Thought-Hives
TIyVERY human mind we meet is ‘a moving thought-hive. To our eye it is hidden; but to the eye of God it is a hive of transparent glass. For there is not a thought in our hearts, but lo! O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. The thoughts which nestle within us, and issue from us in language and in act, determine our moral character. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
The most exquisite piece of sculptvtre which a Powers or a Palmer ever carved was once only a thought; but their skilful hands smote the white marble until the beautiful images of the brain came forth. Upon the thought of
James Watt and Robert Fulton we cross the trackless sea; while in its silent depths the thought of Professor Morse has laid the magic wire over which two continents converse. AH the grandest enterprises of benevolence and all the most stupendous crimes were once only invisible phantoms in some man’s or woman’s busy brain. The Order of the Jesuits swarmed out of Ignatius Loyola’s heart-hive; Sunday Schools swarmed out of Robert Eaikes’. If the jailer of Bedford prison had starved John Bunyan, he would have smothered the “Pilgrim’s Progress” in its cradle. The very Bible is only God’s blessed and holy thought revealed to us: by it we are made wise unto salvation. A person is known by the company he keeps. So the thoughts which we harbor within us, and which go out through the doors of our mouths and our hands, determine our real character. A holy man gives house-room only to pure and godly thoughts; and he is constantly striving to bar up door and window against wicked intruders. Out of the treasui-ehouse within him proceed all the white-winged words and all the beautiful deeds that are a blessing unto others.
Habitual thinking determines whether an individual is either Christ’s or Satan’s. As he thinketh, so is he. A sensualist is only a filthythinker. The walls of his mind are hung around with lascivious pictures: his inmost soul is a brothel. Do a man’s thoughts run every day upon the bottle] Then he is a tippler or a sot. Does another man’s thought-hive send out its winged messengers continually to gather honey from God’s Word and His outlying world of Nature 1 Then is he a devout and happy being. In such an one God ;- dwelleth by His Spirit.
One of the highest of spiritual luxuries is the enjoyment of pure and exhilarating and sublime thoughts: to such a devout and cheerful thinker a prison may be a palace. “I thought of Jesus,” said holy Rutherford, “until every stone in the walls of my cell shone like a ruby.” Wherefore let us keep our hearts, our thought-hives, with all prayer and watchfulness; for out of them are the issues of our life. And no one can handle the pitch of a wicked, obscene, or abominable thought for any considerable time without being defiled thereby. There is no greater torment than to be an unclean or intensely selfish or corrupt thinker. This is a genuine demoniac possession. Such an one is “grievously vexed with a devil.” To go through some people’s hearts would be like a walk through Sing- Sing penitentiary. Every room has a rascal in it. Out of such hearts proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, covetousness, pride, blasphemy. What a hell in advance to be living in such a habitation of the devil! To be such a man or woman for ever is the everlasting punishment of the lost.
All thoughts have their germs. The surest way to kill a sin is to kill it in the egg. At the very moment when a wicked thought is born is the right time to destroy it. These little serpents soon become the anacondas that strangle conscience and ruin character. How important, too, is the nursing into active life and vigor of every good suggestion and holy aspiration! A noble career depends on the treatment given to the infant ideas that are born in the soul. The best of these are the direct product of the Holy Spirit. To quench a good thought is often a, quenching of the Spirit; and the eternal damnation of millions has been the result of this sin against the infinite Love.
Christ is the purifier of the heart. He who walks in constant fellowship with Jesus hath the clean heart and the holy life. And an active, prayerful, loving mind, teeming with busy plans of usefulness and swarming out into deeds of daily beneficence, is a hive of blessings, not only to its possessor, but to all who partake of its stores of honey.
Such is the vital importance of pure and inspiring thoughts. And if the following pages shall awaken in any minds such thoughts and induce any to crystallize them into good deeds, then the author will. not have written in vain. This volume begins with the beginnings of a true life, It places the soul first, and Jesus
12 THOUGHT-IllTES.
Christ as the first necessity of the soul in the divine method of salvation. The duties of the seeker after salvation are made plain at the outset. The momentous question, “What must I do to be saved ■?” is ansvpered with as condensed brevity and as clear simplicity as we could command. To these words of early guidance follow several chapters of practical counsel for the Christian life. To adapt doctrine to duty in the daily conduct must be the highest aim of all faithful teaching from the pulpit or the press, by the tongue or by the pen.
A few leaves from our pastoral experience are in this volume. With these are interwoven some words of exhortation to Christian laymen, who ought to be our “true yokefellows” and helpers in the vineyard of the Master. Household piety has not been overlooked; nor the claims of the tempted at home, or the benighted in heathen lands. We have striven to bring a word of heavenly consolation to the wide and ever-widening circle of “them that mourn.” We have endeavored to teach the children of sorrow how to “suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.” With these pages of practical counsel have been blended a few sketches and biographies of those hymns that are appropriate to the heart-experiences set forth. The gospel of Jesus is not only a light unto our path, but “our song in the house of our pilgrimage.”
If this humble work shall prove to be a hive of happy or holy thoughts to any fellow-pilgrim, then shall the highest aspirations of its author be more than satisfied. May the Lord make this book like unto that “roll “which “the ancient prophet ate, and which was “in his mouth as honey for sweetness “!