customs prevailed in connection with the idolatries of the country (which, thanks to the generous efforts of men like Mr. Peggs, have to a large extent been abolished); and, sad to tell, our own government looked upon missionaries with no friendly eye. In this arduous undertaking Mr. Peggs found in his wife a worthy help-meet. She was endowed with uncommon mental gifts, and showed singular devotedness as a christian worker. This estimable lady was the daughter of Mr. Smithee, of Walton, near Wisbech; and there are persons in this town who well remember his strange aversion to dissent, and his particular aversion to missions. It was no pleasant thing, therefore, to him to have the honour thrust upon him of seeing three of his daughters married to dissenting ministers, and two of them missionaries' wives. Mr. and Mrs. Peggs remained only four years in Orissa, failure of health in the trying climate of that province compelling their return sorely against their will. After the death of her husband, twenty-five years ago, Mrs. Peggs came to reside at Wisbech. During the latter part of her life she was much afflicted, and indeed for the seven years terminating with her decease seldom left her room. Amid all her sufferings, and in that long solitude of her sick chamber, she retained (no easy thing to do) a cheerful, confident, christian faith and hope. Her interest in the blessed work to which she was permitted to devote herself in the days of her youth never declined. It was ever to her an unfailing source of joy to read and treasure in her mind all missionary news; and missionaries who have visited her on coming to our town have often expressed surprise at the extent and accuracy of her knowledge of missionary affairs, and the lively interest which, in spite of the lapse of time and much suffering, she manifested in them. Three days before she died, she said to her daughter, "I want to be in heaven!" She died Dec. 9th, 1874, at the age of seventy-five, having been fifty-seven years a member of a christian church. Mrs. Peggs was buried at the Wisbech cemetery, in the same grave as her sister, the widow of the Rev. Mr. Allsop, missionary in Jamaica. The funeral was attended by Mrs. Peggs' two daughters and the Rev. S. S. Allsop, of March, her nephew. The death of our friend was was very sudden; but sudden death to such as she is sudden admission into the presence of the Saviour. Of her and her late husband, who assisted to lay the foundation of the Orissa Mission, it may be said, with a meaning that does not always apply even to christian workers, "they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." FOREIGN LETTERS RECEIVED. BERHAMPORE-W. Hill, Dec. 5. CUTTACK-J. Buckley, Nov. 26, Dec. 15. CONTRIBUTIONS Received on account of the General Baptist Missionary Society from Broughton Burnley, Enon Chapel Wakefield Wisbech 1 20 1 10 0 1 0 0 FOR PIPLEE CHAPEL. Thos. Gill, Esq., Eccles.. 3 0 0 1 0 0 2 10 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 Mr. W. Stevenson, Green Hill, Derby 1 00 Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by T. HILL, Esq., Baker Street, Nottingham, Treasurer; and by the Rev. J. C. PIKE, Secretary, Leicester, from whom also Missionary Boxes, Collecting Books and Cards may be obtained. It will oblige if Post Office Orders for the Secretary be made payable at the "KING RICHARD'S ROAD" Office, Leicester. THE GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1875. THE HIGHEST CHRISTIAN LIFE. No. II.-"Perfection" the true goal. ALL the representations of the true goal of life in the Bible centre in character, in what a man is, and does, in the spirit that rules him, and the measure in which he fulfils his duty in every direction and conforms to the highest known standard of being. The "righteous" man is the leading and all-controlling figure of the Old Testament. You see him everywhere. Sometimes in dim and shadowy outline, now in brilliant achievement, and again only in forcible and painful contrast. He is God's friend. God is his friend. The Lord talks to him, helps him, fights for him, strengthens him, saves him. The "law" is a rule for him to live by. The controversies of Job depict his sorrows, conflicts, and final victory. The Psalms set his joys to music. The prophets show the quickened activities of his conscience as moved by the Spirit of the Lord. Indeed the one strong, passionate, and God-inspired yearning of the Hebrew mind is for righteousness. Now Christ came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil; and so we meet with the same figure all through the New Testament. The goal of life is not changed one whit; it is only the road to it that is altered. The end is the same, but larger and richer help is given to realize it. To John in the Revelation, life's true end is an overcoming" of evil, and a "keeping at God's works;" in the Epistle, it is being pure as Christ is pure. In the judgment of Peter it is a perfect knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ attained by the exercise of faith and virtue and self-restraint and godliness and love, which, being multiplied, make the calling and election sure. James urges to patient endurance so that the Christian himself may be perfect and entire, deficient in nothing. Paul is always talking of righteousness. Romans is full of it. In Philippians he gives a chart of the way by which he came near to satisfying his life-long yearning for it; and in Timothy he describes it as the object of his sustaining hope, saying, "I have finished my course; and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."" This completing and coronation of character, of manhood he had sought for, believed for, hoped for, from the moment he caught sight of the face, heard the voice, and felt the constraining VOL. LXXVII.-NEW SERIES, No. 63. ... The love of the Lord Jesus. So those first scholars learned of Him who summed up His precepts in such words as, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." "Be perfect as God your Father is." That is clear enough. But what is perfection of character? What do we mean by "Christian perfection?" What is the state of the runner who has reached this goal? When a Christian man has attained his best, what are his interior qualities, and what is his work amongst men? Perhaps if we approach the answer to these questions by way of the current and common use of the word perfect, our progress may be facilitated. For example, a father says that his child is "perfect." He has tested its senses of hearing, seeing, etc., felt its limbs, and though it has uttered no articulate speech, and scarcely given a look of recognition, yet he joyfully pronounces the babe perfect. Here we have (1.) a perfection which contemplates growth, necessitates exertion, and admits of fault. The organs of this perfect child will probably, but not certainly, act in a faultless way, these limbs will enlarge and strengthen by exertion, the child will mature into the man. Clearly also (2.) we have the conscious or unconscious adoption of a standard of perfection. The child is as perfect as children generally are. It has five senses, and not seven; five, and not four. Its limbs are of the ordinary length, and jointed in the ordinary way. Referred to the standard of the human framework this son and heir is a perfect one. Hence the perfection in this case refers to a condition of the organism and not to any achievements; implies a current and accepted standard; allows of the possibility of faulty action, and assumes fitness for development. "As But when we say of our friend A.B. "he is a perfect gentleman," we import an additional element. This is not perfection of organism, but of a habit of feeling and movement. As before there is the acceptance of a standard of gentlemanly behaviour: the intimation that fault is extremely improbable, that action is necessary, and that development, or growth, is not dispensed with. This perfection is not one of structure, but of habit and action due to training and good breeding. Now pass from these samples to the Bible use of the word. for God, His way is perfect," says the Psalmist; meaning it is without fault, absolutely and certainly; it could not be better, it is complete, wanting nothing. Here, again, is a standard of perfection taken from the Psalmist's conceptions of the nature of God. He is perfection itself-in wisdom, in goodness, and in love; and His way is like Himself" perfect." But here is no place for growth, no possibility of fault. David's conception of God does not admit of it. So that the quality and degree of the "perfection" asserted to belong to any being will be determined by the precise nature of that being, or the aspect of being, to whom or to which the epithet is applied. In the case of the child the quality is low, and the degree of the slightest character, describing the condition of its organs, limbs, and faculties generally: in that of the man it refers only to his habit and bearing in his behaviour towards others, and will mean much or little as the standard of gentlemanly behaviour is high or low but in the third case it refers to the divine movements, and there it reaches and holds the highest and fullest significance. : Now take another step. Job is described as a "perfect" man. The original term is one of wide import, embracing the idea of entireness, THE HIGHEST CHRISTIAN LIFE. 83 completeness of parts, integrity as opposed to everything fractional, or onesided, or uneven in character. Jerome translated it by simplex; without folds in the heart; sincere. The Septuagint elaborates the phrase in which it stands into "blameless, true, just, pious, averse to all evil." As in the former cases the epithet here distinctly implies a standard. But, as we might have expected since it is applied to man, it allows the freest play to the notion of faultiness: for Job himself says, and says it with indignant eagerness, when the suggestion is made that he thinks himself faultless. "I perfect! If I say I am perfect, it," ie., the very saying it, "shall prove me perverse." Though to his fellows he appears as a man of notable integrity, and they may testify to his uprightness and hatred of evil and perfectness of heart, yet he is not without a painful assurance of his faultiness, and resents the very thought of proclaiming his purity to others. It is manifest, then, that when we talk of perfection, and of being perfect, everything will depend upon the standard we have set up, and upon the special aspect of the Christian that we are endeavouring to represent. For example, a Christian is complete, or perfect in Christ, as a child is complete and perfect in a comfortable and bountifully supplied home, and when that child has all its faculties, has sight and movement and growth, and is indeed fully equipped for life. In Christ Jesus the believer has everything to meet the uttermost demands of the new life. He is perfect in Him. This is a perfectness of spiritual organism, and of spiritual supply: but not perfection of character. Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus are perfect and entire, wanting nothing for the attainment of the most perfect sainthood, the most complete resemblance to Christ, the most signal service to a needy world. Every faculty is there. Every instrument is at hand. Every inspiration is complete. Faith, love, hope, aspiration, all exist in those that are born. not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God. Put these faculties out to training, let them be freely, fully, and wisely used, and with the discipline will come strength, and with the repeated exercise, habits; and from the weaving together of these habits character and character of such beauty, ripeness, and fulness of grace, that as of Caleb it was said, "he followed the Lord fully," and of Job he was a "perfect" man, so we shall count them sincere and without offence, full of the fruits of righteousness, which are to the praise of the glory of His grace. To the perfection of structure is added the perfection of Christian habits and character. But in both these cases there is room for growth; need for exertion, and possibility, though in the latter case a growingly high improbability, of mistake and defect. The picture, in our judgment, is "perfect." We cannot add to it. The artist himself is sighing in secret because it falls so far short of his lofty ideal. We, the public, applaud the excellence of sketch, the brilliance of colouring, the beauty of the figures. He "follows after," forgetting that which is behind, and animated with a joyful hope that he will yet apprehend and reproduce on the canvass of his life exactly that for which he is laid hold of and possessed by Christ Jesus. May, then, a Christian attain the unsinning condition? Is it possible for him to live without sin? These questions are not so easily answered as some imagine, and the difficulties they raise cannot be laid by the utterance of a dogma new or old. John says, and says it with marked emphasis, "He that is born of God cannot commit sin." Does a fair and just interpretation of the passage in which this statement is found necessarily include the absolute impossibility of wrong in a Christian life? Read the whole paragraph. "Little children," he says, "let no one deceive you with fair speeches and plausible professions. Look for facts, and take nothing else. He that DOETH righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that doeth sin, no matter what his name is, is of the devil, because the devil is always sinning; he began, and he keeps on. Hence Christ came that He might stop his work; and whosoever is Christ's, and is born of God, co-operates with Christ, and stops the devil's work. He does not do the devil's work. How can he? He is born of God, and has God's seed abiding in him, and he cannot do the devil's work because he is a born son of God, same as Jesus Christ is. Here is the mark, then, the children of the devil do sin; the children of God do not, but they do righteousness." Now I maintain that no clause of that paragraph, nor the whole of it, necesitates or justifies the conclusion that these children of God are absolutely without fault. We must go further than this to understand these questions about the unsinning condition. Everything with regard to Christian perfection depends upon the standard of life we accept. Put your bar low enough, and any child can jump over it. Let your goal be within a few paces, and on an easy road, and the merest tyro will be at it in a leap. Make your mark of perfection sufficiently near the earth, and there is not one of us who will not reach the unsinning state. Beecher says, there are some men who have gained the heights and carried off the prize. "The only perfect men," he declares, "in this world are the Doctors of Divinity who teach systematic theology. They know everything, all of it, and I envy them." There is a perfect man in one of the parables; a remarkably perfect man. He has realized his ideal, and rejoices in his triumph with exceeding joy. Standing in his self-satisfied ceremonialism he prayed thus "with himself;" not to God; for he was his own God, and did not want any other. 'God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all my increase," and if he had told all he thought he would have said that God Almighty ought to be very much obliged to him for condescending to talk to Him. Everything, then, depends upon your standard. Perfection is easy or not easy of attainment according to the quality and richness of your ideal of character. Make your standard a letter, a mere precept, and men will soon reach it, and score themselves perfect; or what will have the same effect, they will think they reach it. Narrow your definition of holiness, and the veriest dwarfs in grace will fill it in. Let down the idea of sinning to consciously felt wrong doing, and ignorance will be a qualification for the unsinning state, and want of cultivated spiritual sensibility a preparation for the beatific condition. On the contrary, accept your standard from the lips and life of the Lord our Master, and you will know no other attitude than that of "keeping at and following after" the prize of the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Christ said, "Be perfect, as your Father is." The Christian standard is not a writing, but a PERSON. Our ideal is not the moral |