The presence of so many foreigners, whom we virtually challenge to come and inspect the working of our Christianity, does not really increase our obligation, does not bind us more than we were previously bound, to promote the religious interests of our own countrymen; but surely it should powerfully remind us of our obligation, should press it on our conscientious regard, should awaken us from our slumbers, should stimulate us now vigorously to do what ought to have been done long before. While we see so much in our great towns and rural districts to pain and humble us in the sight of men, much more ought we to be pained and humbled in the sight of God. The observation of mortals is trifling compared with his. Their reproach a light matter placed beside his condemnation. For years has the eye of him who watched over ancient Israel to see what they were doing with his truth, whether they obeyed or dishonoured it, whether they taught its doctrines and precepts to the young and ignorant, or left them uncultivated, a prey to unbelief, to superstition, or false philosophy—for years has that eye been looking on English Christians and noting down their culpable neglect. Happy will it be for us as individuals now, and for our country in all coming times, if the great event of the present year should excite a prevalent attention to the remaining spiritual necessities of the kingdom—if it should give an impulse to our schools, our churches, and our missions. That is among the possible advantages to be reaped; and earnestly is every Christian reader who may glance at these pages implored to take up, and ponder, and carry out practically, with diligence, zeal, love, and prayer, the hints imperfectly suggested, that so the year may be signalized by an exhibition of Christian devotedness to the work of religiously benefiting our countrymen, for which we shall have the approbation of our Divine Lord, the testimony of a good conscience, and the grateful remembrance of posterity, who will “rise up and call us blessed.”
At the same time the assemblage of many persons from the provinces in London this summer, affords an opportunity, an unprecedented opportunity, for attempting, in a humble and devout spirit, something bold, significant, and generally attractive of attention, with a view to the spiritual good of the multitude. Let thousands upon thousands of appropriate religious publications be cheaply sold or freely given to the crowds about the park, and the streams of passengers flowing through the principal thoroughfares. And let the gospel be preached by well-known, accredited, intelligent, and earnest-minded men, in the spirit of the preachers in the day of Pentecost, not in spacious buildings only but in the open air, wherever it can be done with propriety;—judicious arrangements being made for the purpose, that holy and apostolic zeal may not, without prejudice and misrepresentation, be regarded as ignorant and rash enthusiasm. The enterprise is commenced.—Exeter Hall has been engaged for public services on the Lord’s day through several months—preaching out of doors is also contemplated. The initiative taken, let others follow up the work, till London and its environs be pervaded with the light and power of the gospel.
PART VI.
LESSONS, PERTINENT AND PRACTICAL.
“With arm in arm the forest rose on high,
And lessons gave of brotherly regard:
Mercy stood in the cloud with eye that wept
Essential love, and from her glorious bow
Bending to kiss the earth in token of peace,
With her own lips, her gracious lips which God
Of sweetest accent made, she whispered still,
She whispered to revenge, ‘Forgive, Forgive.’”“Silence had a tongue; the grave,
The darkness, and the lonely waste had each
A tongue, that ever said, ‘Man, think of God,
Think of thyself, think of Eternity.’”Pollok.
A century ago London was thrown into excitement by the shock of an earthquake. In the streets, and for six miles round the city, slight undulations were plainly perceptible. Houses were shaken, so that parts of them fell down; and ships in the river Thames were loosened from their moorings. Numbers of the terrified inhabitants flocked into Hyde Park, which, being a vast area unencumbered with buildings, was supposed to afford a less perilous position for the people than they could find elsewhere, in the event of their being overtaken by the dreaded catastrophe. Whitfield happened to be in London at the time, when the minds of the citizens were agitated by intense and distracting fears; and with an eloquence, which was surpassed only by his zeal, endeavoured to improve the terrific event by making it the occasion of appropriate religious appeals. One night he addressed a vast concourse in the Park, and while the people pressed together to hear him under the open sky—and the silence of the scene, the bright stars overhead, the dim shadow of the speaker, like some impalpable visitant come on a warning mission from the other world, and the occurrence which had brought them together contributed to the effect of his discourse,—he with his almost superhuman voice which with mysterious intonations rolled into men’s ears, and moved their hearts as with an earthquake, described to them the terrors of the last day, and exhorted them to flee from the wrath to come. Could a Whitfield now, in 1851, gather around him in the same spot the concourse attracted there under such different circumstances, he might with a little exercise of his ingenious powers of adaptation, with a slight effort of his talent for extracting spiritual lessons from passing incidents, address his auditory on duties of infinite moment, taking as a suggestive text one of the bearings of the festival of art already noticed in these pages; namely, its hopeful tendency to produce reconciliation and peace among the nations of the world. We can fancy such a preacher at the quiet hour of eventide—the sky, clear azure, with a few fleecy clouds—the emerald-like tree-tops bathed in the rays of the setting sun, and scarcely moved by the gentle air—all nature seeming to repeat the angel’s song, “on earth peace, good-will toward men;” we can fancy him lifting up his voice to tell the crowd, softened and soothed by surrounding influences, that professing as they do to meet in national friendship, and to celebrate a feast of brotherly love, there are some other obligations to peace and reconciliation which come still nearer to their homes and hearts.
Failing the preacher—apart from the helpful influence of the scene imagined—and debarred the aid of that sympathy which thrills through a crowd when touched by the living voice of a loving fellow-man, we would attempt for a moment, through the medium of this little book, to enforce on the individual reader two methods of improving the present event suggested on slight reflection.
1. The professed character, and what we fain hope to be the spirit, of the gathering, suggest a duty which concerns us in our domestic relations.
Men, some of them not long ago, in arms against each other, we see now on terms of amity. Perhaps the Austrian meets in the park the Italian he has faced in the field—the Turk, the Egyptian at whom he aimed his scimitar—the veteran Frenchman, the British soldier with whom he grappled at Waterloo—but enemies or aliens no longer, they pass, if they do not recognise each other, as friends. This congress on pacific terms, with a cordial understanding, is a spectacle on which the eye loves to linger, and over which the heart of the philanthropist dilates with hope. Now, does not this festival, without any far-fetched application, seem to say to every one of us, as members of a family, that surely at this time consistency is added to the other grounds of duty which require us to cultivate towards those related to us by nature an unsuspicious temper, a frank and open disposition, a desire to conciliate where differences have arisen, and a determination to cement where cordiality prevails? Should not each endeavour to make his home—whether mansion or cottage, hall or hut—a sanctuary sacred to peace and concord? Should not each man now more than ever aspire to the fulfilment of the office and the enjoyment of the benediction described and pronounced by the Divine Teacher of love, “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” Unseemly and inconsistent is it, while we are inviting foreigners to forget past enmities, to consign to oblivion by-gone strife, for any of us to allow domestic jealousies and heart-burnings to torment our breasts, which should be full of domestic charities and sympathies. While thousands, of different colours, climes, and costumes, join to bury the hatchet of strife under the Hyde Park elms, let those who own a common parentage, who in childhood sat on the same knee, and were nursed in the same bosom, or whose relationship, though not so intimate, is far from remote, between whom, alas, differences have sprung up, seek by mutual concession to arrive at a better understanding, and thus render the present year memorable in their domestic annals. It would be a beautiful incident to associate with this bright passage in the history of the world a few lines relating to reconciliation and love, where private strifes had embittered hearts intended by nature and providence to be ever one.
The religion of Jesus Christ, as it is intended to bring together the nations of the earth in amity, is also meant to bind together the inmates of a home in friendship. Wherever its laws are submitted to, and its spirit imbibed, there peace must reign, and the domestic circle be a refuge from strife. The gospel teaches lessons above all others suited to this end. It points the master to God, the model of fatherly government, and bids him remember that he has a Master in heaven. It speaks to the husband, and points to Jesus Christ, bidding the husband love his wife “as Christ loved the church.” It speaks to the parents, and charges them to train up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” It speaks to sons and daughters, commanding them to honour their father and mother, and “obey them in the Lord.” It speaks to servants, and tells them to “be obedient to such as are their masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.” In this great world of strife what should be so peaceful as a Christian home? Amidst the storms which rock life’s ocean, where shall we find a harbour if not there? While divisions are rife, where shall we find union, if not among the branches from a common parentage? Scenes of domestic purity, innocence, and love there are to be met with in many of the homes of our land, over which religion has thrown its shield, where a happy exemption from the evils which tear society in pieces is enjoyed; where surely some relic is to be found of what Eden was; where the parent’s care, like a deep-rooted tree, spreads out its graceful branches, while the children’s love, like fragrant and flowery creepers, twists and curls tenacious tendrils around the venerable stem, “recompensing well the strength it borrows with the grace it lends,” and the dew of God’s blessing, and the sunshine of God’s smile, fall upon them one and all. Happy scenes these, which Jesus visits as he did the feast at Cana, and the home at Bethany, teaching such families out of his own word, sanctifying them by his gracious Spirit, guiding them by his perfect example, protecting them by his mighty power, comforting them by his unfailing sympathy, and preparing them for a better home of which he gives them glimpses as they read the Bible and kneel together at the footstool of God’s throne. Through faith in the gospel, and prayer for the grace of Him who is its source and life, these scenes might be greatly multiplied: and who but must desire it, and strive for its promotion, so that while this year we invite the nations to meet as a family, the family may meet as the brethren of Christ and the children of God.
2. The character and spirit of the gathering suggest a farther lesson connected with our individual interests and our spiritual relations.