FRIENDLY VISITOR. No. 290. NOVEMBER, 1842. A FEEBLE DISCIPLE. VOL. 24. That What made him so? It was not ill-health. might make one feeble in body; but it could not make one feeble as a disciple. Some of the strongest disciples we have ever seen, were persons of poor health and frail bodies. We have seen those that excused their feeble piety by their feeble health, but we could not see any thing but feebleness in such a pretence. Chastisement of the body is wholesome discipline for the soul; and we have seen a soul get a new pair of wings with which to soar towards heaven, by that very chastisement which others made an excuse for having no wings at all. Perhaps it was scoffs and reproaches that discouraged and enfeebled that disciple. But this could not have been without his own concurrence. Scoffs are goads sneers are spurs. They prick up the soul to lay hold on the everlasting resources of divine friendship and love. There is nothing in them to enfeeble. They may break the skin a little, but they cannot reach the heart to draw the life-blood. They are very excellent for keeping a disciple wide awake-shewing him the nature and power of sin around him, and leading him, by throwing him back on his Saviour, to know what a blessed thing it is to be in the everlasting arms. If scoffs sink him, it can only be because he would rather sink than swim. He has very much to do with the world: perhaps that makes him feeble. Not necessarily. David had a kingdom to care for. And Daniel was one of the chief rulers of an empire; and Joseph sat next to Pharaoh. But it did not make any of those men feeble disciples, because they had so much to do with the world. Connexion with the world, in the active lawful business of life, can make no one a feeble disciple L without he gives way to its unholy influence. His coming much in contact with worldly men need not make him like to them. They cannot break his moral power unless he gives them a helping hand. But perhaps he has taken the world into his heart, and that makes him a feeble disciple. Will this do it? Certain things taken into the heart will do the same in relation to piety. Poisonous substances may be taken into the hands without injury. Keep them there, and there is no harm. Keep the world out of the heart, and it has no poisonous power. It can wither no disciple's strength. But if the heart is loaded with it, the feet will totter in Zion's ways. The disciple will be puny and feeble. He cannot run the Christian race. He cannot walk even. He may contrive to drag himself along like a convict with his ball and chain. But there is much danger that his load will wholly crush him, and he be not saved even as by fire! A feeble disciple! Would we could say of sinners that they were feeble. Not they. They are strong in worldliness-bold, vigorous, self-denying, and active! See the power and zeal with which they run their race. A feeble disciple! What! when he has such a mighty Saviour to encourage and strengthen himsuch mighty motives to send life and vigour through his soul-so much to allure or alarm him into zeal and earnestness! Take care, disciple, that you do not find yourself so feeble as only to get in sight of the Heavenly City; your strength failing you before you can reach the gate; or, by having lingered so long, you find it shut! THE OBSCURE DISCIPLE. "I live in retirement, and am scarcely known out of my own neighbourhood." Your Lord loved and valued retirement. It may be of great value to you. A thousand evil influences do not reach you, which are blowing elsewhere, like the poisonous wind of the desert. You have less hindrances to communion with God and the cultivation of a heavenly mind, than those who mix more with the world. "My sphere of doing good is very small." It is of the right size, or you would have been placed elsewhere. It is large enough to occupy every power you can employ, if you resolutely determine that it shall not be your fault if your small field is not "covered with the glory of God, as the waters do the sea. "I am so obscure, people do not much regard what I say or do." That depends upon your character. If you will walk with God, in holy love and zeal for his glory, you will make people feel your power, for you will carry their consciences with you. You will have the power of holiness. Your character will speak a language that cannot be gainsaid, nor resisted. Thoughts that burn will be sent by burning words into the ears of the wicked. "I am conscious that I have but little education, and, for that reason, have but lillle influence over others." It does not take great knowledge to make one very useful. You know Christ as a Saviour, and the joys of his salvation. That is knowing more than millions; and with that knowledge, rightly used, you may do good, the height and depth of which it will take our whole eternity to measure. "But I am very poor, and nobody notices me." It is no great harm not to be noticed much. You will have just as much notice taken of you, as a faithful and humble saint ought to have taken of him. As for being poor, you cannot be poorer than the poor widow that cast two mites in the treasury, and she was the poorer still after she had done that. And it gave her notoriety too, though she never dreamed of that. She has been well known, and most honourably noticed in most parts of the world ever since. It is not such a dreadful thing to be poor. And poverty and charity can exist together, you see; and poverty and great notoriety too. Besides, it does not help men about their greatest interests to be noticed much. Indeed, those who are the most noticed, having thousands around them to do it, are extremely apt to "love the praise of men more than the praise of God." Paul did not think it was needful to be noticed much, or he would never have said he "was less than the least of all saints." Take pains to have Christ notice you much, and that will satisfy you. "But it seems folly, to think that one, so obscure and retired, should ever do much good." You had better take that back. You seem to have entirely forgotten what resources you have for doing good. Your holy example may shine, and some child of your own retired neighbourhood, struck by its brightness, and allured to Christ by it, may yet start out of that obscurity, to be one of the brightest stars in the firmament of Zion. Your humble offering to the Lord's treasury may strike many hearts, and rouse them to benevolent action, as has the widow's mite. Your humble prayers may lead the Eternal King to extend his sceptre of mercy to thousands in distant parts of the world. Your life of humble piety in that obscure neighbourhood, may act at first on a small circle of minds, but yet through them on others, and the circle widen, till you have no power to estimate the good accomplished. Some minister of the everlasting gospel may catch a new impulse to his blessed work from the sacred fire that burns in your bosom, and for that reason exert a sanctifying influence on a greater number of souls than if he had not come in contact with you. An obscure disciple! You will make yourself such if you make the plea now condemned. Obscure indeed, and in the worst sense, is he that shrouds the lustre of his holiness, and binds down his spirit to a sickly and feeble piety by the plea that he walks in a humble vale of life, and has but little to do for Christ. You must not do this. If your firmament be small in your esteem, yet occupy it well. Be not a star merely. Be not content to twinkle; be a SUN then. Shine in the bright radiance of devoted piety, and future scenes may disclose the fact, that the obscure disciple bore a noble part in augmenting the beauty and glory of the everlasting kingdom of God. WORLDLY TIMES. We live in very worldly times. No one can doubt this who hears or reads ever so little of what is going on around him. The times are very worldly. We are wiser than our forefathers, but only in the ways of getting riches. Trade and noise, ships, roads, railways, changes here and changes there, all sorts of wild plans and dreams, we hear of continually, we hear of nothing else. The world speaks of nothing else-thinks of nothing else. Men of business, from sunrise to sunset, are making money. Their hours are all spent in writing letters, in keeping accounts, in going to public meetings, and so on. Men in power are struggling to keep their enemies out of power; planning, scheming, debating, toiling continually. Then, for people who have less to do, there are theatres, races, balls, gamblinghouses, and a hundred other sinful pleasures. All these are the sort of things newspapers are so full of. We might almost think the world was going to last for ever, and that people never died; only we read there the names of people who have just died, and thus the world, in its own newspapers, witnesses against itself. Now, when we read or hear of all these things, of all this early rising and taking late rest, and eating the bread of carefulness, it must sometimes come across us, "When do these people find time to save their souls? when do they pray? when do they repent? when do they hate the world? when do they despise its honours? when do they neglect its gold and silver, or sell all they have and give unto the poor? when do they find time to be Christians? How strange, to be sure, it all seems-I wonder what the end of it will |