THE

GOSPEL MAGAZINE.

"COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE, SAITH YOUR GOD."

"ENDEAVOURING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE BOND OF PEACE" "JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER." "WHOM TO KNOW IS LIFE FTERNAL*

No. 75,

MARCH 1, 1872.

The Family Portion;

OR, WORDS OF SPIRITUAL CAUTION, COUNSEL, AND COMFORT.

No. 1,275, OLD SERIES,

Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."-2 COR. i. 4.

"COMING!"

THE LAST WORD OF A DYING SAINT, WHO SLEPT IN JESUS ON SATURDAY, FEB. 3, 1872.

We never remember to have felt the mind more deeply solemnized in the house of God than it was on a recent Sunday morning. On looking around, we saw the weeping members of four distinct families who had within the previous few days been bereaved of those most near and dear to them. Immediately before us sat a bereaved husband, with no less than seven out of eight little children, the eldest being but twelve years of age. Only that day three weeks his beloved wife occupied her seat beside him in that pew, looking the very picture of health. Before that Sabbath week we saw her upon what we believed would-and did prove to-be the bed of death! Scarcely ever was the uncertainty of life more strikingly illustrated than in her case. But three clear days before we thus saw her writhing upon the bed of suffering, we saluted both herself and husband, as they drove to business, full of energy and animation, as she, in particular, was wont to be. That proved to be her last visit to their house of business. She sickened and speedily passed away, whilst her next-door neighbour (of whom we shall presently have to speak) still remained, after being not months merely, but for even years, an intense sufferer! How marvellous are the ways of God! A little in the rear of where this bereaved family sat was another pew occupied by the mourning members of a household, a beloved daughter belonging to which had just been called away. We had long admired her for the meekness, gentleness, and retirement of her character. She was ever ready for every good work, but her services were always rendered in such a quiet, unobtrusive, unostentatious manner, that we could but be struck with it; and, although when we visited her upon her sick-bed, we anticipated a very different resulteven her recovery from that sickness-yet we cannot but reflect both

K

upon her character and her end with the greatest hope and satisfaction. Again, on our right-hand was another mourning family. Of her they had lost we had seen sufficient from time to time to cause us to entertain every hope on her account. As a rule she belonged to another denomination, but occasionally-more particularly of a weekevening we have seen her under the word, a deeply-attentive listener. For years she had suffered from a frail body and exceedingly nervous, excitable mind. She was (as far as we could judge) of the Martha-school, "careful and troubled about many things." Residing, as she had done for some years, towards the brow of a somewhat long and steep hill, and being very stout, walking was exceedingly trying to her frail body. Some of us who happen to be similarly constituted, as regards stoutness, can readily enter into her feelings, when shortness of breath and a palpitating heart would seem to indicate instant death! We doubt not that this feeling, together with that over-anxiety about her household to which we just now referred, helped to detain her from the house of God. This, in her last illness, was to her a source of deep regret and the bitterest lamentation. And those who may be disposed to allow little matters (perhaps far less than hers) to deter them from attending the courts of the Lord, may well take heed by her painful sick-and-dying-bed experience in this one particular. It was the oft-repeated expression of our own long-sainted mother: "Children, you can never expect the blessing of God to rest upon any engagement entered upon when the doors of the house of God are open.' By this remark she did not by any means intend to sympathize with those who in our day are resorting to their Ritualistic or Romish Churches for the sake of their formal and heartless so-called prayer-repeatings. What she meant was the availing one's self of such opportunities as our week-evening-as well as Sabbath services afford, when and where the truth, in its simplicity and power, is preached. She knew that by this means spiritual health and strength were renewed and invigorated. It is astonishing how soon a spirit of indifference to the public means of grace may gain the mastery over the mind. We have seen those whom scarcely aught was allowed to form a sufficient reason for absenting themselves from the house of God, gradually decline. By little and little they have suffered this and that trifling matter to deter them, until at length they have well-nigh given up going altogether. Now, we hesitate not to say that, where the truth is preached in simplicity and power, if this kind of thing be indulged, not only will leanness of soul speedily follow, but ah, we would not attempt to say, into what state of darkness, distress, doubt, and gloomy forebodings and dismal apprehensions the souls of the once deeply spiritual and most cheerful and hopeful of the Lord's own children may be plunged. We would, therefore, most earnestly and ardently entreat our readers to beware of trifling with or neglecting the means of grace. Moreover, there is one means of grace that is too readily neglected-yea, the first to be forsaken, if not despised; and that is, the prayer-meeting.

Now, God is our Witness that we never remember in any one instance to have regretted going to our Saturday-night prayer-meeting. Many times have we been tempted, on a wet or boisterous night, to forego attending. Certain reading or writing-the quiet and (at that hour) uninterruption of the study, and a nice fire in contrast to the wind and rain without, have offered strong inducements to remain at home rather than venture abroad; but on these occasions neither in the reading nor the writing have we been able to make any headway. The heart has been chilled, if the body has been warm. Hence we have raked out the fire, turned off the gas, and sallied forth to meet perhaps not more than half-a-dozen kindred souls at a distance little short of a mile, upon these unpropitious evenings; but, as we before remarked, never do we remember in one single instance, during a period of thirteen years and upwards, regretting having attended the humble, unpretending prayermeeting.

The love for the house of God of her of whom we shall have presently more particularly to speak was indeed most marked; and, when there, she was one of the most attentive hearers we ever remember to have seen. With a sharpened countenance, and a keen hearing, she would seem as it were to devour one's words. In proof of her love for the sanctuary, in one of our last visits to her sick and dying bed, some three or four weeks before she was called home, she said, she had often gone out across the fields when she could scarcely grope her way, and that, too, with a heavy heart, but she would come away, she said, "light as a feather." On one occasion she stumbled over or into a heap of lime, but this failed to divert her from her purpose. To the house of God she was going, and to the house of God she went. Moreover, she said that her heart was so with us at our last midnight meeting, at the close of the one year and commencement of the next, that, notwithstanding her weakness and anguish of body, she left her bed at that midnight hour, and, just a few minutes before twelve o'clock, when she knew the congregation would be engaged in silent prayer for a blessing, she threw open her bedroom door, so that she might cast her eyes down to the church, which was to be seen in the distance, and there, upon bended knee, unite with us in our supplications at the mercy-seat. Precious soul! but a very few weeks at most were appointed to elapse ere she would be a worshipper indeed around that throne, not trammelled as then with a poor, sinful, weak, and suffering body; but, disencumbered and disenthralled, her ransomed spirit would be casting her blood-bought crown at Immanuel's feet, and shouting, "Victory, victory through the blood of the Lamb!"

Oh, reader, dear reader, what a reality there is in divine things! On the other hand, what a perfect farce is that-how deceptive and destructive-which absorbs men's minds and engrosses their thoughts and time and attention, if aught connected with and circumscribed by this poor dying world be the sum and substance of their

purposes and pursuits. We are bound to declare, before a heartsearching God, that the longer we live, and the more we contemplate men and things, the more are we astounded, and the more we discover the extreme weakness and deception and folly of those, the one end and object of whose life appears to be the accumulation of that paltry gain, one single iota of which they cannot carry with them. Oh, how those words arrest our ears and appeal to our hearts, as from time to time we read them in sight of the coffin and in presence of the mourners, "Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them."

:

Oh, what can be more true than this, and who of us have not seen the extreme folly of these toilers after gain, in that we have again and again seen them cut off as it were in a moment, proving to a demonstration indeed that they have been frittering away their precious time and talents in an effort to obtain that which fails to prolong their lives a single moment, and which only proves at last to have been Satan's crafty means of diverting them from seeking to think of and pray for durable riches and righteousness?

Dear reader, we would earnestly urge you to consider the weighty words of the Apostle where, writing to his son Timothy, he says: "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness" (1 Tim. vi. 6-11).

In contrast to the scenes which so reminded us of mortality, to which we just now referred, and under the pressing influence of which we sat down to the writing of this article, we shall not easily forget the thoughts which were awakened in our mind by another scene. Standing for a moment in a bookseller's shop, the principal whispered, as he gazed upon a certain elderly man, "There is one of the richest men in B" Coming forward, he asked the price of an almanack at which he had been gazing; and, after being informed that it was one penny, he was at much pains to find in his purse a threepenny or fourpenny piece, out of which to pay the penny. He was an old man, stooping from very age, and had, we doubt not, passed his threescore years and ten; and yet at this patriarchal age, and tottering as he was upon the very brink of the grave, money-money-money (as we were informed) seemed to be his one end and object. Again we say, such a course is the very extreme of folly. Men, in the seeking after and endeavour to secure gain, are wont to regard themselves as shrewd and clever, and entitled to the respect, esteem, and good

opinion of their fellow-men; at the same time, in a spiritual point of view and in the divine estimate of things, men thus occupied and engrossed with time and its baubles are but following an ignis fatuus -a mere will-of-the-wisp-which (if sovereign grace prevent not) will only lead them on and on and on to eternal and irremediable destruction. How such men lose sight of and virtually ignore the words of Him who spake as never man spake: "And He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke xii. 15-21). Again, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall he give in exchange for his soul ?"

Perhaps some of our readers may wonder at our writing our first article in this strain; but can they be surprised when we tell them, that directly opposite the house we occupy, two neighbours living side by side have within a few weeks been called to their great account: the one summoned, after only some three or four days' illness, and called away from the very midst of business-life; the other (on the contrary) after months of weakness and debility? Again, within some few hundred yards, two other neighbours, living likewise side by side, have been summoned hence: the first (as we have before shown) after only some few days' illness, the other after months and even years of acute suffering. Can you, therefore, wonder, dear readers, at our mind being deeply and solemnly imbued with these things, and especially as sickness and disease prevail in the parish with which we are connected to an extent we never before witnessed? But, amid all this, oh, how special are the privileges and how unspeakably blessed the condition and estate of the dear children of God! They have in reality naught to fear as to safety, "their lives are hid with Christ in God, and, when He who is their life shall appear, then shall they also appear with Him in glory." Nothing can in the leastwise affect their security, or interfere with or militate against their privileges and blessedness. True it is that their present condition may be one of privation and suffering; one which indeed calls for the exercise of faith and patience. Nevertheless, it is but the old beaten track to the kingdom. Their position and circumstances do but ratify and confirm the testimony, "He hath chosen you in the furnace of affliction;" and "It is through much tribulation ye