[9] Burke.
[10] "Will it be asked what females are expected to do? We leave the decision of their conduct to the impulses of their hearts, and the dictates of their judgment. Let but their affections be consecrated to the cause, and their understanding will be sufficiently fruitful in expedients to promote it. Their husbands will be gently prevailed upon to lay apart some of their substance to serve religion. Their children will be nurtured in a missionary spirit, and learn to associate with all their pleasures the records of missionary privations and triumphs. They will solicit the repetition of the often-told tale, and glow with a martyr's zeal for the salvation of the souls of men. Listen to the eloquent appeal of a masterly preacher on this subject:—'Christian matrons! from whose endeared and endearing lips we first heard of the wondrous Babe of Bethlehem, and were taught to bend our knee to Jesus—ye who first taught these eagles how to soar, will ye now check their flight in the midst of heaven? "I am weary," said the ambitious Cornelia, "of being called Scipio's daughter; do something, my sons, to style me the mother of the Gracchi." And what more laudable ambition can inspire you, than a desire to be the mothers of the missionaries, confessors, and martyrs of Jesus? Generations unborn shall call you blessed. The churches of Asia and Africa, when they make grateful mention of their founders, will say, "Blessed be the wombs which bare them, and the breasts which they have sucked!" Ye wives also of the clergy, let it not be said that while ye love the mild virtues of the man, ye are incapable of alliance with the grandeur of the minister. The wives of Christian soldiers should learn to rejoice at the sound of the battle. Rouse, then, the slumbering courage of your soldiers to the field; and think no place so safe, so honoured, as the camp of Jesus. Tell the missionary story to your little ones, until their young hearts burn, and in the spirit of those innocents who shouted hosannah to their lowly King, they cry, "Shall not we also be the missionaries of Jesus Christ?"' Such an appeal to Christian females cannot be made in vain. They are not the triflers who balance a feather against a soul. They will learn to retrench superfluities, in order to exercise the grace of Christian charity. They will emulate those Jewish women who 'worked with their hands for the hangings of the tabernacle,' and brought 'bracelets, and ear-rings, and jewels of gold,' for the service of the sanctuary. They will consecrate their ornaments to the perishing heathen; and render personal and domestic economy a fountain of spiritual blessings to unenlightened nations, and to distant ages. They will resign the gems of the East to save a soul from death, and bind round their brow a coronet of stars, which shall shine for ever and ever!"
[11] See page 6.
[12] Some of the Tractarians speak in more guarded, yet in more ambiguous terms, on the regenerating power of baptism; but the majority of them entertain the belief which is expressed by the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, in the following quotation from one of the last sermons he preached at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, see page 193:—"Here is a great mystery; that by water in holy baptism is given a regenerating and life-creating grace—that by water we go down into the font foul and leprous; by grace we rise pure, spotless, and sound—that by water we go down into the font dead in trespasses and sins; by grace we rise up from the font alive in Christ."
[13] Dr. Mant.
[14] The reader is referred to two tracts on Regeneration and Conversion, published by Dr. Mant, and circulated by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
[15] The author once knew a lady who was celebrated, in the town in which she lived, no less for her benevolence, than she was for her utter dislike to those persons who had embraced evangelical sentiments. She generally used to term them, by way of reproach, Methodists, enthusiasts, or fanatics. For many years she was in the habit of visiting the poor and the infirm, sympathizing with them when in trouble, giving them money to purchase the necessaries and comforts of life; and she originated several public institutions, which still remain as the memorial of her practical goodness. Often has she sat beside the lingering sufferer, wiping away the cold sweats of death, and administering, with her own hands, the last portion of food or of medicine which nature consented to receive. This lady, when conversing with a friend, whose prejudices against the fanatics of the day (as the disciples of the Redeemer are styled) ran as high as her own, said, "I don't know how to account for it, but I find these people know more about religion than we do, and appear more happy in their dying moments than any others I ever meet with." Happy would it have been for her if some friend had been present to explain the cause of it; but no—living under the sombrous gloom of a pharisaical faith, which admits not of the clear light of the truth, she lived in ignorance of the nature of faith in Christ, and in ignorance she died.
[16] See page 78.
[17] See page 228.
[18] "They that have any just sense of the importance of religion," says a judicious writer, "find that they need all the helps that God has appointed. Suppose the Sabbath were abolished for a few weeks—in what state, think you, would some of you find your minds? Why, you would feel as if you had scarcely any knowledge or power of religion at all." But there is no charm in the sanctity of the day to keep up the power of vital religion in the heart of a Christian, nor in the holy place where he may spend "the consecrated hours"—this honour having been put on a faithful ministry, which exhibits the truth in its purity and force. What a loss does a Christian habitually sustain who deprives himself of such a ministry, and worships where angels never stoop to celebrate the conversion of one sinner to God! Instead of hearing that glorious gospel which enlivens and strengthens the mind, which purifies and ennobles it, and which brings the remote and unseen realities of eternity to moderate the impetuosity and cool the ardour with which the fleeting shadows of time are pursued, the heart is often disquieted, if not with "harsh and dissonant sounds," yet with antichristian and dissonant sentiments, and the day of rest becomes one of perplexity and mortification—Providence having determined, that they who observe lying vanities shall feel that they have forsaken their own mercies (Jonah ii. 8).