Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

WHAT business have you to interfere with the harmless pleasures of the working classes? Why don't you attack the rich? You are quite misaken if you think you are going to have every hing your own way. We have not been used to Bigots, and meddling fellows like you, and therefore we give you warning that if you think to set up the reign of priesteraft here, it wont do, your parishioners, at least the chief part of them, say this behind your back. Your long sermons may empty the church, but neither you nor any of your long faced crew will be able to empty the public houses. I am no more an advocate of intemperance than yourself, but it seems that you set your face against all recreation, and if the place were filled with such as you an honest publican might starve.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The door of the study opened and the pastor threw down the anonymous letter, he had neither the time nor the inclination to read more, he was called to visita dying parishoner. In a dark chamber, barely and meanly furnished, a young man lay dying. He was asleep, but so worn and wasted, so very near death was his bodily frame, that his countenance in sleep wore already the look of a corpse. His mother sat beside his bed with her intensé gazefixed upon him; and affecting was the contrast between the rigid calmness of the one countenance and the expression of agonized anxiety upon the other. The sleeper started, and awoke. His mother rose up, "Tell me dear mother," he said, as she bent down over him. "Is he comeis the minister come? and my poor father-have they brought him? I dreamed that they were both come and waiting till I awoke. I wish to see them together, it is almost my last wish to hear our minister speak to my father, at the time I take my last leave of you all." "They are not yet come," said the mother, "there has been scarcely time for your sister to go to the rectory, and then to find your father, you have slept but a short time!" The young man made no reply, but again closed his eyes, and the wretched mother returned to her seat. At length the latch of the house door was gently lifted, and the pastor's well known step was heard by the mother in the room below. He came up to the chamber of the dying man, but although the old stairs

RECTOR OF

ST. PETER'S, CHESTER.

[PRICE 3d.

creaked under his light tread, the sleeper did not stir, he was now fast asleep. The old clergyman held up his finger to forbid the mother to disturb her son, and waited quietly for his waking. The stillness of that melancholy chamber was soon broken. There was something like a struggle at the street door as it was opened and closed, and then opened again. "Come in I will. You said my poor boy sent for me. What has the parson to do with me? Whose house is this? answer me that: come, 'come-take your arm away or I shall hurt you!" These were the words which met the ear, the other speaker spoke in whispers and few of her words were heard. "Father, dear father pray wait, don't let him hear you-he is so very ill." The dying man had awoke at the first sound of his father's loud voice. He raised himself with difficulty and sat up in bed.

[ocr errors]

The

After he had listened a little while, his countenance fell. "It is as I feared," he said, after a short pause. "He is not in a fit state to hear any thing that might be said to him. mother, don't go, you know that he will only ill treat you. No, no, he had better come up here than do that:" but here the dying man sank back, he was too much exhausted to say more. old clergyman left him to his mother, and hastened to prevent the drunken man from coming up. He was only just in time, for he saw the girl sink under a blow given by her brutal father, and met him as he was about to ascend the stairs. "Go back at once," said the Pastor, and the gentle, but solemn dignity of his voice and manner stopt the man. With staring eyes and widely opened mouth he surveyed him for some moments and then a silly smile spread over his bloated features, and he said, "y....ou're a g....ood man, a v....ery g....ood man, shake hands with me, y....ou're a good fellow." The clergyman grasped his wrist and gently led him away. They had not gone many steps when the drunken man resisted; but the old minister had been too well used to the ways of drunkards; he knew how to deal with them, and at last he succeeded in leading the man from the house. He left him under the care of a trust-worthy and Christian neighbour, and he returned to the chamber of

the dying son. The mother was sitting on the side of the bed, and the head of her child was resting on her bosom. He was almost gone, but he raised his languid eyes and spoke a few faltering words. "Shall I never, never see my poor father again." "There is but one way of return for all of us," said the aged pastor, "and there is a full free offer of pardon to the vilest and to the worst." "I know it. I believe it. I have in myself the blessed experience that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. But, may I dare to hope that my poor father will be brought back?" "Is there any thing too hard for the Lord?" said the pastor. It is written that, neither thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God,'* but it is also written in the very words that follow. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit ofour God."" "Mother," said the dying man, "we will stay ourselves upon the blessed hope that my father may yet be brought back. You and poor Mary will bear with him, and be kind to him as you have always been. I need not ask you to do this, for you have been always kind to him, and you have both done your utmost to make his home comfortable to him. What I wish with my whole soul, what I ask from you both is, that you pray more and more earnestly for him, give me your hand mother, and your hand Mary, and promise this." The poor mother clasped the hand that was held up to her, and whispered that she would, would strive to hope, that she would not cease to pray, and the sister, covering her face with her hands, to hide the marks of the blow which her father had given her, came forward and knelt down by the bedside and covered her brother's wasted hand with kisses, and made also the promise which he required. "Prayer moves the hand that holds the heart," and in prayer the aged minister of Christ, and the dying man, and his afflicted mother and sister poured forth their souls to God, in humble, earnest, intercession for the drunken father. That very night the young man died, humanly speaking his death had been literally caused by the conduct of his father. He had been the chief support of the family, and he had sunk under hard work, and constant confinement, and grief of heart.

We have given a slight sketch of what we are too well acquainted with in our ministerial life- The kind of letter which is occasionally received from those who follow the unmanly craft of writing anonymous letters, and the kind of scene which we have actually witnessed. There is no exaggeratton in any part of the description that we have given, nay had we painted as nearly as we could have done to the life, our picture might have been bolder and more startling. It is from the midst

1 Cor. vi. 10, 11.

of such a family that we come forth with a heavy heart, full of sad thoughts at the power and dominion of sin, yes of a single sin when it has got the mastery over one member of a family, and brought its withering curse into the bosom of that family.

It is then that we are led to speak of sin as the abominable thing which we know it to be; and to declare that the gospel, which we preach, gracious as it is in its free pardon to the sinner who desires to be saved from his sins, can make no terms with the man who resolves to go on still in his iniquity. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot publish the fact too widely, is a system of intolerable interference with sin, while it holds out its unsearchable riches of grace, mercy, and peace to the chief of sinners. If the gos pel we preach be not all this; if it be not found from the pulpit, and from house to house, this system of interference with sin, as well as this fulness of pardon to the broken-hearted sinner; it is not the gospel of Him* who appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. When, however, the gospel is found to have this effect in a place, then, unthinking people take offence, and lose their temper, and the more unmanly among them, circulate slanders behind a minister's back, and send forth anonymous letters. The servant of Christ has something else to do, than to trouble himself with any accusations. His master's wor work is of a different kind; with regard to false accusations He held is peace, and answered not a word; with regard to false accusers, He said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." It is here that we would introduce to our readers, a letter which we have received from one of our friends, with which we heartily agree.

SIR-Loud complaints are made about a body of cle rical agitators, who seem determined to be intruding and interfering with every man's concerns (just as if they were individually interested and individually responsible for every man's conduct) They do not seem inclined to rest satisfied till they have entirely remodelled the whole state of society, and introduced a new system, which is to be regulated upon the antiquated and old fashioned notions Christian principle. These are heavy charges indeed. Will you admit, then, into your Beacon. just a few remarks to see whether it is not possible to discover some palliation for this most unheard of aggression on the part of the Clergy.

of

I conclude, Sir, it will be allowed on all hands that it is not so much the mere fact of "interference" that is objected to these agitators, as that their interference is unjust and uncalled for. An illustration, perhaps, wid make my meaning plainer. A constable coines by night to a certain person's house furnished with a search warrant from the magistrates of the place, and demands admission on the ground of a suspicion that stolen goods are concealed in the premises. The culprit may perhaps cry out, that it is most unjust interference with the liberty of the subject; but I suspect that his clamour will have but little weight in the minds of every honest and respectable man. Or again, suppose government to have received information, on the accuracy of which they could rely, that there was a secretly organized cɔn,

Hebrews ix. 26.

spiracy, and that too of a most formidable character, growing up within the walls of this city, which threatened the actual subversion of the throne and constitution. Could they be deemed guilty of uncalled for interference if they took the most decisive measures to defeat the treasonable designs of the conspirators? Most certainly not. Then, Sir, if neither of these cases constitute unjust interference, the charge is most unreasonable when it is argued against the ministers of the Gospel. They, Sir, have a search-warrant against sin; and they know that sin is lurking in the families-in the houses-in the hearts of all around them, and therefore they have not only a right, but they are guilty of a most flagrant violation of their duty to God, from whom they derive their high commission, if they fail to do so. They have a right to search it out to expose it-and were it possible (which, alas! it is not) to exterminate it root and branch. It is very easy, Sir, to quote scriptures, and to tell us that the gospel is a gospel of peace. That its object was to promote "peace on earth; good will to man:" that the duty of the minister of the gospel is "to preach peace through Jesus Christ," and not to be creating enmity and ill will by interfering in the affairs of others. Sir, I grant all this, but then how is this peace to be obtained? Was it not to give peace to Europe that Britain's sons waged such long and determined warfare against an ambitious usurper, and shed their blood so freely on the plains of Vittoria and Waterloo? And precisely so in the case of the minister of Christ, to obtain that peace which it is the aim of the gospel to promote. He must first plant the banners of the cross over the prostrate battlements of sin and satan. There is no quarter, no mercy, for sin; like Agag it must be brought out, and hewed to pieces, "The wisdom that cometh from above must be first pure, then peaceable." The Christian must not purchase a disgraceful peace, which is liable to compromise even in the slightest degree the spotless family of the faith which he professes. And does this, I would ask, militate against that spirit of long suffering, gentleness, and love : that mercy and brother ly kindness towards each other that our blessed Saviour enjoined on the practise of his disciples? No, not in the least; for it ever should be shown by the mode and spirit in which the ministers of the gospel conduct their Warfare, that the object of their animadversion and attack is sin, and not the sinner; that they would eradi cate the one, that they might thus be instrumental in forwarding the salvation of the other: but against this principle of sin, under whatever of its protean forms it may choose to array itself, whether it be in the more brutal and undisguised appearance of blasphemy, drunkenuess, fornication, gambling, and cock-fighting, or the more decent and plausible veil of gentlemanly, worldlymindedness, and love of vanities and pleasures. Christian consistency demands an unflinching and decided op

position.

More than this I will undertake to prove that the Bible sends its Ministers forth-directly and specifically -to agitate and to interfere wherever a spirit of ungodliness is known to prevail-religion-genuine religion-is in this respect the greatest of agitators. She sees a nation for instance avowedly governed and directed without any regard to the glory of God, forthwith she must force an entrance, within the walls of the

national council, and thunder forth, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people who forget God.” She sees the society of some neighbourhood given up to dissipation and pleasure-ball-going, race-going, theatre-going, and seeking out in the varied round of foolish and frivolous prusuits, which the ingenuity of man can devise, the deliberate murder of the time which hangs so heavy on their hands-this, too, demands her interference, and her word of faithful admonition is, "Love not the world, neither the things of the world." "The friendship of the world is enmity against God." She sees families, wherein the sacred relationships are not sanctified by religious principle. She must intrude even within the hallowed precinct of the domestic circle and remind them of their duty to God. "Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." "Husbands love your wives even as Christ loves the Church." "Children obey your parents in the Lord." "Fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." "Servants be obedient unto them that are your masters, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." "Masters do ye the same thing unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him." Lastly, she sees individuals living in any known sin, she must interfere with their quiet course of wickedness, and bid them remember that "sin is the transgression of the law, and the "soul that sinneth it shall die."

Now, Sir, I trust it is tolerably clear that interference and that too of a most determined character, is the plain and bounden duty of every minister of the gospel and so far as they fail to interfere, (always suffering that their interference is characterized by a covetous and conciliatory spirit.) They are guilty of a betrayal of that trust for which they must expect a heavy reckoning at the day of final account. At the same time, that no Christian Minister is disinclined to peace, I am perfectly sure, and think I could venture to assert in their name, that they are prepared to lay down their arms whenever they can do so without a dereliction of their duty to God. As soon, therefore, as they are assured, that there are no ungodly governments in the worldthat there are none who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God---that there are no bad husbands, bad wives, bad children, bad servants, bad masters, and bad men, in short, that sin is banished from the earth; then depend upon it, there will be an end of all clerical agitation and interference for ever; but till then, they will admit no compromise with the enemies of their Lord and Master; but they will, by the grace of God, set their faces firm as a flint against every appearance of ungodliness, and go forth in the strength of the Lord nothing doubting, but that "the weapons of their warfare which are not carnal, shall be found mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds."

If, Sir, in conclusion, I may venture to pass an opinion on the signs of the times, I think that the fact of the gospel making itself felt as a system of interference,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

"Certain lewd fellows of the baser sørt."— Acts xvii. 5. "THIS was the class of men, who, in the earliest ages of Christianity, waged the most unceasing warfare against the truths and the followers of the gospel; and wherever an opposition is excited, this is the class of men who even now swell the ranks of our opponents. Look at the private history of the infidels who were the most distinguished for their opposition to Christianity during the last century: look at the infidel poets and infidel demagogues in the present, and do you not find that, with one or two exceptions, they deserved the appellation of the apostle,' lewd fellows of the baser sort;' men, however high their station in society, as much distinguished for the laxity of their morals and the irregularities of their private conduct, as for the bitterness of their animosity to the revealed word of our God exhibited in their published opinions. Thus does the Almighty sometimes overrule the hatred of Satan, by obliging him to make use of such instruments as shall, to the mind of every unprejudiced inquirer into divine truth, convey an antidote with the poison; for what reflecting man can be for a moment misled by the arguments of those opponents to the truth of God's word, who have so obvious a motive, as an unholy life supplies, for desiring to find the tremendous revelations of the gospel, its day of righteous judgment, and its eternity of woe to the unrepentant sinner, a cunningly devised fable? I would impress this argument upon the minds of my younger hearers more especially, because there is, I am convinced, much weight in it; so much that we almost invariably find an infidel opposition to the doctrines of the gospel bear a very distinct proportion to the departure in the life of the opponant from the humbling and self-denying precepts of the gospel.

6

But let us pass from the character of the enemies of the gospel, to the nature of their charge: These men that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." Yes, my brethern, this was the accusation, and, wonderful to relate, it was, although not in the sense their accusers intended, perfectly just and perfectly true. Thanks be to God, the apostles did turn the world upside down,' when the preaching of a few poor fishermen, directed by the omnipotence of God's good Spirit, overthrew the splendid theology of Greece and Rome, emptied their temples, and planted the cross of a crucified Saviour upon their ruins; destroyed the most profound speculations of their deepest philosophers, and at length brought the emperor of the world to confess, that in the sign of the cross of Jesus Christ he alone could be victorious. And so far are we, their unworthy successors, at the present day, from shrinking from a similar accusation, that it is our glory and our boast; we desire to wage a war of extermination against the sinful principles and practices of that world, of which our Lord has said, Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world:' we would most earnestly de

sire to see the love of the world, and the fear of the world and the ways of the world, so completely eradicated from the hearts of our hearers, that our enemies might again declare with truth, These men have turned the world upside down,' have emptied the assemblies of the worldly, the haunts of the profligate, the dens of the drunkard, the theatres of the ungodly, as their predecessors did the temples of the devil; until the love of God in Christ Jesus, and the delights of His service, and the blessedness of a close and intimate companionship with Him, shall in the heart of every true believer, take the place of that system of idolatry and alienation from God, which is sealing up the world for the day of its final and irrevocable judgments.

[ocr errors]

My Christian brethren, has any such effect as this been produced within you? Has the world been overthrown in the temple of your heart? or is it still dominant, still paramount? Is that great and engrossing idol taken down from its pedestal only for this little hour, to be carefully replaced as soon as you leave this house, or, at the 1? This farthest, before another sun shall dawn upon you i is not sufficient: this is not the effect which the preaching of the gospel is intended to produce; the cross of a crucified Saviour cannot stand upon that pedestal to-day, on which the idol of the world is to be re-erected to-morrow, it refuses to stand side by side with it; it must be there alone, or it will not be there at all; your idol, like the Dagon of the Philistines, must be thrown down, broken to pieces, trampled under foot, or the work of the Spirit is not wrought within you, God is not honoured, Christ is not glorified, you are not serving him now, for you cannot serve God and mammon,' you will not serve him in eternity. Be warned then you who are temporising in this matter, living or vainly hoping to live, for both worlds, see the folly, the fruitlessness of the attempt. Pray that the world may be turned upside down' within your heart, that it may never be re-established, never resume its dominion, but lie there a broken and discarded idol, till even its very fragments shall be dissolved amidst the brightness of your Redeemer's coming.-Rev. Henry Blunt.

A CONTRAST.

FEW things strike us more forcibly than a good and bold contrast-and that of believing with infidelity is the broadest and most powerful of all. Many will recollect the poet Cowper's contrast,

Oh happy peasant, oh unhappy bard, His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward. It is well in these days of infidelity to see how infidels have died, to examine, how their vaunted principles have supported them in death. It is instructive to see how they have trembled at that which in health they then derided And of all, that of the Prince of Infidels of these latter days, Voltaire, is the most awful, the most instructive ex ample. Perhaps the following account of his death will be more striking when contrasted with that of one unknown to fame, unknown beyond the family in which she lived, but in that, still affectionately remembered, still talked of as one, though felt to be of that part the family which is in heaven. If these pages should reach the eye of any professed infidel, such as the Owenites or Socialists of the present time, let them consider, which death they should like to die. The following account is

of

The deathbed of Voltaire.

A secret desire, which time served only to inflame, recalled Voltaire to the former theatre of his labours and his glory. Surrounded by those who came from all Europe to do him homage, he felt nevertheless, a craving desire to receive the homage of Paris. He left his seat at Ferney in the middle of winter, at the age of eighty-four, and arrived alone in the capital.

"Paris was greatly changed since the time when Voltaire withdrew from it disgusted at the insult which had been cast upon him. Thirty revolving years had given men's minds another direction. One generation had disappeared, another had risen nurtured by the works of Voltaire, imbued with his principles; adoring his genius. Of his former enemies the greater number had descended to the tomb; the enmity of others had cooled by long absence; the rest were hushed to silence by the power of public opinion. The Encyclopædists so long oppressed, now directed that opinion, and that powerful sect prostrated itself before the glory of Voltaire; who, without adopting all its doctrines, was its declared ally and the protector of its cause. The patriarch of Ferney was received in the capital in triumph; all the honours that mortal could desire were heaped upon him. In the streets the multitude pressed upon his steps, rending the air with their loud acclamations. His levees were continually crowded. The nobles, the ministers, even the prelates, solicited the honour of being presented to him. The French Academy awarded him the Theatre Français. His own tragedy of Irene was performed. Voltaire came: at his entrance the whole assembly rose and hailed him with cries of enthusiasm; a crown was placed on the venerable head of the man of eighty. Between the two performances his statue was decorated with laurel by the actors, midst the rapturous plaudits of the enchanted multitude. This night Voltaire received the reward of the labour and conflicts of sixty years endured in the cause of humanity."

It might be that these deafening acclamations of the enchanted multitude, the transport of this fleeting hour, and the perishable wreath that crowned the silvery locks of fourscore years were an adequate reward for the toils and the conflicts, the jealousies and the vexations, the broken friendships, the contumely, and all the sufferings which had chequered a long life of singular prosperity. For the old man had passed through them all; had won his laurels nobly; had finished his course gloriously; and although now trembling on the brink of the grave, few of his fellow-mortals, who as himself must wither and fall away like the fading garland which adorned his brow, had grasped the honours it encircled. Voltaire believed not, and had taught others not to believe, that there was a crown of glory which fadeth not away-an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, everlasting. The Lord of Glory who had purchased that inheritance he had mocked, reviled, rejected. On Christ's religion, and all its proffered bliss, he had poured his bitterest ridicule, contempt, and scorn. He must now bow to fate-he must die. His dust must mingle with the clods of the valley, but the statue which he had Seen decorated by the adoring throng would hereafter fill the highest niche in the Temple of Fame, and the genius of Voltaire, and the monuments of that genius, would be immortal. While earth, and sun, and moon, should endure, its bright irradiations would shed a living iustre, and remote posterity would turn their admiring eyes to gaze on the light and glory of the 18th century.

There is yet another scene, the closing scene, of the life of Voltaire, which is matter of undoubted history, but which his panegyrist, as if it were holy ground, treads lightly over, in a single sentence.

"This triumph proved fatal to him. Such joys, such emotions, exhausted the feeble resources of life; he could

not support his bliss, and soon sinking under impressions too lively for his old age, he died of glory and fericity (il mourut de gloire et de felicite)."

Now turn we to his biographer, the Abbé de Baruel, who is more correct and minute in this particular, and whose narrative is confirmed by a letter from M. De Luc, an eminent philosopher, and a man of strict probity. Let us see, when the ecstatic thrill of these emotions had subsided, with what peace, serenity, and confidence, he encountered the King of Terrors; whether the peans of the multitude, as they lingered on his ear, could drown the knell of death, and sooth the last agonies, and calm the troubled spirit ere it fled; how the retrospect of past glory, and the glowing visions of future fame, could brighten the shadows of the dark valley, and cheer the long night of the grave.

"It was on his return from the theatre, and in the midst of the toils he was resuming in order to acquire fresh applause, when Voltaire was warned that the long career of his impiety was drawing to an end.

"In spite of all the sophisters flocking around him in the first days of his illness, he gave signs of wishing to return to the God whom he had so often blasphemed. His danger increasing, he wrote the following note to the Abbé Gaultier:-"You had promised Sir, to come and hear me. I intreat you would take the trouble of calling as soon as possible. Voltaire." He then confessed to the priest, and signed a declaration, that he died in the Holy Catholic Church, in which he was born; which declaration was carried to the Rector of St. Sulpice and the Archbishop of Paris, to know whether it would be sufficient. When the Abbé Gaultier returned with the answer, it was impossible for him to gain admittance to the patient. The conspirators had strained every nerve to hinder the Chief from consummating his recantation, and every avenue was shut to the priest whom Voltaire had sent for.

"Then it was that D'Alembert, Diderot, and about twenty others of the conspirators, never approached him, but to witness their own ignominy; and often he would curse them, and exclaim, Retire; It is you that have brought me to my present state! Begone! I could have done without you all; but you could not exist without me! and what a WRETCHED GLORY have you procured me!

"Then would succeed the horrid remembrance of his conspiracy. They could hear him the prey of anguish and dread, alternately supplicating or blaspheming that God, against whom he had conspired; and in plaintive accents he would cry out, Oh, Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ! and then complain that he was abandoned by God and men. The hand which had traced in ancient writ the sentence of an impious and reviling king, seemed to trace, Crush then, do crush the wretch. In vain he turned his head away; the time was coming apace when he was to appear before the tribunal of Him whom he had blasphemed; and his physicians, particularly M. Tronchin, calling in to administer relief, thunderstruck, retired, declaring that the death of the impious man was terrible indeed. The Marechal de Richelieu flies from the bed-side, declaring it to be a sight too terrible to be sustained; and M. Tronchin, that the furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those of Voltaire."

Such was the end of the long life of the most talented infidel who ever denied the Lord of Glory-such and so awful his death, let living infidels mark it well.

But how delightful to turn to the death bed of the Believer a member of a glorious church, overlooked by the world as it bustles along, but precious in the sight of the Lord.

Mary S. had gone through much bodily suffering it; had pleased her heavenly Father, after he had brought her to the knowledge of himself, to affl.ct her with severe and dangerous illnesses, so that she was often brought

« AnteriorContinuar »