ページの画像
PDF
ePub

little practised, and whose intrinsic merit might claim for it the honour of being written in letters of gold, and suspended in a conspicuous place in every house in the United Kingdom.

'Do every thing in its proper time; keep every thing in its proper place; put every thing to its proper use.'

M. A. S.

REMINISCENCES OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER.

[Continued from page 357.]

A SLIGHT illness had prevented the venerable mother from inviting me, for several weeks after she had made the communication which I related in my last paper. When I met her again she seemed to be in a more than usually solemn mood, for which she accounted, after we had partaken of the refreshment of tea, by saying that her mind had of late been much exercised by the consideration of the divine purposes, in creating beings so helpless and utterly worthless as the race of Adam.

[ocr errors]

And what, madam,' I asked, is the result of your meditations?'

'The result, my dear,' she replied,' is this-that the divine object, in the creation, not only of this world, with all the sensitive and intelligent beings therein, not to speak of other worlds and other orders of creation, of which we can know nothing but from analogy, and from the few glimpses and hints which are given us in sacred writ-is the extension of happiness, from the inexhaustible source of infinite beatitude, to as many as proceed from God as their Father and Creator; to each, according to his powers and capacities, as receive from him; and to each of

us, the children of Adam, in particular, through the right established in the Saviour Christ our Lord.'

. I did not venture to make any comment on this speech of the excellent lady. In very truth, I did not quite comprehend its tendency. I knew that Mrs. Latifear did not, as many do, string together religious sentiments as it were by rote, and without comprehending their bearings-and how far they would lead if followed to their ultimata. Yet I plainly discerned, that, if what she asserted of the object of the divine purposes in creation is correct, I had hitherto of necessity put many false constructions on various passages of scripture, which, on second consideration, seemed rather to hold with her enlarged opinions of the plans of infinite love, than with those commonly received in the visible church. However, as I said, I made no comments on her speech, but as it were laid apart the senti ments which she had uttered, in the store-house of my memory, to be examined, and compared with scripture, at a future period. In the mean time, she had begun to speak again, and as it were to derive deductions from her own premises.

'If the design of the Almighty is to bring, in the end, all things in one unto himself, as scripture asserts, then it is evident that whatever befals the creature man, through the ordination of Providence, must have a tendency towards the promotion of the ultimate good of that creature; and that even when Providence appears to be departing from its purpose, by permitting man for a time to follow his own wayward fancies, the object is still the same, and the end as sure as the being of him who hath established it.

'I have been a great traveller, dear madam,' said the excellent lady,‘and it has happened to me to be much associated with persons of various religions -from the gross idolater, the mere heathen, to the highest professor in our own country-our highly enlightened country, as it is called; and there is one remark which I have been led to make, That all false religions, in which I include that of the formal professor of Christianity, agree in certain particulars; their modes of worship being varied and modified by circumstances, and being more or less gross, more or less dark, as it regards names and knowledge of facts; but being, in verity, as destitute of truth the one as the other, inasmuch as the arrow that misses the butt, if it be but an inch, is as far from gaining the prize as that which hath been sent many degrees wide of the mark.'

'You allow not then, dear madam,' I said, 'that there are degrees of truth-that knowledge is progressive-and that one man may be nearer the kingdom of heaven than another, without actually belonging to that kingdom?'

[ocr errors]

Inasmuch,' she answered, as the arrow may almost touch the object at which it was directed, and yet fall far from the mark; so may there be only a seeming approach, in a body or in an individual, to truth; and thus, among the various

descriptions of religions, which are upon the

earth, and among the various individual professors, some may be more near to God in externals than others; yet no one who has not been made a member of the body of Christ, by the participation, with him, of the same spirit, is in fact a child of truth; or in any way capable of admitting that principle which

is invariably and in equal degree, rejected by all false religions and mere professors.'

'Of what principle do you speak, dear madam?' I said.

'Simply this, my dear lady,' she replied: that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself; that Christ came not to condemn the world, but to save the world; and I maintain that this doctrine never has been received, except by individuals to whom the Spirit of God has been imparted. Simple as it is, no natural man, however well-instructed, as it regards head-knowledge, was ever able to receive it. It was never received by the heathen, because the name of Christ was never known to them. The Mahometan world, of which I have conversed with many, though they acknowledge that a time is to come when even their prophet shall deliver all things into the hands of Christ, yet they do not acknowledge this Jesus as a Saviour, but make the future happiness of the believer to depend upon attention to certain forms and ordinances, prescribed in the Koran. The Jews again, though acknowledging the Old Testament, and especially the books of Moses, are still equally dark with the mussulman, or perhaps more so, as it regards the promised seed of the woman, who was to bruize the serpent's head; and are so far from seeing the Saviour through the typical language of the Old Testament, that these poor deluded ones are hardly acquainted with the letter of the divine word, of which they are the keepers, but give up their minds to the absurdities of the Talmud, the Mischna, and the Gemara, looking only to Christ, when he shall come in glory as a temporal deliverer. Again, among the multitude of professors

« 前へ次へ »