Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

offering marred, his spirit discomposed, the position was mild and gentle; his parental festival of his family peace disturbed and de-affection was great; he was unwilling to frauded, and indecencies, too shocking to be mentioned, close the scene of riot and intemperance.

All this is easily to be traced up to early habits of indulgence: men could not have become thus wicked all at once. Had the authority of the father, had the sanctity of the high priest, had the severity of the judge interposed, to check and punish the first deviation from propriety, it had never come to this. We may judge of the gentleness with which slighter offences were reproved, when the most atrocious transgressions meet with so mild a rebuke as this, "Nay, my sons, it is no good report that I hear." This is rather an invitation to commit iniquity, than the vengeance of a magistrate to expose and suppress it. To point out the aggravation of Eli's offence, is neither malicious nor useless; it is written, among the other things in this book, for our instruction, and by the blessing of God it may prove salutary, as a beacon pointing out the rock on which others have made shipwreck.

render any one unhappy; he thought of prevailing by love. He began with overlooking trifling faults; he flattered himself that the reason and reflection of riper years would correct and cure the wildness and irregularity of boyish days; "Surely the young men will by and by see their folly, and grow wiser." Who would not rather attempt to rule by love? But what is the proper conduct and expression of love? What saith the wisest of mankind? "He that spareth the rod, hateth the child." What saith the great Father and Saviour of all men? "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." There is no such thing as happiness but in habits of order, decency, and subjection. The man, or the child, who knows no law but that of appetite or caprice, must of necessity be miserable. It is cruelty, not kindness, to give a man up to himself; and to dream of changing habits of indolence, dissipation, and criminal indulgence, by remonstrance and reason, is expecting that reason should survive itself, or that it should effect, when enfeebled, disordered, and corrupted, what it could not do when clear, and sound, and vigo rous. But, "the grace of God is almighty, and his mercies are very great." Nay, but who art thou, O man, who darest to expect, or to ask a miracle of grace, with the consciousness of having neglected the means, which, timely employed, might, through the divine blessing, have proved effectual with

Against his personal virtue no censure is insinuated. He seems to have been one of those quiet, easy, good-natured men, who love not to have their tranquillity disturbed, and are loth to disturb that of others; who, without being vicious themselves, by a passive tameness, become the undesigned abettors of the sins of other men. The corruption of the times must indeed have been very great, when it was supposed possible for the mis-out a miraculous interposition? The one tress of a family, during the solemnity of a sacred festival, to be disguised with wine, in the face of the sun, in the court of God's house. But the bare possibility of such a case, grievously enhances his guilt. He had not done his duty as the public guardian of morals and The human mind, put under early culreligion, or Hannah had not been suspected ture, may be made to produce any thing. It of intemperance, and the suspicion reflects possesses a happy pliancy, which may be the highest dishonour on both his understand-moulded into any form. But the same plant, ing, and his heart; his bitterest enemy could not have devised a severer censure upon his conduct, than that under the priesthood of Eli such enormities were committed and connived at.

talent is justly taken away from him who hid it in the earth, and it is given to increase the store of the diligent and faithful servant, who by wisdom and industry, had increased his five talents into ten.

which, young and tender, you could with a touch bend into what shape you pleased; when grown into a tree, resists every effort of your strength. Cut it down you may, break it you may, cleave it asunder you may, but bend it you cannot. And alas, how great a portion of human life is spent in useless, unavailing regret for opportunities lost, seasons misspent, mischief done, misery incurred! Yet men will not profit even by experience, that plainest, most faithful, and most powerful of all instructers.

Men in power are chargeable not only with the evil which they do, but also with the evil which they might have prevented, but did not. Power is delegated to them, for this very end, that they may be "a terror to evil doers," as well as "a praise to such as do well." The same carelessness runs through the whole of his domestic and public admi- Who can view, without pitying him, that nistration; a disorderly family, a polluted wretched old man, deploring the guilt which church, a distracted, staggering state; no go- he himself had occasioned, which he wants vernment, or what was worse than none. resolution to punish, and wisdom to cure; The best things are the most liable to abuse: which is proceeding from evil to worse, filland we shall give this faulty, unhappy fathering the past with remorse, and overspreadall the credit we can. His errors had their ing the future with despair?! Ah, how heaorigin perhaps in goodness. His natural dis- vily he suffers in his age, because these pro

fligate sons bore not the wholesome yoke of If you are so happy as to have preserved discipline and restraint in their youth! your virtue, if you have any savour of piety, Who can conceive the anguish of Jacob's you must regard it with a mixture of indigsoul, as he was sinking into the grave under nation and pity; if you are not lost to the the loss of a gracious son by the stroke of feelings of humanity, it will fill you with Providence? But what is it, compared to loathing and disgust. The sequel will teach the more dreadful anguish of Eli, looking us many important lessons. For my own forward in horror to the utter extinction of part, ever since I became a father, I have all his family, with the insupportable re- never been able to read this history without flection, that all, all was chargeable upon trembling; and my anxiety has not been himself! diminished by reflecting, that the children whom God has given me, neither in their ` bodies, nor their minds, nor their dispositions, are among the lowest of their species. I have an awful conviction, that if any of them should unhappily turn out ill, a great part of the blame will be imputable to myself. I am frequently tempted to rejoice that none of my grown children have made choice of my own profession, the most dangerous, the most responsible of all; and I am much more alarmed at the apprehension, that when they are become men and women, they may accuse me of over-indulgence, than I am now, of being thought harsh and unkind by children.

The character and behaviour of the unhappy young men is a melancholy and affecting representation of the progress of moral corruption. It begins in their making light of the ordinances of religion, which they were bound, by their office, to venerate themselves, and to recommend by their example, to others. And you may be assured there is something essentially wrong about that man who expresses real or affected contempt for the worship of God. It is a gross violation of the laws of decency and good breeding. For what title can you have to insult that sober-minded person, who has given you no provocation, by deriding or profaning what he holds sacred? It is a direct defiance to the laws of your country, which have adopted the institutions of religion, to assist, at least, in carrying on and supporting good government, so essential to public happiness. He that despises, therefore, the ordinances of God, is a friend to anarchy, is making a wicked attempt to dissolve the bands of society, and deserves to be treated as a public enemy. It is an argument of a light and silly mind, aiming to supply the want of consequence, by affected boldness, impiety, and singularity, and which, like every other species of affectation, generally misses its aim.

In the example before us, we find irreverence toward God speedily degenerating into violence and injustice to men. And indeed what hold has society of that man who has shaken off the first and strongest obligations of his nature, who has professedly degraded himself, and is become less than a man, in making the silly attempt to be thought something more. He who begins with defrauding God of his due, will not long be scrupulous about invading the rights of his fellow-creature. The same spirit which defers the sacrifice till an unruly appetite be first gratified, will, by and by, proceed to "take by force" the portion of another; and will lose all sense of the just claims and real wants of mankind, in pride and selfishness.

The third stage of this humiliating progress, discovers to us men wholly brutified, plunged into the lowest, grossest sensuality; sinking deeper and deeper in the mire, till nothing remains but the image of the most odious and abominable of animals. Young man, look at the picture, consider it well.

As the greatest and most respectable part of my audience are parents, I must of necessity apply the great and important subject of my discourse particularly to them. And, as I always flatter myself with the greater hope of success with female parents, I take the liberty of addressing myself first to mothers. Providence, my friends, as I have frequently repeated, has laid the earliest, the heaviest, and the most important part of education, upon you; but it has also alleviated and sweetened the task by many peculiar affections and endearments. Let me suppose you have done your duty, and carefully reared up infancy and childhood. The charge must then pass into other hands. But surely both your heart and conscience tell you that you have not yet done with them. Female children in particular are an anxious and a lasting burden upon the mother. They love you, they look up to you, they imitate you. You must be therefore what you wish them to become. Will a daughter learn to be industrious from an idle, indolent mother? Will she learn to be sober-minded, by seeing you habitually carried away by the pride of life? Will she catch the spirit of piety from one whose very sabbaths are devoted to dissipation and pleasure? I will not insult you by supposing that a positively bad example has been set, or that your darling charge may have grossly deviated from the paths of virtue; but let me suppose, for a moment, a case that may, and does happen every day; that your daughter has grown up with a vain, light, worldly mind; has acquired a taste for dress and amusement; has become a perfect mistress of the usual accomplish

ments of the day and place in which we live; has become an object of attention and admiration. Let me suppose her attacked with disease, perhaps, the effect of levity and dissipation. See, the roses are fading upon her cheek, her "beauty is wasting like a moth," all her vivacity is reduced to the sudden glow of the hectic, which is gone, before it is well come; she feels the witness of death at her heart, she looks up to you with clouded, wistful eyes, and says, "Ah, my mother, you was too indulgent to me. You assisted the tongue of the flatterer, and taught me to forget myself. I was made to believe myself an angel, and now feel that I am a worm. Seeking to shine in the eyes of man, I have neglected the means of finding favour in the sight of God. I now wish I had frequented the house of prayer more; I wish I had not frequented the company of the giddy, the thoughtless, and the profane. I do not accuse my dear mother, of designedly misleading me; but would to God she had better understood her own duty and my real interest. Life had been more respect able, and death less frightful than I find it to be. O my God, have mercy, have mercy upon me."

soil; and trained up an immortal being to destruction? Pause, and consider. Are you prepared to meet the stings of an awakened conscience, accusing thee of murder, of foulmurder, the murder of thy own son, whom thou lovedst? Are you fortified against the cutting reproaches of that child, laying his eternal ruin to your charge? Have you prepared your defence against that awful day when a righteous God shall demand an account of the sacred trust committed to thee! If to contemplate his punishment at a distance be wo unutterable, what were it, to be at once the cause and the partaker of it? The terrified imagination flees from this hell of hells, and seeks refuge in prayer to a merci. ful God, that he would graciously save you from it.

Let young ones be persuaded to be patient of restraint, of correction, and of reproof You are not grieved willingly, you are not afflicted unnecessarily, you are not chastised out of caprice. "My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.' "*"A wise son maketh a It had been easy to have added to the glad father; but a foolish son is the heavistrength of this address: but even from this ness of his mother." Venerate the name, the maternal heart recoils, and deprecates the day, the house, the worship of God. Rewith horror, an hour so dreadful. Well, member that want of decency is want of blessed be God, it is yet a great way off; sense that the immoderate indulgence of and what is more, it is in your power to pre-appetite is inimical to all true enjoyment: vent it; I do not mean the stroke of death; but the arrow of death dipt in the poison of remorse. God grant that none here may feel it.

The criminality of Eli consisted, my brethren, in the neglect of his duty and you have seen how fatal that neglect was to himself and to his family. Dare I suppose there is a father here, who has been more than passive in the corruption of his own child; who has been the promoter and the pattern of wickedness; who has with his own hand scattered the seeds of death in that precious

that what is renounced, from respect to reason and conscience, is enjoyed: that present comfort, and future happiness, are built on habits of order, self-government, justice, benevolence, and subjection to divine authority.

[I make no apology for giving this discourse from the contrast which it presents being her highest ea the press, under a title that bears the name of HANNAH. comium, next to the account given of Samuel, in the and fulfils our design.] following Lecture, which, of course, closes her history,

[blocks in formation]

HISTORY OF HANNAH,
THE MOTHER OF SAMUEL

LECTURE CVII.

And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour with the Lord, and also with men.

1 SAMUEL ii. 26.

No appearance of nature is more striking, | of the great Creator's consummate wisdom no one affords a more complete demonstration and unremitting attention, than the gradual

and imperceptible progress of every thing in nature, to its perfection, and to its dissolution. The dawning light insensibly advances to the perfect day, and the moment high noon is gained, an approach is made towards night. When the moon has waned, till she is lost in the sun's brighter rays, she begins to emerge into form and lustre again; having waxed till her resplendent orb is full, that moment she begins to decay. We are prepared to bear the raging heat of the dog-star by the grateful vicissitudes and advances of spring; and are fortified against winter's stormy blast, by the contracting light and the temperate cold of sober autumn.

Human life too has its morning, noon, and night; its spring and fall; and empires have their infancy, maturity, and old age. Time is the dawning of eternity; earth is the scene of preparation for heaven; and mortality the passage to life and immortality. Every thing is beautiful in its season, and every state is a preparation for that which is to succeed it. Nature and providence admit of few sudden and violent transitions; because the human frame, both of body and mind, is little qualified to endure them.

assisting or improving nature. Assist nature! If you try to mend that shape, trust me, you will spoil it. Every violent attempt to quicken growth will but retard it, and an over solicitude to preserve health, will infallibly scatter the seeds of distemper. Toward the improvement of the bodily faculties, the most anxious and intelligent parent can do just nothing at all; "by taking thought he cannot add one cubit to the stature;" it is by cultivating the mind, only, that the features, shape, and person can be improved.

The reverse of this is the practice of the world. The whole attention is directed to personal accomplishment. Nature is cramped, stretched, distorted, to humour an absurd taste and an erroneous judgment, and she avenges herself for the unwise encroachment on her province, by encroaching, in her turn, on the province of reason and discretion; rendering all their late efforts useless and unprofitable; making education, which is clogged with so many difficulties already, absolutely impracticable. What can the wisest master do, I beseech you, with a temper soured by habits of unnatural restraint, with a mind rendered sickly by petty The passage before us presents one of the attentions to punctilio, with a spirit swallowmost pleasing objects of contemplation-hu- ed up in a sense of its own importance? man life at its happiest period, and in its And yet the master is blamed for the fault, most smiling aspect-early youth, increasing which parents themselves have committed. beauty and strength, gradual and regular Guard your child as well as you can from improvement. While the family of Eli was accidents. See that his food be simple and exhibiting multiplied instances of the fatal wholesome, and administered in due season; effects of neglected infancy and unrestrained let his body be free and unfettered; his childhood, the son of Elkanah was silently cloathing light and easy; his exercises, both demonstrating the importance of early cul- as to kind and duration, of his own choosing; ture, and modestly reproving gray hairs, by and he will grow on, and increase in stature, exemplifying the lessons which his pious and he will acquire vigour, will preserve sweetprudent mother had taught him. The self-ness of temper, will be happy in himself, and same ideas are here employed to describe a source of happiness to all around him; he the early progress of Samuel in wisdom, will pass with cheerfulness, like Samuel, inbeauty, and goodness, which are afterwards to the hands of his instructer, without any applied to Christ himself, at a similar period prejudices, but such as are on the side of of his earthly existence, and they furnish us goodness, and, through the blessing of Heawith many excellent additional hints respect- ven, will day by day fulfil a parent's hope, ing the important subject of education, which and constitute a parent's joy. now deserve to be more at large unfolded. "The child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men;" and "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

Observe here, first, What is the work of nature, namely, to grow on, to "increase in stature." The moment, O man, thy child begins to breathe, a progress commences which nothing can stop. Grow he will, and must; cease from all solicitude on this score. These feeble limbs will gather strength; by stumbling and falling, he will learn to walk and run; after stammering for a while, he will come to speak plainly, and he who seems at present hardly to possess the faculty of sight, will soon distinguish object from object. Cease from the vain imagination of

I

There is a fruitless, perhaps a sinful anxiety, of another kind, which parents sometimes express, and which often becomes a source of distress to themselves, and of partiality and injustice to their children. mean the sex of their offspring. The expectation of pride, avarice, ignorance, or caprice, presumes to usurp the prerogative of omniscience, and, in the event of disappointment, cruelty and injustice to an innocent babe are superadded to impiety toward a wise and righteous God. It is dangerous, as well as criminal, to assume the incommunicable attributes of Deity. The man is equally unhappy in attaining or missing his object, if he pursue it, neglecting, defying, or accusing the interposition of Providence. There is an instance of goodness in the divine ad

ministration which is too generally overlook- dies away, where personal comeliness is uned, too little prized and acknowledged; supported by corresponding goodness. But namely, the perfect and exact conformation if it be found disfigured by vice, not only is of children, both in body and mind. Among the favourable impression effaced, but exthe myriads which are daily born in the changed for a counter impression of detestaworld, how rare are the exceptions from the tion and contempt. As, on the contrary, the general rule! Every one bears the marks of prejudice against ordinary looks is also mosovereign wisdom, is the production of omni-mentary, when we find them allied to sense potence, has the image of God impressed and talents, piety and modesty; and our esupon him. How few exceed or fall short of teem and veneration of the character are the just standard in respect of stature! How highly increased from our expecting less few are born deprived of the use of reason, how few deficient or redundant in their bodily organs! And, may not even these few deviations from the general rule, these acts of divine sovereignty in the government of the world, serve in a future economy, more gloriously to illustrate the perfections of Him who has formed all things to the honour of his own great name.

Is thy child, O man, born complete in all his members, is he endued with the ordinary intellectual powers, is he like the children of thy neighbour? How much art thou indebted to the goodness of Heaven! Are his faculties, corporeal or mental, as parental partiality is frequently disposed to believe, superior to those of others? Remember, it is a great addition to thy charge: see that thou mar not the work of God, disfigure not that fair fabric, pervert not talents peculiarly precious and rare, let not thy glory be turned into shame. Has Providence, O woman, wounded thee there where thy sensibility is greatest, in the fruit of thy womb? Be of good comfort, he in whom thou trustest, on whom thou hast believed, saith, "Behold I make all things new." Then "the eye of the blind shall be opened, and the ear of the deaf unstopped, then the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." "The vile body shall be changed and fashioned like to Christ's glorious body." Then the soul which scarcely awoke to reason, shall discern judgment, and the wandering spirit shall be brought back to composure and tranquillity. Young man, young woman, hast thou received from the bountiful hand of nature, a sound mind in a sound and well proportioned body? Defile not, destroy not that fair temple; let it be "an habitation of God through the Spirit;" let the image of the divine inhabitant shine serenely on that forehead, beam benevolence from that eye, distil in accents of kindness from those lips. Force not upon the beholder the humiliating contrast between a lovely form and a hateful disposition; be all of a piece.

Observe, secondly, The work of education, the influence of virtuous habits and example.

Samuel not only grew on but grew gracions, grew in favour. There is naturally a prejudice, in the first instance, in favour of youth and beauty, independent of other qualities; but that prejudice quickly

Poor indeed is that virtue which lives only in the estimation of the world, which aims only at the approbation and praise of men; but on the other hand, true virtue will always be concerned to preserve reputation, will ever prefer a good name to great riches, and unaffectedly rejoice in the esteem of the wise and good, as part of its reward. What a motive was it to a youth like Samuel to persevere in well doing, to grow in grace, to have his decency of behaviour, his filial affection, his docility and submission to Eli, his unassuming piety, his growing wisdom, his expanding faculties, observed and commended by all who came to attend the service of the tabernacle! This is not pride, it is the honest consciousness of a worthy mind, loving and seeking what is good, not for the sake of fame, but its own; yet rejoicing in fame as one of the fruits of goodness. That boy, that youth, that man, that woman, is lost, who is, or who professes to be, indifferent about the opinion of the world. The love of reputation is one of the trees of nature's planting, and none of her plants are easily rooted up; it often survives the hope of life itself, and the man discovers an earnest concern about his me mory, after he has resigned his head to the executioner, and his body to the grave.

I recommend not to you, my young friend, that servility of deportment, that fawningness of submission and compliance which aims at the applause of every one alike, which is continually fearful of giving offence, which shrinks from doing good, lest by some it might be misconstrued; but that steadiness and perseverance in rectitude, which looks, and goes straight on, which neither courts nor shuns the public eye, which can rejoice in the addition of the praise of men to the testimony of a good conscience, but trembles to think of purchasing the one with the loss of the other. It generally happens, in this case, as it did to Solomon in another. Young men who pursue virtue on its own account, and ask wisdom of God in the first place, certainly obtain what they seek and pray for, and they also obtain what they neither asked nor sought; the love of their fellowcreatures: the favour of man comes unsolicited to him, while he was pursuing a much higher object, peace with God, and peace with himself; while he who aimed at the in

« PredošláPokračovať »