THE ROBERT E. COWAN COLLECTION 
 
 PRESENTED TO Till; 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 C. P. HUNTINGTON 
 
 JUNE, 1897. 
 
 3ssiori No (s>0S~ Class No 
 
THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 BY REV. H. A. SAWTELLE. 
 
 SAN FEANCISCO: 
 A. KOMAN & COMPANY, 
 
 11 MONTGOMERY STREET. 
 
 1873. 
 
SPAULDING & BABTO, BARTLINQ & KIMBALL, 
 
 Printers. Binders. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The most of the condensed statements contained 
 in this book are the author's own, and they are 
 generally made with the ardor, relish, and accent, 
 of deep conviction. The writer has believed, and 
 therefore spoken. Some of the things stated with 
 strong emphasis will be deemed hard and even re- 
 pelling; but if the writer believes them, if he finds 
 them required by the Bible and the analogy of the 
 Christian system, shall he not utter them? A 
 preacher should ask no pardon for speaking the 
 truth as he himself perceives it. Least of all need 
 he be counted an enemy to any who cannot accept 
 what he ministers. A people want their preacher 
 to be honest and outspoken in all doctrine, even 
 though they cannot as yet follow him in every par- 
 ticular. The reader will here find brevities upon the 
 greatest variety of important topics; yet he will see 
 that a prominence is given to the old evangelical 
 doctrines, the old ideas of sin and salvation, which 
 however are ever new and ever germinant with the 
 believing: mind. Re-statements of some of these 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 old matters the author feels to be both necessary 
 and timely; and he does not doubt that in the brief 
 form here taken they will arrest attention and lodge 
 in the mind as they would not otherwise do. He 
 hopes, in the somewhat unusual manner of the 
 present volume, to contribute something towards 
 planting strong Bible principles in the community, 
 towards nourishing and establishing sincere minds 
 in the great truth of Christ, and towards withstand- 
 ing certain of the busy errors of the day. At the 
 same time, may he not possibly excite some to 
 more thoughtfulness in general, to a deeper sense 
 of duty, and to more loving search into the mines 
 of truth? If such objects are promoted by the 
 present effort, if in this way the writer may serve, 
 not only others, but also the people among whom 
 he has so long and enjoyably labored, if thus he 
 may do a little for the Master apart from whom lie 
 can have no interest, he has indeed both his desire 
 and his plentiful reward. - 
 
 San Francisco, December 11, 1872. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THINGS TO THINK OF PAOE . 
 
 1. IN BIBLE BEADING 7 
 
 2. IN THEOLOGY 32 
 
 3. IN THEOLOGY SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. ... 55 
 
 4. ON THE NEW LIFE 69 
 
 5. BELATING TO THE CHURCH 93 
 
 6. FOR THE PREACHERS .. 114 
 
 7. IN PHILOSOPHY 133 
 
 8 IN LITERATURE ....*'..: 149 
 
 9. MISCELLANEOUS , 171 
 
THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IN BIBLE READING. 
 
 THAT TRUTH is opened to us which we 
 are disposed to obey. 
 
 OFTEN what is only a seed in the early 
 part of the Bible, we find to be a grown 
 tree in the sequel. 
 
 WHEN Hagar's bottle of water is spent ; 
 God's fountain comes to view. Gen. 21: 
 15, 19. 
 
 GOD will honor those who honor him. 
 The midwives Shiprah and Puah, in Ex. 
 1: 15-21, are an example. 
 
 ON SINAI God spoke in one tongue ; at 
 Pentecost in many. 
 
 GOD said that he himself would be 
 Abraham's exceeding great reward. 
 
 THE GREATNESS of Moses is suggested in 
 the way he met the Pharaoh who was es- 
 
O THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 teemed a god. See Stanley's " Jewish His- 
 tory/' vol. I. pp. 100-103. 
 
 MARY was at the sepulchre with fear 
 and great Joy. 
 
 THERE is not in Scripture, says one, a 
 more perfect and beautiful type of Christ 
 than Joseph. 
 
 IN THE interpretation of a text consult 
 the context, and recall its original occa- 
 sion. 
 
 DR. GOULBURN says there can be no se- 
 curity for sound doctrinal inference, or 
 right practical application, except the sit- 
 uation, sentiments, and associations, of 
 the parties originally addressed, be first 
 understood, 
 
 THE SUN rose on Sodom just before its 
 destruction. 
 
 SAMUEL was a type of Christ, as prophet, 
 priest, and king. In tracing out the sub- 
 ject, begin with 1 Sam. 7:15. 
 
 PROF. JOWETT, of Oxford, says: He who, 
 in the present state of knowledge, will con- 
 fine himself to the plain meaning of words, 
 and the study of their context, may know 
 more of the original spirit and intention 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 9 
 
 of the authors of the New Testament, than 
 all the controversial writers of former ages 
 put together. 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER characterized the third 
 chapter of Romans as the central and most 
 important passage of the epistle, and in- 
 deed of the entire Scriptures. 
 
 THE DIFFICULTIES of Scripture are neces- 
 sary for the discipline of souls, and the 
 exercise of their freedom. They are also 
 tests of faith. 
 
 FROM the experience of Philip at Sama- 
 ria (Acts 8:14-17), it would seem that 
 persons who had received power from the 
 apostles to work miracles could not trans- 
 mit the gift to others. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN owes the gospel to all men. 
 Rom. 1:14. What he has received has 
 brought him in debt to others. 
 
 LET us be willing that the Bible should 
 contain mysteries. Is there no opportu- 
 nity for faith in respect to divine doc- 
 trines ? 
 
 THE INTERPRETER should seek to know 
 the drift of Scripture and not merely here 
 and there a text. 
 2 
 
10 . THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 A NEW writer maintains that sparing the 
 rod, in Solomon's famous passage, is the 
 neglect to exercise parental authority, sym- 
 bolized by the rod. 
 
 THE REASONS why the Psalms are so dear 
 to God's people, may all, says Dr. Hovey, 
 be reduced to one, that they are the utter- 
 ances of divine truth in the form of relig- 
 ious feeling. 
 
 JOB esteemed the words of the Lord 
 " more than his necessary food." 
 
 WAS the Spirit's work of the new birth 
 taught in the Old Testament ? See John 
 3:10. 
 
 SOME statements in the Bible, if inter- 
 preted too literally, are over-statements. 
 For example, John 3:32; 4:29; 21:25. 
 
 " LET HIM that heareth say, Come," was 
 practically illustrated by the Samaritan 
 woman. 
 
 " MY righteousness is near." Isa. 51 : 5. 
 Then it is where the weakest faith can 
 reach it and appropriate it. 
 
 ONE of the earliest descriptions of God's 
 people is that they are a praying people. 
 Gen. 4:26. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 11 
 
 WHY did the Jews call Jesus a Samari- 
 tan? 
 
 GIDEON, Amasai, and Zachariah, were 
 clothed with the Spirit. 
 
 WHY was the paschal lamb of the He- 
 brews eaten with bitter herbs ? 
 
 THERE is no blessing we have more en- 
 couragement to pray for than the Holy 
 Spirit. Luke 11:13. 
 
 THE BOOK of Genesis has been well de- 
 scribed as the seed plot of the whole Bible, 
 and indeed of all human history. 
 
 THE GIBEONITES, though not of the con- 
 gregation of Israel, yet served it as hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water. Josh. 9 : 
 21; 2 Sam. 21:2. Has not our new life, 
 has not also the church, some servants an- 
 swering to these Gibeonites? 
 
 THE TREE bearing twelve manner of 
 fruits (Rev. 22:2) is also in the soul of 
 the regenerate man. 
 
 How SWEETLY suggestive the Psalms are 
 to him who puts his mind down close to 
 them! 
 
 ELIHU sought refreshment in speaking. 
 Job. 32:20. 
 
12 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY is both a creed and a life. 
 The idea of it as a life prevails in the first 
 epistle of John. 
 
 SANCTIFICATION is at once a subduing and 
 a growing process. 2 Sam. 3:1. It always 
 works in two directions. 
 
 IF THE BEREAVED would more generally 
 seek the worship of God's house, as David 
 did when his boy died (2 Sam. 12:20), it 
 would be much better for them. This 
 keeping from church, because one is afflict- 
 ed, is a folly and a wrong. And yet how 
 common ! 
 
 CONVERTS, not running well, are a minis- 
 ter's humiliation. 2 Cor. 12:21. 
 
 DAVID numbered the valiant men who 
 drew the sword, prompted by the fighting 
 lust. This was not strictly a numbering 
 of the people. 
 
 THE MEANING of Scripture is unveiled to 
 us in proportion as we become spiritual. 
 
 PAYNE SMITH says in his Bampton Lec- 
 tures: "It is by no means certain that 
 Paul was right in going up to Jerusalem 
 after the many warnings he had of what 
 awaited him." But granting he was right 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 13 
 
 in this, was he right in consenting to pu- 
 rify himself with the four men who had a 
 vow, which occasioned the trouble ? Inspi- 
 ration didn't make his actions infallible. 
 
 THE OIL on Aaron's head went down to 
 his garments ; so the Spirit in Christ flows 
 to his members. 
 
 REBECCA in her marriage with Isaac, in 
 almost all its circumstances, was a type of 
 the church, the spouse of Christ, said Jon- 
 athan Edwards. 
 
 POWER with God involves power with 
 men. Gen. 32:28. 
 
 ONE pervasive lesson of Old Testament 
 prophecy is God's long-suffering. 
 
 JONAH'S mission to Gentile Nineveh, and 
 its success, are a gospel promise for the 
 world. 
 
 DANIEL looking at the coming kingdom 
 of the Messiah largely with Gentile eyes, 
 is said to be a link between Jewish proph- 
 ecy and the Christian church. 
 
 THE AUTHOR of u Prophecy a Prepara- 
 tion for Christ" says he believes the 
 toned-down style of the latter half of 
 Isaiah's prophecy resulted from its being 
 
14 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 written in his extreme old age, and com- 
 posed not for public delivery but for study 
 in the prophetic colleges! We think about 
 four things are coolly assumed in this 
 statement. 
 
 THOSE WHOM Paul addressed with the 
 words, "Work out your own salvation 
 with fear and trembling," were already 
 members of the church and supposed to 
 be converted. 
 
 GOD LEADS men into the wilderness, be- 
 fore he speaks comfortably to them. Ho- 
 sea 2:14. 
 
 BELIEF is entrance to rest. Heb. 4:3. 
 
 THE SPIRIT does not now reveal new 
 truths to Christians, but makes old ones 
 plain and striking. 
 
 WHILE MANY reject Christ, it is good to 
 know that all whom the Father hath given 
 him shall come unto him. John 6: 37. 
 
 THE FEAR of the Lord, commended by 
 Peter in Acts 10:35, contains in itself a 
 strong element of faith. 
 
 THE CENTURION, whose faith Jesus so 
 commended, had also wonderful humility. 
 
 REPENTANCE is Christ's gift. Acts 5: 31. 
 

 
 IN BIBLE 
 
 WERE THERE not ten cleansed ? But 
 where are the nine ? 
 
 To HAVE God's law written in the heart, 
 is to have the obeying disposition. 
 
 SOME ARE CALLED perfect in Scripture, not 
 as being absolutely free from sin, but be- 
 cause they are consciously complete in 
 Christ, and holiness is their ruling princi- 
 ple or habit. 
 
 TRUTH PRESENTED in natural imagery is 
 only dressed in the garments which God 
 has given it. 
 
 THE VEIL of the temple was rent in 
 twain, not from below as by human hand, 
 but from above as by the hand of God. 
 
 CASTING one's garments at the feet of 
 another was an oriental symbol of homage. 
 
 ONE WHO is himself a doctrinal giant 
 says : The giants in theology have dared to 
 let many books go unread, that they might 
 be profoundly versed in revelation. 
 
 IT is NOT for us to say what the Scrip- 
 tures ought to teach, but what they do 
 teach. 
 
 GOSPEL justification is called " justifica- 
 tion of life " in Rom. 5:18. Why so ? 
 
16 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 . IF ONE READS the Bible only when he feels 
 like it, he will by and by not read it at all. 
 So in the matter of praying. Those who 
 make the performance of religious duties 
 wait on their feelings have here something 
 to think of. 
 
 BENGEL was the author of the pregnant 
 saying, that the New Testament is hid in 
 the Old, and the Old Testament is opened 
 in the New. 
 
 IN AMOS 5 : 8, God styles himself the one 
 who " turneth the shadow of death into 
 morning," which would be an excellent 
 text at the funeral service of a Christian. 
 
 A BIBLE TRUTH I must believe, though it 
 cross my prejudice, though it humble my 
 will, and though it contradict my early 
 education. 
 
 IT WOULD APPEAR from Hebrew 10 : 25-27, 
 that remissness as to assembling ourselves 
 together is the first step to apostasy. 
 
 IT is A WORK of Satan to blind men to 
 the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. 
 2 Cor. 4:4. 
 
 GOD'S WORD is the glass in which we see 
 his face reflected. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 17 
 
 NINE OUT OF TEN of the prayers left on 
 record in the Bible have temporal mercies 
 included, says an old author. 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER always sang the forty- 
 sixth Psalm in his distress, and called it 
 the war song of the church. 
 
 THERE NEVER was a genuine work of grace 
 which was not the fruit of the seed of the 
 word in some heart or hearts. 
 
 REFERRING to 2 Sam. 23:5, one has said: 
 " There is an 'although' in this verse. The 
 Christian has always here an 'although', 
 some drawback, some thorn in the flesh, 
 some crook in his lot, some little drop in 
 his cup, some cloud in his sky." 
 
 LET DELILAH take away your strength, 
 and the Philistines shall next dig out your 
 eyes. 
 
 THAT NO AMOUNT of warning, judgment, 
 or visible miracle, can change the willful 
 bent of a soul is illustrated by Jeroboam, 
 king of Israel. 1 Kings 13:2, 5, 33. 
 
 IN THE RICH young man, who came in- 
 quiring to Jesus (Matt. 19:20), we see the 
 unrest of him who possesses lofty virtues 
 without spiritual life. 
 2* 
 
18 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ONE REASON why the early Christians of 
 Jerusalem had all things common was the 
 fact that most of them were mere visitors 
 waiting God's hour of dispersion. 
 
 SUPPOSE God did by us, as he says, in 
 Isa. 66 : 4, men had done by him ? 
 
 THE WICKED know not the light. Job 
 24:16, 17; John 3:19, 20. 
 
 IT is TESTIFIED under the seal of a four- 
 fold amen from Christ (John 3: 3, 5), that 
 there must be a new birth by the Spirit. 
 
 A CONTINUAL languishment under the 
 stupefying power of a carnal mind, we are 
 expressly told (Rom. 8: 6), is death. 
 
 A MERE professor, though a decent one, 
 looks on. the Bible as a dull book. 
 
 IN SCRIPTURE, a thing is often spoken of 
 as done, when it is put in a sure way of 
 being so. 
 
 THE BELIEVER must first be a worshipper 
 (Abel) : then a walker with God (Enoch) ; 
 then a witness for God (Noah). 
 
 PROPHETIC STUDY has its peculiar perils, 
 because it is so fascinating to the intellect. 
 We are always in danger, when we specu- 
 late instead of worship. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 19 
 
 JESUS took the blind man by the hand 
 and led him out of the town. Dwell on 
 the contrast that appears in this picture! 
 
 WHY DID the Lord give the victory over 
 the Midianites to the particular men who 
 lapped water? 
 
 DAVID FELT unworthy of God's least no- 
 tice, yet he had to say: " Thou hast re- 
 garded me according to the estate of a man 
 of high degree!" 
 
 THE TRIAL of some of Gideon's men at 
 the water (Judges 7:4) is not the only 
 instance of God's people being " tried at 
 the water." 
 
 " BRING an offering, and come before 
 him." The former is also a part of wor- 
 ship. 
 
 IN SCRIPTURE, the evidence of the thing 
 is the voice of the speakers, said Augus- 
 tine. 
 
 " GATHER us together." 1 Chron. 16: 
 35. God's people spontaneously say so. 
 
 BICKERSTETH states, upon careful examin- 
 ation, that one verse in thirty, of the New 
 Testament, points onward to the resurrec- 
 tion life. 
 
20 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 " I NEVER knew you." Matt. 7: 23. This 
 will be said to false professors. They were 
 never converted. 
 
 AUGUSTINE called the Psalms of David 
 those faithful songs and sounds of devo- 
 tion, which allow of no swelling spirit. 
 
 THE BIBLE is more reticent concerning 
 the particulars of the life to come than 
 most men wish. Possibly if God had told 
 us more we should be unfitted for our 
 present duties. 
 
 WHEN SAMSON found honey, he gave some 
 to his father and mother to eat. 
 
 THE TERM "seed" in Gal. 3: 16 (compare 
 Gen. 17: 7) is interpreted to mean Christ, 
 being singular in form to denote his indi- 
 viduality, and collective in force to sug- 
 gest the representative character of his 
 human nature. 
 
 THE FOUR RIVERS of Eden rising from a 
 common source, yet flowing in different 
 ways, and watering the whole earth, were 
 regarded by the church fathers as types of 
 our four Gospels. 
 
 LOVE OF BIBLE TRUTH is a product of the 
 Holy Spirit's influence, says Dr. Olmstead. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 21 
 
 DR. HOVEY, of Newton, says: " Without 
 a prominent theological element, a com- 
 mentary is almost useless; perhaps we 
 ought to go further and say that it is 
 likely to do more harm than good, by 
 turning attention from the vital truths of 
 the record to the antiquarian and secu- 
 lar aspects of the word of God." 
 
 THE HISTORY of the Shunammite woman's 
 experience with Blisha illustrates the profit 
 of kindness to God's servants. Kindness 
 to God's people may not of itself receive 
 the blessing of salvation, but it is sure to 
 bring other blessings, and it is often an in- 
 dex of an incipient faith which does ob- 
 tain salvation. Notice also the story of 
 Rahab, and that of the centurion of Caper- 
 naum. 
 
 THE CHURCH FATHERS were wont to com- 
 pare our four Gospels to the four living 
 creatures in Ezekiel's vision, each with its 
 own face looking its own way, yet all up- 
 holding the one throne of God and ani- 
 mate with one Spirit. 
 
 THE NECESSITY of knowledge in order to 
 spiritual thrift is suggested in Hosea 4:6. 
 
22 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF MARK has been called the 
 gospel of action, designed for the practi- 
 cal Roman mind. The writer dwells on 
 the deeds more than the sayings of our 
 Lord, even omitting the sermon on the 
 mount. 
 
 FULL OF ADMONITION is the scriptural 
 reference to the heathen fisherman who 
 offered incense to his net and drag, or the 
 mere instruments of his gain. 
 
 A CAREFUL STUDY of the early verses of 
 the sixth chapter of Hebrews brings to 
 light the important lesson that not to 
 make progress as a Christian is most dan- 
 gerous; safety lies in moving on to per- 
 fection. 
 
 MISSIONARY ASHMORE says there is not a 
 list of names in the Bible that has not in 
 it something instructive, admonitory and 
 comforting. The gospel genealogies may 
 be bones ; but they are bones full of mar- 
 row. 
 
 MURPHY, the pentateuch commentator, 
 tells us that Sarah is the only woman 
 whose age is recorded in Scripture. Gen. 
 23:1. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 23 
 
 " GIVE and it shall be given unto you/ 1 
 Luke 6: 38. Said Richard Baxter: I never 
 knew how it was. but I always seemed to 
 have the most come in, when I gave the 
 most away. 
 
 A PLAYFUL WRITER says the only instance 
 he knows of, where persistent blowing 
 ever resulted in lasting success, was at 
 the attack upon Jericho. Jos. 6: 12-21. 
 
 A COMPARISON of Rev. 7:4 with 14:1 
 brings to light the fact that every one 
 whom God seals he finally saves. Not one 
 is lost. Whom God calls, them he justi- 
 fies; and whom he justifies, them he also 
 glorifies. 
 
 " CASTING all your care upon him." 1 
 Pet 5:7. This is not to have no care; but 
 to have it, and then at once commit it to 
 Christ. 
 
 REFERRING to Rev. 13: 10, and 14: 12, we 
 may conclude that the whole of religion 
 does not consist in activity. 
 
 THE PERSECUTIONS ensuing upon David's 
 acts of heroism for Saul, are an illustra- 
 tion of the penalties of distinction and 
 success. 
 
24 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 JOSHUA, when parting from the people, 
 warned them not only against serving 
 heathen gods, but against ever speaking 
 their names. 
 
 IN HIS LATE WORK on Ezekiel and Daniel, 
 Dr. Cowles holds that neither in the last 
 nine chapters of Ezekiel, nor in the thirty- 
 seventh, does the prophet, when rightly 
 interpreted, teach a literal restoration of 
 the Jews to Palestine. The method of in- 
 terpretation which would make the prophet 
 teach this, he says, would, if consistently 
 carried out, bring back again the whole 
 Jewish system of carnal ordinances to sup- 
 plant the more spiritual dispensation which 
 was introduced by the Messiah's advent. 
 The true restoration of the Jews, we main- 
 tain, is their coming to Christ; their return 
 to Jerusalem is their movement towards 
 the Zion of grace, the Jerusalem that is 
 from above. Those prophecies which ap- 
 pear to promise a literal restoration of the 
 Jews, the apostles have taught us by their 
 own method to apply to Christ and the 
 " Israel indeed/' Evidently Abraham's 
 land of expectation was the city that 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 25 
 
 hath foundations. Heb. 11:10. Besides, 
 if the Jews are to be restored as a nation, 
 then Moab and adjacent heathen peoples 
 are to be set up again about them, on the 
 exclusively literal principle. 
 
 NABOTH also (1 Kings 21:13) was a 
 type of Christ. 
 
 I KNOW the Bible is inspired, said Cole- 
 ridge, because it finds me at greater depths 
 of my being than any other book. 
 
 THE SKEPTIC Hume owned that he never 
 read the New Testament with attention- 
 Most deists are ignoramuses as to the Bible. 
 Nelson, long a leading infidel, gives similar 
 testimony. 
 
 How SENSITIVE Moses was to God's dis- 
 pleasure! Deut. 9: 19. 
 
 THE VERY INJUNCTION Paul made upon 
 Timothy to use a little wine for his sick- 
 ness, shows that the latter was habitually 
 temperate and even abstemious; and it 
 is also implied that the apostle approved 
 of his general principle of abstinence, 
 1 Tim. 5:23. 
 
 JER. 2:25 is a good text to convince of 
 sin. 
 
26 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 GESENIUS CLAIMS that the word " ran/' in 
 Hab. 2:2, expresses not a movement of 
 the body, but the act of reading fluently. 
 
 THE ACTUAL application of the wide 
 atonement for sin mentioned in 1 John 
 2:2, is limited in the ninth verse of the 
 preceding chapter to those who repent. 
 
 " LIGHT is sown for the righteous." Ps. 
 97: 11. Hence let them wait patiently for 
 it to spring up. James 5:7; Lam. 3:26. 
 See Owen on Forgiveness, p. 288. 
 
 TROUBLE leads to prayer; prayer to de- 
 liverance; and deliverance to God's glory. 
 Ps. 50:15. 
 
 LIDDON regards Gen. 9:26 as Messianic. 
 Also 2 Sam. 7:19. Also Zech. 13:7. 
 
 FOR A BEAUTIFUL poem setting forth the 
 spirit of Gen. 22:14, "In the mount of 
 the Lord it shall be seen," see Sunday 
 Magazine, September, 1870. 
 
 IN JUDGES 6 : 22-24 is the anxious awak- 
 ing; the voice of peace; the grateful re- 
 membrance. 
 
 COMPARE Matt. 8: 34 and Ps. 105: 38. 
 
 COMPARE Phil. 1 : 6 and Ps. 138: 8. 
 
 COMPARE Isa. 54: 17 and 1 Kings 13: 4. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 27 
 
 WE CANNOT purge away our iniquity. 
 None of our works, vows, or tears can do 
 it. Jer. 2:22. Compare Hos.. 5: 13. Both 
 passages declare the natural effort of legal- 
 ity in genuine conviction of sin. 
 
 u UPON ONE STONE shall be seven eyes/' 
 Zech. 3:9. Filled with an absolute per- 
 fection of all the gifts and graces of the 
 Spirit, said John Owen. 
 
 GOING FORTH into gospel liberty is the 
 basis of Christian growth. Last two clauses 
 of Mai. 4:2. 
 
 SIMEON and Anna illustrate Matt; 5:8. 
 
 THE THREE MEASURES of meal in Matt. 
 13: 33 are body, soul, and spirit, says Ols- 
 hausen; the three sons of Noah, says 
 Stier! 
 
 THE SKEPTIC BAYLE called Matt. 23:12 
 an abridgement of all human history. 
 
 LIKE the magnetic needle, Peter only 
 wavers. Matt. 26:75. 
 
 DOES NOT Mark 2 : 9 imply that the mira- 
 cle-power belongs to God ? 
 
 HATE, in Luke 14:26, Rom. 9:13, and 
 in some other biblical passages, means to 
 love less, says John Hall. 
 
28 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 JESUS OWNED no place, not even his tomb. 
 Luke 9:58. 
 
 ALFORD says the story of the two trav- 
 ellers to Emmaus is the most beautiful of 
 all narrated incidents. 
 
 " GRACE for grace." John 1 : 16. Graces 
 in us answering to every grace in Christ, 
 said Edwards. 
 
 COMPARE John 1 : 39 and 1 Kings 10. 
 
 "THE WIND bloweth where it listeth." 
 John 3 : 8. Not being at all at our dis- 
 posal, said Owen. 
 
 STUDY the scene at the raising of Laza- 
 rus, and that at the raising of Tabitha, to 
 learn something of our work in the con- 
 version of a sinner. 
 
 "DRINKETH my blood hath eternal life." 
 John 6:54. " The life of the flesh is in 
 the blood.", Lev. 17:11. 
 
 COMPARE John 7:39 and Ps. 104: 16. 
 
 ACTS 3: 19. The convert's sins are blot- 
 ted out now. That state is preserved 
 against the great day. 
 
 "TEMPT the Spirit." Acts 5:9. Pre- 
 suming in regard to the Spirit's omnis- 
 cience, or his holiness. 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 29 
 
 SEEING is put in a suggestive relation to 
 believing in John 6 : 40. 
 
 IN ACTS 13: 38, 39, pardon and justifica- 
 tion are somewhat distinguished. 
 
 COMPARE Rom. 8:16, 1 John 5:10, and 
 Rev. 2: 17, on the witness of the Spirit. 
 
 COMPARE 1 Cor. 2 : 14 and Ps. 119 : 18, on 
 spiritual discernment. 
 
 THE NATURAL man is one who has not the 
 Spirit. 1 Cor. 2:14. Compare 1 Cor. 
 15: 44 and Jude 19. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT is more for us than 
 it was for the Old Testament people. 
 1 Pet. 1:12; 1 Cor. 10:11; Rom. 15:4. 
 
 LIDDON pronounces 1 Cor. 16:22 the ab- 
 solute criterion of moral ruin. 
 
 " APPEAR." 2 Cor. 5:10. Be manifested, 
 laid bare. 
 
 " THEIR own salvation." Phil. 2:12. 
 Their own already. 
 
 NEITHER in giving Cornelius the gospel, 
 nor in the exit of Peter from Herod's 
 prison, did the angel go so far as to do 
 anything of man's proper work. 
 
 HUMAN VIRTUES need spiritual cleansing. 
 Tit. 1:15. 
 
30 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 IN 1 TIM. 3: 15, Howson makes Timothy, 
 not the shurch, the pillar and ground of 
 the truth. And in Bph. 2:20, he makes 
 the " foundation" to be Jesus Christ, 
 which apostles have been concerned about. 
 " Wives," in 1 Tim. 3:11, he says means 
 women-deacons. 
 
 THE OPERATION of the word in Heb. 4: 
 12 should be studied with the help of Jer. 
 23:29; Ps. 45:5; Zeph. 1:12; Acts 2:37; 
 Luke 24:32. 
 
 A MEANS of winning unconverted hus- 
 bands to Christ: 1 Pet. 3:1. 
 
 " WHETHER in the body or out of the 
 body I cannot tell." 2 Cor. 12:2, 3. 
 This passage in its connection proves the 
 possibility of a conscious personal exist- 
 ence in separation from the body. 
 
 THE WAY in which the awakened sinner 
 gropes for the light is well described in 
 Eccl. 10:15. 
 
 JER. 4: 14 is equivalent to the gospel call 
 to repentance. 
 
 FOR A SUGGESTION on the nature of gos- 
 pel belief, see John 5:46. The Jews 
 thought they believed Moses, and in one 
 
IN BIBLE READING. 31 
 
 sense they did ; but what does Christ say ? 
 
 SOME good language for repentance and 
 confession is in Jer. 3:21 : 25. 
 
 ELISHA received his great gift by look- 
 ing. 2 Kings 2:10. 
 
 THERE SEEMS to be more moral philoso- 
 phy in the book of Jeremiah, than in any 
 other book of the Old Testament, save 
 perhaps that of Proverbs. 
 
 HANNAH rejoiced in the Lord (1 Sam. 2: 
 1), more than in that which he had given 
 her. 
 
 IT is WITH the temple above, as it was 
 with Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6: 7). It 
 is u built of stone made ready before it is 
 brought thither." 
 
 THE PETITION in Matt. 6:13 is not fully 
 answered till the saint leaves this world. 
 
 IN THE ORDINANCES, Christ "showeth him- 
 self through the lattice." Cant. 2: 9. 
 
 How PLEASANT the discovery of truth; 
 but most of all in the Bible, by help of 
 the Spirit! 
 
PART II. 
 
 IN THEOLOGY. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION by faith is the only spring 
 of evangelical holiness. 
 
 WITH THE LOSS of a single believer, down 
 ebmes God's character, and all the universe 
 rushes into confusion. 
 
 THE SINNER is justified by faith, and faith 
 is justified by works. 
 
 THE SEAL of the Spirit (Eph. 4:30) is 
 not so much an effect of the Spirit as it is 
 the Spirit himself in the heart. 
 
 BELIEVING on the Son of God is the 
 principal thing in religion. 
 
 REPENTANCE is the sorrow of love. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION body of the righteous 
 is called a spiritual body, because it is 
 quickened and animated by the Holy 
 Spirit, and because it is fitted to all the 
 demands and possibilities of a regenerate 
 soul. 
 
 IT is SAID by Paul that the called are pre- 
 destinated to be conformed to the image 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 33 
 
 of God's Son. Boston declares in his 
 41 Crook in the Lot" that this image is that 
 of suffering and holiness, wherein lowli- 
 ness is a chief part. 
 
 REPENTANCE is the sharp surgery of God's 
 Spirit. 
 
 SOME Bible doctrines are beyond our ex- 
 perience, and some are beyond our com- 
 prehension. 
 
 MANY of the speculations of adventism 
 rise and flourish because of a naturally 
 morbid craving in human nature to read 
 the future. 
 
 THE PECULIARITY of Calvinism is its em- 
 phasis of divine sovereignty. 
 
 PICTURE to thyself a Jew taking up to the 
 old temple an innocent lamb on which 
 poor thing he is about to lay his sins! 
 
 MIRACLES were proofs of our Lord's 
 divine commission, symbols of spiritual 
 truth, and trophies of power over Satan. 
 See Matt. 12: 29 on the last point. 
 
 CONCERNING prophecy, Henry Ward 
 
 Beecher has justly said: There are cases 
 
 not a few in which the language spoken 
 
 with reference to one event serves as a 
 
 3 
 
34 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 perspective tube, or telescope, through 
 which we view another event of similar 
 quality but vaster dimensions. 
 
 THE IDEA of the salvation of every body 
 is forbidden by the wall great and high de- 
 fining heaven. 
 
 "" I WILL be surety for him." said Judah 
 to Jacob concerning Benjamin. 
 
 AN evangelical commentator (Macintosh) 
 
 -says: Regeneration is not a change of the 
 
 old nature, but the introduction of a new. 
 
 IN THE NINTH of Romans, the word of 
 God as clearly establishes election, as it 
 seduously guards against reprobation. Sin- 
 ners choose their own way, and God 
 chooses his people. 
 
 IN SALVATION we uncover sin, and God 
 hides it. Psalm 32:1-5. 
 
 WHAT is the evidence that Adam and 
 Eve were redeemed and saved ? 
 
 No MAN can call Jesus Lord but by the 
 Holy Ghost, because that is to worship 
 him. 
 
 FAITH is the root of love. 
 
 FAITH is a little pivot; but even God's 
 righteousness turns on it. 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 35 
 
 ONE should trace the proofs of the 
 Christian religion, not as a curious specta- 
 tor, but as an heir finding the deeds and 
 evidences of his estate. 
 
 WHAT is the office of the Spirit in our 
 access to the Father, referred to in Eph. 
 2:18? 
 
 SOME theologians prefer to call the attri- 
 butes of God, his perfections. 
 
 You MAY depend upon it, says Spurgeon, 
 that all the best philosophy in the world 
 is to be found in the old Calvinistic doc- 
 trine. 
 
 THE UNPRECEDENTED philanthropy shown 
 by apostles and primitive disciples is one 
 proof of the divinity of Christianity. 
 
 THE DEITY of Christ is taught when he 
 is declared to be the one who baptizes in 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 TRUE Christians will outgrow the difficul- 
 ties of doctrine which may now be trying 
 their faith. Many come even to rejoice in 
 divine statements, which they felt angry 
 over once. 
 
 PAUL did not teach the doctrine of a 
 conditional election; for that would not be 
 
36 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 an eternal election; and it would be the 
 election of one as much as another. No ; 
 the reasons of God's election of any are hid 
 in the counsel of his own will and do not 
 lie in any act or character of man that we 
 know anything about. 
 
 IT is doubtless impossible for a sinless 
 man to come into a sinful world without 
 suffering. 
 
 IF THE MESSIAH is the great promise of 
 the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is the 
 great promise of the New. 
 
 THE TERM "total," in relation to human 
 depravity, does not express its intensity, 
 but only its extensiveness, its being every- 
 where in the moral nature. 
 
 DR. SHEDD'S good definition of the atone- 
 ment is: The satisfaction of divine justice 
 for the sin of man, by the substituted 
 penal sufferings of the Son of God. 
 
 As THE Old Testament types reveal their 
 spiritual lessons under the light of Chris- 
 tianity, so it is with nature. 
 
 WHAT is the Spirit's part in justification, 
 mentioned in 1 Cor. 6:11? 
 
 THE MORAL law is superseded as a cove- 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 37 
 
 nant of works. Yet we are under obliga- 
 tion to keep it. It is evermore an outline 
 of duty. The Saviour taught this when he 
 summarized it in two brief parts for men. 
 
 IN CHRIST was first Abrahamic and sec- 
 ond universal humanity. 
 
 MADE in God's image, every man also 
 has in his mind some image or idea of. 
 God. 
 
 SIN AND DEATH of themselves give the lie 
 to a religion that is not radical and mirac- 
 ulous. 
 
 DR. JOHN DUNCAN, of Scotland, defined 
 death to be the severance of things once 
 united and meant to remain united, as God 
 and the soul, soul and the body. 
 
 THE ARMINIAN theology makes the re- 
 ward of Christ's agony contingent. 
 
 HE WHO thinks he has power to turn to 
 God at any time is not likely to be in a 
 hurry about it. 
 
 INFIDELITY continually changes its ground 
 in a circle. 
 
 FAITH is the appropriating act in relation 
 to God's grace. 
 
 THE CONSCIENCE of man demands justice. 
 
38 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 Therefore the penitent sinner can not be 
 satisfied till he sees his punishment some- 
 where. 
 
 REPENTANCE involves exposure of sin, 
 and hence shame. Jer. 2:26. Shame, then, 
 belongs to repentance. 
 
 DOCTRINE disobeyed hardens the heart, 
 and then the heart perverts the doctrine. 
 
 IF THE lost have the way that they best 
 like, what fault can they find ? 
 
 MODERN millenarians correspond to the 
 ancient chiliasts, and the doctrine of either 
 is a modified Judaism. 
 
 IT is JUSTIFICATION, and not mere pardon, 
 which satisfies the soul of the penitent. 
 
 THE SALVATION of the believer is wound 
 up with all the attributes and purposes of 
 the Deity. 
 
 PROPHECY also is a miracle. 
 
 IT is the Christian religion which first 
 taught that man is born in sin, said Pascal. 
 
 WHY did Stephen meet his terrible mar- 
 tyr death with less of shrinking than 
 Jesus did his ? 
 
 THE HISTORY of the ancient Jewish people 
 is a parable of Christianity. 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 39 
 
 THE DOCTRINE of a general judgment gives 
 vigor to every part of the Christian sys- 
 tem. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY'S scope is mainly the cor- 
 ruption of nature and the redemption of 
 Christ. 
 
 IN THE CREATION of man, there was some- 
 thing imparted to him from the immortal 
 God himself, which was not given to other 
 earthly creatures. Gen. 2:6. The distinc- 
 tion of soul and body in man is shown in 
 the peculiarity of his very creation. 
 
 Now THAT Christ has borne the wrath of 
 God, the only obstacle to salvation is in 
 the sinner himself. 
 
 A RIGHT view of the nature of God will 
 cause one to accept every part of the gos- 
 pel scheme. 
 
 THE GOSPEL is not alone a sermon to per- 
 suade men, but a creative power to change 
 them. It is attended not with a moral in- 
 fluence only, but with a supernatural in- 
 fluence. 
 
 THE GOD to whom salvation belongeth, 
 hath himself fixed the methods of it. 
 
 IN CHRIST, there are two natures and 
 
40 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 one person; in the Godhead, there are 
 three persons and one nature; and great is 
 the mystery thereof. 
 
 IN HIS PROMISES, God reveals himself as 
 the eternal spring of goodness and power. 
 
 IF ANY are lost, the reason is not in God, 
 but in themselves. If any are saved, the 
 reason is not in themselves, but in God. 
 
 GOD HAS MADE the new covenant not di- 
 rectly with us, but with Christ as our 
 head and representative; and we get into 
 the benefit of the covenant by getting into 
 Christ. 
 
 MEN IN GENERAL concern themselves very 
 little with any terms of salvation that God 
 has made known, yet there is no hope of 
 a man till he wants to know what God's 
 method is. 
 
 To BE JUSTIFIED by faith is to be justified 
 by Christ's righteousness appropriated by 
 faith. 
 
 MERCY to the penitent is the reward of 
 merit in Christ. 
 
 As THE BODY without the soul is dead, 
 so the soul without the Holy Ghost is 
 dead. 
 
think ye of Christ ?" is the 
 touchstone of theology as it is of all reli- 
 gious experience. 
 
 CONVERSIONS may be expected to take 
 place more frequently among an indoc- 
 trinated, than among an unindoctrinated 
 population. For God is partial to his 
 word, and the Holy Spirit takes most read- 
 ily to the path of the truth. 
 
 IT is the superadded agency of the 
 Holy Spirit which makes divine truth 
 piercing. 
 
 BETTER STATEMENTS of the doctrines of 
 sin and atonement have not been made 
 than Dante lays down in the seventh chap- 
 ter of the " Paradise," says Dr. Shedd. 
 
 PRAYER moves God. He eternally pur- 
 posed that he would be so moved. Thus 
 is he a prayer-answering God, and an un- 
 changeable God at the same time. 
 
 DR. NEWMAN'S u Essay in Aid of the 
 Grammar of Assent " happily sets forth 
 the nature of religious faith as a direct ap- 
 prehension of its object rather than an ac- 
 ceptance of mere opinions about it. 
 
 A DISTINCTION subsists between pardon 
 3* 
 
42 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 and justification. For God as well as the 
 believer are justified; but both are not 
 pardoned. 
 
 IT is NOT quite certain that Booth was 
 right in saying, u It is not faith itself, but 
 its glorious object, which Paul intends, 
 when he speaks of faith being imputed for 
 righteousness." 
 
 THE GOD you cannot trust, you cannot 
 worship. 
 
 THE condition of our acceptance with 
 God is a perfect righteousness. But whose? 
 The very genius of the gospel is involved 
 in the answer. 
 
 IT is NOT bare mercy, but propitiated 
 mercy, which God proffers to sinners. 
 
 HAVE YOU YET had a discovery of God's 
 justice ? 
 
 FIRE, air, oil, and water, are each scrip- 
 tural symbols of the Holy Ghost. What 
 an honored use of nature's elements! 
 
 SUPPOSE a certain doctrine does not sat- 
 isfy my reason, or fall in with my preju- 
 dice, or meet my wishes, or answer to my 
 early education, am I to discard it on any 
 such account if I find it fairly in the 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 43 
 
 Bible ? God says his thoughts are not as 
 our thoughts. 
 
 THE MORE we contemplate God's sover- 
 eignty in our salvation, and his infinite- 
 justice in regard to sinners, the more im- 
 movable Christians we become. More of 
 this is the need of the hour. 
 
 A REMEMBERED atonement will diffuse the 
 sweetest savor at the coming marriage sup- 
 per of the Lamb. 
 
 NOTHING is more plainly taught in the 
 Bible than the personality of the devil. 
 
 SAYS Dr. Peabody, ol Harvard: ''Jesus 
 is a class by himself, the most potent char- 
 acter in history .... With miracles Chris- 
 tianity stands or falls." 
 
 REPENTANCE is not only sorrow for past 
 sins, but separation from present sins. 
 
 THE GOODNESS of God, says Owen, is the 
 suitableness of the Divine Being to be com- 
 municative of itself in its effects. 
 
 JOHN HAD LEANED on Jesus' bosom in the 
 intimate familiarity of love; but when he 
 saw his glory, he fell at his feet as dead. 
 John 13:23; Rev. 1:17. It was necessary 
 that Christ's glory should be veiled, while 
 
44 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 he was with men on earth. If he should 
 reign in visible person on earth before the 
 judgment, he would need to leave behind 
 again his glory, which is improbable. 
 
 THE BLESSEDNESS of God, says Owen, con- 
 sists m the ineffable mutual in-being of the 
 three holy persons in the same nature, 
 with the immanent reciprocal actings of 
 the Father and the Son in the eternal love 
 and complacency of the Spirit. 
 
 GOD is SAID to harden the heart, says 
 Salter, when he withholds restraining grace 
 to harden when he does not soften. He 
 is said to make blind when he does not 
 lighten, as darkness follows the removal of 
 the sun. May it not, too, be said that he 
 hates when he does not love ? 
 
 IT is NOT SAID, he that feeleth shall be 
 saved, but he that believeth. Faith first, 
 feeling second. 
 
 ONLY AT THE HOUR of death is the top- 
 stone put upon the work of sanctification. 
 Mark 4:29. 
 
 As A KEY fits into the wards of its lock, 
 so do the provisions of the new covenant 
 fit into all the intricacies of man's case. 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 45 
 
 GOD NEVER made a mistake. 
 
 You MUST NOT trust even repentance or 
 faith to save. Christ only must be trusted 
 for that. 
 
 IF WHITEFIELD and Wesley could be in 
 fellowship, why may not the Calvinist and 
 Arminian now ? 
 
 ANY DULL OBJECT, beheld through crim- 
 son glass, glows in the light of that sub- 
 stance. So is it with the believer as God 
 views him through his Son. 
 
 THAT ANGELS attend saints just departing 
 out of this world may be fairly inferred 
 from the Bible. 
 
 No ONE could dislike pain so much as 
 the Saviour. 
 
 EVANGELICAL RELIGION makes a sharp 
 distinction between the regenerate and the 
 unregenerate. 
 
 ALL THAT CHRIST did was done as the 
 head of believers. 
 
 CONVERSION is a change from legality 
 and slavery to filial confidence. 
 
 THE LAW OF GOD gives us a knowledge of 
 our sin, and condemns it, but cannot help 
 us out of it. 
 
46 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 
 
 THE LORD JESUS is the centre of Chris- 
 tian unity. 
 
 ALL THAT CHRIST did on earth had the 
 one root obedience, in which alone any son 
 is free. 
 
 JESUS is the Saviour of conscious sinners. 
 
 THERE ARE vincible operations of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 EFFECTUAL CALLING includes regenera- 
 tion. 
 
 IN POINT of evil, there was none prior to 
 the devil. 
 
 A SOUL is the haunt of devils or the tem- 
 ple of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 THE WITHHOLDING of God's Spirit was a 
 main part of man's original curse. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION is not merely not punish- 
 ing, it is pronouncing unpunishable. 
 
 REPENTANCE includes faith , since, with the 
 rest, it is a turning from the sin of unbe- 
 lief. 
 
 THE ULTIMATE end of Christ's work was 
 not the salvation of men, but the glory of 
 God. 
 
 THE WORKING of the devil in the children 
 of disobedience, mentioned in Ephesians 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 47 
 
 2:2, is u by an efficacious energy/' said 
 John Howe. 
 
 SOME of the so-called hard doctrines of 
 the Bible are designed to try and test and 
 elicit faith, like painful afflictions. 
 
 GOD'S WAY of salvation is hearing, believ- 
 ing, having (John 5:24), not doing, hop- 
 ing, or feeling. Conviction is a discov- 
 ered sinner; conversion, a discovered Sav- 
 iour. 
 
 THE BEST EVIDENCE of Christianity is a 
 live Christian. 
 
 EVERY ONE TRUTH is connected with every 
 other in the universe of God. 
 
 IF CHRIST commands a thing that is rea- 
 son enough of itself for doing it. 
 
 SAVING FAITH is confidence in a per- 
 son. 
 
 THE SKEPTIC concedes the peculiar holi- 
 ness of Christianity, in requiring of its pro- 
 fessor a purity that he does not think of 
 exacting from the professor of any other 
 religion. 
 
 A CLEVER DEACON has said: Old divinity 
 sends the prodigal son home in rags and 
 utter poverty; new divinity brings him 
 
48 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 back with money enough to pay his ex- 
 penses. 
 
 UNITARIANISM, notwithstanding its often 
 amiable and generous humanitarianism, is 
 after all essentially deistic. 
 
 CHRIST'S LOVE to us not only precedes, 
 but produces, ours to him. 
 
 THE BELIEVER is justified by his indentifi- 
 cation with Christ. 
 
 GOD is u patiens quia aeternus," said 
 Augustine. 
 
 CREEDS EXIST wherever there is religious 
 belief. If we believe, we believe some- 
 thing. That something can be stated ; and 
 the statement, written or unwritten, is a 
 creed. 
 
 DURING THE FIRST three centuries, the 
 main attacks upon our Lord's deity were 
 of Jewish origin ; and yet, as Liddon saj^s, 
 nothing is plainer than that the ancient 
 Jews believed the expected Messiah would 
 be divine. 
 
 THE TEACHING of John the Baptist cen- 
 tred around these three points, says the 
 author of " Our Lord's Divinity:" (1) The 
 call to penitence; (2) the relative greatness 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 49 
 
 of Christ; and (3) his judicial and atoning 
 work. This author probably would include 
 what John had to say of the baptism of the 
 Spirit under the second of these heads. 
 
 SAYS LIDDON: Jesus nowhere retracts, or 
 modifies, or acts, or speaks, as one would 
 who feels that he is dependent upon events 
 or agencies which he cannot control. 
 
 WHEN the elder Brother's raiment is put 
 on me, said Berridge, good Isaac will re- 
 ceive and bless the lying varlet Jacob. 
 
 OLD Henry Scougal shrewdly said: 
 Though God hath not tied himself to 
 means, yet he has tied us to the use of 
 them ; and we have never more reason to 
 expect the divine assistance than when we 
 are doing our utmost endeavors. 
 
 MAY NOT Christ be a daysman between 
 man and man, as well as between man and 
 God? 
 
 THE SINLESSNESS of Jesus may be proved 
 by his word in John 13 : 30, where he says 
 the devil comes and has nothing in him. 
 
 THEOLOGIANS distinguish between God's 
 will of control and his will of precept. 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION of some elements in the 
 
50 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 atonement of Christ may be found in case 
 of Samuel hewing Agag in pieces, which he 
 did as a measure of Saul's sin of disobe- 
 dience, and a tribute to the principle of 
 judicial righteousness. 
 
 THAT THE ENTIRE public career of Jesus 
 Christ was one of temptation seems to be 
 implied in Luke 22:28. 
 
 IN HIS SERMON on the intermediate state, 
 Dr. Nehemiah Adams very properly says 
 that the idea of some that the soul cannot 
 exist separate from the body in material- 
 ism; and to graft materialism upon Chris- 
 tianity is to destroy it. 
 
 THE GOSPEL WAY to peace is also the way 
 to holiness. 
 
 CERTAINTY of final salvation is consistent 
 with danger of eternal perdition. To be 
 cautious against danger may be the very 
 means of coming out safe at the end. 
 Acts 27: 24, 31. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the old divines had 
 much to say of the beatific vision of God, 
 Dr. Talbot, of Granville, thinks he will b e 
 seen even in heaven by immortal eyes only 
 in the Son, who is the image of the invisi- 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 51 
 
 ble God. But may not heaven afford a di- 
 rect perception of God the Father through 
 the light of the Son ? 
 
 THE LAW of the fourth commandment by 
 no means requires the keeping of the sev- 
 enth day of our week, but a seventh day that 
 follows six days of labor, and this law we 
 are heeding when we keep the Lord's day. 
 Here is the matter in a nutshell, which 
 may relieve some of the perplexed. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE of the final perseverance of 
 the saints does not make the genuine be- 
 liever careless; rather it strengthens and 
 stimulates him. 
 
 HERDER, writer of the " Spirit of the 
 Psalms/' says it is the most beautiful mark 
 of the excellency of a doctrine when it in- 
 structs a child ; a statement that needs to 
 be taken with allowance. 
 
 IN EVERY AGE since Christ, there have 
 been men who believed the current events 
 to be the most tremendous that can ever 
 occur, and hence their own the very last 
 period of history. 
 
 WE HAVE NO REASON to suppose that the 
 appearance of Satan is much different from 
 
52 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 what it was at first, that of an angel of 
 light. His fall need not change his appear- 
 ance, any more than the form of man has 
 been changed by his fall. 
 
 DR. SKINNER maintained that neither the 
 humanity nor the divinity in Christ's na- 
 ture, properly speaking, suffered, but the 
 Ego Christ. In all cases the person, not 
 the nature, is the conscious subject, and 
 the God-man is but a single person. 
 
 THE PATTERN of Solomon's temple is suf- 
 ficient of itself to prove the fact of divine 
 inspiration. 
 
 A WRITER in the old " Christian Re- 
 view," vol. X, discussing the resurrection 
 of the body, suggests that a very minute 
 portion of the body, so subtle as to elude 
 human cognizance, may be all that is nec- 
 essary to what we call the original ele- 
 ments. 
 
 BOTH Dr. Hovey in his work on the 
 " State of the Impenitent Dead," and the 
 Duke of Argyll in his " Reign of Law," 
 suggest that the disembodied soul of man 
 may not be destitute of form. 
 
 SAID MASON: u The notion of free grace 
 
IN THEOLOGY. 53 
 
 may make a person dissolute, but the 
 sense of it restrains from sin." A mere 
 theory of God's electing love may leave a 
 man careless and presumptuous ; but a feel- 
 ing of it animates the soul to holiness. 
 
 JAMES RUSSEL LOWELLL, the Harvard pro- 
 fessor, seems unconsciously to state the 
 necessity of an objective revelation in the 
 following words: All men who know not 
 where to look for truth save in the narrow 
 well of self, will find their own image at 
 the bottom, and mistake it for what they 
 are seeking. 
 
 I AM SUSPICIOUS of a theological system 
 which is too complete and compact, says 
 Dr. A. N. Arnold. Our earthly logic, he 
 says, may be inconsistent with God's 
 larger truth. 1 Cor. 13:12. 
 
 CHRIST is paraclete with God (1 John 
 2:1); the Holy Spirit is paraclete with men 
 (John 14:16). 
 
 EVEN A PERFECT humanity cannot call 
 forth from us a true worship such as we 
 pay to God ; although Spofford Brooke has 
 asserted a very different view in a late work 
 of his. 
 
54 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 THE SINLESSNESS of Jesus was declared 
 from the first. Luke 1 : 35. 
 
 ALL THINGS were created for Christ, in 
 one way by serving as figures of his spirit- 
 ual truth. 
 
 DR. HOVEY says truly that an impartial 
 history of the Christian religion would 
 show, beyond question, that the doctrine 
 of a vicarious atonement, ratifying the 
 claims of justice, has been more effectual 
 than any other view of the Saviour's death 
 in convincing men of sin and leading them 
 to him. 
 
 SAYS DR. W. R. WILLIAMS: The Bible 
 defies logic, in our narrow western sense 
 of that word. Of a perfect logic, where 
 the relations of all truths are sten fully 
 and stated harmoniously, a finite race is 
 probably incapable. 
 
 As FOR PERFECTION or completeness in 
 divinity, said Lord Bacon, it is not to be 
 sought. In divinity many things must be 
 left abrupt. the depth of the wisdom 
 and the knowledge of God! 
 
PART III. 
 
 IN THEOLOGY SIN AND ITS PUN- 
 ISHMENT. 
 
 NOTHING is really terrible but the wrath 
 of God. 
 
 THE MORE we understand the sinfulness 
 of sin, the higher will be our estimate of 
 the work of the cross. 
 
 THE CULMINATING sin of the Jews was 
 the rejection of the Son of God. Matt. 
 21:3741. The great sin of men this day 
 is the same. 
 
 A GREAT want of the age is a real per- 
 suasion of the punitive judgment of God, 
 said John Milne. 
 
 CANNOT the adventist see that his doc- 
 trine of the extinction of the wicked makes 
 the atonement comparatively little ? 
 
 INCORRIGIBLE sinners are left to the free- 
 dom of their own wills. 
 
 THE PUNISHMENT of sin is the vindication 
 of law and a necessity of God's nature. 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCES sometimes bring out an 
 
56 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 unsuspected state of the heart. The case 
 of Saul in the Old Testament is in point. 
 
 IF THERE is no eternal punishment for 
 the sinner, then the atonement dwindles, 
 and salvation is not so great a thing after 
 all. 
 
 IF GOD were to " go to law *' with us, we 
 should be in hell. 
 
 You COMPLAIN of a want of feeling, of 
 conviction. But is not insensibility of 
 itself one of your worst sins ? 
 
 THE DEATH of Christ, so far from saving 
 the impenitent from punishment, makes it 
 more certain that they cannot avoid it. 
 
 CONVICTION of the guilt of sin produces 
 fear; a feeling of the pollution of sin pro- 
 duces shame. 
 
 THERE is something in the cross that 
 tests and discloses the state of the heart. 
 "The thoughts of many hearts shall be re- 
 vealed " 
 
 SIN is attempted deicide. 
 
 THE HANGING of a murderer is just as 
 much an eternal punishment as annihila- 
 tion would be; for it is once for all, and is 
 never undone. But to apply the term 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 57 
 
 41 eternal punishment " to such a human or 
 divine execution is an obvious perversion 
 of language. The term has a meaning 
 which cannot be shrunk up in this way. 
 A punishment cannot be at once momen- 
 tary and everlasting. 
 
 FOR a lost sinner to vindicate himself is 
 tantamount to accusing God. 
 
 SHOULD a sinner have his eyes opened to 
 see what he is, with no cross to flee to, he 
 would be plunged in complete despair. 
 
 SIN separates us from God, because, pas- 
 sively, his holiness* cannot bear its touch, 
 and, actively, his wrath -burns out against 
 it. 
 
 GOD'S severest judgment is according to 
 truth. Rom. 2:2. 
 
 A JUST estimate of sin. says Dr. Moss, 
 lies at the basis of all true religion. 
 
 THE EVIL that we do God does (Amos 
 3:6), in the sense that he- permits it, 
 bounds it, and overrules it. 
 
 WE may view the essence of siri as con- 
 sisting in the cherishing of a will contrary 
 to God's will. 
 
 WHAT is there to put between the guilt 
 4 
 
58 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 of the sinner and the wrath of God to keep 
 them from meeting? Nothing but the 
 blood of Christ. 
 
 WE are afraid of being detected even by 
 ourselves. 
 
 OLD SELF is the common enemy of me r 
 my neighbor , and my God. 
 
 LOOK to the Saviour agonizing on Gal- 
 vary, if you would learn the sinfulness of 
 sin, and the wrath of God against it. 
 
 u BuT is in danger of eternal sin. 11 Both 
 the Sinaitic and the Vatican manuscripts 
 show this to be the proper reading in 
 Mark 3: 29. No theory of the sinner's ex- 
 tinction of being in another world can pos- 
 sibly be reconciled with these terrible 
 words. 
 
 WE MUST FEEL a spirit of justice to our 
 sins, if we would have the mercy of God. 
 
 UNTIL we can see our own sins pun- 
 ished in Christ, there must of necessity be 
 a certain fearful looking for of judgment. 
 
 How OFTEN in this life we see the proud 
 fall into a pit of their own digging. 
 
 IT CANNOT be a small crime, says Dr. 
 Shedd, which necessitates such an appa- 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 59 
 
 ratus of atonement and divine influence as 
 that of Christ and his redemption. 
 
 THE PAGAN world has ever been far more 
 certain that God would punish sin than 
 that he would pardon it. 
 
 THE VERY TERM punishment implies pain. 
 Therefore eternal punishment means eter- 
 nal pain. 
 
 IF the heathen knaiv better than they do 
 (Rom. 1 : 21), a holy God must judge them. 
 
 THE SIN of Meroz was a sin of omission, 
 and for it there was God's curse. 
 
 WHEN ABRAHAM stated to Dives the prin- 
 ciple of justice that decided his destiny, 
 the wretched man had nothing to say for 
 himself. 
 
 THE GREAT sin, that of unbelief, is a sin 
 of omission. 
 
 11 SON, remember." It is a terrible 
 thought, that a man may be left to the 
 agony of his own reminiscence forever ! 
 
 RESISTANCE to the Spirit's call is proof 
 that the heart voluntarily chooses to sin. 
 
 FIRE cannot consume the qualities of 
 matter. Shall it ever then entirely con- 
 sume the attributes of a soul ? Is a soul 
 
60 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 less than matter? Shall it then be said 
 that the commitment of the wicked to the 
 fires of judgment is their extinction ? 
 
 MEN WILL be discarded in the end for 
 bearing no fruit, as really as for bearing evil 
 fruit. 
 
 MEASURE the sinfulness of sin by the 
 greatness of Christ and all the spectacle 
 of Calvary. 
 
 THE UNSAVED are in closer alliance with 
 Satan than they imagine. 
 
 THE RADICAL evil of human character 
 consists in a determination to have one's 
 own way, says Bushnell. 
 
 IT is the unrepentant man who turns the 
 warnings of prophecy into certainties. 
 
 THERE WERE those to whom Christ made 
 the awful announcement. Ye shall die in 
 your sins! 
 
 il SIN is the suicidal action of the human 
 will/' Its reflex is the will's slavery. 
 John 8:34. 
 
 FOR ONE to have a sense of the sinfulness 
 of sin, is something more than to know 
 that he has done wrong. 
 
 A RECENT writer says that the danger of 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 61 
 
 a deathbed repentance does not consist at 
 all in God not being ready to spare, but in 
 the moral certainty that such as a man has 
 lived, such will he also die. 
 
 THE existence of moral evil is a far pro- 
 founder mystery, than even the awful pun- 
 ishment of it. 
 
 FINITE MINDS cannot say what infinite 
 justice ought to do. 
 
 HE WHO discerns the beauty of holiness 
 must necessarily see the sinfulness of sin. 
 
 TRIED by the covenant of works who can 
 stand ? 
 
 THE WRATH of God is the essential antag- 
 onism of his nature to sin, and it must 
 have a full and unhindered expression. 
 Jer. 30:24. 
 
 A SINNER will neither seek nor accept 
 the great atonement, till sensible of his 
 own condemnation justly coming from a 
 holy God. 
 
 PUNISHMENT is no other than the evil of 
 suffering, inflicted for the evil of sinning. 
 
 No ONE can deny that it is the tendency 
 of sin to change man into a devil. 
 
 "I NEVER GO to church," said one; "I 
 
62 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 spend my Sunday in settling accounts. " 
 11 The day of judgment will be spent in the 
 same manner," was the reply. 
 
 WERE THE HISTORY of sin minutely writ- 
 ten, no finite mind could endure to read it. 
 
 To SHOW how extensive human deprav- 
 ity is, God tells us that the very ploughing 
 of the wicked is sin. 
 
 WHEN SINNERS are under the deepest 
 conviction, it is not so much particular 
 sins that affects them, as the plague of 
 their hearts. 
 
 THE GREAT and good Bishop Beveridge 
 said: " Not only the worst of my doings, 
 but even the best of my duties, speak me 
 a child of Adam. I cannot but look on my 
 whole life, from the time of my conception 
 to this very moment, but as one continued 
 act of sin." 
 
 THERE is NEITHER felicity nor adversity 
 of this world that can appear to be great ? 
 if it be weighed with the joys or pains in 
 the world to come. 
 
 GUILT QUELLS the courage of the bold, 
 ties the tongue of the eloquent, and makes 
 greatness itself behave poorly. 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 63 
 
 OF EARTHLY JUDGMENTS, one of the heav- 
 iest is the permission to sin and appear to 
 prosper. 
 
 THEY WHOSE delight is most in worldly 
 society, shall have that company in the 
 world to come. If professed Christians 
 love the way of sinners, they shall perish 
 with sinners. 
 
 THE SIN of angels, like that of men 
 against the Holy Ghost, is unpardonable. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL strangeness of men to- 
 wards God, said John Howe, apparently 
 owes itself more to enmity than to igno- 
 rance. 
 
 A TERRIBLE OVERTHROW awaits the proud 
 and giddy rejecter of Christ. 
 
 A VITIATED HEART is the parent crimin- 
 ality from which all others spring. 
 
 IF YOU CONSIDER sin strictly, said Thomas 
 Brookes, there cannot be any little sin, no 
 more than there can be a little God, a little 
 hell, or a little damnation. 
 
 LIDDON distinguishes between a sense of 
 sinfulness, and a sense of unpardoned guilt. 
 The former may exist after the latter 
 ceases. 
 
64 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 IT is WITHOUT doubt true, what a living 
 divine says, that repentance is impossible 
 where there is no atonement. The wicked, 
 therefore, cannot repent after death, since 
 then there remaineth no more sacrifice for 
 sin. 
 
 IT is A FEARFUL trial to the Christian T 
 when he loses a friend and is uncertain 
 about his condition in the next world. 
 Happy is he who at such a time, can look 
 through his uncertainty to God who doeth 
 righteously. To be swallowed up in God's 
 attributes is the way to stay the soul in 
 contemplation of the terrible- retributions 
 of the world to come A man who gets 
 most into sympathy with God will be most 
 satisfied with what God does. 
 
 A RELIGION that does not sufficiently dis- 
 tinguish a man from a wicked world, will 
 never distinguish him from a perishing 
 world, said John Howe. 
 
 THERE is SOMETHING infinitely evil in 
 unbelief. It can reject such an one as 
 Christ is! 
 
 IF THERE were two ways to heaven, men 
 might hesitate. But when there is but one 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 65 
 
 way, and men wait, it is this that angers 
 God. 
 
 WHAT is IT to sell one's self to sin, as 
 Ahab did? 1 Kings 21:25. 
 
 DAVID'S CONFESSION to Nathan shows that 
 the decrees of divine judgment, revealed 
 in inspiration, are in some degree already 
 anticipated by the verdict of the heart 
 itself. 
 
 GOD'S EXERCISE of justice towards sinners 
 at last will be a comfort to him (Ezk. 5:13), 
 though in their death as such he has no 
 pleasure. 
 
 INASMUCH as the heathen have a con- 
 science, they may be judged. Ezk. 5:7; 
 Rom. 2: 14. 
 
 THAT SIN is a nature, in the case of man 
 
 since the fall, is pretty well suggested by 
 
 'Jer. 13:23. It is as much born with us, 
 
 and as hard to efface, as the color of the 
 
 Ethiopian or the spots of the leopard. 
 
 No ETERNAL punishment for unrepented 
 sin is the overthrow of the plan of salva- 
 tion. 
 
 THE SINNER is joined to the world; the 
 God, At death^jjip Christian 
 
 A* S^ B 
 
 flfe ff OF THE 
 
66 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 will carry with him his God ; but the sinner 
 will not carry with him his world, and his 
 ungratified desire will be a hell of itself. 
 Desire, without its object, will, like re- 
 morse of conscience and the memory of 
 what might have been, be a gnawing worm 
 and an unquenchable fire! 
 
 HE is NOT to be envied who taxes his in- 
 genuity to explain away the natural mean- 
 ing of the severe passages of God's word. 
 
 A PUNISHMENT that ends in annihilation 
 is certainly not eternal. 
 
 THE SACRIFICES of old showed that God 
 had a terrible feeling against sin, and was 
 jealous respecting its penalty; but also 
 that he could hide it behind a propitiatory 
 cover, could pardon it. Ah, what a differ- 
 ence there is between pardoning sin and 
 ignoring it; between propitiating God's 
 wrath and belittling it! 
 
 EVERY PARDONED sinner has endured his 
 punishment in Christ. 2 Cor. 5: 15. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT must be interpreted 
 by the New, specially in regard to terms 
 describing the judgment of the wicked. 
 
 THE REWARD of unrepented sin shall be 
 
SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 67 
 
 a fixed character for sinning. Rev. 22:11. 
 The sinner shall enter into sin, and have it 
 sealed to him. He. shall reap that which 
 he sowed. His voluntary choosing is his 
 penalty. Can he find fault ? 
 
 THE MOST ALARMING infidelity of the pres- 
 ent day is the prevalent unbelief with re- 
 gard to sin, its guilt and desert. It is 
 affecting even some of our theological 
 systems. 
 
 IT is AS NATURAL for us to hide sin, as to 
 commit it, said the author of the u Fourfold 
 State." 
 
 ONE TROUBLE with those who are in error 
 concerning the final punishment of sin, is 
 that they think of God as altogether such 
 an one as themselves. Ps. 50:21. 
 
 THOU COMPLAINEST, sinner, that God's 
 wrath against thee is too great; and yet it 
 is too little to move thee! v 
 
 UNBELIEF SHOWS itself in not believing 
 the bad about ourselves. 
 
 PUNISHMENT in the next world is no more 
 unworthy of God than suffering in this 
 world. 
 
 CAN THE SINNER have a right view of him- 
 
68 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 self without terror? Will Satan let go one 
 of his own without a struggle ? Then look 
 for hard conversions. 
 
 THAT WHICH Christ suffered shows that 
 the wrath of God must have vent in the 
 actual punishment of sin. 
 
 MAY NOT he who is eternally sinning be 
 eternally suffering? 
 
 DOES A PERSON argue himself into suicide 
 without having first rejected the doctrine 
 of eternal punishment? 
 
 IF WE HATED sin as God hates it, should 
 we so much question his great punishment 
 of it? 
 
 IF SINNERS think they love a sin-forgiving 
 God, while they hate a sin-punishing God, 
 it is not likely they are yet converted. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 ON THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 ONE CAUSE of so much feeble and lan- 
 guishing spiritual life is the neglect to 
 breathe Bible air. 
 
 THE SWEETEST delight of the believer 
 should come, not from dwelling on his own 
 good estate, but from viewing the things 
 of God. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN is a sinner saved by grace. 
 
 IF JESUS had, his body broken for me, 
 let my heart break for him. 
 
 THE CHOICEST things are wrung from ex- 
 perience. 
 
 TRIAL will tell you whether your hope 
 will hold weight. 
 
 TERTULLIAN called those professors who 
 relinquish their first love, the penitents of 
 the devil. 
 
 WE FIND ease the instant we abandon 
 our own wills. 
 
 THE CASE of the prodigal son forcibly 
 
70 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 teaches sinners to come to Christ just as 
 they are. If he had waited to have food 
 and clothing before going to his Father, he 
 never would have gone. 
 
 To FEEL true contrition without love is 
 an impossibility. 
 
 THE DEVIL, knowing well that prayer is 
 the secret of our strength, aggravates dif- 
 ficulties to keep us from it. 
 
 LOVE to God, or enmity against him, is 
 the root of each man's character. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN will exercise the grace of 
 faith in heaven itself. 
 
 DUTY ought to be. inclination in the re- 
 newed heart. 
 
 EVANGELICAL religion will not flourish if 
 its representatives do not keep the Sab- 
 bath. 
 
 SOME dare not examine themselves, and 
 some are too indolent to do it. 
 
 CAN you dance and enjoy religion ? 
 
 SOME ONE has described faith as dis- 
 covered weakness learning on omnipo- 
 tence. 
 
 A MAN is unknown to himself till he has 
 affliction. 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 71 
 
 IN THE PRESENCE of a high doctrine of 
 grace, is not faith more pleasing to God, 
 than the essential rationalism so common 
 upon such occasion ? 
 
 AUGUSTINE said the true perfection of a 
 man is to find out his own imperfection. 
 
 THE PIVOT of victory in any great battle 
 of life is in the secret heart. 
 
 NOT for cure only, but sometimes for 
 prevention, are afflictions sent. 
 
 THOMAS BOSTON said there are many 
 prayers not to be answered till we come to 
 the other world. 
 
 IT is NOT left to our option what our pe- 
 culiar burden .shall be. 
 
 DELAY in the answer of prayer is not de- 
 nial, but a trial of faith and patience. 
 
 AFFLICTIONS make men appear in their 
 true colors, discovering the evil in them, 
 likewise 'the good. 
 
 WILLINGNESS to retain God in the 
 thoughts is a defense against sin. Rom. 
 1:28. 
 
 BELIEF in the Lord is the antidote of 
 trouble. John 14:1. 
 
 GOD GIVES none of his people to excel 
 
72 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 in a gift, said Boston, but some time or 
 other he will afford them use for the whole 
 compass of it. The patience of Job, the 
 meekness of Moses, the wisdom of Solomon, 
 are examples. 
 
 THE MORE a man fears God, the less will 
 he be afraid of men. Matt. 10: 28. 
 
 WHEN we repent towards any one, we 
 are touched with some gentle emotion to- 
 wards him. 
 
 AVOIDING one temptation, do not like Lot 
 go into another. A caution from the 
 poet Horace will here be recalled by some. 
 
 IT is OFTEN the way of God to prepare 
 his people for a great stress of temptation 
 by giving them an extraordinary spiritual 
 elevation. 
 
 FAITH is something that agrees with 
 God's thoughts. 
 
 FAITH is a living link connecting the 
 heart that possesses it with God who gives 
 it. 
 
 IN Christian progress, there is first life, 
 then liberty. But liberty, for lack of faith 
 or instruction, is often long in coming. 
 
 THE CHILD is impatient to see his parent's 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 73 
 
 promise fulfilled. God's people are like 
 this child. 
 
 WE must get beyond self-knowledge if 
 we would have eternal life. John 17:3. 
 
 HAVE we never employed language in 
 prayer, or otherwise, that might seem to 
 imply that we loved sinners better than 
 Christ does ? 
 
 THE BEST preparation for the week's work 
 is the communion of the Sabbath, said J. 
 W. Alexander. 
 
 LEARN to bear the reproaches, the mis- 
 judgments, of even good men. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY said he would no more 
 dare to fret than to curse or swear. 
 
 FAITH'S check was never dishonored in 
 God's bank. 
 
 FOR a continuity of grace ! Our good 
 frames are too much like the tide. 
 
 Is thy soul pleased with the Lord Jesus ? 
 
 THE REPENTING sinner must be reduced 
 to complete self-despair, though not to de- 
 spair of God's help. 
 
 IT is generally not out of one word, or 
 one impression, but many, and these often 
 at intervals, that the Spirit of God brings 
 
74 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 about the great decision, says Horatius 
 Bonar. 
 
 WHAT is so bracing, so elevating, to 
 one's whole moral being, as faith? 
 
 BECAUSE one is yet lacking the faith of 
 assurance, that is no evidence that he has 
 not the faith of adherence. 
 
 WE ARE saved by even a little faith; but 
 more than a little is needed for joy, and 
 for usefulness. 
 
 CHRIST has gone to prepare a home for 
 us. Are we getting ready for the home ? 
 
 Vows and resolutions are sometimes 
 foolishly put in place of believing. 
 
 THERE is a difference between spiritual 
 pride and self-righteousness. What is it? 
 
 FOR A WOUNDED spirit, submission and 
 occupation are excellent remedies. 
 
 MAN begins with God when he gets to 
 the end of himself. 
 
 IT is God's way to teach his children in 
 the school of experience. 
 
 ONE HAS SAID that in trial what we want 
 is not change of circumstances but victory 
 over self. 
 
 WE CANNOT have the Holy Spirit to make 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 75 
 
 us powerful, unless we desire him also to 
 make us pure. 
 
 GOD will have the believer come to the 
 judgment to let the universe know that 
 there is nothing against him. 
 
 THE Christian life is like a river in its 
 continual onwardness. 
 
 WE NEED heavy trials, because sin is 
 deeply rooted. 
 
 I SHOULD PRAY much in peaceful days 
 that I may be guided rightly when days of 
 trial come, said Robert M'Cheyne. 
 
 NOTHING is thriving in the soul unless it 
 is growing. 
 
 IN CLOSING the eyes for nightly rest, it is 
 good to repeat, u He giveth his beloved 
 sleep," and in opening them in the morning, 
 to say, "When I awake I am still with 
 thee." 
 
 TRUE repentance cannot stop short of 
 submission. 
 
 WHAT is the assurance of hope ? It is to 
 know the great thing God has done for us 
 in justifying us wholly in Christ. 
 
 THE REAL PENITENT feels not merely the 
 misery of sin, but the guilt of it. This ap- 
 
76 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 pears in the confession of the thief. Luke 
 23:41. 
 
 A CALM hour with God is worth a whole 
 lifetime with man, said Robert M'Cheyne. 
 
 You approach .the cultus of Rome, if you 
 have no altar in the house. 
 
 SAID John Milne: Are we enough 
 alone? Do divine things get time to soak 
 into our souls ? 
 
 PRAYER is the expresion of faith. Rom. 
 10:14. 
 
 To LIVE soberly, righteously, and godly, 
 was called by Rev. J. D. Burns, the trin- 
 ity of Christianity. 
 
 A SENSE of forgiveness implies a previous 
 sense of sin. 
 
 PRAYERFUL desire leads on to obedience. 
 
 ONE has said: Patience is faith suffer- 
 ing; love is faith acting; hope is faith ex- 
 pectant. 
 
 LET us rejoice in the power of evangeli- 
 cal religion! 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN finds vineyards in the 
 wilderness and honey in the rock. 
 
 HE THAT has not known adversity is but 
 half acquainted with others, or himself. 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 77 
 
 GENUINE religion must be allowed to 
 search our nature to the bottom. 
 
 THE HEART of the true penitent is like 
 the burnt child that dreads the fire. 
 
 NOTHING to my mind so proves our little 
 faith, as our little feeling about the spirit- 
 ual condition of those around us, says 
 Ryle. 
 
 To BE a disciple of Christ is to obey him. 
 
 BREAK through our monotony with thy 
 conquering grace, God ! 
 
 BY THE GIFTS which awaken our grati- 
 tude, and by the crosses which soften our 
 feelings, God draws us towards himself. 
 
 TRIALS are of three-fold benefit to true re- 
 ligion. Hereby the truth of it is mani- 
 fested; also its beauty; thus, too, it is 
 purified and increased. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE of true religion, like Christ, 
 came down out of heaven. 
 
 IT WAS the common thing for New Testa- 
 ment Christians to be " assured." 
 
 FOR the power and joy of a revival of 
 religion ! 
 
 GOD NEVER gives a faith of assurance be- 
 fore he gives a faith of dependence. 
 
78 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 THE DEVIL does not assault the hope of 
 the hypocrite, as he does the hope of the 
 real child of God. 
 
 TRUE religion does riot consist in mere 
 good wishes and resolutions. 
 
 LeT ME know what it is to love God for 
 what he is in himself. 
 
 SPIRITUAL PRIDE is ostentatious of hu- 
 mility. 
 
 EXPECT COUNTERFEITS of love and humil- 
 ity, for the more excellent a thing is, the 
 more will be the counterfeits of it; as of 
 silver and gold, and diamonds and rubies 
 and precious medicines. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION is the door of blessed- 
 ness. 
 
 AM I WILLING for God to reign ? 
 
 THE AWAKENED sinner should not be 
 seeking for a particular experience, but for 
 Christ. 
 
 PIETY encourages cheerfulness, but not 
 frivolity. 
 
 WE NEED that kind of conviction which 
 kindles the flame of religious faith in 
 other souls. 
 
 THE CONSOLATIONS of the gospel are neces- 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 79 
 
 sary to the growth of evangelical holi- 
 ness. 
 
 A SENSE of free and complete salvation, is 
 the spring of holiness. 
 
 GOD is to the believer, what he is to him- 
 self, the fountain of bliss. 
 
 THE AWAKENED soul consents to the law, 
 that it is holy, just, and good. 
 
 THE AWAKENED soul pays a tribute to the 
 law by forthwith attempting, though in 
 vain, to keep it. 
 
 THE LEGALITY of the convicted sinner is 
 to some extent a token of good. 
 
 THEY THAT have done most for God, have 
 been those who have most joy in God. 
 
 To CONFESS Christ, and his salvation, be- 
 fore men, is health and strength to the be- 
 liever. 
 
 IF A PERSON prays truly, he does believe. 
 You think you do not believe; try prayer, 
 and see. 
 
 IN PRAYER, abstract faith becomes as it 
 were concrete. 
 
 A MERE inclination of the soul to Christ 
 is the beginning of love. 
 
 As WITH MANY healed by Christ on earth, 
 
80 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 so with souls to-day; they commonly reach 
 their blessing in obeying. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S life should be in part 
 contemplative, as well as active, if he 
 would get above ordinary attainment. 
 
 How CAN the fickle Christian retain even 
 self-respect. 
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY insight and even fore- 
 sight, akin to genius, is given to those who 
 live in communion with God. 
 
 WHEN A MAN becomes a Christian, he 
 comes right home to God in everything 
 and everywhere. 
 
 ONE OF THE FIRST- symptoms of backslid- 
 ing is finding fault with the church. 
 
 FASTING is a duty recommended by our 
 Saviour, in like manner as secret prayer 
 is, as may be seen by comparing Matt. 
 6:5, 6 with 6:16, 17, 18, says Jonathan 
 Edwards. 
 
 To ENTER into the world, and there live 
 fearlessly according to conscience, that is 
 Christian greatness, said Robertson. 
 
 CONVICTION of sin is needful, not as in- 
 clining God to give, but as disposing us to 
 receive. 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 81 
 
 How LONG, believer, are you willing to 
 pray for a widely-reaching Holy Ghost re- 
 vival? Are you weary yet? Tell us. 
 
 HAPPY is that believer who has got so far 
 as to say, u God my heart is fixed, my 
 heart is fixed; I will sing, and give praise!" 
 
 WHOEVER LOOKS for salvation by any 
 other grace than that which saved the thief 
 on the cross will meet with a dreadful dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 SPIRITUAL PRIDE has a very quick discern- 
 ment of the low religious state of other peo- 
 ple, and is ready to decry it. 
 
 SPIRITUAL PRIDE finds none of the 
 churches holy enough to stay with; and 
 the preachers all need to be taken to its 
 school. 
 
 IT is A GOOD SIGN when converts feel that 
 salvation is something too good for them. 
 
 Dr. PAYSON used to say that God has not 
 told us how often to pray, nor how much 
 to give, leaving it to love to decide. But 
 both giving and praying are alike required. 
 
 WHEN GOD gives conversion he demands 
 confession. 
 
 THE GIVING DISPOSITION is a spiritual 
 5 
 
82 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 grace (2 Cor. 8: 7), as much as faith, hope r 
 and love, and should be as constantly cul- 
 tivated. 
 
 NOTHING EXHILERATES the soul like the 
 presence of the Holy Spirit in it. Acts 
 2:13. 
 
 IF YOU WILL keep alive an unforgiving 
 temper towards any, it is certain you can 
 not have God's forgiveness. 
 
 BEING MUCH in prayer was the secret 
 spring of the eminence of such men as 
 David and Daniel. 
 
 PRAYER is AN ENGINE of greater power 
 than all human means put together. 
 
 I CANNOT be poor so long as God is rich, 
 for all his riches are mine, said Bernard. 
 
 THOSE WHO do not meditate cannot pray. 
 
 To BE forever looking to self is hurtful, 
 fostering pride or gloom. Get out of self 
 into thoughts of Christ, and into efforts 
 for the good of others. 
 
 Do CHRISTIANS sometimes pass a whole 
 day without one devout aspiration ? 
 
 THE MISERABLE religon, which is ever 
 hankering after worldly pleasures and see- 
 ing how far it can go without actually for- 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 83 
 
 felting the Christian character, is useless to 
 its possessors in this world, and will profit 
 them nothing in the hour of final retribu- 
 tion, says Bishop Kip. 
 
 BICKERSTETH says: It is a proof of the 
 low state of religion among us that so 
 many real Christians can meet and part in 
 our day without praying together. 
 
 MEDITATION on the glory of Christ will 
 quicken love to him. The beholding of 
 Christ, says Owen, is the most blessed 
 means of exciting all our graces, spiritual- 
 izing all our affections, and transforming 
 our minds into his likeness. 
 
 IF YOU WOULD have the grace of consola- 
 tion, you must have the grace of obedience. 
 
 As A WHITE garment shows soiling 
 quicker than another, so a little fault in a 
 good man attracts notice more than even 
 great offences in bad men. 
 
 SUPPOSING we do give till we feel it- did 
 not the Saviour feel what he did for us ? 
 
 IF THE WAR with sin is in the members, 
 this may signify that its dominion in the 
 heart is broken. 
 
 You MAY continue to dance and grow 
 
84 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 lean and dumb spiritually. Is it not best 
 to avoid that which tends to quench relig- 
 ious life ? 
 
 A HYPOCRITE may be all glorious without; 
 ' the renewed man is all glorious within. 
 
 THE SOUL of the believer has a divine In- 
 mate, the Holy Spirit. 
 
 RALPH ERSKINE, drawing near to death, 
 uttered the joyful shout: " Victory, vic- 
 tory, through the blood of the Lamb." 
 
 OBEDIENCE is doing something because 
 another having competent authority has 
 enjoined it. 
 
 IN ONE RESPECT prayer is the voice of sin 
 to him who alone can pardon it. 
 
 FAITH is revealed in acts of faith. 
 
 THERE is no way, said Jonathan Edwards, 
 in which Christians in private can do so 
 much to promote the work of Grod as by 
 prayer. 
 
 IT HAS OFTEN been said that a Christian 
 should fulfill the twofold service of Eddy- 
 stone light-house, give light, and save life. 
 
 ASKING GOD is such gainful business, I 
 wonder we follow it up so little. 
 
 NOTHING is MORE fit than that indigency 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 85 
 
 and necessity in man should crave and 
 supplicate unto the rich abounding full- 
 ness in God, said Howe. 
 
 As SOON as God begins to bless us, we 
 are prone to let go of him. 
 
 SELF-WILLED Christians are often under 
 the hallucination that their way is the 
 Lord's way. 
 
 A CHRISTIAN experience is one which has 
 Christ in it. . It may be otherwise with a 
 mere religious experience. 
 
 CONVERTS cannot be too careful about the 
 duty of baptism. 
 
 IF PROFESSED converts will not give the 
 glory of their conversion to God there is 
 poor evidence that they are converted. 
 Prophecy declares it an immediate result 
 of God's work in converting sinners that 
 they shall know him. Ezk. 37:5, 6, 14. 
 
 OUT of simple obedience to Christ, be- 
 lievers ought to be baptized. 
 
 SOME GOOD SOULS are in the dark because 
 they are trying to believe in their own 
 faith. But was faith crucified ? Is faith the 
 brazen serpent to look to ? 
 
 ANDREW FULLER said : I have such a 
 
86 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 hope, that with it I can plunge into eter- 
 nity. 
 
 THE MOMENT I consider Christ and my- 
 self as two, I am gone, said Luther. 
 
 TRIAL is God's agency not only for 
 developing Christian character, but for 
 manifesting it. 
 
 WILL MODERN DANCING and praying thrive 
 together? We never knew an instance. 
 One is very likely to kill the other. 
 
 COMMUNION with God must ever 'hold a 
 higher place than service for God. 
 
 A CONVERTED heathen girl, being perse- 
 cuted, said : It would be easier to die for 
 Jesus, than not to love him. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP Leighton wrote: The firm- 
 est thing in this lower world is a believing 
 soul. 
 
 SERVING THE LORD in order to be happy, 
 tends to legality; the work done, not 
 Christ, being made the source of happiness. 
 
 IT is NOT by reflecting on sin and its con- 
 sequences that we arrive at repentance, 
 said Luther, but by contemplating Jesus 
 Christ, his wounds, and his infinite love. 
 
 IT is BETTER, said Rutherford, to be sick, 
 
OF THE 
 
 _| UNIVERSITY ff 
 ON THE. NEW LIFE. J 87 
 
 providing Christ come to the bedside and 
 say, u Courage, I am thy salvation," than 
 to enjoy lusty health and never be visited 
 by God. 
 
 EVERY GREAT blessing to Zion is born of 
 soul travail. The anguish of sympathy, 
 the groaning which cannot be uttered, 
 transpires in some heart, before the issue of 
 new life to the church. 
 
 THE INWARD principle of obedience makes 
 outward obedience pleasant. 
 
 WHAT a God-honoring thing it is to see 
 a sorrowing child of earth cleaving fast to 
 God, says Bonar, 
 
 IT is FAR EASIER to pray against a temp- 
 tation before it is felt, than when it has 
 begun to act. 
 
 MEN MUST learn the lesson of submitting 
 to simple authority. The true Christian 
 will heed positive divine commands. The 
 new life takes to them, 
 
 SAID AUGUSTINE, when conviction of sin 
 finally issued in spiritual peace: Pleasant 
 is it to me, Lord, to confess to thee by 
 what inward goads thou tamedst me! 
 
 ASKING God to sustain the work begun 
 
88 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 in his heart, Augustine said: Forsake not 
 thine own gift, nor despise thy green herb 
 that thirsteth. 
 
 Again and again, in his divine inter- 
 course, Augustine said: Give what thou 
 enjoinest, and enjoin what thou wilt. 
 
 HAVE I IN ME the spring of living water 
 that does not dry up when there is a dearth 
 in the church ? Can I go due on in 
 patience doing my duty when the state of 
 religion runs low? 
 
 WHAT INTEREST have I separate from 
 Christ? 
 
 SATAN likes those cold prayers that deal 
 in generalities. He is afraid of the warm 
 specific ones. 
 
 AUGUSTINE exclaimed to God: Thou 
 madest us for thyself, and our heart is 
 restless till it rests in thee. 
 
 DR. PAYSON, being sick in bed, said God 
 put us on our backs, that we might lookup. 
 
 Grace tried is more than grace; it is 
 glory in its infancy, said Rutherford. 
 
 THE HIGHER the water rose, the nearer 
 was the ark lifted up to heaven. 
 
 I FIND IT most true that the greatest 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE, 89 
 
 temptation out of hell is to live without 
 temptations. Grace withereth without 
 adversity, said Rutherford. 
 
 THE MOST OBEYING man shall be the most 
 knowing man, 
 
 IT is SAID of Martin Luther that the more 
 he had to do, the more he prayed. 
 
 A MAN, said Coleridge, may pray night 
 and day and yet deceive himself; but no 
 man can be assured of his sincerity who 
 does not pray. 
 
 IT is THE WHOLE man that prays. Less 
 than this is but wishing and mummery. 
 
 . IF WE EXAMINE the feeling of self-doubt, 
 often thought to be modesty, we shall find 
 it is not modesty all through, said Dr. Ide. 
 Pride and the devil are very likely to be 
 in it. 
 
 HE WHO has the Holy Ghost will make 
 much of Christ, for that is what the Holy 
 Ghost does. 
 
 THE MUTUAL sympathy of Christians is 
 founded on (1) a common ruin, (2) a com- 
 mon exposure to trial, and (3) a com- 
 mon interest in the salvation of Jesus. 
 
 UNUSUAL ELEVATION of spirit is often the 
 5* 
 
90 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 precursor of some extraordinary trial, in 
 this world. Moses came with shining face 
 from Sinai's top to encounter the wretched 
 scene of the golden calf. Jesus went 
 up from the blessing of his baptism to 
 meet the terrific onset of Satan, and went 
 down from the transfiguration to the gath- 
 ring troubles of the last months. 
 
 THE SPURIOUS convert most frequently is 
 a sinner against the Holy Ghost. 
 
 PAUL'S WRITINGS are full of Christ. The 
 living epistle ought not to have less. 
 
 WE DO NOT enough think of the great 
 things of God obtained in our justification. 
 The first chapter of Ephesians is good to 
 set our minds acting on this subject. 
 
 THE ASSURANCE of hope is not for him 
 who still cherishes some unrepented sin. 
 
 IT is A RULE in divinity, that God never 
 takes away comforts from his people but 
 he gives them better, said an old divine. 
 
 WHY SHOULD I start at the plough of my 
 Lord, which maketh deep furrows in my 
 soul ? I know he purposeth a crop, said 
 Kutherford. 
 
 I HAVE FOUND the Lord Jesus Christ to 
 
ON THE NEW LIFE. 91 
 
 be just what my poor, empty, sinful heart 
 needed. He meets my want. The water 
 of life is good. As cold water to a thirsty 
 soul, as the clear morning air to the weary 
 invalid, so is Jesus to me. 
 
 GOD PARTS that and us, which would 
 part us and him. 
 
 TRUE HUMILITY consists more in believ- 
 ing, than in being sensible of sin, said 
 John Owen. Remember this, you who say 
 you cannot feel your sins enough. 
 
 WE RECEIVE the Holy Spirit in our obe- 
 dience, not in disobedience. 
 
 u ELIJAH OFFERED his prayer and then 
 faced the dangers of Carmel. Luther 
 arose from his knees and entered the diet 
 of Worms." 
 
 THERE MUST, says Howson, be enthusiasm 
 where Christ has been received fully into 
 the heart. 
 
 SOME MAY be sanctified from birth. Luke 
 1:15. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION of many " higher life" 
 persons is to think and talk more of their 
 experience than of Christ. It will not do 
 to make idols even of our holiest things. 
 
92 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 GENERALLY neither great usefulness nor 
 great joy in the gospel is reached except 
 through a long and almost despairing 
 period of soul travail and humiliation. 
 Bunyan, Owen, Whitefield, and the Wes- 
 leys, are striking examples. 
 
 CHRISTIANS, said Bunyan, should be often 
 affirming the doctrine of grace, and justifi- 
 cation by it, one to another. 
 
 FAITH RECEIVES its object. It is one kind 
 .of possession. John 1 : 12. 
 
 FAITH PARTAKES of the nature of its object. 
 Isa. 28:16. 
 
 FAITH is the soul's going out of itself for 
 all, said Boston. 
 
 THE LEGALIST works for life ; the believer 
 works from life. 
 
 THE TRUE PENITENT never seeks to exten- 
 uate his own sinful acts, as Saul did in 
 1 Samuel 15 : 24, but takes all the blame to 
 himself. 
 
 You STRENGTHEN your convictions by ex- 
 pressing them. It is important to say, I 
 believe. 
 
 THE BONDS of our union with the Lord 
 are the Spirit on his part and faith on our 
 part. 
 
PART V. 
 
 RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 
 
 THE ROOT of church troubles is pride. 
 
 FAITH makes neither too much nor too 
 little of a gospel ordinance. 
 
 SOME are averse to pruning off perverse 
 members of the church, having more ten- 
 derness for them than for the church that 
 is wronged. But dead branches must come 
 off, else the vine is hindered. 
 
 THE CHURCH is a fountain of waters. Cant. 
 4:15. 
 
 THE ELDER'S office was pre-eminently a 
 teaching office. 
 
 IN EXAMINING persons for the church, 
 learn their views of God's character. 
 There is nothing better to reveal their view 
 of salvation, or the type of their expe- 
 rience. 
 
 SOMETIMES mighty influences proceed from 
 the quiet ones in Christ's church. 
 
 AFTER RECEIVING infant baptism, there is 
 hardly an extreme of high-churchism, or 
 
94 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ritualism, to which I could not go. The 
 kind of arguments that could induce me to 
 accept infant baptism, would easily take 
 me on much further. 
 
 THE FAITH of the primitive church in 
 Rome was spoken of throughout the 
 whole world. Rom. 1 : 8. Has the amount 
 of faith in my church, or yours, awakened 
 any remark abroad. 
 
 HAS A PERSON a right to belong to a 
 church without doing something, according 
 to his ability, to support it? 
 
 A CHURCH has the right of declaring 
 vacant any of its offices. 
 
 RIGHT DOCTRINE is as essential to church 
 prosperity, as is a converted membership. 
 
 THE DENOMINATIONALISM of a true religious 
 man is in fact his purest ideal of Chris- 
 tianity; therefore he cannot be indifferent 
 to it. 
 
 SERVE your church as God's best instru- 
 mentality for doing good. 
 
 DIVISIONS among Christians are the joy 
 of the devil. 
 
 NOTICE the joining of prayer with one's 
 baptism in Luke 3:21 and Acts 22: 16. 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 95 
 
 A BETTER name for the Sunday school 
 would be Bible school. 
 
 A PASTOR may call too much on his 
 people, as well as too little. 
 
 PASTORS ought to visit their people with 
 love, authority, and singleness, as doing 
 God's business. 
 
 THE CHURCH is a vessel, tossed on the 
 stormy waves, but well anchored, and 
 never to sink. 
 
 Do THOSE in a religious society, who 
 complain that few ever call on them, return 
 what calls they do receive; or take that 
 notice of strangers which they exact for 
 themselves? 
 
 SOMEBODY says that the great idea of 
 some churches now-a-days is some titled 
 man and him glorified, rather than Jesus 
 Christ and him crucified. 
 
 " REPENT and be baptized." Even Pres- 
 ident Edwards said of these words: They 
 teach that repentance is a qualification 
 that must be visible in order to baptism. 
 
 BAPTISM symbolizes a change from death 
 to life, and they who have experienced the 
 change should have the baptism. 
 
96 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 HE that is in the church from principle 
 will not leave it for a private offence, for 
 greater popularity, or for pecuniary advan- 
 tage. 
 
 You SHOULD as soon think of slandering 
 your own family, as of talking against your 
 church. 
 
 THOSE professors of religion in our land, 
 who forsake the house of God, and leave 
 minister and church to struggle on alone, 
 are rolling up a dreadful account against 
 themselves ! 
 
 IT is a mystery we cannot understand, why 
 some good people are bitter against apos- 
 tolic immersion, or the baptism of believ- 
 ers in water. Will some one explain this 
 peculiar hostility? 
 
 CHRISTIAN, sad is the indication when 
 you do not love to come, to the prayer 
 meeting! 
 
 WHO MOST make baptism a saving ordi- 
 nance, those who administer it to believers 
 only, or those who will ha^e their irre- 
 sponsible, and perhaps dying, babes receive 
 some fancied efficacy of it ? 
 
 CO-OPERATION, co-operation, none but 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 97 
 
 himself can tell how much a pastor values 
 this in his church, or how unsettled he 
 feels if he lacks it. 
 
 WHERE, Christian, can you spend an 
 hour so profitably as in the prayer meeting? 
 
 THAT WHICH makes a want of spiritual 
 interest in a prayer meeting, is a want of 
 spiritual interest out of it. 
 
 SOME PERSONS will practically withdraw 
 from the church, and then complain if the 
 church withdraws from them. 
 
 CHURCH delinquents are church killers. 
 A little reflection will discern how this is. 
 
 THE ON-GOING of the church has been 
 largely by the revival periods of her history. 
 
 THE CHURCH has been hindered more by 
 the influence of her apostates than by all 
 the opposition of men or devils besides. 
 
 THE TENDENCY of the denominations now- 
 a-days is to self-glorification. Half an eye 
 can discern it. 
 
 DID YOU never see a person with whom 
 an obligation to the church was less bind- 
 ing than an obligation to any other party ? 
 But how does Grod regard such ethics? 
 
 WITH SOME, denominational difference is 
 
98 THINGS TO THINK OP. 
 
 a matter of taste, education, or even acci- 
 dent; with others, it is a matter of con- 
 science. 
 
 DELINQUENT MEMBERS are those, upon 
 whom if the church depended, there would 
 be no church. 
 
 BAPTISM is the ordinance of burial and 
 resurrection. 
 
 AN ABLE MINISTER, now in Rochester, 
 once said he believed the Lord had called 
 him into the church to keep people out 
 of it. 
 
 A TIME of religious declension may be a 
 boon to a church in several ways. 
 
 Baptism may not save, but it blesses the 
 believer, and honors Christ. 
 
 WHEN ONE loses his interest in Christ's 
 church, what can you say of his interest in 
 Christ himself. 
 
 A MAN WHOSE practical attitude is against 
 his church, or its ministry, has reason to 
 tremble. 
 
 Do YOU KNOW what it is to deny yourself 
 a social practice to please your church or 
 pastor ? 
 
 YOUNG MEN in a church are an important 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 99 
 
 element of strength^ if resolute in duty and 
 true to themselves. 1 John 2: 13, 14. 
 
 THE PSALMIST said he had rather be a 
 door keeper in the house of God, than to 
 dwell in the tents of wickedness, a spirit 
 quite different from that of him, or her, 
 who loves the sound of the fiddle and the 
 motions of the dance better than the prayer 
 meeting. 
 
 WHAT A POWER in human society is a 
 live evangelical church ! 
 
 THERE is no such thing as " resigning " 
 one's membership in a Christian church. 
 The only ways out are death, exclusion, 
 and dismission. 
 
 WHO ARE responsible for interesting, 
 active, prayer meetings ? 
 
 LET THOSE who persist in pleasing them- 
 selves at the expense of the feelings of 
 their church, know that there is a God in 
 Zion. 
 
 THE CHURCH ought to be dearer to us 
 than any private griefs. 
 
 GIVE me a singing church. 
 
 FAULTY church members generally accuse 
 everybody but themselves. 
 
100 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 How GOOD it is to see a faithful man or 
 woman in Christ's church! 
 
 A PASTOR may be hopeful of his church , 
 when he sees it given to solid religious 
 reading. 
 
 FOR SHORT pastorates, the ministers and 
 the people are about equally to blame. 
 
 THE POLITY of our Baptist churches does 
 not provide even so much as a corner for 
 those who regard themselves as only pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 CHURCH FINANCES prosper where all give 
 according their several ability, and do it 
 with a willing mind. 1 Cor. 16: 2; 2 Cor. 
 8:12, 13, 14. 
 
 AN EDITOR suggests bulletin boards in 
 the church vestibule as better than adver- 
 tising all sorts of church affairs, and some 
 other affairs, from the pulpit. 
 
 PROF. B. A. SOPHOCLES is a native Greek. 
 In a large Lexicon of the Roman and 
 Byzantine periods, he says that baptizo 
 means dip, immerse, sink, with various met- 
 aphorical uses growing out of this primary 
 sense; and declares there is no evidence 
 that a New Testament writer put upon this 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 101 
 
 verb meanings not recognized by the 
 Greeks. 
 
 SCOLDING never did much good either in 
 the church or in the pulpit. 
 
 A SPIRITUAL church membership, says 
 Dr. Jeter, is the cardinal Baptist doctrine. 
 Around this, all the other distinctive 
 principles are crystallized. 
 
 WE DO LIKE the church member who can 
 be in the minority with a good temper. 
 
 IN A GOOD article on church polity, Dr. 
 Hovey says: A man who will probably 
 sow division or errors in the church that 
 receives him, ought not to be received. 
 The law of self-preservation and efficiency 
 forbids it. 
 
 THERE MUST be a greater income of divine 
 life into the church, into the preaching, or 
 the Christianity of the present is a failure, 
 a mere travesty upon the apostolic type. 
 We ought to feel this, almost to death. 
 
 THE IRREGULAR BEHAVIOR of two or three 
 members gives a certain odium to the 
 whole church. One member cannot mis- 
 behave, and the whole body not suffer 
 from it. 
 
102 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 WHEN GOD COMES to accomplish any 
 great work for his church , he always ful- 
 fills Isaiah 2:17, " And the loftiness of 
 man shall be bowed down, and the haugh- 
 tiness of men shall be made low, and the 
 Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.'' 
 
 NOTHING is so effectual to bring God 
 down from heaven in defense of his people, 
 as their patience and meekness under suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 WEEKLY COLLECTIONS on the Lord's day 
 are simply apostolical (1 Cor. 16:2); and 
 giving in God's house is an act" of worship, 
 as truly as praying or singing. As we de- 
 sire God to be on the giving hand to us, go 
 we open our hearts to give for him. 
 
 THE LORD solemnly says to each disciple: 
 "What are you doing with my treasure, 
 the church ? It is dear to me ; is it so to 
 you?" 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL reasons why children 
 should be in the Sunday school, apply 
 equally to adults. 
 
 THE PRAYER MEETING is an excellent nur- 
 sery for ministerial candidates. 
 
 EARTH AFFORDS no more impressive sight 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 103 
 
 than that of a whole congregation uniting 
 in acts of prayer and praise to the Lord 
 of all. 
 
 AN EMINENTLY good man was wont to 
 say: We many times blame the minister, 
 when the fault is our own, that we have 
 not prayed for him as we should. 
 
 IN THE PRAYER MEETING, pray directly for 
 a few things, and leave the rest for another 
 to ask. 
 
 THERE is great virtue in judiciously let- 
 ting things alone sometimes, and allowing 
 them to right themselves. Every pastor, 
 in particular, will learn this sooner or 
 later. 
 
 IN THE CHURCH of the future, either infant 
 baptism or evangelical religion must fail, 
 says a late Baptist editor. 
 
 IN CHURCH work, in Sunday school work, 
 there is more danger of having too much 
 machinery than too little. 
 
 THE PURITY and power of our churches 
 can be maintained only by caution in the 
 admission of members, and by the use of a 
 kind, prompt, and faithful discipline. 
 
 STRANGERS may decline to come a second 
 
104 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 time to a church because they do not like 
 the minister; or, it may be because the peo- 
 ple belonging there are indifferent, stiff, 
 cold, or absent. 
 
 FOR CHRIST'S sake, even more than for his 
 own, let the believer be baptized. 
 
 WHO WOULD wish to be excluded from a 
 Christian church ? There is certainly an 
 odium about it. and God meant there 
 should be. 
 
 WHEN A CHURCH is spiritually weak and 
 backslidden, we may expect even genuine 
 conversions will be feeble and indistinct. 
 
 WHY NOT READ at the sacramental table 
 such scriptures as the 103d psalm, or the 
 23d, 32d, or 34th, or some of the valedic- 
 tory words of Jesus, occurring in John 14th 
 to 18th? inquires a New York pastor. 
 
 EVERY CHRISTIAN is bound to determine 
 his earthly home and his calling with some 
 reference to Christ's church. 
 
 IF YOU HAVE a man of God for your min- 
 ister, pray that his " bow may abide in 
 strength." 
 
 THE CHURCHES are the heaven-appointed 
 guardians of public morals, the preserving 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 105 
 
 element in human society. Are they true 
 to their calling ? 
 
 BEECHER says the great trouble with 
 many persons in public prayer meetings is, 
 that they are not willing to make poor 
 prayers, to humble themselves, to become 
 fools for Christ. You must, he says, get rid 
 of this everlasting self-consciousness. 
 
 WHEN MINISTERS sprinkle infants, using 
 the solemn formula for Christian baptism, 
 what command of the Saviour do they 
 imagine they are obeying ? 
 
 UPON WHAT SUBJECT do men allow them- 
 selves to be cheated by sophistry so much 
 as upon that of staying home from public 
 worship ? 
 
 DR. G. D. BOARDMAN says: Ah! this 
 word follow, which our Lord so often uses 
 in calling men, this is the crucial test of 
 membership in his kingdom. 
 
 A GIVING PASTOR will have a giving church. 
 
 Do AWAY with infant baptism, and you 
 forthwith revolutionize the Romish church. 
 
 CHURCHES are divine ; associations, human. 
 
 HOLY LIVING is not going to church, but 
 going to church may 
 
 t> 
 
 " UNIVERSITY 
 
106 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 HAS GOD appointed the church to wait 
 on our convenience ? 
 
 IT is a pastor's most excruciating humil- 
 iation to observe the apostasy of professed 
 converts whom he has baptized. 
 
 How GREAT was the splendor of Solo- 
 mon's temple; yet how much more glorious 
 is that built of living stones! 
 
 THE CHURCH needs more confidence in her 
 ordinary appointments and means of grace. 
 
 A CHURCH, like a hive of bees, must pro- 
 duce more than honey enough for itself. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE said: All superfluous 
 branches we lop away, that bearing boughs 
 may live. 
 
 THE SIMPLE law of self-preservation 
 requires discipline in a church. 
 
 SOME PEOPLE, because they cannot give 
 what they would like to, will not give any- 
 thing. Not so the widow whom Jesus 
 watched at the treasury. 
 
 THE CHURCH that does well by its pastor, 
 will be most honored by God. 
 
 A CHURCH can better stand the opposition 
 of the world than the indifference of its 
 own members. 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 107 
 
 Do YOU KNOW the peculiar gladness of a 
 pastor to hear good things of an absent 
 member of the flock ? 
 
 IN REVIVAL TIMES, God's people are Bible 
 singers, as well as Bible workers. 
 
 THE EXPRESSION " women's prayer meet- 
 ing" is preferable to that of " female 
 prayer meeting." 
 
 THE SCHOLARLY churchman, Dean Alford, 
 conceded that the Bible knows nothing 
 of infant baptism. 
 
 THE SUREST WAY for a church to gain a 
 larger congregation is to be faithful to the 
 one it has. 
 
 THE CHARACTER a member develops in the 
 church depends on the way he begins. 
 
 A CHRISTIAN congregation, having risen 
 to a state of prosperity, is tempted to 
 despise the humbler means by which its 
 prosperity was reached. 
 
 HOSPITALITY is a friendly spirit towards 
 the stranger. It is an excellent church 
 grace. 
 
 THE PASTOR is set to pray for his people, 
 as much as to preach to them. Acts 6 : 4. 
 
 ARE YOU NOT responsible for a fixed local 
 
108 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 worship? Who has excused you? Who 
 has given you a card to be a wanderer? 
 
 THE GREATEST of all societies among men is 
 the church of Jesus Christ. It is the only 
 local society which God has established, 
 
 A profession of religion is the profession, 
 (1) of a personal experience, (2) of a doc- 
 trinal belief, (3) of a purpose of holy ac- 
 tivity in the church, says Dr. Lamson. 
 
 THE WRITER of "Ecce Homo" thinks if 
 Socrates had appeared in an age of print- 
 ing, he would have gathered no society. 
 But it did not belong to the essence of his 
 mission, as it did to Christ's, to found a 
 society. 
 
 DOLLINGER, too gives his testimony to 
 the practice of immersion as the primitive 
 baptism, symbol of the redemptive burial 
 and resurrection. 
 
 FESTIVALS AND FAIRS for religious pur- 
 poses are not often to be encouraged. 
 They influence a community to give less 
 than they otherwise would in the long run. 
 They are not economical. They are likely 
 to involve some unpleasant friction. They 
 ordinarily exert a distracting influence 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 109 
 
 upon the spiritual interest and legitimate 
 work of a church. 
 
 THOSE WHO were disciples in apostolic 
 times, gave themselves not only to the 
 Lord, but to his church. 
 
 FROM THE DAYS of the apostles till the 
 present, there have been spurious converts. 
 This cost must be counted in the trials 
 of building up the spiritual house. 
 
 IT is WELL to ask the question, what 
 would become of the church if all the 
 members did by it as I am doing? 
 
 NOT EVERY THING which is essential to 
 the completeness of a church and its min- 
 istry, is essential to the reality of a church 
 and its ministry, says Dr. Bright. 
 
 LUKE TELLS us that Timothy was well 
 reported of by his brethren in the same 
 church. Blessed is he whom his fellow 
 members in the church can commend. 
 
 THE GREEK CHURCH understands baptism 
 to mean immersion. Can it be that it 
 does not understand its own language ? 
 
 IT is SOMETIMES no easy thing to rejoice 
 in the revival success of a neighbor church 
 and minister. But Zion is one, and we 
 
110 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ought to be glad of prosperity in any part 
 thereof, and we must be, however little 
 thrift God may appear to give to us. 
 
 You WILL FIND the church's thermometer 
 in the prayer meeting. There you will 
 ascertain its real height and power. 
 
 CUYLER has this about converts: The 
 first three months after conversion are 
 ordinarily decisive of the question whether 
 the convert is to be a worker or a drone 
 in the hive, an active or a silent partner in 
 the concern forever after. . 
 
 DIVISION OF FEELING in a church always 
 affects unfavorably its benevolence and 
 charity. 
 
 IN SENDING contributions to Paul at 
 Rome, the church at Philippi sowed 
 worldly things ; but in receiving back from 
 him in return an epistle full of the Spirit, 
 they reaped spiritual things for themselves, 
 and for us. 
 
 WE HAVE ARGUED enough, but have we 
 prayed enough, for the prevalence- of 
 believers 7 immersion ? 
 
 SENSATIONALISM is no more necessary to 
 make a good Sunday school than to make 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. Ill 
 
 a good preacher. It creates in the young 
 an appetite for excitement, and interferes 
 with sober Bible work. 
 
 SIMPLICITY in the exercises of a Sunday 
 school is a prime requisite. Neither 
 teachers nor pupils want much to distract 
 them from their immediate class work. 
 
 THE OBJECT of the Sunday school, like 
 that of the pulpit, is to convert sinners, 
 instruct those who have come to Christ, 
 and make moral citizens of all. 
 
 EFFICIENT class work is after all the 
 secret of Sunday school prosperity. 
 
 PROPERLY CONTROLLED, the varieties of 
 disposition in the membership of a church, 
 as in the ancient apostleship, make the 
 body more complete and more efficient 
 unto its end. 
 
 IN VIRTUE of his own circle of friend- 
 ships and influence, each member is a kind 
 of mediating agent among his fellow 
 members in the church. 
 
 UNITY among God's people does not 
 mean uniformity. 
 
 IRREGULARITY in attending public wor- 
 ship may have more to do with one's defect 
 
112 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 of character and general ill success than he 
 suspects. 
 
 A MUCH-MEETING church is a grand instru- 
 ment of evangelization. 
 
 A CHIEF Christian work: Do what you 
 can to make well-attended and prosperous 
 meetings. Here is work for every convert. 
 
 A PRIME motto for each in the prayer 
 meeting: Rom. 12: 11. 
 
 NEVER MERGE two classes in a Sabbath 
 school because the teacher of one of them 
 is absent. 
 
 ASSIGN A NEW SCHOLAR to a class with 
 great care. Never do it till you have con- 
 sidered both what the class is, and what 
 the scholar is. The make-up of classes 
 requires the wisest superintendence and 
 the most jealous preservation. Without 
 this care you may spoil a class, or lose 
 your new pupil. 
 
 WHEN A REVIVAL comes in the church, 
 rejoice with trembling. For the devil 
 also may work, and probably will. 
 
 A SELF-SATISFIED church is a dead church. 
 
 JUDAISM was a culture in liberal giving. 
 Shall church life involve less? 
 
RELATING TO THE CHURCH. 113 
 
 BUILD UP the church in spiritual life, 
 and converts will be multiplied. Acts 
 9:31. 
 
 MANY CHRISTIANS remember their bap- 
 tism with more interest than any other 
 event of their religious life, save their con- 
 version. To me it is an ever growing event. 
 
 THE PERSONS receiving the corrective 
 baptism at Ephesus claimed to have had 
 already John's baptism. But they were 
 mistaken. This is proved by their acknowl- 
 edgement that they had not heard of the 
 Holy Ghost. For in John's baptism the 
 Holy Ghost, as well as Christ, was 
 announced. Matt. 3:11. It was only 
 something called John's baptism, and not 
 the reality, that those persons had received. 
 There is no evidence that those who had 
 the real baptism of John ever needed 
 re-baptism. His was indeed essentially 
 Christian baptism, as perfectly so as could 
 be till Christ actually came and the Spirit 
 was poured out. 
 
PART VI. 
 
 FOR THE PREACHERS. 
 
 PREACHERS are the pole on which Christ, 
 the brazen serpent, is lifted up. 
 
 INTIMACY with the Scriptures is impor- 
 tant for the preacher ; but growing acquaint- 
 ance with God is more important. 
 
 THE MOST successful and excellent min- 
 isters generally have something in their 
 characters which is a trial to other people 
 and keeps them from glorying in man. 
 We have this treasure in earthen vessels T 
 lest we think too much of the vessels. 
 
 IN OUR WAYS of evangelization let us 
 make no compromises with unbelief, 
 either in ourselves or in other men. 
 
 NOTHING sooner destroys ministerial 
 weight, either in the pulpit or out of it, 
 than covetousness or penuriousness. 
 
 HAVE NOT incipient revivals been killed 
 by being too soon blazed abroad ? 
 
 WILLIAM BURNS mentioned as one of the 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 115 
 
 grounds of his departure for a foreign 
 mission field, the want of any late special 
 blessing at home. 
 
 JOHN MILNE once said : I think I have 
 noticed when the Lord took away some- 
 thing that I valued greatly, he always gave 
 me souls in return. 
 
 AN EAGER THIRST on the part of the peo- 
 ple to hear God's word preached, is one 
 token of a revival. 
 
 THE AUTHOR of some late notes on Gen- 
 esis says: One who comes forward much 
 in public will need that chastened spirit 
 that matured judgment, that subdued and 
 mortified mind, that broken will, that mel- 
 low tone, which are the sure and beautiful 
 result of God's secret discipline; and it 
 will generally be found that those who 
 take a prominent place without more or 
 less of the above moral qualifications, will 
 sooner or later break down. 
 
 WE MUST not be so absorbed in our work 
 as to think more of it than of the Master 
 who gives it to us to do. 
 
 SIMEON'S advice to British preachers was: 
 Leave off whilst your hearers are still 
 
116 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 hungry. That will bring them back again 
 for more. 
 
 THE missionary Burns said: If we as 
 ministers of God are unfaithful to the rich 
 and great, all our faithfulness to others 
 must be more or less hypocritical. 
 
 SAMUEL said even to the rebellious 
 Israel: God forbid that I should sin in 
 ceasing to pray for you. 
 
 IN LABORING for the conversion of a sin- 
 ner, might it not be well to convince him 
 of some single sin, and get him to do some 
 one thing? Is not such also the way of 
 the Spirit? In Robe's revival tracts, 
 greatly used by William Burns in the Dun- 
 dee and Kilsyth revivals of 1839-41, is the 
 statement that the Spirit usually convinces 
 of particular sins in the first place. 
 
 IN HIS " Thoughts on Preaching," J. W. 
 Alexander quotes a remark of Helvetius, 
 that in our day the secret of being learned 
 is heroically to determine to be ignorant 
 of many things in which men take pride. 
 
 Too MANY ministers are more ready to 
 goad on the people to giving, than to give 
 as they ought themselves. But David, 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 117 
 
 when he called for the contributions of 
 the people, led off with his own. 
 
 WE WHO feed the flock of God ought not 
 to let anything come in between us and a 
 daily study of the Bible, neither friends, 
 nor writing, nor the reading of other books. 
 
 No PASTOR can judge of the preaching of 
 other ministers as well as his congregation 
 can, for obvious reas6ns. 
 
 THE ACCENT of personal conviction is 
 more effective than any other quality in a 
 public speaker. 
 
 THE AUTHOR of u Ad Clerum" says to 
 young ministers: Be on your guard 
 against professors of elocution, if you wish 
 to be natural, easy, and effective, as public 
 speakers. 
 
 IT is to be feared that many will go to 
 hell because their ministers never told 
 them about hell. 
 
 THE PREACHER may promote the wakeful- 
 ness of his congregation by some apt use 
 of questions. 
 
 TRUE ministers are a sweet savor of 
 Christ in them that perish, as in them that 
 are saved. 
 
118 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 SOME of us need to preach more boldly 
 and distinctly concerning the eternal pun- 
 ishment of the wicked. 
 
 OUGHT we to honor Christ's reapers 
 above his sowers ? 
 
 THE WISE skill of our Lord's conversation 
 with the woman at Jacob's well, deserves 
 the study of all soul-winners. 
 
 THE SHORTEST way to prevent heresies is 
 to teach all truth. 
 
 DR. CUTTING says: No function more 
 certainly belongs to the ministers of Chris- 
 tianity than the care of education. In the 
 end, that form of faith which educates 
 the people will have the people. 
 
 FOR wisdom, ability, and courage, ta 
 speak the whole truth of Christ! 
 
 COMMUNION with God imparts a holy 
 skillfulness to the Christian workman. 
 
 WHY should ministers confine their 
 preaching so exclusively to the Lord's day? 
 
 Do not our Christian communities, our 
 churches even, require more week-day 
 preaching of the word, more preaching 
 " out of season?" 1 Tim. 4: 1-5. 
 
 BETTER FAR to preach often with Ordinary 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 119 
 
 ability, than to preach rarely a great ser- 
 mon. 
 
 SOME talk about lessening the current 
 number of preaching services. The truth 
 is, we do not preach enough, and the peo- 
 do not hear enough. 
 
 THE IDEA of the sermon, as being a plant 
 springing out of the seed of the word, is 
 the true one. 
 
 " THE painfulness of his preaching," 
 said old Thomas Fuller of a famous divine, 
 meaning that he took great pains; upon 
 which Trench remarks: " If we had more 
 painful preachers in the old sense of the 
 word, we should have fewer painful ones 
 in the modern sense." 
 
 DOUBTLESS for the interests of the truth, 
 the illustrations in a sermon should be 
 both few and brief. 
 
 SELF-SEARCHING is likely to make a man's 
 preaching searching. 
 
 IT is FAR more difficult than is commonly 
 supposed to discern whether one has been 
 converted. 
 
 STRONG DOCTRINE, particularly the truth 
 of God's sovereignty and justice, was at 
 
120 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 once the means and the test of the great 
 revivals of the eighteenth century. 
 
 THE PREACHER'S message must have a 
 basis of experimental knowledge. 1 John 
 1:3. 
 
 QUIET fearlessness in preaching, the 
 truth, so evident in the apostles, so lack- 
 ing oftentimes in us, is to be attained only 
 by a great life in God. 
 
 THE PREACHER presents the objects of 
 sight, but cannot give eyes to see them. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP Leighton expressed the opin- 
 ion that some men preach too soon, and 
 some too long. 
 
 THE UNBELIEF of men, combined with the 
 power of Satan, presents a fearful resist- 
 ance to the preaching of the gospel. 
 
 FEAR and love are the two motive 
 forces employed by the Bible to win men 
 to God ; and we weaken either at our peril. 
 
 ELISHA was summoned from his farming 
 at Abel-meholah to the head of the pro- 
 phetic colleges. Amos left his puncturing 
 of sycamore fruit at Tekoah to publish 
 words that made the land tremble. 
 
 MINISTERS begin to decline in power 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 121 
 
 when they cease to grow, and they cease 
 to grow when they cease to study, says 
 Dr. Moss. 
 
 PAUL AFFIRMS in Acts 26:22 that the 
 matter of his preaching was the fulfillment 
 of the prophecy of Christ. 
 
 IN CHRIST the truth welled up as from an 
 inner fountain. It was no effort, but 
 spontaneity, because he was the Truth. 
 
 DR. CUTLER says a hearer gave him this 
 practical hint: If a minister can only con- 
 vince his congregation during the first five 
 minutes that he cares for nothing but to 
 save their souls, he will kill all the critics 
 in the house. 
 
 PUBLIC MEN, and, above all, ministers, 
 need to guard against a diseased love of 
 adulation and notoriety. 
 
 MINISTERS are appointed to be helpers of 
 the saints' joy. 2 Cor 1 : 24 ; 1 John 1 : 4. 
 
 WISE DIVINES, who have had most 
 acquaintance with such things, tell us that 
 we must not too readily think a person 
 converted, from the experience he relates. 
 
 IF A MAN wants something to arouse his 
 evangelizing spirit, something to make him 
 
122 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 more bold and agressive in Christian labor, 
 something to refresh his soul with gospel 
 power, let him read Abel Stevens' two 
 first volumes of the history of Methodism, 
 spanning the period of the Wesleys and 
 Whitefield in England. 
 
 IN A GENERAL religious awakening, as in 
 the season of spring, there appear many 
 blossoms which never come to anything. 
 
 WHEN A MAN claims for the press a 
 power over public opinion and life, greater 
 than the pulpit exerts, he is simply mis- 
 taken. Oral preaching is still, and will be 
 while the world stands, God's great instru- 
 mentality of power. 
 
 A SERMON, to be preached a second time, 
 must be born again, says Professor Park. 
 
 AN OLD farmer said of a minister whose 
 sermons lacked application: He's a good 
 man, I dare say, but he will rake with the 
 teeth upwards. 
 
 THAT ONLY can be trusted as a certain 
 evidence of grace, which Satan cannot do, 
 said Edwards. 
 
 AN EDITOR says: The chief business of 
 the pastor is not to warp in outsiders, but 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 123 
 
 to perfect the saints, and edify the body 
 of Christ. 
 
 A PASTOR can make his full power felt 
 upon the world only as that power goes 
 through the church, and receives mo- 
 mentum from that medium. 
 
 SHEDD says the body of a sermorT should 
 be filled with the proofs of the subject; but 
 we should rather say, with the exhibition of it. 
 
 THE GRANDEST WORSHIP, next to a holy 
 life is a sermon, into which the preacher 
 has put his holiest thought and feeling, 
 says Dr. Crane. 
 
 THE WORLD is in danger of suffering, not 
 from the utterance, but from the conceal- 
 ment of the truth. 
 
 DR. HALL told some young preachers 
 that they could either give their hearers 
 light through plain windows, or let it in 
 through stained glass. 
 
 ELECTION is revealed in God's word; 
 therefore, in the measure in which it is 
 revealed, the ministers of the word are 
 called upon to declare it. 
 
 THE MINISTER needs to keep his own soul 
 well fed, if he would nourish others. 
 
124 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION of influence in parochial 
 life is the clergyman's character. 
 
 THE GOOD EFFECT of a gospel sermon often 
 appears only after many days. 
 
 ONE ELEMENT in William Burns' character 
 invested him with a sort of apostolic dig- 
 nity: He was far more concerned for the 
 glory of Christ, than for the salvation of 
 sinners, says Dr. Lincoln. 
 
 THE MISSION of every servant of God is 
 both destructive and constructive. Jer. 
 1:10. 
 
 IT MAY be well, in some cases, to probe 
 with a doctrine of sovereign grace the 
 hearts of the awakened to ascertain the 
 reality of their state. By such a test the 
 spurious inquirer is offended and turns 
 back, while the genuine one bows to God 
 and accepts of mercy only. 
 
 IT is NOT always encouragement that an 
 inquirer needs. Often something very 
 opposite is wholesome for him. 
 
 A CONVERSION that should have the light 
 and bear the tests supplied in Booth's 
 " Reign of Grace" would be something 
 genuine and strong. But who of us, 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 125 
 
 knowing the contents of that book, has 
 the courage to give it to an awakened 
 sinner ? 
 
 IT is FAITH that wins souls. 
 
 THE USEFULNESS of a preacher's sermons 
 Is by no means to be measured by the 
 size of his audience. The Great Teacher 
 was not particular about the number to 
 whom he spoke. 
 
 MINISTERS ought to be like lions to 
 guilty consciences, and tlike lambs to 
 men's persons, said Edwards. 
 
 I THINK, said Edwards, there is a great 
 deal of reason from Scripture to conclude 
 that no sort of men will be so low in hell 
 as ungodly ministers. 
 
 A PREACHER without the Holy Ghost 
 makes awkward work in the often needed 
 word of rebuke, in declaring the sover- 
 eignty of God in election and effectual 
 calling, and in discoursing of the terrible 
 realities of the judgment day and eternal 
 punishment. 
 
 A SERMON, says Beecher, is to be criti- 
 cised by its results, not by any canon or 
 rule of the schools. 
 
126 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 APOLLOS was the evangelist of Christian 
 growth, and refreshment. 
 
 THE LIFE of Barnabas furnishes the beau- 
 tiful lesson of co-operation in Christian 
 work. 
 
 THERE ARE SAMSONS in the ministry who 
 have been shorn of their strength, perhaps 
 by their vanity, perhaps by their injustice r 
 perhaps by their worldliness, perhaps by 
 their self-indulgence, perhaps by their 
 envy. t 
 
 BECAUSE great revivals may not come in 
 my day, am I to cease to believe in them? 
 
 WHEN REFUSING to vindicate himself from 
 some current calumny, John Wesley said: 
 When I devoted to God my ease, my time, 
 my life, did I except my reputation ? 
 
 JOHN BERRIDGE testified that as soon as 
 ever he preached Jesus Christ and faith in 
 his blood, then believers were added to 
 the church continually. 
 
 SELF-SEEKING is a temptation of Christian 
 ministers. 
 
 IN A REVIVAL, the immediate actors need 
 not take the credit. The work may be 
 traceable to the humble agency of some 
 
OF THB 
 
 | UNIVERSITY 
 
 FOR THE PREACHERS. 127 
 
 now almost forgotten minister, or to the 
 prayers of some obscure Christian sister 
 too feeble to reach the sanctuary. 
 
 THE MINISTER who has not talked much 
 with the Lord during the week, cannot 
 speak with the people on Sunday. 
 
 FAITHFUL PREACHING will fill the house 
 with living Christians. 
 
 THE LORD Jesus Christ, says Spurgeon, 
 got on very, well before we were born, and 
 it is very likely he will get on exceedingly 
 well when we are dead. 
 
 THERE is nothing out of heaven, next to 
 Christ, dearer to me than my ministry, 
 said Rutherford. 
 
 SOME MINISTERS are " all things to all men " 
 in a sense so unscriptural that they gain 
 none. 
 
 How FEW of us know what it is to cease 
 to work for self, and toil simply for Christ! 
 A person may, even in the most earnest 
 efforts to build up the church, be working 
 only for himself. 
 
 THE PREACHER who divides his sermon 
 into too many heads, will not find ears for 
 them all. 
 
128 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 BUT WHEN I go away from hearing 
 Father Massillon, I leave saying, " What a 
 poor wretched sinner I am, how wicked I 
 am/' said Louis XIV. 
 
 A LATE WRITER calls preaching to the 
 intellect, a lamp; to the experience, a 
 pitcher; and to the conscience, a trumpet. 
 
 PREACHING, when truly such, is essen- 
 tially expository, whether a short verse, or 
 a whole chapter, is used. The preacher is 
 the expounder of God's word. 
 
 A MAN can have no worse enemy than a 
 flattering, fawning, minister, that does not 
 deal plainly with his conscience, said 
 Bishop Reynolds. 
 
 LUTHER NAMED as one qualification for a 
 preacher that he should know when to stop. 
 
 IN THE CASE of an inquirer, endeavor to 
 learn whether it is his state of heart, or 
 some outward sins, which gives him trouble. 
 Conscience is sufficient to give the latter 
 concern; only the Holy Spirit can produce 
 the former. 
 
 SAID WHITEFIELD: It is true, God may 
 convert people by the devil, if he pleases; 
 and so he may by unconverted ministers; 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 129 
 
 but I believe he seldom makes use of 
 either of them for this purpose. 
 
 THE QUESTION of the success of a man or 
 a cause is a difficult one to decide. Time 
 may show that the success of to-day is 
 only apparent, and that present defeat is 
 ultimate success. 
 
 Dr. Staughton, the most popular Baptist 
 minister in America fifty years ago, was 
 accustomed to preach less than thirty min- 
 utes, and bring a whole service within an 
 hour. 
 
 SOME INQUIRERS are so much in earnest 
 that you can open the gospel to them with 
 effect; while in case of others all you can 
 do is to open to them the sin of their half- 
 heartedness. 
 
 WHEN IN THIS COUNTRY, Xewman Hall 
 said he would modestly express the opin- 
 ion that American sermons are too pre- 
 cise, too elaborate, too argumentative, too 
 essayrlike, too much like books, and too 
 little like earnest talk. 
 
 IN PREACHING the gospel of life, both the 
 Saviour and his apostles principally aimed 
 to exhibit the truth, to hold before the peo- 
 7 
 
130 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 pie the facts of Christianity. It 
 assumed that ordinarily this was sufficient 
 to reveal the desire or aversion of the peo- 
 ple's hearts. 
 
 You CAN DO the inquirer but little good 
 unless his heart has begun really to thirst 
 and hunger for the divine and the spirit- 
 ual. 
 
 Do NOT some learned preachers spend 
 time and strength in seeking to convince a 
 few prominent infidels, which might bet- 
 ter be used upon the general unbelief of 
 the mass of men ? Let us address our- 
 selves less to the philosophic error of the 
 boastful few, and more to the common 
 unbelief of the many. Generally, in 
 answering a pronounced infidel, you flatter 
 his pride, and do not reach his reason. 
 
 THE PEOPLE, after all, care more for a 
 faithful preacher than for a faithful pastor, 
 however much they may prize the latter. 
 
 ROBERT HALL was a constant student of 
 Demosthenes, Euripides, and Pindar, to 
 the close of his life. 
 
 ASA was not king of Israel, but of Judah. 
 Yet it is recorded (2 Chron. 15:9) that 
 
FOR THE PREACHERS. 131 
 
 they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, 
 when they saw that the Lord his God was 
 with him. 
 
 DR. STILLMAN said that a man might 
 preach the law evangelically, and might 
 preach the gospel legally. 
 
 the trials and humiliations incident to 
 my ministry! Yet I thank God who 
 called me to this work. 
 
 To KNOW HOW to wait is the great secret 
 of success, said De Maistre. 
 
 WE MINISTERS must pray more, if we 
 would effect more. 
 
 IT is of no use to put in the sickle before 
 the harvest is ripe. We can hasten noth- 
 ing. 
 
 DR. JOHN HALL addresses sinners as his 
 Christless brethren. 
 
 WESLEY said : Lord if it be thy gospel 
 which I preach, arise and maintain thine 
 own cause ! 
 
 THE PREACHER'S best source of illustra- 
 tion is the Old Testament. 
 
 PUSEY speaks of a certain " economy " 
 as one law that should rest upon the preach- 
 er's lips. The time for preaching a given 
 
132 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 doctrine may not be to-day. Jesus him- 
 self observed such a law. 
 
 THE THREE elements of doctrine, experi- 
 ence, and duty, should enter into gospel 
 preaching. 
 
 LET us BE concerned, but not anxious, 
 about the cause of God. 
 
 THERE ARE IMAGES of peace and pleasant- 
 ness connected with the pastor's office, 
 which that of the teacher does not afford. 
 
 ACTS 9: 15, 16, suggests that Paul's la- 
 bors would be successful in proportion as 
 he suffered. 
 
 THE LIFE OF WESLEY is invaluable in the 
 way of stimulating ministers to untiring 
 evangelistic labors. 
 
 THE MINISTRY of to-day must grapple 
 with the great and difficult subjects of 
 eschatology. Error is at present making 
 more inroads, and is harder to meet, at 
 this point, than anywhere else in the sys- 
 tem of theology. Here materialism is 
 pressing its strongest assaults. Here the 
 unwary are most easily caught. 
 
PART VII. 
 
 IN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Do ETHICAL writers in general -sufficiently 
 take into account the fall of man ? 
 
 A GREAT PART of the philosophy of life 
 consists in making large allowances for 
 the peculiarities of others. 
 
 CONSCIENCE is modified by education. 
 Then why should the public system prac- 
 tically regard intellect as the only thing to 
 be educated? 
 
 How FAR does the devil know man ? 
 Does he know the secrets of his innermost 
 spirit? Able and orthodox writers have 
 denied this, for example, Dr. Duncan of 
 Edinburgh, and, we think, Jonathan 
 Edwards. 
 
 PLEASURE followed for pleasure's sake 
 wears men out sooner than any ordinary 
 work. 
 
 Is IT RIGHT to eradicate all love of praise? 
 Did not Paul countenance a measure of it 
 
134 THINGS TO THINK OF. m 
 
 in the saints, and seek to turn it to sancti- 
 fied ends? 
 
 THE TEACHING of the golden rule is that 
 what a person is entitled to, is according 
 to what he is willing to render. 
 
 THE WILL is stronger than knowledge. 
 Luke 16:31. Desire is stronger than 
 knowledge. Rom. 1 : 32. 
 
 AN EDUCATION from which religion is 
 studiously excluded is a one-sided educa- 
 tion at best, even for the intellect, not to 
 speak of man's more comprehensive nature. 
 
 THE RECOGNITION of God's sovereignty is 
 an intellectual tonic, as well as a moral one. 
 
 HONEST DOUBT is painful ; dishonest doubt 
 is self-complacent. The former is gener- 
 ally temporary; the latter is chronic. 
 The one, says a writer, is the sacred agony 
 of a noble nature, the other the trifling of 
 a fool! 
 
 BECAUSE a belief makes one happy, that 
 is no certain proof of its truth. Often one 
 is happy in a delusion. 
 
 THERE is a craving for a sort of infalli- 
 bility in religious matters which leads on 
 to infidelity or Romanism, according to 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 135 
 
 circumstances, and to one as naturally as to 
 the other. 
 
 CALVIN says, in substance, in the begin- 
 ning of his theology, that a man cannot 
 know himself except as he knows God. 
 But Sir William Hamilton contends that 
 we can know God only as we know our- 
 selves. 
 
 THE HEART has arguments with which 
 reason is not acquainted, said Pascal. 
 
 OUR SENSES can bear no extremes. 
 
 SYMPATHY is never got by exacting it. 
 It avoids compulsion. 
 
 A WRITER has said: " Habits go with us 
 to eternity." Partly true and partly false. 
 
 THERE is no possible relation of life, be 
 it social, civil, political, or any other, but 
 involves an ethical principle and moral 
 duty, in reference to which the religion of 
 Christ has an application. 
 
 THE GREAT Edwards, in his later life, 
 exhibited a strength of virtue, which was 
 largely the outcome of the lofty ideals he 
 formed in the beginning of his religious 
 career. 
 
 FORCES in earth and mind are the great- 
 
136 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 est which least depend for their action on 
 outward accident. 
 
 FOR SUBLIME and lasting effects, give me 
 that power which flows into results, and is 
 not driven into them. 
 
 THERE is a fundamental defect in a sci- 
 ence of morals, which does not find the 
 basis or final reason of right in the nature 
 of God, rather than in the nature of things. 
 
 MORAL DISPOSITIONS are read better in the 
 face than in the skull. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE is the union of a fact with a 
 feeling, says Dr. Shedd. 
 
 A MAN is what his thoughts are. 
 
 COLD PHILOSOPHY may say that a percep- 
 tive knowledge of God is impossible to 
 man. But faith never will be satisfied 
 with the proposition. There is a spiritual 
 faculty in us, whose function is the intui- 
 tion of God, and it can be awakened to 
 action. 
 
 THE FACT of sin is a sufficient answer to 
 the pantheist. 
 
 As TO the theory of virtue, Dr. Hodge 
 cannot agree with Edwards. He says: 
 Between making the glory of God the end 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 of our actions, and the good of the uni- 
 verse or of being in general, there is all 
 the difference that there is between the 
 love of Christ and the love of an abstract 
 idea. 
 
 NOTHING calls forth man's latent powers 
 like Christianity. 
 
 A CRITIC has thoughtfully said that 
 Comte's fundamental want is a want of 
 conscience. 
 
 THE SUBJECT of biblical psychology will 
 benr, and needs, far more investigation. 
 In regard to terms in 1 Thess. 5:23, 
 John Owen said: By the spirit, the mind 
 or intellectual faculty is understood: by 
 the soul, the affections. 
 
 THE HIGHEST process of reason is to dis- 
 cover that there is an infinity of things 
 which utterly surpass its strength, said 
 Pascal. 
 
 As IMAGINATION defers to reason, so must 
 reason defer to faith. 
 
 THE AFFECTIONS are but an exercise of 
 the will. 
 
 THE ANSWERS which truth gives to a man 
 depend very much upon the questions he 
 
138 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 puts to truth, and the questions he puts 
 depend very much on the principles that 
 rule in his life, says Julius Muller. 
 
 Is IT RIGHT, in the light of the golden 
 rule, to express a dislike of another ? 
 
 IF A GOOD friend bows to you, he not 
 only expresses his respect towards you, 
 but deepens it, by an obvious principle of 
 philosophy. 
 
 THE POETIC spirit is the instinct and the 
 soul of science. 
 
 THERE is within the mind a golden 
 vein of duty, which followed aright leads 
 on to increasing brightness. 
 
 THE SEAT of infidelity is in the heart. 
 John 3:19. 
 
 IT is IMPOSSIBLE that divine truth should 
 pour its first rays into the soul of alienated 
 man without producing pain. 
 
 BEECHER says he believes it is in the 
 power of very high moral excitement even 
 to expel disease. 
 
 WE ARE UNDER as much obligation to 
 love God with all our powers, as we are to 
 avoid the great crimes of murder and 
 adultery. 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 IN MORALS, said Booth, integrity holds 
 the first place, benevolence the second, 
 and prudence the third. We may ask, do 
 not their correspondents in the divine 
 character, namely, justice, love, and wis- 
 dom, stand in a like order? 
 
 IN HIS BRILLIANT " History of Rational- 
 ism," Lecky makes the sad confession 
 that rationalism can beget no enthusiasm, 
 and create no martyrs. 
 
 MAX MULLER holds that man originally 
 possessed an instinctive faculty for giving 
 articulate expression to the rational con- 
 ception of his mind. 
 
 THE ULTIMATE origin of rationalism, is the 
 denial of the Christian* doctrine of sin. 
 
 THE WAY to meet skepticism is not by 
 argument. In twenty years of legal dis- 
 putation, I never saw a man convinced 
 against his will. So says a journalist. 
 
 THE DESIRE for happiness is natural; the 
 desire for holiness is supernatural. 
 
 THE WILL, says Emerson, that is the man. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN LAW of property is, that 
 all belongs to God, and is to be invested, 
 managed, and disbursed, by us, in accord- 
 
140 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ance with the indications of his will, and 
 for the glory of his name. 
 
 REMORSE is an operation of the con- 
 science, while repentance is a work of the 
 heart. 
 
 PROFESSOR SHEDD calls that the " better 
 elder philosophy" which comprehended all 
 the powers of the soul under the two gen- 
 eral divisions of understanding and will ; in 
 the former of which should be embraced 
 the conscience, as an intellectual faculty, a 
 light and not a life, a law and not an ex- 
 ecutive force. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY of lying, as having a 
 root in moral cowardice, is well suggested 
 in Isaiah 57: 11. 
 
 THE COMPANIONS of a man may almost be 
 said to form constituent parts of his char- 
 acter. 
 
 IT is IMPOSSIBLE for a man to will any- 
 thing against his will. 
 
 WHEN MEN come to believe truth, they are 
 at once affected by it. 
 
 THE MERE affectation of the man becomes 
 the fixed principle of the imitating child. 
 
 FREEDOM of the will does not mean free- 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 141 
 
 dom from motives, but freedom from com- 
 pulsion. 
 
 OLD PREACHER Playfere said: He that 
 remembers his virtues hath no virtues to 
 remember. 
 
 THE STATELY RUINS of the human soul 
 bear on their front the inscription : Here 
 God dwelt! 
 
 THE DUKE OF ARGYLL says: Science, in 
 the modern doctrine of conservation of 
 energy, and the convertibility of forces, is 
 already getting something like a firm hold 
 of the idea that all kinds of force are but 
 forms or manifestations of some one cen- 
 tral force, issuing from one fountain-head 
 of power. 
 
 THERE is A LAW which inseparably con- 
 nects earnest conviction of the truth, in 
 what we do or say, with the very fountains 
 of all intellectual and moral strength. No 
 accession of force can come to us from 
 doing anything in which we disbelieve. 
 
 A MAN is bound by his own conscience, 
 and not by another's. 
 
 WHAT A SENSITIVE conscience the con- 
 verted Augustine had, as revealed espe- 
 
142 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 cially all through the tenth book of the 
 " Confessions!" We look in vain for 
 another such a case in Christian history. 
 
 THE LITTLE dissatisfaction the artist feels 
 upon the completion of a work, forms the 
 germ of a new undertaking. 
 
 THERE is immense aggressive power in 
 suffering for righteousness' sake. 
 
 DR. A. H. STRONG regards President 
 McCosh as the leading representative of 
 that true philosophy which aims to give 
 all the facts of human consciousness their 
 proper weight, and to maintain the faith of 
 those sublime intuitions by which we rec- 
 ognize the existence of the world, the soul, 
 and God. 
 
 THE REAL TEST of the genuineness of any 
 inward affection is not so much the charac- 
 ter of the feeling as it reveals itself in our 
 sonsciousness, as the course of action to 
 which it leads, says Dr. Hodge. 
 
 IT is WILL, and not power, that gives rec- 
 titude or obliquity to -moral actions, said 
 John Owen. 
 
 HE WHO BELIEVES in perseverance is more 
 likely to persevere. He who believes in 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 143 
 
 final triumph is more likely to overcome. 
 Ideals invite their own realization. We 
 press toward that to which we feel ourselves 
 called. Phil. 3:14. 
 
 IN THE FIRST VOLUME of his history of 
 England, Anthony Froude says: There 
 seerns indeed to be in religious men a pro- 
 phetic faculty of insight into the true 
 bearing of outward things, an insight 
 which puts to shame the sagacity of states- 
 men. Those only read the world's future 
 truly, who have faith in principle, as 
 opposed to human dexterity. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S educative influ- 
 ence upon the American mind the last 
 twenty years has been vast, though we 
 perceive a prevailing reaction from some 
 of his leading positions. 
 
 IN MOORE'S " Lalla Rookh,'' Mokanna 
 says to his deluded and expiring followers: 
 Ye would be dupes and victims, and ye are. 
 
 WE THINK the most when we are the 
 least conscious of thinking. 
 
 IN u Paradise Lost," Milton says that 
 smiles from reason flow. Some philoso- 
 phers have defined man as the animal ris- 
 
144 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ible, affirming him to be the only creature 
 endowed with the power of laughter. 
 
 A MOMENT OF ACTION in one's self, said 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli, is worth an age of 
 apprehension through others; not that our 
 deeds are better, but that they produce a 
 renewal of our being. She did not, per- 
 haps, know that this deep remark is truer 
 in the action of gospel obedience than 
 any where else. 
 
 MUCH READING without rest or produc- 
 tion impairs the power of concentration. 
 
 SOLITUDE and affliction, as well as the 
 discipline of the schools, fit the mind for 
 severer .thought. 
 
 WHAT is THE effect of frequent removals 
 on mind and life? 
 
 WE DO HAVE some thoughts for which we 
 have' no words. Tholuck says: Vast as 
 is the world of names, the world of reali- 
 ties is yet vaster. 
 
 THERE is NOT one of the five senses which 
 does not reveal the fact of an external 
 world. Through the senses, the mind di- 
 rectly perceives and asserts the non-ego. 
 But Sir William Hamilton maintains that 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 145 
 
 this knowledge comes in a roundabout 
 and inferential way. The external world, 
 he says, comes to our consciousness as a 
 correlative of resisted energy in the act of 
 locomotion! 
 
 WHAT is time ? To this question 
 Augustine answered : If not asked, I know ; 
 but attempting to explain, I know not. 
 
 SIMPLICITY of analysis is of itself a strong 
 presumption in favor of the truth of a 
 subject. 
 
 No MAN LIVES who does not need that 
 peculiar education which comes from the 
 existence of mysteries in both doctrine and 
 life. 
 
 THERE is a reflex moral influence in the 
 bare possession of property. 
 
 PRINCIPLES, though what are least in 
 magnitude, are greatest in power, said 
 Aristotle. 
 
 THE MAN of policy and prevarication 
 needs an excellent memory. 
 
 BELIEF, and deep conviction in particu- 
 lar, must express itself. Psalm 116: 10. 
 
 THERE is a law of parsimony in nature ; 
 she performs her work with the smallest 
 
146 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 expenditure of means, said Sir William 
 Hamilton. 
 
 THOMAS BOSTON called the will that com- 
 manding faculty. 
 
 THE POWER of free grace is needed to 
 remove the bands of wickedness from off 
 man's free will. 
 
 PRINCIPLE lies at the bottom of correct 
 action; truth, of virtue. To improve men 
 we must hold before them the idea of that 
 to which we would bring them. Edwards 
 in his later life exhibited a matured virtue 
 that was grounded upon his early ideas of 
 character and duty. Always a good moral- 
 ity is conditioned upon a clear conception 
 of what is right. 
 
 No MAN can realize that he has a relig- 
 ious nature without recognizing the exist- 
 ence of God. The complement of a relig- 
 ious nature is God. 
 
 WHY is benevolence so terrible when 
 arrayed against evil? 
 
 ONE MARK of an errorist is his impa- 
 tience towards those who have the truth. 
 
 SAYS Sir William Hamilton : As depend- 
 ent on bodily organization, as actuated by 
 
IN PHILOSOPHY. 147 
 
 sensual propensities and animal wants, man 
 belongs to matter, and in this respect is a 
 slave of necessity. But what man holds 
 of matter does not make up his personal- 
 ity. He is conscious to himself of facul- 
 ties not comprised in the chain of physi- 
 cal necessity. 
 
 As MANY VIEW it, what is conscience but 
 a rational instinct, a guide without com- 
 prehension, but rational, because it reveals 
 itself as the voice of God, which all instinct 
 is, without revealing itself, says President 
 Hopkins. 
 
 A PERFECT MORALITY has in it an element 
 of religion. The love of God is essential 
 to the rightness of an action. The ethical 
 teaching which does not comprehend this , 
 is not above the plane of Confucius and 
 Mencius. 
 
 THE MORAL QUALITY of an action depends 
 on the state of the agent's mind in the doing 
 of it, says Wardlaw. 
 
 WE OFTEN say of a person that as between 
 man and man he does his duty, but fails 
 towards God. But let us not forget that 
 man cannot be right with man, if he is not 
 
148 THINGS TO THINK OF, 
 
 right with God. This fact is revealed in 
 the true analysis of virtue. 
 
 SAYS WARDLAW: Love is obedience in 
 the heart; obedience is love in the life. 
 Morality then is religion in practice ; relig- 
 ion is morality in principle. 
 
 THE FACT that love is the fulfilling of the 
 law proves that it is the persuasive element 
 of all that is absolutely right. 
 
 OF LAW, said Hooker, there can be no 
 less acknowledged than that her seat is in 
 the bosom of God. 
 
PART VIII. 
 
 IN LITERATURE. 
 
 IN the year 1747 Jonathan Edwards 
 wrote: Never was an age wherein so 
 many learned and elaborate treatises were 
 written in proof of the truth and divinity 
 of the Christian religion ; yet never were 
 there so many infidels among those brought 
 up under the light of the gospel! 
 
 IT is remarkable what use the Saviour 
 made of popular proverbs. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE of Athens is universally 
 acknowledged to have been the most per- 
 fect form of human speech, says Prof. 
 Boise. 
 
 IT is SAID that our theological semina- 
 ries dispense an education far beyond 
 that required by any denomination in Eng- 
 land, even including ' the Established 
 Church? 
 
 THE AUTHOR of the " Social Life of the 
 Chinese " says: One of the grave faults of 
 
150 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 most writers on China is that what they 
 affirm in general terms of the Chinese, is 
 true only of the people living in that part 
 of the country where they made their 
 observations. 
 
 IT is FOUND that the writings of Moses, 
 as well as those of Plato, betray an 
 acquaintance with the elaborate Sanscrit. 
 
 IT is the work of Christianity to recon- 
 cile literature as well as man to Grod. 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON says of Plutarch 
 that though he never used verse, he had 
 many qualities of the poet, in the power of 
 his imagination, the speed of his mental 
 associations, and his sharp objective eyes. 
 A good naming of the leading poetic 
 endowments. 
 
 J. W. ALEXANDER called that wonderful 
 author, John Owen, " the great old fellow." 
 
 I BELIEVE, says Spurgeon that there are 
 in the ki Confession of Faith," more of the 
 true elements of moral and spiritual phi- 
 losophy, than in any other work in the 
 English language. 
 
 REV. J. C. RYLE, who is excellent au- 
 thority, says of German commentators: 
 
IN LITERATURE. 151 
 
 " The "few German writers that I have con- 
 sulted appear to me to be far too highly 
 esteemed, with the exception of Bengel 
 and Lampe. Stier is always reverential, 
 but tremendously diffuse. As to Olshau- 
 sen and Tholuck, I have generally laid 
 them down with unmixed disappointment. 
 What people can mean by telling us we 
 have much to learn from modern German 
 writers on Scripture, passes my compre- 
 hension." 
 
 ONE USE of error is to confirm those who 
 have the truth. See Bunyan's works, 
 Phil, ed., vol. VIII. p. 46. 
 
 WRITTEN language makes Moses and 
 David, Isaiah and Paul, Luther and Leigh- 
 ton, our associates; and we can be alone 
 with them in their best moments. 
 
 THOUGHT creates style. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, as such, should flow from 
 first to last. 
 
 ALFORD said that no word or expression 
 in the Bible was ever u put for" another. 
 
 CALVIN almost entirely ignored the works 
 of natural creation in the matter as well as 
 the rhetoric of his writings. Henry, in his 
 
152 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 Life of Calvin, vol. I. p. 306, makes some 
 good remarks on this fact. The same is 
 true of Luther, and of the old Reformers 
 generally. 
 
 THE LAST act of Luther's life was to 
 arrange for establishing a Latin high school 
 in Eisleben, his birthplace. It soon num- 
 bered seven hundred pupils, and has not 
 only existed but flourished from that time 
 to the present. 
 
 HOMER spoke of the rainbow as a " sign 
 to men." 
 
 IT is STATED in Livingstone's " Zambesi," 
 that birds of song incline to congregate 
 around villages. 
 
 JAMES HAMILTON called the sermon on 
 the mount, the manifesto of Messiah the 
 Prince. 
 
 THE BIOGRAPHER of James Hamilton says 
 of him: No man made more use of what 
 others had written, yet no writer of his 
 day was more- thoroughly independent and 
 original. 
 
 DR. SEARS in his life of Luther says: 
 After a public education, a secluded life 
 often contributes most to tru& greatness, 
 
IN LITERATURE. 153 
 
 by holding a man long at the very fountain 
 head of thought and reflection, as was the 
 case with Chrysostom, Augustine, and 
 many others. 
 
 IT is worth while to learn Greek, were it 
 only to read that Christian Demosthenes, 
 John Chrysostom. 
 
 THE LATE Professor Duncan, of Edin- 
 burgh, said: I prefer Aristotle, as a 
 writer, to Plato. Aristotle's Greek is very 
 amazing. It is the exactest Greek I know. 
 He is by far the most compact and precise 
 writer we have. 
 
 IT is A SAD fact, says Dr. Anderson, of 
 Rochester, that the most depressing influ- 
 ences bearing upon college education in 
 this country come from the schools of phy- 
 sical science, law, and medicine, which do 
 not requires preliminary liberal education. 
 Among the professional schools, those of 
 theology alone steadily encourage high 
 education. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL life is greatly stimulated 
 by the successful issue of a patriotic war. 
 
 WE SPEAK of " signing' 7 our names even 
 when we write them in 
 8 
 
154 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 As TO the influence of war on literature, 
 we must remember that it is the underly- 
 ing sentiment of the struggle which most 
 immediately affects intellectual activity 
 and consequent literary fruits. 
 
 ELLICOTT'S essay on " Scripture and its 
 Interpretation" ought to be taken out of 
 the volume it is in, and published sepa- 
 rately. Nothing is so good in the line of 
 hermaneutics, or for kindling enthusiasm 
 in biblical studies. 
 
 EDWARDS was forced to be an exile from 
 Northampton, that in Stockbridge he might 
 compose his greatest work. And then he 
 was led to Princeton to die! 
 
 JOHN BUNYAN says of " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress:" It came from my heart, so to my 
 head. 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER said: Andrew Fuller 
 was in Old England what Jonathan Ed- 
 wards was in New. 
 
 THE KORAN contains one hundred and 
 twenty-seven indorsements and commen- 
 dations of the Bible. 
 
 DR. BEECHER said : If I were to go over 
 life again, I would study history more 
 
IN LITERATURE. 155 
 
 extensively and thoughtfully, because of 
 its use to a public speaker. 
 
 IT DOES ministers no harm to write some- 
 times for the press. It is likely to induce 
 accuracy in thinking and in the use of 
 language. 
 
 GIB'S ESSAY in answer to the philosophi- 
 cal necessity of Lord Kames is said to be a 
 most ingenious piece of writing. Gib was an 
 old Scottish divine. Divinity yields a 
 philosophy which is a match for any mere 
 philosopher. 
 
 WITH Robert Hall, the works of Leigh- 
 ton were a gladness. He declared: The 
 reading of them is a truce to all human 
 cares and passions, like lying down in 
 green pastures and beside still waters. 
 
 IT is RELATED of Voltaire, that he had no 
 sympathy with childhood, and that the 
 children uniformly shrank from that sin- 
 ister eye in which the eagle and the reptile 
 were so strangely blended. 
 
 SAID Dr. John Duncan of Scotland: 
 11 The creeds are to me next in value to 
 the Scriptures. Undoubtedly, of all human 
 compositions they are the most precious/' 
 
156 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 A RECENT commentator on the epistles of 
 John says; As a rule, the briefer form is 
 the later and riper form of thought. 
 
 IN HIS " Life of J. D. Burns," James 
 Hamilton said : However much tutors and 
 professors may do in the way of guiding 
 and inspiring, yet in a college course a 
 material element is the education which 
 students give one another. Week by 
 week in regular societies, day by day in 
 little cliques and coteries, they discuss all 
 matters and all men, and prepare that 
 wiser world which is to supersede the 
 present. 
 
 IT is THE FASHION to speak against such 
 works as Edwards on the " Religious Affec- 
 tions," as being too severe, and tending to 
 make even a good man too jealous con- 
 cerning his spiritual state. But happy 
 would it be for this age, and for the man- 
 hood of the church, if such works were 
 more read and better relished. 
 
 JONAH first, and then Joel, properly form 
 the introduction to the other books of 
 prophecy. Ewald says that, morally 
 speaking, Isaiah would hare been an im- 
 
IN LITERATURE. 157 
 
 possibility, had not Joel and other spirit- 
 ual prophets preceded him. 
 
 PASCAL was scarcely ever satisfied with 
 his first thoughts, however happy they 
 might seem to others. He was known to 
 remodel no less than eight or ten times 
 such pieces as any person but himself must 
 have pronounced admirable after a single 
 trial. 
 
 PAYNE SMITH says the influence of the 
 " schools of the prophets" upon the 
 Hebrew nation was singularly renovating, 
 and that the learning, order, and piety, of 
 David's reign sprang from them in a great 
 measure. Is there a lesson in this for our 
 time and nation ? 
 
 EVERY Christian home, that can afford it, 
 should be supplied with Ryle's " Exposi- 
 tory Thoughts on the Gospels." Evangel- 
 ically rich, spiritually deep, they are a val- 
 uable aid to ministers and all the church of 
 Christ. 
 
 Dr. Winkler says : One of the most suc- 
 cessful ministers we have known, was ac- 
 customed to read a chapter of Christopher 
 North before he began to compose a ser- 
 
158 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 mon. In the lively sympathy with nature 
 thus awakened he found a source of fresh 
 and vivid illustration. 
 
 SHEDD .THINKS the hymns of Pindar, as 
 works of art, as exquisitely complete 
 wholes, stand at the head of human com- 
 positions. 
 
 STUDY PROMOTES a serious character. 
 Solid thinking and airy levity are utterly 
 contrary. 
 
 EMERSON lives for simple thought. 
 
 As A MENTAL history, a panorama of a 
 mind, Newman's " Apologia pro Vita Sua" 
 is one of the most intensely interesting, as 
 well as valuable, of books. 
 
 THERE is DANGER in our country of under- 
 valuing culture. 
 
 IN LOWELL'S ''Cathedral" there is not 
 seldom a poem in a line. 
 
 WE HEARTILY wish Edwards' " Narrative 
 of Surprising Conversions" could be re- 
 printed in a pamphlet, and sown broadcast 
 in the churches. It is the story of the 
 great awakening in 1740. 
 
 DR. CHALMERS is annoyingly diffuse, but 
 grandly edifying after all. 
 
IN LITERATURE. 159 
 
 THE GREEK of Aristotle is worthy of 
 attention from its affinity with that of the 
 New Testament, 
 
 IN HIS TALE of Christian Gellert, Auer- 
 bach has beautifully wrought out the idea 
 that the truest giving is voluntary and self- 
 moved. 
 
 WE FIND the writings of old John Owen 
 a great gratification. His statements of 
 evangelical doctrine, his expositions of 
 Bible texts, are generally of the very clear- 
 est and richest order. Especially deep and 
 valuable is his great work on the Holy 
 Spirit, in two volumes. 
 
 SCHOLARS NOW are stuffed with too much. 
 With so much to learn, what can they un- 
 derstand ? 
 
 EDUCATE the children to be accurate and 
 not to exaggerate. Thus will the world be 
 saved from much of the great load of lying 
 under which it groans. 
 
 WE BELIEVE in the Independent's feature 
 of big wood cuts as a means of moral edu- 
 cation and reform. 
 
 IN EDUCATION, the personal influence of a 
 teacher is more than his book-lessons. The 
 
160 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 fame of Holyoke and Rugby illustrates this 
 statement. 
 
 As A FORMATIVE help to Christian charac- 
 ter, the solid reading of the old spiritual 
 authors is much needed. 
 
 ELOQUENCE is great thought in the sim- 
 plest words, said Bacon. 
 
 THERE ARE THOSE who will not write any- 
 thing for the press, unless they have got 
 somebody or something to controvert. 
 
 IN THE VAST majority of instances, a sound 
 brain implies a heart free from the taint of 
 meanness and deceit, says Peter Bayne. 
 
 THE LAST PAGES of Howe's " Living Tem- 
 ple," which discuss the communication of 
 the Spirit through Christ, are the richest 
 and best of the book. 
 
 PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES are not only often 
 the most careful part of a statement, but 
 also an indication of accurate thinking. 
 This may be easily proved in the writings 
 of Peter and Paul. 
 
 AN ENDEARED friend and competent critic, 
 now departed, pronounces Bryant's "Than- 
 atopsis" a production belonging to a re- 
 vived paganism, though the best of its 
 
IN LITERATURE. 161 
 
 class. In it, he says, we find no better 
 consolation in view of death than the fact 
 that princes and forests die also. 
 
 THE HISTORIAN Froude takes due notice 
 of the place of the English Bible as a factor 
 in the great movements of the period of 
 Henry the Eighth. 
 
 THE AUTHOR of the " Reign of Law" ex- 
 travagantly says that the discovery of the 
 law of gravitation was probably the highest 
 exercise of pure intellect through which 
 the human mind has found its way. 
 
 IT is NOT to be denied that Augustine's 
 volume of u Confessions " contains much 
 chaff with the wheat. 
 
 HARD STUDY is not necessarily prejudicial 
 to health. The highest mental activity is 
 helpful to the highest physical vigor. 
 
 HOOD, in his new work about preachers, 
 greatly commends Matthew Henry as a 
 commentator, but has most to say in ad- 
 miration of John Trapp's " Exposition of 
 the Whole Bible," 5 vols., A. D. 1650. 
 
 THE PEN is in some sort an image of eter- 
 nity ; for it will make a man live when he 
 is dead. 
 
162 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 THE BIBLE is the most important of all 
 educational text-books. 
 
 A MAN is hardly well educated who does 
 not understand the Christian religion. 
 
 EMERSON places Milton foremost of all 
 men in literary history, in the power to in- 
 spire. 
 
 CIVIL LAW is a schoolmaster; it educates 
 the public mind. 
 
 MRS. STOWE says the faculty of saying one 
 distinct thing at a time, in a pure and simple 
 form, unincumbered by unnecessary words, 
 lies at the foundation of all good writing. 
 
 A RARE but admirable trait is that which 
 Martineau defines as a deliberate intellect- 
 ual conscientiousness, which, scorning to 
 take advantage of accidental weakness, will 
 even help an opponent to develop his 
 strength, that none but the real and deci- 
 sive issue may be tried. 
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC admirer of Lowell calls 
 him the most Shakespearean man since 
 Shakespeare, And the leading literary or- 
 gan in New York is of the opinion that so 
 far as relates to power of expression, and 
 eye for character, the encomium is just. 
 
IN LITERATURE. 163 
 
 PROFESSOR HOYEY'S volume on the "Mira- 
 cles of Christ" is very valuable for the 
 preacher. It is one of those books that 
 really help the preacher, without tempting 
 him to forego original work. 
 
 THE ARTICLE on Christ preaching to the 
 spirits in prison, in Dr. Skinner's volume 
 of " Discussions in Theology/' is most un- 
 satisfactory. We are surprised at the 
 writer's fanciful positions, and strained in- 
 terpretations. 
 
 SAYS Lowell: Originality consists quite 
 as much in the power of using to purpose 
 what it finds ready to its hand, as in that 
 of producing what is absolutely new. The 
 original man, like other sovereign princes, 
 has the right to call in the current coin and 
 reissue it stamped with his own image. 
 
 THERE is that life in Lessing's thought 
 which engenders life, and not only thinks 
 for us, but makes us think, says Lowell. 
 
 "A MAN OF LETTERS must lose many days 
 in order to work well in one." 
 
 A PATCH OF SAND is unpleasmg; a desert 
 has all the awe of ocean. So, says Lowell, 
 the immense reach of Goethe's egotism 
 
164 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 cheats the sense into a feeling of some- 
 thing like sublimity, and saves it from be- 
 ing hateful. 
 
 DR. PEABODY and Ralph Waldo Emerson 
 are agreed that the want of a deeper relig- 
 ious spirit in our age is belittling our liter- 
 ature. 
 
 EMERSON says that in general it is proof 
 of high culture to say the greatest matters 
 in the simplest way. But DeQuincey said 
 that deep thought infuses necessarily latin- 
 ity into the diction. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI said if she were 
 a man. the gift she would choose should be 
 that of eloquence, which she defined as the 
 power of forcing the vital current of thou- 
 sands of human hearts into one current, by 
 the constraining power of that most delicate 
 instrument, the voice. 
 
 THE GREAT Samuel Johnson was a great 
 moralizer and a poor Christian. His bigo- 
 try, his summary disposal of questions 
 that did not suit him, his frequent tirades 
 against worthy men and manners, his tre- 
 mendous prejudices, his habit of proud 
 declamation, and his unbounded selfish- 
 
IN LITERATURE. 165 
 
 ness, deserve reprehension. In talk, he was 
 a sophist of huge mould, and the hearer 
 was sometimes in doubt when he was sin- 
 cere. He loved the opposite side. He was 
 weak on the side towards flattery. He was 
 unscientific. 
 
 BEWARE of the influence of. mere culture 
 without religion! 
 
 HISTORY is made up of two elements, 
 events and their relation to the universal 
 system, says Edward Beecher. 
 
 THE PROVINCE of history, the manner of 
 writing history, and the life and spirit of 
 history, the material, the organization, 
 and the life, would form an excellent 
 study and outline for an essay. 
 
 NIEBUHR SAID that whoever is engaged in 
 philological studies must make Herodotus 
 his daily companion ; iriust not cease read- 
 ing him. 
 
 MAX MULLER extravagantly asserts that 
 for the discovery of truth there is nothing 
 so useful as the study of errors. 
 
 DR. ARNOLD always held a poor opinion 
 of Livy. Here, he said, is what history 
 should not be in a very striking manner; 
 
166 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 here are so many gallons of vapid water. 
 What a different view he had of Thucyd- 
 ides! 
 
 As A MODEL of simple ,style, and apt use 
 of Scripture, read Boston's " Fourfold 
 State." It is as limpid as water, and fairly 
 savory with Bible truth. 
 
 THE THIRD EPISTLE of John may be called 
 the missionary epistle. The reason will 
 soon appear in the reading of it. 
 
 WHAT a melancholy undertaking it is to 
 overhaul old letters! 
 
 OWEN'S WORK on " Forgiveness " is meat 
 and drink to the lover of spiritual things. 
 How clear the style, how limpid and 
 analytic the thought, what Bible lore, what 
 an example of the most absolute doctrine 
 of grace without a fetter of antinomianism ! 
 
 KENAN'S u Life of Jesus" is wholly sub- 
 jective, and impresses one as a fiction. But 
 the imaginary hero is self-contradictory 
 and impossible. 
 
 BONAR'S BOOK for the anxious, entitled 
 44 God's Way of Peace," has no superior of 
 its class. 
 
 THE LIFE of James Hamilton, by William 
 
IN LITERATURE. 167 
 
 Arnot, leaves the impression that his preach- 
 ing was secondary to his literary pursuits. 
 
 NEARLY all biographies are disappoint- 
 ing. 
 
 How LITTLE has been written in this age 
 upon the specific subject of Christian edu- 
 cation! Let any one attempt to hunt up 
 essays directly upon the subject, and he 
 will see. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN writer is generally the 
 most comprehensive. 
 
 THE STUDY of language seems to me as 
 if^it was given for the very purpose of form- 
 ing the human mind in youth, said Thomas 
 Arnold. And this conviction strengthened 
 with his age. 
 
 IT is a great mistake, said Arnold, to 
 think that the younger boys should under- 
 stand all they learn. Memory is more 
 forward than the understanding. 
 
 SIR William Blackstone commended the 
 study of the ancient classics in strong 
 terms. Especially would he have the pub- 
 lic speaker a proficient in this study. 
 There will follow, he said, lucid order, a 
 chastity of sentiment, and a language of 
 
168 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 appropriate manliness and harmony. The 
 manner will be composed and independent, 
 the tones of the voice firm, and adapted to 
 the occasion. 
 
 HOWEVER GREAT the ecclesiastical errors 
 of John Henry Newman, his style is per- 
 fectly admirable, both for purity and rich- 
 ness; and beneath the classical finish is a 
 thoughtfulness most fresh and critical. 
 
 FASTIDIOUSNESS commonly grows with an 
 author as he multiplies his compositions. 
 
 Ho^ FEW BOOKS are cared for after the 
 first reading; and how little likely is a 
 book to be read at all after it is a year 
 old! 
 
 How is IT that the writers for our Sunday 
 school libraries give us so much fiction and 
 trash ? Is it so exclusively upon this kind 
 of reading that^our children's tastes are to 
 be formed, and their characters built up ? 
 
 A NEEDED and a possible text-book for 
 young students is a volume on moral activ- 
 ities and traits, illustrated by biographical 
 passages in the Bible. 
 
 ONE ANCIENT symbol of the Deity in both 
 Egypt and Hindostan was a triangle with 
 
IN LITERATURE. 169 
 
 an eye in the centre ; another was an image 
 with three faces. 
 
 IN THE ANALECTS of Confucius the golden 
 rule is twice expressed negatively. . Gibbon 
 says the same is to be found in Isocrates. 
 
 WHEN A STUDENT obtains his collegiate 
 education in immediate contact with a 
 large, wealthy, and not illiberal communi- 
 ty, there is a better chance that his com- 
 mon sense will be as well developed as his 
 scholarship, says Arnot in his Life of James 
 Hamilton. If Oxford, he says, had found 
 itself in the centre of modern Birmingham 
 the Tractarian retrogression towards Rome 
 would probably not have occurred. 
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER says that from Lucre- 
 tius to Goethe there comes up the sad and 
 unbroken testimony, that the absence of 
 faith and worship weakens and withers the 
 most gifted genius. 
 
 NEANDER declared that Christianity will 
 not long maintain itself in purity, unless 
 it enters deeply into the intellectual devel- 
 opment of the people. 
 
 A. J. GORDON'S "In Christ " will greatly 
 help any pastor in the upbuilding of his 
 
170 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 church in an intelligent spiritual life. The 
 style is worthy of the profound theme. 
 
 THE WRITINGS of Homer do not furnish a 
 more remarkable passage, one more sug- 
 gestive doctrinally, than the lines in the 
 fifth book of the Iliad relating to the 
 wounded goddess, given in Lord Derby's 
 translation as follows: 
 
 Forth from the wound th' immortal current flowed, 
 Pure ichor, life-stream of the blessed gods; 
 They eat no bread, they drink no ruddy wine, 
 And bloodless thence, and deathless, they become. 
 
PART IX. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 GOD'S COVENANT with nations is a cove- 
 nant of works. 
 
 To INCREASE one's confidence in the yet 
 unspeakably greater advancement of Chris- 
 tianity in this earth, let him read Jonathan 
 Edwards' rich treatise on " Union in 
 Prayer." 
 
 WE CANNOT bo too often reminded that 
 personal morality is the best safeguard of 
 national liberty. 
 
 PASCAL said some would gladly com- 
 mence cowards to purchase the reputation 
 of valor. 
 
 PRIDE is a wonderful counterpoise of 
 misery. 
 
 WE OUGHT to judge by the will of God, 
 and not by our own will. 
 
 OUR CONVICTION is that during the next 
 half century the great progress is to be in 
 experimental Christianity, and not in sci- 
 
172 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 ence. The prodigious activity in science 
 during the last fifty years has been a kind 
 of John-the-Baptist work, preparing the 
 way for the greater running and gloryfying 
 of spiritual things. 
 
 To TRUST in a mere ceremony is supersti- 
 tion; but not to comply with it may be 
 pride. 
 
 WE MUST remember that God's law is his 
 will. 
 
 WASHINGTON GLADDEN says that a defec- 
 tive character is more effectively reformed 
 by the display of a higher ideal, than by 
 the reproof of its deficiencies. 
 
 DR. PEPPER, of Crozer, says there are two 
 virtues near akin, which he admires, the 
 virtues of uprightness and downright- 
 ness. 
 
 IN ALL the best men you meet, perhaps 
 the thing that is most peculiar about them, 
 is the child's heart they bear within the 
 man's, says the author of " Culture and 
 Religion." 
 
 IT WAS A SAYING of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, 
 who was certainly no disparager of intellect, 
 that no student could long continue in a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 173 
 
 healthy religious state unless his heart was 
 kept tender by mingling with children, or 
 by frequent intercourse with the poor and 
 the suffering. 
 
 BARON STOW said that mere sight-seeing, 
 except for purposes of health, is small 
 business. 
 
 EXAGGERATION, whatever may be its im- 
 mediate effect, invariably weakness the 
 cause it is intended to support. 
 
 THERE is no self-denial without pain. 
 
 SENECA said God divided man into men, 
 that they might help one another. 
 
 No MAN is found, said Seneca, who can 
 acquit himself. 
 
 THE EXPRESSION, that the children of God 
 never meet for the last time, is a thing to 
 think of. 
 
 SINCERE gratitude is always of an open 
 and diffusive nature. 
 
 RELIGIOUS formalism and naturalism were 
 exemplified respectively by the Pharisees 
 and the Sadducees. 
 
 SAID Pascal: What can be more shock- 
 ing than to feel all our possessions con- 
 tinually sliding through our hands, and 
 
174 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 yet to acquiesce in this wretched poverty y 
 and to entertain no desire of securing a 
 more fixed and durable treasure ? 
 
 RICHES take to themselves wings and fly 
 away. Clip their wings, then, by giving. 
 
 WHEN a man speaks the truth, you may 
 depend upon it he possesses most other 
 virtues. 
 
 RARER than the phoenix is the virtuous 
 man who will consent to lose a good anec- 
 dote because it is a lie, said DeQuincey. 
 
 CHINA is a land of idols, and this is a 
 land of worldliness. 
 
 THE HISTORIAN Froude testifies: All that 
 we call modern civilization, in a sense 
 which deserves the name, is the visible 
 expression of the gospel. 
 
 DUTY is one of the loftiest of all sensa- 
 tions we are permitted to experience. 
 
 WILLIAM MARSH said he must daily read 
 something the Saviour did, suffered, or 
 said. 
 
 I HAVE learned that the man who tells 
 you he has no ambition is the most likely 
 to be ambitious. The derider of obstinacy 
 in others may be a particularly obstinate 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 man. I may think I have no will of my 
 own, and yet be most willful and self-com- 
 placent. True self-sacrifice and meekness 
 are self-forgetful. Virtues never think of 
 themselves; they are transitive, not reflex. 
 
 BRITISH POWER has been God's minister to 
 protect the missionaries in India and China. 
 
 IF PARENTS will not give their children 
 a religious creed, other people surely will. 
 
 TREES are the priests of nature. 
 
 TACITUS was very severe in his language 
 about the theatre-loving people of his day. 
 
 MONEY, like fire, is a good servant, but a 
 dangerous master. 
 
 WE HAVE a duty to Christians of other 
 names, besides that of witnessing against 
 them. 
 
 THE DEVIL acknowledged Christ. Wicked 
 men must come to the same thing. 
 
 THAT ALL our deeds are photographed in 
 God's book is important truth, but not the 
 highest motive to right doing. 
 
 BAD MEN almost always wish their chil- 
 dren to be good. 
 
 THE EXAMPLE of Paul and his associates 
 shows that missionary efforts should first 
 
176 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 of all be directed to those people which are 
 already prepared by Providence and, in a 
 measure, by the word of God. 
 
 OUR disappointments are heaven's ap-* 
 point-merits. 
 
 NEVER is a mass of beings so centrally 
 stirred as when the Spirit of God is poured 
 out. 
 
 IT WERE WELL if the civil statutes made 
 the writing of anonymous letters a punish- 
 'able offense. 
 
 IT is the self-righteous people who are 
 the greatest fault-finders. 
 
 HYPOCRITES can be more easily brought 
 to talk like saints, than to act like saints. 
 
 THE GREATEST possible external miracle 
 would not be so efficacious in bringing a 
 man to God as the simple reading of the 
 Bible. Luke 16:31. 
 
 PERHAPS the next general revival will 
 take in the Jews 
 
 PASCAL said it was a glory to our religion 
 to have unreasonable men for its enemies. 
 
 A GIRL in Scotland, under Dr. John Mac- 
 Donald's spiritual advice, prayed, " God, 
 show me myself," till she was convicted 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 177 
 
 and wretched, and then, "0 God, show 
 me thyself," till her soul was full of hope. 
 
 MERCIES do not come with parade. They 
 slip in at the chinks. 
 
 THE STREAMS of religion run deeper or 
 shallower, as the banks of the Sabbath are 
 kept up or neglected, said Calcott. A Hol- 
 land preacher called the Sabbath God's 
 dyke shutting out an ocean of evils. 
 
 ON BEING asked if such a man was a 
 Christian, Whitefield said: "How should I 
 know? I never lived with him." 
 
 NEVER OWE any man more than you are 
 able to pay, and allow no man to owe you 
 more than you are able to lose, said a wise 
 old merchant. 
 
 No GOOD CAUSE needs a discourtesy to 
 help it along. 
 
 WHEN A MAN is converted, his purse is 
 converted. 
 
 THERE is but a breath of air, a beat of the 
 heart, between this world and the next. 
 
 WHENCE did arise the expensive custom 
 of wearing mourning, and how far should 
 it be carried? 
 
 THE ONE EVENT which never loses its ro- 
 9 
 
178 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 mance, is the encounter with superior per- 
 sons on terms allowing the happiest inter- 
 course, says Emerson. 
 
 THE AGE is so full of surprises, that noth- 
 ing is surprising. 
 
 HAPPINESS keeps one young. In heaven 
 we shall not grow old. 
 
 WE ARE too restless ; too fond of change. 
 Paul said he had learned in whatsoever 
 state he was to be content. 
 
 THE SIDE upon which God is, will suc- 
 ceed. 
 
 IF IT is important for children to obey, 
 it is no less so for parents to know how to 
 command. 
 
 THE CRY of the oppressed against the op- 
 pressor is always heard on high. 
 
 PIETY may consist with error sooner than 
 with indifference. 
 
 THERE ARE TIMES when good men serve 
 the cause of truth by suffering for it, more 
 than by acting for it. 
 
 COLERIDGE said the act of prayer was the 
 very highest energy of which the human 
 heart is capable. 
 
 EVEN the thoughful pagan acknowledged 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 1 79 
 
 the necessity of painful conviction as a 
 first step toward moral improvement. Over 
 the Delphic portal it was written: Without 
 descent into the hell of self-knowledge, 
 there is no ascent into heaven. Epictetus 
 said that if you wish to be good, first be- 
 lieve that you are bad. 
 
 To BE ALMOST a Christian, is to be still 
 unsaved. 
 
 HE WHO respects himself, the universe 
 will respect him, says Emerson. 
 
 CORNELIUS NEPOS said of Cicero: " His 
 prudence seemed to be a kind of divina- 
 tion.' ' Of spiritual men this is more deep- 
 ly true. 
 
 THE WORLD MAKES advance only through 
 crises of sacrifice. 
 
 IF YOU NEGLECT a present known duty, 
 you will doubtless be less disposed to it af- 
 terwards. 
 
 PARENTS, do avoid anger when you cor- 
 rect the children. You may reprove, you 
 may chastise ; but do not fret. 
 
 MUTUAL dependence is likely to produce 
 mutual forbearance. 
 
 You WILL PROBABLY suffer in becoming a 
 
180 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 Christian, as a man does in the setting of a 
 broken limb. But then will you decline 
 to be made whole because of the transient 
 pain? 
 
 MEN SHRINK from repentance because of 
 the exposure and pain. -as a diseased eye 
 shuns the light. Courage, man, if you 
 would repent! 
 
 ALONE MUST every son of man meet his 
 trial hour, said Robertson. 
 
 CHRIST APPEALED to the future for his 
 vindication and explanation. 
 
 GRACE never was designed to distinguish 
 the worthy, but to relieve the wretched. 
 
 WHOEVER is habitually desirous of riches 
 is, by God's estimate, a covetous man, 
 whatever his profession or state. 
 
 DID IT EVER occur to any one how easily 
 commendation can be changed into con- 
 demnation; the u hosanna" of the multi- 
 tude into " crucify him " ? 
 
 SOME PERSONS are really converted who 
 think they are not; and some never were 
 converted who imagine they are. 
 
 SOME of your requests it might be a curse 
 to grant; as is said on one occasion of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 181 
 
 Israelites : God gave them their request, 
 but sent leanness into their souls. 
 
 TIDINGS of God's power and grace in any 
 place tend greatly to awaken and engage 
 the minds of men in other places. 
 
 THERE is NEEDED more thought, more talk 
 about the deepest spiritual things. Is it 
 not a surface period in religion and life ? 
 
 IT HAS BEEN SAID that nothing is easier 
 than to stab a man with his own words, 
 if adroitly twisted ; and nothing meaner. 
 
 THE WORLD loves its own thoughts. 
 
 THE LAWFULNESS of asking God for tem- 
 poral things is shown in the Lord's prayer. 
 
 OF ALL sorts of egotists, the spiritual 
 egotist is the worst, the least endurable. 
 
 OLD AGE is a searching test of one ? s piety. 
 
 THE FATHER in his family, the teacher in 
 his class, has a parish of souls for whose 
 eternal condition he is responsible, as much 
 as the minister in his congregation. 
 
 IF YOU WILL be one who prays in secret, 
 God will reward you openly. 
 
 GOD'S CAUSE is dearer to him than it ever 
 can be to us. 
 
 McCflEYNE, having spent an evening too 
 
182 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 lightly, wrote in his diary : My heart must 
 break off these things. What right have I 
 to steal and abuse my Master's time ? " Re- 
 deem it! " he is crying to me. 
 
 THE PRESENT ANSWER of some prayers 
 might foster spiritual pride. 
 
 WITH ME this is a golden motto: De- 
 spise not ten minutes, says Dr. Scudder. 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU asserts that there is 
 nothing so popular as cheerfulness. 
 
 SCHILLER says we are never great but 
 when we play. 
 
 THOSE WHO make this world a home, do 
 not prefer absence from the body, and 
 presence with the Lord. 
 
 WHETHER Christ be in us, is the criterion 
 of self-judgment. 
 
 GOOD ORDER is imperative, says one, except 
 where absolute necessity overpowers and 
 masters the situation. 
 
 IT is WHAT WE DO, and not where we 
 do it, that is the main thing. 
 
 PRESIDENT Humphrey states, in relation 
 to the great awakening at the close of the 
 last century, that the pastors had no seats 
 set apart for the awakened ; nor did they 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 183 
 
 call upon any who wished for special 
 prayer to signify it by rising in the meet- 
 ings. They did not say to the awakened, 
 41 Do not be discouraged/' but, " How long 
 will you hold out in your rebellion against 
 God? Why don't you submit to him, and 
 embrace his Christ?" 
 
 To A GODLY PARENT, there is no such 
 heart-break as a godless child. 
 
 TRIALS are the tuning of the instruments 
 for the melodies of heaven. 
 
 ^"OT MERCY only, but justice, is due to 
 the brute. 
 
 IT WAS a significant but sad comment on 
 Charles V., when Richard Morryson said of 
 him, " There is in him almost nothing 
 that speaks besides his tongue." 
 
 WE MAY TALK, said Nettleton, of the best 
 means of doing good; but after all the 
 greatest difficulty, lies in doing it in the 
 proper spirit. 
 
 THE ONLY NEW society now needed is one 
 whose object should be to prevent the for- 
 mation of any more societies. ' 
 
 Said Ridgley to Latimer as they were 
 going to the stake near Oxford : God will 
 
184 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 either assuage the flame, or else strengthen. 
 us to abide it! 
 
 THOSE WHO have least religion are most 
 willing to run'*into temptation. 
 
 To BE ALMOST saved, is to be eternally 
 lost. 
 
 JOHN KNOX, who prayed, " Lord, give me 
 Scotland, or I die!" has been dead almost 
 two hundred years ; yet all Scotland feels 
 his power stilL 
 
 TRAVELLING puts a Christian life to a 
 severe test. 
 
 ROBERT HALL called a glass of brandy a 
 glass of distilled damnation. 
 
 WHICH is easier, to give for the Lord, or 
 to spend for ourselves ? 
 
 PROVIDENCE reveals itself to the watcher ; 
 and so is it with the golden opportunities 
 of usefulness. 
 
 IN THE CONVERSATION between Augustine 
 and Monica just before the latter 7 s death, 
 it appears that those two eminent saints 
 thought more of knowing the truth for- 
 ever than of seeing each other forever. 
 
 WE AFFIRM that every Christian is as 
 much bound, as the minister of the gospe! 7 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 1 85 
 
 to decide his residence and his occupation 
 by a call of God. Thousands are ignoring 
 this law, by their self-seeking choices of 
 homes and pursuits. 
 
 FOR WHOM am I working and struggling, 
 self or Christ? 
 
 SABBATH KEEPERS live longer than Sab- 
 bath breakers. 
 
 REVIVALS, to be genuine, must come, 
 like rain, from heaven, not from men. 
 
 WAS A MAN ever convinced by being at- 
 tacked ? An old fable suggests an answer. 
 
 THE SECRET inclination of your soul de-. 
 termines what you are. 
 
 THE SUNLIGHT is as needful for man as 
 for the herb of the field ; and the light of 
 God's face is as needful for the soul, as 
 for the body. 
 
 WHY SHOULD religious difference be 
 pressed into mortal hatred? 
 
 IT is SAID that even the prudent Franklin 
 left work for his executors which he should 
 have done himself. 
 
 IT is AN AGE of societyism, externalism, 
 bluster. 
 
 A NOBLE BROTHER writes : " The severest 
 9* 
 
186 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 trials we ever pass through are not from 
 strangers or worldlings, but from mistaken 
 or unsanctified brethren. So David found 
 it, but the Lord delivered him." 
 
 DR. C. B. CRANE says: Was there ever 
 a heretic, who did not have something of 
 truth, even in his heresy ? 
 
 I PITY little children in a godless family. 
 
 BEFORE you boast, wait a little and see. 
 
 Is IT A deadly crime to cease to hold 
 with the mass of a great denomination on 
 a point of order? 
 
 lt HE must increase," is a sufficient an- 
 swer to such as believe the cause of God 
 declining. 
 
 IT is NOT of wood or stone we now make 
 our idols, but of our own conceptions. 
 
 CHARACTER is defined by Emerson as in- 
 capability of being upset. 
 
 " IF IT BE possible," was the qualification 
 used in the most solemn prayer ever ut- 
 tered on earth. 
 
 To ESCAPE annoyance, make up your 
 mind not to be easily annoyed. 
 
 WHEN A REAL Christian receives encour- 
 agement, he is humbled by it. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 187 
 
 ROUSSEAU and Augustine furnish the 
 most striking illustrations of two kinds of 
 confession. 
 
 NEVER EXULT over a fallen adversary. 
 He may get up again. 
 
 STUART MILL says all reforms have to 
 pass through the three stages of ridicule, 
 argument, and adoption. 
 
 NOTHING SOONER throws discredit on a 
 man's religion in the eyes of the world 
 than carelessness about one's debts. 
 
 TRUE RELIGION does not seek notoriety. 
 
 RANDALL owed his conversion under God 
 to the death of Whitefield. It is believed 
 that Paul owed his conversion in some 
 sense to the death of Stephen. 
 
 A REVIVED Christianity in the dominions 
 of Russia would have a grand effect in the 
 way of evangelizing China. 
 
 BLESSED is the suffering man or woman 
 who is not exacting and selfish, and who 
 can be merciful to others. 
 
 THE WAY a man eats is no slight test of 
 the degree of his refinement. 
 
 A WINNER OF SOULS went to a sinner and 
 beautifully said : God has a chosen people, 
 
188 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 and I hope you are one of them. Come, 
 and lay hold on Jesus, and put your trust 
 in him. 
 
 A PROMINENT journalist well says that a 
 concentrated truth often does more execu- 
 tion than a volume of argument. 
 
 THOSE WHO PERSECUTE seem to be the least 
 aware that their "act is persecution. They 
 think they are doing God service. 
 
 WILLIAM JAY said he once received in the 
 pulpit this note: The prayers of this con- 
 gregation are desired for a man who is 
 prospering in his worldly concerns. 
 
 THE SURRENDER which the sinner is called 
 upon to make to Christ includes a submis- 
 sion of his reason and understanding, and 
 2 Cor. 10:5 proves it. 
 
 THE INCREASE of the spirit of levity among 
 a people is in general an alarming symptom 
 of deterioration of character. 
 
 GUTHRIE is impressed that the Bible re- 
 cords but one instance of a death-bed con- 
 version; one, that none may despair; and 
 but one, that none may presume. 
 
 You WILL NOT be long in believing when 
 once you perceive that Christ is as fitted 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 189 
 
 to the needs of your soul, as air to the 
 wings of a bird, as food to the hungry. 
 Go, try him! If you shall find that he is 
 not suited to you case, it will be time 
 enough then to reject him. 
 
 GREAT POLITICAL elections generally bring 
 declension in the church. A humiliating 
 fact! 
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION of affliction is one of the 
 mysteries of GocJ's ways. 
 
 GREAT CHARACTER is as rare a thing as 
 great genius, says Lowell. 
 
 NOTHING is ever gained by running like 
 a coward away from trouble, or from 
 threatening difficulty. 
 
 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE suggestively said 
 of Robert Leighton that he drew many into 
 a kindness for episcopacy by his exemplary 
 life rather than debates. 
 
 Is IT at all safer for a man to oppress in 
 any way, than for a nation? 
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S earthly ministry illustrates 
 the idea that a short intense life is the 
 longest. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHER says of Coleridge : He suf- 
 fers deeply, and deeply repents. His whole 
 
190 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 life is. a sigh of penitence, a prayer for 
 amendment. But he never amends! 
 
 DR. JOHNSON said: Sir, there is a great 
 cry about infidels ; but in reality there are 
 but very few infidels. 
 
 ALL IMPROVEMENT, or change, has its own 
 peculiar peril. 
 
 SUPERSTITION, it has been said, is the 
 blind energizing of the lost feeling of 
 man's relationship to God. 
 
 WE MAY conceive of the past as a capa- 
 cious mind, and events as the ideas in it. 
 
 JOHN FOSTER said that the great are 
 much more dependent upon the little than 
 the little upon the great. 
 
 MAN without decision belongs to every 
 body except himself. 
 
 BAD MEN find the very depravity of the 
 race contributing to their success. Good 
 men have to rest their success on the 
 righteousness of their cause, and the favor 
 of God. 
 
 WHAT THE MOST dependent and afflicted 
 child in the family is to the parental heart, 
 that all the children of God are to him. 
 
 DR. HOVEY says that a man's presenti- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 191 
 
 ment of what is to be has quite as much to 
 do with his character as his sense of what 
 has been. 
 
 GOD is SOVEREIGN as to the time as well 
 as the type of a revival of religion. 
 That is not a genuine revival which does 
 not show forth the sovereignty of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 No Sabbath ; then atheism. 
 
 A BARREN TREE found in the orchard 
 fares worse than if standing in the woods. 
 
 LITTLE does he desire to know the truth 
 of God, who will not go where he can 
 hear it. 
 
 GOD HAS KEPT the great day hid from us, 
 that we may be every day ready for it. 
 
 LET us STAND for the truth which we 
 have perceived! 
 
 IN ONE OF HIS SERMONS John Wesley 
 propounded the doctrine that the brute 
 creation will have a resurrection. 
 
 IT HAS BEEN ingeniously said that every 
 one is covetous, whose beneficence does not 
 increase in the same proportion as his sub- 
 stance. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN knows all things, in their 
 
192 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 moral nature or distinctions; as for exam- 
 ple whether they are good or bad, true or 
 false, spiritual or unspiritual. John says 
 they have a divine unction qualifying them 
 for this discernment. 
 
 WAYLAND HOYT advocates the introduc- 
 tion of distinctly formulated doctrinal in- 
 struction into our Sabbath schools. We 
 need the precise statements of the cate- 
 chism. Systematic knowledge, he con- 
 tends, is as necessary in Christianity as it is 
 in science. 
 
 IT WOULD BE a great thing if some one 
 would tell us what events, epochs, and 
 scenes in the last book of the Bible belong 
 to the invisible world, and what to the 
 visible or material. 
 
 RIGHTLY VIEWED, -there is no such thing 
 as a trifle in this world. 
 
 I AM a great believer in the virtue of a 
 journey of fifty miles, for giving tone to the 
 system when it has been overworked, said 
 Dr. Arnold of Rugby. 
 
 IT is NO unreasonable demand, that the 
 man of science, when judging of the things 
 of the Spirit, shall leave his solitary emi- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 193 
 
 nence, and place himself among the sym- 
 pathies and needs which he shares with 
 all men, says Professor Shairp in " Culture 
 and Religion." 
 
 WAS THERE ever a man that did not pray 
 in some form ? 
 
 To FIND strength in weakness, and 
 triumph in oppression, how good it is! 
 
 WESLEY counselled all his societies as 
 follows : Gain all you can ; save all you 
 can; give all you can. 
 
 To THE UNPREPARED death is always sudden ; 
 to the prepared it is never sudden. 
 
 IT WAS A SAYING of Augustine: God is 
 good w T ho in refusing that which we wish 
 gives us that which we wish more. 
 
 ARISTOTLE fixed upon the forty-ninth 
 year of men's lives as the one in which the 
 faculties reach their acme. 
 
 MERCIES, as well as judgments, humble 
 the wise man. 
 
 IN THIS WORLD there is a great deal more 
 trouble than prayer; but there is no more 
 prayer than deliverance. 
 
 NOTHING VENTURE, nothing have. Grand 
 achievements, sublime successes, great rev- 
 
194 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 olutions and discoveries, are usually trace- 
 able to sombody's sanguine temperament. 
 
 PUSEY calls music as it were the echo of 
 the harmony of all creation. 
 
 YOUR CHURCH may be, and perhaps is, a 
 child of faith, as truly as Muller's Orphan- 
 age. 
 
 PLANT a tree which will bless those who 
 come after. 
 
 EVERY ONE of the Christian denomina- 
 tions has a tender spot, which if you touch, 
 you make it smart and cry. 
 
 FIVE REASONS for giving liberally are pre- 
 sented in the eighth chapter of Second 
 Corinthians. 
 
 REWARDS to those who deserve nothing 
 is a fact of our religion difficult to under- 
 stand. 
 
 COMMUNITY of goods will do for perfect, 
 not for imperfect, men. 
 
 PAUL was peculiar in his use of universal 
 terms. 
 
 IT is SAFE fearlessly to do right. 
 
 WASHINGTON and Wesley resembled each 
 other in their personal dignity, self-control, 
 and faculty of administration. They were 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 195 
 
 both conservatists while they were revolu- 
 tionists. The parallel between the two 
 men is somewhat striking, in these and 
 other respects. 
 
 WE MUST be prepared for divine gifts, 
 though we may not deserve them. 
 
 CALVIN was not pushed to his doctrinal 
 conclusions by controversy, or opposition ; 
 but he reached them through calm, posi- 
 tive, study. He seems rather to be follow- 
 ing conviction, than making a point with 
 an adversary. This is an element of great- 
 ness. 
 
 POLYBIUS in numerous instances illus- 
 trates the language of Paul. 
 
 OF CHRYSOSTOM Ellicott says, how amply 
 does the great expositor repay perusal! 
 
 THAT A WEEKLY seventh part of our time 
 should be specially given up to God, rests 
 on considerations as old as the creation, 
 says Ellicott. 
 
 ENLARGED ACQUAINTANCE with ecclesias- 
 tical history, like extensive travel, tends to 
 foster a catholic and charitable spirit. 
 
 MACAULAY commended the language of 
 Thomas Hobbes as more precise and lumi- 
 
196 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 nous than was ever employed by any other 
 metaphysical writer. 
 
 THE POLITICAL STATE of Europe* when the 
 Reformation commenced was favorable to 
 its success. 
 
 You MAY possibly direct a movement, 
 which you would like to resist but can- 
 not. 
 
 MACAULAY claimed that there is a pe- 
 culiar malignity which has in all ages been 
 characteristic of apostates. 
 
 MACAULAY said that the years during 
 which the Anglican hierarchy was in the 
 zenith were precisely the years during 
 which the national virtue was at the lowest 
 point. 
 
 A LITTLE SHARP persecution from without, 
 will do as much as rigid discipline within, 
 to purify a religious society. 
 
 PROTESTANTISM affiliates most readily with 
 the Teutonic races. 
 
 THE THEORETICAL and the speculative must 
 be ballasted with the practical and the 
 material. 
 
 THE TWO theologians of the Reformation, 
 says Shedd, were Melancthon and Calvin. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 197 
 
 Do NOT assail an old system too hastily 
 though it be corrupt. Let the movement 
 be made strong, deliberate, and patient, 
 when it is made. 
 
 LUTHER was a higher Calvinist than 
 Calvin himself. The latter undoubtedly 
 gave a larger place to the human element 
 than the former did, 
 
 PRESENT fidelity facilitates our next un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 IT is a piece of art to be an atheist, said 
 Sherlock. . 
 
 LET us NOT underrate the value of a fact, 
 said Thoreau ; it will one day flower into 
 a truth. 
 
 RATIONALISM, said Donosa Cortes, is the 
 sin which most resembles original sin, be- 
 ing, like it, an error in itself, and the pro- 
 ductive cause of error. 
 
 NOTHING expands the mind like the 
 knowledge of God. 
 
 IT TAKES CIRCUMSTANCES to bring out what 
 a man is. Says Dr. Gumming: Nero as 
 the pupil of Seneca was mild and amiable, 
 but as Emperor of Rome was an execrable 
 monster. Mary, Queen of England, in her 
 
198 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 youth was a gentle and affectionate princess. 
 Her history on the throne is written in 
 blood. Robespierre in his early days was 
 humane, tender, and sensitive. His latter 
 days were stained with terrible attrocities 
 and murders. 
 
 IT is EASY to take advantage of the weak; 
 to speak of them unjustly, to hold them up 
 to contempt, to crowd them in the contest 
 of opinion ; but it is somewhat dangerous. 
 
 IF UPON ENTERING the sanctuary, the 
 American worshipper, like t-he English, 
 would bow his head for a moment's prayer, 
 it would greatly promote the impression of 
 reverence so desirable in the house of God. 
 
 IN THE FEW moments preceding the open- 
 ing of a religious service, silence on the 
 part of those who are waiting in their seats 
 is much better than communication, as all 
 can testify who have noticed, or felt, any- 
 thing about it. 
 
 PRAYER for the sake of its mere reflex 
 influence will soon cease to ask for things, 
 and only say them. Asking, in such a 
 case, could not be real. 
 
 No PERSON should stay away from the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 199 
 
 sanctuary because he will be late ; and yet 
 if he is early there, how much he serves 
 others and himself. How much less of 
 distraction; how much more enjoyment! 
 
 RELIGION and intelligence are the two 
 pillars of popular government. 
 
 How SAD when those starting out in their 
 married life desert the house of God. How 
 hopeful and promising for them, . and for 
 society, when they take their places as pil- 
 lars in the cause of religion. But how few 
 comparatively of our young couples in 
 these days take upon themselves steadily 
 the responsibilities of a public worship ! 
 
 THE TENDER friendship of Calvin for Farel 
 and Viret was something beautiful. The 
 union of soul that existed between Calvin 
 and Beza was wonderful. A strict theo- 
 logian may have a warm heart. 
 
 THE TIME may come when a minister can 
 best serve his people by ceasing to serve 
 them, and may thereby best prove his love 
 for them. But how easy to mistake in dis- 
 cerning the time. 
 
 EXTREME PARTICULARITY in trifles may 
 cause social discomfort and restraint. It 
 
200 THINGS TO THINK OF. 
 
 is the saying of some one, that, for a' person 
 *to be a thoroughly popular companion 7 
 there should be about him a little touch 
 of unpreciseness>and indifference to -small 
 things. After all, it may be better to incur 
 the cost of being precise and particular. 
 
 You CANNOT HAVE a new success in this 
 world without haying to turn quickly from 
 it to some fresh trial and contest; and your 
 new success also will bring its own draw- 
 backs. heartaches, and solicitudes. 
 
 A REAL SENSE of Grod's, presence will 
 expel egotism. 
 
 I DWELL among mine own people, and T 
 love to do them good. 
 
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