Church of England

SUNDAY SCHOOL QUARTERLY

MAGAZINE.

2ND JULY, 1860.

The Teacher in his Closet.

A HANDFUL OF CORN FROM OLD FIELDS,

LOVE TO MAN.

THE condemned probably derive all their misery from their utter incapability of loving and being beloved.

Then drawing me to him agayn, presentlie murmurs, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Oh, no! not worthy to be compared. I have lived, I have laboured, I have loved. I have lived in them I love; laboured for them I loved; loved them for whom I have laboured; my labour has not been in vain. To love and to labour is the sum of living, and yet how manie think they live, who neither labour nor love. Agayn, how manie labour and love, who are not loved again, but I have beene loved, and my labour has not been in vayn. Now the day is farre spent, and the night forecloseth, and the time draweth nigh when man resteth from his labours of love; but he shall love and he shall live, where the Spirit sayeth he shall rest from his labour, and where his works do follow him, for he entereth into rest, through, and to Him, who is life, and light, and love.

"Household of Sir Thomas More."

I have often observed in the course of my experience of human life, that every man, even the worst, has something good about him, though very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution, inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason no man can say in what degree another person besides himself can be with strict justice called wicked. Let any of the strictest character for regularity of conduct amongst us, examine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity; and how many weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of temptation. I say any man, who can thus think, will scan the failings, nay the faults and crimes of mankind around him with a brother's eye.

Burns.

Meg! the time has been when methought how sweet the living death of the cloister. How good that must needs be, which had the suffrages of Chrysostom the golden-mouthed, and holy Ambrose, and our own Anselm. How peaceful to take wing like the dove, and fly away from a naughty world and be at rest. How brave to live alone like St. Antony in the desert; only I would have some booke with me in my cave, and 'tis uncertain whether St. Antony had knowledge of letters, beyond the heaven-taught lesson, "God is love;" for methought soe much reflection and no action would be too much for a woman's mind to bear. I might goe mad; and I remembered me how the dove that gladly flew away from the ark, gladly flew back and abode in the ark till such time as a new home was ready for her. And methought, cannot I live apart from sin here and now; and as

to sorrow, where can we live apart from that? Surely we may live on the skirts of the world, in a spirit as truly unworldlie, as though we were altogether out of it; and here I may come and go, and read my Psalter, and pore over the sayings of the wise men of old, and look on the faces I love, and sit at the feet of Sir Thomas More. So, Meg, there are my poor reasons for not being a nun.

"Household of Sir Thomas More."

Queen Elizabeth was so partial to her brother, that whenever she tried her pen, the name of her beloved Edward was written over and over again.

D'Israeli.

That we are unprofitable servants is certain; but though unprofitable to Him, we may be profitable to each other, which is one of the duties we have to perform, and one that we may be sure, will give satisfaction to our Maker.

Our superfluities should be given up for the conveniences of others, our conveniences should give place to the necessities of others; and even our necessities give way to the extremities of others.

John Howard.

Children should be enured as early as possible to acts of charity and mercy. Constantine, as soon as his son could write, employed his hand in siguing pardons, and delighted in conveying through his mouth all the favours he granted. A noble introduction to sovereignty, which is instituted for the happiness of mankind.

Jortin.

I lament the sad and mournful estrangement of Christian from Christian in the Church below; that so many treading the same heavenly journey, with the same glorious portals in view, should be following separate and diverse footpaths, that so many brethren in the Lord, whose interchanges ought to be all love, should be looking coldly and censoriously on one another. How little of the spirit which of old provoked the testimony even of heathen gainsayers;"See how these Christians love."

From "Morning Watches."

THE ISLE OF PATMOS.

AMONG the beautiful and fertile islands that stud the Ægean Archipelago is the barren, sterile island of Patmos. All around it is beauty and luxuriance, but it is desolate and drear. A more lonely dwelling-place can scarcely be imagined. On the bleak hillside a cave is pointed out as having been the abode of the “beloved disciple" whilst an exile here.

The soul is not to be trammelled by place or scene. The drearineas of Patmos did not overcloud the spiritual vision of St. John the Divine. Alone, away from everything which adds a charm to life expatriated to that desert spot, "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ," there it was that St. John, the beloved of Christ on earth, was so highly favoured by his ascended Lord, as to be permitted to see sights which other human eye hath not yet seen, to hear sounds of which other human hear hath not heard. There he saw the glorified Son of Man; there he saw a bright procession-the hundred and forty and four thousand having the name of God written on their foreheads; there he heard the voice of heaven's harmonies and heaven's praise, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunderings; there he heard the harpers harping upon their harps; there he heard the new song sung before the throne of the Lamb by the redeemed from the earth; there he saw the messenger of God commissioned to bear the everlasting Gospel of his grace to all people; there he heard the voice that gave to him, and through him to all men, a sure and certain hope of the resurrection from the dead, and that showed him all the glory that should be when the tabernacle of God should visibly be with men.

Wondrous was that unveiling of the hidden mysteries of God which was vouchsafed to St. John in his lonely Patmos dwellingplace.

Dear reader, does all around you seem dull and desolate compared with the lives of those you know, as does the barren island of Patmos compared with the other islands of the Egean? St. John was a disciple of Jesus Christ, and in the beginning of his Book of Revelation, he calls himself " your brother and companion in tribulation." Are you a disciple of Christ? If so, why should you not turn your mourning into joy, and rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer with Christ, so that you be glorified together? "No cross, no crown."

To St. John the glorious visions of the Apocalypse were revealed when men would have judged his situation to be one of hopeless misery. To you God's better way may be shown when you seem most hedged in by thickest troubles.

Whatever, then, be the dreariness or sadness of your present lot, “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him," remembering the blessed promise He has given,-" He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son."

"Henceforth my one desire shall be,

That He who knows me best shall choose for me;

And so whate'er His love sees good to send,

I'll trust is best, because He knows the end."

L. J.

PERSEVERANCE.

Ir is many years ago, and when I was a very young teacher, that I recollect it happened to be my good fortune to meet with a lady, the wife of a clergyman, who, after enquiring whether I still continued to teach in a Sunday school, and having been answered in the affirmative, observed,—“I see you are acting upon our Lord's advice,— 'No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God," I do not think the words she quoted made any strong impression upon me at the time, but I look back now, through the vista of many years, and am able to trace what encouragement to perseverance, and what warning against declension in active labour for God, they have afforded to me since.

My readers will remember the occasion on which they were first uttered. The young man who had heard our Lord's discourse enthusiastically expressed his readiness to become His disciple;—" I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest:" but seems to have hesitated when he heard that He "had not where to lay his head."