Part 24 (1/2)
It is doubtless true that Christ meant to teach a practical lesson with reference to our tender watch-care of the little ones during His third brief interview with His disciples, after His resurrection. We read:
”So, when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith to him, yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
”He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
”He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
Amid such a scene so truthfully depicted in the above narrative, we behold the insecurity of the children. What a sad sight. An intemperate father and no Bible in the house. What a statement in this land of Bibles! Oh, what fearful consequences hang upon the conduct of parents.
What would become of the ma.s.ses in the lower part of the city, were it not for our truly devoted Bible women? What victories for Christ and His Church have been achieved--who can tell?
The cheering light that dawned upon the deeply bereaved mother when her boy was killed, is beheld as we, in imagination, take our stand by the bedside with them, and hear that sorrow-stricken mother exclaiming, ”_that the Lord was helping her_.” This is a striking proof that He who comforted Martha and Mary, at Bethany, was in that tenement-house, saying once again, ”I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live.” Yes, helping her to look beyond this vale of tears, and say even amid the loss of her darling boy, ”Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Surely the language of Job must have been experienced on an occasion like the above. ”When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me: Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.”--Job xxix. 11-15.
There is a very comforting reflection for bereaved parents in Dr.
Payson's ”Comparison of Departed Children to Jewels.” To a mother mourning the death of a child, he said:
”Suppose, now, some one was making a beautiful crown for you to wear, and you knew it was for you, and that you were to receive it and wear it as soon as it should be done. Now, if the maker of it were to come, and in order to make the crown more beautiful and splendid, were to take some of _your jewels_ to put into it, should you be sorrowful and unhappy because they were taken away for a little while, when you knew they were gone to make up your crown?”
In endeavoring humbly to interpret the language of the deceased, and, at the same time, call attention to her superior magnanimity of heart, I would not for a moment dare to make it appear that I was compromising human merit with the free, rich grace of our Heavenly Father, so richly displayed in His imparted _power_ to His children, enabling them to do valiantly in the salvation of souls. This power is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Just listen to the closing sentence of the last paragraph: ”_I can truly say of myself I can do nothing!_” though I can also, I hope, add, ”_I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me_.” Ah! here is the secret of distinguished merit in the great conflict against all the forms of evil in the world. The instruction to the disciples were to tarry until they received this Divine strength. Tarry, how? Well, let us read the record:
”To whom also He shewed himself alive after his pa.s.sion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of G.o.d: And, being a.s.sembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, sayeth he, ye have heard of me. _For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence._ When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, 'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.'
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.”--Acts i. 3-9.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PEACE THROUGH BELIEVING.
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Wealth that can never be told;-- Riches exhaustless of mercy and grace, Precious, more precious than gold!
At the sixty-eighth annual meeting of the New York Female Auxiliary Bible Society, the Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor, in his earnest masterly address on the occasion, happily said:
”In the prosecution of the excavations at Pompeii, the workmen laid bare an ancient spring, the water of which, as soon as it was set free, flowed forth as copiously as ever, and carried refreshment with it wherever it went. For centuries it had been buried beneath the ashes of the volcano, but the moment it was again uncovered, it sent out its stream of blessing with all its pristine fulness and wholesome influence.
”Something like that was the work which Martin Luther did for the fountain of truth in the Sacred Scriptures. For many generations that had been virtually stopped up by the rubbish of tradition and entombed beneath the weight of authority, but by his st.u.r.dy strength, his steady persistence and his dauntless courage, he dug it clear again; and it became once more, as at the first, the well-head of the river of progress among the nations.”
What was said of the great German Reformer can be truthfully applied to this humble mother in Israel.
At the above meeting it was stated that this Missionary woman in her advanced age made four hundred and forty visits in two months, she had read the Scriptures in many homes, prayed with a large number, comforted dying believers with Christian song, administered first aid to the injured; thus bringing into practical use the instructions _she_ had received, and receiving the commendations of physicians, distributed religious reading, and suspended the ”Words of Life” in the rooms of the sick. Streams from this uncovered fountain of truth are turned by the cheerful, willing, working hands, heads, and hearts of our Bible women into human habitations in this city, where degradation, poverty, drunkenness, vice, and squalor sink the inmates to the level of brutes.