Inviolable Attachment

‘•There is a friend that sticlceth closer than a brother.’* — Pkov. xviii. 24.

Close is the tie wliicli binds brother to brother; the companions of infancy, sharers of one another’s jojs and sorrows; cast in the same human mould; having engraven on their heart of hearts the same hallowed associations of life’s early morning.

But the time for separation at last comes. The birds must leave the parent’s nest, and try their pinions beyond their native valley. The Yvorld’s call to work and warfare is imperious. The old homestead, like a dismembered vessel, is broken to pieces; and the inmates, like that vessel’s planks, far apart the trough of life’s ocean. The world’s duties sever some; unhappy estrangements at times, luaj seer others; death, at some time, must sever all.

But there is One whose friendship and love circumstances cannot estrange, distance cannot affect, and death cannot destroy. The kindest of earthly relatives may say to lis regarding this true Elder Brother, as Boaz said to Ruth, “It is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I.” He is brother, yea, more than brother; Friend, Counsellor, Portion, Physician, Shepherd, all ccrjilDlned! Happy for ns, when the old avenues of comfort are closed up, to hear Him, Vv’hose faithfulness is unimpeachable, saying, “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee!” Happy for us when the old moorings give way, to have One safe Anchorage, that cannot be removed or shaken. “I shall now go to sleep,” said a remarkable saint, who, driven about with storm and tempest, at last found the safe Shelter, “I shall now go to sleep on theEockof A?Tcs!”

Tried believer! He has never failed thee, and never will. Yvith Him are no altered tones, no fitful affections. The reed may be shaken, but the Rock remains immutable He is Himself the true “Bow in the cloud.’’ The promises of Scripture, like the varied hues in the natural rainbow, are manifold. But all these promises are ‘’IN” Him” (2 Cor. i. 20). Ay, and it is in the “cloudy day” that this Divine encircling Boly most gloriously appears. ISTever should we have known Christ as the “Brother, born for adversity,” unless 1)7/ adversity. It is trial that unfolds and develops His infinite worth and preciousness. When the love of earthly friends is buried in the gravC; the love of the Heavenly Friend shines forth more tenderly than ever. As Jonathan of old, wandering faint and weary in the wood, found Honey distilling from a tree and was revived by eating it; so, faint and weary one, — wandering amid the tangled thickets — the deep glades of affliction, — seat thyself under thy “Beloved’s Shadow with great delight,” and let His “fruit be pleasant to thy taste!” This “Tree of Life” distils a balm for every broken, wounded, bleeding

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heart — every faint and dov/n-cast spirit. Yes, Jesus will make, in this the hour of thy lonehness and sorrow, His own hfc-giving, life-sustaining words and promises, “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomiby Thongh now exalted on the Throne,” inhabiting the praises of eternity,” He still manifests the Brother’s heart and the Brother’s tenderness. ‘’ He i? not ashamed to call us brethren.”