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Macduff + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mind of Jesus + +Author: John R. Macduff + +Release Date: April 5, 2009 [EBook #28507] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIND OF JESUS *** + + + + +Produced by Heiko Evermann, Nigel Blower and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="notes"> + +<h4>Transcriber’s Note</h4> + +<p>Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected.</p> + +<p>The following minor typographical errors have been corrected:<br /> +Title page: duplicate word “of” removed<br /> +p9: Verse number “2.” added to “Mark, viii.” for consistency<br /> +p23: “brethern” changed to “brethren”<br /> +p106: “vail” changed to “veil”<br /> +p124: duplicate word “one” removed<br /> +p126: “the its great fountain” changed to “its great fountain”<br /> +p128: “frowed” changed to “frowned”</p> +</div> + +<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a> +<span class="halfsize">THE</span><br /><br /> +MIND OF JESUS.</h1> + +<h2 style="margin-top:2em;"><span class="halfsize">BY</span><br /> +JOHN R. MACDUFF, D.D.</h2> + +<h6 style="margin-top:3em;">AUTHOR OF “MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES,” “THE WORDS OF JESUS,”<br /> +“FAMILY PRAYER,” “FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL,” “MEMORIES OF GENNESARET,”<br /> +“BOW IN THE CLOUD,” “STORY OF BETHLEHEM,” ETC.</h6> + +<h4 style="margin-top:3em;">NEW YORK<br /> +ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,<br /> +No. 530 BROADWAY.<br /> +1860.</h4> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a> +<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Mind" id="Mind"></a>The Mind of Jesus.</h2> +<img src="images/preface.png" + alt="The Mind of Jesus." title="The Mind of Jesus." /> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Mind of Jesus</span>! What a study is this! To attain +a dim reflection of it, is the ambition of angels—higher +they can not soar. “To be conformed to the image of +His Son!”—it is the end of God in the predestination +of His Church from all eternity. “We shall be like +Him!”—it is the Bible picture of <i>heaven</i>!</p> + +<p>In a former little volume, we pondered some of the +gracious <i>Words</i> which proceeded out of the mouth of +Jesus. In the present, we have a few faint lineaments +of that holy <i>Character</i> which constituted the living exposition +and embodiment of His precepts.</p> + +<p>But how lofty such a standard! How all creature-perfection +shrinks abashed and confounded before a Divine +portraiture like this! He is the true “Angel standing +in the sun,” who alone projects no shadow; so bathed in +the glories of Deity that likeness to Him becomes like +the light in which He is shrouded—“no man can approach +unto it.” May we not, however, seek at least to +approximate, though we can not adequately resemble? +It is impossible on earth to associate with a fellow-being +without getting, in some degree, assimilated to him. So, +the more we study “the Mind of Christ,” the more we +are in His company—holding converse with Him as our +best and dearest friend—catching up his holy looks and +holy deeds—the more shall we be “transformed into the +same image.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Consider,” says the Great Apostle (literally ‘<i>gaze</i> on’) +“Christ Jesus” (Heb. iii. 1). Study feature by feature, +lineament by lineament, of that Peerless Exemplar. +“<i>Gaze</i>” on the Sun of Righteousness, till, like gazing long +on the natural sun, you carry away with you, on your +spiritual vision, dazzling images of His brightness and +glory. Though He be the Archetype of all goodness, +remember He is no shadowy model—though the Infinite +Jehovah, He was “the <i>Man</i> Christ Jesus.”</p> + +<p>We must never, indeed, forget that it is not the <i>mind</i>, +but the <i>work</i> of Immanuel, which lies at the foundation +of a sinner’s hope. He must be known as a <i>Saviour</i>, +before He is studied as an <i>Example</i>. His doing and dying +is the center jewel, of which all the virtues of His holy +life are merely the setting. But neither must we overlook +the Scripture obligation to walk in His footsteps +and imbibe His Spirit, for “if any man have not the +<i>Spirit of Christ</i>, he is <i>none of His</i>!”</p> + +<p>Oh, that each individual Christian were more Saviour-like! +that, in the manifestation of a holy character and +heavenly demeanor, it might be said in some feeble +measure of the faint and imperfect reflection—“Such was +<i>Jesus</i>!”</p> + +<p>How far short we are of such a criterion, mournful experience +can testify. But it is at least comforting to +know that there is a day coming, when, in the full vision +and fruition of the Glorious Original, the exhortation of +our motto-verse will be needed no more; when we shall +be able to say, in the words of an inspired apostle,</p> + +<p class="center">“We <i>have</i> the <span class="smcap">mind of Christ</span>!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents.</h2> +<img src="images/contents.png" + alt="Contents." title="Contents." /> +</div> + +<table class="contents" summary="Contents"> +<tr> +<th class="lt"> </th> +<th class="rb"><span class="small lowercase smcap">PAGE</span></th> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Mind">The Mind of Jesus</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Mind">3</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#First_Day">Compassion</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#First_Day">9</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Second_Day">Resignation in Trial</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Second_Day">13</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Third_Day">Devotedness to God</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Third_Day">17</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Fourth_Day">Forgiveness of Injuries</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Fourth_Day">21</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Fifth_Day">Meekness</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Fifth_Day">25</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Sixth_Day">Thankfulness</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Sixth_Day">29</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Seventh_Day">Unselfishness</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Seventh_Day">33</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Eighth_Day">Submission to God’s Word</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Eighth_Day"></a>37</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Ninth_Day">Prayerfulness</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Ninth_Day">41</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Tenth_Day">Love to the Brethren</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Tenth_Day">45</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Eleventh_Day">Sympathy</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Eleventh_Day">49</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twelfth_Day">Fidelity in Rebuke</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twelfth_Day">53</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Thirteenth_Day">Gentleness in Rebuke</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Thirteenth_Day">57</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Fourteenth_Day">Endurance of Contradiction</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Fourteenth_Day">61</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Fifteenth_Day">Pleasing God</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Fifteenth_Day">65</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Sixteenth_Day">Grief at Sin</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Sixteenth_Day">69</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Seventeenth_Day">Humility</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Seventeenth_Day">73</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Eighteenth_Day">Patience</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Eighteenth_Day">77</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg vi]</a></span> + <a href="#Nineteenth_Day">Subjection</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Nineteenth_Day">81</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twentieth_Day">Not Retaliating</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twentieth_Day">85</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_first_Day">Bearing the Cross</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_first_Day">89</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_second_Day">Holy Zeal</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_second_Day">93</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_third_Day">Benevolence</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_third_Day">97</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_fourth_Day">Firmness in Temptation</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_fourth_Day">101</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_fifth_Day">Receiving Sinners</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_fifth_Day">105</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_sixth_Day">Guilelessness</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_sixth_Day">109</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_seventh_Day">Activity in Duty</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_seventh_Day">113</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_eighth_Day">Committing our Way to God</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_eighth_Day">117</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Twenty_ninth_Day">Love of Unity</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Twenty_ninth_Day">121</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Thirtieth_Day">Not of the World</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Thirtieth_Day">125</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"><a href="#Thirty_first_Day">Calmness in Death</a></td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Thirty_first_Day">129</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<p class="hidden center">Let THIS MIND be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.</p> +<img src="images/quote1.png" + alt="Let THIS MIND be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." + title="Let THIS MIND be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a> +<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="First_Day" id="First_Day"></a>First Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t01.png" + alt="First Day." title="First Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>COMPASSION.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I have compassion on the multitude.”—Mark, viii. 2.</p> + +<p>What a pattern to His people, the tender +<i>compassion</i> of Jesus! He found the world He +came to save a moral Bethesda. The wail of +suffering humanity was every where borne to +His ear. It was His delight to walk its +porches, to pity, relieve, comfort, save! The +faintest cry of misery arrested His footsteps—stirred +a ripple in this fountain of Infinite +Love. Was it a <i>leper</i>,—that dreaded name +which entailed a life-long exile from friendly +looks and kindly words? There was <i>One</i>, at +least, who had tones and deeds of tenderness +for the outcast. “<i>Jesus</i>, being moved with +compassion, put forth His hand, and <i>touched</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +him.” Was it some blind beggars on the +Jericho highway, groping in darkness, pleading +for help? “<i>Jesus</i> stood still, and had +compassion on them, and touched their eyes!” +Was it the speechless pleadings of a widow’s +tears at the gate of Nain, when she followed +her earthly pride and prop to the grave? +“When the <i>Lord</i> saw her, He had compassion +on her, and said, Weep not!” Even when +He rebukes, the bow of compassion is seen in +the cloud, or rather, that cloud, as it passes, +dissolves in a rain-shower of mercy. He +pronounces Jerusalem “<i>desolate</i>,” but the +doom is uttered amid a flood of anguished +sorrow!</p> + +<p>Reader! do the compassionate words and +deeds of a tender Saviour find any feeble echo +and transcript in yours? As you traverse in +thought the wastes of human wretchedness, +does the spectacle give rise, not to the mere +emotional feeling which weeps itself away in +sentimental tears, but to an earnest desire to +<i>do something</i> to mitigate the sufferings of woe-worn +humanity? How vast and world-wide the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +claims on your compassion!—now near, now at +a distance—the unmet and unanswered cry of +perishing millions abroad—the heathendom +which lies unsuccored at your own door—the +public charity languishing—the mission staff +dwarfed and crippled from lack of needful +funds—a suffering district—a starving family—a +poor neighbor—a helpless orphan—it may +be, some crowded hovel, where misery and +vice run riot—or some lonely sick chamber, +where the dim lamp has been wasting for +dreary nights—or some desolate home which +death has entered, where “Joseph is not, and +Simeon is not,” and where some sobbing heart, +under the tattered garb of poverty, mourns, +unsolaced and unpitied, its “loved and lost.” +Are there none such within your reach, to +whom a trifling pittance would be as an angel +of mercy? How it would hallow and enhance +all you possess, were you to seek to live as +almoner of Jehovah’s bounties! If He has +given you of this world’s substance, remember +it is bestowed, not to be greedily hoarded or +lavishly squandered. Property and wealth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +are talents to be traded on and laid out for +the good of others—sacred trusts, not selfishly +to be <i>enjoyed</i>, but generously to be <i>employed</i>.</p> + +<p>“The poor are the representatives of Jesus, +their wants He considers as His own,” and He +will recompense accordingly. The feeblest +expression of Christian pity and love, though +it be but the widow’s mite, or the cup of cold +water, or the kindly look and word when +there is neither mite nor cup to give, yet, if +done in <i>His</i> name, it is entered in the “book +of life” as a “loan to the Lord;” and in that +day when “the books are opened,” the loan +will be paid back with usury.</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Second_Day" id="Second_Day"></a>Second Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t02.png" + alt="Second Day." title="Second Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>RESIGNATION IN TRIAL.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Not my will, but Thine be done!”—Luke, xxii. 42.</p> + +<p>Where was there ever resignation like +this! The life of Jesus was one long martyrdom. +From Bethlehem’s manger to Calvary’s +cross, there was scarce one break in the clouds; +these gathered more darkly and ominously +around Him till they burst over His devoted +head as He uttered His expiring cry. Yet +throughout this pilgrimage of sorrow no murmuring +accent escaped His lips. The most +suffering of all suffering lives was one of uncomplaining +submission.</p> + +<p>“Not <i>my</i> will, but <i>Thy</i> will,” was the motto +of this wondrous Being! When He came +into the world He thus announced His advent, +“Lo, I come, I delight to do <i>Thy will</i>, O my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +God!” When He left it, we listen to the +same prayer of blended agony and acquiescence, +“O my Father, if it be possible let this +cup pass from me! <i>Nevertheless</i> not as <i>I will</i>, +but as <i>Thou wilt</i>.”</p> + +<p>Reader! is this mind also in <i>you</i>? Ah, +what are your trials compared to His! What +the ripples in your tide of woe, compared to +the waves and billows which swept over him! +If He, the spotless Lamb of God, “murmured +not,” how can <i>you</i> murmur? <i>His</i> were the +sufferings of a bosom never once darkened +with the passing shadow of guilt or sin. <i>Your</i> +severest sufferings are deserved, yea, infinitely +less <i>than</i> deserved! Are you tempted to indulge +in hard suspicions, as to God’s faithfulness +and love, in appointing some peculiar +trial? Ask yourself, Would Jesus have done +<i>this</i>? Should <i>I</i> seek to pry into “the deep +things of God,” when <i>He</i>, in the spirit of a +weaned child, was satisfied with the solution, +“<i>Even so, Father, for so it seems good in Thy +sight</i>”?</p> + +<p>“Even so, <i>Father</i>!” Afflicted one! “tossed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +with tempest, and not comforted,” take that +<i>word</i> on which thy Lord pillowed His suffering +head, and make it, as He did, the secret +of thy resignation.</p> + +<p>The sick child will take the bitterest +draught from a <i>father’s</i> hand. “This cup +which Thou, O God, givest me to drink, shall +I not drink it?” Be it mine to lie passive in +the arms of Thy chastening love, exulting in +the assurance that all Thy appointments, +though sovereign, are never arbitrary, but +that there is a gracious “need be” in them all. +“My Father!” my Covenant God! the God +who <i>spared not Jesus</i>! It may well hush +every repining word.</p> + +<p>Drinking deep of his sweet spirit of submission, +you will be able thus to meet, yea, even +to welcome, your sorest cross, saying, “Yes, +Lord, all <i>is</i> well, just because it is Thy blessed +will. Take me, use me, chasten me, as +seemeth good in Thy sight. My will is resolved +into Thine. This trial is dark; I can +not see the ‘why and the wherefore’ of it—but +‘not my will, but Thy will!’ The gourd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +is withered; I can not see the reason of so +speedy a dissolution of the loved earthly shelter; +sense and sight ask in vain why these +leaves of earthly refreshment have been +doomed so soon to droop in sadness and sorrow. +But it is enough. ‘The Lord prepared +the worm;’ ‘not <i>my</i> will, but <i>Thy</i> +will!’”</p> + +<p>Oh, how does the stricken soul honor God +by thus being <i>dumb</i> in the midst of dark and +perplexing dealings, recognizing in these, part +of the needed discipline and training for a +sorrowless, sinless, deathless world; regarding +every trial as a link in the chain which draws +it to heaven, where the whitest robes will be +found to be those here baptized with suffering, +and bathed in tears!</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Third_Day" id="Third_Day"></a>Third Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t03.png" + alt="Third Day." title="Third Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>DEVOTEDNESS TO GOD.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s +business?”—Luke, ii. 49.</p> + +<p>“My meat and my drink are to do the will +of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” +That <i>one</i> object brought Jesus from heaven—that +<i>one</i> object he pursued with unflinching, +undeviating constancy, until He could say, +“It is finished.”</p> + +<p>However short man comes of <i>his</i> “chief +end,” “Glory to God in the highest” was the +motive, the rule, and exponent of every act +of that wondrous life. With us, the magnet +of the soul, even when truest, is ever subject +to partial oscillations and depressions, trembling +at times away from its great attraction-point.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +<i>His</i> never knew one tremulous wavering +from its all-glorious center. With Him +there were no ebbs and flows, no fits and +starts. He could say, in the words of that +prophetic psalm which speaks so preëminently +of Himself, “I have set the Lord <i>always</i> before +me!”</p> + +<p>Reader! do you feel that in some feeble +measure this lofty life-motto of the sinless Son +of God is written on your home and heart, +regulating your actions, chastening your joys, +quickening your hopes, giving energy and +direction to your whole being, subordinating +all the affections of your nature to their high +destiny? With pure and unalloyed motives, +with a single eye, and a single aim, can you +say, somewhat in the spirit of His brightest +follower, “This <i>one</i> thing I do”? Are you +ready to regard all you have—rank, name, +talents, riches, influence, distinctions—valuable, +only so far as they contribute to promote +the glory of Him who is “first and last, and +all in all”? Seek to feel that your heavenly +Father’s is not only <i>a</i> business; but <i>the</i> business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +of life. “Whose I am, and whom I +serve,”—let this be the superscription written +on your thoughts and deeds, your employments +and enjoyments, your sleeping and +waking. Be not, as the fixed stars, cold and +distant; but be ever bathing in the sunshine +of conscious nearness to Him who is the sun +and center of all happiness and joy.</p> + +<p>Each has some appointed work to perform, +some little niche in the spiritual temple to +occupy. Yours may be no splendid services, +no flaming or brilliant actions to blaze and +dazzle in the eye of man. It may be the +quiet, unobtrusive inner work, the secret +prayer, the mortified sin, the forgiven injury, +the trifling act of self-sacrifice for God’s glory +and the good of others, of which no eye but +the Eye which seeth in secret is cognizant. +It matters not how <i>small</i>. Remember, with +Him, motive dignifies action. It is not <i>what</i> +we do, but <i>how</i> we do it. He can be glorified +in <i>little</i> things as well as <i>great</i> things, and by +nothing more than the daily walk, the daily +life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>Beware of any thing that would interfere +with a surrender of heart and soul to His +service—worldly entanglements, indulged sin, +an uneven walk, a divided heart, nestling in +creature comforts, shrinking from the cross. +How many hazard, if they do not make shipwreck, +of their eternal hopes by becoming +<i>idlers</i> in the vineyard; lingerers, like Lot; +world-lovers, like Demas; “do-nothing Christians,” +like the inhabitants of Meroz! The +command is, “Go, work!” <i>Words</i> tell what +you <i>should</i> be; <i>deeds</i> tell what you <i>are</i>. Let +those around you see there is a reality in +walking <i>with</i> God, and working <i>for</i> God!</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Fourth_Day" id="Fourth_Day"></a>Fourth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t04.png" + alt="Fourth Day." title="Fourth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do.”—Luke, xxiii. 34.</p> + +<p>Many a death-struggle has been made to +save a friend. A dying Saviour gathers up +His expiring breath to plead for His foes! +At the climax of His own woe, and of +human ingratitude—man-forsaken, and God-deserted—His +faltering voice mingles with +the shout of His murderers,—“Father, forgive +them; for they know not what they +do!” Had the faithless Peter been there, +could he have wondered at the reply to a +former question,—“Lord, how often shall my +brother sin against me, and I forgive him,—till +seven times?” Jesus said unto him, “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, +Until seventy times seven.” (Matt. xviii. 21.)</p> + +<p>Superiority to insult and ignominy, with +some, proceeds from a callous and indifferent +temperament,—a cold, phlegmatic, stoical insensibility, +alike to kindness or unkindness. +It was not so with Jesus. The tender sensibilities +of His holy nature rendered Him +keenly sensible to ingratitude and injury, +whether this was manifested in the malice +of undisguised enmity, or the treachery of +trusted friendship. Perhaps to a noble nature +the latter of these is the more deeply wounding. +Many are inclined to forgive an open +and unmasked antagonist, who are not so +willing to forget or forgive heartless faithfulness, +or unrequited love. But see, too, in +this respect, the conduct of the blessed Redeemer! +Mark how He deals with His own +disciples who had basely forsaken him and +fled, and that, too, in the hour He most +needed their sympathy. No sooner does He +rise from the dead than He hastens to disarm +their fears and to assure them of an unaltered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +and unalterable affection. “Go tell <i>my +brethren</i>,” is the first message He sends; +“<i>Peace be unto you</i>,” is the salutation at the +first meeting; “<i>Children!</i>” is the word with +which He first greets them on the shores of Tiberias. +Even Joseph, (the Old Testament type +and pattern of generous forgiveness,) when he +makes himself known to his brethren, recalls +the bitter thought, “Whom ye sold into +Egypt.” The true Joseph, when <i>He</i> reveals +Himself to His disciples, buries in oblivion +the memory of by-gone faithlessness. He +<i>meets</i> them with a benediction. He <i>leaves</i> +them at His ascension with the same—“He +lifted up His hands and blessed them!”</p> + +<p>Reader! follow in all this the spirit of your +Lord and Master. In rising from the study +of His holy example, seek to feel that with +you there shall be no such name, no such +word, as <i>enemy</i>! Harbor no resentful thought, +indulge in no bitter recrimination. Surrender +yourself to no sullen fretfulness. Let “the +law of kindness” be in your heart. Put the +best construction on the failings of others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +Make no injurious comments on their frailties; +no uncharitable insinuations. “Consider thyself, +lest thou also be tempted.” When +disposed at any time to cherish an unforgiving +spirit towards a brother, think, if thy God +had retained His anger for ever, where wouldst +thou have been? If <i>He</i>, the Infinite One, +who might have spurned thee for ever from +His presence, hath had patience with thee, +and forgiven thee <i>all</i>, wilt <i>thou</i>, on account of +some petty grievance which thy calmer moments +would pronounce unworthy of a thought, +indulge in the look of cold estrangement, the +unrelenting word, or unforgiving deed? “If +any man have a quarrel against any, even as +Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Fifth_Day" id="Fifth_Day"></a>Fifth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t05.png" + alt="Fifth Day." title="Fifth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>MEEKNESS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I am meek and lowly in heart.”—Matt. xi. 29.</p> + +<p>There is often a beautiful blending of +majesty and humility, magnanimity and lowliness, +in great minds. The mightiest and +holiest of all Beings that ever trod our world +was the meekest of all. The Ancient of +Days was as the “infant of days.” He who +had listened to nothing but angel-melodies +from all eternity, found, while on earth, +melody in the lispings of an infant’s voice, +or in an outcast’s tears! No wonder an innocent +<i>lamb</i> was His emblem, or that the +annointing Spirit came down upon Him in +the form of the gentle <i>dove</i>. He had the +wealth of worlds at His feet. The hosts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +heaven had only to be summoned as His +retinue. But all the pageantry of the world, +all its dreams of carnal glory, had, for Him, +no fascination. The Tempter, from a mountain-summit, +showed Him a wide scene of +“splendid misery;” but He spurned alike the +thought and the adversary away! John and +James would call down fire from heaven on a +Samaritan village; He rebukes the vengeful +suggestion! Peter, on the night of the betrayal, +cuts off the ear of an assassin; the +intended Victim, again, only challenges His +disciple, and heals His enemy!</p> + +<p>Arraigned before Pilate’s judgment-seat, +how meekly He bears nameless wrongs and +indignities! Suspended on the cross—the +execrations of the multitude are rising around, +but He hears as though He heard them +not; they extract no angry look, no bitter +word—“Behold the <i>Lamb</i> of God!” Need +we wonder that “meekness” and “poverty +of spirit” should stand foremost in His own +cluster of beatitudes; that He should select +<i>this</i> among all His other qualities for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +peculiar study and imitation of His disciples, +“Learn of Me, <i>for</i> I am <i>meek</i>;” or that an +apostle should exhort “by the <i>meekness</i> and +<i>gentleness</i> of Christ!”</p> + +<p>How different the world’s maxims, and His! +The <i>world’s</i>—“Resent the affront, vindicate +honor!” <i>His</i>—“Overcome evil with good!” +<i>The world’s</i>—“Only let it be when for your +<i>faults</i> ye are buffeted that ye take it patiently.” +<i>His</i>—“When ye do <i>well</i> and suffer for it, ye +take it patiently, <i>this</i> is acceptable with God.” +(1 Pet. ii. 20.)</p> + +<p>Reader! strive to obtain, like your adorable +Lord, this “ornament of a meek and quiet +spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great +price.” Be “clothed” with gentleness and +humility. Follow not the world’s fleeting +shadows that mock you as you grasp them. +If always aspiring—ever soaring on the +wing—you are likely to become discontented, +proud, selfish, time-serving. In whatever +position of life God has placed you, be +satisfied. What! ambitious to be on a pinnacle +of the temple—a higher place in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +Church, or in the world?—Satan might hurl +you down! “Be not high-minded, but fear.” +And with respect to others, honor their gifts, +contemplate their excellences only to imitate +them. Speak kindly, act gently, “condescend +to men of low estate.”</p> + +<p>Be assured, no happiness is equal to that +enjoyed by the “<i>meek Christian</i>.” He has +within him a perpetual inner sunshine, a +perennial well-spring of peace. Never ruffled +and fretted by real or imagined injuries, he +puts the best construction on motives and +actions, and by a gentle answer to unmerited +reproach often disarms wrath.</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Sixth_Day" id="Sixth_Day"></a>Sixth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t06.png" + alt="Sixth Day." title="Sixth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>THANKFULNESS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”—Matt. +xi. 25.</p> + +<p>A thankful spirit pervaded the entire +life of Jesus, and surrounded with a heavenly +halo His otherwise darkened path. In moments +we least expect to find it, this beauteous +ray breaks through the gloom. In +instituting the memorial of His <i>death</i>, He +“<i>gave thanks</i>!” Even in crossing the +Kedron to Gethsemane, “He sang an +hymn!”</p> + +<p>We know in seasons of deep sorrow and +trial that every thing wears a gloomy aspect. +Dumb Nature herself to the burdened spirit +seems as if she partook in the hues of sadness. +The life of Jesus was one continuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +experience of privation and woe—a “Valley +of Baca,” from first to last; yet, amid +accents of plaintive sorrow, there are ever +heard subdued undertones of <i>thankfulness</i> +and joy!</p> + +<p>Ah, if He, the suffering “Man of sorrows,” +could, during a life of unparalleled +woe, lift up His heart in grateful acknowledgment +to His Father in heaven, how +ought the lives of those to be one perpetual +“hymn of thankfulness,” who are from day +to day and hour to hour (for all they have, +both temporally and spiritually) pensioners +on God’s bounty and love!</p> + +<p>Reader! cultivate this thankful spirit; +it will be to thee a perpetual feast. There +is, or ought to be, with us no such thing as +<i>small</i> mercies; all are <i>great</i>, because the least +are undeserved. Indeed, a really thankful +heart will extract motive for gratitude from +every thing, making the most even of scanty +blessings. St. Paul, when in his dungeon at +Rome, a prisoner in chains, is heard to say, +“I have <i>all</i>, and abound!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Guard, on the other hand, against that +spirit of continual fretting and moping over +fancied ills; that temptation to exaggerate +the real or supposed disadvantages of +our condition, magnifying the trifling inconveniences +of every-day life into enormous +evils. Think, rather, how much we have to +be thankful for. The world in which we +live, in spite of all the scars of sin and suffering +upon it, is a happy world. It is not, as +many would morbidly paint it, flooded with +tears and strewn with wrecks, plaintive with +a perpetual dirge of sorrow. True, the +“Everlasting Hills” are in glory, but there +are numberless eminences of grace, and love, +and mercy below; many green spots in the +lower valley, <i>many more than we deserve</i>!</p> + +<p>God will reward a thankful spirit. Just +as on earth, when a man receives with gratitude +what is given, we are more disposed to +give again, so also, “the <i>Lord</i> loveth” a +cheerful “receiver,” as well as a cheerful +“giver.”</p> + +<p>Let ours, moreover, be a <i>Gospel</i> thankfulness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +Let the incense of a grateful spirit rise +not only to the Great Giver of all good, but +to our Covenant God in Christ. Let it be the +spirit of the child exulting in the bounty and +beneficence of his <i>Father’s</i> house and home! +“Giving <i>thanks</i> always for all things unto +God and <i>the Father</i>, in the name of our Lord +Jesus Christ!”</p> + +<p>While the sweet melody of gratitude vibrates +through every successive moment of +our daily being, let love to our adorable Redeemer +show for <i>whom</i> and for <i>what</i> it is we +reserve our notes of loftiest and most fervent +praise. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable +gift!</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Seventh_Day" id="Seventh_Day"></a>Seventh Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t07.png" + alt="Seventh Day." title="Seventh Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>UNSELFISHNESS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“For even Christ pleased not Himself.”—Rom. xv. 8.</p> + +<p>Too legibly are the characters written on +the fallen heart and a fallen world—“All +seek their own!” Selfishness is the great law +of our degenerated nature. When the love +of God was dethroned from the soul, self +vaulted into the vacant seat, and there, in +some one of its Proteus shapes, continues to +reign.</p> + +<p>Jesus stands out for our imitation a grand +solitary exception in the midst of a world of +selfishness. His entire life was one abnegation +of self; a beautiful living embodiment of +that charity which “seeketh not her own.” +He who for others turned water into wine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +and provided a miraculous supply for the +fainting thousands in the wilderness, exerted +no such miraculous power for His own necessities. +During His forty days’ temptation, no +table did He spread for Himself, no booth did +He rear for his unpillowed head. Twice do +we read of Him shedding tears—on neither +occasion were they for Himself. The approach +of His cross and passion, instead of +absorbing Him in His own approaching suffering, +seemed only to elicit new and more gracious +promises to His people. When His +enemies came to apprehend Him, His only +stipulation was for His disciples’ release—“Let +these go their way.” In the very act of +departure, with all the boundless glories of +eternity in sight, <i>they</i> were still all His care.</p> + +<p>Ah, how different is the spirit of the world! +With how many is day after day only a new +oblation to that idol which never darkened +with its shadow His Holy heart; pampering +their own wishes; “envying and grieving at +the good of a neighbor;” unable to brook the +praise of a rival; establishing their own reputation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +on the ruins of another; thus engendering +jealousy, discontent, peevishness, and every +kindred unholy passion.</p> + +<p>“But ye have not so learned Christ!” +Reader! have you been sitting at the feet of +Him who “pleased not Himself”? Are you +“dying daily;”—dying to self as well as to +sin? Are you animated with <i>this</i> as the +high end and aim of existence—to lay out +your time, and talents, and opportunities, for +God’s glory, and the good of your fellow-men; +not seeking your own interests, but rather +ceding these, if, by doing so, another will be +made happier, and your Saviour honored? +You may not have it in your power to manifest +this “mind of Jesus” on a great scale, +by enduring great sacrifices; nor is this required. +His denial of self had about it no +repulsive austerity; but you can evince its +holy influence and sway by innumerable little +offices of kindness and good-will; taking a +generous interest in the welfare and pursuits +of others, or engaging and coöperating in +schemes for the mitigation of human misery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>Avoid <i>ostentation</i>—another repulsive form +of self. Be willing to be in the shade; sound +no trumpet before you. The evangelist +Matthew made a great feast, which was graced +by the presence of Jesus; in his Gospel he +says not one word about it!</p> + +<p>Seek to live more constantly and habitually +under the constraining influence of the love +of Jesus. Selfishness withers and dies beneath +Calvary.</p> + +<p>Ah, believer! if Christ had “pleased Himself,” +where wouldst <i>thou</i> have <i>been</i> this day?</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Eighth_Day" id="Eighth_Day"></a>Eighth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t08.png" + alt="Eighth Day." title="Eighth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>SUBMISSION TO GOD’S WORD.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Jesus said unto him, It is written.”—Matt. iv. 7.</p> + +<p>We can not fail to be struck, in the course +of the Saviour’s public teaching, with His +constant appeal to the word of God. While, +at times, He utters, in His own name, the +authoritative behest, “Verily, verily, I say +unto you,” He as often thus introduces some +mighty work, or gives intimation of some impending +event in His own momentous life, +“These things must come to pass, that <i>the +Scriptures be fulfilled, which saith</i>.” He commands +His people to “search the Scriptures;” +but He sets the example by searching and +submitting to them Himself. Whether he +drives the money-changers from their sacrilegious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +traffic in the temple, or foils his great +adversary on the mount of temptation, he +does so with the same weapon, “<i>It is written.</i>” +When He rises from the grave, the theme of +His first discourse is one impressive tribute to +the value and authority of the same sacred +oracles. The disciples on the road to Emmaus +listen to nothing but a <i>Bible lesson</i>. “He expounded +unto them in all <i>the Scriptures</i> the +things concerning Himself.”</p> + +<p>How momentous the instruction herein +conveyed! The necessity of the absolute +subjection of the mind to God’s written Word—making +churches, creeds, ministers, books, +religious opinion, all subordinate and subservient +to this—“How readest thou?” rebuking +the philosophy, falsely so called, that +would distort the plain statements of Revelation, +and bring them to the bar of proud +Reason.</p> + +<p>If an infallible Redeemer, “a law to Himself,” +was submissive in all respects to the +“<i>written</i> law,” shall fallible man refuse to sit +with the teachableness of a little child, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +listen to the Divine message? There may be, +there <i>is</i>, in the Bible, what reason staggers at: +“we have nothing to draw with, and the well +is deep.” But, “<i>Thus saith the Lord</i>,” is +enough. Faith does not first ask what the +bread is made of, but <i>eats</i> it. It does not +analyse the components of the living stream, +but with joy draws the water from “the wells +of salvation.”</p> + +<p>Reader! take that Word as “the lamp to +thy feet, and the light to thy path.” In days +when false lights are hung out, there is the +more need of keeping the eye steadily fixed +on the unerring beacon. Make the Bible the +arbiter in all difficulties—the ultimate court +of appeal. Like Mary, “sit at the feet of +Jesus,” willing only to learn of Him. How +many perplexities it would save you! how +many fatal steps in life it would prevent—how +many tears! “It is a great matter,” says the +noblest of modern Christian philosophers, +“when the mind dwells on any passage of +Scripture, just to think <i>how true it is</i>.” +(<i>Chalmers’ Life</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>In every dubious question, when the foot is +trembling on debatable ground, knowing not +whether to advance or recede, make this the +final criterion, “What saith the Scripture?” +The world may remonstrate—erring friends +may disapprove—Satan may tempt—ingenious +arguments may explain away; but, with our +finger on the revealed page, let the words of +our Great Example be ever a Divine formula +for our guidance:—“<i>This</i> commandment have +I received of my Father!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Ninth_Day" id="Ninth_Day"></a>Ninth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t09.png" + alt="Ninth Day." title="Ninth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>PRAYERFULNESS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“He continued all night in prayer to God.”—Luke, +vi. 12.</p> + +<p>We speak of <i>this</i> Christian and <i>that</i> Christian +as “a man of prayer.” Jesus was emphatically +so. The Spirit was “poured upon +Him without measure,” yet—<i>He prayed</i>! He +was incarnate wisdom, “needing not that any +should teach Him.” He was infinite in His +power, and boundless in His resources, yet—<i>He +prayed</i>! How deeply sacred the prayerful +memories that hover around the solitudes of +Olivet and the shores of Tiberias! He seemed +often to turn night into day to redeem moments +for prayer, rather than lose the blessed privilege.</p> + +<p>We are rarely, indeed, admitted into the +solemnities of His inner life. The veil of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +night is generally between us and the Great +High Priest, when He entered “the holiest of +all;” but we have enough to reveal the depth +and fervor, the tenderness and confidingness +of this blissful intercommunion with His +heavenly Father. No morning dawns without +His fetching fresh manna from the mercy-seat. +“He wakeneth morning by morning; He +wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” +(Isa. l. 4). Beautiful description!—a praying +Redeemer, wakening, as if at early dawn, the +ear of His Father, to get fresh supplies for +the duties and the trials of the day! All His +public acts were consecrated by prayer,—His +baptism, His transfiguration, His miracles, +His agony, His death. He breathed away +His spirit in prayer. “His last breath,” says +Philip Henry, “was praying breath.”</p> + +<p>How sweet to think, in holding communion +with God—<i>Jesus</i> drank of this very brook! +He consecrated the bended knee and the silent +chamber. He refreshed His fainting spirit at +the same great Fountain-head from which it is +life for us to draw and death to forsake.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>Reader! do you complain of your languid +spirit, your drooping faith, your fitful affections, +your lukewarm love? May you not +trace much of what you deplore to an unfrequented +chamber? The treasures are locked +up from you, because you have suffered the +key to rust; the hands hang down because +they have ceased to be uplifted in prayer. +Without prayer!—It is the pilgrim without a +staff—the seaman without a compass—the +soldier going unarmed and unharnessed to +battle.</p> + +<p>Beware of encouraging what indisposes to +prayer—going to the audience chamber with +soiled garments, the din of the world following +you, its distracting thoughts hovering unforbidden +over your spirit. Can you wonder +that the living water refuses to flow through +obstructed channels, or the heavenly light to +pierce murky vapors!</p> + +<p>On earth, fellowship with a lofty order of +minds imparts a certain nobility to the +character; so, in a far higher sense, by communion +with God you will be transformed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +into His image, and get assimilated to His +likeness. Make every event in life a reason +for fresh going to Him. If difficulted in +duty, bring it to the test of prayer. If +bowed down with anticipated trial,—“fearing +to enter the cloud,”—remember Christ’s +preparation, “Sit ye here while I go and +<i>pray</i> yonder.”</p> + +<p>Let prayer consecrate every thing—your +time, talents, pursuits, engagements, joys, +sorrows, crosses, losses. By it, rough paths +will be made smooth, trials disarmed of their +bitterness, enjoyments hallowed and refined, +the bread of the world turned into angels’ +food. “It is in the closet,” says Payson, +“the battle is lost or won!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Tenth_Day" id="Tenth_Day"></a>Tenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t10.png" + alt="Tenth Day." title="Tenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>LOVE TO THE BRETHREN.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.”—Eph. +v. 2.</p> + +<p>“Jesus,” says a writer, “came from heaven +on the wings of love.” It was the element +in which he moved and walked. He sought +to baptize the world afresh with it. When +we find Him teaching us by love to vanquish +an <i>enemy</i>, we need not wonder at the tenderness +of His appeals to the <i>brethren</i> to “love +one another.” Like a fond father impressing +his children, how the Divine Teacher lingers +over the lesson, “This is <i>My</i> commandment!”</p> + +<p>If selfishness had guided His actions, we +might have expected him to demand all His +people’s love for himself. But He claims no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +such monopoly. He not only encourages +mutual affection, but He makes it the badge +of discipleship! He gives them at once its +measure and motive. “Love one another, +as I have loved you!” What a love was +that!—it reached to the lowliest and humblest,—“Inasmuch +as ye did it to the <i>least</i> of +these, ye did it unto <i>Me</i>.”</p> + +<p>Ah! if such was the Elder Brother’s love +to His younger brethren, what should the +love of these younger brothers be for one +another! How humbling that there should +be so much that is sadly and strangely unlike +the spirit which our blessed Master sought to +inculcate alike by precept and example! Individual +Christians, why these bitter estrangements, +these censorious words, these harsh +judgments, this want of kind consideration +of the feelings and failings of those who may +differ from you? Why are your friendships +so often like the summer brook, soon dried? +You hope, ere long, to meet in glory. Doubtless +when you enter on that “sabbath of +love,” many a greeting will be this, “Alas!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +my brother, that on earth I did not love thee +more!”</p> + +<p>Do you see the image of God in a professing +believer? It is your duty to love him +for the sake of that image. No church, no +outward livery, no denominational creed, +should prevent your owning and claiming +him as a fellow-pilgrim and fellow-heir. It +has been said of a portrait, however poor the +painting, however unfinished the style, however +faulty the touches, however coarse and +unseemly the frame, yet if the <i>likeness</i> be +faithful, we overlook many subordinate defects. +So it is with the Christian: however +plain the exterior, however rough the setting, +or even manifold the blemishes still found +cleaving to a partially-sanctified nature, yet +if the Redeemer’s <i>likeness</i> be feebly and +faintly traced there, we should love the copy +for the sake of the Divine Original. There +may be other bonds of association and intercourse +linking spirit with spirit; family ties, +mental congenialities, intellectual tastes, philanthropic +pursuits; but that which ought to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +take the precedence of all, is the love of God’s +image in the brethren. What will heaven be +but this love perfected—loving Christ, and +beloved by those who love Him?</p> + +<p>Reader! seek to love <i>Him</i> more, and you +will love His people more. John had more +love than the other disciples. Why? He +drank deepest of the love within that Bosom +on which he delighted to lean, every beat of +which was love. “Walk,” then, “in love!” +Let it be the very foot-road you tread; let +your way to heaven be paved with it. Soon +shall we come to look within the portal. +Then shall every jarring and dissonant note +be merged into the sublime harmonies of +“the new heavens and the new earth,” and +we shall all “see eye to eye!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Eleventh_Day" id="Eleventh_Day"></a>Eleventh Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t11.png" + alt="Eleventh Day." title="Eleventh Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>SYMPATHY.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Jesus wept.”—John, xi. 35.</p> + +<p>It is an affecting thing to see a Great man +in tears! “<i>Jesus wept!</i>” It was ever His +delight to tread in the footsteps of sorrow—to +heal the broken-hearted—turning aside from +His own path of suffering to “weep with +those that weep.”</p> + +<p><i>Bethany!</i> That scene, that <i>word</i>, is a condensed +volume of consolation for yearning +and desolate hearts. What a majesty in those +tears! He had just been discoursing on Himself +as the Resurrection and the Life—the +next moment He is a Weeping Man by a +human grave, melted in anguished sorrow at +a bereaved one’s side! Think of the funeral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +at the gate of Nain, reading its lesson to dejected +myriads—“Let thy widows trust in +me!” Think of the farewell discourse to +His disciples, when, muffling all His own foreseen +and anticipated sorrows, He thought +only of soothing and mitigating theirs! +Think of the affecting pause in that silent +procession to Calvary, when He turns round +and stills the sobs of those who are tracking +His steps with their weeping! Think of that +wondrous epitome of human tenderness, just +ere His eyes closed in their sleep of agony—in +the mightiest crisis of all time—when filial +love looked down on an anguished mother, +and provided her a son and a home!</p> + +<p>Ah, was there ever sympathy like this! +Son! Brother! Kinsman! Saviour! all in one! +The majesty of Godhead almost lost in the +tenderness of a Friend. But so it <i>was</i>, and so +it is. The heart of the now enthroned King +beats responsive to the humblest of His sorrow-stricken +people. “I am poor and needy, +yet the Lord <i>carries me on His heart</i>!” (margin.)</p> + +<p>Let us “go and do likewise.” Let us be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +ready, like our Lord, to follow the beck of +misery,—“to deliver the needy when he +crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no +helper.” Sympathy costs but little. Its recompense +and return are great, in the priceless +consolation it imparts. Few there are who +undervalue it. Look at Paul—the weary, +jaded prisoner,—chained to a soldier—recently +wrecked, about to stand before Cæsar. +He reaches Appii Forum and the Three +Taverns, dejected and depressed. Brethren +come from Rome, a distance of sixty miles, to +offer their <i>sympathy</i>. The aged man is cheered! +His spirit, like Jacob’s, “revived!” +“He thanked God, and took courage!”</p> + +<p>Reader! let “this mind,” this holy, Christ-like +<i>habit</i> be in you, which was also in your +adorable Master. Delight, when opportunity +occurs, to frequent the house of mourning—to +bind up the widow’s heart, and to dry the orphan’s +tears. If you can do nothing else, you +can whisper into the ear of disconsolate sorrow +those majestic solaces, which, rising first +in the graveyard of Bethany, have sent their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +undying echoes through the world, and stirred +the depths of ten thousand hearts. “Exercise +your souls,” says Butler, “in a loving sympathy +with sorrow in every form. Soothe it, +minister to it, succor it, revere it. It is the +relic of Christ in the world, an image of the +Great Sufferer, a shadow of the cross. It is +a holy and venerable thing.”</p> + +<p>Jesus Himself “<i>looked</i> for some to take <i>pity</i>, +but there was <i>none</i>; and for comforters, but +He found <i>none</i>!” It shows how even <i>He</i> +valued sympathy, and that, too, in its commonest +form of “<i>pity</i>,” though an ungrateful +World denied it.</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twelfth_Day" id="Twelfth_Day"></a>Twelfth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t12.png" + alt="Twelfth Day." title="Twelfth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>FIDELITY IN REBUKE.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.”—Luke, +xxii. 61.</p> + +<p>Jesus never spake one unnecessarily harsh +or severe word. He had a Divine sympathy +for the frailties and infirmities of a tried, and +suffering, and tempted nature in others. He +was forbearing to the ignorant, encouraging to +the weak, tender to the penitent, loving to +all,—yet how faithful was He as “the Reprover +of sin!” Silent under His own wrongs, with +what burning invectives did He lay bare the +Pharisees’ masked corruption and hypocrisy! +When His Father’s name and temple were +profaned, how did He sweep, with an avenging +hand, the mammon-crowd away, replacing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +superscription, “Holiness to the Lord,” over +the defiled altars!</p> + +<p>Nor was it different with His own disciples. +With what fidelity, when rebuke was needed, +did He administer it: the withering reprimand +conveyed sometimes by an impressive <i>word</i> +(Matt. xvi. 23); sometimes by a silent <i>look</i> +(Luke, xxii. 61). “Faithful always were the +wounds of <i>this</i> Friend.”</p> + +<p>Reader! art thou equally faithful with thy +Lord in rebuking evil; not with “the wrath of +man, which worketh not the righteousness of +God,” but with a holy jealousy of His glory, +feeling, with the sensitive honor of “the good +soldier of Jesus Christ,” that an affront offered +to Him is offered to thyself? The giving of +a wise reproof requires much Christian prudence +and delicate discretion. It is not by a +rash and inconsiderate exposure of failings +that we must attempt to reclaim an erring +brother. But neither, for the sake of a false +peace, must we compromise fidelity; even +friendship is too dearly purchased by winking +at sin. Perhaps, when Peter was led to call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +the Apostle who honestly reproved him, “Our +beloved brother Paul,” in nothing did he love +his rebuker more, than for the honest boldness +of his Christian reproof. If Paul had, in that +crisis of the Church, with a timidity unworthy +of him, evaded the ungracious task, what, +humanly speaking, might have been the +result?</p> + +<p>How often does a seasonable reprimand, a +faithful caution, save a lifetime of sin and +sorrow! How many a death-bed has made the +disclosure, “That kind warning of my friend +put an arrest on my career of guilt; it altered +my whole being; it brought me to the cross, +touched my heart, and, by God’s grace, saved +my soul!” On the other hand, how many +have felt, when death has put his impressive +seal on some close earthly intimacy, “This +friend, or that friend,—I might have spoken a +solemn word to him; but now he is no more; +the opportunity is lost, never to be recalled!”</p> + +<p>Reader! see that you act not the spiritual +coward. When tempted to sit silent when +the name of God is slighted or dishonored,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +think, <i>would Jesus have done so</i>?—would <i>He</i> +have allowed the oath to go unrebuked—the +lie to be uttered unchallenged—the Sabbath +with impunity to be profaned? Where there +is a natural diffidence which makes you shrink +from a more bold and open reproof, remember +much may be done to discountenance sin, by +the silent holiness of demeanor which refuses +to smile at the unholy allusion or ribald jest. +“A word spoken in due season, how good is +it!” “Speak gently,” yet speak faithfully: +“be pitiful—be courteous:” yet “quit you +like men; be strong!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Thirteenth_Day" id="Thirteenth_Day"></a>Thirteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t13.png" + alt="First Thirteenth." title="Thirteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>GENTLENESS IN REBUKE.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”—John, xxi. 15.</p> + +<p>No word here of the erring disciple’s past +faithlessness;—his guilty cowardice—<i>unmentioned</i>;—his +base denial—his oaths—and +curses, and treacherous desertion—all <i>unmentioned</i>! +The memory of a threefold denial is +<i>suggested</i>, and no more, by the threefold +question of unutterable tenderness, “Simon, +son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” When Jesus +finds His disciples sleeping at the gate of +Gethsemane, He rebukes them; but how is +the rebuke disarmed of its poignancy by the +merciful apology which is added—“The spirit +indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!” How +different from <i>their</i> unkind insinuation regarding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +<i>Him</i>, when, in the vessel on Tiberias, “He +was asleep”—“Master carest thou not that +we perish!” The woman of Samaria is full +of earthliness, carnality, sectarianism, guilt. +Yet how gently the Saviour speaks to her—how +forbearingly, yet faithfully. He directs +the arrow of conviction to that seared and +hardened conscience, till He lays it bleeding +at His feet! Truly, “He will not break the +bruised reed—He will not quench the smoking +flax.” By “the <i>goodness</i> of God,” He would +lead to repentance. When others are speaking +of merciless violence, He can dismiss the +most guilty of profligates with the words, +“Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no +more.”</p> + +<p>How many have an unholy pleasure in +finding a brother in the wrong—blazing +abroad his failings; administering rebuke, not +in gentle forbearance and kindly expostulation, +but with harsh and impatient severity! +How beautifully did Jesus unite intense sensibility +to sin, along with tenderest compassion +for the sinner, showing in this that “He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +knoweth our frame!” Many a scholar needs +gentleness in chastisement. The reverse +would crush a sensitive spirit, or drive it to +despair. Jesus tenderly “considers” the case +of those He disciplines, “tempering the wind +to the shorn lamb.” In the picture of the +good shepherd bearing home the wandering +sheep, He illustrated by parable what He had +often and again taught by His own example. +No word of needless harshness or upbraiding +uttered to the erring wanderer! Ingratitude +is too deeply felt to need rebuke! In silent +love, “He lays it on His shoulders rejoicing.”</p> + +<p>Reader! seek to mingle gentleness in all +your rebukes; bear with the infirmities of +others; make allowance for constitutional +frailties; never say harsh things, if kind +things will do as well; do not unnecessarily +lacerate with recalling former delinquencies. +In reproving another, let us rather feel how +much we need reproof ourselves. “Consider +thyself,” is a searching Scripture motto for +dealing with an erring brother. Remember +thy Lord’s method of silencing fierce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +accusation—“Let him that is without sin cast the +first stone.” Moreover, anger and severity +are not the successful means of reclaiming the +backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like +the <i>smooth</i> stones with which David smote +Goliath, <i>gentle</i> rebukes are generally the most +powerful. The old fable of the traveller and +his cloak has a moral here as in other things. +The genial sunshine will effect its removal +sooner than the rough tempest. It was said +of Leighton, that “he rebuked faults so +mildly, that they were never repeated, not +because the admonished were afraid, but +ashamed to do so.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Fourteenth_Day" id="Fourteenth_Day"></a>Fourteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t14.png" + alt="Fourteenth Day." title="Fourteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>ENDURANCE IN CONTRADICTION.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Who endured such contradiction of sinners against +Himself.”—Heb. xii. 3.</p> + +<p>What endurance was this! Perfect truth +in the midst of error; perfect love in the +midst of ingratitude and coldness; perfect +rectitude in the midst of perjury, violence, +fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of contumely +and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting +every debased form of depravity and +guilt; perfect patience, encountering every +species of gross provocation—“oppressed and +afflicted, He opened not His mouth!” “For +my love” (in return for my love), “they are +mine adversaries; <i>but</i>” (see His endurance!—the +only species of revenge of which His sinless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +nature was capable) “<i>I give myself unto +prayer!</i>” (Ps. cix. 4.)</p> + +<p>Reader! “let this mind be in you, which +was also in Christ Jesus!” The greatest test +of an earthly soldier’s courage is <i>patient endurance</i>! +The noblest trait of the spiritual +soldier is the same. “Having done all <i>to +stand</i>,” “He <i>endured</i>, as seeing Him who is +invisible!” Beware of the angry recrimination, +the hasty ebullition of temper. Amid +unkind insinuations—when motives are misrepresented, +and reputation assailed; when +good deeds are ridiculed, kind intentions +coldly thwarted and repulsed, chilling reserve +manifested where you expected nothing but +friendship—what a triumph over natural impulse +to manifest a spirit of meek endurance!—like +a rainbow, radiant with the hues of +heaven, resting peacefully amid the storms of +derision and “the floods of ungodly men.” +What an opportunity of magnifying the “sustaining +grace of God!” “It is a small thing +for me to be judged of you, or of man’s judgment; +He that judgeth me is the Lord.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear +what man can do unto me.” “Blessed is the +man that <i>endureth</i>.” “He that <i>endureth</i> to the +end, the same shall be saved.”</p> + +<p>If faithful to our God, we must expect to +encounter contradiction in the same form +which Jesus did—“the contradiction of <i>sinners</i>.” +It has been well said, “There is no cross of +nails and wood erected now for the Christian, +but there is one of words and looks which is +never taken down.” If believers are set as +lights in the earth, lamps in the “city of destruction,” +we know that “he that doeth evil +<i>hateth</i> the light.” “Marvel not, my brethren, +if the world hate you!”</p> + +<p>Weary and faint ones, exposed to the shafts +of calumny and scorn because of your fidelity +to your God; encountering, it may be, the +coldness and estrangement of those dear to +you, who can not, perhaps, sympathize in the +holiness of your walk and the loftiness of +your aims, “consider <i>Him</i> that endured such +contradiction of sinners against Himself, <i>lest</i> +ye be weary and faint in your minds!” What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +is <i>your</i> “contradiction” to <i>His</i>? Soon your +cross, whatever it be, will have an end. +“The seat of the scorner” has no place in +yonder glorious heaven, where all will be +peace—no jarring note to disturb its blissful +harmonies! Look forward to the great coronation-day +of the Church triumphant,—the +day of your divine Lord’s appearing, when +motives and aims, now misunderstood, will be +vindicated, wrongs redressed, calumnies and +aspersions wiped away. Meanwhile, “rejoice +that you are counted worthy to suffer shame +for His name.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Fifteenth_Day" id="Fifteenth_Day"></a>Fifteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t15.png" + alt="Fifteenth Day." title="Fifteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>PLEASING GOD.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I do always those things that please Him.”—John, viii. 29.</p> + +<p>What a glorious motto for a man—“<i>I live +for God!</i>” It is religion’s truest definition. +It is the essence of angelic bliss—the motive-principle +of angelic action; “Ye ministers of +His, that do His pleasure.” The Lord of +angels knew no higher, no <i>other</i> motive. It +was, during His incarnation, the regulator +and directory of His daily being. It supported +Him amid the depressing sorrows of +His woe-worn path. It upheld him in their +awful termination in the garden and on the +cross. For a moment, sinking human nature +faltered under the load His Godhead sustained;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +but the thought of “pleasing God” +nerved and revived Him. “Not my will, +but <i>Thine</i> be done.”</p> + +<p>It is only when the love of God is shed +abroad in the heart, that this animating desire +to “please Him” can exist. In the holy +bosom of Jesus, that love reigned paramount, +admitting no rival—no competing affection. +Though infinitely inferior in degree, it is the +same impelling principle which leads His +people still to link enjoyment with His service, +and which makes consecration to Him +of heart and life its own best recompense and +reward. “There is a gravitation,” says one +whose life was the holy echo of his words, +“in the moral as in the physical world. +When love to God is habitually in the ascendant, +or occupying the place of will, it gathers +round it all the other desires of the soul as +satellites, and whirls them along with it in its +orbit round the center of attraction.” (<i>Hewitson’s +Life.</i>) Till the heart, then, be changed, +the believer can not have “this testimony +that he <i>pleases God</i>.” The world, self, sin—these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +be the gods of the unregenerate soul. +And even <i>when</i> changed, alas that there +should be so many ebbings and flowings in +our tide of devotedness! Jesus could say, +“I do <i>always</i> those things that please the +Father.” Glory to God burned within His +bosom like a living fire. “Many waters +could not quench it.” His were no fitful and +inconsistent frames and feelings, but the persistent +habit of a holy life, which had the one +end in view, from which it never diverged or +deviated.</p> + +<p>Let it be so, in some lowly measure with +us. Let God’s service not be the mere livery +of high days,—of set times and seasons; but, +like the alabaster box of ointment, let us ever +be giving forth the fragrant perfume of holiness. +Even when the shadows of trial are +falling around us, let us “pass through the +cloud” with the sustaining motive—“All my +wish, O God, is to please and glorify Thee! +By giving or taking—by smiting or healing—by +the sweet cup or the bitter—‘Father, +glorify thy name!’” “I don’t want to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +weary of God’s dealing with me,” said Bickersteth, +on his death-bed; “I want to glorify +Jesus in them, and to find Him more precious.” +Do I shrink from trials—duties—crosses—because +involving hardships and self-denial, +or because frowned on by the world? Let +the thought of God’s approving countenance +be enough. Let me dread no censure, if conscious +of acting in accordance with <i>His</i> will. +Let the Apostle’s monitory word determine +many a perplexing path—“If I please men, +I am not the servant of Christ.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Sixteenth_Day" id="Sixteenth_Day"></a>Sixteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t16.png" + alt="Sixteenth Day." title="Sixteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>GRIEF AT SIN.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.”—Mark, +iii. 5.</p> + +<p>On this one occasion only is the expression +used with reference to Jesus—(what intensity +of emotion does it denote, spoken of a +sinless nature!)—“He looked round on them +<i>with anger</i>!” Never did He grieve for Himself. +His intensest sorrows were reserved for +those who were tampering with their own +souls, and dishonoring His God. The continual +spectacle of moral evil, thrust on the gaze +of spotless purity, made His earthly history +one consecutive history of grief, one perpetual +“cross and passion.”</p> + +<p>In the tears shed at the grave of Bethany, +sympathy, doubtless, for the world’s myriad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +mourners, had its own share (the bereaved +could not part with so precious a tribute in +their hours of sadness), but a far more impressive +cause was one undiscerned by the weeping +sisters and sorrowing crowd; His knowledge +of the deep and obdurate impenitence of those +who were about to gaze on the mightiest of +miracles, only to “despise, and wonder, and +perish.” “<i>Jesus wept!</i>”—but His profoundest +anguish was over resisted grace, abused privileges, +scorned mercy. It was the Divine +Artificer mourning over His shattered handiwork; +the Almighty Creator weeping over +His ruined world; God, the God-man, “grieving” +over the Temple of the soul, a humiliating +wreck of what once was made “after His +own image!”</p> + +<p>Can we sympathize in any respect with such +exalted tears? Do we mourn for sin, our <i>own</i> +sin—the deep insult which it inflicts on God—the +ruinous consequences it entails on ourselves? +Do we grieve at sin in <i>others</i>? Do +we know any thing of “vexing our souls,” +like righteous Lot, “from day to day,” with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +the world’s “unlawful deeds,” the stupid +hardness and obduracy of the depraved heart, +which resists alike the appliances of wrath and +love, judgment and mercy? Ah! it is easy, +in general terms, to condemn vice, and to +utter harsh, severe, and cutting denunciations +on the guilty: it is easy to pass uncharitable +comments on the inconsistencies or follies of +others: but to “<i>grieve</i>” as our Lord did, is a +different thing; to mourn over the hardness +of heart, and yet to have the burning desire +to teach it better things; to hate, as He did, +the sin, but, like Him also, to love the <i>sinner</i>!</p> + +<p>Reader! look specially to your own spirit. +In one respect, the example of Jesus falls +short of your case. He had no sin of His +own to mourn over. He could only commiserate +others. <i>Your</i> intensest grief must begin +with <i>yourself</i>. Like the watchful Levite of +old, be a guardian at the temple-gates of your +own soul. Whatever be your besetting iniquity, +your constitutional bias to sin, seek +to guard it with wakeful vigilance. Grieve at +the thought of incurring one passing shadow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +of displeasure from so kind and compassionate +a Saviour. Let this be a holy preservative +in your every hour of temptation, “How +can I do this great wickedness, and sin against +God?”</p> + +<p>Grieve for a perishing world—a groaning +creation fettered and chained in unwilling +“subjection to vanity.” Do what you can, +by effort, by prayer, to hasten on the hour of +jubilee, when its ashy robes of sin and sorrow +shall be laid aside, and, attired in the +“beauties of holiness,” it shall exult in “the +glorious liberty of the sons of God!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Seventeenth_Day" id="Seventeenth_Day"></a>Seventeenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t17.png" + alt="Seventeenth Day." title="Seventeenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>HUMILITY.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; +and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He +poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the +disciples’ feet.”—John, xiii. 4, 5.</p> + +<p>What a matchless picture of humility! +At the very moment when His throne was in +view; angel-anthems floating in His ear; +the hour come “when He was to depart out +of this world;” possessing a lofty consciousness +of His peerless dignity, that “He came +<i>from</i> God and went <i>to</i> God;” <span class="smcap">then</span> “Jesus +took a towel, and girded Himself, and began +to wash the disciples’ feet!” All heaven was +ready at that moment to cast their combined +crowns at His feet. But the High and the +Lofty One, inhabiting eternity, is on earth “as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +one that serveth!” “That <i>infinite stoop</i>! it +sinks all creature humiliation to nothing, and +renders it impossible for a creature to <i>humble</i> +himself.”—(<i>Evans</i>).</p> + +<p>Humility follows Him, from His unhonored +birthplace to His borrowed grave. It throws +a subdued splendor over all He did. “The +poor in spirit,”—the “mourner,”—the “meek,”—claim +His first beatitudes. He was severe +only to one class—those who looked down +upon others. However He is employed; +whether performing His works of miraculous +power, or receiving angel-visitants, or taking +little children in His arms, He stands forth +“clothed with humility.” Nay, this humility +becomes more conspicuous as He draws nearer +glory. Before His death, He calls His disciples +“<i>Friends</i>;” subsequently, it is “<i>Brethren</i>,” +“<i>Children</i>.” How sad the contrast between +the Master and His disciples! Two +hours had not elapsed after He washed their +feet, when “there was a strife among them +which should be the greatest!”</p> + +<p>Let the mental image of that lowly Redeemer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +be ever bending over us. His example +may well speak in silent impressiveness, +bringing us down from our pedestal of pride. +There surely can be no labor of love too +humiliating when <i>He</i> stooped so low. Let us +be content to take the humblest place; not +envious of the success or exaltation of another; +not, “like Diotrephes, loving preëminence;” +“but willing to be thought little +of;” saying with the Baptist, with our eye on +our Lord, “He must increase, but I must +decrease!”</p> + +<p>How much we have cause to be humble +for! the constant cleaving of defilement to +our souls; and even what is partially good in +us, how mixed with imperfection, self-seeking, +arrogance, vain-glory! A proud Christian is +a contradiction in terms. The Seraphim of +old (type of the Christian Church, and of +believers) had six wings—<i>two</i> were for errands +of love, but “with <i>four</i> he <i>covered</i> himself!” +It has been beautifully said, “You lie nearest +the River of Life when you <i>bend</i> to it; you +can not drink, but as you <i>stoop</i>.” The corn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +of the field, as it ripens, bows its head; so the +Christian, as he ripens in the Divine life, bends +in this lowly grace. Christ speaks of His +people as “lilies”—they are “lilies of <i>the +valley</i>,” they can only grow in the shade!</p> + +<p>“Humble yourselves under the mighty +hand of God.” “Go” with what Rutherford +calls “a low sail.” It is the livery of your +blessed Master; the family badge—the family +likeness. “With this man will I dwell, even +with him that is <i>humble</i>.” Yes! the humble, +sanctified heart is God’s <i>second Heaven</i>!</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Eighteenth_Day" id="Eighteenth_Day"></a>Eighteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t18.png" + alt="Eighteenth Day." title="Eighteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>PATIENCE.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”—Isa. +liii, 7.</p> + +<p>How great was the <i>patience</i> of Jesus! Even +among His own disciples, how forbearingly +He endured their blindness, their misconceptions +and hardness of heart! Philip had been +for three years with Him, yet he had “not +known Him!”—all that time he had remained +in strange and culpable ignorance of his Lord’s +dignity and glory. See how tenderly Jesus +bears with him; giving him nothing in reply +for his confession of ignorance but unparalleled +promises of grace! Peter, the honored and +trusted, becomes a renegade and a coward. +Justly might his dishonored Lord, stung with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +such unrequited love, have cut the unworthy +cumberer down. But He spares him, bears +with him, gently rebukes him, and loves him +more than ever! See the Divine Sufferer in +the terminating scenes of His own ignominy +and woe. How patient!—“As a sheep before +her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His +mouth.” In these awful moments, outraged +Omnipotence might have summoned twelve +legions of angels and put into the hand of each +a vial of wrath. But He submits in meek, +majestic silence. Verily, in <i>Him</i> “patience +had her <i>perfect</i> work!”</p> + +<p>Think of this same patience with His Church +and people since He ascended to glory. The +years upon years He has borne with their +perverse resistance of His grace, their treacherous +ingratitude, their wayward wanderings, +their hardness of heart and contempt of His +holy word. Yet, behold the forbearing love +of this Saviour of God! His hand of mercy +is “stretched out still!”</p> + +<p>Child of God! art thou now undergoing +some bitter trial? The way of thy God, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +may be, all mystery; no footprints of love +traceable in the checkered path; no light, in +the clouds above; no ray in the dark future. +<i>Be patient!</i> “The Lord is good to them that +<i>wait</i> for Him.” “They that <i>wait</i> on the Lord +shall renew their strength!” Or hast thou +been long tossed on some bed of sickness—days +of pain and nights of weariness appointed +thee? <i>Be patient!</i> “I trust this groaning,” +said a suffering saint, “is not murmuring.” +God, by this very affliction, is nurturing within +thee this beauteous grace which shone so +conspicuously in the character of thy dear +Lord. With Him it was a lovely <i>habit</i> of the +soul. With thee, the “tribulation” which +worketh “patience” is needful discipline. It +is <i>good</i> for a man that he should both hope +and quietly <i>wait</i> for the salvation of God. +Art thou suffering some unmerited wrong or +unkindness, exposed to harsh and wounding +accusations, hard for flesh and blood to bear? +<i>Be patient!</i> Beware of hastiness of speech or +temper; remember how much evil may be +done by a few inconsiderate words ”spoken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +unadvisedly with the lip.” Think of Jesus +standing before a human tribunal, in the +silent submissiveness of conscious innocence +and integrity. Leave thy cause with God. +Let this be the only form of thy complaint, +“O God, I am oppressed; undertake Thou for +me!”</p> + +<p>“In patience,” then, “possess ye your +souls.” Let it not be a grace for peculiar +seasons, called forth on peculiar exigences; +but an habitual frame manifested in the calm +serenity of a daily walk;—placidity amid the +little fretting annoyances of every-day life—a +fixed purpose of the heart to wait upon God, +and cast its every burden upon Him.</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Nineteenth_Day" id="Nineteenth_Day"></a>Nineteenth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t19.png" + alt="Nineteenth Day." title="Nineteenth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>SUBJECTION.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“As the Father gave me commandment, even so I +do.”—John, xiv. 31.</p> + +<p>Jesus as God-man had omnipotence slumbering +in His arm. He had the hoarded +treasures of eternity in His grasp. He had +only to “speak, and it was done.” But, as an +example to His people, His whole life on +earth was one impressive act of subordination +and dependence. At Nazareth He was +“subject to His parents.” There He remained +in studied obscurity, occupying for +thirty years a lowly hut, willing to continue +in a state of seclusion, till the Father’s summons +called Him to His appointed work.</p> + +<p>At His baptism, sinless Himself, He gives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +this reason for receiving a sinner’s rite at a +sinner’s hands—“Suffer it to be so now, for +thus it becometh Me to fulfill all righteousness.” +The same beautiful spirit of filial +<i>subjection</i> shines conspicuous amid His acts of +stupendous power. “Jesus lifted up His eyes +and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou +hast heard Me; and I know that Thou hearest +Me always; but because of the people which +stand by, I said it, that they may believe that +Thou has sent Me.” Even among His own +disciples His language is, “I am among you +as He that serveth.” With an act of submission +He closed His pilgrimage and work of +love. “Father, into Thy hands I commend +My spirit.”</p> + +<p>What an example to us, in all this, is our +beloved Lord! Surely, if <i>He</i>, “God only +wise”—the Self-existent One, to whom “all +power was committed;”—the Sinless One, +never liable to err, on whom “the Spirit was +poured without measure”—if <i>He</i> manifested +such habitual dependence on His heavenly +Father, how earnestly ought <i>we</i>, weak, erring,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +fallible creatures, to seek to live every hour—every +moment—as pensioners on God’s grace +and love, following in all things His directing +hand! As the servant has his eyes on his +master, or the child on its parent, “so should +our eyes be on the Lord our God.” Howsoever +He speaks, be it ours with all docility to +follow the voice, indorsing every utterance +of providence, and every precept of Scripture, +with our Lord’s own words, “<i>This is the +Father’s will!</i>”</p> + +<p>Beware of self-dependence. The first step +in spiritual declension is this: “Let him that +<i>thinketh he standeth</i>!” The secret of real +strength is this: “<i>Kept</i> by the <i>power of +God</i>!”</p> + +<p>How it sweetens all our blessings, and alleviates +all our sorrows, to regard both as emanations +from a loving Father’s hand. Even +if we should be, like the disciples of old, +“<i>constrained</i>” to go into the ship; if all +should be darkness and tempest, frowning +providences—“the wind contrary;” how +blessed to feel that in embarking on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +unquiet element, “the Lord has bidden us!” +Paul could not speak even of taking an +earthly journey, without the parenthesis (“if +the Lord will”). How many trials, and sorrows, +and <i>sins</i>, would it save us, if the same +were the habitual regulator of our daily life! +It would lead to calm contentment with our lot, +hushing every disquieting suggestion with the +thought that that lot, with all that is apparently +adverse in it, was <i>ordained</i> for us. It would +teach us not to be aspiring after <i>great</i> things, +but humbly to wait the will and purposes of +a wise Provider; not to go <i>before</i> our Heavenly +Guide, but to <i>follow</i> Him, saying, in meek +subjection, “Lord, my heart is not haughty, +nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself +in great matters, or in things too high for +for me ... my soul is even as a weaned +child!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twentieth_Day" id="Twentieth_Day"></a>Twentieth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t20.png" + alt="Twentieth Day." title="Twentieth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>NOT RETALIATING.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again.”—1 Peter, ii. 23.</p> + +<p>What a common dictate of the fallen and +regenerate heart to resent and recriminate! +How alien to natural feeling to answer cutting +taunts, and meet unmerited wrong with the +Divine method the Gospel prescribes—“Overcome +evil with good!” It was in the closing +scenes of the Saviour’s humiliation, when, +silent and unresenting, He stood “dumb +before His shearers,” that this beautiful feature +in His character was most wondrously +manifested; but it beams forth, also, for our +imitation in the ordinary and less prominent +incidents of His pilgrimage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>When He met Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, +He found him clinging to an unreasonable +prejudice—“Can any good thing come out of +Nazareth?” The severe remark is allowed +to pass unnoticed. Overlooking the unkind +insinuation, the Saviour fixes on the favorable +feature of his character, “Behold an Israelite +indeed, in whom is no guile!” After His +resurrection, He appears to His disciples. +They were cowering in shame, half afraid to +confront the glance of injured goodness. He +breathes on them, and says, “Peace be unto +you!” Peter was the one of all the rest who +had most reason to dread estranged looks and +upbraiding words; but a special message is +sent to reassure that trembling spirit that there +was no alienation in the unresentful Heart he +had so deeply wounded; “Go and tell the +disciples ... and <i>Peter</i>!” Even when +Judas first revealed himself to his Lord as the +betrayer, we believe it was not in bitter irony +or rebuke, but in the fullness of pitying tenderness, +that Jesus addressed him, “Friend, +wherefore art thou come?” Tears and prayers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +were His only revenge on the city and scene +of His murder. “Beginning at Jerusalem,” +was the closing illustration of a spirit “not +of this world”—a significant parting testimony +that in the bosom that uttered it retaliation +had no place.</p> + +<p>More than one of the disciples seem to have +imbibed much of this “mind” of their Lord. +“We owe St. Paul,” says Augustine, “to the +death of Stephen;” “they stoned Stephen ... and +he kneeled down and cried +with a loud voice, Lord! lay not this sin to +their charge.”</p> + +<p>Take another example: The great Apostle +of the Gentiles felt himself under a painful +necessity faithfully to rebuke Peter in presence +of the whole Church. He had <i>recorded</i> that +rebuke, too, in one of his epistles. It was thus +to be handed down to every age as a permanent +and humiliating evidence of the wavering +inconstancy of his fellow-laborer. Peter, +doubtless, must have felt acutely the severity +of the chastisement. Does he resent it? He, +too, puts on record, long after, in one of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +own epistles a sentence regarding his Rebuker, +but it is this—“Our <i>beloved brother</i> +Paul!”</p> + +<p>Reader! when tempted to utter the harsh +word, or give the cutting or hasty answer, +seek to check yourself with the question, “Is +this the reply my Saviour would have given?” +If your fellow-men should prove unkind, inconsiderate, +ungrateful, be it yours to refer the +cause to God. Speak of the faults of others +only in prayer; manifesting more sorrow for +the sin of the censorious and unkind, than for +the evil inflicted on yourselves. <i>Retaliate!</i> +No such word should have a place in the +Christian’s vocabulary. <i>Retaliate!</i> If I cherish +such a spirit towards my brother, how can +I meet that brother in heaven?—“But ye +have not so learned in Christ.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_first_Day" id="Twenty_first_Day"></a>Twenty-first Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t21.png" + alt="Twenty-first Day." title="Twenty-first Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>BEARING THE CROSS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“And He bearing His cross.”—John, xix. 17.</p> + +<p>When did Jesus bear the cross? Not that +moment alone, surely, when the bitter tree +was placed on His shoulders, on the way to +Golgotha. Its vision may be said to have +risen before Him in His infant dreams in +Bethlehem’s cradle; there, rather, its reality +began; and He ceased not to carry it, till His +work was finished, and the victory won! A +<i>cloud</i>, of old, hovered over the mercy-seat in +the tabernacle and temple. So it was with +the Great Antitype—the living Mercy-Seat—He +had ever a cloud of woe hanging over +him. “He <i>carried</i> our sorrows.”</p> + +<p>Reader! dwell much and often under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +shadow of your Lord’s cross, and it will lead +you to think lightly of your own! If <i>He</i> +gave utterance to not one murmuring word, +canst <i>thou</i> complain? “If we were deeper +students of his bitter anguish, we should think +less of the ripplings of our waves, amidst His +horrible tempest.”—(<i>Evans.</i>) The saint’s cross +assumes many and diverse shapes. Sometimes +it is the bitter trial, the crushing pang of +bereavement—desolate households, and aching +hearts. Sometimes it is the crucifixion +of sin, the determined battle with “lusts +which war against the soul.” Sometimes it is +the resistance of evil maxims and practices of +a lying world; vindicating the honor of +Christ, in the midst, it may be, of taunt, and +obloquy, and shame. And as there are different +crosses, so there are different ways of +bearing them. To some, God says, “put your +shoulder to the burden; lift it up, and bear it +on; work, and toil, and labor!” To others, +He says, “Be still, bear it, and <i>suffer</i>!”</p> + +<p>Believer! thy cross may be hard to endure; +it may involve deep struggles—tears by day,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +watchings by night; bear it meekly, patiently, +justifying God’s wisdom in laying it on. Rejoice +in the assurance that He gives not one +atom more of earthly trial than He sees to be +really needful; not one redundant thorn +pierces your feet. In the very bearing of the +cross for <i>His</i> sake, there are mighty compensations. +What new views of your Saviour’s +love! His truth, His promises, His sustaining +grace, His sufferings, His glory! What new +filial nearness; increased delight in prayer; +an inner sunshine when it is darkest without! +The waves cover you, but underneath them +all, are “the everlasting arms!”</p> + +<p>Do not look out for a situation <i>without</i> +crosses. Be not over anxious about “smooth +paths;”—leaving your God, as Orpah did +Naomi, just when the cross requires to be +carried. Immoderate earthly enjoyments—unbroken +earthly prosperity—write upon +these, “<i>Beware!</i>” You may live to see them +become your greatest trials!</p> + +<p>Remember the old saying, “No cross, no +crown.” The sun of the saint’s life generally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +struggles through “weeping clouds.” One of +the loveliest passages of Scripture is that in +which, the portals of heaven being opened, we +overhear this dialogue between two ransomed +ones—“And one of the elders answered saying +unto me, What are these which are arrayed +in white robes, and whence came they? +And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And +he said to me, <i>These are they which came out of +great tribulation!</i>”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_second_Day" id="Twenty_second_Day"></a>Twenty-second Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t22.png" + alt="Twenty-second Day." title="Twenty-second Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>HOLY ZEAL.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.”—John, +ii. 17.</p> + +<p>“Zeal, is a principle; enthusiasm is a feeling. +The one is a spark of a sanguine temperament +and overheated imagination. The other, a +sacred flame kindled at God’s altar, and burning +in God’s shrine.”—(<i>Vaughan.</i>) Such was the +holy, heavenly zeal of our Great Exemplar! +His were no transient outbursts of ardor, +which time cooled and difficulties impeded. +His life was one indignant protest against sin;—one +ceaseless current of undying love for +souls, which all the malignity of foes, and unkindness +of friends, could not for one moment +divert from its course. Even when He rises<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +from the dead, and we imagine His work at an +end, His zeal only meditates fresh deeds of +love. “Still His heart and His care,” says +Godwin, “is upon doing more. Having now +dispatched that great work on earth, He sends +His disciples word that He is hastening to +heaven as fast as He can, to do another.” +(John, xx. 17).</p> + +<p>Reader! do you know any thing of this +zeal, which “many waters could not quench”? +See that, like your Lord’s, it be steady, sober, +consistent, undeviating. How many are, like +the children of Ephraim, “carrying bows”—all +zealous when zeal demands no sacrifice, +but “turning their backs in the day of battle!” +Others “running well” for a time, but gradually +“hindered,” through the benumbing +influences of worldliness, selfishness, and sin. +Two disciples, apparently equally devoted and +zealous, send through Paul, in one of his +epistles, a conjoint Christian salutation—“Luke +and Demas greet you.” A few years +afterward, thus he writes from his Roman +dungeon—“Only <i>Luke</i> is with me,” “<i>Demas</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +hath <i>forsaken</i> me, having loved this present +world!”</p> + +<p>While zeal is commendable, remember the +Apostle’s qualification, “It is good to be +zealously affected always in a <i>good</i> thing.” +There is in these days much base coin current, +<i>called</i> “zeal,” which bears not the image and +superscription of Jesus. There is zeal for +church-membership and party; zeal for creeds +and dogmas; zeal for figments and non-essentials. +“From such turn aside.” Your Lord +stamped with His example and approval no +such counterfeits. <i>His</i> zeal was ever brought +to bear on two objects, and two objects alone—<i>the +glory of God</i> and <i>the good of man</i>. Be it +so with <i>you</i>. Enter, first of all (as He did the +earthly temple), the sanctuary of <i>your own +heart</i>, with “the scourge of small cords.” +Drive out every unhallowed intruder there. +Do not suffer yourself to be deceived. Others +may call such jealous searchings of spirit +“sanctimoniousness” and “enthusiasm.” But +remember, to be <i>almost saved</i>, is to be <i>altogether +lost</i>!—to be zealous about every thing but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +“the one thing needful,” is an insult to God +and your everlasting interests!</p> + +<p>Have a zeal for <i>others</i>. Dying myriads are +around you. As a member of the Christian +priesthood, it becomes you to rush in with +your censer and incense between the living +and the dead, “that the plague may be +stayed!”</p> + +<p>Be it yours to say, “Blessed Jesus! I am +<i>Thine</i>!—Thine only!—Thine wholly!—Thine +for ever! I am willing to follow Thee, and +(if need be) to <i>suffer</i> for Thee. I am ready at +Thy bidding to leave the homestead in the +valley, and to face the cutting blasts of the +mountain. Take me—use me for Thy glory. +‘Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?’”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_third_Day" id="Twenty_third_Day"></a>Twenty-third Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t23.png" + alt="Twenty-third Day." title="Twenty-third Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>BENEVOLENCE.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Who went about doing good.”—Acts, x. 38.</p> + +<p>“Christ’s great end,” says Richard Baxter, +“was to save men from their <i>sins</i>; but He +delighted to save them from their <i>sorrows</i>.” +His heart bled for human misery. Benevolence +brought Him from heaven; benevolence +followed His steps wherever He went on earth. +The journeys of the Divine Philanthropist +were marked by tears of thankfulness, and +breathings of grateful love. The helpless, the +blind, the lame, the desolate, rejoiced at the +sound of His footfall. Truly might it be said +of Him, “When the ear heard me, then it +blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it +gave witness to me.” (Job, xxix. 11.) All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +suffering hearts were a magnet to Jesus. It +was not more His prerogative than His happiness +to turn tears into smiles. One of the few +pleasures which on earth gladdened the spirit +of the “Man of sorrows” was the pleasure of +<i>doing good</i>—soothing grief, and alleviating +misery. Next to the joy of the widow of +Nain when her son was restored, was the joy +in the bosom of the Divine Restorer! He +often went out of His way to be kind. A +journey was not grudged, even if <i>one</i> aching +spirit were to be soothed. (Mark, v. 1; John, +iv. 4, 5.) Nor were his kindnesses dispensed +through the intervention of others. They +were all personal acts. His own hand healed. +His own voice spake. His own footsteps +lingered on the threshold of bereavement, or +at the precincts of the tomb. Ah! had the +princes of this world known the loving-tenderness +and unselfishness of <i>that</i> heart, “they +would not have crucified the Lord of Glory”!</p> + +<p>Reader! do you know any thing of such +active benevolence? Have you never felt the +<i>luxury</i> of doing good? Have you never felt,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +that in making <i>others</i> happy, you make <i>your +self</i> so? that, by a great law of your being, +enunciated by the Divine Patron and Pattern +of Benevolence, “it is more blessed to give +than to receive”? Has God enriched you +with this world’s goods? Seek to view yourself +as a consecrated medium for dispensing +them to others. Beware alike of penurious +hoarding and selfish extravagance. How sad +the case of those whose lot God has made thus +to abound with temporal mercies, who have +gone to the grave unconscious of diminishing +one drop of human misery, or making one of +the world’s myriad aching hearts happier! +How the example of <i>Jesus</i> rebukes the cold +and calculating kindnesses—the mite-like +offerings of many even of His own people! +“whose libation is not like His, from the brim +of an overflowing cup, but from the bottom—from +the <i>dregs</i>!”</p> + +<p>You may have little to give. Your sphere +and means may be alike limited. But remember +God can be as much glorified by the trifle +saved from the earnings of poverty, as by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +splendid benefaction from the lap of plenty +“The Lord loveth a <i>cheerful</i> giver.”</p> + +<p>The nobler part of Christian benevolence +is not vast largesses, munificent pecuniary +sacrifices. “<i>He went about</i> doing good.” The +merciful visit—the friendly word—the look +of sympathy—the cup of cold water, the +little unostentatious service—the giving without +thought or hope of recompense—the +kindly “considering of the poor”—anticipating +their wants—studying their comforts; +these are what God values and loves. They +are “loans” to Himself—tributary streams to +“the river of <i>His</i> pleasure;” they will be +acknowledged at last as such—“Ye did it +unto <i>Me</i>.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_fourth_Day" id="Twenty_fourth_Day"></a>Twenty-fourth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t24.png" + alt="Twenty-fourth Day." title="Twenty-fourth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>FIRMNESS IN TEMPTATION.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Jesus saith unto him, Get thee hence, Satan.”—Matt. +iv. 10.</p> + +<p>There is an awful intensity of meaning in +the words, as applied to Jesus, “He <i>suffered</i>, +being tempted!” Though incapable of sin, +there was, in the refined sensibilities of His +holy nature, that which made temptation unspeakably +fearful. What must it have been +to confront the Arch-traitor?—to stand face +to face with the foe of His throne, and His +universe? But the “prince of this world” +came, and found “nothing in Him.” Billow +after billow of Satanic violence spent their +fury, in vain, on the Living Rock!</p> + +<p>Reader! you have still the same malignant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +enemy to contend with; assailing you in a +thousand insidious forms; marvelously adapting +his assaults to your circumstances, your +temperament, your mental bias, your master-passion! +There is no place where “Satan’s seat” +is not; “the whole world lieth in the Wicked +one.” (1 John, v. 19.) He has his whispers +for the ear of childhood; hoary age is not +inaccessible to his wiles. “<i>All this will I give +thee</i>”—is still his bribe to deny Jesus and to +“mind earthly things.” He will meet you +in the crowd; he will follow you to the solitude; +his is a sleepless vigilance!</p> + +<p>Are you bold in repelling him as your +Master was? Are you ready with the retort +to every foul suggestion, “Get thee hence, +Satan”? Cultivate a tender sensitiveness +about sin. The finest barometers are the +most sensitive. Whatever be your besetting +frailty—whatever bitter or baleful passion +you are conscious aspires to the mastery—watch +it, crucify it, “nail it to your Lord’s +cross.” <i>You</i> may despise “the day of small +things”—the Great Adversary does <i>not</i>. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +knows the power of <i>littles</i>; that little by +little consumes and eats out the vigor of the +soul. And once the retrograde movement in +the spiritual life begins, who can predict where +it may end? the going on “from weakness to +weakness,” instead of “from strength to +strength.” Make no compromises; never +join in the ungodly amusement, or venture on +the questionable path, with the plea, “It does +me no harm.” The Israelites, on entering +Canaan, instead of obeying the Divine injunction +of extirpating their enemies, made a +hollow truce with them. What was the result? +Years upon years of tedious warfare. +“They were scourges in their sides, and +thorns in their eyes!” It is quaintly but +truthfully said by an old writer, “The candle +will never burn clear, while there is a <i>thief</i> in +it. Sin indulged, in the conscience, is like +Jonah in the ship, which causeth such a +tempest, that the conscience is like a troubled +sea, whose waters cannot rest.”—(<i>Thomas +Brooks</i>.)</p> + +<p>“Keep,” then, “thy heart with all diligence,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +or, (as it is in the forcible original +Hebrew,) “keep thy heart <i>above all keeping</i>,” +“for out of it are the issues of life.” (Prov. +iv. 23.) Let this ever be your preservative +against temptation, “How would <i>Jesus</i> have +acted here? would <i>He</i> not have recoiled, like +the sensitive plant, from the remotest contact +with sin? Can <i>I</i> think of dishonoring Him +by tampering with His enemy; incurring +from His own lips the bitter reflection of injured +love, ‘I am wounded in the house of +my friends’?”</p> + +<p>He tells us the secret of our preservation +and safety, “Simon! Simon! Satan hath +desired to have thee, that he might sift thee +as wheat; <i>but I</i> have prayed for thee that thy +faith fail not!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_fifth_Day" id="Twenty_fifth_Day"></a>Twenty-fifth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t25.png" + alt="Twenty-fifth Day." title="Twenty-fifth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>RECEIVING SINNERS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“This man receiveth sinners.”—Luke, xv. 2.</p> + +<p>The ironical taunt of proud and censorious +Pharisees formed the glory of Him who came, +“not to call the righteous, but sinners, to +repentance.” Publicans and outcasts; those +covered with a deeper than any bodily leprosy—laid +bare their wounds to the “Great +Physician;” and as conscious guilt and timid +penitence crept abashed and imploring to His +feet, they found nothing but a forgiving and +a gracious welcome!</p> + +<p>“His ways” were not as “man’s ways!” +The “watchmen,” in the Canticles, “smote” +the disconsolate one seeking her lost Lord;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +they tore off her veil, mocking with chilling +unkindness her anguished tears. Not so +“the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls.” +“<i>This</i> man <i>receiveth</i> sinners”! See Nicodemus, +stealing under the shadows of night +to elude observation—type of the thousand +thousand who in every age have gone trembling +in their night of sin and sorrow to this +Heavenly Friend! Does Jesus punish his +timidity by shutting His door against him, +spurning him from His presence? “He will +not break the bruised reed, He will not quench +the smoking flax!”</p> + +<p>And He is still the same! He who arrested +a persecutor in his blasphemies, and tuned the +lips of an expiring felon with faith and love, +is at this hour standing, with all the garnered +treasures of Redemption in His hand, proclaiming, +“Him that cometh unto Me, I will +in no wise cast out”!</p> + +<p>Are we from this to think lightly of sin? +or, by example and conduct, to palliate and +overlook its enormity? Not so; sin, <i>as</i> sin, +can never be sufficiently stamped with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +brand of reprobation. But we must seek +carefully to distinguish between the offence +and the offender. Nothing should be done on +our part, by word or deed, to mock the penitential +sighings of a guilty spirit, or send the +trembling outcast away, with the despairing +feeling of “<i>No hope</i>.” “This man receiveth +sinners,” and shall not <i>we</i>? Does <i>He</i> suffer +the veriest dregs of human depravity to +crouch unbidden at His feet, and to gaze on +His forgiving countenance with the uplifted +eye of hope, and shall <i>we</i> dare to deal out +harsh, and severe, and crushing verdicts on an +offending (it may be a <i>deeply</i> offending) brother? +Shall we pronounce “crimson” and +“scarlet” sins and sinners beyond the pale of +mercy, when <i>Jesus</i> does not? Nay, rather, +when wretchedness, and depravity, and backsliding +cross our path, let it not be with the +bitter taunt or the ironical retort that we bid +them away. Let us bear, endure, remonstrate, +deal tenderly. Jesus <i>did</i> so, Jesus <i>does</i> so! +Ah! If we had within us His unconquerable +love of souls; His yearning desire for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +everlasting happiness of sinners, we should be +more frequently in earnest expostulation and +affectionate appeal with those who have hitherto +got no other than harsh thoughts and repulsive +words. If this “mind” really were in +us, “which was also in Him,” we should more +frequently ask ourselves, “Have I done all I +<i>might</i> have done to pluck this brand from the +burning! Have I remembered what grace +<i>has</i> wrought, what grace <i>can</i> do?”</p> + +<p>“Brethren, if any of you do err from the +truth, and one convert him, let him know, +that he which converteth the sinner from the +error of his way shall save a soul from death, +and shall hide a multitude of sins!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_sixth_Day" id="Twenty_sixth_Day"></a>Twenty-sixth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t26.png" + alt="Twenty-sixth Day." title="Twenty-sixth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>GUILELESSNESS.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Neither was guile found in His mouth.”—1 Pet. ii. 22.</p> + +<p>How rare, and all the more beautiful because +of its rarity, is a purely <i>guileless</i> spirit! +A crystalline medium through which the +transparent light of Heaven comes and goes; +open, candid, just, honorable, sincere; scorning +every unfair dealing, every hollow pretension, +every narrow prejudice. Wherever such +characters exist, they are like “apples of gold +in pictures of silver.”</p> + +<p>Such, in all the loveliness of sinless perfection, +was the Son of God! His guilelessness +shining the more conspicuously amid the artful +and malignant subtlety alike of men and +devils. Passing by manifold instances in the +course of His ministry, look at its manifestation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +as the hour of His death approached. +When, on the night of his apprehension, He +confronts the assassin band, in meek majesty +He puts the question, “Whom seek ye?” +They say to Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” In +guileless innocence, He replies, “I am He!” +“Art thou the King of the Jews?” asks +Pilate, a few hours after. An evasive answer +might again have purchased immunity from +suffering and indignity, but once more the lips +which scorned the semblance of evasion reply, +“Thou sayest!”</p> + +<p>How He loved the same spirit in His +people! “Behold,” said He, of Nathanael, +“an Israelite indeed, in whom is <i>no guile</i>!” +That upright man had, we may suppose, been +day after day kneeling in prayer under his +fig-tree, with an open and candid spirit—</p> + +<p class="small" style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right:10%;"> +“Musing on the law he taught,<br /> +And waiting for the Lord he loved.” +</p> + +<p>See how the Saviour honored him; setting +His own Divine seal on the loveliness of this +same spirit! Take one other example, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +the startling, saddening announcement is made +to the disciples, “One of you shall betray +me;” they do not accuse one another; they +attempt to throw no suspicion on Judas; each +in trembling apprehension suspects only his +own treacherous heart, “Lord, is it I?”</p> + +<p>How much of a different “mind” is there +abroad! In the school of the world (this “<i>painted</i> +world”), how much is there of what is called +“policy,” double-dealing!—accomplishing its +ends by tortuous means; outward, artificial +polish, often only a cloak for baseness and +selfishness!—in the daily interchange of business, +one seeking to over-reach the other by +wily arts; sacrificing principle for temporal +advantage. There is nothing so derogatory +to religion as aught allied to such a spirit +among Christ’s people—any such blot on the +“living epistles.” “Ye are the light of the +world.” That world is a quick observer. It +is sharp to detect inconsistencies—slow to forget +them. The true Christian has been +likened to an <i>anagram</i>—you ought to be able +to read him up and down, every way!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>Be all reality, no counterfeit. Do not pass +for current coin what is base alloy. Let +transparent honor and sincerity regulate all +your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid +the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; +aim at that unswerving love of truth that +would scorn to stoop to base compliances and +unworthy equivocations; live more under the +power of the purifying and ennobling influences +of the gospel. Take its golden rule +as the matchless directory for the daily transactions +of life—“Whatsoever ye would that +men should do to you, do ye even so to +them.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_seventh_Day" id="Twenty_seventh_Day"></a>Twenty-seventh Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t27.png" + alt="Twenty-seventh Day." title="Twenty-seventh Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>ACTIVITY IN DUTY.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it +is day; the night cometh, when no man can work.”—John, +ix. 4.</p> + +<p>How constant and unremitting was Jesus +in the service of His Heavenly Father! “He +rose a great while before day;” and, when His +secret communion was over, His public work +began. It mattered not to Him where He +was: whether on the bosom of the deep, or a +mountain slope—in the desert, or at a well-side—the +“gracious words” ever “proceeded +out of His mouth.” We find, on one touching +occasion, exhausted nature sinking, after a +day of unremitting duty; in crossing, in a +vessel, the Lake of Tiberias—“<i>He fell asleep</i>”! +(Matt. viii.) He redeemed every precious +moment. His words to the Pharisee seem a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +<i>formula</i> for all, “Simon, I have somewhat to +say unto <i>thee</i>”!</p> + +<p>Oh, how our most unceasing activities pale +into nothing before such an example as this! +Would that we could remember that each of +us has some great mission to perform for God, +that religion is not a thing of dreamy sentimentalism, +but of energetic practical action; +moreover, that no trade, no profession, no +position, however high or however humble in +the scale of society, can disqualify for this life +of Christian activity and usefulness! Who +were the writers in the Bible? We have +among them a King—a Lawgiver—a Herdsman—a +Publican—a Physician! Nor is it +to high spheres, or to great services only, that +God looks. The widow’s mite and Mary’s +“alabaster box of ointment” are recorded as +examples for imitation by the Holy Ghost, +while many more munificent deeds are passed +by unrecorded. We believe that God says, +regarding the attempt of many a humble +Christian to serve Him by active duty, “I +saw that effort, that <i>feeble</i> effort to serve and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +glorify Me; it was the very <i>feebleness</i> of it I +loved!”</p> + +<p>Did it never strike you, notwithstanding +the <i>dignity</i> of Christ, and the <i>activity</i> of Christ, +how little success comparatively He met with +in His public work? We read of no <i>numerous</i> +conversions; no Pentecostal revivals in the +course of His ministry. May not this well +encourage in the absence of great outward +results? He sets up no higher standard than +this—“She hath done what she could.” An +artist may be <i>great</i> in painting a peasant as +well as a king—<i>it is the way he does it</i>. Yes, +and if laid aside from the <i>activities</i> of the +Christian life, we can equally glorify God by +<i>passive endurance</i>. “Who am I,” said Luther, +when he witnessed the patience of a great +sufferer; “who am I? a wordy preacher in +comparison with this great doer.”</p> + +<p>Reader! forget not the motive of our motto +verse, “<i>The night cometh!</i>” Soon our tale +shall be told; our little day is flitting fast, the +shadows of night are falling. “Our span +length of time,” as Rutherford says, “will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +come to an inch.” What if the eleventh hour +should strike after having been “all the day +<i>idle</i>”? A long lifetime of opportunities suffered +to pass unemployed and unimproved, +and absolutely <i>nothing</i> done for God! A +judgment-day come—our golden moments +squandered—our talents untraded on—our +work undone—met at the bar of Heaven with +the withering repulse, “Inasmuch as ye did +it <i>not</i>.” “The time we have lost,” says +Richard Baxter, “can not be recalled; should +we not then redeem and improve the little +that remains? If a traveler sleep or trifle +most of the day, he must travel so much the +faster in the evening, or fall short of his +journey’s end.”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_eighth_Day" id="Twenty_eighth_Day"></a>Twenty-eighth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t28.png" + alt="Twenty-eighth Day." title="Twenty-eighth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>COMMITTING OUR WAY TO GOD.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“But committed himself to Him that judgeth +righteously.”—1 Peter, ii. 23.</p> + +<p>With what perfect and entire confidingness +did Jesus commit Himself to his Heavenly +Father’s guidance! He loved to call Him, +“My Father!” There was music in that +name, which enabled Him to face the most +trying hour, and to drink the most bitter cup. +The scoffing taunt arose at the scene of crucifixion: +“He trusted in God that He would +deliver Him, let Him deliver Him!” It failed +to shake, for one moment, His unswerving +confidence, even when the sensible tokens of +the Divine presence were withdrawn; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +realized consciousness of God’s abiding love +sustained Him still: “My God! my God!”</p> + +<p>How many a perplexity should we save +ourselves by thus implicitly “committing +ourselves,” as He did, to God! In seasons of +darkness and trouble—when our way is shut +up with thorns, to lift the confiding eye of +faith to Him, and say, “I am oppressed, undertake +for me!” How blessed to feel that +He directs all that befalls us; that no contingencies +can frustrate His plans; that the +way he leads us is not only <i>a</i> “right way,” +but, with all its briers and thorns—<i>its</i> tears +and trials—it is <i>the</i> right way!</p> + +<p>The result of such an habitual staying ourselves +on the Lord will be a deep, abiding +<i>peace</i>; any ripple will only be on the surface—no +more. It is the <i>bosom</i> of the ocean alone +which the storm ruffles; all beneath is a +serene, settled calm. So “Thou wilt keep +him, oh God, in perfect peace, whose mind is +stayed on <i>Thee</i>!”</p> + +<p>“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not +want.” I shall be content alike with what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +He appoints or withholds. I <i>can not</i> wrong +that love with one shadow of suspicion! I +have His own plighted promise of unchanging +faithfulness, that “all things work together for +good to them that love Him!” Often there +are earthly sorrows hard to bear;—the unkind +accusation, when it was least merited or expected; +the estrangement of tried and trusted +friends, the failure of cherished hopes, favorite +schemes broken up, plans of usefulness demolished, +the gourd breeding its own worm +and withering. “Commit thy cause and thy +way to God!” We little know what tenderness +there is in the blast of the rough wind; +what “needs be” are folded under the wings +of the storm! “All is well,” because <i>all</i> is +from <i>Him</i>. “Events are God’s,” says Rutherford; +“let Him sit at His own helm, that +moderateth all.”</p> + +<p>Christian! look back on your checkered +path. How wondrously has He threaded you +through the mazy way—disappointing your +fears, realizing your hopes! Are evils looming +through the mists of the future? Do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +anticipate the trials of to-morrow, to aggravate +those of to-day. Leave the morrow with Him, +who has promised, by “casting all your care +on Him, to care for you.” No affliction will +be sent greater than you can bear. His voice +will be heard stealing from the bosom of the +threatening cloud, “Be still, and know that I +am God!”</p> + +<p>“<i>My Father!</i>” With such a word, you can +stretch out your neck for any yoke; as with +Israel of old, He will make those very waves +that may now be so threatening, a fenced wall +on every side! “Rest in the Lord, and wait +patiently for Him.” “In <i>all</i> thy ways acknowledge +Him, and He shall direct thy +paths!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Twenty_ninth_Day" id="Twenty_ninth_Day"></a>Twenty-ninth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t29.png" + alt="Twenty-ninth Day." title="Twenty-ninth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>LOVE OF UNITY.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“That they all may be one.”—John, xvii. 21.</p> + +<p>Surely there is nothing for which Christian +churches have such cause to hang their +harps on the willows, as the extent to which +the Shibboleth of party is heard in the camp +of the faithful—sectarianism rearing its “untempered +walls” within the Temple gates!</p> + +<p>How different “the mind of Jesus!” Sent +“to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” He +was never found disowning “<i>other</i> sheep not +of that fold.” “Them also will I bring,” was +an assertion continually illustrated by His +deeds. Take one example: The woman of +Samaria revealed what, alas! is too common +in the world—a total absence of all real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +religion, along with an ardent zeal for her +sect. She was living in open sin; yet she was +all alive to the nice distinction between a Jew +and a Samaritan—between Mount Gerizim +and Mount Zion: “How is it that thou, being +a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman +of Samaria?” Did Jesus sanction or reciprocate +her sectarianism?—did He leave her +bigotry unrebuked? Hear His reply—“If +thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is +that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou +wouldst have asked of <i>Him</i>, and <i>He</i> would +have given thee!” <i>He</i> would have allowed +no such narrow-minded exclusiveness to have +interfered with the interchange of kindly civilities +with a stranger. Nay, He would have +given thee, better than all, the “living water” +which “springeth up to everlasting life!”</p> + +<p>How sad, that when the enemy is “coming +in like a flood”—the ranks of Popery and infidelity +linked in fatal and formidable confederacy—that +the soldiers of Christ are forced +to meet the assault with standards soiled and +mutilated by internal feuds! “Uniformity”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +there <i>may</i> not be, but “unity,” in the true +sense of the word, there <i>ought</i> to be. We +may be clad in different livery, but let us +stand side by side, and rank by rank, fighting +the battles of our Lord. We may be different +branches of the seven golden candlesticks, +varying and diversified in outward form and +workmanship; but let us combine in “showing +forth the praises of Him” who recognizes, as +the one true “churchmanship,” fidelity in +shining for His glory “as lights in the world.” +How can we read the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, +and then think of our divisions? +“How miserable,” says Edward Bickersteth, +“would an hospital be, if each patient were to +be so offended with his neighbor’s disease, as +to differ with him on account of it, instead of +trying to alleviate it!”</p> + +<p>Ah! if we had more real communion with +our Saviour, should we not have more real +communion with one another? If Christians +would dip their arrows more in “the balm of +Gilead,” would there not be fewer wounds in +the body of Christ? “How that word ‘<i>toleration</i>’ +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +is used amongst us,” said one who drank +deeper than most, of his Master’s spirit—“how +we <i>tolerate</i> one another—Dissenters <i>tolerate</i> +Churchmen, and Churchmen <i>tolerate</i> Dissenters! +Oh! hateful word! <span class="smcap">Tolerate</span> one +for whom <i>Jesus</i> died! <i>Tolerate</i> one whom +He bears upon His heart! <i>Tolerate</i> a temple +of the living God! Oh! there ought to +be <i>that</i> in the word which should make us +feel <i>ashamed</i> before God!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Thirtieth_Day" id="Thirtieth_Day"></a>Thirtieth Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t30.png" + alt="Thirtieth Day." title="Thirtieth Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>NOT OF THE WORLD.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“I am not of the world.”—John, xvii. 14.</p> + +<p>In one sense it was <i>not</i> so. Jesus did not +seek to maintain His holiness intact and unspotted +by avoiding contact with the world. +He mingled familiarly in its busy crowds. +He frowned on none of its innocent enjoyments; +He fostered, by His example, no love +of seclusion; He gave no warrant or encouragement +to mortified pride, or disappointed +hopes, to rush from its duties; yet, with all +this, what a halo of heavenliness encircled +His pathway through it! “I am from above,” +was breathed in His every look, and word, +and action, from the time when He lay in the +slumbers of guileless infancy in His Bethlehem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +cradle, until He said, “I leave the world, +and go to my Father!” He had moved uncontaminated +through its varied scenes, like +the sunbeam, which, whatever it touches, remains +as unsullied, as when it issues from +its great fountain.</p> + +<p>But though Himself in His sinless nature +“unconquerable” by temptation—immutably +secure from the world’s malignant influences, +it is all worthy of note, as an example to us, +that He never unnecessarily braved these. +He knew the seducing spell that same world +would exercise on His people, of whom, with +touching sympathy, He says, “<i>These</i> are in +the world!” He knew the <i>many</i> who would +be involved and ensnared in its subtle worship, +who, “minding earthly things, would +seek to slake their thirst at polluted streams!”</p> + +<p>Reader! the great problem you have to +solve, Jesus has solved for you—to be “<i>in</i> the +world, and yet not <i>of</i> it.” To abandon it, +would be a dereliction of duty. It would be +servants deserting their work; soldiers flying +from the battle-field. <i>Live</i> in it, that while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +you live, the world, may feel the better +for you. <i>Die</i>, that <i>when</i> you die, the world, +the <i>Church</i>, may feel your loss, and cherish +your example! On its cares and duties, +its trusts and responsibilities, its employments +and enjoyments, inscribe the motto, +“The world passeth away!” Beware of +every thing in it that would tend to deaden +spirituality of heart; unfitting the mind for +serious thought, lowering the standard of +Christian duty, and inducing a perilous conformity +to its false manners, habits, tastes, +and principles. As the best antidote to the +love of the world, let the inner <i>vacuum</i> of +the heart be filled with the love of God. +Seek to feel the nobility of your regenerated +nature; that you have a nobler heritage to +care for than the transitory glories which encircle +“an indivisible point, a fugitive atom.” +How can I mix with the potsherds of the +earth? Once, “I lay among the pots;” now, +I am “like a dove, whose wings are covered +with silver, and her feathers with yellow +gold!” “Stranger—pilgrim—sojourner” “my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +<i>citizenship</i> is in heaven!” Why covet tinsel +honors and glories? Why be solicitous about +the smiles of that which knew not (nay, +which frowned on) its Lord? “Paul calls it,” +says an old writer, “<i>schema</i> (a mathematical +figure), which is a mere <i>notion</i>, and nothing in +substance.”—(<i>Thomas Brooks.</i>)</p> + +<p>Live above its corroding cares and anxieties; +remembering the description Jesus gives of +His own true people; “They are not of the +world, even as I am not of the world!”</p> + +<p class="arm">“ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<h2 class="hidden"><a name="Thirty_first_Day" id="Thirty_first_Day"></a>Thirty-first Day.</h2> +<img src="images/t31.png" + alt="Thirty-first Day." title="Thirty-first Day." /> +</div> + +<h4>CALMNESS IN DEATH.</h4> + +<p class="biblequote">“Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”—Luke, +xxiii. 46.</p> + +<p>In the death of Jesus, there were elements +of fearfulness, which the believer can know +nothing of. It was with Him the execution of +a penal sentence. The sins of an elect world +were bearing him down! The very voice of +His God was giving the tremendous summons, +“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd!” +Yet His was a death of <i>peace</i>, nay, of <i>triumph</i>! +Ere He closed His eyes, light broke through +the curtains of thick darkness. In the calm +composure of filial confidence He breathed +away His soul—“Father, into Thy hands I +commend My spirit!” What was the secret<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +of such tranquillity? This is His own key to +it—“I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have +finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”</p> + +<p>Reader! will it be so with <i>you</i> at a dying +hour? will <i>your</i> “work” be done? Have +you already fled to Jesus? Are you reposing +in Him as your only Saviour, and following +Him as your only pattern? Then—let death +overtake you when it may—you will have +nothing to do <i>but to die</i>! The grave will be +irradiated with His presence and smile. He +will be standing there as He did by His own +tomb of old, pointing to yours, tenanted with +angel forms, nay, Himself as the “Precursor,” +showing you “<i>the path of life!</i>” There can +be no true peace till the fear of death be conquered +by the sense of sin forgiven, through +“the blood of the Cross.” “Not till then,” as +one has it, “will you be able to be a quiet +spectator of the open grave at the bottom of +the hill which you are soon to descend.” +“The sting of death is <i>sin</i>, but thanks be to +God who giveth us the victory through the +Lord Jesus Christ!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>Seek now to live in the enjoyment of +greater filial nearness to your covenant God; +and thus, when the hour of departure <i>does</i> +come, you will be able, without irreverence, +to take the very words of your dying Lord, +and make them your own—“<span class="smcap">Father!</span> into +Thy hands I commend my spirit.” <span class="smcap">Father!</span> +It is going <span class="smcap lowercase">HOME!</span> the heart of the child leaping +at the thought of the paternal roof, and +the paternal welcome! “Son, thou art ever +with me, and all that I have is thine!”</p> + +<p>It is said of Archbishop Leighton, that he +“was always happiest when, from the shaking +of the prison-doors, he was led to hope that +some of those brisk blasts would throw them +open, and give him the release he coveted.” +Christian! can you dread <i>that</i> which your +Saviour has already vanquished? <i>Death!</i> It +is as the angel to Peter, breaking the dungeon-doors, +and leading to open day; it is going to +the world of your birthright, and leaving the +one of your exile; “it is the soldier at night-fall, +lying down in his tent in peace, waiting +the morning to receive his laurels.” Oh! to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +be ever living in a state of holy preparation! +the mental eye gazing on the vista-view of an +opening Heaven! feeling that <i>every moment</i> is +bringing us nearer and nearer that happy +<i>Home</i>! soon to be within reach of the +Heavenly threshold, in sight of the Throne! +soon to be bending in adoring rapture with +the Church triumphant—bathing in floods of +infinite glory—“LIKE HIM,”—“seeing <span class="smcap">Him</span> +<i>as He is</i>,” and that <i>for Ever and Ever</i>!</p> + +<p class="arm">“AND EVERY MAN THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM PURIFIETH +HIMSELF, EVEN AS HE IS PURE!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<p class="hidden center">Leaving us AN EXAMPLE that we should follow HIS STEPS. 1 Peter, ii. 21.</p> +<img src="images/quote2.png" + alt="Leaving us AN EXAMPLE that we should follow HIS STEPS. 1 Peter, ii. 21." + title="Leaving us AN EXAMPLE that we should follow HIS STEPS. 1 Peter, ii. 21." /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mind of Jesus, by John R. 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