Earlier text: Spiritual GiftsSINCE the time when the Reformation opened the way for personal conviction and freedom of action in regard to religion, there has been an infinite variety of ways adopted of propagating the faith, some of which are so fantastic and singular as to open new fields of speculation in regard to human nature. Every century has had its own peculiar demonstrations, frequently so numerous as to give the historian some trouble to record them. Our own has not only been remarkably prolific, but within the past few years we have had three movements of the kind, slightly different in character, but all having the single end in view of advancing the cause of morality and religion. The Moody and Sankey meetings, which excited both hemispheres, the Crusading movement, which ran its brief but exciting career in a few States in the North, and the Murphy movement, are all within the briefest recollection. Now we have the “Salvation Army,” which proposes once more to awaken the masses to their deplorable condition, and to incite them to a fresh struggle toward better and purer living. The organization of men and women which has adopted this pretentious title is an English one, and is the outgrowth of an unsectarian Christian mission begun in England in 1865 by the Rev. William Booth and his wife, of the Methodist Church. The idea of the mission was to reach the worst classes of the population in the poorest and most crowded quarters of the city, and also to evangelize the non-church-going people of a higher grade. Gathering around him a band of earnest Christians, Mr. Booth commenced a series of open-air meetings, and in a short time the nucleus of the present organization was formed. In 1878 the title of “The Salvation Army” was adopted, as being less calculated to repel the persons it was designed to gather, and who do not like to be spoken of as needing mission effort. For a time the Army seemed to be under bad generalship, and a number of the rank and file fell into the hands of the police. In spite, however, of all opposition it finally began to make headway, and to command a certain amount of respect. Last fall the Army took London by storm, and has been playing its batteries in that wicked city ever since. The plan of operations adopted by the Army resembles that of our own Crusaders in some of its features, though it is not to be compared with it in others. Flaming handbills are issued, announcing that the “war against the devil” will commence at a given time and place; that Mr. and Mrs.—— will “do the first shooting,” and promising “great slaughter by the Salvation Army.” The “first shot” is understood to mean the first address or hymn; and when it is proposed to sing or pray, the announcement is sometimes made that “Brother So-and-so will now shoot,” or the invitation, “Let us shoot,” given, followed by the number of the hymn. General Booth has been heard to declare that “heathen England” appalls him, and his mission is to lift up and save the poor, the ignorant, and the neglected masses. Ninety per cent of the whole population never go inside a place of worship, and to save these he declares is the special mission of the Salvation Army. He also maintains that the masses “never think of Heaven or hell,” and his first object is to “get them to think of hell that they may flee from it, and of Heaven that they may strive to get there.” So far, the principal field of operation has been England and Wales, but the Army has also invaded Scotland and Ireland. They have also planted their outposts in Jersey, with a view to descending upon France. America has long been an objective point, and at last they are here. It is hardly necessary to observe that the members of the Salvation Army are fully satisfied of the holiness and efficiency of their mission among the classes unapproachable, as they maintain, by other means than they employ. When reproached with sweeping the gutters in search of proselytes, they reply that they are “ready to net the sewers,” and that their mission is especially to the hopelessly drunken and profligate. Their Christianity seems to be of the aggressive type—a sort of military propaganda due to a large interpretation of the command to “compel them to come in.” Their plan of procedure throughout England has been as follows: When it has been decided to “attack” a town, a convenient building, such as a theater, a circus, or a deserted factory, is hired, and constitutes the head-quarters of the mission. Then a small band of brethren and two or more sisters are dispatched on service. Any open space, frequented by the lower class of the population on Sunday morning for the purpose of indulging in dog-fighting and similar recreations, is pitched upon. The militant band at once commence proceedings by singing hymns, and when they have collected a crowd, they deliver short exhortations. These speeches are very short, and are always followed by at least two verses of a hymn. Singing is a chief feature of the services, and the “Hallelujah Lasses” is the quaint designation of the female portion of the Army. This title was given them in derision, and finally adopted by them, though not without some reluctance on their part. The songs are a conglomeration, but mainly adaptations of the Moody and Sankey hymns. All kinds of popular melodies are used—comic, sentimental, and sacred. When women join in the movement, they give up all fineries, and dress in the plainest manner, dispensing with jewelry and every species of ornament. So soon as a few, either of the converts or of the simply curious, are gathered together, a move is made for the establishment of a temporary chapel. In going and returning from their services, the brethren and sisters will march through the streets, singing, “Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord,” or some of their favorite hymns. When they have secured a hall, every effort is made to induce the crowd to enter, and when as many as can be persuaded have entered, either an ordinary service, prayer-meeting, or testimony-meeting is held, and those present are exhorted to lead Christian lives, and enroll themselves in the Salvation Army. This last-named act is an important part of the programme, not absolutely insisted on, but strongly urged as a test of sincerity. Mr. Booth believes that the energy natural to new converts is a force to be utilized. Not only is the new convert, if he be thoroughly sincere, full of fire and energy, not unmixed, perhaps, with spiritual pride at his regenerate condition, but he is nearer to those needing conversion than the brother who has lived cleanly for years past. No sooner, in the language of the Army, is a good soldier enrolled, than he is turned into a recruiting officer, and sent into his native alley to drum up fresh recruits. The first detachment of the Salvation Army that has visited our metropolis came over recently on the steamer Australia. They traveled by steerage, and landed at Castle Garden with the immigrants. The party consisted of George Railton, who comes as Commissioner, accompanied by a captain and six lieutenants. These are all young ladies, and all wear a peculiar uniform of blue faced with yellow. A ribbon is stretched across their caps, with the words, “The Army of Salvation.” In appearance they are all stout and able-bodied persons of about thirty years, and seemingly well adapted to any enterprise that requires energy and endurance. Their passage was paid to this country by the home association, but this they are expected to refund. The intention of the band is to carry out the gigantic and ambitious scheme of traveling all through this country, and establishing branches of their organization in every city and town. They also expect to receive sufficient voluntary support here to enable them to carry on their work. The initiatory undertaking of the band was a service of song at Castle Garden soon after their arrival. Energy and perseverance in any undertaking are apt to bring their reward, and there can be no question that the labors of the Army have met with great apparent success. They seem to seek out and take into their organization persons from the very worst classes, and yet the work does not fall to pieces. The number of members is now estimated at 100,000. In September last, according to a circular furnished by Mr. Railton, there were in England 122 corps, under the command of 195 officers, using for services weekly 148 theaters, music halls, warehouses, and other buildings, holding at the annual rate of 45,000 open-air services, and 60,000 in-door services, and preaching to 74,000 persons in-doors every Sunday evening, and to 2,000,000 in the streets every week. Through its instrumentality 257 persons have become wholly employed in religious work, and 3,256 others stand ready to speak or labor in the cause whenever called upon. The Army is said to be approved by twenty-three Mayors and magistrates, seventeen Superintendents of Police, and one hundred and twenty-nine clergymen. Its funds are raised mainly by collections taken at the services. Last year there was raised in this way £12,000, while the general fund only amounted to £4,540. That the labors of the Army will meet with as much success on our shores as on the other side of the ocean, if not more, there can be little doubt, if they employ the same number of workers, and exhibit the same amount of energy. Our people seem to take kindly to these movements, as is shown by the enthusiasm over other evangelists who have preceded them, and performed their work in the same fiery and energetic way. The question, however, that cannot help presenting itself to thoughtful minds is, whether the results are not transitory, and the reaction hurtful. There seems to be an absence of propriety in the manner in which these multitudes are assembled and the meetings carried on. But at the same time it scarcely behooves those who are doing little or nothing to help and regenerate their fellow-men to be too critical regarding the methods of conscientious persons who are devoting their lives to such work.—Harper’s Weekly. LIFE AT THE CORE.
By Theodore L. Cuyler
The peach-tree in my yard—which for several months had been only a collection of bare and dead-looking boughs—began, a few weeks since, to unpack its trunk. The buds began to swell, and presently the tree unfolded its blossoms, every one of which was a promissory note redeemable in peaches at ninety days. The promise of fruit depends upon the simple fact that the tree is alive at the core. The amount of its fruit will depend on the amount of its inward vitality. This principle is just as true in reference to every professed Christian as it is in reference to my peach-tree. The degree of fruitfulness and spiritual power which any Christian possesses is measured by his inward union to Christ. All the external life before the world depends upon the internal life with Jesus. All true spiritual growth is not from without; it is from the core. It depends on the inward principle of love to Christ Jesus, and heart loyalty to his commandments. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” The commandment-keeping is an evidence of the inward loyalty, but unless the loyal love be there, there will soon be a dropping off and decay of outward obedience. The real strength of every church-member is to be measured by his participation in the life of Jesus, and by the degree in which Jesus is formed within him as his hope of glory. What wretched mistakes are made by those who dream that the church can have any legitimate growth except a growth in holiness! All other enlargement, such as an enlargement of bulk, is like padding out a peach-tree with foreign material. There is a swelling out of dimension as a human body may bloat under the influence of brandy; but there is no genuine, enduring growth. You may tie any number of twigs to the limbs of my peach-tree, but not one of them will produce a peach. Let us not be deceived. There can be no substitute for vital piety. This is the core of the Christian and of the church. No pretentious swell of numbers in the pews, or of brilliant rhetoric in the pulpit, no cunning device of architecture, oratory or music, no multiplication of services by the pastor or by invited evangelists, no allurements to draw the crowd to God’s house, or to draw money for benevolent uses, no, nothing of human devising can take the place of an overmastering loyalty to Christ in the hearts of his people. Heart-piety is power—the only power. Without this inward principle at the core, bringing Jesus immediately into us, there can be no growth in grace, no solid enjoyment, no persistent cross-bearing, no assurance that we can endure temptation. There may be occasional spasms of fitful exertion in seasons of revival. But like the tides they will soon ebb away, and leave only the worthless “wreck” of broken covenants and half-finished projects on the barren shore.341 Here we touch the secret of so many open falls of Christian professors into dishonest practices, or drunkenness, or profligacy. The people fall for the same reason that certain trees fall in a high wind: they are rotten at the core. “It is wonderful,” says Carlyle, “how long a rotten post will stand if nobody shakes it.” The unhappy list of defaulters, and hard drinkers, and other detected transgressors in the church, is made up of those who yielded under the strong push of temptation. “It would seem as if God had deserted my poor husband,” said a heart-broken wife to me. The real fact was that her backsliding husband had deserted God. He had thrown off the everlasting arm, and as soon as he was left to his weak, wretched self, he fell like a rotten tree. Peter once tried to stand by himself, and the jibes of a servant-girl sent him over. Fifty days afterward he stood up in the strength of his Master, and all Jerusalem could not frighten him. He was sound and strong at the core. ‘Godliness is power. The seat of it is in the heart. By heart, we do not mean only the affections, but the conscience also. A conscience rooted into Christ is like an oak tree rooted in among the immovable rocks. Godliness is also perennial. It is better than numbers; for it attracts the soundest unto itself, and manufactures good men and women out of sinful material. It is better than wealth; for it promotes the industry which makes money, and warms the benevolence which bestows it. Franklin emptied his purse into the collection-box under the irresistible eloquence of Whitefield. It is better to have a greater than Whitefield always in our hearts, who can move us to open our purses even when there is no persuasion but that of principle. Godliness is better than prayer; for it lives on faith and inspires devotion. Without it, all the most fluent roll of pious phrases in a prayer-meeting is but a tinkling cymbal. Would you grow, my friend? Would you taste the sweetest joy this side of Heaven? Would you insure yourself against the blasts of sudden temptation? Would you glorify your Saviour? Then grow in godliness. Get more of Jesus into your soul. As Paul said to his brethren, “We beseech you to increase more and more.” We beseech you by the love of Jesus who plucked you from the path of hell, by all the luxuries of doing good to others, by all the faithful deeds you may achieve for the cross of Christ, by all the hope of heavenly bliss, we beseech you to increase more and more—more and still more beyond that, until Christ becomes not only the measure of your eager aspirations, but the fullness of your holy joy. —Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., in Advance. ANTE AND POST-MESSIANIC JEWS.
By R. Abbey
The non-observance of the wide and vital distinction between these two classes of people, both of which are properly called Jews, leads to a long list of errors which are frequently seen in the church. Our popular history needs whittling up along here. The people who composed the church during, and previous to, the lifetime of our Saviour, are, by us, collectively called Jews, no matter from what ancestral stock they, or any of them, may have descended. But subsequent to that time we see the Jews standing, as is the case now, in open and stout hostility to the church—the very same church. To get at the idea correctly, we must, I think, divide the Jews into three religious classes. First, the whole body constituting the church at and before the birth of Jesus. Second, those in the lifetime of the Saviour, and subsequently, who did not acknowledge his Messiahship for lack of sufficient evidence respecting it. And third, those who rejected him. Before the coming of Christ, or the appearance rather, there was no general disagreement among them on the subject of a Messiah. Of course the manner of the appearance and sacrifice, and all circumstances attending it, were unknown to everybody. And of course, among the masses, there was much ignorance about the whole subject. Secondly, during the lifetime of Jesus nobody acknowledged his Messiahship as a matter of faith. Expectation and hope rose and fell, at times, according to circumstances. His resurrection, and the scenes attending it, alone gave the final evidence. So that up to about the time of Pentecost, or soon after, there was no decisive acceptance or rejection of him. At Pentecost they began to separate finally, and to take sides strongly, and, of course, with vehement antagonism, because the question was vital to religion. But this separation could, at first, reach none but the few who were in and near Jerusalem. The great body of the church, those in Greece and elsewhere, must await further and more confirmatory evidence. The news from Jerusalem, startling in the highest degree, would excite the liveliest hopes and fears. On the very day of Pentecost three thousand were convinced and gave in their adhesion each to each, as a few others had done before, and sealed their faith by solemn baptism. And soon after, we hear of five thousand more doing the same thing, and then multitudes upon multitudes, month after month and year after year, as the horizon of convincing evidence extended. Considering the condition of the countries over which the entire church extended, it must have been a number of years—perhaps not less than thirty or forty—before the entire church could intelligibly and definitively decide this vital question. So that, during this time, there must have been hundreds of thousands, yea, and millions, who neither rejected nor received Jesus as the true Saviour. As they would hear the rumors, they must necessarily await fuller and more final evidence. The apostles and others furnished this final evidence as their travels and preaching extended. Thirdly, therefore the separation which began so formidably on the very day of the feast of Pentecost, continued and extended until it went through and included every member of the church. Meanwhile, new members who came in did as we do now, under a full recognition of the Christship of Jesus. Let it be remembered, the only question on which the church divided, was whether the man Jesus was or was not the Christ of Scripture—the Old Testament. As to the relative numbers of those finally receiving and finally rejecting Jesus, our information is only very general. Each was certainly very large; so represented in Acts, in many places. Most probably there was no very great disparity in the receiving and rejecting Jews. So I think from the best data I can gather. So we have two sets of Jews, the one receiving and the other rejecting, not the doctrine of Christship, but the claims of Jesus to it. But they could not both continue to be called Jews. Being different things, they must, of necessity, have different names. And so we are told that at Antioch the Jesus party began to be called Christians, and they are still so called, and the other party retained the old name. But we are told that the Christian party, and not they, are the true Jews. But a name does not change the character of a thing. So that post-Messianic Jews, so far from being the religious or ecclesiastical descendants of the anti-Messianic Jews, are apostates. If Jesus was the Christ of Scripture, then it follows that the rejecting Jews were wholesale apostates from the faith of their fathers. The Christship being the central and vital principle of Bible religion, and Jesus being the Christ, then the rejecting Jews turned square away from their former faith. If this is not so, then Jesus is not the Christ, and Christians are apostates. It is, therefore, a manifest error to speak of modern Jews as holding the religion of the Jews before the Saviour’s time. They repudiate every part of it. “Why, do they not hold the Old Testament?” it may be inquired. Yes, they hold the history, the geography, the biography, etc., of the book, but reject its religion in toto. They repudiate the religion of the Old Testament in this, that they repudiate the Christ of the Old Testament. What is the Old Testament without its Christ? It is a book of considerable unauthentic information and unauthorized rules of social life, and nothing more.—R. Abbey, in the Methodist. Who Are the Brethren?
By George B. Starr
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 1 John 3:14. But who are the brethren? whom shall I love, that I may enjoy the comfort of this text? Spiritualists might say, We know, by this rule, that we have passed from death unto life; for we love those who believe as we do, and have fellowship with them as we do with no others. Mormons may say the same; and so, in fact, every denomination of all the different sects. Thus it will be seen that this text could be used by the adversary to deceive us, and that while loving the children of the devil, we might be congratulating ourselves that we had passed from death unto life. But to the important question, “How shall we know that we love the right people, the people of God?” The apostle has not left us without an answer,—“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Chap. 5:2, 3. God’s children do now keep and always have kept the commandments—according to the best light they have had. So the apostle could assure us that “he that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Chap. 2:4. Such a one is not a disciple, and our love to him is no evidence of our being disciples. So God, by the same rule, points the scattered flock in the last days to his people: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. We may have no fears in loving such persons, but may rejoice that our hearts have been so changed as now to love God’s commandments, and those who keep them. I HAVE just read the interesting article entitled “Our Messengers,” in the Family Circle Department of the REVIEW of April 8, and while I heartily indorse every word of it, my spirit is strongly moved to say a few words on the other side. I believe that the relations between our little churches and the ministers who come among them should be very close; and my short experience has been, that, as a rule, our ministers find homes and hearts open and anxious to receive them. For months, and in some cases for years, the scattered members of a church have been working alone, and perhaps working hard; and only those who have felt deeply their incompetency and loneliness can understand the feelings with which they welcome the visits of the minister. They have come in from the world and other churches, thankfully receiving the light of the third angel’s message, and strong and happy in the blessing God has sent them. They would gladly throw off all cares of the world, that they might drink more deeply at the fountain of divine wisdom; but the stern duties of life are ever before them, and while brain and muscle are taxed to provide for the wants of those about them, the enemy, ever watchful, sometimes finds them off their guard. They continue, under difficulties, to scatter the seed of truth, each one cherishing in his heart an anticipation of the coming of the minister, who shall take an interest in all, and instruct them kindly and lovingly in the duties of every-day life. It is true that they must not expect perfection in the minister, neither must he expect it among those so lately brought together, whose aims and ways in life have hitherto been so different. The mother, whose heart and hands are full, may have very limited opportunities for becoming informed upon the truth she loves; and an hour spent in conversation with a well-informed minister on topics pertaining to present truth might cheer and brighten many a day’s hard labor; while a pointed rebuke, though perhaps merited, might seem to be the straw too much added to her burden, and dampen the efforts she was putting forth in her weakness.342 There is no true Christian but enjoys heart communion with God; and while it is the minister’s privilege and duty to spend much time in study and prayer, he should not forget to in some measure come into the daily life of those whose hospitality he enjoys. A few timely words concerning the home-life and actions, with a bright example before them, might lead many a family to take their first step in true home-culture. For example, a family may contain several young converts, whose hearts are open and willing to receive the truth, which is all new to them; a loved and respected minister comes to their home, perhaps young like themselves. How they watch for words of encouragement; how they love to hear the truths opening before them explained and made practical; how they try to check the bright, gay talk, and how gladly would they follow if the way opened to speak of better things. But the minister, feeling his own frailty and taking note of theirs, spends the hours in wrestling with self and in study, growing better and wiser himself, but leaving them, with their lesser opportunities, far behind. Young persons may have new responsibilities resting upon them, some office in church or Sabbath-school whose duties they find themselves poorly fitted to discharge. An hour spent in cheerfully and patiently directing them might do as much good for eternity as an earnest sermon preached to a crowd of unbelievers. Perhaps the minister’s place of study may not be far from where the daily round of domestic duties is performed, and how it would quicken the steps and brighten the eyes of the housewife to listen occasionally to some of the beautiful thoughts to be found within the book she would gladly find time to read. While earnestly laboring together in the great harvest field, we should not forget to bear one another’s burdens. To us who are doing the humble duties of life come the words of the poet,— “She who sweeps a room as for God’s laws,
Makes that and the action fine.”
HARBINGERS
By Mary H. Rowland
A gleam of blue is in the sky,
Where all was gray but now,
And sweet and clear, a bird I hear
From yonder budding bough. One crocus by the garden walk,
Sends up a ray of gold,
As if a sunbeam earth had caught,
And held in loving hold. O glad and welcome harbingers
Of bird, and flower, and tree,
Ye are the messengers of spring,
Of joys that are to be. So, in the winter of the world,
There come dark days between,
Glad tokens from a fairer land,
Which mortals have not seen; A note of harmonies divine,
That fill the heavenly space;
The radiant brightness of a smile
From hope's celestial face; The upward reaching of the soul,
Toward truth without alloy,
A clearer vision of the right,
A trace of Eden's joy. Whence come these heavenly visitants,
That all too quickly flee?
Are they not precious harbingers
Of Heaven yet to be? —Mary H. Rowland, in Advance. BE PATIENT WITH THE LITTLE ONES.
By H. M. Brooks
Undoubtedly the admonition, “Be patient with the little ones,” is often misunderstood and misapplied, and that, too, by parents who earnestly desire to do right. It is not at all surprising that a person who, without experience, and with very little theoretical knowledge of any value, engages in the work of training children, should presently be seeking somewhat anxiously for easy ways to do right. For this work is in itself so nice and difficult as long ago to have given rise to the saying, trite enough, “You must bring up one family before you can know how it should be done.” The instincts of parental love, if they had a chance for full play, would, no doubt, find ways to surmount or to avoid many difficulties; but with the majority of us these instincts are not allowed their full freedom nor their natural action. In the sharp struggle for daily bread, in the often-times sharper struggle for social superiority, for wealth, for distinction, the affections are, in numberless instances, half smothered or wholly warped—put off from day to day with the promise of “a more convenient season,” which, perhaps, never comes, or comes only when it is too late. Beset by the innumerable embarrassments that must attend an ignorant attempt to manage a most complex and delicate business, with every moment of time seemingly occupied to its utmost capacity with pressing cares and labors, almost precluding the possibility of coherent thought, the affectionate parents look out anxiously for advice. They are told on every side to “Be patient with the little ones,” “Do not hold them with a stern, restraining hand,” “Do not visit upon all their little faults and follies continual reproof and punishment” (the faults, however, seem to be continual and in endless variety), and one of the best educational writers of the present day says plainly, “Do not expect much moral goodness from children.” The parental heart is sadly warped which does not throw assent to every kindly word that is uttered for children; and what wonder, then, if, amid the hurry and anxiety and the disappointing tangle of mistakes, the quality of the patience enjoined be mistaken, and the little faults and follies excused or ignored, until they become great and uncontrollable ones? Indeed, looking at the subject from this point of view, it is a matter for wonder that the work of home-training is so well done, that so many children do finally come up to worthy manhood and womanhood. The patience needed in this work, however, is not merely a quiet endurance of the cares and vexations inseparably connected with it; there must be patience to labor on, though no immediate results of that labor be observable; to give “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little,” even though the lessons seem to be lost; in short, patience “to labor and to wait.” To labor, not leaving the little failings unnoticed, because they are little; to wait, not attempting too much at once, nor crowding the work of years into months; but steadily, calmly, and unyieldingly striving to build up noble and symmetrical character, keeping always in view the end to be attained. For just here we are beset by a great danger—the danger of becoming confused in a labyrinth of the little details of every-day work, thus entirely losing sight of, or wandering far aside from, the final object of our labors. While we must remember that no circumstance of a child’s life, no peculiarity of its mind, is too trivial to be noticed, since upon any one of them may hinge the mightiest consequences, we yet must never forget, in our watch of particulars, that it is the general tendency of all these combined which constitutes the progress of development. Yet how frequently it happens—alas, that it should ever happen—that the impatient thought, culminating, perhaps, in the impatient word or the impetuous deed, so magnifies some troublesome yet really trivial fault, that the child seems to us to be retrograding frightfully, when he is really making all practicable normal progress. Therefore it is well for us to know just what normal development really is. The moral development which brings a great religious experience into a child’s life; the judgment which knows to choose the good from the evil every time, ere yet the subject has reached his teens; the affection which, in childhood, always forgets itself in ministering to others, are not natural and well-timed phases of progress. They may be very convenient and gratifying to parents, and teachers, and friends, but they are not to be trusted for what they seem to be; these apparently lovely manifestations may be but the prelude to permanent disorganization; something in the mental economy is jarred or thrown out of place. With a wise care which holds in check, or, at least, refrains from encouraging any precocious action either of the intellect or of the sensibilities, the equilibrium may be restored. But the clear reflections, the steadily ruling conscience, the affectionate self-denial, which should be attributes of the mature mind, do not belong to childhood—should not be welcomed there. The immature forms of all human faculties should be there, and their crude and occasional expression should be gladly observed and carefully encouraged and directed; but everything in child-nature must grow to its appointed form and stature, in order to be reliable. Therefore, love’s wise patience passes lightly over those childish peculiarities, which, though they may be somewhat troublesome and disagreeable, are yet certain to disappear as childhood disappears; and labors, with a faith that never despairs, upon the forming habits that will grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength.—H. M. Brooks, in Arthur’s Home Magazine. HINTS TO TEACHERS OF YOUNG CLASSES.
By Hattie Olive
As a missionary to foreign lands, when preparing for his work, must, besides his knowledge of facts and of the needs and wants of human nature in general, learn the language of the people among whom he expects to live and labor, before his tact, learning, and religious experience can be of any service to the natives, so the teacher, before he can reach the hearts of his class, must be thoroughly versed in the language of childhood. Without this knowledge, which will perhaps be more readily recognized under the name of sympathy, the teacher, although the greatest, wisest, purest, and most earnest of persons, can achieve but little; but with this rare attainment, and a pure life, and earnest purpose to succeed, the poor preparation for the work of teaching, over which the most of us mourn, need be but a slight hindrance to the immense amount of good which we, as teachers, might accomplish. Through a lack of this ready sympathy with child-nature, teachers are apt, if one child is dull, another uneasy, and still another surly and impudent, to feel that his conduct is actuated by pure ugliness, especially if the offender is a half-grown boy. But such misdemeanors should not be made a personal matter, as often, if these moods could be traced to their source, they would be found to have originated in some trouble at home. By careful study, the teacher will often be able to “trace the day’s disasters in the morning face” of the child, and with a little tact, the impending disturbance may be warded off. If we remember how often we, from overwork or some imprudence, rise in the morning with every nerve quivering, and how a little thing will jar upon us, it will make us more tender and patient with high-strung, nervous children; for it is a melancholy fact that the average child of to-day has nerves, and a little care will teach us how to soothe the child, instead of irritating him still more. No one can do much with children unless the heart be won, and this is just where a knowledge of the child’s nature can be useful. If you have in your class a boy who is a terror to all around him on account of his life and energy, the surest way to his heart is to induce him to do you a favor in some way. If you have that sympathy and love for boys, without which no one should attempt to teach them, you will generally, by careful thought and planning, be able to so direct this superabundant energy as to make it a blessing rather than a curse to its possessor, and to help him to a life of greater usefulness than if he had in him less of this terrorizing element. But it is not always possible, even by good management, to avoid an issue with the members of the class. There came a time when the Creator, the embodiment of love and wisdom, failed in his plan of ruling by love, and was obliged to cast out a part of his host, although they had not inherited the imperfections that are the legacy of these boys. And the time will come to every teacher when the trial must be made to see which of the two—teacher or scholar—has the stronger will. In this case it is strength of will, and not strength of muscle, which determines the result. Tone and Temper Make Home Happy
By John Hall
I HAVE peeped into quiet “parlors” where the carpet is clean and not old, and the furniture polished and bright; into “rooms” where the chairs are deal and the floor carpetless; into “kitchens” where the family live, and the meals are cooked and eaten, and the boys and girls are as blithe as sparrows in the hatch overhead; and I see that it is not so much wealth, nor learning, nor clothing, nor servants, nor toil, nor idleness, nor rank, nor station, as tone and temper, that make life joyous or miserable, that render homes happy or wretched. And I see, too, that in town or country, good sense and God’s grace make life what no teachers, or accomplishments, or means, or society, can make it,—the opening stave of an everlasting psalm, the fair beginning of an endless existence, the goodly, modest, well-proportioned vestibule to a temple of God’s building, that shall never decay, wax old, or vanish away.—John Hall, D. D. Verses on Discontent and Divine Provision
By Richard C. Trench
—In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied.
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made.
—Richard C. Trench. A REMEMBERED TEACHER.
By Wm. C. Wilkinson
I see him now, importunate, eager, bold
To push for truth, as most to push for gold;
Young then, with youth’s fine scorn of consequence
He weighed no whither, so he knew his whence—
Asked only, but asked hard, Is it a fact?
That point well sure, deemed then he nothing lacked.
Truth was from God; she could not lead astray.
Fearlessly glad he walked in truth’s highway;
Who joined him there, had fellow stout to cheer;
Who crossed, met foe behooved him well to fear;
His quick, keen, urgent, sinewy, certain thrust
Well knew those knights who felt it in the joust. Ideal Christian teacher, master, man,
Severely sweet, a gracious Puritan,
Beyond my praise to-day, beyond their blame,
He spurs me yet with his remembered name!
— Wm. C. Wilkinson, in Scribner.