Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

α

O action, whether foul or fair,

Is ever done but leaves somewhere
A record written with fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or curse, and mostly

In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts which follow it, till at length
The wrongs of ages are redressed

And the justice of God made manifest.

X.

The Sinner's Self-Saving.

VI.

If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up; thou shalt put away iniquity from thy tabernacles. -Job xxii. 23.

NEVER reproach a man with the sins of which he has repented. God hears graciously the prayers of him who receives the penitents and guards them from temptation.

Brethren, Holy Writ does not say: "and God saw the sackcloth and the ashes of the people of Niniveh" and, therefore, spared them, but God saw their works that they turned from the evil way and from the violence that was in their hands.

Brethren, be exhorted to show mercy one to the other, and practice charity towards the poor so that you may find mercy in Heaven.

The gates of Repentance are never closed, for God

desires that the sinner shall return and live, nay, waits for his coming until the day of his death.

Great is the power of Repentance; for it restores health to the world, hastens the redemption, brings man nearer to God, saves whole bodies as well as individuals from the evil fruits of their evil deeds and prolongs the life of man. THE PHARISEES.

PENITENCE! to virtue near allied,

Thou canst new joys e'en to the blest impart;

The listening angels lay their harps aside

To hear the music of thy contrite heart; And Heaven itself wears a more radiant face,

When charity presents thee to the throne of grace.

XI. Sojourners Only Like Our Fathers.

J

VII.

I am a stranger and sojourner with Thee, O God, as all my fathers were.-Psalms xxxix. 12.

WOULD have every one consider that he is in this

life nothing more than a passenger, and that he is not to set up his rest here, but to keep an attentive eye upon that state of being to which he approaches every moment, and which will be for ever fixed and permanent. This single consideration would be sufficient to extinguish the bitterness of hatred, the thirst of avarice and the cruelty of ambition. Antiphanes, a Greek poet, who lived a hundred years before Socrates, said: “Be

not grieved above measure for thy deceased friends. They are not dead, but have only finished the journey which it is necessary for every one of us to take. We ourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are, all of them, assembled, and, in this general rendezvous of mankind live together in another state of being." ADDISON.

OR sin is handled, truth I say

In words and doings every day;
But another handling there should be:
From sin by shrift to make thee free
Handle thy sin in fear and dread,
Or nought but pain will be thy meed;
Handle thy sins, and well them weigh,
How they foredo each godly way.
Handle them so to rise from all

That after none may make thee fall.

XII.

Spiritual Haff-Heartedness.

VIII.

With my whole heart have I sought Thee; O let me not wander from Thy Commandments. I will delight myself in Thy statutes; I will not forget Thy word.-Psalms cxix. 10, 16.

SINGLE sin, however apparently trifling, however hidden in some obscure corner of our consciousness,-a sin which we do not intend to renounce,―is enough to render real prayer impracticable. A course of action not wholly upright and honorable, feelings not

entirely kind and loving, habits not spotlessly chaste and temperate, -any of these are impassable obstacles. If we know of a kind act which we might, but do not intend to, perform,—if we be aware that our moral health requires the abandonment of some pleasure which yet we do not intend to abandon, here is cause enough for the loss of all spiritual power.

NE building and another pulling down,

ONE

What profit have they had but toil?

One praying and another cursing,

Whose voice will the Lord listen to?

He that washeth himself after touching a dead body,
And toucheth it again,

What profit hath he in his washing?

Even so a man fasting for his sins,

And going again, and doing the same,
Who will listen to his prayer,

And what profit hath he in his humiliation?

ROMISES in sorrow made

ECCLESIASTICUS.

Left, alas, too long unpaid;
Fervent wishes, earnest thought
Never into actions wrought.

Long withheld, we now restore them,
On Thy holy altar pour them ;

There in trembling faith to leave them

We present them, God receive them.

XIII.

F. P. COBBE.

The Day of Atonement.

This shall be unto you a Sabbath of Sabbaths, when ye shall humble your souls.-Leviticus xvi. 31.

HIS is the true atonement for our sins; and the word assures us that "a contrite spirit the Lord will not reject." A glance upon our past life suffices to bring the blush of shame upon our cheeks. How imperfect it all looks; how fragmentary the best we achieved and how inadequate compared with the fine resolutions we have formed! What poor use we made of the opportunities that God has placed in our way; how small our improvements, if we accomplished any at all! Our spirit seems ever in revolt against God as though He always wronged us, when our hopes are not fulfilled and things do not go just as we wanted them to go! How hard-hearted, how selfish, how proud, how impatient, how unforgiving, how discontented, aye, how cruel we can be at times, can be and are, and, sad to think, shall be again despite our confessions, despite our vows, despite our remorses; we should not even dare to offer our humiliation as an atonement did we not, at the same time, dare to hope that God will help us in our weakness, if only we are instant in prayer and set Him always before our eyes. Let me do this from this day forward, till the heart shall be satisfied of His eternal goodness.

ONG did I toil and knew no earthly rest;

Far did I rove, and found no certain home. At last I found them in His sheltering breast, Who ope's His arms and bids the weary come; With Him I found a home, a rest divine,

And I since then am His and He is mine.

G. G.

« IndietroContinua »