We are content with the beginnings of grace, and forget that larger portions of grace will be given us if we seek for them. We are content with rudiments and take no pains to go on unto perfection. If we were careful to follow up and improve by meditation the light which is given, or which is ready to be given to us in prayer, we should be encouraged by success. We should be enlightened. We should taste of the heavenly gift. should be made partakers of the Holy Ghost. We should taste the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. I am the light of the world, saith Christ. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. Do we open the door to let in Christ to sup with us? Do we endeavour with all our might to keep His words? Can we in conscience say that we are accustomed to the best of our power, duly to observe meditation as a daily duty, as a devotional exercise, and as a scriptural rite? Do we so meditate as to drive the heart forward, to convince it with motives, to preach to ourselves concerning the precepts and prohibitions, the promises and threatenings of Scripture? Do we summon and employ all the powers of our mind in this rational, scriptural, and sanctifying ordinance of meditation, assigning all the powers of the mind their determinate and daily tasks, that we may bring the Gospel into our heart, that we may show the wonderful power of Christ in forming the new creature after his own likeness, that we may let our light shine before men by giving ample and convincing proof that the message of God to the soul has not been sent in vain, that it is indeed put into our inward parts and written in our heart? We have within us the fountain of infinite consolations, but we suffer it to remain a fountain sealed. Alas! we neglect the gift that is in us. Of the minds of most of us it may be said, I went by the field of the slothful, and lo it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Our judgment slumbers. Our memory (for want of due inquiry as to the use and extent of it,) lies altogether idle, or is worse than idle. Our imagination (instead of being compelled to serve us in the apprehension and illustration of heavenly truth) is suffered to take the lead, and to befool us by perpetually infusing false notions, and suggesting wrong estimates of human life. Man sits with chart and compass tracing out his journey to unknown regions. Imagination and Memory are his attendants, each useful if rightly governed. Imagination with forward demeanour and painted aspect is perpetually gaining an undue ascendant over him to his cost; Memory is modest and retiring, but has charms unspeakable, which partly from natural dislike to her kindred, (she being allied to truth, as Imagination is to Fiction) and partly from sheer want of observation, escape his notice. Imagination is for ever pressing upon him the cup of intoxication; Memory stands in readiness to administer to him the bread of life. Imagination holds him in darkness, fluttering like the bat; Memory would teach him to soar like the eagle and court the sun-beams of Truth. Imagination hurries him into her balloon, into empty regions where he has no concern, and from whence he may dangerously fall; Memory has ready for his use the camel of the desert, laden with water and provisions to carry him over the tedious and necessary tracks through which his journey lies. Imagination tosses him to and fro by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive; Memory helps him to stand, having his loins girt about with truth. Imagination fans and flatters the desires of the flesh and of the mind; Memory reminds him of the hope of his calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance. Imagination advocates the cause of the flesh, saying, Soul, take thine ease; Memory advocates the cause of the Spirit, saying, Awake, thou that sleepest! We do all we can to render our memory useless in a spiritual point of view. We suffer it to languish in idleness, and we abuse it in many other ways. We misuse our memory in idle reading, for which many plausible reasons are assigned. Lan guage and memory were given to us to help our sanctification and salvation. But we make playthings of them all our lives, and gravely justify the abuse. I have heard of an essay having been written on light reading, by which is generally understood a kind of waking dream, a temporary resignation of the rudder of the vessel to imagination; but when we have gained a disrelish for the vanities of this world and taste the powers of the world to come; when we have gained a disrelish for what does not advance, much more for what retards our new and regenerate life, watchfully avoiding whatever inspires inordinate love to the world, hating (and we are often at over much pains to explain the phrase away,) our life in this world that we may keep it unto life eternal; when we have learned, instead of having such pleasure in vanity and seeking after leasing to hate lies under every form and disguisement, and to rejoice in the truth; when we desire not to be partly but wholly sanctified; to keep our lamp always trimmed and burning; and that the needle of our compass should point north with as little trembling, wavering, and variation as possible; when we desire to be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, we shall cut this matter very short, and write the essay on light reading in two words by saying “renounce it." Light reading is a growing evil. It is the bane of millions. It has injured us all more or less. We have all been too slow in putting away these childish things; we have fed on these husks too long, cherishing the growth of weeds which obstruct the seed of life, wasting our time and strength, labouring to draw water from these broken cisterns instead of from the wells of salvation. It would have been better for many of us if we had never learned to read at all. Scarcely any amusement gives the mind a greater disrelish for the truth, because, to say the least of it, it preoccupies and blunts the edge of those very powers which should be kept for a sacred use. Shall we desecrate the gold and silver vessels of the temple for a common feast? Shall we exhaust the bellows of the organ in an idle song? Shall the understanding, passions, imagination, memory, and will, shall the whole temple, the temple of the Holy Ghost be profaned by a free admission of all which offers itself, not to one of the priests but to one of the door-keepers, not to the judgment but to the imagination? We are surrounded by Satan's delusions within and without, behind and before, and on every side, and the press is too useful an engine to escape his hands. By the multitude of thoughts which it suggests the Lord's comforts are kept from refreshing our soul. The less we indulge ourselves in light reading, (and by leaving it off it soon ceases to be an indulgence,) the more room we shall make in our hearts to receive the word of life. We misuse our memory in graver employments. We misuse it in laborious reading. It is quite as possible to misuse it in laborious reading as in light reading. Indeed, from our youth upwards, |