Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

rated faculty that it works marvels, and were it uninterrupted it would effect still more, for is it not omnipotent? Miracles would be hourly wrought if the Lord Jesus dwelt always in our hearts, for he is a wonder-worker wherever he takes up his abode. As when spring comes it sends a thrill down deep into nature's heart, and rouses her from her long winter's sleep to enter upon a summer of delight, even thus the uprising of the Sun of Righteousness within the soul quickens and awakens all the inner man, and produces a time of blissful fruitfulness. What abundant reasons have we, whose life and liveliness depend wholly upon him, to pray without ceasing, "Lord, abide with us!" Without Jesus we are nothing, but when he abides in us we are filled with all the fulness of God.

"As some rare perfume in a vase of clay

Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So, when thou dwellest, in a mortal soul,

All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown.

"The soul alone, like a neglected harp,

Grows out of tune, and needs that hand divine:
Dwell thou within it, tune and touch the chords,
Till every note and string shall answer thine.
"Abide in me: there have been moments blest

When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power;
Then evil lost its grasp; and passion, hush'd,
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour.
"These were but seasons, beautiful and rare;
Abide in me, and they shall ever be ;
Fulfil at once thy precept and my prayer,
Come and abide in me, and I in thee."

Not alone does communion with Jesus quicken us, it also chases away all the evils which had been prowling within the recesses of our being, even as the light of dawn compels the beasts of the forest to hide themselves. Sunlight is life and health to plants; they are sallow and blanched without it, and their juices grow poisonous; herein they fitly image our need of our good Lord's light and love. They say in Rome that a room on the shady side of the street is to be avoided, for where the sun does not enter the physician must. Many believers have found out to their cost that it is ill living out of fellowship with the Well-beloved; bitter medicine has been required to drive out the maladies engendered by failing to continue in Jesus' love. Yet there is no cure for the loss of fellowship, except fellowship itself. If absence of Jesus makes us sick, Jesus alone can work our cure Virtue goes out of him, a touch heals us, an embrace confirms us in all that is pure and strong. If we are sick even unto death, there is no necessity to resort to the acrid remedies of remorse, or the sharp potions of Moses and Sinai; our wisdom is to send at once for Jesus only, for he is all we need. We need not hesitate because we have been so cold towards him; he will come and heal us, notwithstanding our misbehaviour; no one is so slow to take offence as he is. When the Laodicean church was so infected with disease as to be at death's door, she had a remedy close at hand, she had only to open the door to him who knocked so lovingly, and bid him enter and sup with her

and all her lukewarmness would have vanished at once. She was wretched and miserable, and poor and naked, but she was not bidden to send her ships to far off lands to bring home rare aromatics and foreign gems: no, her own loving Lord said, "I counsel thee to buy of ME." In him was all that she needed from every point of view; there was no need to call in another. Jesus is not only the medicine of dying sinners, but also of sick saints. We may go to him always, even as we went to him at first: he saved us then, he will revive us now; our unfaithfulness has not diminished his power to save. In this weary time of declension, when men are hot for the world, and only cold towards their best Friend, when religion has become more a name than a reality, all saintly eyes should be directed to Jesus as the panacea for the diseases both of the world and of the church. Thither would we turn our eyes, and sigh within our soul for the near and dear companionship of our own Lord..

[blocks in formation]

Since fellowship with Jesus so wonderfully quickens and heals the soul, it is wonderful that any believer can live without it, and yet how very few, comparatively, are in the constant enjoyment of it. If we were to ask many a professor, "How long is it since you enjoyed real communion with Jesus ?" he would find it difficult to answer. The great mass of professors are too much taken up with the world, too busy, too careful, too frivolous, or too unbelieving. They might feast every day upon the bread of heaven, but they prefer to starve or fill their mouths with the husks of earth; they might dwell in the palace of the great King, but they are content to abide in the smoke-grimed tents of Kedar. Was there ever a drearier infatuation? Milton pictures the fallen angel as wearing in Eve's bower the form of a toad, but how much greater is the degradation when the Bride of Christ prefers to wear the appearance of a mole or an earthworm! It is shameful for an heir of heaven to choose this musty, mildewed world, and neglect the ever fresh and sparkling beauties of Immanuel. Our place is in the Saviour's bosom, and that always and for ever. There is no need for us to suspend our communion, and no need can ever arise. The order of the Lord's household never renders it necessary that the bride of Christ should be on ill terms with her husband; all that mars their

fellowship is outside of the Lord's arrangements and sinful. Never shall it be said "Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount." For ever here our rest must be. Jesus wearing the memorials of his dying love, and girt with the glories of his risen life, should be our perpetual company, his presence the sun which warms us, his love the atmosphere we breathe, his words our food, himself our all in all.

Brethren, the new year is within sight, and it will be a happy thing for us if we begin it upon a higher platform, with higher resolves, and enlarged faith. The time past may suffice us to have yielded to worldliness, and to the motions of sin in our members; it is time to rise out of the murky atmosphere of the fens of earth into the unclouded blue of "glory begun below." We may live the life of heaven upon carth. We are not shut up to dull, cold formalism, to doubting and trembling, or to wandering and backsliding. The highest forms of fellowship with Jesus are as open to us as to those who have gone before us: faith can reach them beyond all question. Let our resolve be deeply fixed and earnestly carried out, and so 1874 will be a glad and lightsome year, a year of the right hand of the Most High, and in very deed a YEAR OF OUR LORD. C. H. S.

Notes Concerning the Stockwell Orphanage.

THE

BY C. H. SPURGEON.

HE Orphanages of our country are a great blessing, but while alleviating a vast amount of distress, it cannot be denied that some of them incidentally create much sorrow. The system of admission by votes, entailing great labour and expense in canvassing, is in itself a heavy yoke; but when those who have done their utmost fail at the end of the election, the grief they feel is of the bitterest kind. We have a few hours ago received a letter commencing

"DEAR SIR,-By reading my printed appeal you will see that I have been for two years embarked in an expensive and fatiguing canvass, and the election on the 27th being our last permitted poll, I am well nigh desperate."

Such instances frequently come before us. Widows will spend from £20 to £50 in trying to secure the election of their children, and lose their object after all. The Daily News mentions a case in which £60 was spent to secure admission into one of the hospitals (we suppose for incurables), and was spent in vain. Imagine the heartbreak of the defeated candidate!! A great effort has been made, friends have been hunted up, and their generosity well tested, and all for nothing; the grand struggle has come to a close, and the needy one is in greater straits than ever. The witness of the daily press is a sorrowful one. "When the poll is over, and the result is known, the most trying scenes are witnessed. The defeated immensely outnumber the successful candidates, and they give way to their disappointment and grief. A poor widow has spent all she had or could get from her friends in the

canvass for her crippled boy, and has failed. Two or three women have undertaken six months' work for a dependent relative, and their labour and sacrifices are in vain. The manifestations of disappointment are distressing. And this is charity! this is how institutions supported by voluntary contributions' make so large a show to the world."

6

Thank God, from the Stockwell Orphanage no widow ever goes away lamenting over time, labour, and money spent in vain. The worst that can happen to her is to be refused, because there is no room, or her case is not so bad as that of others; not a shilling will have been drained from her to print cards, to post applications, or to purchase votes, nor a day spent in securing influence, and cringing for patronage. Her case is judged upon its merits, and the most necessitous wins the day. We have now so many applicants, and so few vacancies, that women with two or three children are advised not to apply, for while there are others with five, six, or seven dependent upon them, they stand but little chance. The trustees are not open to influence and decline to submit to private pressure, they leave the cases to the persons appointed to judge of their merits. Where donors give sums which more than cover the expense of a child, the trustees naturally defer to their wishes, and accept their recommendations if they can do so in accordance with the rules of the institution; but money sent with the view of promoting the election of A or B is respectfuliy returned, as this would lead to a course of action totally at variance with that which we have hitherto pursued. By our system cases are really inquired into, and, as a rule, the most destitute obtain the benefits of the school. This entails great labour, and frequently necessitates delay, for the investigations are carried on by gentlemen in business, whose time is much occupied, and no person is paid to do the work. The inquiries are intended to be thorough and searching, and as a rule they are so, though of course much must depend upon the tact and care of the person who acts as visitor to the case. Every effort is made to secure the benefits of the Orphanage to those who are most in need, and no applicant is left to the chances of a poll. Surely this must commend itself to the common sense of all benevolent persons, and they will do well to show their appreciation by aiding institutions so conducted.

It must not, however, be concealed that the common mode of electing orphans to schools by the votes of subscribers and canvassing is a great means of procuring funds. Very few of the institutions would live at all if the system were altered; it is essential to their very existence; the elections are their harvests, their sources of income, their props and pillars. Guineas are subscribed for particular cases, and the widows and their friends are practically collectors for the school, whippers-up of the donors, and pleaders for the charity. Rich old Hunks would not give his 10s. 6d. if he had not a voting-paper for it, nor even then, if it had not happened that the orphan's father was killed on his premises. The plan is not the best in the world, but it is the most easy in practice, and it would be dangerous to do away with it at present. Better that a good thing should be done in the secondbest manner than not done at all. Election by subscribers brings

subscribers, canvassing reminds them of their obligations, and the poll secures the discharge of them. When a school receives children without voting or canvassing, it loses all these advantages, and must count upon no such assistances. It is not every orphanage which could venture to give up the old system, or would long survive if it did. The Stockwell Orphanage is an exceptional case altogether, it is conducted by those who believe in God's power to supply the orphan's needs, and they prayerfully leave their cares at his feet: it is also connected, through its president, with a large Christian church, and a body of earnest believers all over the world, who take an interest in its welfare. Hence it has no need to use doubtful modes of raising money; but can afford to follow the best rather than the most expedient way. Yet its managers feel that providing the needful funds is, from the human side of it, no light matter, and they dare not condemn the methods of others, nor would they join in the popular clamour which is likely to assail kindred institutions, for they feel that it is more easy to find fault than to suggest really practical improvements. Their own experience has, however, confirmed them in the belief that theirs is a more excellent way, and they appeal to all who approve of their method of procedure to support them in it by constant, regular, and generous gifts.

In the internal management of the Orphanage, our course has been, as a rule, very smooth and happy, but we could hardly expect it to proceed always without trouble and sorrow. Boys are boys all the world over, and their nature is not changed by entering within the enclosures of the Stockwell Home. All is done which can be done to render them obedient, industrious, truthful, and devout; and we are always ready to learn, and to practise what others have proved to be valuable. The admission of new boys is always a trial. Children come into ordinary families as very welcome and very little strangers, but our increase comes to us sometimes in the form of boys of nine or ten, who have bad habits, evil antecedents, and ill dispositions. We do not pretend to take or to retain boys who are only fit for reformatories; but some such will get in, and they bring with them moral disease, which is as apt to spread as an epidemic. Then come times of battling with sin and crying to the Lord for help. Parents with a few children may imagine the heartaches which come to those who manage hundreds, and lovingly desire their welfare. Parents have, however, a hold over their children which we have not, for they are parents, and that fact confers upon them the mystic sceptre of supreme authority. A wise writer has put our experience into a handy shape for us, and we quote her words. "It is sad to see the effects on the moral character of the lack of parental influence. Nothing is more difficult than to bring up the orphan well; and children whose parents are in India often show the same evil tendencies as do orphansimpatience of control, restlessness, and wilfulness; healthy, loving, family discipline being unknown to them. Would that parents thought more of the ill effects upon their children of their long-continued separation from them, and that they would not content themselves with doing by proxy what God commands them to do, to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Orphanages are under a peculiar disadvantage as to education, the

« AnteriorContinuar »