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No. XX.

THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.

"AS UNKNOWN, AND YET WELL KNOWN; AS DYING, AND BEHOLD, WE LIVE." 2 Cor. vi. 9.

THIS paradox of the great Apostle is happily explained and exemplified in the experience and by the lives, of many of the children of God, who while they pass through this world unknown to the vain and ambitious part of mankind, are well known to the saints on earth, and to the ministering angels from heaven, as those who, when they die, will live among the blessed tribes of a better world. Among no description of men on earth is the assertion of the poet so fully realized as among that of consistent Christians. Among the real followers of Christ Jesus may it truly be said,

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness in the desert air."

But neither the justice nor truth of this observation is confined to Christian characters.

They will hold good when applied to many individuals, on whom Providence has bestowed more than a common share of mind and intellect. Many in every civilized country have pined away life in secret complainings, that they were such flowers, and so doomed to waste their sweetness in a world which either could not, or would not, appreciate their worth. Undoubtedly, some of these have had their more just cause of complaint than others; nor is it denied but many of them really merited far more patronage from the world than they ever received. But after all, the greater portion of their unhappiness was not so much the necessary and unavoidable consequences of the neglect of the world, as it was those of a want of real Christianity in the heart. Indeed, there are few circumstances in which the superior and blessed effects of the gospel shine more conspicuous than in those now before us. How widely different is the case of a good and humble follower of the despised Saviour under the ills and pressures of want, the pains and trials of a sick bed, and the neglect and contempt of an ignorant, ungodly world; how widely dif ferent, I say, is this man's state of mind to that of the person of fine feelings and impoverished circumstances, whose soul and views are rivetted to this earth, whose heaven he

would fain have in this lower world, but who lives to see this idolized earth year after year withhold its smiles, its favours, and its wealth from him! Wretchedness is inseparable from such a state. Every such character is like the unhappy Micah of old, who, when spoiled of his forbidden idols, exclaimed, in the bitterness of his soul, "Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?" (Judges, xviii. 24.) But with the real Christian things are not so. The world may overlook him; ignorant men may despise his understanding; and unjust men may rob him of his few earthly comforts. But neither the world at large, nor ignorant nor unjust men in particular, can bereave him of his hope, or spoil him of his treasure; because his hope and treasure are lodged secure beyond the grasp of men, and far beyond the devastation even of time itself. The fact is, this world is not his home, it has not his heart, it is not his treasure; its people are not his people, nor are its ways and delights his ways; on the contrary,

"His pleasures rise from things unseen,
Beyond this world and time,

Where neither eyes, nor ears, have been,
Nor thoughts of mortals climb.

"He wants no pomp, nor royal throne,
To raise his figure here;

Content and pleas'd to live unknown,
Till Christ his life appear.

"He looks to heaven's eternal hills,
To meet that glorious day;

And hails his Saviour's chariot wheels;
And chides their long delay."

For want of this state of mind, of these consolations, which the gospel furnishes to man, poor Burns, the favourite Northern bard, and many others lived only to taste the bitters of the cup of life, to drink unceasing potions of distress, and to hurry on, from stage to stage, into the very goal of sad despondency itself. Unhappy Burns! he drew in glowing faithful co-. lours the wisdom and happiness of seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and in his "Cotter's Saturday Night" made it appear, that " man wants but little here below." Yet he despised or overlooked the picture his own hand had drawn, and quite neglected all the lessons he himself had taught. He even descended so low as to court the smile and approbation of an ungodly world, by writing his

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Holy Fair," &c., and in the event lost not only the consolations of the Gospel, but the caresses of his beloved world itself. True, Scotland just now seems determined to respect his memory,

and to build him some monumental pile; but he

is dead, and now,

"Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to his mansions call his wasted breath? Can honour's voice provoke his silent dust,

Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?"

No, he is gone beyond their reach; and in the page of history's volume poor Burns must stand recorded as a man who sunk beneath those frowns and ills of life, which real Christian hope could well have borne. So likewise sunk the elegant and impressive author of the "Night Thoughts," a melancholy instance of poor inconsistent man. He groaned beneath the crosses of this world; he was deeply taught in all its empty vagrant smiles; and yet he urged his way to catch its passing shadows through every year of his existence, and seemed more eager to grasp the perishing things of earth and time, as a dread eternity approached his door. With Burns and many others he might catch the words from Medea's lips, and say with truth,

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"Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor* "

History, for the most part, exhibits the names and feats of one part of mankind, whose lives were expended in disturbing the peace of others, The best I see and can approve,

The worst I still pursue and love.

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