Page images
PDF
EPUB

holder, he will need to take an interest, and contribute his quotum, and undertake his share of the work in the municipal affairs of the community. Civil and national affairs will appeal to him for an intelligent comprehension, and so much of practical help as lies in his power to give. The great social problem of the right relations between capital and labour will, either as a capitalist or a workman, as employer or as one employed, press upon him. The great social movements of the day will need to find in him at least an interested student, and, according to his convictions, to some extent a worker. The increase of his savings will probably require the devotion of time and thought to the subject of investments, and it may be that his duty to society will oblige him by and by to take part in the direction of other enterprises than belong to his own immediate business. Above all, the due performance of his religious duties will entail upon him the choice of a church, contribution to the funds by which it is maintained, active sympathy with the various modes of usefulness which are connected with his church, and personal assistance in such of them as are compatible with his genius, and not inconsistent with the other duties of his life.

From this rapid sketch, it will be seen that the ideal man, whose development I have so far been trying to trace, is to live a busy and useful external life; as well as an inner life of earnest and faithful thought, of deep and tender affection, of reverence for God, and of genuine service to man. I shall not pretend to trace all the harvest of the seed time; I could not if I would. Yet a few words on some of the topics thus indicated may perhaps be not altogether unprofitable. In the place of pre-eminence stand RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS.

So important is it that, from the very beginning of married life, should the young couple adopt the practice of evening and morning. prayer, that I recur to this point. Apart from the highest considerations, viz. that it is a duty we owe to God to express our gratitude for the mercies, our regret for the negligences, our contrition for the transgressions of the day or night; that we are not justified in hoping for a blessing on the day's toil, or the night's rest, on which we have been too indolent to ask for a blessing; that they who forsake and forget God must expect to forfeit the benefits, spiritual or temporal, only to be gained by the remembrance and worship of Him: even on domestic grounds the practice is most salutary. The mutual love of husband and wife will be both deepened and sanctified by their joining in this daily exercise. The nightly prayer will help them to shake

off the burden of the day's cares, irritations, and fatigues. Even newlymarried people do sometimes have differences of opinion, expressed also with tartness and temper, and in words which are forgiven long before they are forgotten: the constant observance of daily prayer prevents many a "jar" and heals many a wound. How in all good conscience can one quarrel with a person by whose side one is shortly about to kneel, and for a blessing upon whom one is presently to pray?

The practice also arrests, and may effectually prevent, the formation of the most pernicious of all mental habits, that of brooding over differences of opinion or feeling, nursing the snakes of painful memories and bitter reflections, till they grow strong and fatal, and sting love to death. Against this infernal propensity young married couples will do well to strive with all diligence and prayer. It has poisoned peace and petrified love in thousands of human hearts, and wrecked the happiness of many a home.

As a preparative for the day's work, morning prayer will be found most beneficial. The day will be brighter and better for it; the mind will be clearer and calmer for it; the heart will be rendered more tender and loving by means of it. The day's harassments will be more easily borne with, its duties more cheerfully done, its annoyances will be rendered less vexatious, and its pleasures enhanced by reason of those few minutes consecrated to God. The tie which binds together husband and wife will seem to them more sacred, their union more holy and more delightful, because they together have knelt before Him from whom all genuine and permanent love proceeds.

Private worship may be unspoken prayer, the meditation of a devout mind, the adoration of a revering spirit; but so soon as two or more unite in worship, prayer needs to be oral-"the worship of the heart and of the lips." Without communication there can be no full sympathy. Two persons cannot join in feeling and thought, if feeling and thought are never expressed in words. For my own part, the prayer that our Saviour taught us to use grows fuller and fuller of meaning the more frequently I utter it. It seems to cover all my wants, to include confession and supplication, acknowledgment of the Lord, and thanksgiving; it has the sanction of God; it is His appointment. Supplement it as you please, but most probably in the course of years, as you attain to simpler and more interior states of piety, you will find that it is sufficient, because so full.

It is also a religious duty to "eat our meat in thankfulness of heart.'

To the individual, "sitting at his solitary meal," this may be possible without oral thanksgiving. When, however, more than one join in the meal, they should unite in the worship: and the giving of thanks must needs become audible. To thank God for our food is not merely to thank Him for the provision which our labours have procured, but also for all the intermediate mercies by which food was rendered procurable for the physical and mental health enabling us to earn the wherewithal to obtain it; for His blessing on human labour by which it was brought within reach of our earnings; for the succession of seasons, the order and course of Nature, and all the complicated arrangements of commerce, some of the results of which stand upon our table, for the satisfaction of our physical wants and the gratification of our natural taste.

a

:

The meals of rational beings should be regarded as more than mere feeding times; they are social rites, at which the soul as well as the body may gain refreshment. "Love feasts" were adopted into the worship of the early Christian Church; and of these "love feasts" the modern "tea-meeting" is the latest memorial. Every social meal should be " love feast" for those who partake of it, and be sanctified by prefatory thanksgiving. In the utterance of the thanks, as in the oral prayer, the husband is the "priest" of the household, just as he officiates at the feast as its "master." The Lord's Church in its least form is in the individual, whether man or woman; in its next larger form, it is in the household; in the next larger, in the congregation; in the next larger, in all congregations of Christian worshippers; and in its largest form, in the General Assembly and Church of the First-born in heaven and on earth. Of the church in the household the husband is the "priest," under the Great High Priest, and the "king," under the King of kings. Of course he can, if and when he so chooses, temporarily delegate to another either of the positions, but the authority reverts. It cannot be permanently alienated, nor can its duties be habitually neglected without damage to the household.

From the consideration of domestic worship we pass to PUBLIC

WORSHIP.

Sunday is and must be a wearisome day to an active man and woman, and to whom the usual occupations of their daily lives are most properly forbidden. What shall we do with our Sunday? By far too many it is devoted to sleeping off the debauch of the previous evening, or in renewing it. Others devote it to indolence, heavier meals, visiting or receiving their friends. Others avail themselves of its

leisure by making pleasure excursions, or, when the weather is unpropitious, dedicate it to the novel or the newspaper. A very few consecrate it to the pursuit of knowledge in the way of study. In one or another, or all of these fashions, by turns, is the day worn out by a large proportion of the people of this country. Others find their happiness in the devotion of the whole day to the Sunday school and the church. I am not a rigid Sabbatarian. I think it would be better to open our museums, picture galleries, and free libraries to the public, rather than to keep open only our taverns and beer-shops,-though I think it would be better to close the public houses and to keep our museums closed. I regard visiting or receiving one's friends as a good thing, tending to keep alive social kindness and to unite families. I assuredly would not deny to the tired artisan, his wife and their children, the pleasure of a ramble beyond the limits of the dust, smoke, and grime of our manufacturing towns. I am satisfied that children ought to be helped to regard Sunday as the happiest of all days. Yet the leading idea of the right use of the Sunday, it seems to me, should be the development of the spiritual side of our nature. So far as I have seen, those who regularly devote at least a portion of the day to public worship lead more orderly, more contented, and happier lives than those who waste the day in idleness, frivolity, or worse. If only for having rescued the Sunday from the license which Roman Catholicism has everywhere extended to the afternoon and evening of that day, Protestantism deserves much from the world.

The mind burdened with the week's cares and reflections needs relief the best relief is furnished in the thorough change of thought and interest which worship affords. Intellectual life is enriched according to the value and diversity of thoughts which we encourage and entertain. Our daily life is certain to suggest abundance of worldly and self-regarding reflections. To thousands, the teachings of the pulpit are the only means within their reach of being reminded that life is fleeting, and that this world is not all; that they are souls clothed upon with bodies, and that the solemn responsibilities of life are not to be got rid of merely by forgetting them. Of course, those who are content to become totally indifferent as to the spiritual side of their nature, to grow thoroughly immersed in world-ward anxieties and ambitions, to live without God in this state, and to take their chance of what comes after death; to whom conviviality and good fellowship are the highest aspiration and their noblest idea of enjoyment,-such will pursue their way. With such, light reading, games of chance or

skill, abundance of food, pleasant company, frivolous talk, and copious libations will continue to fritter away the time, and help them to "kill the Sunday."

To those who have been quickened into a consciousness of spiritual life, who feel the pressure of spiritual necessities; who need to praise and pray; who love to hear the Gospel preached and the Divine Word explained; who, moved by heavenly charity, desire to help in teaching to the young heavenly wisdom; who yearn to see sinners turned from the errors of their way; who delight in being led to contemplate eternity and eternal truths; who are glad to be assisted in scanning their own motives, in mourning their transgressions, in striving against the evils of their own hearts, in forming better resolutions, and in keeping them; who have learned the sweet lessons of love to God, and, for the sake of God, of love to man,-to such nothing requires to be said. To them "the house of prayer is the gate of heaven." To them the promise has often been fulfilled, and for ever stands sure, that those who "wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." It is not the desire to worship which ever induces people to absent themselves from church. The union of a vast concourse in worship suggests thoughts and inspires feelings which cannot be obtained in the privacy of individual prayer or the solitude of home. Men act on men. There is a contagion of enthusiasm in large numbers. To add a new cell to a galvanic battery does not merely increase the power of the battery by one; it multiplies by a new factor the strength of all the rest; the ratio of increase is geometrical, not arithmetical: so is it morally among men. The worship of heaven is subjectively potent in the souls of the worshippers according as there is an innumerable multitude uniting in the worship. How can religious services be otherwise than cold when churches are nearly empty, and the preacher is "starved" by the apathy of those to whom he ministers ?

Especially is it the duty of parents, when children have grown to be old enough to accompany them, to make attendance at worship a regular practice. Certainly the clergyman or minister is the parents' truest ally; just as in the regulation of the family religion is the best help. If for no other reason, for the sake of accustoming children to habits of domestic order; of teaching children the duty, from religious grounds, of honouring and obeying their parents; of impressing upon them respect for holy things, and of bringing their young minds under the influence of feelings of devotion, self-sacrifice, and veneration; the importance of public worship is self-evident. Reverence is one of the

« PreviousContinue »