As the Director of life, then, it cannot be difficult to show that true religion is all-important.

THE GUIDE, THE COUNSELLOR, THE FRIEND.

THE GUIDE,
THE COUNSELLOR,
THE FRIEND. Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a wiser guide than the only-wise God? Is not that man under some dire infatuation, who thinks that he can discover a safer? But true religion, the religion which the Spirit of God has embodied in the Bible, just consists in being under the guidance of the Holy One, in thought, word, and deed.

Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a path more pleasant than that in which the Eternal leads us? Now, the religion of truth just places us in the narrow path to glory opened up by God.

Can we be sane, and at the same time pretend to select a better standard, a better rule, a better aim, than that which God prescribes? Now, pure and undefiled religion just consists in making that standard, that rule, that aim, our own. Like the ship on the ocean, driven by the wind and tost, it may often seem as if all hope were gone; but if we be godly, that is, if we have religion in the heart as the Spirit of God plants it there, One comes to us even upon the angry waves, and his presence makes a calm. Whatever be our condition, here is a Guide. Whatever be our perplexity, here is a Counsellor. Whatever be our loneliness, here is a Friend. Whatever be our tendency to wander, here is one at our right hand, proclaiming, “I am the way.” Could the heart of man be persuaded to follow the Lord fully, would he consult only for an hour with reason, and with common sense, thousands more might be found in the path which leads to glory and to honour.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TRUTH.

THE
SOVEREIGNTY
OF TRUTH. And let it be remembered that the directions which are given to guide the godly in the way are authoritative and divine. We have more than a royal road to heaven—we have a divine one. The man whose religion is planted in the heart, is not guided by opinions, but by verdicts; and these are the verdicts of the unchanging One. They are not conjectures—they are the decisions of an infallible Judge; they are the very maxims, the very laws by which we shall be tried, when we stand before the great white throne, and the Judge of the quick and the dead. Some men act as if they were at liberty to cancel the decisions of God; to review them, and indorse or reverse them at pleasure. In this manner, the word of the Supreme, which he cannot alter without ceasing to be true, is made to bend to men’s liking; and if it will not bend, they break it. But the man who holds the lamp, and is therefore truly wise, makes it a maxim in his life that he cannot judge the Word of God—It judges him. He cannot bring his religion to the Bible—He must get his religion from it. He does not consult the sacred page with the view of welcoming or rejecting it at pleasure. Nay, it is the sovereign umpire in every perplexity. It is the director of his steps, and the sun of his soul. Guided by it, and by it alone, that man walks under the direction of the Father of lights, with whom is no darkness at all, to that abode where the glory of God is manifested to all, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

THE LAMB OUR LIGHT.

THE LAMB
OUR LIGHT. They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always trimmed by the very hand which lit it.

—One is persecuted for righteousness’ sake; the man who hates the truth appears anxious to “chase him up to heaven.” But even then, the ear of faith can hear Him whom the world hated yet more, pronouncing a blessing over all who suffer in the paths of godliness.

One has had to follow child after child, or brother after brother, to the tomb; but has he not been told, perhaps at the edge of the grave, of Him who is the resurrection of the body and the life of the soul; and that them who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him from the dead?

One has neither father nor mother, nor friend on earth to lean on—he is absolutely and utterly an orphan; but is he not told, “When father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up?” Is it not added, “I will not leave you orphans?”

VICISSITUDES.

VICISSITUDES. One has cherished dreams of happiness on earth—he is expecting here what God declares we can never, never find. Well, He came, and proved that his declaration was true; in mercy and in love he came, though the lacerated heart felt that the stroke was sore. The gourd withered. The frail reed broke. The shadow flitted away. The Word of God was verified, and the happiness of earth appeared rather like the lightning flash, than the steady shining of a summer day. But did not He who wounded heal? If that soul had godliness, was it not made apparent that the sovereign Lord of all had something in store for it better than it was choosing for itself?

One is tottering very near the grave. However he may cling to life, he cannot now be blind to the fact that the last resting-place of man must soon be a resting-place to him. But just then, just there, if that soul be godly, a light appears. It irradiates the tomb. It illumines the vast unknown beyond it; and almost in the language of a hosanna, such souls have passed away exclaiming, “To me to die is gain.”

Or, last of all, one has felt, what many never feel, the sinfulness of sin. That soul has discovered how foolish as well as wicked it is, to contend against Omnipotence. It feels that man forsakes his own mercy by cherishing thoughts, or doing deeds opposed to the mind of God; and that as well may we expect comfort on the rack, or pleasure from the blaze which consumes us, as joy in that path which the Holy God has forbidden. According to the Word of the Lord, that soul has discovered what it is to be exposed to the wrath of God and of the Lamb; or how like the career of the suicide, or the maniac, is the course of those who live in sin unpardoned, with a soul unsaved. But it has also discovered that the Word of God has devoted passage after passage, or Psalm after Psalm, to the subject of pardon. In one aspect, that is the burden of the Bible’s lessons—to tell how free, how immediate, how complete, is the forgiveness provided by Him whose tender mercies are over all his other works. No entreaties so tender, no lessons so plain, no commands so cogent, no promises so full, as those which relate to the fountain opened for sin. The earnest soul thus discovers that the word is indeed a light to man’s feet, and a lamp to his path. It is a light shining in a dark place—a directory from heaven for man on earth—the very God of truth is there pouring encouragement, or joy, or hope, into the heart.

THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE.

When we buffet with a baffling tempest, how gladdening is the glimmer even of a lamp seen through the drift, telling us of comfort and of home! When we have long been driven by the waves and tost, so that hope has fled and exertion become paralysed, how welcome the haven of our rest! When strangers have long been our only associates in a foreign land, where no familiar face was near to greet us with its smile, how pleasant to know

—And how much more gladdening that Word of God which irradiates the path of a believer, THE PILLAR
OF CLOUD
AND FIRE. a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night! In joy or in sorrow, in youth or in age, in his home, in his place of toil or of business, amid unceasing activities, or when the sands of life are ebbing low, such a man has a directory at every hour of need, a counsellor in every difficulty—enough to crown his weary life with a portion of the joy of his God.

THE HALCYON.

THE
HALCYON. We meet with some who have manifestly no guide but passion, or feeling, or human opinion. They therefore live in a state of constant fretfulness and mental fever, at once troubling and troubled. While others have an anchor cast within the veil, these men are driven by the wind and tost. Some are kept in perfect peace, even amid the agitations of life; they are like the little bird which is said to build its nest amid the breakers of the sea, and is most calm when perched on the crest of an angry wave. Others are like the restless sea; and whence this difference? The divine directory is in the hand of the one class; it is ignored or perverted by the other. The divine mind is the mind of the one; caprice and the changing passions of a troubled soul form the standard or the tyrant of the other. To the one, truth is truth, in the heart, the home, and the place of public resort; to the other, truth is but a name.—The bodies of those who live under a directly vertical sun, reflect no shadow; at least their shadow is under their feet, and these shadowless bodies are emblems of the condition of those who live nearest to the Sun of Righteousness: like the children of the light, they are preparing for the world where there is neither shadow nor night.

THE ORNAMENT OF LIFE.

THE
ORNAMENT
OF LIFE. But godliness is the Ornament of life as well as its Director.

And what is it that constitutes the beauty of a soul?—All that God has made is lovely according to its kind. Look at the little flower, and see what beauties beam upon us there. Contemplate the firmament above us, the meet type of Jehovah’s immensity; and mark the surprising loveliness which is there. Or examine the winged insect which buzzes around us, only, perhaps, to vex and to annoy—there are more beauties and more marks of wisdom in that little thing, than the science of man has yet been able to tell. Now, if even these mean, these transient, and ephemeral things, are clothed in loveliness by God, may we not expect a more exquisite beauty in that immortal thing, the soul of man? It was once in the image of God; it is capable of wearing that image again. And what is it that constitutes its beauty?

THE MISERY OF SIN.

We need not again reply—It is holiness. It is purity like the purity of God. It is perfection like his perfection. Sin at the first marred the moral beauty, and put all that is morally offensive in its stead. But a new creation takes place. The original loveliness begins to be restored. The beauties of holiness decorate the soul, and with the restoration of holiness the restoration of happiness begins. THE MISERY
OF SIN. Give the unholy soul the wealth for which millions pant; give it an empire like that of our sovereign, on which the sun never sets. Let all that can gladden and regale be poured into the cup of an ungodly man. The mere fact that he is unholy, would leave him deformed and unseemly; his soul would be wretched, craving, aching still.—A nobleman of ancient name and brilliant powers once ranked among the most conspicuous of all who dwelt in our land. He was admired by millions, and, for a time, was “followed, flattered, sought, and sued,” wherever he appeared. But he was slightly deformed in a limb; and when his eye fell on the deformity, even from the heights of his fame, he was chafed and chagrined: it was more than a counterbalance to all the incense which was offered to his powers. Now, that nobleman was as signal for his ungodliness as he was for his powers.

THE JOY OF HOLINESS.

But, on the other hand, place a holy soul in a dungeon. Let the new, the holy nature which the Spirit of God imparts, be imparted to such a man. With that in his soul, let the persecutor wreathe his chains around him; let him “five times receive forty stripes save one;” let all men forsake him and flee;—still, by the grace of God, that soul would be made more like the Holy One by the very sorrows which it encountered and the tears which it shed: and it is thus that godliness becomes the ornament of life. THE
JOY OF
HOLINESS. As the rainbow would never be seen were it not for the clouds and the rain, the beauties of holiness would never shine so brightly were it not for the trials which the Spirit of God employs to promote them. But when he employs them, the soul of man is changed into the image of the Redeemer, from glory to glory. Though covered by sin with wounds and bruises and noisome sores, it is created anew, after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. The altogether lovely One becomes the model of that soul; and ornament after ornament is bestowed—such adornings as the eye of God can complacently regard, for they are the work of his own Spirit: they indicate the restoration of his handiwork, from the state of ruin into which it had lapsed, to the state of beauty in which it appeared when it sprang into being at his word.

It is holiness, then, that is the ornament of man. Without that, no mental power, no constellation of gifts, can give beauty to our spirits, as they are seen by God. Knowledge may be power; but it is only the power of evil. Acquirements may be extensive; but they are only like gaudy trappings on a hearse, or music in a dying man’s chamber, unless truth in the heart become holiness in the life.

But when Christianity is planted in the heart and soul of man, it becomes his Joy as well as his director and ornament. This is sunshine; all besides is gloom.

THE VAIN PURSUIT.

THE VAIN
PURSUIT. Upon this we need not expatiate long. It is manifest as day to all who have submitted to the guidance of reason illumined by the lamp of life, the Bible, that Christianity introduces us to the highest joy of earth or heaven, even joy in the Holy Ghost; and while destitute of that, whatever he may possess, man is wretched, and miserable, and blind. One man seeks happiness in sin; but did he ever find it? Nay, is it not like taking fire to his bosom? Is it not like a wound to his immortal nature? O, is it not a mournful delirium, to dream of finding joy in that which caused the creation of a place of torment—which doomed a world to misery—which digs our graves—which lays us in them, and fills our homes from time to time with the voice of lamentation and woe?

Another man seeks joy in wealth; but after he has all that he can grasp, is not his heart still, like the daughters of the horse-leech, crying, “Give, give?” As well attempt to satisfy the hungry body with the name of bread, as the craving soul with material things. It was created to be happy in God; and, without him, the universe cannot fill the void in man’s heart.

DEATH-BEDS.

Another seeks joy in friendship, or in beautiful human affection. DEATH-BEDS. But remorseless death comes: he strikes down the object to which affection clings; and where is the bereaved one now? He is well-nigh wearying for the grave, and so of all that begins and ends on earth: its blossom goes up like rottenness at last. It is simply impossible that any object whose root is in the dust can gladden the soul of man, apart from the God who made it.

Has God, then, left us without joy? When we became idolaters, did he leave us to our idols, to tears, and woe? Nay, there is blessedness even here below; and the knowledge, the fear, the love, and favour of God, is its fountain-head. In reconciliation to Him—in His image restored—in growing holiness—in greater and yet greater love and likeness to the Saviour of the soul—the man of God, the man who is truly rational, finds the streams of his joy. God himself is the fountain; but his blessings are the rills which flow from it: and he who has not felt this joy, is still living among shadows, and phantoms, and names. His is only the comb rifled of the honey; his is the dream without the reality; his the corruption and the death of sin, without the pleasures which flow from God into the soul.—Is the land of his fathers a source of joy to the returning exile? Is the breath of spring a source of gladness to man’s fevered brow? Is the face of nature a source of pleasure to him who has long been immured amid the damps of a dungeon? Far more than all these together, is a sense of God’s favour to the soul which has returned from its wanderings, to seek its blessedness again on the bosom of its God.

VOLTAIRE.

And it is to godliness, or at least some counterfeit of it, that all, or nearly all, men flee for joy at last. Some, indeed, die like the beasts that perish, without either fear or joy. Conscience is dead before the body. It occasions no alarm; and such men pass into the presence of the Judge perhaps denying his very existence. But not so all. When conscience is aroused from its long stupor by the nearness of death, how eager do some appear for the joy which religion promises! how gladly would they now grasp at what they have practically despised, perhaps for threescore years and ten! VOLTAIRE. There is one who has spent a lifetime in denying the truth as it is in Jesus. He declared that he hated the Saviour’s very name, and did all that wit and powers the most diversified could accomplish to blot it from the hearts and memories of men. That man hated the truth with a perfect hatred, and gloried in his hatred; it secured for him the applause of myriads who felt that truth to be fettering, and who rejoiced in the help of one so gifted in their attempt to banish it from the earth.—But that man is dying at last, and all is changed now. Goaded by conscience, he flees to a poor superstition—he tries to soothe his soul by believing one of the most enormous impositions ever practised upon man. He eats what he reckons, or what an abject superstition teaches him to regard as “the body, the blood, and the divinity” of Him whom he had so long blasphemed and denied; and that very superstition of that dying infidel41 tells where it is that man finds or tries to find his joy after all. It is just an infidel’s method of proclaiming, “Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”

Or if we refer to a case less extreme than that of an avowed infidel, the same truth appears—the same lesson is taught. God and his favour alone can gladden or satisfy the soul.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

SIR
WALTER
SCOTT. Another man, then, not less distinguished in his day than Voltaire, is passing on to his great account. Millions in many lands have admired his genius, and offered incense to his name. Wherever he moves he is followed by applauding crowds; and if ever there was one who might have been satisfied with the homage of his fellow-mortals, that was the man. Princes deemed themselves honoured by being under his roof. Royalty set him at its right hand. He added field to field. He determined to make for himself a local habitation, as he had already made for himself a name; and his mansion, once modest and humble, grew into “a romance in stone.”

But the fashion of this world vanishes away, and that man must die. Before he leaves the scenes which his presence had long invested with smiles, he must read a lesson to man—had man a heart to learn it—more salutary and profound than any he had ever tried to teach. The wind of adversity blew, and shattered his fortunes and his hopes together. Death entered his abode, and one who had long been its joy was carried to the tomb. Then affliction laid its hand upon himself. The body was palsied, the mind a wreck; and amid all this, that man’s spasmodic efforts to resume his former self, rank among the most touching incidents in the chequered history of humanity. But we must listen to his own words to learn his tale of woe, and see how broken is every earthly cistern when man seeks joy from it apart from God; how shadowy and dream-like is every earthly thing apart from Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

SORROW UNSOOTHED.

SORROW
UNSOOTHED. “When I think,” says this idol of millions, on the eve of leaving his home at the bidding of stern necessity and financial pressure; “when I think what this place now is, compared with what it has been not long ago, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man.”

Farther, he thus touchingly wails: “Death has closed the dark avenue of love and friendship. I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once were dear to me, and with no other wish than that it may open for me at no distant period.”

And as if to show that all his anguish did not come from without, the great Novelist says, “Some new object of complaint comes every moment. Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and power of activity neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all.”42

THE MIMIC IMMORTALITY.

THE MIMIC
IMMORTALITY. Now, it will be noticed in these extracts that it is the grave which closes the vista of that greatly gifted man; at least he never refers to the bright ulterior of which the tomb might be the portal.—“I have no other wish than that the grated door of a burial-place may open for me at no distant period.”—“The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all”—it is there that the mind seems to rest. It never rises into the region of immortality. It does not refer to that favour of God which is life. As far as these mournful records tell, that soul had nothing to repose on but what was soon to enwrap the body—the earth, and earthly things. Dazzled even to blindness by the mimic immortality which man bestows on man, the life and immortality of the Gospel were ignored. Steeped in the possessions which only increase the thirst which some suppose they quench, that man discovered and confessed that he was “an impoverished and embarrassed man,” when he might have exulted in the unspeakable gift, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

THE BROKEN HEART.

Now, it is thus that men sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, by expecting that joy from things which are seen and temporal, which can be found only in the things which are unseen and eternal; and it is thus that the men who

“Hunt their misery with a zeal to die”

proclaim to all who have ears to hear, that if we would have joy to the full, and blessings such as can satisfy the soul, they must be sought in Him who is our peace, “of whom and to whom are all things.” “Surely he is, or ought to be, a happy man,” said a visiter at Sir Walter Scott’s abode. THE
BROKEN
HEART. “When I think of what it is now ... I think my heart will break”—is his own dirge-like response.

But it is not merely in the high concerns of eternity that a man of God finds sources of joy. Even amid the cares and distractions of earth, he has often a peace which is independent of all earthly sources. He sees God in all events, and soon discovers that they all work together for his good: however diverse in their origin or aspect, they sweetly blend into one harmonious whole, of which blessedness is the product to a child of God. Think of the complex machinery which pours such wealth into the lap of our nation, by multiplying manifold its productive power. How intricate in its parts! how apparently incomprehensible to an inexperienced mind; yet how simple, how exquisitely beautiful in its results! Or think of the sunlight in which all nature rejoices. It can be decomposed into seven primary elements, yet how simple and how lovely is the product of their combination! And so it is in the various events of providence: they all blend into one harmonious result; they are all presided over by our Father who is in heaven; and they all pour into the soul of a believer more real joy than the world can know, even “when its corn and its wine are increased.”

But the crown and consummation of the whole is, that godliness is not merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the prelude to the Life that is to come.

What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained? How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those whom we loved on earth?—or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? These, and a thousand other questions, are raised by the curious mind; but the most that we can say in reply is, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” There will be praise in glory. There will be following the Lamb. There will be satisfaction with God’s likeness. There will be the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. But after all, the mind, while in the body, is exhausted by the effort to comprehend what we shall be: it falls back fatigued upon the words of him who once lay on the Redeemer’s bosom, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”