GLEANINGS.* I. PRAYER. THERE is a tranquillity and fortitude which prayer inspires amid the troubles of life. When a good man has opened all the secrets of his soul to God, he begins to taste the hidden manna. It is like the fragrance of those flowers that perfume the air. When he went into the presence of God, perhaps with injured feelings, malignant or oppressed, he there drops his burden-all becomes calm and serene, and with his passions more pure, his benevolence more ardent, he returns into the world. This duty of private prayer will prepare you, beyond every other, for death. We must all soon die. How is it that men, when they come to die, begin to pray-even those who have never come to the house of God? but would they not pray better, think you, if they had been accustomed to it? Which is most likely to be accepted that man that is pushed into the presence of the Supreme Being by the force of destiny, or that man who has sought him by prayer? The dying man, who has been delighted with the thought of being with God-that event which destroys every other hope, is but the commencement of his-As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. Come, then, let us bow down and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Whatever your condition be, turn to the Lord, that your prosperity may be holy, and your afflictions sanctified. Young persons, you are just embarked in a tempestuous ocean; you soon will be involved in storms where many wise men, many noble, have been sunk; let prayer be your polar star what can guide and protect you but this? --- -- Seek, my brethren, repose by prayer. If your mind be overwhelmed with trouble and anxiety, go into the presence of God, spread your case before Him; though He knows the desires of your hearts, yet He has declared He will be sought after. Go, therefore, into the presence of that God, who will at once tranquillize your heart, give you what you wish, or make you more happy without it, and who will be your everlasting consolation if you trust in Him, breathing peace into your soul, and commanding tranquillity in the midst of the greatest storms. How much are they to be pitied who never pray! the world is to them all gloom, for there they see none of the kindness and protection of our heavenly Father. We do not wonder that the sorrow of the world worketh death, with the distresses that human nature is exposed to. Prayer is the sovereign remedy; use it, therefore. Try this medi Chiefly from the memoranda of John Greene, Esq. VOL IV.-4 M cine. In every season of affliction, whatever you feel of present distress, or fear of future calamity, go to God, before whom none ever bowed in vain, and He will bow the heavens and come down, and fill your souls with peace and consolation; with that peace of God which passeth all understanding, with a sense of his favour, of reconciliation with Him, and an interest in his everlasting love. This preserves the heart of man in the greatest troubles, in the midst of the greatest cares, and from the incursion of ten thousand enemies. If your hearts and minds lie open to corrosion and care, what signifies how great or how famous you are? If you could silence all the world, yet, with such a clamour in a man's own heart, a civil war within, his passions in a state of confusion, what would it avail? And this is always the case with the wicked; they are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest; but that peace of God which passeth all understanding will keep and preserve in the soul a region of light in the midst of Egyptian darkness; and were discord to ravage the earth, there it could not reach. Let us, then, my brethren, seek after this peace of God by prayer and supplication. Seek relief from that quarter. Whatever uneasiness of mind you feel, go into the presence of your God, bow your knees before Him, there deprecate your case, then seek forgiveness through Christ as a Mediator; open to Him all your sorrows; He is the only being who will always attend to you. Friends, in many cases, can only shed tears, and increase your sorrows by mingling them with your own; but He can give you light in the midst of darkness, He can give you eternal happiness. Let us, then, make all our requests known to Him. II. NEAR VIEWS OF GOD. but now HUMILITY and repentance are the result of large acquaintance with God. Job said, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, mine eye seeth thee. It expresses two kinds of knowledge-the one speculative, the other practical. He had formerly a distant and vague acquaintance of God, without contemplating Him by that faith which seeth him who is invisible. He now had an intimate, a deep and practical sense of God, very different from the mere vague conceptions he had when he only heard of Him; that knowledge which is practical, deep, intimate, and profound. The two effects were humility and repentance. Humility is produced by the sight of his greatness, repentance by a knowledge of his purity. It is the union of these that form the idea of God. III. THE IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. LIFE is not to be marked by its felicities, but by its duties. Preserve order in the arrangement of time; distribute it into parts: for the want of this method many persons never succeed in the most virtuous employments; many cares rush upon them, and, having no plan, all will be distraction and hurry. Never depart from your plan because of slight inconveniences. It includes in it the making a right use of the leisure and interstices of life. Some seasons will occur of this kind; a right use of these form the character; for men are more formed and moulded by the choice of their amusements than by the force and pressure of business. Let your leisure be often employed in reading the Scriptures, in meditation, and in prayer. Let the Bible be always at hand; frequently take a cordial of comfort from it. Read religious books; learn to make a right use of your sacred time, to weed the soul from sin, and to dress it for immortality: these will have a decisive influence upon the happiness or misery of eternity. Consider how short and transitory time is; all the images that can express frailty have been employed and heaped upon life. One writer compares it to leaves, another to a shadow and a dream. The Apostle James compares it to a vapour, which the sun exhales, and then it disappears; and compared with the protracted life of the patriarchs, it sinks into a point; for that which in a time will be nothing, is nothing. It is a narrow isthmus dividing two oceans; an eternity past and to come. A happy or miserable eternity depends upon a right improvement of your time. Since we cannot count upon time, let us redeem it; your only time is that which is present. Satan steals away our time by stealing the present. In the view of God, we are contemporaries with him. The difference of time influences our imagination, but makes no alteration with God. Attend to the sentiments and feelings of dying men upon the value of life: they are on the confines of two worlds; they are passing through one, and they have a prospect of another. One month! one day more! They would esteem days above diamonds. When Grotius was dying, he was asked what he would recommend to others. He replied, "Be serious, be serious." But two words— all his vast knowledge induced him to express it in two words! There are many without half his learning who would think their understandings insulted by such a request. Do not say, To-morrow I will reform-to-morrow I will subdue my passions. To-morrow may never come! |