HISTORICAL ENCOURAGEMENTS.

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CHAPTER XIV

Encouragements to Faithfulness.

DISCOURAGEMENTS are inseparable from every attempt at being useful. I had thought of devoting this chapter to the consideration of those which attend the faithful teacher in the sabbath school. But they need not be pointed out, nor dwelt upon. They will come of their own accord; bnt the wisest way is to think as little of them as possible, and to resolve that they shall never retard or stop our efforts. The world is at war with the kingdom of holiness, and in whatever shape effort is made to reclaim it from the dominion of the prince of the power of the air, there will be obstacles and difficulties. Ever since the first promise, that the seed of the woman should crush the serpent's head, it has been so. It is part of the moral discipline through which the people of God must pass. No class of active, devoted christians has ever met with so much opposition as did the Apostles and early christians. But they neither stopped nor turned aside for such opposition.

About one hundred and twenty disciples, after the death of their Master, were gathered together for player, and the Holy Spirit descended upon them; and then they all spake with tongues, and preached the gospel to the people of many different languages. The consequence was a great excitement: a crowd collected; some mocked, and then Peter preached to them a sermon, with an application, and three thousand were converted. Then they had time enough for prayer and religious duties, and money enough for benevolent purposes; for each sold his possessions, and parted them to all men as every man had need, and continued daily with one accord in the temple." Then the lame man was healed; a crowd colected; Peter preached another sermon with an application, and five thousand were converted. The High Priest and nobles are alarmed and indignant at all this excitement; they seize Peter and John, and demand of them by what authority they did so; and then Peter preached the gospel faithfully to the High Priest and nobles. The Apostles are commanded to hold their peace, are threatened, and dismissed; and they immediately return to their work of preaching to the people. Again they are seized and imprisoned; but an angel releases them, and they continue to preach. A third time they are taken and beaten; but they rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer; and without delay resume their work. The excitement spreads and increases, Jerusalem is filled

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with their doctrine, the opposers are in great perplexity what measures to take to stop it; till at length, in a paroxysm of popular fury, Stephen is seized and stoned to death.

Here we may suppose there was a pause. The disciples probably met to consider what should be done, and to pray for divine guid ance. Imagine them assembled, many countenances indicating anxiety and alarm. At length one speaks: "Oh! the torrents of ridicule with which we are assailed! How shall we ever stand before it ?' Another remarks, "I can bear the ridicule very well but they tell such falsehoods about us, they will utterly ruin our reputation, and destroy all our influence among the people!" A third feels it most deeply that they should be hated for the good which they were doing, and that these falsehoods are invented to make them odious on account of their usefulness. A fourth cannot bear the thought of being charged with wrong motives, and having all his efforts charged to the desire of building up a party. A fift feels himself disheartened because their success is principally confined to the poor; that none of the great, and the rich, the priests, and nobles, lend them their name and influence, but do all in their power to crowd them down. A sixth is disturbed that there should be so much noise and excitement, such a tumult that there can be no living in the city, if these efforts should go on. Another regrets the disunion of families occasioned by their preaching, and another points to the blood of Stephen and hints at a little more prudence, lest they should all be massacred together.

Now, what shall they do in all this trouble? They kneel down and pray together; they continue for some time earnestly engaged in the exercise; and the clouds begin to clear away, the heaviness is removed from their heart, they are in an entirely different atmosphere. Now one and another begin to recollect the words of Christ, how he had foretold that all this would happen in just this manner; how he had commanded, warned, and encouraged them ; promised them a mansion in his Father's house; he had gone to prepare a place for them, and send the Comforter to be with them till his return. And now they have only to do their duty, and leave the consequences with their Master. They see things in an entirely different light, their despondency is all gone; they go again to their work with more resolution and earnestness than ever.

Such was the spirit of primitive christianity; this is the spirit that should animate us in all our well-directed efforts for the salva tion of the soul.

Let those who engage in teaching and raising up sabbath schools, meet opposition and discouragement in this way, and the cause of Jesus Christ can never suffer from the efforts of men.

I must now proceed briefly to mention a few motives which God,

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in his providence, holds out to the sabbath school teacher, to be faithful and untiring in the cause in which he has engaged.

1. The teacher will himself receive benefit in proportion to his faithfulness.

The providence of God seems to design the sabbath school to be the place where the teacher shall have all his christian graces continually called out and exercised. The man who is faithful in his station as a sabbath school teacher, can hardly fail of having his christian character improved.

Are you naturally proud? Who is not? You must here associate with ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, and it may be with filth. Like your Master, you must associate with the poor. Your intellect must be exercised by coming down to the capacity of the child. You must visit the poor, listen to their tales of sorrow, sympathize with their condition, put yourself, in some measure, on their level, and encounter any prejudice, however vulgar, which they may entertain. Can this be done without calling the grace of humility somewhat in exercise?

Are you naturally selfish? You must go to your school, and visit the families, at the time appointed, let the weather be what it may, your own ease and comfort making what demands they may; you must enter the dwellings of sorrow, of woe, of wretchedness: you must forego seasons of visiting, social interviews with friends, leisure for reading, thinking, and, on the sabbath especially, even a part of your hours of secret meditation and devotion in the closet. It is a constant call for self-denial; and you cannot be happy without its exercise.

Do you in any measure lack patience? You will meet with the stupid and the dull, whom you must instruct; with the stiffnecked and the stubborn, with whom you must bear and forbear; with ingratitude which at times seems too much for poor human nature tr bear. You will have to follow your scholars from week to week sometimes discovering that they are wearied with your teachings, sometimes that they would gladly get away if they could. Car you do all this, and endure all this, without a patience constantly increasing?

"Are condescension, affability, meekness, gentleness, goodness. long-suffering, Christian love that hopeth all things, endureth al things, required? They are all called into daily exercise, and all if asked of the Giver of all goodness, will freely be given, and abuudantly strengthened and increased, by the blessed spirit of consolation, until every precious stone in the diadem of christian graces be set in its place, and burnished, and made fit, for Christ's sake, to be added to those which evermore shall burn and blaze around the throne, and brighten and brighten, throughout eternity, in the pure

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and holy splendours of the glory of God and of the Lamb." Thus, they, that be wise shull shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars för ever and ever.

2. The faithful teacher will have the thanks of his scholars in after life.

Few teachers are aware how long they are remembered, and, if faithful, with how much affection, by their scholars. More than twenty years ago, a lady, in a destitute neighbourhood, opened in er own house what she called a sabbath school. The bible and the catechism were recited by a number of children who united in the school. This teacher was a mother and often has been known ta hear thirty or forty recitations with an infant in her arms. These self-denying labours were not overlooked by the Great Head of the church. Those who attended her school grew up altogether unlike others in the same neighbourhood who did not attend. The moulding of their minds, and the forming of their characters seem to have been done by her, and that too, in some instances, when the almost omnipotent example of parents was directly opposed to her influence. Three of her scholars were the daughters of profane and intemperate parents. Such was the hold which this devoted teacher obtained over their affections and confidence, that she rescued them from the ruinous influence of these parents, and trained them to be ornaments in society. They were respectably settled in life.

Several of her scholars who had removed to other places, and had grown out of her recollection, have been known to return and extend the warm hand of greeting, and hail her as their former teacher and friend.

One of her pupils who had taken up her residence in a new and remote section of the State, was induced, by a remembrance of the example and influence of this teacher, to go and do likewise. She also collected children around her, and taught them the things which pertain to their eternal welfare.

One scholar, while on her death-bed, sent a messenger from the town in which she was residing, to request this teacher to come and see her. She was unable to go; but just as the young lady was going into eternity, leaning upon the staff of the Redeemer, she left a special message for her teacher: "Tell her that her instructions in that little sabbath school were blessed to the salvation of my soul." Such was the influence of one teacher, and she a mother at the head of a family Such were the rewards she lived to receive. All may not see the results of their labours so clearly. Sometimes, for wise reasons, the teacher will not be permitted to see the results, and to hear the offerings of the grateful scholar in this life. But the word of God shall not return unto him void. The seed may seem to die;

but it will, in God's own time, spring up, and bear fruit unto eternal life. As an illustration of this, I have often been affected at an incident connected with Henry Martyn. If I mistake not, my reader will be also.

Some years since, an English gentleman spent several weeks at Shiraz, Persia. He attended a public dinner with a party of Persians, among whom was one who took but little part in the conversation. He was below middle age, serious, and mild in countenance. His name was Mahomed Raham. In the course of a religious conversation, the Englishman expressed himselt with some levity; at which Mahomed fixed his eyes upon him with such a look of surprise, regret, and reproof, as reached his very soul. Upon inquiry, the gentleman found that he had been educated as a mollah (priest), though he had never officiated; that he was much respected, was learned, retired in his habits, and was drawn out to attend that party, only by the expectation of meeting an Englishman, to whose nation and language he was much attached. In a subsequent interview, Mahomed Raham declared himself a Christian, and gave the following account of the happy change in his views and feelings.

"In the year 1223 (of the Hegira), there came to this city an Englishman who taught the religion of Christ with a boldness hitherto unparalleled in Persia, in the midst of much scorn and ill-treatment from our mollahs, as well as the rabble. He was a beardless youth, and evidently enfeebled by disease. He dwelt among us for more than a year. I was then a decided enemy to infidels, as the Christians are termed by the followers of Mahomet: and I visited this teacher of the despised sect, with the declared object of treating him with scorn, and exposing his doctrines to contempt. Although I persevered for some time in this behaviour towards him, I found that every interview not only increased my respect for the individal, but diminished my confidence in the faith in which I was educated. His extreme forbearance towards his opponents, the calm and convincing manner in which he exposed the fallacies and sophistries by which he was assailed, (for he spoke Persian excellently,) gradually inclined me to listen to his arguments, to inquire dispassionately into the subject of them, and finally, to read a tract which he had written in reply to a defence of Islanism by our chief mollahs. Need I detain you longer? The result of my examination was a conviction that the young disputant was right. Shame or rather fear withheld me from avowing this opinion. I even avoided the society of the Christian teacher, though he remained in the city so long. Just before he quitted Shiraz, I could not refrain from paying him a farewell visit. Our conversation (the memory of it will