the true character of Christ and His religion.
Infidelity, which is only the unrestrained and
vigorous expression of the rebellious in.stincts
of the corrupt heart — a braggart defiance of
the authority of God and His laws, of which
it is a real agnostic ; it knows nothing as it

THE SALVATION ARMY.

should, and ;;reatly wants to know even less ;
it, too, with the ener;/y that spite supplies, puts
forth its widespread and pf.Tsistent opposition,
while it seai'ches with di.shonest eye, through-
out all the realiiis of natun? for materials by
which to explode the whole (Christian system,
and banish God from His own woild. intem-
perance, as a huge ma^dstrom, attracts with ter-
rilic power the baser app^.-tites of human na-
ture, and draws down U> destruction its count-
less myriads. Immoral literature — nuich of
which resembles the old Jewish sepulchi'es,
with fair outside but full of horril)le rottenness
within — sends its dea/lly poison into the hearts
of millions of the young and of the old. In
the absorbing lace for nches and the pleasures
of the world, the claims of (iod and of religion
and eternity are quit<,' forgotten by multitudes,
or treateMl as if they were the mythic relics of
some dark an<l bygone age ; while the facilities
and improvements of ourmoflem civilization are
seized by the enemies of Christianity, and ener-
getically employed to assist in its destruction.

Through all these legions of powerful external
foes, a pure Christianity has to cut its way ; but
there is another sort of oljstruction far more de-
trimental than any of these, and it is found within

!'T

1 41

, i

•i:||

VOICES FROM THE THRONE,

the ranks of Christians themselves. It is no
cynical iincharitableness, but the sad truth, to
say, that iiinnense numbers of professing (Chris-
tians, arc Christians in very little more than
name ; they neither enjoy the vitalizing- power
of true religion in their hearts, nor manifest it in
their lives. These lifeless formalists who are,
alas ! far too numerous in all the Churches —
either as members or close arlherents — are judged
of as representative Christians, by an ignorant
and undiscriminating world, only too glad to
confound saints and sinners together, and deny
that Christians are any better than other men.

Among those to whom we dare not deny more
or less of the spirit and character of true Chris-
tians, what weakncisses, short-comings, and even
decidedly objectionable features are constantly
subtracting from the influence of religion on
themselves, and seriously impeding its progress
all around !

It would be a w^onder, indeed, if such profes-
sors either made rapid spiritual progress them-
selves, or gave much help in conquering the
world for Christ, while they can so largely con-
form to the ways of an ungodly world, in its
.fashions and maxims and idolatries — while they
set such a high value on W' ealth and make such

THE SALVATION ARMY.

tremendous efforts and sacrifices for its acquisi-
tion — while they can lavisli so much money on
the hixuri«'s and ph'asurt's and pursuits of tins
world, and d<»l(' out, with such a parsimonious
and unwillin;^^ hand, to the cause of Cod — while
they can cheerfully spend so much time and
enerc^y in prosecuting schemes of selfish andii-
tion, and engage so reluctantly, and with such
feeble purpose, and do so little, to extend the
kinijfdom of Christ in the world.

Alas ! it is only too true that in Christ's little
army there is many a i^ickly soldier hardly able
to drag himself along, many a cowardly deserter,
who runs away in the day of battle, many a one
who, under the uniform of a Christian soldier,
has a heart that beats in far too strong sympathy
with the enemy. All these painful facts help
to account for the slow spread of Christ's re-
ligion ; but they serve, at the same time, to
illustrate all the more strikingly, the great work
it has already done, and the vast and glorious
mission Cod designs it yet to accomplish in this
world.

Progress, after all, marks the career of Christ's
cause and of His Church, all along the line of
its history from the beginning. In spite of all
the powers of earth and hell, all the incessant

:" ■

j' lmamii i iijwyR ii iiriB i i i Bia i i

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

and deadly hostility without, and all the
treachery and langour and unfaithfulness within
its own bosom, Christ's cause has steadily in-
creased in numbers and strenuth, until it has
now reached a degree of inHuence it never had
before, and is to-day the grandest power in the
world.

No one can consider the present aspect of the
world in its relation to Christ and His kingdom,
without feelings of the most profound thankful-
ness and hope. It is true, that wickedness of
every sort is dreadfully prevalent throughout
the world, but it has never been so conspicuously
abominable as now, nor the true Christian cha-
racter and life so conspicuously beautiful as
under the bivighter shining forth of the Gospel
light of these days. Taken as a whole, there is
little doubt the world is much less desperately
and universallv wicked than in former times,
and far more under the power of truth and good-
ness than in any previous age. Christ's loyal
servants have been far from spending their
strength for nought. To say nothing of the
enormous amelioration of human society, in
many nations, and in almost every condition and
relation of life, directly or indirectly traceable
to the influence of Christian efforts — whole

THE SALVATION ARMY.

the
ithin

f in-

; ha.s

had

11 the

.f the
dom,

nations oi" the most degraded })agans have been
reclaimed to civilization and to Chriwt. Many
others have been so inter-penetrated with Chris-
tian truth, that their heathen gods and systems
are already paralyzed, and the doom of their
enervated superstitions sealed for a certain down-
fall at an earlv date. The most venerable
systems of error and tyranny, like Romanisn)
and Mohannnedanism, un<ler the increasino' lioht
of the Gospel, have l)een discovering their essen-
tial falsehood and weakness, to the inquisitive
eyes of this generation ; and their foundations
becoming so honeycombed and rotten, that their
fall cannot be postponed to any very distant
period.

The assaults of scepticism have, in the past,
in\'ariably resulted in the building up more sub-
stantially, of the fortifications of Christian evi-
dence, and in the manninix of her bulwarks with
more powerful and skilful defenders. There
can be little doubt that the present efforts of
Atheistic materialism will end similarly well.

The blessed Book of God — the bread of eter-
nal life — throuo-h the blessino- of its Great Au-
thor, on human efforts, has, like the loaves in tlie
Saviour's hand, been multiplied and distributed

1 1

;,ii!

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

to tlie rauii>sliing nations, in almost every
laiii-uaiio and dialect on the face of the earth.

Christian missions have planted the seed-corn
of Cliristian Churches, in almost every country
in the wcn-ld, which has, in many instances,
grown ahcady into rich and hopeful spiritual
harvests. The work of the Sunday-school and
faithful parental teachin«^-, has forestalled
amongst tlie young, an incalculable amount of
evil, and ensured the capture for Christ, of whole
millions of children, who are making a lartjer,
more loyal, and more powerful army of Christian
soldiers than the world ever saw before; and
that great work goes bravely on with an enthu-
siastic interest, and a compacted organization of
labour, never dieamed -of in anv former time.
The great moral reforms of the world, like
temperance, are daily gathering force, for the
full and final prostration of the Goliath vices of
the earth. The Titanic power of tlie press
never before was so fully and universally en-
listed <m the side of Christian truth, or so etiect-
ively employed in the direct advocacy of Christ's
cause, as it is now. Hosts of fresh labourers, from
every rank of society, and from the most unex-
pected (puirters, have been springing up, whose
earnest eti'orts ha\ e won many thousands to re-

\i '.

THE SALVATION ARMY

ery
I.

jorn
itry
ices,
itual
and
ailed
it of
vliole

u'ger,

pentance and salvation; while the whole body
of believers of every name have received such a
spiritual (jiiickeninj^-, within the last century
and half, as has raised, by many degrees, the tone
of their entire Christian character and life, and
has more rapidly multiplied the nundjcr of tho-
roughly devoted and truly Christdike men and
women, than in any previous period since the
apostolic times. The march of Christ's cause,
though slow, has been sure, and it daily hastens
with accelerated speed to fulfil a destiny so
commanding and so all-subduing, that in com-
parison all the past is as nothing. It is God's
purpose thrt all the earth shall yield allegiance
to Christ. The leaven of Christian truth will
yet leaven the whole human race. The Church
— the spiritual family of God — will yet subju-
gate and include the world.

Great as will be those future triumphs of
Christ's cause, when the earth shall ]>e filled
with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the
waters cover the sea, thev are effects which
might be predicted as resulting from the death-
less vitality of the Christian system, and the full
exercise of the undeveloped powers of the
Church of God. If the labours of such a com-
paratively small number of faithful Christiana

if ^' r

ill!

lii

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

as have actually occupied the field, have, with
the Divine blessing, accomplished such great and
permanent results, what might we now expect,
should faithful labourers vastly increase, both in
numbers and in all the elements of enlarged
spiritual power { There is no calculating what
an amazing extension of the blessed religion of
Jesus Christ might be immediately witnessed, if
professing Christians would only wake up to
their privileges and duty ; and can Ave calculate
what losses to the world will be inliicted, ijthey
do not i Oh ! why should those who say they
have accepted Jesus as their Saviour, live so
long in the weakness of spiritual infancy I Why
should they not earnestly seek and truly obtain
the Spirit's baptism of power, of love, and of a
sound mind ( Why will Christians continue to
paralyze the right arm of their spiritual strengtli
by patching up a deceitful truce with the world,
by permitting their afiections to be placed so
much on its shadowy vanities '. Surely, it is
time for us to rise by faith into the higher life
of holiness, to dissolve every false and fatal
partnership with an ungodly world, to expand
the generous sympathies of our souls for a world
that so sorely needs all that we can think and
feel and do for its salvation, and go forth from

THE SALVATION AJIMY.

and
i'rom

our ease, and fancied modesty, and wretched in-
difference, to grapple, in good earnest, with the
over-niasterino- woes of our fellow-men, and do
some substantial work for Christ. Oh, if one-
lialf of the Christians were what they ought to
be, would labour, and give, and pray, and suffer
for Christ, as they easily might, what rich bles-
sings wouM descend upon their own poor, starv-
ing, diied-up souls ; what worthy representatives
of Christ they would stand forth before the
world, to confound the sceptic by the unanswer-
able argument of their own lives, and to demon-
strate as nothino' else so well can, the abounding;
excellence of Christ and His gloriovu:^ religion, to
all sorts of gainsayers. If the living ( christians
of to-day were mostly of such a sort as this —
were like what, thank God, many really are —
how long would it be until there would be a
Bible in everv home in the world, a Missionarv,
and a Christian (Jhurch in every neighbourhood,
in every country under the sun — until children,
not by millions, but by scores and hundreds of
millions, would be in the Sunday-schools — until
intemperance, and other moral ulcers of societ5^
would be healed bv bein^ exterminated — until a
purified press would be scattering its glorious illu-
mination to the remotest corners of the olobe —

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

until the mouth of atheistic and infidel assumption
would be struck dumb — until all the idols of the
heathen mifdit serve for curiosities to succeedino-
generations — until Jews and Mohammedans and
Romanists, could hold out no longer in ^heir re-
jection of the only true Messiah, the oidy true
Prophet, the only true Mediator — tlie Lord Jesus
Christ?

Surely a responsil)ility of the most tremendous
sort, rests upon the Christian people now in the
world. May the great Head of His Church
arouse our sbtanbeiing souls, persuade us mightly
of our duty, and impart unto us all that strength
by Avhich we shall etfectually do His holy will,
and accomplish, each one, the great work He so
imperatively requires at our hands.

CHAPTER Viri.

THE RUSH OF TIME.

YEN" the very brevity of life is an-
other proof of the benevolent wis-
dom of God. The indefinite prolonga-
tion of haiMfin life in man's present
condition, wovdd ha v e l>een a calamity
a thousand times heavier, than all
the human race can possibly now endure. But
God has confined the period of oui' probation on
earth within very narrow limits. He gives us
just time sufficient to acquire all our necessary
experiences, and to accomplish all the work He
requires of us, prior to our departure for the
heavenly woidd. And herein lies the true value
of time, and the true greatness of luiman life.

It is a matter of almost self-evident truth,
that there must be some great purposes to be

lMHp^»r«ta|»t»»l«a»wm iLl i K M " I II W.JI.1W B

li<

■i' I

III

Pi i

.ss

VOICEK FROM THE THRONE

attained by luiip life — purposes which are in
keeping with the marvellous powers with which
human Itciuiis are endowed. Every atlieistic
and sceptical tlieory necessaiily strips human
life of any and every important object or end
whatfjver. It would be a transparent absurdity
to refjuire all the energy of the ocean's lesound-
ing wa\'es to ■' wnft a feather or to drown a fly "
— to construct and employ the mightiest loco-
motive to drag what the hand of any child could
easily draw ; but the like of this would be no
waste of power at all, compared to a being of
the splendid mental and moral endowments of
man, existing for no better objects than those of
merely the highest order of brutes. All such
systems smite oft' the royal crown of dignity
from man's brow, cancel his rightful patent of no-
bility, and make life a preposterous contradic-
tion, and a senseless, aimless, and worse than
useless vanity.

Practically, the life-objects of the sensualist
and pleasure-worshipper are not nuich better. It
is true, God has placed many elements of plea-
sure in this world, all along the pathway of
human life ; but they are put there, as a merci-
ful mitigation of an existence that would be
otherwise more rio-orous and intolerable than we

THE RUSH OF TIME.

could well endure. But life was never meant
for one lono- holidav — for one lon^ round of the
gratification of sense — no more than the mouth
was meant to receive no food hut honey ; no
more than the fai-mer was meant to do nothino-
hut walk ami (iiL-' the tiower-heds of his oarden ;
no more than the father of a familv, was meant
to do nothiiiij: hut caress his wife and children.
Neither is it anvthinix hut a gross and cruel
degradation of life's majestic purposes, to devote
its brief term, either to the feverish pursuits of
wealth, the desperate attempts to climb the
ladder of worldly fame, or the greedy grasping
after human power and authority, which are
the absorbing pursuits of such multitudes. If
man's existence ended with the present life, it
might be a matter of some indifierence how he
chose to spend his little span of being ; but the
realities of the eternal world impart the most
indescribable importance and value to all that
belongs to this life. Whatever innnortal glories
the saints shall possess in heaven, wdiatever dis-
mal penalties the lost shall erdme in hell, take
their rise not there, hut here. Those boundless,
endless rivers of blessing or of woe, start on
this side the grave. In some respects, our brief
life on earth is the most important period of our

.1 il

1 '1

i, I'

■ 1

: .1:

VOICES FROM THE TIIHONE.

whole unondinjiif existence, as it is the initial and
formative period. Just as the child is father to
the man, just as it is tlie plastic clay, that can
only he moulded into the <T^raceful or the hideous
form, just as it is in the sapling shoot, and only
then, that it can he determined whether the tree
shall grow erect and heautiful, or droop in crook-
edness and deformity. (Jod has put this price-
less privilege of choosing between an endle.ss
career of good oi- evil, hliss or misery, life or
death, oiibj once within our reach in the whole
circle of our heing, and that is- noiv, and Ity that
choice we shall and must ahide.

And what a hrief, changeful, uncertain thing
is life ! The longest human life may well be
likened to a vapoui- that appi^areth hut foi- a little
time and vanisheth away. When Me consider
how much of life must necessarily Ije .spent in
the preparation of chihlhood and youth, in labo-
rious toil for the bread that perishes, in sleep, in
sickness, in the imbecility of age, and in many
other ways, how extremely small a proportion of
time have most people left to devote wholly to
the interests of their souls and direct preparation
for eternity ! What countless multitudes never
live out half the allotted three-score years and
ten ! What years of bodily agony many en-

THK Kl'SH OK TIMK.

dure ; while others pass from the bloom and
vio^ouv of life into a suddf^n and unlooked-f(^r
grave ! The strongest man in tlie world has no
certainty w]iat<'v<'r that hf? will he alive in
twenty-four liours. Jn siurh circiniistances, how
pT'eeioiis is eveiy uiouient — every opportunity !
Surely if there be such a tliin<^' as wisdom, it is
in redeeminuj the time — in '^•IzinLj^.'very moment
that we can gain, and pressing it into the service
of oui- souls ; and if there \tfi sueh a thing as
folly, it is in its wilful and continual waste.
There is no extravagance* so dre-adful as that of
throwing away life's one glorious opportunity
to secure the undying jichen of f;teinity.

Oh, with what unutterable astonishment will
men look back by-and-ln' at their own super-
lative folly in frittering away theii' precious
years, in grasping after the empty phantom-
pleasures and gains and distinctions of this
world ! An<l with what overflowing thankful-
ness and satisfaction will OhI's children look
back on every hour that they weie enabled to
till up wisely and well, with exercises helpful to
their souls and g-\onU'inu: to Ood !

And what our whole life on earth is to the eter-
nal future, so is the periwl of youth, to a large ex-
tent, in relation to our riper years. It would

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VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

be hard to over-estimate the value of early life
in its bearing on our whole after character, his-
tory, and career. It is then that Christian
teaching can be most easily received, and most
indelibly imprinted on the mind. It is then that
the saving impressions of the truth and spirit of
God can be more readily stamped abidingly
upon the heart. It is then that the power of
evil is weakest, and the advantage of grace
mightiest ; that holy dispositions and virtuous
• habits may be more readily implanted and
matured into vigorous life ; while the noxious
weeds of evil, may be with less trouble, eradi-
cated or restrained. In those first few fleeting
years of childhood, either at the Christian
mother's knee, in the sanctuary and Sunday-
school, or in the blighting atmosphere of a god-
less home, and in the vicious school of unre-
strained and wicked companionship, are shaped
the almost certain future of innumerable multi-
tudes of men and women, not only for all their
after-lives, but for their whole eternity.

Would that the clarion-calls of reason, of God's
Word, of the Great I am Himself, would awaken
a slumbering world and a far too sleepy church,
to work the works of God while it is day, for
the night cometh when no man can work. In a

THE HUSH OF TIME.

little, the night of the grave will close in upon
us all ! The angel of death will swear that, so
far as we are concerned, time shall be no
longer. Our sun will set, to rise no more on
earth. If we have trifled away our precious day
of grace — if we have consumed the flying hours
in sinful indulgence, in selfish pursuits, m heed-
less indifference to our soul and etei-nal things —
we shall in death, drop like lead into the
seething waves of remedile.ss ruin — we shall
awake to the dreadful consciousness that we are
toppling over into the abyss, which is the fitting
end of a wasted life ; and we shall go down that
cataract of eternal despair with a cry of anguish
that will rend the skies, — " The harvest is past,
the summer is ended, and I am not saved."

Eternal God ! have mercy upon us. We con-
fess with sorrow, that the vain things of time
draw our hearts with a most alarming fascina-
tion, while the realities of the unseen world
have but little influence over us. O merciful
God, open our eyes — change our hearts. From
this hour may we drop our deluded fondness
for earth, our perilous idolatry of these tran-
sient vanities ; and give us eyes to see deep into
eternity, to behold by faith the coming doom of
the ungodly, and the coming reward of the

VOICES FROM THK THRONE.

righteous. O help us to make our escape, ere
wratli falls. Lay Thy nieiciful hand upon us,
and help our lagganl souls to flee to the open
arms of Thy dear Son. () may we surrender to
Him. May our affections, henceforth, be set on
thinos ahove, where Chiist witteth on the riuht
hand of God ; and may we strive, in the use of
every power and every opportunity, to prepare
to meet Thee in peace, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DAY OF DOOM.

HE Book of God discloses to us the
coiniiiLC of a day of final reckoning ;
and it woidd seeni, even to our lim-
ited comprehension, that such is a
most reasonable and even necessary
requirement. A great deal of th«'
Divine administration in this world is involved
in mystery, ai-ising from the necessary in-
completeness of things here — from the nar-
rowness of the field in this life, which can-
not admit of the full expansion, and the full
explanation, of God's great plans in regard to
us ; and in the probationary character of our life
here, one of the chief conditions of which, re-
quires us to walk by faith, and not by sight.
It is to be expected that God, who, tli rough out

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

ii '

i It

I ii I

His entire dealings with us, never acts in a
capricious or merely arbitrary way, but always
treats with respect that reason and intelligence
He Himself has put within us, would at some
time clear up these mytseries, and justify to His
creatures even His most intricate works and
ways. He will do so in the Judgment of the
Great Day.

It seems, too, that equity requires a further
investigation and exhibition of character, and a
more perfect allotment of rewards and penalties
than ever takes place, or ever can take place, in
this life.

God has constituted our life here the most
perfect imaginable condition in which we shall
act our probationary part. There are some re-
wards, as necessary stimulants to virtue, and no
more ; there are some penalties, as necessary
discouragements to vice, and no more. For pur-
poses, which must be necessary in this state of
trial and imperfection, the tares and the wheat
often grow together, the masked hypocrite often
passes current for the genuine Christian, the
true believer often is rated as a worthless de-
ceiver, the wicked flourish often as the green
bay tree, and the righteous- are as beggars at the
rich man's gate. But all this will be equalized

THE DAY '<F DOOM.

ays
nee
nne
His
and
the

•ther
,nd a
ilties
26, in

most

shall

le re-
id no

^ssary
pur-

ite of
rheat
often
the
js de-
o-reen
lat the
lalized

and expounded by-and-by. But what tongue
can describe, or mind conceive, the awful gran-
deur of that great day ! It will come, not with
the pi-emonitory muttoritigs of reverberating
thunder, not with the }K)rt('ntious ovcj-casting of
the sky, and long-continued signs and fiiglitful
omens ; Imt without a moment's warning. For
thousands of years l»efore, the Word of (iod, the
Holy Spii-it, and the accredited messengers of
God ha«l l>een sounding, as with trumpet-call,
the fearful tidings, and sucli alone will be ihe
world's warninef. It will burst as a hoi-i-ifA'intj
surprise on many an uid>eliever wrapped in his
carnal secuiity. As in the days of Noah, a scoffing,
incredulous, ath(ustic world, ate and drank, mar-
ried and gave in njari'iage, and rioted in the
pleasures of sense, until the veiy crack of doom
announced in a moment, that the end had cc)me ;
and amid thickening daikness, and cleaving
heavtms, and (piivering earth, and congregating
waters, men felt that ihv righteous judgment of
God was no lono-cr a mvtliic dream to ])e lauQ'hed

O I, o

at, but a fatal and final avalanche of destruction,
from which there was no escape. So will it be
in the far greater day of wrath, which is yet to
come.

In the very midst of a bustling world, eager

i- . ss- tTUK z . a r » -» , - \m M.-sxt^

1)8

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

1. ■'! I

t I

in its race after the glittering trifles of a day,
and dreaming only of pleasure, under the opiate
power of sin, and incredulously asking "Where
is the promise of His coming?" the mighty blast
of the last trump will sound ! That blast wall
wake the dead. From all the catacombs and
crypts, the sepulchres of earth and the deep
graves of the ocean, the long generations of the
past will rise to life again, without the loss of
one human being. High on His great white
throne the Eternal God will seat Himself as the
Supreme and only Judge of heaven and of earth
and of hell ; and before wdiose dread majesty the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the
olements shall melt with fervent heat, and the
earth also and the works that are therein shall
be burnt up. It w^ill be Jesus, the once meek
and lowly and suffering Lamb of God ; Jesus,
wdiose spilt blood, wdiose entreating tears, whose
heart-melting calls, whose long-suffering patience,
men have treated with such unbelieving scorn,
such callous indifference, such heartless neglect,
who will re-appear on that throne, the mighty
Lion of Judah. He w^ill look with eyes of
searching flame through the innermost being of
each one in that assembled universe. And every
eye shall see Him. They that pierced and cru-

TTTK f)AV OF IHM)M.

iay,

liate

here

)last

will
and

deep

f the

)ys of

white

as the

earth

ity the

|se, the

d the
shall
meek

Jesus,
whose
tience,
scorn,
eglect,
nighty
lyes of
eing of
1 every
nd cru-

cified Him, that neglected and rejected Him, and
they who loved Him and fought His battles and
lived to His <»:lorv. Oh, the anouisli of sinners
in that day ! How they will he filled with
shame and confusion and remorse ! How they
will call in vain for some-hiding place — the crash-
ing rocks, the up-heaving mcmntains, the wreck
of expiring nature, to hide them and all their
disgrace, from the wi'ath of the Lamb ! Oh,
how foolish, how unreasonable, how detestable,
will sin appear in that day ! How all the im-
pudence of atheism and infidelity will stand
abashed ! and what over-powering, crushing con-
tempt, will be in the gaze of unnumbered
millions as they look at the men who, in the
arrogance of their intellectual pride, strove to
banish God out of existence, and exile Him from
His own domains !

How the toys of earthly pleasure and riches
and honours will shrivel into the most abject
beggarliness ! and how the folly of those who for
these things, have wilfully bartered the King s
favour and all their hopes, will startle that
universal throng !

In that day it will be seen that nothing has
ever escaped the all-seeing eye of God ; and
from the Book of God's remembrance, from that

100

VOICES FlUJM Tin-: TIfRONE.

infallible, register, where all the thoughts, words,
and deeds of men have been lecc-ded, God will
bring to light the true character of ea,ch.

What i-evelations ! All the deceivers, hypo-
crites, and secret villains; all the violent, tyran-
nical, and cruel ; all the false, lustful, and shame-
fully impure — will stand unmasked before God,
and will receive the execrations of the universe.
Oh, how the m<'n who have I'idden thi'ough seas
of human blo(jd to their pinnacles of fame ; who
have marked their pathwav throunh life by the
tears an<l anguish and ruin of thousands of their
fellow-men, will wither beneath the frown of that
righteous Judge !

The sinner will sink to his true level then.
All the pomp and circumstance and pride of
earth, which served in this world to hide the
real rottenness in his soul, will avail him nothing
now^ The stamp of his eternal baseness and
infamy will V)e affixed to his l)iow. Those who
treated (Jhrist and His cause as beneath their
notice, who shut their ears to the cry of human
misery, who fattenevl on their selfish indulgences
and luxuries, and had no sympathizing tear to
shed, and no benevolent hand to stretch out to
alleviate the sorrows of the wretched and help-
less, the outcast and forlorn, — oh, how will the

THK DAY OK DOOM.

101

who
Itbeir
iii\au
leiices
;ar to
ut to
Ihelp-
II the

exposure of all this haiti-lieaiLeJ villainy .scorch
their souls, as it comes jL,dariiig into view, in the
presence of Ilini whose lit'c was one long sacri-
fice for the good of mankind !

But that will he a «dorious «lav for God's
faithful children. it will set them right hefore
the universe. Here they struggle(l with a
thousand ditHculties, cut their way throuiih hosts
of foes ; they toiled on, in ohscurity and neglect ;
they were slandeied and jiersecuted, and made
as the filth and otiscouiinef of the earth ; they
were the gazing-stocks and the mockery of
the world, and many of them hi-anded as the
enemies of their race, and martyred eithei' in the
tires of the stake, or in the slower tortui-es of a
life-long persecution. All their painful wrestlings
with evil, all their sacrifices for Christ, all their
zeal for the world's highest good, often passed
for less than nothing, or the foolishness of folly,
with an ungodly and ungrateful world. But
that great day will declare it all. Christ will
bring out their righteousness as the noonday
brightness. They will then stand forth as the
only true sons of glory, as the only true
princes of earth, as the truest and best bene-
factors of mankind. All their love for Jesus,
all their hatred of sin an<l deliglit in holiness,

102

VOICES FROM THK THRONE.

II!

IiIm;:! '!j

all their unre(|uit«Ml toil in the Master s canst', all
their ^'ciu'ruus and sclf-.saciiiieiuy- })eii('vnl('nce,
all theii- patient endurance ut* suH'ei-ing tor
Christ's sake, will then come to lij^dit; and He
will declare, hefore angels and men and devils,
that these are thev whom He deliohts to honour.
He will lift upon them tlie light of His counten-
ance, brightei*, sweetei-, more radiant than that of
ten thousand suns ; and amid the acclamations
of that innumerable host, He will speak in
tones of p(jwer and love, that will sen<l a thrill
through every heai't, and reacii to the depths and
height and amplitude of the universe, — " Blessed
are ye : I was hungry and ye gave Mv meat ;
thiisty, and ye gave Me drink ; sick, and ye
visited Me ; foi-asmuch as ye did it inito the
least of these Mv brethren, ve did it unto Me."

Inexorable justice shall then have its fullest
sway; but the Law, according to which every
sentence shall be pronounced, will be that very
Law which God had placed before the , ^'es of
men for thousands of years before. The Word
of Christ, spoken by prophets and apostles and
from His own sacred lips, and recorded in His
holy Book, shall judge us in that last great day.
The very Book w^hich has provoked so much
incredulity and such contemptuous aversion, so

THI-: l»AV Ml- hnoM.

lO.M

ot"t(.'H [)us1i«m1 a.si<l(.' into <liistv fnnuTs to give
place to the frivolous novel or the ephemeral
newspaper, will unei-ringly d»'ci«ie wheie wi' are
to stand on that ti-eniendous day. The lovely
cliaracter an«l nohle life, too, of ev;'ry servant
of God will l»»' M nioinnnental condemnation of
the whole herd of sinners. What advantages,
what offers of mercy, what availing virtue in
the blood of Christ, what accessible light of
tlie Bible and the Holy Spirit's teaching, wlmt
numerous and golden opportunities had tnese
saints of Ood, ^^' .t those very sinners on the
left hand did not possess (

All these saints of God \vere once the children
of sin and wrath, even as others ; and if these
wretched condemned sinners on the left liand
are not the happy saints of God too, it is be-
cause, while on earth, they preferred rather to
scorn the truth of God than accept it ; they would
not have Christ to reign over them ; they would
choose the indulgence of carnal appetites, to
self-denial ; a life of selfishness and sin, to a
life of virtuous restraint and benevolent labour.
And what God forewarned them of times with-
out number in His Word, they now realize.
What they chose, they have. It might have
been otherwise ; it would have been 'otherwise,
but for their infatuated foll3\ And now all is

•t^

i !

I 'III

• iLr

104

VOICES KR(JM THE THUUNK.

over. Tlit'V stand, the blasted, ruined monu-
ments of their own suicidal unbelief, obstinacy,
and wickedness.

But when shall this awful day come ? That
we may safely leave to Him, who alone knows ;
but, as for us, the day of our death is leally the
judgment day to us. That day will fix our doom,
iri'eversibly and for ever.

Thank Ood, that day has not yet come * Oh,
w^ith what inibounded thankfulness should we
consider that we have still the opportunities of
salvation ! How we should fairly leap for joy
that the dread Judo'c of that great day, is still
the welcoming- Saviour of men, and wdll readily,
speedily, joyfully receive us, if we but renounce
our sins and accept His love !

Oh, what haste we should make for His
opened arms ! How every hour should seem a
year of agonized suspense, until our peace is
made with (iod ! How every sin should be
dropped as a hot iron out of our hand ! How
God's gracious promises of mercy should be in-
stantly grasped, with far more eagerness than
men grasp gold, and estates, and thrones I How
the service of God, and anything He may ask
us to do or suifer, should be ardently entered
upon, with hearts bursting wdth gratitude for
the privilege !

His

nil a
! iB
be

m-
jthan
IHow
ask
jered
for

CHAPTER X.

DEEPS OF WOE.

.-<?tr.

OLLOWINU clo.s(i upon the revelations
and decisions of tlie Last Jndj^^nient,
will come the Hnal distribution of men
an«l angels, according to their cliarac-
ter and work. The abyss of perdition
will open its jaws to swallow up the
wicked.

And here we come upon the dai'kest and most
awful feature in human history oj* Clod's ad-
ministration. Tliis dreadful thouiiht of hell is
what creates such revulsion of feeling, and
awakens ♦such hostile unbelief in many a heart.
It is this that mainly .stirs the wrath of every
species of intidel ; and that engenders so much
hidden animosity to the CJospel amijngst such
lar^e masses of mankind.

]0()

VOICES FROM THE THH<JNE.

How can a God of love send His creatures into
such unmitigated tortures as the flames of hell,
and that to endure for ever ! And fiom the
fancied inconsistency and impossibility of such
a thing, many have rushed, for relief, into the
self-made doctrines that either there is no hell
at all, or that it must surely come to an end. It
is not a question, however, which mere human
opinion can decide. Revelation alone can do
that, and it has done it. God says that there is
a hell, and that all the finally impenitent and
wicked shall be turned into it, and that settles
the question. Men may think what they choose,
but that does not alter the fact, any more than if
a thousand men were to deny that God ever al-
lowed in tins world such burning mountains as
Vesuvius or Etna, it would at all change the fact
that such volcanoes do really exist.

As to the implied charge of inconsistency and
cruelty, God's character needs no defence, li
He permits such a plea to be, that is an all-
sufficient reason why it must be right for it to
be, and why it must be in the utuiost harmony
with all His own attributes.

What superlative ignorance and effrontery, to
dictate to God, as to what is unwise and un-
righteous and unmerciful for Him to do !

DEEPS OF WOE.

107

and
It-
all -
it to
linony

kry, to
Id un-

it may be a somewhat harder thing to believe
this doctrine than to believe some other truths
o£ Divine revelation ; but it is, after all, a good
deal easier to believe that theie is a liell than to
believe that there is none — to accept the plain
scripture doctrine on this ]>oint, than to accept
other doctrines, that tlie rejection of this will
certainly drive us into.

Are we prepared to accept the doctrine —
notwithstanding the relation in which sin and
surtering stand as cau.se and effect — that God
shoul<l ail)itrarily abolish the effect, although
the producing cause still lield full sway ? As
well might we complain that God allowed the
mighty rock, that men tumljled over the moun-
tain brow, to descend in its <lestructive path to
the valley ; or complain that God allowed the
poison a man delibeiately swallowed, to cause
him dreadful suffering and death.

What monarch or cliief magistrate would be
required to relieve all his rebellious, vicious, un-
governable subjects from all the necessary and
painful consequences ai-ising from their miscon-
duct ? And why should God be re(|uired to do
that ? For the non-existence of hell, means that
men may go all lengths in iniquity ; and, by the
arbiti-ary act of God, shall be relieved of all the

108

VOICES FROM iHE THRiJNE.

I i

■■I '

evil or paiiit'ul consequences of their crimes the
moment they die.

It* there be no hell, when sin is permitted -to
work out its painful effects, and where Clod's dis-
pleasure is evidenced, on what principle of jus-
tice can there be a heaven, where holiness works
out its })lessed results, and wheie God's approv-
ing smile is enjoyed ? If there l)e no hell, then
all men, good and bad, shall dwell together in
heaven ; and where would be the wisdom, jus-
tice, or mercy of mingling with tlie righteous and
holy, all the vile and incorrigible and abomin-
able that have ever disgraced the human name,
and all, that during their life-time, made l)itter
the lives of God's saints ?

But let them be mercifully renovated and
made tit for that holy place — that is to say, let
them be renovated by the arbitrary power of
God, whether they will or not. That is just the
thing God never did do with a single intelligent
creature He ever made ; just the thing He can-
not do, witlumt totally revolutionizing His
whole system of administration, both of angels
and men; just the thing that, even to our sense
of right, would be totally unfair, and a real in-
consistency of an unmistakable sort. God does
not compel any man on earth, by irresistible

DEEPS OF WOE.

109

lio-eut
can-

His
Liigels
sense
[a\ in-

(loes
istible

force, to become good — that would be to degrade
man from tlie lofty throne of a rational, intelli-
gent, and moral agent, to a level even lower than
the In-iite ; much less will He force men who
have all their lives rejected Him, to accept Him
now% merely that they may escape the just
penalties of their crimes.

If there l)e no hell, then we must fall back on
the shocking alternative, that (jlod will permit
sin and sinnia-s of all <legre(!s to spread
confusion, demoralization, and devastation, in
ever-widening circles, throughout the universe
for evermore ; — a thing more discreditable to
the Divine character, and far harder for the
human mind to believe, than the most terrible
ideas of a bottoudess pit.

As to the proper eternity of perdition, that,
too, is a matter of distinct and special revelation.
We are taught tliat it shall never end — that it
shall last as long as heaven shall last. If, under
the impulse of mere sentiment, we reject this,
then how are we to reconcile ourselves to views
which are far more absurd in reality, than this
can possibly be in appearance ? It is easier to
believe that hell will never end, than that sin,
by some inherent force in itself, will ever work

110

VOICES FROM T}1E THRONE.

i;:

I* '

itself out to the extinction of its abominable
nature and distressing consequences.

It is easier to believe, too, that hell will never
end, than that God will arbitrarily strike out of
existence the iniquity of that pit of darkness,
without the proper and full satisfaction for sin
His justice demands, and for which, that justice
did demand the atouement of Christ, for the less
enormous crimes of men while still the day of
grace lasted. It is easier to b(>lieve that hell
will never end, than that any atonement of the
sin of lost souls and devils can bt' made, or that
God can furnish a greater and more effectual
atonement than that of our Lord Jesus Christ,
It is easier to believe that hell will never end, than
that either devils or the lost souls of men will, or
can, ever truly repent and be converted to God.
It is easier to believe that hell will never end,
than to believe that God would lie, or deceive us,
or blindfold us, merely to terrify us, by assuring
us that there was no hope for the lost, and that
hell would last for ever, when He secretly in-
tended, in some way, to deliver the damned from
their torments, and put out the iiames of per-
dition.

And who is responsible for the existence of
hell ? On whom shall we lay our indignant

DEEPS OF WOE.

Ill

ible

3ver

fc of
less,
• sin
stice
-! less
,y of
'hell
t the

that

ictual

Jhrist.

,than

ill, or

God.
end,
|ve us,

uring
that

y in-

from

per-

ice

Ignant

blame for causing such awful and everlasting
torments ? The infidel lays the blame on God as
far as he dare. But is God really responsible for
the existence and torments of perdition ? Who
was it that made man at first, a very transcript
of perfect holiness and happiness, and destined,
him to remain so for ever ? It was God. Who
was it, when man willingly allowed himself to
be seduced V^y the devil and sin, mercifully de-
vised, at immense cost, a plan for his recovery
and salvation, and graciously gave him fui-ther
trial that he might regain all that he had lost,
and more ? It was God. Who was it that un-
dertook the most amazing mission of mercy to
mankind, to expiate our crimes, and deliver us
from all sin, and all wrath, and all hell ? It
was Christ — God manifest in the flesh. Who
was it that has been calling upon the human
race for thousands of years, to turn from sin
and hell, by all the voices of warning, of hope,
of love, of entreaty ? It is God. Who is it that
has ever offered to all men the freest, fullest, and
most immediate deliverance from evil, and all
its eternal results ( It is GuJ. Who is it that
endures patiently, the innumerable provocations
of negligent, heedless, ungrateful, and desper-
ately wicked men, and waits on them to the last

112

VOICES FROM THE THKOXE.

moment, to see it* they will accept His offered
mercy ? It is God. And who is it when men,
in spite of all this, go defiantly and recklessly
on in their sins to the last, aii<l beoin to reap in
the eternal world the terrible and resultant
harvest of the seeds of wickedness they have so
liberally sown on earth — who is it that is to
blame ^ Is it God ^ Snrelv not 1

If God hides His gracious face from such, and
suffers them to chocjse eternal death in the error
of their ways — if He shower His wrath upon
sucli incorrigible sinners, who have, to the last,
defied all His authority, insulte<l His uiajesty,
blasphemed His name, trample<l on the blood of
His Son, and scornetl all His messages of mercy
— is He to be blamed ? Assuredlv not. Let
men direct their indignant horror of hell-tire at
its trite wild only caiine — 8lN — the very sin that
many of themselves are caressing and indulging
and excusing. It is sin that jias done all the
mischief — that has degraded and destroyed man
in the first ])lace — that has cost (^od all His
trouble to root it out and neutralize its deadly
effects — that has laid all manner of obstructions
in man's pathway back to ]-ighteousness and
peace — that lias kept on blasting all the beauty
and goodness in this world — that has been trans-

DEEPS OF WOE.

113

forming human creatures into beings more like
devils than men — that has been turning the whole
globe into one vast charnel-house of death — that
has sunk a pit that is bottomless, kindled all its
fires of remorse, and woe, and wrath, that there
is nothing in the universe to extinguish — put life
into the gnawing worm, which there is nothing
to kill, and invokes evermore the wrath of a
Holy God, which there is no remedy to allay.

There is a refinement of perversity, and a
villanous crookedness of logic, worthy of the
Prince of darkness himself, in the attempt to
charge upon God, the direful and unavoidable
results at last, of that very evil thing which He
has all along l)een labouring so hard to destroy ;
and whose fatal and final effects upon mankind.
He has done all that even He could do, in order
to avert.

It may be an awful thing for the sinner to be
shut up in hell ; but perhaps it would be for him
even a more awful thing to be admitted into
heaven. The happiness of heaven will mainly
lie in the adaptation of holy natures to holy asso-
ciations and employments. A being placed in
heaven without a holv nature, could not be
happy there — could not be otherwise than ex-
tremely miserable there. If the happiness of

114

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

111

111 :i

heaven will be found in the full blossoming of
those seeds of love and purity and goodness,
planted in the soul on earth, what delight could
the carnal, ungodly souls of sinners find in such
things ? They take no pleasure in such things
here — they hate and shun them — how could they
find infinite joy and happiness in them here-
after ? Moreover, there is nothing in heaven
but would add to their misery. If the sight of
myriads of holy angels and saints, and of a holy
God will, in the Day of Judgment, create unen-
durable agony, how could they endure the in-
efiable beauty of holiness, as shining in its
fullest splendours, in every being but them-
selves, and making, by contrast, their own
dreadful iniquity the more painfully conspicu-
ous ? Every look of purity would be a stab of
anguish, every song of praise would start a cry
of agony, every pleasure of holiness would be a
tantalizing and exasperating oflfence, while every
glance of God's eye, would be a rebuke of their
impious and offensive character, more terrible
than the fires of hell.

God wills no man's damnation. Men damn
themselves in spite of all God can do to save
them. He lifts His holy hand, and swears in
sight of heaven and earth, " As I live, I have no

DKEPS OF WOE.

115

g of
ness,
lould

such
hings
I they

here-
leaven

rht of

a holy

; unen-

bhe in-
in its
them-

j- own

^nspicu-
stab of
•t a cry
lid be a
.e every
lof their
terrible

In damn
to save
^ears in
have no

pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the
wicked tui'n from his way and live : turn ye,
turn ye from your evil ways, for ivltij ^^'^^^ V^
clier'

The revelation of that awful hell, whoso ^^ap-
ing mouth and seething woe, move from beneath
to meet the sinnei', is to us a most merciful rev-
elation. It discovers to us the acrimonious and
incurable malignity of our sins — it is the dark
back -ground from which salvation shines on us
the more strikingly and invitingly — it is a most
powerful admonition against the impious bold-
ness of our sins, and a most urgent motive to us
to seek the path of life, while we may. Well
may we look over the mouth of that lake of fire
and tremble: those forks of fiame are making
ready to twist themselves around our souls, those
billowy beds of wrath are preparing a place for
us, those demoniac fingers are stretching up to
fix themselves in our hearts, those infernal yells
of triumph are preparing to resound as we drop
in thither.

Oh, God ! who among us shall dwell with
that devouring fire ? Who among us shall dwell
with those everlasting burnings ? Avert from
us that awful doom. deliver us from going
dowm into the pit ! Thou hast found a ransom

116

VOICKS FROM THE TIIKONE.

— even Christ the righteous. For the sake ol
His (lying groans and streaming blood, deliver
us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
Help Thou us, O Thou (lod of mercy, to Hee from
the wrath to come ! Help us to detest sin. (five
us penitent hearts. Help us just now to einbrace
Thy ottered salvation.

We would hide us in the wounds of Jesus,
from Thy holy wrath against sin. O blessed
Rock of Ages, thou art cleft to take us in ! We
cling to Thee, Thou Divine Saviour of men ; and,
holding Thy hand, sheltered in Thy all-powerful
love, we shall be sa\'ed from sin and wrath and
hell for evermore. Amen.

II I

e oi

liver

eatli.

from

Give

hrace

Jesus,
)lessed
! We
, ; and,
(Wert'ul
til and

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAND OF JiLISS.

OD destines His saints to dwell with
Himself foi'ever. But oli, how little we
know of that heavenly land I It is pos-
sible that God has given us in His
Word, as full information about hea\'en
as we are capable of comprehending,
and even more information than we ever have
had diligence enough to discover, and grace
enough to appreciate.

It is certain that more knowledge of heaven,
even could we receive it, w^ould not be beneficial
but prejudicial rather, to us in our present transi-
tion state. God has given us enough idea of
heaven to excite our strongest hopes and stimu-
late our greatest energies in His service. He
has withheld from us what would only gra-

^ . I'

ft;'||ii!!i

tify a profitless curiosity, or what would over-
whelm us with sucli a home-sickness for those
brighter skies, as to totally destroy our relish for
earth, and paralyze all our necessary exertions
in doing His holy will. In looking heavenward,
we see through a glass darkly, but we see
enough to awaken the profoundest y<^arnings of
our souls. As when some strange and lovely
flower or delicate fruit, is wafted ashore from a
far-distant and unknown land, we long, as with
the consuming desire of a Columbus, to discover
and explore those isles of the blest, that undis-
covered country, whose visions of beauty float
gorgeously through our dreams. As in this cold,
dark world, we catch some sw^eet rays that stray
from the lit-up palace on high, and some faint
echoes of that delicious nuisic resounding
through those heavenly halls, fall on our ears, we
long to pass within those pearly gates, and be-
hold that glory and drink in those rapturous
strains.

And yet that earnest of our heavenly inherit-
ance tliat is already ours, feeble as it is, is a most
delightful foretaste of the perfected blessedness
that is to come. If God has spread out such a
beautiful and magniflcent world as this, as the
cradle of our being, as a home He thought none

THE LAND or ULISS.

119

over-
r those
lish for
Lertions
inward,
we see
lings of
I lovely
e from a
^ as with
discover
at undis-
Luty Hoat
|this cold,
:hat stray
31116 faint
'sounding
r ears, we
a, and be-
rapturous

y inlierit-
is a most
lessedness
)ut such a
his, as the
lUght none

too great and good for the merest beginnings of
man's existence, wliat sort of a world in ex-
pansive amplitude and splendid furnishing, is He
likely to provide, wherein man's fully-developed
powers shall find their largest exercise ?

And if the joys of salvation on earth are so
sweet, if there is such blessed relief, when God
takes away our Ijurden of guilt, such indescriba-
ble enjoyment in the love He sheds abroad within
us, and in the smile of His countenance He uplifts
upon us, sucli comfort and satisfaction in obey-
ing even His hardest commands, and such rich
pleasure to be had in doing works of benevolent
Christian love ; what must the full fruition
of all this be ? The most delicious joy that the
human heart can feel, is after all, the joy of
purity and goodness in the Christian's breast; but
this is only a drop — the ocean of bliss lies beyond.
But what it means to drink in those exhaustless
joys, and 1)ask in those ever-l)rightening beams^
we must die to know. In the i-esurrection morn
the Christian's sleeping dust will awake in new-
born glory. He went into the darkness, the
loathsome vileness of tlie grave, he will rise in
victory and resplendent loveliness. All th') de-
formities, meanness, gi'ossness, weakness, decay
of his riesh, will be left behind, and lovelier far

120

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

than Adam, as he emerged in pristine beauty
from His Maker's hand, will the glorified saints
emerge from the dust of death.

Like the body of Christ, the Christian's body
will be a fitting temple of his glorified soul, which
will respond to the most delicate emotions, de-
sires and actions of spotless purity ; it will be a
fitting vehicle, through which the instincts and
wishes of the immortal spirit, can ever find the
fullest and freest gratification; it will be an ever-
varying and holy channel, through which the
most indescribable happiness will continually
flow into the soul. That resurrection morning will
be the Christian's marriage-day. His soul and
body were divorced in death ; they will be then
re-joined in the most delightful and indissoluble
partnership, and soul and body shall meet the
Lord in the air, and so be forever with the Lord.

And, oh, the blessedness of that eternal home i
With what sensations must those saints of God
consider that their warfare is accomplished ; all
the toil and suffering and weariness of earth is
passed away for evermore. The perils and
dangers and enemies which so often threatened
them are no more. They are safe forever.
Who can imagine how exalted will be the facul-
ties, powers and character, with which they will

THE LAND OF BLISS.

121

ible
the

tod
all
111 is
land
kned
tver.
Icul-
will

be endowed, how penetrating^ and profound their
intellect, how sagacious their wisdom, how broad
and varied the rano:e of their knowledge ;
how spotless their holiness, how ardent their love,
how unutterable their joy, how divine their ma-
jestic beauty, how potent their strength, how
sweet their tenderness, how commanding their
dignity, and how great and varied the commis-
sions that God may entrust them to fulfil, who
shall be His kings and priests to reign forever
and ever ?

Ah ! that will be Paradise indeed, where no
cry of pain will be uttered, where no sting of sin
will wound, where no pall of death will spread
its dark wing. In that city of the living God,
gushes the river of life from beneath the throne ;
there, on its blessed banks, is the Ti-ee of Life,
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
On those gates of pearl, and streets of gold, Hash
continually the unclouded glories of the Sun
of Righteousness, foi* there shall be no night
there.

Angels are there, ten thousand times ten
thousand, and thousands <jf thuusands, and each
one resembles the children of a Kinu'. What
must be the divine beauty and loveliness of
those beings, one of whom Saint John himself

122

VOICES FKOM THE THK(K\E.

mistook for God, and fell down at his feet to
worship him I And what must be the happiness
the saints will find in their close, transparent,
delightful fellowship with these sister spirits !

And glorious saints of God shall be there, a
multitude no man can number, from every age
and nation, from all the diversified ranks of the
human race. The little children, whom Christ
called to his arms on earth, and such millions of
whom He has so often called to His arms froin
earth — the hoary veteran, who has now renewed
an innnortal vouth — those who knew but little
here, but will there be taught in Christ's school
for ever — those who were mighty in holy know-

ledge on earth, but will amass

far greater

treasures of wisdom and knowledge there — those
whose earthly campaign was brief, but decisive —
those who were bronzed and scarred in a hun-
dred battle-fields for their Lord. Oh ! the bliss
of such companionship ! What will it be to
associate for ever with those brave, pure, noble,
generous souls ! To recount with them the
triumphs of the past, and the wonders of Re-
deeming Love ; to climb with them the higher
altitudes of knowledge and love and joy ! And
there will be some there, too, dearer, if possible,
still — some who were smitten from our earthly

~^~

THE LAND OF BLISS.

123

And

tsible,
Irthly

embrace by death's rude hand, and left us to
travel the remainder of life's weary pilgrimage,
solitary and sad. In that blessed home, the
husband and wife, the mother and child, the
sister and brother, the friends whose souls had
been knit together as those of David and Jona-
than, will clasp each other again in heavenly
embrace — will walk together over those plains
of light, and mingle together their melodious
songs of joy, where parting shall be no more.

But more, far more than all these blessed
elements of happiness, will be the unveiled pre-
sence of God. There the Great I AM will reveal
Himself as He never did before. Neither in all
His wonderful works of creation, nor in all His
providential administration, nor even in re-
demption, as discoverable by mortal eye, does
God appear so great and glorious, so loving and
good, as He will then be seen. God's unclouded
glory will be a beatific sight, which will kindle
the undying and unbounded rapture of those
countless myriads of saints and angels. As we
attempt to speak and think of such heights of
glovious joy, a painful sense of the utter poverty
of language, and of thought itself, seizes us. We
are lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Oh, to think that this — that all this — and all

ii^

124

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

this for ever and ever — is within our reach ;
bought for us with Blood Divine, in preparation
for us by the Redeemer, who is gone to make it
all ready, offered us now in its first stages, and
promised us assuredly in its most perfect fulness
by-and-by !

**ic

CHAPTER XJI.

STRANGE REFUGES.

X(/I^SF]S ! How strange that a man
dyinj;' of linnger should beg to be ex-
cused from receiving food ; or the tra-
veller, robbed, wounded, and nearly
murdered, should want to l)e excused
from accepting of the offices of the
good Samaritan ; or that the prisoner should
excuse himself from being lifted from his prison
to a throne ; or the condemned criminal ask to
be excused from receiving a free pardon, his
life, as well as untold honours and joys ! Yet
such, and far greatei', is the preposterous folly
of the human heart. One chief root of whole
swarms of excuses that people make for not ac-
cepting salvation, is the false view they take of
Christ's service as a (jreat bondage. They rebel

sil

%'H

126

VOICES B'ROM THE THRONE.

against the idea of so much self-sacrifice and
such severe restraints as Christianity imposes ;
and, through the medium of their distorted
fancy, they see in all this, a tremendous tyranny,
which they are glad on any pretext to avoid.
There can be little doubt that this touches the
real source of very much of the atheistic and
sceptical hostility to God and the religion of
the Bible, which has ever been manifested in
all ages of the world. There is, indeed, a sort
of tyranny in Christ's religion, the same as that
which shows no mercy to raging wolves and
devouring lions — a tyranny as overbearing and
relentless as that which gives no quarter to the
consuming conflagration, or the spreading plague.
The religion of the Bible is most intolerant and
most unmerciful in its attitude to all manner of
evil — to all the cruel and vicious and fatal ene-
mies of our souls ; but there its tyranny ends.
And if men reject the dominion of Christ, which
does certainly impose eff*ectual restraints on all
sorts of iniquities, what sort of liberty and free-
dom will they find in the ways of sin ? It is
with every man a choice of yokes — either that
of God and holiness, or of Satan and sin ; and
under which shall we find the most true liberty ?
How much lighter is the devil's yoke than that

STRANGE REFUGES.

127

■II

lat

of Christ ? How much more tme freedom
has the miser clutching his gold, the sensualist
driven headlong by the force of his passions, the
proud man carried away with conceit and
vanity, tlie drunkard bound to his cups with
far more tlian fetters of brass, than the Chris-
tian, whose very principle constrains him to
generosity, holds in check his animal appetites,
keeps down his vain pride, and warns him off
from the treacherous rocks and quicksands of
intemperance ?

He who throws oti' the salutary restraints of
Christ and His religion, puts on, at the same
time, in the service of sin, a yoke a hundred
times more galling and insupportable. To ^eek
emancipation from bondage by rejecting God
and His laws and service, is like renouncing the
civilized laws of Britain or America, and grasping
after liberty under an Oriental despotism ; only,
there is no despotism in all the univ^erse so
terrible, so unmerciful, and so relentlessly and
unchangeably cruel, as the tyranny of sin and
Satan and hell. The only true liberator is
Christ — the only true liberty is His service.

The difficulty of l)reaking away from some
besetting sin, is with many a common excuse for
refusing Christ and salvation. There is no doubt

128

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

that sin often has a fascinating power, as some
serpents are said to have, as they fix their glis-
tening eyes on their intended piey. But the
sooner the fascinated bird spreads its wings and
soars away from the serpent, the better ; and so
with the sinner — the speedier he gets c|iiit of his
darling sin the better, for it will devour and
destroy him for ever. It may seem pleasant to
glide smoothly down the stream of evil, while
the sun dances on the waves, and the l)irds sing
on the shore, and the senses are intoxicated with
luxurious sights and sounds ; but depend upon
it, the cataract is below, and the yawning, roar-
inoj ofulf of ruin is waitinjjf to devour. Better
far to shake off at once the deadlv fascination
of sin, and pull for life against the stream.
Better far lop off with one mighty, decisive
stroke, every right-hand sin, than sink in moral
rottenness into that dreadful pit of woe, to rise
no more.

But, say many, we live as we see others living,
and it is hard to be so singular a« a ('hvistian
nuist be. There is no doubt that, to be a Chris-
tian, we must be singidar, we must diflei- widely
and radicallv from tlie orreat bulk of mankind;
and it is bard to do this. But it is harder to lose
Christ and heaven, and be damned for the sake

srHAN(iK HKh'l'CtES.

121)

•al
[ise

lian

Iris-

lose
lake

of company. It is hard to bear the opprobrium,
the tamits and ridicule of the world ; but it will
be very much harder to bear the remorseful re-
proaches of our own consciences, and the infer-
nal mockery of the lost to all eternity. It is not
easy to be excluded contemptuously from many
earthly circles ; it will be far less easy to endure
being excluded ignominously, and for ever, from
the society of the glorified saints and the holy
angels.

" Ah, but look at your Christians," says many
a triumphant sinner. " What better than mere
hypocrites are they ! Compare their professions
and their conduct ; am I not as good as they
are ? "

Well, it is, alas ! too true, that there is a sad
discrepancy between the professions and lives of
many professing Christians ; it is true, that
there may be, and doubtless are, real hypocrites
to be found in the Church, and that sinners on
this account have some just cause of complaint.
But then all professors of religion are not im-
postors and hypocrites ; nor are professing
Christians so generally inconsistent and false
and hypocritical, as many of these objectors
insinuate.

On what grounds do unconverted sinners take

130

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

I ^'

it upon themselves to judge and condemn, by
wholesale, the people of God ? They, at all events,
are not ijualitied to pronounce opinion about
matters entirely beyond their knowledge and ex-
perience. An unconverted sinner is not competent
to judge intelligently and fairly of the full moral
worth of those whose chief excellences are inter-
nal, in the state of the heart towards God. Hence
the judgment of the w^orld regarding Christians
is most generally, far too severe and condemna-
tory. And besides, sinners do not know what
Christians have to contend with, in making any
serious attempts to lead a godly life. They have
no idea of, and make little allowance for, the
fierce assaults of the devil, the malignant opposi-
tion of an ungodly world, and the treacherous
weakness of the human heart itself; all of which
assail the feeblest believer from the day he starts
heavenward. When sinners try to face all this
opposition themiselves, in their endeavours to do
right, it greatly alters their tune.

But suppose there were ten times as niany de-
ceivers and false professors as thtrt^ are, what
would that prove i That there are no genuine
Christians and that there is no genuine Christian
experience ! Surely not, no more than counter-
feit bank bills, no matter how numerous they

STRANGE REFUGES.

131

its,

out

ex-
tent

oral

iter-

ence

bians

mna-

wbat

rany
have

r, the
posi-
erous
vhich
starts
ill this
to do

[ly de-
what

fenuine
dstiaxi
mter-
they

might be or widely circulated, would prove that
there were no genuine bills and that all bank
notes were .spuriovs and bad. The counterfeit
bill is really as positive a proof as we can have,
that there arc good and genuine ones, since all
the false value of t\w counterfeit is dei'ived from
its imitation of the real tind acknowledged value
of the genuine. The false and hypocritical pre-
tender to religion is the strongest proof that
there are real and genuine Christians, whose
solid and i-eliable Christian wo.th he is basely
simulating. And if there be a single genuine
Christian in the world, he is a standing condem-
nation, not only of all sorts of pretenders to re-
ligion, but of all sorts of people who are still in
their sins, since the grace that truly saves one
man, can just as truly save all others. What
a1)surd and irrational folly for sinners to attempt
to shield themselves from their own duty, by
pointing out how imperfectly others do theirs 1
As if two grievous wrongs are going to make
one right. If professors are wrong in not living
up to' their privileges in the gospel, are sinners
right in neglecting religion altogether ? It
will be a strange reason the sinner will have to
assign in the day of death, and in the final judg-
ment, that because professors would not serve

132

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

nmi

irl'l Pi

111 m 'jiin

God perfectly, ^/la^ he "luould not serve Him at
all!

There are many who think themselves already
good enough, and, therefore, do not trouble
themselves further about religion. Such people
pride themselves on their honesty, their morality,
their freedom from gross and scandalous sins,
and their general decent behaviour, and do not
see how such good, respectable people as them-
selves could be otlierwise than Christians, or
could possiby be lost at last.

Now all this good, external behaviour is cer-
tainly very conmiendable. Honesty and good
morals, and respectable conduct, are things not
to be despised, but to be highly-prized and faith-
fully practised. But what is it to be an honest
man in the highest and best sense ? Does
honesty mean no more than paying every man
what is owing him, and in dealing honourably in
the bargains that men make with each other ?
It certainly means more than this. A thoroughly
honest man is one who faithfully discharges every
obligation he is under, In every relationship he
sustains. A man who might pay up his ac-
count to the last cent, but who did not love
his wife, and took no proper care of his children,
IS deficient in honesty ; for he owes to his family

strancjp: refuges.

m.s

/m at

ready
•ouble
people
rality,
s sins,
do not
theni-
ans, or

• is cev-
id good
Lngs not
^d faith-
honest
Does
_^iy man
irably in
ii other ?
•rougldy
•es every
[nship he
his ac-
,ot love
children,
lis family

the debt of affection and suitable care, quite as
much as the debt of dollars and cents to his
creditors. We sustain many important relation-
ships to our fellow-men, other than that of mere
debtor and creditor, and we sustain the most im-
portant relationship of all, to God Himself.
Has not God some heavy claims upon us ^ Do we
not certainly owe to God deep gratitude for
the unnumbered mercies that have crowned our
lives ; do we not owe Him our confidence, as
our best and most reliable Friend ; our most
heartfelt love for the unspeakaV)le gift of His
Son, our most obedient submission to His holy
will, and our sincerest sorrow that we have
grieved Him by ten thousand sins ? How can
these weighty and honest obligations be fully met
by our merely abstaining from lying, stealing and
the like gross transgressions ? It cannot be done.
No more than a child can discharge all its obli-
gations to a loving father or mother, by merely
not cheating a brother, ard not openly dis-
gracing the family : no more than a wife can
discharge all the obligations s'iic owes to her
husband, by merely not injuring any other
woman, and conducting herself with merely a
cold, outward propriety. As there 7nust be filial
affection and confidence in a child's heart to-

wmm

134

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

wards the parent and cheerful obedience as
springing therefrom ; as there must be tender
love in a Vvdfe's heart for her husband, and in
consequence of that tendei regard, she watches
over her own conduct and guards her character
from reproach, and strives to meet his wishes
and consult his interests ; so we, if we would
be Christians in any just sense, must have the
love of God slied abroad in our hearts, and
from that tender, all -controlling affection for
Him, regulate our lives both in careful abstin-
ence from all evil practices, and in the faithful
performance of all required duties. This is
impossible without a thorough renewal of our
nature, a complete change of heart, wrought
in us by the Holy Spirit of God. Ye must be
born again; and except a man be born again —
thus renewed and sanctified by the power of
Divine grace — he cannot enter the kin!j,dom of
heaven, the family of God's real children on
earth, and the holy fellowship of the skies.

Many a man excuses himself from seeking the
salvation of his soul, and setting about the ser-
vice of God, because he does not feel veiy much
inclined in that direction. But, oh ! what a
sort of wretched excuse is this ! The man who
is benumbed with cold and half frozen, may feel

STRANGE REFUGES.

135

icier

d in

clies

ictev

Lshes

ould

e the

, and

I for

bstin-

ithi'nl

'his is

)t' our

ougbt

List be

Sim —

er of

om of

■en on

ks.

Ino- the

he ser-

lunch

dmt a

ui who

lay feel

far more inclined to lay down to sleep on the
drifting snow than to bestir himself; but is not
that very stupor and disinclination to make an
effort the very strongest reason why he should
arouse every energy, and put forth his last re-
maining strength, to escape from what must be,
otherwise, his speedy and dreadful doom ? The
benumbing, stupefyng influence of sin, is one of
its mort a'arming symptoms, and a potent reason
for the sinner to call loudly for God's gracious
heip, before it is too late.

There are those, again, who say they are too
busy to attend to tliese things — they have not
time to seek God and live a holy life. That is
to say, fchey have plenty of time to attend to
all inferior matters, but none to spare for the
most impv cant Imsiness of all. They have
whole years to devote to the concerns of the
body that mrst soon perish ; they have neither
hours nor inioijtcs to take any care of the soul
that can never il'i^^ ; they have plenty of leisure
to hunt after all sorts of earthly vanities that
perish in the using, but not a moment to afford
to make their peace with God, and prepare for
the tremendous realities of eternity that are at
the door. Vs comp:'red with such folly as this,
that man v^'nid be a wise man, who stood play-

VOICES FliOM THK THRONE.

ing with pebbles on the railway track, while the
thundering train was just upon him ; or the man
who, while his house was burning over his head,
was so absorbed in some trifling business about
the house, that he could find no time for flight !

Others, again, have too much time ; so much
that they think they need !'• in ro hurry about
religion — it will do to ati j ^.o it at some
future time — almost any time, ^j vious to death.
That is as good as saying that the man who has
on hand a heavy day's work need be in no hurry
about commencing it, but can perform it almost
any time before night ; or that the sailor, who
knows that the storm is approaching, need be in
no hurry in furling his sails, and preparing his
ship to stand the fierce blasts and rolling seas.

Oh, the delusion of sin and Satan ! There is
not an hour we delay giving our hearts to God,
and setting out on the path of Christian duty,
but is making it the more difficult for us to
begin, and rendering less and less our hope of ever
seeing the kingdom of God. Around the })ro-
crastinator's soul, the evil one is weaving more
thickly every day the fatal meshes of sin ; is
forsfins: more stron^rly the dreadful chains of his

O O CD i/

captivity; while he is receding all the time

STRANGE REFUGES.

137

further and further, from the light of hope and
the arms of delivering mercy.

But, say many — especially of the young — re-
ligion is such a sad, melancholy thing, that if we
emhracc it we must surrender all pleasure and
happiness, and henceforth lead a gloomy and
miseral)le life. Who told you that ? Was it
God ? No ! for His command to all His children
is : *' Rejoice evermore, and again I say, rejoice."
Was it the Bible ? No ! for it declares that the
ways of religion " are ways of pleasantness, and
all her paths are peace." Was it the true saints
of God ? No ! for their uniform testimony is :
" Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that
walketh in His ways ; happy shalt thou be, and
it will be well with thee." This is an old
slander of Satan. It is true the Christian does
give up the feverish joys of sin — the wild,
worthless, deceitful, and thoroughly unsatisfying
pleasures of an ungodly life — pleasures that are a
good deal as a draught of the briny water of the
ocean to the thirsty mariner — that may gratify
for a moment, and then produce a far more raging
thirst than before. But the Christian, though
he must shun the forbidden and dangerous
pleasures of sin, yet may taste of all other fruits
in God's pleasant garden. A thousand innocent

1 f

worn

?•'

138

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

delights are open to him ; and, besides, he carries
in his own breast the very essence of the highest
happiness — the approving sniilc of God. if the
service of God is so miserable, and the service
of sin so delightful, how is it that hell, where
sin holds mighty sway, is the most wretched
place in the universe ; and heaven, where God
and religion are supreme, is of all places the
happiest ?

The truth is, that the^e is nothing in the
whole range of human experience so sweet and
delightful, and every way blessed, as religion ;
and that fits so exactly, and satisfies so fully,
every honourable instinct, and desire, and neces-
sity of our nature. But it is hard for the un-
renewed mind to appreciate this. Grossly mis-
taken views of religion and the enmity against
>'^>d, which sin has begotten in the human heart,
are what lead people into such wretched refuges
of lies. There is not one of them can bear a
moment's investigation ; and in the solemnities
of death and judgment and eternity, the wonder
will be, as it ought to be now, that such
thoroughly false and deceitful things, could ever
have the least influence on the human mind.

I
( ■<

CHAPTER XIII.

WELCOME FOR ALL.

HAT intense interest circles ai'"und
an unsaved soul ! The great lov-
ing heart of God, beats with an
infinite compassion towards him.
Christ, the good Shepherd, pui'sues
tlie wanderer witli tireless step,
that He may lay around him those bleeding
arms of mercy, that were stretched out on the
cross for a guilty world. The blessed Spirit
seeks to attract liim heavenward with a mag-
netism all Divine. The voice of Jehovah, re-
sounding in entrancing melody from the ecstatic
glories of heaven, and s\veeping down through
the awful caverns of hell in terrific thunders,
emphasizing the mighty lessons of the long past,
and calling up the tremendous developments of

140

VOICES FR()"M THK THHOVK.

fni'!

a boundless future, sound continually in his ears,
" Awake from sin ! Arise from the dead 1 " The
Book of God unlooses upon him its thousand
tongues of warning, of invitation, of entreaty.
The Church of God yeai'ns over him as a mother
over a lost son, and looks out through her tears
to see him answer her tender call, to her arms
and heart and home. Lovino- ansfels and cjlori-
fied saints watch with an interest they take in
nothing else on earth, to see him turn his steps
toward God and life eternal, while his salvation
awakens their more delicious ecstacv and their
louder hallelujahs. Unsaved soul ! How the
universe is moved on your account ! See the
man of sorrows looking at you — those tears in
His eyes He sheds for you — that crown of thorns
was to buy you a crown of glory — that blood
dropping from His hands, His feet, His side, was
all to put away your sin. Look at that agoniz-
ing Lamb of God, and look at your sins for which
He died. " Oh," you say, " my sins, my sins
Behold, I am vile ! I am guilty, lost, undone
Oh ! this burden of guilt, it distresses, it breaks
mv heart — God be merciful to me a sinner.'
Blessed be God, the poor sinner who uttered that
same prayer in the temple, was very near salva-
tion, and 80 are you. Do you indeed feel as did

WELCOME FOR AFJ.

141

the repentant, returning prodigal ? Then take
courage — there is blessed hope for you. Hark !
what sweet tones of mercy fall upon your
troubled heart ! " Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Catch
up that blessed echo as your own — Lord, they
shall be. " Come unto Me and I will give you
rest." — Resp(jiid : Thou wilt give me rest. " He
will subdue our iniquities ; Thou wilt cast all
their sins into the depths of the sea." Yes, Lord,
all mine. " I will, be thou clean," saith Christ.
" IViou wilt I ahull he made vjhole," say you ;
and oh, how soon the light of life will burst in
on your soul, and the fountains of your heart's
great deep will be broken up, and new joys will
rise to the surface, and beam out in your face, in
your songs of praise, in your unloosed tongue,
and all over your path to the skies ! Oh ! try it,
try it ! " Oh I taste and see that the Lord is
good." .

How sad that any who have once thus passed
from death unto life, should ever again return to
the dreary and tortuous paths of sin. Such a
spectacle as a backslidden Christian should
never be seen in the world, and would never be,
were the soul in every storm to keep a steady
eye on Christ ; and amid all the surging waves

142

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

of lite, keep a firm hold of His heavenly hand.
A lapsed Christian is surely a most pitiable
sight. Samson, shorn of his strength, and
grinding in tlie Philistine prison, was nothing
to a Son of (iod, on whose brow Satan and sin
have inscribed the " Ichabod " of a departed
glory. The son and heir of a noble sire, feeding
swine in his far-off exile, starved and naked and
friendless, is only a faint emblem of the degra-
dation, misery, and helpless wretchedness of a
soul that has forsaken God.

But there is hope for even the poor back-
slider. The ruins of his soul may yet be re-
paired. His spiritual wealth that he has lost
mav be reo-ained. The blessedness he once
knew, he may find again. The inexhaustible
lovi! of the Crucified One, reaches down to the
depths of cA'en apostacy itself. Poor, lapsed
soul ! See how the forgiving Saviour searches
you out. He takes your hand in His ; He says,
" I love you still ; I am married to you ; come
back ; I will heal your backsliding ; I will love
you freely." " Yes," you say, " that is wonder-
ful love, indeed ! The w^orld has been to me like
the waste of waters to Noah's dove. 1 have
found no rest for my soul away from Christ ; I
am weary and weak ; let me drop again into

WELCOME FOR ALL.

143

Ito

the arms of my merciful Saviour. I am guilty
of more than common sin, but 1 know in whom
I once believed, and I will hide my guilt and
shame in the bleeding wounds of Jesus, and let
my love to Him be more than commofi. Let me
bathe His blessed feet with mv tears ; let me
get down lowest of all at His footstool ; and let
my life be henceforth a more signal testimony
to His power to save even the chief of sinners."
Does your heart respond to all this, " Amen, .so
let it be ?" God will send back another response,
" Amen, so shall It he!'

Blessed, indeed, are the true and faithful
people of God. Who in this world will compare
with them ? It is a small matter that some of
them are poor, others obscure, and most of them
count for little, as the world reckons greatness.
They are all princes in di.sguise ; they ai"e earth's
real and only aristocracy. They are all heirs-
apparent to thrones of power and riches and
glory, compared with which the greatest earthly
monarchy is only an empty toy. Their corona-
tion day is coming. It will be seen by-and-by
that the world was not worthy of multitudes of
God's people, who have all along been preserv-
ing it from moral putrefaction by their purity —
saving it from wrath by their prayers — and been

IID«

144

VOICES FROM Tin: THRONE.

its sheet-anchor in all the storms of its career.
There is nothing in this world so precious in
God's sight, and ought to be in ours, as holy
men and women. But the only secret of their
worth, and of their power, is their purity and
fidelity to God. Without these qualities they
are nothing. No forces of evil can stand before
a thoroughly holy, and thoroughly earnest
church. One such Christian can always chase a
thousand, and two of them will put ten thousand
to flight. Satan knows that, and his mightiest
efforts are put forth to keep religion among pro-
fessors, as near freezing point as possible. A
spiritually cold church, largely saturated with
worldly-mindedness, is a great delight for Satan ;
but it makes angels weep, Christ's heart sad^
and the world itself might well sit down and
mourn in sackcloth and ashes. Beloved follow-
ers of Christ ! Vou will surely never willingly
help to thus wound your Saviour in the house
of His friends, and retard the progress of His
glorious cause. " Ah," you say, it may be with
a melting heart and a streaming eye, " I am
afraid I have been doing so already, by my cold-
heartedness, negligence, and guilty conformity
to the world. I must, I will be, wholly the
Lord's henceforth." Let that resolution be

WELCOMK FOR ALL.

145

with
am
Icold-

|iiiity

the

U be

written in heaven, and let its fullilnient begin
this hour. Do you see how your Divine Lord

lifting you up into a far liiglier, richer,
stronger, sweeter Christian Ufe ? Listen to
those words of powci- and Hfe — " From all your
idols I will cleanse you. I will sprinkle clean
water upon you, and ye shall be clean." Echo
back, "/ shall he clean, through the blood of
the Lamb." " Consecrate yourselves this day to
the Lord," is the loving connnand of Jesus. You
answer, " Yes, I do ; 1 surrender wholly to
Christ ; and all I am and have, I dedicate freely

Him." Oh, how His beaming face will shine
. wii satisfying refulgence on your believing
heart ! How your sanctified being will soar with
delight upwards towards God, while the little
bubble vanities of earthly wealth, and pleasure,
and greatness, will get less and less in the dis-
tance ; and the glorious twin-thought of holi-
ness and usefulness, will daily expand before
your eyes in attractive beauty and all-absorbing
interest ! If there is a cry that reverberates
with louder emphasis than any other from all
quarters, it is for a sanctified church — a church
full of the Holy Ohost and power. From the
throne of the eternal God descends the command,
" Be ye holy, for I am holy ;" and from ten

ililPRIM

146

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

i ■•.■

thouscand places of the earth, there issues the
Macedonian cry of benighted, enthralled, perish-
ing men, " Come over and help us ; shovv^ us by
your own holy lives, how to live and how to
die." And as you, beloved fellow-Christians,
heartily answx'i" to these miglity invitations,
with what power will you witness and work for
God ! Youj- eagei' enquiry will soon be, " Lord,
what wouldst Thou have me to do ?" How quick-
ly God will show you hosts of perishing sinners,
for whose salvation you will tind room for any
amount of auonizinff earnestness. You will find
plenty of the poor to be aided ; the downcast to
be uplifted ; the sorrowing to be cheered. You
will discovei' grand opportunities to strengthen
the weak hands, and lielp the weak resources of
Christ's struggling church ; and encourage and
succour many a weaiy, oppressed soldier of
Chiist, who is waiiino" war at fearful odds. You
will not stand by and merely watch others draw
the Gospel chaiiot in its uphill course ; you will
put forth a willing liand and help to push it
along. You, yourself, will be the most convincing
refutation of all that infidel sophistry can say,
while you will take from the mouths of the un-
godly, some of their main pleas for living in sin.
You will do more good in a year, than, perhaps,

WELCOME FOR ALL.

147

say,
un-
H sin.
laps,

you have done in the last ten or twenty ; while
you will have some prospect at last of hearing
the Master say to you, '* Well done, good and
faithful servant !"

And you, dear young people ! Surely you
will lister* to God's great calls. There are none
in all the world that Christ will more joyfully
receive than you. What an opportunity you
have ! It will no< cost you a tithe of the effort
and trouble to give your hearts to God no^v, it
will by-and-by. Your life is l)efore you, and
what a happy, holy, useful life yours may be !
How much evil you may prevent ; how much
grand and lasting good you may do ! How high
you may stand in the love of your fellow-men,
and in the esteem of God Himself ! Yes, you
lulll yield yourselves to God. Millions of young-
souls like yours are already Christ's ; you will
join their ranks. Then will you taste a plea-
sure, unknown in all the gi<ldy excitements of
sin, and wliich will grow more intense and satis-
fying till life's last hour. You will awaken a
thrill of joy, it may be, in a dear mother's
heart, who has sent many a tearful petition to
heaven for you, and in the church of Gcxl, who
are looking to you as their hope and stay for
the future ; and how the old standard-bearers,

148

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

whose feeble arms must soon relax in death, will
kindle in grateful love to God and you, that
Christ's noble banner will have your strong arms
to hold it still aloft, when theirs are mouldering
in the dust !

And you, fathers and mothers ! What tongue
can tell the importance of your work ! Have
you consecrated yonr own soul to God, that you
may the better lead your children with you to
heaven t Oh,, do you watch over those children
of yours as those who must give an account in
the Last Day ? Do you guard them against all
the snares of the devil, do you watch ivhat they
read, more vigilantly than ever you watch what
they eat ? Do you keep them from evil com-
pany with more dread than you would from the
reach of poisonous serpents ? Do you feel, as no
words can express, that on you mainly depends,
under God, their training for eternity, whether
they shall spend a holy, useful life here, and
dwell with God hereafter, or Avhether they shall
grow up in ignorance and vice, and drop at last
into perdition ? Oh ! the intense interest that
many parents take in the education of their
children ; and the intenser interest that a still
greater number take in their acquisition of
wealth and position, and worldly prosperity.

wp:lcome for all.

149

ther

and

shall

it last

that

their

still

|n of

lerity.

Christian parents, your children have far higher,
far more urgent claims upon you than any of
these worldly interests involve. Their souls,
God Himself has placed in ijovr care, to be edu-
cated for Him and for heaven. As you value
God's favour, %ee to thh nrsf. As you hope to
meet them in heaven, leave no stone unturned,
no effort, no sacrifice unmade, to bring them
early to the feet (;f Jesus. Let your soul thirst
for their speedy salvation. And while, with
strong cries and tears and pray<.'rs, you approach
God's throne on their behalf ; while, with the
tenderest, and most faithful entreaty, you be-
seech them to be reconciled to God ; while, with
all the skill, and wisdom, and love, and perse-
verance, of a father's — a mother's heart, you
pursue this chief purpose of their being, and
chief purpose of your own holy relationship
as parents, God will not suffer you to labour in
vain. Your faithful sowing in tears will be fol-
lowed, sometime, by a harvest reaped in joy. You
will thus help to lessen ^'astly, the numbei- of
deplorable moral wrecks in liuinanity that float
so helplessly and hopelessly down to pei'dition,
whose sad career began, as it gent'i-all}' does,
early in life, long previous to leaving the paren-
tal roof. You will help amazingly to till the

J !

If-

150

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

ranks of good men and women, whom this world
has, all along sorely needed and never more than
now ; you will go down to an honoured grave,
feeling that you have not lived in vain, nor tvill
you have. And those children you have thus
brought to Jesus, will lay tenderly your sleeping
dust in its last resting-place, with tears of truest
and most loving remembrance, while they will
rise up in the world to bless your memory, to
follow your pure example, and will, by-and-by,
greet you in the skies, and help to swell your
tide of innnortal happiness for evermore.

Oh ! you Christian men and women, who
possess much of this world's goods, how great
and precious is your opportunity ! Yours is a
great talent, but whether great for good or evil
depends upon yourselves. Forget not that all
you have in the world God has given you. The
silver and the gold, the cattle on a thousand
hills, are His. You occupy these things " till He
comes," and that will be very soon. All a man
has slips from his gi-asp, as his last breath is
drawn, and you will very soon draw your
last.

Remeud^er well, that if money is spent as sel-
fishness, pride and vanity dictate, it will exercise
a blighting influence on the soul ; it will power-

WELCOME FOR ALL.

151

fully fan the flames of all sorts of corruptions,
and finally hang like a millstone around the
neck of its possessor, to drag him down to ruin.
But if, in the genuine spirit of your blessed
Master, you scatter abroad with a wise and
generous hand, you will discover one grand
means of keeping in check, the accuised spirit
of covetousness that lurks so surely in every hu-
man breast, besides mightily helping the growth
of every Christian virtue in your own heart and
all around you.

Oh ! let your soul pity the desolate widow, the
homeless orphan, the hungry, ill-clad, neglected
poor. Look how thousands of poor, wretched,
vicious beings are festering in hideous moral
rottenness, in all our great cities, and outside
them too ! What a field for your compassion-
ate and large-hearted generosity I Look at the
multitudes of sinners perishing in the world
around you, who, with far too imich truth, might
say. No man cares for our souls ! — Wi/i not you
care for them, and employ some of those means
you could easily find available, and help to save
them ? Oh ! consider the languishing (operations
of the Church of God, cramped and obstructed
and prevented from listening to many heart-
breaking cries for help, because it still lacks

152

VOICES FROM THE THRONE.

'1 k'l

those vary means that you could so readily give.
And will you say nay ? God forbid ! Oh ! in
the name of the Lord, open both your heart and
your purse wider than ever, and come generously
up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
And as you pour out your gifts into the Lord's
treasury, with an ever-increasing liberality, the
eye of the Master will rest approvingly upon
you; you will be repaid a thousand-fold in your
own soul's health and safety — you will know, as
the sellish and miserly spirit never can, the
luxuiy of doing good ; and blessed streams of
human gratitude will come back into your soul,
while you will make your property a perpetual
fountain of blessing to future generations, instead
of a wretched bone of contention for hungry
heirs, whose blessings are often but few and their
curses many- -while all you do with a single eye
to God's glory, will precede you to the better
land, and will come following after, to augment
your happiness and honour in the glorious world
beyond.

Lastly, you, who are the sons and daughters of
affliction — you, who are wa'estling with the in-
firmities of age, or with successive waves of
sorrow, or with the weakness and weariness of

WELCOME FOR ALL.

153

rid

of
of

this mortal life, — there is a bright light, after all,
in your clouds of darkness.

Look down and see the pit from which your
delivering Lord ha.s redeemed you, and is even
now working out your final deliverance through
manifold tribulations. Look around you, and see
and seize a thousand helps and encouragements,
to all of wd\ich you can lay just claim. Look up,
and see the smiling face of God, who, like as a
father pitieth his children, so He pitieth ymc.
Look into the sacred page, all covered with
golden promises, made valid with the signature
of blood Divine, and all for you. And look
beyond the flood of death, which is but a narrow
stream, and which you will soon get over, and
see the the iiowery land, the shining glory, the
central sun of light and life and joy, where
angels and saints are beckoning you away, and
Jesus will soon bid you come. Bear up a little
longer : a few steps more, and the weary wheels
of life will stand still, and you will bound with
elastic step, on that golden strand, to look into
the beaming face of Jesus, and swell the anthems
of glorious song to the great I AM, long as
eternal ages roll. Hallelujah.

TORONTO;

" GIARDIAN " BOOK AND JOB OFFICE,

COURT STREET.