Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

been most gratifying to him to be trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. For some time before his death he was in a state of stupor, and in the moments of his awakening from it he showed the same mildness and spirituality as before. He made no complaints of what he had suffered, and had no terrors as to the future, but lay quietly on his bed of suffering and sunk quietly into his last sleep.

How rich in instruction is this little narrative to the young! Could the idle, surly, proud, and wicked boy have met his fate in such a manner, or blessed his sick-chamber with such a spirit. When such children cannot go out for amusement, it is difficult for parents to find the means of gratifying them at home. Their efforts for this purpose must of necessity be limited; and they have to bear, after all that they have done, expressions of dissatisfaction in language so profane and insolent, that they have been obliged (and what a pang must a parent's heart feel in being forced to it,) to repress, by the language of displeasure and by the threats of punishment, a temper thus fretful and wicked. The evil passions of the wicked boy are his first and last tormentors; but the fruits of the spirit beautify the vale of death, and give to the heart a peace which the world cannot bestow.

Remember that bad children are as liable to death as the good; that the blast which withers the flower spares not the weed, and that the nettle falls before it as well as the lily. But it is true, at this early period as well as afterwards, that the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but that the righteous hath hope in his death. The first tears the parents of the good shed for such children fall in their illness, but, ah! how many tears have the father and mother of the wicked boy shed over them before it. If angels watch the scene of early piety in action, they will not forsake it in suffering: and Satan is solicitous to secure his prey, and to hurry it to a place where there is neither a way to escape nor power to rescue. If some have gone so early to paradise, others have gone as early to hell. If some in early life indicate, by the first fruits of the spirit, that they are heirs of Heaven, others, by the temper of the wicked one, show that they are children of wrath. Pursue, then, the course of this child, and let his habits be yours. That cannot be impracticable to you which he delighted to perform, and that cannot make you miserable which made him so happy. I call you then to yield yourselves to the love and the fear of God. No book, however entertaining, can yield you the comfort which the

Bible gave to this little boy; and if you grieve the heart of your parents by your waywardness and folly, you may be punished when you are dying, by their neglect, or their kindness will fill you with remorse because you have so poorly observed it.

It holds out also most important instructions to parents. Consider how happy these parents were in the attachment and proficiency of their son; and soothing is the hope which they now cherish respecting him. They brought him to Christ in baptismal dedication; they led him to the Lord Jesus in pious tuition; and they resigned him to the Saviour in the hour of his departure, in the hope of meeting him in that kingdom of God of which such children are heirs. This blessed hope hath made the house of mourning the scene of comfort. And what hope hath the slothful and wicked parent, when children die, to be compared with this? They have no hope but what is suggested by nature, founded in ignorance, and maintained by presumption. They have no pleasing consciousness of having discharged their duty, and no trace of the image of Jesus about departed children on which their thoughts can dwell. Their habitation is the scene of utter indifference or of violent sorrow, which seeks relief, not in the spirit but

in the forms of religion. Let parents yet afar off from God acquaint themselves now with him, and teach their families the knowledge of his will with all diligence and fidelity. In the family, to which this little boy belonged, the other children are remarkable for docility. His sister, to whom he was next in age, has twice repeated to the minister, for her task in the yearly examinations of the quarter where she lives, all the texts he has preached on during the preceding year, with an accuracy and propriety truly beautiful; and the young in the family, who are farther advanced in life, are, in their sobriety and pleasing manners, their faithful discharge of their duty, and their respect for all religious ordinances, admirable evidences of the happy result of early instruction in piety, wisdom, and goodness. Let all parents go and do likewise. As God sometimes punishes the negligence of parents in the profligacy of children,and how acute is the anguish of such a punishment!-so he blesses the pious assiduity of parents in their wisdom, and grace, and salvation. And there cannot be a greater honour put on the culture of parents than when their children are found early ripe for Heaven, and they are made instruments, in the hand of the Father, in making them thus quickly meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

N 2

METHUSELAH.

A MAN who lives to extreme old age is the object of general curiosity. The place of his retreat is visited by strangers from distant places, eager to mark the state of his bodily and mental faculties; while those who live near him delight to listen to his tales of other times, and to see his eye kindle as he recals the incidents of his youth. When such a man dies, every vehicle of intelligence announces his long continuance on earth as a prodigy, and his grave-stone is singled out from all the other memorials of the dead as the indication of the last abode of one who for so many revolving years bade defiance to the influence of time, but over whom death has at length triumphed. On his grave-stone many an eye gazes which the films of age shall never visit, and his length of days is stated by many a tongue which, ere half of his duration on earth is completed, shall be silent in the dust.

The sacred histroy gives us an account of a man whose life was protracted to a degree which leaves far behind it the most wonderful instances of longevity in modern times. Many important events must have occurred in the course of so long a life, but few of these are recorded. There

« AnteriorContinuar »