Illustrations and Meditations

Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden

BIRD TIED BY A STRING.

“A bird that is tied by a string seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flutters up and down, and yet it is held fast.”

When a man thinks that he has escaped from

the bondage of sin in general, and yet evidently

remains under the power of some one favored lust,

he is woefully mistaken in his judgment as to his

spiritual freedom. He may boast that he is out of

the cage, but assuredly the string is on his leg.

He who has his fetters knocked off, all but one

chain, is a prisoner still. ^’Let not any iniquity

have dommion over me” is a good and wise prayer;

for one pampered sin will slay the soul as surely as

one dose of poison will kill the body There is no

need for a traveller to be bitten by a score of deadly

vipers, the tooth of one cobra is quite sufficient to

insure his destruction. One sin, like one match,

can kindle the fires of hell within the soul.

The practical application of this truth should be

made by the professor who is a slave to drink, or to covetousness, or to passion. How can y011 be free if any one of these chains still holds you fast? We have met with professors who are haughty, and despise others; how can these be the Lord’s free men while pride surrounds them?

THE CRACKED POT.

“The unsoundness of a vessel is not seen when it is empty; but when it is filled with water, then we shall see whether it will leak or no.’*

It is in our prosperity that we are tested. Men are not fully discovered to themselves till they are tried by fullness of success. Praise finds out the crack of pride, wealth reveals the flaw of selfishness, and learning discovers the leak of unbelief. David’s besetting sin was little seen in the tracks of the wild goats, but it became conspicuous upon the terraces of his palace. Success is the crucible of character. Hence the prosperity which some welcome as an unmixed favor may far more rightly be regarded as an intense form of test. O Lord, preserve us when we are full as much as when we are empty.

MEADOWS AND MARSHES,

“Meadows may be occasionally flooded, but the marshes are drowned by the tide at every return thereof.”

There is all this difference between the sms of

the righteous and those of the ungodly. Surprised by temptation, true saints are flooded with a passing outburst of sin; but the wicked delight in transgression and live in it as in their element. The samt ni his errors is a star under a cloud, but the sinner is darkness itself. The gracious may fall into iniquity, but the graceless run into it, wallow in it, and again an.] again return to it.

THE WEAK STRONG, AND THE STRONG
WEAK.

“It is related of Laurence Saunders, the martj-r, that one day in the country, meeting’ his friend Dr. Pendleton, an earnest preacher in King Edward’s reign, they debated upon what they had best do in the dangerous time that Mary’s accession had brought upon them. Saunders confessed that his spirit was ready, but he felt the flesh was at present too weak for much suffering. But Pendleton admonished him, and appeared all courage and forwardness to face every peril. They both came, under the control of circumstances, to London, and there, when danger arose, Pendleton shrunk from the cross, and Saunders resolutely took it up.”

The reader has probably met with this story

before, but it will not harm him to learn its lesson

again. We are certainly stronger when we feel

our weakness than when we glory in our strength.

Our pastoral observation over a very large church

has led us to expect to see terrible failures among

those who carry their heads high among their

brethren. Poor timid souls who are afraid to put

one foot before another, for fear they should go an inch astray, go on from year to year in lovely, bashful holiness, and at the same time the very professors who condemned them, and distressed them by their confident pretensions, fall like Lucifer, never to hope again.

COVETOUSNESS AS A SERVANT.

Covetousness may be entertained as a servant where it is not entertained as a master — entertained as a servant to provide oil and fuel to make other sins burn.”

Where avarice is the absolute master, the man is a miser; but even he is not more truly miserable than the man whose gainings only furnish opportunity for indulging in vice. Such persons are greedy that they may become guilty. Their money buys them the means of their ovn destruction, and they are eager after it. Winning and saving with them are but means for profligacy, and therefore they think themselves fine, liberal fellows, and dispise the penurious habits of the miser. Yet in what respects are they better than he? Their example is certainly far more injurious to the commonwealth, and their motive is not one whit better. Selfishness is the mainspring of action in each case; the difference lies in the means selected and not in the end proposed. Both seek their own gratification, the one by damning up the river, and the other by drowning the country with its floods. Let the profligate judge for himself, whether he is one grain better than the greediest skinflint whom he so much ridicules.

INFANTS AND SICK FOLK.

“Though we cannot love their weaknesses, yet we must love the weak, and bear with their infirmities, not breaking the bruised reed. Infants must not be turned out of the family because they cry, and are unquiet and troublesome; though they be peevish and froward, yet we must bear it with gentleness and patience, as we do the frowardness of the sick; if they’revile we mu-st not revile again, but must seek gently to restore them, notwithstanding all their censures.”

This patience is far too rare. We do not make allowances enough for our fellows, but sweepingly condemn those whom we ought to cheer with our sympathy. If we are out of temper ourselves, we plead the weather, or a headache, or our natural temperament, or aggravating circumstances; we are never at a loss for an excuse for ourselves, why should not the same ingenuity be used by our charity in inventing apologies and extenuations for others? It is a pity to carry on the trade of apology-making entirely for home consumption; let us supply others. True, they are very provoking, but if we suffered half as much as some of our irritable friends have to endure we should be even more aggravating. Think in many cases of their ignorance, their unfortunate bringing up, their poverty, their depression of spirit, and their home surroundings, and pity will come to the help of patience. We are tender to a man who has a gouty toe — cannot we extend the feeling to those who have an irritable soul?

THE DRUNKEN SERVANT STILL A
SERVANT.

“A drunken servant is a servant, and bound to do his work; his master loseth not his right by his man’s default.”

It is a mere assumption, though some state it with much confidence, that inability removes responsibility. As our author shows, a servant may be too drunk to do his master’s bidding, but his service is still his master’s due. If responsibility began and ended with ability, a man would be out of debt as soon as he was unable to pay; and if a man felt that he could not keep his temper, he would not be blamable for being angry. A man may be bound to do what he cannot do; the habitual liar is bound to speak the truth, though his habit of falsehood renders him incapable of it. Every sin renders the sinner less able to do right, but the standard of his duty is not lowered in proportion to the lowering of his capacity to come up to it, or it would follow that the more a man is depraved by sin the less guilty his actions become, which is absurd.

THE TRAITOR WITHIN.

“A garrison is not free from danger while it hath an enemy lodged within.”

You may bolt all your doors, and fasten all your

windows, but if the thieves have placed even a

little child within doors, who can draw the bolts

for them, the house is still unprotected. All the

sea outside a ship cannot do it damage till the

water enters within and fills the hold. Hence, it

is clear, our greatest danger is from within. All

the devils in hell and tempters on earth could do

us no injury if there were no corruption in our

nature. The sparks wdll fall harmlessly if there

is no tinder. Alas, our heart is our greatest

enemy; this is the little home-born thief.

AUGUSTINE’S STORY.

“Take heed of giving way to sin. The heart that was easily troubled before, when once it is inured to sin, loseth all its sensitiveness and tenderness, and what seemed intolerable at first grows into a delight. Alipius, St. Austin’s friend, first abhorred the bloody spectacles of the gladiators, but gave himself leave, through the importunity of friends, to be present for once. He would not so much as open his eyes at first; but at length, when the people shouted, he gave himself liberty to see, and then not only beheld the spectacles with delight, but drew others to behold what himself once loathed.”

The Story has had its counterpart in thousands

of instances. Men who shuddered at the sight of

a dead bird have, by familiarity with cruelty, come

to commit murder without compunction. Those who

sipped half a glass of wine have come to drink by

the gallon. Stanch Protestants have given way to

some little form and ceremony, and become more

popish than the Romanists themselves. There is

no safety if we venture an inch over the boundary

line; indeed, little allowances are more dangerous

than greater compliances, since conscience does

not receive a wound, and yet the man is undone,

and falls by little and little.

DRINKING TO DROWN CARE.

“He is a mountebank who strives to make men forget their spiritual sorrows instead of leading them to the true cure. This is like a man in debt, who drinks to drown his thoughts; but this neither pays the debt nor postpones the reckoning.”

When conscience is uneasy, it is foolish as well

as wicked to attempt to smother its cries with

worldly merriment. Nay, let us hear it patiently.

If we be in debt let us know it, and set about

meeting our liabilities like honest men; but to burn

the ledger and discharge the clerk is a madman’s way of going to work. O soul, be true to thyself. Face thine own case, however bad it may be; for refusing to know and consider the sure facts will not alter or improve them. He is a cruel doctor who tells the afflicted patient that he ails nothing, and thus sets him for the time at his ease, at the terrible cost of future disease, rendered incurable by delay.

Lord, bring me to the bar of my conscience now, lest I stand condemned at thy bar of judgment hereafter.

C^SAR KILLED WITH BODKINS.

“Not only do great sins ruin the soul, but lesser faults will do the same. Dallying with temptation leads to sad consequences. Caesar was killed with bodkins.”

A dagger aimed at the heart will give as deadly a wound as a huge two-handed sword, and a little sin unrepented of will be as fatal as a gross transgression. Brutus and Cassius and the rest of the conspirators could not have more surely ended Caesar’s life wdth spears than they did with daggers. Death can hide in a drop, and ride in a breath of air. Our greatest dangers lie hidden in little things. Milton represents thousands of evil spirits as crowded into one hall; and truly the least sin may be a very Pandemonium, in which a host of evils may be concealed — a populous hive of mischiefs each one storing death.

BERNARD’S CHARITY.

“When Bernard chanced to espy a poor man meanlyapparelled, he would say to himself: ‘Truly, Bernard, this man hath more patience beneath his cross than thou hast.’ But if he saw a rich man delicately clothed, then he would say: * It may be that this man, under his delicate clothing, hath a better soul than thou hast under thy religious habit! ‘”

This showed an excellent charity! Oh, that we

could learn it! It is easy to think evil of all men,

for there is sure to be some fault about each one

which the least discerning may readily discover;

but it is far more worthy of a Christian, and shows

much more nobility of soul, to spy out the good in

each fellow-believer. This needs a larger mind

as well as a better heart, and hence it should be a

point of a honor to practise ourselves in it till we

obtam an aptitude for it. Any simpleton might be

set to sniff out offensive odors; but it would require

a scientific man to bring to us all the fragrant

essences and rare perfumes which lie hid in field

and garden. Oh, to learn the science of Christian

charity! It is an art far more to be esteemed than

the most lucrative of human labors. This choice

art of love is the true alchemy. Charity towards

others, abundantly practised, would be the death of envy and the life of fellowship, the overthrow of self and the enthronement of grace.

A SWORD NOT TO BE JUDGED BY THE
BELT.

“We do not judge a sword to be good merely because it hangs by a golden belt, or because it is set in a jewelled hilt.”

Neither is a doctrine to be valued because a fine orator delivers it in gorgeous speech with glittering words. A lie is none the better for being bespangled with poetic phrases and high-sounding periods. Yet half our people forget this, and glittering oratory fascinates them. Alas, poor simpletons!

The same blunders are made about men, who should ever be esteemed according to their native worth, and not according to their position and office. What mistakes we should make if we considered all the hangers-on of great men to be themselves great, or all the followers of good men to be themselves necessarily good. Alas! the Lord Himself had His Judas, and to this day swords of brittle metal hang at the golden girdle of His church. A man is not a saint because he occupies a saintly office, or repeats saintly words.

No; the test of a sword’s goodness is to be found in battle. Will its edge turn in the fray, or will it cut through a coat of mail? Will our faith bear affliction? Will it stand us in good stead when we are hand to hand with the enemy? Will it avail us in the dying hour? If not, we may suspend it on the glittering belt of great knowledge, and hold it by the jewelled hilt of a high profession; but woe unto us!

SATAN CASTING OUT SATAN.

“Lusts are contrary one to another, and therefore jostle for the throne, and usually take it by turns. As our ancestors sent for the Saxons to drive out the Picts, so do carnal men drive out one lust by another, and, like the lunatic in the gospel (Matt, xvii,) fall sometimes into the water, and sometimes into the fire.”

Of what use then can reforms be which are wrought by an evil agency? If sobriety be the fruit of pride, it grows upon a pernicious root, and though the body be no longer intoxicated, the mind will be drunken. If revenge be foresworn from considerations of avarice, the meanness of the miserly is a small gain upon the fury of the passionate. If outward irreligion be abandoned out of a desire to gain human applause, the Pharisee will be a very slender improvement upon the prod igal. Satan’s casting out of Satan is deceitful work; his intent no doubt is to establish his empire by pretending to overthrow it.

No, there must be another power at work; or little is accomplished. Any fancied good which one devil may bring another is sure to take away, and the last end of the man whom Satan mends is always worse than the first. A stronger than he must enter in by force of grace, and hurl him out by divine force, and take full possession, or the man may be another man but not a new man.

THE BURNING-GLASS.

“When the beams of the sun are contracted by a burning-glass, upon one spot, then they cause fire; so when our thoughts are conctntrated on one object they warm the heart and at last burn the truth into it.”

This is the reason why so many sermons and addresses are so cold and ineffective; they are not sufficiently focused upon one point. There are many rays of light, but they are scattered. We get a little upon many things, while what is wanted is one great truth, and so much upon it as shall fix It on the heart, and set the soul blazino- with it. This is the fault of many lives: they are squandered upon a dozen objects, whereas if they were economized for one, they would be mighty lives, known in the present and honored in the future. “This one thing I do” is a necessary motto if we are to accomplish anything.

BARKING DOGS CATCH NO GAME.

“Hard speeches have an evil influence in controversy, and do exasperate rather than convince. The dog that followeth the game with barking and bawHng loseth the prey; and there is not a more likely way to undermine the truth than an unseemly defence of it. Satan is mightily gratified, if men had eyes to see it, with the ill managing of God’s cause.”

This lesson is a needful one. Zealots are apt to mistake hard words for arguments. The more in earnest we are, the more we are tempted to speak bitterly, and to overlook the better side of our opponent’s cause. Many who think with us applaud us most for those very utterances which deserve the censure of the wise; and this foolish commendation is apt to ^Q^<g us on in the same unprofitable direction. They would be more judicious if, while approving our seal, they hinted that we might use a sweeter method and be none the less strong.

We hope as we grow older to be able to hunt more quietly, with surer scent but with less barking. Certainly as we grow in grace we shall more carefully distinguish between holy ardor which is kindled by the Spirit, and carnal heat, which is the wild-fire of unrenewed nature. God grant that as we growpi’udent we may not also become lukewarm; else we may gain one way and lose another. We are poor creatures, for when we try to avoid an evil we generally swing like a pendulum to the opposite quarter, and commit another folly The middle point, the golden mean of virtue, We do not readily reach.

VIOLET AND NETTLE.

“Laden boughs hang low. The nettle mounteth above its fellow weeds, but the violet lieth shrouded under its leaves, and is only found out by its own scent.”

Walking one day by a stream we were conscious of a delicious perfume, and only then did we perceive the little blue eyes which were looking up to us so meekly from the ground on which we stood. Virtue is always modest, and modesty is itself a virtue. He who is discovered by. his real excellence, and not by his egotistical advertisements of his own perfections, is a man worth knowing; the other is a mere nettle who is sure to be forgotten, unless indeed his blustering pride should sting some tender spirit and secure a wretched kind of remembrance.